produced from scanned images of public domain material from the google print project.) on the nature of thought, or the act of thinking, and its connexion with a perspicuous sentence. by john haslam, m.d. late of pembroke hall, cambridge, and author of many works on this subject of insanity. london: [printed by g. hayden, little college street, westminster,] published by longman, rees, orme, brown, green & longman, paternoster row. 1835. [_price two shillings._] _polonius_--what do you read, my lord? _hamlet_--words, words, words.--_act 2d._ * * * * * mephistopheles. "im ganzen--haltet euch an worte! dann geht ihr durch die sichere pforte zum tempel der gewissheit ein." schuler. "doch ein begriff muss bey dem worte seyn." mephistopheles. "schon gut! nur muss man sich nicht allzu ängstlich quälen, denn eben wo begriffe fehlen, da stellt ein wort zur rechten zeit sich ein. mit worten lässt sich trefflich streiten, mit worten ein system bereiten. an werte lässt sich trefflich glauben, von einem wort lässt sich kein iota rauben."--_goëthe's faust._ * * * * * "and when i have enumerated these, i imagine i have comprehended almost every thing which can enter into the composition of the intellectual life of man. with the single exception of reason, (and reason can scarcely operate without the intervention of language,) is there any thing more important to man, more peculiar to him, or more inseparable from his nature than speech? nature indeed could not have bestowed on us a gift more precious than the human voice, which, possessing sounds for the expression of every feeling, and being capable of distinctions as minute, and combinations as intricate as the most complex instrument of music; is thus enabled to furnish materials so admirable for the formation of artificial language. the greatest and most important discovery of human ingenuity is writing; there is no impiety in saying, that it was scarcely in the power of the deity to confer on man a more glorious present than language, by the medium of which, he himself has been revealed to us, and which affords at once the strongest bond of union, and the best instrument of communication. so inseparable indeed are mind and language, so _identically one_ are thought and speech, that although we must always hold reason to be the great characteristic and peculiar attribute of man, yet language also, when we regard its original object and intrinsic dignity, is well intitled to be considered as a component part of the intellectual structure of our being. and although, in strict application, and rigid expression, thought and speech always are, and always must be, regarded as two things metaphysically distinct,--yet there only can we find these two elements in disunion, where one or both have been employed imperfectly or amiss. nay, such is the effect of the original unity or _identity_ that, in their most extensive varieties of application, they can never be totally disunited, but must always remain inseparable, and every where be exerted in combination."--_frederick schlegel's lectures on the history of literature_, (_english translation_, 1818,) _page 11_. * * * * * to _mrs. hunter, dundee._ _my dearest daughter_, _this essay on_ thought _is appropriately dedicated to a lady of whom i am constantly thinking:--whose dutiful conduct, and filial affection, have rendered a protracted life the subject of consolation, under all its contingent miseries_. _33, great ormond street, june 1835._ on the nature of thought, _&c. &c. &c._ in our survey of the creation endowed with life and intellect, we are impelled to the conclusion, that the human mind is, beyond all comparison, the most perfect specimen that the divine author has chosen to allot to his creatures. the history of our species unfolds the splendid catalogue of man's achievements: many monuments, reared by his patriotism and piety, and elaborated by his tasteful ingenuity, that have resisted the corrosions of time, and the spoliations of conquest, remain in our possession: and we still preserve those intellectual treasures that embalm the poetry, the eloquence, and the wisdom of the enlightened nations of antiquity. these are, deservedly, the models we have endeavoured to imitate, and they have even been considered the boundaries of attainment: but a new epoch has arisen, distinguished for the cultivation of that which tends to ultimate advantage, where the mind, confiding in its native energies, and exercising its own thought on human affairs, has been less disposed to submit to the dictates of authority. at this period we possess abundant facilities for the acquirement of valuable knowledge: under this system, the mental faculties have been directed to their proper objects, and the time consumed in teaching has been considerably abbreviated. this abridgement of the usual course of education has conduced to the neglect of that classical learning, which required a painful and enduring attention, even for many years, to two languages that have ceased to be spoken, and are only addressed to the eye in written character. it is in no manner intended to under-rate the value of classical literature, the constituent of a scholar, and the passport and ornament of a gentleman; but to introduce a very probable opinion, that few of those who have devoted many of the most productive years of their existence to the greek and latin writers, ever attain a critical knowledge of those tongues: and that the substance of morals, wisdom, and even the elegant turns of expression, may be more certainly conveyed through the medium of the best translations, which we now possess, and the performance of which has occupied a large portion of the time of accomplished scholars. this conversion of talent to that which is useful, and productive of emolument, has given a more energetic impulse to the mind, and accelerated that march of which we now so justly boast: but it cannot be denied, that in the rapidity of our advancement, and flushed with the ardent hope of arriving at our destination, we have bestowed but little notice on the machinery that urged us forwards, or contemplated the scenery through which we passed. most persons concur that the human mind is the noblest subject of investigation; but few will be at the trouble of undertaking its analysis. with the multitude there is neither leisure nor inclination, and the doctrines that have been dictated concerning our intellectual faculties and their operations, have tended rather to stifle than to promote inquiry. it is therefore unnecessary to enumerate the catalogue of illustrious names whose contradictory systems have created suspicion and distaste in the student. the science that has been improperly termed metaphysics, ought to be considered a branch of human physiology, not abstracted from, but in this state of existence, connected with the phenomena of life. the citations on the reverse of the title-page, to which many more might have been added, clearly shew that the doctrine of words being the elements of thought, did not originate from my own conjecture or inference, and, consequently, that the endeavour to investigate its truth has been the sole object of my research; under the persuasion that, if ideas were inadequate, words only remained to afford the solution of this important process. the necessary connexion of thought with the construction of a perspicuous sentence, has not, to my knowledge, been previously noticed. we are said to think on certain subjects, and this process is confessed to require an intense exertion of our intellectual faculties: but for this operation, the materials have not been clearly specified, nor the manner of the elaboration defined. it has been held, that our thoughts are produced by some mysterious assemblage and arrangement of ideas, which the mind or soul performs by a dexterous and imperceptible contrivance; although we are conscious of all our acts of intelligence, and on a moment's consideration it will be evident, that such intelligence would be useless without our consciousness. mr. locke, whose name can never be mentioned without a grateful recollection for the instruction he has afforded us, and for the candour with which he has recorded the difficulties that obstructed the progress of his inquiries, has employed this ideal system most extensively: but it is evident, that he felt the obscurity of his own definition. in his introduction to the essay, p. 5, 6th edition, he says, "before i proceed on what i have thought on this subject, i must here in the entrance beg pardon of my reader, for the frequent use of the word idea, which he will find in the following treatise. it being that term which, i think, serves best to stand for whatsoever is the object of the understanding, when a man thinks. i have used it to express whatever is meant by phantasm, notion, species, or whatever it is, which the mind can be employed about in thinking; and i could not avoid frequently using it." dr. reid follows nearly in the same track:--"it is a fundamental principle of the ideal system, that every object of thought, must be an _impression_ or an _idea_, that is, a _faint copy_ of some preceding impression."--_inquiry into the human mind on the principles of common sense_, 1765, p. 41. the doctrine of innate ideas having been deservedly exploded, it follows that these ideas must be derived from our intercourse with the world we inhabit. for this purpose we are furnished with five senses, from each of which we obtain a separate and different kind of intelligence, which is denominated perception. the perceptions of the eye, under an attentive inspection, leave on the sensorium a phantasm or idea of the object, a vivid memorial of that which has been perceived; but the other senses do not convey any similar phantasm.[1] the doctrine of ideas appears to have been countenanced, and reconciled under all its difficulties, from a presumed spiritual operation and guidance in the act of thinking, and especially to an implacable aversion to any explanation that might be deemed to savour of _materialism_. this term, the denunciation of the pious, the convenient obloquy of the ignorant, being equal in its sweeping persecution, to the horrible word craven, demands a brief and modest exposition. that we exist in a material world, will scarcely be denied, and it is a fair inference, that the annihilation of matter would involve our globe and its inhabitants in equal destruction. of this matter, the concentrated power of man cannot create nor exterminate a single atom. the human body is a material fabric: the brain and nerves, together with those delicate organs that are the instruments of our perceptions,--whereby we receive light, detect fragrance, apprehend sounds, relish viands, and enjoy the gratifications of contact, are all of material structure: and when that state, called death, has ensued, their offices cease, and they undergo the decompositions to which all animal matter is subjected. the _capacities_, by which we feel, experience pleasure and pain, perceive, remember, exercise volition, and become conscious, may be termed spiritual, or if it be preferred, divine endowments; and it is not probable that we shall ever detect the immediate agency by which these operations are performed. the state of _life_, the indispensable medium for the display of the phenomena of intelligence in our present condition of existence, is equally inscrutable by human sagacity, although different hypotheses have been adventured for its solution. to account for the harmonious concurrence of motions and processes that distinguish living animals, a matter of life has been supposed, and its nature conjectured to be some modification[2] of electricity or galvanism, and which being unsupported, is not deserving of further comment. another sect of physiologists has conceived that life is the immediate result of a particular organization; but they are unable to demonstrate that any arrangement of parts is consequently endowed with vital actions. this arrangement of particular tissues, may be absolutely necessary for the performance of various functions in the living state: but this is altogether different from the energy or cause that excites the action. a violin and its bow are prepared to "discourse most excellent music," yet they are mute until guided by the skilful hands of the performer. when death ensues from many diseases, the organization remains, for without this concession our anatomical knowledge must be very imperfect. thus the nature of life, whether it be developed in the vegetable creation, or display its admirable complications in the higher animals, is inexplicable on any of the principles that regulate our philosophy, and can only be referred to the contrivance and disposition of infinite wisdom: yet the vehicle in which these stupendous operations are conducted owns a material basis: even the confused mass that composes the earth we tread on possesses certain intrinsic properties. every atom is subjected to definite regulation, and without exaggeration, may be considered endowed with instinctive tendency to coalesce or disunite under favourable opportunities, and the correct observation of these habitudes, constitutes the foundations of chemical science. when the power and intelligence of the supreme artificer is conspicuous in the ultimate particles of matter, we ought to be more temperate in our invectives against the doctrine of materialism. ideas have been generally employed, and held competent, by many of the tribe of metaphysicians, to explain the phenomena and operations of our intellectual nature: but they have failed in the attempt. they have endeavoured to confer on them an agency they do not possess, and have given the mind a dominion over them that it cannot exert.[3] ideas are the memorial phantasms of visual perception, a largess bestowed, perhaps exclusively, on the sense of sight, and this bounty contributes essentially to the acquirement and retention of knowledge. they are the unfading transcripts of vision, and they exhibit the original picture to the retrospect of memory. they are but little under the immediate direction of the will, and cannot be arbitrarily summoned or dismissed, but owe their introduction to a different source, to be explained hereafter. they perform important offices, although they are not the materials to rear and consolidate the edifice of thought. those writers on the human mind who have adhered to the doctrine of ideas, and have been the advocates for the spirituality of thought, have insufficiently considered, or held in subordinate regard, language; the prominent criterion, by which a human being is proudly elevated above the rest of the animated creation. speech, and its representation by characters, are exclusively comprehensible by man; and these have been the sources of his vast attainments and rapid progression. the ear receives the various intonations that convey intelligence, and the characters or symbols of these significant sounds are detected by the human eye. some of the more docile animals have been supposed capable of comprehending the meaning of a few individual words, but no one worthy of belief, has affirmed that they could understand a sentence or distinct proposition: still less, has any person, however confiding in the marvellous, ever ventured to assert that they were able to read. the important feature, and obvious utility of language, consists in the commutation of our perceptions for a significant sound or word, which by convention may be communicated to others, bearing a common and identical meaning. in this manner we become intelligible to each other, by the transmission and reception of these articulate and significant sounds. words are not only the representatives of the perceptions we receive through the medium of our five senses, but likewise of many internal feelings, passions, and emotions, together with all that the _mind_ (the aggregate of capacity and acquired intelligence) has elaborated. the result of this commutation renders the word the intelligible substitute for the thing perceived, so that the presence of the object recalls its name, and the name when uttered excites the immediate recollection of the absent object. this reciprocal substitution or mutual exchange, forms the basis, and affords a reason for language. whoever will take the trouble to watch the progress of the child from the commencement of its efforts to speak, will be surprised with its display of curiosity and intelligence. it feels delighted with the existence it enjoys, and with the power its senses possess to examine the objects of the world that surrounds it. every organ, in succession, is occupied in noticing the wonders and mysteries that are presented. this incessant, but silent play of perception, proceeds until a sound, often repeated, interests the sense of hearing, and although at first dimly comprehended, is meant to represent some present object or person, and which, by an excitement little understood, urges the effort of imitation. the success of intelligible pronunciation impels it forward to other attempts, _vires acquirit eundo_, and in a time comparatively short, it accumulates a copious vocabulary. these are the incipient efforts to establish that commutation of the object of perception for the word, on which the structure of language is erected. it is unnecessary further to trace these dawnings of speech, or to describe the satisfaction that is felt, when the child by this commutation of perceptions for words, can communicate the wonders it has seen, the delicacies it has tasted, or the flattering commendations bestowed on its person and accomplishments. this commutation confers additional satisfaction by being enabled to invest the object of immediate perception with an appropriate and intelligible name. thus by the repeated exercise of this commutation, which soon becomes confirmed into habit, we speak of the past, by the assistance of memory, with the correctness and feeling of the present. at a certain age we learn to discriminate the characters that compose words, (letters)--the order in which they are placed, (orthography,) and with greater difficulty, the position of these words, to convey a definite and connected meaning. when reading has been fully attained, it must be recollected that all the sentences in the volume we peruse, are composed of individual words, that are examples of the commutation mentioned; and although the objects are absent, and the actions have been long since performed, often for centuries, we are interested in the narrative, and bestow the appropriate tribute of sympathy or admiration. words, thus impregnated with definite meaning, become the floating currency of the mind, are the efficient materials of thought, and of its perspicuous expression. it has been frequently remarked, that the mind is more delighted by making distant excursions, than in the examination of surrounding objects, or of those directly obvious. such immediate assistance for the pursuit and development of this inquiry is presented in two remarkable instances, where nature digresses from her usual course, and which are not of rare occurrence. 1st. some persons are born with their ears impervious to sound, and as language is acquired by imitation,[4] such as are deaf, remain mute or dumb.[5] with the exception of the sense of hearing, they are like animals the creatures of perception. some have displayed considerable curiosity in examining objects by the eye, and by the organs of touch, taste, and smell: but they do not, with these elements of knowledge, progressively advance in intelligence, until they have been circuitously taught the characters that are the constituents of words, and also to comprehend, that the word itself is the commuted substitute for the object perceived. notwithstanding these deficiencies, and disqualifications for human intercourse, these deaf, and consequently dumb persons, must be, in a very high degree, the subjects of ideas, or of those phantasms that are associated with visual perception. the second instance, is of those who are born blind, and continue sightless through life. a person under such total privation of vision, must be exempt from those phantasms or ideas, that are connected with, or are the residuary contingents on visual perception: yet the blind acquire speech, when young, with equal facility, as the children who enjoy sight; but visible objects must, to them, be abstract or complex terms, as all such necessarily are, that cannot be the objects of perception. the other sensitive organs, and especially the touch, to a limited extent, become the substitutes for visual defect, although they are no actual compensations for sight. by models the blind can become acquainted with alphabetic characters, and unite them into words: and in the same manner discriminate, and record the musical notes. some of the blind have become highly intelligent, and have excelled in conversational acuteness; and as human beings have left the deaf and dumb in the rear, notwithstanding the latter are furnished with all the _ideas_ that can be inherited from sight. this constant employment of words, impregnated with meaning, affords the blind considerable facility in acquiring information by pertinent questions, and enables him to communicate his thoughts with precision and correctness. these words, and the intelligence that resides in them, are the only sources of his knowledge, (his perceptions being commuted for words,) and the meaning they import is all that it is necessary for him to comprehend. it may here be repeated that the capacity by which man exclusively exercises the range of thought by sounds that are significant, and receives from others the same oral intelligence, has no material basis that we can possibly detect or logically infer: but must be considered an endowment of infinite power and wisdom. before we attribute such vast powers to these ideas or phantasms, the shadows of visual perception, it will be convenient to inquire into their nature, and endeavour to ascertain the laws by which they are regulated. in that state of mental relaxation, when the intellect is not intently occupied on any particular subject, numberless phantasms will involuntarily intrude: for, during the time we are awake, the mind is never wholly unoccupied, and such irregular presentations of ideas constitute our reveries. however these ignes fatui may glimmer in their wanderings, tumultuously assemble, or abruptly depart; such confluence or dispersion contributes nothing to effective thought. as far as these ideas or phantasms, the obsequious shadows of visual perception, can be traced, they are incapable of being summoned to appear by any voluntary command; but are consequently revived by the term or word for which the perception is commuted. thus, having previously noticed them with attention, when we speak of st. paul's cathedral or westminster abbey, the attendant visions of these buildings immediately arise, and we are impressed with a memorial picture in conjunction with, and through the intervention of the word. the will possesses no power to unite or separate ideas; they adhere to, and remain the unalterable deposits of perception. let it next be asked, what human purpose can be effected by their sole agency? on those solemn occasions when we address our prayers to the divine source, can these effusions of grateful feeling, and humble petition, be conveyed in phantasms? does not the lamenting and repentant sinner emphatically articulate his anxious supplications? can any human contract be concluded by mere ideas, or any system of jurisprudence be established on such visionary basis? ideas therefore cannot enable us to perform our duty towards god, or our neighbour.[6] in pursuing this important subject, the candid confession of mr. locke bewrays his distrust of the powers and efficiency of his favourite ideas. "to form a clear notion of _truth_, it is very necessary to consider truth of thought, and truth of words distinctly one from another: but yet it is very difficult to treat of them asunder. because it is unavoidable, in treating of mental propositions to make use of words; and then the instances given of _mental_ propositions, cease immediately to be barely mental, and become _verbal_. for a mental proposition, being nothing _but a bare consideration of the ideas_, as they are in our minds _stripped_ of names, they lose the nature of purely mental propositions, as soon as they are put into words. and that which makes it _yet harder_ to treat of mental and verbal propositions separately, is, that most men, if not all, in their thinking, and reasonings within themselves, make use of words, instead of ideas, at least when the subject of their meditation contains in it complex ideas. which is a great evidence of the imperfection and uncertainty of our ideas of that kind, and may, if attentively made use of, serve for a mark to shew us, what are those things, we have clear and perfect established ideas of, and what not."--_vol._ ii. _c._ 5, _p._ 195. mr. locke was a patient and acute observer of that which passed in his own mind, when he strictly meditated any particular subject: and in this process he was likewise aware, in common with others, that he employed _words_ instead of ideas in his thinking and reasoning within himself. by ideas alone, he confesses that he could not advance; and for this evident reason, because ideas are incapable of being communicated to others, or received by ourselves, excepting through a verbal medium. there is no evidence of thought without it be perspicuously expressed in words addressed to the ear, or by their characters presented to the eye; and the vain consciousness we may feel that our mind is teeming with important thoughts, is little to be relied on, until we are capable of expressing them orally, or exhibiting them in writing. it has been a prevailing opinion with those attached to the ideal doctrine, and who are advocates for the spiritual process of thought, that the idea is first conceived mentally, and subsequently, by some process not explained, invested with the corresponding expression. it is however certain that the word itself, with the meaning that is attached to it, must be previously acquired, and thoroughly comprehended, before the abstract idea, or naked thought, can select the befitting expression, and ransack the vast range of a copious vocabulary. the believers in the extreme rapidity of thought to which we shall presently advert, must be alarmed at this manner of explanation, which necessarily constitutes thought a two-fold process, and consequently would consume, at least double the time for its disclosure. perhaps in all instances the phraseology we employ, like our manners, is derived from the society we frequent: that which is imbibed from persons of good education bears the stamp of superior discrimination and correctness, contrasted with the rude dialect of the vulgar: but it still remains unsolved, by what means these phantasms, or ideas, accommodate themselves with the appropriate words to express the thoughts they have conceived. can it be supposed that the abstract, naked, and incommunicable conception possesses an innate sagacity to clothe itself with a verbal garb, at best of capricious and transient fashion? "multa renascentur, quæ jam cecidere, cadentque quæ nunc sunt in honore vocabula, si volet usus, quem penes arbitrium est, et jus et norma loquendi." it is certain that ideas may exist in the mind, as the connected results, and enduring phantasms of visual perception, independently of words, and such condition is exemplified in those born deaf, who are consequently dumb: to whom the business of life is a mere pantomime, who only communicate the impulses of passion, and expose their want of comprehension. "in dumb significants proclaim their thoughts."--_henry vith._ from these examples it appears that a human being may possess a multitude of ideas, and yet be wholly ignorant of language: and in the instances of those born blind, he may acquire speech to its fullest extent without having any ideas, which therefore cannot be considered the necessary instruments of thought. thus, the presumed mutual intercourse, and reciprocal correspondence between ideas and words is a very disputable conclusion. when the idea or phantasm that is connected with visual perception appears, in consequence of the word being mentioned (which by commutation is its substitute), the presentation is immediate. he who has visited and attentively noted interesting scenes, mountainous districts, cataracts or prospects, when they are mentioned, will have their phantasms or pictured images occur to him, and he will be aware of them, like the intrusion of a sudden flash. from this phenomenon the generally received opinion of the _rapidity_ of _thought_ may in all probability have originated. all popular and settled notions, however unfounded, like prejudices early imbibed, are with difficulty eradicated. among these may be instanced the dictum of the astonishing rapidity of thought, which is almost proverbial, and generally believed: even mr. tooke, vol. i., p. 28, conforms to this established maxim. "words have been called _winged_: and they well deserve that name, when their abbreviations are compared with the progress which speech could make without these inventions; but when compared with the _rapidity_ of _thought_, they have not the smallest claim to that title." by calculation, the progress of light from the sun and other luminaries is said to be ascertained; and likewise the rate at which sound travels: but hitherto no contrivance has been fabricated to estimate the rapidity of thought. if the succession of our thoughts should be more rapid than they can be distinctly apprehended, confusion must ensue, and their rapidity would render them useless. our perceptions are regulated by the same law. if the prismatic colours be painted on a surface which is revolved with great rapidity, the individual colours will not be apparent. the succession of sounds to a definite number, may be severally distinguished, in a certain interval: but if the succession be increased beyond the power of discrimination, they will impress the ear as one uniform sound. the same principle must regulate our thoughts, whether they be composed of ideas or words, or, if it be possible, of both jumbled together. it does not appear that our thoughts for any useful purpose, which must imply their communication to others, or for a record in written characters, _can_ be more rapid than the intelligible pronunciation of the words themselves, and which, when delivered in quick succession, leave the short-hand-writer behind.[7] as ideas can be nothing more than the mere phantasms attendant on visual perception, which, like the perceptions of the other senses, are commuted for words, that, by the aid of memory, recall in their absence the objects that have been perceived; it would be difficult to suppose that ideas could fortuitously or voluntarily assemble in a more rapid succession, than the words for which they have been commuted, without producing confusion. it frequently happens to inexperienced persons, in giving evidence before a legal tribunal, or in addressing a popular assembly, that they cannot proceed; and they are generally disposed to interpret this failure, to their thoughts occurring in a succession too rapid for their utterance. allowing the apology to be correct, it is a proof that such rapidity is inconvenient, and renders the thought wholly useless if it cannot be communicated. when we attentively measure the steps of our own minds in the act of thinking, and also observe the progress of others, it will be found that effective thought does not result from this rapid and tumultuous rush of ideas; but is a very deliberate, and in many cases painful elaboration: and must, when committed to writing, be subjected to subsequent revisals and repeated corrections, and which must be applied to the _words_ constituting the sentence in which the thought is contained. from this general view of the subject, it is concluded that ideas, the residuary phantasms of visual perception, cannot directly constitute or become the immediate instruments of thought. the present essay being considered an humble attempt to investigate a portion of intellectual physiology, an apology will scarcely be deemed necessary for a short digression to inquire into the powers and faculties of the human mind: and which, when determined, may be viewed as the alphabet of mental science. systems prematurely constructed, and under the impression of authority, have been especial impediments to our intellectual progress: and this truth has been remarkably exemplified in the works that have treated of the human mind. in the numerous treatises on this subject that have issued from the press, there is but little agreement concerning these powers or faculties, and it is evident that a definite number must be required: some writers enumerate more, others less, and it is not unusual for some of these metaphysical projectors to split a single and presumed faculty into a variety of subdivisions. to the acute and patient observer, it will appear that the operations of nature are contrived with admirable simplicity; but man, in his endeavours to explain them, has generally resorted to a mysterious and discouraging complexity. thus, as might be expected, the same faculty, according to different authorities, has dissimilar energies,--one is detected to encroach on the boundary of another, and when the mechanism of mind, fabricated by these scholastic dictators, is attempted to be set in motion, it is found incapable of working. for the grand moving power we have an undefined, and consequently unintelligible doctrine of _ideas_, of supposed spiritual and directing agency; the admission of which would destroy the responsibility of a human being both here and hereafter, and degrade his ennobled condition to the instinct of the speechless brute. to endow these insubstantial and reflected phantasms with some activity and mimic play, a theory of the _association of ideas_ has been erected, without having previously established that they are capable of such confederation. a wearisome catalogue of faculties, many of which are conjectural, has been enumerated; abstraction, conception, contemplation, consciousness, comparison, imagination, judgment, memory, recollection, reminiscence, retention, perception, sensation, reflection, thought, understanding, volition, and many others that caprice has created, or a subtle discrimination helped to multiply. these are the materials out of which scholastic metaphysicians have fashioned their unresembling model, and deserted nature. it is not intended in this abbreviated essay to settle the pretensions of these numerous faculties, the discussion of which would require an ample volume: and the award might probably be protracted, till the claim was forgotten. when we contemplate the dexterities that the hand performs, and the monuments of skill and taste that it has elaborated; it would only create unnecessary distinctions to affirm that it possessed the faculties of sculpturing, painting, writing, spinning, weaving, sewing, and numberless other manipulations: besides those that ulterior discoveries may enable it to accomplish. however profuse these constructors of the mind may have been in the accumulation of its component faculties, they appear to have little regarded language, its most prominent and important feature; _the universal menstruum of intelligence, and accredited currency for the circulation and exchange of thought_. there are two faculties or capacities that are peculiar to the human intellect, by which our species has attained a supremacy that leaves all other animated beings in a distant rear: the possession of which has rendered man a progressive being, and the race of animals so nearly stationary, that however they may be tortured into improvement, they feel no emulation to proceed, and the acquirement perishes where the brute expires. these undisputed faculties are speech, with its recording characters, and the comprehension of numbers, the powerful sources of that pre-eminence which man has already attained, and to which he must be indebted for his further advancement. as ideas are wholly incompetent to explain the process of thought, the next inquiry will be, whether words are capable of affording the adequate solution. for this purpose, the simple experiment would be sufficient; and as we are conscious, under due attention of all the acts that the mind performs, every person, in proportion to his habits of deliberately noting that which passes within himself, will be enabled to institute this examination. it is however to be lamented, that thought is not the constant or habitual exercise of the mind on the phenomena of nature, the occurrences of life, or the subjects we listen to and peruse: but is only occasionally awakened by difficulties, excited by contention, or invoked by the promise of fame and by the hope of emolument. the usual course of education is but little calculated to promote the habitudes of thinking, and especially that teaching where authority dictates, and demonstration is neglected. much of this instruction is enforced by degradation and terror; and the pupil, at an early age, is compelled to swallow doctrines which he is unable to comprehend, and consequently cannot digest, except through the peptic assistance of the scourge: and which, when matured by manhood, and enlightened by reason, he is forced to reject. thought requires knowledge as its basis, and in proportion to its extent on any given subject, the investigation will be productive. this knowledge may be acquired by conversation, reading, or experiment, and these require language, or a composition of words. knowledge supplies the materials for thought, and every thought must be a distinct proposition, or sentence composed of words. a single word, although it possesses a distinct meaning, cannot constitute a thought, which implies a separate proposition or inference contained in a sentence: still less can it be supposed to result from an individual phantasm or idea. when it is considered that language is composed of words adapted by position to represent all the phenomena and contingencies of human affairs, and that we employ them, _by commutation_, for all that we can experience as sentient and intellectual beings, we shall be able to understand that they are the mental currency previously described, and that they are the only instruments of intelligence to which we can resort for the communication of our thoughts, or for the process of their elaboration. they must be expressed in words, and by words prepared for such expression. without attempting to investigate the different kinds of words, or parts of speech, the province of general or philosophical grammarians, whose unsettled disputes still perplex the patient and modest inquirer, it will be sufficient to remark that we possess words adapted to convey all the shades of opinion and degrees of feeling: and when these words, under the guidance of acquired knowledge, are perspicuously arranged into a proposition or sentence, they constitute thought: and the act of thinking consists in their correct selection and arrangement for the purpose of promulgation by speech or writing, and which is very properly termed composition. when we reflect, that from our infancy to the natural decline of our intellectual powers, we are employed, during our waking hours, in the exercise of language;[8]--by conversation, often desultory, where we range through a variety of topics, as the bird sports from branch to twig; to the more deliberate act of composition, where the mind enduringly broods on the subject;--or when we read, and attentively consider the thoughts of others:--these occupations contribute to augment our vocabulary, and fix the meaning of the words we employ. by these words, and the intelligence that resides in them, although many centuries have passed by, we participate, and feel impregnated with the pure and exalted spirit that conceived the iliad and odyssey. time has not diminished the vigour or impaired the beauty of those memorials that have survived the extinction of the grecian states, and the glory of the eternal city; and such is the luminous correspondence of language, that by transfusion into our vernacular idiom, we may receive a satisfactory measure of the original inspiration. let it be kept in view, that ideas, the frail associates of a perception, possess no permanence, are incapable of being transferred, and must fade away when our existence terminates. it is the word that forms the nucleus, and contains the intellectual deposit, that may become the inheritance of future generations. this process, in no manner or degree tends to subvert the spiritual nature of thought, which has its source in the capacities whereby we perceive, remember, and comprehend that significant sounds or words are the commuted representatives of the objects of intelligence. the perceptive organs of many animals are more exquisitely endowed than man, and their local memory more retentive; yet they are wholly incapable of comprehending language or calculating numbers;--capacities by which the creator has exclusively dignified the human race. it may excite some surprise that an essay on thought should be connected with the construction of a perspicuous sentence. to explain this conjunction, it may be urged, that there can be no evidence of thought, until it is promulgated by speech or written character: and, on all important occasions, such communications of meaning become absolutely necessary. acquiescence or dissent may indeed be tacitly conveyed, by holding up the hand, or by ballot, without condescending to offer any verbal reasons for the adoption or rejection of the proposed measure. affirmation or negation does not in any manner constitute thought; such determination may result from caprice, from ignorance, or from prejudice, without the slightest consideration. thought requires some proposition clearly conceived and perspicuously expressed in a sentence; and the clearness of the thought will be ascertained by the perspicuity of its verbal expression. there may be some difficulty respecting the precise meaning of individual words, arising from the corruptions of the ignorant; but more especially from the perversions of writers who have been deemed authorities. this distortion of the original sense, is, in a certain degree, incidental to all living languages, which being in childhood acquired by the ear, the learner is compelled to adopt the signification of words, and employ the current phraseology of those with whom he associates. when he is subsequently taught to speak and write by rule, or grammatically, generally at an age anterior to the exercise of reason, he is coerced to imbibe that which is forced in the way of instruction. even at a more advanced period the student cannot readily comprehend how a perspicuous sentence is formed by the position of individual words, each bearing a distinct signification, which it is presumed must be the fact: but mr. dugald stewart, in his _philosophical essays_, _p._ 155, has introduced a doctrine entirely opposite to this well-founded position. "so different is all this from the fact, that our words when examined _separately_, are _often_ as completely insignificant as the letters of which they are composed: deriving their meaning _solely_ from the connexion, or relation in which they stand to others." for the memory of mr. stewart, in common with his surviving pupils, i feel the reverence that is due to a learned, eloquent and amiable instructor, although i may now differ with him in many essential points relating to his philosophy of the human mind. the fact, that every word possesses a distinct meaning, appears to constitute one of the foundations of language: and it is impossible to conceive that any word, in itself completely insignificant, can impart signification to others; that which it does not contain cannot be communicated. the reservation contained in the word _often_, implies that some words really are significant; but no directions are given how to discover, and select from the copious vocabulary of our language, such as are impregnated with meaning, in order to expunge those that are insignificant. when we consult dr. johnson's dictionary, we find that the greater part of the words enumerated in his ample collection, instead of being senseless, enjoy an exuberance of meaning. thus the verb to think has ten significations; the substantive thought (the preterite of the verb), 12; something, n. s., 5; nothing, n. s., 11; smooth, adj., 6; rough, adj., 12; to stand, v. n., 69; to run, v. n., 62; empty, adj., 9; full, adj., 15; beginning, n. s., 5; end, n. s., 20; before, prepos., 12; after, prep., 6. however strange, or perhaps ludicrous, these numbers may seem, yet, in the progress of language from barbarism to refinement, from the assumed authority of writers, this accumulation of meanings is inevitable. however precise the primitive signification of words may have been, imagination, passion, or feeling would readily train them to deflect from their original import, under the effusions of the "poet, the lunatic, or the lover." a correct etymology would unfold the rude and simple origin of many words, that our anglo-saxon, and norman ancestors have bequeathed to us; although we are now but little sensible of the legacy; as the great mass feels no inclination to revert to the source of derivation. many have been distorted by corruption, and these are the most difficult to trace: to which may be added, that the terms we now employ to express our feelings and passions, and all that depicts mind and its operations, are of a figurative or metaphorical origin. instead of any word being insignificant, there is no one but may become the keystone in a sentence; and therefore a word blotted out in a perspicuous, that is, a properly constructed sentence, would render it unintelligible. to the composition of a sentence, whatever may be the thought, certain words are absolutely necessary, each containing an individual meaning; which, like a sum in addition, composed of different units, each possessing a separate and intrinsic value, may, when added together, produce the total. to those who have not attentively considered the subject, there is considerable difficulty in understanding how a determinate number of words can include the intelligence contained in a proposition or sentence: and especially how these components of separate significations can become connected for such general and comprehensive meaning. it should be recollected that such is the amazing inclosure of language, that it comprehends all the living and inanimate materials of this world, all that perception can detect, memory recall, or thought elaborate. this exposition includes the present posture of human affairs, and the movements we observe:--much that has heretofore occurred, which the characters of language have preserved unfaded from dark and remote ages: and are competent to transmit to a distant posterity, with accumulated interest: all that experience has amassed, accompanied with the consoling promises of the future, which revelation has unfolded. the extended empire of speech, and its perpetuating characters, embrace this prodigious range; but their comprehension is exclusively limited to the human race. when words can represent all that is evident and all that is conjectural--the works of omnipotence, and the fabrications of man--we need to seek no further for the necessary materials of thought. the difficulty that has perplexed many persons respecting the compactness and unity of intelligence that a sentence contains, principally arises from their ignorance of the precise meaning of individual words. etymologists would employ them in their original sense, and consider themselves justified by referring to their primitive import: others would use them according to their ordinary acceptation, which may be perverted; for in the currency of language, much is defective and counterfeit: but in general the authority of writers who are accredited, however they may disagree, is adopted. the intrinsic meaning of many words, especially the particles, will appear obscure; because they are disguised abbreviations of other words, and, in some instances, are sunk so deeply, that they cannot be fathomed. a protracted life might now be consumed in the investigation of these convenient and necessary particles, including the voluminous efforts of those illustrious grammarians who have terminated their discordant labours, without arriving at their primitive signification. the chemical elements of matter have undergone various reforms, and actual revolutions, and still await ulterior confusion. the clearness of the thought will be manifested by the perspicuity of the sentence that expresses it. whatever may be related, is most readily comprehended, when detailed in the strict order of its occurrence. if a procession be described, the exact sequence of its train must be noted, otherwise it will become a confused mixture of persons, or a mob. the same regularity is required in the construction of a sentence; and it appears fortunate that the english language reconciles this direct location of words, on which, its conformity to natural events and human transactions principally depends. from this straight-forward expression of meaning we may expect a future excellence of composition, and a more direct elaboration of thought. this distant prospect which imagination paints, and hope promotes, can only be realized under a system where light streams uncontrolled, and the atmosphere we breathe is free. the spirit of liberty must preside where improvement is expected. when we have acquired the power and habit of original thinking, the most important part of education, the mind is emancipated, and its independence commences: we cease to be espaliers, and become standards. hitherto we have been principally trained according to the ancient models. the greek and latin historians, orators, and poets, have consumed, to a great extent, the docile season of youth: when perception is active, and memory most permanently retains its various deposits, to the dereliction of the great presentations of nature, the operations of numbers, the foundations of science, and more especially the exercise of thought. after we have quitted school, and commenced our career of profitable employment, these studies are seldom continued, and from desuetude are soon forgotten; or only revived, perhaps unaptly, in an occasional quotation. even a living language, when not exercised, fades from the recollection. the indirect location of words which prevails in latin, can be no model for english composition, where regular and consecutive meaning constitute the perspicuity of the sentence; and according to the reasoning that has been adopted, of the thought itself. words, and the meaning which resides in each individual, are the only media by which our thoughts can be conveyed; and if these, which are connected by sense and subject, are so separated, or dislocated, that it becomes a puzzle to reduce them to their natural order, such distraction ought not to be considered an example for the process of thinking, and its development by composition or construction of sentences in the english language. the connexion that exists in a perspicuous sentence, is the conjunction of meaning, a further proof of the individual signification of words, and which bearing a definite sense, are selected for the purpose of that composition, which we term the process of thinking. to this connexion we are directed by the knowledge we possess of any particular subject, when we are intently occupied in its investigation, with a view to confute or confirm it, or by a more successful effort to arrive at discovery: and these acts of thought involve the continuation of meaning by the addition of words adapted to fulfil such intention. connexion, in a great degree, is the contrivance of our own minds, and has been frequently confounded with successive occurrences, many of which, on examination, are detected to be in no manner related; most persons link together circumstances that ought to be kept apart, and which often prove the source of unsurmountable prejudices. it will scarcely be contended, that the order of time establishes such concatenation, although it forms the basis of historical narrative. each portion of time must be individual and distinct, and essentially consists in its subdivisions: indeed, if we were to fuse together hours, days and years, our existence would only amount to a tedious dream. the letters of the alphabet are insulated symbols, and have no natural connexion with each other, but may be arranged to constitute words, which possess a definite meaning. words are in the same situation, there is no connexion in a vocabulary; they resemble the individuals of our species. each is a separate being, charged with his own propensities and peculiar character; but he may become connected with others in friendship, in interest, or as the member of a society for particular objects: he may confederate with immense bodies, for the protection of his rights, or become part of an army for the destruction of his neighbours. thus one philosophical system, in pamphlets or in formidable volumes, endeavours to overturn another: but the words are individual, and have no tendency to associate until they are enlisted and disciplined into the composition of sentences. when the proposition or sentence is formed, it ought to bear evidence of the most direct connexion, for the purposes of being readily comprehended and enduringly retained. from the nature of our minds, we recollect events, however unconnected, in the order of their occurrence, and we acquire by heart any passage, of level construction, with greater facility than where the natural sequence is disarranged; we repeat lines from pope with superior fidelity than quotations from milton. to compress this essay into the smallest compass, citations have been studiously avoided; yet there is a temptation to illustrate this subject by the introduction of an epigram from martial, _lib. 5, epig. 1._ 13 14 18 15 17 16 18 "hoc tibi palladiæ seu collibus uteris albæ, 2 19 20 22 21 23 24 cæsar et hinc triviam prospicis inde thetin: 25 28 26 27 28 26 seu tua veridicæ discunt responsa sorores, 30 31 29 32 30 31 plana suburbani qua cubat unda freti: 33 30 35 34 37 38 39 seu placet æneæ nutrix, seu filia solis, 40 42 41 41 42 sive salutiferis candidus anxur aquis; 12 1 6 3 8 5 4 mittimus o rerum felix tutela salusque, 7 7 12 8 10 9 sospite quo gratum credimus esse jovem." the figures pointing out the "_ordo verborum_" are according to the subjoined interpretation of mons. collesson, who prepared this delphine edition. the same figures have been placed where the adjective agrees with the substantive or pronoun; and for this clew to the consecutive arrangement of these disbanded and dispersed members of the sentence, some young gentlemen at school, and many who have finished their education, will be under considerable obligations. it is of considerable moment that this question should be fully discussed in order to be finally determined. the groundwork is physiological, the superstructure involves some moral considerations: and the conclusions will have an extensive influence on the system of education that ought to be adopted. if the perceptions of the eye, and its associated phantasms, or memorial visions, under the name of ideas, are to be viewed as the effective materials of our thoughts; such inference is directly confuted by the instances of those born blind, and continue through life without sight, and who must necessarily be deficient of such materials. if thought be the result of any immediate spiritual dictation, which the difficulty of accounting for it without such mysterious agency, has led many to suppose: and of which we are not conscious, the responsibility of our species is destroyed. if thought be effected by the selection and arrangement of words, each of which possesses a definite meaning, and is capable when conjoined with other words, of adding to their significance: of which process, and the individual steps that compose it, we _are_ conscious under due attention, the mystery vanishes, and the act of thinking becomes unfolded in the progressive formation of a perspicuous sentence. footnotes: [1] the eye is the only organ of sense that affords a connected phantasm, vision or idea. in the other senses, there is a memorial connection, by which the perception is recognised as having previously occurred, and consequently a consciousness of former perception. without these adjuncts the repetition of these perceptions would be useless as instruments of knowledge. avoiding a lengthened detail concerning the other senses, it will be sufficient to instance the olfactory organ. if we scent the essences of rose or jasmine, on the second presentation, they are recognised as having occurred before: should we have smelled the same perfumes from the living plants that exhale them, and by the _eye_ noticed them, we should experience a phantasm or idea of the figure of the plants, but there would be no phantasm of the odour. the excitation of the phantasm associated with the perception, and the recollection of the perception without the phantasm, by the attribution of a name, is, for the present, purposely concealed. [2] modification. a word of useless application, unless the _modus in quo agit_, be defined. [3] of the supposed operations of these ideas, and the purposes to which they are subjected, a few, among abundant instances, are selected from mr. locke's essay. "some ideas _forwardly_ offer themselves to all men's understanding; some sorts of truths result from any ideas, as soon as the mind puts _them_ into propositions: other truths require a _train_ of ideas _placed in order_."--_vol._ i. _p._ 63. "when the understanding is once stored with these simple ideas, it has the power to _repeat_, _compare_, and _unite_ them, even to an almost infinite variety, and so can make at pleasure _new_ complex ideas."--_vol._ i. _p._ 81. "the next operation we may observe in the mind about its ideas, is composition, whereby it puts together several of those simple ones it has received from sensation and reflection, and _combines_ them into complex ones."--_vol._ i. _p._ 118. "if either by any sudden very strong impression, or long fixing his fancy upon one sort of thoughts, _incoherent_ ideas have been _cemented_ together so powerfully, as to remain united."--_vol._ i. _p._ 121. "but there are degree of madness as of folly, the disorderly _jumbling_ ideas together, in some more, and some less." _vol._ i. _p._ 122. "the acts of the mind wherein it exerts its power over its simple ideas, are chiefly three. 1st. combining several simple ideas into one _compound one_, and _thus_ all complex ideas are made. the second, is bringing _two ideas_, whether simple or complex together, and _setting_ them by one another, so as to take a view of them _at once_, without uniting them into one; by which way it gets all its ideas of relations. the third, is _separating_ them from all other ideas that _accompany_ them in their real existence; this is called abstraction."--_vol._ i. _p._ 124. [4] the acquirement of language does not wholly consist in the imitation of the word, but likewise in the comprehension that the articulate sound is the representative of the object perceived. there are some persons of defective intellect that i have seen, whose hearing was perfect, and who could whistle some tunes, but who were unable to learn their native language so as to understand what was said to them, and consequently incompetent to afford an answer. in this particular they approximate to the state of animals. [5] "nec missas audire queunt, nec reddere voces." [6] on consulting the concordance of cruden, it does not appear that the word idea, is to be found in our translations of the old and new testament. cruden, although deemed a lunatic, was a man of persevering research and scrupulous accuracy. [7] it is very probable that martial, in his eulogy of the roman notarius, may have exceeded the actual performance. "currant verba licet, manus est velocior illis: nondum linga suum, dextra peregit opus." _lib. 14, epig. 208._ [8] in imitation of the auburn (american) prison, the middlesex magistrates, in their judicial wisdom, have adopted an entirely opposite system; by imposing an awful silence in their house of correction. this penance must press sorely on the criminals of the softer sex, to whom tea and conversation (errors excepted) constitute the principal comforts of life. catullus seems to allude to this infernal art of exasperating the miseries of incarceration. "nulla fugæ ratio, nulla spes: omnia muta, omnia sunt deserta: ostentant omnia lethum." printed by g. hayden, little college street, westminster. * * * * * _list of works by the author._ observations on madness & melancholy. octavo, 1809. illustrations of madness. octavo, 1810. medical jurisprudence, as it relates to insanity, according to the law of england. octavo, 1817. considerations on the moral management of insane persons. octavo, 1817. a letter to the governors of bethlem hospital. octavo, 1818. sound mind. octavo, 1819. letter to the lord chancellor, on unsoundness of mind and imbecility of intellect. octavo, 1823. six lectures on the intellectual composition of man.--_vide lancet for 1827._ letter to the metropolitan commissioners in lunacy. octavo, 1830. * * * * * (_shortly will be published_) by dr. haslam, a work on the treatment of insanity conducive to its cure. this treatise will contain the practical experience of forty years. three preliminary dissertations will be prefixed. 1st. how far insanity ought to be considered a _mental_ affection. 2d. on the influence which individuals are capable of exerting on the minds of others, both in the sane and insane state: the latter of course becomes the basis of that regulation which is termed _moral management_. 3d. on the connexion between the sexual organs and the mind, including the disorders that have been termed nymphomania, furor uterinus, puerperal insanity, barrenness, impotence, and the attacks that supervene at the period of cessation. on the disorders that resemble and are not unfrequently confounded with insanity, viz. delirium, hypochondriasis, morbid activity of mind, certain degrees of paralysis, and various nervous affections. an investigation of the existing laws that apply to lunatics, idiots, and persons denominated of _unsound_ mind: with an accurate examination of the degree of incapacity or imbecility that ought to subject them to legal protection. reflections on the parliamentary inquiries relating to insane persons, and the regulations enacted respecting the houses in which lunatics are confined. candid remarks on the establishment and duties of the metropolitan commissioners. estimate of the probability of the lives of insane persons, and of those who have been visited with mental derangement; calculated for the guidance of assurance offices. thought-forms by annie besant and c.w. leadbeater [illustration: publisher logo] the theosophical publishing house ltd 38 great ormond street, london, w.c. 1 _first printed_ 1901 _reprint_ 1905 _reprint_ 1925 _made and printed in great britain by_ percy lund, humphries & co ltd the country press bradford [illustration: frontispiece--meaning of the colours--(see html version for this and other illustrations.)] foreword the text of this little book is the joint work of mr leadbeater and myself; some of it has already appeared as an article in _lucifer_ (now the _theosophical review_), but the greater part of it is new. the drawing and painting of the thought-forms observed by mr leadbeater or by myself, or by both of us together, has been done by three friends--mr john varley, mr prince, and miss macfarlane, to each of whom we tender our cordial thanks. to paint in earth's dull colours the forms clothed in the living light of other worlds is a hard and thankless task; so much the more gratitude is due to those who have attempted it. they needed coloured fire, and had only ground earths. we have also to thank mr f. bligh bond for allowing us to use his essay on _vibration figures_, and some of his exquisite drawings. another friend, who sent us some notes and a few drawings, insists on remaining anonymous, so we can only send our thanks to him with similar anonymity. it is our earnest hope--as it is our belief--that this little book will serve as a striking moral lesson to every reader, making him realise the nature and power of his thoughts, acting as a stimulus to the noble, a curb on the base. with this belief and hope we send it on its way. annie besant. contents page foreword 6 introduction 11 the difficulty of representation 16 the two effects of thought 21 how the vibration acts 23 the form and its effect 25 the meaning of the colours 32 three classes of thought-forms 36 illustrative thought-forms 40 affection 40-44 devotion 44-49 intellect 49-50 ambition 51 anger 52 sympathy 55 fear 55 greed 56 various emotions 57 shipwreck 57 on the first night 59 the gamblers 60 at a street accident 61 at a funeral 61 on meeting a friend 64 appreciation of a picture 65 forms seen in meditation 66 sympathy and love for all 66 an aspiration to enfold all 66 in the six directions 67 cosmic order 68 the logos as manifested in man 69 the logos pervading all 70 another conception 71 the threefold manifestation 71 the sevenfold manifestation 72 intellectual aspiration 72 helpful thoughts 74 forms built by music 75 mendelssohn 77 gounod 80 wagner 82 list of illustrations fig. page meaning of the colours _frontispiece_ chladni's sound plate 1 28 forms produced in sand 2 28 forms produced in sand 3 29 forms produced by pendulums 4-7 30 vague pure affection 8 40 vague selfish affection 9 40 definite affection 10 42 radiating affection 11 43 peace and protection 12 42 grasping animal affection 13 43 vague religious feeling 14 44 upward rush of devotion 15 46 self-renunciation 16 44 response to devotion 17 46 vague intellectual pleasure 18 50 vague sympathy 18a 50 the intention to know 19 51 high ambition 20 52 selfish ambition 21 52 murderous rage 22 53 sustained anger 23 53 explosive anger 24 51 watchful jealousy 25 54 angry jealousy 26 54 sudden fright 27 55 selfish greed 28 56 greed for drink 29 56 at a shipwreck 30 58 on the first night 31 59 the gamblers 32 60 at a street accident 33 61 at a funeral 34 62 on meeting a friend 35 64 the appreciation of a picture 36 64 sympathy and love for all 37 66 an aspiration to enfold all 38 67 in the six directions 39 66 an intellectual conception of cosmic order 40 69 the logos as manifested in man 41 69 the logos pervading all 42 and 44 70 another conception 45 70 the threefold manifestation 46 70 the sevenfold manifestation 47 70 intellectual aspiration 43 72 helpful thoughts 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54 74 plate music of mendelssohn m 78 music of gounod g 80 music of wagner w 82 [transcriber's note: some of the plates are displayed out of sequence to correspond with references to them in the text.] thought-forms as knowledge increases, the attitude of science towards the things of the invisible world is undergoing considerable modification. its attention is no longer directed solely to the earth with all its variety of objects, or to the physical worlds around it; but it finds itself compelled to glance further afield, and to construct hypotheses as to the nature of the matter and force which lie in the regions beyond the ken of its instruments. ether is now comfortably settled in the scientific kingdom, becoming almost more than a hypothesis. mesmerism, under its new name of hypnotism, is no longer an outcast. reichenbach's experiments are still looked at askance, but are not wholly condemned. röntgen's rays have rearranged some of the older ideas of matter, while radium has revolutionised them, and is leading science beyond the borderland of ether into the astral world. the boundaries between animate and inanimate matter are broken down. magnets are found to be possessed of almost uncanny powers, transferring certain forms of disease in a way not yet satisfactorily explained. telepathy, clairvoyance, movement without contact, though not yet admitted to the scientific table, are approaching the cinderella-stage. the fact is that science has pressed its researches so far, has used such rare ingenuity in its questionings of nature, has shown such tireless patience in its investigations, that it is receiving the reward of those who seek, and forces and beings of the next higher plane of nature are beginning to show themselves on the outer edge of the physical field. "nature makes no leaps," and as the physicist nears the confines of his kingdom he finds himself bewildered by touches and gleams from another realm which interpenetrates his own. he finds himself compelled to speculate on invisible presences, if only to find a rational explanation for undoubted physical phenomena, and insensibly he slips over the boundary, and is, although he does not yet realise it, contacting the astral plane. one of the most interesting of the highroads from the physical to the astral is that of the study of thought. the western scientist, commencing in the anatomy and physiology of the brain, endeavours to make these the basis for "a sound psychology." he passes then into the region of dreams, illusions, hallucinations; and as soon as he endeavours to elaborate an experimental science which shall classify and arrange these, he inevitably plunges into the astral plane. dr baraduc of paris has nearly crossed the barrier, and is well on the way towards photographing astro-mental images, to obtaining pictures of what from the materialistic standpoint would be the results of vibrations in the grey matter of the brain. it has long been known to those who have given attention to the question that impressions were produced by the reflection of the ultra-violet rays from objects not visible by the rays of the ordinary spectrum. clairvoyants were occasionally justified by the appearance on sensitive photographic plates of figures seen and described by them as present with the sitter, though invisible to physical sight. it is not possible for an unbiassed judgment to reject _in toto_ the evidence of such occurrences proffered by men of integrity on the strength of their own experiments, oftentimes repeated. and now we have investigators who turn their attention to the obtaining of images of subtle forms, inventing methods specially designed with the view of reproducing them. among these, dr baraduc seems to have been the most successful, and he has published a volume dealing with his investigations and containing reproductions of the photographs he has obtained. dr baraduc states that he is investigating the subtle forces by which the soul--defined as the intelligence working between the body and the spirit--expresses itself, by seeking to record its movements by means of a needle, its "luminous" but invisible vibrations by impressions on sensitive plates. he shuts out by non-conductors electricity and heat. we can pass over his experiments in biometry (measurement of life by movements), and glance at those in iconography--the impressions of invisible waves, regarded by him as of the nature of light, in which the soul draws its own image. a number of these photographs represent etheric and magnetic results of physical phenomena, and these again we may pass over as not bearing on our special subject, interesting as they are in themselves. dr baraduc obtained various impressions by strongly thinking of an object, the effect produced by the thought-form appearing on a sensitive plate; thus he tried to project a portrait of a lady (then dead) whom he had known, and produced an impression due to his thought of a drawing he had made of her on her deathbed. he quite rightly says that the creation of an object is the passing out of an image from the mind and its subsequent materialisation, and he seeks the chemical effect caused on silver salts by this thought-created picture. one striking illustration is that of a force raying outwards, the projection of an earnest prayer. another prayer is seen producing forms like the fronds of a fern, another like rain pouring upwards, if the phrase may be permitted. a rippled oblong mass is projected by three persons thinking of their unity in affection. a young boy sorrowing over and caressing a dead bird is surrounded by a flood of curved interwoven threads of emotional disturbance. a strong vortex is formed by a feeling of deep sadness. looking at this most interesting and suggestive series, it is clear that in these pictures that which is obtained is not the thought-image, but the effect caused in etheric matter by its vibrations, and it is necessary to clairvoyantly see the thought in order to understand the results produced. in fact, the illustrations are instructive for what they do not show directly, as well as for the images that appear. it may be useful to put before students, a little more plainly than has hitherto been done, some of the facts in nature which will render more intelligible the results at which dr baraduc is arriving. necessarily imperfect these must be, a physical photographic camera and sensitive plates not being ideal instruments for astral research; but, as will be seen from the above, they are most interesting and valuable as forming a link between clairvoyant and physical scientific investigations. at the present time observers outside the theosophical society are concerning themselves with the fact that emotional changes show their nature by changes of colour in the cloud-like ovoid, or aura, that encompasses all living beings. articles on the subject are appearing in papers unconnected with the theosophical society, and a medical specialist[1] has collected a large number of cases in which the colour of the aura of persons of various types and temperaments is recorded by him. his results resemble closely those arrived at by clairvoyant theosophists and others, and the general unanimity on the subject is sufficient to establish the fact, if the evidence be judged by the usual canons applied to human testimony. the book _man visible and invisible_ dealt with the general subject of the aura. the present little volume, written by the author of _man visible and invisible_, and a theosophical colleague, is intended to carry the subject further; and it is believed that this study is useful, as impressing vividly on the mind of the student the power and living nature of thought and desire, and the influence exerted by them on all whom they reach. [footnote 1: dr hooker, gloucester place, london, w.] the difficulty of representation we have often heard it said that thoughts are things, and there are many among us who are persuaded of the truth of this statement. yet very few of us have any clear idea as to what kind of thing a thought is, and the object of this little book is to help us to conceive this. there are some serious difficulties in our way, for our conception of space is limited to three dimensions, and when we attempt to make a drawing we practically limit ourselves to two. in reality the presentation even of ordinary three-dimensional objects is seriously defective, for scarcely a line or angle in our drawing is accurately shown. if a road crosses the picture, the part in the foreground must be represented as enormously wider than that in the background, although in reality the width is unchanged. if a house is to be drawn, the right angles at its corners must be shown as acute or obtuse as the case may be, but hardly ever as they actually are. in fact, we draw everything not as it is but as it appears, and the effort of the artist is by a skilful arrangement of lines upon a flat surface to convey to the eye an impression which shall recall that made by a three-dimensional object. it is possible to do this only because similar objects are already familiar to those who look at the picture and accept the suggestion which it conveys. a person who had never seen a tree could form but little idea of one from even the most skilful painting. if to this difficulty we add the other and far more serious one of a limitation of consciousness, and suppose ourselves to be showing the picture to a being who knew only two dimensions, we see how utterly impossible it would be to convey to him any adequate impression of such a landscape as we see. precisely this difficulty in its most aggravated form stands in our way, when we try to make a drawing of even a very simple thought-form. the vast majority of those who look at the picture are absolutely limited to the consciousness of three dimensions, and furthermore, have not the slightest conception of that inner world to which thought-forms belong, with all its splendid light and colour. all that we can do at the best is to represent a section of the thought-form; and those whose faculties enable them to see the original cannot but be disappointed with any reproduction of it. still, those who are at present unable to see anything will gain at least a partial comprehension, and however inadequate it may be it is at least better than nothing. all students know that what is called the aura of man is the outer part of the cloud-like substance of his higher bodies, interpenetrating each other, and extending beyond the confines of his physical body, the smallest of all. they know also that two of these bodies, the mental and desire bodies, are those chiefly concerned with the appearance of what are called thought-forms. but in order that the matter may be made clear for all, and not only for students already acquainted with theosophical teachings, a recapitulation of the main facts will not be out of place. man, the thinker, is clothed in a body composed of innumerable combinations of the subtle matter of the mental plane, this body being more or less refined in its constituents and organised more or less fully for its functions, according to the stage of intellectual development at which the man himself has arrived. the mental body is an object of great beauty, the delicacy and rapid motion of its particles giving it an aspect of living iridescent light, and this beauty becomes an extraordinarily radiant and entrancing loveliness as the intellect becomes more highly evolved and is employed chiefly on pure and sublime topics. every thought gives rise to a set of correlated vibrations in the matter of this body, accompanied with a marvellous play of colour, like that in the spray of a waterfall as the sunlight strikes it, raised to the _n_th degree of colour and vivid delicacy. the body under this impulse throws off a vibrating portion of itself, shaped by the nature of the vibrations--as figures are made by sand on a disk vibrating to a musical note--and this gathers from the surrounding atmosphere matter like itself in fineness from the elemental essence of the mental world. we have then a thought-form pure and simple, and it is a living entity of intense activity animated by the one idea that generated it. if made of the finer kinds of matter, it will be of great power and energy, and may be used as a most potent agent when directed by a strong and steady will. into the details of such use we will enter later. when the man's energy flows outwards towards external objects of desire, or is occupied in passional and emotional activities, this energy works in a less subtle order of matter than the mental, in that of the astral world. what is called his desire-body is composed of this matter, and it forms the most prominent part of the aura in the undeveloped man. where the man is of a gross type, the desire-body is of the denser matter of the astral plane, and is dull in hue, browns and dirty greens and reds playing a great part in it. through this will flash various characteristic colours, as his passions are excited. a man of a higher type has his desire-body composed of the finer qualities of astral matter, with the colours, rippling over and flashing through it, fine and clear in hue. while less delicate and less radiant than the mental body, it forms a beautiful object, and as selfishness is eliminated all the duller and heavier shades disappear. this desire (or astral) body gives rise to a second class of entities, similar in their general constitution to the thought-forms already described, but limited to the astral plane, and generated by the mind under the dominion of the animal nature. these are caused by the activity of the lower mind, throwing itself out through the astral body--the activity of kâma-manas in theosophical terminology, or the mind dominated by desire. vibrations in the body of desire, or astral body, are in this case set up, and under these this body throws off a vibrating portion of itself, shaped, as in the previous case, by the nature of the vibrations, and this attracts to itself some of the appropriate elemental essence of the astral world. such a thought-form has for its body this elemental essence, and for its animating soul the desire or passion which threw it forth; according to the amount of mental energy combined with this desire or passion will be the force of the thought-form. these, like those belonging to the mental plane, are called artificial elementals, and they are by far the most common, as few thoughts of ordinary men and women are untinged with desire, passion, or emotion. the two effects of thought each definite thought produces a double effect--a radiating vibration and a floating form. the thought itself appears first to clairvoyant sight as a vibration in the mental body, and this may be either simple or complex. if the thought itself is absolutely simple, there is only the one rate of vibration, and only one type of mental matter will be strongly affected. the mental body is composed of matter of several degrees of density, which we commonly arrange in classes according to the sub-planes. of each of these we have many sub-divisions, and if we typify these by drawing horizontal lines to indicate the different degrees of density, there is another arrangement which we might symbolise by drawing perpendicular lines at right angles to the others, to denote types which differ in quality as well as in density. there are thus many varieties of this mental matter, and it is found that each one of these has its own especial and appropriate rate of vibration, to which it seems most accustomed, so that it very readily responds to it, and tends to return to it as soon as possible when it has been forced away from it by some strong rush of thought or feeling. when a sudden wave of some emotion sweeps over a man, for example, his astral body is thrown into violent agitation, and its original colours are or the time almost obscured by the flush of carmine, of blue, or of scarlet which corresponds with the rate of vibration of that particular emotion. this change is only temporary; it passes off in a few seconds, and the astral body rapidly resumes its usual condition. yet every such rush of feeling produces a permanent effect: it always adds a little of its hue to the normal colouring of the astral body, so that every time that the man yields himself to a certain emotion it becomes easier for him to yield himself to it again, because his astral body is getting into the habit of vibrating at that especial rate. the majority of human thoughts, however, are by no means simple. absolutely pure affection of course exists; but we very often find it tinged with pride or with selfishness, with jealousy or with animal passion. this means that at least two separate vibrations appear both in the mental and astral bodies--frequently more than two. the radiating vibration, therefore, will be a complex one, and the resultant thought-form will show several colours instead of only one. how the vibration acts these radiating vibrations, like all others in nature, become less powerful in proportion to the distance from their source, though it is probable that the variation is in proportion to the cube of the distance instead of to the square, because of the additional dimension involved. again, like all other vibrations, these tend to reproduce themselves whenever opportunity is offered to them; and so whenever they strike upon another mental body they tend to provoke in it their own rate of motion. that is--from the point of view of the man whose mental body is touched by these waves--they tend to produce in his mind thoughts of the same type as that which had previously arisen in the mind of the thinker who sent forth the waves. the distance to which such thought-waves penetrate, and the force and persistency with which they impinge upon the mental bodies of others, depend upon the strength and clearness of the original thought. in this way the thinker is in the same position as the speaker. the voice of the latter sets in motion waves of sound in the air which radiate from him in all directions, and convey his message to all those who are within hearing, and the distance to which his voice can penetrate depends upon its power and upon the clearness of his enunciation. in just the same way the forceful thought will carry very much further than the weak and undecided thought; but clearness and definiteness are of even greater importance than strength. again, just as the speaker's voice may fall upon heedless ears where men are already engaged in business or in pleasure, so may a mighty wave of thought sweep past without affecting the mind of the man, if he be already deeply engrossed in some other line of thought. it should be understood that this radiating vibration conveys the character of the thought, but not its subject. if a hindu sits rapt in devotion to krishna, the waves of feeling which pour forth from him stimulate devotional feeling in all those who come under their influence, though in the case of the muhammadan that devotion is to allah, while for the zoroastrian it is to ahuramazda, or for the christian to jesus. a man thinking keenly upon some high subject pours out from himself vibrations which tend to stir up thought at a similar level in others, but they in no way suggest to those others the special subject of his thought. they naturally act with special vigour upon those minds already habituated to vibrations of similar character; yet they have some effect on every mental body upon which they impinge, so that their tendency is to awaken the power of higher thought in those to whom it has not yet become a custom. it is thus evident that every man who thinks along high lines is doing missionary work, even though he may be entirely unconscious of it. the form and its effect let us turn now to the second effect of thought, the creation of a definite form. all students of the occult are acquainted with the idea of the elemental essence, that strange half-intelligent life which surrounds us in all directions, vivifying the matter of the mental and astral planes. this matter thus animated responds very readily to the influence of human thought, and every impulse sent out, either from the mental body or from the astral body of man, immediately clothes itself in a temporary vehicle of this vitalised matter. such a thought or impulse becomes for the time a kind of living creature, the thought-force being the soul, and the vivified matter the body. instead of using the somewhat clumsy paraphrase, "astral or mental matter ensouled by the monadic essence at the stage of one of the elemental kingdoms," theosophical writers often, for brevity's sake, call this quickened matter simply elemental essence; and sometimes they speak of the thought-form as "an elemental." there may be infinite variety in the colour and shape of such elementals or thought-forms, for each thought draws round it the matter which is appropriate for its expression, and sets that matter into vibration in harmony with its own; so that the character of the thought decides its colour, and the study of its variations and combinations is an exceedingly interesting one. this thought-form may not inaptly be compared to a leyden jar, the coating of living essence being symbolised by the jar, and the thought energy by the charge of electricity. if the man's thought or feeling is directly connected with someone else, the resultant thought-form moves towards that person and discharges itself upon his astral and mental bodies. if the man's thought is about himself, or is based upon a personal feeling, as the vast majority of thoughts are, it hovers round its creator and is always ready to react upon him whenever he is for a moment in a passive condition. for example, a man who yields himself to thoughts of impurity may forget all about them while he is engaged in the daily routine of his business, even though the resultant forms are hanging round him in a heavy cloud, because his attention is otherwise directed and his astral body is therefore not impressible by any other rate of vibration than its own. when, however, the marked vibration slackens and the man rests after his labours and leaves his mind blank as regards definite thought, he is very likely to feel the vibration of impurity stealing insidiously upon him. if the consciousness of the man be to any extent awakened, he may perceive this and cry out that he is being tempted by the devil; yet the truth is that the temptation is from without only in appearance, since it is nothing but the natural reaction upon him of his own thought-forms. each man travels through space enclosed within a cage of his own building, surrounded by a mass of the forms created by his habitual thoughts. through this medium he looks out upon the world, and naturally he sees everything tinged with its predominant colours, and all rates of vibration which reach him from without are more or less modified by its rate. thus until the man learns complete control of thought and feeling, he sees nothing as it really is, since all his observations must be made through this medium, which distorts and colours everything like badly-made glass. if the thought-form be neither definitely personal nor specially aimed at someone else, it simply floats detached in the atmosphere, all the time radiating vibrations similar to those originally sent forth by its creator. if it does not come into contact with any other mental body, this radiation gradually exhausts its store of energy, and in that case the form falls to pieces; but if it succeeds in awakening sympathetic vibration in any mental body near at hand, an attraction is set up, and the thought-form is usually absorbed by that mental body. thus we see that the influence of the thought-form is by no means so far-reaching as that of the original vibration; but in so far as it acts, it acts with much greater precision. what it produces in the mind-body which it influences is not merely a thought of an order similar to that which gave it birth; it is actually the same thought. the radiation may affect thousands and stir up in them thoughts on the same level as the original, and yet it may happen that no one of them will be identical with that original; the thought-form can affect only very few, but in those few cases it will reproduce exactly the initiatory idea. the fact of the creation by vibrations of a distinct form, geometrical or other, is already familiar to every student of acoustics, and "chladni's" figures are continually reproduced in every physical laboratory. [illustration: fig. 1. chladni's sound plate] [illustration: fig. 2. forms produced in sound] for the lay reader the following brief description may be useful. a chladni's sound plate (fig. 1) is made of brass or plate-glass. grains of fine sand or spores are scattered over the surface, and the edge of the plate is bowed. the sand is thrown up into the air by the vibration of the plate, and re-falling on the plate is arranged in regular lines (fig. 2). by touching the edge of the plate at different points when it is bowed, different notes, and hence varying forms, are obtained (fig. 3). if the figures here given are compared with those obtained from the human voice, many likenesses will be observed. for these latter, the 'voice-forms' so admirably studied and pictured by mrs watts hughes,[1] bearing witness to the same fact, should be consulted, and her work on the subject should be in the hands of every student. but few perhaps have realised that the shapes pictured are due to the interplay of the vibrations that create them, and that a machine exists by means of which two or more simultaneous motions can be imparted to a pendulum, and that by attaching a fine drawing-pen to a lever connected with the pendulum its action may be exactly traced. substitute for the swing of the pendulum the vibrations set up in the mental or astral body, and we have clearly before us the _modus operandi_ of the building of forms by vibrations.[2] [illustration: fig. 3. forms produced in sound] [footnote 1: _the eidophone voice figures._ margaret watts hughes.] [footnote 2: mr joseph gould, stratford house, nottingham, supplies the twin-elliptic pendulum by which these wonderful figures may be produced.] the following description is taken from a most interesting essay entitled _vibration figures_, by f. bligh bond, f.r.i.b.a., who has drawn a number of remarkable figures by the use of pendulums. the pendulum is suspended on knife edges of hardened steel, and is free to swing only at right angles to the knife-edge suspension. four such pendulums may be coupled in pairs, swinging at right angles to each other, by threads connecting the shafts of each pair of pendulums with the ends of a light but rigid lath, from the centre of which run other threads; these threads carry the united movements of each pair of pendulums to a light square of wood, suspended by a spring, and bearing a pen. the pen is thus controlled by the combined movement of the four pendulums, and this movement is registered on a drawing board by the pen. there is no limit, theoretically, to the number of pendulums that can be combined in this manner. the movements are rectilinear, but two rectilinear vibrations of equal amplitude acting at right angles to each other generate a circle if they alternate precisely, an ellipse if the alternations are less regular or the amplitudes unequal. a cyclic vibration may also be obtained from a pendulum free to swing in a rotary path. in these ways a most wonderful series of drawings have been obtained, and the similarity of these to some of the thought-forms is remarkable; they suffice to demonstrate how readily vibrations may be transformed into figures. thus compare fig. 4 with fig. 12, the mother's prayer; or fig. 5 with fig. 10; or fig. 6 with fig. 25, the serpent-like darting forms. fig. 7 is added as an illustration of the complexity attainable. it seems to us a most marvellous thing that some of the drawings, made apparently at random by the use of this machine, should exactly correspond to higher types of thought-forms created in meditation. we are sure that a wealth of significance lies behind this fact, though it will need much further investigation before we can say certainly all that it means. but it must surely imply this much--that, if two forces on the physical plane bearing a certain ratio one to the other can draw a form which exactly corresponds to that produced on the mental plane by a complex thought, we may infer that that thought sets in motion on its own plane two forces which are in the same ratio one to the other. what these forces are and how they work remains to be seen; but if we are ever able to solve this problem, it is likely that it will open to us a new and exceedingly valuable field of knowledge. [illustration: figs. 4-7. forms produced by pendulums] general principles. three general principles underlie the production of all thought-forms:-1. quality of thought determines colour. 2. nature of thought determines form. 3. definiteness of thought determines clearness of outline. the meaning of the colours the table of colours given in the frontispiece has already been thoroughly described in the book _man visible and invisible_, and the meaning to be attached to them is just the same in the thought-form as in the body out of which it is evolved. for the sake of those who have not at hand the full description given in the book just mentioned, it will be well to state that black means hatred and malice. red, of all shades from lurid brick-red to brilliant scarlet, indicates anger; brutal anger will show as flashes of lurid red from dark brown clouds, while the anger of "noble indignation" is a vivid scarlet, by no means unbeautiful, though it gives an unpleasant thrill; a particularly dark and unpleasant red, almost exactly the colour called dragon's blood, shows animal passion and sensual desire of various kinds. clear brown (almost burnt sienna) shows avarice; hard dull brown-grey is a sign of selfishness--a colour which is indeed painfully common; deep heavy grey signifies depression, while a livid pale grey is associated with fear; grey-green is a signal of deceit, while brownish-green (usually flecked with points and flashes of scarlet) betokens jealousy. green seems always to denote adaptability; in the lowest case, when mingled with selfishness, this adaptability becomes deceit; at a later stage, when the colour becomes purer, it means rather the wish to be all things to all men, even though it may be chiefly for the sake of becoming popular and bearing a good reputation with them; in its still higher, more delicate and more luminous aspect, it shows the divine power of sympathy. affection expresses itself in all shades of crimson and rose; a full clear carmine means a strong healthy affection of normal type; if stained heavily with brown-grey, a selfish and grasping feeling is indicated, while pure pale rose marks that absolutely unselfish love which is possible only to high natures; it passes from the dull crimson of animal love to the most exquisite shades of delicate rose, like the early flushes of the dawning, as the love becomes purified from all selfish elements, and flows out in wider and wider circles of generous impersonal tenderness and compassion to all who are in need. with a touch of the blue of devotion in it, this may express a strong realisation of the universal brotherhood of humanity. deep orange imports pride or ambition, and the various shades of yellow denote intellect or intellectual gratification, dull yellow ochre implying the direction of such faculty to selfish purposes, while clear gamboge shows a distinctly higher type, and pale luminous primrose yellow is a sign of the highest and most unselfish use of intellectual power, the pure reason directed to spiritual ends. the different shades of blue all indicate religious feeling, and range through all hues from the dark brown-blue of selfish devotion, or the pallid grey-blue of fetish-worship tinged with fear, up to the rich deep clear colour of heartfelt adoration, and the beautiful pale azure of that highest form which implies self-renunciation and union with the divine; the devotional thought of an unselfish heart is very lovely in colour, like the deep blue of a summer sky. through such clouds of blue will often shine out golden stars of great brilliancy, darting upwards like a shower of sparks. a mixture of affection and devotion is manifested by a tint of violet, and the more delicate shades of this invariably show the capacity of absorbing and responding to a high and beautiful ideal. the brilliancy and the depth of the colours are usually a measure of the strength and the activity of the feeling. another consideration which must not be forgotten is the type of matter in which these forms are generated. if a thought be purely intellectual and impersonal--for example, if the thinker is attempting to solve a problem in algebra or geometry--the thought-form and the wave of vibration will be confined entirely to the mental plane. if, however, the thought be of a spiritual nature, if it be tinged with love and aspiration or deep unselfish feeling, it will rise upwards from the mental plane and will borrow much of the splendour and glory of the buddhic level. in such a case its influence is exceedingly powerful, and every such thought is a mighty force for good which cannot but produce a decided effect upon all mental bodies within reach, if they contain any quality at all capable of response. if, on the other hand, the thought has in it something of self or of personal desire, at once its vibration turns downwards, and it draws round itself a body of astral matter in addition to its clothing of mental matter. such a thought-form is capable of acting upon the astral bodies of other men as well as their minds, so that it can not only raise thought within them, but can also stir up their feelings. three classes of thought-forms from the point of view of the forms which they produce we may group thought into three classes:-1. that which takes the image of the thinker. when a man thinks of himself as in some distant place, or wishes earnestly to be in that place, he makes a thought-form in his own image which appears there. such a form has not infrequently been seen by others, and has sometimes been taken for the astral body or apparition of the man himself. in such a case, either the seer must have enough of clairvoyance for the time to be able to observe that astral shape, or the thought-form must have sufficient strength to materialise itself--that is, to draw round itself temporarily a certain amount of physical matter. the thought which generates such a form as this must necessarily be a strong one, and it therefore employs a larger proportion of the matter of the mental body, so that though the form is small and compressed when it leaves the thinker, it draws round it a considerable amount of astral matter, and usually expands to life-size before it appears at its destination. 2. that which takes the image of some material object. when a man thinks of his friend he forms within his mental body a minute image of that friend, which often passes outward and usually floats suspended in the air before him. in the same way if he thinks of a room, a house, a landscape, tiny images of these things are formed within the mental body and afterwards externalised. this is equally true when he is exercising his imagination; the painter who forms a conception of his future picture builds it up out of the matter of his mental body, and then projects it into space in front of him, keeps it before his mind's eye, and copies it. the novelist in the same way builds images of his character in mental matter, and by the exercise of his will moves these puppets from one position or grouping to another, so that the plot of his story is literally acted out before him. with our curiously inverted conceptions of reality it is hard for us to understand that these mental images actually exist, and are so entirely objective that they may readily be seen by the clairvoyant, and can even be rearranged by some one other than their creator. some novelists have been dimly aware of such a process, and have testified that their characters when once created developed a will of their own, and insisted on carrying the plot of the story along lines quite different from those originally intended by the author. this has actually happened, sometimes because the thought-forms were ensouled by playful nature-spirits, or more often because some 'dead' novelist, watching on the astral plane the development of the plan of his fellow-author, thought that he could improve upon it, and chose this method of putting forward his suggestions. 3. that which takes a form entirely its own, expressing its inherent qualities in the matter which it draws round it. only thought-forms of this third class can usefully be illustrated, for to represent those of the first or second class would be merely to draw portraits or landscapes. in those types we have the plastic mental or astral matter moulded in imitation of forms belonging to the physical plane; in this third group we have a glimpse of the forms natural to the astral or mental planes. yet this very fact, which makes them so interesting, places an insuperable barrier in the way of their accurate reproduction. thought-forms of this third class almost invariably manifest themselves upon the astral plane, as the vast majority of them are expressions of feeling as well as of thought. those of which we here give specimens are almost wholly of that class, except that we take a few examples of the beautiful thought-forms created in definite meditation by those who, through long practice, have learnt how to think. thought-forms directed towards individuals produce definitely marked effects, these effects being either partially reproduced in the aura of the recipient and so increasing the total result, or repelled from it. a thought of love and of desire to protect, directed strongly towards some beloved object, creates a form which goes to the person thought of, and remains in his aura as a shielding and protecting agent; it will seek all opportunities to serve, and all opportunities to defend, not by a conscious and deliberate action, but by a blind following out of the impulse impressed upon it, and it will strengthen friendly forces that impinge on the aura and weaken unfriendly ones. thus may we create and maintain veritable guardian angels round those we love, and many a mother's prayer for a distant child thus circles round him, though she knows not the method by which her "prayer is answered." in cases in which good or evil thoughts are projected at individuals, those thoughts, if they are to directly fulfil their mission, must find, in the aura of the object to whom they are sent, materials capable of responding sympathetically to their vibrations. any combination of matter can only vibrate within certain definite limits, and if the thought-form be outside all the limits within which the aura is capable of vibrating, it cannot affect that aura at all. it consequently rebounds from it, and that with a force proportionate to the energy with which it impinged upon it. this is why it is said that a pure heart and mind are the best protectors against any inimical assaults, for such a pure heart and mind will construct an astral and a mental body of fine and subtle materials, and these bodies cannot respond to vibrations that demand coarse and dense matter. if an evil thought, projected with malefic intent, strikes such a body, it can only rebound from it, and it is flung back with all its own energy; it then flies backward along the magnetic line of least resistance, that which it has just traversed, and strikes its projector; he, having matter in his astral and mental bodies similar to that of the thought-form he generated, is thrown into respondent vibrations, and suffers the destructive effects he had intended to cause to another. thus "curses [and blessings] come home to roost." from this arise also the very serious effects of hating or suspecting a good and highly-advanced man; the thought-forms sent against him cannot injure him, and they rebound against their projectors, shattering them mentally, morally, or physically. several such instances are well known to members of the theosophical society, having come under their direct observation. so long as any of the coarser kinds of matter connected with evil and selfish thoughts remain in a person's body, he is open to attack from those who wish him evil, but when he has perfectly eliminated these by self-purification his haters cannot injure him, and he goes on calmly and peacefully amid all the darts of their malice. but it is bad for those who shoot out such darts. another point that should be mentioned before passing to the consideration of our illustrations is that every one of the thought-forms here given is drawn from life. they are not imaginary forms, prepared as some dreamer thinks that they ought to appear; they are representations of forms actually observed as thrown off by ordinary men and women, and either reproduced with all possible care and fidelity by those who have seen them, or with the help of artists to whom the seers have described them. * * * * * for convenience of comparison thought-forms of a similar kind are grouped together. illustrative thought-forms affection _vague pure affection._--fig. 8 is a revolving cloud of pure affection, and except for its vagueness it represents a very good feeling. the person from whom it emanates is happy and at peace with the world, thinking dreamily of some friend whose very presence is a pleasure. there is nothing keen or strong about the feeling, yet it is one of gentle well-being, and of an unselfish delight in the proximity of those who are beloved. the feeling which gives birth to such a cloud is pure of its kind, but there is in it no force capable of producing definite results. an appearance by no means unlike this frequently surrounds a gently purring cat, and radiates slowly outward from the animal in a series of gradually enlarging concentric shells of rosy cloud, fading into invisibility at a distance of a few feet from their drowsily contented creator. [illustration: fig. 8. vague pure affection] _vague selfish affection._--fig. 9 shows us also a cloud of affection, but this time it is deeply tinged with a far less desirable feeling. the dull hard brown-grey of selfishness shows itself very decidedly among the carmine of love, and thus we see that the affection which is indicated is closely connected with satisfaction at favours already received, and with a lively anticipation of others to come in the near future. indefinite as was the feeling which produced the cloud in fig. 8, it was at least free from this taint of selfishness, and it therefore showed a certain nobility of nature in its author. fig. 9 represents what takes the place of that condition of mind at a lower level of evolution. it would scarcely be possible that these two clouds should emanate from the same person in the same incarnation. yet there is good in the man who generates this second cloud, though as yet it is but partially evolved. a vast amount of the average affection of the world is of this type, and it is only by slow degrees that it develops towards the other and higher manifestation. [illustration: fig. 9. vague selfish affection] _definite affection._--even the first glance at fig. 10 shows us that here we have to deal with something of an entirely different nature--something effective and capable, something that will achieve a result. the colour is fully equal to that of fig. 8 in clearness and depth and transparency, but what was there a mere sentiment is in this case translated into emphatic intention coupled with unhesitating action. those who have seen the book _man visible and invisible_ will recollect that in plate xi. of that volume is depicted the effect of a sudden rush of pure unselfish affection as it showed itself in the astral body of a mother, as she caught up her little child and covered it with kisses. various changes resulted from that sudden outburst of emotion; one of them was the formation within the astral body of large crimson coils or vortices lined with living light. each of these is a thought-form of intense affection generated as we have described, and almost instantaneously ejected towards the object of the feeling. fig. 10 depicts just such a thought-form after it has left the astral body of its author, and is on its way towards its goal. it will be observed that the almost circular form has changed into one somewhat resembling a projectile or the head of a comet; and it will be easily understood that this alteration is caused by its rapid forward motion. the clearness of the colour assures us of the purity of the emotion which gave birth to this thought-form, while the precision of its outline is unmistakable evidence of power and of vigorous purpose. the soul that gave birth to a thought-form such as this must already be one of a certain amount of development. [illustration: fig. 10. definite affection] _radiating affection._--fig. 11 gives us our first example of a thought-form intentionally generated, since its author is making the effort to pour himself forth in love to all beings. it must be remembered that all these forms are in constant motion. this one, for example, is steadily widening out, though there seems to be an exhaustless fountain welling up through the centre from a dimension which we cannot represent. a sentiment such as this is so wide in its application, that it is very difficult for any one not thoroughly trained to keep it clear and precise. the thought-form here shown is, therefore, a very creditable one, for it will be noted that all the numerous rays of the star are commendably free from vagueness. [illustration: fig. 11. radiating affection] _peace and protection._--few thought-forms are more beautiful and expressive than this which we see in fig. 12. this is a thought of love and peace, protection and benediction, sent forth by one who has the power and has earned the right to bless. it is not at all probable that in the mind of its creator there existed any thought of its beautiful wing-like shape, though it is possible that some unconscious reflection of far-away lessons of childhood about guardian angels who always hovered over their charges may have had its influence in determining this. however that may be, the earnest wish undoubtedly clothed itself in this graceful and expressive outline, while the affection that prompted it gave to it its lovely rose-colour, and the intellect which guided it shone forth like sunlight as its heart and central support. thus in sober truth we may make veritable guardian angels to hover over and protect those whom we love, and many an unselfish earnest wish for good produces such a form as this, though all unknown to its creator. [illustration: fig. 12. peace and protection] _grasping animal affection._--fig. 13 gives us an instance of grasping animal affection--if indeed such a feeling as this be deemed worthy of the august name of affection at all. several colours bear their share in the production of its dull unpleasing hue, tinged as it is with the lurid gleam of sensuality, as well as deadened with the heavy tint indicative of selfishness. especially characteristic is its form, for those curving hooks are never seen except when there exists a strong craving for personal possession. it is regrettably evident that the fabricator of this thought-form had no conception of the self-sacrificing love which pours itself out in joyous service, never once thinking of result or return; his thought has been, not "how much can i give?" but "how much can i gain?" and so it has expressed itself in these re-entering curves. it has not even ventured to throw itself boldly outward, as do other thoughts, but projects half-heartedly from the astral body, which must be supposed to be on the left of the picture. a sad travesty of the divine quality love; yet even this is a stage in evolution, and distinctly an improvement upon earlier stages, as will presently be seen. [illustration: fig. 13. grasping animal affection] devotion _vague religious feeling._--fig. 14 shows us another shapeless rolling cloud, but this time it is blue instead of crimson. it betokens that vaguely pleasurable religious feeling--a sensation of devoutness rather than of devotion--which is so common among those in whom piety is more developed than intellect. in many a church one may see a great cloud of deep dull blue floating over the heads of the congregation--indefinite in outline, because of the indistinct nature of the thoughts and feelings which cause it; flecked too often with brown and grey, because ignorant devotion absorbs with deplorable facility the dismal tincture of selfishness or fear; but none the less adumbrating a mighty potentiality of the future, manifesting to our eyes the first faint flutter of one at least of the twin wings of devotion and wisdom, by the use of which the soul flies upward to god from whom it came. [illustration: fig. 14. vague religious feeling] strange is it to note under what varied circumstances this vague blue cloud may be seen; and oftentimes its absence speaks more loudly than its presence. for in many a fashionable place of worship we seek it in vain, and find instead of it a vast conglomeration of thought-forms of that second type which take the shape of material objects. instead of tokens of devotion, we see floating above the "worshippers" the astral images of hats and bonnets, of jewellery and gorgeous dresses, of horses and of carriages, of whisky-bottles and of sunday dinners, and sometimes of whole rows of intricate calculations, showing that men and women alike have had during their supposed hours of prayer and praise no thoughts but of business or of pleasure, of the desires or the anxieties of the lower form of mundane existence. yet sometimes in a humbler fane, in a church belonging to the unfashionable catholic or ritualist, or even in a lowly meeting-house where there is but little of learning or of culture, one may watch the deep blue clouds rolling ceaselessly eastward towards the altar, or upwards, testifying at least to the earnestness and the reverence of those who give them birth. rarely--very rarely--among the clouds of blue will flash like a lance cast by the hand of a giant such a thought-form as is shown in fig. 15; or such a flower of self-renunciation as we see in fig. 16 may float before our ravished eyes; but in most cases we must seek elsewhere for these signs of a higher development. _upward rush of devotion._--the form in fig. 15 bears much the same relation to that of fig. 14 as did the clearly outlined projectile of fig. 10 to the indeterminate cloud of fig. 8. we could hardly have a more marked contrast than that between the inchoate flaccidity of the nebulosity in fig. 14 and the virile vigour of the splendid spire of highly developed devotion which leaps into being before us in fig. 15. this is no uncertain half-formed sentiment; it is the outrush into manifestation of a grand emotion rooted deep in the knowledge of fact. the man who feels such devotion as this is one who knows in whom he has believed; the man who makes such a thought-form as this is one who has taught himself how to think. the determination of the upward rush points to courage as well as conviction, while the sharpness of its outline shows the clarity of its creator's conception, and the peerless purity of its colour bears witness to his utter unselfishness. [illustration: fig. 15. upward rush of devotion] _the response to devotion._--in fig. 17 we see the result of his thought--the response of the logos to the appeal made to him, the truth which underlies the highest and best part of the persistent belief in an answer to prayer. it needs a few words of explanation. on every plane of his solar system our logos pours forth his light, his power, his life, and naturally it is on the higher planes that this outpouring of divine strength can be given most fully. the descent from each plane to that next below it means an almost paralysing limitation--a limitation entirely incomprehensible except to those who have experienced the higher possibilities of human consciousness. thus the divine life flows forth with incomparably greater fulness on the mental plane than on the astral; and yet even its glory at the mental level is ineffably transcended by that of the buddhic plane. normally each of these mighty waves of influence spreads about its appropriate plane--horizontally, as it were--but it does not pass into the obscuration of a plane lower than that for which it was originally intended. [illustration: fig. 17. response to devotion] yet there are conditions under which the grace and strength peculiar to a higher plane may in a measure be brought down to a lower one, and may spread abroad there with wonderful effect. this seems to be possible only when a special channel is for the moment opened; and that work must be done from below and by the effort of man. it has before been explained that whenever a man's thought or feeling is selfish, the energy which it produces moves in a close curve, and thus inevitably returns and expends itself upon its own level; but when the thought or feeling is absolutely unselfish, its energy rushes forth in an open curve, and thus does _not_ return in the ordinary sense, but pierces through into the plane above, because only in that higher condition, with its additional dimension, can it find room for its expansion. but in thus breaking through, such a thought or feeling holds open a door (to speak symbolically) of dimension equivalent to its own diameter, and thus furnishes the requisite channel through which the divine force appropriate to the higher plane can pour itself into the lower with marvellous results, not only for the thinker but for others. an attempt is made in fig. 17 to symbolise this, and to indicate the great truth that an infinite flood of the higher type of force is always ready and waiting to pour through when the channel is offered, just as the water in a cistern may be said to be waiting to pour through the first pipe that may be opened. the result of the descent of divine life is a very great strengthening and uplifting of the maker of the channel, and the spreading all about him of a most powerful and beneficent influence. this effect has often been called an answer to prayer, and has been attributed by the ignorant to what they call a "special interposition of providence," instead of to the unerring action of the great and immutable divine law. _self-renunciation._--fig. 16 gives us yet another form of devotion, producing an exquisitely beautiful form of a type quite new to us--a type in which one might at first sight suppose that various graceful shapes belonging to animate nature were being imitated. fig. 16, for example, is somewhat suggestive of a partially opened flower-bud, while other forms are found to bear a certain resemblance to shells or leaves or tree-shapes. manifestly, however, these are not and cannot be copies of vegetable or animal forms, and it seems probable that the explanation of the similarity lies very much deeper than that. an analogous and even more significant fact is that some very complex thought-forms can be exactly imitated by the action of certain mechanical forces, as has been said above. while with our present knowledge it would be unwise to attempt a solution of the very fascinating problem presented by these remarkable resemblances, it seems likely that we are obtaining a glimpse across the threshold of a very mighty mystery, for if by certain thoughts we produce a form which has been duplicated by the processes of nature, we have at least a presumption that these forces of nature work along lines somewhat similar to the action of those thoughts. since the universe is itself a mighty thought-form called into existence by the logos, it may well be that tiny parts of it are also the thought-forms of minor entities engaged in the same work; and thus perhaps we may approach a comprehension of what is meant by the three hundred and thirty million devas of the hindus. [illustration: fig. 16. self-renunciation] this form is of the loveliest pale azure, with a glory of white light shining through it--something indeed to tax the skill even of the indefatigable artist who worked so hard to get them as nearly right as possible. it is what a catholic would call a definite "act of devotion"--better still, an act of utter selflessness, of self-surrender and renunciation. intellect _vague intellectual pleasure._--fig. 18 represents a vague cloud of the same order as those shown in figs. 8 and 14, but in this case the colour is yellow instead of crimson or blue. yellow in any of man's vehicles always indicates intellectual capacity, but its shades vary very much, and it may be complicated by the admixture of other hues. generally speaking, it has a deeper and duller tint if the intellect is directed chiefly into lower channels, more especially if the objects are selfish. in the astral or mental body of the average man of business it would show itself as yellow ochre, while pure intellect devoted to the study of philosophy or mathematics appears frequently to be golden, and this rises gradually to a beautiful clear and luminous lemon or primrose yellow when a powerful intellect is being employed absolutely unselfishly for the benefit of humanity. most yellow thought-forms are clearly outlined, and a vague cloud of this colour is comparatively rare. it indicates intellectual pleasure--appreciation of the result of ingenuity, or the delight felt in clever workmanship. such pleasure as the ordinary man derives from the contemplation of a picture usually depends chiefly upon the emotions of admiration, affection, or pity which it arouses within him, or sometimes, if it pourtrays a scene with which he is familiar, its charm consists in its power to awaken the memory of past joys. an artist, however, may derive from a picture a pleasure of an entirely different character, based upon his recognition of the excellence of the work, and of the ingenuity which has been exercised in producing certain results. such pure intellectual gratification shows itself in a yellow cloud; and the same effect may be produced by delight in musical ingenuity, or the subtleties of argument. a cloud of this nature betokens the entire absence of any personal emotion, for if that were present it would inevitably tinge the yellow with its own appropriate colour. [illustration: fig. 18. vague intellectual pleasure] _the intention to know._--fig. 19 is of interest as showing us something of the growth of a thought-form. the earlier stage, which is indicated by the upper form, is not uncommon, and indicates the determination to solve some problem--the intention to know and to understand. sometimes a theosophical lecturer sees many of these yellow serpentine forms projecting towards him from his audience, and welcomes them as a token that his hearers are following his arguments intelligently, and have an earnest desire to understand and to know more. a form of this kind frequently accompanies a question, and if, as is sometimes unfortunately the case, the question is put less with the genuine desire for knowledge than for the purpose of exhibiting the acumen of the questioner, the form is strongly tinged with the deep orange that indicates conceit. it was at a theosophical meeting that this special shape was encountered, and it accompanied a question which showed considerable thought and penetration. the answer at first given was not thoroughly satisfactory to the inquirer, who seems to have received the impression that his problem was being evaded by the lecturer. his resolution to obtain a full and thorough answer to his inquiry became more determined than ever, and his thought-form deepened in colour and changed into the second of the two shapes, resembling a cork-screw even more closely than before. forms similar to these are constantly created by ordinary idle and frivolous curiosity, but as there is no intellect involved in that case the colour is no longer yellow, but usually closely resembles that of decaying meat, somewhat like that shown in fig. 29 as expressing a drunken man's craving for alcohol. [illustration: fig. 19. the intention to know] _high ambition._--fig. 20 gives us another manifestation of desire--the ambition for place or power. the ambitious quality is shown by the rich deep orange colour, and the desire by the hooked extensions which precede the form as it moves. the thought is a good and pure one of its kind, for if there were anything base or selfish in the desire it would inevitably show itself in the darkening of the clear orange hue by dull reds, browns, or greys. if this man coveted place or power, it was not for his own sake, but from the conviction that he could do the work well and truly, and to the advantage of his fellow-men. [illustration: fig. 20. high ambition] _selfish ambition._--ambition of a lower type is represented in fig. 21. not only have we here a large stain of the dull brown-grey of selfishness, but there is also a considerable difference in the form, though it appears to possess equal definiteness of outline. fig. 20 is rising steadily onward towards a definite object, for it will be observed that the central part of it is as definitely a projectile as fig. 10. fig. 21, on the other hand, is a floating form, and is strongly indicative of general acquisitiveness--the ambition to grasp for the self everything that is within sight. [illustration: fig. 21. selfish ambition] anger _murderous rage and sustained anger._--in figs. 22 and 23 we have two terrible examples of the awful effect of anger. the lurid flash from dark clouds (fig. 22) was taken from the aura of a rough and partially intoxicated man in the east end of london, as he struck down a woman; the flash darted out at her the moment before he raised his hand to strike, and caused a shuddering feeling of horror, as though it might slay. the keen-pointed stiletto-like dart (fig. 23) was a thought of steady anger, intense and desiring vengeance, of the quality of murder, sustained through years, and directed against a person who had inflicted a deep injury on the one who sent it forth; had the latter been possessed of a strong and trained will, such a thought-form would slay, and the one nourishing it is running a very serious danger of becoming a murderer in act as well as in thought in a future incarnation. it will be noted that both of them take the flash-like form, though the upper is irregular in its shape, while the lower represents a steadiness of intention which is far more dangerous. the basis of utter selfishness out of which the upper one springs is very characteristic and instructive. the difference in colour between the two is also worthy of note. in the upper one the dirty brown of selfishness is so strongly evident that it stains even the outrush of anger; while in the second case, though no doubt selfishness was at the root of that also, the original thought has been forgotten in the sustained and concentrated wrath. one who studies plate xiii. in _man visible and invisible_ will be able to image to himself the condition of the astral body from which these forms are protruding; and surely the mere sight of these pictures, even without examination, should prove a powerful object-lesson in the evil of yielding to the passion of anger. [illustration: fig. 22. murderous rage] [illustration: fig. 23. sustained anger] _explosive anger._--in fig. 24 we see an exhibition of anger of a totally different character. here is no sustained hatred, but simply a vigorous explosion of irritation. it is at once evident that while the creators of the forms shown in figs. 22 and 23 were each directing their ire against an individual, the person who is responsible for the explosion in fig. 24 is for the moment at war with the whole world round him. it may well express the sentiment of some choleric old gentleman, who feels himself insulted or impertinently treated, for the dash of orange intermingled with the scarlet implies that his pride has been seriously hurt. it is instructive to compare the radiations of this plate with those of fig. 11. here we see indicated a veritable explosion, instantaneous in its passing and irregular in its effects; and the vacant centre shows us that the feeling that caused it is already a thing of the past, and that no further force is being generated. in fig. 11, on the other hand, the centre is the strongest part of the thought-form, showing that this is not the result of a momentary flash of feeling, but that there is a steady continuous upwelling of the energy, while the rays show by their quality and length and the evenness of their distribution the steadily sustained effort which produces them. [illustration: fig. 24. explosive anger] _watchful and angry jealousy._--in fig. 25 we see an interesting though unpleasant thought-form. its peculiar brownish-green colour at once indicates to the practised clairvoyant that it is an expression of jealousy, and its curious shape shows the eagerness with which the man is watching its object. the remarkable resemblance to the snake with raised head aptly symbolises the extraordinarily fatuous attitude of the jealous person, keenly alert to discover signs of that which he least of all wishes to see. the moment that he does see it, or imagines that he sees it, the form will change into the far commoner one shown in fig. 26, where the jealousy is already mingled with anger. it may be noted that here the jealousy is merely a vague cloud, though interspersed with very definite flashes of anger ready to strike at those by whom it fancies itself to be injured; whereas in fig. 25, where there is no anger as yet, the jealousy itself has a perfectly definite and very expressive outline. [illustration: fig. 25. watchful jealousy] [illustration: fig. 26. angry jealousy] sympathy _vague sympathy._--in fig. 18a we have another of the vague clouds, but this time its green colour shows us that it is a manifestation of the feeling of sympathy. we may infer from the indistinct character of its outline that it is not a definite and active sympathy, such as would instantly translate itself from thought into deed; it marks rather such a general feeling of commiseration as might come over a man who read an account of a sad accident, or stood at the door of a hospital ward looking in upon the patients. [illustration: fig. 18a. vague sympathy] fear _sudden fright._--one of the most pitiful objects in nature is a man or an animal in a condition of abject fear; and an examination of plate xiv. in _man visible and invisible_ shows that under such circumstances the astral body presents no better appearance than the physical. when a man's astral body is thus in a state of frenzied palpitation, its natural tendency is to throw off amorphous explosive fragments, like masses of rock hurled out in blasting, as will be seen in fig. 30; but when a person is not terrified but seriously startled, an effect such as that shown in fig. 27 is often produced. in one of the photographs taken by dr baraduc of paris, it was noticed that an eruption of broken circles resulted from sudden annoyance, and this outrush of crescent-shaped forms seems to be of somewhat the same nature, though in this case there are the accompanying lines of matter which even increase the explosive appearance. it is noteworthy that all the crescents to the right hand, which must obviously have been those expelled earliest, show nothing but the livid grey of fear; but a moment later the man is already partially recovering from the shock, and beginning to feel angry that he allowed himself to be startled. this is shown by the fact that the later crescents are lined with scarlet, evidencing the mingling of anger and fear, while the last crescent is pure scarlet, telling us that even already the fright is entirely overcome, and only the annoyance remains. [illustration: fig. 27. sudden fright] greed _selfish greed._--fig. 28 gives us an example of selfish greed--a far lower type than fig. 21. it will be noted that here there is nothing even so lofty as ambition, and it is also evident from the tinge of muddy green that the person from whom this unpleasant thought is projecting is quite ready to employ deceit in order to obtain her desire. while the ambition of fig. 21 was general in its nature, the craving expressed in fig. 28 is for a particular object towards which it is reaching out; for it will be understood that this thought-form, like that in fig. 13, remains attached to the astral body, which must be supposed to be on the left of the picture. claw-like forms of this nature are very frequently to be seen converging upon a woman who wears a new dress or bonnet, or some specially attractive article of jewellery. the thought-form may vary in colour according to the precise amount of envy or jealousy which is mingled with the lust for possession, but an approximation to the shape indicated in our illustration will be found in all cases. not infrequently people gathered in front of a shop-window may be seen thus protruding astral cravings through the glass. [illustration: fig. 28. selfish greed] _greed for drink._--in fig. 29 we have another variant of the same passion, perhaps at an even more degraded and animal level. this specimen was taken from the astral body of a man just as he entered at the door of a drinking-shop; the expectation of and the keen desire for the liquor which he was about to absorb showed itself in the projection in front of him of this very unpleasant appearance. once more the hooked protrusions show the craving, while the colour and the coarse mottled texture show the low and sensual nature of the appetite. sexual desires frequently show themselves in an exactly similar manner. men who give birth to forms such as this are as yet but little removed from the animal; as they rise in the scale of evolution the place of this form will gradually be taken by something resembling that shown in fig. 13, and very slowly, as development advances, that in turn will pass through the stages indicated in figs. 9 and 8, until at last all selfishness is cast out, and the desire to have has been transmuted into the desire to give, and we arrive at the splendid results shown in figs. 11 and 10. [illustration: fig. 29. greed for drink] various emotions _at a shipwreck._--very serious is the panic which has occasioned the very interesting group of thought-forms which are depicted in fig. 30. they were seen simultaneously, arranged exactly as represented, though in the midst of indescribable confusion, so their relative positions have been retained, though in explaining them it will be convenient to take them in reverse order. they were called forth by a terrible accident, and they are instructive as showing how differently people are affected by sudden and serious danger. one form shows nothing but an eruption of the livid grey of fear, rising out of a basis of utter selfishness: and unfortunately there were many such as this. the shattered appearance of the thought-form shows the violence and completeness of the explosion, which in turn indicates that the whole soul of that person was possessed with blind, frantic terror, and that the overpowering sense of personal danger excluded for the time every higher feeling. [illustration: fig. 30. at a shipwreck] the second form represents at least an attempt at self-control, and shows the attitude adopted by a person having a certain amount of religious feeling. the thinker is seeking solace in prayer, and endeavouring in this way to overcome her fear. this is indicated by the point of greyish-blue which lifts itself hesitatingly upwards; the colour shows, however, that the effort is but partially successful, and we see also from the lower part of the thought-form, with its irregular outline and its falling fragments, that there is in reality almost as much fright here as in the other case. but at least this woman has had presence of mind enough to remember that she ought to pray, and is trying to imagine that she is not afraid as she does it, whereas in the other case there was absolutely no thought beyond selfish terror. the one retains still some semblance of humanity, and some possibility of regaining self-control; the other has for the time cast aside all remnants of decency, and is an abject slave to overwhelming emotion. a very striking contrast to the humiliating weakness shown in these two forms is the splendid strength and decision of the third. here we have no amorphous mass with quivering lines and explosive fragments, but a powerful, clear-cut and definite thought, obviously full of force and resolution. for this is the thought of the officer in charge--the man responsible for the lives and the safety of the passengers, and he rises to the emergency in a most satisfactory manner. it does not even occur to him to feel the least shadow of fear; he has no time for that. though the scarlet of the sharp point of his weapon-like thought-form shows anger that the accident should have happened, the bold curve of orange immediately above it betokens perfect self-confidence and certainty of his power to deal with the difficulty. the brilliant yellow implies that his intellect is already at work upon the problem, while the green which runs side by side with it denotes the sympathy which he feels for those whom he intends to save. a very striking and instructive group of thought-forms. _on the first night._--fig. 31 is also an interesting specimen--perhaps unique--for it represents the thought-form of an actor while waiting to go upon the stage for a "first-night" performance. the broad band of orange in the centre is very clearly defined, and is the expression of a well-founded self-confidence--the realisation of many previous successes, and the reasonable expectation that on this occasion another will be added to the list. yet in spite of this there is a good deal of unavoidable uncertainty as to how this new play may strike the fickle public, and on the whole the doubt and fear overbalance the certainty and pride, for there is more of the pale grey than of the orange, and the whole thought-form vibrates like a flag flapping in a gale of wind. it will be noted that while the outline of the orange is exceedingly clear and definite, that of the grey is much vaguer. [illustration: fig. 31. on the first night] _the gamblers._--the forms shown in fig. 32 were observed simultaneously at the great gambling-house at monte carlo. both represent some of the worst of human passions, and there is little to choose between them; although they represent the feelings of the successful and the unsuccessful gambler respectively. the lower form has a strong resemblance to a lurid and gleaming eye, though this must be simply a coincidence, for when we analyse it we find that its constituent parts and colours can be accounted for without difficulty. the background of the whole thought is an irregular cloud of deep depression, heavily marked by the dull brown-grey of selfishness and the livid hue of fear. in the centre we find a clearly-marked scarlet ring showing deep anger and resentment at the hostility of fate, and within that is a sharply outlined circle of black expressing the hatred of the ruined man for those who have won his money. the man who can send forth such a thought-form as this is surely in imminent danger, for he has evidently descended into the very depths of despair; being a gambler he can have no principle to sustain him, so that he would be by no means unlikely to resort to the imaginary refuge of suicide, only to find on awakening into astral life that he had changed his condition for the worse instead of for the better, as the suicide always does, since his cowardly action cuts him off from the happiness and peace which usually follow death. [illustration: fig. 32. the gamblers] the upper form represents a state of mind which is perhaps even more harmful in its effects, for this is the gloating of the successful gambler over his ill-gotten gain. here the outline is perfectly definite, and the man's resolution to persist in his evil course is unmistakable. the broad band of orange in the centre shows very clearly that although when the man loses he may curse the inconstancy of fate, when he wins he attributes his success entirely to his own transcendent genius. probably he has invented some system to which he pins his faith, and of which he is inordinately proud. but it will be noticed that on each side of the orange comes a hard line of selfishness, and we see how this in turn melts into avarice and becomes a mere animal greed of possession, which is also so clearly expressed by the claw-like extremities of the thought-form. _at a street accident._--fig. 33 is instructive as showing the various forms which the same feelings may take in different individuals. these two evidences of emotion were seen simultaneously among the spectators of a street accident--a case in which someone was knocked down and slightly injured by a passing vehicle. the persons who generated these two thought-forms were both animated by affectionate interest in the victim and deep compassion for his suffering, and so their thought-forms exhibited exactly the same colours, although the outlines are absolutely unlike. the one over whom floats that vague sphere of cloud is thinking "poor fellow, how sad!" while he who gives birth to that sharply-defined disc is already rushing forward to see in what way he can be of assistance. the one is a dreamer, though of acute sensibilities; the other is a man of action. [illustration: fig. 33. at a street accident] _at a funeral._--in fig. 34 we have an exceedingly striking example of the advantage of knowledge, of the fundamental change produced in the man's attitude of mind by a clear understanding of the great laws of nature under which we live. utterly different as they are in every respect of colour and form and meaning, these two thought-forms were seen simultaneously, and they represent two points of view with regard to the same occurrence. they were observed at a funeral, and they exhibit the feelings evoked in the minds of two of the "mourners" by the contemplation of death. the thinkers stood in the same relation to the dead man, but while one of them was still steeped in the dense ignorance with regard to super-physical life which is so painfully common in the present day, the other had the inestimable advantage of the light of theosophy. in the thought of the former we see expressed nothing but profound depression, fear and selfishness. the fact that death has approached so near has evidently evoked in the mind of the mourner the thought that it may one day come to him also, and the anticipation of this is very terrible to him; but since he does not know what it is that he fears, the clouds in which his feeling is manifested are appropriately vague. his only definite sensations are despair and the sense of his personal loss, and these declare themselves in regular bands of brown-grey and leaden grey, while the very curious downward protrusion, which actually descends into the grave and enfolds the coffin, is an expression of strong selfish desire to draw the dead man back into physical life. [illustration: fig. 34. at a funeral] it is refreshing to turn from this gloomy picture to the wonderfully different effect produced by the very same circumstances upon the mind of the man who comprehends the facts of the case. it will be observed that the two have no single emotion in common; in the former case all was despondency and horror, while in this case we find none but the highest and most beautiful sentiments. at the base of the thought-form we find a full expression of deep sympathy, the lighter green indicating appreciation of the suffering of the mourners and condolence with them, while the band of deeper green shows the attitude of the thinker towards the dead man himself. the deep rose-colour exhibits affection towards both the dead and the living, while the upper part of the cone and the stars which rise from it testify to the feeling aroused within the thinker by the consideration of the subject of death, the blue expressing its devotional aspect, while the violet shows the thought of, and the power to respond to, a noble ideal, and the golden stars denote the spiritual aspirations which its contemplation calls forth. the band of clear yellow which is seen in the centre of this thought-form is very significant, as indicating that the man's whole attitude is based upon and prompted by his intellectual comprehension of the situation, and this is also shown by the regularity of the arrangement of the colours and the definiteness of the lines of demarcation between them. the comparison between the two illustrations shown in this plate is surely a very impressive testimony to the value of the knowledge given by the theosophical teaching. undoubtedly this knowledge of the truth takes away all fear of death, and makes life easier to live because we understand its object and its end, and we realise that death is a perfectly natural incident in its course, a necessary step in our evolution. this ought to be universally known among christian nations, but it is not, and therefore on this point, as on so many others, theosophy has a gospel for the western world. it has to announce that there is no gloomy impenetrable abyss beyond the grave, but instead of that a world of life and light which may be known to us as clearly and fully and accurately as this physical world in which we live now. we have created the gloom and the horror for ourselves, like children who frighten themselves with ghastly stories, and we have only to study the facts of the case, and all these artificial clouds will roll away at once. we have an evil heredity behind us in this matter, for we have inherited all kinds of funereal horrors from our forefathers, and so we are used to them, and we do not see the absurdity and the monstrosity of them. the ancients were in this respect wiser than we, for they did not associate all this phantasmagoria of gloom with the death of the body--partly perhaps because they had a much more rational method of disposing of the body--a method which was not only infinitely better for the dead man and more healthy for the living, but was also free from the gruesome suggestions connected with slow decay. they knew much more about death in those days, and because they knew more they mourned less. _on meeting a friend._--fig. 35 gives us an example of a good, clearly-defined and expressive thought-form, with each colour well marked off from the others. it represents the feeling of a man upon meeting a friend from whom he has been long separated. the convex surface of the crescent is nearest to the thinker, and its two arms stretch out towards the approaching friend as if to embrace him. the rose colour naturally betokens the affection felt, the light green shows the depth of the sympathy which exists, and the clear yellow is a sign of the intellectual pleasure with which the creator of the thought anticipates the revival of delightful reminiscences of days long gone by. [illustration: fig. 35. on meeting a friend] _the appreciation of a picture._--in fig. 36 we have a somewhat complex thought-form representing the delighted appreciation of a beautiful picture upon a religious subject. the strong pure yellow marks the beholder's enthusiastic recognition of the technical skill of the artist, while all the other colours are expressions of the various emotions evoked within him by the examination of so glorious a work of art. green shows his sympathy with the central figure in the picture, deep devotion appears not only in the broad band of blue, but also in the outline of the entire figure, while the violet tells us that the picture has raised the man's thought to the contemplation of a lofty ideal, and has made him, at least for the time, capable of responding to it. we have here the first specimen of an interesting class of thought-forms of which we shall find abundant examples later--that in which light of one colour shines out through a network of lines of some quite different hue. it will be noted that in this case from the mass of violet there rise many wavy lines which flow like rivulets over a golden plain; and this makes it clear that the loftiest aspiration is by no means vague, but is thoroughly supported by an intellectual grasp of the situation and a clear comprehension of the method by which it can be put into effect. [illustration: fig. 36. the appreciation of a picture] forms seen in those meditating _sympathy and love for all._--hitherto we have been dealing chiefly with forms which are the expression of emotion, or of such thought as is aroused within the mind by external circumstances. we have now to consider some of those caused by thoughts which arise from within--forms generated during meditation--each being the effect produced by a conscious effort on the part of the thinker to form a certain conception, or to put himself into a certain attitude. naturally such thoughts are definite, for the man who trains himself in this way learns how to think with clearness and precision, and the development of his power in this direction shows itself in the beauty and regularity of the shapes produced. in this case we have the result of an endeavour on the part of the thinker to put himself into an attitude of sympathy and love towards all mankind, and thus we have a series of graceful lines of the luminous green of sympathy with the strong roseate glow of affection shining out between them (fig. 37). the lines are still sufficiently broad and wide apart to be easily drawn; but in some of the higher examples of thought-forms of this type the lines are so fine and so close that no human hand can represent them as they really are. the outline of this thought-form is that of a leaf, yet its shape and the curve of its lines are more suggestive of a certain kind of shell, so that this is another example of the approximation to forms seen in physical nature which we noted in commenting upon fig. 16. [illustration: fig. 37. sympathy and love for all] _an aspiration to enfold all._--in fig. 38 we have a far more developed example of the same type. this form was generated by one who was trying, while sitting in meditation, to fill his mind with an aspiration to enfold all mankind in order to draw them upward towards the high ideal which shone so clearly before his eyes. therefore it is that the form which he produces seems to rush out from him, to curve round upon itself, and to return to its base; therefore it is that the marvellously fine lines are drawn in lovely luminous violet, and that from within the form there shines out a glorious golden light which it is unfortunately quite impossible to reproduce. for the truth is that all these apparently intricate lines are in reality only one line circling round the form again and again with unwearied patience and wonderful accuracy. it is scarcely possible that any human hand could make such a drawing as this on this scale, and in any case the effect of its colours could not be shown, for it will be seen by experiment that if an attempt be made to draw fine violet lines close together upon a yellow background a grey effect at once appears, and all likeness to the original is destroyed. but what cannot be done by hand may sometimes be achieved by the superior accuracy and delicacy of a machine, and it is in this way that the drawing was made from which our illustration is reproduced,--with some attempt to represent the colour effect as well as the wonderful delicacy of the lines and curves. [illustration: fig. 38. an aspiration to enfold all] _in the six directions._--the form represented in fig. 39 is the result of another endeavour to extend love and sympathy in all directions--an effort almost precisely similar to that which gave birth to fig. 37, though the effect seems so different. the reasons for this variety and for the curious shape taken in this case constitute a very interesting illustration of the way in which thought-forms grow. it will be seen that in this instance the thinker displays considerable devotional feeling, and has also made an intellectual effort to grasp the conditions necessary for the realisation of his wishes, and the blue and yellow colours remain as evidence of this. originally this thought-form was circular, and the dominant idea evidently was that the green of sympathy should be upon the outside, facing in all directions, as it were, and that love should lie at the centre and heart of the thought and direct its outgoing energies. but the maker of this thought-form had been reading hindu books, and his modes of thought had been greatly influenced by them. students of oriental literature will be aware that the hindu speaks, not of four directions (north, east, south, and west), as we do, but always of six, since he very sensibly includes the zenith and the nadir. our friend was imbued from his reading with the idea that he should pour forth his love and sympathy "in the six directions"; but since he did not accurately understand what the six directions are, he directed his stream of affection towards six equidistant points in his circle. the outrushing streams altered the shape of the outlying lines which he had already built up, and so instead of having a circle as a section of his thought-form, we have this curious hexagon with its inward-curving sides. we see thus how faithfully every thought-form records the exact process of its upbuilding, registering ineffaceably even the errors of its construction. [illustration: fig. 39. in the six directions] _an intellectual conception of cosmic order._--in fig. 40 we have the effect of an attempt to attain an intellectual conception of cosmic order. the thinker was obviously a theosophist, and it will be seen that when he endeavours to think of the action of spirit upon matter he instinctively follows the same line of symbolism as that depicted in the well-known seal of the society. here we have an upward-pointing triangle, signifying the threefold aspect of the spirit, interlaced with the downward-pointing triangle, which indicates matter with its three inherent qualities. usually we represent the upward triangle in white or gold, and the downward-pointing one in some darker hue such as blue or black, but it is noteworthy that in this case the thinker is so entirely occupied with the intellectual endeavour, that no colour but yellow is exhibited within the form. there is no room as yet for emotions of devotion, of wonder, or of admiration; the idea which he wishes to realise fills his mind entirely, to the exclusion of all else. still the definiteness of the outline as it stands out against its background of rays shows that he has achieved a high measure of success. [illustration: fig. 40. an intellectual conception of cosmic order] _the logos as manifested in man._--we are now coming to a series of thoughts which are among the very highest the human mind can form, when in meditation upon the divine source of its being. when the man in reverent contemplation tries to raise his thought towards the logos of our solar system, he naturally makes no attempt to image to himself that august being; nor does he think of him as in any way possessing such form as we can comprehend. nevertheless such thoughts build forms for themselves in the matter of the mental plane; and it will be of interest for us to examine those forms. in our illustration in fig. 41 we have a thought of the logos as manifested in man, with the devotional aspiration that he may thus be manifested through the thinker. it is this devotional feeling which gives the pale blue tinge to the five-pointed star, and its shape is significant, since it has been employed for many ages as a symbol of god manifest in man. the thinker may perhaps have been a freemason, and his knowledge of the symbolism employed by that body may have had its share in the shaping of the star. it will be seen that the star is surrounded by bright yellow rays shining out amidst a cloud of glory, which denotes not only the reverential understanding of the surpassing glory of the deity, but also a distinct intellectual effort in addition to the outpouring of devotion. [illustration: fig. 41. the logos as manifested in man] _the logos pervading all._--our next three figures are devoted to the effort to represent a thought of a very high type--an endeavour to think of the logos as pervading all nature. here again, as in fig. 38, it is impossible to give a full reproduction, and we must call upon our readers for an effort of the imagination which shall to some extent supplement the deficiencies of the arts of drawing and printing. the golden ball depicted in fig. 42 must be thought of as inside the other ball of delicate lines (blue in colour) which is drawn in fig. 44. any effort to place the colours in such intimate juxtaposition on the physical plane results simply in producing a green blur, so that the whole character of the thought-form is lost. it is only by means of the machine before mentioned that it is at all possible to represent the grace and the delicacy of the lines. as before, a single line produces all the wonderful tracery of fig. 44, and the effect of the four radiating lines making a sort of cross of light is merely due to the fact that the curves are not really concentric, although at first sight they appear to be so. [illustration: fig. 42. the logos pervading all] [illustration: fig. 44. the logos pervading all] _another conception._--fig. 45 exhibits the form produced by another person when trying to hold exactly the same thought. here also we have an amazing complexity of almost inconceivably delicate blue lines, and here also our imagination must be called upon to insert the golden globe from fig. 42, so that its glory may shine through at every point. here also, as in fig. 44, we have that curious and beautiful pattern, resembling somewhat the damascening on ancient oriental swords, or that which is seen upon watered silk or _moire antique_. when this form is drawn by the pendulum, the pattern is not in any way intentionally produced, but simply comes as a consequence of the crossing of the innumerable microscopically fine lines. it is evident that the thinker who created the form upon fig. 44 must have held in his mind most prominently the unity of the logos, while he who generated the form in fig. 45 has as clearly in mind the subordinate centres through which the divine life pours forth, and many of these subordinate centres have accordingly represented themselves in the thought-form. [illustration: fig. 45. another conception] _the threefold manifestation._--when the form employed in fig. 46 was made, its creator was endeavouring to think of the logos in his threefold manifestation. the vacant space in the centre of the form was a blinding glow of yellow light, and this clearly typified the first aspect, while the second was symbolised by the broad ring of closely-knitted and almost bewildering lines which surround this centre, while the third aspect is suggested by the narrow outer ring which seems more loosely woven. the whole figure is pervaded by the usual golden light gleaming out between the lines of violet. [illustration: fig. 46. the threefold manifestation] _the sevenfold manifestation._--in all religions there remains some tradition of the great truth that the logos manifests himself through seven mighty channels, often regarded as minor logoi or great planetary spirits. in the christian scheme they appear as the seven great archangels, sometimes called the seven spirits before the throne of god. the figure numbered 47 shows the result of the effort to meditate upon this method of divine manifestation. we have the golden glow in the centre, and also (though with lesser splendour) pervading the form. the line is blue, and it draws a succession of seven graceful and almost featherlike double wings which surround the central glory and are clearly intended as a part of it. as the thought strengthens and expands, these beautiful wings change their colour to violet and become like the petals of a flower, and overlap one another in an intricate but exceedingly effective pattern. this gives us a very interesting glimpse into the formation and growth of these shapes in higher matter. [illustration: fig. 47. the sevenfold manifestation] _intellectual aspiration._--the form depicted in fig. 43 bears a certain resemblance to that in fig. 15; but, beautiful as that was, this is in reality a far higher and grander thought, and implies much more advanced development on the part of the thinker. here we have a great clear-cut spear or pencil of the pure pale violet which indicates devotion to the highest ideal, and it is outlined and strengthened by an exceedingly fine manifestation of the noblest development of intellect. he who can think thus must already have entered upon the path of holiness, for he has learnt how to use the power of thought to very mighty effect. it will be noted that in both the colours there is a strong admixture of the white light which always indicates unusual spiritual power. [illustration: fig. 43. intellectual aspiration] surely the study of these thought-forms should be a most impressive object-lesson, since from it we may see both what to avoid and what to cultivate, and may learn by degrees to appreciate how tremendous is our responsibility for the exercise of this mighty power. indeed it is terribly true, as we said in the beginning, that thoughts are things, and puissant things; and it behoves us to remember that every one of us is generating them unceasingly night and day. see how great is the happiness this knowledge brings to us, and how gloriously we can utilise it when we know of some one in sorrow or in suffering. often circumstances arise which prevent us from giving physical help either by word or deed, however much we may desire to do so; but there is no case in which help by thought may not be given, and no case in which it can fail to produce a definite result. it may often happen that at the moment our friend may be too entirely occupied with his own suffering, or perhaps too much excited, to receive and accept any suggestion from without, but presently a time comes when our thought-form can penetrate and discharge itself, and then assuredly our sympathy will produce its due result. it is indeed true that the responsibility of using such a power is great, yet we should not shrink from our duty on that account. it is sadly true that there are many men who are unconsciously using their thought-power chiefly for evil, yet this only makes it all the more necessary that those of us who are beginning to understand life a little should use it consciously, and use it for good. we have at our command a never-failing criterion; we can never misuse this mighty power of thought if we employ it always in unison with the great divine scheme of evolution, and for the uplifting of our fellow-man. helpful thoughts the figures numbered 48 to 54 were the results of a systematic attempt to send helpful thought by the friend who has furnished us with the sketches. a definite time was given each day at a fixed hour. the forms were in some cases seen by the transmitter, but in all cases were perceived by the recipient, who immediately sent rough sketches of what was seen by the next post to the transmitter, who has kindly supplied the following notes with regard to them:-"in the coloured drawings appended the blue features appear to have represented the more devotional element of the thought. the yellow forms accompanied the endeavour to communicate intellectual fortitude, or mental strength and courage. the rosy pink appeared when the thought was blended with affectionate sympathy. if the sender (a.) could formulate his thought deliberately at the appointed time, the receiver (b.) would report seeing a large clear form as in figs. 48, 49, and 54. the latter persisted for some minutes, constantly streaming its luminous yellow 'message' upon b. if, however, a. was of necessity experimenting under difficulty--say walking out of doors--he would occasionally see his 'forms' broken up into smaller globes, or shapes, such as 50, 51, 52, and b. would report their receipt so broken up. in this way many details could be checked and compared as from opposite ends of the line, and the nature of the influence communicated offered another means of verification. upon one occasion a. was disturbed in his endeavour to send a thought of the blue-pink connotation, by a feeling of anxiety that the nature of the pink element should not be misapprehended. the report of b. was that a well-defined globe as in fig. 54 was first seen, but that this suddenly disappeared, being replaced by a moving procession of little light-green triangles, as in fig. 53. these few drawings give but a slight idea of the varied flower-like and geometric forms seen, while neither paint nor crayon-work seems capable of representing the glowing beauty of their living colours." [illustration: fig. 48. helpful thoughts] [illustration: fig. 49. helpful thoughts] [illustration: fig. 50. helpful thoughts] [illustration: fig. 51. helpful thoughts] [illustration: fig. 52. helpful thoughts] [illustration: fig. 53. helpful thoughts] [illustration: fig. 54. helpful thoughts] forms built by music before closing this little treatise it will perhaps be of interest to our readers to give a few examples of another type of forms unknown to those who are confined to the physical senses as their means of obtaining information. many people are aware that sound is always associated with colour--that when, for example, a musical note is sounded, a flash of colour corresponding to it may be seen by those whose finer senses are already to some extent developed. it seems not to be so generally known that sound produces form as well as colour, and that every piece of music leaves behind it an impression of this nature, which persists for some considerable time, and is clearly visible and intelligible to those who have eyes to see. such a shape is perhaps not technically a thought-form--unless indeed we take it, as we well may, as the result of the thought of the composer expressed by means of the skill of the musician through his instrument. some such forms are very striking and impressive, and naturally their variety is infinite. each class of music has its own type of form, and the style of the composer shows as clearly in the form which his music builds as a man's character shows in his handwriting. other possibilities of variation are introduced by the kind of instrument upon which the music is performed, and also by the merits of the player. the same piece of music if accurately played will always build the same form, but that form will be enormously larger when it is played upon a church organ or by a military band than when it is performed upon a piano, and not only the size but also the texture of the resultant form will be very different. there will also be a similar difference in texture between the result of a piece of music played upon a violin and the same piece executed upon the flute. again, the excellence of the performance has its effect, and there is a wonderful difference between the radiant beauty of the form produced by the work of a true artist, perfect alike in expression and execution, and the comparatively dull and undistinguished-looking one which represents the effort of the wooden and mechanical player. anything like inaccuracy in rendering naturally leaves a corresponding defect in the form, so that the exact character of the performance shows itself just as clearly to the clairvoyant spectator as it does to the auditor. it is obvious that, if time and capacity permitted, hundreds of volumes might be filled with drawings of the forms built by different pieces of music under different conditions, so that the most that can be done within any reasonable compass is to give a few examples of the leading types. it has been decided for the purposes of this book to limit these to three, to take types of music presenting readily recognisable contrasts, and for the sake of simplicity in comparison to present them all as they appeared when played upon the same instrument--a very fine church organ. in each of our plates the church shows as well as the thought-form which towers far into the air above it; and it should be remembered that though the drawings are on very different scales the church is the same in all three cases, and consequently the relative size of the sound-form can easily be calculated. the actual height of the tower of the church is just under a hundred feet, so it will be seen that the sound-form produced by a powerful organ is enormous in size. such forms remain as coherent erections for some considerable time--an hour or two at least; and during all that time they are radiating forth their characteristic vibrations in every direction, just as our thought-forms do; and if the music be good, the effect of those vibrations cannot but be uplifting to every man upon whose vehicles they play. thus the community owes a very real debt of gratitude to the musician who pours forth such helpful influences, for he may affect for good hundreds whom he never saw and will never know upon the physical plane. _mendelssohn._--the first of such forms, a comparatively small and simple one, is drawn for us in plate m. it will be seen that we have here a shape roughly representing that of a balloon, having a scalloped outline consisting of a double violet line. within that there is an arrangement of variously-coloured lines moving almost parallel with this outline; and then another somewhat similar arrangement which seems to cross and interpenetrate the first. both of these sets of lines evidently start from the organ within the church, and consequently pass upward through its roof in their course, physical matter being clearly no obstacle to their formation. in the hollow centre of the form float a number of small crescents arranged apparently in four vertical lines. [illustration: plate m. music of mendelssohn] let us endeavour now to give some clue to the meaning of all this, which may well seem so bewildering to the novice, and to explain in some measure how it comes into existence. it must be recollected that this is a melody of simple character played once through, and that consequently we can analyse the form in a way that would be quite impossible with a larger and more complicated specimen. yet even in this case we cannot give all the details, as will presently be seen. disregarding for the moment the scalloped border, we have next within it an arrangement of four lines of different colours running in the same direction, the outermost being blue and the others crimson, yellow, and green respectively. these lines are exceedingly irregular and crooked; in fact, they each consist of a number of short lines at various levels joined together perpendicularly. it seems that each of these short lines represents a note of music, and that the irregularity of their arrangement indicates the succession of these notes; so that each of these crooked lines signifies the movement of one of the parts of the melody, the four moving approximately together denoting the treble, alto, tenor and bass respectively, though they do not necessarily appear in that order in this astral form. here it is necessary to interpolate a still further explanation. even with a melody so comparatively simple as this there are tints and shades far too finely modulated to be reproduced on any scale at all within our reach; therefore it must be said that each of the short lines expressing a note has a colour of its own, so that although as a whole that outer line gives an impression of blueness, and the one next within it of carmine, each yet varies in every inch of its length; so that what is shown is not a correct reproduction of every tint, but only the general impression. the two sets of four lines which seem to cross one another are caused by two sections of the melody; the scalloped edging surrounding the whole is the result of various flourishes and arpeggios, and the floating crescents in the centre represent isolated or staccato chords. naturally the arpeggios are not wholly violet, for each loop has a different hue, but on the whole they approach more nearly to that colour than to any other. the height of this form above the tower of the church is probably a little over a hundred feet; but since it also extends downwards through the roof of the church its total perpendicular diameter may well be about a hundred and fifty feet. it is produced by one of mendelssohn's "lieder ohne wörte," and is characteristic of the delicate filigree-work which so often appears as the result of his compositions. the whole form is seen projected against a coruscating background of many colours, which is in reality a cloud surrounding it upon every side, caused by the vibrations which are pouring out from it in all directions. _gounod._--in plate g we have an entirely different piece--a ringing chorus by gounod. since the church in the illustration is the same, it is easy to calculate that in this case the highest point of the form must rise fully six hundred feet above the tower, though the perpendicular diameter of the form is somewhat less than that, for the organist has evidently finished some minutes ago, and the perfected shape floats high in the air, clearly defined and roughly spherical, though rather an oblate spheroid. this spheroid is hollow, as are all such forms, for it is slowly increasing in size--gradually radiating outward from its centre, but growing proportionately less vivid and more ethereal in appearance as it does so, until at last it loses coherence and fades away much as a wreath of smoke might do. the golden glory surrounding and interpenetrating it indicates as before the radiation of its vibrations, which in this case show the dominant yellow in much greater proportion than did mendelssohn's gentler music. [illustration: plate g. music of gounod] the colouring here is far more brilliant and massive than in plate m, for this music is not so much a thread of murmurous melody as a splendid succession of crashing chords. the artist has sought to give the effect of the chords rather than that of the separate notes, the latter being scarcely possible on a scale so small as this. it is therefore more difficult here to follow the development of the form, for in this much longer piece the lines have crossed and intermingled, until we have little but the gorgeous general effect which the composer must have intended us to feel--and to see, if we were able to see. nevertheless it is possible to discern something of the process which builds the form, and the easiest point at which to commence is the lowest on the left hand as one examines the plate. the large violet protrusion there is evidently the opening chord of a phrase, and if we follow the outer line of the form upward and round the circumference we may obtain some idea of the character of that phrase. a close inspection will reveal two other lines further in which run roughly parallel to this outer one, and show similar successions of colour on a smaller scale, and these may well indicate a softer repetition of the same phrase. careful analysis of this nature will soon convince us that there is a very real order in this seeming chaos, and we shall come to see that if it were possible to make a reproduction of this glowing glory that should be accurate down to the smallest detail, it would also be possible patiently to disentangle it to the uttermost, and to assign every lovely touch of coruscating colour to the very note that called it into existence. it must not be forgotten that very far less detail is given in this illustration than in plate m; for example, each of these points or projections has within it as integral parts, at least the four lines or bands of varying colour which were shown as separate in plate m, but here they are blended into one shade, and only the general effect of the chord is given. in m we combined horizontally, and tried to show, the characteristics of a number of successive notes blended into one, but to keep distinct the effect of the four simultaneous parts by using a differently-coloured line for each. in g we attempt exactly the reverse, for we combine vertically, and blend, not the successive notes of one part, but the chords, each probably containing six or eight notes. the true appearance combines these two effects with an inexpressible wealth of detail. _wagner._--no one who has devoted any study to these musical forms would hesitate in ascribing the marvellous mountain-range depicted in plate w to the genius of richard wagner, for no other composer has yet built sound edifices with such power and decision. in this case we have a vast bell-shaped erection, fully nine hundred feet in height, and but little less in diameter at the bottom, floating in the air above the church out of which it has arisen. it is hollow, like gounod's form, but, unlike that, it is open at the bottom. the resemblance to the successively retreating ramparts of a mountain is almost perfect, and it is heightened by the billowy masses of cloud which roll between the crags and give the effect of perspective. no attempt has been made in this drawing to show the effect of single notes or single chords; each range of mimic rocks represents in size, shape, and colour only the general effect of one of the sections of the piece of music as seen from a distance. but it must be understood that in reality both this and the form given in plate g are as full of minute details as that depicted in plate m, and that all these magnificent masses of colour are built up of many comparatively small bands which would not be separately visible upon the scale on which this is drawn. the broad result is that each mountain-peak has its own brilliant hue, just as it is seen in the illustration--a splendid splash of vivid colour, glowing with the glory of its own living light, spreading its resplendent radiance over all the country round. yet in each of these masses of colour other colours are constantly flickering, as they do over the surface of molten metal, so that the coruscations and scintillations of these wondrous astral edifices are far beyond the power of any physical words to describe. [illustration: plate w. music of wagner] a striking feature in this form is the radical difference between the two types of music which occur in it, one producing the angular rocky masses, and the other the rounded billowy clouds which lie between them. other _motifs_ are shown by the broad bands of blue and rose and green which appear at the base of the bell, and the meandering lines of white and yellow which quiver across them are probably produced by a rippling arpeggio accompaniment. in these three plates only the form created directly by the sound-vibrations has been drawn, though as seen by the clairvoyant it is usually surrounded by many other minor forms, the result of the personal feelings of the performer or of the emotions aroused among the audience by the music. to recapitulate briefly: in plate m we have a small and comparatively simple form pourtrayed in considerable detail, something of the effect of each note being given; in plate g we have a more elaborate form of very different character delineated with less detail, since no attempt is made to render the separate notes, but only to show how each chord expresses itself in form and colour; in plate w we have a still greater and richer form, in the depiction of which all detail is avoided, in order that the full effect of the piece as a whole may be approximately given. naturally every sound makes its impression upon astral and mental matter--not only those ordered successions of sounds which we call music. some day, perhaps, the forms built by those other less euphonious sounds may be pictured for us, though they are beyond the scope of this treatise; meantime, those who feel an interest in them may read an account of them in the little book on _the hidden side of things_.[1] it is well for us ever to bear in mind that there is a hidden side to life--that each act and word and thought has its consequence in the unseen world which is always so near to us, and that usually these unseen results are of infinitely greater importance than those which are visible to all upon the physical plane. the wise man, knowing this, orders his life accordingly, and takes account of the whole of the world in which he lives, and not of the outer husk of it only. thus he saves himself an infinity of trouble, and makes his life not only happier but far more useful to his fellow-men. but to do this implies knowledge--that knowledge which is power; and in our western world such knowledge is practically obtainable only through the literature of theosophy. to exist is not enough; we desire to live intelligently. but to live we must know, and to know we must study; and here is a vast field open before us, if we will only enter upon it and gather thence the fruits of enlightenment. let us, then, waste no more time in the dark dungeons of ignorance, but come forth boldly into the glorious sunshine of that divine wisdom which in these modern days men call theosophy. [footnote 1: by c.w. leadbeater.] bradford: reprinted by percy lund, humphries and co. ltd. dr. heidenhoff's process by edward bellamy chapter i. the hand of the clock fastened up on the white wall of the conference room, just over the framed card bearing the words "stand up for jesus," and between two other similar cards, respectively bearing the sentences "come unto me," and "the wonderful, the counsellor," pointed to ten minutes of nine. as was usual at this period of newville prayer-meetings, a prolonged pause had supervened. the regular standbyes had all taken their usual part, and for any one to speak or pray would have been about as irregular as for one of the regulars to fail in doing so. for the attendants at newville prayer-meetings were strictly divided into the two classes of speakers and listeners, and, except during revivals or times of special interest, the distinction was scrupulously observed. deacon tuttle had spoken and prayed, deacon miller had prayed and spoken, brother hunt had amplified a point in last sunday's sermon, brother taylor had called attention to a recent death in the village as a warning to sinners, and sister morris had prayed twice, the second time it must be admitted, with a certain perceptible petulance of tone, as if willing to have it understood that she was doing more than ought to be expected of her. but while it was extremely improbable that any others of the twenty or thirty persons assembled would feel called on to break the silence, though it stretched to the crack of doom, yet, on the other hand, to close the meeting before the mill bell had struck nine would have been regarded as a dangerous innovation. accordingly, it only remained to wait in decorous silence during the remaining ten minutes. the clock ticked on with that judicial intonation characteristic of time-pieces that measure sacred time and wasted opportunities. at intervals the pastor, with an innocent affectation of having just observed the silence, would remark: "there is yet opportunity. . . . . time is passing, brethren. . . . . any brother or sister. . . . . we shall be glad to hear from any one." farmer bragg, tired with his day's hoeing, snored quietly in the corner of a seat. mrs. parker dropped a hymn-book. little tommy blake, who had fallen over while napping and hit his nose, snivelled under his breath. madeline brand, as she sat at the melodeon below the minister's desk, stifled a small yawn with her pretty fingers. a june bug boomed through the open window and circled around deacon tuttle's head, affecting that good man with the solicitude characteristic of bald-headed persons when buzzing things are about. next it made a dive at madeline, attracted, perhaps, by her shining eyes, and the little gesture of panic with which she evaded it was the prettiest thing in the world; at least, so it seemed to henry burr, a broad-shouldered young fellow on the back seat, whose strong, serious face is just now lit up by a pleasant smile. mr. lewis, the minister, being seated directly under the clock, cannot see it without turning around, wherein the audience has an advantage of him, which it makes full use of. indeed, so closely is the general attention concentrated upon the time-piece, that a stranger might draw the mistaken inference that this was the object for whose worship the little company had gathered. finally, making a slight concession of etiquette to curiosity, mr. lewis turns and looks up at the clock, and, again facing the people, observes, with the air of communicating a piece of intelligence, "there are yet a few moments." in fact, and not to put too fine a point upon it, there are five minutes left, and the young men on the back seats, who attend prayer-meetings to go home with the girls, are experiencing increasing qualms of alternate hope and fear as the moment draws near when they shall put their fortune to the test, and win or lose it all. as they furtively glance over at the girls, how formidable they look, how superior to common affections, how serenely and icily indifferent, as if the existence of youth of the other sex in their vicinity at that moment was the thought furthest from their minds! how presumptuous, how audacious, to those youth themselves now appears the design, a little while ago so jauntily entertained, of accompanying these dainty beings home, how weak and inadequate the phrases of request which they had framed wherewith to accost them! madeline brand is looking particularly grave, as becomes a young lady who knows that she has three would-be escorts waiting for her just outside the church door, not to count one or two within, between whose conflicting claims she has only five minutes more to make up her mind. the minister had taken up his hymn-book, and was turning over the leaves to select the closing hymn, when some one rose in the back part of the room. every head turned as if pulled by one wire to see who it was, and deacon tuttle put on his spectacles to inspect more closely this dilatory person, who was moved to exhortation at so unnecessary a time. it was george bayley, a young man of good education, excellent training, and once of great promise, but of most unfortunate recent experience. about a year previous he had embezzled a small amount of the funds of a corporation in newville, of which he was paymaster, for the purpose of raising money for a pressing emergency. various circumstances showed that his repentance had been poignant, even before his theft was discovered. he had reimbursed the corporation, and there was no prosecution, because his dishonest act had been no part of generally vicious habits, but a single unaccountable deflection from rectitude. the evident intensity of his remorse had excited general sympathy, and when parker, the village druggist, gave him employment as clerk, the act was generally applauded, and all the village folk had endeavoured with one accord, by a friendly and hearty manner, to make him feel that they were disposed to forget the past, and help him to begin life over again. he had been converted at a revival the previous winter, but was counted to have backslidden of late, and become indifferent to religion. he looked badly. his face was exceedingly pale, and his eyes were sunken. but these symptoms of mental sickness were dominated by an expression of singular peace and profound calm. he had the look of one whom, after a wasting illness, the fever has finally left; of one who has struggled hard, but whose struggle is over. and his voice, when he began to speak, was very soft and clear. "if it will not be too great an inconvenience," he said; "i should like to keep you a few minutes while i talk about myself a little. you remember, perhaps, that i professed to be converted last winter. since then i am aware that i have shown a lack of interest in religious matters, which has certainly justified you in supposing that i was either hasty or insincere in my profession. i have made my arrangements to leave you soon, and should be sorry to have that impression remain on the minds of my friends. hasty i may have been, but not insincere. perhaps you will excuse me if i refer to an unpleasant subject, but i can make my meaning clearer by reviewing a little of my unfortunate history." the suavity with which he apologized for alluding to his own ruin, as if he had passed beyond the point of any personal feeling in the matter, had something uncanny and creeping in its effect on the listeners, as if they heard a dead soul speaking through living lips. "after my disgrace," pursued the young man in the same quietly explanatory tone, "the way i felt about myself was very much, i presume, as a mechanic feels, who by an unlucky stroke has hopelessly spoiled the looks of a piece of work, which he nevertheless has got to go on and complete as best he can. now you know that in order to find any pleasure in his work, the workman must be able to take a certain amount of pride in it. nothing is more disheartening for him than to have to keep on with a job with which he must be disgusted every time he returns to it, every time his eye glances it over. do i make my meaning clear? i felt like that beaten crew in last week's regatta, which, when it saw itself hopelessly distanced at the very outset, had no pluck to row out the race, but just pulled ashore and went home. "why, i remember when i was a little boy in school, and one day made a big blot on the very first page of my new copybook, that i didn't have the heart to go on any further, and i recollect well how i teased my father to buy me a new book, and cried and sulked until he finally took his knife and neatly cut out the blotted page. then i was comforted and took heart, and i believe i finished that copybook so well that the teacher gave me the prize. "now you see, don't you," he continued, the ghost of a smile glimmering about his eyes, "how it was that after my disgrace i couldn't seem to take an interest any more in anything? then came the revival, and that gave me a notion that religion might help me. i had heard, from a child, that the blood of christ had a power to wash away sins and to leave one white and spotless with a sense of being new and clean every whit. that was what i wanted, just what i wanted. i am sure that you never had a more sincere, more dead-in-earnest convert than i was." he paused a moment, as if in mental contemplation, and then the words dropped slowly from his lips, as a dim self-pitying smile rested on his haggard face. "i really think you would be sorry for me if you knew how very bitter was my disappointment when i found that, these bright promises were only figurative expressions which i had taken literally. doubtless i should not have fallen into such a ridiculous mistake if my great need had not made my wishes fathers to my thoughts. nobody was at all to blame but myself; nobody at all. i'm blaming no one. forgiving sins, i should have known, is not blotting, them out. the blood of christ only turns them red instead of black. it leaves them in the record. it leaves them in the memory. that day when i blotted my copybook at school, to have had the teacher forgive me ever so kindly would not have made me feel the least bit better so long as the blot was there. it wasn't any penalty from without, but the hurt to my own pride which the spot made, that i wanted taken away, so i might get heart to go on. supposing one of you--and you'll excuse me for asking you to put yourself a moment in my place--had picked a pocket. would it make a great deal of difference in your state of mind that the person whose pocket you had picked kindly forgave you, and declined to prosecute? your offence against him was trifling, and easily repaired. your chief offence was against yourself, and that was irreparable. no other person with his forgiveness can mediate between you and yourself. until you have been in such a fix, you can't imagine, perhaps, how curiously impertinent it sounds to hear talk about somebody else forgiving you for ruining yourself. it is like mocking." the nine o'clock bell pealed out from the mill tower. "i am trespassing on your kindness, but i have only a few more words to say. the ancients had a beautiful fable about the water of lethe, in which the soul that was bathed straightway forgot all that was sad and evil in its previous life; the most stained, disgraced, and mournful of souls coming forth fresh, blithe, and bright as a baby's. i suppose my absurd misunderstanding arose from a vague notion that the blood of christ had in it something like this virtue of lethe water. just think how blessed a thing for men it would be if such were indeed the case, if their memories could be cleansed and disinfected at the same time their hearts were purified! then the most disgraced and ashamed might live good and happy lives again. men would be redeemed from their sins in fact, and not merely in name. the figurative promises of the gospel would become literally true. but this is idle dreaming. i will not keep you," and, checking himself abruptly, he sat down. the moment he did so, mr. lewis rose and pronounced the benediction, dismissing the meeting without the usual closing hymn. he was afraid that something might be said by deacon tuttle or deacon miller, who were good men, but not very subtile in their spiritual insight, which would still further alienate the unfortunate young man. his own intention of finding opportunity for a little private talk with him after the meeting was, however, disappointed by the promptness with which bayley left the room. he did not seem to notice the sympathetic faces and out-stretched hands around him. there was a set smile on his face, and his eyes seemed to look through people without seeing them. there was a buzz of conversation as the people began to talk together of the decided novelty in the line of conference-meeting exhortations to which they had just listened. the tone of almost all was sympathetic, though many were shocked and pained, and others declared that they did not understand what he had meant. many insisted that he must be a little out of his head, calling attention to the fact that he looked so pale. none of these good hearts were half so much offended by anything heretical in the utterances of the young man as they were stirred with sympathy for his evident discouragement. mr. lewis was perhaps the only one who had received a very distinct impression of the line of thought underlying his words, and he came walking down the aisle with his head bent and a very grave face, not joining any of the groups which were engaged in talk. henry burr was standing near the door, his hat in his hand, watching madeline out of the corners of his eyes, as she closed the melodeon and adjusted her shawl. "good-evening, henry," said mr. lewis, pausing beside the young man. "do you know whether anything unpleasant has happened to george lately to account for what he said to-night?" "i do not, sir," replied henry. "i had a fancy that he might have been slighted by some one, or given the cold shoulder. he is very sensitive." "i don't think any one in the village would slight him," said henry. "i should have said so too," remarked the minister, reflectively. "poor boy, poor boy! he seems to feel very badly, and it is hard to know how to cheer him." "yes, sir--that is--certainly," replied henry incoherently, for madeline was now coming down the aisle. in his own preoccupation not noticing the young man's, mr. lewis passed out. as she approached the door madeline was talking animatedly with another young lady. "good-evening," said henry. "poor fellow!" continued madeline to her companion, "he seemed quite hopeless." "good-evening," repeated henry. looking around, she appeared to observe him for the first time. "good-evening," she said. "may i escort you home?" he asked, becoming slightly red in the face. she looked at him for a moment as if she could scarcely believe her ears that such an audacious proposal had been made to her. then she said, with a bewitching smile-"i shall be much obliged." as he drew her arm beneath his own the contact diffused an ecstatic sensation of security through his stalwart but tremulous limbs. he had got her, and his tribulations were forgotten. for a while they walked silently along the dark streets, both too much impressed by the tragic suggestions of poor bayley's outbreak to drop at once into trivialities. for it must be understood that madeline's little touch of coquetry had been merely instinctive, a sort of unconscious reflex action of the feminine nervous system, quite consistent with very lugubrious engrossments. to henry there was something strangely sweet in sharing with her for the first time a mood of solemnity, seeing that their intercourse had always before been in the vein of pleasantry and badinage common to the first stages of courtships. this new experience appeared to dignify their relation, and weave them together with a new strand. at length she said-"why didn't you go after poor george and cheer him up instead of going home with me? anybody could have done that." "no doubt," replied henry, seriously; "but, if i'd left anybody else to do it, i should have needed cheering up as much as george does." "dear me," she exclaimed, as a little smile, not exactly of vexation, curved her lips under cover of the darkness, "you take a most unwarrantable liberty in being jealous of me. i never gave you nor anybody else any right to be, and i won't have it!" "very well. it shall be just as you say," he replied. the sarcastic humility of his tone made her laugh in spite of herself, and she immediately changed the subject, demanding-"where is laura to-night?" "she's at home, making cake for the picnic," he said. "the good girl! and i ought to be making some, too. i wonder if poor george will be at the picnic?" "i doubt it," said henry. "you know he never goes to any sort of party. the last time i saw him at such a place was at mr. bradford's. he was playing whist, and they were joking about cheating. somebody said--mr. bradford it was--'i can trust my wife's honesty. she doesn't know enough to cheat, but i don't know about george.' george was her partner. bradford didn't mean any harm; he forgot, you see. he'd have bitten his tongue off otherwise sooner than have said it. but everybody saw the application, and there was a dead silence. george got red as fire, and then pale as death. i don't know how they finished the hand, but presently somebody made an excuse, and the game was broken off." "oh, dear! dear! that was cruel! cruel! how could mr. bradford do it? i should think he would never forgive himself! never!" exclaimed madeline, with an accent of poignant sympathy, involuntarily pressing henry's arm, and thereby causing him instantly to forget all about george and his misfortunes, and setting his heart to beating so tumultuously that he was afraid she would notice it and be offended. but she did not seem to be conscious of the intoxicating effluence she was giving forth, and presently added, in a tone of sweetest pity-"he used to be so frank and dashing in his manner, and now when he meets one of us girls on the street he seems so embarrassed, and looks away or at the ground, as if he thought we should not like to bow to him, or meant to cut him. i'm sure we'd cut our heads off sooner. it's enough to make one cry, such times, to see how wretched he is, and so sensitive that no one can say a word to cheer him. did you notice what he said about leaving town? i hadn't heard anything about it before, had you?" "no," said henry, "not a word. wonder where he's going. perhaps he thinks it will be easier for him in some place where they don't know him." they walked on in silence a few moments, and then madeline said, in a musing tone-"how strange it would seem if one really could have unpleasant things blotted out of their memories! what dreadful thing would you forget now, if you could? confess." "i would blot out the recollection that you went boat-riding with will taylor last wednesday afternoon, and what i've felt about it ever since." "dear me, mr. henry burr," said madeline, with an air of excessive disdain, "how long is it since i authorized you to concern yourself with my affairs? if it wouldn't please you too much, i'd certainly box your ears. "i think you're rather unreasonable," he protested, in a hurt tone. "you said a minute ago that you wouldn't permit me to be jealous of you, and just because i'm so anxious to obey you that i want to forget that i ever was, you are vexed." a small noise, expressive of scorn, and not to be represented by letters of the alphabet, was all the reply she deigned to this more ingenious than ingenuous plea. "i've made my confession, and it's only fair you should make yours," he said next. "what remorseful deed have you done that you'd like to forget?" "you needn't speak in that babying tone. i fancy i could commit sins as well as you, with all your big moustache, if i wanted to. i don't believe you'd hurt a fly, although you do look so like a pirate. you've probably got a goody little conscience, so white and soft that you'd die of shame to have people see it." "excuse me, lady macbeth," he said, laughing; "i don't wish to underrate your powers of depravity, but which of your soul-destroying sins would you prefer to forget, if indeed any of them are shocking enough to trouble your excessively hardened conscience? "well, i must admit," said madeline, seriously, "that i wouldn't care to forget anything i've done, not even my faults and follies. i should be afraid if they were taken away that i shouldn't have any character left." "don't put it on that ground," said henry, "it's sheer vanity that makes you say so. you know your faults are just big enough to be beauty-spots, and that's why you'd rather keep 'em." she reflected a moment, and then said, decisively-"that's a compliment. i don't believe i like 'em from you. don't make me any more." perhaps she did not take the trouble to analyse the sentiment that prompted her words. had she done so, she would doubtless have found it in a consciousness when in his presence of being surrounded with so fine and delicate an atmosphere of unspoken devotion that words of flattery sounded almost gross. they paused before a gate. pushing it open and passing within, she said, "good-night." "one word more. i have a favour to ask," he said. "may i take you to the picnic?" "why, i think no escort will be necessary," she replied; "we go in broad daylight; and there are no bears or indians at hemlock hollow." "but your basket. you'll need somebody to carry your basket." "oh yes, to be sure, my basket," she exclaimed, with an ironical accent. "it will weigh at least two pounds, and i couldn't possibly carry it myself, of course. by all means come, and much obliged for your thoughtfulness." but as she turned to go in she gave him a glance which had just enough sweetness in it to neutralize the irony of her words. in the treatment of her lovers, madeline always punctured the skin before applying a drop of sweetness, and perhaps this accounted for the potent effect it had to inflame the blood, compared with more profuse but superficial applications of less sharp-tongued maidens. henry waited until the graceful figure had a moment revealed its charming outline against the lamp-lit interior, as she half turned to close the door. love has occasional metaphysical turns, and it was an odd feeling that came over him as he walked away, being nothing less than a rush of thankfulness and self-congratulation that he was not madeline. for, if he had been she, he would have lost the ecstasy of loving her, of worshipping her. ah, how much she lost, how much all those lose, who, fated to be the incarnations of beauty, goodness, and grace, are precluded from being their own worshippers! well, it was a consolation that she didn't know it, that she actually thought that, with her little coquetries and exactions, she was enjoying the chief usufruct of her beauty. god make up to the haughty, wilful darling in some other way for missing the passing sweetness of the thrall she held her lovers in! when burr reached home, he found his sister laura standing at the gate in a patch of moonlight. "how pretty you look to-night!" he said, pinching her round cheek. the young lady merely shrugged her shoulders, and replied dryly-"so she let you go home with her." "how do you know that?" he asked, laughing at her shrewd guess. "because you're so sweet, you goosey, of course." but, in truth, any such mode of accounting for henry's favourable comment on her appearance was quite unnecessary. laura, with her petite, plump figure, sloe-black eyes, quick in moving, curly head, and dark, clear cheeks, carnation-tinted, would have been thought by many quite as charming a specimen of american girlhood as the stately pale brunette who swayed her brother's affections. "come for a walk, chicken! it is much too pretty a night to go indoors," he said. "yes, and furnish ears for madeline's praises, with a few more reflected compliments for pay, perhaps," she replied, contemptuously. "besides," she added, "i must go into the house and keep father company. i only came out to cool off after baking the cake. you'd better come in too. these moonlight nights always make him specially sad, you know." the brother and sister had been left motherless not long before, and laura, in trying to fill her mother's place in the household, so far as she might, was always looking out that her father should have as little opportunity as possible to brood alone over his companionless condition. chapter ii. that same night toward morning henry suddenly awoke from a sound sleep. drowsiness, by some strange influence, had been completely banished from his eyes, and in its stead he became sensible of a profound depression of spirits. physically, he was entirely comfortable, nor could he trace to any sensation from without either this sudden awakening or the mental condition in which he found himself. it was not that he thought of anything in particular that was gloomy or discouraging, but that all the ends and aims, not only of his own individual life, but of life in general, had assumed an aspect so empty, vain, and colourless, that he felt he would not rise from his bed for anything existence had to offer. he recalled his usual frame of mind, in which these things seemed attractive, with a dull wonderment that so baseless a delusion should be so strong and so general. he wondered if it were possible that it should ever again come over him. the cold, grey light of earliest morning, that light which is rather the fading of night than the coming of day, filled the room with a faint hue, more cheerless than pitchiest darkness. a distant bell, with slow and heavy strokes, struck three. it was the dead point in the daily revolution of the earth's life, that point just before dawn, when men oftenest die; when surely, but for the force of momentum, the course of nature would stop, and at which doubtless it will one day pause eternally, when the clock is run down. the long-drawn reverberations of the bell, turning remoteness into music, full of the pathos of a sad and infinite patience, died away with an effect unspeakably dreary. his spirit, drawn forth after the vanishing vibrations, seemed to traverse waste spaces without beginning or ending, and aeons of monotonous duration. a sense of utter loneliness--loneliness inevitable, crushing, eternal, the loneliness of existence, encompassed by the infinite void of unconsciousness--enfolded him as a pall. life lay like an incubus on his bosom. he shuddered at the thought that death might overlook him, and deny him its refuge. even madeline's face, as he conjured it up, seemed wan and pale, moving to unutterable pity, powerless to cheer, and all the illusions and passions of love were dim as ball-room candles in the grey light of dawn. gradually the moon passed, and he slept again. as early as half-past eight the following forenoon, groups of men with very serious faces were to be seen standing at the corners of the streets, conversing in hushed tones, and women with awed voices were talking across the fences which divided adjoining yards. even the children, as they went to school, forgot to play, and talked in whispers together, or lingered near the groups of men to catch a word or two of their conversation, or, maybe, walked silently along with a puzzled, solemn look upon their bright faces. for a tragedy had occurred at dead of night which never had been paralleled in the history of the village. that morning the sun, as it peered through the closed shutters of an upper chamber, had relieved the darkness of a thing it had been afraid of. george bayley sat there in a chair, his head sunk on his breast, a small, blue hole in his temple, whence a drop or two of blood had oozed, quite dead. this, then, was what he meant when he said that he had made arrangements for leaving the village. the doctor thought that the fatal shot must have been fired about three o'clock that morning, and, when henry heard this, he knew that it was the breath of the angel of death as he flew by that had chilled the genial current in his veins. bayley's family lived elsewhere, and his father, a stern, cold, haughty-looking man, was the only relative present at the funeral. when mr. lewis undertook to tell him, for his comfort, that there was reason to believe that george was out of his head when he took his life, mr. bayley interrupted him. "don't say that," he said. "he knew what he was doing. i should not wish any one to think otherwise. i am prouder of him than i had ever expected to be again." a choir of girls with glistening eyes sang sweet, sad songs at the funeral, songs which, while they lasted, took away the ache of bereavement, like a cool sponge pressed upon a smarting spot. it seemed almost cruel that they must ever cease. and, after the funeral, the young men and girls who had known george, not feeling like returning that day to their ordinary thoughts and occupations, gathered at the house of one of them and passed the hours till dusk, talking tenderly of the departed, and recalling his generous traits and gracious ways. the funeral had taken place on the day fixed for the picnic. the latter, in consideration of the saddened temper of the young people, was put off a fortnight. chapter iii. about half-past eight on the morning of the day set for the postponed picnic, henry knocked at widow brand's door. he had by no means forgotten madeline's consent to allow him to carry her basket, although two weeks had intervened. she came to the door herself. he had never seen her in anything that set off her dark eyes and olive complexion more richly than the simple picnic dress of white, trimmed with a little crimson braid about the neck and sleeves, which she wore to-day. it was gathered up at the bottom for wandering in the woods, just enough to show the little boots. she looked surprised at seeing him, and exclaimed-"you haven't come to tell me that the picnic is put off again, or laura's sick?" "the picnic is all right, and laura too. i've come to carry your basket for you." "why, you're really very kind," said she, as if she thought him slightly officious. "don't you remember you told me i might do so?" he said, getting a little red under her cool inspection. "when did i?" "two weeks ago, that evening poor george spoke in meeting." "oh!" she answered, smiling, "so long ago as that? what a terrible memory you have! come in just a moment, please; i'm nearly ready." whether she merely took his word for it, or whether she had remembered her promise perfectly well all the time, and only wanted to make him ask twice for the favour, lest he should feel too presumptuous, i don't pretend to know. mrs. brand set a chair for him with much cordiality. she was a gentle, mild-mannered little lady, such a contrast in style and character to madeline that there was a certain amusing fitness in the latter's habit of calling her "my baby." "you have a very pleasant day for your picnic, mr. burr," said she. "yes, we are very lucky," replied henry, his eyes following madeline's movements as she stood before the glass, putting on her hat, which had a red feather in it. to have her thus add the last touches to her toilet in his presence was a suggestion of familiarity, of domesticity, that was very intoxicating to his imagination. "is your father well?" inquired mrs. brand, affably. "very well, thank you, very well indeed," he replied "there; now i'm ready," said madeline. "here's the basket, henry. good-bye, mother." they were a well-matched pair, the stalwart young man and the tall, graceful girl, and it is no wonder the girl's mother stood in the door looking after them with a thoughtful smile. hemlock hollow was a glen between wooded bluffs, about a mile up the beautiful river on which newville was situated, and boats had been collected at the rendezvous on the river-bank to convey the picnickers thither. on arriving, madeline and henry found all the party assembled and in capital spirits; there was still just enough shadow on their merriment to leave the disposition to laugh slightly in excess of its indulgence, than which no condition of mind more favourable to a good time can be imagined. laura was there, and to her will taylor had attached himself. he was a dapper little black-eyed fellow, a clerk in the dry-goods store, full of fun and good-nature, and a general favourite, but it was certainly rather absurd that henry should be apprehensive of him as a rival. there also was fanny miller, who had the prettiest arm in newville, a fact discovered once when she wore a martha washington toilet at a masquerade sociable, and since circulated from mouth to mouth among the young men. and there, too, was emily hunt, who had shocked the girls and thrown the youth into a pleasing panic by appearing at a young people's party the previous winter in low neck and short sleeves. it is to be remarked in extenuation that she had then but recently come from the city, and was not familiar with newville etiquette. nor must i forget to mention ida lewis, the minister's daughter, a little girl with poor complexion and beautiful brown eyes, who cherished a hopeless passion for henry. among the young men was harry tuttle, the clerk in the confectionery and fancy goods store, a young man whose father had once sent him for a term to a neighbouring seminary, as a result of which classical experience he still retained a certain jaunty student air verging on the rakish, that was admired by the girls and envied by the young men. and there, above all, was tom longman. tom was a big, hulking fellow, good-natured and simple-hearted in the extreme. he was the victim of an intense susceptibility to the girls' charms, joined with an intolerable shyness and self-consciousness when in their presence. from this consuming embarrassment he would seek relief by working like a horse whenever there was anything to do. with his hands occupied he had an excuse for not talking to the girls or being addressed by them, and, thus shielded from the, direct rays of their society, basked with inexpressible emotions in the general atmosphere of sweetness and light which they diffused. he liked picnics because there was much work to do, and never attended indoor parties because there was none. this inordinate taste for industry in connection with social enjoyment on tom's part was strongly encouraged by the other young men, and they were the ones who always stipulated that he should be of the party when there was likely to be any call for rowing, taking care of horses, carrying of loads, putting out of croquet sets, or other manual exertion. he was generally an odd one in such companies. it would be no kindness to provide him a partner, and, besides, everybody made so many jokes about him that none of the girls quite cared to have their names coupled with his, although they all had a compassionate liking for him. on the present occasion this poor slave of the petticoat had been at work preparing the boats all the morning. "why, how nicely you have arranged everything!" said madeline kindly, as she stood on the sand waiting for henry to bring up a boat. "what?" replied tom, laughing in a flustered way. he always laughed just so and said "what?" when any of the girls spoke to him, being too much confused by the fact of being addressed to catch what was said the first time. "it's very good of you to arrange the boats for us, madeline repeated. "oh, 'tain't anything, 'tain't anything at all," he blurted out, with a very red face. "you are going up in our boat, ain't you, longman?" said harry tuttle. "no, tom, you're going with us," cried another young man. "he's going with us, like a sensible fellow," said will taylor, who, with laura burr, was sitting on the forward thwart of the boat, into the stern of which henry was now assisting madeline. "tom, these lazy young men are just wanting you to do their rowing for them," said she. "get into our boat, and i'll make henry row you." "what do you say to that, henry?" said tom, snickering. "it isn't for me to say anything after madeline has spoken," replied the young man. "she has him in good subjection," remarked ida lewis, not over-sweetly. "all right, i'll come in your boat, miss brand, if you'll take care of me," said tom, with a sudden spasm of boldness, followed by violent blushes at the thought that perhaps be had said something too free. the boat was pushed off. nobody took the oars. "i thought you were going to row?" said madeline, turning to henry, who sat beside her in the stern. "certainly," said he, making as if he would rise. "tom, you just sit here while i row." "oh no, i'd just as lief row," said tom, seizing the oars with feverish haste. "so would i, tom; i want a little exercise," urged henry with a hypocritical grin, as he stood up in an attitude of readiness. "oh, i like to row. 'i'd a great deal rather. honestly," asseverated tom, as he made the water foam with the violence of his strokes, compelling henry to resume his seat to preserve his equilibrium. "it's perfectly plain that you don't want to sit by me, tom. that hurts my feelings," said madeline, pretending to pout. "oh no, it isn't that," protested tom. "only i'd rather row; that is, i mean, you know, it's such fun rowing." "very well, then," said madeline, "i sha'n't help you any more; and here they all are tying their boats on to ours." sure enough, one of the other boats had fastened its chain to the stern of theirs, and the others had fastened to that; their oarsmen were lying off and tom was propelling the entire flotilla. "oh, i can row 'em all just as easy's not," gasped the devoted youth, the perspiration rolling down his forehead. but this was a little too bad, and henry soon cast off the other boats, in spite of the protests of their occupants, who regarded tom's brawn and muscle as the common stock of the entire party, which no one boat had a right to appropriate. on reaching hemlock hollow, madeline asked the poor young man for his hat, and returned it to him adorned with evergreens, which nearly distracted him with bashfulness and delight, and drove him to seek a safety-valve for his excitement in superhuman activity all the rest of the morning, arranging croquet sets, hanging swings, breaking ice, squeezing lemons, and fetching water. "oh, how thirsty i am!" sighed madeline, throwing down her croquet mallet. "the ice-water is not yet ready, but i know a spring a little way off where the water is cold as ice," said henry. "show it to me this instant," she cried, and they walked off together, followed by ida lewis's unhappy eyes. the distance to the spring was not great, but the way was rough, and once or twice he had to help her over fallen trees and steep banks. once she slipped a little, and for, a single supreme moment he held her whole weight in his arms. before, they had been talking and laughing gaily, but that made a sudden silence. he dared not look at her for some moments, and when he did there was a slight flush tingeing her usually colourless cheek. his pulses were already bounding wildly, and, at this betrayal that she had shared his consciousness at that moment, his agitation was tenfold increased. it was the first time she had ever shown a sign of confusion in his presence. the sensation of mastery, of power over her, which it gave, was so utterly new that it put a sort of madness in his blood. without a word they came to the spring and pretended to drink. as she turned to go back, he lightly caught her fingers in a detaining clasp, and said, in a voice rendered harsh by suppressed emotion-"don't be in such a hurry. where will you find a cooler spot?" "oh, it's cool enough anywhere! let's go back," she replied, starting to return as she spoke. she saw his excitement, and, being herself a little confused, had no idea of allowing a scene to be precipitated just then. she flitted on before with so light a foot that he did not overtake her until she came to a bank too steep for her to surmount without aid. he sprang up and extended her his hand. assuming an expression as if she were unconscious who was helping her, she took it, and he drew her up to his side. then with a sudden, audacious impulse, half hoping she would not be angry, half reckless if she were, he clasped her closely in his arms, and kissed her lips. she gasped, and freed herself. "how dared you do such a thing to me?" she cried. the big fellow stood before her, sheepish, dogged, contrite, desperate, all in one. "i couldn't help it," he blurted out. the plea was somehow absurdly simple, and yet rather unanswerable. angry as she was, she really couldn't think of anything to say, except-"you'd better help it," with which rather ineffective rebuke she turned away and walked toward the picnic ground. henry followed in a demoralized frame. his mind was in a ferment. he could not realize what had happened. he could scarcely believe that he had actually done it. he could not conceive how he had dared it. and now what penalty would she inflict? what if she should not forgive him? his soul was dissolved in fears. but, sooth to say, the young lady's actual state of mind was by no means so implacable as he apprehended. she had been ready to be very angry, but the suddenness and depth of his contrition had disarmed her. it took all the force out of her indignation to see that he actually seemed to have a deeper sense of the enormity of his act than she herself had. and when, after they had rejoined the party, she saw that, instead of taking part in the sports, he kept aloof, wandering aimless and disconsolate by himself among the pines, she took compassion on him and sent some one to tell him she wanted him to come and push her in the swing. people had kissed her before. she was not going to leave the first person who had seemed to fully realize the importance of the proceeding to suffer unduly from a susceptibility which did him so much credit. as for henry, he hardly believed his ears when he heard the summons to attend her. at that the kiss which her rebuke had turned cold on his lips began to glow afresh, and for the first time he tasted its exceeding sweetness; for her calling to him seemed to ratify and consent to it. there were others standing about as he came up to where madeline sat in the swing, and he was silent, for he could not talk of indifferent things. with what a fresh charm, with what new sweet suggestions of complaisance that kiss had invested every line and curve of her, from hat-plume to boot-tip! a delicious tremulous sense of proprietorship tinged his every thought of her. he touched the swing-rope as fondly as if it were an electric chain that could communicate the caress to her. tom longman, having done all the work that offered itself, had been wandering about in a state of acute embarrassment, not daring to join himself to any of the groups, much less accost a young lady who might be alone. as he drifted near the swing, madeline said to henry-"you may stop swinging me now. i think i'd like to go out rowing." the young man's cup seemed running over. he could scarcely command his voice for delight as he said-"it will be jolly rowing just now. i'm sure we can get some pond-lilies." "really," she replied, airily, "you take too much for granted. i was going to ask tom longman to take me out." she called to tom, and as he came up, grinning and shambling, she indicated to him her pleasure that he should row her upon the river. the idea of being alone in a small boat for perhaps fifteen minutes with the belle of newville, and the object of his own secret and distant adoration, paralysed tom's faculties with an agony of embarrassment. he grew very red, and there was such a buzzing in his ears that he could not feel sure he heard aright, and madeline had to repeat herself several times before he seemed to fully realize the appalling nature of the proposition. as they walked down to the shore she chatted with him, but he only responded with a profusion of vacant laughs. when he had pulled out on the river, his rowing, from his desire to make an excuse for not talking, was so tremendous that they cheered him from the shore, at the same time shouting-"keep her straight! you're going into the bank!" the truth was, that tom could not guide the boat because he did not dare to look astern for fear of meeting madeline's eyes, which, to judge from the space his eyes left around her, he must have supposed to fill at least a quarter of the horizon, like an aurora, in fact. but, all the same, he was having an awfully good time, although perhaps it would be more proper to say he would have a good time when he came to think it over afterward. it was an experience which would prove a mine of gold in his memory, rich enough to furnish for years the gilding to his modest day-dreams. beauty, like wealth, should make its owners generous. it is a gracious thing in fair women at times to make largesse of their beauty, bestowing its light more freely on tongue-tied, timid adorers than on their bolder suitors, giving to them who dare not ask. their beauty never can seem more precious to women than when for charity's sake they brighten with its lustre the eyes of shy and retiring admirers. as henry was ruefully meditating upon the uncertainty of the sex, and debating the probability that madeline had called him to swing her for the express purpose of getting a chance to snub him, ida lewis came to him, and said-"mr. burr, we're getting up a game of croquet. won't you play?" "if i can be on your side," he answered, civilly. he knew the girl's liking for him, and was always kind to her. at his answer her face flushed with pleasure, and she replied shyly-"if you'd like to, you may." henry was not in the least a conceited fellow, but it was impossible that he should not understand the reason why ida, who all the morning had looked forlorn enough, was now the life of the croquet-ground, and full of smiles and flushes. she was a good player, and had a corresponding interest in beating, but her equanimity on the present occasion was not in the least disturbed by the disgraceful defeat which henry's awkwardness and absence of mind entailed on their aide. but her portion of sunshine for that day was brief enough, for madeline soon returned from her boat-ride, and henry found an excuse for leaving the game and joining her where she sat on the ground between the knees of a gigantic oak sorting pond-lilies, which the girls were admiring. as he came up, she did not appear to notice him. as soon as he had a chance to speak without being overheard, he said, soberly-"tom ought to thank me for that boat-ride, i suppose." "i don't know what you mean," she answered, with assumed carelessness. "i mean that you went to punish me." "you're sufficiently conceited," she replied. "laura, come here; your brother is teasing me." "and do you think i want to be teased to?" replied that young lady, pertly, as she walked off. madeline would have risen and left henry, but she was too proud to let him think that she was afraid of him.. neither was she afraid, but she was confused, and momentarily without her usual self-confidence. one reason for her running off with tom had been to get a chance to think. no girl, however coolly her blood may flow, can be pressed to a man's breast, wildly throbbing with love for her, and not experience some agitation in consequence. whatever may be the state of her sentiments, there is a magnetism in such a contact which she cannot at once throw off. that kiss had brought her relations with henry to a crisis. it had precipitated the necessity of some decision. she could no longer hold him off, and play with him. by that bold dash he had gained a vantage-ground, a certain masterful attitude which he had never held before. yet, after all, i am not sure that she was not just a little afraid of him, and, moreover, that she did not like him all the better for it. it was such a novel feeling that it began to make some things, thought of in connection with him, seem more possible to her mind than they had ever seemed before. as she peeped furtively at this young man, so suddenly grown formidable, as he reclined carelessly on the ground at her feet, she admitted to herself that there was something very manly in the sturdy figure and square forehead, with the curly black locks hanging over it. she looked at him with a new interest, half shrinking, half attracted, as one who might come into a very close relation with herself. she scarcely knew whether the thought was agreeable or not. "give me your hat," she said, "and i'll put some lilies in it." "you are very good," said he, handing it to her. "does it strike you so?" she replied, hesitatingly. "then i won't do it. i don't want to appear particularly good to you. i didn't know just how it would seem." "oh, it won't seem very good; only about middling," he urged, upon which representation she took the hat. he watched her admiringly as she deftly wreathed the lilies around it, holding it up, now this way and now that, while she critically inspected the effect. then her caprice changed. "i've half a mind to drop it into the river. would you jump after it?" she said, twirling it by the brim, and looking over the steep bank, near which she sat, into the deep, dark water almost perpendicularly below. "if it were anything of yours instead of mine, i would jump quickly enough," he replied. she looked at him with a reckless gleam in her eyes. "you mustn't talk chaff to me, sir; we'll see," and, snatching a glove from her pocket, she held it out over the water. they were both of them in that state of suppressed excitement which made such an experiment on each other's nerve dangerous. their eyes met, and neither flinched. if she had dropped it, he would have gone after it. "after all," she said, suddenly, "that would be taking a good deal of trouble to get a mitten. if you are so anxious for it, i will give it to you now;" and she held out the glove to him with an inscrutable face. he sprang up from the ground. "madeline, do you mean it?" he asked, scarcely audibly, his face grown white and pinched. she crumpled the obnoxious glove into her pocket. "why, you poor fellow!" she exclaimed, the wildfire in her eyes quenched in a moment with the dew of pity. "do you care so much?" "i care everything," he said, huskily. but, as luck would have it, just at that instant will taylor came running up, pursued by laura, and threw himself upon madeline's protection. it appeared that he had confessed to the possession of a secret, and on being requested by laura to impart it had flatly refused to do so. "i can't really interfere to protect any young man who refuses to tell a secret to a young lady," said madeline, gravely. "neglect to tell her the secret, without being particularly asked to do so, would be bad enough, but to refuse after being requested is an offence which calls for the sharpest correction." "and that isn't all, either," said laura, vindictively flirting the switch with which she had pursued him. "he used offensive language." "what did he say?" demanded madeline, judicially. "i asked him if he was sure it was a secret that i didn't know already, and he said he was; and i asked him what made him sure, and he said because if i knew it everybody else would. as much as to say i couldn't keep a secret." "this looks worse and worse, young man," said the judge, severely. "the only course left for you is to make a clean breast of the affair, and throw yourself on the mercy of the court. if the secret turns out to be a good one, i'll let you off as easily as i can." "it's about the new drug-clerk, the one who is going to take george bayley's place," said will, laughing. "oh, do tell, quick!" exclaimed laura. "i don't care who it is. i sha'n't like him," said madeline. "poor george! and here we are forgetting all about him this beautiful day!" "what's the new clerk's name?" said laura, impatiently. "harrison cordis." "what?" "harrison cordis." "rather an odd name," said laura. "i never heard it." "no," said will; "he comes all the way from boston." "is he handsome?" inquired laura. "i really don't know," replied will. "i presume parker failed to make that a condition, although really he ought to, for the looks of the clerk is the principal element in the sale of soda-water, seeing girls are the only ones who drink it." "of course it is," said laura, frankly. "i didn't drink any all last summer, because poor george's sad face took away my disposition. never mind," she added, "we shall all have a chance to see how he looks at church to-morrow;" and with that the two girls went off together to help set the table for lunch. the picnickers did not row home till sunset, but henry found no opportunity to resume the conversation with madeline which had been broken off at such an interesting point. chapter iv. the advent of a stranger was an event of importance in the small social world of newville. mr. harrison cordis, the new clerk in the drug-store, might well have been flattered by the attention which he excited at church the next day, especially from the fairer half of the congregation. far, however, from appearing discomposed thereby, he returned it with such interest that at least half the girls thought they had captivated him by the end of the morning service. they all agreed that he was awfully handsome, though laura maintained that he was rather too pretty for a man. he was certainly very pretty. his figure was tall, slight, and elegant. he had delicate hands and feet, a white forehead, deep blue, smiling eyes, short, curly, yellow, hair, and a small moustache, drooping over lips as enticing as a girl's. but the ladies voted his manners yet more pleasing than his appearance. they were charmed by his easy self-possession, and constant alertness as to details of courtesy. the village beaus scornfully called him "cityfied," and secretly longed to be like him. a shrewder criticism than that to which he was exposed would, however, have found the fault with cordis's manners that, under a show of superior ease and affability, he was disposed to take liberties with his new acquaintances, and exploit their simplicity for his own entertainment. evidently he felt that he was in the country. that very first sunday, after evening meeting, he induced fanny miller, at whose father's house he boarded, to introduce him to madeline, and afterward walked home with her, making himself very agreeable, and crowning his audacity by asking permission to call. fanny, who went along with them, tattled of this, and it produced a considerable sensation among the girls, for it was the wont of newville wooers to make very gradual approaches. laura warmly expressed to madeline her indignation at the impudence of the proceeding, but that young lady was sure she did not see any harm in it; whereupon laura lost her temper a little, and hinted that it might be more to her credit if she did. madeline replied pointedly, and the result was a little spat, from which laura issued second best, as people generally did who provoked a verbal strife with madeline. meanwhile it was rumoured that cordis had availed himself of the permission that he had asked, and that he had, moreover, been seen talking with her in the post-office several times. the drug-store being next door to the post-office, it was easy for him, under pretence of calling for the mail, to waylay there any one he might wish to meet. the last of the week fanny miller gave a little tea-party, to make cordis more generally acquainted. on that occasion he singled out madeline with his attentions in such a pronounced manner that the other girls were somewhat piqued. laura, having her brother's interest at heart, had much more serious reasons for being uneasy at the look of things. they all remarked how queerly madeline acted that evening. she was so subdued and quiet, not a bit like herself. when the party broke up, cordis walked home with madeline and laura, whose paths lay together. "i'm extremely fortunate," said he, as he was walking on with laura, after leaving madeline at her house, "to have a chance to escort the two belles of newville at once." "i'm not so foolish as i look, mr. cordis," said she, rather sharply. she was not going to let him think he could turn the head of every newville girl as he had madeline's with his city airs and compliments. "you might be, and not mind owning it," he replied, making an excuse of her words to scrutinise her face with a frank admiration that sent the colour to her cheeks, though she was more vexed than pleased. "i mean that i don't like flattery." "are you sure?" he asked, with apparent surprise. "of course i am. what a question!" "excuse me; i only asked because i never met any one before who didn't." "never met anybody who didn't like to be told things about themselves which they knew weren't true, and were just said because somebody thought they were foolish enough to believe 'em?" "i don't expect you to believe 'em yourself," he replied; "only vain people believe the good things people say about them; but i wouldn't give a cent for friends who didn't think better of me than i think of myself, and tell me so occasionally, too." they stood a moment at laura's gate, and just then henry, coming home from the gun-shop of which he was foreman, passed them, and entered the house. "is that your brother?" asked cordis. "yes." "it does one's eyes good to see such a powerful looking young man. is your brother married, may i ask?" "he is not." "in coming into a new circle as i have done, you understand, miss burr, i often feel a certain awkwardness on account of not knowing the relations between the persons i meet," he said, apologizing for his questions. laura saw her opportunity, and promptly improved it. "my brother has been attentive to miss brand for a long time. they are about as good as engaged. good-evening, mr. cordis." it so happened that several days after this conversation, as madeline was walking home one afternoon, she glanced back at a crossing of the street, and saw harrison cordis coming behind her on his way to tea. at the rate she was walking she would reach home before he overtook her, but, if she walked a very little slower, he would overtake her. her pace slackened. she blushed at her conduct, but she did not hurry. the most dangerous lovers women have are men of cordis's feminine temperament. such men, by the delicacy and sensitiveness of their own organizations, read women as easily and accurately as women read each other. they are alert to detect and interpret those smallest trifles in tone, expression, and bearing, which betray the real mood far more unmistakably than more obvious signs. cordis had seen her backward glance, and noted her steps grow slower with a complacent smile. it was this which emboldened him, in spite of the short acquaintance, to venture on the line he did. "good-evening, miss brand," he said, as he over took her. "i don't really think it's fair to begin to hurry when you hear somebody trying to overtake you. "i'm sure i didn't mean to," she replied, glad to have a chance to tell the truth, without suspecting, poor girl, that he knew very well she was telling it. "it isn't safe to," he said, laughing. "you can't tell who it may be. now, it might have been mr. burr, instead of only me." she understood instantly. somebody had been telling him about henry's attentions to her. a bitter anger, a feeling of which a moment before she would have deemed herself utterly incapable, surged up in her heart against the person, whoever it was, who had told him this. for several seconds she could not control herself to speak. finally, she said-"i don't understand you. why do you speak of mr. burr to me?" "i beg pardon. i should not have done so." "please explain what you mean. "you'll excuse me, i hope," he said, as if quite distressed to have displeased her. "it was an unpardonable indiscretion on my part, but somebody told me, or at least i understood, that you were engaged to him." "somebody has told you a falsehood, then," she replied, and, with a bow of rather strained dignity turned in at the gate of a house where a moment before she had not had the remotest intention of stopping. if she had been in a boat with him, she would have jumped into the water sooner than protract the inter-view a moment after she had said that. mechanically she walked up the path and knocked at the door. until the lady of the house opened it, she did not notice where she had stopped. good-afternoon, madeline. i'm glad to see you. you haven't made me a call this ever so long." "i'm sorry, mrs. tuttle, but i haven't time to stop to-day. ha--have you got a--a pattern of a working apron? i'd like to borrow it." chapter v. now, henry had not chanced to be at church that first sunday evening when cordis obtained an introduction to madeline, nor was he at fanny miller's teaparty. of the rapidly progressing flirtation between his sweetheart and the handsome drug-clerk he had all this time no suspicion whatever. spending his days from dawn to sunset in the shop among men, he was not in the way of hearing gossip on that sort of subject; and laura, who ordinarily kept him posted on village news, had, deemed it best to tell him as yet nothing of her apprehensions. she was aware that the affection between her brother and madeline was chiefly on his side, and knew enough of her wilfulness to be sure that any attempted interference by him would only make matters worse. moreover, now that she had warned cordis that madeline was pre-empted property, she hoped he would turn his attention elsewhere. and so, while half the village was agog over the flirtation of the new drug-clerk with madeline brand, and laura was lying awake nights fretting about it, henry went gaily to and from his work in a state of blissful ignorance. and it was very blissful. he was exultant over the progress he had made in his courtship at the picnic. he had told his love--he had kissed her. if he had not been accepted, he had, at least, not been rejected, and that was a measure of success quite enough to intoxicate so ardent and humble a lover as he. and, indeed, what lover might not have taken courage at remembering the sweet pity that shone in her eyes at the revelation of his love-lorn state? the fruition of his hopes, to which he had only dared look forward as possibly awaiting him somewhere in the dim future, was, maybe, almost at hand. circumstances combined to prolong these rose-tinted dreams. a sudden press of orders made it necessary to run the shop till late nights. he contrived with difficulty to get out early one evening so as to call on madeline; but she had gone out, and he failed to see her. it was some ten days after the picnic that, on calling a second time, he found her at home. it chanced to be the very evening of the day on which the conversation between madeline and cordis, narrated in the last chapter, had taken place. she did not come in till henry had waited some time in the parlour, and then gave him her hand in a very lifeless way. she said she had a bad head-ache, and seemed disposed to leave the talking to him. he spoke of the picnic, but she rather sharply remarked that it was so long ago that she had forgotten all about it. it did seem very long ago to her, but to him it was very fresh. this cool ignoring of all that had happened that day in modifying their relations at one blow knocked the bottom out of all his thinking for the past week, and left him, as it were, all in the air. while he felt that the moment was not propitious for pursuing that topic, he could not for the moment turn his mind to anything else, and, as for madeline, it appeared to be a matter of entire indifference to her whether anything further was said on any subject. finally, he remarked, with an effort to which the result may appear disproportionate-"mr. taylor has been making quite extensive alterations on his house, hasn't he?" "i should think you ought to know, if any one. you pass his house every day," was her response. "why, of course i know," he said, staring at her. "so i thought, but you said 'hasn't he?' and naturally i presumed that you were not quite certain." she was evidently quizzing him, but her face was inscrutable. she looked only as if patiently and rather wearily explaining a misunderstanding. as she played with her fan, she had an unmistakable expression of being slightly bored. "madeline, do you know what i should say was the matter with you if you were a man?" he said, desperately, yet trying to laugh. "well, really"--and her eyes had a rather hard expression--"if you prefer gentlemen's society, you'd better seek it, instead of trying to get along by supposing me to be a gentleman." "it seems as if i couldn't say anything right," said henry. "i think you do talk a little strangely," she admitted, with a faint smile. her look was quite like that of an uncomplaining martyr. "what's the matter with you to-night, madeline? tell me, for god's sake!" he cried, overcome with sudden grief and alarm. "i thought i told you i had a headache, and i really wish you wouldn't use profane language," she replied, regarding him with lack-lustre eyes. "and that's all? it's only a headache?" "that's quite enough, i'm sure. would you like me to have toothache besides?" "you know i didn't mean that." "well, earache, then?" she said, wearily, allowing her head to rest back on the top of her chair, as if it were too much of an effort to hold it up, and half shutting her eyes. "excuse me, i ought not to have kept you. i'll go now." "don't hurry," she observed, languidly. "i hope you'll feel better in the morning." he offered her his hand, and she put hers in his for an instant, but withdrew it without returning his pressure, and he went away, sorely perplexed and bitterly disappointed. he would have been still more puzzled if he had been told that not only had madeline not forgotten about what had happened at the picnic, but had, in fact, thought of scarcely anything else during his call. it was that which made her so hard with him, that lent such acid to her tone and such cold aversion to her whole manner. as he went from the house, she stood looking after him through the parlour window, murmuring to herself--. "thank heaven, i'm not engaged to him. how could i think i would ever marry him? oh, if a girl only knew!" henry could not rest until he had seen her again, and found out whether her coldness was a mere freak of coquetry, or something more. one evening when, thanks to the long twilight, it was not yet dark, he called again. she came to the door with hat and gloves on. was she going out? he asked. she admitted that she had been on the point of going across the street to make a call which had been too long delayed, but wouldn't he come in. no, he would not detain her; he would call again. but he lingered a moment on the steps while, standing on the threshold, she played with a button of a glove. suddenly he raised his eyes and regarded her in a quite particular manner. she was suddenly absorbed with her glove, but he fancied that her cheek slightly flushed. just at the moment when he was calculating that she could no longer well avoid looking up, she exclaimed-"dear me, how vexatious! there goes another of those buttons. i shall have to sew it on again before i go," and she looked at him with a charmingly frank air of asking for sympathy, at the same time that it conveyed the obvious idea that she ought to lose no time in making the necessary repairs. "i will not keep you, then," he said, somewhat sadly, and turned away. was the accident intentional? did she want to avoid him? he could not help the thought, and yet what could be more frank and sunshiny than the smile with which she responded to his parting salutation? the next sunday laura and he were at church in the evening. "i wonder why madeline was not out. do you know?" he said as they were walking home. "no." "you're not nearly so friendly with her as you used to be. what's the matter?" she did not reply, for just then at a turning of the street, they met the young lady of whom they were speaking. she looked smiling and happy, and very handsome, with a flush in either cheek, and walking with her was the new drug-clerk. she seemed a little confused at meeting henry, and for a moment appeared to avoid his glance. then, with a certain bravado, oddly mingled with a deprecating air, she raised her eyes to his and bowed. it was the first intimation he had had of the true reason of her alienation. mechanically he walked on and on, too stunned to think as yet, feeling only that there was a terrible time of thinking ahead. "hadn't we better turn back, hear?" said laura, very gently. he looked up. they were a mile or two out of the village on a lonely country road. they turned, and she said, softly, in the tone like the touch of tender fingers on an aching spot-"i knew it long ago, but i hadn't the heart to tell you. she set her cap at him from the first. don't take it too much to heart. she is not good enough for you." sweet compassion! idle words! is there any such sense of ownership, reaching even to the feeling of identity, as that which the lover has in the one he loves? his thoughts and affections, however short the time, had so grown about her and encased her, as the hardened clay imbeds the fossil flower buried ages ago. it rather seems as if he had found her by quarrying in the depths of his own heart than as if he had picked her from the outside world, from among foreign things. she was never foreign, else he could not have had that intuitive sense of intimateness with her which makes each new trait which she reveals, while a sweet surprise, yet seem in a deeper sense familiar, as if answering to some pre-existing ideal pattern in his own heart, as if it were something that could not have been different. in after years he may grow rich in land and gold, but he never again will have such sense of absolute right and eternally foreordained ownership in any thing as he had long years ago in that sweet girl whom some other fellow married. for, alas! this seemingly inviolable divine title is really no security at all. love is liable to ten million suits for breach of warranty. the title-deeds he gives to lovers, taking for price their hearts' first-fruits, turn out no titles at all. half the time, title to the same property is given to several claimants, and the one to finally take possession is often enough one who has no title from love at all. henry had been hit hard, but there was a dogged persistence in his disposition that would not allow him to give up till he had tested his fortune to the uttermost. his love was quite unmixed with vanity, for madeline had never given him any real reason to think that she loved him, and, therefore, the risk of an additional snub or two counted for nothing to deter him. the very next day he left the shop in the afternoon and called on her. her rather constrained and guarded manner was as if she thought he had come to call her to account, and was prepared for him. he, on the contrary, tried to look as affable and well satisfied as if he were the most prosperous of lovers. when he asked her if she would go out driving with him that afternoon, she was evidently taken quite off her guard. for recrimination she was prepared, but not for this smiling proposal. but she recovered herself in an instant, and said-"i'm really very much obliged. it is very considerate of you, but my mother is not very well this afternoon, and i feel that i ought not to leave her." smothering a sick feeling of discouragement, he said, as cheerfully as possible-"i'm very sorry indeed. is your mother seriously sick?" "oh no, thank you. i presume she will be quite well by morning." "won't you, perhaps, go to-morrow afternoon, if she is better? the river road which you admire so much is in all its midsummer glory." "thank you. really; you are quite too good, but i think riding is rather likely to give me the headache lately." the way she answered him, without being in the least uncivil, left the impression on his mind that he had been duly persistent. there was an awkward silence of a few moments, and he was just about to burst forth with he knew not what exclamations and entreaties, when madeline rose, saying-"excuse me a moment; i think i hear my mother calling," and left the room. she was gone some time, and returned and sat down with an absent and preoccupied expression of face, and he did not linger. the next thursday evening he was at conference meeting, intending to walk home with madeline if she would let him; to ask her, at least. she was there, as usual, and sat at the melodeon. a few minutes before nine cordis came in, evidently for the mere purpose of escorting her home. henry doggedly resolved that she should choose between them then and there, before all the people. the closing hymn was sung, and the buzz of the departing congregation sounded in his ears as if it were far away. he rose and took his place near the door, his face pale, his lips set, regardless of all observers. cordis, with whom he was unacquainted save by sight, stood near by, good-humouredly smiling, and greeting the people as they passed out. in general, madeline liked well enough the excitement of electing between rival suitors, but she would rather, far rather, have avoided this public choice tonight. she had begun to be sorry for henry. she was as long as possible about closing the melodeon. she opened and closed it again. at length, finding no further excuse for delaying, she came slowly down the aisle, looking a little pale herself. several of the village young folks who understood the situation lingered, smiling at one other, to see the fun out, and cordis himself recognized his rival's tragical look with an amused expression, at the same time that he seemed entirely disposed to cross lances with him. as madeline approached the door, henry stepped forward and huskily asked if he might take her home. bowing to him with a gracious smile of declination, she said, "thanks," and, taking cordis's arm, passed out with him. as they came forth into the shadow of the night, beyond the illumination of the porch lamps of the church, cordis observed-"really, that was quite tragical. i half expected he would pull out a revolver and shoot us both. poor fellow, i'm sorry for him." "he was sorrier than you are glad, i dare say, said madeline. "well, i don't know about that," he replied; "i'm as glad as i can be, and i suppose he's as sorry as he can be. i can't imagine any man in love with such a girl as you not being one or the other all the while." but the tone was a little, a very little, colder than the words, and her quick ear caught the difference. "what's the matter? are you vexed about anything? what have i done?" she asked, in a tone of anxious deprecation which no other person but harrison cordis had ever heard from her lips. "you have done nothing," he answered, passing his arm round her waist in a momentary embrace of reassurance. "it is i that am ill-tempered. i couldn't help thinking from the way this burr pursues you that there must have been something in the story about your having been engaged, after all." "it is not true. i never was engaged. i couldn't bear him. i don't like him. only he--he--" "i don't want to pry into your secrets. don't make any confessions to me. i have no right to call you to account," he interrupted her, rather stiffly. "please don't say that. oh, please don't talk that way!" she cried out, as if the words had hurt her like a knife. "he liked me, but i didn't like him. i truly didn't. don't you believe me? what shall i do if you don't?" it must not be supposed that cordis had inspired so sudden and strong a passion in madeline without a reciprocal sentiment. he had been infatuated from the first with the brilliant, beautiful girl, and his jealousy was at least half real, her piteous distress at his slight show of coldness melted him to tenderness. there was an impassioned reconciliation, to which poor henry was the sacrifice. now that he threatened to cost her the smiles of the man she loved, her pity for him was changed into resentment. she said to herself that it was mean and cruel in him to keep pursuing her. it never occurred to her to find cordis's conduct unfair in reproaching her for not having lived solely for him, before she knew even of his existence. she was rather inclined to side with him, and blame herself for having lacked an intuitive prescience of his coming, which should have kept her a nun in heart and soul. the next evening, about dusk, henry was wandering sadly and aimlessly about the streets when he met madeline face to face. at first she seemed rather unpleasantly startled, and made as if she would pass him without giving him an opportunity to speak to her. then she appeared to change her mind, and, stopping directly before him, said, in a low voice-"won't you please leave me alone, after this? your attentions are not welcome." without giving him a chance to reply, she passed on and walked swiftly up the street. he leaned against the fence, and stood motionless for a long time. that was all that was wanting to make his loss complete--an angry word from her. at last his lips moved a little, and slowly formed these words in a husky, very pitiful whisper-"that's the end," chapter vi. there was one person, at least, in the village who had viewed the success of the new drug-clerk in carrying off the belle of newville with entire complacency, and that was ida lewis, the girl with a poor complexion and beautiful brown eyes, who had cherished a rather hopeless inclination for henry; now that he had lost that bold girl, she tremulously assured herself, perhaps it was not quite so hopeless. laura, too, had an idea that such might possibly be the case, and hoping at least to distract her brother, about whom she was becoming quite anxious, she had ida over to tea once or twice, and, by various other devices which with a clever woman are matters of course, managed to throw her in his way. he was too much absorbed to take any notice of this at first, but, one evening when ida was at tea with them, it suddenly flashed upon him, and his face reddened with annoyed embarrassment. he had never felt such a cold anger at laura as at that moment. he had it in his heart to say something very bitter to her. would she not at least respect his grief? he had ado to control the impulse that prompted him to rise and leave the table. and then, with that suddenness characteristic of highly wrought moods, his feelings changed, and he discovered how soft-hearted his own sorrow had made him toward all who suffered in the same way. his eyes smarted with pitifulness as he noted the pains with which the little girl opposite him had tried to make the most of her humble charms in the hope of catching his eye. and the very poverty of those charms made her efforts the more pathetic. he blamed his eyes for the hard clearness with which they noted the shortcomings of the small, unformed features, the freckled skin, the insignificant and niggardly contour, and for the cruelty of the comparison they suggested between all this and madeline's rich beauty. a boundless pity poured out of his heart to cover and transfigure these defects, and he had an impulse to make up to her for them, if he could, by sacrificing himself to her, if she desired. if she felt toward him as he toward madeline, it were worth his life to save the pity of another such heart-breaking. so should he atone, perhaps, for the suffering madeline had given him. after tea he went by himself to nurse these wretched thoughts, and although the sight of ida had suggested them, he went on to think of himself, and soon became so absorbed in his own misery that he quite forgot about her, and, failing to rejoin the girls that evening, ida had to go home alone, which was a great disappointment to her. but it was, perhaps, quite as well, on the whole, for both of them that he was not thrown with her again that evening. it is never fair to take for granted that the greatness of a sorrow or a loss is a just measure of the fault of the one who causes it. madeline was not willingly cruel. she felt sorry in a way for henry whenever his set lips and haggard face came under her view, but sorry in a dim and distant way, as one going on a far and joyous journey is sorry for the former associates he leaves behind, associates whose faces already, ere he goes, begin to grow faded and indistinct. at the wooing of cordis her heart had awaked, and in the high, new joy of loving, she scorned the tame delight of being loved, which, until then, had been her only idea of the passion. henry presently discovered that, to stay in the village a looker-on while the love affair of madeline and cordis progressed to its consummation, was going to be too much for him. instead of his getting used to the situation, it seemed to grow daily more insufferable. every evening the thought that they were together made him feverish and restless till toward midnight, when, with the reflection that cordis had surely by that time left her, came a possibility of sleep. and yet, all this time he was not conscious of any special hate toward that young man.. if he had been in his power he would probably have left him unharmed. he could not, indeed, have raised his hand against anything which madeline cared for. however great his animosity had been, that fact would have made his rival taboo to him. that madeline had turned away from him was the great matter. whither she was turned was of subordinate importance. his trouble was that she loved cordis, not that cordis loved her. it is only low and narrow natures which can find vent for their love disappointments in rage against their successors. in the strictest, truest sense, indeed, although it is certainly a hard saying, there is no room in a clear mind for such a feeling of jealousy. for the way in which every two hearts approach each other is necessarily a peculiar combination of individualities, never before and never after exactly duplicated in human experience. so that, if we can conceive of a woman truly loving several lovers, whether successively or simultaneously, they would not be rivals, for the manner of her love for each, and the manner of each one's love for her, is peculiar and single, even as if they two were alone in the world. the higher the mental grade of the persons concerned, the wider their sympathies, and the more delicate their perceptions, the more true is this. henry had been recently offered a very good position in an arms manufactory in boston, and, having made up his mind to leave the village, he wrote to accept it, and promptly followed his letter, having first pledged his sole newville correspondent, laura, to make no references to madeline in her letters. "if they should be married," he was particular to say, "don't tell me about it till some time afterward." perhaps he worked the better in his new place because he was unhappy. the foe of good work is too easy self-complacency, too ready self-satisfaction, and the tendency to a pleased and relaxed contemplation of life and one's surroundings, growing out of a well-to-do state. such a smarting sense of defeat, of endless aching loss as filled his mind at this time, was a most exacting background for his daily achievements in business and money-making to show up against. he had lost that power of enjoying rest which is at once the reward and limitation of human endeavour. work was his nepenthe, and the difference between poor, superficial work and the best, most absorbing, was simply that between a weaker and a stronger opiate. he prospered in his affairs, was promoted to a position of responsibility with a good salary, and, moreover, was able to dispose of a patent in gun-barrels at a handsome price. with the hope of distracting his mind from morbid brooding over what was past helping, he went into society, and endeavoured to interest himself in young ladies. but in these efforts his success was indifferent. whenever he began to flatter himself that he was gaining a philosophical calm, the glimpse of some face on the street that reminded him of madeline's, an accent of a voice that recalled hers, the sight of her in a dream, brought back in a moment the old thrall and the old bitterness with undiminished strength. eight or nine months after he had left home the longing to return and see what had happened became irresistible. perhaps, after all-although this faint glimmer of a doubt was of his own making, and existed only because he had forbidden laura to tell him to the contrary, he actually took some comfort in it. while he did not dare to put the question to laura, yet he allowed himself to dream that something might possibly have happened to break off the match. he was far, indeed, from formally consenting to entertain such a hope. he professed to himself that he had no doubt that she was married and lost to him for ever. had anything happened to break off the match, laura would certainly have lost no time in telling him such good news. it was childishness to fancy aught else. but no effort of the reason can quite close the windows of the heart against hope, and, like a furtive ray of sunshine finding its way through a closed shutter, the thought that, after all, she might be free surreptitiously illumined the dark place in which he sat. when the train stopped at newville he slipped through the crowd at the station with the briefest possible greetings to the acquaintances he saw, and set out to gain his father's house by a back street. on the way he met harry tuttle, and could not avoid stopping to exchange a few words with him.. as they talked, he was in a miserable panic of apprehension lest harry should blurt out something about madeline's being married. he felt that he could only bear to hear it from laura's lips. whenever the other opened his mouth to speak, a cold dew started out