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  [Illustration: Cover Title Page]

  _OF THE_

  Cambridge Edition

  _There have been printed seven hundred and fifty sets
     of which this is copy_

     _No._ 337

  INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS
  OF ARTS AND SCIENCE




  [Illustration: ALMA MATER

  _Photogravure of the Statue by Daniel C. French_

  The colossal figure of French's Alma Mater adorns the fine suite of
  stone steps leading up to the picturesque library building of
  Columbia University. It is a bronze statue, gilded with pure gold.
  The female figure typifying "Alma Mater" is represented as sitting
  in a chair of classic shape, her elbows resting on the arms of the
  chair. Both hands are raised. The right hand holds and is supported
  by a sceptre. On her head is a classic wreath, and on her lap lies
  an open book, from which her eyes seem to have just been raised in
  meditation. Drapery falls in semi-classic folds from her neck to her
  sandalled feet, only the arms and neck being left bare.

  Every University man cherishes a kindly feeling for his Alma Mater,
  and the famous American sculptor, Daniel C. French, has been most
  successful in his artistic creation of the "Fostering Mother"
  spiritualized--the familiar ideal of the mother of minds trained to
  thought and consecrated to intellectual service.]




  INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS

          OF

  ARTS AND SCIENCE

    _EDITED BY_

  HOWARD J. ROGERS, A.M., LL.D.

  DIRECTOR OF CONGRESSES


        VOLUME I

  PHILOSOPHY AND METAPHYSICS

      COMPRISING

  Lectures on Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century,
      Philosophy of Religion, Sciences of the
          Ideal, Problems of Metaphysics,
              The Theory of Science,
                    and Logic

  [Illustration:  University Alliance logo]

  UNIVERSITY ALLIANCE
  LONDON     NEW YORK




  COPYRIGHT 1906 BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  COPYRIGHT 1908 BY UNIVERSITY ALLIANCE




  _ILLUSTRATIONS_


  VOLUME I

                                                                    FACING
                                                                     PAGE

  ALMA MATER                                          _Frontispiece_
    Photogravure from the statue by Daniel C. French

  DR. HOWARD J. ROGERS                                                   1
    Photogravure from a photograph

  DR. SIMON NEWCOMB                                                    135
    Photogravure from a photograph

  THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY                    168
    Photogravure from the painting by OTTO KNILLE




        _TABLE OF CONTENTS_


            VOLUME I

  THE HISTORY OF THE CONGRESS                                            1
        HOWARD J. ROGERS, A.M., LL.D.

    PROGRAMME                                                           47

    PURPOSE AND PLAN OF THE CONGRESS                                    50

    ORGANIZATION OF THE CONGRESS                                        52

    OFFICERS OF THE CONGRESS                                            53

    SPEAKERS AND CHAIRMEN                                               54

    CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER OF PROCEEDINGS                                  77

    PROGRAMME OF SOCIAL EVENTS                                          81

    LIST OF TEN-MINUTE SPEAKERS                                         82

  THE SCIENTIFIC PLAN OF THE CONGRESS                                   85
        HUGO MUENSTERBERG, PH.D., LL.D.

  INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS.
    _The Evolution of the Scientific Investigator_                     135
        SIMON NEWCOMB, PH.D., LL.D.

          NORMATIVE SCIENCE

    _The Sciences of the Ideal_                                        151
        BY PROF. JOSIAH ROYCE, PH.D., LL.D.

  PHILOSOPHY.

    _Philosophy: Its Fundamental Conceptions and its Methods_          173
        BY PROF. GEORGE HOLMES HOWISON, LL.D.

    _The Development of Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century_          194
        BY PROF. GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD, D.D., LL.D.

  METAPHYSICS.

    _The Relations Between Metaphysics and the Other Sciences_         227
        BY PROF. ALFRED EDWARD TAYLOR, M.A.

    _The Present Problems of Metaphysics_                              246
        BY PROF. ALEXANDER THOMAS ORMOND, PH.D., LL.D.

  PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

    _The Relation of the Philosophy of Religion to the Other Sciences_ 263
        BY PROF. OTTO PFLEIDERER, D.D.

    _Main Problems of the Philosophy of Religion: Psychology and
      Theory Of Knowledge in the Science of Religion_                  275
        BY PROF. ERNST TROELTSCH, D.D.

    _Some Roots and Factors of Religion_                               289
        BY PROF. ALEXANDER T. ORMOND.

  LOGIC.

    _The Relations of Logic to Other Disciplines_                      296
      BY PROF. WILLIAM ALEXANDER HAMMOND, PH.D.

    _The Field of Logic_                                               313
        BY PROF. FREDERICK J. E. WOODBRIDGE, LL.D.

  METHODOLOGY OF SCIENCE.

    _On the Theory of Science_                                         333
        BY PROF. WILHELM OSTWALD, LL.D.

    _The Content and Validity of the Causal Law_                       353
        BY PROF. BENNO ERDMANN, PH.D.




  [Illustration: _HOWARD J. ROGERS, A.M., LL.D._

  Howard Jason Rogers, born Stephentown, Rensselaer Co., N. Y.,
  November 16, 1861; graduated from Williams College, 1884; admitted
  to bar, 1877; Superintendent New York State Exhibit World's
  Columbian Exposition, 1893; Deputy State Superintendent Public
  Institution, 1895-1899; Republican Director Department of Education
  and Social Economy of U. S. Commission to Paris Exposition 1900;
  Chief Department of Education, St. Louis Exposition, 1904; First.
  Asst. Commissioner State Department of Education, N. Y., since 1904,
  when he received degree of A.M. from Columbia and degree of LL.D.
  from Northwestern University. He is an officer of the Legion of
  Honor of France; Chevalier of San Maurice and Lazare, Italy;
  Chevalier de l'Etoile Polaire, Sweden; Chevalier Nat. order of
  Leopold, Belgium; and officer of the Red Eagle, Germany.]




THE HISTORY OF THE CONGRESS

BY HOWARD J. ROGERS A.M., LL.D.


The forces which bring to a common point the thousandfold energies of a
universal exposition can best promote an international congress of
ideas. Under national patronage and under the spur of international
competition the best products and the latest inventions of man in
science, in literature, and in art are grouped together in orderly
classification. Whether the motive underlying the exhibits be the
promotion of commerce and trade, or whether it be individual ambition,
or whether it be national pride and loyalty, the resultant is the same.
The space within the boundaries of the exposition is a forum of the
nations where equal rights are guaranteed to every representative from
any quarter of the globe, and where the sovereignty of each nation is
recognized whenever its flag floats over a national pavilion or an
exhibit area. The productive genius of every governed people contends in
peaceful rivalry for world recognition, and the exposition becomes an
international clearing-house for practical ideas.

For the demonstration of the value of these products men thoroughly
skilled in their development and use are sent by the various exhibitors.
The exposition by the logic of its creation thus gathers to itself the
expert representatives of every art and industry. For at least two
months in the exposition period there are present the members of the
international jury of awards, selected specially by the different
governments for their thorough knowledge, theoretical and practical, of
the departments to which they are assigned, and selected further for
their ability to impress upon others the correctness of their views. The
renown of a universal exposition brings, as visitors, students and
investigators bent upon the solution of problems and anxious to know the
latest contributions to the facts and the theories which underlie every
phase of the world's development.

The material therefore is ready at hand with which to construct the
framework of a conference of parts, or a congress of the whole of any
subject. It was a natural and logical step to accompany the study of the
exhibits with a debate on their excellence, an analysis of their growth,
and an argument for their future. Hence the congress. The exposition and
the congress are correlative terms. The former concentres the visible
products of the brain and hand of man; the congress is the literary
embodiment of its activities.

Yet it was not till the Paris Exposition of 1889 that the idea of a
series of congresses, international in membership and universal in
scope, was fully developed. The three preceding expositions, Paris,
1878, Philadelphia, 1876, and Vienna, 1873, had held under their
auspices many conferences and congresses, and indeed the germ of the
congress idea may be said to have been the establishment of the
International Scientific Commission in connection with the Paris
Exposition of 1867; but all of these meetings were unrelated and
sometimes almost accidental in their organization, although many were of
great scientific interest and value.

The success of the series of seventy congresses in Paris in 1889 led the
authorities of the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893 to establish the
World's Congress Auxiliary designed "to supplement the exhibit of
material progress by the Exposition, by a portrayal of the wonderful
achievements of the new age in science, literature, education,
government, jurisprudence, morals, charity, religion, and other
departments of human activity, as the most effective means of increasing
the fraternity, progress, prosperity, and peace of mankind." The
widespread interest in this series of meetings is a matter easily within
recollection, but they were in no wise interrelated to each other, nor
more than ordinarily comprehensive in their scope.

It remained for the Paris Exposition of 1900 to bring to a perfect
organization this type of congress development. By ministerial decree
issued two years prior to the exposition the conduct of the department
was set forth to the minutest detail. One hundred twenty-five
congresses, each with its separate secretary and organizing committee,
were authorized and grouped under twelve sections corresponding closely
to the exhibit classification. The principal delegate, M. Gariel,
reported to a special commission, which was directly responsible to the
government. The department was admirably conducted and reached as high a
degree of success as a highly diversified, ably administered, but
unrelated system of international conferences could. And yet the
attendance on a majority of these congresses was disappointing, and in
many there was scarcely any one present outside the immediate circle of
those concerned in its development. If this condition could prevail in
Paris, the home of arts and letters, in the immediate centre of the
great constituency of the University and of many scientific circles and
learned societies, and within easy traveling distance of other European
university and literary centres, it was fair to presume that the
usefulness of this class of congress was decreasing. It certainly was
safe to assume, on the part of the authorities of the St. Louis
Exposition of 1904, that such a series could not be a success in that
city, owing to its geographical position and the limited number of
university and scientific circles within a reasonable traveling
distance. Something more than a repetition of the stereotyped form of
conference was admitted to be necessary in order to arouse interest
among scholars and to bring credit to the Exposition.

This was the serious problem which confronted the Exposition of St.
Louis. No exposition was ever better fitted to serve as the groundwork
of a congress of ideas than that of St. Louis. The ideal of the
Exposition, which was created in time and fixed in place to commemorate
a great historic event, was its educational influence. Its appeal to the
citizens of the United States for support, to the Federal Congress for
appropriations, and to foreign governments for coöperation, was made
purely on this basis. For the first time in the history of expositions
the educational influence was made the dominant factor and the
classification and installation of exhibits made contributory to that
principle. The main purpose of the Exposition was to place within reach
of the investigator the objective thought of the world, so classified as
to show its relations to all similar phases of human endeavor, and so
arranged as to be practically available for reference and study. As a
part of the organic scheme a congress plan was contemplated which should
be correlative with the exhibit features of the Exposition, and whose
published proceedings should stand as a monument to the breadth and
enterprise of the Exposition long after its buildings had disappeared
and its commercial achievements grown dim in the minds of men.


DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONGRESS

The Department of Congresses, to which was to be intrusted this
difficult task, was not formed until the latter part of 1902, although
the question was for a year previous the subject of many discussions and
conferences between the President of the Exposition, Mr. Francis; the
Director of Exhibits, Mr. Skiff; the Chief of the Department of
Education, Mr. Rogers; President Nicholas Murray Butler of Columbia
University, and President William R. Harper of Chicago University. To
the disinterested and valuable advice of the two last-named gentlemen
during the entire history of the Congress the Exposition is under heavy
obligations. During this period proposals had been made to two men of
international reputation to give all their time for two years to the
organization of a plan of congresses which should accomplish the
ultimate purpose of the Exposition authorities. Neither one, however,
could arrange to be relieved of the pressure of his regular duties, and
the entire scheme of supervision was consequently changed. The plan
adopted was based upon the idea of an advisory board composed of men of
high literary and scientific standing who should consider and recommend
the kind of congress most worthy of promotion, and the details of its
development.

In November, 1902, Howard J. Rogers, LL.D., was appointed Director of
Congresses, and the members of the Advisory (afterwards termed
Administrative) Board selected as follows:--

CHAIRMAN: NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER, PH.D., LL.D., President Columbia
University.

WILLIAM R. HARPER, PH.D., LL.D., President University of Chicago.

HONORABLE FREDERICK W. HOLLS, A.M., LL.B., New York.

R. H. JESSE, PH.D., LL.D., President University of Missouri.

HENRY S. PRITCHETT, PH.D., LL.D., President Massachusetts Institute of
Technology.

HERBERT PUTNAM, LITT.D., LL.D., Librarian of Congress.

FREDERICK J. V. SKIFF, A.M., Director of Field Columbian Museum.

       *     *     *     *     *

The action of the Executive Committee of the Exposition, approved by the
President, was as follows:--

     There shall be appointed by the President of the Exposition
     Company a Director of Congresses who shall report to the
     President of the Exposition Company.

     There shall be appointed by the President of the Exposition
     Company an Advisory Board of seven persons, the chairman to
     be named by the President, who shall meet at the call of the
     Director of Congresses, or the Chairman of the Advisory
     Board.

     The expenses of the members of the Advisory Board while on
     business of the Exposition shall be a charge against the
     funds of the Exposition Company.

     The duties of the said Advisory Board shall be: to consider
     and make recommendations to the Director of Congresses on
     all matters submitted to them; to determine the number and
     the extent of the congresses; the emphasis to be placed upon
     special features; the prominent men to be invited to
     participate; the character of the programmes; and the
     methods for successfully carrying out the enterprise.

     There shall be set aside from the Exposition funds for the
     maintenance of the congresses the sum of two hundred
     thousand dollars ($200,000).

The standing Committee on Congresses from the Exposition board of
directors was shortly afterwards appointed and was composed of five of
the most prominent men in St. Louis:--

CHAIRMAN: HON. FREDERICK W. LEHMANN, Attorney at Law.

BRECKENRIDGE JONES, Banker.

CHARLES W. KNAPP, Editor of _The St. Louis Republic_.

JOHN SCHROERS, Manager of the _Westliche Post_.

A. F. SHAPLEIGH, Merchant.

To this committee were referred for consideration by the President all
matters of policy submitted by the Director of Congresses. This
committee had jurisdiction over all congress matters, including not only
the Congress of Arts and Science, but also the many miscellaneous
congresses and conventions, and a great part of the success of the
congresses is due to their broad-minded and liberal determination of the
questions laid before them.


IDEA OF THE CONGRESS OF ARTS AND SCIENCE

It is impossible to ascribe the original idea of the Congress of Arts
and Science to any one person. It was a matter of slow growth from the
many conferences which had been held for a year by men of many
occupations, and as finally worked out bore little resemblance to the
original plans under discussion. The germ of the idea may fairly be said
to have been contained in Director Skiff's insistence to the Executive
Committee of the Exposition that the congress work stand for something
more than an unrelated series of independent gatherings, and that some
project be authorized which would at once be distinctive and of real
scientific worth. To support this view Director Skiff brought the
Executive Committee to the view of expending $200,000, if need be, to
insure the project. Starting from this suggestion many plans were
brought forward, but one which seems to belong of right to the late
Honorable Frederick W. Holls, of New York City, contained perhaps the
next recognizable step in advance. This thought was, briefly, that a
series of lectures on scientific and literary topics by men prominent in
their respective fields be delivered at the Exposition and that the
Exposition pay the speakers for their services. This point was
thoroughly discussed by Mr. Holls and President Butler, and the next
step in the evolution of the Congress was the idea of bringing these
lecturers together at the Exposition at about the same time or all
during one month. At this stage Professor Hugo Münsterberg, who was the
guest of Mr. Holls and an invited participant in the conference, made
the important suggestion that such a series of unrelated lectures, even
though given by most eminent men, would have little or no scientific
value, but that if some relation, or underlying thought, could be
introduced into the addresses, then the best work could be done, which
would be of real value to the scientific world. He further stated that
only in this case would scientific leaders be likely to favor the plan
of a St. Louis congress, as they would feel attracted not so much
through the honorariums to be given for their services as through the
valuable opportunity of developing such a contribution to scientific
thought. Subsequently Professor Münsterberg was asked by Mr. Holls to
formulate his ideas in a manner to be submitted to the Exposition
authorities. This was done in a communication under date of October 20,
1902, which contained logically presented the foundation of the plan
afterwards worked out in detail. At this juncture the Department of
Congresses was organized, as has been stated, the Director named, and
the Administrative Board appointed, and on December 27, 1902, the first
meeting of the Director with the Administrative Board took place in New
York City.

A thorough canvass of the subject was made at this meeting and as a
result the following recommendations were made to the Exposition
authorities:--

(1) That the sessions of this Congress be held within a period of four
weeks, beginning September 15, 1904.

(2) That the various groups of learned men who may come together be
asked to discuss their several sciences or professions with reference to
some theme of universal human interest, in order that thereby a certain
unity of interest and of action may be had. Under such a plan the groups
of men who come together would thus form sections of a single Congress
rather than separate congresses.

(3) As a subject which has universal significance, and one likely to
serve as a connecting thread for all of the discussions of the Congress,
the theme "The Progress of Man since the Louisiana Purchase" was
considered by the Administrative Board fit and suggestive. It is
believed that discussions by leaders of thought in the various branches
of pure and applied science, in philosophy, in politics, and in
religion, from the standpoint of man's progress in the century which has
elapsed, would be fruitful, not only in clearing the thoughts of men not
trained in science and in government, but also in preparing the way for
new advances.

(4) The Administrative Board further recommends that the Congress be
made up from men of thought and of action, whose work would probably
fall under the following general heads:--

_a._ The Natural Sciences (such as Astronomy, Biology, Mathematics,
etc.).

_b._ The Historical, Sociological, and Economic group of studies
(History, Political Economy, etc.).

_c._ Philosophy and Religion.

_d._ Medicine and Surgery.

_e._ Law, Politics, and Government (including development and history of
the colonies, their government, revenue and prosperity, arbitration,
etc.).

_f._ Applied Science (including the various branches of engineering).

(5) The Administrative Board recommends further referring to a special
committee of seven the problem of indicating in detail the method in
which this plan can best be carried out. To this committee is assigned
the duty of choosing the general divisions of the Congress, the various
branches of science and of study in these divisions, and of recommending
to the Administrative Board a detailed plan of the sections in which, in
their judgment, those who come to the Congress may be most effectively
grouped, with a view not only to bring out the central theme, but also
to represent in a helpful way and in a suggestive manner the present
boundary of knowledge in the various lines of study and investigation
which the committee may think wise to accept.

These recommendations were transmitted by the Director of Congresses to
the Committee on Congresses, approved by them, and afterwards approved
by the Executive Committee and the President. The first four
recommendations were of a preliminary character, but the fifth contained
a distinct advance in the formation of a Committee on Plan and Scope
which should be composed of eminent scientists capable of developing the
fundamental idea into a plan which should harmonize with the scientific
work in every field. The committee selected were as follows:--

DR. SIMON NEWCOMB, PH.D., LL.D., Retired Professor of Mathematics, U. S.
Navy.

PROF. HUGO MÜNSTERBERG, PH.D., LL.D., Professor of Psychology, Harvard
University.

PROF. JOHN BASSETT MOORE, LL.D., ex-assistant Secretary of State, and
Professor of International Law and Diplomacy, Columbia University.

PROF. ALBION W. SMALL, PH.D., Professor of Sociology, University of
Chicago.

DR. WILLIAM H. WELCH, M.D., LL.D., Professor of Pathology, Johns Hopkins
University.

HON. ELIHU THOMSON, Consulting Engineer General Electric Company.

PROF. GEORGE F. MOORE, D.D., LL.D., Professor of Comparative Religion,
Harvard University.

       *     *     *     *     *

In response to a letter from President Butler, Chairman of the
Administrative Board, giving a complete résumé of the growth of the idea
of the Congress to that time, all of the members of the committee, with
the exception of Mr. Thomson, met at the Hotel Manhattan on January 10,
1903, for a preliminary discussion. The entire field was canvassed,
using the recommendations of the Administrative Board and the
aforementioned letter of Professor Münsterberg's to Mr. Holls as a
basis, and an adjournment taken until January 17 for the preparation of
detailed recommendations.

The Committee on Plan and Scope again met, all members being present, at
the Hotel Manhattan on January 17, and arrived at definite conclusions,
which were embodied in the report to the Administrative Board, a meeting
of which had been called at the Hotel Manhattan for January 19, 1903.
The report of the Committee on Plan and Scope is of such historic
importance in the development of the Congress that it is given as
follows, although many points were afterwards materially modified:--

                         NEW YORK, January 19, 1903.

  President Nicholas Murray Butler,
   Chairman Administrative Board of World's Congress at
    The Louisiana Purchase Exposition:

     Dear Sir,--The undersigned, appointed by your Board a
     committee on the scope and plan of the proposed World's
     Congress, at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, have the
     honor to submit the following report:--

     The authority under which the Committee acted is found in a
     communication addressed to its members by the Chairman of
     the Administrative Board. A subsequent communication to the
     Chairman of the Committee indicated that the widest scope
     was allowed to it in preparing its plan. Under this
     authority the Committee met on January 10, 1903, and again
     on January 17. The Committee was, from the beginning,
     unanimous in accepting the general plan of the
     Administrative Board, that there should be but a single
     congress, which, however, might be divided and subdivided,
     in accord with the general plan, into divisions,
     departments, and sections, as its deliberations proceed.


     PLANS OF THE CONGRESS

     As a basis of discussion two plans were drawn up by members
     of the Committee and submitted to it. The one, by Professor
     Münsterberg, started from a comprehensive classification and
     review of human achievement in advancing knowledge, the
     other, by Professor Small, from an equally comprehensive
     review of the great public questions involved in human
     progress.

     Professor Münsterberg proposed a congress having the
     definite task of bringing out the unity of knowledge with a
     view of correlating the scattered theoretical and practical
     scientific work of our day. This plan proposed that the
     congress should continue through one week. The first day was
     to be devoted to the discussion of the most general problem
     of knowledge in one comprehensive discussion and four
     general divisions. On the second day the congress was to
     divide into several groups and on the remaining days into
     yet more specialized groups, as set forth in detail in the
     plan.

     The plan by Professor Small proposed a congress which would
     exhibit not merely the scholar's interpretation of progress
     in scholarship, but rather the scholar's interpretation of
     progress in civilization in general. The proposal was based
     on a division of human interests into six great groups:--

       I. The Promotion of Health.
      II. The Production of Wealth.
     III. The Harmonizing of Human Relations.
      IV. Discovery and Spread of Knowledge.
       V. Progress in the Fine Arts.
      VI. Progress in Religion.

     The plan agreed with the other in beginning with a general
     discussion and then subdividing the congress into divisions
     and groups.

     As a third plan the Chairman of the Committee suggested the
     idea of a congress of publicists and representative men of
     all nations and of all civilized peoples, which should
     discuss relations of each to all the others and throw light
     on the question of promoting the unity and progress of the
     race.

     After due consideration of these plans the Committee reached
     the conclusion that the ends aimed at in the second and
     third plans could be attained by taking the first plan as a
     basis, and including in its subdivisions, so far as was
     deemed advisable, the subjects proposed in the second and
     third plans. They accordingly adopted a resolution that "Mr.
     Münsterberg's plan be adopted as setting forth the general
     object of the Congress and defining the scope of its work,
     and that Mr. Small's plan be communicated to the General
     Committee as containing suggestions as to details, but
     without recommending its adoption as a whole."


     DATE OF THE CONGRESS

     Your Committee is of opinion that, in view of the climatic
     conditions at St. Louis during the summer and early autumn,
     it is desirable that the meeting of this general Congress be
     held during the six days beginning on Monday, September 19,
     1904, and continuing until the Saturday following. Special
     associations choosing St. Louis as their meeting-place may
     then convene at such other dates as may be deemed fit; but
     it is suggested that learned societies whose field is
     connected with that of the Congress should meet during the
     week beginning September 26.

     The sectional discussions of the Congress will then be
     continued by these societies, the whole forming a continuous
     discussion of human progress during the last century.


     PLAN OF ADDRESSES

     The Committee believe that in order to carry out the
     proposed plan in the most effective way it is necessary that
     the addresses be prepared by the highest living authorities
     in each and every branch. In the last subdivisions, each
     section embraces two papers; one on the history of the
     subject during the last one hundred years and the other on
     the problems of to-day.

     The programme of papers suggested by the Committee as
     embraced in Professor Münsterberg's plan may be summarized
     as follows:--

     On the first day four papers will be read on the general
     subject, and four on each of the four large divisions,
     twenty in all. On the second day those four divisions will
     be divided into twenty groups, or departments, each of which
     will have four papers referring to the divisions and
     relations of the sciences, eighty in all. On the last four
     days, two papers in each of the 120 sections, 240 in all,
     thus making a total of 340 papers.

     In view of the fact that the men who will make the addresses
     should not be expected to bear all the expense of their
     attendance at the Congress, it seems advisable that the
     authorities of the Fair should provide for the expenses
     necessarily incurred in the journey, as well as pay a small
     honorarium for the addresses. The Committee suggest,
     therefore, that each American invited be offered $100 for
     his traveling expenses and each European $400. In addition
     to this that each receive $150 as an honorarium. Assuming
     that one half of those invited to deliver addresses will be
     Americans and one half Europeans, this arrangement will
     involve the expenditure of $136,000. This estimate will be
     reduced if the same person prepares more than one address.
     It will also be reduced if more than half of the speakers
     are Americans, and increased in the opposite case.

     As the Committee is not advised of the amount which the
     management of the Exposition may appropriate for the purpose
     of the Congress, it cannot, at present, enter further into
     details of adjustment, but it records its opinion that the
     sum suggested is the least by which the ends sought to be
     attained by the Congress can be accomplished. To this must
     be added the expenses of administration and publication.

     All addresses paid for by the Congress should be regarded as
     its property, and be printed and published together, thus
     constituting a comprehensive work exhibiting the unity,
     progress, and present state of knowledge.

     This plan does not preclude the delivery of more than one
     address by a single scholar. The directors of the Exposition
     may sometimes find it advisable to ask the same scholar to
     deliver two addresses, possibly even three.

     The Committee recommends that full liberty be allowed to
     each section of the Congress in arranging the general
     character and programme of its discussions within the field
     proposed.

     As an example of how the plan will work in the case of any
     one section, the Committee take the case of a neurologist
     desiring to profit by those discussions which relate to his
     branch of medicine. This falls under C of the four main
     divisions as related to the physical sciences. His interest
     on the first day will therefore be centred in Division C,
     where he may hear the general discussion of the physical
     sciences and the relations to the other sciences. On the
     second day he will hear four papers in Group 18 on the
     Subjects embraced in the general science of anthropology;
     one on its fundamental conceptions; one on its methods and
     two on the relation of anthropology to the sciences most
     closely connected with it. During the remaining four days he
     will meet with the representatives of medicine and its
     related subjects, who will divide into sections, and listen
     to four papers in each section. One paper will consider the
     progress of that section in the last one hundred years, one
     paper will be devoted to the problems of to-day, leaving
     room for such contributions and discussions as may seem
     appropriate during the remainder of the day.


     COÖPERATION OF LEARNED SOCIETIES INVOKED

     In presenting this general plan, your Committee wishes to
     point out the difficulty of deciding in advance what
     subjects should be included in every section. Therefore, the
     Committee deems it of the utmost importance to secure the
     advice and assistance of learned societies in this country
     in perfecting the details of the proposed plan, especially
     the selection of speakers and the programme of work in each
     section. It will facilitate the latter purpose if such
     societies be invited and encouraged to hold meetings at St.
     Louis during the week immediately preceding, or, preferably,
     the week following the General Congress. The selection of
     speakers should be made as soon as possible, and, in any
     case, before the end of the present academic year, in order
     that formal invitations may be issued and final arrangements
     made with the speakers a year in advance of the Congress.


     CONCLUDING SUGGESTIONS

     With the view of securing the coöperation of the governments
     and leading scholars of the principal countries of Western
     and Central Europe in the proposed Congress, it seems
     advisable to send two commissioners to these countries for
     this purpose. It seems unnecessary to extend the operations
     of this commission outside the European continent or to
     other than the leading countries. In other cases
     arrangements can be made by correspondence.

     It is the opinion of the Committee that an American of
     world-wide reputation as a scholar should be selected to
     preside over the Congress.

     All which is respectfully submitted.
                    (Signed)     SIMON NEWCOMB,
                                        Chairman;
                                 GEORGE F. MOORE,
                                 JOHN B. MOORE,
                                 HUGO MÜNSTERBERG,
                                 ALBION W. SMALL,
                                 WILLIAM H. WELCH,
                                 ELIHU THOMSON,
                                        Committee.

The Administrative Board met on January 19 to receive the report of the
Committee on Plan and Scope which was presented by Dr. Newcomb.
Professor Münsterberg and Professor John Bassett Moore were also present
by invitation to discuss the details of the scheme. In the afternoon the
Board went into executive session, and the following recommendations
were adopted and transmitted by the Director of Congresses to the
Committee on Congresses of the Exposition and to the President and
Executive Committee, who duly approved them.

     To the Director of Congresses:--

     The Administrative Board have the honor to make the
     following recommendations in reference to the Department of
     Congresses:--

     (1) That there be held in connection with the Universal
     Exposition of St. Louis in 1904, an International Congress
     of Arts and Science.

     (2) That the plan recommended by the Committee on Plan and
     Scope for a general congress of Arts and Science, to be held
     during the six days beginning on Monday, September 19, 1904,
     be approved and adopted, subject to such revision in point
     of detail as may be advisable, preserving its fundamental
     principles.

     (3) That Simon Newcomb, LL.D., of Washington, D. C., be
     named for President of the International Congress of Arts
     and Science, provided for in the foregoing resolution.

     (4) That Professor Münsterberg, of Harvard University, and
     Professor Albion W. Small, of the University of Chicago, be
     invited to act as Vice-Presidents of the Congress.

     (5) That the Directors of the World's Fair be requested to
     change the name of this Board from the "Advisory Board" to
     the "Administrative Board of the International Congress of
     Arts and Science."

     (6) That the detailed arrangements for the Congress be
     intrusted to a committee consisting of the President and two
     Vice-Presidents already named, subject to the general
     oversight and control of the Administrative Board, and that
     the Directors of the Exposition be requested to make
     appropriate provision for their compensation and necessary
     expenses.

     (7) That it be recommended to the Directors of the World's
     Fair that appropriate provision should be made in the office
     of the Department of Congresses for an executive secretary
     and such clerical assistance as may be needed.

     (8) That the following payment be recommended to those
     scholars who accept invitations to participate and do a
     specified piece of work, or submit a specified contribution
     in the International Congress of Arts and Science: For
     traveling expenses for a European scholar, $500. For
     traveling expenses for an American scholar, $150.

     (9) That provision be made for the publication of the
     proceedings of the Congress in suitable form to constitute a
     permanent memorial of the work of the World's Fair for the
     promotion of science and art, under competent editorial
     supervision.

     (10) That an appropriation of $200,000 be made to cover
     expenses of the Department of Congresses, of which sum
     $130,000 be specifically appropriated for an International
     Congress of Arts and Science, and the remainder to cover all
     expenses connected with the publication of the proceedings
     of said International Congress of Arts and Science, and the
     expenses for promotion of all other congresses.

In addition to the foregoing recommendations, Professor Münsterberg was
requested at his earliest convenience to furnish each member with a
revised plan of his classification, which would reduce as far as
possible the number of sections into which the Congress was finally to
be divided.

With the adjournment of the Board on January 19 the Congress may be
fairly said to have been launched upon its definite course, and such
changes as were thereafter made in the programme did not in any wise
affect the principle upon which the Congress was based, but were due to
the demands of time, of expediency, and in some cases to the accidents
attending the participation. The organization of the Congress and the
personnel of its officers from this time on remained unchanged, and the
history of the meeting is one of steady and progressive development. The
Committee on Plan and Scope were discharged of their duties, with a vote
of thanks for the laborious and painstaking work which they had
accomplished and the thoroughly scientific and novel plan for an
international congress which they had recommended.

It was determined by the Administrative Board to keep the services of
three of the members of the Committee on Plan and Scope, who should act
as a scientific organizing committee and who should also be the
presiding officers of the Congress. The choice for President of the
Congress fell without debate to the dean of American scientific circles,
whose eminent services to the Government of the United States and whose
recognized position in foreign and domestic scientific circles made him
particularly fitted to preside over such an international gathering of
the leading scientists of the world, Dr. Simon Newcomb, retired
Professor of Mathematics, United States Navy. Professor Hugo
Münsterberg, of Harvard University, and Professor Albion W. Small, of
the University of Chicago, were designated as the first and second
Vice-Presidents respectively.

The work of the succeeding spring, with both the Organizing Committee
and the Administrative Board, was devoted to the perfecting of the
programme and the selection of foreign scientists to be invited to
participate in the Congress. The theory of the development of the
programme and its logical bases are fully and forcibly treated by
Professor Münsterberg in the succeeding chapter, and therefore will not
be touched upon in this record of facts. As an illustration of the
growth of the programme, however, it is interesting to compare its form,
which was adopted at the next meeting of the Organizing Committee on
February 23, 1903, in New York City, with its final form as given in the
completed programme presented at St. Louis in September, 1904 (pp.
47-49). No better illustration can be given of the immense amount of
labor and painstaking adjustment, both to scientific and to physical
conditions, and of the admirable adaptability of the original plan to
the exigencies of actual practice. At the meeting of February 23, 1903,
which was attended by all of the members of the Organizing Committee and
by President Butler of the Administrative Board, it was determined that
the number of Departments should be sixteen, with the following
designations:--

     A. NORMATIVE SCIENCES

   1. Philosophical Sciences.
   2. Mathematical Sciences.

     B. HISTORICAL SCIENCES

   3. Political Sciences.
   4. Legal Sciences.
   5. Economic Sciences.
   6. Philological Sciences.
   7. Pedagogical Sciences.
   8. Æsthetic Sciences.
   9. Theological Sciences.

     C. PHYSICAL SCIENCES

  10. General Physical Sciences.
  11. Astronomical Sciences.
  12. Geological Sciences.
  13. Biological Sciences.
  14. Anthropological Sciences.

     D. MENTAL SCIENCES

  15. Psychological Sciences.
  16. Sociological Sciences.

     SECTIONS

   1. _a_ Metaphysics.
      _b_ Logic.
      _c_ Ethics.
      _d_ Æsthetics.

   2. _a_ Algebra.
      _b_ Geometry.
      _c_ Statistical Methods.

   3. _a_ Classical Political History of Asia.
      _b_ Classical Political History of Europe.
      _c_ Medieval Political History of Europe.
      _d_ Modern Political History of Europe.
      _e_ Political History of America.

   4. _a_ History of Roman Law.
      _b_ History of Common Law.
     _aa_ Constitutional Law.
     _bb_ Criminal Law.
     _cc_ Civil Law.
     _dd_ History of International Law.

   5. _a_ History of Economic Institutions.
      _b_ History of Economic Theories.
      _c_ Economic Law.
     _aa_ Finance.
     _bb_ Commerce and Transportation.
     _cc_ Labor.

   6. _a_ Indo-Iranian Languages.
      _b_ Semitic Languages.
      _c_ Classical Languages.
      _d_ Modern Languages.

   7. _a_ History of Education.
     _aa_ Educational Institutions.

   8. _a_ History of Architecture.
      _b_ History of Fine Arts.
      _c_ History of Music.
      _d_ Oriental Literature.
      _e_ Classical Literature.
      _f_ Modern Literature.
     _aa_ Architecture.
     _bb_ Fine Arts.
     _cc_ Music.

   9. _a_ Primitive Religions.
      _b_ Asiatic Religions.
      _c_ Semitic Religions.
      _d_ Christianity.
     _aa_ Religious Institutions.

  10. _a_ Mechanics and Sound.
      _b_ Light and Heat.
      _c_ Electricity.
      _d_ Inorganic Chemistry.
      _e_ Organic Chemistry.
      _f_ Physical Chemistry.
     _aa_ Mechanical Technology.
     _bb_ Optical Technology.
     _cc_ Electrical Technology
     _dd_ Chemical Technology.

  11.  a_ Theoretical Astronomy.
       b_ Astrophysics.

  12. _a_ Geodesy.
      _b_ Geology.
      _c_ Mineralogy.
      _d_ Physiography.
      _e_ Meteorology.
     _aa_ Surveying.
     _bb_ Metallurgy.

  13. _a_ Botany.
      _b_ Plant Physiology.
      _c_ Ecology.
      _d_ Bacteriology.
      _e_ Zoölogy.
      _f_ Embryology.
      _g_ Comparative Anatomy.
      _h_ Physiology.
     _aa_ Agronomy.
     _bb_ Veterinary Medicine.

  14. Anthropological Sciences:
      _a_ Human Anatomy.
      _b_ Human Physiology.
      _c_ Neurology.
      _d_ Physical Chemistry.
      _e_ Pathology.
      _f_ Raceomatology.
     _aa_ Hygiene.
     _bb_ Contagious Diseases.
     _cc_ Internal Medicine.
     _dd_ Surgery.
     _ee_ Gynecology.
     _ff_ Ophthalmology.
     _gg_ Therapeutics.
     _hh_ Dentistry.

  15. Psychological Sciences:
      _a_ General Psychology.
      _b_ Experimental Psychology.
      _c_ Comparative Psychology.
      _d_ Child Psychology.
      _e_ Abnormal Psychology.

  16. Sociological Sciences:
      _a_ Social Morphology.
      _b_ Social Psychology.
      _c_ Laws of Civilization.
      _d_ Laws of Language and Myths.
      _e_ Ethnology.
     _aa_ Social Technology.

It was also resolved, that the discussion of subjects falling under the
first four divisions should be held in the forenoon of each of the four
days, from Wednesday until Saturday, and those relating to the three
divisions of Practical Science in the afternoon of the same days. The
programme was thus rearranged by the addition of the following:--

     E. UTILITARIAN SCIENCES

  17. Medical Sciences:
      _a_ Hygiene.
      _b_ Sanitation.
      _c_ Contagious Diseases.
      _d_ Internal Medicine.
      _e_ Psychiatry.
      _f_ Surgery.
      _g_ Gynecology.
      _h_ Ophthalmology.
      _i_ Otology.
      _j_ Therapeutics.
      _k_ Dentistry.

  18. Practical Economic Sciences:
      _a_ Extractive Productions of Wealth.
      _b_ Transportation.
      _c_ Commerce.
      _d_ Postal Service.
      _e_ Money and Banking.

  19. Technological Sciences:
      _a_ Mechanical Technology.
      _b_ Electrical Technology.
      _c_ Chemical Technology.
      _d_ Optical Technology.
      _e_ Surveying.
      _f_ Metallurgy.
      _g_ Agronomy.
      _h_ Veterinary Medicine.

     F. REGULATIVE SCIENCES

  20. Practical Political Sciences:
      _a_ Internal Practical Politics.
      _b_ National Practical Politics.
      _c_ Tariff.
      _d_ Taxation.
      _e_ Municipal Practical Politics.
      _f_ Colonial Practical Politics.

  21. Practical Legal Sciences:
      _a_ International Law.
      _b_ Constitutional Law.
      _c_ Criminal Law.
      _d_ Civil Law.

  22. Practical Social Sciences:
      _a_ Treatment of the Poor.
      _b_ Treatment of the Defective.
      _c_ Treatment of the Dependent.
      _d_ Treatment of Vice and Crime.
      _e_ Problems of Labor.
      _f_ Problems of the Family.

     G. CULTURAL SCIENCES

  23. Practical Educational Sciences:
      _a_ Kindergarten and Home.
      _b_ Primary Education.
      _c_ Universities and Research--Secondary.
      _d_ Moral Education.
      _e_ Æsthetic Education.
      _f_ Manual Training.
      _g_ University.
      _h_ Libraries.
      _i_ Museums.
      _j_ Publications.

  24. Practical Æsthetic Sciences:
      _a_ Architecture.
      _b_ Fine Arts.
      _c_ Music.
      _d_ Landscape Architecture.

  25. Practical Religious Sciences:
      _a_ Religious Education.
      _b_ Training for Religious Service.
      _c_ Missions.
      _d_ Religious Influence.

The programme was again thoroughly revised at the meeting of the
Organizing Committee on April 9, 1903, at Hotel Manhattan, and as thus
amended was submitted to the Administrative Board at a meeting held in
New York on April 11. A careful consideration of the programme at this
meeting, and a final revision made at the meeting of the Administrative
Board at the St. Louis Club April 30, 1903, brought it practically into
its final shape, with such minor changes as were found necessary in the
latter days of the Congress due to the unexpected declinations of
foreign speakers at the last moment. The continuous and exacting work
done in perfecting the programme by each member of the Organizing
Committee and by the Chairman of the Administrative Board deserves
special mention, and was productive of the best results by its logical
appeal to the scientific world. The programme as finally worked out in
orderly detail, shortened in many departments by various exigencies, may
be found on pages 47 to 49 of this volume.


PARTICIPATION AND SUPPORT

The general plan of the Congress having been determined and the
programme practically perfected by May 1, 1903, two most important
questions demanded the attention of the Administrative Board: first, the
participation in the Congress, both foreign and domestic; second, the
support of the scientific public. At a meeting of the Board held in New
York City April 11, 1903, these points were given full consideration. It
was determined that the list of speakers both foreign and domestic
should be made up on the advice of men of letters and of scientific
thought in this country, and accordingly there was sent to the officers
of the various scientific societies in the United States, to heads of
university departments and to every prominent exponent of science and
art in this country, a printed announcement and tentative programme of
the Congress, and a letter asking advice as to the scientists best
fitted in view of the object of the Congress to prepare an address. From
the hundreds of replies received in response to this appeal were made up
the original lists of invited speakers, and only those were placed
thereon who were the choice of a fair majority of the representatives of
the particular science under selection. The Administrative Board
reserved to itself the full right to reject any of these names or to
change them so as to promote the best interests of the Congress, but in
nearly every instance it would be safe to say that the person selected
was highly satisfactory to the great majority of his fellow scientists
in this country. Many changes were unavoidably made at the last moment
to meet the situation caused by withdrawals and declinations, but the
list of second choices was so complete, and in many cases there was such
a delicate balance between the first and second choice, that there was
no difficulty in keeping the standard of the programme to its original
high plane.

It was early determined that the seven Division speakers and the
forty-eight Department speakers, which occupied the first two days of
the programme, should be Americans, and that these Division and
Department addresses should be a contribution of American scholarship to
the general scientific thought of the world. This decision commended
itself to the scientific public both at home and abroad, and it was so
carried out. It was further determined that the Division and Department
speakers and the foreign speakers should be selected during the summer
of 1903, and that the American participation in the Section addresses
should be determined after it was definitely known what the foreign
participation would be. In view of the importance of the Congress, it
was deemed inadvisable to attempt to interest foreign scientific circles
by correspondence, and it was further decided to pay a special
compliment to each invited speaker by sending an invitation at the hands
of special delegates. Arrangements were therefore made for Dr. Newcomb
and Professors Münsterberg and Small to proceed to Europe during the
summer of 1903, and to present in person to the scientific circles of
Europe and to the scientists specially desired to deliver addresses the
complete plan and scope of the Congress and an invitation to
participate.


INVITATIONS TO FOREIGN SPEAKERS

The members of the Organizing Committee, armed with very strong
credentials from the State Department to the diplomatic service abroad,
sailed in the early summer of 1903 to present the invitation of the
Exposition to the selected scientists. Dr. Newcomb sailed May 6,
Professor Münsterberg May 30, and Professor Small June 6. A general
interest in the project had at this time become aroused, and there was
assured a respectful hearing. Both the President of the United States
and the Emperor of Germany expressed their warm interest in the plan,
and the State Department at Washington gave to the Congress both on this
occasion and on succeeding occasions its effective aid. The Director of
Congresses wishes to express his obligations both to the late Secretary
Hay and to Assistant-Secretary Loomis for their valuable suggestions and
courteous coöperation in all matters relating to the foreign
participation. Strong support was also given the Committee and the plan
of the Congress by Commissioner-General Lewald of Germany, and
Commissioner-General Lagrave of France. Throughout the entire Congress
period, both of these energetic Commissioners-General placed themselves
actively at the disposition of the Department in promoting the
attendance of scientists from their respective countries.

Geographically the division between the three members of the Organizing
Committee gave to Dr. Newcomb, France; to Professor Münsterberg,
Germany, Austria, and Switzerland; and to Professor Small, England,
Russia, Italy, and a part of Austria. It was also agreed that Dr.
Newcomb should have special oversight of the departments of Mathematics,
Physics, Astronomy, Biology, and Technology; Professor Münsterberg,
special charge of Philosophy, Philology, Art, Education, Psychology, and
Medicine; and that Professor Small should look after Politics, Law,
Economics, Theology, Sociology, and Religion. The Committee worked
independently of each other, but met once during the summer at Munich to
compare results and to determine their closing movements.

The public and even the Exposition authorities have probably never
realized the delicacy and the extremely careful adjustment exercised by
the Organizing Committee in their summer's campaign. Scientists are as a
class sensitive, jealous of their reputations, and loath to undertake
long journeys to a distant country for congress purposes. The amount of
labor devolving upon the Committee to find the scientists scattered over
all Europe; the careful and painstaking presentation to each of the plan
of the Congress; the appeal to their scientific pride; the hearing of a
thousand objections, and the answering of each; the disappointments
incurred; the substitutions made necessary at the last moment;--all sum
up a task of the greatest difficulty and of enormous labor. The
remarkable success with which the mission was crowned stands out the
more prominently in view of these conditions. When the Committee
returned in the latter part of September, they had visited every
important country of Europe, delivered more than one hundred fifty
personal invitations, and for the one hundred twenty-eight sections had
secured one hundred seventeen acceptances.

At a meeting of the Administrative Board, which met with the Organizing
Committee on October 13, 1903, a full report of the European trip was
received and ways and means considered for insuring the attendance from
abroad. A list of the foreign acceptances was ordered printed at once
for general distribution, and the Chairman of the Administrative Board
was requested to address a letter to each of the foreign scientists
confirming the action of the special delegates and giving additional
information as to the length of addresses, and rules and details
governing the administration of the Congress.


DEATH OF FREDERICK W. HOLLS

The number of the Administrative Board was decreased during the summer
by the sudden death of the Hon. Frederick W. Holls, on July 23, 1903.
Mr. Holls had been intensely interested in the development of the
Congress from its earliest days, and was very instrumental in
determining the form in which it was finally promoted. His great
influence abroad as a member of the Hague Conference, and his high
standing in legal and literary circles in this country, rendered him one
of the most prominent members of the Board. A resolution of regret at
his untimely death was spread upon the minutes of the Administrative
Board at the meeting in October, and it was decided that his place upon
the Board should remain unfilled.


DOMESTIC PARTICIPATION

At this same meeting of October 13, active measures were taken to
forward the American participation in the Congress. The necessity was
now very evident that our strongest men of science must be induced to
take part, in order to compare favorably with the leading minds which
Europe was sending. The Organizing Committee were instructed to consult
the American scientific societies and associations regarding the
selection of American speakers, and also in reference to presiding
officials for each section. Six weeks was considered sufficient for this
task, and the Committee were asked to submit to the Administrative Board
at a meeting in New York, on December 3 and 4, their recommendations for
American speakers.

An immense amount of detailed labor, in the way of correspondence, now
devolved upon the Organizing Committee as well as upon the Director of
Congresses, and a branch office was established in Washington equipped
with clerks and stenographers under the charge of Dr. Newcomb, who
devoted the greater portion of his time for the next six months to the
many details connected with the selection of foreign and American
speakers and chairmen. The meeting of the Administrative Board in New
York in December, and a similar meeting with the Organizing Committee
held at the St. Louis Club on December 28, were given over entirely to
perfecting the personnel of the programme. Great care was exerted in
selecting the chairmen of the departments and sections, inasmuch as they
must be men of international reputation and conceded strength. For the
secretaryships younger men of promise and ability were selected, chiefly
from university circles. Both the chairmen and secretaries served
without compensation.

The work of the late winter was a continuance of the perfecting of
details, and at a meeting of the Administrative Board held in New York
in February, 1904, a final approval was given to the programme and the
speakers. The imminent approach of the Exposition and the work of the
college commencement season made it impossible for further general
meetings, and on June 1 the Organizing Committee was constituted a
committee with power to fill vacancies in the programme or to amend the
programme as circumstances might demand. All suggestions with reference
to details were to be made directly to the Director of Congresses, upon
whom devolved from this time forward the entire executive control of the
Congress.


ASSEMBLY HALLS

The highly diversified nature of the Congress and the holding of one
hundred twenty-eight section meetings in four days' time rendered
necessary a large number of meeting-places centrally located. The
Exposition was fortunate in having the use of the new plant of the
Washington University, nine large buildings of which had been erected.
Many of these buildings contained lecture halls and assembly rooms,
seating from one hundred fifty to fifteen hundred people. Sixteen halls
were necessary to accommodate the full number of sections running at any
one time, and of this number twelve were available in the group of
University Buildings; the other four were found in the lecture halls of
the Education Building, Mines and Metallurgy Building, Agriculture
Building, and the Transportation Building. The opening exercises, at
which the entire Congress was assembled, was held in Festival Hall,
capable of seating three thousand people. In the assignment of halls
care was taken so far as possible to assign the larger halls to the more
popular subjects, but it often happened that a great speaker was of
necessity assigned to a smaller hall. Two of the halls also proved bad
for speaking owing to the traffic of the Intramural Railway, and there
was lacking in nearly all of the halls that academic peace and quiet
which usually surrounds gatherings of a scientific nature. This,
however, was to be expected in an exposition atmosphere, and was readily
acquiesced in by the speakers themselves, and very little objection was
heard to the halls as assigned. Every one seemed to recognize the fact
that the immediate value of the meeting lay in the commingling and
fellowship, and that the addresses, of which one could hear at most only
one in sixteen, could not be judged in the proper light until their
publication.


SUPPORT OF THE SCIENTIFIC PUBLIC

A strong effort was made by the Organizing Committee to secure the
attendance of an audience which should not only in its proportions be
complimentary to the eminence of the speakers, but also be thoroughly
appreciative of the addresses and conversant with the topic under
discussion. Letters were therefore sent to all of the prominent
scientific societies in the United States, asking that wherever possible
the meetings of the society be set for the Congress week in St. Louis,
and wherever this was not possible that the societies send special
delegates to attend the Congress, and urge their membership to make an
effort to be present. Personal letters were also sent to the leading
members of the different professions and sciences, to the faculties of
universities and colleges, urging them to attend, and pointing out the
necessity of the support of the American scientific public.

Special invitations were also sent in the name of the Organizing
Committee to the leading authorities of the various subjects under
discussion in the Congress, asking them to contribute a ten-minute paper
to any section in which they were particularly interested. The result of
this careful campaign, in addition to the general exploitation which the
Congress received, was such a flattering attendance of American
scientists, as to be both a compliment to the European speakers and a
benefit to scientific thought. Many societies, such as the American
Neurological Association, American Philological Association, American
Mathematical Society, Physical and Chemical Societies of America,
American Astronomical Society, Germanic Congress, American
Electro-Therapeutic Association, held their annual meetings during the
week of the Congress, although the date rendered it impossible for the
majority of the associations to meet at that time. The eighth
International Geographic Congress adjourned from Washington to St. Louis
to meet with the Congress of Arts and Science. In response to the
special invitations, two hundred forty-seven ten-minute addresses were
promised and one hundred two actually read.


RECEPTION OF FOREIGN GUESTS

Every effort was made by the Department of Congresses to assist the
foreign speakers in their traveling arrangements and to make matters as
easy and comfortable as possible. A letter of advice was mailed to each
speaker prior to his departure, carefully setting forth the conditions
of American travel, routes to be followed, reception committees to be
met, and other essential details. The official badge of the Congress was
also mailed, so that those wearing them might be easily identified by
the reception committees both in New York and St. Louis. Nine tenths of
the speakers came by the way of New York, and in order to facilitate the
clearance of their baggage and to provide for their fitting
entertainment in New York, a special reception committee was formed
composed of the following members:--

  F. P. Keppel, Columbia University, New York City, Chairman.
  Prof. Herbert V. Abbott, New York.
  R. Arrowsmith, New York.
  C. William Beebe, New York.
  George Bendelari, New York.
  Edward W. Berry, Passaic.
  J. Fuller Berry, Old Forge.
  Rev. H. C. Birckhead, New York.
  Dr. James H. Canfield, New York.
  Rev. G. A. Carstenson, New York.
  Prof. H. S. Crampton, New York.
  Sanford L. Cutler, New York.
  Dr. Israel Davidson, New York.
  William H. Davis, New York.
  Prof. James C. Egbert, New York.
  Dr. Haven Emerson, New York.
  Prof. T. S. Fiske, New York.
  J. D. Fitz-Gerald, II, Newark.
  W. D. Forbes, Hoboken.
  Clyde Furst, Yonkers.
  William K. Gregory, New York.
  George C. O. Haas, New York.
  Prof. W. A. Hervey, New York.
  Carl Herzog, New York.
  Robert Hoguet, New York.
  Dr. Percy Hughes, Brooklyn.
  Prof. A. V. W. Jackson, New York.
  Albert J. W. Kern, New York.
  Prof. Charles F. Kroh, Orange.
  Dr. George F. Kunz, New York.
  Prof. L. A. Lousseaux, New York.
  Frederic L. Luqueer, Brooklyn.
  R. A. V. Minckwitz, New York.
  Charles A. Nelson, New York.
  Dr. Harry B. Penhollow, New York.
  Prof. E. D. Perry, New York.
  John Pohlman, New York.
  Dr. Ernest Richard, New York.
  Dr. K. E. Richter, New York.
  Edward Russ, Hoboken.
  Prof. C. L. Speranza, Oak Ridge.
  Prof. Francis H. Stoddard, New York.
  Dr. Anthony Spitzka, Goodground.
  Harvey W. Thayer, Brooklyn.
  Prof. H. A. Todd, New York.
  Dr. E. M. Wahl, New York.
  Prof. F. H. Wilkens, New York.

To each foreign speaker was extended the courtesies of the Century and
the University clubs while remaining in New York City. Mention should
also be made of the assistance of the Treasury Department and of the
courtesy of Collector of the Port, Hon. N. N. Stranahan, through whom
special privileges of the Port were extended to the members of the
Congress. The work of the reception committee was most satisfactorily
and efficiently performed, and was highly appreciated by the foreign
guests. Special acknowledgment is due Mr. F. P. Keppel, of Columbia
University, for his painstaking and efficient management of the affairs
of the committee in New York. Many of the speakers proceeded singly to
St. Louis, stopping at various places, but the great majority went
directly to the University of Chicago, where they were entertained
during the week preceding the Congress by President Harper and Professor
Small, of the University of Chicago. The arrivals at St. Louis were made
on Saturday the 17th and Sunday the 18th of September. Many of the
participants had arrived at earlier dates, and fully twenty of the
speakers were members of the International Jury of Awards for their
respective countries, and had been in St. Louis since September 1, the
beginning of the Jury work.

A reception committee similar to that in New York was also formed at St.
Louis from the members of the University Club, and their duties were to
meet all incoming trains and conduct the members of the Congress
personally to their stopping-places, and assist them in all matters of
detail. This committee was comprised of the following members, nearly
all of the University Club, who performed their work efficiently and
enthusiastically to the great satisfaction of the Exposition and to the
thorough appreciation of the foreign guests:--

  V. M. Porter, Chairman,  St. Louis.
  E. H. Angert,            St. Louis.
  Gouverneur Calhoun,      St. Louis.
  W. M. Chauvenet,         St. Louis.
  H. G. Cleveland,         St. Louis.
  Mr. M. B. Clopton,       St. Louis.
  Walter Fischel,          St. Louis.
  W. L. R. Gifford,        St. Louis.
  E. M. Grossman,          St. Louis.
  L. W. Hagerman,          St. Louis.
  Louis La Beaume,         St. Louis.
  Carl H. Lagenburg,       St. Louis.
  Sears Lehmann,           St. Louis.
  G. F. Paddock,           St. Louis.
  T. G. Rutledge,          St. Louis.
  Luther Ely Smith,        St. Louis.
  J. Clarence Taussig,     St. Louis.
  C. E. L. Thomas,         St. Louis.
  W. M. Tompkins,          St. Louis.
  G. T. Weitzel,           St. Louis.
  Tyrrell Williams,        St. Louis.

The itinerary of the foreign speakers after leaving St. Louis at the end
of the Congress took them on appointed trains to Washington, where they
were given an official reception by President Roosevelt and a reception
by Dr. Simon Newcomb, President of the Congress. From here they
proceeded to Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., where they were given
a reception by Prof. Hugo Münsterberg, and were entertained as guests of
Harvard University. Thence the great majority of the speakers returned
to New York, where they were the guests of Columbia University, and were
given a farewell dinner by the Association of Old German Students. Many
of the speakers, however, visited other portions of the country before
returning to Europe.

The foreign speakers while in St. Louis were considered the guests of
the Exposition Company, and were relieved from all care and expense for
rooms and entertainment. Those who were accompanied by their wives and
daughters were entertained by prominent St. Louis families, and those
who came singly were quartered in the dormitory of the Washington
University, which was set aside for this purpose during the week of the
Congress. The dormitory arrangement proved a very happy circumstance, as
nearly one hundred foreign and American scientists of the highest rank
were thrown in contact, much after the fashion of their student days,
and thoroughly enjoyed the novelty and fellowship of the plan. The
dormitory contained ninety-six rooms newly fitted up with much care and
with all modern conveniences. Light breakfasts were served in the rooms,
and special service provided at the call of the occupants. The situation
of the dormitory also in the Exposition grounds in close proximity to
the assembly halls was highly appreciated, and although at times there
were minor matters which did not run so smoothly, the almost unanimous
expression of the guests of the Exposition was one of delight and
appreciation of the arrangements. Special mention ought in justice to be
made to those residents of St. Louis who sustained the time-honored name
of the city for hospitality and courtesy by entertaining those foreign
members of the Congress who were accompanied by the immediate members of
their family. They were as follows:--

  Dr. C. Barek
  Dr. William Bartlett
  Judge W. F. Boyle
  Mr. Robert Brookings
  Mrs. J. T. Davis
  Dr. Samuel Dodd
  Mr. L. D. Dozier
  Dr. W. E. Fischel
  Mr. Louis Fusz
  Mr. August Gehner
  Dr. M. A. Goldstein
  Mr. Charles H. Huttig
  Dr. Ernest Jonas
  Mr. R. McKittrick Jones
  Mr. F. W. Lehmann
  Dr. Robert Luedeking
  Mr. Edward Mallinckrodt
  Mr. George D. Markham
  Mr. Thomas McKittrick
  Mr. Theodore Meier
  Dr. S. J. Niccolls
  Dr. W. F. Nolker
  Dr. S. J. Schwab
  Dr. Henry Schwartz
  Mr. Corwin H. Spencer
  Dr. William Taussig
  Mr. G. H. Tenbroek
  Dr. Herman Tuholske
  Hon. Rolla Wells
  Mr. Edwards Whitaker
  Mr. Charles Wuelfing
  Mr. Max Wuelfing.


DETAIL OF THE CONGRESS

The immense amount of detail work which devolved upon the Department in
the matter of preparing halls for the meetings, receiving guests,
providing for their comfort, issuing the programmes, managing the detail
of the receptions, banquets, invitations, etc., providing for
registration, payment of honorariums, and furnishing information on
every conceivable topic, rendered necessary the formation of a special
bureau which was placed in charge of Dr. L. O. Howard of Washington, D.
C., as Executive Secretary. Dr. Howard's long experience as Secretary of
the American Association for the Advancement of Science rendered him
particularly well qualified to assume this laborious and thankless task.
By mutual arrangement the Director of Congresses and the Executive
Secretary divided the field of labor. The Director had, in addition to
the general oversight of the Congress, special supervision of the local
reception committee, the entertainment of the guests, official banquets
and entertainments, and all financial details. The Executive Secretary
took entire charge of the programme, assignment of rooms in the
dormitory, care and supervision of the dormitory, assignment of halls
for speakers, registration books and bureau of information. Dr. Howard
arrived on September 1 to begin his duties, and remained until September
30.


WEEK OF THE CONGRESS

The opening session of the Congress was set for Monday afternoon.
September 19, at 2.30 o'clock in Festival Hall. The main programme of
the Congress began Tuesday morning. The sessions were held in the
mornings and afternoons, the evenings being left free for social
affairs. The list of functions authorized in honor of the Congress of
Arts and Science were as follows:--

Monday evening, September 19, grand fête night in honor of the guests of
the Congress, with special musical programme about the Grand Basin and
lagoons, boat rides and lagoon fête; this function was unfortunately
somewhat marred by inclement weather. It was the only evening free in
the entire week, however, for members of the Congress to witness the
illuminations and decorative evening effects.

Banquet given by the St. Louis Chemical Society at the Southern Hotel to
members of the chemical sections of the Congress.

Tuesday evening, September 20, general reception by the Board of Lady
Managers to the officers and speakers of the Congress and Officials of
the Exposition.

Wednesday afternoon, September 21, garden fête given to the members of
the Congress at the French National Pavilion by the Commissioner-General
from France. The gardens of the miniature Grand Trianon were never more
beautiful than on this brilliant afternoon, and the presence of the
Garde Républicaine band and the entire official representation of the
Exposition, lent a color and spirit to the affair unsurpassed during the
Exposition period.

Wednesday evening, reception by the Imperial German Commissioner-General
to the officers and speakers of the Congress and the officials of the
Exposition, at the German State House. The magnificent hospitality which
characterized this building during the entire Exposition period was
fairly outdone on this occasion, and the function stands prominent as
one of the brilliant successes of the Exposition period.

Thursday evening, September 22, Shaw banquet at the Buckingham Club to
the foreign delegates and officers of the Congress. Through the courtesy
of the trustees of Shaw's Garden and of the officers of Washington
University, the annual banquet provided for men of science, letters, and
affairs, by the will of Henry B. Shaw, founder of the Missouri Botanical
Gardens, was given during this week as a compliment to the noted foreign
scientists who were the guests of the city of St. Louis.

Friday evening, September 23, official banquet given by the Exposition
to the speakers and officials of the Congress and the officials of the
Exposition, in the banquet hall of the Tyrolean Alps.

Saturday evening, September 24, banquet at the St. Louis Club given by
the Round Table of St. Louis, to the foreign members of the Congress.
The Round Table is a literary club which meets at banquet six times
annually for discussion of topics of interest to the literary and
scientific world.

Banquet given by the Imperial Commissioner-General from Japan to the
Japanese delegation to the Congress and to the Exposition officials and
Chiefs of Departments.

Dinner given by Commissioner-General from Great Britain to the English
members of the Congress.


OPENING OF THE CONGRESS

The assembling of the Congress on the afternoon of September 19, in the
magnificent auditorium of Festival Hall which crowned Cascade Hill and
the Terrace of States, was marked with simple ceremonies and impressive
dignity. The great organ pealed the national hymns of the countries
participating and closed with the national anthem of the United States.
In the audience were the members of the Congress representing the
selected talent of the world in their field of scientific endeavor, and
about them were grouped an audience drawn from every part of the United
States to promote by their presence the success of the Congress and to
do honor to the noted personages who were the guests of the Exposition
and of the Nation. On the stage were seated the officials of the
Congress, the honorary vice-presidents from foreign nations, and the
officials of the Exposition.

At the appointed hour the Director of Congresses, Dr. Howard J. Rogers,
called the meeting to order, and outlined in a few words the object of
the Congress, welcomed the foreign delegates, and presented the members,
both foreign and American, to the President of the Exposition, Hon.
David R. Francis.

The President spoke as follows:--

     What an ambitious undertaking is a universal exposition! But
     how worthy it is of the highest effort! And, if successful,
     how far-reaching are its results, how lasting its benefits!
     Who shall pass judgment on that success? On what evidence,
     by what standards shall their verdicts be formed? The
     development of society, the advancement of civilization,
     involve many problems, encounter many and serious
     difficulties, and have met with deplorable reactions which
     decades and centuries were required to repair. The proper
     study of mankind is man, and any progress in science that
     ignores or loses sight of his welfare and happiness, however
     admirable and wonderful such progress may be, disturbs the
     equilibrium of society.

     The tendency of the times toward centralization or
     unification is, from an economic standpoint, a drifting in
     the right direction, but the piloting must be done by
     skillful hands, under the supervision and control of
     far-seeing minds, who will remember that the masses are
     human beings whose education and expanding intelligence are
     constantly broadening and emphasizing their individuality. A
     universal exposition affords to its visitors, and these who
     systematically study its exhibits and its phases, an
     unequaled opportunity to view the general progress and
     development of all countries and all races. Every line of
     human endeavor is here represented.

     The conventions heretofore held on these grounds and many
     planned to be held--aggregating over three hundred--have
     been confined in their deliberations to special lines of
     thought or activity. This international congress of arts and
     sciences is the most comprehensive in its plan and scope of
     any ever held, and is the first of its kind. The lines of
     its organization, I shall leave the Director of Exhibits,
     who is also a member of the administrative board of this
     congress, to explain. You who are members are already
     advised as to its scope, and your almost universal and
     prompt acceptance of the invitations extended to you to
     participate, implies an approval which we appreciate, and
     indicates a willingness and a desire to coöperate in an
     effort to bring into intelligent and beneficial correlation
     all branches of science, all lines of thought. You need no
     argument to convince you of the eminent fitness of making
     such a congress a prominent feature of a universal
     exposition in which education is the dominant feature.

     The administrative board and the organizing committee have
     discharged their onerous and responsible tasks with signal
     fidelity and ability, and the success that has rewarded
     their efforts is a lasting monument to their wisdom. The
     management of the Exposition tenders to them, collectively
     and individually, its grateful acknowledgments. The
     membership in this congress represents the world's elect in
     research and in thought. The participants were selected
     after a careful survey of the entire field; no limitations
     of national boundaries or racial affiliations have been
     observed. The Universal Exposition of 1904, the city of St.
     Louis, the Louisiana territory whose acquisition we are
     celebrating, the entire country, and all participating in or
     visiting this Exposition are grateful for your coming, and
     feel honored by your presence.

     We are proud to welcome you to a scene where are presented
     the best and highest material products of all countries and
     of every civilization, participated in by all peoples, from
     the most primitive to the most highly cultured--a marker in
     the progress of the world, and of which the International
     Congress of Arts and Science is the crowning feature.

     May the atmosphere of this universal exposition, charged as
     it is with the restless energies of every phase of human
     activity and permeated by that ineffable sentiment of
     universal brotherhood engendered by the intelligent sons of
     God, congregating for the friendly rivalries of peace,
     inspire you with even higher thoughts--imbue you with still
     broader sympathies, to the end that by your future labors
     you may be still more helpful to the human race and place
     your fellow men under yet deeper obligations.

Director Frederick J. V. Skiff was then introduced by the President as
representing the Division of Exhibits, whose untiring labors had filled
the magnificent Exposition palaces surrounding the Festival Hall with
the visible products of those sciences and arts, the theory, progress,
and problems of which the Congress was assembled to consider.

Mr. Skiff spoke as follows:--

     The division of exhibits of the Universal Exposition of 1904
     has looked forward to this time, when the work it has
     performed is to be reviewed and discussed by this
     distinguished body. I do not, of course, intend to convey
     the idea that the international congress is to inspect or
     criticise the exhibitions, but I do mean to say that the
     deliberations of this organization are contemporaneous with
     and share the responsibility for the accomplishments of
     which the exhibitions made are the visible evidences.

     The great educational yield of a universal exposition comes
     from the intellectual more than from the mechanical
     processes. It is the material condition of the times. It is
     as well the duty of the responsible authorities to go yet
     further and record the thoughts and theories, the
     investigations, experiments, and observations of which these
     material things are the tangible results.

     A congress of arts and science, whose membership is drawn
     from all educational as well as geographical zones, not only
     accounts for and analyzes the philosophy of conditions, but
     points the way for further advance along the lines
     consistent with demonstration. Its contribution to the hour
     is at once a history and a prophecy.

     The extent to which the deliberations and utterances of this
     congress may regulate the development of society or give
     impulse to succeeding generations, it is impossible to
     estimate, but not unreasonable to anticipate. The plans of
     the congress matured in the minds of the best scholars; the
     classification of its purpose, the scope, the selection of
     its distinguished participants, gave to the hopes and
     ambitions of the management of the Exposition inspiration of
     a most exalted degree. At first these ambitions were--not
     without reason--regarded as too high. The plane upon which
     the congress had been inaugurated, the aim, the broad
     intent, seemed beyond the merits, if not beyond the
     capacity, of this hitherto not widely recognized
     intellectual centre. But the courage of the inception, the
     loftiness of the purpose, appealed so profoundly to the
     toilers for truth and the apostles of fact, that we find
     gathered here to-day in the heart of the new Western
     continent the great minds whose impress on society has
     rendered possible the intellectual heights to which this age
     has ascended and now beckon forward the students of the
     world to limitless possibilities.

     While international congresses of literature, science, art,
     and industry have been accomplished by previous expositions,
     yet to classify and select the topics in sympathy with the
     classification and installation of the exhibits material is
     a step considerably in advance of the custom. The men who
     build an exposition must by temperament, if not by
     characteristic, be educators. They must be in sympathy with
     the welfare of humanity and its higher destiny. The
     exhibitions at this Exposition are not the haphazard
     gatherings of convenient material, but the outline of a plan
     to illustrate the productiveness of mankind at this
     particular time, carefully digested, thoroughly thought out,
     and conscientiously executed. The exhibit, therefore, in
     each of the departments of the classification, as well as in
     the groups of the different departments, are of such
     character, and so arranged as to reflect the best that the
     world can do along departmental lines, and the best that
     different peoples can do along group lines. The congresses
     accord with the exhibits, and the exhibits give expression
     to the congresses.

     Education has been the keynote of this Exposition. Were it
     not for the educational idea, the acts of government
     providing vast sums of money for the up-building of this
     Exposition would have been impossible. This congress
     reflects one idea vastly outstripping others, and that is,
     in the unity of thought in the universal concert of purpose.
     It is the first time, I believe, that there has been an
     international gathering of the authorities of all the
     sciences, and in that respect the congress initiates and
     establishes the universal brotherhood of scholars.

     A thought uncommunicated is of little value. An unrecorded
     achievement is not an asset of society. The real lasting
     value of this congress will consist of the printed record of
     its proceedings. The delivery of the addresses, reaching and
     appealing to, as must necessarily be the case, a very
     limited number of people, can be considered as only a method
     of reaching the lasting and perpetual good of civilization.

     In just the degree that this Exposition in its various
     divisions shall make a record of accomplishments, and lead
     the way to further advance, this enterprise has reached the
     expectations of its contributors and the hopes of its
     promoters. This congress is the peak of the mountain that
     this Exposition has builded on the highway of progress. From
     its heights we contemplate the past, record the present, and
     gaze into the future.

     This universal exposition is a world's university. The
     International Congress of Arts and Science constitutes the
     faculty; the material on exhibition are the laboratories and
     the museums; the students are mankind.

     That in response to invitation of the splendid committee of
     patriotic men, to whom all praise is due for their efforts
     in this crowning glory of the Exposition, so eminent a
     gathering of the scholars and savants of the world has
     resulted, speaks unmistakably for the fraternity of the
     world, for the sympathy of its citizenship, and for the
     patriotism of its people.

In reply to these addresses of the officials of the Exposition, the
honorary Vice-Presidents for Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia,
Austria, Italy, and Japan made brief responses in behalf of their
respective countries.

Sir William Ramsay of London spoke in the place of Hon. James Bryce,
extending England's thanks for the courtesy which had been shown her
representatives and declaring that England, particularly in the
scientific field, looked upon America as a relative and not as a foreign
country.

France was represented by Professor Jean Gaston Darboux, Perpetual
Secretary of the Academy of Sciences of Paris, who spoke as follows:--

     MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,--My first word will be
     to thank you for the honor which you have been so courteous
     as to pay my country in reserving for her one of the
     vice-presidencies of the Congress. Since the time of
     Franklin, who received at the hands of France the welcome
     which justice and his own personal genius and worth
     demanded, most affectionate relations have not ceased to
     unite the scientists of France and the scientists of
     America. The distinction which you have here accorded to us
     will contribute still further to render these relations more
     intimate and more fraternal. In choosing me among so many of
     the better fitted delegates sent by my country, you have
     without doubt wished to pay special honor to the Académie
     des Sciences and to the Institut de France, which I have the
     honor of representing in the position of Perpetual
     Secretary. Permit me therefore to thank you in the name of
     these great societies, which are happy to count in the
     number of their foreign associates and of their
     correspondents so many of the scholars of America. In like
     manner as the Institut de France, so the Congress which
     opens to-day seeks to unite at the same time letters,
     science, and arts. We shall be happy and proud to take part
     in this work and contribute to its success.

Germany was represented by Professor Wilhelm Waldeyer, of the University
of Berlin, who replied as follows:--

     MR. PRESIDENT, HONORED ASSEMBLAGE,--The esteemed invitation
     which has been offered to me in this significant hour of the
     opening of the Congress of Arts and Science to greet the
     members of this congress, and particularly my esteemed
     compatriots, I have had no desire to decline. I have been
     for a fortnight under the free sky of this mighty city--so I
     must express myself, since enclosing walls are unknown in
     the United States--and this fact, together with the
     hospitality offered me in such delightful manner by the
     Chairman of the Committee on Congresses, Mr. Frederick W.
     Lehmann, has almost made me a St. Louis man. Therefore I may
     perhaps take it upon myself to greet you here.

     I confess that I arrived here with some misgiving--some
     doubts as to whether the great task which was here
     undertaken under most difficult circumstances could be
     accomplished with even creditable success. These doubts
     entirely disappeared the first time I entered the grounds of
     the World's Fair and obtained a general view of the method,
     beautiful as well as practical, by which the treasures
     gathered from the whole world were arranged and displayed. I
     trust you, too, will have a like experience; and will soon
     recognize that a most earnest and good work is here
     accomplished.

     And I must remark at this time that we Germans may indeed be
     well satisfied here; the unanimous and complete recognition
     which our coöperation in this great work has received is
     almost disconcerting.

     What can be said of the whole Exposition with reference to
     its extent and the order in which everything is arranged, I
     may well say concerning the departments of science,
     especially interesting to us. In this hour in which the
     Congress of Arts and Science is being opened, we shall not
     express any thanks to those who took this part of the work
     upon their shoulders--a more difficult task indeed than all
     the others, for here the problem is not to manage materials,
     but heads and minds. And as I see here assembled a large
     number of German professors--I, too, belong to the
     profession--of whom it is said, I know not with how much
     justice, that they are hard to lead, the labors of the
     Directors and Presidents of the Congress could not have
     been, and are not now, small. Neither shall we to-day
     prophesy into what the Congress may develop. The greater
     number of speakers cannot expect to have large audiences,
     but even to-day we can safely say this: the imposing row of
     volumes in which shall be given to posterity the reviews
     here to be presented concerning the present condition, and
     future problems of the sciences and arts as they appear to
     the scientific world at the beginning of the twentieth
     century, will provide a monumental work of lasting value.
     This we may confidently expect. The thanks which we to-day
     do not wish to anticipate in words, let us show by our
     actions to our kind American hosts, and especially to the
     directors of the World's Fair and of this Congress. With
     exalted mind, forgetting all little annoyances which may and
     will come, let us go forward courageously to the work, and
     let us do our best. Let us grasp heartily the open hand
     honestly extended to us.

     May this Congress of Arts and Science worthily take part in
     the great and undisputed success which even to-day we must
     acknowledge the World's Fair at St. Louis.

For Austria Dr. Theodore Escherich, of the University of Vienna,
responded as follows:--

     In the name of the many Austrians present at the Congress I
     express the thanks of my compatriots to the Committee which
     summoned us, for their invitation and the hospitality so
     cordially extended....

     I congratulate the authorities upon the idea of opening this
     Congress. How many world-expositions have already been held
     without an attempt having been made to exhibit the spirit
     that has created this world of beautiful and useful things?
     It was reserved for these to find the form in which the
     highest results of human thought--Science--presented in the
     persons of her representatives, could be incorporated in the
     compass of the World's Fair. The conception of this
     International Congress of all Sciences in its originality
     and audacity, in its universality and comprehensive
     organization, is truly a child of the "young-American
     spirit."...

     After this Congress has come to a close and the collection
     of the lectures delivered, an unparalleled encyclopedia of
     human knowledge, both in extent and content, will have
     appeared. We may say that this Fair has become of epochal
     importance, not alone for trade and manufactures, but also
     for science. These proud palaces will long have disappeared
     and been forgotten when this work, a _monumentum aere
     perennius_, shall still testify to future generations the
     standard of scientific attainment at the beginning of the
     twentieth century.

Short acknowledgments were then made for Russia by Dr. Oscar Backlund,
of the Astronomical Observatory at Pulkowa, Russia, and for Japan by
Prof. Nobushige Hozumi, of the Imperial University at Tokio, Japan.

The last of the Vice-Presidents to respond to the addresses of welcome
was Signor Attilio Brunialti, Councilor of State for Italy, who after a
few formal words in English broke into impassioned eloquence in his
native tongue, and in brilliant diction and graceful periods expressed
the deep feeling and profound joy which Italy, the mother of arts, felt
in participating in an occasion so historic and so magnificent. Signor
Brunialti said in part:

     I thank you, gentlemen, for the honor you have paid both to
     my country and myself by electing me a Vice-President of
     this great scientific assembly. Would that I could thank you
     in words in which vibrate the heart of Rome, the scientific
     spirit of my land, and all that it has given to the world
     for the progress of science, literature, and art. You know
     Italy, gentlemen, you admire her, and therefore it is for
     this also that my thanks are due to you. What ancient Rome
     has contributed to the common patrimony of civilization is
     also reflected here in a thousand ways, and a classical
     education, held in such honor, by a young and practical
     people such as yours, excites our admiration and also our
     astonishment. By giant strides you are reviving the activity
     of Italy at the epoch of the Communes, when all were
     animated by unwearying activity and our manufactures and
     arts held the first place in Europe. I have already praised
     here the courageous spirit which has suggested the meeting
     of this Congress--a Congress that will remain famous in the
     annals of science. Many things in your country have aroused
     in me growing surprise, but nothing has struck me more, I
     assure you, than this homage to science which is pushing all
     the wealthy classes to a noble rivalry for the increase of
     education and mental cultivation.

     You have already large libraries and richly endowed
     universities, and every kind of school, where the works of
     Greece and Rome are perhaps even more appreciated and
     adapted to modern improvements than with us old classical
     nations. Full of energy, activity, and wealth, you have
     before you perpetual progress, and what, up to this, your
     youth has not allowed you to give to the world, you will
     surely be able to give in the future. Use freely all the
     treasures of civilization, art, and science that centuries
     have accumulated in the old world, and especially in my
     beloved Italy; fructify them with your youthful initiation
     and with your powerful energy. By so doing you will
     contribute to peace, and then we may say with truth that we
     have prepared your route by the work of centuries; and like
     unto those who from old age are prevented from following the
     bold young man of Longfellow in his course, we will
     accompany you with our greetings and our alterable
     affection.

     By my voice, the native country of Columbus, of Galileo, of
     Michelangelo and Raphael, of Macchiavelli and Volta, salutes
     and with open arms hails as her hopeful daughter young
     America,--thanking and blessing her for the road she has
     opened to the sons of Italy, workmen and artists, to
     civilization, to science, and to modern research and
     thought.

The Chairman of the Administrative Board, President Nicholas Murray
Butler, of Columbia University, was prevented by illness in his family
from being present at the Congress, and in place of the address to have
been delivered by him on the idea and development of the Congress and
the work of the Administrative Board, President William R. Harper, of
the University of Chicago, spoke on the same subject as follows:

     I have been asked within a few hours by those in authority
     to present to you on behalf of the Administrative Board of
     this International Congress a statement concerning the
     origin and purpose of the congress. It is surely a source of
     great disappointment to all concerned that the chairman of
     the board, President Butler, is prevented from being
     present.

     Many of us recall the fact that at the Paris Exposition of
     1889 the first attempt was made to do something systematic
     in the way of congresses. This attempt was the natural
     outcome of the opinion which had come to exist that so
     splendid an opportunity as was afforded by the coming
     together of leaders in every department of activity should
     not be suffered to pass by unimproved. What could be more
     natural in the stimulating and thought-provoking atmosphere
     of an exposition than the proposal to make provision for a
     consideration and discussion of some of the problems so
     closely related to the interests represented by the
     exposition?

     The results achieved at the Paris Exposition of 1889 were so
     striking as to lead those in charge of the World's Columbian
     Exposition in Chicago, 1893, to organize what was called the
     World's Congress Auxiliary, including a series of
     congresses, in which, to use the language of the original
     decree, "the best workers in general science, philosophy,
     literature, art, agriculture, trade, and labor were to meet
     to present their experiences and results obtained in all
     those various lines of thought up to the present time."
     Seven years later, in connection with the Paris Exposition
     of 1900, there was held another similar series of
     international congresses. The general idea had in this way
     slowly but surely gained recognition.

     The authorities of the Universal Exposition at St. Louis,
     from the first, recognized the desirability of providing for
     a congress which should exceed in its scope those that had
     before been attempted. In the earliest days of the
     preparation for this Exposition Mr. Frederick J. V. Skiff,
     the Director of the Field Columbian Museum, my nearest
     neighbor in the city of Chicago, took occasion to present
     this idea, and particularly to emphasize the specific point
     that something should be undertaken which not only might add
     dignity and glory to the great name of the Exposition, but
     also constitute a permanent and valuable contribution to the
     sum of human knowledge. After a consideration of the whole
     question, which extended over many months, the committee on
     international congresses resolved to establish an
     administrative board of seven members, to which should be
     committed the responsibility of suggesting a plan in detail
     for the attainment of the ends desired. This Board was
     appointed in November, 1902, and consisted of President
     Nicholas Murray Butler, of Columbia University, New York;
     President R. H. Jesse, of the University of Missouri;
     President Henry S. Pritchett, of the Massachusetts Institute
     of Technology; Dr. Herbert Putnam, Librarian of Congress;
     Mr. Frederick J. V. Skiff, of the Field Columbian Museum,
     Chicago; Frederick G. Holls, of New York City, and the
     present speaker.

     This Board held several meetings for the study of the
     questions and problems involved in the great undertaking.
     Much valuable counsel was received and considered. The Board
     was especially indebted, however, to Prof. Hugo Münsterberg
     of Harvard University for specific material which he placed
     at their disposal--material which, with modification, served
     as the basis of the plans adopted by the Board, and
     recommended to the members of the Exposition.

     At the same time the Administrative Board recommended the
     appointment of Dr. Howard J. Rogers as the Director of
     Congresses, and nominated Prof. Simon Newcomb of the United
     States Navy to be President of the Congress, and Professors
     Hugo Münsterberg of Harvard University and Albion W. Small
     of the University of Chicago to be Vice-Presidents of the
     Congress; the three to constitute the Organizing Committee
     of the Congress. This Organizing Committee was later
     empowered to visit foreign countries and to extend personal
     invitations to men distinguished in the arts and sciences to
     participate in the Congress. The reception accorded to
     these, our representatives, was most cordial. Of the 150
     invitations thus extended, 117 were accepted; and of the 117
     learned savants who accepted the invitation, 96 are here in
     person this afternoon to testify by their presence the
     interest they have felt in this great concourse of the
     world's leaders. I am compelled by necessity this afternoon
     to omit many points of interest in relation to the origin
     and history of the undertaking, all of which will be
     published in due time.

     After many months of expectancy we have at last come
     together from all the nations of the world. But for what
     purpose? I do not know that to the statement already
     published in the programme of the Congress anything can be
     added which will really improve that statement. The purpose,
     as it has seemed to some of us, is threefold:

     In the first place, to secure such a general survey of the
     various fields of learning, with all their "subdivisions and
     multiplication of specialties," as will at the same time set
     forth their mutual relations and connections, and likewise
     constitute an effort toward the unification of knowledge.
     This idea of unity has perhaps been uppermost in the minds
     of all concerned with the work of organizing the Congress.

     In the second place, to provide a platform from which might
     be presented the various problems, a solution of which will
     be expected of the scholarship of the future. This includes
     a recognition of the fundamental principles and conception
     that underlie these mutual relations, and therefore serve
     necessarily as the basis of all such future work. Here again
     the controlling idea is that of unity and law, in other
     words, universal law.

     In the third place, to bring together in person and spirit
     distinguished investigators and scholars from all the
     countries of the world, in order that by contact of one with
     another a mutual sympathy may be promoted, and a practical
     coöperation may be effected among those whose lifework leads
     them far apart. Here, still again, unity of result is sought
     for.

     As we now take up the work of this convention, which already
     gives sure promise of being notable among the conventions
     that have called together men of different nations, let us
     confidently assure ourselves that the great purpose which
     has throughout controlled in the different stages of its
     organization will be realized; that because the Congress has
     been held, the nations of the earth will find themselves
     drawn more closely together; that human thought will possess
     a more unified organization and human life a more unified
     expression.

Following these addresses of welcome and of response came the first
paper of the specific programme, designed to be introductory to the
division, department, and section addresses of the week. This address,
which will be found in full in its proper place, on pages 135 to 147 of
this volume, was given by Dr. Simon Newcomb, President of the Congress
and Chairman of the Organizing Committee, whose labors for fifteen
months were thus brought to a brilliant conclusion.

At the close of Dr. Newcomb's address the assembly was dismissed by a
few words of President Francis, in which he placed at the disposition of
the members of the Congress the courtesies and privileges of the
Exposition, and expressed the hope and belief that their presence and
the purpose for which they were assembled, would be the crowning glory
of the Universal Exposition of 1904.

On Tuesday, September 20, the seven division addresses and the
twenty-four department addresses were given, all the speakers being
Americans: Royce, in Normative Science; Wilson, in Historical Science;
Woodward, in Physical Science; Hall, in Mental Science; Jordan, in
Utilitarian Science; Lowell, in Social Regulation; and Harris, in Social
Culture, treating the main divisions of science and their applications,
each dwelling particularly on the scope of the great field included in
his address and the unification of the work therein. The forty-eight
department speakers divided the field of knowledge, one address in each
department giving the fundamental conceptions and methods, the other the
history and development of the work of the department during the last
century.

With Wednesday the international participation began, and in the one
hundred twenty-eight sections into which the departments were divided
one half of the speakers were drawn, so far as circumstances permitted,
from foreign scientific circles. With the exception of the last two
sections, Religious Influence Personal, and Religious Influence Social,
the work of the Congress closed on Saturday afternoon. These two
sections having four speakers each were placed, one on Sunday morning
and one on Sunday afternoon, in Festival Hall, and passes to the grounds
given upon application to any one desiring to attend. Large numbers
availed themselves of the privilege, and the closing hours of the
Congress were eminently suitable and worthy of its high success. At the
end of the afternoon session in Festival Hall, Vice-President of the
Congress, Dr. Albion W. Small, reviewed in a few words the work of the
week, its meaning to science, its possible effect upon American thought,
and then formally announced the Congress closed.


OFFICIAL BANQUET

The official banquet given by the Exposition to all participants,
members, and officials of the Congress, on Friday evening, at the
Tyrolean Alps banquet hall, proved a charming conclusion to the labors
of the week. No better place could be imagined for holding it, within
the grounds of an exposition, than the magnificently proportioned music
and dining hall of the "Alps." A room 160 feet by 105 feet, capable of
seating fifteen hundred banqueters; the spacious, oval, orchestral stage
at the south end; the galleries and boxes along the sides of the hall
done in solid German oak; the beautiful and impressive mural
decorations, the work of the best painters of Germany; the excellence of
the cuisine, and the thoroughly drilled corps of waiters, rendered the
physical accessories of a banquet as nearly perfect as possible in a
function so extensive.

The banquet was the largest held during the Exposition period, eight
hundred invitations being issued and nearly seven hundred persons
present. The music was furnished by the famous Garde Républicaine Band
of France, as the Exposition orchestra was obliged to fill its regular
weekly assignment at Festival Hall. The decorations of the hall, the
lights and flowers, the musical programme, the galleries and boxes
filled with ladies representing the official and social life of the
Exposition, and the distinguished body of the Congress, formed a picture
which appealed to the admiration and enthusiasm of every one alike. No
attempt was made to assign seats to the banqueters outside the speakers'
table, and little coteries and clusters of scientists, many of whom were
making acquaintances and intellectual alliances during this week which
would endure for a lifetime, were scattered about the hall, giving an
interest and an animation to the scene quite beyond the powers of
description. In one corner were Harnack, Budde, Jean Réville, and
Cuthbert Hall, chatting as animatedly as though their religious theories
were not as far apart as the poles; in another, Waldeyer, Escherich,
Jacobi, Allbutt, and Kitasato formed a medical group, the counterpart of
which would be hard to find unless in another part of this same hall;
still again were Erdmann, Sorley, Ladd, Royce, and Creighton as the
centre of a group of philosophers of world renown. So in every part of
the picture which met the eye were focused the leaders of thought and
action in their respective fields. The _tout ensemble_ of the Congress
was here brought out in its strongest effect, as, with the exception of
the opening exercises at Festival Hall at which time many had not
arrived, it was the only time when the entire membership was together.
The banquet coming at the close of the week was also fortunate, as by
this time the acquaintances made, and the common incidents and anecdotes
experienced, heightened the enjoyment of all.

The toastmaster of the banquet and presiding officer, Hon. David R.
Francis, was never in a happier vein than when he assumed the gavel and
proposed the health of the President of the United States and the rulers
of all nations represented at the board.

President Francis said:--

     MEMBERS OF THE INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF ARTS AND SCIENCE:

     On the façade at the base of the Louisiana Monument, which
     is the central feature of this Exposition picture, is a
     group of Livingston, Monroe, and Marbois. It represents the
     signing of the treaty, which by peaceful negotiation
     transferred an empire from France to the United States. Upon
     the inscription are the words of Livingston, "We have lived
     long and accomplished much, but this is the crowning act of
     our lives."

     It is that transfer of an empire which this Exposition is
     held to commemorate. And paraphrasing the words of
     Livingston, permit me to say that I have presided over many
     dinners, but this is the crowning act of my career.

     In opening the deliberations of the International Congress
     of Arts and Science, I made the statement that a Universal
     Exposition is an ambitious undertaking. I stated also that
     the International Congress of Arts and Science is the
     crowning feature of this Exposition. I did not venture the
     assertion then which I have the presumption to make now,
     that the most difficult task in connection with this
     Universal Exposition was the assembling of an International
     Congress of Arts and Science. I venture to make the
     statement now, because I feel that I am justified in doing
     so by the success which up to the present has attended your
     deliberations. Any congregation of the leaders of thought in
     the world is a memorable occasion. This is the first
     systematic one that has ever been attempted. Whether it
     proves successful or not, it will be long remembered in the
     history of the civilized countries that have participated in
     it. If it be but the precursor of other like assemblages it
     will still be long remembered, and in that event it will be
     entitled to unspeakable credit if it accomplishes anything
     toward the realization of the very laudable objects which
     prompted its assembling.

     The effort to unify all human knowledge and to establish the
     inter-relations thereof is a bold conception, and requires
     the courage that characterizes the people who live in the
     western section of the United States. If it be the last
     effort of the kind it will still be remembered, and this
     Universal Exposition, if it had done nothing else to endear
     it to cultured people of this and other countries, will not
     be forgotten. The savants assembled by the call of this
     Exposition have pursued their respective lines of thought
     and research, prompted by no desire other than one to find a
     solution of the problem which confronts humanity. By
     bringing you together and making an effort to determine and
     establish the relations between all lines of human
     knowledge, we have certainly made an advance in the right
     direction. If your researches, if the results of your
     studies, can be utilized by the human race, then we who have
     been the instruments of that great blessing will be entitled
     to credit secondary only to the men who are the discoverers
     of the scientific knowledge whose relations we are
     endeavoring to establish. The Management of the Universal
     Exposition of 1904 salutes the International Congress of
     Arts and Science. We drink to the perpetuation of that
     organization, and I shall call upon its distinguished
     President, Professor Newcomb, to respond to the Sentiment.

Dr. Newcomb in a few words thanked the members of the Congress for their
participation, which had made possible the brilliant success of the
enterprise, portrayed its effect and the influence of its perpetuation,
and then extended to all the invitation from the President of the United
States to attend the reception at the White House on the following
Tuesday.

In responding to these toasts the senior Honorary Vice-President, Hon.
James Bryce, of Great Britain, spoke in matchless form and held the
attention of the vast hall closely while he portrayed in a few words the
chief glories of England in the field of science, and the pride the
English nation felt in the glorious record made by her eldest daughter,
the United States. Mr. Bryce spoke extemporaneously, and his remarks
cannot be given in full.

For Germany, Commissioner-General Lewald responded in an eloquent
address, in which, after thanking the Exposition and the American
Government for the high honor done the German nation in selecting so
large a percentage of the speakers from German scientific circles, he
enlarged upon the close relations which had existed between German
university thought and methods and American thought and practice, due to
the vast number of American students who had pursued their post-graduate
courses in the universities of Germany. He dwelt upon the pride that
Germany felt in this sincerest form of tribute to German supremacy in
scientific thought, and of the satisfaction which the influence in this
country of German-trained students afforded. He described at length the
great exhibit made by German universities in the education department of
the Exposition, and pointed to it as demonstrating the supremacy of
German scientific thought and accurate methods. Dr. Lewald closed with a
brilliant peroration, in which he referred to the immense service done
for the cause of science in the last fifty years of German history and
to the patronage and support of the Emperor, not only to science in
general, but to this great international gathering of scientific
experts, and drank to the continued cordial relations of Germany and
America through its university circles and scientific endeavors.

For the response from France, Prof. Gaston Darboux was delegated by
Commissioner-General Gerald, who was unable to be present on account of
sickness. In one of the most beautiful and polished addresses of the
evening, Professor Darboux spoke in French, of which the following is a
translation:--

     GENTLEMEN,--Graciously invited to respond in the name of the
     delegates of France who have accept the invitation of the
     American Government, I consider it my duty in the first
     place to thank this great nation for the honor which it has
     paid to us, and for the welcome, which it has extended to
     us. Those of you who are doing me the honor to listen, know
     of that disagreeable feeling of isolation which at times the
     traveler in the midst of a strange people experiences;--that
     feeling I know only from hearsay. We have not had a moment
     of time to experience it. They are accustomed in Europe to
     portray the Americans as exclusively occupied with business
     affairs. They throw in our faces the famous proverb,
     'Business is Business,' and give it to us as the rule of
     conduct for Americans. We are able to testify entirely to
     the contrary, since the inhabitants of this beautiful
     country are always seeking to extend to strangers a thousand
     courtesies. Above all, we have encountered no one who has
     not been anxious to go out of his way to give to us, even
     before we had asked it, such information as it was necessary
     for us to have. And what shall I say of the welcome which we
     have received here at the hands of our American
     confrères,--Monsieur the President of the Exposition,
     Monsieur the Director of Congresses and other worthy
     co-laborers? The authorities of the Exposition and the
     inhabitants of St. Louis have rivaled each other in making
     our stay agreeable and our ways pleasant in the heart of
     this magnificent Exposition, of which we shall ever preserve
     the most enchanting memory.

     We should have wished to see in a more leisurely manner, and
     to make acquaintance with the attractions without number
     with which the Exposition literally swarms (men of letters
     and men of science love at times to disport themselves) and
     to study the exhibits classified in a method so exact in the
     palaces of an architecture so original and so impressive.
     But Monsieur Newcomb has not permitted this. The Congress of
     which he is the illustrious President offers so much in the
     way of attractions,--of a kind a little rigorous it is
     true,--and so much of work to be accomplished, that to our
     very great regret we have had to refuse many invitations
     which it would have been most agreeable to accept. The
     Americans will pardon us for this, I am sure; they know
     better than any one else the value of time, but they know
     also that human strength has some limits, especially among
     us poor Europeans, for I doubt whether an American ever
     knows the meaning of fatigue.

     Messieurs, the Congress which is about to terminate
     to-morrow has been truly a very great event. It is the first
     time, I believe, that there has been seen assembled in one
     grand international reunion that which our great minister,
     Colbert, had in mind, and that which we have realized for
     the first time in our Institut de France,--the union of
     letters, science, and arts. That this union shall maintain
     itself in the future is the dearest wish of my heart.

     Science is a unit, even as the Universe. The aspects which
     it presents know neither boundaries of states nor the
     political divisions established between peoples. In all
     civilized countries they calculate with the same figures,
     they measure with the same instruments, they employ the same
     classifications, they study the same historic facts,
     economics, and morals. If there exists among the different
     nations some differences in methods, these difference are
     slight. They are a benefit at the same time as well as a
     necessity. For the doing of the immense amount of work of
     research imposed on that part of humanity which thinks, it
     is necessary that the subjects of study should not be
     identically the same, or better, if they are identical, that
     the difference between the points of view from which they
     are considered in the different countries contribute to our
     better knowledge of their nature, their results, and their
     applications. It is necessary then that each people preserve
     their distinctive genius, their particular methods which
     they use to develop the qualities they have inherited. In
     exactly the same way that it is important in an orchestra
     that each instrument play in the most perfect manner, and
     with the timbre which accords with its nature, the part
     which is given to it, so in science as in music, the harmony
     between the players is a necessary condition, which each one
     ought to exert himself to realize. Let us endeavor then in
     scientific research to execute in the most perfect manner
     that part of the task which fate has devolved upon us, but
     let us endeavor also to maintain that accord which is a
     necessary condition to the harmony which will alone be able
     in the future to assure the progress of humanity.

     Gentlemen, in this international reunion it would not be
     fitting that I dwell upon the services which my country has
     been able to render to science; and on the other hand it
     would be difficult for me to say to you exactly what part
     America is called upon to take in this concert of civilized
     nations; but I am certain that the part will be worthy of
     the great nation which has given to itself a constitution so
     liberal and which in so short a space of time has known how
     to conquer, and measure in value, a territory so immense
     that it extends from ocean to ocean. I lift my glass to the
     honor of American science; I drink to the future of that
     great nation, for which we, as well as all other Frenchmen,
     hold so much of common remembrance, so much of close and
     living sympathy, and so much of profound admiration. I am
     the more happy to do this in this most beautiful territory
     of Louisiana, which France in a former age ceded freely to
     America.

Perhaps the treat of the evening was the response made in behalf of the
Empire of Japan by Professor Hozumi, of the Faculty of Law of the
University of Tokio.

Unfortunately this response was not preserved in full, but Professor
Hozumi dwelt with much feeling on the world-wide significance of the
Congress and the common plane upon which all nations might meet in the
pursuit of science and the manifold applications of scientific
principles. He paid a beautiful tribute to the educational system of the
United States and to the great debt which Japan owed to American
scholars and to American teachers for their aid in establishing modern
educational principles and methods in the Empire of Japan. The impetus
given to scientific study in Japan by the Japanese students trained in
American universities was also earnestly dwelt upon, and the close
relations which had always existed between Japanese and American
students and instructors feelingly described. In the field of science
Japan was yet young, but she had shown herself a close and apt pupil,
and her period of initiative and original research was at hand. In
bacteriology, in medicine, in seismology, oceanography, and other
fields, Japan has made valuable contributions to science and established
the right to recognition in an international gathering of this nature.
It was with peculiar and grateful pride and pleasure that the Japanese
Government had sent its delegation to this Congress of selected experts
in response to the invitation of the American Government. Near the close
of his address Professor Hozumi made a gracious and happy allusion,
based upon the conflict with Russia, in which he said that of all places
where men meet, and of all places sunned by the light of heaven, this
great Congress, built on the high plane of the brotherhood of science
and the fellowship of scholars, was the only place where a Japanese and
a Russian could meet in mutual accord, with a common purpose, and clasp
hands in unity of thought. This chivalrous and beautiful idea, given
here so imperfectly from memory, brought the great assembly to its feet
in rounds of cheers. In closing, Professor Hozumi expressed the earnest
belief that the benefits of science from a gathering of this nature
would quickly be felt, by a closer coöperation in the application of
theory and practical principles and a simultaneous advance in all parts
of the world.

The closing response of the evening for the foreign members was made for
Italy by Signor Attilio Brunialti, whose brilliant eloquence at many
times during the week had won the admiration of the members of the
Congress. Under the inspiration of this assemblage he fairly surpassed
himself, and the following translation of his remarks but poorly
indicates the grace and brilliant diction of the original:--

     I have had the good fortune to be present in this wonderful
     country at three international Congresses, that of science,
     the peace parliament, and the geographic. I wish to record
     the impression they have excited in my mind, already so
     favorably inclined by your never-to-be-forgotten and
     gracious reception. You must, please, allow me to address
     you in my own language, because the Latin tongue inspires
     me, because I wish to affirm more solemnly my nationality,
     and also, because I cannot express my feelings well in a
     language not familiar to me. My country, the land of
     Columbus, of Galileo, the nation that more than all others
     in Europe is an element of peace, is already in itself the
     synthesis of the three Congresses. And I can call to mind
     that this land is indebted to geography for the fact of its
     being made known to the world, because the immortal Genoese
     pointed it out to people fighting in the old world for a
     small territory, and opened to mortals new and extensive
     countries destined to receive the valiant and the audacious
     of the entire world and to rise like yours to immortal
     glory.

     Thus the poet can sing,--

          L'avanza, l'avanza
          Divino straniero,
          Conosci la stanza
          Che i fati ti diero;
          Se lutti, se lagrime
          Ancora rinterra
          L'giovin la terra.

     Thus Columbus of old could point out to men--who run down
     each other, disputing even love for fear that man may become
     a wolf for man--the vast and endless wastes awaiting
     laborers, and give to man the treasures of the fruitful
     land. 'Tis in the name of peace that I greet modern science
     in all its forms, and I say to you chemists: "Invent new
     means of destruction;" and to you mechanics and
     shipbuilders: "Give us invulnerable men-of-war and such
     perfect cannons, that your own progress may contribute to
     make war rarer in the world." Then will men, amazed at their
     own destructive progress, be drawn together by brotherly
     love, by the development of common knowledge and sympathy,
     and by the study of geography be led to know that there is
     plenty of room for every one in the world to contribute to
     progress and civilization.

     Americans! these sentiments are graven in your country; in
     point of fact, it is a proof of the harmony that reigns in
     this Congress between guests come from all parts of the
     world, that I, an Italian, am allowed to address you in my
     own language on American ground, near the Tyrolean Alps,
     greeted by the music of the Républicaine French Garde,
     united in eternal bonds of friendship by the two great
     goddesses of the modern world,--Science and Peace.

The last speaker of the evening was Hon. Frederick W. Lehmann, Chairman
of the Exposition Committee on Congresses, who in eloquent periods set
forth the ambition of the city of St. Louis and the Exposition of 1904
in creating a Congress of intellect on the same high plane that had
characterized the educational ideals of the Exposition, and the intense
satisfaction which the officials of the Congress felt in its brilliant
outcome, and the possibilities which it promised for an unequaled
contribution to scientific literature.

At the close of these addresses the members of the Congress and the
spectators in the gallery sang, in full chorus and under the lead of the
Garde Républicaine Band, the various national anthems, closing with "The
Star Spangled Banner."


PUBLICATION OF THE REPORT

In accordance with the recommendation of the Administrative Board to the
Committee on Congresses, the Executive Committee appointed Dr. Howard J.
Rogers, Director of Congresses, editor of the proceedings of the
Congress of Arts and Science. The Congress records were removed from St.
Louis to Albany, New York, the home of the Director, from which place
the publication has been prepared. Upon collecting the papers it was
found that they could be divided logically, and with a fair degree of
similarity in size, into eight volumes, each of which should cover a
definite and distinct portion of the programme. These are as follows:--

  Volume 1. History of the Congress, Scientific Plan of the Congress,
            Philosophy, Mathematics.
  Volume 2. Political and Economic History, History of Law, History
            of Religion.
  Volume 3. History of Language, History of Literature, History of
            Art.
  Volume 4. Physics, Chemistry, Astronomy, Sciences of the Earth.
  Volume 5. Biology, Anthropology, Psychology, Sociology.
  Volume 6. Medicine, Technology.
  Volume 7. Economics, Politics, Jurisprudence, Social Science.
  Volume 8. Education, Religion.

The details and specifications of the volumes were prepared for
competitive bids and submitted to twelve of the prominent publishers of
the country. The most advantageous bid was received from Houghton,
Mifflin & Company of Boston, Mass., and was accepted by the Exposition
Company. The Administrative Board and the authorities Of the Exposition
feel deeply pleased at the result, inasmuch as the imprint of this firm
guarantees a work in full accord with the high plane upon which the
Congress has been conducted.

It was determined to print the entire proceedings in the English
language, inasmuch as the Congress was held in an English-speaking
country and the vast majority of the papers were read in that language.
The consent of every foreign speaker was obtained for this procedure. It
was found, after collecting, that the number of addresses to be
translated was forty-four. The translators were selected by the editor
upon the advice of the members of the Administrative Board and
Organizing Committee, and great care was taken to find persons not only
thoroughly trained in the two languages and possessing a good English
style, but also persons who were thoroughly conversant with the subject
on which the paper treated. Many of the translators were suggested by
the foreign speakers themselves. As a result of this careful selection,
the editor feels confident that the original value of the papers has
been in no wise detracted from, and that both in form and content the
translations are thoroughly satisfactory.

It will be found that some addresses are not closely related to the
scheme of the Congress. Either through some misunderstanding of the
exact purpose of the Congress, or through too close devotion to their
own particular phase of investigation, some half-dozen speakers
submitted papers dealing with special lines of work. These, while
valuable and scholarly from their standpoint, do not accord with a
series of papers prepared with a view to general relations and
historical perspective. The exceptions are so few, however, as not
seriously to interfere with the unity of the plan.

In the arrangement of the papers the order of the official programme is
followed exactly, with the exception that, under Historical Science,
Departments 3, 4, and 8, covering History of Politics, Law, and
Religion, are combined in one volume; and Departments 5, 6, and 7,
covering History of Language, Literature, and Art, are combined in the
succeeding volume. In volume one, the first chapter is devoted to the
history of the Congress, written by the editor, in which is set forth
the plain narrative of the growth and development of the Congress, as
much for the benefit of similar undertakings in the future as for the
interest of those participating in this Congress. The second chapter
contains the scientific introduction, written by Prof. Hugo Münsterberg
of Harvard University, First Vice-President of the Congress and Member
of the Organizing Committee. This is written for the purpose of giving
in detail the principles upon which the classification was based, and
the relations which the different sections and departments held to each
other.

Each paper is prefaced by a very short biographical note in categorical
form, for the purpose of insuring the identity of the speaker as long in
the future as the volumes may exist. Appended to the addresses of each
department is a short bibliography, which is essential for a general
study of the subject in question. These are in no wise exhaustive or
complete, but are rather designed to be a small, valuable, working
reference library for students. The bibliographies have been prepared by
eminent experts in the departments of the Congress, but are necessarily
somewhat uneven, as some of the writers have gone into the subject more
thoroughly than others. The general arrangement of the bibliographies
is: 1. Historical books and standard works dealing with the subject. 2.
General books for the whole department. 3. Books for sections of
departments.

Appended also to the addresses of each department and sections are
résumés of the ten-minute addresses delivered by invitation at the
meeting of the department or section. Many of these papers are of high
value; but inasmuch as very few of them were written in accord with the
plan of the Congress, and with the main thought to be developed by the
Congress, but deal rather with some interesting and detached phase of
the subject, it has been deemed best not to print them in full, but to
indicate in brief the subject and the treatment given it by the writer.
Those which do accord with the plan of the Congress are given more
extensive treatment.


CONCLUSION

What the results of the Congress will be; what influence it may have;
was it worth the work and cost, are questions often fairly asked.

The lasting results and influences are of course problematical. They
depend upon the character and soundness of the addresses, and whether
the uniform strength of the publication will make the work as a whole,
what it undoubtedly is in parts, a source-book for the future on the
bases of scientific theory at the beginning of the twentieth century,
and a reliable sketch of the growth of science during the nineteenth
century. Critical study of the addresses will alone determine this, but
from the favorable reception of those already published in reviews, and
from editorial acquaintance with the others, it seems assured. That
portion of the section addresses which deals with the inter-relations of
science and demonstrates both its unity and variety of processes is new
and authoritative thought, and will be the basis of much discussion and
remodeling of theories in the future. The immediate results of the
Congress are highly satisfactory, and fully repay the work and the cost
both from a scientific and an exposition standpoint. As an
acknowledgment of the prominence of scientific methods, as a public
recognition of the work of scientists, as the means of bringing to one
place the most noted assemblage of thinkers the world has ever seen, as
an opportunity for scholars to meet and know each other better, the
Congress was an unqualified success and of enduring reputation. From the
Exposition point of view, it was equally a success; not financially, nor
was there ever a thought that it would be. Probably not more than seven
thousand persons outside of St. Louis came primarily to attend the
Congress, and their admission fees were a bagatelle; the revenue derived
from the sale of the _Proceedings_ will not meet the cost of printing.
There has been no money value sought for in the Congress,--none
received. Its value to the Exposition lies solely in the fact that it is
the final argument to the world of the initial claims of the officials
of the Exposition that its purpose was purely educational. Coördinate
with the material exhibits, sought, classified, and installed on a
rigidly scientific classification, the Congress, which relates,
illumines, and defends the principles upon which the material portion
was founded, has triumphantly vindicated the good faith, the wisdom, and
the foresight of the Universal Exposition of 1904. This printed record
of its proceedings will be a monument not only to the spirit of Science,
but to the spirit of the Exposition, which will endure as long as the
records of man are preserved.

       *     *     *     *     *

In conclusion, the editor wishes to express his obligations to the many
speakers and officers of the Congress, who have evinced great interest
in the publication and assisted by valuable suggestions and advice. In
particular, he acknowledges the help of President Butler of Columbia
University, Professor Münsterberg of Harvard University, and Professor
Small of the University of Chicago. Acknowledgments are with justice and
pleasure made to the Committee on Congresses of the Exposition, and the
able chairman, Hon. Frederick W. Lehmann, for their unwavering and
prompt support on all matters of policy and detail, without which the
full measure of success could not have been achieved. To the efficient
secretary of the Department of Congresses, Mr. James Green Cotchett, an
expression of obligation is due for his indefatigable labors during the
Congress period, and for his able and painstaking work in compiling the
detailed records of this publication.

At a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Exposition on January 3,
1905, there was unanimously voted the following resolution, recommended
by the Administrative Board and approved by the Committee on
Congresses:--

MOVED: that a vote of thanks and an expression of deepest obligation be
tendered to Dr. Simon Newcomb, President of the Congress, Prof. Hugo
Münsterberg, vice-president of the Congress, and Prof. Albion W. Small,
vice-president of the Congress, for their efficient, thorough, and
comprehensive work in connection with the programme of the Congress, the
selection and invitation of speakers, and the attention to detail in its
execution. That, in view of the enormous amount of labor devolving upon
these three gentlemen for the past eighteen months, to the exclusion of
all opportunities for literary and other work outside their college
departments, an honorarium of twenty-five hundred dollars be tendered to
each of them.

At a subsequent meeting the following resolution was also passed:--

MOVED: that the Directors of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company
place upon the record an expression of their appreciation of the
invaluable aid so freely given by the Administrative Board of the
Congress of Arts and Science. In organization, guidance, and results the
Congress was the most notable of its kind in history. For the important
part performed wisely and zealously by the Administrative Board the
Exposition Management extends this acknowledgment.


          SUMMARY OF EXPENSES OF THE CONGRESS

     Office expenses                             $7,025 82
     Travel                                       3,847 24
     Exploitation, Organizing Committee abroad    8,663 16
     Traveling expenses, American Speakers       31,350
     Traveling expenses, Foreign Speakers        49,000
     Honorariums                                  7,500
     Banquet                                      3,500
     Expenses for editing proceedings             5,875
     Estimated cost of printing proceedings      22,000     $138,761 22




  INTERNATIONAL

  CONGRESS OF ARTS AND SCIENCE

  UNIVERSAL EXPOSITION ST. LOUIS

  SEPTEMBER 19-25 1904

         *     *     *     *     *

  PROGRAMME AND LIST OF SPEAKERS




     PROGRAMME


  Purpose and Plan of the Congress
  Organization of the Congress
  Speakers and Chairmen
  Chronological Order of Proceedings
  Programme of Social Events
  List of Ten-minute Speakers
  List of Chairmen and Principal Speakers


     INDEX SUBJECTS


     Division A. Normative Science

  Department 1. Philosophy

  Sec. A. Metaphysics
       B. Philosophy of Religion
       C. Logic
       D. Methodology of Science
       E. Ethics
       F. Æsthetics

  Department 2. Mathematics

  Sec. A. Algebra and Analysis
       B. Geometry
       C. Applied Mathematics


     Division B. Historical Science

  Department 3. Political and Economic History

  Sec. A. History of Asia
       B. History of Greece and Rome
       C. Mediæval History
       D. Modern History of Europe
       E. History of America
       F. History of Economic Institutions

  Department 4. History of Law

  Sec. A. History of Roman Law
       B. History of Common Law
       C. Comparative Law

  Department 5. History of Language

  Sec. A. Comparative Language
       B. Semitic Language
       C. Indo-Iranian Languages
       D. Greek Language
       E. Latin Language
       F. English Language
       G. Romance Languages
       H. Germanic Languages

  Department 6. History of Literature

  Sec. A. Indo-Iranian Literature
       B. Classical Literature
       C. English Literature
       D. Romance Literature
       E. Germanic Literature
       F. Slavic Literature
       G. Belles-Lettres

  Department 7. History of Art

  Sec. A. Classical Art
       B. Modern Architecture
       C. Modern Painting

  Department 8. History of Religion

  Sec. A. Brahminism and Buddhism
       B. Mohammedism
       C. Old Testament
       D. New Testament
       E. History of the Christian Church


     Division C. Physical Science

  Department 9. Physics

  Sec. A. Physics of Matter
       B. Physics of Ether
       C. Physics of the Electron

  Department 10. Chemistry

  Sec. A. Inorganic Chemistry
       B. Organic Chemistry
       C. Physical Chemistry
       D. Physiological Chemistry

  Department 11. Astronomy

  Sec. A. Astrometry
       B. Astrophysics

  Department 12. Sciences of the Earth

  Sec. A. Geophysics
       B. Geology
       C. Palæontology
       D. Petrology and Mineralogy
       E. Physiography
       F. Geography
       G. Oceanography
       H. Cosmical Physics

  Department 13. Biology

  Sec. A. Phylogeny
       B. Plant Morphology
       C. Plant Physiology
       D. Plant Pathology
       E. Ecology
       F. Bacteriology
       G. Animal Morphology
       H. Embryology
       I. Comparative Anatomy
       J. Human Anatomy
       K. Physiology

  Department 14. Anthropology

  Sec. A. Somatology
       B. Archæology
       C. Ethnology


     Division D. Mental Science

  Department 15. Psychology

  Sec. A. General Psychology
       B. Experimental Psychology
       C. Comparative and Genetic Psychology
       D. Abnormal Psychology

  Department 16. Sociology

  Sec. A. Social Structure
       B. Social Psychology


     Division E. Utilitarian Sciences

  Department 17. Medicine

  Sec. A. Public Health
       B. Preventive Medicine
       C. Pathology
       D. Therapeutics and Pharmacology
       E. Internal Medicine
       F. Neurology
       G. Psychiatry
       H. Surgery
       I. Gynecology
       J. Ophthalmology
       K. Otology and Laryngology
       L. Pediatrics

  Department 18. Technology

  Sec. A. Civil Engineering
       B. Mechanical Engineering
       C. Electrical Engineering
       D. Mining Engineering
       E. Technical Chemistry
       F. Agriculture

  Department 19. Economic

  Sec. A. Economic Theory
       B. Transportation
       C. Commerce and Exchange
       D. Money and Credit
       E. Public Finance
       F. Insurance


     Division F. Social Regulation

  Department 20. Politics

  Sec. A. Political Theory
       B. Diplomacy
       C. National Administration
       D. Colonial Administration
       E. Municipal Administration

  Department 21. Jurisprudence

  Sec. A. International Law
       B. Constitutional Law
       C. Private Law

  Department 22. Social Science

  Sec. A. The Family
       B. The Rural Community
       C. The Urban Community
       D. The Industrial Group
       E. The Dependent Group
       F. The Criminal Group


     Division G. Social Culture

  Department 23. Education

  Sec. A. Educational Theory
       B. The School
       C. The College
       D. The University
       E. The Library

  Department 24. Religion

  Sec. A. General Religious Education
       B. Professional Religious Education
       C. Religious Agencies
       D. Religious Work
       E. Religious Influence: Personal
       F. Religious Influence: Social




PURPOSE AND PLAN OF THE CONGRESS


The idea of the Congress grows out of the thought that the subdivision
and multiplication of specialties in science has reached a stage at
which investigators and scholars may derive both inspiration and profit
from a general survey of the various fields of learning, planned with a
view of bringing the scattered sciences into closer mutual relations.
The central purpose is the unification of knowledge, an effort toward
which seems appropriate on an occasion when the nations bring together
an exhibit of their arts and industries. An assemblage is therefore to
be convened at which leading representatives of theoretical and applied
sciences shall set forth those general principles and fundamental
conceptions which connect groups of sciences, review the historical
development of special sciences, show their mutual relations and discuss
their present problems.

The speakers to treat the various themes are selected in advance from
the European and American continents. The discussions will be arranged
on the following general plan:--

After the opening of the Congress on Monday afternoon, September 19,
will follow, on Tuesday forenoon, addresses on main divisions of science
and its applications, the general theme being the unification of each of
the fields treated. These will be followed by two addresses on each of
the twenty-four great departments of knowledge. The theme of one address
in each case will be the Fundamental Conceptions and Methods, while the
other will set forth the progress during the last century. The preceding
addresses will be delivered by Americans, making the work of the first
two days the contribution of American scholars.

On the third day, with the opening of the sections, the international
work will begin. One hundred twenty-eight sectional meetings will be
held on the four remaining days of the Congress, at each of which two
papers will be read, the theme of one being suggested by the relations
of the special branch treated to other branches; the other by its
present problems. Three hours will be devoted to each sectional meeting,
thus enabling each hearer to attend eight such meetings, if he so
desires. The programme is so arranged that related subjects will be
treated, as far as possible, at different times. The length of the
principal addresses being limited to forty-five minutes each, there will
remain at least one hour for five or six brief communications in each
section. The addresses in each department will be collected and
published in a special volume.

It is hoped that the living influence of this meeting will be yet more
important than the formal addresses, and that the scholars whose names
are announced in the following programme of speakers and chairmen will
form only a nucleus for the gathering of thousands who feel in sympathy
with the efforts to bring unity into the world of knowledge.




  ORGANIZATION OF THE CONGRESS

       *     *     *     *     *

  PRESIDENT OF THE EXPOSITION:
  HON. DAVID R. FRANCIS, A.M., LL.D.

  DIRECTOR OF CONGRESSES,
  HOWARD J. ROGERS, A.M., LL.D.
  _Universal Exposition, 1904._

       *     *     *     *     *


  ADMINISTRATIVE BOARD

  NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER, PH.D., LL.D.
  _President of Columbia University, Chairman._

  WILLIAM R. HARPER, PH.D., LL.D.
  _President of the University of Chicago._

  R. H. JESSE, PH.D., LL.D.
  _President of the University of Missouri._

  HENRY S. PRITCHETT, PH.D., LL.D.
  _President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology._

  HERBERT PUTNAM, LITT.D., LL.D.
  _Librarian of Congress._

  FREDERICK J. V. SKIFF, A.M.
  _Director of the Field Columbian Museum._

       *     *     *     *     *


  OFFICERS OF THE CONGRESS

  PRESIDENT:
  SIMON NEWCOMB, PH.D., LL.D.
  _Retired Professor U. S. N._

  VICE-PRESIDENTS:
  HUGO MÜNSTERBERG, PH.D., LL.D.
  _Professor of Psychology in Harvard University._

  ALBION W. SMALL, PH.D., LL.D.
  _Professor of Sociology in The University of Chicago._

  HONORARY VICE-PRESIDENTS:
  RIGHT HONORABLE JAMES BRYCE, M.P.
  GREAT BRITAIN.

  M. GASTON DARBOUX,
  FRANCE.

  PROFESSOR WILHELM WALDEYER,
  GERMANY.

  DR. OSKAR BACKLUND,
  RUSSIA.

  PROFESSOR THEODORE ESCHERICH,
  AUSTRIA.

  SIGNOR ATTILIO BRUNIALTI,
  ITALY.

  PROFESSOR N. HOZUMI,
  JAPAN.

  EXECUTIVE SECRETARY:
  DR. L. O. HOWARD,
  _Permanent Secretary American Association
  for the Advancement of Science_.




     SPEAKERS AND CHAIRMEN

         *     *     *     *     *


          DIVISION A--NORMATIVE SCIENCE

  SPEAKER: PROFESSOR JOSIAH ROYCE, Harvard University.

        (_Hall 6, September 20, 10 a. m._)

         *     *     *     *     *


     DEPARTMENT 1--PHILOSOPHY
  (_Hall 6, September 20, 11.15 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN: PROFESSOR BORDEN P. BOWNE, Boston University.
  SPEAKERS: PROFESSOR GEORGE H. HOWISON, University of California.
            PROFESSOR GEORGE T. LADD, Yale University.


  SECTION A. METAPHYSICS. (_Hall 6, September 21, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR A. C. ARMSTRONG, Wesleyan University.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR A. E. TAYLOR, McGill University, Montreal.
             PROFESSOR ALEXANDER T. ORMOND, Princeton University.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR A. O. LOVEJOY, Washington University,


  SECTION B. PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. (_Hall 1, September 21, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR THOMAS C. HALL, Union Theological Seminary, N. Y.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR OTTO PFLEIDERER, University of Berlin.
             PROFESSOR ERNST TROELTSCH, University of Heidelberg.
  SECRETARY: DR. W. P. MONTAGUE, Columbia University.


  SECTION C. LOGIC. (_Hall 6, September 22, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR GEORGE M. DUNCAN, Yale University.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR WILLIAM A. HAMMOND, Cornell University.
             PROFESSOR FREDERICK J. E. WOODBRIDGE, Columbia University.
  SECRETARY: DR. W. H. SHELDON, Columbia University.


  SECTION D. METHODOLOGY OF SCIENCE. (_Hall 6, September 22, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR JAMES E. CREIGHTON, Cornell University.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR WILHELM OSTWALD, University of Leipzig.
             PROFESSOR BENNO ERDMANN, University of Bonn.
  SECRETARY: DR. R. B. PERRY, Harvard University.


  SECTION E. ETHICS. (_Hall 6, September 23, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR GEORGE H. PALMER, Harvard University.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR WILLIAM R. SORLEY, University of Cambridge.
             PROFESSOR PAUL HENSEL, University of Erlangen.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR F. C. SHARP, University of Wisconsin.


  SECTION F. AESTHETICS. (_Hall 4, September 23, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR JAMES H. TUFTS, University of Chicago.
  SPEAKERS:  DR. HENRY RUTGERS MARSHALL, New York City.
             PROFESSOR MAX DESSOIR, University of Berlin.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR MAX MEYER, University of Missouri.


     DEPARTMENT 2--MATHEMATICS
  (_Hall 7, September 20, 11.15 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR HENRY S. WHITE, Northwestern University.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR MAXIME BOCHER, Harvard University.
             PROFESSOR JAMES P. PIERPONT, Yale University.


  SECTION A. ALGEBRA AND ANALYSIS. (_Hall 9, September 22, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR E. H. MOORE, University of Chicago.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR EMILE PICARD, the Sorbonne; Member of the Institute
               of France.
             PROFESSOR HEINRICH MASCHKE, University of Chicago.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR G. A. BLISS, University of Chicago.


  SECTION B. GEOMETRY. (_Hall 9, September 24, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR M. W. HASKELL, University of California.
  SPEAKERS:  M. GASTON DARBOUX, Perpetual Secretary of The Academy of
               Sciences, Paris.
             DR. EDWARD KASNER, Columbia University.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR THOMAS J. HOLGATE, Northwestern University.


  SECTION C. APPLIED MATHEMATICS. (_Hall 7, September 24, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR ARTHUR G. WEBSTER, Clark University, Worcester,
               Mass.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR LUDWIG BOLTZMANN, University of Vienna.
             PROFESSOR HENRI POINCARÉ, the Sorbonne; Member of the
               Institute of France.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR HENRY T. EDDY, University of Minnesota.




          DIVISION B--HISTORICAL SCIENCE

        (_Hall 3, September 20, 10 a. m._)

  SPEAKER: PRESIDENT WOODROW WILSON, Princeton University.


     DEPARTMENT 3--POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY
  (_Hall 4, September 20, 11.15 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR WILLIAM M. SLOANE, Columbia University.
             PROFESSOR JAMES H. ROBINSON, Columbia University.


  SECTIONS A AND B. HISTORY OF GREECE, ROME, AND ASIA. (_Hall 3,
              September 21, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR THOMAS D. SEYMOUR, Yale University.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR JOHN P. MAHAFFY, University of Dublin.
             PROFESSOR ETTORE PAIS, University of Naples. Director
               of the National Museum of Antiquities, Naples.
             PROFESSOR HENRI CORDIER, Ecole Des Langues Vivantes
               Orientales, Paris.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR EDWARD CAPPS, University of Chicago.


  SECTION C. MEDIAEVAL HISTORY. (_Hall 6, September 21, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR CHARLES H. HASKINS, Harvard University.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR KARL LAMPRECHT, University of Leipzig.
             PROFESSOR GEORGE B. ADAMS, Yale University.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR EARLE W. DOW, University of Michigan.


  SECTION D. MODERN HISTORY OF EUROPE. (_Hall 3, September 22,
                 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  HONORABLE JAMES B. PERKINS, Rochester, N. Y.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR J. B. BURY, University of Cambridge.
             PROFESSOR CHARLES W. COLBY, Mcgill University, Montreal.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR FERDINAND SCHWILL, University of Chicago.


  SECTION E. HISTORY OF AMERICA. (_Hall 1, September 24, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  DR. JAMES SCHOULER, Boston.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR FREDERIC J. TURNER, University of Wisconsin.
             PROFESSOR EDWARD G. BOURNE, Yale University.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR EVARTS B. GREENE, University of Illinois.


  SECTION F. HISTORY OF ECONOMIC INSTITUTIONS. (_Hall 2, September 23,
                 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR FRANK A. FETTER, Cornell University.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR J. E. CONRAD, University of Halle.
             PROFESSOR SIMON N. PATTEN, University of Pennsylvania.
  SECRETARY: DR. J. PEASE NORTON, Yale University.


     DEPARTMENT 4--HISTORY OF LAW
  (_Hall 5, September 20, 11.15 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN: HONORABLE DAVID J. BREWER, Associate Justice of the Supreme
              Court of the United States.
  SPEAKERS: HONORABLE EMLIN MCCLAIN, Judge of the Supreme Court of Iowa,
              Iowa City.
            PROFESSOR NATHAN ABBOTT, Leland Stanford Jr. University.


  SECTION A. HISTORY OF ROMAN LAW. (_Hall 11, September 21, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:
  SPEAKERS:  MR. W. H. BUCKLER, Baltimore, Md.
             PROFESSOR MUNROE SMITH, Columbia University.


  SECTION B. HISTORY OF COMMON LAW. (_Hall 11, September 21, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR JOHN D. LAWSON, University of Missouri.
  SPEAKERS:  HONORABLE SIMEON E. BALDWIN, Judge of the Supreme Court of
               Errors, New Haven, Conn.
             PROFESSOR JOHN H. WIGMORE, Northwestern University.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR C. H. HUBERICH, University of Texas.


  SECTION C. COMPARATIVE LAW. (_Hall 14, September 24, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  HONORABLE JACOB M. DICKINSON, Chicago.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR NOBUSHIGE HOZUMI, University of Tokio.
             PROFESSOR ALFRED NERINCX, University of Louvain.
  SECRETARY:


     DEPARTMENT 5--HISTORY OF LANGUAGE
  (_Hall 4, September 20, 2 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR GEORGE HEMPL, University of Michigan.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR T. R. LOUNSBURY, Yale University.
             PRESIDENT BENJAMIN IDE WHEELER, University of California.


  SECTION A. COMPARATIVE LANGUAGE. (_Hall 4, September 21, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR FRANCIS A. MARCH, Lafayette College.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR CARL D. BUCK, University of Chicago.
             PROFESSOR HANS OERTEL, Yale University.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR E. W. FAY, University of Texas, Austin, Texas.


  SECTION B. SEMITIC LANGUAGES. (_Hall 4, September 21, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR G. F. MOORE, Harvard University.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR JAMES A. CRAIG, University of Michigan.
             PROFESSOR CRAWFORD H. TOY, Harvard University.
  SECRETARY:


  SECTION C. INDO-IRANIAN LANGUAGES. (_Hall 8, September 22, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR SYLVAIN LÉVI, Collège de France, Paris.
             PROFESSOR ARTHUR A. MACDONELL, University of Oxford.
  SECRETARY:


  SECTION D. GREEK LANGUAGE. (_Hall 3, September 22, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR MARTIN L. D'OOGE, University of Michigan.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR HERBERT W. SMYTH, Harvard University.
             PROFESSOR MILTON W. HUMPHREYS, University of Virginia.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR J. E. HARRY, University of Cincinnati.


  SECTION E. LATIN LANGUAGE. (_Hall 9, September 23, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR MAURICE HUTTON, University of Toronto.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR E. A. SONNENSCHEIN, University of Birmingham.
             PROFESSOR WILLIAM G. HALE, University of Chicago.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR F. W. SHIPLEY, Washington University.


  SECTION F. ENGLISH LANGUAGE. (_Hall 3, September 23, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR CHARLES M. GAYLEY, University of California.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR OTTO JESPERSEN, University of Copenhagen.
             PROFESSOR GEORGE L. KITTREDGE, Harvard University.
  SECRETARY:


  SECTION G. ROMANCE LANGUAGES. (_Hall 5, September 24, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR PAUL MEYER, Collège de France, Paris.
             PROFESSOR HENRY A. TODD, Columbia University.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR E. E. BRANDON, Miami University.


  SECTION H. GERMANIC LANGUAGES. (_Hall 3, September 24, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR GUSTAF E. KARSTEN, Cornell University.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR EDUARD SIEVERS, University of Leipzig.
             PROFESSOR HERMAN COLLITZ, Bryn Mawr College.
  SECRETARY:


     DEPARTMENT 6--HISTORY OF LITERATURE
  (_Hall 6, September 20, 4.15 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR JAMES A. HARRISON, University of Virginia.
             PROFESSOR CHARLES M. GAYLEY, University of California.


  SECTION A. INDO-IRANIAN LITERATURE. (_Hall 8, September 24, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR MAURICE BLOOMFIELD, Johns Hopkins University.
  SPEAKER:   PROFESSOR A. V. W. JACKSON, Columbia University.
  SECRETARY:


  SECTION B. CLASSICAL LITERATURE. (_Hall 3, September 21, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR ANDREW F. WEST, Princeton University.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR PAUL SHOREY, University of Chicago.
             PROFESSOR JOHN H. WRIGHT, Harvard University.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR F. G. MOORE, Dartmouth College.


  SECTION C. ENGLISH LITERATURE. (_Hall 1, September 22, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR FRANCIS B. GUMMERE, Haverford College.
             PROFESSOR JOHN HOOPS, University of Heidelberg.
  SECRETARY:


  SECTION D. ROMANCE LITERATURE. (_Hall 8, September 22, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR ADOLPHE COHN, Columbia University.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR PIO RAJNA, Institute of Higher Studies, Florence,
               Italy.
             PROFESSOR ALCÉE FORTIER, Tulane University, New Orleans.
  SECRETARY: DR. COMFORT, Haverford College.


  SECTION E. GERMANIC LITERATURE. (_Hall 3, September 23, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR KUNO FRANCKE, Harvard University.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR AUGUST SAUER, University of Prague.
             PROFESSOR J. MINOR, University of Vienna.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR D. K. JESSEN, Bryn Mawr College.


  SECTION F. SLAVIC LITERATURE. (_Hall 8, September 21, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  MR. CHARLES R. CRANE, Chicago.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR LEO WIENER, Harvard University.
             PROFESSOR PAUL BOYER, Ecole Des Langues Vivantes
               Orientales, Paris.
  SECRETARY: MR. S. N. HARPER, University of Chicago.


  SECTION G. BELLES-LETTRES. (_Hall 3, September 24, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR ROBERT HERRICK, University of Chicago.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR HENRY SCHOFIELD, Harvard University.
             PROFESSOR BRANDER MATTHEWS, Columbia University.
  SECRETARY:


     DEPARTMENT 7--HISTORY OF ART
  (_Hall 8, September 20, 11.15 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR HALSEY C. IVES, Washington University, St. Louis.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR RUFUS B. RICHARDSON, New York, N. Y.
             PROFESSOR JOHN C. VAN DYKE, Rutgers College.


  SECTION A. CLASSICAL ART. (_Hall 12, September 22, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR RUFUS B. RICHARDSON, New York City.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR ADOLPH FURTWANGLER, University Of Munich.
             PROFESSOR FRANK B. TARBELL, University of Chicago.
  SECRETARY: DR. P. BAUR, Yale University.


  SECTION B. MODERN ARCHITECTURE. (_Hall 7, September 22, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  MR. CHARLES F. MCKIM, New York City.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR C. ENLART, University of Paris.
             PROFESSOR ALFRED D. F. HAMLIN, Columbia University.
  SECRETARY: MR. GUY LOWELL, Boston, Mass.


  SECTION C. MODERN PAINTING. (_Hall 4, September 24, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR RICHARD MUTHER, University of Breslau.
             MR. OKAKURA KAKUZO, Japan.
  SECRETARY:


     DEPARTMENT 8--HISTORY OF RELIGION
  (_Hall 5, September 20, 2 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  REV. WM. ELIOT GRIFFIS, Ithaca, N. Y.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR GEORGE F. MOORE, Harvard University.
             PROFESSOR NATHANIEL SCHMIDT, Cornell University.


  SECTION A. BRAHMANISM AND BUDDHISM. (_Hall 8, September 23, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR HERMANN OLDENBERG, University of Kiel.
             PROFESSOR MAURICE BLOOMFIELD, Johns Hopkins University.
  SECRETARY: DR. REGINALD C. ROBBINS, Harvard University.


  SECTION B.  MOHAMMEDISM. (_Hall 8, September 23, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR JAMES R. JEWETT, University of Chicago.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR IGNAZ GOLDZIHER, University of Budapest.
             PROFESSOR DUNCAN B. MACDONALD, Hartford Theological Seminary.
  SECRETARY:


  SECTION C. OLD TESTAMENT. (_Hall 4, September 22, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR A. S. CARRIER, McCormick Theological Seminary.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR JAMES F. MCCURDY, University College of Toronto.
             PROFESSOR KARL BUDDE, University of Marburg.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR JAMES A. KELSO, Western Theological Seminary,
               Allegheny, Pa.


  SECTION D. NEW TESTAMENT. (_Hall 1, September 23, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR ANDREW C. ZENOS, McCormick Theological Seminary.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR BENJAMIN W. BACON, Yale University.
             PROFESSOR ERNEST D. BURTON, University of Chicago.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR CLYDE W. VOTAW, University of Chicago.


  SECTION E. HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. (_Hall 2, September 24,
                 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  DR. ERI BAKER HULBERT, University of Chicago.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR ADOLF HARNACK, University of Berlin.
             PROFESSOR JEAN RÉVILLE, Faculty of Protestant Theology,
               Paris.
  SECRETARY:




          DIVISION C--PHYSICAL SCIENCE

        (_Hall 4, September 20, 10 a. m._)

  SPEAKER:   PROFESSOR ROBERT S. WOODWARD, Columbia University.


     DEPARTMENT 9--PHYSICS
  (_Hall 6, September 20, 2 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR HENRY CREW, Northwestern University.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR EDWARD L. NICHOLS, Cornell University.
             PROFESSOR CARL BARUS, Brown University.


  SECTION A. PHYSICS OF MATTER. (_Hall 11, September 23, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR SAMUEL W. STRATTON, Director of The National
               Bureau of Standards, Washington.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR ARTHUR L. KIMBALL, Amherst College.
             PROFESSOR FRANCIS E. NIPHER, Washington University.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR R. A. MILLIKEN, University of Chicago.


  SECTION B. PHYSICS OF ETHER. (_Hall 11, September 23, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR HENRY CREW, Northwestern University.
  SPEAKER:   PROFESSOR DEWITT B. BRACE, University of Nebraska.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR AUGUSTUS TROWBRIDGE, University of Wisconsin.


  SECTION C. PHYSICS OF THE ELECTRON. (_Hall 5, September 22, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR A. G. WEBSTERr, Clark University.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR P. LANGEVIN, Collège de France.
             PROFESSOR ERNEST RUTHERFURD, McGill University, Montreal.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR W. J. HUMPHREYS, University of Virginia.


     DEPARTMENT 10--CHEMISTRY
  (_Hall 5, September 20, 4.15 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR JAMES M. CRAFTS, Massachusetts Institute of
               Technology.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR JOHN U. NEF, University of Chicago.
             PROFESSOR FRANK W. CLARKE, Chief Chemist, U. S. Geological
               Survey.


  SECTION A. INORGANIC CHEMISTRY. (_Hall 16, September 21, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR JOHN W. MALLET, University of Virginia.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR HENRI MOISSAN, the Sorbonne; Member of the
               Institute of France.
             SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY, K.C.B., Royal Institution, London.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR WILLIAM L. DUDLEY, Vanderbilt University.


  SECTION B. ORGANIC CHEMISTRY. (_Hall 16, September 21, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR ALBERT B. PRESCOTT, University of Michigan.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR JULIUS STIEGLITZ, University of Chicago.
             PROFESSOR WILLIAM A. NOYES, National Bureau of Standards.
  SECRETARY:


  SECTION C. PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY. (_Hall 16, September 22, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR WILDER D. BANCROFT, Cornell University.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR J. H. VAN T'HOFF, University of Berlin.
             PROFESSOR ARTHUR A. NOYES, Massachusetts Institute of
               Technology.
  SECRETARY: MR. W. R. WHITNEY, Schenectady, N. Y.


  SECTION D. PHYSIOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY. (_Hall 16, September 22, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR WILDER O. ATWATER, Wesleyan University.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR O. COHNHEIM, University of Heidelberg.
             PROFESSOR RUSSELL H. CHITTENDEN, Yale University.
  SECRETARY: DR. C. L. ALSBERG, Harvard University.


     DEPARTMENT 11--ASTRONOMY
  (_Hall 8, September 20, 4.15 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:   PROFESSOR GEORGE C. COMSTOCK, Director of the Observatory,
                Madison, Wisconsin.
  SPEAKERS:   PROFESSOR LEWIS BOSS, Director of Dudley Observatory.
              PROFESSOR EDWARD C. PICKERING, Director of Harvard
                Observatory.


  SECTION A. ASTROMETRY. (_Hall 9, September 21, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR ORMOND STONE, University of Virginia.
  SPEAKERS:  DR. OSKAR BACKLUND, Director of the Observatory, Pulkowa,
               Russia.
             PROFESSOR JOHN C. KAPTEYN, University of Groningen, Holland.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR W. S. EICHELBERGER, U. S. Naval Observatory.


  SECTION B. ASTROPHYSICS. (_Hall 9, September 21, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR GEORGE E. HALE, Director of the Yerkes Observatory.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR HERBERT H. TURNER, F.R.S., University of Oxford.
             PROFESSOR WILLIAM W. CAMPBELL, Director of The Lick
               Observatory, Mt. Hamilton, California.
  SECRETARY: MR. W. S. ADAMS, Yerkes Observatory.


     DEPARTMENT 12--SCIENCES OF THE EARTH
  (_Hall 3, September 20, 11.15 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN: DR. G. K. GILBERT, U. S. Geological Survey.
  SPEAKERS: PROFESSOR THOMAS C. CHAMBERLIN, University of Chicago.
            PROFESSOR WILLIAM M. DAVIS, Harvard University.


  SECTION A. GEOPHYSICS. (_Hall 14, September 21, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR CHRISTOPHER W. HALL, University of Minnesota.
  SPEAKER:   DR. GEORGE F. BECKER, Geologist, U. S. Geological Survey.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR E. M. LEHNERTS, Minnesota State Normal School.


  SECTION B. GEOLOGY. (_Hall 14, September 21, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR T. C. CHAMBERLIN, University of Chicago.
  SPEAKERS:  PRESIDENT CHARLES R. VAN HISE, University of Wisconsin.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR R. D. SALISBURY, University of Chicago.


  SECTION C. PALAEONTOLOGY. (_Hall 11, September 22, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR WILLIAM B. SCOTT, Princeton University.
  SPEAKERS:  DR. A. S. WOODWARD, F.R.S., British Museum Of Natural
               History, London.
             PROFESSOR HENRY F. OSBORN, Columbia University.
  SECRETARY: DR. JOHN M. CLARKE, Albany, N. Y.


  SECTION D. PETROLOGY AND MINERALOGY. (_Hall 9, September 22, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  DR. OLIVER C. FARRINGTON, Field Columbian Museum, Chicago.
  SPEAKER:   PROFESSOR F. ZIRKEL, University of Leipzig.
  SECRETARY:


  SECTION E. PHYSIOGRAPHY. (_Hall 12, September 21, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  MR. HENRY GANNETT, United States Geological Survey.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR ALBRECHT PENCK, University of Vienna.
             PROFESSOR ISRAEL C. RUSSELL, University of Michigan.
  SECRETARY: DR. JOHN M. CLARKE, Albany, N. Y.


  SECTION F. GEOGRAPHY. (_Hall 11, September 22, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR ISRAEL C. RUSSELL, University of Michigan.
  SPEAKERS:  DR. HUGH R. MILL, Director British Rainfall Organization,
               London.
             PROFESSOR H. YULE OLDHAM, Cambridge, England.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR R. D. SALISBURY, University of Chicago.


  SECTION G. OCEANOGRAPHY. (_Hall 8, September 21, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  REAR-ADMIRAL JOHN R. BARTLETT, United States Navy.
  SPEAKERS:  SIR JOHN MURRAY, K.C.B., F.R.S., Edinburgh.
                    PROFESSOR K. MITSUKURI, University of Tokio.
  SECRETARY:


  SECTION H. COSMICAL PHYSICS. (_Hall 10, September 22, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR FRANCIS E. NIPHER, Washington University.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR SVANTE ARRHENIUS, University of Stockholm,
               Stockholm.
             DR. ABBOTT L. ROTCH, Blue Hill Observatory.
             DR. L. A. BAUER, Washington, D. C.
  SECRETARY:


     DEPARTMENT 13--BIOLOGY
  (_Hall 2, September 20, 11.15 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR WILLIAM G. FARLOW, Harvard University.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR JOHN M. COULTER, University of Chicago.
             PROFESSOR JACQUES LOEB, University of California.


  SECTION A. PHYLOGENY. (_Hall 2, September 21, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR T. H. MORGAN, Columbia University.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR HUGO DE VRIES, University of Amsterdam.
             PROFESSOR CHARLES O. WHITMAN, University of Chicago.
  SECRETARY:


  SECTION B. PLANT MORPHOLOGY. (_Hall 2, September 22, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR WILLIAM TRELEASE, Washington University, St. Louis.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR FREDERICK O. BOWER, University of Glasgow.
             PROFESSOR KARL F. GOEBEL, University of Munich.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR F. E. LLOYD, Columbia University.


  SECTION C. PLANT PHYSIOLOGY. (_Hall 4, September 22, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR CHARLES R. BARNES, University of Chicago.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR JULIUS WIESNER, University of Vienna.
             PROFESSOR BENJAMIN M. DUGGAR, University of Missouri.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR F. C. NEWCOMB, University of Michigan.


  SECTION D. PLANT PATHOLOGY. (_Hall 7, September 23, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR CHAS. E. BESSEY, University of Nebraska.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR JOSEPH C. ARTHUR, Purdue University.
             MERTON B. WAITE, U. S. Department of Agriculture.
  SECRETARY: DR. C. S. SHEAR, U. S. Department of Agriculture.


  SECTION E. ECOLOGY. (_Hall 7, September 23, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR OSKAR DRUDE, Kön. Technische Hochschule, Dresden.
             PROFESSOR BENJAMIN ROBINSON, Harvard University.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR F. E. CLEMENTS, University of Nebraska.


  SECTION F. BACTERIOLOGY. (_Hall 15, September 24, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR HAROLD C. ERNST, Harvard University.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR EDWIN O. JORDAN, University of Chicago.
             PROFESSOR THEOBALD SMITH, Harvard University.
  SECRETARY: DR. P. H. HISS, JR., Columbia University.


  SECTION G. ANIMAL MORPHOLOGY. (_Hall 2, September 21, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  DR. LELAND O. HOWARD, Department of Agriculture,
               Washington, D. C.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR CHARLES B. DAVENPORT, University of Chicago.
             PROFESSOR ALFRED GIARD, the Sorbonne; Member of the
               Institute of France.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR C. H. HERRICK, Dennison University.


  SECTION H. EMBRYOLOGY. (_Hall 9, September 23, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR SIMON H. GAGE, Cornell University.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR OSKAR HERTWIG, University of Berlin.
             PROFESSOR WILLIAM K. BROOKS, Johns Hopkins University.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR T. G. LEE, University of Minnesota.


  SECTION I. COMPARATIVE ANATOMY. (_Hall 2, September 24, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR JAMES P. MCMURRICH, University of Michigan.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR WILLIAM E. RITTER, University of California.
             PROFESSOR YVES DELAGE, the Sorbonne; Member of the Institute
               of France.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR HENRY B. WARD, University of Nebraska.


  SECTION J. HUMAN ANATOMY. (_Hall 2, September 22, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR GEORGE A. PIERSOL, University of Pennsylvania.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR WILHELM WALDEYER, University of Berlin.
             PROFESSOR H. H. DONALDSON, University of Chicago.
  SECRETARY: DR. R. J. TERRY, Washington University.


  SECTION K. PHYSIOLOGY. (_Hall 4, September 23, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  DR. S. J. MELTZER, New York.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR MAX VERWORN, University of Göttingen.
             PROFESSOR WILLIAM H. HOWELL, Johns Hopkins University.
  SECRETARY: DR. REID HUNT, Washington.


     DEPARTMENT 14--ANTHROPOLOGY
  (_Hall 8, September 20, 2 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR FREDERIC W. PUTNAM, Harvard University.
  SPEAKERS:  DR. W. J. MCGEE, President American Anthropological
               Association, Washington, D. C.
             PROFESSOR FRANZ BOAS, Columbia University.


  SECTION A. SOMATOLOGY. (_Hall 16, September 23, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  DR. EDWARD C. SPITZKA, New York City.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR L. MANOUVRIER, School of Anthropology, Paris.
             DR. GEORGE A. DORSEY, Field Columbian Museum, Chicago.
  SECRETARY: DR. E. A. SPITZKA, New York City.


  SECTION B. ARCHAEOLOGY. (_Hall 16, September 24, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  MR. M. H. SAVILLE, American Museum of Natural History,
               New York.
  SPEAKERS:  SEÑOR ALFREDO CHAVERO, Inspector of the National Museum,
               Mexico.
             PROFESSOR EDOUARD SELER, University of Berlin.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR WILLIAM C. MILLS, Ohio State University.


  SECTION C. ETHNOLOGY. (_Hall 16, September 24, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  MISS ALICE C. FLETCHER, President of the Washington
               Anthropological Society.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR FREDERICK STARR, University of Chicago.
             PROFESSOR A. C. HADDON, University of Cambridge.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR F. W. SHIPLEY, Washington University.




          DIVISION D--MENTAL SCIENCE

        (_Hall 7, September 20, 10 a. m._)

  SPEAKER: PRESIDENT G. STANLEY HALL, Clark University, Worcester, Mass.


     DEPARTMENT 15--PSYCHOLOGY
  (_Hall 7, September 20, 2 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR JAMES MCK. CATTELL, Columbia University.
             PROFESSOR J. MARK BALDWIN, Johns Hopkins University.


  SECTION A. GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY. (_Hall 6, September 23, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR JOS. ROYCE, Harvard University.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR HARALD HOEFFDING, University of Copenhagen.
             PROFESSOR JAMES WARD, University of Cambridge, England.
  SECRETARY: DR. W. H. DAVIS, Lehigh University.


  SECTION B. EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY. (_Hall 2, September 23, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR EDWARD A. PACE, Catholic University of America.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR ROBERT MACDOUGAL, New York University.
             PROFESSOR EDWARD B. TITCHENER, Cornell University.
  SECRETARY: DR. R. S. WOODWORTH, Columbia University.


  SECTION C. COMPARATIVE AND GENETIC PSYCHOLOGY. (_Hall 6, September 24,
               10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR EDMUND C. SANFORD, Clark University, Worcester,
               Mass.
  SPEAKERS:  PRINCIPAL C. LLOYD MORGAN, University College, Bristol.
             PROFESSOR MARY W. CALKINS, Wellesley College.
  SECRETARY: DR. R. M. YERKES, Harvard University.


  SECTION D. ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY. (_Hall 6, September 24, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  DR. EDWARD COWLES, Waverley, Mass.
  SPEAKERS:  DR. PIERRE JANET, Collège de France, Paris.
             DR. MORTON PRINCE, Boston.
  SECRETARY: DR. ADOLPH MEYER, New York City.


     DEPARTMENT 16--SOCIOLOGY
  (_Hall 7, September 20, 4.15 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR FRANK W. BLACKMAR, University of Kansas.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR FRANKLIN H. GIDDINGS, Columbia University.
             PROFESSOR GEORGE E. VINCENT, University of Chicago.


  SECTION A. SOCIAL STRUCTURE. (_Hall 15, September 21, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR FREDERICK W. MOORE, Vanderbilt University.
  SPEAKERS:  FIELD MARSHAL GUSTAV RATZENHOFER, Vienna.
             PROFESSOR F. TOENNIES, University of Kiel.
             PROFESSOR LESTER F. WARD, U. S. National Museum.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR JEROME DOWD, University of Wisconsin.


  SECTION B. SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY. (_Hall 15, September 23, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR CHARLES A. ELLWOOD, University of Missouri.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR WM. I. THOMAS, University of Chicago.
             PROFESSOR EDWARD A. ROSS, University of Nebraska.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR E. C. HAYES, Miami University.




          DIVISION E--UTILITARIAN SCIENCES

        (_Hall 1, September 20, 10 a. m._)

  SPEAKER: PRESIDENT DAVID STARR JORDAN, Leland Stanford Jr. University.


     DEPARTMENT 17--MEDICINE
  (_Hall 1, September 20, 4.15 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  DR. WILLIAM OSLER, Johns Hopkins University.
  SPEAKERS:  DR. WILLIAM T. COUNCILMAN, Harvard University.
             DR. FRANK BILLINGS, University of Chicago.


  SECTION A. PUBLIC HEALTH. (_Hall 13, September 21, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  DR. WALTER WYMAN, Surgeon-General of the U. S. Marine
               Hospital Service.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR WILLIAM T. SEDGWICK, Massachusetts Institute of
               Technology.
             DR. ERNST J. LEDERLE, Former Commissioner of Health, New
               York City.
  SECRETARY: DR. H. M. BRACKEN, St. Paul, Minn.


  SECTION B. PREVENTIVE MEDICINE. (_Hall 13, September 21, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  DR. JOSEPH M. MATHEWS, President of the State Board of
               Health, Louisville, Ky.
  SPEAKER:   PROFESSOR RONALD ROSS, F.R.S., School of Tropical Medicine,
               University College, Liverpool.
  SECRETARY: DR. J. N. HURTY, Indianapolis, Ind.


  SECTION C. PATHOLOGY. (_Hall 13, September 22, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR SIMON FLEXNER, Director of the Rockefeller
               Institute.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR LUDWIG HEKTOEN, University of Chicago.
             PROFESSOR JOHANNES ORTH, University of Berlin.
             PROFESSOR SHIBASABURO KITASATO, University of Tokio.
  SECRETARY: DR. W. MCN. MILLER, University of Missouri.


  SECTION D. THERAPEUTICS AND PHARMACOLOGY. (_Hall 13, September 24,
               3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  DR. HOBART A. HARE, Jefferson Medical College.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR OSCAR LIEBREICH, University of Berlin.
             SIR LAUDER BRUNTON, F.R.S., London.
  SECRETARY: DR. H. B. FAVILL, Chicago, Ill.


  SECTION E. INTERNAL MEDICINE. (_Hall 13, September 23, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR FREDERICK C. SHATTUCK, Harvard University.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR T. CLIFFORD ALLBUTT, F.R.S., University of
               Cambridge.
             PROFESSOR WILLIAM S. THAYER, Johns Hopkins University.
  SECRETARY: DR. R. C. CABOT, Boston, Mass.


  SECTION F. NEUROLOGY. (_Hall 13, September 22, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR LEWELLYN F. BARKER, University of Chicago.
  SPEAKER:   PROFESSOR JAMES J. PUTNAM, Harvard University.
  SECRETARY:


  SECTION G. PSYCHIATRY. (_Hall 7, September 22, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:
  SPEAKERS:  DR. CHARLES L. DANA, Cornell University, New York.
             DR. EDWARD COWLES, Boston.
  SECRETARY: DR. C. G. CHADDDOCK, St. Louis, Mo.


  SECTION H. SURGERY. (_Hall 13, September 23, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR CARL BECK, Post-Graduate Medical School, New York.
  SPEAKERS:  DR. FREDERIC S. DENNIS, F.R.C.S., Cornell Medical College,
               New York City.
             PROFESSOR JOHANNES ORTH, University of Berlin.
  SECRETARY: DR. J. F. BINNIE, Kansas City, Mo.


  SECTION I. GYNECOLOGY. (_Hall 13, September 24, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR HOWARD A. KELLY, Johns Hopkins University.
  SPEAKER:   PROFESSOR J. CLARENCE WEBSTER, Rush Medical College, Chicago.
  SECRETARY: DR. G. H. NOBLE, Atlanta, Ga.


  SECTION J. OPHTHALMOLOGY. (_Hall 7, September 24, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  DR. GEORGE C. HARLAN, Philadelphia, Pa.
  SPEAKERS:  DR. EDWARD JACKSON, Denver, Col.
             DR. GEORGE M. GOULD, Philadelphia, Pa.
  SECRETARY: DR. WM. M. SWEET, Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia,
               Pa.


  SECTION K. OTOLOGY AND LARYNGOLOGY. (_Hall 7, September 21, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR WILLIAM C. GLASGOW, Washington University,
               St. Louis.
  SPEAKER: SIR FELIX SEMON, C.V.O., Physician Extraordinary to His
               Majesty, the King, London.
  SECRETARY: DR. S. SPENCER, Allenhurst, N. J.


  SECTION L. PEDIATRICS. (_Hall 7, September 21, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR THOMAS M. ROTCH, Harvard University.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR THEODORE ESCHERICH, University of Vienna.
             PROFESSOR ABRAHAM JACOBI, Columbia University.
  SECRETARY: DR. SAMUEL S. ADAMS, Washington, D. C.


     DEPARTMENT 18--TECHNOLOGY.
  (_Hall 3, September 20, 2 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  CHANCELLOR WINFIELD S. CHAPLIN, Washington University,
               St. Louis.
  SPEAKER:   PROFESSOR HENRY T. BOVEY, F.R.S., McGill University,
               Montreal.


  SECTION A. CIVIL ENGINEERING. (_Hall 10, September 21, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR WILLIAM H. BURR, Columbia University.
  SPEAKERS:  DR. J. A. L. WADDELL, Consulting Engineer, Kansas City.
             MR. LEWIS M. HAUPT, Consulting Engineer, Philadelphia.
  SECRETARY:


  SECTION B. MECHANICAL ENGINEERING. (_Hall 10, September 23, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR JAMES E. DENTON, Stevens Institute of Technology.
  SPEAKER:   PROFESSOR ALBERT W. SMITH, Leland Stanford Jr. University.
  SECRETARY: MR. GEORGE DINKEL, JR., Jersey City.


  SECTION C. ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING. (_Hall 10, September 22, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR ARTHUR E. KENNELLY, Harvard University.
             PROFESSOR MICHAEL I. PUPIN, Columbia University.
  SECRETARY: MR. CARL HERING, Philadelphia, Pa.


  SECTION D. MINING ENGINEERING. (_Hall 11, September 24, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  MR. JOHN HAYS HAMMOND, New York City.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR ROBERT H. RICHARDS, Massachusetts Institute of
               Technology.
             PROFESSOR SAMUEL B. CHRISTY, University of California.
  SECRETARY: DR. JOSEPH STRUTHERS, New York City.


  SECTION E. TECHNICAL CHEMISTRY. (_Hall 16, September 23, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  DR. H. W. WILEY, Department of Agriculture.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR CHARLES E. MUNROE, George Washington University.
             PROFESSOR WILLIAM H. WALKER, Massachusetts Institute of
               Technology.
  SECRETARY: DR. MARCUS BENJAMIN, U. S. National Museum.


  SECTION F. AGRICULTURE. (_Hall 10, September 24, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR H. J. WHEELER, Kingston, R. I.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR CHARLES W. DABNEY, JR., University of Cincinnati.
             PROFESSOR LIBERTY H. BAILEY, Cornell University.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR WILLIAM HILL, University of Chicago.


     DEPARTMENT 19--ECONOMICS
  (_Hall 1, September 20, 11.15 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR EMORY R. JOHNSON, University of Pennsylvania.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR FRANK A. FETTER, Cornell University.
             PROFESSOR ADOLPH C. MILLER, University of California.


  SECTION A. ECONOMIC THEORY. (_Hall 15, September 22, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR JOHN B. CLARK, Columbia University.
             PROFESSOR JACOB H. HOLLANDER, Johns Hopkins University.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR JESSE E. POPE, University of Missouri.


  SECTION B. TRANSPORTATION. (_Hall 10, September 23, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR J. LAWRENCE LAUGHLIN, University of Chicago.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR EUGENE VON PHILIPPOVICH, University of Vienna.
             PROFESSOR WILLIAM Z. RIPLEY, Harvard University.
  SECRETARY: MR. GEORGE G. TUNELL, Chicago.


  SECTION C. COMMERCE AND EXCHANGE. (_Hall 10, September 24, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR E. D. JONES, University of Michigan.
             PROFESSOR CARL PLEHN, University of California.
  SECRETARY:


  SECTION D. MONEY AND CREDIT. (_Hall 5, September 24, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  MR. B. E. WALKER, Canadian Bank of Commerce, Toronto.
  SPEAKERS:  MR. HORACE WHITE, New York City.
             PROFESSOR J. LAWRENCE LAUGHLIN, University of Chicago.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR JOHN CUMMINGS, University of Chicago.


  SECTION E. PUBLIC FINANCE. (_Hall 1, September 21, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR HENRY C. ADAMS, University of Michigan.
             PROFESSOR EDWIN R. A. SELIGMAN, Columbia University.
  SECRETARY:


  SECTION F. INSURANCE. (_Hall 10, September 21, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  DR. EMORY MCCLINTOCK, Actuary, Mutual Life Insurance
               Company, New York.
  SPEAKERS:  MR. FREDERICK L. HOFFMAN, Statistician, Prudential
               Insurance Company, Newark.
             PROFESSOR BALTHASAR H. MEYER, University of Wisconsin.
  SECRETARY:




          DIVISION F--SOCIAL REGULATION

        (_Hall 2, September 20, 10 a. m._)

  SPEAKER: PROFESSOR ABBOTT L. LOWELL, Harvard University.


     DEPARTMENT 20--POLITICS
  (_Hall 2, September 20, 2 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR WILLIAM A. DUNNING, Columbia University.
             CHANCELLOR E. BENJAMIN ANDREWS, University of Nebraska.


  SECTIONS A AND C. POLITICAL THEORY AND NATIONAL ADMINISTRATION.
  (_Hall 15, September 22, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR W. W. WILLOUGHBY, Johns Hopkins University.
             PROFESSOR GEORGE G. WILSON, Brown University.
             RIGHT HON. JAMES BRYCE, London, England.
  SECRETARY: DR. CHARLES E. MERRIAM, University of Chicago.


  SECTION B. DIPLOMACY. (_Hall 1, September 23, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:
  SPEAKERS:  HONORABLE JOHN W. FOSTER, Ex-Secretary of State.
             HONORABLE DAVID JAYNE HILL, Minister of the United States
               to Switzerland.
  SECRETARY:


  SECTION D. COLONIAL ADMINISTRATION. (_Hall 4, September 24, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR HARRY P. JUDSON, University of Chicago.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR BERNARD J. MOSES, University of California.
             PROFESSOR PAUL S. REINSCH, University of Wisconsin.
  SECRETARY:


  SECTION E. MUNICIPAL ADMINISTRATION. (_Hall 15, September 24, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:
  SPEAKERS:  MR. ALBERT SHAW, Editor American Monthly Review of Reviews.
             MISS JANE ADDAMS, Hull House, Chicago.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR JOHN A. FAIRLIE, University of Michigan.


     DEPARTMENT 21--JURISPRUDENCE
  (_Hall 3, September 20, 4.15 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR GEORGE W. KIRCHWEY, Columbia University.
  SPEAKERS:  PRESIDENT CHARLES W. NEEDHAM, Columbian University,
               Washington.
             PROFESSOR JOSEPH H. BEALE, Harvard University.


  SECTION A. INTERNATIONAL LAW. (_Hall 14, September 22, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR JAMES B. SCOTT, Columbia University.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR H. LAFONTAINE, Member of the Senate, Brussels,
               Belgium.
             PROFESSOR CHARLES NOBLE GREGORY, University of Iowa.
             COUNT ALBERT APPONYI, Hungary.
  SECRETARY: DR. W. C. DENNIS, Leland Stanford Jr. University.


  SECTION B. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW. (_Hall 14, September 24, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR HENRY ST. GEORGE TUCKER, George Washington
               University, Washington.
  SPEAKERS:  SIGNOR ATTILIO BRUNIALTI, Councilor of State, Rome.
             PROFESSOR JOHN W. BURGESS, Columbia University.
             PROFESSOR FERDINAND LARNAUDE, University of Paris.
  SECRETARY:


  SECTION C. PRIVATE LAW. (_Hall 14, September 23, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR JAMES B. AMES, Dean, Harvard Law School.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR ERNST FREUND, University of Chicago.
             HONORABLE EDWARD B. WHITNEY, New York.
  SECRETARY: DEAN WILLIAM DRAPER LEWIS, University of Pennsylvania.


     DEPARTMENT 22--SOCIAL SCIENCE
  (_Hall 1, September 20, 2 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  MR. WALTER L. SHELDON, Ethical Society, St. Louis.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR FELIX ADLER, Columbia University.
             PROFESSOR GRAHAM TAYLOR, Chicago Theological Seminary.


  SECTION A. THE FAMILY. (_Hall 5, September 21, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR SAMUEL G. SMITH, University of Minnesota.
  SPEAKERS:  DR. SAMUEL W. DIKE, Auburndale, Mass.
             PROFESSOR GEORGE ELLIOTT HOWARD, University of Nebraska.
  SECRETARY:


  SECTION B. THE RURAL COMMUNITY. (_Hall 5, September 21, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  HON. AARON JONES, Master of National Grange, South Bend, Ind.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR MAX WEBER, University of Heidelberg.
             PRESIDENT KENYON L. BUTTERFIELD, Rhode Island State
               Agricultural College.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR WILLIAM HILL, University of Chicago.


  SECTION C. THE URBAN COMMUNITY. (_Hall 5, September 22, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR T. JASTROW, University of Berlin.
             PROFESSOR LOUIS WUARIN, University of Geneva.
  SECRETARY:


  SECTION D. THE INDUSTRIAL GROUP. (_Hall 14, September 22, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR WERNER SOMBART, University of Breslau.
             PROFESSOR RICHARD T. ELY, University of Wisconsin.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR THOMAS S. ADAMS, Madison, Wis.


  SECTION E. THE DEPENDENT GROUP. (_Hall 5, September 23, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  MR. ROBERT W. DEFOREST, New York City.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR CHARLES R. HENDERSON, University of Chicago.
             DR. EMIL MÜNSTERBERG, President City Charities, Berlin.
  SECRETARY:


  SECTION F. THE CRIMINAL GROUP. (_Hall 5, September 23, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:
  SPEAKER:   MR. FREDERICK H. WINES, Secretary State Charities Aid
               Association, Upper Montclair, N. J.
  SECRETARY:




          DIVISION G--SOCIAL CULTURE

        (_Hall 5, September 20, 10 a. m._)

  SPEAKER: HONORABLE WILLIAM T. HARRIS, United States Commissioner of
               Education.


     DEPARTMENT 23--EDUCATION
  (_Hall 2, September 20, 4.15 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:
  SPEAKERS:  PRESIDENT ARTHUR T. HADLEY, Yale University.
             THE RIGHT REV. JOHN L. SPALDING, Bishop of Peoria.


  SECTION A. EDUCATIONAL THEORY. (_Hall 12, September 24, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR CHARLES DEGARMO, Cornell University.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR WILHELM REIN, University of Jena.
             PROFESSOR ELMER E. BROWN, University of California.
  SECRETARY: DR. G. M. WHITTLE, Cornell University.


  SECTION B. THE SCHOOL. (_Hall 12, September 23, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  DR. F. LOUIS SOLDAN, Superintendent Public Schools,
               St. Louis.
  SPEAKERS:  DR. MICHAEL E. SADLER, University of Manchester.
             DR. WILLIAM H. MAXWELL, Superintendent Public Schools,
               New York City.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR A. S. LANGSDORF, Washington University.


  SECTION C. THE COLLEGE. (_Hall 12, September 23, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PRESIDENT W. S. CHAPLIN, Washington University.
  SPEAKERS:  PRESIDENT WILLIAM DEWITT HYDE, Bowdoin College.
             PRESIDENT M. CAREY THOMAS, Bryn Mawr College.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR H. H. HORNE, Dartmouth College.


  SECTION D. THE UNIVERSITY. (_Hall 12, September 24, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR C. CHABOT, University of Lyons.
             PROFESSOR EDWARD DELAVAN PERRY, Columbia University.
  SECRETARY:


  SECTION E. THE LIBRARY. (_Hall 12, September 22, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  MR. FREDERICK M. CRUNDEN, Librarian St. Louis Public Library.
  SPEAKERS:  MR. WILLIAM A. E. AXON, Manchester, England.
             PROFESSOR GUIDO BIAGI, Royal Librarian, Florence.
  SECRETARY: MR. C. P. PETTUS, Washington University.


     DEPARTMENT 24--RELIGION
  (_Hall 4, September 20, 4.15 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  BISHOP JOHN H. VINCENT, Chautauqua, N. Y.
  SPEAKERS:  PRESIDENT HENRY C. KING, Oberlin College.
             PROFESSOR FRANCIS G. PEABODY, Harvard University.


  SECTION A. GENERAL RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. (_Hall 11, September 24,
               3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR EDWIN D. STARBUCK, Earlham College, Richmond, Ind.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR GEORGE A. COE, Northwestern University.
             DR. WALTER L. HERVEY, Examiner Board of Education,
               New York City.
  SECRETARY:


  SECTION B. PROFESSIONAL RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. (_Hall 1, September 22,
               3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:
  SPEAKERS:  PRESIDENT CHARLES CUTHBERT HALL, Union Theological Seminary.
             PROFESSOR FRANK K. SANDERS, Yale University.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR HERBERT L. WILLETT, Disciples Divinity House,
               Chicago, Ill.


  SECTION C. RELIGIOUS AGENCIES. (_Hall 15, September 23, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PRESIDENT EDGAR C. MULLINS, Southern Baptist Theological
               Seminary, Louisville, Ky.
  SPEAKERS:  REV. WASHINGTON GLADDEN, Columbus, Ohio.
             REV. JAMES M. BUCKLEY, Editor The Christian Advocate,
               New York.
  SECRETARY: DR. IRA LANDRITH, General Secretary Religious Education
               Association, Chicago, Ill.


  SECTION D. RELIGIOUS WORK. (_Hall 1, September 24, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  RT. REV. THOMAS F. GAILOR, Memphis.
  SPEAKERS:  REV. FLOYD W. TOMKINS, Church of the Holy Trinity,
               Philadelphia.
             REV. HENRY C. MABIE, Corresponding Secretary, American
               Baptist Missionary Union.
  SECRETARY:


  SECTION E. RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE: PERSONAL. (_Festival Hall,
             September 25, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  CHANCELLOR J. H. KIRKLAND, Vanderbilt University.
  SPEAKERS:  REV. HUGH BLACK, Edinburgh, Scotland.
             PROFESSOR JOHN E. MCFADYEN, Knox College.
             REV. SAMUEL ELIOT, Boston, Mass.
             REV. EDWARD B. POLLARD, Georgetown, Ky.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR CLYDE W. VOTAW, University of Chicago.


  SECTION F. RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE: SOCIAL. (_Festival Hall, September 25,
             3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  DR. J. H. GARRISON, St. Louis.
  SPEAKERS:  PRESIDENT JOSEPH SWAIN, Swarthmore College.
             DR. EMIL G. HIRSCH, Chicago, Ill.
             PROFESSOR EDWARD C. MOORE, Harvard University.
             DR. JOSIAH STRONG, League for Social Service, New York.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR CLYDE W. VOTAW, University of Chicago.




CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER OF PROCEEDINGS

       *     *     *     *     *

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 19.

3 P. M. Opening exercises of the Congress. Festival Hall (Hall 17).

The Congress will be called to order by the Director of Congresses, who
will introduce the President of the Exposition.

Welcoming addresses will be delivered by the President of the Exposition
and other officials.

A reply to these addresses of welcome will be made on behalf of the
Congress by the Honorary Vice-President for Great Britain.

The Chairman of the Administrative Board will give an account of the
origin and purpose of the Congress.

The President of the Congress will then be introduced and will deliver
an introductory address, after which adjournment will follow.

       *     *     *     *     *

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20.

10.00 A. M. Meetings of the seven Divisions. The Divisional addresses
will be given as follows:--

  Hall 1, Utilitarian Sciences.
  Hall 2, Social Regulation.
  Hall 3, Historical Science.
  Hall 4, Physical Science.
  Hall 5, Social Culture.
  Hall 6, Normative Science.
  Hall 7, Mental Science.

11.15 to 6.00 P. M. Meetings of the Departments, with addresses:--

Meeting at 11.15 A. M.

DEPARTMENTS.

  Hall 1, Economics.
  Hall 2, Biology.
  Hall 3, Sciences of the Earth.
  Hall 4, Political History.
  Hall 5, History of Law.
  Hall 6, Philosophy.
  Hall 7, Mathematics.
  Hall 8, History of Art.

  Adjournment at 1 P. M.

Meeting at 2 P. M.

DEPARTMENTS.

  Hall 1, Social Science.
  Hall 2, Politics.
  Hall 3, Technology.
  Hall 4, History of Language.
  Hall 5, History of Religion.
  Hall 6, Physics.
  Hall 7, Psychology.
  Hall 8, Anthropology.

  Adjournment at 3.45 P. M.

Meeting at 4.15 P. M.

DEPARTMENTS.

  Hall 1, Medicine.
  Hall 2, Education.
  Hall 3, Jurisprudence.
  Hall 4, Religion.
  Hall 5, Chemistry.
  Hall 6, History of Literature.
  Hall 7, Sociology.
  Hall 8, Astronomy.

  Adjournment at 6. P. M.

On the four days following, the Sectional meetings will be held. The
duration of each session will be three hours. The morning sessions will
extend from 10 A. M. until 1 P. M.; the afternoon sessions from 3 P. M.
to 6 P. M.

The meetings of some of the religious sections will be held on Sunday,
September 25, in Festival Hall. Further announcements concerning these
Sunday Meetings will be made in Registration Hall, in the daily press of
St. Louis, and in the World's Fair Official Programme.

       *     *     *     *     *

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21.

Meeting at 10 A. M.

  Hall  1, Public Finance.
  Hall  2, Animal Morphology.
  Hall  3, History of Greece, Rome, and Asia.
  Hall  4, Comparative Language.
  Hall  5, The Family.
  Hall  6, Metaphysics.
  Hall  7, Otology and Laryngology.
  Hall  8, Slavic Literature.
  Hall  9, Astrometry.
  Hall 10, Civil Engineering.
  Hall 11, History of Common Law.
  Hall 12, Physiography.
  Hall 13, Public Health.
  Hall 14, Geophysics.
  Hall 15, Social Structure.
  Hall 16, Inorganic Chemistry.

  Adjournment at 1 P. M.

Meeting at 3 P. M.

  Hall  1, Philosophy of Religion.
  Hall  2, Phylogeny.
  Hall  3, Classical Literature.
  Hall  4, Semitic Languages.
  Hall  5, The Rural Community.
  Hall  6, Medieval History.
  Hall  7, Pediatrics.
  Hall  8, Oceanography.
  Hall  9, Astrophysics.
  Hall 10, Insurance.
  Hall 11, History of Roman Law.
  Hall 13, Preventive Medicine.
  Hall 14, Geology.
  Hall 16, Organic Chemistry.

  Adjournment at 6 P. M.

       *     *     *     *     *

Immediately following the Section of Geophysics in the morning, and the
Section of Geology in the afternoon, in Room 14, the Eighth
International Geographic Congress will hold sessions in the same room,
Hall 14, Mines and Metallurgy Building.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22.

Meeting at 10 A. M.

  Hall  1, English Literature.
  Hall  2, Plant Morphology.
  Hall  3, Modern History of Europe.
  Hall  4, Old Testament.
  Hall  5, The Urban Community.
  Hall  6, Logic.
  Hall  7, Psychiatry.
  Hall  8, Indo-Iranian Languages.
  Hall  9, Algebra and Analysis.
  Hall 10, Cosmical Physics.
  Hall 11, Palæontology.
  Hall 12, Classical Art.
  Hall 13, Pathology.
  Hall 14, International Law.
  Hall 15, Economic Theory.
  Hall 16, Physical Chemistry.

  Adjournment at 1 P. M.

Meeting at 3 P. M.

  Hall 1, Professional Religious Education.
  Hall 2, Human Anatomy.
  Hall 3, Greek Language.
  Hall 4, Plant Physiology.
  Hall 5, Physics of the Electron.
  Hall 6, Methodology of Science.
  Hall 7, Modern Architecture.
  Hall 8, Romance Literature.
  Hall 9, Petrology and Mineralogy.
  Hall 10, Electrical Engineering.
  Hall 11, Geography.
  Hall 12, The Library.
  Hall 13, Neurology.
  Hall 14, The Industrial Group.
  Hall 15, Political Theory and
           National Administration.
  Hall 16, Physiological Chemistry.

  Adjournment at 6 P. M.

       *     *     *     *     *

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 23.

Meeting at 10 A. M.

  Hall  1, New Testament.
  Hall  2, Experimental Psychology.
  Hall  3, Germanic Literature.
  Hall  4, Physiology.
  Hall  5, The Dependent Group.
  Hall  6, Ethics.
  Hall  7, Plant Pathology.
  Hall  8, Brahmanism and Buddhism.
  Hall  9, Latin Language.
  Hall 10, Transportation.
  Hall 11, Physics of Matter.
  Hall 12, The School.
  Hall 13, Surgery.
  Hall 15, Social Psychology.
  Hall 16, Technical Chemistry.

  Adjournment at 1 P. M.

Meeting at 3 P. M.

  Hall  1, Diplomacy.
  Hall  2, History of Economic Institutions.
  Hall  3, English Language.
  Hall  4, Æsthetics.
  Hall  5, The Criminal Group.
  Hall  6, General Psychology.
  Hall  7, Ecology.
  Hall  8, Mohammedism.
  Hall  9, Embryology.
  Hall 10, Mechanical Engineering.
  Hall 11, Physics of Ether.
  Hall 12, The College.
  Hall 13, Internal Medicine.
  Hall 14, Private Law.
  Hall 15, Religious Agencies.
  Hall 16, Somatology.

  Adjournment at 6 P. M.

       *     *     *     *     *

SATURDAY. SEPTEMBER 24.

Meeting at 10 A. M.

  Hall  1, History of America.
  Hall  2, History of the Christian Church.
  Hall  3, Belles-Lettres.
  Hall  4, Colonial Administration.
  Hall  5, Romance Languages.
  Hall  6, Comparative and Genetic Psychology.
  Hall  7, Ophthalmology.
  Hall  8, History of Asia.
  Hall  9, Geometry.
  Hall 10, Commerce and Exchange.
  Hall 11, Mining Engineering.
  Hall 12, The University.
  Hall 13, Gynecology.
  Hall 14, Constitutional Law.
  Hall 15, Bacteriology.
  Hall 16, Archæology.

  Adjournment at 1 P. M.

Meeting at 3 P. M.

  Hall  1, Religious Work.
  Hall  2, Comparative Anatomy.
  Hall  3, Germanic Languages.
  Hall  4, Modern Painting.
  Hall  5, Money and Credit.
  Hall  6, Abnormal Psychology.
  Hall  7, Applied Mathematics.
  Hall  8, Indo-Iranian Literature.
  Hall 10, Agriculture.
  Hall 11, . . . . . . . . .
  Hall 12, Educational Theory.
  Hall 13, Therapeutics and Pharmacology.
  Hall 14, Comparative Law.
  Hall 15, Municipal Administration.
  Hall 16, Ethnology.

  Adjournment at 6 P. M.

       *     *     *     *     *

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 25.

_Festival Hall._

Meeting at 10 A. M.

  Religious Influence: Personal.

Meeting at 3 P. M.

  Religious Influence: Social.




PROGRAMME OF SOCIAL EVENTS

       *     *     *     *     *


MONDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 19.--Grand Fête night in honor of the Congress
of Arts and Science. Special illuminations about the Grand Basin. Lagoon
fête.

Banquet by the St. Louis Chemical Society, at the Southern Hotel, to the
members of the Chemical Sections.

TUESDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 20.--General Reception by Board of Lady
Managers to the officers and speakers of the Congress and officials of
the Exposition.

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, SEPTEMBER 21.--Garden fête to be given to the
members of the Congress of Arts and Science, at the French Pavilion, by
the Commissioner-General from France.

WEDNESDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 21.--General reception by the German
Imperial Commissioner-General to the members of the Congress of Arts and
Science, at the German State House.

THURSDAY EVENING.--Shaw banquet at the Buckingham Club to the foreign
delegates.

FRIDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 23.--General banquet to the speakers and
officials of the Congress of Arts and Science in the banquet hall of the
Tyrolean Alps. 8 P. M.

SATURDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 24.--Banquet at St. Louis Club by Round
Table of St. Louis, to the foreign members of the Congress.

Banquet given by Imperial Commissioner-General from Japan to the
Japanese delegation to the Congress and Exposition officials.

Dinner given by Commissioner-General from Great Britain to the English
members of the Congress.




ALPHABETICAL LIST OF MEMBERS WHO MADE 10-MINUTE ADDRESSES

       *     *     *     *     *

The following list differs from the original programme, in that it
contains the names only of those who actually read addresses. It was
planned that each Section should meet for three hours. When authors of
ten-minute papers were not present, and where not enough of these
shorter papers were offered to fill out the time, the Chairmen invited
discussions from the floor until the time was filled.


  Professor R. G. Aitken       Lick Observatory       Astronomy
  James W. Alexander, Esq.     New York City          Insurance
  Frederick Almy               Buffalo, N. Y.         Social Science
  Professor S. G. Ashmore      Union College          Latin Language
  Professor L. A. Bauer        Carnegie Institute     Cosmical Physics
  Dr. Marcus Benjamin          National Museum        Technical Chemistry
  Professor H. T. Blickfeldt   Leland Stanford Univ.  Geometry
  Professor Ernest W. Brown    Haverford College      Lunar Theory
  Dr. Henry Dickson Bruns      New Orleans            Municipal
                                                        Administration
  Dr. F. K. Cameron            Dep't of Agriculture   Physical Chemistry
  Rear-Admiral C. M. Chester,  United States Naval    Astronomy
    U. S. N.                     Observatory
  H. H. Clayton, Esq.          Blue Hill Observatory  Cosmical Physics
  Professor Charles A. Coffin  New York City          Modern Painting
  Dr. George Coronilas         Athens, Greece         Tuberculosis
  Professor J. E. Denton       Stevens Institute      Mechanical
                                                        Engineering
  Professor L. W. Dowling      Univ. of Wisconsin     Geometry
  Professor H. C. Elmer        Cornell Univ.          Latin Language
  Professor A. Emch            Univ. of Colorado      Geometry
  Professor H. R. Fanclough    Leland Stanford Univ.  Classical Literature
  Professor W. S. Ferguson     Univ. of California    History of Greece,
                                                        Rome, and Asia
  Dr. Carlos Finley            Havana                 Pathology
  Dr. C. E. Fisk               Centralia, Ill.        History of America
  Homer Folks, Esq.            New York City          Social Science
  Professor F. C. French       Univ. of Nebraska      Philosophy of
                                                        Religion
  H. L. Gannt, Esq.            Schenectady, N. Y.     Mechanical
                                                        Engineering
  Dr. F. P. Gorham             Brown Univ.            Bacteriology
  Professor Evarts B. Greene   Univ. of Illinois      History of America
  Stansbury Hagar, Esq.        Brooklyn, N.Y.         Ethnology
  J. D. Hague, Esq.            New York City          Mining Engineering
  Professor G. B. Halstead     Kenyon College         Geometry
  Professor A. D. F. Hamlin    Columbia Univ.         Æsthetics
  Professor H. Hancock         Univ. of Cincinnati    Geometry
  Professor J. A. Harris       St. Louis, Mo.         Plant Morphology
  Professor M. W. Haskell      Univ. of California    Algebra and Analysis
  Professor J. T. Hatfield     Northwestern Univ.     Germanic Language
  Professor E. C. Hayes        Miami Univ.            Social Psychology
  Professor W. E. Heidel       Iowa College           Greek Language
  Dr. C. L. Herrick            Granville, Ohio        Neurology
  Dr. C. Judson Herrick        Granville, Ohio        Animal Morphology
  Professor W. H. Hobbs        Univ. of Wisconsin     Petrology and
                                                        Mineralogy
  Professor A. R. Hohlfeld     Univ. of Wisconsin     Germanic Literature
  Professor H. H. Horne        Dartmouth College      Educational Theory
  Dr. E. V. Huntington         Harvard Univ.          Algebra and Analysis
  Dr. Reid Hunt                U. S. Marine Hospital  Alcohol, etc.
  Dr. J. N. Hurty              Indianapolis, Ind.     Public Health
  Professor J. J. Hutchinson   Cornell Univ.          Algebra and Analysis
  Rev. Thomas E. Judge         Catholic Review of     General Religious
                               Reviews                Education
  Professor L. Kahlenburg      Univ. of Wisconsin     Physical Chemistry
  Professor Albert G. Keller   Yale University        Municipal
                                                        Administration
  Professor George Lefevre     Univ. of Missouri      Comparative Anatomy
  President Henry C. King      Oberlin College        Education, The
                                                        College
  Dr. Ira Landrith             Belmont College        Religious Agencies
  Professor M. D. Learned      Univ. of Pennsylvania  Germanic Literature
  Professor A. O. Leuschner    Univ. of California    Astronomy
  Dr. E. P. Lyon               St. Louis Univ.        Physiology
  Dr. Duncan B. Macdonald      Hartford Theological   Semitic Languages
                               Seminary
  Professor A. MacFarlane      Chatham, Ontario       Applied Mathematics
  Professor James McMahon      Cornell Univ.          Applied Mathematics
  Mr. Edward Mallinckrodt      St. Louis, Mo.         Chemistry
  Professor H. P. Manning      Brown Univ.            Geometry
  Professor G. A. Miller       Leland Stanford Univ.  Algebra and
                                                        Analysis.
  Dr. W. C. Mills              Ohio State Univ.       Archæology
  Professor W. S. Milner       Univ. of Toronto       Classical Literature
  Professor F. G. Moore        Dartmouth College      Classical Literature
  Dr. W. P. Montague           Columbia Univ.         Metaphysics
  Clarence B. Moore, Esq.      Philadelphia           Archæology.
  Professor F. R. Moulton      Univ. of Chicago       Astronomy.
  Dr. J. G. Needham            Lake Forest Univ.      Animal Morphology
  Professor Alex. T. Ormond    Princeton Univ.        Philosophy of
                                                        Religion
  Professor Frederic L. Paxton Univ. of Colorado      History of America
  Dr. Carl Pfister             St. Mark's Hospital,   Surgery
                                 New York City
  Professor M. B. Porter       Univ. of Texas         Algebra and Analysis
  Dr. A. J. Reynolds           Chicago                Public Health
  Professor S. P. Sadtler      Philadelphia College   Technical Chemistry
                               of Pharmacy
  Dr. John A. Sampson          Albany, N. Y.          Gynæcology
  Oswald Schreiner, Esq.       U. S. Dep't of         Chemistry
                                 Agriculture
  Rev. Frank Sewall            Washington, D. C.      Social Science, The
                                                        Family
  Professor H. C. Sheldon      Boston Univ.           History of the
                                                        Christian Church
  Professor Frank C. Sharp     Univ. of Wisconsin     Ethics
  Professor J. B. Shaw         Milliken Univ.         Algebra and Analysis
  Professor W. B. Smith        Tulane Univ.           New Testament
  Professor Marshall S. Snow   Washington Univ        History of America
  Professor Henry Snyder       Univ. of Minnesota     Social Science
  Professor Edwain D. Starbuck Earlham College        General Religious
  Professor George B. Stewart  Auburn Theological     Professional
                                 Seminary               Religious Education
  John M. Stahl                Quincy, Ill.           The Rural Community
  Professor J. Stieglitz       Univ. of Chicago       Chemistry
  Professor Robert Stein       U. S. Geological
                                 Survey               Comparative Language
  Mr. Teitaro Suzuki           La Salle, Ill.         Brahmanism and
                                                        Buddhism
  Col. T. W. Symonds, U. S. A. Washington, D. C.      Civil Engineering
  Professor Teissier           Lyons, France          Pathology
  Judge W. H. Thomas           Montgomery, Ala.       Private Law
  Professor O. H. Tittmann     U. S. C. and G. Survey Astronomy
  Professor Alfred M. Tozzer   Peabody Museum         Anthropology
  Dr. Benjamin F. Trueblood    Univ. of Missouri      Medieval History
  Professor Clyde W. Votaw     Univ. of Chicago       New Testament
  Professor John B. Watson     Univ. of Chicago       Psychology
  Professor H. L. Willett      Disciples Divinity     Professional
                               House, Chicago           Religious Education
  President Mary E. Woolley    Mt. Holyoke College    Education, The
                                                        College
  H. Zwaarddemaker             Utrecht                Otology and
                                                        Laryngology




THE SCIENTIFIC PLAN OF THE CONGRESS

BY PROF. HUGO MÜNSTERBERG




I

THE PURPOSE OF THE CONGRESS


1. _The Centralization of the Congress_

The history of the Congress has been told. It remains to set forth the
principles which controlled the work of the Congress week, and thus
scientifically to introduce the scholarly undertaking, the results of
which are to speak for themselves in the eight volumes of this
publication. Yet in a certain way this scientific introduction has once
more to use the language of history. It does not deal with the external
development of the Congress, and the story which it has to tell is thus
not one of dates and names and events. But the principles which shaped
the whole undertaking have themselves a claim to historical treatment;
they do not lie before us simply as the subject for a logical
disputation or as a plea for a future work. That was the situation of
three years ago. At that time various ideas and opposing principles
entered into the arena of discussion; but now, since the work is
completed, the question can be only of what principles, right or wrong,
have really determined the programme. We have thus to interpret that
state of mind out of which the purposes and the scientific arrangement
of the Congress resulted; and no after-thought of to-day would be a
desirable addition. Whatever possible improvements of the plan may
suggest themselves in the retrospect can be given only a closing word.
It was certainly easy to learn from experience, but first the experience
had to be passed through. We have here to interpret the view from that
standpoint from which the experience of the Congress was still a matter
of the future, and of an uncertain future indeed, full of doubts and
fears, and yet full of hopes and possibilities.

The St. Louis World's Fair promised, through the vast extent of its
grounds, through the beautiful plans of the buildings, through the
eagerness of the United States, through the participation of all
countries on earth, and through the gigantic outlines of the internal
plans, to become the most monumental expression of the energies with
which the twentieth century entered on its course. Commerce and
industry, art and social work, politics and education, war and peace,
country and city. Orient and Occident, were all to be focussed for a few
summer months in the ivory city of the Mississippi Valley. It seemed
most natural that science and productive scholarship should also find
its characteristic place among the factors of our modern civilization.
Of course the scientist had his word to say on almost every square foot
of the Exposition. Whether the building was devoted to electricity or to
chemistry, to anthropology or to metallurgy, to civic administration or
to medicine, to transportation or to industrial arts, it was everywhere
the work of the scientist which was to win the triumph; and the Palace
of Education, the first in any universal exposition, was to combine
under its roof not only the school work of all countries, but the
visible record of the world's universities and technical schools as
well. And yet it seemed not enough to gather the products and records of
science and to make science serve with its tools and inventions. Modern
art, too, was to reign over every hall and to beautify every palace, and
yet demanded its own unfolding in the gallery of paintings and
sculptures. In the same way it was not enough for science to penetrate a
hundred exhibitions and turn the wheels in every hall, but it must also
seek to concentrate all its energies in one spot and show the
cross-section of human knowledge in our time, and, above all, its own
methods.

An exhibition of scholarship cannot be arranged for the eyes. The great
work which grows day by day in quiet libraries and laboratories, and on
a thousand university platforms, can express itself only through words.
Yet heaped up printed volumes would be dead to a World's Fair spectator;
how to make such words living was the problem. Above all, scholarship
does not really exhibit its methods, if it does not show itself in
production. It is no longer scholarship which speaks of a truth-seeking
that has been performed instead of going on with the search for further
truth. If the world's science was to be exhibited, a form had to be
sought in which the scholarly work on the spot would serve the ideals of
knowledge, would add to the storehouse of truth, and would thus work in
the service of human progress at the same moment in which it contributed
to the completeness of the exhibition.

The effort was not without precedent. Scholarly production had been
connected with earlier expositions, and the large gatherings of scholars
at the Paris Exposition were still in vivid memory. A large number of
scientific congresses of specialists had been held there, and many
hundred scholarly papers had been read. Yet the results hardly suggested
the repetition of such an experiment. Every one felt too strongly that
the outcome of such disconnected congresses of specialists is hardly
comparable with the glorious showing which the arts and industries have
made and were to make again. In every other department of the World's
Fair the most careful preparation secured an harmonious effect. The
scholarly meetings alone failed even to aim at harmony and unity. Not
only did the congresses themselves stand apart without any inner
relation, grouped together by calendar dates or by their alphabetical
order from Anthropology to Zoölogy; but in every congress, again, the
papers read and the manuscripts presented were disconnected pieces
without any programme or correlation. Worse than that, they could not
even be expected in their isolatedness to add anything which would not
have been worked out and communicated to the world just as well without
any congress. The speaker at such a meeting is asked to contribute
anything he has at hand, and he accepts the invitation because he has by
chance a completed paper or a research ready for publication. In the
best case it would have appeared in the next number of the specialistic
magazine, in not infrequent cases it has appeared already in the last
number. Such a congress is then only an accident and does not itself
serve the progress of knowledge.

Even that would be acceptable if at least the best scholars would come
out with their latest investigations, or, still more delightful, if they
would enter into an important discussion. But experience has too often
shown that the conditions are most favorable for the opposite outcome.
The leading scholars stay away partly to give beginners the chance to be
heard, partly not to be grouped with those who habitually have the floor
at such gatherings. These are either the men whose day has gone by or
those whose day has not yet come; and both groups tyrannize alike an
unwilling audience. Yet it may be said that in scientific meetings of
specialists the reading of papers is non-essential and no harm is done
even if they do not contribute anything to the status of scholarship;
their great value lies in the personal contact of fellow workers and in
the discussions and informal exchange of opinions. All that is true, and
completely justifies the yearly meetings of scholarly associations. But
these advantages are much diminished whenever such gatherings take on an
international character, and thus introduce the confusion of tongues.
And hardly any one can doubt that the turmoil of a world's fair is about
the worst possible background for such exchange of thought, which
demands repose and quietude. Yet even with the certainty of all these
disadvantages the city of Paris, with its large body of scholars, with
its venerable scholarly traditions, and with its incomparable
attractions, could overcome every resistance, and its convenient
location made it natural that in vacation time, in an exposition summer,
the scholars should gather there, not on account of, but in spite of,
the hundred congresses. With this the city of St. Louis could make no
claim to rivalry. Its recent growth, its minimum of scholarly tradition,
its great distance from the old centres of knowledge even in the New
World, the apathy of the East and the climatic fears of Europe, all
together made it clear that a mere repetition of unrelated congresses
would be not only useless, but a disastrous failure. These very fears,
however, themselves suggested the remedy.

If the scholarly work of our time was to be represented at St. Louis,
something had to be attempted which should be not simply an imitation of
the branch-congresses which every scientific specialty in every country
is calling every year. Scholarship was to be asked to show itself really
in process, and to produce for the World's Fair meeting something which
without it would remain undone. To invite the scholars of the world for
their leisurely enjoyment and reposeful discussion of work done
elsewhere is one thing; to call them together for work which they would
not do otherwise, and which ought to be done, is a very different thing.
The first had in St. Louis all odds against it; it seemed worth while to
try the second. And it seemed not only worth while in the interest of
scholarship, it seemed, above all, the only way to give to the
scholarship of our time a chance for the complete demonstration of its
productive energies.

The plan of unrelated congresses, with chance combinations of papers
prepared at random, was therefore definitively replaced by the plan of
only one representative gathering, bound together by one underlying
thought, given thus the unity of one scholarly aim, whose fulfillment is
demanded by the scientific needs of our time, and is hardly to be
reached by other methods. Every arbitrary and individual choice was then
to be eliminated and every effort was to be controlled by the one
central purpose; the work thus to be organized and prepared with the
same carefulness of adjustment and elaboration which was doubtless to be
applied in the admirable exhibitions of the United States Government or
in the art exhibition. The open question was, of course, what topic
could fulfill these various demands most completely; wherein lay the
greatest scholarly need of our time; what task could be least realized
by the casual efforts of scholarship at random; where was the unity of a
world organization most needed?

One thought was very naturally suggested by the external circumstances.
St. Louis had asked the nations of the world to a celebration of the
Louisiana Purchase. Historical thoughts thus gave meaning and importance
to the whole undertaking. The pride of one century's development had
stimulated the gigantic work from its inception. An immense territory
had been transformed from a half wilderness into a land with a rich
civilization, and with a central city in which eight thousand factories
are at work. No thought lay nearer than to ask how far this century was
of similar importance for the changes in the world of thought. How have
the sciences developed themselves since the days of the Louisiana
Purchase? That is a topic which with complete uniformity might be asked
from every special science, and which might thus offer a certain unity
of aim to scholars of all scientific denominations. There was indeed no
doubt that such an historical question would have to be raised if we
were to live up to the commemorative idea of the whole Fair. And yet it
seemed still more certain that the retrospective problem did not justify
itself as a central topic for a World's Congress. There were sciences
for which the story of the last hundred years was merely the last
chapter of a history of three thousand years and other sciences whose
life history did not begin until one or two decades ago. It would thus
be a very external uniformity; the question would have a very different
meaning for the various branches of knowledge, and the treatment would
be of very unequal interest and importance. More than that, it would not
abolish the unrelated character of the endeavors; while the same topic
might be given everywhere, yet every science would remain isolated;
there would be no internal unity, and thus no inner reason for bringing
together the best workers of all spheres. And finally the mere
retrospective attitude brings with it the depressing mood of perfunctory
activity. Certainly to look back on the advance of a century can be most
suggestive for a better understanding of the way which lies before us;
and we felt indeed that the occasion for such a backward glance ought
not to be missed. Yet there would be something lifeless if the whole
meeting were devoted to the consideration of work that had been
completed; a kind of necrological sentiment would pervade the whole
ceremony, while our chief aim was to serve the progress of knowledge and
thus to stimulate living interests.

This language of life spoke indeed in the programme of another plan
which seemed also to be suggested by the character of the Exposition.
The St. Louis Fair desired not merely to look backward and to revive the
historical interest in the Louisiana purchase, but its first aim seemed
to be to bring into sharp relief the factors which serve to-day the
practical welfare and the achievements of human society. If all the
scholars of all sciences were to convene under one flag, would it not
thus seem most harmonious with the occasion, if, as the one controlling
topic, the question were proposed, "What does your science contribute to
the practical progress of mankind?" No one can deny that such a
formulation would fit in well with the lingering thoughts of every
World's Fair visitor. Whoever wanders through the aisles of exhibition
palaces and sees amassed the marvelous achievements of industry and
commerce, and the thousand practical arts of modern society, may indeed
turn most naturally to a gathering of scholars with the question, "What
have you to offer of similar import?" All your thinking and speaking and
writing, are they merely words on words, or do you also turn the wheels
of this gigantic civilization?

Such a question would give a noble opening indeed to almost every
science. Who would say that the opportunity is confined to the man of
technical science? Does not the biologist also prepare the achievements
of modern medicine, does not the mathematician play his most important
rôle in our mastery over stubborn nature, do we not need language for
our social intercourse, and law and religion for our practical social
improvement? Yes, is there any science which has not directly or
indirectly something to contribute to the practical development of the
modern man and his civilization? All this is true, and yet the
perspective of this truth, too, appears at once utterly distorted if we
take the standpoint of science itself. The one end of knowledge is to
reach the truth. The belief in the absolute value of truth gives to it
meaning and significance. This value remains the controlling influence
even where the problem to be solved is itself a practical one, and the
spirit of science remains thus essentially theoretical even in the
so-called applied sciences. But incomparably more intense in that
respect is the spirit of all theoretical disciplines. Philosophy and
mathematics, history and philology, chemistry and biology, astronomy and
geology, may be and ought to be helpful to practical civilization
everywhere; and every step forward which they take will be an advance
for man's practical life too. And yet their real meaning never lies in
their technical by-product. It is not the scholar who peers in the
direction of practical use who is most loyal to the deepest demand of
scholarship, and every relation to practical achievement is more or less
accidental or even artificial for the real life interests of productive
scholarship.

But if the contrast between his real intention and his social technical
successes may not appear striking to the physicist or chemist, it would
appear at least embarrassing to the scholars in many other departments
and directly bewildering to not a few. Perhaps two thirds of the
sciences to which the best thinkers of our time are faithfully devoted
would then be grouped together and relegated to a distant corner, their
only practical technical function would be to contribute material to the
education of the cultured man. For what else do we study Sanscrit or
medieval history or epistemology? And finally even the uniform topic of
practical use would not have brought the different sciences nearer to
each other; the Congress would still have remained a budget of
disconnected records of scholarship. If the practical side of the
Exposition was to suggest anything, it should then not be more than an
appeal not to overlook the importance of the applied sciences which too
often play the rôle of a mere appendix to the system of knowledge. The
logical one-sidedness which considers practical needs as below the
dignity of pure science was indeed to be excluded, but to choose
practical service as the one controlling topic would be far more
anti-scientific.


2. _The Unity of Knowledge_

There was another side of the Exposition plan which suggested a stronger
topic. The World's Fair was not only an historical memorial work, and
was not only a show of the practical tools of technical civilization;
its deepest aim was after all the effort to bring the energies of our
time into inner relation. The peoples of the whole globe, separated by
oceans and mountains, by language and custom, by politics and prejudice,
were here to come in contact and to be brought into correlation by
better mutual understanding of the best features of their respective
cultures. The various industries and arts, the most antagonistic efforts
of commerce and production, separated by the rivalry of the market and
by the diversity of economic interests were here to be brought together
in harmony, were to be correlated for the eye of the spectator. It was a
near-lying thought to choose correlation as the controlling thought of a
scientific World's Congress too. That was the topic which was finally
agreed upon: the inner relation of the sciences of our day.

The fitness and the external advantages of such a scheme are evident.
First of all, the danger of disconnectedness now disappears completely.
If the sciences are to examine what binds them together, their usual
isolation must be given up for the time being and a concerted effort
must control the day. The bringing together of scholars of all
scientific specialties is then no longer a doubtful accidental feature,
but becomes a condition of the whole undertaking. More than that, such a
topic, with all that it involves, makes it a matter of course that the
call goes out to the really leading scholars of the time. To aim at a
correlation of sciences means to seek for the fundamental principles in
each territory of knowledge and to look with far-seeing eye beyond the
limits of its field; but just this excludes from the outset those who
like to be the self-appointed speakers in routine gatherings. It
excludes from the first the narrow specialist who does not care for
anything but for his latest research, and ought to exclude not less the
vague spirits who generalize about facts of which they have no concrete
substantial knowledge, as their suggestions towards correlation would
lack inner productiveness and outer authority. Such a plan has room only
for those men who stand high enough to see the whole field and who have
yet the full authority of the specialistic investigator; they must
combine the concentration on specialized productive work with the
inspiration that comes from looking over vast regions. With such a topic
the usual question does not come up whether one or another strong man
would feel attracted to take part in the gathering, but it would be
justified and necessary to confine the active participation from the
outset to those who are leaders, and thus to guarantee from the
beginning a representation of science equal in dignity to the best
efforts of the exhibiting countries in all other departments. In this
way such a plan had the advantage of justifying through its topic the
administrative desire to bring all sciences to the same spot, and at the
same time of excluding all participants but the best scholars: with
isolated gatherings or with second-rate men, this subject would have
been simply impossible.

Yet all these halfway external advantages count little compared with the
significance and importance of the topic for the inner life of
scientific thought of our time. We all felt it was the one topic which
the beginning of the twentieth century demanded and which could not be
dealt with otherwise than by the combined labors of all nations and of
all sciences. The World's Fair was the one great opportunity to make a
first effort in this direction; we had no right to miss this
opportunity. Thus it was decided to have a congress with the definite
purpose of working towards the unity of human knowledge, and with the
one mission, in this time of scattered specializing work, of bringing to
the consciousness of the world the too much neglected idea of the unity
of truth. To quote from our first tentative programme: "Let the rush of
the world's work stop for one moment for us to consider what are the
underlying principles, what are their relations to one another and to
the whole, what are their values and purposes; in short, let us for once
give to the world's sciences a holiday. The workaday functions are much
better fulfilled in separation, when each scholar works in his own
laboratory or in his library; but this holiday task of bringing out the
underlying unity, this synthetic work, this demands really the
coöperation of all, this demands that once at least all sciences come
together in one place at one time."

Yet if our work stands for the unity of knowledge, aims to consider the
fundamental conceptions which bind together all the specialistic
results, and seeks to inquire into the methods which are common to
various fields, all this is after all merely a symptom of the whole
spirit of our times. A reaction against the narrowness of mere
fact-diggers has set in. A mere heaping up of disconnected, unshaped
facts begins to disappoint the world; it is felt too vividly that a mere
dictionary of phenomena, of events and laws, makes our knowledge larger
but not deeper, makes our life more complex but not more valuable, makes
our science more difficult but not more harmonious. Our time longs for a
new synthesis and looks towards science no longer merely with a desire
for technical prescriptions and new inventions in the interest of
comfort and exchange. It waits for knowledge to fulfill its higher
mission, it waits for science to satisfy our higher needs for a view of
the world which shall give unity to our scattered experience. The
indications of this change are visible to every one who observes the
gradual turning to philosophical discussion in the most different fields
of scientific life.