on henry's forehead for fear he was going to make some allusion to madeline; and when at last they separated without his having done so, there was such weakness in his limbs as one feels who first walks after a sickness. he saw his folly now, his madness, in allowing himself to dally with a baseless hope, which, while never daring to own its own existence, had yet so mingled its enervating poison with every vein that he had now no strength left to endure the disappointment so certain and so near. at the very gate of his father's house he paused. a powerful impulse seized him to fly. it was not yet too late. why had he come? he would go back to boston, and write laura by the next mail, and adjure her to tell him nothing. some time he might bear to hear the truth, but not to-day, not now; no, not now. what had he been thinking of to risk it? he would get away where nobody could reach him to slay with a word this shadow of a hope which had become such a necessity of life to him, as is opium to the victim whose strength it has sapped and alone replaces. it was too late! laura, as she sat sewing by the window, had looked up and seen him, and now as he came slowly up the walk she appeared at the door, full of exclamations of surprise and pleasure. he went in, and they sat down. "i thought i'd run out and see how you all were," he said, with a ghastly smile. "i'm so glad you did! father was wondering only this morning if you were never coming to see us again." he wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. "i thought i'd just run out and see you." "yes, i'm so glad you did!" she did not show that she noticed his merely having said the same thing over. "are you pretty well this spring?" she asked. "yes, i'm pretty well." "father was so much pleased about your patent. he's ever so proud of you." after a pause, during which henry looked nervously from point to point about the room, he said-"is he?" "yes, very, and so am i." there was a long silence, and laura took up her work-basket, and bent her face over it, and seemed to have a good deal of trouble in finding some article in it. suddenly he said, in a quick, spasmodic way-"is madeline married?" good god! would she never speak! "no," she answered, with a falling inflection. his heart, which had stopped beating, sent a flood of blood through every artery. but she had spoken as if it were the worst of news, instead of good. ah! could it be? in all his thoughts, in all his dreams by night or day, he had never thought, he had never dreamed of that. "is she dead?" he asked, slowly, with difficulty, his will stamping the shuddering thought into words, as the steel die stamps coins from strips of metal. "no," she replied again, with the same ill-boding tone. "in god's name, what is it?" he cried, springing to his feet. laura looked out at the window so that she might not meet his eye as she answered, in a barely audible voice-"there was a scandal, and he deserted her; and afterward--only last week--she ran away, nobody knows where, but they think to boston." it was about two o'clock in the afternoon when henry heard the fate of madeline. by four o'clock he was on his way back to boston. the expression of his face as he sits in the car is not that which might be expected under the circumstances. it is not that of a man crushed by a hopeless calamity, but rather of one sorely stricken indeed, but still resolute, supported by some strong determination which is not without hope. before leaving newville he called on mrs. brand, who still lived in the same house. his interview with her was very painful. the sight of him set her into vehement weeping, and it was long before he could get her to talk. in the injustice of her sorrow, she reproached him almost bitterly for not marrying madeline, instead of going off and leaving her a victim to cordis. it was rather hard for him to be reproached in this way, but he did not think of saying anything in self-justification. he was ready to take blame upon himself. he remembered no more now how she had rejected, rebuffed, and dismissed him. he told himself that he had cruelly deserted her, and hung his head before the mother's reproaches. the room in which they sat was the same in which he had waited that morning of the picnic, while in his presence she had put the finishing touches to her toilet. there, above the table, hung against the wall the selfsame mirror that on that morning had given back the picture of a girl in white, with crimson braid about her neck and wrists, and a red feather in the hat so jauntily perched above the low forehead--altogether a maiden exceedingly to be desired. perhaps, somewhere, she was standing before a mirror at that moment. but what sort of a flush is it upon her cheeks? what sort of a look is it in her eyes? what is this fell shadow that has passed upon her face? by the time henry was ready to leave the poor mother had ceased her upbraidings, and had yielded quite to the sense of a sympathy, founded in a loss as great as her own, which his presence gave her. he was the only one in all the world from whom she could have accepted sympathy, and in her lonely desolation it was very sweet. and at the last, when, as he was about to go, her grief burst forth afresh, he put his arm around her and drew her head to his shoulder, and tenderly soothed her, and stroked the thin grey hair, till at last the long, shuddering sobs grew a little calmer. it was natural that he should be the one to comfort her. it was his privilege. in the adoption of sorrow, and not of joy, he had taken this mother of his love to be his mother. "don't give her up," he said. "i will find her if she is alive." chapter vii. a search, continued unintermittingly for a week among the hotels and lodging-houses of boston, proved finally successful. he found her. as she opened the door of the miserable apartment which she occupied, and saw who it was that had knocked, the hard, unbeautiful red of shame covered her face. she would have closed the door against him, had he not quickly stepped within. her eyelids fluttered a moment, and then she met his gaze with a look of reckless hardihood. still holding the door half open, she said-"henry burr, what do you want?" the masses of her dark hairs hung low about her neck in disorder, and even in that first glance his eye had noted a certain negligent untidiness about her toilet most different from her former ways. her face was worn and strangely aged and saddened, but beautiful still with the quenchless beauty of the glorious eyes, though sleepless nights had left their dark traces round them; "what do you want? why do you come here?" she demanded again, in harsh, hard tones; for he had been too much moved in looking at her to reply at once. now, however, he took the door-handle out of her hand and closed the door, and said, with only the boundless tenderness of his moist eyes to mend the bluntness of the words-"madeline, i want you. i want you for my wife." the faintest possible trace of scorn was perceptible about her lips, but her former expression of hard indifference was otherwise quite unchanged as she replied, in a spiritless voice-"so you came here to mock me? it was taking a good deal of trouble, but it is fair you should have your revenge." he came close up to her. "i'm not mocking. i'm in earnest. i'm one of those fellows who can never love but one woman, and love her for ever and ever. if there were not a scrap of you left bigger than your thumb, i'd rather have it than any woman in the world." and now her face changed. there came into it the wistful look of those before whom passes a vision of happiness not for them, a look such as might be in the face of a doomed spirit which, floating by, should catch a glimpse of heavenly meads, and be glad to have had it, although its own way lay toward perdition. with a sudden impulse she dropped upon her knee, and seizing the hem of his coat pressed it to her lips, and then, before he could catch her, sprang away, and stood with one arm extended toward him, the palm turned outward, warning him not to touch her. her eyes were marvellously softened with the tears that suffused them, and she said-"i thank you, henry. you are very good. i did not think any man could be so good. now i remember, you always were very good to me. it will make the laudanum taste much sweeter. no! no! don't! pity my shame. spare me that! oh, don't!" but he was stronger than she, and kissed her. it was the second time he had ever done it. her eyes flashed angrily, but that was instantly past, and she fell upon a chair crying as if her heart would break, her hands dropping nervously by her sides; for this was that miserable, desolate sorrow which does not care to hide its flowing tears and wrung face. "oh, you might have spared me that! o god! was it not hard enough before?" she sobbed. in his loving stupidity, thinking to reassure her, he had wounded the pride of shame, the last retreat of self-respect, that cruellest hurt of all. there was a long silence. she seemed to have forgotten that he was there. looking down upon her as she sat desolate, degraded, hopeless before him, not caring to cover her face, his heart swelled till it seemed as if it would burst, with such a sense of piteous loyalty and sublimed devotion as a faithful subject in the brave old times might have felt towards his queen whom he has found in exile, rags, and penury. deserted by gods and men she might be, but his queen for ever she was, whose feet he was honoured to kiss. but what a gulf between feeling this and making her understand his feeling! at length, when her sobs had ceased, he said, quietly-"forgive me. i didn't mean to hurt your feelings." "it's all the same. it's no matter," she answered, listlessly, wiping her eyes with her hand. "i wish you would go away, though, and leave me alone. what do you want with me?" "i want what i have always wanted: i want you for my wife." she looked at him with stupid amazement, as if the real meaning of this already once declared desire had only just distinctly reached her mind, or as if the effect of its first announcement had been quite effaced by the succeeding outburst. "why, i thought you knew! you can't have heard--about me," she said. "i have heard, i know all," he exclaimed, taking a step forward and standing over her. "forgive me, darling! forgive me for being almost glad when i heard that you were free, and not married out of my reach. i can't think of anything except that i've found you. it is you, isn't it? it is you. i don't care what's happened to you, if it is only you." as he spoke in this vehement, fiery way, she had been regarding him with an expression of faint curiosity. "i believe you do really mean it," she said, wonderingly, lingering over the words; "you always were a queer fellow." "mean it!" he exclaimed, kneeling before her, his voice all tremulous with the hope which the slightly yielding intonation of her words had given him. "yes--yes--i mean it." the faint ghost of a smile, which only brought out the sadness of her face, as a taper in a crypt reveals its gloom, hovered about her eyes. "poor boy!" she said; "i've, treated you very badly. i was going to make an end of myself this afternoon, but i will wait till you are tired of your fancy for me. it will make but little difference. there! there! please don't kiss me." chapter viii. he did not insist on their marriage taking place at once, although in her mood of dull indifference she would not have objected to anything he might have proposed. it was his hope that after a while she might become calmer, and more cheerful. he hoped to take in his at the altar a hand a little less like that of a dead person. introducing her as his betrothed wife, he found her very pleasant lodgings with an excellent family, where he was acquainted, provided her with books and a piano, took her constantly out to places of amusement, and, in every way which his ingenuity could suggest, endeavoured to distract and divert her. to all this she offered neither objection nor suggestion, nor did she, beyond the usual conventional responses, show the slightest gratitude. it was as if she took it for granted that he understood, as she did, that all this was being done for himself, and not for her, she being quite past having anything done for her. her only recognition of the reverential and considerate tenderness which he showed her was an occasional air of wonder that cut him to the quick. shame, sorrow, and despair had incrusted her heart with a hard shell, impenetrable to genial emotions. nor would all his love help him to get over the impression that she was no longer an acquaintance and familiar friend, but somehow a stranger. so far as he could find out, she did absolutely nothing all day except to sit brooding. he could not discover that she so much as opened the books and magazines he sent her, and, to the best of his knowledge, she made little more use of her piano. his calls were sadly dreary affairs. he would ask perhaps half a dozen questions, which he had spent much care in framing with a view to interesting her. she would reply in monosyllables, with sometimes a constrained smile or two, and then, after sitting a while in silence, he would take his hat and bid her good-evening. she always sat nowadays in an attitude which he had never seen her adopt in former times, her hands lying in her lap before her, and an absent expression on her face. as he looked at her sitting thus, and recalled her former vivacious self-assertion and ever-new caprices, he was overcome with the sadness of the contrast. whenever he asked her about her health, she replied that she was well; and, indeed, she had that appearance. grief is slow to sap the basis of a healthy physical constitution. she retained all the contour of cheek and rounded fulness of figure which had first captivated his fancy in the days, as it seemed, so long ago. he took her often to the theatre, because in the action of the play she seemed at times momentarily carried out of herself. once, when they were coming home from a play, she called attention to some feature of it. it was the first independent remark she had made since he had brought her to her lodgings. in itself it was of no importance at all, but he was overcome with delight, as people are delighted with the first words that show returning interest in earthly matters on the part of a convalescing friend whose soul has long been hovering on the borders of death. it would sound laughable to explain how much he made of that little remark, how he spun it out, and turned it in and out, and returned to it for days afterward. but it remained isolated. she did not make another. nevertheless, her mind was not so entirely torpid as it appeared, nor was she so absolutely self-absorbed. one idea was rising day by day out of the dark confusion of her thoughts, and that was the goodness and generosity of her lover. in this appreciation there was not the faintest glows of gratitude. she left herself wholly out of the account as only one could do with whom wretchedness has abolished for the time all interest in self. she was personally past being benefited. her sense of his love and generosity was as disinterested as if some other person had been their object. her admiration was such as one feels for a hero of history or fiction. often, when all within her seemed growing hard and still and dead, she felt that crying would make her feel better. at such times, to help her to cry, for the tears did not flow easily, she would sit down to the piano, the only times she ever touched it, and play over some of the simple airs associated with her life at home. sometimes, after playing and crying a while, she would lapse into sweetly mournful day-dreams of how happy she might have been if she had returned henry's love in those old days. she wondered in a puzzled way why it was that she had not. it seemed so strange to her now that she could have failed in doing so. but all this time it was only as a might-have-been that she thought of loving him, as one who feels himself mortally sick thinks of what he might have done when he was well, as a life-convict thinks of what he might have done when free, as a disembodied spirit might think of what it might have done when living. the consciousness of her disgrace, ever with her, had, in the past month or two, built up an impassable wall between her past life and her present state of existence. she no longer thought of herself in the present tense, still less the future. he had not kissed her since that kiss at their first interview, which threw her into such a paroxysm of weeping. but one evening, when she had been more silent and dull than usual, and more unresponsive to his efforts to interest her, as he rose to go he drew her a moment to his side and pressed his lips to hers, as if constrained to find some expression for the tenderness so cruelly balked of any outflow in words. he went quickly out, but she continued to stand motionless, in the attitude of one startled by a sudden discovery. there was a frightened look in her dilated eyes. her face was flooded to the roots of her hair with a deep flush. it was a crimson most unlike the tint of blissful shame with which the cheeks announce love's dawn in happy hearts. she threw herself upon the sofa, and buried her scorched face in the pillow while her form shook with dry sobs. love had, in a moment, stripped the protecting cicatrice of a hard indifference from her smarting shame, and it was as if for the first time she were made fully conscious of the desperation of her condition. the maiden who finds her stainless purity all too lustreless a gift for him she loves, may fancy what were the feelings of madeline, as love, with its royal longing to give, was born in her heart. with what lilies of virgin innocence would she fain have rewarded her lover! but her lilies were yellow, their fragrance was stale. with what an unworn crown would she have crowned him! but she had rifled her maiden regalia to adorn an impostor. and love came to her now, not as to others, but whetting the fangs of remorse and blowing the fires of shame. but one thing it opened her eyes to, and made certain from the first instant of her new consciousness, namely, that since she loved him she could not keep her promise to marry him. in her previous mood of dead indifference to all things, it had not mattered to her one way or the other. reckless what became of her, she had only a feeling that seeing he had been so good he ought to have any satisfaction he could find in marrying her. but what her indifference would have abandoned to him her love could not endure the thought of giving. the worthlessness of the gift, which before had not concerned her, now made its giving impossible. while before she had thought with indifference of submitting to a love she did not return, now that she returned it the idea of being happy in it seemed to her guilty and shameless. thus to gather the honey of happiness from her own abasement was a further degradation, compared with which she could now almost respect herself. the consciousness that she had taken pleasure in that kiss made her seem to herself a brazen thing. her heart ached with a helpless yearning over him for the disappointment she knew he must now suffer at her hands. she tried, but in vain, to feel that she might, after all, marry him, might do this crowning violence to her nature, and accept a shameful happiness for his sake. one morning a bitter thing happened to her. she had slept unusually well, and her dreams had been sweet and serene, untinged by any shadow of her waking thoughts, as if, indeed, the visions intended for the sleeping brain of some fortunate woman had by mistake strayed into hers. for a while she had lain, half dozing, half awake, pleasantly conscious of the soft, warm bed, and only half emerged from the atmosphere of dreamland. as at last she opened her eyes, the newly risen sun, bright from his ocean bath, was shining into the room, and the birds were singing. a lilac bush before the window was moving in the breeze, and the shadows of its twigs were netting the sunbeams on the wall as they danced to and fro. the spirit of the jocund morn quite carried her away, and all unthinkingly she bounded out into the room and, stood there with a smile of sheer delight upon her face. she had forgotten all about her shame and sorrow. for an instant they were as completely gone from her mind as if they had never been, and for that instant nowhere did the sun's far-reaching eye rest on a blither or more innocent face. then memory laid its icy finger on her heart and stilled its bounding pulse. the glad smile went out, like a taper quenched in acheron, and she fell prone upon the floor, crying with hard, dry sobs, "o god! o god! o god!" that day, and for many days afterward, she thought again and again of that single happy instant ere memory reclaimed its victim. it was the first for so long a time, and it was so very sweet, like a drop of water to one in torment. what a heaven a life must be which had many such moments! was it possible that once, long ago, her life had been such an one--that she could awake mornings and not be afraid of remembering? had there ever been a time when the ravens of shame and remorse had not perched above her bed as she slept, waiting her waking to plunge their beaks afresh into her heart? that instant of happiness which had been given her, how full it had been of blithe thanks to god and sympathy with the beautiful life of the world! surely it showed that she was not bad, that she could have such a moment. it showed her heart was pure; it was only her memory that was foul. it was in vain that she swept and washed all within, and was good, when all the while her memory, like a ditch from a distant morass, emptied its vile stream of recollections into her heart, poisoning all the issues of life. years before, in one of the periodical religious revivals at newville, she had passed through the usual girlish experience of conversion. now, indeed, was a time when the heavenly compensations to which religion invites the thoughts of the sorrowful might surely have been a source of dome relief. but a certain cruel clearness of vision, or so at least it seemed to her, made all reflections on this theme but an aggravation of her despair. since the shadow had fallen on her life, with every day the sense of shame and grief had grown more insupportable. in proportion as her loathing of the sin had grown, her anguish on account of it had increased. it was a poison-tree which her tears watered and caused to shoot forth yet deeper roots, yet wider branches, overspreading her life with ever denser, more noxious shadows. since, then, on earth the purification of repentance does but deepen the soul's anguish over the past, how should it be otherwise in heaven, all through eternity? the pure in heart that see god, thought the unhappy girl, must only be those that have always been so, for such as become pure by repentance and tears do but see their impurity plainer every day. her horror of such a heaven, where through eternity perfect purification should keep her shame undying, taught her unbelief, and turned her for comfort to that other deep instinct of humanity, which sees in death the promise of eternal sleep, rest, and oblivion. in these days she thought much of poor george bayley, and his talk in the prayer-meeting the night before he killed himself. by the mystic kinship that had declared itself between their sorrowful destinies, she felt a sense of nearness to him greater than her new love had given or ever could give her toward henry. she recalled how she had sat listening to george's talk that evening, pitifully, indeed, but only half comprehending what he meant, with no dim, foreboding warning that she was fated to reproduce his experience so closely. yes, reproduce it, perhaps, god only knew, even to the end. she could not bear this always. she understood now--ah! how well--his longing for the river of lethe whose waters give forgetfulness. she often saw his pale face in dreams, wearing the smile he wore as he lay in the coffin, a smile as if he had been washed in those waters he sighed for. chapter ix. henry had not referred to their marriage after the first interview. from day to day, and week to week, he had put off doing so, hoping that she might grow into a more serene condition of mind. but in this respect the result had sadly failed to answer his expectation. he could not deny to himself that, instead of becoming more cheerful, she was relapsing into a more and more settled melancholy. from day to day he noted the change, like that of a gradual petrifaction, which went on in her face. it was as if before his eyes she were sinking into a fatal stupor, from which all his efforts could not rouse her. there were moments when he experienced the chilling premonition of a disappointment, the possibility of which he still refused to actually entertain. he owned to himself that it was a harder task than he had thought to bring back to life one whose veins the frost of despair has chilled. there were, perhaps, some things too hard even for his love. it was doubly disheartening for him thus to lose confidence; not only on his own account, but on hers. not only had he to ask himself what would become of his life in the event of failure, but what would become of hers? one day overcome by this sort of discouragement, feeling that he was not equal to the case, that matters were growing worse instead of better, and that he needed help from some source, he asked madeline if he had not better write to her mother to come to boston, so that they two could keep house together. "no," she said in a quick, startled voice, looking up at him in a scared way. he hastened to reassure her, and say that he had not seriously thought of it, but he noticed that during the rest of the evening she cast furtive glances of apprehension at him, as if suspicious that he had some plot against her. she had fled from home because she could not bear her mother's eyes. meanwhile he was becoming almost as preoccupied and gloomy as she, and their dreary interviews grew more dreary than ever, for she was now scarcely more silent than he. his constant and increasing anxiety, in addition to the duties of a responsible business position, began to tell on his health. the owner of the manufactory of which he was superintendent, called him into his office one day, and told him he was working too hard, and must take a little vacation. but he declined. soon after a physician whom he knew buttonholed him on the street, and managed to get in some shrewd questions about his health. henry owned he did not sleep much nights. the doctor said he must take a vacation, and, this being declared impossible, forced a box of sleeping powders on him, and made him promise to try them. all this talk about his health; as well as his own sensations, set him to thinking of the desperate position in which madeline would be left in the event of his serious sickness or death. that very day he made up his mind that it would not do to postpone their marriage any longer. it seemed almost brutal to urge it on her in her present frame of mind, and yet it was clearly out of the question to protract the present situation. the quarter of the city in which he resided was suburban, and he went home every night by the steam cars. as he sat in the car that evening waiting for the train to start, two gentlemen in the seat behind fell to conversing about a new book on mental physiology, embodying the latest discoveries. they kept up a brisk talk on this subject till henry left the car. he could not, however, have repeated a single thing which they had said. preoccupied with his own thoughts, he had only been dimly conscious what they were talking about. his ears had taken in their words, but he had heard as not hearing. after tea, in the gloaming, he called, as usual, on madeline. after a few casual words, he said, gently-"madeline, you remember you promised to marry me a few weeks ago. i have not hurried you, but i want you now. there is no use in waiting any longer, dear, and i want you." she was sitting in a low chair, her hands folded in her lap, and as he spoke her head sank so low upon her breast that he could not see her face. he was silent for some moments waiting a reply, but she made none. "i know it was only for my sake you promised," he said again. "i know it will be nothing to you, and yet i would not press you if i did not think i could make you happier so. i will give up my business for a time, and we will travel and see the world a little." still she did not speak, but it was to some extent a reassurance to him that she showed no agitation. "are you willing that we should be married in a few days?" he asked. she lifted her head slowly, and looked at him steadfastly. "you are right," she said. "it is useless to keep on this way any longer." "you consent, then?" said he, quite encouraged by her quiet air and apparent willingness. "don't press me for an answer to-night," she replied, after a pause, during which she regarded him with a singular fixity of expression. "wait till to-morrow. you shall have an answer to-morrow. you are quite right. i've been thinking so myself. it is no use to put it off any longer." he spoke to her once or twice after this, but she was gazing out through the window into the darkening sky, and did not seem to hear him. he rose to go, and had already reached the hail, when she called him-"come back a moment henry." he came back. "i want you to kiss me," she said. she was standing in the middle of the room. her tall figure in its black dress was flooded with the weird radiance of the rising moon, nor was the moonshine whiter than her cheek, nor sadder than her steadfast eyes. her lips were soft and yielding, clinging, dewy wet. he had never thought a kiss could be so sweet, and yet he could have wept, he knew not why. when he reached his lodgings he was in an extremely nervous condition. in spite of all that was painful and depressing in the associations of the event, the idea of having madeline for his wife in a few days more had power to fill him with feverish excitement, an excitement all the more agitating because it was so composite in its elements, and had so little in common with the exhilaration and light-heartedness of successful lovers in general. he took one of the doctor's sleeping powders, tried to read a dry book on electricity, endeavoured to write a business letter, smoked a cigar, and finally went to bed. it seemed to him that he went all the next day in a dazed, dreaming state, until the moment when he presented himself, after tea, at madeline's lodgings, and she opened the door to him. the surprise which he then experienced was calculated to arouse him had he been indeed dreaming. his first thought was that she had gone crazy, or else had been drinking wine to raise her spirits; for there was a flush of excitement on either cheek, and her eyes were bright and unsteady. in one hand she held, with a clasp that crumpled the leaves, a small scientific magazine, which he recognized as having been one of a bundle of periodicals that he had sent her. with her other hand, instead of taking the hand which he extended, she clutched his arm and almost pulled him inside the door. "henry, do you remember what george bayley said that night in meeting, about the river of lethe, in which, souls were bathed and forgot the past?" "i remember something about it," he answered. "there is such a river. it was not a fable. it has been found again," she cried. "come and sit down, dear don't excite yourself so much. we will talk quietly," he replied, with a pitiful effort to speak soothingly, for he made no question that her long brooding had affected her mind. "quietly! how do you suppose i can talk quietly?" she exclaimed excitedly, in her nervous irritation throwing off the hand which he had laid on her arm. "henry, see here, i want to ask you something. supposing anybody had done something bad and had been very sorry for it, and then had forgotten it all, forgotten it wholly, would you think that made them good again? would it seem so to you? tell me!" "yes, surely; but it isn't necessary they should forget, so long as they're sorry." "but supposing they had forgotten too?" "yes, surely, it would be as if it had never been." "henry," she said, her voice dropping to a low, hushed tone of wonder, while her eyes were full of mingled awe and exultation, "what if i were to forget it, forget that you know, forget it all, everything, just as if it had never been?" he stared at her with fascinated eyes. she was, indeed, beside herself. grief had made her mad.. the significance of his expression seemed to recall her to herself, and she said-"you don't understand. of course not. you think i'm crazy. here, take it. go somewhere and read it. don't stay here to do it. i couldn't stand to look on. go! hurry! read it, and then come back." she thrust the magazine into his hand, and almost pushed him out of the door. but he went no further than the hall. he could not think of leaving her in that condition. then it occurred to him to look at the magazine. he opened it by the light of the hall lamp, and his eyes fell on these words, the title of an article: "the extirpation of thought processes. a new invention." if she were crazy, here was at least the clue to her condition. he read on; his eyes leaped along the lines. the writer began with a clear account of the discoveries of modern psychologists and physiologists as to the physical basis of the intellect, by which it has been ascertained that certain ones of the millions of nerve corpuscles or fibres in the grey substance in the brain, record certain classes of sensations and the ideas directly connected with them, other classes of sensations with the corresponding ideas being elsewhere recorded by other groups of corpuscles. these corpuscles of the grey matter, these mysterious and infinitesimal hieroglyphics, constitute the memory of the record of the life, so that when any particular fibre or group of fibres is destroyed certain memories or classes of memories are destroyed, without affecting others which are elsewhere embodied in other fibres. of the many scientific and popular demonstrations of these facts which were adduced, reference was made to the generally known fact that the effect of disease or injury at certain points in the brain is to destroy definite classes of acquisitions or recollections, leaving others untouched. the article then went on to refer to the fact that one of the known effects of the galvanic battery as medically applied, is to destroy and dissolve morbid tissues, while leaving healthy ones unimpaired. given then a patient, who by excessive indulgence of any particular train of thought, had brought the group of fibres which were the physical seat of such thoughts into a diseased condition, dr. gustav heidenhoff had invented a mode of applying the galvanic battery so as to destroy the diseased corpuscles, and thus annihilate the class of morbid ideas involved beyond the possibility of recollection, and entirely without affecting other parts of the brain or other classes of ideas. the doctor saw patients tuesdays and saturdays at his office, 79 ---street. madeline was not crazy, thought henry, as still standing under the hall lamp he closed the article, but dr. heidenhoff certainly was. never had such a sad sense of the misery of her condition been borne in upon him, as when he reflected that it had been able to make such a farrago of nonsense seem actually creditable to her. overcome with poignant sympathy, and in serious perplexity how best he could deal with her excited condition, he slipped out of the house and walked for an hour about the streets. returning, he knocked again at the door of her parlour. "have you read it?" she asked, eagerly, as she opened it. "yes, i've read it. i did not mean to send you such trash. the man must be either an escaped lunatic or has tried his hand at a hoax. it is a tissue of absurdity." he spoke bluntly, almost harshly, because he was in terror at the thought that she might be allowing herself to be deluded by this wild and baseless fancy, but he looked away as he spoke. he could not bear to see the effect of his words. "it is not absurd," she cried, clasping his arm convulsively with both hands so that she hurt him, and looking fiercely at him out of hot, fevered eyes. "it is the most reasonable thing in the world. it must be true. there can be no mistake. god would not let me be so deceived. he is not so cruel. don't tell me anything else." she was in such a hysterical condition that he saw he must be very gentle. "but, madeline, you will admit that if he is not the greatest of all discoverers, he must be a dangerous quack. his process might kill you or make you insane. it must be very perilous." "if i knew there were a hundred chances that it would kill me to one that it would succeed, do you think i would hesitate?" she cried. the utmost concession that he could obtain her consent to was that he should first visit this dr. heidenhoff alone, and make some inquiries of and about him. chapter x. the next day he called at 79 ---street. there was a modest shingle bearing the name "dr. gustav heidenhoff" fastened up on the side of the house, which was in the middle of a brick block. on announcing that he wanted to see the doctor, he was ushered into a waiting-room, whose walls were hung with charts of the brain and nervous system, and presently a tall, scholarly-looking man, with a clean-shaven face, frosty hair, and very genial blue eyes, deep set beneath extremely bushy grey eyebrows, entered and announced himself as dr. heidenhoff. henry, who could not help being very favourably impressed by his appearance, opened the conversation by saying that he wanted to make some inquiries about the thought-extirpation process in behalf of a friend who was thinking of trying it. the doctor, who spoke english with idiomatic accuracy, though with a slightly german accent, expressed his willingness to give him all possible information, and answered all his questions with great apparent candour, illustrating his explanations by references to the charts which covered the walls of the office. he took him into an inner office and showed his batteries, and explained that the peculiarity of his process consisted, not in any new general laws and facts of physiology which he had discovered, but entirely in peculiarities in his manner of applying his galvanic current, talking much about apodes, cathodes, catelectrotonus and anelectrotonus, resistance and rheostat, reactions, fluctuations, and other terms of galvano-therapeutics. the doctor frankly admitted that he was not in a way of making a great deal of money or reputation by his discovery. it promised too much, and people consequently thought it must be quackery, and as sufficient proof of this he mentioned that he had now been five years engaged in practising the thought-extirpation process without having attained any considerable celebrity or attracting a great number of patients. but he had a sufficient support in other branches of medical practice, he added, and, so long as he had patients enough for experimentation with the aim of improving the process, he was quite satisfied. he listened with great interest to henry's account of madeline's case. the success of galvanism in obliterating the obnoxious train of recollections in her case would depend, he said, on whether it had been indulged to an extent to bring about a morbid state of the brain fibres concerned. what might be conventionally or morally morbid or objectionable, was not, however, necessarily disease in the material sense, and nothing but experiment could absolutely determine whether the two conditions coincided in any case. at any rate, he positively assured henry that no harm could ensue to the patient, whether the operation succeeded or not. "it is a pity, young man," he said, with a flash of enthusiasm, "that you don't come to me twenty years later. then i could guarantee your friend the complete extirpation of any class of inconvenient recollections she might desire removed, whether they were morbid or healthy; for since the great fact of the physical basis of the intellect has been established, i deem it only a question of time when science shall have so accurately located the various departments of thought and mastered the laws of their processes, that, whether by galvanism or some better process, the mental physician will be able to extract a specific recollection from the memory as readily as a dentist pulls a tooth, and as finally, so far as the prevention of any future twinges in that quarter are concerned. macbeth's question, 'canst thou not minister to a mind diseased; pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow; raze out the written troubles of the brain?' was a puzzler to the sixteenth century doctor, but he of the twentieth, yes, perhaps of the nineteenth, will be able to answer it affirmatively." "is the process at all painful ?" "in no degree, my dear sir. patients have described to me their sensations many times, and their testimony is quite in agreement. when the circuit is closed there is a bubbling, murmurous sound in the ears, a warm sensation where the wires touch the cranium, and a feeling as of a motion through the brain, entering at one point and going out at another. there are also sparks of fire seen under the closed eyelids, an unpleasant taste in the mouth, and a sensation of smell; that is all." "but the mental sensations ?" said henry. "i should think they must be very peculiar, the sense of forgetting in spite of one's self, for i suppose the patient's mind is fixed on the very thoughts which the intent of the operation is to extirpate." "peculiar? oh no, not at all peculiar," replied the doctor. "there are abundant analogies for it in our daily experience. from the accounts of patients i infer that it is not different from one's sensations in falling asleep while thinking of something. you know that we find ourselves forgetting preceding links in the train of thought, and in turning back to recall what went before, what came after is meanwhile forgotten, the clue is lost, and we yield to a pleasing bewilderment which is presently itself forgotten in sleep. the next morning we may or may not recall the matter. the only difference is that after the deep sleep which always follows the application of my process we never recall it, that is, if the operation has been successful. it seems to involve no more interference with the continuity of the normal physical and mental functions than does an afternoon's nap." "but the after-effects!" persisted henry. "patients must surely feel that they have forgotten something, even if they do not know what it is. they must feel that there is something gone out of their minds. i should think this sensation would leave them in a painfully bewildered state." "there seems to be a feeling of slight confusion," said the doctor; "but it is not painful, not more pronounced, indeed, than that of persons who are trying to bring back a dream which they remember having had without being able to recall the first thing about what it was. of course, the patient subsequently finds shreds and fragments of ideas, as well as facts in his external relations, which, having been connected with the extirpated subject, are now unaccountable. about these the feeling is, i suppose, like that of a man who, when he gets over a fit of drunkenness or somnambulism, finds himself unable to account for things which he has unconsciously said or done. the immediate effect of the operation, as i intimated before, is to leave the patient very drowsy, and the first desire is to sleep." "doctor," said henry, "when you talk it all seems for the moment quite reasonable, but you will pardon me for saying that, as soon as you stop, the whole thing appears to be such an incredible piece of nonsense that i have to pinch myself to be sure i am not dreaming." the doctor smiled. "well," said he, "i have been so long engaged in the practical application of the process that i confess i can't realize any element of the strange or mysterious about it. to the eye of the philosopher nothing is wonderful, or else you may say all things are equally so. the commonest and so-called simplest fact in the entire order of nature is precisely as marvellous and incomprehensible at bottom as the most uncommon and startling. you will pardon me if i say that it is only to the unscientific that it seems otherwise. but really, my dear sir, my process for the extirpation of thoughts was but the most obvious consequence of the discovery that different classes of sensations and ideas are localized in the brain, and are permanently identified with particular groups of corpuscles of the grey matter. as soon as that was known, the extirpating of special clusters of thoughts became merely a question of mechanical difficulties to be overcome, merely a nice problem in surgery, and not more complex than many which my brethren have solved in lithotomy and lithotrity, for instance." "i suppose what makes the idea a little more startling," said henry, "is the odd intermingling of moral and physical conceptions in the idea of curing pangs of conscience by a surgical operation." "i should think that intermingling ought not to be very bewildering," replied the doctor, "since it is the usual rule. why is it more curious to cure remorse by a physical act than to cause remorse by a physical act? and i believe such is the origin of most remorse." "yes," said henry, still struggling to preserve his mental equilibrium against this general overturning of his prejudices. "yes, but the mind consents to the act which causes the remorse, and i suppose that is what gives it a moral quality." "assuredly," replied the doctor; "and i take it for granted that patients don't generally come to me unless they have experienced very genuine and profound regret and sorrow for the act they wish to forget. they have already repented it, and, according to every theory of moral accountability, i believe it is held that repentance balances the moral accounts. my process, you see then, only completes physically what is already done morally. the ministers and moralists preach forgiveness and absolution on repentance, but the perennial fountain of the penitent's tears testifies how empty and vain such assurances are. i fulfil what they promise. they tell the penitent he is forgiven. i free him from his sin. remorse and shame and wan regret have wielded their cruel sceptres over human lives from the beginning until now. seated within the mysterious labyrinths of the brain, they have deemed their sway secure, but the lightning of science has reached them on their thrones and set their bondmen free;" and with an impressive gesture the doctor touched the battery at his side. without giving further details of his conversation with this strange master of life, it is sufficient to say that henry finally agreed upon an appointment for madeline on the following day, feeling something as if he were making an unholy compact with the devil. he could not possibly have said whether he really expected anything from it or not. his mind had been in a state of bewilderment and constant fluctuation during the entire interview, at one moment carried away by the contagious confidence of the doctor's tone, and impressed by his calm, clear, scientific explanations and the exhibition of the electrical apparatus, and the next moment reacting into utter scepticism and contemptuous impatience with himself for even listening to such a preposterous piece of imposition. by the time he had walked half a block, the sights and sounds of the busy street, with their practical and prosaic suggestions, had quite dissipated the lingering influence of the necromantic atmosphere of dr. heidenhoff's office, and he was sure that he had been a fool. he went to see madeline that evening, with his mind made up to avoid telling her, if possible, that he had made the appointment, and to make such a report as should induce her to dismiss the subject. but he found it was quite impossible to maintain any such reticence toward one in her excited and peremptory mood. he was forced to admit the fact of the appointment. "why didn't you make it in the forenoon?" she demanded. "what for? it is only a difference of a few hours," he replied. "and don't you think a few hours is anything to me?" she cried, bursting into hysterical tears. "you must not be so confident," he expostulated. "it scares me to see you so when you are so likely to be disappointed. even the doctor said he could not promise success. it would depend on many things." "what is the use of telling me that ?" she said, suddenly becoming very calm. "when i've just one chance for life, do you think it is kind to remind me that it may fail? let me alone to-night." the mental agitation of the past two days, supervening on so long a period of profound depression, had thrown her into a state of agitation bordering on hysteria. she was constantly changing her attitude, rising and seating herself, and walking excitedly about. she would talk rapidly one moment, and then relapse into a sudden chilled silence in which she seemed to hear nothing. once or twice she laughed a hard, unnatural laugh of pure nervousness. presently she said-"after i've forgotten all about myself, and no longer remember any reason why i shouldn't marry you, you will still remember what i've forgotten, and perhaps you won't want me." "you know very well that i want you any way, and just the same whatever happens or doesn't happen," he answered. "i wonder whether it will be fair to let you marry me after i've forgotten," she continued, thoughtfully. "i don't know, but i ought to make you promise now that you won't ask me to be your wife, for, of course, i shouldn't then know any reason for refusing you." "i wouldn't promise that." "oh, but you wouldn't do so mean a thing as to take an unfair advantage of my ignorance," she replied. "any way, i now release you from your engagement to marry me, and leave you to do as you choose tomorrow after i've forgotten. i would make you promise not to let me marry you then, if i did not feel that utter forgetfulness of the past will leave me as pure and as good as if--as if--i were like other women;" and she burst into tears, and cried bitterly for a while. the completeness with which she had given herself up to the belief that on the morrow her memory was to be wiped clean of the sad past, alternately terrified him and momentarily seduced him to share the same fool's paradise of fancy. and it is needless to say that the thought of receiving his wife to his arms as fresh and virgin in heart and memory as when her girlish beauty first entranced him, was very sweet to his imagination. "i suppose i'll have mother with me then," she said, musingly. "how strange it will be! i've been thinking about it all day. i shall often find her looking at me oddly, and ask her what she is thinking of, and she will put me off. why, henry, i feel as dying persons do about having people look at their faces after they are dead. i shouldn't like to have any of my enemies who knew all about me see me after i've forgotten. you'll take care that they don't, won't you, henry?" "why, dear, that is morbid. what is it to a dead person, whose soul is in heaven, who looks at his dead face? it will be so with you after to-morrow if the process succeeds." she thought a while, and then said, shaking her head-"well, anyhow, i'd rather none but my friends, of those who used to know me, should see me. you'll see to it, henry. you may look at me all you please, and think of what you please as you look. i don't care to take away the memory of anything from you. i don't believe a woman ever trusted a man as i do you. i'm sure none ever had reason to. i should be sorry if you didn't know all my faults. if there's a record to be kept of them anywhere in the universe, i'd rather it should be in your heart than anywhere else, unless, maybe, god has a heart like yours;" and she smiled at him through those sweetest tears that ever well up in human eyes, the tears of a limitless and perfect trust. at one o'clock the next afternoon madeline was sitting on the sofa in dr. heidenhoff's reception-room with compressed lips and pale cheeks, while henry was nervously striding to and fro across the room, and furtively watching her with anxious looks. neither had had much to say that morning. "all ready," said the doctor, putting his head in at the door of his office and again disappearing. madeline instantly rose. henry put his hand on her arm, and said-"remember, dear, this was your idea, not mine, and if the experiment fails that makes no difference to me." she bowed her head without replying, and they went into the office. madeline, trembling and deadly pale, sat down in the operating chair, and her head was immovably secured by padded clamps. she closed her eyes and put her hand in henry's. "now," said the doctor to her, "fix your attention on the class of memories which you wish destroyed; the electric current more readily follows the fibres which are being excited by the present passage of nervous force. touch my arm when you find your thoughts somewhat concentrated." in a few moments she pressed the doctor's arm, and instantly the murmurous, bubbling hum of the battery began. she, clasped henry's hand a little firmer, but made no other sign. the noise stopped. the doctor was removing the clamps. she opened her eyes and closed them again drowsily. "oh, i'm so sleepy." "you shall lie down and take a nap," said the doctor. there was a little retiring-room connected with the office where there was a sofa. no sooner had she laid her head on the pillow than she fell asleep. the doctor and henry remained in the operating office, the door into the retiring-room being just ajar, so that they could hear her when she awoke. chapter xi. "how long will she sleep, doctor?" asked henry, after satisfying himself by looking through the crack of the door that she was actually asleep. "patients do not usually wake under an hour or two," replied the doctor. "she was very drowsy, and that is a good sign. i think we may have the best hopes of the result of the operation." henry walked restlessly to and fro. after dr. heidenhoff had regarded him a few moments, he said-"you are nervous, sir. there is quite a time to wait, and it is better to remain as calm as possible, for, in the event of an unsatisfactory result, your friend will need soothing, and you will scarcely be equal to that if you are yourself excited. i have some very fair cigars here. do me the honour to try one. i prescribe it medicinally. your nerves need quieting;" and he extended his cigar-case to the young man. as henry with a nod of acknowledgment took a cigar and lit it, and resumed his striding to and fro, the doctor, who had seated himself comfortably, began to talk, apparently with the kindly intent of diverting the other's mind. "there are a number of applications of the process i hope to make, which will be rather amusing experiments. take, for instance, the case of a person who has committed a murder, come to me, and forgotten all about it. suppose he is subsequently arrested, and the fact ascertained that while he undoubtedly committed the crime, he cannot possibly recall his guilt, and so far as his conscience is concerned, is as innocent as a new-born babe, what then? what do you think the authorities would do?" "i think," said henry, "that they would be very much puzzled what to do." "exactly," said the doctor; "i think so too. such a case would bring out clearly the utter confusion and contradiction in which the current theories of ethics and moral responsibility are involved. it is time the world was waked up on that subject. i should hugely enjoy precipitating such a problem on the community. i'm hoping every day a murderer will come in and require my services. "there is another sort of case which i should also like to have," he continued; shifting his cigar to the other side of his mouth, and uncrossing and recrossing his knees. "suppose a man has done another a great wrong, and, being troubled by remorse, comes to me and has the sponge of oblivion passed over that item in his memory. suppose the man he has wronged, pursuing him with a heart full of vengeance, gets him at last in his power, but at the same time finds out that he has forgotten, and can't be made to remember, the act he desires to punish him for." "it would be very vexatious," said henry.. "wouldn't it, though? i can imagine the pursuer, the avenger, if a really virulent fellow, actually weeping tears of despite as he stands before his victim and marks the utter unconsciousness of any offence with which his eyes meet his own. such a look would blunt the very stiletto of a corsican. what sweetness would there be in vengeance if the avenger, as he plunged the dagger in his victim's bosom, might not hiss in his ear, 'remember!' as well find satisfaction in torturing an idiot or mutilating a corpse. i am not talking now of brutish fellows, who would kick a stock or stone which they stumbled over, but of men intelligent enough to understand what vengeance is." "but don't you fancy the avenger, in the case you supposed, would retain some bitterness towards his enemy, even though he had forgotten the offence?" "i fancy he would always feel a certain cold dislike and aversion for him," replied the doctor--"an aversion such as one has for an object or an animal associated with some painful experience; but any active animosity would be a moral impossibility, if he were quite certain that there was absolutely no guilty consciousness on the other's part. "but scarcely any application of the process gives me so much pleasure to dream about as its use to make forgiving possible, full, free, perfect, joyous forgiving, in cases where otherwise, however good our intentions, it is impossible, simply because we cannot forget. because they cannot forget, friends must part from friends who have wronged them, even though they do from their hearts wish them well. but they must leave them, for they cannot bear to look in their eyes and be reminded every time of some bitter thing. to all such what good tidings will it be to learn of my process! "why, when the world gets to understand about it i expect that two men or two women, or a man and a woman, will come in here, and say to me, 'we have quarrelled and outraged each other, we have injured our friend, our wife, our husband; we regret, we would forgive, but we cannot, because we remember. put between us the atonement of forgetfulness, that we may love each other as of old,' and so joyous will be the tidings of forgiveness made easy and perfect, that none will be willing to waste even an hour in enmity. raging foes in the heat of their first wrath will bethink themselves ere they smite, and come to me for a more perfect satisfaction of their feud than any vengeance could promise." henry suddenly stopped in his restless pacing, stepped on tiptoe to the slightly opened door of the retiring room, and peered anxiously in. he thought he heard a slight stir. but no; she was still sleeping deeply, her position quite unchanged. he drew noiselessly back, and again almost closed the door. "i suppose," resumed the doctor, after a pause, "that i must prepare myself as soon as the process gets well enough known to attract attention to be roundly abused by the theologians and moralists. i mean, of course, the thicker-headed ones. they'll say i've got a machine for destroying conscience, and am sapping the foundations of society. i believe that is the phrase. the same class of people will maintain that it's wrong to cure the moral pain which results from a bad act who used to think it wrong to cure the physical diseases induced by vicious indulgence. but the outcry won't last long, for nobody will be long in seeing that the morality of the two kinds of cures is precisely the same, if one is wrong, the other is. if there is something holy and god-ordained in the painful consequences of sin, it is as wrong to meddle with those consequences when they are physical as when they are mental. the alleged reformatory effect of such suffering is as great in one case as the other. but, bless you, nobody nowadays holds that a doctor ought to refuse to set a leg which its owner broke when drunk or fighting, so that the man may limp through life as a warning to himself and others. "i know some foggy-minded people hold in a vague way that the working of moral retribution is somehow more intelligent, just, and equitable than the working of physical retribution. they have a nebulous notion that the law of moral retribution is in some peculiar way god's law, while the law of physical retribution is the law of what they call nature, somehow not quite so much god's law as the other is. such an absurdity only requires to be stated to be exposed. the law of moral retribution is precisely as blind, deaf, and meaningless, and entitled to be respected just as little, as the law of physical retribution. why, sir, of the two, the much-abused law of physical retribution is decidedly more moral, in the sense of obvious fairness, than the so-called law of moral retribution itself. for, while the hardened offender virtually escapes all pangs of conscience, he can't escape the diseases and accidents which attend vice and violence. the whole working of moral retribution, on the contrary, is to torture the sensitive-souled, who would never do much harm any way, while the really hard cases of society, by their very hardness, avoid all suffering. and then, again, see how merciful and reformatory is the working of physical retribution compared with the pitilessness of the moral retribution of memory. a man gets over his accident or disease and is healthy again, having learned his lesson with the renewed health that alone makes it of any value to have had that lesson. but shame and sorrow for sin and disgrace go on for ever increasing in intensity, in proportion as they purify the soul. their worm dieth not, and their fire is not quenched. the deeper the repentance, the more intense the longing and love for better things, the more poignant the pang of regret and the sense of irreparable loss. there is no sense, no end, no use, in this law which increases the severity of the punishment as the victim grows in innocency. "ah, sir," exclaimed the doctor, rising and laying his hand caressingly on the battery, while a triumphant exultation shone in his eyes, "you have no idea of the glorious satisfaction i take in crushing, destroying, annihilating these black devils of evil memories that feed on hearts. it is a triumph like a god's. "but oh, the pity of it, the pity of it!" he added, sadly, as his hand fell by his side, "that this so simple discovery has come so late in the world's history! think of the infinite multitude of lives it would have redeemed from the desperation of hopelessness, or the lifelong shadow of paralysing grief to all manner of sweet, good, and joyous uses!" henry opened the door slightly, and looked into the retiring-room. madeline was lying perfectly motionless, as he had seen her before. she had not apparently moved a muscle. with a sudden fear at his heart, he softly entered, and on tiptoe crossed the room and stood over her. the momentary fear was baseless. her bosom rose and fell with long, full breathing, the faint flush of healthy sleep tinged her cheek, and the lips were relaxed in a smile. it was impossible not to feel, seeing her slumbering so peacefully, that the marvellous change had been indeed wrought, and the cruel demons of memory that had so often lurked behind the low, white forehead were at last no more. when he returned to the office, dr. heidenhoff had seated himself, and was contemplatively smoking. "she was sleeping, i presume," he said. "soundly," replied henry. "that is well. i have the best of hopes. she is young. that is a favourable element in an operation of this sort." henry said nothing, and there was a considerable silence. finally the doctor observed, with the air of a man who thinks it just as well to spend the time talking-"i am fond of speculating what sort of a world, morally speaking, we should have if there were no memory. one thing is clear, we should have no such very wicked people as we have now. there would, of course, be congenitally good and bad dispositions, but a bad disposition would not grow worse and worse as it does now, and without this progressive badness the depths of depravity are never attained." "why do you think that?" "because it is the memory of our past sins which demoralizes as, by imparting a sense of weakness and causing loss of self-respect. take the memory away, and a bad act would leave us no worse in character than we were before its commission, and not a whit more likely to repeat it than we were to commit it the first time." "but surely our good or bad acts impress our own characters for good or evil, and give an increased tendency one way or the other." "excuse me, my dear sir. acts merely express the character. the recollection of those acts is what impresses the character, and gives it a tendency in a particular direction. and that is why i say, if memory were abolished, constitutionally bad people would remain at their original and normal degree of badness, instead of going from bad to worse, as they always have done hitherto in the history of mankind. memory is the principle of moral degeneration. remembered sin is the most utterly diabolical influence in the universe. it invariably either debauches or martyrizes men and women, accordingly as it renders them desperate and hardened, or makes them a prey to undying grief and self-contempt. when i consider that more sin is the only anodyne for sin, and that the only way to cure the ache of conscience is to harden it, i marvel that even so many as do essay the bitter and hopeless way of repentance and reform. in the main, the pangs of conscience, so much vaunted by some, do most certainly drive ten deeper into sin where they bring one back to virtue." "but," remarked henry, "suppose there were no memory, and men did forget their acts, they would remain just as responsible for them as now." "precisely; that is, not at all," replied the doctor. "you don't mean to say there is no such thing as responsibility, no such thing as justice. oh, i see, you deny free will. you are a necessitarian." the doctor waved his hand rather contemptuously. "i know nothing about your theological distinctions; i am a doctor. i say that there is no such thing as moral responsibility for past acts, no such thing as real justice in punishing them, for the reason that human beings are not stationary existences, but changing, growing, incessantly progressive organisms, which in no two moments are the same. therefore justice, whose only possible mode of proceeding is to punish in present time for what is done in past time, must always punish a person more or less similar to, but never identical with, the one who committed the offence, and therein must be no justice. "why, sir, it is no theory of mine, but the testimony of universal consciousness, if you interrogate it aright, that the difference between the past and present selves of the same individual is so great as to make them different persons for all moral purposes. that single fact we were just speaking of--the fact that no man would care for vengeance on one who had injured him, provided he knew that all memory of the offence had been blotted utterly from his enemy's mind--proves the entire proposition. it shows that it is not the present self of his enemy that the avenger is angry with at all, but the past self. even in the blindness of his wrath he intuitively recognizes the distinction between the two. he only hates the present man, and seeks vengeance on him in so far as he thinks that he exults in remembering the injury his past self did, or, if he does not exult, that he insults and humiliates him by the bare fact of remembering it. that is the continuing offence which alone keeps alive the avenger's wrath against him. his fault is not that he did the injury, for _he_ did not do it, but that he remembers it. "it is the first principle of justice, isn't it, that nobody ought to be punished for what he can't help? can the man of to-day prevent or affect what he did yesterday, let me say, rather, what the man did out of whom he has grown--has grown, i repeat, by a physical process which he could not check save by suicide. as well punish him for adam's sin, for he might as easily have prevented that, and is every whit as accountable for it. you pity the child born, without his choice, of depraved parents. pity the man himself, the man of today who, by a process as inevitable as the child's birth, has grown on the rotten stock of yesterday. think you, that it is not sometimes with a sense of loathing and horror unutterable, that he feels his fresh life thus inexorably knitting itself on, growing on, to that old stem? for, mind you well, the consciousness of the man exists alone in the present day and moment. there alone he lives. that is himself. the former days are his dead, for whose sins, in which he had no part, which perchance by his choice never would have been done, he is held to answer and do penance. and you thought, young man, that there was such a thing as justice !" "i can see," said henry, after a pause, "that when half a lifetime has intervened between a crime and its punishment, and the man has reformed, there is a certain lack of identity. i have always thought punishments in such cases very barbarous. i know that i should think it hard to answer for what i may have done as a boy, twenty years ago. "yes," said the doctor, "flagrant cases of that sort take the general eye, and people say that they are instances of retribution rather than justice. the unlikeness between the extremes of life, as between the babe and the man, the lad and the dotard, strikes every mind, and all admit that there is not any apparent identity between these widely parted points in the progress of a human organism. how then? how soon does identity begin to decay, and when is it gone--in one year, five years, ten years, twenty years, or how many? shall we fix fifty years as the period of a moral statute of limitation, after which punishment shall be deemed barbarous? no, no. the gulf between the man of this instant and the man of the last is just as impassable as that between the baby and the man. what is past is eternally past. so far as the essence of justice is concerned, there is no difference between one of the cases of punishment which you called barbarous, and one in which the penalty follows the offence within the hour. there is no way of joining the past with the present, and there is no difference between what is a moment past and what is eternally past." "then the assassin as he withdraws the stiletto from his victim's breast is not the same man who plunged it in." "obviously not," replied the doctor. "he may be exulting in the deed, or, more likely, he may be in a reaction of regret. he may be worse, he may be better. his being better or worse makes it neither more nor less just to punish him, though it may make it more or less expedient. justice demands identity; similarity, however close, will not answer. though a mother could not tell her twin sons apart, it would not make it any more just to punish one for the other's sins." "then you don't believe in the punishment of crime?" said henry. "most emphatically i do," replied the doctor; "only i don't believe in calling it justice or ascribing it a moral significance. the punishment of criminals is a matter of public policy and expediency, precisely like measures for the suppression of nuisances or the prevention of epidemics. it is needful to restrain those who by crime have revealed their likelihood to commit further crimes, and to furnish by their punishment a motive to deter others from crime." "and to deter the criminal himself after his release," added henry. "i included him in the word 'others,'" said the doctor. "the man who is punished is other from the man who did the act, and after punishment he is still other." "really, doctor," observed henry, "i don't see that a man who fully believes your theory is in any need of your process for obliterating his sins. he won't think of blaming himself for them any way." "true," said the doctor, "perfectly true. my process is for those who cannot attain to my philosophy. i break for the weak the chain of memory which holds them to the past; but stronger souls are independent of me. they can unloose the iron links and free themselves. would that more had the needful wisdom and strength thus serenely to put their past behind them, leaving the dead to bury their dead, and go blithely forward, taking each new day as a life by itself, and reckoning themselves daily new-born, even as verily they are! physically, mentally, indeed, the present must be for ever the outgrowth of the past, conform to its conditions, bear its burdens; but moral responsibility for the past the present has none, and by the very definition of the words can have none. there is no need to tell people that they ought to regret and grieve over the errors of the past. they can't help doing that. i myself suffer at times pretty sharply from twinges of the rheumatism which i owe to youthful dissipation. it would be absurd enough for me, a quiet old fellow of sixty, to take blame to myself for what the wild student did, but, all the same, i confoundedly wish he hadn't. "ah, me!" continued the doctor. "is there not sorrow and wrong enough in the present world without having moralists teach us that it is our duty to perpetuate all our past sins and shames in the multiplying mirror of memory, as if, forsooth, we were any more the causers of the sins of our past selves than of our fathers' sins. how many a man and woman have poisoned their lives with tears for some one sin far away in the past! their folly is greater, because sadder, but otherwise just like that of one who should devote his life to a mood of fatuous and imbecile self-complacency over the recollection of a good act he had once done. the consequences of the good and the bad deeds our fathers and we have done fall on our heads in showers, now refreshing, now scorching, of rewards and of penalties alike undeserved by our present selves. but, while we bear them with such equanimity as we may, let us remember that as it is only fools who flatter themselves on their past virtues, so it is only a sadder sort of fools who plague themselves for their past faults." henry's quick ear caught a rustle in the retiring-room. he stepped to the door and looked in. madeline was sitting up. chapter xii. her attitude was peculiar. her feet were on the floor, her left hand rested on the sofa by her side, her right was raised to one temple and checked in the very act of pushing back a heavy braid of hair which had been disarranged in sleep. her eyebrows were slightly contracted, and she was staring at the carpet. so concentrated did her faculties appear to be in the effort of reflection that she did not notice henry's entrance until, standing by her aide, he asked, in a voice which he vainly tried to steady-"how do you feel ?" she did not look up at him at all, but replied, in the dreamy, drawling tone of one in a brown study-"i--feel--well. i'm--ever--so--rested." "did you just wake up?" he said, after a moment. he did not know what to say. she now glanced up at him, but with an expression of only partial attention, as if still retaining a hold on the clue of her thoughts. "i've been awake some time trying to think it out," she said. "think out what?" he asked, with a feeble affectation of ignorance. he was entirely at loss what course to take with her. "why, what it was that we came here to have me forget," she said, sharply. "you needn't think the doctor made quite a fool of me. it was something like hewing, harring, howard. it was something that began with 'h,' i'm quite sure. 'h,'" she continued, thoughtfully, pressing her hand on the braid she was yet in the act of pushing back from her forehead. "'h,'--or maybe--'k.' tell me, henry. you must know, of course." "why--why," he stammered in consternation. "if you came here to forget it, what's the use of telling you, now you've forgotten it, that is--i mean, supposing there was anything to forget." "i haven't forgotten it," she declared. "the process has been a failure anyhow. it's just puzzled me for a minute. you might as well tell me. why, i've almost got it now. i shall remember it in a minute," and she looked up at him as if she were on the point of being vexed with his obstinacy. the doctor coming into the room at this moment, henry turned to him in his perplexity, and said-"doctor, she wants to know what it was you tried to make her forget." "what would you say if i told you it was an old love affair?" replied the doctor, coolly. "i should say that you were rather impertinent," answered madeline, looking at him somewhat haughtily. "i beg your pardon. i beg your pardon, my dear. you do well to resent it, but i trust you will not be vexed with an old gentleman," replied the doctor, beaming on her from under his bushy eyebrows with an expression of gloating benevolence. "i suppose, doctor, you were only trying to plague me so as to confuse me," she said, smiling. "but you can't do it. i shall remember presently. it began with 'h'--i am almost sure of that. let's see--harrington, harvard. that's like it." "harrison cordis, perhaps," suggested the doctor, gravely. "harrison cordis? harrison? harrison?" she repeated, contracting her eyebrows thoughtfully; "no, it was more like harvard. i don't want any more of your suggestions. you'd like to get me off the track." the doctor left the room, laughing, and henry said to her, his heart swelling with an exultation which made his voice husky, "come, dear, we had better go now: the train leaves at four." "i'll remember yet," she said, smiling at him with a saucy toss of the head. he put out his arms and she came into them, and their lips met in a kiss, happy and loving on her part, and fraught with no special feeling, but the lips which hers touched were tremulous. slightly surprised at his agitation, she leaned back in his clasp, and, resting her glorious black eyes on his, said-"how you love me, dear!" oh, the bright, sweet light in her eyes! the light he had not seen since she was a girl, and which had never shone for him before. as they were about to leave, the doctor drew him aside. "the most successful operation i ever made, sir," he said, enthusiastically. "i saw you were startled that i should tell her so frankly what she had forgotten. you need not have been so. that memory is absolutely gone, and cannot be restored. she might conclude that what she had forgotten was anything else in the world except what it really was. you may always allude with perfect safety before her to the real facts, the only risk being that, if she doesn't think you are making a bad joke, she will be afraid that you are losing your mind." all the way home madeline was full of guesses and speculation as to what it had been which she had forgotten, finally, however, settling down to the conclusion that it had something to do with harvard college, and when henry refused to deny explicitly that such was the case, she was quite sure. she announced that she was going to get a lot of old catalogues and read over the names, and also visit the college to see if she could not revive the recollection. but, upon his solemnly urging her not to do so, lest she might find her associations with that institution not altogether agreeable if revived, she consented to give up the plan. "although, do you know," she said, "there is nothing in the world which i should like to find out so much as what it was we went to dr. heidenhoff in order to make me forget. what do you look so sober for? wouldn't i really be glad if i could?" "it's really nothing of any consequence," he said, pretending to be momentarily absorbed in opening his penknife. "supposing it isn't, it's just as vexatious not to remember it," she declared. "how did you like dr. heidenhoff?" he asked. "oh, i presume he's a good enough doctor, but i thought that joke about an affair of the heart wasn't at all nice. men are so coarse." "oh, he meant no harm," said henry, hastily. "i suppose he just tried to say the absurdest thing he could think of to put me off the track and make me laugh. i'm sure i felt more like boxing his ears. i saw you didn't like it either, sir." "how so?" "oh, you needn't think i didn't notice the start you gave when he spoke, and the angry way you looked at him. you may pretend all you want to, but you can't cheat me. you'd be the very one to make an absurd fuss if you thought i had even so much as looked at anybody else." and then she burst out laughing at the red and pale confusion of his face. "why, you're the very picture of jealousy at the very mention of the thing. dear me, what a tyrant you are going to be! i was going to confess a lot of my old flirtations to you, but now i sha'n't dare to. o henry, how funny my face feels when i laugh, so stiff, as if the muscles were all rusty! i should think i hadn't laughed for a year by the feeling." he scarcely dared leave her when they reached her lodgings, for fear that she might get to thinking and puzzling over the matter, and, possibly, at length might hit upon a clue which, followed up, would lead her back to the grave so recently covered over in her life, and turn her raving mad with the horror of the discovery. as soon as he possibly could, he almost ran back to her lodgings in a panic. she had evidently been thinking matters over. "how came we here in boston together, henry? i don't seem to quite understand why i came. i remember you came after me?" "yes, i came after you." "what was the matter? was i sick?" "very sick." "out of my head?" "yes." "that's the reason you took me to the doctor, i suppose?" "yes." "but why isn't mother here with me?" "you--you didn't seem to want her," answered henry, a cold sweat covering his face under this terrible inquisition. "yes," said she, slowly, "i do remember your proposing she should come and my not wanting her. i can't imagine why. i must have been out of my head, as you say. henry," she continued, regarding him with eyes of sudden softness, "you must have been very good to me. dr. heidenhoff could never make me forget that." the next day her mother came. henry met her at the station and explained everything to her, so that she met madeline already prepared for the transformation, that is, as much prepared as the poor woman could be. the idea was evidently more than she could take in. in the days that followed she went about with a dazed expression on her face, and said very little. when she looked at henry, it was with a piteous mingling of gratitude and appeal. she appeared to regard madeline with a bewilderment that increased rather than decreased from day to day. instead of becoming familiar with the transformation, the wonder of it evidently grew on her. the girl's old, buoyant spirits, which had returned in full flow, seemed to shock and pain her mother with a sense of incongruity she could not get over. when madeline treated her lover to an exhibition of her old imperious tyrannical ways, which to see again was to him sweeter than the return of day, her mother appeared frightened, and would try feebly to check her, and address little deprecating remarks to henry that were very sad to hear. one evening, when he came in in the twilight, he saw madeline sitting with "her baby," as she had again taken to calling her mother, in her arms, rocking and soothing her, while the old lady was drying and sobbing on her daughter's bosom. "she mopes, poor little mother!" said madeline to henry. "i can't think what's the matter with her. we'll take her off with us on our wedding trip. she needs a little change." "dear me, no, that will never do," protested the little woman, with her usual half-frightened look at henry. "mr. burr wouldn't think that nice at all." "i mean that mr. burr shall be too much occupied in thinking how nice i am to do any other thinking," said madeline. "that's like the dress you wore to the picnic at hemlock hollow," said henry. "why, no, it isn't either. it only looks a little like it. it's light, and cut the same way; that's all the resemblance; but of course a man couldn't be expected to know any better." "it's exactly like it," maintained henry. "what'll you bet?" "i'll bet the prettiest pair of bracelets i can find in the city." "betting is wicked," said madeline, "and so i suppose it's my duty to take this bet just to discourage you from betting any more. being engaged makes a girl responsible for a young man's moral culture." she left the room, and returned in a few moments with the veritable picnic dress on. "there!" she said, as she stepped before the mirror. "ah, that's it, that's it! i give in," he exclaimed, regarding her ecstatically. "how pretty you were that day! i'd never seen you so pretty before. do you remember that was the day i kissed you first? i should never have dared to. i just had to--i couldn't help it." "so i believe you said at the time," observed madeline, dryly. "it does make me not so bad," she admitted, inspecting herself with a critical air. "i really don't believe you could help it. i ought not to have been so hard on you, poor boy. there! there! i didn't mean that. don't! here comes mother." mrs. brand entered the room, bringing a huge pasteboard box. "oh, she's got my wedding dress! haven't you, mother?" exclaimed madeline, pouncing on the box. "henry, you might as well go right home. i can't pay any more attention to you to-night. there's more important business." "but i want to see you with it on," he demurred. "you do?" "yes." "very much?" "the worst kind." "well, then, you sit down and wait here by yourself for about an hour, and maybe you shall;" and the women were off upstairs. at length there was a rustling on the stairway, and she re-entered the room, all sheeny white in lustrous satin. behind the gauzy veil that fell from the coronal of dark brown hair adown the shoulders her face shone with a look he had never seen in it. it was no longer the mirthful, self-reliant girl who stood before him, but the shrinking, trustful bride. the flashing, imperious expression that so well became her bold beauty at other times had given place to a shy and blushing softness, inexpressibly charming to her lover. in her shining eyes a host of virginal alarms were mingled with the tender, solemn trust of love. as he gazed, his eyes began to swim with tenderness, and her face grew dim and misty to his vision. then her white dress lost its sheen and form, and he found himself staring at the white window-shade of his bedroom, through which the morning light was peering. startled, bewildered, he raised himself on his elbow in bed. yes, he was in bed. he looked around, mechanically taking note of one and another familiar feature of the apartment to make sure of his condition. there, on the stand by his bedside, lay his open watch, still ticking, and indicating his customary hour of rising. there, turned on its face, lay that dry book on electricity he had been reading himself to sleep with. and there, on the bureau, was the white paper that had contained the morphine sleeping powder which he took before going to bed. that was what had made him dream. for some of it must have been a dream! but how much of it was a dream? he must think. that was a dream certainly about her wedding dress. yes, and perhaps--yes, surely--that must be a dream about her mother's being in boston. he could not remember writing mrs. brand since madeline had been to dr. heidenhoff. he put his hand to his forehead, then raised his head and looked around the room with an appealing stare. great god! why, that was a dream too! the last waves of sleep ebbed from his brain and to his aroused consciousness the clear, hard lines of reality dissevered themselves sharply from the vague contours of dreamland. yes, it was all a dream. he remembered how it all was now. he had not seen madeline since the evening before, when he had proposed their speedy marriage, and she had called him back in that strange way to kiss her. what a dream! that sleeping powder had done it--that, and the book on electricity, and that talk on mental physiology which he had overheard in the car the afternoon before. these rude materials, as unpromising as the shapeless bits of glass which the kaleidoscope turns into schemes of symmetrical beauty, were the stuff his dream was made of. it was a strange dream indeed, such an one as a man has once or twice in a lifetime. as he tried to recall it, already it was fading from his remembrance. that kiss madeline had called him back to give him the night before; that had been strange enough to have been a part also of the dream. what sweetness, what sadness, were in the touch of her lips. ah! when she was once his wife, he could contend at better advantage with her depression of spirits, he would hasten their marriage. if possible, it should take place that very week. there was a knock at the door. the house-boy entered, gave him a note, and went out. it was in madeline's hand, and dated the preceding evening. it read as follows:-"you have but just gone away. i was afraid when i kissed you that you would guess what i was going to do, and make a scene about it, and oh, dear! i am so tired that i couldn't bear a scene. but you didn't think. you took the kiss for a promise of what i was to be to you, when it only meant what i might have been. poor, dear boy! it was just a little stupid of you not to guess. did you suppose i would really marry you? did you really think i would let you pick up from the gutter a soiled rose to put in your bosom when all the fields are full of fresh daisies? oh, i love you too well for that! yes, dear, i love you. i've kept the secret pretty well, haven't i? you see, loving you has made me more careful of your honour than when in my first recklessness i said i would marry you in spite of all. but don't think, dear, because i love you that it is a sacrifice i make in not being your wife. i do truly love you, but i could not be happy with you, for my happiness would be shame to the end. it would be always with us as in the dismal weeks that now are over. the way i love you is not the way i loved him, but it is a better way. i thought perhaps you would like to know that you alone have any right to kiss my lips in dreams. i speak plainly of things we never spoke of, for you know people talk freely when night hides their faces from each other, and how much more if they know that no morning shall ever come to make them shamefaced again! a certain cold white hand will have wiped away the flush of shame for ever from my face when you look on it again, for i go this night to that elder and greater redeemer whose name is death. don't blame me, dear, and say i was not called away. is it only when death touches our bodies that we are called? oh, i am called, i am called, indeed! "madeline." the new psychology series _by_ william walker atkinson in the past few years a widespread mental and spiritual awakening has taken place among the people of this country. and this new awakening has been very aptly called the new psychology movement, because it has to do with the development and expression of the mind, or soul, of both the individual and the nation. the new psychology the will memory suggestion and auto-suggestion the subconscious and superconscious planes of mind the psychology of success the art of logical thinking thought-culture the psychology of salesmanship the art of expression mind and body human nature although each book stands alone as an authority on the subject treated, yet one theme runs through the series, binding them together to make a complete whole. the uniform postpaid price of each volume is $1.00 we are making a special price of $10.00 for the entire set the progress company :: chicago thought-culture or practical mental training by william walker atkinson l.n. fowler & company 7, imperial arcade, ludgate circus london, e.c., england 1909 the progress company chicago, ill. copyright, 1910 by the progress company p.f. pettibone & co printers and binders chicago contents i. the power of thought 9 ii. the nature of thought 19 iii. phases of thought 27 iv. thought culture 37 v. attention 47 vi. perception 57 vii. representation 76 viii. abstraction 85 ix. association of ideas 95 x. generalization 106 xi. judgment 130 xii. derived judgments 138 xiii. reasoning 152 xiv. constructive imagination 175 chapter i. the power of thought in other volumes of this series we have considered the operations of the human mind known as will, memory, etc. we now approach the consideration of those mental activities which are concerned with the phenomena of _thought_--those activities which we generally speak of as the operation of the intellect or reason. what is thought? the answer is not an easy one, although we use the term familiarly almost every hour of our waking existence. the dictionaries define the term "thought" as follows: "the act of thinking; the exercise of the mind in any way except sense and perception; serious consideration; deliberation; reflection; the power or faculty of thinking; the mental faculty of the mind; etc." this drives us back upon the term, "to think" which is defined as follows: "to occupy the mind on some subject; to have ideas; to revolve ideas in the mind; to cogitate; to reason; to exercise the power of thought; to have a succession of ideas or mental states; to perform any mental operation, whether of apprehension, judgment, or illation; to judge; to form a conclusion, to determine; etc." thought is an operation of the intellect. the intellect is: "that faculty of the human soul or mind by which it receives or comprehends the ideas communicated to it by the senses or by perception, or other means, as distinguished from the power to feel and to will; the power or faculty to perceive objects in their relations; the power to judge and comprehend; also the capacity for higher forms of knowledge as distinguished from the power to perceive and imagine." when we say what we "think," we mean that we exercise the faculties whereby we compare and contrast certain things with other things, observing and noting their points of difference and agreement, then classifying them in accordance with these observed agreements and differences. in _thinking_ we tend to classify the multitude of impressions received from the outside world, arranging thousands of objects into one general class, and other thousands into other general classes, and then sub-dividing these classes, until finally we have found mental pigeon-holes for every conceivable idea or impression. we then begin to make inferences and deductions regarding these ideas or impressions, working from the known to the unknown, from particulars to generalities, or from generalities to particulars, as the case may be. it is this faculty or power of thought--this use of the intellect, that has brought man to his present high position in the world of living things. in his early days, man was a much weaker animal than those with whom he was brought into contact. the tigers, lions, bears, mammoths, and other ferocious beasts were much stronger, fiercer, and fleeter than man, and he was placed in a position so lacking of apparent equal chance of survival, that an observer would have unhesitatingly advanced the opinion that this weak, feeble, slow animal must soon surely perish in the struggle for existence, and that the "survival of the fittest" would soon cause him to vanish from the scene of the world's activities. and, so it would have been had he possessed no equipment other than those of the other animals; viz., strength, natural weapons and speed. and yet man not only survived in spite of these disadvantages, but he has actually conquered, mastered and enslaved these other animals which seemed likely to work his destruction. why? how? this feeble animal called _man_ had within him the elements of a new power--a power manifested in but a slight degree in the other animals. he possessed an intellect by which he was able to deduce, compare, infer--reason. his lack of natural weapons he overcame by borrowing the idea of the tooth and claw of the other animals, imitating them in flint and shaping them into spears; borrowing the trunk of the elephant and the paw of the tiger, and reproducing their blow-striking qualities in his wooden club. not only this but he took lessons from the supple limbs and branches of the trees, and copied the principle in his bow, in order to project its minature spear, his arrow. he sheltered himself, his mate and his young, from the fury of the storm, first by caves and afterwards by rude houses, built in inaccessible places, reached only by means of crude ladders, bridges, or climbing poles. he built doors for his habitations, to protect himself from the attacks of these wild enemies--he heaped stones at the mouth of his caves to keep them out. he placed great boulders on cliffs that he might topple them down on the approaching foe. he learned to hurl rocks with sure aim with his strong arm. he copied the floating log, and built his first rude rafts, and then evolved the hollowed canoe. he used the skins of animals to keep him warm--their tendons for his bowstrings. he learned the advantages of cooperation and combined effort, and thus formed the first rudiments of society and social life. and finally--man's first great discovery--he found the art of fire making. as a writer has said: "for some hundreds of years, upon the general plane of self-consciousness, an ascent, to the human eye gradual but from the point of view of cosmic evolution rapid, has been made. in a race large-brained, walking-erect, gregarious, brutal, but king of all other brutes, man in appearance but not in fact, was from the highest simple-consciousness born the basic human faculty, self-consciousness and its twin, language. from these and what went with these, through suffering, toil and war; through bestiality, savagery, barbarism; through slavery, greed, effort, through conquests infinite, through defeats overwhelming, through struggle unending; through ages of aimless semi-brutal existence, through subsistence on berries and roots; through the use of the casually found stone or stick; through life in deep forests, with nuts and seeds, and on the shores of waters with mollusks, crustaceans and fish for food; through that greatest, perhaps, of human victories, the domestication and subjugation of fire; through the invention and art of bow and arrow; through the training of animals and the breaking of them to labor; through the long learning which led to the cultivation of the soil; through the adobe brick and the building of houses therefrom; through the smelting of metals and the slow birth of the arts which rest upon these; through the slow making of alphabets and the evolution of the written work; in short, through thousands of centuries of human life, of human aspiration, of human growth, sprang the world of men and women as it stands before us and within us today with all its achievements and possessions." the great difference between thought as we find it in man, and its forms among the lower animals lies in what psychologists have called "progressive thought." the animals advance but little in their thinking processes but rest content with those of their ancestors--their thought seems to have become set or crystallized during the process of their evolution. the birds, mammals and the insects vary but little in their mental processes from their ancestors of many thousand years ago. they build their nests, or dens, in almost precisely the same manner as did their progenitors in the stone-age. but man has slowly but steadily progressed, in spite of temporary set-backs and failures. he has endeavored to progress and improve. those tribes which fell back in regard to mental progress and advancement, have been left behind in the race, and in many cases have become extinct. the great natural law of the "survival of the fittest" has steadily operated in the life of the race. the "fittest" were those best adapted to grapple with and overcome the obstacles of their environment, and these obstacles were best overcome by the use of the intellect. those tribes and those individuals whose intellect was active, tended to survive where others perished, and consequently they were able to transmit their intellectual quality to their descendants. halleck says: "nature is constantly using her power to kill off the thoughtless, or to cripple them in life's race. she is determined that only the fittest and the descendants of the fittest shall survive. by the 'fittest' she means those who have thought and whose ancestors have thought and profited thereby. geologists tell us that ages ago there lived in england bears, tigers, elephants, lions and many other powerful and fierce animals. there was living contemporaneous with them a much weaker animal, that had neither the claws, the strength, nor the speed of the tiger. in fact this human being was almost defenceless. had a being from another planet been asked to prophesy, he would undoubtedly have said that this helpless animal would be the first to be exterminated. and yet every one of those fierce creatures succumbed either to the change of climate, or to man's inferior strength. the reason was that man had one resource denied to the animals--the power of progressive thought. the land sank, the sea cut off england from the mainland, the climate changed, and even the strongest animals were helpless. but man changed his clothing with the changing climate. he made fires; he built a retreat to keep off death by cold. he thought out means to kill or to subdue the strongest animals. had the lions, tigers or bears the power of progressive thought, they could have combined, and it would have been possible for them to exterminate man before he reached the civilized stage.... man no longer sleeps in caves. the smoke no longer fills his home or finds its way out through the chinks in the walls or a hole in the roof. in traveling, he is no longer restricted to his feet or even to horses. for all this improvement man is indebted to _thought_. that has harnessed the very vibrations of the ether to do his bidding." and thus we see that man owes his present place on earth to his thought-culture. and, it certainly behooves us to closely consider and study the methods and processes whereby each and every man may cultivate and develop the wondrous faculties of the mind which are employed in the processes of thought. the faculties of the mind, like the muscles of the body, may be developed, trained and cultivated. the process of such mental development is called "thought-culture," and forms the subject of this book. chapter ii. the nature of thought it was formerly considered necessary for all books on the subject of thought to begin by a recital of the metaphysical conceptions regarding the nature and "thingness" of mind. the student was led through many pages and endless speculation regarding the metaphysical theories regarding the origin and inner nature of mind which, so far from establishing a fixed and definite explanation in his mind, rather tended toward confusing him and giving him the idea that psychology was of necessity a speculative science lacking the firm practical basis possessed by other branches of science. in the end, in the words of old omar, he "came out the door through which he went." but this tendency has been overcome of late years, and writers on the subject pass by all metaphysical conceptions regarding the nature of mind, and usually begin by plunging at once into the real business of psychology--the business of the practical study of the mechanism and activities of the mind itself. as some writer has said, psychology has no more concern with the solution of the eternal riddle of "what is mind?" than physics with the twin-riddle of "what is matter?" both riddles, and their answers, belong to entirely different branches and fields of thought than those concerned with their laws of operation and principles of activity. as halleck says: "psychology studies the phenomena of mind, just as physics investigates those of matter." and, likewise, just as the science of physics holds true in spite of the varying and changing conceptions regarding the nature of matter, so does the science of psychology hold true in spite of the varying and changing conceptions regarding the nature of mind. halleck has well said: "if a materialist should hold that the mind was nothing but the brain, and that the brain was a vast aggregation of molecular sheep herding together in various ways, his hypothesis would not change the fact that sensation must precede perception, memory and thought; nor would the laws of the association of ideas be changed, nor would the fact that interest and repetition aid memory cease to hold good. the man who thought his mind was a collection of little cells would dream, imagine, think and feel; so also would he who believed his mind to be immaterial. it is very fortunate that the same mental phenomena occur, no matter what theory is adopted. those who like to study the puzzles as to what mind and matter really are must go to metaphysics. should we ever find that salt, arsenic and all things else are the same substance with a different molecular arrangement, we should still not use them interchangeably." for the purposes of the study of practical psychology, we may as well lay aside, if even for the moment, our pet metaphysical conceptions and act as if we knew nothing of the essential nature of mind (and indeed science in truth does _not_ know), and confine ourselves to the phenomena and manifestations of mind which, after all, is the only way in which and by which we can know anything at all about it. as brooks says: "the mind can be defined only by its activities and manifestations. in order to obtain a definition of the mind, therefore, we must observe and determine its various forms of activity. these activities, classified under a few general heads and predicated of the unseen something which manifests them, will give us a definition of mind." the act of consciousness determines the existence of mind in the person experiencing it. no one can be conscious of thought and, at the same time, deny the existence of mind within himself. for the very act of denial, in itself, is a manifestation of thought and consequently an assertion of the existence of mind. one may assert the axiom: "i think, therefore, i have a mind;" but he is denied the privilege of arguing: "i think, therefore, i have no mind." the mind has an ultimate and final knowledge of its own existence. the older view of mind is that it is a something higher than matter which it uses for its manifestation. it was held to be unknowable in itself and to be studied only through its manifestations. it was supposed to involve itself, to become involved, in some way in matter and to there manifest itself in an infinitude of forms, degrees, and variations. the materialistic view, which arose into prominence in the middle of the nineteenth century, held, on the contrary, that mind was merely an activity or property of matter--a function of matter akin to extension and motion. huxley, voicing this conception said: "we have no knowledge of any thinking substance apart from an extended substance.... we shall, sooner or later, arrive at a mechanical equivalent of consciousness, just as we have arrived at a mechanical equivalent of heat." but, huxley, himself, was afterwards constrained to acknowledge that: "how it is that anything so remarkable as a state of consciousness comes about by the result of irritating nervous tissue, is just as unaccountable as the appearance of the _jinnee_ when aladdin rubbed his lamp." the most advanced authorities of the day, are inclined to the opinion that both matter and mind are both differing aspects of some one fundamental something; or, as some of the closest thinkers state it, both are probably two apparently differing manifestations or emanations of an underlying something which, as spencer says: "transcends not only our reason but also our imagination." the study of philosophy and metaphysics serves an important purpose in showing us _how much we do not know_, and why we do not know--also in showing us the fallacy of many things we had thought we did know--but when it comes to telling us the real "why," actual cause, or essential nature of _anything_, it is largely a disappointment to those who seek fundamental truths and ultimate reasons. it is much more comfortable to "abjure the 'why' and seek the 'how'"--if we can. many psychologists classify the activities of the mind into three general divisions; _viz._, (1) thinking; (2) willing; (3) feeling. these divisions, which result from what is known as "the tri-logical classification," were first distinctly enunciated by upham although kant had intimated it very plainly. for many years before the favored division was but two-fold the line of division being between the _cognitive_, or knowing, activities, and the _conative_, or acting, activities, generally known as the understanding and the will, respectively. it took a long time before the authorities would formally recognize the great field of the feelings as forming a class by themselves and ranking with the understanding and the will. there are certain sub-divisions and shadings, which we shall notice as we proceed, some of which are more or less complex, and which seem to shade into others. the student is cautioned against conceiving of the mind as a thing having several compartments or distinct divisions. the classification does not indicate this and is only intended as a convenience in analyzing and studying the mental activities and operations. the "i" which feels, thinks and acts is the same--one entity. as brooks well says: "the mind is a self-conscious activity and not a mere passivity; it is a centre of spiritual forces, all resting in the background of the ego. as a centre of forces, it stands related to the forces of the material and spiritual universe and is acted upon through its susceptibilities by those forces. as a spiritual activity, it takes the impressions derived from those forces, works them up into the organic growth of itself, converts them into conscious knowledge and uses these products as means to set other forces into activity and produce new results. standing above nature and superior to its surroundings, it nevertheless feeds upon nature, as we may say, and transforms material influences into spiritual facts akin to its own nature. related to the natural world and apparently originating from it, it yet rises above this natural world and, with the crown of freedom upon its brow, rules the natural obedient to its will." in this book, while we shall fully and unquestionably recognize the "tri-logical classification" of the activities of the mind into the divisions of thinking, willing and feeling, respectively, nevertheless, we shall, for convenience, use the term "thought" in its broadest, widest and most general sense, as: "the power or faculty of thinking; the mental faculty; the mind," rather than in its narrower and particular sense of: "the understanding or cognitive faculty of the mind." accordingly, we shall include the cultivation of the mental activities known as attention, perception, imagination, etc., together with the strictly cognitive faculties, under the general term of thought-culture. chapter iii. phases of thought we have seen that the mind is that something within us which thinks, feels and wills. there are various phases of these three forms of activity. these phases have often been called "the faculties of the mind," although many authorities decry the use of this term, holding that it gives an impression of _several parts or divisions_ of the mind, separate and distinct from each other, whereas these phases are merely the several _powers or forms of activity_ of the mind. every manifestation of mental activity falls under one of the three before-mentioned general forms, i.e., thinking, feeling and willing, respectively. every manifestation of mental activity is either that of the intellect, the feelings, or the will. let us consider the first of these three general forms of mental activity--the intellect. the _intellect_ is defined as: "that faculty or phase of the human mind by which it receives or comprehends the ideas communicated to it by the senses or by perception, or other means, as distinguished from the power to feel and to will; the power or faculty to perceive objects in their relations; the power to judge and comprehend; also the capacity for higher forms of knowledge as distinguished from the power to perceive and imagine." the term itself is derived from the latin term _intellectus_, the primary meaning of which is "to choose between," which primary meaning will give the true essential meaning of the term in its present usage; namely, the faculty or phase of the mind by which we "choose between" things or by which we _decide_. the phase or faculty of intellect concerns itself with thinking, in the particular and narrower sense of that term. its products are _thoughts_, _mental images_ and _ideas_. an _idea_ or _mental image_ is a mental conception of anything, as for instance our conception which we express by the terms, _man_, _animal_, _house_, _etc._ sometimes the word _idea_ is used to express merely the abstract or generalized conception of the thing, as, for instance, _man_ in the sense of "all men;" while _mental image_ is used in the sense of the mental conception of some one particular thing, as a "_a man_;" it being held that no mental image can be had of a generalization. a _thought_ is held to be a mental product arising from a combination of two or more ideas or mental images, as for instance: "a horse is an animal;" "a man is a biped;" etc. the intellect is held to embrace and include a number of minor phases or faculties, such as perception, understanding, imagination, memory, reason and intuition, which are explained as follows: _perception_ is that faculty of the mind which interprets the material presented to it by the senses. it is the power whereby we gain our knowledge of the external world, as reported to us by the channels of sense. through perception we are able to form ideas and mental images, which in turn lead to thoughts. the objects of which we become conscious through perception are called _percepts_, which form the bases of what we call _concepts_, or ideas. _understanding_ is that faculty of the mind by the means of which we are able intelligently to compare the objects presented to it by perception, and by which we separate them into parts by analysis, or to combine them into greater classes, or wholes, by synthesis. it produces ideas, both abstract and general; also concepts of truths, laws, principles, causes, etc. there are several sub-phases of understanding, which are known as: abstraction, conception or generalization, or judgment and reasoning, respectively, which are explained as follows: _abstraction_ is that faculty of the mind which enables it to abstract, or draw off, and consider apart from an object, a particular _quality_ or _property_ of an object, thus making of the quality or property a distinct object of thought apart from the original object. thus are the _abstract ideas_ of _sweetness_, _color_, _hardness_, _courage_, _beauty_, etc., which we have abstracted or _drawn off_ from their original associations, either for the purpose of putting them out of sight and consideration, or else to view and consider them by themselves. no one ever tasted "sweetness" although one may have tasted _sweet things_; no one ever saw "red," although one may have seen _red things_; no one ever saw, heard, tasted or felt "courage" in another, although one may have seen _courageous people_. abstract ideas are merely the mental conception of _qualities_ or _properties_ divorced from their associated objects by abstraction. _conception_ or generalization is that faculty of the mind by which it forms and groups together several particular ideas in the form of _a general idea_. by the processes of conception we form _classes_ or _generalizations_ from particular ideas arising from our _percepts_. first, we _perceive_ things; then we _compare_ them with each other; then we abstract their particular qualities, which are not common to the several objects; then we _generalize_ them according to their resemblances; then we _name_ the generalized concept. from these combined processes we form a concept, or _general idea_ of the class of things to which the particular things belong. thus from subjecting a number of cows to this process, we arrive at the general concept of "cow." this general concept includes all the qualities and properties _common to all cows_, while omitting those which are not common to the class. or, we may form a concept of napoleon bonaparte, by combining his several qualities and properties and thus form a _general idea_ of the man. _judgment_ is that faculty of the mind whereby we determine the agreement or disagreement between two concepts, ideas, or objects of thought, by comparing them with each other. from this comparison arises the judgment, which is expressed in the shape of a logical _proposition_: "the horse is an animal;" or "the horse is not a cow." judgment is also used in forming a concept, in the first place, for we must _compare qualities_ before we can form a _general idea_. _reasoning_ is that faculty of the mind whereby we compare two judgments, one with the other, and from the comparison deduce a third judgment. this is a form of indirect or mediate comparison, whereas the judgment is a form of immediate or direct comparison. from this process of reasoning arises a result which is expressed in what is called a syllogism, as for instance: "all dogs are animals; carlo is a dog; therefore, carlo is an animal." or expressed in symbols: "a equals c; and b equals c;" therefore, "a equals b." reasoning is of two kinds or classes; _viz._, inductive and deductive, respectively. we have explained these forms of reasoning in detail in another volume of this series. _the feelings_ are the mental faculties whereby we experience emotions or feelings. feelings are the experiencing of the agreeable or disagreeable nature of our mental states. they can be defined only in their own terms. if we have never experienced a feeling, we cannot understand the words expressing it. feelings result in what are called emotion, affection and desire. an emotion is the simple feeling, such as joy, sorrow, etc. an affection is an emotion reaching out toward another and outside object, such as envy, jealousy, love, etc. a desire is an emotion arising from the _want_ of some lacking quality or thing, and the inclination to possess it. _memory_ is the faculty of the mind whereby we retain and reproduce, or consciously revive any kind of past mental experience. it has two sub-phases; _viz._, retention and recollection, respectively. it manifests in the storing away of mental images and ideas, and in the reproduction of them at a later period of time, and also of the recognition of them as objects of past experience. _imagination_ is the faculty of the mind whereby we represent (_re-pre-sent_) as a mental image some previously experienced idea, concept or image. its activities are closely allied and blended with those of the memory. it has the power not only of reproducing objects already perceived but also another power of _ideal creation_ whereby it _creates_ new combinations from the materials of past experience. it is a faculty, the importance of which is but little understood by the majority of men. inasmuch as the mental image must always precede the material manifestation, the cultivation of the imagination becomes a matter of great importance and worthy of the closest study. _intuition_ is the faculty of the mind whereby it evolves what have been called primary truths or primary ideas. by primary ideas are meant the ideas of space, time, cause, identity, etc. by primary truths are meant the so-called "self-evident truths" of geometry, mathematics and logic. under the head of intuition are also sometimes included the activities of the subconscious or superconscious regions of the mind, of which we have spoken in detail in a volume under that name of this series. some authorities hold to the older idea of "innate ideas" by which is meant that every human being is born with the knowledge of certain fundamental truths, unconnected with any experience. others hold that these ideas are simply the result of the experience of the race, transmitted to us as "germ ideas" which must grow by experience and exercise. * * * * * that each and every faculty of the mind may be strengthened and developed by culture and exercise is now held to be a fact by nearly every authority worthy of that name. just as the physical muscle may be cultivated by the proper methods, so may the mental faculties be strengthened and cultivated by the appropriate methods and means. inasmuch as the majority of the race are deficient in the development of one or more of the leading mental faculties, it becomes a matter of great interest and importance that all should acquaint themselves with the means whereby their deficiencies may be corrected and remedied. we shall now proceed to the consideration of thought-culture in general, and then to the consideration of the culture of each particular general faculty, in detail. chapter iv. thought-culture thought-culture is based upon two general scientific facts which may be stated as follows: i. the brain centres of thought may be developed by exercise. while we do not assert that the brain and the mind are identical, it is nevertheless a scientific truth that "the brain is the organ of the mind" and that one of the first requisites for a good mind is a good brain. it has been proven by experiment that the brain-cells concerned in special mental activities multiply in proportion to the active use of the special faculties employed in the mental operation. it has also been ascertained that disuse of special faculties of the mind tends to cause a process akin to atrophy in the brain-cells concerned in the particular activity, so that it becomes difficult to think clearly along those particular lines after a long period of disuse. moreover, it is known that the education and mental culture of a child is accompanied by an increase and development of the brain-cells connected with the particular fields of thought in which the child is exercised. there is a close analogy between the exercise of the brain-cells and the exercise of the muscles of the body. both respond to reasonable exercise; both are injured by overwork; both degenerate by disuse. as brooks says: "the mind grows by its own inherent energies. mental exercise is thus the law of mental development. as a muscle grows strong by use, so any faculty of the mind is developed by its proper use and exercise. an inactive mind, like an unused muscle, becomes weak and unskilful. hang the arm in a sling and the muscle becomes flabby and loses its vigor and skill; let the mind remain inactive and it acquires a mental flabbiness that unfits it for any severe or prolonged activity. an idle mind loses its tone and strength like an unused muscle; the mental powers go to rust through idleness and inaction. to develop the faculties of the mind and secure their highest activity and efficiency, there must be a constant and judicious exercise of these faculties. the object of culture is to stimulate and direct the activity of the mind." experiments conducted by scientists upon dogs have shown that in the case of dogs specially trained to unusual mental activity, there has been a corresponding increase of the number of active brain-cells in the particular parts of the brain concerned with those mental activities. microscopic examination of the brain tissues showed the greatest difference between the brain structure of the trained dogs and untrained ones of the same brood. so carefully were the experiments conducted that it was possible to distinguish between the dogs trained in one set of activities from those trained in another. biologists have demonstrated the correctness of the brain-cell development theory beyond reasonable doubt, and ordinary human experience also adds its testimony in its favor. in view of the above, it will be seen that by intelligent exercise and use any and all faculties of the mind may be developed and cultivated, just as may any special muscle of the body. and this exercise can come only from actual use of the faculties themselves. development must come from within and not from without. no system of outward stimulation will develop the faculties of the mind--they may be cultivated only by an exercise in their own particular field of work. the only way to exercise any particular faculty of thought is to _think_ through that faculty. ii. not only are the brain-cells developed by exercise, but it also appears to be a fact that the mind appears actually to be _nourished_ by knowledge of the outside world of things. the raw material of thought is taken into the mind and there is digested by the thought-processes, and is afterward actually _assimilated_ by the mind in a manner strikingly similar to the processes of the physical organs of nutrition. a mind to be at its best must be supplied with a normal amount of mental nourishment. lacking this, it tends to become weak and inefficient. and, likewise, if its owner is a mental glutton and furnishes too much nourishment, particularly of a rich kind, there is a tendency toward "mental dyspepsia" and indigestion--the mind, unable to assimilate the mental food furnished it, is inclined to rebel. moreover, if the mind be supplied with mental food of only one kind--if the mind is confined to one narrow field of thought--it weakens and the mental processes become impaired. in many ways is this curious analogy apparent. not only does the mind need development, but it also needs intelligent cultivation. for it may be _developed_ by improper objects of thought just as well as by the proper ones. a rich field will grow tares and weeds as well as good grain or fruit. thought-culture should not be confined to the _development of a strong and active mind_, but should be also extended to the _cultivation of a wise and intelligent mind_. strength and wisdom should be combined. moreover there should be sought a harmonious and normal development. a one-sided, mental development is apt to produce a "crank," while a development in unhealthy mental fields will produce an abnormal thinker tending dangerously near to the line of insanity. some "one-idea" men have great mental power and development, but are nevertheless unbalanced and impractical. and insane persons often have strongly developed minds--developed abnormally. some authorities, holding special theories regarding the nature of mind, hold that thought-culture is merely a _training_ of the faculties rather than a _creation_ of new mental power, inasmuch as the mind cannot be built up from the outside. this is a curious combination of truth and error. it is true that the mind cannot be built up from outside material, in the sense of creating _new mind_, but it is also true that in every mind there is the potentiality of growth and development. just as the future oak is said to be in the acorn, so are the potentialities of mind-growth in every mind waiting for nourishment from outside and the proper cultivation. brooks has well stated this, as follows: "the culture of the mind is not creative in its character; its object is to develop existing possibilities into realities. the mind possesses innate powers which may be awakened into a natural activity. the design of culture is to aid nature in improving the powers she has given. no new power can be created by culture; we can increase the activity of these powers, but cannot develop any new activities. through these activities new ideas and thoughts may be developed, and the sum of human knowledge increased; but this is accomplished by a high activity of the natural powers with which the mind is endowed, and not by the culture of new powers. the profound philosopher uses the same faculties that the little child is developing in the games of the nursery. the object of culture is to arouse the powers which nature has given us into a normal activity and to stimulate and guide them in their unfolding." in connection with the objection above mentioned, it may be said that while the development of the mind must come from within itself, rather than from without, nevertheless, in order to develop, it must have the nourishing material from the outside world in order to grow. just as the body can grow from within only by the aid of nourishment from outside, so the mind, while growing from within, needs the material for thought which can come only from without itself. thought requires "things" upon which to exercise itself--and upon which it is nourished. without these outside objects, it can have no exercise and can receive no nourishment. thought consists in the perception, examination and comparison of _things_, and the consequent building up new combinations, arrangements and syntheses. therefore, the perceptive faculties are most necessary to thought, and their culture is most necessary in the general work of thought-culture. it must not be lost sight of that in thought-culture there is necessary a variety of exercises and forms of nourishment. what will develop one faculty will exert but a faint effect upon others. each needs its own particular kind of exercise--each its particular kind of mental nourishment. while it is true that there is a certain benefit gained by the entire mind from an exercise of any of its parts, this effect is but secondary in importance. a man well developed mentally has been developed in each faculty, each in its own way. the faculty of perception requires objects of perception; the faculty of imagination requires objects of imagination; the faculty of reasoning requires objects of reasoning; and so on, each requiring objects of exercise and nourishment of its own kind--in its own class. in some persons some of the faculties are well developed while others are deficient. it follows that in such a case the weak faculties should be developed first, that they be brought up to the general standard. then a further general development may be undertaken if desired. moreover, in general development, it will be found that certain faculties will respond more readily to the cultivation given, while others will be slow to respond. in such cases wisdom dictates that a greater degree of exercise and nourishment be given to the slower and less responsible faculties, while the more responsive be given but a lighter development. in thought-culture as in physical culture, the less developed and slower responding parts should be given special attention. * * * * * in the following chapters we shall point out the methods and exercises calculated to develop the several faculties of the mind to the best advantage, in each case giving general advice along the lines of the cultivation of the particular faculty which will serve as general instruction regarding its culture. the student should carefully study the entire work before he attempts to specialize in the development of any particular faculty. the particular work may be aided by an acquaintance with the entire field of thought-culture for many of the faculties shade into each other in their activities and are always more or less interdependent. for, be it remembered, the mind is a _whole_, and not a mere aggregation of many parts. to understand the parts, one must study the whole--to understand the whole, one must study the parts. chapter v. attention attention is not a faculty of the mind in the same sense as perception, abstraction, judgment, etc., but is rather in the nature of an act of will concerned in the focusing of the consciousness upon some object of thought presented or represented to the mind. in some respects it bears a resemblance to abstraction, inasmuch as it sets aside some particular object for the consideration of the consciousness, to the exclusion of other objects. wayland explains attention as a condition of mind in which the consciousness is excited and directed by an act of the will. hamilton says: "consciousness may be compared to a telescope; attention is the pulling out and pressing in of the tubes in accommodating the focus of the eye;" and also that: "an act of attention, that is an act of concentration, seems thus necessary to every exertion of consciousness, as a certain contraction of the pupil is requisite to every exertion of vision.... attention then is to consciousness what the contraction of the pupil is to sight, or to the eye of the mind what the microscope or telescope is to the bodily eye.... it constitutes the better half of all intellectual power." brodie says that: "it is attention, much more than any difference in the abstract power of reasoning, which constitutes the vast difference which exists between minds of different individuals." butler says: "the most important intellectual habit that i know of is the habit of attending exclusively to the matter in hand.... it is commonly said that genius cannot be infused by education, yet this power of concentrated attention, which belongs as a part of his gift to every great discoverer, is unquestionably capable of almost indefinite augmentation by resolute practice." and beattie says: "the force wherewith anything strikes the mind is generally in proportion to the degree of attention bestowed upon it." realizing the importance of attention, the student will naturally wish to cultivate the power of bestowing it when necessary. the first role in the cultivation of the attention is that the student shall carefully acquire _the habit of thinking of or doing but one thing at a time_. this first rule may seem easy, but in practice it will be found very difficult of observance, so careless are the majority of us in our actions and thinking. not only will the trouble and care bestowed upon the acquiring of this habit of thought and action be well repaid by the development of the attention, but the student will also acquire a facility for accomplishing his tasks quickly and thoroughly. as kay says: "there is nothing that contributes more to success in any pursuit than that of having the attention concentrated on the matter in hand; and, on the contrary, nothing is more detrimental than when doing one thing to have the mind taken up with something else." and as granville says: "a frequent cause of failure in the faculty of attention is striving to think of more than one thing at a time." kay also well says: "if we would possess the power of attention in a high degree, we must cultivate the habit of attending to what is directly before the mind, to the exclusion of all else. all distracting thoughts and feelings that tend to withdraw the mind from what is immediately before it are therefore to be carefully avoided. this is a matter of great importance, and of no little difficulty. frequently the mind, in place of being concentrated on what is immediately before it, is thinking of something else--something, it may be, that went before or that may come after, or something quite alien to the subject." the following principles of the application of the attention have been stated by the authorities: i. the attention attaches more readily to interesting than to uninteresting things. ii. the attention will decline in strength unless there is a variation in the stimulus, either by a change of object or the developing of some new attribute in the object. iii. the attention, when tired by continuous direction toward some unvarying object, may be revived by directing it toward some new object or in allowing it to be attracted and held by some passing object. iv. the attention manifests in a two-fold activity; _viz._ (1) the concentration upon some one object of thought; and (2) the shutting out of outside objects. thus, it has its positive and negative sides. thus, when a man wishes to give his undivided attention to one speaker in a crowd of speaking individuals, he acts positively in focusing his consciousness upon the selected individual, and negatively by refusing to listen to the others. v. the attention is not a faculty, but a means of using any faculty with an increased degree of efficiency. vi. the degree of attention possessed by an individual is an indication of his power of using his intellect. many authorities have held that, in cases of genius, the power of concentrated attention is usually greatly developed. brooks says: "attention is one of the principal elements of genius." hamilton says: "genius is a higher capacity of attention." helvetius says: "genius is nothing but protracted attention." chesterfield says: "the power of applying our attention, steady and undissipated, to a single object is a sure mark of superior genius." the attention may be cultivated, just as may be the various faculties of the mind, by the two-fold method of exercise and nourishment; that is, by using and employing it actively and by furnishing it with the proper materials with which to feed its strength. the way to exercise the attention is _to use it frequently_ in every-day life. if you are listening to a man speaking, endeavor to give to him your undivided attention, and, at the same time, to shut out from your consciousness every other object. in working, we should endeavor to use the attention by concentrating our interest upon the particular task before us to the exclusion of all else. in reading, we should endeavor to hold our minds closely to the text instead of hastily glancing over the page as so many do. those who wish to cultivate their attention should take up some line of study in which it is necessary to fasten the attention firmly for a time. a half-hour's study in this way is worth more than hours of careless reading so far as the cultivation of the attention is concerned. mathematics is most valuable in the direction of developing the power of attention. gibbon says: "after a rapid glance on the subject and distribution of a new book, i suspend the reading of it which i only resume after having myself examined the subject in all its relations." some writers have held that the attention may be developed by the practice of selecting the voice of one person speaking among a crowd of speakers, and deliberately shutting out the other sounds, giving the whole attention to the particular speaker; or, in the same manner, selecting one singer in a church choir or band of singers; or one musical instrument in an orchestra; or one piece of machinery making sounds in a room filled with various machines, etc. the practice of so doing is held to strengthen one's powers of concentration and attention. draper says: "although many images may be simultaneously existing upon the retina, the mind possesses the power of singling out any one of them and fastening attention upon it, just as among a number of musical instruments simultaneously played, one, and that perhaps the feeblest, may be selected and its notes exclusively followed." and as taylor says: "in a concert of several voices, the voices being of nearly equal intensity, regarded merely as organic impressions on the auditory nerve, we select one, and at will we lift out and disjoin it from the general volume of sound; we shut off the other voices--five, ten and more--and follow this one alone. when we have done so for a time, we freely cast it off and take up another." carpenter says: "the more completely the mental energy can be brought into one focus and all distracting objects excluded, the more powerful will be the volitional effort." many authorities hold that the attention may be best applied and exercised by analyzing an object mentally, and then considering its parts one by one by a process of abstraction. thus, as kays says: "an apple presents to us form, color, taste, smell, etc., and if we would obtain a clear idea of any one of these, we must contemplate it by itself and compare it with other impressions of the same kind we have previously experienced. so in viewing a landscape, it is not enough to regard it merely as a whole, but we must regard each of its different parts individually by itself if we would obtain a clear idea of it. we can only obtain a full and complete knowledge of an object _by analyzing it and concentrating the attention upon its different parts, one by one_." reid says: "it is not by the senses immediately, but rather by the power of _analyzing and abstraction_, that we get the most simple and the most distinct notions of objects of sense." and, as brown says: "it is scarcely possible to advance even a single step in intellectual physics without the necessity of performing _some sort of analysis_." in all processes requiring analysis and examination of parts, properties or qualities, the attention is actively employed. accordingly, it follows that such exercises are best adapted to the work of developing and cultivating the attention itself. therefore, as a parting word we may say: _to develop and cultivate the power of attention and concentration, (1) analyze; (2) analyze; and (3) analyze. analyze everything and everybody with which or whom you come in contact._ there is no better or shorter rule. the student will also find that the various directions and the advice which we shall give in the succeeding chapters, regarding the cultivation of the various faculties, are also adapted to the development of the attention, for the latter is brought into active play in them. and, likewise, by developing the attention, one may practice the future exercises with greater effect. chapter vi. perception in preceding chapters we have seen that in the phase of mental activity in which the intellect is concerned, the processes of which are known as "thought" in the narrower sense of the term, there are several stages or steps involving the use of several faculties of the mind. the first of these steps or stages is called _perception_. many persons confuse the idea of sensation and perception, but there is a clear distinction between them. sensations arise from nerve action--from the stimulation of nerve substance--which gives rise to a peculiar effect upon the brain, which results in an elementary form of consciousness. an authority says: "sensation is the peculiar property of the nervous system in a state of activity, by which impressions are conveyed to the brain or sensorium. when an impression is made upon any portion of the bodily surface by contact, heat, electricity, light, or any other agent, the mind is rendered conscious of this by sensation. in the process there are three stages--reception of the impression at the end of the sensory nerve, the conduction of it along the nerve trunk to the sensorium, and _the change it excites in the sensorium itself, through which is produced sensation_." just why and how this nerve action is translated into consciousness of an elementary kind, science is unable to explain. our knowledge is based in a great part, or entirely, upon impressions which have been received over the channel of the senses--sensations of sight, hearing, tasting, smelling and touch. many authorities hold that all of the five senses are modifications of the sense of touch, or feeling; as for instance, the impression upon the organs of sight is really in the nature of a delicate touch or feeling of the light-waves as they come in contact with the nerves of vision, etc. but, although sensations give us the raw materials of thought, so to speak, they are not _knowledge_ in themselves. knowledge arises from the operation of perception upon this raw material of sensation. but yet, sensation plays a most active part in the presentation of the raw material for the perceptive faculties, and must not be regarded as merely a physiological process. it may be said to be the connecting link between the physical and the mental activities. as ziehen says: "it follows that the constitution of the nervous system is an essential factor in determining the quality of sensation. this fact reveals the obvious error of former centuries, first refuted by locke, though still shared by naive thought today, that the objects about us themselves are colored, warm, cold, etc. as external to our consciousness, we can only assume matter, vibrating with molecular motion and permeated by vibrating particles of ether. the nervous apparatus selects only certain motions of matter or of ether, which they transform into that form of nerve excitation with which they are familiar. it is only this nerve excitation that we perceive as red, warm or hard." passing from sensation to perception, we see that the latter interprets the reports of the former. perception translates into consciousness the impressions of sensation. perception, acting through one or more of the mental faculties, gives us _our first bit of real knowledge_. sensation may give us the impression of a small moving thing--perception translates this into the thought of _a cat_. sensation is a mere _feeling_--perception is the _thought_ arising from that feeling. a percept is the product of perception, or in other words, our _idea_ gained through perception. the majority of our percepts are complex, being built up from a number of minor percepts; as for instance, our percept of _a peach_ is built up from our minor percepts of the form, shape, color, weight, degree of hardness, smell, taste, etc., of the peach, each sense employed giving minor percepts, the whole being combined in the conscious as the whole percept of that particular peach. brooks says: "all knowledge does not come directly from perception through the senses, however. we have a knowledge of external objects, and we have a knowledge that transcends this knowledge of external objects. perception is the _immediate_ source of the first kind of knowledge, and the _indirect_ source of the second kind of knowledge. this distinction is often expressed by the terms _cause_ and _occasion_. thus perception is said to be the _cause_ of our knowledge of objects, since it is the immediate source of such knowledge. perception is also said to be the _occasion_ of the ideas and truths of intuition; for, though in a sense necessary to these ideas, it is not the source of them. perception also furnishes the understanding with materials out of which it derives ideas and truths beyond the field of sense. as thus attaining a knowledge of external objects, affording material for the operations of the understanding, and furnishing the occasion for the activity of the intuitive power, _perception may be said to lie at the basis of all knowledge_." perception is of course manifest in all persons. but it varies greatly in degree and power. moreover, it may be developed and cultivated to a great degree. as perception is an interpretation of the impression of the senses, we often confuse the cultivation of perception with the development of the senses themselves. two persons of equally perfect sense of sight may vary greatly in their degree of perception of sight impressions. one may be a most careless observer, while the other may be a very close observer and able to distinguish many points of interest and importance in the object viewed which are not apparent to the first observer. cultivation of perception is cultivation of the _mental background of the senses_, rather than of the sense organs themselves. the perception accompanying each sense may be developed and cultivated separately from that accompanying the others. the majority of persons are very careless observers. they will _see_ things without _perceiving_ the qualities, properties, characteristics, or parts which together make up those things. two persons, possessed of equal degrees of eyesight, will walk through a forest. both of them will _see_ trees. to one of them there will be but trees perceived; while to the other there will be a perception of the different species of trees, with their varying bark, leaves, shape, etc. one perceives simply a "pile of stone," which to the perception of another will be recognized as granite, marble, etc. brooks says: "very few persons can tell the difference between the number of legs of a fly and of a spider; and i have known farmers' boys and girls who could not tell whether the ears of a cow are in front of her horns, above her horns, below her horns, or behind her horns." halleck says of a test in a schoolroom: "fifteen pupils were sure that they had seen cats climb trees and descend them. there was a unanimity of opinion that the cats went up head first. when asked whether the cats came down head or tail first, the majority were sure that the cats descended as they were never known to do. anyone who had ever noticed the shape of the claws of any beast of prey could have answered that question without seeing an actual descent. farmers' boys, who have often seen cows and horses lie down and rise, are seldom sure whether the animals rise with their fore or hind feet first, or whether the habit of the horse agrees with that of the cow in this respect." brooks well says: "modern education tends to the neglect of the culture of the perceptive powers. in ancient times people studied nature much more than at present. being without books, they were compelled to depend upon their eyes and ears for knowledge; and this made their senses active, searching and exact. at the present day, we study books for a knowledge of external things; and we study them too much or too exclusively, and thus neglect the cultivation of the senses. we get our knowledge of the material world second-hand, instead of fresh from the open pages of the book of nature. is it not a great mistake to spend so much time in school and yet not know the difference between the leaf of a beech and of an oak; or not be able to distinguish between specimens of marble, quartz, and granite? the neglect of the culture of the perceptive powers is shown by the scholars of the present time. very few educated men are good observers; indeed, the most of them are sadly deficient in this respect.... they were taught to think and remember; but were not taught to use their eyes and ears. in modern education, books are used too much like spectacles, and the result is the blunting of the natural powers of perception." the first principle in the cultivation of perception is the correct use of the attention. the intelligent control of voluntary attention is a prerequisite to clear and distinct perception. we have called your attention to this matter in the preceding chapter. halleck says: "a body may be imaged on the retina without insuring perception. there must be an effort to concentrate the attention upon the many things which the world presents to our senses.... perception, to achieve satisfactory results, must summon the will to its aid to concentrate the attention. only the smallest part of what falls upon our senses at any time is actually perceived." the sense of sight is perhaps the one of the greatest importance to us, and accordingly the cultivation of perception with regard to impressions received through the eye is the most important for the ordinary individual. as kay says: "to see clearly is a valuable aid even to thinking clearly. in all our mental operations we owe much to sight. to recollect, to think, to imagine, is to see internally,--to call up more or less visual images of things before the mind. in order to understand a thing it is generally necessary to see it, and what a man has not seen he cannot properly realize or image distinctly to his mind.... it is by the habitual direction of our attention to the effects produced upon our consciousness by the impressions made upon the eye and transmitted to the sensorium that our sight, like our other senses, is trained." bain says: "cohering trains and aggregates of the sensations of sight make more than any other thing, perhaps more than all other things put together, the material of thought, memory and imagination." vinet says: "the child, and perhaps the man as well, only knows well what is shown him, and the image of things is the true medium between their abstract idea and his personal experience." this being the case, advice concerning the cultivation of perception must needs be directed mainly to the cultivation of the perception of sight-impressions. brooks says: "we should acquire the habit of observing with attention. many persons look at objects with a careless, inattentive eye. we should guard against the habit of careless looking. we should fix the mind upon the object before us; we should concentrate the attention upon that upon which we are looking. attention, in respect to perception, has been compared to a burning glass; hold the sun-glass between the sun and a board and the concentrated rays will burn a hole through the latter. so attention concentrates the rays of perceptive power and enables the mind to penetrate below the surface of things." the best authorities agree in the idea that the perception may be best cultivated by acquiring the habit of examining things in detail. and, that this examination in detail is best manifested by examining the parts going to make up a complex thing, separately, rather than examining the thing as a whole. halleck says regarding this point: "to look at things intelligently is the most difficult of all arts. the first rule for the cultivation of accurate perception is: do not try to perceive the whole of a complex object at once. take the human face for example. a man holding an important position to which he had been elected offended many people because he could not remember faces, and hence failed to recognize individuals the second time he met them. his trouble was in looking at the countenance as a whole. when he changed his method of observation, and noticed carefully the nose, mouth, eyes, chin and color of hair, he at once began to find recognition easier. he was no longer in danger of mistaking a for b, since he remembered that the shape of b's nose was different, or the color of his hair at least three shades lighter. this example shows that another rule can be formulated: pay careful attention to details.... to see an object merely as an undiscriminated mass of something in a certain place is to do no more than a donkey accomplishes as he trots along." brooks says regarding the same point: "to train the powers of observation we should practice observing minutely. we should analyze the objects which we look at into their parts, and notice these parts. objects present themselves to us as wholes; our definite knowledge of them is gained by analysis, by separating them into the elements which compose them. we should therefore give attention to the details of whatever we are considering; and thus cultivate the habit of observing with minuteness.... it is related of a teacher that if, when hearing a class, some one rapped at the door, he would look up as the visitor entered and from a single glance could tell his appearance and dress, the kind of hat he wore, kind of necktie, collar, vest, coat, shoes, etc. the skillful banker, also, in counting money with wondrous rapidity, will detect and throw from his pile of bills the counterfeits which, to the ordinary eye, seem to be without spot or blemish." one of the best methods of developing and cultivating the faculty of perception is to take up some study in which the perceptive faculties _must be_ employed. botany, physics, geology, natural history give splendid exercise in perception, providing the student engages in actual experimental work, and actual observation, instead of confining himself to the textbooks. a careful scientific study and examination of _any kind of objects_, in a manner calculated to bring out the various points of resemblance and difference, will do most to develop the perception. training of this kind will develop these powers to a high degree, in the case of small children. drawing is also a great help to the development of perception. in order to draw a thing correctly we must of necessity examine it in detail; otherwise we will not be able to draw it correctly. in fact, many authorities use the test of drawing to prove the degree of attention and perception that the student has bestowed upon an object which he has been studying. others place an object before the pupil for a few minutes, and then withdraw it, the pupil then being required to draw the object roughly but with attention to its leading peculiarities and features. then the object is again placed before the pupil for study, and he is then again required to draw from memory the additional details he has noticed in it. this process is repeated over and over again, until the pupil has proved that he has _observed_ every possible detail of interest in the object. this exercise has resulted in the cultivation of a high degree of perception in many students, and its simplicity should not detract from its importance. any person may practice this exercise by himself; or, better still, two or more students may combine and endeavor to excel each other in friendly rivalry, each endeavoring to discover the greatest number of details in the object considered. so rapidly do students improve under this exercise, that a daily record will show a steady advance. simple exercises in drawing are found in the reproduction, from memory, of geography maps, leaves of trees, etc. similar exercises may be found in the practice of taking a hasty look at a person, animal or building, and then endeavoring to reproduce in writing the particular points about the person or thing observed. this exercise will reveal rapid progress if persisted in. or, it may be varied by endeavoring to write out the contents of a room through which one has walked. the majority of our readers remember the familiar story of houdin, who so cultivated the faculty of perception that he was able to pass by a shop-window and afterward state in detail every object in the window. he acquired this power by gradual development, beginning with the observation of a single article in the window, then two, then three and so on. others have followed his method with great success. speaking of houdin's wonderful perception, halleck says: "a wide-awake eagle would probably see more of a thing at one glance than would a drowsy lizard in a quarter of an hour. extreme rapidity of perception, due to careful training, was one of the factors enabling houdin and his son to astonish everybody and to amass a fortune. he placed a domino before the boy, and instead of allowing him to count the spots, required him to give the sum total at once. this exercise was continued until each could give instantaneously the sum of the spots on a dozen dominoes. the sum was given just as accurately as if five minutes had been consumed in adding." houdin, in his memoirs relating the above facts regarding his own methods, states with due modesty, that many women far excel him in this respect. he says: "i can safely assert that a lady seeing another pass at full speed in a carriage will have had time to analyze her toilette from her bonnet to her shoes, and be able to describe not only the fashion and quality of the stuffs, but also say if the lace be real or only machine made." there are a number of games played by children which tend to the cultivation of the perception, and which might well be adapted for the use of older people. these games are based on the general principle of the various participants taking a brief view of a number of objects displayed in one's hand, on a table, in a box, etc., and then stating what he or she has seen. there will be noticed a wonderful difference in the degree of perception manifested by the various participants. and, equally interesting will be the degrees of progress noted after playing this game over several times, allowing time for rest between the series of games. it is a fact well known in police circles that thieves often train boys in this way, following this course by another in which the lads are expected to take in the contents of a room, the windows, locks, etc., at a glance. they are then graduated into spies looking out the details of the scenes of future robberies. in our volume of this series, devoted to the consideration of the memory, we have related a number of exercises and methods, similar to those given above, by which the perception may be cultivated. perception plays a most important place in memory, for upon the clearness of the percepts depends to a great degree the clearness of the impressions made upon the memory. so close is the connection between memory and perception that the cultivation of one tends to develop the other. for instance, the cultivation of the memory necessitates the sharpening of the perception in the direction of obtaining clear original impressions; while the cultivation of perception naturally develops the memory by reason of the fact that the latter is used in testing and proving the clearness and degree of perception. this being the case, those who find that the exercises and methods given above are too arduous may substitute the simple exercise of remembering as many details as possible of things they see. this effort to impress the memory will involuntarily bring into action the perceptive faculties in the acquirement of the original impressions, so that in the end the perception will be found to have developed. teachers and those having to do with children should realize the great value of the cultivation of perception in the young, and thus establishing valuable habits of observation among them. the experience and culture thus acquired will prove of great value in their after life. as brooks well says on this subject: "teachers should appreciate the value of the culture of the perceptive powers, and endeavor to do something to afford this culture. let it be remembered that by training the powers of observation of pupils, we lead them to acquire definite ideas of things, enable them to store their minds with fresh and interesting knowledge, lay the foundation for literary or business success, and thus do much to enhance their happiness in life and add to the sum of human knowledge." chapter vii. representation sensation and perception, as considered in the preceding chapter, are what are called by psychologists "processes of presentation." by presentation is meant the direct offering to the consciousness of mental images or objects of thought. if there were no faculty of the mind capable of retaining and _re_-presenting to the consciousness the impression or record of perception, we could never progress in knowledge, for each percept would be new each time it was presented and there would be no recognition of it as having been previously perceived, nor would there be any power to voluntarily recall any percept previously acquired. in short, we would be without that power of the mind called memory. but, fortunately for us as thinkers, we possess the power of representation; that is, of reproducing past perceptions and experiences in the shape of _mental images_ or pictures, "in the mind's eye," so to speak, which relieves us of the necessity of directly and immediately perceiving an object each time we desire or are required to think of it. the processes whereby this becomes possible are called the processes of representation, for the reason that by them past experiences of perception are _re_-presented to the consciousness. the subject of representation is closely bound up with that of memory. strictly speaking, representation may be said to be one phase of memory; association of ideas another; and the authorities prefer to treat the whole subject under the general head of memory. we have written a work on "memory" which forms one of the volumes of the present series, and we have no intention, or desire, to repeat here the information given in that work. but we must consider the subject of representation at this point in order to maintain the logical unity of the present general subject of thought-culture. the student will also notice, of course, the close relation between the processes of representation and those of the imagination, which we shall consider in other chapters of this work. memory has several phases, the usual classification of which is as follows: (1) impression; (2) retention; (3) recollection; (4) representation, and (5) recognition. each phase requires the operation of special mental processes. _impression_ is the process whereby the impressions of perception are recorded or stamped upon the subconscious field of mentality, as the impress of the die upon the wax. _retention_ is the process whereby the subconsciousness _retains_ or holds the impressions so received. _recollection_ is the process by which the mind _re-collects_ the impressions retained in the subconsciousness, bringing them again into consciousness as objects of knowledge. _representation_ is the process whereby the impressions so re-collected are _pictured or imaged_ in the mind. _recognition_ is the process whereby the mind _recognizes_ the mental image or picture so re-presented to it as connected with its past experience. as we have stated, we have considered the general subject of memory in another volume of this series and, therefore, shall not attempt to enter into a discussion of its general subject at this place. we shall, accordingly, limit ourselves here to a brief consideration of the phase of representation and its cultivation. representation, of course, depends upon the preceding phases of memory known as impression, retention and recollection. unless the impression is clear; unless the retention is normal, there can be no representation. and unless one _recollects_ there can be no representation. recollection (which is really a re-collection of percepts) must precede representation in the shape of mental images or pictures. recollection re-collects the mental materials out of which the image is to be constructed. but, as brooks says: "it is not to be assumed that knowledge is retained as a picture; but that it is _recreated_ in the form of a picture or some other mental product when it is recalled." the process is analogous to the transmutation of the sound-waves entering the receiver of a telephone, into electrical-waves which are transmitted to the receiver, where they are in turn re-transmuted to sound-waves which enter the ear of the listener. it will be seen at once that there is the closest possible relation between the processes of representation and those of memory--in fact, it is quite difficult to draw a clear line of division between them. some make the distinction that representation furnishes us with an exact reproduction of _the past_; while imagination combines our mental images into _new products_. that is, representation merely _reproduces_; while imagination _creates_ by forming new combinations; or representation deals with a reproduction of the actual; while imagination deals with the ideal. wundt speaking of this difficult distinction says: "psychologists are accustomed to define _memory images_ as ideas which _exactly reproduce_ some previous perception, and _fancy images_ as ideas consisting of a combination of elements taken from a whole number of perceptions. now memory images in the sense of this definition simply do not exist.... try, for instance, to draw from memory some landscape picture which you have only once seen, and then compare your copy with the original. you will expect to find plenty of mistakes and omissions; but you will also invariably find that you have put in a great deal which was not in the original, but which comes from landscape pictures which you have seen somewhere else." while we generally speak of representation _picturing_ the recollected percepts, still, we must not make the mistake of supposing that it is concerned with, or limited to, only mental pictures. we are able to _represent_ not only visual percepts but also sounds, smells, tastes or feelings, often so vividly that they appear as almost actually existent. we may also even _represent_, symbolically the processes of reasoning, mathematical operations, etc. in short nearly, if not all experiences which are possible in presentation are also possible in representation. the phase of representation, in the processes of memory, is of course subject to the general laws of the cultivation of memory which we have stated in detail in our previous volume on that subject. but there are some special points of development and cultivation which may be considered briefly in this place. in the first place the importance of attention and clear perception, as necessary precedents for clear representation, may be emphasized. in order to form clear mental images of a thing we must have perceived it clearly in the first place. the advice regarding the use of the attention and perception given in preceding chapters need not be repeated here, but special attention should be directed toward them in connection with the processes of representation. if we wish to cultivate the representative faculties, we must begin by cultivating the presentative faculties. then again we must remember what we have said elsewhere about the facts of development through (1) use; and (2) nourishment, in all mental faculties. we must begin to _use_ the faculties of representation in order to exercise them. we must give them _nourishment_ in the shape of objects of mental food. that is to say we must furnish these faculties with _materials_ with which they may grow and develop, and with exercise in order to strengthen the mental-muscle and also to give the faculties the opportunity to "acquire the knack." the exercises and methods recommended in our chapter on perception will furnish good _material_ for the representative faculties' growing requirements. by _perceiving_ the details of things, one is able to reproduce clear mental images of them. in studying an object, always carry in your mind the fact that you wish to _reproduce_ it in your mind later. in fact, if you have the opportunity, let your mind "repeat it to itself" as soon as possible after the actual occurrence and experience. just as you often murmur to yourself, or else write down, the name of a person or place which you have just heard, in order that you may recollect it the better thereafter, so it will be well for you to "mentally repeat" to yourself the experiences upon which you wish to exercise your representative faculties. as to the matter of development and cultivation by use, we would advise that you begin gradually to train your mind to _reproduce_ the experiences of the day or week or month, at intervals, until you feel that you are developing a new power in that direction. tonight, if you try you will find that you can reproduce but a very small part of today's happenings with any degree of clearness. how clearly can you image the places you have been, the appearances of the people you have met, the various details of persons and things which you perceived during the experiences of the day? not very clearly, we dare say. try again, and you will find that you will be able to add new details. keep it up until you feel tired or think that you have exhausted all the possibilities of the task. tomorrow, try it again, and you will find that the second day's experiences are more clearly reproduced in your mind. each day should find you a little more advanced, until you get to a place where the normal degree of power is attained, when the advance will be slower. then, at the end of the week, review its experiences. do the same the following week. at the end of the month, take a hasty mental trip over the month's experiences. and so on. exercise, in moderation, along these lines will work wonders for you. not only will it develop the representation, but your powers of observation and your general memory will be found to be improved. and, moreover, in "chewing the mental cud" you will think of many things of interest and importance in connection with your work, etc., and your general mental efficiency will be increased for the faculties of the mind are interdependent and share benefits with each other. chapter viii. abstraction as we have seen, the first stage or step in the process of thought is that called perception, which we have considered in the preceding chapter. perception, as we have seen, is the process by which we gain our first knowledge of the external world as reported to us by the channels of sense. the perceptive faculties interpret the material which is presented to us by the senses. following upon perception we find the processes resulting from the exercise of the group of faculties which are classified under the general head of understanding. understanding is the faculty, or faculties, of the mind by means of which we intelligently examine and compare the various _percepts_, either separating them by analysis, or else combining them by synthesis, or both, and thus securing our general ideas, principles, laws, classes, etc. there are several sub-phases of understanding which are known to psychologists and logicians as: (1) abstraction; (2) conception or generalization; (3) judgment, and (4) reasoning, respectively. in this chapter we shall consider the first of these sub-phases or steps of understanding, which is known as "abstraction." abstraction is that faculty of the mind by which we abstract or "draw off," and then consider apart, the particular qualities, properties, or attributes of an object, and thus are able to consider _them_ as "things" or objects of thought. in order to form _concepts_ or general ideas, from our _percepts_ or particular ideas, we must consider and examine two common points or qualities which go to make up _differences and resemblances_. the special examination or consideration of these common points or qualities result in the exercise of abstraction. in the process of abstraction we mentally "draw away" a quality of an object and then consider it as a distinct object of thought. thus in considering a flower we may _abstract_ its qualities of fragrance, color, shape, etc., and think of these as things independent of the flower itself from which they were derived. we think of _redness_, _fragrance_, etc., not only in connection with the particular flower but as _general qualities_. thus the qualities of redness, sweetness, hardness, softness, etc., lead us to the abstract terms, _red_, _sweet_, _hard_, _soft_, _etc._ in the same way courage, cowardice, virtue, vice, love, hate, etc., are abstract terms. no one ever saw one of these things--they are known only in connection with objects, or else as "abstract terms" in the processes of thought. they may be known as qualities, and expressed as predicates; or they may be considered as abstract things and expressed as nouns. in the general process of abstraction we first draw off and set aside all the qualities which are _not common_ to the general class under consideration, for the concept or general idea must comprise only the qualities common to its class. thus in the case of the general idea of horse, size and color must be abstracted as non-essentials, for horses are of various colors and sizes. but on the other hand, there are certain qualities which _are common to all horses_, and these must be abstracted and used in making up the concept or general idea. so, you see, in general abstraction we form two classes: (1) the unlike and not-general qualities; and (2) the like or common qualities. as halleck says: "in the process of abstraction, we draw our attention away from a mass of confusing details, unimportant at the time, and attend only to qualities common to the class. abstraction is little else than centering the power of attention on some qualities to the exclusion of others.... while we are forming concepts, we abstract or draw off certain qualities, either to leave them out of view or to consider them by themselves. our dictionaries contain such words as purity, whiteness, sweetness, industry, courage, etc. no one ever touched, tasted, smelled, heard, or saw purity or courage. we do not, therefore, gain our knowledge of these through the senses. we have seen pure persons, pure snow, pure honey; we have breathed pure air, tasted pure coffee. from all these different objects we have abstracted the only like quality, the quality of being pure. we then say we have an idea of _purity_, and that idea is an abstract one. it exists only in the mind which formed it. no one ever saw _whiteness_. he may have seen white clouds, snow, cloth, blossoms, houses, paper, horses, but he never saw _whiteness_ by itself. he simply abstracted that quality from various white objects." in abstraction we may either (1) abstract a quality and set it aside and apart from the other qualities under consideration, as being non-essential and not necessary; or we may (2) abstract a quality and hold it in the mind as essential and necessary for the concept which we are forming. likewise, we may abstract (1) all the qualities of an object _except one_, and set them aside that we may consider the _one_ quality by itself; or we may (2) abstract the one particular quality and consider it to the exclusion of all its associated qualities. in all of these aspects we have the same underlying process of considering a quality apart from its object, and apart from its associated qualities. the mind more commonly operates in the direction of abstracting one quality and viewing it apart from object and associated qualities. the importance of correct powers of abstraction is seen when we realize that all concepts or general ideas are but combinations of abstract qualities or ideas. as halleck says: "the difference between an _abstract idea_ and a _concept_ is that a concept may consist of a bundle of abstract ideas. if the class contains more than one common quality, so must the concept; it must contain as many of these abstracted qualities as are common to the class. the concept of the class _whale_ would embody a large number of such qualities." as brooks says: "if we could not abstract, we could not _generalize_, for abstraction is a condition of generalization." the last-mentioned authority also cleverly states the idea as follows: "the products of abstraction are _abstract ideas_, that is, ideas of qualities in the abstract. such ideas are called _abstracts_. thus my idea of some particular color, or hardness, or softness, is an abstract. abstract ideas have been wittily called 'the ghosts of departed qualities.' they may more appropriately be regarded as the spirits of which the objects from which they are derived are the bodies. in other words, they are, figuratively speaking, 'the disembodied spirits of material things.'" the cultivation of the faculty of abstraction depends very materially, in the first place, upon the exercise of attention and perception. mill holds that abstraction is primarily a result of attention. others hold that it is merely the mental process by which the attention is directed exclusively to the consideration of one of several qualities, properties, attributes, parts, etc. hamilton says: "attention and abstraction then are only the same process viewed in different relations. they are, as it were, the positive and negative poles of the same act." the cultivation of attention is really a part of the process of the cultivation of the faculty of abstraction. unless the attention be directed toward the object and its qualities we will be unable to perceive, set aside, and separately consider the abstract quality contained within it. in this process, as indeed in all other mental processes, attention is a prerequisite. therefore, here, as in many other places, we say to you: "begin by cultivating attention." moreover, the cultivation of the faculty of abstraction depends materially upon the cultivation of perception. not only must we _sense_ the existence of the various qualities in an object, but we must also _perceive_ them in consciousness, just as we perceive the object itself. in fact, the perception of the object is merely a perception of its various qualities, attributes and properties, for the object itself is merely a composite of these abstract things, at least so far as its perception in consciousness is concerned. try to think of _a horse_, without considering its qualities, attributes and properties, and the result is merely _an abstract horse_--something which belongs to the realm of unreality. try to think of _a rose_ without considering its color, odor, shape, size, response to touch, etc., and you have simply _an ideal rose_ which when analyzed is seen to be a _nothing_. take away the qualities, properties and attributes of anything, and you have left _merely a name_, or else a transcendental, idealistic, something apart from our world of sense knowledge. thus it follows that in order to _know_ the qualities of a thing in order to classify it, or to form a general idea of it, we _must_ use the perception in order to interpret or translate the sense-impressions we have received regarding them. consequently the greater our power of perception the greater must be the possibility of our power of abstraction. beyond the cultivation, use and exercise of the attention and the perception, there are but few practical methods for cultivating the faculty of abstraction. of course, _exercise_ of the faculty will develop it; and _the furnishing of material for its activities_ will give it the "nourishment" of which we have spoken elsewhere. practice in distinguishing the various qualities, attributes and properties of objects will give a valuable training to the faculty. let the student take any object and endeavor to analyze it into its abstract qualities, etc. let him try to discover qualities hidden from first sight. let him make a list of these qualities, and write them down; then try to add to the list. two or more students engaging in a friendly rivalry will stimulate the efforts of each other. in children the exercise may be treated as a game. _analysis of objects into their component qualities, attributes and qualities--the effort to extract as many adjectives applicable to the object_--this is the first step. the second step consists in _transforming these adjectives into their corresponding nouns_. as for instance, in a rose we perceive the _qualities_ which we call "redness," "fragrance," etc. we speak of the rose as being "red" or "fragrant"--then we think of "redness," or "fragrance" as abstract qualities, or things, which we express as nouns. exercise and practice along these lines will tend to cultivate the faculty of abstraction. by knowing qualities, we know the things possessing them. chapter ix. association of ideas having formed general ideas, or concepts, it is important that we associate them with other general ideas. in order to fully _understand_ a general idea we must know its associations and relations. the greater the known associations or relations of an idea, the greater is our degree of understanding of that idea. if we simply know many thousands of separated general ideas, without also knowing their associations and relations, we are in almost as difficult a position as if we merely knew thousands of individual percepts without being able to classify them in general concepts. it is necessary to develop the faculty of associating ideas into groups, according to their relations, just as we group particular ideas in classes. the difference, however, is that these group-ideas do not form classes of a genus, but depend solely upon associations of several kinds, as we shall see in a moment. halleck says: "all ideas have certain definite associations with other ideas, and they come up in groups. there is always an association between our ideas, although there are cases when we cannot trace it.... even when we find no association between our ideas, we may be sure that it exists.... an idea, then, never appears in consciousness unless there is a definite reason why this idea should appear in preference to others." brooks says: "one idea or feeling in the mind calls up some other idea or feeling with which it is in some way related. our ideas seem, as it were, to be tied together by the invisible thread of association, so that as one comes out of unconsciousness, it draws another with it. thoughts seem to exist somewhat in clusters like the grapes of a bunch, so that in bringing out one, we bring the entire cluster with it. the law of association is thus the tie, the thread, the golden link by which our thoughts are united in an act of reproduction." the majority of writers confine their consideration of association of ideas to its relation to memory. it is true that the laws of association play an important part in memory culture, but association of ideas also form an important part of the general subject of thought-culture, and especially in the phase of the latter devoted to the development of the understanding. the best authorities agree upon this idea and state it positively. ribot says: "the most fundamental law which regulates psychological phenomena is the law of association. in its comprehensive character it is comparable to the law of attraction in the physical world." mill says: "that which the law of gravitation is to astronomy, that which the elementary properties of the tissues are to physiology, the law of association of ideas is to psychology." there are two general principles, or laws, operative in the processes of association of ideas, known as (1) association by contiguity; and (2) association by similarity, respectively. association by contiguity manifests particularly in the processes of memory. in its two phases of (1) contiguity of time; and (2) contiguity of space, respectively, it brings together before the field of consciousness ideas associated with each by reason of their time or space relations. thus, if we remember a certain thing, we find it easy to remember things which occurred immediately before, or immediately after that particular thing. verbal memory depends largely upon the contiguity of time, as for instance, our ability to repeat a poem, or passage from a book, if we can recall the first words thereof. children often possess this form of memory to a surprising degree; and adults with only a limited degree of understanding may repeat freely long extracts from speeches they have heard, or even arbitrary jumbles of words. visual memory depends largely upon contiguity of space, as for instance our ability to recall the details of scenes, when starting from a given point. in both of these forms of association by contiguity the mental operation is akin to that of unwinding a ball of yarn, the ideas, thus associated in the sequence of time or place, following each other into the field of consciousness. association by contiguity, while important in itself, properly belongs to the general subject of memory, and as we have considered it in the volume of this series devoted to the last mentioned subject, we shall not speak of it further here. association by similarity, however, possesses a special interest to students of the particular subject of the culture of the understanding. if we were compelled to rely upon the association of contiguity for our understanding of things, we would understand a thing merely in its relations to that which went before or came after it; or by the things which were near it in space--we would have to unwind the mental ball of time and space relations in order to bring into consciousness the associated relations of anything. the association of similarity, however, remedies this defect, and gives us a higher and broader association. speaking of association of similarity, kay says: "it is of the utmost importance to us in forming a judgment of things, or in determining upon a particular line of conduct, to be able to bring together before the mind a number of instances of a _similar_ kind, recent or long past, which may aid us in coming to a right determination. thus, we may judge of the nature or quality of an article, and obtain light and leading in regard to any subject that may be before us. in this way we arrange and classify and reason by induction. _this is known as rational or philosophical association._" halleck says: "an eminent philosopher has said that man is completely at the mercy of the association of his ideas. every new object is seen in the light of its associated ideas.... it is not the business of the psychologist to state what power the association of ideas _ought_ to have. it is for him to ascertain what power it _does_ have. when we think of the bigotry of past ages, of the stake for the martyr and the stoning of witches, we can realize the force of prof. ziehen's statement: 'we cannot think as we _will_, but we _must_ think as just those associations which happen to be present prescribe.' while this is not literally true, it may serve to emphasize a deflecting factor which is usually underestimated." locke says: "the connection in our minds of ideas, in themselves loose and independent of one another, has such an influence, and is of so great force, to set us awry in our actions, as well moral as natural, passions, reasonings, and notions themselves, that, perhaps, there is not any one thing that deserves more to be looked after." stewart says: "the bulk of mankind, being but little accustomed to reflect and to generalize, associate their ideas chiefly according to their more obvious relations, and above all to the casual relations arising from contiguity in time and place; whereas, in the mind of a philosopher ideas are commonly associated according to those relations which are brought to light in consequence of particular efforts of attention, such as the relations of cause and effect, or of premises and conclusion. hence, it must necessarily happen that when he has occasion to apply to use his acquired knowledge, time and reflection will be requisite to enable him to recollect it." this association by similarity, or the "rational and philosophical association of ideas," may be developed and cultivated by a little care and work. the first principle is that of _learning the true relations of an idea_--its various logical associations. perhaps the easiest and best method is that adopted and practiced by socrates, the old greek philosopher, often called "the socratic method"--the method of questioning. by questioning oneself, or others, regarding a thing, the mind of the person answering tends to unfold its stores of information, and to make new and true associations. kays says: "socrates, plato, and others among the ancients and some moderns, have been masters of this art. the principle of asking questions and obtaining answers to them may be said to characterize all intellectual effort.... the great thing is to ask the right questions, and to obtain the right answers." meiklejohn says: "this art of questioning possessed by dr. hodgson was something wonderful and unique, and was to the minds of most of his pupils a truly obstetric art. he told them little or nothing, but showed them how to find out for themselves. 'the socratic method,' he said, 'is the true one, especially with the young.'" but this questioning must be done logically, and orderly, and not in a haphazard way. as fitch says: "in proposing questions it is very necessary to keep in view the importance of arranging them in the exact order in which the subject would naturally develop itself in the mind of a logical and systematic thinker." a number of systems have been formulated by different writers on the subject, all of which have much merit. the following system of analysis, designed for the use of students desiring to acquire correct associations, was given in the volume of this series, entitled "memory," and is reproduced here because it is peculiarly adapted to the cultivation and development of the faculty of discovering and forming correct associations and relations between ideas: system of analysis when you wish to discover what you really _know_ regarding a thing, ask yourself the following questions about it, examining each point in detail, and endeavoring to bring before the mind _your full knowledge_ regarding that particular point. fill in the deficiencies by reading some good work of reference, an encyclopedia for instance; or consulting a good dictionary, or both: i. where did it come from, or originate? ii. what caused it? iii. what history or record has it? iv. what are its attributes, qualities or characteristics? v. what things can i most readily associate with it? what is it most like? vi. what is it good for--how may it be used--what can i do with it? vii. what does it prove--what can be deduced from it? viii. what are its natural results--what happens because of it? ix. what is its future; and its natural or probable end or finish? x. what do i think of it, on the whole--what are my general impressions regarding it? xi. what do i know about it, in the way of general information? xii. what have i heard about it, and from whom, and when? the following "query table," from the same volume, may be found useful in the same direction. it is simpler and less complicated than the system given above. it has well been called a "magic key of knowledge," and it opens many a mental door: query table ask yourself the following questions regarding the thing under consideration. it will draw out many bits of information and associated knowledge in your mind: i. what? ii. whence? iii. where? iv. when? v. how? vi. why? vii. whither? remember, always, that the greater the number of associated and related ideas that you are able to group around a concept, the richer, fuller and truer does that concept become to you. the concept is a _general idea_, and its attributes of "generality" depend upon the associated facts and ideas related to it. the greater the number of the view points from which a concept may be examined and considered, the greater is the degree of knowledge concerning that concept. it is held that everything in the universe is related to every other thing, so that if we knew _all_ the associated ideas and facts concerning a thing, we would not only know that particular thing _absolutely_, but would, besides, know _everything_ in the universe. the chain of association is infinite in extent. chapter x. generalization we have seen that sensation is translated or interpreted into perception; and that from the percepts so created we may "draw off," or separate, various qualities, attributes and properties by the analytical process we call abstraction. abstraction, we have seen, thus constitutes the first step in the process of what is called understanding. the second step is called generalization or conception. generalization, or conception, is that faculty of the mind by which we are able to combine and group together several particular ideas into one general idea. thus when we find a number of particular objects possessing the same general qualities, attributes or properties, we proceed to _classify_ them by the process of generalization. for instance, in a number of animals possessing certain general and common qualities we form a concept of a class comprising those particular animals. thus in the concept of cow, we include _all cows_--we know them to be cows because of their possession of certain general class qualities which we include in our concept of _cow_. the particular cows may vary greatly in size, color and general appearance, but they possess the common general qualities which we group together in our general concept of _cow_. likewise by reason of certain common and general qualities we include in our concept of "man," _all men_, black, white, brown, red or yellow, of all races and degrees of physical and mental development. from this generic concept we may make race concepts, dividing men into indians, caucasians, malays, negroes, mongolians, etc. these concepts in turn may be divided into sub-races. these sub-divisions result from an analysis of the great concept. the great concept is built up by synthesis from the individuals, through the sub-divisions of minor concepts. or, again, we may form a concept of "napoleon bonaparte" from the various qualities and characteristics which went to make up that celebrated man. the product of generalization or conception is called a _concept_. a concept is expressed in a word, or words, called "a term." a concept is more than a mere _word_--it is _a general idea_. and a term is more than a mere word--it is _the expression of a general idea_. a _concept_ is built up from the processes of perception, abstraction, comparison and generalization. we must first perceive; then analyze or abstract qualities; then compare qualities; then synthesize or classify according to the result of the comparison of qualities. by perceiving and comparing the qualities of various individual things, we notice their points of resemblance and difference--the points wherein they agree or disagree--wherein they are alike or unlike. eliminating by abstraction the points in which they differ and are unlike; and, again by abstraction, retaining in consideration the points in which they resemble and are alike; we are able to group, arrange or classify these "_alike things_" into _a class-idea_ large enough to embrace them all. this class-idea is what is known as a general idea or a concept. this concept we give a general name, which is called a term. in grammar our particular ideas arising from percepts are usually denoted by proper nouns--our general ideas arising from concepts are usually denoted by common nouns. thus "john smith" (particular; proper noun) and "man" (general; common noun). or "horse" (general; common), and "dobbin" (particular; proper). it will be seen readily that there must be lower and higher concepts. every class contains within itself lower classes. and every class is, itself, but a lower class in a higher one. thus the high concept of "animal" may be analyzed into "mammal," which in turn is found to contain "horse," which in turn may be sub-divided into special kinds of horses. the concept "plant" may be sub-divided many times before the concept "rose" is obtained, and the latter is capable of sub-division into varieties and sub-varieties, until at last a particular flower is reached. jevons says: "we classify things together whenever we observe that they are like each other in any respect and, therefore, think of them together.... in classifying a collection of objects, we do not merely put together into groups those which resemble each other, but we also divide each class into smaller ones in which the resemblance is more complete. thus the class of _white substances_ may be divided into those which are solid and those which are fluid, so that we get the two minor classes of solid-white, and fluid-white substances. it is desirable to have names by which to show that one class is contained in another and, accordingly, we call the class which is divided into two or more smaller ones, the _genus_; and the smaller ones into which it is divided, the _species_." every genus is a species of the class next higher than itself; and every species is a genus of the classes lower than itself. thus it would seem that the extension in either direction would be infinite. but, for the purposes of finite thought, the authorities teach that there must be a highest genus, which cannot be the species of a higher class, and which is called the _summum genus_. the _summum genus_ is expressed by terms such as the following: "being;" "existence;" "the absolute;" "something;" "thing;" "the ultimate reality," or some similar term denoting the state of being _ultimate_. likewise, at the lowest end of the scale we find what are called the lowest species, or _infima species_. the infima species are always _individuals_. thus we have the _individual_ at one end of the scale; and _the absolute_ at the other. beyond these limits the mind of man cannot travel. there has been much confusion in making classifications and some ingenious plans have been evolved for simplifying the process. that of jevons is perhaps the simplest, when understood. this authority says: "all these difficulties are avoided in the _perfect logical method of dividing each genus into two species, and not more than two, so that one species possesses a particular quality, and the other does not_. thus if i divide dwelling-houses into those which are made of brick and those which are not made of brick, i am perfectly safe and nobody can find fault with me.... suppose, for instance, that i divide dwelling-houses as below: dwelling-house | --+------+-------+-------+-------+- | | | | | brick stone earth iron wood "the evident objection will at once be made, that houses may be built of other materials than those here specified. in australia, houses are sometimes made of the bark of gum-trees; the esquimaux live in snow houses; tents may be considered as canvas houses, and it is easy to conceive of houses made of terra-cotta, paper, straw, etc. all logical difficulties will, however, be avoided _if i never make more than two species at each step_, in the following way:- dwelling-house | +----+----+ | | brick not-brick | +----+----+ | | stone not-stone | +----+----+ | | wooden not-wooden | +----+----+ | | iron not-iron "it is quite certain that i must in this division have left a place for every possible kind of house; for if a house is not made of brick, nor stone, nor wood, nor iron, it yet comes under the species at the right hand, which is not-iron, not-wooden, not-stone, and not-brick.... this manner of classifying things may seem to be inconvenient, but it is in reality the only logical way." the student will see that the process of classification is two-fold. the first is by analysis, in which the genus is divided into species by reason of _differences_. the second is by synthesis, in which individuals are grouped into species, and species into the genus, by reason of _resemblances_. moreover, in building up general classes, which is known as generalization, we must first _analyze_ the individual in order to ascertain its _qualities, attributes and properties_, and then _synthesize_ the individual with other individuals possessing like qualities, properties or attributes. brooks says of generalization: "the mind now takes the materials that have been furnished and fashioned by comparison and analysis and unites them into one single mental product, giving us the general notion or concept. the mind, as it were, brings together these several attributes into a bunch or package and then ties a mental string around it, as we would bunch a lot of roses or cigars.... generalization is an _ascending_ process. the broader concept is regarded as higher than the narrower concept; a concept is considered as higher than percept; a general idea stands above a particular idea. we thus go up from particulars to generals; from percepts to concepts; from lower concepts to higher concepts. beginning down with particular objects, we rise from them to the general idea of their class. having formed a number of lower classes, we compare them as we did individuals and generalize them into higher classes. we perform the same process with these higher classes and thus proceed until we are at last arrested in the highest class, that of being. having reached the pinnacle of generalization, we may descend the ladder by reversing the process through which we ascend." a concept, then, is seen to be a _general idea_. it is a general thought that embraces _all the individuals_ of its own class and has in it all that is common to its own class, while it resembles _no_ particular individual of its class in _all_ respects. thus, a concept of _animal_ contains within itself the minor concepts of _all animals_ and the animal-quality of all animals--yet it differs from the _percept_ of any one particular animal and the minor concepts of minor classes of animals. consequently a concept or general idea cannot be _imaged_ or mentally pictured. we may picture a percept of any particular thing, but we cannot picture a general idea or concept because the latter does not partake of the _particular_ qualities of any of its class, but embraces all the general qualities of the class. try to picture the general idea, or concept, of man. you will find that any attempt to do so will result in the production of merely _a man_--some particular man. if you give the picture dark hair, it will fail to include the light-haired men; if you give it white skin, it will slight the darker-skinned races. if you picture a stout man, the thin ones are neglected. and so on in every feature. it is impossible to form a correct general class picture unless we include every individual in it. the best we can do is to form a sort of _composite_ image, which at the best is in the nature of a symbol representative of the class--an ideal image to make easier the _idea_ of the general class or term. from the above we may see the fundamental differences between a percept and a concept. the percept is the mental image of a real object--a particular thing. the concept is merely a _general idea_, or general notion, of the common attributes of a class of objects or things. a percept arises directly from sense-impressions, while a concept is, in a sense, a pure thought--an abstract thing--a mental creation--an ideal. a concrete concept is a concept embodying the common qualities of a class of objects, as for instance, the concrete concept of _lion_, in which the general class qualities of all lions are embodied. an abstract concept is a concept embodying merely some one quality generally diffused, as for instance, the quality of _fierceness_ in the general class of lions. _rose_ is a concrete concept; _red_, or _redness_, is an abstract concept. it will aid you in remembering this distinction to memorize jevons' rule: "_a concrete term is the name of a thing_; _an abstract term is the name of a quality of a thing_." a concrete concept, including all the particular individuals of a class, must also contain all the common qualities of those individuals. thus, such a concept is composed of the ideas of the particular individuals and of their common qualities, in combination and union. from this arises the distinctive terms known as the _content_, _extension_ and _intension_ of concepts, respectively. the _content_ of a concept is _all that it includes--its full meaning_. the _extension_ of a concept depends upon its _quantity_ aspect--it is its property of including numbers of individual objects within its content. the _intension_ of a concept depends upon its _quality_ aspect--it is its property of including class or common qualities, properties or attributes within its content. thus, the _extension_ of the concept _horse_ covers all individual horses; while its _intension_ includes all qualities, attributes, and properties common to all horses--class qualities possessed by all horses in common, and which qualities, etc., make the particular animals _horses_, as distinguished from other animals. it follows that the larger the number of particular objects in a class, the smaller must be the number of general class qualities--qualities common to all in the class. and, that the larger the number of common class qualities, the smaller must be the number of individuals in the class. as the logicians express it, "the greater the extension, the less the intension; the greater the intension, the less the extension." thus, _animal_ is narrow in intension, but very broad in extension; for while there are many animals there are but very few qualities common to _all_ animals. and, _horse_ is narrower in extension, but broader in intension; for while there are comparatively few horses, the qualities common to all horses are greater. the cultivation of the faculty of generalization, or conception, of course, depends largely upon _exercise_ and _material_, as does the cultivation of every mental faculty, as we have seen. but there are certain rules, methods and ideas which may be used to advantage in developing this faculty in the direction of clear and capable work. this faculty is developed by all of the general processes of thought, for it forms an important part of all thought. but the logical processes known as analysis and synthesis give to this faculty exercise and employment particularly adapted to its development and cultivation. let us briefly consider these processes. * * * * * _logical analysis_ is the process by which we examine and unfold the meaning of terms. a term, you remember, is the verbal expression of a concept. in such analysis we endeavor to unfold and discover the _quality-aspect_ and the _quantity-aspect_ of the content of the concept. we seek, thereby, to discover the particular general idea expressed; the number of particular individuals included therein; and the properties of the class or generalization. analysis depends upon division and separation. development in the process of logical analysis tends toward clearness, distinctness, and exactness in thought and expression. logical analysis has two aspects or phases, as follows: (1) _division_, or the separation of a concept according to its _extension_, as for instance the analysis of a genus into its various species; and (2) _partition_, or the separation of a concept into its component qualities, properties and attributes, as for instance, the analysis of the concept _iron_ into its several qualities of color, weight, hardness, malleability, tenacity, utility, etc. there are certain rules of division which should be observed, the following being a simple statement of the same: i. _the division should be governed by a uniform principle._ for instance it would be illogical to first divide men into caucasians, mongolians, etc., and then further sub-divide them into christians, pagans, etc., for the first division would be according to the principle of race, and the second according to the principle of religion. observing the rule of the "uniform principle" we may divide men into races, and sub-races, and so on, without regard to religion; and we may likewise divide men according to their respective religions, and then into minor denominations and sects, without regard to race or nationality. the above rule is frequently violated by careless thinkers and speakers. ii. _the division should be complete and exhaustive._ for instance, the analysis of a genus should extend to every known species of it, upon the principle that _the genus is merely the sum of its several species_. a textbook illustration of a violation of this rule is given in the case of the concept _actions_, when divided into _good-actions_ and _bad-actions_, but omitting the very important species of _indifferent-actions_. carelessness in observance of this rule leads to fallacious reasoning and cloudy thinking. iii. _the division should be in logical sequence._ it is illogical to skip or pass over intermediate divisions, as for instance, when we divide _animals_ into _horses_, _trout and swallows_, omitting the intermediate division into _mammals_, _fish and birds_. the more perfect the sequence, the clearer the analysis and the thought resulting therefrom. iv. _the division should be exclusive._ that is, the various species divided from a genus, should be reciprocally exclusive--should exclude one another. thus to divide _mankind_ into _male_, _men and women_, would be illogical, because the class _male_ includes _men_. the division should be either: "_male and female_;" or else: "men, women, boys, girls." the exercise of division along these lines, and according to these rules, will tend to improve one's powers of conception and analysis. any class of objects--any general concept--may be used for practice. a trial will show you the great powers of unfoldment contained within this simple process. it tends to broaden and widen one's conception of almost any class of objects. there are also several rules for partition which should be observed, as follows: i. _the partition should be complete and exhaustive._ that is, it should unfold the full meaning of the term or concept, so far as is concerned its several general qualities, properties and attributes. but this applies only to the qualities, properties and attributes which are _common_ to the class or concept, and not to the minor qualities which belong solely to the various sub-divisions composing the class; nor to the accidental or individual qualities belonging to the separate individuals in any sub-class. the qualities should be _essential_ and not _accidental_--general, not particular. a famous violation of this rule was had in the case of the ancient platonic definition of "man" as: "a two-legged animal without feathers," which diogenes rendered absurd by offering a plucked chicken as a "man" according to the definition. clearness in thought requires the recognition of the distinction between the general qualities and the individual, particular or accidental qualities. red-hair is an accidental quality of a particular man and not a general quality of the class _man_. ii. _the partition should consider the qualities, properties and attributes_, according to the classification of logical division. that is, the various qualities, properties and attributes should be considered in the form of genus and species, as in division. in this classification, the rules of division apply. it will be seen that there is a close relationship existing between partition and definition. definition is really a statement of the various qualities, attributes, and properties of a concept, either stated in particular or else in concepts of other and larger classes. there is perhaps no better exercise for the cultivation of clear thought and conception than definition. in order to define, one must exercise his power of analysis to a considerable extent. brooks says: "exercises in logical definition are valuable in unfolding our conception. logical definition, including both the genus and the specific difference, gives clearness, definiteness and adequacy to our conceptions. it separates a conception from all other conceptions by fixing upon and presenting the essential and distinctive property or properties of the conception defined. the value of exercises in logical definition is thus readily apparent." if the student will select some familiar term and endeavor to define it correctly, writing down the result, and will then compare the latter with the definition given in some standard dictionary, he will see a new light regarding logical definition. practice in definition, conducted along these lines, will cultivate the powers of analysis and conception and will, at the same time, tend toward the acquiring of correct and scientific methods of thought and clear expression. hyslop gives the following excellent rules of logical definition, which should be followed by the student in his exercises: "i. a definition should state the essential attributes of the species defined. "ii. a definition must not contain the name or word defined. otherwise the definition is called _a circulus in definiendo_ (defining in a circle). "iii. the definition must be exactly equivalent to the species defined. "iv. a definition should not be expressed in obscure, figurative or ambiguous language. "v. a definition must not be negative when it can be affirmative." _logical synthesis_ is the exact opposite of logical analysis. in the latter we strive to separate and take apart; in the former we strive to bind together and combine the particulars into the general. beginning with individual things and comparing them with each other according to observed points of resemblance, we proceed to group them into species or narrow classes. these classes, or species, we then combine with similar ones, into a larger class or genus; and then, according to the same process, into broader classes as we have shown in the first part of this chapter. the process of synthesis is calculated to develop and cultivate the mind in several directions and exercises along these lines will give a new habit and sense of orderly arrangement, which will be most useful to the student in his every-day life. halleck says: "whenever a person is comparing a specimen to see whether it may be put in the same class with other specimens, he is _thinking_. comparison is an absolutely essential factor of thought, and classification demands comparison. the man who has not properly classified the myriad individual objects with which he has to deal, must advance like a cripple. he, only, can travel with seven-league boots, who has thought out the relations existing between these stray individuals and put them into their proper classes. in a minute a business man may put his hand on any one of ten thousand letters if they are properly classified. in the same way, the student of history, sociology or any other branch, can, if he studies the subjects aright, have all his knowledge classified and speedily available for use.... in this way, we may make our knowledge of the world more minutely exact. we cannot classify without seeing things under a new aspect." the study of natural history, in any or all of its branches, will do much to cultivate the power of classification. but one may practice classification with the objects around him in his every-day life. arranging things mentally, into small classes, and these into larger, one will soon be able to form a logical connection between particular ideas and general ideas; particular objects and general classes. the practice of classification gives to the mind a constructive turn--a "building-up" tendency, which is most desirable in these days of construction and development. regarding some of the pitfalls of classification, jevons says: "in classifying things, we must take great care not to be misled by outward resemblances. things may seem to be very much like each other which are not so. whales, porpoises, seals and several other animals live in the sea exactly like fish; they have a similar shape and are usually classed among fish. people are said to go whale-fishing. yet these animals are not really fish at all, but are much more like dogs and horses and other quadrupeds than they are like fish. they cannot live entirely under water and breathe the air contained in the water like fish, but they have to come up to the surface at intervals to take breath. similarly, we must not class bats with birds because they fly about, although they have what would be called wings; these wings are not like those of birds and in truth bats are much more like rats and mice than they are like birds. botanists used at one time to classify plants according to their size, as trees, shrubs or herbs, but we now know that a great tree is often more similar in its character to a tiny herb than it is to other great trees. a daisy has little resemblance to a great scotch thistle; yet the botanist regards them as very similar. the lofty growing bamboo is a kind of grass, and the sugarcane also belongs to the same class with wheat and oats." remember that analysis of a genus into its component species is accomplished by a separation according to _differences_; and species are built up by synthesis into a genus because of _resemblances_. the same is true regarding individual and species, building up in accordance to points of resemblance, while analysis or separation is according to points of difference. the use of a good dictionary will be advantageous to the student in developing the power of generalization or conception. starting with a species, he may build up to higher and still higher classes by consulting the dictionary; likewise, starting with a large class, he may work down to the several species composing it. an encyclopedia, of course, is still better for the purpose in many cases. remember that generalization is a prime requisite for clear, logical thinking. moreover, it is a great developer of thought. chapter xi. judgment we have seen that in the several mental processes which are grouped together under the general head of understanding, the stage or step of abstraction is first; following which is the second step or phase, called generalization or conception. the third step or phase is that which is called judgment. in the exercise of the faculty of judgment, we determine the agreement or disagreement between two concepts, ideas, or objects of thought, by comparing them one with another. from this process of comparison arises the judgment, which is expressed in the shape of a logical proposition. a certain form of judgment must be used, however, in the actual formation of a concept, for we must first compare qualities, and make a judgment thereon, in order to form a general idea. in this place, however, we shall confine ourselves to the consideration of the faculty of judgment in the strictly logical usage of the term, as previously stated. we have seen that the expression of a concept is called a term, which is the _name_ of the concept. in the same way when we compare two terms (expressions of concepts) and pass judgment thereon, the expression of that judgment is called a proposition. in every judgment and proposition there must be two terms or concepts, connected by a little word "is" or "are," or some form of the verb "to be," in the present tense indicative. this connecting word is called the copula. for instance, we may compare the two terms _horse_ and _animal_, as follows: "a horse is an animal," the word _is_ being the copula or symbol of the _affirmative_ judgment, which connects the two terms. in the same way we may form a _negative_ judgment as follows: "a horse is not a cow." in a proposition, _the term of which something is affirmed_ is called the subject; and _the term expressing that which is affirmed of the subject_ is called the predicate. besides the distinction between affirmative judgments, or propositions, there is a distinction arising from _quantity_, which separates them into the respective classes of _particular_ and _universal_. thus, "_all_ horses are animals," is a _universal_ judgment; while "_some_ horses are black" is a particular judgment. thus all judgments must be either _affirmative_ or _negative_; and also either _particular_ or _universal_. this gives us four possible classes of judgments, as follows, and illustrated symbolically: 1. universal affirmative, as "all a is b." 2. universal negative, as "no a is b." 3. particular affirmative, as "some a is b." 4. particular negative, as "some a is not b." the term or judgment is said to be "_distributed_" (that is, extended universally) when it is used in its fullest sense, in which it is used in the sense of "each and every" of its kind or class. thus in the proposition "horses are animals" the meaning is that "_each and every_" horse is an animal--in this case the _subject_ is "distributed" or made universal. but the _predicate_ is _not_ "distributed" or made universal, but remains particular or restricted and implies merely "some." for the proposition does not mean that the class "_horses_" includes _all_ animals. for we may say that: "_some_ animals are _not_ horses." so you see we have several instances in which the "distribution" varies, both as regards the subject and also the predicate. the rule of logic applying in this case is as follows: 1. in _universal_ propositions, the _subject_ is distributed. 2. in _particular_ propositions, the _subject_ is _not_ distributed. 3. in _negative_ propositions, the _predicate_ is distributed. 4. in _affirmative_ propositions, the _predicate_ is _not_ distributed. a little time devoted to the analysis and understanding of the above rules will repay the student for his trouble, inasmuch as it will train his mind in the direction of logical distinction and judgment. the importance of these rules will appear later. halleck says: "judgment is the power revolutionizing the world. the revolution is slow because nature's forces are so complex, so hard to be reduced to their simplest forms, and so disguised and neutralized by the presence of other forces. the progress of the next hundred years will join many concepts, which now seem to have no common qualities. if the vast amount of energy latent in the sunbeams, in the rays of the stars, in the winds, in the rising and falling of the tides, is treasured up and applied to human purposes, it will be a fresh triumph for judgment. this world is rolling around in a universe of energy, of which judgment has as yet harnessed only the smallest appreciable fraction. fortunately, judgment is ever working and silently comparing things that, to past ages, have seemed dissimilar; and it is constantly abstracting and leaving out of the field of view those qualities which have simply served to obscure the point at issue." brooks says: "the power of judgment is of great value to its products. it is involved in or accompanies every act of the intellect, and thus lies at the foundation of all intellectual activity. it operates directly in every act of the understanding; and even aids the other faculties of the mind in completing their activities and products." the best method of cultivating the power of judgment is the exercise of the faculty in the direction of making comparisons, of weighing differences and resemblances, and in generally training the mind along the lines of logical thinking. another volume of this series is devoted to the latter subject, and should aid the student who wishes to cultivate the habit of logical and scientific thought. the study of mathematics is calculated to develop the faculty of judgment, because it necessitates the use of the powers of comparison and decision. mental arithmetic, especially, will tend to strengthen, and exercise this faculty of the mind. geometry and logic will give the very best exercise along these lines to those who care to devote the time, attention and work to the task. games, such as chess, and checkers or draughts, tend to develop the powers of judgment. the study of the definitions of words in a good dictionary will also tend to give excellent exercise along the same lines. the exercises given in this book for the cultivation and development of the several faculties, will tend to develop this particular faculty in a general way, for the exercise of judgment is required at each step of the way, and in each exercise. brooks says: "it should be one of the leading objects of the culture of young people to lead them to acquire the habit of forming judgments. they should not only be led to see things, but to have opinions about things. they should be trained to see things in their relations, and to put these relations into definite propositions. their ideas of objects should be worked up into thoughts concerning the objects. those methods of teaching are best which tend to excite a thoughtful habit of mind that notices the similitudes and diversities of objects, and endeavors to read the thoughts which they embody and of which they are the symbols." the exercises given at the close of the next chapter, entitled "derived judgments," will give to the mind a decided trend in the direction of logical judgment. we heartily recommend them to the student. the student will find that he will tend to acquire the habit of clear logical comparison and judgment, if he will memorize and apply in his thinking the following excellent _primary rules of thought_, stated by jevons: "i. _law of identity_: the same quality or thing is _always_ the same quality or thing, no matter how different the conditions in which it occurs. "ii. _law of contradiction_: nothing can at the same time and place _both_ be and not be. "iii. _law of excluded middle_: everything must _either_ be, or not be; there is no other alternative or middle course." jevons says of these laws: "students are seldom able to see at first their full meaning and importance. all arguments may be explained when these self-evident laws are granted; and it is not too much to say that _the whole of logic will be plain to those who will constantly use these laws as their key_." chapter xii. derived judgments as we have seen, a judgment is obtained by comparing two objects of thought according to their agreement or difference. the next higher step, that of logical reasoning, consists of the comparing of two ideas through their relation to a third. this form of reasoning is called _mediate_, because it is effected through the _medium_ of the third idea. there is, however, a certain process of understanding which comes in between this mediate reasoning on the one hand, and the formation of a plain judgment on the other. some authorities treat it as a form of _reasoning_, calling it _immediate reasoning_ or immediate inference, while others treat it as a higher form of judgment, calling it derived judgment. we shall follow the latter classification, as best adapted for the particular purposes of this book. the fundamental principle of derived judgment is that ordinary judgments are often so related to each other that one judgment may be derived directly and immediately from another. the two particular forms of the general method of derived judgment are known as those of (1) opposition; and (2) conversion; respectively. in order to more clearly understand the logical processes involved in derived judgment, we should acquaint ourselves with the general relations of judgments, and with the symbolic letters used by logicians as a means of simplifying the processes of thought. logicians denote each of the four classes of judgments or propositions by a certain letter, the first four vowels--a, e, i and o, being used for the purpose. it has been found very convenient to use these symbols in denoting the various forms of propositions and judgments. the following table should be memorized for this purpose: _universal affirmative_, symbolized by "a." _universal negative_, symbolized by "e." _particular affirmative_, symbolized by "i." _particular negative_, symbolized by "o." it will be seen that these four forms of judgments bear certain relations to each other, from which arises what is called opposition. this may be better understood by reference to the following table called the square of opposition: a contraries e +------------------------+ |\ / | | \ /s | | c\ /e | | o\ /i | | n\ /r | | t\ /o | s| r\ /t |s u| a\ /c |u b| \ /i |b a| \ /d |a l| \ / |l t| / \ |t e| / d\ |e r| / i\ |r n| /a c\ |n s| /r t\ |s | /t o\ | | /n r\ | | /o i\ | | /c e\ | | / s\ | |/ \ | +------------------------+ i sub-contraries o thus, a and e are _contraries_; i and o are _sub-contraries_; a and i, and also e and o are _subalterns_; a and o, and also e and i are _contradictories_. the following will give a symbolic table of each of the four judgments or propositions with the logical symbols attached: (a) "all a is b." (e) "no a is b." (i) "some a is b." (o) "some a is not b." the following are the rules governing and expressing the relations above indicated: i. of the contradictories: _one must be true, and the other must be false_. as for instance, (a) "all a is b;" and (o) "some a is not b;" cannot both be true at the same time. neither can (e) "no a is b;" and (i) "some a is b;" both be true at the same time. they are _contradictory_ by nature,--and if one is true, the other must be false; if one is false, the other must be true. ii. of the contraries: _if one is true the other must be false; but, both may be false_. as for instance, (a) "all a is b;" and (e) "no a is b;" cannot both be true at the same time. if one is true the other _must_ be false. _but_, both may be _false_, as we may see when we find we may state that (i) "_some_ a is b." so while these two propositions are _contrary_, they are not _contradictory_. while, if one of them is _true_ the other must be false, it does not follow that if one is _false_ the other must be _true_, for both _may be false_, leaving the truth to be found in a third proposition. iii. of the subcontraries: _if one is false the other must be true; but both may be true_. as for instance, (i) "some a is b;" and (o) "some a is not b;" may both be true, for they do not contradict each other. but one or the other must be true--they can not both be false. iv. of the subalterns: _if the universal (a or e) be true the particular (i or o) must be true_. as for instance, if (a) "all a is b" is true, then (i) "some a is b" must also be true; also, if (e) "no a is b" is true, then "some a is not b" must also be true. the universal carries the particular within its truth and meaning. but; _if the universal is false, the particular may be true or it may be false_. as for instance (a) "all a is b" may be false, and yet (i) "some a is b" may be either true or false, without being determined by the (a) proposition. and, likewise, (e) "no a is b" may be false without determining the truth or falsity of (o) "some a is not b." but: _if the particular be false, the universal also must be false_. as for instance, if (i) "some a is b" is false, then it must follow that (a) "all a is b" must also be false; or if (o) "some a is not b" is false, then (e) "no a is b" must also be false. but: _the particular may be true, without rendering the universal true_. as for instance: (i) "_some_ a is b" may be true without making true (a) "_all_ a is b;" or (o) "some a is not b" may be true without making true (e) "no a is b." the above rules may be worked out not only with the symbols, as "all a is b," but also with _any_ judgments or propositions, such as "all horses are animals;" "all men are mortal;" "some men are artists;" etc. the principle involved is identical in each and every case. the "all a is b" symbology is merely adopted for simplicity, and for the purpose of rendering the logical process akin to that of mathematics. the letters play the same part that the numerals or figures do in arithmetic or the _a_, _b_, _c_; _x_, _y_, _z_, in algebra. thinking in symbols tends toward clearness of thought and reasoning. _exercise_: let the student apply the principles of opposition by using any of the above judgments mentioned in the preceding paragraph, in the direction of erecting a square of opposition of them, after having attached the symbolic letters a, e, i and o, to the appropriate forms of the propositions. then let him work out the following problems from the tables and square given in this chapter. 1. if "a" is true; show what follows for e, i and o. also what follows if "a" be _false_. 2. if "e" is true; show what follows for a, i and o. also what follows if "e" be _false_. 3. if "i" is true; show what follows for a, e and o. also what follows if "i" be _false_. 4. if "o" is true; show what follows for a, e and i. also what happens if "o" be _false_. conversion of judgments judgments are capable of the process of conversion, or _the change of place of subject and predicate_. hyslop says: "conversion is the transposition of subject and predicate, or the process of immediate inference by which we can infer from a given preposition another having the predicate of the original for its subject, and the subject of the original for its predicate." the process of converting a proposition seems simple at first thought but a little consideration will show that there are many difficulties in the way. for instance, while it is a true judgment that "all _horses_ are _animals_," it is not a correct derived judgment or inference that "all _animals_ are _horses_." the same is true of the possible conversion of the judgment "all biscuit is bread" into that of "all bread is biscuit." there are certain rules to be observed in conversion, as we shall see in a moment. the subject of a judgment is, of course, _the term of which something is affirmed_; and the predicate is _the term expressing that which is affirmed of the subject_. the predicate is really an expression of an _attribute_ of the subject. thus when we say "all horses are animals" we express the idea that _all horses_ possess the _attribute_ of "animality;" or when we say that "some men are artists," we express the idea that _some men_ possess the _attributes_ or qualities included in the concept "artist." in conversion, the original judgment is called the convertend; and the new form of judgment, resulting from the conversion, is called the converse. remember these terms, please. the two rules of conversion, stated in simple form, are as follows: i. do not change the quality of a judgment. the quality of the converse must remain the same as that of the convertend. ii. do not distribute an undistributed term. no term must be distributed in the converse which is not distributed in the convertend. the reason of these rules is that it would be contrary to truth and logic to give to a converted judgment a higher degree of quality and quantity than is found in the original judgment. to do so would be to attempt to make "twice 2" more than "2 plus 2." there are three methods or kinds of conversion, as follows: (1) simple conversion; (2) limited conversion; and (3) conversion by contraposition. _in simple conversion_, there is no change in either quality or quantity. for instance, by simple conversion we may convert a proposition by changing the places of its subject and predicate, respectively. but as jevons says: "it does not follow that the new one will always be true if the old one was true. sometimes this is the case, and sometimes it is not. if i say, 'some churches are wooden-buildings,' i may turn it around and get 'some wooden-buildings are churches;' the meaning is exactly the same as before. this kind of change is called simple conversion, because we need do nothing but simply change the subjects and predicates in order to get a new proposition. we see that the particular affirmative proposition can be simply converted. such is the case also with the universal negative proposition. 'no large flowers are green things' may be converted simply into 'no green things are large flowers.'" _in limited conversion_, the quantity is changed from universal to particular. of this, jevons continues: "but it is a more troublesome matter, however, to convert a universal affirmative proposition. the statement that 'all jelly fish are animals,' is true; but, if we convert it, getting 'all animals are jelly fish,' the result is absurd. this is because the predicate of a universal proposition is really particular. we do not mean that jelly fish are 'all' the animals which exist, but only 'some' of the animals. the proposition ought really to be 'all jelly fish are _some_ animals,' and if we converted this simply, we should get, 'some animals are all jelly fish.' but we almost always leave out the little adjectives _some_ and _all_ when they would occur in the predicate, so that the proposition, when converted, becomes '_some_ animals are jelly fish.' this kind of change is called limited conversion, and we see that a universal affirmative proposition, when so converted, gives a particular affirmative one." in conversion by contraposition, there is a change in the position of the negative copula, which shifts the expression of the quality. as for instance, in the particular negative "some animals are not horses," we cannot say "some horses are not animals," for that would be a violation of the rule that "no term must be distributed in the converse which is not distributed in the convertend," for as we have seen in the preceding chapter: "in particular propositions the _subject_ is _not_ distributed." and in the original proposition, or convertend, "animals" is the _subject_ of a particular proposition. avoiding this, and proceeding by conversion by contraposition, we convert the convertend (o) into a particular affirmative (i), saying: "some animals are not-horses;" or "some animals are things not horses;" and then proceeding by simple conversion we get the converse, "some things not horses are animals," or "some not-horses are animals." the following gives the application of the appropriate form of conversion to each of the several four kind of judgments or propositions: (a) _universal affirmative_: this form of proposition is converted by limited conversion. the predicate not being distributed in the convertend, it cannot be distributed in the converse, by saying "all." ("in affirmative propositions the _predicate_ is _not_ distributed.") thus by this form of conversion, we convert "all horses are animals" into "some animals are horses." the universal affirmative (a) is converted by limitation into a particular affirmative (i). (e) _universal negative_: this form of proposition is converted by simple conversion. in a universal negative _both terms are distributed_. ("in universal propositions, the _subject_ is distributed;" "in negative propositions, the _predicate_ is distributed.") so we may say "no cows are horses," and then convert the proposition into "no horses are cows." we simply convert one universal negative (e) into another universal negative (e). (i) _particular affirmative_: this form of proposition is converted by simple conversion. for _neither term is distributed_ in a particular affirmative. ("in particular propositions, the _subject_ is _not_ distributed. in affirmative propositions, the _predicate_ is _not_ distributed.") and neither term being distributed in the convertend, it must not be distributed in the converse. so from "some horses are males" we may by simple conversion derive "some males are horses." we simply convert one particular affirmative (i), into another particular affirmative (i). (o) _particular negative_: this form of proposition is converted by contraposition or negation. we have given examples and illustrations in the paragraph describing conversion by contraposition. the particular negative (i) is converted by contraposition into a particular affirmative (i) which is then simply converted into another particular affirmative (i). there are several minor processes or methods of deriving judgments from each other, or of making immediate inferences, but the above will give the student a very fair idea of the minor or more complete methods. _exercise_: the following will give the student good practice and exercise in the methods of conversion. it affords a valuable mental drill, and tends to develop the logical faculties, particularly that of judgment. the student should _convert_ the following propositions, according to the rules and examples given in this chapter: 1. all men are reasoning beings. 2. some men are blacksmiths. 3. no men are quadrupeds. 4. some birds are sparrows. 5. some horses are vicious. 6. no brute is rational. 7. some men are not sane. 8. all biscuit is bread. 9. some bread is biscuit. 10. not all bread is biscuit. chapter xiii. reasoning in the preceding chapters we have seen that in the group of mental processes involved in the general process of understanding, there are several stages or steps, three of which we have considered in turn, namely: (1) abstraction; (2) generalization or conception; (3) judgment. the _fourth_ step, or stage, and the one which we are now about to consider, is that called reasoning. _reasoning_ is that faculty of the mind whereby we compare two judgments, one with the other, and from which comparison we are enabled to form a third judgment. it is a form of indirect or mediate comparison, whereas, the ordinary judgment is a form of immediate or direct comparison. as, when we form a judgment, we compare two concepts and decide upon their agreement or difference; so in reasoning we compare two judgments and from the comparison we draw or produce a new judgment. thus, we may reason that the particular dog "carlo" is an animal, by the following process: (1) _all_ dogs are animals; (2) carlo is a dog; therefore, (3) carlo is an animal. or, in the same way, we may reason that a whale is not a fish, as follows: (1) _all_ fish are cold-blooded animals; (2) a whale is _not_ a cold-blooded animal; therefore, (3) a whale is _not_ a fish. in the above processes it will be seen that the third and final judgment is derived from a comparison of the first two judgments. brooks states the process as follows: "looking at the process more closely, it will be seen that in inference in reasoning involves a comparison of relations. we infer the relation of two objects from their relation to a third object. we must thus grasp in the mind two relations and from the comparison of these two relations we infer a third relation. the two relations from which we infer a third, are judgments; hence, reasoning may also be defined as the process of deriving one judgment from two other judgments. we compare the two given judgments and from this comparison derive the third judgment. this constitutes a single step in reasoning, and an argument so expressed is called a _syllogism_." the _syllogism_ consists of three propositions, the first two of which express the grounds or basis of the argument and are called the _premises_; the third expresses the inference derived from a comparison of the other two and is called the _conclusion_. we shall not enter into a technical consideration of the syllogism in this book, as the subject is considered in detail in the volume of this series devoted to the subject of "logic." our concern here is to point out the natural process and course of reasoning, rather than to consider the technical features of the process. reasoning is divided into two general classes, known respectively as (1) _inductive reasoning_; (2) _deductive reasoning_. _inductive reasoning_ is the process of arriving at a general truth, law or principle from a consideration of many particular facts and truths. thus, if we find that a certain thing is true of a great number of particular objects, we may infer that the same thing is true of _all_ objects of this particular kind. in one of the examples given above, one of the judgments was that "all fish are cold-blooded animals," which general truth was arrived at by inductive reasoning based upon the examination of a great number of fish, and from thence assuming that _all_ fish are true to this general law of truth. _deductive reasoning_ is the reverse of inductive reasoning, and is a process of arriving at a particular truth from the assumption of a general truth. thus, from the assumption that "all fish are cold-blooded animals," we, by deductive reasoning, arrive at the conclusion that the particular fish before us must be cold-blooded. inductive reasoning proceeds upon the basic principle that "_what is true of the many is true of the whole_," while deductive reasoning proceeds upon the basic principle that "_what is true of the whole is true of its parts_." regarding the principle of _inductive reasoning_, halleck says: "man has to find out through his own experience, or that of others, the major premises from which he argues or draws his conclusions. by induction, we examine what seems to us a sufficient number of individual cases. we then conclude that the rest of these cases, which we have not examined, will obey the same general law. the judgment 'all men are mortal' was reached by induction. it was observed that all past generations of men had died, and this fact warranted the conclusion that all men living will die. we make that assertion as boldly as if we had seen them all die. the premise, 'all cows chew the cud,' was laid down after a certain number of cows had been examined. if we were to see a cow twenty years hence, we should expect to find that she chewed the cud. it was noticed by astronomers that, after a certain number of days, the earth regularly returned to the same position in its orbit, the sun rose in the same place, and the day was of the same length. hence, the length of the year and of each succeeding day was determined, and the almanac maker now infers that the same will be true of future years. he tells us that the sun on the first of next december will rise at a given time, although he cannot throw himself into the future to verify the conclusion." brooks says regarding this principle: "this proposition is founded on our faith in the uniformity of nature; take away this belief, and all reasoning by induction fails. the basis of induction is thus often stated to be _man's faith in the uniformity of nature_. induction has been compared to a ladder upon which we ascend from facts to laws. this ladder cannot stand unless it has something to rest upon; and this something is our faith in the constancy of nature's laws." there are two general ways of obtaining our basis for the process of inductive reasoning. one of these is called perfect induction and the other imperfect induction. perfect induction is possible only when we have had the opportunity of examining every particular object or thing of which the general idea is expressed. for instance, if we could examine every fish in the universe we would have the basis of perfect induction for asserting the general truth that "all fishes are cold-blooded." but this is practically impossible in the great majority of cases, and so we must fall back upon more or less imperfect induction. we must assume the general law from the fact that it is seen to exist in a very great number of particular cases; upon the principle that "what is true of the many is true of the whole." as halleck says regarding this: "whenever we make a statement such as, 'all men are mortal,' without having tested each individual case or, in other words, without having seen every man die, we are reasoning from _imperfect_ induction. every time a man buys a piece of beef, a bushel of potatoes or a loaf of bread, he is basing his action on inference from imperfect induction. he believes that beef, potatoes and bread will prove nutritious food, although he has not actually tested those special edibles before purchasing them. they have hitherto been found to be nutritious on trial and he argues that the same will prove true of those special instances. whenever a man takes stock in a new national bank, a manufactory or a bridge, he is arguing from past cases that this special investment will prove profitable. we instinctively believe in the uniformity of nature; if we did not we should not consult our almanacs. if sufficient heat will cause phosphorus to burn today, we conclude that the same result will follow tomorrow if the circumstances are the same." but, it will be seen, much care must be exercised in making observations, experiments and comparisons, and in making generalizations. the following general principles will give the views of the authorities regarding this: atwater gives the two general rules: _rule of agreement_: "if, whenever a given object or agency is present, without counteracting forces, a given effect is produced, there is a strong evidence that the object or agency is the cause of the effect." _rule of disagreement_: "if when the supposed cause is present the effect is present, and when the supposed cause is absent the effect is wanting, there being in neither case any other agents present to effect the result, we may reasonably infer that the supposed cause is the real one." _rule of residue_: "when in any phenomena we find a result remaining after the effects of all known causes are estimated, we may attribute it to a residual agent not yet reckoned." _rule of concomitant variations_: "when a variation in a given antecedent is accompanied by a variation of a given consequent, they are in some manner related as cause and effect." atwater says, of the above rules, that "whenever either of these criteria is found, free from conflicting evidence, and especially when several of them concur, the evidence is clear that the cases observed are fair representatives of the whole class, and warrant a valid universal inductive conclusion." we now come to what is known as hypothesis or theory, which is an assumed general principle--a conjecture or supposition founded upon observed and tested facts. some authorities use the term "theory" in the sense of "a verified hypothesis," but the two terms are employed loosely and the usage varies with different authorities. what is known as "the probability of a hypothesis" is the proportion of the number of facts it will explain. the greater the number of facts it will explain, the greater is its "probability." a hypothesis is said to be "verified" when it will account for all the facts which are properly to be referred to it. some very critical authorities hold that verification should also depend upon there being no other possible hypotheses which will account for the facts, but this is generally considered an extreme position. a hypothesis is the result of a peculiar mental process which seems to act in the direction of making a sudden anticipatory leap toward a theory, after the mind has been saturated with a great body of particular facts. some have spoken of the process as almost _intuitive_ and, indeed, the testimony of many discoverers of great natural laws would lead us to believe that the subconscious region of the mind is most active in making what la place has called "the great guess" of discovery of principle. as brooks says: "the forming of hypotheses requires a suggestive mind, a lively fancy, a philosophic imagination, that catches a glimpse of the idea through the form, or sees the law standing behind the fact." thomson says: "the system of anatomy which has immortalized the name of oken, is the consequence of a flash of anticipation which glanced through his mind when he picked up in a chance walk the skull of a deer, bleached and disintegrated by the weather, and exclaimed, after a glance, 'it is part of a vertebral column.' when newton saw the apple fall, the anticipatory question flashed through his mind, 'why do not the heavenly bodies fall like this apple?' in neither case had accident any important share; newton and oken were prepared by the deepest previous study to seize upon the unimportant fact offered to them, and show how important it might become; and if the apple and the deer-skull had been wanting, some other falling body, or some other skull, would have touched the string so ready to vibrate. but in each case there was a great step of anticipation; oken thought he saw the type of the whole skeleton in a single vertebra, whilst newton conceived at once that the whole universe was full of bodies tending to fall." passing from the consideration of inductive reasoning to that of deductive reasoning we find ourselves confronted with an entirely opposite condition. as brooks says: "the two methods of reasoning are the reverse of each other. one goes from particulars to generals; the other from generals to particulars. one is a process of analysis; the other is a process of synthesis. one rises from facts to laws; the other descends from laws to facts. each is independent of the other; and each is a valid and essential method of inference." _deductive reasoning_ is, as we have seen, dependent upon the process of deriving a particular truth from a general law, principle or truth, upon the fundamental axiom that: "what is true of the whole is true of its parts." it is an analytical process, just as inductive reasoning is synthetical. it is a descending process, just as inductive reasoning is ascending. halleck says of deductive reasoning: "after induction has classified certain phenomena and thus given us a major premise, we proceed deductively to apply the inference to any new specimen that can be shown to belong to that class. induction hands over to deduction a ready-made major premise, _e.g._ '_all scorpions are dangerous_.' deduction takes this as a fact, making no inquiry about its truth. when a new object is presented, say a possible scorpion, the only troublesome step is to decide whether the object is really a scorpion. this may be a severe task on judgment. the average inhabitant of the temperate zone would probably not care to risk a hundred dollars on his ability to distinguish a scorpion from a centipede, or from twenty or thirty other creatures bearing some resemblance to a scorpion. here there must be accurately formed concepts and sound judgment must be used in comparing them. as soon as we decide that the object is really a scorpion, we complete the deduction in this way:--'_all scorpions are dangerous_; _this creature is a scorpion_; _this creature is dangerous_.' the reasoning of early life must be necessarily inductive. the mind is then forming general conclusions from the examination of individual phenomena. only after general laws have been laid down, after objects have been classified, after major premises have been formed, can deduction be employed." what is called _reasoning by analogy_ is really but a higher degree of generalization. it is based upon the idea that if two or more things resemble each other in many particulars, they are apt to resemble each other in other particulars. some have expressed the principle as follows: "things that have some things in common have other things in common." or as jevons states it: "the rule for reasoning by analogy is that if two or more things resemble each other in many points, they will probably resemble each other also in more points." this form of reasoning, while quite common and quite convenient, is also very dangerous. it affords many opportunities for making false inferences. as jevons says: "in many cases reasoning by analogy is found to be a very uncertain guide. in some cases unfortunate mistakes are committed. children are sometimes killed by gathering and eating poisonous berries, wrongly inferring that they can be eaten, because other berries, of a somewhat similar appearance, have been found agreeable and harmless. poisonous toadstools are occasionally mistaken for mushrooms, especially by people not accustomed to gather them.... there is no way in which we can really assure ourselves that we are arguing safely by analogy. the only rule that can be given is this, _that the more things resemble each other, the more likely is it that they are the same in other respects, especially in points closely connected with those observed_." halleck says: "in argument or reasoning we are much aided by the habit of searching for hidden resemblances. we may here use the term _analogy_ in the narrower sense as a resemblance of ratios. there is analogical relation between autumnal frosts and vegetation on the one hand, and death and human life on the other. frosts stand in the same relation to vegetation that death does to life. the detection of such a relation cultivates thought. if we are to succeed in argument, we must develop what some call a sixth sense for the detection of such relations.... many false analogies are manufactured and it is excellent thought training to expose them. the majority of people think so little that they swallow false analogies just as newly-fledged robins swallow small stones dropped into their open mouths.... the study of poetry may be made very serviceable in detecting analogies and cultivating the reasoning powers. when the poet brings clearly to mind the change due to death, using as an illustration the caterpillar body transformed into the butterfly spirit, moving with winged ease over flowing meadows, he is cultivating our apprehension of relations, none the less valuable because they are beautiful." there are certain studies which tend to develop the power or faculty of _inductive reasoning_. any study which leads the mind to consider classification and general principles, laws or truth, will tend to develop the faculty of deduction. physics, chemistry, astronomy, biology and natural history are particularly adapted to develop the mind in this particular direction. moreover, the mind should be directed to an inquiry into the _causes_ of _things_. facts and phenomena should be observed and an attempt should be made not only to classify them, but also to discover general principles moving them. tentative or provisional hypotheses should be erected and then the facts re-examined in order to see whether they support the hypotheses or theory. study of the processes whereby the great scientific theories were erected, and the proofs then adduced in support of them, will give the mind the habit of thinking along the lines of logical induction. the question ever in the mind in inductive reasoning is "_why?_" the dominant idea in inductive reasoning is the search for causes. * * * * * in regard to the pitfalls of inductive reasoning--the fallacies, so-called, hyslop says: "it is not easy to indicate the inductive fallacies, if it be even possible, in the formal process of induction.... it is certain, however, that in respect to the subject-matter of the conclusion in inductive reasoning there are some very definite limitations upon the right to transcend the premises. we cannot infer anything we please from any premises we please. we must conform to certain definite rules or principles. any violation of them will be a fallacy. these rules are the same as those for material fallacies in deduction, so that the fallacies of induction, whether they are ever formal or not, are at least material; that is they occur whenever equivocation and presumption are committed. there are, then, two simple rules which should not be violated. (1) the subject-matter in the conclusion should be of the same general kind as in the premises. (2) the facts constituting the premises must be accepted and must not be fictitious." one may develop his faculty or power of _deductive reasoning_ by pursuing certain lines of study. the study of mathematics, particularly in its branch of mental arithmetic is especially valuable in this direction. algebra and geometry have long been known to exercise an influence over the mind which gives to it a logical trend and cast. the processes involved in geometry are akin to those employed in logical reasoning, and must necessarily train the mind in this special direction. as brooks says: "so valuable is geometry as a discipline that many lawyers and others review their geometry every year in order to keep the mind drilled to logical habits of thinking." the study of grammar, rhetoric and the languages, are also valuable in the culture and development of the faculty of deductive reasoning. the study of psychology and philosophy have value in this connection. the study of law is very valuable in creating logical habits of thinking deductively. but in the study of logic we have possibly the best exercise in the development and culture of this particular faculty. as brooks well says: "the study of logic will aid in the development of the power of deductive reasoning. it does this first by showing the method by which we reason. to know how we reason, to see the laws which govern the reasoning process, to analyze the syllogism and see its conformity to the laws of thought, is not only an exercise of reasoning, but gives that knowledge of the process that will be both a stimulus and a guide to thought. no one can trace the principles and processes of thought without receiving thereby an impetus to thought. in the second place, the study of logic is probably even more valuable because it gives practice in deductive thinking. this, perhaps, is its principal value, since _the mind reasons instinctively without knowing how it reasons_. one can think without the knowledge of the science of thinking, just as one can use language correctly without a knowledge of grammar; yet as the study of grammar improves one's speech, so the study of logic cannot but improve one's thought." the study of the common _fallacies_, such as "begging the question," "reasoning in a circle," etc., is particularly important to the student, for when one realizes that such fallacies exist, and is able to detect and recognize them, he will avoid their use in framing his own arguments, and will be able to expose them when they appear in the arguments of others. the fallacy of "begging the question" consists in assuming as a proven fact something that has not been proven, or is not accepted as proven by the other party to the argument. it is a common trick in debate. the fact assumed may be either the particular point to be proved, or the premise necessary to prove it. hyslop gives the following illustration of this fallacy: "_good institutions should be united_; church and state are good institutions; therefore, church and state should be united." the above syllogism seems reasonable at first thought, but analysis will show that the major premise "good institutions should be united" is a mere assumption without proof. destroy this premise and the whole reasoning fails. another form of fallacy, quite common, is that called "reasoning in a circle," which consists in assuming as proof of a proposition the proposition itself, as for instance, "this man is a rascal, _because he is a rogue_; he is a rogue, _because he is a rascal_." "we see through glass, _because it is transparent_." "the child is dumb, _because it has lost the power of speech_." "he is untruthful, _because he is a liar_." "the weather is warm, _because it is summer_; it is summer, _because the weather is warm_." these and other fallacies may be detected by a knowledge of logic, and the perception and detection of them strengthens one in his faculty of deductive reasoning. the study of the laws of the syllogism, in logic, will give to one a certain habitual sense of stating the terms of his argument according to these laws, which when acquired will be a long step in the direction of logical thinking, and the culture of the faculties of deductive reasoning. in concluding this chapter, we wish to call your attention to a fact often overlooked by the majority of people. halleck well expresses it as follows: "belief is a mental state which might as well be classed under _emotion_ as under thinking, for it combines both elements. belief is a part inference from the known to the unknown, and part feeling and emotion." others have gone so far as to say that the majority of people employ their intellects merely to _prove_ to themselves and others that which they _feel to be true_, or _wish to be true_, rather than to ascertain what is _actually true_ by logical methods. others have said that "men do not require _arguments_ to convince them; they want only _excuses_ to justify them in their feelings, desires or actions." cynical though this may seem, there is sufficient truth in it to warn one to guard against the tendency. jevons says, regarding the question of the culture of logical processes of thought: "monsieur jourdain, an amusing person in one of moliere's plays, expressed much surprise on learning that he had been talking prose for more than forty years without knowing it. ninety-nine people out of a hundred might be equally surprised on hearing that they had long been converting propositions, syllogizing, falling into paralogisms, framing hypotheses and making classifications with genera and species. if asked if they were logicians, they would probably answer, no. they would be partly right; for i believe that a large number even of educated persons have no clear idea of what logic is. yet, in a certain way, every one must have been a logician since he began to speak. it may be asked:--if we cannot help being logicians, why do we need logic books at all? the answer is that there are logicians, and _logicians_. all persons are logicians in some manner or degree; but unfortunately many people are bad ones and suffer harm in consequence. it is just the same in other matters. even if we do not know the meaning of the name, we are all _athletes_ in some manner or degree. no one can climb a tree or get over a gate without being more or less an athlete. nevertheless, he who wishes to do these actions really well, to have a strong muscular frame and thereby to secure good health and personal safety, as far as possible, should learn athletic exercises." chapter xiv. constructive imagination from the standpoint of the old psychology, a chapter bearing the above title would be considered quite out of place in a book on thought-culture, the imagination being considered as outside the realm of practical psychology, and as belonging entirely to the idealistic phase of mental activities. the popular idea concerning the imagination also is opposed to the "practical" side of its use. in the public mind the imagination is regarded as something connected with idle dreaming and fanciful mental imaging. imagination is considered as almost synonomous with "fancy." but the new psychology sees beyond this negative phase of the imagination and recognizes the positive side which is essentially constructive when backed up with a determined will. it recognizes that while the imagination is by its very nature _idealistic_, yet these ideals may be made real--these subjective pictures may be materialized objectively. the positive phase of the imagination manifests in planning, designing, projecting, mapping out, and in general in erecting the mental framework which is afterward clothed with the material structure of actual accomplishment. and, accordingly, it has seemed to us that a chapter on "constructive imagination" might well conclude this book on thought-culture. halleck says: "it was once thought that the imagination should be repressed, not cultivated, that it was in the human mind like weeds in a garden.... in this age there is no mental power that stands more in need of cultivation than the imagination. so practical are its results that a man without it cannot possibly be a good plumber. he must image short cuts for placing his pipe. the image of the direction to take to elude an obstacle must precede the actual laying of the pipe. if he fixes it before traversing the way with his imagination, he frequently gets into trouble and has to tear down his work. some one has said that the more imagination a blacksmith has, the better will he shoe a horse. every time he strikes the red-hot iron, he makes it approximate to the image in his mind. nor is this image a literal copy of the horse's foot. if there is a depression in that, the imagination must build out a corresponding elevation in the image, and the blows must make the iron fit the image." brodie says: "physical investigation, more than anything else, helps to teach us the actual value and right use of the imagination--of that wondrous faculty, which, when left to ramble uncontrolled, leads us astray into a wilderness of perplexities and errors, a land of mists and shadows; but which, properly controlled by experience and reflection, becomes the noblest attribute of man, the source of poetic genius, the instrument of discovery in science, without the aid of which newton would never have invented fluxions nor davy have decomposed the earths and alkalies, nor would columbus have found another continent." the imagination is more than memory, for the latter merely reproduces the impressions made upon it, while the imagination gathers up the material of impression and weaves new fabrics from them or builds new structures from their separated units. as tyndall well said: "philosophers may be right in affirming that we cannot transcend experience; but we can at all events carry it a long way from its origin. we can also magnify, diminish, qualify and combine experiences, so as to render them fit for purposes entirely new. we are gifted with the power of imagination and by this power we can lighten the darkness which surrounds the world of the senses. there are tories, even in science, who regard imagination as a faculty to be feared and avoided rather than employed. but bounded and conditioned by cooperant reason, imagination becomes the mightiest instrument of the physical discoverer. newton's passage from a falling apple to a falling moon was, at the outset, a leap of the imagination." brooks says: "the imagination is a creative as well as a combining power.... the imagination can combine objects of sense into new forms, but it can do more than this. the objects of sense are, in most cases, merely the materials with which it works. the imagination is a plastic power, moulding the things of sense into new forms to express its ideals; and it is these ideals that constitute the real products of the imagination. the objects of the material world are to it like clay in the hands of the potter; it shapes them into forms according to its own ideals of grace and beauty.... he, who sees no more than a mere combination in these creations of the imagination, misses the essential element and elevates into significance that which is merely incidental." imagination, in some degree or phase, must come before voluntary physical action and conscious material creation. everything that has been created by the hand of man has first been created in the _mind_ of man by the exercise of the imagination. everything that man has wrought has first existed in his mind as an _ideal_, before his hands, or the hands of others, wrought it into material _reality_. as maudsley says: "it is certain that in order to execute consciously a voluntary act we must have in the mind a conception of the aim and purpose of the act." kay says: "it is as serving to guide and direct our various activities that mental images derive their chief value and importance. in anything that we purpose or intend to do, we must first of all have an idea or image of it in the mind, and the more clear and correct the image, the more accurately and efficiently will the purpose be carried out. we cannot exert an act of volition without having in the mind an idea or image of what we will to effect." upon the importance of a scientific use of the imagination in every-day life, the best authorities agree. maudsley says: "we cannot do an act voluntarily unless we know what we are going to do, and we cannot know exactly what we are going to do until we have taught ourselves to do it." bain says: "by aiming at a new construction, we must clearly conceive what is aimed at. where we have a very distinct and intelligible model before us, we are in a fair way to succeed; in proportion as the ideal is dim and wavering we stagger and miscarry." kay says: "a clear and accurate idea of what we wish to do, and how it is to be effected, is of the utmost value and importance in all the affairs of life. a man's conduct naturally shapes itself according to the ideas in his mind, and nothing contributes more to his success in life than having a high ideal and keeping it constantly in view. where such is the case one can hardly fail in attaining it. numerous unexpected circumstances will be found to conspire to bring it about, and even what seemed at first hostile may be converted into means for its furtherance; while by having it constantly before the mind he will be ever ready to take advantage of any favoring circumstances that may present themselves." simpson says: "a passionate desire and an unwearied will can perform impossibilities, or what seem to be such, to the cold and feeble." lytton says: "dream, o youth, dream manfully and nobly, and thy dreams shall be prophets." foster says: "it is wonderful how even the casualities of life seem to bow to a spirit that will not bow to them, and yield to subserve a design which they may, in their first apparent tendency, threaten to frustrate. when a firm decisive spirit is recognized it is curious to see how space clears around a man and leaves him room and freedom." tanner says: "to believe firmly is almost tantamount in the end to accomplishment." maudsley says: "aspirations are often prophecies, the harbingers of what a man shall be in a condition to perform." macaulay says: "it is related of warren hastings that when only seven years old there arose in his mind a scheme which through all the turns of his eventful life was never abandoned." kay says: "when one is engaged in seeking for a thing, if he keep the image of it clearly before the mind, he will be very likely to find it, and that too, probably, where it would otherwise have escaped his notice." burroughs says: "no one ever found the walking fern who did not have the walking fern in his mind. a person whose eye is full of indian relics picks them up in every field he walks through. they are quickly recognized because the eye has been commissioned to find them." constructive imagination differs from the phases of the faculty of imagination which are akin to "fancy," in a number of ways, the chief points of difference being as follows: the constructive imagination is always exercised in the pursuance of _a definite intent and purpose_. the person so using the faculty starts out with the idea of accomplishing certain purposes, and with the direct intent of thinking and planning in that particular direction. the fanciful phase of the imagination, on the contrary, starts with no definite intent or purpose, but proceeds along the line of mere idle phantasy or day-dreaming. the constructive imagination _selects its material_. the person using the faculty in this manner abstracts from his general stock of mental images and impressions those particular materials which fit in with his general intent and purpose. instead of allowing his imagination to wander around the entire field of memory, or representation, he deliberately and voluntarily selects and sets apart only such objects as seem to be conducive to his general design or plan, and which are logically associated with the same. the constructive imagination operates upon the lines of _logical thought_. one so using the faculty subjects his mental images, or ideas, to his _thinking faculties_, and proceeds with his imaginative constructive work along the lines of logical thought. he goes through the processes of abstraction, generalization or conception, judgment and the higher phases of reasoning, in connection with his general work of constructive imagination. instead of having the objects of thought before him in material form, he has them represented to his mind _in ideal form_, and he works upon his material in that shape. the constructive imagination is _voluntary_--under the control and direction of the will. instead of being in the nature of a dream depending not upon the will or reason, it is directly controlled not only by reason but also by the will. the constructive imagination, like every other faculty of the mind, may be developed and cultivated by use and nourishment. it must be exercised in order to develop its mental muscle; and it must be supplied with nourishment upon which it may grow. drawing, composing, designing and planning along any line is calculated to give to this faculty the exercise that it requires. the reading of the right kind of literature is also likely to lead the faculty into activity by inspiring it with ideals and inciting it by example. the mind should be supplied with the proper material for the exercise of this faculty. as halleck says: "since the imagination has not the miraculous power necessary to create something out of nothing, the first essential thing is to get the proper perceptional material in proper quantity. if a child has enough blocks, he can build a castle or a palace. give him but three blocks, and his power of combination is painfully limited. some persons wonder why their imaginative power is no greater, when they have only a few accurate ideas." it thus follows that the active use of the perceptive faculties will result in storing away a quantity of material, which, when represented or reproduced by the memory, will give to the constructive imagination the material it requires with which to build. the greater the general knowledge of the person, the greater will be his store of material for this use. this knowledge need not necessarily be acquired at first hand from personal observation, but may also be in the nature of information acquired from the experience of others and known through their conversation, writings, etc. the necessity of forming clear concepts is very apparent when we come to exercise the constructive imaginative. unless we have clear-cut ideas of the various things concerned with the subject before us, we cannot focus the imagination clearly upon its task. the general ideas should be clearly understood and the classification should be intelligent. particular things should be clearly seen in "the mind's eye;" that is, the power of visualization or forming mental images should be cultivated in this connection. one may improve this particular faculty by either writing a description of scenes or particular things we have seen, or else by verbally describing them to others. as halleck says: "an attempt at a clear-cut oral description of something to another person will often impress ourselves and him with the fact that our mental images are hazy, and that the first step toward better description consists in improving them." tyndall has aptly stated the importance of visualizing one's ideas and particular concepts, as follows: "how, for example, are we to lay hold of the physical basis of light since, like that of life itself, it lies entirely without the domain of the senses?... bring your imaginations once more into play and figure a series of sound-waves passing through air. follow them up to their origin, and what do you there find? a definite, tangible, vibrating body. it may be the vocal chords of a human being, it may be an organ-pipe, or it may be a stretched string. follow in the same manner a train of ether waves to their source, remembering at the same time that your ether is matter, dense, elastic and capable of motions subject to and determined by mechanical laws. what then do you expect to find as the source of a series of ether waves? ask your imagination if it will accept a vibrating multiple proportion--a numerical ratio in a state of oscillation? i do not think it will. you cannot crown the edifice by this abstraction. the scientific imagination which is here authoritative, demands as the origin and cause of a series of ether waves a particle of vibrating matter quite as definite, though it may be excessively minute, as that which gives origin to a musical sound. such a particle we name an atom or a molecule. i think the seeking intellect, when focused so as to give definition without penumbral haze, is sure to realize this image at the last." by repeatedly exercising the faculty of imagination upon a particular idea, we add power and clearness to that idea. this is but another example of the familiar psychological principle expressed by carpenter as follows: "the continued concentration of attention upon a certain idea gives it a dominant power." kay says: "clearness and accuracy of image is only to be obtained by repeatedly having it in the mind, or by repeated action of the faculty. each repeated act of any of the faculties renders the mental image of it more clear and accurate than the preceding, and in proportion to the clearness and accuracy of the image will the act itself be performed easily, readily, skillfully. the course to be pursued, the point to be gained, the amount of effort to be put forth, become more and more clear to the mind. it is only from what we have done that we are able to judge what we can do, and understand how it is to be effected. when our ideas or conceptions of what we can do are not based on experience, they become fruitful sources of error." galton says: "there is no doubt as to the utility of the visualizing faculty where it is duly subordinated to the higher intellectual operations. a visual image is the most perfect form of mental representation wherever the shape, position and relation of objects in space are concerned. it is of importance in every handicraft and profession where design is required. the best workmen are those who visualize the whole of what they propose to do before they take a tool in their hands." kay says: "if we bear in mind that every sensation or idea must form an image in the mind before it can be perceived or understood, and that every act of volition is preceded by its image, it will be seen that images play an important part in all our mental operations. according to the nature of the ideas or images which he entertains will be the character and conduct of the man. the man tenacious of purpose is the man who holds tenaciously certain ideas; the flighty man is he who cannot keep one idea before him for any length of time, but constantly flits from one to another; the insane man is he who entertains insane ideas often, it may be, on only one or two subjects. we may distinguish two great classes of individuals according to the prevailing character of their images. there are those in whose mind sensory images predominate, and those whose images are chiefly such as tend to action. those of the former class are observant, often thoughtful, men of judgment and, it may be, of learning; but if they have not also the active faculty in due force, they will fail in giving forth or in turning to proper account their knowledge or learning, and instances of this kind are by no means uncommon. the man, on the other hand, who has ever in his mind images of things to be done, is the man of action and enterprise. if he is not also an observant and thoughtful man, if his mind is backward in forming images of what is presented to it from without, he will be constantly liable to make mistakes." galton says of the faculty of visualization: "our bookish and wordy education tends to repress this valuable gift of nature. a faculty that is of importance in all technical and artistic occupations, that gives accuracy to our perceptions and justness to our generalizations, is starved by lazy disuse, instead of being cultivated judiciously in such a way as will, on the whole, bring the best return. i believe that a serious study of the best method of developing and using this faculty without prejudice to the practice of abstract thought in symbols, is one of the many pressing desiderata in the yet unformed science of education." this consideration of the faculty of, and culture of, the imagination, may appropriately be concluded by the following quotation from prof. halleck, which shows the danger of misuse and abuse of this important faculty. the aforesaid well-known authority says: "from its very nature, the imagination is peculiarly liable to abuse. the common practices of day-dreaming or castle-building are both morally and physically unhealthful. we reach actual success in life by slow, weary steps. the day-dreamer attains eminence with one bound. he is without trouble a victorious general on a vast battlefield, an orator swaying thousands, a millionaire with every amusement at his command, a learned man confounding the wisest, a president, an emperor or a czar. after reveling in these imaginative sweets, the dry bread of actual toil becomes exceedingly distasteful. it is so much easier to live in regions where everything comes at the magic wand of fancy. not infrequently these castle-builders abandon effort in an actual world. success comes too slow for them. they become speculators or gamblers, and in spite of all their grand castles, gradually sink into utter nonentities in the world of action.... the young should never allow themselves to build any imaginative castle, unless they are willing by hard effort to try to make that castle a reality. they must be willing to take off their coats, go into the quarries of life, chisel out the blocks of the stone, and build them with much toil into the castle walls. if castle-building is merely the formation of an ideal, which we show by our effort that we are determined to attain, then all will be well." it will be seen that, in reality, the cultivation of the imagination is rather the training and intelligent direction of that faculty, instead of the development of its power. the majority of people have the faculty of imagination well developed, but to them it is largely an untrained, fanciful self-willed faculty. cultivation is needed in the direction of bringing it under the guidance of the reason, and control by the will. thought-culture in general will do much for the imagination, for the very processes employed in the development and cultivation of the various other faculties of the mind will also tend to bring the imagination into subjection and under control, instead of allowing it to remain the wild, fanciful irresponsible faculty that it is in the majority of cases. use the faculty of imagination as a faculty of _thought_, instead of a thing of _fancy_. attach it to the _intellect_ instead of to the _emotions_. harness it up with the other faculties of thought, and your chariot of understanding and attainment will reach the goal far sooner than under the old arrangement. establish harmony between intellect and imagination, and you largely increase the power and achievements of both. finis. the pathway of roses _by_ christian d. larson who would so live that the dreams of the night shall rise with the morning but shall not depart with the setting sun--it is to men and women such as these that we recommend the pathway of roses. the thinking world of today is being filled with a phase of thought that has exceptional value. true, some of it is in a somewhat chaotic condition, but most of it is rich, containing within itself the very life of that truth that is making the world free. but in the finding of this truth, and in the application of its principles, where are we to begin? what are we to do first? and after we have begun, and find ourselves in the midst of a life so large, so immense and so marvelous that it will require eternity to live it all, what are the great essentials that we should ever remember and apply? what are the great centers of life about which we may build a greater and a greater life? these are questions that thousands are asking today, and the answer may be found in the pathway of roses. beautifully and substantially bound in silk cloth contains about 400 pages price, postpaid, $1.50 the progress company--chicago transcriber's note: obvious typos and printer errors have been corrected without comment. in addition to obvious errors, the following corrections have been made: 1. page 140: italics were added for consistency in the phrase, "e and o are _subalterns_." 2. page 144: in order to preserve the meaning, "e" was changed to "i" in the phrase, "also what follows if "i" be _false_." 3. page 161: the word "is" was added to maintain the sense of the phrase, "... the subconscious region of the mind is most active...." other than the above errors, no attempt has been made to correct common spelling, punctuation, grammar, etc. the author's usage is preserved as printed in the original publication. unconventional spelling which has been preserved includes, but is not limited to the following: minature synonomous spelling of the name "kay" appears twice in the text as "kays". transcriber's note: minor inconsistencies in hyphenated words have been adjusted to correspond with the author's most frequent usage. on page 60 a printer error from the original text was corrected: the word "drawings" has been changed to "drawing" in the phrase, "... drawing has been taught...." how we think by john dewey professor of philosophy in columbia university d. c. heath & co., publishers boston new york chicago copyright, 1910, by d. c. heath & co. 2 f 8 printed in u. s. a. preface our schools are troubled with a multiplication of studies, each in turn having its own multiplication of materials and principles. our teachers find their tasks made heavier in that they have come to deal with pupils individually and not merely in mass. unless these steps in advance are to end in distraction, some clew of unity, some principle that makes for simplification, must be found. this book represents the conviction that the needed steadying and centralizing factor is found in adopting as the end of endeavor that attitude of mind, that habit of thought, which we call scientific. this scientific attitude of mind might, conceivably, be quite irrelevant to teaching children and youth. but this book also represents the conviction that such is not the case; that the native and unspoiled attitude of childhood, marked by ardent curiosity, fertile imagination, and love of experimental inquiry, is near, very near, to the attitude of the scientific mind. if these pages assist any to appreciate this kinship and to consider seriously how its recognition in educational practice would make for individual happiness and the reduction of social waste, the book will amply have served its purpose. it is hardly necessary to enumerate the authors to whom i am indebted. my fundamental indebtedness is to my wife, by whom the ideas of this book were inspired, and through whose work in connection with the laboratory school, existing in chicago between 1896 and 1903, the ideas attained such concreteness as comes from embodiment and testing in practice. it is a pleasure, also, to acknowledge indebtedness to the intelligence and sympathy of those who coöperated as teachers and supervisors in the conduct of that school, and especially to mrs. ella flagg young, then a colleague in the university, and now superintendent of the schools of chicago. new york city, december, 1909. contents part i the problem of training thought chapter page i. what is thought? 1 ii. the need for training thought 14 iii. natural resources in the training of thought 29 iv. school conditions and the training of thought 45 v. the means and end of mental training: the psychological and the logical 56 part ii logical considerations vi. the analysis of a complete act of thought 68 vii. systematic inference: induction and deduction 79 viii. judgment: the interpretation of facts 101 ix. meaning: or conceptions and understanding 116 x. concrete and abstract thinking 135 xi. empirical and scientific thinking 145 part iii the training of thought xii. activity and the training of thought 157 xiii. language and the training of thought 170 xiv. observation and information in the training of mind 188 xv. the recitation and the training of thought 201 xvi. some general conclusions 214 how we think part one: the problem of training thought chapter one what is thought? § 1. _varied senses of the term_ [sidenote: four senses of thought, from the wider to the limited] no words are oftener on our lips than _thinking_ and _thought_. so profuse and varied, indeed, is our use of these words that it is not easy to define just what we mean by them. the aim of this chapter is to find a single consistent meaning. assistance may be had by considering some typical ways in which the terms are employed. in the first place _thought_ is used broadly, not to say loosely. everything that comes to mind, that "goes through our heads," is called a thought. to think of a thing is just to be conscious of it in any way whatsoever. second, the term is restricted by excluding whatever is directly presented; we think (or think of) only such things as we do not directly see, hear, smell, or taste. then, third, the meaning is further limited to beliefs that rest upon some kind of evidence or testimony. of this third type, two kinds--or, rather, two degrees--must be discriminated. in some cases, a belief is accepted with slight or almost no attempt to state the grounds that support it. in other cases, the ground or basis for a belief is deliberately sought and its adequacy to support the belief examined. this process is called reflective thought; it alone is truly educative in value, and it forms, accordingly, the principal subject of this volume. we shall now briefly describe each of the four senses. [sidenote: chance and idle thinking] i. in its loosest sense, thinking signifies everything that, as we say, is "in our heads" or that "goes through our minds." he who offers "a penny for your thoughts" does not expect to drive any great bargain. in calling the objects of his demand _thoughts_, he does not intend to ascribe to them dignity, consecutiveness, or truth. any idle fancy, trivial recollection, or flitting impression will satisfy his demand. daydreaming, building of castles in the air, that loose flux of casual and disconnected material that floats through our minds in relaxed moments are, in this random sense, _thinking_. more of our waking life than we should care to admit, even to ourselves, is likely to be whiled away in this inconsequential trifling with idle fancy and unsubstantial hope. [sidenote: reflective thought is consecutive, not merely a sequence] in this sense, silly folk and dullards _think_. the story is told of a man in slight repute for intelligence, who, desiring to be chosen selectman in his new england town, addressed a knot of neighbors in this wise: "i hear you don't believe i know enough to hold office. i wish you to understand that i am thinking about something or other most of the time." now reflective thought is like this random coursing of things through the mind in that it consists of a succession of things thought of; but it is unlike, in that the mere chance occurrence of any chance "something or other" in an irregular sequence does not suffice. reflection involves not simply a sequence of ideas, but a _con_sequence--a consecutive ordering in such a way that each determines the next as its proper outcome, while each in turn leans back on its predecessors. the successive portions of the reflective thought grow out of one another and support one another; they do not come and go in a medley. each phase is a step from something to something--technically speaking, it is a term of thought. each term leaves a deposit which is utilized in the next term. the stream or flow becomes a train, chain, or thread. [sidenote: the restriction of _thinking_ to what goes beyond direct observation] [sidenote: reflective thought aims, however, at belief] ii. even when thinking is used in a broad sense, it is usually restricted to matters not directly perceived: to what we do not see, smell, hear, or touch. we ask the man telling a story if he saw a certain incident happen, and his reply may be, "no, i only thought of it." a note of invention, as distinct from faithful record of observation, is present. most important in this class are successions of imaginative incidents and episodes which, having a certain coherence, hanging together on a continuous thread, lie between kaleidoscopic flights of fancy and considerations deliberately employed to establish a conclusion. the imaginative stories poured forth by children possess all degrees of internal congruity; some are disjointed, some are articulated. when connected, they simulate reflective thought; indeed, they usually occur in minds of logical capacity. these imaginative enterprises often precede thinking of the close-knit type and prepare the way for it. but _they do not aim at knowledge, at belief about facts or in truths_; and thereby they are marked off from reflective thought even when they most resemble it. those who express such thoughts do not expect credence, but rather credit for a well-constructed plot or a well-arranged climax. they produce good stories, not--unless by chance--knowledge. such thoughts are an efflorescence of feeling; the enhancement of a mood or sentiment is their aim; congruity of emotion, their binding tie. [sidenote: thought induces belief in two ways] iii. in its next sense, thought denotes belief resting upon some basis, that is, real or supposed knowledge going beyond what is directly present. it is marked by _acceptance or rejection of something as reasonably probable or improbable_. this phase of thought, however, includes two such distinct types of belief that, even though their difference is strictly one of degree, not of kind, it becomes practically important to consider them separately. some beliefs are accepted when their grounds have not themselves been considered, others are accepted because their grounds have been examined. when we say, "men used to think the world was flat," or, "i thought you went by the house," we express belief: something is accepted, held to, acquiesced in, or affirmed. but such thoughts may mean a supposition accepted without reference to its real grounds. these may be adequate, they may not; but their value with reference to the support they afford the belief has not been considered. such thoughts grow up unconsciously and without reference to the attainment of correct belief. they are picked up--we know not how. from obscure sources and by unnoticed channels they insinuate themselves into acceptance and become unconsciously a part of our mental furniture. tradition, instruction, imitation--all of which depend upon authority in some form, or appeal to our own advantage, or fall in with a strong passion--are responsible for them. such thoughts are prejudices, that is, prejudgments, not judgments proper that rest upon a survey of evidence.[1] [1] this mode of thinking in its contrast with thoughtful inquiry receives special notice in the next chapter. [sidenote: thinking in its best sense is that which considers the basis and consequences of beliefs] iv. thoughts that result in belief have an importance attached to them which leads to reflective thought, to conscious inquiry into the nature, conditions, and bearings of the belief. to _think_ of whales and camels in the clouds is to entertain ourselves with fancies, terminable at our pleasure, which do not lead to any belief in particular. but to think of the world as flat is to ascribe a quality to a real thing as its real property. this conclusion denotes a connection among things and hence is not, like imaginative thought, plastic to our mood. belief in the world's flatness commits him who holds it to thinking in certain specific ways of other objects, such as the heavenly bodies, antipodes, the possibility of navigation. it prescribes to him actions in accordance with his conception of these objects. the consequences of a belief upon other beliefs and upon behavior may be so important, then, that men are forced to consider the grounds or reasons of their belief and its logical consequences. this means reflective thought--thought in its eulogistic and emphatic sense. [sidenote: reflective thought defined] men _thought_ the world was flat until columbus _thought_ it to be round. the earlier thought was a belief held because men had not the energy or the courage to question what those about them accepted and taught, especially as it was suggested and seemingly confirmed by obvious sensible facts. the thought of columbus was a _reasoned conclusion_. it marked the close of study into facts, of scrutiny and revision of evidence, of working out the implications of various hypotheses, and of comparing these theoretical results with one another and with known facts. because columbus did not accept unhesitatingly the current traditional theory, because he doubted and inquired, he arrived at his thought. skeptical of what, from long habit, seemed most certain, and credulous of what seemed impossible, he went on thinking until he could produce evidence for both his confidence and his disbelief. even if his conclusion had finally turned out wrong, it would have been a different sort of belief from those it antagonized, because it was reached by a different method. _active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it, and the further conclusions to which it tends_, constitutes reflective thought. any one of the first three kinds of thought may elicit this type; but once begun, it is a conscious and voluntary effort to establish belief upon a firm basis of reasons. § 2. _the central factor in thinking_ [sidenote: there is a common element in all types of thought:] there are, however, no sharp lines of demarcation between the various operations just outlined. the problem of attaining correct habits of reflection would be much easier than it is, did not the different modes of thinking blend insensibly into one another. so far, we have considered rather extreme instances of each kind in order to get the field clearly before us. let us now reverse this operation; let us consider a rudimentary case of thinking, lying between careful examination of evidence and a mere irresponsible stream of fancies. a man is walking on a warm day. the sky was clear the last time he observed it; but presently he notes, while occupied primarily with other things, that the air is cooler. it occurs to him that it is probably going to rain; looking up, he sees a dark cloud between him and the sun, and he then quickens his steps. what, if anything, in such a situation can be called thought? neither the act of walking nor the noting of the cold is a thought. walking is one direction of activity; looking and noting are other modes of activity. the likelihood that it will rain is, however, something _suggested_. the pedestrian _feels_ the cold; he _thinks of_ clouds and a coming shower. [sidenote: _viz._ suggestion of something not observed] [sidenote: but reflection involves also the relation of _signifying_] so far there is the same sort of situation as when one looking at a cloud is reminded of a human figure and face. thinking in both of these cases (the cases of belief and of fancy) involves a noted or perceived fact, followed by something else which is not observed but which is brought to mind, suggested by the thing seen. one reminds us, as we say, of the other. side by side, however, with this factor of agreement in the two cases of suggestion is a factor of marked disagreement. we do not _believe_ in the face suggested by the cloud; we do not consider at all the probability of its being a fact. there is no _reflective_ thought. the danger of rain, on the contrary, presents itself to us as a genuine possibility--as a possible fact of the same nature as the observed coolness. put differently, we do not regard the cloud as meaning or indicating a face, but merely as suggesting it, while we do consider that the coolness may mean rain. in the first case, seeing an object, we just happen, as we say, to think of something else; in the second, we consider the _possibility and nature of the connection between the object seen and the object suggested_. the seen thing is regarded as in some way _the ground or basis of belief_ in the suggested thing; it possesses the quality of _evidence_. [sidenote: various synonymous expressions for the function of signifying] this function by which one thing signifies or indicates another, and thereby leads us to consider how far one may be regarded as warrant for belief in the other, is, then, the central factor in all reflective or distinctively intellectual thinking. by calling up various situations to which such terms as _signifies_ and _indicates_ apply, the student will best realize for himself the actual facts denoted by the words _reflective thought_. synonyms for these terms are: points to, tells of, betokens, prognosticates, represents, stands for, implies.[2] we also say one thing portends another; is ominous of another, or a symptom of it, or a key to it, or (if the connection is quite obscure) that it gives a hint, clue, or intimation. [2] _implies_ is more often used when a principle or general truth brings about belief in some other truth; the other phrases are more frequently used to denote the cases in which one fact or event leads us to believe in something else. [sidenote: reflection and belief on evidence] reflection thus implies that something is believed in (or disbelieved in), not on its own direct account, but through something else which stands as witness, evidence, proof, voucher, warrant; that is, as _ground of belief_. at one time, rain is actually felt or directly experienced; at another time, we infer that it has rained from the looks of the grass and trees, or that it is going to rain because of the condition of the air or the state of the barometer. at one time, we see a man (or suppose we do) without any intermediary fact; at another time, we are not quite sure what we see, and hunt for accompanying facts that will serve as signs, indications, tokens of what is to be believed. thinking, for the purposes of this inquiry, is defined accordingly as _that operation in which present facts suggest other facts (or truths) in such a way as to induce belief in the latter upon the ground or warrant of the former_. we do not put beliefs that rest simply on inference on the surest level of assurance. to say "i think so" implies that i do not as yet _know_ so. the inferential belief may later be confirmed and come to stand as sure, but in itself it always has a certain element of supposition. § 3. _elements in reflective thinking_ so much for the description of the more external and obvious aspects of the fact called _thinking_. further consideration at once reveals certain subprocesses which are involved in every reflective operation. these are: (_a_) a state of perplexity, hesitation, doubt; and (_b_) an act of search or investigation directed toward bringing to light further facts which serve to corroborate or to nullify the suggested belief. [sidenote: the importance of uncertainty] (_a_) in our illustration, the shock of coolness generated confusion and suspended belief, at least momentarily. because it was unexpected, it was a shock or an interruption needing to be accounted for, identified, or placed. to say that the abrupt occurrence of the change of temperature constitutes a problem may sound forced and artificial; but if we are willing to extend the meaning of the word _problem_ to whatever--no matter how slight and commonplace in character--perplexes and challenges the mind so that it makes belief at all uncertain, there is a genuine problem or question involved in this experience of sudden change. [sidenote: and of inquiry in order to test] (_b_) the turning of the head, the lifting of the eyes, the scanning of the heavens, are activities adapted to bring to recognition facts that will answer the question presented by the sudden coolness. the facts as they first presented themselves were perplexing; they suggested, however, clouds. the act of looking was an act to discover if this suggested explanation held good. it may again seem forced to speak of this looking, almost automatic, as an act of research or inquiry. but once more, if we are willing to generalize our conceptions of our mental operations to include the trivial and ordinary as well as the technical and recondite, there is no good reason for refusing to give such a title to the act of looking. the purport of this act of inquiry is to confirm or to refute the suggested belief. new facts are brought to perception, which either corroborate the idea that a change of weather is imminent, or negate it. [sidenote: finding one's way an illustration of reflection] another instance, commonplace also, yet not quite so trivial, may enforce this lesson. a man traveling in an unfamiliar region comes to a branching of the roads. having no sure knowledge to fall back upon, he is brought to a standstill of hesitation and suspense. which road is right? and how shall perplexity be resolved? there are but two alternatives: he must either blindly and arbitrarily take his course, trusting to luck for the outcome, or he must discover grounds for the conclusion that a given road is right. any attempt to decide the matter by thinking will involve inquiry into other facts, whether brought out by memory or by further observation, or by both. the perplexed wayfarer must carefully scrutinize what is before him and he must cudgel his memory. he looks for evidence that will support belief in favor of either of the roads--for evidence that will weight down one suggestion. he may climb a tree; he may go first in this direction, then in that, looking, in either case, for signs, clues, indications. he wants something in the nature of a signboard or a map, and _his reflection is aimed at the discovery of facts that will serve this purpose_. [sidenote: possible, yet incompatible, suggestions] the above illustration may be generalized. thinking begins in what may fairly enough be called a _forked-road_ situation, a situation which is ambiguous, which presents a dilemma, which proposes alternatives. as long as our activity glides smoothly along from one thing to another, or as long as we permit our imagination to entertain fancies at pleasure, there is no call for reflection. difficulty or obstruction in the way of reaching a belief brings us, however, to a pause. in the suspense of uncertainty, we metaphorically climb a tree; we try to find some standpoint from which we may survey additional facts and, getting a more commanding view of the situation, may decide how the facts stand related to one another. [sidenote: regulation of thinking by its purpose] _demand for the solution of a perplexity is the steadying and guiding factor in the entire process of reflection._ where there is no question of a problem to be solved or a difficulty to be surmounted, the course of suggestions flows on at random; we have the first type of thought described. if the stream of suggestions is controlled simply by their emotional congruity, their fitting agreeably into a single picture or story, we have the second type. but a question to be answered, an ambiguity to be resolved, sets up an end and holds the current of ideas to a definite channel. every suggested conclusion is tested by its reference to this regulating end, by its pertinence to the problem in hand. this need of straightening out a perplexity also controls the kind of inquiry undertaken. a traveler whose end is the most beautiful path will look for other considerations and will test suggestions occurring to him on another principle than if he wishes to discover the way to a given city. _the problem fixes the end of thought_ and _the end controls the process of thinking_. § 4. _summary_ [sidenote: origin and stimulus] we may recapitulate by saying that the origin of thinking is some perplexity, confusion, or doubt. thinking is not a case of spontaneous combustion; it does not occur just on "general principles." there is something specific which occasions and evokes it. general appeals to a child (or to a grown-up) to think, irrespective of the existence in his own experience of some difficulty that troubles him and disturbs his equilibrium, are as futile as advice to lift himself by his boot-straps. [sidenote: suggestions and past experience] given a difficulty, the next step is suggestion of some way out--the formation of some tentative plan or project, the entertaining of some theory which will account for the peculiarities in question, the consideration of some solution for the problem. the data at hand cannot supply the solution; they can only suggest it. what, then, are the sources of the suggestion? clearly past experience and prior knowledge. if the person has had some acquaintance with similar situations, if he has dealt with material of the same sort before, suggestions more or less apt and helpful are likely to arise. but unless there has been experience in some degree analogous, which may now be represented in imagination, confusion remains mere confusion. there is nothing upon which to draw in order to clarify it. even when a child (or a grown-up) has a problem, to urge him to think when he has no prior experiences involving some of the same conditions, is wholly futile. [sidenote: exploration and testing] if the suggestion that occurs is at once accepted, we have uncritical thinking, the minimum of reflection. to turn the thing over in mind, to reflect, means to hunt for additional evidence, for new data, that will develop the suggestion, and will either, as we say, bear it out or else make obvious its absurdity and irrelevance. given a genuine difficulty and a reasonable amount of analogous experience to draw upon, the difference, _par excellence_, between good and bad thinking is found at this point. the easiest way is to accept any suggestion that seems plausible and thereby bring to an end the condition of mental uneasiness. reflective thinking is always more or less troublesome because it involves overcoming the inertia that inclines one to accept suggestions at their face value; it involves willingness to endure a condition of mental unrest and disturbance. reflective thinking, in short, means judgment suspended during further inquiry; and suspense is likely to be somewhat painful. as we shall see later, the most important factor in the training of good mental habits consists in acquiring the attitude of suspended conclusion, and in mastering the various methods of searching for new materials to corroborate or to refute the first suggestions that occur. to maintain the state of doubt and to carry on systematic and protracted inquiry--these are the essentials of thinking. chapter two the need for training thought [sidenote: man the animal that thinks] to expatiate upon the importance of thought would be absurd. the traditional definition of man as "the thinking animal" fixes thought as the essential difference between man and the brutes,--surely an important matter. more relevant to our purpose is the question how thought is important, for an answer to this question will throw light upon the kind of training thought requires if it is to subserve its end. § 1. _the values of thought_ [sidenote: the possibility of deliberate and intentional activity] i. thought affords the sole method of escape from purely impulsive or purely routine action. a being without capacity for thought is moved only by instincts and appetites, as these are called forth by outward conditions and by the inner state of the organism. a being thus moved is, as it were, pushed from behind. this is what we mean by the blind nature of brute actions. the agent does not see or foresee the end for which he is acting, nor the results produced by his behaving in one way rather than in another. he does not "know what he is about." where there is thought, things present act as signs or tokens of things not yet experienced. a thinking being can, accordingly, _act on the basis of the absent and the future_. instead of being pushed into a mode of action by the sheer urgency of forces, whether instincts or habits, of which he is not aware, a reflective agent is drawn (to some extent at least) to action by some remoter object of which he is indirectly aware. [sidenote: natural events come to be a language] an animal without thought may go into its hole when rain threatens, because of some immediate stimulus to its organism. a thinking agent will perceive that certain given facts are probable signs of a future rain, and will take steps in the light of this anticipated future. to plant seeds, to cultivate the soil, to harvest grain, are intentional acts, possible only to a being who has learned to subordinate the immediately felt elements of an experience to those values which these hint at and prophesy. philosophers have made much of the phrases "book of nature," "language of nature." well, it is in virtue of the capacity of thought that given things are significant of absent things, and that nature speaks a language which may be interpreted. to a being who thinks, things are records of their past, as fossils tell of the prior history of the earth, and are prophetic of their future, as from the present positions of heavenly bodies remote eclipses are foretold. shakespeare's "tongues in trees, books in the running brooks," expresses literally enough the power superadded to existences when they appeal to a thinking being. upon the function of signification depend all foresight, all intelligent planning, deliberation, and calculation. [sidenote: the possibility of systematized foresight] ii. by thought man also develops and arranges artificial signs to remind him in advance of consequences, and of ways of securing and avoiding them. as the trait just mentioned makes the difference between savage man and brute, so this trait makes the difference between civilized man and savage. a savage who has been shipwrecked in a river may note certain things which serve him as signs of danger in the future. but civilized man deliberately _makes_ such signs; he sets up in advance of wreckage warning buoys, and builds lighthouses where he sees signs that such events may occur. a savage reads weather signs with great expertness; civilized man institutes a weather service by which signs are artificially secured and information is distributed in advance of the appearance of any signs that could be detected without special methods. a savage finds his way skillfully through a wilderness by reading certain obscure indications; civilized man builds a highway which shows the road to all. the savage learns to detect the signs of fire and thereby to invent methods of producing flame; civilized man invents permanent conditions for producing light and heat whenever they are needed. the very essence of civilized culture is that we deliberately erect monuments and memorials, lest we forget; and deliberately institute, in advance of the happening of various contingencies and emergencies of life, devices for detecting their approach and registering their nature, for warding off what is unfavorable, or at least for protecting ourselves from its full impact and for making more secure and extensive what is favorable. all forms of artificial apparatus are intentionally designed modifications of natural things in order that they may serve better than in their natural estate to indicate the hidden, the absent, and the remote. [sidenote: the possibility of objects rich in quality] iii. finally, thought confers upon physical events and objects a very different status and value from that which they possess to a being that does not reflect. these words are mere scratches, curious variations of light and shade, to one to whom they are not linguistic signs. to him for whom they are signs of other things, each has a definite individuality of its own, according to the meaning that it is used to convey. _exactly the same holds of natural objects._ a chair is a different object to a being to whom it consciously suggests an opportunity for sitting down, repose, or sociable converse, from what it is to one to whom it presents itself merely as a thing to be smelled, or gnawed, or jumped over; a stone is different to one who knows something of its past history and its future use from what it is to one who only feels it directly through his senses. it is only by courtesy, indeed, that we can say that an unthinking animal experiences an _object_ at all--so largely is anything that presents itself to us as an object made up by the qualities it possesses as a sign of other things. [sidenote: the nature of the objects an animal perceives] an english logician (mr. venn) has remarked that it may be questioned whether a dog _sees_ a rainbow any more than he apprehends the political constitution of the country in which he lives. the same principle applies to the kennel in which he sleeps and the meat that he eats. when he is sleepy, he goes to the kennel; when he is hungry, he is excited by the smell and color of meat; beyond this, in what sense does he see an _object_? certainly he does not see a house--_i.e._ a thing with all the properties and relations of a permanent residence, _unless_ he is capable of making what is present a uniform sign of what is absent--unless he is capable of thought. nor does he see what he eats _as_ meat unless it suggests the absent properties by virtue of which it is a certain joint of some animal, and is known to afford nourishment. just what is left of an _object_ stripped of all such qualities of meaning, we cannot well say; but we can be sure that the object is then a very different sort of thing from the objects that we perceive. there is moreover no particular limit to the possibilities of growth in the fusion of a thing as it is to sense and as it is to thought, or as a sign of other things. the child today soon regards as constituent parts of objects qualities that once it required the intelligence of a copernicus or a newton to apprehend. [sidenote: mill on the business of life and the occupation of mind] these various values of the power of thought may be summed up in the following quotation from john stuart mill. "to draw inferences," he says, "has been said to be the great business of life. every one has daily, hourly, and momentary need of ascertaining facts which he has not directly observed: not from any general purpose of adding to his stock of knowledge, but because the facts themselves are of importance to his interests or to his occupations. the business of the magistrate, of the military commander, of the navigator, of the physician, of the agriculturist, _is merely to judge of evidence and to act accordingly_.... as they do this well or ill, so they discharge well or ill the duties of their several callings. _it is the only occupation in which the mind never ceases to be engaged._"[3] [3] mill, _system of logic_, introduction, § 5. § 2. _importance of direction in order to realize these values_ [sidenote: thinking goes astray] what a person has not only daily and hourly, but momentary need of performing, is not a technical and abstruse matter; nor, on the other hand, is it trivial and negligible. such a function must be congenial to the mind, and must be performed, in an unspoiled mind, upon every fitting occasion. just because, however, it is an operation of drawing inferences, of basing conclusions upon evidence, of reaching belief _indirectly_, it is an operation that may go wrong as well as right, and hence is one that needs safeguarding and training. the greater its importance the greater are the evils when it is ill-exercised. [sidenote: ideas are our rulers--for better or for worse] an earlier writer than mill, john locke (1632-1704), brings out the importance of thought for life and the need of training so that its best and not its worst possibilities will be realized, in the following words: "no man ever sets himself about anything but upon some view or other, which serves him for a reason for what he does; and whatsoever faculties he employs, the understanding with such light as it has, well or ill informed, constantly leads; and by that light, true or false, all his operative powers are directed.... temples have their sacred images, and we see what influence they have always had over a great part of mankind. but in truth the ideas and images in men's minds are the invisible powers that constantly govern them, and to these they all, universally, pay a ready submission. it is therefore of the highest concernment that great care should be taken of the understanding, to conduct it aright in the search of knowledge and in the judgments it makes."[4] if upon thought hang all deliberate activities and the uses we make of all our other powers, locke's assertion that it is of the highest concernment that care should be taken of its conduct is a moderate statement. while the power of thought frees us from servile subjection to instinct, appetite, and routine, it also brings with it the occasion and possibility of error and mistake. in elevating us above the brute, it opens to us the possibility of failures to which the animal, limited to instinct, cannot sink. [4] locke, _of the conduct of the understanding_, first paragraph. § 3. _tendencies needing constant regulation_ [sidenote: physical and social sanctions of correct thinking] up to a certain point, the ordinary conditions of life, natural and social, provide the conditions requisite for regulating the operations of inference. the necessities of life enforce a fundamental and persistent discipline for which the most cunningly devised artifices would be ineffective substitutes. the burnt child dreads the fire; the painful consequence emphasizes the need of correct inference much more than would learned discourse on the properties of heat. social conditions also put a premium on correct inferring in matters where action based on valid thought is socially important. these sanctions of proper thinking may affect life itself, or at least a life reasonably free from perpetual discomfort. the signs of enemies, of shelter, of food, of the main social conditions, have to be correctly apprehended. [sidenote: the serious limitations of such sanctions] but this disciplinary training, efficacious as it is within certain limits, does not carry us beyond a restricted boundary. logical attainment in one direction is no bar to extravagant conclusions in another. a savage expert in judging signs of the movements and location of animals that he hunts, will accept and gravely narrate the most preposterous yarns concerning the origin of their habits and structures. when there is no directly appreciable reaction of the inference upon the security and prosperity of life, there are no natural checks to the acceptance of wrong beliefs. conclusions may be generated by a modicum of fact merely because the suggestions are vivid and interesting; a large accumulation of data may fail to suggest a proper conclusion because existing customs are averse to entertaining it. independent of training, there is a "primitive credulity" which tends to make no distinction between what a trained mind calls fancy and that which it calls a reasonable conclusion. the face in the clouds is believed in as some sort of fact, merely because it is forcibly suggested. natural intelligence is no barrier to the propagation of error, nor large but untrained experience to the accumulation of fixed false beliefs. errors may support one another mutually and weave an ever larger and firmer fabric of misconception. dreams, the positions of stars, the lines of the hand, may be regarded as valuable signs, and the fall of cards as an inevitable omen, while natural events of the most crucial significance go disregarded. beliefs in portents of various kinds, now mere nook and cranny superstitions, were once universal. a long discipline in exact science was required for their conquest. [sidenote: superstition as natural a result as science] in the mere function of suggestion, there is no difference between the power of a column of mercury to portend rain, and that of the entrails of an animal or the flight of birds to foretell the fortunes of war. for all anybody can tell in advance, the spilling of salt is as likely to import bad luck as the bite of a mosquito to import malaria. only systematic regulation of the conditions under which observations are made and severe discipline of the habits of entertaining suggestions can secure a decision that one type of belief is vicious and the other sound. the substitution of scientific for superstitious habits of inference has not been brought about by any improvement in the acuteness of the senses or in the natural workings of the function of suggestion. it is the result of regulation _of the conditions_ under which observation and inference take place. [sidenote: general causes of bad thinking: bacon's "idols"] it is instructive to note some of the attempts that have been made to classify the main sources of error in reaching beliefs. francis bacon, for example, at the beginnings of modern scientific inquiry, enumerated four such classes, under the somewhat fantastic title of "idols" (gr. [greek: eidôla], images), spectral forms that allure the mind into false paths. these he called the idols, or phantoms, of the (_a_) tribe, (_b_) the marketplace, (_c_) the cave or den, and (_d_) the theater; or, less metaphorically, (_a_) standing erroneous methods (or at least temptations to error) that have their roots in human nature generally; (_b_) those that come from intercourse and language; (_c_) those that are due to causes peculiar to a specific individual; and finally, (_d_) those that have their sources in the fashion or general current of a period. classifying these causes of fallacious belief somewhat differently, we may say that two are intrinsic and two are extrinsic. of the intrinsic, one is common to all men alike (such as the universal tendency to notice instances that corroborate a favorite belief more readily than those that contradict it), while the other resides in the specific temperament and habits of the given individual. of the extrinsic, one proceeds from generic social conditions--like the tendency to suppose that there is a fact wherever there is a word, and no fact where there is no linguistic term--while the other proceeds from local and temporary social currents. [sidenote: locke on the influence of] locke's method of dealing with typical forms of wrong belief is less formal and may be more enlightening. we can hardly do better than quote his forcible and quaint language, when, enumerating different classes of men, he shows different ways in which thought goes wrong: [sidenote: (_a_) dependence on others,] 1. "the first is of those who seldom reason at all, but do and think according to the example of others, whether parents, neighbors, ministers, or who else they are pleased to make choice of to have an implicit faith in, for the saving of themselves the pains and troubles of thinking and examining for themselves." [sidenote: (_b_) self-interest,] 2. "this kind is of those who put passion in the place of reason, and being resolved that shall govern their actions and arguments, neither use their own, nor hearken to other people's reason, any farther than it suits their humor, interest, or party."[5] [5] in another place he says: "men's prejudices and inclinations impose often upon themselves.... inclination suggests and slides into discourse favorable terms, which introduce favorable ideas; till at last by this means that is concluded clear and evident, thus dressed up, which, taken in its native state, by making use of none but precise determined ideas, would find no admittance at all." [sidenote: (_c_) circumscribed experience] 3. "the third sort is of those who readily and sincerely follow reason, but for want of having that which one may call large, sound, roundabout sense, have not a full view of all that relates to the question.... they converse but with one sort of men, they read but one sort of books, they will not come in the hearing but of one sort of notions.... they have a pretty traffic with known correspondents in some little creek ... but will not venture out into the great ocean of knowledge." men of originally equal natural parts may finally arrive at very different stores of knowledge and truth, "when all the odds between them has been the different scope that has been given to their understandings to range in, for the gathering up of information and furnishing their heads with ideas and notions and observations, whereon to employ their mind."[6] [6] _the conduct of the understanding_, § 3. in another portion of his writings,[7] locke states the same ideas in slightly different form. [7] _essay concerning human understanding_, bk. iv, ch. xx, "of wrong assent or error." [sidenote: effect of dogmatic principles,] 1. "that which is inconsistent with our _principles_ is so far from passing for probable with us that it will not be allowed possible. the reverence borne to these principles is so great, and their authority so paramount to all other, that the testimony, not only of other men, but the evidence of our own senses are often rejected, when they offer to vouch anything contrary to these _established rules_.... there is nothing more ordinary than children's receiving into their minds propositions ... from their parents, nurses, or those about them; which being insinuated in their unwary as well as unbiased understandings, and fastened by degrees, are at last (and this whether true or false) riveted there by long custom and education, beyond all possibility of being pulled out again. for men, when they are grown up, reflecting upon their opinions and finding those of this sort to be as ancient in their minds as their very memories, not having observed their early insinuation, nor by what means they got them, they are apt to reverence them as sacred things, and not to suffer them to be profaned, touched, or questioned." they take them as standards "to be the great and unerring deciders of truth and falsehood, and the judges to which they are to appeal in all manner of controversies." [sidenote: of closed minds,] 2. "secondly, next to these are men whose understandings are cast into a mold, and fashioned just to the size of a received hypothesis." such men, locke goes on to say, while not denying the existence of facts and evidence, cannot be convinced by the evidence that would decide them if their minds were not so closed by adherence to fixed belief. [sidenote: of strong passion,] 3. "predominant passions. thirdly, probabilities which cross men's appetites and prevailing passions run the same fate. let ever so much probability hang on one side of a covetous man's reasoning, and money on the other, it is easy to foresee which will outweigh. earthly minds, like mud walls, resist the strongest batteries. [sidenote: of dependence upon authority of others] 4. "authority. the fourth and last wrong measure of probability i shall take notice of, and which keeps in ignorance or error more people than all the others together, is the giving up our assent to the common received opinions, either of our friends or party, neighborhood or country." [sidenote: causes of bad mental habits are social as well as inborn] both bacon and locke make it evident that over and above the sources of misbelief that reside in the natural tendencies of the individual (like those toward hasty and too far-reaching conclusions), social conditions tend to instigate and confirm wrong habits of thinking by authority, by conscious instruction, and by the even more insidious half-conscious influences of language, imitation, sympathy, and suggestion. education has accordingly not only to safeguard an individual against the besetting erroneous tendencies of his own mind--its rashness, presumption, and preference of what chimes with self-interest to objective evidence--but also to undermine and destroy the accumulated and self-perpetuating prejudices of long ages. when social life in general has become more reasonable, more imbued with rational conviction, and less moved by stiff authority and blind passion, educational agencies may be more positive and constructive than at present, for they will work in harmony with the educative influence exercised willy-nilly by other social surroundings upon an individual's habits of thought and belief. at present, the work of teaching must not only transform natural tendencies into trained habits of thought, but must also fortify the mind against irrational tendencies current in the social environment, and help displace erroneous habits already produced. § 4. _regulation transforms inference into proof_ [sidenote: a leap is involved in all thinking] thinking is important because, as we have seen, it is that function in which given or ascertained facts stand for or indicate others which are not directly ascertained. but the process of reaching the absent from the present is peculiarly exposed to error; it is liable to be influenced by almost any number of unseen and unconsidered causes,--past experience, received dogmas, the stirring of self-interest, the arousing of passion, sheer mental laziness, a social environment steeped in biased traditions or animated by false expectations, and so on. the exercise of thought is, in the literal sense of that word, _inference_; by it one thing _carries us over_ to the idea of, and belief in, another thing. it involves a jump, a leap, a going beyond what is surely known to something else accepted on its warrant. unless one is an idiot, one simply cannot help having all things and events suggest other things not actually present, nor can one help a tendency to believe in the latter on the basis of the former. the very inevitableness of the jump, the leap, to something unknown, only emphasizes the necessity of attention to the conditions under which it occurs so that the danger of a false step may be lessened and the probability of a right landing increased. [sidenote: hence, the need of regulation which, when adequate, makes proof] such attention consists in regulation (1) of the conditions under which the function of suggestion takes place, and (2) of the conditions under which credence is yielded to the suggestions that occur. inference controlled in these two ways (the study of which in detail constitutes one of the chief objects of this book) forms _proof_. to prove a thing means primarily to try, to test it. the guest bidden to the wedding feast excused himself because he had to _prove_ his oxen. exceptions are said to prove a rule; _i.e._ they furnish instances so extreme that they try in the severest fashion its applicability; if the rule will stand such a test, there is no good reason for further doubting it. not until a thing has been tried--"tried out," in colloquial language--do we know its true worth. till then it may be pretense, a bluff. but the thing that has come out victorious in a test or trial of strength carries its credentials with it; it is approved, because it has been proved. its value is clearly evinced, shown, _i.e._ demonstrated. so it is with inferences. the mere fact that inference in general is an invaluable function does not guarantee, nor does it even help out the correctness of any particular inference. any inference may go astray; and as we have seen, there are standing influences ever ready to assist its going wrong. _what is important, is that every inference shall be a tested inference_; _or_ (since often this is not possible) _that we shall discriminate between beliefs that rest upon tested evidence and those that do not, and shall be accordingly on our guard as to the kind and degree of assent yielded_. [sidenote: the office of education in forming skilled] [sidenote: powers of thinking] while it is not the business of education to prove every statement made, any more than to teach every possible item of information, it is its business to cultivate deep-seated and effective habits of discriminating tested beliefs from mere assertions, guesses, and opinions; to develop a lively, sincere, and open-minded preference for conclusions that are properly grounded, and to ingrain into the individual's working habits methods of inquiry and reasoning appropriate to the various problems that present themselves. no matter how much an individual knows as a matter of hearsay and information, if he has not attitudes and habits of this sort, he is not intellectually educated. he lacks the rudiments of mental discipline. and since these habits are not a gift of nature (no matter how strong the aptitude for acquiring them); since, moreover, the casual circumstances of the natural and social environment are not enough to compel their acquisition, the main office of education is to supply conditions that make for their cultivation. the formation of these habits is the training of mind. chapter three natural resources in the training of thought [sidenote: only native powers can be trained.] in the last chapter we considered the need of transforming, through training, the natural capacities of inference into habits of critical examination and inquiry. the very importance of thought for life makes necessary its control by education because of its natural tendency to go astray, and because social influences exist that tend to form habits of thought leading to inadequate and erroneous beliefs. training must, however, be itself based upon the natural tendencies,--that is, it must find its point of departure in them. a being who could not think without training could never be trained to think; one may have to learn to think _well_, but not to _think_. training, in short, must fall back upon the prior and independent existence of natural powers; it is concerned with their proper direction, not with creating them. [sidenote: hence, the one taught must take the initiative] teaching and learning are correlative or corresponding processes, as much so as selling and buying. one might as well say he has sold when no one has bought, as to say that he has taught when no one has learned. and in the educational transaction, the initiative lies with the learner even more than in commerce it lies with the buyer. if an individual can learn to think only in the sense of learning to employ more economically and effectively powers he already possesses, even more truly one can teach others to think only in the sense of appealing to and fostering powers already active in them. effective appeal of this kind is impossible unless the teacher has an insight into existing habits and tendencies, the natural resources with which he has to ally himself. [sidenote: three important natural resources] any inventory of the items of this natural capital is somewhat arbitrary because it must pass over many of the complex details. but a statement of the factors essential to thought will put before us in outline the main elements. thinking involves (as we have seen) the suggestion of a conclusion for acceptance, and also search or inquiry to test the value of the suggestion before finally accepting it. this implies (_a_) a certain fund or store of experiences and facts from which suggestions proceed; (_b_) promptness, flexibility, and fertility of suggestions; and (_c_) orderliness, consecutiveness, appropriateness in what is suggested. clearly, a person may be hampered in any of these three regards: his thinking may be irrelevant, narrow, or crude because he has not enough actual material upon which to base conclusions; or because concrete facts and raw material, even if extensive and bulky, fail to evoke suggestions easily and richly; or finally, because, even when these two conditions are fulfilled, the ideas suggested are incoherent and fantastic, rather than pertinent and consistent. § 1. _curiosity_ [sidenote: desire for fullness of experience:] the most vital and significant factor in supplying the primary material whence suggestion may issue is, without doubt, curiosity. the wisest of the greeks used to say that wonder is the mother of all science. an inert mind waits, as it were, for experiences to be imperiously forced upon it. the pregnant saying of wordsworth: "the eye--it cannot choose but see; we cannot bid the ear be still; our bodies feel, where'er they be, against or with our will"-holds good in the degree in which one is naturally possessed by curiosity. the curious mind is constantly alert and exploring, seeking material for thought, as a vigorous and healthy body is on the _qui vive_ for nutriment. eagerness for experience, for new and varied contacts, is found where wonder is found. such curiosity is the only sure guarantee of the acquisition of the primary facts upon which inference must base itself. [sidenote: (_a_) physical] (_a_) in its first manifestations, curiosity is a vital overflow, an expression of an abundant organic energy. a physiological uneasiness leads a child to be "into everything,"--to be reaching, poking, pounding, prying. observers of animals have noted what one author calls "their inveterate tendency to fool." "rats run about, smell, dig, or gnaw, without real reference to the business in hand. in the same way jack [a dog] scrabbles and jumps, the kitten wanders and picks, the otter slips about everywhere like ground lightning, the elephant fumbles ceaselessly, the monkey pulls things about."[8] the most casual notice of the activities of a young child reveals a ceaseless display of exploring and testing activity. objects are sucked, fingered, and thumped; drawn and pushed, handled and thrown; in short, experimented with, till they cease to yield new qualities. such activities are hardly intellectual, and yet without them intellectual activity would be feeble and intermittent through lack of stuff for its operations. [8] hobhouse, _mind in evolution_, p. 195. [sidenote: (_b_) social] (_b_) a higher stage of curiosity develops under the influence of social stimuli. when the child learns that he can appeal to others to eke out his store of experiences, so that, if objects fail to respond interestingly to his experiments, he may call upon persons to provide interesting material, a new epoch sets in. "what is that?" "why?" become the unfailing signs of a child's presence. at first this questioning is hardly more than a projection into social relations of the physical overflow which earlier kept the child pushing and pulling, opening and shutting. he asks in succession what holds up the house, what holds up the soil that holds the house, what holds up the earth that holds the soil; but his questions are not evidence of any genuine consciousness of rational connections. his _why_ is not a demand for scientific explanation; the motive behind it is simply eagerness for a larger acquaintance with the mysterious world in which he is placed. the search is not for a law or principle, but only for a bigger fact. yet there is more than a desire to accumulate just information or heap up disconnected items, although sometimes the interrogating habit threatens to degenerate into a mere disease of language. in the feeling, however dim, that the facts which directly meet the senses are not the whole story, that there is more behind them and more to come from them, lies the germ of _intellectual_ curiosity. [sidenote: (_c_) intellectual] (_c_) curiosity rises above the organic and the social planes and becomes intellectual in the degree in which it is transformed into interest in _problems_ provoked by the observation of things and the accumulation of material. when the question is not discharged by being asked of another, when the child continues to entertain it in his own mind and to be alert for whatever will help answer it, curiosity has become a positive intellectual force. to the open mind, nature and social experience are full of varied and subtle challenges to look further. if germinating powers are not used and cultivated at the right moment, they tend to be transitory, to die out, or to wane in intensity. this general law is peculiarly true of sensitiveness to what is uncertain and questionable; in a few people, intellectual curiosity is so insatiable that nothing will discourage it, but in most its edge is easily dulled and blunted. bacon's saying that we must become as little children in order to enter the kingdom of science is at once a reminder of the open-minded and flexible wonder of childhood and of the ease with which this endowment is lost. some lose it in indifference or carelessness; others in a frivolous flippancy; many escape these evils only to become incased in a hard dogmatism which is equally fatal to the spirit of wonder. some are so taken up with routine as to be inaccessible to new facts and problems. others retain curiosity only with reference to what concerns their personal advantage in their chosen career. with many, curiosity is arrested on the plane of interest in local gossip and in the fortunes of their neighbors; indeed, so usual is this result that very often the first association with the word _curiosity_ is a prying inquisitiveness into other people's business. with respect then to curiosity, the teacher has usually more to learn than to teach. rarely can he aspire to the office of kindling or even increasing it. his task is rather to keep alive the sacred spark of wonder and to fan the flame that already glows. his problem is to protect the spirit of inquiry, to keep it from becoming blasé from overexcitement, wooden from routine, fossilized through dogmatic instruction, or dissipated by random exercise upon trivial things. § 2. _suggestion_ out of the subject-matter, whether rich or scanty, important or trivial, of present experience issue suggestions, ideas, beliefs as to what is not yet given. the function of suggestion is not one that can be produced by teaching; while it may be modified for better or worse by conditions, it cannot be destroyed. many a child has tried his best to see if he could not "stop thinking," but the flow of suggestions goes on in spite of our will, quite as surely as "our bodies feel, where'er they be, against or with our will." primarily, naturally, it is not we who think, in any actively responsible sense; thinking is rather something that happens in us. only so far as one has acquired control of the method in which the function of suggestion occurs and has accepted responsibility for its consequences, can one truthfully say, "_i_ think so and so." [sidenote: the dimensions of suggestion:] [sidenote: (_a_) ease] the function of suggestion has a variety of aspects (or dimensions as we may term them), varying in different persons, both in themselves and in their mode of combination. these dimensions are ease or promptness, extent or variety, and depth or persistence. (_a_) the common classification of persons into the dull and the bright is made primarily on the basis of the readiness or facility with which suggestions follow upon the presentation of objects and upon the happening of events. as the metaphor of dull and bright implies, some minds are impervious, or else they absorb passively. everything presented is lost in a drab monotony that gives nothing back. but others reflect, or give back in varied lights, all that strikes upon them. the dull make no response; the bright flash back the fact with a changed quality. an inert or stupid mind requires a heavy jolt or an intense shock to move it to suggestion; the bright mind is quick, is alert to react with interpretation and suggestion of consequences to follow. yet the teacher is not entitled to assume stupidity or even dullness merely because of irresponsiveness to school subjects or to a lesson as presented by text-book or teacher. the pupil labeled hopeless may react in quick and lively fashion when the thing-in-hand seems to him worth while, as some out-of-school sport or social affair. indeed, the school subject might move him, were it set in a different context and treated by a different method. a boy dull in geometry may prove quick enough when he takes up the subject in connection with manual training; the girl who seems inaccessible to historical facts may respond promptly when it is a question of judging the character and deeds of people of her acquaintance or of fiction. barring physical defect or disease, slowness and dullness in _all_ directions are comparatively rare. [sidenote: (_b_) range] (_b_) irrespective of the difference in persons as to the ease and promptness with which ideas respond to facts, there is a difference in the number or range of the suggestions that occur. we speak truly, in some cases, of the flood of suggestions; in others, there is but a slender trickle. occasionally, slowness of outward response is due to a great variety of suggestions which check one another and lead to hesitation and suspense; while a lively and prompt suggestion may take such possession of the mind as to preclude the development of others. too few suggestions indicate a dry and meager mental habit; when this is joined to great learning, there results a pedant or a gradgrind. such a person's mind rings hard; he is likely to bore others with mere bulk of information. he contrasts with the person whom we call ripe, juicy, and mellow. a conclusion reached after consideration of a few alternatives may be formally correct, but it will not possess the fullness and richness of meaning of one arrived at after comparison of a greater variety of alternative suggestions. on the other hand, suggestions may be too numerous and too varied for the best interests of mental habit. so many suggestions may rise that the person is at a loss to select among them. he finds it difficult to reach any definite conclusion and wanders more or less helplessly among them. so much suggests itself _pro_ and _con_, one thing leads on to another so naturally, that he finds it difficult to decide in practical affairs or to conclude in matters of theory. there is such a thing as too much thinking, as when action is paralyzed by the multiplicity of views suggested by a situation. or again, the very number of suggestions may be hostile to tracing logical sequences among them, for it may tempt the mind away from the necessary but trying task of search for real connections, into the more congenial occupation of embroidering upon the given facts a tissue of agreeable fancies. the best mental habit involves a balance between paucity and redundancy of suggestions. [sidenote: (_c_) profundity] (_c_) _depth._ we distinguish between people not only upon the basis of their quickness and fertility of intellectual response, but also with respect to the plane upon which it occurs--the intrinsic quality of the response. one man's thought is profound while another's is superficial; one goes to the roots of the matter, and another touches lightly its most external aspects. this phase of thinking is perhaps the most untaught of all, and the least amenable to external influence whether for improvement or harm. nevertheless, the conditions of the pupil's contact with subject-matter may be such that he is compelled to come to quarters with its more significant features, or such that he is encouraged to deal with it upon the basis of what is trivial. the common assumptions that, if the pupil only thinks, one thought is just as good for his mental discipline as another, and that the end of study is the amassing of information, both tend to foster superficial, at the expense of significant, thought. pupils who in matters of ordinary practical experience have a ready and acute perception of the difference between the significant and the meaningless, often reach in school subjects a point where all things seem equally important or equally unimportant; where one thing is just as likely to be true as another, and where intellectual effort is expended not in discriminating between things, but in trying to make verbal connections among words. [sidenote: balance of mind] sometimes slowness and depth of response are intimately connected. time is required in order to digest impressions, and translate them into substantial ideas. "brightness" may be but a flash in the pan. the "slow but sure" person, whether man or child, is one in whom impressions sink and accumulate, so that thinking is done at a deeper level of value than with a slighter load. many a child is rebuked for "slowness," for not "answering promptly," when his forces are taking time to gather themselves together to deal effectively with the problem at hand. in such cases, failure to afford time and leisure conduce to habits of speedy, but snapshot and superficial, judgment. the depth to which a sense of the problem, of the difficulty, sinks, determines the quality of the thinking that follows; and any habit of teaching which encourages the pupil for the sake of a successful recitation or of a display of memorized information to glide over the thin ice of genuine problems reverses the true method of mind training. [sidenote: individual differences] it is profitable to study the lives of men and women who achieve in adult life fine things in their respective callings, but who were called dull in their school days. sometimes the early wrong judgment was due mainly to the fact that the direction in which the child showed his ability was not one recognized by the good old standards in use, as in the case of darwin's interest in beetles, snakes, and frogs. sometimes it was due to the fact that the child dwelling habitually on a deeper plane of reflection than other pupils--or than his teachers--did not show to advantage when prompt answers of the usual sort were expected. sometimes it was due to the fact that the pupil's natural mode of approach clashed habitually with that of the text or teacher, and the method of the latter was assumed as an absolute basis of estimate. [sidenote: any subject may be intellectual] in any event, it is desirable that the teacher should rid himself of the notion that "thinking" is a single, unalterable faculty; that he should recognize that it is a term denoting the various ways in which things acquire significance. it is desirable to expel also the kindred notion that some subjects are inherently "intellectual," and hence possessed of an almost magical power to train the faculty of thought. thinking is specific, not a machine-like, ready-made apparatus to be turned indifferently and at will upon all subjects, as a lantern may throw its light as it happens upon horses, streets, gardens, trees, or river. thinking is specific, in that different things suggest their own appropriate meanings, tell their own unique stories, and in that they do this in very different ways with different persons. as the growth of the body is through the assimilation of food, so the growth of mind is through the logical organization of subject-matter. thinking is not like a sausage machine which reduces all materials indifferently to one marketable commodity, but is a power of following up and linking together the specific suggestions that specific things arouse. accordingly, any subject, from greek to cooking, and from drawing to mathematics, is intellectual, if intellectual at all, not in its fixed inner structure, but in its function--in its power to start and direct significant inquiry and reflection. what geometry does for one, the manipulation of laboratory apparatus, the mastery of a musical composition, or the conduct of a business affair, may do for another. § 3. _orderliness: its nature_ [sidenote: continuity] facts, whether narrow or extensive, and conclusions suggested by them, whether many or few, do not constitute, even when combined, reflective thought. the suggestions must be _organized_; they must be arranged with reference to one another and with reference to the facts on which they depend for proof. when the factors of facility, of fertility, and of depth are properly balanced or proportioned, we get as the outcome continuity of thought. we desire neither the slow mind nor yet the hasty. we wish neither random diffuseness nor fixed rigidity. consecutiveness means flexibility and variety of materials, conjoined with singleness and definiteness of direction. it is opposed both to a mechanical routine uniformity and to a grasshopper-like movement. of bright children, it is not infrequently said that "they might do anything, if only they settled down," so quick and apt are they in any particular response. but, alas, they rarely settle. on the other hand, it is not enough _not_ to be diverted. a deadly and fanatic consistency is not our goal. concentration does not mean fixity, nor a cramped arrest or paralysis of the flow of suggestion. it means variety and change of ideas combined into a _single steady trend moving toward a unified conclusion_. thoughts are concentrated not by being kept still and quiescent, but by being kept moving toward an object, as a general concentrates his troops for attack or defense. holding the mind to a subject is like holding a ship to its course; it implies constant change of place combined with unity of direction. consistent and orderly thinking is precisely such a change of subject-matter. consistency is no more the mere absence of contradiction than concentration is the mere absence of diversion--which exists in dull routine or in a person "fast asleep." all kinds of varied and incompatible suggestions may sprout and be followed in their growth, and yet thinking be consistent and orderly, provided each one of the suggestions is viewed in relation to the main topic. [sidenote: practical demands enforce some degree of continuity] in the main, for most persons, the primary resource in the development of orderly habits of thought is indirect, not direct. intellectual organization originates and for a time grows as an accompaniment of the organization of the acts required to realize an end, not as the result of a direct appeal to thinking power. the need of thinking to accomplish something beyond thinking is more potent than thinking for its own sake. all people at the outset, and the majority of people probably all their lives, attain ordering of thought through ordering of action. adults normally carry on some occupation, profession, pursuit; and this furnishes the continuous axis about which their knowledge, their beliefs, and their habits of reaching and testing conclusions are organized. observations that have to do with the efficient performance of their calling are extended and rendered precise. information related to it is not merely amassed and then left in a heap; it is classified and subdivided so as to be available as it is needed. inferences are made by most men not from purely speculative motives, but because they are involved in the efficient performance of "the duties involved in their several callings." thus their inferences are constantly tested by results achieved; futile and scattering methods tend to be discounted; orderly arrangements have a premium put upon them. the event, the issue, stands as a constant check on the thinking that has led up to it; and this discipline by efficiency in action is the chief sanction, in practically all who are not scientific specialists, of orderliness of thought. such a resource--the main prop of disciplined thinking in adult life--is not to be despised in training the young in right intellectual habits. there are, however, profound differences between the immature and the adult in the matter of organized activity--differences which must be taken seriously into account in any educational use of activities: (_i_) the external achievement resulting from activity is a more urgent necessity with the adult, and hence is with him a more effective means of discipline of mind than with the child; (_ii_) the ends of adult activity are more specialized than those of child activity. [sidenote: peculiar difficulty with children] (_i_) the selection and arrangement of appropriate lines of action is a much more difficult problem as respects youth than it is in the case of adults. with the latter, the main lines are more or less settled by circumstances. the social status of the adult, the fact that he is a citizen, a householder, a parent, one occupied in some regular industrial or professional calling, prescribes the chief features of the acts to be performed, and secures, somewhat automatically, as it were, appropriate and related modes of thinking. but with the child there is no such fixity of status and pursuit; there is almost nothing to dictate that such and such a consecutive line of action, rather than another, should be followed, while the will of others, his own caprice, and circumstances about him tend to produce an isolated momentary act. the absence of continued motivation coöperates with the inner plasticity of the immature to increase the importance of educational training and the difficulties in the way of finding consecutive modes of activities which may do for child and youth what serious vocations and functions do for the adult. in the case of children, the choice is so peculiarly exposed to arbitrary factors, to mere school traditions, to waves of pedagogical fad and fancy, to fluctuating social cross currents, that sometimes, in sheer disgust at the inadequacy of results, a reaction occurs to the total neglect of overt activity as an educational factor, and a recourse to purely theoretical subjects and methods. [sidenote: peculiar opportunity with children] (_ii_) this very difficulty, however, points to the fact that the _opportunity for selecting truly educative activities_ is indefinitely greater in child life than in adult. the factor of external pressure is so strong with most adults that the educative value of the pursuit--its reflex influence upon intelligence and character--however genuine, is incidental, and frequently almost accidental. the problem and the opportunity with the young is selection of orderly and continuous modes of occupation, which, while they lead up to and prepare for the indispensable activities of adult life, have their own _sufficient justification in their present reflex influence upon the formation of habits of thought_. [sidenote: action and reaction between extremes] educational practice shows a continual tendency to oscillate between two extremes with respect to overt and exertive activities. one extreme is to neglect them almost entirely, on the ground that they are chaotic and fluctuating, mere diversions appealing to the transitory unformed taste and caprice of immature minds; or if they avoid this evil, are objectionable copies of the highly specialized, and more or less commercial, activities of adult life. if activities are admitted at all into the school, the admission is a grudging concession to the necessity of having occasional relief from the strain of constant intellectual work, or to the clamor of outside utilitarian demands upon the school. the other extreme is an enthusiastic belief in the almost magical educative efficacy of any kind of activity, granted it is an activity and not a passive absorption of academic and theoretic material. the conceptions of play, of self-expression, of natural growth, are appealed to almost as if they meant that opportunity for any kind of spontaneous activity inevitably secures the due training of mental power; or a mythological brain physiology is appealed to as proof that any exercise of the muscles trains power of thought. [sidenote: locating the problem of education] while we vibrate from one of these extremes to the other, the most serious of all problems is ignored: the problem, namely, of discovering and arranging the forms of activity (_a_) which are most congenial, best adapted, to the immature stage of development; (_b_) which have the most ulterior promise as preparation for the social responsibilities of adult life; and (_c_) which, _at the same time_, have the maximum of influence in forming habits of acute observation and of consecutive inference. as curiosity is related to the acquisition of material of thought, as suggestion is related to flexibility and force of thought, so the ordering of activities, not themselves primarily intellectual, is related to the forming of intellectual powers of consecutiveness. chapter four school conditions and the training of thought § 1. _introductory: methods and conditions_ [sidenote: formal discipline] the so-called faculty-psychology went hand in hand with the vogue of the formal-discipline idea in education. if thought is a distinct piece of mental machinery, separate from observation, memory, imagination, and common-sense judgments of persons and things, then thought should be trained by special exercises designed for the purpose, as one might devise special exercises for developing the biceps muscles. certain subjects are then to be regarded as intellectual or logical subjects _par excellence_, possessed of a predestined fitness to exercise the thought-faculty, just as certain machines are better than others for developing arm power. with these three notions goes the fourth, that method consists of a set of operations by which the machinery of thought is set going and kept at work upon any subject-matter. [sidenote: versus real thinking] we have tried to make it clear in the previous chapters that there is no single and uniform power of thought, but a multitude of different ways in which specific things--things observed, remembered, heard of, read about--evoke suggestions or ideas that are pertinent to the occasion and fruitful in the sequel. training is such development of curiosity, suggestion, and habits of exploring and testing, as increases their scope and efficiency. a subject--any subject--is intellectual in the degree in which _with any given person_ it succeeds in effecting this growth. on this view the fourth factor, method, is concerned with providing conditions so adapted to individual needs and powers as to make for the permanent improvement of observation, suggestion, and investigation. [sidenote: true and false meaning of method] the teacher's problem is thus twofold. on the one side, he needs (as we saw in the last chapter) to be a student of individual traits and habits; on the other side, he needs to be a student of the conditions that modify for better or worse the directions in which individual powers habitually express themselves. he needs to recognize that method covers not only what he intentionally devises and employs for the purpose of mental training, but also what he does without any conscious reference to it,--anything in the atmosphere and conduct of the school which reacts in any way upon the curiosity, the responsiveness, and the orderly activity of children. the teacher who is an intelligent student both of individual mental operations and of the effects of school conditions upon those operations, can largely be trusted to develop for himself methods of instruction in their narrower and more technical sense--those best adapted to achieve results in particular subjects, such as reading, geography, or algebra. in the hands of one who is not intelligently aware of individual capacities and of the influence unconsciously exerted upon them by the entire environment, even the best of technical methods are likely to get an immediate result only at the expense of deep-seated and persistent habits. we may group the conditioning influences of the school environment under three heads: (1) the mental attitudes and habits of the persons with whom the child is in contact; (2) the subjects studied; (3) current educational aims and ideals. § 2. _influence of the habits of others_ bare reference to the imitativeness of human nature is enough to suggest how profoundly the mental habits of others affect the attitude of the one being trained. example is more potent than precept; and a teacher's best conscious efforts may be more than counteracted by the influence of personal traits which he is unaware of or regards as unimportant. methods of instruction and discipline that are technically faulty may be rendered practically innocuous by the inspiration of the personal method that lies back of them. [sidenote: response to environment fundamental in method] to confine, however, the conditioning influence of the educator, whether parent or teacher, to imitation is to get a very superficial view of the intellectual influence of others. imitation is but one case of a deeper principle--that of stimulus and response. _everything the teacher does, as well as the manner in which he does it, incites the child to respond in some way or other, and each response tends to set the child's attitude in some way or other._ even the inattention of the child to the adult is often a mode of response which is the result of unconscious training.[9] the teacher is rarely (and even then never entirely) a transparent medium of access by another mind to a subject. with the young, the influence of the teacher's personality is intimately fused with that of the subject; the child does not separate nor even distinguish the two. and as the child's response is _toward_ or _away from_ anything presented, he keeps up a running commentary, of which he himself is hardly distinctly aware, of like and dislike, of sympathy and aversion, not merely to the acts of the teacher, but also to the subject with which the teacher is occupied. [9] a child of four or five who had been repeatedly called to the house by his mother with no apparent response on his own part, was asked if he did not hear her. he replied quite judicially, "oh, yes, but she doesn't call very mad yet." [sidenote: influence of teacher's own habits] [sidenote: judging others by ourselves] the extent and power of this influence upon morals and manners, upon character, upon habits of speech and social bearing, are almost universally recognized. but the tendency to conceive of thought as an isolated faculty has often blinded teachers to the fact that this influence is just as real and pervasive in intellectual concerns. teachers, as well as children, stick more or less to the main points, have more or less wooden and rigid methods of response, and display more or less intellectual curiosity about matters that come up. and every trait of this kind is an inevitable part of the teacher's method of teaching. merely to accept without notice slipshod habits of speech, slovenly inferences, unimaginative and literal response, is to indorse these tendencies, and to ratify them into habits--and so it goes throughout the whole range of contact between teacher and student. in this complex and intricate field, two or three points may well be singled out for special notice. (_a_) most persons are quite unaware of the distinguishing peculiarities of their own mental habit. they take their own mental operations for granted, and unconsciously make them the standard for judging the mental processes of others.[10] hence there is a tendency to encourage everything in the pupil which agrees with this attitude, and to neglect or fail to understand whatever is incongruous with it. the prevalent overestimation of the value, for mind-training, of _theoretic_ subjects as compared with practical pursuits, is doubtless due partly to the fact that the teacher's calling tends to select those in whom the theoretic interest is specially strong and to repel those in whom executive abilities are marked. teachers sifted out on this basis judge pupils and subjects by a like standard, encouraging an intellectual one-sidedness in those to whom it is naturally congenial, and repelling from study those in whom practical instincts are more urgent. [10] people who have _number-forms_--_i.e._ project number series into space and see them arranged in certain shapes--when asked why they have not mentioned the fact before, often reply that it never occurred to them; they supposed that everybody had the same power. [sidenote: exaggeration of direct personal influence] (_b_) teachers--and this holds especially of the stronger and better teachers--tend to rely upon their personal strong points to hold a child to his work, and thereby to substitute their personal influence for that of subject-matter as a motive for study. the teacher finds by experience that his own personality is often effective where the power of the subject to command attention is almost nil; then he utilizes the former more and more, until the pupil's relation to the teacher almost takes the place of his relation to the subject. in this way the teacher's personality may become a source of personal dependence and weakness, an influence that renders the pupil indifferent to the value of the subject for its own sake. [sidenote: independent thinking _versus_ "getting the answer"] (_c_) the operation of the teacher's own mental habit tends, unless carefully watched and guided, to make the child a student of the teacher's peculiarities rather than of the subjects that he is supposed to study. his chief concern is to accommodate himself to what the teacher expects of him, rather than to devote himself energetically to the problems of subject-matter. "is this right?" comes to mean "will this answer or this process satisfy the teacher?"--instead of meaning, "does it satisfy the inherent conditions of the problem?" it would be folly to deny the legitimacy or the value of the study of human nature that children carry on in school; but it is obviously undesirable that their chief intellectual problem should be that of producing an answer approved by the teacher, and their standard of success be successful adaptation to the requirements of another. § 3. _influence of the nature of studies_ [sidenote: types of studies] studies are conventionally and conveniently grouped under these heads: (1) those especially involving the acquisition of skill in performance--the school arts, such as reading, writing, figuring, and music. (2) those mainly concerned with acquiring knowledge--"informational" studies, such as geography and history. (3) those in which skill in doing and bulk of information are relatively less important, and appeal to abstract thinking, to "reasoning," is most marked--"disciplinary" studies, such as arithmetic and formal grammar.[11] each of these groups of subjects has its own special pitfalls. [11] of course, any one subject has all three aspects: _e.g._ in arithmetic, counting, writing, and reading numbers, rapid adding, etc., are cases of skill in doing; the tables of weights and measures are a matter of information, etc. [sidenote: the abstract as the isolated] (_a_) in the case of the so-called disciplinary or pre-eminently logical studies, there is danger of the isolation of intellectual activity from the ordinary affairs of life. teacher and student alike tend to set up a chasm between logical thought as something abstract and remote, and the specific and concrete demands of everyday events. the abstract tends to become so aloof, so far away from application, as to be cut loose from practical and moral bearing. the gullibility of specialized scholars when out of their own lines, their extravagant habits of inference and speech, their ineptness in reaching conclusions in practical matters, their egotistical engrossment in their own subjects, are extreme examples of the bad effects of severing studies completely from their ordinary connections in life. [sidenote: overdoing the mechanical and automatic] [sidenote: "drill"] (_b_) the danger in those studies where the main emphasis is upon acquisition of skill is just the reverse. the tendency is to take the shortest cuts possible to gain the required end. this makes the subjects _mechanical_, and thus restrictive of intellectual power. in the mastery of reading, writing, drawing, laboratory technique, etc., the need of economy of time and material, of neatness and accuracy, of promptness and uniformity, is so great that these things tend to become ends in themselves, irrespective of their influence upon general mental attitude. sheer imitation, dictation of steps to be taken, mechanical drill, may give results most quickly and yet strengthen traits likely to be fatal to reflective power. the pupil is enjoined to do this and that specific thing, with no knowledge of any reason except that by so doing he gets his result most speedily; his mistakes are pointed out and corrected for him; he is kept at pure repetition of certain acts till they become automatic. later, teachers wonder why the pupil reads with so little expression, and figures with so little intelligent consideration of the terms of his problem. in some educational dogmas and practices, the very idea of training mind seems to be hopelessly confused with that of a drill which hardly touches _mind_ at all--or touches it for the worse--since it is wholly taken up with training skill in external execution. this method reduces the "training" of human beings to the level of animal training. practical skill, modes of effective technique, can be intelligently, non-mechanically _used_, only when intelligence has played a part in their _acquisition_. [sidenote: wisdom _versus_ information] (_c_) much the same sort of thing is to be said regarding studies where emphasis traditionally falls upon bulk and accuracy of information. the distinction between information and wisdom is old, and yet requires constantly to be redrawn. information is knowledge which is merely acquired and stored up; wisdom is knowledge operating in the direction of powers to the better living of life. information, merely as information, implies no special training of intellectual capacity; wisdom is the finest fruit of that training. in school, amassing information always tends to escape from the ideal of wisdom or good judgment. the aim often seems to be--especially in such a subject as geography--to make the pupil what has been called a "cyclopedia of useless information." "covering the ground" is the primary necessity; the nurture of mind a bad second. thinking cannot, of course, go on in a vacuum; suggestions and inferences can occur only upon a basis of information as to matters of fact. but there is all the difference in the world whether the acquisition of information is treated as an end in itself, or is made an integral portion of the training of thought. the assumption that information which has been accumulated apart from use in the recognition and solution of a problem may later on be freely employed at will by thought is quite false. the skill at the ready command of intelligence is the skill acquired with the aid of intelligence; the only information which, otherwise than by accident, can be put to logical use is that acquired in the course of thinking. because their knowledge has been achieved in connection with the needs of specific situations, men of little book-learning are often able to put to effective use every ounce of knowledge they possess; while men of vast erudition are often swamped by the mere bulk of their learning, because memory, rather than thinking, has been operative in obtaining it. §4. _the influence of current aims and ideals_ it is, of course, impossible to separate this somewhat intangible condition from the points just dealt with; for automatic skill and quantity of information are educational ideals which pervade the whole school. we may distinguish, however, certain tendencies, such as that to judge education from the standpoint of external results, instead of from that of the development of personal attitudes and habits. the ideal of the _product_, as against that of the mental _process_ by which the product is attained, shows itself in both instruction and moral discipline. [sidenote: external results _versus_ processes] (_a_) in instruction, the external standard manifests itself in the importance attached to the "correct answer." no one other thing, probably, works so fatally against focussing the attention of teachers upon the training of mind as the domination of _their_ minds by the idea that the chief thing is to get pupils to recite their lessons correctly. as long as this end is uppermost (whether consciously or unconsciously), training of mind remains an incidental and secondary consideration. there is no great difficulty in understanding why this ideal has such vogue. the large number of pupils to be dealt with, and the tendency of parents and school authorities to demand speedy and tangible evidence of progress, conspire to give it currency. knowledge of subject-matter--not of children--is alone exacted of teachers by this aim; and, moreover, knowledge of subject-matter only in portions definitely prescribed and laid out, and hence mastered with comparative ease. education that takes as its standard the improvement of the intellectual attitude and method of students demands more serious preparatory training, for it exacts sympathetic and intelligent insight into the workings of individual minds, and a very wide and flexible command of subject-matter--so as to be able to select and apply just what is needed when it is needed. finally, the securing of external results is an aim that lends itself naturally to the mechanics of school administration--to examinations, marks, gradings, promotions, and so on. [sidenote: reliance upon others] (_b_) with reference to behavior also, the external ideal has a great influence. conformity of acts to precepts and rules is the easiest, because most mechanical, standard to employ. it is no part of our present task to tell just how far dogmatic instruction, or strict adherence to custom, convention, and the commands of a social superior, should extend in moral training; but since problems of conduct are the deepest and most common of all the problems of life, the ways in which they are met have an influence that radiates into every other mental attitude, even those far remote from any direct or conscious moral consideration. indeed, the _deepest plane of the mental attitude of every one is fixed by the way in which problems of behavior are treated_. if the function of thought, of serious inquiry and reflection, is reduced to a minimum in dealing with them, it is not reasonable to expect habits of thought to exercise great influence in less important matters. on the other hand, habits of active inquiry and careful deliberation in the significant and vital problems of conduct afford the best guarantee that the general structure of mind will be reasonable. chapter five the means and end of mental training: the psychological and the logical § 1. _introductory: the meaning of logical_ [sidenote: special topic of this chapter] in the preceding chapters we have considered (_i_) what thinking is; (_ii_) the importance of its special training; (_iii_) the natural tendencies that lend themselves to its training; and (_iv_) some of the special obstacles in the way of its training under school conditions. we come now to the relation of _logic_ to the purpose of mental training. [sidenote: three senses of term _logical_] [sidenote: the practical is the important meaning of _logical_] in its broadest sense, any thinking that ends in a conclusion is logical--whether the conclusion reached be justified or fallacious; that is, the term _logical_ covers both the logically good and the illogical or the logically bad. in its narrowest sense, the term _logical_ refers only to what is demonstrated to follow necessarily from premises that are definite in meaning and that are either self-evidently true, or that have been previously proved to be true. stringency of proof is here the equivalent of the logical. in this sense mathematics and formal logic (perhaps as a branch of mathematics) alone are strictly logical. logical, however, is used in a third sense, which is at once more vital and more practical; to denote, namely, the systematic care, negative and positive, taken to safeguard reflection so that it may yield the best results under the given conditions. if only the word _artificial_ were associated with the idea of _art_, or expert skill gained through voluntary apprenticeship (instead of suggesting the factitious and unreal), we might say that logical refers to artificial thought. [sidenote: care, thoroughness, and exactness the marks of the logical] in this sense, the word _logical_ is synonymous with wide-awake, thorough, and careful reflection--thought in its best sense (_ante_, p. 5). reflection is turning a topic over in various aspects and in various lights so that nothing significant about it shall be overlooked--almost as one might turn a stone over to see what its hidden side is like or what is covered by it. _thoughtfulness_ means, practically, the same thing as careful attention; to give our mind to a subject is to give heed to it, to take pains with it. in speaking of reflection, we naturally use the words _weigh_, _ponder_, _deliberate_--terms implying a certain delicate and scrupulous balancing of things against one another. closely related names are _scrutiny_, _examination_, _consideration_, _inspection_--terms which imply close and careful vision. again, to think is to relate things to one another definitely, to "put two and two together" as we say. analogy with the accuracy and definiteness of mathematical combinations gives us such expressions as _calculate_, _reckon_, _account for_; and even _reason_ itself--_ratio_. caution, carefulness, thoroughness, definiteness, exactness, orderliness, methodic arrangement, are, then, the traits by which we mark off the logical from what is random and casual on one side, and from what is academic and formal on the other. [sidenote: whole object of intellectual education is formation of logical disposition] [sidenote: false opposition of the logical and psychological] no argument is needed to point out that the educator is concerned with the logical in its practical and vital sense. argument is perhaps needed to show that the _intellectual_ (as distinct from the _moral_) _end of education is entirely and only the logical in this sense_; _namely, the formation of careful, alert, and thorough habits of thinking_. the chief difficulty in the way of recognition of this principle is a false conception of the relation between the psychological tendencies of an individual and his logical achievements. if it be assumed--as it is so frequently--that these have, intrinsically, nothing to do with each other, then logical training is inevitably regarded as something foreign and extraneous, something to be ingrafted upon the individual from without, so that it is absurd to identify the object of education with the development of logical power. [sidenote: opposing the _natural_ to the logical] the conception that the psychology of individuals has no intrinsic connections with logical methods and results is held, curiously enough, by two opposing schools of educational theory. to one school, the _natural_[12] is primary and fundamental; and its tendency is to make little of distinctly intellectual nurture. its mottoes are freedom, self-expression, individuality, spontaneity, play, interest, natural unfolding, and so on. in its emphasis upon individual attitude and activity, it sets slight store upon organized subject-matter, or the material of study, and conceives _method_ to consist of various devices for stimulating and evoking, in their natural order of growth, the native potentialities of individuals. [12] denoting whatever has to do with the natural constitution and functions of an individual. [sidenote: neglect of the innate logical resources] [sidenote: identification of logical with subject-matter, exclusively] the other school estimates highly the value of the logical, but conceives the natural tendency of individuals to be averse, or at least indifferent, to logical achievement. it relies upon _subject-matter_--upon matter already defined and classified. method, then, has to do with the devices by which these characteristics may be imported into a mind naturally reluctant and rebellious. hence its mottoes are discipline, instruction, restraint, voluntary or conscious effort, the necessity of tasks, and so on. from this point of view studies, rather than attitudes and habits, embody the logical factor in education. the mind becomes logical only by learning to conform to an external subject-matter. to produce this conformity, the study should first be analyzed (by text-book or teacher) into its logical elements; then each of these elements should be defined; finally, all of the elements should be arranged in series or classes according to logical formulæ or general principles. then the pupil learns the definitions one by one; and progressively adding one to another builds up the logical system, and thereby is himself gradually imbued, from without, with logical quality. [sidenote: illustration from geography,] this description will gain meaning through an illustration. suppose the subject is geography. the first thing is to give its definition, marking it off from every other subject. then the various abstract terms upon which depends the scientific development of the science are stated and defined one by one--pole, equator, ecliptic, zone,--from the simpler units to the more complex which are formed out of them; then the more concrete elements are taken in similar series: continent, island, coast, promontory, cape, isthmus, peninsula, ocean, lake, coast, gulf, bay, and so on. in acquiring this material, the mind is supposed not only to gain important information, but, by accommodating itself to ready-made logical definitions, generalizations, and classifications, gradually to acquire logical habits. [sidenote: from drawing] this type of method has been applied to every subject taught in the schools--reading, writing, music, physics, grammar, arithmetic. drawings for example, has been taught on the theory that since all pictorial representation is a matter of combining straight and curved lines, the simplest procedure is to have the pupil acquire the ability first to draw straight lines in various positions (horizontal, perpendicular, diagonals at various angles), then typical curves; and finally, to combine straight and curved lines in various permutations to construct actual pictures. this seemed to give the ideal "logical" method, beginning with analysis into elements, and then proceeding in regular order to more and more complex syntheses, each element being defined when used, and thereby clearly understood. [sidenote: formal method] even when this method in its extreme form is not followed, few schools (especially of the middle or upper elementary grades) are free from an exaggerated attention to forms supposedly employed by the pupil if he gets his result logically. it is thought that there are certain steps arranged in a certain order, which express preëminently an understanding of the subject, and the pupil is made to "analyze" his procedure into these steps, _i.e._ to learn a certain routine formula of statement. while this method is usually at its height in grammar and arithmetic, it invades also history and even literature, which are then reduced, under plea of intellectual training, to "outlines," diagrams, and schemes of division and subdivision. in memorizing this simulated cut and dried copy of the logic of an adult, the child generally is induced to stultify his own subtle and vital logical movement. the adoption by teachers of this misconception of logical method has probably done more than anything else to bring pedagogy into disrepute; for to many persons "pedagogy" means precisely a set of mechanical, self-conscious devices for replacing by some cast-iron external scheme the personal mental movement of the individual. [sidenote: reaction toward lack of form and method] a reaction inevitably occurs from the poor results that accrue from these professedly "logical" methods. lack of interest in study, habits of inattention and procrastination, positive aversion to intellectual application, dependence upon sheer memorizing and mechanical routine with only a modicum of understanding by the pupil of what he is about, show that the theory of logical definition, division, gradation, and system does not work out practically as it is theoretically supposed to work. the consequent disposition--as in every reaction--is to go to the opposite extreme. the "logical" is thought to be wholly artificial and extraneous; teacher and pupil alike are to turn their backs upon it, and to work toward the expression of existing aptitudes and tastes. emphasis upon natural tendencies and powers as the only possible starting-point of development is indeed wholesome. but the reaction is false, and hence misleading, in what it ignores and denies: the presence of genuinely intellectual factors in existing powers and interests. [sidenote: logic of subject-matter is logic of adult or trained mind] what is conventionally termed logical (namely, the logical from the standpoint of subject-matter) represents in truth the logic of the trained adult mind. ability to divide a subject, to define its elements, and to group them into classes according to general principles represents logical capacity at its best point reached _after_ thorough training. the mind that habitually exhibits skill in divisions, definitions, generalizations, and systematic recapitulations no longer needs training in logical methods. but it is absurd to suppose that a mind which needs training because it cannot perform these operations can begin where the expert mind stops. _the logical from the standpoint of subject-matter represents the goal, the last term of training, not the point of departure._ [sidenote: the immature mind has its own logic] [sidenote: hence, the _psychological_ and the _logical_ represent the two ends of the same movement] in truth, the mind at every stage of development has its own logic. the error of the notion that by appeal to spontaneous tendencies and by multiplication of materials we may completely dismiss logical considerations, lies in overlooking how large a part curiosity, inference, experimenting, and testing already play in the pupil's life. therefore it underestimates the _intellectual_ factor in the more spontaneous play and work of individuals--the factor that alone is truly educative. any teacher who is alive to the modes of thought naturally operative in the experience of the normal child will have no difficulty in avoiding the identification of the logical with a ready-made organization of subject-matter, as well as the notion that the only way to escape this error is to pay no attention to logical considerations. such a teacher will have no difficulty in seeing that the real problem of intellectual education is the transformation of natural powers into expert, tested powers: the transformation of more or less casual curiosity and sporadic suggestion into attitudes of alert, cautious, and thorough inquiry. he will see that the _psychological_ and the _logical_, instead of being opposed to each other (or even independent of each other), are connected _as the earlier and the later stages in one continuous process of normal growth_. the natural or psychological activities, even when not consciously controlled by logical considerations, have their own intellectual function and integrity; conscious and deliberate skill in thinking, when it is achieved, makes habitual or second nature. the first is already logical in spirit; the last, in presenting an ingrained disposition and attitude, is then as _psychological_ (as personal) as any caprice or chance impulse could be. § 2. _discipline and freedom_ [sidenote: true and false notions of discipline] discipline of mind is thus, in truth, a result rather than a cause. any mind is disciplined in a subject in which independent intellectual initiative and control have been achieved. discipline represents original native endowment turned, through gradual exercise, into effective power. so far as a mind is disciplined, control of method in a given subject has been attained so that the mind is able to manage itself independently without external tutelage. the aim of education is precisely to develop intelligence of this independent and effective type--a _disciplined mind_. discipline is positive and constructive. [sidenote: discipline as drill] discipline, however, is frequently regarded as something negative--as a painfully disagreeable forcing of mind away from channels congenial to it into channels of constraint, a process grievous at the time but necessary as preparation for a more or less remote future. discipline is then generally identified with drill; and drill is conceived after the mechanical analogy of driving, by unremitting blows, a foreign substance into a resistant material; or is imaged after the analogy of the mechanical routine by which raw recruits are trained to a soldierly bearing and habits that are naturally wholly foreign to their possessors. training of this latter sort, whether it be called discipline or not, is not mental discipline. its aim and result are not _habits of thinking_, but uniform _external modes of action_. by failing to ask what he means by discipline, many a teacher is misled into supposing that he is developing mental force and efficiency by methods which in fact restrict and deaden intellectual activity, and which tend to create mechanical routine, or mental passivity and servility. [sidenote: as independent power or freedom] [sidenote: freedom and external spontaneity] when discipline is conceived in intellectual terms (as the habitual power of effective mental attack), it is identified with freedom in its true sense. for freedom of mind means mental power capable of independent exercise, emancipated from the leading strings of others, not mere unhindered external operation. when spontaneity or naturalness is identified with more or less casual discharge of transitory impulses, the tendency of the educator is to supply a multitude of stimuli in order that spontaneous activity may be kept up. all sorts of interesting materials, equipments, tools, modes of activity, are provided in order that there may be no flagging of free self-expression. this method overlooks some of the essential conditions of the attainment of genuine freedom. [sidenote: some obstacle necessary for thought] (_a_) direct immediate discharge or expression of an impulsive tendency is fatal to thinking. only when the impulse is to some extent checked and thrown back upon itself does reflection ensue. it is, indeed, a stupid error to suppose that arbitrary tasks must be imposed from without in order to furnish the factor of perplexity and difficulty which is the necessary cue to thought. every vital activity of any depth and range inevitably meets obstacles in the course of its effort to realize itself--a fact that renders the search for artificial or external problems quite superfluous. the difficulties that present themselves within the development of an experience are, however, to be cherished by the educator, not minimized, for they are the natural stimuli to reflective inquiry. freedom does not consist in keeping up uninterrupted and unimpeded external activity, but is something achieved through conquering, by personal reflection, a way out of the difficulties that prevent an immediate overflow and a spontaneous success. [sidenote: intellectual factors are _natural_] (_b_) the method that emphasizes the psychological and natural, but yet fails to see what an important part of the natural tendencies is constituted at every period of growth by curiosity, inference, and the desire to test, cannot secure a _natural development_. in natural growth each successive stage of activity prepares unconsciously, but thoroughly, the conditions for the manifestation of the next stage--as in the cycle of a plant's growth. there is no ground for assuming that "thinking" is a special, isolated natural tendency that will bloom inevitably in due season simply because various sense and motor activities have been freely manifested before; or because observation, memory, imagination, and manual skill have been previously exercised without thought. only when thinking is constantly employed in using the senses and muscles for the guidance and application of observations and movements, is the way prepared for subsequent higher types of thinking. [sidenote: genesis of thought contemporaneous with genesis of any human mental activity] at present, the notion is current that childhood is almost entirely unreflective--a period of mere sensory, motor, and memory development, while adolescence suddenly brings the manifestation of thought and reason. adolescence is not, however, a synonym for magic. doubtless youth should bring with it an enlargement of the horizon of childhood, a susceptibility to larger concerns and issues, a more generous and a more general standpoint toward nature and social life. this development affords an opportunity for thinking of a more comprehensive and abstract type than has previously obtained. but thinking itself remains just what it has been all the time: a matter of following up and testing the conclusions suggested by the facts and events of life. thinking begins as soon as the baby who has lost the ball that he is playing with begins to foresee the possibility of something not yet existing--its recovery; and begins to forecast steps toward the realization of this possibility, and, by experimentation, to guide his acts by his ideas and thereby also test the ideas. only by making the most of the thought-factor, already active in the experiences of childhood, is there any promise or warrant for the emergence of superior reflective power at adolescence, or at any later period. [sidenote: fixation of bad mental habits] (_c_) in any case _positive habits are being formed_: if not habits of careful looking into things, then habits of hasty, heedless, impatient glancing over the surface; if not habits of consecutively following up the suggestions that occur, then habits of haphazard, grasshopper-like guessing; if not habits of suspending judgment till inferences have been tested by the examination of evidence, then habits of credulity alternating with flippant incredulity, belief or unbelief being based, in either case, upon whim, emotion, or accidental circumstances. the only way to achieve traits of carefulness, thoroughness, and continuity (traits that are, as we have seen, the elements of the "logical") is by exercising these traits from the beginning, and by seeing to it that conditions call for their exercise. [sidenote: genuine freedom is intellectual, not external] genuine freedom, in short, is intellectual; it rests in the trained _power of thought_, in ability to "turn things over," to look at matters deliberately, to judge whether the amount and kind of evidence requisite for decision is at hand, and if not, to tell where and how to seek such evidence. if a man's actions are not guided by thoughtful conclusions, then they are guided by inconsiderate impulse, unbalanced appetite, caprice, or the circumstances of the moment. to cultivate unhindered, unreflective external activity is to foster enslavement, for it leaves the person at the mercy of appetite, sense, and circumstance. part two: logical considerations chapter six the analysis of a complete act of thought [sidenote: object of part two] after a brief consideration in the first chapter of the nature of reflective thinking, we turned, in the second, to the need for its training. then we took up the resources, the difficulties, and the aim of its training. the purpose of this discussion was to set before the student the general problem of the training of mind. the purport of the second part, upon which we are now entering, is giving a fuller statement of the nature and normal growth of thinking, preparatory to considering in the concluding part the special problems that arise in connection with its education. in this chapter we shall make an analysis of the process of thinking into its steps or elementary constituents, basing the analysis upon descriptions of a number of extremely simple, but genuine, cases of reflective experience.[13] [13] these are taken, almost verbatim, from the class papers of students. [sidenote: a simple case of practical deliberation] 1. "the other day when i was down town on 16th street a clock caught my eye. i saw that the hands pointed to 12.20. this suggested that i had an engagement at 124th street, at one o'clock. i reasoned that as it had taken me an hour to come down on a surface car, i should probably be twenty minutes late if i returned the same way. i might save twenty minutes by a subway express. but was there a station near? if not, i might lose more than twenty minutes in looking for one. then i thought of the elevated, and i saw there was such a line within two blocks. but where was the station? if it were several blocks above or below the street i was on, i should lose time instead of gaining it. my mind went back to the subway express as quicker than the elevated; furthermore, i remembered that it went nearer than the elevated to the part of 124th street i wished to reach, so that time would be saved at the end of the journey. i concluded in favor of the subway, and reached my destination by one o'clock." [sidenote: a simple case of reflection upon an observation] 2. "projecting nearly horizontally from the upper deck of the ferryboat on which i daily cross the river, is a long white pole, bearing a gilded ball at its tip. it suggested a flagpole when i first saw it; its color, shape, and gilded ball agreed with this idea, and these reasons seemed to justify me in this belief. but soon difficulties presented themselves. the pole was nearly horizontal, an unusual position for a flagpole; in the next place, there was no pulley, ring, or cord by which to attach a flag; finally, there were elsewhere two vertical staffs from which flags were occasionally flown. it seemed probable that the pole was not there for flag-flying. "i then tried to imagine all possible purposes of such a pole, and to consider for which of these it was best suited: (_a_) possibly it was an ornament. but as all the ferryboats and even the tugboats carried like poles, this hypothesis was rejected. (_b_) possibly it was the terminal of a wireless telegraph. but the same considerations made this improbable. besides, the more natural place for such a terminal would be the highest part of the boat, on top of the pilot house. (_c_) its purpose might be to point out the direction in which the boat is moving. "in support of this conclusion, i discovered that the pole was lower than the pilot house, so that the steersman could easily see it. moreover, the tip was enough higher than the base, so that, from the pilot's position, it must appear to project far out in front of the boat. moreover, the pilot being near the front of the boat, he would need some such guide as to its direction. tugboats would also need poles for such a purpose. this hypothesis was so much more probable than the others that i accepted it. i formed the conclusion that the pole was set up for the purpose of showing the pilot the direction in which the boat pointed, to enable him to steer correctly." [sidenote: a simple case of reflection involving experiment] 3. "in washing tumblers in hot soapsuds and placing them mouth downward on a plate, bubbles appeared on the outside of the mouth of the tumblers and then went inside. why? the presence of bubbles suggests air, which i note must come from inside the tumbler. i see that the soapy water on the plate prevents escape of the air save as it may be caught in bubbles. but why should air leave the tumbler? there was no substance entering to force it out. it must have expanded. it expands by increase of heat or by decrease of pressure, or by both. could the air have become heated after the tumbler was taken from the hot suds? clearly not the air that was already entangled in the water. if heated air was the cause, cold air must have entered in transferring the tumblers from the suds to the plate. i test to see if this supposition is true by taking several more tumblers out. some i shake so as to make sure of entrapping cold air in them. some i take out holding mouth downward in order to prevent cold air from entering. bubbles appear on the outside of every one of the former and on none of the latter. i must be right in my inference. air from the outside must have been expanded by the heat of the tumbler, which explains the appearance of the bubbles on the outside. "but why do they then go inside? cold contracts. the tumbler cooled and also the air inside it. tension was removed, and hence bubbles appeared inside. to be sure of this, i test by placing a cup of ice on the tumbler while the bubbles are still forming outside. they soon reverse." [sidenote: the three cases form a series] these three cases have been purposely selected so as to form a series from the more rudimentary to more complicated cases of reflection. the first illustrates the kind of thinking done by every one during the day's business, in which neither the data, nor the ways of dealing with them, take one outside the limits of everyday experience. the last furnishes a case in which neither problem nor mode of solution would have been likely to occur except to one with some prior scientific training. the second case forms a natural transition; its materials lie well within the bounds of everyday, unspecialized experience; but the problem, instead of being directly involved in the person's business, arises indirectly out of his activity, and accordingly appeals to a somewhat theoretic and impartial interest. we shall deal, in a later chapter, with the evolution of abstract thinking out of that which is relatively practical and direct; here we are concerned only with the common elements found in all the types. [sidenote: five distinct steps in reflection] upon examination, each instance reveals, more or less clearly, five logically distinct steps: (_i_) a felt difficulty; (_ii_) its location and definition; (_iii_) suggestion of possible solution; (_iv_) development by reasoning of the bearings of the suggestion; (_v_) further observation and experiment leading to its acceptance or rejection; that is, the conclusion of belief or disbelief. [sidenote: 1. the occurrence of a difficulty] [sidenote: (_a_) in the lack of adaptation of means to end] 1. the first and second steps frequently fuse into one. the difficulty may be felt with sufficient definiteness as to set the mind at once speculating upon its probable solution, or an undefined uneasiness and shock may come first, leading only later to definite attempt to find out what is the matter. whether the two steps are distinct or blended, there is the factor emphasized in our original account of reflection--_viz._ the perplexity or problem. in the first of the three cases cited, the difficulty resides in the conflict between conditions at hand and a desired and intended result, between an end and the means for reaching it. the purpose of keeping an engagement at a certain time, and the existing hour taken in connection with the location, are not congruous. the object of thinking is to introduce congruity between the two. the given conditions cannot themselves be altered; time will not go backward nor will the distance between 16th street and 124th street shorten itself. the problem is _the discovery of intervening terms which when inserted between the remoter end and the given means will harmonize them with each other_. [sidenote: (_b_) in identifying the character of an object] in the second case, the difficulty experienced is the incompatibility of a suggested and (temporarily) accepted belief that the pole is a flagpole, with certain other facts. suppose we symbolize the qualities that suggest _flagpole_ by the letters _a_, _b_, _c_; those that oppose this suggestion by the letters _p_, _q_, _r_. there is, of course, nothing inconsistent in the qualities themselves; but in pulling the mind to different and incongruous conclusions they conflict--hence the problem. here the object is the discovery of some object (_o_), of which _a_, _b_, _c_, and _p_, _q_, _r_, may all be appropriate traits--just as, in our first case, it is to discover a course of action which will combine existing conditions and a remoter result in a single whole. the method of solution is also the same: discovery of intermediate qualities (the position of the pilot house, of the pole, the need of an index to the boat's direction) symbolized by _d_, _g_, _l_, _o_, which bind together otherwise incompatible traits. [sidenote: (_c_) in explaining an unexpected event] in the third case, an observer trained to the idea of natural laws or uniformities finds something odd or exceptional in the behavior of the bubbles. the problem is to reduce the apparent anomalies to instances of well-established laws. here the method of solution is also to seek for intermediary terms which will connect, by regular linkage, the seemingly extraordinary movements of the bubbles with the conditions known to follow from processes supposed to be operative. [sidenote: 2. definition of the difficulty] 2. as already noted, the first two steps, the feeling of a discrepancy, or difficulty, and the acts of observation that serve to define the character of the difficulty may, in a given instance, telescope together. in cases of striking novelty or unusual perplexity, the difficulty, however, is likely to present itself at first as a shock, as emotional disturbance, as a more or less vague feeling of the unexpected, of something queer, strange, funny, or disconcerting. in such instances, there are necessary observations deliberately calculated to bring to light just what is the trouble, or to make clear the specific character of the problem. in large measure, the existence or non-existence of this step makes the difference between reflection proper, or safeguarded _critical_ inference and uncontrolled thinking. where sufficient pains to locate the difficulty are not taken, suggestions for its resolution must be more or less random. imagine a doctor called in to prescribe for a patient. the patient tells him some things that are wrong; his experienced eye, at a glance, takes in other signs of a certain disease. but if he permits the suggestion of this special disease to take possession prematurely of his mind, to become an accepted conclusion, his scientific thinking is by that much cut short. a large part of his technique, as a skilled practitioner, is to prevent the acceptance of the first suggestions that arise; even, indeed, to postpone the occurrence of any very definite suggestion till the trouble--the nature of the problem--has been thoroughly explored. in the case of a physician this proceeding is known as diagnosis, but a similar inspection is required in every novel and complicated situation to prevent rushing to a conclusion. the essence of critical thinking is suspended judgment; and the essence of this suspense is inquiry to determine the nature of the problem before proceeding to attempts at its solution. this, more than any other thing, transforms mere inference into tested inference, suggested conclusions into proof. [sidenote: 3. occurrence of a suggested explanation or possible solution] 3. the third factor is suggestion. the situation in which the perplexity occurs calls up something not present to the senses: the present location, the thought of subway or elevated train; the stick before the eyes, the idea of a flagpole, an ornament, an apparatus for wireless telegraphy; the soap bubbles, the law of expansion of bodies through heat and of their contraction through cold. (_a_) suggestion is the very heart of inference; it involves going from what is present to something absent. hence, it is more or less speculative, adventurous. since inference goes beyond what is actually present, it involves a leap, a jump, the propriety of which cannot be absolutely warranted in advance, no matter what precautions be taken. its control is indirect, on the one hand, involving the formation of habits of mind which are at once enterprising and cautious; and on the other hand, involving the selection and arrangement of the particular facts upon perception of which suggestion issues. (_b_) the suggested conclusion so far as it is not accepted but only tentatively entertained constitutes an idea. synonyms for this are _supposition_, _conjecture_, _guess_, _hypothesis_, and (in elaborate cases) _theory_. since suspended belief, or the postponement of a final conclusion pending further evidence, depends partly upon the presence of rival conjectures as to the best course to pursue or the probable explanation to favor, _cultivation of a variety of alternative suggestions_ is an important factor in good thinking. [sidenote: 4. the rational elaboration of an idea] 4. the process of developing the bearings--or, as they are more technically termed, the _implications_--of any idea with respect to any problem, is termed _reasoning_.[14] as an idea is inferred from given facts, so reasoning sets out from an idea. the _idea_ of elevated road is developed into the idea of difficulty of locating station, length of time occupied on the journey, distance of station at the other end from place to be reached. in the second case, the implication of a flagpole is seen to be a vertical position; of a wireless apparatus, location on a high part of the ship and, moreover, absence from every casual tugboat; while the idea of index to direction in which the boat moves, when developed, is found to cover all the details of the case. [14] this term is sometimes extended to denote the entire reflective process--just as _inference_ (which in the sense of _test_ is best reserved for the third step) is sometimes used in the same broad sense. but _reasoning_ (or _ratiocination_) seems to be peculiarly adapted to express what the older writers called the "notional" or "dialectic" process of developing the meaning of a given idea. reasoning has the same effect upon a suggested solution as more intimate and extensive observation has upon the original problem. acceptance of the suggestion in its first form is prevented by looking into it more thoroughly. conjectures that seem plausible at first sight are often found unfit or even absurd when their full consequences are traced out. even when reasoning out the bearings of a supposition does not lead to rejection, it develops the idea into a form in which it is more apposite to the problem. only when, for example, the conjecture that a pole was an index-pole had been thought out into its bearings could its particular applicability to the case in hand be judged. suggestions at first seemingly remote and wild are frequently so transformed by being elaborated into what follows from them as to become apt and fruitful. the development of an idea through reasoning helps at least to supply the intervening or intermediate terms that link together into a consistent whole apparently discrepant extremes (_ante_, p. 72). [sidenote: 5. corroboration of an idea and formation of a concluding belief] 5. the concluding and conclusive step is some kind of _experimental corroboration_, or verification, of the conjectural idea. reasoning shows that _if_ the idea be adopted, certain consequences follow. so far the conclusion is hypothetical or conditional. if we look and find present all the conditions demanded by the theory, and if we find the characteristic traits called for by rival alternatives to be lacking, the tendency to believe, to accept, is almost irresistible. sometimes direct observation furnishes corroboration, as in the case of the pole on the boat. in other cases, as in that of the bubbles, experiment is required; that is, _conditions are deliberately arranged in accord with the requirements of an idea or hypothesis to see if the results theoretically indicated by the idea actually occur_. if it is found that the experimental results agree with the theoretical, or rationally deduced, results, and if there is reason to believe that _only_ the conditions in question would yield such results, the confirmation is so strong as to induce a conclusion--at least until contrary facts shall indicate the advisability of its revision. [sidenote: thinking comes between observations at the beginning and at the end] observation exists at the beginning and again at the end of the process: at the beginning, to determine more definitely and precisely the nature of the difficulty to be dealt with; at the end, to test the value of some hypothetically entertained conclusion. between those two termini of observation, we find the more distinctively _mental_ aspects of the entire thought-cycle: (_i_) inference, the suggestion of an explanation or solution; and (_ii_) reasoning, the development of the bearings and implications of the suggestion. reasoning requires some experimental observation to confirm it, while experiment can be economically and fruitfully conducted only on the basis of an idea that has been tentatively developed by reasoning. [sidenote: the trained mind one that judges the extent of each step advisable in a given situation] the disciplined, or logically trained, mind--the aim of the educative process--is the mind able to judge how far each of these steps needs to be carried in any particular situation. no cast-iron rules can be laid down. each case has to be dealt with as it arises, on the basis of its importance and of the context in which it occurs. to take too much pains in one case is as foolish--as illogical--as to take too little in another. at one extreme, almost any conclusion that insures prompt and unified action may be better than any long delayed conclusion; while at the other, decision may have to be postponed for a long period--perhaps for a lifetime. the trained mind is the one that best grasps the degree of observation, forming of ideas, reasoning, and experimental testing required in any special case, and that profits the most, in future thinking, by mistakes made in the past. what is important is that the mind should be sensitive to problems and skilled in methods of attack and solution. chapter seven systematic inference: induction and deduction § 1. _the double movement of reflection_ [sidenote: back and forth between facts and meanings] the characteristic outcome of thinking we saw to be the organization of facts and conditions which, just as they stand, are isolated, fragmentary, and discrepant, the organization being effected through the introduction of connecting links, or middle terms. the facts as they stand are the data, the raw material of reflection; their lack of coherence perplexes and stimulates to reflection. there follows the suggestion of some meaning which, _if_ it can be substantiated, will give a whole in which various fragmentary and seemingly incompatible data find their proper place. the meaning suggested supplies a mental platform, an intellectual point of view, from which to note and define the data more carefully, to seek for additional observations, and to institute, experimentally, changed conditions. [sidenote: inductive and deductive] there is thus a double movement in all reflection: a movement from the given partial and confused data to a suggested comprehensive (or inclusive) entire situation; and back from this suggested whole--which as suggested is a _meaning_, an idea--to the particular facts, so as to connect these with one another and with additional facts to which the suggestion has directed attention. roughly speaking, the first of these movements is inductive; the second deductive. a complete act of thought involves both--it involves, that is, a fruitful interaction of observed (or recollected) particular considerations and of inclusive and far-reaching (general) meanings. [sidenote: hurry _versus_ caution] this double movement _to_ and _from_ a meaning may occur, however, in a casual, uncritical way, or in a cautious and regulated manner. to think means, in any case, to bridge a gap in experience, to bind together facts or deeds otherwise isolated. but we may make only a hurried jump from one consideration to another, allowing our aversion to mental disquietude to override the gaps; or, we may insist upon noting the road traveled in making connections. we may, in short, accept readily any suggestion that seems plausible; or we may hunt out additional factors, new difficulties, to see whether the suggested conclusion really ends the matter. the latter method involves definite formulation of the connecting links; the statement of a principle, or, in logical phrase, the use of a universal. if we thus formulate the whole situation, the original data are transformed into premises of reasoning; the final belief is a logical or _rational_ conclusion, not a mere _de facto_ termination. [sidenote: continuity of relationship the mark of the latter] the importance of _connections binding isolated items into a coherent single whole_ is embodied in all the phrases that denote the relation of premises and conclusions to each other. (1) the premises are called grounds, foundations, bases, and are said to underlie, uphold, support the conclusion. (2) we "descend" from the premises to the conclusion, and "ascend" or "mount" in the opposite direction--as a river may be continuously traced from source to sea or vice versa. so the conclusion springs, flows, or is drawn from its premises. (3) the conclusion--as the word itself implies--closes, shuts in, locks up together the various factors stated in the premises. we say that the premises "contain" the conclusion, and that the conclusion "contains" the premises, thereby marking our sense of the inclusive and comprehensive unity in which the elements of reasoning are bound tightly together.[15] systematic inference, in short, means the _recognition of definite relations of interdependence between considerations previously unorganized and disconnected, this recognition being brought about by the discovery and insertion of new facts and properties_. [15] see vailati, _journal of philosophy, psychology, and scientific methods_, vol. v, no. 12. [sidenote: scientific induction and deduction] this more systematic thinking is, however, like the cruder forms in its double movement, the movement _toward_ the suggestion or hypothesis and the movement _back_ to facts. the difference is in the greater conscious care with which each phase of the process is performed. _the conditions under which suggestions are allowed to spring up and develop are regulated._ hasty acceptance of any idea that is plausible, that seems to solve the difficulty, is changed into a conditional acceptance pending further inquiry. the idea is accepted as a _working hypothesis_, as something to guide investigation and bring to light new facts, not as a final conclusion. when pains are taken to make each aspect of the movement as accurate as possible, the movement toward building up the idea is known as _inductive discovery_ (_induction_, for short); the movement toward developing, applying, and testing, as _deductive proof_ (_deduction_, for short). [sidenote: particular and universal] while induction moves from fragmentary details (or particulars) to a connected view of a situation (universal), deduction begins with the latter and works back again to particulars, connecting them and binding them together. the inductive movement is toward _discovery_ of a binding principle; the deductive toward its _testing_--confirming, refuting, modifying it on the basis of its capacity to interpret isolated details into a unified experience. so far as we conduct each of these processes in the light of the other, we get valid discovery or verified critical thinking. [sidenote: illustration from everyday experience] a commonplace illustration may enforce the points of this formula. a man who has left his rooms in order finds them upon his return in a state of confusion, articles being scattered at random. automatically, the notion comes to his mind that burglary would account for the disorder. he has not seen the burglars; their presence is not a fact of observation, but is a thought, an idea. moreover, the man has no special burglars in mind; it is the _relation_, the meaning of burglary--something general--that comes to mind. the state of his room is perceived and is particular, definite,--exactly as it is; burglars are inferred, and have a general status. the state of the room is a _fact_, certain and speaking for itself; the presence of burglars is a possible _meaning_ which may explain the facts. [sidenote: of induction,] so far there is an inductive tendency, suggested by particular and present facts. in the same inductive way, it occurs to him that his children are mischievous, and that they may have thrown the things about. this rival hypothesis (or conditional principle of explanation) prevents him from dogmatically accepting the first suggestion. judgment is held in suspense and a positive conclusion postponed. [sidenote: of deduction] then deductive movement begins. further observations, recollections, reasonings are conducted on the basis of a development of the ideas suggested: _if_ burglars were responsible, such and such things would have happened; articles of value would be missing. here the man is going from a general principle or relation to special features that accompany it, to particulars,--not back, however, merely to the original particulars (which would be fruitless or take him in a circle), but to new details, the actual discovery or nondiscovery of which will test the principle. the man turns to a box of valuables; some things are gone; some, however, are still there. perhaps he has himself removed the missing articles, but has forgotten it. his experiment is not a decisive test. he thinks of the silver in the sideboard--the children would not have taken that nor would he absent-mindedly have changed its place. he looks; all the solid ware is gone. the conception of burglars is confirmed; examination of windows and doors shows that they have been tampered with. belief culminates; the original isolated facts have been woven into a coherent fabric. the idea first suggested (inductively) has been employed to reason out hypothetically certain additional particulars not yet experienced, that _ought_ to be there, if the suggestion is correct. then new acts of observation have shown that the particulars theoretically called for are present, and by this process the hypothesis is strengthened, corroborated. this moving back and forth between the observed facts and the conditional idea is kept up till a coherent experience of an object is substituted for the experience of conflicting details--or else the whole matter is given up as a bad job. [sidenote: science is the same operations carefully performed] sciences exemplify similar attitudes and operations, but with a higher degree of elaboration of the instruments of caution, exactness and thoroughness. this greater elaboration brings about specialization, an accurate marking off of various types of problems from one another, and a corresponding segregation and classification of the materials of experience associated with each type of problem. we shall devote the remainder of this chapter to a consideration of the devices by which the discovery, the development, and the testing of meanings are scientifically carried on. § 2. _guidance of the inductive movement_ [sidenote: guidance is indirect] control of the formation of suggestion is necessarily _indirect_, not direct; imperfect, not perfect. just because all discovery, all apprehension involving thought of the new, goes from the known, the present, to the unknown and absent, no rules can be stated that will guarantee correct inference. just what is suggested to a person in a given situation depends upon his native constitution (his originality, his genius), temperament, the prevalent direction of his interests, his early environment, the general tenor of his past experiences, his special training, the things that have recently occupied him continuously or vividly, and so on; to some extent even upon an accidental conjunction of present circumstances. these matters, so far as they lie in the past or in external conditions, clearly escape regulation. a suggestion simply does or does not occur; this or that suggestion just happens, occurs, springs up. if, however, prior experience and training have developed an attitude of patience in a condition of doubt, a capacity for suspended judgment, and a liking for inquiry, _indirect_ control of the course of suggestions is possible. the individual may return upon, revise, restate, enlarge, and analyze _the facts out of which suggestion springs_. inductive methods, in the technical sense, all have to do with regulating the conditions under which _observation, memory, and the acceptance of the testimony of others_ (_the operations supplying the raw data_) proceed. [sidenote: method of indirect regulation] given the facts _a b c d_ on one side and certain individual habits on the other, suggestion occurs automatically. but if the facts _a b c d_ are carefully looked into and thereby resolved into the facts _a´ b´´ r s_, a suggestion will automatically present itself different from that called up by the facts in their first form. to inventory the facts, to describe exactly and minutely their respective traits, to magnify artificially those that are obscure and feeble, to reduce artificially those that are so conspicuous and glaring as to be distracting,--these are ways of modifying the facts that exercise suggestive force, and thereby indirectly guiding the formation of suggested inferences. [sidenote: illustration from diagnosis] consider, for example, how a physician makes his diagnosis--his inductive interpretation. if he is scientifically trained, he suspends--postpones--reaching a conclusion in order that he may not be led by superficial occurrences into a snap judgment. certain conspicuous phenomena may forcibly suggest typhoid, but he avoids a conclusion, or even any strong preference for this or that conclusion until he has greatly (_i_) _enlarged_ the scope of his data, and (_ii_) rendered them more _minute_. he not only questions the patient as to his feelings and as to his acts prior to the disease, but by various manipulations with his hands (and with instruments made for the purpose) brings to light a large number of facts of which the patient is quite unaware. the state of temperature, respiration, and heart-action is accurately noted, and their fluctuations from time to time are exactly recorded. until this examination has worked _out_ toward a wider collection and _in_ toward a minuter scrutiny of details, inference is deferred. [sidenote: summary: definition of scientific induction] scientific induction means, in short, _all the processes by which the observing and amassing of data are regulated with a view to facilitating the formation of explanatory conceptions and theories_. these devices are all directed toward selecting the precise facts to which weight and significance shall attach in forming suggestions or ideas. specifically, this selective determination involves devices of (1) elimination by analysis of what is likely to be misleading and irrelevant, (2) emphasis of the important by collection and comparison of cases, (3) deliberate construction of data by experimental variation. [sidenote: elimination of irrelevant meanings] (1) it is a common saying that one must learn to discriminate between observed facts and judgments based upon them. taken literally, such advice cannot be carried out; in every observed thing there is--if the thing have any meaning at all--some consolidation of meaning with what is sensibly and physically present, such that, if this were entirely excluded, what is left would have no sense. a says: "i saw my brother." the term _brother_, however, involves a relation that cannot be sensibly or physically observed; it is inferential in status. if a contents himself with saying, "i saw a man," the factor of classification, of intellectual reference, is less complex, but still exists. if, as a last resort, a were to say, "anyway, i saw a colored object," some relationship, though more rudimentary and undefined, still subsists. theoretically, it is possible that no object was there, only an unusual mode of nerve stimulation. none the less, the advice to discriminate what is observed from what is inferred is sound practical advice. its working import is that one should eliminate or exclude _those_ inferences as to which experience has shown that there is greatest liability to error. this, of course, is a relative matter. under ordinary circumstances no reasonable doubt would attach to the observation, "i see my brother"; it would be pedantic and silly to resolve this recognition back into a more elementary form. under other circumstances it might be a perfectly genuine question as to whether a saw even a colored _thing_, or whether the color was due to a stimulation of the sensory optical apparatus (like "seeing stars" upon a blow) or to a disordered circulation. in general, the scientific man is one who knows that he is likely to be hurried to a conclusion, and that part of this precipitancy is due to certain habits which tend to make him "read" certain meanings into the situation that confronts him, so that he must be on the lookout against errors arising from his interests, habits, and current preconceptions. [sidenote: the technique of conclusion] the technique of scientific inquiry thus consists in various processes that tend to exclude over-hasty "reading in" of meanings; devices that aim to give a purely "objective" unbiased rendering of the data to be interpreted. flushed cheeks usually mean heightened temperature; paleness means lowered temperature. the clinical thermometer records automatically the actual temperature and hence checks up the habitual associations that might lead to error in a given case. all the instrumentalities of observation--the various -meters and -graphs and -scopes--fill a part of their scientific rôle in helping to eliminate meanings supplied because of habit, prejudice, the strong momentary preoccupation of excitement and anticipation, and by the vogue of existing theories. photographs, phonographs, kymographs, actinographs, seismographs, plethysmographs, and the like, moreover, give records that are permanent, so that they can be employed by different persons, and by the same person in different states of mind, _i.e._ under the influence of varying expectations and dominant beliefs. thus purely personal prepossessions (due to habit, to desire, to after-effects of recent experience) may be largely eliminated. in ordinary language, the facts are _objectively_, rather than _subjectively_, determined. in this way tendencies to premature interpretation are held in check. [sidenote: collection of instances] (2) another important method of control consists in the multiplication of cases or instances. if i doubt whether a certain handful gives a fair sample, or representative, for purposes of judging value, of a whole carload of grain, i take a number of handfuls from various parts of the car and compare them. if they agree in quality, well and good; if they disagree, we try to get enough samples so that when they are thoroughly mixed the result will be a fair basis for an evaluation. this illustration represents roughly the value of that aspect of scientific control in induction which insists upon multiplying observations instead of basing the conclusion upon one or a few cases. [sidenote: this method not the whole of induction] so prominent, indeed, is this aspect of inductive method that it is frequently treated as the whole of induction. it is supposed that all inductive inference is based upon collecting and comparing a number of like cases. but in fact such comparison and collection is a secondary development within the process of securing a correct conclusion in some single case. if a man infers from a single sample of grain as to the grade of wheat of the car as a whole, it is induction and, under certain circumstances, a _sound_ induction; other cases are resorted to simply for the sake of rendering that induction more guarded, and more probably correct. in like fashion, the reasoning that led up to the burglary idea in the instance already cited (p. 83) was inductive, though there was but one single case examined. the particulars upon which the general meaning (or relation) of burglary was grounded were simply the sum total of the unlike items and qualities that made up the one case examined. had this case presented very great obscurities and difficulties, recourse might _then_ have been had to examination of a number of similar cases. but this comparison would not make inductive a process which was not previously of that character; it would only render induction more wary and adequate. _the object of bringing into consideration a multitude of cases is to facilitate the selection of the evidential or significant features upon which to base inference in some single case._ [sidenote: contrast as important as likeness] accordingly, points of _unlikeness_ are as important as points of _likeness_ among the cases examined. _comparison_, without _contrast_, does not amount to anything logically. in the degree in which other cases observed or remembered merely duplicate the case in question, we are no better off for purposes of inference than if we had permitted our single original fact to dictate a conclusion. in the case of the various samples of grain, it is the fact that the samples are unlike, at least in the part of the carload from which they are taken, that is important. were it not for this unlikeness, their likeness in quality would be of no avail in assisting inference.[16] if we are endeavoring to get a child to regulate his conclusions about the germination of a seed by taking into account a number of instances, very little is gained if the conditions in all these instances closely approximate one another. but if one seed is placed in pure sand, another in loam, and another on blotting-paper, and if in each case there are two conditions, one with and another without moisture, the unlike factors tend to throw into relief the factors that are significant (or "essential") for reaching a conclusion. unless, in short, the observer takes care to have the differences in the observed cases as extreme as conditions allow, and unless he notes unlikenesses as carefully as likenesses, he has no way of determining the evidential force of the data that confront him. [16] in terms of the phrases used in logical treatises, the so-called "methods of agreement" (comparison) and "difference" (contrast) must accompany each other or constitute a "joint method" in order to be of logical use. [sidenote: importance of exceptions and contrary cases] another way of bringing out this importance of unlikeness is the emphasis put by the scientist upon _negative_ cases--upon instances which it would seem ought to fall into line but which as matter of fact do not. anomalies, exceptions, things which agree in most respects but disagree in some crucial point, are so important that many of the devices of scientific technique are designed purely to detect, record, and impress upon memory contrasting cases. darwin remarked that so easy is it to pass over cases that oppose a favorite generalization, that he had made it a habit not merely to hunt for contrary instances, but also to write down any exception he noted or thought of--as otherwise it was almost sure to be forgotten. § 3. _experimental variation of conditions_ [sidenote: experiment the typical method of introducing contrast factors] we have already trenched upon this factor of inductive method, the one that is the most important of all wherever it is feasible. theoretically, one sample case _of the right kind_ will be as good a basis for an inference as a thousand cases; but cases of the "right kind" rarely turn up spontaneously. we have to search for them, and we may have to _make_ them. if we take cases just as we find them--whether one case or many cases--they contain much that is irrelevant to the problem in hand, while much that is relevant is obscure, hidden. the object of experimentation is the _construction, by regular steps taken on the basis of a plan thought out in advance, of a typical, crucial case_, a case formed with express reference to throwing light on the difficulty in question. all inductive methods rest (as already stated, p. 85) upon regulation of the conditions of observation and memory; experiment is simply the most adequate regulation possible of these conditions. we try to make the observation such that every factor entering into it, together with the mode and the amount of its operation, may be open to recognition. such making of observations constitutes experiment. [sidenote: three advantages of experiment] such observations have many and obvious advantages over observations--no matter how extensive--with respect to which we simply wait for an event to happen or an object to present itself. experiment overcomes the defects due to (_a_) the _rarity_, (_b_) the _subtlety_ and minuteness (or the violence), and (_c_) the rigid _fixity_ of facts as we ordinarily experience them. the following quotations from jevons's _elementary lessons in logic_ bring out all these points: (_i_) "we might have to wait years or centuries to meet accidentally with facts which we can readily produce at any moment in a laboratory; and it is probable that most of the chemical substances now known, and many excessively useful products would never have been discovered at all by waiting till nature presented them spontaneously to our observation." this quotation refers to the infrequency or rarity of certain facts of nature, even very important ones. the passage then goes on to speak of the minuteness of many phenomena which makes them escape ordinary experience: (_ii_) "electricity doubtless operates in every particle of matter, perhaps at every moment of time; and even the ancients could not but notice its action in the loadstone, in lightning, in the aurora borealis, or in a piece of rubbed amber. but in lightning electricity was too intense and dangerous; in the other cases it was too feeble to be properly understood. the science of electricity and magnetism could only advance by getting regular supplies of electricity from the common electric machine or the galvanic battery and by making powerful electromagnets. most, if not all, the effects which electricity produces must go on in nature, but altogether too obscurely for observation." jevons then deals with the fact that, under ordinary conditions of experience, phenomena which can be understood only by seeing them under varying conditions are presented in a fixed and uniform way. (_iii_) "thus carbonic acid is only met in the form of a gas, proceeding from the combustion of carbon; but when exposed to extreme pressure and cold, it is condensed into a liquid, and may even be converted into a snowlike solid substance. many other gases have in like manner been liquefied or solidified, and there is reason to believe that every substance is capable of taking all three forms of solid, liquid, and gas, if only the conditions of temperature and pressure can be sufficiently varied. mere observation of nature would have led us, on the contrary, to suppose that nearly all substances were fixed in one condition only, and could not be converted from solid into liquid and from liquid into gas." many volumes would be required to describe in detail all the methods that investigators have developed in various subjects for analyzing and restating the facts of ordinary experience so that we may escape from capricious and routine suggestions, and may get the facts in such a form and in such a light (or context) that exact and far-reaching explanations may be suggested in place of vague and limited ones. but these various devices of inductive inquiry all have one goal in view: the indirect regulation of the function of suggestion, or formation of ideas; and, in the main, they will be found to reduce to some combination of the three types of selecting and arranging subject-matter just described. § 4. _guidance of the deductive movement_ [sidenote: value of deduction for guiding induction] before dealing directly with this topic, we must note that systematic regulation of induction depends upon the possession of a body of general principles that may be applied deductively to the examination or construction of particular cases as they come up. if the physician does not know the general laws of the physiology of the human body, he has little way of telling what is either peculiarly significant or peculiarly exceptional in any particular case that he is called upon to treat. if he knows the laws of circulation, digestion, and respiration, he can deduce the conditions that should normally be found in a given case. these considerations give a base line from which the deviations and abnormalities of a particular case may be measured. in this way, _the nature of the problem at hand is located and defined_. attention is not wasted upon features which though conspicuous have nothing to do with the case; it is concentrated upon just those traits which are out of the way and hence require explanation. a question well put is half answered; _i.e._ a difficulty clearly apprehended is likely to suggest its own solution,--while a vague and miscellaneous perception of the problem leads to groping and fumbling. deductive systems are necessary in order to put the question in a fruitful form. [sidenote: "reasoning a thing out"] the control of the origin and development of hypotheses by deduction does not cease, however, with locating the problem. ideas as they first present themselves are inchoate and incomplete. _deduction is their elaboration into fullness and completeness of meaning_ (see p. 76). the phenomena which the physician isolates from the total mass of facts that exist in front of him suggest, we will say, typhoid fever. now this conception of typhoid fever is one that is capable of development. _if_ there is typhoid, _wherever_ there is typhoid, there are certain results, certain characteristic symptoms. by going over mentally the full bearing of the concept of typhoid, the scientist is instructed as to further phenomena to be found. its development gives him an instrument of inquiry, of observation and experimentation. he can go to work deliberately to see whether the case presents those features that it should have if the supposition is valid. the deduced results form a basis for comparison with observed results. except where there is a system of principles capable of being elaborated by theoretical reasoning, the process of testing (or proof) of a hypothesis is incomplete and haphazard. [sidenote: such reasoning implies systematized knowledge,] these considerations indicate the method by which the deductive movement is guided. deduction requires a system of allied ideas which may be translated into one another by regular or graded steps. the question is whether the facts that confront us can be identified as typhoid fever. to all appearances, there is a great gap between them and typhoid. but if we can, by some method of substitutions, go through a series of intermediary terms (see p. 72), the gap may, after all, be easily bridged. typhoid may mean _p_ which in turn means _o_, which means _n_ which means _m_, which is very similar to the data selected as the key to the problem. [sidenote: or definition and classification] one of the chief objects of science is to provide for every typical branch of subject-matter a set of meanings and principles so closely interknit that any one implies some other according to definite conditions, which under certain other conditions implies another, and so on. in this way, various substitutions of equivalents are possible, and reasoning can trace out, without having recourse to specific observations, very remote consequences of any suggested principle. definition, general formulæ, and classification are the devices by which the fixation and elaboration of a meaning into its detailed ramifications are carried on. they are not ends in themselves--as they are frequently regarded even in elementary education--but instrumentalities for facilitating the development of a conception into the form where its applicability to given facts may best be tested.[17] [17] these processes are further discussed in chapter ix. [sidenote: the final control of deduction] the final test of deduction lies in experimental observation. elaboration by reasoning may make a suggested idea very rich and very plausible, but it will not settle the validity of that idea. only if facts can be observed (by methods either of collection or of experimentation), that agree in detail and without exception with the deduced results, are we justified in accepting the deduction as giving a valid conclusion. thinking, in short, must end as well as begin in the domain of concrete observations, if it is to be complete thinking. and the ultimate educative value of all deductive processes is measured by the degree to which they become working tools in the creation and development of new experiences. § 5. _some educational bearings of the discussion_ [sidenote: educational counterparts of false logical theories] [sidenote: isolation of "facts"] some of the points of the foregoing logical analysis may be clinched by a consideration of their educational implications, especially with reference to certain practices that grow out of a false separation by which each is thought to be independent of the other and complete in itself. (_i_) in some school subjects, or at all events in some topics or in some lessons, the pupils are immersed in details; their minds are loaded with disconnected items (whether gleaned by observation and memory, or accepted on hearsay and authority). induction is treated as beginning and ending with the amassing of facts, of particular isolated pieces of information. that these items are educative only as suggesting a view of some larger situation in which the particulars are included and thereby accounted for, is ignored. in object lessons in elementary education and in laboratory instruction in higher education, the subject is often so treated that the student fails to "see the forest on account of the trees." things and their qualities are retailed and detailed, without reference to a more general character which they stand for and mean. or, in the laboratory, the student becomes engrossed in the processes of manipulation,--irrespective of the reason for their performance, without recognizing a typical problem for the solution of which they afford the appropriate method. only deduction brings out and emphasizes consecutive relationships, and only when _relationships_ are held in view does learning become more than a miscellaneous scrap-bag. [sidenote: failure to follow up by reasoning] (_ii_) again, the mind is allowed to hurry on to a vague notion of the whole of which the fragmentary facts are portions, without any attempt to become conscious of _how_ they are bound together as parts of this whole. the student feels that "in a general way," as we say, the facts of the history or geography lesson are related thus and so; but "in a general way" here stands only for "in a vague way," somehow or other, with no clear recognition of just how. the pupil is encouraged to form, on the basis of the particular facts, a general notion, a conception of how they stand related; but no pains are taken to make the student follow up the notion, to elaborate it and see just what its bearings are upon the case in hand and upon similar cases. the inductive inference, the guess, is formed by the student; if it happens to be correct, it is at once accepted by the teacher; or if it is false, it is rejected. if any amplification of the idea occurs, it is quite likely carried through by the teacher, who thereby assumes the responsibility for its intellectual development. but a complete, an integral, act of thought requires that the person making the suggestion (the guess) be responsible also for reasoning out its bearings upon the problem in hand; that he develop the suggestion at least enough to indicate the ways in which it applies to and accounts for the specific data of the case. too often when a recitation does not consist in simply testing the ability of the student to display some form of technical skill, or to repeat facts and principles accepted on the authority of text-book or lecturer, the teacher goes to the opposite extreme; and after calling out the spontaneous reflections of the pupils, their guesses or ideas about the matter, merely accepts or rejects them, assuming himself the responsibility for their elaboration. in this way, the function of suggestion and of interpretation is excited, but it is not directed and trained. induction is stimulated but is not carried over into the _reasoning_ phase necessary to complete it. in other subjects and topics, the deductive phase is isolated, and is treated as if it were complete in itself. this false isolation may show itself in either (and both) of two points; namely, at the beginning or at the end of the resort to general intellectual procedure. [sidenote: isolation of deduction by commencing with it] (_iii_) beginning with definitions, rules, general principles, classifications, and the like, is a common form of the first error. this method has been such a uniform object of attack on the part of all educational reformers that it is not necessary to dwell upon it further than to note that the mistake is, logically, due to the attempt to introduce deductive considerations without first making acquaintance with the particular facts that create a need for the generalizing rational devices. unfortunately, the reformer sometimes carries his objection too far, or rather locates it in the wrong place. he is led into a tirade against _all_ definition, all systematization, all use of general principles, instead of confining himself to pointing out their futility and their deadness when not properly motivated by familiarity with concrete experiences. [sidenote: isolation of deduction from direction of new observations] (_iv_) the isolation of deduction is seen, at the other end, wherever there is failure to clinch and test the results of the general reasoning processes by application to new concrete cases. the final point of the deductive devices lies in their use in assimilating and comprehending individual cases. no one understands a general principle fully--no matter how adequately he can demonstrate it, to say nothing of repeating it--till he can employ it in the mastery of new situations, which, if they _are_ new, differ in manifestation from the cases used in reaching the generalization. too often the text-book or teacher is contented with a series of somewhat perfunctory examples and illustrations, and the student is not forced to carry the principle that he has formulated over into further cases of his own experience. in so far, the principle is inert and dead. [sidenote: lack of provision for experimentation] (_v_) it is only a variation upon this same theme to say that every complete act of reflective inquiry makes provision for experimentation--for testing suggested and accepted principles by employing them for the active construction of new cases, in which new qualities emerge. only slowly do our schools accommodate themselves to the general advance of scientific method. from the scientific side, it is demonstrated that effective and integral thinking is possible only where the experimental method in some form is used. some recognition of this principle is evinced in higher institutions of learning, colleges and high schools. but in elementary education, it is still assumed, for the most part, that the pupil's natural range of observations, supplemented by what he accepts on hearsay, is adequate for intellectual growth. of course it is not necessary that laboratories shall be introduced under that name, much less that elaborate apparatus be secured; but the entire scientific history of humanity demonstrates that the conditions for complete mental activity will not be obtained till adequate provision is made for the carrying on of activities that actually modify physical conditions, and that books, pictures, and even objects that are passively observed but not manipulated do not furnish the provision required. chapter eight judgment: the interpretation of facts § 1. _the three factors of judging_ [sidenote: good judgment] a man of good judgment in a given set of affairs is a man in so far educated, trained, whatever may be his literacy. and if our schools turn out their pupils in that attitude of mind which is conducive to good judgment in any department of affairs in which the pupils are placed, they have done more than if they sent out their pupils merely possessed of vast stores of information, or high degrees of skill in specialized branches. to know what is _good_ judgment we need first to know what judgment is. [sidenote: judgment and inference] that there is an intimate connection between judgment and inference is obvious enough. the aim of inference is to terminate itself in an adequate judgment of a situation, and the course of inference goes on through a series of partial and tentative judgments. what are these units, these terms of inference when we examine them on their own account? their significant traits may be readily gathered from a consideration of the operations to which the word _judgment_ was originally applied: namely, the authoritative decision of matters in legal controversy--the procedure of the _judge on the bench_. there are three such features: (1) a controversy, consisting of opposite claims regarding the same objective situation; (2) a process of defining and elaborating these claims and of sifting the facts adduced to support them; (3) a final decision, or sentence, closing the particular matter in dispute and also serving as a rule or principle for deciding future cases. [sidenote: uncertainty the antecedent of judgment] 1. unless there is something doubtful, the situation is read off at a glance; it is taken in on sight, _i.e._ there is merely apprehension, perception, recognition, not judgment. if the matter is wholly doubtful, if it is dark and obscure throughout, there is a blind mystery and again no judgment occurs. but if it suggests, however vaguely, different meanings, rival possible interpretations, there is some _point at issue_, some _matter at stake_. doubt takes the form of dispute, controversy; different sides compete for a conclusion in their favor. cases brought to trial before a judge illustrate neatly and unambiguously this strife of alternative interpretations; but any case of trying to clear up intellectually a doubtful situation exemplifies the same traits. a moving blur catches our eye in the distance; we ask ourselves: "what is it? is it a cloud of whirling dust? a tree waving its branches? a man signaling to us?" something in the total situation suggests each of these possible meanings. only one of them can possibly be sound; perhaps none of them is appropriate; yet _some_ meaning the thing in question surely has. which of the alternative suggested meanings has the rightful claim? what does the perception really mean? how is it to be interpreted, estimated, appraised, placed? every judgment proceeds from some such situation. [sidenote: judgment defines the issue,] 2. the hearing of the controversy, the trial, _i.e._ the weighing of alternative claims, divides into two branches, either of which, in a given case, may be more conspicuous than the other. in the consideration of a legal dispute, these two branches are sifting the evidence and selecting the rules that are applicable; they are "the facts" and "the law" of the case. in judgment they are (_a_) the determination of the data that are important in the given case (compare the inductive movement); and (_b_) the elaboration of the conceptions or meanings suggested by the crude data (compare the deductive movement). (_a_) what portions or aspects of the situation are significant in controlling the formation of the interpretation? (_b_) just what is the full meaning and bearing of the conception that is used as a method of interpretation? these questions are strictly correlative; the answer to each depends upon the answer to the other. we may, however, for convenience, consider them separately. [sidenote: (_a_) by selecting what facts are evidence] (_a_) in every actual occurrence, there are many details which are part of the total occurrence, but which nevertheless are not significant in relation to the point at issue. all parts of an experience are equally present, but they are very far from being of equal value as signs or as evidences. nor is there any tag or label on any trait saying: "this is important," or "this is trivial." nor is intensity, or vividness or conspicuousness, a safe measure of indicative and proving value. the glaring thing may be totally insignificant in this particular situation, and the key to the understanding of the whole matter may be modest or hidden (compare p. 74). features that are not significant are distracting; they proffer their claims to be regarded as clues and cues to interpretation, while traits that are significant do not appear on the surface at all. hence, judgment is required _even in reference_ to the situation or event that is present to the senses; elimination or rejection, selection, discovery, or bringing to light must take place. till we have reached a final conclusion, rejection and selection must be tentative or conditional. we select the things that we hope or trust are cues to meaning. but if they do not suggest a situation that accepts and includes them (see p. 81), we reconstitute our data, the facts of the case; for we mean, intellectually, by the facts of the case _those traits that are used as evidence in reaching a conclusion or forming a decision_. [sidenote: expertness in selecting evidence] no hard and fast rules for this operation of selecting and rejecting, or fixing upon the facts, can be given. it all comes back, as we say, to the good judgment, the good sense, of the one judging. to be a good judge is to have a sense of the relative indicative or signifying values of the various features of the perplexing situation; to know what to let go as of no account; what to eliminate as irrelevant; what to retain as conducive to outcome; what to emphasize as a clue to the difficulty.[18] this power in ordinary matters we call _knack_, _tact_, _cleverness_; in more important affairs, _insight_, _discernment_. in part it is instinctive or inborn; but it also represents the funded outcome of long familiarity with like operations in the past. possession of this ability to seize what is evidential or significant and to let the rest go is the mark of the expert, the connoisseur, the _judge_, in any matter. [18] compare what was said about _analysis_. [sidenote: intuitive judgments] mill cites the following case, which is worth noting as an instance of the extreme delicacy and accuracy to which may be developed this power of sizing up the significant factors of a situation. "a scotch manufacturer procured from england, at a high rate of wages, a working dyer, famous for producing very fine colors, with the view of teaching to his other workmen the same skill. the workman came; but his method of proportioning the ingredients, in which lay the secret of the effects he produced, was by taking them up in handfuls, while the common method was to weigh them. the manufacturer sought to make him turn his handling system into an equivalent weighing system, that the general principles of his peculiar mode of proceeding might be ascertained. this, however, the man found himself quite unable to do, and could therefore impart his own skill to nobody. he had, from individual cases of his own experience, established a connection in his mind between fine effects of color and tactual perceptions in handling his dyeing materials; and from these perceptions he could, in any particular case, _infer the means to be employed_ and the effects which would be produced." long brooding over conditions, intimate contact associated with keen interest, thorough absorption in a multiplicity of allied experiences, tend to bring about those judgments which we then call intuitive; but they are true judgments because they are based on intelligent selection and estimation, with the solution of a problem as the controlling standard. possession of this capacity makes the difference between the artist and the intellectual bungler. such is judging ability, in its completest form, as to the data of the decision to be reached. but in any case there is a certain feeling along for the way to be followed; a constant tentative picking out of certain qualities to see what emphasis upon them would lead to; a willingness to hold final selection in suspense; and to reject the factors entirely or relegate them to a different position in the evidential scheme if other features yield more solvent suggestions. alertness, flexibility, curiosity are the essentials; dogmatism, rigidity, prejudice, caprice, arising from routine, passion, and flippancy are fatal. [sidenote: (_b_) to decide an issue, the appropriate principles must also be selected] (_b_) this selection of data is, of course, for the sake of controlling the _development and elaboration of the suggested meaning in the light of which they are to be interpreted_ (compare p. 76). an evolution of conceptions thus goes on simultaneously with the determination of the facts; one possible meaning after another is held before the mind, considered in relation to the data to which it is applied, is developed into its more detailed bearings upon the data, is dropped or tentatively accepted and used. we do not approach any problem with a wholly naïve or virgin mind; we approach it with certain acquired habitual modes of understanding, with a certain store of previously evolved meanings, or at least of experiences from which meanings may be educed. if the circumstances are such that a habitual response is called directly into play, there is an immediate grasp of meaning. if the habit is checked, and inhibited from easy application, a possible meaning for the facts in question presents itself. no hard and fast rules decide whether a meaning suggested is the right and proper meaning to follow up. the individual's own good (or bad) judgment is the guide. there is no label on any given idea or principle which says automatically, "use me in this situation"--as the magic cakes of alice in wonderland were inscribed "eat me." the thinker has to decide, to choose; and there is always a risk, so that the prudent thinker selects warily, subject, that is, to confirmation or frustration by later events. if one is not able to estimate wisely what is relevant to the interpretation of a given perplexing or doubtful issue, it avails little that arduous learning has built up a large stock of concepts. for learning is not wisdom; information does not guarantee good judgment. memory may provide an antiseptic refrigerator in which to store a stock of meanings for future use, but judgment selects and adopts the one used in a given emergency--and without an emergency (some crisis, slight or great) there is no call for judgment. no conception, even if it is carefully and firmly established in the abstract, can at first safely be more than a _candidate_ for the office of interpreter. only greater success than that of its rivals in clarifying dark spots, untying hard knots, reconciling discrepancies, can elect it or prove it a valid idea for the given situation. [sidenote: judging terminates in a _decision_ or statement] 3. the judgment when formed is a _decision_; it closes (or concludes) the question at issue. this determination not only settles that particular case, but it helps fix a rule or method for deciding similar matters in the future; as the sentence of the judge on the bench both terminates that dispute and also forms a precedent for future decisions. if the interpretation settled upon is not controverted by subsequent events, a presumption is built up in favor of similar interpretation in other cases where the features are not so obviously unlike as to make it inappropriate. in this way, principles of judging are gradually built up; a certain manner of interpretation gets weight, authority. in short, meanings get _standardized_, they become logical concepts (see below, p. 118). § 2. _the origin and nature of ideas_ [sidenote: ideas are conjectures employed in judging] this brings us to the question of _ideas in relation to judgments_.[19] something in an obscure situation suggests something else as its meaning. if this meaning is at once accepted, there is no reflective thinking, no genuine judging. thought is cut short uncritically; dogmatic belief, with all its attending risks, takes place. but if the meaning suggested is held _in suspense_, pending examination and inquiry, there is true judgment. we stop and think, we _de-fer_ conclusion in order to _in-fer_ more thoroughly. in this process of being only conditionally accepted, accepted only for examination, _meanings become ideas_. _that is to say, an idea is a meaning that is tentatively entertained, formed, and used with reference to its fitness to decide a perplexing situation,--a meaning used as a tool of judgment._ [19] the term _idea_ is also used popularly to denote (_a_) a mere fancy, (_b_) an accepted belief, and also (_c_) judgment itself. but _logically_ it denotes a certain _factor_ in judgment, as explained in the text. [sidenote: or tools of interpretation] let us recur to our instance of a blur in motion appearing at a distance. we wonder what _the thing is_, _i.e._ what the _blur means_. a man waving his arms, a friend beckoning to us, are suggested as possibilities. to accept at once either alternative is to arrest judgment. but if we treat what is suggested as only a suggestion, a supposition, a possibility, it becomes an idea, having the following traits: (_a_) as merely a suggestion, it is a conjecture, a guess, which in cases of greater dignity we call a hypothesis or a theory. that is to say, it is _a possible but as yet doubtful mode of interpretation_. (_b_) even though doubtful, it has an office to perform; namely, that of directing inquiry and examination. if this blur means a friend beckoning, then careful observation should show certain other traits. if it is a man driving unruly cattle, certain other traits should be found. let us look and see if these traits are found. taken merely as a doubt, an idea would paralyze inquiry. taken merely as a certainty, it would arrest inquiry. taken as a doubtful possibility, it affords a standpoint, a platform, a method of inquiry. [sidenote: pseudo-ideas] ideas are not then genuine ideas unless they are tools in a reflective examination which tends to solve a problem. suppose it is a question of having the pupil grasp _the idea_ of the sphericity of the earth. this is different from teaching him its sphericity _as a fact_. he may be shown (or reminded of) a ball or a globe, and be told that the earth is round like those things; he may then be made to repeat that statement day after day till the shape of the earth and the shape of the ball are welded together in his mind. but he has not thereby acquired any idea of the earth's sphericity; at most, he has had a certain image of a sphere and has finally managed to image the earth after the analogy of his ball image. to grasp sphericity as an idea, the pupil must first have realized certain perplexities or confusing features in observed facts and have had the idea of spherical shape suggested to him as a possible way of accounting for the phenomena in question. only by use as a method of interpreting data so as to give them fuller meaning does sphericity become a genuine idea. there may be a vivid image and no idea; or there may be a fleeting, obscure image and yet an idea, if that image performs the function of instigating and directing the observation and relation of facts. [sidenote: ideas furnish the only alternative to "hit or miss" methods] logical ideas are like keys which are shaping with reference to opening a lock. pike, separated by a glass partition from the fish upon which they ordinarily prey, will--so it is said--butt their heads against the glass until it is literally beaten into them that they cannot get at their food. animals learn (when they learn at all) by a "cut and try" method; by doing at random first one thing and another thing and then preserving the things that happen to succeed. action directed consciously by ideas--by suggested meanings accepted for the sake of experimenting with them--is the sole alternative both to bull-headed stupidity and to learning bought from that dear teacher--chance experience. [sidenote: they are methods of indirect attack] it is significant that many words for intelligence suggest the idea of circuitous, evasive activity--often with a sort of intimation of even moral obliquity. the bluff, hearty man goes straight (and stupidly, it is implied) at some work. the intelligent man is cunning, shrewd (crooked), wily, subtle, crafty, artful, designing--the idea of indirection is involved.[20] an idea is a method of evading, circumventing, or surmounting through reflection obstacles that otherwise would have to be attacked by brute force. but ideas may lose their intellectual quality as they are habitually used. when a child was first learning to recognize, in some hesitating suspense, cats, dogs, houses, marbles, trees, shoes, and other objects, ideas--conscious and tentative meanings--intervened as methods of identification. now, as a rule, the thing and the meaning are so completely fused that there is no judgment and no idea proper, but only automatic recognition. on the other hand, things that are, as a rule, directly apprehended and familiar become subjects of judgment when they present themselves in unusual contexts: as forms, distances, sizes, positions when we attempt to draw them; triangles, squares, and circles when they turn up, not in connection with familiar toys, implements, and utensils, but as problems in geometry. [20] see ward, _psychic factors of civilization_, p. 153. § 3. _analysis and synthesis_ [sidenote: judging clears up things: analysis] through judging confused data are cleared up, and seemingly incoherent and disconnected facts brought together. things may have a peculiar feeling for us, they may make a certain indescribable impression upon us; the thing may _feel_ round (that is, present a quality which we afterwards define as round), an act may seem rude (or what we afterwards classify as rude), and yet this quality may be lost, absorbed, blended in the total value of the situation. only as we need to use just that aspect of the original situation as a tool of grasping something perplexing or obscure in another situation, do we abstract or detach the quality so that it becomes individualized. only because we need to characterize the shape of some new object or the moral quality of some new act, does the element of roundness or rudeness in the old experience detach itself, and stand out as a distinctive feature. if the element thus selected clears up what is otherwise obscure in the new experience, if it settles what is uncertain, it thereby itself gains in positiveness and definiteness of meaning. this point will meet us again in the following chapter; here we shall speak of the matter only as it bears upon the questions of analysis and synthesis. [sidenote: mental analysis is not like physical division] [sidenote: misapprehension of analysis in education] even when it is definitely stated that intellectual and physical analyses are different sorts of operations, intellectual analysis is often treated after the analogy of physical; as if it were the breaking up of a whole into all its constituent parts in the mind instead of in space. as nobody can possibly tell what breaking a whole into its parts in the mind means, this conception leads to the further notion that logical analysis is a mere enumeration and listing of all conceivable qualities and relations. the influence upon education of this conception has been very great.[21] every subject in the curriculum has passed through--or still remains in--what may be called the phase of anatomical or morphological method: the stage in which understanding the subject is thought to consist of multiplying distinctions of quality, form, relation, and so on, and attaching some name to each distinguished element. in normal growth, specific properties are emphasized and so individualized only when they serve to clear up a present difficulty. only as they are involved in judging some specific situation is there any motive or use for analyses, _i.e._ for emphasis upon some element or relation as peculiarly significant. [21] thus arise all those falsely analytic methods in geography, reading, writing, drawing, botany, arithmetic, which we have already considered in another connection. (see p. 59.) [sidenote: effects of premature formulation] the same putting the cart before the horse, the product before the process, is found in that overconscious formulation of methods of procedure so current in elementary instruction. (see p. 60.) the method that is employed in discovery, in reflective inquiry, cannot possibly be identified with the method that emerges _after_ the discovery is made. in the genuine operation of inference, the mind is in the attitude of _search_, of _hunting_, of _projection_, of _trying this and that_; when the conclusion is reached, the search is at an end. the greeks used to discuss: "how is learning (or inquiry) possible? for either we know already what we are after, and then we do not learn or inquire; or we do not know, and then we cannot inquire, for we do not know what to look for." the dilemma is at least suggestive, for it points to the true alternative: the use in inquiry of doubt, of tentative suggestion, of experimentation. after we have reached the conclusion, a reconsideration of the steps of the process to see what is helpful, what is harmful, what is merely useless, will assist in dealing more promptly and efficaciously with analogous problems in the future. in this way, more or less explicit method is gradually built up. (compare the earlier discussion on p. 62 of the psychological and the logical.) [sidenote: method comes before its formulation] it is, however, a common assumption that unless the pupil from the outset _consciously recognizes and explicitly states_ the method logically implied in the result he is to reach, he will have _no_ method, and his mind will work confusedly or anarchically; while if he accompanies his performance with conscious statement of some form of procedure (outline, topical analysis, list of headings and subheadings, uniform formula) his mind is safeguarded and strengthened. as a matter of fact, the development of _an unconscious logical attitude and habit_ must come first. a conscious setting forth of the method logically adapted for reaching an end is possible only after the result has first been reached by more unconscious and tentative methods, while it is valuable only when a review of the method that achieved success in a given case will throw light upon a new, similar case. the ability to fasten upon and single out (abstract, analyze) those features of one experience which are logically best is hindered by premature insistence upon their explicit formulation. it is repeated use that gives a _method_ definiteness; and given this definiteness, precipitation into formulated statement should follow naturally. but because teachers find that the things which they themselves best understand are marked off and defined in clear-cut ways, our schoolrooms are pervaded with the superstition that children are to begin with already crystallized formulæ of method. [sidenote: judgment reveals the bearing or significance of facts: synthesis] as analysis is conceived to be a sort of picking to pieces, so synthesis is thought to be a sort of physical piecing together; and so imagined, it also becomes a mystery. in fact, synthesis takes place wherever we grasp the bearing of facts on a conclusion, or of a principle on facts. as analysis is _emphasis_, so synthesis is _placing_; the one causes the emphasized fact or property to stand out as significant; the other gives what is selected its _context_, or its connection with what is signified. every judgment is analytic in so far as it involves discernment, discrimination, marking off the trivial from the important, the irrelevant from what points to a conclusion; and it is synthetic in so far as it leaves the mind with an inclusive situation within which the selected facts are placed. [sidenote: analysis and synthesis are correlative] educational methods that pride themselves on being exclusively analytic or exclusively synthetic are therefore (so far as they carry out their boasts) incompatible with normal operations of judgment. discussions have taken place, for example, as to whether the teaching of geography should be analytic or synthetic. the synthetic method is supposed to begin with the partial, limited portion of the earth's surface already familiar to the pupil, and then gradually piece on adjacent regions (the county, the country, the continent, and so on) till an idea of the entire globe is reached, or of the solar system that includes the globe. the analytic method is supposed to begin with the physical whole, the solar system or globe, and to work down through its constituent portions till the immediate environment is reached. the underlying conceptions are of physical wholes and physical parts. as matter of fact, we cannot assume that the portion of the earth already familiar to the child is such a definite object, mentally, that he can at once begin with it; his knowledge of it is misty and vague as well as incomplete. accordingly, mental progress will involve analysis of it--emphasis of the features that are significant, so that they will stand out clearly. moreover, his own locality is not sharply marked off, neatly bounded, and measured. his experience of it is already an experience that involves sun, moon, and stars as parts of the scene he surveys; it involves a changing horizon line as he moves about; that is, even his more limited and local experience involves far-reaching factors that take his imagination clear beyond his own street and village. connection, relationship with a larger whole, is already involved. but his recognition of these relations is inadequate, vague, incorrect. he needs to utilize the features of the local environment which are understood to help clarify and enlarge his conceptions of the larger geographical scene to which they belong. at the same time, not till he has grasped the larger scene will many of even the commonest features of his environment become intelligible. analysis leads to synthesis; while synthesis perfects analysis. as the pupil grows in comprehension of the vast complicated earth in its setting in space, he also sees more definitely the meaning of the familiar local details. this intimate interaction between selective emphasis and interpretation of what is selected is found wherever reflection proceeds normally. hence the folly of trying to set analysis and synthesis over against each other. chapter nine meaning: or conceptions and understanding § 1. _the place of meanings in mental life_ [sidenote: meaning is central] as in our discussion of judgment we were making more explicit what is involved in inference, so in the discussion of meaning we are only recurring to the central function of all reflection. for one thing to _mean_, _signify_, _betoken_, _indicate_, or _point to_, another we saw at the outset to be the essential mark of thinking (see p. 8). to find out what facts, just as they stand, mean, is the object of all discovery; to find out what facts will carry out, substantiate, support a given meaning, is the object of all testing. when an inference reaches a satisfactory conclusion, we attain a goal of meaning. the act of judging involves both the growth and the application of meanings. in short, in this chapter we are not introducing a new topic; we are only coming to closer quarters with what hitherto has been constantly assumed. in the first section, we shall consider the equivalence of meaning and understanding, and the two types of understanding, direct and indirect. i. meaning and understanding [sidenote: to understand is to grasp meaning] if a person comes suddenly into your room and calls out "paper," various alternatives are possible. if you do not understand the english language, there is simply a noise which may or may not act as a physical stimulus and irritant. but the noise is not an intellectual object; it does not have intellectual value. (compare above, p. 15.) to say that you do not understand it and that it has no meaning are equivalents. if the cry is the usual accompaniment of the delivery of the morning paper, the sound will have meaning, intellectual content; you will understand it. or if you are eagerly awaiting the receipt of some important document, you may assume that the cry means an announcement of its arrival. if (in the third place) you understand the english language, but no context suggests itself from your habits and expectations, the _word_ has meaning, but not the whole event. you are then perplexed and incited to think out, to hunt for, some explanation of the apparently meaningless occurrence. if you find something that accounts for the performance, it gets meaning; you come to understand it. as intelligent beings, we presume the existence of meaning, and its absence is an anomaly. hence, if it should turn out that the person merely meant to inform you that there was a scrap of paper on the sidewalk, or that paper existed somewhere in the universe, you would think him crazy or yourself the victim of a poor joke. to grasp a meaning, to understand, to identify a thing in a situation in which it is important, are thus equivalent terms; they express the nerves of our intellectual life. without them there is (_a_) lack of intellectual content, or (_b_) intellectual confusion and perplexity, or else (_c_) intellectual perversion--nonsense, insanity. [sidenote: knowledge and meaning] all knowledge, all science, thus aims to grasp the meaning of objects and events, and this process always consists in taking them out of their apparent brute isolation as events, and finding them to be parts of some larger whole _suggested by them_, which, in turn, _accounts for_, _explains_, _interprets them_; _i.e._ renders them significant. (compare above, p. 75.) suppose that a stone with peculiar markings has been found. what do these scratches mean? so far as the object forces the raising of this question, it is not understood; while so far as the color and form that we see mean to us a stone, the object is understood. it is such peculiar combinations of the understood and the nonunderstood that provoke thought. if at the end of the inquiry, the markings are decided to mean glacial scratches, obscure and perplexing traits have been translated into meanings already understood: namely, the moving and grinding power of large bodies of ice and the friction thus induced of one rock upon another. something already understood in one situation has been transferred and applied to what is strange and perplexing in another, and thereby the latter has become plain and familiar, _i.e._ understood. this summary illustration discloses that our power to think effectively depends upon possession of a capital fund of meanings which may be applied when desired. (compare what was said about deduction, p. 94.) ii. direct and indirect understanding [sidenote: direct and circuitous understanding] in the above illustrations two types of grasping of meaning are exemplified. when the english language is understood, the person grasps at once the meaning of "paper." he may not, however, see any meaning or sense in the performance as a whole. similarly, the person identifies the object on sight as a stone; there is no secret, no mystery, no perplexity about that. but he does not understand the markings on it. they have some meaning, but what is it? in one case, owing to familiar acquaintance, the thing and its meaning, up to a certain point, are one. in the other, the thing and its meaning are, temporarily at least, sundered, and meaning has to be sought in order to understand the thing. in one case understanding is direct, prompt, immediate; in the other, it is roundabout and delayed. [sidenote: interaction of the two types] most languages have two sets of words to express these two modes of understanding; one for the direct taking in or grasp of meaning, the other for its circuitous apprehension, thus: [greek: gnônai] and [greek: eidenai] in greek; _noscere_ and _scire_ in latin; _kennen_ and _wissen_ in german; _connaître_ and _savoir_ in french; while in english to be _acquainted with_ and to _know of or about_ have been suggested as equivalents.[22] now our intellectual life consists of a peculiar interaction between these two types of understanding. all judgment, all reflective inference, presupposes some lack of understanding, a partial absence of meaning. we reflect in order that we may get hold of the full and adequate significance of what happens. nevertheless, _something_ must be already understood, the mind must be in possession of some meaning which it has mastered, or else thinking is impossible. we think in order to grasp meaning, but none the less every extension of knowledge makes us aware of blind and opaque spots, where with less knowledge all had seemed obvious and natural. a scientist brought into a new district will find many things that he does not understand, where the native savage or rustic will be wholly oblivious to any meanings beyond those directly apparent. some indians brought to a large city remained stolid at the sight of mechanical wonders of bridge, trolley, and telephone, but were held spellbound by the sight of workmen climbing poles to repair wires. increase of the store of meanings makes us conscious of new problems, while only through translation of the new perplexities into what is already familiar and plain do we understand or solve these problems. this is the constant spiral movement of knowledge. [22] james, _principles of psychology_, vol. i, p. 221. to _know_ and to _know that_ are perhaps more precise equivalents; compare "i know him" and "i know that he has gone home." the former expresses a fact simply; for the latter, evidence might be demanded and supplied. [sidenote: intellectual progress a rhythm] our progress in genuine knowledge always consists _in part in the discovery of something not understood in what had previously been taken for granted as plain, obvious, matter-of-course, and in part in the use of meanings that are directly grasped without question, as instruments for getting hold of obscure, doubtful, and perplexing meanings_. no object is so familiar, so obvious, so commonplace that it may not unexpectedly present, in a novel situation, some problem, and thus arouse reflection in order to understand it. no object or principle is so strange, peculiar, or remote that it may not be dwelt upon till its meaning becomes familiar--taken in on sight without reflection. we may come to _see_, _perceive_, _recognize_, _grasp_, _seize_, _lay hold of_ principles, laws, abstract truths--_i.e._ to understand their meaning in very immediate fashion. our intellectual progress consists, as has been said, in a rhythm of direct understanding--technically called _ap_prehension--with indirect, mediated understanding--technically called _com_prehension. § 2. _the process of acquiring meanings_ [sidenote: familiarity] the first problem that comes up in connection with direct understanding is how a store of directly apprehensible meanings is built up. how do we learn to view things on sight as significant members of a situation, or as having, as a matter of course, specific meanings? our chief difficulty in answering this question lies in the thoroughness with which the lesson of familiar things has been learnt. thought can more easily traverse an unexplored region than it can undo what has been so thoroughly done as to be ingrained in unconscious habit. we apprehend chairs, tables, books, trees, horses, clouds, stars, rain, so promptly and directly that it is hard to realize that as meanings they had once to be acquired,--the meanings are now so much parts of the things themselves. [sidenote: confusion is prior to familiarity] in an often quoted passage, mr. james has said: "the baby, assailed by eyes, ears, nose, skin, and entrails at once, feels it all as one great blooming, buzzing confusion."[23] mr. james is speaking of a baby's world taken as a whole; the description, however, is equally applicable to the way any new thing strikes an adult, so far as the thing is really new and strange. to the traditional "cat in a strange garret," everything is blurred and confused; the wonted marks that label things so as to separate them from one another are lacking. foreign languages that we do not understand always seem jabberings, babblings, in which it is impossible to fix a definite, clear-cut, individualized group of sounds. the countryman in the crowded city street, the landlubber at sea, the ignoramus in sport at a contest between experts in a complicated game, are further instances. put an unexperienced man in a factory, and at first the work seems to him a meaningless medley. all strangers of another race proverbially look alike to the visiting foreigner. only gross differences of size or color are perceived by an outsider in a flock of sheep, each of which is perfectly individualized to the shepherd. a diffusive blur and an indiscriminately shifting suction characterize what we do not understand. the problem of the acquisition of meaning by things, or (stated in another way) of forming habits of simple apprehension, is thus the problem of introducing (_i_) _definiteness_ and _distinction_ and (_ii_) _consistency_ or _stability_ of meaning into what is otherwise vague and wavering. [23] _principles of psychology_, vol. i, p. 488. [sidenote: practical responses clarify confusion] the acquisition of definiteness and of coherency (or constancy) of meanings is derived primarily from practical activities. by rolling an object, the child makes its roundness appreciable; by bouncing it, he singles out its elasticity; by throwing it, he makes weight its conspicuous distinctive factor. not through the senses, but by means of the reaction, the responsive adjustment, is the impression made distinctive, and given a character marked off from other qualities that call out unlike reactions. children, for example, are usually quite slow in apprehending differences of color. differences from the standpoint of the adult so glaring that it is impossible not to note them are recognized and recalled with great difficulty. doubtless they do not all _feel_ alike, but there is no intellectual recognition of what makes the difference. the redness or greenness or blueness of the object does not tend to call out a reaction that is sufficiently peculiar to give prominence or distinction to the color trait. gradually, however, certain characteristic habitual responses associate themselves with certain things; the white becomes the sign, say, of milk and sugar, to which the child reacts favorably; blue becomes the sign of a dress that the child likes to wear, and so on: and the distinctive reactions tend to single out color qualities from other things in which they had been submerged. [sidenote: we identify by use or function] take another example. we have little difficulty in distinguishing from one another rakes, hoes, plows and harrows, shovels and spades. each has its own associated characteristic use and function. we may have, however, great difficulty in recalling the difference between serrate and dentate, ovoid and obovoid, in the shapes and edges of leaves, or between acids in _ic_ and in _ous_. there is some difference; but just what? or, we know what the difference is; but which is which? variations in form, size, color, and arrangement of parts have much less to do, and the uses, purposes, and functions of things and of their parts much more to do, with distinctness of character and meaning than we should be likely to think. what misleads us is the fact that the qualities of form, size, color, and so on, are _now_ so distinct that we fail to see that the problem is precisely to account for the way in which they originally obtained their definiteness and conspicuousness. so far as we sit passive before objects, they are not distinguished out of a vague blur which swallows them all. differences in the pitch and intensity of sounds leave behind a different feeling, but until we assume different attitudes toward them, or _do_ something special in reference to them, their vague difference cannot be _intellectually_ gripped and retained. [sidenote: children's drawings illustrate domination by value] children's drawings afford a further exemplification of the same principle. perspective does not exist, for the child's interest is not in _pictorial representation_, but in the _things_ represented; and while perspective is essential to the former, it is no part of the characteristic uses and values of the things themselves. the house is drawn with transparent walls, because the rooms, chairs, beds, people inside, are the important things in the house-meaning; smoke always comes out of the chimney--otherwise, why have a chimney at all? at christmas time, the stockings may be drawn almost as large as the house or even so large that they have to be put outside of it:--in any case, it is the scale of values in use that furnishes the scale for their qualities, the pictures being diagrammatic reminders of these values, not impartial records of physical and sensory qualities. one of the chief difficulties felt by most persons in learning the art of pictorial representation is that habitual uses and results of use have become so intimately read into the character of things that it is practically impossible to shut them out at will. [sidenote: as do sounds used as language signs] the acquiring of meaning by sounds, in virtue of which they become words, is perhaps the most striking illustration that can be found of the way in which mere sensory stimuli acquire definiteness and constancy of meaning and are thereby themselves defined and interconnected for purposes of recognition. language is a specially good example because there are hundreds or even thousands of words in which meaning is now so thoroughly consolidated with physical qualities as to be directly apprehended, while in the case of words it is easier to recognize that this connection has been gradually and laboriously acquired than in the case of physical objects such as chairs, tables, buttons, trees, stones, hills, flowers, and so on, where it seems as if the union of intellectual character and meaning with the physical fact were aboriginal, and thrust upon us passively rather than acquired through active explorations. and in the case of the meaning of words, we see readily that it is by making sounds and noting the results which follow, by listening to the sounds of others and watching the activities which accompany them, that a given sound finally becomes the stable bearer of a meaning. [sidenote: summary] familiar acquaintance with meanings thus signifies that we have acquired in the presence of objects definite attitudes of response which lead us, without reflection, to anticipate certain possible consequences. the definiteness of the expectation defines the meaning or takes it out of the vague and pulpy; its habitual, recurrent character gives the meaning constancy, stability, consistency, or takes it out of the fluctuating and wavering. § 3. _conceptions and meaning_ [sidenote: a conception is a definite meaning] the word _meaning_ is a familiar everyday term; the words _conception_, _notion_, are both popular and technical terms. strictly speaking, they involve, however, nothing new; any meaning sufficiently individualized to be directly grasped and readily used, and thus fixed by a word, is a conception or notion. linguistically, every common noun is the carrier of a meaning, while proper nouns and common nouns with the word _this_ or _that_ prefixed, refer to the things in which the meanings are exemplified. that thinking both employs and expands notions, conceptions, is then simply saying that in inference and judgment we use meanings, and that this use also corrects and widens them. [sidenote: which is standardized] various persons talk about an object not physically present, and yet all get the same material of belief. the same person in different moments often refers to the same object or kind of objects. the sense experience, the physical conditions, the psychological conditions, vary, but the same meaning is conserved. if pounds arbitrarily changed their weight, and foot rules their length, while we were using them, obviously we could not weigh nor measure. this would be our intellectual position if meanings could not be maintained with a certain stability and constancy through a variety of physical and personal changes. [sidenote: by it we identify the unknown] [sidenote: and supplement the sensibly present] [sidenote: and also systematize things] to insist upon the fundamental importance of conceptions would, accordingly, only repeat what has been said. we shall merely summarize, saying that conceptions, or standard meanings, are instruments (_i_) of identification, (_ii_) of supplementation, and (_iii_) of placing in a system. suppose a little speck of light hitherto unseen is detected in the heavens. unless there is a store of meanings to fall back upon as tools of inquiry and reasoning, that speck of light will remain just what it is to the senses--a mere speck of light. for all that it leads to, it might as well be a mere irritation of the optic nerve. given the stock of meanings acquired in prior experience, this speck of light is mentally attacked by means of appropriate concepts. does it indicate asteroid, or comet, or a new-forming sun, or a nebula resulting from some cosmic collision or disintegration? each of these conceptions has its own specific and differentiating characters, which are then sought for by minute and persistent inquiry. as a result, then, the speck is identified, we will say, as a comet. through a standard meaning, it gets identity and stability of character. supplementation then takes place. all the known qualities of comets are read into this particular thing, even though they have not been as yet observed. all that the astronomers of the past have learned about the paths and structure of comets becomes available capital with which to interpret the speck of light. finally, this comet-meaning is itself not isolated; it is a related portion of the whole system of astronomic knowledge. suns, planets, satellites, nebulæ, comets, meteors, star dust--all these conceptions have a certain mutuality of reference and interaction, and when the speck of light is identified as meaning a comet, it is at once adopted as a full member in this vast kingdom of beliefs. [sidenote: importance of system to knowledge] darwin, in an autobiographical sketch, says that when a youth he told the geologist, sidgwick, of finding a tropical shell in a certain gravel pit. thereupon sidgwick said it must have been thrown there by some person, adding: "but if it were really embedded there, it would be the greatest misfortune to geology, because it would overthrow all that we know about the superficial deposits of the midland counties"--since they were glacial. and then darwin adds: "i was then utterly astonished at sidgwick not being delighted at so wonderful a fact as a tropical shell being found near the surface in the middle of england. nothing before had made me thoroughly realize _that science consists in grouping facts so that general laws or conclusions may be drawn from them_." this instance (which might, of course, be duplicated from any branch of science) indicates how scientific notions make explicit the systematizing tendency involved in all use of concepts. § 4. _what conceptions are not_ the idea that a conception is a meaning that supplies a standard rule for the identification and placing of particulars may be contrasted with some current misapprehensions of its nature. [sidenote: a concept is not a bare residue] 1. conceptions are not derived from a multitude of different definite objects by leaving out the qualities in which they differ and retaining those in which they agree. the origin of concepts is sometimes described to be as if a child began with a lot of different particular things, say particular dogs; his own fido, his neighbor's carlo, his cousin's tray. having all these different objects before him, he analyzes them into a lot of different qualities, say (_a_) color, (_b_) size, (_c_) shape, (_d_) number of legs, (_e_) quantity and quality of hair, (_f_) digestive organs, and so on; and then strikes out all the unlike qualities (such as color, size, shape, hair), retaining traits such as quadruped and domesticated, which they all have in general. [sidenote: but an active attitude] as a matter of fact, the child begins with whatever significance he has got out of the one dog he has seen, heard, and handled. he has found that he can carry over from one experience of this object to subsequent experience certain expectations of certain characteristic modes of behavior--may expect these even before they show themselves. he tends to assume this attitude of anticipation whenever any clue or stimulus presents itself; whenever the object gives him any excuse for it. thus he might call cats little dogs, or horses big dogs. but finding that other expected traits and modes of behavior are not fulfilled, he is forced to throw out certain traits from the dog-meaning, while by contrast (see p. 90) certain other traits are selected and emphasized. as he further applies the meaning to other dogs, the dog-meaning gets still further defined and refined. he does not begin with a lot of ready-made objects from which he extracts a common meaning; he tries to apply to every new experience whatever from his old experience will help him understand it, and as this process of constant assumption and experimentation is fulfilled and refuted by results, his conceptions get body and clearness. [sidenote: it is general because of its application] 2. similarly, conceptions are general because of their use and application, not because of their ingredients. the view of the origin of conception in an impossible sort of analysis has as its counterpart the idea that the conception is made up out of all the like elements that remain after dissection of a number of individuals. not so; the moment a meaning is gained, it is a working tool of further apprehensions, an instrument of understanding other things. thereby the meaning is _extended_ to cover them. generality resides in application to the comprehension of new cases, not in constituent parts. a collection of traits left as the common residuum, the _caput mortuum_, of a million objects, would be merely a collection, an inventory or aggregate, not a _general idea_; a striking trait emphasized in any one experience which then served to help understand some one other experience, would become, in virtue of that service of application, in so far general. synthesis is not a matter of mechanical addition, but of application of something discovered in one case to bring other cases into line. § 5. _definition and organization of meanings_ [sidenote: definiteness _versus_ vagueness] [sidenote: in the abstract meaning is intension] [sidenote: in its application it is extension] a being that cannot understand at all is at least protected from _mis_-understandings. but beings that get knowledge by means of inferring and interpreting, by judging what things signify in relation to one another, are constantly exposed to the danger of _mis_-apprehension, _mis_-understanding, _mis_-taking--taking a thing amiss. a constant source of misunderstanding and mistake is indefiniteness of meaning. through vagueness of meaning we misunderstand other people, things, and ourselves; through its ambiguity we distort and pervert. conscious distortion of meaning may be enjoyed as nonsense; erroneous meanings, if clear-cut, may be followed up and got rid of. but vague meanings are too gelatinous to offer matter for analysis, and too pulpy to afford support to other beliefs. they evade testing and responsibility. vagueness disguises the unconscious mixing together of different meanings, and facilitates the substitution of one meaning for another, and covers up the failure to have any precise meaning at all. it is the aboriginal logical sin--the source from which flow most bad intellectual consequences. totally to eliminate indefiniteness is impossible; to reduce it in extent and in force requires sincerity and vigor. to be clear or perspicuous a meaning must be detached, single, self-contained, homogeneous as it were, throughout. the technical name for any meaning which is thus individualized is _intension_. the process of arriving at such units of meaning (and of stating them when reached) is _definition_. the intension of the terms _man_, _river_, _seed_, _honesty_, _capital_, _supreme court_, is the meaning that _exclusively_ and _characteristically_ attaches to those terms. this meaning is set forth in the definitions of those words. the test of the distinctness of a meaning is that it shall successfully mark off a group of things that exemplify the meaning from other groups, especially of those objects that convey nearly allied meanings. the river-meaning (or character) must serve to _designate_ the rhone, the rhine, the mississippi, the hudson, the wabash, in spite of their varieties of place, length, quality of water; and must be such as _not_ to suggest ocean currents, ponds, or brooks. this use of a meaning to mark off and group together a variety of distinct existences constitutes its _extension_. [sidenote: definition and division] as definition sets forth intension, so division (or the reverse process, classification) expounds extension. intension and extension, definition and division, are clearly correlative; in language previously used, _intension_ is meaning as a principle of identifying particulars; extension is the group of particulars identified and distinguished. meaning, as extension, would be wholly in the air or unreal, did it not point to some object or group of objects; while objects would be as isolated and independent intellectually as they seem to be spatially, were they not bound into groups or classes on the basis of characteristic meanings which they constantly suggest and exemplify. taken together, definition and division put us in possession of individualized or definite meanings and indicate to what group of objects meanings refer. they typify the fixation and the organization of meanings. in the degree in which the meanings of any set of experiences are so cleared up as to serve as principles for grouping those experiences in relation to one another, that set of particulars becomes a science; _i.e._ definition and classification are the marks of a science, as distinct from both unrelated heaps of miscellaneous information and from the habits that introduce coherence into our experience without our being aware of their operation. definitions are of three types, _denotative_, _expository_, _scientific_. of these, the first and third are logically important, while the expository type is socially and pedagogically important as an intervening step. [sidenote: we define by picking out] i. denotative. a blind man can never have an adequate understanding of the meaning of _color_ and _red_; a seeing person can acquire the knowledge only by having certain things designated in such a way as to fix attention upon some of their qualities. this method of delimiting a meaning by calling out a certain attitude toward objects may be called _denotative_ or _indicative_. it is required for all sense qualities--sounds, tastes, colors--and equally for all emotional and moral qualities. the meanings of _honesty_, _sympathy_, _hatred_, _fear_, must be grasped by having them presented in an individual's first-hand experience. the reaction of educational reformers against linguistic and bookish training has always taken the form of demanding recourse to personal experience. however advanced the person is in knowledge and in scientific training, understanding of a new subject, or a new aspect of an old subject, must always be through these acts of experiencing directly the existence or quality in question. [sidenote: and also by combining what is already more definite,] 2. expository. given a certain store of meanings which have been directly or denotatively marked out, language becomes a resource by which imaginative combinations and variations may be built up. a color may be defined to one who has not experienced it as lying between green and blue; a tiger may be defined (_i.e._ the idea of it made more definite) by selecting some qualities from known members of the cat tribe and combining them with qualities of size and weight derived from other objects. illustrations are of the nature of expository definitions; so are the accounts of meanings given in a dictionary. by taking better-known meanings and associating them,--the attained store of meanings of the community in which one resides is put at one's disposal. but in themselves these definitions are secondhand and conventional; there is danger that instead of inciting one to effort after personal experiences that will exemplify and verify them, they will be accepted on authority as _substitutes_. [sidenote: and by discovering method of production] 3. scientific. even popular definitions serve as rules for identifying and classifying individuals, but the purpose of such identifications and classifications is mainly practical and social, not intellectual. to conceive the whale as a fish does not interfere with the success of whalers, nor does it prevent recognition of a whale when seen, while to conceive it not as fish but as mammal serves the practical end equally well, and also furnishes a much more valuable principle for scientific identification and classification. popular definitions select certain fairly obvious traits as keys to classification. scientific definitions select _conditions of causation, production, and generation_ as their characteristic material. the traits used by the popular definition do not help us to understand why an object has its common meanings and qualities; they simply state the fact that it does have them. causal and genetic definitions fix upon the way an object is constructed as the key to its being a certain kind of object, and thereby explain why it has its class or common traits. [sidenote: contrast of causal and descriptive definitions] [sidenote: science is the most perfect type of knowledge because it uses causal definitions] if, for example, a layman of considerable practical experience were asked what he meant or understood by _metal_, he would probably reply in terms of the qualities useful (_i_) in recognizing any given metal and (_ii_) in the arts. smoothness, hardness, glossiness, and brilliancy, heavy weight for its size, would probably be included in his definition, because such traits enable us to identify specific things when we see and touch them; the serviceable properties of capacity for being hammered and pulled without breaking, of being softened by heat and hardened by cold, of retaining the shape and form given, of resistance to pressure and decay, would probably be included--whether or not such terms as _malleable_ or _fusible_ were used. now a scientific conception, instead of using, even with additions, traits of this kind, determines _meaning on a different basis_. the present definition of metal is about like this: metal means any chemical element that enters into combination with oxygen so as to form a base, _i.e._ a compound that combines with an acid to form a salt. this scientific definition is founded, not on directly perceived qualities nor on directly useful properties, but on the _way in which certain things are causally related to other things_; _i.e._ it denotes a relation. as chemical concepts become more and more those of relationships of interaction in constituting other substances, so physical concepts express more and more relations of operation: mathematical, as expressing functions of dependence and order of grouping; biological, relations of differentiation of descent, effected through adjustment of various environments; and so on through the sphere of the sciences. in short, our conceptions attain a maximum of definite individuality and of generality (or applicability) in the degree to which they show how things depend upon one another or influence one another, instead of expressing the qualities that objects possess statically. the ideal of a system of scientific conceptions is to attain continuity, freedom, and flexibility of transition in passing from any fact and meaning to any other; this demand is met in the degree in which we lay hold of the dynamic ties that hold things together in a continuously changing process--a principle that states insight into mode of production or growth. chapter ten concrete and abstract thinking [sidenote: false notions of concrete and abstract] the maxim enjoined upon teachers, "to proceed from the concrete to the abstract," is perhaps familiar rather than comprehended. few who read and hear it gain a clear conception of the starting-point, the concrete; of the nature of the goal, the abstract; and of the exact nature of the path to be traversed in going from one to the other. at times the injunction is positively misunderstood, being taken to mean that education should advance from things to thought--as if any dealing with things in which thinking is not involved could possibly be educative. so understood, the maxim encourages mechanical routine or sensuous excitation at one end of the educational scale--the lower--and academic and unapplied learning at the upper end. actually, all dealing with things, even the child's, is immersed in inferences; things are clothed by the suggestions they arouse, and are significant as challenges to interpretation or as evidences to substantiate a belief. nothing could be more unnatural than instruction in things without thought; in sense-perceptions without judgments based upon them. and if the abstract to which we are to proceed denotes thought apart from things, the goal recommended is formal and empty, for effective thought always refers, more or less directly, to things. [sidenote: direct and indirect understanding again] yet the maxim has a meaning which, understood and supplemented, states the line of development of logical capacity. what is this signification? concrete denotes a meaning definitely marked off from other meanings so that it is readily apprehended by itself. when we hear the words, _table_, _chair_, _stove_, _coat_, we do not have to reflect in order to grasp what is meant. the terms convey meaning so directly that no effort at translating is needed. the meanings of some terms and things, however, are grasped only by first calling to mind more familiar things and then tracing out connections between them and what we do not understand. roughly speaking, the former kind of meanings is concrete; the latter abstract. [sidenote: what is familiar is mentally concrete] to one who is thoroughly at home in physics and chemistry, the notions of _atom_ and _molecule_ are fairly concrete. they are constantly used without involving any labor of thought in apprehending what they mean. but the layman and the beginner in science have first to remind themselves of things with which they already are well acquainted, and go through a process of slow translation; the terms _atom_ and _molecule_ losing, moreover, their hard-won meaning only too easily if familiar things, and the line of transition from them to the strange, drop out of mind. the same difference is illustrated by any technical terms: _coefficient_ and _exponent_ in algebra, _triangle_ and _square_ in their geometric as distinct from their popular meanings; _capital_ and _value_ as used in political economy, and so on. [sidenote: practical things are familiar] the difference as noted is purely relative to the intellectual progress of an individual; what is abstract at one period of growth is concrete at another; or even the contrary, as one finds that things supposed to be thoroughly familiar involve strange factors and unsolved problems. there is, nevertheless, a general line of cleavage which, deciding upon the whole what things fall within the limits of familiar acquaintance and what without, marks off the concrete and the abstract in a more permanent way. _these limits are fixed mainly by the demands of practical life._ things such as sticks and stones, meat and potatoes, houses and trees, are such constant features of the environment of which we have to take account in order to live, that their important meanings are soon learnt, and indissolubly associated with objects. we are acquainted with a thing (or it is familiar to us) when we have so much to do with it that its strange and unexpected corners are rubbed off. the necessities of social intercourse convey to adults a like concreteness upon such terms as _taxes_, _elections_, _wages_, _the law_, and so on. things the meaning of which i personally do not take in directly, appliances of cook, carpenter, or weaver, for example, are nevertheless unhesitatingly classed as concrete, since they are so directly connected with our common social life. [sidenote: the theoretical, or strictly intellectual, is abstract] by contrast, the abstract is the _theoretical_, or that not intimately associated with practical concerns. the abstract thinker (the man of pure science as he is sometimes called) deliberately abstracts from application in life; that is, he leaves practical uses out of account. this, however, is a merely negative statement. what remains when connections with use and application are excluded? _evidently only what has to do with knowing considered as an end in itself._ many notions of science are abstract, not only because they cannot be understood without a long apprenticeship in the science (which is equally true of technical matters in the arts), but also because the whole content of their meaning has been framed for the sole purpose of facilitating further knowledge, inquiry, and speculation. _when thinking is used as a means to some end, good, or value beyond itself, it is concrete; when it is employed simply as a means to more thinking, it is abstract._ to a theorist an idea is adequate and self-contained just because it engages and rewards thought; to a medical practitioner, an engineer, an artist, a merchant, a politician, it is complete only when employed in the furthering of some interest in life--health, wealth, beauty, goodness, success, or what you will. [sidenote: contempt for theory] for the great majority of men under ordinary circumstances, the practical exigencies of life are almost, if not quite, coercive. their main business is the proper conduct of their affairs. whatever is of significance only as affording scope for thinking is pallid and remote--almost artificial. hence the contempt felt by the practical and successful executive for the "mere theorist"; hence his conviction that certain things may be all very well in theory, but that they will not do in practice; in general, the depreciatory way in which he uses the terms _abstract_, _theoretical_, and _intellectual_--as distinct from _intelligent_. [sidenote: but theory is highly practical] this attitude is justified, of course, under certain conditions. but depreciation of theory does not contain the whole truth, as common or practical sense recognizes. there is such a thing, even from the common-sense standpoint, as being "too practical," as being so intent upon the immediately practical as not to see beyond the end of one's nose or as to cut off the limb upon which one is sitting. the question is one of limits, of degrees and adjustments, rather than one of absolute separation. truly practical men give their minds free play about a subject without asking too closely at every point for the advantage to be gained; exclusive preoccupation with matters of use and application so narrows the horizon as in the long run to defeat itself. it does not pay to tether one's thoughts to the post of use with too short a rope. power in action requires some largeness and imaginativeness of vision. men must at least have enough interest in thinking for the sake of thinking to escape the limits of routine and custom. interest in knowledge for the sake of knowledge, in thinking for the sake of the free play of thought, is necessary then to the _emancipation_ of practical life--to make it rich and progressive. we may now recur to the pedagogic maxim of going from the concrete to the abstract. [sidenote: begin with the concrete means begin with practical manipulations] 1. since the _concrete_ denotes thinking applied to activities for the sake of dealing effectively with the difficulties that present themselves practically, "beginning with the concrete" signifies that we should at the outset make much of _doing_; especially, make much in occupations that are not of a routine and mechanical kind and hence require intelligent selection and adaptation of means and materials. we do not "follow the order of nature" when we multiply mere sensations or accumulate physical objects. instruction in number is not concrete merely because splints or beans or dots are employed, while whenever the use and bearing of number relations are clearly perceived, the number idea is concrete even if figures alone are used. just what sort of symbol it is best to use at a given time--whether blocks, or lines, or figures--is entirely a matter of adjustment to the given case. if physical things used in teaching number or geography or anything else do not leave the mind illuminated with recognition of a _meaning_ beyond themselves, the instruction that uses them is as abstract as that which doles out ready-made definitions and rules; for it distracts attention from ideas to mere physical excitations. [sidenote: confusion of the concrete with the sensibly isolated] the conception that we have only to put before the senses particular physical objects in order to impress certain ideas upon the mind amounts almost to a superstition. the introduction of object lessons and sense-training scored a distinct advance over the prior method of linguistic symbols, and this advance tended to blind educators to the fact that only a halfway step had been taken. things and sensations develop the child, indeed, but only because he _uses_ them in mastering his body and in the scheme of his activities. appropriate continuous occupations or activities involve the use of natural materials, tools, modes of energy, and do it in a way that compels thinking as to what they mean, how they are related to one another and to the realization of ends; while the mere isolated presentation of things remains barren and dead. a few generations ago the great obstacle in the way of reform of primary education was belief in the almost magical efficacy of the symbols of language (including number) to produce mental training; at present, belief in the efficacy of objects just as objects, blocks the way. as frequently happens, the better is an enemy of the best. [sidenote: transfer of interest to intellectual matters] 2. the interest in results, in the successful carrying on of an activity, should be gradually transferred to study of objects--their properties, consequences, structures, causes, and effects. the adult when at work in his life calling is rarely free to devote time or energy--beyond the necessities of his immediate action--to the study of what he deals with. (_ante_, p. 43.) the educative activities of childhood should be so arranged that direct interest in the activity and its outcome create a demand for attention to matters that have a more and more _indirect and remote_ connection with the original activity. the direct interest in carpentering or shop work should yield organically and gradually an interest in geometric and mechanical problems. the interest in cooking should grow into an interest in chemical experimentation and in the physiology and hygiene of bodily growth. the making of pictures should pass to an interest in the technique of representation and the æsthetics of appreciation, and so on. this development is what the term _go_ signifies in the maxim "_go_ from the concrete to the abstract"; it represents the dynamic and truly educative factor of the process. [sidenote: development of delight in the activity of thinking] 3. the outcome, the _abstract_ to which education is to proceed, is an interest in intellectual matters for their own sake, a delight in thinking for the sake of thinking. it is an old story that acts and processes which at the outset are incidental to something else develop and maintain an absorbing value of their own. so it is with thinking and with knowledge; at first incidental to results and adjustments beyond themselves, they attract more and more attention to themselves till they become ends, not means. children engage, unconstrainedly and continually, in reflective inspection and testing for the sake of what they are interested in doing successfully. habits of thinking thus generated may increase in volume and extent till they become of importance on their own account. [sidenote: examples of the transition] the three instances cited in chapter six represented an ascending cycle from the practical to the theoretical. taking thought to keep a personal engagement is obviously of the concrete kind. endeavoring to work out the meaning of a certain part of a boat is an instance of an intermediate kind. the reason for the existence and position of the pole is a practical reason, so that to the architect the problem was purely concrete--the maintenance of a certain system of action. but for the passenger on the boat, the problem was theoretical, more or less speculative. it made no difference to his reaching his destination whether he worked out the meaning of the pole. the third case, that of the appearance and movement of the bubbles, illustrates a strictly theoretical or abstract case. no overcoming of physical obstacles, no adjustment of external means to ends, is at stake. curiosity, intellectual curiosity, is challenged by a seemingly anomalous occurrence; and thinking tries simply to account for an apparent exception in terms of recognized principles. [sidenote: theoretical knowledge never the whole end] (_i_) abstract thinking, it should be noted, represents _an_ end, not _the_ end. the power of sustained thinking on matters remote from direct use is an outgrowth of practical and immediate modes of thought, but not a substitute for them. the educational end is not the destruction of power to think so as to surmount obstacles and adjust means and ends; it is not its replacement by abstract reflection. nor is theoretical thinking a higher type of thinking than practical. a person who has at command both types of thinking is of a higher order than he who possesses only one. methods that in developing abstract intellectual abilities weaken habits of practical or concrete thinking, fall as much short of the educational ideal as do the methods that in cultivating ability to plan, to invent, to arrange, to forecast, fail to secure some delight in thinking irrespective of practical consequences. [sidenote: nor that most congenial to the majority of pupils] (_ii_) educators should also note the very great individual differences that exist; they should not try to force one pattern and model upon all. in many (probably the majority) the executive tendency, the habit of mind that thinks for purposes of conduct and achievement, not for the sake of knowing, remains dominant to the end. engineers, lawyers, doctors, merchants, are much more numerous in adult life than scholars, scientists, and philosophers. while education should strive to make men who, however prominent their professional interests and aims, partake of the spirit of the scholar, philosopher, and scientist, no good reason appears why education should esteem the one mental habit inherently superior to the other, and deliberately try to transform the type from practical to theoretical. have not our schools (as already suggested, p. 49) been one-sidedly devoted to the more abstract type of thinking, thus doing injustice to the majority of pupils? has not the idea of a "liberal" and "humane" education tended too often in practice to the production of technical, because overspecialized, thinkers? [sidenote: aim of education is a working balance] the aim of education should be to secure a balanced interaction of the two types of mental attitude, having sufficient regard to the disposition of the individual not to hamper and cripple whatever powers are naturally strong in him. the narrowness of individuals of strong concrete bent needs to be liberalized. every opportunity that occurs within their practical activities for developing curiosity and susceptibility to intellectual problems should be seized. violence is not done to natural disposition, but the latter is broadened. as regards the smaller number of those who have a taste for abstract, purely intellectual topics, pains should be taken to multiply opportunities and demands for the application of ideas; for translating symbolic truths into terms of social life and its ends. every human being has both capabilities, and every individual will be more effective and happier if both powers are developed in easy and close interaction with each other. chapter eleven empirical and scientific thinking § 1. _empirical thinking_ [sidenote: empirical thinking depends on past habits] apart from the development of scientific method, inferences depend upon habits that have been built up under the influence of a number of particular experiences not themselves arranged for logical purposes. a says, "it will probably rain to-morrow." b asks, "why do you think so?" and a replies, "because the sky was lowering at sunset." when b asks, "what has that to do with it?" a responds, "i do not know, but it generally does rain after such a sunset." he does not perceive any _connection_ between the appearance of the sky and coming rain; he is not aware of any continuity in the facts themselves--any law or principle, as we usually say. he simply, from frequently recurring conjunctions of the events, has associated them so that when he sees one he thinks of the other. one _suggests_ the other, or is _associated_ with it. a man may believe it will rain to-morrow because he has consulted the barometer; but if he has no conception how the height of the mercury column (or the position of an index moved by its rise and fall) is connected with variations of atmospheric pressure, and how these in turn are connected with the amount of moisture in the air, his belief in the likelihood of rain is purely empirical. when men lived in the open and got their living by hunting, fishing, or pasturing flocks, the detection of the signs and indications of weather changes was a matter of great importance. a body of proverbs and maxims, forming an extensive section of traditionary folklore, was developed. but as long as there was no understanding _why_ or _how_ certain events were signs, as long as foresight and weather shrewdness rested simply upon repeated conjunction among facts, beliefs about the weather were thoroughly empirical. [sidenote: it is fairly adequate in some matters,] in similar fashion learned men in the orient learned to predict, with considerable accuracy, the recurrent positions of the planets, the sun and the moon, and to foretell the time of eclipses, without understanding in any degree the laws of the movements of heavenly bodies--that is, without having a notion of the continuities existing among the facts themselves. they had learned from repeated observations that things happened in about such and such a fashion. till a comparatively recent time, the truths of medicine were mainly in the same condition. experience had shown that "upon the whole," "as a rule," "generally or usually speaking," certain results followed certain remedies, when symptoms were given. our beliefs about human nature in individuals (psychology) and in masses (sociology) are still very largely of a purely empirical sort. even the science of geometry, now frequently reckoned a typical rational science, began, among the egyptians, as an accumulation of recorded observations about methods of approximate mensuration of land surfaces; and only gradually assumed, among the greeks, scientific form. the _disadvantages_ of purely empirical thinking are obvious. [sidenote: but is very apt to lead to false beliefs,] 1. while many empirical conclusions are, roughly speaking, correct; while they are exact enough to be of great help in practical life; while the presages of a weatherwise sailor or hunter may be more accurate, within a certain restricted range, than those of a scientist who relies wholly upon scientific observations and tests; while, indeed, empirical observations and records furnish the raw or crude material of scientific knowledge, yet the empirical method affords no way of discriminating between right and wrong conclusions. hence it is responsible for a multitude of _false_ beliefs. the technical designation for one of the commonest fallacies is _post hoc, ergo propter hoc_; the belief that because one thing comes _after_ another, it comes _because_ of the other. now this fallacy of method is the animating principle of empirical conclusions, even when correct--the correctness being almost as much a matter of good luck as of method. that potatoes should be planted only during the crescent moon, that near the sea people are born at high tide and die at low tide, that a comet is an omen of danger, that bad luck follows the cracking of a mirror, that a patent medicine cures a disease--these and a thousand like notions are asseverated on the basis of empirical coincidence and conjunction. moreover, habits of expectation and belief are formed otherwise than by a number of repeated similar cases. [sidenote: and does not enable us to cope with the novel,] 2. the more numerous the experienced instances and the closer the watch kept upon them, the greater is the trustworthiness of constant conjunction as evidence of connection among the things themselves. many of our most important beliefs still have only this sort of warrant. no one can yet tell, with certainty, the necessary cause of old age or of death--which are empirically the most certain of all expectations. but even the most reliable beliefs of this type fail when they confront the _novel_. since they rest upon past uniformities, they are useless when further experience departs in any considerable measure from ancient incident and wonted precedent. empirical inference follows the grooves and ruts that custom wears, and has no track to follow when the groove disappears. so important is this aspect of the matter that clifford found the difference between ordinary skill and scientific thought right here. "skill enables a man to deal with the same circumstances that he has met before, scientific thought enables him to deal with different circumstances that he has never met before." and he goes so far as to define scientific thinking as "the application of old experience to new circumstances." [sidenote: and leads to laziness and presumption,] 3. we have not yet made the acquaintance of the most harmful feature of the empirical method. mental inertia, laziness, unjustifiable conservatism, are its probable accompaniments. its general effect upon mental attitude is more serious than even the specific wrong conclusions in which it has landed. wherever the chief dependence in forming inferences is upon the conjunctions observed in past experience, failures to agree with the usual order are slurred over, cases of successful confirmation are exaggerated. since the mind naturally demands some principle of continuity, some connecting link between separate facts and causes, forces are arbitrarily invented for that purpose. fantastic and mythological explanations are resorted to in order to supply missing links. the pump brings water because nature abhors a vacuum; opium makes men sleep because it has a dormitive potency; we recollect a past event because we have a faculty of memory. in the history of the progress of human knowledge, out and out myths accompany the first stage of empiricism; while "hidden essences" and "occult forces" mark its second stage. by their very nature, these "causes" escape observation, so that their explanatory value can be neither confirmed nor refuted by further observation or experience. hence belief in them becomes purely traditionary. they give rise to doctrines which, inculcated and handed down, become dogmas; subsequent inquiry and reflection are actually stifled. (_ante_, p. 23.) [sidenote: and to dogmatism] certain men or classes of men come to be the accepted guardians and transmitters--instructors--of established doctrines. to question the beliefs is to question their authority; to accept the beliefs is evidence of loyalty to the powers that be, a proof of good citizenship. passivity, docility, acquiescence, come to be primal intellectual virtues. facts and events presenting novelty and variety are slighted, or are sheared down till they fit into the procrustean bed of habitual belief. inquiry and doubt are silenced by citation of ancient laws or a multitude of miscellaneous and unsifted cases. this attitude of mind generates dislike of change, and the resulting aversion to novelty is fatal to progress. what will not fit into the established canons is outlawed; men who make new discoveries are objects of suspicion and even of persecution. beliefs that perhaps originally were the products of fairly extensive and careful observation are stereotyped into fixed traditions and semi-sacred dogmas accepted simply upon authority, and are mixed with fantastic conceptions that happen to have won the acceptance of authorities. § 2. _scientific method_ [sidenote: scientific thinking analyzes the present case] in contrast with the empirical method stands the scientific. scientific method replaces the repeated conjunction or coincidence of separate facts by discovery of a single comprehensive fact, effecting this replacement by _breaking up the coarse or gross facts of observation into a number of minuter processes not directly accessible to perception_. [sidenote: illustration from _suction_ of empirical method,] if a layman were asked why water rises from the cistern when an ordinary pump is worked, he would doubtless answer, "by suction." suction is regarded as a force like heat or pressure. if such a person is confronted by the fact that water rises with a suction pump only about thirty-three feet, he easily disposes of the difficulty on the ground that all forces vary in their intensities and finally reach a limit at which they cease to operate. the variation with elevation above the sea level of the height to which water can be pumped is either unnoticed, or, if noted, is dismissed as one of the curious anomalies in which nature abounds. [sidenote: of scientific method] [sidenote: relies on differences,] now the scientist advances by assuming that what seems to observation to be a single total fact is in truth complex. he attempts, therefore, to break up the single fact of water-rising-in-the-pipe into a number of lesser facts. his method of proceeding is by _varying conditions one by one_ so far as possible, and noting just what happens when a given condition is eliminated. there are two methods for varying conditions.