When after the first third of the nineteenth century the great
philosophic movement which found its climax in Hegelianism came to
disaster in consequence of its absurd neglect of hard solid facts, the
era of naturalism began its triumph with contempt for all philosophy and
for all deeper unity. Idealism and philosophy were stigmatized as the
enemies of true science and natural science had its great day. The rapid
progress of physics and chemistry fascinated the world and produced
modern technique; the sciences of life, physiology, biology, medicine,
followed; and the scientific method was carried over from body to mind,
and gave us at the end of the nineteenth century modern psychology and
sociology. The lifeless and the living, the physical and the mental, the
individual and the social, all had been conquered by analytical methods.
But just when the climax was reached and all had been analyzed and
explained, the time was ripe for disillusion, and the lack of deeper
unity began to be felt with alarm in every quarter. For seventy years
there had been nowhere so much philosophizing going on as suddenly
sprung up among the scientists of the last decade. The physicists and
the mathematicians, the chemists and the biologists, the geologists and
the astronomers, and, on the other side, the historians and the
economists, the psychologists and the sociologists, the jurists and the
theologians--all suddenly found themselves again in the midst of
discussions on fundamental principles and methods, on general categories
and conditions of knowledge, in short, in the midst of the despised
philosophy. And with those discussions has come the demand for
correlation. Everywhere have arisen leaders who have brought unconnected
sciences together and emphasized the unity of large divisions. The time
seems to have come again when the wave of naturalism and realism is
ebbing, and a new idealistic philosophical tide is swelling, just as
they have always alternated in the civilization of two thousand years.

No one dreams, of course, that the great synthetic apperception, for
which our modern time seems ripe, will come through the delivery of some
hundred addresses, or the discussions of some hundred audiences. An
ultimate unity demands the gigantic thought of a single genius, and the
work of the many can, after all, be merely the preparation for the final
work of the one. And yet history shows that the one will never come if
the many have not done their share. What is needed is to fill the
sciences of our time with the growing consciousness of belonging
together, with the longing for fundamental principles, with the
conviction that the desire for correlation is not the fancy of dreamers,
but the immediate need of the leaders of thought. And in this
preparatory work the St. Louis Congress of Arts and Science seemed
indeed called for an important part when it was committed to this topic
of correlation.

To call the scholars of the world together for concerted action towards
the correlation of knowledge meant, of course, first of all, to work out
a detailed programme, and to select the best authorities for every
special part of the whole scheme. Nothing could be left to chance
methods and to casual contributions. The preparation needed the same
administrative strictness which would be demanded for an encyclopedia,
and the same scholarly thoroughness which would be demanded for the most
scientific research. A plan was to be devised in which every possible
striving for truth would find its place, and in which every section
would have its definite position in the system. And such a ground-plan
given, topics were to be assigned to every department and
sub-department, the treatment of which would bring out the fundamental
principles and the inner relations in such a way that the papers would
finally form a close-woven intellectual fabric. There would be plenty of
room for a retrospective glance at the historical development of the
sciences and plenty of room for emphasis on their practical
achievements; but the central place would always belong to the effort
towards unity and internal harmonization.

We thus divided human knowledge into large parts, and the parts into
divisions, and the divisions into departments, and the departments into
sections. As the topic of the general divisions--we proposed seven of
them--it was decided to discuss the Unity of the whole field. As topic
for the departments--we had twenty-four of them--the addresses were to
discuss the fundamental Conceptions and Methods and the Progress during
the last century; and in the sections, finally--our plan provided for
one hundred and twenty-eight of them--the topics were in every one the
Relation of the special branch to other branches, and those most
important Present Problems which are essential for the deeper principles
of the special field. In this way the ground-plan itself suggested the
unity of the practically separated sciences; and, moreover, our plan
provided from the first that this logical relation should express itself
externally in the time order of the work. We were to begin with the
meetings of the large divisions, the meetings of the departments were to
follow, and the meetings of the sections and their ramifications would
follow the departmental gatherings.


3. _The Objections to the Plan_

It was evident that even the most modest success of that gigantic
undertaking depended upon the right choice of speakers, upon the value
of the ground-plan, and upon many external conditions; thus no one was
in doubt as to the difficulty in realizing such a scheme. Yet there were
from the scholarly side itself objections to the principles involved,
objections which might hold even if those other conditions were
successfully met. The most immediate reason for reluctance lies in the
specializing tendencies of our time. Those who devote all their working
energy as loyal sons of our analyzing period of science to the minute
detail of research come easily into the habit of a nervous fear with
regard to any wider general outlook. The man of research sees too often
how ignorance hides itself behind generalities. He knows too well how
much easier it is to formulate vague generalities than to contribute a
new fact to human knowledge, and how often untrained youngsters succeed
with popular text-books which are rightly forgotten the next day.
Methodical science must thus almost encourage this aversion to any
deviation from the path of painstaking specialistic labor. Then, of
course, it seems almost a scientific duty to declare war against an
undertaking which explicitly asks everywhere for the wide perspectives
and the last principles, and does not aim at adding at this moment to
the mere treasury of information.

But such a view is utterly one-sided, and to fight against such
one-sidedness and to overcome the specializing narrowness of the
scattered sciences was the one central idea of the plan. If there
existed no scholars who despise the philosophizing connection, there
would have hardly been any need for this whole undertaking; but to yield
to such philosophy-phobia means to declare the analytic movement of
science permanent, and to postpone a synthetic movement indefinitely.
Our time has just to emphasize, and the leaders of thought daily
emphasize it more, that a mere heaping up of information can be merely a
preparation for knowledge, and that the final aim is a _Weltanschauung_,
a unified view of the whole of reality. All that our Congress had to
secure was thus merely that the generalizing discussion of principles
should not be left to men who generalized because they lacked the
substantial knowledge which is necessary to specialize. The thinkers we
needed were those who through specialistic work were themselves led to a
point where the discussion of general principles becomes unavoidable.
Our plan was by no means antagonistic to the patient labors of analysis;
the aim was merely to overcome its one-sidedness and to stimulate the
synthesis as a necessary supplement.

But the objections against a generalizing plan were not confined to the
mistaken fear that we sought to antagonize the productive work of the
specialist. They not seldom took the form of a general aversion to the
logical side of the ground-plan. It was often said that such a scheme
has after all interest only for the logician, for whom science as such
is an object of study, and who must thus indeed classify the sciences
and determine their logical relation. The real scientist, it was said,
does not care for such methodological operations, and should be
suspicious from the first of such philosophical high-handedness. The
scientist cannot forget how often in the history of civilization science
was the loser when it trusted its problems to the metaphysical thinker
who substituted his lofty speculations for the hard work of the
investigator. The true scholar will thus not only object to generalizing
"commonplaces" as against solid information, but he will object as well
to logical demarcation lines and systematization as against the
practical scientific work which does not want to be hampered by such
philosophical subtleties. Yet all these fears and suspicions were still
more mistaken.

Nothing was further from our intentions than a substitution of
metaphysics for concrete science. It was not by chance that we took such
pains to find the best specialists for every section. No one was invited
to enter into logical discussions and to consider the relations of
science merely from a dialectic point of view. The topic was everywhere
the whole living manifoldness of actual relations, and the logician had
nothing else to do than to prepare the programme. The outlines of the
programme demanded, of course, a certain logical scheme. If hundreds of
sciences are to take part, they have to be grouped somehow, if a merely
alphabetical order is not adopted; and even if we were to proceed
alphabetically, we should have to decide beforehand what part of
knowledge is to be recognized as a special science. But the logical
order of the ground-plan refers, of course, merely to the simple
relation of coördination, subordination, and superordination, and the
logician is satisfied with such a classification. But the endless
variety of internal relations is no longer to be dealt with from the
point of view of mere logic. We may work out the ground-plan in such a
way that we understand that logically zoölogy is coördinated to botany
and subordinated to mechanics and superordinated to ichthyology; but
this minimum of determination gives, of course, not even a hint of that
world of relations which exists from the standpoint of the biologist
between the science of zoölogy and the science of botany, or between the
biological and the mechanical studies. To discuss these relations of
real scientific life is the work of the biologist and not at all of the
logician.

The foregoing answers also at once an objection which might seem more
justified at the first glance. It has been said that we were undertaking
the work of bringing about a synthesis of scientific endeavors, and that
we yet had that synthesis already completed in the programme on which
the work was to be based. The scholars to be invited would be bound by
the programme, and would therefore have no other possibility than to say
with more words what the programme had settled beforehand. The whole
effort would then seem determined from the start by the arbitrariness of
the proposed ground-plan. Now it cannot be denied indeed that a certain
factor of arbitrariness has to enter into a programme. We have already
referred to the fact that some one must decide beforehand what fraction
of science is to be acknowledged as a self-dependent discipline. If a
biologist were to work out the scheme, he might decide that the whole of
philosophy was just one science; while the philosopher might claim a
large number of sections for logic and ethics and philosophy of
religion, and so on. And the philosopher, on the other hand, might treat
the whole of medicine as one part in itself, while the physician might
hold that even otology has to be separated from rhinology. A certain
subjectivity of standpoint is unavoidable, and we know very well that
instead of the one hundred and twenty-eight sections of our programme we
might have been satisfied with half that number or might have indulged
in double that number. And yet there was no possible plan which would
have allowed us to invite the speakers without defining beforehand the
sectional field which each was to represent. A certain courage of
opinion was then necessary, and sometimes also a certain adjustment to
external conditions.

Quite similar was the question of classification. Just as we had to take
the responsibility for the staking-out of every section, we had also to
decide in favor of a certain grouping, if we desired to organize the
Congress and not simply to bring out haphazard results. The principles
which are sufficient for a mere directory would never allow the shaping
of a programme which can be the basis for synthetic work. Even a
university catalogue begins with a certain classification, and yet no
one fancies that such catalogue grouping inhibits the freedom of the
university lecturer. It is easy to say, as has been said, that the
essential trait of the scientific life of to-day is its
live-and-let-live character. Certainly it is. In the regular work in our
libraries and laboratories the year round, everything depends upon this
democratic freedom in which every one goes his own way, hardly asking
what his neighbor is doing. It is that which has made the specialistic
sciences of our day as strong as they are. But it has brought about at
the same time this extreme tendency to unrelated specialization with its
discouraging lack of unity; this heaping up of information without an
outer harmonious view of the world; and if we were really at least once
to satisfy the desire for unity, then we had not the right to yield
fully to this live-and-let-live tendency. Therefore some principle of
grouping had to be accepted, and whatever principle had been chosen, it
would certainly have been open to the criticism that it was a product of
arbitrary decision, inasmuch as other principles might have been
possible.

A classification which in itself expresses all the practical relations
in which sciences stand to each other is, of course, absolutely
impossible. A programme which should try to arrange the place of a
special discipline in such a way that it would become the neighbor of
all those other sciences with which it has internal relation is
unthinkable. On the other hand, only if we had tried to construct a
scheme of such exaggerated ambitions should we have been really guilty
of anticipating a part of that which the specialistic scholars were to
tell us. The Congress had to leave it to the invited participants to
discuss the totality of relations which practically exist between their
fields and others, and the organizers confined themselves to that
minimum of classification which just indicates the pure logical
relations, a minimum which every editor of encyclopedic work would be
asked to initiate without awakening suspicions of interference with the
ideas of his contributors.

The only justified demand which could be met was that a system of
division and classification should be proposed which should give fair
play to every existing scientific tendency. The minimum of
classification was to be combined with the maximum of freedom, and to
secure that a careful consideration of principles was indeed necessary.
To bring logical order into the sciences which stand out clearly with
traditional rights is not difficult; but the chances are too great that
certain tendencies of thought might fail to find recognition or might be
suppressed by scientific prejudice. Any serious omission would indeed
have necessarily inhibited the freedom of expression. To secure thus the
greatest inner fullness of the programme, seemed indeed the most
important task in the elaboration of the ground-plan. The fears that we
might offer empty generalization instead of scholarly facts, or that we
might simply heap up encyclopedic information instead of gaining wide
perspectives, or that we might interfere with the living connections of
sciences by the logical demarcation lines, or that we might disturb the
scholar in his freedom by determining beforehand his place in the
classification,--all these fears and objections, which were repeatedly
raised when the plan was first proposed, seemed indeed unimportant
compared with the fear that the programme might be unable to include all
scientific tendencies of the time.

That would have been, indeed, the one fundamental mistake, as the whole
Congress work was planned in the service of the great synthetic movement
which pervades the intellectual life of to-day. The undertaking would be
useless and even hindering if it were not just the newer and deeper
tendencies that came to most complete expression in it. Everything
depended, therefore, upon the fullest possible representation of
scientific endeavors in the plan. But no one can become aware of this
manifoldness and of the logical relations who does not go back to the
ultimate principles of the human search for truth. We have, therefore,
to enter now into a full discussion of the principles which have
controlled the classification and subdivision of the whole work. The
discussion is necessarily in its essence a philosophical one, as it was
earlier made plain that philosophy must lay out the plan, while in the
realization of the plan through concrete work the scientist alone, and
not the logician, has to speak. Yet here again it may be said that while
our discussion of principles in its essence is logical, in another
respect it is a merely historical account. The question is not what
principles of classification are to be acknowledged as valuable now that
the work of the Congress lies behind us, but what principles were
accepted and really led to the organization of the work in that form in
which it presents itself in the records of the following volumes.




II

THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES


1. _The Development of Classification_

The problem of dividing and subdividing the whole of human knowledge and
of thus bringing order into the manifoldness of scientific efforts has
fascinated the leading thinkers of all ages. It may often be difficult
to say how far the new principles of classification themselves open the
way for new scientific progress and how far the great forward movements
of thought in the special sciences have in turn influenced the
principles of classification. In any case every productive age has
demanded the expression of its deepest energy in a new ordering of human
science. The history of these efforts leads from Plato and Aristotle to
Bacon and Locke, to Bentham and Ampère, to Kant and Hegel, to Comte and
Spencer, to Wundt and Windelband. And yet we can hardly speak of a real
historical continuity. In a certain way every period took up the problem
anew, and the new aspects resulted not only from the development of the
sciences themselves which were to be classified, but still more from the
differences of logical interest. Sometimes the classification referred
to the material, sometimes to the method of treatment, sometimes to the
mental energies involved, and sometimes to the ends to be reached. The
reference to the mental faculties was certainly the earliest method of
bringing order into human knowledge, for the distinction of the Platonic
philosophy between dialectics, physics, and ethics pointed to the
threefold character of the mind, to reason, perception, and desire; and
it was on the threshold of the modern time, again, when Bacon divided
the intellectual globe into three large parts according to three
fundamental psychical faculties: memory, imagination, and reason. The
memory gives us history; the imagination, poetry; the reason,
philosophy, or the sciences. History was further divided into natural
and civil history; natural history into normal, abnormal, and artificial
phenomena; civil history into political, literary, and ecclesiastical
history. The field of reason was subdivided into man, nature, and God;
the domain of man gives, first, civil philosophy, parted off into
intercourse, business, and government, and secondly, the philosophy of
humanity, divided into that of body and of soul, wherein medicine and
athletics belong to the body, logic and ethics to the soul. Nature, on
the other hand, was divided into speculative and applied science,--the
speculative containing both physics and metaphysics; the applied,
mechanics and magic. All this was full of artificial constructions, and
yet still more marked by deep insight into the needs of Bacon's time,
and not every modification of later classifiers was logically a step
forward.

Yet modern efforts had to seek quite different methods, and the energies
which have been most effective for the ordering of knowledge in the last
decades spring unquestionably from the system of Comte and his
successors. He did not aim at a system of ramifications; his problem was
to show how the fundamental sciences depend on each other. A series was
to be constructed in which each member should presuppose the foregoing.
The result was a simplicity which is certainly tempting, but this
simplicity was reached only by an artificial emphasis which corresponded
completely to the one-sidedness of naturalistic thought. It was a
philosophy of positivism, the background for the gigantic work of
natural science and technique in the last two thirds of the nineteenth
century. Comte's fundamental thought is that the science of Morals, in
which we study human nature for the government of human life, is
dependent on sociology. Sociology, however, depends on biology; this on
chemistry; this on physics; this on astronomy; and this finally on
mathematics. In this way, all mental and moral sciences, history and
philology, jurisprudence and theology, economics and politics, are
considered as sociological phenomena, as dealing with functions of the
human being. But as man is a living organism, and thus certainly falls
under biology, all the branches of knowledge from history to ethics,
from jurisprudence to æsthetics, can be nothing but subdivisions of
biology. The living organism, on the other hand, is merely one type of
the physical bodies on earth, and biology is thus itself merely a
department of physics. But as the earthly bodies are merely a part of
the cosmic totality, physics is thus a part of astronomy; and as the
whole universe is controlled by mathematical laws, mathematics must be
superordinated to all sciences.

But there followed a time which overcame this thinly disguised example
of materialism. It was a time when the categories of the physiologist
lost slightly in credit and the categories of the psychologist won
repute. This newer movement held that it is artificial to consider
ethical and logical life, historic and legal action, literary and
religious emotions, merely as physiological functions of the living
organism. The mental life, however necessarily connected with brain
processes, has a positive reality of its own. The psychical facts
represent a world of phenomena which in its nature is absolutely
different from that of material phenomena, and, while it is true that
every ethical action and every logical thought can, from the standpoint
of the biologist, be considered as a property of matter, it is not less
true that the sciences of mental phenomena, considered impartially, form
a sphere of knowledge closed in itself, and must thus be coördinated,
not subordinated, to the knowledge of the physical world. We should say
thus: all knowledge falls into two classes, the physical sciences and
the mental sciences. In the circle of physical sciences we have the
general sciences, like physics and chemistry, the particular sciences of
special objects, like astronomy, geology, mineralogy, biology, and the
formal sciences, like mathematics. In the circle of mental sciences we
have correspondingly, as a general science, psychology, and as the
particular sciences all those special mental and moral sciences which
deal with man's inner life, like history or jurisprudence, logic or
ethics, and all the rest. Such a classification, which had its
philosophical defenders about twenty years ago, penetrated the popular
thought as fully as the positivism of the foregoing generation, and was
certainly superior to its materialistic forerunner.

Of course it was not the first time in the history of civilization that
materialism was replaced by dualism, that biologism was replaced by
psychologism; and it was also not the first time that the development of
civilization led again beyond this point: that is, led beyond the
psychologizing period. There is no doubt that our time presses on, with
all its powerful internal energies, away from this _Weltanschauung_ of
yesterday. The materialism was anti-philosophic, the psychological
dualism was unphilosophic. To-day the philosophical movement has set in.
The one-sidedness of the nineteenth century creed is felt in the deeper
thought all over the world: popular movements and scholarly efforts
alike show the signs of a coming idealism, which has something better
and deeper to say than merely that our life is a series of causal
phenomena. Our time longs for a new interpretation of reality; from the
depths of every science wherein for decades philosophizing was despised,
the best scholars turn again to a discussion of fundamental conceptions
and general principles. Historical thinking begins again to take the
leadership which for half a century belonged to naturalistic thinking;
specialistic research demands increasingly from day to day the
readjustment toward higher unities, and the technical progress which
charmed the world becomes more and more simply a factor in an ideal
progress. The appearance of this unifying congress itself is merely one
of a thousand symptoms of this change appearing in our public life, and
if the scientific philosophy is producing to-day book upon book to prove
that the world of phenomena must be supplemented by the world of values,
that description must yield to interpretation, and that explanation must
be harmonized with appreciation: it is but echoing in technical terms
the one great emotion of our time.

This certainly does not mean that any step of the gigantic
materialistic, technical, and psychological development will be
reversed, or that progress in any one of these directions ought to
cease. On the contrary, no time was ever more ready to put its immense
energies into the service of naturalistic work; but it does mean that
our time recognizes the one-sidedness of these movements, recognizes
that they belong only to one aspect of reality, and that another aspect
is possible; yes, that the other aspect is that of our immediate life,
with its purposes and its ideals, its historical relations and its
logical aims. The claim of materialism, that all psychical facts are
merely functions of the organism, was no argument against psychology,
because, though the biological view was possible, yet the other aspect
is certainly a necessary supplement. In the same way it is no argument
against the newer view that all purposes and ideals, all historical
actions and logical thoughts, can be considered as psychological
phenomena. Of course we can consider them as such, and we must go on
doing so in the service of the psychological and sociological sciences;
but we ought not to imagine that we have expressed and understood the
real character of our historical or moral, our logical or religious life
when we have described and explained it as a series of phenomena. Its
immediate reality expresses itself above all in the fact that it has a
meaning, that it is a purpose which we want to understand, not by
considering its causes and effects, but by interpreting its aims and
appreciating its ideals.

We should say, therefore, to-day that it is most interesting and
important for the scientist to consider human life with all its
strivings and creations from a biological, psychological, sociological
point of view; that is, to consider it as a system of causal phenomena;
and many problems worthy of the highest energies have still to be solved
in these sciences. But that which the jurist or the theologian, the
student of art or of history, of literature or of politics, of education
or of morality, is dealing with, refers to the other aspect in which
inner life is not a phenomenon but a system of purposes, not to be
explained but to be interpreted, to be approached not by causal but by
teleological methods. In this case the historical sciences are no longer
sub-sections of psychological or of sociological sciences; the
conception of science is no longer identical with the conception of the
science of phenomena. There exist sciences which do not deal with the
description or explanation of phenomena at all, but with the internal
relation and connection, the interpretation and appreciation of purpose.
In this way modern thought demands that sciences of purpose be
coördinated with sciences of phenomena. Only if all these tendencies of
our time are fully acknowledged can the outer framework of our
classification offer a fair field to every scientific thought, while a
positivistic system would cripple the most promising tendencies of the
twentieth century.


2. _The Four Theoretical Divisions_

We have first to determine the underlying structure of the
classification, that is, we have to seek the chief Divisions, of which
our plan shows seven; four theoretical and three practical ones. It will
be a secondary task to subdivide them later into the 24 Departments and
128 Sections. We desire to divide the whole of knowledge in a
fundamental way, and we must therefore start with the question of
principle:--what is knowledge? This question belongs to epistemology,
and thus falls, indeed, into the domain of philosophy. The positivist is
easily inclined to substitute for the philosophical problem the
empirical question: how did that which we call knowledge grow and
develop itself in our individual mind, or in the mind of the nations?
The question becomes, then, of course, one which must be answered by
psychology, by sociology, and perhaps by biology. Such genetic inquiries
are certainly very important, and the problem of how the processes of
judging and conceiving and thinking are produced in the individual or
social consciousness, and how they are to be explained through physical
and psychical causes, deserves fullest attention. But its solution
cannot even help us as regards the fundamental problem, what we mean by
knowledge, and what the ultimate value of knowledge may be, and why we
seek it. This deeper logical inquiry must be answered somehow before
those genetic studies of the psychological and the sociological
positivists can claim any truth at all, and thus any value, for their
outcome. To explain our present knowledge genetically from its foregoing
causes means merely to connect the present experience, which we know,
with a past experience, which we remember, or with earlier phenomena
which we construct on the basis of theories and hypotheses; but in any
case with facts which we value as parts of our knowledge and which thus
presuppose the acknowledgment of the value of knowledge. We cannot
determine by linking one part of knowledge with another part of
knowledge whether we have a right to speak of knowledge at all and to
rely on it.

We can thus not start from the childhood of man, or from the beginning
of humanity, or from any other object of knowledge, but we must begin
with the state which logically precedes all knowledge; that is, with our
immediate experience of real life. Here, in the naïve experience in
which we do not know ourselves as objects which we perceive, but where
we feel ourselves in our subjective attitudes as agents of will, as
personalities, here we find the original reality not yet shaped and
remoulded by scientific conceptions and by the demands of knowledge. And
from this basis of primary, naïve reality we must ask ourselves what we
mean by seeking knowledge, and how this demand of ours is different from
the other activities in which we work out the meaning and the ideals of
our life.

One thing is certain, we cannot go back to the old dogmatic standpoint,
whether rationalistic or sensualistic. In both cases dogmatism took for
granted that there is a real world of things which exist in themselves
independent of our subjective attitudes, and that our knowledge has to
give us a mirror picture of that self-dependent world. Sensualism
averred that we get this knowledge through our perceptions; rationalism,
that we get it by reasoning. The one asserted that experience gives us
the data which mere abstract reasoning can never supply; the other
asserted that our knowledge speaks of necessity which no mere perception
can find out. Our modern time has gone through the school of
philosophical criticism, and the dogmatic ideas have lost for us their
meaning. We know that the world which we think as independent cannot be
independent of the forms of our thinking, and that no science has
reference to any other world than the world which is determined by the
categories of our apperception. There cannot be anything more real than
the immediate pure experience, and if we seek the truth of knowledge, we
do not set out to discover something which is hidden behind our
experience, but we set out simply to make something out of our
experience which satisfies certain demands. Our immediate experience
does not contain an objective thing and a subjective picture of it, but
they are completely one and the same piece of experience. We have the
object of our immediate knowledge not in the double form of an outer
object independent of ourselves and an idea in us, but we have it as our
object there in the practical world before science for its special
purposes has broken up that bit of reality into the physical material
thing and the psychical content of consciousness. And if this doubleness
does not hold for the immediate reality of pure experience, it cannot
enter through that reshaping and reconstructing and connecting and
interpreting of pure experience which we call our knowledge. All that
science gives to us is just such an endlessly enlarged experience, of
which every particle remains objective and independent, inasmuch as it
is not in us as psychical individuals, while yet completely dependent
upon the forms of our subjective experience. The ideal of truth is thus
not to gain by reason or by observation ideas in ourselves which
correspond as well as possible to absolute things, but to reconstruct
the given experience in the service of certain purposes. Everything
which completely fulfills the purposes of this intentional
reconstruction is true.

What are these purposes? One thing is clear from the first: There cannot
be a purpose where there is not a will. If we come from pure experience
to knowledge by a purposive transformation, we must acknowledge the
reality of will in ourselves, or rather, we must find ourselves as will
in the midst of pure experience before we reach any knowledge. And so it
is indeed. We can abstract from all those reconstructions which the
sciences suggest to us and go back to the most immediate naïve
experience; but we can never reach an experience which does not contain
the doubleness of subject and object, of will and world. That doubleness
has nothing whatever to do with the difference of physical and
psychical; both the physical thing and the psychical idea are objects.
The antithesis is not that between two kinds of objects, since we have
seen that in the immediate experience the objects are not at all split
up into the two groups of material and mental things; it is rather the
antithesis between the object in its undifferentiated state on the one
side and the subject in its will-attitude on the other side. Yes, even
if we speak of the subject which stands as a unity behind the
will-attitudes, we are already reconstructing the real experience in the
interest of the purposes of knowledge. In the immediate experience, we
have the will-attitudes themselves, and not a subject which wills them.

If we ask ourselves finally what is then the ultimate difference between
those two elements of our pure experience, between the object and the
will-attitude, we stand before the ultimate data: we call that element
which exists merely through a reference to its opposite, the object, and
we call that element of our experience which is complete in itself, the
attitude of the will. If we experienced liking or disliking, affirming
or denying, approving or disapproving in the same way in which we
experience the red and the green, the sweet and the sour, the rock and
the tree and the moon, we should know objects only. But we do experience
them in quite a different way. The rock and the tree do not point to
anything else, but the approval has no reality if it does not point to
its opposition in disapproval, and the denial has no meaning if it is
not meant in relation to the affirmative. This doubleness of our primary
experience, this having of objects and of antagonistic attitudes must be
acknowledged wherever we speak of experience at all. We know no object
without attitude, and no attitude without object. The two are one state;
object and attitude form a unity which we resolve by the different way
in which we experience these two features of the one state: we find the
object and we live through the attitude. It is a different kind of
awareness, the having of the object and the taking of the attitude. In
real life our will is never an object which we simply perceive. The
psychologist may treat the will as such, but in the immediate experience
of real life, we are certain of our action by doing it and not by
perceiving our doing; and this our performing and rejecting is really
our self which we posit as absolute reality, not by knowing it, but by
willing it. This corner-stone of the Fichtean philosophy was forgotten
throughout the uncritical and unphilosophical decades of a mere
naturalistic age. But our time has finally come to give attention to it
again.

Our pure experience thus contains will-attitudes and objects of will,
and the different attitudes of the will give the fundamental classes of
human activity. We can easily recognize four different types of
will-relation towards the world. Our will submits itself to the world;
our will approves the world as it is; our will approves the changes in
the world; our will transcends the world. Yet we must make at once one
more most important discrimination. We have up to this point simplified
our pure experience too much. It is not true that we experience only
objects and our own will-attitudes. Our will reaches out not only to
objects, but also to other subjects. In our most immediate experience,
not reshaped at all by theoretical science, our will is in agreement or
disagreement with other wills; tries to influence them, and receives
influences and suggestions from them. The pseudo-philosophy of
naturalism must say of course that the will does not stand in any direct
relation to another will, but that the other persons are for us simply
material objects which we perceive, like other objects, and into which
we project mental phenomena like those which we find in ourselves by the
mere conclusion of analogy. But the complex reconstructions of
physiological psychology are therein substituted for the primary
experience. If we have to express the agreement or disagreement of wills
in the terms of causal science, we may indeed be obliged to transform
the real experience into such artificial constructions; but in our
immediate consciousness, and thus at the starting-point of our theory of
knowledge, we have certainly to acknowledge that we understand the other
person, accept or do not accept his suggestion, agree or disagree with
him, before we know anything of a difference between physical and mental
objects.

We cannot agree with an object. We agree directly with a will, which
does not come to us as a foreign phenomenon, but as a proposition which
we accept or decline. In our immediate experience will thus reaches
will, and we are aware of the difference between our will-attitude as
merely individual and our will-attitude as act of agreement with the
will-attitude of other individuals. We can go still further. The circle
of other individuals whose will we express in our own will-act may be
narrow or wide, may be our friends or the nation, and this relation
clearly constitutes the historical significance of our attitude. In the
one case our act is a merely personal choice for personal purposes
without any general meaning; in the other case it is the expression of
general tendencies and historical movements. Yet our will-decisions can
have connections still wider than those with our social community or our
nation, or even with all living men of to-day. It can seek a relation to
the totality of those whom we aim to acknowledge as real subjects. It
thus becomes independent of the chance experience of this or that man,
or this or that movement, which appeals to us, but involves in an
independent way the reference to every one who is to be acknowledged as
a subject at all. Such reference, which is no longer bound to any
special group of historical individuals, thus becomes strictly
over-individual. We can then discriminate three stages: our merely
individual will; secondly, our will as bound by other historical
individuals; and thirdly, our over-individual will, which is not
influenced by any special individual, but by the general demands for the
idea of a personality.

Each of those four great types of will-attitude which we insisted
on--that is, of submitting, of approving the given, of approving change,
and of transcending--can be carried out on these three stages, that is,
as individual act, as historical act, and as over-individual act. And we
may say at once that only if we submit and approve and change and
transcend in an over-individual act, do we have Truth and Beauty and
Morality and Conviction. If we approve, for instance, a given experience
in an individual will-act, we have simply personal enjoyment and its
object is simply agreeable; if we approve it in harmony with other
individuals, we reach a higher attitude, yet one which cannot claim
absolute value, as it is dependent on historical considerations and on
the tastes and desires of a special group or a school or a nation or an
age. But if we approve the given object just as it is in an
over-individual will-act, then we have before us a thing of beauty,
whose value is not dependent upon our personal enjoyment as individuals,
but is demanded as a joy forever, by every one whom we acknowledge at
all as a complete subject. In exactly the same way, we may approve a
change in the world from any individual point of view: we have then to
do with technical, practical achievements; or we may approve it in
agreement with others: we then enter into the historical interests of
our time. Or we may approve it, finally, in an over-individual way,
without any reference to any special personality: then only is it
valuable for all time, then only is it morally good. And if our will is
transcending experience in an individual way, it can again claim no more
than a subjective satisfaction furnished by any superstition or hope.
But if the transcending will is over-individual, it reaches the absolute
values of religion and metaphysics.

Exactly the same differences, finally, must occur when our will submits
itself to experience. This submission may be, again, an individual
decision for individual purposes; no absolute value belongs to it. Or it
may be again a yielding to the suggestions of other individuals; or it
may, finally, again be an over-individual submission, which seeks no
longer a personal interest. This submission is not to the authority of
others, and is without reference to any individual; we assume that every
one who is to share with us our world of experience has to share this
submission too. That alone is a submission to truth, and experience,
considered in so far as we submit ourselves to it over-individually,
constitutes our knowledge.

The system of knowledge is thus the system of experience with all that
is involved in it in so far as it demands submission from our
over-individual will, and the classification which we are seeking must
be thus a division and subdivision of our over-individual submissions.
But the submission itself can be of very different characters and these
various types must give the deepest logical principles of scientific
classification. To point at once to the fundamental differences: our
will acknowledges the demands of other wills and of objects. We cannot
live our life--and this is not meant in a biological sense, but, first
of all, in a teleological sense--our life becomes meaningless, if our
will does not respect the reality of will-demands and of objects of
will. Now we have seen that the will which demands our decision may be
either the individual will of other subjects or the over-individual
will, which belongs to every subject as such and is independent of any
individuality. We can say at once that in the same way we are led to
acknowledge that the object has partly an over-individual character,
that is, necessarily belongs to the world of objects of every possible
subject, and partly an individual character, as our personal object. We
have thus four large groups of experiences to which we submit ourselves:
over-individual will-acts, individual will-acts, over-individual
objects, individual objects. They constitute the first four large
divisions of our system.

The over-individual will-acts, which are as such teleologically binding
for every subject and therefore norms for his will, give us the
Normative Sciences. The individual will-acts in the world of historical
manifoldness give us the Historical Sciences. The objects, in so far as
they belong to every individual, make up the physical world, and thus
give us the Physical Sciences; and finally the objects, in so far as
they belong to the individual, are the contents of consciousness, and
thus give us the Mental Sciences. We have then the demarcation lines of
our first four large divisions: the Normative, the Historical, the
Physical, and the Mental Sciences. Yet their meaning and method and
difference must be characterized more fully. We must understand why we
have here to deal with four absolutely different types of scientific
systems, why the over-individual objects lead us to general laws and to
the determination of the future, while the study of the individual
will-acts, for instance, gives us the system of history, which turns
merely to the past and does not seek natural laws; and why the study of
the norms gives us another kind of system in which neither a causal nor
an historical, but a purely logical connection prevails. Yet all these
methodological differences result necessarily from the material with
which these four different groups of sciences are working.

Let us start again from the consideration of our original logical
purpose. We feel ourselves bound and limited in our will by physical
things, by psychical contents, by the demands of other subjects, and by
norms. The purpose of all our knowledge is to develop completely all
that is involved in this bondage. We want to develop in an
over-individual way all the obligations for our submission which are
necessarily included in the given objects and the given demands of
subjects. We start of course everywhere and in every direction from the
actual experience, but we expand the experience by seeking those objects
and those demands to which, as necessarily following from the
immediately given experience, we must also submit. And in thus
developing the whole system of submissions, the interpretation of the
experience itself becomes transformed: the physicist may perhaps
substitute imperceptible atoms for the physical object and the
psychologist may substitute sensations for the real idea, and the
historian may substitute combinations of influences for the real
personality, and the student of norms may substitute combinations of
conflicting demands for the one complete duty; yet in every case the
substitution is logically necessary and furnishes us what we call truth
inasmuch as it is needed to develop the concrete system of our
submissions and thus to express our confidence in the order-lines of
reality. And each of these substitutions and supplementations becomes,
as material of knowledge, itself a part of the world of experience.


3. _The Physical and the Mental Sciences_

The physicist, we said, speaks of the world of objects in so far as they
belong to every possible subject, and are material for a merely passive
spectator. Of course the pure experience does not offer us anything of
that kind. We insisted that the objects of our real life are objects of
our will and of our attitudes, and are at the same time undifferentiated
into the physical things outside of us and the psychical ideas in us. To
reach the abstraction of the physicist, we have thus to cut loose the
objects from our will and to separate the over-individual elements from
the individual elements. Both transformations are clearly demanded by
our logical aims. As to the cutting loose from our will, it means
considering the object as if it existed for itself, as if it were a mere
passively given material and not a material of our personal interests.
But just that is needed. We want to find out how far we have to submit
ourselves to the object. If we want to live our life, we must adjust our
attitudes to things, and, as we know our will, we must seek to
understand the other factor in the complex experience, the object of our
will, and we must find out what it involves in itself. But we do not
understand the object and the submission which it demands if we do not
completely understand its relation to our desires. Our total submission
to the thing thus involves our acknowledgment of all that we have to
expect from it. And although the real experience is a unity of will and
thing, we have thus the most immediate interest in considering what we
have to expect from the thing in itself, without reference to our will.
That means finding out the effects of the given object with a subject as
the passive spectator. We eliminate artificially, therefore, the
activity of the subject and construct as presupposition for this circle
of knowledge a nowhere existing subject without activity, for which the
thing exists merely as a cause of the effects which it produces.

The first step towards natural science is, therefore, to dissolve the
real experience into thing and personality; that is, into object and
active subject, and to eliminate in an artificial abstraction the
activity of the subject, making the object material of merely passive
awareness, and related no longer to the will but merely to other
objects. It may be more difficult to understand the second step which
naturalism has to take before a natural science is possible. It must
dissolve the object of will into an over-individual and an individual
part and must eliminate the individual. That part of my objects which
belongs to me alone is their psychical side; that which belongs to all
of us and is the object of ever new experience is the physical object.
As a physicist, in the widest sense of the word, I have to ignore the
objects in so far as they are my ideas and have to consider the stones
and the stars, the inorganic and the organic objects, as they are
outside of me, material for every one. The logical purpose of this
second abstraction may be perhaps formulated in the following way.

We have seen that the purpose of the study of the objects is to find out
what we have to expect from them; that is, to what effects of the given
thing we have to submit ourselves in anticipation. The ideal aim is thus
to understand completely how present objects and future objects--that
is, how causes and effects--are connected. The first stage in such
knowledge of causal connections is, of course, the observation of
empirical consequences. Our feeling of expectation grows with the
regularity of observed succession; yet the ideal aim can never be
fulfilled in that way. The mere observation of regularities can help us
to reduce a particular case to a frequently observed type, but what we
seek to understand is the necessity of the process. Of course we have to
formulate laws, and as soon as we acknowledge a special law to be
expressive of a necessity, the subsumption of the particular case under
the law will satisfy us even if the necessity of the connection is not
recognized in the particular case. We are satisfied because the
acknowledgment of the law involved all possible cases. But we do not at
all feel that we have furnished a real explanation if the law means to
us merely a generalization of routine experiences, and if thus no
absolute validity is attached to the law. This necessity between cause
and effect must thus have its ultimate reason in our own understanding.
We must be logically obliged to connect the objects in such a way, and
wherever observation seems to contradict that which is logically
necessary, we must reshape our idea of the object till the demands of
reason are fulfilled. That is, we must substitute for the given object
an abstraction which serves the purpose of a logically necessary
connection. That demand is clearly not satisfied if we simply group the
totality of such causal judgments under the single name, Causality, and
designate thus all these judgments as results of a special disposition
of the understanding. We never understand why just this cause demands
just this effect so long as we rely on such vague and mystical power of
our reason to link the world by causality.

But the situation changes at once if we go still further back in the
categories of our understanding. While a mere demand for causality never
explains what cause is to be linked with what effect, the vagueness
disappears when we understand this demand for causality itself as the
product of a more fundamental demand for identity. That an object
remains identical with itself does not need for us any further
interpretation. That is the ultimate presupposition of our thought, and
where a complete identity is found nothing demands further explanation.
All scientific effort aims at so rethinking different experiences that
they can be regarded as partially identical, and every discovery of
necessary connection is ultimately a demonstration of identity. If we
seek connections with the final aim to understand them as necessary, we
must conceive the world of our objects in such a way that it is possible
to consider the successive experiences as parts of a self-identical
world; that is, as parts of a world in which no substance and no energy
can disappear or appear anew. To reach this end it is obviously needed
that we eliminate from the world of objects all that cannot be conceived
as identically returning in a new experience; that is, all that belongs
to the present experience only. We do eliminate this by taking it up
conceptually into the subject and calling it psychical, and thus leaving
to the object merely that which is conceived as belonging to the world
of everybody's experience, that is, of over-individual experience. The
whole history of natural science is first of all the gigantic
development of this transformation, resolution, and reconstruction. The
objects of experience are re-thought till everything is eliminated which
cannot be conceived as identical with itself in the experiences of all
individuals and thus as belonging to the over-individual world. All the
substitutions of atoms for the real thing, and of energies for the real
changes, are merely conceptional schemes to satisfy this demand.

The logically primary step is thus not the separation of the physical
and the psychical things plus the secondary demand to connect the
physical things causally; the order is exactly opposite. The primary
desire is to connect the real objects and to understand them as causes
and effects. This understanding demands not only empirical observation,
but insight into the necessary connection. Necessary connection, on the
other hand, exists merely for identical objects and identical qualities.
But in the various experiences only that is identical which is
independent of the momentary individual experiences, and therefore we
need as the ultimate aim a reconstruction of the object into the two
parts, the one perceptional, which refers to our individual experience;
and the other conceptional, which expresses that which can be conceived
as identical in every new experience. The ideal of this constructed
world is the mechanical universe in which every atom moves by causal
necessity because there is nothing in that universe, no element of
substance and no element of energy, which will not remain identical in
all changes of the universe which are possibly to be expected. It
becomes completely determinable by anticipation and the system of our
submissions to the object can be completely constructed. The totality of
intellectual efforts to reconstruct such a causally connected
over-individual world of objects clearly represents a unity of its own.
It is the system of physical sciences.

The physical universe is thus not the totality of our objects. It is a
substitution for our real objects, constructed by eliminating the
individual parts of our objects of experience. These individual parts
are the psychical aspects of our objective experience, and they clearly
awake our scientific interest too. The physical sciences need thus as
counterpart a division of mental sciences. Their aim must be the same.
We want to foresee the psychical results and to understand causally the
psychical experience. Yet it is clear that the plan of the mental
sciences must be quite different in principle from that of the sciences
of nature. The causal connection of the physical universe was ultimately
anchored in the identity of the object through various experiences;
while the object of experience was psychical for us just in so far as it
could never be conceived as identical in different phases of reality.
The psychical object is an ever new creation; my idea can never be your
idea. Their meaning may be identical, but the psychical stuff, the
content of my consciousness, can never be object for any one else, and
even in myself the idea of to-day is never the idea of yesterday or
to-morrow. But if there cannot be identity in different psychical
experiences, it is logically impossible to connect them directly by
necessity. If we yet want to master their successive appearance, we must
substitute an indirect connection for the direct one, and must describe
and explain the psychical phenomena through reference to the physical
world. It is in this way that modern psychology has substituted
elementary sensations for the real contents of consciousness and has
constructed relations between these elementary mental states on the
basis of processes in the organism, especially brain processes. Here,
again, reality is left behind and a mere conceptional construction is
put in its place. But this construction fulfills its purpose and thus
gives us truth; and if the basis is once given, the psychological
sciences can build up a causal system of the conscious processes in the
individual man and in society.


4. _The Historical and the Normative Sciences_

The two divisions of the physical and mental sciences represent our
systematized submission to objects. But we saw from the first that it is
an artificial abstraction to consider in our real experience the object
alone. We saw clearly that we, as acting personalities, in our will and
in our attitudes, do not feel ourselves in relation to objects, merely,
but to will-acts; and that these will-acts were the individual ones of
other subjects or the over-individual ones which come to us in our
consciousness of norms. The sciences which deal with our submissions to
the individual will-acts of others are the Historical Sciences. Their
starting-point is the same as that of the object sciences, the immediate
experience. But the other subjects reach our individuality from the
start in a different way from the objects. The wills of other subjects
come to us as propositions with which we have to agree or disagree; as
suggestions, which we are to imitate or to resist; and they carry in
themselves that reference to an opposite which, as we saw, characterizes
all will-activity. The rock or the tree in our surroundings may
stimulate our reactions, but does not claim to be in itself a decision
with an alternative. But the political or legal or artistic or social or
religious will of my neighbors not only demands my agreement or
disagreement, but presents itself to me in its own meaning as a free
decision which rejects the opposite, and its whole meaning is destroyed
if I consider it like the tree or the rock as a mere phenomenon, as an
object in the world of objects. Whoever has clearly understood that
politics and religion and knowledge and art and law come to me from the
first quite differently from objects, can never doubt that their
systematic connection must be most sharply separated from all the
sciences which connect impressions of objects, and is falsified if the
historical disciplines are treated simply as parts of the sciences of
phenomena--for instance, as parts of sociology, the science of society
as a psycho-physical object.

Just as natural science transcends the immediately experienced object
and works out the whole system of our necessary submissions to the world
of objects, so the historical sciences transcend the social will-acts
which approach us in our immediate experience, and again seek to find
what we are really submitting to if we accept the suggestions of our
social surroundings. And yet this similar demand has most dissimilar
consequences. We submit to an object and want to find out what we are
really submitting to. That cannot mean anything else, as we have seen,
than to seek the effects of the object and thus to look forward to what
we have to expect from the object. On the other hand, if we want to find
out what we are really submitting to if we agree with the decision of
our neighbor, the only meaning of the question can be to ask what our
neighbor really is deciding on, what is contained in his decision; and
as his decision must mean an agreement or disagreement with the will-act
of another subject, we cannot understand the suggestion which comes to
us without understanding in respect to what propositions of others it
takes a stand. Our interest is in this case thus led from those subjects
of will which enter into our immediate experience to other subjects
whose purposes stand in the relation of suggestion and demand to the
present ones. And if we try to develop the system of these relations, we
come to an endless chain of will-relations, in which one individual will
always points back in its decisions to another individual will with
which it agrees or disagrees, which it imitates or overcomes by a new
attitude of will; and the whole network of these will-relations is the
political or religious or artistic or social history of mankind. This
system of history as a system of teleologically connected will-attitudes
is elaborated from the will-propositions which reach us in immediate
experience, with the same necessity with which the mechanical universe
of natural science is worked out from the objects of our immediate
experience.

The historical system of will-connections is similar to the system of
object-connections, not only in its starting in the immediate
experience, but further in its also seeking identities. Without this
feature history would not offer to our understanding real connections.
We must link the will-attitudes of men by showing the identity of the
alternatives. Just as the physical thing is substituted by a large
number of atoms which remain identical in the causal changes, in the
same way the personality is substituted by an endless manifoldness of
decisions and becomes linked with the historical community by the
thought that each of these partial decisions refers to an alternative
which is identical with that of other persons. And yet there remains a
most essential difference between the historical and the causal
connection. In a world of things the mere identical continuity is
sufficient to determine the phenomena of any given moment. In a world of
will the identity of alternatives cannot determine beforehand the actual
decision; that belongs to the free activity of the subject. If this
factor of freedom were left out, man would be made an object and history
a mere appendix of natural science. The connection of the historian can
therefore never be a necessary one, however much we may observe
empirical regularities. If there were no identities, our reason could
not find connection in history; but if the historical connections were
necessary, like the causal ones, it would not be history. The historian
is, therefore, unable and without the ambition to look into the future
like the naturalist; his domain is the past.

Yet will-attitudes and will-acts can also be brought into necessary
connection; that is, we can conceive will-acts as teleologically
identical with each other and exempt from the freedom of the individual.
That is clearly possible only if they are conceived as beyond the
freedom of individual decision and related to the over-individual
subject. The question is then no longer how this special man wills and
decides, but how far a certain will-decision binds every possible
individual who performs this act if he is to share our common world of
will and meaning. Such an over-individual connection of will-acts is
what we call the logical connection. It shares with all other
connections the dependence upon the category of identity. The logical
connection shows how far one act or combination of acts involves, and
thus is partially identical with, a new combination. This logical
connection has, in common with the causal connection, necessity; and in
common with the historical connection, teleological character. Any
individual will-act of historical life may be treated for certain
purposes as such a starting-point of over-individual relations; it would
then lead to that scientific treatment which gives us an interpretation,
for instance, of law. Such interpretative sciences belong to the system
of history in the widest sense of the word.

The chief interest, however, must belong to the logical connections of
those will-acts which themselves have over-individual character. A
merely individual proposition can lead to necessary logical connection,
but cannot claim that scientific importance which belongs to the logical
connection of those propositions which are necessary for the
constitution of every real experience: the science of chess cannot stand
on the same level with the science of geometry, the science of local
legal statutes not on the same level with the system of ethics. The
logical connections of the over-individual attitudes thus constitute the
fourth large division besides the physical, the mental, and the
historical sciences. It must thus comprise the systems of all those
propositions which are presuppositions of our common reality,
independent of the free individual decision. Here belong the acts of
approval--the ethical approval of changes and achievements, as well as
the æsthetic approval of the given world; the acts of conviction--the
religious convictions of a superstructure of the world as well as the
metaphysical convictions of a substructure; and above all, the acts of
affirmation and submission, the logical as well as the mathematical. But
to be consistent we must really demand that merely the over-individual
logical connections are treated in this division. If we deal, for
instance, with the æsthetical or ethical acts as psychological
experiences, or as historical propositions, they belong to the psychical
or historical division. Only the philosophical system of ethics or
æsthetics finds its place in this division. It is difficult to find a
suitable name for this whole system of logical connections of
over-individual attitudes. Perhaps it would be most correct to call it
the Sciences of Values, inasmuch as every one of these over-individual
decisions constitutes a value in our world which our individual will
finds as an absolute datum like the objects of experience. Seen from
another point of view, these values appear as norms which bind our
practical will inasmuch as these absolute values demand of our will to
realize them, and it may thus be permitted to designate this whole group
of sciences as a Division of Normative Sciences.

Our logical explanation of the meaning of these four divisions naturally
began with the interpretation of that science which usually takes
precedence in popular thought--with the science of nature, that is, and
passed then to those groups whose methodological situation is seen
rather vaguely by our positivistic age. But as soon as we have once
defined and worked out the boundary lines of each of these four
divisions, it would appear more logical to change their order and to
begin with that division whose material is those over-individual
will-acts on which all possible knowledge must depend, and then to turn
to those individual will-acts which determine the formulation of our
present-day knowledge, and then only to go to the objects of knowledge,
the over-individual and the individual ones. In short, we must begin
with the normative sciences, consider in the second place the historical
sciences, in the third place the physical sciences, and in the fourth
place the psychical sciences. There cannot be a scientific judgment
which must not find its place somewhere in one of these four groups. And
yet can we really say that these four great divisions complete the
totality of scientific efforts? The plan of our Congress contains three
important divisions besides these.


5. _The Three Divisions of Practical Sciences_

The three divisions which still lie before us represent Practical
Knowledge. Have we a logical right to put them on an equal level with
the four large divisions which we have considered so far? Might it not
rather be said that all that is knowledge in those practical sciences
must find its place somewhere in the theoretical field, and that
everything outside of it is not knowledge, but art? It cannot be denied
indeed that the logical position of the practical sciences presents
serious problems. That the function of the engineer or of the physician,
of the lawyer or of the minister, of the diplomat or of the teacher,
contains elements of an art cannot be doubted. They all need not only
knowledge, but a certain instinct and power and skill, and their
schooling thus demands a training and discipline through imitation which
cannot be substituted by mere learning. Yet when it comes to the
classification of sciences, it seems very doubtful whether practical
sciences have to be acknowledged as special divisions, inasmuch as the
factor of art must have been eliminated at the moment they are presented
as sciences. The auscultation of the physician certainly demands skill
and training, yet this practical activity itself does not enter into the
science of medicine as presented in medical writings. As soon as the
physician begins to deal with it scientifically, he needs, as does any
scholar, not the stethoscope, but the pen. He must formulate judgments;
and as soon as he simply describes and analyzes and explains and
interprets his stethoscopic experiences, his statements become a system
of theoretical ideas.

We can say in general that the science of medicine or of engineering, of
jurisprudence or of education, contains, as science, no element of art,
but merely theoretical judgments which, as such, can find their place
somewhere in the complete systems of the theoretical sciences. If the
physician describes a disease, its symptoms, the means of examining
them, the remedies, their therapeutical effects, and the prophylaxis, in
short, everything which the physician needs for his art, he does not
record anything which would not belong to an ideally complete
description and explanation of the processes in the human body. In the
same way it can be said that if the engineer characterizes the
conditions under which an iron bridge will be safe, it is evident that
he cannot introduce any facts which would not find their logical place
in an ideally complete description of the properties of inorganic
nature; and finally, the same is true for the statements of the
politician, the jurist, the pedagogue, or the minister. Whatever is said
about their art is a theoretical judgment which connects facts of the
ideally complete system of theoretical science; in their case the facts
of course belong in first line to the realm of the psychological,
historical, and normative sciences. There never has been or can be
practical advice in the form of words, which is not in principle a
statement of facts which belong to the absolute totality of theoretical
knowledge. Seen from this point of view, it is evident that all our
knowledge is fundamentally theoretical, and that the conception of
practical knowledge is logically unprecise.

But the opposite point of view might also be taken. It might be said
that after all every kind of knowledge is practical, and our own
deduction of the meaning of science might be said to suggest such
interpretation. We acknowledged at the outset that the so-called
theoretical knowledge is by no means a passive mirror picture of an
independent outside world; but that in every judgment real experience is
remoulded and reshaped in the service of certain purposes of will. Here
lies the true core of that growing popular philosophy of to-day which,
under the name of pragmatism, or under other titles, mingles the
purposive character of our knowledge and the evolutionary theories of
modern biology in the vague notion that men created knowledge because
the biological struggle for existence led to such views of the world;
and that we call true that correlation of our experiences which has
approved itself through its harmony with the phylogenetic development.
Certainly we must reject such circle philosophies. We must see clearly
that the whole conception of a biological development and of a struggle
of organisms is itself only a part of our construction of causal
knowledge. We must have knowledge to conceive ourselves as products of a
phylogenetic history, and thus cannot deduce from it the fact, and,
still less, the justification of knowledge. Yet one element of this
theory remains valuable: knowledge is indeed a purposive activity, a
reconstruction of the world in the service of ideals of the will. We
have thus from one side the suggestion that all knowledge is merely
theoretical, from the other side the claim that all knowledge is
practical activity. It seems as if both sides might agree that it is
superfluous and unjustified to make a demarcation line through the field
of knowledge and to separate two sorts of knowledge, theoretical and
practical. For both theories demand that all knowledge be of one kind,
and they disagree only as to whether we ought to call it all theoretical
or all practical.

Yet the true situation is not characterized by such an antithesis. If we
say that all knowledge is ultimately practical, we are speaking from an
epistemological point of view, inasmuch as we take it then as a
reconstruction of the world through the purposive activity of the
over-individual subject. On the other hand it is an empirical point of
view from which ultimately all knowledge, that of the physician and
engineer and lawyer, as well as that of the astronomer, appears
theoretical. But this antithesis can, therefore, not decide the further
empirical question, whether or not in the midst of theoretical knowledge
two kinds of sciences may be discriminated, of which the one refers to
empirical practical purposes and the other not. Such an inquiry would
have nothing to do with the epistemological problem of pragmatism; it
would be strictly non-philosophical, just as the separation of chemistry
into organic and inorganic chemistry. This empirical question is indeed
to be answered in the affirmative. If we ask what causes bring about a
certain effect, for the sake of a practical purpose of ours,--for
instance, the curing a patient of disease,--no one can state facts which
are not in principle to be included in the complete system of physical
causes and effects and thus in the system of physical sciences. And yet
it may well be that the physical sciences, as such, have not the
slightest reason to mention the effect of that special drug on that
special pathological alteration of the tissues of the organism. The
descriptions and explanations of science are not a mere heaping up of
material, but a steady selection in the interest of the special aim of
the science. No physical science describes every special pebble on the
beach; no historical science deals with the chance happenings in the
daily life of any member of the crowd. And we already well know the
point of view from which the selection is to be performed. We want to
know in the physical and psychical sciences whatever is involved in the
object of our experience, and in the historical and normative sciences
whatever is involved in the demands which reach our will. But whether we
have to do with the objects or with the demands, in both cases we have
systems before us which are determined only by the objects or demands
themselves, without any relation to our individual will and our own
practical activity. Theoretically, of course, our will, our activity,
our organism, our personality is included in the complete system; and if
we knew absolutely everything of the empirical effects of the object or
of the consequences of these demands, we should find among them their
relation to our individual interests; but that relation would be but one
chance case among innumerable others, and the sciences would not have
the slightest interest in giving any attention to that particular case.
Thus if our knowledge of chemical substances were complete, we should
certainly have to know theoretically that a few grains of antipyrine
introduced into the organism have an influence on those brain centres
which regulate the temperature of the human body. Yet if the chemist
does not share the interest of the physician who wants to fight a fever,
he would have hardly any reason for examining this particular relation,
as it hardly throws light on the chemical constitution as such. In this
way we might say in general that the relation of the world to us as
acting individuals is in principle contained in the total system of the
relations of our world of experience, but has a strictly accidental
place there and can never be in itself a centre around which the
scientific data are clustered, and science will hardly have an interest
in giving any attention to its details.

This relation of the world, the physical, the psychical, the historical,
and the normative world, to our individual, practical purposes can,
however, indeed become the centre of scientific interest, and it is
evident that the whole inquiry receives thereupon a perfectly new
direction which demands not only a completely new grouping of facts and
relations, but also a very different shading in elaboration. As long as
the purpose was to understand the world without relation to our
individual aims, science had to gather endless details which are for us
now quite indifferent, as they do not touch our aims; and in other
respects science was satisfied with broad generalizations and
abstractions where we have now to examine the most minute details. In
short, the shifting of the centre of gravity creates perfectly new
sciences which must be distinguished; and if we call them again
theoretical and practical sciences, it is clear that this difference has
then no longer anything to do with the philosophical problems from which
we started.

The term practical may be preferable to the other term which is
sometimes used: Applied Science. If we construct the antithesis of
theoretical and applied science, the underlying idea is clearly that we
have to do on the practical side with a discipline which teaches how to
apply a science which logically exists as such beforehand. Engineering,
for instance, is an applied science because it applies the science of
physics; but this is not really our deepest meaning here. Our practical
sciences are not meant as mere applications of theoretical sciences.
They are logically somewhat degraded if they are treated in such a way.
Their real logical meaning comes out only if they are acknowledged as
self-dependent sciences whose material is differentiated from that of
the theoretical sciences by the different point of view and purpose.
They are methodologically perfectly independent, and the fact that a
large part or theoretically even everything of their teaching overlaps
the teaching of certain theoretical sciences ought not to have any
influence on their logical standing. The practical sciences could be
conceived as completely self-dependent, without the existence of any
so-called theoretical sciences; that is, the relations of the world of
experience to our individual aims might be brought into complete systems
without working out in principle the system of independent experience.
We might have a science of engineering without acknowledging an
independent science of theoretical physics besides it. To be sure, such
a science of engineering would finally develop itself into a system
which would contain very much that might just as well be called
theoretical physics; yet all would be held together by the point of view
of the engineer, and that part of theoretical physics which the engineer
applies might just as well be considered as depracticalized engineering.
If this logical self-dependence of the practical science holds true even
for such technological disciplines, it is still more evident that it
would cripple the meaning and independent character of jurisprudence and
social science, or of pedagogy and theology, to treat them simply as
applied sciences, that is, as applications of theoretical science.

This point of view determines, also, of course, the classification of
the Practical Sciences. If they were really merely applied sciences it
would be most natural to group them according to the classification of
the theoretical sciences which are to be applied. We should then have
applied physical sciences, applied psychological sciences, applied
historical sciences, and applied normative sciences. Yet even from the
standpoint of practice, we should come at once into difficulties, and
indeed much of the superficiality of practical sciences to-day results
from the hasty tendency to consider them as applied sciences only, and
thus to be determined by the points of view of the theoretical
discipline which is to be applied. Then, for instance, pedagogy becomes
simply applied psychology, and the psychological point of view is
substituted for the educational one. Pedagogy then becomes simply a
selection of those chapters in psychology which deal with the mental
functions of the child. Yet as soon as we really take the teachers'
point of view, we understand at once that it is utterly artificial to
substitute the categories of the psychologist for those of immediate
practical will-relations and to consider the child in the class-room as
a causal system of psycho-physical elements instead of a personality
which is teleologically to be interpreted, and whose aims are not to be
connected with causal effects but with over-individual attitudes. In
this way the historical relation and the normative relation have to play
at least as important a rôle in the pedagogical system as the
psycho-physical relation, and we might quite as well call education
applied history and applied ethics.

Almost every practical science can be shown in this way to apply a
number of theoretical sciences; it synthesizes them to a new unity. But
better, we ought to say, that it is a unity in itself from the start,
and that it only overlaps with a number of theoretical sciences. If we
want to classify the practical sciences, we have thus only the one
logical principle at our disposal: we must classify them in accordance
with the group of human individual aims which control those different
disciplines. If all practical sciences deal with the relation of the
world of experience to our individual practical ends, the classes of
those ends are the classes of our practical sciences, whatever
combinations of applied theoretical sciences may enter into the group.
Of course a special classification of these aims must remain somewhat
arbitrary; yet it may seem most natural to separate three large
divisions. We called them the Utilitarian Sciences, the Sciences of
Social Regulation, and the Sciences of Social Culture. Utilitarian we
may call those sciences in which our practical aim refers to the world
of things; it may be the technical mastery of nature or the treatment of
the body, or the production, distribution, and consumption of the means
of support. The second division contains everything in which our aim
does not refer to the thing, but to the other subjects; here naturally
belong the sciences which deal with the political, legal, and social
purposes. And finally the sciences of culture refer to those aims in
which not the individual relations to things or to other subjects are in
the foreground, but the purposes of the teleological development of the
subject himself; education, art, and religion here find their place. It
is, of course, evident that the material of these sciences frequently
allows the emphasis of different aspects. For instance, education, which
aims primarily at self-development, might quite well be considered also
from the point of view of social regulation; and still more naturally
could the utilitarian sciences of the economic distribution of the means
of support be considered from this point of view. Yet a classification
of sciences nowhere suggests by its boundary lines that there are no
relations and connections between the different parts; on the contrary,
it is just the manifoldness of these given connections which makes it so
desirable to become conscious of the principles involved, and thus to
emphasize logical demarcation lines, which of course must be obliterated
as soon as any material is to be treated from every possible point of
view. It may thus well be that, for instance, a certain industrial
problem could be treated in the Normative Sciences from the point of
view of ethics; in the Historical Sciences, from the point of view of
the history of economic institutions; in the Physical Sciences, from the
point of view of physics or chemistry; in the Mental Sciences, from the
point of view of sociology; in the Utilitarian Sciences, from the point
of view of medicine or of engineering, or of commerce and
transportation; and finally in the Regulative Sciences, from the point
of view of political administration, or in the Social Sciences, from the
standpoint of the urban community, and so on. The more complex the
relations are, the more necessary is it to make clean distinctions
between the different logical purposes with which the scientific
inquiries start. Practical life may demand a combination of historical,
sociological, psychological, economical, social, and ethical
considerations; but not one of these sciences can contribute its best if
the consciousness of these differences is lost and the deliberate
combination is replaced by a vague mixture of the problems.


6. _The Subdivisions_

We have now before us the ground-plan of the scheme, the four
theoretical divisions, and the three practical divisions; every
additional comment on the classification must be of secondary
importance, as it has to refer to the smaller subdivisions, which cannot
change the principles of the plan, and which have not seldom, indeed,
been a result of practical considerations. If, for instance, our
Division of Cultural Sciences shows in the final plan merely the
departments of Education and of Religion, while the originally planned
Department of Art is left out, there was no logical reason for it, but
merely the practical ground that it seemed difficult to bring such a
practical art section to a desirable scientific level; we confine art,
therefore, to the normative æsthetic and historical points of view. Or,
to choose another illustration, if it happened that the normative
sciences were finally organized without a section for the philosophy of
law, this resulted from the fact that the American jurists, in contrast
with their Continental European colleagues, showed a general lack of
appreciation for such a section. A few sections had to be left out even
for the chance reason that the leading speakers were obliged to withdraw
at a time when it was too late to ask substitutes to work up addresses.
And almost everywhere there had to be something arbitrary in the
limitation of the special sections. Though Otology and Laryngology were
brought together into one section, they might just as well have been
placed in two; and Rhinology, which was left out, might have been added
as a third in that company. As to this subtler ramification, the plan
has been changed several times during the period of the practical
preparation of the plan, and much is the result of adjustment to
questions of personalities. No one claims, thus, any special logical
value for the final formulation of the sectional details, for which our
chief aim was not to go beyond eight times sixteen, that is 128,
sections, inasmuch as it was planned to have the meetings at eight
different time-periods in sixteen different halls. If we had fulfilled
all the wishes which were expressed by specialists, the number would
have been quickly doubled.

Yet a few remarks may be devoted to the branching off within the seven
divisions, as a short discussion of some of these details may throw
additional light on the general principles of the whole plan. If we thus
begin with the Normative Sciences, we stand at once before one feature
of the plan which has been in an especially high degree a matter of both
approval and criticism: the fact that Mathematics is grouped with
Philosophy. The Division was to contain, as we have seen, the systems of
logically connected will-acts of the over-individual subject. That
Ethics or Logic or Æsthetics or Philosophy of Religion deals with such
over-individual attitudes cannot be doubted; but have we a right to
coördinate the mathematical sciences with these philosophical sciences?
Has Mathematics not a more natural place among the physical sciences
coördinated with and introductory to Mechanics, Physics, and Astronomy?
The mathematicians themselves would often be inclined to accept without
hesitation this neighborhood of the physical sciences. They would say
that the mathematical objects are independent realities whose properties
we study like those of nature, whose relations we "observe," whose
existence we "discover," and in which we are interested because they
belong to the real world. All this is true, and yet the objects of the
mathematician are objects made by the logical will only, and thus
different from all phenomena into which sensation enters. The
mathematician, of course, does not reflect on the purely logical origin
of the objects which he studies, but the system of knowledge must give
to the study of the mathematical objects its place in the group where
the functions and products of the over-individual attitudes are
classified. The mathematical object is a free creation, and a creation
not only as to the combination of elements--that would be the case with
many laboratory substances of the chemist too--but a creation as to the
elements themselves, and the value of that creation, its "mathematical
interest," is to be judged by ideals of thought; that is, by logical
purposes. No doubt this logical purpose is its application in the world
of objects and the mathematical concepts must thus fit the objective
world so absolutely that mathematics can be conceived as a description
of the world after abstracting not only from the will-relations, as
physics does, but also from the content. Mathematics would, then, be the
phenomenalistic science of the form and order of the world. In this way,
mathematics has indeed a claim to places in both divisions: among the
physical sciences if we emphasize its applicability to the world, and
among the teleological sciences if we emphasize the free creation of the
objects by the logical will. But if we really go back to epistemological
principles, our system has to prefer the latter emphasis; that is, we
must coördinate mathematics with logic and not with physics.

As to the subdivision of philosophy, it is most essential for us to
point to the negative fact that of course psychology cannot have a place
in the philosophical department, as part of the Normative Division.
There is perhaps no science whose position in the system of knowledge
offers so many methodological difficulties as psychology. Historical
tradition of course links it with philosophy; throughout a great part of
its present endeavors it is, on the other hand, linked with physiology.
Thus we find it sometimes coördinated with logic and ethics, and
sometimes, especially in the classical positivistic systems, coördinated
with the sciences of the organic functions. We have seen why a really
logical treatment has to disregard those historical and practical
relations and has to separate the psychological sciences from the
philosophical and the biological sciences. Yet even this does not
complete the list of problems which must be settled, inasmuch as modern
thinkers have frequently insisted that psychology itself allows a
twofold aspect. We can have a psychology which describes and explains
the mental life by analyzing it into its elements and by connecting
these elements through causality. But there may be another psychology
which treats inner life in that immediate unity in which we experience
it and seeks to interpret it as the free function of personality. This
latter kind of psychology has been called voluntaristic psychology as
against the phenomenalistic psychology which seeks description and
explanation. Such voluntaristic psychology would clearly belong again to
a different division. It would be a theory of individual life as a
function of will, and would thus be introductory to the historical
sciences and to the normative sciences too. Yet we left out this
teleological psychology from our programme, as such a science is as yet
a programme only. Wherever an effort is made to realize it, it becomes
an odd mixture of an inconsistent phenomenalistic psychology on the one
side, and philosophy of history, logic, ethics, and æsthetics on the
other side. The only science which really has a right to call itself
psychology is the one which seeks to describe and to explain inner life
and treats it therefore as a system of psychical objects, that is, as
contents of consciousness, that is, as phenomena. Psychology belongs,
then, in the general division of psychical sciences as over against
physical sciences, and both deal with objects as over against philosophy
and history, which deal with subjects of will.

The subdivision of the Historical Sciences offers no methodological
difficulty as soon as those epistemological arguments are acknowledged
by which we sharply distinguish history from the Physical and Mental
Sciences. If history is a system of will-relations which is in
teleological connection with the will-demands that surround us, then
political history loses its predominant rôle, and the history of law and
of literature, of language and of economy, of art and religion, become
coördinated with political development, while the mere anthropological
aspect of man is relegated to the physical sciences. The more complete
original scheme was here again finally condensed for practical reasons;
for instance, the planned departments on the History of Education, on
the History of Science, and on the History of Philosophy were
sacrificed, and the department of Economic History was joined to that of
Political History. In the same way we felt obliged to omit in the end
many important sections in the departments; we had, for instance, in the
History of Language at first a section on Slavic Languages; yet the
number of scholars interested was too small to justify its existence
beside a section on Slavic Literature. Also the History of Music was
omitted from the History of Art; and the History of Law was planned at
first with a fuller ramification.

The division of Physical Sciences naturally suggested that kind of
subdivision which the positivistic classification presents as a complete
system of sciences. Considering physics and chemistry as the two
fundamental sciences of general laws, we turn first to astronomy, then
from the science of the whole universe to the one planet, to the
sciences of the earth; thence to the living organisms on the earth; and
from biology to the still narrower circle of anthropology. The special
classification of physics offers a certain difficulty. To divide it in
text-book fashion into sound, light, electricity, etc., seems hardly in
harmony with the effort to seek logical principles in the other parts of
the classification. The three groups which we finally formed, Physics of
Matter, Physics of Ether, and Physics of Electron, may appear somewhat
too much influenced by the latest theories of to-day, yet it seemed
preferable to other principles. In the biological department, criticism
seems justified in view of the fact that we constructed a special
section, Human Anatomy. A strictly logical scheme might have
acknowledged that human anatomy is to-day not a separate science, and
that it has resolved itself into comparative anatomy. Sections of
Invertebrate and Vertebrate Anatomy might have been more satisfactory.
The final arrangement was a concession to the practical interests of the
physicians, who have naturally to emphasize the anatomy of the human
organism.

In the division of Mental Sciences, we have the Department of Sociology.
We were, of course, aware that the sociological interest includes not
only the psychological, but also the physiological life of society, and
that it thus has relations to the physical sciences too. Yet these
relations are logically not more fundamental than those of the
individual mental life to the functions of the individual organism. Much
of the physiological side was further to be handed over to the
Department of Anthropology, and thus we felt justified in grouping
sociology with psychology under the Mental Sciences, as the psychology
of the social organism. Here, too, a larger number of sections was
intended and only the two most essential ones, Social Structure and
Social Psychology, were finally admitted.

The ramifications of the practical sciences had to follow the general
principle that their character is determined by purpose and not by
material. The difficulty was here merely in the extreme specialization
of the practical disciplines, which suggests on the whole the forming of
very small units, while our plan was to provide for fifty practical
sections only. It seemed, therefore, incongruous to have the whole of
Internal Medicine or the whole of Private Law condensed into one
section. Yet as the purpose of the scheme was a theoretical and not a
practical one, even where the theory of practical sciences was in
question, we felt justified in constructing coördinated sections, even
where the practical importance was very unequal. On the other hand, some
glaring defects just here are due merely to chance circumstances. That
there were, for instance, no sections on Criminal Law or Ecclesiastical
Law in the Department of Jurisprudence, nor on Legal Procedure, resulted
from the unfortunate accident that in these cases the speakers who were
to come from Europe were withheld by illness or public duties. The
absence of the Department of Art in the Division of Social Culture, and
thus of the Sections on the theory and practice of the different arts,
has been explained before. It is evident that also in the Economical
Department the practical development has interfered with the original
symmetrical arrangement of the sections. This is not true of the
Religious Department, whose six sections express the tendencies of the
original plan. The frequently expressed criticism that the different
religions and their denominations ought to have found place there shows
a misconception of our purpose; a Parliament of Religion did not belong
to this plan.




III

THE RESULTS OF THE CONGRESS


The programme of the Congress, as outlined in the previous pages, was in
this case somewhat more than a mere programme. It not only invited to do
a piece of work, but it sought to contribute to the work itself. Yet the
chief work had to be done by others, and their part needed careful
preparation. Yet very little of the preparation showed itself to the
eyes of the larger public, and few were fully aware what a complex
organization was growing up and how many persons of mark were
coöperating.

It was essential to find for every address the best man. Specialists
only could suggest to the committees where to find him. It has been told
before how our invitations were brought to the foreigners first till the
desired number of foreign participants was secured, and how the
Americans followed. As could not be otherwise expected, interferences of
all kinds disturbed the ideal configuration of the first list of
acceptances; substitutes had sometimes to be relied on; and yet, when on
the nineteenth of September President Francis welcomed the Congress of
Arts and Science in the gigantic Festival Hall of the St. Louis
Exposition, the Committee knew that almost four hundred speakers had
completed their manuscripts, and that it was a galaxy which far
surpassed in importance that of any previous international congress. And
the list of those who stood for the success of the work was not confined
to the official speakers. Each Department and each Section had its own
honorary President, who was also chosen by the consent of leading
specialists and whose introductory remarks were to give additional
importance to the gathering. At their side stood the hundred and thirty
Secretaries, carefully chosen from among the productive scholars of the
younger generation. And a large number of informal, yet officially
invited contributors, had announced valuable discussions and addresses
for almost every Section. Invitations to membership finally had been
sent to the universities and scholarly societies of all countries.

That the turmoil of a world's fair is out of harmony with the scholar's
longing for repose and quietude is a natural presupposition, which has
not been disproved by the experience of St. Louis. When Professor
Newcomb, our President, spoke to the opening assembly on the dignity of
scholarship, the scholar's peaceful address was accentuated by the
thunder of the cannons with which Boer and British forces were playing
at war near by. The roaring of the Pike overpowered many a quiet
session, and the patient speaker had not seldom to fight heroically with
a brass band on the next lawn. The trains were delayed, trunks were
mixed up, and the sultry St. Louis weather stirred much secret longing
for the seashore and the mountains, which most had to leave too early
for that pilgrimage to the Mississippi Valley. Yet all this could have
been easily foreseen, and every one knew that all this would soon be
forgotten. These slight discomforts were many times made up for by the
overwhelming beauty of that ivory city in which the civilization of the
world was focused by the united energy of the nations, and it seemed
well worth while to cross the ocean for the delight of that enchantment
which came with every evening's myriad illumination. And every day
brought interesting festivities. No one will forget the receptions of
the foreign commissioners, or the charming hospitality of the leading
citizens of St. Louis, or the enthusiastic banquet which brought one
thousand speakers and presidents and official members of the Congress
together as guests of the master mind of the Exposition, President
Francis.

While the discomfort of external shortcomings was thus easily balanced,
it is more doubtful whether the internal shortcomings of the work can be
considered as fully compensated for. It would be impossible to overlook
these defects in the realization of our plans, even if it may be
acknowledged that they were unavoidable under the given conditions. The
principal difficulty has been that many speakers have not really treated
the topic for the discussion of which they were invited. This deviation
from the plan took various forms. There was in some cases a fundamental
attitude taken which did not harmonize with those logical principles
which had led to the classification; for instance, we had sharply
separated, for reasons fully stated above, the Division of History from
the Division of Mental Sciences, including sociology; yet some papers
for the Division of History clearly indicated sympathy with the
traditional positivistic view, according to which history becomes simply
a part of sociology. And similar variations of the general plan occur in
almost every division. But there cannot be any objection to this
secondary variety as long as the whole framework gives the primary
uniformity. Certainly no one of the contributors is to be blamed for it;
no one was pledged to the philosophy of the general plan, and probably
few would have agreed if any one had had the idea of demanding from
every contributor an identical background of general convictions. Such
monotony would have been even harmful, as the work would have become
inexpressive of the richness of tendencies in the scholarly life of our
time. This was not an occasion where educated clerks were to work up in
a secondhand way a report whose general trend was determined beforehand;
the work demanded original thinkers, with whom every word grows out of a
rich individual view of the totality. If every paper had been meant
merely as a detailed amplification of the logical principles on which
the whole plan was based, it would have been wiser to set young Doctor
candidates to work, who might have elaborated the hint of the general
scheme. To invite the leaders of knowledge meant to give them complete
freedom and to confine the demands of the plan to a most general
direction.

The same freedom, which every one was to have as to the general
standpoint, was intended also for all with regard to the arrangement and
limitation of the topic. All the sectional addresses were supposed to
deal either with relations or with fundamental problems of to-day. It
would have been absurd to demand that in every case the totality of
relations or of problems should be covered or even touched. The result
would have become perfunctory and insignificant. No one intended to
produce a cyclopedia. It was essential everywhere to select that which
was most characteristic of the tendencies of the age and most promising
for the science of the twentieth century. Those problems were to be
emphasized whose solution is most demanded for the immediate progress of
knowledge, and those relations had to be selected through which new
connections, new synthetic thoughts prepare themselves to-day. That this
selection had to be left to the speaker was a matter of course.

Yet it may be said that in all these directions, with reference to the
general standpoint and with reference to problems and relations, the
Organizing Committee had somewhat prepared the choice through the
selection of the speakers themselves. As the standpoints of the leading
speakers were well known, it was not difficult to invite as far as
possible for every place a scholar whose general views would be least
out of harmony with the principles of the plan. For instance, when we
had the task before us of selecting the divisional speakers for the
Normative and for the Mental Sciences, it was only natural to invite for
the first a philosopher of idealistic type and for the latter a
philosopher of positivistic stamp, inasmuch as the whole scheme gave to
the mental sciences the same place which they would have had in a
positivistic scheme, while the normative sciences would have lost the
meaning which they had in our plan if a positivist had simply
psychologized them. In the same way we gave preference as far as
possible, for the addresses on relations, to those scholars whose
previous work was concerned with new synthetic movements, and as
speakers on problems those were invited who were in any case engaged in
the solution of those problems which seemed central in the present state
of science. Thus it was that on the whole the expectation was justified
that the most characteristic relations and the most characteristic
problems would be selected if every invited speaker spoke essentially on
those relations and on those problems with which his own special work
was engaged.

Yet there is no doubt that this expectation was sometimes fulfilled
beyond our anticipation, in an amount of specialization which was no
longer entirely in harmony with the general character of the
undertaking. The general problem has become sometimes only the
starting-point or almost the pretext for speaking on some relation or
problem so detailed that it can hardly stand as a representative symbol
of the whole movement in that sectional field. Especially in the
practical sciences more room was sometimes taken for particular hobbies
and chance aspects than in the eyes of the originators the occasion may
have called for. Yet on the whole this was the exception. The
overwhelming majority of the addresses fulfilled nobly the high hopes of
the Boards, and even in those exceptional cases where the speaker went
his own way, it was usually such an original and stimulating expression
of a strong personality that no one would care to miss this tone in the
symphony of science.

Even now of course, though the Congress days have passed, and only
typewritten manuscripts are left from all those September meetings, it
would be easy to provide, by editorial efforts, for a greater uniformity
and a smoother harmonization. Most of the authors would have been quite
willing to retouch their addresses in the interest of greater objective
uniformity and to accept the hint of an editorial committee in
elaborating more fully some points and in condensing or eliminating
others. Much was written in the desire to bring a certain thought for
discussion before such an eminent audience, while the speaker would be
ready to substitute other features of the subject for the permanent form
of the printed volume. Yet such editorial supervision and transformation
would be not only immodest but dangerous. We might risk gaining some
external uniformity, but only to lose much of the freshness and
immediacy and brilliancy of the first presentation. And who would dare
to play the critical judge when the international contributors are the
leaders of thought? There was therefore not the slightest effort made to
suggest revision of the manuscripts, for which the whole responsibility
must thus fall to the particular author. The reduction to a uniform
language seemed, on the other hand, most natural, and those who had
delivered their addresses in French, German, or Italian themselves
welcomed the idea that their papers should be translated into English by
competent specialists. The short bibliographies, selected mostly through
the chairman of the departments, and the very full index with references
may add to the general usefulness of the eight volumes in which the work
is to be presented.

But the significance of the Congress of Arts and Science ought not to be
measured and valued only by reference to this printed result. Its less
visible side-effects seem in no way less important for scholarship, and
they are fourfold. There was, first, the personal contact between the
scholarly public and the leaders of thought; there was, secondly, the
first academic alliance between the United States and Europe; there was,
thirdly, the first demonstration of a world congress crystallized about
one problem; there was, fourthly, the unique accentuation of the thought
of unity in all human science; and each of these four movements will be
continued and reinforced by the publication of these proceedings.

The first of these four features, the contact of the scholarly public
with the best thinkers of our time, had, to be sure, its limitations. It
was not sought to create a really popular congress. Neither the level of
the addresses, nor the size of the halls, nor the number of invitations
sent out, nor the general conditions of a world's fair at which the
expense of living is high and the distractions thousandfold, favored the
attendance of crowds. It was planned from the first that on the whole
scholars and specialists should attend and that the army should be made
up essentially of officers. If in an astronomical section perhaps thirty
men were present, among whom practically every one was among the best
known directors of observatories or professors of mathematics,
astronomy, or physics, from all countries of the globe, much more was
gained than if three thousand had been in the audience, brought together
by an interest of curiosity in moon and stars. For the most part there
must have been between a hundred and two hundred in each of the 128
sectional meetings, and that was more than the organizers expected. This
direct influence on the interested public is now to be expanded a
thousandfold by the mission work of these volumes. The concentration of
these hundreds of addresses into a few days made it in any case
impossible to listen to more than to a small fraction; these volumes
will bring at last all speakers to coördinated effectiveness; and while
one hall suffered from bad acoustics, another from bad ventilation, and
a third from the passing of the intermural trains, here at least is an
audience in which nothing will disturb the sensitive nerves of the
willing follower.

But much more emphasis is due to the second feature. The Congress was an
epoch-making event for the international world of scholarship from the
fact that it was the first great undertaking in which the Old and the
New Worlds stood on equal levels and in which Europe really became
acquainted with the scientific life of these United States. The contact
of scholarship between America and Europe has, indeed, grown in
importance through many decades. Many American students had studied in
European and especially in German universities and had come back to fill
the professorial chairs of the leading academic institutions. The spirit
of the Graduate School and the work towards the Doctor's degree, yes,
the whole productive scholarship of recent decades had been influenced
by European ideals, and the results were no longer ignored at the seats
of learning throughout the whole world. European scholars had here and
there come as visiting lecturers or as assimilated instructors, and a
few American scholars belonged to the leading European Academies. Yet,
whoever knew the real development of American post-graduate university
life, the rapid advance of genuine American scholarship, the
incomparable progress of the scientific institutions of the New World,
of their libraries and laboratories, museums and associations, was well
aware that Europe had hardly noticed and certainly not fully understood
the gigantic strides of the country which seemed a rival only on
commercial and industrial ground. Europe was satisfied with the
traditional ideas of America's scientific standing which reflected the
situation of thirty years ago, and did not understand that the changes
of a few lustres mean in the New World more than under the firmer
traditions of Europe. American scientific literature was still
neglected; American universities treated in a condescending and
patronizing spirit and with hardly any awareness of the fundamental
differences in the institutions of the two sides. Those European
scholars who crossed the ocean did it with missionary, or perhaps with
less unselfish, intentions, and the Americans who attended European
congresses were mostly treated with the friendliness which the
self-satisfied teacher shows to a promising pupil. The time had really
come when the contrast between the real situation and the traditional
construction became a danger for the scientific life of the time. Both
sides had to suffer from it. The Americans felt that their serious and
important achievements did not come to their fullest effectiveness
through the insistent neglect of those who by the tradition of centuries
had become the habitual guardians of scientific thought. A kind of
feeling of dependency as it usually develops in weak colonies too often
depressed the conscientious scholarship on American soil as the result
of this undue condescension. Yet the greater harm was to the other side.
Once before Europe had had the experience of surprise when American
successes presented themselves where nothing of that kind was
anticipated in the Old World. It was in the field of economic life that
Europe looked down patronizingly on America's industrial efforts, and
yet before she was fully aware how the change resulted, suddenly the
warning signal of the "American danger" was heard everywhere. The
surprise in the intellectual field will not be less. The unpreparedness
was certainly the same. Of course, there cannot be any danger of rivalry
in the scientific field, inasmuch as science knows no competition but
only coöperation. And yet it cannot be without danger for European
science if it willfully neglects and recklessly ignores this eager
working of the modern America. For both sides a change in the situation
was thus not only desirable, but necessary; and to prepare this change,
to substitute knowledge for ignorance, nothing could have been more
effective than this Congress of Arts and Science.

Even if we abstract from the not inconsiderable number of those European
scholars who followed naturally in the path of the invited guests, and
if we consider merely the function of these invited participants, the
importance of the procedure is evident. More than a hundred leading
scholars from all European countries came under conditions where
academic fellowship on an equal footing was a necessary part of the
work. There was not the slightest premium held out which might have
attracted them had not real inter-academic interest brought them over
the ocean, and no missionary spirit was appealed to, as everything was
equally divided between American and foreign contributors. It was a real
feast of international scholarship, in which the importance and the
number of foreigners stamped it as the first significant alliance of the
spirit of learning in the New and the Old Worlds. And it was essentially
for this purpose that the week of personal intermingling in St. Louis
itself was preceded and followed by happy weeks of visits to leading
universities. Almost every one of those one hundred European scholars
visited Harvard and Yale, Chicago and Johns Hopkins, Columbia and
Pennsylvania, saw the treasures of Washington and examined the
exhibitions of American scholarship in the World's Fair itself. The
change of opinion, the disappearance of prejudice, the growth of
confidence, the personal intercollegiate ties which resulted from all
that, have been evident since those days all over Europe. And it is not
surprising that it is just the most famous and most important of the
visitors, famous and important through their width and depth of view,
whose expression of appreciation and admiration for the new achievements
has been loudest.

We insisted that the effectiveness of the Congress showed itself in two
other directions still: on the one side, there was at last a congress
with a unified programme, a congress which stood for a definite thought,
and which brought all its efforts to bear on the solution of one
problem. There seemed a far-reaching agreement of opinion that this new
principle of congress administration had successfully withstood the test
of practical realization. Mere conglomerations of unconnected meetings
with casual programmes and unrelated papers cannot claim any longer to
represent the only possible form of international gatherings of
scholars. More than that, their superfluous and disheartening character
will be felt in future more strongly than before. No congress will
appear fully justified whose printed proceedings do not show a real plan
in its programme. And the consciousness of this mission of the Congress
will certainly be again reinforced by the publication of these volumes,
inasmuch as it is evident that they represent a substantial contribution
to the knowledge of our time which would not have been made without the
special stimulating occasion of the Congress.

And, finally, whether such a congress is held again or not, the impulse
of this one cannot be lost on account of the special end to which all
its efforts have been directed: the unity of scientific knowledge. We
had emphasized from the first that here was the centre of our purposes
in a time whose scientific specialization necessarily involves a
scattering of scholarly work and which yet in its deepest meaning
strives for a new synthesis, for a new unity, which is to give to all
this scattered labor a real dignity and significance; truly nothing was
more needed than an intense accentuation of the internal harmony of all
human knowledge. But for that it is not enough that the masses feel
instinctively the deep need of such unifying movements, nor is it enough
that the philosophers point with logical arguments towards the new
synthesis. The philosopher can only stand by and point the way; the
specialists themselves must go the way. And here at last they have done
so. Leaders of thought have interrupted their specialistic work and have
left their detailed inquiries to seek the fundamental conceptions and
methods and principles which bind all knowledge together, and thus to
work towards that unity from which all special work derives its meaning.
Whether or not their coöperation has produced anything which is final is
a question almost insignificant compared with the fundamental fact that
they coöperated at all for this ideal synthetic purpose. This fact can
never lose its influence on the scholarly effort of our age, and will
certainly find its strongest reinforcement in this unified publication.
It has fulfilled its noblest purpose if it adds strength to the deepest
movement of our time, the movement towards unity of meaning in the
scattered manifoldness of scientific endeavor with which the twentieth
century has opened.




[Illustration: _Simon Newcomb, Ph.D., LL.D._

Dr. Newcomb, the famous Astronomer, is conceded to be the Dean of
American scientists. His eminent services to the Government of the
United States, and his recognized position in foreign and domestic
scientific circles, made him peculiarly fitted to deliver the
introductory address, and to officiate as President of an International
Congress of the leading scientists of the world.

He has been the recipient of honorary degrees from six American and ten
European Universities, and he is a member of almost every important
Academy of Science in Europe and America. He is an officer of the Legion
of Honour, and is the only native American besides Benjamin Franklin who
has been elected an Associate of the Institute de France. From 1861 to
1897 he was Professor of Mathematics in the United States Navy. He also
lectured on Mathematics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins, and is now a
Professor Emeritus in the Faculty of Arts of that university. Dr.
Newcomb is the author of numerous works on Astronomy and other
scientific subjects.]




PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS


INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS


DELIVERED AT THE OPENING EXERCISES AT FESTIVAL HALL BY PROFESSOR SIMON
NEWCOMB, PRESIDENT OF THE CONGRESS


THE EVOLUTION OF THE SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATOR


As we look at the assemblage gathered in this hall, comprising so many
names of widest renown in every branch of learning,--we might almost say
in every field of human endeavor,--the first inquiry suggested must be
after the object of our meeting. The answer is, that our purpose
corresponds to the eminence of the assemblage. We aim at nothing less
than a survey of the realm of knowledge, as comprehensive as is
permitted by the limitations of time and space. The organizers of our
Congress have honored me with the charge of presenting such preliminary
view of its field as may make clear the spirit of our undertaking.

Certain tendencies characteristic of the science of our day clearly
suggest the direction of our thoughts most appropriate to the occasion.
Among the strongest of these is one toward laying greater stress on
questions of the beginning of things, and regarding a knowledge of the
laws of development of any object of study as necessary to the
understanding of its present form. It may be conceded that the principle
here involved is as applicable in the broad field before us as in a
special research into the properties of the minutest organism. It
therefore seems meet that we should begin by inquiring what agency has
brought about the remarkable development of science to which the world
of to-day bears witness. This view is recognized in the plan of our
proceedings, by providing for each great department of knowledge a
review of its progress during the century that has elapsed since the
great event commemorated by the scenes outside this hall. But such
reviews do not make up that general survey of science at large which is
necessary to the development of our theme, and which must include the
action of causes that had their origin long before our time. The
movement which culminated in making the nineteenth century ever
memorable in history is the outcome of a long series of causes, acting
through many centuries, which are worthy of especial attention on such
an occasion as this. In setting them forth we should avoid laying stress
on those visible manifestations which, striking the eye of every
beholder, are in no danger of being overlooked, and search rather for
those agencies whose activities underlie the whole visible scene, but
which are liable to be blotted out of sight by the very brilliancy of
the results to which they have given rise. It is easy to draw attention
to the wonderful qualities of the oak; but from that very fact, it may
be needful to point out that the real wonder lies concealed in the acorn
from which it grew.

Our inquiry into the logical order of the causes which have made our
civilization what it is to-day will be facilitated by bringing to mind
certain elementary considerations--ideas so familiar that setting them
forth may seem like citing a body of truisms--and yet so frequently
overlooked, not only individually, but in their relation to each other,
that the conclusion to which they lead may be lost to sight. One of
these propositions is that psychical rather than material causes are
those which we should regard as fundamental in directing the development
of the social organism. The human intellect is the really active agent
in every branch of endeavor,--the _primum mobile_ of civilization,--and
all those material manifestations to which our attention is so often
directed are to be regarded as secondary to this first agency. If it be
true that "in the world is nothing great but man; in man is nothing
great but mind," then should the keynote of our discourse be the
recognition of this first and greatest of powers.

Another well-known fact is that those applications of the forces of
nature to the promotion of human welfare which have made our age what it
is, are of such comparatively recent origin that we need go back only a
single century to antedate their most important features, and scarcely
more than four centuries to find their beginning. It follows that the
subject of our inquiry should be the commencement, not many centuries
ago, of a certain new form of intellectual activity.

Having gained this point of view, our next inquiry will be into the
nature of that activity, and its relation to the stages of progress
which preceded and followed its beginning. The superficial observer, who
sees the oak but forgets the acorn, might tell us that the special
qualities which have brought out such great results are expert
scientific knowledge and rare ingenuity, directed to the application of
the powers of steam and electricity. From this point of view the great
inventors and the great captains of industry were the first agents in
bringing about the modern era. But the more careful inquirer will see
that the work of these men was possible only through a knowledge of the
laws of nature, which had been gained by men whose work took precedence
of theirs in logical order, and that success in invention has been
measured by completeness in such knowledge. While giving all due honor
to the great inventors, let us remember that the first place is that of
the great investigators, whose forceful intellects opened the way to
secrets previously hidden from men. Let it be an honor and not a
reproach to these men, that they were not actuated by the love of gain,
and did not keep utilitarian ends in view in the pursuit of their
researches. If it seems that in neglecting such ends they were leaving
undone the most important part of their work, let us remember that
nature turns a forbidding face to those who pay her court with the hope
of gain, and is responsive only to those suitors whose love for her is
pure and undefiled. Not only is the special genius required in the
investigator not that generally best adapted to applying the discoveries
which he makes, but the result of his having sordid ends in view would
be to narrow the field of his efforts, and exercise a depressing effect
upon his activities. The true man of science has no such expression in
his vocabulary as "useful knowledge." His domain is as wide as nature
itself, and he best fulfills his mission when he leaves to others the
task of applying the knowledge he gives to the world.

We have here the explanation of the well-known fact that the functions
of the investigator of the laws of nature, and of the inventor who
applies these laws to utilitarian purposes, are rarely united in the
same person. If the one conspicuous exception which the past century
presents to this rule is not unique, we should probably have to go back
to Watt to find another.

From this viewpoint it is clear that the primary agent in the movement
which has elevated man to the masterful position he now occupies, is the
scientific investigator. He it is whose work has deprived plague and
pestilence of their terrors, alleviated human suffering, girdled the
earth with the electric wire, bound the continent with the iron way, and
made neighbors of the most distant nations. As the first agent which has
made possible this meeting of his representatives, let his evolution be
this day our worthy theme. As we follow the evolution of an organism by
studying the stages of its growth, so we have to show how the work of
the scientific investigator is related to the ineffectual efforts of his
predecessors.

In our time we think of the process of development in nature as one
going continuously forward through the combination of the opposite
processes of evolution and dissolution. The tendency of our thought has
been in the direction of banishing cataclysms to the theological limbo,
and viewing nature as a sleepless plodder, endowed with infinite
patience, waiting through long ages for results. I do not contest the
truth of the principle of continuity on which this view is based. But it
fails to make known to us the whole truth. The building of a ship from
the time that her keel is laid until she is making her way across the
ocean is a slow and gradual process; yet there is a cataclysmic epoch
opening up a new era in her history. It is the moment when, after lying
for months or years a dead, inert, immovable mass, she is suddenly
endowed with the power of motion, and, as if imbued with life, glides
into the stream, eager to begin the career for which she was designed.

I think it is thus in the development of humanity. Long ages may pass
during which a race, to all external observation, appears to be making
no real progress. Additions may be made to learning, and the records of
history may constantly grow, but there is nothing in its sphere of
thought, or in the features of its life, that can be called essentially
new. Yet, nature may have been all along slowly working in a way which
evades our scrutiny until the result of her operations suddenly appears
in a new and revolutionary movement, carrying the race to a higher plane
of civilization.

It is not difficult to point out such epochs in human progress. The
greatest of all, because it was the first, is one of which we find no
record either in written or geological history. It was the epoch when
our progenitors first took conscious thought of the morrow, first used
the crude weapons which nature had placed within their reach to kill
their prey, first built a fire to warm their bodies and cook their food.
I love to fancy that there was some one first man, the Adam of
evolution, who did all this, and who used the power thus acquired to
show his fellows how they might profit by his example. When the members
of the tribe or community which he gathered around him began to conceive
of life as a whole,--to include yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow in the
same mental grasp--to think how they might apply the gifts of nature to
their own uses,--a movement was begun which should ultimately lead to
civilization.

Long indeed must have been the ages required for the development of this
rudest primitive community into the civilization revealed to us by the
most ancient tablets of Egypt and Assyria. After spoken language was
developed, and after the rude representation of ideas by visible marks
drawn to resemble them had long been practiced, some Cadmus must have
invented an alphabet. When the use of written language was thus
introduced, the word of command ceased to be confined to the range of
the human voice, and it became possible for master minds to extend their
influence as far as a written message could be carried. Then were
communities gathered into provinces; provinces into kingdoms; kingdoms
into the great empires of antiquity. Then arose a stage of civilization
which we find pictured in the most ancient records,--a stage in which
men were governed by laws that were perhaps as wisely adapted to their
conditions as our laws are to ours,--in which the phenomena of nature
were rudely observed, and striking occurrences in the earth or in the
heavens recorded in the annals of the nation.

Vast was the progress of knowledge during the interval between these
empires and the century in which modern science began. Yet, if I am
right in making a distinction between the slow and regular steps of
progress, each growing naturally out of that which preceded it, and the
entrance of the mind at some fairly definite epoch into an entirely new
sphere of activity, it would appear that there was only one such epoch
during the entire interval. This was when abstract geometrical reasoning
commenced, and astronomical observations aiming at precision were
recorded, compared, and discussed. Closely associated with it must have
been the construction of the forms of logic. The radical difference
between the demonstration of a theorem of geometry and the reasoning of
every-day life which the masses of men must have practiced from the
beginning, and which few even to-day ever get beyond, is so evident at a
glance that I need not dwell upon it. The principal feature of this
advance is that, by one of those antinomies of the human intellect of
which examples are not wanting even in our own time, the development of
abstract ideas preceded the concrete knowledge of natural phenomena.
When we reflect that in the geometry of Euclid the science of space was
brought to such logical perfection that even to-day its teachers are not
agreed as to the practicability of any great improvement upon it, we
cannot avoid the feeling that a very slight change in the direction of
the intellectual activity of the Greeks would have led to the beginning
of natural science. But it would seem that the very purity and
perfection which was aimed at in their system of geometry stood in the
way of any extension or application of its methods and spirit to the
field of nature. One example of this is worthy of attention. In modern
teaching the idea of magnitude as generated by motion is freely
introduced. A line is described by a moving point; a plane by a moving
line; a solid by a moving plane. It may, at first sight, seem singular
that this conception finds no place in the Euclidian system. But we may
regard the omission as a mark of logical purity and rigor. Had the real
or supposed advantages of introducing motion into geometrical
conceptions been suggested to Euclid, we may suppose him to have replied
that the theorems of space are independent of time; that the idea of
motion necessarily implies time, and that, in consequence, to avail
ourselves of it would be to introduce an extraneous element into
geometry.

It is quite possible that the contempt of the ancient philosophers for
the practical application of their science, which has continued in some
form to our own time, and which is not altogether unwholesome, was a
powerful factor in the same direction. The result was that, in keeping
geometry pure from ideas which did not belong to it, it failed to form
what might otherwise have been the basis of physical science. Its
founders missed the discovery that methods similar to those of geometric
demonstration could be extended into other and wider fields than that of
space. Thus not only the development of applied geometry, but the
reduction of other conceptions to a rigorous mathematical form was
indefinitely postponed.

Astronomy is necessarily a science of observation pure and simple, in
which experiment can have no place except as an auxiliary. The vague
accounts of striking celestial phenomena handed down by the priests and
astrologers of antiquity were followed in the time of the Greeks by
observations having, in form at least, a rude approach to precision,
though nothing like the degree of precision that the astronomer of
to-day would reach with the naked eye, aided by such instruments as he
could fashion from the tools at the command of the ancients.

The rude observations commenced by the Babylonians were continued with
gradually improving instruments,--first by the Greeks and afterward by
the Arabs,--but the results failed to afford any insight into the true
relation of the earth to the heavens. What was most remarkable in this
failure is that, to take a first step forward which would have led on to
success, no more was necessary than a course of abstract thinking vastly
easier than that required for working out the problems of geometry. That
space is infinite is an unexpressed axiom, tacitly assumed by Euclid and
his successors. Combining this with the most elementary consideration of
the properties of the triangle, it would be seen that a body of any
given size could be placed at such a distance in space as to appear to
us like a point. Hence a body as large as our earth, which was known to
be a globe from the time that the ancient Phœnicians navigated the
Mediterranean, if placed in the heavens at a sufficient distance, would
look like a star. The obvious conclusion that the stars might be bodies
like our globe, shining either by their own light or by that of the sun,
would have been a first step to the understanding of the true system of
the world.

There is historic evidence that this deduction did not wholly escape the
Greek thinkers. It is true that the critical student will assign little
weight to the current belief that the vague theory of Pythagoras--that
fire was at the centre of all things--implies a conception of the
heliocentric theory of the solar system. But the testimony of
Archimedes, confused though it is in form, leaves no serious doubt that
Aristarchus of Samos not only propounded the view that the earth
revolves both on its own axis and around the sun, but that he correctly
removed the great stumbling-block in the way of this theory by adding
that the distance of the fixed stars was infinitely greater than the
dimensions of the earth's orbit. Even the world of philosophy was not
yet ready for this conception, and, so far from seeing the
reasonableness of the explanation, we find Ptolemy arguing against the
rotation of the earth on grounds which careful observations of the
phenomena around him would have shown to be ill-founded.

Physical science, if we can apply that term to an uncoördinated body of
facts, was successfully cultivated from the earliest times. Something
must have been known of the properties of metals, and the art of
extracting them from their ores must have been practiced, from the time
that coins and medals were first stamped. The properties of the most
common compounds were discovered by alchemists in their vain search for
the philosopher's stone, but no actual progress worthy of the name
rewarded the practitioners of the black art.

Perhaps the first approach to a correct method was that of Archimedes,
who by much thinking worked out the law of the lever, reached the
conception of the centre of gravity, and demonstrated the first
principles of hydrostatics. It is remarkable that he did not extend his
researches into the phenomena of motion, whether spontaneous or produced
by force. The stationary condition of the human intellect is most
strikingly illustrated by the fact that not until the time of Leonardo
was any substantial advance made on his discovery. To sum up in one
sentence the most characteristic feature of ancient and medieval
science, we see a notable contrast between the precision of thought
implied in the construction and demonstration of geometrical theorems
and the vague indefinite character of the ideas of natural phenomena
generally, a contrast which did not disappear until the foundations of
modern science began to be laid.

We should miss the most essential point of the difference between
medieval and modern learning if we looked upon it as mainly a difference
either in the precision or the amount of knowledge. The development of
both of these qualities would, under any circumstances, have been slow
and gradual, but sure. We can hardly suppose that any one generation, or
even any one century, would have seen the complete substitution of exact
for inexact ideas. Slowness of growth is as inevitable in the case of
knowledge as in that of a growing organism. The most essential point of
difference is one of those seemingly slight ones, the importance of
which we are too apt to overlook. It was like the drop of blood in the
wrong place, which some one has told us makes all the difference between
a philosopher and a maniac. It was all the difference between a living
tree and a dead one, between an inert mass and a growing organism. The
transition of knowledge from the dead to the living form must, in any
complete review of the subject, be looked upon as the really great event
of modern times. Before this event the intellect was bound down by a
scholasticism which regarded knowledge as a rounded whole, the parts of
which were written in books and carried in the minds of learned men. The
student was taught from the beginning of his work to look upon authority
as the foundation of his beliefs. The older the authority the greater
the weight it carried. So effective was this teaching that it seems
never to have occurred to individual men that they had all the
opportunities ever enjoyed by Aristotle of discovering truth, with the
added advantage of all his knowledge to begin with. Advanced as was the
development of formal logic, that practical logic was wanting which
could see that the last of a series of authorities, every one of which
rested on those which preceded it, could never form a surer foundation
for any doctrine than that supplied by its original propounder.

The result of this view of knowledge was that, although during the
fifteen centuries following the death of the geometer of Syracuse great
universities were founded at which generations of professors expounded
all the learning of their time, neither professor nor student ever
suspected what latent possibilities of good were concealed in the most
familiar operations of nature. Every one felt the wind blow, saw water
boil, and heard the thunder crash, but never thought of investigating
the forces here at play. Up to the middle of the fifteenth century the
most acute observer could scarcely have seen the dawn of a new era.

In view of this state of things, it must be regarded as one of the most
remarkable facts in evolutionary history that four or five men, whose
mental constitution was either typical of the new order of things or who
were powerful agents in bringing it about, were all born during the
fifteenth century, four of them at least at so nearly the same time as
to be contemporaries.

Leonardo da Vinci, whose artistic genius has charmed succeeding
generations, was also the first practical engineer of his time, and the
first man after Archimedes to make a substantial advance in developing
the laws of motion. That the world was not prepared to make use of his
scientific discoveries does not detract from the significance which must
attach to the period of his birth.

Shortly after him was born the great navigator whose bold spirit was to
make known a new world, thus giving to commercial enterprise that
impetus which was so powerful an agent in bringing about a revolution in
the thoughts of men.

The birth of Columbus was soon followed by that of Copernicus, the first
after Aristarchus to demonstrate the true system of the world. In him
more than in any of his contemporaries do we see the struggle between
the old forms of thought and the new. It seems almost pathetic and is
certainly most suggestive of the general view of knowledge taken at that
time that, instead of claiming credit for bringing to light great truths
before unknown, he made a labored attempt to show that, after all, there
was nothing really new in his system, which he claimed to date from
Pythagoras and Philolaus. In this connection it is curious that he makes
no mention of Aristarchus, who I think will be regarded by conservative
historians as his only demonstrated predecessor. To the hold of the
older ideas upon his mind we must attribute the fact that in
constructing his system he took great pains to make as little change as
possible in ancient conceptions.

Luther, the greatest thought-stirrer of them all, practically of the
same generation with Copernicus, Leonardo, and Columbus, does not come
in as a scientific investigator, but as the great loosener of chains
which had so fettered the intellect of men that they dared not think
otherwise than as the authorities thought.

Almost coeval with the advent of these intellects was the invention of
printing with movable type. Gutenberg was born during the first decade
of the century, and his associates and others credited with the
invention not many years afterward. If we accept the principle on which
I am basing my argument, that we should assign the first place to the
birth of those psychic agencies which started men on new lines of
thought, then surely was the fifteenth the wonderful century.

Let us not forget that, in assigning the actors then born to their
places, we are not narrating history, but studying a special phase of
evolution. It matters not for us that no university invited Leonardo to
its halls, and that his science was valued by his contemporaries only as
an adjunct to the art of engineering. The great fact still is that he
was the first of mankind to propound laws of motion. It is not for
anything in Luther's doctrines that he finds a place in our scheme. No
matter for us whether they were sound or not. What he did toward the
evolution of the scientific investigator was to show by his example that
a man might question the best-established and most venerable authority
and still live--still preserve his intellectual integrity--still command
a hearing from nations and their rulers. It matters not for us whether
Columbus ever knew that he had discovered a new continent. His work was
to teach that neither hydra, chimera, nor abyss--neither divine
injunction nor infernal machination--was in the way of men visiting
every part of the globe, and that the problem of conquering the world
reduced itself to one of sails and rigging, hull and compass. The better
part of Copernicus was to direct man to a viewpoint whence he should see
that the heavens were of like matter with the earth. All this done, the
acorn was planted from which the oak of our civilization should spring.
The mad quest for gold which followed the discovery of Columbus, the
questionings which absorbed the attention of the learned, the
indignation excited by the seeming vagaries of a Paracelsus, the fear
and trembling lest the strange doctrine of Copernicus should undermine
the faith of centuries, were all helps to the germination of the
seed--stimuli to thought which urged it on to explore the new fields
opened up to its occupation. This given, all that has since followed
came out in regular order of development, and need be here considered
only in those phases having a special relation to the purpose of our
present meeting.

So slow was the growth at first that the sixteenth century may scarcely
have recognized the inauguration of a new era. Torricelli and Benedetti
were of the third generation after Leonardo, and Galileo, the first to
make a substantial advance upon his theory, was born more than a century
after him. Only two or three men appeared in a generation who, working
alone, could make real progress in discovery, and even these could do
little in leavening the minds of their fellow men with the new ideas.

Up to the middle of the seventeenth century an agent which all
experience since that time shows to be necessary to the most productive
intellectual activity was wanting. This was the attraction of like
minds, making suggestions to each other, criticising, comparing, and
reasoning. This element was introduced by the organization of the Royal
Society of London and the Academy of Sciences of Paris.

The members of these two bodies seem like ingenious youth suddenly
thrown into a new world of interesting objects, the purposes and
relations of which they had to discover. The novelty of the situation is
strikingly shown in the questions which occupied the minds of the
incipient investigators. One natural result of British maritime
enterprise was that the aspirations of the Fellows of the Royal Society
were not confined to any continent or hemisphere. Inquiries were sent
all the way to Batavia to know "whether there be a hill in Sumatra which
burneth continually, and a fountain which runneth pure balsam." The
astronomical precision with which it seemed possible that physiological
operations might go on was evinced by the inquiry whether the Indians
can so prepare that stupefying herb Datura that "they make it lie
several days, months, years, according as they will, in a man's body
without doing him any harm, and at the end kill him without missing an
hour's time." Of this continent one of the inquiries was whether there
be a tree in Mexico that yields water, wine, vinegar, milk, honey, wax,
thread, and needles.

Among the problems before the Paris Academy of Sciences those of
physiology and biology took a prominent place. The distillation of
compounds had long been practiced, and the fact that the more spirituous
elements of certain substances were thus separated naturally led to the
question whether the essential essences of life might not be
discoverable in the same way. In order that all might participate in the
experiments, they were conducted in open session of the Academy, thus
guarding against the danger of any one member obtaining for his
exclusive personal use a possible elixir of life. A wide range of the
animal and vegetable kingdom, including cats, dogs, and birds of various
species, were thus analyzed. The practice of dissection was introduced
on a large scale. That of the cadaver of an elephant occupied several
sessions, and was of such interest that the monarch himself was a
spectator.

To the same epoch with the formation and first work of these two bodies
belongs the invention of a mathematical method which in its importance
to the advance of exact science may be classed with the invention of the
alphabet in its relation to the progress of society at large. The use of
algebraic symbols to represent quantities had its origin before the
commencement of the new era, and gradually grew into a highly developed
form during the first two centuries of that era. But this method could
represent quantities only as fixed. It is true that the elasticity
inherent in the use of such symbols permitted of their being applied to
any and every quantity; yet, in any one application, the quantity was
considered as fixed and definite. But most of the magnitudes of nature
are in a state of continual variation; indeed, since all motion is
variation, the latter is a universal characteristic of all phenomena. No
serious advance could be made in the application of algebraic language
to the expression of physical phenomena until it could be so extended as
to express variation in quantities, as well as the quantities
themselves. This extension, worked out independently by Newton and
Leibnitz, may be classed as the most fruitful of conceptions in exact
science. With it the way was opened for the unimpeded and continually
accelerated progress of the last two centuries.

The feature of this period which has the closest relation to the purpose
of our coming together is the seemingly unending subdivision of
knowledge into specialties, many of which are becoming so minute and so
isolated that they seem to have no interest for any but their few
pursuers. Happily science itself has afforded a corrective for its own
tendency in this direction. The careful thinker will see that in these
seemingly diverging branches common elements and common principles are
coming more and more to light. There is an increasing recognition of
methods of research, and of deduction, which are common to large
branches, or to the whole of science. We are more and more recognizing
the principle that progress in knowledge implies its reduction to more
exact forms, and the expression of its ideas in language more or less
mathematical. The problem before the organizers of this Congress was,
therefore, to bring the sciences together, and seek for the unity which
we believe underlies their infinite diversity.

The assembling of such a body as now fills this hall was scarcely
possible in any preceding generation, and is made possible now only
through the agency of science itself. It differs from all preceding
international meetings by the universality of its scope, which aims to
include the whole of knowledge. It is also unique in that none but
leaders have been sought out as members. It is unique in that so many
lands have delegated their choicest intellects to carry on its work.
They come from the country to which our republic is indebted for a third
of its territory, including the ground on which we stand; from the land
which has taught us that the most scholarly devotion to the languages
and learning of the cloistered past is compatible with leadership in the
practical application of modern science to the arts of life; from the
island whose language and literature have found a new field and a
vigorous growth in this region; from the last seat of the holy Roman
Empire; from the country which, remembering a monarch who made an
astronomical observation at the Greenwich Observatory, has enthroned
science in one of the highest places in its government; from the
peninsula so learned that we have invited one of its scholars to come
and tell us of our own language; from the land which gave birth to
Leonardo, Galileo, Torricelli, Columbus, Volta--what an array of
immortal names!--from the little republic of glorious history which,
breeding men rugged as its eternal snow-peaks, has yet been the seat of
scientific investigation since the day of the Bernoullis; from the land
whose heroic dwellers did not hesitate to use the ocean itself to
protect it against invaders, and which now makes us marvel at the amount
of erudition compressed within its little area; from the nation across
the Pacific, which, by half a century of unequaled progress in the arts
of life, has made an important contribution to evolutionary science
through demonstrating the falsity of the theory that the most ancient
races are doomed to be left in the rear of the advancing age--in a word,
from every great centre of intellectual activity on the globe I see
before me eminent representatives of that world-advance in knowledge
which we have met to celebrate. May we not confidently hope that the
discussions of such an assemblage will prove pregnant of a future for
science which shall outshine even its brilliant past?

Gentlemen and scholars all! You do not visit our shores to find great
collections in which centuries of humanity have given expression on
canvas and in marble to their hopes, fears, and aspirations. Nor do you
expect institutions and buildings hoary with age. But as you feel the
vigor latent in the fresh air of these expansive prairies, which has
collected the products of human genius by which we are here surrounded,
and, I may add, brought us together; as you study the institutions which
we have founded for the benefit, not only of our own people, but of
humanity at large; as you meet the men who, in the short space of one
century, have transformed this valley from a savage wilderness into what
it is to-day--then may you find compensation for the want of a past like
yours by seeing with prophetic eye a future world-power of which this
region shall be the seat. If such is to be the outcome of the
institutions which we are now building up, then may your present visit
be a blessing both to your posterity and ours by making that power one
for good to all mankind. Your deliberations will help to demonstrate to
us and to the world at large that the reign of law must supplant that of
brute force in the relations of the nations, just as it has supplanted
it in the relations of individuals. You will help to show that the war
which science is now waging against the sources of diseases, pain, and
misery offers an even nobler field for the exercise of heroic qualities
than can that of battle. We hope that when, after your all too fleeting
sojourn in our midst, you return to your own shores, you will long feel
the influence of the new air you have breathed in an infusion of
increased vigor in pursuing your varied labors. And if a new impetus is
thus given to the great intellectual movement of the past century,
resulting not only in promoting the unification of knowledge, but in
widening its field through new combinations of effort on the part of its
votaries, the projectors, organizers, and supporters of this Congress of
Arts and Science will be justified of their labors.




DIVISION A--NORMATIVE SCIENCE




DIVISION A--NORMATIVE SCIENCE

SPEAKER: PROFESSOR JOSIAH ROYCE, Harvard University

(_Hall 6, September 20, 10 a. m._)

THE SCIENCES OF THE IDEAL

BY JOSIAH ROYCE

     [Josiah Royce, Professor of History of Philosophy, Harvard
     University, since 1892. b. Grass Valley, Nevada County,
     California, November 20, 1855. A.B. University of
     California, 1875; Ph.D. Johns Hopkins 1878; LL.D. University
     of Aberdeen, Scotland; LL.D. Johns Hopkins. Instructor in
     English Literature and Logic, University of California,
     1878-82. Instructor and Assistant Professor, Harvard
     University, 1882-92. Author of _Religious Aspect of
     Philosophy_; _History of California_; _The Feud of Oakfield
     Creek_; _The Spirit of Modern Philosophy_; _Studies of Good
     and Evil_; _The World and the Individual_; _Gifford
     Lectures_; and numerous other works and memoirs.]


I shall not attempt, in this address, either to justify or to criticise
the name, normative science, under which the doctrines which constitute
this division are grouped. It is enough for my purpose to recognize at
the outset that I am required, by the plans of this Congress, to explain
what scientific interests seem to me to be common to the work of the
philosophers and of the mathematicians. The task is one which makes
severe demands upon the indulgence of the listener, and upon the
expository powers of the speaker, but it is a task for which the present
age has well prepared the way. The spirit which Descartes and Leibnitz
illustrated seems likely soon to become, in a new and higher sense,
prominent in science. The mathematicians are becoming more and more
philosophical. The philosophers, in the near future, will become, I
believe, more and more mathematical. It is my office to indicate, as
well as the brief time and my poor powers may permit, why this ought to
be so.

To this end I shall first point out what is that most general community
of interest which unites all the sciences that belong to our division.
Then I shall indicate what type of recent and special scientific work
most obviously bears upon the tasks of all of us alike. Thirdly, I shall
state some results and problems to which this type of scientific work
has given rise, and shall try to show what promise we have of an early
increase of insight regarding our common interests.


I

The most general community of interest which unites the various
scientific activities that belong to our division is this: We are all
concerned with what may be called ideal truth, as distinct from physical
truth. Some of us also have a strong interest in physical truth; but
none of us lack a notable and scientific concern for the realm of ideas,
viewed as ideas.

Let me explain what I mean by these terms. Whoever studies physical
truth (taking that term in its most general sense) seeks to observe, to
collate, and, in the end, to control, facts which he regards as external
to his own thought. But instead of thus looking mainly without, it is
possible for a man chiefly to take account, let us say, of the
consequences of his own hypothetical assumptions--assumptions which may
possess but a very remote relation to the physical world. Or again, it
is possible for such a student to be mainly devoted to reflecting upon
the formal validity of his own inferences, or upon the meaning of his
own presuppositions, or upon the value and the interrelation of human
ideals. Any such scientific work, reflective, considerate principally of
the thinker's own constructions and purposes, or of the constructions
and purposes of humanity in general, is a pursuit of ideal truth. The
searcher who is mainly devoted to the inquiry into what he regards as
external facts, is indeed active; but his activity is moulded by an
order of existence which he conceives as complete apart from his
activity. He is thoughtful; but a power not himself assigns to him the
problems about which he thinks. He is guided by ideals; but his
principal ideal takes the form of an acceptance of the world as it is,
independently of his ideals. His dealings are with nature. His aim is
the conquest of a foreign realm. But the student of what may be called,
in general terms, ideal truth, while he is devoted as his fellow, the
observer of outer nature, to the general purpose of being faithful to
the verity as he finds it, is still aware that his own way of finding,
or his own creative activity as an inventor of hypotheses, or his own
powers of inference, or his conscious ideals, constitute in the main the
object into which he is inquiring, and so form an essential aspect of
the sort of verity which he is endeavoring to discover. The guide, then,
of such a student is, in a peculiar sense, his own reason. His goal is
the comprehension of his own meaning, the conscious and thoughtful
conquest of himself. His great enemy is not the mystery of outer nature,
but the imperfection of his reflective powers. He is, indeed, as
unwilling as is any scientific worker to trust private caprices. He
feels as little as does the observer of outer facts, that he is merely
noting down, as they pass, the chance products of his arbitrary fantasy.
For him, as for any scientific student, truth is indeed objective; and
the standards to which he conforms are eternal. But his method is that
of an inner considerateness rather than of a curiosity about external
phenomena. His objective world is at the same time an essentially ideal
world, and the eternal verity in whose light he seeks to live has,
throughout his undertakings, a peculiarly intimate relation to the
purposes of his own constructive will.

One may then sum up the difference of attitude which is here in question
by saying that, while the student of outer nature is explicitly
conforming his plans of action, his ideas, his ideals, to an order of
truth which he takes to be foreign to himself--the student of the other
sort of truth, here especially in question, is attempting to understand
his own plans of action, that is, to develop his ideas, or to define his
ideals, or else to do both these things.

Now it is not hard to see that this search for some sort of ideal truth
is indeed characteristic of every one of the investigations which have
been grouped together in our division of the normative sciences. Pure
mathematics shares in common with philosophy this type of scientific
interest in ideal, as distinct from physical or phenomenal truth. There
is, to be sure, a marked contrast between the ways in which the
mathematician and the philosopher approach, select, and elaborate their
respective sorts of problems. But there is also a close relation between
the two types of investigation in question. Let us next consider both
the contrast and the analogy in some of their other most general
features.

Pure mathematics is concerned with the investigation of the logical
consequences of certain exactly stateable postulates or
hypotheses--such, for instance, as the postulates upon which arithmetic
and analysis are founded, or such as the postulates that lie at the
basis of any type of geometry. For the pure mathematician, the truth of
these hypotheses or postulates depends, not upon the fact that physical
nature contains phenomena answering to the postulates, but solely upon
the fact that the mathematician is able, with rational consistency, to
state these assumed first principles, and to develop their consequences.
Dedekind, in his famous essay, "Was Sind und Was Sollen die Zahlen,"
called the whole numbers "freie Schöpfungen des Menschlichen Geistes;"
and, in fact, we need not enter into any discussion of the psychology of
our number concept in order to be able to assert that, however we men
first came by our conception of the whole numbers, for the mathematician
the theory of numerical truth must appear simply as the logical
development of the consequences of a few fundamental first principles,
such as those which Dedekind himself, or Peano, or other recent writers
upon this topic, have, in various forms, stated. A similar formal
freedom marks the development of any other theory in the realm of pure
mathematics. Pure geometry, from the modern point of view, is neither a
doctrine forced upon the human mind by the constitution of any primal
form of intuition, nor yet a branch of physical science, limited to
describing the spatial arrangement of phenomena in the external world.
Pure geometry is the theory of the consequences of certain postulates
which the geometer is at liberty consistently to make; so that there are
as many types of geometry as there are consistent systems of postulates
of that generic type of which the geometer takes account. As is also now
well known, it has long been impossible to define pure mathematics as
the science of quantity, or to limit the range of the exactly stateable
hypotheses or postulates with which the mathematician deals to the world
of those objects which, ideally speaking, can be viewed as measurable.
For the ideally defined measurable objects are by no means the only ones
whose properties can be stated in the form of exact postulates or
hypotheses; and the possible range of pure mathematics, if taken in the
abstract, and viewed apart from any question as to the value of given
lines of research, appears to be identical with the whole realm of the
consequences of exactly stateable ideal hypotheses of every type.

One limitation must, however, be mentioned, to which the assertion just
made is, in practice, obviously subject. And this is, indeed, a
momentous limitation. The exactly stated ideal hypotheses whose
consequences the mathematician develops must possess, as is sometimes
said, sufficient intrinsic importance to be worthy of scientific
treatment. They must not be trivial hypotheses. The mathematician is
not, like the solver of chess problems, merely displaying his skill in
dealing with the arbitrary fictions of an ideal game. His truth is,
indeed, ideal; his world is, indeed, treated by his science as if this
world were the creation of his postulates a "freie Schöpfung." But he
does not thus create for mere sport. On the contrary, he reports a
significant order of truth. As a fact, the ideal systems of the pure
mathematician are customarily defined with an obvious, even though often
highly abstract and remote, relation to the structure of our ordinary
empirical world. Thus the various algebras which have been actually
developed have, in the main, definite relations to the structure of the
space world of our physical experience. The different systems of ideal
geometry, even in all their ideality, still cluster, so to speak, about
the suggestions which our daily experience of space and of matter give
us. Yet I suppose that no mathematician would be disposed, at the
present time, to accept any brief definition of the degree of closeness
or remoteness of relation to ordinary experience which shall serve to
distinguish a trivial from a genuinely significant branch of
mathematical theory. In general, a mathematician who is devoted to the
theory of functions, or to group theory, appears to spend little time in
attempting to show why the development of the consequences of his
postulates is a significant enterprise. The concrete mathematical
interest of his inquiry sustains him in his labors, and wins for him the
sympathy of his fellows. To the questions, "Why consider the ideal
structure of just this system of object at all?" "Why study various
sorts of numbers, or the properties of functions, or of groups, or the
system of points in projective geometry?"--the pure mathematician in
general, cares to reply only, that the topic of his special
investigation appears to him to possess sufficient mathematical
interest. The freedom of his science thus justifies his enterprise. Yet,
as I just pointed out, this freedom is never mere caprice. This ideal
interest is not without a general relation to the concerns even of
common sense. In brief, as it seems at once fair to say, the pure
mathematician is working under the influence of more or less clearly
conscious philosophical motives. He does not usually attempt to define
what distinguishes a significant from a trivial system of postulates, or
what constitutes a problem worth attacking from the point of view of
pure mathematics. But he practically recognizes such a distinction
between the trivial and the significant regions of the world of ideal
truth, and since philosophy is concerned with the significance of ideas,
this recognition brings the mathematician near in spirit to the
philosopher.

Such, then, is the position of the pure mathematician. What, by way of
contrast, is that of the philosopher? We may reply that to state the
formal consequences of exact assumptions is one thing; to reflect upon
the mutual relations, and the whole significance of such assumptions,
does indeed involve other interests; and these other interests are the
ones which directly carry us over to the realm of philosophy. If the
theory of numbers belongs to pure mathematics, the study of the place of
the number concept in the system of human ideas belongs to philosophy.
Like the mathematician, the philosopher deals directly with a realm of
ideal truth. But to unify our knowledge, to comprehend its sources, its
meaning, and its relations to the whole of human life, these aims
constitute the proper goal of the philosopher. In order, however, to
accomplish his aims, the philosopher must, indeed, take account of the
results of the special physical science; but he must also turn from the
world of outer phenomena to an ideal world. For the unity of things is
never, for us mortals, anything that we find given in our experience.
You cannot see the unity of knowledge; you cannot describe it as a
phenomenon. It is for us now, an ideal. And precisely so, the meaning of
things, the relation of knowledge to life, the significance of our
ideals, their bearing upon one another--these are never, for us men,
phenomenally present data. Hence the philosopher, however much he ought,
as indeed he ought, to take account of phenomena, and of the results of
the special physical sciences, is quite as deeply interested in his own
way, as the mathematician is interested in his way, in the consideration
of an ideal realm. Only, unlike the mathematician, the philosopher does
not first abstract from the empirical suggestions upon which his exact
ideas are actually based, and then content himself merely with
developing the logical consequences of these ideas. On the contrary, his
main interest is not in any idea or fact in so far as it is viewed by
itself, but rather in the interrelations, in the common significance, in
the unity, of all fundamental ideas, and in their relations both to the
phenomenal facts and to life! On the whole, he, therefore, neither
consents, like the student of a special science of experience, to seek
his freedom solely through conformity to the phenomena which are to be
described; nor is he content, like the pure mathematician, to win his
truth solely through the exact definition of the formal consequences of
his freely defined hypotheses. He is making an effort to discover the
sense and the unity of the business of his own life.

It is no part of my purpose to attempt to show here how this general
philosophical interest differentiates into the various interests of
metaphysics, of the philosophy of religion, of ethics, of æsthetics, of
logic. Enough--I have tried to illustrate how, while both the
philosopher and the mathematician have an interest in the meaning of
ideas rather than in the description of external facts, still there is a
contrast which does, indeed, keep their work in large measure asunder,
namely, the contrast due to the fact that the mathematician is directly
concerned with developing the consequences of certain freely assumed
systems of postulates or hypotheses; while the philosopher is interested
in the significance, in the unity, and in the relation to life, of all
the fundamental ideals and postulates of the human mind.

Yet not even thus do we sufficiently state how closely related the two
tasks are. For this very contrast, as we have also suggested, is, even
within its own limits, no final or perfectly sharp contrast. There is a
deep analogy between the two tasks. For the mathematician, as we have
just seen, is not evenly interested in developing the consequences of
any and every system of freely assumed postulates. He is no mere solver
of arbitrary ideal puzzles in general. His systems of postulates are so
chosen as to be not trivial, but significant. They are, therefore, in
fact, but abstractly defined aspects of the very system of eternal truth
whose expression is the universe. In this sense the mathematician is as
genuinely interested as is the philosopher in the significant use of his
scientific freedom. On the other hand, the philosopher, in reflecting
upon the significance and the unity of fundamental ideas, can only do so
with success in case he makes due inquiry into the logical consequences
of given ideas. And this he can accomplish only if, upon occasion, he
employs the exact methods of the mathematician, and develops his systems
of ideal truth with the precision of which only mathematical research is
capable. As a fact, then, the mathematician and the philosopher deal
with ideal truth in ways which are not only contrasted, but profoundly
interconnected. The mathematician, in so far as he consciously
distinguishes significant from trivial problems, and ideal systems, is a
philosopher. The philosopher, in so far as he seeks exactness of logical
method, in his reflection, must meanwhile aim to be, within his own
limits, a mathematician. He, indeed, will not in future, like Spinoza,
seek to reduce philosophy to the mere development, in mathematical form,
of the consequences of certain arbitrary hypotheses. He will distinguish
between a reflection upon the unity of the system of truth and an
abstract development of this or that selected aspect of the system. But
he will see more and more that, in so far as he undertakes to be exact,
he must aim to become, in his own way, and with due regard to his own
purposes, mathematical; and thus the union of mathematical and
philosophical inquiries, in the future, will tend to become closer and
closer.


II

So far, then, I have dwelt upon extremely general considerations
relating to the unity and the contrast of mathematical and philosophical
inquiries. I can well conceive, however, that the individual worker in
any one of the numerous branches of investigation which are represented
by the body of students whom I am privileged to address, may at this
point mentally interpose the objection that all these considerations
are, indeed, far too general to be of practical interest to any of us.
Of course, all we who study these so-called normative sciences are,
indeed, interested in ideas, for their own sakes--in ideas so distinct
from, although of course also somehow related to, phenomena. Of course,
some of us are rather devoted to the development of the consequences of
exactly stated ideal hypotheses, and others to reflecting as we can upon
what certain ideas and ideals are good for, and upon what the unity is
of all ideas and ideals. Of course, if we are wise enough to do so, we
have much to learn from one another. But, you will say, the assertion of
all these things is a commonplace. The expression of the desire for
further mutual coöperation is a pious wish. You will insist upon asking
further: "Is there just now any concrete instance in a modern type of
research which furnishes results such as are of interest to all of us?
Are we actually doing any productive work in common? Are the
philosophers contributing anything to human knowledge which has a
genuine bearing upon the interests of mathematical science? Are the
mathematicians contributing anything to philosophy?"

These questions are perfectly fair. Moreover, as it happens, they can be
distinctly answered in the affirmative. The present age is one of a
rapid advance in the actual unification of the fields of investigation
which are included within the scope of this present division. What
little time remains to me must be devoted to indicating, as well as I
can, in what sense this is true. I shall have still to deal in very
broad generalities. I shall try to make these generalities definite
enough to be not wholly unfruitful.

We have already emphasized one question which may be said to interest,
in a very direct way, both the mathematician and the philosopher. The
ideal postulates, whose consequences mathematical science undertakes to
develop, must be, we have said, significant postulates, involving ideas
whose exact definition and exposition repay the labor of scientific
scrutiny. Number, space, continuity, functional correspondence or
dependence, group-structure--these are examples of such significant
ideas; the postulates or ideal assumptions upon which the theory of such
ideas depends are significant postulates, and are not the mere
conventions of an arbitrary game. But now what constitutes the
significance of an idea, or of an abstract mathematical theory? What
gives an idea a worthy place in the whole scheme of human ideas? Is it
the possibility of finding a physical application for a mathematical
theory which for us decides what is the value of the theory? No, the
theory of functions, the theory of numbers, group theory, have a
significance which no mathematician would consent to measure in terms of
the present applicability or non-applicability of these theories in
physical science? In vain, then, does one attempt to use the test of
applied mathematics as the main criticism of the value of a theory of
pure mathematics. The value of an idea, for the sciences which
constitute our division, is dependent upon the place which this idea
occupies in the whole organized scheme or system of human ideas. The
idea of number, for instance, familiar as its applications are, does not
derive its main value from the fact that eggs and dollars and
star-clusters can be counted, but rather from the fact that the idea of
numbers has those relations to other fundamental ideas which recent
logical theory has made prominent--relations, for instance, to the
concept of order, to the theory of classes or collections of objects
viewed in general, and to the metaphysical concept of the self.
Relations of this sort, which the discussions of the number concept by
Dedekind, Cantor, Peano, and Russell have recently brought to
light--such relations, I say, constitute what truly justified Gauss in
calling the theory of numbers a "divine science." As against such deeper
relations, the countless applications of the number concept in ordinary
life, and in science, are, from the truly philosophical point of view,
of comparatively small moment. What we want, in the work of our division
of the sciences, is to bring to light the unity of truth, either, as in
mathematics, by developing systems of truth which are significant by
virtue of their actual relations to this unity, or, as in philosophy, by
explicitly seeking the central idea about which all the many ideas
cluster.

Now, an ancient and fundamental problem for the philosophers is that
which has been called the problem of the categories. This problem of the
categories is simply the more formal aspect of the whole philosophical
problem just defined. The philosopher aims to comprehend the unity of
the system of human ideas and ideals. Well, then, what are the primal
ideas? Upon what group of concepts do the other concepts of human
science logically depend? About what central interests is the system of
human ideals clustered? In ancient thought Aristotle already approached
this problem in one way. Kant, in the eighteenth century, dealt with it
in another. We students of philosophy are accustomed to regret what we
call the excessive formalism of Kant, to lament that Kant was so much
the slave of his own relatively superficial and accidental table of
categories, and that he made the treatment of every sort of
philosophical problem turn upon his own schematism. Yet we cannot doubt
that Kant was right in maintaining that philosophy needs, for the
successful development of every one of its departments, a well-devised
and substantially complete system of categories. Our objection to Kant's
over-confidence in the virtues of his own schematism is due to the fact
that we do not now accept his table of categories as an adequate view of
the fundamental concepts. The efforts of philosophers since Kant have
been repeatedly devoted to the task of replacing his scheme of
categories by a more adequate one. I am far from regarding these purely
philosophical efforts made since Kant as fruitless, but they have
remained, so far, very incomplete, and they have been held back from
their due fullness of success by the lack of a sufficiently careful
survey and analysis of the processes of thought as these have come to be
embodied in the living sciences. Such concepts as number, quantity,
space, time, cause, continuity, have been dealt with by the pure
philosophers far too summarily and superficially. A more thoroughgoing
analysis has been needed. But now, in comparatively recent times, there
has developed a region of inquiry which one may call by the general name
of modern logic. To the constitution of this new region of inquiry men
have principally contributed who began as mathematicians, but who, in
the course of their work, have been led to become more and more
philosophers. Of late, however, various philosophers, who were
originally in no sense mathematicians, becoming aware of the importance
of the new type of research, are in their turn attempting both to
assimilate and to supplement the undertakings which were begun from the
mathematical side. As a result, the logical problem of the categories
has to-day become almost equally a problem for the logicians of
mathematics and for those students of philosophy who take any serious
interest in exactness of method in their own branch of work. The result
of this actual coöperation of men from both sides is that, as I think,
we are to-day, for the first time, in sight of what is still, as I
freely admit, a somewhat distant goal, namely, the relatively complete
rational analysis and tabulation of the fundamental categories of human
thought. That the student of ethics is as much interested in such an
investigation as is the metaphysician, that the philosopher of religion
needs a well-completed table of categories quite as much as does the
pure logician, every competent student of such topics ought to admit.
And that the enterprise in question keenly interests the mathematicians
is shown by the prominent part which some of them have taken in the
researches in question. Here, then, is the type of recent scientific
work whose results most obviously bear upon the tasks of all of us
alike.

A catalogue of the names of the workers in this wide field of modern
logic would be out of place here. Yet one must, indeed, indicate what
lines of research are especially in question. From the purely
mathematical side, the investigations of the type to which I now refer
may be viewed (somewhat arbitrarily) as beginning with that famous
examination into one of the postulates of Euclid's geometry which gave
rise to the so-called non-Euclidean geometry. The question here
originally at issue was one of a comparatively limited scope, namely,
the question whether Euclid's parallel-line postulate was a logical
consequence of the other geometrical principles. But the investigation
rapidly develops into a general study of the foundations of geometry--a
study to which contributions are still almost constantly appearing.
Somewhat independently of this line of inquiry there grew up, during the
latter half of the nineteenth century, that reëxamination of the bases
of arithmetic and analysis which is associated with the names of
Dedekind, Weierstrass, and George Cantor. At the present time, the
labors of a number of other inquirers (amongst whom we may mention the
school of Peano and Pieri in Italy, and men such as Poincaré and
Couturat in France, Hilbert in Germany, Bertrand Russell and Whitehead
in England, and an energetic group of our American mathematicians--men
such as Professor Moore, Professor Halsted, Dr. Huntington, Dr. Veblen,
and a considerable number of others) have been added to the earlier
researches. The result is that we have recently come for the first time
to be able to see, with some completeness, what the assumed first
principles of pure mathematics actually are. As was to be expected,
these principles are capable of more than one formulation, according as
they are approached from one side or from another. As was also to be
expected, the entire edifice of pure mathematics, so far as it has yet
been erected, actually rests upon a very few fundamental concepts and
postulates, however you may formulate them. What was not observed,
however, by the earlier, and especially by the philosophical, students
of the categories, is the form which these postulates tend to assume
when they are rigidly analyzed.

This form depends upon the precise definition and classification of
certain types of relations. The whole of geometry, for instance,
including metrical geometry, can be developed from a set of postulates
which demand the existence of points that stand in certain ordinal
relationships. The ordinal relationships can be reduced, according as
the series of points considered is open or closed, either to the
well-known relationship in which three points stand when one is between
the other two upon a right line, or else to the ordinal relationship in
which four points stand when they are separated by pairs; and these two
ordinal relationships, by means of various logical devices, can be
regarded as variations of a single fundamental form. Cayley and Klein
founded the logical theory of geometry here in question. Russell, and in
another way Dr. Veblen, have given it its most recent expressions. In
the same way, the theory of whole numbers can be reduced to sets of
principles which demand the existence of certain ideal objects in
certain simple ordinal relations. Dedekind and Peano have worked out
such ordinal theories of the number concept. In another development of
the theory of the cardinal whole numbers, which Russell and Whitehead
have worked out, ordinal concepts are introduced only secondarily, and
the theory depends upon the fundamental relation of the equivalence or
nonequivalence of collections of objects. But here also a certain simple
type of relation determines the definitions and the development of the
whole theory.

Two results follow from such a fashion of logically analyzing the first
principles of mathematical science. In the first place, as just pointed
out, we learn _how few and simple are the conceptions and postulates_
upon which the actual edifice of exact science rests. Pure mathematics,
we have said, is free to assume what it chooses. Yet the assumptions
whose presence as the foundation principles of the actually existent
pure mathematics an exhaustive examination thus reveals, show by their
fewness that the ideal freedom of the mathematician to assume and to
construct what he pleases, is indeed, in practice, a very decidedly
limited freedom. The limitation is, as we have already seen, a
limitation which has to do with the essential significance of the
fundamental concepts in question. And so the result of this analysis of
the bases of the actually developed and significant branches of
mathematics, constitutes a sort of empirical revelation of what
categories the exact sciences have practically found to be of such
significance as to be worthy of exhaustive treatment. Thus the
instinctive sense for significant truth, which has all along been
guiding the development of mathematics, comes at least to a clear and
philosophical consciousness. And meanwhile the essential categories of
thought are seen in a new light.

The second result still more directly concerns a philosophical logic. It
is this: Since the few types of relations which this sort of analysis
reveals as the fundamental ones in exact science are of such importance,
the logic of the present day is especially required to face the
questions: _What is the nature of our concept of relations?_ What are
the various possible types of relations? Upon what does the variety of
these types depend? What unity lies beneath the variety?

As a fact, logic, in its modern forms, namely, first that symbolic logic
which Boole first formulated, which Mr. Charles S. Peirce and his pupils
have in this country already so highly developed, and which Schroeder in
Germany, Peano's school in Italy, and a number of recent English writers
have so effectively furthered--and secondly, the logic of scientific
method, which is now so actively pursued, in France, in Germany, and in
the English-speaking countries--this whole movement in modern logic, as
I hold, is rapidly approaching _new solutions of the problem of the
fundamental nature and the logic of relations_. The problem is one in
which we are all equally interested. To De Morgan in England, in an
earlier generation, and, in our time, to Charles Peirce in this country,
very important stages in the growth of these problems are due. Russell,
in his work on the _Principles of Mathematics_ has very lately
undertaken to sum up the results of the logic of relations, as thus far
developed, and to add his own interpretations. Yet I think that Russell
has failed to get as near to the foundations of the theory of relations
as the present state of the discussion permits. For Russell has failed
to take account of what I hold to be the most fundamentally important
generalization yet reached in the general theory of relations. This is
the generalization set forth as early as 1890, by Mr. A. B. Kempe, of
London, in a pair of wonderful but too much neglected, papers, entitled,
respectively, _The Theory of Mathematical Form_, and _The Analogy
between the Logical Theory of Classes and the Geometrical Theory of
Points_. A mere hint first as to the more precise formulation of the
problem at issue, and then later as to Kempe's special contribution to
that problem, may be in order here, despite the impossibility of any
adequate statement.


III

The two most obviously and universally important kinds of relations
known to the exact sciences, as these sciences at present exist, are:
(1) The relations of the type of equality or equivalence; and (2) the
relations of the type of before and after, or greater and less. The
first of these two classes of relations, namely, the class represented,
although by no means exhausted, by the various relations actually
called, in different branches of science by the one name equality, this
class I say, might well be named, as I myself have proposed, the
leveling relations. A collection of objects between any two of which
some one relation of this type holds, may be said to be a collection
whose members, in some defined sense or other, are on the same level.
The second of these two classes of relations, namely, those of the type
of before and after, or greater and less--this class of relations, I
say, consists of what are nowadays often called the serial relations.
And a collection of objects such that, if any pair of these objects be
chosen, a determinate one of this pair stands to the other one of the
same pair in some determinate relation of this second type, and in a
relation which remains constant for all the pairs that can be thus
formed out of the members of this collection--any such collection, I
say, constitutes a one-dimensional open series. Thus, in case of a file
of men, if you choose any pair of men belonging to the file, a
determinate one of them is, in the file, before the other. In the number
series, of any two numbers, a determinate one is greater than the other.
Wherever such a state of affairs exists, one has a series.

Now these two classes of relations, the leveling relations and the
serial relations, agree with one another, and differ from one another in
very momentous ways. They _agree_ with one another in that both the
leveling and the serial relations are what is technically called
_transitive_; that is, both classes conform to what Professor James has
called the law of "skipped intermediaries." Thus, if _A_ is equal to
_B_, and _B_ is equal to _C_, it follows that _A_ is equal to _C_. If
_A_ is before _B_, and _B_ is before _C_, then _A_ is before _C_. And
this property, which enables you in your reasonings about these
relations to skip middle terms, and so to perform some operation of
elimination, is the property which is meant when one calls relations of
this type transitive. But, on the other hand, these two classes of
relations _differ_ from each other in that the leveling relations are,
while the serial relations are not, _symmetrical_ or reciprocal. Thus,
if _A_ is equal to _B_, _B_ is equal to _A_. But if _X_ is greater than
_Y_, then _Y_ is not greater than _X_, but less than _X_. So the
leveling relations are symmetrical transitive relations. But the serial
relations are transitive relations which are not symmetrical.

All this is now well known. It is notable, however, that nearly all the
processes of our exact sciences, as at present developed, can be said to
be essentially such as lead either to the placing of sets or classes of
objects on the same level, by means of the use of symmetrical transitive
relations, or else to the arranging of objects in orderly rows or
series, by means of the use of transitive relations which are not
symmetrical. This holds also of all the applications of the exact
sciences. Whatever else you do in science (or, for that matter, in art),
you always lead, in the end, either to the arranging of objects, or of
ideas, or of acts, or of movements, in rows or series, or else to the
placing of objects or ideas of some sort on the same level, by virtue of
some equivalence, or of some invariant character. Thus numbers,
functions, lines in geometry, give you examples of serial relations.
Equations in mathematics are classic instances of leveling relations.
So, of course, are invariants. Thus, again, the whole modern theory of
energy consists of two parts, one of which has to do with levels of
energy, in so far as the quantity of energy of a closed system remains
invariant through all the transformations of the system, while the other
part has to do with the irreversible serial order of the transformations
of energy themselves, which follow a set of unsymmetrical relations, in
so far as energy tends to fall from higher to lower levels of intensity
within the same system.

The entire conceivable universe then, and all of our present exact
science, can be viewed, if you choose, as a collection of objects or of
ideas that, whatever other types of relations may exist, are at least
largely characterized either by the leveling relations, or by the serial
relations, or by complexes of both sorts of relations. Here, then, we
are plainly dealing with very fundamental categories. The "between"
relations of geometry can of course be defined, if you choose, in terms
of transitive relations that are not symmetrical. There are, to be sure,
some other relations present in exact science, but the two types, the
serial and leveling relations, are especially notable.

So far the modern logicians have for some time been in substantial
agreement. Russell's brilliant book is a development of the logic of
mathematics very largely in terms of the two types of relations which,
in my own way, I have just characterized; although Russell gives due
regard, of course, to certain other types of relations.

But hereupon the question arises, "Are these two types of relations what
Russell holds them to be, namely, ultimate and irreducible logical
facts, unanalyzable categories--mere data for the thinker?" Or can we
reduce them still further, and thus simplify yet again our view of the
categories?

Here is where Kempe's generalization begins to come into sight. These
two categories, in at least one very fundamental realm of exact thought,
can be reduced to one. There is, namely, a world of ideal objects which
especially interest the logician. It is the world of a _totality of
possible logical classes_, or again, it is the ideal world, equivalent
in formal structure to the foregoing, but composed of a _totality of
possible statements_, or thirdly, it is the world, equivalent once more,
in formal structure, to the foregoing, but consisting of a _totality of
possible acts of will_, of possible decisions. When we proceed to
consider the relational structure of such a world, taken merely in the
abstract as such a structure, a relation comes into sight which at once
appears to be peculiarly general in its nature. It is the so-called
illative relation, the relation which obtains between two classes when
one is subsumed under the other, or between two statements, or two
decisions, when one implies or entails the other. This relation is
transitive, but may be either symmetrical or not symmetrical; so that,
according as it is symmetrical or not, it may be used either to
establish levels or to generate series. In the order system of the
logician's world, the relational structure is thus, in any case, a
highly general and fundamental one.

But this is not all. In this the logician's world of classes, or of
statements, or of decisions, there is also another relation observable.
This is the relation of exclusion or mutual opposition. This is a purely
symmetrical or reciprocal relation. It has two forms--obverse or
contradictory opposition, that is, negation proper, and contrary
opposition. But both these forms are purely symmetrical. And by proper
devices each of them can be stated in terms of the other, or reduced to
the other. And further, as Kempe incidentally shows, and as Mrs. Ladd
Franklin has also substantially shown in her important theory of the
syllogism, _it is possible to state every proposition, or complex of
propositions involving the illative relation, in terms of this purely
symmetrical relation of opposition_. Hence, so far as mere relational
form is concerned, the illative relation itself may be wholly reduced to
the symmetrical relation of opposition. This is our first result as to
the relational structure of the realm of pure logic, that is, the realm
of classes, of statements, or of decisions.

It follows that, in describing the logician's world of possible classes
or of possible decisions, _all unsymmetrical, and so all serial,
relations can be stated solely in terms of symmetrical relations, and
can be entirely reduced to such relations_. Moreover, as Kempe has also
very prettily shown, the relation of opposition, in its two forms, just
mentioned, need not be interpreted as obtaining merely between pairs of
objects. It may and does obtain between triads, tetrads, _n_-ads of
logical entities; and so all that is true of the relations of logical
classes may consequently be stated merely by ascribing certain perfectly
symmetrical and homogeneous predicates to pairs, triads, tetrads, n-ads
of logical objects. The essential contrast between symmetrical and
unsymmetrical relations thus, in this ideal realm of the logician,
simply vanishes. The categories of the logician's world of classes, of
statements, or of decisions, are marvelously simple. All the relations
present may be viewed as variations of the mere conception of opposition
as distinct from non-opposition.

All this holds, of course, so far, merely for the logician's world of
classes or of decisions. There, at least, all serial order can actually
be derived from wholly symmetrical relations. But Kempe now very
beautifully shows (and here lies his great and original contribution to
our topic)--he shows, I say, that the ordinal relations of geometry, as
well as of the number system, can all be regarded as indistinguishable
from _mere variations of those relations which, in pure logic, one finds
to be the symmetrical relations obtaining within pairs or triads of
classes or of statements_. The formal identity of the geometrical
relation called "between" with a purely logical relation which one can
define as existing or as not existing amongst the members of a given
triad of logical classes, or of logical statements, is shown by Kempe in
a fashion that I cannot here attempt to expound. But Kempe's result thus
enables one, as I believe, to simplify the theory of relations far
beyond the point which Russell in his brilliant book has reached. For
Kempe's triadic relation in question can be stated, in what he calls its
obverse form, in perfectly symmetrical terms. And he proves very exactly
that the resulting logical relation is precisely identical, in all its
properties, with the fundamental ordinal relation of geometry.

Thus the order-systems of geometry and analysis appear simply as special
cases of the more general order-system of pure logic. The whole, both of
analysis and of geometry, can be regarded as a description of certain
selected groups of entities, which are chosen, according to special
rules, from a single ideal world. This general and inclusive ideal world
consists simply of _all the objects which can stand to one another in
those symmetrical relations wherein the pure logician finds various
statements, or various decisions inevitably standing_. "Let me," says in
substance Kempe, "choose from the logician's ideal world of classes or
decisions, what entities I will; and I will show you a collection of
objects that are in their relational structure, precisely identical with
the points of a geometer's space of _n_ dimensions." In other words, all
of the geometer's figures and relations can be precisely pictured by the
relational structure of a selected system of classes or of statements,
whose relations are wholly and explicitly logical relations, such as
opposition, and whose relations may all be regarded, accordingly, as
reducible to a single type of purely symmetrical relation.

Thus, for _all_ exact science, and not merely for the logician's special
realm, the contrast between symmetrical and unsymmetrical relations
proves to be, after all, superficial and derived. The purely logical
categories, such as opposition, and such as hold within the calculus of
statements, are, apparently, the basal categories of all the exact
science that has yet been developed. Series and levels are relational
structures that, sharply as they are contrasted, can be derived from a
single root.

I have restated Kempe's generalization in my own way. I think it the
most promising step towards new light as to the categories that we have
made for some generations.

In the field of modern logic, I say, then, work is doing which is
rapidly tending towards the unification of the tasks of our entire
division. For this problem of the categories, in all its abstractness,
is still a common problem for all of us. Do you ask, however, what such
researches can do to furnish more special aid to the workers in
metaphysics, in the philosophy of religion, in ethics, or in æsthetics,
beyond merely helping towards the formulation of a table of
categories--then I reply that we are already not without evidence that
such general researches, abstract though they may seem, are bearing
fruits which have much more than a merely special interest. Apart from
its most general problems, that analysis of mathematical concepts to
which I have referred has in any case revealed numerous unexpected
connections between departments of thought which had seemed to be very
widely sundered. One instance of such a connection I myself have
elsewhere discussed at length, in its general metaphysical bearings. I
refer to the logical identity which Dedekind first pointed out between
the mathematical concept of the ordinal number of series and the
philosophical concept of the formal structure of an ideally completed
self. I have maintained that this formal identity throws light upon
problems which have as genuine an interest for the student of the
philosophy of religion as for the logician of arithmetic. In the same
connection it may be remarked that, as Couturat and Russell, amongst
other writers, have very clearly and beautifully shown, the argument of
the Kantian mathematical antinomies needs to be explicitly and totally
revised in the light of Cantor's modern theory of infinite collections.
To pass at once to another, and a very different instance: The modern
mathematical conceptions of what is called group theory have already
received very wide and significant applications, and promise to bring
into unity regions of research which, until recently, appeared to have
little or nothing to do with one another. Quite lately, however, there
are signs that group theory will soon prove to be of importance for the
definition of some of the fundamental concepts of that most refractory
branch of philosophical inquiry, æsthetics. Dr. Emch, in an important
paper in the _Monist_, called attention, some time since, to the
symmetry groups to which certain æsthetically pleasing forms belong, and
endeavored to point out the empirical relations between these groups and
the æsthetic effects in question. The grounds for such a connection
between the groups in question and the observed æsthetic effects,
seemed, in the paper of Dr. Emch to be left largely in the dark. But
certain papers recently published in the country by Miss Ethel Puffer,
bearing upon the psychology of the beautiful (although the author has
approached the subject without being in the least consciously
influenced, as I understand, by the conceptions of the mathematical
group theory), still actually lead, if I correctly grasp the writer's
meaning, to the doctrine that the æsthetic object, viewed as a
psychological whole, must possess a structure closely, if not precisely,
equivalent to the ideal structure of what the mathematician calls a
group. I myself have no authority regarding æsthetic concepts, and speak
subject to correction. But the unexpected, and in case of Miss Puffer's
research, quite unintended, appearance of group theory in recent
æsthetic analysis is to me an impressive instance of the use of
relatively new mathematical conceptions in philosophical regions which
_seem_, at first sight, very remote from mathematics.

That both the group concept and the concept of the self just suggested
are sure to have also a wide application in the ethics of the future, I
am myself well convinced. In fact, no branch of philosophy is without
close relations to all such studies of fundamental categories.

These are but hints and examples. They suffice, I hope, to show that the
workers in this division have deep common interests, and will do well,
in future, to study the arts of coöperation, and to regard one another's
progress with a watchful and cordial sympathy. In a word: Our common
problem is the theory of the categories. That problem can be solved only
by the coöperation of the mathematicians and of the philosophers.




[Illustration: THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

_Hand-painted Photogravure from a Painting by Otto Knille. Reproduced
from a Photograph of the Painting by permission of the Berlin Photograph
Co._

This famous painting is now in the University of Berlin. Thomas Aquinas,
one of the greatest of the scholastic philosophers, surnamed the
"Angelic Doctor," is delivering a learned discourse before King Louis
IX. To the right of the King stands Joinville, the French chronicler.
The Dominican monk with his hand to his face is Guillaume de Saint
Amour, and Vincent de Beauvais, and another Dominican are seated with
their backs to the platform desk from which Thomas Aquinas is making his
animated address. The picture is thoroughly characteristic of a
University disputation at the close of the Middle Ages.]




DEPARTMENT I--PHILOSOPHY




DEPARTMENT I--PHILOSOPHY

(_Hall 6, September 20, 11.15 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN: PROFESSOR BORDEN P. BOWNE, Boston University.
  SPEAKERS: PROFESSOR GEORGE H. HOWISON, University of California.
            PROFESSOR GEORGE T. LADD, Yale University.


In opening the Department of Philosophy, the Chairman, Professor Borden
P. Bowne, LL.D., of Boston University, made an interesting address on
the Philosophical Outlook. Professor Bowne said in part:--

     I congratulate the members of the Philosophical Section on
     the improved outlook in philosophy. In the generation just
     passed, philosophy was somewhat at a discount. The great and
     rapid development of physical science and invention,
     together with the profound changes in biological thought,
     produced for a time a kind of chaos. New facts were showered
     upon us in great abundance, and we had no adequate
     philosophical preparation for dealing with them. Such a
     condition is always disturbing. The old mental equilibrium
     is overthrown and readjustment is a slow process. Besides,
     the shallow sense philosophy of that time readily lent
     itself to mechanical and materialistic interpretations, and
     for a while it seemed as if all the higher faiths of
     humanity were permanently discredited. All this has passed
     away. Philosophical criticism began its work and the naïve
     dogmatism of materialistic naturalism was soon disposed of.
     It quickly appeared that our trouble was not due to the new
     facts, but to the superficial philosophy by which they had
     been interpreted. Now that we have a better philosophy, we
     have come to live in perfect peace with the facts once
     thought disturbing, and even to welcome them as valuable
     additions to knowledge....

     The brief naturalistic episode was not without instruction
     for us. It showed conclusively the great practical
     importance of philosophy. Had we had thirty years ago the
     current philosophical insight, the great development of the
     physical and biological sciences would have made no
     disturbance whatever. But being interpreted by a crude
     scheme of thought, it produced somewhat of a storm.
     Philosophy may not contribute much of positive value, but it
     certainly has an important negative function in the way of
     suppressing pretentious dogmatism and fictitious knowledge,
     which often lead men astray. It is these things which
     produce conflicts of science and religion or which find in
     evolution the solvent of all mysteries and the source of all
     knowledge.

     Concerning the partition of territory between science and
     philosophy, there are two distinct questions respecting the
     facts of experience. First, we need to know the facts in
     their temporal and spatial order, and the way they hang
     together in a system of law. To get this knowledge is the
     function of science, and in this work science has
     inalienable rights and a most important practical function.
     This work cannot be done by speculation nor interfered with
     by authority of any kind. It is not surprising, then, that
     scientists in their sense of contact with reality should be
     indignant with, or feel contempt for, any who seek to limit
     or proscribe their research. But supposing this work all
     done, there remains another question respecting the
     causality and interpretation of the facts. This question
     belongs to philosophy. Science describes and registers the
     facts with their temporal and spatial laws; philosophy
     studies their causality and significance. And while the
     scientist justly ignores the philosopher who interferes with
     his inquiries, so the philosopher may justly reproach the
     scientist who fails to see that the scientific question does
     not touch the philosophic one....

     In the field of metaphysics proper I note a strong tendency
     toward personal idealism, or as it might be called,
     Personalism; that is, the doctrine that substantial reality
     can be conceived only under the personal form and that all
     else is phenomenal. This is quite distinct from the
     traditional idealisms of mere conceptionism. It holds the
     essential fact to be a community of persons with a Supreme
     Person at their head while the phenomenal world is only
     expression and means of communication. And to this view we
     are led by the failure of philosophizing on the impersonal
     plane, which is sure to lose itself in contradiction and
     impossibility. Under the form of mechanical naturalism, with
     its tendencies to materialism and atheism, impersonalism has
     once more been judged and found wanting. We are not likely
     to have a recurrence of this view unless there be a return
     to philosophical barbarism. But impersonalism at the
     opposite pole in the form of abstract categories of being,
     causality, unity, identity, continuity, sufficient reason,
     etc., is equally untenable. Criticism shows that these
     categories when abstractly and impersonally taken cancel
     themselves. On the impersonal plane we can never reach unity
     from plurality, or plurality from unity; and we can never
     find change in identity, or identity in change. Continuity
     in time becomes mere succession without the notion of
     potentiality, and this in turn is empty. Existence itself is
     dispersed into nothingness through the infinite divisibility
     of space and time, while the law of the sufficient reason
     loses itself in barren tautology and the infinite regress.
     The necessary logical equivalence of cause and effect in any
     impersonal scheme makes all real explanation and progress
     impossible, and shuts us up to an unintelligible oscillation
     between potentiality and actuality, to which there is no
     corresponding thought....

     Philosophy is still militant and has much work before it,
     but the omens are auspicious, the problems are better
     understood, and we are coming to a synthesis of the results
     of past generations of thinking which will be a very
     distinct progress. Philosophy has already done good service,
     and never better than in recent times, by destroying
     pretended knowledge and making room for the higher faiths of
     humanity. It has also done good service in helping these
     faiths to better rational form, and thus securing them
     against the defilements of superstition and the cavilings of
     hostile critics. With all its aberrations and shortcomings,
     philosophy deserves well of humanity.




PHILOSOPHY: ITS FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS AND ITS METHODS

BY GEORGE HOLMES HOWISON

     [George Holmes Howison, Mills Professor of Intellectual and
     Moral Philosophy and Civil Polity, University of California.
     b. Montgomery County, Maryland, 1834. A.B. Marietta College,
     1852; M.A. 1855; LL.D. _ibid._ 1883. Post-graduate, Lane
     Theological Seminary, University of Berlin, and Oxford.
     Headmaster High School, Salem, Mass., 1862-64; Assistant
     Professor of Mathematics, Washington University, St. Louis,
     1864-66; Tileston Professor of Political Economy, _ibid._
     1866-69; Professor of Logic and the Philosophy of Science,
     Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1871-79; Lecturer on
     Ethics, Harvard University, 1879-80; Lecturer on Logic and
     Speculative Philosophy, University of Michigan, 1883-84.
     Member and vice-president St. Louis Philosophical Society;
     member California Historical Society; American Historical
     Association; American Association for the Advancement of
     Science; National Geographic Society, etc. Author of
     _Treatise on Analytic Geometry_, 1869; _The Limits of
     Evolution_, 1901, 2d edition, 1904; joint author and editor
     of _The Conception of God_, 1897, etc. Editor Philosophical
     Publications of University of California; American Editorial
     Representative _Hibbert Journal_, London.]


The duty has been assigned me, honored colleagues, of addressing you on
the Fundamental Conceptions and the Methods of our common
pursuit--philosophy. In endeavoring to deal with the subject in a way
not unworthy of its depth and its extent, I have found it impossible to
bring the essential material within less compass than would occupy, in
reading, at least four times the period granted by our programme. I have
therefore complied with the rule of the Congress which directs that, if
a more extended writing be left with the authorities for publication,
the reading must be restricted to such a portion of it as will not
exceed the allotted time. I will accordingly read to you, first, a brief
summary of my entire discussion, by way of introduction, and then an
excerpt from the larger document, which may serve for a _specimen_, as
our scholastic predecessors used to say, of the whole inquiry I have
carried out. The impression will, of course, be fragmentary, and I must
ask beforehand for your most benevolent allowances, to prevent a
judgment too unfavorable.

The discussion naturally falls into two main parts: the first dealing
with the Fundamental Conceptions; and the second, with the Methods.

In the former, after presenting the conception of philosophy itself, as
_the consideration of things in the light of the whole_, I take up the
involved Fundamental Concepts in the following order:--

     I. Whole and Part;

    II. Subject and Object (Knowing and Being, Mind and Matter; Dualism,
        Materialism, Idealism);

   III. Reality and Appearance (Noumenon and Phenomenon);

    IV. Cause and Effect (Ground and Consequence; Causal System);

     V. One and Many (Number System; Monism and Pluralism);

    VI. Time and Space (their relation to Number; their Origin and
        Real Meaning);

   VII. Unconditioned and Conditioned (Soul, World, God; their
        Reinterpretation in terms of Pluralism);

  VIII. The True, the Beautiful, the Good (their relation to the
        question between Monism and Pluralism).

These are successively dealt with as they rise one out of the other in
the process of interpreting them and applying them in the actual
creation of philosophy, as this goes on in the historic schools. The
theoretic progress of philosophy is in this way explained by them, in
its movement from natural dualism, or realism, through the successive
forms of monism, materialistic, agnostic, and idealistic, until it
reaches the issue, now coming so strongly forward within the school of
idealism, between the adherents of monism and those of pluralism.

The importance of the Fundamental Concepts is shown to increase as we
pass along the list, till on reaching Cause and Effect, and entering
upon its full interpretation into the complete System of Causes, we
arrive at the very significant conception of the RECIPROCITY OF FIRST
CAUSES, and through it come to the PRIMACY OF FINAL CAUSE, and the
derivative position of the other forms of cause, Material, Formal,
Efficient. The philosophic strength of idealism, but especially of
idealistic pluralism, comes into clear light as the result of this stage
of the inquiry. But it appears yet more decidedly when One and Many,
Time and Space, and their interrelations, are subjected to analysis. So
the discussion next passes to the higher conceptions, Soul, World, God,
by the pathway of the correlation Unconditioned and Conditioned, and its
kindred contrasts Absolute and Relative, Necessary and Contingent,
Infinite and Finite, corroborating and reinforcing the import of
idealism, and, still more decidedly, that of its plural form. Finally,
the strong and favorable bearing of this last on the dissolution of
agnosticism and the habilitation of the ideals, the True, the Beautiful,
and the Good, in a heightened meaning, is brought out.

This carries the inquiry to the second part of it, that of the
Philosophical Methods. Here I recount these in a series of six: the
Dogmatic, the Skeptical, the Critical, the Pragmatic, the Genetic, the
Dialectic. These, I show, in spite of the tendency of the earlier
members in the series to over-emphasis, all have their place and
function in the development of a complete philosophy, and in fact form
an ascending series in methodic effectiveness, all that precede the last
being taken up into the comprehensive Critical Rationalism of the last.
Methodology thus passes upward, over the ascending and widening roadways
of (1) Intuition and Deduction; (2) Experience and Induction; (3)
Intuition and Experience adjusted by Critical Limits; (4) Skepticism
reinforced and made _quasi_-affirmative by Desire and Will; (5)
Empiricism enlarged by substitution of cosmic and psychic history for
subjective consciousness; (6) Enlightened return to a Rationalism
critically established by the inclusion of the preceding elements, and
by the sifting and the grading of the Fundamental Concepts through their
behavior when tested by the effort to make them universal. In this way,
the methods fall into a System, the organic principle of which is this
principle of Dialectic, which proves itself alone able to establish
_necessary_ truths; that is, _truths indeed_,--judgments that are seen
to exclude their opposites, because, in the attempt to substitute the
opposite, the place of it is still filled by the judgment which it aims
to dislodge.

And now, with your favoring leave, I will read the excerpt from my
larger text.

The task to which, in an especial sense, the cultivators of philosophy
are summoned by the plans of the present Congress of Arts and Science,
is certainly such as to stir an ambition to achieve it. At the same
time, it tempers eagerness by its vast difficulty, and the apprehension
lest this may prove insuperable. The task, the officers of the Congress
tell us, is no less than to promote the unification of all human
knowledge. It requires, then, the reduction of the enormous detail in
our present miscellany of sciences and arts, which to a general glance,
or even to a more intimate view, presents a confusion of differences
that seems overwhelming, to a system nevertheless clearly
harmonious,--founded, that is to say, upon universal principles which
control all differences by explaining them, and which therefore, in the
last resort, themselves flow lucidly from a single supreme principle.
Simply to state this meaning of the task set us, is enough to awaken the
doubt of its practicability.

This doubt, we are bound to confess, has more and more impressed itself
upon the general mind, the farther this has advanced in the experience
of scientific discovery. The very increase in the multiplicity and
complexity of facts and their causal groupings increases the feeling
that at the root of things there is "a final inexplicability"--total
reality seems, more and more, too vast, too profound, for us to grasp or
to fathom. And yet, strangely enough, this increasing sense of
mysterious vastness has not in the least prevented the modern mind from
more and more asserting, with a steadily increasing insistence, the
essential and unchangeable unity of that whole of things which to our
ordinary experience, and even to all our sciences, appears such an
endless and impenetrable complex of differences,--yes, of
contradictions. In fact, this assertion of the unity of all things,
under the favorite name of the Unity of Nature, is the pet dogma of
modern science; or, rather, to speak with right accuracy, it is the
stock-in-trade of a _philosophy_ of science, current among many of the
leaders of modern science; for every such assertion, covering, as it
tacitly and unavoidably does, a view about the absolute whole, is an
assertion belonging to the province of philosophy, before whose tribunal
it must come for the assessment of its value. The presuppositions of all
the special sciences, and, above all, this presupposition of the Unity
and Uniformity of Nature, common to all of them, must thus come back for
justification and requisite definition to philosophy--that uppermost and
all-inclusive form of cognition which addresses itself to the whole as
whole. In their common assertion of the Unity of Nature, the exponents
of modern science come unawares out of their own province into quite
another and a higher; and in doing so they show how unawares they come,
by presenting in most instances the curious spectacle of proclaiming at
once their increasing belief in the unity of things, and their
increasing disbelief in its penetrability by our intelligence:--

         _In's Innere der Natur,
          Dringt kein erschaffner Geist,_

is their chosen poet's expression of their philosophic mood. Curious we
have the right to call this state of the scientific mind, because it is
to critical reflection so certainly self-contradictory. How can there be
a real unity belonging to what is inscrutable?--what evidence of unity
can there be, except in intelligible and explanatory continuity?

But, at all events, this very mood of agnostic self-contradiction, into
which the development of the sciences casts such a multitude of minds,
brings them,--brings all of us,--as already indicated, into that court
of philosophy where alone such issues lawfully belong, and where alone
they can be adjudicated. If the unification of the sciences can be made
out to be real by making out its sole sufficient condition, namely, that
there is a genuine, and not a merely nominal, unity in the whole of
reality itself,--a unity that explains because it is itself, not simply
intelligible, but the only completely intelligible of things,--this
desirable result must be the work of philosophy. However difficult the
task may be, it is rightly put upon us who belong to the Department
listed first among the twenty-four in the programme of this
representative Congress.

I cannot but express my own satisfaction, as a member of this
Department, nor fail to extend my congratulations to you who are my
colleagues in it, that the Congress, in its programme, takes openly the
affirmative on this question of the possible unification of knowledge.
The Congress has thus declared beforehand for the practicability of the
task it sets. It has even declared for its not distant accomplishment;
indeed, not impossibly, its accomplishment through the transactions of
the Congress itself; and it indicates, by no uncertain signs, the
leading, the determining part that philosophy must have in the
achievement. In fact, the authorities of the Congress themselves suggest
a solution of their own for their problem. In their programme we see a
renewed Hierarchy of the Sciences, and at the summit of this appears now
again, after so long a period of humiliating obscuration, the figure of
Philosophy, raised anew to that supremacy, as Queen of the Sciences,
which had been hers from the days of Plato to those of Copernicus, but
which she began to lose when modern physical and historical research
entered upon its course of sudden development, and which, until
recently, she has continued more and more to lose as the sciences have
advanced in their career of discoveries,--ever more unexpected, more
astonishing, yet more convincing and more helpful to the welfare of
mankind. May this sign of her recovered empire not fail! If we rejoice
at the token, the Congress has made it our part to see that the title is
vindicated. It is ours to show this normative function of philosophy,
this power to reign as the unifying discipline in the entire realm of
our possible knowledge; to show it by showing that the very nature of
philosophy--its elemental concepts and its directing ideals, its methods
taken in their systematic succession--is such as must result in a view
of universal reality that will supply the principle at once giving rise
to all the sciences and connecting them all into one harmonious whole.

Such, and so grave, my honored colleagues, is the duty assigned to this
hour. Sincerely can I say, Would it had fallen to stronger hands than
mine! But since to mine it has been committed, I will undertake it in no
disheartened spirit; rather, in that temper of animated hope in which
the whole Congress has been conceived and planned. And I draw
encouragement from the place, and its associations, where we are
assembled--from its historic connections not only with the external
expansion of our country, but with its growth in culture, and especially
with its growth in the cultivation of philosophy. For your speaker, at
least, can never forget that here in St. Louis, the metropolis of the
region by which our national domain was in the Louisiana Purchase so
enlarged,--here was the centre of a movement in philosophic study that
has proved to be of national import. It is fitting that we all, here
to-day, near to the scene itself, commemorate the public service done by
our present National Commissioner of Education and his group of
enthusiastic associates, in beginning here, in the middle years of the
preceding century, those studies of Kant and his great idealistic
successors that unexpectedly became the nucleus of a wider and more
penetrating study of philosophy in all parts of our country. It is with
quickened memories belonging to the spot where, more than
five-and-thirty years ago, it was my happy fortune to take some part
with Dr. Harris and his companions, that I begin the task assigned me.
The undertaking seems less hopeless when I can here recall the names and
the congenial labors of Harris, of Davidson, of Brockmeyer, of Snider,
of Watters, of Jones,--half of them now gone from life. They "builded
better than they knew;" and, humbly as they may themselves have
estimated their ingenuous efforts to gain acquaintance with the greatest
thoughts, history will not fail to take note of what they did, as
marking one of the turning-points in the culture of our nation. The
publication of the _Journal of Speculative Philosophy_, granting all the
subtractions claimed by its critics on the score of defects (of which
its conductors were perhaps only too sensible), was an influence that
told in all our circles of philosophical study, and thence in the whole
of our social as well as our academic life.

       *     *     *     *     *

[Here I enter upon the discussion of the subject proper, beginning, as
above indicated, with the Fundamental Conceptions. Having followed these
through the contrasts Whole and Part, Subject and Object, Reality and
Appearance (or Noumenon and Phenomenon), and developed the bearing of
these on the procedure of thought from the dualism of natural realism to
materialism and thence to idealism, with the issue now coming on, in
this last, between monism and pluralism, I strike into the contrast
Cause and Effect, and, noting its unfolding into the more comprehensive
form of Ground and Consequence, go on thence as follows:]

       *     *     *     *     *

It is plain that the contrast Ground and Consequence will enable us to
state the new issue with closer precision and pertinence than Reality
and Appearance, Noumenon and Phenomenon, can supply; while, at the same
time, Ground and Consequence exhibits Cause and Effect as presenting a
contrast that only fulfills what Noumenon and Phenomenon foretold and
strove towards; in fact, what was more remotely, but not less surely,
also indicated by Whole and Part, Knowing and Being, Subject and Object.
For in penetrating to the coherent meaning of these conceptions, the
philosophic movement, as we saw, advanced steadily to the fuller and
fuller translating of each of them into the reality that unifies _by
explanation_, instead of pretending to explain by merely unifying; and
this, of course, will now be put forward explicitly, in the clarified
category of Cause and Effect, transfigured from a physical into a purely
logical relation. What idealism now says, in terms of this, is that the
Cause (or, as we now read it, the Ground) of all that exists is the
Subject; is Mind, the intelligently Self-conscious; and that all things
else, the mere objects, material things, are its Consequence, its
Outcome,--in that sense its Effect. And what the new pluralistic
idealism says, is that the _assemblage of individual minds_--intelligence
being essentially personal and individual, and never merely universal
and collective--is the true total Cause of all, and that every mind thus
belongs to the order of First Causes; nevertheless, that part, and the
most significant part, of the nature of every mind, essential to its
personality and its reason, is _its recognition of other minds in the
very act of its own self-definition_. That is to say, a mind by its
spontaneous nature as intelligence, by its intrinsic rational or logical
genius, puts itself as member of a _system_ of minds; all minds are put
by each other as Ends--completely standard and sacred Objects, as much
parts of the system of true Causes as each is, in its capacity of
Subject; and we have a noumenal Reality that is properly to be described
as the eternal Federal Republic of Spirits.

Consequently, the relation of Cause and Effect now expands and heightens
into a system of the RECIPROCITY OF FIRST CAUSES; causes, that is,
which, while all coefficients in the existence and explanation of that
natural world of experience which forms their passive effect, their
objects of mere perception, are themselves related only in the higher
way of Final Causes--that is, Defining-Bases and Ends--of each other,
making them the logical Complements, and the Objects of conduct, all for
each, and each for all. Hence, the system of causation undergoes a
signal transformation, and proves to be organized by Final Cause as its
basis and root, instead of by Efficient Cause, or Originating Ground, as
the earlier stages of thinking had always assumed.

The causal relation between the absolute or primary realities being
purely Final, or Defining and Purposive; that is to say, the uncoercive
influence of recognition and ideality; all the other forms of cause, as
grouped by Aristotle,--Material, Formal, and Efficient,--are seen to be
the derivatives of Final Cause, as being supplied by the action of the
minds that, as absolute or underived realities, exist only in the
relation of mutual Complements and Ends. Accordingly, Efficient Cause
operates only from minds, as noumena, to matter, as their phenomenon,
their presented contents of experience; or, in a secondary and
derivative sense, from one phenomenon to another, or from one group of
phenomena to another group, these playing the part of transmitters, or
(as some logicians would say) Instrumental Causes, or Means. Cause, as
Material, is hence defined as the elementary phenomenon, and the
combinations of this; and therefore, strictly taken, is merely Effect
(or Outcome) of the self-active consciousness, whose spontaneous forms
of conception and perception become the Formal Cause that organizes the
sum of phenomena into cosmic harmony or unity.

Here, accordingly, comes into view the further and in some respects
deeper conceptual pair, Many and One. The history of philosophic thought
proves that this antithesis is darkly obscure and deeply ambiguous; for
about it have centred a large part of the conflicts of doctrine. This
pair has already been used, implicitly, in exhibiting the development of
the preceding group, Cause and Effect; and in so using it we have
supplied ourselves with a partial clarification of it, and with one
possible solution of its ambiguity. We have seen, namely, how our strong
natural persuasion that philosophy guided by the fundamental concept
Cause must become the search for the One amid the wilderness of the
Many, and that this search cannot be satisfied and ended except in an
all-inclusive Unit, in which the Many is embraced as the integral and
originated parts, completely determined, subjected, and controlled, may
give way to another and less oppressive conception of unity; a
conception of it as the harmony among many free and independent primary
realities, a harmony founded on their intelligent and reasonable mutual
recognition. This conception casts at least _some_ clearing light upon
the long and dreary disputes over the Many and the One; for it exposes,
plainly, the main source of them. They have arisen out of two chief
ambiguities,--the ambiguity of the concept One, and the ambiguity of the
concept Cause in its supreme meaning. The normal contrast between the
One and the Many is a clear and simple contrast: the One is the single
unit, and the Many is the repetition of the unit, or is the collection
of the several units. But if we go on to suppose that there is a
collection or sum of all possible units, and call this the Whole, then,
since there can be no second such, we call it also "one" (or the One, by
way of preëminence), overlooking the fact that it differs from the
simple one, or unit, _in genere_; that it is in fact not a unit at all,
not an elementary member of a series, but the annulment of all series;
that our name "one" has profoundly changed its meaning, and now stands
for the Sole, the Only. Thus, by our forgetfulness of differences, we
fall into deep water, and, with the confused illusions of the drowning,
dream of the One and All as the single _punctum originationis_ of all
things, the Source and Begetter of the very units of which it is in
reality only the resultant and the derivative. Or, from another point of
view, and in another mood, we rightly enough take the One to mean the
coherent, the intelligible, the consistent, the harmonious; and putting
the Many, on the misleading hint of its contrast to the unit, in
antithesis to this One of harmony, we fall into the belief that the Many
cannot be harmonious, is intrinsically a cluster of repulsions or of
collisions, incapable of giving rise to accord; indeed, essentially
hostile to it. So, as accord is the aim and the essence of our reason,
we are caught in the snare of monism, pluralism having apparently become
the equivalent of chaos, and thus the _bête noir_ of rational
metaphysics. Nay, in the opposed camp itself, some of the most ardent
adherents of pluralism, the liveliest of wit, the most exuberant in
literary resources, are the abjectest believers in the hopeless
disjunction and capriciousness of the plural, and hold there is a rift
in the texture of reality that no intelligence, "even though you dub it
'the Absolute,'" can mend or reach across. Yet surely there is nothing
in the Many, as a sum of units, the least at war with the One as a
system of harmony. On the contrary, even in the pure form of the Number
Series, the Many is impossible except on the principle of harmony,--the
units can be collected and summed (that is, constitute the Many), only
if they cohere in a community of intrinsic kindred. Consequently the
whole question of the chaotic or the harmonic nature of a plural world
turns on the nature of the genus which we find characteristic of the
absolutely (_i. e._, the unreservedly) real, and which is to be taken as
the common denomination enabling us to count them and to sum them. When
minds are seen to be necessarily the primary realities, but _also
necessarily federal_ as well as individual, the illusion about the
essential disjunction and non-coherence of the plurally real dissolves
away, and a primordial world of manifold persons is seen to involve no
fundamental or hopeless anarchy of individualism, irreducible in
caprice, but an indwelling principle of harmony, rather, that from the
springs of individual being intends the control and composure of all the
disorders that mark the world of experiential appearance, and so must
tend perpetually to effect this.

The other main source of our confusions over the Many and the One is the
variety of meaning hidden in the concept Cause, and our propensity to
take its most obvious but least significant sense for its supreme
intent. Closest at hand, in experience, is our productive causation of
changes in our sense-world, and hence most obvious is that reading of
Cause which takes it as the producer of changes and, with a deeper
comprehension of it, of the inalterable linkage between changes, whereby
one follows regularly and surely upon another. Thus what we have in
philosophy agreed to call Efficient Cause comes to be mistaken for the
profoundest and the supreme form of cause, and all the other modes of
cause, the Material (or Stuff), the Form (or Conception), and the End
(or Purpose), its consequent and derivative auxiliaries. Under the
influence of this strong impression, we either assume total reality to
be One Whole, all-embracing and all-producing of its manifold modes, or
else view it as a duality, consisting of One Creator and his manifold
creatures. So it has come about that metaphysics has hitherto been
chiefly a contention between pantheism and monotheism, or, as the latter
should for greater accuracy be called, monarchotheism; and, it must be
acknowledged, this struggle has been attended by a continued (though not
continual) decline of this later dualistic theory before the steadfast
front and unyielding advance of the older monism. Thus persistent has
been the assumption that harmony can only be assured by the unity given
in some single productive causation: the only serious uncertainty has
been about the most rational way of conceiving the operation of this
Sole Cause; and this doubt has thus far, on the whole, declined in favor
of the Elder Oriental or monistic conception, as against the Hebraic
conception of extraneous creation by fiat. The frankly confessed mystery
of the latter, its open appeal to miracle, places it at a fatal
disadvantage with the Elder Orientalism, when the appeal is to reason
and intelligibility. It is therefore no occasion for wonder that,
especially since the rise of the scientific doctrine of Evolution, with
its postulate of a universal unity, self-varying yet self-fulfilling,
even the leaders of theology are more and more falling into the monistic
line and swelling the ever-growing ranks of pantheism. If it be asked
here, _And why not?_--_where is the harm of it?_--_is not the whole
question simply of what is true_? the answer is, _The mortal harm of the
destruction of personality, which lives or dies with the preservation or
destruction of individual responsibility; while the completer truth is,
that there are other and profounder (or, if you please, higher) truths
than this of explanation by Efficient Cause_. In fact, there is a higher
conception of Cause itself than this of production, or efficiency; for,
of course, as we well might say, that alone can be the supreme
conception of Cause which can subsist between absolute or unreserved
realities, and such must exclude their production or their necessitating
control by others. So that we ought long since to have realized that
Final Cause, the recognized presence to each other as unconditioned
realities, or Defining Auxiliaries and Ends, is the sole causal relation
that can hold among primary realities; though among such it _can_ hold,
and in fact must.

For the absolute reality of personal intelligences, at once individual
and universally recognizant of others, is called for by other
conceptions fundamental to philosophy. These other fundamental concepts
can no more be counted out or ignored than those we have hitherto
considered; and when we take them up, we shall see how vastly more
significant they are. They alone will prove supreme, truly organizing,
normative; they alone can introduce gradation in truths, for they alone
introduce the judgment of worth, of valuation; they alone can give us
counsels of perfection, for they alone rise from those elements in our
being which deal with ideals and with veritable Ideas. So let us proceed
to them.

       *     *     *     *     *

Our path into their presence, however, is through another pair, not so
plainly antithetic as those we have thus far considered. This pair that
I now mean is Time and Space, which, though not obviously antinomic, yet
owes its existence, as can now be shown, to that profoundest of
concept-contrasts which we earlier considered under the head of Subject
and Object, when the Object takes on its only adequate form of Other
Subject. But in passing from the contrast One and Many towards its
rational transformation into the moral society of Mind and Companion
Minds, we break into this pair of Time and Space, and must make our way
through it by taking in its full meaning.

Time and Space play an enormous part in all our empirical thinking, our
actual use of thought in our sense-perceptive life. And no wonder; for,
in coöperation, they form the postulate and condition of all our
possible sensuous consciousness. Only on them as backgrounds can thought
take on the peculiar clearness of an image or a picture; only on the
screens which they supply can we literally _depict_ an object. And this
clarity of outline and boundary is so dear to our ordinary
consciousness, that we are prone to say there is no sufficient, no real
clearness, unless we can clarify by the bounds either of place or of
date, or of both. In this mood, we are led to deny the reality and
validity of thought altogether, when it cannot be defined in the metes
and bounds afforded by Time or by Space: that which has no date nor
place, we say,--no extent and no duration,--cannot be real; it is but a
pseudo-thought, a pretense and a delusion. Here is the extremely
plausible foundation of the philosophy known as sensationism, the
refined or second-thought form of materialism, in which it begins its
euthanasia into idealism.

Without delaying here to criticise this, let us notice the part that
Time and Space play in reference to the conceptual pair we last
considered, the One and the Many; for not otherwise shall we find our
way beyond them to the still more fundamental conceptions which we are
now aiming to reach. Indeed, it is through our surface-apprehension of
the pair One and Many, as this illumines experience, that we most
naturally come at the pair Time and Space; so that these are at first
taken for mere generalizations and abstractions, the purely nominal
representatives of the actual distinctions between the members of the
Many by our sense perception of this from that, of here from there, of
now from then. It is not till our reflective attention is fixed on the
fact that _there_ and _here_, _now_ and _then_, are _peculiar_
distinctions, wholly different from other contrasts of this with
that,--which may be made in all sorts of ways, by difference of quality,
or of quantity, or of relations quite other than place and date,--it is
not till we realize this _peculiar_ character of the Time-contrast and
the Space-contrast, that we see these singular differential _qualia_
cannot be derived from others, not even from the contrast One and Many,
but are independent, are themselves underived and spontaneous utterances
of our intelligent, our percipient nature. But when Kant first helped
mankind to the realization of this spontaneous (or _a priori_) character
of this pair of perceptive conditions, or Sense-Forms, he fell into the
persuasion, and led the philosophic world into it, that though Time and
Space are not derivatives of the One and the Many read as the numerical
aspect of our perceptive experiences, yet there _is_ between the two
pairs a connection of dependence as intimate as that first supposed, but
in exactly the opposite sense; namely, that the One and the Many are
conditioned by Time and Space, or, when it comes to the last resort, are
at any rate completely dependent upon Time. By a series of units, this
view means, we really understand a set of items discriminated and
related either as points or as instants: in the last analysis, as
instants: that is, it is impossible to apprehend a unit, or to count and
sum units, unless the unit is taken as an instant, and the units as so
many instants. Numbers, Kant holds, are no doubt pure (or quite
unsensuous) percepts,--discerned particulars,--therefore spontaneous
products of the mind _a priori_, but made possible only by the primary
pure percept Time, or, again, through the mediation of this, by the
conjoined pure percept Space; so that the numbers, in their own pure
character, are simply the instants in their series. As the instants, and
therefore the numbers, are pure percepts,--particulars discerned without
the help of sense,--so pure percepts, in a primal and comprehensive
sense, argues Kant, must their conditioning postulates Time and Space
be, to supply the "element," or "medium," that will render such pure
percepts possible.

This doctrine of Kant's is certainly plausible; indeed, it is
impressively so; and it has taken a vast hold in the world of science,
and has reinforced the popular belief in the unreality of thought apart
from Time and Space; an unreality which it is an essential part of
Kant's system to establish critically. But as a graver result, it has
certainly tended to discredit the belief in personal identity as an
abiding and immutable reality, enthroned over the mutations of things in
Time and Space; since all that is in these is numbered and is mutable,
and is rather many than one, yet nothing is believed real except as it
falls under them, at any rate under Time. And with this decline of the
belief in a changeless self, has declined, almost as rapidly and
extensively, the belief in immortality. Or, rather, the permanence and
the identity of the person has faded into a question regarded as
unanswerable; though none the less does this agnostic state of belief
tend to take personality, in any responsible sense of the word, out of
the region of practical concern. With what is unknowable, even if
existing, we can have no active traffic; 't is for our conduct as if it
were not.

So it behooves us to search if this prevalent view about the relation of
One and Many to Time and Space is trustworthy and exact. What place and
function in philosophy must Space and Time be given?--for they certainly
have a place and function; they certainly are among the inexpugnable
conceptions with which thought has to concern itself when it undertakes
to gain a view of the whole. But it may be easy to give them a larger
place and function than belong to them by right. Is it true, then, that
the One and the Many--that the system of Numbers, in short--are
unthinkable except as in Space and Time, or, at any rate, in Time? Or,
to put the question more exactly, as well as more gravely and more
pertinently, Are Space and Time the true _principia individui_, and is
Time preëminently the ultimate _principium individuationis_? Is there
accordingly no individuality, and no society, no associative assemblage,
except in the fleeting world of phenomena, dated and placed? Simply to
ask the question, and thus bring out the full drift of this Kantian
doctrine, is almost to expose the absurdity of it. Such a doctrine,
though it may be wisely refusing to confound personality, true
individuality, with the mere logical singular; nay, worse, with a
limited and special illustration of the singular, the one _here_ or the
one _there_, the one _now_ or the one _then_; nevertheless, by confining
numerability to things material and sensible, makes personal identity
something unmeaning or impossible, and destroys part of the foundation
for the relations of moral responsibility. Though the vital trait of the
person, his genuine individuality, doubtless lies, not in his being
exactly numerable, but in his being aboriginal and originative; in a
word, in his self-activity, in his being a centre of autonomous social
recognition; yet exactly numerable he indeed is, and must be, not
confusable with any other, else his professed autonomy, his claim of
rights and his sense of duty, can have no significance, must vanish in
the universal confusion belonging to the indefinite. Nor, on the other
hand, is it at all true that a number has to be a point or an instant,
nor that things when numbered and counted are implicitly pinned upon
points or, at all events, upon instants. It may well enough be the fact
that in our empirical use of number we have to employ Time, or even
Space, but it is a gaping _non sequitur_ to conclude that we therefore
can count nothing but the placed and the dated. Certainly we count
whenever we _distinguish_,--by whatever means, on whatever ground. To
think is, in general, at least to "distinguish the things that differ;"
but this will not avail except we keep account of the differences; hence
the One and the Many lie in the very bosom of intelligence, and this
fundamental and spontaneous contrast can not only rive Time and Space
into expressions of it, in instants and in points, but travels with
thought from its start to its goal, and as organic factor in
mathematical science does indeed, as Plato in the _Republic_ said, deal
with absolute being, if yet dreamwise; so that One and Many, and Many as
the sum of the ones, makes part of the measure of that primally real
world which the world of minds alone can be. If the contrast One and
Many can pass the bounds of the merely phenomenal, by passing the
temporal and the spatial; if it applies to universal being, to the
noumenal as well as to the phenomenal; then the absolutely real world,
so far as concerns this essential condition, can be a world of genuine
individuals, identifiable, free, abiding, responsible, and there can be
a real moral order; if not, then there can be no such moral world, and
the deeper thought-conceptions to which we now approach must be
regarded, at the best, as fair illusions, bare ideals, which the serious
devotee of truth must shun, except in such moments of vacancy and
leisure as he may venture to surrender, at intervals, to purely hedonic
uses. But if the One and the Many are not dependent on Time and Space,
their universal validity is possible; and it has already been shown that
they are not so dependent, are not thus restricted.

And now it remains to show their actual universality, by exhibiting
their place in the structure of the absolutely real; since nobody calls
in question their pertinence to the world of phenomena. But their
noumenal applicability follows from their essential implication with all
and every difference: no difference, no distinction, that does not carry
counting; and this is quite as true as that there can be no counting
without difference. The One and the Many thus root in Identity and
Difference, pass up into fuller expression in Universal and Particular,
hold forward into Cause and Effect, attain their commanding presentation
in the Reciprocity of First Causes, and so keep record of the contrast
between Necessity and Contingency. In short, they are founded in, and in
their turn help (indispensably) to express, _all_ the categories,--Quality,
Quantity, Relation, Modality. Nor do they suffer arrest there; they hold
in the ideals, the True, the Beautiful, the Good, and in the primary
Ideas, the Self, the World, and God. For all of these differ, however
close their logical linkage may be; and in so far as they differ, each
of them is a counted unit, and so they are many. And, most profoundly of
all, One and Many take footing in absolute reality so soon as we realize
that nothing short of intelligent being can be primordially real,
underived, and truly causal, and that intelligence is, by its idea, at
once an _I_-thinking and a universal recognizant outlook upon others
that think _I_.

Hence Number, so far from being the derivative of Time and Space,
founds, at the bottom, in the self-definition and social recognition of
intelligent beings, and so finds _a priori_ a valid expression in Time
and in Space, as well as in every other primitive and spontaneous form
in which intelligence utters itself. The Pythagorean doctrine of the
rank of Number in the scale of realities is only one remove from the
truth: though the numbers are indeed not the Prime Beings, they do enter
into the essential nature of the Prime Beings; are, so to speak, the
organ of their definite reality and identity, and for that reason go
forward into the entire defining procedure by which these intelligences
organize their world of experiences. And the popular impression that
Time and Space are derivatives from Number, is in one aspect the truth,
rather than the doctrine of Kant is; for though they are not mere
generalizations and abstractions from numbered dates and durations,
places and extents, they do exist as relating-principles which minds
simply _put_, as the conditions _of perceptive experiences_; which by
the nature of intelligence they must number in order to have and to
master; while Number itself, the contrast of One and Many, enters into
the very being of minds, and therefore still holds in Time and in Space,
which are the organs, or _media_, not of the whole being of the mind,
but only of that region of it constituted by sensation,--the material,
the disjunct, the empirical. Besides, the logical priority of Number is
implied in the fact that minds in putting Time and Space _a priori_ must
count them as two, since they discriminate them with complete clearness,
so that it is impossible to work up Space out of Time (as Berkeley and
Stuart Mill so adroitly, but so vainly, attempted to do), or Time out of
Space (as Hegel, with so little adroitness and such patent failure,
attempted to do). No; there Time and Space stand, fixed and
inconfusable, incapable of mutual transmutation, and thus the ground of
an abiding difference between the inner or psychic sense-world and the
outer or physical, between the subjective and the (sensibly) objective.
By means of them, the world of minds discerns and bounds securely
between the privacy of each and the publicity, the life "out of doors,"
which is common to all; between the cohering isolation of the individual
and the communicating action of the society. Indeed, as from this
attained point of view we can now clearly see, the real ground of the
difference between Time and Space, and hence between subjective
perception and the objective existence of physical things, is in the
fact that a mind, in _being_ such,--in its very act of
self-definition,--correlates itself with a _society_ of minds, and so,
to fulfill its nature, in so far as this includes a world of
experiences, must form its experience socially as well as privately, and
hence will put forth a condition of sensuous communication, as well as a
condition of inner sensation. Thus the dualization of the sense-world
into inner and outer, psychic and physical, subjective and objective,
rests at last on the intrinsically social nature of conscious being;
rests on the twofold structure, logically dichotomous, of the
self-defining act; and we get the explanation, from the nature of
intelligence as such, why the Sense-Forms are necessarily two, and only
two. It is no accident that we experience all things sensible in Time or
in Space, or in both together; it is the natural expression of our
primally intelligent being, concerned as that is, directly and only,
with our self and its logically necessary complement, the other selves;
and so the natural order, in its two discriminated but complemental
portions, the inner and the outer, is founded in that moral order which
is given in the fundamental act of our intelligence. It is this resting
of Space upon our veritable Objects, the Other Subjects, that imparts to
it its externalizing quality, so that things in it are referred to the
testing of all minds, not to ours only, and are reckoned external
because measured by that which is alone indeed other than we.

In this way we may burst the restricting limit which so much of
philosophy, and so much more of ordinary opinion, has drawn about our
mental powers in view of this contrast Time and Space, especially with
reference to the One and the Many, and to the persuasion that plural
distinctions, at any rate, cannot belong in the region of absolute
reality. Ordinary opinion either inclines to support a philosophy that
is skeptical of either Unity or Plurality being pertinent beyond Time
and Space, and thus to hold by agnosticism, or, if it affects
affirmative metaphysics, tends to prefer monism to pluralism, when the
number-category is carried up into immutable regions: to represent the
absolutely real as One, somehow seems less contradictory of the "fitness
of things" than to represent it as Many; moreover, carrying the Many
into that supreme region, by implying the belonging there of mortals
such as we, seems shocking to customary piety, and full of extravagant
presumption. Still, nothing short of this can really satisfy our deep
demand for a moral order, a personal responsibility, nay, an adequate
logical fulfillment of our conception of a self as an _intelligence_;
while the clarification which a rational pluralism supplies for such
ingrained puzzles in the theory of knowledge as that of the source and
finality of the contrast Time and Space, to mention no others, should
afford a strong corroborative evidence in its behalf. And, as already
said, this view enables us to pass the limit which Time and Space are so
often supposed to put, hopelessly, upon our concepts of the ideal grade,
the springs of all our aspiration. To these, then, we may now pass.

       *     *     *     *     *

We reach them through the doorways of the Necessary _vs._ the
Contingent, the Unconditioned _vs._ the Conditioned, the Infinite _vs._
the Finite, the Absolute _vs._ the Relative; and we recognize them as
our profoundest foundation-concepts, alone deserving, as Kant so
pertinently said, the name of IDEAS,--the Soul, the World, and God.
Associated with them are what we may call our three Forms of the
Ideal,--the True, the Beautiful, the Good. These Ideas and their
affiliated ideals have the highest directive and settling function in
the organization of philosophy; they determine its schools and its
history, by forming the centre of all its controlling problems; they
prescribe its great subdivisions, breaking it up into Metaphysics,
Æsthetics, and Ethics, and Metaphysics, again, into Psychology
Cosmology, and Ontology,--or Theology in the classic sense, which, in
the modern sense, becomes the Philosophy of Religion; they call into
existence, as essential preparatory and auxiliary disciplines, Logic and
the Theory of Knowledge, or Epistemology. They thus provide the true
distinctions between philosophy and the sciences of experience, and
present these sciences as the carrying out, upon experiential details,
of the methodological principles which philosophy alone can supply;
hence they lead us to view all the sciences as in fact the applied
branches, the completing organs of philosophy, instead of its hostile
competitors.

As for the controlling questions which they start, these are such as
follow: Are the ideals but bare ideals, serving only to cast "a light
that never was, on land or sea?"--are the Ideas only bare ideas, without
any objective being of their own, without any footing in the real,
serving only to enhance the dull facts of experience with auroral
illusions? The philosophic thinker answers affirmatively, or with
complete skeptical dubiety, or with a convinced and uplifting negative,
according to his less or greater penetration into the real meaning of
these deepest concepts, and depending on his view into the nature and
thought-effect of the Necessary and the Contingent, the Unconditioned
and the Conditioned, the Infinite and the Finite, the Absolute and the
Relative.

And what, now, are the accurate, the adequate meanings of the three
Ideas?--what _does_ our profoundest thought intend by the Soul, by the
World, by God? We know how Kant construed them, in consequence of the
course by which he came critically (as he supposed) upon them,--as
respectively the paramount Subject of experiences; the paramount Object
of experiences, or the Causal Unity of the possible series of sensible
objects; and the complete Totality of Conditions for experience and its
objects, itself therefore the Unconditioned. It is worth our notice,
that especially by his construing the idea of God in this way, thus
rehabilitating the classical and scholastic conception of God as the Sum
of all Realities, he laid the foundation for that very transfiguration
of mysticism, that idealistic monism, which he himself repudiated, but
which his three noted successors in their several ways so ardently
accepted, and which has since so pervaded the philosophic world. But
suppose Kant's alleged critical analysis of the three Ideas and their
logical basis is in fact far from critical, far from "exactly
discriminative,"--and I believe there is the clearest warrant for
declaring that it is,--then the assumed "undeniable critical basis" for
idealistic monism will be dislodged, and it will be open to us to
interpret the Ideas with accuracy and consistency--an interpretation
which may prove to establish, not at all any monism, but a rational
pluralism. And this will also reveal to us, I think, that our prevalent
construing of the Unconditioned and the Conditioned, the Necessary and
the Contingent, the Infinite and the Finite, the Absolute and the
Relative, suffers from an equal inaccuracy of analysis, and precisely
for this reason gives a plausible but in fact untrustworthy support to
the monistic interpretation of God, and Soul, and World; or, as Hegel
and his chief adherents prefer to name them, God, Mind, and Nature. If
the Kantian analysis stands, then it seems to follow, clearly enough,
that God is the Inclusive Unit which at once embraces Mind and Nature,
Soul and World, expresses itself in them, and imparts to them their
meaning; and the plain dictate then is, that Kant's personal prejudice,
and the personal prejudices of others like him, in favor of a
transcendent God, must give way to that conception of the Divine, as
immanent and inclusive, which is alone consistent with its being indeed
the Totality of Conditions,--the Necessary Postulate, and the Sufficient
Reason, for both Subject and Object.

But will Kant's analysis stand? Have we not here another of his few but
fatal slips,--like his doctrine of the dependence of Number upon Time
and Space, and its consequent subjection to them? It surely seems so. If
the veritable postulate of categorical syllogizing be, as Kant thinks it
is, merely the Subject, the self as experiencer of presented phenomena,
in contrast to the Object, the causally united sum of possible
phenomena; and if the true postulate of conditional syllogizing is this
cosmic Object, as contrasted with the correlate Subject, then it would
seem we cannot avoid certain pertinent questions. Is such a postulate
Subject any fit and adequate account of the whole Self, of the Soul?--is
there not a vital difference between this subject-self and the Self as
Person?--does not Kant himself imply so, in his doctrine of the primacy
of the Practical Reason? Again: Is not the World, as explained in Kant's
analysis, and as afterwards made by him the solution of the Cosmological
Antinomies, simply the supplemental factor necessarily correlate to the
subjective aspect of the conscious life, and reduced from its uncritical
rôle of thing-in-itself to the intelligible subordination required by
Kant's theory of Transcendental Idealism?--and can this be any adequate
account of the Idea that is to stand in sufficing contrast to the whole
Self, the Person?--what less than the Society of Persons can meet the
World-Idea for that? Further: If with Kant we take the World to mean no
more than this object-factor in self-consciousness, must not the Soul,
the total Self, from which, according to Kant's Transcendental Idealism,
both Space and Time issue, supplying the basis for the immutable
contrast between the experiencing subject and the really experienced
objects,--must not this _whole_ Self be the real meaning of the
"Totality of Conditions, itself unconditioned," which comes into view as
simply the postulate of disjunctive syllogizing? How in the world can
disjunctive syllogizing, the confessed act of the _I_-thinking
intelligence, really postulate anything as Totality of Conditions, in
any other sense than the total of conditions for such syllogizing?--namely,
the conditioning _I_ that organizes and does the reasoning? There is
surely no warrant for calling this total, which simply transcends and
conditions the subject and the object of sensible experiences, by any
loftier name than that which Kant had already given it in the Deduction
of the Categories, when he designated it the "originally synthetic unity
of apperception (self-consciousness)," or "the _I_-thinking (_das
ich-denke_) that must accompany all my mental presentations,"--that is
to say, the whole Self, or thinking Person, idealistically interpreted.
The use of the name God in this connection, where Kant is in fact only
seeking the roots of the three orders of the syllogism _when reasoning
has by supposition been restricted to the subject-matter of experience_,
is assuredly without warrant; yes, without excuse. In fact, it is
because Kant sees that the third Idea, as reached through his analysis,
is intrinsically immanent,--resident in the self that syllogizes
disjunctively, and, because so resident, incapable of passing the bounds
of possible experience,--while he also sees that the idea of God should
mean a Being transcendent of every other thinker, himself a distinct
individual consciousness, though not an empirically limited one,--it is,
I say, precisely because he sees all this, that he pronounces the Idea,
though named with the name of God, utterly without pertinence to
indicate God's existence, and so enters upon that part of his
Transcendental Dialectic which is, in chief, directed to exposing the
transcendental illusion involved in the celebrated Ontological Proof.
Consistently, Kant in this famous analytic of the syllogism should be
talking, not of the Soul, the World, and God, but of the Subject (as
uniting-principle of its sense-_perceptions_), the Object (as
uniting-principle of all possible sense-_percepts_), and the Self (the
whole _I_ presiding over experience in both its aspects, as these are
discriminated in Time and Space). By what rational title--even granting
for the sake of argument that they are the genuine postulates of
categorical and of conditional syllogizing--can this Subject and this
Object, these correlate factors in the Self, rank as Ideas with the Idea
of their conditioning Whole--the Self, that in its still unaltered
identity fulfills, in Practical Reason, the high rôle of Person? If
_this_ no more than meets the standard of Idea, how can _they_ meet it?
How can two somethings, neither of which is the Totality of Conditions,
and both of which are therefore in fact conditioned, deserve the same
title with that which is intrinsically the Totality of Conditions, and,
as such, unconditioned? To call the conditioned and the unconditioned
alike Ideas is a confounding of dignities that Pure Reason should not
tolerate, whether the procedure be read as a leveling down or a leveling
up. Distributing the titles conferred by Pure Reason in this democratic
fashion reminds us too much, unhappily for Kant, of the Cartesian
performances with Substance; whereby God, mind, and matter became alike
"substances," though only God could in truth be said to "require nothing
for his existence save himself," while mind and matter, though
absolutely dependent on God, and derivative from him, were still to be
called substances in the "modified" and Pickwickian sense of being
underived from each other.