[24] the first is an extension of the empirical method of observation. it consists in comparing very carefully the results of a great number of observations which have occurred under accidentally _different_ conditions. the difference in the rise of the water at different heights above the sea level, and its total cessation when the distance to be lifted is, even at sea level, more than thirty-three feet, are emphasized, instead of being slurred over. the purpose is to find out what _special conditions_ are present when the effect occurs and absent when it fails to occur. these special conditions are then substituted for the gross fact, or regarded as its principle--the key to understanding it. [24] the next two paragraphs repeat, for purposes of the present discussion, what we have already noted in a different context. see p. 88 and p. 99. [sidenote: and creates differences] the method of analysis by comparing cases is, however, badly handicapped; it can do nothing until it is presented with a certain number of diversified cases. and even when different cases are at hand, it will be questionable whether they vary in just these respects in which it is important that they should vary in order to throw light upon the question at issue. the method is passive and dependent upon external accidents. hence the superiority of the active or experimental method. even a small number of observations may suggest an explanation--a hypothesis or theory. working upon this suggestion, the scientist may then _intentionally_ vary conditions and note what happens. if the empirical observations have suggested to him the possibility of a connection between air pressure on the water and the rising of the water in the tube where air pressure is absent, he deliberately empties the air out of the vessel in which the water is contained and notes that suction no longer works; or he intentionally increases atmospheric pressure on the water and notes the result. he institutes experiments to calculate the weight of air at the sea level and at various levels above, and compares the results of reasoning based upon the pressure of air of these various weights upon a certain volume of water with the results actually obtained by observation. _observations formed by variation of conditions on the basis of some idea or theory constitute experiment._ experiment is the chief resource in scientific reasoning because it facilitates the picking out of significant elements in a gross, vague whole. [sidenote: analysis and synthesis again] experimental thinking, or scientific reasoning, is thus a conjoint process of _analysis and synthesis_, or, in less technical language, of discrimination and assimilation or identification. the gross fact of water rising when the suction valve is worked is resolved or discriminated into a number of independent variables, some of which had never before been observed or even thought of in connection with the fact. one of these facts, the weight of the atmosphere, is then selectively seized upon as the key to the entire phenomenon. this disentangling constitutes _analysis_. but atmosphere and its pressure or weight is a fact not confined to this single instance. it is a fact familiar or at least discoverable as operative in a great number of other events. in fixing upon this imperceptible and minute fact as the essence or key to the elevation of water by the pump, the pump-fact has thus been assimilated to a whole group of ordinary facts from which it was previously isolated. this assimilation constitutes _synthesis_. moreover, the fact of atmospheric pressure is itself a case of one of the commonest of all facts--weight or gravitational force. conclusions that apply to the common fact of weight are thus transferable to the consideration and interpretation of the _relatively_ rare and exceptional case of the suction of water. the suction pump is seen to be a case of the same kind or sort as the siphon, the barometer, the rising of the balloon, and a multitude of other things with which at first sight it has no connection at all. this is another instance of the synthetic or assimilative phase of scientific thinking. if we revert to the advantages of scientific over empirical thinking, we find that we now have the clue to them. [sidenote: lessened liability to error] (_a_) the increased security, the added factor of certainty or proof, is due to the substitution of the _detailed and specific fact_ of atmospheric pressure for the gross and total and relatively miscellaneous fact of suction. the latter is complex, and its complexity is due to many unknown and unspecified factors; hence, any statement about it is more or less random, and likely to be defeated by any unforeseen variation of circumstances. _comparatively_, at least, the minute and detailed fact of air pressure is a measurable and definite fact--one that can be picked out and managed with assurance. [sidenote: ability to manage the new] (_b_) as analysis accounts for the added certainty, so synthesis accounts for ability to cope with the novel and variable. weight is a much commoner fact than atmospheric weight, and this in turn is a much commoner fact than the workings of the suction pump. to be able to substitute the common and frequent fact for that which is relatively rare and peculiar is to reduce the seemingly novel and exceptional to cases of a general and familiar principle, and thus to bring them under control for interpretation and prediction. as professor james says: "think of heat as motion and whatever is true of motion will be true of heat; but we have a hundred experiences of motion for every one of heat. think of rays passing through this lens as cases of bending toward the perpendicular, and you substitute for the comparatively unfamiliar lens the very familiar notion of a particular change in direction of a line, of which notion every day brings us countless examples."[25] [25] _psychology_, vol. ii. p. 342. [sidenote: interest in the future or in progress] (_c_) the change of attitude from conservative reliance upon the past, upon routine and custom, to faith in progress through the intelligent regulation of existing conditions, is, of course, the reflex of the scientific method of experimentation. the empirical method inevitably magnifies the influences of the past; the experimental method throws into relief the possibilities of the future. the empirical method says, "_wait_ till there is a sufficient number of cases;" the experimental method says, "_produce_ the cases." the former depends upon nature's accidentally happening to present us with certain conjunctions of circumstances; the latter deliberately and intentionally endeavors to bring about the conjunction. by this method the notion of progress secures scientific warrant. [sidenote: physical _versus_ logical force] ordinary experience is controlled largely by the direct strength and intensity of various occurrences. what is bright, sudden, loud, secures notice and is given a conspicuous rating. what is dim, feeble, and continuous gets ignored, or is regarded as of slight importance. customary experience tends to the control of thinking by considerations of _direct and immediate strength_ rather than by those of importance in the long run. animals without the power of forecast and planning must, upon the whole, respond to the stimuli that are most urgent at the moment, or cease to exist. these stimuli lose nothing of their direct urgency and clamorous insistency when the thinking power develops; and yet thinking demands the subordination of the immediate stimulus to the remote and distant. the feeble and the minute may be of much greater importance than the glaring and the big. the latter may be signs of a force that is already exhausting itself; the former may indicate the beginnings of a process in which the whole fortune of the individual is involved. the prime necessity for scientific thought is that the thinker be freed from the tyranny of sense stimuli and habit, and this emancipation is also the necessary condition of progress. [sidenote: illustration from moving water] consider the following quotation: "when it first occurred to a reflecting mind that moving water had a property identical with human or brute force, namely, the property of setting other masses in motion, overcoming inertia and resistance,--when the sight of the stream suggested through this point of likeness the power of the animal,--a new addition was made to the class of prime movers, and when circumstances permitted, this power could become a substitute for the others. it may seem to the modern understanding, familiar with water wheels and drifting rafts, that the similarity here was an extremely obvious one. but if we put ourselves back into an early state of mind, when running water affected the mind _by its brilliancy, its roar and irregular devastation_, we may easily suppose that to identify this with animal muscular energy was by no means an obvious effort."[26] [26] bain, _the senses and intellect_, third american ed., 1879, p. 492 (italics not in original). [sidenote: value of abstraction] if we add to these obvious sensory features the various social customs and expectations which fix the attitude of the individual, the evil of the subjection of free and fertile suggestion to empirical considerations becomes clear. a certain power of _abstraction_, of deliberate turning away from the habitual responses to a situation, was required before men could be emancipated to follow up suggestions that in the end are fruitful. [sidenote: experience as inclusive of thought] in short, the term _experience_ may be interpreted either with reference to the _empirical_ or the _experimental_ attitude of mind. experience is not a rigid and closed thing; it is vital, and hence growing. when dominated by the past, by custom and routine, it is often opposed to the reasonable, the thoughtful. but experience also includes the reflection that sets us free from the limiting influence of sense, appetite, and tradition. experience may welcome and assimilate all that the most exact and penetrating thought discovers. indeed, the business of education might be defined as just such an emancipation and enlargement of experience. education takes the individual while he is relatively plastic, before he has become so indurated by isolated experiences as to be rendered hopelessly empirical in his habit of mind. the attitude of childhood is naïve, wondering, experimental; the world of man and nature is new. right methods of education preserve and perfect this attitude, and thereby short-circuit for the individual the slow progress of the race, eliminating the waste that comes from inert routine. part three: the training of thought chapter twelve activity and the training of thought in this chapter we shall gather together and amplify considerations that have already been advanced, in various passages of the preceding pages, concerning the relation of _action to thought_. we shall follow, though not with exactness, the order of development in the unfolding human being. § 1. _the early stage of activity_ [sidenote: 1. the baby's problem determines his thinking] the sight of a baby often calls out the question: "what do you suppose he is thinking about?" by the nature of the case, the question is unanswerable in detail; but, also by the nature of the case, we may be sure about a baby's chief interest. his primary problem is mastery of his body as a tool of securing comfortable and effective adjustments to his surroundings, physical and social. the child has to learn to do almost everything: to see, to hear, to reach, to handle, to balance the body, to creep, to walk, and so on. even if it be true that human beings have even more instinctive reactions than lower animals, it is also true that instinctive tendencies are much less perfect in men, and that most of them are of little use till they are intelligently combined and directed. a little chick just out of the shell will after a few trials peck at and grasp grains of food with its beak as well as at any later time. this involves a complicated coördination of the eye and the head. an infant does not even begin to reach definitely for things that the eye sees till he is several months old, and even then several weeks' practice is required before he learns the adjustment so as neither to overreach nor to underreach. it may not be literally true that the child will grasp for the moon, but it is true that he needs much practice before he can tell whether an object is within reach or not. the arm is thrust out instinctively in response to a stimulus from the eye, and this tendency is the origin of the ability to reach and grasp exactly and quickly; but nevertheless final mastery requires observing and selecting the successful movements, and arranging them in view of an end. _these operations of conscious selection and arrangement constitute thinking_, though of a rudimentary type. [sidenote: mastery of the body is an intellectual problem] since mastery of the bodily organs is necessary for all later developments, such problems are both interesting and important, and solving them supplies a very genuine training of thinking power. the joy the child shows in learning to use his limbs, to translate what he sees into what he handles, to connect sounds with sights, sights with taste and touch, and the rapidity with which intelligence grows in the first year and a half of life (the time during which the more fundamental problems of the use of the organism are mastered), are sufficient evidence that the development of physical control is not a physical but an intellectual achievement. [sidenote: 2. the problem of social adjustment and intercourse] although in the early months the child is mainly occupied in learning to use his body to accommodate himself to physical conditions in a comfortable way and to use things skillfully and effectively, yet social adjustments are very important. in connection with parents, nurse, brother, and sister, the child learns the signs of satisfaction of hunger, of removal of discomfort, of the approach of agreeable light, color, sound, and so on. his contact with physical things is regulated by persons, and he soon distinguishes persons as the most important and interesting of all the objects with which he has to do. speech, the accurate adaptation of sounds heard to the movements of tongue and lips, is, however, the great instrument of social adaptation; and with the development of speech (usually in the second year) adaptation of the baby's activities to and with those of other persons gives the keynote of mental life. his range of possible activities is indefinitely widened as he watches what other persons do, and as he tries to understand and to do what they encourage him to attempt. the outline pattern of mental life is thus set in the first four or five years. years, centuries, generations of invention and planning, may have gone to the development of the performances and occupations of the adults surrounding the child. yet for him their activities are direct stimuli; they are part of his natural environment; they are carried on in physical terms that appeal to his eye, ear, and touch. he cannot, of course, appropriate their meaning directly through his senses; but they furnish stimuli to which he responds, so that his attention is focussed upon a higher order of materials and of problems. were it not for this process by which the achievements of one generation form the stimuli that direct the activities of the next, the story of civilization would be writ in water, and each generation would have laboriously to make for itself, if it could, its way out of savagery. [sidenote: social adjustment results in imitation but is not caused by it] imitation is one (though only one, see p. 47) of the means by which the activities of adults supply stimuli which are so interesting, so varied, so complex, and so novel, as to occasion a rapid progress of thought. mere imitation, however, would not give rise to thinking; if we could learn like parrots by simply copying the outward acts of others, we should never have to think; nor should we know, after we had mastered the copied act, what was the meaning of the thing we had done. educators (and psychologists) have often assumed that acts which reproduce the behavior of others are acquired merely by imitation. but a child rarely learns by conscious imitation; and to say that his imitation is unconscious is to say that it is not from his standpoint imitation at all. the word, the gesture, the act, the occupation of another, falls in line with _some impulse already active_ and suggests some satisfactory mode of expression, some end in which it may find fulfillment. having this end of his own, the child then notes other persons, as he notes natural events, to get further suggestions as to means of its realization. he selects some of the means he observes, tries them on, finds them successful or unsuccessful, is confirmed or weakened in his belief in their value, and so continues selecting, arranging, adapting, testing, till he can accomplish what he wishes. the onlooker may then observe the resemblance of this act to some act of an adult, and conclude that it was acquired by imitation, while as a matter of fact it was acquired by attention, observation, selection, experimentation, and confirmation by results. only because this method is employed is there intellectual discipline and an educative result. the presence of adult activities plays an enormous rôle in the intellectual growth of the child because they add to the natural stimuli of the world new stimuli which are more exactly adapted to the needs of a human being, which are richer, better organized, more complex in range, permitting more flexible adaptations, and calling out novel reactions. but in utilizing these stimuli the child follows the same methods that he uses when he is forced to think in order to master his body. § 2. _play, work, and allied forms of activity_ [sidenote: play indicates the domination of activity by meanings or ideas] [sidenote: organization of ideas involved in play] when things become signs, when they gain a representative capacity as standing for other things, play is transformed from mere physical exuberance into an activity involving a mental factor. a little girl who had broken her doll was seen to perform with the leg of the doll all the operations of washing, putting to bed, and fondling, that she had been accustomed to perform with the entire doll. the part stood for the whole; she reacted not to the stimulus sensibly present, but to the meaning suggested by the sense object. so children use a stone for a table, leaves for plates, acorns for cups. so they use their dolls, their trains, their blocks, their other toys. in manipulating them, they are living not with the physical things, but in the large world of meanings, natural and social, evoked by these things. so when children play horse, play store, play house or making calls, they are subordinating the physically present to the ideally signified. in this way, a world of meanings, a store of concepts (so fundamental to all intellectual achievement), is defined and built up. moreover, not only do meanings thus become familiar acquaintances, but they are organized, arranged in groups, made to cohere in connected ways. a play and a story blend insensibly into each other. the most fanciful plays of children rarely lose all touch with the mutual fitness and pertinency of various meanings to one another; the "freest" plays observe some principles of coherence and unification. they have a beginning, middle, and end. in games, rules of order run through various minor acts and bind them into a connected whole. the rhythm, the competition, and coöperation involved in most plays and games also introduce organization. there is, then, nothing mysterious or mystical in the discovery made by plato and remade by froebel that play is the chief, almost the only, mode of education for the child in the years of later infancy. [sidenote: the playful attitude] _playfulness_ is a more important consideration than play. the former is an attitude of mind; the latter is a passing outward manifestation of this attitude. when things are treated simply as vehicles of suggestion, what is suggested overrides the thing. hence the playful attitude is one of freedom. the person is not bound to the physical traits of things, nor does he care whether a thing really means (as we say) what he takes it to represent. when the child plays horse with a broom and cars with chairs, the fact that the broom does not really represent a horse, or a chair a locomotive, is of no account. in order, then, that playfulness may not terminate in arbitrary fancifulness and in building up an imaginary world alongside the world of actual things, it is necessary that the play attitude should gradually pass into a work attitude. [sidenote: the work attitude is interested in means and ends] what is work--work not as mere external performance, but as attitude of mind? it signifies that the person is not content longer to accept and to act upon the meanings that things suggest, but demands congruity of meaning with the things themselves. in the natural course of growth, children come to find irresponsible make-believe plays inadequate. a fiction is too easy a way out to afford content. there is not enough stimulus to call forth satisfactory mental response. when this point is reached, the ideas that things suggest must be applied to the things with some regard to fitness. a small cart, resembling a "real" cart, with "real" wheels, tongue, and body, meets the mental demand better than merely making believe that anything which comes to hand is a cart. occasionally to take part in setting a "real" table with "real" dishes brings more reward than forever to make believe a flat stone is a table and that leaves are dishes. the interest may still center in the meanings, the things may be of importance only as amplifying a certain meaning. so far the attitude is one of play. but the meaning is now of such a character that it must find appropriate embodiment in actual things. the dictionary does not permit us to call such activities work. nevertheless, they represent a genuine passage of play into work. for work (as a mental attitude, not as mere external performance) _means interest in the adequate embodiment of a meaning_ (a suggestion, purpose, aim) _in objective form through the use of appropriate materials and appliances_. such an attitude takes advantage of the meanings aroused and built up in free play, but _controls their development by seeing to it that they are applied to things in ways consistent with the observable structure of the things themselves_. [sidenote: and in processes on account of their results] the point of this distinction between play and work may be cleared up by comparing it with a more usual way of stating the difference. in play activity, it is said, the interest is in the activity for its own sake; in work, it is in the product or result in which the activity terminates. hence the former is purely free, while the latter is tied down by the end to be achieved. when the difference is stated in this sharp fashion, there is almost always introduced a false, unnatural separation between process and product, between activity and its achieved outcome. the true distinction is not between an interest in activity for its own sake and interest in the external result of that activity, but between an interest in an activity just as it flows on from moment to moment, and an interest in an activity as tending to a culmination, to an outcome, and therefore possessing a thread of continuity binding together its successive stages. both may equally exemplify interest in an activity "for its own sake"; but in one case the activity in which the interest resides is more or less casual, following the accident of circumstance and whim, or of dictation; in the other, the activity is enriched by the sense that it leads somewhere, that it amounts to something. [sidenote: consequences of the sharp separation of play and work] were it not that the false theory of the relation of the play and the work attitudes has been connected with unfortunate modes of school practice, insistence upon a truer view might seem an unnecessary refinement. but the sharp break that unfortunately prevails between the kindergarten and the grades is evidence that the theoretical distinction has practical implications. under the title of play, the former is rendered unduly symbolic, fanciful, sentimental, and arbitrary; while under the antithetical caption of work the latter contains many _tasks externally assigned_. the former has no end and the latter an end so remote that only the educator, not the child, is aware that it is an end. there comes a time when children must extend and make more exact their acquaintance with existing things; must conceive ends and consequences with sufficient definiteness to guide their actions by them, and must acquire some technical skill in selecting and arranging means to realize these ends. unless these factors are gradually introduced in the earlier play period, they must be introduced later abruptly and arbitrarily, to the manifest disadvantage of both the earlier and the later stages. [sidenote: false notions of imagination and utility] the sharp opposition of play and work is usually associated with false notions of utility and imagination. activity that is directed upon matters of home and neighborhood interest is depreciated as merely utilitarian. to let the child wash dishes, set the table, engage in cooking, cut and sew dolls' clothes, make boxes that will hold "real things," and construct his own playthings by using hammer and nails, excludes, so it is said, the æsthetic and appreciative factor, eliminates imagination, and subjects the child's development to material and practical concerns; while (so it is said) to reproduce symbolically the domestic relationships of birds and other animals, of human father and mother and child, of workman and tradesman, of knight, soldier, and magistrate, secures a liberal exercise of mind, of great moral as well as intellectual value. it has been even stated that it is over-physical and utilitarian if a child plants seeds and takes care of growing plants in the kindergarten; while reproducing dramatically operations of planting, cultivating, reaping, and so on, either with no physical materials or with symbolic representatives, is highly educative to the imagination and to spiritual appreciation. toy dolls, trains of cars, boats, and engines are rigidly excluded, and the employ of cubes, balls, and other symbols for representing these social activities is recommended on the same ground. the more unfitted the physical object for its imagined purpose, such as a cube for a boat, the greater is the supposed appeal to the imagination. [sidenote: imagination a medium of realizing the absent and significant] there are several fallacies in this way of thinking. (_a_) the healthy imagination deals not with the unreal, but with the mental realization of what is suggested. its exercise is not a flight into the purely fanciful and ideal, but a method of expanding and filling in what is real. to the child the homely activities going on about him are not utilitarian devices for accomplishing physical ends; they exemplify a wonderful world the depths of which he has not sounded, a world full of the mystery and promise that attend all the doings of the grown-ups whom he admires. however prosaic this world may be to the adults who find its duties routine affairs, to the child it is fraught with social meaning. to engage in it is to exercise the imagination in constructing an experience of wider value than any the child has yet mastered. [sidenote: only the already experienced can be symbolized] (_b_) educators sometimes think children are reacting to a great moral or spiritual truth when the children's reactions are largely physical and sensational. children have great powers of dramatic simulation, and their physical bearing may seem (to adults prepossessed with a philosophic theory) to indicate they have been impressed with some lesson of chivalry, devotion, or nobility, when the children themselves are occupied only with transitory physical excitations. to symbolize great truths far beyond the child's range of actual experience is an impossibility, and to attempt it is to invite love of momentary stimulation. [sidenote: useful work is not necessarily labor] (_c_) just as the opponents of play in education always conceive of play as mere amusement, so the opponents of direct and useful activities confuse occupation with labor. the adult is acquainted with responsible labor upon which serious financial results depend. consequently he seeks relief, relaxation, amusement. unless children have prematurely worked for hire, unless they have come under the blight of child labor, no such division exists for them. whatever appeals to them at all, appeals directly on its own account. there is no contrast between doing things for utility and for fun. their life is more united and more wholesome. to suppose that activities customarily performed by adults only under the pressure of utility may not be done perfectly freely and joyously by children indicates a lack of imagination. not the thing done but the quality of mind that goes into the doing settles what is utilitarian and what is unconstrained and educative. § 3. _constructive occupations_ [sidenote: the historic growth of sciences out of occupations] the history of culture shows that mankind's scientific knowledge and technical abilities have developed, especially in all their earlier stages, out of the fundamental problems of life. anatomy and physiology grew out of the practical needs of keeping healthy and active; geometry and mechanics out of demands for measuring land, for building, and for making labor-saving machines; astronomy has been closely connected with navigation, keeping record of the passage of time; botany grew out of the requirements of medicine and of agronomy; chemistry has been associated with dyeing, metallurgy, and other industrial pursuits. in turn, modern industry is almost wholly a matter of applied science; year by year the domain of routine and crude empiricism is narrowed by the translation of scientific discovery into industrial invention. the trolley, the telephone, the electric light, the steam engine, with all their revolutionary consequences for social intercourse and control, are the fruits of science. [sidenote: the intellectual possibilities of school occupations] these facts are full of educational significance. most children are preëminently active in their tendencies. the schools have also taken on--largely from utilitarian, rather than from strictly educative reasons--a large number of active pursuits commonly grouped under the head of manual training, including also school gardens, excursions, and various graphic arts. perhaps the most pressing problem of education at the present moment is to organize and relate these subjects so that they will become instruments for forming alert, persistent, and fruitful intellectual habits. that they take hold of the more primary and native equipment of children (appealing to their desire to do) is generally recognized; that they afford great opportunity for training in self-reliant and efficient social service is gaining acknowledgment. but they may also be used for presenting _typical problems to be solved by personal reflection and experimentation, and by acquiring definite bodies of knowledge leading later to more specialized scientific knowledge_. there is indeed no magic by which mere physical activity or deft manipulation will secure intellectual results. (see p. 43.) manual subjects may be taught by routine, by dictation, or by convention as readily as bookish subjects. but intelligent consecutive work in gardening, cooking, or weaving, or in elementary wood and iron, may be planned which will inevitably result in students not only amassing information of practical and scientific importance in botany, zoölogy, chemistry, physics, and other sciences, but (what is more significant) in their becoming versed in methods of experimental inquiry and proof. [sidenote: reorganization of the course of study] that the elementary curriculum is overloaded is a common complaint. the only alternative to a reactionary return to the educational traditions of the past lies in working out the intellectual possibilities resident in the various arts, crafts, and occupations, and reorganizing the curriculum accordingly. here, more than elsewhere, are found the means by which the blind and routine experience of the race may be transformed into illuminated and emancipated experiment. chapter thirteen language and the training of thought § 1. _language as the tool of thinking_ [sidenote: ambiguous position of language] speech has such a peculiarly intimate connection with thought as to require special discussion. although the very word logic comes from logos ([greek: logos]), meaning indifferently both word or speech, and thought or reason, yet "words, words, words" denote intellectual barrenness, a sham of thought. although schooling has language as its chief instrument (and often as its chief matter) of study, educational reformers have for centuries brought their severest indictments against the current use of language in the schools. the conviction that language is necessary to thinking (is even identical with it) is met by the contention that language perverts and conceals thought. [sidenote: language a necessary tool of thinking,] [sidenote: for it alone fixes meanings] three typical views have been maintained regarding the relation of thought and language: first, that they are identical; second, that words are the garb or clothing of thought, necessary not for thought but only for conveying it; and third (the view we shall here maintain) that while language is not thought it is necessary for thinking as well as for its communication. when it is said, however, that thinking is impossible without language, we must recall that language includes much more than oral and written speech. gestures, pictures, monuments, visual images, finger movements--anything consciously employed as a _sign_ is, logically, language. to say that language is necessary for thinking is to say that signs are necessary. thought deals not with bare things, but with their _meanings_, their suggestions; and meanings, in order to be apprehended, must be embodied in sensible and particular existences. without meaning, things are nothing but blind stimuli or chance sources of pleasure and pain; and since meanings are not themselves tangible things, they must be anchored by attachment to some physical existence. existences that are especially set aside to fixate and convey meanings are _signs_ or _symbols_. if a man moves toward another to throw him out of the room, his movement is not a sign. if, however, the man points to the door with his hand, or utters the sound _go_, his movement is reduced to a vehicle of meaning: it is a sign or symbol. in the case of signs we care nothing for what they are in themselves, but everything for what they signify and represent. _canis_, _hund_, _chien_, dog--it makes no difference what the outward thing is, so long as the meaning is presented. [sidenote: limitations of natural symbols] natural objects are signs of other things and events. clouds stand for rain; a footprint represents game or an enemy; a projecting rock serves to indicate minerals below the surface. the limitations of natural signs are, however, great. (_i_) the physical or direct sense excitation tends to distract attention from what is meant or indicated.[27] almost every one will recall pointing out to a kitten or puppy some object of food, only to have the animal devote himself to the hand pointing, not to the thing pointed at. (_ii_) where natural signs alone exist, we are mainly at the mercy of external happenings; we have to wait until the natural event presents itself in order to be warned or advised of the possibility of some other event. (_iii_) natural signs, not being originally intended to be signs, are cumbrous, bulky, inconvenient, unmanageable. [27] compare the quotation from bain on p. 155. [sidenote: artificial signs overcome these restrictions.] it is therefore indispensable for any high development of thought that there should be also intentional signs. speech supplies the requirement. gestures, sounds, written or printed forms, are strictly physical existences, but their native value is intentionally subordinated to the value they acquire as representative of meanings. (_i_) the direct and sensible value of faint sounds and minute written or printed marks is very slight. accordingly, attention is not distracted from their _representative_ function. (_ii_) their production is under our direct control so that they may be produced when needed. when we can make the word _rain_, we do not have to wait for some physical forerunner of rain to call our thoughts in that direction. we cannot make the cloud; we can make the sound, and as a token of meaning the sound serves the purpose as well as the cloud. (_iii_) arbitrary linguistic signs are convenient and easy to manage. they are compact, portable, and delicate. as long as we live we breathe; and modifications by the muscles of throat and mouth of the volume and quality of the air are simple, easy, and indefinitely controllable. bodily postures and gestures of the hand and arm are also employed as signs, but they are coarse and unmanageable compared with modifications of breath to produce sounds. no wonder that oral speech has been selected as the main stuff of intentional intellectual signs. sounds, while subtle, refined, and easily modifiable, are transitory. this defect is met by the system of written and printed words, appealing to the eye. _litera scripta manet._ bearing in mind the intimate connection of meanings and signs (or language), we may note in more detail what language does (1) for specific meanings, and (2) for the organization of meanings. i. individual meanings. a verbal sign (_a_) selects, detaches, a meaning from what is otherwise a vague flux and blur (see p. 121); (_b_) it retains, registers, stores that meaning; and (_c_) applies it, when needed, to the comprehension of other things. combining these various functions in a mixture of metaphors, we may say that a linguistic sign is a fence, a label, and a vehicle--all in one. [sidenote: a sign makes a meaning distinct] (_a_) every one has experienced how learning an appropriate name for what was dim and vague cleared up and crystallized the whole matter. some meaning seems almost within reach, but is elusive; it refuses to condense into definite form; the attaching of a word somehow (just how, it is almost impossible to say) puts limits around the meaning, draws it out from the void, makes it stand out as an entity on its own account. when emerson said that he would almost rather know the true name, the poet's name, for a thing, than to know the thing itself, he presumably had this irradiating and illuminating function of language in mind. the delight that children take in demanding and learning the names of everything about them indicates that meanings are becoming concrete individuals to them, so that their commerce with things is passing from the physical to the intellectual plane. it is hardly surprising that savages attach a magic efficacy to words. to name anything is to give it a title; to dignify and honor it by raising it from a mere physical occurrence to a meaning that is distinct and permanent. to know the names of people and things and to be able to manipulate these names is, in savage lore, to be in possession of their dignity and worth, to master them. [sidenote: a sign preserves a meaning] (_b_) things come and go; or we come and go, and either way things escape our notice. our direct sensible relation to things is very limited. the suggestion of meanings by natural signs is limited to occasions of direct contact or vision. but a meaning fixed by a linguistic sign is conserved for future use. even if the thing is not there to represent the meaning, the word may be produced so as to evoke the meaning. since intellectual life depends on possession of a store of meanings, the importance of language as a tool of preserving meanings cannot be overstated. to be sure, the method of storage is not wholly aseptic; words often corrupt and modify the meanings they are supposed to keep intact, but liability to infection is a price paid by every living thing for the privilege of living. [sidenote: a sign transfers a meaning] (_c_) when a meaning is detached and fixed by a sign, it is possible to use that meaning in a new context and situation. this transfer and reapplication is the key to all judgment and inference. it would little profit a man to recognize that a given particular cloud was the premonitor of a given particular rainstorm if his recognition ended there, for he would then have to learn over and over again, since the next cloud and the next rain are different events. no cumulative growth of intelligence would occur; experience might form habits of physical adaptation but it would not teach anything, for we should not be able to use a prior experience consciously to anticipate and regulate a further experience. to be able to use the past to judge and infer the new and unknown implies that, although the past thing has gone, its _meaning_ abides in such a way as to be applicable in determining the character of the new. speech forms are our great carriers: the easy-running vehicles by which meanings are transported from experiences that no longer concern us to those that are as yet dark and dubious. [sidenote: logical organization depends upon signs] ii. organization of meanings. in emphasizing the importance of signs in relation to specific meanings, we have overlooked another aspect, equally valuable. signs not only mark off specific or individual meanings, but they are also instruments of grouping meanings in relation to one another. words are not only names or titles of single meanings; they also form _sentences_ in which meanings are organized in relation to one another. when we say "that book is a dictionary," or "that blur of light in the heavens is halley's comet," we express a _logical_ connection--an act of classifying and defining that goes beyond the physical thing into the logical region of genera and species, things and attributes. propositions, sentences, bear the same relation to judgments that distinct words, built up mainly by analyzing propositions in their various types, bear to meanings or conceptions; and just as words imply a sentence, so a sentence implies a larger whole of consecutive discourse into which it fits. as is often said, grammar expresses the unconscious logic of the popular mind. _the chief intellectual classifications that constitute the working capital of thought have been built up for us by our mother tongue._ our very lack of explicit consciousness in using language that we are employing the intellectual systematizations of the race shows how thoroughly accustomed we have become to its logical distinctions and groupings. § 2. _the abuse of linguistic methods in education_ [sidenote: teaching merely things, not educative] taken literally, the maxim, "teach things, not words," or "teach things before words," would be the negation of education; it would reduce mental life to mere physical and sensible adjustments. learning, in the proper sense, is not learning things, but the _meanings_ of things, and this process involves the use of signs, or language in its generic sense. in like fashion, the warfare of some educational reformers against symbols, if pushed to extremes, involves the destruction of the intellectual life, since this lives, moves, and has its being in those processes of definition, abstraction, generalization, and classification that are made possible by symbols alone. nevertheless, these contentions of educational reformers have been needed. the liability of a thing to abuse is in proportion to the value of its right use. [sidenote: but words separated from things are not true signs] symbols are themselves, as pointed out above, particular, physical, sensible existences, like any other things. they are symbols only by virtue of what they suggest and represent, _i.e._ meanings. (_i_) they stand for these meanings to any individual only when he has had _experience_ of some situation to which these meanings are actually relevant. words can detach and preserve a meaning only when the meaning has been first involved in our own direct intercourse with things. to attempt to give a meaning through a word alone without any dealings with a thing is to deprive the word of intelligible signification; against this attempt, a tendency only too prevalent in education, reformers have protested. moreover, there is a tendency to assume that whenever there is a definite word or form of speech there is also a definite idea; while, as a matter of fact, adults and children alike are capable of using even precise verbal formulæ with only the vaguest and most confused sense of what they mean. genuine ignorance is more profitable because likely to be accompanied by humility, curiosity, and open-mindedness; while ability to repeat catch-phrases, cant terms, familiar propositions, gives the conceit of learning and coats the mind with a varnish waterproof to new ideas. [sidenote: language tends to arrest personal inquiry and reflection] (_ii_) again, although new combinations of words without the intervention of physical things may supply new ideas, there are limits to this possibility. lazy inertness causes individuals to accept ideas that have currency about them without personal inquiry and testing. a man uses thought, perhaps, to find out what others believe, and then stops. the ideas of others as embodied in language become substitutes for one's own ideas. the use of linguistic studies and methods to halt the human mind on the level of the attainments of the past, to prevent new inquiry and discovery, to put the authority of tradition in place of the authority of natural facts and laws, to reduce the individual to a parasite living on the secondhand experience of others--these things have been the source of the reformers' protest against the preëminence assigned to language in schools. [sidenote: words as mere stimuli] finally, words that originally stood for ideas come, with repeated use, to be mere counters; they become physical things to be manipulated according to certain rules, or reacted to by certain operations without consciousness of their meaning. mr. stout (who has called such terms "substitute signs")remarks that "algebraical and arithmetical signs are to a great extent used as mere substitute signs.... it is possible to use signs of this kind whenever fixed and definite rules of operation can be derived from the nature of the things symbolized, so as to be applied in manipulating the signs, without further reference to their signification. a word is an instrument for thinking about the meaning which it expresses; a substitute sign is a means of _not_ thinking about the meaning which it symbolizes." the principle applies, however, to ordinary words, as well as to algebraic signs; they also enable us to use meanings so as to get results without thinking. in many respects, signs that are means of not thinking are of great advantage; standing for the familiar, they release attention for meanings that, being novel, require conscious interpretation. nevertheless, the premium put in the schoolroom upon attainment of technical facility, upon skill in producing external results (_ante_, p. 51), often changes this advantage into a positive detriment. in manipulating symbols so as to recite well, to get and give correct answers, to follow prescribed formulæ of analysis, the pupil's attitude becomes mechanical, rather than thoughtful; verbal memorizing is substituted for inquiry into the meaning of things. this danger is perhaps the one uppermost in mind when verbal methods of education are attacked. § 3. _the use of language in its educational bearings_ language stands in a twofold relation to the work of education. on the one hand, it is continually used in all studies as well as in all the social discipline of the school; on the other, it is a distinct object of study. we shall consider only the ordinary use of language, since its effects upon habits of thought are much deeper than those of conscious study. [sidenote: language not primarily intellectual in purpose] the common statement that "language is the expression of thought" conveys only a half-truth, and a half-truth that is likely to result in positive error. language does express thought, but not primarily, nor, at first, even consciously. the primary motive for language is to influence (through the expression of desire, emotion, and thought) the activity of others; its secondary use is to enter into more intimate sociable relations with them; its employment as a conscious vehicle of thought and knowledge is a tertiary, and relatively late, formation. the contrast is well brought out by the statement of john locke that words have a double use,--"civil" and "philosophical." "by their civil use, i mean such a communication of thoughts and ideas by words as may serve for the upholding of common conversation and commerce about the ordinary affairs and conveniences of civil life.... by the philosophical use of words, i mean such a use of them as may serve to convey the precise notions of things, and to express in general propositions certain and undoubted truths." [sidenote: hence education has to transform it into an intellectual tool] this distinction of the practical and social from the intellectual use of language throws much light on the problem of the school in respect to speech. that problem is _to direct pupils' oral and written speech, used primarily for practical and social ends, so that gradually it shall become a conscious tool of conveying knowledge and assisting thought_. how without checking the spontaneous, natural motives--motives to which language owes its vitality, force, vividness, and variety--are we to modify speech habits so as to render them accurate and flexible _intellectual_ instruments? it is comparatively easy to encourage the original spontaneous flow and not make language over into a servant of reflective thought; it is comparatively easy to check and almost destroy (so far as the schoolroom is concerned) native aim and interest, and to set up artificial and formal modes of expression in some isolated and technical matters. the difficulty lies in making over habits that have to do with "ordinary affairs and conveniences" into habits concerned with "precise notions." the successful accomplishing of the transformation requires (_i_) enlargement of the pupil's vocabulary; (_ii_) rendering its terms more precise and accurate, and (_iii_) formation of habits of consecutive discourse. [sidenote: to enlarge vocabulary, the fund of concepts should be enlarged] (_i_) enlargement of vocabulary. this takes place, of course, by wider intelligent contact with things and persons, and also vicariously, by gathering the meanings of words from the context in which they are heard or read. to grasp by either method a word in its meaning is to exercise intelligence, to perform an act of intelligent selection or analysis, and it is also to widen the fund of meanings or concepts readily available in further intellectual enterprises (_ante_, p. 126). it is usual to distinguish between one's active and one's passive vocabulary, the latter being composed of the words that are understood when they are heard or seen, the former of words that are used intelligently. the fact that the passive vocabulary is ordinarily much larger than the active indicates a certain amount of inert energy, of power not freely controlled by an individual. failure to use meanings that are nevertheless understood reveals dependence upon external stimulus, and lack of intellectual initiative. this mental laziness is to some extent an artificial product of education. small children usually attempt to put to use every new word they get hold of, but when they learn to read they are introduced to a large variety of terms that there is no ordinary opportunity to use. the result is a kind of mental suppression, if not smothering. moreover, the meaning of words not actively used in building up and conveying ideas is never quite clear-cut or complete. [sidenote: looseness of thinking accompanies a limited vocabulary] while a limited vocabulary may be due to a limited range of experience, to a sphere of contact with persons and things so narrow as not to suggest or require a full store of words, it is also due to carelessness and vagueness. a happy-go-lucky frame of mind makes the individual averse to clear discriminations, either in perception or in his own speech. words are used loosely in an indeterminate kind of reference to things, and the mind approaches a condition where practically everything is just a thing-um-bob or a what-do-you-call-it. paucity of vocabulary on the part of those with whom the child associates, triviality and meagerness in the child's reading matter (as frequently even in his school readers and text-books), tend to shut down the area of mental vision. [sidenote: command of language involves command of things] we must note also the great difference between flow of words and command of language. volubility is not necessarily a sign of a large vocabulary; much talking or even ready speech is quite compatible with moving round and round in a circle of moderate radius. most schoolrooms suffer from a lack of materials and appliances save perhaps books--and even these are "written down" to the supposed capacity, or incapacity, of children. occasion and demand for an enriched vocabulary are accordingly restricted. the vocabulary of things studied in the schoolroom is very largely isolated; it does not link itself organically to the range of the ideas and words that are in vogue outside the school. hence the enlargement that takes place is often nominal, adding to the inert, rather than to the active, fund of meanings and terms. (_ii_) accuracy of vocabulary. one way in which the fund of words and concepts is increased is by discovering and naming shades of meaning--that is to say, by making the vocabulary more precise. increase in definiteness is as important relatively as is the enlargement of the capital stock absolutely. [sidenote: the _general_ as the vague and as the distinctly generic] the first meanings of terms, since they are due to superficial acquaintance with things, are general in the sense of being vague. the little child calls all men papa; acquainted with a dog, he may call the first horse he sees a big dog. differences of quantity and intensity are noted, but the fundamental meaning is so vague that it covers things that are far apart. to many persons trees are just trees, being discriminated only into deciduous trees and evergreens, with perhaps recognition of one or two kinds of each. such vagueness tends to persist and to become a barrier to the advance of thinking. terms that are miscellaneous in scope are clumsy tools at best; in addition they are frequently treacherous, for their ambiguous reference causes us to confuse things that should be distinguished. [sidenote: twofold growth of words in sense or signification] the growth of precise terms out of original vagueness takes place normally in two directions: toward words that stand for relationships and words that stand for highly individualized traits (compare what was said about the development of meanings, p. 122); the first being associated with abstract, the second with concrete, thinking. some australian tribes are said to have no words for _animal_ or for _plant_, while they have specific names for every variety of plant and animal in their neighborhoods. this minuteness of vocabulary represents progress toward definiteness, but in a one-sided way. specific properties are distinguished, but not relationships.[28] on the other hand, students of philosophy and of the general aspects of natural and social science are apt to acquire a store of terms that signify relations without balancing them up with terms that designate specific individuals and traits. the ordinary use of such terms as _causation_, _law_, _society_, _individual_, _capital_, illustrates this tendency. [28] the term _general_ is itself an ambiguous term, meaning (in its best logical sense) the related and also (in its natural usage) the indefinite, the vague. _general_, in the first sense, denotes the discrimination of a principle or generic relation; in the second sense, it denotes the absence of discrimination of specific or individual properties. [sidenote: words alter their meanings so as to change their logical functions] in the history of language we find both aspects of the growth of vocabulary illustrated by changes in the sense of words: some words originally wide in their application are narrowed to denote shades of meaning; others originally specific are widened to express relationships. the term _vernacular_, now meaning mother speech, has been generalized from the word _verna_, meaning a slave born in the master's household. _publication_ has evolved its meaning of communication by means of print, through restricting an earlier meaning of any kind of communication--although the wider meaning is retained in legal procedure, as publishing a libel. the sense of the word _average_ has been generalized from a use connected with dividing loss by shipwreck proportionately among various sharers in an enterprise.[29] [29] a large amount of material illustrating the twofold change in the sense of words will be found in jevons, _lessons in logic_. [sidenote: similar changes occur in the vocabulary of every student] these historical changes assist the educator to appreciate the changes that occur with individuals together with advance in intellectual resources. in studying geometry, a pupil must learn both to narrow and to extend the meanings of such familiar words as _line_, _surface_, _angle_, _square_, _circle_; to narrow them to the precise meanings involved in demonstrations; to extend them to cover generic relations not expressed in ordinary usage. qualities of color and size must be excluded; relations of direction, of variation in direction, of limit, must be definitely seized. a like transformation occurs, of course, in every subject of study. just at this point lies the danger, alluded to above, of simply overlaying common meanings with new and isolated meanings instead of effecting a genuine working-over of popular and practical meanings into adequate logical tools. [sidenote: the value of technical terms] terms used with intentional exactness so as to express a meaning, the whole meaning, and only the meaning, are called _technical_. for educational purposes, a technical term indicates something relative, not absolute; for a term is technical not because of its verbal form or its unusualness, but because it is employed to fix a meaning precisely. ordinary words get a technical quality when used intentionally for this end. whenever thought becomes more accurate, a (relatively) technical vocabulary grows up. teachers are apt to oscillate between extremes in regard to technical terms. on the one hand, these are multiplied in every direction, seemingly on the assumption that learning a new piece of terminology, accompanied by verbal description or definition, is equivalent to grasping a new idea. when it is seen how largely the net outcome is the accumulation of an isolated set of words, a jargon or scholastic cant, and to what extent the natural power of judgment is clogged by this accumulation, there is a reaction to the opposite extreme. technical terms are banished: "name words" exist but not nouns; "action words" but not verbs; pupils may "take away," but not subtract; they may tell what four fives are, but not what four times five are, and so on. a sound instinct underlies this reaction--aversion to words that give the pretense, but not the reality, of meaning. yet the fundamental difficulty is not with the word, but with the idea. if the idea is not grasped, nothing is gained by using a more familiar word; if the idea is perceived, the use of the term that exactly names it may assist in fixing the idea. terms denoting highly exact meanings should be introduced only sparingly, that is, a few at a time; they should be led up to gradually, and great pains should be taken to secure the circumstances that render precision of meaning significant. [sidenote: importance of consecutive discourse] (_iii_) consecutive discourse. as we saw, language connects and organizes meanings as well as selects and fixes them. as every meaning is set in the context of some situation, so every word in concrete use belongs to some sentence (it may itself represent a condensed sentence), and the sentence, in turn, belongs to some larger story, description, or reasoning process. it is unnecessary to repeat what has been said about the importance of continuity and ordering of meanings. we may, however, note some ways in which school practices tend to interrupt consecutiveness of language and thereby interfere harmfully with systematic reflection. (_a_) teachers have a habit of monopolizing continued discourse. many, if not most, instructors would be surprised if informed at the end of the day of the amount of time they have talked as compared with any pupil. children's conversation is often confined to answering questions in brief phrases, or in single disconnected sentences. expatiation and explanation are reserved for the teacher, who often admits any hint at an answer on the part of the pupil, and then amplifies what he supposes the child must have meant. the habits of sporadic and fragmentary discourse thus promoted have inevitably a disintegrating intellectual influence. [sidenote: too minute questioning] (_b_) assignment of too short lessons when accompanied (as it usually is in order to pass the time of the recitation period) by minute "analytic" questioning has the same effect. this evil is usually at its height in such subjects as history and literature, where not infrequently the material is so minutely subdivided as to break up the unity of meaning belonging to a given portion of the matter, to destroy perspective, and in effect to reduce the whole topic to an accumulation of disconnected details all upon the same level. more often than the teacher is aware, _his_ mind carries and supplies the background of unity of meaning against which pupils project isolated scraps. [sidenote: making avoidance of error the aim] (_c_) insistence upon avoiding error instead of attaining power tends also to interruption of continuous discourse and thought. children who begin with something to say and with intellectual eagerness to say it are sometimes made so conscious of minor errors in substance and form that the energy that should go into constructive thinking is diverted into anxiety not to make mistakes, and even, in extreme cases, into passive quiescence as the best method of minimizing error. this tendency is especially marked in connection with the writing of compositions, essays, and themes. it has even been gravely recommended that little children should always write on trivial subjects and in short sentences because in that way they are less likely to make mistakes, while the teaching of writing to high school and college students occasionally reduces itself to a technique for detecting and designating mistakes. the resulting self-consciousness and constraint are only part of the evil that comes from a negative ideal. chapter fourteen observation and information in the training of mind [sidenote: no thinking without acquaintance with facts] thinking is an ordering of subject-matter with reference to discovering what it signifies or indicates. thinking no more exists apart from this arranging of subject-matter than digestion occurs apart from the assimilating of food. the way in which the subject-matter is furnished marks, therefore, a fundamental point. if the subject-matter is provided in too scanty or too profuse fashion, if it comes in disordered array or in isolated scraps, the effect upon habits of thought is detrimental. if personal observation and communication of information by others (whether in books or speech) are rightly conducted, half the logical battle is won, for they are the channels of obtaining subject-matter. § 1. _the nature and value of observation_ [sidenote: fallacy of making "facts" an end in themselves] the protest, mentioned in the last chapter, of educational reformers against the exaggerated and false use of language, insisted upon personal and direct observation as the proper alternative course. the reformers felt that the current emphasis upon the linguistic factor eliminated all opportunity for first-hand acquaintance with real things; hence they appealed to sense-perception to fill the gap. it is not surprising that this enthusiastic zeal failed frequently to ask how and why observation is educative, and hence fell into the error of making observation an end in itself and was satisfied with any kind of material under any kind of conditions. such isolation of observation is still manifested in the statement that this faculty develops first, then that of memory and imagination, and finally the faculty of thought. from this point of view, observation is regarded as furnishing crude masses of raw material, to which, later on, reflective processes may be applied. our previous pages should have made obvious the fallacy of this point of view by bringing out the fact that simple concrete thinking attends all our intercourse with things which is not on a purely physical level. [sidenote: the sympathetic motive in extending acquaintance] i. all persons have a natural desire--akin to curiosity--for a widening of their range of acquaintance with persons and things. the sign in art galleries that forbids the carrying of canes and umbrellas is obvious testimony to the fact that simply to see is not enough for many people; there is a feeling of lack of acquaintance until some direct contact is made. this demand for fuller and closer knowledge is quite different from any conscious interest in observation for its own sake. desire for expansion, for "self-realization," is its motive. the interest is sympathetic, socially and æsthetically sympathetic, rather than cognitive. while the interest is especially keen in children (because their actual experience is so small and their possible experience so large), it still characterizes adults when routine has not blunted its edge. this sympathetic interest provides the medium for carrying and binding together what would otherwise be a multitude of items, diverse, disconnected, and of no intellectual use. these systems are indeed social and æsthetic rather than consciously intellectual; but they provide the natural medium for more conscious intellectual explorations. some educators have recommended that nature study in the elementary schools be conducted with a love of nature and a cultivation of æsthetic appreciation in view rather than in a purely analytic spirit. others have urged making much of the care of animals and plants. both of these important recommendations have grown out of experience, not out of theory, but they afford excellent exemplifications of the theoretic point just made. [sidenote: analytic inspection for the sake of doing] [sidenote: direct and indirect sense training] ii. in normal development, specific analytic observations are originally connected almost exclusively with the imperative need for noting means and ends in carrying on activities. when one is _doing_ something, one is compelled, if the work is to succeed (unless it is purely routine), to use eyes, ears, and sense of touch as guides to action. without a constant and alert exercise of the senses, not even plays and games can go on; in any form of work, materials, obstacles, appliances, failures, and successes, must be intently watched. sense-perception does not occur for its own sake or for purposes of training, but because it is an indispensable factor of success in doing what one is interested in doing. although not designed for sense-training, this method effects sense-training in the most economical and thoroughgoing way. various schemes have been designed by teachers for cultivating sharp and prompt observation of forms, as by writing words,--even in an unknown language,--making arrangements of figures and geometrical forms, and having pupils reproduce them after a momentary glance. children often attain great skill in quick seeing and full reproducing of even complicated meaningless combinations. but such methods of training--however valuable as occasional games and diversions--compare very unfavorably with the training of eye and hand that comes as an incident of work with tools in wood or metals, or of gardening, cooking, or the care of animals. training by isolated exercises leaves no deposit, leads nowhere; and even the technical skill acquired has little radiating power, or transferable value. criticisms made upon the training of observation on the ground that many persons cannot correctly reproduce the forms and arrangement of the figures on the face of their watches misses the point because persons do not look at a watch to find out whether four o'clock is indicated by iiii or by iv, but to find out what time it is, and, if observation decides this matter, noting other details is irrelevant and a waste of time. in the training of observation the question of end and motive is all-important. [sidenote: scientific observations are linked to problems] [sidenote: "object-lessons" rarely supply problems] iii. the further, more intellectual or scientific, development of observation follows the line of the growth of practical into theoretical reflection already traced (_ante_, chapter ten). as problems emerge and are dwelt upon, observation is directed less to the facts that bear upon a practical aim and more upon what bears upon a problem as such. what makes observations in schools often intellectually ineffective is (more than anything else) that they are carried on independently of a sense of a problem that they serve to define or help to solve. the evil of this isolation is seen through the entire educational system, from the kindergarten, through the elementary and high schools, to the college. almost everywhere may be found, at some time, recourse to observations as if they were of complete and final value in themselves, instead of the means of getting material that bears upon some difficulty and its solution. in the kindergarten are heaped up observations regarding geometrical forms, lines, surfaces, cubes, colors, and so on. in the elementary school, under the name of "object-lessons," the form and properties of objects,--apple, orange, chalk,--selected almost at random, are minutely noted, while under the name of "nature study" similar observations are directed upon leaves, stones, insects, selected in almost equally arbitrary fashion. in high school and college, laboratory and microscopic observations are carried on as if the accumulation of observed facts and the acquisition of skill in manipulation were educational ends in themselves. compare with these methods of isolated observations the statement of jevons that observation as conducted by scientific men is effective "only when excited and guided by hope of verifying a theory"; and again, "the number of things which can be observed and experimented upon are infinite, and if we merely set to work to record facts without any distinct purpose, our records will have no value." strictly speaking, the first statement of jevons is too narrow. scientific men institute observations not merely to test an idea (or suggested explanatory meaning), but also to locate the nature of a problem and thereby guide the formation of a hypothesis. but the principle of his remark, namely, that scientific men never make the accumulation of observations an end in itself, but always a means to a general intellectual conclusion, is absolutely sound. until the force of this principle is adequately recognized in education, observation will be largely a matter of uninteresting dead work or of acquiring forms of technical skill that are not available as intellectual resources. § 2. _methods and materials of observation in the schools_ the best methods in use in our schools furnish many suggestions for giving observation its right place in mental training. [sidenote: observation should involve discovery] i. they rest upon the sound assumption that observation is an _active_ process. observation is exploration, inquiry for the sake of discovering something previously hidden and unknown, this something being needed in order to reach some end, practical or theoretical. observation is to be discriminated from recognition, or perception of what is familiar. the identification of something already understood is, indeed, an indispensable function of further investigation (_ante_, p. 119); but it is relatively automatic and passive, while observation proper is searching and deliberate. recognition refers to the already mastered; observation is concerned with mastering the unknown. the common notions that perception is like writing on a blank piece of paper, or like impressing an image on the mind as a seal is imprinted on wax or as a picture is formed on a photographic plate (notions that have played a disastrous rôle in educational methods), arise from a failure to distinguish between automatic recognition and the searching attitude of genuine observation. [sidenote: and suspense during an unfolding change] ii. much assistance in the selection of appropriate material for observation may be derived from considering the eagerness and closeness of observation that attend the following of a story or drama. alertness of observation is at its height wherever there is "plot interest." why? because of the balanced combination of the old and the new, of the familiar and the unexpected. we hang on the lips of the story-teller because of the element of mental suspense. alternatives are suggested, but are left ambiguous, so that our whole being questions: what befell next? which way did things turn out? contrast the ease and fullness with which a child notes all the salient traits of a story, with the labor and inadequacy of his observation of some dead and static thing where nothing raises a question or suggests alternative outcomes. [sidenote: this "plot interest" manifested in activity,] when an individual is engaged in doing or making something (the activity not being of such a mechanical and habitual character that its outcome is assured), there is an analogous situation. something is going to come of what is present to the sense, but just what is doubtful. the plot is unfolding toward success or failure, but just when or how is uncertain. hence the keen and tense observation of conditions and results that attends constructive manual operations. where the subject-matter is of a more impersonal sort, the same principle of movement toward a dénouement may apply. it is a commonplace that what is moving attracts notice when that which is at rest escapes it. yet too often it would almost seem as if pains had been taken to deprive the material of school observations of all life and dramatic quality, to reduce it to a dead and inert form. mere change is not enough, however. vicissitude, alteration, motion, excite observation; but if they merely excite it, there is no thought. the changes must (like the incidents of a well-arranged story or plot) take place in a certain cumulative order; each successive change must at once remind us of its predecessor and arouse interest in its successor if observations of change are to be logically fruitful. [sidenote: and in cycles of growth] living beings, plants, and animals, fulfill the twofold requirement to an extraordinary degree. where there is growth, there is motion, change, process; and there is also arrangement of the changes in a cycle. the first arouses, the second organizes, observation. much of the extraordinary interest that children take in planting seeds and watching the stages of their growth is due to the fact that a drama is enacting before their eyes; there is something doing, each step of which is important in the destiny of the plant. the great practical improvements that have occurred of late years in the teaching of botany and zoölogy will be found, upon inspection, to involve treating plants and animals as beings that act, that do something, instead of as mere inert specimens having static properties to be inventoried, named, and registered. treated in the latter fashion, observation is inevitably reduced to the falsely "analytic" (_ante_, p. 112),--to mere dissection and enumeration. [sidenote: observation of structure grows out of noting function] there is, of course, a place, and an important place, for observation of the mere static qualities of objects. when, however, the primary interest is in _function_, in what the object does, there is a motive for more minute analytic study, for the observation of _structure_. interest in noting an activity passes insensibly into noting how the activity is carried on; the interest in what is accomplished passes over into an interest in the organs of its accomplishing. but when the beginning is made with the morphological, the anatomical, the noting of peculiarities of form, size, color, and distribution of parts, the material is so cut off from significance as to be dead and dull. it is as natural for children to look intently for the _stomata_ of a plant after they have become interested in its function of breathing, as it is repulsive to attend minutely to them when they are considered as isolated peculiarities of structure. [sidenote: scientific observation] iii. as the center of interest of observations becomes less personal, less a matter of means for effecting one's own ends, and less æsthetic, less a matter of contribution of parts to a total emotional effect, observation becomes more consciously intellectual in quality. pupils learn to observe for the sake (_i_) of finding out what sort of perplexity confronts them; (_ii_) of inferring hypothetical explanations for the puzzling features that observation reveals; and (_iii_) of testing the ideas thus suggested. [sidenote: should be extensive] [sidenote: and intensive] in short, observation becomes scientific in nature. of such observations it may be said that they should follow a rhythm between the extensive and the intensive. problems become definite, and suggested explanations significant by a certain alternation between a wide and somewhat loose soaking in of relevant facts and a minutely accurate study of a few selected facts. the wider, less exact observation is necessary to give the student a feeling for the reality of the field of inquiry, a sense of its bearings and possibilities, and to store his mind with materials that imagination may transform into suggestions. the intensive study is necessary for limiting the problem, and for securing the conditions of experimental testing. as the latter by itself is too specialized and technical to arouse intellectual growth, the former by itself is too superficial and scattering for control of intellectual development. in the sciences of life, field study, excursions, acquaintance with living things in their natural habitats, may alternate with microscopic and laboratory observation. in the physical sciences, phenomena of light, of heat, of electricity, of moisture, of gravity, in their broad setting in nature--their physiographic setting--should prepare for an exact study of selected facts under conditions of laboratory control. in this way, the student gets the benefit of technical scientific methods of discovery and testing, while he retains his sense of the identity of the laboratory modes of energy with large out-of-door realities, thereby avoiding the impression (that so often accrues) that the facts studied are peculiar to the laboratory. § 3. _communication of information_ [sidenote: importance of hearsay acquaintance] when all is said and done the field of fact open to any one observer by himself is narrow. into every one of our beliefs, even those that we have worked out under the conditions of utmost personal, first-hand acquaintance, much has insensibly entered from what we have heard or read of the observations and conclusions of others. in spite of the great extension of direct observation in our schools, the vast bulk of educational subject-matter is derived from other sources--from text-book, lecture, and viva-voce interchange. no educational question is of greater import than how to get the most logical good out of learning through transmission from others. [sidenote: logically, this ranks only as evidence or testimony] doubtless the chief meaning associated with the word _instruction_ is this conveying and instilling of the results of the observations and inferences of others. doubtless the undue prominence in education of the ideal of amassing information (_ante_, p. 52) has its source in the prominence of the learning of other persons. the problem then is how to convert it into an intellectual asset. in logical terms, the material supplied from the experience of others is _testimony_: that is to say, _evidence_ submitted by others to be employed by one's own judgment in reaching a conclusion. how shall we treat the subject-matter supplied by text-book and teacher so that it shall rank as material for reflective inquiry, not as ready-made intellectual pabulum to be accepted and swallowed just as supplied by the store? [sidenote: communication by others should not encroach on observation,] in reply to this question, we may say (_i_) that the communication of material should be _needed_. that is to say, it should be such as cannot readily be attained by personal observation. for teacher or book to cram pupils with facts which, with little more trouble, they could discover by direct inquiry is to violate their intellectual integrity by cultivating mental servility. this does not mean that the material supplied through communication of others should be meager or scanty. with the utmost range of the senses, the world of nature and history stretches out almost infinitely beyond. but the fields within which direct observation is feasible should be carefully chosen and sacredly protected. [sidenote: should not be dogmatic in tone,] (_ii_) material should be supplied by way of stimulus, not with dogmatic finality and rigidity. when pupils get the notion that any field of study has been definitely surveyed, that knowledge about it is exhaustive and final, they may continue docile pupils, but they cease to be students. all thinking whatsoever--so be it _is_ thinking--contains a phase of originality. this originality does not imply that the student's conclusion varies from the conclusions of others, much less that it is a radically novel conclusion. his originality is not incompatible with large use of materials and suggestions contributed by others. originality means personal interest in the question, personal initiative in turning over the suggestions furnished by others, and sincerity in following them out to a tested conclusion. literally, the phrase "think for yourself" is tautological; any thinking is thinking for one's self. [sidenote: should have relation to a personal problem,] (_iii_) the material furnished by way of information should be relevant to a question that is vital in the student's own experience. what has been said about the evil of observations that begin and end in themselves may be transferred without change to communicated learning. instruction in subject-matter that does not fit into any problem already stirring in the student's own experience, or that is not presented in such a way as to arouse a problem, is worse than useless for intellectual purposes. in that it fails to enter into any process of reflection, it is useless; in that it remains in the mind as so much lumber and débris, it is a barrier, an obstruction in the way of effective thinking when a problem arises. [sidenote: and to prior systems of experience] another way of stating the same principle is that material furnished by communication must be such as to enter into some existing system or organization of experience. all students of psychology are familiar with the principle of apperception--that we assimilate new material with what we have digested and retained from prior experiences. now the "apperceptive basis" of material furnished by teacher and text-book should be found, as far as possible, in what the learner has derived from more direct forms of his own experience. there is a tendency to connect material of the schoolroom simply with the material of prior school lessons, instead of linking it to what the pupil has acquired in his out-of-school experience. the teacher says, "do you not remember what we learned from the book last week?"--instead of saying, "do you not recall such and such a thing that you have seen or heard?" as a result, there are built up detached and independent systems of school knowledge that inertly overlay the ordinary systems of experience instead of reacting to enlarge and refine them. pupils are taught to live in two separate worlds, one the world of out-of-school experience, the other the world of books and lessons. chapter fifteen the recitation and the training of thought [sidenote: importance of the recitation] in the recitation the teacher comes into his closest contact with the pupil. in the recitation focus the possibilities of guiding children's activities, influencing their language habits, and directing their observations. in discussing the significance of the recitation as an instrumentality of education, we are accordingly bringing to a head the points considered in the last three chapters, rather than introducing a new topic. the method in which the recitation is carried on is a crucial test of a teacher's skill in diagnosing the intellectual state of his pupils and in supplying the conditions that will arouse serviceable mental responses: in short, of his art as a teacher. [sidenote: re-citing _versus_ reflecting] the use of the word _recitation_ to designate the period of most intimate intellectual contact of teacher with pupil and pupil with pupil is a fateful fact. to re-cite is to cite again, to repeat, to tell over and over. if we were to call this period _reiteration_, the designation would hardly bring out more clearly than does the word _recitation_, the complete domination of instruction by rehearsing of secondhand information, by memorizing for the sake of producing correct replies at the proper time. everything that is said in this chapter is insignificant in comparison with the primary truth that the recitation is a place and time for stimulating and directing reflection, and that reproducing memorized matter is only an incident--even though an indispensable incident--in the process of cultivating a thoughtful attitude. § 1. _the formal steps of instruction_ [sidenote: herbart's analysis of method of teaching] but few attempts have been made to formulate a method, resting on general principles, of conducting a recitation. one of these is of great importance and has probably had more and better influence upon the "hearing of lessons" than all others put together; namely, the analysis by herbart of a recitation into five successive steps. the steps are commonly known as "the formal steps of instruction." the underlying notion is that no matter how subjects vary in scope and detail there is one and only one best way of mastering them, since there is a single "general method" uniformly followed by the mind in effective attack upon any subject. whether it be a first-grade child mastering the rudiments of number, a grammar-school pupil studying history, or a college student dealing with philology, in each case the first step is preparation, the second presentation, followed in turn by comparison and generalization, ending in the application of the generalizations to specific and new instances. [sidenote: illustration of method] by preparation is meant asking questions to remind pupils of familiar experiences of their own that will be useful in acquiring the new topic. what one already knows supplies the means with which one apprehends the unknown. hence the process of learning the new will be made easier if related ideas in the pupil's mind are aroused to activity--are brought to the foreground of consciousness. when pupils take up the study of rivers, they are first questioned about streams or brooks with which they are already acquainted; if they have never seen any, they may be asked about water running in gutters. somehow "apperceptive masses" are stirred that will assist in getting hold of the new subject. the step of preparation ends with statement of the aim of the lesson. old knowledge having been made active, new material is then "presented" to the pupils. pictures and relief models of rivers are shown; vivid oral descriptions are given; if possible, the children are taken to see an actual river. these two steps terminate the acquisition of particular facts. the next two steps are directed toward getting a general principle or conception. the local river is compared with, perhaps, the amazon, the st. lawrence, the rhine; by this comparison accidental and unessential features are eliminated and the river _concept_ is formed: the elements involved in the river-meaning are gathered together and formulated. this done, the resulting principle is fixed in mind and is clarified by being applied to other streams, say to the thames, the po, the connecticut. [sidenote: comparison with our prior analysis of reflection] if we compare this account of the methods of instruction with our own analysis of a complete operation of thinking, we are struck by obvious resemblances. in our statement (compare chapter six) the "steps" are the occurrence of a problem or a puzzling phenomenon; then observation, inspection of facts, to locate and clear up the problem; then the formation of a hypothesis or the suggestion of a possible solution together with its elaboration by reasoning; then the testing of the elaborated idea by using it as a guide to new observations and experimentations. in each account, there is the sequence of (_i_) specific facts and events, (_ii_) ideas and reasonings, and (_iii_) application of their result to specific facts. in each case, the movement is inductive-deductive. we are struck also by one difference: the herbartian method makes no reference to a difficulty, a discrepancy requiring explanation, as the origin and stimulus of the whole process. as a consequence, it often seems as if the herbartian method deals with thought simply as an incident in the process of acquiring information, instead of treating the latter as an incident in the process of developing thought. [sidenote: the formal steps concern the teacher's preparation rather than the recitation itself] before following up this comparison in more detail, we may raise the question whether the recitation should, in any case, follow a uniform prescribed series of steps--even if it be admitted that this series expresses the normal logical order. in reply, it may be said that just because the order is logical, it represents the survey of subject-matter made by one who already understands it, not the path of progress followed by a mind that is learning. the former may describe a uniform straight-way course, the latter must be a series of tacks, of zigzag movements back and forth. in short, the formal steps indicate the points that should be covered by the teacher in preparing to conduct a recitation, but should not prescribe the actual course of teaching. [sidenote: the teacher's problem] lack of any preparation on the part of a teacher leads, of course, to a random, haphazard recitation, its success depending on the inspiration of the moment, which may or may not come. preparation in simply the subject-matter conduces to a rigid order, the teacher examining pupils on their exact knowledge of their text. but the teacher's problem--as a teacher--does not reside in mastering a subject-matter, but in adjusting a subject-matter to the nurture of thought. now the formal steps indicate excellently well the questions a teacher should ask in working out the problem of teaching a topic. what preparation have my pupils for attacking this subject? what familiar experiences of theirs are available? what have they already learned that will come to their assistance? how shall i present the matter so as to fit economically and effectively into their present equipment? what pictures shall i show? to what objects shall i call their attention? what incidents shall i relate? what comparisons shall i lead them to draw, what similarities to recognize? what is the general principle toward which the whole discussion should point as its conclusion? by what applications shall i try to fix, to clear up, and to make real their grasp of this general principle? what activities of their own may bring it home to them as a genuinely significant principle? [sidenote: only flexibility of procedure gives a recitation vitality] [sidenote: any step may come first] no teacher can fail to teach better if he has considered such questions somewhat systematically. but the more the teacher has reflected upon pupils' probable intellectual response to a topic from the various stand-points indicated by the five formal steps, the more he will be prepared to conduct the recitation in a flexible and free way, and yet not let the subject go to pieces and the pupils' attention drift in all directions; the less necessary will he find it, in order to preserve a semblance of intellectual order, to follow some one uniform scheme. he will be ready to take advantage of any sign of vital response that shows itself from any direction. one pupil may already have some inkling--probably erroneous--of a general principle. application may then come at the very beginning in order to show that the principle will not work, and thereby induce search for new facts and a new generalization. or the abrupt presentation of some fact or object may so stimulate the minds of pupils as to render quite superfluous any preliminary preparation. if pupils' minds are at work at all, it is quite impossible that they should wait until the teacher has conscientiously taken them through the steps of preparation, presentation, and comparison before they form at least a working hypothesis or generalization. moreover, unless comparison of the familiar and the unfamiliar is introduced at the beginning, both preparation and presentation will be aimless and without logical motive, isolated, and in so far meaningless. the student's mind cannot be prepared at large, but only for something in particular, and presentation is usually the best way of evoking associations. the emphasis may fall now on the familiar concept that will help grasp the new, now on the new facts that frame the problem; but in either case it is comparison and contrast with the other term of the pair which gives either its force. in short, to transfer the logical steps from the points that the teacher needs to consider to uniform successive steps in the conduct of a recitation, is to impose the logical review of a mind that already understands the subject, upon the mind that is struggling to comprehend it, and thereby to obstruct the logic of the student's own mind. § 2. _the factors in the recitation_ bearing in mind that the formal steps represent intertwined factors of a student's progress and not mileposts on a beaten highway, we may consider each by itself. in so doing, it will be convenient to follow the example of many of the herbartians and reduce the steps to three: first, the apprehension of specific or particular facts; second, rational generalization; third, application and verification. [sidenote: preparation is getting the sense of a problem] i. the processes having to do with particular facts are preparation and presentation. the best, indeed the only preparation is arousal to a perception of something that needs explanation, something unexpected, puzzling, peculiar. when the feeling of a genuine perplexity lays hold of any mind (no matter how the feeling arises), that mind is alert and inquiring, because stimulated from within. the shock, the bite, of a question will force the mind to go wherever it is capable of going, better than will the most ingenious pedagogical devices unaccompanied by this mental ardor. it is the sense of a problem that forces the mind to a survey and recall of the past to discover what the question means and how it may be dealt with. [sidenote: pitfalls in preparation] the teacher in his more deliberate attempts to call into play the familiar elements in a student's experience, must guard against certain dangers. (_i_) the step of preparation must not be too long continued or too exhaustive, or it defeats its own end. the pupil loses interest and is bored, when a plunge _in medias res_ might have braced him to his work. the preparation part of the recitation period of some conscientious teachers reminds one of the boy who takes so long a run in order to gain headway for a jump that when he reaches the line, he is too tired to jump far. (_ii_) the organs by which we apprehend new material are our habits. to insist too minutely upon turning over habitual dispositions into conscious ideas is to interfere with their best workings. some factors of familiar experience must indeed be brought to conscious recognition, just as transplanting is necessary for the best growth of some plants. but it is fatal to be forever digging up either experiences or plants to see how they are getting along. constraint, self-consciousness, embarrassment, are the consequence of too much conscious refurbishing of familiar experiences. [sidenote: statement of aim of lesson] strict herbartians generally lay it down that statement--by the teacher--of the aim of a lesson is an indispensable part of preparation. this preliminary statement of the aim of the lesson hardly seems more intellectual in character, however, than tapping a bell or giving any other signal for attention and transfer of thoughts from diverting subjects. to the teacher the statement of an end is significant, because he has already been at the end; from a pupil's standpoint the statement of what he is _going_ to learn is something of an irish bull. if the statement of the aim is taken too seriously by the instructor, as meaning more than a signal to attention, its probable result is forestalling the pupil's own reaction, relieving him of the responsibility of developing a problem and thus arresting his mental initiative. [sidenote: how much the teacher should tell or show] it is unnecessary to discuss at length presentation as a factor in the recitation, because our last chapter covered the topic under the captions of observation and communication. the function of presentation is to supply materials that force home the nature of a problem and furnish suggestions for dealing with it. the practical problem of the teacher is to preserve a balance between so little showing and telling as to fail to stimulate reflection and so much as to choke thought. provided the student is genuinely engaged upon a topic, and provided the teacher is willing to give the student a good deal of leeway as to what he assimilates and retains (not requiring rigidly that everything be grasped or reproduced), there is comparatively little danger that one who is himself enthusiastic will communicate too much concerning a topic. [sidenote: the pupil's responsibility for making out a reasonable case] ii. the distinctively rational phase of reflective inquiry consists, as we have already seen, in the elaboration of an idea, or working hypothesis, through conjoint comparison and contrast, terminating in definition or formulation. (_i_) so far as the recitation is concerned, the primary requirement is that the student be held responsible for working out mentally every suggested principle so as to show what he means by it, how it bears upon the facts at hand, and how the facts bear upon it. unless the pupil is made responsible for developing on his own account the _reasonableness_ of the guess he puts forth, the recitation counts for practically nothing in the training of reasoning power. a clever teacher easily acquires great skill in dropping out the inept and senseless contributions of pupils, and in selecting and emphasizing those in line with the result he wishes to reach. but this method (sometimes called "suggestive questioning") relieves the pupils of intellectual responsibility, save for acrobatic agility in following the teacher's lead. [sidenote: the necessity for mental leisure] (_ii_) the working over of a vague and more or less casual idea into coherent and definite form is impossible without a pause, without freedom from distraction. we say "stop and think"; well, all reflection involves, at some point, stopping external observations and reactions so that an idea may mature. meditation, withdrawal or abstraction from clamorous assailants of the senses and from demands for overt action, is as necessary at the reasoning stage, as are observation and experiment at other periods. the metaphors of digestion and assimilation, that so readily occur to mind in connection with rational elaboration, are highly instructive. a silent, uninterrupted working-over of considerations by comparing and weighing alternative suggestions, is indispensable for the development of coherent and compact conclusions. reasoning is no more akin to disputing or arguing, or to the abrupt seizing and dropping of suggestions, than digestion is to a noisy champing of the jaws. the teacher must secure opportunity for leisurely mental digestion. [sidenote: a typical central object necessary] (_iii_) in the process of comparison, the teacher must avert the distraction that ensues from putting before the mind a number of facts on the same level of importance. since attention is selective, some one object normally claims thought and furnishes the center of departure and reference. this fact is fatal to the success of the pedagogical methods that endeavor to conduct comparison on the basis of putting before the mind a row of objects of equal importance. in comparing, the mind does not naturally begin with objects _a_, _b_, _c_, _d_, and try to find the respect in which they agree. it begins with a single object or situation more or less vague and inchoate in meaning, and makes excursions to other objects in order to render understanding of the central object consistent and clear. the mere multiplication of objects of comparison is adverse to successful reasoning. each fact brought within the field of comparison should clear up some obscure feature or extend some fragmentary trait of the primary object. [sidenote: importance of types] in short, pains should be taken to see that the object on which thought centers is _typical_: material being typical when, although individual or specific, it is such as readily and fruitfully suggests the principles of an entire class of facts. no sane person begins to think about rivers wholesale or at large. he begins with the one river that has presented some puzzling trait. then he studies other rivers to get light upon the baffling features of this one, and at the same time he employs the characteristic traits of his original object to reduce to order the multifarious details that appear in connection with other rivers. this working back and forth preserves unity of meaning, while protecting it from monotony and narrowness. contrast, unlikeness, throws significant features into relief, and these become instruments for binding together into an organized or coherent meaning dissimilar characters. the mind is defended against the deadening influence of many isolated particulars and also against the barrenness of a merely formal principle. particular cases and properties supply emphasis and concreteness; general principles convert the particulars into a single system. [sidenote: all insight into meaning effects generalization] (_iv_) hence generalization is not a separate and single act; it is rather a constant tendency and function of the entire discussion or recitation. every step forward toward an idea that comprehends, that explains, that unites what was isolated and therefore puzzling, generalizes. the little child generalizes as truly as the adolescent or adult, even though he does not arrive at the same generalities. if he is studying a river basin, his knowledge is generalized in so far as the various details that he apprehends are found to be the effects of a single force, as that of water pushing downward from gravity, or are seen to be successive stages of a single history of formation. even if there were acquaintance with only one river, knowledge of it under such conditions would be generalized knowledge. [sidenote: insight into meaning requires formulation] the factor of formulation, of conscious stating, involved in generalization, should also be a constant function, not a single formal act. definition means essentially the growth of a meaning out of vagueness into _definiteness_. such final verbal definition as takes place should be only the culmination of a steady growth in distinctness. in the reaction against ready-made verbal definitions and rules, the pendulum should never swing to the opposite extreme, that of neglecting to summarize the net meaning that emerges from dealing with particular facts. only as general summaries are made from time to time does the mind reach a conclusion or a resting place; and only as conclusions are reached is there an intellectual deposit available in future understanding. [sidenote: generalization means capacity for application to the new] iii. as the last words indicate, application and generalization lie close together. mechanical skill for further use may be achieved without any explicit recognition of a principle; nay, in routine and narrow technical matters, conscious formulation may be a hindrance. but without recognition of a principle, without generalization, the power gained cannot be transferred to new and dissimilar matters. the inherent significance of generalization is that it frees a meaning from local restrictions; rather, generalization _is_ meaning so freed; it is meaning emancipated from accidental features so as to be available in new cases. the surest test for detecting a spurious generalization (a statement general in verbal form but not accompanied by discernment of meaning), is the failure of the so-called principle spontaneously to extend itself. the essence of the general is application. (_ante_, p. 29.) [sidenote: fossilized _versus_ flexible principles] the true purpose of exercises that apply rules and principles is, then, not so much to drive or drill them in as to give adequate insight into an idea or principle. to treat application as a separate final step is disastrous. in every judgment some meaning is employed as a basis for estimating and interpreting some fact; by this application the meaning is itself enlarged and tested. when the general meaning is regarded as complete in itself, application is treated as an external, non-intellectual use to which, for practical purposes alone, it is advisable to put the meaning. the principle is one self-contained thing; its use is another and independent thing. when this divorce occurs, principles become fossilized and rigid; they lose their inherent vitality, their self-impelling power. [sidenote: self-application a mark of genuine principles] a true conception is a _moving_ idea, and it seeks outlet, or application to the interpretation of particulars and the guidance of action, as naturally as water runs downhill. in fine, just as reflective thought requires particular facts of observation and events of action for its origination, so it also requires particular facts and deeds for its own consummation. "glittering generalities" are inert because they are spurious. application is as much an intrinsic part of genuine reflective inquiry as is alert observation or reasoning itself. truly general principles tend to apply themselves. the teacher needs, indeed, to supply conditions favorable to use and exercise; but something is wrong when artificial tasks have arbitrarily to be invented in order to secure application for principles. chapter sixteen some general conclusions we shall conclude our survey of how we think and how we should think by presenting some factors of thinking which should balance each other, but which constantly tend to become so isolated that they work against each other instead of cooperating to make reflective inquiry efficient. § 1. _the unconscious and the conscious_ [sidenote: the _understood_ as the unconsciously assumed] it is significant that one meaning of the term _understood_ is something so thoroughly mastered, so completely agreed upon, as to be _assumed_; that is to say, taken as a matter of course without explicit statement. the familiar "goes without saying" means "it is understood." if two persons can converse intelligently with each other, it is because a common experience supplies a background of mutual understanding upon which their respective remarks are projected. to dig up and to formulate this common background would be imbecile; it is "understood"; that is, it is silently supplied and implied as the taken-for-granted medium of intelligent exchange of ideas. [sidenote: inquiry as conscious formulation] if, however, the two persons find themselves at cross-purposes, it is necessary to dig up and compare the presuppositions, the implied context, on the basis of which each is speaking. the implicit is made explicit; what was unconsciously assumed is exposed to the light of conscious day. in this way, the root of the misunderstanding is removed. some such rhythm of the unconscious and the conscious is involved in all fruitful thinking. a person in pursuing a consecutive train of thoughts takes some system of ideas for granted (which accordingly he leaves unexpressed, "unconscious") as surely as he does in conversing with others. some context, some situation, some controlling purpose dominates his explicit ideas so thoroughly that it does not need to be consciously formulated and expounded. explicit thinking goes on within the limits of what is implied or understood. yet the fact that reflection originates in a problem makes it necessary _at some points_ consciously to inspect and examine this familiar background. we have to turn upon some unconscious assumption and make it explicit. [sidenote: rules cannot be given for attaining a balance] no rules can be laid down for attaining the due balance and rhythm of these two phases of mental life. no ordinance can prescribe at just what point the spontaneous working of some unconscious attitude and habit is to be checked till we have made explicit what is implied in it. no one can tell in detail just how far the analytic inspection and formulation are to be carried. we can say that they must be carried far enough so that the individual will know what he is about and be able to guide his thinking; but in a given case just how far is that? we can say that they must be carried far enough to detect and guard against the source of some false perception or reasoning, and to get a leverage on the investigation; but such statements only restate the original difficulty. since our reliance must be upon the disposition and tact of the individual in the particular case, there is no test of the success of an education more important than the extent to which it nurtures a type of mind competent to maintain an economical balance of the unconscious and the conscious. [sidenote: the over-_analytic_ to be avoided] the ways of teaching criticised in the foregoing pages as false "analytic" methods of instruction (_ante_, p. 112), all reduce themselves to the mistake of directing explicit attention and formulation to what would work better if left an unconscious attitude and working assumption. to pry into the familiar, the usual, the automatic, simply for the sake of making it conscious, simply for the sake of formulating it, is both an impertinent interference, and a source of boredom. to be forced to dwell consciously upon the accustomed is the essence of ennui; to pursue methods of instruction that have that tendency is deliberately to cultivate lack of interest. [sidenote: the detection of error, the clinching of truth, demand conscious statement] on the other hand, what has been said in criticism of merely routine forms of skill, what has been said about the importance of having a genuine problem, of introducing the novel, and of reaching a deposit of general meaning weighs on the other side of the scales. it is as fatal to good thinking to fail to make conscious the standing source of some error or failure as it is to pry needlessly into what works smoothly. to over-simplify, to exclude the novel for the sake of prompt skill, to avoid obstacles for the sake of averting errors, is as detrimental as to try to get pupils to formulate everything they know and to state every step of the process employed in getting a result. where the shoe pinches, analytic examination is indicated. when a topic is to be clinched so that knowledge of it will carry over into an effective resource in further topics, conscious condensation and summarizing are imperative. in the early stage of acquaintance with a subject, a good deal of unconstrained unconscious mental play about it may be permitted, even at the risk of some random experimenting; in the later stages, conscious formulation and review may be encouraged. projection and reflection, going directly ahead and turning back in scrutiny, should alternate. unconsciousness gives spontaneity and freshness; consciousness, conviction and control. § 2. _process and product_ [sidenote: play and work again] a like balance in mental life characterizes process and product. we met one important phase of this adjustment in considering play and work. in play, interest centers in activity, without much reference to its outcome. the sequence of deeds, images, emotions, suffices on its own account. in work, the end holds attention and controls the notice given to means. since the difference is one of direction of interest, the contrast is one of emphasis, not of cleavage. when comparative prominence in consciousness of activity or outcome is transformed into isolation of one from the other, play degenerates into fooling, and work into drudgery. [sidenote: play should not be fooling,] by "fooling" we understand a series of disconnected temporary overflows of energy dependent upon whim and accident. when all reference to outcome is eliminated from the sequence of ideas and acts that make play, each member of the sequence is cut loose from every other and becomes fantastic, arbitrary, aimless; mere fooling follows. there is some inveterate tendency to fool in children as well as in animals; nor is the tendency wholly evil, for at least it militates against falling into ruts. but when it is excessive in amount, dissipation and disintegration follow; and the only way of preventing this consequence is to make regard for results enter into even the freest play activity. [sidenote: nor work, drudgery] exclusive interest in the result alters work to drudgery. for by drudgery is meant those activities in which the interest in the outcome does not suffuse the means of getting the result. whenever a piece of work becomes drudgery, the process of doing loses all value for the doer; he cares solely for what is to be had at the end of it. the work itself, the putting forth of energy, is hateful; it is just a necessary evil, since without it some important end would be missed. now it is a commonplace that in the work of the world many things have to be done the doing of which is not intrinsically very interesting. however, the argument that children should be kept doing drudgery-tasks because thereby they acquire power to be faithful to distasteful duties, is wholly fallacious. repulsion, shirking, and evasion are the consequences of having the repulsive imposed--not loyal love of duty. willingness to work for ends by means of acts not naturally attractive is best attained by securing such an appreciation of the value of the end that a sense of its value is transferred to its means of accomplishment. not interesting in themselves, they borrow interest from the result with which they are associated. [sidenote: balance of playfulness and seriousness the intellectual ideal] [sidenote: free play of mind] [sidenote: is normal in childhood] the intellectual harm accruing from divorce of work and play, product and process, is evidenced in the proverb, "all work and no play makes jack a dull boy." that the obverse is true is perhaps sufficiently signalized in the fact that fooling is so near to foolishness. to be playful and serious at the same time is possible, and it defines the ideal mental condition. absence of dogmatism and prejudice, presence of intellectual curiosity and flexibility, are manifest in the free play of the mind upon a topic. to give the mind this free play is not to encourage toying with a subject, but is to be interested in the unfolding of the subject on its own account, apart from its subservience to a preconceived belief or habitual aim. mental play is open-mindedness, faith in the power of thought to preserve its own integrity without external supports and arbitrary restrictions. hence free mental play involves seriousness, the earnest following of the development of subject-matter. it is incompatible with carelessness or flippancy, for it exacts accurate noting of every result reached in order that every conclusion may be put to further use. what is termed the interest in truth for its own sake is certainly a serious matter, yet this pure interest in truth coincides with love of the free play of thought. in spite of many appearances to the contrary--usually due to social conditions of either undue superfluity that induces idle fooling or undue economic pressure that compels drudgery--childhood normally realizes the ideal of conjoint free mental play and thoughtfulness. successful portrayals of children have always made their wistful intentness at least as obvious as their lack of worry for the morrow. to live in the present is compatible with condensation of far-reaching meanings in the present. such enrichment of the present for its own sake is the just heritage of childhood and the best insurer of future growth. the child forced into premature concern with economic remote results may develop a surprising sharpening of wits in a particular direction, but this precocious specialization is always paid for by later apathy and dullness. [sidenote: the attitude of the artist] that art originated in play is a common saying. whether or not the saying is historically correct, it suggests that harmony of mental playfulness and seriousness describes the artistic ideal. when the artist is preoccupied overmuch with means and materials, he may achieve wonderful technique, but not the artistic spirit _par excellence_. when the animating idea is in excess of the command of method, æsthetic feeling may be indicated, but the art of presentation is too defective to express the feeling thoroughly. when the thought of the end becomes so adequate that it compels translation into the means that embody it, or when attention to means is inspired by recognition of the end they serve, we have the attitude typical of the artist, an attitude that may be displayed in all activities, even though not conventionally designated arts. [sidenote: the art of the teacher culminates in nurturing this attitude] that teaching is an art and the true teacher an artist is a familiar saying. now the teacher's own claim to rank as an artist is measured by his ability to foster the attitude of the artist in those who study with him, whether they be youth or little children. some succeed in arousing enthusiasm, in communicating large ideas, in evoking energy. so far, well; but the final test is whether the stimulus thus given to wider aims succeeds in transforming itself into power, that is to say, into the attention to detail that ensures mastery over means of execution. if not, the zeal flags, the interest dies out, the ideal becomes a clouded memory. other teachers succeed in training facility, skill, mastery of the technique of subjects. again it is well--so far. but unless enlargement of mental vision, power of increased discrimination of final values, a sense for ideas--for principles--accompanies this training, forms of skill ready to be put indifferently to any end may be the result. such modes of technical skill may display themselves, according to circumstances, as cleverness in serving self-interest, as docility in carrying out the purposes of others, or as unimaginative plodding in ruts. to nurture inspiring aim and executive means into harmony with each other is at once the difficulty and the reward of the teacher. § 3. _the far and the near_ [sidenote: "familiarity breeds contempt,"] teachers who have heard that they should avoid matters foreign to pupils' experience, are frequently surprised to find pupils wake up when something beyond their ken is introduced, while they remain apathetic in considering the familiar. in geography, the child upon the plains seems perversely irresponsive to the intellectual charms of his local environment, and fascinated by whatever concerns mountains or the sea. teachers who have struggled with little avail to extract from pupils essays describing the details of things with which they are well acquainted, sometimes find them eager to write on lofty or imaginary themes. a woman of education, who has recorded her experience as a factory worker, tried retelling _little women_ to some factory girls during their working hours. they cared little for it, saying, "those girls had no more interesting experience than we have," and demanded stories of millionaires and society leaders. a man interested in the mental condition of those engaged in routine labor asked a scotch girl in a cotton factory what she thought about all day. she replied that as soon as her mind was free from starting the machinery, she married a duke, and their fortunes occupied her for the remainder of the day. [sidenote: since only the novel demands attention,] naturally, these incidents are not told in order to encourage methods of teaching that appeal to the sensational, the extraordinary, or the incomprehensible. they are told, however, to enforce the point that the familiar and the near do not excite or repay thought on their own account, but only as they are adjusted to mastering the strange and remote. it is a commonplace of psychology that we do not attend to the old, nor consciously mind that to which we are thoroughly accustomed. for this, there is good reason: to devote attention to the old, when new circumstances are constantly arising to which we should adjust ourselves, would be wasteful and dangerous. thought must be reserved for the new, the precarious, the problematic. hence the mental constraint, the sense of being lost, that comes to pupils when they are invited to turn their thoughts upon that with which they are already familiar. the old, the near, the accustomed, is not that _to_ which but that _with_ which we attend; it does not furnish the material of a problem, but of its solution. [sidenote: which, in turn, can be given only through the old] the last sentence has brought us to the balancing of new and old, of the far and that close by, involved in reflection. the more remote supplies the stimulus and the motive; the nearer at hand furnishes the point of approach and the available resources. this principle may also be stated in this form: the best thinking occurs when the easy and the difficult are duly proportioned to each other. the easy and the familiar are equivalents, as are the strange and the difficult. too much that is easy gives no ground for inquiry; too much of the hard renders inquiry hopeless. [sidenote: the given and the suggested] the necessity of the interaction of the near and the far follows directly from the nature of thinking. where there is thought, something present suggests and indicates something absent. accordingly unless the familiar is presented under conditions that are in some respect unusual, it gives no jog to thinking, it makes no demand upon what is not present in order to be understood. and if the subject presented is totally strange, there is no basis upon which it may suggest anything serviceable for its comprehension. when a person first has to do with fractions, for example, they will be wholly baffling so far as they do not signify to him some relation that he has already mastered in dealing with whole numbers. when fractions have become thoroughly familiar, his perception of them acts simply as a signal to do certain things; they are a "substitute sign," to which he can react without thinking. (_ante_, p. 178.) if, nevertheless, the situation as a whole presents something novel and hence uncertain, the entire response is not mechanical, because this mechanical operation is put to use in solving a problem. there is no end to this spiral process: foreign subject-matter transformed through thinking into a familiar possession becomes a resource for judging and assimilating additional foreign subject-matter. [sidenote: observation supplies the near, imagination the remote] the need for both imagination and observation in every mental enterprise illustrates another aspect of the same principle. teachers who have tried object-lessons of the conventional type have usually found that when the lessons were new, pupils were attracted to them as a diversion, but as soon as they became matters of course they were as dull and wearisome as was ever the most mechanical study of mere symbols. imagination could not play about the objects so as to enrich them. the feeling that instruction in "facts, facts" produces a narrow gradgrind is justified not because facts in themselves are limiting, but because facts are dealt out as such hard and fast ready-made articles as to leave no room to imagination. let the facts be presented so as to stimulate imagination, and culture ensues naturally enough. the converse is equally true. the imaginative is not necessarily the imaginary; that is, the unreal. the proper function of imagination is vision of realities that cannot be exhibited under existing conditions of sense-perception. clear insight into the remote, the absent, the obscure is its aim. history, literature, and geography, the principles of science, nay, even geometry and arithmetic, are full of matters that must be imaginatively realized if they are realized at all. imagination supplements and deepens observation; only when it turns into the fanciful does it become a substitute for observation and lose logical force. [sidenote: experience through communication of others' experience] a final exemplification of the required balance between near and far is found in the relation that obtains between the narrower field of experience realized in an individual's own contact with persons and things, and the wider experience of the race that may become his through communication. instruction always runs the risk of swamping the pupil's own vital, though narrow, experience under masses of communicated material. the instructor ceases and the teacher begins at the point where communicated matter stimulates into fuller and more significant life that which has entered by the strait and narrow gate of sense-perception and motor activity. genuine communication involves contagion; its name should not be taken in vain by terming communication that which produces no community of thought and purpose between the child and the race of which he is the heir. index abstract, 135-144 abstraction, 155 f. action, activity, activities, 46, 140 f., 157-169, 190 f. active attitude and the concept, 128 analysis, 111-115, 152 f.; in education, 112 apperception, 199; apperceptive masses, 203 application, 129 f., 212 f. apprehension, 119 f.; _see_ understanding. artist, attitude of, 219 f. articulation, 3 authority, 4, 25 bacon, 22, 25, 33 bain, 155 balance, 38 behavior, 5, 42-4, 54 f.; _see_ action, occupations belief, 1, 3-7; reached indirectly, 18 central factor in thinking, 7 children, 42 f. clifford, 148 coherence, 3, 80 comparison, 89 f., 202 comprehension, 120; _see_ understanding. concentration, 40 concept, conception, 107, 125-9, 213; _see_ meaning. conclusion, 3, 5 f., 40, 77, 80 f.; technique of, 87 f. concrete, 135-44 congruity, 3, 72 connection, 7; _see_ relation. consecutive, 2, 40, 42 consequence, consequential, 2; consequences, 5 consistency, 40 continuity, 3, 40, 80 control, 18-28; of deduction, 93-100; of induction, 84-93; of suggestion, 84 f., 93; _see_ regulation. corroborate, corroboration, 9, 77 curiosity, 31 ff., 105 darwin, 38, 90, 127 data, 79 f., 95, 103 f., 106 decision, 107 deduction, 79, 93-100, 103; control of, 93-100 definition, 130 f.; definitions, 131-4, 212 development, of ideas, 83; _see_ elaboration, ratiocination, reasoning. discipline, 63, 78; formal, 45, 50 discourse, consecutive, 185 f. discovery, inductive, 81, 116 division, 131 dogmatism, 149, 198 doing, 139, 190 doubt, 6, 9, 13, 102; _see_ perplexity, uncertainty. drill, 52, 63 drudgery, 218 education, intellectual, 57, 62; aim of, 143 f., 156 elaboration, of ideas, 75 f., 84, 94 f., 103, 106, 209; _see_ development, ratiocination, reasoning. emerson, 173 emotion, 4, 11, 74 emphasis, 112, 114 f. empirical thinking, 145-9 end, 11 f. evidence, 5, 7 f., 27, 103 f.; _see_ grounds. experience, 132, 156, 199 f., 224 experiment, experimental, 70 f., 77, 91 f., 99 f., 151 f., 154 extension, 130 f. fact _vs_ idea, 109; facts, 3, 5 faculty psychology, 45 familiar, familiarity, 120-25, 136 f., 206, 214 f., 221 f. fooling, 217 formalism; _see_ discipline. formal steps of instruction, 202, 206 formulation, 112 f., 209, 212, 214-17 freedom, 64 f.; intellectual, 66 function, 123; function of signifying, 7, 15 general 80, 82, 99, 182 f.; _see_ principles, universal. generality, 129, 134 generalization, 211 f. grounds, 1, 4-8, 80; _see_ evidence. guiding factor in reflection, 11 habits; _see_ action. herbart, 202 herbartian method, 202-6 hobhouse, 31 hypothesis, 5, 75, 77, 81 f., 94 f., 108, 209 idea, 75, 77, 79, 107-10; _see_ meaning. idle thinking, 2 image, 109 imagination, 165 f., 223 f. imitation, 47, 51, 160 implication, 5, 75, 77 impulse, 64 induction, 79-93, 103; control of, 84-93; scientific, 86 inference, 26 f., 75, 77, 101; critical, 74, 82; systematic, 81 information, 52 f., 197-200 inquiry, 5, 9 f. intellect, intellectual activity, 44, 50, 62 intension, 130 f. internal congruity, 3 isolation, 96-100, 117, 191 james, 119, 121, 153 f. jevons, 91 f., 183, 192 judgment, 5; factors of, 101; good judgment, 101, 103, 106 f.; and inference, 101 ff.; intuitive, 104 f.; principles of, 106 f.; suspended, 74, 82, 105, 108; tentative, 101 knowledge, 3 f., 6, 95; spiral movement of, 120, 223 language, 170-87; and education, 176-87; and meaning, 171; technical, 184 f.; as a tool of thought, 170 ff., 179 leap, in inference, 26, 75 leisure, 209 f. locke, 19 n., 22-5 logical, 56 f.; _vs._ psychological, 62 f. meaning, meanings, 7, 17, 79 f., 82, 94, 116-34; capital fund of, store of, 118, 120, 126, 161, 174, 180; individual, 173 f.; organization of, 175, 185; as tools, keys, instruments, 108 f., 120, 125 f., 129; _see_ concept. memory, 107 method, 46-50, 58; analytic and synthetic, 114; formal, 60 mill, 18 n. mood, 5 motivation, 42 negative cases, 90 notion. _see_ concept. object lessons, 140, 192 observation, 3, 7, 69 f., 76 f., 85, 91, 96, 188-97, 223 f.; in schools, 193-7; scientific, 196 occupation, occupations, 43, 99, 167 f. openmindedness, 219 order, orderliness, 2, 39, 41, 46, 57; _see_ consecutive. organization, 39, 41; of subject matter, 62 originality, 198 particulars, 80, 82; _cf._ general, universal. passion, 4, 23, 25, 106 perception, 3, 190; _cf._ observation perplexity, 9, 11, 72 placing, 114, 126 play, 161-7, 217-21; of mind, 219 playfulness, 162, 218 f. practical deliberation, 68 f. prejudice, 4 principles, 212 f. problem, 9, 12, 33, 72, 74, 76, 109, 120, 191 f., 199, 207 proof, 7, 27, 81 pseudo-idea, 109 psychological (_vs._ logical), 62 f. purpose, 11 ratiocination, 75 f., 83 reason, reasoning, 75-8, 94 f., 98 reasons, 5 f. recitation, 201-13; factors in, 206-13 reflection, 2 f., 5 f.; central function of, 116; double movement of, 79-84; five steps in, 72-8, 203 f. regulation, 18-28; _see_ control. relation, relationship, 82, 97; _see_ connection. scientific thinking, 145-6 sense training, 190-97 sequence, 2; _cf._ consequence. sidgwick, 127 signify, 7, 15 signs, 16, 171-6 spiral movement, _see_ knowledge. stimulus-response, 47 studies, types of, 50 subject matter, 58 f.; intellectual, 45 f.; logical, 61 f.; practical, 49; theoretical, 49; and the teacher, 204 f. substitute signs, 177 f., 223 succession, 3 suggestion, 7, 12, 27, 74 f., 84 f.; control of, 84 f., 93; dimensions of, 34-7 supposition, 4, 9 suspense of judgment, 13, 74, 82 symbols, _see_ signs. synthesis, 114 f. terms, 3, 72 f., 76, 79, 95 testing, 9, 13, 41, 82, 116; of deduction, 96, 99 theory, 138 theoretical, 137 thinking, complete, 96, 98 f., 100; _see_ reasoning, reflection. thought, 8 f.; educative value of, 2; reflective, 2; train of, 3; types of, 1 truth, truths, 3 uncertainty, _see_ doubt, perplexity. unconscious, 214 ff. uncritical thinking, 12 understanding, 116-20; direct and indirect, 118-20, 136 universal, 9 vagueness, 129 f., 182, 212 vailati, 81 n. venn, 17 verification, 77 vocabulary, 180-4 ward, 110 n. warrant, 7 wisdom, 52 wonder, 31, 33 f. wordsworth, 31 work, 162-7, 217-19 [transcriber's note: on p. 435, there are four instances of "2" in brackets. {2} indicates a subscript 2. ^{2} indicates a superscript 2. [+] in footnote 69 indicates a larger than normal plus sign. remaining transcriber's notes are at the end of the text.] essays in experimental logic _by_ john dewey the university of chicago press chicago, illinois copyright 1916 by the university of chicago all rights reserved published june 1916 second impression may 1918 third impression october 1920 composed and printed by the university of chicago press chicago, illinois, u.s.a. prefatory note in 1903 a volume was published by the university of chicago press, entitled _studies in logical theory_, as a part of the "decennial publications" of the university. the volume contained contributions by drs. thompson (now mrs. woolley), mclennan, ashley, gore, heidel, stuart, and moore, in addition to four essays by the present writer who was also general editor of the volume. the edition of the _studies_ being recently exhausted, the director of the press suggested that my own essays be reprinted, together with other studies of mine in the same field. the various contributors to the original volume cordially gave assent, and the present volume is the outcome. chaps. ii-v, inclusive, represent (with editorial revisions, mostly omissions) the essays taken from the old volume. the first and introductory chapter has been especially written for the volume. the other essays are in part reprinted and in part rewritten, with additions, from various contributions to philosophical periodicals. i should like to point out that the essay on "some stages of logical thought" antedates the essays taken from the volume of _studies_, having been published in 1900; the other essays have been written since then. i should also like to point out that the essays in their psychological phases are written from the standpoint of what is now termed a behavioristic psychology, though some of them antedate the use of that term as a descriptive epithet. j. d. columbia university april 3, 1916 table of contents page i. introduction 1 ii. the relationship of thought and its subject-matter 75 iii. the antecedents and stimuli of thinking 103 iv. data and meanings 136 v. the objects of thought 157 vi. some stages of logical thought 183 vii. the logical character of ideas 220 viii. the control of ideas by facts 230 ix. naïve realism vs. presentative realism 250 x. epistemological realism: the alleged ubiquity of the knowledge relation 264 xi. the existence of the world as a logical problem 281 xii. what pragmatism means by practical 303 xiii. an added note as to the "practical" 330 xiv. the logic of judgments of practice 335 index 443 i introduction the key to understanding the doctrine of the essays which are herewith reprinted lies in the passages regarding the temporal development of experience. setting out from a conviction (more current at the time when the essays were written than it now is) that knowledge implies judgment (and hence, thinking) the essays try to show (1) that such terms as "thinking," "reflection," "judgment" denote inquiries or the results of inquiry, and (2) that inquiry occupies an intermediate and mediating place in the development of an experience. if this be granted, it follows at once that a philosophical discussion of the distinctions and relations which figure most largely in logical theories depends upon a proper placing of them in their temporal context; and that in default of such placing we are prone to transfer the traits of the subject-matter of one phase to that of another--with a confusing outcome. i 1. an intermediary stage for knowledge (that is, for knowledge comprising reflection and having a distinctively intellectual quality) implies a prior stage of a different kind, a kind variously characterized in the essays as social, affectional, technological, aesthetic, etc. it may most easily be described from a negative point of view: it is a type of experience which cannot be called a knowledge experience without doing violence to the term "knowledge" and to experience. it may contain knowledge resulting from prior inquiries; it may include thinking within itself; but not so that they dominate the situation and give it its peculiar flavor. positively, anyone recognizes the difference between an experience of quenching thirst where the perception of water is a mere incident, and an experience of water where knowledge of what water is, is the controlling interest; or between the enjoyment of social converse among friends and a study deliberately made of the character of one of the participants; between aesthetic appreciation of a picture and an examination of it by a connoisseur to establish the artist, or by a dealer who has a commercial interest in determining its probable selling value. the distinction between the two types of experience is evident to anyone who will take the trouble to recall what he does most of the time when not engaged in meditation or inquiry. but since one does not think about knowledge except when he is _thinking_, except, that is, when the intellectual or cognitional interest is dominant, the professional philosopher is only too prone to think of all experiences as if they were of the type he is specially engaged in, and hence unconsciously or intentionally to project _its_ traits into experiences to which they are alien. unless he takes the simple precaution of holding before his mind contrasting experiences like those just mentioned, he generally forms a habit of supposing that no qualities or things at all are present in experience except as objects of some kind of apprehension or awareness. overlooking, and afterward denying, that things and qualities are present to most men most of the time as things and qualities in situations of prizing and aversion, of seeking and finding, of converse, enjoyment and suffering, of production and employment, of manipulation and destruction, he thinks of things as either totally absent from experience or else there as objects of "consciousness" or knowing. this habit is a tribute to the _importance_ of reflection and of the knowledge which accrues from it. but a discussion of knowledge perverted at the outset by such a misconception is not likely to proceed prosperously. all this is not to deny that some element of reflection or inference may be required in any situation to which the term "experience" is applicable in any way which contrasts with, say, the "experience" of an oyster or a growing bean vine. men experience illness. what they experience is certainly something very different from an object of apprehension, yet it is quite possible that what makes an illness into a _conscious_ experience is precisely the intellectual elements which intervene--a certain taking of some things as representative of other things. my thesis about the primary character of non-reflectional experience is not intended to preclude this hypothesis--which appears to me a highly plausible one. but it is indispensable to note that, even in such cases, the intellectual element is set in a context which is non-cognitive and which holds within it in suspense a vast complex of other qualities and things that in the experience itself are objects of esteem or aversion, of decision, of use, of suffering, of endeavor and revolt, not of knowledge. when, in a subsequent reflective experience, we look back and find these things and qualities (quales would be a better word, or values, if the latter word were not so open to misconstruction), we are only too prone to suppose that they were then what they are now--objects of a cognitive regard, themes of an intellectual gesture. hence, the erroneous conclusion that things are either just out of experience, or else are (more or less badly) known objects. in any case the best way to study the character of those cognitional factors which are merely incidental in so many of our experiences is to study them in the type of experience where they are most prominent, where they dominate; where knowing, in short, is the prime concern. such study will also, by a reflex reference, throw into greater relief the contrasted characteristic traits of the non-reflectional types of experience. in such contrast the significant traits of the latter are seen to be internal organization: (1) the factors and qualities hang together; there is a great variety of them but they are saturated with a pervasive quality. being ill with the grippe is an experience which includes an immense diversity of factors, but none the less is the one qualitatively unique experience which it is. philosophers in their exclusively intellectual preoccupation with analytic knowing are only too much given to overlooking the primary import of the term "thing": namely, _res_, an affair, an occupation, a "cause"; something which is similar to having the grippe, or conducting a political campaign, or getting rid of an overstock of canned tomatoes, or going to school, or paying attention to a young woman:--in short, just what is meant in non-philosophic discourse by "an experience." noting things only as if they were objects--that is, objects of knowledge--continuity is rendered a mystery; qualitative, pervasive unity is too often regarded as a subjective state injected into an object which does not possess it, as a mental "construct," or else as a trait of being to be attained to only by recourse to some curious organ of knowledge termed intuition. in like fashion, organization is thought of as the achieved outcome of a highly scientific knowledge, or as the result of transcendental rational synthesis, or as a fiction superinduced by association, upon elements each of which in its own right "is a separate existence." one advantage of an excursion by one who philosophizes upon knowledge into primary non-reflectional experience is that the excursion serves to remind him that every empirical situation has its own organization of a direct, non-logical character. (2) another trait of every _res_ is that it has focus and context: brilliancy and obscurity, conspicuousness or apparency, and concealment or reserve, with a constant movement of redistribution. movement about an axis persists, but what is in focus constantly changes. "consciousness," in other words, is only a very small and shifting portion of experience. the scope and content of the focused apparency have immediate dynamic connections with portions of experience not at the time obvious. the word which i have just written is momentarily focal; around it there shade off into vagueness my typewriter, the desk, the room, the building, the campus, the town, and so on. _in_ the experience, and in it in such a way as to _qualify_ even what is shiningly apparent, are all the physical features of the environment extending out into space no one can say how far, and all the habits and interests extending backward and forward in time, of the organism which uses the typewriter and which notes the written form of the word only as temporary focus in a vast and changing scene. i shall not dwell upon the import of this fact in its critical bearings upon theories of experience which have been current. i shall only point out that when the word "experience" is employed in the text it means just such an immense and operative world of diverse and interacting elements. it might seem wiser, in view of the fact that the term "experience" is so frequently used by philosophers to denote something very different from such a world, to use an acknowledgedly objective term: to talk about the typewriter, for example. but experience in ordinary usage (as distinct from its technical use in psychology and philosophy) expressly denotes something which a specific term like "typewriter" does _not_ designate: namely, the indefinite range of context in which the typewriter is _actually_ set, its spatial and temporal environment, including the habitudes, plans, and activities of its operator. and if we are asked why not then use a general objective term like "world," or "environment," the answer is that the word "experience" suggests something indispensable which these terms omit: namely, an actual focusing of the world at one point in a focus of immediate shining apparency. in other words, in its ordinary human usage, the term "experience" was invented and employed previously because of the necessity of having some way to refer peremptorily to what is indicated in only a roundabout and divided way by such terms as "organism" and "environment," "subject" and "object," "persons" and "things," "mind" and "nature," and so on.[1] ii had this background of the essays been more explicitly depicted, i do not know whether they would have met with more acceptance, but it is likely that they would not have met with so many misunderstandings. but the essays, save for slight incidental references, took this background for granted in the allusions to the universe of non-reflectional experience of our doings, sufferings, enjoyments of the world and of one another. it was their purpose to point out that reflection (and, hence, knowledge having logical properties) arises because of the appearance of incompatible factors within the empirical situation just pointed at: incompatible not in a mere structural or static sense, but in an active and progressive sense. then opposed responses are provoked which cannot be taken simultaneously in overt action, and which accordingly can be dealt with, whether simultaneously or successively, only after they have been brought into a plan of organized action by means of analytic resolution and synthetic imaginative conspectus; in short, by means of being taken cognizance of. in other words, reflection appears as the dominant trait of a situation when there is something seriously the matter, some trouble, due to active discordance, dissentiency, conflict among the factors of a prior non-intellectual experience; when, in the phraseology of the essays, a situation becomes tensional.[2] given such a situation, it is obvious that the meaning of the situation as a whole is uncertain. through calling out two opposed modes of behavior, it presents itself as meaning two incompatible things. the only way out is through careful inspection of the situation, involving resolution into elements, and a going out beyond what is found upon such inspection to be given, to something else to get a leverage for understanding it. that is, we have (_a_) to locate the difficulty, and (_b_) to devise a method of coping with it. any such way of looking at thinking demands moreover that the difficulty be located _in_ the situation in question (very literally in question). knowing always has a _particular_ purpose, and its solution must be a function of its conditions in connection with _additional_ ones which are brought to bear. every reflective knowledge, in other words, has a specific task which is set by a concrete and empirical situation, so that it can perform that task only by detecting and remaining faithful to the conditions in the situation in which the difficulty arises, while its purpose is a reorganization of its factors in order to get unity. so far, however, there is no accomplished knowledge, but only knowledge coming to be--learning, in the classic greek conception. thinking gets no farther, as _thinking_, than a statement of elements constituting the difficulty at hand and a statement--a propounding, a proposition--of a method for resolving them. in fixing the framework of every reflective situation, this state of affairs also determines the further step which is needed if there is to be knowledge--knowledge in the eulogistic sense, as distinct from opinion, dogma, and guesswork, or from what casually passes current as knowledge. overt action is demanded if the worth or validity of the reflective considerations is to be determined. otherwise, we have, at most, only a hypothesis that the conditions of the difficulty are such and such, and that the way to go at them so as to get over or through them is thus and so. this way must be tried in action; it must be applied, physically, in the situation. by finding out what then happens, we test our intellectual findings--our logical terms or projected metes and bounds. if the required reorganization is effected, they are confirmed, and reflection (on that topic) ceases; if not, there is frustration, and inquiry continues. that all knowledge, as issuing from reflection, is experimental (in the literal physical sense of experimental) is then a constituent proposition of this doctrine. upon this view, thinking, or knowledge-getting, is far from being the armchair thing it is often supposed to be. the reason it is not an armchair thing is that it is not an event going on exclusively within the cortex or the cortex and vocal organs. it involves the explorations by which relevant data are procured and the physical analyses by which they are refined and made precise; it comprises the readings by which information is got hold of, the words which are experimented with, and the calculations by which the significance of entertained conceptions or hypotheses is elaborated. hands and feet, apparatus and appliances of all kinds are as much a part of it as changes in the brain. since these physical operations (including the cerebral events) and equipments are a part of thinking, thinking is mental, not because of a peculiar stuff which enters into it or of peculiar non-natural activities which constitute it, but because of what physical acts and appliances _do_: the distinctive purpose for which they are employed and the distinctive results which they accomplish. that reflection terminates, through a definitive overt act,[3] in another non-reflectional situation, within which incompatible responses may again in time be aroused, and so another problem in reflection be set, goes without saying. certain things about this situation, however, do not at the present time speak for themselves and need to be set forth. let me in the first place call attention to an ambiguity in the term "knowledge." the statement that all knowledge involves reflection--or, more concretely, that it denotes an inference from evidence--gives offense to many; it seems a departure from fact as well as a wilful limitation of the word "knowledge." i have in this introduction endeavored to mitigate the obnoxiousness of the doctrine by referring to "knowledge which is intellectual or logical in character." lest this expression be regarded as a futile evasion of a real issue, i shall now be more explicit. (1) it may well be admitted that there is a real sense in which knowledge (as distinct from thinking or inquiring with a guess attached) does not come into existence till thinking has terminated in the experimental act which fulfils the specifications set forth in thinking. but what is also true is that the object thus determined is an object of _knowledge_ only because of the thinking which has preceded it and to which it sets a happy term. to run against a hard and painful stone is not of itself, i should say, an act of knowing; but if running into a hard and painful thing is an outcome predicted after inspection of data and elaboration of a hypothesis, then the hardness and the painful bruise which define the thing as a stone also constitute it emphatically an object of knowledge. in short, the object of knowledge in the strict sense is its objective; and this objective is not constituted till it is reached. now this conclusion--as the word denotes--is thinking brought to a close, done with. if the reader does not find this statement satisfactory, he may, pending further discussion, at least recognize that the doctrine set forth has no difficulty in connecting knowledge with inference, and at the same time admitting that knowledge in the emphatic sense does not exist till inference has ceased. seen from this point of view, so-called immediate knowledge or simple apprehension or acquaintance-knowledge represents a critical skill, a certainty of response which has accrued in consequence of reflection. a like sureness of footing apart from prior investigations and testings is found in instinct and habit. i do not deny that these may be better than knowing, but i see no reason for complicating an already too confused situation by giving them the name "knowledge" with its usual intellectual implications. from this point of view, the subject-matter of knowledge is precisely that which we do _not_ think of, or mentally refer to in any way, being that which is taken as matter of course, but it is nevertheless knowledge in virtue of the inquiry which has led up to it. (2) definiteness, depth, and variety of meaning attach to the objects of an experience just in the degree in which they have been previously thought about, even when present in an experience in which they do not evoke inferential procedures at all. such terms as "meaning," "significance," "value," have a double sense. sometimes they mean a function: the office of one thing representing another, or pointing to it as implied; the operation, in short, of serving as sign. in the word "symbol" this meaning is practically exhaustive. but the terms also sometimes mean an inherent quality, a quality intrinsically characterizing the thing experienced and making it worth while. the word "sense," as in the phrase "sense of a thing" (and non-sense) is devoted to this use as definitely as are the words "sign" and "symbol" to the other. in such a pair as "import" and "importance," the first tends to select the reference to another thing while the second names an intrinsic content. in reflection, the extrinsic reference is always primary. the height of the mercury means rain; the color of the flame means sodium; the form of the curve means factors distributed accidentally. in the situation which follows upon reflection, meanings are intrinsic; they have no instrumental or subservient office, because they have no office at all. they are as much qualities of the objects in the situation as are red and black, hard and soft, square and round. and every reflective experience adds new shades of such intrinsic qualifications. in other words, while reflective knowing is instrumental to gaining control in a troubled situation (and thus has a practical or utilitarian force), it is also instrumental to the enrichment of the immediate significance of subsequent experiences. and it may well be that this by-product, this gift of the gods, is incomparably more valuable for living a life than is the primary and intended result of control, essential as is that control to having a life to live. words are treacherous in this field; there are no accepted criteria for assigning or measuring their meanings; but if one use the term "consciousness" to denote immediate values of objects, then it is certainly true that "consciousness is a lyric cry even in the midst of business." but it is equally true that if someone else understands by consciousness the function of effective reflection, then consciousness is a business--even in the midst of writing or singing lyrics. but the statement remains inadequate until we add that knowing as a business, inquiry and invention as enterprises, as practical acts, become themselves charged with the meaning of what they accomplish as _their_ own immediate quality. there exists no disjunction between aesthetic qualities which are final yet idle, and acts which are practical or instrumental. the latter have their own delights and sorrows. iii speaking, then, from the standpoint of temporal order, we find reflection, or thought, occupying an intermediate and reconstructive position. it comes between a temporally prior situation (an organized interaction of factors) of active and appreciative experience, wherein some of the factors have become discordant and incompatible, and a later situation, which has been constituted out of the first situation by means of acting on the findings of reflective inquiry. this final situation therefore has a richness of meaning, as well as a controlled character lacking to its original. by it is fixed the logical validity or intellectual force of the terms and relations distinguished by reflection. owing to the continuity of experience (the overlapping and recurrence of like problems), these logical fixations become of the greatest assistance to subsequent inquiries; they are its working means. in such further uses, they get further tested, defined, and elaborated, until the vast and refined systems of the technical objects and formulae of the sciences come into existence--a point to which we shall return later. owing to circumstances upon which it is unnecessary to dwell, the position thus sketched was not developed primarily upon its own independent account, but rather in the course of a criticism of another type of logic, the idealistic logic found in lotze. it is obvious that the theory in question has critical bearings. according to it, reflection in its distinctions and processes can be understood only when placed in its intermediate pivotal temporal position--as a process of control, through reorganization, of material alogical in character. it intimates that thinking would not exist, and hence knowledge would not be found, in a world which presented no troubles or where there are no "problems of evil"; and on the other hand that a reflective method is the only sure way of dealing with these troubles. it intimates that while the results of reflection, because of the continuity of experience, may be of wider scope than the situation which calls out a particular inquiry and invention, reflection itself is always specific in origin and aim; it always has something special to cope with. for troubles are concretely specific. it intimates also that thinking and reflective knowledge are never an end-all, never their own purpose nor justification, but that they pass naturally into a more direct and vital type of experience, whether technological or appreciative or social. this doctrine implies, moreover, that logical theory in its usual sense is essentially a descriptive study; that it is an account of the processes and tools which have actually been found effective in inquiry, comprising in the term "inquiry" both deliberate discovery and deliberate invention. since the doctrine was propounded in an intellectual environment where such statements were not commonplaces, where in fact a logic was reigning which challenged these convictions at every point, it is not surprising that it was put forth with a controversial coloring, being directed particularly at the dominant idealistic logic. the point of contact and hence the point of conflict between the logic set forth and the idealistic logic are not far to seek. the logic based on idealism had, as a matter of fact, treated knowledge from the standpoint of an account of thought--of thought in the sense of conception, judgment, and inferential reasoning. but while it had inherited this view from the older rationalism, it had also learned from hume, via kant, that direct sense or perceptual material must be taken into account. hence it had, in effect, formulated the problem of logic as the problem of the connection of logical thought with sense-material, and had attempted to set forth a metaphysics of reality based upon various ascending stages of the completeness of the rationalization or idealization of given, brute, fragmentary sense material by synthetic activity of thought. while considerations of a much less formal kind were chiefly influential in bringing idealism to its modern vogue, such as the conciliation of a scientific with a religious and moral point of view and the need of rationalizing social and historic institutions so as to explain their cultural effect, yet this logic constituted the _technique_ of idealism--its strictly intellectual claim for acceptance. the point of contact, and hence of conflict, between it and such a doctrine of logic and reflective thought as is set forth above is, i repeat, fairly obvious. both fix upon thinking as the key to the situation. i still believe (what i believed when i wrote the essays) that under the influence of idealism valuable analyses and formulations of the work of reflective thought, in its relation to securing knowledge of objects, were executed. but--and the but is one of exceptional gravity--the idealistic logic started from the distinction between immediate plural data and unifying, rationalizing meanings as a distinction ready-made in experience, and it set up as the goal of knowledge (and hence as the definition of true reality) a complete, exhaustive, comprehensive, and eternal system in which plural and immediate data are forever woven into a fabric and pattern of self-luminous meaning. in short, it ignored the temporally intermediate and instrumental place of reflection; and because it ignored and denied this place, it overlooked its essential feature: control of the environment in behalf of human progress and well-being, the effort at control being stimulated by the needs, the defects, the troubles, which accrue when the environment coerces and suppresses man or when man endeavors in ignorance to override the environment. hence it misconstrued the criterion of the work of intelligence; it set up as its criterion an absolute and non-temporal reality at large, instead of using the criterion of specific temporal achievement of consequences through a control supplied by reflection. and with this outcome, it proved faithless to the cause which had generated it and given it its reason for being: the magnification of the work of intelligence in our actual physical and social world. for a theory which ends by declaring that everything is, really and eternally, thoroughly ideal and rational, cuts the nerve of the specific demand and work of intelligence. from this general statement, let me descend to the technical point upon which turns the criticism of idealistic logic by the essays. grant, for a moment, as a hypothesis, that thinking starts neither from an implicit force of rationality desiring to realize itself completely in and through and against the limitations which are imposed upon it by the conditions of our human experience (as all idealisms have taught), nor from the fact that in each human being is a "mind" whose business it is just to "know"--to theorize in the aristotelian sense; but, rather, that it starts from an effort to get out of some trouble, actual or menacing. it is quite clear that the human race has tried many another way out besides reflective inquiry. its favorite resort has been a combination of magic and poetry, the former to get the needed relief and control; the latter to import into imagination, and hence into emotional consummation, the realizations denied in fact. but as far as reflection does emerge and gets a working foothold, the nature of its job is set for it. on the one hand, it must discover, it must find out, it must detect; it must inventory what is there. all this, or else it will never know what the matter is; the human being will not find out what "struck him," and hence will have no idea of where to seek for a remedy--for the needed control. on the other hand, it must invent, it must project, it must bring to bear upon the given situation what is not, as it exists, given as a part of it. this seems to be quite empirical and quite evident. the essays submitted the thesis that this simple dichotomization of the practical situation of power and enjoyment, when menaced, into what is there (whether as obstacle or as resource), and into suggested inventions--projections of something else to be brought to bear upon it, ways of dealing with it--is the explanation of the time-honored logical determinations of brute fact, datum and meaning or ideal quality; of (in more psychological terminology) sense-perception and conception; of particulars (parts, fragments) and universals-generics; and also of whatever there is of intrinsic significance in the traditional subject-predicate scheme of logic. it held, less formally, that this view explained the eulogistic connotations always attaching to "reason" and to the work of reason in effecting unity, harmony, comprehension, or synthesis, and to the traditional combination of a depreciatory attitude toward brute facts with a grudging concession of the necessity which thought is under of accepting them and taking them for its own subject-matter and checks. more specifically, it is held that this view supplied (and i should venture to say for the first time) an explanation of the traditional theory of truth as a correspondence or agreement of existence and mind or thought. it showed that the correspondence or agreement was like that between an invention and the conditions which the invention is intended to meet. thereby a lot of epistemological hangers-on to logic were eliminated; for the distinctions which epistemology had misunderstood were located where they belong:--in the art of inquiry, considered as a joint process of ascertainment and invention, projection, or "hypothesizing"--of which more below. iv the essays were published in 1903. at that time (as has been noted) idealism was in practical command of the philosophic field in both england and this country; the logics in vogue were profoundly influenced by kantian and post-kantian thought. empirical logics, those conceived under the influence of mill, still existed, but their light was dimmed by the radiance of the regnant idealism. moreover, from the standpoint of the doctrine expounded in the essays, the empirical logic committed the same logical fault as did the idealistic, in taking sense-data to be primitive (instead of being resolutions of the _things_ of prior experiences into elements for the aim of securing evidence); while it had no recognition of the specific service rendered by intelligence in the development of new meanings and plans of new actions. this state of things may explain the controversial nature of the essays, and their selection in particular of an idealistic logic for animadversion. since the essays were written, there has been an impressive revival of realism, and also a development of a type of logical theory--the so-called analytic logic--corresponding to the philosophical aspirations of the new realism. this marked alteration of intellectual environment subjects the doctrine of the essays to a test not contemplated when they were written. it is one thing to develop a hypothesis in view of a particular situation; it is another to test its worth in view of procedures and results having a radically different motivation and direction. it is, of course, impossible to discuss the analytic logic in this place. a consideration of how some of its main tenets compare with the conclusions outlined above will, however, throw some light upon the meaning and the worth of the latter. although this was formulated with the idealistic and sensationalistic logics in mind, the hypothesis that knowledge can be rightly understood only in connection with considerations of time and temporal position is a general one. if it is valid, it should be readily applicable to a critical placing of any theory which ignores and denies such temporal considerations. and while i have learned much from the realistic movement about the full force of the position sketched in the essays when adequately developed; and while later discussions have made it clear that the language employed in the essays was sometimes unnecessarily (though naturally) infected by the subjectivism of the positions against which it was directed, i find that the analytic logic is also guilty of the fault of temporal dislocation. in one respect, idealistic logic takes cognizance of a temporal contrast; indeed, it may fairly be said to be based upon it. it seizes upon the contrast in intellectual force, consistency, and comprehensiveness between the crude or raw data with which science sets out and the defined, ordered, and systematic totality at which it aims--and which in part it achieves. this difference is a genuine empirical difference. idealism noted that the difference may properly be ascribed to the intervention of thinking--that thought is what makes the difference. now since the outcome of science is of higher intellectual rank than its data, and since the intellectualistic tradition in philosophy has always identified degrees of logical adequacy with degrees of reality, the conclusion was naturally drawn that _the_ real world--absolute reality--was an ideal or thought-world, and that the sense-world, the commonsense-world, the world of actual and historic experience, is simply a phenomenal world presenting a fragmentary manifestation of that thought which the process of human thinking makes progressively explicit and articulate. this perception of the intellectual superiority of objects which are constituted at the conclusion of thinking over those which formed its data may fairly be termed the empirical factor in the idealistic logic. the essence of the realistic reaction, on its logical side, is exceedingly simple. it starts from those objects with which science, approved science, ends. since they are the objects which are _known_, which are true, they are the real objects. that they are also objects for intervening thinking is an interesting enough historical and psychological fact, but one quite irrelevant to their natures, which are precisely what knowledge finds them to be. in the biography of human beings it may hold good that apprehension of objects is arrived at only through certain wanderings, endeavors, exercises, experiments; possibly acts called sensation, memory, reflection may be needed by men in reaching a grasp of the objects. but such things denote facts about the history of the knower, not about the nature of the known object. analysis will show, moreover, that any intelligible account of this history, any verified statement of the psychology of knowing assumes objects which are unaffected by the knowing--otherwise the pretended history is merely pretense and not to be trusted. the history of the process of knowing, moreover, implies also the terms and propositions--truths--of logic. that logic must therefore be assumed as a science of objects real and true, quite apart from any process of thinking them. in short, the requirement is that we shall think things as they are themselves, not make them into objects constructed by thinking. this revival of realism coincided also with an important movement in mathematics and logic: the attempt to treat logical distinctions by mathematical methods; while at the same time mathematical subject-matter had become so generalized that it was a theory of types and orders of terms and propositions--in short, a logic. certain minds have always found mathematics the type of knowledge, because of its definiteness, order, and comprehensiveness. the wonderful accomplishments of modern mathematics, including its development into a type of highly generalized logic, was not calculated to lessen the tendency. and while prior philosophers have generally played their admiration of mathematics into the hands of idealism (regarding mathematical subject-matter as the embodiment or manifestation of pure thought), the new philosophy insisted that the terms and types of order constituting mathematical and logical subject-matter were real in their own right, and (at most) merely led up to and discovered by thinking--an operation, moreover, itself subjected (as has been pointed out) to the entities and relationships set forth by logic. the inadequacy of this summary account may be pardoned in view of the fact that no adequate exposition is intended; all that is wanted is such a statement of the general relationship of idealism to realism as may serve as the point of departure for a comparison with the instrumentalism of the essays. in bare outline, it is obvious that the two latter agree in regarding thinking as instrumental, not as constitutive. but this agreement turns out to be a formal matter in contrast with a disagreement concerning that _to which_ thinking is instrumental. the new realism finds that it is instrumental simply to knowledge of objects. from this it infers (with perfect correctness and inevitableness) that thinking (including all the operations of discovery and testing as they might be set forth in an inductive logic) is a mere psychological preliminary, utterly irrelevant to any conclusions regarding the nature of objects known. the thesis of the essays is that thinking is instrumental to a control of the environment, a control effected through acts which would not be undertaken without the prior resolution of a complex situation into assured elements and an accompanying projection of possibilities--without, that is to say, thinking. such an instrumentalism seems to analytic realism but a variant of idealism. for it asserts that processes of reflective inquiry play a part in shaping the objects--namely, terms and propositions--which constitute the bodies of scientific knowledge. now it must not only be admitted but proclaimed that the doctrine of the essays holds that intelligence is not an otiose affair, nor yet a mere preliminary to a spectator-like apprehension of terms and propositions. in so far as it is idealistic to hold that objects of knowledge _in their capacity of distinctive objects of knowledge_ are determined by intelligence, it is idealistic. it believes that faith in the constructive, the creative, competency of intelligence was the redeeming element in historic idealisms. lest, however, we be misled by general terms, the scope and limits of this "idealism" must be formulated. (1) its distinguishing trait is that it defines thought or intelligence by function, by work done, by consequences effected. it does not start with a power, an entity or substance or activity which is ready-made thought or reason and which as such constitutes the world. thought, intelligence, is to it just a name for the events and acts which make up the processes of analytic inspection and projected invention and testing which have been described. these events, these acts, are wholly natural; they are "realistic"; they comprise the sticks and stones, the bread and butter, the trees and horses, the eyes and ears, the lovers and haters, the sighs and delights of ordinary experience. thinking is what some of the actual existences _do_. _they_ are in no sense constituted by thinking; on the contrary, the problems of thought are set by _their_ difficulties and its resources are furnished by _their_ efficacies; its acts are _their_ doings adapted to a distinctive end. (2) the reorganization, the modification, effected by thinking is, by this hypothesis, a physical one. thinking ends in experiment and experiment is an _actual_ alteration of a physically antecedent situation in those details or respects which called for thought in order to do away with some evil. to suffer a disease and to try to do something for it is a primal experience; to look into the disease, to try and find out just what makes it a disease, to invent--or hypothecate--remedies is a reflective experience; to try the suggested remedy and see whether the disease is helped is the act which transforms the data and the intended remedy into _knowledge objects_. and this transformation into knowledge objects is also effected by changing physical things by physical means. speaking from this point of view, the decisive consideration as between instrumentalism and analytic realism is whether the operation of experimentation is or is not necessary to knowledge. the instrumental theory holds that it is; analytic realism holds that even though it were essential in _getting_ knowledge (or in learning), it has nothing to do with knowledge itself, and hence nothing to do with the known object: that it makes a change only in the knower, not in what is to be known. and for precisely the same reason, instrumentalism holds that an object as a knowledge-object is never a whole; that it is surrounded with and inclosed by things which are quite other than objects of knowledge, so that knowledge cannot be understood in isolation or when taken as mere beholding or grasping of objects. that is to say, while it is making the sick man better or worse (or leaving him just the same) which determines the knowledge-value of certain findings of fact and certain conceptions as to mode of treatment (so that by the treatment they become definitely knowledge-objects), yet improvement or deterioration of the patient is other than an object of cognitive apprehension. its knowledge-object phase is a selection in reference to prior reflections. so the laboratory experiment of a chemist which brings to a head a long reflective inquiry and settles the intellectual status of its findings and theorizings (thereby making them into cognitive concerns or terms and propositions) is itself much more than a knowledge of terms and propositions, and only by virtue of this surplusage is it even contemplative knowledge. he knows, say, tin, when he has made tin into an outcome of his investigating procedures, but tin is much more than a term of knowledge. putting the matter in a slightly different way, logical (as distinct from naïve) realism confuses means of knowledge with objects of knowledge. the means are twofold: they are (_a_) the data of a particular inquiry so far as they are significant because of prior experimental inquiries; and (_b_) they are the meanings which have been settled in consequence of prior intellectual undertakings: on the one hand, particular things or qualities as signs; on the other, general meanings as possibilities of what is signified by given data. our physician has in advance a technique for telling that certain particular traits, if he finds them, are symptoms, signs; and he has a store of diseases and remedies in mind which may possibly be meant in any given case. from prior reflective experiments he has learned to look for temperature, for rate of heartbeats, for sore spots in certain places; to take specimens of blood, sputum, of membrane, and subject them to cultures, microscopic examination, etc. he has acquired certain habits, in other words, in virtue of which certain physical qualities and events are more than physical, in virtue of which they are signs or indications of something else. on the other hand, this something else is a somewhat not physically present at the time: it is a series of events still to happen. it is suggested by what is given, but is no part of the given. now, in the degree in which the physician comes to the examination of what is there with a large and comprehensive stock of such possibilities or meanings in mind, he will be intellectually resourceful in dealing with a particular case. they (the concepts or universals of the situation) are (together with the sign-capacity of the data) the _means_ of knowing the case in hand; they are the agencies of transforming it, through the actions which they call for, into an object--an object of knowledge, a truth to be stated in propositions. but since the professional (as distinct from the human) knower is particularly concerned with the elaboration of these tools, the professional knower--of which the class philosopher presents of course one case--ungenerously drops from sight the situation in its integrity and treats these instrumentalities of knowledge as objects of knowledge. each of these aspects--signs and things signified--is sufficiently important to deserve a section on its own account. v the position taken in the essays is frankly realistic in acknowledging that certain brute existences, detected or laid bare by thinking but in no way constituted out of thought or any mental process, set every problem for reflection and hence serve to test its otherwise merely speculative results. it is simply insisted that as a matter of fact these brute existences are equivalent neither to the objective content of the situations, technological or artistic or social, in which thinking originates, nor to the things to be known--to the objects of knowledge. let us take the sequence of mineral rock in place, pig iron and the manufactured article, comparing the raw material in its undisturbed place in nature to the original _res_ of experience, compare the manufactured article to the objective and object of knowledge, and the brute datum to the metal undergoing extraction from raw ore for the sake of being wrought into a useful thing. and we should add that just as the manufacturer always has a lot of already extracted ore on hand for use in machine processes as it is wanted, so every person of any maturity, especially if he lives in an environment affected by previous scientific work, has a lot of extracted data--or, what comes to the same thing, of ready-made tools of extraction--for use in inference as they are required. we go about with a disposition to identify certain shapes as tables, certain sounds as words of the french language, certain cries as evidences of distress, certain massed colors as woods in the distance, certain empty spaces as buttonholes, and so on indefinitely. the examples are trivial enough. but if more complicated matters were taken, it would be seen that a large part of the technique of science (all of science which is specifically "inductive" in character) consists of methods of finding out just what qualities are unambiguous, economical, and dependable signs of those other things which cannot be got at as directly as can the sign-bearing elements. and if we started from the more obscure and complex difficulties of identification and diagnosis with which the sciences of physiology, botany, astronomy, chemistry, etc., deal, we should be forced to recognize that the identifications of everyday life--our "perceptions" of chairs, tables, trees, friends--differ only in presenting questions much easier of solution. in every case, it is a matter of fixing some given physical existence as a sign of some other existences not given in the same way as is that which serves as a sign. these words of mill might well be made the motto of every logic: "to draw inferences has been said to be the great business of life. everyone has daily, hourly, and momentary need of ascertaining facts which he has not directly observed.... it is the only occupation in which the mind never ceases to be engaged." such being the case, the indispensable condition of doing the business well is the careful determination of the sign-force of specific things in experience. and this condition can never be fulfilled as long as a thing is presented to us, so to say, in bulk. the complex organizations which are the subject-matter of our direct activities and enjoyments are grossly unfit to serve as intellectual indications or evidence. their testimony is almost worthless, they speak so many languages. in their complexity, they point equally in all directions; in their unity, they run in a groove and point to whatever is most customary. to break up the complexity, to resolve it into a number of independent variables each as irreducible as it is possible to make it, is the only way of getting secure pointers as to what is indicated by the occurrence of the situation in question. the "objects" of ordinary life, stones, plants, cats, rocks, moon, etc., are neither the data of science nor the objects at which science arrives. we are here face to face with a crucial point in analytic realism. realism argues that we have no alternative except either to regard analysis as falsifying (à la bergson), and thus commit ourselves to distrust of science as an organ of knowledge, or else to admit that something eulogistically termed reality (especially as _existence_, being as subject to space and time determinations) is but a complex made up of fixed, mutually independent simples: viz., that reality is truly conceived only under the caption of whole and parts, where the parts are independent of each other and consequently of the whole. for instrumentalism, however, the alleged dilemma simply does not exist. the results of abstraction and analysis are perfectly real; but they are real, like everything else, _where_ they are real: that is to say, in some _particular_ _co_existence in the situation where they originate and operate. the remark is perhaps more cryptic than enlightening. its intent is that reflection is an actual occurrence as much so as a thunderstorm or a growing plant, and as an actual existence it is characterized by specific existential traits uniquely belonging to it: the entities of simple data as such. it is in control of the evidential function that irreducible and independent simples or elements exist. they certainly are found there; as we have seen they _are_ "common-sense" objects broken up into expeditious and unambiguous signs of conclusions to be drawn, conclusions about other things with which they--the elements--are continuous in some respects, although discrete[4] with respect to their sensory conditions. but there is no more reason for supposing that they exist _elsewhere_ in the same manner than there is for supposing that centaurs coexist along with domestic horses and cows because they coexist with the material of folk-tales or rites, or for supposing that pigs of iron pre-existed as pigs in the mine. there is no falsifying in analysis _because_ the analysis is carried on within a situation which controls it. the fallacy and falsifying is on the part of the philosopher who ignores the contextual situation and who transfers the properties which things have as dependable evidential signs over to things in other modes of behavior. it is no reply to this position to say that the "elements" or simples were there prior to inquiry and to analysis and abstraction. of course their subject-matter was in some sense "there"; and, being there, was found, discovered, or detected--hit upon. i am not questioning this statement; rather, i have been asserting it. but i am asking for patience and industry to consider the matter somewhat further. i would ask the man who takes the terms of logical analysis (physical resolution for the sake of getting assured evidential indications of objects as yet unknown) to be things which coexist with the things of a non-inferential situation, to inquire _in what way_ his independent given ultimates were there prior to analysis. i would point out that in any case they did _not_ pre-exist _as_ signs. (_a_) consequently, whatever traits or properties they possess as signs must at least be referred exclusively to the reflective situation. and they must possess some distinguishing traits _as_ signs; otherwise they would be indistinguishable from anything else which happens to be thought of, and could not be employed as evidence: could not be, in short, what they are. if the reader will seriously ask just what traits data do possess as signs, or evidence, i shall be quite content to leave the issue to the results of his own inquiries. (_b_) any inquiry as to _how_ the data antecedently exist will, i am confident, show that they do not exist in the same purity, the same external exclusiveness and internal homogeneity, which they present within the situation of inference, any more than the iron which pre-existed in the rocks in the mountains was just the same as the fluxed and extracted ore. hence they did not exist in the same isolated simplicity. i have not the slightest interest in exaggerating the scope of this difference. the important matter is not its extent or range, but what such a change--however small--indicates: namely, that the material is entering into a new environment, and has been subjected to the changes which will make it useful and effective in that environment. it is trivial to suppose that the sole or even the primary difficulty which an analytic realism has to face is the occurrence of error and illusions, of "secondary" qualities, etc. the difficulty resides in the contrast of the world of a naïve, say aristotelian, realism with that of a highly intellectualized and analytic disintegration of the everyday world of things. if realism is generous enough to have a place _within_ its world (as a _res_ having social and temporal qualities as well as spatial ones) for data in process of construction of _new_ objects, the outlook is radically different from the case where, in the interests of a theory, a realism insists that analytic determinations are the sole real things.[5] if it be not only conceded but asserted that the subject-matter generating the data of scientific procedure antedates the procedure, it may be asked: what is the point of insisting so much upon the fact that data exist only within the procedure? is not the statement either a trivial tautology or else an attempt to inject, _sub rosa_, a certain idealistic dependence upon thought into even brute facts? the question is a fair one. and the clew to the reply may be found in the consideration that it was not historically an easy matter to reduce the iron of the rocks to the iron which could freely and effectively be used in the manufacture of articles. it involved hitting upon a highly complicated art, but an art, nevertheless, which anyone with the necessary capital and education can command today as a matter of course, giving no thought to the fact that one is using an art constructed originally with vast pains. similarly it is by art, by a carefully determined technique, that the things of our primary experience are resolved into unquestioned and irreducible data, lacking in inner complexity and hence unambiguous. there is no call for the scientific man in the pursuit of his calling to take account of this fact, any more than the manufacturer need reckon with the arts which are required to deliver him his material. but a logician, a philosopher, is supposed to take a somewhat broader survey; and for his purposes the fact which the scientific inquirer can leave out of account, because it is no part of his business, may be the important fact. for the logician, it would seem, is concerned not with the significance of these or those data, but with the significance of there being such things as data, with their traits of irreducibleness, bruteness, simplicity, etc. now, as the special scientific inquirer answers the question as to the significance of his special brute facts by discovering other facts with which they are connected, so it would seem that the logician can find out the significance of the existence of data (the fact which concerns him) only by finding out the other facts with which _they_ coexist--their significance being their factual continuities. and the first step in the search for these other facts which supply significance is the recognition that they have been extracted for a purpose--for the purpose of guiding inference. it is this purposeful situation of inquiry which supplies the _other_ facts which give the existence of brute data their significance. and unless there is such a discovery (or some better one), the logician will inevitably fail in conceiving the import of the existence of brute data. and this misconception is, i repeat, just the defect from which an analytic presentative realism suffers. to perceive that the brute data laid bare in scientific proceedings are always traits of an extensive situation, and of that situation as one which needs control and which is to undergo modification in some respects, is to be protected from any temptation to turn logical specification into metaphysical atomism. the need for the protection is sufficiently great to justify spending some energy in pointing out that the brute objective facts of scientific discovery are discovered facts, discovered by physical manipulations which detach them from their ordinary setting. we have stated that, strictly speaking, data (as the immediate considerations from which controlled inference proceeds) are not objects but means, instrumentalities, of knowledge: things by which we know rather than things known. it is by the color stain that we know a cellular structure; it is by marks on a page that we know what some man believes; it is by the height of the barometer that we know the probability of rain; it is by the scratches on the rock that we know that ice was once there; it is by qualities detected in chemical and microscopic examination that we know that a thing is human blood and not paint. just what the realist asserts about so-called mental states of sensations, images, and ideas, namely, that they are not the subject-matter of knowledge but its agencies, holds of the chairs and tables to which he appeals in support of his doctrine of an immediate cognitive presentation, apart from any problem and any reflection. and there is very solid ground for instituting the comparison: the sensations, images, etc., of the idealist are nothing but the chairs, tables, etc., of the realist in their ultimate irreducible qualities.[6] the problem in which the realist appeals to the immediate apprehension of the table is the epistemological problem, and he appeals to the table not as an object of knowledge (as he thinks he does), but as evidence, as a means of knowing his conclusion--his real _object_ of knowledge. he has only to examine his own evidence to see that it is evidence, and hence a term in a reflective inquiry, while the nature of knowledge is the _object_ of his knowledge. again, the question may be asked: since instrumentalism admits that the table is really "there," why make such a fuss about whether it is there as a means or as an object of knowledge? is not the distinction mere hair-splitting unless it is a way of smuggling in a quasi-idealistic dependence upon thought? the reply will, i hope, clinch the significance of the distinction, whether or no it makes it acceptable. respect for knowledge and its object is the ground for insisting upon the distinction. the object of knowledge is, so to speak, a more dignified, a more complete, sufficient, and self-sufficing thing than any datum can be. to transfer the traits of the object as known to the datum of reaching it, is a material, not a merely verbal, affair. it is precisely this shift which leads the presentative realist to substitute for irreducibility and unambiguity of logical function (use in inference) physical and metaphysical isolation and elementariness. it is this shift which generates the need of reconciling the deliverances of science with the structure and qualities of the world in which we directly live, since it sets up a rivalry between the claims of the data, of common-sense objects, and of scientific objects (the results of adequate inquiry). above all it commits us to a view that change is in some sense unreal, since ultimate and primary entities, being simple, do not permit of change. no; whatever is to be said about the validity of the distinction contended for, it cannot be said to be insignificant. a theory which commits us to the conception of a world of eleatic fixities as primary and which regards alteration and organization as secondary has such profound consequences for thought and conduct that a detection of its motivating fallacy makes a substantial difference. no more fundamental question can be raised than the range and force of the applicability to nature, life, and society of the whole-and-part conception. and if we confuse our premises by taking the existential instrumentalities of knowledge for its real objects, all distinctions and relations in nature, life, and society are thereby requisitioned to be really only cases of the whole-and-part nature of things. vi the instrumental theory acknowledges the objectivity of _meanings_ as well as of data. they are referred to and employed in reflective inquiry with the confidence attached to the hard facts of sense. pragmatic, as distinct from sensational, empiricism may claim to have antedated neo-realism in criticism of resolution of meanings into states or acts of consciousness. as previously noted, meanings are indispensable instrumentalities of reflection, strictly coincident with and correlative to what is analytically detected to be given, or irremovably there. data in their fragmentary character pose a problem; they also define it. they suggest possible meanings. whether they _indicate_ them as well as suggest them is a question to be resolved. but the meanings suggested are genuinely and existentially suggested, and the problem described by the data cannot be solved without their acknowledgment and use. that this instrumental necessity has led to a metaphysical hypostatizing of meanings into essences or subsistences having some sort of mysterious being apart from qualitative things and changes is a source of regret; it is hardly an occasion for surprise. to be sure of our footing, let us return to empirical ground. it is as certain an empirical fact that one thing suggests another as that fire alters the thing burned. the suggesting thing has to be there or given; something has to be there to do the suggesting. the suggested thing is obviously not "there" in the same way as that which suggests; if it were, it would not have to be suggested. a suggestion tends, in the natural man, to excite action, to operate as a stimulus. i may respond more readily and energetically to a suggested fire than to the thing from which the suggestion sprang: that is, the thing by itself may leave me cold, the thing as suggesting something else may move me vigorously. the response if effected has all the force of a belief or conviction. it is _as if_ we believed, on intellectual grounds, that the thing _is_ a fire. but it is discovered that not all suggestions are indications, or signifiers. the whale suggested by the cloud form does not stand on the same level as the fire suggested by smoke, and the suggested fire does not always turn out fire in fact. we are led to examine the original point of departure and we find out that it was not really smoke. in a world where skim-milk and cream suggestions, acted upon, have respectively different consequences, and where a thing suggests one as readily as the other (or skim-milk masquerades as cream), the importance of examination of the thing exercising the suggestive force prior to acting upon what it suggests is obvious. hence the act of response naturally stimulated is turned into channels of inspection and experimental (physical) analysis. we move our body to get a better hold on it, and we pick it to pieces to see what it is. this is the operation which we have been discussing in the last section. but experience also testifies that the thing suggested is worth attention on its own account. perhaps we cannot get very readily at the thing which, suggesting flame, suggests fire. it may be that reflection upon the meaning (or conception), "fire," will help us. fire--here, there, or anywhere, the "essence" fire--means thus and so; _if_ this thing really means fire, it will have certain traits, certain attributes. are they there? there are "flames" on the stage as part of the scenery. do they really indicate fire? fire would mean danger; but it is not possible that such a risk would be taken with an audience (other meanings, risk, audience, danger, being brought in). it must be something else. well, it is probably colored tissue-paper in strips rapidly blown about. this meaning leads us to closer inspection; it directs our observations to hunt for corroborations or negations. if conditions permitted, it would lead us to walk up and get at the thing in close quarters. in short, devotion to a suggestion, prior to accepting it as stimulus, leads first to other suggestions which may be more applicable; and, secondly, it affords the standpoint and the procedure of a physical experimentation to detect those elements which are the more reliable signs, indicators (evidence). _suggestions thus treated are precisely what constitute meanings, subsistences, essences_, etc. without such development and handling of what is suggested, the process of analyzing the situation to get at its hard facts, and especially to get at just those which have a right to determine inference, is haphazard--ineffectively done. in the actual stress of any such needed determination it is of the greatest importance to have a large stock of possible meanings to draw on, and to have them ordered in such a way that we can develop each promptly and accurately, and move quickly from one to another. it is not to be wondered at then that we not only conserve such suggestions as have been previously converted successfully into meanings, but also that we (or some men at least) turn professional inquirers and thinkers; that meanings are elaborated and ordered in related systems quite apart from any immediately urgent situation; or that a realm of "essences" is built up apart from that of existences. that suggestion occurs is doubtless a mystery, but so is it a mystery that hydrogen and oxygen make water. it is one of the hard, brute facts that we have to take account of. we can investigate the conditions under which the happening takes place, we can trace the consequences which flow from the happening. by these means we can so control the happening that it will take place in a more secure and fruitful manner. but all this depends upon the hearty acceptance of the happening as fact. suggestion does not of itself yield meanings; it yields only suggested things. but the moment we take a suggested thing and develop it in connection with other meanings and employ it as a guide of investigation (a method of inquiry), that moment we have a full-fledged meaning on our hands, possessing all the verifiable features which have been imported at any time to ideas, forms, species, essences, subsistences. this empirical identification of meaning by means of the specific fact of suggestion cuts deep--if occam's razor still cuts. a suggestion lies between adequate stimulation and logical indication. a cry of fire may start us running without reflection; we may have learned, as children are taught in school, to react without questioning. there is overt stimulation, but no suggesting. but if the response is held off or postponed, it may persist as suggestion: the cry suggests fire and suggests the advisability of flight. we may, in a sense we must, call suggestion "mental." but it is important to note what is meant by this term. fire, running, getting burned, are not mental; they are physical. but in their status of being suggested they may be called mental when we recognize this distinctive status. this means no more than that they are implicated in a specific way in a reflective situation, in virtue of which they are susceptible of certain modes of treatment. their status as suggested by certain features of the actual situation (and possibly meant or indicated as well as suggested) may be definitely fixed; then we get meanings, logical terms--determinations.[7] words are of course the agencies of fixation chiefly employed, though any kind of physical existence--a gesture, a muscular contraction in the finger or leg or chest--under ready command may be used. what is essential is that there be a specific physical existence at hand which may be used to concrete and hold on to the suggestion, so that the latter may be handled on its own account. until thus detached and refixed there are things suggested, but hardly _a_ suggestion; things meant, but hardly a meaning; things ideated, but hardly an idea. and the suggested thing until detached is still too literal, too tied up with other things, to be further developed or to be successfully used as a method of experimentation in new directions so as to bring to light new traits. as data are signs which _indicate_ other existences, so meanings are signs which _imply_ other meanings.[8] i am doubtful, for example, whether _this_ is a man or not; that is, i am doubtful as to some given traits when they are taken as signs or evidences, but i am inclined to the hypothesis of a man. having such a tentative or conceptual object in mind, i am enabled to explore economically and effectively, instead of at random, what is present, _provided_ i can elaborate the implications of the term "man." to develop its implications is all one with telling its meaning in connection with other meanings. being a man means, for example, speaking when spoken to--another meaning which need have been no part of "man" as originally suggested. this meaning of "answering questions" will then suggest a procedure which the term "man" in its first meaning did not possess; it is an implication or implied meaning which puts me in a new and possibly more fruitful relation to the thing. (the process of developing implications is usually termed "discourse" or ratiocination.) now, be it noted, replying to questions is no part of the _definition_ of man; it would not be now an implication of plato or of the russian czar for me. in other words, there is something in the actual situation which suggests _inquiring_ as well as _man_; and it is the interaction between these two suggestions which is fruitful. there is consequently no mystery about the fruitfulness of deduction--though this fruitfulness has been urged as though it offered an insuperable objection to instrumentalism. on the contrary, instrumentalism is the only theory to which deduction is not a mystery. if a variety of wheels and cams and rods which have been invented with reference to doing a given task are put together, one expects from the assembled parts a result which could not have been got from any one of them separately or from all of them together in a heap. because they are independent and unlike structures, working on one another, something new happens. the same is true of terms in relation to one another. when these are brought to bear upon one another, something new, something quite unexpected happens, quite as when one tries an acid with which he is not familiar upon a rock with which he is unfamiliar--that is, unfamiliar in such a conjunction, in spite of intimate acquaintance elsewhere. a definition may fix a certain modicum of meaning in the abstract, as we say; it is a specification of a minimum which gives the point of departure in every interaction of a term with other terms. but nothing follows from the definition by itself or in isolation. it is explicit (boringly so) and has no implications. but bring it in connection with another term with which it has not previously interacted and it may behave in the most delightful or in the most disgustingly disappointing way. the necessity for independent terms is made obvious in the modern theory of axioms. it escapes attention in much of the contemporary logic of transitive and non-transitive, symmetrical and non-symmetrical relations, because the terms are so loaded that there are no propositions at all, but only discriminations of orders of terms. the terms which figure in the discussions, in other words, are correlatives--"brother," "parent," "up," "to the right of," "like," "greater," "after." such terms are not logical terms; they are _halves_ of such terms as "brother-other-offspring-of-the-same-parents"; "parent-child"; "up-down"; "right-left"; "thing-similar-to-another-thing"; "greater-less"; "after-before." they express positions in a _determined_ situation; they are _relatives_, not relations. they lack implications, being explicit. but a man who is a brother and also a rival in love, and a poorer man than his rival brother, expresses an interaction of different terms from which something might happen: terms with implications, terms constituting a proposition, which a correlative term never does--till brought into conjunction with a term of which it is not a relative. to have called a thing "up" or "brother" is to have already solved its import in some situation. it is dead till set to work in some _other_ situation. experience shows, moreover, that certain qualities of things are much more fruitful and much more controllable than others when taken as meanings to be used in drawing conclusions. the term must be of a nature to develop a method of behavior by which to test whether it is the meaning of the situation. since it is desirable to have a stock of meanings on hand which are so connected that we can move readily from one to another in any direction, the stock is effective in just the degree in which it has been worked into a system--a comprehensive and orderly arrangement. hence, while all meanings are derived from things which antedate suggestion--or thinking or "consciousness"--not all qualities are equally fitted to be meanings of a wide efficiency, and it is a work of art to select the proper qualities for doing the work. this corresponds to the working over of raw material into an effective tool. a spade or a watchspring is made out of antecedent material, but does not pre-exist as a ready-made tool; and, the more delicate and complicated the work which it has to do, the more art intervenes. these summary remarks will have to pass muster as indicating what a more extensive treatment of a mathematical system of terms would show. man began by working such qualities as hate and love and fear and beauty into the meanings by which to interpret and control the perplexities of life. when they demonstrated their inefficacy, he had recourse to such qualities as heavy and light, wet and dry, making them into natural essences or explanatory and regulatory meanings. that greek mediaeval science did not get very far on these lines is a commonplace. scientific progress and practical control as systematic and deliberate matters date from the century of galileo, when qualities which lend themselves to mathematical treatment were seized upon. "the most promising of these ideal systems at first were of course the richer ones, the sentimental ones. the baldest and least promising ones were the mathematical ones; but the history of the latter's application is a history of steadily advancing successes, while that of the sentimentally richer ones is one of relative sterility and failure."[9] there is no problem of why and how the plow fits, or applies to, the garden, or the watchspring to time-keeping. they were made for those respective purposes; the question is how well they do their work, and how they can be reshaped to do it better. yet they were made out of physical material; men used ready limbs or roots of trees with which to plow before they used metal. we do not measure the worth or reality of the tool by its closeness to its natural prototype, but by its efficiency in doing its work--which connotes a great deal of intervening art. the theory proposed for mathematical distinctions and relations is precisely analogous. they are not the creations of mind except in the sense in which a telephone is a creation of mind. they fit nature because they are derived from natural conditions. things naturally bulge, so to speak, and naturally alter. to seize upon these qualities, to develop them into keys for discovering the meanings of brute, isolated events, and to accomplish this effectively, to develop and order them till they become economical tools (and tools upon tools) for making an unknown and uncertain situation into a known and certain one, is the recorded triumph of human intelligence. the terms and propositions of mathematics are not fictions; they are not called into being by that particular act of mind in which they are used. no more is a self-binding reaper a figment, nor is it called momentarily into being by the man who wants to harvest his grain. but both alike are works of art, constructed for a purpose in doing the things which have to be done. we may say of terms what santayana so happily said of expression: "expression is a misleading term which suggests that something previously known is imitated or rendered; whereas the expression is itself an original fact, the values of which are then referred to the thing expressed, much as the honors of a chinese mandarin are attributed retroactively to his parents." the natural history of imputation of virtue should prove to the philosopher a profitable theme. even in its most superstitious forms (perhaps more _obviously_ in them than elsewhere) it testifies to the sense of a service to be performed and to a demand for application. the superstition lies in making the application to antecedents and to ancestors, where it is but a shroud, instead of to descendants, where it is a generating factor. every reflection leaves behind it a double effect. its immediate outcome is (as i tried to show earlier) the direct reorganization of a situation, a reorganization which confers upon its contents new increments of intrinsic meaning. its indirect and intellectual product is the defining of a meaning which (when fixed by a suitable existence) is a resource in subsequent investigations. i would not despise the assistance lent by the words "term" and "proposition." as slang has it, a pitched baseball is to the batter a "proposition"; it states, or makes explicit, what he has to deal with next amid all the surrounding and momentarily irrelevant circumstance. every statement extracts and sets forth the net result of reflection up to date as a condition of subsequent reflection. this extraction of the kernel of past reflections makes possible a throwing to one side of all the consequences of prior false and futile steps; it enables one to dispense with the experiences themselves and to deal only with their _net_ profit. in a favorite phrase of realism, it gives an object "as if there were no experience." it is unnecessary to descant upon the economy of this procedure. it eliminates everything which in spite of its immediate urgency, or vividness, or weight of past authority, is rubbish for the purpose in hand. it enables one to get down to business with just that which (presumably) is of importance in subsequent procedure. it is no wonder that these logical kernels have been elevated into metaphysical essences. the word "term" suggests the limiting condition of every process of reflection. it sets a fence beyond which it is, presumably, a waste to wander--an error. it sets forth that which _must_ be taken into account--a limit which is inescapable, something which is to ratiocination what the brute datum is to observation. in classic phrase, it is a notion, that is, a _noting_, of the distinctions which have been fixed for the purposes of the kind of inquiry now engaged in. one has only to compare the terms of present scientific discourse with those of, say, aristotle, to see that the importance of terms as instruments of a proper survey of and attack upon existential situations is such that the terms resulting naturally and spontaneously from reflection have been dropped and more effective ones substituted. in one sense, they are all equally objective; aquosity is as genuine, as well as more obvious, a notion as the present chemical conception. but the latter is able to enter a much wider scope of inquiries and to figure in them more prosperously. as a special class of scientific inquirers develops, terms that were originally _by-products_ of reflection become primary objects for the intellectual class. the "troubles" which occasion reflection are then _intellectual_ troubles, discrepancies within some current scheme of propositions and terms. the situation which undergoes reorganization and increase of comprised significance is that of the subject-matter of specialized investigation. nevertheless the same general method recurs within it, and the resulting objects--the terms and propositions--are for all, except those who produce them, instruments, not terminal objects. the objection to analytic realism as a metaphysics of existence is not so much an undue formalism as its affront to the commonsense-world of action, appreciation, and affection. the affront, due to hypostatizing terms into objects, is as great as that of idealism. a naïve realism withstands both affronts. my interest, however, is not to animadvert upon analytic realism. it is to show how the main tenets of instrumental logic stand in relation to considerations which, although ignored by the idealism which was current when the theory received its first formulation, demand attention: the objective status of data and terms with respect to states of mind or acts of awareness. i have tried to show that the theory, without mutilation or torturing, makes provision for these considerations. they are not objections to it; they are considerations which are involved in it. there are questions at issue, but they concern not matters of logic but matters of fact. they are questions of the _existential_ setting of certain logical distinctions and relations. as to the comparative merits of the two schemes, i have nothing to say beyond what has been said, save that the tendency of the analytic realism is inevitably to treat a difference between the logic of inquiry and of dialectic as if it were itself a matter to be settled by the logic of dialectic. i confess to some fear that a philosophy which fails to identify science with terms and propositions about things which are not terms and propositions, will first exaggerate and then misconstrue the function of dialectics, and land philosophy in a formalism like unto the scholasticism from which the older empiricism with all its defects emancipated those who took it to heart. vii return with me, if you please, to fundamentals. the word "experience" is used freely in the essays and without much explanation. in view of the currency of subjectivistic interpretations of that term, the chief wonder is probably that the doctrine of the essays was not more misunderstood than was actually the case. i have already said something designed to clarify the sense in which the term was used. i now come back to the matter. what is the reason for using the term at all in philosophy? the history of philosophy supplies, i think, the answer. no matter how subjective a turn was given to the word by hume and kant, we have only to go to an earlier period to see that the appeal to experience in philosophy was coincident with the emancipation of science from occult essences and causes, and with the substitution of methods of observation, controlled by experimentation and employing mathematical considerations, for methods of mere dialectic definition and classification. the appeal to experience was the cry of the man from missouri--the demand to be shown. it sprang from the desire to command nature by observing her, instead of anticipating her in order to deck her with aesthetic garlands and hold her with theological chains. the significance of experience was not that sun and moon, stick and stone, are creatures of the senses, but that men would not put their trust any longer in things which are said, however authoritatively, to exist, unless these things are capable of entering into specifiable connections with the organism and the organism with them. it was an emphatic assertion that until men could see _how_ things got into belief, and what they did when they got there, intellectual acceptance would be withheld. has not the lesson, however, been so well learned that we can drop reference to experience? would that such were the case. but the time does not seem to have come. some things enter by way of the imagination, stimulated by emotional preferences and biases. for _certain_ purposes, they are not the worse for having entered by that gate, instead of through sensory-motor adjustments. or they may have entered because of the love of man for logical form and symmetry and system, and because of the emotional satisfaction which harmony awakens in a sensitive soul. they too need not be any worse for all that. but surely it is among the businesses of philosophy to discriminate between the kinds of goodness possessed by different kinds of things. and how can it discriminate unless by telling by what road they got into our experience and what they do after they get there? assuredly the difference is not in _intrinsic_ content. it is not because of self-obvious and self-contained traits of the immediate terms that dante's world belongs to poetry and newton's to scientific astronomy. no amount of pure inspection and excogitation could decide which belongs to which world. the difference in status and claim is made by what we call experience: by the place of the two systems in experience with respect to their generation and consequences. and assuredly any philosophy which takes science to be not an _account_ of the world (which it is), but a literal and exhaustive apprehension of it in its full reality, a philosophy which therefore has no place for poetry or possibilities, still needs a theory of experience. if a scientific man be asked what is truth, he will reply--if he frame his reply in terms of his practice and not of some convention--that which is accepted upon adequate evidence. and if he is asked for a description of adequacy of evidence, he certainly will refer to matters of observation and experiment. it is not the self-inclosed character of the terms and propositions nor their systematic ordering which settles the case for him; it is the way they were obtained and what he can do with them in getting other things. and when a mathematician or logician asks philosophy to abandon this method, then is just the time to be most vigorous in insisting upon the necessity of reference to "experience" in order to fix the import of mathematical and logical pretensions. when students influenced by the symmetry and system of mathematics cease building up their philosophies in terms of traits of mathematical subject-matter in isolation, then empirical philosophers will have less call to mention experience. meantime, i know of no way of fixing the scope and claims of mathematics in philosophy save to try to point out just at what juncture it enters experience and what work it does after it has got entrance. i have made such an attempt in my account of the fixation and handling of suggestions as meanings. it is defective enough, but the defects are to be remedied by a better empirical account and not by setting up against experience the claims of a logic aloof from experience. the objection then to a logic which rules out knowledge getting, and which bases logic exclusively upon the traits of known objects, is that it is self-contradictory. there is no way to know what are the traits of known objects, as distinct from imaginary objects, or objects of opinion, or objects of unanalytic common-sense, save by referring to the operations of getting, using, and testing evidence--the processes of knowledge getting. i am making no appeal for skepticism at large; i am not questioning the right of the physicist, the mathematician, or the symbolic logicist to go ahead with accepted objects and do what he can with them. i am pointing out that anyone who professes to be concerned with finding out what knowledge _is_, has for his primary work the job of finding out why it is so much safer to proceed with just these objects, than with those, say, of aristotelian science. aristotle was not lacking in acuteness nor in learning. to him it was clear that objects of knowledge are the things of ordinary perception, so far as they are referred to a form which comparison of perceived things, in the light of a final cause, makes evident. if this view of the objects of knowledge has gone into the discard, if quite other objects of knowledge are now received and employed, it is because the methods of _getting_ knowledge have been transformed, till, for the working scientist, "objects of knowledge" mean precisely the objects which have been obtained by approved processes of inquiry. to exclude consideration of these processes is thus to throw away the key to understanding knowledge and its objects. there is a certain ironical humor in taking advantage of all the improved methods of experimental inquiry with respect to all objects of knowledge--save one, knowledge itself; in denying their relevancy to knowing knowledge, and falling back upon the method everywhere else disavowed--the method of relying upon isolated, self-contained properties of subject-matter. one of the points which gave much offense in the essays was the reference to genetic method--to a natural history of knowledge. i hope what has now been said makes clearer the nature of that reference. i was to blame for not making the point more explicit; but i cannot altogether blame myself for my naïveté in supposing that others understood by a natural history of knowledge what i understood by it. it had not occurred to me that anyone would think that the history by which human ignorance, error, dogma, and superstition had been transformed, even in its present degree of transformation, into knowledge was something which had gone on exclusively inside of men's heads, or in an inner consciousness. i thought of it as something going on in the world, in the observatory and the laboratory, and in the application of laboratory results to the control of human health, well-being, and progress. when a biologist says that the way to understand an organ, or the sociologist that the way to know an institution, resides in its genesis and history, he is understood to mean _its_ history. i took the same liberty for knowledge, that is, for science. the accusation of "subjectivisim" taken in this light appears as a depressing revelation of what the current opinion about the processes of knowledge is. to stumble on a stone need not be a process of knowledge; to hit it with a hammer, to pour acid upon it, to put pieces in the crucible, to subject things to heat and pressure to see if one can make a similar stone, _are_ processes of knowledge. so is fixing suggestions by attaching names, and so is devising ways of putting these terms together so that new suggestions will arise, or so that suggestions may be transferred from one situation to another. but not one of these processes is "subjective" in any sense which puts subjectivity in opposition to the public out-of-doors world of nature and human companionship. to set genesis in opposition to analysis is merely to overlook the fact that the sciences of existence have found that considerations of genesis afford their most effective methods of analysis.[10] the same kind of consideration applies to the favorable view taken of psychology. if reference to modes and ways of experience--to experiencing--is important for understanding the things with which philosophy deals, then psychology is useful as a matter of course. for what is meant by psychology is precisely a discrimination of the acts and attitudes of the organism which have a bearing upon respective subject-matters and which have accordingly to be taken account of before the subject-matters can be properly discriminated. the matter was especially striking in the case of lotze. he protested constantly against the use of psychology, and yet his own data and procedures were infected at every turn by psychology, and, if i am at all correct, by a false psychology. the particular separation which he made between psychology and logic rested indeed upon a particular psychological assumption. the question is worth asking: is not the marked aversion on the part of some philosophers to any reference to psychology a freudian symptom? a word more upon the place assigned by the essays to _need_ and _purpose_ and the humanistic factor generally. to save time i may quote a sentence from an early review which attributes to the essays the following doctrine: "if the plan turns out to be useful for our need, it is correct--the judgment is true. the real-ideal distinction is that between stimulus of environment and plan of action or tentative response. both real and ideal are equally experiences of the individual man." these words can be interpreted either so as to convey the position fairly, or so as radically to misconceive it; the latter course is a little easier, as the words stand. that "real and ideal" are experiences of the individual man in the sense that they actually present themselves as specifications which can be studied by any man who desires to study them is true enough. that such a study is as much required for determining their characters as it is for determining those of carbon dioxide or of the constitution of great britain is also the contention of the paper. but if the words quoted suggest to anyone that the real or even the ideal are somehow possessions of an individual man, things secreted somewhere about him and then ejected, i can only say that i cannot understand the doctrine. i know of no ready-made and antecedent conception of "the individual man." instead of telling about the nature of experience by means of a prior conception of individual man, i find it necessary to go to experience to find out what is meant by "individual" and by "man"; and also by "the." consequently even in such an expression as "my experience," i should wish not to contradict this idea of method by using the term "my" to swallow up the term "experience," any more than if i said "my house," or "my country." on the contrary, i should expect that any intelligible and definite use of such phrases would throw much more light upon "me" than upon "house" or "country"--or "experience." the possible misunderstanding is, i think, actual in the reference to "our needs" as a criterion of the correctness of truth of an idea or plan. according to the essays, it is the needs of a _situation_ which are determinative. they evoke thought and the need of knowing, and it is only within the situation that the identification of the needs with a self occurs; and it is only by reflection upon the place of the agent in the encompassing situation that the nature of _his_ needs can be determined. in fact, the actual occurrence of a disturbed, incomplete, and needy _situation_ indicates that _my_ present need is precisely to investigate, to explore, to hunt, to pull apart things now tied together, to project, to plan, to invent, and then to test the outcome by seeing how it works as a method of dealing with hard facts. one source of the demand, in short, for reference to experience as the encompassing universe of discourse is to keep us from taking such terms as "self," "my," "need," "satisfaction," etc., as terms whose meanings can be accepted and proved either by themselves or by even the most extensive dialectic reference to other terms. terms like "real" and "ideal," "individual," "man," "my," certainly allow of profitable dialectic (or purely prepositional) clarification and elaboration. but nothing is settled until these discursive findings have been applied, through action, to things, and an experience has been effected, which either meets or evades the specification conceptually laid down. to suppose, for example, that the import of the term "ideal" can be settled apart from exhibiting in experience some specific affair, is to maintain in philosophy that belief in the occult essence and hidden cause which science had to get rid of before it got on the right track. the idealistic misconception of experience is no reason for throwing away its significant point of contact with modern science and for having recourse then to objects distinguished from old-fashioned _dinge an sich_ only because they involve just that reference to those experiences by which they were established and to which they are applied that propositional or analytic realism professedly and elaborately ignores. in revenge, this ignoring leaves on our hands the "me," or knowing self, as a separate thing within which experience falls (instead of its falling in a specifiable place within experience), and generates the insoluble problem of how a subjective experience can beget objective knowledge. in concluding, let me say that reference to experience seems at present to be the easiest way of realizing the continuities among subject-matters that are always getting split up into dualisms. a creation of a world of subsistences or essences which are quite other than the world of natural existences (which are other than natural existences adapted to the successful performance of inference) is in itself a technical matter, though a discouraging one to a philosopher expertly acquainted with all the difficulties which that view has generated from the time of plato down. but the assistance which such a philosophy lends to the practical and current divorce of the "ideal" from the natural world makes it a thing to be dreaded for other than professional reasons. god only knows how many of the sufferings of life are due to a belief that the natural scene and operations of our life are lacking in ideal import, and to the consequent tendency to flee for the lacking ideal factors to some other world inhabited exclusively by ideals. that such a cut-off, ideal world is impotent for direction and control and change of the natural world follows as a matter of course. it is a luxury; it belongs to the "genteel tradition" of life, the persistence of an "upper" class given to a detached and parasitic life. moreover, it places the scientific inquirer within that irresponsible class. if philosophers could aid in making it clear to a troubled humanity that ideals are continuous with natural events, that they but represent their possibilities, and that recognized possibilities form methods for a conduct which may realize them in fact, philosophers would enforce the sense of a social calling and responsibility. i do not say that pointing out the continuity and interaction of various attitudes and interests in experience is the only way of effecting this consummation. but for a large number of persons today it is the readiest way. much may be said about that other great rupture of continuity which analytic realism would maintain: that between the world and the knower as something outside of it, engaged in an otiose contemplative survey of it. i can understand the social conditions which generated this conception of an aloof knower. i can see how it protected the growth of responsible inquiry which takes effect in change of the environment, by cultivating a sense of the innocuousness of knowing, and thus lulling to sleep the animosity of those who, being in control, had no desire to permit reflection which had practical import. i can see how specialists at any time, professional knowers, so to speak, find in this doctrine a salve for conscience--a solace which all thinkers need as long as an effective share in the conduct of affairs is not permitted them. above all, i can see how seclusion and the absence of the pressure of immediate action developed a more varied curiosity, greater impartiality, and a more generous outlook. but all this is no reason for continuing the idealization of a remote and separate mind or knower now that the method of intelligence is perfected, and changed social conditions not only permit but demand that intelligence be placed within the procession of events. an intellectual integrity, an impartiality and detachment, which is maintained only in seclusion is unpleasantly reminiscent of other identifications of virtue with the innocence of ignorance. to place knowledge where it arises and operates in experience is to know that, as it arose because of the troubles of man, it is confirmed in reconstructing the conditions which occasioned those troubles. genuine intellectual integrity is found in experimental knowing. until this lesson is fully learned, it is not safe to dissociate knowledge from experiment nor experiment from experience. footnotes: [1] i am indebted to an unpublished manuscript of mr. s. klyce of winchester, massachusetts, for the significance of the fact that our words divide into _terms_ (of which more in the sequel) and into names which are not (strictly speaking) terms at all, but which serve to remind us of the vast and vague continuum, select portions of which only are designated by words as _terms_. he calls such words "infinity and zero" words. the word "experience" is a typical instance of an "infinity word." mr. klyce has brought out very clearly that a direct situation of experience ("situation" as i employ it is another such word) has no need of any word for itself, the thing to which the word would point being so egregiously there on its own behalf. but when communication about it takes place (as it does, not only in converse with others, but when a man attempts a mutual reference of different periods of his own life) a word is needed to remind both parties of this taken-for-granted whole (another infinity term), while confusion arises if explicit attention is not called to the fact that it is a very different sort of word from the definite terms of discourse which denote distinctions and their relations to one another. in the text, attention is called to the fact that the business man wrestling with a difficulty or a scientific man engaged in an inquiry finds his checks and control specifically in the situation in which he is employed, while the theorizer at large leaves out these checks and limits, and so loses his clews. well, the words "experience," "situation," etc., are used to _remind_ the thinker of the need of reversion to precisely something which never can be one of the terms of his reflection but which nevertheless furnishes the existential meaning and status of them all. "intuition," mysticism, philosophized or sophisticated monism, are all of them aberrant ways of protesting against the consequences which result from failing to note what is conveyed by words which are not terms. were i rewriting these essays _in toto_ i should try to take advantage of these and other indispensable considerations advanced by mr. klyce; but as the essays must stand substantially as they were originally written, and as an introduction to them must, in order to be intelligible, be stated in not incongruous phraseology, i wish simply to ask the reader to bear in mind this radical difference between such words as "experience," "reality," "universe," "situation," and such terms as "typewriter," "me," "consciousness," "existence," when used (as they must be used if they are to be terms) in a differential sense. the term "reality" is particularly treacherous, for the careless tradition of philosophy (a carelessness fostered, i am sure, by failure to make verbally explicit the distinction to which mr. klyce has called attention) uses "reality" both as a term of indifferent reference, equivalent to everything taken together or referred to _en masse_ as over against some discrimination, and also as a discriminative term with a highly eulogistic flavor: as _real_ money in distinction from counterfeit money. then, although every inquiry in daily life, whether technological or scientific, asks _whether_ a thing is real only in the sense of asking _what_ thing is real, philosophy concludes to a wholesale distinction between the real and the unreal, the real and the apparent, and so creates a wholly artificial problem. if the philosopher, whether idealistic or realistic, who holds that it is self-contradictory to criticize purely intellectualistic conceptions of the world, because the criticism itself goes on intellectualistic terms, so that its validity depends upon intellectual (or cognitive) conditions, will but think of the very brute doings in which a chemist engages to fix the meanings of his terms and to test his theories and conceptions, he will perceive that all intellectual knowing is but a method for conducting an experiment, and that arguments and objections are but stimuli to induce somebody to try a certain experiment--to have recourse, that is, to a non-logical non-intellectual affair. or again, the argument is an invitation to him to note that at the very time in which he is thinking, his thinking is set in a continuum which is not an object of thought. the importance attached to the word "experience," then, both in the essays and in this introduction, is to be understood as an invitation to employ thought and discriminative knowledge as a means of plunging into something which no argument and no term can express; or rather as an invitation to note the fact that no plunge is needed, since one's own thinking and explicit knowledge are already constituted by and within something which does not need to be expressed or made explicit. and finally, there is nothing mystical about this, though mysticism doubtless roots in this fact. its import is only to call notice to the meaning of, say, formulae communicated by a chemist to others as the result of his experiment. all that can be communicated or expressed is that one believes such and such a thing. the communication has scientific instead of merely social significance because the communicated formula is a direction to other chemists to try certain procedures and see what they get. the _direction_ is capable of expression; the result of the experiment, the experience, to which the propositions refer and by which they are tested, is not expressible. (poetry, of course, is a more competent organ of suggesting it than scientific prose.) the word "experience" is, i repeat, a notation of an inexpressible as that which decides the ultimate status of all which is expressed; inexpressible not because it is so remote and transcendent, but because it is so immediately engrossing and matter of course. [2] there are certain points of similarity between this doctrine and that of holt regarding contradictions and that of montague regarding "consciousness" as a case of potential energy. but the latter doctrine seems to me to suffer, first, from an isolation of the brain from the organism, which leads to ignoring the active doing, and, secondly, from an isolation of the "moment" of reduction of actual to potential energy. it appears as a curiously isolated and self-sufficient event, instead of as the focus of readjustment in an organized activity at the pivotal point of maximum "tension"--that is, of greatest inhibition in connection with greatest tendency to discharge. and while i think holt is wholly right in connecting the possibility of error with objectively plural and conflicting forces, i should hardly regard it as linguistically expedient to call counterbalancing forces "contradictory." the counterbalancing forces of the vaulting do not seem to me contradictory in the arch. but if their presence led me to attempt to say "up" and "down" at the same time there would be contradiction. but even admitting that contradictory propositions are merely about forces which are contradictory--heating and cooling--it is still a long way to error. for propositions about such "contradictions" are obviously true propositions. it is only when we make that reaction to one factor which is appropriate to dealing with the other that there is error; and this can happen where there are no contradictory forces at all beyond the fact that the _agent_ is pulled two incompatible and opposed ways at the same time. [3] for emphasis i am here exaggerating by condensing into a single decisive act an operation which is continuously going on. [4] i would remark in passing that a recognition that a thing may be continuous in one respect and discrete in another would obviate a good many difficulties. [5] in effect, the fallacy is the same as that of an idealistic theory which holds that all objects are "really" associations of sensations. [6] this statement is meant literally. the "sensations" of color, sound, etc., to which appeal is made in a scientific inquiry are nothing mental in structure or stuff; they are actual, extra-organic things analyzed down to what is so indubitably there that it may safely be taken as a basis of inference. [7] a term is not of course a mere word; a mere word is non-sense, for a sound by itself is not a word at all. nor is it a mere meaning, which is not even natural non-sense, being (if it be at all) supernatural or transcendental nonsense. "terms" signify that certain absent existences are indicated by certain given existences, in the respect that they are abstracted and fixed for intellectual use by some physically convenient means, such as a sound or a muscular contraction of the vocal organs. [8] this distinction of indication as existential and implication as conceptual or essential, i owe to mr. alfred sidgwick. see his _fallacies_, p. 50. [9] james, _psychology_, ii, 665. [10] i have even seen, in a criticism of the essays, the method of genesis opposed to the method of experimentation--as if experimentation were anything but the generation of some special object! ii the relationship of thought and its subject-matter no one doubts that thought, at least reflective as distinct from what is sometimes called constitutive thought, is derivative and secondary. it comes after something and out of something, and for the sake of something. no one doubts that the thinking of everyday practical life and of science is of this reflective type. we think about; we reflect over. if we ask what it is which is primary and radical to thought; if we ask what is the final objective for the sake of which thought intervenes; if we ask in what sense we are to understand thought as a derived procedure, we are plunging ourselves into the very heart of the logical problem: the relation of thought to its empirical antecedents and to its consequent, truth, and the relation of truth to reality. yet from the naïve point of view no difficulty attaches to these questions. the antecedents of thought are our universe of life and love; of appreciation and struggle. we think about anything and everything: snow on the ground; the alternating clanks and thuds that rise from below; the relation of the monroe doctrine to the embroglio in venezuela; the relation of art to industry; the poetic quality of a painting by botticelli; the battle of marathon; the economic interpretation of history; the proper definition of cause; the best method of reducing expenses; whether and how to renew the ties of a broken friendship; the interpretation of an equation in hydrodynamics, etc. through the madness of this miscellaneous citation there appears so much of method: anything--event, act, value, ideal, person, or place--may be an object of thought. reflection busies itself alike with physical nature, the record of social achievement, and the endeavors of social aspiration. it is with reference to _such_ affairs that thought is derivative; it is with reference to them that it intervenes or mediates. taking some part of the universe of action, of affection, of social construction, under its special charge, and having busied itself therewith sufficiently to meet the special difficulty presented, thought releases that topic and enters into further more direct experience. sticking for a moment to this naïve standpoint, we recognize a certain rhythm of direct practice and derived theory; of primary construction and of secondary criticism; of living appreciation and of abstract description; of active endeavor and of pale reflection. we find that every more direct primary attitude passes upon occasion into its secondary deliberative and discursive counterpart. we find that when the latter has done its work it passes away and passes on. from the naïve standpoint such rhythm is taken as a matter of course. there is no attempt either to state the nature of the occasion which demands the thinking attitude, or to formulate a theory of the standard by which is judged its success. no general theory is propounded as to the exact relationship between thinking and what antecedes and succeeds it. much less do we ask how empirical circumstances can generate rationality of thought; nor how it is possible for reflection to lay claim to power of determining truth and thereby of constructing further reality. if we were to ask the thinking of naïve life to present, with a minimum of theoretical elaboration, its conception of its own practice, we should get an answer running not unlike this: thinking is a kind of activity which we perform at specific need, just as at other need we engage in other sorts of activity: as converse with a friend; draw a plan for a house; take a walk; eat a dinner; purchase a suit of clothes, etc. in general, its material is anything in the wide universe which seems to be relevant to this need--anything which may serve as a resource in defining the difficulty or in suggesting modes of dealing effectively with it. the measure of its success, the standard of its validity, is precisely the degree in which the thinking actually disposes of the difficulty and allows us to proceed with more direct modes of experiencing, that are forthwith possessed of more assured and deepened value. if we inquire why the naïve attitude does not go on to elaborate these implications of its own practice into a systematic theory, the answer, on its own basis, is obvious. thought arises in response to its own occasion. and this occasion is so exacting that there is time, as there is need, only to do the thinking which is needed in that occasion--not to reflect upon the thinking itself. reflection follows so naturally upon its appropriate cue, its issue is so obvious, so practical, the entire relationship is so organic, that once grant the position that thought arises in reaction to specific demand, and there is not the particular type of thinking called logical theory because there is not the practical demand for reflection of that sort. our attention is taken up with particular questions and specific answers. what we have to reckon with is not the problem of, how can i think _überhaupt_? but, how shall i think right _here and now_? not what is the test of thought at large, but what validates and confirms _this_ thought? in conformity with this view, it follows that a generic account of our thinking behavior, the generic account termed logical theory, arises at historic periods in which the situation has lost the organic character above described. the general theory of reflection, as over against its concrete exercise, appears when occasions for reflection are so overwhelming and so mutually conflicting that specific adequate response in thought is blocked. again, it shows itself when practical affairs are so multifarious, complicated, and remote from control that thinking is held off from successful passage into them. anyhow (sticking to the naïve standpoint), it is true that the stimulus to that particular form of reflective thinking termed logical theory is found when circumstances require the act of thinking and nevertheless impede clear and coherent thinking in detail; or when they occasion thought and then prevent the results of thinking from exercising directive influence upon the immediate concerns of life. under these conditions we get such questions as the following: what is the relation of rational thought to crude or unreflective experience? what is the relation of thought to reality? what is the barrier which prevents reason from complete penetration into the world of truth? what is it that makes us live alternately in a concrete world of experience in which thought as such finds not satisfaction, and in a world of ordered thought which is yet only abstract and ideal? it is not my intention here to pursue the line of historical inquiry thus suggested. indeed, the point would not be mentioned did it not serve to fix attention upon the nature of the logical problem. it is in dealing with this latter type of question that logical theory has taken a turn which separates it widely from the theoretical implications of practical deliberation and of scientific research. the two latter, however much they differ from each other in detail, agree in a fundamental principle. they both assume that every reflective problem and operation arises with reference to some _specific_ situation, and has to subserve a _specific_ purpose dependent upon its own occasion. they assume and observe distinct limits--limits from which and to which. there is the limit of origin in the needs of the particular situation which evokes reflection. there is the limit of terminus in successful dealing with the particular problem presented--or in retiring, baffled, to take up some other question. the query that at once faces us regarding the nature of logical theory is whether reflection upon reflection shall recognize these limits, endeavoring to formulate them more exactly and to define their relationships to each other more adequately; or shall it abolish limits, do away with the matter of specific conditions and specific aims of thought, and discuss thought and its relation to empirical antecedents and rational consequents (truth) at large? at first blush, it might seem as if the very nature of logical theory as generalization of the reflective process must of necessity disregard the matter of particular conditions and particular results as irrelevant. how, the implication runs, could reflection become generalized save by elimination of details as irrelevant? such a conception in fixing the central problem of logic fixes once for all its future career and material. the essential business of logic is henceforth to discuss the relation of thought as such to reality as such. it may, indeed, involve much psychological material, particularly in the discussion of the processes which antecede thinking and which call it out. it may involve much discussion of the concrete methods of investigation and verification employed in the various sciences. it may busily concern itself with the differentiation of various types and forms of thought--different modes of conceiving, various conformations of judgment, various types of inferential reasoning. but it concerns itself with any and all of these three fields, not on their own account or as ultimate, but as subsidiary to the main problem: the relation of thought as such, or at large, to reality as such, or at large. some of the detailed considerations referred to may throw light upon the terms under which thought transacts its business with reality; upon, say, certain peculiar limitations it has to submit to as best it may. other considerations throw light upon the ways in which thought gets at reality. still other considerations throw light upon the forms which thought assumes in attacking and apprehending reality. but in the end all this is incidental. in the end the one problem holds: how do the specifications of thought as such hold good of reality as such? in fine, logic is supposed to grow out of the epistemological inquiry and to lead up to its solution. from this point of view various aspects of logical theory are well stated by an author whom later on we shall consider in some detail. lotze[11] refers to "universal forms and principles of thought which hold good everywhere both in judging of reality and in weighing possibility, _irrespective of any difference in the objects_." this defines the business of _pure_ logic. this is clearly the question of thought as such--of thought at large or in general. then we have the question "of how far the most complete structure of thought ... can claim to be an adequate account of that which we seem compelled to assume as the object and occasion of our ideas." this is clearly the question of the relation of thought at large to reality at large. it is epistemology. then comes "applied logic," having to do with the actual employment of concrete forms of thought with reference to investigation of specific topics and subjects. this "applied" logic would, if the standpoint of practical deliberation and of scientific research were adopted, be the sole genuine logic. but the existence of thought _in itself_ having been agreed upon, we have in this "applied" logic only an incidental inquiry of how the particular resistances and oppositions which "pure" thought meets from particular matters may best be discounted. it is concerned with methods of investigation which obviate defects in the relationship of thought at large to reality at large, as these present themselves under the limitations of human experience. it deals merely with hindrances, and with devices for overcoming them; it is directed by considerations of utility. when we reflect that this field includes the entire procedure of practical deliberation and of concrete scientific research, we begin to realize something of the significance of the theory of logic which regards the limitations of specific origination and specific outcome as irrelevant to its main problem, which assumes an activity of thought "pure" or "in itself," that is, "irrespective of any difference in its objects." this suggests, by contrast, the opposite mode of stating the problem of logical theory. generalization of the nature of the reflective process certainly involves elimination of much of the specific material and contents of the thought-situations of daily life and of critical science. quite compatible with this, however, is the notion that it seizes upon _certain_ specific conditions and factors, and aims to bring them to clear consciousness--not to abolish them. while eliminating the particular material of particular practical and scientific pursuits, (1) it may strive to hit upon the common denominator in the various situations which are antecedent or primary to thought and which evoke it; (2) it may attempt to show how typical features in the specific antecedents of thought call out diverse typical modes of thought-reaction; (3) it may attempt to state the nature of the specific consequences in which thought fulfils its career. (1) it does not eliminate dependence upon specific occasions as provocative of thought, but endeavors to define _what_ in the various occasions renders them thought-provoking. the specific occasion is not eliminated, but insisted upon and brought into the foreground. consequently, empirical considerations are not subsidiary incidents, but are of essential importance so far as they enable us to trace the generation of the thought-situation. (2) from this point of view the various types and modes of conceiving, judging, and inference are treated, not as qualifications of thought _per se_ or at large, but of reflection engaged in its specific, most economic, effective response to its own particular occasion; they are adaptations for control of stimuli. the distinctions and classifications that have been accumulated in "formal" logic are relevant data; but they demand interpretation from the standpoint of use as organs of adjustment to material antecedents and stimuli. (3) finally the question of validity, or ultimate objective of thought, is relevant; but relevant as a matter of the specific issue of the specific career of a thought-function. all the typical investigatory and verificatory procedures of the various sciences indicate the ways in which thought actually brings to successful fulfilment its dealing with various types of problems. while the epistemological type of logic may, as we have seen, leave (under the name of applied logic) a subsidiary place open for the instrumental type, the type which deals with thinking as a specific procedure relative to a specific antecedent occasion and to a subsequent specific fulfilment is not able to reciprocate the favor. from its point of view, an attempt to discuss the antecedents, data, forms, and objectives of thought, apart from reference to particular position occupied and particular part played in the growth of experience, is to reach results which are not so much either true or false as they are radically meaningless--because they are considered apart from limits. its results are not only abstractions (for all theorizing ends in abstractions), but abstractions without possible reference or bearing. from this point of view, the taking of something (whether that something be a thinking activity, its empirical stimulus, or its objective goal), apart from the limits of a historic or developing situation, is the essence of _metaphysical_ procedure--in that sense of metaphysics which makes a gulf between it and science. as the reader has doubtless anticipated, it is the object of this chapter to present the problem and industry of reflective thought from the standpoint of naïve experience, using the term in a sense wide enough to cover both practical procedure and concrete scientific research. i resume by saying that this point of view knows no fixed distinction between the empirical things and values of unreflective life and the most abstract process of rational thought. it knows no fixed gulf between the highest flight of theory and a control of the details of practical construction and behavior. it passes, according to the occasion and opportunity of the moment, from the attitude of loving and struggling and doing to that of thinking and the reverse. its contents or material shift their values back and forth from technological or utilitarian to aesthetic, ethical, or affectional. it utilizes data of perception, of meaning or of discursive ideation as need calls, just as an inventor now utilizes heat, now mechanical strain, now electricity, according to the demands set by his aim. anything from past experience may be taken which appears to be an element in either the statement or the solution of the present problem. thus we understand the coexistence, without contradiction, of an indeterminate possible field and a limited actual field. the undefined range of possible materials becomes specific through reference to an end. in all this, there is no difference of kind between the methods of science and those of the plain man. the difference is the greater control by science of the statement of the problem, and of the selection and use of relevant material, both sensible and conceptual. the two are related to each other just as the hit-or-miss, trial-and-error inventions of uncivilized man stand to the deliberate and consecutively persistent efforts of a modern inventor to produce a certain complicated device for doing a comprehensive piece of work. neither the plain man nor the scientific inquirer is aware, as he engages in his reflective activity, of any transition from one sphere of existence to another. he knows no two fixed worlds--reality on one side and mere subjective ideas on the other; he is aware of no gulf to cross. he assumes uninterrupted, free, and fluid passage from ordinary experience to abstract thinking, from thought to fact, from things to theories and back again. observation passes into development of hypothesis; deductive methods pass into use in description of the particular; inference passes into action, all with no sense of difficulty save those found in the particular task in question. the fundamental assumption is _continuity_. this does not mean that fact is confused with idea, or observed datum with voluntary hypothesis, theory with doing, any more than a traveler confuses land and water when he journeys from one to the other. it simply means that each is placed and used with reference to service rendered the other, and with reference to the future use of the other. only the epistemological spectator of traditional controversies is aware of the fact that the everyday man and the scientific man in this free and easy intercourse are rashly assuming the right to glide over a cleft in the very structure of reality. this fact raises a query not favorable to the epistemologist. why is it that the scientific man, who is constantly plying his venturous traffic of exchange of facts for ideas, of theories for laws, of real things for hypotheses, should be so wholly unaware of the radical and generic (as distinct from specific) difficulty of the undertakings in which he is engaged? we thus come afresh to our inquiry: does not the epistemological logician unwittingly transfer the specific difficulty which always faces the scientific man--the difficulty in detail of correct and adequate translation back and forth of _this_ set of facts and _this_ group of reflective consideration--into a totally different problem of the wholesale relation of thought at large to reality in general? if such be the case, it is clear that the very way in which the epistemological type of logic states the problem of thinking, in relation both to empirical antecedents and to objective truth, makes that problem insoluble. working terms, terms which as working are flexible and historic, relative and methodological, are transformed into absolute, fixed, and predetermined properties of being. we come a little closer to the problem when we recognize that every scientific inquiry passes historically through at least four stages. (_a_) the first of these stages is, if i may be allowed the bull, that in which scientific inquiry does not take place at all, because no problem or difficulty in the quality of the experience presents itself to provoke reflection. we have only to cast our eye back from the existing status of any science, or back from the status of any particular topic in any science, to discover a time when no reflective or critical thinking busied itself with the matter--when the facts and relations were taken for granted and thus were lost and absorbed in the net meaning which accrued from the experience. (_b_) after the dawning of the problem there comes a period of occupation with relatively crude and unorganized facts--hunting for, locating, and collecting raw material. this is the empiric stage, which no existing science, however proud in its attained rationality, can disavow as its own progenitor. (_c_) then there is also a speculative stage: a period of guessing, of making hypotheses, of framing ideas which later on are labeled and condemned as only ideas. there is a period of distinction-making and classification-making which later on is regarded as only mentally gymnastic in character. and no science, however proud in its present security of experimental assurance, can disavow a scholastic ancestor. (_d_) finally, there comes a period of fruitful interaction between the mere ideas and the mere facts: a period when observation is determined by experimental conditions depending upon the use of certain guiding conceptions; when reflection is directed and checked at every point by the use of experimental data, and by the necessity of finding such a form for itself as will enable it to serve in a deduction leading to evolution of new meanings, and ultimately to experimental inquiry which brings to light new facts. in the emerging of a more orderly and significant region of fact, and of a more coherent and self-luminous system of meaning, we have the natural limit of evolution of the logic of a given science. but consider what has happened in this historic record. unanalyzed experience has broken up into distinctions of facts and ideas; the factual side has been developed by indefinite and almost miscellaneous descriptions and cumulative listings; the conceptual side has been developed by unchecked and speculative elaboration of definitions, classifications, etc. then there has been a relegation of accepted meanings to the limbo of mere ideas; there has been a passage of some of the accepted facts into the region of mere hypothesis and opinion. conversely, there has been a continued issuing of ideas from the region of hypotheses and theories into that of facts, of accepted objective and meaningful objects. out of a world of only _seeming_ facts, and of only _doubtful_ ideas, there emerges a world continually growing in definiteness, order, and luminosity. this progress, verified in every record of science, is an absolute monstrosity from the standpoint of the epistemology which assumes a thought in general, on one side, and a reality in general, on the other. the reason that it does not present itself as such a monster and miracle to those actually concerned with it is because _continuity_ of reference and of use controls all diversities in the modes of existence specified and the types of significance assigned. the distinction of meaning and fact is treated in the growth of a science, or of any particular scientific problem, as an _induced_ and _intentional_ practical division of labor; as assignments of relative position with reference to performance of a task; as deliberate distribution of forces at command for their more economic use. the absorption of bald fact and hypothetical idea into the formation of a single world of scientific apprehension and comprehension is but the successful achieving of the aim on account of which the distinctions in question were instituted. thus we come back to the problem of logical theory. to take the distinctions of thought and fact, etc., as ontological, as inherently fixed in the makeup of the structure of being, results in treating the actual technique of scientific inquiry and scientific control as a mere subsidiary topic--ultimately of only utilitarian worth. it also states the terms upon which thought and being transact business in a way so totally alien to concrete experience that it creates a problem which can be discussed only in terms of itself--not in terms of the conduct of life. as against this, the logic which aligns itself with the origin and employ of reflective thought in everyday life and critical science follows the natural history of thinking as a life-process having its own generating antecedents and stimuli, its own states and career, and its own specific objective or limit. this point of view makes it possible for logical theory to come to terms with psychology. when logic is considered as having to do with the wholesale activity of thought _per se_, the question of the historic process by which this or that particular thought came to be, of how its object happens to present itself as sensory, or perceptual, or conceptual, is quite irrelevant. these things are mere temporal accidents. the psychologist (not lifting his gaze from the realm of the changeable) may find in them matters of interest. his whole industry is just with natural history--to trace events as they mutually excite and inhibit one another. but the logician, we are told, has a deeper problem and an outlook of more unbounded horizon. he deals with the question of the eternal nature of thought and its eternal validity in relation to an eternal reality. he is concerned, not with genesis, but with value, not with a historic cycle, but with absolute entities and relations. still the query haunts us: is this so in truth? or has the logician of a certain type arbitrarily made it so by taking his terms apart from reference to the specific occasions in which they arise and situations in which they function? if the latter, then the very denial of historic relationship, the denial of the significance of historic method, is indicative of the unreal character of his own abstraction. it means in effect that the affairs under consideration have been isolated from the conditions in which alone they have determinable meaning and assignable worth. it is astonishing that, in the face of the advance of the evolutionary method in natural science, any logician can persist in the assertion of a rigid difference between the problem of origin and of nature; between genesis and analysis; between history and validity. such assertion simply reiterates as final a distinction which grew up and had meaning in pre-evolutionary science. it asserts, against the most marked advance which scientific method has yet made, a survival of a crude period of logical scientific procedure. we have no choice save either to conceive of thinking as a response to a specific stimulus, or else to regard it as something "in itself," having just in and of itself certain traits, elements, and laws. if we give up the last view, we must take the former. in this case it will still possess distinctive traits, but they will be traits of a specific response to a specific stimulus. the significance of the evolutionary method in biology and social history is that every distinct organ, structure, or formation, every grouping of cells or elements, is to be treated as an instrument of adjustment or adaptation to a particular environing situation. its meaning, its character, its force, is known when, and only when, it is considered as an arrangement for meeting the conditions involved in some specific situation. this analysis is carried out by tracing successive stages of development--by endeavoring to locate the particular situation in which each structure has its origin, and by tracing the successive modifications through which, in response to changing media, it has reached its present conformation.