But if Kant's naming his third syllogistic postulate the Idea of God is
inconsequent upon his analysis; or if, when the analysis is made
consequent by taking the third Idea to mean the whole Self, the first
and second postulates sink in conceptual rank, so that they cannot with
any pertinence be called Ideas, unless we are willing to keep the same
name when its meaning must be changed _in genere_,--a procedure that can
only encumber philosophy instead of clearing its way,--these
difficulties do not close the account; we shall find other curious
things in this noted passage, upon which part of the characteristic
outcome of Kant's philosophizing so much depends. Besides the misnaming
of the third Idea, we have already had to question, in view of the path
by which he reaches it, the fitness of his calling the first by the
title of the Soul; and likewise, though for other and higher reasons, of
his calling the second by the name of the World. In fact, it comes home
to us that all of the Ideas are, in one way or another, misnomers;
Kant's whole procedure with them, in fine, has already appeared inexact,
inconsistent, and therefore uncritical. But now we shall become aware of
certain other inconsistencies. In coming to the Subject, as the
postulate of categorical syllogizing, Kant, you remember, does so by the
path of the relation Subject and Predicate, arguing that the chain of
categorical prosyllogisms has for its limiting concept and logical motor
the notion of an absolute subject that cannot be a predicate; and as no
subject of a judgment can of itself give assurance of fulfilling this
condition, he concludes this motor-limit of judgment-subjects to be
identical with the Subject as thinker, upon whom, at the last, all
judgments depend, and who, therefore, and who alone, can never be a
predicate merely. In similar fashion, he finds as the motor-limit of the
series of conditional prosyllogisms, which is governed by the relation
Cause and Effect, the notion of an absolute cause--a cause, that is,
incapable of being an effect; and this, as undiscoverable in the chain
of phenomenal causes, which are all in turn effects, he concludes is a
pure Idea, the reason's native conception of a necessary linkage among
all changes in Space, or of a Cosmic Unity among physical phenomena. In
both conceptions, then, whether of the unity of the Subject or of the
World, we seem to have a case of the unconditioned, as each, surely, is
a totality of conditions: the one, for all possible syllogisms by
Subject and Predicate; the other, for all possible syllogisms from Cause
and Effect. Until it can be shown that the syllogisms of the first sort
and the syllogisms of the second are both conditioned by the system of
disjunctive syllogisms, so that the Idea alleged to be the totality of
conditions for this system becomes the conditioning principle for both
the others, there appears to be no ground for contrasting the totality
of conditions presented in it with those presented in the others, as if
it were the absolute Totality of all Conditions, while the two others
are only "relative totalities,"--which would be as much as to say they
were only pseudo-totalities, both being conditioned instead of being
unconditioned. But there seems to be no evidence, not even an
indication, that disjunctive reasoning conditions categorical or
conditional--that it constitutes the whole kingdom, in which the other
two orders of reasoning form dependent provinces, or that for final
validation these must appeal to the disjunctive series and the Idea that
controls it. On the contrary, any such relation seems disproved by the
fact that the three types of syllogism apply alike in all
subject-matter, psychic or physical, subjective or objective, concerning
the Self or concerning the World,--yes, concerning other Selves or even
concerning God; whereas, if the relation were a fact, it would require
that only disjunctive reasoning can deal with the Unconditioned, and
that conditional must confine itself to cosmic material, while
categorical pertains only to the things of inner sense.

Such considerations cannot but shake our confidence in the inquisition
to which Kant has submitted the Ideas of Reason, both as regards what
they really mean and how they are to be correlated. At all events, the
analysis of logical procedure and connection on which his account of
them is based is full of the confusions and oversights that have now
been pointed out, and justifies us in saying that his case is not
established. Hence we are not bound to follow when his three successors,
or their later adherents, proceed in acceptance of his results, and
advance into various forms of idealism, all of the monistic type, as if
the general relation between the three Ideas had been demonstrably
settled by Kant in the monist sense, despite his not knowing this, and
that all we have to do is to disregard his recorded protests, and render
his results consistent, and our idealism "absolute," by casting out from
his doctrine the distinction between the Theoretical and the Practical
Reason, with the "primacy" of the latter, through making an end of his
assumed world of _Dinge an sich_, or "things in themselves." This
movement, I repeat, we are not bound to follow: a rectification of view
as to the meaning of the three Ideas becomes possible as soon as we are
freed from Kant's entangled method of discovering and defining them; and
when this rectification is effected, we shall find that the question
between monism and rational or harmonic pluralism is at least open, to
say no more. Nay, we are not to forget that by the results of our
analysis of the concepts One and Many, Time and Space, and the real
relation between them, plural metaphysics has already won a precedence
in this contest.




THE DEVELOPMENT OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

BY GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD

     [George Trumbull Ladd, Professor of Philosophy, Yale
     University. b. January 19, 1842, Painesville, Ohio. B.A.
     Western Reserve College, 1864; B.D. Andover Theological
     Seminary, 1869; D.D. Western Reserve, 1879; M.A. Yale, 1881;
     LL.D. Western Reserve, 1895; LL.D. Princeton, 1896.
     Decorated with the 3d Degree of the Order of the Rising Sun
     of Japan, 1899; Pastor, Edinburg, Ohio, 1869-71; _ibid._,
     Milwaukee, Wis., 1871-79; Professor of Philosophy, Bowdoin
     College, 1879-81; _ibid._, Yale University, 1881--;
     Lecturer, Harvard, Tokio, Bombay, etc., 1885--, Member
     American Psychological Association, American Society of
     Naturalists, American Philosophical Association, American
     Oriental Society, Imperial Educational Society of Japan,
     Connecticut Academy. Author of _Elements of Physiological
     Psychology_; _Philosophy of Knowledge_; _Philosophy of
     Mind_; _A Theory of Reality_; and many other noted
     scientific works and papers.]


The history of man's critical and reflective thought upon the more
ultimate problems of nature and of his own life has, indeed, its period
of quickened progress, relative stagnation, and apparent decline. Great
thinkers are born and die, "schools of philosophy," so-called, arise,
flourish, and become discredited; and tendencies of various
characteristics mark the national or more general Zeitgeist of the
particular centuries. And always, a certain deep undercurrent, or
powerful stream of the rational evolution of humanity, flows silently
onward. But these periods of philosophical development do not correspond
to those which have been marked off for man by the rhythmic motion of
the heavenly bodies, or by himself for purposes of greater convenience
in practical affairs. The proposal, therefore, to treat any century of
philosophical development as though it could be taken out of, and
considered apart from, this constant unfolding of man's rational life
is, of necessity, doomed to failure. And, indeed, the nineteenth century
is no exception to the general truth.

There is, however, one important and historical fact which makes more
definite, and more feasible, the attempt to present in outline the
history of the philosophical development of the nineteenth century. This
fact is the death of Immanuel Kant, February 12, 1804. In a very unusual
way this event marks the close of the development of philosophy in the
eighteenth century. In a yet more unusual way the same event defines the
beginning of the philosophical development of the nineteenth century.
The proposal is, therefore, not artificial, but in accordance with the
truth of history, if we consider the problems, movements, results, and
present condition of this development, so far as the fulfillment of our
general purpose is concerned, in the light of the critical philosophy of
Kant. This purpose may then be further defined in the following way: to
trace the history of the evolution of critical and reflective thought
over the more ultimate problems of Nature and of human life, in the
Western World during the last hundred years, and from the standpoint of
the conclusions, both negative and positive, which are best embodied in
the works of the philosopher of Königsberg. This purpose we shall try to
fulfill in these four divisions of our theme: (1) A statement of the
problems of philosophy as they were given over to the nineteenth century
by the Kantian Critique; (2) a brief description of the lines of
movement along which the attempts at the improved solution of these
problems have proceeded, and of the principal influences contributing to
these attempts; (3) a summary of the principal results of these
movements--the items, so to say, of progress in philosophy which may be
credited to the last century; and finally, (4) a survey of the present
state of these problems as they are now to be handed down by the
nineteenth to the twentieth century. Truly an immensely difficult, if
not an impossible task, is involved in this purpose!

I. The problems which the critical philosophy undertook definitively to
solve may be divided into three classes. The first is the
epistemological problem, or the problem offered by human knowledge--its
essential nature, its fixed limitations, if such there be, and its
ontological validity. It was this problem which Kant brought to the
front in such a manner that certain subsequent writers on philosophy
have claimed it to be, not only the primary and most important branch of
philosophical discipline, but to comprise the sum-total of what human
reflection and critical thought can successfully compass. "We call
philosophy self-knowledge," says one of these writers. "The theory of
knowledge is the true _prima philosophia_," says another. Kant himself
regarded it as the most imperative demand of reason to establish a
science that shall "determine _a priori_ the possibility, the
principles, and the extent of all cognitions." The burden of the
epistemological problem has pressed heavily upon the thought of the
nineteenth century; the different attitudes toward this problem, and its
different alleged solutions, have been most influential factors in
determining the philosophical discussions, divisions, schools, and
permanent or transitory achievements of the century.

In the epistemological problem as offered by the Kantian philosophy of
cognition there is involved the subordinate but highly important
question as to the proper method of philosophy. Is the method of
criticism, as that method was employed in the three Critiques of Kant,
the exclusive, the sole appropriate and productive way of advancing
human philosophical thought? I do not think that the experience of the
nineteenth century warrants an affirmative answer to this question of
method. This experience has certainly, however, resulted in
demonstrating the need of a more thorough, consistent, and fundamental
use of the critical method than that in which it was employed by Kant.
And this improved use of the critical method has induced a more profound
study of the psychology of cognition, and of the historical development
of philosophy in the branch of epistemology. More especially, however,
it has led to the reinstatement of the value-judgments, as means of
cognition, in their right relations of harmony with the judgments of
fact and of law.

The second of the greater problems which the critical philosophy of the
eighteenth handed on to the nineteenth century is the ontological
problem. This problem, even far more than the epistemological, has
excited the intensest interest, and called for the profoundest thought,
of reflective minds during the last hundred years. This problem engages
in the inquiry as to what Reality is; for to define philosophy from the
ontological point of view renders it "the rational science of reality;"
or, at least, "the science of the supreme and most important realities."
In spite of the fact that the period immediately following the
conclusion of the Kantian criticism was the age when the people were
singing

         "_Da die Metaphysik vor Kurzem unbeerbt abging,_
          _Werden die Dinge an sich jetzo sub hasta verkauft,_"

the cultivation of the ontological problem, and the growth of systematic
metaphysics in the nineteenth century, had never previously been
surpassed. In spite of, or rather because of, the fact that Kant left
the ancient body of metaphysics so dismembered and discredited, and his
own ontological structure, in such hopeless confusion, all the several
buildings both of Idealism and of Realism either rose quickly or were
erected upon the foundations made bare by the critical philosophy.

But especially unsatisfactory to the thought of the first quarter of the
nineteenth century was the Kantian position with reference to the
problem in which, after all, both the few who cultivate philosophy and
the multitude who share in its fruits are always most truly interested;
and this is the ethico-religious problem. In the judgment of the
generation which followed him, Kant had achieved for those who accepted
his points of view, his method of philosophizing, and his results, much
greater success in "removing knowledge" than in "finding room for
faith." For he seemed to have left the positive truths of Ethics so
involved in the negative positions of his critique of knowledge as
greatly to endanger them; and to have entangled the conceptions of
religion with those of morality in a manner to throw doubt upon them
both.

The breach between the human cognitive faculties and the ontological
doctrines and conceptions on which morality and religion had been
supposed to rest firmly, the elaborately argued distrust and skepticism
which had been aimed against the ability of human reason to reach
reality, and the consequent danger which threatened the most precious
judgments of worth and the ontological value of ethical and æsthetical
sentiments, could not remain unnoticed, or fail to promote ceaseless and
earnest efforts to heal it. The hitherto accepted solutions of the
problems of cognition, of being, and of man's ethico-religious
experience, could not survive the critical philosophy. But the solutions
which the critical philosophy itself offered could not fail to excite
opposition and to stimulate further criticism. Moreover, certain factors
in human nature, certain interests in human social life, and certain
needs of humanity, not fully recognized and indeed scarcely noticed by
criticism, could not fail to revive and to enforce their ancient,
perennial, and valid claims.

In a word, Kant left the main problems of philosophy involved in
numerous contradictions. The result of his penetrating but excessive
analysis was unwarrantably to contrast sense with understanding; to
divide reason as constitutive from reason as regulative; to divorce the
moral law from our concrete experience of the results of good and bad
conduct, true morality from many of the noblest desires and sentiments,
and to set in opposition phenomena and noumena, order and freedom,
knowledge and faith, science and religion. Now the highest aim of
philosophy is reconciliation. What wonder, then, that the beginning of
the last century felt the stimulus of the unreconciled condition of the
problems of philosophy at the end of the preceding century! The
greatest, most stimulating inheritance of the philosophy of the
nineteenth century from the philosophy of the eighteenth century was the
"post-Kantian problems."

II. The lines of the movement of philosophical thought and the principal
contributory influences which belong to the nineteenth century may be
roughly divided into two classes; namely, (1) those which tended in the
direction of carrying to the utmost extreme the negative and destructive
criticism of Kant, and (2) those which, either mainly favoring or mainly
antagonizing the conclusions of the Kantian criticism, endeavored to
place the positive answer to all three of these great problems of
philosophy upon more comprehensive, scientifically defensible, and
permanently sure foundations. The one class so far completed the attempt
to remove the knowledge at which philosophy aims as, by the end of the
first half of the century, to have left no rational ground for any kind
of faith. The other class had not, even by the end of the second half of
the century, as yet agreed upon any one scheme for harmonizing the
various theories of knowledge, of reality, and of the ground of morality
and religion. There appeared, however,--especially during the last two
decades of the century,--certain signs of convergence upon positions, to
occupy which is favorable for agreement upon such a scheme, and which
now promise a new constructive era for philosophy. The terminus of the
destructive movement has been reached in our present-day positivism and
philosophical skepticism. For this movement there would appear to be no
more beyond in the same direction. The terminus of the other movement
can only be somewhat dimly descried. It may perhaps be predicted with a
reasonable degree of confidence as some form of ontological Idealism (if
we may use such a phrase) that shall be at once more thoroughly grounded
in man's total experience, as interpreted by modern science, and also
more satisfactory to human ethical, æsthetical, and religious ideals,
than any form of systematic philosophy has hitherto been. But to say
even this much is perhaps unduly to anticipate.

If we attempt to fathom and estimate the force of the various streams of
influence which have shaped the history of the philosophical development
of the nineteenth century, I think there can be no doubt that the
profoundest and the most powerful is the one influence which must be
recognized and reckoned with in all the centuries. This influence is
humanity's undying interest in its moral, civil, and religious ideals,
and in the civil and religious institutions which give a faithful but
temporary expression to these ideals. In the long run, every fragmentary
or systematic attempt at the solution of the problem of philosophy must
sustain the test of an ability to contribute something of value to the
realization of these ideals. The test which the past century has
proposed for its own thinkers, and for its various schools of
philosophy, is by far the severest which has ever been proposed. For the
most part unostentatiously and in large measure silently, the thoughtful
few and the comparatively thoughtless multitude have been contributing,
either destructively or constructively, to the effort at satisfaction
for the rising spiritual life of man. And if in some vague but
impressive manner we speak of this thirst for spiritual satisfaction as
characteristic of any period of human history, we may say, I believe,
that it has been peculiarly characteristic and especially powerful as an
influence during the last hundred years. The opinions, sentiments, and
ideals which shape the development of the institutions of the church and
state, and the freer activities of the same opinions, sentiments, and
ideals, have been in this century, as they have been in every century,
the principal factors in determining the character of its philosophical
development.

But a more definite and visible kind of influence has constantly
proceeded from the centres of the higher education. The
universities--especially of Germany, next, perhaps of Scotland, but also
of England and the United States, and even in less degree of France and
Italy--have both fostered and shaped the evolution of critical and
reflective thought, and of its product as philosophy. In Germany during
the eighteenth century the greater universities had been emancipating
themselves from the stricter forms of political and court favoritism and
of ecclesiastical protection and control. This emancipation had already
operated at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and it continued
more and more to operate throughout this century, for participation in
that free thought whose spirit is absolutely essential to the
flourishing of true philosophy. All the other colleges and universities
can scarcely repay the debt which modern philosophy owes to the
universities of Germany. The institutions of the higher education which
are moulded after this spirit, and which have a generous share of this
spirit, have everywhere been _schools of thought_ as well as schools of
learning and research. Without the increasing numbers and growing
encouragement of such centres for the cultivation of the discipline of
critical and reflective thinking, it is difficult to conjecture how much
the philosophical development of the nineteenth century would have lost.
_Libertas docendi_ and _Academische Freiheit_--without these philosophy
has one of its wings fatally wounded or severely clipped.

Not all the philosophy of the last century, however, was born and
developed in academical centres and under academical influences. In
Germany, Great Britain, and France, the various so-called "Academies" or
other unacademical associations of men of scientific interests and
attainments--notably, the Berlin Academy, which has been called "the
seat of an anti-scholastic popular philosophy"--were during the first
half of the nineteenth century contributing by their conspicuous
failures as well as by their less conspicuous successes, important
factors to the constructive new thought of the latter half of the
nineteenth century. In general, although these men decried system and
were themselves inadequately prepared to treat the problems of
philosophy, whether from the historical or the speculative and critical
point of view, they cannot be wholly neglected in estimating its
development. Clever reasoning, and witty and epigrammatic writing on
scientific or other allied subjects, cannot indeed be called
_philosophy_ in the stricter meaning of the word. But this so-called
"popular philosophy" has greatly helped in a way to free thought from
its too close bondage to scholastic tradition. And even the despite of
philosophy, and sneering references to its "barrenness," which formerly
characterized the meetings and the writings of this class of its
critics, but which now are happily much less frequent, have been on the
whole both a valuable check and a stimulus to her devotees. He would be
too narrow and sour a disciple of scholastic metaphysics and systematic
philosophy, who, because of the levity or scorning of "outsiders,"
should refuse them all credit. Indeed, the lesson of the close of the
nineteenth century may well enough be the motto for the beginning of the
twentieth century: _In philosophy--since to philosophize is natural and
inevitable for all rational beings--there really are no outsiders._

In this connection it is most interesting to notice how men of the type
just referred to, were at the end of the eighteenth century found
grouped around such thinkers as Mendelssohn, Lessing, F.
Nicolai,--representing a somewhat decided reaction from the French
realism to the German idealism. The work of the Academicians in the
criticism of Kant was carried forward by Jacobi, who, at the time of his
death, was the pensioned president of the Academy at Munich. Some of
these same critics of the Kantian philosophy showed a rather decided
preference for the "commonsense" philosophy of the Scottish School.

But both inside and outside of the Universities and Academies the
scientific spirit and acquisitions of the nineteenth century have most
profoundly, and on the whole favorably, affected the development of its
philosophy. In the wider meaning of the word, "science,"--the meaning,
namely, in which science = _Wissenschaft_,--philosophy aims to be
scientific; and science can never be indifferent to philosophy. In their
common aim at a rational and unitary system of principles, which shall
explain and give its due significance to the totality of human
experience, science and philosophy can never remain long in antagonism;
they ought never even temporarily to be divided in interests, or in the
spirit which leads each generously to recognize the importance of the
other. The early part of the last century was, indeed, too much under
the influence of that almost exclusively speculative _Natur-philosophie_,
of which Schelling and Hegel were the most prominent exponents. On the
other hand, the conception of nature as a vast interconnected and
unitary system of a rational order, unfolding itself in accordance with
teleological principles,--however manifold and obscure,--is a noble
conception and not destined to pass away.

On the continent--at least in France, where it had attained its highest
development--the scientific spirit was, at the close of the eighteenth
century, on the whole opposed to systematization. The impulse to both
science and philosophy during both the eighteenth and the nineteenth
centuries, over the entire continent of Europe, was chiefly due to the
epoch-making work of that greatest of all titles in the modern
scientific development of the Western World, the _Principia_ of Newton.
In mathematics and the physical sciences, during the early third or half
of the last century, Great Britain also has a roll of distinguished
names which compares most favorably with that of either France or
Germany. But in England, France, and the United States, during the whole
century, science has lacked the breadth and philosophic spirit which it
had in Germany during the first three quarters of this period. During
all that time the German man of science was, as a rule, a scholar, an
investigator, a teacher, _and a philosopher_. Science and philosophy
thrived better, however, in Scotland than elsewhere outside of Germany,
so far as their relations in interdependence were concerned. Into the
Scottish universities Playfair introduced some of the continental
suggestions toward the end of the eighteenth century, so that there was
less of exclusiveness and unfriendly rivalry between science and
philosophy; and both profited thereby. In the United States, during the
first half or more of the century, so dominant were the theological and
practical interests and influences that there was little free
development of either science or philosophy,--if we interpret the one as
the equivalent of _Wissenschaft_ and understand the other in the
stricter meaning of the word.

The history of the development of the scientific spirit and of the
achievements of the particular sciences is not the theme of this paper.
To trace in detail, or even in its large outlines, the reciprocal
influence of science and philosophy during the past hundred years, would
itself require far more than the space allotted to me. It must suffice
to say that the various advances in the efforts of the particular
sciences to enlarge and to define the conceptions and principles
employed to portray the Being of the World in its totality, have
somewhat steadily grown more and more completely metaphysical, and more
and more of positive importance for the reconstruction of systematic
philosophy. The latter has not simply been disciplined by science,
compelled to improve its method, and to examine all its previous claims.
But philosophy has also been greatly enriched by science with respect to
its material awaiting synthesis, and it has been not a little profited
by the unsuccessful attempts of the current scientific theories to give
themselves a truly satisfactory account of that Ultimate Reality which,
to understand the better, is no unworthy aim of their combined efforts.

During the nineteenth century science has seen many important additions
to that Ideal of Nature and her processes, to form which in a unitary
and harmonizing but comprehensive way is the philosophical goal of
science. The gross mechanical conception of nature which prevailed in
the earlier part of the eighteenth century has long since been
abandoned, as quite inadequate to our experience with her facts, forces,
and laws. The kinetic view, which began with Huygens, Euler, and Ampère,
and which was so amplified by Lord Kelvin and Clerk-Maxwell in England,
and by Helmholtz and others in Germany, on account of its success in
explaining the phenomena of light, of gases, etc., very naturally led to
the attempt to develop a kinetic theory, a doctrine of energetics, which
should explain all phenomena. But the conception of "that which moves,"
the experience of important and persistent qualitative _differentiae_,
and the need of assuming ends and purposes served by the movement, are
troublesome obstacles in the way of giving such a completeness to this
theory of the Being of the World. Yet again the amazing success which
the theory of evolution has shown in explaining the phenomena with which
the various biological sciences concern themselves, has lent favor
during the latter half of the century to the vitalistic and genetic view
of nature. For all our most elaborate and advanced kinetic theories seem
utterly to fail us as explanatory when we, through the higher powers of
the microscope, stand wondering and face to face with the evolution of a
single living cell. But from such a view of the essential Being of the
World as evolution suggests to the psycho-physical theory of nature is
not an impassable gulf. And thus, under its growing wealth of knowledge,
science may be leading up to an Ideal of the Ultimate Reality, in which
philosophy will gratefully and gladly coincide. At any rate, the modern
conception of nature and the modern conception of God are not so far
apart from each other, as either of these conceptions is now removed
from the conceptions covered by the same terms, some centuries gone by.

There is one of the positive sciences, however, with which the
development of philosophy during the last century has been particularly
allied. This science is psychology. To speak of its history is not the
theme of this paper. But it should be noted in passing how the
development of psychology has brought into connection with the physical
and biological sciences the development of philosophy. This union,
whether it be for better or for worse,--and, on the whole, I believe it
to be for better rather than for worse,--has been in a very special way
the result of the last century. In tracing its details we should have to
speak of the dependence of certain branches of psychology on physiology,
and upon Sir Charles Bell's discovery of the difference between the
sensory and the motor nerves. This discovery was the contribution of the
beginning of the century to an entire line of discoveries, which have
ended at the close of the century with putting the localization of
cerebral function upon a firm experimental basis. Of scarcely less
importance has been the cellular theory as applied (1838) by Matthias
Schleiden, a pupil of Fries in philosophy, to plants, and by Theodor
Schwann about the same time to animal organisms. To these must be added
the researches of Johannes Müller (1801-1858), the great biologist, a
listener to Hegel's lectures, whose law of _specific energies_ brings
him into connection with psychology and, through psychology, to
philosophy. Even more true is this of Helmholtz, whose _Lehre von den
Tonempfindungen_ (1862) and _Physiologische Optik_ (1867) placed him in
even closer, though still mediate, relations to philosophy. But perhaps
especially Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801-1887), whose researches in
psycho-physics laid the foundations of whatever, either as psychology or
as philosophy, goes under this name; and whether the doctrine have
reference to the relation of man's mind and body, or to the wider
relations of spirit and matter.

In my judgment it cannot be affirmed that the attempts of the latter
half of the nineteenth century to develop an experimental science of
psychology in independence of philosophical criticism and metaphysical
assumption, or the claims of this science to have thrown any wholly new
light upon the statement, or upon the solution of philosophical
problems, have been largely successful. But certain more definitely
psychological questions have been to a commendable degree better
analyzed and elucidated; the new experimental methods, where confined
within their legitimate sphere, have been amply justified; and certain
_quasi_-metaphysical views respecting the nature of the human mind, and
even, if you will, the nature of the Spirit in general--have been placed
in a more favorable and scientifically engaging attitude toward
speculative philosophy. This seems to me to be especially true with
respect to two problems in which both empirical psychology and
philosophy have a common and profound interest. These are (1) the
complex synthesis of mental functions involved in every act of true
cognition, together with the bearing which the psychology of cognition
has upon epistemological problems; and (2) the yet more complex and
profound analysis, from the psychological point of view, of what it is
to be a self-conscious and self-determining Will, a true Self, together
with the bearing which the psychology of selfhood has upon all the
problems of ethics, æsthetics, and religion.

The more obvious and easily traceable influences which have operated to
incite and direct the philosophical development of the nineteenth
century are, of course, dependent upon the teachings and writings of
philosophers, and the schools of philosophy which they have founded. To
speak of these influences even in outline would be to write a manual of
the history of philosophy during that hundred of years, which has been
of all others by far the most fruitful in material results, whatever
estimate may be put upon the separate or combined values of the
individual thinkers and their so-called schools. No fewer than seven or
eight relatively independent or partially antagonistic movements, which
may be traced back either directly or more indirectly to the critical
philosophy, and to the form in which the problems of philosophy were
left by Kant, sprung up during the century. In Germany chiefly, there
arose the Faith-philosophy, the Romantic School, and Rational Idealism;
in France, Eclecticism and Positivism (if, indeed, the latter can be
called _a_ philosophy); in Scotland, a naïve and crude form of Realism,
which served well for the time as an antagonist of a skeptical idealism,
but which itself contributed to an improved form of Idealism; and in the
United States, or rather in New England, a peculiar kind of
Transcendentalism of the sentimental type. But all these movements of
thought, and others lying somewhere midway between, in a pair composed
of any two, together with a steadfast remainder of almost every sort of
Dogmatism, and all degrees and kinds of Skepticism, have been intermixed
and contending with one another, in all these countries. Such has been
the varied, undefinable, and yet intensely stimulating and interesting
character of the development of systematic and scholastic philosophy,
during the nineteenth century.

The early opposition to Kant in Germany was, in the main, twofold:--both
to his peculiar extreme analysis with its philosophical conclusions, and
also to all systematic as distinguished from a more popular and literary
form of philosophizing. Toward the close of the eighteenth century a
group of men had been writing upon philosophical questions in a spirit
and method quite foreign to that held in respect by the critical
philosophy. It is not wholly without significance that Lessing, whose
aim had been to use common sense and literary skill in clearing up
obscure ideas and improving and illumining the life of man, died in the
very year of the appearance of Kant's _Kritik der reinen Vernunft_. Of
this class of men an historian dealing with this period has said, "There
is hardly one who does not quote somewhere or other Pope's saying, 'The
proper study of mankind is man.'" To this class belong Hamann
(1730-1788), the inspirer of Herder and Jacobi. The former, who was
essentially a poet and a friend of Goethe, controverted Kant with regard
to his doctrine of reason, his antithesis between the individual and the
race, and his schism between things as empirically known and the known
unity in the Ground of their being and becoming. Herder's path to truth
was highly colored with flowers of rhetoric; but the promise was that he
would lead men back to the heavenly city. Jacobi, too, with due
allowance made for the injury wrought by his divorce of the two
philosophies,--that of faith and that of science,--and his excessive
estimate of the value-judgments which repose in the mist of a
feeling-faith, added something of worth by way of exposing the
barrenness of the Kantian doctrine of an unknowable "Thing-in-itself."

From men like Fr. Schlegel (1772-1829), whose valid protest against the
sharp separation of speculative philosophy from the æsthetical, social,
and ethical life, assumed the "standpoint of irony," little real result
in the discovery of truth could be expected. But Schleiermacher
(1768-1834), in spite of that mixture of unfused elements which has made
his philosophy "a rendezvous for the most diverse systems," contributed
valuable factors to the century's philosophical development, both of a
negative and of a positive character. This thinker was peculiarly
fortunate in the enrichment of the conception of experience as
warranting a justifiable confidence in the ontological value of ethical,
æsthetical, and religious sentiment and ideas; but he was most
unfortunate in reviving and perpetuating the unjustifiable Kantian
distinction between cognition and faith in the field of experience. On
the whole, therefore, the Faith-philosophy and the Romantic School can
easily be said to have contributed more than a negative and modifying
influence to the development of the philosophy of the nineteenth
century. Its more modern revival toward the close of the same century,
and its continued hold upon certain minds of the present day, are
evidences of the positive but partial truth which its tenets, however
vaguely and unsystematically, continue to maintain in an æsthetically
and practically attractive way.

The admirers of Kant strove earnestly and with varied success to remedy
the defects of his system. Among the earlier, less celebrated and yet
important members of this group, were K. G. Reinhold (1758-1823), and
Maimon (died, 1800). The former, like Descartes, in that he was educated
by the Jesuits, began the attempt, after rejecting some of the arbitrary
distinctions of Kant and his barren and self-contradictory
"Thing-in-itself," to unify the critical philosophy by reducing it to
some one principle. The latter really transcended Kant in his
philosophical skepticism, and anticipated the Hamiltonian form of the
so-called principle of relativity. Fries (1773-1843), and Hermes
(1775-1831)--the latter of whom saw in empirical psychology the only
true propædeutic to philosophy--should be mentioned in this connection.
In the same group was another, both mathematician and philosopher, who
strove more successfully than others of this group to accept the
critical standpoint of Kant and yet to transcend his negative
conclusions with regard to a theory of knowledge. I refer to Bolzano
(Prague, 1781-1848), who stands in the same line of succession with
Fries and Hermes, and whose works on the _Science of Religion_ (4 vols.
1834) and his _Science of Knowledge_ (4 vols. 1837) are noteworthy
contributions to epistemological doctrine. In the latter we have
developed at great length the important thought that the illative
character of propositional judgments implies an objective relation; and
that in all truths the subject-idea must be objective. In the work on
religion there is found as thoroughly dispassionate and rational a
defense of Catholic doctrine as exists anywhere in philosophical
literature. The limited influence of these works, due in part to their
bulk and their technical character, is on the whole, I think, sincerely
to be regretted.

It was, however, chiefly that remarkable series of philosophers which
may be grouped under the rubric of a "rational Idealism," who filled so
full and made so rich the philosophical life of Germany during the first
half of the last century; whose philosophical thoughts and systems have
spread over the entire Western World, and who are most potent influences
in shaping the development of philosophy down to the present hour. Of
these we need do little more than that we can do--mention their names.
At their head, in time, stands Fichte, who--although Kant is reported to
have complained of this disciple because he lied about him so
much--really divined a truth which seems to be hovering in the clouds
above the master's head, but which, if the critical philosophy truly
meant to teach it, needed helpful deliverance in order to appear in
perfectly clear light. Fichte, although he divined this truth, did not,
however, free it from internal confusion and self-contradiction. It _is_
his truth, nevertheless, that in the Self, as a self-positing and
self-determining activity, must somehow be found the Ground of all
experience and of all Reality.

The important note which Schelling sounded was the demand that
philosophy should recognize "Nature" as belonging to the sphere of
Reality, and as requiring a measure of reflective thought which should
in some sort put it on equal terms with the Ego, for the construction of
our conception of the Being of the World. To Schelling it seemed
impossible to deduce, as Fichte had done, all the rich concrete
development of the world of things from the subjective needs and
constitutional forms of functioning which belong to the finite Self.
And, indeed, the doctrine which limits the origin, existence, and value
of all that is known about this sphere of experience to these needs, and
which finds the sufficient account of all experience with nature in
these forms of functioning, must always seem inadequate and even
grotesque in the sight of the natural sciences. Both Nature and Spirit,
thought Schelling, must be allowed to claim actual existence and equally
real value; while at the same time philosophy must reconcile the seeming
opposition of their claims and unite them in an harmonious and
self-explanatory way. In some common substratum, in which, to adopt
Hegel's sarcastic criticism, as in the darkness of the night "all cows
are black,"--that is in the Absolute, as an Identical Basis of
Differences,--the reconciliation was to be accomplished.

But the constructive idealistic movement, in which Fichte and Schelling
bore so important a part, could not be satisfied with the positions
reached by either of these two philosophers. Neither the physical and
psychological sciences, nor the speculative interests of religion,
ethics, art, and social life, permitted this movement to stop at this
point. In all the subsequent developments of philosophy during the first
half or three quarters of the nineteenth century, undoubtedly the
influence of Hegel was greatest of all individual thinkers. His _motif_
and plan are revealed in his letter of November 2, 1800, to Schelling,
namely, to transform what had hitherto been an ideal into a thoroughly
elaborate system. And in spite of his obvious obscurities of thought and
style, there is real ground for his claim to be the champion of the
common consciousness. It is undoubtedly in Hegel's _Phänomenologie des
Geistes_ (1807), that the distinctive features of the philosophy of the
first half of the last century most clearly define themselves. The
forces of reflection now abandon the abstract analytic method and
positions of the Kantian Critique, and concentrate themselves upon the
study of man's spiritual life as an historical evolution, in a more
concrete, face-to-face manner. Two important and, in the main, valid
assumptions underlie and guide this reflective study: (1) The Ultimate
Reality, or principle of all realities, is Mind or Spirit, which is to
be recognized and known in its essence, not by analysis into its formal
elements (the categories), but as a living development; (2) those formal
elements, or categories to which Kant gave validity merely as
constitutional forms of the functioning of the human understanding,
represent, the rather, the essential structure of Reality.

In spite of these true thoughts, fault was justly found by the
particular sciences with both the speculative method of Hegel, which
consists in the smooth, harmonious, and systematic arrangement of
conceptions in logical or ideal relations to one another; and also with
the result, which reduces the Being of the World to terms of thought and
dialectical processes merely, and neglects or overlooks the other
aspects of racial experience. Therefore, the idealistic movement could
not remain satisfied with the Hegelian dialectic. Especially did both
the religious and the philosophical party revolt against the important
thought underlying Hegel's philosophy of religion; namely, that "the
more philosophy approximates to a complete development, the more it
exhibits the same need, the same interest, and the same content, as
religion itself." This, as they interpreted it, meant the absorption of
religion in philosophy.

Next after Hegel, among the great names of this period, stand the names
of Herbart and Schopenhauer. The former contributes in an important way
to the proper conception of the task and the method of philosophy, and
influences greatly the development of psychology, both as a science that
is pedagogic to philosophy, and as laying the basis for pedagogical
principles and practice. But Herbart commits again the ancient fallacy,
under the spell of which so much of the Kantian criticism was bound; and
which identifies contradictions that belong to the imperfect or illusory
conceptions of individual thinkers with insoluble antinomies inherent in
reason itself. In spite of the little worth and misleading character of
his view of perception, and the quite complete inadequacy of the method
by which, at a single leap, he reaches the one all-explanatory principle
of his philosophy, Schopenhauer made a most important contribution to
the reflective thought of the century. It is true, as Kuno Fischer has
said, that it seems to have occurred to Schopenhauer only twenty-five
years after he had propounded his theory, that will, as it appears in
consciousness, is as truly phenomenal as is intellect. It is also true
that his theory of knowledge and his conception of Reality, as measured
by their power to satisfy and explain our total experience, are
inflicted with irreconcilable contradictions. Neither can we accord firm
confidence or high praise to the "Way of Salvation" which somehow Will
can attain to follow by æsthetic contemplation and ascetic self-denial.
Yet the philosophy of Schopenhauer rightly insists upon our Idealistic
construction of Reality having regard to aspects of experience which his
predecessors had quite too much neglected; and even its spiteful and
exaggerated reminders of the facts which contradict the tendency of all
Idealism to construct a smooth, regular, and altogether pleasing
conception of the Being of the World, have been of great benefit to the
development of the latter half of the nineteenth century.

In estimating the thoughts and the products of modern Idealism we ought
not to forget the larger multitude of thoughtful men, both in Germany
and elsewhere, who have contributed toward shaping the course of
reflection in the attempt to answer the problems which the critical
philosophy left to the nineteenth century. It is a singular comment upon
the caprices of fame that, in philosophy as in science, politics, and
art, some of those who have really reasoned most soundly and acutely, if
not also effectively upon these problems, are little known even by name
in the history of the philosophical development of the century. Among
the earlier members of this group, did space permit, we should wish to
mention Berger, Solger, Steffens, and others, who strove to reconcile
the positions of a subjective idealism with a realistic but pantheistic
conception of the Being of the World. There are others, who like Weisse,
I. H. Fichte, C. P. Fischer, and Braniss, more or less bitterly or
moderately and reasonably, opposed the method and the conclusions of the
Hegelian dialectic. Still another group earned for themselves the
supposedly opprobrious but decidedly vague title of "Dualists," by
rejecting what they conceived to be the pantheism of Hegel. Still
others, like Fries and Beneke and their successors, strove to parallel
philosophy with the particular sciences by grounding it in an empirical
but scientific psychology; and thus they instituted a line of closely
connected development, to which reference has already been made.

Hegel himself believed that he had permanently effected that
reconciliation of the orthodox creed with the cognition of Ultimate
Reality at which his dialectic aimed. In all such attempts at
reconciliation three great questions are chiefly concerned: (1) the
Being of God; (2) the nature of man; (3) the actual and the ideally
satisfactory relations between the two. But, as might have been
expected, a period of wild, irregular, and confused contention met the
attempt to establish this claim. In this conflict of more or less noisy
and popular as well as of thoughtful and scholastic philosophy,
Hegelians of various degrees of fidelity, anti-Hegelians of various
degrees of hostility, and ultra-Hegelians of various degrees of
eccentricity, all took a valiant and conspicuous part. We cannot follow
its history; but we can learn its lesson. Polemical philosophy, as
distinguished from quiet, reflective, and critical but constructive
philosophy involves a most uneconomical use of mental force. Yet out of
this period of conflict, and in a measure as its result, there came a
period of improved relations between science and philosophy and between
philosophy and theology, which was the dawn, toward the close of the
nineteenth century, of that better illumined day into the middle of
which we hope that we are proceeding.

Before leaving this idealistic movement in Germany, and elsewhere as
influenced largely by German philosophy, one other name deserves
mention. This name is that of Lotze, who combined elements from many
previous thinkers with those derived from his own studies and
thoughts,--the conceptions of mechanism as applied to physical
existences and to psychical life, with the search for some monistic
Principle that shall satisfy the æsthetical and ethical, as well as the
scientific demands of the human mind. This variety of interests and of
culture led to the result of his making important contributions to
psychology, logic, metaphysics, and æsthetics. If we find his system of
thinking--as I think we must--lacking in certain important elements of
consistency and obscured in places by doubts as to his real meaning,
this does not prevent us from assigning to Lotze a position which, for
versatility of interests, genial quality of reflection and criticism,
suggestiveness of thought and charm of style, is second to no other in
the history of nineteenth century philosophical development.

In France and in England the first quarter of the last century was far
from being productive of great thinkers or great thoughts in the sphere
of philosophy. De Biran (1766-1824), in several important respects the
forerunner of modern psychology, after revolting from his earlier
complacent acceptance of the vagaries of Condillac and Cabanis, made the
discovery that the "immediate consciousness of self-activity is the
primitive and fundamental principle of human cognition." Meantime it was
only a little group of Academicians who were being introduced, in a
somewhat superficial way, to the thoughts of the Scottish and the German
idealistic Schools by Royer-Collard, Jouffroy, Cousin, and others. A
more independent and characteristic movement was that inaugurated by
Auguste Comte (1798-1857), who, having felt the marked influence of
Saint-Simon when he was only a boy of twenty, in a letter to his friend
Valat, in the year 1824, declares: "I shall devote my whole life and all
my powers to the founding of positive philosophy." In spite of the
impossibility of harmonizing with this point of view the vague and
mystical elements which characterize the later thought of Comte, or with
its carrying into effect the not altogether intelligent recognition of
the synthetic activity of the mind (_tout se réduit toujours à lier_)
and certain hints as to "first principles;" and in spite of the small
positive contribution to philosophy which Comtism could claim to have
made; it has in a way represented the value of two ideas. These are (1)
the necessity for philosophy of studying the actual historical forces
which have been at work and which are displayed in the facts of history;
and (2) the determination not to go by mere unsupported speculation
beyond experience in order to discover knowable Reality. There is,
however, a kind of subtle irony in the fact that the word "Positivism"
should have come to stand so largely for _negative_ conclusions, in the
very spheres of philosophy, morals, and religion where _affirmative_
conclusions are so much desired and sought.

That philosophy in Great Britain was in a nearly complete condition of
decadence during the first half or three quarters of the nineteenth
century was the combined testimony of writers from such different points
of view as Carlyle, Sir William Hamilton, and John Stuart Mill. And yet
these very names are also witnesses to the fact that this decadence was
not quite complete. In the first quarter of the century Coleridge,
although he had failed, on account of weakness both of mind and of
character, in his attempt to reconcile religion to the thought of his
own age, on the basis of the Kantian distinction between reason and the
intellect, had sowed certain seed-thoughts which became fertile in the
soil of minds more vigorous, logical, and practical than his own. This
was, perhaps, especially true in America, where inquirers after truth
were seeking for something more satisfactory than the French skepticism
of the revolutionary and following period. Carlyle's mocking sarcasm was
also not without wholesome effect.

But it was Sir William Hamilton and John Stuart Mill whose thoughts
exercised a more powerful formative influence over the minds of the
younger men. The one was the flower of the Scottish Realism, the other
of the movement started by Bentham and the elder Mill.

That the Scottish Realism should end by such a combination with the
skepticism of the critical philosophy as is implied in Hamilton's law of
the relativity of all knowledge, is one of the most curious and
interesting turns in the history of modern philosophy. And when this law
was so interpreted by Dean Mansel in its application to the fundamental
cognitions of religion as to lay the foundations upon which the most
imposing structure of agnosticism was built by Herbert Spencer, surely
the entire swing around the circle, from Kant to Kant again, has been
made complete. The attempt of Hamilton failed, as every similar attempt
must always fail. Neither speculative philosophy nor religious faith is
satisfied with an abstract conception, about the correlate of which in
Reality nothing is known or ever can be known. But every important
attempt of this sort serves the double purpose of stimulating other
efforts to reconstruct the answer to the problem of philosophy, on a
basis of positive experience of an enlarged type; and also of acting as
a real, if only temporary practical support to certain value-judgments
which the faiths of morality, art, and religion both implicate and, in a
measure, validate.

The influence of John Stuart Mill, as it was exerted not only in his
conduct of life while a servant of the East India Company, but also in
his writings on Logic, Politics, and Philosophy, was, on the whole, a
valuable contribution to his generation. In the additions which he made
to the Utilitarianism of Bentham we have done, I believe, all that ever
can be done in defense of this principle of ethics. And his posthumous
confessions of faith in the ontological value of certain great
conceptions of religion are the more valuable because of the nature of
the man, and of the experience which is their source. Perhaps the most
permanent contribution which Mill made to the development of philosophy
proper, outside of the sphere of logic, ethics, and politics, was his
vigorous polemical criticism of Hamilton's claim for the necessity of
faith in an "Unconditioned" whose conception is "only a fasciculus of
negations of the Conditioned in its opposite extremes, and bound
together merely by the aid of language and their common character of
incomprehensibility."

The history of the development of philosophy in America during the
nineteenth century, as during the preceding century, has been
characterized in the main by three principal tendencies. These may be
called the theological, the social, and the eclectic. From the beginning
down to the present time the religious influence and the interest in
political and social problems have been dominant. And yet withal, the
student of these problems in the atmosphere of this country likes, in a
way, to do his own thinking and to make his own choices of the thoughts
that seem to him true and best fitted for the best form of life. In
spite of the fact that the different streams of European thought have
flowed in upon us somewhat freely, there has been comparatively little
either of the adherence to schools of European philosophy or of the
attempt to develop a national school. Doubtless the influence of English
and Scottish thinking upon the academical circles of America was
greatest for more than one hundred and fifty years after the gift in
1714 by Governor Yale of a copy of Locke's Essay to the college which
bore his name,--and especially upon the reflections and published works
of Jonathan Edwards touching the fundamental problems of epistemology,
ethics, and religion. During the early part of this century these views
awakened antagonism from such writers as Dana, Whedon, Hazard, Nathaniel
Taylor, Jeremiah Day, Henry P. Tappan, and other opponents of the
Edwardean theology, and also from such advocates of so-called
"free-thinking," as had derived their _motifs_ and their views from
English deistical writers like Shaftesbury, or from the skepticism of
Hume.

A more definite philosophical movement, however, which had established
itself somewhat firmly in scholastic centres by the year 1825, and which
maintained itself for more than half a century, went back to the arrival
in this country of John Witherspoon, in 1768, to be the president of
Princeton, bringing with him a library of three hundred books. It was
the appeal of the Scottish School to the "plain man's consciousness" and
to so-called "common sense," which was relied upon to controvert all
forms of philosophy which seemed to threaten the foundations of religion
and of the ethics of politics and sociology. But even during this
period, which was characterized by relatively little independent
thinking in scholastic circles, a more pronounced productivity was shown
by such writers as Francis Wayland, and others; but, perhaps, especially
by Laurens P. Hickok, whose works on psychology and cosmology deserve
especial recognition: while in psychology, as related to philosophical
problems, the principal names of this period are undoubtedly the
presidents of Yale and Princeton,--Noah Porter and James McCosh,--both
of whom (but especially the former) had their views modified by the more
scientific psychology of Europe and the profounder thinking of Germany.

It was Germany's influence, however, both directly and indirectly
through Coleridge and a few other English writers, that caused a ferment
of impressions and ideas which, in their effort to work themselves
clear, resulted in what is known as New England "Transcendentalism." In
America this movement can scarcely be called definitely philosophical;
much less can it be said to have resulted in a system, or even in a
school, of philosophy. It must also be said to have been "inspired but
not borrowed" from abroad. Its principal, if not sole, literary survival
is to be found in the works of Emerson. As expounded by him, it is not
precisely Pantheism--certainly not a consistent and critical development
of the pantheistic theory of the Being of the World; it is, rather, a
vague, poetical, and pantheistical Idealism of a decidedly mystical
type.

The introduction of German philosophy proper, in its nature form, and
essential being, to the few interested seriously in critical and
reflective thinking upon the ultimate problems of nature and of human
life, began with the founding of the _Journal of Speculative
Philosophy_, in 1867, under the direction of William T. Harris, then
Superintendent of Schools in this city.

With the work of Darwin, and his predecessors and successors, there
began a mighty movement of thought which, although it is primarily
scientific and more definitely available in biological science, has
already exercised, and is doubtless destined to exercise in the future,
an enormous influence upon philosophy. Indeed, we are already in the
midst of the preliminary confusions and contentions, but most fruitful
considerations and discoveries belonging to a so-called philosophy of
evolution.

This development has, in the sphere of systematic philosophy, reached
its highest expression in the voluminous works produced through the
latter half of the nineteenth century by Mr. Herbert Spencer, whose
recent death seems to mark the close of the period we have under
consideration. The metaphysical assumptions and ontological value of the
system of Spencer, as he wished it to be understood and interpreted,
have perhaps, though not unnaturally, been quite too much submerged in
the more obvious expressions of its agnostic positivism. In its
psychology, however, the assumption of "some underlying substance in
contrast to all changing forms," distinguishes it from a pure positivism
in a very radical way. But more especially in philosophy, the
metaphysical postulate of a mysterious Unity of Force that somehow
manages to reveal itself, and the law of its operations, to the
developed cognition of the nineteenth century philosopher, however much
it seems to involve the system in internal contradictions, certainly
forbids that we should identify it with the positivism of Auguste Comte.
In our judgment, however, it is in his ethical good sense and integrity
of judgment,--a good sense and integrity which commits to ethics rather
than to sociology the task of determining the highest type of human
life,--and in basing the conditions for the prevalence and the
development of the highest type of life upon ethical principles and upon
the adherence to ethical ideas, that Herbert Spencer will be found most
clearly entitled to a lasting honor.

III. The third number of our difficult tasks is to summarize the
principal results, to inventory the net profits, as it were, of the
development of philosophy during the nineteenth century. This task is
made the more difficult by the heterogeneous nature and as yet
unclassified condition of the development. With the quickening and
diversifying of all kinds and means of intercourse, there has come the
breaking down of national schools and idiosyncrasies of method and of
thought. In philosophy, Germany, France, Great Britain, and indeed,
Italy, have come to intermingle their streams of influence; and from all
these countries these streams have been flowing in upon America. In
psychology, especially, as well as in all the other sciences, but also
to some degree in philosophy, returning streams of influence from
America have, during the last decade or two, been felt in Europe itself.

It must also be admitted that the attempts at a reconstruction of
systematic philosophy which have followed the rapid disintegration of
the Hegelian system, and the enormous accumulations of new material due
to the extension of historical studies and of the particular
sciences,--including especially the so-called "new psychology,"--have
not as yet been fruitful of large results. In philosophy, as in art,
politics, and even scientific theory, the spirit and the opportunity of
the time are more favorable to the gathering of material and to the
projecting of a bewildering variety of new opinions, or old opinions put
forth under new names, than to that candid, patient, and prolonged
reflection and balancing of judgment which a worthy system-building
inexorably requires. The age of breaking up the old, without
assimilating the new, has not yet passed away. And whatever is new,
startling, large, even monstrous, has in many quarters the seeming
preference, in philosophy's building as in other architecture. To the
confusion which reigns even in scholastic circles, contributions have
been arriving from the outside, from philosophers like Nietzsche, and
from men great in literature like Tolstoi. Nor has the matter been
helped by the more recent extreme developments of positivism and
skepticism, which often enough, without any consciousness of their
origin and without the respect for morality and religion which Kant
always evinced, really go back to the critical philosophy.

In spite of all this, however, the last two decades or more have shown
certain hopeful tendencies and notable achievements, looking toward the
reconstruction of systematic philosophy. In this attempt to bring order
out of confusion, to enable calm, prolonged, and reflective thinking to
build into its structure the riches of the new material which the
evolution of the race has secured, a place of honor ought to be given to
France, where so much has been done of late to blend with clearness of
style and independence of thought that calm reflective and critical
judgment which looks all sides of human experience sympathetically but
bravely in the face. In psychology Ribot, and in philosophy, Fouillée,
Renouvier, Secrétan, and others, deserve grateful recognition. No friend
of philosophy can, I think, fail to recognize the probable benefits to
be derived from that movement with which such names as Mach and Ostwald
in Germany are connected, and which is sounding the call to the men of
science to clear up the really distressing obscurity and confusion which
has so long clung to their fundamental conceptions; and to examine anew
the significance of their assumptions, with a view to the construction
of a new and improved doctrine of the Being of the World. And if to
these names we add those of the numerous distinguished investigators of
psychology as pedagogic to philosophy, and, in philosophy, of Deussen,
Eucken, von Hartmann, Riehl, Wundt, and others, we may well affirm that
new light will continue to break forth from that country which so
powerfully aroused the whole Western World at the end of the eighteenth
and beginning of the nineteenth centuries. In Great Britain the name and
works of Thomas Hill Green have influenced the attempts at a
reconstruction of systematic philosophy in a manner to satisfy at one
and the same time both the facts and laws of science and the æsthetical,
ethical, and religious ideals of the age, in a very considerable degree.
And in this attempt, both as it expresses itself in theoretical
psychology and in the various branches of philosophical discipline,
writers like Bradley, Fraser, Flint, Hodgson, Seth, Stout, Ward, and
others, have taken a conspicuous part. Nor are there wanting in Holland,
Italy, and even in Sweden and Russia, thinkers equally worthy of
recognition, and recognized, in however limited and unworthy fashion, in
their own land. The names of those in America who have labored most
faithfully, and succeeded best, in this enormous task of reconstructing
philosophy in a systematic way, and upon a basis of history and of
modern science, I do not need to mention; they are known, or they surely
ought to be known, to us all.

In attempting to summarize the gains of philosophy during the last
hundred years, we should remind ourselves that progress in philosophy
does not consist in the final settlement, and so in the "solving" of any
of its great problems. Indeed, the relations of philosophy to its
grounds in experience, and the nature of its method and of its ideal,
are such that its progress can never be expected to put an end to
itself. But the content of the total experience of humanity has been
greatly enriched during the last century; and the critical and
reflective thought of trained minds has been led toward a more profound
and comprehensive theory of Reality, and toward a doctrine of values
that shall be more available for the improvement of man's political,
social, and religious life.

In view of this truth respecting the limitations of systematic
philosophy, I think we may hold that certain negative results, which are
customarily adduced as unfavorable to the claims of philosophical
progress, are really signs of improvement during the latter half of the
nineteenth century. One is an increased spirit of reserve and caution,
and an increased modesty of claims. This result is perhaps significant
of riper wisdom and more trustworthy maturity. Kant believed himself to
have established for philosophy a system of apodeictic conclusions,
which were as completely forever to have displaced the old dogmatism as
Copernicus had displaced the Ptolemaic astronomy. But the steady
pressure of historical and scientific studies has made it increasingly
difficult for any sane thinker to claim for any system of thinking such
demonstrable validity. May we not hope that the students of the
particular sciences, to whom philosophy owes so much of its enforced
sanity and sane modesty, will themselves soon share freely of the
philosophic spirit with regard to their own metaphysics and ethical and
religious standpoints, touching the Ultimate Reality? Even when the
recoil from the overweening self-satisfaction and crass complacency of
the earlier part of the last century takes the form of melancholy, or of
acute sadness, or even of a mild despair of philosophy, I am not sure
that the last state of that man is not better than the first.

In connection with this improvement in spirit, we may also note an
improvement in the method of philosophy. The purely speculative method,
with its intensely interesting but indefensible disregard of concrete
facts, and of the conclusions of the particular sciences, is no longer
in favor even among the most ardent devotees and advocates of the
superiority of philosophy to those sciences. At the same time,
philosophy may quite properly continue to maintain its position of
independent critic, as well as of docile pupil, toward the particular
sciences.

In the same connection must be mentioned the hopeful fact that the last
two or three decades have shown a decided improvement in the relations
of philosophy toward the positive sciences. There are plain signs of
late that the attitude of antagonism, or of neglect, which prevailed so
largely during the second and third quarters of the nineteenth century,
is to be replaced by one of friendship and mutual helpfulness. And,
indeed, science and philosophy cannot long or greatly flourish without
reciprocal aid, if by science we mean a true _Wissenschaft_ and if we
also mean to base philosophy upon our total experience. For science and
philosophy are really engaged upon the same task,--to _understand and to
appreciate the totality of man's_ _experience_. They, therefore, have
essential and permanent relations of dependence for material, for
inspiration and correction, and for other forms of helpfulness. While,
then, their respective spheres have been more clearly delimited during
the last century, their interdependence has been more forcefully
exhibited. Both of them have been developing a systematic exposition of
the universe. Both of them desire to enlarge and deepen the conception
of the Being of the World, as made known to the totality of human
experience, in its Unity of nature and significance. We cannot believe
that the end of the nineteenth century would sustain the charge which
Fontenelle made in the closing years of the seventeenth century:
"_L'Académie des Sciences ne prend la nature que par petites
parcelles_." Science itself now bids us regard the Universe as a
dynamical Unity, teleologically conceived, because in a process of
evolution under the control of immanent ideas. Philosophy assumes the
same point of view, rather at the beginning than at the end of defining
its purpose; and so feels a certain glad leap at its heart-strings, and
an impulse to hold out the hand to science, when it hears such an
utterance as that of Poincaré: _Ce n'est pas le méchanisme le vrai, le
seul but; c'est l'unité_.

Shall we not say, then, that this double-faced but wholly true lesson
has been learned: namely, that the so-called philosophy of nature has no
sound foundation and no safeguard against vagaries of every sort, unless
it follows the lead of the positive sciences of nature; but that the
sciences themselves can never afford a full satisfaction to the
legitimate aspirations of human reason unless they, too, contribute to
the philosophy of nature--writ large and conceived of as a real-ideal
Unity.

That nature, as known and knowable by man, is a great artist, and that
man's æsthetical consciousness may be trusted as having a certain
ontological value, is the postulate properly derived from the
considerations advanced in the latest, and in some respects the most
satisfactory, of the three Critiques of Kant. The ideal way of looking
at natural phenomena which so delighted the mind of Goethe has now been
placed on broad and sound foundations by the fruitful industries of many
workmen,--such as Karl Ernst von Baer and Charles Darwin,--whose
morphological and evolutionary conceptions of the universe have
transformed the current conceptions of cosmic processes. But the world
of physical and natural phenomena has thereby been rendered not less,
but more, of a Cosmos, an orderly totality.

In addition to these more general but somewhat vague evaluations of the
progress of philosophy during the nineteenth century, we are certainly
called upon to face the question whether, after all, any advance has
been made toward the more satisfactory solution of the definite problems
which the Kantian criticism left unsolved. To this question I believe an
affirmative answer may be given in accordance with the facts of history.
It will be remembered that the first of these problems was the
epistemological. Certainly no little improvement has been made in the
psychology of cognition. We can no longer repeat the mistakes of Kant,
either with respect to the uncritical assumptions he makes regarding the
origin of knowledge in the so-called "faculties" of the human mind or
regarding the analysis of those faculties and their interdependent
relations. It is not the Scottish philosophy alone which has led to the
conclusion that, in the word of the late Professor Adamson, "What are
called acts or states of consciousness are _not_ rightly conceived of as
having for their objects their own modes of existence as ways in which a
subject is modified." And in the larger manner both science and
philosophy, in their negations and their affirmations, and even in their
points of view, have better grounds for the faith of human reason in its
power progressively to master the knowledge of Reality than was the case
a hundred years ago. Nor has the skepticism of the same era, whether by
shallow scoffing at repeated failures, or by pious sighs over the
limitations of human reason, or by critical analysis of the cognitive
faculties "according to well-established principles," succeeded in
limiting our speculative pretensions to the sphere of possible
experience,--in the Kantian meaning both of "principles" and of
"experience." But what both science and philosophy are compelled to
agree upon as a common underlying principle is this: The proof of the
most fundamental presuppositions, as well as of the latest more
scientifically established conclusions, of both science and philosophy,
is the assistance they afford in the satisfactory explanation of the
totality of racial experience.

In the evolution of the ontological problem, as compared with the form
in which it was left by the critical philosophy, the past century has
also made some notable advances. To deny this would be to discredit the
development of human knowledge so far as to say that we know no more
about what nature is, and man is, than was known a hundred years ago. To
say this, however, would not be to speak truth of fact. And here we may
not unnaturally grow somewhat impatient with that metaphysical fallacy
which places an impassable gulf between Reality and Experience. No
reality is, of course, cognizable or believable by man which does not
somehow show its presence in his total experience. But no growth of
experience is possible without involving increase of knowledge
representing Reality. For Reality is no absent and dead, or statical,
Ding-an-Sich. Cognition itself is a commerce of realities. And are there
not plain signs that the more thoughtful men of science are becoming
less averse to the recognition of the truth of ontological philosophy;
namely, that the deeper meaning of their own studies is grasped only
when they recognize that they are ever face to face with what they call
Energy and we call Will, and with what they call laws and we call Mind
as significant of the progressive realization of immanent ideas. This
Ultimate Reality is so profound that neither science nor philosophy will
ever sound all its depths, and so comprehensive as more than to justify
all the categories of both.

Probably, on the whole, there has been less progress made toward a
satisfactory solution of the problems offered by the value-judgments of
ethics and religion, in the form in which these problems were left by
the critical philosophy. The century has illustrated the truth of
Falckenberg's statement: "In periods which have given birth to a
skeptical philosophy, one never looks in vain for the complementary
phenomenon of mysticism." Twice during the century the so-called
"faith-philosophy," or philosophy of feeling, has been borne to the
front, to raise a bulwark against the advancing hosts of
agnostics--occasioned in the first period by the negations of the
Kantian criticism, and in the second by the positive conclusions of the
physical and biological sciences. This form of protesting against the
neglect or disparagement of important factors which belong to man's
æsthetical, ethical, and religious experience, is reasonable and must be
heard. But the extravagances with which these neglected factors have
been posited and appraised, to the neglect of the more definitively
scientific and strictly logical, is to be deplored. The great work
before the philosophy of the present age is the reconciliation of the
historical and scientific conceptions of the Universe with the
legitimate sentiments and ideals of art, morality, and religion. But
surely neither rationalism nor "faith-philosophy" is justified in
pouring out the living child with the muddy water of the bath.

IV. The attempt to survey the present situation of philosophy, and to
predict its immediate future, is embarrassed by the fact that we are all
immersed in it, are a part of its spirit and present form. But if
nearness has its embarrassments, it has also its benefits. Those who are
amidst the tides of life may know better, in a way, how these tides are
tending and what is their present strength, than do those who survey
them from distant, cool, and exalted heights. "_Für jeden einzelnen
bildet der Vater und der Sohn eine greifbare Kette von Lebensereignungen
und Erfahrungen._" The very intensely vital and formative but unformed
condition of systematic philosophy--its protoplasmic character--contains
promises of a new life. If we may believe the view of Hegel that the
systematizing of the thought of any age marks the time when the peculiar
living thought of that age is passing into a period of decay, we may
certainly claim for our present age the prospect of a prolonged
vitality.

The nineteenth century has left us with a vast widening of the
horizon,--outward into space, backward in time, inward toward the
secrets of life, and downward into the depths of Reality. With this
there has been an increase in the profundity of the conviction of the
spiritual unity of the race. In the consideration of all of its problems
in the immediate future and in the coming century--so far as we can see
forward into this century--philosophy will have to reckon with certain
marked characteristics of the human spirit which form at the same time
inspiring stimuli and limiting conditions of its endeavors and
achievements. Chief among these are the greater and more firmly
established principles of the positive sciences, and the prevalence of
the historical spirit and method in the investigation of all manner of
problems. These influences have given shape to the conception which,
although it is as yet by no means in its final or even in thoroughly
self-consistent form, is destined powerfully to affect our philosophical
as well as our scientific theories. This conception is that of
Development. But philosophy, considered as the product of critical and
reflective thinking over the more ultimate problems of nature and of
human life, is itself a development. And it is now, more than ever
before, a development interdependently connected with all the other
great developments.

Philosophy, in order to adapt itself to the spirit of the age, must
welcome and cultivate the freest critical inquiry into its own methods
and results, and must cheerfully submit itself to the demand for
evidences which has its roots in the common and essential experience of
the race. Moreover, the growth of the spirit of democracy, which, on the
one hand, is distinctly unfavorable to any system of philosophy whose
tenets and formulas seem to have only an academic validity or a merely
esoteric value, and which, on the other hand, requires for its
satisfaction a more tenable, helpful, and universally applicable theory
of life and reality, cannot fail, in my judgment, to influence favorably
the development of philosophy. In the union of the speculative and the
practical; in the harmonizing of the interests of the positive sciences,
with their judgments of fact and law, and the interests of art,
morality, and religion, with their value-judgments and ideals; in the
synthesis of the truths of Realism and Idealism, as they have existed
hitherto and now exist in separateness or antagonism; in a union that is
not accomplished by a shallow eclecticism, but by a sincere attempt to
base philosophy upon the totality of human experience;--in such a union
as this must we look for the real progress of philosophy in the coming
century.

Just now there seem to be two somewhat heterogeneous and not altogether
well-defined tendencies toward the reconstruction of systematic
philosophy, both of which are powerful and represent real truths
conquered by ages of intellectual industry and conflict. These two,
however, need to be internally harmonized, in order to obtain a
satisfactory statement of the development of the last century. They may
be called the evolutionary and the idealistic. The one tendency lays
emphasis on mechanism, the other on spirit. Yet it is most interesting
to notice how many of the early workmen in the investigation of the
principle of the conservation and correlation of energy took their point
of departure from distinctly teleological and spiritual conceptions. "I
was led," said Colding,--to take an extreme case,--at the Natural
Science Congress at Innsbruck, 1869, "to the idea of the constancy of
national forces by the religious conception of life." And even
Moleschott, in his _Autobiography_, posthumously published, declares: "I
myself was well aware that the whole conception might be converted; for
since all matter is a bearer of force, endowed with force or penetrated
with spirit, it would be just as correct to call it a spiritualistic
conception." On the other hand, the modern, better instructed Idealism
is much inclined, both from the psychological and from the more purely
philosophical points of view, to regard with duly profound respect all
the facts and laws of that mechanism of Reality, which certainly is not
merely the dependent construction of the human mind functioning
according to a constitution that excludes it from Reality, but is rather
the ever increasingly more trustworthy revealer of Reality. This
tendency to a union of the claims of both Realism and Idealism is
profoundly influencing the solution of each one of these problems which
the Kantian criticism left to the philosophy of the nineteenth century.
In respect of the epistemological problem, philosophy--as I have already
said--is not likely again to repeat the mistakes either of Kant or of
the dogmatism which his criticism so effectually overthrew. It was a
wise remark of the physician Johann Benjamin Erhard, in a letter dated
May 19, 1794, _à propos_ of Fichte: "The philosophy which _proceeds_
from a _single_ fundamental principle, and pretends to deduce everything
from it, is and always will remain a piece of artificial sophistry: only
that philosophy which _ascends_ to the highest principle and exhibits
everything else in perfect harmony with it, is the true one." This at
least ought--one would say--to have been made clear by the century of
discussion over the epistemological problem, since Kant. You cannot
_deduce_ the Idea from the Reality, or the Reality from the Idea. The
problem of knowledge is not, as Fichte held in the form of a fundamental
assumption, an alternative of this sort. The Idea _and_ Reality are, the
rather already there, and to be recognized as in a living unity, in
every cognitive experience. Psychology is constantly adding something
toward the problem of cognition as a problem in synthesis; and is then
in a way contributing to the better scientific understanding of the
philosophical postulate which is the confidence of human reason in its
ability, by the harmonious use of all its powers, progressively to reach
a better and fuller knowledge of Reality.

The ontological problem will necessarily always remain the unsolved, in
the sense of the very incompletely solved problem of philosophy. But as
long as human experience develops, and as long as philosophy bestows
upon experience the earnest and candid efforts of reflecting minds, the
solution of the ontological problem will be approached, but never fully
reached. That Being of the World which Kant, in the negative and
critical part of his work, left as an X, unknown and unknowable, the
last century has filled with a new and far richer content than it ever
had before. Especially has this century changed the conception of the
Unity of the Universe in such manner that it can never return again to
its ancient form. On the one hand, this Unity cannot be made
comprehensible in terms of any one scientific or philosophical principle
or law. Science and philosophy are both moving farther and farther away
from the hope of comprehending the variety and infinite manifoldness of
the Absolute in terms of any one side or aspect of man's complex
experience. But, on the other hand, the confidence in this essential
Unity is not diminished, but is the rather confirmed. As humanity itself
develops, as the Selfhood of man grows in the experience of the world
which is its own environment, and of the world within which it is its
own true Self, humanity may reasonably hope to win an increased, and
increasingly valid, cognition of the Being of the World as the Absolute
Self.

Closely connected, and in a way essentially identical with the
ontological problem, is that of the origin, validity, and rational value
of the ideas of humanity. May it not be said that the nineteenth century
transfers to the twentieth an increased interest in and a heightened
appreciation of the so-called practical problems of philosophy. Science
and philosophy certainly ought to combine--and are they not ready to
combine?--in the effort to secure a more nearly satisfactory
understanding and solution of the problems afforded by the æsthetical,
ethical, and religious sentiments and ideals of the race. To philosophy
this combination means that it shall be more fruitful than ever before
in promoting the uplift and betterment of mankind. The fulfillment of
the practical mission of philosophy involves the application of its
conceptions and principles to education, politics, morals, as a matter
of law and of custom, and to religion as matter both of rational faith
and of the conduct of life.

How, then, can this brief and imperfect sketch of the outline of the
development of philosophy in the nineteenth century better come to a
close than by words of encouragement and of exhortation as well. There
are, in my judgment, the plainest signs that the somewhat too
destructive and even nihilistic tendencies of the second and third
quarters of the nineteenth century have reached their limit; that the
strife of science and philosophy, and of both with religion, is
lessening, and is being rapidly displaced by the spirit of mutual
fairness and reciprocal helpfulness; and that reasonable hopes of a new
and a splendid era of reconstruction in philosophy may be entertained.
For I cannot agree with the _dictum_ of a recent writer on the subject,
that "the sciences are coming less and less to admit of a synthesis, and
not at all of a synthetic philosopher."

On the contrary, I hold that, with an increased confidence in the
capacity of human reason to discover and validate the most secret and
profound, as well as the most comprehensive, of truths, philosophy may
well put aside some of its shyness and hesitancy, and may resume more of
that audacity of imagination, sustained by ontological convictions,
which characterized its work during the first half of the nineteenth
century. And if the latter half of the twentieth century does for the
constructions of the first half of the same century, what the latter
half of the nineteenth century did for the first half of that century,
this new criticism will only be to illustrate the way in which the human
spirit makes every form of its progress.

Therefore, a summons of all helpers, in critical but fraternal spirit,
to this work of reconstruction, for which two generations of enormous
advance in the positive sciences has gathered new material, and for the
better accomplishment of which both the successes and the failures of
the philosophy of the nineteenth century have prepared the men of the
twentieth century, is the winsome and imperative voice of the hour.




SECTION A--METAPHYSICS




SECTION A--METAPHYSICS

(_Hall 6, September 21, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR A. C. ARMSTRONG, Wesleyan University.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR A. E. TAYLOR, McGill University, Montreal.
             PROFESSOR ALEXANDER T. ORMOND, Princeton University.
  SECRETARY: PROFESSOR A. O. LOVEJOY, Washington University.


The Chairman of the Section, Professor A. C. Armstrong, of Wesleyan
University, in opening the meeting referred to the continued vitality of
metaphysics as shown by its repeated revivals after the many destructive
attacks upon it in the later modern times: he congratulated the Section
on the fact that the principal speakers were scholars who had made
notable contributions to metaphysical theory.




THE RELATIONS BETWEEN METAPHYSICS AND THE OTHER SCIENCES

BY PROFESSOR ALFRED EDWARD TAYLOR

     [Alfred Edward Taylor, Frothingham Professor of Philosophy,
     McGill University, Montreal, Canada. b. Oundle, England,
     December 22, 1869. M.A. Oxford. Fellow, Merton College,
     Oxford, 1891-98, 1902-; Lecturer in Greek and Philosophy,
     Owens College, Manchester, 1896-1903; Assistant Examiner to
     University of Wales, 1899-1903; Green Moral Philosophy
     Prizeman, Oxford, 1899; Frothingham Professor of Philosophy,
     McGill University, 1903-; Member Philosophical Society,
     Owens College, American Philosophical Association. Author of
     _The Problem of Conduct_; _Elements of Metaphysics_.]


When we seek to determine the place of metaphysics in the general scheme
of human knowledge, we are at once confronted by an initial difficulty
of some magnitude. There seems, in fact, to be no one universally
accepted definition of our study, and even no very general consensus
among its votaries as to the problems with which the metaphysician ought
to concern himself. This difficulty, serious as it is, does not,
however, justify the suspicion that our science is, like alchemy or
astrology, an illusion, and its high-sounding title a mere "idol of the
market-place," one of those _nomina rerum quae non sunt_ against which
the Chancellor Bacon has so eloquently warned mankind. If it is hard to
determine precisely the scope of metaphysics, it is no less difficult to
do the same thing for the undoubtedly legitimate sciences of logic and
mathematics. And in all three cases the absence of definition merely
shows that we are dealing with branches of knowledge which are, so to
say, still in the making. It is not until the first principles of
science are already firmly laid beyond the possibility of cavil that we
must look for general agreement as to its boundary lines, though
excellent work may be done, long before this point has been reached, in
the establishment of individual principles and deduction of consequences
from them. To revert to the parallel cases I have just cited, many
mathematical principles of the highest importance are formulated in the
_Elements_ of Euclid, and many logical principles in the _Organon_ of
Aristotle; yet it is only in our own time that it has become possible to
offer a general definition either of logic or of mathematics, and even
now it would probably be true to say that the majority of logicians and
mathematicians trouble themselves very little about the precise
definition of their respective studies.

The state of our science then compels me to begin this address with a
more or less arbitrary, because provisional, definition of the term
metaphysics, for which I claim no more than that it may serve to
indicate with approximate accuracy the class of problems which I shall
have in view in my subsequent use of the word. By metaphysics, then, I
propose to understand the inquiry which used formerly to be known as
ontology, that is, the investigation into the general character which
belongs to real Being as such, the science, in Aristotelian phraseology,
of ὄντα ᾗ ὄντα (onta hê onta). Or, if the term "real" be objected against as
ambiguous, I would suggest as an alternative account the statement that
metaphysics is the inquiry into the general character by which the
content of _true_ assertions is distinguished from that of _false_
assertions. The two definitions here offered will, I think, be found
equivalent when it is borne in mind that what the second of them speaks
of is exclusively the _content_ which is asserted as true in a true
proposition, not the process of true assertion, which, like all other
processes in the highest cerebral centres, falls under the consideration
of the vastly different sciences of psychology and cerebral physiology.
Of the two equivalent forms of statement, the former has perhaps the
advantage of making it most clear that it is ultimately upon the
objective distinction between the reality and the unreality of that
which is asserted for truth, and not upon any psychological peculiarity
in the process of assertion itself that the distinction between true and
untrue rests, while the second may be useful in guarding against
misconceptions that might be suggested by too narrow an interpretation
of the term "reality," such as, _e. g._, the identification of the
"real" with what is revealed by sensuous perception.

From the acceptance of such a definition two important consequences
would follow. (1) The first is that metaphysics is at once sharply
discriminated from any study of the psychical _process_ of knowledge, if
indeed, there can be any such study distinct from the psychology of
conception and belief, which is clearly not itself the science we have
in view. For the psychological laws of the formation of concepts and
beliefs are exemplified equally in the discovery and propagation of
truth and of error. And thus it is in vain to look to them for any
explanation of the difference between the two. Nor does the otherwise
promising extension of Darwinian conceptions of the "struggle for
existence" and the "survival of the fittest" to the field of opinions
and convictions appear to affect this conclusion. Such considerations
may indeed assist us to understand how true convictions in virtue of
their "usefulness" gradually come to be established and extended, but
they require to presume the truth of these convictions as an antecedent
condition of their "usefulness" and consequent establishment. I should
infer, then, that it is a mistake in principle to seek to replace
ontology by a "theory of knowledge," and should even be inclined to
question the very possibility of such a theory as distinct from
metaphysics on the one hand and empirical psychology on the other. (2)
The second consequence is of even greater importance. The inquiry into
the general character by which the contents of true assertions are
discriminated from the contents of false assertions must be carefully
distinguished from any investigation into the truth or falsehood of
special assertions. To ask how in the end truth differs from falsehood
is to raise an entirely different problem from that created by asking
whether a given statement is to be regarded as true or false. The
distinction becomes particularly important when we have to deal with
what Locke would call assertions of "real existence," _i. e._,
assertions as to the occurrence of particular events in the temporal
order. All such assertions depend, in part at least, upon the admission
of what we may style "empirical" evidence, the immediate unanalyzed
witness of simple apprehension to the occurrence of an alleged matter of
fact. Thus it would follow from our proposed conception of metaphysics
that metaphysics is in principle incapable either of establishing or
refuting any assertion as to the details of our immediate experience of
empirical fact, though it may have important bearings upon any theory of
the general nature of true Being which we may seek to found upon our
alleged experiences. In a word, if our conception be the correct one,
the functions of a science of metaphysics in respect of our knowledge of
the temporal sequence of events psychical and physical must be purely
critical, never constructive,--a point to which I shall presently have
to recur.

One more general reflection, and we may pass to the consideration of the
relation of metaphysics to the various alreadyorganized branches of
human knowledge more in detail. The admission that there is, or may be,
such a study as we have described, seems of itself to involve the
recognition that definite knowledge about the character of what really
"is," is attainable, and thus to commit us to a position of sharp
opposition both to consistent and thorough-going agnosticism and also to
the latent agnosticism of Kantian and neo-Kantian "critical philosophy."
In recognizing ontology as a legitimate investigation, we revert in
principle to the "dogmatist" position common, _e. g._, to Plato, to
Spinoza and to Leibniz, that there is genuine truth which can be known,
and that this genuine truth is not confined to statements about the
process of knowing itself. In fact, the "critical" view that the only
certain truth is truth about the process of knowing seems to be
inherently self-contradictory. For the knowledge that such a proposition
as, _e. g._, "I know only the laws of my own apprehending activity," is
true, would itself be knowledge not about the process of knowing but
about the content known. Thus metaphysics, conceived as the science of
the general character which distinguishes truth from falsehood,
presupposes throughout all knowledge the presence of what we may call a
"transcendent object," that is, a content which is never identical with
the process by which it is apprehended, though it may no doubt be
maintained that the two, the process and its content, if distinct, are
yet not ultimately separable. That they are in point of fact not
ultimately separable would seem to be the doctrine which, under various
forms of statement, is common to and characteristic of all the
"idealistic" systems of metaphysics. So much then in defense of a
metaphysical point of view which seems to be closely akin to that of Mr.
Bradley and of Professor Royce, to mention only two names of
contemporary philosophers, and which might, I think, for the purpose of
putting it in sharp opposition to the "neo-Kantian" view, not unfairly
be called, if it is held to need a name, "neo-Leibnizian."

In passing on to discuss in brief the nature of the boundary lines which
divide metaphysics from other branches of study, it seems necessary to
start with a clear distinction between the "pure" or "formal" and the
"applied" or "empirical" sciences, the more so as in the loose current
employment of language the name "science" is frequently given
exclusively to the latter. In every-day life, when we are told that a
certain person is a "man of science," or as the detestable jargon of our
time likes to say, a "scientist," we expect to find that he is, _e. g._,
a geologist, a chemist, a biologist, or an electrician. We should be a
little surprised to find on inquiry that our "man of science" was a pure
mathematician, and probably more than a little to learn that he was a
formal logician. The distinction between the pure and the empirical
sciences may be roughly indicated by saying that the latter class
comprises all those sciences which yield information about the
particular details of the temporal order of events physical and
psychical, whereas the pure sciences deal solely with the general
characteristics either of all truths, or of all truths of some
well-defined class. More exactly we may say that the marks by which an
empirical is distinguished from a pure science are two. (1) The
empirical sciences one and all imply the presence among their premises
of empirical propositions, that is, propositions which assert the actual
occurrence of some temporal fact, and depend upon the witness of
immediate apprehension, either in the form of sense perception or in
that of what is commonly called self-consciousness. In the vague
language made current by Kant, they involve an appeal to some form of
unanalyzed "intuition." The pure sciences, on the other hand, contain no
empirical propositions either among their premises or their conclusions.
The principles which form their premises are self-evidently true
propositions, containing no reference to the actual occurrence of any
event in the temporal order, and thus involving no appeal to any form of
"intuition." And the conclusions established in a pure science are all
rigidly logical deductions from such self-evident premises. That the
universality of this distinction is still often overlooked even by
professed writers on scientific method seems explicable by two simple
considerations. On the one hand, it is easy to overlook the important
distinction between a principle which is self-evident, that is, which
cannot be denied without explicit falsehood, and a proposition affirmed
on the warrant of the senses, because, though its denial cannot be seen
to be obviously false, the senses appear on each fresh appeal to
substantiate the assertion. Thus the Euclidean postulate about parallels
was long falsely supposed to possess exactly the same kind of
self-evidence as the _dictum de omni_ and the principle of identity
which are part of the foundations of all logic. And further Kant,
writing under the influence of this very confusion, has given wide
popularity to the view that the best known of the pure sciences, that of
mathematics, depends upon the admission of empirical premises in the
form of an appeal to intuition of the kind just described. Fortunately
the recent developments of arithmetic at the hands of such men as
Weierstrass, Cantor, and Dedekind seem to have definitely refuted the
Kantian view as far as general arithmetic, the pure science of number,
is concerned, by proving that one and all of its propositions are
_analytic_ in the strict sense of the word, that is, that they are
capable of rigid deduction from self-evident premises, so that, in what
regards arithmetic, we may say with Schröder that the famous Kantian
question "how are synthetic judgments _a priori_ possible?" is now known
to be meaningless. As regards geometry, the case appears to a
non-mathematician like myself more doubtful. Those who hold with
Schröder that geometry essentially involves, as Kant thought it did, an
appeal to principles not self-evident and dependent upon an appeal to
sensuous "intuition," are logically bound to conclude with him that
geometry is an "empirical," or as W. K. Clifford called it, a "physical"
science, different in no way from mechanics except in the relative
paucity of the empirical premises presupposed, and to class it with the
applied sciences. On the other hand, if Mr. Bertrand Russell should be
successful in his promised demonstration that all the principles of
geometry are deducible from a few premises which include nothing of the
nature of an appeal to sensuous diagrams, geometry too would take its
place among the pure sciences, but only on condition of our recognizing
that its truths, like those of arithmetic, are one and all, as Leibniz
held, strictly analytical. Thus we obtain as a first distinction between
the pure and the empirical sciences the principle that the propositions
of the former class are all analytical, those of the latter all
synthetic. It is not the least of the services which France is now
rendering to the study of philosophy that we are at last being placed by
the labors of M. Couturat in a position to appreciate at their full
worth the views of the first and greatest of German philosophers on this
distinction, and to understand how marvelously they have been confirmed
by the subsequent history of mathematics and of logic.

(2) A consequence of this distinction is that only the pure or formal
sciences can be matter of rigid logical demonstration. Since the
empirical or applied sciences one and all contain empirical premises,
_i. e._, premises which we admit as true only because they have always
appeared to be confirmed by the appeal to "intuition," and not because
the denial of them can be shown to lead to falsehood, the conclusions to
which they conduct us must one and all depend, in part at least, upon
induction from actual observation of particular temporal sequences. This
is as much as to say that all propositions in the applied sciences
involve somewhere in the course of the reasoning by which they are
established the appeal to the calculus of Probabilities, which is our
one method of eliciting general results from the statistics supplied by
observation or experiment. That this is the case with the more concrete
among such applied sciences has long been universally acknowledged. That
it is no less true of sciences of such wide range as mechanics may be
said, I think, to have been definitely established in our own day by the
work of such eminent physicists as Kirchhoff and Mach. In fact, the
recent developments of the science of pure number, to which reference
has been made in a preceding paragraph, combined with the creation of
the "descriptive" theory of mechanics, may fairly be said to have
finally vindicated the distinction drawn by Leibniz long ago between the
truths of reason and the truths of empirical fact, a distinction which
the Kantian trend of philosophical speculation tended during the greater
part of the nineteenth century to obscure, while it was absolutely
ignored by the empiricist opponents of metaphysics both in England and
in Germany. The philosophical consequences of a revival of the
distinction are, I conceive, of far-reaching importance. On the one
side, recognition of the empirical and contingent character of all
general propositions established by induction appears absolutely fatal
to the current mechanistic conception of the universe as a realm of
purposeless sequences unequivocally determined by unalterable "laws of
nature," a result which has in recent years been admirably illustrated
for the English-speaking world by Professor Ward's well-known Gifford
lectures on "Naturalism and Agnosticism." Laws of physical nature, on
the empiristic view of applied science, can mean no more than observed
regularities, obtained by the application of the doctrine of
chances,--regularities which we are indeed justified in accepting with
confidence as the basis for calculation of the future course of temporal
sequence, but which we have no logical warrant for treating as ultimate
truths about the final constitution of things. Thus, for example, take
the common assumption that our physical environment is composed of a
multitude of particles each in every respect the exact counterpart of
every other. Reflection upon the nature of the evidence by which this
conclusion, if supported at all, has to be supported, should convince us
that at most all that the statement ought to mean is that individual
differences between the elementary constituents of the physical world
need not be allowed for in devising practical formulae for the
intelligent anticipation of events. When the proposition is put forward
as an absolute truth and treated as a reason for denying the ultimate
spirituality of the world, we are well within our rights in declining
the consequence on the logical ground that conclusions from an empirical
premise must in their own nature be themselves empirical and contingent.

On the other hand, the extreme empiricism which treats all knowledge
whatsoever as merely relative to the total psychical state of the
knower, and therefore in the end problematic, must, I apprehend, go down
before any serious investigation into the nature of the analytic truths
of arithmetic, a consequence which seems to be of some relevance in
connection with the philosophic view popularly known as Pragmatism. Thus
I should look to the coming regeneration of metaphysics, of which there
are so many signs at the moment, on the one hand, for emphatic
insistence on the right, _e. g._, of physics and biology and psychology
to be treated as purely empirical sciences, and as such freed from the
last vestiges of any domination by metaphysical presuppositions and
foregone conclusions, and on the other, for an equally salutary
purgation of formal studies like logic and arithmetic from the taint of
corruption by the irrelevant intrusion of considerations of empirical
psychology.

We cannot too persistently bear in mind that there is, corresponding to
the logical distinction between the analytic and the synthetic
proposition, a deep and broad general difference between the wants of
our nature ministered to by the formal and the applied sciences
respectively. The formal sciences, incapable of adding anything to our
detailed knowledge of the course of events, as we have seen, enlighten
us solely as to the general laws of interconnection by which all
conceivable systems of true assertions are permeated and bound together.
In a different connection it would be interesting to develop further the
reflection that the necessity of appealing to such formal principles in
all reasoning about empirical matters of fact contains the explanation
of the famous Platonic assertion that the "Idea of Good" or supreme
principle of organization and order in the universe, is itself not an
existent, but something ἔτι ἐπέκεινα τῆς οὐσίας (eti epekeina tês
ousias), "transcending even existence," and the very similar declaration
of Hegel that the question whether "God"--in the sense of such a supreme
principle--exists is frivolous, inasmuch as existence (_Dasein_) is a
category entirely inadequate to express the Divine nature. For my
present purpose it is enough to remark that the need to which the formal
sciences minister is the demand for that purely speculative satisfaction
which arises from insight into the order of interconnection between the
various truths which compose the totality of true knowledge. Hence it
seems a mistake to say, as some theorists have done, that were we born
with a complete knowledge of the course of temporal sequences throughout
the universe, and a faultless memory, we should have no need of logic or
metaphysics, or in fact of inference. For even a mind already in
possession of all true propositions concerning the course of events,
would still lack one of the requisites for complete intellectual
satisfaction unless it were also aware, not only of the individual
truths, but of the order of their interdependence. What Aristotle said
long ago with reference to a particular instance may be equally said
universally of all our empirical knowledge; "even if we stood on the
moon and saw the earth intercepting the light of the sun, we should
still have to ask for the reason _why_." The purposes ministered to by
the empirical sciences, on the other hand, always include some reference
to the actual manipulation in advance by human agency of the stream of
events. We study mechanics, for instance, not merely that we may
perceive the interdependence of truths, but that we may learn how to
maintain a system of bodies in equilibrium, or how to move masses in a
given direction with a given momentum. Hence it is true of applied
science, though untrue of science as a whole, that it would become
useless if the whole past and future course of events were from the
first familiar to us. And, incidentally it may be observed, it is for
the same reason untrue of inference, though true of inductive inference,
that it is essentially a passage from the known to the unknown.

In dealing with the relation of metaphysics to the formal sciences
generally, the great difficulty which confronts us is that of
determining exactly the boundaries which separate one from another.
Among such pure sciences we have by universal admission to include at
least two, pure formal logic and pure mathematics, as distinguished from
the special applications of logic and mathematics to an empirical
material. Whether we ought also to recognize ethics and æsthetics, in
the sense of the general determination of the nature of the good and the
beautiful, as non-empirical sciences, seems to be a more difficult
question. It seems clear, for instance, that ethical discussions, such
as bulk so largely in our contemporary literature, as to what is the
right course of conduct under various conditions, are concerned
throughout with an empirical material, namely, the existing
peculiarities of human nature as we find it, and must therefore be
regarded as capable only of an empirical and therefore problematic
solution. Accordingly I was at one time myself tempted to regard ethics
as a purely empirical science, and even published a lengthy treatise in
defense of that point of view and in opposition to the whole Kantian
conception of the possibility of a constructive _Metaphysik der Sitten_.
It seems, however, possible to hold that in the question "What do we
mean by good?" as distinguished from the question "What in particular is
it right to do?" there is no more of a reference to the empirical facts
of human psychology than in the question "What do we mean by truth?" and
that there must therefore be a non-empirical answer to the problem. The
same would of course hold equally true of the question "What _is_
beauty?" If there are, however, such a pure science of ethics and again
of æsthetics, it must at least be allowed that for the most part these
sciences are still undiscovered, and that the ethical and æsthetical
results hitherto established are in the main of an empirical nature, and
this must be my excuse for confining the remarks of the next two
paragraphs to the two great pure sciences of which the general
principles may be taken to be now in large measure known.

That metaphysics and logic should sometimes have been absolutely
identified, as for instance by Hegel, will not surprise us when we
consider how hard it becomes on the view here defended to draw any hard
and fast boundary line between them. For metaphysics, according to this
conception of its scope, deals with the formulation of the self-evident
principles implied, in there being such a thing as truth and the
deductions which these principles warrant us in drawing. Thus it might
be fairly said to be the supreme science of _order_, and it would not be
hard to show that all the special questions commonly included in its
range, as to the nature of space, time, causation, continuity, and so
forth, are all branches of the general question, how many types of order
among concepts are there, and what is their nature. A completed
metaphysics would thus appear as the realization of Plato's splendid
conception of dialectic as the ultimate reduction of the contents of
knowledge to order by their continuous deduction from a supreme
principle (or, we may add, principles). Now such a view seems to make it
almost impossible to draw any ultimate distinction between logic and
metaphysics. For logic is strictly the science of the mutual implication
of propositions, as we see as soon as we carefully exclude from it all
psychological accretions. In the question what are the conditions under
which one proposition or group of propositions imply another, we exhaust
the whole scope of logic pure and proper, as distinguished from its
various empirical applications. This is the important point which is so
commonly forgotten when logic is defined as being in some way a study of
"psychical processes," or when the reference to the presence of "minds"
in which propositions exist, is intended into logical science. We cannot
too strongly insist that for logic the question so constantly raised in
a multitude of text-books, what processes actually take place when we
pass from the assertion of the premises to the assertion of the
conclusion, is an irrelevant one, and that the only logical problem
raised by inference is whether the assertion of the premises as true
_warrants_ the further assertion of the conclusion, supposing it to be
made. (At the risk of a little digression I cannot help pointing out
that the confusion between a logical and a psychological problem is
committed whenever we attempt, as is so often done, to make the
self-evidence of a principle identical with our psychological inability
to believe the contradictory. From the strictly logical point of view,
all that is to be said about the two sides of such an ultimate
contradiction is that the one is true and the other is false. Whether it
is or is not possible, as a matter of psychical fact for me to affirm
with equal conviction, both sides of a contradiction, knowing that I am
doing so, is a question of empirical psychology which is possibly
insoluble, and at any rate seems not to have received from the
psychologists the attention it deserves. But the logician, so far as I
can see, has no interest as a logician in its solution. For him it would
still be the case even though all mankind should actually and
consciously affirm both sides of a given contradiction, that one of the
affirmations would be true, and the other untrue.) Logic thus seems to
become either the whole or an integral part of the science of order, and
there remain only two possible ways of distinguishing it from
metaphysics. It might be suggested that logical order, the order of
implication between truths, is only one species of a wider genus, order
in general by the side, for example, of spatial, temporal, and numerical
order, and thus that logic is one subordinate branch of the wider
science of metaphysics. Such a view, of course, implies that there are a
plurality of ultimately independent forms of order irreducible to a
single type. Whether this is the case, I must confess myself at present
incompetent to decide, though the signal success with which the
principles of number have already been deduced from the fundamental
definitions and axioms of symbolic logic, and number itself defined, as
by Mr. Russell, in terms of the purely logical concept of
class-relation, seems to afford some presumption to the contrary. Or it
may be held that the difference is purely one of the degree of
completeness with which the inquiry into order is pursued. Thus the
ordinary symbolic logic of what Schröder has called the "identical
calculus," or "calculus of domains," consists of a series of deductions
from the fundamental concepts of class and number, identical equality,
totality or the "logical 1," zero or the null-class, and the three
principles of identity, subsumption, and negation. The moment you cease
to accept these data in their totality as the given material for your
science, and to inquire into their mutual coherence, by asking for
instance whether any one of them could be denied, and yet a body of
consistent results deduced from the rest, your inquiry, it might be
said, becomes metaphysics. So, again, the discussion of the well-known
contradictions which arise when we try to apply these principles in
their entirety and without modification to classes of classes instead of
classes of individuals, or of the problem raised by Peano and Russell,
whether the assertions "Socrates is a man" and "the Greeks are men"
affirm the same or a different relation between their subject and
predicate (which seems indeed to be the same question differently
stated), would generally be allowed to be metaphysical. And the same
thing seems to be equally true of the introduction of time relations
into the interpretation of our symbols for predication employed by Boole
in his treatment of hypotheticals, and subsequently adopted by his
successors as the foundation of the "calculus of equivalent statements."

However we may decide such questions, we seem at least driven by their
existence to the recognition of two important conclusions. (1) The
relation between logical and metaphysical problems is so close that you
cannot in consistency deny the possibility of a science of metaphysics
unless you are prepared with the absolute skeptic to go the length of
denying the possibility of logic also, and reducing the first principles
of inference to the level of formulae which have happened hitherto to
prove useful but are, for all we know, just as likely to fail us in
future application as not. (Any appeal to the doctrine of chances would
be out of place here, as that doctrine is itself based on the very
principles at stake.) (2) The existence of fundamental problems of this
kind which remained almost or wholly unsuspected until revealed in our
own time by the creation of a science of symbolic logic should console
us if ever we are tempted to suspect that metaphysics is at any rate a
science in which all the main constructive work has already been
accomplished by the great thinkers of the past. To me it appears, on the
contrary, that the recent enormous developments in the purely formal
sciences of logic and mathematics, with the host of fundamental problems
they open up, give promise of an approaching era of fresh speculative
construction which bids fair to be no less rich in results than any of
the great "golden" periods in the past history of our science. Indeed,
but that I would avoid the slightest suspicion of a desire to advertise
personal friends, I fancy I might even venture to name some of those to
whom we may reasonably look for the work to be done.

Of the relation of metaphysics to pure mathematics it would be
impertinent for any but a trained mathematician to say very much. I must
therefore be content to point out that the same difficulty in drawing
boundary lines meets us here as in the case of logic. Not so long ago
this difficulty might have been ignored, as it still is by too many
writers on the philosophy of science. Until recently mathematics would
have been thought to be adequately defined as the science of numerical
and quantitative relations, and adequately distinguished from
metaphysics by the non-quantitative and non-numerical character of the
latter, though it would probably have been admitted that the problem of
the definition of quantity and number themselves is a metaphysical one.
But in the present state of our knowledge such an account seems doubly
unsatisfactory. On the one hand, we have to recognize the existence of
branches of mathematics, such as the so-called descriptive geometry,
which are neither quantitative nor numerical, and, on the other,
quantity as distinct from number appears to play no part in mathematical
science, while number itself, thanks to the labors of such men as Cantor
and Dedekind, seems, as I have said before, to be known now to be only a
special type of order in a series. Thus there appears to be ground for
regarding serial order as the fundamental category of mathematics, and
we are thrown back once more upon the difficult task of deciding how
many ultimately irreducible types of order there may be before we can
undertake any precise discrimination between mathematical and
metaphysical science. However we may regard the problem, it is at least
certain that the recent researches of mathematicians into the meaning of
such concepts as continuity and infinity have, besides opening up new
metaphysical problems, done much to transfigure the familiar ones, as
all readers of Professor Royce must be aware. For instance I imagine all
of us here present, even the youngest, were brought up on the
Aristotelian doctrine that there is and can be no such thing as an
actually existing infinite collection, but which of us would care to
defend that time-honored position to-day? Similarly with continuity all
of us were probably once on a time instructed that whereas "quantity" is
continuous, number is essentially "discrete," and is indeed the typical
instance of what we mean by the non-continuous. To-day we know that it
is in the number series that we have our one certain and familiar
instance of a perfect continuum. Still a third illustration of the
transforming light which is thrown upon old standing metaphysical
puzzles by the increasing formal development of mathematics may be found
in the difficulties attendant upon the conception of the "infinitely
little," once regarded as the logical foundation of the so-called
Differential Calculus. With the demonstration, which maybe found in Mr.
Russell's important work, that "infinitesimal," unlike "infinite," is a
purely relative term, and that there are no infinitesimal real numbers,
the supposed logical significance of the concept seems simply to
disappear. Instances of this kind could easily be multiplied almost
indefinitely, but those already cited should be sufficient to show how
important are the metaphysical results which may be anticipated from
contemporary mathematical research, and how grave a mistake it would be
to regard existing metaphysical construction, _e. g._, that of the
Hegelian system, as adequate in principle to the present state of our
organized knowledge. In fact, all the materials for a new
_Kategorienlehre_, which may be to the knowledge of our day what Hegel's
_Logic_ was to that of eighty years ago, appear to lie ready to hand
when it may please Providence to send us the metaphysician who knows how
to avail himself of them. The proof, given since this address was
delivered, by E. Zermelo, that every assemblage can be well ordered, is
an even more startling illustration of the remarks in the text.

It remains to say something of the relation of metaphysical speculation
to the various sciences which make use of empirical premises. On this
topic I maybe allowed to be all the more brief, as I have quite recently
expressed my views at fair length in an extended treatise (_Elements of
Metaphysics_, Bks. 3 and 4), and have nothing of consequence to add to
what has been there said. The empirical sciences, as previously defined,
appear to fall into two main classes, distinguished by a difference
which corresponds to that often taken in the past as the criterion by
which science is to be separated from philosophy. We may study the facts
of temporal sequence either with a view to the actual control of future
sequences or with a view to detecting under the sequence some coherent
purpose. It is in the former way that we deal with facts in mechanics,
for instance, or in chemistry, in the latter that we treat them when we
study history for the purpose of gaining insight into national aims and
character. We may, if we please, with Professor Royce, distinguish the
two attitudes toward fact as the attitude respectively of description
and of appreciation or evaluation. Now as regards the descriptive
sciences, the position to which, as I believe, metaphysicians are more
and more tending is that here metaphysics has, strictly speaking, no
right at all to interfere. Just because of the absence from metaphysics
itself of all empirical premises, it can be no business of the
metaphysician to determine what the course of events will be or to
prescribe to the sciences what methods and hypotheses they shall employ
in the work of such determination. Within these sciences any and every
hypothesis is sufficiently justified, whatever its nature, so long as it
enables us more efficiently than any other to perform the actual task of
calculation and prediction. And it was owing to neglect of this caution
that the _Naturphilosophie_ of the early nineteenth century speedily
fell into a disrepute fully merited by its ignorant presumption. As
regards the physical sciences, the metaphysician has indeed by this time
probably learned his lesson. We are not likely to-day to repeat the
mistake of supposing that it is for us as metaphysicians to dictate what
shall be the physicist's or chemist's definition of matter or mass or
elementary substance or energy, or how he shall formulate the laws of
motion or of chemical composition. Here, at any rate, we can see that
the metaphysician's work is done when his analysis has made it clear
that we are dealing with no self-evident truths such as the laws of
number, but with inductive, and therefore problematic and provisional
results of empirical assumptions as to the course of facts, assumptions
made not because of their inherent necessity, but because of their
practical utility for the special task of calculation. It is only when
such empirical assumptions are treated as self-evident axioms, in fact
when mechanical science gives itself out as a mechanistic philosophy,
that the metaphysician obtains a right to speak, and then only for the
purpose of showing by analysis that the presence of the empirical
postulates which is characteristic of the natural sciences of itself
excludes their erection into a philosophy of first principles.