[12] to persist in condemning natural history from the standpoint of what natural history meant before it identified itself with an evolutionary process is not so much to exclude the natural-history standpoint from philosophic consideration as it is to evince ignorance of what it signifies. psychology as the natural history of the various attitudes and structures through which experiencing passes, as an account of the conditions under which this or that attitude emerges, and of the way in which it influences, by stimulation or inhibition, production of other states or conformations of reflection, is indispensable to logical evaluation the moment we treat logical theory as an account of thinking as a response to its own generating conditions, and consequently judge its validity by reference to its efficiency in meeting its problems. the historical point of view describes the sequence; the normative follows the history to its conclusion, and then turns back and judges each historical step by viewing it in reference to its own outcome. in the course of changing experience we keep our balance in moving from situations of an affectional quality to those which are practical or appreciative or reflective, because we bear constantly in mind the context in which any particular distinction presents itself. as we submit each characteristic function and situation of experience to our gaze, we find it has a dual aspect. wherever there is striving there are obstacles; wherever there is affection there are persons who are attached; wherever there is doing there is accomplishment; wherever there is appreciation there is value; wherever there is thinking there is material-in-question. we keep our footing as we move from one attitude to another, from one characteristic quality to another, because of the position occupied in the whole movement by the particular function in which we are engaged. the distinction _between_ each attitude and function and its predecessor and successor is serial, dynamic, operative. the distinctions _within_ any given operation or function are structural, contemporaneous, and distributive. thinking follows, we will say, striving, and doing follows thinking. each in the fulfilment of its own function inevitably calls out its successor. but coincident, simultaneous, and correspondent _within_ doing is the distinction of doer and of deed; _within_ the function of thought, of thinking and material thought upon; within the function of striving, of obstacle and aim, of means and end. we keep our paths straight because we do not confuse the sequential and functional relationship of types of experience with the contemporaneous and structural distinctions of elements within a given function. in the seeming maze of endless confusion and unlimited shiftings, we find our way by the means of the stimulations and checks occurring within the process in which we are actually engaged. operating within empirical situations we do not contrast or confuse a condition which is an element in the formation of one operation with the status which is one of the distributive terms of another function. when we ignore these specific empirical clues and limitations, we have at once an insoluble, because meaningless, problem upon our hands. now the epistemological logician deliberately shuts himself off from those cues and checks upon which the plain man instinctively relies, and which the scientific man deliberately searches for and adopts as constituting his technique. consequently he is likely to set the attitude which has place and significance only in one of the serial functional situations of experience over against the active attitude which describes part of the structural constitution of another situation; or with equal lack of justification to assimilate materials characteristic of different stages to one another. he sets the agent, as he is found in the intimacy of love or appreciation, over against the externality of the fact, as that is defined within the reflective process. he takes the material which thought selects as its problematic data as identical with the significant content which results from successful pursuit of inquiry; and this in turn he regards as the material which was presented before thinking began, whose peculiarities were the means of awakening thought. he identifies the final deposit of the thought-function with its own generating antecedent, and then disposes of the resulting surd by reference to some metaphysical consideration, which remains when logical inquiry, when science (as interpreted by him), has done its work. he does this, not because he prefers confusion to order, or error to truth, but simply because, when the chain of historic sequence is cut, the vessel of thought is afloat to veer upon a sea without soundings or moorings. there are but two alternatives: either there is an object "in itself" of mind "in itself," or else there are a series of situations where elements vary with the varying functions to which they belong. if the latter, the only way in which the characteristic terms of situations can be defined is by discriminating the functions to which they belong. and the epistemological logician, in choosing to take his question as one of thought which has its own form just as "thought," apart from the limits of the special work it has to do, has deprived himself of these supports and stays. the problem of logic has a more general and a more specific phase. in its generic form, it deals with this question: how does one type of functional situation and attitude in experience pass out of and into another; for example, the technological or utilitarian into the aesthetic, the aesthetic into the religious, the religious into the scientific, and this into the socio-ethical and so on? the more specific question is: how does the particular functional situation termed the reflective behave? how shall we describe it? what in detail are its diverse contemporaneous distinctions, or divisions of labor, its correspondent _statuses_; in what specific ways do these operate with reference to each other so as to effect the specific aim which is proposed by the needs of the affair? this chapter may be brought to conclusion by reference to the more ultimate value of the logic of experience, of logic taken in its wider sense; that is, as an account of the sequence of the various typical functions or situations of experience in their determining relations to one another. philosophy, defined as such a logic, makes no pretense to be an account of a closed and finished universe. its business is not to secure or guarantee any particular reality or value. _per contra_, it gets the significance of a method. the right relationship and adjustment of the various typical phases of experience to one another is a problem felt in every department of life. intellectual rectification and control of these adjustments cannot fail to reflect itself in an added clearness and security on the practical side. it may be that general logic cannot become an instrument in the immediate direction of the activities of science or art or industry; but it is of value in criticizing and organizing tools of immediate research. it also has direct significance in the valuation for social or life-purposes of results achieved in particular branches. much of the immediate business of life is badly done because we do not know the genesis and outcome of the work that occupies us. the manner and degree of appropriation of the goods achieved in various departments of social interest and vocation are partial and faulty because we are not clear as to the due rights and responsibilities of one function of experience in reference to others. the value of research for social progress; the bearing of psychology upon educational procedure; the mutual relations of fine and industrial art; the question of the extent and nature of specialization in science in comparison with the claims of applied science; the adjustment of religious aspirations to scientific statements; the justification of a refined culture for a few in face of economic insufficiency for the mass; the relation of organization to individuality--such are a few of the many social questions whose answer depends upon the possession and use of a general logic of experience as a method of inquiry and interpretation. i do not say that headway cannot be made in such questions apart from the method indicated: a logic of experience. but unless we have a critical and assured view of the juncture in which and with reference to which a given attitude or interest arises, unless we know the service it is thereby called upon to perform, and hence the organs or methods by which it best functions in that service, our progress is impeded and irregular. we take a part for a whole, a means for an end; or we attack wholesale some interest because it interferes with the deified sway of the one we have selected as ultimate. a clear and comprehensive consensus of social conviction and a consequent concentrated and economical direction of effort are assured only as there is some way of locating the position and rôle of each typical interest and occupation. the domain of opinion is one of conflict; its rule is arbitrary and costly. only intellectual method affords a substitute for opinion. a general logic of experience alone can do for social qualities and aims what the natural sciences after centuries of struggle are doing for activity in the physical realm. this does not mean that systems of philosophy which have attempted to state the nature of thought and of reality at large, apart from limits of particular situations in the movement of experience, have been worthless--though it does mean that their industry has been somewhat misapplied. the unfolding of metaphysical theory has made large contributions to positive evaluations of the typical situations and relationships of experience--even when its conscious intention has been quite otherwise. every system of philosophy is itself a mode of reflection; consequently (if our main contention be true), it too has been evoked out of specific social antecedents, and has had its use as a response to them. it has effected something in modifying the situation within which it found its origin. it may not have solved the problem which it consciously put itself; in many cases we may freely admit that the question put has been found afterward to be so wrongly put as to be insoluble. yet exactly the same thing is true, in precisely the same sense, in the history of science. for this reason, if for no other, it is impossible for the scientific man to cast the first stone at the philosopher. the progress of science in any branch continually brings with it a realization that problems in their previous form of statement are insoluble because put in terms of unreal conditions; because the real conditions have been mixed up with mental artifacts or misconstructions. every science is continually learning that its supposed solutions are only apparent because the "solution" solves, not the actual problem, but one which has been made up. but the very putting of the question, the very giving of the wrong answer, induces modification of existing intellectual habits, standpoints, and aims. wrestling with the problem, there is evolution of new technique to control inquiry, there is search for new facts, institution of new types of experimentation; there is gain in the methodic control of experience. and all this is progress. it is only the worn-out cynic, the de-vitalized sensualist, and the fanatical dogmatist who interpret the continuous change of science as proving that, since each successive statement is wrong, the whole record is error and folly; and that the present truth is only the error not yet found out. such draw the moral of caring naught for all these things, or of flying to some external authority which will deliver once for all the fixed and unchangeable truth. but historic philosophy even in its aberrant forms has proved a factor in the valuation of experience; it has brought problems to light, it has provoked intellectual conflicts without which values are only nominal; even through its would-be absolutistic isolations it has secured recognition of mutual dependencies and reciprocal reinforcements. yet if it can define its work more clearly, it can concentrate its energy upon its own characteristic problem: the genesis and functioning in experience of various typical interests and occupations with reference to one another. footnotes: [11] _logic_ (translation, oxford, 1888), i, 10, 11. italics mine. [12] see _philosophical review_, xi, 117-20. iii the antecedents and stimuli of thinking we have discriminated logic in its wider sense--concerned with the sequence of characteristic functions and attitudes in experience--from logic in its stricter meaning, concerned with the function of reflective thought. we must avoid yielding to the temptation of identifying logic with either of these to the exclusion of the other; or of supposing that it is possible to isolate one finally from the other. the more detailed treatment of the organs and methods of reflection cannot be carried on with security save as we have a correct idea of the position of reflection amid the typical functions of experience. yet it is impossible to determine this larger placing, save as we have a defined and analytic, as distinct from a merely vague and gross, view of what we mean by reflection--what is its actual constitution. it is necessary to work back and forth between the larger and the narrower fields, transforming every increment upon one side into a method of work upon the other, and thereby testing it. the evident confusion of existing logical theory, its uncertainty as to its own bounds and limits, its tendency to oscillate from larger questions of the meaning of judgment and the validity of inference over to details of scientific technique, and to translate distinctions of formal logic into acts in an investigatory or verificatory process, are indications of the need of this double movement. in the next three chapters it is proposed to take up some of the considerations that lie on the borderland between the larger and the narrower conceptions of logical theory. i shall discuss the _locus_ of the function of thought in experience so far as such _locus_ enables us to characterize some of the most fundamental distinctions, or divisions of labor, within the reflective process. in taking up the problem of the subject-matter of thought, i shall try to make clear that it assumes three quite distinct forms according to the epochal moment reached in control of experience. i shall attempt to show that we must consider subject-matter from the standpoint, first, of the _antecedents_ or conditions that evoke thought; secondly, of the _datum_ or _immediate material_ presented to thought; and, thirdly, of the _proper objective_ of thought. of these three distinctions the first, that of antecedent and stimulus, clearly refers to the situation that is immediately prior to the thought-function as such. the second, that of datum or immediately given matter, refers to a distinction which is made within the thought-process as a part of and for the sake of its own _modus operandi_. it is a status in the scheme of thinking. the third, that of content or object, refers to the progress actually made in any thought-function; material which is organized by inquiry so far as inquiry has fulfilled its purpose. this chapter will get at the matter of preliminary conditions of thought indirectly rather than directly, by indicating the contradictory positions into which one of the most vigorous and acute of modern logicians, lotze, has been forced through failing to define logical distinctions in terms of the history of readjustment and control of things in experience, and being thereby compelled to interpret certain notions as absolute instead of as historic and methodological. before passing directly to the exposition and criticism of lotze, it will be well, however, to take the matter in a somewhat freer way. we cannot approach logical inquiry in a wholly direct and uncompromised manner. of necessity we bring to it certain distinctions--distinctions partly the outcome of concrete experience; partly due to the logical theory which has got embodied in ordinary language and in current intellectual habits; partly results of deliberate scientific and philosophic inquiry. these more or less ready-made results are resources; they are the only weapons with which we can attack the new problem. yet they are full of unexamined assumptions; they commit us to all sorts of logically predetermined conclusions. in one sense our study of the new subject-matter, let us say logical theory, is in truth only a review, a retesting and criticizing of the intellectual standpoints and methods which we bring with us to the study. nowadays everyone comes with certain distinctions already made between the subjective and the objective, between the physical and the mental, between the intellectual and the factual. (1) we have learned to regard the region of emotional disturbance, of uncertainty and aspiration, as belonging peculiarly to ourselves; we have learned to set over against this the world of observation and of valid thought as something unaffected by our moods, hopes, fears, and opinions. (2) we have also come to distinguish between what is immediately present in our experience and the past and the future; we contrast the realms of memory and anticipation with that of sense perception; more generally we contrast the given with the inferential. (3) we are confirmed in a habit of distinguishing between what we call actual fact and our mental attitude toward that fact--the attitude of surmise or wonder or reflective investigation. while one of the aims of logical theory is precisely to make us critically conscious of the significance and bearing of these various distinctions, to change them from ready-made assumptions into controlled conceptions, our mental habits are so set that they tend to have their own way with us; we read into logical theory conceptions that were formed before we had even dreamed of the logical undertaking which after all has for its business to assign to the terms in question their proper meaning. our conclusions are thus controlled by the very notions which need criticism and revision. we find in lotze an unusually explicit inventory of these various preliminary distinctions, and an unusually serious effort to deal with the problems which arise from introducing them into the structure of logical theory. (1) he expressly separates the matter of logical worth from that of psychological genesis. he consequently abstracts the subject-matter of logic as such wholly from the question of historic _locus_ and _situs_. (2) he agrees with common-sense in holding that logical thought is reflective and thus presupposes a given material. he occupies himself with the nature of the antecedent conditions. (3) he wrestles with the problem of how a material formed prior to thought and irrespective of it can yet afford stuff upon which thought may exercise itself. (4) he expressly raises the question of how thought working independently and from without upon a foreign material can shape the latter into results which are valid--that is, objective. if this discussion is successful; if lotze can provide the intermediaries which span the gulf between the exercise of logical functions by thought upon a material wholly external to it; if he can show that the question of the origin of subject-matter of thought and of thought-activity is irrelevant to the question of its meaning and validity, we shall have to surrender the position already taken. but if we find that lotze's elaborations only elaborate the fundamental difficulty, presenting it now in this light and now in that, but always presenting the problem as if it were its own solution, we shall be confirmed in our idea of the need of considering logical questions from a different point of view. if we find that, whatever his formal treatment, he always, as a matter of fact, falls back upon some organized situation or function as the source of both the material and the process of inquiry, we shall have in so far an elucidation and even a corroboration of our theory. we begin with the question of the material antecedents of thought--antecedents which condition reflection, and which call it out as reaction or response, by giving its cue. lotze differs from many logicians of the same type in furnishing an explicit account of these antecedents. 1. the ultimate material antecedents of thought are found in impressions which are due to external objects as stimuli. taken in themselves, these impressions are mere psychical states or events. they exist in us side by side, or one after the other, according as the objects which excite them operate simultaneously or successively. the occurrence of these various psychical states is not, however, entirely dependent upon the presence of the exciting thing. after a state has once been excited, it gets the power of reawakening other states which have accompanied it or followed it. the associative mechanism of revival plays a part. if we had a complete knowledge of both the stimulating object and its effects, and of the details of the associative mechanism, we should be able from given data to predict the whole course of any given train or current of ideas (for the impressions as conjoined simultaneously or successively become ideas and a current of ideas). taken in itself, a sensation or impression is nothing but a "state of our consciousness, a mood of ourselves." any given current of ideas is a necessary sequence of existences (just as necessary as any succession of material events), happening in some particular sensitive soul or organism. "just because, under their respective conditions, every such series of ideas hangs together by the same necessity and law as every other, there would be no ground for making any such distinction of value as that between truth and untruth, thus placing one group in opposition to all the others."[13] 2. thus far, as the last quotation clearly indicates, there is no question of reflective thought, and hence no question of logical theory. but further examination reveals a peculiar property of the current of ideas. some ideas are merely coincident, while others may be termed coherent. that is to say, the exciting causes of some of our simultaneous and successive ideas really belong together; while in other cases they simply happen to act at the same time, without there being a real connection between them. by the associative mechanism, however, both the coherent and the merely coincident combinations recur. the first type of recurrence supplies positive material for knowledge; the second gives occasion for error. 3. it is a peculiar mixture of the coincident and the coherent which sets the peculiar problem of reflective thought. the business of thought is to recover and confirm the coherent, the really connected, adding to its reinstatement an accessory justifying notion of the real ground of coherence, while it eliminates the coincident as such. while the mere current of ideas is something which just happens within us, the process of elimination and of confirmation by means of statement of real ground and basis of connection is an activity which mind, as such, exercises. this distinction marks off thought as activity from any psychical event and from the associative mechanism as mere happenings. one is concerned with mere _de facto_ coexistences and sequences; the other with the cognitive _worth_ of these combinations.[14] consideration of the peculiar work of thought in going over, sorting out, and determining various ideas according to a standard of value will occupy us in our next chapter. here we are concerned with the material antecedents of thought as they are described by lotze. at first glance, he seems to propound a satisfactory theory. he avoids the extravagancies of transcendental logic, which assumes that all the matter of experience is determined from the very start by rational thought; and he also avoids the pitfall of purely empirical logic, which makes no distinction between the mere occurrence and association of ideas and the real worth and validity of the various conjunctions thus produced. he allows unreflective experience, defined in terms of sensations and their combinations, to provide material conditions for thinking, while he reserves for thought a distinctive work and dignity of its own. sense experience furnishes the antecedents; thought has to introduce and develop systematic connection--rationality. a further analysis of lotze's treatment may, however, lead us to believe that his statement is riddled through and through with inconsistencies and self-contradictions; that, indeed, any one part of it can be maintained only by the denial of some other portion. 1. the impression is the ultimate antecedent in its purest or crudest form (according to the angle from which one views it). it is that which has never felt, for good or for bad, the influence of thought. combined into ideas, these impressions stimulate or arouse the activities of thought, which are forthwith directed upon them. as the recipient of the activity which they have excited and brought to bear upon themselves, they furnish also the material content of thought--its actual stuff. as lotze says over and over again: "it is the relations themselves already subsisting between impressions, when we become conscious of them, by which the action of thought which is never anything but reaction, is attracted; and this action consists merely in interpreting relations which we find existing between our passive impressions into aspects of the matter of impressions."[15] and again: "thought can make no difference where it finds none already in the matter of the impressions."[16] and again: "the possibility and the success of thought's procedure depends upon this original constitution and organization of the whole world of ideas, a constitution which, though not necessary in thought, is all the more necessary to make thinking possible."[17] the impressions and ideas thus play a versatile rôle; they now assume the part of ultimate antecedents and provocative conditions; of crude material; and somehow, when arranged, of content for thought. this very versatility awakens suspicion. while the impression is merely subjective and a bare state of our own consciousness, yet it is determined, both as to its existence and as to its relation to other similar existences, by external objects as stimuli, if not as causes. it is also determined by a psychical mechanism so thoroughly objective or regular in its workings as to give the same necessary character to the current of ideas that is possessed by any physical sequence. thus that which is "nothing but a state of our consciousness" turns out straightway to be a specifically determined objective fact in a system of facts. that this absolute transformation is a contradiction is no clearer than that just such a contradiction is indispensable to lotze. if impressions were nothing but states of consciousness, moods of ourselves, bare psychical existences, it is sure enough that we should never even know them to be such, to say nothing of conserving them as adequate conditions and material for thought. it is only by treating them as real facts in a real world, and only by carrying over into them, in some assumed and unexplained way, the capacity of representing the cosmic facts which cause them, that impressions or ideas come in any sense within the scope of thought. but if the antecedents are really impressions-in-their-objective-setting, then lotze's whole way of distinguishing thought-worth from _mere_ existence or event without objective significance must be radically modified. the implication that impressions have actually a quality or meaning of their own becomes explicit when we refer to lotze's theory that the immediate antecedent of thought is found in the _matter_ of ideas. when thought is said to "take cognizance of _relations_ which its own activity does not originate, but which have been prepared for it by the unconscious mechanism of the psychic states,"[18] the attribution of objective content, of reference and meaning to ideas, is unambiguous. the idea forms a most convenient halfway house for lotze. on one hand, as absolutely prior to thought, as material antecedent condition, it is merely psychical, bald subjective event. but as subject-matter for thought, as antecedent which affords stuff for thought's exercise, it characteristically qualifies content. although we have been told that the impression is a mere receptive irritation without participation of mental activity, we are not surprised, in view of this capacity of ideas, to learn that the mind actually has a determining share in both the reception of stimuli and in their further associative combinations. the subject always enters into the presentation of any mental object, even the sensational, to say nothing of the perceptional and the imaged. the perception of a given state of things is possible only on the assumption that "the perceiving subject is at once enabled and compelled by its own nature to combine the excitations which reach it from objects into those forms which it is to perceive in the objects, and which it supposes itself simply to _receive_ from them."[19] it is only by continual transition from impression and ideas as mental states and events to ideas as logical _objects or contents_, that lotze bridges the gulf from bare exciting antecedent to concrete material conditions of thought. this contradiction, again, is necessary to lotze's standpoint. to set out frankly with objects as antecedents would demand reconsideration of the whole viewpoint, which supposes that the difference between the logical and its antecedent is a matter of the difference between _worth_ and mere _existence_ or _occurrence_. it would indicate that since meaning or value is already there, the task of thought must be that of the transformation or _reconstruction of meaning_ through an intermediary process. on the other hand, to stick by the standpoint of _mere_ existence is not to get anything which can be called even antecedent of thought. 2. why is there a task of transformation? consideration of the material in its function of evoking thought, giving it its cue, will serve to complete the picture of the contradiction and of the real facts. it is the conflict between ideas as merely coincident and ideas as coherent which constitutes the need that provokes the response of thought. here lotze vibrates (_a_) between considering both coincidence and coherence as psychical events; (_b_) considering coincidence as purely psychical and coherence as at least quasi-logical, and (_c_) making them both determinations within the sphere of reflective thought. in strict accordance with his own premises, coincidence and coherence ought both to be mere peculiarities of the current of ideas as events within ourselves. but so taken the distinction becomes absolutely meaningless. events do not cohere; at the most certain sets of them happen more or less frequently than other sets; the only intelligible difference is one of frequency of coincidence. and even this attributes to an event the supernatural trait of reappearing after it has disappeared. even coincidence has to be defined in terms of relation of the _objects_ which are supposed to excite the psychical events that happen together. as recent psychological discussion has made clear enough, it is the matter, meaning, or content of ideas that is associated, not the ideas as states or existences. take such an idea as sun-revolving-about-earth. we may _say_ it means the conjunction of various sense impressions, but it is connection, or mutual reference, of _attributes_ that we have in mind in the assertion. it is absolutely certain that our psychical image of the sun is not psychically engaged in revolving about our psychical image of the earth. it would be amusing if such were the case; theaters and all dramatic representations would be at a discount. but in truth, sun-revolving-about-earth is a single meaning or intellectual object; it is a unified subject-matter within which certain distinctions of reference appear. it is concerned with what we intend when we think earth and sun, and think them in their relation to each other. it is a rule, specification, or direction of how to think when we have occasion to think a certain subject-matter. to treat this mutual reference as if it were simply a case of conjunction of mental events produced by psycho-physical irritation and association is a profound case of the psychological fallacy. we may, indeed, analyze an experience involving belief in an object of a certain kind and find that it had its origin in certain conditions of the sensitive organism, in certain peculiarities of perception and of association, and hence conclude that the belief involved in it was not justified by the facts themselves. but the significance of the belief in sun-revolving-about-earth by those who held it, consisted precisely in the fact that it was taken not as a mere association of feelings, but as a definite portion of the whole structure of objective experience, guaranteed by other parts of the fabric, and lending its support and giving its tone to them. it was to them part of the experienced frame of things--of the real world. put the other way, if such an instance meant a mere conjunction of psychical states, there would be in it absolutely nothing to evoke thought. each idea as event, as lotze himself points out (i, 2), may be regarded as adequately and necessarily determined to the place it occupies. there is absolutely no question on the side of events of mere coincidence _versus_ genuine connection. as event, it is there and it belongs there. we cannot treat something as at once a bare fact of existence and a problematic subject-matter of logical inquiry. to take the reflective point of view is to consider the matter in a totally new light; as lotze says, it is to raise the question of rightful claims to a position or relation. the point becomes clearer when we contrast coincidence with connection. to consider coincidence as simply psychical, and coherence as at least quasi-logical, is to put the two on such different bases that no question of contrasting them can arise. the coincidence which precedes a valid or grounded coherence (the conjunction which as coexistence of objects and sequence of acts is perfectly adequate) never is, as antecedent, the coincidence which is set over against coherence. the side-by-sideness of books on my bookshelf, the succession of noises that rise through my window, do not trouble me logically. they do not appear as errors or even as problems. one coexistence is just as good as any other until some new point of view, or new end, presents itself. if it is a question of the convenience of arrangement of books, then the value of their present collocation becomes a problem. then i contrast their present state as bare conjunction over against another scheme as one which is coherent. if i regard the sequence of noises as a case of articulate speech, their order becomes important--it is a problem to be determined. the inquiry whether a given combination presents apparent or real connection shows that reflective inquiry is already going on. does this phase of the moon really mean rain, or does it just happen that the rain-storm comes when the moon has reached this phase? to ask such questions shows that a certain portion of the universe of objective experience is subjected to critical analysis for purposes of definitive restatement. the tendency to regard some combination as mere coincidence is absolutely a _part_ of the movement of mind in its search for the real connection. if coexistence as such is to be set against coherence as such, as the non-logical against the logical, then, since our whole spatial universe is one of collocation, and since thought in this universe can never get farther than substituting one collocation for another, the whole realm of space-experience is condemned offhand and in perpetuity to anti-rationality. but, in truth, coincidence as over against coherence, conjunction as over against connection, is just _suspected_ coherence, one which is under the fire of active inquiry. the distinction is one which arises only within the logical or reflective function. 3. this brings us explicitly to the fact that there is neither coincidence nor coherence in terms of the elements or meanings contained in any couple or pair of ideas taken by itself. it is only when they are co-factors in a situation or function which includes more than either the "coincident" or the "coherent" and more than the arithmetical sum of the two, that thought's activity can be evoked. lotze is continually in this dilemma: thought either shapes its own material or else just accepts it. in the first case (since lotze cannot rid himself of the presumption that thought must have a fixed ready-made antecedent) its activity can only alter this stuff and thus lead the mind farther away from reality. but if thought just accepts its material, how can there be any distinctive aim or activity of thought at all? as we have seen, lotze endeavors to escape this dilemma by supposing that, while thought receives its material yet checks it up, it eliminates certain portions of it and reinstates others, plus the stamp and seal of its own validity. lotze objects most strenuously to the kantian notion that thought awaits its subject-matter with certain ready-made modes of apprehension. this notion would raise the insoluble question of how thought contrives to bring the matter of each impression under that particular form which is appropriate to it (i, 24). but he has not avoided the difficulty. how does thought know which of the combinations are merely coincident and which are merely coherent? how does it know which to eliminate as irrelevant and which to confirm as grounded? either this evaluation is an imposition of its own, or else gets its cue and clue from the subject-matter. now, if the coincident and the coherent taken in and of themselves are competent to give this direction, they are already labeled. the further work of thought is one of supererogation. it has at most barely to note and seal the material combinations that are already there. such a view clearly renders thought's work as unnecessary in form as it is futile in force. but there is no alternative except to recognize that an entire situation or environment, within which exist both that which is afterward found to be mere coincidence and that found to be real connection, actually provokes thought. it is only as an experience previously accepted comes up in its wholeness against another one equally integral; and only as some larger experience dawns which requires each as a part of itself and yet within which the required factors show themselves mutually incompatible, that thought arises. it is not bare coincidence, or bare connection, or bare addition of one to the other, that excites thought. the stimulus is a situation which is organized or constituted as a whole, and yet which is falling to pieces in its parts--a situation which is in conflict within itself--that arouses the search to find what really goes together, and a correspondent effort to shut out what only seemingly goes together. and real coherence means precisely capacity to exist within the comprehending whole. to read back into the preliminary situation those distinctions of mere conjunction of material and of valid coherence which get existence, to say nothing of fixation, only within the process of inquiry is a fallacy. we must not leave this phase of the discussion, however, until it is quite clear that our objection is not to lotze's position that reflective thought arises from an antecedent which is not reflectional in character; nor yet to his idea that this antecedent has a certain structure and content of its own setting the peculiar problem of thought, giving the cue to its specific activities and determining its object. on the contrary, it is this latter point upon which we would insist; so as (by insisting) to point out, negatively, that this view is absolutely inconsistent with lotze's theory that psychical impressions and ideas are the true antecedents of thought; and, positively, to show that it is the _situation as a whole_, and not any one isolated part of it, or distinction within it, that calls forth and directs thinking. we must beware the fallacy of assuming that some one element in the prior situation in isolation or detachment induces the reflection which in reality comes forth only from the whole disturbed situation. on the negative side, characterizations of impression and idea are distinctions which arise only within reflection upon that situation which is the genuine antecedent of thought. positively, it is the whole dynamic experience with its qualitative and pervasive continuity, and its inner active distraction, its elements at odds with each other, in tension against each other, each contending for its proper placing and relationship, which generates the thought-situation. from this point of view, at this period of development, the distinctions of objective and subjective have a characteristic meaning. the antecedent, to repeat, is a situation in which the various factors are actively incompatible with each other, and yet in and through the striving tend to a re-formation of the whole and to a restatement of the parts. this situation as such is clearly 'objective.' it is there; it is there as a whole; the various parts are there; and their active incompatibility with one another is there. nothing is conveyed at this point by asserting that any particular part of the situation is illusory or subjective, or mere appearance; or that any other is truly real. the experience exists as one of vital and active confusion and conflict among its elements. the conflict is not only objective in a _de facto_ sense (that is, really existent), but is objective in a logical sense as well; it is just this conflict which effects a transition into the thought-situation--this, in turn, being only a constant movement toward a defined equilibrium. the conflict has objective worth because it is the antecedent condition and cue of thought. deny an organization of things within which competing incompatible tendencies appear and thinking becomes merely "mental." every reflective attitude and function, whether of naïve life, deliberate invention, or controlled scientific research, has risen through the medium of some such total objective situation. the abstract logician may tell us that sensations or impressions, or associated ideas, or bare physical things, or conventional symbols, are antecedent conditions. but such statements cannot be verified by reference to a single instance of thought in connection with actual practice or actual scientific research. of course, by extreme mediation symbols may become conditions of evoking thought. they get to be objects in an active experience. but they are stimuli to thinking only in case their manipulation to form a new whole occasions resistance, and thus reciprocal tension. symbols and their definitions develop to a point where dealing with them becomes itself an experience, having its own identity; just as the handling of commercial commodities, or arrangement of parts of an invention, is a specific experience. there is always as antecedent to thought an experience of subject-matter of the physical or social world, or the previously organized intellectual world, whose parts are actively at war with each other--so much so that they threaten to disrupt the situation, which accordingly for its own maintenance requires deliberate redefinition and re-relation of its tensional parts. this redefining and re-relating is the constructive process termed thinking: the reconstructive situation, with its parts in tension and in such movement toward each other as tends to a unified arrangement of things, is the thought-situation. this at once suggests the subjective phase. the situation, the experience as such, is objective. there is an experience of the confused and conflicting tendencies. but just _what in particular_ is objective, just _what_ form the situation shall take as an organized harmonious whole, is unknown; that is the problem. it is the uncertainty as to the _what_ of the experience together with the certainty _that_ there is such an experience, that evokes the thought-function. viewed from this standpoint of uncertainty, the situation as a whole is subjective. no particular content or reference can be asserted offhand. definite assertion is expressly reserved--it is to be the outcome of the procedure of reflective inquiry now undertaken. this holding off of contents from definitely asserted position, this viewing them as candidates for reform, is what we mean, at this stage of the natural history of thought, by the subjective. we have followed lotze through his tortuous course of inconsistencies. it is better, perhaps, to run the risk of vain repetition than that of leaving the impression that these are _mere_ dialectical contradictions. it is an idle task to expose contradictions unless we realize them in relation to the fundamental assumption which breeds them. lotze is bound to differentiate thought from its antecedents. he is intent upon doing this, however, through a preconception that marks off the thought-situation radically from its predecessor, through a difference that is complete, fixed and absolute, or at large. it is a total contrast of thought as such to something else as such that he requires, not a contrast within experience of one temporal phase of a process, one period of a rhythm, from others. this complete and rigid difference lotze finds in the difference between an experience which is _mere existence_ or occurrence, and one which has to do with worth, truth, right relationship. now things have connection, organization, value or force, practical and aesthetic meaning, on their own account. the same is true of deeds, affections, etc. only states of feelings, bare impressions, etc., seem to fulfil the prerequisite of being given as existence, and yet without qualification as to worth, etc. then the current of ideas offers itself, a ready-made stream of events, of existences, which can be characterized as wholly innocent of reflective determination, and as the natural predecessor of thought. but this stream of existences is no sooner regarded than its total incapacity to officiate as material condition and cue of thought appears. it is about as relevant to thinking as are changes that may be happening on the other side of the moon. so, one by one, the whole series of determinations of force and worth already traced are introduced _into_ the very make-up, the inner structure, of what was to be _mere_ existence: viz., (1) things of whose spatial and temporal relations the mere impressions are somehow _representative_; (2) _meaning_--the idea as significant, possessed of quality, and not a mere event; (3) distinguished traits of coincidence and coherence within the stream. all these features are explicitly asserted, as we have seen; underlying and running through them all is the recognition of the supreme value of a situation which has been organized as a whole, yet is now conflicting in its inner constitution. these contradictions all arise in the attempt to put thought's work, as concerned with objective validity, over against experience as a mere antecedent happening, or occurrence. this contrast arises because of the attempt to consider thought as an independent somewhat in general which nevertheless, in _our_ experience, is dependent upon a raw material of mere impressions given to it. hence the sole radical avoidance of the contradictions can be secured only when thinking is seen to be a specific event in the movement of experienced things, having its own specific occasion or demand, and its own specific place. the nature of the organization and force that the antecedent conditions of the thought-function possess is too large a question here to enter upon in detail. lotze himself suggests the answer. he speaks of the current of ideas, just as a current, supplying us with the "mass of well-grounded information which _regulates daily life_" (i, 4). it gives rise to "useful combinations," "correct expectations," "seasonable reactions" (i, 7). he speaks of it, indeed, as if it were just the ordinary world of naïve experience, the so-called empirical world, as distinct from the world as critically revised and rationalized in scientific and philosophic inquiry. the contradiction between this interpretation and that of a mere stream of psychical impressions is only another instance of the difficulty already discussed. but the phraseology suggests the real state of things. the unreflective world is a world of practical things; of ends and means, of their effective adaptations; of control and regulation of conduct in view of results. the world of uncritical experience also is a world of social aims and means, involving at every turn the goods and objects of affection and attachment, of competition and co-operation. it has incorporate also in its own being the surprise of aesthetic values--the sudden joy of light, the gracious wonder of tone and form. i do not mean that this holds in gross of the unreflective world of experience over against the critical thought-situation--such a contrast implies the very wholesale, at large, consideration of thought which i am striving to avoid. doubtless many and many an act of thought has intervened in effecting the organization of our commonest practical-affectional-aesthetic environment. i only mean to indicate that thought does take place _in_ such a world; not _after_ a world of bare existences; and that while the more systematic reflection we call organized science may, in some fair sense, be said to come _after_, it comes after affectional, artistic, and technological interests which have found realization. having entered so far upon a suggestion which cannot be followed out, i venture one other digression. the notion that value or significance as distinct from mere existentiality is the product of thought or reason, and that the source of lotze's contradictions lies in the effort to find _any_ situation prior or antecedent to thought, is a familiar one--it is even possible that my criticisms of lotze have been interpreted by some readers in this sense.[20] this is the position frequently called neo-hegelian (though, i think, with questionable accuracy), and has been developed by many writers in criticizing kant. this position and that taken in this chapter do indeed agree in certain general regards. they are at one in denial of the factuality and the possibility of developing fruitful reflection out of antecedent bare existence or mere events. they unite in denying that there is or can be any such thing as _mere_ existence--phenomenon unqualified as respects organization and force, whether such phenomenon be psychic or cosmic. they agree that reflective thought grows organically out of an experience which is already organized, and that it functions within such an organism. but they part company when a fundamental question is raised: is all organized meaning the work of thought? does it therefore follow that the organization out of which reflective thought grows is the work of thought of some other type--of pure thought, creative or constitutive thought, intuitive reason, etc.? i shall indicate briefly the reasons for divergence at this point. to cover all the practical-social-aesthetic objects involved, the term "thought" has to be so stretched that the situation might as well be called by any other name that describes a typical form of experience. more specifically, when the difference is minimized between the organized and arranged scheme out of which reflective inquiry proceeds, and reflective inquiry itself (and there can be no other reason for insisting that the antecedent of reflective thought is itself somehow thought), exactly the same type of problem recurs which presents itself when the distinction is exaggerated into one between bare existences and rational coherent meanings. for the more one insists that the antecedent situation is constituted by thought, the more one has to wonder why another type of thought is required; what need arouses it, and how it is possible for it to improve upon the work of previous constitutive thought. this difficulty at once forces idealists from a logic of experience as it is concretely experienced into a metaphysic of a purely hypothetical experience. constitutive thought precedes _our_ conscious thought-operations; hence it must be the working of some absolute universal thought which, unconsciously to our reflection, builds up an organized world. but this recourse only deepens the difficulty. how does it happen that the absolute constitutive and intuitive thought does such a poor and bungling job that it requires a finite discursive activity to patch up its products? here more metaphysic is called for: the absolute reason is now supposed to work under limiting conditions of finitude, of a sensitive and temporal organism. the antecedents of reflective thought are not, therefore, determinations of thought pure and undefiled, but of what thought can do when it stoops to assume the yoke of change and of feeling. i pass by the metaphysical problem left unsolved by this flight: why and how should a perfect, absolute, complete, finished thought find it necessary to submit to alien, disturbing, and corrupting conditions in order, in the end, to recover through reflective thought in a partial, piecemeal, wholly inadequate way what it possessed at the outset in a much more satisfactory way? i confine myself to the logical difficulty. how can thought relate itself to the fragmentary sensations, impressions, feelings, which, in their contrast with and disparity from the workings of constitutive thought, mark it off from the latter; and which in their connection with its products give the cue to reflective thinking? _here we have again exactly the problem with which lotze has been wrestling_: we have the same insoluble question of the reference of thought-activity to a wholly indeterminate unrationalized, independent, prior existence. the absolute idealist who takes up the problem at this point will find himself forced into the same continuous seesaw, the same scheme of alternate rude robbery and gratuitous gift, that lotze engaged in. the simple fact is that here _is_ just where lotze began; he saw that previous transcendental logicians had left untouched the specific question of relation of _our_ supposedly finite, reflective thought to its own antecedents, and he set out to make good the defect. if reflective thought is required because constitutive thought works under externally limiting conditions of sense, then we have some elements which are, after all, mere existences, events, etc. or, if they have organization from some other source than thought, and induce reflective thought not as bare impressions, etc., but through their place in some whole, then we have admitted the possibility of organization in experience, apart from reason, and the ground for assuming pure constitutive thought is abandoned. the contradiction appears equally when viewed from the side of thought-activity and its characteristic forms. all our knowledge, after all, of thought as constitutive is gained by consideration of the operations of reflective thought. the perfect system of thought is so perfect that it is a luminous, harmonious whole, without definite parts or distinctions--or, if there are such, it is only reflection that brings them out. the categories and methods of constitutive thought itself must therefore be characterized in terms of the _modus operandi_ of reflective thought. yet the latter takes place just because of the peculiar problem of the peculiar conditions under which it arises. its work is progressive, reformatory, reconstructive, synthetic, in the terminology made familiar by kant. we are not only _not_ justified, accordingly, in transferring its determinations over to "constitutive" thought, but are prohibited from attempting any such transfer. to identify logical processes, states, devices, results which are conditioned upon the primary fact of resistance to thought as constitutive with the structure of constitutive thought is as complete an instance of the fallacy of recourse from one genus to another as could well be found. constitutive and reflective thought are, first, defined in terms of their dissimilarity and even opposition, and then without more ado the forms of the description of the latter are carried over bodily to the former! this is not a merely controversial criticism. it points positively toward the fundamental thesis of these chapters: all the distinctions discovered within thinking, of conception as over against sense perception, of various modes and forms of judgment, of inference in its vast diversity of operation--all these distinctions come within the thought-situation as growing out of a characteristic antecedent typical formation of experience; and have for their purpose the solution of the peculiar problem with respect to which the thought-function is generated or evolved: the restoration of a deliberately integrated experience from the inherent conflict into which it has fallen. the failure of transcendental logic has the same origin as the failure of the empiristic (whether taken pure or in the mixed form in which lotze presents it). it makes into absolute and fixed distinctions of existence and meaning, and of one kind of meaning and another kind, things which are historic or temporal in their origin and their significance. it views thought as attempting to represent or state reality once for all, instead of trying to determine some phases or contents of it with reference to their more effective and significant employ--instead of as reconstructive. the rock against which every such logic splits is that either existence already has the statement which thought is endeavoring to give it, or else it has not. in the former case, thought is futilely reiterative; in the latter, it is falsificatory. the significance of lotze for critical purposes is that his peculiar effort to combine a transcendental view of thought (i.e., of thought as active in forms of its own, pure in and of themselves) with certain obvious facts of the dependence of our thought upon specific empirical antecedents, brings to light fundamental defects in both the empiristic and the transcendental logics. we discover a common failure in both: the failure to view logical terms and distinctions with respect to their necessary function in the redintegration of experience. footnotes: [13] lotze, _logic_ (translation, oxford, 1888), i, 2. for the preceding exposition see i, 1, 2, 13, 14, 37, 38; also _microkosmus_, book v, chap. iv. [14] lotze, _logic_, i, 6, 7. [15] lotze, _logic_ (translation, oxford, 1888), i, 25. [16] _ibid._, 36. [17] _ibid._ [18] _microkosmus_, book v, chap. iv. [19] _logic_, ii, 235; see the whole discussion, §§ 325-327. [20] we have a most acute and valuable criticism of lotze from this point of view in professor henry jones, _philosophy of lotze_, 1895. my specific criticisms agree in the main with his, and i am glad to acknowledge my indebtedness. but i cannot agree in the belief that the business of thought is to qualify reality as such; its occupation appears to me to be determining the reconstruction of some aspect or portion of reality, and to fall within the course of reality itself; being, indeed, the characteristic medium of its activity. and i cannot agree that reality as such, with increasing fulness of knowledge, presents itself as a thought-system, though, as just indicated, i have no doubt that practical existence presents itself in its temporal course as thought-specifications, just as it does as affectional and aesthetic and the rest of them. iv data and meanings we have reached the point of conflict in the matters of an experience. it is _in_ this conflict and because of it that the matters, or significant quales, stand out _as_ matters. as long as the sun revolves about earth without question, this "content" is not in any way abstracted. its distinction from the form or mode of experience as its matter is the work of reflection. the same conflict makes other experiences assume discriminated objectification; they, too, cease to be ways of living, and become distinct objects of observation and consideration. the movements of planets, eclipses, etc., are cases in point.[21] the maintenance of a unified experience has become a problem, an end, for it is no longer secure. but this involves such restatement of the conflicting elements as will enable them to take a place somewhere in the world of the new experience; they must be disposed of somehow, and they can be disposed of finally only as they are provided for. that is, they cannot be simply denied or excluded or eliminated; they must be taken into the fold. but such introduction clearly demands more or less modification or transformation on their part. the thought-situation is the deliberate maintenance of an organization in experience, with a critical consideration of the claims of the various conflicting contents to a place, and a final assignment of position. the conflicting situation inevitably polarizes or dichotomizes itself. there is somewhat which is untouched in the contention of incompatibles. there is something which remains secure, unquestioned. on the other hand, there are elements which are doubtful and precarious. this gives the framework of the general distribution of the field into "facts," the given, the presented, the datum; and ideas, the _quaesitum_, the conceived, the inferential. _a_) there is always something unquestioned in any problematic situation at any stage of its process,[22] even if it be only the fact of conflict or tension. for this is never _mere_ tension at large. it is thoroughly qualified, or characteristically toned and colored, by the particular elements which are in strife. hence it is _this_ conflict, unique and irreplaceable. that it comes now means precisely that it has never come before; that it is now passed in review and some sort of a settlement reached, means that just _this_ conflict will never recur. in a word, the conflict is immediately of just this and no other sort, and this immediately given quality is an irreducible datum. _it_ is fact, even if all else be _doubtful_. as it is subjected to examination, it loses vagueness and assumes more definite form. only in very extreme cases, however, does the assured, unquestioned element reduce to terms as low as we have here imagined. certain things come to stand forth as facts, no matter what else may be doubted. there are certain _apparent_ diurnal changes of the sun; there is a certain annual course or track. there are certain nocturnal changes in the planets, and certain seasonal rhythmic paths. the significance of these may be doubted: do they _mean_ real change in the sun or in the earth? but change, and change of a certain definite and numerically determinate character, is there. it is clear that such out-standing facts (ex-istences) constitute the data, the given or presented, in the thought-function. _b_) it is obvious that this is only one correspondent, or status, in the total situation. with the consciousness of _this_ as certain, as given to be reckoned with, goes the consciousness of uncertainty as to _what it means_--of how it is to be understood or interpreted, that is, of its reference and connection. the facts qua presentations or existences are sure; _qua_ meanings (position and relationship in an experience yet to be secured) they are doubtful. yet doubt does not preclude memory or anticipation. indeed, it is possible only through them. the memory of past experience makes sun-revolving-about-earth an object of attentive regard. the recollection of certain other experiences suggests the idea of earth-rotating-daily-on-axis and revolving-annually-about-sun. these contents are as much present as is the observation of change, but as respects connection they are only possibilities. accordingly, they are categorized or disposed of as ideas, meanings, thoughts, ways of conceiving, comprehending, interpreting facts. correspondence of reference here is as obvious as correlation of existence. in the logical process, the datum is not just external existence, and the idea mere psychical existence. both are modes of existence--one of _given_ existence, the other of _possible_, of inferred existence. and if the latter is regarded, from the standpoint of the unified experience aimed at, as having only _possible_ existence, the datum also is regarded as incomplete and unassured. or, as we commonly put it, while the ideas are impressions, suggestions, guesses, theories, estimates, etc., facts are crude, raw, unorganized, brute. they lack relationship, that is, assured place; they are deficient as to continuity. mere change of relative position of sun, which is absolutely unquestioned as datum, is a sheer abstraction from the standpoint either of the organized experience left behind, or of the reorganized experience which is the end--the objective. it is impossible as a persistent object. in other words, datum and ideatum are divisions of labor, co-operative instrumentalities, for economical dealing with the problem of the maintenance of the integrity of experience. once more, and briefly, both datum and ideatum may (and positively, veritably, do) break up, each for itself, into physical and mental. in so far as the conviction gains ground that the earth revolves about the sun, the old fact is broken up into a new cosmic existence, and a new psychological condition--the recognition of a process in virtue of which movements of smaller bodies in relation to very remote larger bodies are interpreted in a reverse sense. we do not just eliminate the source of error in the old content. we reinterpret it as valid in its own place, viz., a case of the psychology of perception, although invalid as a matter of cosmic structure. until we have detected the source of error as itself a perfectly genuine existence, we are not, scientifically, satisfied. if we decide that the snake is but a hallucination, our reflection is not, in purport, complete until we have found some fact just as existential as the snake would have been had it been there, which accounts for the hallucination. we never stop, except temporarily, with a reference to the mind or knower as source of an error. we hunt for a specific existence. in other words, with increasing accuracy of determination of the given, there comes a distinction, for methodological purposes, between the _quality_ or matter of the sense experience and its _form_--the sense perceiving, as itself a psychological fact, having its own place and laws or relations. moreover, the old experience, that of sun-revolving, abides. but it is regarded as belonging to "me"--to this experiencing individual rather than to the cosmic world. here, then, _within_ the growth of the thought-situation and as a part of the process of determining _specific_ truth under _specific_ conditions, we get for the first time the clue to that distinction with which, as ready-made and prior to all thinking, lotze started out, namely, the separation of the matter of impression from impression as a personal event. the separation which, taken at large, engenders an insoluble problem, appears within a particular reflective inquiry, as an inevitable differentiation of a scheme of existence. the same sort of thing occurs on the side of thought, or meaning. the meaning or idea which is growing in acceptance, which is gaining ground as meaning-of-datum, gets logical or intellectual or objective force; that which is losing standing, which is increasingly doubtful, gets qualified as just a notion, a fancy, a prejudice, misconception--or finally just an error, a mental slip. evaluated as fanciful in _validity_ it becomes a mere fancy in its existence.[23] it is not eliminated, but receives a new reference or meaning. thus the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity is not one between meaning as such and datum as such. it is a specification that emerges, correspondently, in _both_ datum and ideatum. that which is left behind in the evolution of accepted meaning is still characterized as real, but real now in relation only to a way of experiencing--to a peculiarity of the organism. that which is moved toward is regarded as real in a cosmic or extra-organic sense. 1. _the data of thought._--when we turn to lotze, we find that he makes a clear distinction between the presented material of thought, its datum, and the typical characteristic modes of thinking in virtue of which the datum gets organization or system. it is interesting to note also that he states the datum in terms different from those in which the antecedents of thought are defined. from the point of view of the data or material upon which ideas exercise themselves, it is not coincidence, collocation, or succession that counts, but gradation of degrees in a scale. it is not things in spatial or temporal arrangement that are emphasized, but qualities as mutually distinguished, yet resembling and classed. there is no inherent inconceivability in the idea that every impression should be as incomparably different from every other as sweet is from warm. but by a remarkable circumstance such is not the case. we have series, and networks of series. we have diversity of a common--diverse colors, sounds, smells, tastes, etc. in other words, the data are sense qualities which, fortunately for thought, are given arranged as shades, degrees, variations, or qualities of somewhat that is identical.[24] all this is given, presented, to our ideational activities. even the universal, the common color which runs through the various qualities of blue, green, white, etc., is not a product of thought, but something which thought finds already in existence. it conditions comparison and reciprocal distinction. particularly all mathematical determinations, whether of counting (number), degree (more or less), and quantity (greatness and smallness), come back to this peculiarity of the datum. here lotze dwells at considerable length upon the fact that the very possibility, as well as the success, of thought is due to this peculiar universalization or _prima facie_ ordering with which its material is given to it. such pre-established fitness in the meeting of two things that have nothing to do with each other is certainly cause enough for wonder and congratulation. it should not be difficult to see why lotze uses different categories in describing the material of thought from those employed in describing its antecedent conditions, even though, according to him, the two are absolutely the same.[25] he has different _functions_ in mind. in one case, the material must be characterized as evoking, as incentive, as stimulus--from this point of view the peculiar feature of spatial and temporal arrangement in contrast with coherence or connection is emphasized. but in the other case the material must be characterized as affording stuff, actual subject-matter. data are not only what is given _to_ thought, but they are also the food, the raw material, _of_ thought. they must be described as, on the one hand, wholly outside of thought. this clearly puts them into the region of sense perception. they are matters of _sensation_ given free from all inferring, judging, relating influence. sensation is just what is _not_ called up in memory or in anticipated projection--it is the immediate, the irreducible. on the other hand, sensory-_matter_ is qualitative, and quales are made up on a common basis. they are degrees or grades of a common quality. thus they have a certain ready-made setting of mutual distinction and reference which is already almost, if not quite, the effect of comparing, of relating, effects which are the express traits of thinking. it is easy to interpret this miraculous gift of grace in the light of what has been said. the data are in truth precisely that which is selected and set aside as present, as immediate. thus they are _given_ to _further_ thought. but the selection has occurred in view of the need for thought; it is a listing of the capital in the way of the undisturbed, the undiscussed, which thought can count upon in this particular problem. hence it is not strange that it has a peculiar fitness of adaptation for thought's further work. having been selected with precisely that end in view, the wonder would be if it were not so fitted. a man may coin counterfeit money for use upon others, but hardly with the intent of passing it off upon himself. our only difficulty here is that the mind flies away from the logical interpretation of sense datum to a ready-made notion of it brought over from abstract psychological inquiry. the belief in isolated sensory quales which are somehow forced upon us, and forced upon us at large, and thus conditioning thought wholly _ab extra_, instead of determining it as instrumentalities or elements selected from experienced things for that very purpose, is too fixed. sensory qualities _are_ forced upon us, but _not_ at large. the sensory data of experience always come _in a context_; they always appear as variations in a continuum. even the thunder which breaks in upon me (to take the extreme of apparent discontinuity and irrelevancy) disturbs me because it is taken as thunder: as a part of the same space-world as that in which my chair and room and house are located; and it is taken as an influence which interrupts and disturbs, _because_ it is part of a common world of causes and effects. the solution of continuity is itself practical or teleological, and thus presupposes and affects continuity of purpose, occupations, and means in a life-process. it is not metaphysics, it is biology which enforces the idea that actual sensation is not only determined as an event in a world of events,[26] but is an occurrence occurring at a certain period in the control and use of stimuli.[27] 2. _forms of thinking data._--as sensory datum is material set for work of thought, so the ideational forms with which thought does its work are apt and prompt to meet the needs of the material. the "accessory"[28] notion of ground of coherence turns out, in truth, not to be a formal, or external, addition to the data, but a requalification of them. thought is accessory as accomplice, not as addendum. "thought" is to eliminate mere coincidence, and to assert grounded coherence. lotze makes it clear that he does not at bottom conceive of "thought" as an activity "in itself" imposing a form of coherence; but that the organizing work of "thought" is only the progressive realization of an inherent unity, or system, in the material experienced. the specific modes in which thought brings its "accessory" power to bear--names, conception, judgment, and inference--are successive stages in the adequate organization of the matter which comes to us first as data; they are successive stages of the effort to overcome the original defects of the data. conception starts from the universal (the common element) of sense. yet (and this is the significant point) it does not simply abstract this common element, and consciously generalize it over against its own differences. such a "universal" is _not_ coherence just because it does not _include_ and dominate the temporal and local heterogeneity. the _true_ concept (see i, 38) is a system of attributes, held together on the basis of some ground, or determining, dominating principle--a ground which so controls all its own instances as to make them into an inwardly connected whole, and which so specifies its own limits as to be exclusive of all else. if we abstract color as the common element of various colors, the result is not a scientific idea or concept. discovery of a process of light-waves whose various rates constitute the various colors of the spectrum gives the concept. and when we get such a concept, the former mere temporal abruptness of color experiences gives way to ordered parts of a color system. the logical product--the concept, in other words--is not a formal seal or stamp; it is a thoroughgoing connection of data in a dynamic continuity of existence. the form or mode of thought which marks the continued transformation of the data and the idea in reference to each other is judgment. judgment makes explicit the assumption of a principle which determines connection within an individualized whole. it definitely states red as _this_ case or instance of the law or process of color, and thus further overcomes the defect in _subject-matter_ or data still left by conception.[29] now judgment logically terminates in disjunction. it gives a universal which may determine any one of a number of alternative defined particulars, but which is arbitrary as to _what_ one is selected. systematic _inference_ brings to light the material conditions under which the law, or dominating universal, applies to this, rather than that alternative particular, and so completes the ideal organization of the subject-matter. if this act were complete, we should finally have present to us a whole on which we should know the determining and effective or authorizing elements, and the order of development or hierarchy of dependence, in which others follow from them.[30] in this account by lotze of the operations of the forms of thought, there is clearly put before us the picture of a continuous correlative determination of datum on one side and of idea or meaning on the other, till experience is again integral, data being thoroughly defined and connected, and ideas being the relevant meanings of subject-matter. that we have here in outline a description of what actually occurs there can be no doubt. but there is as little doubt that the description is thoroughly inconsistent with lotze's supposition that the material or data of thought is precisely the same as the antecedent of thought; or that ideas, conceptions, are purely mental somewhats extraneously brought to bear, as the sole essential characteristics of thought, upon a material provided ready-made. it means but one thing: the maintenance of unity and wholeness in experience through conflicting contents occurs by means of a strictly correspondent setting apart of facts to be accurately described and properly related, and meanings to be adequately construed and properly referred. the datum is given _in_ the thought-situation, and _to_ further qualification of ideas or meanings. but even in this aspect it presents a problem. to find out _what is_ given is an inquiry which taxes reflection to the uttermost. every important advance in scientific method means better agencies, more skilled technique for simply detaching and describing what is barely there, or given. to be able to find out what can safely be taken as _there_, as given in any particular inquiry, and hence be taken as material for orderly and verifiable inference, for fruitful hypothesis-making, for entertaining of explanatory and interpretative ideas, is one phase of the effort of systematic scientific inquiry. it marks its inductive phase. to take what is discovered to be reliable evidence within a more complex _situation_ as if it were given absolutely and in isolation, or apart from a particular historic situs and context, is the fallacy of empiricism as a logical theory. to regard the thought-forms of conception, judgment, and inference as qualifications of "pure thought, apart from any difference in objects," instead of as successive dispositions in the progressive organization of the material (or objects), is the fallacy of rationalism. lotze, like kant, attempts to combine the two, thinking thereby to correct each by the other. lotze recognizes the futility of thought if the sense data as data are final, if they alone are real, the truly existent, self-justificatory and valid. he sees that, if the empiricist were right in his assumption as to the real worth of the given data, thinking would be a ridiculous pretender, either toilfully and poorly doing over again what needs no doing, or making a wilful departure from truth. he realizes that thought is evoked because it is needed; and that it has a work to do which is not merely formal, but which effects a modification of the subject-matter of experience. consequently he assumes a thought-in-itself, with certain forms and modes of action of its own, a realm of meaning possessed of a directive and normative worth of its own--the root-fallacy of rationalism. his attempted compromise between the two turns out to be based on the assumption of the indefensible ideas of both--the notion of an independent matter given to thought, on one side, and of an independent worth or force of thought-forms, on the other. this pointing out of inconsistencies becomes stale and unprofitable save as we bring them back into connection with their root-origin--the erection of distinctions that are genetic and historic, and working or instrumental divisions of labor, into rigid and ready-made structural differences of reality. lotze clearly recognizes that thought's nature is dependent upon its aim, its aim upon its problem, and this upon the situation in which it finds its incentive and excuse. its work is cut out for it. it does not what it would, but what it must. as lotze puts it, "logic has to do with thought, not as it would be under hypothetical conditions, but as it is" (i, 33), and this statement is made in explicit combination with statements to the effect that the peculiarity of the material of thought conditions its activity. similarly he says, in a passage already referred to: "the possibility and the success of thought's production in general depends upon this original constitution and organization of the whole world of ideas, a constitution which, though not necessary in thought, is all the more necessary to make thought possible."[31] as we have seen, the essential nature of conception, judgment, and inference is dependent upon peculiarities of the propounded material, they being forms dependent for their significance upon the stage of organization in which they begin. from this only one conclusion is possible. if thought's nature is dependent upon its actual conditions and circumstances, the primary logical problem is to study thought-in-its-conditioning; it is to detect the crisis within which thought and its subject-matter present themselves in their mutual distinction and cross-reference. but lotze is so thoroughly committed to a ready-made antecedent of some sort, that this genetic consideration is of no account to him. the historic method is a mere matter of psychology, and has no logical worth (i, 2). we must presuppose a psychological mechanism and psychological material, but logic is concerned not with origin or history, but with authority, worth, value (i, 10). again: "logic is not concerned with the manner in which the elements utilized by thought come into existence, but their value _after_ they have somehow come into existence, for the carrying out of intellectual operations" (i, 34). and finally: "i have maintained throughout my work that logic cannot derive any serious advantage from a discussion of _the conditions under which thought as a psychological process comes about_. the significance of logical forms ... is to be found in the utterances of thought, the laws which it imposes, after or during the act of thinking, not in the conditions which lie back of any which produce thought."[32] lotze, in truth, represents a halting-stage in the evolution of logical theory. he is too far along to be contented with the reiteration of the purely formal distinctions of a merely formal thought-by-itself. he recognizes that thought as formal is the form of some matter, and has its worth only as organizing that matter to meet the ideal demands of reason; and that "reason" is in truth only an adequate systematization of the matter or content. consequently he has to open the door to admit "psychical processes" which furnish this material. having let in the material, he is bound to shut the door again in the face of the processes from which the material proceeded--to dismiss them as impertinent intruders. if thought gets its data in such a surreptitious manner, there is no occasion for wonder that the legitimacy of its dealings with the material remains an open question. logical theory, like every branch of the philosophic disciplines, waits upon a surrender of the obstinate conviction that, while the work and aim of thought is conditioned by the material supplied to it, yet the _worth_ of its performances is something to be passed upon in complete abstraction from conditions of origin and development. footnotes: [21] this is but to say that the presentation of objects as specifically different things in experience is the work of reflection, and that the discrimination of something experienc_ed_ from modes of experienc_ing_ is also the work of reflection. the latter statement is, of course, but a particular case of the first; for an act of experiencing is one object, among others, which may be discriminated out of the original experience. when so discriminated, it has exactly the same existential status as any other discriminated object; seeing and thing seen stand on the same level of existentiality. but primary experience is innocent of the discrimination of the _what_ experienced and the _how_, or mode, of experiencing. we are not in it aware of the seeing, nor yet of objects _as_ something seen. any experience in all of its non-reflective phases is innocent of any discrimination of subject and object. it involves within itself what may be reflectively discriminated into objects located outside the organism and objects referred to the organism. [note added in revision.] [22] of course, this very element may be the precarious, the ideal, and possibly fanciful of some other situation. but it is to change the historic into the absolute to conclude that therefore everything is uncertain, all at once, or as such. this gives metaphysical skepticism as distinct from the working skepticism which is an inherent factor in all reflection and scientific inquiry. [23] but this is a slow progress within reflection. plato, who was influential in bringing this general distinction to consciousness, still thought and wrote as if "image" were itself a queer sort of objective existence; it was only gradually that it was disposed of as a phase of personal experiencing. [24] i, 28-34. [25] it is interesting to see how explicitly lotze is compelled finally to differentiate two aspects in the antecedents of thoughts, one of which is necessary in order that there may be anything to call out thought (a lack, or problem); the other in order that when thought is evoked it may find data at hand--that is, material in shape to receive and respond to its exercise. "the manifold matter of ideas is brought before us, not only in the _systematic order of its qualitative relationships_, but in the rich _variety of local and temporal combinations_.... the _combinations of heterogeneous ideas_ ... form the _problems_, in connection with which the efforts of thought to reduce coexistence to coherence will _subsequently_ be made. the _homogeneous or similar_ ideas, on the other hand, give occasion to separate, to connect, and to count their repetitions" (i, 33, 34; italics mine). without the heterogeneous variety of the local and temporal juxtapositions there would be nothing to excite thought. without the systematic arrangement of quality there would be nothing to meet thought and reward it for its efforts. the homogeneity of qualitative relationships, _in the pre-thought material_, gives the tools or instruments by which thought is enabled successfully to tackle the heterogeneity of collocations and conjunctions also found in the same material! one would suppose that when lotze reached this point he might have been led to suspect that in his remarkable adjustment of thought-stimuli, thought-material, and thought-tools to one another, he must after all be dealing, not with something prior to the thought-function, but with the necessary structures and tools of the thought-situation. [26] _supra_, p. 113. [27] for the identity of sensory experience with the point of greatest strain and stress in conflicting or tensional experience, see "the reflex arc concept in psychology," _psychological review_, iii, 57. [28] for the "accessory" character of thought, see lotze, i, 7, 25-27, 61, etc. [29] bosanquet (_logic_, i, 30-34) and jones (_philosophy of lotze_, 1895, chap. iv) have called attention to a curious inconsistency in lotze's treatment of judgment. on one hand, the statement is as given above. judgment grows out of conception in making explicit the determining relation of universal to its own particular, implied in conception. but, on the other hand, judgment grows not out of conception at all, but out of the question of determining connection in change. lotze's nominal reason for this latter view is that the conceptual world is purely static; since the actual world is one of change, we need to pass upon what really goes together (is causal) in the change as distinct from such as are merely coincident. but, as jones clearly shows, it is also connected with the fact that, while lotze nominally asserts that judgment grows out of conception, he treats conception as the result of judgment since the first view makes judgment a mere explication of the content of an idea, and hence merely expository or analytic (in the kantian sense) and so of more than doubtful applicability to reality. the affair is too large to discuss here, and i will content myself with referring to the oscillation between conflicting contents and gradation of sensory qualities already discussed (p. 144, note). it is judgment which grows out of the former, because judgment is the whole situation as such; conception is referable to the latter because it _is_ one abstraction within the whole (the solution of possible meanings of the data) just as the datum is another. in truth, since the sensory datum is not absolute, but comes in a historical context, the qualities apprehended as constituting the datum simply define the locus of conflict in the entire situation. they are attributives of the contents-in-tension of the colliding things, not calm untroubled ultimates. on pp. 33 and 34 of vol. i, lotze recognizes (as we have just seen) that, as matter of fact, it is both sensory qualities in their systematic grading, or quantitative determinations (see i, 43, for the recognition of the necessary place of the quantitative in the true concept), and the "rich variety of local and temporal combinations," that provoke thought and supply it with material. but, as usual, he treats this simply as a historical accident, not as furnishing the key to the whole matter. in fine, while the heterogeneous collocations and successions constitute the problematic element that stimulates thought, quantitative determination of the sensory quality furnishes one of the two chief means through which thought deals with the problem. it is a reduction of the original colliding contents to a form in which the effort at redintegration gets maximum efficiency. the concept, as ideal meaning, is of course the other partner to the transaction. it is getting the various possible meanings-of-the-data into such shape as to make them most useful in construing the data. the bearing of this upon the subject and predicate of judgment cannot be discussed here. [30] see i, 38, 59, 61, 105, 129, 197, for lotze's treatment of these distinctions. [31] i, 36; see also ii, 290, 291. [32] ii, 246; the same is reiterated in ii, 250, where the question of origin is referred to as a corruption in logic. certain psychical acts are necessary as "conditions and occasions" of logical operations, but the "deep gulf between psychical mechanism and thought remains unfilled." v the objects of thought in the foregoing discussion, particularly in the last chapter, we were repeatedly led to recognize that thought has its own distinctive objects. at times lotze gives way to the tendency to define thought entirely in terms of modes and forms of activity which are exercised by it upon a strictly foreign material. but two motives continually push him in the other direction. (1) thought has a distinctive work to do, one which involves a qualitative transformation of (at least) the _relationships_ of the presented matter; as fast as it accomplishes this work, the subject-matter becomes somehow thought's subject-matter. as we have just seen, the data are progressively organized to meet thought's ideal of a complete whole, with its members interconnected according to a determining principle. such progressive organization throws backward doubt upon the assumption of the original total irrelevancy of the data and thought-forms to each other. (2) a like motive operates from the side of the subject-matter. as merely foreign and external, it is too heterogeneous to lend itself to thought's exercise and influence. the idea, as we saw in the first chapter, is the convenient medium through which lotze passes from the purely heterogeneous psychical impression or event, which is totally irrelevant to thought's purpose and working, over to a state of affairs which can reward thought. idea as meaning forms the bridge over from the brute factuality of the psychical impression to the coherent value of thought's own content. we have, in this chapter, to consider the question of the idea or content of thought from two points of view: first the _possibility_ of such a content--its consistency with lotze's fundamental premises; secondly, its _objective_ character--its validity and test. i. the question of the possibility of a specific content of thought is the question of the nature of the idea as meaning. _meaning_ is the characteristic object of thought. we have thus far left unquestioned lotze's continual assumption of meaning as a sort of thought-unit; the building-stone of thought's construction. in his treatment of meaning, lotze's contradictions regarding the antecedents, data, and content of thought reach their full conclusion. he expressly makes meaning to be the product of thought's activity and also the unreflective material out of which thought's operations grow. this contradiction has been worked out in accurate and complete detail by professor jones.[33] he summarizes it as follows (p. 99): "no other way was left to him [lotze] excepting this of first attributing all to sense and afterwards attributing all to thought, and, finally, of attributing it to thought only because it was already in its material. this _seesaw_ is essential to his theory; the elements of knowledge as he describes them can subsist only by the alternate robbery of each other." we have already seen how strenuously lotze insists upon the fact that the given subject-matter of thought is to be regarded wholly as the work of a physical mechanism, "without any action of thought."[34] but lotze also states that if the products of the psychical mechanism "are to admit of combination in the definite form of a _thought_, they each require some previous shaping to make them into logical building-stones and to convert them from _impressions_ into _ideas_. nothing is really more familiar to us than this first operation of thought; the only reason why we usually overlook it is that in the language which we inherit, it is already carried out, and it seems, therefore, to belong to the self-evident presuppositions of thought, _not to its own specific work_."[35] and again (i, 23), judgments "can consist of nothing but combinations of ideas which are no longer mere impressions: every such idea must have undergone at least the simple formation mentioned above." such ideas are, lotze goes on to urge, already rudimentary concepts--that is to say, logical determinations. the obviousness of the logical contradiction of attributing to a preliminary specific work of thought exactly the condition of affairs which is elsewhere explicitly attributed to a psychical mechanism prior to any thought-activity, should not blind us to its import and relative necessity. the impression, it will be recalled, is a mere state of our own consciousness--a mood of ourselves. as such it has simply _de facto_ relations as an event to other similar events. but reflective thought is concerned with the relationship of a content or matter to other contents. hence the impression must have a matter before it can come at all within the sphere of thought's exercise. how shall it secure this? why, by a preliminary activity of thought which objectifies the impression. blue as a mere sensuous irritation or feeling is given a quality, the meaning "blue"--blueness; the sense impression is objectified; it is presented "no longer as a condition which we undergo, but as a something which has its being and its meaning in itself, and which continues to be what it is, and to mean what it means whether we are conscious of it or not. it is easy to see here the _necessary beginning of that activity which we above appropriated to thought as such_: it has not yet got so far as converting coexistence into coherence. it has first to perform the previous task of investing each single impression with an independent validity, without which the later opposition of their real coherence to mere coexistence could not be made in any intelligible sense."[36] this objectification, which converts a sensitive state into a sensible matter to which the sensitive state is referred, also gives this matter "position," a certain typical character. it is not objectified in a merely general way, but is given a specific sort of objectivity. of these sorts of objectivity there are three mentioned: that of a substantive content; that of an attached dependent content; that of an active relationship connecting the various contents with each other. in short, we have the types of meaning embodied in language in the form of nouns, adjectives, and verbs. it is through this preliminary formative activity of thought that reflective or _logical_ thought has presented to it a world of meanings ranged in an order of relative independence and dependence, and arranged as elements in a complex of meanings whose various constituent parts mutually influence one another's meanings.[37] as usual, lotze mediates the contradiction between material constituted _by_ thought and the same material just presented _to_ thought, by a further position so disparate to each that, taken in connection with each by turns, it seems to bridge the gulf. after describing the prior constitutive work of thought as above, he goes on to discuss a _second_ phase of thought which is intermediary between this and the third phase, viz., reflective thought proper. this second activity is that of arranging experienced quales in series and groups, thus ascribing a sort of universal or common somewhat to various instances (as already described; see p. 144). on one hand, it is clearly stated that this second phase of thought's activity is in reality the _same_ as the first phase: since all objectification involves positing, since positing involves distinction of one matter from others, and since this involves placing it in a series or group in which each is measurably marked off, as to the degree and nature of its diversity, from every other. we are told that we are only considering "a really inseparable operation" of thought from two different sides: first, as to the effect which objectifying thought has upon the matter as set over against the feeling _subject_; secondly, the effect which this objectification has upon the matter in relation to _other matters_.[38] afterward, however, these two operations are declared to be radically different in type and nature. the first is determinant and formative; it gives ideas "the shape without which the logical spirit could not accept them." in a way it dictates "its own laws to its object-matter."[39] the second activity of thought is rather passive and receptive. it simply recognizes what is already there. "thought can make no difference where it finds none already in the matter of impressions."[40] "the first universal, as we saw, can only be experienced in immediate sensation. it is no product of thought, but something that thought finds already in existence."[41] the obviousness of this further contradiction is paralleled only by its inevitableness. thought is in the air, is arbitrary and wild in dealing with meanings, unless it gets its start and cue from actual experience. hence the necessity of insisting upon thought's activity as just recognizing the contents already given. but, on the other hand, prior to the work of thought there is to lotze no content or meaning. it requires a work of thought to detach anything from the flux of sense irritations and invest it with a meaning of its own. this dilemma is inevitable to any writer who declines to consider as correlative the nature of thought-activity and thought-content from the standpoint of their generating conditions in the movement of experience. viewed from such a standpoint the principle of solution is clear enough. as we have already seen (p. 121), the internal dissension of an experience leads to detaching certain factors previously integrated in the concrete experience as aspects of its own qualitative coloring, and to relegating them, for the time being (pending integration into further immediate qualities of a reconstituted experience), into a world of bare meanings, a sphere qualified as ideal throughout. these meanings then become the tools of thought in interpreting the data, just as the sense qualities which define the presented situation are the immediate matter for thought. the two _as mutually referred_ are content. that is, the datum and the meaning as reciprocally qualified by each other constitute the objective of thought. to reach this unification is thought's objective or goal. every successive cross-section of reflective inquiry presents what may be taken for granted as the outcome of previous thinking, and as the determinant of further reflective procedure. taken as defining the point reached in the thought-function and serving as constituent unit in further thought, it is content or logical object. lotze's instinct is sure in identifying and setting over against each other the material given to thought and the content which is thought's own "building-stone." his contradictions arise simply from the fact that his absolute, non-historic method does not permit him to interpret this joint identity and distinction in a working, and hence relative, sense. ii. the question of how the existence of meanings, or thought-contents, is to be understood merges imperceptibly into the question of the real objectivity or validity of such contents. the difficulty for lotze is the now familiar one: so far as his logic compels him to insist that these meanings are the possession and product of thought (since thought is an independent activity), the ideas are merely ideas; there is no test of objectivity beyond the thoroughly unsatisfactory and formal one of their own mutual consistency. in reaction from this lotze is thrown back upon the idea of these contents as the original matter given in the impressions themselves. here there seems to be an objective or external test by which the reality of thought's operations may be tried; a given idea is verified or found false according to its measure of correspondence with the matter of experience as such. but now we are no better off. the original independence and heterogeneity of impressions and of thought is so great that there is no way to compare the results of the latter with the former. we cannot compare or contrast distinctions of worth with bare differences of factual existence (i, 2). the standard or test of objectivity is so thoroughly external that by original definition it is wholly outside the realm of thought. how can thought compare meanings with existences? or again, the given material of experience apart from thought is precisely the relatively chaotic and unorganized; it even reduces itself to a mere sequence of psychical events. what sense is there in directing us to compare the highest results of scientific inquiry with the bare sequence of our own states of feeling; or even with the original data whose fragmentary and uncertain character was the exact motive for entering upon scientific inquiry? how can the former in any sense give a check or test of the value of the latter? this is professedly to test the validity of a system of meanings by comparison with that whose defects call forth the construction of the system of meanings. our subsequent inquiry simply consists in tracing some of the phases of the characteristic seesaw from one to the other of the two horns of the now familiar dilemma: either thought is separate from the matter of experience, and then its validity is wholly its own private business, or else the objective results of thought are already in the antecedent material, and then thought is either unnecessary or else has no way of checking its own performances. 1. lotze assumes, as we have seen, a certain independent validity in each meaning or qualified content, taken in and of itself. "blue" has a certain meaning, in and of itself; it is an _object_ for consciousness as such, not merely its state or mood. after the original sense irritation through which it was mediated has entirely disappeared, it persists as a valid meaning. moreover, it is an object or content of thought for others as well. thus it has a double mark of validity: in the comparison of one part of my own experience with another, and in the comparison of my experience as a whole with that of others. here we have a sort of validity which does not raise at all the question of _metaphysical_ reality (i, 14, 15). lotze thus seems to have escaped from the necessity of employing as check or test for the validity of ideas any reference to a real outside the sphere of thought itself. such terms as "conjunction," "franchise," "constitution," "algebraic zero," etc., claim to possess objective validity. yet none of these professes to refer to a reality beyond thought. generalizing this point of view, validity or objectivity of meaning means simply that which is "identical for all consciousness" (i, 3); "it is quite indifferent whether certain parts of the world of thought indicate something which has beside an independent reality outside of thinking minds, or whether all that it contains exists only in the thoughts of those who think it, but with equal validity for them all" (i, 16). so far it seems clear sailing. difficulties, however, show themselves the moment we inquire what is meant by a self-identical content for all thought. is this to be taken in a static or in a dynamic way? that is to say: does it express the fact that a given content or meaning is _de facto_ presented to the consciousness of all alike? does this coequal presence guarantee an objectivity? or does validity attach to a given meaning or content in the sense that it directs and controls the further exercise of thinking, and thus the formation of further _new_ objects of knowledge? the former interpretation is alone consistent with lotze's notion that the independent idea as such is invested with a certain validity or objectivity. it alone is consistent with his assertion that concepts precede judgments. it alone, that is to say, is consistent with the notion that reflective thinking has a sphere of ideas or meanings supplied to it at the outset. but it is impossible to entertain this belief. the stimulus which, according to lotze, goads thought on from ideas or concepts to judgments and inferences is in truth simply the lack of validity, of objectivity in its original independent meanings or contents. a meaning as independent is precisely that which is not invested with validity, but which is a mere idea, a "notion," a fancy, at best a surmise which may turn out to be valid (and of course this indicates possible reference); a standpoint to have its value determined by its further active use. "blue" as a mere detached floating meaning, an idea at large, would not gain in validity simply by being entertained continuously in a given consciousness, or by being made at one and the same time the persistent object of attentive regard by all human consciousnesses. if this were all that were required, the chimera, the centaur, or any other subjective construction could easily gain validity. "christian science" has made just this notion the basis of its philosophy. the simple fact is that in such illustrations as "blue," "franchise," "conjunction," lotze instinctively takes cases which are not mere independent and detached meanings, but which involve reference to a _region_ of experience, to a region of mutually determining social activities. the conception that reference to a _social_ activity does not involve the same sort of reference of a meaning beyond itself that is found in physical matters, and hence may be taken quite innocent and free of the problem of reference to existence beyond meaning, is one of the strangest that has ever found lodgment in human thinking. either both physical and social reference or neither is logical; if neither, then it is because the meaning functions, as it originates, in a specific situation which carries with it its own tests (see p. 96). lotze's conception is made possible only by unconsciously substituting the idea of an object as a content of thought for a large number of persons (or a _de facto_ somewhat for every consciousness), for the genuine definition of object as a _determinant_ in a scheme of activity. the former is consistent with lotze's conception of thought, but wholly indeterminate as to validity or intent. the latter is the test used experimentally in all concrete thinking, but involves a radical transformation of all lotze's assumptions. a given idea of the conjunction of the franchise, or of blue, is valid, not because everybody happens to entertain it, but because it expresses the factor of control or direction in a given movement of experience. the test of validity of idea[42] is its functional or instrumental use in effecting the transition from a relatively conflicting experience to a relatively integrated one. if lotze's view were correct, "blue" valid once would be valid always--even when red or green were actually called for to fulfil specific conditions. this is to say validity really refers to rightfulness or adequacy of performance in an asserting of connection--not to a meaning as contemplated in detachment. if we refer again to the fact that the genuine antecedent of thought is a situation which is disorganized in its structural elements, we can easily understand how certain contents may be detached and _held_ apart as meanings or references, actual or possible. we can understand how such detached contents may be of use in effecting a review of the entire experience, and as affording standpoints and methods of a reconstruction which will maintain the integrity of behavior. we can understand how validity of meaning is measured by reference to something which is not mere meaning; by reference to something which lies beyond it as such--viz., the reconstitution of an experience into which it enters as method of control. that paradox of ordinary experience and of scientific inquiry by which objectivity is given alike to matter of perception and to conceived relations--to facts and to laws--affords no peculiar difficulty because the test of objectivity is everywhere the same: anything is objective in so far as, through the medium of conflict, it controls the movement of experience in its reconstructive transition. there is not first an object, whether of sense perception or of conception, which afterward somehow exercises this controlling influence; but the objective is _any_ existence exercising the function of control. it may only control the act of inquiry; it may only set on foot doubt, but this is direction of subsequent experience, and, in so far, is a token of objectivity. it has to be reckoned with. so much for the thought-content or meaning as having a validity of its own. it does not have it as isolated or given or static; it has it in its dynamic reference, its use in determining further movement of experience. in other words, the "meaning," having been selected and made up with reference to performing a certain office in the evolution of a unified experience, can be tested in no other way than by discovering whether it does what it was intended to do and what it purports to do.[43] 2. lotze has to wrestle with this question of validity in a further respect: what constitutes the objectivity of thinking as a total attitude, activity, or function? according to his own statement, the meanings or valid ideas are after all only building-stones for logical thought. validity is thus not a property of them in their independent existences, but of their mutual reference to each other. thinking is the process of instituting these mutual references; of building up the various scattered and independent building-stones into the coherent system of thought. what is the validity of the various forms of thinking which find expression in the various types of judgment and in the various forms of inference? categorical, hypothetical, disjunctive judgment; inference by induction, by analogy, by mathematical equation; classification, theory of explanation--all these are processes of reflection by which connection in an organized whole is given to the fragmentary meanings with which thought sets out. what shall we say of the validity of such processes? on one point lotze is quite clear. these various logical acts do not really enter into the constitution of the valid world. the logical forms as such are maintained _only_ in the process of thinking. the world of valid truth does not undergo a series of contortions and evolutions, paralleling in any way the successive steps and missteps, the succession of tentative trials, withdrawals, and retracings, which mark the course of our own thinking.[44] lotze is explicit upon the point that only the thought-content in which the process of thinking issues has objective validity; the act of thinking is "purely and simply an inner movement of our own minds, made necessary to us by reason of the constitution of our nature and of our place in the world" (ii, 279). here the problem of validity presents itself as the problem of the relation of the act of thinking to its own product. in his solution lotze uses two metaphors: one derived from building operations, the other from traveling. the construction of a building requires of necessity certain tools and extraneous constructions, stagings, scaffoldings, etc., which are necessary to effect the final construction, but which do not enter into the building as such. the activity has an instrumental, though not a constitutive, value as regards its product. similarly, in order to get a view from the top of a mountain--this view being the objective--the traveler has to go through preliminary movements along devious courses. these again are antecedent prerequisites, but do not constitute a portion of the attained view. the problem of thought as activity, as distinct from thought as content, opens up altogether too large a question to receive complete consideration at this point. fortunately, however, the previous discussion enables us to narrow the point which is in issue just here. the question is whether the activity of thought is to be regarded as an independent function supervening entirely from without upon antecedents, and directed from without upon data, or whether it marks the phase of the transformation which the course of experience (whether practical, or artistic, or socially affectional or whatever) undergoes for the sake of its deliberate control. if it be the latter, a thoroughly intelligent sense can be given to the proposition that the activity of thinking is instrumental, and that its worth is found, not in its own successive states as such, but in the result in which it comes to conclusion. but the conception of thinking as an independent activity somehow occurring after an independent antecedent, playing upon an independent subject-matter, and finally effecting an independent result, presents us with just one miracle the more. i do not question the strictly instrumental character of thinking. the problem lies not here, but in the interpretation of the nature of the instrument. the difficulty with lotze's position is that it forces us into the assumption of a means and an end which are simply and only external to each other, and yet necessarily dependent upon each other--a position which, whenever found, is thoroughly self-contradictory. lotze vibrates between the notion of thought as a tool in the external sense, a mere scaffolding to a finished building in which it has no part nor lot, and the notion of thought as an immanent tool, as a scaffolding which is an integral part of the very operation of building, and which is set up for the sake of the building-activity which is carried on effectively only with and through a scaffolding. only in the former case can the scaffolding be considered as a _mere_ tool. in the latter case the external scaffolding is _not_ the instrumentality; the actual tool is the _action_ of erecting the building, and this action involves the scaffolding as a constituent part of itself. the work of building is not set over against the completed building as mere means to an end; it _is_ the end taken in process or historically, longitudinally, temporally viewed. the scaffolding, moreover, is not an external means to the process of erecting, but an organic member of it. it is no mere accident of language that "building" has a double sense--meaning at once the process and the finished product. the outcome of thought is the thinking activity carried on to its own completion; the activity, on the other hand, _is_ the outcome taken anywhere short of its own realization, and thereby still going on. the only consideration which prevents easy and immediate acceptance of this view is the notion of thinking as something purely formal. it is strange that the empiricist does not see that his insistence upon a matter accidentally given to thought only strengthens the hands of the rationalist with his claim of thinking as an independent activity, separate from the actual make-up of the affairs of experience. thinking as a merely formal activity exercised upon certain sensations or images or objects sets forth an absolutely meaningless proposition. the psychological identification of thinking with the process of association is much nearer the truth. it is, indeed, on the way to the truth. we need only to recognize that association is of matters or meanings, not of ideas as existences or events; and that the type of association we call thinking differs from casual fancy and revery by control in reference to an end, to apprehend how completely thinking is a reconstructive movement of actual contents of experience in relation to each other. there is no miracle in the fact that tool and material are adapted to each other in the process of reaching a valid conclusion. were they external in origin to each other and to the result, the whole affair would, indeed, present an insoluble problem--so insoluble that, if this were the true condition of affairs, we never should even know that there was a problem. but, in truth, both material and tool have been secured and determined with reference to economy and efficiency in effecting the end desired--the maintenance of a harmonious experience. the builder has discovered that his building means building tools, and also building material. each has been slowly evolved with reference to its fit employ in the entire function; and this evolution has been checked at every point by reference to its own correspondent. the carpenter has not thought at large on his building and then constructed tools at large, but has thought of his building in terms of the material which enters into it, and through that medium has come to the consideration of the tools which are helpful. this is not a formal question, but one of the place and relations of the matters actually entering into experience. and they in turn determine the taking up of just those mental attitudes, and the employing of just those intellectual operations which most effectively handle and organize the material. thinking is adaptation _to_ an end _through_ the adjustment of particular objective contents. the thinker, like the carpenter, is at once stimulated and checked in every stage of his procedure by the particular situation which confronts him. a person is at the stage of wanting a new house: well, then, his materials are available resources, the price of labor, the cost of building, the state and needs of his family, profession, etc.; his tools are paper and pencil and compass, or possibly the bank as a credit instrumentality, etc. again, the work is beginning. the foundations are laid. this in turn determines its own specific materials and tools. again, the building is almost ready for occupancy. the concrete process is that of taking away the scaffolding, clearing up the grounds, furnishing and decorating rooms, etc. this specific operation again determines its own fit or relevant materials and tools. it defines the time and mode and manner of beginning and ceasing to use them. logical theory will get along as well as does the practice of knowing when it sticks close by and observes the directions and checks inherent in each successive phase of the evolution of the cycle of experience. the problem in general of validity of the thinking process as distinct from the validity of this or that process arises only when thinking is isolated from its historic position and its material context (see _ante_, p. 95). 3. but lotze is not yet done with the problem of validity, even from his own standpoint. the ground shifts again under his feet. it is no longer a question of the validity of the idea or meaning with which thought is supposed to set out; it is no longer a question of the validity of the process of thinking in reference to its own product; it is the question of the validity of the product. supposing, after all, that the final meaning, or logical idea, is thoroughly coherent and organized; supposing it is an object for all consciousness as such. once more arises the question: what is the validity of even the most coherent and complete idea?--a question which arises and will not down. we may reconstruct the notion of the chimera until it ceases to be an independent idea and becomes a part of the system of greek mythology. has it gained in validity in ceasing to be an independent myth, in becoming an element in systematized myth? myth it was and myth it remains. mythology does not get validity by growing bigger. how do we know the same is not the case with the ideas which are the product of our most deliberate and extended scientific inquiry? the reference again to the content as the self-identical object of all consciousness proves nothing; the subject-matter of a hallucination does not gain validity in proportion to its social contagiousness. according to lotze, the final product is, after all, still thought. now, lotze is committed once for all to the notion that thought, in any form, is directed by and at an outside reality. the ghost haunts him to the last. how, after all, does even the ideally perfect valid thought apply or refer to reality? its genuine subject is still beyond itself. at the last lotze can dispose of this question only by regarding it as a metaphysical, not a logical, problem (ii, 281, 282). in other words, _logically_ speaking, we are at the end just exactly where we were at the beginning--in the sphere of ideas, and of ideas only, plus a consciousness of the necessity of referring these ideas to a reality which is beyond them, which is utterly inaccessible to them, which is out of reach of any influence which they may exercise, and which transcends any possible comparison with their results. "it is vain," says lotze, "to shrink from acknowledging the circle here involved ... all we know of the external world depends upon the ideas of it which are within us" (ii, 185). "it is then this varied world of ideas within us which forms the sole material directly given to us" (ii, 186). as it is the only material given to us, so it is the only material with which thought can end. to talk about knowing the external world through ideas which are merely within us is to talk of an inherent self-contradiction. there is no common ground in which the external world and our ideas can meet. in other words, the original separation between an independent thought-material and an independent thought-function and purpose lands us inevitably in the metaphysics of subjective idealism, plus a belief in an unknown reality beyond, which although unknowable is yet taken as the ultimate test of the value of our ideas. at the end, after all our maneuvering we are where we began: with two separate disparates, one of meaning, but no existence, the other of existence, but no meaning. the other aspect of lotze's contradiction which completes the circle is clear when we refer to his original propositions, and recall that at the outset he was compelled to regard the origination and conjunctions of the impressions, the elements of ideas, as themselves the effects exercised by a world of things already in existence (see p. 31). he sets up an independent world of thought, and yet has to confess that both at its origin and at its termination it points with absolute necessity to a world beyond itself. only the stubborn refusal to take this initial and terminal reference of thought beyond itself as having a _historic_ or temporal meaning, indicating a particular place of generation and a particular point of fulfilment, compels lotze to give such objective references a transcendental turn. when lotze goes on to say (ii, 191) that the measure of truth of particular parts of experience is found in asking whether, when judged by thought, they are in harmony with other parts of experience; when he goes on to say that there is no sense in trying to compare the entire world of ideas with a reality which is non-existent (excepting as it itself should become an idea), he lands where he might better have frankly commenced.[45] he saves himself from utter skepticism only by claiming that the explicit assumption of skepticism--the need of agreement of a ready-made idea as such with an extraneous ready-made material as such--is meaningless. he defines correctly the work of thought as consisting in harmonizing the various portions of experience with each other. in this case the test of thought is the harmony or unity of experience actually effected. the test of validity of thought is beyond thought, just as at the other limit thought originates out of a situation which is not dependent upon thought. interpret this before and beyond in a historic sense, as an affair of the place occupied and rôle played by thinking as a function in experience in relation to other non-intellectual experiences of things, and then the intermediate and instrumental character of thought, its dependence upon unreflective antecedents for its existence, and upon a consequent experience for its final test, becomes significant and necessary. taken at large, apart from temporal development and control, it plunges us in the depths of a hopelessly complicated and self-revolving metaphysic. footnotes: [33] _philosophy of lotze_, chap. iii, "thought and the preliminary process of experience." [34] i, 38. [35] i, 13; last italics mine. [36] i, 14; italics mine. [37] see i, 16-20. on p. 22 this work is declared to be not only the first but the most indispensable of all thought's operations. [38] i, 26. [39] i, 35. [40] i, 36; see the strong statements already quoted, p. 112. what if this canon were applied in the first act of thought referred to above: the original objectification which transforms the mere state into an abiding quality or meaning? suppose, that is, it were said that the first objectifying act cannot make a substantial (or attached) quale out of a mere state of feeling; it must _find_ the distinction it makes there already! it is clear we should at once get a _regressus ad infinitum_. we here find lotze face to face with this fundamental dilemma: thought either arbitrarily forces in its own distinctions, or else just repeats what is already there--is either falsifying or futile. this same contradiction, so far as it affects the impression, has already been discussed. see p. 114. [41] i, 31. [42] as we have already seen, the concept, the meaning as such, is always a factor or status in a reflective situation; it is always a predicate of judgment, in use in interpreting and developing the logical subject, or datum of perception. [43] royce, in his _world and individual_, i, chaps. vi and vii, has criticized the conception of meaning as valid, but in a way which implies that there is a difference between validity and reality, in the sense that the meaning or content of the valid idea becomes real only when it is experienced in direct _feeling_. the foregoing implies, of course, a difference between validity and reality, but finds the test of validity in exercise of the function of direction or control to which the idea makes pretension or claim. the same point of view would profoundly modify royce's interpretation of what he terms "inner" and "outer" meaning. see moore, _university of chicago decennial publications_, iii, on "existence, meaning, and reality." [44] ii, 257, 265, and in general book iii, chap. iv. it is significant that thought itself, appearing as an act of thinking over against its own content, is here treated as psychical rather than as logical. consequently, as we see in the text, it gives him one more difficulty to wrestle with: how a process which is ex officio purely psychical and subjective can yet yield results which are valid in a logical, to say nothing of an ontological, sense. [45] lotze even goes so far in this connection as to say that the antithesis between our ideas and the objects to which they are directed is itself a part of the world of ideas (ii, 192). barring the phrase "world of _ideas_" (as against world of continuous experience), he need only have commenced at this point to have traveled straight and arrived somewhere. but it is absolutely impossible to hold both this view and that of the original independent existence of something given to and in thought and an independent existence of a thought-activity, thought-forms, and thought-contents. vi some stages of logical thought the man in the street, when asked what he thinks about a certain matter, often replies that he does not think at all; he knows. the suggestion is that thinking is a case of active uncertainty set over against conviction or unquestioning assurance. when he adds that he does not have to think, but knows, the further implication is that thinking, when needed, leads to knowledge; that its purpose or object is to secure stable equilibrium. it is the purpose of this paper to show some of the main stages through which thinking, understood in this way, actually passes in its attempt to reach its most effective working; that is, the maximum of reasonable certainty. i wish to show how a variety of modes of thinking, easily recognizable in the progress of both the race and the individual, may be identified and arranged as successive species of the relationship which doubting bears to assurance; as various ratios, so to speak, which the vigor of doubting bears to mere acquiescence. the presumption is that the function of questioning is one which has continually grown in intensity and range, that doubt is continually chased back, and, being cornered, fights more desperately, and thus clears the ground more thoroughly. its successive stations or arrests constitute stages of thinking. or to change the metaphor, just in the degree that what has been accepted as fact--the object of assurance--loses stable equilibrium, the tension involved in the questioning attitude increases, until a readjustment gives a new and less easily shaken equilibrium. the natural tendency of man is not to press home a doubt, but to cut inquiry as short as possible. the practical man's impatience with theory has become a proverb; it expresses just the feeling that, since the thinking process is of use only in substituting certainty for doubt, any apparent prolongation of it is useless speculation, wasting time and diverting the mind from important issues. to follow the line of least resistance is to cut short the stay in the sphere of doubts and suggestions, and to make the speediest return into the world where one can act. the result, of course, is that difficulties are evaded or surmounted rather than really disposed of. hence, in spite of the opposition of the would-be practical man, the needs of practice, of economy, and of efficiency have themselves compelled a continual deepening of doubt and widening of the area of investigation. it is within this evolution that we have to find our stages of thinking. the initial stage is where the doubt is hardly endured but not entertained; it is no welcome guest but an intruder, to be got rid of as speedily as possible. development of alternative and competitive suggestions, the forming of suppositions (of ideas), goes but a little way. the mind seizes upon the nearest or most convenient instrument of dismissing doubt and reattaining security. at the other end is the definitive and conscious search for problems, and the development of elaborate and systematized methods of investigation--the industry and technique of science. between these limits come processes which have started out upon the path of doubt and inquiry, and then halted by the way. in the first stage of the journey, beliefs are treated as something fixed and static. to those who are using them they are simply another kind of fact. they are used to settle doubts, but the doubts are treated as arising quite outside the ideas themselves. nothing is further from recognition than that ideas themselves are open to doubt, or need criticism and revision. indeed, the one who uses static meanings is not even aware that they originated and have been elaborated for the sake of dealing with conflicts and problems. the ideas are just "there," and they may be used like any providential dispensation to help men out of the troubles into which they have fallen. words are generally held responsible for this fixation of the idea, for this substantiation of it into a kind of thing. a long line of critics has made us familiar with the invincible habit "of supposing that wherever there is a name there is some reality corresponding to it"; of supposing that general and abstract words have their equivalent objects somewhere _in rerum natura_, as have also singular and proper names. we know with what simplicity of self-confidence the english empirical school has accounted for the ontological speculation of plato. words tend to fix intellectual contents, and give them a certain air of independence and individuality. that some truth is here expressed there can be no question. indeed, the attitude of mind of which we are speaking is well illustrated in the person who goes to the dictionary in order to settle some problem in morals, politics, or science; who would end some discussion regarding a material point by learning what meaning is attached to terms by the dictionary as authority. the question is taken as lying outside of the sphere of science or intellectual inquiry, since the meaning of the word--the idea--is unquestionable and fixed. but this petrifying influence of words is after all only a superficial explanation. there must be some meaning present or the word could not fix it; there must be something which accounts for the disposition to use names as a medium of fossilization. there is, in truth, a certain real fact--an existent reality--behind both the word and the meaning it stands for. this reality is social usage. the person who consults a dictionary is getting an established fact when he turns there for the definition of a term. he finds the sense in which the word is currently used. social customs are no less real than physical events. it is not possible to dispose of this fact of common usage by reference to mere convention, or any other arbitrary device. a form of social usage is no more an express invention than any other social institution. it embodies the permanent attitude, the habit taken toward certain recurring difficulties or problems in experience. ideas, or meanings fixed in terms, show the scheme of values which the community uses in appraising matters that need consideration and which are indeterminate or unassured. they are held up as standards for all its members to follow. here is the solution of the paradox. the fixed or static idea is a fact expressing an established social attitude, a custom. it is not merely verbal, because it denotes a force which operates, as all customs do, in controlling particular cases. but since it marks a mode of interpretation, a scheme for assigning values, a way of dealing with doubtful cases, it falls within the sphere of ideas. or, coming to the life of the individual, the fixed meaning represents, not a state of consciousness fixed by a name, but a recognition of a habitual way of belief: a habit of understanding. we find an apt illustration of fixed ideas in the rules prevalent in primitive communities, rules which minutely determine all acts in which the community as a whole is felt to have an interest. these rules are facts because they express customs, and carry with them certain sanctions. their meaning does not cease with judicial utterance. they are made valid at once in a practical way against anyone who departs from them. yet as rules they are ideas, for they express general ways of defining doubtful matters in experience and of re-establishing certainty. an individual may fail in acknowledgment of them and explicit reference is then necessary. for one who has lost himself in the notion that ideas are psychical and subjective, i know of no better way to appreciate the significance of an idea than to consider that a social rule of judgment is nothing but a certain way of viewing or interpreting facts; as such it is an idea. the point that is of special interest to us here, however, is that these ideas are taken as fixed and unquestionable, and that the cases to which they are to apply are regarded as in themselves equally fixed. so far as concerns the attitude of those who employ this sort of ideas, the doubt is simply as to what idea should be in a particular case. even the athenian greeks, for instance, long kept up the form of indicting and trying a tree or implement through which some individual had been killed. there was a rule--a fixed idea--for dealing with all who offended against the community by destroying one of its citizens. the fact that an inanimate object, a thing without intention or volition, offended was not a material circumstance. it made no difference in the case; that is, there was no doubt as to the nature of the fact. it was as fixed as was the rule. with advance in the complexity of life, however, rules accumulate, and discrimination--that is, a certain degree of inquiring and critical attitude--enters in. inquiry takes effect, however, in seeking among a collection of fixed ideas just the one to be used, rather than in directing suspicion against any rule or idea as such, or in an attempt to discover or constitute a new one. it is hardly necessary to refer to the development of casuistry, or to the multiplication of distinctions within dogmas, or to the growth of ceremonial law in cumbrous detail, to indicate what the outcome of this logical stage is likely to be. the essential thing is that doubt and inquiry are directed neither at the nature of the intrinsic fact itself, nor at the value of the idea as such, but simply at the manner in which one is attached to the other. thinking falls outside both fact and idea, and into the sphere of their external connection. it is still a fiction of judicial procedure that there is already in existence some custom or law under which every possible dispute--that is, every doubtful or unassured case--falls, and that the judge only declares which law is applicable in the particular case. this point of view has tremendously affected the theory of logic in its historic development. one of the chief, perhaps the most important, instrumentalities in developing and maintaining fixed ideas is the need of instruction and the way in which it is given. if ideas were called into play only when doubtful cases actually arise, they could not help retaining a certain amount of vitality and flexibility; but the community always instructs its new members as to its way of disposing of these cases before they present themselves. ideas are proffered, in other words, separated from present doubt and remote from application, in order to escape future difficulties and the need of any thinking. in primitive communities this is the main purport of instruction, and it remains such to a very considerable degree. there is a prejudgment rather than judgment proper. when the community uses its resources to fix certain ideas in the mind--that is, certain ways of interpreting and regarding experience--ideas are necessarily formulated so as to assume a rigid and independent form. they are doubly removed from the sphere of doubt. the attitude is uncritical and dogmatic in the extreme--so much so that one might question whether it is to be properly designated as a stage of thinking. in this form ideas become the chief instruments of social conservation. judicial decision and penal correction are restricted and ineffective methods of maintaining social institutions unchanged, compared with instilling in advance uniform ideas--fixed modes of appraising all social questions and issues. these set ideas thus become the embodiment of the values which any group has realized and intends to perpetuate. the fixation supports them against dissipation through attrition of circumstance, and against destruction through hostile attack. it would be interesting to follow out the ways in which such values are put under the protection of the gods and of religious rites, or themselves erected into quasi-divinities--as among the romans. this, however, would hardly add anything to the logic of the discussion, although it would indicate the importance attached to the fixation of ideas, and the thoroughgoing character of the means used to secure immobilization. the conserving value of the dogmatic attitude, the point of view which takes ideas as fixed, is not to be ignored. when society has no methods of science for protecting and perpetuating its achieved values, there is practically no other resort than such crystallization. moreover, with any possible scientific progress, some equivalent of the fixed idea must remain. the nearer we get to the needs of action the greater absoluteness must attach to ideas. the necessities of action do not await our convenience. emergencies continually present themselves where the fixity required for successful activity cannot be attained through the medium of investigation. the alternative to vacillation, confusion, and futility of action is importation to ideas of a positive and secured character, not in strict logic belonging to them. it is this sort of determination that hegel seems to have in mind in what he terms _verstand_--the understanding. "apart from _verstand_," he says, "there is no fixity or accuracy in the region either of theory or practice"; and, again, "_verstand_ sticks to fixity of characters and their distinctions from one another; it treats every meaning as having a subsistence of its own." in technical terminology, also, this is what is meant by "positing" ideas--hardening meanings. in recognizing, however, that fixation of intellectual content is a precondition of effective action, we must not overlook the modification that comes with the advance of thinking into more critical forms. at the outset fixity is taken as the rightful possession of the ideas themselves; it belongs to them and is their "essence." as the scientific spirit develops, we see that it is we who lend fixity to the ideas, and that this loan is for a purpose to which the meaning of the ideas is accommodated. fixity ceases to be a matter of intrinsic structure of ideas, and becomes an affair of security in using them. hence the important thing is the _way_ in which we fix the idea--the manner of the inquiry which results in definition. we _take_ the idea as if it were fixed, in order to secure the necessary stability of action. the crisis past, the idea drops its borrowed investiture, and reappears as surmise. when we substitute for ideas as uniform rules by which to decide doubtful cases that making over of ideas which is requisite to make them fit, the quality of thought alters. we may fairly say that we have come into another stage. the idea is now regarded as essentially subject to change, as a manufactured article needing to be made ready for use. to determine the conditions of this transition lies beyond my purpose, since i have in mind only a descriptive setting forth of the periods through which, as a matter of fact, thought has passed in the development of the inquiry function, without raising the problem of its "why" and "how." at this point we shall not do more than note that, as the scheduled stock of fixed ideas grows larger, their application to specific questions becomes more difficult, prolonged, and roundabout. there has to be a definite hunting for the specific idea which is appropriate; there has to be comparison of it with other ideas. this comes to involve a certain amount of mutual compromise and modification before selection is possible. the idea thus gets somewhat shaken. it has to be made over so that it may harmonize with other ideas possessing equal worth. often the very accumulation of fixed ideas commands this reconstruction. the dead weight of the material becomes so great that it cannot sustain itself without a readjustment of the center of gravity. simplification and systematization are required, and these call for reflection. critical cases come up in which the fiction of an idea or rule already in existence cannot be maintained. it is impossible to conceal that old ideas have to be radically modified before the situation can be dealt with. the friction of circumstance melts away their congealed fixity. judgment becomes legislative. seeking illustrations at large, we find this change typified in hebrew history in the growing importance of the prophet over the judge, in the transition from a justification of conduct through bringing particular cases into conformity with existent laws, into that effected by personal right-mindedness enabling the individual to see the law in each case for himself. profoundly as this changed conception of the relation between law and particular case affected moral life, it did not, among semites, directly influence the logical sphere. with the greeks, however, we find a continuous and marked departure from positive declaration of custom. we have assemblies meeting to discuss and dispute, and finally, upon the basis of the considerations thus brought to view, to decide. the man of counsel is set side by side with the man of deed. odysseus was much experienced, not only because he knew the customs and ways of old, but even more because from the richness of his experience he could make the pregnant suggestion to meet the new crisis. it is hardly too much to say that it was the emphasis put by the greek mind upon discussion--at first as preliminary to decision, and afterward to legislation--which generated logical theory. discussion is thus an apt name for this attitude of thought. it is bringing various beliefs together; shaking one against another and tearing down their rigidity. it is conversation of thoughts; it is dialogue--the mother of dialectic in more than the etymological sense. no process is more recurrent in history than the transfer of operations carried on between different persons into the arena of the individual's own consciousness. the discussion which at first took place by bringing ideas from different persons into contact, by introducing them into the forum of competition, and by subjecting them to critical comparison and selective decision, finally became a habit of the individual with himself. he became a miniature social assemblage, in which pros and cons were brought into play struggling for the mastery--for final conclusion. in some such way we conceive reflection to be born. it is evident that discussion, the agitation of ideas, if judged from the standpoint of the older fixed ideas, is a destructive process. ideas are not only shaken together and apart, they are so shaken in themselves that their whole validity becomes doubtful. mind, and not merely beliefs, becomes uncertain. the attempt to harmonize different ideas means that in themselves they are discrepant. the search for a conclusion means that accepted ideas are only points of view, and hence personal affairs. needless to say it was the sophists who emphasized and generalized this negative aspect--this presupposition of loss of assurance, of inconsistency, of "subjectivity." they took it as applying not only to this, that, and the other idea, but to ideas as ideas. since ideas are no longer fixed contents, they are just expressions of an individual's way of thinking. lacking inherent value, they merely express the interests that induce the individual to look this way rather than that. they are made by the individual's point of view, and hence will be unmade if he can be led to change his point of view. where all was fixity, now all is instability: where all was certitude, nothing now exists save opinion based on prejudice, interest, or arbitrary choice. the modern point of view, while condemning sophistry, yet often agrees with it in limiting the reflective attitude as such to self-involution and self-conceit. from bacon down, the appeal is to observation, to attention to facts, to concern with the external world. the sole genuine guaranty of truth is taken to be appeal to facts, and thinking as such is something different. if reflection is not considered to be merely variable matter, it is considered to be at least an endless mulling over of things. it is the futile attempt to spin truth out of inner consciousness. it is introspection, and theorizing, and mere speculation. such wholesale depreciation ignores the value inherent even in the most subjective reflection, for it takes the settled estate which is proof that thought is not needed, or that it has done its work, as if it supplied the standard for the occasions in which problems are hard upon us, and doubt is rife. it takes the conditions which come about after and because we have thought to measure the conditions which call out thinking. whenever we really need to reflect, we cannot appeal directly to the "fact," for the adequate reason that the stimulus to thinking arises just because "facts" have slipped away from us. the fallacy is neatly committed by mill in his discussion of whewell's account of the need of mental conception or hypothesis in "colligating" facts. he insists that the conception is "obtained" from the "facts" in which "it exists," is "impressed upon us from without," and also that it is the "darkness and confusion" of the facts that make us want the conception in order to create "light and order."[46] reflection involves running over various ideas, sorting them out, comparing one with another, trying to get one which will unite in itself the strength of two, searching for new points of view, developing new suggestions; guessing, suggesting, selecting, and rejecting. the greater the problem, and the greater the shock of doubt and resultant confusion and uncertainty, the more prolonged and more necessary is the process of "mere thinking." it is a more obvious phase of biology than of physics, of sociology than of chemistry; but it persists in established sciences. if we take even a mathematical proposition, not _after_ it has been demonstrated--and is thus capable of statement in adequate logical form--but while in process of discovery and proof, the operation of this subjective phase is manifest, so much so, indeed, that a distinguished modern mathematician has said that the paths which the mathematical inquirer traverses in any new field are more akin to those of the experimentalist, and even to those of the poet and artist, than to those of the euclidean geometer. what makes the essential difference between modern research and the reflection of, say, the greeks, is not the absence of "mere thinking," but the presence of conditions for testing its results; the elaborate system of checks and balances found in the technique of modern experimentation. the thinking process does not now go on endlessly in terms of itself, but seeks outlet through reference to particular experiences. it is tested by this reference; not, however, as if a theory could be tested by directly comparing it with facts--an obvious impossibility--but through use in facilitating commerce with facts. it is tested as glasses are tested; things are looked at through the medium of specific meanings to see if thereby they assume a more orderly and clearer aspect, if they are less blurred and obscure. the reaction of the socratic school against the sophistic may serve to illustrate the third stage of thinking. this movement was not interested in the _de facto_ shaking of received ideas and a discrediting of all thinking. it was concerned rather with the virtual appeal to a common denominator involved in bringing different ideas into relation with one another. in their comparison and mutual modification it saw evidence of the operation of a standard permanent meaning passing judgment upon their conflict, and revealing a common principle and standard of reference. it dealt not with the shaking and dissolution, but with a comprehensive permanent idea finally to emerge. controversy and discussion among different individuals may result in extending doubt, manifesting the incoherency of accepted ideas, and so throwing an individual into an attitude of distrust. but it also involves an appeal to a single thought to be accepted by both parties, thus putting an end to the dispute. this appeal to a higher court, this possibility of attaining a total and abiding intellectual object, which should bring into relief the agreeing elements in contending thoughts, and banish the incompatible factors, animated the socratic search for the concept, the elaboration of the platonic hierarchy of ideas in which the higher substantiate the lower, and the aristotelian exposition of the systematized methods by which general truths may be employed to prove propositions otherwise doubtful. at least, this historic development will serve to illustrate what is involved in the transition from the second to the third stage; the transformation of discussion into reasoning, of subjective reflection into method of proof. discussion, whether with ourselves or others, goes on by suggestion of clues, as the uppermost object of interest opens a way here or there. it is discursive and haphazard. this gives it the devious tendency indicated in plato's remark that it needs to be tied to the post of reason. it needs, that is, to have the ground or basis of its various component statements brought to consciousness in such a way as to define the exact value of each. the socratic contention is the need of compelling the common denominator, the common subject, underlying the diversity of views to exhibit itself. it alone gives a sure standard by which the claims of all assertions may be measured. until this need is met, discussion is a self-deceiving play with unjudged, unexamined matters, which, confused and shifting, impose themselves upon us. we are familiar enough with the theory that the socratic universal, the platonic idea, was generated by an ignorant transformation of psychological abstractions into self-existent entities. to insist upon this as the key to the socratic logic is mere caricature. the objectivity of the universal stood for the sense of something decisive and controlling in all reflection, which otherwise is just manipulation of personal prejudices. this sense is as active in modern science as it was in the platonic dialectic. what socrates felt was the opinionated, conceited quality of the terms used in the moral and political discussion of his day, as that contrasted with the subject-matter, which, if rightly grasped, would put an end to mere views and argumentations. by aristotle's time the interest was not so much in the existence of standards of decision in cases of doubt and dispute as in the technique of their use. the judge was firmly seated on the bench. the parties in controversy recognized his jurisdiction, and their respective claims were submitted for adjudicature. the need was for rules of procedure by which the judge might, in an obvious and impartial way, bring the recognized universal or decisive law to bear upon particular matters. hence the elaboration of those rules of evidence, those canons of demonstrative force, which are the backbone of the aristotelian logic. there was a code by which to decide upon the admissibility and value of proffered testimony--the rules of the syllogism. the figures and terms of the syllogism provided a scheme for deciding upon the exact bearing of every statement propounded. the plan of arrangement of major and minor premises, of major, minor, and middle terms, furnished a manifesto of the exact procedure to be followed in determining the probative force of each element in reasoning. the judge knew what testimony to permit, when and how it should be introduced, how it could be impeached or have its competence lessened, and how the evidence was to be arranged so that a summary would also be an exhibit of its value in establishing a conclusion. this means that there now is a distinctive type of thinking marked off from mere discussion and reflection. it may be called either reasoning or proof. it is reasoning when we think of the regularity of the method for getting at and employing the unquestioned grounds which give validity to other statements. it is proof as regards the degree of logical desert thereby measured out to such propositions. proof is the acceptance or rejection justified through the reasoning. to quote from mill: "to give credence to a proposition as a conclusion from something else is to reason in the most extensive sense of the term. we say of a fact or statement, it is proved, when we believe its truth by reason of some other fact or statement from which it is said to follow."[47] reasoning is marshaling a series of terms and propositions until we can bind some doubtful fact firmly to an unquestioned, although remote, truth; it is the regular way in which a certain proposition is brought to bear on a precarious one, clothing the latter with something of the peremptory quality of the former. so far as we reach this result, and so far as we can exhibit each step in the nexus and be sure it has been rightly performed, we have proof. but questions still face us. how about that truth upon which we fall back as guaranteeing the credibility of other statements--how about our major premise? whence does it derive its guaranty? _quis custodes custodiet?_ we may, of course, in turn subsume it under some further major premise, but an infinite regress is impossible, and on this track we are finally left hanging in the air. for _practical_ purposes the unquestioned principle may be taken as signifying mutual concession or agreement--it denotes that as a matter of fact its truth is not called in question by the parties concerned. this does admirably for settling arguments and controversies. it is a good way of amicably arranging matters among those already friends and fellow-citizens. but scientifically the widespread acceptance of an idea seems to testify to custom rather than to truth; prejudice is strengthened in influence, but hardly in value, by the number who share it; conceit is none the less self-conceit because it turns the heads of many. great interest was indeed afterward taken in the range of persons who hold truths in common. the _quod semper ubique omnibus_ became of great importance. this, however, was not, in theory at least, because common agreement was supposed to constitute the major premise, but because it afforded confirmatory evidence of its self-evident and universal character. hence the aristotelian logic necessarily assumes certain first or fundamental truths unquestioned and unquestionable, self-evident and self-evidencing, neither established nor modified by thought, but standing firm in their own right. this assumption was not, as modern dealers in formal logic would sometimes have it, an external psychological or metaphysical attachment to the theory of reasoning, to be omitted at will from logic as such. it was an essential factor of knowledge that there should be necessary propositions directly apprehended by reason and particular ones directly apprehended by sense. reasoning could then join them. without the truths we have only the play of subjective, arbitrary, futile opinion. _judgment_ has not taken place, and assertion is without warrant. hence the scheduling of first truths is an organic part of any reasoning which is occupied with securing demonstration, surety of assent, or valid conviction. to deny the necessary place of ultimate truths in the logical system of aristotle and his followers is to make them players in a game of social convention. it is to overlook, to invert, the fact that they were sincerely concerned with the question of attaining the grounds and process of assurance. hence they were obliged to assume primary intuitions, metaphysical, physical, moral, and mathematical axioms, in order to get the pegs of certainty to which to tie the bundles of otherwise contingent propositions. it would be going too far to claim that the regard for the authority of the church, of the fathers, of the scriptures, of ancient writers, of aristotle himself, so characteristic of the middle ages, was the direct outcome of this presupposition of truths fixed and unquestionable in themselves. but the logical connection is sure. the supply of absolute premises that aristotle was able to proffer was scant. in his own generation and situation this paucity made comparatively little difference; for to the mass of men the great bulk of values was still carried by custom, by religious belief, and social institution. it was only in the comparatively small sphere of persons who had come under the philosophic influence that need for the logical mode of confirmation was felt. in the mediaeval period, however, all important beliefs required to be concentrated by some fixed principle giving them stay and power, for they were contrary to obvious common-sense and natural tradition. the situation was exactly such as to call into active use the aristotelian scheme of thought. authority supplemented the meagerness of the store of universals known by direct intuition, the aristotelian plan of reasoning afforded the precise instrumentality through which the vague and chaotic details of life could be reduced to order by subjecting them to authoritative rules. it is not enough, however, to account for the ultimate major premises, for the unconditioned grounds upon which credibility is assigned. we have also to report where the other side comes from: matters so uncertain in themselves as to require that they have their grounds supplied from outside. the answer in the aristotelian scheme is an obvious one. it is the very nature of sense, of ordinary experience, to supply us with matters which in themselves are only contingent. there is a certain portion of the intellectual sphere, that derived from experience, which is infected throughout by its unworthy origin. it stands forever condemned to be merely empirical--particular, more or less accidental, inherently irrational. you cannot make gold from dross, and the best that can be done for and with material of this sort is to bring it under the protection of truth which has warrant and weight in itself. we may now characterize this stage of thinking with reference to our original remark that different stages denote various degrees in the evolution of the doubt-inquiry function. as compared with the period of fixed ideas, doubt is awake, and inquiry is active, but in itself it is rigidly limited. on one side it is bounded by fixed ultimate truths, whose very nature is that they cannot be doubted, which are not products or functions in inquiry, but bases that investigation fortunately rests upon. in the other direction all "matters of fact," all "empirical truths" belong to a particular sphere or kind of existence, and one intrinsically open to suspicion. the region is condemned in a wholesale way. in itself it exhales doubt; it cannot be reformed; it is to be shunned, or, if this is not possible, to be escaped from by climbing up a ladder of intermediate terms until we lay hold on the universal. the very way in which doubt is objectified, taken all in a piece, marks its lack of vitality. it is arrested and cooped up in a particular place. as with any doubtful character, the less of its company the better. uncertainty is not realized as a necessary instrument in compelling experienced matters to reveal their meaning and inherent order. this limitation upon inquiry settles the interpretation to be given thought at this stage--it is of necessity merely connective, merely mediating. it goes between the first principles--themselves, as to their validity, outside the province of thought--and the particulars of sense--also, as to their status and worth, beyond the dominion of thought. thinking is subsumption--just placing a particular proposition under its universal. it is inclusion, finding a place for some questioned matter within a region taken as more certain. it is use of general truths to afford support to things otherwise shaky--an application that improves their standing, while leaving their content unchanged. this means that thought has only a formal value. it is of service in exhibiting and arranging grounds upon which any particular proposition may be acquitted or condemned, upon which anything already current may be assented to, or upon which belief may reasonably be withheld. the metaphor of the law court is apt. there is assumed some matter to be either proved or disproved. as matter, as content, it is furnished. it is not to be found out. in the law court it is not a question of discovering what a man specifically is, but simply of finding reasons for regarding him as guilty or innocent. there is no all-around play of thought directed to the institution of something as fact, but a question of whether grounds can be adduced justifying acceptance of some proposition already set forth. the significance of such an attitude comes into relief when we contrast it with what is done in the laboratory. in the laboratory there is no question of proving that things are just thus and so, or that we must accept or reject a given statement; there is simply an interest in finding out what sort of things we are dealing with. any quality or change that presents itself may be an object of investigation, or may suggest a conclusion; for it is judged, not by reference to pre-existent truths, but by its suggestiveness, by what it may lead to. the mind is open to inquiry in any direction. or we may illustrate by the difference between the auditor and an actuary in an insurance company. one simply passes and rejects, issues vouchers, compares and balances statements already made out. the other investigates any one of the items of expense or receipt; inquires how it comes to be what it is, what facts, as regards, say, length of life, condition of money market, activity of agents, are involved, and what further researches and activities are indicated. the illustrations of the laboratory and the expert remind us of another attitude of thought in which investigation attacks matters hitherto reserved. the growth, for example, of freedom of thought during the renaissance was a revelation of the intrinsic momentum of the thought-process itself. it was not a mere reaction from and against mediaeval scholasticism. it was the continued operation of the machinery which the scholastics had set a-going. doubt and inquiry were extended into the region of particulars, of matters of fact, with the view of reconstituting them through discovery of their own structure, no longer with the intention of leaving that unchanged while transforming their claim to credence by connecting them with some authoritative principles. thought no longer found satisfaction in appraising them in a scale of values according to their nearness to, or remoteness from, fixed truths. such work had been done to a nicety, and it was futile to repeat it. thinking must find a new outlet. it was out of employment, and set to discover new lands. galileo and copernicus were travelers--as much so as the crusader, marco polo, and columbus. hence the fourth stage--covering what is popularly known as inductive and empirical science. thought takes the form of inference instead of proof. proof, as we have already seen, is accepting or rejecting a given proposition on the ground of its connection or lack of connection with some other proposition conceded or established. but inference does not terminate in any given proposition; it is after precisely those not given. it wants more facts, different facts. thinking in the mode of inference insists upon terminating in an intellectual advance, in a consciousness of truths hitherto escaping us. our thinking must not now "pass" certain propositions after challenging them, must not admit them because they exhibit certain credentials, showing a right to be received into the upper circle of intellectual society. thinking endeavors to compel things as they present themselves, to yield up something hitherto obscure or concealed. this advance and extension of knowledge through thinking seems to be well designated by the term "inference." it does not certify what is otherwise doubtful, but "goes from the known to the unknown." it aims at pushing out the frontiers of knowledge, not at marking those already attained with signposts. its technique is not a scheme for assigning status to beliefs already possessed, but is a method for making friends with facts and ideas hitherto alien. inference reaches out, fills in gaps. its work is measured not by the patents of standing it issues, but by the material increments of knowledge it yields. _inventio_ is more important than _judicium_, discovery than "proof." with the development of empirical research, uncertainty or contingency is no longer regarded as infecting in a wholesale way an entire region, discrediting it save as it can be brought under the protecting aegis of universal truths as major premises. uncertainty is now a matter of detail. it is the question whether the particular fact is really what it has been taken to be. it involves contrast, not of a fact as a fixed particular over against some fixed universal, but of the existing mode of apprehension with another possible better apprehension. from the standpoint of reasoning and proof the intellectual field is absolutely measured out in advance. certainty is located in one part, intellectual indeterminateness or uncertainty in another. but when thinking becomes research, when the doubt-inquiry function comes to its own, the problem is just: what is the fact? hence the extreme interest in details as such; in observing, collecting, and comparing particular causes, in analysis of structure down to its constituent elements, interest in atoms, cells, and in all matters of arrangement in space and time. the microscope, telescope, and spectroscope, the scalpel and microtome, the kymograph and the camera are not mere material appendages to thinking; they are as integral parts of investigative thought as were _barbara_, _celarent_, etc., of the logic of reasoning. facts must be discovered, and to accomplish this, apparent "facts" must be resolved into their elements. things must be readjusted in order to be held free from intrusion of impertinent circumstance and misleading suggestion. instrumentalities of extending and rectifying research are, therefore, of themselves organs of thinking. the specialization of the sciences, the almost daily birth of a new science, is a logical necessity--not a mere historical episode. every phase of experience must be investigated, and each characteristic aspect presents its own peculiar problems which demand, therefore, their own technique of investigation. the discovery of difficulties, the substitution of doubt for quiescent acceptance, are more important than the sanctioning of belief through proof. hence the importance of noting apparent exceptions, negative instances, extreme cases, anomalies. the interest is in the discrepant because that stimulates inquiry, not in the fixed universal which would terminate it once for all. hence the roaming over the earth and through the skies for new facts which may be incompatible with old theories, and which may suggest new points of view. to illustrate these matters in detail would be to write the history of every modern science. the interest in multiplying phenomena, in increasing the area of facts, in developing new distinctions of quantity, structure, and form, is obviously characteristic of modern science. but we do not always heed its logical significance--that it makes thinking to consist in the extension and control of contact with new material so as to lead regularly to the development of new experience. the elevation of the region of facts--the formerly condemned region of the inherently contingent and variable--to something that invites and rewards inquiry, defines the import, therefore, of the larger aspects of modern science. this spirit prides itself upon being positivistic--it deals with the observed and the observable. it will have naught to do with ideas that cannot verify themselves by showing themselves _in propria persona_. it is not enough to present credentials from more sovereign truths. these are hardly acceptable even as letters of introduction. refutation of newton's claim, that he did not make hypotheses, by pointing out that no one was busier in this direction than he, and that scientific power is generally in direct ratio to ability to imagine possibilities, is as easy as it is irrelevant. the hypotheses, the thoughts, that newton employed were of and about fact; they were for the sake of exacting and extending what can be apprehended. instead of being sacrosanct truths affording a redemption by grace to facts otherwise ambiguous, they were the articulating of ordinary facts. hence the notion of law changes. it is no longer something governing things and events from on high; it is the statement of their own order. thus the exiling of occult forces and qualities is not so much a specific achievement as it is a demand of the changed attitude. when thinking consists in the detection and determination of observable detail, forces, forms, qualities at large, are thrown out of employment. they are not so much proved non-existent as rendered nugatory. disuse breeds their degeneration. when the universal is but the order of the facts themselves, the mediating machinery disappears along with the essences. there is substituted for the hierarchical world in which each degree in the scale has its righteousness imputed from above a world homogeneous in structure and in the scheme of its parts; the same in heaven, earth, and the uttermost parts of the sea. the ladder of values from the sublunary world with its irregular, extravagant, imperfect motion up to the stellar universe, with its self-returning perfect order, corresponded to the middle terms of the older logic. the steps were graduated, ascending from the indeterminate, unassured matter of sense up to the eternal, unquestionable truths of rational perception. but when interest is occupied in finding out what anything and everything is, any fact is just as good as its fellow. the observable world is a democracy. the difference which makes a fact what it is is not an exclusive distinction, but a matter of position and quantity, an affair of locality and aggregation, traits which place all facts upon the same level, since all other observable facts also possess them and are, indeed, conjointly responsible for them. laws are not edicts of a sovereign binding a world of subjects otherwise lawless; they are the agreements, the compacts of facts themselves, or, in the familiar language of mill, the common attributes, the resemblances. the emphasis of modern science upon control flows from the same source. interest is in the new, in extension, in discovery. inference is the advance into the unknown, the use of the established to win new worlds from the void. this requires and employs regulation--that is, method--in procedure. there cannot be a blind attack. a plan of campaign is needed. hence the so-called practical applications of science, the baconian "knowledge is power," the comteian "science is prevision," are not extra-logical addenda or supererogatory benefits. they are intrinsic to the logical method itself, which is just the orderly way of approaching new experiences so as to grasp and hold them. the attitude of research is necessarily toward the future. the application of science to the practical affairs of life, as in the stationary engine, or telephone, does not differ in principle from the determination of wave-lengths of light through the experimental control of the laboratory. science lives only in arranging for new contacts, new insights. the school of kant agrees with that of mill in asserting that judgment must, in order to be judgment, be synthetic or instructive; it must extend, inform, and purvey. when we recognize that this service of judgment in effecting growth of experience is not accidental, but that judgment means exactly the devising and using of suitable instrumentalities for this end, we remark that the so-called practical uses of science are only the further and freer play of the intrinsic movement of discovery itself. * * * * * we began with the assumption that thought is to be interpreted as a doubt-inquiry function, conducted for the purpose of arriving at that mental equilibrium known as assurance or knowledge. we assumed that various stages of thinking could be marked out according to the amount of play which they give to doubt, and the consequent sincerity with which thinking is identified with free inquiry. modern scientific procedure, as just set forth, seems to define the ideal or limit of this process. it is inquiry emancipated, universalized, whose sole aim and criterion is discovery, and hence it marks the terminus of our description. it is idle to conceal from ourselves, however, that scientific procedure as a practical undertaking, has not as yet reflected itself into any coherent and generally accepted theory of thinking, into any accepted doctrine of logic which is comparable to the aristotelian. kant's conviction that logic is a "complete and settled" science, which with absolutely "certain boundaries has gained nothing and lost nothing since aristotle," is startlingly contradicted by the existing state of discussion of logical doctrine. the simple fact of the case is that there are at least three rival theories on the ground, each claiming to furnish the sole proper interpretation of the actual procedure of thought. the aristotelian logic is far from having withdrawn its claim. it still offers its framework as that into which the merely "empirical" results of observation and experimental inquiry must be fitted if they are to be regarded as really "proved." another school of logicians, starting professedly from modern psychology, discredits the whole traditional industry and reverses the aristotelian theory of validity; it holds that only particular facts are self-supporting, and that the authority allowed to general principles is derivative and second hand. a third school of philosophy claims, by analysis of science and experience, to justify the conclusion that the universe itself is a construction of thought, giving evidence throughout of the pervasive and constitutive action of reason, and holds, consequently, that our logical processes are simply the reading off or coming to consciousness of the inherently rational structure already possessed by the universe in virtue of the presence within it of this pervasive and constitutive action of thought. it thus denies both the claim of the traditional logic, that matters of experienced fact are mere particulars having their rationality in an external ground, and the claim of the empirical logic, that thought is just a gymnastic by which we vault from one presented fact to another remote in space and time. which of the three doctrines is to be regarded as the legitimate exponent of the procedure of thought manifested in modern science? while the aristotelian logic is willing to waive a claim to be regarded as expounder of the actual procedure, it still insists upon its right to be regarded as the sole ultimate umpire of the validity or _proved_ character of the results reached. but the empirical and transcendental logics stand face to face as rivals, each asserting that it alone tells the story of what science does and how it does it. with the consciousness of this conflict my discussion in its present, or descriptive, phase must cease. its close, however, suggests a further question. in so far as we adopt the conception that thinking is itself a doubt-inquiry process, must we not deny the claims of all of the three doctrines to be the articulate voicing of the methods of experimental science? do they not all agree in setting up something fixed outside inquiry, supplying both its material and its limit? that the first principle and the empirical matters of fact of the aristotelian logic fall outside the thinking process, and condemn the latter to a purely external and go-between agency, has been already sufficiently descanted upon. but it is also true that the fixed particulars, given facts, or sensations--whatever the empirical logician starts from--are material given ready-made to the thought-process, and externally limiting inquiry, instead of being distinctions arising within and because of search for truth. nor, as regards this point, is the transcendental in any position to throw stones at the empirical logic. thought "in itself" is so far from a process of inquiry that it is taken to be the eternal, fixed structure of the universe; _our_ thinking, involving doubt and investigation, is due wholly to our "finite," imperfect character, which condemns us to the task of merely imitating and reinstating "thought" in itself, once and forever complete, ready-made, fixed. the practical procedure and practical assumptions of modern experimental science, since they make thinking essentially and not merely accidentally a process of discovery, seem irreconcilable with both the empirical and transcendental interpretations. at all events there is here sufficient discrepancy to give occasion for further search: does not an account of thinking, basing itself on modern scientific procedure, demand a statement in which all the distinctions and terms of thought--judgment, concept, inference, subject, predicate, and copula of judgment, etc., _ad infinitum_--shall be interpreted simply and entirely as distinctive functions or divisions of labor within the doubt-inquiry process? footnotes: [46] _logic_, book iv, chap. ii, § 2. [47] _logic_, book ii, chap. i, § 1. i have changed the order of the sentences quoted, and have omitted some phrases. vii the logical character of ideas said john stuart mill: "to draw inferences has been said to be the great business of life.... it is the only occupation in which the mind never ceases to be engaged." if this be so, it seems a pity that mill did not recognize that this business identifies what we mean when we say "mind." if he had recognized this, he would have cast the weight of his immense influence not only against the conception that mind is a substance, but also against the conception that it is a collection of existential states or attributes without any substance in which to inhere; and he would thereby have done much to free logic from epistemological metaphysics. in any case, an account of intellectual operations and conditions from the standpoint of the rôle played and position occupied by them in the business of drawing inferences is a different sort of thing from an account of them as having an existence _per se_, from treating them as making up some sort of existential material distinct from the _things_ which figure in inference-drawing. this latter type of treatment is that which underlies the psychology which itself has adopted uncritically the remnants of the metaphysics of soul substance: the idea of accidents without the substance.[48] this assumption from metaphysical psychology--the assumption of consciousness as an existent stuff or existent process--is then carried over into an examination of knowledge, so as to make the theory of knowledge not logic (an account of the ways in which valid inferences or conclusions from things to other things are made), but epistemology. we have, therefore, the result (so unfortunate for logic) that logic is not free to go its own way, but is compromised by the assumption that knowledge goes on not in terms of things (i use "things" in the broadest sense, as equaling _res_, and covering affairs, concerns, acts, as well as "things" in the narrower sense), but in terms of a relation _between_ things and a peculiar existence made up of consciousness, or else between things and functional operations of this existence. if it could be shown that psychology is essentially not a science of states of consciousness, but of behavior, conceived as a process of continuous readjustment, then the undoubted facts which go by the name of sensation, perception, image, emotion, concept, would be interpreted to mean peculiar (i.e., specifically qualitative) epochs, phases, and crises in the scheme of behavior. the supposedly scientific basis for the belief that states of consciousness inherently define a separate type of existence would be done away with. inferential knowledge, knowledge involving reflection, _psychologically_ viewed, would be assimilated to a certain mode of readaptation of functions, involving shock and the need of control; 'knowledge' in the sense of direct non-reflective presence of things would be identified (psychologically) with relatively stable or completed adjustments. i can not profess to speak for psychologists, but it is an obvious characteristic of the contemporary status of psychology that one school (the so-called functional or dynamic) operates with nothing more than a conventional and perfunctory reference to "states of consciousness"; while the orthodox school makes constant concessions to ideas of the behavior type. it introduces the conceptions of fatigue, practice, and habituation. it makes its fundamental classifications on the basis of physiological distinctions (e.g., the centrally initiated and the peripherally initiated), which, from a biological standpoint, are certainly distinctions of structures involved in the performance of acts. one of the aims of the _studies in logical theory_ was to show, on the negative or critical side, that the type of logical theory which professedly starts its account of knowledge from mere states of consciousness is compelled at every crucial juncture to assume _things_, and to define its so-called mental states in terms of things;[49] and, on the positive side, to show that, logically considered, such distinctions as sensation, image, etc., mark instruments and crises in the development of controlled judgment, i.e., of inferential conclusions. it was perhaps not surprising that this effort should have been criticized not on its own merits, but on the assumption that this correspondence of the (functional) psychological and the logical points of view was intended in terms of the psychology which obtained in the _critic's_ mind--to wit, the psychology based on the assumption of consciousness as a separate existence or process. these considerations suggest that before we can intelligently raise the question of the truth of ideas we must consider their status in judgment, judgment being regarded as the typical expression of the inferential operation. (1) do ideas present themselves except in situations which are doubtful and inquired into? do they exist side by side with the facts when the facts are themselves known? do they exist except when judgment is in suspense? (2) are "ideas" anything else except the suggestions, conjectures, hypotheses, theories (i use an ascending scale of terms) tentatively entertained during a suspended conclusion? (3) do they have any part to play in the conduct of inquiry? do they serve to direct observation, colligate data, and guide experimentation, or are they otiose?[50] (4) if the ideas have a function in directing the reflective process (expressed in judgment), does success in performing the function (that is, in directing to a conclusion which is stable) have anything to do with the logical worth or validity of the ideas? (5) and, finally, does validity have anything to do with truth? does "truth" mean something inherently different from the fact that the conclusion of one judgment (the known fact, previously unknown, in which judging terminates) is itself applicable in further situations of doubt and inquiry? and is judgment properly more than tentative save as it terminates in a known fact, i.e., a fact present without the intermediary of reflection? when these questions--i mean, of course, questions which are exemplified in these queries--are answered, we shall, perhaps, have gone as far as it is possible to go with reference to the _logical_ character of ideas. the question may then recur as to whether the "ideas" of the epistemologist (that is, existences in a purely "private stream of consciousness") remain as something over and above, not yet accounted for; or whether they are perversions and misrepresentations of logical characters. i propose to give a brief dogmatic reply in the latter sense. where, and in so far as, there are unquestioned objects, there is no "consciousness." there are just things. when there is uncertainty, there are dubious, suspected objects--things hinted at, guessed at. such objects have a distinct status, and it is the part of good sense to give them, as occupying that status, a distinct caption. "consciousness" is a term often used for this purpose; and i see no objection to that term, _provided_ it is recognized to mean such objects as are problematic, plus the fact that in their problematic character they may be used, as effectively as accredited objects, to direct observations and experiments which finally relieve the doubtful features of the situation. such "objects" may turn out to be valid, or they may not. but, in any case, they may be used. they may be internally manipulated and developed through ratiocination into explicit statement of their implications; they may be employed as standpoints for selecting and arranging data, and as methods for conducting experiments. in short, they are not merely hypothetical; they are _working_ hypotheses. meanwhile, their aloofness from accredited objectivity may lead us to characterize them as merely ideas, or even as "mental states," provided once more we mean by mental state just this logical status. we have examples of such ideas in symbols. a symbol, i take it, is always itself, existentially, a particular object. a word, an algebraic sign, is just as much a concrete existence as is a horse, a fire-engine, or a flyspeck. but its value resides in its representative character: in its suggestive and directive force for operations that when performed lead us to non-symbolic objects, which without symbolic operations would not be apprehended, or at least would not be so easily apprehended. it is, i think, worth noting that the capacity (_a_) for regarding objects as mere symbols and (_b_) for employing symbols instrumentally furnishes the only safeguard against dogmatism, i.e., uncritical acceptance of any suggestion that comes to us vividly; and also that it furnishes the only basis for intelligently controlled experiments. i do not think, however, that we should have the tendency to regard ideas as _private_, as personal, if we stopped short at this point. if we had only words or other symbols uttered by others, or written, or printed, we might call them, when in objective suspense, mere ideas. but we should hardly think of these ideas as our own. such extra-organic stimuli, however, are not adequate logical devices. they are too rigid, too "objective" in their own existential status. their meaning and character are too definitely fixed. for effective discovery we need things which are more easily manipulated, which are more transitive, more easily dropped and changed. intra-organic events, adjustments _within_ the organism, that is, adjustments of the organism considered not with reference to the environment but with reference to one another, are much better suited to stand as representatives of genuinely dubious objects. an object which is _really_ doubted is by its nature precarious and inchoate, vague. what _is_ a thing when it is not yet discovered and yet is tentatively entertained and tested? ancient logic never got beyond the conception of an object whose logical _place_, whose subsumptive position as a particular with reference to some universal, was doubtful. it never got to the point where it could search for particulars which in themselves as particulars are doubtful. hence it was a logic of proof, of deduction, not of inquiry, of discovery, and of induction. it was hard up against its own dilemma: how can a man inquire? for either he knows that for which he seeks, and hence does not seek: or he does not know, in which case he can not seek, nor could he tell if he found. the individualistic movement of modern life detached, as it were, the individual, and allowed personal (i.e., intra-organic) events to have, transitively and temporarily, a worth of their own. these events are continuous with extra-organic events (in origin and eventual outcome); but they may be considered in temporary displacement as uniquely existential. in this capacity they serve as means for the elaboration of a delayed but more adequate response in a radically different direction. so treated, they are tentative, dubious but experimental, anticipations of an object. they are "subjective" (i.e., individualistic) surrogates of public, cosmic things, which may be so manipulated and elaborated as to terminate in public things which without them would not exist as empirical objects.[51] the recognition then of intra-organic events, which are not merely effects nor distorted refractions of cosmic objects, but inchoate _future_ cosmic objects in process of experimental construction, resolves, to my mind, the paradox of so-called subjective and private things that have objective and universal reference, and that operate so as to lead to objective consequences which test their own value. when a man can say: this color is not necessarily the color of the glass nor the picture nor even of an object reflected but is at least an event in my nervous system, an event which i may refer to my organism till i get _surety of other reference_--he is for the first time emancipated from the dogmatism of unquestioned reference, and is set upon a path of experimental inquiry. i am not here concerned with trying to demonstrate that this is the correct mode of interpretation. i am only concerned with pointing out its radical difference from the view of a critic who, holding to the two-world theory of existences which from the start are divided into the fixedly objective and the fixedly psychical, interprets in terms of his own theory the view that the distinction between the objective and the subjective is a logical-practical distinction. whether the logical, as against the ontological, theory be true or false, it can hardly be fruitfully discussed without a preliminary apprehension of it as a logical conception. footnotes: [48] this conception of "consciousness" as a sort of reduplicate world of things comes to us, i think, chiefly from hume's conception that the "_mind_ is nothing but a heap, a collection of different perceptions, united together by certain relations."--_treatise of human nature_, book i, part iv, sec. 2. for the evolution of this sort of notion out of the immaterial substance notion, see bush, "a factor in the genesis of idealism," in the james _festschrift_. [49] see, for example, p. 113. "thus that which is 'nothing but a state of our consciousness' turns out straightway to be a specifically determined objective fact in a system of facts," and, p. 147, "actual sensation is determined as an event in a world of events." [50] when it is said that an idea is a "plan of action," it must be remembered that the term "plan of action" is a formal term. it throws no light upon _what_ the action is with respect to which an idea is the plan. it may be chopping down a tree, finding a trail, or conducting a scientific research in mathematics, history, or chemistry. [51] i owe this idea, both in its historical and in its logical aspects, to my former colleague, professor mead, of the university of chicago. viii the control of ideas by facts i there is something a little baffling in much of the current discussion regarding the reference of ideas to facts. the not uncommon assumption is that there was a satisfactory and consistent theory of their relation in existence prior to the somewhat impertinent intrusion of a functional and practical interpretation of them. the way the instrumental logician has been turned upon by both idealist and realist is suggestive of the way in which the outsider who intervenes in a family jar is proverbially treated by both husband and wife, who manifest their unity by berating the third party. i feel that the situation is due partly to various misapprehensions, inevitable perhaps in the first presentation of a new point of view[52] and multiplied in this instance by the coincidence of the presentation of this logical point of view with that of the larger philosophical movements, humanism and pragmatism. i wish here to undertake a summary statement of the logical view on its own account, hoping it may receive clearer understanding on its own merits. in the first place it was (apart from the frightful confusion of logical theories) precisely the lack of an adequate and generally accepted theory of the nature of fact and idea, and of the kind of agreement or correspondence between them which constitutes the truth of the idea, that led to the development of a functional theory of logic. a brief statement of the difficulties in the traditional views may therefore be pertinent. that fruitful thinking--thought that terminates in valid knowledge--goes on in terms of the distinction of facts and judgment, and that valid knowledge is precisely genuine correspondence or agreement, _of some sort_, of fact and judgment, is the common and undeniable assumption. but the discussions are largely carried on in terms of an epistemological dualism, rendering the solution of the problem impossible in virtue of the very terms in which it is stated. the distinction is at once identified with that between mind and matter, consciousness and objects, the psychical and the physical, where each of these terms is supposed to refer to some fixed order of existence, a world in itself. then, of course, there comes up the question of the nature of the agreement, and of the recognition of it. what is the experience in which the survey of both idea and existence is made and their agreement recognized? is it an idea? is the agreement ultimately a matter of self-consistency of ideas? then what has become of the postulate that truth is agreement of idea with existence beyond idea? is it an absolute which transcends and absorbs the difference? then, once more, what is the test of any specific judgment? what has become of the correspondence of fact and thought? or, more urgently, since the pressing problem of life, of practice and of science, is the discrimination of the _relative_, or _superior_, validity of this or that theory, plan, or interpretation, what is the criterion of truth within present non-absolutistic experience, where the distinction between factual conditions and thoughts and the necessity of some working adjustment persist? putting the problem in yet another way, either both fact and idea are present all the time or else only one of them is present. but if the former, why should there be an idea at all, and why should it have to be tested by the fact? when we already have what we want, namely, existence, reality, why should we take up the wholly supernumerary task of forming more or less imperfect ideas of those facts, and then engage in the idle performance of testing them by what we already know to be? but if only ideas are present, it is idle to speak of comparing an idea with facts and testing its validity by its agreement. the elaboration and refinement of ideas to the uttermost still leaves us with an idea, and while a self-consistent idea stands a show of being true in a way in which an incoherent one does not, a self-consistent idea is still but a hypothesis, a candidate for truth. ideas are not made true by getting bigger. but if only 'facts' are present, the whole conception of agreement is once more given up--not to mention that such a situation is one in which there is by definition no thinking or reflective factor at all. this suggests that a strictly monistic epistemology, whether idealistic or realistic, does not get rid of the problem. suppose for example we take a sensationalistic idealism. it does away with the ontological gulf between ideas and facts, and by reducing both terms to a common denominator seems to facilitate fruitful discussion of the problem. but the problem of the distinction and reference (agreement, correspondence) of two types or sorts of sensations still persists. if i say the box there is square, and call "box" one of a group of ideas or sensations and "square" another sensation or "idea," the old question comes up: is "square" already a part of the "facts" of the box, or is it not? if it is, it is a supernumerary, an idle thing, both as an idea and as an assertion of fact; if it is not, how can we compare the two ideas, and what on earth or in heaven does their agreement or correspondence mean? if it means simply that we experience the two "sensations" in juxtaposition, then the same is true, of course, of any casual association or hallucination. on the sensational basis, accordingly, there is still a distinction of something "given," "there," brutally factual, the box, and something else which stands on a different level, ideal, absent, intended, demanded, the "square," which is asserted to hold good or be true of the thing "box." the fact that both are sensations throws no light on the logical validity of any proposition or belief, because by theory a like statement holds of every possible proposition.[53] the same problem recurs on a realistic basis. for example, there has recently been propounded[54] the doctrine of the distinction between relations of space and time and relations of meaning or significance, as a key to the problem of knowledge. things exist in their own characters, in their temporal and spatial relations. when knowledge intervenes, there is nothing new of a subjective or psychical sort, but simply a new relation of the things--the suggesting or signifying of one thing by another. now this seems to be an excellent way of stating the logical problem, but, i take it, it states and does not solve. for the characteristic of such situations, claiming to terminate in knowledge, is precisely that the meaning-relation is predicated _of_ the other relations; it is referred to them; it is not simply a supervention existing side by side with them, like casual suggestions or the play of phantasy. it is something which the facts, the qualitative space and time things, must bear the burden of, must accept and take unto themselves as part of themselves. until this happens, we have only "thinking," not accomplished knowledge. hence, logically, the existential relations play the rôle of fact, and the relation of signification that of idea,[55] distinguished from fact and yet, if valid, to hold _of_ fact. this appears quite clearly in the following quotation: "it is the ice which means that it will cool the water, just as much as it is the ice which does cool the water when put into it." there is, however, a possible ambiguity in the statement, to which we shall return later. that the "ice" (the thing regarded as ice) _suggests_ cooling is as real as is a case of actual cooling. but, of course, not every suggestion is valid. the "ice" may be a crystal, and it will not cool water at all. so far as it is already certain that this _is_ ice, and also certain that ice, under all circumstances, cools water, the meaning-relation stands on the same level as the physical, being not merely suggested, but part of the facts ascertained. it is not a meaning-relation as such at all. we already have truth; the entire work of knowing as logical is done; we have no longer the relation characteristic of reflective situations. here again the implication of the thinking situation is of some "correspondence" or "agreement" between two sets of distinguished relations; the problem of valid determination remains the central question of any theory of knowing in its relation to facts and truth.[56] ii i hope this statement of the difficulty, however inadequate, will serve at least to indicate that a functional logic inherits the problem in question and does not create it; that it has never for a moment denied the prima facie working distinction between "ideas," "thoughts," "meanings," and "facts," "existences," "the environment," nor the necessity of a control of meaning by facts. it is concerned not with denying, but with understanding. what is denied is not the genuineness of the problem of the terms in which it is stated, but the reality and value of the orthodox interpretation. what is insisted upon is the relative, instrumental, or working character of the distinction--that it _is_ a _logical_ distinction, instituted and maintained in the interests of intelligence, with all that intelligence imports in the exercise of the life functions. to this positive side i now turn. in the analysis it may prove convenient to take an illustration of a man lost in the woods, taking this case as typical of any reflective situation in so far as it involves perplexity--a problem to be solved. the problem is to find a correct idea of the way home--a practical idea or plan of action which will lead to success, or the realization of the purpose to get home. now the critics of the experimental theory of logic make the point that this practical idea, the truth of which is evidenced in the successful meeting of a need, is dependent for its success upon a purely presentative idea, that of the existent environment, whose validity has nothing to do with success but depends on agreement with the given state of affairs. it is said that what makes a man's idea of his environment true is its agreement with the actual environment, and "generally a true idea in any situation consists in its agreement with reality." i have already indicated my acceptance of this formula. but it was long my misfortune not to be possessed offhand of those perfectly clear notions of just what is meant in this formula by the terms "idea," "existence," and "agreement" which are possessed by other writers on epistemology; and when i analyzed these notions i found the distinction between the practical idea and the theoretical not fixed nor final, and i found a somewhat startling similarity between the notions of "success" and "agreement." just what is the environment of which an idea is to be formed: i.e., what is the intellectual content or objective detail to be assigned to the term "environment"? it can hardly mean the actual visible environment--the trees, rocks, etc., which a man is actually looking at. these things are there and it seems superfluous to form an idea of them; moreover, the wayfaring man, though lost, would have to be an unusually perverse fool if under such circumstances he were unable to form an idea (supposing he chose to engage in this luxury) in agreement with these facts. the environment must be a larger environment than the visible facts; it must include things not within the direct ken of the lost man; it must, for instance, extend from where he is now to his home, or to the point from which he started. it must include unperceived elements in their contrast with the perceived. otherwise the man would not be lost. now we are at once struck with the facts that the lost man has no alternative except either to wander aimlessly or else to _conceive_ this inclusive environment; and that this conception is just what is meant by idea. it is not some little psychical entity or piece of consciousness-stuff, but is _the interpretation of the locally present environment in reference to its absent portion_, that part to which it is referred as another part so as to give a view of a whole. just how such an idea would differ from one's plan of action in finding one's way, i do not know. for one's plan (if it be really a plan, a method) is a conception of what is given in its hypothetical relations to what is not given, employed as a guide to that act which results in the absent being also given. it is a map constructed with one's self lost and one's self found, whether at starting or at home again, as its two limits. if this map in its specific character is not also the only guide to the way home, one's only plan of action, then i hope i may never be lost. it is the _practical_ facts of being lost and desiring to be found which constitute the limits and the content of the "environment." then comes the test of _agreement_ of the idea and the environment. supposing the individual stands still and attempts to compare his idea with the reality, with what reality is he to compare it? not with the presented reality, for _that_ reality is the reality of himself lost; not with the complete reality, for at this stage of proceedings he has only the idea to stand for the complete theory. what kind of comparison is possible or desirable then, save to treat the mental layout of the whole situation as a working hypothesis, as a plan of action, and proceed to _act_ upon it, to use it as a director and controller of one's divagations instead of stumbling blindly around until one is either exhausted or accidentally gets out? now suppose one uses the idea--that is to say, the present facts projected into a whole in the light of absent facts--as a guide of action. suppose, by means of its specifications, one works one's way along until one comes upon familiar ground--finds one's self. _now_, one may say, my idea was right, it was in accord with facts; it agrees with reality. that is, acted upon sincerely, it has led to the desired conclusion; it has, _through action_, worked out the state of things which it contemplated or intended. the agreement, correspondence, is between purpose, plan, and its own execution, fulfillment; between a map of a course constructed for the sake of guiding behavior and the result attained in acting upon the indications of the map. just how does such agreement differ from success? iii if we exclude acting upon the idea, no conceivable amount or kind of intellectualistic procedure can confirm or refute an idea, or throw any light upon its validity. how does the non-pragmatic view consider that verification takes place? does it suppose that we first look a long while at the facts and then a long time at the idea, until by some magical process the degree and kind of their agreement become visible? unless there is some such conception as this, what conception of agreement is possible except the experimental or practical one? and if it be admitted that verification involves action, how can that action be relevant to the truth of an idea, unless the idea is itself already relevant to action? if by acting in accordance with the experimental definition of facts, viz., as obstacles and conditions, and the experimental definition of the end or intent, viz., as plan and method of action, a harmonized situation effectually presents itself, we have the adequate and the only conceivable verification of the intellectual factors. if the action indicated be carried out and the disordered or disturbed situation persists, then we have not merely confuted the tentative positions of intelligence, but we have in the very process of acting introduced new data and eliminated some of the old ones, and thus afforded an opportunity for the resurvey of the facts and the revision of the plan of action. by acting faithfully upon an inadequate reflective presentation, we have at least secured the elements for its improvement. this, of course, gives no absolute guaranty that the reflection will at any time be so performed as to prove its validity in fact. but the self-rectification of intellectual content through acting upon it in good faith is the "absolute" of knowledge, loyalty to which is the religion of intellect. the intellectual definition or delimitation assigned to the "given" is thus as tentative and experimental as that ascribed to the idea. in form both are categorical, and in content both are hypothetical. facts really exist just as facts, and meanings exist as meanings. one is no more superfluous, more subjective, or less necessitated than the other. in and of themselves as existences both are equally realistic and compulsive. but on the basis of existence, there is no element in either which may be strictly described as intellectual or cognitional. there is only a practical situation in its brute and unrationalized form. what is uncertain about the facts as given at any moment is whether the right exclusions and selections have been made. since that is a question which can be decided finally only by the experimental issue, this ascription of character is itself tentative and experimental. if it works, the characterization and delineation are found to be proper ones; but every admission prior to inquiry, of unquestioned, categorical, rigid objectivity, compromises the probability that it will work. the character assigned to the datum must be taken as hypothetically as possible in order to preserve the elasticity needed for easy and prompt reconsideration. any other procedure virtually insists that all facts and details anywhere happening to exist and happening to present themselves (all being equally real) must all be given equal status and equal weight, and that their outer ramifications and internal complexities must be indefinitely followed up. the worthlessness of this sheer accumulation of realities, its total irrelevancy, the lack of any way of judging the significance of the accumulations, are good proofs of the fallacy of any theory which ascribes objective logical content to facts wholly apart from the needs and possibilities of a situation. the more stubbornly one maintains the _full_ reality of either his facts or his ideas, just as they stand, the more accidental is the discovery of relevantly significant facts and of valid ideas--the more accidental, the less rational, is the issue of the knowledge situation. due progress is reasonably probable in just the degree in which the meaning, categorical in its existing imperativeness, and the fact, equally categorical in its brute coerciveness, are assigned only a provisional and tentative nature with reference to control of the situation. that this surrender of a rigid and final character for the content of knowledge on the sides both of fact and of meaning, in favor of experimental and functioning estimations, is precisely the change which has marked the development of modern from mediaeval and greek science, seems undoubted. to learn the lesson one has only to contrast the rigidity of phenomena and conceptions in greek thought (platonic ideas, aristotelian forms) with the modern experimental selection and determining of facts and experimental employment of hypotheses. the former have ceased to be ultimate realities of a nondescript sort and have become provisional data; the latter have ceased to be eternal meanings and have become working theories. the fruitful application of mathematics and the evolution of a technique of experimental inquiry have coincided with this change. that realities exist independently of their use as intellectual data, and that meanings exist apart from their utilization as hypotheses, are the permanent truths of greek realism as against the exaggerated subjectivism of modern philosophy; but the conception that this existence is to be defined in the same way as are contents of knowledge, so that perfect being is object of perfect knowledge and imperfect being object of imperfect knowledge, is the fallacy which greek thought projected into modern. science has advanced in its methods in just the degree in which it has ceased to assume that prior realities and prior meanings retain fixedly and finally, when entering into reflective situations, the characters they had prior to this entrance, and in which it has realized that their very presence within the knowledge situation signifies that they have to be redefined and revalued from the standpoint of the new situation. iv this conception does not, however, commit us to the view that there is any conscious situation which is totally non-reflective. it may be true that any experience which can properly be termed such comprises something which is _meant_ over and against what is given or there. but there are many situations into which the rational factor--the mutual distinction and mutual reference of fact and meaning--enters only incidentally and is slurred, not accentuated. many disturbances are relatively trivial and induce only a slight and superficial redefinition of contents. this passing tension of facts against meaning may suffice to call up and carry a wide range of meaningful facts which are quite irrelevant to the intellectual problem. such is the case where the individual is finding his way through any field which is upon the whole familiar, and which, accordingly, requires only an occasional resurvey and revaluation at moments of slight perplexity. we may call these situations, if we will, knowledge situations (for the reflective function characteristic of knowledge is present), but so denominating them does not do away with their sharp difference from those situations in which the critical qualification of facts and definition of meanings constitute the main business. to speak of the passing attention which a traveler has occasionally to give to the indications of his proper path in a fairly familiar and beaten highway as knowledge, in just the same sense in which the deliberate inquiry of a mathematician or a chemist or a logician is knowledge, is as confusing to the real issue involved as would be the denial to it of _any_ reflective factor. if, then, one bears in mind these two considerations--(1) the unique problem and purpose of every reflective situation, and (2) the difference as to range and thoroughness of logical function in different types of reflective situations--one need have no difficulty with the doctrine that the great obstacle in the development of scientific knowing is that facts and meanings enter such situations with stubborn and alien characteristics imported from other situations. this affords an opportunity to speak again of the logical problem to which reference and promise of return were made earlier in this paper. facts may be regarded as existing qualitatively and in certain spatial and temporal relations; when there is knowledge another relation is added, that of one thing meaning or signifying another. water exists, for example, as water, in a certain place, in a certain temporal sequence. but it may signify the quenching of thirst; and this signification-relation constitutes knowledge.[57] this statement may be taken in a way congruous with the account developed in this paper. but it may also be taken in another sense, consideration of which will serve to enforce the point regarding the tentative nature of the characterization of the given, as distinct from the intended and absent. water means quenching thirst; it is drunk, and death follows. it was not water, but a poison which "looked like" water. or it is drunk, and is water, but does not quench thirst, for the drinker is in an abnormal condition and drinking water only intensifies the thirst. or it is drunk and quenches thirst; but it also brings on typhoid fever, being not merely water, but water plus germs. now all these events demonstrate that error may appertain quite as much to the characterization of existing things, suggesting or suggested, as to the suggestion _qua_ suggestion. there is no ground for giving the "things" any superior reality. in these cases, indeed, it may fairly be said that the mistake is made because qualitative thing and suggested or meaning-relation were _not_ discriminated. the "signifying" force was regarded as a part of the direct quality of the given fact, quite as much as its color, liquidity, etc.; it is only in another situation that it is discriminated as a relation instead of being regarded as an element. it is quite as true to say that a thing is called water because it suggests thirst-quenching as to say that it suggests thirst-quenching because it is characterized as water. _the knowledge function becomes prominent or dominant in the degree in which there is a conscious discrimination between the fact-relations and the meaning-relations._ and this inevitably means that the "water" ceases to be _surely_ water, just as it becomes doubtful or hypothetical whether this thing, whatever it is, really means thirst-quenching. if it really means thirst-quenching, it is water; so far as it may not mean it, it perhaps is not water. it is now just as much a question _what_ this _is_ as what it means. whatever will resolve one question will resolve the other. in just the degree, then, in which an existence or thing gets intellectualized force or function, it becomes a fragmentary and dubious thing, to be circumscribed and described for the sake of operating as _sign_, or clue of a _future_ reality to be realized through action. only as "reality" is reduced to a sign, and questions of its nature as sign are considered, does it get intellectual or cognitional status. the bearing of this upon the question of practical character of the distinctions of fact and idea is obvious. no one, i take it, would deny that action of some sort _does_ follow upon judgment; no one would deny that this action _does_ somehow serve to test the value of the intellectual operations upon which it follows. but if this subsequent action is _merely_ subsequent, if the intellectual categories, operations, and distinctions are complete in themselves, without inherent reference to it, what guaranty is there that they pass into relevant action, and by what miracle does the action manage to test the worth of the idea? but if the intellectual identification and description of the thing are as tentative and instrumental as is the ascription of significance, then the exigencies of the active situation are operative in all the categories of the knowledge situation. action is not a more or less accidental appendage or afterthought, but is undergoing development and giving direction in the entire knowledge function. in conclusion, i remark that the ease with which the practical character of these fundamental logical categories, fact, meaning, and agreement, may be overlooked or denied is due to the organic way in which practical import is incarnate in them. it can be overlooked because it is so involved in the terms themselves that it is assumed at every turn. the pragmatist is in the position of one who is charged with denying the existence of something because, in pointing out a certain fundamental feature of it, he puts it in a strange light. such confusion always occurs when the familiar is brought to definition. the difficulties are more psychological--difficulties of orientation and mental adjustment--than logical, and in the long run will be done away with by our getting used to the different viewpoint, rather than by argument. footnotes: [52] _studies in logical theory_, university of chicago press, 1903. [53] mill's doctrine of the ambiguity of the copula (_logic_, book i, chap. iv, § 1) is an instance of one typical way of evading the problem. after insisting with proper force and clearness upon the objective character of our intellectual beliefs and propositions, viz., that when we say fire causes heat we mean actual phenomena, not our ideas of fire and heat (book i, chap. ii and chap. xi, § 1, and chap. v, § 1), he thinks to dispose of the whole problem of the "is" in judgment by saying that it is only a sign of affirmation (chap. i, § 2, and chap. iv, § 1). of course it is. but unless the affirmation (the sign of thought) "agrees" or "corresponds with" the relations of the phenomena, what becomes of the doctrine of the objective import of propositions? how otherwise shall we maintain with mill (and with common-sense and science) the difference between asserting "a fact of external nature" and "a fact in my mental history"? [54] _studies in philosophy and psychology_, article by woodbridge on "the problem of consciousness," especially pp. 159-60. [55] in other words, "ideas" is a term capable of assuming any definition which is logically appropriate--say, meaning. it need not have anything to do with the conception of little subjective entities or psychical stuffs. [56] of course, the monistic epistemologies have an advantage in the statement of the problem over the dualistic--they do not state it in terms which presuppose the impossibility of the solution. [57] this view was originally advanced in the discussion of quite another problem than the one here discussed, viz., the problem of consciousness; and it may not be quite just to dissever it from that context. but as a formula for knowledge it has enough similarity with the one brought out in this paper to suggest further treatment; it is not intended that the results reached here shall apply to the problem of consciousness as such. ix naïve realism vs. presentative realism[58] i in spite of the elucidations of contemporary realists, a number of idealists continue to adduce in behalf of idealism certain facts having an obvious physical nature and explanation. the visible convergence of the railway tracks, for example, is cited as evidence that what is seen is a mental "content." yet this convergence follows from the physical properties of light and a lens, and is physically demonstrated in a camera. is the photograph, then, to be conceived as a psychical somewhat? that the time of the visibility of a light does not coincide with the time at which a distant body emitted the light is employed to support a similar idealistic conclusion, in spite of the fact that the exact difference in time may be deduced from a physical property of light--its rate. the dislocation in space of the light seen and the astronomical star is used as evidence of the mental nature of the former, though the exact angular difference is a matter of simple computation from purely physical data. the doubling of images of, say, the finger when the eyeball is pressed, is frequently proffered as a clincher. yet it is a simple matter to take any body that reflects light, and by a suitable arrangement of lenses to produce not only two but many images, projected into space. if the fact that under definite _physical_ conditions (misplacement of lenses), a finger yields two images proves the psychical character of the latter, then the fact that under certain conditions a sounding body yields one or more echoes is, by parity of reasoning, proof that the echo is made of mental stuff.[59] if, once more, the differences in form and color of a table to different observers, occupying different physical positions, is proof that what each sees is a psychical, private, isolated somewhat, then the fact that one and the same physical body has different effects upon, or relations with, different physical media is proof of the mental nature of these effects. take a lump of wax and subject it to the same heat, located at different positions; now the wax is solid, now liquid--it might even be gaseous. how "psychical" these phenomena! it almost seems as if the transformation of the physical into the mental in the cases cited exemplifies an interesting psychological phenomenon. in each case the beginning is with a real and physical existence. taking "the real object," the astronomical star, on the basis of its physical reality, the idealist concludes to a psychical object, radically different! taking the _single_ object, the finger, from the premise of its real singleness, he concludes to a double mental content, which then takes the place of the original single thing! taking one-and-the-same-object, the table, presenting _its_ different surfaces and reflections of light to different real organisms, he eliminates the one-table-in-its-different-relations in behalf of a multiplicity of totally separate psychical tables! the logic reminds us of the story of the countryman who, after gazing at the giraffe, remarked, "there ain't no such animal." it almost seems, i repeat, as if this self-contradiction in the argument creates in some minds the impression that the object--not the argument--is undergoing the extraordinary reversal of form. however this may be, the problem indicated in the foregoing cases is simply the good old problem of the many in one, or, less cryptically, the problem of the maintenance of a continuity of process throughout differences. i do not pretend that this situation, though the most familiar thing in life, is wholly without difficulties. but its difficulty is not one of epistemology, that is, of the relation of known to a knower; to take it as such, and then to use it as proof of the psychical nature of a final term, is also to prove that the trail the rocket stick leaves behind is psychical, or that the flower which comes in a continuity of process from a seed is mental. ii contemporary realists have so frequently and clearly expounded the physical explanation of such cases as have been cited that one is at a loss as to why idealists go on repeating the cases without even alluding to the realistic explanation. one is moved to wonder whether this neglect is just one of those circumstances which persistently dog philosophical discussions, or whether something in the realistic position gives ground (from at least an _ad hominem_ point of view) for the neglect. there is a reason for adopting the latter alternative. many realists, in offering the type of explanation adduced above, have treated the cases of seen light, doubled imagery, as perception in a way that ascribes to perception an inherent cognitive status. they have treated the perceptions as _cases of knowledge_, instead of as simply natural events having, in themselves (apart from a _use_ that may be made of them), no more knowledge status or worth than, say, a shower or a fever. what i intend to show is that if "perceptions" are regarded as cases of knowledge, the gate is opened to the idealistic interpretation. the physical explanation holds of them as long as they are regarded simply as natural events--a doctrine i shall call naïve realism; it does not hold of them considered as cases of knowledge--the view i call presentative realism. the idealists attribute to the realists the doctrine that "the perceived object is the real object." please note the wording; it assumes that there is _the_ real object, something which stands in a contrasting relation with objects not real or else less real. since it is easily demonstrable that there is a numerical duplicity between the astronomical star and its effect of visible light, between the single finger and the doubled images, the latter evidently, when the former is dubbed "_the_" real object, stands in disparaging contrast to its reality. _if_ it is a case of knowledge, the knowledge refers to the star; and yet not the star, but something more or less unreal (that is, if the star be "the" real object), is known. consider how simply the matter stands in what i have called naïve realism. the astronomical star is _a_ real object, but not "the" real object; the visible light is another real object, found, when knowledge supervenes, to be an occurrence standing in a process continuous with the star. since the seen light is an event within a continuous process, there is no point of view from which its "reality" contrasts with that of the star. but suppose that the realist accepts the traditionary psychology according to which every event in the way of a perception is also a case of knowing something. is the way out now so simple? in the case of the doubled fingers or the seen light, the thing known in perception contrasts with the physical source and cause of the knowledge. there _is_ a numerical duplicity. moreover the thing known by perception is by this hypothesis in relation to a knower, while the physical cause is not. is not the most plausible account of the difference between the physical cause of the perceptive knowledge and what the latter presents precisely this latter difference--namely, presentation to a knower? if perception is a case of knowing, it must be a case of knowing the star; but since the "real" star is not known in the perception, the knowledge relation must somehow have changed the "object" into a "content." thus when the realist conceives the perceptual occurrence as an intrinsic case of knowledge or of presentation to a mind or knower, he lets the nose of the idealist camel into the tent. he has then no great cause for surprise when the camel comes in--and devours the tent. perhaps it will seem as if in this last paragraph i had gone back on what i said earlier regarding the physical explanation of the difference between the visible light and the astronomical star. on the contrary, my point is that this explanation, though wholly adequate as long as we conceive the perception to be itself simply a natural event, is not at all available when we conceive it to be an attempt at knowing its cause. in the former case, we are dealing with a relation between natural events. in the latter case, we are dealing with the difference between an object as a cause of knowledge and an object as known, and hence in relation to mind. by the "method of difference" the sole explanation of the difference between the two objects is then the absence or presence of relation to a knower. in the case of the seen light,[60] reference to the velocity of light is quite adequate to account for its time and space differences from the star. but viewed as a case of what is known (on the supposition that perception is knowing), reference to it only increases the contrast between the real object and the object known in perception. for, being just as much a part of the object that causes the perception as is the star itself, it (the velocity of light) _ought_ logically to be part of what is known in the perception, while it is not. since the velocity of light is a constituent element in the star, it should be known in the perception; since it is not so known, reference to it only increases the discrepancy between the object of the perception--the seen light--and the real, astronomical star. the same is true of any physical condition that might be referred to: _the very things that, from the standpoint of perception as a natural event, are conditions that account for its happening are, from the standpoint of perception as a case of knowledge, part of the object which, if knowledge is to be valid, ought to be known, but is not._ in this fact we have, perhaps, the ground of the idealist's disregard of the oft-proffered physical explanation of the difference between the perceptual event and _the_ (so-called) real object. and it is quite possible that some realists who read these lines will feel that in my last paragraphs i have been making a covert argument for idealism. not so, i repeat; they are an argument for a truly naïve realism. the presentative realist, in his appeal to "common-sense" and the "plain man," first sophisticates the umpire and then appeals. he stops a good way short of a genuine naïveté. the plain man, for a surety, does not regard noises heard, lights seen, etc., as mental existences; but neither does he regard them as things _known_. that they are just things is good enough for him. that they are in relation to mind, or in relation to mind as their "knower," no more occurs to him than that they are mental. by this i mean much more than that the formulae of epistemology are foreign to him; i mean that his attitude to these things _as_ things involves their _not_ being in relation to him as a mind or a knower. he is in the attitude of a liker or hater, a doer or an appreciator. when he takes the attitude of a knower he begins to inquire. once depart from thorough naïveté, and substitute for it the psychological theory that perception is a cognitive presentation to a mind of a causal object, and the first step is taken on the road which ends in an idealistic system. iii for simplicity's sake, i have written as if my main problem were to show how, in the face of a supposed difficulty, a strictly realistic theory of the perceptual event may be maintained. but my interest is primarily in the facts, and in the theory only because of the facts it formulates. the significance of the facts of the case may, perhaps, be indicated by a consideration which has thus far been ignored. in regarding a perception as a case of knowledge, the presentative realist does more than shove into it a relation to mind which then, naturally and inevitably, becomes the explanation of any differences that exist between its subject-matter and some causal object with which it contrasts. in many cases--very important cases, too, in the physical sciences--the contrasting "real object" becomes known by a logical process, by inference--as the contemporary position of the star is determined by calculations from data, not by perception. this, then, is the situation of the presentative realist: if perception is knowledge of its cause, it stands in unfavorable contrast with another indirect mode of knowledge; _its_ object is less valid than the object of inference. i do not adduce these considerations as showing that the case is hopeless for the presentative realist;[61] i am willing to concede he can find a satisfactory way out. but the difficulty exists; and in existing it calls emphatic attention to a case which is certainly and indisputably a case of knowledge--namely, propositions arrived at through inference, judgments as logical assertions. with relation to the unquestionable case of knowledge, the logical or inferential case, perceptions occupy a unique status, one which readily accounts for their being regarded as cases of knowledge, although in themselves they are natural events. (1) they are the sole ultimate data, the sole media, of inference to all natural objects and processes. while we do not, in any intelligible or verifiable sense, know _them_, we know all things that we do know _with_ or _by_ them. they furnish the only ultimate evidence of the existence and nature of the objects which we infer, and they are the sole ultimate checks and tests of the inferences. the visible light is a necessary part of the evidence on the basis of which we infer the existence, place, and structure of the astronomical star, and some other perception is the verifying check on the value of the inference. because of this characteristic use of perceptions, the perceptions themselves acquire, by "second intention," a knowledge status. they _become_ objects of minute, accurate, and experimental scrutiny. since the body of propositions that forms natural science hangs upon them, _for scientific purposes_ their nature _as_ evidence, _as_ signs, entirely overshadows their natural status, that of being simply natural events. the scientific man, as scientific, cares for perceptions not in themselves, but as they throw light upon the nature of some object reached by evidence. and since every such inference tries to terminate in a further perception (as its test of validity), the value of inferential knowing depends on perception. (2) independently of science, daily life uses perceptions as signs of other perceptions. when a perception of a certain kind frequently recurs and is constantly used as evidence of some other impending perceptual event, the function of habit (a natural function, be it noted, not a psychical or epistemological function) often brings it about that the perception loses its original quality in acquiring a sign-value. language is, of course, the typical case. noises, in themselves mere natural events, through habitual use as signs of other natural events become integrated with what they mean. what they stand for is telescoped, as it were, into what they are. this happens also with other natural events, colors, tastes, etc. thus, _for practical purposes_, many perceptual events are cases of knowledge; that is, they have been _used_ as such so often that the habit of so using them is established or automatic. in this brief reference to facts that are perfectly familiar, i have tried to suggest three points of crucial importance for a naïve realism: first, that inferential or evidential knowledge (that involving logical relation) is in the field as an obvious and undisputed case of knowledge; second, that this function, although embodying the logical relation, is itself a natural and specifically detectable process among natural things--it is not a non-natural or epistemological relation; third, that the _use_, practical and scientific, of perceptual events in the evidential or inferential function is such as to make them _become_ objects of inquiry and limits of knowledge, and to such a degree that this acquired characteristic quite overshadows, in many cases, their primary nature. if we add to what has been said the fact that, like every natural function, the inferential function turns out better in some cases and worse in others, we get a naturalistic or naïvely realistic conception of the "_problem_ of knowledge": control of the conditions of inference--the only type of knowledge detectable in direct existence--so as to guide it toward better conclusions. iv i do not flatter myself that i will receive much gratitude from realists for attempting to rescue them from that error of fact which exposes their doctrine to an idealistic interpretation. the superstition, growing up in a false physics and physiology and perpetuated by psychology, that sensations-perceptions are cases of knowledge, is too ingrained. but--_crede experto_--let them try the experiment of conceiving perceptions as pure natural events, not as cases of awareness or apprehension, and they will be surprised to see how little they miss--save the burden of carrying traditionary problems. meantime, while philosophic argument, such as this, will do little to change the state of belief regarding perceptions, the development of biology and the refinement of physiology will, in due season, do the work. in concluding my article, i ought to refer, in order to guard against misapprehension, to a reply that the presentative realist might make to my objection. he might say that while the seen light is a case of knowledge or presentative awareness, it is not a case of knowledge of the star, but simply of the seen light, just as it is. in this case the appeal to the physical explanations of the difference of the seen light from its objective source is quite legitimate. at first sight, such a position seems innocent and tenable. even if innocent, it would, however, be ungrounded, since there is no evidence of the existence of a knower, and of its relation to the seen light. but further consideration will reveal that there is a most fundamental objection. if the notion of perception as a case of adequate knowledge of its own object-matter be accepted, the knowledge relation is absolutely ubiquitous; it is an all-inclusive net. the "ego-centric predicament" is inevitable. this result of making perception a case of knowing will now occupy us. footnotes: [58] i am indebted to dr. bush's article on "knowledge and perception," _journal of philosophy, psychology, and scientific methods_, vol. vi, p. 393, and to professor woodbridge's article on "perception and epistemology" in the _james memorial volume_, as well as to his paper on "sensations," read at the 1910 meeting of the american philosophical association. since my point of departure and aim are somewhat different, i make this general acknowledgment in lieu of more specific references. [59] plato's use of shadows, of reflections in the water, and other "images" or "imitations" to prove the presence in nature of non-being was, considering the state of physical science in his day, a much more sensible conclusion than the modern use of certain images as proof that the object in perception is a psychical content. hobbes expressly treats all images as physical, as on the same plane as reflections in the water and echoes; the comparison is his. [60] it is impossible, in this brief treatment, to forestall every misapprehension and objection. yet to many the use of the term "seen" will appear to be an admission that a case of knowledge is involved. but is smelling a case of knowledge? or (if the superstition persists as to smell) is gnawing or poking a case of knowledge? my point, of course, is that "seen" involves a relation to organic activity, not to a knower, or mind. [61] this is the phase of the matter, of course, which the rationalistic or objective realist, the realist of the type of t. h. green, emphasizes. put in terms of systems, the difficulty is that in escaping the subjectivism latent in treating perception as a case of knowledge, the realist runs into the waiting arms of the objective idealist. x epistemological realism: the alleged ubiquity of the knowledge relation i have pointed out that if perception be treated as a case of knowledge, knowledge of every form and kind must be treated as a case of a presentation to a knower. the alleged discipline of epistemology is then inevitable. in common usage, the term "knowledge" tends to be employed eulogistically; its meaning approaches the connotation of the term "science." more loosely, it is used, of course, to designate all beliefs and propositions that are held with assurance, especially with the implication that the assurance is reasonable, or grounded. in its practical sense, it is used as the equivalent of "knowing _how_," of skill or ability involving such acquaintance with things and persons as enables one to anticipate how they behave under certain conditions and to take steps accordingly. such usages of the term are all differential; they all involve definite contrasts--with ungrounded conviction, or with doubt and mere guesswork, or with the inexpertness that accompanies lack of familiarity. in its epistemological use, the term "knowledge" has a blanket value which is absolutely unknown in common life. it covers any and every "presentation" of any and every thing to a knower, to an "awarer," if i may coin a word for the sake of avoiding some of the pitfalls of the term "consciousness." and, i repeat, this indiscriminate use of the term "knowledge," so foreign to science and daily life, is absolutely unavoidable if perception be regarded as, in itself, a mode of knowledge. and then--and only then--the problem of "the possibility, nature, and extent of knowledge _in general_" is also inevitable. i hope i shall not be regarded as offensively pragmatic if i suggest that this undesirable consequence is a good reason for not accepting the premise from which it follows, unless that premise be absolutely forced upon us. at all events, upon the supposition of the ubiquity of the knowledge relation in respect to a self, presentative realism is compelled to accept the genuineness of the epistemological problem, and thus to convert itself into an epistemological realism, getting one more step away from both naïve and naturalistic realism. the problem is especially acute for a presentative realism because idealism has made precisely this ubiquity of relationship its axiom, its short-cut. one sample is as good as a thousand. says bain: "there is no possible knowledge of a world except in relation to our minds. knowledge means a state of mind; the notion of material things is a mental fact. we are incapable even of discussing the existence of an independent material world; the very act is a contradiction. we can speak only of a world presented to our own minds." on the supposition of the ubiquity of the relation, realism and idealism exhaust the alternatives; if the ubiquity of the relation is a myth, both doctrines are unreal, because there is no problem of which they are the solution. my first step in indicating the unreality of both "solutions" is formal. i shall try to show that _if_ the knowledge relation of things to a self is the exhaustive and inclusive relation, there is no intelligible point at issue between idealism and realism; the differences between them are either verbal or else due to a failure on the part of one or the other to stick to their _common_ premise. i to my mind, professor perry rendered philosophic discussion a real service when he coined the phrase "ego-centric predicament." the phrase designated something which, whether or no it be real in itself, is very real in current discussion, and designating it rendered it more accessible to examination. in terming the alleged uniform complicity of a knower a predicament, it is intended, i take it, to suggest, among other things, that we have here a difficulty with which all schools of thought alike must reckon, so that it is a difficulty that cannot be used as an argument in behalf of one school and against another. if the relation be ubiquitous, it affects alike every view, every theory, every object experienced; it is no respecter of persons, no respecter of doctrines. since it cannot make any difference to any particular object, to any particular logical assertion, or to any particular theory, it does not support an idealistic as against a realistic theory. being a universal common denominator of all theories, it cancels out of all of them alike. it leaves the issue one of _subject-matter_, to be decided on the basis of that subject-matter, not on the basis of an unescapable attendant consideration that the subject-matter must be known in order to be discussed. in short, the moral is quite literally, "forget it," or "cut it out." but the idealist may be imagined to reply somewhat as follows: "if the ubiquity were of any kind other than precisely the kind it is, the advice to disregard it as a mere attendant circumstance of discussion would be relevant. thus, for example, we disregard gravitation when we are considering a particular chemical reaction; there is no ground for supposing that it affects a reaction in any way that modifies it as a chemical reaction. and if the 'ego-centric' relation were cited when the point at issue is something about one group of facts in distinction from another group, it ought certainly to be canceled from any statement about them. but since the point at issue is precisely the most universally defining trait of existence as known, the invitation deliberately to disregard the most universal trait is nothing more or less than an invitation to philosophic suicide." if the idealist i have imagined as making the foregoing retort were up in recent realistic literature, he might add the following argument _ad hominem_: "you, my realistic opponent, say that the doctrine of the external relation of terms expresses a ubiquitous mark of every genuine proposition or relational complex, and that this ubiquity is a strong presumption in favor of realism. why so uneven, so partial, in your attitude toward ubiquitous relations? is it perchance that you were so uneasy at our possession of a ubiquitous relation that gives a short cut to idealism that you felt you must also have a short cut to realism?" if i terminate the controversy at this point, it is not because i think the realist is unable to "come back." on the contrary, i stop here because i believe (for reasons that will come out shortly) that both realist and idealist, having the same primary assumption, can come back at each other indefinitely. consequently, i wish to employ the existence of this _tu quoque_ controversy to raise the question: under what conditions is the relation of knower to known an intelligible question? and i wish to show that it is _not_ intelligible, if the knowledge relation be ubiquitous and homogeneous. the controversy back and forth is in fact a warning of each side by the other not to depart from their _common_ premise. if the idealist begins to argue (as he constantly does) as if the relation to "mind" or to "consciousness" made some difference of a specific sort, like that between error and fact, or between sound perception and hallucination, he may be reminded that, since this relation is uniform, it substantiates and nullifies all things alike. and the realist is quite within the common premise when he points out that every special fact must be admitted for what it is specifically known to be; no idealistic doctrine can turn the edge of the fact that knowledge has evolved historically out of a state in which there was no mind, or of the fact that knowledge is even now dependent on the brain, provided that specific evidence shows these to be facts. the realist, on the other hand, must admit that, after all, the entire body of known facts, or of science, including such facts as the above, is held fast and tight in the net of relation to a mind or consciousness. in specific cases this relation may be ignored, but the exact ground for such an ignoring is precisely that the relation is not a specific fact, but a uniform relation of facts. and to call it an external relation makes no practical difference if it is universal and uniform. so the idealist might reply. imagine a situation like the following: the sole relation an organism bears to things is that of eater; the sole relation the environment bears to the organism is that of food, that is, things-to-eat. this relation, then, is exhaustive. it defines, or identifies, each term in relation to the other. but this means that there are not, as respects organism and environment, two terms at all. eater-of-food and food-being-eaten are two names for one and the same situation. could there be imagined a greater absurdity than to set to work to discuss the relation _of_ eater _to_ food, _of_ organism _to_ the environment, or to argue as to whether one modifies the other or not? given the premise, the statements in such a discussion could have only a verbal difference from one another. suppose, however, the discussion has somehow got under way. sides have been taken; the philosophical world is divided into two great camps, "foodists" and "eaterists." the eaterists (idealists) contend that no object exists except in relation to eating; hence that everything is constituted a thing by its relation to eating. special sciences exist indeed which discuss the nature of various sorts of things in relation to _one another_, and hence in legitimate abstraction from the fact that they are all foods. but the discussion of their nature _an sich_ depends upon "eatology," which deals primarily with the problem of the possibility, nature, and extent (or limits) of eating food in general, and thereby determines what food in general, _überhaupt_, is and means. nay, replies the foodist (realist). since the eating relation is uniform, it is negligible. all propositions which have any intelligible meaning are about objects just as they are, and in the relations they bear to one another. foods pass in and out of the relation to eater with no change in their own traits. moreover, the position of the eaterists is self-contradictory. how can a thing be eaten unless it is, in and of itself, a food? to suppose that a food is constituted by eating is to presuppose that eating eats eating, and so on in infinite regress. in short, to be an eater is to be an eater of food; take away the independent existence of foods, and you deny the existence and the possibility of an eater. i respectfully submit that there is no terminus to such a discussion. for either both sides are saying the same thing in different words, or else both of them depart from their common premise, and unwittingly smuggle in some relations between the organism and environment other than that of food-eater. if to be an eater means that an organism which is more and other than an eater is doing something _distinctive_, because contrasting with its other functions, in eating then, and then only, is there an issue. in this latter case, the thing which is food may, of course, be _proved_ to be something besides food, because of some different relation to the organism than that of eating. but if both stick consistently to their common premise, we get the following trivial situation. the idealist says: "every philosophy purports to be knowledge, knowledge of objects; all knowledge implies relation to mind; therefore every object with which philosophy deals is object-in-relation-to-mind." the realist says: "to be a mind is to be a knower; to be a knower is to be a knower-of-objects. without the objects to be known, mind, the knower, is and means nothing." the difficulties attending the discussion of epistemology are in no way attendant upon the special subject-matter of "epistemology." they are found wherever any reciprocal relation is taken to define, exclusively and exhaustively, all the connections between any pair of things. if there are two things that stand solely as buyer and seller to each other, or as husband and wife, then that relation is "unique," and undefinable; to discuss the relation _of_ the relation _to_ the terms of which it is the relation, is an obvious absurdity; to assert that the relation does _not_ modify the "seller," the "wife," or the "object known," is to discuss the relation _of_ the relation just as much as to assert the opposite. the only reason, i think, why anyone has ever supposed the case of knower-known to differ from any case of an alleged exhaustive and exclusive correlation is that while the knower is only one--just knower--the objects known are obviously many, and sustain many relations to one another which vary independently of their relation to the knower. this is the undoubted fact at the bottom of epistemological realism. but the idealist is entitled to reply that the objects in their variable relations to one another nevertheless fall within a relation to a knower, _as long as_ that relation is regarded by both as exhaustive or ubiquitous. ii nevertheless, i do not conceive that the realistic assertion and the idealistic assertion in this dilemma stand on the same level, or have the same value. the fact that objects vary in relation to one another independently of their relation to the "knower" _is_ a fact, and a fact recognized by all schools. the idealistic assertion rests simply upon the presupposition of the ubiquity of the knowledge relation, and consequently has only an _ad hominem_ force, that is a force as against epistemological realists--against those who admit that the sole and exhaustive relation of the "self" or "ego" to objects is that of knower of them.[62] the relation of buyer and seller is a discussable relation; for buyer does not exhaust one party and seller does not exhaust the other. each is a man or a woman, a consumer or a producer or a middleman, a green-grocer or a dry-goods merchant, a taxpayer or a voter, and so on indefinitely. nor is it true that such additional relations are borne merely to _other_ things; the buyer-sellers are more than and other than buyer-seller to _each other_. they may be fellow-clubmen, belong to opposite political parties, dislike each other's looks, and be second cousins. hence the buyer-seller relation stands in intelligent connection and contrast with other relations, so that it can be discriminated, defined, analyzed. moreover, there are specific differences _in_ the buying-selling relation. because it is not ubiquitous, it is not homogeneous. if wealthy and a householder, the one who buys is a different buyer--i.e., buys differently--than if poor and a boarder. consequently, the seller sells differently, has more or less goods left to sell, more or less income to expend on other things, and so on indefinitely. moreover, in order to be a buyer the man has to _have been_ other things; i.e., he is not a buyer _per se_, but _becomes_ a buyer because he is an eater, wears clothes, is married, etc. it is also quite clear that the organism is something else than an eater, or something in relation to food alone. i will not again call the roll of perfectly familiar facts; i will lessen my appeal to the reader's patience by confining my reiteration to one point. even in relation to the things that are food, the organism is something more than their eater. he is their acquirer, their pursuer, their cultivator, their beholder, taster, etc.; he _becomes_ their eater _only_ because he is so many other things, and his becoming an eater is a natural episode in the natural unfolding of these other things. precisely the same sort of assertions may be made about the knower-known relation. if the one who is knower is something else and more than the knower of objects, and if objects are, _in relation to the one who knows them_, something else and other than things in a knowledge relation, there is somewhat to define and discuss; otherwise we are raising, as we have already seen, the quite foolish question as to what is the relation of a relation to itself, or the equally foolish question of whether being a thing modifies the thing that it is. and, moreover, epistemological realism and idealism both say the same thing: realism that a thing does not modify itself, idealism that, since the thing is what it is, it stands in the relation that it does stand in. there are many facts which, prima facie, support the claim that knowing is a connection of things which depends upon other and more primary connections between a self and things; a connection which grows out of these more fundamental connections and which operates in their interests at specifiable crises. i will not repeat what is so generally admitted and so little taken into account, that knowing is, biologically, a differentiation of organic behavior, but will cite some facts that are even more obvious and even more neglected. 1. if we take a case of perception, we find upon analysis that, so far as a self or organism is concerned in it at all, the self is, so to say, inside of it rather than outside of it. it would be much more correct to say that a self is contained in a perception than that a perception is presented to a self. that is to say, the organism is involved in the occurrence of the perception in the same sort of way that hydrogen is involved in the happening--producing--of water. we might about as well talk of the production of a specimen of water as a presentation of water to hydrogen as talk in the way we are only too accustomed to talk about perceptions and the organism. when we consider a perception as a case of "apperception," the same thing holds good. habits enter into the _constitution_ of the situation; they are in and of it, not, so far as it is concerned, something outside of it. here, if you please, is a unique relation of self and things, but it is unique not in being wholly incomparable to all natural relations among events, but in the sense of being distinctive or just the relation that it is. 2. taking the many cases where the self may be said, in an intelligible sense, to lie _outside_ a thing and hence to have dealings with it, we find that they are extensively and primarily cases where the self is agent-patient, doer, sufferer, and enjoyer. this means, of course, that things, the things that later come to be known, are primarily not objects of awareness, but causes of weal and woe, things to get and things to avoid, means and obstacles, tools and results. to a naïve spectator, the ordinary assumption that a thing is "in" experience only when it is an object of awareness (or even only when a perception), is nothing less than extraordinary. the self experiences whatever it undergoes, and there is no fact about life more assured or more tragic than that what we are aware of is determined by things that we are undergoing but of which we are not conscious and which we cannot be conscious of under the particular conditions. 3. so far as the question of the relation of the self to known objects is concerned, knowing is but one special case of the agent-patient, of the behaver-enjoyer-sufferer situation. it is, however, the case constantly increasing in relative importance. the connections of the self with things by way of weal or woe are progressively found to depend upon the connections established in knowing things; on the other hand, the progress, the advance, of science is found to depend more and more upon the courage and patience of the agent in making the widening and buttressing of knowledge a business. it is impossible to overstate the significance, the reality, of the relation of self as knower to things when it is thought of as a _moral_ relation, a deliberate and responsible undertaking of a self. ultimately the modern insistence upon the self in reference to knowledge (in contrast with the classic greek view) will be found to reside precisely here. my purpose in citing the foregoing facts is not to prove a positive point, viz., that there are many relations of self and things, of which knowing is but one differentiated case. it concerns something less obvious: viz., showing what is meant by saying that the problems at issue concern matters of fact, and are not matters to be decided by assumption, definition, and deduction. i mean also to suggest what kind of matters of fact would naturally be adduced as evidential in such a discussion. negatively put, my point is that the whole question of the relation of knower to known is radically misconceived in what passes as epistemology, because of an underlying unexamined assumption, an assumption which, moreover, when examined, makes the controversy verbal or absurd. positively put, my point is that since, prima facie, plenty of connections other than the knower-known one exist between self and things, there is a context in which the "problem" of their relation concerns matters of fact capable of empirical determination by matter-of-fact inquiry. the point about a difference being made (or rather making) in things when known is precisely of this sort. iii that question is not, _save upon the assumption of the ubiquity of the knowledge relation_, the absurd question of whether knowledge makes any difference to things already known or to things _as_ knowledge-objects, _as_ facts or truths. until the epistemological realists have seriously considered the main propositions of the pragmatic realists, viz., that knowing is something that happens to things in the natural course of their career, not the sudden introduction of a "unique" non-natural type of relation--that to a mind or consciousness--they are hardly in a position to discuss the second and derived pragmatic proposition that, in this natural continuity, things in becoming known undergo a specific and detectable qualitative change. i had occasion earlier to remark that if one identifies "knowledge" with situations involving the function of inference, the _problem_ of knowledge means the art of guiding this function most effectively. that statement holds when we take knowledge as a relation of the things _in_ the knowledge situation. if we are once convinced of the artificiality of the notion that the knowledge relation is ubiquitous, there will be an existential problem as to the self and knowledge; but it will be a radically different problem from that discussed in epistemology. the relation of knowing to existence will be recognized to form the subject-matter of no problem, because involving an ungrounded and even absurd preconception. but the problem of the relation of an existence in the way of knowing to other existences--or events--with which it forms a continuous process will then be seen to be a natural problem to be attacked by natural methods. footnote: [62] professor perry says (_the new realism_, p. 115): "professor dewey is mistaken in supposing that realism assumes 'the _ubiquity of the knowledge-relation_.' realism does not argue from the 'ego-centric predicament,' i.e., from the bare presence of the knowledge-relation in all cases of knowledge." if the text has not made my point clear, it is probably too much to expect that a footnote will do so. but i have not accused the realist of arguing from the ego-centric predicament. i have said that _if_ any realist holds that the sole and exclusive relation of the one who is knower to things is that of being their knower, then the realist cannot _escape_ the impact of the predicament. but if the one who knows things also stands in other connections with them, then it is possible to make an intelligible contrast between things as known and things as loved or hated or appreciated, or seen or heard or whatever. the argument, it should be noted, stands in connection with that of the last section as to whether hearing a sound and seeing a color are of themselves (apart from the use made of them in inference) cases of knowledge. it is significant that perry holds (_new realism_, p. 150) that "sensing" is _per se_ a case of knowing. hence it must be in relation to a knower; it must fall within the "predicament," for "it makes the mind aware of a characteristic of the environment." that it is _used_ (or may be used) to make us aware of some characteristic of the environment, i of course hold. to say that it _is_ an awareness by the mind of a characteristic of the environment is at once to involve a philosopher immediately in the discussion of whether red qualities, or only certain vibrations, are "really" characteristics of the environment. then, when the authority of physics is invoked in behalf of the latter proposition, the epistemologist (however realistic in his intention) is forced to consider color as a misapprehension of the environment, a case of error or illusion, while the idealist triumphantly flourishes it as a case of the transformative or constitutive efficacy of "mind" in knowing. but if the color is simply a natural event, and if "mind" does not enter except when color is made the basis of inference to some characteristic of the environment, then there is no predicament; and there is no problem of error save as a false inference is made. moreover, since errors in inference are an undoubted fact, the principle that entities are not to be multiplied beyond need gives a prima facie superiority to any theory which connects all error with inference till adequate evidence to the contrary is produced. xi the existence of the world as a logical problem of the two parts of this paper the first is a study in formal analysis. it attempts to show that there is no problem, logically speaking, of the existence of an external world. its point is to show that the very attempt to state the problem involves a self-contradiction: that the terms cannot be stated so as to generate a problem without assuming what is professedly brought into question. the second part is a summary endeavor to state the actual question which has given rise to the unreal problem and the conditions which have led to its being misconstrued. so far as subject-matter is concerned, it supplements the first part; but the argument of the first part in no way depends upon anything said in the second. the latter may be false and its falsity have no implications for the first. i there are many ways of stating the problem of the existence of an external world. i shall make that of mr. bertrand russell the basis of my examinations, as it is set forth in his recent book _our knowledge of the external world as a field for scientific method in philosophy_. i do this both because his statement is one recently made in a book of commanding importance, and because it seems to me to be a more careful statement than most of those in vogue. if my point can be made out for his statement, it will apply, a fortiori, to other statements. even if there be those to whom this does not seem to be the case, it will be admitted that my analysis must begin somewhere. i cannot take the space to repeat the analysis in application to differing modes of statement with a view to showing that the method employed will yield like results in all cases. but i take the liberty of throwing the burden upon the reader and asking him to show cause why it does not so apply. after rejecting certain familiar formulations of the question because they employ the not easily definable notions of the self and independence, mr. russell makes the following formulation: can we "know that objects of sense ... exist at times when we are not perceiving them?" (_op. cit._, p. 75). or, in another mode of statement: "can the existence of anything other than our own[63] hard data be inferred from the existence of those data?" (pp. 73 and 83). i shall try to show that identification of the "data of sense" as the sort of term which will generate the problem involves an affirmative answer to the question--that it must have been answered in the affirmative before the question can be asked. and this, i take it, is to say that it is not a question at all. a point of departure may be found in the following passage: "i think it must be admitted as probable that the immediate objects of sense depend for their existence upon physiological conditions in ourselves, and that, for example, the colored surfaces which we see cease to exist when we shut our eyes" (p. 64). i have not quoted the passage for the sake of gaining an easy victory by pointing out that this statement involves the existence of physiological conditions. for mr. russell himself affirms that fact. as he points out, such arguments assume precisely the "common sense world of stable objects" professedly put in doubt (p. 85). my purpose is to ask what justification there is for calling immediate data "objects of sense." statements of this type always call color visual, sound auditory, and so on. if it were merely a matter of making certain admissions for the sake of being able to play a certain game, there would be no objection. but if we are concerned with a matter of serious analysis, one is bound to ask, whence come these adjectives? that color is visual in the sense of being an object of vision is certainly admitted in the common-sense world, but this is the world we have left. that color is visual is a proposition about color and it is a proposition which color itself does not utter. visible or visual color is already a "synthetic" proposition, not a term nor an analysis of a single term. that color is seen, or is visible, i do not call in question; but i insist that fact already assumes an answer to the question which mr. russell has put. it presupposes existence beyond the color itself. to call the color a "sensory" object involves another assumption of the same kind but even more complex--involving, that is, even more existence beyond the color. i see no reply to this statement except to urge that the terms "visual" and "sensory" as applied to the object are pieces of verbal supererogation having no force in the statement. this supposititious answer brings the matter to a focus. is it possible to institute even a preliminary disparaging contrast between immediate objects and a world external to them unless the term "sensory" has a definite effect upon the meaning assigned to immediate data or objects? before taking up this question i shall, however, call attention to another implication of the passage quoted. it appears to be implied that existence of color and "being seen" are equivalent terms. at all events, in similar arguments the identification is frequently made. but by description all that is required for the existence of color is certain physiological conditions. they may be present and color exist and yet not be seen. things constantly act upon the optical apparatus in a way which fulfils the conditions of the existence of color without color being seen. this statement does not involve any dubious psychology about an act of attention. i only mean that the argument implies over and above the existence of color something called seeing or perceiving--noting is perhaps a convenient neutral term. and this clearly involves an assumption of something beyond the existence of the datum--and this datum is by definition an external world. without this assumption the term "immediate" could not be introduced. is the _object_ immediate or is it the object of an immediate noting? if the latter, then the hard datum already stands in connection with something beyond itself. and this brings us to a further point. the sense objects are repeatedly spoken of as "known." for example: "it is obvious that since the senses give knowledge of the latter kind [believed on their own account, without the support of any outside evidence] the immediate facts perceived by sight or touch or hearing do not need to be proved by argument but are completely self-evident" (p. 68). again, they are spoken of as "facts of sense"[64] (p. 70), and as facts going along, for knowledge, with the laws of logic (p. 72). i do not know what belief or knowledge means here: nor do i understand what is meant by a _fact_ being evidence for itself.[65] but obviously mr. russell knows, and knows their application to the sense object. and here is a further assumption of what, by definition, is a world external to the datum. again, we have assumed in getting a question stated just what is professedly called into question. and the assumption is not made the less simple in that mr. russell has defined belief as a case of a triadic relation, and said that without the recognition of the three-term relation the difference between perception and belief is inexplicable (p. 50). we come to the question passed over. can such terms as "visual," "sensory," be neglected without modifying the force of the question--that is, without affecting the implications which give it the force of a problem? can we "know that objects of sense, or very similar objects, exist at times when we are not perceiving them? secondly, if this cannot be known, can we know that other objects, inferable from objects of sense but not necessarily resembling them, exist either when we are perceiving the objects of sense or at any other time" (p. 75)? i think a little reflection will make it clear that without the limitation of the term "perceiving" by the term "sense" no _problem_ as to existence _at other times_ can possibly arise. for neither (_a_) reference to time nor (_b_) limitation to a particular time is given either in the fact of existence of color or of perceiving color. mr. russell, for example, makes allusion to "a patch of color which is momentarily seen" (p. 76). this is the sort of thing that may pass without challenge in the common-sense world, but hardly in an analysis which professes to call that world in question. mr. russell makes the allusion in connection with discriminating between sensation as signifying "the mental event of our being aware" and the sensation as object of which we are aware--the sense object. he can hardly be guilty, then, in the immediate context, of proceeding to identify the momentariness of the event with the momentariness of the object. there must be some grounds for assuming the temporal quality of the object--and that "immediateness" belongs to it in any other way than as an object of immediate seeing. what are these grounds? how is it, moreover, that even the act of being aware is describable as "momentary"? i know of no way of so identifying it except by discovering that it is delimited in a time continuum. and if this be the case, it is surely superfluous to bother about _inference_ to "other times." they are assumed in stating the question--which thus turns out again to be no question. it may be only a trivial matter that mr. russell speaks of "that patch of color which is momentarily seen when we _look at the table_" (p. 76, italics mine). i would not attach undue importance to such phrases. but the frequency with which they present themselves in discussions of this type suggests the question whether as matter of fact "the patch of color" is not determined by reference to an object--the table--and not vice versa. as we shall see later, there is good ground for thinking that mr. russell is really engaged, not in bringing into question the existence of an object beyond the datum, but in _re_defining the nature of an object, and that the reference to the patch of color as something more primitive than the table is really relevant to this reconstruction of traditional metaphysics. in other words, it is relevant to defining an object as a constant correlation of variations in qualities, instead of defining it as a substance in which attributes inhere--or a subject of predicates. _a_) if anything is an eternal essence, it is surely such a thing as color taken by itself, as by definition it must be taken in the statement of the question by mr. russell. anything more simple, timeless, and absolute than a red can hardly be thought of. one might question the eternal character of the received statement of, say, the law of gravitation on the ground that it is so complex that it may depend upon conditions not yet discovered and the discovery of which would involve an alteration in the statement. if 2 plus 2 equal 4 be taken as an isolated statement, it might be conceived to depend upon hidden conditions and to be alterable with them. but by conception we are dealing in the case of the colored surface with an ultimate, simple datum. it can have no implications beyond itself, no concealed dependencies. how then can its existence, even if its perception be but momentary, raise a question of "other times" at all? _b_) suppose a perceived blue surface to be replaced by a perceived red surface--and it will be conceded that the change, or replacement, is also perceived. there is still no ground for a belief in the temporally limited duration of either the red or the blue surface. anything that leads to this conclusion would lead to the conclusion that the number two ceases when we turn to think of an atom. there is no way then of escaping the conclusion that the adjective "sense" in the term "sense object" is not taken innocently. it is taken as qualifying (for the purposes of statement of the problem) the nature of the object. aside from reference to the momentariness of the _mental_ event--a reference which is expressly ruled out--there is no way of introducing delimited temporal existence into the object save by reference to one and the same object which is perceived at different times to have different qualities. if the same object--however object be defined--is perceived to be of one color at one time and of another color at another time, then as a matter of course the color-datum of either the earlier or later time is identified as of transitory duration. but equally, of course, there is no question of _inference_ to "other times." other times have already been used to describe, define, and delimit _this_ (brief) time. a moderate amount of unbiased reflection will, i am confident, convince anyone that apart from a reference to the same existence perduring through different times while changing in _some_ respect, no temporal delimitation of the existence of such a thing as sound or color can be made. even plato never doubted the eternal nature of red; he only argued from the fact that a _thing_ is red at one time and blue at another to the unstable, and hence phenomenal, character of the _thing_. or, put in a different way, we can know that a red is a momentary or transitory existence only if we know of other things which determine its beginning and cessation. mr. russell gives a specific illustration of what he takes to be the correct way of stating the question in an account of what, in the common-sense universe of discourse, would be termed walking around a table. if we exclude considerations to which we have (apart from assuming just the things which are doubtful) no right, the datum turns out to be something to be stated as follows: "what is really known[66] is a correlation of muscular and other bodily sensations with changes in visual sensations" (p. 77). by "sensations" must be meant sensible objects, not mental events. this statement repeats the point already dealt with: "muscular," "visual," and "other bodily" are all terms which are indispensable and which also assume the very thing professedly brought into question: the external world as that was defined. "really known" assumes both noting and belief, with whatever complex implications they may involve--implications which, for all that appears to the contrary, may be indefinitely complex, and which, by mr. russell's own statement, involve relationship to at least two other terms besides the datum. but in addition there appears the new term "correlation." i cannot avoid the conclusion that this term involves an _explicit_ acknowledgment of the external world. note, in the first place, that the correlation in question is not simple: it is threefold, being a correlation of correlations. the "changes in visual sensations" (objects) must be correlated in a temporal continuum; the "muscular and other bodily sensations" (objects) must also constitute a connected series. one set of changes belongs to the serial class "visual"; the other set to the serial class "muscular." and these two classes sustain a point-to-point correspondence to each other--they are correlated. i am not raising the old question of how such complex correlations can be said to be either "given" or "known" in sense, though it is worth a passing notice that it was on account of this sort of phenomenon that kant postulated his threefold intellectual synthesis of apprehension, reproduction, and recognition in conception; and that it is upon the basis of necessity for such correlations that the rationalists have always criticized sensationalist empiricism. personally i agree that temporal and spatial qualities are quite as much given in experience as are particulars--in fact, as i have been trying to show, particulars can be identified _as_ particulars only in a relational complex. my point is rather (i) that any such given is already precisely what is meant by the "world"; and (ii) that such a highly specified correlation as mr. russell here sets forth is in no case a psychological, or historical, primitive, but is a _logical_ primitive arrived at by an analysis of an empirical complex. (i) the statement involves the assumption of two temporal "spreads" which, moreover, are determinately specified as to their constituent elements and as to their order. and these sustain to each other a correlation, element to element. the elements, moreover, are all specifically qualitative and some of them, at least, are spatial. how this differs from the external world of common-sense i am totally unable to see. it may not be a very big external world, but having begged a small external world, i do not see why one should be too squeamish about extending it over the edges. the reply, i suppose, is that this complex defined and ordered object is by conception the object of a single perception, so that the question remains as to the possibility of inferring from it to something beyond.[67] but the reply only throws us back upon the point previously made. a particular or single event of perceptual awareness can be _determined_ as to its ingredients and structure only in a continuum of objects. that is, the series of changes in color and shape can be determined as just such and such an ordered series of specific elements, with a determinate beginning and end, only in respect to a temporal continuum of things anteceding and succeeding. moreover, the determination involves an analysis which disentangles qualities and shapes from contemporaneously given objects which are irrelevant. in a word, mr. russell's object already extends beyond itself; it already belongs to a larger world. (ii) a sensible object which can be described as a correlation of an ordered series of shapes and colors with an ordered series of muscular and other bodily objects presents a definition of an object, not a psychological datum. what is stated is the definition of an object, of any object in the world. barring ambiguities[68] in the terms "muscular" and "bodily," it seems to be an excellent definition. but good definition or poor, it states what a datum is _known_ to be as an object in a known system; viz., definite correlations of specified and ordered elements. as a definition, it is general. it is not made from the standpoint of any particular percipient. it says: _if_ there be any percipient at a specified position in a space continuum, _then_ the object may be perceived as such and such. and this implies that a percipient at any _other_ position in the space continuum can deduce from the known system of correlations just what the series of shapes and colors will be from another position. for, as we have seen, the correlation of the series of changes of shape assumes a spatial continuum; hence one perspective projection may be correlated with that of any position in the continuum. i have no direct concern with mr. russell's solution of his problem. but if the prior analysis is correct, one may anticipate in advance that it will consist simply in making explicit the assumptions which have tacitly been made in stating the problem--subject to the conditions involved in failure to recognize that they have been made. and i think an analytic reading of the solution will bear out the following statement. his various "peculiar," "private" points of view and their perspectives are nothing but names for the positions and projectional perspectives of the ordinary space of the public worlds. their correlation by likeness is nothing but the explicit recognition that they are all defined and located, from the start, in one common spatial continuum. one quotation must suffice. "if two men are sitting in a room, two somewhat similar worlds are perceived by them; if a third man enters and sits between them, a third world, intermediate between the two others, begins to be perceived" (pp. 87-88). pray what is this room and what defines the position (standpoint and perspective) of the two men and the standpoint "intermediate" between them? if the room and all the positions and perspectives which they determine are only within, say, mr. russell's private world, that private world is interestingly complex, but it gives only the original problem over again, not a "solution" of it. it is a long way from likenesses _within_ a private world to likenesses _between_ private worlds. and if the worlds are all private, pray who judges their likeness or unlikeness? this sort of thing makes one conclude that mr. russell's actual procedure is the reverse of his professed one. he really starts with one room as a spatial continuum within which different positions and projections are determined, and which are readily correlated with one another just because they are projections from positions within one and the same space-room. having employed this, he, then, can assign different positions to different percipients and institute a comparison between what each perceives and pass upon the extent of the likeness which exists between them. what is the bearing of this account upon the "empirical datum"? just this: the correlation of correlative series of changes which defines the object of sense perception is in no sense an original historic or psychologic datum. it signifies the result of an analysis of the usual crude empirical data, and an analysis which is made possible only by a very complex knowledge of the world. it marks not a primitive psychologic datum but an outcome, a limit, of analysis of a vast amount of empirical objects. the definition of an object as a correlation of various subcorrelations of changes represents a great advance--so it seems to me--over the definition of an object as a number of adjectives stuck into a substantive; but it represents an improved definition made possible by the advance of scientific knowledge about the common-sense world. it is a definition not only wholly independent of the context in which mr. russell arrives at it, but is one which (once more and finally) assumes extensive and accurate knowledge of just the world professedly called into question. ii i have come to the point of transition to the other part of my paper. a formal analysis is necessarily dialectical in character. as an empiricist i share in the dissatisfaction which even the most correct dialectical discussion is likely to arouse when brought to bear on matters of fact. i do not doubt that readers will feel that some _fact_ of an important character in mr. russell's statement has been left untouched by the previous analysis--even upon the supposition that the criticisms are just. particularly will it be felt, i think, that psychology affords to his statement of the problem a support of fact not affected by any logical treatment. for this reason i append a summary statement as to the facts which are misconstrued by any statement which makes the existence of the world problematic. i do not believe a psychologist would go as far as to admit that a definite correlation of elements as specific and ordered as that of mr. russell's statement is a primitive psychological datum. many would doubtless hold that patches of colored extensity, sounds, kinaesthetic qualities, etc., are psychologically much more primitive than, say, a table, to say nothing of a group of objects in space or a series of events in time; they would say, accordingly, that there is a real problem as to how we infer or construct the latter on the basis of the former. at the same time i do not believe that they would deny that their own knowledge of the existence and nature of the ultimate and irreducible qualities of sense is the product of a long, careful, and elaborate analysis to which the sciences of physiology, anatomy, and controlled processes of experimental observation have contributed. the ordinary method of reconciling these two seemingly inconsistent positions is to assume that the original sensible data of experience, as they occurred in infancy, have been overlaid by all kinds of associations and inferential constructions so that it is now a work of intellectual art to recover them in their innocent purity. now i might urge that as matter of fact the reconstruction of the experience of infancy is itself an inference from present experience of an objective world, and hence cannot be employed to make a problem out of the knowledge of the existence of that world. but such a retort involves just the dialectic excursus which i am here anxious to avoid. i am on matter-of-fact ground when i point out that the assumption that even infancy begins with such highly discriminated particulars as those enumerated is not only highly dubious but has been challenged by eminent psychologists. according to mr. james, for example, the original datum is large but confused, and specific sensible qualities represent the result of discriminations. in this case, the elementary data, instead of being primitive empirical data, are the last terms, the limits, of the discriminations we have been able to make. that knowledge grows from a confusedly experienced external world to a world experienced as ordered and specified would then be the teaching of psychological science, but at no point would the mind be confronted with the problem of inferring a world. into the arguments in behalf of such a psychology of original experience i shall not go, beyond pointing out the extreme improbability (in view of what is known about instincts and about the nervous system) that the starting-point is a quality corresponding to the functioning of a single sense organ, much less of a single neuronic unit of a sense organ. if one adds, as a hypothesis, that even the most rudimentary conscious experience contains within itself the element of suggestion or expectation, it will be granted that the object of conscious experience even with an infant is homogeneous with the world of the adult. one may be unwilling to concede the hypothesis. but no one can deny that inference from one thing to another is itself an empirical event, and that just as soon as such inference occurs, even in the simplest form of anticipation and prevision, a world exists like in kind to that of the adult. i cannot think that it is a trivial coincidence that psychological analysis of sense perception came into existence along with that method of experimentally controlled observation which marks the beginning of modern science. modern science did not begin with discovery of any new kind of inference. it began with the recognition of the need of different data if inference is to proceed safely. it was contended that starting with the ordinary--or customary--objects of perception hopelessly compromised in advance the work of inference and classification. hence the demand for an experimental resolution of the common-sense objects in order to get data less ambiguous, more minute, and more extensive. increasing knowledge of the structure of the nervous system fell in with increased knowledge of other objects to make possible a discrimination of specific qualities in all their diversity; it brought to light that habits, individual and social (through influence on the formation of individual habits), were large factors in determining the accepted or current system of objects. it was brought to light, in other words, that factors of chance, habit, and other non-rational factors were greater influences than intellectual inquiry in determining what men currently believed about the world. what psychological analysis contributed was, then, not primitive historic data out of which a world had somehow to be extracted, but an analysis of the world which had been previously thought of and believed in, into data making possible better inferences and beliefs about the world. analysis of the influences customarily determining belief and inference was a powerful force in the movement to improve knowledge of the world. this statement of matters of fact bears out, it will be observed, the conclusions of the dialectical analysis. that brought out the fact that the ultimate and elementary data of sense perception are identified and described as limiting elements in a complex world. what is now added is that such an identification of elements marks a significant addition to the resources of the technique of inquiry devoted to improving knowledge of the world. when these data are isolated from their logical status and office, they are inevitably treated as self-sufficient, and they leave upon our hands the insoluble, because self-contradictory, problem of deriving from them the world of common-sense and science. taken for what they really are, they are elements detected _in_ the world and serving to guide and check our inferences about it. they are never self-inclosed particulars; they are always--even as crudely given--connected with other things in experience. but analysis gets them in the form where they are keys to much more significant relations. in short, the particulars of perception, taken as complete and independent, make nonsense. taken as objects discriminated for the purposes of improving, reorganizing, and testing knowledge of the world they are invaluable assets. the material fallacy lying behind the formal fallacy which the first part of this paper noted is the failure to recognize that what is doubtful is not the existence of the world but the validity of certain customary yet inferential beliefs about things in it. it is not the common-sense _world_ which is doubtful, or which is inferential, but _common-sense_ as a complex of beliefs about specific things and relations _in_ the world. hence never in any actual procedure of inquiry do we throw the existence of the world into doubt, nor can we do so without self-contradiction. we doubt some received piece of "knowledge" about some specific thing of that world, and then set to work, as best we can, to rectify it. the contribution of psychological science to determining unambiguous data and eliminating the irrelevant influences of passion and habit which control the inferences of common-sense is an important aid in the technique of such rectifications. footnotes: [63] i shall pass over the terms "our own" so far as specific reference is concerned, but the method employed applies equally to them. who are the "we," and what does "own" mean, and how is ownership established? [64] contrast the statement: "when i speak of a fact, i do not mean one of the simple things of the world, i mean that a certain thing has a certain quality, or that certain things have a certain relation" (p. 51). [65] in view of the assumption, shared by mr. russell, that there is such a thing as non-inferential knowledge, the conception that a thing offers evidence for itself needs analysis. self-evidence is merely a convenient term for disguising the difference between the indubitably given and the believed in. hypotheses, for example, are self-evident sometimes, that is, obviously present for just what they are, but they are still hypotheses, and to offer their self-evident character as "evidence" would expose one to ridicule. meanings may be self-evident (the cartesian "clear and distinct") and truth dubious. [66] "really known" is an ambiguous term. it may signify _understood_, or it may signify known to be _there_ or _given_. either meaning implies reference beyond. [67] the reply implies that the exhaustive, all-at-once perception of the entire universe assumed by some idealistic writers does not involve any external world. i do not make this remark for the sake of identifying myself with this school of thinkers, but to suggest that the limited character of empirical data is what occasions inference. but it is a fallacy to suppose that the nature of the limitations is psychologically given. on the contrary, they have to be determined by descriptive identifications which involve reference to the more extensive world. hence no matter how "self-evident" the existence of the data may be, it is never self-evident that they are rightly delimited with respect to the specific inference in process of making. [68] the ambiguities reside in the possibility of treating the "muscular and other bodily sensations" as meaning something other than data of motion and corporealness--however these be defined. muscular sensation may be an awareness of motion of the muscles, but the phrase "of the muscles" does not alter the nature of motion as motion; it only specifies _what_ motion is involved. and the long controversy about the existence of immediate "muscular sensations" testifies to what a complex cognitive determination we are here dealing with. anatomical directions and long experimentation were required to answer the question. were they psychologically primitive data no such questions could ever have arisen. xii what pragmatism means by practical pragmatism, according to mr. james, is a temper of mind, an attitude; it is also a theory of the nature of ideas and truth; and, finally, it is a theory about reality. it is pragmatism as method which is emphasized, i take it, in the subtitle, "a new name for some old ways of thinking."[69] it is this aspect which i suppose to be uppermost in mr. james's own mind; one frequently gets the impression that he conceives the discussion of the other two points to be illustrative material, more or less hypothetical, of the method. the briefest and at the same time the most comprehensive formula for the method is: "the attitude of looking away from first things, principles, 'categories,' supposed necessities; and of looking towards last things, fruits, consequences, facts" (pp. 54-55). and as the attitude looked "away from" is the rationalistic, perhaps the chief aim of the lectures is to exemplify some typical differences resulting from taking one outlook or the other. but pragmatism is "used in a still wider sense, as meaning also a certain theory of truth" (p. 55); it is "a genetic theory of what is meant by truth" (p. 65). truth means, as a matter of course, agreement, correspondence, of idea and fact (p. 198), but what do agreement, correspondence, mean? with rationalism they mean "a static, inert relation," which is so ultimate that of it nothing more can be said. with pragmatism they signify the guiding or leading power of ideas by which we "dip into the particulars of experience again," and if by its aid we set up the arrangements and connections among experienced objects which the idea intends, the idea is verified; it corresponds with the things it means to square with (pp. 205-6). the idea is true which works in leading us to what it purports (p. 80).[70] or, "any idea that will carry us prosperously from any one part of experience to any other part, linking things satisfactorily, working securely, simplifying, saving labor, is true for just so much, true in so far forth" (p. 58). this notion presupposes that ideas are essentially intentions (plans and methods), and that what they, as ideas, ultimately intend is _prospective_--certain changes in prior existing things. this contrasts again with rationalism, with its copy theory, where ideas, _as_ ideas, are ineffective and impotent, since they mean only to mirror a reality (p. 69) complete without them. thus we are led to the third aspect of pragmatism. the alternative between rationalism and pragmatism "concerns the structure of the universe itself" (p. 258). "the essential contrast is that reality ... for pragmatism is still in the making" (p. 257). and in a recent number of the _journal of philosophy, psychology, and scientific methods_,[71] he says: "i was primarily concerned in my lectures with contrasting the belief that the world is still in the process of making with the belief that there is an eternal edition of it ready-made and complete." i it will be following mr. james's example, i think, if we here regard pragmatism as primarily a method, and treat the account of ideas and their truth and of reality somewhat incidentally so far as the discussion of them serves to exemplify or enforce the method. regarding the attitude of orientation which looks to outcomes and consequences, one readily sees that it has, as mr. james points out, points of contact with historic empiricism, nominalism, and utilitarianism. it insists that general notions shall "cash in" as particular objects and qualities in experience; that "principles" are ultimately subsumed under facts, rather than the reverse; that the empirical consequence rather than the a priori basis is the sanctioning and warranting factor. but all of these ideas are colored and transformed by the dominant influence of experimental science: the method of treating conceptions, theories, etc., as working hypotheses, as directors for certain experiments and experimental observations. pragmatism as attitude represents what mr. peirce has happily termed the "laboratory habit of mind" extended into every area where inquiry may fruitfully be carried on. a scientist would, i think, wonder not so much at the method as at the lateness of philosophy's conversion to what has made science what it is. nevertheless it is impossible to forecast the intellectual change that would proceed from carrying the method sincerely and unreservedly into all fields of inquiry. leaving philosophy out of account, what a change would be wrought in the historical and social sciences--in the conceptions of politics and law and political economy! mr. james does not claim too much when he says: "the center of gravity of philosophy must alter its place. the earth of things, long thrown into shadow by the glories of the upper ether, must resume its rights.... it will be an alteration in the 'seat of authority' that reminds one almost of the protestant reformation" (p. 123). i can imagine that many would not accept this method in philosophy for very diverse reasons, perhaps among the most potent of which is lack of faith in the power of the elements and processes of experience and life to guarantee their own security and prosperity; because, that is, of the feeling that the world of experience is so unstable, mistaken, and fragmentary that it must have an absolutely permanent, true, and complete ground. i cannot imagine, however, that so much uncertainty and controversy as actually exists should arise about the content and import of the doctrine on the basis of the general formula. it is when the method is applied to special points that questions arise. mr. james reminds us in his preface that the pragmatic movement has found expression "from so many points of view, that much unconcerted statement has resulted." and speaking of his lectures he goes on to say: "i have sought to unify the picture as it presents itself to my own eyes, dealing in broad strokes." the "different points of view" here spoken of have concerned themselves with viewing pragmatically a number of different things. and it is, i think, mr. james's effort to combine them, as they stand, which occasions misunderstanding among mr. james's readers. mr. james himself applied it, for example, in 1898 to philosophic controversies to indicate what they mean in terms of practical issues at stake. before that, mr. peirce himself (in 1878) had applied the method to the proper way of _conceiving_ and defining objects. then it has been applied to _ideas_ in order to find out what they mean in terms of what they intend, and what and how they must intend in order to be true. again, it has been applied to _beliefs_, to what men actually accept, hold to, and affirm. indeed, it lies in the nature of pragmatism that it should be applied as widely as possible; and to things as diverse as controversies, beliefs, truths, ideas, and objects. but yet the situations and problems _are_ diverse; so much so that, while the meaning of each may be told on the basis of "last things," "fruits," "consequences," "facts," _it is quite certain that the specific last things and facts will be very different in the diverse cases, and that very different types of meaning will stand out_. "meaning" will itself _mean_ something quite different in the case of "objects" from what it will mean in the case of "ideas," and for "ideas" something different from "truths." now the explanation to which i have been led of the unsatisfactory condition of contemporary pragmatic discussion is that in composing these "different points of view" into a single pictorial whole, the distinct type of consequence and hence of meaning of "practical" appropriate to each has not been sufficiently emphasized. 1. when we consider separately the subjects to which the pragmatic method has been applied, we find that mr. james has provided the necessary formula for each--with his never-failing instinct for the concrete. we take first the question of the significance of an object: the meaning which should properly be contained in its conception or definition. "to attain perfect clearness in our thoughts of an object, then, we need only consider what conceivable effects of a practical kind the object may involve--what sensations we are to expect from it and what reactions we must prepare" (pp. 46-47). or, more shortly, as it is quoted from ostwald, "all realities influence our practice, and that influence is their meaning for us" (p. 48). here it will be noted that the start is from objects already empirically given or presented, existentially vouched for, and the question is as to their proper conception--what is the proper meaning, or idea, of an object? and the meaning is the effects _these given objects produce_. one might doubt the correctness of this theory, but i do not see how one could doubt its import, or could accuse it of subjectivism or idealism, since the object with its power to produce effects is assumed. meaning is expressly distinguished from objects, not confused with them (as in idealism), and is said to consist in the practical reactions objects exact of us or impose upon us. when, then, it is a question of an object, "meaning" signifies its _conceptual content or connotation, and "practical" means the future responses which an object requires of us or commits us to_. 2. but we may also start from a given idea, and ask what the _idea_ means. pragmatism will, of course, look to future consequences, but they will clearly be of a different sort when we start from an idea as idea, than when we start from an object. for what an idea as idea means, is precisely that an object is _not_ given. the pragmatic procedure here is to set the idea "at work within the stream of experience. it appears less as a solution than as a program for more work, and particularly as an indication of the ways in which existing realities may be changed. theories, thus, become instruments.... we don't lie back on them, we move forward, and, on occasion, make nature over again by their aid" (p. 53). in other words, an idea is a draft drawn upon existing things, and intention to act so as to arrange them in a certain way. from which it follows that if the draft is honored, if existences, following upon the actions, rearrange or readjust themselves in the way the idea intends, the idea is true. when, then, it is a question of an idea, it is the idea itself which is practical (being an intent) and its _meaning_ resides in the existences which, as changed, it intends. while the meaning of an object is the changes it requires in our attitude,[72] the meaning of an idea is the changes it, as our attitude, effects in objects. 3. then we have another formula, applicable not to objects nor ideas as objects and ideas, but to _truths_--to things, that is, where the meaning of the object and of the idea is assumed to be already ascertained. it reads: "what difference would it practically make to anyone if this notion rather than that notion were true? if no practical difference whatever can be traced, then the alternatives mean practically the same thing, and all dispute is idle" (p. 45). there can be "no difference in abstract truth that doesn't express itself in a difference in concrete fact, and in conduct consequent upon the fact, imposed on somebody" (p. 50).[73] now when we start with something which is already a truth (or taken to be truth), and ask for its meaning in terms of its consequences, it is implied that the conception, or conceptual significance, is already clear, and that the existences it refers to are already in hand. meaning here, then, can be neither the connotative nor denotative reference of a term; they are covered by the two prior formulae. meaning here means _value_, importance. the practical factor is, then, the worth character of these consequences: they are good or bad; desirable or undesirable; or merely _nil_, indifferent, in which latter case belief is idle, the controversy a vain and conventional, or verbal, one. the term "meaning" and the term "practical" taken in isolation, and without explicit definition from their specific context and problem, are triply ambiguous. the meaning may be the conception or definition of an _object_; it may be the denotative existential reference of an _idea_; it may be actual value or _importance_. so practical in the corresponding cases may mean the attitudes and conduct exacted of us by objects; or the capacity and tendency of an idea to effect changes in prior existences; or the desirable and undesirable quality of certain ends. the general pragmatic attitude, none the less, is applied in all cases. if the differing problems and the correlative diverse significations of the terms "meaning" and "practical" are borne in mind, not all will be converted to pragmatism, but the present uncertainty as to what pragmatism is, anyway, and the present constant complaints on both sides of misunderstanding will, i think, be minimized. at all events, i have reached the conclusion that what the pragmatic movement just now wants is a clear and consistent bearing in mind of these different problems and of what is meant by practical in each. accordingly the rest of this paper is an endeavor to elucidate from the standpoint of pragmatic method the importance of enforcing these distinctions. ii first, as to the problems of philosophy when pragmatically approached, mr. james says: "the whole function of philosophy ought to be to find out what definite difference it will make to you and me, at definite instants of our life, if this world-formula or that world-formula be true" (p. 50). here the world-formula is assumed as already given; it is there, defined and constituted, and the question is as to its import if believed. but from the second standpoint, that of idea as working hypothesis, the chief function of philosophy is not to find out what difference ready-made formulae make, _if true_, but to arrive at and to clarify their _meaning as programs of behavior for modifying the existent world_. from this standpoint, the meaning of a world-formula is practical and moral, not merely in the consequences which flow from accepting a certain conceptual content as true, but as regards that content itself. and thus at the very outset we are compelled to face this question: does mr. james employ the pragmatic method to discover the value in terms of consequences in life of some formula which has its logical content already fixed; or does he employ it to criticize and revise and, ultimately, to constitute the meaning of that formula? if it is the first, there is danger that the pragmatic method will be employed only to vivify, if not validate, doctrines which in themselves are pieces of rationalistic metaphysics, not inherently pragmatic. if the last, there is danger that some readers will think old notions are being confirmed, when in truth they are being translated into new and inconsistent notions. consider the case of design. mr. james begins with accepting a ready-made notion, to which he then applies the pragmatic criterion. the traditional notion is that of a "seeing force that runs things." this is rationalistically and retrospectively empty; its being there makes no difference. (this seems to overlook the fact that the past world may be just what it is in virtue of the difference which a blind force or a seeing force has already made in it. a pragmatist as well as a rationalist may reply that it makes no difference retrospectively only because we leave out the most important retrospective difference). but "returning with it into experience, we gain a more confiding outlook on the future. if not a blind force, but a seeing force, runs things, we may reasonably expect better issues. _this vague confidence in the future is the sole pragmatic meaning at present discernible in the terms design and designer_" (p. 115, italics mine). now is this meaning intended to _replace_ the meaning of a "seeing force which runs things"? or is it intended to superadd a pragmatic value and validation to that concept of a seeing force? or does it mean that, irrespective of the existence of any such object, a belief in it has that value? strict pragmatism would seem to require the first interpretation. the same difficulties arise in the discussion of spiritualistic theism _versus_ materialism. compare the two following statements: "the notion of god ... guarantees an ideal order that shall be permanently preserved" (p. 106). "here, then, in these different emotional and practical appeals, in these adjustments of our attitudes of hope and expectation, and all the delicate consequences which their differences entail, _lie the real meanings of materialism and spiritualism_" (p. 107, italics mine). does the latter method of determining the meaning of, say, a spiritual god afford the substitute for the conception of him as a "superhuman power" effecting the eternal preservation of something; does it, that is, define god, supply the content for our notion of god? or does it merely superadd a value to a meaning already fixed? and, if the latter, does the object, god as defined, or the notion, or the belief (the acceptance of the notion) effect these consequent values? in either of the latter alternatives, the good or valuable consequences cannot clarify the meaning or conception of god; for, by the argument, they proceed from a prior definition of god. they cannot prove, or render more probable, the existence of such a being, for, by the argument, these desirable consequences depend upon accepting such an existence; and not even pragmatism can prove an existence from desirable consequences which themselves exist only when and if that other existence is there. on the other hand, if the pragmatic method is not applied simply to tell the value of a belief or controversy, but to fix the meaning of the terms involved in the belief, resulting consequences would serve to constitute the entire meaning, intellectual as well as practical, of the terms; and hence the pragmatic method would simply abolish the meaning of an antecedent power which will perpetuate eternally some existence. for that consequence flows not from the belief or idea, but from the existence, the power. it is not pragmatic at all. accordingly, when mr. james says: "other than this _practical_ significance, the words god, free will, design, _have none_. yet dark though they be in themselves, or intellectualistically taken, when we bear them on to life's thicket with us, the darkness then grows light about us" (p. 121, italics mine), what is meant? is it meant that when we take the intellectualistic notion and employ it, it gets value in the way of results, and hence then has some value of its own; or is it meant that the intellectual content itself must be determined in terms of the changes effected in the ordering of life's thicket? an explicit declaration on this point would settle, i think, not merely a point interesting in itself, but one essential to the determination of what is pragmatic method. for myself, i have no hesitation in saying that it seems unpragmatic for pragmatism to content itself with finding out the value of a conception whose own inherent significance pragmatism has not first determined; a fact which entails that it be taken not as a truth but simply as a working hypothesis. in the particular case in question, moreover, it is difficult to see how the pragmatic method could possibly be applied to a notion of "eternal perpetuation," which, by its nature, can never be empirically verified, or cashed in any particular case. this brings us to the question of truth. the problem here is also ambiguous in advance of definition. does the problem of what is truth refer to discovering the "true meaning" of something; or to discovering what an idea has to effect, and how, in order to be true; or to discovering what the value of truth is when it is an existent and accomplished fact? (1) we may, of course, find the "true meaning" of a thing, as distinct from its incorrect interpretation, without thereby establishing the truth of the "true meaning"--as we may dispute about the "true meaning" of a passage in the classics concerning centaurs, without the determination of its true sense establishing the truth of the notion that there are centaurs. occasionally this "true meaning" seems to be what mr. james has in mind, as when, after the passage upon design already quoted, he goes on: "but if cosmic confidence is right, not wrong, better, not worse, that [vague confidence in the future] is a most important meaning. that much at least of possible 'truth' the terms will then have in them" (p. 115). "truth" here seems to mean that design has a genuine, not merely conventional or verbal, meaning: that something is at stake. and there are frequently points where "truth" seems to mean just meaning that is genuine as distinct from empty or verbal. (2) but the problem of the meaning of truth may also refer to the meaning or value of truths that already exist as truths. we have them; they exist; now what do they mean? the answer is: "true ideas lead us into useful verbal and conceptual quarters as well as directly up to useful sensible termini. they lead to consistency, stability, and flowing human intercourse" (p. 215). this, referring to things already true, i do not suppose the most case-hardened rationalist would question; and even if he questions the pragmatic contention that these consequences define the meaning of truth, he should see that here is not given an account of what it means for an idea to _become true_, but only of what it means _after_ it has become true, truth as _fait accompli_. it is the meaning of truth as _fait accompli_ which is here defined. bearing this in mind, i do not know why a mild-tempered rationalist should object to the doctrine that truth is valuable not _per se_, but because, when given, it leads to desirable consequences. "the true thought is useful here because the home which is its object is useful. the practical value of true ideas is thus primarily derived from the practical importance of their objects to us" (p. 203). and many besides confirmed pragmatists, any utilitarian, for example, would be willing to say that our duty to pursue "truth" is conditioned upon its leading to objects which upon the whole are valuable. "the concrete benefits we gain are what we mean by calling the pursuit a duty" (p. 231, compare p. 76). (3) difficulties have arisen chiefly because mr. james is charged with converting simply the foregoing proposition, and arguing that since true ideas are good, any idea if good in any way is true. certainly transition from one of these conceptions to the other is facilitated by the fact that ideas are tested as to their validity by a certain goodness, viz., whether they are good for accomplishing what they intend, for what they claim to be good for, that is, certain modifications in prior given existences. in this case, it is the idea which is practical, since it is essentially an intent and plan of altering prior existences in a specific situation, which is indicated to be unsatisfactory by the very fact that it needs or suggests a specific modification. then arises the theory that ideas as ideas are always working hypotheses concerning the attaining of particular empirical results, and are tentative programs (or sketches of method) for attaining them. if we stick consistently to this notion of ideas, only _consequences which are actually produced by the working of the idea in co-operation with, or application to, prior existences are good consequences in the specific sense of good which is relevant to establishing the truth of an idea_. this is, at times, unequivocally recognized by mr. james. (see, for example, the reference to veri-_fication_, on p. 201; the acceptance of the idea that verification means the advent of the object intended, on p. 205.) but at other times any good which flows from acceptance of a belief is treated as if it were an evidence, _in so far_, of the truth of the idea. this holds particularly when theological notions are under consideration. light would be thrown upon how mr. james conceives this matter by statements on such points as these: if ideas terminate in good consequences, but yet the goodness of the consequences was no part of the intention of an idea, does the goodness have any verifying force? if the goodness of consequences arises from the context of the idea in belief rather than from the idea itself, does it have any verifying force?[74] if an idea leads to consequences which are good in the _one_ respect only of fulfilling the intent of the idea (as when one drinks a liquid to test the idea that it is a poison), does the badness of the consequences in every other respect detract from the verifying force of consequences? since mr. james has referred to me as saying "truth is what gives satisfaction" (p. 234), i may remark (apart from the fact that i do not think i ever said that truth is what _gives_ satisfaction) that i have never identified any satisfaction with the truth of an idea, save _that_ satisfaction which arises when the idea as working hypothesis or tentative method is applied to prior existences in such a way as to fulfil what it intends. my final impression (which i cannot adequately prove) is that upon the whole mr. james is most concerned to enforce, as against rationalism, two conclusions about the character of truths as _faits accomplis_: namely, that they are made, not a priori, or eternally in existence,[75] and that their value or importance is not static, but dynamic and practical. the special question of _how_ truths are made is not particularly relevant to this anti-rationalistic crusade, while it is the chief question of interest to many. because of this conflict of problems, what mr. james says about the value of truth when accomplished is likely to be interpreted by some as a criterion of the truth of ideas; while, on the other hand, mr. james himself is likely to pass lightly from the consequences that determine the worth of a belief to those which decide the worth of an idea. when mr. james says the function of giving "satisfaction in marrying previous parts of experience with newer parts" is necessary in order to establish truth, the doctrine is unambiguous. the satisfactory character of consequences is itself measured and defined by the conditions which led up to it; the inherently satisfactory quality of results is not taken as validating the antecedent intellectual operations. but when he says (not of his own position, but of an opponent's[76]) of the idea of an absolute, "so far as it affords such comfort it surely is not sterile, it has that amount of value; it performs a concrete function. as a good pragmatist i myself ought to call the absolute true _in so far forth_ then; and i unhesitatingly now do so" (p. 73), the doctrine seems to be as unambiguous in the other direction: that any good, consequent upon acceptance of a belief is, in so far forth,[77] a warrant of truth. in such passages as the following (which are of the common type) the two notions seem blended together: "ideas become true just in so far as they help us to get into satisfactory relations with other parts of our experience" (p. 58); and, again, on the same page: "any idea that will carry us _prosperously_ from any one part of our experience to any other part, linking things _satisfactorily_, working securely, simplifying, saving labor, is true for just so much" (italics mine). an explicit statement as to whether the carrying function, the linking of things, is satisfactory and prosperous and hence true in so far as it executes the intent of an idea; or whether the satisfaction and prosperity reside in the material consequences on their own account and in that aspect make the idea true, would, i am sure, locate the point at issue and economize and fructify future discussion. at present pragmatism is accepted by those whose own notions are thoroughly rationalistic in make-up as a means of refurbishing, galvanizing, and justifying those very notions. it is rejected by non-rationalists (empiricists and naturalistic idealists) because it seems to them identified with the notion that pragmatism holds that the desirability of certain beliefs overrides the question of the meaning of the ideas involved in them and the existence of objects denoted by them. others (like myself), who believe thoroughly in pragmatism as a method of orientation, as defined by mr. james, and who would apply the method to the determination of the meaning of objects, the intent and worth of ideas as ideas, and to the human and moral value of beliefs, when these various problems are carefully distinguished from one another, do not know whether they are pragmatists in some other sense, because they are not sure whether the practical, in the sense of desirable facts which define the worth of a belief, is confused with the practical as an attitude imposed by objects, and with the practical as a power and function of ideas to effect changes in prior existences. hence the importance of knowing which one of the three senses of practical is conveyed in any given passage. it would do mr. james an injustice, however, to stop here. his real doctrine is that a belief is true when it satisfies both personal needs and the requirements of objective things. speaking of pragmatism, he says, "her only test of probable truth is what works best in the way of _leading us_, what fits every part of life best and _combines with the collectivity of experience's demands_, nothing being omitted" (p. 80, italics mine). and again, "that new idea is truest which performs most felicitously its function of satisfying _our double urgency_" (p. 64). it does not appear certain from the context that this "double urgency" is that of the personal and the objective demands, respectively, but it is probable (see, also, p. 217, where "consistency with previous truth and novel fact" is said to be "always the most imperious claimant"). on this basis, the "in so far forth" of the truth of the absolute because of the comfort it supplies, means that one of the two conditions which need to be satisfied has been met, so that if the idea of the absolute met the other one also, it would be quite true. i have no doubt this is mr. james's meaning, and it sufficiently safeguards him from the charge that pragmatism means that anything which is agreeable is true. at the same time, i do not think, in logical strictness, that satisfying one of two tests, when satisfaction of both is required, can be said to constitute a belief true even "in so far forth." iii at all events this raises a question not touched so far: the place of the personal in the determination of truth. mr. james, for example, emphasizes the doctrine suggested in the following words: "we say this theory solves it [the problem] more satisfactorily than that theory; but that means more satisfactorily _to ourselves_, and individuals will emphasize their points of satisfaction differently" (p. 61, italics mine). this opens out into a question which, in its larger aspects--the place of the personal factor in the constitution of knowledge systems and of reality--i cannot here enter upon, save to say that a synthetic pragmatism such as mr. james has ventured upon will take a very different form according as the point of view of what he calls the "chicago school" or that of humanism is taken as a basis for interpreting the nature of the personal. according to the latter view, the personal appears to be ultimate and unanalyzable, the metaphysically real. associations with idealism, moreover, give it an idealistic turn, a translation, in effect, of monistic intellectualistic idealism into pluralistic, voluntaristic idealism. but, according to the former, the personal is not ultimate, but is to be analyzed and defined, biologically on its genetic side, ethically on its prospective and functioning side. there is, however, one phase of the teaching illustrated by the quotation which is directly relevant here. because mr. james recognizes that the personal element enters into judgments passed upon whether a problem has or has not been satisfactorily solved, he is charged with extreme subjectivism, with encouraging the element of personal preference to run rough-shod over all objective controls. now the question raised in the quotation is primarily one of fact, not of doctrine. is or is not a personal factor found in truth evaluations? if it is, pragmatism is not responsible for introducing it. if it is not, it ought to be possible to refute pragmatism by appeal to empirical fact, rather than by reviling it for subjectivism. now it is an old story that philosophers, in common with theologians and social theorists, are as sure that personal habits and interests shape their opponents' doctrines as they are that their own beliefs are "absolutely" universal and objective in quality. hence arises that dishonesty, that insincerity characteristic of philosophic discussion. as mr. james says (p. 8), "the most potential of all our premises is never mentioned." now the moment the complicity of the personal factor in our philosophic valuations is recognized, is recognized fully, frankly, and generally, that moment a new era in philosophy will begin. we shall have to discover the personal factors that now influence us unconsciously, and begin to accept a new and moral responsibility for them, a responsibility for judging and testing them by their consequences. so long as we ignore this factor, its deeds will be largely evil, not because _it_ is evil, but because, flourishing in the dark, it is without responsibility and without check. the only way to control it is by recognizing it. and while i would not prophesy of pragmatism's future, i would say that this element which is now so generally condemned as intellectual dishonesty (perhaps because of an uneasy, instinctive recognition of the searching of hearts its acceptance would involve) will in the future be accounted unto philosophy for righteousness' sake. so much in general. in particular cases, it is possible that mr. james's language occasionally leaves the impression that the fact of the inevitable involution of the personal factor in every belief gives some special sanction to some special belief. mr. james says that his essay on the _right_ to believe was unluckily entitled the "_will_ to believe" (p. 258). well, even the term "right" is unfortunate, if the personal or belief factor is inevitable--unfortunate because it seems to indicate a privilege which might be exercised in special cases, in religion, for example, though not in science; or, because it suggests to some minds that the fact of the personal complicity involved in belief is a warrant for this or that special personal attitude, instead of being a warning to locate and define it so as to accept responsibility for it. if we mean by "will" not something deliberate and consciously intentional (much less, something insincere), but an active personal participation, then belief _as_ will, rather than either the right or the will to believe seems to phrase the matter correctly. i have attempted to review not so much mr. james's book as the present status of the pragmatic movement which is expressed in the book; and i have selected only those points which seem to bear directly upon matters of contemporary controversy. even as an account of this limited field, the foregoing pages do an injustice to mr. james, save as it is recognized that his lectures were "popular lectures," as the title-page advises us. we cannot expect in such lectures the kind of explicitness which would satisfy the professional and technical interests that have inspired this review. moreover, it is inevitable that the attempt to compose different points of view, hitherto unco-ordinated, into a single whole should give rise to problems foreign to any one factor of the synthesis, left to itself. the need and possibility of the discrimination of various elements in the pragmatic meaning of "practical," attempted in this review, would hardly have been recognized by me were it not for by-products of perplexity and confusion which mr. james's combination has effected. mr. james has given so many evidences of the sincerity of his intellectual aims, that i trust to his pardon for the injustice which the character of my review may have done _him_, in view of whatever service it may render in clarifying the problem to which he is devoted. as for the book itself, it is in any case beyond a critic's praise or blame. it is more likely to take place as a philosophical classic than any other writing of our day. a critic who should attempt to appraise it would probably give one more illustration of the sterility of criticism compared with the productiveness of creative genius. even those who dislike pragmatism can hardly fail to find much of profit in the exhibition of mr. james's instinct for concrete facts, the breadth of his sympathies, and his illuminating insights. unreserved frankness, lucid imagination, varied contacts with life digested into summary and trenchant conclusions, keen perceptions of human nature in the concrete, a constant sense of the subordination of philosophy to life, capacity to put things into an english which projects ideas as if bodily into space till they are solid things to walk around and survey from different sides--these things are not so common in philosophy that they may not smell sweet even by the name of pragmatism. footnotes: [69] william james, _pragmatism. a new name for some old ways of thinking._ (popular lectures on philosophy.) new york: longmans, green, & co., 1907. pp. xiii[+]309. [70] certain aspects of the doctrine are here purposely omitted, and will meet us later. [71] vol. iv, p. 547. [72] only those who have already lost in the idealistic confusion of existence and meaning will take this to mean that the object is those changes in our reactions. [73] i assume that the reader is sufficiently familiar with mr. james's book not to be misled by the text into thinking that mr. james himself discriminates as i have done these three types of problems from one another. he does not; but, none the less, the three formulae for the three situations are there. [74] the idea of immortality, or the traditional theistic idea of god, for example, may produce its good consequences, not in virtue of the idea as idea, but from the character of the person who entertains the belief; or it may be the idea of the supreme value of ideal considerations, rather than that of their temporal duration, which works. [75] "eternal truth" is one of the most ambiguous phrases that philosophers trip over. it may mean eternally in existence; or that a statement which is ever true is always true (if it is true a fly is buzzing, it is eternally true that just now a fly buzzed); or it may mean that some truths, _in so far as wholly conceptual_, are irrelevant to any particular time determination, since they are non-existential in import--e.g., the truth of geometry dialectically taken--that is, without asking whether any particular existence exemplifies them. [76] such statements, it ought in fairness to be said, generally come when mr. james is speaking of a doctrine which he does not himself believe, and arise, i think, in that fairness and frankness of mr. james, so unusual in philosophers, which cause him to lean over backward--unpragmatically, it seems to me. as to the claim of his own doctrine, he consistently sticks to his statement: "pent in, as the pragmatist, more than any one, sees himself to be, between the whole body of funded truths squeezed from the past and the coercions of the world of sense about him, who, so well as he, feels the immense pressure of objective control under which our minds perform their operations? if anyone imagines that this law is lax, let him keep its commandments one day, says emerson" (p. 233). [77] of course, mr. james holds that this "in so far" goes a very small way. see pp. 77-79. but even the slightest concession is, i think, non-pragmatic unless the satisfaction is relevant to the idea as intent. now the satisfaction in question comes not from the idea as _idea_, but from its acceptance as _true_. can a satisfaction dependent on an assumption that an idea is already true be relevant to testing the truth of an idea? and can an idea, like that of the absolute, which, if true, "absolutely" precludes any appeal to consequences as test of truth, be confirmed by use of the pragmatic test without sheer self-contradiction? in other words, we have a confusion of the test of an idea as idea, with that of the value of a belief as belief. on the other hand, it is quite possible that all mr. james intends by truth here is true (i.e., genuine) meaning at stake in the issue--true not as distinct from false, but from meaningless or verbal. xiii an added note as to the "practical" it is easier to start a legend than to prevent its continued circulation. no misconception of the instrumental logic has been more persistent than the belief that it makes knowledge merely a means to a practical end, or to the satisfaction of practical needs--practical being taking to signify some quite definite utilities of a material or bread-and-butter type. habitual associations aroused by the word "pragmatic" have been stronger than the most explicit and emphatic statements which any pragmatist has been able to make. but i again affirm that the term "pragmatic" means only the rule of referring all thinking, all reflective considerations, to _consequences_ for final meaning and test. nothing is said about the nature of the consequences; they may be aesthetic, or moral, or political, or religious in quality--anything you please. all that the theory requires is that they be in some way consequences of thinking; not, indeed, of it alone, but of it acted upon in connection with other things. this is no after-thought inserted to lessen the force of objections. mr. peirce explained that he took the term "pragmatic" from kant, in order to denote empirical consequences. when he refers to their practical character it is only to indicate a criterion by which to avoid purely verbal disputes. different consequences are alleged to constitute rival meanings of a term. is a difference more than merely one of formulation? the way to get an answer is to ask whether, if realized, these consequences would exact of us different modes of behavior. if they do not make such a difference in conduct the difference between them is conventional. it is not that consequences are themselves practical, but that practical consequences from them may at times be appealed to in order to decide the specific question of whether two proposed meanings differ save in words. mr. james says expressly that what is important is that the consequences should be specific, not that they should be active. when he said that general notions must "cash in," he meant of course that they must be translatable into verifiable specific things. but the words "cash in" were enough for some of his critics, who pride themselves upon a logical rigor unattainable by mere pragmatists. in the logical version of pragmatism termed instrumentalism, action or practice does indeed play a fundamental rôle. but it concerns not the nature of consequences but the nature of knowing. to use a term which is now more fashionable (and surely to some extent in consequence of pragmatism) than it was earlier, instrumentalism means a behaviorist theory of thinking and knowing. it means that knowing is literally something which we do; that analysis is ultimately physical and active; that meanings in their logical quality are standpoints, attitudes, and methods of behaving toward facts, and that active experimentation is essential to verification. put in another way it holds that thinking does not mean any transcendent states or acts suddenly introduced into a previously natural scene, but that the operations of knowing are (or are artfully derived from) natural responses of the organism, which constitute knowing in virtue of the situation of doubt in which they arise and in virtue of the uses of inquiry, reconstruction, and control to which they are put. there is no warrant in the doctrine for carrying over _this_ practical quality into the consequences in which action culminates, and by which it is tested and corrected. a knowing as an act is instrumental to the resultant controlled and more significant situation; this does not imply anything about the intrinsic or the instrumental character of the consequent situation. that is whatever it may be in a given case. there is nothing novel nor heterodox in the notion that thinking is instrumental. the very word is redolent of an _organum_--whether _novum_ or _veterum_. the term "instrumentality," applied to thinking, raises at once, however, the question of whether thinking as a tool falls within or without the subject-matter which it shapes into knowledge. the answer of formal logic (adopted moreover by kant and followed in some way by all neo-kantian logics) is unambiguous. to call logic "formal" means precisely that mind or thought supplies forms foreign to the original subject-matter, but yet required in order that it should have the appropriate form of knowledge. in this regard it deviates from the aristotelian _organon_ which it professes to follow. for according to aristotle, the processes of knowing--of teaching and learning--which lead up to knowledge are but the actualization through the potentialities of the human body of the _same_ forms or natures which are previously actualized in nature through the potentialities of extra-organic bodies. thinking which is not instrumental to truth, which is merely formal in the modern sense, would have been a monstrosity inconceivable to him. but the discarding of the metaphysics of form and matter, of cyclic actualizations and eternal species, deprived the aristotelian "thought" of any place within the scheme of things, and left it an activity with forms alien to subject-matter. to conceive of thinking as instrumental to truth or knowledge, and as a tool shaped out of the same subject-matter as that to which it is applied, is but to return to the aristotelian tradition about logic. that the practice of science has in the meantime substituted a logic of experimental discovery (of which definition and classification are themselves but auxiliary tools) for a logic of arrangement and exposition of what is already known, necessitates, however, a very different sort of _organon_. it makes necessary the conception that the object of knowledge is not something with which thinking sets out, but something with which it ends: something which the processes of inquiry and testing, that constitute thinking, themselves produce. thus the object of knowledge is practical in the sense that it depends upon a specific kind of practice for its existence--for its existence as an object of knowledge. how practical it may be in any other sense than this is quite another story. the _object of knowledge_ marks an achieved triumph, a secured control--that holds by the very nature of knowledge. what other uses it may have depends upon its own inherent character, not upon anything in the nature of knowledge. we do not know the origin and nature and the cure of malaria till we can both produce and eliminate malaria; the _value_ of either the production or the removal depends upon the character of malaria in relation to other things. and so it is with mathematical knowledge, or with knowledge of politics or art. their respective objects are not known till they are made in course of the process of experimental thinking. their usefulness when made is whatever, from infinity to zero, experience may subsequently determine it to be. xiv the logic of judgments of practice their nature in introducing the discussion, i shall first say a word to avoid possible misunderstandings. it may be objected that such a term as "practical judgment" is misleading; that the term "practical judgment" is a misnomer, and a dangerous one, since all judgments by their very nature are intellectual or theoretical. consequently, there is a danger that the term will lead us to treat as judgment and knowledge something which is not really knowledge at all and thus start us on the road which ends in mysticism or obscurantism. all this is admitted. i do not mean by practical judgment a type of judgment having a different organ and source from other judgments. i mean simply a kind of judgment having a specific type of subject-matter. propositions exist relating to _agenda_--to things to do or be done, judgments of a situation demanding action. there are, for example, propositions of the form: m. n. should do thus and so; it is better, wiser, more prudent, right, advisable, opportune, expedient, etc., to act thus and so. and this is the type of judgment i denote practical. it may also be objected that this type of subject-matter is not distinctive; that there is no ground for marking it off from judgments of the form _sp_, or _mrn_. i am willing, again, to admit that such may turn out to be the fact. but meanwhile the prima facie difference is worth considering, if only for the sake of reaching a conclusion as to whether or no there is a kind of subject-matter so distinctive as to imply a distinctive logical form. to assume in advance that the subject-matter of practical judgments _must_ be reducible to the form _sp_ or _mrn_ is assuredly as gratuitous as the contrary assumption. it begs one of the most important questions about the world which can be asked: the nature of time. moreover, current discussion exhibits, if not a complete void, at least a decided lacuna as to propositions of this type. mr. russell has recently said that of the two parts of logic the first enumerates or inventories the different kinds or forms of propositions.[78] it is noticeable that he does not even mention this kind as a possible kind. yet it is conceivable that this omission seriously compromises the discussion of other kinds. additional specimens of practical judgments may be given: he had better consult a physician; it would not be advisable for you to invest in those bonds; the united states should either modify its monroe doctrine or else make more efficient military preparations; this is a good time to build a house; if i do that i shall be doing wrong, etc. it is silly to dwell upon the practical importance of judgments of this sort, but not wholly silly to say that their practical importance arouses suspicion as to the grounds of their neglect in discussion of logical forms in general. regarding them, we may say: 1. their subject-matter implies an incomplete situation. this incompleteness is not psychical. something is "there," but what is there does not constitute the entire objective situation. _as_ there, it requires something else. only after this something else has been supplied will the given coincide with the full subject-matter. this consideration has an important bearing upon the conception of the indeterminate and contingent. it is sometimes assumed (both by adherents and by opponents) that the validity of these notions entails that the _given_ is itself indeterminate--which appears to be nonsense. the logical implication is that of a subject-matter as yet _unterminated_, unfinished, or not wholly given. the implication is of future things. moreover, the incompleteness is not personal. i mean by this that the situation is not confined _within_ the one making the judgment; the practical judgment is neither exclusively nor primarily about one's self. on the contrary, it is a judgment about one's self only as it is a judgment about the situation in which one is included, and in which a multitude of other factors external to self are included. the contrary assumption is so constantly made about moral judgments that this statement must appear dogmatic. but surely the prima facie case is that when i judge that i should not give money to the street beggar i am judging the nature of an objective situation, and that the conclusion about myself is governed by the proposition about the situation in which i happen to be included. the full, complex proposition includes the beggar, social conditions and consequences, a charity organization society, etc., on exactly the same footing as it contains myself. aside from the fact that it seems impossible to defend the "objectivity" of moral propositions on any other ground, we may at least point to the fact that judgments of policy, whether made about ourselves or some other agent, are certainly judgments of a _situation_ which is temporarily unfinished. "now is a good time for me to buy certain railway bonds" is a judgment about myself only because it is primarily a judgment about hundreds of factors wholly external to myself. if the genuine existence of such propositions be admitted, the only question about moral judgments is whether or no they are cases of practical judgments as the latter have been defined--a question of utmost importance for moral theory, but not of crucial import for our logical discussion. 2. their subject-matter implies that the proposition is itself a factor in the completion of the situation, carrying it forward to its conclusion. according as the judgment is that this or that should be done, the situation will, when completed, have this or that subject-matter. the proposition that it is well to do this is a proposition to treat the given in a certain way. since the way is established by the proposition, the proposition is _a_ determining factor in the outcome. as a proposition about the supplementation of the given, it is a factor _in_ the supplementation--and this not as an extraneous matter, something subsequent to the proposition, but in its own logical force. here is found, prima facie at least, a marked distinction of the practical proposition from descriptive and narrative propositions, from the familiar _sp_ propositions and from those of pure mathematics. the latter imply that the proposition does not enter into the constitution of the subject-matter of the proposition. there also is a distinction from another kind of contingent proposition, namely, that which has the form: "he has started for your house"; "the house is still burning"; "it will probably rain." the unfinishedness of the given is implied in these propositions, but it is not implied that the proposition is a factor in determining their completion. 3. the subject-matter implies that it makes a difference how the given is terminated: that one outcome is better than another, and that the proposition is to be a factor in securing (as far as may be) the better. in other words, there is something objectively at stake in the forming of the proposition. a right or wrong _descriptive_ judgment (a judgment confined to the given, whether temporal, spatial, or subsistent) does not affect its subject-matter; it does not help or hinder its development, for by hypothesis it has no development. but a practical proposition affects the subject-matter for better or worse, for it is a judgment as to the condition (the thing to be done) of the existence of the complete subject-matter.[79] 4. a practical proposition is binary. it is a judgment that the given is to be treated in a specified way; it is also a judgment that the given admits of such treatment, that it admits of a specified objective termination. it is a judgment, at the same stroke, of end--the result to be brought about--and of means. ethical theories which disconnect the discussion of ends--as so many of them do--from determination of means, thereby take discussion of ends out of the region of judgment. if there be such ends, they have no intellectual status. to judge that i should see a physician implies that the given elements of the situation should be completed in a specific way and also that they afford the conditions which make the proposed completion practicable. the proposition concerns both resources and obstacles--intellectual determination of elements lying in the way of, say, proper vigor, and of elements which can be utilized to get around or surmount these obstacles. the judgment regarding the need of a physician implies the existence of hindrances in the pursuit of the normal occupations of life, but it equally implies the existence of positive factors which may be set in motion to surmount the hindrances and reinstate normal pursuits. it is worth while to call attention to the reciprocal character of the practical judgment in its bearing upon the statement of means. from the side of the end, the reciprocal nature locates and condemns utopianism and romanticism: what is sometimes called idealism. from the side of means, it locates and condemns materialism and predeterminism: what is sometimes called mechanism. by materialism i mean the conception that the given contains exhaustively the entire subject-matter of practical judgment: that the facts in their givenness are all "there is to it." the given is undoubtedly just what it is; it is determinate throughout. but it is the given _of_ something to be done. the survey and inventory of present conditions (of facts) are not something complete in themselves; they exist for the sake of an intelligent determination of what is to be done, of what is required to complete the given. to conceive the given in any such way, then, as to imply that it negates in its given character the possibility of any doing, of any modification, is self-contradictory. as a part of a practical judgment, the discovery that a man is suffering from an illness is not a discovery that he must suffer, or that the subsequent course of events is determined by his illness; it is the indication of a needed and a possible course by which to restore health. even the discovery that the illness is hopeless falls within this principle. it is an indication not to waste time and money on certain fruitless endeavors, to prepare affairs with respect to death, etc. it is also an indication of search for conditions which will render in the future similar cases remediable, not hopeless. the whole case for the genuineness of practical judgments stands or falls with this principle. it is open to question. but decision as to its validity must rest upon empirical evidence. it cannot be ruled out of court by a dialectic development of the implications of propositions about what is already given or what has already happened. that is, its invalidity cannot be deduced from an assertion that the character of the scientific judgment as a discovery and statement of what is forbids it, much less from an analysis of mathematical propositions. for this method only begs the question. unless the facts are complicated by the surreptitious introduction of some preconception, the prima facie empirical case is that the scientific judgment--the determinate diagnosis--favors instead of forbidding the doctrine of a possibility of change of the given. to overthrow this presumption means, i repeat, to discover specific evidence which makes it impossible. and in view of the immense body of empirical evidence showing that we add to control of what is given (the subject-matter of scientific judgment) by means of scientific judgment, the likelihood of any such discovery seems slight. these considerations throw light upon the proper meaning of (practical) idealism and of mechanism. idealism in action does not seem to be anything except an explicit recognition of just the implications we have been considering. it signifies a recognition that the given is given _as_ obstacles to one course of active development or completion and _as_ resources for another course by which development of the situation directly blocked may be indirectly secured. it is not a blind instinct of hopefulness or that miscellaneous obscurantist emotionalism often called optimism, any more than it is utopianism. it is recognition of the increased liberation and redirection of the course of events achieved through accurate discovery. or, more specifically, it is this recognition operating as a ruling motive in extending the work of discovery and utilizing its results. "mechanism" means the reciprocal recognition on the side of means. it is the recognition of the import within the practical judgment, of the given, of fact, in its determinate character. the facts in their isolation, taken as complete in themselves, are not mechanistic. at most, they just are, and that is the end of them. they are mechanistic as indicating the mechanism, the means, of accomplishing the possibilities which they indicate. apart from a forward look (the anticipation of the future movement of affairs) mechanism is a meaningless conception. there is no sense in applying the conception to a finished world, to any scene which is simply and only done with. propositions regarding a past world, just as past (not as furnishing the conditions of what is to be done), might be complete and accurate, but they would be of the nature of a complex catalogue. to introduce, in addition, the conception of mechanism is to introduce the implication of possibilities of future accomplishment.[80] 5. the judgment of what is to be done implies, as we have just seen, a statement of what the given facts of the situation are, taken as indications of the course to pursue and of the means to be employed in its pursuit. such a statement demands accuracy. completeness is not so much an additional requirement as it is a condition of accuracy. for accuracy depends fundamentally upon relevancy to the determination of what is to be done. completeness does not mean exhaustiveness _per se_, but adequacy as respects end and its means. to include too much, or what is irrelevant, is a violation of the demand for accuracy quite as well as to leave out--to fail to discover--what is important. clear recognition of this fact will enable one to avoid certain dialectic confusions. it has been argued that a judgment of given existence, or fact, cannot be hypothetical; that factuality and hypothetical character are contradictions in terms. they would be if the two qualifications were used in the same respect. but they are not. the hypothesis is that the facts which constitute the terms of the proposition of the given are relevant and adequate for the purpose in hand--the determination of a possibility to be accomplished in action. the data may be as factual, as absolute as you please, and yet in no way guarantee that they are the data _of_ this particular judgment. suppose the thing to be done is the formation of a prediction regarding the return of a comet. the prime difficulty is not in making observations, or in the mathematical calculations based upon them--difficult as these things may be. it is making sure that we have taken as data the observations really implicated in the doing rightly of this particular thing: that we have not left out something which is relevant, or included something which has nothing to do with the further movement of the comet. darwin's hypothesis of natural selection does not stand or fall with the correctness of his propositions regarding breeding of animals in domestication. the facts of artificial selection may be as stated--in themselves there may be nothing hypothetical about them. but their bearing upon the origin of species _is_ a hypothesis. logically, any factual proposition is a hypothetical proposition when it is made the basis of any inference. 6. the bearing of this remark upon the nature of the truth of practical judgments (including the judgment of what is given) is obvious. their truth or falsity is constituted by the issue. the determination of end-means (constituting the terms and relations of the practical proposition) is hypothetical until the course of action indicated has been tried. the event or issue of such action _is_ the truth or falsity of the judgment. this is an immediate conclusion from the fact that only the issue gives the complete subject-matter. in this case, at least, verification and truth completely coincide--unless there is some serious error in the prior analysis. this completes the account, preliminary to a consideration of other matters. but the account suggests another and independent question with respect to which i shall make an excursus. how far is it possible and legitimate to extend or generalize the results reached to apply to all propositions of facts? that is to say, is it possible and legitimate to treat all scientific or descriptive statements of matters of fact as implying indirectly if not directly, something to be done, future possibilities to be realized in action? the question as to legitimacy is too complicated to be discussed in an incidental way. but it cannot be denied that there is a possibility of such application, nor that the possibility is worth careful examination. we may frame at least a hypothesis that all judgments of fact have reference to a determination of courses of action to be tried and to the discovery of means for their realization. in the sense already explained all propositions which state discoveries or ascertainments, all categorical propositions, would be hypothetical, and their truth would coincide with their tested consequences effected by intelligent action. this theory may be called pragmatism. but it is a type of pragmatism quite free from dependence upon a voluntaristic psychology. it is not complicated by reference to emotional satisfactions or the play of desires. i am not arguing the point. but possibly critics of pragmatism would get a new light upon its meaning were they to set out with an analysis of ordinary practical judgments and then proceed to consider the bearing of its result upon judgments of facts and essences. mr. bertrand russell has remarked[81] that pragmatism originated as a theory about the truth of theories, but ignored the "truths of fact" upon which theories rest and by which they are tested. i am not concerned to question this so far as the origin of pragmatism is concerned. philosophy, at least, has been mainly a matter of theories; and mr. james was conscientious enough to be troubled about the way in which the meaning of such theories is to be settled and the way in which they are to be tested. his pragmatism was in effect (as mr. russell recognizes) a statement of the need of applying to philosophic theories the same kinds of test as are used in the theories of the inductive sciences. but this does not preclude the application of a like method to dealing with so-called "truths of fact." facts may be facts, and yet not be the facts _of_ the inquiry in hand. in all scientific inquiry, however, to call them facts or data or truths of fact signifies that they are taken as the _relevant_ facts of the inference to be made. _if_ (as this would seem to indicate) they are then implicated however indirectly in a proposition about what is to be done, they are themselves theoretical in logical quality. accuracy of statement and correctness of reasoning would then be factors in truth, but so also would be verification. truth would be a triadic relation, but of a different sort from that expounded by mr. russell. for accuracy and correctness would both be functions of verifiability. judgments of value i it is my purpose to apply the conclusions previously drawn as to the implications of practical judgment to the subject of judgments of value. first, i shall try to clear away some sources of misunderstanding. unfortunately, however, there is a deep-seated ambiguity which makes it difficult to dismiss the matter of value summarily. the _experience_ of a good and the _judgment_ that something is a value of a certain kind and amount have been almost inextricably confused. the confusion has a long history. it is found in mediaeval thought; it is revived by descartes; recent psychology has given it a new career. the senses were regarded as modes of knowledge of greater or less adequacy, and the feelings were regarded as modes of sense, and hence as modes of cognitive apprehension. descartes was interested in showing, for scientific purposes, that the senses are not organs of apprehending the qualities of bodies as such, but only of apprehending their relation to the well-being of the sentient organism. sensations of pleasure and pain, along with those of hunger, thirst, etc., most easily lent themselves to this treatment; colors, tones, etc., were them assimilated. of them all he says: "these perceptions of sense have been placed within me by nature for the purpose of _signifying_ what things are beneficial or harmful."[82] thus it was possible to identify the real properties of bodies with their geometrical ones, without exposing himself to the conclusion that god (or nature) deceives us in the perception of color, sound, etc. these perceptions are only intended to teach us what things to pursue and avoid, and as _such_ apprehensions they are adequate. his identification of any and every experience of good with a judgment or cognitive apprehension is clear in the following words: "when we are given news the mind first judges of it and if it is good it rejoices."[83] this is a survival of the scholastic psychology of the _vis aestimativa_. lotze's theory that the emotions, as involving pleasure and pain, are organs of value judgments, or in more recent terminology, that they are cognitive appreciations of worth (corresponding to immediate apprehensions of sensory qualities) presents the same tradition in a new terminology. as against all this, the present paper takes its stand with the position stated by hume, in the following words: "a passion is an original existence, or, if you will, modification of existence; and contains not any representative quality, which renders it a copy of any other existence or modification. when i am angry i am actually possest with the passion, and in that emotion have no more a reference to any other object, than when i am thirsty, or sick, or more than five feet high."[84] in so doing, i may seem to some to be begging the question at issue. but such is surely the prima facie fact of the matter. only a prior dogma to the effect that every conscious experience _is_, _ipso facto_, a form of cognition leads to any obscuration of the fact, and the burden of proof is upon those who uphold the dogma.[85] a further word upon "appreciation" seems specially called for in view of the currency of the doctrine that "appreciation" is a peculiar kind of knowledge, or cognitive revelation of reality: peculiar in having a distinct type of reality for its object and in having for its organ a peculiar mental condition differing from the intelligence of everyday knowledge and of science. actually, there do not seem to be any grounds for regarding appreciation as anything but an intentionally enhanced or intensified experience of an object. its opposite is not descriptive or explanatory knowledge, but _de_preciation--a degraded realization of an object. a man may climb a mountain to get a better realization of a landscape; he may travel to greece to get a realization of the parthenon more full than that which he has had from pictures. intelligence, knowledge, may be involved in the steps taken to get the enhanced experience, but that does not make the landscape or the parthenon as fully savored a cognitive object. so the fulness of a musical experience may depend upon prior critical analysis, but that does not necessarily make the hearing of music a kind of non-analytic cognitive act. either appreciation means just an intensified experience, or it means a kind of criticism, and then it falls within the sphere of ordinary judgment, differing in being applied to a work of art instead of to some other subject-matter. the same mode of analysis may be applied to the older but cognate term "intuition." the terms "acquaintance" and "familiarity" and "recognition" (acknowledgment) are full of like pitfalls of ambiguity. in contemporary discussion of value-judgments, however, appreciation is a peculiarly treacherous term. it is first asserted (or assumed) that all experiences of good are modes of knowing: that good is a term of a proposition. then when experience forces home the immense difference between evaluation as a critical process (a process of inquiry for the determination of a good precisely similar to that which is undertaken in science in the determination of the nature of an event) and ordinary experience of good and evil, appeal is made to the difference between direct apprehension and indirect or inferential knowledge, and "appreciation" is called in to play the convenient rôle of an immediate cognitive apprehension. thus a second error is used to cover up and protect a primary one. to savor a thing fully--as arnold bennett's heroines are wont to do--is no more a knowing than is the chance savoring which arises when things smelled are found good, or than is being angry or thirsty or more than five feet high. all the language which we can employ is charged with a force acquired through reflection. even when i speak of a direct experience of a good or bad, one is only too likely to read in traits characterizing a thing which is found in consequence of thinking, to be good; one has to use language simply to stimulate a recourse to a direct experiencing in which language is not depended upon. if one is willing to make such an imaginative excursion--no one can be compelled--he will note that _finding_ a thing good apart from reflective judgment means simply treating the thing in a certain way, hanging on to it, dwelling upon it, welcoming it and acting to perpetuate its presence, taking delight in it. it is a way of behaving toward it, a mode of organic reaction. a psychologist may, indeed, bring in the emotions, but if his contribution is relevant it will be because the emotions which figure in his account are just part of the primary organic reaction to the object. in contrary fashion, to find a thing bad (in a direct experience as distinct from the result of a reflective examination) is to be moved to reject it, to try to get away from it, to destroy or at least to displace it. it connotes not an act of apprehension but an act of repugning, of repelling. to term the thing good or evil is to state the fact (noted in recollection) that it was actually involved in a situation of organic acceptance or rejection, with whatever qualities specifically characterize the act. all this is said because i am convinced that contemporary discussion of values and valuation suffers from confusion of the two radically different attitudes--that of direct, active, non-cognitive experience of goods and bads and that of valuation, the latter being simply a mode of judgment like any other form of judgment, differing in that its subject-matter happens to be a good or a bad instead of a horse or planet or curve. but unfortunately for discussions, "to value" means two radically different things: to prize and appraise; to esteem and to estimate: to find good in the sense described above, and to judge it to be good, to _know_ it as good. i call them radically different because to prize names a practical, non-intellectual attitude, and to appraise names a judgment. that men love and hold things dear, that they cherish and care for some things, and neglect and contemn other things, is an undoubted fact. to call these things values is just to repeat that they are loved and cherished; it is not to give a reason for their being loved and cherished. to call them values and then import into them the traits of objects of valuation; or to import into values, meaning valuated objects, the traits which things possess as held dear, is to confuse the theory of judgments of value past all remedy. and before coming to the more technical discussion, the currency of the confusion and the bad result consequences may justify dwelling upon the matter. the distinction may be compared to that between eating something and investigating the food properties of the thing eaten. a man eats something; it may be said that his very eating implies that he _took_ it to be food, that he judged it, or regarded it cognitively, and that the question is just whether he judged truly or made a false proposition. now if anybody will condescend to a concrete experience he will perceive how often a man eats _without_ thinking; that he puts into his mouth what is set before him from habit, as an infant does from instinct. an onlooker or anyone who reflects is justified in saying that he _acts as if_ he judged the material to be food. he is not justified in saying that any judgment or intellectual determination has entered in. he has acted; he has behaved toward something as food: that is only to say that he has put it in his mouth and swallowed it instead of spewing it forth. the object may then be called food. but this does not mean either that it _is_ food (namely, digestible and nourishing material) or that the eater judged it to be food and so formed a proposition which is true or false. the proposition would arise only in case he is in some doubt, or if he reflects that in spite of his immediate attitude of aversion the thing is wholesome and his system needs recuperation, etc. or later, if the man is ill, a physician may inquire what he ate, and pronounce that something not food at all, but poison. in the illustration employed, there is no danger of any harm arising from using the retroactive term "food"; there is no likelihood of confusing the two senses "actually eaten" and "nourishing article." but with the terms "value" and "good" there is a standing danger of just such a confusion. overlooking the fact that good and bad as _reasonable_ terms involve a _relationship to other things_ (exactly similar to that implied in calling a particular article food or poison), we suppose that when we are reflecting upon or inquiring into the good or value of some act or object, we are dealing with something as simple, as self-inclosed, as the simple act of immediate prizing or welcoming or cherishing performed without rhyme or reason, from instinct or habit. in truth just as determining a thing _to be_ food means considering its relations to digestive organs, to its distribution and ultimate destination in the system, so determining a thing found good (namely, treated in a certain way) _to be_ good means precisely ceasing to look at it as a direct, self-sufficient thing and considering it in its consequences--that is, in its relations to a large set of other things. if the man in eating consciously implies that what he eats is food, he anticipates or predicts certain consequences, with more or less adequate grounds for so doing. he passes a judgment or apprehends or knows--truly or falsely. so a man may not only enjoy a thing, but he may judge the thing enjoyed to be good, to be a value. but in so doing he is going beyond the thing immediately present and making an inference to other things, which, he implies, are connected with it. the thing taken into the mouth and stomach _has_ consequences whether a man thinks of them or not. but he does not _know_ the thing he eats--he does not make it a term of a certain character--unless he thinks of the consequences and connects them with the thing he eats. if he just stops and says "oh, how good this is," he is not saying anything about the object except the fact that he enjoys eating it. we may if we choose regard this exclamation as a reflection or judgment. but if it is intellectual, it is asserted for the sake of enhancing the enjoyment; it is a means to an end. a very hungry man will generally satisfy his appetite to some extent before he indulges in even such rudimentary propositions.[86] ii but we must return to a placing of our problem in this context. my theme is that a judgment of value is simply a case of a practical judgment, a judgment about the doing of something. this conflicts with the assumption that it is a judgment about a particular kind of existence independent of action, concerning which the main problem is whether it is subjective or objective. it conflicts with every tendency to make the determination of the right or wrong course of action (whether in morals, technology, or scientific inquiry) dependent upon an independent determination of some ghostly things called value-objects--whether their ghostly character is attributed to their existing in some transcendental eternal realm or in some realm called states of mind. it asserts that value-objects mean simply objects as judged to possess a certain _force_ within a situation temporally developing toward a determinate result. to _find_ a thing good is, i repeat, to attribute or impute nothing to it. it is just to do something to it. but to consider _whether_ it is good and how good it is, is to ask how it, _as if acted upon_, will operate in promoting a course of action. hence the great contrast which may exist between a good or an immediate experience and an evaluated or judged good. the rain may be most uncomfortable (just _be_ it, as a man is more than five feet tall) and yet be "good" for growing crops--that is, favor or promote their movement in a given direction. this does not mean that two contrasting judgments of value are passed. it means that _no_ judgment has yet taken place. if, however, i am moved to pass a value-judgment i should probably say that in spite of the disagreeableness of getting wet, the shower is a good thing. i am now judging it as a _means_ in two contrasting situations, as a means with respect to two ends. i compare my discomfort as a _consequence_ of the rain with the prospective crops as another consequence, and say "let the latter consequence be." i identify myself as agent with it, rather than with the immediate discomfort of the wetting. it is quite true that in this case i cannot do anything about it; my identification is, so to speak, sentimental rather than practical so far as stopping the rain or growing the crops is concerned. but in effect it is an assertion that one would not on account of the discomfort of the rain stop it; that one would, if one could, encourage its continuance. go it, rain, one says. the specific intervention of action is obvious enough in plenty of other cases. it occurs to me that this agreeable "food" which i am eating isn't a food for me; it brings on indigestion. it functions no longer as an _immediate_ good; as something to be accepted. if i continue eating, it will be after i have deliberated. i have considered it as a means to two conflicting possible consequences, the present enjoyment of eating and the later state of health. one or other is possible, not both--though of course i may "solve" the problem by persuading myself that in this instance they are congruent. the value-object now means thing judged to be a means of procuring this or that end. as prizing, esteeming, holding dear denote ways of acting, so valuing denotes a passing judgment upon such acts with reference to their connection with other acts, or with respect to the continuum of behavior in which they fall. valuation means change of mode of behavior from direct acceptance and welcoming to doubting and looking into--acts which involve postponement of direct (or so-called overt) action and which imply a future act having a different _meaning_ from that just now occurring--for even if one decides to continue in the previous act its meaning-content is different when it is chosen after reflective examination. a practical judgment has been defined as a judgment of what to do, or what is to be done: a judgment respecting the future termination of an incomplete and in so far indeterminate situation. to say that judgments of value fall within this field is to say two things: one, that the judgment of value is never complete in itself, but always in behalf of determining what is to be done; the other, that judgments of value (as distinct from the direct experience of something as good) imply that value is not anything previously given, but is something to be given by future action, itself conditioned upon (varying with) the judgment. this statement may appear to contradict the recent assertion that a value-object for knowledge means one investigated as a means to competing ends. for such a means it already is; the lobster _will_ give me present enjoyment and future indigestion _if_ i eat it. but as long as i judge, _value_ is indeterminate. the question is not what the thing will do--i may be quite clear about that: it is whether to perform the act which will actualize its potentiality. what will i have the situation _become_ as between alternatives? and that means what force shall the thing as means be given? shall i take it as means to present enjoyment, or as a (negative) condition of future health? when its status in these respects is determined, its value is determined; judgment ceases, action goes on. practical judgments do not therefore primarily concern themselves with the value of _objects_; but with the course of action demanded to carry an incomplete situation to its fulfilment. the adequate control of such judgments may, however, be facilitated by judgment of the worth of objects which enter as ends and means into the action contemplated. for example, my primary (and ultimate) judgment has to do, say, with buying a suit of clothes: whether to buy and, if so, what? the question is of better and worse with respect to alternative courses of action, not with respect to various objects. but the judgment will be a judgment (and not a chance reaction) in the degree in which it takes for its intervening subject-matter the value-status of various objects. what are the prices of given suits? what are their styles in respect to current fashion? how do their patterns compare? what about their durability? how about their respective adaptability to the chief wearing use i have in mind? relative, or comparative, durability, cheapness, suitability, style, aesthetic attractiveness constitute value traits. they are traits of objects not _per se_, but _as entering into a possible and foreseen completing of the situation_. their value is their force in precisely this function. the decision of better and worse is the determination of their respective capacities and intensities _in this regard_. apart from their status in this office, they have no traits of value for knowledge. a determination of better value as found in some one suit is equivalent to (has the force of) a decision as to what it is better to do. it provided the lacking stimulus so that action occurs, or passes from its indeterminate-indecisive-state into decision. reference to the terms "subjective" and "objective" will, perhaps, raise a cloud of ambiguities. but for this very reason it may be worth while to point out the ambiguous nature of the term objective as applied to valuations. objective may be identified, quite erroneously, with qualities existing outside of and independently of the situation in which a decision as to a future course of action has to be reached. or, objective may denote the status of qualities of an object _in respect_ to the situation to be completed through judgment. independently of the situation requiring practical judgment, clothes already have a given price, durability, pattern, etc. these traits are not affected by the judgment. they exist; they are given. but as given they are _not_ determinate values. they are not _objects_ of valuation; they are _data for_ a valuation. we may have to take pains to discover that these given qualities are, but their discovery is in order that there may be a subsequent judgment of value. were they already definite values, they would not be estimated; they would be stimuli to direct response. if a man had already decided that cheapness constituted value, he would simply take the cheapest suit offered. what he judges is the value of cheapness, and this depends upon its weight or importance in the situation requiring action, as compared with durability, style, adaptability, etc. discovery of shoddy would not affect the _de facto_ durability of the goods, but it would affect the value of cheapness--that is, _the weight assigned that trait in influencing judgment_--which it would not do, if cheapness already had a definite value. a value, in short, means a _consideration_, and a consideration does not mean an existence merely, but an existence having a claim upon judgment. value judged is not existential quality noted, but is the influence attached by judgment to a given existential quality in determining judgment. the conclusion is not that value is subjective, but that it is practical. the situation in which judgment of value is required is not mental, much less fanciful. i can but think that much of the recent discussion of the objectivity of value and of value-judgments rests upon a false psychological theory. it rests upon giving certain terms meanings that flow from an introspective psychology which accepts a realm of purely private states of consciousness, private not in a social sense (a sense implying courtesy or mayhap secrecy toward others), but existential independence and separateness. to refer value to choice or desire, for example, is in that case to say that value is subjectively conditioned. quite otherwise, if we have steered clear from such a psychology. choice, decision, means primarily a certain act, a piece of behavior on the part of a particular thing. that a horse chooses to eat hay means only that it eats hay; that the man chooses to steal means (at least) that he tries to steal. this trial may come, however, _after_ an intervening act of reflection. it then has a certain intellectual or cognitive quality. but it may mean simply the bare fact of an action which is retrospectively called a choice: as a man, in spite of all temptation to belong to another nation, chooses to be born an englishman, which, if it has any sense at all, signifies a choice to continue in a line adopted without choice. taken in this latter sense (in which case, terms like choice and desire refer to ways of behavior), their use is only a specification of the general doctrine that all valuation has to do with the determination of a course of action. choice, preference, is originally only a bias in a given direction, a bias which is no more subjective or psychical than is the fact that a ball thrown is swerving in a particular direction rather than in some other curve. it is just a name for the differential character of the action. but let continuance in a certain line of action become questionable, let, that is to say, it be regarded as a means to a future consequence, which consequence has alternatives, and then choice gets a logical or intellectual sense; a _mental_ status if the term "mental" is reserved for acts having this intellectualized quality. choice still means the fixing of a course of action; it means at least a _set_ to be released as soon as physically possible. otherwise man has not chosen, but has quieted himself into a belief that he has chosen in order to relieve himself of the strain of suspense. exactly the same analysis applies to desire. diverse anticipated ends may provoke divided and competing present reactions; the organism may be torn between different courses, each interfering with the completion of the other. this intra-organic pulling and hauling, this strife of active tendencies, is a genuine phenomenon. the pull in a given direction measures the immediate hold of an anticipated termination or end upon us, as compared with that of some other. if one asked after the mechanism of the valuing process, i have no doubt that the answer would be in terms of desires thus conceived. but unless everything relating to the activity of a highly organized being is to be denominated subjective, i see no ground for calling it subjective. so far as i can make out, the emphasis upon a psychological treatment of value and valuation in a subjective sense is but a highly awkward and negative way of maintaining a positive truth: that value and valuation fall within the universe of _action_: that as welcoming, accepting, is an act, so valuation is a present act determining an act _to be_ done, a present act taking place because the future act is uncertain and incomplete. it does follow from this fact that valuation is not simply a _recognition_ of the force or efficiency of a means with respect to continuing a process. for unless there is _question_ about its continuation, about its termination, valuation will not occur. and there is no question save where activity is hesitant in direction because of conflict within it. metaphorically we may say that rain is good to lay the dust, identifying force or efficiency with value. i do not believe that valuations occur and values are brought into being save in a continuing situation where things have potency for carrying forward processes. there is a close relationship between prevailing, valiancy, valency, and value. but the term "value" is not a mere reduplication of the term "efficiency": it adds something. when we are moving toward a result and at the same time are stimulated to move toward something else which is incompatible with it (as in the case of the lobster as a cause of both enjoyment and indigestion), a thing has a dual potency. not until the end has been established is the value of the lobster settled, although there need be no doubt about its efficiencies. as was pointed out earlier, the practical judgment determines means and end at the same time. how then can value be given, as efficiency is given, until the end is chosen? the rain is (metaphorically) valuable for laying dust. whether it is valuable for us to have the dust laid--and if so, how valuable--we shall never know until some activity of our own which is a factor in dust-laying comes into conflict with an incompatible activity. its value is its force, indeed, but it is its force in moving us to one end _rather_ than to another. not every potency, in other words, but potency with the specific qualification of falling within judgment about future action, means value or valuable thing. consequently there is no value save in situations where desires and the need of deliberation in order to choose are found, and yet this fact gives no excuse for regarding desire and deliberation and decision as subjective phenomena. to use an irish bull, as long as a man _knows_ what he desires there is no desire; there is movement or endeavor in a given direction. desire is desires, and simultaneous desires are incompatible; they mark, as we have noted, competing activities, movements in directions, which cannot both be extended. reflection is a process of finding out what we want, what, as we say, we _really_ want, and this means the formation of new desire, a new direction of action. in this process, things _get_ values--something they did not possess before, although they had their efficiencies. at whatever risk of shock, this doctrine should be exposed in all its nakedness. to judge value is to engage in instituting a determinate value where none is given. it is not necessary that antecedently given values should be the data of the valuation; and where they are given data they are only terms in the determination of a not yet existing value. when a man is ill and after deliberation concludes that it be well to see a doctor, the doctor doubtless exists antecedently. but it is not the doctor who is judged to be the good of the situation, but the _seeing_ of the doctor: a thing which, by description, exists only because of an act dependent upon a judgment. nor is the health the man antecedently possessed (or which somebody has) the thing which he judges to be a value; the thing judged to be a value is the restoring of health--something by description not yet existing. the results flowing from his past health will doubtless influence him in reaching his judgment that it will be a good to have restored health, but they do not constitute the good which forms his subject-matter and object of his judgment. he may judge that they _were_ good without judging that they are now good, for to be judged now good means to be judged to be the object of a course of action still to be undertaken. and to _judge_ that they were good (as distinct from merely recalling certain benefits which accrued from health) is to judge that _if_ the situation had required a reflective determination of a course of action one would have judged health an existence to be attained or preserved by action. there are dialectic difficulties which may be raised about judgments of this sort. for they imply the seeming paradox of a judgment whose proper subject-matter is its own determinate formation. but nothing is gained by obscuring the fact that such is the nature of the practical judgment: it is a judgment of what and how to judge--of the weight to be assigned to various factors in the determination of judgment. it would be interesting to inquire into the question whether this peculiarity may not throw light upon the nature of "consciousness," but into that field we cannot now go. iii from what has been said, it immediately follows, of course, that a determinate value is instituted as a decisive factor with respect to what is to be done. wherever a determinate good exists, there is an adequate stimulus to action, and no judgment of what is to be done or of the value of an object is called for. it is frequently assumed, however, that valuation is a process of applying some fixed or determinate value to the various competing goods of a situation; that valuation implies a prior standard of value and consists in comparing various goods with the standard as the supreme value. this assumption requires examination. if it is sound it deprives the position which has been taken of any validity. for it renders the judgment of what to do a matter of applying a value existing ready-made, instead of making--as we have done--the valuation a determination within the practical judgment. the argument would run this way: every practical judgment depends upon a judgment of the value of the end to be attained; this end may be such only proximately, but that implies something else judged to be good, and so, logically, till we have arrived at the judgment of a supreme good, a final end or _summum bonum_. if this statement correctly describes the state of the case there can be no doubt that a practical judgment depends upon a prior recognition of value; consequently the hypothesis upon which we have been proceeding reverses the actual facts. the first thing by way of critical comment is to point out the ambiguity in the term "end." i should like to fall back upon what was said earlier about the thoroughly reciprocal character of means and end in the practical judgment. if this be admitted it is also admitted that only by a judgment of means--things having value in the carrying of an indeterminate situation to a completion--is the end determinately made out in judgment. but i fear i cannot count upon this as granted. so i will point out that "end" may mean either the _de facto_ limit to judgment, which by definition does not enter into judgment at all, or it may mean the last and completing object of judgment, the conception of that object in which a transitive incompletely given situation would come to rest. of end in the first sense, it is to be said that it is not a value at all; of end in the second sense, that it is identical with a finale of the kind we have just been discussing or that it is determined in judgment, not a value given by which to control the judgment. it may be asserted that in the illustration used some typical suit of clothes is the value which affords the standard of valuation of all the suits which are offered to the buyer; that he passes judgment on their value as compared with the standard suit as an end and supreme value. this statement brings out the ambiguity just referred to. the need of something to wear is the _stimulus_ to the judgment of the value of suits offered, and possession of a suit puts an end _to_ judgment. it is an end _of_ judgment in the objective, not in the possessive, sense of the preposition "of"; it is an end not in the sense of aim, but in the sense of a terminating limit. when possession begins, judgment has already ceased. and if argument _ad verucundiam_ has any weight i may point out that this is the doctrine of aristotle when he says we never deliberate about ends, but only about means. that is to say, in all deliberation (or practical judgment or inquiry) there is always something outside of judgment which fixes its beginning and end or terminus. and i would add that, according to aristotle, deliberation always ceases when we have come to the "first link in the chain of causes, which is last in the order of discovery," and this means "when we have traced back the chain of causes [means] to ourselves." in other words, the last end-in-view is always that which operates as the direct or immediate means of setting our own powers in operation. the end-in-view upon which judgment of action settles down is simply the adequate or complete means to the doing of something. we do deliberate, however, about _aims_, about ends-in-view--a fact which shows their radically different nature from ends as limits to deliberation. the aim in the present instance is not the suit of clothes, but the _getting of a proper_ suit. that is what is precisely estimated or valuated; and i think i may claim to have shown that the determination of this aim is identical with the determination of the value of a suit through comparison of the values of cheapness, durability, style, pattern of different suits offered. value is not determined by comparing various suits with an ideal model, but by comparing various suits with respect to cheapness, durability, adaptability _with one another_--involving, of course, reference also to length of purse, suits already possessed, etc., and other specific elements in the situation which demands that something be done. the purchaser may, of course, have settled upon something which serves as a model before he goes to buy; but that only means that his judging has been done beforehand; the model does not then function in judgment, but in his act as stimulus to immediate action. and there is a consideration here involved of the utmost importance as to practical judgments of the moral type: the more completely the notion of the model is formed outside and irrespective of the specific conditions which the situation of action presents, the less intelligent is the act. most men might have their ideals of the model changed somewhat in the face of the actual offering, even in the case of buying clothes. the man who is not accessible to such change in the case of moral situations has ceased to be a moral agent and become a reacting machine. in short, the standard of valuation is formed in the process of practical judgment or valuation. it is not something taken from outside and applied within it--such application means there is no judgment. iv nothing has been said thus far about a standard. yet the conception of a standard, or a measure, is so closely connected with valuation that its consideration affords a test of the conclusions reached. it must be admitted that the concepts of the nature of a standard pointed to by the course of the prior discussion is not in conformity with current conceptions. for the argument points to a standard which is determined within the process of valuation, not outside of it, and hence not capable of being employed ready-made, therefore, to settle the valuing process. to many persons, this will seem absurd to the point of self-contradiction. the prevailing conception, however, has been adopted without examination; it is a preconception. if accepted, it deprives judgment and knowledge of all significant import in connection with moral action. if the standard is already given, all that remains is its mechanical application to the case in hand--as one would apply a yard rule to dry-goods. genuine moral uncertainty is then impossible; where it seems to exist, it is only a name for a moral unwillingness, due to inherent viciousness, to recognize and apply the rules already made and provided, or else for a moral corruption which has enfeebled man's power of moral apprehension. when the doctrine of standards prior to and independent of moral judgments is accompanied by these other doctrines of original sin and corruption, one must respect the thoroughgoing logic of the doctrine. such is not, however, the case with the modern theories which make the same assumption of standards preceding instead of resulting from moral judgments, and which ignore the question of uncertainty and error in their apprehension. such considerations do not, indeed, decide anything, but they may serve to get a more unprejudiced hearing for a hypothesis which runs counter to current theories, since it but formulates the trend of current practices in their increasing tendency to make the act of intelligence the central factor in morals. let us, accordingly, consider the alternatives to regarding the standard of value as something evolved in the process of reflective valuation. how can such a standard be known? either by an a priori method of intuition, or by abstraction from prior cases. the latter conception throws us into the arms of hedonism. for the hedonistic theory of the standard of value derives its logical efficiency from the consideration that the notion of a prior and fixed standard (one which is not determined within the situation by reflection) forces us back upon antecedent irreducible pleasures and pains which alone are values definite and certain enough to supply standards. they alone are simple enough to be independent and ultimate. the apparently common-sense alternative would be to take the "value" of prior situations _in toto_, say, the value of an act of kindness to a sufferer. but any such good is a function of the total unanalyzed situation; it has, consequently, no application to a new situation unless the new exactly repeats the old one. only when the "good" is resolved into simple and unalterable units, in terms of which old situations can be equated to new ones on the basis of the number of units contained, can an unambiguous standard be found. the logic is unimpeachable, and points to irreducible pleasures and pains as the standard of valuation. the difficulty is not in the logic but in empirical facts, facts which verify our prior contention. conceding, for the sake of argument, that there are definite existences such as are called pleasures and pains, they are _not_ value-objects, but are only things to be valued. exactly the same pleasure or pain, as an existence, has different values at different times according to the way in which it is judged. what is the value of the pleasure of eating the lobster as compared with the pains of indigestion? the rule tells us, of course, to break up the pleasure and pain into elementary units and count.[87] such ultimate simple units seem, however, to be about as much within the reach of ordinary knowledge as atoms or electrons are within the grasp of the man of the street. their resemblance to the ultimate, neutral units which analytic psychologists have postulated as a methodological necessity is evident. since the value of even such a definite entity as a toothache varies according to the organization constructed and presented in reflection, it is clear that ordinary empirical pleasures and pains are highly complex. this difficulty, however, may be waived. we may even waive the fact that a theory which set out to be ultra-empirical is now enmeshed in the need for making empirical facts meet dialectical requirements. another difficulty is too insuperable to be waived. in any case the quantity of elementary existences which constitutes the criterion of measurement is dependent upon the very judgment which is assumed to be regulated by it. the standard of valuation is the units which will _result_ from an act; they are future consequences. now the character of the agent judging is one of the conditions of the production of these consequences. a callous person not only will not foresee certain consequences, and will not be able to give them proper weight, but he does not afford the same condition of their occurrence which is constituted by a sensitive man. it is quite possible to employ judgment so as to produce acts which will increase this organic callousness. the analytic conception of the moral criterion provides--logically--for deliberate blunting of susceptibilities. if the matter at issue is simply one of number of units of pleasure over pain, arrange matters so that certain pains will not, as matter of fact, be felt. while this result may be achieved by manipulation of extra-organic conditions, it may also be effected by rendering the organism insensitive. persistence in a course which in the short run yields uneasiness and sympathetic pangs, will in the long run eliminate these pains and leave a net pleasure balance. this is a time-honored criticism of hedonism. my present concern with it is purely logical. it shows that the attempt to bring over from past objects the elements of a standard for valuing future consequences is a hopeless one. the express object of a valuation-judgment is to release factors which being new, cannot be measured on the basis of the past alone. this discussion of the analytic logic as applied in morals would, however, probably not be worth while did it not serve to throw into relief the significance of any appeal to fulfilment of a system or organization as _the_ moral good--the standard. such an appeal, if it is wary, is an appeal to the present situation as _undergoing that reorganization that will confer upon it the unification which it lacks_; to organization as something to be brought about, to be made. and it is clear that this appeal meets all the specifications of judgments of practice as they have been described. the organization which is to be fulfilled through action is an organization which, at the time of judging, is present in conception, in idea--in, that is, reflective inquiry as a phase of reorganizing activity. and since its presence in conception is both a condition of the organization aimed at _and_ a function of the adequacy of the reflective inquiry, it is evident that there is here a confirmation of our statement that the practical judgment is a judgment of what and how to judge as an integral part of the completion of an incomplete temporal situation. more specifically, it also appears that the standard is a rule for conducting inquiry to its completion: it is a counsel to make examination of the operative factors complete, a warning against suppressing recognition of any of them. however a man may impose upon himself or upon others, a man's real measure of value is exhibited in what he _does_, not in what he consciously thinks or says. for the doing is the _actual_ choice. it is the completed reflection. it is comparatively easy at the present time in moral theory to slam both hedonism and apriorism. it is not so easy to see the logical implications of the alternative to them. the conception of an organization of interests or tendencies is often treated as if it were a conception which is definite in subject-matter as well as clear-cut in form. it is taken not as a rule for procedure in inquiry, a direction and a warning (which it is), but as something all of whose constituents are already given for _knowledge_, even though not given in fact. the act of fulfilling or realizing must then be treated as devoid of intellectual import. it is a mere doing, not a learning and a testing. but how can a situation which is incomplete in fact be completely known until it _is_ complete? short of the fulfilment of a conceived organization, how can the conception of the proposed organization be anything more than a working hypothesis, a method of treating the given elements in order to see what happens? does not every notion which implies the possibility of an apprehension of knowledge of the end to be reached[88] also imply either an a priori revelation of the nature of that end, or else that organization is nothing but a whole composed of elementary parts already given--the logic of hedonism? the logic of subsumption in the physical sciences meant that a given state of things could be compared with a ready-made concept as a model--the phenomena of the heavens with the implications of, say, the circle. the methods of experimental science broke down this motion; they substituted for an alleged regulative model a formula which was the integrated function of the particular phenomena themselves, a formula to be used as a method of further observations and experiments and thereby tested and developed. the unwillingness to believe that, in a similar fashion, moral standards or models can be trusted to develop out of the specific situations of action shows how little the general logical force of the method of science has been grasped. physical knowledge did not as matter of fact advance till the dogma of models or forms as standards of knowledge had been ousted. yet we hang tenaciously to a like doctrine in morals for fear of moral chaos. it once seemed to be impossible that the disordered phenomena of perception could generate a knowledge of law and order; it was supposed that independent principles of order must be supplied and the phenomena measured by approach to or deviation from the fixed models. the ordinary conception of a standard in practical affairs is a precise analogue. physical knowledge started on a secure career when men had courage to start from the irregular scene and to treat the suggestions to which it gave rise as methods for instituting new observations and experiences. acting upon the suggested conceptions analyzed, extended, and ordered phenomena and thus made improved conceptions--methods of inquiry--possible. it is reasonable to believe that what holds moral knowledge back is above all the conception that there are standards of good given to knowledge apart from the work of reflection in constructing methods of action. as the bringer of bad news gets a bad name, being made to share in the production of the evil which he reports, so honest acknowledgment of the uncertainty of the moral situation and of the hypothetical character of all rules of moral mensuration prior to acting upon them, is treated as if it originated the uncertainty and created the skepticism. it may be contended, however, that all this does not justify the earlier statement that the limiting situation which occasions and cuts off judgment is not itself a value. why, it will be asked, does a man buy a suit of clothes unless that is a value, or at least a proximate means to a further value? the answer is short and simple: because he has to; because the situation in which he lives demands it. the answer probably seems too summary. but it may suggest that while a man lives, he never is called upon to judge whether he shall act, but simply _how_ he shall act. a decision not to act is a decision to act in a certain way; it is never a judgment not to act, unqualifiedly. it is a judgment to do something else--to wait, for example. a judgment that the best thing to do is to retire from active life, to become a simon stylites, is a judgment to act in a certain way, conditioned upon the necessity that, irrespective of judging, a man will have to act somehow anyway. a decision to commit suicide is not a decision to be dead; it is a decision to perform a certain act. the act may depend upon reaching the conclusion that life is not worth living. but as a judgment, this is a conclusion to act in a way to terminate the possibility of further situations requiring judgment and action. and it does not imply that a judgment about life as a supreme value and standard underlies all judgments as to how to live. more specifically, it is not a judgment upon the value of life _per se_, but a judgment that one does not find at hand the specific means of making life worth while. as an act to be done, it falls within and assumes life. as a judgment upon the value of life, by definition it evades the issue. no one ever influenced a person considering committing suicide by arguments concerning the value of life, but only by suggesting or supplying conditions and means which make life worth living; in other words, by furnishing _direct_ stimuli to living. however, i fear that all this argument may only obscure a point obvious without argument, namely, that all deliberation upon what to do is concerned with the completion and determination of a situation in some respect incomplete and so indeterminate. every such situation is specific; it is not _merely_ incomplete; the incompleteness is _of_ a specific situation. hence the situation sets limits to the reflective process; what is judged has reference to it and that which limits never is judged in the particular situation in which it is limiting. now we have in ordinary speech a word which expresses the nature of the conditions which limit the judgments of value. it is the word "invaluable." the word does not mean something of supreme value as compared with other things any more than it means something of zero value. it means something out of the scope of valuation--something out of the range of judgment; whatever in the situation at hand is not and cannot be any part of the subject-matter of judgment and which yet instigates and cuts short the judgment. it means, in short, that judgment at some point runs against the brute act of holding something dear as its limit. v the statement that values are determined in the process of judgment of what to do (that is, in situations where preference depends upon reflection upon the conditions and possibilities of a situation requiring action) will be met by the objection that our practical deliberations usually assume precedent specific values and also a certain order or grade among them. there is a sense in which i am not concerned to deny this. our deliberate choices go on in situations more or less like those in which we have previously chosen. when deliberation has reached a valuation, and action has confirmed or verified the conclusion, the result remains. situations overlap. the _m_ which is judged better than _n_ in one situation is found worse than _l_ in another, and so on; thus a certain order of precedence is established. and we have to broaden the field to cover the habitual order of reflective preferences in the community to which we belong. the valu-eds or valuables thus constituted present themselves as facts in subsequent situations. moreover, by the same kind of operation, the dominating objects of past valuations present themselves as standardized values. but we have to note that such value-standards are only presumptive. their status depends, on one hand, upon the extent in which the present situation is like the past. in a progressive or rapidly altering social life, the presumption of identical present value is weakened. and while it would be foolish not to avail one's self of the assistance in present valuations of the valuables established in other situations, we have to remember that habit operates to make us overlook differences and presume identity where it does not exist--to the misleading of judgment. on the other hand, the contributory worth of past determinations of value is dependent upon the extent in which _they_ were critically made; especially upon the extent in which the consequences brought about through acting upon them have been carefully noted. in other words, the presumptive force of a past value in present judgment depends upon the pains taken with its verification. in any case, so far as judgment takes place (instead of the reminiscence of a prior good operating as a direct stimulus to present action) all valuation is in some degree a revaluation. nietzsche would probably not have made so much of a sensation, but he would have been within the limits of wisdom, if he had confined himself to the assertion that all judgment, in the degree in which it is critically intelligent, is a transvaluation of prior values. i cannot escape recognition that any allusion to modification or transformation of an object through judgment arouses partisan suspicion and hostility. to many it appears to be a survival of an idealistic epistemology. but i see only three alternatives. either there are no practical judgments--as judgments they are wholly illusory; or the future is bound to be but a repetition of the past or a reproduction of something eternally existent in some transcendent realm (which is the same thing logically),[89] or the object of a practical judgment is some change, some alteration, to be brought about in the given, the nature of the change depending upon the judgment and yet constituting its subject-matter. unless the epistemological realist accepts one of the two first alternatives, he seems bound, in accepting the third, to admit not merely that practical judgments make a difference in things as an after-effect (this he seems ready enough to admit), but that the import and validity of judgments is a matter of the difference thus made. one may, of course, hold that this is just what marks the distinction of the practical judgment from the scientific judgment. but one who admits this fact as respects a practical judgment can no longer claim that it is fatal to the very idea of judgment to suppose that its proper object is some difference to be brought about in things, and that the truth of the judgment is constituted by the differences in consequences actually made. and a logical realist who takes seriously the notion that moral good is a fulfilment of an organization or integration must admit that any proposition about such an object is prospective (for it is something _to be_ attained through action), and that the proposition is made for the sake of furthering the fulfilment. let one start at this point and carry back the conception into a consideration of other kinds of propositions, and one will have, i think, the readiest means of apprehending the intent of the theory that all propositions are but the propoundings of possible knowledge, not knowledge itself. for unless one marks off the judgment of good from other judgment by means of an arbitrary division of the organism from the environment, or of the subjective from the objective, no ground for any sharp line of division in the propositional-continuum will appear. but (to obviate misunderstanding) this does not mean that some psychic state or act makes the difference in things. in the first place, the subject-matter of the judgment is a change to be brought about; and, in the second place, this subject-matter does not become an _object_ until the judgment has issued in act. it is the act which makes the difference, but nevertheless the act is but the complete object of judgment and the judgment is complete as a judgment only in the act. the anti-pragmatists have been asked (notably by professor a. w. moore) how they sharply distinguish between judgment--or knowledge--and act and yet freely admit and insist that knowledge makes a difference in action and hence in existence. this is the crux of the whole matter. and it is a logical question. it is not a query (as it seems to have been considered) as to how the mental can influence a physical thing like action--a variant of the old question of how the mind affects the body. on the contrary, the implication is that the relation of knowledge to action becomes a problem of the action of a mental (or logical) entity upon a physical one only when the logical import of judgment has been misconceived. the positive contention is that the realm of logical propositions presents in a realm of _possibility_ the specific rearrangement of things which overt action presents in actuality. hence the passage of a proposition into action is not a miracle, but the realization of its own character--its own meaning as logical. i do not profess, of course, to have shown that such is the case for _all_ propositions; that is a matter which i have not discussed. but in showing the tenability of the hypothesis that practical judgments are of that nature, i have at least ruled out any purely dialectic proof that the _nature_ of knowledge as such forbids entertaining the hypothesis that the import--indirect if not direct--of all logical propositions is some difference to be brought about. the road is at least cleared for a more unprejudiced consideration of this hypothesis on its own merits. sense perception as knowledge i mentioned incidentally in the first section that it is conceivable that failure to give adequate consideration to practical judgments may have a compromising effect upon the consideration of other types. i now intend to develop this remark with regard to sense perception as a form of knowledge. the topic is so bound up with a multitude of perplexing psychological and epistemological traditions that i have first to make it reasonably clear what it is and what it is not which i propose to discuss. i endeavored in an earlier series of papers[90] to point out that the question of the _material_ of sense perception is not, as such, a problem of the theory of knowledge at all, but simply a problem of the occurrence of a certain material--a problem of causal conditions and consequences. that is to say, the problem presented by an image[91] of a bent stick, or by a dream, or by "secondary" sensory qualities is properly a problem of physics--of conditions of occurrence, and not of logic, of truth or falsity, fact or fiction. that the existence of a red _quale_ is dependent upon disturbances of a certain velocity of a medium in connection with certain changes of the organism is not to be confused with the notion that red is a way of knowing, in some more or less adequate fashion, some more "real" object or else of knowing itself. the fact of causation--or functional dependence--no more makes the _quale_ an "appearance" to the mind of something more real than itself or of itself than it makes bubbles on the water a real fish transferred by some cognitive distortion into a region of appearance. with a little stretching we may use the term appearance in either case, but the term only means that the red _quale_ or the water-bubble is an _obvious_ or conspicuous thing from which we infer something else not so obvious. this position thus freely resumed here needs to be adequately guarded on all sides. it implies that the question of the existence or presence of the _subject-matter_ of even a complex sense perception may be treated as a question of physics. it also implies that the _existence_ of a sense perception may be treated as a problem of physics. but the position is not that _all_ the problems of sense perception are thereby exhausted. there is still, on the contrary, the problem of the cognitive status of sense perception. so far from denying this fact, i mean rather to emphasize it in holding that this knowledge aspect is not to be identified--as it has been in both realistic and idealistic epistemologies--with the simple _occurrence_ of presented subject-matter and with the _occurrence_ of a perceptive act. it is often stated, for example, that primitive sense objects when they are stripped of all inferential material cannot possibly be false--but with the implication that they, therefore, must be true. well, i meant to go this statement one better--to state that they are neither true nor false--that is, that the distinction of true-or-false is as irrelevant and inapplicable as to any other existence, as it is, say, to being more than five feet high or having a low blood pressure. this position when taken leaves over the question of sense perception as knowledge, as capable of truth or falsity. it is this question, then, which i intend to discuss in this paper. i my first point is that some sense perceptions at least (as matter of fact the great bulk of them), are without any doubt forms of practical judgment--or, more accurately, are terms in practical judgments as propositions of what to do. when in walking down a street i see a sign on the lamp-post at the corner, i assuredly see a sign. now in ordinary context (i do not say always or necessarily) this is a sign of what to do--to continue walking or to turn. the other term of the proposition may not be stated or it may be; it is probably more often tacit. of course, i have taken the case of the sign purposely. but the case may be extended. the lamp-post as perceived is to a lamp-lighter a sign of something else than a turn, but still a sign of something to be done. to another man, it may be a sign of a possible support. i am anxious not to force the scope of cases of this class beyond what would be accepted by an unbiased person, but i wish to point out that certain features of the perceived object, as a cognitive term, which do not seem at first sight to fall within this conception of the object, as, an intellectual sign of what to do, turn out upon analysis to be covered by it. it may be said, for example, that our supposed pedestrian perceives much besides that which serves as evidence of the thing to be done. he perceives the lamp-_post_, for example, and possibly the carbons of the arc. and these assuredly do not enter into the indication of what to do or how to do it. the reply is threefold. in the first place, it is easy--and usual--to read back into the sense perception more than was actually in it. it is easy to _recall_ the familiar features of the lamp-post; it is practically impossible--or at least very unusual--to recall what was actually perceived. so we read the former into the latter. the _tendency_ is for actual perception to limit itself to the minimum which will serve as sign. but, in the second place, since it is never wholly so limited, since there is always a surplusage of perceived object, the fact stated in the objection is admitted. but it is precisely this surplusage which has not _cognitive_ status. it does not serve as a sign, but neither is it _known_, or a term in knowledge. a child, walking by his father's side, with no aim and hence no reason for securing indications of what to do, will probably see more in his idle curiosity than his parent. he will have more presented material. but this does not mean that he is making more propositions, but only that he is getting more material for possible propositions. it means, in short, that he is in an aesthetic attitude of realization rather than in a cognitive attitude. but even the most economical observer has some aesthetic, non-cognitive surplusage.[92] in the third place, surplusage is necessary for the operation of the signifying function. independently of the fact that surplusage may be required to render the sign specific, action is free (its variation is under control) in the degree in which _alternatives_ are present. the pedestrian has probably the two alternatives in mind: to go straight on or to turn. the perceived object might indicate to him another alternative--to stop and inquire of a passer-by. and, as is obvious in a more complicated case, it is the extent of the perceived object which both multiplies alternative ways of acting and gives the grounds for selecting among them. a physician, for example, deliberately avoids such hard-and-fast alternatives as have been postulated in our instance. he does not observe simply to get an indication of whether the man is well or ill; but in order to determine what to do he extends his explorations over a wide field. much of his perceived object field is immaterial to what he finally does; that is, does not serve as sign. but it is all relevant to _judging_ what he is to do. sense perception as a term in practical judgment _must_ include more than the element which finally serves as sign. if it did not, there would be no perception, but only a direct stimulus to action.[93] the conclusion that such perceptions as we have been considering are terms in an inference is to be carefully discriminated from the loose statement that sense perceptions are unconscious inferences. there is a great difference between saying that the perception of a shape affords an indication for an inference and saying that the perception of shape is itself an inference. that definite shapes would not be perceived, were it not for neural changes brought about in prior inferences, is a possibility; it may be, for aught i know, an ascertained fact. such telescoping of a perceived object with the object inferred from it may be a constant function; but in any case the telescoping is not a matter of a present inference going on unconsciously, but is the result of an organic modification which has occurred in consequence of prior inferences. in similar fashion, to say that to see a table is to get an indication of something to write on is in no way to say that the perception of a table is an inference from sensory data. to say that certain earlier perceived objects not having as perceived the character of a table have now "fused" with the results of inferences drawn from them is not to say that the perception of the table is now an inference. suppose we say that the first perception was of colored patches; that we inferred from this the possibility of reaching and touching, and that on performing these acts we secured certain qualities of hardness, smoothness, etc., and that these are now all fused with the color-patches. at most this only signifies that certain _previously_ inferred qualities have now become consolidated with qualities from which they were formerly inferred. and such fusion or consolidation is precisely _not inference_. as matter of fact, such "fusion" of qualities, given and _formerly_ inferred, is but a matter of speaking. what has really happened is that _brain_ processes which formerly happened successively now happen simultaneously. what we are dealing with is not a fact of cognition, but a fact of the organic conditions of the occurrence of an act of perception. let us apply the results to the question of sense "illusions." the bent reed in the water comes naturally to mind. purely physical considerations account for the refraction of the light which produces an optical image of a bent stick. this has nothing to do with knowledge or with sense perception--with seeing. it is simply and wholly a matter of the properties of light and a lens. such refractions are constantly produced without our noting them. in the past, however, light refracted and unrefracted has been a constant stimulus to responsive actions. it is a matter of the native constitution of the organism that light stimulates the eyes to follow and the arms to reach and the hands to clutch and handle. as a consequence, certain arrangements of reflected and refracted light have become a sign to perform certain specific acts of handling and touching. as a rule, stimuli and reactions occur in an approximately homogeneous medium--the air. the system of signs or indexes of action set up has been based upon this fact and accommodated to it. a habit or bias in favor of a certain kind of inference has been set up. we infer from a bent ray of light that the hand, in touching the reflecting object, will, at a certain point, have to change its direction. this habit is carried over to a medium in which the conclusion does not hold. instead of saying that light is bent--which it is--we _infer_ that the stick is bent: we infer that the hand could not protract a straight course in handling the object. but an expert fisherman never makes such an error in spearing fish. reacting in media of different refractive capacities, he bases his signs and inferences upon the conditions and results of his media. i see no difference between these cases and that of a man who can read his own tongue. he sees the word "pain" and infers it means a certain physical discomfort. as matter of fact, the thing perceived exists in an unfamiliar medium and signifies bread. to the one accustomed to the french language the right inference occurs.[94] there is neither error nor truth in the optical image: it just exists physically. but we take it for something else, we behave to it as if it were something else. we _mis_-take it. ii so far as i can see, the pronounced tendency to regard the perceived object as itself the object of a peculiar kind of knowledge instead of as a term in knowledge of the practical kind has two causes. one is the confirmed habit of neglecting the wide scope and import of practical judgments. this leads to overlooking the responsive act as the other term indicated by the perception, and to taking the perceived object as the whole of the situation just by itself. the other cause is the fact that because perceived objects are constantly employed as evidence of what is to be done--or how to do something--they themselves become the objects of prolonged and careful scrutiny. we pass naturally and inevitably from recognition to _observation_. inference will usually take care of itself if the datum is properly determined. at the present day, a skilled physician will have little difficulty in inferring typhoid instead of malaria from certain symptoms provided he can make certain observations--that is, secure certain data from which to infer. the labor of intelligence is thus transferred from inference to the determination of data, the data being determined, however, in the interests of inference and as parts of an inference. at this point, a significant complication enters in. the ordinary assumption in the discussion of the relation of perceived objects to knowledge is that "the" object--the real object--of knowledge in perception is the thing which _caused_ the qualities which are given. it is assumed, that is, that the other term of a proposition in which a sense datum is one term must be the thing which produced it. since this producing object does not for the most part appear in ordinary sense perception, we have on our hands perception as an epistemological problem--the relation of an appearance to some reality which it, somehow, conceals rather than indicates. hence also the difficulties of "reconciling" scientific knowledge in physics where these causes are the terms of the propositions with "empirical" or sense perception knowledge where they do not even appear. here is where the primary advantage of recognizing that ordinary sense perceptions are forms of practical judgment comes in. in practical judgments, the other term is as open and aboveboard as is the sensory quality: it is the thing to be done, the response to be selected. to borrow an illustration of professor woodbridge's: a certain sound indicates to the mother that her baby needs attention. if she turns out to be in error, it is not because sound ought to mean so many vibrations of the air, and as matter of fact doesn't even suggest air vibrations, but because there is wrong inference as to the act to be performed. i imagine that if error never occurred in inferences of this practical sort the human race would have gone on quite contented with them. however that may be, errors _do_ occur and the endeavor to control inference as to consequences (so as to reduce their likelihood of error) leads to propositions where the knowledge-object of the perceived thing is not something to be done, but the cause which produced it. the mother finds her baby peacefully sleeping and says the baby didn't _make_ the noise. she investigates and decides a swinging door _made_ it. instead of inferring a consequence, she infers a cause. if she had identified the noise in the first place, she would have concluded that the hinges needed oiling. now where does the argument stand? the proper control of inference in specific cases is found (_a_) to lie in the proper identification of the datum. if the perception is of a certain kind, the inference takes place as a matter of course; or else inference can be suspended until more adequate data are found, and thus error is avoided even if truth be not found. furthermore (_b_) it is discovered that the most effective way of identifying datum (and securing adequate data) is by inference to its cause. the mother stops short with the baby and the door as causes. but the same motives which made her transfer her inference from consequences to conditions are the motives which lead others to inferring from sounds to vibrations of air. hence our scientific propositions about sensory data. they are not, as such, about things to do, but about things which have been done, have happened--"facts." but they have reference, nevertheless, to inferences regarding consequences to be effected. they are the means of securing data which will prevent errors which would otherwise occur, and which facilitate an entirely new crop of inferences as to possibilities--means and ends--of action. that scientific men should be conscious of this reference or even interested in it is not at all necessary, for i am talking about the logic of propositions, not about biography nor psychology. if i reverted to psychology, it would be to point out that there is no reason in the world why the practical activity of some men should not be predominantly directed into the pursuits connected with discovery. the extent in which they actually are so directed depends upon social conditions. iii we are brought to a consideration of the notion of "primitive" sense data. it was long customary to treat the attempt to define true knowledge in terms derived from sense data as a confusion of psychology--or the history of the growth of knowledge--with logic, the theory of the character of knowledge as knowledge. as matter of fact, there _is_ confusion, but in the opposite direction. the attempt involved a confusion of logic with psychology--that is, it treated a phase of the technique of inference as if it were a natural history of the growth of ideas and beliefs. the chief source of error in ordinary inference is an unrecognized complexity of data. perception which is not experimentally controlled fails to present sufficiently wide data to secure differentia of possible inferences, and it fails to present, even in what is given, lines of cleavage which are important for proper inference. this is only an elaborate way of saying what scientific inquiry has made clear, that, for purposes of inference as to conditions of production of what is present, _ordinary_ sense perception is too narrow, too confused, too vivid as to some _quales_ and too blurred as to some others. let us confine our attention for the moment to confusion. it has often been pointed out that sense qualities being just what they are, it is illegitimate to introduce such notions as obscurity or confusion into them: a slightly illuminated color is just as irretrievably what it is, as clearly itself, as an object in the broad glare of noonday. but the case stands otherwise when the _quale_ is taken as a datum for inference. it is not so easy to identify a perceived object _for purposes of inference_ in the dusk as in bright light. from the standpoint of an inference to be effected, the confusion is the same as an unjustifiable simplification. this over-simplification has the effect of making the _quale_, as a term of inference, ambiguous. to infer from it is to subject ourselves to the danger of all fallacies of ambiguity which are expounded in the textbooks. the remedy is clearly the resolution, by experimental means, of what seems to be a simple datum into its "elements." this is a case of analysis; it differs from other modes of analysis only in the subject-matter upon which it is directed, viz., something which had been previously accepted as a simple whole. the result of this analysis is the existence as objects of perception of isolated qualities like the colors of the spectrum scientifically determined, the tones of the scale in all their varying intensities, etc., in short, the "sensations" or sense qualities of contemporary psychology textbooks or the "simple ideas" of sensation of locke or the "objects of sense" of russell. they are the material of sense perception discriminated for the purpose of better inferences. note that these simple data or elements are not original, psychologically or historically; they are _logical_ primitives--that is, irreducible for purposes of inference. they are simply the most unambiguous and best defined objects of perception which can be secured to serve as _signs_. they are experimentally determined, with great art, precisely because the naturally given, the customary, objects in perception have been ambiguous or confused terms in inference. hence they are replaced, through experimental means involving the use of wide scientific knowledge deductively employed, by simpler sense objects. stated in current phraseology, "sensations" (i.e., qualities present to sense) are not the elements out of which perceptions are composed, constituted, or constructed; they are the finest, most carefully discriminated objects of perception. we do not first perceive a single, thoroughly defined shade, a tint and hue of red; its perception is the last refinement of observation. such things are the limits of perception, but they are final, not initial, limits. they are what is perceived to be given under the most favorable possible conditions; conditions, moreover, which do not present themselves accidentally, but which have to be intentionally and experimentally established, and detection of which exacts the use of a vast body of scientific propositions. i hope it is now evident what was meant by saying that current logic presents us not with a confusion of psychology with logic, but with a wholesale mistaking of logical determinations for facts of psychology. the confusion was begun by locke--or rather made completely current through the enormous influence exercised by locke--and some reference to locke may be of aid in clearing up the point. locke's conception of knowledge was logical, not psychological. he meant by knowledge thoroughly justified beliefs or propositions, "certainty," and carefully distinguished it from what passed current as knowledge at a given time. the latter he called "assent," opinion, belief, or judgment. moreover, his interest in the latter was logical. he was after an art of controlling the proper degree of assent to be given in matters of probability. in short, his sole aim was to determine certainty where certainty is possible and to determine the due degree of probability in the much vaster range of cases where only probability is attainable. a natural history of the growth of "knowledge" in the sense of what happens to pass for knowledge was the last of his interests. but he was completely under the domination of the ruling idea of his time; namely, that _nature_ is the norm of truth. now the earliest period of human life presents the "work of nature" in its pure and unadulterated form. the normal is the original, and the original is the normative. nature is both beneficent and truthful in its work; it retains all the properties of the supreme being whose vice-regent it is. to get the logical ultimates we have only, therefore, to get back to the natural primitives. under the influence of such deistic ideas, locke writes a mythology of the history of knowledge, starting from clear and distinct meanings, each simple, well defined, sharply and unambiguously just what it is on its face, without concealments and complications, and proceeds by "natural" compoundings up to the store of complex ideas, and to the perception of simple relations of agreement among ideas: a perception always certain if the ideas are simple, and always controllable in the case of complex ideas if we consider the simple ideas and their compoundings. thus he established the habit of taking logical discriminations as historical or psychological primitives--as "sources" of beliefs and knowledge instead of as checks upon inference and as means of knowing. i hope reference to locke will not make a scapegoat. i should not have mentioned him if it were not that this way of looking at things found its way over into orthodox psychology and then back again into the foundations of logical theory. it may be said to be the stock in trade of the school of empiricist logicians, and (what is even more important) of the other schools of logic whenever they are dealing with propositions of perception and observation: _vide_ russell's trusting confidence in "atomic" propositions as psychological primitives. it led to the supposition that there is a kind of _knowledge_ or simple apprehension (or sense acquaintance) implying no inference and yet basic to inference. note, if you please, the multitude of problems generated by thinking of whatever is present in experience (as sensory qualities are present) as if it were intrinsically and apart from the use made of its subject-matter of knowledge. _a_) the mind-body problem becomes an integral part of the problem of knowledge. sense organs, neurones, and neuronic connections are certainly involved in the occurrence of a sense quality. if the occurrence of the latter is in and of itself a mode of knowledge, it becomes a matter of utmost importance to determine just how the sense organs take part in it. if one is an idealist he responds with joy to any intimation that the "process of apprehension" (that is, speaking truly, the physical conditions of the occurrence of the sensory datum) transforms the extra-organic stimulus: the alteration is testimony somehow to the constitutive nature of mind! but if he is a realist he conceives himself under obligation to show that the external stimulus is transmitted without any alteration and is apprehended just as it is; color must be shown to be simply, after all, a compacting of vibrations--or else the validity of knowledge is impugned! recognize that knowledge is something _about_ the color, whether about its conditions or causes or consequences or whatever, and that we don't have to identify color itself with a mode of knowing, and the situation changes. we know a color when we understand, just as we know a thunder-storm when we understand. more generally speaking, the relation of brain-change to consciousness is thought to be an essential part of the problem of knowledge. but if the brain is involved in knowing simply as part of the mechanism of acting, as the mechanism for co-ordinating partial and competing stimuli into a single scheme of response, as part of the mechanism of actual experimental inquiry, there is no miracle about the participation of the brain in knowing. one might as well make a problem of the fact that it takes a hammer to drive a nail and takes a hand to hold the hammer as to make a problem out of the fact that it also requires a physical structure to discover and to adapt the particular acts of holding and striking which are needed. _b_) the propositions of physical science are not found among the data of apprehension. mathematical propositions may be disposed of by making them purely a priori; propositions about sense objects by making them purely a posteriori.[95] but physical propositions, such as make up physics, chemistry, biology, to say nothing of propositions of history, anthropology, and society, are neither one nor the other. i cannot state the case better than mr. russell has stated it, although, i am bound to add, the stating did not arouse in mr. russell any suspicion of the premises with which he was operating. "men of science, for the most part, are willing to condemn immediate data as 'merely subjective,' while yet maintaining the truth of the physics inferred from those data. but such an attitude, though it may be _capable_ of justification, obviously stands in need of it; and the only justification possible must be one which exhibits matter as a logical construction from sense data.... it is therefore necessary to find some way of bridging the gulf between the world of physics and the world of sense."[96] i do not see how anyone familiar with the two-world schemes which have played such a part in the history of humanity can read this statement without depression. and if it occurred to one that the sole generating condition of _these_ two worlds is the assumption that sense objects are modes of apprehension or knowledge (are so intrinsically and not in the use made of them), he might think it a small price to pay to inquire into the standing of this assumption. for it was precisely the fact that sense perception and physical science appeared historically (in the seventeenth century) as rival modes of knowing the same world which led to the conception of sense objects as "subjective"--since they were so different from the objects of science. unless sense and science had both first been thought of as modes of knowing and then as modes of knowing the same things, there would not have been the slightest reason for regarding immediate data, as "merely subjective." they would have been natural phenomena, like any other. that they are phenomena which involve the interaction of an organism with other things is just an important discovery about them, as is also a discovery about starch in plants. physical science is the _knowledge_ of the world by their means. it is a rival, not of them, but of the medley of prior dogmas, superstitions, and chance opinions about the world--a medley which grew up and nourished precisely because of absence of a will to explore and of a technique for detecting unambiguous data. that mr. russell, who is a professed realist, can do no better with the problem (once committed to the notion that sense objects are of themselves _objects_ of knowledge) than to hold that although the world of physics is not a legitimate inference from sense data, it is a permissible logical construction from them--permissible in that it involves no logical inconsistencies--suggests that the pragmatic difference between idealist and realist--of this type--is not very great. from necessary ideal constructions to permissible logical constructions involves considerable difference in technique but no perceptible practical difference. and the point of this family likeness is that both views spring from regarding sense perception and science as ways of knowing the same objects, and hence as rivals until some scheme of conciliation has been devised. _c_) it is but a variant of this problem to pass to what may be called either the ego-centric predicament or the private-public problem. sense data differ from individual to individual. if they are recognized to be natural events, this variation is no more significant than any change depending upon variation of generating conditions. one does not expect two lumps of wax at different distances from a hot body to be affected exactly alike; the upsetting thing would be if they were. neither does one expect cast-iron to react exactly as does steel. that organisms, because of different positions or different internal structures, should introduce differences in the phenomena which they respectively have a share in producing is a fact of the same nature. but make the sense qualities thus produced not natural events (which may then be made either objects of inquiry or means of inquiry into something else) but modes of knowing, and every such deviation marks a departure from true knowing: it constitutes an anomaly. taken _en masse_ the deviations are so marked as to lead to the conclusion (even on the part of a realist like mr. russell) that they constitute a world of private existences, which, however, may be correlated without logical inconsistency with other such worlds. not all realists are leibnizian monadists as is mr. russell; i do not wish to leave the impression that all come to just this solution. but all who regard sense data as apprehensions have on their hands in some form the problem of the seemingly distorting action exercised by the individual knower upon a public or common thing known or believed in. iv i am not trying to discuss or solve these problems. on the contrary, i am trying to show that these problems exist only because of the identification of a datum determined with reference to control of inference with a self-sufficient knowledge-object. as against this assumption i point to the following facts. what is actually given as matter of empirical fact may be indefinitely complicated and diffused. as empirically existent, perceived objects never constitute the whole scope of the given; they have a context of indefinite extent in which they are set. to control inference it is necessary to analyze this complex situation--to determine what is data for inference and what is irrelevant. this analysis involves discriminative resolution into more ultimate simples. the resources of experimentation, all sorts of microscopic, telescopic, and registering apparatus, are called in to perform that analysis. as a result we differentiate not merely visual data from auditory--a discrimination effected by experiments within the reach of everybody--but a vast multitude of visual and auditory data. physics and physiology and anatomy all play a part in the analysis. we even carry the analysis to the point of regarding, say, a color as a self-included object unreferred to any other object. we may avoid a false inference by conceiving it, not as a quality of any object, but as merely a product of a nervous stimulation and reaction. instead of referring it to a ribbon or piece of paper we may refer it to the organism. but this is only as a part of the technique of suspended inference. we avoid some habitual inference in order to make a more careful inference. thus we escape, by a straightening out of our logic (by avoiding erecting a system of logical distinctions and checks into a mythological natural history), the epistemological problems. we also avoid the contradiction which haunts every epistemological scheme so far propounded. as matter of fact every proposition regarding what is "given" to sensation or perception is dependent upon the assumption of a vast amount of scientific knowledge which is the result of a multitude of prior analyses, verifications, and inferences. what a combination of tantalus and sisyphus we get when we fancy that we have cleared the slate of all these material implications, fancy that we have really started with simple and independent givens, and then try to show how from these original givens we can arrive at the very knowledge which we have all the time employed in the discovery and fixation of the simple sense data![97] science as a practical art no one will deny that, as seen from one angle science is a pursuit, an enterprise--a mode of practice. it is at least that, no matter how much more or else it is. in course of the practice of knowing distinctive practical judgments will then naturally be made. especially does this hold good when an intellectual class is developed, when there is a body of persons working at knowing as another body is working at farming or engineering. moreover, the instrumentalities of this inquiring class gain in importance for all classes in the degree in which it is realized that success in the conduct of the practice of farming or engineering or medicine depends upon use of the successes achieved in the business of knowing. the importance of the latter is thrown into relief from another angle if we consider the enterprises, like diplomacy, politics, and, to a considerable extent, morals, which do not acknowledge a thoroughgoing and constant dependence upon the practice of science. as hobbes was wont to say, the advantages of a science of morals are most obvious in the evils which we suffer from its lack. to say that something is to be learned, is to be found out, is to be ascertained or proved or believed, is to say that something is to be done. every such proposition in the concrete is a practical proposition. every such proposition of inquiry, discovery and testing will have then the traits assigned to the class of practical propositions. they imply an incomplete situation going forward to completion, and the proposition as a specific organ of carrying on the movement. i have not the intention of dwelling at length upon this theme. i wish to raise in as definite and emphatic a way as possible a certain question. suppose that the propositions arising within the _practice_ of knowing and functioning as agencies in its conduct could be shown to present all the distinctions and relations characteristic of the subject-matter of logic: what would be the conclusion? to an unbiased mind the question probably answers itself: all purely logical terms and propositions fall within the scope of the class of propositions of inquiry as a special form of propositions of practice. my further remarks are not aimed at _proving_ that the case accords with the hypothesis propounded, but are intended to procure hospitality for the hypothesis. if thinking is the art by which knowledge is practiced, then the materials with which thinking deals may be supposed, by analogy with the other arts, to take on in consequence special shapes. the man who is making a boat will give wood a form which it did not have, in order that it may serve the purposes to which it is to be put. thinking may then be supposed to give its material the form which will make it amenable to its purpose--attaining knowledge, or, as it is ordinarily put, going from the unknown to the known. that physical analysis and synthesis are included in the processes of investigation of natural objects makes them a part of the practice of knowing. and it makes any general traits which result in consequence of such treatment characters of _objects as they are involved in knowledge-getting_. that is to say, if there are any features which natural existences assume in order that inference may be more fertile and more safe than it would otherwise be, those features correspond to the special traits which would be given to wood in process of constructing a boat. they are manufactured, without being any worse because of it. the question which i raised in the last paragraph may then be restated in this fashion: are there such features? if there are, are they like those characters which books on logic talk about? comparison with language may help us. language--i confine myself for convenience to spoken language--consists of sounds. but it does not consist simply of those sounds which issue from the human organs prior to the attempt to communicate. it has been said that an american baby before talking makes almost every sound found in any language. but elimination takes place. and so does intensification. certain sounds originally slurred over are made prominent; the baby has to work for them and the work is one which he neither undertakes nor accomplishes except under the incitation of others. language is chiefly marked off, however, by articulation; by the arrangement of what is selected into an orderly sequence of vowels and consonants with certain rules of stress, etc. it may fairly be said that speech is a manufactured article: it consists of natural ebullitions of sound which have been shaped for the sake of being effective instrumentalities of a purpose. for the most part the making has gone on under the stress of the necessities of communication with little deliberate control. works on phonetics, dictionaries, grammars, rhetorics, etc., mark some participation of deliberate intention in the process of manufacture. if we bring written language into the account, we should find the conscious factor extended somewhat. but making, shaping for an end, there is, whether with or without conscious control. now while there is something in the antecedent properties of sound which enters into the determination of speech, the _worth_ of speech is in no way measured by faithfulness to these antecedent properties. it is measured only by its efficiency and economy in realizing the special results for which it is constructed. written language need not look like sounds any more than sounds look like objects. it must _represent_ articulate sounds, but faithful representation is wholly a matter of carrying the mind to the same outcome, of exercising the same function, not of resemblance or copying. original structure _limits_ what may be made out of anything: one cannot (at least at present) make a silk purse out of pigs' bristles. but this conditioning relationship is very different from one in which the antecedent existences are a model or prototype to which the consequent must be servilely faithful. the boatmaker must take account of the grain and strength of his wood. to take account of, to reckon with, is a very different matter, however, from repetition or literal loyalty. the measure is found in the consequences for which existences are used. i wish, of course, to suggest that logical traits are just features of original existences as they have been worked over for use in inference, as the traits of manufactured articles are qualities of crude materials modified for specific purposes. upon the whole, past theories have vibrated between treating logical traits as "subjective," something resident in "mind" (mind being thought of as an immaterial or psychical existence independent of natural things and events), and ascribing ontological pre-existence to them. thus far in the history of thought, each method has flourished awhile and then called out a reaction to its opposite. the reification (i use the word here without prejudice) of logical traits has taken both an idealistic form (because of emphasis upon their spiritual or ideal nature and stuff) and a realistic one, due to emphasis upon their immediate apprehension and givenness. that mathematics have been from plato to descartes and contemporary analytic realism the great provocative of realistic idealisms is a familiar fact. the hypothesis here propounded is a _via media_. what has been overlooked is the reality and importance of art and its works. the tools and works of art are neither mental, subjective things, nor are they antecedent entities like crude or raw material. they are the latter shaped for a purpose. it is impossible to overstate their objectivity from the standpoint of their existence and their efficacy within the operations in question; nor their objectivity in the sense of their dependence upon prior natural existences whose traits have to be taken account of, or reckoned with, by the operations of art. in the case of the art of inference, the art securely of going from the given to the absent, the dependence of mind upon inference, the fact that wherever inference occurs we have a conscious agent--one who recognizes, plans, invents, seeks out, deliberates, anticipates, and who, reacting to anticipations, fears, hates, desires, etc.--explains the theories which, because of misconception of the nature of mind and consciousness, have labeled logical distinctions psychical and subjective. in short, the theory shows why logical features have been made into ontological entities and into mental states. to elaborate this thesis would be to repeat what has been said in all the essays of this volume. i wish only to call attention to certain considerations which may focus other discussions upon this hypothesis. 1. the existence of inference is a fact, a fact as certain and unquestioned as the existence of eyes or ears or the growth of plants, or the circulation of the blood. one observes it taking place everywhere where human beings exist. a student of the history of man finds that history is composed of beliefs, institutions, and customs which are inexplicable without acts of inference. this fact of inference is as much a datum--a hard fact--for logical theory as any sensory quality whatsoever. it is something men do as they walk, chew, or jump. there is nothing a priori or ideological about it. it is just a brute empirically observable event. 2. its importance is almost as conspicuous as its existence. every act of human life, not springing from instinct or mechanical habit, contains it; most habits are dependent upon some amount of it for their formation, as they are dependent upon it for their readaptation to novel circumstances. from the humblest act of daily life to the most intricate calculations of science and the determination and execution of social, legal, and political policies, things are used as signs, indications, or evidence from which one proceeds to something else not yet directly given. 3. the act of inferring takes place naturally, i.e., without intention. it is at first something we do, not something which we _mean_ to do. we do it as we breathe or walk or gesture. only after it is done do we notice it and reflect upon it--and the great mass of men no more reflect upon it after its occurrence than they reflect upon the process of walking and try to discover its conditions and mechanism. that an individual, an animal organism, a man or a woman performs the acts is to say something capable of direct proof through appeal to observation; to say that something called mind, or consciousness does it is itself to employ inference and dubious inference. the fact of inference is much surer, in other words, than that of a particular inference, such as that to something called reason or consciousness, in connection with it; save as mind is but another word for the fact of inference, in which case of course it cannot be re-referred to as its cause, source, or author. moreover, by all principles of science, inference cannot be referred to mind or consciousness as its condition, unless there is _independent_ proof of the existence of that mind to which it is referred. prima facie we are conscious or aware _of_ inference precisely as we are of anything else, not by introspection of something within the very consciousness which is supposed to be its source, but by observation of something taking place in the world--as we are conscious of walking _after_ we have walked. after it has been done naturally--or "unconsciously"--it may be done "consciously," that is, with intent or on purpose. but this means that it is done _with_ consciousness (whatever consciousness may be discovered to mean), not that it is done _by_ consciousness. now if other natural events characteristic only (so far as can be ascertained) of highly organized beings are marked by unique or by distinctive traits, there is good ground for the assumption that inference will be so marked. as we do not find the circulation of blood or the stimulation of nerves in a stone, and as we expect as a matter of course to find peculiar conditions, qualities, and consequences in the being where such operations occur, so we do not find the act of inference in a stone, and we expect peculiar conditions, qualities, and consequences in whatever beings perform the act. unless, in other words, all the ordinary canons of inquiry are suspended, inference is not an isolated nor a merely formal event. as against the latter, it has its own distinctive structure and properties; as against the former, it has specific generating conditions and specific results. 4. possibly all this seems too obvious for mention. but there is often a virtual conspiracy in philosophy, not to mention obvious things nor to dwell upon them: otherwise remote speculations might be brought to a sudden halt. the point of these commonplaces resides in the push they may give anyone to engage in a search for _distinctive features in the act of inference_. the search may perhaps be best initiated by noting the seeming inconsistency between what has been said about inference as an art and inference as a natural, unpremeditated occurrence. the obvious function of spontaneous inference is to bring before an agent absent considerations to which he may respond as he otherwise responds to the stimulating force of the given situation. to infer rain is to enable one to behave _now_ as given conditions would not otherwise enable him to conduct himself. this instigation to behave toward the remote in space or time is the primary trait of the inferential act; descriptively speaking, the act consists in taking up an attitude of response to an absent thing as if it were present. but just because the thing is absent, the attitude taken may be either irrelevant and positively harmful or extremely pertinent and advantageous. we may infer rain when rain is not going to happen, and acting upon the inference be worse off than if there had been no inference. or we may make preparations, which we would not otherwise have made; the rain may come, and the inference save our lives--as the ark saved noah. inference brings, in short, truth and falsity into the world, just as definitely as the circulation of the blood brings its distinctive consequences, both advantages and liabilities into the world, or as the existence of banking brings with it consequences of business extension and of bankruptcy not previously existent. if the reader objects to the introduction of the terms "truth" and "falsity", i am perfectly willing to leave the choice of words to him, provided the fact is recognized that through inference men are capable of a kind of success and exposed to a kind of failure not otherwise possible: dependent upon the fact that inference takes absent things as being in a certain real continuum with present things, so that our attitude toward the latter is bound up with our reaction to the former as parts of the same situation. and in any event, i wish to protest against a possible objection to the introduction of the terms "false" and "true." it may be said that inference is not responsible for the occurrence of errors and truths, because these accompany simple apprehensions where there is no inference: as when i see a snake which isn't there--or any other case which may appear to the objector to afford an illustration of his point. the objection illustrates my point. to affirm a snake is to affirm potentialities going beyond what is actually given; it says that what is given is _going_ to do something--the doing characteristic of a snake, so that we are to react to the given as to a snake. or if we take the case of a face in the cloud recognized as a phantasy; then (to say nothing of "in the cloud" which involves reference beyond the given) "phantasy," "dream," equally means a reference to objects and considerations _not_ given as the actual datum is given. we have not got very far with our question of distinctive, unique traits called into existence by inference, but we have got far enough to have light upon what is called the "transcendence" of knowledge. all inference is a _going beyond_ the assuredly present to an absent. hence it is a more or less precarious journey. it is transcending limits of security of immediate response. the stone which reacts only to stimuli of the present, not of the future, cannot make the mistakes which a being reacting to a future taken to be connected with the present is sure to make. but it is important to note just what this transcendence consists in. it has nothing to do with transcending mental states to arrive at an external object. _it is behaving to the given situation as involving something not given._ it is robinson crusoe going from a seen foot to an unseen man, not from a mental state to something unmental. 5. the mistakes and failures resulting from inference constitute the ground for transition from natural spontaneous performance to a technique or deliberate art of inference. there is something humorous about the discussion of the problem of error as if it were a rare or exceptional thing--an anomaly--when the barest glance at human history shows that mistakes have been the rule, and that truth lies at the bottom of a well. as to inferences bound up with barely keeping alive, man has had to effect a considerable balance of good guesses over bad. aside from this somewhat narrow field, the original appearance of inference upon the scene probably added to the interest of life rather than to its efficiency. if the classic definition of man as a rational animal means simply an inferring or guessing animal, it applies to the natural man, for it allows for the guesses being mostly wrong. if it is used with its customary eulogistic connotations, it applies only to man chastened to the use of a hardly won and toilsome art. if it alleges that man has any natural preference for a reasonable inference or that the rationality of an inference is a measure of its hold upon him, it is grotesquely wrong. to propagate this error is to encourage man in his most baleful illusion, and to postpone the day of an effective and widespread adoption of a perfected art of knowing. summarily put, the waste and loss consequent upon the natural happening of inference led man, slowly and grudgingly, to the adoption of safeguards in its performance. in some part, the scope of which is easily exaggerated, man has come to attribute many of the ills from which he suffers to his own premature, inept, and unguarded performing of inference, instead of to fate, bad luck, and accident. in some things, and to some extent in all things, he has invented and perfected an art of inquiry: a system of checks and tests to be used before the conclusion of inference is categorically affirmed. its nature has been considered in many other places in these pages, but it may prove instructive to restate it in this context. _a_) nothing is less adapted to a successful accomplishing of an inference than the subject-matter from which it ordinarily fares forth. that subject-matter is a nest of obscurities and ambiguities. the ordinary warnings against trusting to imagination, the bad name which has come intellectually to attach to fancy, are evidences that anything may suggest anything. regarding most of the important happenings in life no inference has been too extravagant to obtain followers and influence action, because subject-matter was so variegated and complex that any objects which it suggested had a prima facie plausibility. that every advance in knowledge has been effected by using agencies which break up a complex subject-matter into independent variables (from each of which a distinct inference may be drawn), and by attacking each one of these things by every conceivable tool for further resolution so as to make sure we are dealing with something so simple as to be unambiguous, is the report of the history of science. it is sometimes held that knowledge comes ultimately to a necessity of belief, or acceptance, which is the equivalent of an incapacity to think otherwise than so and so. well, even in the case of such an apparently simple "self-evident" thing as a red, this inability, if it is worth anything, is a residuum from experimental analysis. we do not believe in the thing as red (whenever there is a need of scientific testing) till we have exhausted all kinds of active attack and find the red still resisting and persisting. ordinarily we move the head; we shade the eyes; we turn the thing over; we take it to a different light. the use of lens, prism, or whatever device, is simply carrying farther the use of like methods as of physical resolution. whatever endures all these active (not mental) attacks, we accept--pending invention of more effective weapons. to make sure that a given fact _is_ just and such a shade of red is, one may say, a final triumph of scientific method. to turn around and treat it as something naturally or psychologically given is a monstrous superstition. when assured, such a simple datum is for the sake of guarding the act of inference. color may mean a lot of things; any red may mean a lot of things; such things are ambiguous; they afford unreliable evidence or signs. to get the color down to the last touch of possible discrimination is to limit its range of testimony; ideally, it is to secure a voice which says but one thing and says that unmistakably. its simplicity is not identical with isolation, but with _specified_ relationship. thus the hard "facts," the brute data, the simple qualities or ideas, the sense elements of traditional and of contemporary logic, get placed and identified within the art of controlling inference. the allied terms "self-evident," "sensory truths," "simple apprehensions" have their meanings unambiguously determined in this same context; while apart from it they are the source of all kinds of error. they are no longer notions to conjure with. they express the last results attainable by present physical methods of discriminative analysis employed in the search for dependable data for inference. improve the physical means of experimentation, improve the microscope or the registering apparatus or the chemical reagent, and they may be replaced tomorrow by new, simple apprehensions of simple and ultimate data. _b_) natural or spontaneous inference depends very largely upon the habits of the individual in whom inferring takes place. these habits depend in turn very largely upon the customs of the social group in which he has been brought up. an eclipse suggests very different things according to the rites, ceremonies, legends, traditions, etc., of the group to which the spectator belongs. the average layman in a civilized group may have no more personal science than an australian bushman, but the legends which determine his reactions are different. his inference is better, neither because of superior intellectual capacity, nor because of more careful personal methods of knowing, but because his instruction has been superior. the instruction of a scientific inquirer in the best scientific knowledge of his day is just as much a part of the control (or art) of inference as is the technique of observational analysis which he uses. as the bulk of prior ascertainments increases, the tendency is to identify this stock of learning, this store of achieved truth, with knowledge. there is no objection to this identification save as it leads the logician or epistemologist to ignore that which _made_ it "knowledge" (that which gives it a right to the title), and as a consequence to fall into two errors: one, overlooking its function in the guidance and handling of future inferences; the other, confusing the mere act of reference to what is known (known so far as it has accrued from prior tested inquiries) with knowing. to remind myself of what is known as to the topic with which i am dealing is an indispensable performance, but to call this reminder "knowing" (as the presentative realist usually does) is to confuse a psychological event with a logical achievement. it is from misconception of this act of reminding one's self of what is known, as a check in some actual inquiry, that arise most of the fallacies about simple acquaintance, mere apprehension, etc.--the fallacies which eliminate inquiry and inferring from knowledge. _c_) the art of inference gives rise to specific features characterizing the _inferred_ thing. the natural man reacts to the suggested thing as he would to something present. that is, he tends to accept it uncritically. the man called up by the footprint on the sand is just as real a man as the footprint is a real footprint. it is a _man_, not the idea of a man, which is indicated. what a thing means is another _thing_; it doesn't mean a meaning. the only difference is that the thing indicated is farther off, or more concealed, and hence (probably) more mysterious, more powerful and awesome, on that account. the man indicated to crusoe by the footprints was like a man of menacing powers seen at a distance through a telescope. things naturally inferred are accepted, in other words, by the natural man on altogether too realistic a basis for adequate control; they impose themselves too directly and irretrievably. there are no alternatives save either acceptance or rejection _in toto_. what is needed for control is some device by which they can be treated for just what they are, namely, _inferred_ objects which, however assured as objects of _prior_ experiences, are uncertain as to their existence in connection with the object from which present inference sets out. while more careful inspection of the given object--to see if it be really a footprint, how fresh, etc.--may do much for safe-guarding inference; and while forays into whatever else is known may help, there is still need for something else. we need some method of freely examining and handling the object in its status as an inferred object. this means some way of detaching it, as it were, from the particular act of inference in which it presents itself. without some such detachment, crusoe can never get into a free and effective relation with the man indicated by the footprint. he can only, so to speak, go on repeating, with continuously increasing fright, "there's a man about, there's a man about." the "man" needs to be treated, not as man, but as something having a merely inferred and hence potential status; as a meaning or thought, or "idea." there is a great difference between meaning and _a_ meaning. meaning is simply a function of the situation: this thing means that thing: meaning is this relationship. a meaning is something quite different; it is not a function, but a specific entity, a peculiar thing, namely the man _as_ suggested. words are the great instrument of translating a relation of inference existing between two things into a new kind of thing which can be operated with on its own account; the term of discourse or reflection is the solution of the requirement for greater flexibility and liberation. let me repeat: crusoe's inquiry can play freely around and about the man inferred from the footprint only as he can, so to say, get away from the immediate suggestive force of the footprint. as it originally stands, the man suggested is on the same coercive level as the suggestive footprint. they are related, tied together. but a gesture, a sound, may be used as a _substitute_ for the thing inferred. it exists independently of the footprint and may therefore be thought about and ideally experimented with irrespective of the footprint. it at once preserves the meaning-force of the situation and detaches it from the immediacy of the situation. it is a meaning, an idea. here we have, i submit, the explanation of notions, forms, essences, terms, subsistences, ideas, meanings, etc. they are surrogates of the objects of inference of such a character that they may be elaborated and manipulated exactly as primary things may be, so far as inference is concerned. they can be brought into relation with one another, quite irrespective of the things which originally suggested them. without such free play reflective inquiry is mockery, and control of inference an impossibility. when a speck of light suggests to the astronomer a comet, he would have nothing to do but either to accept the inferred object as a real one, or to reject it as a mere fancy unless he could treat "comet" for the time being not as a thing at all, but as a meaning, a conception; a meaning having, moreover, by connection with other meanings, implications--meanings consequent from it. unless a meaning is an inferred object, detached and fixed as a term capable of independent development, what sort of a ghostly being is it? except on the basis stated, what is the transition from the function of meaning to _a_ meaning as an entity in reasoning? and, once more, unless there is such a transition, is reasoning possible? cats have claws and teeth and fur. they do not have implications. no physical thing has implications. the _term_ "cat" has implications. how can this difference be explained? on the ground that we cannot use the "cat" object inferred from given indications in such a way as will test the inference and make it fruitful, helpful, unless we can detach it from its existential dependence upon the particular things which suggest it. we need to know what a cat would be _if_ it were there; what other things would also be indicated if the cat is really indicated. we therefore create a _new_ object: we take something to stand for the cat-in-its-status-as-inferred in contrast with the cat as a live thing. a sound or a visible mark is the ordinary mechanism for producing such a new object. whatever the physical means employed, we now have a new object; a term, a meaning, a notion, an essence, a form or species, according to the terminology which may be in vogue. it is as much a specific existence as any sound or mark is. but it is a mark which notes, concentrates, and records an outcome of an inference which is not yet accepted and affirmed. that is to say, it designates an object which is _not yet_ to be reacted to as one reacts to the given stimulus, but which is an object of further examination and inquiry, a medium of a postponed conclusion and of investigation continued till better grounds for affirming an object (making a definite, unified response) are given. _a term is an object so far as that object is undergoing shaping in a directed act of inquiry._ it may be called a possible object or a hypothetical object. such objects do not walk or bite or scratch, but they are nevertheless actually present as the vital agencies of reflection. if we but forget where they live and operate--within the event of controlled inference--we have on our hands all the mysteries of the double world of existence and essence, particular and universal, thing and idea, ordinary life and science. for the world of science, especially of mathematical science, is the world of considerations which have approved themselves to be effectively regulative of the operations of inference. it is easier to wash with ordinary water than with h{2}o, and there is a marked difference between falling off a building and 1/2_gt_^{2}. but h{2}o and 1/2_gt_^{2} are as potent for the distinctive act of inference--as genuine and distinctive an act as washing the hands or rolling down hill--as ordinary water and falling are impotent. scientific men can handle these things-of-inference precisely as the blacksmith handles his tools. they are not thoughts as they are ordinarily used, not even in the logical sense of thought. they are rather things whose manipulation (as the blacksmith manipulates his tools) yield knowledge--or methods of knowledge--with a minimum of recourse to thinking and a maximum of efficiency. when one considers the importance of the enterprise of knowledge, it is not surprising that appropriate tools have been devised for carrying it on, and that these tools have no prototypes in pre-existent materials. they are real objects, but they are just the real objects which they are and not some other objects. theory and practice our last paragraphs have touched upon the nature of science. they contain, by way of intimation, an explanation of the distance which lies between the things of daily intercourse and the terms of science. controlled inference is science, and science is, accordingly, a highly specialized industry. it is such a specialized mode of practice that it does not appear to be a mode of practice at all. this high specialization is part of the reason for the current antithesis of theory and practice, knowledge and conduct, the other part being the survival of the ancient conception of knowledge as intuitive and dialectical--the conception which is set forth in the aristotelian logic. starting from the hypothesis that the art of controlled inference requires for its efficient exercise specially adapted entities, it follows that the various sciences are the various forms which the industry of controlled inquiry assumes. it follows that the conceptions and formulations of the sciences--physical and mathematical--concern things which have been reshaped in view of the exigencies of regulated and fertile inference. to get things into the estate where such inference is practicable, many qualities of the water and air, cats and dogs, stones and stars, of daily intercourse with the world have been dropped or depressed. much that was trivial or remote has been elevated and exaggerated. neither the omissions nor the accentuations are arbitrary. they are purposeful. they represent the changes in the things of ordinary life which are needed to safeguard the important business of inference. there is then a great difference between the entities of science and the things of daily life. this may be fully acknowledged. but unless the admission is accompanied by an ignoring of the function of inference, it creates no problem of conciliation, no need of apologizing for either one or the other. it generates no problem of the real and the apparent. the "real" or "true" objects of science are those which best fulfil the demands of secure and fertile inference. to arrive at them is such a difficult operation, there are so many specious candidates clamoring for the office, that it is no wonder that when the objects suitable for inference are constituted, they tend to impose themselves as _the_ real objects, in comparison with which the things of ordinary life are but impressions made upon us (according to much modern thought), or defective samples of being--according to much of ancient thought. but one has only to note that their genuinely characteristic feature is fitness for the aims of inference to awaken from the nightmare of all such problems. they differ from the things of the common world of action and association as the means and ends of one occupation differ from those of another. the difference is not that which exists between reality and appearance, but is that between the subject-matter of crude occupations and of a highly specialized and difficult art, upon the success of which (so it is discovered) the progress of other occupations ultimately depends. the entities of science are not only _from_ the scientist; they are also _for_ him. they express, that is, not only the outcome of reflective inquiries, but express them in the particular form in which they can enter most directly and efficiently into subsequent inquiries. the fact that they are sustained within the universe of inquiry accounts for their remoteness from the things of daily life, the latter being promptly precipitated out of suspense in such solutions. that most of the immediate qualities of things (including the so-called secondary qualities) are dropped signifies that such qualities have not turned out to be fruitful for inference. that mathematical, mechanical, and "primary" distinctions and relations have come to constitute the proper subject-matter of science signifies that they represent such qualities of original things as are most manipular for knowledge-getting or assured and extensive inference. consider what a hard time the scientific man had in getting away from other qualities, and how the more immediate qualities have been pressed upon him from all quarters, and it is not surprising that he inclines to think of the intellectually useful properties as alone "real" and to relegate all others to a quasi-illusory field. but his victory is now sufficiently achieved so that this tension may well relax; it may be acknowledged that the difference between scientific entities and ordinary things is one of function, the former being selected and arranged for the successful conduct of inferential knowings. i conclude with an attempt to show how bootless the ordinary antithesis between knowledge (or theory) and practice becomes when we recognize that it really involves only a contrast between the kinds of judgments appropriate to ordinary modes of practice and those appropriate to the specialized industry of knowledge-getting. it is not true that to insist that scientific propositions fall within the domain of practice is to depreciate them. on its face, the insistence means simply that all knowledge involves experimentation, with whatever appliances are suited to the problem in hand, of an active and physical type. instead of this doctrine leading to a low estimate of knowledge, the contrary is the case. this art of experimental thinking turns out to give the key to the control and development of other modes of practice. i have touched elsewhere in these essays upon the way in which knowledge is the instrument of regulation of our human undertakings, and i have also pointed out that intrinsic increments of meaning accrue in consequence of thinking. i wish here to point how that mode of practice which is called theorizing emancipates experience--how it makes for steady progress. no matter how much specialized skill improves, we are restricted in the degree in which our ends remain constant or fixed. significant progress, progress which is more than technical, depends upon ability to foresee new and different results and to arrange conditions for their effectuation. science is the instrument of increasing our technique in attaining results already known and cherished. more important yet, it is the method of emancipating us from enslavement to customary ends, the ends established in the past. let me borrow from political philosophy a kind of caricature of the facts. as social philosophers used to say that the state came into existence when individuals agreed to surrender some of their native personal rights for the sake of getting the advantages of non-interference and aid from others who made a like surrender, so we might say that science began when men gave up the claim to form the structure of knowledge each from himself as a center and measure of meaning--when there was an agreement to take an impersonal standpoint. non-scientific modes of practice, left to their natural growth, represent, in other words, arrangements of objects which cluster about the self, and which are closely tied down to the habits of the self. science or theory means a system of objects detached from any particular personal standpoint, and therefore available for any and every possible personal standpoint. even the exigencies of ordinary social life require a slight amount of such detachment or abstraction. i must neglect my own peculiar ends enough to take some account of my neighbor if i am going to be intelligible to him. i must at least find common ground. science systematizes and indefinitely extends this principle. it takes its stand, not with what is common with some particular neighbor living at this especial date in this particular village, but with any possible neighbor in the wide stretches of time and space. and it does so by the mere fact that it is continually reshaping its peculiar objects with an eye single to availability in inference. the more abstract, the more impersonal, the more impartially objective are _its_ objects, the greater the variety and scope of inference made possible. every street of experience which is laid out by science has its tracks for transportation, and every line issues transfer checks to every other line. you and i may keep running in certain particular ruts, but conditions are provided for somebody else to foresee--or infer--new combinations and new results. the depersonalizing of the things of everyday practice becomes the chief agency of their repersonalizing in new and more fruitful modes of practice. the paradox of theory and practice is that theory is with respect to all other modes of practice the most practical of all things, and the more impartial and impersonal it is, the more truly practical it is. and this is the sole paradox. but lest the man of science, the man of dominantly reflective habits, be puffed up with his own conceits, he must bear in mind that practical application--that is, experiment--is a condition of his own calling, that it is indispensable to the institution of knowledge or truth. consequently, in order that he keep his own balance, it is needed that his findings be everywhere applied. the more their application is confined within his own special calling, the less meaning do the conceptions possess, and the more exposed they are to error. the widest possible range of application is the means of the deepest verification. as long as the specialist hugs his own results they are vague in meaning and unsafe in content. that individuals in every branch of human endeavor should be experimentalists engaged in testing the findings of the theorist is the sole final guaranty for the sanity of the theorist. footnotes: [78] _scientific method in philosophy_, p. 57. [79] the analytic realists have shown a peculiar disinclination to discuss the nature of future consequences as terms of propositions. they certainly are not identical with the mental act of referring to them; they are "objective" to it. do they, therefore, already subsist in some realm of subsistence? or is subsistence but a name for the fact of logical reference, leaving the determination of the meaning of "subsistence" dependent upon a determination of the meaning of "logical"? more generally, what is the position of analytic realism about the future? [80] supposing the question to be that of some molten state of the earth in past geologic ages. taken as the complete subject-matter of a proposition--or science--the facts discovered cannot be regarded as causative of, or a mechanism of, the appearance of life. for by definition they form a closed system; to introduce reference to a future event is to deny the definition. contrariwise, a statement of that past condition of the earth as a mechanical condition of the later emergence of life means that that past stage is taken not merely as past, but as in process of transition to its future, as in process of alteration in the direction of life. change in this direction is an integral part of a statement of the early stage of the earth's history. a purely geologic statement may be quite accurate in its own universe of discourse and yet quite incomplete and hence inaccurate in another universe of discourse. that is to say, a geologist's propositions may accurately set forth a prior state of things, while ignoring any reference to a later state entailed by them. but a would-be philosophy may not ignore the implied future. [81] _philosophical essays_, pp. 104, 105. [82] _sixth meditation._ [83] _principles of philosophy_, p. 90. [84] _treatise of human nature_, part iii, sec. iii. [85] it is perhaps poor tactics on my part to complicate this matter with anything else. but it is evident that "passions" and pains and pleasures may be used as _evidences_ of something beyond themselves (as may the fact of being more than five feet high) and so get a representative or cognitive status. is there not also a prima facie presumption that all sensory qualities are of themselves bare existences or occurrences without cognitive pretension, and that they acquire the latter status as signs or evidence of something else? epistemological idealists or realists who admit the non-cognitive character of pleasure and pain would seem to be under special obligations carefully to consider the thesis of the non-cognitive nature of all sensory qualities except as they are employed as indications or indexes of some other thing. this recognition frees logic from the epistemological discussion of secondary qualities. [86] to readers who have grasped the thought of my argument, it may not be meaningless to say that the typical idealistic fallacy is to import into the direct experience the results of the intellectual or reflective examination, while that of realism is to treat the reflective operation as dealing with precisely the same subject-matter as the original act was concerned with--taking the good of "reason" and the good of immediate behavior to be the same sort of things. and both fallacies will result from any assimilation of two different acts to one another through giving them both the title "knowledge," and hence treating the difference between them as simply the difference between a direct apprehension and a mediated one. [87] analytic realism ought to be favorable to such a hedonism; the fact that present-day analytic realists are not favorable would seem to indicate that they have not taken their logic seriously enough, but have been restrained, by practical motives, from applying it thoroughly. to say that the moral life presents a high degree of organization and integration is to say something which is true, but is also to say something which by the analytic logic calls for its resolution into ultimate and independent simples. unless they accept the pleasures and pains of bentham as such ultimates, they are bound to present acceptable substitutes. but here they tend to shift their logic and to make the fulfilment of some _organization_ (variously defined) the standard good. consistency would then admit the hypothesis that in _all_ cases an eventual organization rather than antecedent simples supply the standard of knowledge. meanwhile the term "fulfilment" (or any similar term) stands as an acknowledgment that the organization in question is not something ontologically prior but is one yet to be achieved. [88] it must not be overlooked that a mere reminder of an end previously settled upon may operate as a sufficient stimulus to action. it is probably this act of calling the end to mind which the realist confuses with knowledge, and therefore terms apprehension. but there is nothing cognitive about it, any more than there is in pressing a button to give the signal for an act already decided upon. [89] upholders of this view generally disguise the assumption of repetition by the notion that what is judged is progress in the direction of approximation to an eternal value. but as matter of fact, progress is never judged (as i have had repeated occasion to point out) by reference to a transcendent eternal value, but in reference to the success of the end-in-view in meeting the needs and conditions of the specific situation--a surrender of the doctrine in favor of the one set forth in the text. logically, the notion of progress as approximation has no place. the thesis should read that we always try to repeat a given value, but always fail as a matter of fact. and constant failure is a queer name for progress. [90] see ix and x _ante_. [91] i use the term "image" in the sense of optics, not of psychology. [92] that something of the cognitive, something of the sign or term function, enters in as a catalyzer, so to speak, in even the most aesthetic experiences, seems to be altogether probable, but that question it is not necessary to raise here. [93] the superstition that whatever influences the action of a conscious being must be an unconscious sensation or perception, if it is not a conscious one, should be summarily dismissed. we are active beings from the start and are naturally, wholly apart from consciousness, engaged in redirecting our action in response to changes in our surroundings. _alternative_ possibilities, and hence an indeterminate situation, change direct response into a response mediated by a perception as a sign of possibilities, that is, a physiological stimulus into a perceived quality: a sensory datum. [94] compare woodbridge, _journal of philosophy and psychology_, x, 5. [95] see russell, _scientific method in philosophy_, p. 53. [96] _ibid._, p. 101. [97] see the essay on _the existence of the world as a logical problem_. index analysis, 37 ff., 426 ff. _see also_ data; sensations. appreciation, 351 ff., 394. apprehension, simple (also acquaintance), 15, 352, 380, 408, 420, 430. _see also_ inference; perception; presentationalism. behavior, 221, 313, 354. _see also_ consequences; practical. bosanquet, b., 149 n. bush, w. t., 221 n., 250 n. conflict, as stimulus to thinking, 10 ff., 20, 24, iii, 136 ff., 163, 245, 341. _see also_ practical. consciousness, 18, 221, 222, 234, 246. consequences, 31, 213, 308, 321 ff., 330 ff. constitutive thought, 130. data, 42 ff., 87, iv, viii, xi, 345, 401, 427. _see also_ sensations. deduction, 53, 435 ff. descartes, 350. design, 314 ff. desire, 364 ff. dialectic, 216. doubt, 184, 189, 195, 206, 212, 216, 248. _see also_ conflict. ego-centric predicament, 263, 266, 410. _see also_ subjectivity. ends and means, 340 ff., 367 ff., 371 ff. error, 398 ff. essence, 49, 58, 71, 288, 431 ff. _see also_ meaning. evidence, 36, 39 ff., 226, 260, 392, 403. _see also_ inference. experience, 2 ff., 10 n., 61 ff., 71 ff., 79, 122, 136 n., 241, 298, 334, 349, 412. experiment. _see_ experience. facts. _see_ data. genetic, 66, 92, 153. hedonism, 375 ff. hegel, 191. holt, e. b., 11 n. hume, 221 n., 350. hypothesis. _see_ idea; meaning. idea, 112, 116, 139, 179, 185 ff., vii, viii, 239 ff., 304, 431. _see also_ meaning. idealism, 20 ff., 130 ff., 233 ff., 267 ff., 343, 358 n. illusions, 396 ff. image, 142 n., 251, 390. implication, 52 n., 433. _see also_ inference. indeterminate, 334. inference, 36, 209 ff., 220, 259, 274 n., 280, 299, 402-13, 419 ff., 423. _see also_ data; evidence; ideas; thinking. instrumentalism, 17, 30, 32, 38, 44, 85, 175, 230, 331. invaluable, 384. james, william, 56, xii, 331, 348. jones, h., 129 n., 158, 159 n. klyce, s., 8-10 n. knowledge, 15 ff., 33, 64 ff., v, 222, 254 ff., 382, 429, 437 ff. _see also_ apprehension; perception; thinking. language, 51, 186, 416, 431, 434. locke, 433 ff. logical theory, 78, 81 ff., 97 ff., 134, 178, 201, 222, 336, 415. lotze, ii-v, 350. mathematics, 29, 56, 64, 418, 434. mead, g. h., 228. meaning, 16 ff., 33, 46, 48, 55, 90, 115, iv, 158 ff., 199, 234, 309, 431 ff. _see also_ essence; idea. mechanism, 343. montague, w. p., 11 n. moore, a. w., 388. mill, j. s., 36, 197, 202, 220, 234 n. nature as norm, 405. organization, 5, 127, 293, 380. peirce, c. s., 306, 330. perception, 254 ff., 349, 390-413. perry, r. b., 266, 273 n. philosophy, 98 ff. practical, xii, xiii, xiv. pragmatism, xii, 346. _see also_ conflict; consequences; purpose. presentationalism, ix. privacy, 228, 295. _see also_ subjectivity. psychology, 67, 92, 94, 140, 155, 221, 296 ff., 404. _see also_ logical theory. purpose, 12, 20, 42, 68 ff., 77. realism, 26 ff., 39 ff., 60, 72, 234, ix, x, 358, 377 n. reality, 437 ff. royce, j., 172 n. russell, b., xi, 336, 348, 403 ff. santayana, g., 18, 57. self. _see_ subjectivity. sensation, 145 ff., 160 ff., 233, xi, 402 ff., 428. _see also_ data. sidgwick, a., 52 n. sign. _see_ evidence. subjectivity, 66 ff., 106, 112, 125, 142, 197, 226, 278, 325, 337, 364. suggestion, 47 ff., 437 ff. temporal place, 1, 19, 27, 95 ff., 182, 337 ff., 343. terms, 51 ff., 434 ff. thinking, 1 ff., 13, 31 ff., 75 ff., 128, 183, 235, ii-vi. transcendence, 424. truth, 24, 63, 181, 224, 231, 240, 304, 310, 316, 346, 387, 392, 423. two worlds, 409, 434. value, 349-89. woodbridge, f. j. e., 234 n., 250 n., 398 n., 400. * * * * * transcriber's notes: obvious printer's errors were repaired. otherwise retained spellings and punctuation (including hypenation variations) as in the original. p. 156: "philosophic disciplines"; original reads "philosophic disciples." p. 354: "(in a direct experience"; original reads "in direct a experience." transposition corrected. ten cases of lettered paragraph labels with closing but no opening parentheses were retained--"a)" on p. 137, 288, 407 and 426, "b)" on p. 139, 289, 408 and 429, and "c)" on p. 410 and 430. transcriber's note: 1. text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). 2. in the mathematical expressions in this text the carat character represents 'raised to the power' (example: 1+3=2^2). 