What is important in this connection is that we should recognize quite
clearly that psychology stands in this respect on precisely the same
logical footing as physics or chemistry. It is tempting to suppose that
in psychology, at any rate, we are dealing throughout with absolute
certainties, realities which "consciousness" apprehends just as they are
without any of that artificial selection and construction which, as we
are beginning to see, is imposed upon the study of physical nature by
the limitations of our purpose of submitting the course of events to
calculation and manipulation. And it is a natural consequence of this
point of view to infer that since psychology deals directly with
realities, it must be taken as the foundation of the metaphysical
constructions which aim at understanding the general character of the
real as such. The consequence, indeed, disappears at once if the views
maintained in this address as to the intimate relation of metaphysics
and logic, and the radical expulsion from logic of all discussion of
mental processes as such, be admitted. But it is still important to note
that the premises from which the conclusion in question was drawn are
themselves false. We must never allow ourselves to forget that, as the
ever-increasing domination of psychology by the highly artificial
methods of observation and experiment introduced by Fechner and Wundt is
daily making more apparent, psychology itself, like physics, deals not
directly with the concrete realities of individual experience, but with
an abstract selected from that experience, or rather a set of artificial
symbols only partially corresponding with the realities symbolized, and
devised for the special object of submitting the realm of mental
sequences to mathematical calculation. We might, in fact, have based
this inference upon the single reflection that every psychological "law"
is obtained, like physical laws, by the statistical method of
elimination of individual peculiarities, and the taking of an average
from an extended series of measurements. For this very reason, no
psychological law can possibly describe the unique realities of
individual experience. We have in psychology, as in the physical
sciences, the duty of suspecting _exact_ correspondence between the
single case and the general "law" to be of itself proof of error
somewhere in the course of our computation. These views, which I suppose
I learned in the first instance from Mr. F. H. Bradley's paper called _A
Defence of Phenomenalism in Psychology_, may now, I think, be taken as
finally established beyond doubt by the exhaustive analysis of Professor
Münsterberg's _Grundzüge der Psychologie_. They possess the double
advantage of freeing the psychologist once for all from any interference
by the metaphysician in the prosecution of his proper study, and
delivering metaphysics from the danger of having assumptions whose sole
justification lies in their utility for the purpose of statistical
computation thrust upon it as self-evident principles. For their full
discussion I may perhaps be allowed to refer to the first three chapters
of the concluding book of my _Elements of Metaphysics_.

When we turn to the sciences which aim at the appreciation or evaluation
of empirical fact, the case seems rather different. It may fairly be
regarded as incumbent on the metaphysician to consider how far the
general conception he has formed of the character of reality can be
substantiated and filled in by our empirical knowledge of the actual
course of temporal sequence. And thus the way seems to lie open to the
construction of what may fairly be called a Philosophy of Nature and
History. For instance, a metaphysician who has rightly or wrongly
convinced himself that the universe can only be coherently conceived as
a society of souls or wills may reasonably go on to ask what views seem
best in accord with our knowledge of human character and animal
intelligence as to the varying degrees of organized intelligence
manifested by the members of such a hierarchy of souls, and the nature
and amount of mutual intercourse between them. And again, he may fairly
ask what general way of conceiving what we loosely call the inanimate
world would at once be true to fundamental metaphysical principles and
free from disagreement with the actual state of our physical hypotheses.
Only he will need to bear in mind that since conclusions on these points
involve appeal to the present results of the inductive sciences, and
thus to purely empirical postulates, any views he may adopt must of
necessity share in the problematic and provisional character of the
empirical sciences themselves, and can have no claim to be regarded as
definitely demonstrated in respect of their details. I will here only
indicate very briefly two lines of inquiry to which these reflections
appear applicable. The growth of evolutionary science, with the new
light it has thrown upon the processes by which useful variations may be
established without the need for presupposing conscious preëxisting
design, naturally gives rise to the question whether such unconscious
factors are of themselves sufficient to account for the actual course of
development so far as it can be traced, or whether the actual history of
the world offers instances of results which, so far as we can see, can
only have issued from deliberate design. And thus we seem justified in
regarding the problem of the presence of ends in Nature as an
intelligible and legitimate one for the philosophy of the future. I
would only suggest that such an inquiry must be prosecuted throughout by
the same empirical methods, and with the same consciousness of the
provisional character of any conclusions we may reach which would be
recognized as in place if we were called on to decide whether some
peculiar characteristic of an animal group or some singular social
practice in a recently discovered tribe does or does not indicate
definite purpose on the part of breeders or legislators.

The same remarks, in my opinion, apply to the familiar problems of
Natural Theology relative to the existence and activity of such
non-human intelligences as are commonly understood by the names "God" or
"gods." Hume and Kant, as it seems to me, have definitely shown between
them that the old-fashioned attempts to demonstrate from self-evident
principles the existence of a supreme personal intelligence as a
condition of the very being of truth all involve unavoidable logical
paralogisms. I should myself, indeed, be prepared to go further, and to
say that the conception of a single personality as the ground of truth
and reality can be demonstrated to involve contradiction, but this I
know is a question upon which some philosophers for whom I entertain the
profoundest respect hold a contrary opinion. The more modest question,
however, whether the actual course of human history affords probable
ground for believing in the activity of one or more non-human
personalities as agents in the development of our species I cannot but
think a perfectly proper subject for empirical investigation, if only it
be borne in mind that any conclusion upon such a point is inevitably
affected by the provisional character of our information as to empirical
facts themselves, and can claim in consequence nothing more than a
certain grade of probability. With this proviso, I cannot but regard the
question as to the existence of a God or of gods as one upon which we
may reasonably hope for greater certainty as our knowledge of the
empirical facts of the world's history increases. And I should be
inclined only to object to any attempt to foreclose examination by
forcing a conclusion either in the theistic or in the atheistic sense on
alleged grounds of _a priori_ metaphysics. In a word, I would maintain
not only with Kant that the "physico-theological" argument is specially
deserving of our regard, but with Boole that it is with it that Natural
Theology must stand or fall.


NOTE ON EXTENSION AND INTENSION OF TERMS

Among the numerous difficulties which beset the teaching of the elements
of formal logic to beginners, one of the earliest is that of deciding
whether all names shall be considered to have meaning both in extension
and intension. As we all know, the problem arises in connection with two
classes of names, (1) proper names of individuals, (2) abstract terms. I
should like to indicate what seems to me the true solution of the
difficulty, though I do not remember to have seen it advocated anywhere
in just the form I should prefer.

(1) As to proper names. It seems clear that those who regard the true
proper name as a meaningless label are nearer the truth than those who
assert with Jevons that a proper name has for its intension all the
predicates which can be truly ascribed to the object named. As has often
been observed, it is a sufficient proof that, for example, John does not
_mean_ "a human being of the male sex," to note that he who names his
daughter, his dog, or his canoe John, makes no false assertion, though
he may commit a solecism. So far the followers of Mill seem to have a
satisfactory answer to Jevons, when they say, for example, that he
confuses the intension of a term with its accidental or acquired
associations. (So, again, we can see that Socrates cannot _mean_ "the
wisest of the Greek philosophers," by considering that I may perfectly
well understand the statement "there goes Socrates" without being aware
that Socrates is wise or a Greek or a philosopher.) And if we objected
that no proper name actually in use is ever without some associations
which in part determine its meaning by restricting its applicability, it
would be a valid rejoinder that in pure logic we have to consider not
the actual usages of language, but those that would prevail in an ideal
language purged of all elements of irrelevancy. In such an ideal
scientific language, it might be said, the proper name would be reduced
to the level of a mere mark serviceable for identification, but
conveying no implication whatever as to the special nature of the thing
identified. Thus it would be indifferent _what_ mark we attach to any
particular individual, just as in mathematics it is indifferent what
alphabetical symbol we appropriate to stand for a given class or number.
I think, however, that even in such an ideal scientific language the
proper name would have a certain intension. In the first place, the use
of proper name seems to inform us that the thing named is not unique, is
not the only member of a class. To a monotheist, for instance, the name
"God" is no true proper name, nor can he consistently give a proper name
to his Deity. It is only where one member of a class has to be
distinguished from others that the bestowal of a proper name has a
meaning. And, further, to give a thing a proper name seems to imply that
the thing is itself not a class. In logic we have, of course, occasion
to form the concept of classes which have other classes for their
individual members. But the classes which compose such classes of
classes could not themselves be identified by means of proper names.
Thus the employment of a proper name seems to indicate that the thing
named is not the only member of its class, and further that it is not
itself a class of individuals. Beyond this it seems to be a mere
question of linguistic convention what information the use of a proper
name shall convey. Hence it ought to be said, not that the proper name
has no intension, but that it represents a limiting case in which
intension is at a minimum.

(2) As to abstract terms. Ought we to say, with so many English formal
logicians, that an abstract term is always singular and non-intensional?
The case for asserting that such terms are all singular, I own, seems
unanswerable. For it is clear that if the name of an attribute or
relation is equally the name of another attribute or relation, it is
ambiguous and thus not properly one term at all. To say, for example,
that whiteness means two or more distinct qualities seems to amount to
saying that it has no one definite meaning. Of course, it is true that
milk is white, paper is white, and snow is white, and yet the
color-tones of the three are distinct. But what we assert here is, not
that there are different whitenesses, but only that there are different
degrees of approximation to a single ideal standard or type of
whiteness. It is just because the whiteness we have in view is one and
not many that we can intelligibly assert, for example, that newly fallen
snow is _whiter_ than any paper. All the instances produced by Mill to
show that abstract terms may be general seem to me either to involve
confusion between difference of kind and difference in degree of
approximation to type, or else to depend upon treating as abstract a
term which is really concrete. Thus when we say red, blue, green, are
different kinds of color, surely what we mean is different kinds of
colored surface. Quà colored, they are not different; I mean just as
much and no more when I say "a red thing is colored," or "has color," as
when I say "a green thing is colored." If Mill were right, the
proposition "red is a color" ought to mean exactly the same as "red is
red." Or, to put it in another way, it would become impossible to form
in thought any concept of a single class of colored things.

But need we infer because abstract terms are singular that therefore
they have no intension and are mere meaningless marks? Commonly as this
inference is made, it seems to me clearly mistaken. It seems, in fact,
to rest upon the vague and ill-defined principle that an attribute can
have no attributes of its own. That it is false is shown, I think, by
the simple reflection that scientific definitions are one and all
statements as to the meaning of abstract names of attributes and
relations. For example, the definition of a circle is a statement as to
the meaning of circularity, the legal definition of responsible persons
a statement as to the meaning of the abstraction "responsibility," and
so on. (We only evade the point if we argue that abstract terms when
used as the subjects of propositions are really being employed
concretely. For "cruelty is odious," for instance, does not merely mean
that cruel acts are odious acts, but that they are odious _because_ they
are cruel.) In fact, the doctrine that abstract terms have no intension
would seem, if thought out, to lead to the view that there are only
classes of individuals, but no classes of classes. Thus to say "cruel
acts are odious because cruel" implies, not only that I can form the
concept of a class of cruel acts, but also that of classes of odious
acts of which the class of cruel acts in its turn is a member. And to
admit as much as this is to admit that the class of cruel acts,
considered as a member of the class of odious acts, shares the common
predicate of odiousness with the other classes of acts composing the
higher class. Hence the true account of abstract terms seems to me to be
that we have in them another limiting case, a case in which the
extension and the intension are coincident. Incidentally, by
illustrating the ambiguity of the principle that attributes have no
attributes of their own, our discussion seems to indicate the advantage
of taking the purely extensional view is opposed to the predicative view
of the import of propositions as the basis of an elementary treatment of
logical doctrine.




THE PRESENT PROBLEMS OF METAPHYSICS

BY ALEXANDER T. ORMOND

     [Alexander Thomas Ormond, McCosh Professor of Philosophy,
     Princeton University, since 1897. b. 1847, Punxsutawney,
     Pennsylvania. Mental Science Fellow, Princeton, 1877-78;
     Post-grad. Bonn and Berlin, 1884-85; Ph.D. Princeton, 1880;
     A.B. _ibid._ 1877; LL.D. Miami, 1899. Professor of
     Philosophy and History, University of Minnesota, 1880-83;
     Professor of Mental Science and Logic, Princeton University,
     1883-97. Member American Philosophical Association, American
     Psychological Association.]


I

THE PRELIMINARY QUESTION


The living problems of any science arise out of two sources: (1) out of
what men may think of it, in view of its nature and claims, and (2) the
problems that at any period are vital to it, and in the solution of
which it realizes the purpose of its existence. Now if we distinguish
the body of the sciences which deal with aspects of the world's
phenomena--and here I would include both the psychic and the
physical--from metaphysics, which professes to go behind the phenomenon
and determine the world in terms of its inner, and, therefore,
_ultimate_ reality, it may be truly said of the body of the sciences
that they are in a position to disregard in a great measure questions
that arise out of the first source, inasmuch as the data from which they
make their departure are obvious to common observation. Our world is all
around us, and its phenomena either press upon us or are patent to our
observation. Lying thus within the field of observation, it does not
occur to the average mind to question either the legitimacy or the
possibility of that effort of reflection which is devoted to their
investigation and interpretation. Metaphysics, however, enjoys no such
immunity as this, but its claims are liable to be met with skepticism or
denial at the outset, and this is due partly to the nature of its
initial claims, and partly to the fact that its real data are less open
to observation than are those of the sciences. I say partly to the
nature of the initial claims of metaphysics, for it is characteristic of
metaphysics that it refuses to regard the distinction between phenomena
and ground or inner nature, on which the sciences rest, as final, and is
committed from the outset to the claim that the real is in its inner
nature one and to be interpreted in the light of, or in terms of, its
inner unity; whereas, science has so indoctrinated the modern mind with
the supposition that only the outer movements of things are open to
knowledge, while their inner and real nature must forever remain
inaccessible to our powers; I say that the modern mind has been so
imbued with this pretension as to have almost completely forgotten the
fact that the distinction of phenomenon and ground is one of science's
own making. Neither the plain man nor the cultured man, if he happens
not to be tinctured with science, finds his world a duality. The things
he deals with are the realities, and it is only when his naïve realism
begins to break down before the complex demands of his growing life,
that the thought occurs to him that his world may be more complex than
he has dreamed. It is clear, then, that the distinction of our world
into phenomena and ground, on which science so largely rests, is a first
product of reflection, and not a fact of observation at all.

If this be the case, it may be possible and even necessary for
reflection at some stage to transcend this distinction. At least, there
can be no reason except an arbitrary one for taking this first step of
reflection to be a finality. And there would be the same justification
for a second step that would transcend this dualism, as for the initial
step out of which the distinction arose; provided, it should be found
that the initial distinction does not supply an adequate basis for a
rational interpretation of the world that can be taken as final. Now, it
is precisely because the dualistic distinction of the sciences does fail
in this regard, that a further demand for a reflective transformation of
the data arises. Let us bear in mind that the data of the sciences are
not the simple facts of observation, but rather those facts transformed
by an act of reflection by virtue of which they become phenomena
distinguished from a more fundamental nature on which they depend and
which itself is not open to observation. The real data of science are
found only when the world of observation has been thus transformed by an
act of reflection. If then at some stage in our effort to interpret our
world it should become clear that the sciences of phenomena, whatever
value their results may possess, are not giving us an interpretation in
terms that can be taken as final, and that in order to ground such an
interpretation a further transformation of our data becomes necessary, I
do not see why any of the sciences should feel that they have cause to
demur. In truth, it is out of just such a situation as this that the
metaphysical interpretation arises (as I propose very briefly here to
show), a situation that supplies a genuine demand in the light of which
the effort of metaphysics to understand its world seems to possess as
high a claim to legitimacy as that of the sciences of phenomena. Let us
take our stand with the plain man or the child, within the world of
unmodified observation. The things of observation, in this world, are
the realities, and at first we may suppose have undergone little
reflective transformation. The first reflective effort to change this
world in any way will, no doubt, be an effort to _number_ or _count_ the
things that present themselves to observation, and out of this effort
will arise the transformation of the world that results from considering
it under the concepts and categories of number. In short, to
mathematical reflection of this simple sort, the things of observation
will resolve themselves into a plurality of countable things, which the
numbering reflection becoming explicit in its ordinal and cardinal
moments will translate into a system that will be regarded as a whole
made up of the sum of its parts. The very first step, then, in the
reflective transformation of things resolves them into a dual system,
the world conceived as a cardinal whole that is made up of its ordinal
parts, and exactly equal to them. This mathematical conception is
moreover purely quantitative; involving the exact and stable equivalence
of its parts or units and that of the sum of the parts with the whole.
Now it is with this purely quantitative transformation that mathematics
and the mathematical sciences begin. We may ask, then, why should there
be any other than mathematical science,[1] and what ground can
non-mathematical science point to as substantiating its claims? I
confess I can see no other final reason than this, that mathematical
science does not meet the whole demand we feel obliged to make on our
world. If mathematics were asked to vindicate itself, it no doubt would
do so by claiming that things present quantitative aspects on which it
founds its procedure. In like manner non-mathematical, or, as we may
call it, physical or natural science, will seek to substantiate its
claims by pointing to certain ultra-quantitative or qualitative aspects
of things. It is true that, so far as things are merely _numerable_,
they are purely quantitative; but mathematics abstracts from the content
and character of its units and aggregates, which may and do change, so
that a relation of stable equivalence is not maintained among them. In
fact, the basis of these sciences is found in the tendency of things to
be always changing and becoming different from what they were before.
The problem of these sciences is how to ground a rational scheme of
knowledge in connection with a fickle world like that of qualitative
change. It is here that reflection finds its problem, and noticing that
the tendency of this world of change is for _a_ to pass into _b_ and
thus to lose its own identity, the act of reflection that rationalizes
the situation is one that connects _a_ and _b_ by relating them to a
common ground _x_ of which they stand as successive manifestations or
symbols. _X_ thus supplies the thread of identity that binds the two
changes _a_ and _b_ into a relation to which the name causation may be
applied. And just as quantitative equivalence is the principle of
relationship among the parts of the simple mathematical world, so here
in the world of the dynamic or natural sciences, the principle of
relation is natural causation.[2] We find, then, that the
non-mathematical sciences rest on a basis that is constituted by a
_second act of reflection_; one that translates our world into a system
of phenomena causally inter-related and connected with their underlying
grounds.

     [Footnote 1: I do not raise the question of qualitative
     mathematics at all. It is clear that the first mathematical
     reflection will be quantitative.]

     [Footnote 2: By natural causation I mean such a relationship
     between _a_ and _b_ in a phenomenal system as enables _a_
     through its connection with its ground to determine _b_.]

We have now reached a point where it will be possible in a few sentences
to indicate the rise of the metaphysical reflection and the ground on
which it rests. If we consider both the mathematical and the physical
ways of looking at things, we will find that they possess this feature
in common,--they are purely external, having nothing to say respecting
the _inner_ and, therefore, _real_ nature of the things with which they
deal. Or, if we concede the latest claims of some of the physical
speculators and agree that the aim of physics is an ultimate physical
explanation of reality, it will still be true that the whole standpoint
of this explanation will be external. Let me explain briefly what I mean
substantially by the term _external_ as I use it here. Every
interpretation of a world is a function of some knowing consciousness,
and consequently of some knowing self. This is too obvious to need
proof. A system will be _external_ to such a knower just to the extent
that the knower finds it dominated and determined by categories that are
different from those of its own determination. A world physically
interpreted is one that is brought completely under the rubrics of
physics and mathematics; whose movements yield themselves completely,
therefore, to a mechanical calculus that gives rise to purely
descriptive formulæ; _or_ to the control of a dynamic principle; that of
natural causation, by virtue of which everything is determined without
thought of its own, by the impulse of another, which impulse itself is
not directly traceable to any thought or purpose. Now, the occasion for
the metaphysical reflection arises when this situation that brings us
face to face, with, nay, makes us part and parcel of, an alien system of
things, becomes intolerable, and the knower begins to demand a closer
kinship with his world. The knower finds the categories of his own
central and characteristic activity in experience. Here he is conscious
of being an agent going out in forms of activity for the realization of
his world. The determining categories of the activity he is most fully
conscious of, are interest, idea, prevision, purpose, and that selective
activity which goes to its termination in some achieved end. The
metaphysical interpretation arises out of the demand that the world
shall be brought into bonds of kinship with the knower. And this is
effected by generalizing the categories of consciousness and applying
them as principles of interpretation to the world. The act of reflection
on which the metaphysical interpretation proceeds is one, then, in which
the world of science is further transformed by bringing the inner nature
of things out of its isolation and translating the world-movements into
process the terms of which are no longer _phenomena and hidden ground_,
but rather inception and realization, or, more specifically, _Idea_ and
_Reality_. And the point to be noted here is the fact that these
metaphysical categories are led up to positivity by an act of reflection
that has for its guiding aim an interpretation of the world that will be
more ultimately satisfactory to the knower than that of the physical or
natural sciences; while negatively, it is led up to by the refusal of
the knowing consciousness to rest in a world alien to its own nature and
in which it is subordinated to the physical and made a mere
epiphenomenon.


II

QUESTIONS OF POINT OF VIEW, PRINCIPLE AND METHOD OF METAPHYSICS


It is clear from what has been said that the metaphysical interpretation
proceeds on a presupposition radically different from that of
mathematical and physical science. The presumption of these sciences is
that the world is physical, that the physical categories supply the
norms of reality, and that consciousness and the psychic, in general,
are subordinate and phenomenal to the physical. On the contrary,
metaphysics arises out of a revolt from these presumptions toward the
opposite presumption, namely, that _consciousness itself is the great
reality_, and that the norms of an ultimate interpretation of things are
to be sought in its categories. This is the great transformation that
conditions the possibility and value of all metaphysics. It is the
Copernican revolution which the mind must pass through, a revolution in
which matter and the physical world yields the primacy to mind; a
revolution in which consciousness becomes central, its categories and
analogies supplying the principles of final world-interpretation. Let us
consider then, in the light of this great Copernican revolution, the
questions of the _point of view_, _principle_, and _method_ of
metaphysics. And here the utmost brevity must be observed. If
consciousness be the great reality, then its own central activity, that
effort by which it realizes its world, will determine for us the _point
of view_ or departure of which we are in quest. This will be _inner_
rather than _outer_; it will be motived by _interest_, will shape itself
into interest-directed effort. This effort will be cognitive; dominated
by an _idea_ which will be an anticipation of the _goal_ of the effort.
It will, therefore, become _directive_, _selective_, and will stand as
the _end_ or _aim_ of the completed effort. The whole movement will thus
take the form, genetically, of a developing _purpose informed by an
idea_, or _teleologically_, of a _purpose going on to its fulfillment_
in some _aim_ which is also its _motive_. Now, metaphysics determines
its point of view in the following reasoning: if in consciousness we
find the type of the inner nature of things, then the point of view for
the interpretation of this inner nature will be to seek by generalizing
the standpoint of consciously determined effort and asserting that this
is the true point of view from which the _meaning_ of the world is to be
sought.

Having determined the metaphysical point of view, the next question of
vital importance is that of its _principle_. And we may cut matters
short here by saying at once that the principle we are seeking is that
of _sufficient reason_, and we may say that a reason will be sufficient
when it adequately expresses the world-view or concept under which an
investigation is being prosecuted. Let us suppose that this world-view
is that of simple mathematics, the principle of sufficient reason here
will be that of _quantitative equivalence_ of parts; or, from the
standpoint of the whole, that of _infinite divisibility_. Whereas, if we
take the world of the ultra-mathematical science, which is determined by
the notion of _phenomena depending on underlying ground_, we will find
that the sufficient reason in this sphere takes the form of _adequate
cause or condition_. The determining condition or causes of any physical
phenomenon supply, from that point of view, the _ratio sufficiens_ of
its existence. We have seen that the sufficiency of a reason in the
above cases has been determined in view of that notion which defines the
kind of world the investigation is dealing with. Let us apply this
insight to the problem of the principle of metaphysics, and we will soon
conclude that no reason can be metaphysically sufficient that does not
satisfy the requirements of a world conceived under the notion of
_inception_ and _realization_; or, more specifically, _idea_ and
_reality_. In short, the _reason_ of metaphysics will refuse to regard
its world as a mechanism that is devoid of thought and intention; that
lacks, in short, the motives of internal determination and movement, and
will in all cases insist that an explanation or interpretation can be
metaphysically adequate only when its ultimate reference is to an idea
that is in the process of _purposive_ fulfillment. Such an explanation
we call _teleological_ or _rational_, rather than merely mechanical, and
such a principle is alone adequate to embody the _ratio sufficiens_ of
metaphysics.

Having determined the point of view and principle of metaphysics, the
question of metaphysical _method_ will be divested of some of its
greatest difficulties. It will be clear to any one who reflects that the
very first problem in regard to the method of metaphysics will be that
of its starting-point and the kind of results it is to look for. And
little can be accomplished here until it has been settled that
consciousness is to have the primacy, and that its prerogative is to
supply both standpoint and principle of the investigation. We have gone
a long way toward mastering our method when we have settled these
points: (1) that the metaphysical world is a world of consciousness; (2)
that the conscious form of effort rather than the mechanical is the
species of activity or movement with which we have to deal; and, (3)
that the world it is seeking to interpret is ultimately one of _idea_
and _reality_ in which the processes take the _purposive_ form. In view
of this, the important steps of method (and we use the term method here
in the most fundamental sense) will be (1) the question of the _form_ of
metaphysical activity or agency as contrasted with that of the physical
sciences. This may be brought out in the contrast of the two terms
_finality_ and _mere efficiency_, in which by mere efficiency is meant
an agency that is presumed to be thoughtless and purposeless, and
consequently without _foresight_. All this is embodied in the term
_force_ or physical energy, and less explicitly in that of _natural
causation_. Contrasted with this, _finality_ is a term that involves the
forward impulse of _idea_, _prevision_, and _purpose_. Anything that is
capable of any sort of _foretaste_ has in it a principle of prevision,
selection, choice, and purpose. The impulse that motives and runs it,
that also stands out as the _end_ of its fulfillment, is a foretaste, an
_Ahnung_, an anticipation, and the whole process or movement, as well as
every part of it, will take on this character. (2) The second question
of method will be that of the nature of this category of which
_finality_ is the form. What is its content, pure idea or pure will, or
a synthesis that includes both? We have here the three alternatives of
_pure rationalism_, _voluntarism_, and a doctrine hard to characterize
in a single word; that rests on a _synthesis_ of the norms of both
rationalism and voluntarism. Without debating these alternatives, I
propose here briefly to characterize the _synthetic_ concept as
supplying what I conceive to be the most satisfactory doctrine. The
principle of _pure rationalism_ is one of insight but is lacking in
practical energy, whereas, that of _voluntarism_ supplies practical
energy, but is lacking in insight. Pure voluntarism is _blind_, while
pure rationalism is _powerless_. But the synthesis of _idea_ and _will_,
provided we go a step further (as I think we must) and presuppose also a
germ of _feeling_ as _interest_, supplies both _insight_ and _energy_.
So that the spring out of which our world is to arise may be described
as either the _idea informed with purposive energy_, or _purpose or will
informed and guided by the idea_. It makes no difference which form of
conception we use. In either case if we include feeling as interest we
are able to conceive movements originating in some species of
apprehension, taking the dynamic form of purpose, and motived and
selected, so to speak, by interest; and in describing such activity we
are simply describing these normal movements of consciousness with which
our experience makes us most familiar. (3) The third question of method
involves the relation or correlation of the metaphysical interpretation
with that of the natural or physical science. Two points are fundamental
here. In the first place, it must be borne in mind that it is the same
world with which the plain man, the man of science, and the
metaphysician are concerned. We cannot partition off the external world
to the plain man, the atoms and ethers to the man of science, leaving
the metaphysician in exclusive and solitary possession of the world of
consciousness. It is the same world for all. The metaphysician cannot
shift the physical world, with its oceans and icebergs, its vast
planetary systems and milky ways, on to the shoulders of the physicist.
This is the metaphysician's own recalcitrant world, which will doubtless
task all his resources to explain. In the _second_ place, though it is
the same world that is clamoring for interpretation, it is a world that
passes through successive transformations, in order to adapt itself to
progressive modes of interpretation. The plain man is called to pass
through a species of Copernican revolution that subordinates the
phenomenon to its ground, before he can become a man of science. In
turn, the man of science must go through the Copernican process, and
learn to subordinate his atoms and ethers to consciousness before he can
become a metaphysician. And it is this transformation that marks one of
the most fundamental steps in the method of metaphysics. The world must
experience this transformation, and it must become habitual to the
thinker to subordinate the physical to the mental before the
metaphysical point of view can be other than foreign to him. If, then,
it be the same content with which the sciences and metaphysics are
called on to deal, it is clear that we have on our hands another problem
on the answer to which the fate of metaphysics vitally depends; the
question of the _correlation_ of its method with that of the sciences so
that it may stand vindicated as the final interpretation of things.


III

QUESTION OF THE CORRELATION OF METAPHYSICS WITH THE SCIENCES


We have reached two conclusions that are vital here: (1) that the
metaphysical way of looking at the world involves a transformation of
the world of physical science; (2) that it is the same world that lies
open to both science and metaphysics. Out of this arises the problem of
the _correlation_ of the two views; the two interpretations of the
world. If science be right in conceiving the world under such categories
as quantity and natural causation; if science be right in seeking a
mechanical explanation of phenomena (that is, one that excludes
prevision, purpose, and aim); and if metaphysics be right in refusing to
accept this explanation as final and in insisting that the principle of
ultimate interpretation is teleological, that it falls under the
categories of prevision, purpose, and aim; then it is clear that the
problem of correlation is on our hands. In dealing with this problem, it
will be convenient to separate it into two questions: (1) that of the
fact; (2) that of its rationale. The fact of the correlation is a thing
of common experience. We have but to consider the way in which this
Congress of Science has been brought about in order to have an
exhibition of the method of correlation. Originating first in the sphere
of thought and purpose, the design has been actualized through the
operation of mechanical agencies which it has somehow contributed to
liberate. On the scale of individual experience we have the classic
instance of the arm moving through space in obedience to a hidden will.
There can be no question as to the fact and the great difficulty of
metaphysics does not arise in the task of generalizing the fact and
conceiving the world as a system of thought-purposes working out into
forms of the actual through mechanical agencies. This generalization
somehow lies at the foundation of all metaphysical faith, and, this
being the case, the real task here, aside from the profounder question
of the _rationale_, is that of exhibiting the actual points of
correlation; those points in the various stages of the sciences from
physics to ethics and religion, at which the last category or result of
science is found to hold as its immediate implication some first term of
the more ultimate construction of metaphysics. The working out of this
task is of the utmost importance, inasmuch as it makes clear to both the
man of science and the metaphysician the intrinsic necessity of the
correlation. It is a task analogous to the Kantian deduction of the
categories.


IV

QUESTIONS OF THE ULTIMATE NATURE OF REALITY


We come, then, to the question of the rationale of this correlation, and
it is clear here that we are dealing with a phase of the problem of the
ultimate nature of reality. For the question of the correlation now is
how it is possible that our thoughts should affect things so that they
move in response; how mind influences body or the reverse, how, when we
will, the arm moves through space. And without going into details of
discussion here, let us say at once, that whatever the situation may be
for any science,--and it may be that some form of _dualism_ is a
necessary presupposition of science,--for metaphysics it is clear that
no dualism of substances or orders can be regarded as final. The life of
metaphysics depends on finding the one for the many; the one that when
found will also ground the many. If, then, the phenomenon of _mind and
body_ presents the appearance of a correspondence of two different and,
so far as can be determined, mutually exclusive agencies, the problem of
metaphysics is the reduction of these agencies to one species. Here we
come upon the issue between materialism and immaterialism. But inasmuch
as the notion of metaphysics itself seems to exclude materialism, the
vital alternative is that of immaterialism. Again, if psycho-physics
presents as its basal category a _parallelism_ between two orders of
phenomena, psychic and physical, it is the business of metaphysics to
seek the explanation of this dualism in some more ultimate and unitary
conception. Now, since the very notion of metaphysics again excludes the
physical alternative from the category of finality, we are left with the
psychic term as the one that, by virtue of the fact that it embodies a
form of _conscious_ activity, promises to be most fruitful for
metaphysics. From one point of view, then, we have reduced our world to
immaterialism; from another, to some form or analogue of the psychic.
Now it is not necessary here to carry the inquiry further in this
direction. For what metaphysics is interested in, specially, is the fact
that the world must be reduced to one kind of being and one type of
agency. If this be done, it is clear that the dualism of _body and mind_
and the _parallel orders_ of psycho-physics cannot be regarded as final,
but must take their places as phenomena that are relative and reducible
to a more fundamental unity. The metaphysician will say that the arm
moves through space in response to the will, and that everywhere the
correlation between mechanical and teleological agency takes place
because in the last analysis _there is only one type of agency_; an
agency that finds its initiative in interest, thought, purpose, design,
and thus works out its results in the fields of space and mechanical
activities.

Furthermore, on the question to which these considerations lead up; that
of the ultimate interpretation we are to put on the reality of the
world, the issue is not so indeterminate as it might seem from some
points of view. Taking it that the very notion of metaphysics excludes
the material and the physical as ultimate types of the real, we are left
with the notions of the immaterial and the psychic; and while the former
is indefinite, it is a fact that in the psychic and especially in the
form of it which man realizes in his own experience, he finds an
intelligible type and the only one that is available to him for the
definition of the immaterial. He has his choice, then, either to regard
the world as _absolutely opaque_, showing nothing but its phenomenal
dress which ceases to have any meaning; or to apply to the world's inner
nature the intelligible types and analogies of his own form of being.
That this is the alternative that is embodied in the existence of
metaphysics is clearly demonstrated by the fact that the metaphysical
interpretation embodies itself in the categories of _reason_, _design_,
_purpose_, and _aim_. Whatever difficulties we may encounter, then, in
the _use_ and application of the _psychic analogy_ in determining the
nature of the real, it is clear that its employment is inevitable and
indispensable. Let us, then, employ the term _rational_ to that
characterization of the nature of things which to metaphysics is thus
inevitable and indispensable. The world must in the last analysis be
_rational_ in its constitution, and its agencies and forms of being must
be construed as _rational_ in their type.

And here we come upon the last question in this field, that of the
_ultimate being of the world_. We have already concluded that the _real_
is in the last analysis rational. But we have not answered the question
whether there shall be one rational or many. Now it has become clear
that with metaphysics _unity_ is a cardinal interest; that, therefore,
the world must be _one_ in _thought_, _purpose_, _aim_. And it is on
this insight that the metaphysical doctrine of the _absolute_ rests.
There must be _one_ being whose thought and purpose are all-inclusive,
in order that the world may be one and that it may have meaning as a
whole. But the world presents itself as a plurality of finite
_existents_ which our metaphysics requires us to reduce in the last
analysis to the psychic type. What of this plurality of psychic
existents? It is on this basis that metaphysics constructs its doctrine
of _individuality_. Allowing for latitude of opinion here, the trend of
metaphysical reflection sets strongly toward a doctrine of reality that
grounds the world in an Absolute whose all-comprehending thought and
purpose utters or realizes itself in the plurality of finite individuals
that constitutes the world; the degree of reality that shall be ascribed
to the plurality of individuals being a point in debate, giving rise to
the contemporary form of the issue between idealism and realism.
Allowing for minor differences, however, there is among metaphysicians a
fair degree of assent to the doctrine that in order to be completely
rational the world of individual plurality must be regarded as implying
an _Absolute_, which, whether it is to be conceived as an individual or
not, is the author and bearer of the thought and design of the world as
a whole.


V

QUESTIONS OF METAPHYSICAL KNOWLEDGE AND ULTIMATE CRITERIA OF TRUTH


We have only time to speak very briefly, in conclusion, of two vital
problems in metaphysics: (1) that of the nature and limits of
metaphysical knowledge; (2) that of the ultimate criteria of truth. In
regard to the question of knowledge, we may either _identify thought
with reality_, or we may regard thought as _wholly inadequate to
represent the real_; in one case we will be _gnostic_, in the other
_agnostic_. Now whatever may be urged in favor of the gnostic
alternative, it remains true that _our_ thought, in order to follow
along intelligible lines, must be guided by the categories and analogies
of our own experience. This fixes a limit, so that the thought of man is
never in a position to grasp the real completely. Again, whatever may be
urged in behalf of the agnostic alternative, it is to be borne in mind
that our experience does supply us with intelligible types and
categories; and that under the impulse of the _infinite_ and _absolute_,
or the transcendent, to which our thought responds (to put it no
stronger), a dialectical activity arises; on the one hand, the
application of the experience-analogies to determine the real; on the
other, the incessant removal of limits by the impulse of transcendence
(as we may call it). Thus arises a _movement of approximation_ which
while it never completely compasses its goal, yet proceeds along
intelligent lines; constitutes the mind's effort to know; and results in
an _approximating series of intelligible and relatively adequate
conceptions_. Metaphysically, we are ever approximating to ultimate
knowledge; though it can never be said that we have attained it. The
type of metaphysical knowledge cannot be characterized, therefore, as
either gnostic or agnostic.

As to the question of ultimate _criteria_, it is clear that we are here
touching one of the living issues of our present-day thought. Shall the
judgment of truth, on which certitude must found, exclude practical
considerations of value, or shall the consideration of value have weight
in the balance of certitude? On this issue we have at the opposite
extremes (1) the _pure rationalist_ who insists on the rigid exclusion
from the epistemological scale of every consideration except that of
pure logic. The truth of a thing, he urges, is always a purely logical
consideration. On the other hand, we have (2) the _pure pragmatist_, who
insists on the "_will to believe_" as a legitimate datum or factor in
the determination of certitude. The pragmatic platform has two planks:
(1) the _ontological_--we select our world that we call real at the
behest of our interests; (2) the _ethical_--in such a world practical
interest has the right of way in determining what we are to accept as
true as well as what we are to choose as good. It is my purpose in thus
outlining the extremes of doctrine to close with a suggestion or two
toward less ultra-conclusions. It is a sufficient criticism on the _pure
rationalist's_ position to point out the fact that his separation of
practical and theoretic interests is a pure fiction that is never
realized anywhere. The motives of science and the motives of practice
are so blended that interest in the conclusion always enters as a factor
in the process. A conclusion reached by the pure rationalist's method
would be one that would only interest the pure rationalist in so far as
he could divest himself of all motives except the bare love of fact for
its own sake. The _pure pragmatist_ is, I think, still more vulnerable.
He must, to start with, be a pure subjective idealist, otherwise he
would find his world at many points recalcitrant to his ontology.
Furthermore, the mere _will to believe_ is arbitrary and involves the
suppression of reason. In order that the will to believe may work _real_
conviction, the point believed must at least amount to a postulate of
the practical reason; it must become somehow evident that the refusal to
believe would create a situation that would be theoretically unsound or
irrational; as, for instance, if we assume that the immortality of the
soul is a _real postulate_ of practical reason, it must be so because
the negative of it would involve the irrationality of our world; and
therefore a degree of theoretic imperfection or confusion. Personally I
believe the lines here converge in such a way that the ideal of truth
will always be found to have practical value; and _conversely_, as to
practical ideals, that a sound practical postulate will have weight in
the theoretic scales. And it is doubtless true, as Professor Royce urges
in his presidential address on _The Eternal and The Practical_, that all
judgments must find their final warrant at the Court of the Eternal
where, so far as we can see, the theoretical and practical coalesce into
one.

       *     *     *     *     *

At the close of the work of this Section and upon the invitation of Dr.
Armstrong, a number of distinguished members in attendance joined freely
in the discussion, to the great pleasure of the many specialists who
were present. Among those participating were Professor Boltzmann of
Vienna, Professor Hoeffding of Copenhagen, Professor Calkins of
Wellesley, and Professor French of the University of Nebraska, to whom
replies were made by the principal speakers, Messrs. Taylor and Ormond.




SHORT PAPERS


A short paper was contributed to the work of the Section by Professor W.
P. Montague of Columbia University, on the "Physical Reality of
Secondary Qualities." The speaker said that from the beginning of modern
philosophy there has existed a strong tendency among all schools of
thought--monists of the idealistic or materialistic types, as well as
outspoken dualists--to treat the distinction between primary and
secondary qualities as coincident, so far as it goes, with the
distinction between physical and psychical. Colors, sounds, odors, etc.,
are regarded as purely subjective or mental in their nature, and as
having no true membership in the physical order; while correlatively all
special forms and relations have been in their turn extruded from the
field of the psychical. Let it be noted that introspection offers little
or nothing in support of this view. There is nothing, for example, about
the color red that would make it appear more distinctively psychical or
subjective than a figure or a motion. The perception of a square or a
triangle is not a square or triangular perception; but neither is the
perception of red or blue a red or blue perception. Now with the
affective or emotional contents of experience the case is quite
different.

A feeling of pain is a painful feeling, a consciousness of anger is an
angry consciousness. Pains are more and less painful, according as we
are more and less aware of them. With feelings and volitions _esse_ is
indeed _percipi_. Colors and other secondary qualities, however, do not
seem thus to increase or diminish in their reality concomitantly with
our perceptions of them. Red is red, neither more nor less, regardless
of the amount to which we attend to it. And yet it remains true that,
notwithstanding this seeming objectivity, the secondary qualities have
long been contrasted with the primary, and classed along with the
affective and volitional states as purely subjective facts. It has
always seemed curious that a view so important as this in its
consequences, and so radically at variance, not only with Pre-Cartesian
philosophy, but also with our instinctive beliefs, should have won its
way to the position of an accepted dogma; and the purpose of this paper
was first to examine the grounds upon which this belief rests, and
second to show that the problem of the independent reality of the
physical world and the problem of the relation of physical and psychical
appear in a clearer and more hopeful light when disentangled from the
quite different problem of the relation of primary and secondary
qualities.

There were two reasons why the older or Pre-Cartesian view of this
question should give place to the modern doctrine. First, because of the
rediscovery of the idea of mechanism, without which predictive science
had been virtually impossible. The second reason for reducing the
secondary qualities to a merely subjective status lay in the fact that
they are much more dependent than the primary qualities upon the bodily
organism of the one who perceives them. In closing Professor Montague
said:--

"I wish in closing to point out two consequences of the view which I
have been opposing. First, the present paradoxical status of the eternal
world; second, the equally paradoxical status of the relation of that
world to the world of mind. Berkeley was the first thinker clearly to
perceive the unsubstantial nature of a world made up solely of primary
qualities. Indeed, in the last analysis, a world of primary qualities,
and nothing else, is a world of relations without terms, a geometrical
fiction, the objective (or, for that matter, the subjective) existence
of which the idealist would be right in denying. In Biology we have
abandoned obscurantist methods, and no longer attribute the distinctive
vital functions of growth and reproduction to a vital force or vital
substance, but solely to the peculiar configuration of the material
elements of a cell. Why may we not in psychology with equal propriety
attribute the distinctively psychical functions of subjectivity or
consciousness, not to the action of a hyper-psychical soul-substance,
nor to the presence of a transcendental ego, but simply to that peculiar
configuration of sensory elements which constitutes a what we call
psychosis?"




SECTION B--PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION




SECTION B

PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

(_Hall 1, September 21, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR THOMAS C. HALL, Union Theological Seminary, N. Y.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR OTTO PFLEIDERER, University of Berlin.
             PROFESSOR ERNST TROELTSCH, University of Heidelberg.
  SECRETARY: DR. W. P. MONTAGUE, Columbia University.




THE RELATION OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION TO THE OTHER SCIENCES

BY PROFESSOR OTTO PFLEIDERER

     [D. Otto Pfleiderer, Professor of Theology, University of
     Berlin since 1875. b. September 1, 1839, Stetten,
     Würtemberg. Grad. Tübingen, 1857-61. Post-grad. _ibid._
     1864-68. City Professor, Heilbronn, 1868-69; Superintendent,
     Jena, 1869-70; Professor of Theology, Jena, 1870-75. Author
     of _Religion and its Essential Characteristics_; _Religious
     Philosophy upon Historical Foundation_; and many other works
     and papers on Theology.]


In order to answer this question, we need to consider a preliminary
question, namely, whether religion can be regarded as the object of
scientific knowledge in the same manner as other processes of the
intellectual life of the race, such as law, history, and art. It is well
known that this question has not always received an affirmative answer,
and indeed it can never be answered in the affirmative so long as the
position is maintained that the only religion is that of the Christian
Church, whose doctrines and teachings rest upon an immediate divine
revelation, and that these must be accepted by men in blind belief.
Under the position of an authoritative ecclesiastical faith there can
indeed exist a theoretical consideration of the doctrines of faith, as
it was the case with the scholastic theology of the Middle Ages, which
with great earnestness sought to harmonize faith and knowledge;
nevertheless, no one of the present day would give to the scholastic
theology the name of science with the modern meaning of the term
science. The scholastic theology used great formal acuteness and skill
in the work of defining and defending ecclesiastical traditions, still
there was lacking that which for us is the essential condition of
scientific knowledge, the free examination of tradition according to the
laws of human thought and the analogy of the general experience of
humanity. The great hindrance to the progress of the knowledge of
religion was the accepted position that the truth of the ecclesiastical
doctrines was beyond human reason and outside of human examination,
since their truth rested upon an immediate divine revelation. Whether
this supernatural authority was ascribed to the Church or the Bible
makes very little difference, for in either case the assumption of such
an authority is a hindrance to the free examination of that which claims
to be the divine revealed truth.

But is this assumption really justifiable in the nature of the case? Do
the doctrines of the Church rest upon a supernatural divine revelation?
So soon as this question was really earnestly considered, and the
thinking mind could not always avoid the consideration, then there was
revealed the inadequacy of the assumption. Two ways of examination led
to a common critical result, the philosophical analysis of the religious
consciousness and the historical comparison of various religions. The
first to enter upon these ways and at the same time to become the
founder of the modern science of religion was the keen Scotch thinker
David Hume. Truly the thought of Hume was still a one-sided,
disorganizing skepticism; even as his theory of knowledge disturbed the
truth of all our previous commonsense opinions and conceptions, so also
his philosophy of religion sought to demonstrate that all religion
cannot be proved and is full of doubt, and that the origin of religion
was neither to be found in divine revelation nor in the reason of man,
but in the passions of the heart and in the illusions of imagination. As
unsatisfactory as this result was, nevertheless it gave an important
advance to the rational study of religion in two directions, in that of
religion being an experience of the inner life of the soul and in that
of religion being a fact of human history.

Kant added the positive criticism of reason to the negative skepticism
of Hume; that is, Kant showed that the human intellect moved
independently in the formation of theoretical and practical judgments,
and that the various materials of thought, desire, and feelings were
regulated by the intellect according to innate original ideas of the
true and good and beautiful. Thus as a natural result there came the
conception that the doctrines of belief arose not as complete truths,
given by divine revelation, but, like every other form of conscious
knowledge, these came to us through the activity of our own mind, and
that therefore these doctrines cannot be regarded as of absolute
authority for all time, but that we are to seek to understand their
origin in historical and psychical motives. So far as one looked at the
ceremonial forms of positive religion, these motives indeed were found
according to Kant in irrational conceptions, but as far as the essence
of religion was concerned they were rather found to be rooted in the
moral nature of man. This is the consciousness of obligation of the
practical reason or of the conscience, which raises man to a faith in
the moral government of the world, in immortality and God. With the
reduction of religion from all external forms, doctrines, and ceremonies
and the finding of the real essence of religion in the human mind and
spirit, the way was opened to a knowledge of religion free from all
external authority. Those philosophers who came after Kant followed
essentially this course, though here and there they may separate in
their opinions according to their thought of the psychological function
of religion. When Kant had emphasized the close connection between
religion and the moral obligation, then came Schleiermacher, who
emphasized the feeling of our dependence upon the Eternal, and who
sought to find the explanation of all religious thoughts and conceptions
in the many relations of the feeling to religious experience. Hegel on
the other hand sought the truth of religion in the thought of the
absolute spirit as found in the finite spirit. Thus Hegel made religion
a sort of popular philosophy.

At present all agree that all sides of the soul-life have part in
religion; now one side may be the more prominent, now another, according
to the peculiarity of certain religions or the individual temperaments.
The philosophy of religion has, in common with scientific psychology,
the question of the relation of feeling to the intellect and the will,
and as yet there may be many views of this question. Altogether the
philosophy of religion is looking for important solutions to many of its
problems from the realm of the present scientific psychology.
Experiences, such as religious conversions, appear under this point of
view as ethical changes in which the aim of a personal life is changed
from a carnal and selfish end to that of a spiritual and altruistic
purpose. These are extraordinary and seemingly supernatural processes;
nevertheless in them there can still be found a certain development of
the soul-life according to law. Modern psychology especially has thrown
light upon the abnormal conditions of consciousness which have so often
been made manifest in the religious experience of all times. That which
religious history records concerning inspiration, visions, ecstasy, and
revelation, we now classify with the well-known appearances of
hypnotism, the induction of conceptions and motives of the will through
foreign suggestion or through self-suggestion, of the division of
consciousness in different egos, and in the union of several
consciousnesses into one common mediumistic fusion of thought and will.
The explanation of these experiences may not yet be satisfactory, but
nevertheless we do not doubt the possibility of a future explanation
from the general laws controlling the life of the soul. The fact that we
can through psychological experiments produce such abnormal conditions
of consciousness justifies us in taking the position, that certain
psychical laws are at the foundation of these conditions which in their
kind are as natural and regular in their functions as the physical laws
which we observe in physical experiments. These solutions which modern
psychology so far has given, and hopes still further to give, are of
great importance to the philosophy of religion. They are an indorsement
of the general principle which one hundred years ago had been advanced
by critical speculation, namely, that in all experiences of the
religious life the same principles which control the human mind in all
other intellectual and emotional fields shall hold sway. Nothing
therefore should hinder us in scientific research from following the
well-defined maxims of thought, and unreservedly applying the same
methods of scientific analysis in theology as is done generally in the
other sciences.

The claim of the Church to infallibility and divine inspiration of its
dogmas is weakened under this view of the work of the philosophy of
religion. Prophetical inspiration and ecstasy, which usually were
thought to be supernatural revelations, are now declared by the present
psychology to come under the category of other analogous experiences,
such as the action of mental powers which, under definite conditions of
individual gifts and on historical occasions, have manifested themselves
in extraordinary forms of consciousness. However, these enthusiastic
forms of prophetical consciousness cannot be accepted for a higher form
of knowledge or even as of divine origin and as an infallible
proclamation of the truth; on the contrary, these forms are to be judged
as pathological appearances, which may be more harmful than beneficent
for the ethical value of the prophetical intuition. At least, it has
come to pass that all forms of revelation must come under the
examination of a psychological analysis and of an analogical judgment.
Hence their traditional nimbus of unique, supernatural, and absolute
authority is for all time destroyed.

We are carried to the same result by the comparative study of the
history of religions. The study shows us that the Christian Church, with
its dogma of the divine inspiration of the Bible, does not stand alone;
that before and after Christianity other religions made exactly the same
claims for their sacred scriptures. By the pious Brahman the Veda is
regarded as infallible and eternal; he believes the hymns of the old
seers were not composed by the seers themselves, but were taken from an
original copy in heaven. The Buddhist sees in the sayings of his sacred
book "Dhammapadam" the exact inheritance of the infallible words of his
omniscient teacher Buddha. For the confessor of Ahuramazda the
Zendavesta contains the scriptural revelation of the good spirit unto
the prophet Zarathustra; according to the rabbis the laws revealed unto
Moses on Mount Sinai were even before the creation of the world the
object of the observation of God; for the faithful Mohammedan the Koran
is the copy of an ever-present original in heaven, the contents of which
were dictated word for word to Mohammed by the angel Gabriel. Whoever
ponders the similar claims of all these religions for the infallibility
of their sacred books, to him it becomes difficult to hold the dogma of
the Christian Church concerning the inspiration and infallibility of the
Bible as alone true and the similar dogmas of other religions as being
false. Rather he will accept the view that in all these examples there
are found the same motives of the religious mind, that here is given an
expression to the same need common to all seeking for an absolute and
abiding basis for their faith.

The study of the comparison of religions has discovered in religions
other than that of Christianity many very striking parallels to many
narratives and teachings of the Bible. It may be well to recall very
briefly some of the important points. Owing to the fact that the
Assyrian cuneiform writings have now been deciphered, there has been
found a story of the creation which has many characteristics in common
with those of the Bible. There is found a story of a flood, which in its
very details can be regarded as the forerunner of the story of the flood
in the Bible. There have been found Assyrian penitential psalms, which,
in consciousness of guilt and in earnestness of prayer for forgiveness,
can well be compared with many psalms of the Bible. Recently the Code of
the Assyrian King Hammurabi, who reigned two thousand three hundred
years before Christ, has been discovered. The similarity of this Code
with many of the early Mosaic Laws has called general attention to this
fact. In the Persian religion there are found teachings of the Kingdom
of God, of the good spirits who surround the throne of God, of the
Spirit hostile to God and of an army of his demons, of the judgment of
each soul after death, of a heaven with eternal light and of the dark
abyss of hell, of the future struggle of the multitudes of good and bad
spirits and the victory over the bad through a divine hero and saviour,
of the general resurrection of the dead, of the awful destruction of the
world and the creation of a new and better world,--teachings which are
also found in the later Jewish theology and apocalypse, so that the
acceptance of a dependence of Jewish upon corresponding Persian teaching
can hardly be avoided. Also Grecian influence is observed in later
Jewish literature, in proverbs, in the wisdom of Solomon and the Son of
Sirach; especially in the Alexandrian Jewish theology are found Platonic
thoughts of an eternal, ideal world, of the heavenly home of the soul,
and the Stoic conception of a world-ruling divine Logos.

It is from this source that the Logos to which Philo had already
ascribed the meaning of the Son of God and the Bringer of a divine
revelation crossed over into Christian theology and became the
foundation of the dogma of the Church concerning the person of Christ.
Of still greater importance than even all this was the opening of the
Indian and especially the Buddhistic religious writings. In these we
have, five hundred years before Christianity, the revelation of
redemptive religion, resting upon the ethical foundation of the
abnegation of self and the withdrawal from the world. In the centre of
this religion is Gautama Buddha, the ideal teacher of redeeming truth,
whose human life was adorned by the faith of his followers with a crown
of wonderful legends; from an abode in heaven, out of mercy to the
world, he descended into the world, conceived and born of a virgin
mother, greeted and entertained by heavenly spirits, recognized
beforehand by a pious seer as the future redeemer of the world; as a
youth he manifested a wisdom beyond that of his teachers. Then after the
reception of an illuminating revelation, he victoriously overcomes the
temptation of the devil, who would cause him to become faithless to his
call to redemption. Then he begins to preach of the coming of the
Kingdom of Justice, and sends forth his disciples, two by two, as
messengers of his gospel to all people. Although he declares that it is
not his calling to perform miracles, nevertheless the legends indeed
tell how many sick were healed, how with the contents of a small basket
hundreds were fed, how possessed of all knowledge he reveals hidden
things; how overcoming the limitations of space and time, swaying in the
air, being transfigured in a heavenly light, he reveals himself to his
disciples just before his death. And at last, in the faith of his
followers, having passed from the position of a human teacher to that of
an eternal heavenly spirit and lord of the world, he is exalted as the
object of prayer and reverence, to many millions of the human race in
Southern and Eastern Asia.

It is hardly possible that the knowledge of this parallel from India to
the New Testament, and of the Babylonian and Persian parallel to the Old
Testament, can be without influence upon the religious thought of
Christian people. Although we may be ever so much convinced concerning
the essential superiority of our religion over all other religions,
nevertheless the dogmatic contrast between absolute truth on the one
side and complete falsity on the other can no more be maintained. In
place of this view there must enter the view of a relative grade of
differences between the higher and lower stages of development. No
longer can we see in other religions only mistakes and fiction, but
under the husk of their legends many precious kernels of truth must be
seen, expressions of inner religious feelings and of noble ethical
sentiments. One should therefore accept the position not to object to
the same discrimination between husk and kernel in the matter of one's
own religion, and to recognize in its inherited traditions and dogmas
legendary elements, the explanation of which is to be found in psychical
motives and in historical surroundings, even as they are found in the
corresponding parts of religions other than the Christian religion.
Therefore the historical comparison of religions takes us away from an
absolute dogmatic positivism to a relative evolutionary manner of study,
placing all religions without exception under the laws of time
progression and under the causal connection of the law of cause and
effect. The isolation of religion therefore is no more. It is regarded
as being a part of other human historical affairs, and must yield to the
test of a thorough unhindered research. The value of the Christian
religion can never suffer in the view of a reasonable man, when it is
not accepted in blind faith, but as the result of discriminating
comparison.

As the evolutionary philosophy of religion uses the method of science
without exception in the case of all historical religions, so also it
does not shrink from taking up the question of the beginning of
religion, but believes that here also is found the key in the
analytical, critical, and comparative method. And here is found the
assistance of the comparative study of languages, ethnology, and
paleontology.

The celebrated Sanscrit scholar, Max Müller, sought in the comparative
study of mythology to prove the etymological relation of many of the
Grecian gods and heroes with those of the mythology of India and to
trace the common origin of all these mythical beings and legends in the
personification of the movements of the heavenly bodies, the thunder and
lightning, the tempest and the rain. All mythical belief in gods of the
Indo-Germanic peoples seems to have arisen out of a poetical view and
dramatic personification of the powers of nature. Suggestive as this
hypothesis is, it is not by any means sufficient to give us a complete
explanation of the subject. In fact, others have shown that primitive
religion does not altogether consist in mythical conceptions, but mainly
in reverential actions, sacrifices, sacraments, vows, and other similar
cults, which have very little to do with the atmospherical powers of
nature, but rather with the social life of primitive people. And when
once the sight was clearly directed to the social meaning of the
religious rites, it was then observed that even the earliest legends
concerning the gods were connected far more closely with the habits and
customs of early society than with the facts of nature. Tyler's
celebrated book concerning "Primitive Civilization" is written from this
standpoint, an epoch-making book, showing the original close connection
of religion with the entire civilization of humanity, with the views of
life and death, the social customs, the forms of law, their strivings in
art and science; a book with a large amount of information, brought
together from observation on all sides. In this channel are found all
the researches which to-day are classified under the name of Folklore;
seeking to gather the still existing characteristic customs and forms,
legends, stories, and sayings, in order to compose these and to discover
the survivals of earliest religion, poetry, and civilization of
humanity. The gain of this study pursued with so great diligence is not
to be underrated. These studies show that all that, which at one time
existed as faith in the spirit of humanity, possessed within its very
nature the strongest power of continuance, so that in new and strange
conditions and in other forms it continued to remain. Under all changes
and progress of history there is still found an unbroken connection of
constant development.

As important, however, as the possession of a general knowledge of
historical forms of development is to the philosophy of religion,
nevertheless the possession of this knowledge is not wholly a
fulfillment of the purpose of the philosophy of religion. To understand
a development means not merely to know how one thing follows as the
result of the other, but also to understand the law which lies at the
foundation of all empirical changes and at the same time controls the
end of the development. If this principle holds good in the
understanding of the development in the processes of nature, much more
does the principle hold good in understanding the processes of
intellectual development of humanity, which have for us not only a
theoretical, but at the same time an eminently practical interest. The
philosopher of religion sees in religious history not merely the coming
together of similar forms, but an advance from the lowest stage of
childlike ignorance to an ever purer and richer realization of the idea
of religion, a divinely ordained progress for the education of humanity
from the slavery of nature to the freedom of the spirit. The question
now arises: where do we find the principle and law of this ever-rising
development? Where do we find the measure of judgment for the relative
value of religious appearances? It is clear that the general principle
of the complete development cannot be found in a single fact which is
only one of the many manifestations of the general principle, and it is
just as clear that the absolute norm of judgment is not found in a
single fact always relative, presenting to us the object of judgment and
therefore being impossible to stand as the norm of judgment. Therefore
the principle of religious development and the norm of its judgment can
only be found in the inner being of the spirit of humanity, namely, in
the necessary striving of the mind into an harmonious arrangement of all
our conceptions, or the idea of the truth, and into the complete order
of all our purposes, or the idea of the good. These ideas unite in the
highest unity, in the Idea of God. Therefore the consciousness of God is
the revelation of the original innate longing of reason after complete
unity as a principle of universal harmony and consistence in all our
thinking and willing. Hence, in the first place, arises the result that
the development of the consciousness of God in the history of religion
is always dependent upon the existing conditions of the two united
sides, the theoretical perception of the truth and the moral standard of
life. In the second place the result arises that the judgment of the
value of all appearances in the history of religion depends as to
whether and how far these appearances agree with the idea of the true
and the good, and correspond with the demands of reason and conscience.
That science which is engaged with the idea of the good we name Ethics;
that which is engaged with the last principles of the perception of
truth, using the expression of Aristotle, we may name Metaphysics, or
following Plato--Dialectic. Recognizing then in the idea of God the
synthesis of the idea of the true and the good, the philosophy of
religion is closely related with both, Ethics and Metaphysics.

At present the relation of religion to morality is an object of much
controversy. There are many who hold that morality without religion is
not only possible but also very desirable; since they are of the opinion
that moral strength is weakened, the will is without freedom, and its
motives corrupted on account of religious conceptions. On the other
hand, the Church, considering the experience of history, finds that
religion has ever proved itself to be the strongest and most necessary
aid to morality. In this contest the philosophy of religion occupies the
position of a judge who is called upon to adjust the relative rights of
the parties. The philosophy of religion brings to light the historical
fact that from the very beginnings of human civilization, social life
and morality were closely connected with religious conceptions and
usages, and indeed always so interchangeable in their influence that the
position of social civilization on the one side corresponded with the
position of religious civilization on the other, just as the water-level
in two communicating pipes. Therefore it follows that it is unjust and
not historical to blame religion on account of the defects of a national
and temporal morality; for these defects of morality, with the
corresponding errors of religion, find a common ground in a low stage of
development of the entire civilization of the people of the time and
age. Further, it becomes the task of the philosophy of religion to
examine whether this correspondence of religion and morality, recognized
in history, is also found in the very nature of morality and religion.
This question in the main is answered without doubt in the affirmative,
for it is clear that the religious feeling of dependence upon one
all-ruling power is well adapted not only to make keen the moral
consciousness of obligation and to deepen the feeling of responsibility,
but also to endow moral courage with power and to strengthen the hope of
the solution of moral purposes. The clearer religious faith comprehends
the relation of man to God, so much the more will that faith prove
itself as a strong motive and a great incentive of the moral life. Such
a conception will not make the moral will unfree but truly free, not in
the sense of a selfish choice, but in the sense of a love that serves,
knowing itself as an instrument of the divine will, who binds us all
into a social organism, the kingdom of God. And, on the other hand, the
more ideal the moral view of life, the higher and greater its aims, the
more it recognizes its great task to care for the welfare not only of
the individual but of all, to coöperate in the welfare and development
of all forms of society, the more earnestly the moral mind will need a
sincere faith that this is God's world, that above all the changes of
time an eternal will is on the throne, whose all-wise guidance causes
everything to be for the best unto those who love him.

A like middle position of arbitration falls to the philosophy of
religion in the matter of the relation of religion to science. The first
demand of science is freedom of thought, according to its own logical
laws, and its fundamental assumption is the possibility of the knowledge
of the world on the basis of the unchangeable laws of all existence and
events. With this fundamental demand science places itself in opposition
to the formal character of ecclesiastical doctrine so far as the
doctrine claims infallible authority resting upon a divine revelation.
And the fundamental assumption of the regular law of the course of the
world is in opposition to the contents of ecclesiastical doctrine
concerning the miraculous interposition in the course of nature and of
history. To the superficial observer there appears therefore to exist an
irreconcilable conflict between science and religion. Here is the work
of the philosophy of religion, to take away the appearance of an
irreconcilable opposition between science and religion, in that the
philosophy of religion teaches first of all to distinguish between the
essence of religion and the ecclesiastical doctrines of a certain
religion, and to comprehend the historical origin of these doctrines in
the forms of thought of past times. To this purpose the method of
psychological analysis and of historical comparison mentioned above is
of service. When, then, by this critical process religion is traced to
its real essence in the emotional consciousness of God, to which the
dogmatic doctrines stand as secondary products and varied symbols, then
it remains to show that between the essence of religion and that which
science demands and presupposes, there exists not conflict but harmony.
When the idea of God is recognized as the synthesis of the ideas of the
true and the good, so then must all truth as sought by science, even as
the highest good, which the system of ethics places as the purpose of
all action--these must be recognized as the revelation of God in his
eternal reason and goodness. The laws of our rational thinking then
cannot be in conflict with divine revelation in history, and the laws of
the natural order of the world can no more stand in conflict with the
world-governing Omnipotence; but both, the laws of our thinking and
those of the real world, reveal themselves as the harmonious revelations
of the creative reason of God, which, according to Plato's fitting word,
is the efficient ground of being as well as of knowing. It is therefore
not merely a demand of religious belief that there is real truth in our
God-consciousness, that there should be an activity and revelation of
God himself in the human mind; it is also in the same manner a demand of
science considering its last principles, that the world, in order to be
known by us as a rational, regulated order, must have for its principle
an eternal creative reason. Long ago the old master of thinking,
Aristotle, recognized this fact clearly, when he said that order in the
world without a principle of order could be as little thinkable as the
order of an army without a commanding general.

But while it is true that science, as the ground of the possibility of
its knowledge of the truth, must presuppose the same general principle
of intellectual knowledge which religion has as the object of its
practical belief, then by principle the apprehension is excluded that
any possible progress on the part of science in its knowledge of the
world can ever destroy religion. We are rather the more justified in the
hope that all true knowledge of science will be a help to religion, and
will serve as the means of purifying religion from the dross of
superstition.

Truly it can easily be shown that a divine government of the world
breaking through, and now and then suspending the regular order of
nature through miraculous intervention, would not be more majestic, but
far more limited and human, than such a government which reveals itself
as everywhere and always the same in and through its own ordained laws
in the world. And again, that a revelation prescribing secret and
incomprehensible doctrines and rites, demanding from humanity a blind
faith, would far less be in harmony with the guiding wisdom and love of
God, and far less could work for the intellectual liberty and perfection
of humanity, than such a revelation which is working in and through the
reason and conscience of humanity, and is realizing its purpose in the
progressive development of our intellectual and moral capacities and
powers. When therefore science raises critical misgivings against the
supernatural and irrational doctrines of positive religion, then the
real and rightly understood interests of religion are not harmed but
rather advanced; for this criticism serves religion in helping it to
become free from the unintellectual inheritance of its early days, in
helping religion to consider its true intellectual and moral essence,
and to bring to a full display all the blessed powers which are
concealed within its nature, to press through the narrow walls of an
ecclesiasticism out into the full life of humanity, and to work as
leaven for the ennoblement of humanity. Not in conflict with science and
moral culture, but only in harmony with these, can religion come nearer
to the attainment of its ideal, which consists in the worship of God in
spirit and in truth. Even though they may not be conscious of their
purpose, but nevertheless in fact all honest work of science and all the
endeavors of social and ethical humanity have part in the attainment of
this ideal.

It is the work of the philosophy of religion to make clear that all work
of the thinking and striving spirit of humanity, in its deepest meaning,
is a work in the kingdom of God, as service to God, who is truth and
goodness. It is the work of the philosophy of religion to explain
various misunderstandings, to bring together opposing sides, and so to
prepare the way for a more harmonious coöperation of all, and for an
always hopeful progress of all on the road to the high aims of a
humanity fraternally united in the divine spirit.




MAIN PROBLEMS OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION: PSYCHOLOGY AND THEORY OF
KNOWLEDGE IN THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION

BY PROFESSOR ERNST TROELTSCH

(_Translated from the German by Dr. J. H. Woods, Harvard University._)

     [Ernst Troeltsch, Professor of Systematic Theology,
     University of Heidelberg, since 1894. b. February 17 1865,
     Augsburg, Bavaria. Doctor of Theology. Professor University
     of Bonn, 1892-94. Author of _John Gerhard and Melanchthon_;
     _Richard Rubbe_; _The Scientific Attitude and its Demands on
     Theology_; _The Absoluteness of Christianity, and of the
     History of Religion_; _Political Ethics and Christianity_;
     _The Historic Element in Kant's Religious Philosophy_.]


The philosophy of religion of to-day is philosophy of religion so far
only, and in such a sense, as this word means science of religion or
philosophy with reference to religion. The science of religion of former
days was first dogmatic theology, deriving its dogmas from the Bible and
from Church tradition, expounding them apologetically with the
metaphysical speculation of the later period of antiquity, and regarding
the non-Christian religions as sinful derangements and obscure fragments
of the primitive revelation. This lasted sixteen centuries, and is
confined to-day to strictly ecclesiastical circles. Next, science of
religion became natural theology, which proved the existence of God by
the nature of thought and by the constitution of reality, and also the
immortality of the soul by the concept of the soul and by moral demands,
thus constructing natural or rational dogmas and putting these dogmas
into more or less friendly relations with traditional Christianity. This
lasted about two centuries, and is to-day of the not strictly
ecclesiastical or pietistic circles, which still wish to hold fast to
religion. Both kinds of science of religion exist no longer for the
strict science. The first was, in reality, supernaturalistic dogmatics,
the second was, in reality, a substitution of philosophy for religion.
The first was demolished by the criticism of miracles in the eighteenth
century, the second by the criticism of knowledge in the nineteenth
century, which, in its turn, rests upon Hume and Kant.

The science of religion of to-day keeps in touch with that which without
doubt factually exists and is an object of actual experience, _the
subjective religious consciousness_. The distrust of ecclesiastical and
rationalistic dogmas has made, in the thought of the present, every
other treatment impossible. So the spirit of empiricism has here as at
other points completely prevailed. But empiricism in this field means
psychological analysis. This analysis is pursued by the present to the
widest extent: on the one side by anthropologists and archæologists, who
investigate the life of the soul in primitive peoples and thus indicate
the particular function and condition of religion in these states; on
the other side, by the modern experimental psychologists and
psychological empiricists, who, by self-observation, and especially by
the collection of observations by others and of personal testimony,
study religion, and then, from the point of view of the concepts of
experimental psychology, examine the main phenomena thus found.

Now, such an empirical psychology of religion has been constructed with
considerable success. In this German literature, it is true, has
coöperated to a slight degree only. The German theologians have held to
the older statements of the psychology of Kant, of Schleiermacher, of
Hegel, and of Fries, alone, which, in principle, were on the right path,
but which combined the purely psychological with metaphysical and
epistemological problems to such a degree that it was impossible to
reach a really unprejudiced attitude. German psychologists remain,
furthermore, under the spell of psycho-physiology and of quantitative
statements of measure, and have, consequently, not liked to advance into
this field, which is inaccessible to such statements. More productive
than the German psychology for this subject is the French, which has
attacked the complex facts far more courageously. Here, however, under
the predominance of positivism, there prevails, on the whole, the
tendency to regard religion, in its essence, anthropologically or
medically and pathologically in connection with bodily conditions. This
is the confusion of conditions and origins with the essence of the thing
itself, which can be determined only by the thing, and is, by no means,
bound exclusively to these conditions. Notwithstanding, the works of
Marillier, Murisier, and Flournoy have considerably aided the problem.
More impartially than all of these, the English and American psychology
has investigated our subject. Here we have a masterpiece in the Gifford
Lectures of William James, which collects into a single reservoir
similar investigations such as have been carried on by Coe and Starbuck.
There is here no tendency to a mechanism of consciousness, or to the
dogma of the causal and necessary structure of consciousness. And to
just this is due the freshness and impartiality of the analyses which
James gives out of his enviable knowledge of characteristic cases. James
rightly emphasizes the endlessly different intensity of religious
experiences, and the great number of points of view and of judgments
which thereby results. He also rightly emphasizes the connection of this
different intensity with irreducible typical constitutions of the soul's
life, with the optimistic and the melancholy disposition; hence there
arise constantly, even within the same religion, essentially different
types of religiousness. Limiting himself, then, to the most intense
experiences, he decides that the characteristic of religious states is
the sense of presence of the divine, which one might perhaps describe in
other terms, but which still continues the specifically divine, with the
opposed emotional effects of a solemn sense of contrast and of
enthusiastic exaltation. He pictures these senses of presence, and
illustrates them by visionary and hallucinatory representations of the
abstract. With this are connected impulsive and inhibitive conditions
for the appearance of these senses of presence and of reality,
descriptions of the effects upon the emotional life and action, and,
above all, the analysis of the event usually called conversion, in which
the religious experience out of subconscious antecedents becomes, in
various ways, the centre of the soul's life. All this is description,
but it is based upon a mass of examples and explained by general
psychological categories which, by the occurrence of the religious event
only, receive a thoroughly specific coloring. It is a description after
the manner of Kirchhoff's mechanics; permanent and similar types, and,
likewise, similar conditions for their relations to the rest of the
soul's life are sought out everywhere, without maintaining to have
proven at the same time, in this way, an intellectual necessity for the
connection. But the characteristic peculiarity of religious phenomena is
thus conceived as in no other previous analysis.

All this is still, however, nothing more than psychologic. For the
science of religion it accomplishes nothing more than the psychological
determination of the peculiarity of the phenomenon, of its environment,
its relations and consequences. It is evident that the phenomenon occurs
in an indefinite number of varieties; and the chosen point of departure,
in unusual and excessive cases, frequently diffuses over religion itself
the character of the bizarre and abnormal. Consequently nothing whatever
is said about the amount of truth or of reality in these cases. This, by
the very principles of such a psychology, is impossible. It analyzes,
produces types and categories, points out comparatively constant
connections and interactions. But this cannot be the last word for the
science of religion. It demands, above all, empirical knowledge of the
phenomenon; but it demands this only in order, on the basis of this
knowledge, to be able to answer the question of the amount of truth. But
this leads to an entirely different problem, that of the _theory of
knowledge_, which has its own conditions of solution. It is impossible
to stop at a merely empirical psychology. The question is not merely of
given facts, but of the amount of knowledge in these facts. But pure
empiricism will not succeed in answering this question. The question
with regard to the amount of truth is always a question of validity. The
question with regard to validity can, however, be decided only by
logical and by general, conceptual investigations. Thus we pass over
from the ground of empiricism to that of rationalism, and the question
is, what the theory of knowledge or rationalism signifies for the
science of religion.

Such a synthesis of the rational and irrational, of the psychological
and the theory of knowledge, is the main problem raised by the teaching
of Kant, and the significance of Kant is that he clearly and once for
all raised the problem in this way. He had the same strong mind for the
empirical and actual as for the rational and conceptual elements of
human knowledge, and constructed science as a balance between the two.
(He destroyed forever the _a priori_ speculative rationalism of the
necessary ideas of thought, and the analytical deductions from them,
which undertakes to call reality out of the necessity of thought as
such. He restricted regressive rationalism to metaphysical hypotheses
and probabilities, the evidence for which rests upon the inevitability
of the logical operations which leads to them, which, however, apply
general concepts without reference to experience, and therefore become
empty, and thus afford no real knowledge.) On the other hand, he
proclaimed the formal, immanent rationalism of experience, in attempting
to unite Hume's truth with the truth of Leibnitz and of Plato. In this
way he succeeded in grasping the great problem of thought by the root,
and in putting attempts at solutions on the right basis. So it is not a
mere national custom of German philosophizing, if we take our bearings,
for the most part, from this greatest of German thinkers, but it is,
absolutely, the most fruitful and keenest way of putting the problem. It
is true, the solutions which Kant made, and which are closely connected
with the classical mechanics of that time, with the undeveloped
condition of the psychology of that time, and with the incompleteness of
historical thinking then just beginning, have been, meantime, more than
once given up again. A simple return to him is therefore impossible. But
the problem was put by him in a fundamental way, and his solutions need
nothing more than modification and completion.

Now all this is especially true in the case of the science of religion.
Here also Kant took the same course, which seemed to me right for the
theoretical knowledge of the natural sciences and for anthropology. In
practical philosophy also, to which he rightly counts philosophy of
religion, he seeks laws of the practical reason analogous to the laws of
theoretical reason, axioms of the ethical, æsthetic, and religious
consciousness which are already contained _a priori_ in the elementary
appearances in these fields, and, in application to concrete reality,
produce just these activities of the reason. Here also one should grasp
reason only as contained in life itself, the _a priori_ law itself
already effective in the diversity of the appearances should make one's
self clear-sighted and so competent for a criticism of the stream of the
soul's appearances. Seizing upon itself in the practical reality, the
practical reason criticises the psychological complex, rejects as
illusion and error that which cannot be comprehended in an _a priori_
law, selects that part of the same which needs basis and centre and
requires only clearness with regard to itself, clears the way for
revelations of a life consciousness of its own legality and becomes
capable of the development of critically purified experience.

If this is, in principle, valid, the Kantian thought, in the further
detail, is maintained in principle only and as a whole. The elaboration
itself will have to be quite different from that of his own. Even by
Kant himself, on this very point, the synthesis of empiricism and
rationalism is far from being elaborated with the necessary rigor and
consistency. And to-day we have a quite differently developed psychology
of religion, in contrast with which that presupposed by Kant is bare and
thin. Finally, there remain in the whole method of the critical system
unsolved problems; by failure to solve these, or by too hasty solution,
science of religion, especially, is affected.

To make clear the present condition of the problem, one ought, above
all, to indicate the modifications to which the Kantian theory of
religion must submit,--must submit, especially, by reason of a more
delicate psychology, such as we have, with remarkable richness, in James
and the American psychologists connected with him. There are _four_
points with regard to this question.

The first is the question of the relation of psychology and theory of
knowledge in the very establishment of the laws of the theory of
knowledge. Are not the search for and discovery of the laws of the
theory of knowledge themselves possible only by way of psychological
ascertainment of facts, itself then a psychological undertaking and
consequently dependent upon all its conditions? It is the much discussed
question of the circle which itself lies at the outset of the critical
system. The answer to this is that this circle lies in the very being of
all knowledge, and must therefore be resolutely committed. It signifies
nothing more than the presupposition of all thought, the trust in a
reason which establishes itself only by making use of itself. The
unmistakable elements of the logical assert themselves as logical in
distinction from the psychological, and from this point on reason must
be trusted in all its confusions and entanglements to recognize itself
within the psychological. It is the courage of thought, as Hegel says,
which may presuppose that the self-knowledge of reason may trust itself,
presuppose that reason is contained within the psychological; or it is
the ethical and teleological presupposition of all thought, as Lotze
says, which believes in knowledge and the validity of its laws for the
sake of a connected meaning for reality, and which, therefore, trusts to
recognize itself out of the psychological mass. The establishment,
therefore, of the laws of the theory of knowledge is not itself a
psychological analysis, but a knowledge of self by the logical by virtue
of which it extricates itself out of the psychological mass. Theory of
knowledge, like every rationalism, includes, it is true, very real
presuppositions with regard to the significant, rational, and
teleologically connective character of reality, and without this
presupposition it is untenable; in it lies its root. It is insight of
former days, the importance of which, however, must constantly be
emphasized anew, that discusses the validity of the rational as opposed
to the merely empirical. But still more important than this thesis are
several _inferences_ which are given with it.

The establishment of the laws of consciousness, in which we produce
experience, is a selection of the laws out of experience itself, a
knowledge of itself by the reason contained in the very experience by
way of the analysis which extracts it. It is then an endless task,
completed by constantly renewed attacks, and always only approximately
solvable. The complete separation of the merely psychological and actual
and of the logical and necessary will never be completely accomplished,
but will always be open to doubt; one can only attempt always to limit
more vigorously the field of what is doubtful. And with this something
further is connected.

The inexhaustible production of life becomes constantly, in the latent
amount of reason, richer than the analysis discerns, or, in other words,
the laws which are brought into the light of logic will always be less
the amount of reason not brought into consciousness, and conscious logic
will always be obliged to correct itself and enrich itself out of the
unartificial logical operations arising in contact with the object. So a
finished system of _a priori_ principles, but this system will always be
in growth, will be obliged unceasingly to correct itself, and to contain
open spaces.

Finally, and above all, in case of this separation, there remains within
the psychologically conditioned appearance, a residuum, which is either
not conceived, but is later reduced to law and thereby a conceived
phenomenon, or which never can be so, and is therefore illusion and
error. If the psychological and the theoretical for knowledge are to be
separated, then that can occur, not merely to show that both must always
be together, and form real experience only when together, but there must
also be a rejection of that which is merely psychological and not
rational since it is illusion and error. The distinction between the
apparent and the real was the point of departure which made the whole
theory necessary, and, accordingly, the merely psychological must remain
appearance and error side by side with that which is psychological and,
at the same time, theoretical for knowledge. There always remains in
consciousness a residuum of the inconceivable, that is, inconceivable
since it is illusion and error. This amounts to saying that reality is
never fully rational, but is engaged in a struggle between the rational
and anti-rational. The anti-rational or irrational, in the sense of
psychological illusion and error, belongs also to the real, and strives
against the rational. The true and rational reality to be attained by
thought is always in conjunction with the untrue reality, the
psychological, that containing illusion and error.

All this signifies that the rationalism of the theory of knowledge must
be conditional, partly owing to the corrective and enriching fecundation
by primitive and naïve thought, partly owing to never quite separable
admixture of illusion and error. So, long ago, the system of categorical
forms, as Kant constructed it for theoretical and practical reason,
began to change, and can never again acquire the rigidity which Kant's
rationalism intended to give it forevermore. And thus the critical
system's rational reality of law produced by reason always contains
below itself and beside itself the merely psychological reality of the
factual, to which also illusion and error belong,--a reality which can
never be rationalized, but only set aside. This, too, is also true for
the philosophy of religion: the rational reduction of the psychological
facts of religion to the general laws of consciousness which prevail
among them is a task constantly to be resumed anew by the study of
reality, and follows the movements of primitive religion in order to
find there first the rational basis; the reduction is, however, always
approximate, can comprehend the main points only, and must leave much
open, the rational ground for which is not or not yet evident; finally
it has unceasingly to reckon with the irrational as illusion and error,
which attaches to the rational, and yet is not explainable by it. The
two realities, which the critical system must recognize at its very
foundation, continue in strife with each other, and this strife as the
strife of divine truth with human illusion is for the science of
religion of still more importance.

The second correction of the Kantian teaching is only a further
consequence from this state of things. If the attitude of psychology and
theory of knowledge requires a strict separation, it requires it only
for the purpose of more correct relation. The laws of the theory of
knowledge are separated from the merely psychological actuality, but
still can be produced only out of it. Thus, as a matter of fact,
psychological analysis is always the presupposition for the correct
conception of all these laws. Psychology is the entrance gate to theory
of knowledge. This is true for theoretical logic as well as for the
practical logic of the moral, the æsthetical, and the religious. But
just at this point the present, on the basis of its psychological
investigation, presses far beyond the original form of the Kantian
teaching. This is not the place to describe this, more closely, with
reference to the first of the subjects just mentioned. But it is
important to insist that this is especially true with respect to the
Kantian doctrine of religion. The Kantian doctrine of religion is
founded on the moral and religious psychology of Deism, which had made
the connection, frequent in experience, of moral feelings with religious
emotion the sole basis of the philosophy of religion, and had, in the
manner of the psychology of the eighteenth century, immediately changed
this connection into intellectual reflections, in accord with which the
moral law demands its originator and guarantee. Kant accepted this
psychology of religion without proof and built upon it his main law of
the religious consciousness, in accordance with which a synthetic
judgment _a priori_ is operative in religion (arising in the moral
experience of freedom), which requires that the world be regarded as
subject to the purposes of freedom. It is, however, extremely one-sided,
to give religion its place just between the elements, and a rather
violent translation of the religious constitution into reflection. The
error of this psychology of religion had been discovered and corrected
already by Schleiermacher. But Schleiermacher, for his part too, also
failed to deny himself an altogether too sudden metaphysical
interpretation of the religious _a priori_ which he had demonstrated,
since he not only described the _a priori_ judgment of things, from the
point of view of absolute dependence upon God, as a vague feeling, but
raised this feeling, by reason of the supposed lack of difference, in
it, between thought and will, reason and being, to a world-principle,
and interpreted the idea of God contained in this feeling in the terms
of his Spinozism, the lack of difference between God and Nature within
the Absolute. A real theory of knowledge of religion must keep itself
much more independent of all metaphysical presuppositions and
inferences, and must admit that the essence of the religious _a priori_
is extorted from a thoroughly impartial psychological analysis. And this
is always the place where works, such as those of James, come into play.
Religion as a special category or form of psychical constitution, the
result of a more or less vague presence of the divine in the soul, the
feeling of presence and reality with reference to the superhuman or
infinite, that is without any doubt a much more correct point of
departure for the analysis of the rational _a priori_ of religion, and
it remains to make this new psychology fruitful for the theory of
knowledge of religion. That will be one of the chief tasks of the
future.

The third change relates to the distinction of the empirical and
intelligible Ego, which Kant connected closely, almost indissolubly with
his main epistemological thought of the formal rationalisms immanent in
experience. Kant rationalized the whole outer and inner experience, by
means of _a priori_ laws, into a totality, conforming to law, appearing
in intuitive forms of space and time, causally and necessarily rigidly
connected. The freedom autonomously determining itself out of the
logical idea, and contrasting itself with the psychological stream,
produces out of the confused psycholican reality this scientific
formation of the true reality. The product of thought, however, swallows
its own maker. For the same acts of freedom, which autonomously produced
the formation of the reality of law, remain themselves in the temporal
sequence of psychical events, and, therefore, themselves, with that
formation, lapse into the sequence which is under mechanical law. The
intelligible Ego creates the world of law, and finds itself therein,
with its activity, as empirical Ego, that is, as product of the great
world-mechanism and of its causal sequence. It is an intolerable,
violent contradiction, and it is no solution of this contradiction to
refer the empirical Ego to appearance, and the intelligible Ego to
actuality existing in itself, if the operations of the intelligible Ego,
also a constituent part of what takes place in the soul, occur in time
and so relapse irrecoverably into phenomenality and its mechanism. All
the ingenuity of modern interpretation of Kant has not succeeded in
making this circle more tolerable, all shifting of one and the same
thing to different points of view has only enriched scientific
terminology with masterpieces of parenthetical caution, but not removed
the objection that two different points of view do not, as a matter of
fact, exist side by side, but conflict within the same object.

This circle is especially intolerable for the psychology of religion and
its application to the theory of knowledge. The psychology of religion
certainly shows us that the deeper feeling of all religion is not a
product of the mechanical sequence, but an effect of the supersensuous
itself as it is felt there; it believes that it arises in the
intelligible Ego by way of some kind of connection with the
supersensuous world. This, however, becomes completely impossible for
the Kantian theory of the empirical Ego, and all distinctions of a
double point of view in no wise change the fact that these points of
view are mutually absolutely exclusive. Here we have the results of
psychology which the expression of religious emotion confirms, in that
religion can be causally reduced to nothing else, totally opposed to the
consequences of such a theory of knowledge. Kant had himself often
enough practically felt this, and spoke then of freedom as an experience
of communion with the supersensuous as a possible but unprovable affair,
while all that, in case of a strict adherence to the phenomenality of
time and of the theory of the empirical Ego, which is a consequence of
it, is completely impossible. Nothing can be of any assistance here
except a decisive renunciation of those epistemological positions which
contradict the results of psychology, and which are themselves only
doctrinaire consequences from other positions. Nothing else is possible
but the modification of the phenomenality of time, in such a way that by
no means everything which belongs to time belongs also as a matter of
course to phenomenality, but that the autonomous rational acts which
occur in the time series of consciousness possess their own intelligible
time-form. At the same time the concept of causality closely connected
with the concept of time is to be modified so that there should be not
only an immanent and phenomenal causal connection, but also a regular
interaction between phenomenal and intelligible, psychological and
rational, conscious reality. At the same time the conclusion is also
given up, that the Ego submits unconditionally and directly to
phenomenality and to causal necessity, while the same Ego, once more, in
the same way, as a whole, from another point of view, is subordinate to
freedom and autonomy, that is, self-constitutive through ideas. The two
Egos must lie not side by side, but in and over one another. It must be
possible that, within the phenomenal Ego by a creative act of the
intelligible Ego in it, the personality should be formed and developed
as a realization of the autonomous reason, so that the intelligible
issues from the phenomenal, the rational from the psychological, the
former elaborates and shapes the latter, and between both a relation of
regular interaction, but not of causal constraint, takes place. This
rather deep, incisive modification is, in its turn, an approach of the
Kantian teaching to empiricism, but still at the same time, in the
destruction and subordination of the phenomenal and intelligible world,
in the emphasis upon the single personality issuing from the act of
reason, an adherence to rationalism. But since the distinction and the
interrelation between the rational and the empirical forms the point of
departure for the critical system, and this point of departure requires
at the same time the moulding and shaping of the empirical by the
rational and the rejection of the psychological appearance; a mere
parallelism is altogether impossible, but an interrelation is included,
and a task set for the effort and labor which constantly makes the
rational penetrate the empirical. At the very outset we have the
exclusion of the parallelism and the assertion of the interrelation. The
interrelation, by its very nature, asserts the interruption of the
causal necessity and the penetration of autonomous reason in this
sequence, without being itself produced by this sequence, although it
can be stimulated and helped or inhibited and weakened by it. Thus, in
such a case as this, the irrational is recognized by the side of and in
the rational. In this case the irrational of the event without causal
compulsion by some antecedent, or of the self-determination by the
autonomous idea alone, is the irrational of freedom. It is the
irrational of the creative procedure which constitutes the idea out of
itself and produces the consequences of the reason out of the
constituted idea. But this irrational plays everywhere in the whole life
of the soul an essential part, and is not less than decisive in the case
of religion, which must be quite different from what it is if it did not
have the right to maintain that which it declares to be true of itself,
namely, that it is an act of freedom and a gift of grace, an effect of
the supersensuous permeating the natural phenomenal life of the soul and
an act of free devotion the natural motivation.

The fourth problem arises, when we examine the rational law of the
religious nature or of the having of religion which lies in the being
and organization of the reason. The having of religion may be
demonstrated as a law of the normal consciousness from the immanent
feeling of necessity and obligation which properly belongs to religion,
and from its organic place in the economy of consciousness, which
receives its concentration and its relation to an objective world-reason
only from religion. But precisely because religion is reduced to this,
it is clear that this is only a reduction which abstracts from the
empirical actuality just as the categories of pure reason do. This
abstraction, then, should under no circumstances itself be regarded as
the real religion. It is only the rational _a priori_ of the psychical
appearances, but not the replacement of appearances by the truth free
from confusion. The psychical reality in which alone the truth is
effective should never be forgotten out of regard for the truth. This
is, however, the fact in the Kantian theory of religion in _two_
directions.

It is always noticeable that the _a priori_ of the practical reason is
treated by Kant quite differently from the theoretical. In case of the
latter the main idea of the synthesis, immanent in experience, of
rationalism and empiricism, is retained, and the _a priori_ of the pure
forms of intuition and of the pure categories is nothing without the
contents of concrete reality which become shaped in it. It may be very
difficult actually to grasp the coöperation of the _a priori_ and the
empirical in the single case, and Kant's theory of the categories may
have to be entirely reshaped and approximated to _a priori_ hypotheses
requiring verification, but the principle itself is always the
disposition of the real and genuine problem of all knowledge. In case of
the practical _a priori_ Kant did, it is true, firmly emphasize the
formal character of the ethical, æsthetical, and religious law, but, in
doing this, does not lose quite out of sight the psychical reality. They
appear not as empty forms which attain to their reality only when filled
with the concrete ethical tasks, the artistic creations, and the
religious states, but as abstract truths of reason, which have to take
the place of the intricacies of usual consciousness. At this point one
has always been right in feeling a relapse on the part of Kant into the
abstract, analytical, conceptual, rationalism, and for this very reason
Kant's statements about these things are of great sublimity and rigor of
principle, but scanty in content. It is more important in case also of
this _a priori_ of the practical reason to keep in mind that it is a
purely formal _a priori_ and in reality must constantly be in relation
with the psychical content, in order to give this content the firm core
of the real and the principle of the critical regulation of self. So the
_a priori_ of morals is not to be represented abstractly merely by
itself, but it is to be conceived in its relation to all the tasks which
we feel as obligatory, and it extends itself from that point outwards
over the total expanse of the activity of reason. Likewise the _a
priori_ of art is not to be denoted in the abstract idea of the unity of
freedom and necessity, but to be shown in the whole expanse which is
present to the soul as artistic form or conception. Thus, in especial
degree, religion is not to be reduced to the belief of reason in a moral
world-order, and simply contrasted with all supposed religion of any
other kind, but the religious _a priori_ should only serve in order to
establish the essential in the empirical appearance, but without
stripping off this appearance altogether, and from this point of the
essential to correct the intricacies and narrowness, the errors and
false combinations of the psychical situation. Kant, by his original
thought of the _a priori_, was urged in different ways to such a view,
and construed epistemologically the empirical psychological religion as
imaginary illustrations of the _a priori_. But that is occasional only
and does not dominate Kant's real view of religion. This is and still
remains only a translation of the usual moral and theological
rationalism from the formula of Locke and Wolff into the formula of the
critical philosophy.

The same revision occurs in quite a different direction. If religion is
an _a priori_ of reason, it is, once for all, established together with
reason, and all religion is everywhere and always religious in the same
proposition as it is in any way realized. Schleiermacher expressly
stated this in his development of the Kantian theory, and, in so far as
the practical reason is always penetrated with freedom, and consequently
religion itself is established with the act of moral freedom, this was
also asserted by Kant himself. Such an assertion, however, contradicts
every psychological observation whatsoever. It is true such observation
can prove that religious emotions adjust themselves easily to all
activities of reason, but it must sharply distinguish what is nothing
more than the religiousness of vague feeling of supersensual
regulations, which usually are joined with art and morals, from real and
characteristic religiousness, in which, each single time, a purely
personal relation of presence to the supersensuous takes place. But this
whole problem signifies nothing else than the actualizing of the
religious _a priori_, which actualizing always occurs in quite specific
and, in spite of all difference, essentially similar psychical
experiences and states. This problem of the actualizing of the religious
_a priori_ and of its connection with concrete individual psychical
phenomena, Kant completely overlooked in his abstract concept of
religion, or rather, deliberately ignored, because, as he wrote to
Jacobi, he saw all the dangers of mysticism lurking in it. This fear was
justified; for, as a matter of fact, all the specific occurrences of
mysticism, from conversion, prayer, and contemplation to enthusiasm,
vision, and ecstasy, do lurk in it. But without this mysticism there is
no real religion, and the psychology of religion shows most clearly how
the real pulse of religion beats in the mystical experiences. A religion
without it is only a preliminary step, or a reverberation of real and
actual religion. Moreover, the states are easily conceived in a theory
of knowledge, if one sees in them the actualizing of the religious _a
priori_, the production of actual religion in the fusion of the rational
law with the concrete individual psychical fact. The mysticism
recognized as essential by the psychology of religion must find its
place in the theory of knowledge, and it finds it as the psychological
actualizing of the religious _a priori_, in which alone that interlacing
of the necessary, the rational, the conformable to law, and the factual
occurs, which characterizes real religion. The dangers of such a
mysticism, which are recognized a thousandfold in experience, cannot be
dispelled altogether by the displacement of mysticism, for that would
mean to displace religion itself. It would be the same, if one should
try to avoid the dangers of illusion and error, by keeping to the pure
categories alone, and ceasing to employ them in the actual thinking of
experience. Rather, they can be dispelled only in that the actualizing
of the rational _a priori_ is recognized in the mystical occurrences,
and thus the intricacies and one-sidedness of the mere psychological
stream of religiousness be avoided. The psychological reality of
religion must always remember the rational substance of religion, and
always bring religion as central in the system of consciousness into
fruitful and adjusted contact with the total life of the reason. Thus
the psychological reality corrects and purifies itself out of its own _a
priori_, without, however, destroying itself; or rather, the actual
religion in the psychical category of the mystical occurrences will
subside to a more or less degree. Thus we have the irrational prevailing
here in its third form, which like the two others was contained in the
very outset of the critical system, in the form of the once-occurring,
factual, and individual, which, of course, has a rational basis or a
rational element in itself, but is besides a pure fact and reality. Just
this is the excellence of the rationalism immanent in experience (the
critical system), that it makes room for this feature beside the general
and conceptual rationality. It did not make room for it to the extent
really required, and it especially left no space for it in its abstract
philosophy of religion. This space must again be opened by the theory of
the actualizing of the religious _a priori_, and there again lies
another improvement of the critical system under the influence of modern
psychology.

If we summarize all this, we have a quantity of concessions by the
formal epistemological rationalism to the irrationality of the
psychological facts and a repeated breaking down of the over-rigorous
Kantian rationalism. Contrariwise, however, the pure psychological
investigation is also compelled to withdraw from the unlimited quantity
and the absolute irrationality of the multifarious (and of the confusion
of appearance and truth) to a rational criterium, which can be found in
the rational _a priori_ of the reason only, and in the organic position
of this _a priori_ in the system of consciousness in general. By this
rationalism alone may the true validity of religion be founded, and by
this alone the uncultivated psychical life may be critically regulated.
Religion will be conceived in its concrete vitality and not mutilated;
it will constantly be brought out of the jumble of its distortions,
blendings, one-sidedness, narrowness, and exuberance back again to its
original content, and to its organic relations to the totality of the
life of reason, to the scientific moral and artistic accomplishments.
That is everything that science can do for it, but is not this service
great enough and indispensable enough to justify the work of such a
science? We do not stop with nothing more than "varieties of religious
experience" which is the result of James's method; but neither do we
stop with nothing more than a rational idea of religion, which
overpowers experience, as was still so in the case of Kant. But we must
learn how intimately to combine the empirical and psychological with the
critical and normative. The ideas of Hume and of Leibnitz must once more
be brought into relation with the continuations of Kant's work, and the
combination of the Anglo-Saxon sense for reality with the German spirit
of speculation is still the task for the new century as well as for the
century past.




SHORT PAPERS


A short paper was contributed to this Section by Professor Alexander T.
Ormond, of Princeton University, on "Some Roots and Factors of
Religion." The speaker said that religion, like everything else human,
has its rise in man's experience. It has also doubtless had a history
that will present the outlines of a development, if but the course of
that development can be traced. "But in the case of religion our theory
of development will be largely qualified by our judgment as to its
origin; while, regarding origin itself, we have to depend on hypotheses
constructed from our more or less imperfect acquaintance with the races,
and especially the savage races, of the present. The primitive
pre-religious man is a construction from present data, and will always
remain more or less hypothetical. This will partially explain, and at
the same time partially excuse, what we will agree is the unsatisfactory
character of the anthropological theories as accounts of the origin of
religion. But there are other reasons for this partial failure that are
less excusable. One of these is the rather singular failure of the
leading anthropologists, in dealing with the origin of religion, to
distinguish between _fundamental_ and merely tributary causes. For
instance, if we suppose that man has in some way come into possession of
a germ of religiousness, many things will become genuine tributaries to
its development that when urged as explanations of the germ itself would
be obviously futile. There must be a cause for the pretty general
failure to note this distinction which is vital to religious theory, and
I am convinced that the principal cause is a certain lack of
psychological insight and of philosophical grasp in dealing with the
problem of the first data and primary roots of religion in man's nature.

"In the first place, it is needful in dealing with the religion of the
hypothetical man that we should have some idea of what constitutes
religion in the actual man. Now, back of all the outward manifestations
of religion, will stand the religious consciousness of the man and the
community, and it will be this that will determine the idea of religion
in its most essential form. The developed idea of religion, therefore,
arising out of this germinal impression, would take the form of a sense
(we may now call it concept) of relatedness to some being _akin_ to man
himself, and yet transcending him in some real though undetermined
respects. Anything short of this would, I think, leave religion in some
respects unaccounted for; while anything more would perhaps exclude some
genuine manifestations of religion.

"If the idea of religion arises out of an _impression_, then it will not
be possible to deny to it an intellectual root. I make this statement
with some diffidence, because if I do not misinterpret them, some recent
psychologists have practically denied the intellectual root in their
doctrine that religion can have no original intellectual content. If I
am not further misled, however, these writers would admit that a content
is achieved by the symbolic use of experience. This is perhaps all I
need argue for here; since our epistemology is teaching us that the
distinction between symbolism and perception is only that between the
direct and the indirect; while here it is clear that its use in
developing the significance of the religious impression would have all
the directness and, therefore, all the cogency of an immediate
inference.

"Let us now restore the intellectual and emotional elements of religion
to their place in a synthesis; we will then have a concrete religious
experience out of which may be analyzed at least two fundamental
factors. The first of these is what we may call the _personal_ factor in
religion. We are treading in the footsteps of the anthropologists when
we find among the most undeveloped savages a tendency to personify the
objects of their worship. When it comes to the question of determining
the rôle that this personalizing tendency has actually played in the
development of religion, the anthropologists divide into two camps, one
of these, led by Max Müller, regarding it as a symbolic interpretation
put upon the impression of some great natural or cosmic object or
phenomenon; while others, including Herbert Spencer and Mr. Tylor,
prefer to seek the originals of religion in ancestral dream-images and
ghostly apparitions. These writers thus start with completely
anthropomorphic terms, and their problem is to de-anthropomorphize the
elements to the extent necessary to constitute them data of religion.
The second factor standing over against the personal, as its opposite,
is that of transcendence. By transcendence I mean that deifying,
infinitating process that is ever working contra to the anthropomorphic
influence in the sphere of religious conceptions. The School of Spencer
regard this as the only legitimate tendency in religion. We do not argue
this point here, but agree that it is as legitimate and real a factor as
that of personality. The root of this factor, if our diagnosis of the
idea of religion be correct, is to be sought in the original impression
of religion, and it no doubt has its origin in man's feeling-reaction
from that impression. We have pointed to submission as one of the
religious emotions. Now submission rests on some deeper
feeling-attitude, which some have translated into the feeling or sense
of dependence. This, however, is not adequate, since men have the sense
of social dependence on finite beings, and we have it with reference to
the floor we are standing on. Rather, it seems to me, we must translate
it into the stronger and more unconditional feeling of helplessness. One
real ground of our religious consciousness is the sense or feeling of
helplessness toward God; the sense that we have no standing in being as
against the Deity. This radical feeling utters itself in every note of
the religious scale, from the lowest superstitious terror to the highest
mystical self-annihilation.

"These two factors, the forces of personalization and transcendence, are
inseparable. They constitute the terms of a dialectic within the
religious consciousness, by virtue of which in one phase our religious
conceptions are becoming ever more adequate and satisfying, while from
another point of view their insufficiency grows more and more apparent.
And, on the broader field of religious history, they embody themselves
in a law of tendency, which Spencer has only half-expressed, by virtue
of which the objects of religion are on one hand becoming ever more
intelligible; on the other, ever more transcendent of our conceptions."

       *     *     *     *     *

A short paper was read by Professor F. C. French, Professor of
Philosophy in the University of Nebraska, on "The Bearing of Certain
Aspects of the Newer Psychology on the Philosophy of Religion." The
speaker said in part:

"The relation of science to religion has received, to be sure, much
study, but to most minds hitherto this has meant the relation of only
the physical sciences to religion. The older psychology was largely
speculative and metaphysical in character. There were, of course, some
who employed the empirical method in psychology, but they were so far
from comprehending the full scope of mental phenomena that, at best,
their work gave the promise of a science rather than a science itself.

"It is not the fact that the newer psychology takes account of the
physiological conditions of mental life; it is not the fact that the
subject is now pursued in laboratories with instruments of precision,
that gives it its full standing as a science: it is much more the fact
that the psychology of to-day has found a place in the natural system of
mental things for those strange and relatively unusual phenomena of
consciousness which to the scientifically minded seemed totally unreal
and to the superstitious manifestations of the supernatural....

"In showing that the abnormal can be explained in terms of the normal,
psychology does now for the phenomena of mind what the physical sciences
have long done for the phenomena of nature....

"Psychology as a science postulates the reign of natural law in the
subjective sphere just as rigorously as physics postulates the reign of
law in the objective sphere....

"It is not in the unusual and the abnormal that the reflective mind is
to see God. It is not through gaps in nature that we are to get glimpses
of the supernatural. Rather is it in the very nature of nature,
rational, harmonious, law-conforming, subject to scientific
interpretation, that we have the best evidence that the world is made
mind-wise, that it is the work of an intelligent mind, that there is a
rational spirit at the care of the universe.

"For science the transcendent does not enter into the perceptual realm
external or internal. It is, indeed, hard for the religious mind to
admit this fact in all its fullness. Until it does, however, religion
must always stand more or less in fear of science. Once give up the
perceptual, in all its bearings, to science, and religion will find that
it has lost a weak support only to gain a stronger one. Ultimately, I
believe, we shall find that the full acceptance of science in the mental
domain as well as in the physical will strengthen the rational grounds
of theistic belief."





SECTION C--LOGIC




SECTION C--LOGIC

(_Hall 6, September 22, 10 a. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR GEORGE M. DUNCAN, Yale University.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR WILLIAM A. HAMMOND, Cornell University.
             PROFESSOR FREDRICK J. E. WOODBRIDGE, Columbia University.
  SECRETARY: DR. W. H. SHELDON, Columbia University.


The Chairman of this Section, Professor George M. Duncan, Professor of
Logic and Mathematics at Yale University, in introducing the speakers
spoke briefly of the scope and importance of the subject assigned to the
Section; expressed, on behalf of those in attendance, regret at the
inability of Professor Wilhelm Windelband to be present and take part in
the work of the Section, as had been expected; congratulated the Section
on the papers to be presented and the speakers who were to present them;
and announced the final programme of the Section.




THE RELATIONS OF LOGIC TO OTHER DISCIPLINES

BY PROFESSOR WILLIAM A. HAMMOND

     [William Alexander Hammond, Assistant Professor of Ancient
     and Medieval Philosophy and Æsthetics, Cornell University.
     b. May 20, 1861, New Athens, Ohio. A.B. Harvard, 1885; Ph.D.
     Leipzig, 1891. Lecturer on Classics, King's College,
     Windsor, N. S., 1885-88; Secretary of the University
     Faculty, Cornell; Member American Psychological Association,
     American Philosophical Association. Author of _The
     Characters of Theophrastus_, translated with Introduction;
     _Aristotle's Psychology_, translated with Introduction.]


In 1787, in the preface to the second edition of the _Kr. d. r. V._,
Kant wrote the following words: "That logic, from the earliest times,
has followed that secure method" (namely, the secure method of a science
witnessed by the unanimity of its workers and the stability of its
results) "may be seen from the fact that since Aristotle it has not had
to retrace a single step, unless we choose to consider as improvements
the removal of some unnecessary subtleties, or the clearer definition of
its matter, both of which refer to the elegance rather than to the
solidity of the science. It is remarkable, also, that to the present
day, it has not been able to make one step in advance, so that to all
appearances it may be considered as completed and perfect. If some
modern philosophers thought to enlarge it, by introducing
_psychological_ chapters on the different faculties of knowledge
(faculty of imagination, wit, etc.), or _metaphysical_ chapters on the
origin of knowledge or different degrees of certainty according to the
difference of objects (idealism, skepticism, etc.), or, lastly,
_anthropological_ chapters on prejudices, their causes and remedies,
this could only arise from their ignorance of the peculiar nature of
logical science. We do not enlarge, but we only disfigure the sciences,
if we allow their respective limits to be confounded; and the limits of
logic are definitely fixed by the fact that it is a science which has
nothing to do but fully to exhibit and strictly to prove the formal
rules of all thought (whether it be _a priori_ or empirical, whatever be
its origin or its object, and whatever be the impediments, accidental or
natural, which it has to encounter in the human mind)."--[Translated by
Max Müller.] Scarcely more than half a century after the publication of
this statement of Kant's, John Stuart Mill (Introduction to _System of
Logic_) wrote: "There is as great diversity among authors in the modes
which they have adopted of defining logic, as in their treatment of the
details of it. This is what might naturally be expected on any subject
on which writers have availed themselves of the same language as a means
of delivering different ideas.... This diversity is not so much an evil
to be complained of, as an inevitable, and in some degree a proper
result of the imperfect state of those sciences" (that is, of logic,
jurisprudence, and ethics). "It is not to be expected that there should
be agreement about the definition of anything, until there is agreement
about the thing itself." This remarkable disparity of opinion is due
partly to the changes in the treatment of logic from Kant to Mill, and
partly to the fact that both statements are extreme. That the science of
logic was "completed and perfect" in the time of Kant could only with
any degree of accuracy be said of the treatment of syllogistic proof or
the deductive logic of Aristotle. That the diversity was so great as
pictured by Mill is not historically exact, but could be said only of
the new epistemological and psychological treatment of logic and not of
the traditional formal logic. The confusion in logic is no doubt largely
due to disagreement in the delimitation of its proper territory and to
the consequent variety of opinions as to its relations to other
disciplines. The rise of inductive logic, coincident with the rise and
growth of physical science and empiricism, forced the consideration of
the question as to the relation of formal thought to reality, and the
consequent entanglement of logic in a triple alliance of logic,
psychology, and metaphysics. How logic can maintain friendly relations
with both of these and yet avoid endangering its territorial integrity
has not been made clear by logicians or psychologists or metaphysicians,
and that, too, in spite of persistent attempts justly to settle the
issue as to their respective spheres of influence. Until modern logic
definitely settles the question of its aims and legitimate problems, it
is difficult to see how any agreement can be reached as to its relation
to the other disciplines. The situation as it confronts one in the
discussion of the relations of logic to allied subjects may be analyzed
as follows:

  1. The relation of logic as science to logic as art.
  2. The relation of logic to psychology.
  3. The relation of logic to metaphysics.

The development of nineteenth century logic has made an answer to the
last two of the foregoing problems exceedingly difficult. Indeed, one
may say that the evolution of modern epistemology has had a centrifugal
influence on logic, and instead of growth towards unity of conception we
have a chaos of diverse and discordant theories. The apple of discord
has been the theory of knowledge. A score of years ago when Adamson
wrote his admirable article in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ (article
"Logic," 1882), he found the conditions much the same as I now find
them. "Looking to the chaotic state of logical text-books at the present
time, one would be inclined to say that there does not exist anywhere a
recognized currently received body of speculations to which the title
logic can be unambiguously assigned, and that we must therefore resign
the hope of attaining by any empirical consideration of the received
doctrine a precise determination of the nature and limits of logical
theory." I do not, however, take quite so despondent a view of the
logical chaos as the late Professor Adamson; rather, I believe with
Professor Stratton (_Psy. Rev._ vol. III) that something is to be gained
for unity and consistency by more exact delimitation of the
subject-matter of the philosophical disciplines and their
interrelations, which precision, if secured, would assist in bringing
into clear relief the real problems of the several departments of
inquiry, and facilitate the proper classification of the disciplines
themselves.

The attempt to delimit the spheres of the disciplines, to state their
interrelations and classify them, was made early in the history of
philosophy, at the very beginning of the development of logic as a
science by Aristotle. In Plato's philosophy, logic is not separated from
epistemology and metaphysics. The key to his metaphysics is given
essentially in his theory of the reality of the concept, which offers an
interesting analogy to the position of logic in modern idealism. Before
Plato there was no formulation of logical theory, and in his dialogues
it is only contained in solution. The nearest approach to any
formulation is to be found in an applied logic set forth in the precepts
and rules of the rhetoricians and sophists. Properly speaking, Aristotle
made the first attempt to define the subject of logic and to determine
its relations to the other sciences. In a certain sense logic for
Aristotle is not a science at all. For science is concerned with some
_ens_, some branch of reality, while logic is concerned with the
methodology of knowing, with the formal processes of thought whereby an
_ens_ or a reality is ascertained and appropriated to knowledge. In the
sense of a method whereby all scientific knowledge is secured, logic is
a propædeutic to the sciences. In the idealism of the Eleatics and
Plato, thought and being are ultimately identical, and the laws of
thought are the laws of being. In Aristotle's conception, while the
processes of thought furnish a knowledge of reality or being, their
formal operation constitutes the technique of investigation, and their
systematic explanation and description constitute logic. Logic and
metaphysics are distinguished as the science of being and the doctrine
of the thought processes whereby being is known. Logic is the doctrine
of the organon of science, and when applied is the organon of science.
The logic of Aristotle is not a purely formal logic. He is not
interested in the merely schematic character of the thought processes,
but in their function as mediators of apodictic truth. He begins with
the assumption that in the conjunction and disjunction of correctly
formed judgments the conjunction or disjunction of reality is mirrored.
Aristotle does not here examine into the powers of the mind as a whole;
that is done, though fragmentarily, in the _De Anima_ and _Parva
Naturalia_, where the mental powers are regarded as phases of the
processes of nature without reference to normation; but in his logic he
inquires only into those forms and laws of thinking which mediate proof.
Scientific proof, in his conception, is furnished in the form of the
syllogism, whose component elements are terms and propositions. In the
little tract _On Interpretation_ (_i. e._ on the judgment as
_interpreter_ of thought), if it is genuine, the proposition is
considered in its logical bearing. The treatise on the _Categories_,
which discusses the nature of the most general terms, forms a connecting
link between logic and metaphysics. The categories are the most general
concepts or universal modes under which we have knowledge of the world.
They are not simply logical relations; they are existential forms, being
not only the modes under which thought regards being, but the modes
under which being exists. Aristotle's theory of the methodology of
science is intimately connected with his view of knowledge. Scientific
knowledge in his opinion refers to the essence of things; for example,
to those universal aspects of reality which are given in particulars,
but which remain self-identical amidst the variation and passing of
particulars. The universal, however, is known only through and after
particulars. There is no such thing as innate knowledge or Platonic
reminiscence. Knowledge, if not entirely empirical, has its basis in
empirical reality. Causes are known only through effects. The universals
have no existence apart from things, although they exist _realiter_ in
things. Empirical knowledge of particulars must, therefore, precede in
time the conceptual or scientific knowledge of universals. In the
evolution of scientific knowledge in the individual mind, the body of
particulars or of sense-experience is to its conceptual transformation
as potentiality is to actuality, matter to form, the completed end of
the former being realized in the latter. Only in the sense of this power
to transform and conceptualize, does the mind have knowledge within
itself. The genetic content is experiential; the developed concept,
judgment, or inference is _in form_ noëtic. Knowledge is, therefore, not
a mere "precipitate of experience," nor is Aristotle a complete
empiricist. The conceptual form of knowledge is not immediately given in
things experienced, but is a product of noëtic discrimination and
combination. Of a sensible object as such there is no concept; the
object of a concept is the generic essence of a thing; and the concept
itself is the thought of this generic essence. The individual is
generalized; every concept does or can embrace several individuals. It
is an "aggregate of distinguishing marks," and is expressed in a
definition. The concept as such is neither true nor false. Truth first
arises in the form of a judgment or proposition, wherein a subject is
coupled with a predicate, and something is said about something. A
judgment is true when the thought (whose inward process is the judgment
and the expression in vocal symbols is the proposition) regards as
conjoined or divided that which is conjoined or divided in actuality; in
other words, when the thought is congruous with the real. While
Aristotle does not ignore induction as a scientific method, (how could
he when he regards the self-subsistent individual as the only real?) yet
he says that, as a method, it labors under the defect of being only
proximate; a complete induction from _all_ particulars is not possible,
and therefore cannot furnish demonstration. Only the deductive process
proceeding syllogistically from the universal (or essential truth) to
the particular is scientifically cogent or apodictic. Consequently
Aristotle developed the science of logic mainly as a syllogistic
technique or instrument of demonstration. From this brief sketch of
Aristotle's logical views it will be seen that the epistemological and
metaphysical relations of logic which involve its greatest difficulty
and cause the greatest diversity in its modern exponents, were present
in undeveloped form to the mind of the first logician. It would require
a mighty optimism to suppose that this difficulty and diversity, which
has increased rather than diminished in the progress of historical
philosophy, should suddenly be made to vanish by some magic of
restatement of subject-matter, or theoretical delimitation of the
discipline. As Fichte said of philosophy, "The sort of a philosophy that
a man has, depends on the kind of man he is;" so one might almost say of
logic, "The sort of logic that a man has, depends on the kind of
philosopher he is." If the blight of discord is ever removed from
epistemology, we may expect agreement as to the relations of logic to
metaphysics. Meanwhile logic has the great body of scientific results
deposited in the physical sciences on which to build and test, with some
assurance, its doctrine of methodology; and as philosophy moves forward
persistently to the final solution of its problems, logic may justly
expect to be a beneficiary in its established theories.

After Aristotle's death logic lapsed into a formalism more and more
removed from any vital connection with reality and oblivious to the
profound epistemological and methodological questions that Aristotle had
at least raised. In the Middle Ages it became a highly developed
exercise in inference applied to the traditional dogmas of theology and
science as premises, with mainly apologetic or polemical functions. Its
chief importance is found in its application to the problem of realism
and nominalism, the question as to the nature of universals. At the
height of scholasticism realism gained its victory by syllogistically
showing the congruity of its premises with certain fundamental dogmas of
the Church, especially with the dogma of the unity and reality of the
Godhead. The heretical conclusion involved in nominalism is equivalent
(the accepted dogma of the Church being axiomatic) to _reductio ad
absurdum_. A use of logic such as this, tending to conserve rather than
to increase the body of knowledge, was bound to meet with attack on the
awakening of post-renaissance interest in the physical world, and the
acquirement of a body of truth to which the scholastic formal logic had
no relation. The anti-scholastic movement in logic was inaugurated by
Francis Bacon, who sought in his _Novum Organum_ to give science a real
content through the application of induction to experience and the
discovery of universal truths from particular instances. The syllogism
is rejected as a scientific instrument, because it does not lead _to_
principles, but proceeds only _from_ principles, and is therefore not
useful for discovery. It permits at most only refinements on knowledge
already possessed, but cannot be regarded as creative or productive. The
Baconian theory of induction regarded the accumulation of facts and the
derivation of general principles and laws from them as the true and
fruitful method of science. In England this empirical view of logic has
been altogether dominant, and the most illustrious English exponents of
logical theory, Herschel, Whewell, and Mill, have stood on that ground.
Since the introduction of German idealism in the last half century a new
logic has grown up whose chief business is with the theory of knowledge.

Kant's departure in logic is based on an epistemological examination of
the nature of judgment, and on the answer to his own question, "How are
synthetic judgments _a priori_ possible?" The _a priori_ elements in
knowledge make knowledge of the real nature of things impossible. Human
knowledge extends to the phenomenal world, which is seen under the _a
priori_ forms of the understanding. Logic for Kant is the science of the
formal and necessary laws of thought, apart from any reference to
objects. Pure or universal logic aims to understand the forms of thought
without regard to metaphysical or psychological relations, and this
position of Kant is the historical beginning of the subjective formal
logic.

In the metaphysical logic of Hegel, which rests on a panlogistic basis,
being and thought, form and content, are identical. Logical necessity is
the measure and criterion of objective reality. The body of reality is
developed through the dialectic self-movement of the idea. In such an
idealistic monism, formal and real logic are by the metaphysical
postulate coincident.

Schleiermacher in his dialectic regards logic from the standpoint of
epistemological realism, in which the real deliverances of the senses
are conceptually transformed by the spontaneous activity of reason. This
spirit of realism is similar to that of Aristotle, in which the
one-sided _a priori_ view of knowledge is controverted. Space and time
are forms of the existence of things, and not merely _a priori_ forms of
knowing. Logic he divides into dialectic and technical logic. The former
regards the idea of knowledge as such; the formal or technical regards
knowledge in the process of becoming or the idea of knowledge in motion.
The forms of this process are induction and deduction. The Hegelian
theory of the generation of knowledge out of the processes of pure
thought is emphatically rejected.

Lotze, who is undoubtedly one of the most influential and fruitful
writers on logic in the last century, attempts to bring logic into
closer relations with contemporary science, and is an antagonist of
one-sided formal logics. For him logic falls into the three parts of (1)
pure logic or the logic of thought; (2) applied logic or the logic of
investigation; (3) the logic of knowledge or methodology; and this
classification of the matter and problems of logic has had an important
influence on subsequent treatises on the discipline. His logic is
formal, as he describes it himself, in the sense of setting forth the
modes of the operation of thought and its logical structure; it is real
in the sense that these forms are dependent on the nature of things and
not something independently given in the mind. While he aims to maintain
the distinct separation of logic and metaphysics, he says (in the
discussion of the relations between formal and real logical meaning) the
question of meaning naturally raises a metaphysical problem: "Ich thue
besser der Metaphysik die weitere Erörterung dieses wichtigen Punktes zu
überlassen." (_Log._ 2d ed. p. 571.) How could it be otherwise when his
whole view of the relations and validity of knowledge is inseparable
from his realism or teleological idealism, as he himself characterizes
his own standpoint?

Drobisch, a follower of Herbart, is one of the most thoroughgoing
formalists in modern logical theory. He attempts to maintain strictly
the distinction between thought and knowledge. Logic is the science of
thought. He holds that there may be formal truth, for example, logically
valid truth, which is materially false. Logic, in other words, is purely
formal; material truth is matter for metaphysics or science. Drobisch
holds, therefore, that the falsity of the judgment expressed in the
premise from which a formally correct syllogism may be deduced, is not
subject-matter for logic. The sphere of logic is limited to the region
of inference and forms of procedure, his view of the nature and function
of logic being determined largely by the bias of his mathematical
standpoint. The congruity of thought with itself, judgments,
conclusions, analyses, etc., is the sole logical truth, as against
Trendelenburg, who took the Aristotelian position that logical truth is
the "agreement of thought with the object of thought."

Sigwart looks at logic mainly from the standpoint of the technology of
science, in which, however, he discovers the implications of a
teleological metaphysic. Between the processes of consciousness and
external changes he finds a causal relation and not parallelism.
Inasmuch as thought sometimes misses its aim, as is shown by the fact
that error and dispute exist, there is need of a discipline whose
purpose is to show us how to attain and establish truth and avoid error.
This is the practical aim of logic, as distinguished from the
psychological treatment of thought, where the distinction between true
and false has no more place than the distinction between good and bad.
Logic presupposes the impulse to discover truth, and it therefore sets
forth the criteria of true thinking, and endeavors to describe those
normative operations whose aim is validity of judgment. Consequently
logic falls into the two parts of (1) critical, (2) technical, the
former having meaning only in reference to the latter; the main value of
logic is to be sought in its function as art. "Methodology, therefore,
which is generally made to take a subordinate place, should be regarded
as the special, final, and chief aim of our science." (_Logic_, vol. i,
p. 21, Eng. Tr.) As an art, logic undertakes to determine under what
conditions and prescriptions judgments are valid, but does not undertake
to pass upon the validity of the content of given judgments. Its
prescriptions have regard only to formal correctness and not to the
material truth of results. Logic is, therefore, a formal discipline. Its
business is with the due procedure of thought, and it attempts to show
no more than how we may advance in the reasoning process in such way
that each step is valid and necessary. If logic were to tell us _what_
to think or give us the content of thought, it would be commensurate
with the whole of science. Sigwart, however, does not mean by formal
thought independence of content, for it is not possible to disregard the
particular manner in which the materials and content of thought are
delivered through sensation and formed into ideas. Further, logic having
for its chief business the methodology of science, the development of
knowledge from empirical data, it ought to include a theory of
knowledge, but it should not so far depart from its subjective limits as
to include within its province the discussion of metaphysical
implications or a theory of being. For this reason, Sigwart relegates to
a postscript his discussion of teleology, but he gives an elaborate
treatment of epistemology extending through vol. I and develops his
account of methodology in vol. II. The question regarding the relation
between necessity, the element in which logical thought moves, and
freedom, the postulate of the will, carries one beyond the confines of
logic and is, in his opinion, the profoundest problem of metaphysics,
whose function is to deal with the ultimate relation between "subject
and object, the world and the individual, and this is not only basal for
logic and all science, but is the crown and end of them all."

Wundt's psychological and methodological treatment of logic stands
midway between the purely formal treatises on the one hand, and the
metaphysical treatises on the other hand. The general standpoint of
Wundt is similar to that of Sigwart, in that he discovers the function
of logic in the exposition of the formation and methods of scientific
knowledge; for example, in epistemology and methodology. Logic must
conform to the conditions under which scientific inquiry is actually
carried on; the forms of thought, therefore, cannot be separate from or
indifferent to the content of knowledge; for it is a fundamental
principle of science that its particular methods are determined by the
nature of its particular subject-matter. Scientific logic must reject
the theory that identifies thought and being (Hegel) and the theory of
parallelism between thought and reality (Schleiermacher, Trendelenburg,
and Ueberweg), in which the ultimate identity of the two is only
concealed. Both of these theories base logic on a metaphysics, which
makes it necessary to construe the real in terms of thought, and logic,
so divorced from empirical reality, is powerless to explain the methods
of scientific procedure. One cannot, however, avoid the acceptance of
thought as a competent organ for the interpretation of reality, unless
one abandons all question of validity and accepts agnosticism or
skepticism. This interpretative power of thought or congruity with
reality is translated by metaphysical logic into identity. Metaphysical
logic concerns itself fundamentally with the content of knowledge, not
with its evidential or formal logical aspects, but with being and the
laws of being. It is the business of metaphysics to construct its
notions and theories of reality out of the deliverances of the special
sciences and inferences derived therefrom. The aim of metaphysics is the
development of a world-view free from internal contradictions, a view
that shall unite all particular and plural knowledges into a whole.
Logic stands in more intimate relation to the special sciences, for here
the relations are reciprocal and immediate; for example, from actual
scientific procedure logic abstracts its general laws and results, and
these in turn it delivers to the sciences as their formulated
methodology. In the history of science the winning of knowledge precedes
the formulation of the rules employed, that is, precedes any scientific
methodology. Logic, as methodology, is not an _a priori_ construction,
but has its genesis in the growth of science itself and in the discovery
of those tests and criteria of truth which are found to possess an
actual heuristic or evidential value. It is not practicable to separate
epistemology and logic, for such concepts as causality, analogy,
validity, etc., are fundamental in logical method, and yet they belong
to the territory of epistemology, are epistemological in nature, as one
may indeed say of all the general laws of thought. A formal logic that
is merely propædeutic, a logic that aims to free itself from the
quarrels of epistemology, is scientifically useless. Its norms are
valueless, in so far as they can only teach the arrangement of knowledge
already possessed, and teach nothing as to how to secure it or test its
real validity. While formal logic aims to put itself outside of
philosophy, metaphysical logic would usurp the place of philosophy.
Formal logic is inadequate, because it neither shows how the laws of
thought originate, why they are valid, nor in what sense they are
applicable to concrete investigation. Wundt, therefore, develops a logic
which one may call epistemological methodological, and which stands
between the extremes of formal logic and metaphysical logic. The laws of
logic must be derived from the processes of psychic experience and the
procedure of the sciences. "Logic therefore needs," as he says,
"epistemology for its foundation and the doctrine of methods for its
completion."

Lipps takes the view outright that logic is a branch of psychology;
Husserl in his latest book goes to the other extreme of a purely formal
and technical logic, and devotes almost his entire first volume to the
complete sundering of psychology and logic.

Bradley bases his logic on the theory of the judgment. The logical
judgment is entirely different from the psychological. The logical
judgment is a qualification of reality by means of an idea. The
predicate is an adjective or attribute which in the judgment is ascribed
to reality. The aim of truth is to qualify reality by general notions.
But inasmuch as reality is individual and self-existent, whereas truth
is universal, truth and reality are not coincident. Bradley's
metaphysical solution of the disparity between thought and reality is
put forward in his theory of the unitary Absolute, whose concrete
content is the totality of experience. But as thought is not the whole
of experience, judgments cannot compass the whole of reality. Bosanquet
objects to this, and maintains that reality must not be regarded as an
ideal construction. The real world is the world to which our concepts
and judgments refer. In the former we have a world of isolated
individuals of definite content; in the latter, we have a world of
definitely systematized and organized content. Under the title of the
Morphology of Knowledge Bosanquet considers the evolution of judgment
and inference in their varied forms. "Logic starts from the individual
mind, as that within which we have the actual facts of intelligence,
which we are attempting to interpret into a system" (_Logic_, vol. i, p.
247). The real world for every individual is _his_ world. "The work of
intellectually constituting that totality which we call the real world
is the work of knowledge. The work of analyzing the process of this
constitution or determination is the work of logic, which might be
described ... as the reflection of knowledge upon itself" (_Logic_, vol.
i, p. 3). "The relation of logic to truth consists in examining the
characteristics by which the various phases of the one intellectual
function are fitted for their place in the intellectual totality which
constitutes knowledge" (_ibid._). The real world is the intelligible
world; reality is something to which we attain by a constructive
process. We have here a type of logic which is essentially a metaphysic.
Indeed, Bosanquet says in the course of his first volume: "I entertain
no doubt that in content logic is one with metaphysics, and differs, if
at all, simply in mode of treatment--in tracing the evolution of
knowledge in the light of its value and import, instead of attempting to
summarize its value and import apart from the details of its evolution"
(_Logic_, vol. i, 247).

Dewey (_Studies in Logical Theory_, p. 5) describes the essential
function of logic as the inquiry into the relations of thought as such
to reality as such. Although such an inquiry may involve the
investigation of psychological processes and of the concrete methods of
science and verification, a description and analysis of the forms of
thought, conception, judgment, and inference, yet its concern with these
is subordinate to its main concern, namely, the relation of "thought at
large to reality at large." Logic is not reflection on thought, either
on its nature as such or on its forms, but on its relations to the real.
In Dewey's philosophy, logical theory is a description of thought as a
mode of adaptation to its own conditions, and validity is judged in
terms of the efficiency of thought in the solution of its own problems
and difficulties. The problem of logic is more than epistemological.
Wherever there is striving there are obstacles; and wherever there is
thinking there is a "material-in-question." Dewey's logic is a theory of
reflective experience regarded functionally, or a pragmatic view of the
discipline. This logic of experience aims to evaluate the significance
of social research, psychology, fine and industrial art, and religious
aspiration in the form of scientific statement, and to accomplish for
social values in general what the physical sciences have done for the
physical world. In Dewey's teleological pragmatic logic the judgment is
essentially instrumental, the whole of thinking is functional, and the
meaning of things is identical with valid meaning (_Studies in Logical
Theory_, cf. pp. 48, 82, 128). The real world is not a self-existent
world outside of knowledge, but simply the totality of experience; and
experience is a complex of strains, tensions, checks, and attitudes. The
function of logic is the redintegration of this experience. "Thinking is
adaptation _to_ an end _through_ the adjustment of particular objective
contents" (_ibid._ p. 81). Logic here becomes a large part, if not the
whole, of a metaphysics of experience; its nature and function are
entirely determined by the theory of reality.

In this brief and fragmentary _résumé_ are exhibited certain
characteristic movements in the development of logical theory, the
construction put upon its subject-matter and its relation to other
disciplines. The _résumé_ has had in view only the making of the
diversity of opinion on these questions historically salient. There are
three distinct types of logic noticed here: (1) formal, whose concern is
merely with the structural aspect of inferential thought, and its
validity in terms of internal congruity; (2) metaphysical logic whose
concern is with the functional aspect of thought, its validity in terms
of objective reference, and its relation to reality; (3) epistemological
and methodological logic, whose concern is with the genesis, nature, and
laws of logical thinking as forms of scientific knowledge, and with
their technological application to the sciences as methodology. I am not
at present concerned with a criticism of these various viewpoints,
excepting in so far as they affect the problem of the interrelationship
of logic and the allied disciplines.

For my present purpose I reject the extreme metaphysical and formal
positions, and assume that logic is a discipline whose business is to
describe and systematize the formal processes of inferential thought and
to apply them as practical principles to the body of real knowledge.

I wish now to take up _seriatim_ the several questions touching the
various relations of logic enumerated above, and first of all the
question of the relation of logic as science to logic as art.


I. _Logic as science and logic as art._

It seems true that the founder of logic, Aristotle, regarded logic not
as a science, but rather as propædeutic to science, and not as an end in
itself, but rather technically and heuristically as an instrument. In
other words, logic was conceived by him rather in its application or as
an art, than as a science, and so it continued to be regarded until the
close of the Middle Ages, being characterized indeed as the _ars
artium_; for even the _logica docens_ of the Scholastics was merely the
formulation of that body of precepts which are of practical service in
the syllogistic arrangement of premises, and the Port Royal Logic aims
to furnish _l'art de penser_. This technical aspect of the science has
clung to it down to the present day, and is no doubt a legitimate
description of a part of its function. But no one would now say that
logic _is_ an art; rather it is a body of theory which may be
technically applied. Mill, in his examination of Sir William Hamilton's
Philosophy (p. 391), says of logic that it "is the art of thinking,
which means of correct thinking, and the science of the conditions of
correct thinking," and indeed, he goes so far as to say (_System of
Logic_, Introd. § 7): "The extension of logic as a science is determined
by its necessities as an art." Strictly speaking, logic as a science is
purely theoretical, for the function of science as such is merely to
know. It is an organized system of knowledge, namely, an organized
system of the principles and conditions of correct thinking. But because
correct thinking is an art, it does not follow that a knowledge of the
methods and conditions of correct thinking is art, which would be a
glaring case of μετάβασις εἰς ἄλλο γένος (metabasis eis allo genos). The
art-bearings of the science are given in the normative character of its
subject-matter. As a science logic is descriptive and explanatory, that
is, it describes and formulates the norms of valid thought, although as
science it is not normative, save in the sense that the principles
formulated in it may be normatively or regulatively applied, in which
case they become precepts. What is principle in science becomes precept
in application, and it is only when technically applied that principles
assume a mandatory character. Validity is not created by logic. Logic
merely investigates and states the conditions and criteria of validity,
being in this reference a science of evidence. In the very fact,
however, that logic is normative in the sense of describing and
explaining the norms of correct thinking, its practical or applied
character is given. Its principles as known are science; its principles
as applied are art. There is, therefore, no reason to sunder these two
things or to call logic an art merely or a science merely; for it is
both when regarded from different viewpoints, although one must insist
on the fact that the rules for practical guidance are, so far as the
science is concerned, quite _ab extra_. Logic, ethics, and æsthetics are
all commonly (and rightly) called normative disciplines: they are all
concerned with values and standards; logic with validity and evidence,
or values for cognition; ethics with motives and moral quality in
conduct, or values for volition; æsthetics with the standards of beauty,
or values for appreciation and feeling. Yet none of them is or can be
merely normative, or indeed as science normative at all; if that were
so, they would not be bodies of organized knowledge, but bodies of
rules. They might be well-arranged codes of legislation on conduct, fine
art, and evidence, but not sciences. Strictly regarded, it is the
descriptive and explanatory aspect of logic that constitutes its
scientific character, while it is the specific normative aspect that
constitutes its logical character. Values, whether ethical or logical,
without an examination and formulation of their ground, relations,
origin, and interconnection, would be merely rules of thumb, popular
phrases, or pastoral precepts. The actual methodology of the sciences or
applied logic is logic as art.


II. _Relation of logic to psychology._

The differentiation of logic and psychology in such way as to be of
practical value in the discussion of the disciplines has always been a
difficult matter. John Stuart Mill was disposed to merge logic in
psychology, and Hobhouse, his latest notable apologete, draws no fixed
distinction between psychology and logic, merely saying that they have
different centres of interest, and that their provinces overlap. Lipps,
in his _Grundzüge der Logik_ (p. 2), goes the length of saying that
"Logic is a psychological discipline, as certainly as knowledge occurs
only in the Psyche, and thought, which is developed in knowledge, is a
psychical event." Now, if we were to take such extreme ground as this,
their ethics, æsthetics, and pure mathematics would become at once
branches of psychology and not coördinate disciplines with it, for
volitions, the feelings of appreciation, and the reasoning of pure
mathematics are psychical events. Such a theory plainly carries us too
far and would involve us in confusion. That the demarcation between the
two disciplines is not a chasmic cleavage, but a line, and that, too, an
historically shifting line, is apparent from the foregoing historical
_résumé_.

The four main phases of logical theory include: (1) the concept
(although some logicians begin with the judgment as temporally prior in
the evolution of language), (2) judgment, (3) inference, (4) the
methodology of the sciences. The entire concern of logic is, indeed,
with psychical processes, but with psychical processes regarded from a
specific standpoint, a standpoint different from that of psychology. In
the first place psychology in a certain sense is much wider than logic,
being concerned with the whole of psychosis as such, including the
feelings and will and the entire structure of cognition, whereas logic
is concerned with the particular cognitive processes enumerated above
(concept, judgment, inference), and that, too, merely from the point of
view of validity and the grounds of validity. In another sense
psychology is narrower than logic, being concerned purely with the
description and explanation of a particular field of phenomena, whereas
logic is concerned with the procedure of all the sciences and is
practically related to them as their formulated method. The compass and
aims of the two disciplines are different; for while psychology is in
different references both wider and narrower than logic, it is also
different in the problems it sets itself, its aim being to describe and
explain the phenomena of mind in the spirit of empirical science,
whereas the aim of logic is only to explain and establish the laws of
evidence and standards of validity. Logic is, therefore, selective and
particular in the treatment of mental phenomena, whereas psychology is
universal, that is, it covers the entire range of mental processes as a
phenomenalistic science; logic dealing with definite elements as a
normative science. By this it is not meant that the territory of
judgment and inference should be delivered from the psychologist into
the care of the logician; through such a division of labor both
disciplines would suffer. The two disciplines handle to some extent the
same subjects, so far as names are concerned; but the essence of the
logical problem is not touched by psychology, and should not be mixed up
with it, to the confusion and detriment of both disciplines. The field
of psychology, as we have said, is the whole of psychical phenomena; the
aim of individual psychology in the investigation of its field is: (1)
to give a genetic account of cognition, feeling, and will, or whatever
be the elements into which consciousness is analyzed; (2) to explain
their interconnections causally; (3) as a chemistry of mental life to
analyze its complexes into their simplest elements; (4) to explain the
totality structurally (or functionally) out of the elements; (5) to
carry on its investigation and set forth its results as a purely
empirical science; (6) psychology makes no attempt to evaluate the
processes of mind either in terms of false and true, or good and bad.
From this description of the field and function of psychology, based on
the expressions of its modern exponents, it will be found impossible to
shelter logic under it as a subordinate discipline. If one were to
enlarge the scope of psychology to mean rational psychology, in the
sense which Professor Howison advocates (_Psychological Review_, vol.
iii, p. 652), such a subordination might be possible, but it would
entail the loss of all that the new psychology has gained by the sharper
delimitation of its sphere and problems, and would carry us back to the
position of Mill, who appears to identify psychology with philosophy at
large and with metaphysics.

In contradistinction to the aims of psychology as described in the
foregoing, the sphere and problems of logic may be summarily
characterized as follows: (1) All concepts and judgments are
psychological complexes and processes and may be genetically and
structurally described; that is the business of psychology. They also
have a meaning value, or objective reference, that is, they may be
correct or incorrect, congruous or incongruous with reality. The
meaning, aspect of thought, or its content as truth is the business of
logic. This subject-matter is got by regarding a single aspect in the
total psychological complex. (2) Its aim is not to describe factual
thought or the whole of thought, or the natural processes of thought,
but only certain ideals of thinking, namely, the norms of correct
thinking. Its object is not a datum, but an ideal. (3) While psychology
is concerned with the natural history of reasoning, logic is concerned
with the warrants of inferential reasoning. In the terminology of
Hamilton it is the nomology of discursive thought. To use an often
employed analogy, psychology is the physics of thought, logic an ethics
of thought. (4) Logic implies an epistemology or theory of cognition in
so far as epistemology discusses the concept and judgment and their
relations to the real world, and here is to be found its closest
connection with psychology. A purely formal logic, which is concerned
merely with the internal order of knowledge and does not undertake to
show how the laws of thought originate, why they hold good as the
measures of evidence, or in what way they are applicable to concrete
reality, would be as barren as scholasticism. (5) While logic thus goes
back to epistemology for its bases and for the theoretical determination
of the interrelation of knowledge and truth, it goes forward in its
application to the practical service of the sciences as their
methodology. Apart of its subject-matter is therefore the actual
procedure of the sciences, which it attempts to organize into systematic
statements as principles and formulæ. This body of rules given
implicitly or explicitly in the workings and structure of the special
sciences, consisting in classification, analysis, experiment, induction,
deduction, nomenclature, etc., logic regards as a concrete deposit of
inferential experience. It abstracts these principles from the content
and method of the sciences, describes and explains them, erects them
into a systematic methodology, and so creates the practical branch of
real logic. Formal logic, therefore, according to the foregoing account,
would embrace the questions of the internal congruity and
self-consistency of thought and the schematic arrangement of judgments
to insure formally valid conclusions; real logic would embrace the
epistemological questions of how knowledge is related to reality, and
how it is built up out of experience, on the one hand, and the
methodological procedure of science, on the other. The importance of
mathematical logic seems to be mainly in the facilitation of logical
expression through symbols. It is rather with the machinery of the
science than with its content and real problem that the logical
algorithm or calculus is concerned. In these condensed paragraphs
sufficient has been said, I think, to show that logic and psychology
should be regarded as coördinate disciplines; for their aims and
subject-matter differ too widely to subordinate the former under the
latter without confusion to both.

I wish now to add a brief note on the relation of logic to another
discipline.


III. _Relation of logic to metaphysics._

As currently expounded, logic either abuts immediately on the territory
of metaphysics at certain points or is entirely absorbed in it as an
integral part of the metaphysical subject-matter. I regard the former
view as not only the more tenable theoretically, but as practically
advantageous for working purposes, and necessary for an intelligible
classification of the philosophical disciplines. The business of
metaphysics, as I understand it, is with the nature of reality; logic is
concerned with the nature of validity, or with the relations of the
elements of thought within themselves (self-consistency) and with the
relations of thought to its object (real truth), but not with the nature
of the objective world or reality as such. Further, metaphysics is
concerned with the unification of the totality of knowledge in the form
of a scientific cosmology; logic is concerned merely with the
inferential and methodological processes whereby this result is reached.
The former is a science of content; the latter is a science of procedure
and relations. Now, inasmuch as procedure and relations apply to some
reality and differ with different forms of reality, logic necessitates
in its implications a theory of being, but such implications are in no
wise to be identified with its subject-matter or with its own proper
problems. Their consideration falls within the sphere of metaphysics or
a broadly conceived epistemology, whose business it is to solve the
ultimate questions of subject and object, thought and thing, mind and
matter, that are implied and pointed to rather than formulated by logic.
Inasmuch as the logical judgment says something about something, the
scientific impulse drives us to investigate what the latter something
ultimately is; but this is not necessary for logic, nor is it one of
logic's legitimate problems, any more than it is the proper business of
the physicist to investigate the mental implications of his scientific
judgments and hypotheses or the ultimate nature of the theorizing and
perceiving mind, or of causality to his world of matter and motion,
although a general scientific interest may drive him to seek a solution
of these ultimate metaphysical problems. Scientifically the end of logic
and of every discipline is in itself; it is a territorial unity, and its
government is administered with a unitary aim. Logic is purely a science
of evidential values, not a science of content (in the meaning of
particular reality, as in the special sciences, or of ultimate reality,
as in metaphysics); its sole aim and purpose, as I conceive it, is to
formulate the laws and grounds of evidence, the principles of method,
and the conditions and forms of inferential thinking. When it has done
this, it has, as a single science, done its whole work. When one looks
at the present tendencies of logical theory, one is inclined to believe
that the discipline is in danger of becoming an "_Allerleiwissenschaft_,"
whose vast undefined territory is the land of "_Weissnichtwo_." The
strict delimitation of the field and problems of science is demanded in
the interest of a serviceable division of scientific labor and in the
interest of an intelligible classification of the accumulated products
of research.




THE FIELD OF LOGIC

BY FREDERICK J. E. WOODBRIDGE

     [Frederick J. E. Woodbridge, Johnsonian Professor of
     Philosophy in Columbia University, New York, N. Y., since
     1902. b. Windsor, Ontario, Canada, March 26, 1867. A.B.
     Amherst College, 1889; Union Theological Seminary, 1892;
     A.M. 1898, LL.D. 1903, Amherst College. Post-grad. Berlin
     University. Instructor in Philosophy, University of
     Minnesota, 1894-95; Professor of Philosophy and head of
     department, 1895-1902. Member of American Association for
     the Advancement of Science, American Philosophical
     Association, American Psychological Association. Editor of
     the _Journal of Philosophy_, _Psychology and Scientific
     Methods_.]


Current tendencies in logical theory make a determination of the field
of logic fundamental to any statement of the general problems of the
science. In view of this fact, I propose in this paper to attempt such a
determination by a general discussion of the relation of logic to
mathematics, psychology, and biology, especially noting in connection
with biology the tendency known as pragmatism. In conclusion, I shall
indicate what the resulting general problems appear to be.


I

There may appear, at first, little to distinguish mathematics in its
most abstract, formal, and symbolic type from logic. Indeed, mathematics
as the universal method of all knowledge has been the ideal of many
philosophers, and its right to be such has been claimed of late with
renewed force. The recent notable advances in the science have done much
to make this claim plausible. A logician, a non-mathematical one, might
be tempted to say that, in so far as mathematics is the method of
thought in general, it has ceased to be mathematics; but, I suppose, one
ought not to quarrel too much with a definition, but should let
mathematics mean knowledge simply, if the mathematicians wish it. I
shall not, therefore, enter the controversy regarding the proper limits
of mathematical inquiry. I wish to note, however, a tendency in the
identification of logic and mathematics which seems to me to be
inconsistent with the real significance of knowledge. I refer to the
exaltation of the freedom of thought in the construction of conceptions,
definitions, and hypotheses.

The assertion that mathematics is a "pure" science is often taken to
mean that it is in no way dependent on experience in the construction of
its basal concepts. The space with which geometry deals may be Euclidean
or not, as we please; it may be the real space of experience or not; the
properties of it and the conclusions reached about it may hold in the
real world or they may not; for the mind is free to construct its
conception and definition of space in accordance with its own aims.
Whether geometry is to be ultimately a science of this type must be
left, I suppose, for the mathematicians to decide. A logician may
suggest, however, that the propriety of calling all these conceptions
"space" is not as clear as it ought to be. Still further, there seems to
underlie all arbitrary spaces, as their foundation, a good deal of the
solid material of empirical knowledge, gained by human beings through
contact with an environing world, the environing character of which
seems to be quite independent of the freedom of their thought. However
that may be, it is evident, I think, that the generalization of the
principle involved in this idea of the freedom of thought in framing its
conception of space, would, if extended to logic, give us a science of
knowledge which would have no necessary relation to the real things of
experience, although these are the things with which all concrete
knowledge is most evidently concerned. It would inform us about the
conclusions which necessarily follow from accepted conceptions, but it
could not inform us in any way about the real truth of these
conclusions. It would, thus, always leave a gap between our knowledge
and its objects which logic itself would be quite impotent to close.
Truth would thus become an entirely extra-logical matter. So far as the
science of knowledge is concerned, it would be an accident if knowledge
fitted the world to which it refers. Such a conception of the science of
knowledge is not the property of a few mathematicians exclusively,
although they have, perhaps, done more than others to give it its
present revived vitality. It is the classic doctrine that logic is the
science of thought as thought, meaning thereby thought in independence
of any specific object whatever.

In regard to this doctrine, I would not even admit that such a science
of knowledge is possible. You cannot, by a process of generalization or
free construction, rid thought of connection with objects; and there is
no such thing as a general content or as content-in-general.
Generalization simply reduces the richness of content and, consequently,
of implication. It deals with concrete subject-matter as much and as
directly as if the content were individual and specialized. "Things
equal to the same thing are equal to each other," is a truth, not about
thought, but about things. The conclusions about a fourth dimension
follow, not from the fact that we have thought of one, but from the
conception about it which we have framed. Neither generalization nor
free construction can reveal the operations of thought in transcendental
independence.

It may be urged, however, that nothing of this sort was ever claimed.
The bondage of thought to content must be admitted, but generalization
and free construction, just because they give us the power to vary
conditions as we please, give us thinking in a relative independence of
content, and thus show us how thought operates irrespective of, although
not independent of, its content. The binomial theorem operates
irrespective of the values substituted for its symbols. But I can find
no gain in this restatement of the position. It is true, in a sense,
that we may determine the way thought operates irrespective of any
specific content by the processes of generalization and free
construction; but it is important to know in what sense. Can we claim
that such irrespective operation means that we have discovered certain
logical constants, which now stand out as the distinctive tools of
thought? Or does it rather mean that this process of varying the content
of thought as we please reveals certain real constants, certain ultimate
characters of reality, which no amount of generalization or free
construction can possibly alter? The second alternative seems to me to
be the correct one. Whether it is or not may be left here undecided.
What I wish to emphasize is the fact that the decision is one of the
things of vital interest for logic, and properly belongs in that
science. Clearly, we can never know the significance of ultimate
constants for our thinking until we know what their real character is.
To determine that character we must most certainly pass out of the realm
of generalization and free construction; logic must become other than
simply mathematical or symbolic.

There is another sense in which the determination of the operations of
thought irrespective of its specific content is interpreted in
connection with the exaltation of generalization and free construction.
Knowledge, it is said, is solely a matter of implication, and logic,
therefore, is the science of implication simply. If this is so, it would
appear possible to develop the whole doctrine of implication by the use
of symbols, and thus free the doctrine from dependence on the question
as to how far these symbols are themselves related to the real things of
the world. If, for instance, _a_ implies _b_, then, if _a_ is true, _b_
is true, and this quite irrespective of the real truth of _a_ or _b_. It
is to be urged, however, in opposition to this view, that knowledge is
concerned ultimately only with the real truth of _a_ and _b_, and that
the implication is of no significance whatever apart from this truth.
There is no virtue in the mere implication. Still further, the
supposition that there can be a doctrine of implication, simply, seems
to be based on a misconception. For even so-called formal implication
gets its significance only on the supposed truth of the terms with which
it deals. We suppose that _a_ _does_ imply _b_, and that _a_ _is_ true.
In other words, we can state this law of implication only as we first
have valid instances of it given in specific, concrete cases. The law is
a generalization and nothing more. The formal statement gives only an
apparent freedom from experience. Moreover, there is no reason for
saying that _a_ implies _b_ unless it does so either really or by
supposition. If _a_ really implies _b_, then the implication is clearly
not a matter of thinking it; and to suppose the implication is to feign
a reality, the implications of which are equally free from the processes
by which they are thought. Ultimately, therefore, logic must take
account of real implications. We cannot avoid this through the use of a
symbolism which virtually implies them. Implication can have a logical
character only because it has first a metaphysical one.

The supposition underlying the conception of logic I have been examining
is, itself, open to doubt and seriously questioned. That supposition was
the so-called freedom of thought. The argument has already shown that
there is certainly a very definite limit to this freedom, even when
logic is conceived in a very abstract and formal way. The processes of
knowledge are bound up with their contents, and have their character
largely determined thereby. When, moreover, we view knowledge in its
genesis, when we take into consideration the contributions which
psychology and biology have made to our general view of what knowledge
is, we seem forced to conclude that the conceptions which we frame are
very far from being our own free creations. They have, on the contrary,
been laboriously worked out through the same processes of successful
adaptation which have resulted in other products. Knowledge has grown up
in connection with the unfolding processes of reality, and has, by no
means, freely played over its surface. That is why even the most
abstract of all mathematics is yet grounded in the evolution of human
experience.

In the remaining parts of this paper, I shall discuss further the claims
of psychology and biology. The conclusion I would draw here is that the
field of logic cannot be restricted to a realm where the operations of
thought are supposed to move freely, independent or irrespective of
their contents and the objects of a real world; and that mathematics,
instead of giving us any support for the supposition that it can,
carries us, by the processes of symbolization and formal implication, to
recognize that logic must ultimately find its field where implications
are real, independent of the processes by which they are thought, and
irrespective of the conceptions we choose to frame.


II

The processes involved in the acquisition and systematization of
knowledge may, undoubtedly, be regarded as mental processes and fall
thus within the province of psychology. It may be claimed, therefore,
that every logical process is also a psychological one. The important
question is, however, is it nothing more? Do its logical and
psychological characters simply coincide? Or, to put the question in
still another form, as a psychological process simply, does it also
serve as a logical one? The answers to these questions can be determined
only by first noting what psychology can say about it as a mental
process.

In the first place, psychology can analyze it, and so determine its
elements and their connections. It can thus distinguish it from all
other mental processes by pointing out its unique elements or their
unique and characteristic connection. No one will deny that a judgment
is different from an emotion, or that an act of reasoning is different
from a volition; and no one will claim that these differences are
entirely beyond the psychologist's power to ascertain accurately and
precisely. Still further, it appears possible for him to determine with
the same accuracy and precision the distinction in content and
connection between processes which are true and those which are false.
For, as mental processes, it is natural to suppose that they contain
distinct differences of character which are ascertainable. The states of
mind called belief, certainty, conviction, correctness, truth, are thus,
doubtless, all distinguishable as mental states. It may be admitted,
therefore, that there can be a thoroughgoing psychology of logical
processes.

Yet it is quite evident to me that the characterization of a mental
process as logical is not a psychological characterization. In fact, I
think it may be claimed that the characterization of any mental process
in a specific way, say as an emotion, is extra-psychological. Judgments
and inferences are, in short, not judgments and inferences because they
admit of psychological analysis and explanation, any more than space is
space because the perception of it can be worked out by genetic
psychology. In other words, knowledge is first _knowledge_, and only
later a set of processes for psychological analysis. That is why, as it
seems to me, all psychological logicians, from Locke to our own day,
have signally failed in dealing with the problem of knowledge. The
attempt to construct knowledge out of mental states, the relations
between ideas, and the relation of ideas to things, has been, as I read
the history, decidedly without profit. Confusion and divergent opinion
have resulted instead of agreement and confidence. On precisely the same
psychological foundation, we have such divergent views of knowledge as
idealism, phenomenalism, and agnosticism, with many other strange
mixtures of logic, psychology, and metaphysics. The lesson of these
perplexing theories seems to be that logic, as logic, must be divorced
from psychology.

It is also of importance to note, in this connection, that the
determination of a process as mental and as thus falling within the
domain of psychology strictly, has by no means been worked out to the
general satisfaction of psychologists themselves. Recent literature
abounds in elaborate discussion of the distinction between what is a
mental fact and what not, with a prevailing tendency to draw the
remarkable conclusion that all facts are somehow mental or experienced
facts. The situation would be worse for psychology than it is, if that
vigorous science had not learned from other sciences the valuable knack
of isolating concrete problems and attacking them directly, without the
burden of previous logical or metaphysical speculation. Thus knowledge,
which is the peculiar province of logic, is increased, while we wait for
the acceptable definition of a mental fact. But definitions, be it
remembered, are themselves logical matters. Indeed, some psychologists
have gone so far as to claim that the distinction of a fact as mental is
a purely logical distinction. This is significant as indicating that the
time has not yet come for the identification of logic and psychology.

In refreshingly sharp contrast to the vagueness and uncertainty which
beset the definition of a mental fact are the palpable concreteness and
definiteness of knowledge itself. Every science, even history and
philosophy, are instances of it. What constitutes a knowledge ought to
be as definite and precise a question as could be asked. That logic has
made no more progress than it has in the answer to it appears to be due
to the fact that it has not sufficiently grasped the significance of its
own simplicity. Knowledge has been the important business of thinking
man, and he ought to be able to tell what he does in order to know, as
readily as he tells what he does in order to build a house. And that is
why the Aristotelian logic has held its own so long. In that logic, "the
master of them that know" simply rehearsed the way he had systematized
his own stores of knowledge. Naturally we, so far as we have followed
his methods, have had practically nothing to add. In our efforts to
improve on him, we have too often left the right way and followed the
impossible method inaugurated by Locke. Had we examined with greater
persistence our own methods of making science, we should have profited
more. The introduction of psychology, instead of helping the situation,
only confuses it.

Let it be granted, however, in spite of the vagueness of what is meant
by a mental fact, that logical processes are also mental processes. This
fact has, as I have already suggested, an important bearing on their
genesis, and sets very definite limits to the freedom of thought in
creating. It is not, however, as mental processes that they have the
value of knowledge. A mental process which is knowledge purports to be
connected with something other than itself, something which may not be a
mental process at all. This connection should be investigated, but the
investigation of it belongs, not to psychology, but to logic.

I am well aware that this conclusion runs counter to some metaphysical
doctrines, and especially to idealism in all its forms, with the
epistemologies based thereon. It is, of course, impossible here to
defend my position by an elaborate analysis of these metaphysical
systems. But I will say this. I am in entire agreement with idealism in
its claim that questions of knowledge and of the nature of reality
cannot ultimately be separated, because we can know reality only as we
know it. But the general question as to how we know reality can still be
raised. By this I do not mean the question, how is it possible for us to
have knowledge at all, or how it is possible for reality to be known at
all, but how, as a matter of fact, we actually do know it? That we
really do know it, I would most emphatically claim. Still further, I
would claim that what we know about it is determined, not by the fact
that we can know in general, but by the way reality, as distinct from
our knowledge, has determined. These ways appear to me to be
ascertainable, and form, thus, undoubtedly, a section of metaphysics.
But the metaphysics will naturally be realistic rather than idealistic.


III

Just as logical processes may be regarded as, at the same time,
psychological processes, so they may be regarded, with equal right, as
vital processes, coming thus under the categories of evolution. The
tendency so to regard them is very marked at the present day, especially
in France and in this country. In France, the movement has perhaps
received the clearer definition. In America the union of logic and
biology is complicated--and at times even lost sight of--by emphasis on
the idea of evolution generally. It is not my intention to trace the
history of this movement, but I should like to call attention to its
historic motive in order to get it in a clear light.

That the theory of evolution, even Darwinism itself, has radically
transformed our historical, scientific, and philosophical methods, is
quite evident. Add to this the influence of the Hegelian philosophy,
with its own doctrine of development, and one finds the causes of the
rather striking unanimity which is discoverable in many ways between
Hegelian idealists, on the one hand, and philosophers of evolution of
Spencer's type, on the other. Although two men would, perhaps, not
appear more radically different at first sight than Hegel and Spencer, I
am inclined to believe that we shall come to recognize more and more in
them an identity of philosophical conception. The pragmatism of the day
is a striking confirmation of this opinion, for it is often the
expression of Hegelian ideas in Darwinian and Spencerian terminology.
The claims of idealism and of evolutionary science and philosophy have
thus sought reconciliation. Logic has been, naturally, the last of the
sciences to yield to evolutionary and genetic treatment. It could not
escape long, especially when the idea of evolution had been so
successful in its handling of ethics. If morality can be brought under
the categories of evolution, why not thinking also? In answer to that
question we have the theory that thinking is an adaptation, judgment is
instrumental. But I would not leave the impression that this is true of
pragmatism alone, or that it has been developed only through pragmatic
tendencies. It is naturally the result also of the extension of
biological philosophy. In the biological conception of logic, we have,
then, an interesting coincidence in the results of tendencies differing
widely in their genesis.

It would be hazardous to deny, without any qualifications, the
importance of genetic considerations. Indeed, the fact that evolution in
the hands of a thinker like Huxley, for instance, should make
consciousness and thinking apparently useless epiphenomena, in a
developing world, has seemed like a most contradictory evolutionary
philosophy. It was difficult to make consciousness a real function in
development so long as it was regarded as only cognitive in character.
Evolutionary philosophy, coupled with physics, had built up a sort of
closed system with which consciousness could not interfere, but which it
could know, and know with all the assurance of a traditional logic. If,
however, we were to be consistent evolutionists, we could not abide by
such a remarkable result. The whole process of thinking must be brought
within evolution, so that knowledge, even the knowledge of the
evolutionary hypothesis itself, must appear as an instance of
adaptation. In order to do this, however, consciousness must not be
conceived as only cognitive. Judgment, the core of logical processes,
must be regarded as an instrument and as a mode of adaptation.

The desire for completeness and consistency in an evolutionary
philosophy is not the only thing which makes the denial of genetic
considerations hazardous. Strictly biological considerations furnish
reasons of equal weight for caution. For instance, one will hardly deny
that the whole sensory apparatus is a striking instance of adaptation.
Our perceptions of the world would thus appear to be determined by this
adaptation, to be instances of adjustment. They might conceivably have
been different, and in the case of many other creatures, the perceptions
of the world are undoubtedly different. All our logical processes,
referring ultimately as they do to our perceptions, would thus appear
finally to depend on the adaptation exhibited in the development of our
sensory apparatus. So-called laws of thought would seem to be but
abstract statements or formulations of the results of this adjustment.
It would be absurd to suppose that a man thinks in a sense radically
different from that in which he digests, or a flower blossoms, or that
two and two are four in a sense radically different from that in which a
flower has a given number of petals. Thinking, like digesting and
blossoming, is an effect, a product, possibly a structure.

I am not at all interested in denying the force of these considerations.
They have, to my mind, the greatest importance, and due weight has, as
yet, not been given to them. To one at all committed to a unitary and
evolutionary view of the world, it must indeed seem strange if thinking
itself should not be the result of evolution, or that, in thinking,
parts of the world had not become adjusted in a new way. But while I am
ready to admit this, I am by no means ready to admit some of the
conclusions for logic and metaphysics which are often drawn from the
admission. Just because thought, as a product of evolution, is
functional and judgment instrumental, it by no means follows that logic
is but a branch of biology, or that knowledge of the world is but a
temporary adjustment, which, as knowledge, might have been radically
different. In these conclusions, often drawn with Protagorean assurance,
two considerations of crucial importance seem to be overlooked, first,
that adaptation is itself metaphysical in character, and secondly, that
while knowledge may be functional and judgment instrumental, the
character of the functioning has the character of knowledge, which sets
it off sharply from all other functions.

It seems strange to me that the admission that knowledge is a matter of
adaptation, and thus a relative matter, should, in these days, be
regarded as in any way destroying the claims of knowledge to
metaphysical certainty. Yet, somehow, the opinion widely prevails that
the doctrine of relativity necessarily involves the surrender of
anything like absolute truth. "All our knowledge is relative, and,
therefore, only partial, incomplete, and but practically trustworthy,"
is a statement repeatedly made. The fact that, if our development had
been different, our knowledge would have been different, is taken to
involve the conclusion that our knowledge cannot possibly disclose the
real constitution of things, that it is essentially conditional, that it
is only a mental device for getting results, that any other system of
knowledge which would get results equally well would be equally true; in
short, that there can be no such thing as metaphysical or
epistemological truth. These conclusions do indeed seem strange, and
especially strange on the basis of evolution. For while the evolutionary
process might, conceivably, have been different, its results are, in any
case, the results of the process. They are not arbitrary. We might have
digested without stomachs, but the fact that we use stomachs in this
important process ought not to free us from metaphysical respect for the
organ. As M. Rey suggests, in the _Revue Philosophique_ for June, 1904,
a creature without the sense of smell would have no geometry, but that
does not make geometry essentially hypothetical, a mere mental
construction; for we have geometry because of the working out of
nature's laws. Indeed, instead of issuing in a relativistic metaphysics
of knowledge, the doctrine of relativity should issue in the recognition
of the finality of knowledge in every case of ascertainably complete
adaptation. In other words, adaptation is itself metaphysical in
character. Adjustment is always adjustment between things, and yields
only what it does yield. The things or elements get into the state which
is their adjustment, and this adjustment purports to be their actual and
unequivocal ordering in relation to one another. Different conditions
might have produced a different ordering, but, again, this ordering
would be equally actual and unequivocal, equally the _one_ ordering to
issue from them. To suppose or admit that the course of events might
have been and might be different is not at all to suppose or admit that
it was or is different; it is, rather, to suppose and admit that we have
real knowledge of what that course really was and is. This seems to be
very obvious.

Yet the evolutionist often thinks that he is not a metaphysician, even
when he brings all his conceptions systematically under the conception
of evolution. This must be due to some temporary lack of clearness. If
evolution is not a metaphysical doctrine when extended to apply to all
science, all morality, all logic, in short, all things, then it is quite
meaningless for evolutionists to pronounce a metaphysical sentence on
logical processes. But if evolution is a metaphysics, then its sentence
is metaphysical, and in every case of adjustment or adaptation we have a
revelation of the nature of reality in a definite and unequivocal form.
This conclusion applies to logical processes as well as to others. The
recognition that they are vital processes can, therefore, have little
significance for these processes in their distinctive character as
logical. They are like all other vital processes in that they are vital
and subject to evolution. They are unlike all others in that thought is
unlike digestion or breathing. To regard logical processes as vital
processes does not in any way, therefore, invalidate them as logical
processes or make it superfluous to consider their claim to give us real
knowledge of a real world. Indeed, it makes such a consideration more
necessary and important.

A second consideration overlooked by the Protagorean tendencies of the
day is that judgment, even if it is instrumental, purports to give us
knowledge, that is, it claims to reveal what is independent of the
judging process. Perhaps I ought not to say that this consideration is
overlooked, but rather that it is denied significance. It is even denied
to be essential to judgment. It is claimed that, instead of revealing
anything independent of the judging process, judgment is just the
adjustment and no more. It is a reorganization of experience, an attempt
at control. All this looks to me like a misstatement of the facts.
Judgment _claims_ to be no such thing. It does not function as such a
thing. When I make any judgment, even the simplest, I may make it as the
result of tension, because of a demand for reorganization, in order to
secure control of experience; but the judgment _means_ for me something
quite different. It means decidedly and unequivocally that in reality,
apart from the judging process, things exist and operate just as the
judgment declares. If it is claimed that this meaning is illusory, I
eagerly desire to know on what solid ground its illusoriness can be
established. When the conclusion was reached that gravitation varies
directly as the mass and inversely as the square of the distance, it was
doubtless reached in an evolutionary and pragmatic way; but it claimed
to disclose a fact which prevailed before the conclusion was reached,
and in spite of the conclusion. Knowledge has been born of the travail
of living, but it has been born as knowledge.

When the knowledge character of judgment is insisted on, it seems almost
incredible that any one would think of denying or overlooking it.
Indeed, current discussions are far from clear on the subject.
Pragmatists are constantly denying that they hold the conclusions that
their critics almost unanimously draw. There is, therefore, a good deal
of confusion of thought yet to be dispelled. Yet there seems to be
current a pronounced determination to banish the epistemological problem
from logic. This is, to my mind, suspicious, even when epistemology is
defined in a way which most epistemologists would not approve. It is
suspicious just because we must always ask eventually that most
epistemological and metaphysical question: "Is knowledge true?" To
answer, it is true when it functions in a way to satisfy the needs which
generated its activity, is, no doubt, correct, but it is by no means
adequate. The same answer can be made to the inquiry after the
efficiency of any vital process whatever, and is, therefore, not
distinctive. We have still to inquire into the specific character of the
needs which originate judgments and of the consequent satisfaction. Just
here is where the uniqueness of the logical problem is disclosed. With
conscious beings, the success of the things they do has become
increasingly dependent on their ability to discover what takes place in
independence of the knowing process. That is the need which generates
judgment. The satisfaction is, of course, the attainment of the
discovery. Now to make the judgment itself and not the consequent action
the instrumental factor seems to me to misstate the facts of the case.
Nothing is clearer than that there is no necessity for knowledge to
issue in adjustment. And it is clear to me that increased control of
experience, while resulting from knowledge, does not give to it its
character. Omniscience could idly view the transformations of reality
and yet remain omniscient. Knowledge works, but it is not, therefore,
knowledge.

These considerations have peculiar force when applied to that branch of
knowledge which is knowledge itself. Is the biological account of
knowledge correct? That question we must evidently ask, especially when
we are urged to accept the account. Can we, to put the question in its
most general form, accept as an adequate account of the logical process
a theory which is bound up with some other specific department of human
knowledge? It seems to me that we cannot. Here we must be
epistemologists and metaphysicians, or give up the problem entirely.
This by no means involves the attempt to conceive pure thought set over
against pure reality--the kind of epistemology and metaphysics justly
ridiculed by the pragmatist--for knowledge, as already stated, is given
to us in concrete instances. How knowledge in general is possible is,
therefore, as useless and meaningless a question as how reality in
general is possible. The knowledge is given as a fact of life, and what
we have to determine is not its non-logical antecedents or its practical
consequences, but its constitution as knowledge and its validity. It may
be admitted that the question of validity is settled pragmatically. No
knowledge is true unless it yields results which can be verified, unless
it _can_ issue in increased control of experience. But I insist again
that that fact is not sufficient for an account of what knowledge claims
to be. It claims to issue in control because it is true in independence
of the control. And it is just this assurance that is needed to
distinguish knowledge from what is not knowledge. It is the necessity of
exhibiting this assurance which makes it impossible to subordinate
logical problems, and forces us at last to questions of epistemology and
metaphysics.

As I am interested here primarily in determining the field of logic, it
is somewhat outside my province to consider the details of logical
theory. Yet the point just raised is of so much importance in connection
with the main question that I venture the following general
considerations. This is, perhaps, the more necessary because the
pragmatic doctrine finds in the concession made regarding the test of
validity one of its strongest defenses.

Of course a judgment is not true simply because it is a judgment. It may
be false. The only way to settle its validity is to discover whether
experience actually provides what the judgment promises, that is,
whether the conclusions drawn from it really enable us to control
experience. No mere speculation will yield the desired result, no matter
with how much formal validity the conclusions may be drawn. That merely
formal validity is not the essential thing, I have pointed out in
discussing the relation of logic to mathematics. The test of truth is
pragmatic. It is apparent, therefore, that the formal validity does not
determine the actual validity. What is this but the statement that the
process of judgment is not itself the determining factor in its real
validity? It is, in short, only valid judgments that can really give us
control of experience. The implications taken up in the judgment must,
therefore, be real implications which, as such, have nothing to do with
the judging process, and which, most certainly, are not brought about by
it. And what is this but the claim that judgment as such is never
instrumental? In other words, a judgment which effected its own content
would only by the merest accident function as valid knowledge. We have
valid knowledge, then, only when the implications of the judgment are
found to be independent of the judging process. We have knowledge only
at the risk of error. The pragmatic test of validity, instead of proving
the instrumental character of judgment, would thus appear to prove just
the reverse.

Valid knowledge has, therefore, for its content a system of real, not
judged or hypothetical implications. The central problem of logic which
results from this fact is not how a knowledge of real implications is
then possible, but what are the ascertainable types of real
implications. But, it may be urged, we need some criterion to determine
what a real implication is. I venture to reply that we need none, if by
such is meant anything else than the facts with which we are dealing. I
need no other criterion than the circle to determine whether its
diameters are really equal. And, in general, I need no other criterion
than the facts dealt with to determine whether they really imply what I
judge them to imply. Logic appears to me to be really as simple as this.
Yet there can be profound problems involved in the working out of this
simple procedure. There is the problem already stated of the most
general types of real implication, or, in other words, the time-honored
doctrine of categories. Whether there are categories or basal types of
existence seems to me to be ascertainable. When ascertained, it is also
possible to discover the types of inference or implication which they
afford. This is by no means the whole of logic, but it appears to me to
be its central problem.

These considerations will, I hope, throw light on the statement that
while knowledge works, it is not therefore knowledge. It works because
its content existed before its discovery by the knowledge process, and
because its content was not effected or brought about by that process.
Judgment was the instrument of its discovery, not the instrument which
fashioned it. While, therefore, willing to admit that logical processes
are vital processes, I am not willing to admit that the problem of logic
is radically changed thereby in its formulation or solution, for the
vital processes in question have the unique character of knowledge, the
content of which is what it claims to be, a system of real implications
which existed prior to its discovery.

In the psychological and biological tendencies in logic, there is,
however, I think, a distinct gain for logical theory. The insistence
that logical processes are both mental and vital has done much to take
them out of the transcendental aloofness from reality in which they have
often been placed, especially since Kant. So long as thought and object
were so separated that they could never be brought together, and so long
as logical processes were conceived wholly in terms of ideas set over
against objects, there was no hope of escape from the realm of pure
hypothesis and conjecture. Locke's axiom that "the mind, in all its
thoughts and reasonings, hath no other immediate object but its own
ideas," an axiom which Kant did so much to sanctify, and which has been
the basal principle of the greater part of modern logic and metaphysics,
is most certainly subversive of logical theory. The transition from
ideas to anything else is rendered impossible by it. Now it is just this
axiom which the biological tendencies in logic have done so much to
destroy. They have insisted, with the greatest right, that logical
processes are not set over against their content as idea against object,
as appearance against reality, but are processes of reality itself. Just
as reality can and does function in a physical or a physiological way,
so also it functions in a logical way. The state we call knowledge
becomes, thus, as much a part of the system of things as the state we
call chemical combination. The problem how thought can know anything
becomes, therefore, as irrelevant as the problem how elements can
combine at all. The recognition of this is a great gain, and the promise
of it most fruitful for both logic and metaphysics.

But, as I have tried to point out, all this surrendering of pure thought
as opposed to pure reality, does not at all necessitate our regarding
judgment as a process which makes reality different from what it was
before. Of course there is one difference, namely, the logical one; for
reality prior to logical processes is unknown. As a result of these
processes it becomes known. These processes are, therefore, responsible
for a known as distinct from an unknown reality. But what is the
transformation which reality undergoes in becoming known? When it
becomes known that water seeks its own level, what change has taken
place in the water? It would appear that we must answer, none. The water
which seeks its own level has not been transformed into ideas or even
into a human experience. It appears to remain, as water, precisely what
it was before. The transformation which takes place, takes place in the
one who knows, a transformation from ignorance to knowledge. Psychology
and biology can afford us the natural history of this transformation,
but they cannot inform us in the least as to why it should have its
specific character. That is given and not deduced. The attempts to
deduce it have, without exception, been futile. That is why we are
forced to take it as ultimate in the same way we take as ultimate the
specific character of any definite transformation. To my mind, there is
needed a fuller and more cordial recognition of this fact. The
conditions under which we, as individuals, know are certainly
discoverable, just as much as the conditions under which we breathe or
digest. And what happens to things when we know them is also as
discoverable as what happens to them when we breathe them or digest
them.

But here the idealist may interpose that we can never know what happens
to things when we know them, because we can never know them before they
become known. I suppose I ought to wrestle with this objection. It is an
obvious one, but, to my mind, it is without force. The objection, if
pursued, can carry us only in a circle. The problem of knowledge is
still on our hands, and every logician of whatever school, the offerer
of this objection also, has, nevertheless, attempted to show what the
transformation is that thought works, for all admit that it works some.
Are we, therefore, engaged in a hopeless task? Or have we failed to
grasp the significance of our problem? I think the latter. We fail to
recognize that, in one way or other, we do solve the problem, and that
our attempts to solve it show quite clearly that the objection under
consideration is without force. Take, for instance, any concrete case of
knowledge, the water seeking its own level, again. Follow the process of
knowledge to the fullest extent, we never find a single problem which is
not solvable by reference to the concrete things with which we are
dealing, nor a single solution which is not forced upon us by these
things rather than by the fact that we deal with them. The
transformation wrought is thus discovered, in the progress of knowledge
itself, to be wrought solely in the inquiring individual, and wrought by
repeated contact with the things with which he deals. In other words,
all knowledge discloses the fact that its content is not created by
itself, but by the things with which it is concerned.

It is quite possible, therefore, that knowledge should be what we call
transcendent and yet not involve us in a transcendental logic. That we
should be able to know without altering the things we know is no more
and no less remarkable and mysterious than that we should be able to
digest by altering the things we digest. In other words, the fact that
digestion alters the things is no reason that knowledge should alter
them, even if we admit that logical processes are vital and subject to
evolution. Indeed, if evolution teaches us anything on this point, it is
that knowledge processes are real just as they exist, as real as growth
and digestion, and must have their character described in accordance
with what they are. The recognition that knowledge can be transcendent
and yet its processes vital seems to throw light on the difficulty
evolution has encountered in accounting for consciousness and knowledge.
All the reactions of the individual seem to be expressible in terms of
chemistry and physics without calling in consciousness as an operating
factor. What is this but the recognition of its transcendence,
especially when the conditions of conscious activity are quite likely
expressible in chemical and physical terms? While, therefore, biological
considerations result in the great gain of giving concrete reality to
the processes of knowledge, the gain is lost, if knowledge itself is
denied the transcendence which it so evidently discloses.


IV

The argument advanced in this discussion has had the aim of emphasizing
the fact that in knowledge we have actually given, as content, reality
as it is in independence of the act of knowing, that the real world is
self-existent, independent of the judgments we make about it. This fact
has been emphasized in order to confine the field of logic to the field
of knowledge as thus understood. In the course of the argument, I have
occasionally indicated what some of the resulting problems of logic are.
These I wish now to state in a somewhat more systematic way.

The basal problem of logic becomes, undoubtedly, the metaphysics of
knowledge, the determination of the nature of knowledge and its relation
to reality. It is quite evident that this is just the problem which the
current tendencies criticised have sought, not to solve, but to avoid or
set aside. Their motives for so doing have been mainly the difficulties
which have arisen from the Kantian philosophy in its development into
transcendentalism, and the desire to extend the category of evolution to
embrace the whole of reality, knowledge included. I confess to feeling
the force of these motives as strongly as any advocate of the criticised
opinions. But I do not see my way clear to satisfying them by denying or
explaining away the evident character of knowledge itself. It appears
far better to admit that a metaphysics of knowledge is as yet hopeless,
rather than so to transform knowledge as to get rid of the problem; for
we must ultimately ask after the truth of the transformation. But I am
far from believing that a metaphysics of knowledge is hopeless. The
biological tendencies themselves seem to furnish us with much material
for at least the beginnings of one. Reality known is to be set over
against reality unknown or independent of knowledge, not as image to
original, idea to thing, phenomena to noumena, appearance to reality;
but reality as known is a new stage in the development of reality
itself. It is not an external mind which knows reality by means of its
own ideas, but reality itself becomes known through its own expanding
and readjusting processes. So far I am in entire agreement with the
tendencies I have criticised. But what change is effected by this
expansion and readjustment? I can find no other answer than this simple
one: the change to knowledge. And by this I mean to assert unequivocally
that the addition of knowledge to a reality hitherto without it is
simply an addition to it and not a transformation of it. Such a view may
appear to make knowledge a wholly useless addition, but I see no
inherent necessity in such a conclusion. Nor do I see any inherent
necessity of supposing that knowledge must be a useful addition. Yet I
would not be so foolish as to deny the usefulness of knowledge. We have,
of course, the most palpable evidences of its use. As we examine them, I
think we find, without exception, that knowledge is useful just in
proportion as we find that reality is not transformed by being known. If
it really were transformed in that process, could anything else than
confusion result from the multitude of knowing individuals?

To me, therefore, the metaphysics of the situation resolves itself into
the realistic position that a developing reality develops, under
ascertainable conditions, into a known reality without undergoing any
other transformation, and that this new stage marks an advance in the
efficiency of reality in its adaptations. My confidence steadily grows
that this whole process can be scientifically worked out. It is
impossible here to justify my confidence in detail, and I must leave the
matter with the following suggestion. The point from which knowledge
starts and to which it ultimately returns is always some portion of
reality where there is consciousness, the things, namely, which, we are
wont to say, are in consciousness. These things are not ideas
representing other things outside of consciousness, but real things,
which, by being in consciousness, have the capacity of representing
_each other_, of standing for or implying each other. Knowledge is not
the creation of these implications, but their successful
systematization. It will be found, I think, that this general statement
is true of every concrete case of knowledge which we possess. Its
detailed working out would be a metaphysics of knowledge, an
epistemology.

Since knowledge is the successful systematization of the implications
which are disclosed in things by virtue of consciousness, a second
logical problem of fundamental importance is the determination of the
most general types of implication with the categories which underlie
them. The execution of this problem would naturally involve, as
subsidiary, the greater part of formal and symbolic logic. Indeed, vital
doctrines of the syllogism, of definition, of formal inference, of the
calculus of classes and propositions, of the logic of relations, appear
to be bound up ultimately with a doctrine of categories; for it is only
a recognition of basal types of existence with their implications that
can save these doctrines from mere formalism. These types of existence
or categories are not to be regarded as free creations or as the
contributions of the mind to experience. There is no deduction of them
possible. They must be discovered in the actual progress of knowledge
itself, and I see no reason to suppose that their number is necessarily
fixed, or that we should necessarily be in possession of all of them. It
is requisite, however, that in every case categories should be incapable
of reduction to each other.

A doctrine of categories seems to me to be of the greatest importance in
the systematization of knowledge, for no problem of relation is even
stateable correctly before the type of existence to which its terms
belong has been first determined. I submit one illustration to reinforce
this general statement, namely, the relation of mind to body. If mind
and body belong to the same type of existence, we have one set of
problems on our hands; but if they do not, we have an entirely different
set. Yet volumes of discussion written on this subject have abounded in
confusion, simply because they have regarded mind and body as belonging
to radically different types of existence and yet related in terms of
the type to which one of them belongs. The doctrine of parallelism is,
perhaps, the epitome of this confusion.

The doctrine of categories will involve not only the greater part of
formal and symbolic logic, but will undoubtedly carry the logician into
the doctrine of method. Here it is to be hoped that recent tendencies
will result in effectively breaking down the artificial distinctions
which have prevailed between deduction and induction. Differences in
method do not result from differences in points of departure, or between
the universal and the particular, but from the categories, again, which
give the method direction and aim, and result in different types of
synthesis. In this direction, the logician may hope for an approximately
correct classification of the various departments of knowledge. Such a
classification is, perhaps, the ideal of logical theory.




SECTION D--METHODOLOGY OF SCIENCE




SECTION D--METHODOLOGY OF SCIENCE

(_Hall 6, September 22, 3 p. m._)

  CHAIRMAN:  PROFESSOR JAMES E. CREIGHTON, Cornell University.
  SPEAKERS:  PROFESSOR WILHELM OSTWALD, University of Leipzig.
             PROFESSOR BENNO ERDMANN, University of Bonn.
  SECRETARY: DR. R. B. PERRY, Harvard University.




ON THE THEORY OF SCIENCE

BY WILHELM OSTWALD

(_Translated from the German by Dr. R. M. Yerkes, Harvard University_)

     [Wilhelm Ostwald, Professor of Physical Chemistry,
     University of Leipzig, since 1887. b. September 2, 1853,
     Riga, Russia. Grad. Candidate Chemistry, 1877; Master
     Chemistry, 1878; Doctor Chemistry, Dorpat. Dr. Hon. Halle
     and Cambridge; Privy Councilor; Assistant, Dorpat, 1875-81;
     Regular Professor, Riga 1881-87. Member various learned and
     scientific societies. Author of _Manual of General
     Chemistry_; _Electro Chemistry_; _Foundation of Inorganic
     Chemistry_; _Lectures on Philosophy of Nature_; _Artist's
     Letters_; _Essays and Lectures_; and many other noted works
     and papers on Chemistry and Philosophy.]


One of the few points on which the philosophy of to-day is united is the
knowledge that the only thing completely certain and undoubted for each
one is the content of his own consciousness; and here the certainty is
to be ascribed not to the content of consciousness in general, but only
to the momentary content.

This momentary content we divide into two large groups, which we refer
to the inner and outer world. If we call any kind of content of
consciousness an experience, then we ascribe to the outer world such
experiences as arise without the activity of our will and cannot be
called forth by its activity alone. Such experiences never arise without
the activity of certain parts of our body, which we call sense organs.
In other words, the outer world is that which reaches our consciousness
through the senses.

On the other hand, we ascribe to our inner world all experiences which
arise without the immediate assistance of a sense organ. Here, first of
all, belong all experiences which we call remembering and thinking. An
exact and complete differentiation of the two territories is not
intended here, for our purpose does not demand that this task be
undertaken. For this purpose the general orientation in which every one
recognizes familiar facts of his consciousness is sufficient.

Each experience has the characteristic of uniqueness. None of us doubts
that the expression of the poet "Everything is only repeated in life" is
really just the opposite of the truth, and that in fact nothing is
repeated in life. But to express such a judgment we must be in position
to compare different experiences with each other, and this possibility
rests upon a fundamental phenomenon of our consciousness, memory. Memory
alone enables us to put various experiences in relation to each other,
so that the question as to their likeness or difference can be asked.

We find the simpler relations here in the inner experiences. A certain
thought, such as twice two is four, I can bring up in my consciousness
as often as I wish, and in addition to the content of the thought I
experience the further consciousness that I have already had this
thought before, that it is familiar to me.

A similar but somewhat more complex phenomenon appears in the
experiences in which the outer world takes part. After I have eaten an
apple, I can repeat the experience in two ways. First, as an inner
experience, I can remember that I have eaten the apple and by an effort
of my will I can re-create in myself, although with diminished strength
and intensity, a part of the former experience--the part which belonged
to my inner world. Another part, the sense impression which belonged to
that experience, I cannot re-create by an effort of my will, but I must
again eat an apple in order to have a similar experience of this sort.
This is a complete repetition of the experience to which the external
world also contributes. Such a repetition does not depend altogether on
my own powers, for it is necessary that I have an apple, that is, that
certain conditions which are independent of me and belong to the outer
world be fulfilled.

Whether the outer world takes part in the repetition of an experience or
not has no influence upon the possibility of the content of
consciousness which we call memory. From this it follows that this
content depends upon the inner experience alone, and that we remember an
external event only by means of its inner constituents. The mere
repetition of corresponding sense impressions is not sufficient for
this, for we can see the same person repeatedly without recognizing him,
if the inner accompanying phenomena were so insignificant, as a result
of lack of interest, that their repetition does not produce the content
of consciousness known as memory. If we see him quite frequently, the
frequent repetition of the external impression finally causes the memory
of the corresponding inner experience.

From this it results that for the "memory"-reaction a certain intensity
of the inner experience is necessary. This threshold can be attained
either at once or by continued repetition. The repetitions are the more
effective the more rapidly they follow each other. From this we may
conclude that the memory-value of an experience, or its capacity for
calling forth the "memory"-reaction by repetition, decreases with the
lapse of time. Further, we must consider the fact mentioned above, that
an experience is never exactly repeated, and that therefore the
"memory"-reaction occurs even where there is only resemblance or partial
agreement in place of complete agreement. Here, too, there are different
degrees; memory takes place more easily the more perfectly the two
experiences agree, and _vice versa_.

If we look at these phenomena from the physiological side, we may say we
have two kinds of apparatus or organs, one of which does not depend upon
our will, whereas the other does. The former are the sense organs. The
latter constitutes the organ of thought. Only the activities of the
latter constitute our experiences or the content of our consciousness.

The activities of the former may call forth the corresponding processes
of the latter, but this is not always necessary. Our sense organs can be
influenced without our "noticing" it, that is, without the thinking
apparatus being involved. An especially important reaction of the
thinking apparatus is memory, that is, the consciousness that an
experience which we have just had possesses more or less agreement with
former experiences. With reference to the organ of thought, it is the
expression of the general physiological fact that every process
influences the organ in such a way that it has a different relation to
the repetition of this process, from the first time, and moreover that
the repetition is rendered easier. This influence decreases with time.

It is chiefly upon these phenomena that experience rests. Experience
results from the fact that all events consist of a complete series of
simultaneous and successive components. When a connection between some
of those parts has become familiar to us by the repetition of similar
occurrences (for instance, the succession of day and night), we do not
feel such an occurrence as something completely new, but as something
partially familiar, and the single parts or phases of it do not surprise
us, but rather we anticipate their coming or expect them. From
expectation to prediction is only a short step, and so experience
enables us to prophesy the future from the past and present.

Now this is also the road to science: for science is nothing but
systematized experience, that is, experience reduced to its simplest and
clearest forms. Its purposes to predict from a part of a phenomenon
which is known another part which is not yet known. Here it may be a
question of spatial as well as of temporal phenomena. Thus the
scientific zoölogist knows how to "determine," that is, to tell, from
the skull of an animal, the nature of the other parts of the animal to
which the skull belongs; likewise the astronomer is able to indicate the
future, situation of a planet from a few observations of its present
situation; and the more exact the first observations were, the more
distant the future for which he can predict. All such scientific
predictions are limited, therefore, with reference to their number and
their accuracy. If the skull shown to the zoölogist is that of a
chicken, then he will probably be able to indicate the general
characteristics of chickens, and also perhaps whether the chicken had a
top-knot or not; but not its color, and only uncertainly its age and its
size. Both facts, the possibility of prediction and its limitation in
content and amount, are an expression for the two fundamental facts,
that among our experiences there is similarity, but not complete
agreement.

The foregoing considerations deserve to be discussed and extended in
several directions. First, the objection will be made that a chicken or
a planet is not an experience; we call them rather by the most general
name of thing. But our knowledge of the chicken begins with the
experiencing of certain visual impressions, to which are added, perhaps,
certain impressions of hearing and touch. The sight impressions (to
discuss these first) by no means completely agree. We see the chicken
large or small, according to the distance; and according to its position
and movement its outline is very different. As we have seen, however,
these differences are continually grading into one other and do not
reach beyond certain limits; we neglect to observe them and rest
contented with the fact that certain other peculiarities (legs, wings,
eyes, bill, comb, etc.) remain and do not change. The constant
properties we group together as a thing, and the changing ones we call
the states of this thing. Among the changing properties, we distinguish
further those which depend upon us (for example, the distance) and those
upon which we have no immediate influence (for instance, the position or
motion): the first is called the subjective changeable part of our
experience, while the second is called the objective mutability of the
thing.

This omission of both the subjectively and objectively changeable
portion of the experience in connection with the retention of the
constant portion and the gathering together of the latter into a unity
is one of the most important operations which we perform with our
experiences. We call it the process of abstraction, and its product, the
permanent unity, we call a concept. Plainly this procedure contains
arbitrary as well as necessary factors. Arbitrary or accidental is the
circumstance that quite different phases of a given experience come to
consciousness according to our attention, the amount of practice we have
had, indeed according to our whole intellectual nature. We may overlook
constant factors and attend to changeable ones. The objective factors,
however, become necessary as soon as we have noticed them; after we have
seen that the chicken is black, it is not in our power to see it red.
Accordingly, in general, our knowledge of that which agrees must be less
than it actually could be, since we have not been able to observe every
agreement, and our concept is always poorer in constituents at any given
time than it might be. To seek out such elements of concepts as have
been overlooked, and to prove that they are necessary factors of the
corresponding experiences, is one of the never-ending tasks of science.
The other case, namely, that elements have been received in the concept
which do not prove to be constant, also happens, and leads to another
task. One can then leave that element out of the concept, if further
experiences show that the other elements are found in them, or one can
form a new concept which contains the former elements, leaving out those
that have been recognized as unessential. For a long time the white
color belonged to the concept swan. When the Dutch black swans became
known, it was possible either to drop the element white from the concept
swan (as actually happened), or to make a new concept for the bird which
is similar to the swan but black. Which choice is made in a given case
is largely arbitrary, and is determined by considerations of expediency.

Into the formation of concepts, therefore, two factors are operative, an
objective empirical factor, and a subjective or purposive factor. The
fitness of a concept is seen in relation to its purpose, which we shall
now consider.

The purpose of a concept is its use for prediction. The old logic set up
the syllogism as the type of thought-activity, and its simplest example
is the well-known

          All men are mortal,
          Caius is a man,
          Therefore Caius is mortal.

In general, the scheme runs

          To the concept M belongs the element B,
          C belongs under the concept M,
          Therefore the element B is found in C.

One can say that this method of reasoning is in regular use even to this
day. It must be added, however, that this use is of a quite different
nature from that of the ancients. Whereas formerly the setting up of the
first proposition or the major premise was considered the most important
thing, and the establishment of the second proposition or minor premise
was thought to be a rather trifling matter, now the relation is
reversed. The major premise contains the description of a concept, the
minor makes the assertion that a certain thing belongs under this
concept. What right exists for such an assertion? The most palpable
reply would be, since all the elements of the concept M (including B)
are found in C, C belongs under the concept M. Such a conclusion would
indeed be binding, but at the same time quite worthless, for it only
repeats the minor premise. Actually the method of reasoning is
essentially different, for the minor premise is not obtained by showing
that all the elements of the concept M are found in C, but only some of
them. The conclusion is not necessary, but only probable, and the whole
process of reasoning runs: Certain elements are frequently found
together, therefore they are united in the concept M. Certain of these
elements are recognized in the thing C, therefore probably the other
elements of the concept M will be found in C.

The old logic, also, was familiar with this kind of conclusion. It was
branded, however, as the worst of all, by the name of incomplete
induction, since the absolute certainty demanded of the syllogism did
not belong to its results. One must admit, however, that the whole of
modern science makes use of no other form of reasoning than incomplete
induction, for it alone admits of a prediction, that is, an indication
of relations which have not been immediately observed.

How does science get along with the defective certainty of this process
of reasoning? The answer is, that the probability of the conclusion can
run through all degrees from mere conjecture to the maximum probability,
which is practically indistinguishable from certainty. The probability
is the greater the more frequently an incomplete induction of this kind
has proven correct in later experience. Accordingly we have at our
command a number of expressions which in their simplest and most general
form have the appearance: If an element A is met within a thing, then
the element B is also found in it (in spatial or temporal relationship).

If the relation is temporal, this general statement is known by some
such name as the law of causality. If it is spatial, one talks of the
idea (in the Platonic sense), or the type of the thing, of substance,
etc.

From the considerations here presented we get an easy answer to many
questions which are frequently discussed in very different senses.
First, the question concerning the general validity of the law of
causality. All attempts to prove such a validity have failed, and there
has remained only the indication that without this law we should feel an
unbearable uncertainty in reference to the world. From this, however, we
see very plainly that here it is merely a question of expediency. From
the continuous flux of our experiences we hunt out those groups which
can always be found again, in order to be able to conclude that if the
element A is given, the element B will be present. We do not find this
relationship as "given," but we put it into our experiences, in that we
consider the parts which correspond to the relationship as belonging
together.

The very same thing may be said of spatial complexes. Such factors as
are always, or at any rate often, found together are taken by us as
"belonging together," and out of them a concept is formed which embraces
these factors. A question as to the why has here, as with the temporal
complexes, no definite meaning. There are countless things that happen
together once to which we pay no attention because they happen only once
or but seldom. The knowledge of the fact that such a single concurrence
exists amounts to nothing, since from the presence of one factor it does
not lead to a conclusion as to the presence of another, and therefore
does not make possible prediction. Of all the possible, and even actual
combinations, only those interest us which are repeated, and this
arbitrary but expedient selection produces the impression that the world
consists only of combinations that can be repeated; that, in other
words, the law of causality or of the type is a general one. However
general or limited application those laws have, is more a question of
our skill in finding the constant combinations among those that are
present than a question of objective natural fact.

Thus we see the development and pursuit of all sciences going on in such
a way that on the one hand more and more constant combinations are
discovered, and on the other hand more inclusive relations of this kind
are found out, by means of which elements are united with each other
which before no one had even tried to bring together. So sciences are
increasing both in the sense of an increasing complication and in an
increasing unification.

If we consider from this standpoint the development and procedure of the
various sciences, we find a rational division of the sum total of
science in the question as to the scope and multiplicity of the
combinations or groups treated of in them. These two properties are in a
certain sense antithetical. The simpler a complex is, that is, the fewer
elements brought together in it, the more frequently it is met with, and
_vice versa_. One can therefore arrange all the sciences in such a way
that one begins with the least multiplicity and the greatest scope, and
ends with the greatest multiplicity and the least scope. The first
science will be the most general, and will therefore contain the most
general and therefore the most barren concepts; the last will contain
the most specific and therefore the richest.

What are these limiting concepts? The most general is the concept of
_thing_, that is, any piece of experience, seized arbitrarily from the
flux of our experiences, which can be repeated. The most specific and
richest is the concept of _human intercourse_. Between the science of
things and the science of human intercourse, all the other sciences are
found arranged in regular gradation. If one follows out the scheme the
following outline results:

   1. Theory of order.                  }
   2. Theory of numbers, or arithmetic. } Mathematics.
   3. Theory of time.                   }
   4. Theory of space, or geometry.     }
   5. Mechanics.       }
   6. Physics.         } Energetics.
   7. Chemistry.       }
   8. Physiology.  }
   9. Psychology.  } Biology.
  10. Sociology.   }

This table is arbitrary in so far as the grades assumed can be increased
or diminished according to need. For example, mechanics and physics
could be taken together; or between physics and chemistry, physical
chemistry could be inserted. Likewise between physiology and psychology,
anthropology might find a place; or the first five sciences might be
united under mathematics. How one makes these divisions is entirely a
practical question, which will be answered at any time in accordance
with the purposes of division; and dispute concerning the matter is
almost useless.

I should like, however, to call attention to the three great groups of
mathematics, energetics, and biology (in the wider sense). They
represent the decisive regulative thought which humanity has evolved,
contributed up to this time, toward the scientific mastery of its
experiences. Arrangement is the fundamental thought of mathematics. From
mechanics to chemistry the concept of energy is the most important; and
for the last three sciences it is the concept of life. Mathematics,
energetics, and biology, therefore, embrace the totality of the
sciences.

Before we enter upon the closer consideration of these sciences, it will
be well to anticipate another objection which can be raised on the basis
of the following fact. Besides the sciences named (and those which lie
between them) there are many others, as geology, history, medicine,
philology, which we find difficulty in arranging in the above scheme,
which must, however, be taken into consideration in some way or other.
They are often characterized by the fact that they stand in relation
with several of the sciences named, but even more by the following
circumstance. Their task is not, as is true of the pure sciences above
named, the discovery of general relationships, but they relate rather to
existing complex objects whose origin, scope, extent, etc., in short,
whose temporal and spatial relationships they have to discover or to
"explain." For this purpose they make use of relations which are placed
at their disposal by the first-named pure sciences. These sciences,
therefore, had better be called applied sciences. However, in this
connection we should not think only or even chiefly of technical
applications; rather the expression is used to indicate that the
reciprocal relations of the parts of an object are to be called to mind
by the application of the general rules found in pure science.

While in such a task the abstraction process of pure science is not
applicable (for the omission of certain parts and the concentration upon
others which is characteristic of these is excluded by the nature of the
task), yet in a given case usually the necessity of bringing in various
pure sciences for the purpose of explanation is evident.

Astronomy is one of these applied sciences. Primarily it rests upon
mechanics, and in its instrumental portion, upon optics; in its present
development on the spectroscopic side, however, it borrows considerably
of chemistry. In like manner history is applied sociology and
psychology. Medicine makes use of all the sciences before mentioned, up
to psychology, etc.

It is important to get clearly in mind the nature of these sciences,
since, on account of their compound nature, they resist arrangement
amongst the pure sciences, while, on account of their practical
significance, they still demand consideration. The latter fact gives
them also a sort of arbitrary or accidental character, since their
development is largely conditioned by the special needs of the time.
Their number, speaking in general, is very large, since each pure
science may be turned into an applied science in various ways; and since
in addition we have combinations of two, three, or more sciences.
Moreover, the method of procedure in the applied sciences is
fundamentally different from that in the pure sciences. In the first it
is a question of the greatest possible analysis of a single given
complex into its scientifically comprehensible parts; while pure
science, on the other hand, considers many complexes together in order
to separate out from them their common element, but expressly disclaims
the complete analysis of a single complex.

In scientific work, as it appears in practice, pure and applied science
are by no means sharply separated. On the one hand the auxiliaries of
investigations, such as apparatus, books, etc., demand of the pure
investigator knowledge and application in applied science; and, on the
other hand, the applied scientist is frequently unable to accomplish his
task unless he himself becomes for the time being a pure investigator
and ascertains or discovers the missing general relationships which he
needs for his task. A separation and differentiation of the two forms of
science was necessary, however, since the method and the aim of each
present essential differences.

In order to consider the method of procedure of pure science more
carefully, let us turn back to the table on pages 339, 340, and attend
to the single sciences separately. The theory of arrangement was
mentioned first, although this place is usually assigned to mathematics.
However, mathematics has to do with the concepts of number and magnitude
as fundamentals, while the theory of arrangement does not make use of
these. Here the fundamental concept is rather the thing or object of
which nothing more is demanded or considered than that it is a fragment
of our experience which can be isolated and will remain so. It must not
be an arbitrary combination; such a thing would have only momentary
duration, and the task of science, to learn the unknown from the given,
could not find application. Rather must this element have such a nature
that it can be characterized and recognized again, that is, it must
already have a conceptual nature. Therefore only parts of our experience
which can be repeated (which alone can be objects of science) can be
characterized as things or objects. But in saying this we have said all
that was demanded of them. In other respects they may be just as
different as is conceivable.

If the question is asked, What can be said scientifically about
indefinite things of this sort? it is especially the relations of
arrangement and association which yield an answer. If we call any
definite combination of such things a group, we can arrange such a group
in different ways, that is, we can determine for each thing the relation
in which it is to stand to the neighboring thing. From every such
arrangement result not only the relationships indicated, but a great
number of new ones, and it appears that when the first relationships are
given the others always follow in like manner. This, however, is the
type of the scientific proposition or natural law (page 335). From the
presence of certain relations of arrangement we can deduce the presence
of others which we have not yet demonstrated.

To illustrate this fact by an example, let us think of the things
arranged in a simple row, while we choose one thing as a first member
and associate another with it as following it; with the latter another
is associated, etc. Thereby the position of each thing in the row is
determined only in relation to the immediately preceding thing.
Nevertheless, the position of every member in the whole row, and
therefore its relation to every other member, is determined by this.
This is seen in a number of special laws. If we differentiate former and
latter members we can formulate the proposition, among others, if B is a
later member with reference to A, and C with reference to B, then C is
also a later member with reference to A.

The correctness and validity of this proposition seems to us beyond all
doubt. But this is only a result of the fact that we are able to
demonstrate it very easily in countless single cases, and have so
demonstrated it. We know only cases which correspond to the proposition,
and have never experienced a contradictory case. To call such a
proposition, however, a necessity of thinking, does not appear to me
correct. For the expression necessity of thinking can only rest upon the
fact that every time the proposition is thought, that is, every time one
remembers its demonstration, its confirmation always arises. But every
sort of false proposition is also thinkable. An undeniable proof of this
is the fact that so much which is false is actually thought. But to base
the proof for the correctness of a proposition upon the impossibility of
thinking its opposite is an impossible undertaking, because every sort
of nonsense can be thought: where the proof was thought to have been
given, there has always been a confusion of thought and intuition, proof
or inspection.

With this one proposition of course the theory of order is not
exhausted, for here it is not a question of the development of this
theory, but of an example of the nature of the problems of science. Of
the further questions we shall briefly discuss the problem of
association.

If we have two groups A and B given, one can associate with every member
of A one of B; that is, we determine that certain operations which can
be carried on with the members of A are also to be carried on with those
of B. Now we can begin by simply carrying out the association, member
for member. Then we shall have one of three results: A will be exhausted
while there are still members of B left, or B will be exhausted first,
or finally A and B will be exhausted at the same time. In the first case
we call A poorer than B; in the second B poorer than A; in the third
both quantities are alike.

Here for the first time we come upon the scientific concept of equality,
which calls for discussion. There can be no question of a complete
identity of the two groups which have been denominated equal, for we
have made the assumption that the members of both groups can be of any
nature whatever. They can then be as different as possible, considered
singly, but they are alike as groups. However I may arrange the members
of A, I can make a similar arrangement of the members of B, since every
member of A has one of B associated with it; and with reference to the
property of arrangement there is no difference to be observed between A
and B. If, however, A is poorer or richer than B, this possibility
ceases, for then one of the groups has members to which none of the
members in the other group corresponds; so that the operations carried
out with these members cannot be carried out with those of the other
group.

Equality in the scientific sense, therefore, means equivalence, or the
possibility of substitution in quite definite operations or for quite
definite relations. Beyond this the things which are called like may
show any differences whatever. The general scientific process of
abstraction is again easily seen in this special case.

On the basis of the definitions just given, we can establish further
propositions. If group A equals B, and B equals C, then A also equals C.
The proof of this is that we can relate every member of A to a
corresponding member of B and by hypothesis no member will be left. Then
C is arranged with reference to B, and here also no member is left. By
this process every member of A, through the connecting link of a member
of B, is associated with a member of C, and this association is
preserved even if we cut out the group B. Therefore A and C are equal.
The same process of reasoning can be carried out for any number of
groups.