3. the original text includes greek characters. for this text file version these letters have been replaced with their transliterations, with the exception of greek letter 'pi' which is represented as [pi]. studies in logical theory by john dewey professor of philosophy with the co-operation of members and fellows of the department of philosophy the decennial publications second series volume xi chicago the university of chicago press 1903 copyright, 1903 by the university of chicago preface this volume presents some results of the work done in the matter of logical theory in the department of philosophy of the university of chicago in the first decade of its existence. the eleven studies are the work of eight different hands, all, with the exception of the editor, having at some period held fellowships in this university, dr. heidel in greek, the others in philosophy. their names and present pursuits are indicated in the table of contents. the editor has occasionally, though rarely, added a footnote or phrase which might serve to connect one study more closely with another. the pages in the discussion of hypothesis, on mill and whewell, are by him. with these exceptions, each writer is individually and completely responsible for his own study. the various studies present, the editor believes, about the relative amount of agreement and disagreement that is natural in view of the conditions of their origin. the various writers have been in contact with one another in seminars and lecture courses in pursuit of the same topics, and have had to do with shaping one another's views. there are several others, not represented in this volume, who have also participated in the evolution of the point of view herein set forth, and to whom the writers acknowledge their indebtedness. the disagreements proceed from the diversity of interests with which the different writers approach the logical topic; and from the fact that the point of view in question is still (happily) developing and showing no signs of becoming a closed system. if the studies themselves do not give a fair notion of the nature and degree of the harmony in the different writers' methods, a preface is not likely to succeed in so doing. a few words may be in place, however, about a matter repeatedly touched upon, but nowhere consecutively elaborated--the more ultimate philosophical bearing of what is set forth. all agree, the editor takes the liberty of saying, that judgment is the central function of knowing, and hence affords the central problem of logic; that since the act of knowing is intimately and indissolubly connected with the like yet diverse functions of affection, appreciation, and practice, it only distorts results reached to treat knowing as a self-inclosed and self-explanatory whole--hence the intimate connections of logical theory with functional psychology; that since knowledge appears as a function within experience, and yet passes judgment upon both the processes and contents of other functions, its work and aim must be distinctively reconstructive or transformatory; that since reality must be defined in terms of experience, judgment appears accordingly as the medium through which the consciously effected evolution of reality goes on; that there is no reasonable standard of truth (or of success of the knowing function) in general, except upon the postulate that reality is thus dynamic or self-evolving, and, in particular, except through reference to the specific offices which knowing is called upon to perform in readjusting and expanding the means and ends of life. and all agree that this conception gives the only promising basis upon which the working methods of science, and the proper demands of the moral life, may co-operate. all this, doubtless, does not take us very far on the road to detailed conclusions, but it is better, perhaps, to get started in the right direction than to be so definite as to erect a dead-wall in the way of farther movement of thought. in general, the obligations in logical matters of the writers are roughly commensurate with the direction of their criticisms. upon the whole, most is due to those whose views are most sharply opposed. to mill, lotze, bosanquet, and bradley the writers then owe special indebtedness. the editor acknowledges personal indebtedness to his present colleagues, particularly to mr. george h. mead, in the faculty of philosophy, and to a former colleague, dr. alfred h. lloyd, of the university of michigan. for both inspiration and the forging of the tools with which the writers have worked there is a pre-eminent obligation on the part of all of us to william james, of harvard university, who, we hope, will accept this acknowledgment and this book as unworthy tokens of a regard and an admiration that are coequal. table of contents i. thought and its subject-matter 1 by john dewey ii. thought and its subject-matter: the antecedents of thought 23 by john dewey iii. thought and its subject-matter: the datum of thinking 49 by john dewey iv. thought and its subject-matter: the content and object of thought 65 by john dewey v. bosanquet's theory of judgment 86 by helen bradford thompson, ph.d., director of the psychological laboratory of mount holyoke college vi. typical stages in the development of judgment 127 by simon fraser mclennan, ph.d., professor of philosophy in oberlin college vii. the nature of hypothesis 142 by myron lucius ashley, ph.d., instructor, american correspondence school viii. image and idea in logic 183 by willard clark gore, ph.d., assistant professor of psychology in the university of chicago ix. the logic of the pre-socratic philosophy 203 by william arthur heidel, ph.d., professor of latin in iowa college x. valuation as a logical process 227 by henry waldgrave stuart, ph.d., instructor in philosophy in the state university of iowa xi. some logical aspects of purpose 341 by addison webster moore, ph.d., assistant professor of philosophy in the university of chicago i thought and its subject-matter: the general problem of logical theory no one doubts that thought, at least reflective, as distinct from what is sometimes called constitutive, thought, is derivative and secondary. it comes after something and out of something, and for the sake of something. no one doubts that the thinking of everyday practical life and of science is of this reflective type. we think about; we reflect over. if we ask what it is which is primary and radical to thought; if we ask what is the final objective for the sake of which thought intervenes; if we ask in what sense we are to understand thought as a derived procedure, we are plunging ourselves into the very heart of the logical problem: the relation of thought to its empirical antecedents and to its consequent, truth, and the relation of truth to reality. yet from the naïve point of view no difficulty attaches to these questions. the antecedents of thought are our universe of life and love; of appreciation and struggle. we think about anything and everything: snow on the ground; the alternating clanks and thuds that rise from below; the relation of the monroe doctrine to the embroglio in venezuela; the relation of art to industry; the poetic quality of a painting by botticelli; the battle of marathon; the economic interpretation of history; the proper definition of cause; the best method of reducing expenses; whether and how to renew the ties of a broken friendship; the interpretation of an equation in hydrodynamics; etc. through the madness of this miscellaneous citation there appears so much of method: anything--event, act, value, ideal, person, or place--may be an object of thought. reflection busies itself alike with physical nature, the record of social achievement, and the endeavors of social aspiration. it is with reference to _such_ affairs that thought is derivative; it is with reference to them that it intervenes or mediates. taking some part of the universe of action, of affection, of social construction, under its special charge, and having busied itself therewith sufficiently to meet the special difficulty presented, thought releases that topic and enters upon further more direct experience. sticking for a moment to this naïve standpoint, we recognize a certain rhythm of direct practice and derived theory; of primary construction and of secondary criticism; of living appreciation and of abstract description; of active endeavor and of pale reflection. we find that every more direct primary attitude passes upon occasion into its secondary deliberative and discursive counterpart. we find that when the latter has done its work it passes away and passes on. from the naïve standpoint such rhythm is taken as a matter of course. there is no attempt to state either the nature of the occasion which demands the thinking attitude, nor to formulate a theory of the standard by which is judged its success. no general theory is propounded as to the exact relationship between thinking and what antecedes and succeeds it. much less do we ask how empirical circumstances can generate rationality of thought; nor how it is possible for reflection to lay claim to power of determining truth and thereby of constructing further reality. if we were to ask the thinking of naïve life to present, with a minimum of theoretical elaboration, its conception of its own practice, we should get an answer running not unlike this: thinking is a kind of activity which we perform at specific need, just as at other need we engage in other sorts of activity: as converse with a friend; draw a plan for a house; take a walk; eat a dinner; purchase a suit of clothes; etc., etc. in general, its material is anything in the wide universe which seems to be relevant to this need--anything which may serve as a resource in defining the difficulty or in suggesting modes of dealing effectively with it. the measure of its success, the standard of its validity, is precisely the degree in which the thinking actually disposes of the difficulty and allows us to proceed with more direct modes of experiencing, that are forthwith possessed of more assured and deepened value. if we inquire why the naïve attitude does not go on to elaborate these implications of its own practice into a systematic theory, the answer, on its own basis, is obvious. thought arises in response to its own occasion. and this occasion is so exacting that there is time, as there is need, only to do the thinking which is needed in that occasion--not to reflect upon the thinking itself. reflection follows so naturally upon its appropriate cue, its issue is so obvious, so practical, the entire relationship is so organic, that once grant the position that thought arises in reaction to specific demand, and there is not the particular type of thinking called logical theory because there is not the practical demand for reflection of that sort. our attention is taken up with particular questions and specific answers. what we have to reckon with is not the problem of, how can i think _überhaupt_? but, how shall i think right _here and now_? not what is the test of thought at large, but what validates and confirms _this_ thought? in conformity with this view, it follows that a generic account of our thinking behavior, the generic account termed logical theory, arises at historic periods in which the situation has lost the organic character above described. the general theory of reflection, as over against its concrete exercise, appears when occasions for reflection are so overwhelming and so mutually conflicting that specific adequate response in thought is blocked. again, it shows itself when practical affairs are so multifarious, complicated, and remote from control that thinking is held off from successful passage into them. anyhow (sticking to the naïve standpoint), it is true that the stimulus to that particular form of reflective thinking termed logical theory is found when circumstances require the act of thinking and nevertheless impede clear and coherent thinking in detail; or when they occasion thought and then prevent the results of thinking from exercising directive influence upon the immediate concerns of life. under these conditions we get such questions as the following: what is the relation of rational thought to crude or unreflective experience? what is the relation of thought to reality? what is the barrier which prevents reason from complete penetration into the world of truth? what is it that makes us live alternately in a concrete world of experience in which thought as such finds not satisfaction, and in a world of ordered thought which is yet only abstract and ideal? it is not my intention here to pursue the line of historical inquiry thus suggested. indeed, the point would not be mentioned did it not serve to fix attention upon the nature of the logical problem. it is in dealing with this latter type of questions that logical theory has taken a turn which separates it widely from the theoretical implications of practical deliberation and of scientific research. the two latter, however much they differ from each other in detail, agree in a fundamental principle. they both assume that every reflective problem and operation arises with reference to some _specific_ situation, and has to subserve a _specific_ purpose dependent upon its own occasion. they assume and observe distinct limits--limits from which and to which. there is the limit of origin in the needs of the particular situation which evokes reflection. there is the limit of terminus in successful dealing with the particular problem presented--or in retiring, baffled, to take up some other question. the query that at once faces us regarding the nature of logical theory is whether reflection upon reflection shall recognize these limits, endeavoring to formulate them more exactly and to define their relationships to each other more adequately; or shall it abolish limits, do away with the matter of specific conditions and specific aims of thought, and discuss thought and its relation to empirical antecedents and rational consequents (truth) at large? at first blush, it might seem as if the very nature of logical theory as generalization of the reflective process must of necessity disregard the matter of particular conditions and particular results as irrelevant. how, the implication runs, could reflection become generalized save by elimination of details as irrelevant? such a conception in fixing the central problem of logic fixes once for all its future career and material. the essential business of logic is henceforth to discuss the relation of thought as such to reality as such. it may, indeed, involve much psychological material, particularly in the discussion of the processes which antecede thinking and which call it out. it may involve much discussion of the concrete methods of investigation and verification employed in the various sciences. it may busily concern itself with the differentiation of various types and forms of thought--different modes of conceiving, various conformations of judgment, various types of inferential reasoning. but it concerns itself with any and all of these three fields, not on their own account or as ultimate, but as subsidiary to the main problem: the relation of thought as such, or at large, to reality as such, or at large. some of the detailed considerations referred to may throw light upon the terms under which thought transacts its business with reality; upon, say, certain peculiar limitations it has to submit to as best it may. other considerations throw light upon the ways in which thought gets at reality. still other considerations throw light upon the forms which thought assumes in attacking and apprehending reality. but in the end all this is incidental. in the end the one problem holds: how do the specifications of thought as such hold good of reality as such? in fine, logic is supposed to grow out of the epistemological inquiry and to lead up to its solution. from this point of view various aspects of logical theory are well stated by an author whom later on we shall consider in some detail. lotze[1] refers to "universal forms and principles of thought which hold good everywhere both in judging of reality and in weighing possibility, _irrespective of any difference in the objects_." this defines the business of _pure_ logic. this is clearly the question of thought as such--of thought at large or in general. then we have the question "of how far the most complete structure of thought ... can claim to be an adequate account of that which we seem compelled to assume as the object and occasion of our ideas." this is clearly the question of the relation of thought at large to reality at large. it is epistemology. then comes "applied logic," having to do with the actual employment of concrete forms of thought with reference to investigation of specific topics and subjects. this "applied" logic would, if the standpoint of practical deliberation and of scientific research were adopted, be the sole genuine logic. but the existence of thought _in itself_ having been agreed upon, we have in this "applied" logic only an incidental inquiry of how the particular resistances and oppositions which "pure" thought meets from particular matters may best be discounted. it is concerned with methods of investigation which obviate defects in the relationship of thought at large to reality at large, as these present themselves under the limitations of human experience. it deals merely with hindrances, and with devices for overcoming them; it is directed by considerations of utility. when we reflect that this field includes the entire procedure of practical deliberation and of concrete scientific research, we begin to realize something of the significance of the theory of logic which regards the limitations of specific origination and specific outcome as irrelevant to its main problem, which assumes an activity of thought "pure" or "in itself," that is, "irrespective of any difference in its objects." this suggests, by contrast, the opposite mode of stating the problem of logical theory. generalization of the nature of the reflective process certainly involves elimination of much of the specific material and contents of the thought-situations of daily life and of critical science. quite compatible with this, however, is the notion that it seizes upon _certain_ specific conditions and factors, and aims to bring them to clear consciousness--not to abolish them. while eliminating the particular material of particular practical and scientific pursuits, (1) it may strive to hit upon the common denominator in the various situations which are antecedent or primary to thought and which evoke it; (2) it may attempt to show how typical features in the specific antecedents of thought call out to diverse typical modes of thought-reaction; (3) it may attempt to state the nature of the specific consequences in which thought fulfils its career. (1) it does not eliminate dependence upon specific occasions as provocative of thought; but endeavors to define _what_ in the various situations constitutes them thought-provoking. the specific occasion is not eliminated, but insisted upon and brought into the foreground. consequently psychological considerations are not subsidiary incidents, but of essential importance so far as they enable us to trace the generation of the thought-situation. (2) so from this point of view the various types and modes of conceiving, judging, and inference are treated, not as qualifications of thought per se or at large, but of thought engaged in its specific, most economic, effective response to its own particular occasion; they are adaptations for control of stimuli. the distinctions and classifications that have been accumulated in "formal" logic are relevant data; but they demand interpretation from the standpoint of use as organs of adjustment to material antecedents and stimuli. (3) finally the question of validity, or ultimate objective of thought, is relevant; but is such as a matter of the specific issue of the specific career of a thought-function. all the typical investigatory and verificatory procedures of the various sciences are inherently concerned as indicating the ways in which thought actually brings itself to its own successful fulfilment in dealing with various types of problems. while the epistemological type of logic may, as we have seen, leave (under the name of applied logic), a subsidiary place open for the instrumental type, the type which deals with thinking as a specific procedure relative to a specific antecedent occasion and to a subsequent specific fulfilment, is not able to reciprocate the favor. from its point of view, an attempt to discuss the antecedents, data, forms, and objective of thought, apart from reference to particular position occupied, and particular part played in the growth of experience is to reach results which are not so much either true or false as they are radically meaningless--because they are considered apart from limits. its results are not only abstractions (for all theorizing ends in abstractions), but abstractions without possible reference or bearing. from this point of view, the taking of something, whether that something be thinking activity, its empirical condition, or its objective goal, apart from the limits of a historic or developing situation, is the essence of _metaphysical_ procedure--in the sense of metaphysics which makes a gulf between it and science. as the reader has doubtless anticipated, it is the object of this chapter to present the problem and industry of reflective thought from this latter point of view. i recur again to the standpoint of naïve experience, using the term in a sense wide enough to cover both practical procedure and concrete scientific research. i resume by saying that this point of view knows no fixed distinction between the empirical values of unreflective life and the most abstract process of rational thought. it knows no fixed gulf between the highest flight of theory and control of the details of practical construction and behavior. it passes, according to the occasion and opportunity of the moment, from the attitude of loving and struggling and doing to that of thinking and the reverse. its contents or material shift their values back and forth from technological or utilitarian to æsthetic, ethic, or affectional. it utilizes data of perception or of discursive ideation as need calls, just as an inventor now utilizes heat, now mechanical strain, now electricity, according to the demands set by his aim. from this point of view, more definite logical import is attached to our earlier statements (p. 2) regarding the possibility of taking anything in the universe of experience as subject-matter of thought. anything from past experience may be taken which appears to be an element in either the statement or the solution of the present problem. thus we understand the coexistence without contradiction of an indeterminate possible field and a limited actual field. the undefined set of means becomes specific through reference to an end. in all this, there is no difference of kind between the methods of science and those of the plain man. the difference is the greater control in science of the statement of the problem, and of the selection and use of relevant material, both sensible or ideational. the two are related to each other just as the hit-or-miss, trial-and-error inventions of uncivilized man stand to the deliberate and consecutively persistent efforts of a modern inventor to produce a certain complicated device for doing a comprehensive piece of work. neither the plain man nor the scientific inquirer is aware, as he engages in his reflective activity, of any transition from one sphere of existence to another. he knows no two fixed worlds--reality on one side and mere subjective ideas on the other; he is aware of no gulf to cross. he assumes uninterrupted, free, and fluid passage from ordinary experience to abstract thinking, from thought to fact, from things to theories and back again. observation passes into development of hypothesis; deductive methods pass to use in description of the particular; inference passes into action with no sense of difficulty save those found in the particular task in question. the fundamental assumption is _continuity_ in and of experience. this does not mean that fact is confused with idea, or observed datum with voluntary hypothesis, theory with doing, any more than a traveler confuses land and water when he journeys from one to the other. it simply means that each is placed and used with reference to service rendered the other, and with reference to future use of the other. only the epistemological spectator is aware of the fact that the everyday man and the scientific man in this free and easy intercourse are rashly assuming the right to glide over a cleft in the very structure of reality. this fact raises a query not favorable to the epistemologist. why is it that the scientific man, who is constantly plying his venturous traffic of exchange of facts for ideas, of theories for laws, of real things for hypotheses, should be so wholly unaware of the radical and generic (as distinct from specific) difficulty of the undertakings in which he is engaged? we thus come afresh to our inquiry: does not the epistemological logician unwittingly transfer the specific difficulty which always faces the scientific man--the difficulty in detail of correct and adequate translation back and forth of _this_ set of facts and _this_ group of ideas--into a totally different problem of the wholesale relation of thought at large with reality in general? if such be the case, it is clear that the very way in which the epistemological type of logic states the problem of thinking, in relation both to empirical antecedents and to objective truth, makes that problem insoluble. working terms, terms which as working are flexible and historic, relative, are transformed into absolute, fixed, and predetermined forms of being. we come a little closer to the problem when we recognize that every scientific inquiry passes historically through at least four stages. (_a_) the first of these stages is, if i may be allowed the bull, that in which scientific inquiry does not take place at all, because no problem or difficulty in the quality of the experience has presented itself to provoke reflection. we have only to cast our eye back from the existing status of any science, or back from the status of any particular topic in any science, to discover a time when no reflective or critical thinking busied itself with the matter--when the facts and relations were taken for granted and thus were lost and absorbed in the value which accrued from the experience. (_b_) after the dawning of the problem, there comes a period of occupation with relatively crude and unorganized facts--the hunting for, locating, and collecting of raw material. this is the empiric stage, which no existing science, however proud in its attained rationality, can disavow as its own progenitor. (_c_) then there is also a speculative stage: a period of guessing, of making hypotheses, of framing ideas which later on are labeled and condemned as only ideas. there is a period of distinction and classification-making which later on is regarded as only mentally-gymnastic in character. and no science, however proud in its present security of experimental assurance, can disavow a scholastic ancestor. (_d_) finally, there comes a period of fruitful interaction between the mere ideas and the mere facts: a period when observation is determined by experimental conditions depending upon the use of certain guiding conceptions; when reflection is directed and checked at every point by the use of experimental data, and by the necessity of finding such form for itself as will enable it to serve as premise in a deduction leading to evolution of new meanings, and ultimately to experimental inquiry, which brings to light new facts. in the emerging of a more orderly and significant region of fact, and of a more coherent and self-luminous system of meaning, we have the natural limit of evolution of the logic of a given science. but consider what has happened in this historic record. unanalyzed experience has broken up into distinctions of facts and ideas; the factual side has been developed by indefinite and almost miscellaneous descriptions and cumulative listings; the conceptual side has been developed by unchecked and speculative elaboration of definitions, classifications, etc. there has been a relegation of accepted meanings to the limbo of mere ideas; there has been a passage of some of the accepted facts into the region of mere hypothesis and opinion. conversely, there has been a continued issuing of ideas from the region of hypotheses and theories into that of facts, of accepted objective and meaningful contents. out of a world of only _seeming_ facts, and of only _doubtful_ ideas, there emerges a universe continually growing in definiteness, order, and luminosity. this progress, verified in every record of science, is an absolute monstrosity from the standpoint of the epistemology which assumes a thought in general, on one side, and a reality in general, on the other. the reason that it does not present itself as such a monster and miracle to those actually concerned with it is because there is a certain _homogeneity_ or _continuity_ of reference and of use which controls all diversities in both the modes of existence specified and the grades of value assigned. the distinction of thought and fact is treated in the growth of a science, or of any particular scientific problem, as an _induced_ and _intentional_ practical division of labor; as relative assignments of position with reference to performance of a task; as deliberate distribution of forces at command for their more economic use. the interaction of bald fact and hypothetical idea into the outcome of a single world of scientific apprehension and comprehension is but the successful achieving of the aim on account of which the distinctions in question were instituted. thus we come back to the problem of logical theory. to take the distinctions of thought and fact, etc., as ontological, as inherently fixed in the make-up of the structure of being, is to treat the actual development of scientific inquiry and scientific control as a mere subsidiary topic ultimately of only utilitarian worth. it is also to state the terms upon which thought and being transact business in a way so totally alien to the use made of these distinctions in concrete experience as to create a problem which can be discussed only in terms of itself--not in terms of the conduct of life--metaphysics again in the bad sense of that term. as against this, the problem of a logic which aligns itself with the origin and employ of reflective thought in everyday life and in critical science, is to follow the natural history of thinking as a life-process having its own generating antecedents and stimuli, its own states and career, and its own specific objective or limit. this point of view makes it possible for logical theory to come to terms with psychology.[2] when logic is considered as having to do with the wholesale activity of thought per se, the question of the historic process by which this or that particular thought came to be, of how its object happens to present itself as sensation, or perception, or conception, is quite irrelevant. these things are mere temporal accidents. the psychologist (not lifting his gaze from the realm of the changeable) may find in them matters of interest. his whole industry is just with natural history--to trace series of psychical events as they mutually excite and inhibit one another. but the logician, we are told, has a deeper problem and an outlook of more unbounded horizon. he deals with the question of the eternal nature of thought and its eternal validity in relation to an eternal reality. he is concerned, not with genesis, but with value, not with a historic cycle, but with absolute distinctions and relations. still the query haunts us: is this so in truth? or has the logician of a certain type arbitrarily made it thus by taking his terms apart from reference to the specific occasions in which they arise and situations in which they function? if the latter, then the very denial of historic relationship and of the significance of historic method, is indicative only of the unreal character of his own abstraction. it means in effect that the affairs under consideration have been isolated from the conditions in which alone they have determinable meaning and assignable worth. it is astonishing that, in the face of the advance of the evolutionary method in natural science, any logician can persist in the assertion of a rigid difference between the problem of origin and of nature; between genesis and analysis; between history and validity. such assertion simply reiterates as final a distinction which grew up and had meaning in pre-evolutionary science. it asserts against the most marked advance which scientific method has yet made a survival of a crude period of logical scientific procedure. we have no choice save either to conceive of thinking as a response to a specific stimulus, or else to regard it as something "in itself," having just in and of itself certain traits, elements, and laws. if we give up the last view, we must take the former. the entire significance of the evolutionary method in biology and social history is that every distinct organ, structure, or formation, every grouping of cells or elements, has to be treated as an instrument of adjustment or adaptation to a particular environing situation. its meaning, its character, its value, is known when, and only when, it is considered as an arrangement for meeting the conditions involved in some specific situation. this analysis of value is carried out in detail by tracing successive stages of development--by endeavoring to locate the particular situation in which each structure has its origin, and by tracing the successive modifications through which, in response to changing media, it has reached its present conformation.[3] to persist in condemning natural history from the standpoint of what natural history meant before it identified itself with an evolutionary process is not so much to exclude the natural-history standpoint from philosophic consideration as it is to evince ignorance of what it signifies. psychology as the natural history of the various attitudes and structures through which experiencing passes, as an account of the conditions under which this or that state emerges, and of the way in which it influences, by stimulation or inhibition, production of other states or conformations of consciousness, is indispensable to logical evaluation, the moment we treat logical theory as an account of thinking as a mode of adaptation to its own generating conditions, and judge its validity by reference to its efficiency in meeting its problems. the historical point of view describes the sequence; the normative follows the sequence to its conclusion, and then turns back and judges each historical step by viewing it in reference to its own outcome.[4] in the course of changing experience we keep our balance as we move from situations of an affectional quality to those which are practical or appreciative or reflective, because we bear constantly in mind the context in which any particular distinction presents itself. as we submit each characteristic function and situation of experience to our gaze, we find it has a dual aspect. wherever there is striving there are obstacles; wherever there is affection there are persons who are attached; wherever there is doing there is accomplishment; wherever there is appreciation there is value; wherever there is thinking there is material-in-question. we keep our footing as we move from one attitude to another, from one characteristic quality to another, because we know the position occupied in the whole growth by the particular function in which we are engaged, and the position within the function of the particular element that engages us. the distinction _between_ each attitude and function and its predecessor and successor is serial, dynamic, operative. the distinctions _within_ any given operation or function are structural, contemporaneous, and distributive. thinking follows, we will say, striving, and doing follows thinking. each in the fulfilment of its own function inevitably calls out its successor. but coincident, simultaneous, and correspondent _within_ doing, is the distinction of doer and of deed; _within_ the function of thought, of thinking and material thought upon; within the function of striving, of obstacle of aim, of means and end. we keep our paths straight because we do not confuse the sequential, efficient, and functional relationship of types of experience with the contemporaneous, correlative, and structural distinctions of elements within a given function. in the seeming maze of endless confusion and unlimited shiftings, we find our way by the means of the stimulations and checks occurring within the process we are actually engaged with. we do not contrast or confuse a condition or state which is an element in the formation of one operation with the status or element which is one of the distributive terms of another function. if we do, we have at once an insoluble, because meaningless, problem upon our hands. now the epistemological logician deliberately shuts himself off from those cues and checks upon which the plain man instinctively relies, and which the scientific man deliberately searches for and adopts as constituting his technique. consequently he is likely to set the sort of object or material which has place and significance only in one of the serial functional situations of experience, over against the active attitude which describes part of the structural constitution of another situation; or with equal lack of justification to assimilate terms characteristic of different stages to one another. he sets the agent, as he is found in the intimacy of love or appreciation, over against the externality of the fact, as that is defined within the reflective process. he takes the material which thought selects as its own basis for further procedure to be identical with the significant content which it secures for itself in the successful pursuit of its aim; and this in turn he regards as the material which was presented at the outset, and whose peculiarities were the express means of awakening thought. he identifies the final deposit of the thought-function with its own generating antecedent, and then disposes of the resulting surd by reference to some metaphysical consideration, which remains when logical inquiry, when science (as interpreted by him), has done its work. he does this, not because he prefers confusion to order, or error to truth, but simply because, when the chain of historic sequence is cut, the vessel of thought is afloat to veer upon a sea without soundings or moorings. there are but two alternatives: either there is an object "in itself" of thought "in itself," or else there are a series of values which vary with the varying functions to which they belong. if the latter, the only way these values can be defined is by discriminating the functions to which they belong. it is only conditions relative to a specific period or epoch of development in a cycle of experience which-enables one to tell what to do next, or to estimate the value and meaning of what is already done. and the epistemological logician, in choosing to take his question as one of thought which has its own form just as "thought," apart from the limits of the special work it has to do, has deprived himself of these supports and stays. the problem of logic has a more general and a more specific phase. in its generic form, it deals with this question: how does one type of functional situation and attitude in experience pass out of and into another; for example, the technological or utilitarian into the æsthetic, the æsthetic into the religious, the religious into the scientific, and this into the socio-ethical and so on? the more specific question is: how does the particular functional situation termed the reflective behave? how shall we describe it? what in detail are its diverse contemporaneous distinctions, or divisions of labor, its correspondent _statuses_; in what specific ways do these operate with reference to each other so as to effect the specific aim which is proposed by the needs of the affair? this chapter may be brought to conclusion by reference to the more alternate value of the logic of experience, of logic taken in its wider sense; that is, as an account of the sequence of the various typical functions or situations of experience in their determining relations to one another. philosophy, defined as such a logic, makes no pretense to be an account of a closed and finished universe. its business is not to secure or guarantee any particular reality or value. _per contra_, it gets the significance of a method. the right relationship and adjustment of the various typical phases of experience to one another is a problem felt in every department of life. intellectual rectification and control of these adjustments cannot fail to reflect itself in an added clearness and security on the practical side. it may be that general logic can not become an instrument in the immediate direction of the activities of science or art or industry; but it is of value in criticising and in organizing the tools of immediate research in these lines. it also has direct significance in the valuation for social or life-purposes of results achieved in particular branches. much of the immediate business of life is badly done because we do not know in relation to its congeners the organic genesis and outcome of the work that occupies us. the manner and degree of appropriation of the values achieved in various departments of social interest and vocation are partial and faulty because we are not clear as to the due rights and responsibilities of one function of experience in reference to others. the value of research for social progress; the bearing of psychology upon educational procedure; the mutual relations of fine and industrial art; the question of the extent and nature of specialization in science in comparison with the claims of applied science; the adjustment of religious aspirations to scientific statements; the justification of a refined culture for a few in face of economic insufficiency for the mass--such are a few of the many social questions whose _final_ answer depends upon the possession and use of a general logic of experience as a method of inquiry and interpretation. i do not say that headway cannot be made in such questions apart from the method indicated: a logic of genetic experience. but unless we have a critical and assured view of the juncture in which and with reference to which a given attitude or interest arises, unless we know the service it is thereby called upon to perform and hence the organs or methods by which it best functions in that service, our progress is impeded and irregular. we take a part for a whole, a means for an end, or attack wholesale some other interest because it interferes with the deified sway of the one we have selected as ultimate. a clear and comprehensive consensus of social conviction, and a consequent concentrated and economical direction of effort, are assured only as there is some way of locating the position and rôle of each typical interest and occupation in experience. the domain of opinion is one of conflict; its rule is arbitrary and costly. only intellectual method affords a substitute for opinion. the general logic of experience can alone do for the region of social values and aims what the natural sciences after centuries of struggle are doing for activity in the physical realm. this does not mean that systems of philosophy which have attempted to state the nature either of thought and of reality at large, apart from limits of particular crises in the growth of experience, have been worthless--though it does mean that their industry has been somewhat misapplied. the unfolding of metaphysical theory has made large contributions to positive evaluations of the typical situations and relationships of experience--even when its conscious intention has been quite otherwise. every system of philosophy is itself a mode of reflection; consequently (if our main contention be true), it too has been evoked out of specific social antecedents, and has had its use as a response to them. it has effected something in modifying the situation within which it found its origin. it may not have solved the problem which it consciously put itself; in many cases we may freely admit that the question put has afterward been found to be so wrongly put as to be insoluble. yet exactly the same thing is true, in precisely the same sense, in the history of science. for this reason, if for no other, it is impossible for the scientific man to cast the first stone at the philosopher. the progress of science in any branch continually brings with it a realization that problems in their previous form of statement are insoluble because put in terms of unreal conditions; because the real conditions have been mixed up with mental artifacts or misconstructions. every science is continually learning that its supposed solutions are only apparent, because the "solution" solves, not the actual problem, but one which has been made up. but the very putting of the question, the very giving of the wrong answer, induces modification of existing intellectual habits, standpoints, and aims. wrestling with the problem, there is evolution of new forms of technique to control its treatment, there is search for new facts, institution of new types of experimentation; there is gain in the methodic control of experience. and all this is progress. it is only the worn-out cynic, the devitalized sensualist, and the fanatical dogmatist who interpret the continuous change of science as proving that, since each successive statement is wrong, the whole record is error and folly; and that the present truth is only the error not yet found out. such draw the moral of caring naught for all these things, or of flying to some external authority which will deliver once for all the fixed and unchangeable truth. but historic philosophy even in its aberrant forms has proved a factor in the valuation of experience; it has brought problems to light, it has provoked intellectual conflicts without which values are only nominal; even through its would-be absolutistic isolations, it has secured recognition of mutual dependencies and reciprocal reinforcements. yet if it can define its work more clearly, it can concentrate its energy upon its own characteristic problem: the genesis and functioning in experience of various typical interests and occupations with reference to one another. ii thought and its subject-matter: the antecedent conditions and cues of the thought-function we have discriminated logic in its wider sense, concerned with the sequence of characteristic functions and attitudes in experience, from logic in its stricter meaning, concerned in particular with description and interpretation of the function of reflective thought. we must avoid yielding to the temptation of identifying logic with either of these to the exclusion of the other; or of supposing that it is possible to isolate one finally from the other. the more detailed treatment of the organs and methods of reflection cannot be carried on with security save as we have a correct idea of the historic position of reflection in the evolving of experience. yet it is impossible to determine this larger placing, save as we have a defined and analytic, as distinct from a merely vague and gross, view of what we mean by reflection--what is its actual constitution. it is necessary to work back and forth between the larger and the narrower fields, transforming every increment upon one side into a method of work upon the other, and thereby testing it. the apparent confusion of existing logical theory, its uncertainty as to its own bounds and limits, its tendency to oscillate from larger questions of the inherent worth of judgment and validity of inference over to details of scientific technique, and to translation of distinctions of formal logic into terms of an investigatory or verificatory process, are indications of the need of this double movement. in the next three chapters it is proposed to take up some of the considerations that lie on the borderland between the larger and the narrower conceptions of logical theory. i shall discuss the _locus_ of the function of thought, so far as such _locus_ enables us to select and characterize some of the most fundamental distinctions, or divisions of labor, within the reflective process. in taking up the problem of the subject-matter of thought, i shall try to make clear that it assumes three quite distinct forms according to the epochal moment reached in transformation of experience; and that continual confusion and inconsistency are introduced when these respective meanings are not identified and described according to their respective geneses and places. i shall attempt to show that we must consider subject-matter from the standpoint, first, of the _antecedents_ or conditions that evoke thought; second, of the _datum_ or _immediate material_ presented to thought; and, third, of the _proper content_ of thought. of these three distinctions the first, that of antecedent and stimulus, clearly refers to the situation that is immediately prior to the thought-function as such. the second, that of datum or immediately given matter, refers to a distinction which is made within the thought-process as a part of and for the sake of its own _modus operandi_. it is a status in the scheme of thinking. the third, that of content or object, refers to the progress actually made in any thought-function; the material which is organized into the thought-situation, so far as this has fulfilled its purpose. it goes without saying that these are to be discriminated as stages of a life-process in the natural history of experience, not as ready-made or ontological; it is contended that, save as they are differentiated in connection with well-defined historical stages, they are either lumped off as equivalents, or else treated as absolute divisions--or as each by turns, according to the exigencies of the particular argument. in fact, this chapter will get at the matter of preliminary conditions of thought indirectly rather than directly, by indicating the contradictory positions into which one of the most vigorous and acute of modern logicians, lotze, has been forced through failing to define logical distinctions in terms of the history of readjustment of experience, and therefore endeavoring to interpret certain notions as absolute instead of as periodic and methodological. before passing directly to the exposition and criticism of lotze, it will be well, however, to take the matter in a somewhat freer way. we cannot approach logical inquiry in a wholly direct and uncompromised manner. of necessity we bring to it certain distinctions--distinctions partly the outcome of concrete experience; partly due to the logical theory which has got embodied in ordinary language and in current intellectual habits; partly results of deliberate scientific and philosophic inquiry. these more or less ready-made results are resources; they are the only weapons with which we can attack the new problem. yet they are full of unexamined assumptions; they commit us to all sorts of logically predetermined conclusions. in one sense our study of the new subject-matter, let us say logical theory, is in truth only a review, a re-testing and criticising of the intellectual standpoints and methods which we bring with us to the study. everyone comes with certain distinctions already made between the subjective and the objective, between the physical and the psychical, between the intellectual and the factual. (1) we have learned to regard the region of emotional disturbance, of uncertainty and aspiration, as belonging somehow peculiarly to ourselves; we have learned to set over against this a world of observation and of valid thought as something unaffected by our moods, hopes, fears, and opinions. (2) we have also come to distinguish between what is immediately present in our experience and the past and the future; we contrast the realms of memory and anticipation of sense-perception; the given with the ideal. (3) we are confirmed in a habit of distinguishing between what we call actual fact and our mental attitude toward that fact--the attitude of surmise or wonder or reflective investigation. while one of the aims of logical theory is precisely to make us critically conscious of the significance and bearing of these various distinctions, to change them from ready-made assumptions into controlled constructs, our mental habits are so set that they tend to have their own way with us; and we read into logical theory conceptions that were formed before we had even dreamed of the logical undertaking which after all has for its business to assign to the terms in question their proper meaning. we find in lotze an unusually explicit inventory of these various preliminary distinctions; and an unusually serious effort to deal with the problems which arise from introducing them into the structure of logical theory. (1) he expressly separates the matter of logical worth from that of psychological genesis. he consequently abstracts the subject-matter of logic as such wholly from the question of historic _locus_ and _situs_. (2) he agrees with common-sense in holding that logical thought is reflective and thus presupposes a given material. he occupies himself with the nature of the antecedent conditions. (3) he wrestles with the problem of how a material formed prior to thought and irrespective of it can yet afford it stuff upon which to exercise itself. (4) he expressly raises the question of how thought working independently and from without upon a foreign material can shape the latter into results which are valid--that is, objective. if his discussion is successful; if lotze can provide the intermediaries which span the gulf between an independent thought-material and an independent thought-activity; if he can show that the question of the origin of thought-material and of thought-activity is irrelevant to the question of its worth, we shall have to surrender the position already taken. but if we find that lotze's elaborations only elaborate the same fundamental difficulty, presenting it now in this light and now in that, but never effecting more than presenting the problem as if it were its own solution, we shall be confirmed in our idea of the need of considering logical questions from a different point of view. if we find that, whatever his formal treatment, he always, as matter of fact, falls back upon some organized situation or function as the source of both the specific thought-material and the specific thought-activity in correspondence with each other, we shall have in so far an elucidation and even a corroboration of our theory. 1. we begin with the question of the material antecedents of thought--antecedents which condition reflection, and which call it out as reaction or response, by giving it its cue. lotze differs from many logicians of the same type in affording us an explicit account of these antecedents. the ultimate material antecedents of thought are found in impressions, which are due to external objects as stimuli. taken in themselves, these impressions are mere psychical states or events. they exist in us side by side, or one after the other, according as the objects which excite them operate simultaneously or successively. the occurrence of these various psychical states is not, however, entirely dependent upon the presence of the exciting thing. after a state has once been excited, it gets the power of reawakening other states which have accompanied it or followed it. the associative mechanism of revival plays a part. if we had a complete knowledge of both the stimulating object and its effects, and of the details of the associative mechanism, we should be able from given data to predict the whole course of any given train or current of ideas (for the impressions as conjoined simultaneously or successively become ideas and a current of ideas). taken in itself, a sensation or impression is nothing but a "state of our consciousness, a mood of ourselves." any given current of ideas is a necessary sequence of existences (just as necessary as any succession of material events), happening in some particular sensitive soul or organism. "just because, under their respective conditions, every such series of ideas hangs together by the same necessity and law as every other, there would be no ground for making any such distinction of value as that between truth and untruth, thus placing one group in opposition to all the others."[5] 2. thus far, as the last quotation clearly indicates, there is no question of reflective thought, and hence no question of logical theory. but further examination reveals a peculiar property of the current of ideas. some ideas are merely coincident, while others may be termed coherent. that is to say, the exciting causes of some of our simultaneous and successive ideas really belong together; while in other cases they simply happen to act at the same time, without there being a real connection between them. by the associative mechanism, however, both the coherent and the merely coincident combinations recur. the first type of recurrence supplies positive material for knowledge; the second gives occasion for error. 3. it is a peculiar mixture of the coincident and the coherent which sets the peculiar problem of reflective thought. the business of thought is to recover and confirm the coherent, the really connected, adding to its reinstatement an accessory justifying notion of the real ground of coherence, while it eliminates the coincident as such. while the mere current of ideas is something which just happens within us, the process of elimination and of confirmation by means of statement of real ground and basis of connection is an activity which mind as such exercises. it is this distinction which marks off thought as activity from any psychical event and from the associative mechanism as receptive happenings. one is concerned with mere _de facto_ coexistences and sequences; the other with the _worth_ of these combinations.[6] consideration of the peculiar work of thought in going over, sorting out, and determining various ideas according to a standard of value will occupy us in our next chapter. here we are concerned with the material antecedents of thought as they are described by lotze. at first glance, he seems to propound a satisfactory theory. he avoids the extravagancies of transcendental logic, which assumes that all the matter of experience is determined from the very start by rational thought; and he also avoids the pitfall of purely empirical logic, which makes no distinction between the mere occurrence and association of ideas and the real worth and validity of the various conjunctions thus produced. he allows unreflective experience, defined in terms of sensations and their combinations, to provide material conditions for thinking, while he reserves for thought a distinctive work and dignity of its own. sense-experience furnishes the antecedents; thought has to introduce and develop systematic connection--rationality. a further analysis of lotze's treatment may, however, lead us to believe that his statement is riddled through and through with inconsistencies and self-contradictions; that, indeed, any one part of it can be maintained only by the denial of some other portion. 1. the impression is the ultimate antecedent in its purest or crudest form (according to the angle from which one views it). it is that which has never felt, for good or for bad, the influence of thought. combined into ideas, these impressions stimulate or arouse the activities of thought, which are forthwith directed upon them. as the recipient of the activity which they have excited and brought to bear upon themselves, they furnish also the material content of thought--its actual stuff. as lotze says over and over again: "it is the relations themselves already subsisting between impressions, when we become conscious of them, by which the action of thought which is never anything but reaction, is attracted; and this action consists merely in interpreting relations which we find existing between our passive impressions into aspects of the matter of impressions."[7] and again:[8] "thought can make no difference where it finds none already in the matter of the impressions." and again:[9] "the possibility and the success of thought's procedure depends upon this original constitution and organization of the whole world of ideas, a constitution which, though not necessary in thought, is all the more necessary to make thinking possible." the impressions and ideas play a versatile rôle; they now assume the part of ultimate antecedents and provocative conditions; of crude material; and somehow, when arranged, of content for thought. this very versatility awakens suspicion. while the impression is merely subjective and a bare state of our own consciousness, yet it is determined, both as to its existence and as to its relation to other similar existences, by external objects as stimuli, if not as causes. it is also determined by a psychical mechanism so thoroughly objective or regular in its workings as to give the same necessary character to the current of ideas that is possessed by any physical sequence. thus that which is "nothing but a state of our consciousness" turns out straightway to be a specifically determined objective fact in a system of facts. that this absolute transformation is a contradiction is no clearer than that just such a contradiction is indispensable to lotze. if the impressions were nothing but states of consciousness, moods of ourselves, bare psychical existences, it is sure enough that we should never even know them to be such, to say nothing of conserving them as adequate conditions and material for thought. it is only by treating them as real facts in a real world, and only by carrying over into them, in some assumed and unexplained way, the capacity of representing the cosmic facts which arouse them, that impressions or ideas come in any sense within the scope of thought. but if the antecedents are really impressions-in-their-objective-setting, then lotze's whole way of distinguishing thought-worth from _mere_ existence or event without objective significance must be radically modified. the implication that impressions have actually a matter or quality or meaning of their own becomes explicit when we refer to lotze's theory that the immediate antecedent of thought is found in the _matter_ of ideas. when thought is said to "take cognizance of _relations_ which its own activity does not originate, but which have been prepared for it by the unconscious mechanism of the psychic states,"[10] the attribution of objective content, of reference and meaning to ideas, is unambiguous. the idea forms a most convenient half-way house for lotze. on one hand, as absolutely prior to thought, as material antecedent condition, it is merely psychical, a bald subjective event. but as subject-matter for thought, as antecedent which affords stuff for thought's exercise, it is _meaning_, characteristic quality of content. although we have been told that the impression is a mere receptive irritation without participation of mental activity, we are not surprised, in view of this capacity of ideas, to learn that the mind actually has a determining share in both the reception of stimuli and in their further associative combinations. the subject always enters into the presentation of any mental object, even the sensational, to say nothing of the perceptional and the imaged. the perception of a given state of things is possible only on the assumption that "the perceiving subject is at once enabled and compelled by its own nature to combine the excitations which reach it from objects into those forms which it is to perceive in the objects, and which it supposes itself simply to _receive_ from them."[11] it is only by continual transition from impression and ideas as mental states and events to ideas as cognitive (or logical) _objects or contents_, that lotze bridges the gulf from bare exciting antecedent to concrete material conditions of thought. this contradiction, again, is necessary to lotze's standpoint. to set out frankly with "meanings" as antecedents would demand reconsideration of the whole view-point, which supposes that the difference between the logical and its antecedent is a matter of the difference between _worth_ and mere _existence_ or _occurrence_. it would indicate that since meaning or value is already there, the task of thought must be that of the transformation or _reconstruction of worth_ through an intermediary process of valuation. on the other hand, to stick by the standpoint of _mere_ existence is not to get anything which can be called even antecedent of thought. 2. why is there a task of transformation? consideration of the material in its function of evoking thought, giving it its cue, will serve to complete the picture of the contradiction and of the real facts. it is the conflict between ideas as merely coincident and ideas as coherent that constitutes the need which provokes the response of thought. here lotze vibrates (_a_) between considering coincidence and coherence as both affairs of existence of psychical events; (_b_) considering coincidence as purely psychical and coherence as at least quasi-logical, and (_c_) the inherent logic which makes them both determinations within the sphere of reflective thought. in strict accordance with his own premises, coincidence and coherence both ought to be mere peculiarities of the current of ideas as events within ourselves. but so taken the distinction becomes absolutely meaningless. events do not cohere; at the most certain sets of them happen more or less frequently than other sets; the only intelligible difference is one of repetition of coincidence. and even this attributes to an event the supernatural trait of reappearing after it has disappeared. even coincidence has to be defined in terms of relation of the _objects_ which are supposed to excite the psychical events that happen together. as recent psychological discussion has made clear enough, it is the matter, meaning, or content, of ideas that is associated, not the ideas as states or existences. take such an idea as sun-revolving-about-earth. we may say it means the conjunction of various sense-impressions, but it is conjunction, or mutual reference, of _attributes_ that we have in mind in the assertion. it is absolutely certain that our psychical image of the sun is not psychically engaged in revolving about our psychical image of the earth. it would be amusing if such were the case; theaters and all dramatic representations would be at a discount. in truth, sun-revolving-about-earth is a single meaning or idea; it is a unified subject-matter within which certain distinctions of reference appear. it is concerned with what we intend when we think earth and sun, and think them in their relation to each other. it is really a specification or direction of how to think when we have occasion to think a certain subject-matter. to treat the origin of this mutual reference as if it were simply a case of conjunction of ideas produced by conditions of original psycho-physical irritation and association is a profound case of the psychological fallacy. we may, indeed, analyze an experience and find that it had its origin in certain conditions of the sensitive organism, in certain peculiarities of perception and of association, and hence conclude that the belief involved in it was not justified by the facts themselves. but the significance of the belief in sun-revolving-about-earth as an item of the experience of those who meant it, consisted precisely in the fact that it was taken not as a mere association of feelings, but as a definite portion of the whole structure of objective experience, guaranteed by other parts of the fabric, and lending its support and giving its tone to them. it was to them part of the experience-frame of things--of the real universe. put the other way, if such an instance meant a mere conjunction of psychical states, there would be in it absolutely nothing to evoke thought. each idea as event, as lotze himself points out (vol. i, p. 2), may be regarded as adequately and necessarily determined to the place it occupies. there is absolutely no question on the side of events of mere coincidence _versus_ genuine connection. as event, it is there and it belongs there. we cannot treat something as at once bare fact of existence and as problematic subject-matter of logical inquiry. to take the reflective point of view is to consider the matter in a totally new light; as lotze says, it is to raise the question of rightful claims to a position or relation. the point becomes clearer when we contrast coincidence with connection. to consider coincidence as simply psychical, and coherence as at least quasi-logical, is to put the two on such different bases that no question of contrasting them can arise. the coincidence which precedes a valid or grounded coherence (the conjunction which as coexistence of objects and sequence of acts is perfectly adequate) never is, as antecedent, the coincidence which is set over against coherence. the side-by-sideness of books on my bookshelf, the succession of noises that rise through my window, do not as such trouble me logically. they do not appear as errors or even as problems. one coexistence is just as good as any other until some new point of view, or new end, presents itself. if it is a question of the convenience of arrangement of books, then the value of their present collocation becomes a problem. then i may contrast their present bare conjunction with a scheme of possible coherence. if i regard the sequence of noises as a case of articulate speech, their order becomes important--it is a problem to be determined. the inquiry whether a given combination means only apparent or real connection, shows that reflective inquiry is already going on. does this phase of the moon really mean rain, or does it just happen that the rain-storm comes when the moon has reached this phase? to ask such questions shows that a certain portion of the universe of experience is subjected to critical analysis for purposes of definitive restatement. the tendency to regard one combination as bare conjunction or mere coincidence is absolutely a _part_ of the movement of mind in its search for the real connection. if coexistence as such is to be set over against coherence as such, as the non-logical against the logical, then, since our whole spatial universe is one of collocation, and since thought in this universe can never get farther than substituting one collocation for another, the whole realm of space-experience is condemned off-hand and in perpetuity to anti-rationality. but, in truth, coincidence as over against coherence, conjunction as over against connection, is just _suspected_ coherence, one which is under the fire of active inquiry. the distinction is one which arises only within the grasp of the logical or reflective function. 3. this brings us explicitly to the fact that there is no such thing as either coincidence or coherence in terms of the elements or meanings contained in any couple or pair of ideas taken by itself. it is only when they are co-factors in a situation or function which includes more than either the "coincident" or the "coherent" and more than the arithmetical sum of the two, that thought's activity can be evoked. lotze is continually in this dilemma: thought either shapes its own material or else just accepts it. in the first case (since lotze cannot rid himself of the presumption that thought must have a fixed ready-made antecedent) its activity can only alter this stuff and thus lead the mind farther away from reality. but if thought just accepts its material, how can there be any distinctive aim or activity of thought at all? as we have seen, lotze endeavors to escape this dilemma by supposing that, while thought receives its material, it yet checks it up: it eliminates certain portions of it and reinstates others, plus the stamp and seal of its own validity. lotze objects most strenuously to the notion that thought awaits its subject-matter with certain ready-made modes of apprehension. this notion would raise the insoluble question of how thought contrives to bring the matter of each impression under that particular form which is appropriate to it (vol. i, p. 24). but he has not really avoided the difficulty. how does thought know which of the combinations are merely coincident and which are merely coherent? how does it know which to eliminate as irrelevant and which to confirm as grounded? either this evaluation is an imposition of its own, or else gets its cue and clue from the subject-matter. now, if the coincident and the coherent taken in and of themselves are competent to give this direction, they are already practically labeled. the further work of thought is one of supererogation. it has at most barely to note and seal the material combinations that are already there. such a view clearly renders thought's work as unnecessary in form as it is futile in force. but there is no alternative in this dilemma except to recognize that an entire situation of experience, within which are both that afterward found to be mere coincidence and that found to be real connection, actually provokes thought. it is only as an experience previously accepted comes up in its wholeness against another one equally integral; and only as some larger experience dawns which requires each as a part of itself and yet within which the required factors show themselves mutually incompatible, that thought arises. it is not bare coincidence, or bare connection, or bare addition of one to the other, that excites thought. it is a situation which is organized or constituted as a whole, and which yet is falling to pieces in its parts--a situation which is in conflict within itself--that arouses the search to find what really goes together and a correspondent effort to shut out what only seemingly belongs together. and real coherence means precisely capacity to exist within the comprehending whole. it is a case of the psychologist's fallacy to read back into the preliminary situation those distinctions of mere conjunction of material and of valid relationship which get existence, to say nothing of fixation, only within the thought-process. we must not leave this phase of the discussion, however, until it is quite clear that our objection is not to lotze's position that reflective thought arises from an antecedent which is not reflectional in character; nor yet to his idea that this antecedent has a certain structure and content of its own setting the peculiar problem which evokes thought and gives the cue to its specific activities. on the contrary, it is this latter point upon which we would insist; and, by insisting, point out, negatively, that this view is absolutely inconsistent with lotze's theory that psychical impressions and ideas are the true antecedents of thought; and, positively, that it is the _situation as a whole_, and not any one isolated part of it, or distinction within it, that calls forth and directs thinking. we must beware the fallacy of assuming that some one element in the prior situation in isolation or detachment induces the thought which in reality comes forth only from the whole disturbed situation. on the negative side, characterizations of impression and idea (whether as mental contents or as psychical existences) are distinctions which arise only within reflection upon the situation which is the genuine antecedent of thought; while the distinction of psychical existences from external existences arises only within a highly elaborate technical reflection--that of the psychologist as such.[12] positively, it is the whole dynamic experience with its qualitative and pervasive identity of value, and its inner distraction, its elements at odds with each other, in tension against each other, contending each for its proper placing and relationship, that generates the thought-situation. from this point of view, at this period of development, the distinctions of objective and subjective have a characteristic meaning. the antecedent, to repeat, is a situation in which the various factors are actively incompatible with each other, and which yet in and through the striving tend to a re-formation of the whole and to a restatement of the parts. this situation as such is clearly objective. it is there; it is there as a whole; the various parts are there; and their active incompatibility with one another is there. nothing is conveyed at this point by asserting that any particular part of the situation is illusory or subjective, or mere appearance; or that any other is truly real. it is the further work of _thought_ to exclude some of the contending factors from membership in experience, and thus to relegate them to the sphere of the merely subjective. but just at this epoch the experience exists as one of vital and active confusion and conflict. the conflict is not only objective in a _de facto_ sense (that is, really existent), but is objective in a logical sense as well; it is just this conflict which effects the transition into the thought-situation--this, in turn, being only a constant movement toward a defined equilibrium. the conflict has objective logical value because it is the antecedent condition and cue of thought. every reflective attitude and function, whether of naïve life, deliberate invention, or controlled scientific research, has risen through the medium of some such total objective situation. the abstract logician may tell us that sensations or impressions, or associated ideas, or bare physical things, or conventional symbols, are antecedent conditions. but such statements cannot be verified by reference to a single instance of thought in connection with actual practice or actual scientific research. of course, by extreme mediation symbols may become conditions of evoking thought. they get to be objects in an active experience. but they are stimuli only in case their manipulation to form a new whole occasions resistance, and thus reciprocal tension. symbols and their definitions develop to a point where dealing with them becomes itself an experience, having its own identity; just as the handling of commercial commodities, or arrangement of parts of an invention, is an individual experience. there is always as antecedent to thought an experience of some subject-matter of the physical or social world, or organized intellectual world, whose parts are actively at war with each other--so much so that they threaten to disrupt the entire experience, which accordingly for its own maintenance requires deliberate re-definition and re-relation of its tensional parts. this is the reconstructive process termed thinking: the reconstructive situation, with its parts in tension and in such movement toward each other as tends to a unified experience, is the thought-situation. this at once suggests the subjective phase. the situation, the experience as such, is objective. there is an experience of the confused and conflicting tendencies. but just _what in particular_ is objective, just _what_ form the situation shall take as an organized harmonious whole, is unknown; that is the problem. it is the uncertainty as to the _what_ of the experience together with the certainty _that_ there is such an experience, that evokes the thought-function. viewed from this standpoint of uncertainty, the situation as a whole is subjective. no particular content or reference can be asserted off-hand. definite assertion is expressly reserved--it is to be the outcome of the procedure of reflective inquiry now undertaken. this holding off of contents from definitely asserted position, this viewing them as candidates for reform, is what we mean at this stage of the natural history of thought by the subjective. we have followed lotze through his tortuous course of inconsistencies. it is better, perhaps, to run the risk of vain repetition, than that of leaving the impression that these are _mere_ self-contradictions. it is an idle task to expose contradictions save we realize them in relation to the fundamental assumption which breeds them. lotze is bound to differentiate thought from its antecedents. he is intent to do this, however, through a preconception that marks off the thought-situation radically from its predecessor, through a difference that is complete, fixed, and absolute, or at large. it is a total contrast of thought as such to something else as such that he requires, not a contrast within experience of one phase of a process, one period of a rhythm, from others. this complete and rigid difference lotze finds in the difference between an experience which is _mere existence_ or occurrence, and one which has to do with worth, truth, right relationship. now things, objects, have already, implicitly at least, determinations of worth, of truth, reality, etc. the same is true of deeds, affections, etc., etc. only states of feelings, bare impressions, etc., seem to fulfil the prerequisite of being given as existence, and yet without qualification as to worth, etc. then the current of ideas offers itself, a ready-made stream of events, of existences, which can be characterized as wholly innocent of reflective determination, and as the natural predecessor of thought. but this stream of existences is no sooner there than its total incapacity to officiate as material condition and cue of thought appears. it is about as relevant as are changes that may be happening on the other side of the moon. so, one by one, the whole series of determinations of value or worth already traced are introduced _into_ the very make-up, the inner structure, of what was to be _mere_ existence: viz., (1) value as determined by things of whose spatial and temporal relations the things are somehow _representative_; (2) hence, value in the shape of _meaning_--the idea as significant, possessed of quality, and not a mere event; (3) distinguished values of coincidence and coherence within the stream. all these kinds of value are explicitly asserted, as we have seen; underlying and running through them all is the recognition of the supreme value of a situation which is organized as a whole, yet conflicting in its inner constitution. these contradictions all arise in the attempt to put thought's work, as concerned with value or validity over against experience as a mere antecedent happening, or occurrence. since this contrast arises because of the deeper attempt to consider thought as an independent somewhat in general which yet, in _our_ experience, is specifically dependent, the sole radical avoiding of the contradictions can be found in the endeavor to characterize thought as a specific mode of valuation in the evolution of significant experience, having its own specific occasion or demand, and its own specific place. the nature of the organization and value that the antecedent conditions of the thought-function possess is too large a question here to enter upon in detail. lotze himself suggests the answer. he speaks of the current of ideas, just as a current, supplying us with the "mass of well-grounded information which _regulates_ daily life" (vol. i, p. 4). it gives rise to "_useful combinations_," "_correct expectations_," "_seasonable reactions_" (vol. i, p. 7). he speaks of it, indeed, as if it were just the ordinary world of naïve experience, the so-called empirical world, as distinct from the world as critically revised and rationalized in scientific and philosophic inquiry. the contradiction between this interpretation and that of a mere stream of psychical impressions is only another instance of the difficulty already discussed. but the phraseology suggests the type of value possessed by it. the unreflective world is a world of practical values; of ends and means, of their effective adaptations; of control and regulation of conduct in view of results. even the most purely utilitarian of values are nevertheless values; not _mere_ existences. but the world of uncritical experience is saved from reduction to just material uses and worths; for it is a world of social aims and means, involving at every turn the values of affection and attachment, of competition and co-operation. it has incorporate also in its own being the surprise of æsthetic values--the sudden joy of light, the gracious wonder of tone and form. i do not mean that this holds in gross of the unreflective world of experience over against the critical thought-situation--such a contrast implies the very wholesale, at large, consideration of thought which i am striving to avoid. doubtless many and many an act of thought has intervened in effecting the organization of our commonest practical-affectional-æsthetic region of values. i only mean to indicate that thought does take place in such a world; not _after_ a world of bare existences lacking value-specifications; and that the more systematic reflection we call organized science, may, in some fair sense, be said to come _after_, but to come after affectional, artistic, and technological interests which have found realization and expression in building up a world of values. having entered so far upon a suggestion which cannot be followed out, i venture one other digression. the notion that value or significance as distinct from mere existentiality is the product of thought or reason, and that the source of lotze's contradictions lies in the effort to find _any_ situation prior or antecedent to thought, is a familiar one--it is even possible that my criticisms of lotze have been interpreted by some readers in this sense.[13] this is the position frequently called neo-hegelian (though, i think, with questionable accuracy), and has been developed by many writers in criticising kant. this position and that taken in this chapter do indeed agree in certain general regards. they are at one in denial of the factuality and the possibility of developing fruitful reflection out of antecedent bare existence or mere events. they unite in denying that there is or can be any such thing as mere existence--phenomenon unqualified as respects meaning, whether such phenomenon be psychic or cosmic. they agree that reflective thought grows organically out of an experience which is already organized, and that it functions within such an organism. but they part company when a fundamental question is raised: is all organized meaning the work of thought? does it therefore follow that the organization out of which reflective thought grows is the work of thought of some other type--of pure thought, creative or constitutive thought, intuitive reason, etc.? i shall indicate briefly the reasons for divergence at this point. to cover all the practical-social-æsthetic values involved, the term "thought" has to be so stretched that the situation might as well be called by any other name that describes a typical value of experience. more specifically, when the difference is minimized between the organized and arranged scheme of values out of which reflective inquiry proceeds, and reflective inquiry itself (and there can be no other reason for insisting that the antecedent of reflective thought is itself somehow thought), exactly the same type of problem recurs that presents itself when the distinction is exaggerated into one between bare unvalued existences and rational coherent meanings. for the more one insists that the antecedent situation is constituted by thought, the more one has to wonder why another type of thought is required; what need arouses it, and how it is possible for it to improve upon the work of previous constitutive thought. this difficulty at once forces us from a logic of experience as it is concretely experienced into a metaphysic of a purely hypothetical experience. constitutive thought precedes _our_ conscious thought-operations; hence it must be the working of some absolute universal thought which, unconsciously to our reflection, builds up an organized world. but this recourse only deepens the difficulty. how does it happen that the absolute constitutive and intuitive thought does such a poor and bungling job that it requires a finite discursive activity to patch up its products? here more metaphysic is called for: the absolute reason is now supposed to work under limiting conditions of finitude, of a sensitive and temporal organism. the antecedents of reflective thought are not, therefore, determinations of thought pure and undefiled, but of what thought can do when it stoops to assume the yoke of change and of feeling. i pass by the metaphysical problem left unsolved by this flight into metaphysic: why and how should a perfect, absolute, complete, finished thought find it necessary to submit to alien, disturbing, and corrupting conditions in order, in the end, to recover through reflective thought in a partial, piecemeal, wholly inadequate way what it possessed at the outset in a much more satisfactory way? i confine myself to the logical difficulty. how can thought relate itself to the fragmentary sensations, impressions, feelings, which, in their contrast with and disparity from the workings of constitutive thought, mark it off from the latter; and which in their connection with its products give the cue to reflective thinking? _here we have again exactly the problem with which lotze has been wrestling_: we have the same insoluble question of the reference of thought-activity to a wholly indeterminate unrationalized, independent, prior existence. the absolute rationalist who takes up the problem at this point will find himself forced into the same continuous seesaw, the same scheme of alternate rude robbery and gratuitous gift, that lotze engaged in. the simple fact is that here _is_ just where lotze himself began; he saw that previous transcendental logicians had left untouched the specific question of relation of _our_ supposedly finite, reflective thought to its own antecedents, and he set out to make good the defect. if reflective thought is required because constitutive thought works under externally limiting conditions of sense, then we have some elements which are, after all, mere existences, events, etc. or, if they have organization from some other source, and induce reflective thought not as bare impressions, etc., but through their place in some whole, then we have admitted the possibility of organic unity in experience, apart from reason, and the ground for assuming pure constitutive thought is abandoned. the contradiction appears equally when viewed from the side of thought-activity and its characteristic forms. all our knowledge, after all, of thought as constitutive is gained by consideration of the operations of reflective thought. the perfect system of thought is so perfect that it is a luminous, harmonious whole, without definite parts or distinctions--or, if there are such, it is only reflection that brings them out. the categories and methods of constitutive thought itself must therefore be characterized in terms of the _modus operandi_ of reflective thought. yet the latter takes place just because of the peculiar problem of the peculiar conditions under which it arises. its work is progressive, reformatory, reconstructive, synthetic, in the terminology made familiar by kant. we are not only _not_ justified, accordingly, in transferring its determinations over to constitutive thought, but we are absolutely prohibited from attempting any such transfer. to identify logical processes, states, devices, results that are conditioned upon the primary fact of resistance to thought as constitutive with the structure of such thought is as complete an instance of the fallacy of recourse from one genus to another as could well be found. constitutive and reflective thought are, first, defined in terms of their dissimilarity and even opposition, and then without more ado the forms of the description of the latter are carried over bodily to the former![14] this is not meant for a merely controversial criticism. it is meant to point positively toward the fundamental thesis of these chapters: all the distinctions of the thought-function, of conception as over against sense-perception, of judgment in its various modes and forms, of inference in its vast diversity of operation--all these distinctions come within the thought-situation as growing out of a characteristic antecedent typical formation of experience; and have for their purpose the solution of the peculiar problem with respect to which the thought-function is generated or evolved: the restoration of a deliberately integrated experience from the inherent conflict into which it has fallen. the failure of transcendental logic has the same origin as the failure of the empiristic (whether taken pure or in the mixed form in which lotze presents it). it makes absolute and fixed certain distinctions of existence and meaning, and of one kind of meaning and another kind, which are wholly historic and relative in their origin and their significance. it views thought as attempting to represent or state reality once for all, instead of trying to determine some phases or contents of it with reference to their more effective and significant reciprocal employ--instead of as reconstructive. the rock against which every such logic splits is that either reality already has the statement which thought is endeavoring to give it, or else it has not. in the former case, thought is futilely reiterative; in the latter, it is falsificatory. the significance of lotze for critical purposes is that his peculiar effort to combine a transcendental view of thought (_i. e._, of thought as active in forms of its own, pure in and of themselves) with certain obvious facts of the dependence of our thought upon specific empirical antecedents, brings to light fundamental defects in both the empiristic and the transcendental logics. we discover a common failure in both: the failure to view logical terms and distinctions with respect to their necessary function in the redintegration of experience. iii thought and its subject-matter: the datum of thinking we have now reached a second epochal stage in the evolution of the thought-situation, a crisis which forces upon us the problem of the distinction and mutual reference of the datum or presentation, and the ideas or "thoughts." it will economize and perhaps clarify discussion if we start from the relatively positive and constructive result just reached, and review lotze's treatment from that point of regard. we have reached the point of conflict in the matters or contents of an experience. it is _in_ this conflict and because of it that the matters or contents, or significant quales, stand out as such. as long as the sun revolves about earth without tension or question, this "content," or fact, is not in any way abstracted _as_ content or object. its very distinction as content from the form or mode of experience as such is the result of post-reflection. the same conflict makes other experiences assume conscious objectification; they, too, cease to be ways of living, and become distinct objects of observation and consideration. the movements of planets, eclipses, etc., are cases in point.[15] the maintenance of a unified experience has become a problem, an end. it is no longer secure. but this involves such restatement of the conflicting elements as will enable them to take a place somewhere in the new experience; they must be disposed of somehow, and they can be disposed of finally only as they are provided for. that is, they cannot be simply denied or excluded or eliminated; they must be taken into the fold of the new experience; such introduction, on the other hand, clearly demands more or less modification or transformation on their part. the thought-situation is the conscious maintenance of the unity of experience, with a critical consideration of the claims of the various conflicting contents to a place within itself, and a deliberate final assignment of position. the conflicting situation inevitably polarizes or dichotomizes itself. there is somewhat which is untouched in the contention of incompatibles. there is something which remains secure, unquestioned. on the other hand, there are elements which are rendered doubtful and precarious. this gives the framework of the general distribution of the field into "facts," the given, the presented, the datum; and ideas, the ideal, the conceived, the thought. for there is always something unquestioned in any problematic situation at any stage of its process,[16] even if it be only the fact of conflict or tension. for this is never _mere_ tension at large. it is thoroughly qualified, or characteristically toned and colored, by the particular elements which are in strife. hence it is _this_ conflict, unique and irreplaceable. that it comes now means precisely that it has never come before; that it is now passed in review and some sort of a settlement reached, means that just _this_ conflict will never recur. in a word, the conflict as such is immediately expressed, or felt, as of just this and no other sort, and this immediately apprehended quality is an irreducible datum. _it_ is fact, even if all else be _doubtful_. as it is subjected to examination, it loses vagueness and assumes more definite form. only in very extreme cases, however, does the assured, unquestioned element reduce to as low terms as we have here imagined. certain things come to stand forth as facts, no matter what else may be doubted. there are certain _apparent_ diurnal changes of the sun; there is a certain annual course or track. there are certain nocturnal changes in the planets, and certain seasonal rhythmic paths. the significance of these may be doubted: do they _mean_ real change in the sun or in the earth? but change, and change of a certain definite and numerically determinate character is there. it is clear that such out-standing facts (ex-istences) constitute the data, the given or presented, of the thought-function. it is obvious that this is only one correspondent, or status, in the total situation. with the consciousness of _this_ as certain, as given to be reckoned with, goes the consciousness of uncertainty as to _what it means_--of how it is to be understood or interpreted. the facts _qua_ presentation or existences are sure; _qua_ meaning (position and relationship in an experience yet to be secured) they are doubtful. yet doubt does not preclude memory or anticipation. indeed, it is possible only through them. the memory of past experience makes sun-revolving-about-earth an object of attentive regard. the recollection of certain other experiences suggests the idea of earth-rotating-daily-on-axis and revolving-annually-about-sun. these contents are as much present as is the observation of change, but as respects worth, they are only possibilities. accordingly, they are categorized or disposed of as just ideas, meanings, thoughts, ways of conceiving, comprehending, interpreting facts. correspondence of reference here is as obvious as correlation of existence. in the logical process, the datum is not just real existence, and the idea mere psychical unreality. both are modes of existence--one of _given_ existence, the other of _mental_ existence. and if the mental existence is in such cases regarded, from the standpoint of the unified experience aimed at, as having only _possible_ value, the datum also is regarded, from the value standpoint, as incomplete and unassured. the very existence of the idea or meaning as separate _is_ the partial, broken up, and hence objectively unreal (from the validity standpoint) character of the datum. or, as we commonly put it, while the ideas are impressions, suggestions, guesses, theories, estimates, etc., the facts are crude, raw, unorganized, brute. they lack relationship, that is, assured place in the universe; they are deficient as to continuity. mere change of apparent position of sun, which is absolutely unquestioned as datum, is a sheer abstraction from the standpoint either of the organized experience left behind, or of the reorganized experience which is the end--the objective. it is impossible as a persistent object in experience or reality. in other words, datum and ideatum are divisions of labor, co-operative instrumentalities, for economical dealing with the problem of the maintenance of the integrity of experience. once more, and briefly, both datum and ideatum may (and positively, veritably, do) break up, each for itself, into physical and psychical. in so far as the conviction gains ground that the earth revolves about the sun, the old fact is broken up into a new cosmic existence, and a new psychological condition--the recognition of a mental process in virtue of which movements of smaller bodies in relation to very remote larger bodies are interpreted in a reverse sense. we do not just eliminate as false the source of error in the old content. we reinterpret it as valid in its own place, viz., a case of the psychology of apperception, although invalid as a matter of cosmic structure. in other words, with increasing accuracy of determination of the given, there comes a distinction, for methodological purposes, between the _quality_ or matter of the sense-experience and its _form_--the sense-perceiving, as itself a psychological fact, having its own place and laws or relations. moreover, the old experience, that of sun-revolving, abides. but it is regarded as belonging to "me"--to this experiencing individual, rather than to the cosmic world. it is _psychic_. here, then, _within_ the growth of the thought-situation and as a part of the process of determining _specific_ truth under _specific_ conditions, we get for the first time the clue to that distinction with which, as ready-made and prior to all thinking, lotze started out, namely, the separation of the matter of impression from impression as psychical event. the separation which, taken at large, engenders an insoluble problem, appears within a particular reflective inquiry, as an inevitable differentiation of a scheme of values. the same sort of thing occurs on the side of thought, or meaning. the meaning or idea which is growing in acceptance, which is gaining ground as meaning-of-datum, gets logical or intellectual or objective force; that which is losing standing, which is increasingly doubtful, gets qualified as just a notion, a fancy, a pre-judice, mis-conception--or finally just an error, a mental slip. evaluated as fanciful in validity it becomes mere image--subjective;[17] and finally a psychical existence. it is not eliminated, but receives a new reference or meaning. thus the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity is not one between meaning as such and datum as such. it is a specification that emerges, correspondently, in _both_ datum and ideatum, as affairs of the direction of logical movement. that which is left behind in the evolution of accepted meaning is characterized as real, but only in a psychical sense; that which is moved toward is regarded as real in an objective, cosmic sense.[18] the implication of the psychic and the logical within both the given presentation and the thought about it, appears in the continual shift to which logicians of lotze's type are put. when the psychical is regarded as existence over against meaning as just ideal, reality seems to reside in the psychical; it is _there_ anyhow, and meaning is just a curious attachment--curious because as _mere meaning_ it is non-existent as event or state--and there seems to be nothing by which it can be even tied to the psychical state as its bearer or representative. but when the emphasis falls on thought as _content_, as significance, then the psychic event, the idea as image[19] (as distinct from idea as meaning) appears as an accidental but necessary evil, the unfortunate irrelevant medium through which _our_ thinking has to go on.[20] 1. _the data of thought._--when we turn to lotze, we find that he makes a clear distinction between the presented material of thought, its datum, and the typical characteristic modes of thinking in virtue of which the datum gets organization or system. it is interesting to note also that he states the datum in terms different from those in which the antecedents of thought are defined. from the point of view of the material upon which ideas exercise themselves, it is not coincidence, collocation, or succession that counts; but gradation of degrees in a scale. it is not things in spatial or temporal grouping that are emphasized, but qualities as mutually distinguished, yet classed--as differences of a common somewhat. there is no inherent inconceivability in the idea that every impression should be as incomparably different from every other as sweet is from warm. but by a remarkable circumstance such is not the case. we have series, and networks of series. we have diversity of a common--diverse colors, sounds, smells, tastes, etc. in other words, the datum is sense-qualities which, fortunately for thought, are given arranged, as shades, degrees, variations, or qualities of somewhat that is identical.[21] all this is given, presented, to our ideational activities. even the universal, the common-color which runs through the various qualities of blue, green, white, etc., is not a product of thought, but something which thought finds already in existence. it conditions comparison and reciprocal distinction. particularly all mathematical determinations, whether of counting (number), degree (more or less), and quantity (greatness and smallness), come back to this peculiarity of the datum of thought. here lotze dwells at considerable length upon the fact that the very possibility, as well as the success, of thought is due to this peculiar universalization or _prima facie_ ordering with which its material is given to it. such pre-established fitness in the meeting of two things that have nothing to do with each other is certainly cause enough for wonder and congratulation. it should not be difficult to see why lotze uses different categories in describing the given material of thought from those employed in describing its antecedent conditions, even though, according to him, the two are absolutely the same.[22] he has different _functions_ in mind. in one case, the material must be characterized as evoking, as incentive, as stimulus--from this point of view the peculiar combination of coincidence and coherence is emphasized. but in the other case the material must be characterized as affording stuff, actual subject-matter. data are not only what is given _to_ thought, but they are also the food, the raw material, _of_ thought. they must be described as, on the one hand, wholly outside of thought. this clearly puts them into the region of sense-perception. they are matter of _sensation_ given free from all inferring, judging, relating influence. sensation is just what is _not_ called up in memory or in anticipated projection--it is the immediate, the irreducible. on the other hand, sensory-_matter_ is qualitative, and quales are made up on a common basis. they are degrees or grades of a common quality. thus they have a certain ready-made setting of mutual distinction and reference which is already almost, if not quite, the effect of comparing, of relating, and these are the express traits of thinking. it is easy to interpret this miraculous gift of grace in the light of what has been said. the data are in truth precisely that which is selected and set aside _as_ present, as immediate. thus they are _given_ to _further_ thought. but the selection has occurred in view of the need for thought; it is a listing of the capital in the way of the undisturbed, the undiscussed, which thought can count upon in this particular problem. hence it is not strange that it has a peculiar fitness of adaptation for thought's further work. having been selected with precisely that end in view, the wonder would be if it were not so fitted. a man may coin counterfeit money for use upon others, but hardly with the intent of passing it off upon himself. our only difficulty here is that the mind flies away from the logical interpretation of sense-datum to a ready-made notion of it brought over from abstract psychological inquiry. the belief in sensory quales as somehow forced upon us, and forced upon us at large, and thus conditioning thought wholly _ab extra_, instead of determining it as instrumentalities or elements in its own scheme, is too fixed. such qualities _are_ forced upon us, but _not_ at large. the sensory data of experience, as distinct from the psychologists' constructs, always come _in a context_; they always appear as variations in a continuum of values. even the thunder which breaks in upon me (to take the extreme of apparent discontinuity and irrelevancy) disturbs me because it is taken as a part of the same space-world as that in which my chair and room and house are located; and it is taken as an influence which interrupts and disturbs, _because_ it is part of my common world of causes and effects. the solution of continuity is itself practical or teleological, and thus presupposes and affects continuity of purpose, occupations, and means in a life-process. it is not metaphysics, it is biology which enforces the idea that actual sensation is not only determined as an event in a world of events,[23] but is an occurrence occurring at a certain period in the evolution of experience, marking a certain point in its cycle, and, consequently--having always its own conscious context and bearings--is a characteristic function of reconstruction in experience.[24] 2. _forms of thinking data._--as sensory datum is material set for the work of thought, so the ideational forms with which thought does its work are apt and prompt to meet the needs of the material. the "accessory"[25] notion of ground of coherence turns out, in truth, not to be a formal, or external, addition to the data, but a requalification of them. thought is accessory as accomplice, not as addendum. "thought" is to eliminate mere coincidence, and to assert grounded coherence. lotze makes it absolutely clear that he does not at bottom conceive of "thought" as an activity "in itself" imposing a form of coherence; but that the organizing work of "thought" is only the progressive realization of an inherent unity, or system, in the material experience. the specific modes in which thought brings its "accessory" power to bear--names, conception, judgment, and inference--are successive stages in the adequate organization of the matter which comes to us first as datum; they are successive stages of the effort to overcome the original defects of the datum. conception starts from the given universal (the common element) of sense. yet (and this is the significant point) it does not simply abstract this common element, and consciously generalize it as over against its own differences. such a "universal" is _not_ coherence, just because it does not _include_ and dominate the temporal and local heterogeneity. the _true_ concept (see vol. i, p. 38) is a system of attributes, held together on the basis of some ground, or determining, dominating principle--a ground which so controls all its own instances as to make them into an inwardly connected whole, and so specifies its own limits as to be exclusive of all else. if we abstract color as the common element of various colors, the result is not a scientific idea or concept. discovery of a process of light-waves whose various rates constitute the various colors of the spectrum gives the concept. and when we get such a concept, the former mere temporal abruptness of color experiences gives way to organic parts of a color system. the logical product--the concept, in other words--is not a formal seal or stamp; it is a thoroughgoing transformation of data in a given sense. the form or mode of thought which marks the continued transformation of the data and the idea in reference to each other is judgment. judgment makes explicit the assumption of a principle which determines connection within an individualized whole. it definitely states red as _this_ case or instance of the law or process of color, and thus overcomes further the defect in _subject-matter_ or data still left by conception.[26] now judgment logically terminates in disjunction. it gives a universal which may determine any one of a number of alternative defined particulars, but which is arbitrary as to _what_ one is selected. systematic _inference_ brings to light the material conditions under which the law, or dominating universal, applies to this, rather than that alternative particular, and so completes the ideal organization of the subject-matter. if this act were complete, we should finally have present to us a whole on which we should know the determining and effective or authorizing elements, and the order of development or hierarchy of dependence, in which others follow from them.[27] in this account by lotze of the operations of the forms of thought, there is clearly put before us the picture of a continuous correlative determination of datum on one side and of idea or meaning on the other, till experience is again integral, data thoroughly defined and corrected, and ideas completely incarnate as the relevant meaning of subject-matter. that we have here in outline a description of what actually occurs there can be no doubt. but there is as little doubt that it is thoroughly inconsistent with lotze's supposition that the material or data of thought is precisely the same as the antecedents of thought; or that ideas, conceptions, are purely mental somewhats brought to bear, as the sole essential characteristics of thought, extraneously upon a material provided ready-made. it means but one thing: the maintenance of unity and wholeness in experience through conflicting contents occurs by means of a strictly correspondent setting apart of fact to be accurately described and properly related, and meaning to be adequately construed and properly referred. the datum is given _in_ the thought-situation, and _to_ further qualification of ideas or meanings. but even in this aspect it presents a problem. to find out _what is_ given is an inquiry which taxes reflection to the uttermost. every important advance in scientific method means better agencies, more skilled technique for simply detaching and describing what is barely there, or given. to be able to find out what can safely be taken as _there_, as given in any particular inquiry, and hence be taken as material for orderly and verifiable thinking, for fruitful hypothesis-making, for entertaining of explanatory and interpretative ideas, is one phase of the effort of systematic scientific inquiry. it marks its inductive phase. to take what is given _in_ the thought-situation, for the sake of accomplishing the aim of thought (along with a correlative discrimination of ideas or meanings), as if it were given absolutely, or apart from a particular historic situs and context, is the fallacy of empiricism as a logical theory. to regard the thought-forms of conception, judgment, and inference as qualifications of "pure thought, apart from any difference in objects," instead of as successive dispositions in the progressive organization of the material (or objects) is the fallacy of rationalism. lotze attempts to combine the two, thinking thereby to correct each by the other. lotze recognizes the futility of thought if the sense-data are final, if they alone are real, the truly existent, self-justificatory and valid. he sees that, if the empiricist were right in his assumption as to the real worth of the given data, thinking would be a ridiculous pretender, either toilfully and poorly doing over again what needs no doing, or making a wilful departure from truth. he realizes that thought really is evoked because it is needed, and that it has a work to do which is not merely formal, but which effects a modification of the subject-matter of experience. consequently he assumes a thought-in-itself, with certain forms and modes of action of its own, a realm of meaning possessed of a directive and normative worth of its own--the root-fallacy of rationalism. his attempted compromise between the two turns out to be based on the assumption of the indefensible ideas of both--the notion of an independent matter of thought, on one side, and of an independent worth or value of thought-forms, on the other. this pointing out of inconsistencies becomes stale and unprofitable save as we bring them back into connection with their root-origin--the erection of distinctions that are genetic and historic, and working or instrumental divisions of labor, into rigid and ready-made differences of structural reality. lotze clearly recognizes that thought's nature is dependent upon its aim, its aim upon its problem, and this upon the situation in which it finds its incentive and excuse. its work is cut out for it. it does not what it would, but what it must. as lotze puts it, "logic has to do with thought, not as it would be under hypothetical conditions, but as it is" (vol. i, p. 33), and this statement is made in explicit combination with statements to the effect that the peculiarity of the material of thought conditions its activity. similarly he says in a passage already referred to: "the possibility and the success of thought's production in general depends upon this original constitution and organization of the whole world of ideas, a constitution which, though not necessary in thought, is all the more necessary to make thought possible."[28] as we have seen, the essential nature of conception, judgment, and inference is dependent upon peculiarities of the propounded material, they being forms dependent for their significance upon the stage of organization in which they begin. from this only one conclusion is suggested. if thought's nature is dependent upon its actual conditions and circumstances, the primary logical problem is to study thought-in-its-conditioning; it is to detect the crisis within which thought and its subject-matter present themselves in their mutual distinction and cross-reference. but lotze is so thoroughly committed to a ready-made antecedent of some sort, that this genetic consideration is of no account to him. the historic method is a mere matter of psychology, and has no logical worth (vol. i, p. 2). we must presuppose a psychological mechanism and psychological material, but logic is concerned not with origin or history, but with authority, worth, value (vol. i, p. 10). again: "logic is not concerned with the manner in which the elements utilized by thought come into existence, but their value _after_ they have somehow come into existence, for the carrying out of intellectual operations" (vol. i, p. 34). and finally: "i have maintained throughout my work that logic cannot derive any serious advantage from a discussion of _the conditions under which thought as a psychological process comes about_. the significance of logical forms ... is to be found in the utterances of thought, the laws which it imposes, after or during the act of thinking, not in the conditions which lie back of and which produce thought."[29] lotze, in truth, represents a halting-stage in the evolution of logical theory. he is too far along to be contented with the reiteration of the purely formal distinctions of a merely formal thought-by-itself. he recognizes that thought as formal is the form of some matter, and has its worth only as organizing that matter to meet the ideal demands of reason; and that "reason" is in truth only an ideal systematization of the matter or content. consequently he has to open the door to admit "psychical processes" which furnish this material. having let in the material, he is bound to shut the door again in the face of the processes from which the material proceeded--to dismiss them as impertinent intruders. if thought gets its data in such a surreptitious manner, there is no occasion for wonder that the legitimacy of its dealings with the material remains an open question. logical theory, like every branch of the philosophic disciplines, waits upon a surrender of the obstinate conviction that, while the work and aim of thought is conditioned by the material supplied to it, yet the _worth_ of its performances is something to be passed upon in complete abstraction from conditions of origin and development. iv thought and its subject-matter: the content and object of thought in the foregoing discussion, particularly in the last chapter, we were led repeatedly to recognize that thought has its own content. at times lotze gives way to the tendency to define thought entirely in terms of modes and forms of activity which are exercised by it upon a strictly foreign material. but two motives continually push him in the other direction. (1) thought has a distinctive work to do, one which involves a qualitative transformation of (at least) the _relationships_ of the presented matter; as fast as it accomplishes this work, the subject-matter becomes somehow thought's own. as we have just seen, the data are progressively organized to meet thought's ideal of a complete whole, with its members interconnected according to a determining principle. such progressive organization throws backward doubt upon the assumption of the original total irrelevancy of the data and thought-form to each other. (2) a like motive operates from the side of the subject-matter. as merely foreign and external, it is too heterogeneous to lend itself to thought's exercise and influence. the idea, as we saw in the first chapter, is the convenient medium through which lotze passes from the purely heterogeneous psychical impression or event, which is totally irrelevant to thought's purpose and working, over to a state of affairs which can reward thought. idea as meaning forms the bridge from the brute factuality of the psychical impression over to the coherent value of thought's own content. we have, in this chapter, to consider the question of the idea or content of thought from two points of view: first, the _possibility_ of such a content--its consistency with lotze's fundamental premises; secondly, its _objective_ character--its validity and test. i. the question of the possibility of a specific content of thought is the question of the nature of the idea as meaning. meaning is the characteristic content of thought as such. we have thus far left unquestioned lotze's continual assumption of meaning as a sort of thought-unit; the building-stone of thought's construction. in his treatment of meaning, lotze's contradictions regarding the antecedents, data, and content of thought reach their full conclusion. he expressly makes meaning to be the product of thought's activity and also the unreflective material out of which thought's operations grow. this contradiction has been worked out in accurate and complete detail by professor jones.[30] he summarizes it as follows (p. 99): "no other way was left to him [lotze] excepting this of first attributing all to sense and afterwards attributing all to thought, and, finally of attributing it to thought only because it was already in its material. this _seesaw_ is essential to his theory; the elements of knowledge as he describes them can subsist only by the alternate robbery of each other." we have already seen how strenuously lotze insists upon the fact that the given subject-matter of thought is to be regarded wholly as the work of a physical mechanism, "without any action of thought."[31] but lotze also states that if the products of the psychical mechanism "are to admit of combination in the definite form of a _thought_, they each require some previous shaping to make them into logical building-stones and to convert them from _impressions_ into _ideas_. nothing is really more familiar to us than this first operation of thought; the only reason why we usually overlook it is that in the language which we inherit, it is already carried out, and it seems, therefore, to belong to the self-evident presuppositions of thought, _not to its own specific work_."[32] and again (vol. i, p. 23) judgments "can consist of nothing but combinations of ideas which are no longer mere impressions: every such idea must have undergone at least the simple formation mentioned above." such ideas are, lotze goes on to urge, already rudimentary concepts--that is to say, logical determinations. the obviousness of the logical contradiction of attributing to a preliminary specific work of thought exactly the condition of affairs which is elsewhere explicitly attributed to a psychical mechanism prior to any thought-activity, should not blind us to its meaning and relative necessity. the impression, it will be recalled, is a mere state of our own consciousness--a mood of ourselves. as such it has simply _de facto_ relations as an event to other similar events. but reflective thought is concerned with the relationship of a content or matter to other contents. hence the impression must have a matter before it can come at all within the sphere of thought's exercise. how shall it secure this? why, by a preliminary activity of thought which objectifies the impression. blue as a mere sensuous irritation or feeling is given a quality, the meaning "blue"--blueness; the sense-impression is objectified; it is presented "no longer as a condition which we undergo, but as a something which has its being and its meaning in itself, and which continues to be what it is, and to mean what it means whether we are conscious of it or not. it is easy to see here the _necessary beginning of that activity which we above appropriated to thought as such_: it has not yet got so far as converting coexistence into coherence. it has first to perform the previous task of investing each single impression with an independent validity, without which the later opposition of their real coherence to mere coexistence could not be made in any intelligible sense."[33] this objectification, which converts a sensitive state into a sensible matter to which the sensitive state is referred, also gives this matter "position," a certain typical character. it is not objectified in a merely general way, but is given a specific sort of objectivity. of these kinds of objectivity there are three mentioned: that of a substantive content; that of an attached dependent content; that of an active relationship connecting the various contents with each other. in short, we have the types of meaning embodied in language in the form of nouns, adjectives, and verbs. it is through this preliminary formative activity of thought that reflective or _logical_ thought has presented to it a world of meanings ranged in an order of relative independence and dependence, and ranged as elements in a complex of meanings whose various constituent parts mutually influence each other's meanings.[34] as usual, lotze mediates the contradiction between material constituted _by_ thought and the same material just presented _to_ thought, by a further position so disparate to each that, taken in connection with each in a pair, and by turns, it seems to bridge the gulf. after describing the prior constitutive work of thought as above, he goes on to discuss a _second_ phase of thought which is intermediary between this and the third phase, viz., reflective thought proper. this second activity is that of arranging experienced quales in series and groups, thus ascribing a sort of universal or common somewhat to various instances (as already described; see p. 55). on one hand, it is clearly stated that this second phase of thought's activity is in reality the _same_ as the first phase: since all objectification involves positing, since positing involves distinction of one matter from others, and since this involves placing it in a series or group in which each is measurably marked off, as to the degree and nature of its diversity, from every other. we are told that we are only considering "a really inseparable operation" of thought from two different sides: first, as to the effect which objectifying thought has upon the matter as set over against the feeling _subject_, secondly, the effect which this objectification has upon the matter in relation to _other matters_.[35] afterward, however, these two operations are declared to be radically different in type and nature. the first is determinant and formative; it gives ideas "the shape without which the logical spirit could not accept them." in a way it dictates "its own laws to its object-matter."[36] the second activity of thought is rather passive and receptive. it simply recognizes what is already there. "thought can make no difference where it finds none already in the matter of impressions."[37] "the first universal, as we saw, can only be experienced in immediate sensation. it is no product of thought, but something that thought finds already in existence."[38] the obviousness of this further contradiction is paralleled only by its inevitableness. thought is in the air, is arbitrary and wild in dealing with meanings, unless it gets its start and cue from actual experience. hence the necessity of insisting upon thought's activity as just recognizing the contents already given. but, on the other hand, prior to the work of thought there is to lotze no content or meaning. it requires a work of thought to detach anything from the flux of sense-irritations and invest it with a meaning of its own. this dilemma is inevitable to any writer who declines to consider as correlative the nature of thought-activity and thought-content from the standpoint of their generating conditions in the movement of experience. viewed from such a standpoint the principle of solution is clear enough. as we have already seen (p. 53), the internal dissension of an experience leads to detaching certain values previously absorptively integrated into the concrete experience as part of its own qualitative coloring; and to relegating them, for the time being, (pending integration into further immediate values of a reconstituted experience) into a world of bare meanings, a sphere qualified as ideal throughout. these meanings then become the tools of thought in interpreting the data, just as the sense-qualities which define the presented situation are the immediate object to thought. the two _as mutually referred_ are content. that is, the datum and the thought-mode or idea as connected are the object of thought. to reach this unification is thought's objective or goal. exactly the same value is idea, as either tool or content, according as it is taken as instrumental or as accomplishment. every successive cross-section of the thought-situation presents what may be taken for granted as the outcome of previous thinking, and consequently as the determinant of further reflective procedure. taken as defining the point reached in the thought-function and serving as constituent unit of further thought, it is content. lotze's instinct is sure in identifying and setting over against each other the material given to thought and the content which is thought's own "building-stone." his contradictions arise simply from the fact that his absolute, non-historic method does not permit him to interpret this joint identity and distinction in a working, and hence relative, sense. ii. the question of how the possibility of meanings, or thought-contents, is to be understood merges imperceptibly into the question of the real objectivity or validity of such contents. the difficulty for lotze is the now familiar one: so far as his logic compels him to insist that these meanings are the possession and product of thought (since thought is an independent activity), the ideas are merely ideas; there is no test of objectivity beyond the thoroughly unsatisfactory and formal one of their own mutual consistency. in reaction from this lotze is thrown back upon the idea of these contents as the original matter given in the impressions themselves. here there seems to be an objective or external test by which the reality of thought's operations may be tried; a given idea is verified or found false according to its measure of correspondence with the matter of experience as such. but now we are no better off. the original independence and heterogeneity of impressions and of thought is so great that there is no way to compare the results of the latter with the former. we cannot compare or contrast distinctions of worth with bare differences of factual existence (vol. i, p. 2). the standard or test of objectivity is so thoroughly external that by original definition it is wholly outside the realm of thought. how can thought compare its own contents with that which is wholly outside itself? or again, the given material of experience apart from thought is precisely the relatively chaotic and unorganized; it even reduces itself to a mere sequence of psychical events. what rational meaning is there in directing us to compare the highest results of scientific inquiry with the bare sequence of our own states of feeling; or even with the original data whose fragmentary and uncertain character was the exact motive for entering upon scientific inquiry? how can the former in any sense give a check or test of the value of the latter? this is professedly to test the validity of a system of meanings by comparison with that whose defects and errors call forth the construction of the system of meanings by which to rectify and replace themselves. our subsequent inquiry simply consists in tracing some of the phases of the characteristic seesaw from one to the other of the two horns of the now familiar dilemma: either thought is separate from the matter of experience, and then its validity is wholly its own private business; or else the objective results of thought are already in the antecedent material, and then thought is either unnecessary, or else has no way of checking its own performances. 1. lotze assumes, as we have seen, a certain independent validity in each meaning or qualified content, taken in and of itself. "blue" has a certain validity, or meaning, in and of itself; it is an object for consciousness as such. after the original sense-irritation through which it was mediated has entirely disappeared, it persists as a valid idea, as a meaning. moreover, it is an object or content of thought for others as well. thus it has a double mark of validity: in the comparison of one part of my own experience with another, and in the comparison of my experience as a whole with that of others. here we have a sort of validity which does not raise at all the question of _metaphysical_ reality (vol. i, pp. 14, 15). lotze thus seems to have escaped from the necessity of employing as check or test for the validity of ideas any reference to a real outside the sphere of thought itself. such terms as "conjunction," "franchise," "constitution," "algebraic zero," etc., etc., claim to possess objective validity. yet none of these professes to refer to a reality beyond thought. generalizing this point of view, validity or objectivity of meaning means simply that which is "identical for all consciousness" (vol. i, p. 3); "it is quite indifferent whether certain parts of the world of thought indicate something which has beside an independent reality outside of thinking minds, or whether all that it contains exists only in the thoughts of those who think it, but with equal validity for them all" (vol. i, p. 16). so far it seems clear sailing. difficulties, however, show themselves, the moment we inquire what is meant by a self-identical content for all thought. is this to be taken in a static or in a dynamic way? that is to say: does it express the fact that a given content or meaning is _de facto_ presented to the consciousness of all alike? does this coequal presence guarantee an objectivity? or does validity attach to a given meaning or content in so far as it directs and controls the further exercise of thinking, and thus the formation of further _new_ contents of consciousness? the former interpretation is alone consistent with lotze's notion that the independent idea as such is invested with a certain validity or objectivity. it alone is consistent with his assertion that concepts precede judgments. it alone, that is to say, is consistent with the notion that reflective thinking has a sphere of ideas or meanings supplied to it at the outset. but it is impossible to entertain this belief. the stimulus which, according to lotze, goads thought on from ideas or concepts to judgments and inferences, is in truth simply the lack of validity, of objectivity in its original independent meanings or contents. a meaning as independent is precisely that which is not invested with validity, but which is a mere idea, a "notion," a fancy, at best a surmise which may turn out to be valid (and of course this indicates possible reference); a standpoint to have its value determined by its further active use. "blue" as a mere detached floating meaning, an idea at large, would not gain in validity simply by being entertained continuously in a given consciousness; or by being made at one and the same time the persistent object of attentive regard by all human consciousnesses. if this were all that were required, the chimera, the centaur, or any other subjective construction, could easily gain validity. "christian science" has made just this notion the basis of its philosophy. the simple fact is that in such illustrations as "blue," "franchise," "conjunction," lotze instinctively takes cases which are not mere independent and detached meanings, but which involve reference to a region of cosmic experience, or to a region of mutually determining social activities. the conception that reference to a _social_ activity does not involve the same sort of reference of thought beyond itself that is involved in physical matters, and hence may be taken quite innocent and free of the metaphysical problem of reference to reality beyond meaning, is one of the strangest that has ever found lodgment in human thinking. either both physical and social reference or neither, is metaphysical; if neither, then it is because the meaning functions, as it originates, in a specific situation which carries with it its own tests (see p. 17). lotze's conception is made possible only by unconsciously substituting the idea of object as content of thought for a large number of persons (or a _de facto_ somewhat for every consciousness), for the genuine definition of object as a determinant in a scheme of experience. the former is consistent with lotze's conception of thought, but wholly indeterminate as to validity or intent. the latter is the test used experimentally in all concrete thinking, but involves a radical transformation of all lotze's assumptions. a given idea of the conjunction of the franchise, or of blue, is valid, not because everybody happens to entertain it, but because it expresses the factor of control or direction in a given movement of experience. the test of validity of idea[39] is its functional or instrumental use in effecting the transition from a relatively conflicting experience to a relatively integrated one. if lotze's view were correct, "blue" valid once would be valid always--even when red or green were actually called for to fulfil specific conditions. this is to say validity always refers to rightfulness or adequacy of performance in an asserting of connection--not to the meaning as detached and contemplated. if we refer again to the fact that the genuine antecedent of thought is a situation which is tensional as regards its existing status, or disorganized in its structural elements, yet organized as emerging out of the unified experience of the past and as striving as a whole, or equally in all its phases, to reinstate an experience harmonized in make-up, we can easily understand how certain contents may be detached and held apart as meanings or references, actual or possible (according as they are viewed with reference to the past or to the future). we can understand how such detached contents may be of use in effecting a review of the entire experience, and as affording standpoints and methods of a reconstruction which will maintain the integrity of experience. we can understand how validity of meaning is measured by reference to something which is not mere meaning; by reference to something which lies beyond the idea as such--viz., the reconstitution of an experience into which thought enters as mediator. that paradox of ordinary experience and of scientific inquiry by which objectivity is given alike to matter of perception and to conceived relations--to facts and to laws--affords no peculiar difficulty, because we see that the test of objectivity is everywhere the same: anything is objective in so far as, through the medium of conflict, it controls the movement of experience in its reconstructive transition from one unified form to another. there is not first an object, whether of sense-perception or of conception, which afterward somehow exercises this controlling influence; but the objective is such in virtue of the exercise of function of control. it may only control the act of inquiry; it may only set on foot doubt, but this is direction of subsequent experience, and, in so far, is a token of objectivity. so much for the thought-content or meaning as having a validity of its own. it does not have it as isolated or given or static; it has it in its dynamic reference, its use in determining further movement of experience. in other words, the "meaning" or idea as such, having been selected and made-up with reference to performing a certain office in the evolution of a unified experience, can be tested in no other way than by discovering whether it does what it was intended to do and what it purports to do.[40] 2. lotze has to wrestle with this question of validity in a further aspect: what constitutes the objectivity of thinking as a total attitude, activity, or function? according to his own statement, the meanings or valid ideas are after all only building-stones for logical thought. validity is thus not a question of them in their independent existences, but of their mutual reference to each other. thinking is the process of instituting these mutual references; of building up the various scattered and independent building-stones into the coherent system of thought. what is the validity of the various forms of thinking which find expression in the various types of judgment and in the various forms of inference? categorical, hypothetical, disjunctive judgment; inference by induction, by analogy, by mathematical equation; classification, theory of explanation--all these are processes of reflection by which mutual connection in an individualized whole is given to the fragmentary meanings or ideas with which thought as it sets out is supplied. what shall we say of the validity of such processes? on one point lotze is quite clear. these various logical acts do not really enter into the constitution of the valid world. the logical forms as such are maintained _only_ in the process of thinking. the world of valid truth does not undergo a series of contortions and evolutions, paralleling in any way the successive steps and missteps, the succession of tentative trials, withdrawals, and retracings, which mark the course of our own thinking.[41] lotze is explicit upon the point that it is only the thought-content in which the process of thinking issues that has objective validity; the act of thinking is "purely and simply an inner movement of our own minds, made necessary to us by reason of the constitution of our nature and of our place in the world" (vol. ii, p. 279). here the problem of validity presents itself as the problem of the relation of the act of thinking to its own product. in his solution lotze uses two metaphors: one derived from building operations, the other from traveling. the construction of a building requires of necessity certain tools and extraneous constructions, stagings, scaffoldings, etc., which are necessary to effect the final construction, but yet which do not enter into the building as such. the activity has an instrumental, though not a constitutive, value as regards its product. similarly, in order to get a view from the top of a mountain--this view being the objective--the traveler has to go through preliminary movements along devious courses. these again are antecedent prerequisites, but do not constitute a portion of the attained view. the problem of thought as activity, as distinct from thought as content, opens up altogether too large a question to receive complete consideration at this point. fortunately, however, the previous discussion enables us to narrow the point which is in issue just here. it is once more the question whether the activity of thought is to be regarded as an independent function supervening entirely from without upon antecedents, and directed from without upon data; or whether it marks merely a phase of the transformation which the course of experience (whether practical, or artistic, or socially affectional or whatever) undergoes in entering into a tensional status where the maintenance of its harmony of content is problematic and hence an aim. if it be the latter, a thoroughly intelligent sense can be given to the proposition that the activity of thinking is instrumental, and that its worth is found, not in its own successive states as such, but in the result in which it comes to conclusion. but the conception of thinking as an independent activity somehow occurring after an independent antecedent, playing upon an independent subject-matter, and finally effecting an independent result, presents us with just one miracle the more. i do not question the strictly instrumental character of thinking. the problem lies not here, but in the interpretation of the nature of the organ and instrument. the difficulty with lotze's position is that it forces us into the assumption of a means and an end which are simply and only external to each other, and yet necessarily dependent upon each other--a position which, whenever found, is so thoroughly self-contradictory as to necessitate critical reconsideration of the premises which lead to it. lotze vibrates between the notion of thought as a tool in the external sense, a mere scaffolding to a finished building in which it has no part nor lot, and the notion of thought as an immanent tool, as a scaffolding which is an integral part of the very operation of building, and set up for the sake of the building-activity which is carried on effectively only with and through a scaffolding. only in the former case can the scaffolding be considered as a _mere_ tool. in the latter case the external scaffolding is not itself the instrumentality; the actual tool is the _action_ of erecting the building, and this action involves the scaffolding as a constituent part of itself. the work of erecting is not set over against the completed building as mere means to an end; it _is_ the end taken in process or historically, longitudinally viewed. the scaffolding, moreover, is not an external means to the process of erecting, but an organic member of it. it is no mere accident of language that "building" has a double sense--meaning at once the process and the finished product. the outcome of thought is the thinking activity carried on to its own completion; the activity, on the other hand, _is_ the outcome taken anywhere short of its own realization, and thereby still going on. the only consideration which prevents easy and immediate acceptance of this view is the notion of thinking as something purely formal. it is strange that the empiricist does not see that his insistence upon a matter extraneously given to thought only strengthens the hands of the rationalist with his claim of thinking as an independent activity, separate from the actual make-up of the affairs of experience. thinking as a merely formal activity exercised upon certain sensations or images or objects sets forth an absolutely meaningless proposition. the psychological identification of thinking with the process of association is much nearer the truth. it is, indeed, on the way to the truth. we need only to recognize that association is of contents or matters or meanings, not of ideas as bare existences or events; and that the type of association we call thinking differs from the associations of casual fancy and revery in an element of control by reference to an end which determines the fitness and thus the selection of the associates, to apprehend how completely thinking is a reconstructive movement of actual contents of experience in relation to each other, and for the sake of a redintegration of a conflicting experience. there is no miracle in the fact that tool and material are adapted to each other in the process of reaching a valid conclusion. were they external in origin to each other and to the result, the whole affair would, indeed, present an insoluble problem--so insoluble that, if this were the true condition of affairs, we never should even know that there was a problem. but, in truth, both material and tool have been secured and determined with reference to economy and efficiency in effecting the end desired--the maintenance of a harmonious experience. the builder has discovered that his building means building tools, and also building material. each has been slowly evolved with reference to its fit employ in the entire function; and this evolution has been checked at every point by reference to its own correspondent. the carpenter has not thought at large on his building and then constructed tools at large, but has thought of his building in terms of the material which enters into it, and through that medium has come to the consideration of the tools which are helpful. life proposes to maintain at all hazards the unity of its own process. experience insists on being itself, on securing integrity even through and by means of conflict. this is not a formal question, but one of the placing and relations of the matters or values actually entering into experience. and this in turn determines the taking up of just those mental attitudes, and the employing of just those intellectual operations, which most effectively handle and organize the material. thinking is adaptation _to_ an end _through_ the adjustment of particular objective contents. the thinker, like the carpenter, is at once stimulated and checked in every stage of his procedure by the particular situation which confronts him. a person is at the stage of wanting a new house: well then, his materials are available resources, the price of labor, the cost of building, the state and needs of his family, profession, etc.; his tools are paper and pencil and compass, or possibly the bank as a credit instrumentality, etc. again, the work is beginning. the foundations are laid. this in turn determines its own specific materials and tools. again, the building is almost ready for occupancy. the concrete process is that of taking away the scaffolding, clearing up the grounds, furnishing and decorating rooms, etc. this specific operation again determines its own fit or relevant materials and tools. it defines the time and mode and manner of beginning and ceasing to use them. logical theory will get along as well as does reflective practice, when it sticks close by and observes the directions and checks inherent in each successive phase of the evolution of the cycle of experiencing. the problem in general of validity of the thinking process as distinct from the validity of this or that process arises only when thinking is isolated from its historic position and its material context. 3. but lotze is not yet done with the problem of validity, even from his own standpoint. the ground shifts again under his feet. it is no longer a question of the validity of the idea or meaning with which thought is supposed to set out; it is no longer a question of the validity of the process of thinking in reference to its own product; it is the question of the validity of the product. supposing, after all, that the final meaning, or logical idea, is thoroughly coherent and organized; supposing it is an object for all consciousness as such. once more arises the question: what is the validity of even the most coherent and complete idea?--a question which rises and will not down. we may reconstruct our notion of the chimera until it ceases to be an independent idea and becomes a part of the system of greek mythology. has it gained in validity in ceasing to be an independent myth, in becoming an element in systematized myth? myth it was and myth it remains. mythology does not get validity by growing bigger. how do we know the same is not the case with the ideas which are the product of our most deliberate and extended scientific inquiry? the reference again to the content as the self-identical object of all consciousness proves nothing; the matter of a hallucination does not gain worth in proportion to its social contagiousness. or the reference proves that we have not as yet reached any conclusion, but are entertaining a hypothesis--since social validity is not a matter of mere common content, but of securing participation in a commonly adjudged social experience through action directed thereto and directed by consensus of judgment. according to lotze, the final product is, after all, still thought. now, lotze is committed once for all to the notion that thought, in any form, is directed by and at an outside reality. the ghost haunts him to the last. how, after all, does even the ideally perfect valid thought apply or refer to reality? its genuine subject is still beyond itself. at the last lotze can dispose of this question only by regarding it as a metaphysical, not a logical, problem (vol. ii, pp. 281, 282). in other words, _logically_ speaking, we are at the end just exactly where we were at the beginning--in the sphere of ideas, and of ideas only, plus a consciousness of the necessity of referring these ideas to a reality which is beyond them, which is utterly inaccessible to them, which is out of reach of any influence which they may exercise, and which transcends any possible comparison with their results. "it is vain," says lotze, "to shrink from acknowledging the circle here involved ... all we know of the external world depends upon the ideas of it which are within us" (vol. ii, p. 185). "it is then this varied world of ideas within us which forms the sole material directly given to us" (vol. ii, p. 186). as it is the only material given to us, so it is the only material with which thought can end. to talk about knowing the external world through ideas which are merely within us is to talk of an inherent self-contradiction. there is no common ground in which the external world and our ideas can meet. in other words, the original implication of a separation between an independent thought-material and an independent thought-function and purpose lands us inevitably in the metaphysics of subjective idealism, plus a belief in an unknown reality beyond, which unknowable is yet taken as the ultimate test of the value of our ideas as just subjective. the subjectivity of the psychical event infects at the last the meaning or ideal object. because it has been taken to be something "in itself," thought is also something "in itself," and at the end, after all our maneuvering we are where we began:--with two separate disparates, one of meaning, but no existence, the other of existence, but no meaning. the other aspect of lotze's contradiction which completes the circle is clear when we refer to his original propositions, and recall that at the outset he was compelled to regard the origination and conjunctions of the impressions, the elements of ideas, as themselves the effects exercised by a world of things already in existence (see p. 31). he sets up an independent world of thought, and yet has to confess that both at its origin and termination it points with absolute necessity to a world beyond itself. only the stubborn refusal to take this initial and terminal reference of thought beyond itself as having a historic meaning, indicating a particular place of generation and a particular point of fulfilment in the drama of evolving experience, compels lotze to give such bifold objective reference a purely metaphysical turn. when lotze goes on to say (vol. ii, p. 191) that the measure of truth of particular parts of experience is found in asking whether, when judged by thought, they are in harmony with other parts of experience; when he goes on to say that there is no sense in trying to compare the entire world of ideas with a reality which is non-existent, excepting as it itself should become an idea, lotze lands where he might better have frankly commenced.[43] he saves himself from utter skepticism only by claiming that the explicit assumption of skepticism, the need of agreement of a ready-made idea as such, with an extraneous independent material as such, is meaningless. he defines correctly the work of thought as consisting in harmonizing the various portions of experience with each other: a definition which has meaning only in connection with the fact that experience is continually integrating itself into a wholeness of coherent meaning deepened in significance by passing through an inner distraction in which by means of conflict certain contents are rendered partial and hence objectively conscious. in this case the test of thought is the harmony or unity of experience actually effected. in that sense the test of reality is beyond thought, as thought, just as at the other limit thought originates out of a situation which is not reflectional in character. interpret this before and beyond in a historic sense, as an affair of the place occupied and rôle played by thinking as a function in experience in relation to other functions, and the intermediate and instrumental character of thought, its dependence upon unreflective antecedents for its existence, and upon a consequent experience for its test of final validity, becomes significant and necessary. taken at large, it plunges us in the depths of a hopelessly complicated and self-revolving metaphysic. v a critical study of bosanquet's theory of judgment[44] bosanquet's theory of the judgment, in common with all such theories of the judgment, necessarily involves the metaphysical problem of the nature of reality and of the relation of thought to reality. that the judgment is the function by which knowledge is attained is a proposition which would meet with universal acceptance. but knowledge is itself a relation of some sort between thought and reality. the view which any logician adopts as to the nature of the knowledge-process is accordingly conditioned by his metaphysical presuppositions as to the nature of reality. it is equally true that the theory of the judgment developed from any metaphysical standpoint serves as a test of the validity of that standpoint. we shall attempt in the present paper to show how bosanquet's theory of the judgment develops from his view of the nature of reality, and to inquire whether the theory succeeds in giving such an account of the knowledge-process as to corroborate the presupposition underlying it. bosanquet defines judgment as "the intellectual function which defines reality by significant ideas and in so doing affirms the reality of those ideas" (p. 104).[45] the form of the definition suggests the nature of his fundamental problem. there is, on the one hand, a world of reality which must be regarded as having existence outside of and independently of the thoughts or ideas we are now applying to it; and there is, on the other hand, a world of ideas whose value is measured by the possibility of applying them to reality, of qualifying reality by them. the judgment is the function which makes the connection between these two worlds. if judgment merely brought one set of ideas into relation with another set, then it could never give us anything more than purely hypothetical knowledge whose application to the real world would remain forever problematic. it would mean that knowledge is impossible, a result which seems to be contradicted by the existence of knowledge. the logician must, therefore, as bosanquet tells us, regard it as an essential of the act of judgment that it always refers to a reality which goes beyond and is independent of the act itself (p. 104). his central problem thus becomes that of understanding what the nature of reality is which permits of being defined by ideas, and what the nature of an idea is that it can ever be affirmed to be real. how does the real world get representation in experience, and what is the guarantee that the representation, when obtained, is correct? the defining of the problem suggests the view of the nature of reality out of which bosanquet's theory of the judgment grows. the real world is to him a world which has its existence quite independently of the process by which it is known. the real world is there to be known, and is in no wise modified by the knowledge which we obtain of it. the work of thought is to build up a world of ideas which shall represent, or correspond to, the world of reality. the more complete and perfect the correspondence, the greater our store of knowledge. translated into terms of the judgment, this representational view means that the subject of the judgment must always be reality, while the predicate is an idea. but when we examine the content of any universal judgment, or even of an ordinary judgment of perception, the subject which appears in the judgment is evidently not reality at all, if by reality we mean something which is in no sense constituted by the thought-process. when i say, "the tree is green," the subject, tree, cannot be regarded as a bit of reality which is given ready-made to the thought-process. the ability to perceive a tree, to distinguish it from other objects and single it out for the application of an idea, evidently implies a long series of previous judgments. the content "tree" is itself ideal. as bosanquet forcibly states it: "if a sensation or elementary perception is in consciousness (and if not we have nothing to do with it in logic), it already bears the form of thinking" (p. 33). how, then, can it serve as the subject of a judgment? bosanquet's solution of the problem is to say that the real subject of a judgment is not the grammatical subject which appears in a proposition, but reality itself. in the more complex forms of judgment the reference to reality is disguised by the introduction of explicit ideas to designate the portion of reality to which reference is made (pp. 78, 79). in the simplest type of judgment known, however, the qualitative judgment of perception, the reference to reality appears within the judgment itself. the relations of thought to reality and of the elements of the judgment to one another can, accordingly, most readily be seen in the consideration of this rudimentary form of judgment in which the various parts lie bare before us. bosanquet describes it as follows: if i say, pointing to a particular house, "that is my home," it is clear that in this act of judgment the reference conveyed by the demonstrative is indispensable. the significant idea "my home" is affirmed, not of any other general significant idea in my mind, but of something which is rendered unique by being present to me in perception. in making the judgment, "that is my home," i extend the present sense-perception of a house in a certain landscape by attaching to it the ideal content or meaning of "home;" and moreover, in doing this, i pronounce the ideal content to be, so to speak, of one and the same tissue with what i have before me in my actual perception. that is to say, i affirm the meaning of the idea, or the idea considered as a meaning, to be a real quality of that which i perceive in my perception. the same account holds good of every perceptive judgment; when i see a white substance on a plate and judge that "it is bread" i affirm the reference, or general meaning which constitutes the symbolic idea "bread" in my mind, to be a real quality of the spot or point in present perception which i attempt to designate by the demonstrative "this." the act defines the given but indefinite real by affirmation of a quality, and affirms reality of the definite quality by attaching it to the previously undefined real. reality is given for me _in_ present sensuous perception, and _in_ the immediate feeling of my own sentient existence that goes with it. (pp. 76, 77.) again, he says that the general features of the judgment of perception are as follows: there is a presence of a something in contact with our sensitive self, which, as being so in contact, has the character of reality; and there is the qualification of this reality by the reference to it of some meaning _such as can_ be symbolized by a name (p. 77). our point of contact with reality, the place where reality gets into the thought-process, is, according to this view, to be found in the simplest, most indefinite type of judgment of perception. we meet with reality in the mere undefined "this" of primitive experience. but each such elementary judgment about an undefined "this" is an isolated bit of experience. each "this" could give us only a detached bit of reality at best, and the further problem now confronts us of how we ever succeed in piecing our detached bits of reality together to form a real world. bosanquet's explanation is, in his words, this: the real world, as a definite organized system, is _for me_ an extension of this present sensation and self-feeling by means of judgment, and it is the essence of judgment to effect and sustain such an extension (p. 77). again he says: the subject in every judgment of perception is some given spot or point in sensuous contact with the percipient self. but, as all reality is continuous, the subject is not _merely_ this given spot or point. it is impossible to confine the real world within this or that presentation. every definition or qualification of a point in present perception is affirmed of the real world which is continuous with present perception. the ultimate subject of the perceptive judgment is the real world as a whole, and it is of this that, in judging, we affirm the qualities or characteristics. (p. 78.) the problem is the same as that with which bradley struggles in his treatment of the subject of the judgment, and the solution is also the same. bradley's treatment of the point is perhaps somewhat more explicit. like bosanquet, he starts with the proposition that the subject of the judgment must be reality itself and not an idea, because, if it were the latter, judgment could never give us anything but a union of ideas, and a union of ideas remains forever universal and hypothetical. it can never acquire the uniqueness, the singularity, which is necessary to make it refer to the real. uniqueness can be found only in our contact with the real. but just where does our contact with the real occur? bradley recognizes the fact that it cannot be the _content_--even in the case of a simple sensation--which gives us reality. the content of a sensation is a thing which is in my consciousness, and which has the form which it presents because it is in my consciousness. reality is precisely something which is not itself sensation, and cannot be in my consciousness. if i say, "this is white," the "this" has a content which is a sensation of whiteness. but the sensation of whiteness is not reality. the experience brings with it an assurance of reality, not because its content is the real, but because it is "my direct encounter in sensible presentation with the real world."[46] to make the matter clearer, bradley draws a distinction between the _this_ and the _thisness_. in every experience, however simple, there is a content--a "thisness"--which is not itself unique. considered merely as content, it is applicable to an indefinite number of existences; in other words, it is an idea. but there is also in every experience a "this" which is unique, but which is not a content. it is a mere sign of existence which gives the experience uniqueness, but nothing else. the "thisness" falls on the side of the content, and the "this" on the side of existence. it is exactly the distinction which bosanquet has in mind in the passages quoted in which he tells us that "reality is given for me _in_ present sensuous perception, and _in_ the immediate feeling of my own sentient existence which goes with it;" and again when he says: "there is a presence of a something in contact with our sensitive self, which, as being so in contact, has the character of reality." the same point is made somewhat more explicitly in his introduction when he says that the individual's present perception is not, indeed, reality as such, but is his present point of contact with reality as such (p. 3). but has this distinction between the content of an experience and its existence solved the problem of how we _know_ reality? when bosanquet talks of knowing reality, he means possessing ideas which are an accurate reproduction of reality. it is still far from clear how, according to his own account, we could ever have any assurance that our ideas do represent reality accurately, if we can nowhere find a point at which the content of an experience can be held to give us reality. the case is still worse when we go beyond the problem of how any particular bit of reality can be known, and ask ourselves how reality as a whole can be known. the explanation offered by both bradley and bosanquet is that by means of judgment we extend the bit of reality of whose existence we get a glimpse through a peep-hole in the curtain of sensuous perception, and thus build up the organized system of reality. in a passage previously quoted, bosanquet tells us that all reality is continuous, and therefore the real subject of a judgment cannot be the mere spot or point which is given in sensuous perception, but must be the real world as a whole. but how does he know that reality is continuous, and that the real world is an organized system? our only knowledge of reality comes through judgment, and judgment brings us into contact with reality only at isolated points. when he tells us that reality is a continuous whole, he does so on the basis of a metaphysical presupposition which is not justifiable by his theory of the judgment. the only statement about reality which could be maintained on the basis of his theory is that some sort of a reality exists, but the theory furnishes equal justification for the assurance that this reality is of such a nature that we can never know anything more about it than the bare fact of its existence. moreover, the bare fact of the existence of reality comes to us merely in the form of a feeling of our own sentient existence which goes with sense-perception. but the mere assurance that somewhere behind the curtain of sensuous perception reality exists (even if this could go unchallenged), accompanied by the certainty that we can never by any possibility know anything more about it, is practically equivalent to the denial of the possibility of knowledge.[47] although the denial of the possibility of knowledge seems to be the logical outcome of the premises, it is not the conclusion reached by bosanquet. at the outset of his treatise, bosanquet propounds the fundamental question we have been considering in these words: "how does the analysis of knowledge as a systematic function, or system of functions, explain that relationship in which truth appears to consist, between the human intelligence on the one hand, and fact or reality on the other?" his answer is: "to this difficulty there is only one reply. if the object-matter of reality lay genuinely outside the system of thought, not only our analysis, but thought itself, would be unable to lay hold of reality." (pp. 2, 3.) the statement is an explicit recognition of the impossibility of bridging the chasm between a reality outside the content of knowledge and a known real world. it brings before us the dilemma contained in bosanquet's treatment of the subject of the judgment. on the one hand the subject of the judgment must be outside the realm of my thoughts. if it were not, judgment would merely establish a relation between my ideas and would give me no knowledge of the real world. on the other hand, the subject of the judgment must be within the realm of my thoughts. if it were not, i could never assert anything of it; could never judge, or know it. the stress he lays on the first horn of the dilemma has been shown. it remains to show his recognition of the second horn, and to find out whether or not he discovers any real reconciliation between the two. bosanquet sums up the section of the introduction on knowledge and its content, truth, with the following paragraph: the real world for every individual is thus emphatically _his_ world; an extension and determination of his present perception, which perception is to him not indeed reality as such, but his point of contact with reality as such. thus in the enquiry which will have to be undertaken as to the logical subject of the judgment, we shall find that the subject, however it may shift, contract, and expand, is always in the last resort some greater or smaller element of this determinate reality, which the individual has constructed by identifying significant ideas with that world of which he has assurance through his own perceptive experience. in analyzing common judgment it is ultimately one to say that _i judge_ and that _the real world for me, my real world, extends itself_, or maintains its organized extension. this is the ultimate connection by which the distinction of subject and predication is involved in the act of affirmation or enunciation which is the differentia of judgment. (pp. 3, 4). here the subject of the judgment appears as an element of a reality _which the individual has constructed_ by identifying significant ideas with that world of which he has assurance through his own perceptive experience. but the very point with reference to the subject of the judgment previously emphasized is that it is not and cannot be something which the individual has constructed. the subject of the judgment must be reality, and reality does not consist of ideas, even if it be determined by them. it does not mend matters to explain that the individual has constructed his real world by identifying significant ideas with that world of which he has assurance through his own perceptive experiences, because, as we have seen, "the individual's perceptive experiences" either turn out to be merely similar mental constructions made at a prior time, so that nothing is gained by attaching to them, or else they mean once more the mere shock of contact which is supposed to give assurance that some sort of reality exists, but which gives no assurance of what it is. that and what, this and thisness still remain detached. when he talks of _the real world for any individual_ we are left entirely in the dark as to what the relation between _the real world as it is for any individual_ and _the real world as it is for itself_ may be, or how the individual is to gain any assurance that _the real world as it is for him_ represents _the real world as it is for itself_. another attempt at a reconciliation of these opposing views leaves us no better satisfied. the passage is as follows: the real world, as a definite organized system, is _for me_ an extension of this present sensation and self-feeling by means of judgment, and it is the essence of judgment to effect and sustain such an extension. it makes no essential difference whether the ideas whose content is pronounced to be an attribute of reality appear to fall within what is given in perception, or not. we shall find hereafter that it is vain to attempt to lay down boundaries between the given and its extension. the moment we try to do this we are on the wrong track. the given and its extension differ not absolutely but relatively; they are continuous with each other, and the metaphor by which we speak of an extension conceals from us that the so-called "given" is no less artificial than that by which it is extended. it is the character and quality of being directly in contact with sense-perception, not any fixed datum of content, that forms the constantly shifting center of the individual's real world, and spreads from that center over every extension which the system of reality receives from judgment. (p. 77.) in this passage by the "given" he evidently means the content of sensory experience, the thisness, the what. it is, as he says, of the same stuff as that by which it is extended. both the given and that by which it is extended are artificial in the sense of not being _real_ according to bosanquet's interpretation of reality; they are ideas. but if all this is admitted, what becomes of the possibility of knowledge? bosanquet undertakes to rescue it by assuring us again that it is the character and quality of being directly in contact with sense-perception, not any fixed datum of content, that forms the center of the individual's real world and gives the stamp of reality to his otherwise ideal extension of this center. here again we find ourselves with no evidence that the _content_ of our knowledge bears any relation to reality. we have merely the feeling of vividness attached to sensory experience which seems to bring us the certainty that there is some sort of a reality behind it, but this is not to give assurance that our ideal content even belongs rightfully to that against which we have bumped, much less of _how_ it belongs--and only this deserves the title "knowledge." in the chapter on "quality and comparison," in which he takes up the more detailed treatment of the simplest types of judgment of perception, he comes back to the same contradiction, and again attempts to explain how both horns of his dilemma must be true. the passage is this: the reality to which we ascribe the predicate is undoubtedly self-existent; it is not _merely_ in my mind or in my act of judgment; if it were, the judgment would only be a game with my ideas. it is well to make this clear in the case before us, for in the later forms of the judgment it will be much disguised. still the reality which attracts my concentrated attention is also within my act of judgment; it is not even the whole reality present to my perception; still less of course the whole self-existent reality which i dimly presuppose. the immediate subject of the judgment is a mere aspect, too indefinite to be described by explicit ideas except in as far as the qualitative predication imposes a first specification upon it. _this_ reality _is_ in my judgment; it is the point at which the actual world impinges upon my consciousness as real, and it is only by judging with reference to this point that i can refer the ideal content before my mind to the whole of reality which i at once believe to exist, and am attempting to construct. the subject is both in and out of the judgment, as reality is both in and out of my consciousness. (pp. 113, 114.) the conclusion he reaches is a mere restatement of the difficulty. the problem he is trying to solve is how the subject _can_ be both in and out of the judgment, and how the subject without is related to the subject within. the mere assertion that it is so does not help us to understand it. his procedure seems like taking advantage of two meanings of sense-perception, its conscious quality and its brute abrupt immediacy, and then utilizing this ambiguity to solve a problem which grows out of the conception of judgment as a reference of idea to reality. turning from his treatment of the world of fact to his discussion of the world of idea, from the subject to the predicate, as it appears in his theory of the judgment we find again a paradox which must be recognized and cannot be obviated. an idea is essentially a meaning. it is not a particular existence whose essence is uniqueness as is the case with the subject of the judgment, but is a meaning whose importance is that it may apply to an indefinite number of unique existences. its characteristic is universality. and yet an idea regarded as a psychical existence, an idea as a content in my mind, is just as particular and unique as any other existence. how, then, does it obtain its characteristic of universality? bosanquet's answer is that it must be universal by means of a reference to something other than itself. its meaning resides, not in its existence as a psychical image, but in its reference to something beyond itself. now, any idea that is affirmed is referred to reality, but do ideas exist which are not being affirmed? if so, their reference cannot be to reality. bosanquet discusses the question in the second section of his introduction as follows: it is not easy to deny that there is a world of ideas or of meanings, which simply consists in that identical reference of symbols by which mutual understanding between rational beings is made possible. a _mere_ suggestion, a _mere_ question, a _mere_ negation, seem all of them to imply that we sometimes _entertain_ ideas without affirming them of reality, and therefore without affirming their reference to be a reference to something real or their meaning to be fact. we may be puzzled indeed to say what an idea can mean, or to what it can refer, if it does not mean or refer to something real--to some element in the fabric continuously sustained by the judgment which is our consciousness. on the other hand, it would be shirking a difficulty to neglect the consideration that an idea, while denied of reality, may nevertheless, or even must, possess an identical and so intelligible reference--a symbolic value--for the rational beings who deny it. a reference, it may be argued, must be a reference to something. but it seems as if in this case the something were the fact of reference itself, the rational convention between intelligent beings, or rather the world which has existence, whether for one rational being or for many, merely as contained in and sustained by such intellectual reference. i only adduce these considerations in order to explain that transitional conception of an objective world or world of meanings, distinct from the real world or world of facts, with which it is impossible wholly to dispense in an account of thought starting from the individual subject. the paradox is that the real world or world of fact thus seems for us to fall within and be included in the objective world or world of meanings, as if all that is fact were meaning, but not every meaning were fact. this results in the contradiction that something is objective, which is not real. (pp. 4, 5.) in the seventh section of the introduction bosanquet explains his meaning further by what the reader is privileged to regard as a flight of the imagination--a mere simile--which he thinks may, nevertheless, make the matter clearer. we might try to think that the world, _as known to each of us_, is constructed and sustained by his individual consciousness; and that every other individual also frames for himself, and sustains by the action of his intelligence, the world in which he in particular lives and moves. of course such a construction is to be taken as a reconstruction, a construction by way of knowledge only; but for our present purpose this is indifferent. thus we might think of the ideas and objects of our private world rather as corresponding to than as from the beginning identical with those which our fellow-men are occupied in constructing each within his own sphere of consciousness. and the same would be true even of the objects and contents within our own world, in as far as an act or effort would be required to maintain them, of the same kind with that which was originally required to construct them.... thus the paradox of reference would become clearer. we should understand that we refer to a correspondence by means of a content. we should soften down the contradiction of saying that a name to meet which we have and can get nothing but an idea, nevertheless does not stand for that idea but for something else. we should be able to say that the name stands for those elements in the idea which correspond in all our separate worlds, and in our own world of yesterday and of today, considered as so corresponding. (pp. 45, 46.) according to this view, the idea obtains the universality which constitutes it an idea by a sort of process of elimination. it is like a composite photograph. it selects only the common elements in a large number of particular existences, and thus succeeds in representing, or referring to, all the particular existences which have gone to make it up. but when we come to consider the bearing which this view of universality, or generalized significance, has on our estimate of the knowledge-process, we feel that it has not solved the problem for us. in the first place, the idea _in its existence_ is just as particular when regarded as made up of the common elements of many ideas as is any of the ideas whose elements are taken. a composite photograph is just as much a single photograph as any one of the photographs which are taken to compose it. the chasm between the particularity of the psychical image and the universality of its meaning is not bridged by regarding the content of the image as made up by eliminating unlike elements in a number of images. the stuff with which thought has to work is still nothing more than a particular psychical image, and the problem of what gives it its logical value as a general significance is still unsolved. nor does it seem possible to find anything in the _existence_ of the image which could account for its reference to something outside of itself. the _fact_ of reference itself becomes an ultimate mystery.[48] but even waiving this difficulty, the judgment must still appear truncated, if it really totally disregard a part of its content--_i. e._, the particular existence of the image as part of the judging consciousness. the theory holds that the particular existence of the image has no logical value. it is only its meaning, or general reference, which has logical value. but the image _qua_ image is just as real as that to which it is supposed to refer. if the judgment really does ignore its existence, then it ignores a portion of the reality it attempts to represent, and stands self-confessed as a failure.[49] at still another point, ideas, as bosanquet represents them, prove to be unsatisfactory tools to use in the work of building up reality. in bosanquet's words: "the meaning tyrannizes over the psychical image in another respect. besides crushing out of sight its particular and exclusive existence, it also crushes out part of its content" (p. 74). the idea, as we use it, is not, as to content, a complete or accurate representation of anything real. to take bosanquet's illustration: some one speaks to me of the ægean sea, which i have never seen. he tells me that it is a deep blue sea under a cloudless sky, studded with rocky islands. the meanings of these words are a problem set to my thought. i have to meet him in the world of objective references, which as intelligent beings we have in common. how i do this is my own affair, and the precise images at my command will vary from day to day, and from minute to minute. it sounds simple to say that i combine my recollections of sea and sky at torbay with those of the island-studded waters of orkney or the hebrides. even so, there is much to adjust and to neglect; the red cliffs of torbay, and the cloudy skies of the north. but then again, my recollections are already themselves symbolic ideas; the reference to torbay or the hebrides is itself a problem set to thought, and puts me upon the selection of index-elements in fugitive images that are never twice the same. i have _first_ to symbolize the color of torbay, using for the purpose any blue that i can call to mind, and fixing, correcting, subtracting from, the color so recalled, till i reduce it to a mere index quality; and _then_ i have to deal in the same way with the meaning or significant idea so obtained, clipping and adjusting the qualities of torbay till it seems to serve as a symbol of the ægean. (pp. 74, 75.) and by the time all this is performed what sort of a representation of reality is the idea? evidently a very poor and meager and fragmentary one. it is so poor and fragmentary, that it cannot itself be that which is affirmed of reality. it must be some other fuller existence to be found in the world of meanings which is affirmed. and yet how the meager content of the idea succeeds in referring to the world of meanings, and acting as the instrument for referring a meaning to reality, is not at all clear. it seems impossible to explain reference intelligibly by the concept of a _correspondence_ of contents. the fundamental difficulty in the interpretation of the predicate is the same one that we encountered in the interpretation of the subject. if the predicate is to be affirmed of reality (and if it be not, it has no logical value), then it must, when affirmed, be in some sense an accurate representation of reality. but the predicate is an idea, and, moreover, an idea which is, both in its existence and in its meaning palpably the outcome of transformations wrought upon given sensory contents by the individual consciousness. since the one point of contact with reality is in sensory experience, the more simple sensory experiences are reacted upon and worked over, the farther they recede from reality. the idea seems, therefore, in its very essence, a thing which never can be affirmed of reality. as image it is itself a reality, but not affirmed; as meaning it is that reality (the image) manipulated for individual ends. why suppose that by distorting reality we get it in shape to affirm _of_ reality? moreover, the farther an idea is removed from immediate sensory experience--in other words, the more abstract it becomes--the less is the possibility of affirming it of reality. the final outcome of this point of view, if we adhere rigorously to its logic is that the more thinking we do, the less we know about the real world. bosanquet avoids this conclusion by a pure act of faith. if knowledge is to be rescued, we must believe that the work done by consciousness upon the bits of reality given in sensory experience really does succeed in building up a knowledge of reality for us. as bosanquet puts it: "the presentation of reality, qualified by an ideal content, is one aspect of subject and predication; and my individual percipient consciousness determining itself by a symbolic idea is the other. that the latter is identified with the former follows from the claim of conscious thought that its nature is to know."[50] (p. 83.) to sum up the situation, bosanquet starts out with the assumption that by knowledge we must mean knowledge of a world entirely independent of our ideas. if we fail to make this assumption, knowledge becomes merely a relation between ideas. but its whole importance seems to us to rest on the conviction that it does give us knowledge of a world which is what it is quite independently of our ideas about it, and cannot in any sense be modified by what we think about it. what knowledge does is to give us a copy or representation of the real world, whose value depends on the accuracy of the representation. and yet when we examine any individual knowing consciousness, the subject which appears within the judgment is never some portion of the world which exists outside of the knowing consciousness, but always some portion of the world which exists within the knowing consciousness, and which is constituted by the knowledge process. the predicate which is affirmed of reality is constantly found to derive its meaning, its generalized significance, not from its correspondence with, or reference to, the real world outside of the knowing consciousness, but from reference to a world of meanings, which consists in a sort of convention among rational beings--a world whose existence is distinctly within the knowing consciousness and not outside of it.[51] between the real world, as bosanquet conceives it, and the world of knowledge, we find inserted on the side of the subject, the world _as known to each of us_, and on the side of the predicate, the _objective world of meanings_. neither of these is the real world. both of them are ideal, _i. e._, are constructions of the individual consciousness. we nowhere find any satisfactory explanation of how these ideal worlds are related to the real world. there is merely the assertion that we must believe that they represent the real world in order that we may believe that knowledge exists. but the fact remains that whenever we try to analyze and explain any particular judgment, what we find ourselves dealing with is always the world as it exists to us as subject, and the objective world of meanings as predicate. if we stop here, then knowledge turns out to be just what bosanquet asserted at the outset that it was _not, i. e._, a relation between ideas. when we demand a justification for going farther than this, we find none except the claim of conscious thought that its nature is to know--a claim whose justice we have no possible means of testing, and which would not, even if admitted, be of the slightest value in deciding which _particular_ judgment is true and which false. bosanquet's development of his subject has proved to be throughout the necessary logical outcome of the presuppositions with reference to reality from which he starts. the fundamental difficulty of erecting a theory of the knowledge-process upon such a basis is recognized by him at the start in a passage already quoted: "if the object-matter of reality lay genuinely outside the system of thought, not only our analysis, but thought itself, would be unable to lay hold of reality" (p. 2). but, in spite of this assertion, his fundamental conception of reality remains that of a system which does lie outside the thought-process. his theory is an attempt to reconcile the essentially irreconcilable views that reality is outside of the thought-process, and that it is inside of the thought-process, and he succeeds only by calling upon our faith that so it is. if it be true, as it seems to him to be, that we are compelled to adhere to both of these views of reality, then surely there is no other outcome. it means, however, that we finally resign all hope of _knowing_ reality. we may _have faith_ in its existence, but we have no way of deciding what particular judgment has reality in it as it should have it, and what as it should not. all stand (and fall) on the same basis. but does not bosanquet himself point out a pathway which, if followed farther, would reach a more satisfactory view of the realm of knowledge? he has shown us that the only sort of reality _we know_, or can know, is the reality which appears within our judgment-process--the reality as known to us. would it not be possible to drop the presupposed reality outside of the judgment-process (with which judgment is endeavoring to make connections) and content ourselves with the sort of reality which appears within the judgment-process? in other words, may there not be a satisfactory view of reality which frankly recognizes its organic relation to the knowledge-process, without at the same time destroying its value as reality? is it possible to admit that reality is in a sense constituted in the judgment without making it at the same time the figment of the individual imagination--"a game with ideas"? let us assume for the moment that the real difficulty with mr. bosanquet's conception, the error that keeps him traveling in his hopeless circles, is the notion that truth is a matter of reference of ideas as such to reality as such, leading us to oscillate between the alternatives that either all ideas have such reference, and so are true, constitute knowledge; or else none have such reference, and so are false; or else are mere ideas to which neither truth nor falsity can be attributed. let us ask if truth is not rather some _specific_ relation within experience, something which characterizes one idea rather than another, so that our problem is not how an idea can refer to a reality beyond itself, but what are the marks by which we discriminate a true reference from a false one. then let us ask for the criterion used in daily life and in science by which to test reality. if we ask the philosophically unsophisticated individual why he believes that his house still exists when he is away from it and has no immediate evidence of the fact, he will tell you it is because he has found that he can go back to it time and again and see it and walk into it. it never fails him when he acts upon the assumption that it is there. he would never tell you that he believed in its existence when he was not experiencing it because his mental picture of his house stood for and represented accurately an object in the real world which was nevertheless of a different order of existence from his mental picture. when you ask the physicist why he believes that the laws of motion are true, he will tell you that it is because he finds that bodies always do behave according to them. he can predict just what a body will do under given circumstances. he is never disappointed however long he takes it for granted that the laws of motion are true and that bodies behave according to them. the only thing that could make him question their truth would be to find some body which did not prove to behave in accordance with them. the criterion is the same in both cases. it is the practical criterion of what as a matter of fact will work. that which can safely be taken for granted as a basis for further action is regarded as real and true. it remains real so long, and only so long, as it continues to fulfil this condition. as soon as it ceases to do so, it ceases to be regarded as real. when a man finds that he can no longer obtain the accustomed experience of seeing and entering his house, he ceases to regard it as real. it has burned down, or been pulled down. when a physicist finds that a body does not, as a matter of fact, behave as a given law leads him to expect it would behave, he ceases to regard the law as _true_. the contrast between the naïve view of the criterion of reality and the one we have just been discussing may be brought out by considering how we should have to interpret from each standpoint the constant succession of facts in the history of science which have ceased to be facts. for illustration take the former fact that the earth is flat. it ceased to be a fact, says the theory we have been reviewing, because further thought-constructions of the real world convinced us that there is no reality which the idea "flat-world" represents. the idea "round-world" alone reproduces reality. it ceased to be a fact, says the naïve view, because it ceased to be a safe guide for action. men found they could sail around the world. correspondence in one case is pictorial, and its existence or non-existence can, as we have seen, never be ascertained. in the other, correspondence is response, adjustment, the co-meeting of specific conditions in further constituting of experience. in actual life, therefore, the criterion of reality which we use is a practical one. the test of reality does not consist in ascertaining the relationship between an idea and an _x_ which is not idea, but in ascertaining what experience can be taken for granted as a safe basis for securing other experiences. the evident advantage of the latter view, leaving aside for the moment the question of its adequacy in other respects, is that it avoids the fundamental skepticism at once suggested by the former. how can we ever be sure that the fact which we have discovered will stand the test of further thought-constructions? perhaps it comes no nearer to reality than the discarded one. obviously we never _can_ be sure that any particular content of thought represents reality so accurately and perfectly that it will never be subject to revision. if, however, the test of reality is the _adequacy_ of a given content of consciousness as a stimulus to action, as a mode of control, we have an applicable standard. a given content of consciousness is real--is a fact--so long as the act resulting from it is adequate in adaptation to other contents. it ceases to be real as soon as the act it stimulates proves to be inadequate. the view which places the ultimate test of facts, not in any relationship of contents or existences, but in the practical outcome of thought, is the one which seems to follow necessarily from a thoroughgoing conception of the judgment as a function--an act. our fundamental biological conception of the activities of living organisms is that acts exist for the sake of their results. acts are always stimulated by some definite set of conditions, and their value is always tested by the adequacy with which they meet this set of conditions. the judgment is no exception to the rule. it is always an act stimulated by some set of conditions which needs readjusting. its outcome is a readjustment whose value is and can be tested only by its adequacy. it is accordingly entirely in line with our reigning biological conceptions to expect to find the ultimate criterion of truth and reality in the practical outcome of thought, and to seek for an understanding of the nature of the "real" and of the "ideal" within the total activity of judgment. one difficulty besets us at the outset of such an investigation--that of being sure that we have a genuine judgment under examination. a large portion of the so-called judgments considered by logicians, even by those who emphasize the truth that a judgment is an _act_, are really not judgments at all, but contents of thought which are the outcome of judgments--what might be called dead judgments, instead of live judgments. when we analyze a real act of judgment, as it occurs in a living process of thought, we find given elements which are always present. there is always a certain situation which demands a reaction. the situation is always in part determined and taken for granted, and in part questioned. it is determined in so far as it is a definite situation of some sort; it is undetermined in so far as it furnishes an inadequate basis for further action and therefore comes to consciousness as a problem. for example, take one of the judgments bosanquet uses. "this is bread." we have first to inquire when such a judgment actually occurs in the living process of thought. a man does not make such a judgment in the course of his thinking unless there is some instigation to do so. perhaps he is in doubt as to whether the white object he perceives is bread or cake. he wants some bread, but does not want cake. a closer inspection convinces him that it is bread, and the finished judgment is formulated in the proposition: "this is bread." what is the test of the reality of the bread, and the truth of the judgment? evidently the act based on it. he eats the bread. if it tastes like bread and affects him like bread, then the bread was real and the judgment true. if, on the other hand, it does not taste like bread, or if it makes him violently ill, then the "bread" was not real and the judgment was false. in either case, the "this"--the experience to be interpreted--is unquestioned. the man does not question the fact that he has a perception of a white object. so much is taken for granted and is unquestioned within that judgment. but there is another part of the experience which is questioned, and which remains tentative up to the conclusion of the act of judgment; that is the doubt as to whether the perceived white object is bread or something else. every live judgment, every judgment as it normally occurs in the vital process of thought, must have these phases. it is only when a judgment is taken out of its context and reduced to a mere memorandum of past judgments that it fails to reveal such parts. the man may, of course, go farther back. he may wonder whether this is really white or not. but he falls back then on something else which he takes unquestioningly--a "this" experience of some sort or other. so far we have considered the practical criterion of reality merely as the one which is actually operative in everyday life, and as the one suggested by our biological theory of the functions of living organisms. it also offers a suggestion for the modified view of the nature of reality for which we are in search. our previous discussion brought out incidentally a contradiction in the traditional theory of the nature of reality which it will be worth while to consider further. in dealing with the subject of the judgment, reality seemed to be made synonymous with fact. in this sense fact, or the real, was set off against the ideal. knowledge was viewed as the correspondence between real and ideal. when we came to deal with the ideal itself--with the predicate of the judgment--there appeared in it an element of fact or reality which proved a serious stumbling-block for the theory. as image in my mind, the idea is just as real as the so-called facts; but this sort of reality according to the theory in question is neither the reality about which we are judging nor a real quality of it. both bradley and bosanquet are forced to admit that the judgment ignores it, and is in so far by nature inadequate to its appointed task of knowing reality. the suggestion which the situation offers for a new theory is that the view of reality has been too narrow. reality must evidently be a broad enough term to cover both fact and idea. if so, the reality must be nothing more nor less than the total process of experience with its continual opposition of fact and idea, and their continual resolution through activity. that which previous theory has been calling the real is not the total reality, but merely one aspect of it. the problem of relation of fact and idea is thus the problem of the relation of one form of reality to another, and so a determinate soluble one, not a _merely_ metaphysical or general one. granting this, does it still remain true that reality in the narrower sense, reality as fact, can be regarded as a different order of existence from the ideal, and set over against the thought-process? evidently not. fact and idea become merely two aspects of a total reality. the way in which fact and idea are distinguished has already been suggested by the practical and biological criterion of fact, or reality in the narrower sense. from this point of view, fact is not a different order of existence from idea, but is merely a part of the total process of experience which functions in a given way. it is merely that part of experience which is taken as given, and which serves as a stimulus to action. thus the essential nature of fact, or reality in the popular sense, falls not at all on the side of its content, but on the side of its function. similarly the ideal is merely that part of the total experience which is taken as tentative. there is no problem as to how either of them is related to reality. in this relationship they _are_ reality. that which previous theories had been calling the whole of reality now appears as merely one aspect of it--the fact aspect--artificially isolated from the rest. when we translate this view of the nature of reality into terms of a theory of the judgment, we find that we can agree with bosanquet in his definition of a judgment. it is an act, and an act which refers an ideal content to reality. the judgment must be an act, because it is essentially an adaptation--a reaction toward a given situation. the subject of the judgment is that part of the content of experience which represents the situation to be reacted to. it is that which is taken for granted as given in each case. now this is, as we have seen, reality--in the narrower sense of that term. what bosanquet has been calling reality now appears merely as the subject of the judgment taken out of its normal function and considered as an isolated thing. it is an artificial abstraction. it is accordingly true, as bosanquet insists, that the subject of the judgment must always be reality--both in his sense of the term and in ours. this reality is not real, however, by virtue of its independence from the judgment, but by virtue of its function within the judgment. his fundamental problem with reference to the subject of the judgment is disposed of from this point of view. the subject is wholly within the judgment, not in any sense outside of it; but it is at the same time true that the subject of the judgment is reality. the fact that the subjects of all judgments--even those of the most elementary type--bear evident marks of the work done by thought upon them, ceases to be a problem. the subject is essentially a thing constituted by the doubt-inquiry process, and functioning within it. the necessity for an intermediate _real world as it is to me_ between the real world and the knowing process disappears, because the _real world as it is to me_ is the only real world of which the judgment can take account. there is no longer any divorce between the content of the subject and its existence. reality in his sense of the term--reality as fact--does not fall on the side of _existence_ in distinction from content, but on the side of _function_ in distinction from content. the predicate of the judgment is that part of the total experience which is taken as doubtful, or tentative. as we have seen, every act of adaptation involves a definite situation to be reacted to (subject) and an indefinite or tentative material with which to react (predicate). we have pointed out that a situation which demands a judgment never appears in consciousness as mere questioned or questionable situation.[52] there is always present, as soon as the doubt arises, some sort of tentative solution. this is the predicate or idea. just as the fact, or real in the narrower sense, is that which is taken as given in the situation, so the ideal is that which is taken as tentative. its ideality does not consist in its reference to another order of existence, the objective world of meanings, but in its function within the judgment, the estimate of the whole situation as leading up to the adequate act. just as we no longer have any need for the mediation of the _real world as known to me_ between subject and reality, so we no longer need _the objective world of meanings_ to bridge the chasm between the predicate and reality. the difficulty of understanding how ideas can be used to build up facts disappears when we regard fact and idea, not as different orders of existence, but as contents marking different phases of a total function. ideas, as bosanquet represented them, proved to be extremely unsatisfactory tools to use in building up a knowledge of reality. in the first place, their value as instruments of thought depends upon their universality. we have already reviewed bosanquet's difficulties in attempting to explain the universality of ideas. the universality of an idea cannot reside in its mere existence as image. its existence is purely particular. its universality must reside in its reference to something outside of itself. but no explanation of how the particular existence--image--could refer to another and fuller content of a different order of existence could be discovered. the fact of reference remained an ultimate mystery. from the new point of view the image gains its universality through its organizing function. it represents an organized habit which may be brought to bear upon the present situation, and which serves, by directing action, to organize and unify experience as a whole. it is only as function that the concept of reference can be made intelligible. of course, considered as content, the idea is just as particular from this point of view as from any other. we still have to discuss the question as to whether or not the particularity of the idea has a logical value. the fact that it had none in bosanquet's theory sets a limit to the validity of thought. but if the real test of the validity of a judgment is the act in which it issues, then the existential aspect of the idea must have logical value. the existential aspect of the idea is the "my" side of it. it is as my personal experience that it exists. but it is only as my idea that it has any impulsive power, or can issue in action. far from being ignored, therefore, the existential aspect is essential to the logical, the determinative, value of an idea. ideas, according to the representational theory of knowledge, proved to be a poor medium for knowing reality in still another respect. they are in their very nature contents that have been reduced from the fulness of experience to mere index-signs. even though their reference to a fuller content in the objective world of meanings presented no problem, still this objective world of meanings is far removed from reality. and yet, in order to know, we must be able to affirm ideas of reality. on the functional theory of ideas, their value does not rest at all upon their representational nature. they are not taken either in their existence or in their meaning as representations of any other content. they are taken as contents which mark a given function, and their value is determined entirely by the adequacy of the function of which they are the conscious expression. their content may be as meager as you please. it may have been obtained by a long process of reducing and transforming sensory experience, but if it serve to enable its possessor to meet the situation which called it up with the appropriate act, then it has truth and value in the fullest sense. the reduction of the idea to a mere index-sign presents no problem when we realize that it is the tool of a given function, not the sign for a different and fuller content. the idea thus becomes a commendable economy in the thought-process, rather than a reprehensible departure from reality. we have already upon general considerations criticised the point of view which holds that ideality consists in reference to another content. in arguing that this reference cannot be primarily to reality itself, but rather to an intermediate world of meanings, bosanquet cites the question and the negative judgment. in the question ideas are not affirmed of reality, and in negation they are definitely denied of reality, hence their reference cannot be to reality. it must therefore be to an objective world of meanings. it may be worth while to point out in passing that, from the functional point of view, the part played by ideas in the question and in negative judgment is the same that it is in affirmation. we have brought out the fact that all judgment arises in a doubt. the earliest stage of judgment is accordingly a question. whether the process stops at that point, or is carried on to an affirmation or negation, depends upon the particular conditions. the ideas which appear in questions present no other problem than those of affirmation. they are ideas, not by virtue of their reference to another content in the world of meanings, but by virtue of their function, _i. e._, that of constituting that part of the total experience which is taken as doubtful, and hence as in process. in order to make this point clear with reference to negative judgments, it will be necessary to consider the relation of negative and positive judgments somewhat more in detail. all judgment is in its earliest stages a question, but a question is never _mere_ question. there are always present some suggestions of an answer, which make the process really a disjunctive judgment. a question might be defined as a disjunctive judgment in which one member of the disjunction is expressed and the others implied. if the process goes on to take the form of affirmation or negation, one of the suggested answers is selected. to follow out the illustration of the bread used above, the judgment arises in a doubt as to the nature of the white object perceived, but the doubt never takes the form of a blank question. it at once suggests certain possible solutions drawn from the mass of organized experience at the command of the person judging. at this stage the judgment is disjunctive. in the illustration it would probably take the form: "this is either bread or cake." the further course of the judgment rejects the cake alternative, and selects the bread, and the final outcome of the judgment is formulated in the proposition: "this is bread." but how did it happen that it did not take the form: "this is not cake"? that proposition is also involved in the outcome, and implied in the judgment made. the answer is that the form taken by the final outcome depends entirely on the direction of interest of the person making the judgment. if his interest happened to lie in obtaining bread, then the outcome would naturally take the form: "this is bread," and his act would consist in eating it. if he happened to want cake, the natural form would be, "this is not cake," and his act would consist in refraining from eating. in other words, the question as to whether a judgment turns out to be negative or positive is a question of whether the stress of interest happens to fall on the selected or on the rejected portions of the original disjunction. every determination of a subject through a predicate includes both. the selection of one or the other according to interest affects the final formulation of the process, but does not change the relations of its various phases. an idea in a negative judgment is just what it is in a positive judgment. in neither case is it constituted an idea by reference to some other content. so far we have outlined bosanquet's theory of the judgment; have noted the apparently insoluble problems inherent in his system, and have sketched a radically different theory which offered a possible solution for his difficulties. it now remains to develop the implications of the new theory further by comparing its application to some of the more important problems of logic with that of bosanquet. in closing we shall have to inquire to what extent the new theory of the judgment with its metaphysical implications has proved more satisfactory than that of bosanquet. the special problems to be considered are (1) the relation of judgment to inference; (2) the parts of the judgment and their relationship; (3) the time element in the judgment; and (4) the way in which one judgment can be separated from another. 1. the discussion of the relation between judgment and inference comes up incidentally in bosanquet's treatment of the distinction between a judgment and a proposition (p. 79). the proposition, he says, is merely the enunciative sentence which represents the act of thought called judgment. with this distinction we should agree. in his discussion of the point, however, he criticises hegel's doctrine that a judgment is distinguished from a proposition in that a judgment maintains itself against a doubt, while a proposition is a mere temporal affirmation, not implying the presence of a doubt. the ground of his criticism is that judgment must be regarded as operative before the existence of a conscious doubt, and that, while it is true, as hegel suggests, that judgment and inference begin together, they both begin farther back than the point at which conscious doubt arises. doubt marks the point at which inference becomes conscious of its ground. now, it is undoubted that inferences in which the ground is implicit exist at an earlier stage of experience than those in which it is explicit. the former we usually call simple apprehension, and the latter judgment. what bosanquet wishes to do is to make the term "judgment" cover both the implicit and the explicit activities. the question at once arises whether such a use of terms is accurate. there is certainly a wide difference between an inference which is conscious of its ground, and one which is not. it is conceivably a distinction of philosophic importance. to slur the difference by applying one name to both accomplishes nothing. it will be remembered that the presence of a conscious doubt is the criterion of judgment adopted in the standpoint from which we have been criticising bosanquet's theory. we should accordingly make the term "inference" a wider one than the term "judgment." a judgment is an inference which is conscious of its ground. since fact and idea have been represented as constituted in and through judgment, the question which at once suggests itself is: what, from such a standpoint, is the criterion of fact and idea in the stage of experience previous to the appearance of judgment? the answer is that the question involves the psychological fallacy. there is no such distinction as fact and idea in experience previous to the appearance of judgment. the distinction between fact and idea arises only at the higher level of experience at which inference becomes conscious of its grounds. to ask what they were previous to that is to ask _what_ they were before they _were_--a question which, of course, cannot be answered. our reason for not adopting hegel's distinction between a judgment and a proposition would accordingly not be the same as bosanquet's. the question has already been touched upon in the distinction between dead and live judgments. what hegel calls a proposition is really nothing but a dead judgment. his illustration of a temporal affirmation is the sentence: "a carriage is passing the house." that sentence would be a judgment, he says, only in case there were some doubt as to whether or not a carriage was passing. but the question to be answered first is: when would such a "statement" occur in the course of our experience? it is impossible to conceive of any circumstances in which it would naturally occur, unless there were some doubt to be solved either of our own or of another. perhaps one is expecting a friend, and does not know at first whether it is a carriage or a cart which is passing. perhaps some one has been startled, and asks: "what is this noise?" what hegel wishes to call a proposition is, accordingly, nothing but a judgment taken out of its setting. 2. in dealing with the traditional three parts of the judgment--subject, predicate, and copula--bosanquet disposes of the copula at once, by dividing the judgment into subject and predication. but the two terms "subject" and "predication" are not co-ordinate. subject, as he uses it, is a static term indicating a _content_. predication is a dynamic term indicating the act of predicating. it implies something which is predicated of something else, _i. e._, two contents and the act of bringing them into relation. now, if what we understand by the copula is the _act_ of predicating abstracted from the content which is predicated of another content, then it does not dispose of the copula as a separate factor in judgment to include thing predicated and act of predicating under the single term "predication." the term "predication" might just as reasonably be made to absorb the subject as well, and would then appear--as it really is--synonymous with the term "judgment." but bosanquet's difficulties with the parts of the judgment are not disposed of even by the reduction to subject and predication. he goes on to say: it is plain that the judgment, however complex, is a single idea. the relations within it are not relations between ideas, but are themselves a part of the idea which is predicated. in other words, the subject must be outside the judgment in order that the content of the judgment may be predicated of it. if not, we fall back into "my idea of the earth goes round my idea of the sun," and this, as we have seen, is never the meaning of "the earth goes round the sun." what we want is, "the real world has in it as a fact what i mean by earth-going-round-sun." (p. 81.) we have already pointed out the difficulties into which bosanquet's presupposition as to the nature of reality plunges him. this is but another technical statement of the same problem. if the subject is really outside of judgment, then the entire _content_ of the judgment must fall on the side of predicate, or idea. in the paragraphs that follow, bosanquet brings out the point that the judgment must nevertheless contain the distinction of subject and predicate, since it is impossible to affirm without introducing a distinction into the _content_ of the affirmation. yet he considers this distinction to be _merely_ a difference within an identity. it serves to mark off the grammatical subject and predicate, but cannot be the essential distinction of subject and predicate. his solution of the puzzle is really the one for which we have been contending, _i. e._, that "the real world is primarily and emphatically my world," but he still cannot be satisfied with that kind of a real world as ultimate. behind the subject which presents my world he postulates a real world which is not my world, but which my world represents. it is the relation between this real world and the total content of a judgment which he considers the essential relation of judgment. this leaves him--as we have pointed out--as far as ever from a theory of the relation of thought to reality, and, moreover, with no criterion for the distinction of subject and predicate within the judgment. to say that it is a difference within an identity does not explain how, on a mere basis of content, such a difference is distinguished within an identity or how it assumes the importance it actually has. he vibrates between taking the whole intellectual content as predicate, the reality to be represented as subject (in which case the copula would be the "contact of sense-perception") and a distinction appearing without reasonable ground or bearing _within_ the intellectual content. when subject and predicate are regarded as the contents in which phases of a function appear, this difficulty no longer exists. 3. in discussing the time relations within judgment (p. 85) bosanquet first disposes of the view which holds that the subject is prior to the predicate in time, and is distinguished from the predicate by its priority. he emphasizes the fact that no content of consciousness can have the significance of a subject, except with reference to something already referred to it as predicate. but while it cannot be true that the parts of the judgment fall outside of one another in time, it is yet evident that in one sense at least the judgment is in time. to make this clear, bosanquet draws a provisional distinction between the process of arriving at a judgment and the completed judgment. the process of arriving at a judgment is a process of passing from a subject with an indefinite provisional predicate--a sort of disjunctive judgment--to a subject with a defined predicate. this process is evidently in time, but it is as evidently not a transition from subject to predicate. it is, as he says, a modification, _pari passu_, of both subject and predicate. the same distinction, he thinks, must hold of the judgment when completed. but this throws us into a dilemma with reference to the time-factor in judgment. time either is or is not an essential factor in judgment. if it is not essential, then how explain the evident fact that the judgment as an intellectual process does have duration? if it is essential, then how explain the fact that its parts do not fall outside one another in time? bosanquet evidently regards the former problem as the easier of the two. his solution is that, while the judgment is an intellectual process in time, still this is a purely external aspect. the essential relation between subject and predicate is not in time, since they are coexistent; therefore time is not an essential element in judgment. the first point at which we take issue with this treatment of time in relation to judgment is in the distinction between the process of arriving at the judgment and the completed judgment. bosanquet himself defines judgment as an intellectual act by which an ideal content is referred to reality. now, at what point does this act begin? certainly at the point where an ideal content is first applying to reality, and this, as he points out, is at the beginning of the process which he describes as the process of arriving at a judgment. it is nothing to the point that at this stage the predicate is tentative, while later it becomes defined. his process of arriving at the judgment is exactly the process we have been describing as the early stages of any and every judgment. when he talks about the judgment as completed, he has apparently shifted from the dynamic view of judgment implied in his definition to a static view. all he could mean by a completed judgment--in distinction to the total activity of arriving at a judgment--is the new content of which we find ourselves possessed when the total process of predication is complete. but this content is not a judgment at all. it is a new construction of reality which may serve either as subject or as predicate in future judgments. now, if we regard the judgment as the total activity by which an ideal content is referred to reality, then must we not regard time as an essential element? bosanquet answers this question in the negative, because he believes that if time is an essential element, then the parts of the judgment must necessarily fall outside one another in time. but is this necessary? if the essence of judgment is the very modification, _pari passu_, of subject and predicate, then time must be an essential element in it, but it is not at all necessary that its elements should fall outside of one another in time. in other words, the dilemma which bosanquet points out on p. 87 is not a genuine one. there is no difficulty involved in admitting that the judgment is a transition in time, and still holding that its _parts_ do not fall outside _one another_ in time. his own solution of the problem--_i. e._, that, although judgment is an intellectual process in time, still time is not an essential feature of it, because subject and predicate are coexistent and judgment is a relation between them--involves a desertion of his dynamic view of judgment. he defines judgment, not as a relation between subject and predicate, but as an intellectual _act_.[53] 4. the discussion of the time-element in judgment leads up to the next puzzle--that as to the way in which one judgment can be marked off from another in the total activity of thought. bosanquet has pointed out that subject and predicate are both of them present at every stage of the judging process, and are undergoing progressive modification. if, therefore, we take a cross-section of the process at any point, we find both subject and predicate present; but a cross-section at one point would not reveal quite the same subject and predicate as the cross-section at another point. he comes to the conclusion that judgment breaks up into judgments as rhomboidal spar into rhomboids (p. 88). it is, accordingly, quite arbitrary to mark out any limits for a single judgment. the illustration he gives of the point is as follows: take such an every-day judgment of mixed perception and inference as, "he is coming down stairs and going into the street." it is the merest chance whether i break up the process thus, into two judgments as united by a mere conjunction, or, knowing the man's habits, say, when i hear him half way down stairs, "he is going out." in the latter case i summarize a more various set of observations and inferences in a single judgment; but the judgment is as truly single as each of the two which were before separated by a conjunction; for each of them was also a summary of a set of perceptions, which might, had i chosen, have been subdivided into distinct propositions expressing separate judgments; _e. g._, "he has opened his door, and is going toward the staircase, and is half way down, and is in the passage," etc. if i simply say, "he is going out," i am not a whit the less conscious that i judge all these different relations, but i then include them all in a single systematic content "going out." (p. 89.) but is it a question of merest chance which of these various possibilities is actualized? is bosanquet really looking--as he thinks--at the actual life of thought, or is he considering, not what as a matter of fact does take place under a concrete set of circumstances, but what might take place under slightly differing sets of circumstances? if it is true that judgment is a crisis developing through adequate interaction of stimulus and response into a definite situation, beginning with doubt and ending with a solution of the doubt, then it is not true that its limits are purely arbitrary. it begins with the appearance of the problem and its tentative solutions, and ends with the solution of a final response. it does, of course, depend upon momentary interest, but this does not make its limits arbitrary, for the interest is inherent, not external. in the case of bosanquet's illustration, the question of whether one judgment or half a dozen is made is not a question of merest chance. it depends upon where the interest of the person making the judgment is centered--in other words, upon what is the particular doubt to be solved. if the real doubt is as to whether the man will stay in his room or go out, then when he is heard leaving his room the solution comes in the form: "he is going out." but if the doubt is as to whether he will stay in his room, go out, or go into some other room, then the succession of judgments occurs, each of which solves a problem. "he has opened his door"--then he is not going to stay in his room; "he is going toward the staircase"--then he is not going into a room in the opposite direction, etc. it is impossible to conceive of such a series of judgments as actually being made, unless each one represents a problematic situation and its determination. the only time that a man would, as a matter of fact, choose to break up the judgment, "he is going out," into such a series, would be the time when each member of the series had its own special interest as representing a specific uncertain aim or problem. nor is it altogether true that in making the judgment, "he is going out," one is not a whit the less conscious that he judges all these different relations. he judges only such relations as are necessary to the solution of the problem in hand. if hearing the man open his door is a sufficient basis for the solution, then that is the only one which consciously enters into the formation of the judgment. we have attempted to bring out in the preceding pages what seem to be the contradictions and insoluble problems involved in bosanquet's theory of the judgment, and to exhibit them as the logical outcome of his metaphysical presuppositions. we have also tried to develop another theory of the judgment involving a different view of the nature of reality, and to show that the new theory is able to avoid the difficulties inherent in bosanquet's system. the change in view-point briefly is this: instead of regarding the real world as self-existent, independently of the judgments we make about it, we viewed it as the totality of experience which is assured, _i. e._, determined as to certainty or specific availability, through the instrumentality of judgment. we thus avoided the essentially insoluble problem of how a real world whose content is self-existent quite outside of knowledge can ever be correctly represented by ideas. the difficulty in understanding the relation of the subject and the predicate of judgment to reality disappears when we cease to regard reality as self-existent outside of knowledge. subject and predicate become instrumentalities in the process of building up reality. thought no longer seems to carry us farther and farther from reality as ideas become abstract and recede from the immediate sensory experience in which contact with the real occurs. on the contrary, thought carries us constantly toward reality. finally, we avoid the fundamental skepticism about the possibility of knowledge which, from the other standpoint, is forced upon us by the long succession of facts which have faded into the realm of false opinions, and the lack of any guarantee that our present so-called knowledge of reality shall not meet the same fate. from that point of view, reality seems to be not only unknown, but unknowable. the criticism sure to be passed upon the alternative view developed is that the solution of bosanquet's problems which it affords is not a real solution, but rather the abandonment of an attempt at a solution. it represents reality as a thing which is itself in process of development. it would force us to admit that the reality of a hundred years ago, or even of yesterday, was not in content the reality of today. a growing, developing reality is, it will be said, an imperfect reality, while we must conceive of reality as complete and perfect in itself. the only answer which can be made is to insist again that we have no right to assume that reality is such an already completed existence, unless such an assumption enables us to understand experience and organize it into a consistent whole. the attempt of this paper has been to show that such a conception of reality really makes it inherently impossible to give an intelligible account of experience as a whole, while the view which regards reality as developing in and through judgment does enable us to build up a consistent and understandable view of the world. this suggests that the "perfect" may not after all be that which is finished and ended, but that whose reality is so abundant and vital as to issue in continuous self-modification. the reality that evolves and moves may be more perfect, less finite, than that which has exhausted itself. moreover, only the view that reality is developmental in quality, and that the instrument of its development is judgment involving the psychical in its determination of subject and predicate gives the psychical as such any significant place in knowledge or in reality. according to the view of knowledge as representation of an eternal content, the psychical is a mere logical surd. vi typical stages in the development of judgment logic aims at investigating the general function of knowing. but knowing, it is commonly asserted, is constituted as judgment. furthermore, there is reason to believe that judgment undergoes well-marked changes in its development. consequently, an understanding of the judgment-function and of its epochs in development is of prime importance. in carrying through the investigation we shall endeavor, first, to state and to defend a certain presupposition with reference to the character of the judgment-function; second, to exhibit the application of this presupposition in the typical stages of judgment. i judgment is essentially _instrumental_. this is the presupposition which we must explain and make good. and we shall accomplish this by way of an analysis of judgment as meaning. it cannot be denied that what we call knowledge is concerned with the discrimination of valid meaning. to know is to appreciate the _meaning_ of things and the meaning _of things_ is the same with valid meaning. judging determines knowledge, and in the same act develops meaning. to put it otherwise, knowledge is a matter of _content_; _content_ is _meaning_, and we have knowledge when we have meaning satisfactorily determined. it is evident, therefore, that if we would understand the judging-function, we must first make clear to ourselves the nature and rôle of _meaning_. meaning is universally embodied in _ideas_. to know, to understand the meaning, to get ideas, are the same. now, in ideas two factors may be distinguished. first, every idea has as its base an image or emphasized portion of experience. in some forms of ideation we are more immediately aware of the presence of images than in others, but no idea--even the most abstract--can exist apart from an ultimate base. second, every idea is equally a function of _reference_ and _control_. as _reference_, the idea projects in the mind's view an anticipation of experiences and of the conditions upon which these experiences depend for their realization; as _control_, ideas are agencies in turning anticipations into realizations.[54] to be more specific on both points: since the days of galton it has been almost a commonplace in psychology that ideas are embodied in forms of imagery which vary for and in different individuals. it has been maintained, it is true, that in abstract forms of thought, imagery disappears. this objection is met in two ways. for one, words--the vehicle of many abstract ideas--involve imagery of a most pronounced type: for another, every idea, when examined closely, discloses an image, no matter how much for the time being this has been driven into obscurity by the characteristics of reference and control. furthermore, when we examine the anticipatory aspect of ideas, the presence of imagery both with reference to outcome and to conditions is so evident that its presence will scarcely be denied. the second point may be illustrated in several ways. in everyday life anticipation and realization are inseparable from the nature and use of ideas. "hat" means anticipation of protection to the head and the tendency toward setting in motion the conditions appropriate to the realization of this anticipation. the same factors are evident in the boy's definition of a knife as "something to whittle with." again it is maintained that intelligence is an essential factor in human self-consciousness. by this is meant that human beings are universally aware in some degree of what they are about. and this awareness consists in understanding the meaning of their actions, of forecasting the outcome of various kinds of activity, of apprehending beforehand the conditions connected with determinate results. within this sphere we speak of certain men as being pre-eminently intelligent, meaning that for such men outcomes are previewed and connected with their appropriate conditions far beyond the range of ordinary foresight. finally, scientific intelligence is essentially of this kind. it aims at understanding the varying types of process which operate in nature and thus at possessing itself of information with reference to results to be expected under determinate conditions. for example, the knowledge acquired in his researches by louis pasteur enabled him to predict the life or death of animals inoculated with charbon virus according as they had or had not been vaccinated previously. his information, in other words, became an instrument for the control and eradication of the disease. and what is true of this case is true of all science. to the scientist ideas are "working hypotheses" and have their value only as they enable him to predict, and to control. and while it is true that the scientist usually overlooks the so-called _practical_ value of his discoveries, it is none the less true that in due time the inventor follows the investigator. the investigator is content to construct and show the truth of his idea. the inventor assumes the truth of the investigator's work and carries his idea as a constructive principle into the complications of life. to both men "knowledge is power," although the "power" may be realized in connection with different interests. but if this be true, ideas can no longer be regarded as copies in individual experience of some pre-existing reality. they are rather instruments for transforming and directing experience, by way of constructing anticipations and the conditions appropriate to their realization. herein also consists their truth or falsity. the true idea is reliable, carrying us from anticipation to realization; the false idea is unreliable, and fails in bringing the promised result. now, in the development of instruments generally, we may distinguish a rule-of-thumb or more or less unreflective stage of construction, and one entirely reflective. as to use there is the distinction of inexpert and expert control. this leads us to expect that in the thought-function also certain typical stages of construction and of control may be found. to the investigation of this point we shall next direct attention. ii in its development from crude to expert forms judgment exhibits three typical stages--_the impersonal_, _the reflective_, and _the intuitive_. these we shall consider in order of development. but first it is to be noticed that these stages of judgment are not to be regarded as hard and fast distinctions of the kind that no indications of the higher are to be found in the lower types, but rather as working distinctions within a process of continuous development. 1. _the impersonal judgment._--ever since the days of the greek grammarians the impersonal judgment has been considered an anomaly in logic. and the reason is not far to seek. from the time of aristotle it has been customary to maintain that judgments, when analyzed, disclose a subject and a predicate. logically considered, these appear to be entirely correlative, for, as erdmann puts it,[55] "an event without a substrate, a quality without a subject, is altogether unpresentable." but there is in all languages a class of judgments, such as, "it rains," "it snows," "fire!" in which no directly asserted subject is discoverable. to these the name impersonal and subjectless has been given. here then is the difficulty. if we admit that the impersonal expression involves predication, we must, in all consistency, search for a subject, while at the same time the subject refuses to disclose itself. in ancient days the orthodox logician confined his search to language and to the spoken or written proposition. the unorthodox critic maintained, in opposition to this, that a subject was provided only by warping and twisting the natural sense of the impersonal expression. and thus the matter stood until the development of modern comparative philology. it was then demonstrated beyond the possibility of doubt that the "it" (or its equivalent) of the impersonal is a purely contentless form word. language provides no subject whatsoever. so strong, however, is the hold of tradition that the search has been renewed. attention has been turned upon the mental processes involved, and this time with more apparent result. although there has been no general agreement with reference to the subject, a classification of the different views may still be made. (_a_) the subject is universal and undetermined; (_b_) it is individual and more or less determined; (_c_) between these extremes lies almost every intermediate degree conceivable. ueberweg maintains that the subject of the impersonal is the actual totality of present experience. when we ask, "what rains?" we must understand a reference to our general environment, in which no special element is singled out. sigwart, on the other hand, maintains that the subject can be construed only as the actual sense-impression. this diversity of opinion might seem to indicate that, were it not for the constraining power of theory, a subject would scarcely be thought of for the impersonal. still it must be admitted that when we examine the impersonal expression closely we can discover a sense-impression, whether definite or indefinite, combined with an idea. this would seem to give the case to the orthodox logician, for he will at once claim the sense-impression as the subject and the idea as the predicate of the judgment. but we must have a care. predication is usually held to consist in a _reference_ of predicate _to_ subject. the factors of the judgment are, as it were, held apart. in the impersonal no such thing as this can be discovered. the meaning is so close a unity that impression and idea are entirely fused. we may analyze the expression and find them there, but by so doing we destroy the immediacy which is an essential characteristic of the impersonal. in other words, the impersonal does not analyze itself. it is entirely unconscious of its make-up. and yet it is definite and applies itself with precision: if i am in a lecture-hall and hear the fire-alarm, the thought "fire!" which enters my mind leads to an immediate change in my conduct. i arise, move quietly out, and prepare for duty. if, on the other hand, i open the street door and the rain strikes my face, i ejaculate "raining!" turn, reach for my umbrella, and pass out protected. in both cases i act _knowingly_ and with _meaning_, but i do not analyze the movement either of thought or of action. a correlate to the unreflective impersonal judgment is found in early custom. custom embodies social ideas and is an instrument for the determination and control of action. individuals moved by custom know what they are about and act with precision according as custom may demand. but it is notorious that custom is direct and unreflective. it represents social instruments of control which have grown up without method and which represent the slow accretion of rule-of-thumb activities through many ages. so in the impersonal judgment we have a type of intellectual instrument which has been brought to a high degree of precision in use, but which still retains the simplicity and certainty of an unquestioned instrument of action. for this reason, whatever complexity of elements the impersonal may present to a reflective view, it does not contain to itself. consequently it may be best to say that to the impersonal there is neither subject, predicate, nor reference of the one to the other. these are distinctions which arise only when the instrument of action has been questioned and the mind turns back upon the meaning which it has unhesitatingly used, analyzing, investigating, constructing, laying bare the method and function of its tools. thus arises a new and distinctive type of judgment, viz., the reflective. 2. _the reflective judgment._--by the reflective judgment is to be understood that form of meaning whose structure and function have become a problem to itself. the days of naïve trust and spontaneous action have gone by. inquiry, criticism, aloofness, stay the tendency to immediate action. meaning has grown worldly wise and demands that each situation shall explain itself and that the general principles and concrete applications of its own instruments shall be made manifest. hence in the various forms of reflective thought we find the progressive steps in which meaning comes to full consciousness of its function in experience. the demonstrative judgment (the simplest of the reflective type) carries doubt, criticism, construction, and assertion written on the face of it. for example, in the expression, "that is hot," we do not find the directness and immediacy of response characteristic of the simpler impersonal "hot." instead, we note a clash of tendencies, a suspension of the proposed action, a demand for and a carrying out of a reconsideration of the course of action, the emergence of a new meaning, and the consequent redirection of activities. an iron lies upon the hearth; i stretch out my hand to return it to its place; i stop suddenly, having become conscious of signs of warmth; the thought arises in my mind, "that is hot;" i experiment and find my judgment correct; i search for a cloth, and thus protected carry out my first intention. again, a hunter notes a movement in the thicket, quickly raises his gun, and is about to fire. something in the movement of the object arrests him. he stops, thinking, "that is a man, perhaps." what has caught the eye has arrested his action, has become a demand, and not until the situation has become clear can the hunter determine what to do. in other words, he must reflectively assure himself what the object is before he can satisfy himself as to how he should act. subject and predicate have arisen and have consciously played their parts in the passage from doubt to decision. under the heading "individual judgments" are classed such expressions as, "that ship is a man-o'-war," "russia opposes the policy of the open door in china." in both these cases it is evident that an advance in definiteness of conception and of complexity of meaning has been made, while at the same time we recognize that the instrumental characteristics of the thought-movement remain the same. in considering the subject of the judgment we note that the stimulus presents itself partly as a determinate factor and partly as a problem--an insistent demand. the expression, "that ship is a man-o'-war," might be written, "that is a ship and of the kind man-o'-war," and it thus constitutes what sigwart calls a "double synthesis." as used in actual judgment, however, the two are held together and constitute the statement of a single stimulus of which a certain portion is evident and a certain portion is in doubt. the working out of the difficulty is given in the predicate "is a man-o'-war," in which we at once detect the instrumental characteristics fundamental to all judgment. to illustrate: at the close of the battle of santiago, in the spanish-american war, smoke appeared upon the horizon revealing the presence of a strange ship. instantly attention was directed to it, and it became a problem for action--a demand for instrumental information. soon it was identified as a man-o'-war, and the american ships were cleared for action. closer approach raised a further question with reference to its nationality. after some debate this also was resolved, and hostile demonstrations were abandoned. the universal judgment is sometimes said to exhibit two distinct forms. investigation, however, has proved this statement to be incorrect. instances taken in themselves and apart from their character are of no logical significance. advance is made by weighing instances and not by counting them. in short, the true universal is the hypothetical judgment, and the reason for this may be readily shown. the hypothetical judgment is essentially double-ended. on the one hand, it is a statement of the problem of action in terms of the conditions which will turn the problem into a solution. on the other hand, it is an assertion that once the conditions of action have been determined the result desired may be attained. here we note that the judgment has come to clear consciousness of itself and of the part which it plays in experience. it has now obtained an insight into the criterion of its legitimate employment, _i. e._, of its truth and falsity. and this insight makes the justification of its claim almost self-evident. for, inasmuch as the hypothetical judgment says, "if such and such conditions be realized, such and such a result will be obtained," the test of the claim is made by putting the conditions into effect and watching whether the promised experience is given. and further, since it has been found that the judgment formulated as a hypothesis actually accomplishes what it promises, we must admit that the hypothetical judgment is also categorical. these two factors cannot be separated from each other. it is true that the hypothetical judgment reduces every valid meaning to the form, "_if_ certain conditions be realized," but it as plainly and positively asserts, "such and such results _will_ be obtained." when we grasp the absolute correlativity of the hypothetical and categorical aspects of judgment, we realize at once the essentially instrumental character of judgment, when it comes to consciousness of its structure and function. it arises in the self-conscious realization of a problem. this it reflects upon and sizes up. when the difficulty has been apprehended, the judgment emerges as the consciousness of the conditions which will attain the desired end of action freed and unimpeded. this may be illustrated by reference to the work of pasteur cited above. his investigations began in a problem set for him by agricultural conditions in france. a certain disease had made the profitable rearing of sheep and cattle almost an impossibility. after long and careful examination he discovered the beneficial effects of vaccination. to him the conditions which governed the presence of the disease became apparent, and this knowledge furnished him with an instrument by means of which one difficulty was removed from the path of the stock-raiser. in this illustration we have an epitome of the work accomplished everywhere by the scientist. it is his task to develop and to reduce to exact terms instruments of control for the varied activities of life. in its parts and as a whole each instrument is intelligently constructed and tested so that its make-up and function are exactly known. because of this, reasoned belief now takes the place of unreflective trust as that was experienced in the impersonal stage of judgment. what at first hand might appear to be a loss was in reality a gain; the breakdown of the impersonal was the first step in the development of an instrument of action conscious of its reason for being, its methods and conditions of action. these latter constitute the distinctive subject and predicate of the reflective judgment. this brings us to the connection between the hypothetical character of this form of judgment and its universality. and this perhaps will now be quite apparent. the reflective judgment lays bare an objective connection between the conditions and outcomes of actions. it proves its point by actually constructing the event. such being the case, universality is no more than a statement of identical results being predictable wherever like conditions are realized. if it be true that "man is mortal," then it is an identical statement to insist that, "wherever we find men there we shall also find mortality." and this point brings us naturally to the treatment of the disjunctive judgment: "a is either b or c or d." in the disjunctive judgment the demand is not for the construction of a reliable instrument of action, but for the resolution of a doubt as to which instrument is precisely fitted to the circumstances. in fact, the disjunctive judgment involves the identification of the practical problem. when we say of a man, "he is either very simple or very deep," we have no doubt as to our proper course of action in either case. if he is simple, then we shall do so and so; if he is deep, then another course of action follows. we can lay out alternative courses beforehand, but the point of difficulty lies here: "but just which is he?" in short, the disjunctive judgment is the demand for and the attempt at a precise diagnosis of a concrete problem. to illustrate: a patient afflicted with aphasia is brought to a physician. the fact that the trouble is aphasia may be quite evident. but what precisely is the form and seat of the aphasia? to the mind of the educated physician the problem will take on the disjunctive form: "this is either subcortical or cortical aphasia. if subcortical, intelligence will not be impaired; if cortical, the sensor and motor tracts will be in good condition." appropriate tests are made and the subcortical possibilities are shut out. the disjunction disappears and the judgment emerges: "this is a case of cortical aphasia." but now a new disjunction arises. it is either the sensory or motor form of cortical aphasia, and, whichever one of these, it is again one of several possibilities. as the alternatives arise, the means for discriminating them arise also; determinate symptoms are observed, and in due time the physician arrives at the final conclusion: "this is sensory cortical aphasia of the visual type." having determined this, his method of action is assured, and he proceeds to the appropriate operation. thus, finally, we are brought to a form of judgment aware not only of its motive, method, and justification, but also to one aware of its specific application to individual cases. thus it would seem as though judgment had returned upon itself and had completed the determination of its sphere of action. and in one sense this is true. in the disjunctive judgment, as inclusive of the motives of the hypothetical and categorical forms, the reflective judgment would appear to have come to its limit of development. one thing, however, remains to be considered, viz., the development from crude to expert uses of intellectual instruments. 3. _the intuitive judgment._--as stated above, the intuitive type of judgment depends upon efficiency in the use of judgment. in this regard there is a great similarity between the impersonal and the intuitive judgments. both are immediate and precise. but there is a radical and essential difference. the impersonal judgment knows nothing of the strict analysis, insight, and constructive power of the reflective judgment. the intuitive judgment, on the other hand, includes the results of reflection and brings them to their highest power. paradoxically put, in the intuitive judgment there is so much reflection that there is no need for it at all. to the intuitive judgment there is no hesitation, no aloofness. action is direct, but entirely self-conscious. that such a type of judgment as the intuitive exists there can be no doubt. there is all the difference in the world between the quality of consciousness of a mere layman and that of an expert, no matter what the line. the layman must size up a situation. it is a process whose parts are successive, whether much or little difficulty be experienced. for the expert situations are taken in at a glance, parts and whole are simultaneous and immediate. yet the meaning is entirely exact. the expert judgment is self-conscious to the last degree. while other individuals are thinking out what to do, the expert has it, sees the advantage, adjusts, and moves. demand and solution jump together. how otherwise can we explain, for example, the action of an expert ball-player? witness his rapid reactions, his instantaneous adjustments. mistakes of opponents which would never be noticed by the average player are recognized and seized upon. on the instant the new opening is seen, the adjustment is evident, the movement made. illustrations to the same effect could be drawn from other modes of life, _e. g._, music, the military life, etc. that intuitive judgments are not more common is a proof in itself of their distinctive character and value. only in so far as we become experts in our special fields of experience and have reduced our instruments of action to precise control, can we expect the presence of intuitive judgments. they remain, therefore, as the final outcome of the judgment-function made perfect in its technique and use. in conclusion we shall make a brief summary of our investigation and a criticism of certain current theories of judgment. judgment is essentially instrumental. its function is to construct, justify, and refine experience into exact instruments for the direction and control of future experience through action. it exhibits itself first in the form of instruments developed unsystematically in response to the hard necessities of life. in a higher stage of development the instrumental process itself is taken into account, and systematically developed until in the methodical procedure of science the general principles of knowledge are laid bare and efficient instruments of action constructed. finally, constant, intelligent use results in complete control, so that within certain spheres doubt and hesitancy would seem to disappear as to the character of the tools used, and remain only as a moment in determining their wisest or most appropriate employ. the criticism indicated is based upon the instrumental character of judgment and is directed against all theories which contend that knowledge is a "copying" or "reproducing" of reality. in whatever form this "copy" theory be stated, the question inevitably arises how we can compare our ideas with reality and thus know their truth. on this theory, what we possess is ever the copy; the reality is beyond. in other words, such a theory logically carried out leads to the breakdown of knowledge. only a theory which contains and constructs its criterion within its own specific movement can verify its constructions. such a theory is the instrumental. judgment constructs a situation in consciousness. the values assigned in this situation have a determining influence upon values further appreciated. the construction arrived at concerns future weal and woe. thus gradually a sense of truth and falsity attaches to the construing of situations. one sees that he _must_ look beyond _this_ situation, because the way he estimates _this_ situation is fraught with meaning beyond itself. hence the critically reflective judgment in which hesitancy and doubt direct themselves at the attitude, elements, and tools involved in defining and identifying the situation, instead of at the situation itself _in toto_. instead of developing a complex of experience through assigning qualities and meanings to the _situation_ as such, some one of the quales is selected, to have _its_ significance determined. it becomes, _pro tempore_, the situation judged. or the same thing takes place as regards some "idea" or value hitherto immediately fastened upon and employed. in either case we get the reflective judgment, the judgment of pure relationship as distinct from the constructive judgment. but the judgment of relation, employing the copula to refer a specified predicate to a specified object, is after all only for the sake of controlling some immediate judgment of constructive experience. it realizes itself in forming the confident habit of prompt and precise mental adjustment to individualized situations. vii the nature of hypothesis in the various discussions of the hypothesis which have appeared in works on inductive logic and in writings on scientific method, its structure and function have received considerable attention, while its origin has been comparatively neglected. the hypothesis has generally been treated as that part of scientific procedure which marks the stage where a definite plan or method is proposed for dealing with new or unexplained facts. it is regarded as an invention for the purpose of explaining the given, as a definite conjecture which is to be tested by an appeal to experience to see whether deductions made in accordance with it will be found true in fact. the function of the hypothesis is to unify, to furnish a method of dealing with things, and its structure must be suitable to this end. it must be so formed that it will be likely to prove valid, and writers have formulated various rules to be followed in the formation of hypotheses. these rules state the main requirements of a good hypothesis, and are intended to aid in a general way by pointing out certain limits within which it must fall. in respect to the origin of the hypothesis, writers have usually contented themselves with pointing out the kind of situations in which hypotheses are likely to appear. but after this has been done, after favorable external conditions have been given, the rest must be left to "genius," for hypotheses arise as "happy guesses," for which no rule or law can be given. in fact, the genius differs from the ordinary plodding mortal in just this ability to form fruitful hypotheses in the midst of the same facts which to other less gifted individuals remain only so many disconnected experiences. this unequal stress which has been laid on the structure and function of the hypothesis in comparison with its origin may be attributed to three reasons: (1) the facts, or data, which constitute the working material of hypotheses are regarded as given to all alike, and all alike are more or less interested in systematizing and unifying experience. the purpose of the hypothesis and the opportunity for forming it are thus practically the same for all, and hence certain definite rules can be laid down which will apply to all cases where hypotheses are to be employed. (2) but beyond this there seems to be no clue that can be formulated. there is apparently a more or less open acceptance of the final answer of the boy zerah colburn, who, when pressed to give an explanation of his method of instantaneous calculation, exclaimed in despair: "god put it into my head, and i can't put it into yours."[56] (3) and, furthermore, there is very often a strong tendency to disregard investigation into the origin of that which is taken as given, for, since it is already present, its origin, whatever it may have been, can have nothing to do with what it is now. the facts, the data, are _here_, and must be dealt with as they _are_. their past, their history or development, is entirely irrelevant. so, even if we could trace the hypothesis farther back on the psychological side, the investigation would be useless, for the rules to which a good hypothesis must conform would remain the same. whether or not it can be shown that zerah colburn's ultimate explanation is needed in logic as little as laplace asserted a similar one to be required in his celestial mechanics, it may at least be possible to defer it to some extent by means of a further psychological inquiry. it will be found that psychological inquiry into the origin of the hypothesis is not irrelevant in respect to an understanding of its structure and function; for origin and function cannot be understood apart from each other, and, since structure must be adapted to function, it cannot be independent of origin. in fact, origin, structure, and function are organically connected, and each loses its meaning when absolutely separated from each other. it will be found, moreover, that the data which are commonly taken as the given material are not something to which the hypothesis is subsequently applied, but that, instead of this external relation between data and hypothesis, the hypothesis exercises a directive function in determining what are the data. in a word, the main object of this discussion will be to contend against making a merely convenient and special way of regarding the hypothesis a full and adequate one. though we speak of facts and of hypotheses that may be applied to them, it must not be forgotten that there are no facts which remain the same whatever hypothesis be applied to them; and that there are no hypotheses which are hypotheses at all except in reference to their function in dealing with our subject-matter in such a way as to facilitate its factual apprehension. data are selected in order to be determined, and hypotheses are the ways in which this determination is carried on. if, as we shall attempt to show, the relation between data and hypothesis is not external, but strictly correlative, it is evident that this fact must be taken into account in questions concerning deduction and induction, analytic and synthetic judgments, and the criterion of truth. its bearing must be recognized in the investigation of metaphysical problems as well, for reality cannot be independent of the knowing process. in a word, the purpose of this discussion of the hypothesis is to determine its nature a little more precisely through an investigation of its rather obscure origin, and to call attention to certain features of its function which have not generally been accorded their due significance. i _the hypothesis as predicate._--it is generally admitted that the function of the hypothesis is to provide a way of dealing with the data or subject-matter which we need to organize. in this use of the hypothesis it appears in the rôle of predicate in a judgment of which the data, or facts, to be construed constitute the subject. in his attempts to reduce the movements of the planets about the sun to some general formula, kepler finally hit upon the law since known as kepler's law, viz., that the squares of the periodic times of the several planets are proportional to the cubes of their mean distances from the sun. this law was first tentatively advanced as a hypothesis. kepler was not certain of its truth till it had proved its claim to acceptance. neither did newton have at first any great degree of assurance in regard to his law of gravitation, and was ready to give it up when he failed in his first attempt to test it by observation of the moon. and the same thing may be said about the caution of darwin and other investigators in regard to accepting hypotheses. the only reason for their extreme care in not accepting at once their tentative formulations or suggestions was the fear that some other explanation might be the correct one. this rejection of other possibilities is the negative side of the matter. we become confident that our hypothesis is the right one as we lose confidence in other possible explanations; and it might be added, without falling into a circle, that we lose confidence in the other possibilities as we become more convinced of our hypothesis. it appears that such may be the relation of the positive and negative sides in case of such elaborate hypotheses as those of kepler and newton; but is it true where our hypotheses are more simple? it is not easy to understand why the fact that the hypothesis is more simple, and the time required for its formulation and test a good deal shorter, should materially change the state of affairs. the question remains: why, if there is no opposition, should there be any uncertainty? in all instances, then, the hypothesis appears as one among other possible predicates which may be applied to our data taken as subject-matter of a judgment. _the predicate as hypothesis._--suppose, then, the hypothesis is a predicate; is the predicate necessarily a hypothesis? this is the next question we are called upon to answer, and, since the predicate cannot very well be taken aside from the judgment, our question involves the nature of the judgment. while it will not be necessary to give a very complete account of the various definitions of the judgment that might be adduced, still the mention of a few of the more prominent ones may serve to indicate that something further is needed. in definitions of the judgment sometimes the subjective side is emphasized, sometimes the objective side, and in other instances there are attempts to combine the two. for instance, lotze regards the judgment as the idea of a unity or relation between two concepts, with the further implication that this connection holds true of the object referred to. j. s. mill says that every proposition either affirms or denies existence, coexistence, sequence, causation, or resemblance. trendelenburg regards the judgment as a form of thought which corresponds to the real connection of things, while ueberweg states the case a little differently, and says that the essence of judgment consists in recognizing the objective validity of a subjective connection of ideas. royce points to a process of imitation and holds that in the judgment we try to portray by means of the ideas that enter into it. ideas are imitative in their nature. sigwart's view of the judgment is that in it we say something about something. with him the judgment is a synthetic process, while wundt considers its nature analytic and holds that, instead of uniting, or combining, concepts into a whole, it separates them out of a total idea or presentation. instead of blending parts into a whole, it separates the whole into its constituent parts. bradley and bosanquet both hold that in the judgment an ideal content comes into relation with reality. bradley says that in every judgment reality is qualified by an idea, which is symbolic. the ideal content is recognized as such, and is referred to a reality beyond the act. this is the essence of judgment. bosanquet seems to perceive a closer relation between idea and reality, for although he says that judgment is the "intellectual function which defines reality by significant ideas," he also tells us that "the subject is both in and out of the judgment, as reality is both in and out of my consciousness." in all these definitions of judgment the predicate appears as ideal. an ideal content is predicated of something, whether we regard this something as an idea or as reality beyond, or as reality partly within and partly without the act of judging; and it is ideal whether we consider it as one of the three parts into which judgments are usually divided, or whether we say, with bosanquet and bradley, that subject, predicate, and copula all taken together form a single ideal content, which is somehow applied to reality. moreover, we not only judge about reality, but it seems to be quite immaterial to reality whether we judge concerning it or not. many of our judgments prove false. not only do we err in our judgments, but we often hesitate in making them for fear of being wrong; we feel there are other possibilities, and our predication becomes tentative. here we have something very like the hypothesis, for our ideal content shows itself to be a tentative attempt in the presence of alternatives to qualify and systematize reality. it appears, then, on the basis of the views of the judgment that have been mentioned, that not only do we find the hypothesis taking its place as the predicate of a judgment, but the predicate is itself essentially of the nature of a hypothesis. in the views of the judgment so far brought out, reality, with which it is generally admitted that the judgment attempts to deal in some way, appears to lie outside the act of judging. now, everyone would say that we make some advance in judging, and that we have a better grasp of things after than before. but how is this possible if reality lies without or beyond our act of judging? is the reality we now have the same that we had to begin with? if so, then we have made no advance as far as the real itself is concerned. if merely our conception of it has changed, then it is not clear why we may not be even worse off than before. if reality does lie beyond our judgment, then how, in the nature of the case, can we ever know whether we have approached it or have gone still farther away? to make any claim of approximation implies that we do reach reality in some measure, at least, and, if so, it is difficult to understand how it lies beyond, and is independent of, the act of judging. _further analysis of judgment._--it remains to be seen whether a further investigation of the judgment will still show the predicate to be a hypothesis. it is evident that in some cases the judgment appears at the end of a more or less pronounced reflective process, during which other possible judgments have suggested themselves, but have been rejected. the history of scientific discovery is filled with cases which illustrate the nature of the process by which a new theory is developed. for instance, in darwin's _formation of vegetable mould through the action of earth worms_, we find the record of successive steps in the development of his hypothesis. darwin suspected from his observations that vegetable mold was due to some agency which was not yet determined. he reasoned that if vegetable mold is the result of the life-habits of earthworms, _i. e._, if earth is brought up by them from beneath the surface and afterward spread out by wind and rain, then small objects lying on the surface of the ground would tend to disappear gradually below the surface. facts seemed to support his theory, for layers of red sand, pieces of chalk, and stones were found to have disappeared below the surface in a greater or less degree. a common explanation had been that heavy objects tend to sink in soft soil through their own weight, but the earthworm hypothesis led to a more careful examination of the data. it was found that the weight of the object and the softness of the ground made no marked difference, for sand and light objects sank, and the ground was not always soft. in general, it was shown that where earthworms were found vegetable mold was also present, and _vice versa_. in this investigation of darwin's the conflicting explanations of sinking stones appear within the main question of the formation of vegetable mold by earthworms. the facts that disagreed with the old theory about sinking stones were approached through this new one. but the theories had something in common, viz., the disappearance of the stones or other objects: they differed in their further determination of this disappearance. in this case it may seem as if the facts which were opposed to the current theory of sinking stones were seen to be discrepant only after the earthworm hypothesis had been advanced; the conflict between the new facts and the old theory appears to have arisen through the influence of the new theory. there are cases, however, where the facts seem clearly to contradict the old theory and thus give rise to a new one. for example, we find in darwin's introduction to his _origin of species_ the following: "in considering the origin of species it is quite conceivable that a naturalist reflecting on the mental affinities of organic beings, on their embryological relations, their geographical distribution, geological succession, and other such facts, might come to the conclusion that species had not been independently created but had descended, like varieties, from other species." it would seem from this statement that certain data were found for which the older theory of independent creation did not offer an adequate explanation. and yet the naturalist would hardly "reflect" on all these topics in a comparative way unless some other mode of interpretation were already dawning upon him, which led him to review the accepted reflections or views. as a more simple illustration, we may cite the common experience of a person who is uncertain concerning the identity of an approaching object, say, another person. at first he may not be sure it is a person at all. he then sees that it is someone, and as the person approaches he is inclined to believe him to be an acquaintance. as the supposed acquaintance continues to approach, the observer may distinguish certain features that cause him to doubt, and then relinquish his supposition that it is an acquaintance. or, he may conclude at once that the approaching person is another individual he knows, and the transition may be so readily made from one to the other that it would be difficult to determine whether the discordant features are discordant before the new supposition arises, or whether they are not recognized as conflicting till this second person is in mind. or, again, the identification of the new individual and the discovery of the features that are in conflict with the first supposition may appear to go on together. now, marked lines of likeness appear between this relatively simple judgment and the far more involved ones of scientific research. in the more extended scientific process we find data contradicting an old theory and a new hypothesis arising to account for them. the hypothesis is tested, and along with its verification we have the rejection, or rather the modification, of the old theory. similarly, in case of the approaching stranger all these features are present, though in less pronounced degree. in scientific investigation there is an interval of testing by means of more careful consideration of the data and even actual experimentation. before an explanation is accepted subject to test, a number of others may have been suggested and rejected. they may not have received even explicit recognition. in case of the identification of the stranger this feature is also present. between two fairly definite attempts to identify the mind does not remain a mere blank or stationary, but other possible identifications may be suggested which do not have sufficient plausibility to command serious attention; they are only comparatively brief suggestions or tendencies. it is to be noted that in all these instances the first supposition was not _entirely_ abandoned, but was modified and more exactly determined. (why it could not be wholly false and the new one wholly new, will be considered later in connection with discussion of the persistence and re-formation of habit.) there was such a modification of the old theory as would meet the requirements of the new data, and the new explanations thus contained both old and new features. we have seen that the predicate of the scientific judgment is a hypothesis which is consciously applied to certain data. if the similarity between the scientific judgment and the more immediate and simple judgment is to be maintained, it is clear that the predicate of the simple judgment must be of like nature. the structure of the two varieties of judgment differs only in the degree of explicitness which the hypothesis acquires. that is, the predicate of a judgment, as such, is ideal; it is meaning, significant quality. if conditions are such as to make the one judging hesitant or doubtful the mind wavers; the predicate is not applied at once to the determination or qualification of data, and hence comes to more distinct consciousness on its own account. from being "ideal," it becomes _an_ idea. yet its sole purpose and value remains in its possible use to interpret data. let the idea remain detached, and let the query whether it be a true predicate (_i. e_., really fit to be employed in determining the present data) become more critical, and the idea becomes clearly a hypothesis.