Likewise it can be demonstrated that if A is poorer than B and B poorer
than C, then A is also poorer than C. For in the association of B with A
some members of B are left over by hypothesis, and likewise some members
of C are left over if one associates C with B. Therefore in the
association of C with A, not only those members are left over which
could not be associated with B, but also those members of C which extend
beyond B. This proposition can be extended to any number of groups, and
permits the arrangement of a number of different groups in a simple
series by beginning with the poorest and choosing each following so that
it is richer than the preceding but poorer than the following. From the
proposition just established, it follows that every group is so arranged
with reference to all other groups that it is richer than all the
preceding and poorer than all the following.[3]

     [Footnote 3: Equal groups cannot be distinguished here, and
     therefore represent only a group.]

In this derivation of scientific proposition or laws of the simplest
kinds, the process of derivation and the nature of the result becomes
particularly clear. We arrive at such a proposition by performing an
operation and expressing the result of it. This expression enables us to
avoid the repetition of the operation in the future, since in accordance
with the law we can indicate the result immediately. Thus an
abbreviation and therefore, a facilitation of the problem is attained
which is the more considerable the larger the number of operations
saved.

If we have a number of equal groups, we know by the process of
association that all of the operations with reference to arrangement
which we can perform with one of them can be performed with all the
others. It is sufficient, therefore, to determine the properties of
arrangement of one of these groups in order to know forthwith the
properties of all the others. This is an extremely important
proposition, which is continually employed for the most various
purposes. All speaking, writing, and reading rests upon the association
of thoughts with sounds and symbols, and by arranging the signs in
accordance with our thoughts we bring it to pass that our hearers or
readers think like thoughts in like order. In a similar fashion we make
use of various systems of formulæ in the different sciences, especially
in the simpler sciences; and these formulæ we correlate with phenomena
and use in place of the phenomena themselves, and can therefore derive
from them certain characteristics of phenomena without being compelled
to use the latter. The force of this process appears very strikingly in
astronomy where, by the use of definite formulæ associated with the
different heavenly bodies, we can foretell the future positions of these
bodies with a high degree of approximation.

From the theory of order we come to the theory of number or arithmetic
by the systematic arrangement or development of an operation just
indicated (page 343). We can arrange any number of groups in such a way
that a richer always follows a poorer. But the complex obtained in this
manner is always accidental with reference to the number and the
richness of its members. A regular and complete structure of all
possible groups is evidently obtained only if we start from a group of
one member or from a simple thing, and by the addition of one member at
a time make further groups out of those that we have. Thus we obtain
different groups arranged according to an increasing richness, and since
we have advanced one member at a time, that is, made the smallest step
which is possible, we are certain that we have left out no possible
group which is poorer than the richest to which the operation has been
carried.

This whole process is familiar; it gives the series of the positive
whole numbers, that is, the cardinal numbers. It is to be noted that the
concept of quantity has not yet been considered; what we have gained is
the concept of number. The single things or members in this number are
quite arbitrary, and especially they do not need to be alike in any
manner. Every number forms a group-type, and arithmetic or the science
of numbers has the task of investigating the properties of these
different types with reference to their division and combination. If
this is done in general form, without attention to the special amount of
the number, the corresponding science is called algebra. On the other
hand, by the application of formal rules of formation, the number system
has had one extension after another beyond the territory of its original
validity. Thus counting backward led to zero and to the negative
numbers; the inversion of involution to the imaginary numbers. For the
group-type of the positive whole numbers is the simplest but by no means
the only possible one, and for the purpose of representing other
manifolds than those which are met with in experience, these new types
have proved themselves very useful.

At the same time the number series gives us an extremely useful type of
arrangement. In the process of arising it is already ordered, and we
make use of it for the purpose of arranging other groups. Thus, we are
accustomed to furnish the pages in a book, the seats in a theatre, and
countless other groups which we wish to make use of in any kind of order
with the signs of the number series, and thereby we make the tacit
assumption that the use of that corresponding group shall take place in
the same order as the natural numbers follow each other. The ordinal
numbers arising therefrom do not represent quantities, nor do they
represent the only possible type of arrangement, but they are again the
simplest of all. We come to the concept of magnitude only in the theory
of time and space. The theory of time has not been developed as a
special science; on the contrary, what we have to say about time first
appears in mechanics. Meantime we can present the fundamental concepts,
which arise in this connection, with reference to such well-known
characteristics of time that the lack of a special science of time is no
disadvantage.

The first and most important characteristic of time (and of space, too)
is that it is a continuous manifold; that is, every portion of time
chosen can be divided at any place whatever. In the number series this
is not the case; it can be divided only between the single numbers. The
series one to ten has only nine places of division and no more. A
minute, or a second, on the other hand, has an unlimited number of
places of division. In other words, there is nothing in the lapse of any
time which hinders us from separating or distinguishing in thought at
any given instant the time which has elapsed till then from the
following time. It is just the same with space, except that time is a
simple manifold and space a threefold, continuous manifold.

Nevertheless, when we measure them, we are accustomed to indicate times
and spaces with numbers. If we first examine, for example, the process
of measuring a length, it consists in our applying to the distance to be
measured a length conceived as unchangeable, the unit of measure, until
we have passed over the distance. The number of these applications gives
us the measure or magnitude of the distance. The result is that by the
indication of arbitrarily chosen points upon the continuous distance, we
place upon it an artificial discontinuity which enables us to associate
it with the discontinuous number series.

A still further assumption, however, belongs to the concept of
measuring, namely, that the parts of the distance cut off by the unit
used as a measure be equal, and it is taken for granted that this
requirement will be fulfilled to whatever place the unit of measure is
shifted. As may be seen, this is a definition of equality carried
further than the former, for one cannot actually replace a part of the
distance by another in order to convince one's self that it has not
changed. Just as little can one assert or prove that the unit of measure
in changing its place in space remains of the same length; we can only
say that such distances as are determined by the unit of measure in
different places are declared or defined as equal. Actually, for our
eye, the unit of measure becomes smaller in perspective the farther away
from it we find ourselves.

From this example we see again the great contribution which
arbitrariness or free choice has made to all our structure of science.
We could develop a geometry in which distances which seem subjectively
equal to our eye are called equal, and upon this assumption we would be
able to develop a self-consistent system or science. Such a geometry,
however, would have an extremely complex and impractical structure for
objective purposes (as, for example, land measurement), and so we strive
to develop a science as free as possible from subjective factors.
Historically, we have before us a process of this sort in the astronomy
of Ptolemy and that of Copernicus. The former corresponded to the
subjective appearances in the assumption that all heavenly bodies
revolved around the earth, but proved to be very complicated when
confronted with the task of mastering these movements with figures. The
latter gave up the subjective standpoint of the observer, who looked
upon himself as the centre, and attained a tremendous simplification by
placing the centre of revolution in the sun.

A few words are to be said here about the application of arithmetic and
algebra to geometry. It is well known that under definite assumptions
(coördinates), geometrical figures can be represented by means of
algebraic formulæ, so that the geometrical properties of the figure can
be deduced from the arithmetical properties of the formulæ, and _vice
versa_. The question must be asked how such a close and univocal
relationship is possible between things of such different nature. The
answer is, that here is an especially clear case of association. The
manifold of numbers is much greater than that of surface or space, for
while the latter are determined by two or three independent
measurements, one can have any number of independent number series
working together. Therefore the manifold of numbers is arbitrarily
limited to two or three independent series, and in so far determines
their mutual relations (by means of the laws of cosine) that there
results a manifold, corresponding to the spatial, which can be
completely associated with the spatial manifold. Then we have two
manifolds of the same manifold character, and all characteristics of
arrangement and size of the one find their likeness in the other.

This again characterizes an extremely important scientific procedure
which consists, namely, in constructing a formal manifold for the
content of experience of a certain field, to which one attributes the
same manifold character which the former possesses. Every science
reaches by this means a sort of formal language of corresponding
completeness, which depends upon how accurately the manifold character
of the object is recognized and how judiciously the formulæ have been
chosen. While in arithmetic and algebra this task has been performed
fairly well (though by no means absolutely perfectly), the chemical
formulæ, for instance, express only a relatively small part of the
manifold to be represented; and in biology as far as sociology, scarcely
the first attempts have been made in the accomplishment of this task.

Language especially serves as such a universal manifold to represent the
manifolds of experience. As a result of its development from a time of
less culture, it has by no means sufficient regularity and completeness
to accomplish its purpose adequately and conveniently. Rather, it is
just as unsystematic as the events in the lives of single peoples have
been, and the necessity of expressing the endlessly different
particulars of daily life has only allowed it to develop so that the
correspondence between word and concept is kept rather indefinite and
changeable, according to need within somewhat wide limits. Thus all work
in those sciences which must make vital use of these means, as
especially psychology and sociology, or philosophy in general, is made
extremely difficult by the ceaseless struggle with the indefiniteness
and ambiguity of language. An improvement of this condition can be
effected only by introducing signs in place of words for the
representation of concepts, as the progress of science allows it, and
equipping these signs with the manifold which from experience belongs to
the concept.

An intermediate position in this respect is taken by the sciences which
were indicated above as parts of energetics. In this realm there is
added to the concepts order, number, size, space, and time, a new
concept, that of energy, which finds application to every single
phenomenon in this whole field, just as do those more general concepts.
This is due to the fact that a certain quantity, which is known to us
most familiarly as mechanical work, on account of its qualitative
transformability and quantitative constancy, can be shown to be a
constituent of every physical phenomenon, that is, every phenomenon
which belongs to the field of mechanics, physics, and chemistry. In
other words, one can perfectly characterize every physical event by
indicating what amounts and kinds of energy have been present in it and
into what energies they have been transformed. Accordingly, it is
logical to designate the so-called physical phenomena as energetical.

That such a conception is possible is now generally admitted. On the
other hand, its expediency is frequently questioned, and there is at
present so much the more reason for this because a thorough presentation
of the physical sciences in the energetical sense has not yet been made.
If one applies to this question the criterion of the scientific system
given above, the completeness of the correspondence between the
representing manifold and that to be represented, there is no doubt that
all previous systematizations in the form of hypotheses which have been
tried in these sciences are defective in this respect. Formerly, for the
purpose of representing experiences, manifolds whose character
corresponded to the character of the manifold to be represented only in
certain salient points without consideration of any rigid agreement,
indeed, even without definite question as to such an agreement, have
been employed.

The energetical conception admits of that definiteness of representation
which the condition of science demands and renders possible. For each
special manifold character of the field a special kind of energy
presents itself: science has long distinguished mechanical, electric,
thermal, chemical, etc., energies. All of these different kinds hold
together by the law of transformation with the maintenance of the
quantitative amount, and in so far are united. On the other hand, it has
been possible to fix upon the corresponding energetical expression for
every empirically discovered manifold. As a future system of united
energetics, we have then a table of possible manifolds of which energy
is capable. In this we must keep in mind the fact that, in accordance
with the law of the conservation, energy is a necessarily positive
quantity which also is furnished with the property of unlimited
possibility of addition; therefore, every particular kind of energy must
have this character.

The very small manifold which seems to lack this condition is much
widened by the fact that every kind of energy can be separated into two
factors, which are only subject to the limitation that their product,
the energy, fulfills the conditions mentioned while they themselves are
much freer. For example, one factor of a kind of enemy can become
negative as well as positive; it is only necessary that at the same time
the other factor should become negative, viz., positive.

Thus it seems possible to make a table of all possible forms of energy,
by attributing all thinkable manifold characteristics to the factors of
the energy and then combining them by pairs and cutting out those
products which do not fulfill the above-mentioned conditions. For a
number of years I have tried from time to time to carry out this
programme, but I have not yet got far enough to justify publication of
the results obtained.

If we turn to the biological sciences, in them the phenomenon of life
appears to us as new. If we stick to the observed facts, keeping
ourselves free from all hypotheses, we observe as the general
characteristics of the phenomena of life the continuous stream of energy
which courses through a relatively constant structure. Change of
substance is only a part, although a very important part, of this
stream. Especially in plants we can observe at first hand the great
importance of energy in its most incorporeal form, the sun's rays. Along
with this, self-preservation and development and reproduction, the
begetting of offspring of like nature, are characteristic. All of these
properties must be present in order that an organism may come into
existence; they must also be present if the reflecting man is to be able
by repeated experience to form a concept of any definite organism,
whether of a lion or of a mushroom. Other organisms are met with which
do not fulfill these conditions; on account of their rarity, however,
they do not lead to a species concept, but are excluded from scientific
consideration (except for special purposes) as deformities or monsters.

While organisms usually work with kinds of energy which we know well
from the inorganic world, organs are found in the higher forms which
without doubt cause or assist transfers of energy, but we cannot yet say
definitely what particular kind of energy is active in them. These
organs are called nerves, and their function is regularly that, after
certain forms of energy have acted upon one end of them, they should act
at the other end and release the energies stored up there which then act
in their special manner. That energetical transformations also take
place in the nerve during the process of nervous transmission can be
looked upon as demonstrated. We shall thus be justified in speaking of a
nerve energy, while leaving it undecided whether there is here an energy
of a particular kind, or perhaps chemical energy, or finally a
combination of several energies.

While these processes can be shown objectively by the stimulation of the
nerve and its corresponding releasing reaction in the end apparatus (for
instance, a muscle), we find in ourselves, connected with certain
nervous processes, a phenomenon of a new sort which we call
self-consciousness. From the agreement of our reactions with those of
other people we conclude with scientific probability that they also have
self-consciousness; and we are justified in making the same conclusion
with regard to some higher animals. How far down something similar to
this is present cannot be determined by the means at hand, since the
analogy of organization and of behavior diminishes very quickly; but the
line is probably not very long, in view of the great leap from man to
animal. Moreover, there are many reasons for the view that the gray
cortical substance in the brain, with its characteristic pyramidal cell,
is the anatomical substratum of this kind of nervous activity.

The study of the processes of self-consciousness constitutes the chief
task of psychology. To this science belong those fields which are
generally allotted to philosophy, especially logic and epistemology,
while æsthetics, and still more ethics, are to be reckoned with the
social sciences.

The latter have to do with living beings in so far as they can be united
in groups with common functions. Here in place of the individual mind
appears a collective mind, which owing to the adjustment of the
differences of the members of society shows simpler conditions than
that. From this comes especially the task of the historical sciences.
The happenings in the world accessible to us are conditioned partly by
physical, partly by psychological factors, and both show a temporal
mutability in one direction. Thus arises on the one hand a history of
heaven and earth, on the other hand a history of organisms up to man.

All history has primarily the task of fixing past events through the
effects which have remained from them. Where such are not accessible,
only analogy is left, a very doubtful means for gaining a conception of
those events. But it must be kept in mind that an event which has left
no evident traces has no sort of interest for us, for our interest is
directly proportional to the amount of change which that event has
caused in what we have before us. The task of historical science is just
as little exhausted, however, with the fixing of former events as, for
instance, the task of physics with the establishment of a single fact,
as the temperature of a given place at a given time. Rather the
individual facts must serve to bring out the general characteristics of
the collective mind, and the much discussed historical laws are laws of
collective psychology. Just as physical and chemical laws are deduced in
order with their help to predict the course of future physical events
(to be called forth either experimentally or technically), so should the
historical laws contribute to the formation and control of social and
political development. We see that the great statesmen of all time have
eagerly studied history for this purpose, and from that we derive the
assurance that there are historical laws in spite of the objections of
numerous scholars.

After this brief survey, if we look back over the road we have come, we
observe the following general facts. In every case the development of a
science consists in the formation of concepts by certain abstractions
from experience, and setting of these concepts in relation with each
other so that a systematical control of certain sides of our experience
is made possible. These relations, according to their generality and
reliability, are called rules or laws. A law is the more important the
more it definitely expresses concerning the greatest possible number of
things, and the more accurately, therefore, it enables us to predict the
future. Every law rests upon an incomplete induction, and is therefore
subject to modification by experience. From this there results a double
process in the development of science.

First, the actual conditions are investigated to find out whether,
besides those already known, new rules or laws, that is, constant
relations between individual peculiarities, cannot be discovered between
them. This is the inductive process, and the induction is always an
incomplete one on account of the limitlessness of all possible
experience.

Immediately the relationship found inductively is applied to cases which
have not yet been investigated. Especially such cases are investigated
as result from a combination of several inductive laws. If these are
perfectly certain, and the combination is also properly made, the result
has claim to unconditional validity. This is the limit which all
sciences are striving to reach. It has almost been reached in the
simpler sciences: in mathematics and in certain parts of mechanics. This
is called the deductive process.

In the actual working of every science the two methods of investigation
are continually changing. The best means of finding new successful
inductions is in the making of a deduction on a very insufficient basis,
perhaps, and subsequently testing it in experience. Sometimes the
elements of his deductions do not come into the investigator's
consciousness; in such cases we speak of scientific instinct. On the
other hand we have much evidence from great mathematicians that they
were accustomed to find their general laws by the method of induction,
by trying and considering single cases; and that the deductive
derivation from other known laws is an independent operation which
sometimes does not succeed until much later. Indeed there is to-day a
number of mathematical propositions which have not yet reached the
second stage and therefore have at present a purely inductive empirical
character. The proportion of such laws in science increases very quickly
with the rise in the scale (page 339).

Another peculiarity which may be mentioned here is that in the scale all
previous sciences have the character of applied sciences (page 341) with
reference to those which follow, since they are everywhere necessary in
the technique of the latter, yet do not serve to increase their own
field but are merely auxiliaries to the latter.

If we ask finally what influence upon the shaping of the future such
investigations as those which have been sketched in outline above can
have, the following can be said. Up till now it has been considered a
completely uncontrollable event whether and where a great and
influential man of science has developed. It is obvious that such a man
is among the most costly treasures which a people (and, indeed,
humanity) can possess. The conscious and regular breeding of such
rarities has not been considered possible. While this is still the case
for the very exceptional genius, we see in the countries of the older
civilization, especially in Germany at present, a system of education in
vogue in the universities by which a regular harvest of young scientific
men is gained who not only have a mastery of knowledge handed down, but
also of the technique of discovery. Thereby the growth of science is
made certain and regular, and its pursuit is raised to a higher plane.
These results were formerly attained chiefly by empirically and
oftentimes by accidental processes. It is a task of scientific theory to
make this activity also regular and systematic, so that success is no
more dependent solely upon a special capacity for the founding of a
"school" but can also be attained by less original minds. By the mastery
of methods the way to considerably higher performances than he could
otherwise attain will be open for the exceptionally gifted.




THE CONTENT AND VALIDITY OF THE CAUSAL LAW

BY BENNO ERDMANN

(_Translated from the German by Professor Walter T. Marvin, Western
Reserve University_)

     [Benno Erdmann, Professor of Philosophy, University of Bonn,
     since 1898. b. October 5, 1851, Glogau in Schlesien,
     Germany. Ph.D.; Privy Councilor. Academical Lecturer,
     Berlin, 1876- ; Special Professor, Kiel, 1878-79; Regular
     Professor, _ibid._ 1879-84; _ibid._ Breslau, 1884-90;
     _ibid._ Halle, 1890-98. Member various scientific and
     learned societies. Author of _The Axioms of Geometry_;
     _Kant's Criticism_; _Logic_; _Psychological Researches on
     Reading_ (together with Prof. Ramon Dodge); _The Psychology
     of the Child and the School_; _Historical Researches an
     Kant's Prolegomena_, and many other works and papers in
     Philosophy.]


We have learned to regard the real, which we endeavor to apprehend
scientifically in universally valid judgments, as a whole that is
connected continuously in time and in space and by causation, and that
is accordingly continuously self-evolving. This continuity of connection
has the following result, namely, every attempt to classify the sum
total of the sciences on the basis of the difference of their objects
leads merely to representative types, that is, to species which glide
into one another. We find no gaps by means of which we can separate
sharply physics and chemistry, botany and zoölogy, political and
economic history and the histories of art and religion, or, again,
history, philology, and the study of the prehistoric.

As are the objects, so also are the methods of science. They are
separable one from another only through a division into representative
types; for the variety of these methods is dependent upon the variety of
the objects of our knowledge, and is, at the same time, determined by
the difference between the manifold forms of our thought, itself a part
of the real, with its elements also gliding into One another.[4]

     [Footnote 4: Cf. the author's "Theorie der
     Typeneinteilungen," _Philosophische Monatshefte_, vol. xxx,
     Berlin, 1894.]

The threads which join the general methodology of scientific thought
with neighboring fields of knowledge run in two main directions. In the
one direction they make up a closely packed cable, whereas in the other
their course diverges into all the dimensions of scientific thought.
That is to say, first, methodology has its roots in logic, in the
narrower sense, namely, in the science of the elementary forms of our
thought which enter into the make-up of all scientific methods.
Secondly, methodology has its source in the methods themselves which
actually, and therefore technically, develop in the various fields of
our knowledge out of the problems peculiar to those fields.

It is the office of scientific thought to interpret validly the objects
that are presented to us in outer and inner perception, and that can be
derived from both these sources. We accomplish this interpretation
entirely through judgments and combinations of judgments of manifold
sorts. The concepts, which the older logic regarded as the true
elementary forms of our thinking, are only certain selected types of
judgment, such stereotyped judgments as those which make up definitions
and classifications, and which appear independent and fundamental
because their subject-matter, that is, their intension or extension, is
connected through the act of naming with certain words. Scientific
methods, then, are the ways and means by which our thought can
accomplish and set forth, in accordance with its ideal, this universally
valid interpretation.

There belongs, accordingly, to methodology a list of problems which we
can divide, to be sure only _in abstracto_, into three separate groups.
First, methodology has to analyze the methods which have been
technically developed in the different fields of knowledge into the
elementary forms of our thinking from which they have been built up.
Next to this work of _analyzing_, there comes a second task which may be
called a _normative_ one; for it follows that we must set forth and
deduce systematically from their sources the nature of these manifold
elements, their resulting connection, and their validity. To these two
offices must be added a third that we may call _a potiori_ a _synthetic_
one; for finally we must reconstruct out of the elements of our
thinking, as revealed by analysis, the methods belonging to the
different fields of knowledge and also determine their different scope
and validity.

The beginning of another conception of the office of methodology can be
found in those thoughts which have become significant, especially in
Leibnitz's fragments and drafts of a _calculus ratiocinator_ or a
_spécieuse générale_. The foregoing discussion has set aside all hope
that these beginnings and their recent development may give, of the
possibility of constructing the manifold possible methods _a priori_,
that is, before or independent of experience. However, it remains
entirely undecided, as it should in this our preliminary account of the
office of general methodology, whether or not all methods of our
scientific thought will prove to be ultimately but branches of one and
the same universal method, a thought contained in the undertakings just
referred to. Although modern empiricism, affiliated as it is with
natural science, tends to answer this question in the affirmative even
more definitely and dogmatically than any type of the older rationalism,
still the question is one that can be decided only in the course of
methodological research.

The conception of a methodology of scientific thought can be said to be
almost as old as scientific thought itself; for it is already contained
essentially, though undifferentiated, in the Socratic challenge of
knowledge. None the less, the history of methodology, as the history of
every other science, went through the course of which Kant has given a
classical description. "No one attempts to construct a science unless he
can base it on some idea; but in the elaboration of it the schema, nay,
even the definition which he gives in the beginning of his science,
corresponds very seldom to his idea, which, like a germ, lies hidden in
the reason, and all the parts of which are still enveloped and hardly
distinguishable even under microscopical observation."[5]

     [Footnote 5: Kant, _Kr. d. r. V._, 2d ed., p. 862.]

We are indebted to the Greek, and especially to the
Platonic-Aristotelian philosophy for important contributions to the
understanding of the deductive method of mathematical thought. It was
precisely this trend of philosophic endeavor which, though furnishing
for the most part the foundation of methodological doctrine well on into
the seventeenth century, offered no means of differentiating the methods
that are authoritative for our knowledge of facts. What Socrates was
perhaps the first to call "induction," is essentially different, as
regards its source and aim, from the inductive methods that direct our
research in natural and mental science. For it is into these two fields
that we have to divide the totality of the sciences of facts, the
material sciences, let us call them, in opposition to the formal or
mathematical sciences,--that is, if we are to do justice to the
difference between sense and self perception, or "outer" and "inner"
perception.

Two closely connected forces especially led astray the methodological
opinions regarding the material sciences till the end of the eighteenth
century, and in part until the beginning of the nineteenth century. We
refer, in the first place, to that direction of thought which gives us
the right to characterize the Platonic-Aristotelian philosophy as a
"concept philosophy;" namely, the circumstance that Aristotelian logic
caused the "concept" to be set before the "judgment." In short, we refer
to that tendency in thought which directs the attention not to the
permanent in the world's occurrences, the uniform connections of events,
but rather to the seemingly permanent in the things, their essential
attributes or essences. Thus the concept philosophy, as a result of its
tendency to hypostasize, finds in the abstract general concepts of
things, the ideas, the eternal absolute reality that constitutes the
foundation of things and is contained in them beside the accidental and
changing properties.[6] Here we have at once the second force which
inspired the ancient methodology. These ideas, like the fundamentally
real, constitute that which ultimately alone acts in all the coming into
existence and the going out of existence of the manifold things. In the
Aristotelian theory of causation, this thought is made a principle; and
we formulate only what is contained in it, when we say that, according
to it, the efficient and at the same time final causes can be deduced
through mere analysis from the essential content of the effects; that,
in fact, the possible effects of every cause can be deduced from the
content of its definition. The conceptual determination of the causal
relation, and with it in principle the sum total of the methods in the
material sciences, becomes a logical, analytical, and deductive one.
These sciences remain entirely independent of the particular content of
experience as this broadens, and so do also the methods under
discussion.

     [Footnote 6: According to Plato, it is true, the ideas are
     separated from the sensible things; they must be thought in
     a conceptual place, for the space of sense perception is to
     be understood as non-being, matter. The things revealed to
     sense, however, occupy a middle position between being and
     non-being, so that they partake of the ideas. In this sense,
     the statement made above holds also of the older view of the
     concept philosophy.]

As a consequence, every essential difference between mathematical
thought and the science of causes is done away with in favor of a
rationalistic construction of the methods of material science.
Accordingly, throughout the seventeenth century, the ideal of all
scientific method becomes, not the inductive method that founded the new
epoch of the science of to-day, but the deductive mathematical method
applied to natural scientific research. The flourish of trumpets with
which Francis Bacon hailed the onslaught of the inductive methods in the
natural science of the time, helped in no way; for he failed to remodel
the traditional, Aristotelian-Scholastic conception of cause, and,
accordingly, failed to understand both the problem of induction and the
meaning of the inductive methods of the day.[7] Descartes, Hobbes,
Spinoza, and related thinkers develop their _mathesis universalis_ after
the pattern of geometrical thinking. Leibnitz tries to adapt his
_spécieuse générale_ to the thought of mathematical analysis. The old
methodological conviction gains its clear-cut expression in Spinoza's
doctrine: "_Aliquid efficitur ab aliqua re_" means "_aliquid sequitur ex
ejus definitione_."

     [Footnote 7: Cf. the articles on Francis Bacon by Chr.
     Sigwart in the _Preussische Jahrbücher_, xii, 1863, and
     xiii, 1864.]

The logically straight path is seldom the one taken in the course of the
history of thought. The new formulation and solution of problems
influence us first through their evident significance and consequences,
not through the traditional presuppositions upon which they are founded.
Thus, in the middle of the seventeenth century, when insight into the
precise difference between mental and physical events gave rise to
pressing need for its definite formulation, no question arose concerning
the dogmatic presupposition of a purely logical (_analytisch_)
relationship between cause and effect; but, on the contrary, this
presupposition was then for the first time brought clearly before
consciousness. It was necessary to take the roundabout way through
occasionalism and the preëstablished harmony, including the latter's
retreat to the omnipotence of God, before it was possible to miss the
question of the validity of the presupposition that the connection
between cause and effect is analytic and rational.

Among the leading thinkers of the period this problem was recognized as
the cardinal problem of contemporaneous philosophy. It is further
evidence how thoroughly established this problem must have been among
the more deeply conceived problems of the time in the middle of the
eighteenth century, that Hume and Kant were forced to face it, led on,
seemingly independently of each other, and surely from quite different
presuppositions and along entirely different ways. The historical
evolution of that which from the beginning has seemed to philosophy the
solving of her true problem has come to pass in a way not essentially
different from that of the historical evolution in all other departments
of human knowledge. Thus, in the last third of the seventeenth century,
Newton and Leibnitz succeeded in setting forth the elements of the
infinitesimal calculus; and, in the fifth decade of the nineteenth
century, Robert Mayer, Helmholtz, and perhaps Joule, formulated the law
of the conservation of energy. In one essential respect Hume and Kant
are agreed in the solution of the new, and hence contemporaneously
misunderstood, problem. Both realized that the connection between the
various causes and effects is not a rational analytic, but an empirical
synthetic one. However, the difference in their presuppositions as well
as method caused this common result to make its appearance in very
different light and surroundings. In Hume's empiricism the connection
between cause and effect appears as the mere empirical result of
association; whereas in Kant's rationalism this general relation between
cause and effect becomes the fundamental condition of all possible
experience, and is, as a consequence, independent of all experience. It
rests, as a means of connecting our ideas, upon an inborn uniformity of
our thought.

Thus the way was opened for a fundamental separation of the inductive
material scientific from the deductive mathematical method. For Hume
mathematics becomes the science of the relations of ideas, as opposed to
the sciences of facts. For Kant philosophical knowledge is the knowledge
of the reason arising from concepts, whereas the mathematical is that
arising from the construction of concepts. The former, therefore,
studies the particular only in the universal; the latter, the universal
in the particular, nay, rather in the individual.

Both solutions of the new problem which in the eighteenth century
supplant the old and seemingly self-evident presupposition, appear
accordingly embedded in the opposition between the rationalistic and
empiristic interpretation of the origin and validity of our knowledge,
the same opposition that from antiquity runs through the historical
development of philosophy in ever new digressions.

Even to-day the question regarding the meaning and the validity of the
causal connection stands between these contrary directions of
epistemological research; and the ways leading to its answer separate
more sharply than ever before. It is therefore more pressing in our day
than it was in earlier times to find a basis upon which we may build
further epistemologically and therefore methodologically. The purpose of
the present paper is to seek such a basis for the different methods
employed in the sciences of facts.

       *     *     *     *     *

As has already been said, the contents of our consciousness, which are
given us immediately in outer and inner perception, constitute the raw
material of the sciences of facts. From these various facts of
perception we derive the judgments through which we predict, guide, and
shape our future perception in the course of possible experience. These
judgments exist in the form of reproductive ideational processes, which,
if logically explicit, become _inductive inferences_ in the broader
sense. These inferences may be said to be of two sorts, though
fundamentally only two sides of one and the same process of thought;
they are in part analogical inferences and in part _inductive inferences
in the narrower sense_. The former infers from the particular in a
present perception, _which in previous perceptions was uniformly
connected with other particular contents of perception_, to a particular
that resembles _those other contents of perception_. In short, they are
inferences from a particular to a particular. After the manner of such
inferences we logically formulate, for example, the reproductive
processes, whose conclusions run: "This man whom I see before me, is
attentive, feels pain, will die;" "this meteor will prove to have a
chemical composition similar to known meteors, and also to have
corresponding changes on its surface as the result of its rapid passage
through our atmosphere." The inductive inferences in the narrower sense
argue, on the contrary, from the perceptions of a series of uniform
phenomena to a universal, which includes the given and likewise all
possible cases, in which a member of the particular content of the
earlier perceptions is presupposed as given. In short, they are
conclusions from a particular to a universal that is more extensive than
the sum of the given particulars. For example: "All men have minds, will
die;" "all meteoric stones will prove to have this chemical composition
and those changes of surface."

There is no controversy regarding the inner similarity of both these
types of inference or regarding their outward structure; or, again,
regarding their outward difference from the deductive inferences, which
proceed not from a particular to a particular or general, but from a
general to a particular.

There is, however, difference of opinion regarding their inner structure
and their inner relation to the deductive inferences. Both questions
depend upon the decision regarding the meaning and validity of the
causal relation. The contending parties are recruited essentially from
the positions of traditional empiricism and rationalism and from their
modern offshoots.

We maintain first of all:

1. The _presupposition_ of all inductive inferences, from now on to be
taken in their more general sense, is, that the contents of perception
are given to us _uniformly_ in repeated perceptions, that is, in uniform
components and uniform relations.

2. The _condition_ of the validity of the inductive inferences lies in
the thoughts that _the same causes will be present_ in the unobserved
realities as in the observed ones, and that _these same causes will
bring forth the same effects_.

3. The _conclusions_ of all inductive inferences have, logically
speaking, purely _problematic_ validity, that is, their contradictory
opposite remains equally thinkable. They are, accurately expressed,
merely _hypotheses_, whose validity needs verification through future
experience.

The first-mentioned _presupposition_ of inductive inference must not be
misunderstood. The paradox that nothing really repeats itself, that each
stage in nature's process comes but once, is just as much and just as
little justified as the assertion, everything has already existed. It
does not deny the fact that we can discriminate in the contents of our
perceptions the uniformities of their components and relations, in
short, that similar elements are present in these ever new complexes.
This fact makes it possible that our manifold perceptions combine to
make up one continuous experience. Even our paradox presupposes that the
different contents of our perceptions are comparable with one another,
and reveal accordingly some sort of common nature. All this is not only
a matter of course for empiricism, which founds the whole constitution
of our knowledge upon habits, but must also be granted by every
rationalistic interpretation of the structure of knowledge. Every one
that is well informed knows that what we ordinarily refer to as facts
already includes a theory regarding them. Kant judges in this matter
precisely as Hume did before him and Stuart Mill after him. "If cinnabar
were sometimes red and sometimes black, sometimes light and sometimes
heavy, if a man could be changed now into this, now into another animal
shape, if on the longest day the fields were sometimes covered with
fruit, sometimes with ice and snow, the faculty of my empirical
imagination would never be in a position, when representing red color,
to think of heavy cinnabar."[8]

     [Footnote 8: Kant, _Kr. d. r. V._, 1st ed., pp. 100 f.]

The assumption that in recurring perceptions similar elements of
content, as well as of relation, are given, is a necessary condition of
the possibility of experience itself, and accordingly of all those
processes of thought which lead us, under the guidance of previous
perceptions, from the contents of one given perception to the contents
of possible perceptions.

A tradition from Hume down has accustomed us to associate the relation
of cause and effect not so much with the uniformity of coexistence as
with the uniformity of sequence. Let us for the present keep to this
tradition. Its first corollary is that the relation of cause and effect
is to be sought in the uninterrupted flow and connection of events and
changes. The cause becomes the uniformly preceding event, the constant
_antecedens_, the effect the uniformly following, the constant
_consequens_, in the course of the changes that are presented to
consciousness as a result of foregoing changes in our sensorium.

According to this tradition that we have taken as our point of
departure, the uniformity of the sequence of events is a necessary
presupposition of the relation between cause and effect. This uniformity
is given us as an element of our experience; for we actually find
uniform successions in the course of the changing contents of
perception. Further, as all our perceptions are in the first instance
sense perceptions, we may call them the sensory presupposition of the
possibility of the causal relation.

In this presupposition, however, there is much more involved than the
name just chosen would indicate. The uniformity of sequence lies, as we
saw, not in the contents of perception as such, which are immediately
given to us. It arises rather through the fact that, in the course of
repeated perceptions, we apprehend through abstraction the uniformities
of their temporal relation. Moreover, there lie in the repeated
perceptions not only uniformities of sequence, but also uniformities of
the qualitative content of the successive events themselves, and these
uniformities also must be apprehended through abstraction. Thus these
uniform contents of perception make up series of the following form:

          _a_1 --> _b_1
          _a_2 --> _b_2
           "        "
           "        "
           "        "
          _a_n --> _b_n

The presupposition of the possibility of the causal relations includes,
therefore, more than mere perceptive elements. It involves the relation
of different, if you will, of peculiar contents of perception, by virtue
of which we recognize _a_2 --> _b_2 ... _a_n --> _b_n as events that
resemble one another and the event _a_1 --> _b_1 qualitatively as well
as in their sequence. There are accordingly involved in our
presupposition _reproductive_ elements which indicate the action of
memory. In order that I may in the act of perceiving _a_3 --> _b_3
apprehend the uniformity of this present content with that of _a_2 -->
_b_2 and _a_1 --> _b_1, these earlier perceptions must in some way,
perhaps through memory,[9] be revived with the present perception.

     [Footnote 9: It is not our present concern to ascertain how
     this actually happens. The psychological presuppositions of
     the present paper are contained in the theory of
     reproduction that I have worked out in connection with the
     psychology of speech in the articles on "Die psychologischen
     Grundlagen der Beziehungen zwischen Sprechen und Denken,"
     _Archiv für systematische Philosophie_, II, III, und VII;
     cf. note 1, page 151.]

In this reproduction there is still a further element, which can be
separated, to be sure only _in abstracto_, from the one just pointed
out. The present revived content, even if it is given in memory as an
independent mental state, is essentially different from the original
perception. It differs in all the modifications in which the memory of
lightning and thunder could differ from the perception of their
successive occurrence, or, again, the memory of a pain and the resulting
disturbance of attention could differ from the corresponding original
experience. However, as memory, the revived experience presents itself
as a picture of that which has been previously perceived. Especially is
this the case in memory properly so called, where the peculiar space and
time relations individualize the revived experience. If we give to this
identifying element in the associative process a logical expression, we
shall have to say that there is involved in revival, and especially in
memory, an awareness that the present ideas recall the same content that
was previously given us in perception. To be sure, the revival of the
content of previous perceptions does not have to produce ideas, let
alone memories. Rapid, transitory, or habitual revivals, stimulated by
associative processes, can remain unconscious, that is, they need not
appear as ideas or states of consciousness. Stimulation takes place, but
consciousness does not arise, provided we mean by the term
"consciousness" the genus of our thoughts, feelings, and volitions. None
the less it must not be forgotten that this awareness of the essential
identity of the present revived content with that of the previous
perception can be brought about in every such case of reproduction. How
all this takes place is not our present problem.

We can apply to this second element in the reproductive process, which
we have found to be essential to the causal relation, a Kantian term,
"Recognition." This term, however, is to be taken only in the sense
called for by the foregoing statements; for the rationalistic
presuppositions and consequences which mark Kant's "Synthesis of
Recognition" are far removed from the present line of thought.

We may, then, sum up our results as follows: In the presupposition of a
uniform sequence of events, which we have accepted from tradition as the
necessary condition of the possibility of the causal relation, there
lies the thought that the contents of perception given us through
repeated sense stimulation are related to one another through a
reproductive recognition.

The assumption of such reproductive recognition is not justified merely
in the cases so far considered. It is already necessary in the course of
the individual perceptions _a_ and _b_, and hence in the apprehension of
an occurrence. It makes the sequence itself in which _a_ and _b_ are
joined possible; for in order to apprehend _b_ as following upon _a_, in
case the perception of _a_ has not persisted in its original form, _a_
must be as far revived and recognized upon _b_'s entrance into the field
of perception as it has itself passed out of that field. Otherwise,
instead of _b_ following upon _a_ and being related to _a_, there would
be only the relationless change from _a_ to _b_. This holds generally
and not merely in the cases where the perception of _a_ has disappeared
before that of _b_ begins, for example, in the case of lightning and
thunder, or where it has in part disappeared, for example, in the
throwing of a stone.

We have represented _a_ as an event or change, in order that uniform
sequences of events may alone come into consideration as the
presupposition of the causal relation. But every event has its course in
time, and is accordingly divisible into many, ultimately into infinitely
many, shorter events. Now if _b_ comes only an infinitely short interval
later than _a_, and by hypothesis it must come later than _a_, then a
corresponding part of _a_ must have disappeared by the time _b_ appears.
But the infinitesimal part of a perception is just as much out of all
consideration as would be an infinitely long perception; all which only
goes to show that we have to substitute intervals of finite length in
place of this purely conceptual analysis of a continuous time interval.
This leaves the foregoing discussion as it stands. If _b_ follows _a_
after a perceptible finite interval, then the flow or development of _a_
by the time of _b_'s appearance must have covered a course corresponding
to that interval; and all this is true even though the earlier stages of
_a_ remain unchanged throughout the interval preceding _b_'s appearance.
The present instant of flow is distinct from the one that has passed,
even though it takes place in precisely the same way. The former, not
the latter, gives the basis of relation which is here required, and
therefore the former must be reproduced and recognized. This thought
also is included in the foregoing summary of what critical analysis
shows to be involved in the presupposition of a uniform sequence.

In all this we have already abandoned the field of mere perception which
gave us the point of departure for our analysis of uniform sequence. We
may call the changing course of perception only in the narrower meaning
the sensory presupposition of the causal relation. In order that these
changing contents of perception may be known as like one another, as
following one another, and as following one another uniformly, they must
be related to one another through a recognitive reproduction.

Our critical analysis of uniform sequence is, however, not yet complete.
To relate to one another the contents of two ideas always requires a
process at once of identifying and of differentiating, which makes these
contents members of the relation, and which accordingly presupposes that
our attention has been directed to each of the two members as well as to
the relation itself--in the present case, to the sequence. Here we come
to another essential point. We should apply the name "thought" to every
ideational process in which attention is directed to the elements of the
mental content and which leads us to identify with one another, or to
differentiate from one another, the members of this content.[10] The act
of relating, which knows two events as similar, as following one
another, indeed, as following one another uniformly, is therefore so far
from being a sensation that it must be claimed to be an act of thinking.
The uniformity of sequence of _a_ and _b_ is therefore an act of
relating on the part of our thought, so far as this becomes possible
solely through the fact that we at one and the same time identify with
one another and differentiate from one another _a_ as cause and _b_ as
effect. We say "at one and the same time," because the terms identifying
and differentiating are correlatives which denote two different and
opposing sides of one and the same ideational process viewed logically.
Accordingly, there is here on need of emphasizing that the act of
relating, which enables us to think _a_ as cause and _b_ as effect, is
an act of thought also, because it presupposes on our part an act of
naming which raises it to being a component of our formulated and
discursive thought. We therefore _think a_ as cause and _b_ as effect in
that we apprehend the former as uniform _antecedens_ and the latter as
uniform _consequens_.

     [Footnote 10: Cf. the author's "Umrisse zur Psychologie des
     Denkens," in _Philosophische Abhandlungen Chr. Sigwart ...
     gewidmet_, Tübingen, 1900.]

       *     *     *     *     *

Have we not the right, after the foregoing analysis, to interpret the
uniform sequence of events solely as the _necessary_ presupposition of
the causal relation? Is it not at the same time the _adequate_
presupposition? Yes, is it not the causal relation itself? As we know,
empiricism since Hume has answered the last question in the affirmative,
and rationalism since Kant has answered it in the negative.

We, too, have seemingly followed in our discussion the course of
empiricism. At least, I find nothing in that discussion which a
consistent empiricist might not be willing to concede; that is, if he is
ready to set aside the psychological investigation of the actual
processes which we here presuppose and make room for a critical analysis
of the content of the relation of cause and effect.[11] However, the
decision of the question, whether or not empiricism can determine
exhaustively the content that we think in the causal relation, depends
upon other considerations than those which we have until now been called
upon to undertake. We have so far only made clear what every critical
analysis of the causal relation has to concede to empiricism. In reality
the empiristic hypothesis is inadequate. To be sure, the proof of this
inadequacy is not to be taken from the obvious argument which Reid
raised against the empiricism of Hume, and which compelled Stuart Mill
in his criticism of that attack[12] to abandon his empiristic position
at this point. No doubt the conclusion to which we also have come for
the time being, goes much too far, the conclusion that the cause is
nothing but the uniform _antecedens_ and the effect merely the uniform
_consequens_. Were it true, as we have hitherto assumed, that every
uniformly preceding event is to be regarded as cause and every uniformly
following event as effect, then day must be looked upon as cause of
night and night as cause of day.

     [Footnote 11: The difference between the two points of view
     can be made clearer by an illustration. The case that we
     shall analyze is the dread of coming into contact with fire.
     The psychological analysis of this case has to make clear
     the mental content of the dread and its causes. Such dread
     becomes possible only when we are aware of the burning that
     results from contact with fire. We could have learned to be
     aware of this either immediately through our own experience,
     or mediately through the communication of others'
     experience. In both cases it is a matter of one or repeated
     experiences. In all cases the effects of earlier experiences
     equal association and recall, which, in turn, result in
     recognition. The recognition explaining the case under
     discussion arises thus. The present stimuli of visual
     perception arouse the retained impressions of previous
     visual perceptions of fire and give rise to the present
     perception (apperception) by fusing with them. By a process
     of interweaving, associations are joined to this perception.
     The apperceptively revived elements which lie at the basis
     of the content of the perception are interwoven by
     association with memory elements that retain the additional
     contents of previous perceptions of fire, viz., the burning,
     or, again, are interwoven with the memory elements of the
     communications regarding such burning. By means of this
     interweaving, the stimulation of the apperceptive element
     transmits itself to the remaining elements of the
     association complex. The character of the association is
     different under different conditions. If it be founded only
     upon one experience, then there can arise a memory or a
     recall, in the wider sense, of the foregoing content of the
     perception and feeling at the time of the burning, or,
     again, there can arise a revival wherein the stimulated
     elements of retention remain unconscious. Again, the words
     of the mother tongue that denote the previous mental
     content, and which likewise belong to the association
     complex (the apperceiving mass, in the wider sense), can be
     excited in one of these three forms and in addition as
     abstract verbal ideas. Each one of these forms of verbal
     discharge can lead to the innervations of the muscles
     involved in speech, which bring about some sort of oral
     expression of judgment. Each of these verbal reproductions
     can be connected with each of the foregoing sensory
     (_sachlichen_) revivals. Secondly, if the association be
     founded upon repeated perceptions on the part of the person
     himself, then all the afore-mentioned possibilities of
     reproduction become more complicated, and, in addition, the
     mental revivals contain, more or less, only the common
     elements of the previous perceptions, _i. e._, reappear in
     the form of abstract ideas or their corresponding
     unconscious modifications. In the third case the association
     is founded upon a communication of others' experience. For
     the sake of simplicity, let this case be confined to the
     following instance. The communication consisted in the
     assertion: "All fire will burn upon contact." Moreover, this
     judgment was expressed upon occasion of imminent danger of
     burning. There can then arise, as is perhaps evident, all
     the possibilities mentioned in the second case, only that
     here there will be a stronger tendency toward verbal
     reproduction and the sensory reproduction will be less
     fixed.

     In the first two cases there was connected with the
     perception of the burning an intense feeling of pain. In the
     third the idea of such pain added itself to the visual
     perception of the moment. The associated elements of the
     earlier mental contents belong likewise to the apperceiving
     mass excited at the moment, in fact to that part of it
     excited by means of association processes, or, as we can
     again say, depending upon the point from which we take our
     view, the associative or apperceptive completion of the
     content of present perception. If these pain elements are
     revived as memories, _i. e._, as elements in consciousness,
     they give rise to a new disagreeable feeling, which is
     referred to the possible coming sensation of burning. If the
     mental modifications corresponding to these pain elements
     remain unconscious, as is often possible, there arises none
     the less the same result as regards our feeling, only with
     less intensity. This feeling tone we call the dread.

     As a result of the sum total of the revivals actual and
     possible, there is finally produced, according to the
     particular circumstances, either a motor reaction or an
     inhibitant of such reaction. Both innervations can take
     place involuntarily or voluntarily.

     The critical analysis of the fact that we dread contact with
     fire, even has another purpose and accordingly proceeds on
     other lines. It must make clear under what presuppositions
     the foresight that lies at the basis of such dread is valid
     for future experience. It must then formulate the actual
     process of revival that constitutes the foundation of this
     feeling as a series of judgments, from which the meaning and
     interconnection of the several judgments will become clear.
     Thus the critical analysis must give a logical presentation
     of the apperceptive and associative processes of revival.

     For this purpose the three cases of the psychological
     analysis reduce themselves to two: viz., first, to the case
     in which an immediate experience forms the basis, and
     secondly, to that in which a variety of similar mediately or
     immediately communicated experiences form such basis.

     In the first of these logically differentiated cases, the
     transformation into the speech of formulated thought leads
     to the following inference from analogy:

          Fire A burned.
          Fire B is similar to fire A.
          ----------------------------
          Fire B will burn.

     In the second case there arises a syllogism of some such
     form as:

          All fire causes burning upon contact.
          This present phenomenon is fire.
          --------------------------------------------------------
          This present phenomenon will cause burning upon contact.

     Both premises of this syllogism are inductive inferences,
     whose implicit meaning becomes clear when we formulate as
     follows:

          All heretofore investigated instances of fire have burned,
            therefore all fire burns.
          The present phenomenon manifests some properties of fire,
            will consequently have all the properties thereof.
          ---------------------------------------------------------
          The present phenomenon will, in case of contact, cause burning.

     The first syllogism goes from the particular to the
     particular. The second proves itself to be (contrary to the
     analysis of Stuart Mill) an inference that leads from the
     general to the particular. For the conclusion is the
     particular of the second parts of the major and minor
     premises; and these second parts of the premises are
     inferred from their first parts in the two possible ways of
     inductive inference. The latter do not contain the case
     referred to in the conclusion, but set forth the conditions
     of carrying a result of previous experience over to a new
     case with inductive probability, in other words, the
     conditions of making past experience a means of foreseeing
     future experience. It would be superfluous to give here the
     symbols of the two forms of inductive inference.

     We remain within the bounds of logical analysis, if we state
     under what conditions conclusions follow necessarily from
     their premises, viz., the conclusions of arguments from
     analogy and of syllogisms in the narrower sense, as well as
     those of the foregoing inductive arguments. For the
     inference from analogy and the two forms of inductive
     inference, these conditions are the presuppositions already
     set forth in the text of the present paper, that in the as
     yet unobserved portion of reality the like causes will be
     found and they will give rise to like effects. For the
     syllogism they are the thought that the predicate of a
     predicate is the (mediate) predicate of the subject. Only
     the further analysis of these presuppositions, which is
     undertaken in the text, leads to critical considerations in
     the narrower sense.]

     [Footnote 12: _A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and
     Inductive_, bk. III, ch. v, § 6.]

Empiricism can, however, meet this objection without giving up its
position; in fact, it can employ the objection as an argument in its
favor; for this objection affects only the manifestly imperfect
formulation of the doctrine, not the essential arguments.

It should have been pointed out again and again in the foregoing
exposition that only in the first indiscriminating view of things may we
regard the events given us in perception as the basis of our concepts of
cause and effect. All these events are intricately mixed, those that are
given in self perception as well as those given in sense perception. The
events of both groups flow along continuously. Consequently, as regards
time, they permit a division into parts, which division proceeds, not
indeed for our perception, but for our scientific thought, in short,
conceptually, into infinity. The events of sense perception permit also
conceptually of infinite division in their spatial relations.

It is sufficient for our present purpose, if we turn our attention to
the question of divisibility in time. This fact of divisibility shows
that the events of our perception, which alone we have until now brought
under consideration, must be regarded as systems of events. We are
therefore called upon to apportion the causal relations among the
members of these systems. Only for the indiscriminating view of our
practical _Weltanschauung_ is the perceived event _a_ the cause of the
perceived event _b_. The more exact analysis of our theoretical
apprehension of the world compels us to dissect the events _a_ and _b_
into the parts _a_α , _a_β, _a_γ--_b_α, _b_β, _b_γ, and, where occasion
calls for it, to continue the same process in turn for these and further
components. We have accordingly to relate those parts to one another as
causes and effects which, from the present standpoint of analysis,
follow one another uniformly and _immediately_, viz., follow one another
so that from this standpoint no other intervening event must be
presupposed. In this way we come to have a _well-ordered experience_.
The dispositions to such experience which reveal themselves within the
field of practical thought taught man long before the beginning of
scientific methods not to connect causally day and night with one
another, but the rising and setting of the sun with day and night. The
theoretical analysis, indeed, goes farther. It teaches that in what is
here summed up as rising of the sun and yonder as day, there lie again
intricate elements requiring special attention, in our own day extending
perhaps to the lines of thought contained in the electro-dynamic theory
of light and of electrons. Still the ways of thought remain the same, on
all the levels of penetrating analysis. We have throughout to relate to
one another as cause and effect those events which, in a well-ordered
experience, must be regarded as following one another immediately. The
cause is then the _immediate_ uniform _antecedens_, the effect the
_immediate_ uniform _consequens_. Otherwise stated, the perceived events
that we are accustomed, from the standpoint of the practical
_Weltanschauung_, to regard as causes and effects, _e. g._, lightning
and thunder, from the theoretical apprehension of the world prove to be
infinitely involved collections of events, whose elements must be
related to one another as causes and effects in as far as they can be
regarded as following one another immediately. No exception is formed by
expressions of our rough way of viewing and describing which lead us
without hesitation to regard as cause one out of the very many causes of
an event, and this, too, not necessarily the immediate uniformly
preceding event. All this lies rather in the nature of such a hasty
view.

The present limitation of uniform sequence to cases of immediate
sequence sets aside, then, the objection from which we started, in that
it adopts as its own the essential point in question.

Moreover, the way that leads us to this necessary limitation goes
farther: it leads to a strengthening of the empiristic position. It
brings us to a point where we see that the most advanced analysis of
intricate systems of events immediately given to us in perception as
real nowhere reveals more than the simple fact of uniform sequence.
Again where we come to regard the intervals between the events that
follow one another immediately as very short, there the uniformity of
the time relation makes, it would seem, the events for us merely causes
and effects; and as often as we have occasion to proceed to the smaller
time differences of a higher order, the same process repeats itself; for
we dissect the events that make up our point of departure into ever more
complex systems of component events, and the coarser relations of
uniform sequence into ever finer immediate ones. Nowhere, seemingly, do
we get beyond the field of events in uniform sequence, which finally
have their foundation in the facts of perception from which they are
drawn. Thus there follows from this conceptual refinement of the point
of departure only the truth that nothing connects the events as causes
and effects except the immediate uniformity of sequence.

None the less, we have to think the empiristic doctrine to the bottom,
if we desire to determine whether or not the hypothesis which it offers
is really sufficient to enable us to deduce the causal relation. For
this purpose let us remind ourselves that the question at issue is,
whether or not this relation is merely a temporal connection of events
that are given to us in perception or that can be derived from the data
of perception.

Besides, let us grant that this relation is as thoroughly valid for the
content of our experience as empiricism has always, and rationalism
nearly always, maintained. We presuppose, therefore, as granted, that
every event is to be regarded as cause, and hence, in the opposite time
relation, as effect, mental events that are given to us in self
perception no less than the physical whose source is our sense
perception. In other words, we assume that the totality of events in our
possible experience presents a closed system of causal series, that is,
that every member within each of the contemporary series is connected
with the subsequent ones, as well as with the subsequent members of all
the other series, backward and forward as cause and effect; and
therefore, finally, that every member of every series stands in causal
relationship with every member of every other series. We do not then,
for the present purpose, burden ourselves with the hypothesis which was
touched upon above, that this connection is to be thought of as a
continuous one, namely, that other members can be inserted _ad
infinitum_ between any two members of the series.

We maintain at the same time that there is no justification for
separating from one another the concepts, causality and interaction.
This separation is only to be justified through the metaphysical
hypothesis that reality consists in a multitude of independently
existing substances inherently subject to change, and that their mutual
interconnection is conditioned by a common dependence upon a first
infinite cause.[13] Every connection between cause and effect is mutual,
if we assume with Newton that to every action there is an equal opposing
reaction.

     [Footnote 13: This doctrine began in the theological
     evolution of the Christian concept of God. It was first
     fundamentally formulated by Leibnitz. It is retained in
     Kant's doctrine of the _harmonia generaliter stabilita_ and
     the latter's consequences for the critical doctrine of the
     _mundus intelligibilis_. Hence it permeates the metaphysical
     doctrines of the systems of the nineteenth century in
     various ways.]

In that we bring the totality of knowable reality, as far as it is
analyzable into events, under the causal relation, we may regard the
statement that every event requires us to seek among uniformly preceding
events for the sufficient causes of its own reality, namely, _the
general causal law_, as the principle of all material sciences. For all
individual instances of conformity to law which we can discover in the
course of experience are from this point of view only special cases of
the general universal conformity to law which we have just formulated.

For the empiristic interpretation, the (general) causal law is only the
highest genus of the individual cases of empirically synthetic relations
of uniform sequence. Starting from these presuppositions, it cannot be
other than a generalization from experience, that is, a carrying over of
observed relations of uniform, or, as we may now also say, constant
sequence to those which have not been or cannot be objects of
observation, as well as to those which we expect to appear in the
future. Psychologically regarded, it is merely the most general
expression of an expectation, conditioned through associative
reproduction, of uniform sequence. It is, therefore,--to bring Hume's
doctrine to a conclusion that the father of modern empiricism himself
did not draw,--a species of temporal contiguity.

The general validity which we ascribe to the causal law is accordingly a
merely empirical one. It can never attain apodeictic or even
assertorical validity, but purely that type of problematic validity
which we may call "real" in contradistinction to the other type of
problematic validity attained in judgments of objective as well as of
subjective and hypothetical possibility.[14] No possible progress of
experience can win for the empiristically interpreted causal law any
other than this real problematic validity; for experience can never
become complete _a parte post_, nor has it ever been complete _a parte
ante_. The causal law is valid assertorically only in so far as it sums
up, purely in the way of an inventory, the preceding experiences. We
call such assumptions, drawn from well-ordered experience and of
inductive origin, "hypotheses," whether they rest upon generalizing
inductive inferences in the narrower sense, or upon specializing
inferences from analogy. They, and at the same time the empiristically
interpreted causal law, are not hypotheses in the sense in which Newton
rightly rejected all formation of hypotheses,[15] but are such as are
necessarily part of all methods in the sciences of facts in so far as
the paths of research lead out beyond the content given immediately in
perception to objects of only possible experience.

     [Footnote 14: Cf. the author's _Logik_, bd. I, § 61.]

     [Footnote 15: "_Rationem_ vero harum gravitatis proprietatum
     ex phaenomenis nondum potui deducere, et hypotheses non
     fingo. _Quicquid enim ex phaenomenis non deducitur,
     hypothesis vocanda est_; et hypotheses seu metaphysicae, seu
     physicae, seu qualitatum occultarum, seu mechanicae, in
     philosophia experimentali locum non habent. In hac
     philosophia propositiones deducuntur ex phaenomenis, et
     redduntur generales per _inductionem_." Newton, at the end
     of his chief work.]

The assertion of Stuart Mill, in opposition to this conclusion, that the
cause must be thought of as the "invariable antecedent" and,
correspondingly, the effect is the "invariable consequent,"[16] does all
honor to the genius of the thinker; but it agrees by no means with the
empiristic presuppositions which serve as the basis for his conclusions.
For, starting from these presuppositions, the "invariable sequence" can
only mean one that is uniform and constant according to past experience,
and that we henceforth carry over to not yet observed events as far as
these prove in conformity with it, and in this way verify the
anticipation contained in our general assertion. The same holds of the
assertion through which Mill endeavors to meet the above-mentioned
objection of Reid, namely, that the unchanging sequence must at the same
time be demonstrably an "unconditional" one. The language in which
experience speaks to us knows the term "the unconditioned" as little as
the term "the unchangeable," even though this have, as Mill explains,
the meaning that the effect "will be, whatever supposition we may make
in regard to all other things," or that the sequence will "be subject to
no other than negative conditions." For in these determinations there
does not lie exclusively, according to Mill, a probable prediction of
the future. "It is _necessary_ to our using the word cause, that we
should believe not only that the antecedent always _has_ been followed
by the consequent, but that as long as the present constitution of
things endures, it always _will_ be so." Likewise, Mill, the man of
research, not the empiristic logician, asserts that there belongs to the
causal law, besides this generality referring to all possible events of
uniform sequence, also an "undoubted assurance;" although he could have
here referred to a casual remark of Hume.[17] Such an undoubted
assurance, "that for every event ... there is a law to be found, if we
only know where to find it," evidently does not know of a knowledge
referred exclusively to experience.

     [Footnote 16: _Logik_, bk. III, ch. v, § 2.]

     [Footnote 17: _Logic_, bk. III, ch. v, § 6, and end of § 2.
     Hume says in a note to section VI of his _Enquiry Concerning
     Human Understanding_: "We ought to divide arguments into
     _demonstrations_, _proofs_, _and probabilities_. By proofs
     Meaning such arguments from experience as leave no room for
     doubt or opposition." The note stands in evident contrast to
     the well-known remarks at the beginning of section IV, pt. I.]

Hence, if the causal law is, as empiricism to be consistent must
maintain, only a general hypothesis which is necessarily subject to
verification as experience progresses, then it is not impossible that in
the course of experience events will appear that are not preceded or
followed uniformly by others, and that accordingly cannot be regarded as
causes or effects. According to this interpretation of the causal law,
such exceptional events, whether in individual or in repeated cases of
perception, must be just as possible as those which in the course of
preceding experience have proved themselves to be members of series of
constant sequence. On the basis of previous experience, we should only
have the right to say that such exceptional cases are less probable; and
we might from the same ground expect that, if they could be surely
determined, they would only have to be regarded as exceptions to the
rule and not, possibly, as signs of a misunderstood universal
non-uniformity of occurrence. No one wants to maintain an empirical
necessity, that is, a statement that so comprehends a present experience
or an hypothesis developed on the basis of present experience that its
contradictory is rationally impossible. An event preceded by no other
immediately and uniformly as cause would, according to traditional
usage, arise out of nothing. An event that was followed immediately and
constantly by no other would accordingly be an event that remained
without effect, and, did it pass away, it must disappear into nothing.
The old thought, well known in its scholastic formulation, _ex nihilo
nihil fit, in nihilum nihil potest reverti_, is only another expression
for the causal law as we have interpreted it above. The contradictories
to each of the clauses of the thought just formulated, that something
can arise out of nothing and pass into nothing, remain therefore, as a
consequence of empiricism, an improbable thought, to be sure, but none
the less a thought to which a real possibility must be ascribed.

It was in all probability this that Stuart Mill wished to convey in the
much-debated passage: "I am convinced that anyone accustomed to
abstraction and analysis, who will fairly exert his faculties for the
purpose, will, when his imagination has once learnt to entertain the
notion, find no difficulty in conceiving that in some one, for instance,
of the many firmaments into which sidereal astronomy now divides the
universe, events may succeed one another at random without any fixed
law; nor can anything in our experience, or in our mental nature,
constitute a sufficient, or indeed any, reason for believing that this
is nowhere the case." For Mill immediately calls our attention to the
following: "Were we to suppose (what it is perfectly possible to
imagine) that the present order of the universe were brought to an end,
and that a chaos succeeded in which there was no fixed succession of
events, and the past gave no assurance of the future; if a human being
were miraculously kept alive to witness this change, he surely would
soon cease to believe in any uniformity, the uniformity itself no longer
existing."[18]

     [Footnote 18: _Logic_, bk. III, ch. xxi, § 1.]

We can throw light from another side upon the thought that lies in this
outcome of the empiristic interpretation of the causal law. If we still
desire to give the name "effect" to an event that is preceded uniformly
by no other, and that we therefore have to regard as arising out of
nothing, then we must say that it is the effect of itself, that is, its
cause lies in its own reality, in short, that it is _causa sui_.
Therefore the assumption that a _causa sui_ has just as much real
possibility as have the causes of our experience which are followed
uniformly by another event, is a necessary consequence of the empiristic
view of causation. This much only remains sure, there is nothing
contained in our previous experience that in any way assures us of the
validity of this possible theory.

The empiristic doctrine of causation requires, however, still further
conclusions. Our scientific, no less than our practical thought has
always been accustomed to regard the relation between cause and effect
not as a matter of mere sequence, not therefore as a mere formal
temporal one. Rather it has always, in both forms of our thought, stood
for a _real_ relation, that is, for a relation of _dynamic dependence_
of effect upon cause. Accordingly, the effect _arises out_ of the cause,
is _engendered through_ it, or _brought forth by_ it.

The historical development of this dynamic conception of cause is well
known. The old anthropopathic interpretation, which interpolates
anthropomorphic and yet superhuman intervention between the events that
follow one another uniformly, has maintained itself on into the modern
metaphysical hypotheses. It remains standing wherever God is assumed as
the first cause for the interaction between parts of reality. It is made
obscure, but not eliminated, when, in other conceptions of the world,
impersonal nature, fate, necessity, the absolute identity, or an
abstraction related to these, appears in the place of God. On the other
hand, it comes out clearly wherever these two tendencies of thought
unite themselves in an anthropopathic pantheism. That is, it rests only
upon a difference in strength between the governing religious and
scientific interests, whether or not the All-One which unfolds itself in
the interconnection and content of reality is thought of more as the
immanent God, or more as substance. Finally, we do not change our
position, if the absolute, self-active being (in all these theories a
first cause is presupposed as _causa sui_) is degraded to a
non-intellectual will.

However, the dynamic interpretation of cause has not remained confined
to the field of these general speculations, just because it commanded
that field so early. There is a second branch, likewise early evolved
from the stem of the anthropopathic interpretation, the doctrine that
the causal relations of dependence are effected through "forces." These
forces adhere to, or dwell in, the ultimate physical elements which are
thought of as masses. Again, as spiritual forces they belong to the
"soul," which in turn is thought of as a substance. In the modern
contrast between attractive and repulsive forces, there lies a remnant
of the Empedoklean opposition between Love and Hate. In the various old
and new hylozoistic tendencies, the concepts of force and its correlate,
mass, are eclectically united. In consistent materialism as well as
spiritualism, and in the abstract dynamism of energetics, the one member
is robbed of its independence or even rejected in favor of the
other.[19]

     [Footnote 19: Alongside of these dynamic theories, there are
     to be found mechanical ones that arose just as early and
     from the same source, viz., the practical _Weltanschauung_.
     It is not part of our purpose to discuss them. Their first
     scientific expression is to be found in the doctrine of
     effluences and pores in Empedokles and in Atomism.]

It is evident in what light all these dynamic conceptions appear, when
looked at from the standpoint of consistent extreme empiricism. These
"forces," to consider here only this one of the dynamic hypotheses, help
to explain nothing. The physical forces, or those which give rise to
movement, are evidently not given to us as contents of sense perception,
and at the most they can be deduced as non-sensuous foundations, not as
contents of possible sense perception. The often and variously expressed
belief that self perception reveals to us here what our senses leave
hidden has proved itself to be in all its forms a delusion. The forces
whose existence we assume have then an intuitable content only in so far
as they get it through the uniformities present in repeated perceptions,
which uniformities are to be "explained" through them. But right here
their assumption proves itself to be not only superfluous but even
misleading; for it makes us believe that we have offered an explanation,
whereas in reality we have simply duplicated the given by means of a
fiction, quite after the fashion of the Platonic doctrine of ideas. This
endeavor to give the formal temporal relations between events, which we
interpret as causes and effects, a dynamic real substructure, shows
itself thus to be worthless in its contributions to our thought. The
same holds true of every other dynamic hypothesis. The critique called
forth by these contributions establishes therefore only the validity of
the empiristic interpretation.

If, however, we have once come so far, we may not hold ourselves back
from the final step. Empiricism has long ago taken this step, and the
most consistent among its modern German representatives has aroused anew
the impulses that make it necessary. Indeed, if we start from the
empiristic presuppositions, we must recognize that there lies not only
in the assumption of forces, but even in the habit of speaking of causes
and effects, "a clear trace of fetishism." We are not then surprised
when the statement is made: The natural science of the future, and
accordingly science in general, will, it is to be hoped, set aside these
concepts also on account of their formal obscurity. For, so it is
explained, repetitions of like cases in which _a_ is always connected
with _b_, namely, in which like results are found under like
circumstances, in short, the essence of the connection of cause and
effect, exists only in the abstraction that is necessary to enable us to
repicture the facts. In nature itself there are no causes and effects.
_Die Natur ist nur einmal da._

It is, again, Stuart Mill, the man of research, not the empiricist, that
opposes this conclusion, and indeed opposes it in the form that Auguste
Comte had given it in connection with thoughts that can be read into
Hume's doctrine. Comte's "objection to the _word_ cause is a mere matter
of nomenclature, in which, as a matter of nomenclature, I consider him
to be entirely wrong.... By rejecting this form of expression, M. Comte
leaves himself without any term for marking a distinction which, however
incorrectly expressed, is not only real, but is one of the fundamental
distinctions in science."[20]

     [Footnote 20: _Logic_, bk. III, ch. v, § 6.]

For my own part, the right seems to be on the side of Comte and his
recent followers in showing the old nomenclature to be worn out, if
viewed from the standpoint of empiricism. If the relation between cause
and effect consists alone in the uniformity of sequence which is
hypothetically warranted by experience, then it can be only misleading
to employ words for the members of this purely formal relation that
necessarily have a strong tang of real dynamic dependence. In fact, they
give the connection in question a peculiarity that, according to
consistent empiricism, it does not possess. The question at issue in the
empiristically interpreted causal relation is a formal functional one,
which is not essentially different, as Ernst Mach incidentally
acknowledges, from the interdependence of the sides and angles of a
triangle.

Here two extremes meet. Spinoza, the most consistent of the dogmatic
rationalists, finds himself compelled in his formulation of the analytic
interpretation of the causal relation handed down to him to transform it
into a mathematical one. Mach, the most consistent of recent German
empiricists, finds himself compelled to recognize that the empirically
synthetic relation between cause and effect includes no other form of
dependence than that which is present in the functional mathematical
relations. (In Germany empiricism steeped in natural science has
supplanted the naïve materialism saturated with natural science.) That
the mathematical relations must likewise be subjected to a purely
empirical interpretation, which even Hume denied them, is a matter of
course.

However, this agreement of two opposing views is no proof that
empiricism is on the right road. The empiristic conclusions to which we
have given our attention do not succeed in defining adequately the
specific nature of the causal relation; on the contrary, they compel us
to deny such a relation. Thus they cast aside the concept that we have
endeavored to define, that is, the judgment in which we have to
comprehend whatever is peculiar to the causal connection. But one does
not untie a knot by denying that it exists.

It follows from this self-destruction of the empiristic causal
hypothesis that an additional element of thought must be contained in
the relation of cause and effect besides the elements of reproductive
recognition and those of identification and discrimination, all of which
are involved in the abstract comprehension of uniform sequence. The
characteristics of the causal connection revealed by our previous
analysis constitute the necessary and perhaps adequate conditions for
combining the several factual perceptions into the abstract registering
idea of uniform sequence. We may, therefore, expect to find that the
element sought for lies in the tendency to extend the demand for causal
connections over the entire field of possible experience; and perhaps we
may at the same time arrive at the condition which led Hume and Mill to
recognize the complete universality of the causal law in spite of the
exclusively empirical content that they had ascribed to it. In this
further analysis also we have to draw from the nature of our thought
itself the means of guiding our investigation.

In the first place, all thought has a formal necessity which reveals
itself in the general causal law no less than in every individual
thought process, that is, in every valid judgment. The meaning of this
formal necessity of thought is easily determined. If we presuppose, for
example, that I recognize a surface which lies before me as green, then
the perception judgment, "This surface is green," that is, the
apprehension of the present perceptive content in the fundamental form
of discursive thought, repeats with predicative necessity that which is
presented to me in the content of perception. The necessity of thought
contained in this perception judgment, as _mutatis mutandis_ in every
affirmative judgment meeting the logical conditions, is recognizable
through the fact that the contradictory judgment, "This surface is not
green," is impossible for our thought under the presupposition of the
given content of perception and of our nomenclature. It contradicts
itself. I can express the contradictory proposition, for instance, in
order to deceive; but I cannot really pass the judgment that is
contained in it. It lies in the very nature of our thought that the
predicate of an assertive judgment call contain only whatever belongs as
an element of some sort (characteristic, attribute, state, relation) to
the subject content in the wider sense. The same formal necessity of
thought, to give a further instance, is present in the thought process
of mediate syllogistic predication. The conclusion follows necessarily
from the premises, for example, the judgment, "All bodies are
divisible," from the propositions, "All bodies are extended," and,
"Whatever is extended is divisible."

These elementary remarks are not superfluous; for they make clear that
the casually expressed assertion of modern natural scientific
empiricism, declaring in effect that there is no such thing as necessity
of thought, goes altogether too far. Such necessity can have an
admissible meaning only in so far as it denotes that in predicting or
recounting _the content_ of possible experience every hypothesis is
possible for thought. Of course it is, but that is not the subject under
discussion.

The recognition of the formal necessity of thought that must be
presupposed helps us to define our present question; for it needs no
proof that this formal necessity of thought, being valid for every
affirmative judgment, is valid also for each particular induction, and
again for the general causal law. If in the course of our perceptions we
meet uniform sequences, then the judgment, "These sequences are
uniform," comprehends the common content of many judgments with formal
necessity of thought. Empiricism, too, does not seriously doubt that the
hypothesis of a general functional, even though only temporal, relation
between cause and effect is deduced as an expectation of possible
experience with necessity from our real experience. It questions only
the doctrine that the relation between the events regarded as cause and
effect has any other than a purely empirical import. The reality of an
event that is preceded and followed uniformly by no other remains for
this view, as we have seen, a possibility of thought.

In opposition to empiricism, we now formulate the thesis to be
established: Wherever two events _a_ and _b_ are known to follow one
another uniformly and immediately, there we must require with formal
necessity that some element in the preceding _a_ be thought of as
fundamental, which will determine sufficiently _b_'s appearance or make
that appearance necessary. The necessity of the relation between the
events regarded as cause and effect is, therefore, the question at
issue.

We must keep in mind from the very start that less is asserted in this
formulation than we are apt to read into it. It states merely that
something in _a_ must be thought of as fundamental, which makes _b_
necessary. On the other hand, it says nothing as to what this
fundamental something is, or how it is constituted. It leaves entirely
undecided whether or not this something that our thought must
necessarily postulate is a possible content of perception or can become
such, accordingly whether or not it can become an object of our
knowledge, or whether or not it lies beyond the bounds of all our
possible experience and hence all our possible knowledge. It contains
nothing whatsoever that tells us how the determination of _b_ takes
place through _a_. The word "fundamental" is intended to express all
this absence of determination.

Thus we hope to show a necessity of thought peculiar to the relation
between cause and effect. This is the same as saying that our proof will
establish the logical impossibility of the contradictory assertion; for
the logical impossibility of the contradictory assertion is the only
criterion of logical necessity. Thus the proof that we seek can be given
only indirectly. In the course of this proof, we can disregard the
immediacy of the constant sequence and confine our attention to the
uniformity of the sequence, not only for the sake of brevity, but also
because, as we have seen, we have the right to speak of near and remote
causes. We may then proceed as follows.

If there is not something fundamental in a constant antecedent event
_a_, which determines necessarily the constant subsequent appearance of
one and the same _b_,--that is, if there is nothing fundamental which
makes this appearance necessary,--then we must assume that also _c_ or
_d_ ..., in short, any event you will, we dare not say "follows upon,"
but appears after _a_ in irregular alternation with _b_. This
assumption, however, is impossible for our thought, because it is in
contradiction with our experience, on the basis of which our causal
thought has been developed. Therefore the assumption of a something that
is fundamental in _a_, and that determines sufficiently and necessarily
the appearance of _b_, is a necessity for our thought.

The assertion of this logical impossibility (_Denkunmöglichkeit_) will
at once appear thoroughly paradoxical. The reader, merely recalling the
results of the empiristic interpretation given above, will immediately
say: "The assumption that a _b_ does not follow constantly upon an _a_,
but that sometimes _b_, sometimes _c_, sometimes _d_ ... irregularly
appears, is in contradiction only with all our previous experience, but
it is not on this account a _logical_ impossibility. It is merely
improbable." The reader will appeal especially to the discussion of
Stuart Mill, already quoted, in which Mill pictures _in concreto_ such
an improbable logical impossibility, and therefore at the same time
establishes it in fact. Again, the reader may bring forward the words in
which Helmholtz introduces intellectual beings of only two dimensions.
"By the much misused expression, 'to be able to imagine to one's self,'
or, 'to think how something happens,' I understand (and I do not see how
anybody can understand anything else thereby without robbing the
expression of all meaning) that one can picture to one's self the series
of sense impressions which one would have if such a thing actually took
place in an individual case."[21]

     [Footnote 21: _Vorträge und Reden_, bd. II, "Über den
     Ursprung und die Bedeutung der geometrischen Axiome."]

Nevertheless, pertinent as are these and similar objections, they are
not able to stand the test. We ask: "Is in fact a world, or even a
portion of our world, possible for thought that displays through an
absolutely irregular alternation of events a chaos in the full sense; or
is the attempt to picture such a chaos only a mere play of words to
which not even our imagination, not to mention our thought, can give a
possible meaning?"

Perhaps we shall reach a conclusion by the easiest way, if we subject
Mill's description to a test. If we reduce it to the several
propositions it contains, we get the following: (1) Every one is able to
picture to himself in his imagination a reality in which events follow
one another without rule, that is, so that after an event _a_ now _b_
appears, now _c_, etc., in complete irregularity. (2) The idea of such a
chaos accordingly contradicts neither the nature of our mind nor our
experience. (3) Neither the former nor the latter gives us sufficient
reason to believe that such an irregular alternation does not actually
exist somewhere in the observable world. (4) If such a chaos should be
presented to us as fact, that is, if we were in a position to outlive
such an alternation, then the belief in the uniformity of time relations
would soon cease.

Every one would subscribe to the last of these four theses, immediately
upon such a chaos being admitted to be a possibility of thought; that
is, he would unless he shared the rationalistic conviction that our
thought constitutes an activity absolutely independent of all
experience. We must simply accept this conclusion on the ground of the
previous discussion and of a point still to be brought forward.

If we grant this conclusion, however, then it follows, on the ground of
our previous demonstration of the reproductive and recognitive, as well
as thought elements involved in the uniform sequence, that the
irregularity in the appearance of the events, assumed in such a chaos,
can bring about an absolutely relationless alternation of impressions
for the subject that we should presuppose to be doing the perceiving. If
we still wish to call it perception, it would remain only a perception
in which no component of its content could be related to the others, a
perception, therefore, in which not even the synthesis of the several
perception contents could be apprehended as such. That is, every
combination of the different perception contents, by which they become
components of one and the same perception, presupposes, as we have seen,
those reproductive and recognitive acts in revival which are possible
only where uniformities of succession (and of coexistence) exist. Again,
every act of attention involved in identifying and discriminating, which
likewise we have seen to be possible only if we presuppose uniformities
in the given contents of perception, must necessarily disappear when we
presuppose the chaotic content; and yet they remain essential to the
very idea of such a chaos. A relationless chaos is after all nothing
else than a system of relations thought of without relations! That the
same contradiction obtains also in the mere mental picturing of a
manifold of chaotic impressions needs no discussion; for the productive
imagination as well as the reproductive is no less dependent than is our
perceptive knowledge upon the reproductive recognition and upon the
processes of identifying and discriminating.

Thus the mental image of a chaos could be formed only through an
extended process of ideation, which itself presupposes as active in it
all that must be denied through the very nature of the image. A
relationless knowledge, a relationless abstraction, a relationless
reproduction or recognition, a relationless identification or
discrimination, in short, a relationless thought, are, as phrases, one
and all mere contradictions. We cannot picture "through our relating
thought," to use Helmholtz's expression, nor even in our imagination,
the sense impressions that we should have if our thought were
relationless, that is, were nullified in its very components and
presuppositions. In the case of Helmholtz's two dimensional beings, the
question at issue was not regarding the setting aside of the conditions
of our thought and the substituting conditions contradictory to them,
but regarding the setting aside of a part of the content of our sense
intuition, meanwhile retaining the conditions and forms peculiar to our
thought. In this case, therefore, we have a permissible fiction, whereas
in Mill's chaos we have an unthinkable thought.

Again, the sense impressions that must be presupposed in an inherently
relationless chaos have no possible relation to the world of our
perception, whose components are universally related to each other
through the uniformities of their coexistences and sequences.
Accordingly, the remark with which Helmholtz concludes the passage above
quoted holds, _mutatis mutandis_, here also. "If there is no sense
impression known that stands in relation to an event which has never
been observed (by us), as would be the case for us were there a motion
toward a fourth dimension, and for those two dimensional beings were
there a motion toward our third dimension; then it follows that such an
'idea' is impossible, as much so as that a man completely blind from
childhood should be able to 'imagine' the colors, if we could give him
too a conceptual description of them."

Hence the first of the theses in which we summed up Stuart Mill's
assumptions must be rejected. With it go also the second and third. In
this case we need not answer the question: In how far do these theses
correspond to Mill's own statements regarding the absolute surety and
universality of the causal law?

We have now found what we sought, in order to establish as a valid
assertion the seeming paradox in the proof of the necessity that we
ascribe to the relation between cause and effect. We have proved that
the assumption of a completely irregular and therefore relationless
alternation of impressions contradicts not only our experience, but even
the conditions of our thought; for these presuppose the uniformities of
the impressions, and consequently our ability to relate them, all which
was eliminated from our hypothetical chaos. Hence we have also
established that a necessary relation is implied in the thought of a
constant sequence of events, which makes the uniformly following _b_
really dependent upon the uniformly preceding _a_.

       *     *     *     *     *

From still another side, we can make clear the necessity asserted in the
relation of cause and effect. We found that the connection between each
definite cause and its effect is an empirically synthetic one and has as
its warrant merely experience. We saw further that the necessity
inherent in the causal connection contains merely the demand that there
shall be something fundamental in the constantly preceding _a_ which
makes the appearance of _b_ necessary; not, however, that it informs us
what this efficacy really is, and hence also not that it informs us how
this efficacy brings about its effect. Finally, we had to urge that
every induction, the most general no less than the most particular,
depends upon the presupposition that the same causes will be given in
the reality not yet observed as in that already observed. This
expectation is warranted by no necessity of thought, not even by that
involved in the relation of cause and effect; for this relation begins
for future experience only when the presupposition that the same causes
will be found in it is assumed as fulfilled.[22] This expectation is
then dependent solely upon previous experience, whose servants we are,
whose lords we can never be. Therefore, every induction is an hypothesis
requiring the verification of a broader experience, since, in its work
of widening and completing our knowledge, it leads us beyond the given
experience to a possible one. In this respect we can call all inductive
thought empirical, that is, thought that begins with experience, is
directed to experience, and in its results is referred to experience.
The office of this progressing empirical thought is accordingly to form
hypotheses from which the data of perception can be regressively
deduced, and by means of which they can be exhibited as cases of known
relations of our well-ordered experience, and thus can be explained.

     [Footnote 22: The only empiricism which can maintain that
     the same causes would, in conformity with the causal law, be
     given in the unobserved reality, is one which puts all
     events that can be regarded as causes in the immediately
     given content of perception as its members. Such a view is
     not to be found in Mill; and it stands so completely in the
     way of all further analysis required of us by every
     perception of events that no attention has been paid in the
     text to this extreme of extremes.]

The way of forming hypotheses can be divided logically into different
sections which can readily be made clear by an example. The police
magistrate finds a human corpse under circumstances that eliminate the
possibility of accident, natural death, or suicide; in short, that
indicate an act of violence on the part of another man. The general
hypothesis that he has here to do with a crime against life forms the
guide of his investigation. The result of the circumstantial evidence,
which we presuppose as necessary, furnishes then a special hypothesis as
following from the general hypothesis.

It is clear that this division holds for all cases of forming
hypotheses. A general hypothesis serves every special hypothesis as a
heuristic principle. In the former we comprehend the causal explanation
indicated immediately by the facts revealed to our perception in the
special case. It contains, as we might also express it, the genus to the
specific limitations of the more exact investigation. But each of these
general hypotheses is a modification of the most general form of
building hypotheses, which we have already come to know as the condition
of the validity of all inductive inferences, that is, as the condition
for the necessity of their deduction, and, consequently, as the
condition for the thought that like causes will be given in the reality
not yet observed as in that already observed. We have further noticed
that in this most general form of building hypotheses there lie two
distinct and different valid assumptions: beside the empirical statement
that like causes will be given, which gives the inductive conclusion the
hypothetical form, there stands the judgment that like causes bring
forth like effects, a corollary of the causal law. The real dependence
of the effect upon the cause, presupposed by this second proposition and
the underlying causal law, is not, as was the other assumption, an
hypothesis, but a necessary requirement or _postulate_ of our thought.
Its necessity arises out of our thought, because our experience reveals
uniformity in the sequence of events. From this point of view,
therefore, the causal law appears as a postulate of our thought,
grounded upon the uniformity in the sequence of events. It underlies
every special case of constructing hypotheses as well as the expectation
that like causes will be given in the reality not yet observed.

Mill's logic of induction contains the same fault as that already
present in Hume's psychological theory of cause. Hume makes merely the
causal law itself responsible for our inductive inferences, and
accordingly (as Mill likewise wrongly assumes) for our inferences in
general. But we recognize how rightly Mill came to assert, in
contradiction to his empiristic presuppositions, that the causal law
offers "an undoubted assurance of an invariable, universal, and
unconditional," that is, necessary, sequence of events, from which no
seeming irregularity of occurrence and no gap in our experience can lead
us astray, as long as experience offers uniformities of sequence.

Rationalism is thus in the right, when it regards the necessary
connection as an essential characteristic of the relation between cause
and effect, that is, recognizes in it a relation of real dependence. At
this point Kant and Schopenhauer have had a profounder insight than Hume
and Stuart Mill. Especially am I glad to be in agreement with Lotze on a
point which he reached by a different route and from essentially
different presuppositions. Lotze distinguishes in pure logic between
postulates, hypotheses, and fictions. He does not refer the term
"postulate" exclusively to the causal law which governs our entire
empirical thought in its formation of hypotheses, but gives the term a
wider meaning. "Postulates" are only corollaries from the inductive
fundamental form of all hypothesis construction, and correspond
essentially to what we have called general or heuristic hypotheses. His
determination of the validity of these postulates, however, implies the
position to be assigned to the causal law and therefore not to those
heuristic hypotheses. "The postulate is not an assumption that we can
make or refrain from making, or, again, in whose place we can substitute
another. It is rather an (absolutely) necessary assumption without which
the content of the view at issue would contradict the laws of our
thought."[23]

     [Footnote 23: _Logic_, 1874, buch II, kap. viii.]

Still the decision that we have reached is not on this account in favor
of rationalism, as this is represented for instance by Kant and his
successors down to our own time, and professed by Lotze in the passage
quoted, when he speaks of an absolute necessity for thought. We found
that the causal law requires a necessary connection between events given
us in constant sequence. It is not, however, on that account a law of
our thought or of a "pure understanding" which would be absolutely
independent of all experience. When we take into consideration the
evolution of the organic world of which we are members, then we must say
that our intellect, that is, our ideation and with it our sense
perception, has evolved in us in accordance with the influences to which
we have been subjected. The common elements in the different contents of
perception which have arisen out of other psychical elements, seemingly
first in the brute world, are not only an occasion, but also an
efficient cause, for the evolution of our processes of reproduction, in
which our memory and imagination as well as our knowledge and thought,
psychologically considered, come to pass. The causal law, which the
critical analysis of the material scientific methods shows to be a
fundamental condition of empirical thought, in its requirement that the
events stand as causes and effects in necessary connection, or real
dependence, comprehends these uniform contents of perception only in the
way peculiar to our thought.

Doubtless our thought gives a connection to experience through this its
requirement which experience of itself could not offer. The necessary
connection of effect with cause, or the real dependence of the former
upon the latter, is not a component of possible perception. This
requirement of our thought does not, however, become thereby independent
of the perceptive elements in the presuppositions involved in the
uniformity of sequence. The _a priori_ in the sense of "innate ideas,"
denoting either these themselves or an absolutely _a priori_ conformity
to law that underlies them, for instance, our "spontaneity," presupposes
in principle that our "soul" is an independently existing substance in
the traditional metaphysical sense down to the time of Locke. Kant's
rationalistic successors, for the most part, lost sight of the fact that
Kant had retained these old metaphysical assumptions in his
interpretation of the transcendental conditions of empirical interaction
and in his cosmological doctrine of freedom. The common root of the
sensibility and of the understanding as the higher faculty of knowledge
remains for Kant the substantial force of the soul, which expresses
itself (just as in Leibnitz) as _vis passiva_ and _vis activa_. The
modern doctrine of evolution has entirely removed the foundation from
this rationalism which had been undermined ever since Locke's criticism
of the traditional concept of substance.

To refer again briefly to a second point in which the foregoing results
differ from the Kantian rationalism as well as from empiricism since
Hume: The postulate of a necessary connection between cause and effect,
as we have seen, in no way implies the consequence that the several
inductions lose the character of hypotheses. This does not follow merely
from the fact that all inductions besides the causal law include the
hypothetical thought that the same causes will be given in the reality
not yet observed as appear in that already observed. The hypothetical
character of all inductive inferences is rather revealed through the
circumstance that in the causal postulate absolutely nothing is
contained regarding _what_ the efficacy in the causes is, and _how_ this
efficacy arises.

       *     *     *     *     *

Only such consequences of the foregoing interpretation of the causal law
and of its position as one of the bases of all scientific construction
of hypotheses may be pointed out, in conclusion, as will help to make
easier the understanding of the interpretation itself.

The requirement of a necessary connection, or dependence, is added by
our thought to the reproductive and recognitive presuppositions that are
contained in the uniformity of the sequence of events. If this necessary
connection be taken objectively, then it reveals as its correlate the
requirement of a real dependence of effect upon cause. We come not only
upon often and variously used rationalistic thoughts, but also upon old
and unchangeable components of all empirical scientific thought, when we
give the name "force" to the efficacy that underlies causes. The old
postulate of a dynamic intermediary between the events that follow one
another constantly retains for us, therefore, its proper meaning. We
admit without hesitation that the word "force" suggests fetishism more
than do the words "cause" and "effect;" but we do not see how this can
to any degree be used as a counter-argument. All words that were coined
in the olden time to express thoughts of the practical _Weltanschauung_
have an archaic tang. Likewise all of our science and the greater part
of our nomenclature have arisen out of the sphere of thought contained
in the practical _Weltanschauung_, which centred early in fetishism and
related thoughts. If, then, we try to free our scientific terminology
from such words, we must seek refuge in the Utopia of a _lingua
universalis_, in short, we must endeavor to speak a language which would
make science a secret of the few. Or will any one seriously maintain
that a thought which belongs to an ancient sphere of mental life must be
false for the very reason that it is ancient?

In any case, it is fitting that we define more closely the sense in
which we are to regard forces as the dynamic intermediaries of uniform
occurrence. Force cannot be given as a content of perception either
through our senses or through our consciousness of self; in the case of
the former, not in our kinesthetic sensations, in the case of the
latter, not in our consciousness of volition. Volition would not include
a consciousness of force, even though we were justified in regarding it
as a simple primitive psychosis, and were not compelled rather to regard
it as an intricate collection of feelings and sensations as far as these
elementary forms of consciousness are connected in thought with the
phenomena of reaction. Again, forces cannot be taken as objects that are
derived as _possible_ perceptions or after the analogy of possible
perceptions. The postulate of our thought through which these forces are
derived from the facts of the uniform sequence of events, reveals them
as limiting notions (_Grenzbegriffe_), as specializations of the
necessary connection between cause and effect, or of the real dependence
of the former upon the latter; for the manner of their causal
intermediation is in no way given, rather they can be thought of only as
underlying our perceptions. They are then in fact _qualitates occultae_;
but they are such only because the concept of quality is taken from the
contents of our sense and self perception, which of course do not
contain the necessary connection required by our thought. Whoever,
therefore, requires from the introduction of forces new contents of
perception, for instance, new and fuller mechanical pictures, expects
the impossible.

The contempt with which the assumption of forces meets, on the part of
those who make this demand, is accordingly easily understood, and still
more easily is it understood, if one takes into consideration what
confusion of concepts has arisen through the use of the term "force" and
what obstacles the assumption of forces has put in the way of the
material sciences. It must be frankly admitted that this concept delayed
for centuries both in the natural and moral sciences the necessary
analysis of the complicated phenomena forming our data. Under the
influence of the "concept philosophy" it caused, over and over again,
the setting aside of the problems of this analytical empirical thought
as soon as their solution had been begun. This misuse cannot but make
suspicious from the very start every new form of maintaining that forces
underlie causation.

However, misuse proves as little here against a proper use as it does in
other cases. Moreover, the scruples that we found arising from the
standpoint of empiricism against the assumption of forces are not to the
point. In assuming a dynamic intermediary between cause and effect, we
are not doubling the problems whose solution is incumbent upon the
sciences of facts, and still less is it true that our assumption must
lead to a logical circle. That is, a comparison with the ideas of the
old concept philosophy, which even in the Aristotelian doctrine contain
such a duplication, is not to the point. Those ideas are hypostasized
abstractions which are taken from the uniformly coexisting
characteristics of objects. Forces, on the other hand, are the
imperceivable relations of dependence which we must presuppose between
events that follow one another uniformly, if the uniformity of this
sequence is to become for us either thinkable or conceivable. The
problems of material scientific research are not doubled by this
presupposition of a real dynamic dependence, because it introduces an
element not contained in the data of perception which give these
problems their point of departure. This presupposition does not renew
the thought of an analytic rational connection between cause and effect
which the concept philosophy involves; on the contrary, it remains true
to the principle made practical by Hume and Kant, that the real
connection between causes and their effects is determinable only through
experience, that is, empirically and synthetically through the actual
indication of the events of uniform sequence. How these forces are
constituted and work, we cannot know, since our knowledge is confined to
the material of perception from which as a basis presentation has
developed into thought. The insight that we have won from the limiting
notion of force helps us rather to avoid the misuse which has been made
of the concept of force. A fatal circle first arises, when we use the
unknowable forces and not the knowable events for the purpose of
explanation, that is, when we cut off short the empirical analysis which
leads _ad infinitum_. To explain does not mean to deduce the known from
the unknown, but the particular from the general. It was therefore no
arbitrary judgment, but an impulse conditioned by the very nature of our
experience and of our thought, that made man early regard the causal
connection as a dynamic one, even though his conception was of course
indistinct and mixed with confusing additions.

The concept of force remains indispensable also for natural scientific
thought. It is involved with the causal law in every attempt to form an
hypothesis, and accordingly it is already present in every description
of facts which goes by means of memory or abstraction beyond the
immediately given content of present perception. In introducing it we
have in mind, moreover, that the foundations of every possible
interpretation of nature possess a dynamic character, just because all
empirical thought, in this field as well, is subordinate to the causal
law. This must be admitted by any one who assumes as indispensable aids
of natural science the mechanical figures through which we reduce the
events of sense perception to the motion of mass particles, that is,
through which we associate these events with the elements of our visual
and tactual perception. All formulations of the concept of mass, even
when they are made so formal as in the definition given by Heinrich
Hertz, indicate dynamic interpretations. Whether the impelling forces
are to be thought of in particular as forces acting at a distance or as
forces acting through collision depends upon the answer to the question
whether we have to assume the dynamic mass particles as filling space
discontinuously or continuously. The dynamic basis of our interpretation
of nature will be seen at once by any one who is of the opinion that we
can make the connection of events intelligible without the aid of
mechanical figures, for instance, in terms of energy.

Thus it results that we interpret the events following one another
immediately and uniformly as causes and effects, by presupposing as
fundamental to them forces that are the necessary means of their
uniformity of connection. What we call "laws" are the judgments in which
we formulate these causal connections.

A second and a third consequence need only be mentioned here. The
hypothesis that interprets the mutual connection of psychical and
physical vital phenomena as causal one is as old as it is natural. It is
natural, because even simple observations assure us that the mental
content of perception _follows_ uniformly the instigating physical
stimulus and the muscular movement the instigating mental content which
we apprehend as will. We know, however, that the physical events which,
in raising the biological problem, we have to set beside the psychical,
do not take place in the periphery of our nervous system and in our
muscles, but in the central nervous system. But we must assume, in
accordance with all the psycho-physiological data which at the present
time are at our disposal, that these events in our central nervous
system do not follow the corresponding psychical events, but that both
series have their course simultaneously. We have here, therefore,
instead of the real relation of dependence involved in constant
sequence, a real dependence of the simultaneity or correlative series of
events. This would not, of course, as should be at once remarked, tell
as such against a causal connection between the two separate causal
series. But the contested parallelistic interpretation of this
dependence is made far more probable through other grounds. These are in
part corollaries of the law of the conservation of energy, rightly
interpreted, and in part epistemological considerations. Still it is not
advisable to burden methodological study, for instance, the theory of
induction, with these remote problems; and on that account it is better
for our present investigation to subordinate the psychological
interdependences, to the causal ones in the narrower sense.

The final consequence, too, that forces itself upon our attention is
close at hand in the preceding discussion. The tradition prevailing
since Hume, together with its inherent opposition to the interpretation
of causal connection given by the concept philosophy, permitted us to
make the uniform sequences of events the basis of our discussion. In so
doing, however, our attention had to be called repeatedly to one
reservation. In fact, only a moment ago, in alluding to the
psychological interdependences, we had to emphasize the uniform
_sequence_. Elsewhere the arguments depended upon the _uniformity_ that
characterizes this sequence; and rightly, for the reduction of the
causal relation to the fundamental relation of the sequence of events is
merely a convenient one and not the only possible one. As soon as we
regard the causal connection, along with the opposed and equal reaction,
as an interconnection, then cause and effect become, is a matter of
principle, simultaneous. The separation of interaction from causation is
not justifiable.

In other ways also we can so transform every causal relation that cause
and effect must be regarded as simultaneous. Every stage, for instance,
of the warming of a stone by the heat of the sun, or of the treaty
conferences of two states, presents an effect that is simultaneous with
the totality of the acting causes. The analysis of a cause that was at
first grasped as a whole into the multiplicity of its constituent causes
and the comprehension of the constituent causes into a whole, which then
presents itself as the effect, is a necessary condition of such a type
of investigation. This conception, which is present already in Hobbes,
but especially in Herbart's "method of relations," deserves preference
always where the purpose in view is not the shortest possible
argumentation but the most exact analysis.

If we turn our attention to this way of viewing the problem,--not,
however, in the form of Herbart's speculative method,--we shall find
that the results which we have gained will in no respect be altered. We
do, however, get a view beyond. From it we can find the way to
subordinate not only the uniform sequence of events, but also the
persistent characteristics and states with their mutual relations, under
the extended causal law. In so doing, we do not fall back again into the
intellectual world of the concept philosophy. We come only to regard the
_persisting coexistences_--in the physical field, the bodies, in the
psychical, the subjects of consciousness--as systems or modes of
activity. The thoughts to which such a doctrine leads are accordingly
not new or unheard of. The substances have always been regarded as
sources of modes of activity. We have here merely new modifications of
thoughts that have been variously developed, not only from the side of
empiricism, but also from that of rationalism. They carry with them
methodologically the implication that it is possible to grasp the
totality of reality, as far as it reveals uniformities, as a causally
connected whole, as a cosmos. They give the research of the special
sciences the conceptual bases for the wider prospects that the sciences
of facts have through hard labor won for themselves. The subject of
consciousness is unitary as far as the processes of memory extend, but
it is not simple. On the contrary, it is most intricately put together
out of psychical complexes, themselves intricate and out of their
relations; all of which impress upon us, psychologically and, in their
mechanical correlates, physiologically, an ever-recurring need for
further empirical analysis. Among the mechanical images of physical
reality that form the foundation of our interpretation of nature, there
can finally be but one that meets all the requirements of a general
hypothesis of the continuity of kinetic connections. With this must be
universally coördinated the persistent properties or sensible modes of
action belonging to bodies. The mechanical constitution of the compound
bodies, no matter at what stage of combination and formation, must be
derivable from the mechanical constitution of the elements of this
combination. Thus our causal thought compels us to trace back the
persistent coexistences of the so-called elements to combinations whose
analysis, as yet hardly begun, leads us on likewise to indefinitely
manifold problems. Epistemologically we come finally to a universal
phenomenological dynamism as the fundamental basis of all theoretical
interpretation of the world, at least fundamental for our scientific
thought, and we are here concerned with no other.




ADDENDA PAGES

FOR LECTURE NOTES AND MEMORANDA OF COLLATERAL READING




  Transcriber's Notes:

  In the original book, ten blank pages follow the last text entry.
  On the title page, the copy number (337) is written in by hand.
  In the chronological order of proceedings for September 24, there
    is no listing for Hall 9 at 3 p.m.

  Alterations:

  Punctuation was standardized.
  Footnotes were moved directly after the paragraph to which they pertain
    and are indented.
  Greek phrases were transliterated and added following in parentheses.
  Hyphens removed for consistency with remaining text:
   ... banquet hall of the Tyrolean Alps ...
   ... breaking down of national Schools ...
   ... analysis of the material scientific methods ...
   ... is by no means a passive mirror picture of an ...
   ... and the much discussed historical laws are ...
   ... it is in the number series that we have ...
   ... as well as of the number system, can all be ...
   ... by our sense perception of this ...
   ... in the form of sense perception ...
   ... for the space of sense perception is to ...
   ... are in the first instance sense perceptions,...
   ... doctrine of the thought processes,...
   ... character of the thought processes,...
   ... introduction of time relations into the ...
   ... the too much neglected idea of the ...
   ... in the main, twofold: ...
   ... sense and self perception,...
  Hyphen added for consistency with remaining text:
   ... of those will-acts which themselves have ...
  Changed:
   'colaborers' to 'co-laborers' ... and other worthy co-laborers?...
   'pyscho' to 'psycho' ... psycho-physical elements ...
   'interacademic' to 'inter-academic' ... inter-academic interest ...
   'organzied' to 'organized' ... already organized branches ...
   'Pyschological' to 'Psychological' ... Psychological Association....
   'B' to 'A' and 'C' to 'B' in the Programme, Department 16. Sociology
  Capitalized 'Admiral' ... Rear-Admiral John R. Bartlett ...
  Added period to 'LL.D.' ... Putnam, Litt.D., LL.D., ...