[57] in other words, the hypothesis is just the predicate-function of judgment definitely apprehended and regarded with reference to its nature and adequacy. _psychological analysis of judgment._--this hypothetical nature of the predicate will be even more apparent after a further psychological analysis, which, while applying more directly to the simpler and more immediate judgments, may be extended to the more involved ones as well. in psychological terms, we may say, in explanation of the judging process, that some stimulus to action has failed to function properly as a stimulus, and that the activity which was going on has thus been interrupted. response in the accustomed way has failed. in such a case there arises a division in experience into sensation content as subject and ideal content as predicate. in other words, an activity has been going on in accordance with established habits, but upon failure of the accustomed stimulus to be longer an adequate stimulus this particular activity ceases, and is resumed in an integral form only when a new habit is set up to which the new or altered stimulus is adequate. it is in this process of reconstruction that subject and predicate appear. sensory quality marks the point of stress, or seeming arrest, while the ideal or imaged aspect defines the continuing activity as projected, and hence that with which start is to be made in coping with the obstacle. it serves as standpoint of regard and mode of indicated behavior. the sensation stands for the interrupted habit, while the image stands for the new habit, that is, the new way of dealing with the subject-matter.[58] it appears, then, that the purpose of the judgment is to obtain an adequate stimulus in that, when stimulus and response are adjusted to each other, activity will be resumed. but if this reconstruction and response were to follow at once, would there be any clearly defined act of judging at all? in such a case there would be no judgment, properly speaking, and no occasion for it. there would be simply a ready transition from one line of activity to another; we should have changed our method of reaction easily and readily to meet the new requirements. on the one hand, our subject-matter would not have become a clearly recognized datum with which we must deal; on the other hand, there would be no ideal method of construing it.[59] activity would have changed without interruption, and neither subject nor predicate would have arisen. in order that judgment may take place there must be interruption and suspense. under what conditions, then, is this suspense and uncertainty possible? our reply must be that we hesitate because of more or less sharply defined alternatives; we are not sure which predicate, which method of reaction, is the right one. the clearness with which these alternatives come to mind depends upon the degree of explicitness of the judgment, or, more exactly, the explicitness of the judgment depends upon the sharpness of these alternatives. alternatives may be carefully weighed one against the other, as in deliberative judgments; or they may be scarcely recognized as alternatives, as in the case in the greater portion of our more simple judgments of daily conduct. _the predicate is essentially hypothetical._--if we review in a brief résumé the types of judgment we have considered, we find in the explicit scientific judgment a fairly well-defined subject-matter which we seek further to determine. different suggestions present themselves with varying degrees of plausibility. some are passed by as soon as they arise. others gain a temporary recognition. some are explicitly tested with resulting acceptance or rejection. the acceptance of any one explanation involves the rejection of some other explanation. during the process of verification or test the newly advanced supposition is recognized to be more or less doubtful. besides the hypothesis which is tentatively applied there is recognized the possibility of others. in the disjunctive judgment these possible reactions are thought to be limited to certain clearly defined alternatives, while in the less explicit judgments they are not so clearly brought out. throughout the various forms of judgment, from the most complex and deliberate down to the most simple and immediate, we found that a process could be traced which was like in kind and varied only in degree. and, finally, in the most immediate judgments where some of these features seem to disappear, the same account not only appears to be the most reasonable one, but there is the additional consideration, from the psychological side, that were not the judgment of this doubtful, tentative character, it would be difficult to understand how there could be judgment as distinct from a reflex. it appears, then, that throughout, the predicate is essentially of the nature of a hypothesis for dealing with the subject-matter. and, however simple and immediate, or however involved and prolonged, the judgment may be, it is to be regarded as essentially a process of reconstruction which aims at the resumption of an interrupted experience; and when experience has become itself a consciously intellectual affair, at the restoration of a unified objective situation. ii _criticism of certain views concerning the hypothesis._--the explanation we have given of the hypothesis will enable us to criticise the treatment it has received from the empirical and the rationalistic schools. we shall endeavor to point out that these schools have, in spite of their opposed views, an assumption in common--something given in a fixed, or non-instrumental way; and that consequently the hypothesis is either impossible or else futile. bacon is commonly recognized as a leader in the reactionary inductive movement, which arose with the decline of scholasticism, and will serve as a good example of the extreme empirical position. in place of authority and the deductive method, bacon advocated a return to nature and induction from data given through observation. the new method which he advanced has both a positive and a negative side. before any positive steps can be taken, the mind must be cleared of the various false opinions and prejudices that have been acquired. this preliminary task of freeing the mind from "phantoms," or "eidola," which bacon likened to the cleansing of the threshing-floor, having been accomplished, nature should be carefully interrogated. there must be no hasty generalization, for the true method "collects axioms from sense and particulars, ascending continuously and by degrees, so that in the end it arrives at the most general axioms." these axioms of bacon's are generalizations based on observation, and are to be applied deductively, but the distinguishing feature of bacon's induction is its carefully graduated steps. others, too, had proceeded with caution (for instance galileo), but bacon laid more stress than they on the subordination of steps. it is evident that bacon left very little room for hypotheses, and this is in keeping with his aversion to anticipation of nature by means of "phantoms" of any sort; he even said explicitly that "our method of discovery in science is of such a nature that there is not much left to acuteness and strength of genius, but all degrees of genius and intellect are brought nearly to the same level."[60] bacon gave no explanation of the function of the hypothesis; in his opinion it had no lawful place in scientific procedure and must be banished as a disturbing element. instead of the reciprocal relation between hypothesis and data, in which hypothesis is not only tested in experience, but at the same time controls in a measure the very experience which tests it, bacon would have a gradual extraction of general laws from nature through direct observation. he is so afraid of the distorting influence of conception that he will have nothing to do with conception upon any terms. so fearful is he of the influence of pre-judgment, of prejudice, that he will have no judging which depends upon ideas, since the idea involves anticipation of the fact. particulars are somehow to arrange and classify themselves, and to record or register, in a mind free from conception, certain generalizations. ideas are to be registered derivatives of the given particulars. this view is the essence of empiricism as a logical theory. if the views regarding the logic of thought before set forth are correct, it goes without saying that such empiricism is condemned to self-contradiction. it endeavors to construct judgment in terms of its subject alone; and the subject, as we have seen, is always a co-respondent to a predicate--an idea or mental attitude or tendency of intellectual determination. thus the subject of judgment can be determined only with reference to a corresponding determination of the predicate. subject and predicate, fact and idea, are contemporaneous, not serial in their relations (see pp. 110-12). less technically the failure of bacon's denial of the worth of hypothesis--which is in such exact accord with empiricism in logic--shows itself in his attitude toward experimentation and toward observation. bacon's neglect of experimentation is not an accidental oversight, but is bound up with his view regarding the worthlessness of conception or anticipation. to experiment means to set out from an idea as well as from facts, and to try to construe, or even to discover, facts in accordance with the idea. experimentation not only anticipates, but strives to make good an anticipation. of course, this struggle is checked at every point by success or failure, and thus the hypothesis is continuously undergoing in varying ratios both confirmation and transformation. but this is not to make the hypothesis secondary to the fact. it is simply to remain true to the proposition that the distinction and the relationship of the two is a thoroughly contemporaneous one. but it is impossible to draw any fixed line between experimentation and scientific observations. to insist upon the need of systematic observation and collection of particulars is to set up a principle which is as distinct from the casual accumulation of impressions as it is from nebulous speculation. if there is to be observation of a directed sort, it must be with reference to some problem, some doubt, and this, as we have seen, is a stimulus which throws the mind into a certain attitude of response. controlled observation is inquiry, it is search; consequently it must be search for something. nature cannot answer interrogations excepting as such interrogations are put; and the putting of a question involves anticipation. the observer does not inquire about anything or look for anything excepting as he is after something. this search implies at once the incompleteness of the particular given facts, and the possibility--that is ideal--of their completion. it was not long until the development of natural science compelled a better understanding of its actual procedure than bacon possessed. empiricism changed to experimentalism. with experimentalism inevitably came the recognition of hypotheses in observing, collecting, and comparing facts. it is clear, for instance, that newton's fruitful investigations are not conducted in accordance with the baconian notion. it is quite clear that his celebrated four rules for philosophizing[61] are in truth statements of certain principles which are to be observed in forming hypotheses. they imply that scientific technique had advanced to a point where hypotheses were such regular and indispensable factors that certain uniform conditions might be laid down for their use. the fourth rule in particular is a statement of the relative validity of hypothesis as such until there is ground for entertaining a contrary hypothesis. the subsequent history of logical theory in england is conditioned upon its attempt to combine into one system the theories of empiristic logic with recognition of the procedure of experimental science. this attempt finds its culmination in the logic of john stuart mill. of his interest in and fidelity to the actual procedure of experimental science, as he saw it, there can be no doubt. of his good faith in concluding his _introduction_ with the words following there can be no doubt: "i can conscientiously affirm that no one proposition laid down in this work has been adopted for the sake of establishing, or with any reference for its fitness in being employed in establishing, preconceived opinions in any department of knowledge or of inquiry on which the speculative world is still undecided." yet mill was equally attached to the belief that ultimate reality, as it is for the human mind, is given in sensations, independent of ideas; and that all valid ideas are combinations and convenient ways of using such given material. mill's very sincerity made it impossible that this belief should not determine, at every point, his treatment of the thinking process and of its various instrumentalities. in book iii, chap. 14, mill discusses the logic of explanation, and in discussing this topic naturally finds it necessary to consider the matter of the proper use of scientific hypotheses. this is conducted from the standpoint of their use as that is reflected in the technique of scientific discovery. in book iv, chap. 2, he discusses "abstraction or the formation of conceptions"--a topic which obviously involves the forming of hypotheses. in this chapter, his consideration is conducted in terms, not of scientific procedure, but of general philosophical theory, and this point of view is emphasized by the fact that he is opposing a certain view of dr. whewell. the contradiction between the statements in the two chapters will serve to bring out the two points already made, viz., the correspondent character of datum and hypothesis, and the origin of the latter in a problematic situation and its consequent use as an instrument of unification and solution. mill first points out that hypotheses are invented to enable the deductive method to be applied earlier to phenomena; that it does this by suppressing the first of the three steps, induction, ratiocination, and verification. he states that: the process of tracing regularity in any complicated, and at first sight confused, set of appearances is necessarily tentative; we begin by making any supposition, even a false one, to see what consequences will follow from it; and by observing how these differ from the real phenomena, we learn what corrections to make in our assumption.... _neither induction nor deduction would enable us to understand even the simplest phenomena_, if we did not often commence by anticipating the results; by making a provisional supposition, at first essentially conjectural, as to some of the very notions which constitute the final object of the inquiry.[62] if in addition we recognize that, according to mill, our direct experience of nature always presents us with a complicated and confused set of appearances, we shall be in no doubt as to the importance of ideas as anticipations of a possible experience not yet had. thus he says: the order of nature, as perceived at a first glance, presents at every instant a chaos followed by another chaos. we must decompose each chaos into single facts. we must learn to see in the chaotic antecedent a multitude of distinct antecedents, in the chaotic consequent a multitude of distinct consequents.[63] in the next section of the same chapter he goes on to state that, having discriminated the various antecedents and consequents, we then "are to inquire which is connected with which." this requires a still further resolution of the complex and of the confused. to effect this we must vary the circumstances; we must modify the experience as given with reference to accomplishing our purpose. to accomplish this purpose we have recourse either to observation or to experiment: "we may either _find_ an instance in nature _suited to our purposes_, or, by an artificial arrangement of circumstances, _make_ one" (the italics in "suited to our purpose" are mine; the others are mill's). he then goes on to say that there is no real logical distinction between observation and experimentation. the four methods of experimental inquiry are expressly discussed by mill in terms of their worth in singling out and connecting the antecedents and consequents which actually belong together, from the chaos and confusion of direct experience. we have only to take these statements in their logical connection with each other (and this connection runs through the entire treatment by mill of scientific inquiry), to recognize the absolute necessity of hypothesis to undertaking any directed inquiry or scientific operation. consequently we are not surprised at finding him saying that "the function of hypotheses is one which must be reckoned absolutely indispensable in science;" and again that "the hypothesis by suggesting observations and experiments puts us on the road to independent evidence."[64] since mill's virtual retraction, from the theoretical point of view, of what is here said from the standpoint of scientific procedure, regarding the necessity of ideas is an accompaniment of his criticism of whewell, it will put the discussion in better perspective if we turn first to whewell's views.[65] the latter began by stating a distinction which easily might have been developed into a theory of the relation of fact and idea which is in line with that advanced in this chapter, and indeed in this volume as a whole. he questions (chap. 2) the fixity of the distinction between theory and practice. he points out that what we term facts are in effect simply accepted inferences; and that what we call theories are describable as facts, in proportion as they become thoroughly established. a true theory is a fact. "all the great theories which have successively been established in the world are now thought of as facts." "the most recondite theories when firmly established are accepted as facts; the simplest facts seem to involve something of the nature of theory." the conclusion is that the distinction is a historic one, depending upon the state of knowledge at the time, and upon the attitude of the individual. what is theory for one epoch, or for one inquirer in a given epoch, is fact for some other epoch, or even for some other more advanced inquirer in the same epoch. it is theory when the element of inference involved in judging any fact is consciously brought out; it is fact when the conditions are such that we have never been led to question the inference involved, or else, having questioned it, have so thoroughly examined into the inferential process that there is no need of holding it further before the mind, and it relapses into unconsciousness again. "if this greater or less consciousness of our own internal act be all that distinguishes fact from theory, we must allow that the distinction is still untenable" (untenable, that is to say, as a fixed separation). again, "fact and theory have no essential difference except in the degree of their _certainty and familiarity_. theory, when it becomes firmly established and steadily lodged in the mind becomes fact." (p. 45; italics mine.) and, of course, it is equally true that as fast as facts are suspected or doubted, certain aspects of them are transferred into the class of theories and even of mere opinions. i say this conception might have been developed in a way entirely congruous with the position of this chapter. this would have happened if the final distinction between fact and idea had been formulated upon the basis simply of the points, "relative certainty and familiarity." from this point of view the distinction between fact and idea is one purely relative to the doubt-inquiry function. it has to do with the evolution of an experience as regards its conscious surety. it has its origin in problematic situations. whatever appears to us as a problem appears as contrasted with a possible solution. whatever objects of thought refer particularly to the problematic side are theories, ideas, hypotheses; whatever relates to the solution side is surety, unquestioned familiarity, fact. this point of view makes the distinctions entirely relative to the exigencies of the process of reflective transformation of experience. whewell, however, had no sooner started in this train of thought than he turns his back upon it. in chap. 3 he transforms what he had proclaimed to be a relative, historic, and working distinction into a fixed and absolute one. he distinguishes between sensations and ideas, not upon a genetic basis with reference to establishing the conditions of further operation; but with reference to a fundamentally fixed line of demarkation between what is passively _given_ to the mind and the _activity_ put forth by the mind. thus he reinstates in its most generalized and fixed, and therefore most vicious, form the separation which he has just rejected. sensations are a brute unchangeable element of fact which exists and persists independent of ideas; an idea is a mode of mental operation which occurs and recurs in an independent individuality of its own. if he had carried out the line of thought with which he began, sensation as fact would have been that residuum of familiarity and certainty which cannot be eliminated, however much else of an experience is dissolved in the inner conflict. idea as hypothesis or theory would have been the corresponding element in experience which is necessary to redintegrate this residuum into a coherent and significant experience. but since whewell did not follow out his own line of thought, choosing rather to fall back on the kantian antithesis of sense and thought, he had no sooner separated his fact and idea, his given datum and his mental relation, than he is compelled to get them together again. the idea becomes "a general relation which is imposed upon perception by an act of the mind, and which is different from anything which our senses directly offer to us" (p. 26). such conceptions are necessary to connect the facts which we learn from our senses into truths. "the ideal conception which the mind itself supplies is superinduced upon the facts as they are originally presented to observation. before the inductive truth is detected, the facts are there, but they are many and unconnected. the conception which the discoverer applies to them gives them connection and unity." (p. 42.) all induction, according to whewell, thus depends upon superinduction--imposition upon sensory data of certain ideas or general relations existing independently in the mind.[66] we do not need to present again the objections already offered to this view: the impossibility of any orderly stimulation of ideas by facts, and the impossibility of any check in the imposition of idea upon fact. "facts" and conception are so thoroughly separate and independent that any sensory datum is indifferently and equally related to any conceivable idea. there is no basis for "superinducing" one idea or hypothesis, rather than any other, upon any particular set of data. in the chapter already referred to upon abstraction, or the formation of conceptions, mill seizes upon this difficulty. yet he and whewell have one point in common: they both agree in the existence of a certain subject-matter which is given for logical purposes quite outside of the logical process itself. mill agrees with whewell in postulating a raw material of pure sensational data. in criticising whewell's theory of superinduction of idea upon fact, he is therefore led to the opposite assertion of the complete dependence of ideas as such upon the given facts as such--in other words, he is led to a reiteration of the fundamental baconian empiricism; and thus to a virtual retraction of what he had asserted regarding the necessity of ideas to fruitful scientific inquiry, whether in the way of observation or experimentation. the following quotation gives a fair notion of the extent of mill's retraction: the conceptions then which we employ for the colligation and methodization of facts, do not develop themselves from within, _but are impressed upon the mind from without_; they are never obtained otherwise than by way of comparison and abstraction, and, in the most important and most numerous cases, are evolved by abstraction _from the very phenomena which it is their office to colligate_.[67] even here mill's sense for the positive side of scientific inquiry suffices to reveal to him that the "facts" are somehow inadequate and defective, and are in need of assistance from ideas--and yet the ideas which are to help out the facts are to be the impress of the unsure facts! the contradiction comes out very clearly when mill says: "the really difficult cases are those in which the conception destined to create light and order out of darkness and confusion has to be sought for among the very phenomena which it afterward serves to arrange."[68] of course, there is a sense in which mill's view is very much nearer the truth than is whewell's. mill at least sees that "idea" must be relevant to the facts or data which it is to arrange, which are to have "light and order" introduced into them by means of the idea. he sees clearly enough that this is impossible save as the idea develops _within_ the same experience in which the "dark and confused" facts are presented. he goes on to show correctly enough how conflicting data lead the mind to a "confused feeling of an analogy" between the data of the confused experience and of some other experience which is orderly (or already colligated and methodized); and how this vague feeling, through processes of further exploration and comparison of experiences, gets a clearer and more adequate form until we finally accept it. he shows how in this process we continually judge of the worth of the idea which is in process of formation, by reference to its appropriateness to _our purpose_. he goes so far as to say: "the question of appropriateness is relative to the _particular object we have in view_."[69] he sums up his discussion by stating: "we cannot frame good general conceptions beforehand. that the conception we have obtained is the one we want can only be known when we have _done the work for the sake of which we wanted it_."[70] this all describes the actual state of the case, but it is consistent only with a logical theory which makes the distinction between fact and hypothesis instrumental in the transformation of experience from a confused into an organized form; not with mill's notion that sensations are somehow finally and completely given as ultimate facts, and that ideas are mere re-registrations of such facts. it is perfectly just to say that the hypothesis is impressed upon the mind (in the sense that any notion which occurs to the mind is impressed) _in the course_ of an experience. it is well enough, if one define what he means, to say that the hypothesis is impressed (that is to say, occurs or is suggested) through the medium of given facts, or even of sensations. but it is equally true that the _facts_ are presented and that _sensations_ occur within the course of an experience which is larger than the bare facts, because involving the conflicts among them and the corresponding intention to treat them in some fashion which will secure a unified experience. facts get power to suggest ideas to the mind--to "impress"--only through their position in an entire experience which is in process of disintegration and of reconstruction--their "fringe" or feeling of tendency is quite as factual as they are. the fact that "the conception we have obtained is the one we want can be known only when we have done the work for the sake of which we wanted it," is enough to show that it is not bare facts, but facts in relation to want and purpose and purpose in relation to facts, which originate the hypothesis. it would be interesting to follow the history of discussion of the hypothesis since the time of whewell and of mill, particularly in the writings of jevons, venn, and bosanquet. this history would refine the terms of our discussion by introducing more complex distinctions and relations. but it would be found, i think, only to refine, not to introduce any fundamentally new principles. in each case, we find the writer struggling with the necessity of distinguishing between fact and idea; of giving the fact a certain primacy with respect to testing of idea and of giving the idea a primacy with respect to the significance and orderliness of the fact; and of holding throughout to a relationship of idea with fact so intimate that the idea develops only by being "compared" with facts (that is, used in construing them), and facts get to be known only as they are "connected" through the idea--and we find that what is a maze of paradoxes and inconsistencies from an absolute, from a non-historic standpoint, is a matter of course the moment it is looked at from the standpoint of experience engaged in self-transformation of meaning through conflict and reconstitution. but we can only note one or two points. jevons's "infinite ballot-box" of nature which is absolutely neutral as to any particular conception or idea, and which accordingly requires as its correlate the formation of every possible hypothesis (all standing in themselves upon the same level of probability) is an interesting example of the logical consequences of feeling the need of both fact and hypothesis for scientific procedure and yet regarding them as somehow arising independently of each other. it is an attempt to combine extreme empiricism and extreme rationalism. the process of forming hypotheses and of deducing their rational consequences goes on at random, because the disconnectedness of facts as given is so ultimate that the facts suggest one hypothesis no more readily than another. mathematics, in its two forms of measurements as applied to the facts, and of calculation as applied in deduction, furnishes jevons the bridge by which he finally covers the gulf which he has first himself created. venn's theory requires little or no restatement to bring it into line with the position taken in the text. he holds to the origin of hypothesis in the original practical needs of mankind, and to its gradual development into present scientific form.[71] he states expressly: the _distinction between what is known and what is not known is essential to logic_, and peculiarly characteristic of it in a degree not to be found in any other science. inference is the process of passing from one to the other; from facts which we had accepted as premises, to those which we have not yet accepted, _but are in the act of doing so by the very process in question_. no scrutiny of the facts themselves, regarded as objective, can ever detect these characteristics of their greater or less familiarity to our minds. we must introduce also the subjective element if we wish to give any adequate explanation of them.[72] venn, however, does not attempt a thoroughgoing statement of logical distinctions, relations, and operations, as parts "of the act of passing from the unknown to the known." he recognizes the relation of reflection to a historic process, which we have here termed "reconstruction," and the origin and worth of hypothesis as a tool in the movement, but does not carry his analysis to a systematic form. iii _origin of the hypothesis._--in our analysis of the process of judgment, we attempted to show that the predicate arises in case of failure of some line of activity going on in terms of an established habit. when the old habit is checked through failure to deal with new conditions (_i. e._, when the situation is such as to stimulate two habits with distinct aims) the problem is to find a new method of response--that is, to co-ordinate the conflicting tendencies by building up a single aim which will function the existing situation. as we saw that, in case of judgment, habit when checked became ideal, an idea, so the new habit is first formalized as an ideal type of reaction and is the hypothesis by which we attempt to construe new data. in our inquiry as to how this formulation is effected, _i. e._, how the hypothesis is developed, it will be convenient to take some of the currently accepted statements as to their origin, and show how these statements stand in reference to the analysis proposed. _enumerative induction and allied processes._--it is pointed out by welton[73] that the various ways in which hypotheses are suggested may be reduced to three classes, viz., enumerative induction, conversion of propositions, and analogy. under the head of "enumeration" he reminds us that "every observed regularity of connection between phenomena suggests a question as to whether it is universal." there are numerous instances of this in mathematics. for example, it is noticed that 1+3=2^2, 1+3+5=3^2, 1+3+5+7=4^2, etc.; and one is led to ask whether there is any general principle involved, so that the sum of the first _n_ odd numbers will be _n_^2, where _n_ is any number, however great. in this early form of inductive inference there are two divergent tendencies. one is the tendency to complete enumeration. this _tendency_ is clearly ideal--it transcends the facts as given. to look for all the cases is thus itself an experimental inquiry, based upon a hypothesis which it endeavors to test. but in most cases enumeration can be only incomplete, and we are able to reach nothing better than probability. hence the other tendency in the direction of an analysis of content in search for a principle of connection in the elements in any _one_ case. for if a characteristic belonging to a number of individuals suggests a class where it belongs to all individuals, it must be that it is found in every individual as such. the hypothesis of complete class involves a hypothesis as to the character of each individual in the class. thus a hypothesis as to extension transforms itself into one as to intension. but it is analogy which welton considers "the chief source from which new hypotheses are drawn." in the second tendency mentioned under enumerative induction, that is, the tendency to analysis of content or intension, we are naturally led to analogy, for in our search for the characteristic feature which determines classification among the concrete particulars our first step will be an inference by analogy. in analogy attention is turned from the number of observed instances to their character, and, because particulars have some feature in common, they are supposed to be the same in still other respects. while the best we can reach in analogy is probability, the arguments may be such as to result in a high degree of certainty. the form of the argument is valuable in so far as we are able to distinguish between essential and nonessential characteristics on which to base our analogy. what is essential and what nonessential depends upon the particular end we have in view. in addition to enumerative induction, which welton has mentioned, it is to be noted that there are a number of other processes which are very similar to it in that a number of particulars appear to furnish a basis for a general principle or method. such instances are common in induction, in instruction, and in methods of proof. if one is to be instructed in some new kind of labor, he is supposed to acquire a grasp of the method after having been shown in a few instances how this particular work is to be done; and, if he performs the manipulations himself, so much the better. it is not asked why the experience of a few cases should be of any assistance, for it seems self-evident that an experienced man, a man who has acquired the skill, or knack, of doing things, should deal better with all other cases of similar nature. there is something very similar in inductive proofs, as they are called. the inductive proof is common in algebra. suppose we are concerned in proving the law of expansion of the binomial theorem. we show by actual calculation that, if the law holds good for the _n_th power, it is true for the _n_+first power. that is, if it holds for any power, it holds for the next also. but we can easily show that it does hold for, say, the second power. then it must be true for the third, and hence for the fourth, and so on. whether this law, though discovered by inductive processes, depends on deduction for the conclusiveness of its proof, as jevons holds;[74] whether, as erdmann[75] contends, the proof is thoroughly deductive; or whether wundt[76] is right in maintaining that it is based on an exact analogy, while the fundamental axioms of mathematics are inductive, it is clear that in such proofs a few instances are employed to give the learner a start in the right direction. something suggests itself, and is found true in this case, in the next, and again in the next, and so on. it may be questioned whether there is usually a very clear notion of what is involved in the "so on." to many it appears to mark the point where, after having been taken a few steps, the learner is carried on by the acquired momentum somewhat after the fashion of one of newton's laws of motion. whether the few successive steps are an integral part of the proof or merely serve as illustration, they are very generally resorted to. in fact, they are often employed where there is no attempt to introduce a general term such as _n_, or _k_, or _l_, but the few individual instances are deemed quite sufficient. such, for instance, is the custom in arithmetical processes. we call attention to these facts in order to show that successive cases are utilized in the course of explanation as an aid in establishing the generality of a law. in geometry we find a class of proofs in which the successive steps seem to have great significance. a common proof of the area of the circle will serve as a fair example. a regular polygon is circumscribed about the circle. then as the number of its sides are increased its area will approach that of the circle, as its perimeter approaches the circumference of the circle. the area of the circle is thus inferred to be [pi]_r_^2, since the area of the polygon is always (1/2)_r_× perimeter, and in case of the circle the circumference = 2[pi]_r_. here again we get under such headway by means of the polygon that we arrive at the circle with but little difficulty. had we attempted the transition at once, say, from a circumscribed square, we should doubtless have experienced some uncertainty and might have recoiled from what would seem a rash attempt; but as the number of the sides of our polygon approach infinity--that mysterious realm where many paradoxical things become possible--the transition becomes so easy that our polygon is often said to have truly become a circle. similarly, some statements of the infinitesimal calculus rest on the assumption that slight degrees of difference may be neglected. though the more modern theory of limits has largely displaced this attitude in calculus and has also changed the method of proof in such geometrical problems as the area of the circle, the underlying motive seems to have been to make transitions easy, and thus to make possible a continued application of some particular method or way of dealing with things. but granted that this is all true, what has it to do with the origin of the hypothesis? it seems likely that the hypothesis may be suggested by a few successive instances; but are these to be classed with the successive steps in proof to which we have referred? in the first place, we attempt to prove our hypothesis because we are not sure it is true; we are not satisfied that there are no other tenable hypotheses. but if we do test it, is not such test enough? it depends upon how thorough a grasp we have of the situation; but, in general, each test case adds to its probability. the value of tests lies in the fact that they strengthen and tend to confirm our hypothesis by checking the force of alternatives. one instance is not sufficient because there are other possible incipient hypotheses, or more properly tendencies, and the enumeration serves to bring one of these tendencies into prominence in that it diminishes other vague and perhaps subconscious tendencies and strengthens the one which suddenly appears as the mysterious product of genius. the question might arise why the mere repetition of conflicting tendencies would lead to a predominance of one of them. why would they not all remain in conflict and continue to check any positive result? it is probably because there never is any absolute equilibrium. the successive instances tend to intensify and bring into prominence some tendency which is already taking a lead, so to speak. and it may be said further in this connection that only as seen from the outside, only as a mechanical view is taken, does there appear to be an excluding of definitely made out alternatives. in explanation of the part played by analogy in the origin of hypotheses, welton points out that a mere number of instances do not take us very far, and that there must be some "_specification_ of the instances as well as numbering of them," and goes on to show that the argument by enumerative induction passes readily into one from analogy, as soon as attention is turned from the number of the observed instances to their character. it is not necessary, however, to pass to analogy through enumerative induction. "when the instances presented to observation offer immediately the characteristic marks on which we base the inference to the connection of s and p, we can proceed at once to an inference from analogy, without any preliminary enumeration of the instances."[77] welton, and logicians generally, regard analogy as an inference on the basis of partial identity. because of certain common features we are led to infer a still greater likeness. both enumerative induction and analogy are explicable in terms of habit. we saw in our examination of enumerative induction that a form of reaction gains strength through a series of successful applications. analogy marks the presence of an identical element together with the tendency to extend this "partial identity" (as it is commonly called) still farther. in other words, in analogy it is suggested that a type of reaction which is the same in certain respects may be made similar in a greater degree. in enumerative induction we lay stress on the number of instances in which the habit is applied. in analogy we emphasize the content side and take note of the partial identity. in fact, the relation between enumerative induction and analogy is of the same sort as that existing between association by contiguity and association by similarity. in association by contiguity we think of the things associated as merely standing in certain temporal or spatial relations, and disregard the fact that they were elements in a larger experience. in case of association by similarity we regard the like feature in the things associated as a basis for further correction. in conversion of propositions we try to reverse the direction of the reaction, so to speak, and thereby to free the habit, to get a mode of response so generalized as to act with a minimum cue. for instance, we can deal with a in a way called b, or, in other words, in the same way that we did with other things called b. if we say, "man is an animal," then to a certain extent the term "animal" signifies the way in which we regard "man." but the question arises whether we can regard all animals as we do man. evidently not, for the reaction which is fitting in case of animals would be only partially applicable to man. with the animals that are also men we have the beginning of a habit which, if unchecked, would lead to a similar reaction toward all animals, _i. e._, we would say: "all animals are men." man may be said to be the richer concept, in that only a part of the reaction which determines an object to be a man is required to designate it as an animal. on the other hand, if we start with animal, then (except in case of the animals which are men) there is lacking the subject-matter which would permit the fuller concept to be applied. by supplying the conditions under which animal=man we get a reversible habit. the equation of technical science has just this character. it represents the maximum freeing or abstraction of a predicate _qua_ predicate, and thereby multiplies the possible applications of it to subjects of future judgments, and lessens the amount of shearing away of irrelevancies and of re-adaptation necessary when so used in any particular case. _formation and test of the hypothesis._--the formation of the hypothesis is commonly regarded as essentially different from the process of testing, which it subsequently undergoes. we are said to observe facts, invent hypotheses, and _then_ test them. the hypothesis is not required for our preliminary observations; and some writers, regarding the hypothesis as a formulation which requires a difficult and elaborate test, decline to admit as hypotheses those more simple suppositions, which are readily confirmed or rejected. a very good illustration of this point of view is met with in wundt's discussion of the hypothesis, by an examination of which we hope to show that such distinctions are rather artificial than real. the subject-matter of science, says wundt,[78] is constituted by that which is actually given and that which is actually to be expected. the whole content is not limited to this, however, for these facts must be supplemented by certain presuppositions, which are not given in a factual sense. such presuppositions are called hypotheses and are justified by our fundamental demand for unity. however valuable the hypothesis may be when rightly used, there is constant danger of illegitimately extending it by additions that spring from mere inclinations of fancy. furthermore, the hypothesis in this proper scientific sense must be carefully distinguished from the various inaccurate uses, which are prevalent. for instance, hypotheses must not be confused with expectations of fact. as cases in point wundt mentions galileo's suppositions that small vibrations of the pendulum are isochronous, and that the space traversed by a falling body is proportional to the square of the time it has been falling. it is true that such anticipations play an important part in science, but so long as they relate to the facts themselves or to their connections, and can be confirmed or rejected any moment through observation, they should not be classed with those added presuppositions which are used to co-ordinate facts. hence not all suppositions are hypotheses. on the other hand, not every hypothesis can be actually experienced. for example, one employs in physics the hypothesis of electric fluid, but does not expect actually to meet with it. in many cases, however, the hypothesis becomes proved as an experienced fact. such was the course of the copernican theory, which was at first only a hypothesis, but was transformed into fact through the evidence afforded by subsequent astronomical observation. wundt defines a theory as a hypothesis taken together with the facts for whose elucidation it was invented. in thus establishing a connection between the facts which the hypothesis merely suggested, the theory furnishes at the same time partly the foundation (_begründung_) and partly the confirmation (_bestätigung_) of the hypothesis.[79] these aspects, wundt insists, must be sharply distinguished. every hypothesis must have its _begründung_, but there can be _bestätigung_ only in so far as the hypothesis contains elements which are accessible to actual processes of verification. in most cases verification is attainable in only certain elements of the hypothesis. for example, newton was obliged to limit himself to one instance in the verification of his theory of gravitation, viz., the movements of the moon. the other heavenly bodies afforded nothing better than a foundation in that the supposition that gravity decreases as the square of the distance increases enabled him to deduce the movements of the planets. the main object of his theory, however, lay in the deduction of these movements and not in the proof of universal gravity. with the darwinian theory, on the contrary, the main interest is in seeking its verification through examination of actual cases of development. thus, while the newtonian and the greater part of the other physical theories lead to a deduction of the facts from the hypotheses, which can be verified only in individual instances, the darwinian theory is concerned in evolving as far as possible the hypothesis out of the facts. let us look more closely at wundt's position. we will ask, first, whether the distinction between hypotheses and expectations is as pronounced as he maintains; and, second, whether the relation between _begründung_ and _bestätigung_ may not be closer than wundt would have us believe. as examples of the hypothesis wundt mentions the copernican hypothesis, newton's hypothesis of gravitation, and the predictions of the astronomers which led to the discovery of neptune. as examples of mere expectations we are referred to galileo's experiments with falling bodies and pendulums. in case of newton's hypothesis there was the assumption of a general law, which was verified after much labor and delay. the heliocentric hypothesis of copernicus, which was invented for the purpose of bringing system and unity into the movements of the planets, has also been fairly well substantiated. in the discovery of neptune we have, apparently, not the proof of a general law or the discovery of further peculiarities of previously known data, but rather the discovery of a new object or agent by means of its observed effects. in each of these instances we admit that the hypothesis was not readily suggested or easily and directly tested. if we turn to galileo's pendulum and falling bodies, it is clear first of all that he did not have in mind the discovery of some object, as was the case in the discovery of neptune. did he, then, either contribute to the proof of a general law or discover further characteristics of things already known in a more general way? wundt tells us that galileo only determined a little more exactly what he already knew, and that he did this with but little labor or delay. what, then, is the real difference between hypothesis and expectation? if we compare galileo's determination of the law of falling bodies with newton's test of his hypothesis of gravitation, we see that both expectation and hypothesis were founded on observation and took the form of mathematical formulæ. each tended to confirm the general law expressed in its formula, though there was, of course, much difference in the time and labor required. if we compare the copernican hypothesis with galileo's supposition concerning the pendulum, we find again that they agree in regard to general purpose and method, and differ in the difficulty of verification. if the experiment with the pendulum only substituted exactness for inexactness, did the copernican theory do anything different in _kind_? it is true that the more exact statement of the swing of the pendulum was expressed in quantitative form, but quantitative statement is no criterion of either the presence or the absence of the hypothesis. again, we may compare the pendulum with kepler's laws. what was kepler's hypothesis, that the square of the periodic times of the several planets are proportional to the cubes of their mean distances from the sun, except a more exact formulation of facts which were already known in a more general way? wundt's position seems to be this: whenever a supposition or suggestion can be tested readily, it should not be classed as a hypothesis. this would make the distinction one of degree rather than kind, and it does not appear how much labor we must expend, or how long our supposition must evade our efforts to test it, before it can win the title of hypothesis. in the second place, we have seen that wundt draws a sharp line between _begründung_ and _bestätigung_. it is doubtless true that every hypothesis requires a certain justification, for unless other facts can be found which agree with deductions made in accordance with it, its only support would be the data from which it is drawn. such support as this would be obtained through a process too clearly circular to be seriously entertained. the distinction which wundt draws between _begründung_ and _bestätigung_ is evidently due to the presence of the experimental element in the latter. for descriptive purposes this distinction is useful, but is misleading if it is understood to mean that there is mere experience in one case and mere inference in the other. the difference is rather due to the relative parts played by inference and by accepted experience in each. in _begründung_ the inferential feature is the more prominent, while in _bestätigung_ the main emphasis is on the experiential aspect. it must not be supposed, however, that either of these aspects can be wholly absent. it is difficult to understand how any hypothesis can be entertained at all unless it meets in some measure the demand with reference to which it was invented, viz., a unification of conflicts in experience. and, _in so far_, it is confirmed. the motive which casts doubt upon its adequacy is the same that leads to its re-forming as a hypothesis, as a mental concept. the difficulties in wundt's position are thus due to a failure to take account of the reconstructive nature of the judgment. the predicate, supposition, or hypothesis, whatever we may choose to call it, is formed because of the check of a former habit. the judgment is an ideal application of a new habit, and its test is the attempt to act in accordance with this ideal reconstruction. it must not be thought, however, that our supposition is first fully developed and then tried and accepted or rejected without modification. on the contrary, its growth is the result of successive minor tests and corresponding minor modifications in its form. formation and test are merely convenient distinctions in a larger process in which forming, testing, and _re_-forming go on together. the activity of experimental verification is not only a testing, a confirming or weakening of the validity of a hypothesis, but it is equally well an evolution of the _meaning_ of the hypothesis through bringing it into closer relations with specific data not previously included in defining its import. _per contra_, a purely reflective and deductive consideration which develops the idea as hypothesis, _in so far_ as it introduces the determinateness of previously accepted facts within the scope, comprehension, or intension of the idea, is in so far forth, a verification. if the view which we have maintained is correct, the hypothesis is not to be limited to those elaborate formulations of the scientist which he seeks to confirm by crucial tests. the hypothesis of the investigator differs from the comparatively rough conjecture of the plain man only in its greater precision. indeed, as we have attempted to show, the hypothesis is not a method which we may employ or not as we choose; on the contrary, as predicate of the judgment it is present in a more or less explicit form if we judge at all. whether the time and labor required for its confirmation or rejection is a matter of a lifetime or a moment, its nature remains the same. its function is identical with that of the predicate. in short, the hypothesis is the predicate so brought to consciousness and defined that those features which are not noticed in the ordinary judgment are brought into prominence. we then recognize the hypothesis to be what in fact the predicate always is, viz., a method of organization and control. viii image and idea in logic the logic of sense-impressions and of ideas as copies of sense-impressions has had its day. it engaged in a conflict with dogmatism, and scored a decisive victory. it overthrew the dynasty of prescribed formulæ and innate ideas, of ideas derived ready-made from custom and social usage, ancient enough to be lost in the remote obscurity of divine sources; and enthroned in their place ideas derived from, and representative of, the sense-experiences of a very real and present world. it marked a reaction from dogma back to the original meaning of dogma, back to the seeming, the appearance, of things. so thoroughly did bacon and hobbes, locke and hume, to mention only these four, do their work, that many of the problems growing out of the conflict itself, to say nothing of the scholastic traditions that were combated, have come to have merely a historical rather than a logical interest. logic no longer concerns itself very eagerly with the content or sensuous qualities of ideas, with their derivation from sense-impressions, or with questions as to the relation of copy to original, of representative to that which is presented. it is concerned rather with the constructive operations of thought, with meaning, reference to reality, inference--with intellectual processes. perhaps in no respect is this shifting of logical standpoint indicated more clearly than in the unregretful way with which the old logical interest in the sense-qualities of ideas is now made over to psychology. states of consciousness as such, we are told, are the proper study of psychology; whereas logic concerns itself with the relation of thought to its object. true, these states of consciousness include thought-states, as well as sense-impressions; ideas and concepts, as well as feelings and fancies; and the business of psychology is to observe, compare and classify, describe and chronicle, these states and whatever else is carried along in the stream of consciousness. but logic is concerned, not with these states of consciousness _per se_, least of all with the flotsam and jetsam of the stream, but with its reference to reality; not with the true, but with truth; not even with what consciousness does, but with how consciousness is to outdo itself, transcend itself, in a rational and universal whole. even an empirical logic has to arrange somehow the way to get from one sense-impression to another. in drawing this distinction between logic and psychology--a distinction which virtually amounts to a separation--two things are overlooked: first, that the distinction itself is a logical distinction, and may properly constitute a problem falling under the province of logical inquiry and theory; and, second, that the rather arbitrary and official setting apart of psychology to look after the task of studying states of consciousness does not carry with it the guarantee that psychology will confine itself exclusively to that task. this last point in particular must be my excuse for discussing the question of image and idea from the psychological rather than from the logical standpoint. the logic of ideas derived from sense-impressions has had its day. but even the very leavings of the past may have been gathered up and reconstructed by psychology in such a way as to anticipate some of the newer developments of logical theory and meet some of its difficulties. one can hardly hope to justify in advance a discussion based on such a sheer possibility. let us begin, rather, by noting down from the standpoint of logic some of the distinctions between image and idea, and the estimate of the logical function and value of mental imagery, and see in what direction they take us and whether they suggest a resort to an analysis from the standpoint of psychology. proceeding from the standpoint of logic to inquire into the logical function of mental imagery and into the distinction between image and idea, we shall come upon two opposed but characteristic answers. if the inquiry be directed to a member of the empirical school of logic, he would be bound to answer in the affirmative, so far as the question regarding the function of mental imagery is concerned. he would be likely to say, if he were loyal to the traditions of his school, that mental imagery is the counterpart of sense-perception, and is thus the representative of the data with which empirical logic is concerned. mental imagery, he would continue, is a representative in a literal sense, a copy, a reflection, of what comes to us through the avenues of sensation. true, it is not the perfect twin of sense-experience; else we could not tell them apart; indeed, there are times when the copy becomes so much like the original that we are deceived by it, as in dreams or in hallucinations. ordinarily, however, we are able to distinguish one from the other. two criteria are usually present; (1) imagery is fainter, more fleeting, than the corresponding sense-experience; and (2), save in the case of accurate memory-images, it is subject to a more or less arbitrary rearrangement of its parts, as when, for example, we make over the images of scenes we have actually experienced, to furnish forth the setting of some remote historical event. barring, or controlling and rectifying, its tendencies toward both arbitrary and constructive variations from the original, mental imagery is on the same level as sense-experience, and serves the same logical purpose. that is to say, it contributes to the data which constitute the foundations of empirical logic. it furnishes materials for the operations of observing, comparing, abstracting and generalizing. mental imagery helps to piece out the fragments that may be presented to sense-experience. it supplies the entire anatomy when only a single bone, say, is actually given. yet, however useful as a servant of truth, it has to be carefully watched, lest its spontaneous tendency to vary the actual order and coexistence of data lead the investigator astray. the copy it presents is, after all, a temporary makeshift, until it can be shown to correspond point for point to the now absent reality. mental imagery furnishes one with an illustrated edition of the book of nature, but the illustrations await the confirmation of comparison with the originals. mental imagery functions logically when it extends the area of data beyond the range of the immediate sense-perceptions of any given time, and thus makes possible a more comprehensive application of the empirical methods of observation, comparison, abstraction, and generalization. it functions logically when it acts as a feeder of logical machinery, though it is not indispensable to this machinery and does not modify its principles. the logical mill could grind up in the same way the pure grain of sense-perceptions, unmixed with mental images, but it would have to grind more slowly for lack of material. in other words, empirical logic could carry on its operations of observing, comparing, abstracting, and generalizing, solely on the basis of objects or data present to the senses, and with no extension of this basis in terms of imagery, or copies of objects not immediately present; but it would take more time for it to apply and carry through its operations. the logical machinery is the same in each case. the materials fed and the product issuing are the same in each case. imagery simply fulfils the function of providing a more copious grist. the empiricist's answer to our question regarding the logical function of mental imagery leaves that function in an uncertain and parlous state. imagery lacks the security of sense-perception on the one hand, and it has no part in the operation of thought on the other. it is a sort of hod-carrier, whose function it is to convey the raw materials of sense-perception to a more exalted position where someone else does all the work. i suppose this could be called a functional interpretation of a logical element. the question, then, would be whether an element so functioning is in any sense logical. as an element lying outside of the thought-process it owes no responsibility to logic; it is not amenable to its regulations. thought simply finds it expedient to operate with an agent over which it has no intrinsic control. the case might be allowed to rest here. yet were this extra-logical element of imagery to abandon thought, all conscious thinking as opposed to sense-perception would cease. a false alarm, perhaps. imagery may be so constituted that it is inseparably subordinated to thought and can never abandon it. thought may simply exude imagery. but imagery somehow has to represent sense-perception, also. it can hardly be a secretion of thought and a copy of sense-perceptions at one and the same time, unless the empiricist is willing to turn absolute idealist! before taking such a desperate plunge as this, it might be desirable to see whether there is any other recourse. there is another and a very different answer to the question regarding the logical function of mental imagery. to distinguish this answer from that of the associationist or empiricist, i will call it the answer of the conceptualist. i am not at all positive that this label would stick even to those to whom it might be applied with considerable justification. the terms "rationalistic" and "transcendental" might be preferred in opposition to the term "empirical." and we have the term "apperceptionist" in opposition to the term "associationist." if the term "conceptualist" is admissible, it should be brought down to date, perhaps, by making it "neo-conceptualist." the present difficulties regarding terminology would be eased considerably if we only had a convenient set of derivatives made from the word "meaning." since we have not, i will use derivatives made from the word "concept" to denote views opposite to those held by the empirical school. the conceptualist could be depended upon to answer our question in the negative. logical functions begin where the image leaves off. they begin with the _idea_, with meaning. the conceptualist distinguishes sharply between the image as a psychical existence and the idea, or concept, as logical meaning. on the one hand, you have the "image," not only as a mere psychical existence, but a mocking existence at that, fleeting, inconstant, shifting, never perhaps twice alike; yet, mind you, an _existence_, a _fact_--that must be admitted. on the other hand, you have the "idea," with "a fixed content or logical meaning,"[80] which is referred by an act of judgment to a reality beyond the act.[81] the "idea," the logical meaning, begins where the "image" leaves off. does this mean that the "idea" is wholly independent of the "image"? yes and no. the "idea" is independent of that which is ordinarily regarded as the special characteristic of an "image," namely, its quality, its sense-content. that is to say, the "idea" is independent of any particular "image," any special embodiment of sense-content. any image will do. as mr. bosanquet remarks in comparing the psychical images that pass through our minds to a store of signal flags: not only is it indifferent whether your signal flag of today is the same bit of cloth that you hoisted yesterday, but also, no one knows or cares whether it is clean or dirty, thick or thin, frayed or smooth, as long as it is distinctly legible as an element of the signal code. part of its content, of its attributes and relations, is a fixed index which carries a distinct reference; all the rest is nothing to us, and, except in a moment of idle curiosity, we are unaware that it exists.[82] on the other hand, the "idea" could not operate as an idea, could not be in consciousness, save as it involves some imagery, however old, dirty, thin, and frayed. take the statement, "the angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles." if the statement means anything to a given individual, if it conveys an idea, it must necessarily involve some form of imagery, some qualitative or conscious content. but so far as the _meaning_ is concerned, it is a matter of complete indifference as to _what_ qualities are involved. these qualities may be in terms of visual, auditory, tactual, kinæsthetic, or verbal imagery. the individual may visualize a blackboard drawing of a triangle with its sides produced, or he may imagine himself to be generating a triangle while revolving through an angle of 180°. any imagery anyone pleases may be employed, so long as there goes with it somehow the _idea_ of the relation of equality between the angles of a triangle and two right angles. but the conceptualist does not stop here. the act of judgment comes in to affirm that the "idea" is no mere idea, but is a quality of the real. "the act [of judgment] attaches the floating adjective [the idea, the logical meaning] to the nature of the world, and, at the same time, tells one it was there already."[83] the "idea," the logical meaning, begins where the "image" leaves off. yet, somehow, the "idea" could not begin, unless there were an "image" to leave off. an "image" is not an "idea," says the conceptualist. an "idea" is not an "image." (1) an "image" is not an "idea," because an "image" is a particular, individual fragment of consciousness. it is so bound up with its own existence that it cannot reach out to the existence of an "idea," or to anything beyond itself. chemically speaking, it is an _avalent_ atom of consciousness, if such a thing is thinkable. mr. bosanquet raises the question: are there at all ideas which are not symbolic?... the answer is that _(a)_ in judgment itself the idea can be distinguished _qua_ particular in time or psychical fact, and _so far_ is not symbolic; and _(b)_ in all those human experiences from which we draw our conjectures as to the animal intelligence, when in languor or in ignorance image succeeds image without conscious judgment, we feel what it is to have ideas as facts and not as symbols.[84] (2) an "idea" is not an "image," because an idea _is_ meaning, which consists in a part of the content of the image, cut off, and considered apart from the _existence_ of the content or sign itself.[85] this meaning, this fragment of psychical existence, lays down all claim to existence on its own account, that it may refer through an act of judgment to a reality beyond itself and beyond the act also. an "image" is not an "idea" and an "idea" is not an "image," because an "image" exists only as a quality, a sense-content, whereas an "idea" exists only as a relation, a reference to reality beyond. "on the one hand," to recall bradley's antinomy, "no possible idea [as a psychical image] can be that which it means.... on the other hand, no idea [as logical signification] is anything but just what it means." there is a significant point of agreement between the conceptualist and the empiricist. both regard imagery as on the level with sense-perception. for the empiricist, as we have seen, the fact that imagery may be compelled to serve as a yoke-fellow of sense-experience constitutes its logical value. for the conceptualist, however, the association of imagery with sense-experience is of no logical consequence whatsoever, save as it may help to intensify the distinction between imagery and meaning. to quote again from bradley: for logical purposes the psychological distinction of idea and sensation may be said to be irrelevant, while the distinction of idea and fact is vital. the image, or psychological idea, is for logic nothing but a sensible reality. it is on a level with the mere sensations of the senses. for both are facts and neither are meanings. neither are cut from a mutilated presentation and fixed as a connection. neither are indifferent to their place in the stream of psychical events, their time and their relations to the presented congeries. neither are adjectives to be referred from their existence, to live on strange soils, under other skies, and through changing seasons. the lives of both are so entangled with their environment, so one with their setting of sensuous particulars, that their character is destroyed if but one thread is broken.[86] this point of agreement between conceptualism and empiricism, this placing of imagery and sense-experience on a common level, serves to bring into relief fundamental differences between the two schools of thought; fundamental, because they have to do with the nature of reality itself. the conceptualist in his zealous endeavor to distinguish between imagery and logical meaning has come perilously near driving imagery into the arms of reality. it is the opportunity of empiricism to make them one. how can conceptualism prevent the union? has it not disarmed itself? the act of judgment, which includes within itself logical meaning as predicate, refers to a reality beyond the act. both imagery and reality, then, lie outside of the act of judgment! what alliance, or _mésalliance_, may they not form, one with the other? the difficulties we have noted thus far in the discussion are due to a large extent, i believe, to incomplete psychological analysis of logical machinery. the empiricist has not carried the psychology of logic as far as the conceptualist, although the latter might be the loudest to disclaim the honor. i will not try to prove this statement, but simply give it as a reason why, in the interest of brevity, i shall pass with little comment over the psychological shortcomings and contributions of empirical logic, and devote what space remains to the psychology implicitly worked out by conceptual logic, and to its possible development, with special reference, of course, to the problem of the logical function of imagery. the logical distinction, which practically amounts to a separation between imagery and meaning, is the counterpart of the psychological distinction between stimulus and response, between the two poles of sensori-motor activity, where the stimulus is defined in consciousness in the form of imagery, in the form of sense-qualities centrally excited, and where the response is directed and controlled _via_ this imagery, so as to function in bringing some end, project, purpose, or ideal, nearer to realization, some problem nearer to solution. psychologically, there is no break between image and response, between thought and action. the stimulus is a condition of action, in both senses of the ambiguity of the word "condition." (1) it _is_ action; it is a state or condition of action. (2) it is also an initiation of action. _if_ the appropriate stimulus, then the desired action. the response to an image is the meaning of the image. or, the response to any stimulus _via_ an image--mediated, controlled or directed by an image--is the meaning of that image. the less imagery involved in any response, the greater the presumption in favor of the belief that the response is either an instinctive impulse or else has become a habit of mind, an adequate idea. the reduction and loss of sense-content which an image may undergo--the wearing away of an image, it is sometimes called--is not a sign that this sense-content has no logical function; but rather that it has fulfilled a logical function so well that it has made part of itself useless. the husk, to recall one of mr. bradley's comparisons, that useless husk, tends to fall away, to lapse from consciousness, after it has served the purpose of helping to bring the kernel of truth to fruition. this raises again the original question as to whether the sense-content, the quality, the existential quality, of an image has a logical function. i will ask first whether it has a function from the standpoint of psychology. we will agree with the empiricist that the content of an image is representative, that it is a return, a revival, of a sense-content previously experienced through the activity of sense-organs stimulated from the periphery. what is the function, then, of the representative image? sensation, quality, as we have implied above, is the stimulus come to consciousness. to explain how a stimulus can "come" to consciousness is a problem i will not attempt to go into here. i assume as a fact that there are times when we know what we are about; when we are conscious of the stimuli, or conditions of action, which are tending in this direction or in that, and when through this consciousness we exercise a controlling influence over action by selecting and reinforcing certain stimuli and suppressing or inhibiting others. it is true that we do not always realize to how great an extent our actions are controlled by stimuli which do not come to consciousness, by reflexes, instincts, and habits which do not rise above the threshold of imagery. and when this vast complex of hidden machinery is partly revealed to us, it may either cause the beholder to take a materialistic, mechanical, or fatalistic view of existence, to say that we are the victims of our own machinery, or else it may induce the other extreme of more or less mystic pronouncements regarding the province of the subconscious, of the subliminal self; thus out of partial views, out of half-truths, metaphysical problems arise and arm for mutual conflict. nevertheless, there is a presumption, amounting in most minds to a conviction, that we do at times consciously control some of our actions. and it is only making this conviction a little more explicit to say that we consciously control our actions through becoming aware of the stimuli, or conditions of action, and through selecting and reinforcing them. is it begging the question to speak of consciousness as exercising a selective function with reference to stimuli? from the standpoint of psychology, i cannot see that it is. no characteristic of consciousness has been more clearly made out, both reflectively and experimentally, than its selective function, than its ability to pick out and intensify within certain limits the stimuli or conditions of action. the representational image is a stimulus come to consciousness in the same way that a sensation is a stimulus come to consciousness. it is both a direct and an indirect stimulus. the terms "direct" and "indirect" are used as relative solely to the demands of the particular situation out of which they arise. by direct stimulus i mean a stimulus which initiates with almost no appreciable delay the response or attitude appropriate to the demands of a given situation, bridging the difficulties, removing the obstacles, or solving the problem with the minimum of conscious reflection. as an image becomes more and more of a working symbol, an idea, it tends to become simply a direct stimulus. by an "indirect stimulus" is meant a stimulus initiating a response which, if not inhibited, would be irrelevant to the situation, yet which may represent stimuli which are not found in the immediate field of sense-perception, and which are essential to the carrying on of the activity. the situation is a problematic one. acquired habits or mental adjustments break down at some point or fail to operate smoothly, either owing to the absence of customary stimuli or to the presence of new and untried conditions of action. part of the stress of meeting such a situation as this falls on the side of discovering appropriate stimuli and part on the side of developing out of habits already acquired new methods of response. in such a situation as this, imagery may function on the side of _stimulus_ when, taking its cue from the stimuli which are actually present, and which grow out of the strain and friction, it represents the missing conditions of action sufficiently to direct a search for them. it projects a map, so to speak, in which the fragmentary conditions immediately present to sense-perception may find their bearings, or in which in some way the missing members may be discovered. a familiar instance of this would be the experience one sometimes has in trying to recall the forgotten name of an acquaintance. the images of scenes associated with the acquaintance, of various letters and sounds of words associated with his name, which may be called to mind, do not function so much as direct stimuli as they do as intermediate or indirect stimuli. it is a case of casting about for the image that will function as a direct stimulus in bringing an acquired but temporarily lost adjustment into play. image functions on the side of _response_, on the side of developing new habits, new forms of adjustment, in so far as the conditions of action which it represents, or projects, are not the actual conditions of action, either because they are so inaccessible as to demand development of new habits for purposes of attaining them, or else because, though actually present, they stimulate relatively uncontrolled æsthetic or emotional responses, whose very expression, however, may be translated into a demand for more adequate, intelligent, controlled habits or adjustments. the conscious projection of the unattained, even of the unattainable, not only marks a certain degree of attainment, but is the initiation of further development. here we see again that a stimulus is a condition of action in both senses of the ambiguity of the word "condition." it is both a state or condition of activity, and an initiation or condition of further activity. as an indirect stimulus growing out of a problematic situation imagery necessarily brings in more or less irrelevant material. if i may be permitted the paradox, imagery would not be relevant if it did not bring in the irrelevant. the novelty of the situation makes it impossible to say in advance what will be relevant. hence the demand for range and play of imagery. it is only the successful adjustment finally hit upon and worked out that is the test of the relevancy of the imagery which anticipated it. even this test may be unfair, since it is likely to discount the value of imagery which is now ruled out, but which may have been indispensable in turning up the proper cues in the course of the process of reflection and experiment. to restate the point in regard to the psychological function of imagery. imagery functions in representing control as ideal, not as fact. it represents a possible process of reconstructing adjustments and habits; it is not an actual and complete readjustment. it arises normally in a stress, in the presence of fresh demands and new problems. it looks forward in every possible direction, because it is important and difficult to foresee consequences. but suppose the new adjustment to be made with reasonable success--reasonable, note. suppose the ideal to be realized. with practice the adjustment becomes less problematic, more under control--that is, it comes to require less conscious attention to bring it about. the image loses some of its sensuous content. it becomes worn away, more remote, until at last it becomes respectably vague and abstract enough to be classed as a concept. imagery is the stimulus of the reconstructive process between habit and habit, concept and concept, idea and idea. we now return to the original question regarding the logical function of imagery. there is only one condition, i believe, on which we can accept the assumption of both empiricist and conceptualist that imagery is on the same level with sense-perception, and that is the assumption that meaning, logical meaning, is on the same level with habit, habit naming the more obvious, overt forms of response to stimuli, logical meaning naming the more internal forms of response or reference. psychical response and logical reference thus become equivalent terms. we have seen that imagery may exercise two functions with reference to habit, as direct and as indirect stimulus; so also with reference to logical meaning, imagery may be the stimulus to a direct reference of the idea to reality, or it may present, or mirror, conditions with regard to which some new meaning is to be worked out. the quality, the sense-content, of imagery may _per se_ suffice directly to arouse a habitual attitude, to call forth an immediate reference to reality. it may cause one to "tumble" to what is taking place, to "catch on," to apprehend (pardon these expressions for the sake of their description of the motor aspect of meaning), as when we say, for example: "it came over me like a flash what i was to do, and i did it." our more abstract and complicated forms of judgment and reasoning, in which the imagery involved is reduced to the minimum of conscious, qualitative content, are of the same order, though at the other extreme, so far as immediate overt expression is concerned. we are working along lines of habitual activity so familiar that we can work almost in the dark. we need no elaborate imagery. guided only by the waving of a signal flag or by the shifting gleam of a semaphore, we thread our way swiftly through the maze of tracks worn smooth by use and habit. but suppose a new line of habit is to be constructed. no signal flags or semaphores will suffice. a detailed survey of the proposed route must be had, and here is where imagery with a rich and varied yet flexible sensuous content, growing out of previous surveys, may function in projecting and anticipating the new set of conditions, and thus become the stimulus of a new line of habit, of a new and more far-reaching meaning. as this new line of habit, of meaning, gets into working order with the rest of the system, imagery tends normally to decline again to the rôle of signal flags and semaphores. the distinction in logical theory between "image" and "idea" which we have been considering is only a half-truth from the point of view of psychology. it virtually limits the "idea" to a fixed, unalterable reference of a fragment of a desiccated image to a reality beyond. it indifferently loses the play and richness of imagery to the floating remnants of sense-content, or to an external reality. it limits itself to an examination of a final stage in thinking, a stage in which the image acts as a direct stimulus, a stage in which the sense-content of the image has little or no function _per se_, because this content now initiates directly a habitual adjustment, a worked-out and established adaptation of means to end. it overlooks the process of conscious reflection which logically precedes every such adjustment not purely instinctive or accidental, a process in which imagery as representational functions indirectly in bringing the resources of past experience, the fund of acquired habits, to bear upon the fragmentary and problematic elements of sense-experience actually present, thus maintaining the flow and continuity of experience. it fails to recognize that in the inseparable association of meaning with quality, of "idea" with "image," there goes the possibility of working out and applying new meanings from old, of developing deeper meanings, of testing and affirming more inclusive and universal meaning. we are confronted with this alternative. either the image has a logical function in virtue of its sense-content, or else the image functions logically merely as a symbol, the sense-content of which is a matter of complete logical indifference. according to the empiricist, the former is the case, according to the conceptualist, the latter. the empiricist would say that he needs the image to piece out the data upon which logical processes operate. having met this need, the image is retired from active service. for the empiricist the processes of thought, observing, comparing, generalizing, etc., are as independent of the data they use as, for the conceptualist, logical meaning, reference, and "idea" are independent of the sense-content of the "image." in reality he agrees with the conceptualist in excluding the sense-content of the image from the processes of thought, and hence from the domain of logic. from the standpoint of psychological theory the conceptualist is an improvement over the empiricist. he has gone a step farther in the analysis of thought-processes by showing that they are bound up with some kind of imagery, however irrelevant, inconsequential, and worn down the sense-quality of that imagery may be. his statement of ideas as references to reality lends itself readily, as we have seen, to the unitary conception in psychology of ideo-motor, or sensori-motor, activity. but is this where logical theory is to stop, while psychology as a study of "states of consciousness" takes up the unfinished tale and carries it forward? it seems hardly possible, unless logic is willing to give over its task of thinking about thinking. reduce the image to a mere symbol. let its sense-quality be a matter of complete indifference. what have you, then, but an elementary and primitive type of reflex action? it is of no particular consequence even from what sense-organ it appears to proceed, or whether it appears to be peripherally or centrally excited. it is simply a case of feel and act; touch and go. is this thinking? it may be regarded as either the germ or the finality of thinking, but what most of us are inclined to believe is the true subject-matter of logic is not to be limited to a simple reflex, or even to a chain of reflexes. it is something more complex, even if nothing more than an intricate tangle of chains of reflexes. the complexity of the process called thinking does not reside alone in the instinctive or habitual reflexes involved. the more instinctive and habitual any adjustment may be, the less is it a matter of thought, as everyone knows, although its biological complexity is none the less patent to one who looks at it from the outside. the complexity of the thinking process resides in consciousness also; it resides in the imagery, the stimuli, the mere symbols, if you like, that have "come" to consciousness. as soon as the complexity begins to be _felt_, as soon as any discrimination whatsoever begins to be introduced or appreciated, at that instant the sense-content, the quale, of imagery begins to have a logical function. conscious discrimination, however vague and evanescent, and the logical function of the quale of imagery are born together, unless one chooses to regard the more obvious and deliberate forms of conscious discrimination as more characteristic of a logical process. it is only as the sense-contents of various images are discriminated and compared that anything like thinking can be conceived to go on. the particular sense-content of an image, instead of being a matter of logical indifference, is the condition, the possibility, of thinking. the conceptualist has contributed to the data of descriptive psychology by calling attention, by implication at least, to the remote and reduced character of the imagery which may characterize thinking. but it by no means follows that the more remote and reduced the sense-content of an image becomes, the less important is that sense-content for thinking, the less demand for discrimination. on the contrary, the sense-content that remains may be of supreme logical importance. it may be the quintessence of meaning. it may be the conscious factor which, when discriminated from another almost equally sublimated conscious factor, may determine a whole course of action. the delicacy and rapidity with which these reduced forms of imagery as they hover about the margin of consciousness or flit across its focus are discriminated and caught, are points in the technique of that long art of thinking, begun in early childhood. the fact that questionnaire investigations--like that of galton's, for example--have in many instances failed to discover in the minds of scientists and advanced thinkers a rich and varied furniture of imagery does not argue the poverty of imagery in such minds; it argues, rather, a highly developed technique, a species of virtuosity, with reference to the sense-content of the types of imagery actually in use. to push a step farther the alternative we have already stated in a preliminary way: either the "idea," or "logical meaning," lies outside of the process of thinking, as a mere impulse or reflex; or else, in virtue of the sense-content of its "image," it enters into that conscious process of discrimination, comparison, and selection, of light and shade, of doubt and inquiry, which constitutes the evolution of a judgment, which makes the life-history of a movement of thought. ix the logic of the pre-socratic philosophy[87] it is not the purpose of this study to show that the pre-socratics possessed a system of logic which is now for the first time brought to the notice of the modern world. indeed, there is nothing to indicate that they had reflected on mental processes in such a way as to call for an organized body of canons regulating the forms of concepts and conclusions. aristotle attributed the discovery of the art of dialectic to zeno the eleatic, and we shall see in the sequel that there was much to justify the opinion. but logic, in the technical sense, is inconceivable without concepts, and from the days of aristotle it has been universally believed that proper definitions owe their origin to socrates. a few crude attempts at definition, if such they may be rightly called, are referred to empedocles and democritus. but in so far as they were conceived in the spirit of science, they essayed to define things materially by giving, so to speak, the chemical formula for their production. significant as this very fact is, it shows that even the rudiments of the canons of thought were not the subjects of reflection. in his _organon_ aristotle makes it evident that the demand for a regulative art of scientific discourse was created by the eristic logic-chopping of those who were most deeply influenced by the eleatic philosophy. indeed, the case is quite parallel to the rise of the art of rhetoric. aristotle regarded empedocles as the originator of that art, as he referred the beginnings of dialectic to zeno. but the formulation of both arts in well-rounded systems came much later. as men conducted lawsuits before the days of tisias and corax, so also were the essential principles of logic operative and effective in practice before aristotle gave them their abstract formulation. while it is true, therefore, that the pre-socratics had no formal logic, it is equally true, and far more significant, that they either received from their predecessors or themselves developed the conceptions and the presuppositions on which the aristotelian logic is founded. one of the objects of this study is to institute a search for some of these basic conceptions of greek thought, almost all of which existed before the days of socrates, and to consider their origin as well as their logical significance. the other aim here kept in view is to trace the course of thought in which the logical principles, latent in all attempts to construct and verify theories, came into play. it is impossible, no doubt, to discover a body of thought which does not ground itself upon presuppositions. they are the warp into which the woof of the system, itself too often consisting of frayed ends of other fabrics, is woven with the delight of a supposed creator. rarely is the thinker so conscious of his own mental processes that he is aware of what he takes for granted. ordinarily this retirement to an interior line takes place only when one has been driven back from the advanced position which could no longer be maintained. emerson has somewhere said: "the foregoing generations beheld god and nature face to face; we through their eyes. why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us and not the history of theirs?" the difficulty lies precisely in our faith in immediate insight and revelation, which are themselves only short-cuts of induction, psychological short circuits, conducted by media we have disregarded. only a fundamentally critical philosophy pushes its doubt to the limit of demanding the credentials of those conceptions which have come to be regarded as axiomatic. the need of going back of aristotle in our quest for the truth is well shown by his attitude toward the first principles of the several sciences. to him they are immediately given--[greek: amesoi protaseis]--and hence are ultimate _a priori_. the historical significance of this fact is already apparent. it means that in his day these first principles, which sum up the outcome of previous inductive movements of thought, were regarded as so conclusively established that the steps by which they had been inferred were allowed to lapse from memory. no account of the history of thought can hope to satisfy the demands of reason that does not _explain_ the origin of the convictions thus embodied in principles. the only acceptable explanation would be in terms of will and interest. to give such an account would, however, require the knowledge of secular pursuits and ambitions no longer obtainable. it might be fruitful of results if we could discover even the theoretical interests of the age before thales; but we know that in modern times the direction of interest characteristic of the purely practical pursuits manifests its reformative influences in speculation a century or more after it has begun to shape the course of common life. hence we might misinterpret the historical data if they were obtainable. but general considerations, which we need not now rehearse, as well as indications contained in the later history of thought, hereinafter sketched, point to the primacy of the practical as yielding the direction of interest that determines the course it shall take. it was said above that the principles of science are the result of an inductive movement, and that the inductive movement is directed by an interest. hence the principles are contained in, or rather are the express definition of, the interest that gave them birth. in other words, there is implied in all induction a process of deduction. every stream of thought embraces not only the main current, but also an eddy, which here and there re-enters it. and this is one way of explaining the phenomenon which has long engaged the thought of philosophers, namely, the fact of successful anticipations of the discoveries of science or, more generally still, the possibility of synthetic judgments _a priori_. the solution of the problem is ultimately contained in its statement.[88] to arrive at a stage of mentality not based on assumptions one would have, no doubt, to go back to its beginnings. greek thought, even in the time of thales, was well furnished with them. we cannot pause to catalogue them, but it may further our project if we consider a few of the more important. the precondition of thought as of life is that nature be uniform, or ultimately that the world be rational. this is not even, as it becomes later, a conscious demand; it is the primary ethical postulate which expresses itself in the confidence that it is so. viewed from a certain angle it may be called the principle of sufficient reason. closely associated with it is the universal belief of the early philosophers of greece that everything that comes into being is bound up inseparably with that which has been before; more precisely, that there is no absolute, but only relative, becoming. corollaries of this axiom soon appeared in the postulates of the conservation of matter or mass, and the conservation of energy, or more properly for the ancients, of motion. logically these principles appear to signify that the subject, while under definition, shall remain just what it is; and that, in the system constituted of subject, predicate, and copula, the terms shall "stay put" while the adjustment of verification is in progress. it is a matter of course that the constants in the great problem should become permanent landmarks. other corollaries derive from this same principle of uniformity. seeing that all that comes to be in some sense already is, there appears the postulate of the unity of the world; and this unity manifests itself not only in the integrity and homogeneity of the world-ground, but also in the more ideal conception of a universal law to which all special modes of procedure in nature are ancillary. in these we recognize the insistent demand for the organization of predicate and copula. side by side with these formulæ stands the other, which requires an ordered process of becoming and a graduated scale of existences, such as can mediate between the extremes of polarity. such series meet us on every hand in early greek thought. the process of rarefaction and condensation in anaximenes, the [greek: hodos anô katô] of heraclitus, the regular succession of the four empedoclean elements in almost all later systems--these and other examples spontaneously occur to the mind. the significance of this conception, as the representative of an effective copula, will presently be seen. more subtle, perhaps, than any of these principles, though not allowed to go so long unchallenged, is the assumption of a [greek: physis], that is, the assumption that all nature is instinct with life. the logical interpretation of this postulate would seem to be that the concrete system of things--subject, predicate, copula--constitutes a totality complete in itself and needing no jog from without. in this survey of the preconceptions of the early greek philosophers i have employed the terms of the judgment without apology. the justification for this course must come ultimately, as for any assumption, from the success of its application to the facts. but if "logic" merely formulates in a schematic way that which in life is the manipulation of concrete experience, with a view to attaining practical ends, then its forms must apply here as well as anywhere. logical terminology may therefore be assumed to be welcome to this field where judgments are formed, induction is made from certain facts to defined conceptions, and deductions are derived from principles or premises assumed. speaking then in these terms we may say that the pre-socratics had three logical problems set for them: first, there was a demand for a predicate, or, in other words, for a theory of the world. secondly, there was the need of ascertaining just what should be regarded as the subject, or, otherwise stated, just what it was that required explanation. thirdly, there arose the necessity of discovering ways and means by which the theory could be predicated of the world and by which, in turn, the hypothesis erected could be made to account for the concrete experience of life: in terms of logic this problem is that of maintaining an efficient copula. it is not assumed that the sequence thus stated was historically observed without crossing and overlapping; but a survey of the history of the period will show that, in a general way, the logical requirements asserted themselves in this order. 1. greek philosophy began its career with induction. we have already stated that the preconceptions with which it approached its task were the result of previous inductions, and indeed the epic and theogonic poetry of the greeks abounds in thoughts indicative of the consciousness of all of these problems. thus homer is familiar with the notion that all things proceed from water,[89] and that, when the human body decays, it resolves itself into earth and water.[90] other opinions might be enumerated, but they would add nothing to the purpose. when men began, in the spirit of philosophy, to theorize about the world, they assumed that it--the subject--was sufficiently known. its existence was taken for granted, and that which engaged their attention was the problem of its meaning. what predicate--so we may formulate their question--should be given to the subject? it is noticeable that their induction was quite perfunctory. but such is always the case until there are rival theories competing for acceptance, and even then the impulse to gather up evidence derived from a wide field and assured by resort to experiment comes rather with the desire to test a hypothesis than to form it. it is the effort to _verify_ that brings out details and also the negative instances. hence we are not to blame thales for rashness in making his generalization that all is water. we do not know what indications led to this conclusion. aristotle ventured a guess, but the motives assumed for thales agree too well with those which weighed with hippo to admit of ready acceptance. anaximander, feeling the need of deduction as a sequel to induction, found his predicate in the infinite. we cannot now delay to inquire just what he meant by the term; but it is not unlikely that its very vagueness recommended it to a man of genius who caught enthusiastically at the skirts of knowledge. anaximenes, having pushed verification somewhat farther and eliciting some negative instances, rejected water and the infinite and inferred that all was air. his [greek: archê] must have the quality of infinity, but, a copula having been found in the process of rarefaction and condensation, it must occupy a determinate place in the series of typical forms of existence. the logical significance of this thought will engage our attention later. meanwhile it may be well to note that thus far only _one_ predicate has been offered by each philosopher. this is doubtless due to the preconception of the unity and homogeneity of the world, of which we have already made mention. although at the beginning its significance was little realized, the conception was destined to play a prominent part in greek thought. it may be regarded from different points of view not necessarily antagonistic. one may say, as indeed has oftentimes been said, that it was due to ignorance. men did not know the complexity of the world, and hence declared its substance to be simple. again, it may be affirmed that the assumption was merely the naïve reflex of the ethical postulate that we shall unify our experience and organize it for the realization of our ideals. while increased knowledge has multiplied the so-called chemical elements, physics knows nothing of their differences, and chemistry itself demands their reduction. the extension and enlarged scope of homogeneity came in two ways: first, it presented itself by way of abstraction from the particular predicates that may be given to things. this was due to the operation of the fundamental assumption that the world must be intelligible. thus, even in anaximander, the world-ground takes no account of the diversity of things except in the negative way of providing that the contrariety of experience shall arise from it. we are therefore referred for our predicate to a somewhat behind concrete experience. the pythagoreans fix upon a single aspect of things as the essential, and find the meaning of the world in mathematical relations. the eleatics press the conception of homogeneity until it is reduced to identity. identity means the absence of difference; hence, spatially considered, it requires the negation of a void and the indivisibility of the world; viewed temporally, it precludes the succession of different states and hence the possibility of change. we thus reach the acute stage of the problem of the one and the many. the one is here the predicate, the subject is the many. the solution of the difficulty is the task of the copula, and we shall recur to the theme in due time. it may be well, however, at this point to draw attention to the fact that the one is not always identical with the predicate, nor the many with the subject. in the rhythmic movement of erecting and verifying hypotheses the interest shifts and what was but now the predicate, by taking the place of the premises, comes to be regarded as the given from which the particular is to be derived or deduced. there is thus likewise a shift in the positions of existence and meaning. the subject, or the world, was first assumed as the given means with which to construct the predicate, its meaning; once the hypothesis has been erected, the direction of interest shifts back to the beginning, and in the process of verification or deduction the quondam predicate, now the premises, becomes the given, and the task set for thought is the derivation of fact. for the moment, or until the return to the world is accomplished, the one is the only real, the manifold remains mere appearance. the second form in which the sense of the homogeneity of the world embodies itself is not, like the first, static, but is altogether dynamic. that which makes the whole world kin is neither the presence nor the absence of a quality, but a principle. the law thus revealed is, therefore, not a matter of the predicate, but is the copula itself. hence we must defer a fuller consideration of it for the present. 2. as has already been said, the inductive movement implies the deductive, and not only as something preceding or accompanying it, but as its inner meaning and ultimate purpose. so too it was with the earliest greek thinkers. their object in setting up a predicate was the derivation of the subject from it. in other words their ambition was to discover the [greek: archê] from which the genesis of the world proceeds. but deduction is really a much more serious task than would at first appear to one who is familiar with the aristotelian machinery of premises and middle terms. the business of deduction is to reveal the subject, and ordinarily the subject quite vanishes from view. induction is rapid, but deduction lags far behind. it may require but a momentary flash of "insight" on the part of the physical philosopher to discover a principle; if it is really significant, inventors will be engaged for centuries in deducing from it applications to the needs of life by means of contrivances. thus after ages we come to know more of the subject, which is thereby enriched. the contrivances are the representatives of the copula in practical affairs; in quasi-theoretical spheres they are the apparatus for experimentation. it has just been remarked that by the application of the principles to life it is enriched; in other words, it receives new meaning, and new meaning signifies a new predicate. theory is at times painfully aware of the multitude of new predicates proposed; rarely does it realize that there has been created a new heaven and a new earth. without the latter, the former would be absurd. men take very much for granted and regard almost every achievement as a matter of course. hence they do not become aware of their changed position except as it reflects itself in new schemes and in a larger outlook. the subject receives only a summary glance to discover what new predicate shall be evolved. hence, while there is in greek philosophy a strongly marked deductive movement, the theoretical results to the subject are insignificant. thales seems, indeed, to have had no means to offer for the derivation of the world, but he evidently had no doubt that it was possible. with him and with others the assumption, however vaguely understood, seems to have been that the subject, like the predicate, was simple. thus the essential unity of the world, considered as existence no less than as meaning, is a foregone conclusion. the sense of a division in the subject seems to arise with empedocles when, reaping the harvest of the eleatic definition of substance, he parted the world, as subject and as predicate, into four elements. we may, perhaps, pause a moment to consider the significance of the assumption of four elements which plays so large a part in subsequent philosophies. there is no need of enlarging on the importance of the association of multiple elements with the postulate that nothing is absolutely created and nothing absolutely passes away. these are indeed the pillars that support chemical science, and they further imply the existence of qualities of different rank; but that implication, as we shall see, lay even in the process of rarefaction and condensation introduced by anaximenes. the four elements concern us here chiefly as testifying to the fact that certain practical interests had summed up the essential characteristics of nature in forms sufficiently significant to have maintained themselves even to our day. in regard to fire, air, and water this is not greatly to be wondered at; it is a somewhat different case with earth. if metallurgy and other pursuits which deal with that which is roughly classed as earth had been highly enough developed to have reacted upon the popular mind, this element could not possibly have been assumed to be so homogeneous. the conception clearly reflects the predominantly agricultural interest of the greeks in their relation to the earth. this further illustrates the slow progress which deduction makes in the reconstitution of the subject. it is different, however, with anaxagoras and the atomists. apparently the movement begun by empedocles soon ran its extreme course. instead of four elements there is now an infinite number of substances, each differentiated from the other. the meaning of this wide swing of the pendulum is not altogether clear; but it is evident from the system of anaxagoras that the metals, for example, possessed a significance which they can not have had for empedocles. the opposite swing of the pendulum is seen in the later course of the eleatics. given a predicate as fixed and unified as they assumed, the subject cannot possibly be conceived in terms of it and hence it is denied outright. in the dialectic of zeno and melissus, dealing with the problems of the one and the many, there is much that suggests the solution offered by the atomists; but it is probably impossible now to ascertain whether these passages criticise a doctrine already propounded or pointed the way for successors. while the eleatics asserted the sole reality of the one, anaxagoras and the atomists postulated a multiplicity without essential unity. but the human mind seems to be incapable of resting in that decision; it demands that the world shall have not meanings, but a meaning. this demand calls not only for a unified predicate, but also for an effective copula. 3. we have already remarked that the steps by which the predicate was inferred are for the most part unknown. certain suggestions are contained in the reports of aristotle, but it is safe to say that they are generally guesses well or ill founded. the summary inductive mediation has left few traces; and the process of verification, in the course of which hypotheses were rejected and modified, can be followed only here and there in the records. almost our only source of information is the dialectic of systems. fortunately for our present purpose we do not need to know the precise form which a question assumed to the minds of the several philosophers; the efforts which they made to meet the imperious demands of logic here speak for themselves. at first there was no scheme for the mediation of the predicate back to the subject. indeed there seems not to have existed in the mind of thales a sense of its need. anaximander raised the question, but the process of segregation or separation ([greek: ekkrinesthai]) which he propounded was so vaguely conceived that it has created more problems than it solved. anaximenes first proposed a scheme that has borne fruits. he said that things are produced from air by rarefaction and condensation. this process offers not only a principle of difference, but also a regulative conception, the evaluation of which engaged the thought of almost all the later pre-socratics. it implies that extension and mass constitute the essential characters of substance, and, fully apprehended, contains in germ the whole materialistic philosophy from parmenides at one extreme to democritus and anaxagoras at the other. the difficulties inherent in the view were unknown to anaximenes; for, having a unitary predicate, he assumed also a homogeneous subject. the logical position of heraclitus is similar to that of anaximenes. he likewise posits a simple predicate and further signalizes its functional character by naming it fire. without venturing upon debatable ground we may say that it was the restless activity of the element that caused him to single it out as best expressing the meaning of things. its rhythmic libration typified to him the principle of change in existence and of existence in change. it is the "ever-living" copula, devouring subject and predicate alike and re-creating them functionally as co-ordinate expressions of itself. that which alone _is_, the abiding, is not the physical composition of a thing, but the law of reciprocity by which it maintains a balance. this he calls variously by the names of harmony, logos, necessity, justice. in this system of functional co-ordinates nothing escapes the accounting on 'change;[91] all things are in continuous flux, only the nodes of the rhythm remaining constant. it is not surprising therefore that heraclitus has been the subject of so much speculation and comment in modern times; for the functional character of all distinctions in his system marks the affinity of his doctrines for those of modern psychology and logic.[92] the pythagoreans, having by abstraction obtained a predicate, acknowledged the existence of the subject, but did not feel the need of a copula in the theoretical sphere, except as it concerned the inner relation of the predicate. to them the world was number, but number itself was pluralistic, or let us rather say dualistic. the odd and the even, the generic constituents of number, had somehow to be brought together. the bond was found in unity, or, again, in harmony. when they inquired how numbers constituted the world, their answer was in general only a nugatory exercise of an unbridled fancy.[93] such and such a number was justice, such another, man. it was only in the wholly practical sphere of experiment that they reached a conclusion worth recording. its significance they themselves did not perceive. here, by the application of mathematical measurements to sounds, they discovered how to produce tones of a given pitch, and thus successfully demonstrated the efficiency of their copula. the eleatics followed the same general course of abstraction; but with them the sense of the unity of the world effaced its rich diversity. xenophanes does not appear to have pressed the conception so far as to deny all change within the world. parmenides, however, bated no jot of the legitimate consequences of his logical position, interpreting, as he did, the predicate, originally conceived as meaning, in terms of existence. that which is simply _is_. thus there is left only a one-time predicate, now converted into a subject of which only itself, as a brute fact, can be predicated. stated logically, parmenides is capable only of uttering identical propositions: a=a. the fallacious character of the report of the senses and the impossibility of becoming followed as a matter of course. where the logical copula is a mere sign of equation there can be neither induction nor deduction. we are caught in a theoretical _cul-de-sac_. we are not now concerned to know in what light the demand for a treatise on the world of opinion may have appeared to parmenides himself. the avenues by which men reach conclusions which are capable of simplification and syllogistic statement are too various to admit of plausible conjecture in the absence of specific evidence. but it is clear that his resort to the expedient reflected a consciousness of the state of deadlock. in that part of his philosophical poem he dealt with many questions of detail in a rather more practical spirit. following the lead of heraclitus and the pythagoreans he was more successful here than in the field of metaphysics. thus we see once more that the wounds of theory are healed by practice. but, as usual, even though the metaphysician does receive the answer to his doubts by falling into a severely practical pit and extricating himself by steps which he fashions with his hands, his mental habit is not thereby reconstructed. the fixed predicate of the eleatics was bequeathed to the platonic-aristotelian formal logic, and induction and deduction remained for centuries in theory a race between the hedgehog and the hare.[94] the true significance of the destructive criticism brought to bear by zeno and melissus on the concepts of unity, plurality, continuity, extension, time, and motion is simply this: that when by a shift of the attention a predicate becomes subject or meaning fossilizes as existence, the terms of the logical process lose their functional reference and grow to be unmeaning and self-contradictory. we have already remarked that empedocles, anaxagoras, and the atomists sought to solve the problem of the one and the many, of the subject and the predicate, by shattering the unitary predicate and thus leaving the field to plurality in both spheres. but obviously they were merely postponing the real question. thought, as well as action, demands a unity somewhere. hence the absorbing task of these philosophers is to disclose or contrive such a bond of unity. the form which their quest assumed was the search for a basis for physical interaction.[95] empedocles clearly believed that he was solving the difficulty in one form when he instituted the rhythmic libration between unity under the sway of love and multiplicity under the domination of hate. but even he was not satisfied with that. while love brought all the elements together into a sphere and thus produced a unity, it was a unity constituted of a mixture of elements possessing inalienable characters not only different but actually antagonistic. on the other hand, hate did indeed separate the confused particles, but it effected a sort of unity in that, by segregating the particles of the several elements from the others, it brought like and like together. in so far aristotle was clearly right in attributing to love the power to separate as well as to unite. moreover, it would seem that there never was a moment in which both agencies were not conceived to be operative, to however small an extent. empedocles asserted, however, that a world could arise only in the intervals between the extremes of victory in the contest between love and hate, when, so to speak, the battle was drawn and there was a general _mêlée_ of the combatants. it may be questioned, perhaps, whether he distinctly stated that in our world everything possessed its portion of each of the elements; but so indispensable did he consider this _mixture_ that its function of providing a physical unity is unmistakable. a further evidence of his insistent demand for unity--the copula--is found in his doctrine that only like can act on like; and the scheme of pores and effluvia which he contrived bears eloquent testimony to the earnest consideration he gave to this matter. for he conceived that all interaction took place by means of them. empedocles, then, may be said to have annulled the decree of divorce he had issued for the elements at the beginning. but the solution here too is found, not in the theoretical, but in the practical, sphere; for he never retracts his assertion that the elements are distinct and antagonistic. but even so his problem is defined rather than solved; for after the elements have been brought within microscopic distance of each other in the mixture, since like can act only on like, the narrow space that separates them is still an impassable gulf.[96] anaxagoras endowed his infinitely numerous substances with the same characters of fixity and contrariety that mark the four elements of empedocles. for him, therefore, the difficulty of securing unity and co-operation in an effective copula is, if that be possible, further aggravated. his grasp of the problem, if we may judge from the relatively small body of documentary evidence, was not so sure as that of empedocles, though he employed in general the same means for its solution. he too postulates a mixture of all substances, more consciously and definitely indeed than his predecessor. believing that only like can act on like,[97] he is led to assume not only an infinite multiplicity of substances, but also their complete mixture, so that everything, however small, contains a portion of every other. food, for example, however seeming-simple, nourishes the most diverse tissues of the body. thus we discover in the universal mixture of substances the basis for co-operation and interaction. anaxagoras, therefore, like empedocles, feels the need of bridging the chasm which he has assumed to exist between his distinct substances. their failure is alike great, and is due to the presuppositions they inherited from the eleatic conception of a severe homogeneity which implies an absolute difference from everything else. the embarrassment of anaxagoras increases with the introduction of the [greek: nous]. this agency was conceived with a view to explaining the formation of the world; that is, with a view to mediating between the myriad substances in their essential aloofness and effecting the harmonious concord of concrete things. while, even on the basis of a universal mixture, the function of the [greek: nous] was foredoomed to failure, its task was made more difficult still by the definition given to its nature. according to anaxagoras it was the sole exception to the composite character of things; it is absolutely pure and simple in nature.[98] by its definition, then, it is prevented from accomplishing the work it was contrived to do; and hence we cannot be surprised at the lamentations raised by plato and aristotle about the failure of anaxagoras to employ the agency he had introduced. to be sure, the [greek: nous] is no more a _deus ex machina_ than were the ideas of plato or the god of aristotle. they all labored under the same restrictions. the atomists followed with the same recognition of the many, in the infinitely various kinds of atoms; but it was tempered by the assumption of an essential homogeneity. one atom is distinguished from another by characteristics due to its spatial relations. mass and weight are proportional to size. aristotle reports that, though things and atoms have differences, it is not in virtue of their differences, but in virtue of their essential identity, that they interact.[99] there is thus introduced a distinction which runs nearly, but not quite, parallel to that between primary and secondary qualities.[100] primary qualities are those of size, shape, and perhaps[101] position; all others are secondary. on the other hand, that which is common to all atoms is their corporeity, which does indeed define itself with reference to the primary (spatial) qualities, but not alike in all. the atoms of which the world is constituted are alike in essential nature, but they differ most widely in position. it is the void that breaks up the unity of the world--atomizes it, if we may use the expression. it is the basis of all discontinuity. atoms and void are thus polar extremes reciprocally exclusive. the atoms in their utter isolation in space are incapable of producing a world. in order to bridge the chasm between atom and atom, recourse is had to motion eternal, omnipresent, and necessary. this it is that annihilates distances. in the course of their motion atoms collide, and in their impact one upon the other the atomists find the precise mode of co-operation by which the world is formed.[102] to this agency are due what lucretius happily called "generating motions." the problem, however, so insistently pursued the philosophers of this time that the atomists did not content themselves with this solution, satisfactory as modern science has pretended to consider it. they followed the lead of empedocles and anaxagoras in postulating a widespread, if not absolutely universal, _mixture_. having on principle excluded "essential" differences among the atoms, the impossibility of finally distinguishing essential and non-essential had its revenge. important as the device of mixture was to empedocles and anaxagoras, just so unmeaning ought it to have been in the atomic philosophy, provided that the hypothesis could accomplish what was claimed for it. it is not necessary to reassert that the assumption of "individua," utterly alienated one from the other by a void, rendered the problem of the copula insoluble for the atomists. diogenes of apollonia is commonly treated contemptuously as a mere reactionary who harked back to anaximenes and had no significance of his own. the best that can be said of such an attitude is that it regards philosophical theories as accidental utterances of individuals, naturally well or ill endowed, who happen to express conclusions with which men in after times agree or disagree. a philosophical tenet is an atom, set somewhere in a vacuum, utterly out of relation to everything else. but it is impossible to see how, on this theory, any system of thought should possess any significance for anybody, or how there should be any progress even, or retardation. viewed entirely from without, the doctrine of diogenes would seem to be substantially a recrudescence of that of anaximenes. air is once more the element or [greek: archê] out of which all proceeds and into which all returns. again the process of transformation is seen in rarefaction and condensation; and the attributes of substance are those which were common to the early hylozoists. but there is present a keen sense of a problem unknown to anaximenes. what the early philosopher asserted in the innocence of the youth of thought, the later physiologist reiterates with emphasis because he believes that the words are words of life. the motive for recurring to the earlier system is supplied by the imperious demand for a copula which had so much distressed empedocles, anaxagoras, and the atomists. and here we are not left to conjecture, but are able to refer to the _ipsissima verba_ of our philosopher. after a brief prologue, in which he stated that one's starting-point must be beyond dispute, he immediately[103] turned to his theme in these words:[104] "in my opinion, to put the whole matter in a nutshell, all things are derived by alteration from the same substance, and indeed all are one and the same. and this is altogether evident. for if the things that now exist in the world--earth and water and air and fire and whatsoever else appears to exist in this world--if, i say, any one of these were different from the other, different that is to say in its proper peculiar nature, and did not rather, being one and the same, change and alter in many ways, then in no-wise would things be able to mix with one another, nor would help or harm come to one from the other, nor would any plant spring from the earth, nor any other living thing come into being, if things were not so constituted as to be one and the same." these words contain a singularly interesting expression of the need of restoring the integrity of the process which had been lost in the effort to solve the problem of the one and the many without abandoning the point of view won by the eleatics. aristotle and theophrastus paraphrase and sum up the passage above quoted by saying[105] that interaction is impossible except on the assumption that all the world is one and the same. hence it is manifest, as was said above, that the return of diogenes to the monistic system of anaximenes had for its conscious motive the avoidance of the dualism that had sprung up in the interval and had rendered futile the multiplied efforts to secure an effective copula. we should note, however, that in the attempt thus made to undo the work of several generations diogenes retained the principle which had wrought the mischief. we have before remarked that the germ of the atomic philosophy was contained in the process of rarefaction and condensation. hence, in accepting it along with the remainder of anaximenes's theory, the fatal assumption was reinstated. it is the story of human systems in epitome. the superstructure is overthrown, and with the débris a new edifice is built upon the old foundations. in the entire course of philosophical thought from thales onward the suggestion of an opposition between the subject and the predicate had appeared. it has often been said that it was expressed by the search for a [greek: physis], or a _true nature_, in contrast with the world as practically accepted. there is a certain truth in this view; for the effort to attain a predicate which does not merely repeat the subject does imply that there is an opposition. but the efforts made to return from the predicate to the subject, in a deductive movement, shows that the difference was not believed to be absolute. this is true, however, only of those fields of speculation that lie next to the highways of practical life, which lead equally in both directions, or, let us rather say, which unite while they mark separation. in the sphere of abstract ideas the sense of embarrassment was deep and constantly growing deeper. the reconstruction, accomplished on lower levels, did not attain unto those heights. men doubted conclusions, but did not think to demand the credentials of their common presuppositions. side by side with the later philosophers whom we have mentioned there walked men whom we are wont to call the sophists. they were the journalists and pamphleteers of those days, men who, without dealing profoundly with any special problem, familiarized themselves with the generalizations of workers in special fields and combined these ideas for the entertainment of the public. they were neither philosophers nor physicists, but, like some men whom we might cite from our own times, endeavored to popularize the teachings of both. naturally they seized upon the most sweeping generalizations and the preconceptions which disclosed themselves in manifold forms. just as naturally they had no eyes with which to detect the significance of the besetting problems at which, in matters more concrete, the masters were toiling. hence the contradictions, revealed in the analysis we have just given of the philosophy of the age, stood out in utter nakedness. the result was inevitable. the inability to discover a unitary predicate, more still, the failure to attain a working copula, led directly to the denial of the possibility of predication. there was no truth. granted that it existed, it could not be known. even if known, it could not be communicated. in these incisive words of gorgias the conclusion of the ineffectual effort to establish a logic of science is clearly stated. but the statement is happily only the half-truth, which is almost a complete falsehood. it takes no account of the indications, everywhere present, of a needed reconstruction. least of all does it catch the meaning of such a demand. the sophists did not, however, merely repeat in abstract from the teachings of the philosophers. it matters not whether they originated the movement or not; at all events they were pioneers in the field of moral philosophy. here it was that they chiefly drew the inferences from the distinction between [greek: physei] and [greek: nomô]. nothing could have been more effective in disengaging the firmly rooted moral pre-possessions and rendering them amenable to philosophy. just here, at last, we catch a hint of the significance of the logical process. in a striking passage in plato's _protagoras_,[106] which one is fain to regard as an essentially true reproduction of a discourse by that great man, justice and reverence are accorded true validity. on inquiring to what characteristic this honorable distinction is due, we find that it does not reside in themselves; it is due to _the assumption that a state must exist_. here, then, in a word, is the upshot of the logical movement. logical predicates are essentially hypothetical, deriving their validity from the interest that moves men to affirm them. when they lose this hypothetical character, as terms within a volitional system, and set up as entities at large, they cease to function and forfeit their right to exist. x valuation as a logical process the purpose of this discussion is to supply the main outlines of a theory of value based upon analysis of the valuation-process from the logical point of view. the general principle which we shall seek to establish is that judgments of value, whether passed upon things or upon modes of conduct, are essentially objective in import, and that they are reached through a process of valuation which is essentially of the same logical character as the judgment-process whereby conclusions of physical fact are established--in a word, that the valuation-process, issuing in the finished judgment of value expressive of the judging person's definitive attitude toward the thing in question, is constructive of an order of reality in the same sense as, in current theories of knowledge, is the judgment of sense-perception and science. our method of procedure to this end will be that of assuming, and adhering to as consistently as possible, the standpoint of the individual in the process of deliberating upon an ethical or economic problem (for, as we shall hold, all values properly so called are either ethical or economic), and of ascertaining, as accurately as may be, the meaning of the deliberative or evaluating process and of the various factors in it as these are presented in the individual's apprehension. it is in this sense that our procedure will be logical rather than psychological. we shall be concerned to determine the _meaning_ of the object of valuation as object, of the standard of value as standard, and of the valued object as valued, in terms of the individual's own apprehension of these, rather than to ascertain the nature and conditions of his apprehensions of these considered as psychical events. our attention will throughout be directed to these factors or phases of the valuation-process in their functional aspect of determinants of the valuing agent's practical attitude, and never, excepting for purposes of incidental illustration and in a very general and tentative way, as events in consciousness mediated by more "elementary" psychical processes. the results which we shall gain by adhering to this method will enable us to see not merely that our judgments of value are in function and meaning objective, but also that our judgments of sense-perception and science are, as such, capable of satisfactory interpretation only as being incidental to the attainment and progressive reconstruction of judgments of value. the first three main divisions will be given over to establishing the objectivity of content and function of judgments of value. the fourth division will present a detailed analysis of the two types of judgment of value, the ethical and economic, defining them and relating them to each other, and correlating them in the manner just suggested with judgment of the physical type. after considering, in the fifth part, certain general objections to the positions thus stated, we shall proceed in the sixth and concluding division to define the function of the consciousness of value in the economy of life.[107] i the system of judgments which defines what one calls the objective order of things is inevitably unique for each particular individual. no two men can view the world from the standpoint of the same theoretical and practical interests, nor can any two proceed in the work of gaining for themselves knowledge of the world with precisely equal degrees of skill and accuracy. each must be prompted and guided, in the construction of his knowledge of single things and of the system in which they have their being, by his own particular interests and aims; and even when one person in a measure shares in the interests and aims of another, the rate and manner of procedure will not be the same for both, nor will the knowledge gained be for both equally systematic in arrangement or in interrelation of its parts. each man lives in a world of his own--a world, indeed, identical in certain fundamental respects with the worlds which his fellow-men have constructed for themselves, but one nevertheless necessarily unique through and through because each man is a unique individual. there is, doubtless, a "social currency" of objects which implies a certain identity of meaning in objects as experienced by different individuals. the existence of society presupposes, and its evolution in turn develops and extends, a system of generally accepted objects and relations. nevertheless, the "socially current object" is, as such, an abstraction just as the uniform social individual is likewise an abstraction. the only concrete object ever actually known or in any wise experienced by any person is the object as constructed by that person in accordance with his own aims and purposes, and in which there is, therefore, a large and important share of meaning which is significant to no one else. it is needless in this discussion to dwell at length upon the general principle of recent "functional" psychology, that practical ends are the controlling factors in the acquisition of our knowledge of objective things. we shall take for granted the truth of the general proposition that cognition, in whatever sphere of science or of practical life, is essentially teleological in the sense of being incidental always, more or less directly, to the attainment of ends. cognition, as the apperceptive or attentive process, is essentially the process of scrutinizing a situation (whether theoretical or practical) with a view to determining the availability for one's intended purpose of such objects and conditions as the situation may present. the objects and conditions thus determined will be made use of or ignored, counted upon as advantageous or guarded against as unfavorable--in a word, responded to--in ways suggested by their character as ascertained through reference to the interest in question. in this sense, then, objective things as known by individual persons are essentially complex stimuli whose proper function and reason for being it is to elicit useful responses in the way of conduct--responses conducive to the realization of ends. from this point of view, then, the difference between one person's knowledge of a particular object and another's signifies (1) a difference between these persons' original purposes in setting out to gain knowledge of the object, and (2) consequently a difference between their present ways of acting with reference to the object. the bare object as socially current is, at best, for each individual simply a ground upon which subsequent construction may be made; and the subsequent construction which each individual is prompted by his circumstances and is able to work out in judgment first makes the object, for this individual, real and for his purposes complete. now, it is our primary intention to show that objects are, in cases of a certain important class, not yet ready to serve the person who knows them in their proper character of stimuli, when they have been, even exhaustively, defined in merely physical terms. it is very often not enough that the dimensions of an object and its physical properties, even the more recondite ones as well as those more commonly understood--it is often not enough for the purposes of an agent that these characters should make up the whole sum of his knowledge of the object in question. a measure of knowledge in terms of physical categories is often only a beginning--the result of a preliminary stage of the entire process of teleological determination, which must be carried through before the object of attention can be satisfactorily known. in the present study of the logic of valuation we shall be occupied exclusively with the discussion of cases of this kind. in our judgments of sense-perception and physical science we have presented to us material objects in their physical aspect. when these latter are inadequate to suggest or warrant overt conduct, our knowledge of them must be supplemented and reconstructed in ways presently to be specified. it is in the outcome of judgment-processes in which this work of supplementing and reconstructing is carried through that the consciousness of value, in the proper sense, arises, and these processes, then, are those which we shall here consider under the name of "processes of valuation." they will therefore best be approached through specification of the ways in which our physical judgments may be inadequate. let us, then, assume, as has been indicated, that the process of acquiring knowledge--that is to say, the process of judgment or attention--is in every case of its occurrence incidental to the attainment of an end. we must make this assumption without attempting formally to justify it--though in the course of our discussion it will be abundantly illustrated. let us, in accordance with this view, think of the typical judgment-process as proceeding, in the main, as follows: first of all must come a sense of need or deficiency, which may, on occasion, be preceded by a more or less violent and sudden shock to the senses, forcibly turning one's attention to the need of immediate action. by degrees this sense of need will grow more definite and come to express itself in a more or less "clear and distinct" image of an end, toward which end the agent is drawn by desire and to which he looks with much or little of emotion. the emergence of the end into consciousness immediately makes possible and occasions definite analysis of the situation in which the end must be worked out. salient features of the situation forthwith are noticed--whether useful things or favoring conditions, or, on the other hand, the absence of any such. thus predicates and then subjects for many subsidiary judgments in the comprehensive judgment-process emerge together in action and interaction upon each other. the predicates, developed out of the general end toward which the agent strives, afford successive points of view for fresh analyses of the situation. the logical subjects thus discovered--_objects_ of attention and knowledge--require, on the other hand, as they are scrutinized and judged, modification and re-examination of the end. the end grows clearer and fuller of detail as the predicates or implied ("constituent") ideas which are developed out of it are distinguished from each other and used in making one's inventory of the objective situation. conversely, the situation loses its first aspect of confusion and takes on more and more the aspect of an orderly assemblage of objects and conditions, useful, indifferent, and adverse, by means of which the end may in greater or less measure be attained or must, in however greatly modified a form, be defeated. now, in this development of the judgment-process, it must be observed, the end must be more or less clearly and consistently conceived throughout as an _activity_, if the objective means of action which have been determined in the process are not to be, at the last, separate and unrelated data still requiring co-ordination. if the end has been so conceived, the means will inevitably be known as members of a mechanical _system_, since the predicates by which they have been determined have at every point involved this factor of amenability to co-ordination. the judgment-process, if properly conducted and brought to a conclusion, must issue at the end in the functional unity of a finished plan of conduct with a perfected mechanical co-ordination of the available means. we have now to see that much more may be involved in such a process as this than has been explicitly stated in our brief analysis. for the end itself may be a matter of deliberation, just as must be the physical means of accomplishing it; and, again, the means may call for scrutiny and determination from other points of view than the physical and mechanical. the final action taken at the end may express the outcome of deliberate ethical and economic judgment as well as of judgments in the sphere of sense-perception and physical science. let us consider, for example, that one's end is the construction of a house upon a certain plot of ground. this end expresses the felt need of a more comfortable or more reputable abode, and has so much of general presumption in its favor. there may, however, be many reasons for hesitation. the cost in time or money or materials on hand may tax one's resources and injuriously curtail one's activities along other lines. and there may be ethical reasons why the plan should not be carried out. the house may shut off a pleasing prospect from the view of the entire neighborhood and serve no better end than the gratification of its owner's selfish vanity. it will cost a sum of money which might be used in paying just, though outlawed, debts. now, from the standpoint of such problems as these the fullest possible preliminary knowledge of the physical and mechanical fitness of our means must still be very abstract and general. it would be of use in any undertaking like the one we have supposed, but it is not sufficient in so far as the problem is one's own problem, concrete, particular, and so unique. one may, of course, proceed to the stage of physical judgment without having settled the ethical problems which may have presented themselves at the outset. the end may be entertained tentatively as a hypothesis until certain mechanical problems have been dealt with. but manifestly this is only postponement of the issue. the agent is still quite unprepared, even after the means have been so far determined, to take the first step in the execution of the plan; indeed, his uncertainty is probably only the more harassing than before. moreover, the economic problems in the case are now more sharply defined, and these for the time being still further darken counsel. manifestly the need for deliberation is at this point quite as urgent as the need for physical determination can ever be, and the need is evidenced in the same way by the actual arrest and postponement of overt conduct. the agent, despite his physical knowledge, is not yet free to embrace the end and, having done so, use thereto the means at his disposal. it is plainly impossible to use the physical means until one knows in terms of substance and attribute or cause and effect, or whatever other physical categories one may please, what manner of behavior may be expected of them. so likewise is it as truly impossible, for one intellectually and morally capable of appreciating problems of a more advanced and complex sort, to exploit the physical properties thus discovered until ethical determination of the end and economic determination of the means have been completed.[108] there are, then, we conclude, cases in which physical determination of the means is by itself not a sufficient preparation for conduct--in which there are ethical and economic problems which delay the application of the physical means to the end to which they may be physically adapted. indeed, so much as this may well appear as sufficiently obvious without extended illustration. everyone knows that it is nearly always necessary, in undertaking any work in which material things are used as means, to count the cost; and everyone knows likewise that not every end that is in any way attractive and within one's reach may without more ado be taken as an object of settled desire and effort. it is indeed needless to elaborate these commonplaces in the sense in which they are commonly understood. however, such is not our present purpose. our purpose is the more specific one of showing that the meaning of objectivity must be widened so as to include (1) the "universe" of ends in their ethical aspect and (2) the economic aspect of the means of action, as well as (3) the physical aspect to which the character of objectivity is commonly restricted. we shall maintain that these are parts or phases of a complete conception of reality, and that of them, consequently, objectivity must be predicated for every essential reason connoted by such characterization of the world of things "external" to the senses. it has been with this conclusion in mind, then, that we have sought to emphasize the frequent serious inadequacy, for practical purposes, of the merely physical determination of the means in one's environment. the principle thus suggested would imply that the ethical and economic stages in the one inclusive process of reflective attention should be regarded as involving, when they occur, the same logical function of judgment as is operative in the sphere of sense-perception and the sciences generally. ethical and economic factors must on occasion be present at the final choice and shaping of one's course of conduct, along with the physical determinations of environing means and conditions which one has made in sense-perception. there is, then, it would appear, at least a fair presumption, though not indeed an _a priori_ certainty, that these ethical and economic factors or conditions have, like the physical, taken form in a _judgment-process_ which will admit of profitable analysis in accordance with whatever general theory of judgment one may hold as valid elsewhere in the field of knowledge. this presumption we shall seek to verify. now, our interest in thus determining, first of all, the logical character of these processes will readily be understood from this, that, in the present view, these are the processes, and the only ones in our experience, which are properly to be regarded as processes of valuation. we shall hold that valuation, and so all consciousness of value, properly so called, must be either ethical or economic; that the only conscious processes in which values can come to definition are these processes of ethical and economic judgment. the present theory of value is, then, essentially a logical one, in the sense of holding that values are determined in and by a logical--that is, a judgmental--valuation-process and in its details is closely dependent upon the general conception of judgment of which the outlines have been sketched above. accordingly, the exposition must proceed in the following general order: assuming the conception of judgment which has been presented (which our discussion will in several ways further illustrate and so tend to confirm), we shall seek to show that the determinations made in ethical and economic judgment are in the proper sense objective. this will involve, first of all, a statement of the conditions under which the ethical and economic judgments respectively arise--which statement will serve to distinguish the two types of judgment from each other. we shall then proceed to the special analysis of the ethical and economic forms from the standpoint of our general theory of judgment, thereby establishing in detail the judgmental character of these parts of the reflective process. this analysis will serve to introduce our interpretation of the consciousness of value as a factor in the conduct and economy of life. ii let us then define the problem of the objective reference of the valuational judgments by stating, as distinctly as may be, the conditions by which ethical and economic deliberation, respectively, are prompted. a study of these conditions will make it easier to see in what way the judgments reached in dealing with them can be objective. when will an end, presenting itself in consciousness in the manner indicated in our brief analysis of the judgment-process, become the center of attention, thereby checking the advance, through investigation of the possible means, to final overt action? this is the general statement of the problem of the typical ethical situation. manifestly there will be no ethical deliberation if the imaged end at once turns the attention toward the environment of possible means, instead of first of all itself becoming the object instead of the director of attention; there will be no suspension of progress toward final action, excepting such as may later come through difficulty in the discovery and co-ordination of the means. however, there are cases in which the emergence of the end forthwith is followed by a check to the reflective process, and the agent shrinks from the end presented in imagination as being, let us say, one forbidden by authority or one repugnant to his own established standards. the end may in such a case disappear at once; very often it will insistently remain. on this latter supposition, the simplest possibility will be the development of a mere mechanical tension, a "pull and haul" between the end, or properly the impulses which it represents, and the agent's habit of suppressing impulses of the class to which the present one is, perhaps intuitively, recognized as belonging. the case is the common one of "temptation" on the one side and "principle" or "conscience" on the other, and so long as the two forces remain thus in hard-and-fast opposition to each other there can be no ethical deliberation or judgment in a proper sense. the standard or habit may gain the day by sheer mechanical excess of power, or the new impulse, the temptation, may prevail because its onset can break down the mechanical resistance. out of such a situation as this, however, genuine ethical deliberation may arise on condition that standard and "temptation" can lose something of their abstractness and their hard-and-fast opposition, and develop into terms of concrete meaning. the agent may come to see that the end is in some definite way of really vital interest and too important to be put aside without consideration. he may, of course, in this fall into gross self-sophistication, like the drunkard in the classical instance who takes another glass to test his self-control and thereby gain assurance, or he may act with wisdom and with full sincerity, like dorothea casaubon when she renounced the impossible task imposed by her departed husband. in the moral life one can ask or hope for complete exemption from the risk of self-deception with as little reason as in scientific research. but however this may be, our present interest is in the method, not in particular results of ethical reflection. whether properly so in a particular case or not, the imaged end may come to seem at least plausibly defensible on grounds of principle which serve to sanction certain other modes of conduct to which a place is given in the accepted scheme of life; or the end may simply press for a relatively independent recognition on the very general ground that its emergence represents an enlargement and new development of the personality.[109] the end may thus cease to stand in the character of blind self-assertive impulse, and press its claim as a positive means of future moral growth, as bringing freedom from repressive and enfeebling restraints and as tending to the reinforcement of other already valued modes of conduct. on the other hand, the standard will cease to stand as mere resistance and negation, and may discover something of its hidden meaning as a product of long experience and slow growth, and as perhaps a vital part of the organization of one's present life, not to be touched without grave risk. now, on whichever side the development may first commence, a like development must soon follow on the other, and it is the action and reaction of standard and prospective or problematic end upon each other that constitutes the process of ethical deliberation or judgment. just as in the typical judgment-process, as sketched above, so also here predicate and subject _develop each other_, when once they have given over their first antagonism and come to the attitude of reasoning together. the predicate explains itself that the subject or new end may be searchingly and fairly tested; and under this scrutiny the subject develops its full meaning as a course of conduct, thereby prompting further analysis and reinterpretation of the standard. but this is not the place for detailed analysis of the process;[110] here we are concerned only to define the type of situation, and this we may now do in the following terms: the indispensable condition of ethical judgment is the presence in the agent's mind of at least two rival interesting ends or systems of such ends. in the foregoing, the subject of the judgment is the new end that has arisen; the predicate or "standard" is the symbol for the old ends or values which in the tension of the judgment-process must be brought to more or less explicit enumeration--and, we must add, reconstruction also. indeed, it is important, even at this stage of our discussion, to observe that predicate and standard are not equivalent in meaning. the predicate, or predicative side, of judgment is the imagery of control in the process, which, as we have seen, develops with the subject side; while the term "standard" connotes the rigid fixity which belongs to the inhibiting concept or ideal in the stage before the judgment-process proper can begin. the ethical judgment-process is, in a word, just the process of reconstructing standards--as in its other and corresponding aspect it is the process of interpreting new ends. those who oppose measures of social reform or new modes of conduct or belief on alleged grounds of "immorality" instinctively feel in doing so that the change may make its way more easily against a resistance that will candidly explain itself; and, on the other side of the social judgment-process, the more fanatical know how to turn to good advantage for their propaganda the bitterness or contempt of those who represent the established order. on both sides there are those who trust more in mechanical "pull and haul" than in the intrinsic merits of their cause. thus it is by encountering some rival end or entire system of ends, as symbolized by an ideal, that a new end emerging out of impulse comes to stand for an agent, as the center of a problem of conduct, and so to occupy the center of attention. and it thereby becomes an object, as we shall hold, which must be more fully defined in order that it may be _valued_, and accordingly be held to warrant a determinate attitude toward itself on the agent's part. we have now to define in the same general terms the typical economic situation. in economic theory as in common thought it is not the contemplated act of applying certain means to the attainment of an end regarded as desirable that functions as the logical subject of valuation. the thing or object valued in the economic situation is one's present wealth, whether material or immaterial, one's services or labor--whatever one gives in exchange or otherwise sets apart for the attainment of a desired end or, proximately, to secure possession of the necessary and sufficient means to the attainment of a desired end. the object of attention in the valuing process is here not itself an end of action. in this respect the economic type of judgment is like the physical, for in both the object to be valued is a certain means which one is seeking to adapt to some more or less definitely imaged purpose; or a condition of which one wishes, likewise for some special purpose, to take advantage. the ultimate goal of all judgment is the determination of a course of conduct looking toward an end, and our present problem may accordingly be stated in the following terms: under what circumstances in the judgment-process does it become necessary to the definition and attainment of an end as yet vague and indeterminate that the requisite means, as in part already physically determined, should be further scrutinized in attention and determined from the economic point of view? or, in a word: what is the "jurisdiction" of the economic point of view? for ordinary judgements of sense-perception the presence in consciousness of a single unquestioned end is the adequate occasion, as our analysis (assuming its validity) has shown. for ethical judgment we have seen that the presence of conflicting ends is necessary; and we shall now hold that this condition is necessary, though not, without a certain qualification, adequate, for the economic type as well. if an imaged end can hold its place in consciousness without a rival, and the physical means of attaining it have been found and co-ordinated, then the use or consumption of the means must inevitably follow, without either ethical or economic judgement; for, to paraphrase the saying of professor james, nothing but an end can displace or inhibit effort toward another end. the economic situation differs, then, from the ethical in this, that the end or system of ends entering into competition with the one for the time being of chief and primary interest has been brought to consciousness through reference to those "physical" means which already have been determined as necessary to this latter end. the conflict of ends in the economic situation, that is to say, is not due to a direct and intrinsic incompatibility between them. where there manifestly is such incompatibility, judgment will be of the ethical type--as when building the house involves the foreclosure of a mortgage, and so, in working an injury to the holder of the site, may do violence to one's ideal of friendship or of more special obligation; or when an impulse to intemperate self-indulgence is met by one's ideal of social usefulness. in cases such as these one clearly sees, or can on reflection come to see, in what way an evil result to personal character will follow upon the imminent misdeed, and in what way suppression of the momentary impulse will conserve the entire approved and established way of life. very often, however, the conflicting ends are related in no such mutually exclusive way. each may be in itself permissible and compatible with the other, and, so far as any possible ethical discrimination can determine, there is no ground for choice between them. thus it is only through the fact that both ends are dependent upon a limited supply of means that one would, for example, ever bring together and deliberately oppose in judgment the purpose of making additions to his library and the necessity of providing a store of fuel for the winter. both ends in such a case are in themselves indeed permissible in a general way, but they may very well not both of them be economically possible, and hence, for the person in question and in the presence of the economic conditions which confront him, not, in the last analysis, both ethically possible. when there is a conflict between two ends that stand in close organic relation in the sense explained above, the problem is an ethical one; when the conflict is, in the sense explained, one of competition between ends ethically permissible--not at variance, either one, that is, with other ends _directly_--for the whole or for a share of one's supply of means, the problem is of the economic type.[111] there are three typical cases in which economic judgment or valuation of the means is necessary, and the enumeration of these will make clear the relation between the ethical and the economic types of judgment: (1) first may be mentioned the case in which ethical deliberation has apparently reached its end in the formation of a plan of action which, so far as one can see, on ethical grounds is unobjectionable. a definite "temptation" may have been overcome, or out of a more complex situation a satisfactory ethical compromise or readjustment may have been developed with much difficulty. now, there are very often cases in which such a course of action still may not be entered on without further hesitation; for, if the plan be one requiring for its working out the use of material means, the fact of an existing limitation of one's supply of means must bring hitherto unthought of ends into conflict with it. there are doubtless many situations in which one's moral choice may be carried into practice without consideration of ways and means, as when one forgives an injury or holds his instinctive nature under discipline in the effort to attain an ascetic or a genuinely social ideal of character. but more often than the moral rigorist cares to see, questions of an economic nature must be raised after the ethical "evidence is all in"--questions which are probably more trying to a sensitive moral nature than those more dramatic situations in which the real perils of self-sophistication are vastly less, and the simpler, sharper definition of the issue makes possible a less difficult, though a more decisive and edifying, victory. (2) in the second place are those cases in which the end that has emerged is without conspicuous moral quality, because, although it may represent some worthy impulse, it has not been obliged to make its way to acceptance against the resistance of desires less worthy than itself. this is the ideal case of economic theory in which "moral distinctions are irrelevant," and the economic man is free, according to the myth, to perform his hedonistic calculations without thought of moral scruple. the end ethically acceptable in itself, like the enriching of one's library, must, when the means are limited, divert a portion of the means from other uses, and will thus, _through reference to the indispensable means_, engage in conflict with other ends quite remotely, if in the agent's knowledge at all, related with itself. (3) finally we reach the limit of apparent freedom from ethical considerations in the operations of business institutions, and perhaps especially in those of large business corporations. apart from the routine operations of a business which involve no present exercise of the valuing judgment, there are constantly in such institutions new projects which must be considered, and which commonly must involve revaluation of the means. in this revaluation the principle of greatest revenue is supposed to be the sole criterion, regardless of other personal or social points of view from which confessedly the measure might be considered. but such a supposition, however true to the facts of current business practice it may be, we must hold to be an abstraction when viewed from the standpoint of the social life at large, and hence no real exception to our general principle. the economic and the ethical situations differ, as types, only in the closeness of relation between the ends that are in conflict and in the manner in which the ends are first brought into conflict--not in respect of the intrinsic nature of the ends which are involved in them.[112] it is this difference which, as we shall see, explains why ethical valuation must be of ends, and economic valuation, on the other hand, of means. we have yet to see _in what way_ valuation of the means of action can serve to resolve a difficulty of the type which has thus been designated as economic. the question must be deferred until a more detailed analysis of the economic judgment-process can be undertaken. it is enough for our present purpose to note that the subject of valuation in this process _is_ the means, and to see that under the typical conditions which have been described some further determination of the means than the merely physical one of their factual availability for the competing ends is needed.[113] physically and mechanically the means are available for each one of the ends or groups of ends in question; the pressing problem is to determine for which one of the ends, if any, or to what compromise or readjustment of certain of the ends or all of them, the means at hand are in an economic sense most properly available.[114] from this preliminary discussion of the ethical and economic situations we must now pass to discuss the objectivity of the judgments by which the agent meets the difficulties which such situations as these present. we shall seek to show that these judgments are constructive of an objective order of reality. it will be necessary in the first place to determine the psychological conditions of the more commonly recognized experience of objectivity in the restricted sphere of sense-perception. there might otherwise remain a certain antecedent presumption against the thesis which we wish to establish even after the direct argument had been presented.[115] iii common-sense and natural science certainly tend to identify the objectively real with the existent in space and time. the physical universe is held to be palpably real in a way in which nothing not presented in sensuous terms can be. to most minds doubtless it is difficult to understand why plato should have ascribed to the ideas a higher degree of reality than that possessed by the particular objects of sense-perception, and still more difficult to understand his ascription of real existence to such ideas as those of beauty, justice, and the good. there is a certain apparent stability in a universe presented in "immediate" sense-perception--a universe with which we are in constant bodily intercourse--that seems not to belong to a mere order of relations which, if known in any sense, is not known to us through the senses. moreover, knowledge of the physical world is felt to possess a higher degree of certainty than does any knowledge we can have of supposed economic or moral truth, or of economic or moral standards. of such knowledge one is disposed to say, as mr. spencer does of metaphysics, that at the best it presupposes a long and elaborate inferential process which, as long, is likely to be faulty; whereas physical truth is immediate or else, when inference is involved in it, easy to be tested by appeal to immediate facts. physical reality is a reality that can be seen and handled and felt as offering resistance, and this is evidence of objectivity of a sort not to be found in other spheres of knowledge for which the like claim is made. the force of these impressions (and it would not be difficult to find stronger statements in the history of scientific and ethical nominalism) diminishes if one tries to determine in what consists that objectivity which they uncritically assume as given in sense-perception. for one must recognize that not all our possible modes of sense-experience are equally concerned in the presentation of this perceived objective world. certain sensory "quales" are immediately referred to outward objects as belonging to them. certain others are, in a way, "inward," either not more definitely localized at all or merely localized in the sense-organ which mediates them. now, the reason for this difference cannot lie in the content of the various sense-qualities abstractly taken. a visual sensation, apart from the setting in which it occurs in common experience, can be no more objective in its reference--indeed, can have no more reference of any kind--than the least definite and instructive organic sensation. for the degree of distinctness with which one discriminates sense-qualities depends upon the number and importance of the interpretative associations which it is important from time to time to "connect" with them; or, conversely, the sense-qualities are not _self_-discriminating in virtue of an intrinsic objective reference or meaning which each possesses and which drives it apart from all the rest. indeed, an intrinsic meaning, if a sensation could possess one, would not only be superfluous in the development of knowledge, but, as likely to be mistaken for the acquired or functional meaning, even seriously confusing.[116] now, it must be granted that, if the "simple idea of sensation" is without objective reference, no association with it of similarly abstract sensations can supply the lack. a "movement" sensation, or a tactual, having in itself no such meaning, cannot merely by being "associated" with a similarly meaningless visual sensation endow this latter with reference to an object. objective reference is, in fact, not a sensuous thing; it is not a conscious "element," nor does it arise from any combination or fusion of such. it is neither _in_ the association of ideas as a constituent member, nor does it belong to the association considered as a sequence of psychical states. instead, in our present view, it belongs to or arises out of the activity through which and with reference to which associations are first of all established. it is an aspect or kind of reference or category under which any sense-quality or datum is apperceived when it is held apart from the stream of consciousness in order that it may receive new meaning as a stimulus; and a sensation functioning in such a "state of consciousness"[117] is a psychical phenomenon very different from the conscious element of "analytical" psychology. the extent to which it is true that the objective world of sense-perception is pre-eminently visual and tactual is then merely an evidence of the extent to which the exigencies of the life-process have required finer sense-discrimination for the sake of more refined reaction within these spheres as compared with others. our conclusion, then, must be that the consciousness of objectivity is not as such sensuous, even as given in our perception of the material world. the world, as viewed from the standpoint of a particular, practical emergency, is an objective world, not in virtue of its having a "sensuous" or a "material" aspect as something existent _per se_, but because it is a world of stimuli in course of definition for the guidance of activity.[118] it will be well to give further positive exposition of the meaning of the view thus stated. to return once more to our fundamental psychological conception, knowledge is essentially relevant to the solution of particular problems of more or less urgency and of various kinds and figures in the solution of such problems as the assemblage of consciously recognized symbols or stimuli by which various actions are suggested. the object as known is therefore not the same as the object as apprehended in other possible modes of being conscious of it. the workman who is actually using his tool in shaping his material, or the warrior who is actually using his weapon in the thick of combat, is, if conscious of these objects at all (and doubtless he may be conscious of them at such times), not conscious of them _as objects_--as the one might be, for example, in adjusting the tool for a particular kind of use, and the other in giving a keen edge to his blade. under these latter circumstances the tool or weapon is an _object_, and its observed condition, viewed in the light of a purpose of using the object in a certain way, is regarded as properly suggesting certain changes or improvements. and likewise will the tool or the weapon have an objective character in the agent's apprehension in the moment of identifying and selecting it from among a number of others, or even in the act of reaching for it, especially if it is inconveniently placed. but in the act of freely using one's objective means the category of the objective plays no part in consciousness, because at such times there is no judgment respecting the means--because there is no sufficient occasion for the isolation of certain conscious elements from the rest of the stream of conscious experience to be defined as stimuli to certain needed responses. such isolation will not normally take place so long as the reactions suggested by the conscious contents involved in the experience are fully adequate to the situation. objects are not normally held apart as such from the stream of consciousness in which they are presented and recognized as possessing qualities warranting certain modes of conduct, excepting as it has become necessary to the attainment of the agent's purposes to modify or reconstruct his activity.[119] are things, then, apprehended as objective in virtue of the agent's attitude toward them, or is the agent's attitude in a typical case grounded upon an antecedent determination of the objectivity of the things in question? we must answer, in the first place, that there can be no such antecedent determination. we may, it is true, speak of believing, on the evidence of sight or touch, that a certain object is really present before us. but neither sight nor touch possesses in itself, as a particular sense-quality, any objective meaning. if touch is _par excellence_ the sense of the objective and the appeal to touch the test of objectivity, this can only be because touch is the sense most closely and intimately connected in our experience with action. after any interval of hesitation and judgment, action begins with contact with and manipulation of the physical means which have been under investigation. not only is touch the proximate stimulus and guide to manipulation, but all relevant knowledge which has been gained in any judgment-process, through the other senses, and especially through sight, must ultimately be reducible to terms of touch or other contact sense. the alleged tactual evidence of objectivity is, then, rather a confirmation than a difficulty for our present view. in short, we must dismiss as impossible the hypothesis that there can be a consciousness of objectivity which is not dependent upon and an expression of primary antecedent tendencies toward motor response to the presented stimulus. it is our attitude toward the prospective stimulus that mediates the consciousness of an object standing over against us. so far, indeed, is it from being true that objectivity is a matter for special determination antecedently to action that by common testimony the conviction of objectivity comes to us quite irresistibly. the object forces itself upon us, as we say, and "whether we will or no" we must recognize its presence there before us and its independence of any choice of ours or of our knowledge. in the cautious manipulation of an instrument, in the laborious shaping of some refractory material, in the performance of any delicate or difficult task, one's sense of the objectivity of the thing with which one works is as obtrusive as remorse or grief, and as little to be shaken off. we shall revert to this suggested analogy at a later stage in our discussion. we are now in a position to define more precisely the nature of the conditions in which the sense of objectivity emerges, and this will bring us to the point at which the objective import of our economic and ethical judgments can profitably be discussed. we have said that the world of the physical is objective, not in virtue of the sensuous terms in which it is presented, but because it is a world of stimuli for the guidance of human conduct. under what circumstances, then, are we conscious of stimuli in their capacity of guides or incentives or grounds of conduct? and the answer must be that stimuli are interpreted as such, and so take on the character of objectivity, when their precise character as stimuli is still in doubt, and they must therefore receive further definition. for example, a man pursued by a wild beast must find some means of escape or defense, and, seeing a tree which he may climb or a stone which he may hurl, will inspect these as well as may be with reference to their fitness for the intended purpose. it is at just such moments as these, then, that physical things become things for knowledge and take on their stubbornly objective character--that is to say, when they are essentially problematic. now, in order that any physical thing may be thus problematic and so possess objective character for knowledge, it must (1) be in part understood, and so prompt certain more or less indiscriminate responses; and (2) be in part as yet not understood--in such wise that, while there are certain indefinite or unmeasured tendencies on the agent's part to respond to the object--climb the tree or hurl the stone--there is also a certain failure of complete unity in the co-ordination of these activities, a certain contradiction between different suggestions of conduct which different observed qualities of the tree or stone may give, and so hesitation and arrest of final action. the pursued man views the tree suspiciously before trusting himself to its doubtful strength, or weighs well the stone and tests its rough edges before pausing to throw it. thus, to state the matter negatively, there are two possible situations in which the sense of objectivity, if it emerge into consciousness at all, cannot long continue. an object---as, for example, some strange shrub or flower--which, in the case we are supposing, may attract the pursued wayfarer's notice, may awaken no responses relevant to the emergency in which the agent finds himself; and it will therefore forthwith lapse from consciousness. or, on the other hand, the object, as the tree or stone, may rightly or wrongly seem to the agent so completely satisfactory, or, rather, in effect may _be_ so, as instantly to prompt the action which otherwise would come, if at all, only after a period of more or less prolonged attention. in neither of these cases, then, is there a problematic object. in the one the thing in question is wholly apart from any present interest, and therefore lapses. in the other case the thing seen is comprehended on the instant with reference to its general use and merges immediately into the main stream of the agent's consciousness without having been an object of express attention. in neither case, therefore, is there hesitation with reference to the thing in question--any conflict between inconsiderate positive responses prompted by certain features of the object and inhibitions due to recognition of its shortcomings. in a word, in neither case is there any judgment or possibility of judgment, and hence no sense of objectivity. we can have consciousness of an object, in the strict sense of the term, only when some part or general aspect of the total situation confronting an agent excites or seems to warrant responses which must be held in check for further determination. in terms of consciousness, an object is always an object of attention--that is, an object which is under process of development and reconstruction with reference to an end. an inhibited impulse to react in a more or less definite way to a stimulus is, then, the adequate condition of the emergence in consciousness of the sense of objectivity. so long as an activity is proceeding without check or interruption, and no conflict develops between motor responses prompted by different parts or aspects of the situation, the agent's consciousness will not present the distinction of objective and subjective. the mode of being conscious which accompanies free and harmonious activity of this sort may be exemplified by such experiences as æsthetic appreciation, sensuous enjoyment, acquiescent absorption in pleasurable emotion, or even intellectual processes of the mechanical sort, such as easy computation or the solution of simple algebraic problems--processes in which no more serious difficulty is encountered than suffices to stimulate a moderate degree of interest. if, however, reverting to the illustration, our present need for a stone calls for some property which the stone we have seized appears to lack, consciousness must pass over into the reflective or attentive phase. the stone will now figure as an _object_ possessing certain qualities which render it in a general way relevant to the emergency before us. a needed quality is missing, and this defect must hold in check all the imminent responses until discovery of the missing quality can set them free. in a word, the stone as known to us has assumed the station of subject in a judgment-process, and our effort is, if possible, to assign to it a new predicate relevant to our present situation. psychologically speaking, the stone is an object, a stimulus to which we are endeavoring to find warrant for responding in some new or reconstructed way. in this process we must assume, then, first of all, an interest on the agent's part in the situation as a whole, which in the first place, in terms of the illustration, makes the pursued one note the tree or stone--which might otherwise have escaped his notice as completely as any passing cloud or falling leaf--and suggests what particular qualities or adaptabilities should be looked for in it. given this interest in "making something" out of the total situation as explaining the recognition of the stone and the impulse to seize and hurl it, we find the sense of the stone's objectivity emerging just in the arrest of the undiscriminating impulse. the stone must have a certain meaning as a stimulus first of all, but it must be a meaning not yet quite defined and certain of acceptance. the stone will be an _object_ only if, and so long as, the undiscriminating impulses suggested by these elements of meaning are held in check in order that they may be ordered, supplemented, or made more definite. it is, then, the essence of the present contention that physical things are _objective_ in our experience in virtue of their recognized inadequacy as means or incentives of action--an inadequacy which, in turn, is felt as such in so far as we are seeking to use them as means or grounds of conduct, or to avail ourselves of them as conditions, in coping with the general situation from which our attention has abstracted them. from this analysis of the conditions of the consciousness of objectivity we must now proceed to inquire whether in the typical ethical and economic situations, as they have been described, essentially these same conditions are present. in the ethical situation, according to our statement, the subject of the judgment (the object of attention) is the new end which has just been presented in imagination, and we have now to see that the agent's attitude toward this end is for our present purpose essentially the same as toward a physical object which is under scrutiny. for just as the physical object is such for consciousness because it is partly relevant (whether in the way of furthering or of hindering) to the agent's purpose, but as yet partly not understood from this point of view, so the imaged end may likewise be ambiguous. the agent's moral purpose may be the (very likely mythical) primitive one of which we read in "associational" discussions of the moral consciousness--that of avoiding punishment. it may be that of "imitative," sympathetic obedience to authority--a sentiment whose fundamental importance for ethical psychology has long remained without due recognition.[120] it may be loyalty to an ideal of conscience, or yet again a purpose of enlargement and development of personality. but on either supposition the compatibility of the end with the prevailing standard or principle of decision may be a matter of doubt and so call for judgment. the problem will, of course, be a problem in the full logical sense as involving judgment of the type described in our discussion of the ethical situation only when the attitudes of obedience to authority and to fixed ideals have been outgrown; but, on the other hand, as might be shown, it is just the inevitable increasing use of judgment with reference to these formulations of the moral life which gradually undermines them and, by a kind of "internal dialectic" of the moral consciousness, brings the agent to recognition as well as to more perfect practice of a logical or deliberative method. the end, then, is, in the typical ethical situation, an _object_ which one must determine by analysis and reconstruction as a means or condition of moral "integrity" and progress. it is, accordingly, in the second place, an object upon whose determination a definite activity of the agent is regarded by him as depending. just as in the physical judgment-process the object is set off over against the self and regarded as a given thing which, when once completely defined, will prompt certain movements of the body, so here the contemplated act is an object which, when fully defined in all its relevant psychological and sociological bearings, will prompt a definite act of rejection or acceptance by the self. now, it might be shown, as we believe, that the complete psychological and sociological definition of the course of conduct _is_ in truth the full explanation of the choice; there is no _separate_ reaction of the moral self to which the course of conduct is, as defined, an external stimulus. so also in the sphere of physical judgment complete definition passes over into action--or the appreciative mode of consciousness which accompanies action--without breach of continuity. but within the judgment-process in all its forms there is in the agent's apprehension this characteristic feature of apparent separation between the subject as an objective thing presently to be known and used or responded to, and the predicate as a response yet to be perfected in details, but at the right time, when one has proper warrant, to be set free. it is not our purpose here to speak of metaphysical interpretations or misinterpretations of this functional distinction; but only to argue from the presence of the distinction in the ethical type of judgment as in the physical as genuine an objectivity for the ethical type as can be ascribed to the other. the ethical judgment is objective in the sense that in it an object--an imaged mode of conduct taken as such--is presented for development to a degree of adequacy at which one can accept it or reject it as a mode of conduct. the ethical predicates right and wrong, good and bad, each pair representing a particular standpoint, as we shall later see, signify this accepting or rejecting movement of the self, this "act of will," of which, as an act in due time to be performed, the agent is more or less acutely conscious in the course of moral judgment. in the economic situation also, as above described, there is present the requisite condition of the consciousness of objectivity. here, as in the ethical situation, an object is presented which one must redetermine, and toward which one must presently act in a way likewise to be determined in detail in judgment. we shall defer until a later stage discussion of the reason why this subject of the economic judgment is the _means_ in the activity that is in progress. we are not yet ready to show that the means _must_ be the center of attention under the conditions which have been specified. here we need only note the fact of common experience that economic judgment does center upon the means, and show that in this fact is given the objective status of the means in the judgment-process; for the economic problem is essentially that of withdrawing a portion, a "marginal increment," of the means from some use or set of uses to which they are at present set apart, and applying it to the new end that has come to seem, on ethical grounds at least, desirable; and we may regard this diversion as the essentially economic act which, in the agent's apprehension during judgment, is contingent upon the determination of the means. the object as economic is accordingly the means, or a marginal portion of the means, which is to be thus diverted (or, so to speak, exposed to the likelihood of such diversion), and its determination must be of such a nature as to show the economic urgency, or at least the permissibility, of this diversion. into this determination, manifestly, the results of much auxiliary inquiry into physical properties of the means must enter--such properties, for example, as have to do with its technological fitness for its present use as compared with possible substitutes, and its adaptability for the new use proposed. taking the word in the broad sense of _object of thought_, it is always an object in space and time to which the economic judgment assigns an economic value; and it is true here (just the same is true, _mutatis mutandis_, of the psychological and sociological determinations necessary to the fixation of ethical value) that the _economically motivated_ physical determination of the objective means from the standpoint of the emergency in hand is the full "causal" explanation of the economic act. it must, however, be carefully observed that this physical determination is in the typical case altogether incidental, from the agent's standpoint, to the assignment of an economic character or value to the means--a value which will at the close of the judgment come to conscious recognition. as we shall see, the process is directed throughout by reference to economic principles and standards, and what shall be an adequate determination in the case depends upon the precision with which these are formulated and the strenuousness with which they are applied. in a word, the economic judgment assigns to the physical object, as known at the outset, a new non-physical character. throughout the judgment-process this character is gaining in distinctness, and at the end it is accepted as the value of the means, as warrant for the diversion of them to the new use which has been decided on.[121] we have now to consider whether in the actual ethical and economic experience of men there is any direct evidence confirming the conclusions which our logical analysis of the respective situations would appear to require. can any phases of the total experience of working out a satisfactory course of conduct in these typical emergencies be appealed to as actually showing at least some tacit recognition that these types of judgment present each one an order of reality or an aspect of the one reality? in the first place, then, one must recognize that in the agent's own apprehension a judgment of value has something more than a purely subjective meaning. it is never offered, by one who has taken the trouble to work it out more or less laboriously and then to express it in terms which are certainly objective, as a mere announcement of _de facto_ determination or a registration of arbitrary whim and caprice. one no more means to announce a groundless choice or a choice based upon pleasure felt in contemplation of the imaged end than in his judgments concerning the physical universe he means to affirm coexistences and sequences, agreements and disagreements, of "ideas" as psychical happenings. that there is an ethical or economic truth to which one can appeal in doubtful cases is, indeed, the tacit assumption in all criticism of another's deliberate conduct; the contrary assumption, that criticism is merely the opposition of one's own private prejudice or desire to the equally private prejudice or desire of another, would render all criticism and mutual discussion of ethical problems meaningless and futile in the plain man's apprehension as in the philosopher's. for the plain man has a spontaneous confidence in his knowledge of the material world which makes him look askance at any alleged analysis of his sense-perceptions and scientific judgments into "associations of ideas," and the same confidence, or something very like it, attaches to judgments of these other types. it may perhaps be easier (though the concession is a very doubtful one) to destroy a naïve confidence in the objectivity of moral truth than a like confidence in scientific knowledge, but it must be remembered that the plain man's sense of the urgency, at least of ethical problems, if not of economic, is commonly less acute than for the physical. in the plain man's experience serious moral problems are infrequent--problems of the true type, that is, which cannot be disposed of as mere cases of temptation; one must have attained a considerable capacity for sympathy and a considerable knowledge of social relations before either the recognition of such problems or proper understanding of their significance is possible. moral and economic crises are not vividly presented in sensuous imagery excepting in minds of developed intelligence, experience, and imaginative power; and the judgments reached in coping with them do not, as a rule, obviously call for nicely measured, calculated, and adjusted bodily movements. the immediate act of executing an important economic judgment may be a very commonplace performance, like the dictation of a letter, and an ethical decision may, however great its importance for future overt conduct, be expressed by no immediate visible movements of the body. but this possible difference of impressiveness between physical and other types of judgments is from our present standpoint unessential; and indeed, after all, it cannot be denied that there are persons whose sense of moral obligation is quite as distinct and influential, and even sensuously vivid, as their conviction of the real existence of an external world. to the average man it certainly is clear that, as dr. martineau declares, "it is an inversion of moral truth to say ... that honour is higher than appetite _because_ we feel it so; we feel it so because it _is_ so. this '_is_' we know to be not contingent on our apprehension, not to arise from our constitution of faculty, but to be a reality irrespective of us in adaptation to which our nature is constituted, and for the recognition of which the faculty is given."[122] and the impressiveness, to most minds, of likening the sublimity of the moral law to the visible splendor of the starry heavens would seem to suggest that the apprehension of moral truth is a mode of consciousness, in form at least, so far akin to sense-perception as to be capable of illustration and even reinforcement from that type of experience. at this point we must revert to a suggestion which presented itself above in another connection, but which at the time could not be further developed. this was, in a word, that there is often a feeling of _obtrusiveness_ in our appreciation of the objectivity of the things before us in ordinary sense-perception (or physical judgment) which is not unlike the felt insistence of remorse and grief.[123] this feeling is so conspicuous a feature of the state of consciousness in physical judgment as frequently to serve the plain man as his last and irrefragable evidence of the metaphysical independence of the material world, and it is indeed a feature whose explanation does throw much light upon the meaning of the consciousness of objectivity as a factor within experience. now, there is another common feeling--or, as we do not scruple to call it, another emotion--which is perhaps quite as often appealed to in this way; though, as we believe, never in quite the same connection in any argument in which the two experiences are called upon to do service to the same end. material objects, we are told, are _reliable_ and _stable_ as distinguished from the fleeting illusive images of a dream--they have a "solidity" in virtue of which one can "depend upon them," are "hard and fast" remaining faithfully where one deposits them for future use or, if they change and disappear, doing so in accordance with fixed laws which make the changes calculable in advance. the material realm is the realm of "solid fact" in which one can work with assurance that causes will infallibly produce their right and proper effects, and to which one willingly returns from the dream-world in which his adversary, the "idealist," would hold him spellbound. we propose now briefly to consider these two modes of apprehension of external physical reality in the light of the general analysis of judgment given above--from which it will appear that they are, psychologically, emotional expressions of what have been set forth as the essential features of the judgment-situation, whether in its physical, ethical, or economic forms. from this we shall argue that there should actually be in the ethical and economic spheres similar, or essentially identical, "emotions of reality," and we shall then proceed to verify the hypothesis by pointing to those ethical and economic experiences which answer the description. we have seen that the center of attention or subject in the judgment-process is as such problematic--in the sense that there are certain of its observed and recognized attributes which make it in some sense relevant and useful to the purpose in hand, while yet other of its attributes (or absences of certain attributes) suggest conflicting activities. the object which one sees is certainly a stone and of convenient size for hurling at the pursuing animal. the situation has been analyzed and found to demand a missile, and this demand has led to search for and recognition of a stone. the stone, however, may be of a color suggesting a soft and crumbling texture, or its form may appear from a distance to be such as to make it practically certain to miss the mark, however carefully it may be aimed and thrown. until these points of difficulty have been ascertained, the stone is wanting still in certain essential determinations. so far as it has been certainly determined, it prompts to the response directly suggested by one's general end of defense and escape, but there are these other indications which hold this response in check and which, if verified, will cause the stone to be let lie unused. now, we have, in this situation of conflict or tension between opposed incitements given by the various discriminated characters of the object, the explanation of the aspect of obtrusiveness, of arbitrary resistance to and independence of one's will, which for the time being seems the unmistakable mark or coefficient of the thing's objectivity. for it is not the object as a whole that is obtrusive; indeed, clearly, there could be no obtrusiveness on the part of an "object as a whole," and in such a case there could also be no judgment. the obtrusion in the case before us is not a sense of the energy of a recalcitrant metaphysical object put forth upon a coerced and helpless human will, but simply a conscious interpretation of the inhibition of certain of the agent's motor tendencies by certain others prompted by the object's "suspicious" and as yet undetermined appearances or possible attributes. the object as amenable to use--those of its qualities which taken by themselves are unquestionable and clearly conducive to the agent's purpose--needs no attention for the moment, let us say. the attention is rather upon the dubious and to all appearance unfavorable qualities, and these for the time being make up the sum and content of the agent's knowledge of the object. on the other hand, the agent as an active self is identified with the end and with those modes of response to the object which promise to contribute directly to its realization. it is in this direction that his interest is set and he strains with all his powers of mind to move, and it is upon the self as identified with, and for the time being expressed in, the "effort of the agent's will" that the object as resistant, refusing to be misconstrued, obtrudes. one _must_ see the object and _must_ acknowledge its apparent, or in the end its ascertained, unfitness. one is "coerced." the situation is one of conflict, and it is out of the conflict that the essentially emotional experience of "resistance" emerges.[124] the more special emotions of impatience, anger, or discouragement may in a given case not be present or may be suppressed, but the emotion of objectivity will still remain.[125] on the same general principles the other of our two coefficients of reality may be explained. let us assume that the stone in our illustration has at last been cleared of all ambiguity in its suggestion, having been taken as a missile, and that the man in flight now holds it ready awaiting the most favorable moment for hurling it at his pursuer. it will hardly be maintained that under these conditions the coefficient of the stone's reality as an object consists in its obtrusiveness, in its resistance to or coercion of the self. the stone is now regarded as a fixed and determinate feature of the situation--a condition which can be counted on, whatever else may fail. over against other still uncertain aspects of the situation (which are now in _their_ turn real because resistant, coercive, and obtrusive) stands the stone as a reassuring fact upon and about which the agent can build up the whole plan of conduct which may, if all goes well, bring him safely out of his predicament. the stone has, so to speak, passed over to the "end" side of the situation, and although it may have to be rejected for some other means of defense, as the definition of the situation proceeds and the plan of action accordingly changes (as in some degree it probably must), nevertheless for the time being the imaged activities as stimulus to which the stone is now accepted are a fixed part of the plan and guide in further judgment of the means still undefined. the agent can hardly recur to the stone, when, after attending for a time to the bewildering perplexities of the situation, he pauses once more to take an inventory of his certain resources, without something of an emotional thrill of assurance and encouragement. in this emotional appreciation of the "solidity" and "dependability" of the object the second of our coefficients of reality consists. this might be termed the recognition, the other the perception, coefficient. classifying them as emotions, because both are phenomena of tension in activity, we should group the perception coefficient with emotions of the contraction type, like grief and anger, and the recognition coefficient with the expansion emotions, like joy and triumph. now, in the foregoing interpretation no reference has been made to any conditions peculiar to the physical type of judgment-situation. the ground of explanation has been the feature of arrest of activity for the sake of reconstruction, and this, if our analyses have been correct, is the essence of the ethical and economic situations as well as of the physical. can there then be found in these two spheres experiences of the same nature and emerging under the same general conditions as our perception and recognition coefficients of reality? if so, then our case for the objective significance and value of ethical and economic judgment is in so far strengthened. (1) in the first place, then, the object in its economic character is problematic, assuming a desire on the agent's part to apply it, as means, to some new or freshly interesting end, because it has already been, and accordingly now is, set apart for other uses and cannot thoughtlessly be withdrawn from them. extended illustration is not needed to remind one that these established and hitherto unquestioned uses will haunt the economic conscience as obtrusively and inhibit the desired course of economic conduct with as much energy of resistance as in the other case will any of the contrary promptings of a physical object. moreover, the recognition coefficient may as easily be identified in this connection. if one's scruples gain the day, in such a case one has at least a sense of comforting assurance in the conservatism of his choice and its accordance with the facts, however unreconciled in another way one may be to the deprivation that has thus seemed to be necessary. if, however, the new end in a measure makes good its case and the modes of expenditure which the "scruples" represented have been readjusted in accordance with it, then the means, no less than before the new interpretation had been placed upon them, will enjoy the status of reality in the economic sense. they will be real now, however, not in the obtrusive way, as presenting aspects which inhibit the leading tendency in the judgment-process, but, instead, as means having a fixed and certain character in one's economic life, which, after the hesitation and doubt just now superseded, one may safely count upon and will do well to keep in view henceforth. (2) in the second place, mere mention of the corresponding ethical experiences must suffice, since only extended illustration from literature and life would be fully adequate: on the one hand, the "still small voice" of conscience or the authoritativeness of duty, "stern daughter of the voice of god;" and, on the other, the restful assurance with which, from the vantage-ground of a satisfying decision, one may look back in wonder at the possibility of so serious a temptation or in rejoicing over the new-won freedom from a burdensome and repressive prejudice. this must for the present serve as positive exposition of our view as to the objective significance of the valuational types of judgment. there are certain essential points which have as yet not been touched upon, and there are certain objections to the general view the consideration of which will serve further to explain it; but the discussion of these various matters will more conveniently follow the special analysis of the valuational judgments, to which we shall now proceed. iv in the last analysis the ultimate motive of all reflective thought is the progressive determination of the ends of conduct. physical judgment, or, in psychological terms, reflective attention to objects in the physical world, is at every turn directed and controlled by reference to a gradually developing purpose, so that the process may also be described as one of bringing to fulness of definition an at first vaguely conceived purpose through ascertainment and determination of the means at hand. the problematic situation in which reflection takes its rise inevitably develops in this two-sided way into consciousness of a definite end on the one side, and of the means or conditions of attaining it on the other. it has been shown that there _may_ be involved in any finally satisfactory determination of a situation an explicit reflection upon and definition of the controlling end which is present and gives point and direction to the physical determination. but very often such is not the case. when a child sees a bright object at a distance and makes toward it, availing himself more or less skilfully of such assistance as intervening articles of furniture may afford, there is of course no consciousness on his part of any definite purpose as such, and this is to say that the child does not subject his conduct to criticism from the standpoint of the value or its ends. there is simply strong desire for the distant red ball, controlling all the child's movements for the time being and prompting a more or less critical inspection of the intervening territory with reference to the easiest way of crossing it. the purpose is implicitly accepted, not explicitly determined, as a preliminary to physical determination of the situation. if one may speak of a development of the purpose in such a case as this, one must say that the development into details comes through judgment of the environing conditions. to change the illustration in order not to commit ourselves to the ascription of too developed a faculty of judgment to the child, this is true likewise of any process of reflective attention in the mind of an adult in which a general purpose is accepted at the outset and is carried through to execution without reflection upon its ethical or economic character as a purpose. the specific purpose as executed is certainly not the same as the general purpose with which the reflective process took its rise. it is filled out with details, or may perhaps even be quite different in its general outlines. there has necessarily been development and perhaps even transformation, but our contention is that all this has been effected in and through a process of judgment in which the conditions of action, and not the purpose itself, have been the immediate objects of determination. upon these the attention has been centered, though of course the attention was directed to them by the purpose. to state the case in logical terms, it has been only through selection and determination of the means and conditions of action from the standpoint of predicates suggested by the general purpose accepted at the outset that this purpose itself had been rendered definite and practical and possible of execution. probably such cases are seldom to be found in the adult experience. as a rule, the course of physical or technological judgment will almost always bring to light implications involved in the accepted purpose which must inevitably raise ethical and economic questions; and the resolution of these latter will in turn afford new points of view for further physical determination of the situation. in such processes the logical points of the problem of ethical and economic valuation come clearly into view. in our earlier account of the matter it was more convenient to use language which implied that ethical and economic judgment must be preceded by implicit or explicit acceptance of a definite situation presented in sense-perception, and that these evaluating judgments could be carried through to their goal only upon the basis of such an inventory of fixed conditions. thus the ultimate ethical quality of the general purpose of building a house would seem to depend upon the precise form which this purpose comes to assume after the actual presence and the quality of the means of building have been ascertained and the economic bearings of the proposed expenditure have been considered. surely it is a waste of effort to debate with oneself upon the ethical rightness of a project which is physically impossible or else out of the question from the economic point of view. we are, however, now in a position to see that this way of looking at the matter is both inaccurate and self-contradictory. in the actual development of our purposes there is no such orderly and inflexible arrangement of stages; and if it is a waste of effort to deliberate upon a purpose that is physically impossible, it may, with still greater force, be argued that we cannot find, and judge the fitness of, the necessary physical means until we know what, precisely, it is that we wish to do. the truth is that there is constant interplay and interaction between the various phases of the inclusive judgment-process, or rather, more than this, that there is a complete and thoroughgoing mutual implication. it is indeed true that our ethical purposes cannot take form in a vacuum apart from consideration of their physical and economic possibility, but it is also true that our physical and economic problems are ultimately meaningless and impossible, whether of statement or of solution, except as they are interpreted as arising in the course of ethical conflict. we have, then, to do, in the present division, with situations in which, whether at the outset or from time to time during the course of the reflective process, there is explicit conflict between ends of conduct. these situations are the special province of the judgment of valuation. our line of argument may be briefly indicated in advance as follows: 1. the judgment of valuation, whether expressed in terms of the individual experience or in terms of social evolution, is essentially the process of the explicit and deliberate resolution of conflict between ends. as an incidental, though nearly always indispensable, step to the final resolution of such conflict, physical judgment, or, in general, the judgment of fact or existence, plays its part, this part being to define the situation in terms of the means necessary for the execution of the end that is gradually taking form. the two modes of judgment mutually incite and control each other, and neither could continue to any useful purpose without this incitement and control of the other. both modes of judgment are objective in content and significance. at the end of the reflective process and immediately upon the verge of execution of the end or purpose which has taken form the result may be stated or apprehended in either of two ways: (1) directly, in terms of the end, and (2) indirectly, in terms of the ordered system of existent means which have been discovered, determined, and arranged. if such final survey of the result be taken by way of preparation for action, or for whatever reason, the end will be apprehended as possessing ethical value and the means, under conditions later to be specified, as possessing economic value. 2. what then is the nature and source of this apprehension of end or means as valuable? the consciousness of end or means as valuable is an emotional consciousness expressive of the agent's practical attitude as determined in the just completed judgment of ethical or economic valuation and arising in consequence of the inhibition placed upon the activities which constitute the attitude by the effort of apprehending or imaging the valued object. ethical and economic value are thus strictly correlative; psychologically they are emotional incidents of apprehending in the two respective ways just indicated the same total result of the inclusive complex judgment-process. finally, as the moment of action comes on, the consciousness of the ethically valued end lapses first; then the consciousness of economic value is lost in a purely "physical," _i. e._, technological, consciousness of the means and their properties and interrelations in the ordered system which has been arranged; and this finally merges into the immediate and undifferentiated consciousness of activity as use of the means becomes sure and unhesitating. when we say that the ends which oppose each other in an ethical situation (that is, a situation for the time being seen in an ethical aspect) are related, and the ends in an economic situation are not, we by no means wish to imply that in the one case we have in this fact of relatedness a satisfactory solution at hand which is wanting in the other. to feel, for example, that there is a direct and inherent relationship between a cherished purpose of self-culture and an ideal of social service which seems now to require the abandonment of the purpose does not mean that one yet knows just _how_ the two ends should be related in his life henceforth; and again, to say that one can see no inherent relation between a desire for books and pictures and the need of food, excepting in so far as both ends depend for their realization upon a limited supply of means, is not to say that the issue of the conflict is not of ethical significance. such a view as we here reject would amount to a denial of the possibility of genuinely problematic ethical situations[126] and would accord with the opinion that economic judgment as such lies apart from the sphere of ethics and is at most subject only to occasional revision and control in the light of ethical considerations. by the relatedness of the ends in a situation we mean the fact, more or less explicitly recognized by the agent, that the new, and as yet undefined, purpose which has arisen belongs in the same system with the end, or group of ends, which the standard inhibiting immediate action represents. the standard inhibits action in obedience to the impulse that has come to consciousness, and the image of the new end is, on its part, definite and impressive enough to inhibit action in obedience to the standard. the relatedness of the two factors is shown in a practical way by the fact that, in the first instance at least, they are tacitly expected to work out their own adjustment. by the process already described in outline, subject and predicate begin to develop and thereby to approach each other, and a provisional or partial solution of the problem may thus be reached without resort to any other method than that of direct comparison and adjustment of the ends involved on either side. the standard which has been called in question has enough of congruence with the new imaged purpose to admit of at least some progress toward a solution through this method. we can best come to an understanding of this recognition of the relatedness of the ends in ethical valuation by pausing to examine somewhat carefully into the conditions involved in the acceptance or reflective acknowledgment of a defined end of conduct as being one's own. any new end in coming to consciousness encounters some more or less firmly established habit represented in consciousness by a sign or symbolic image of some sort, the habit being itself the outcome of past judgment-process. our present problem is the significance of the agent's recognition of a relatedness between his new impulsive end and the end which represents the habit, and we shall best approach its solution by considering the various factors and conditions involved in the agent's conscious recognition of the established end as being such. in any determinate end there is inevitably implied a number of groups of factual judgments in which are presented the objective conditions under which execution of the end or purpose must take place. there is in the first place a general view of environing conditions, physical and social, presented in a group of judgments (1) descriptive of the means at hand, of the topography of the region in which the purpose is to be carried out, of climatic conditions, and the like, and (2) descriptive of the habits of thought and feeling of the people with whom one is to deal, their prejudices, their tastes, and their institutions. the project decided on may, let us say, be an individual or a national enterprise, whether philanthropic or commercial, which is to be launched in a distant country peopled by partly civilized races. in addition to these groups of judgments upon the physical and sociological conditions under which the work must proceed, there will also be a more or less adequate and impartial knowledge of one's own physical and mental fitness for the enterprise, since the work as projected may promise to tax one's physical powers severely and to require, for its successful conduct, large measure of industry, devotion, patience, and wisdom. indeed any determinate purpose whatever inevitably implies a more or less varied and comprehensive inventory of conditions. further illustration is not necessary for our present purpose. we may say that in a general way the conditions relevant to a practical purpose will group themselves naturally under four heads of classification, as physical, sociological, physiological, and psychological. all four classes are objective, though the last two embrace conditions peculiar to the agent as an individual over against the environment to which for purposes of his present activity he stands in a sense opposed. now our present interest is not so much in the enumeration and classification of possible relevant conditions in a typical situation as in the significance of these relevant conditions in the agent's apprehension of them. perhaps this significance cannot better be described than by saying that essentially and impressively the conditions are apprehended as, taken together, _warranting_ the purpose that has been determined. we appeal, in support of this account of the matter, to an impartial introspection of the way in which the means and conditions of action stand related to the formed purpose in the moment of survey of a situation. the various details presented in the survey of a situation are apprehended, not as bare facts such as one might find set down in a scientist's notebook, but as warranting--as closely, uniquely, and vitally relevant to--the action that is about to be taken. this, as we believe, is a fair account of the situation in even the commoner and simpler emergencies that confront the ordinary man. quite conspicuously is it true of cases in which the purpose is a purely technological one that has been worked out with considerable difficulty and is therefore not executed until after a somewhat careful survey of conditions has been taken. it is often true likewise in cases of express ethical judgment; if the ethical phases of the reflective process have not been excessively long and difficult, our definite sense of the ethical value of the act we are about to do lapses quite easily, and the factual aspects and features of the situation as given in one or more of the four classes which we have distinguished take on an access of significance in their character of warranting, confirming, or even compelling the act determined upon. of our ordinary sense-perception in the moments of its actual functioning no less than of conscience in its aspect of a moral perceptive faculty are the words of bishop butler sensibly true that "to preside and govern, from the very economy and constitution of man, belongs to it."[127] i even in cases of more serious moral difficulty this sanctioning aspect of the means and conditions of action is not overshadowed. if the situation is one in which by reason of their complexity these play a conspicuous rôle and must be surveyed, by way of preparation on the agents' part, for performance of the act, they inevitably assume, for the agent, their proper functional character. in general, the conditions presented in the system of factual judgments have a certain "rightful authority" which they seem to lend to the purpose or end with reference to which they were worked out to their present degree of factual detail. the conditions can thus seem to sanction the end because conditions and end have been worked out together. gradual development on the one side prompts analytical inquiry upon the other and is in turn directed and advanced by the results of this inquiry. in the end the result may be read off either in terms of end or in terms of conditions and means.[128] the two readings must be in accord and the agent's apprehension of the conditions as warrant for the end is expression in consciousness of this "agreement."[129] now in this mode of apprehension of factual conditions there is a highly important logical implication--an implication which inevitably comes more and more clearly into view with the continued exercise of judgment, even though the agent's habit of interest in the scrutiny of perplexing situations may still remain, by reason of the want of trained capacity for a broader view, limited in its range quite strictly to the physical sphere. this implication is, we shall declare at once, that of an endeavoring, striving, active principle or self which can be helped or hindered in its unfolding by particular purposes and sets of corresponding conditions--can lose or gain, through devotion to particular purposes, in the breadth, fulness, and energy of its life. the agent's apprehension of and reference to this active principle of course varies in all degrees of explicitness, according to circumstances, from the vague awareness that is present in a simple case of physical judgment to the clear recognition and endeavor at definition that are characteristic of serious ethical crises. that the situation should develop and bring to light this factor is what should be expected on general grounds of logic--for to say that a set of conditions warrants or sanctions or confirms a given purpose implies that our purposes can stand in need of warrant, and this would seem to be impossible apart from reference to a process whose maintenance and development in and through our purposes are assumed as being as a matter of course desirable. it is of the essence of our contention that the apprehension of the conditions of action as _warranting the end_ is a primordial and necessary feature of the situation--indeed, its constitutive feature. if our concern were with the psychological development of self-consciousness as a phase of reflective experience, we should endeavor to show that this development is mediated in the first instance by the "subjective" phenomena of feeling, emotion, and desire which find their place _in the course_ of the judgment-process. we should then hold that, with the _conclusion_ of the judgment-process and the accompanying sense of the known conditions as reassuring and confirmatory of the end, comes the earliest possibility of a discriminative recognition of the self as having been all along a necessary factor in the process. we should hold that outside of the _process_ of reflective attention there can be no psychical or "elementary" _beginnings_ of self-consciousness, and then that, except as a development out of the experience to which we have referred as marking the _conclusion_ of the attentive process, there can be no recognized specific and in any degree definable consciousness of self. all this, however, lies rather beside our present purpose. we wish simply to insist that it is out of the apprehension of conditions as reassuring and confirmatory, out of this "primordial germ," that the agent's definite recognition of himself as a center of development and expenditure of energy takes its rise. here are the beginnings of the possibility of self-conscious ethical and economic valuation. this apprehension of the means as _warranting_ is, we have held, a fact even when the means surveyed are wholly of the physical sort, and we have thereby implied that consciousness of the self as "energetic" may take its rise in situations of this type or during the physical stage in the development of a more complex total situation. it would be an interesting speculation to consider to what extent and in what way the development of the sciences of sociology and physiology may have been essentially facilitated by the emergence of this form of self-consciousness. but however the case may stand with these sciences or with the rise of real interest in them in the mind of a given individual, interest in the objective psychological conditions of a contemplated act is certainly very closely dependent upon interest in that subjective self which one has learned to know through the past exercise of judgment in definition and contemplation of conditions of the three other kinds. the more diversified and complex the array of physical and social conditions with reference to which one is to act, the more important becomes not simply a clearly articulated knowledge of these, but also a knowledge of oneself. the self that is warranted in its purpose by the surveyed conditions must hold itself in a steady and consistent attitude during the performance on pain of "falling short of its opportunity" and thereby rendering nugatory the reflective process in which the purpose was worked out. experience abundantly shows how easily the assurance that comes with the survey of conditions may come to grief, though there may have been on the side of the conditions, so far as defined, no visible change; and in so far as self-consciousness has already emerged as a distinguishable factor in such situations, failures of the sort we here refer to are the more easily identified and interpreted. some sudden impulse may have broken in upon the execution of the chosen purpose; there may have been an unexpected shift of interest away from that general phase of life which the purpose represented; or in any one of a number of other ways may have come about a wavering and a slackening in the resolution which marked the commencement of action. the "energetic" self forthwith (if we may so express it) recognizes that the sanction which the conditions so far as then known gave to its purpose was a misleading because an incomplete one, and it proceeds to develop within itself a new range of objective fact in which may be worked out the explanation, and thereby a method of control, of these new disturbing phenomena. the qualities of patience under disappointment, courage in encountering resistance, steadiness and self-control in sustained and difficult effort--these qualities and others of like nature come to be discriminated from each other by introspective analysis and may be as accurately measured, and in general as objectively studied, as any of the conditions to a saving knowledge and respect of which one may already have attained, and these newly determined psychological conditions will henceforth play the same part in affording sanction to one's purposes as do the rest. an ordered system of psychological categories or points of view comes to be developed, and an accurate statement of conditions of personal disposition and capacity relevant to each emergency as it arises will hereafter be worked out--over against and in tension with one's gradually forming purposes in like manner as are statements of all the other relevant objective aspects of the situation.[130] in the "energetic" self, we shall now seek to show, we have the common and essential principle of both ethical and economic valuation which marks these off from other and subordinate types of judgment. let us determine as definitely as possible the nature and function of this principle. the recognition of the chosen purpose as one favorable or otherwise to the self, and so the recognition of the self as capable of furtherance or retardation by its chosen purposes, is not always a feature of the state of mind which may ensue upon completed judgment. in the commoner situations of the everyday life of normal persons, as practically always in the lives of persons of relatively undeveloped reflective powers, it is quite wanting as a separate distinguished phase of the experience. in such cases it is present, if present at all, merely as the vaguely felt implicit meaning of the recognition that the known conditions sanction and confirm the purpose. such situations yield easily to attack and threaten none of those dangers, none of those possible occasions for regret or remorse, of which complex situations make the person of developed reflective capacity and long experience so keenly apprehensive. they are disposed of with comparatively little of conscious reconstruction on either the subject or the predicate side, and when a conclusion has been reached the agent's recognition of the conditions carries with it the comfortable though too often delusive assurance of the complete and perfect eligibility of the purpose. if the question of eligibility is raised at all, the answer is given on the tacit principle that "whatever purpose is, is right." to the "plain man," and to all of us on certain sides of our lives, every purpose for which the requisite means and factual conditions are found to be at hand is, just as our purpose, therefore right. the same experience of failure and disappointment which proves our purpose to have been, from the standpoint of enlargement and enrichment of the self, a mistaken one brings a clearer consciousness of the logic implicit in our first confident belief in the purpose, and at the same time emphasizes the need of making this logic explicit. the purpose, as warranted to us by the conditions and assembled means that lay before us, was our own, and _as our own_ was implicitly a purpose of furtherance of the self. the disappointment that has come brings this implication more clearly into view, and likewise the need of methodical procedure, not as before in the determination of _conditions_, but in the determination of purposes as such; for the essence of the situation is that the _execution_ of the purpose has brought to light some unforeseen consequence now recognized as having been all the while in the nature of things involved in the purpose. this consequence or group of consequences consists (in general terms) in the abatement or arrest of desirable modes of activity which find their motivation elsewhere in the agent's system of accepted ends, and it is registered in consciousness in that sense of restriction or repression from without which is a notable phase of all emotional experience, particularly in its early stages. the consequences are as undesirable as they are unexpected, and the reaction against them, at first emotional, presently passes over into the form of a reflective interpretation of the situation to the effect that the self has suffered a loss by reason of its thoughtless haste in identifying itself with so unsafe a purpose.[131] it is the essential logical function of the consciousness of self to stimulate the valuation processes which take their rise in the stage of reflective thought thus attained. the consciousness of self is a peculiarly baffling theme for discussion from whatever point of view, because one finds its meaning shifting constantly between the two extremes of a subjectivity to which "all objects of all thought" are external and an objective thing or system of energies which is known just as other things are--known in a sense by itself, to be sure, but _known_ nevertheless, and thought of as an object standing in possible relations to other objects. now, it is of the subjective self that we are speaking when we say that its essential function is the stimulation or incitement of the valuation processes, but manifestly in order to serve thus it must nevertheless be presented in some sort of sensuous imagery. the subjective self may, in fact, be thought of in many ways--presented in many different sorts of imagery--but in all its forms it must be distinguished carefully from that objective self which, as described in psychology, is the assemblage of conditions under which the subjective or "energetic" self works out its purposes. it may be the pale, attenuated double of the body, or a personal being standing in need of deliverance from sin, or an atom of soul-substance, or, in our present terminology, a center of developing and unfolding energy. the significant fact is that, however different in content and in motive these various presentations of the subjective self may be, they are, one and all, as presentations and as in so far objective, stimuli to some definite response. the savage warrior deposits his double in a tree or stone for safety while he goes into battle; the self that is to be saved from sin is a self that prompts certain acceptable acts in satisfaction of the quasi-legal obligations that the fact of sin has laid upon the agent. the presented self, whatever the form it may assume as presentation, has its function, and this function is in general that of stimulus to the conservation and increase, in some sense, of the self that is not presented, but for whom the presentation is. now our own present description of the self as "energetic," as a center or source of developing and unfolding energy is in its way a presentation. it consists of sensuous imagery and suggests a mechanical process, or the growth of a plant perhaps, which if properly safeguarded will go on satisfactorily--a process which one must not allow to be perturbed or hindered by external resistance or internal friction or to run down. to many persons doubtless such an account would seem arbitrary and fantastic in the extreme, but no great importance need be attached to its details. the kind and number and sensuous vividness of the details in which this essential content of presentation may be clothed must of course depend, for each person, upon his psychical idiosyncrasy. indeed, as the habit of reflection upon purposes comes to be more firmly fixed, and the procedure of valuation to be consciously methodical and orderly, the sensuous content of the presented self must grow constantly more and more attenuated until it has declined into a mere unexpressed principle or maxim or tacit presumption, prescribing the free and impartial application of the method of valuation to particular practical emergencies as these arise. for a self, consisting of presented content of whatever sort, which one seeks to further through attentive deliberation upon concrete purposes, must, just in so far as it has _content_, determine the outcome of ethical judgment in definite ways. thus the soul that must be saved from sin (if this be the content of the presented self) is one that has transgressed the law in certain ways and the right relations that should subsist between creature and creator, and has thereby incurred a more or less technically definable guilt. this guilt can only be removed and the self rehabilitated in its normal relations to the law by an appropriate response to the situation--by a choice on the agent's part, first, of a certain technical procedure of repentance, and then of a settled purpose of living as the law prescribes.[132] so also our own image of the self as "energetic" after the manner of a growing organism may well seem, if taken too seriously as to its presentational details, to foster a bias in favor of over-conservative adherence to the established and the accredited as such.[133] the argument of the last few paragraphs may be restated in the following way in terms of the evolution of the individual's moral attitude or technique of self-control: 1. in the stage of moral evolution in which custom and authority are the controlling principles of conduct, moral judgment in the proper sense of self-conscious, critical, and reconstructive valuation of purposes is wanting. such judgment as finds here a place is at best of the merely casuistical type, looking to a determination of particular cases as falling within the scope of fixed and definite concepts. there is no self-consciousness except such as may be mediated by the sentiment of willing obedience. it is, at this stage, not the _particular sort_ of conduct which the law prescribes that in the agent's apprehension enlarges and develops the self; so far as any thought of enlargement and development of the self plays a part in influencing conduct, these effects are such as, in the agent's trusting faith, will come from an entire and willing acceptance of the law as such. "if any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine." moreover, the stage of custom and authority goes along with, in social evolution, either very simple social conditions or else conditions which, though very complex, are stable, so that in either case the conditions of conduct are in general in harmony with the conduct which custom and authority prescribe. the law, therefore, can be absolute and takes no account of possible inability to obey. the divine justice punishes infraction of the law simply as objective infraction; not as sin, in proportion to the sinner's responsibility. 2. but inevitably custom and authority come to be inadequate. as social conditions change, custom becomes antiquated and authority blunders, wavers, contradicts itself in the endeavor to prescribe suitable modes of individual conduct. obedience no longer is the way to light. the self becomes self-conscious through feeling more and more the repression and the misdirection of its energies that obedience now involves. this is the stage of subjective morality or conscience; and the rise of conscience, the attitude of appeal to conscience, means the beginning of endeavor at _methodical solution_ of those new problematic situations in the attempt to deal with which authority as such has palpably collapsed. we say, however, that conscience is the _beginning_ of this endeavor; for conscience is, in fact, an ambiguous and essentially transitional phenomenon. on the one hand conscience is the inner nature of a man speaking within him, and so the self furthers its own growth in listening to this expression of itself. in this aspect conscience is methodological. but on the other hand conscience _speaks_, and, speaking, must say something determinate, however general this something may be. in this aspect conscience is a _résumé_ of the _generic_ values realized under the system of custom and authority, but to the present continued attainment of which the _particular prescriptions_ of custom and authority are no longer adequate guides. conscience is thus at once an inward prompting to the application of logical method to the case in hand and a body of general or specific rules under some one of which the case can be subsumed. in ethical theory we accordingly find no unanimity as to the nature of conscience. at the one extreme it is the voice of god speaking in us or through us, in detailed and specific terms--and so, virtually, custom and authority in disguise. at the other it is an empty abstract intuition that the right is binding upon us--and, so, simply the hypostasis of demand for a logical procedure. the history of ethics presents us with all possible intermediate conceptions in which these extreme motives are more or less skilfully interwoven or combined in varying proportions. the truth is that conscience is essentially a transitional conception, and so necessarily looks before and after. in one of its aspects it is a self which has come to miss (and therefore to image for itself) the values and, it may be, a certain dawning sense of vitality and growth which obedience to authority once afforded.[134] in its other aspect it is a self that is looking forward in a self-reliant way to the determination on its own account of its purposes and values. and finally, as for the environing world of means and conditions, clearly this is not necessarily harmonious with and amenable to conscience; indeed, in the nature of things it can be only partially so. the morality of conscience is, therefore, either mystical, a morality that seeks to escape the world in the very moment of its affirmation that the world is unreal (because worthless), or else it takes refuge in a virtual distinction between "absolute" and "relative" morality (to borrow a terminology from a system in which properly it should have no place), perhaps setting up as an intermediary between heaven and earth a machinery of special dispensation.[135] 3. conscience professes in general, that is, to be autonomous, and the profession is, strictly speaking, a contradiction in terms. moreover, apart from considerations of the logic of the situation, theories of conscience have, as a matter of fact, always lent themselves kindly to theological purposes just as the theory of self-realization in its classic modern statement rests upon a metaphysical doctrine of the absolute.[136] inevitably the movement concealed within this essentially unstable conception must have its legitimate outcome (1) in a clearing of the presented self of its fixed elements of content, thus setting it free in its character of a non-presentational principle of valuation, and (2) a setting apart of these elements of content from the principle of valuation as standards for reference and consultation rather than as law to be obeyed. we have thus correlated our account of the logic whereby the "energetic" self comes to explicit recognition as stimulus to the valuation-process with the three main stages in the moral evolution of the individual and the race. we were brought to this first-mentioned part of our discussion by our endeavor to find out the factors involved in the first acceptance of a conscious purpose (or, indifferently, the subsequent recognition of it as a standard)--an endeavor prompted by the need of distinguishing, with a view to their special analysis, the two types of valuation-process. we now return to this problem. the following illustration will serve our present undertaking: a lawyer or man of business is struck by the great need of honest men in public office, or has had his attention in some impressive way called to the fact of great inequality in the present distribution of wealth, and to the diverse evils resulting therefrom. these facts hold his attention, perhaps against his will, and at last suggest the thought of his making some personal endeavor toward improvement of conditions, political or social, as the case may be. on the other hand, however, the man has before him the promise of a successful or even brilliant career in his chosen occupation, and is already in the enjoyment of a substantial income, which is rapidly increasing. moreover, he has a family growing up about him, and he is not simply strongly interested in the early training and development of his children, and desirous of having himself some share in conducting it, but he sees that the suitable higher education of his children will in a few years make heavy demands upon his pecuniary means. here, then, we have a situation the analysis of which will enable us to distinguish and define the provinces of ethical and economic judgment. it is easy to see that we have here a conflict between ends. on the one side is the thought of public service in some important office or, let us say, the thought of bettering society in a more fundamental way by joining the propaganda of some proposed social reform. this end rests upon certain social impulses in the man's nature and appeals to him as strongly, we may fairly assume, as would any purpose of immediate self-interest or self-indulgence, so that it stands before him and urges him with an insistent pertinacity that at first even puts him on his guard against it as a temptation. over against this concrete end or subject of moral valuation stand other ends comprehended or symbolized in the ideals of regular and steady industry, of material provision for family, of paternal duty toward children, of scholarly achievement as lawyer or judge, and the like--ideals which are indeed practical and personal, but which, as they now function, are general or universal in character, are lacking in the concreteness and emotional quality which belong to the new purpose which has just come to imagination and has brought these ideals into action on the predicate side. will this life of social agitation really be quite "respectable," and befitting the character of a sober and industrious man? will it enable me to support and educate my family? will it permit me to devote sufficient attention to their present care and training? and will it not so warp my nature, so narrow and concentrate my interests, as in a measure to disqualify me for the right exercise of paternal authority over them in years to come? moreover, will not a life of agitation, of constant intercourse with minds and natures in many ways inferior to my own and those of my present professional associates, lower my intellectual and moral standards, and so make of me in the end a less useful member of society than i am at present? these and other questions like them present the issue in its earlier aspect. presently, however, the tentative purpose puts in its defense, appealing to yet other recognized ideals or standards of self-sacrifice, benevolence, or social justice as witnesses in its favor. the conflict thus takes on the subject-predicate form, as has already been explained. on the one hand we have the undefined but strongly insistent concrete purpose; on the other hand we have a number of symbolic concepts or universals standing for accepted and accredited habitual modes of conduct. the problem is that of working the two sides of the situation together into a unified and harmonious plan of conduct which shall be at once concrete and particular, as a plan chosen by way of solution of a given present emergency, and universal, as having due regard for past modes of conduct, and as itself worthy of consideration in coping with future emergencies. now, how shall we discriminate the ethical and the economic aspects of the situation which we have described? we shall most satisfactorily do this through a consideration of the various sorts of conditions and means of which account must be taken in working the situation through to a solution, or (to express it more accurately) the various sorts of conditions and means which need to be defined over against the purpose as the purpose gradually develops into detailed form. we may say, first of all, that there are _psychological_ conditions which must be taken into consideration in the case before us. our thesis is that in so far as a situation gives rise to the determination of psychological conditions and is advanced along the way toward final solution through determination of these, the situation is an ethical one. in other words, we hold that the ends at issue in the situation are "related" in so far as they depend upon the same set of psychological conditions. in so far as these statements are not true of the situation there must be a resort to economic judgment. by the general questions suggested above as presenting themselves to the agent we have indicated in what way the course of action taken must have regard to certain psychological considerations. entering upon the new way of life will inevitably lessen the agent's interest in his present professional pursuits and so make difficult, and in the end even irksome, any attempt at continuing in them either as a partial means of livelihood or as a recreation. the new work will be absorbing--as indeed it must be if it is to be worth while. in the same way the man must recognize that his nature is not one of the rare ones so richly endowed in capacity for sympathy that constant familiarity with general conditions of misery and suffering does not dull their fineness of sensibility to the special concerns and interests of particular individuals. if he takes his suffering fellow-men at large for his children, his own children will probably suffer just in so far the loss of a father's special sympathy and understanding care. and likewise he must be drawn away and isolated from his friends, for it will be hard for him, he must foresee, to hold free and intimate converse with men whose ways of thinking lie apart from his own controlling interest and for whose insensibility to the things that move him so profoundly he must come more and more to feel a certain impatience if not contempt. not to enlarge upon these possibilities and others of like nature, we must see that reflection upon the situation must presently bring to consciousness these various consequences of the kind of action which is proposed and a recognition that the ground of relation between them and the action proposed lies in certain qualities and limitations of his own nature. these latter are for him the general psychological conditions of action, his "empirical self," the general nature of which he has doubtless already come to be familiar with in many former situations perhaps wholly different in superficial aspect from from the present one. now, just in so far as there is this relation of mutual exclusiveness between the end proposed and certain of the standard ends or modes of conduct which are involved, judgment will be by the direct or ethical method of adjustment presently to be described. let us assume accordingly that a tentative solution of the problem has been reached to the effect that a portion of the lawyer's time shall be given to his profession and to his family life, and that the remainder shall be given to a moderate participation in the social propaganda. over against this tentative ethical solution, as its warrant in the sense explained above, will stand in the survey of the situation that may now be taken a certain fairly definite disposition or _anlage_ of the capacities and functions of the empirical self.[137] now on the basis of the ethical solution thus reached there will be further study of the situation, perhaps as a result of failure in the attempt to carry the solution into practice, but more probably as a further preparation for overt action. forthwith it develops that the compromise proposed will be impossible. participation in the social agitation will excite hostility on the part of the classes from which possible clients would come and will cause distrust and a suspicion of inattention to details of business among the lawyer's present clientage. there are, in a word, a whole assemblage of "external" sociological conditions (and we need not stop to speak of physical conditions which co-operate with these and contribute to their effect) which effectually veto the plan proposed. in general these external conditions are such as to deprive the agent of the means of living in the manner which the ethical determination of the end proposes. in the present case, unless some other more feasible compromise can be devised, either the one extreme or the other must be chosen--either continuance in the profession and the corresponding general scheme of life or the social propaganda and reliance upon such scant and precarious income as it may incidentally afford. we can now define the economic aspect of a situation in terms of our present illustration. the end which the lawyer had in view in a vague and tentative way was, as we saw, defined with reference to his ethical standards--that is to say, a certain measure of participation in the new work was determined as satisfactory at once to his ideals of devotion to the cause of social justice and to his sense of obligation to himself and to his family. in this sense, logically speaking, a subject was defined to which a system of predicates, comprehended perhaps under the general predicate of right or good, applies. now, however, it appears, from the inspection of the material and social environment, that the execution of this purpose, perfectly in accord though it may be with the spiritual capacities and powers of the agent, is possible only on pain of certain other consequences, certain other sacrifices, which have not hitherto been considered. that a half-hearted interest in his profession would still not prevent his earning a moderate income from it was never questioned in the ethical "first approximation" to a final decision, but now the issue is fairly presented, and, as we must see, in a very difficult and distressing way; for the essence of the situation is that the ends now in conflict, that of earning a living and caring for his family and that of laboring for the social good, are not intrinsically (that is, from the standpoint of the empirical self) incompatible. on the contrary, these two ends are psychologically quite compatible, as the outcome of the ethical judgment shows; only the "external" conditions oppose them to each other. the difficulty of the case lies, then, just in the fact that the conflicting ends, both standing, as they do, for strong personal interests of the self, nevertheless cannot be brought to an adjustment by the direct method of an apportionment between them of the "spiritual resources" or "energies" of the self. instead, the case is one calling for an apportionment of the external means, and so, proximately, not for immediate determination of the final end, but for economic determination of the means. we come now to the task of describing, so far as this may be possible, the judgment or valuation-processes which correspond to the types of situation thus distinguished. we are able now to see that these must be constructive processes, in the sense that in and through them courses of conduct adapted to unique situations are shaped by the concourse of established standards with a new end which has arisen and put in its claim for recognition. we can see, moreover, that these valuation-processes effect a construction of a different order from that given in factual judgment. factual judgment determines external objects as means or conditions of action from standpoints suggested by the analysis and development of ends. judgments of valuation determine concrete purposes from standpoints given in recognized general purposes of the self--purposes which are general in virtue of their having been taken by abstraction from concrete cases, in which they have received particular formulation as purposes, and set apart as typical modes of conduct in general serviceable to the "energetic" self.[138] logically factual judgment is at all times subordinate to valuational; when valuational judgment has become consciously deliberate, this logical subordination becomes explicit and factual judgment appears in its true character. its essential function is that of presenting the conditions which sanction and stimulate our ethically and economically determined purposes.[139] finally, in the construction of purposes and reconstruction of standards in valuation the ideal of the expansion and development of the "energetic" self controls--not as a "presented" or contentual self prescribing particular modes of conduct, but as a principle prescribing the greatest possible openness to suggestion and an impartial application of the method of valuation to the case in hand. as we have said, in whatever sensuous image we figure the "energetic" self, its essential character lies in its function of stimulating methodical valuation. in place of the two-faced and ambiguous "presented" self, which is characteristic of the stage of conscience, we now have in the stage of valuation the "energetic" self on the one hand and standards on the other.[140] we have now to consider the actual procedure of valuation, and first the ethical form as above defined. bearing in mind that we are not concerned with cases of obedience to authority or deference to conscience, let us take a case of genuine moral conflict such as we were considering some time since. suppose that one has the impulse to indulge in some form of amusement which he has been in the habit of considering frivolous or absolutely wrong. the end, as soon as imaged, or rather as the condition of its being imaged, encounters past habits of conduct symbolized by standards--standards which may be presented under a variety of forms, a maxim learned in early childhood, the ideal of a stoic sage or christian saint, the example of some friend, or a precept put in abstract terms, but which, however presented, are essentially symbolic of established habits of thought or action.[141] solution of such a problem proceeds, in general, along two closely interwoven lines: (1) collation and comparison of cases recognized as conforming to the standard, with a view to determining the standard type of conduct in a less ambiguous way, and (2) definition of the relations between this type of conduct and other recognized types in the catalogue of virtues. now, these two movements are in fact inseparable, for, without reference to the entire system of virtues of which the one now asserting itself is a member, the comparison of cases with a view to definition of the virtue would be blind and hopeless of any outcome. the agent in the case before us desires to be temperate in amusement and to make profitable use of leisure time, but after all he may wonder whether these ideals really require the austerities of certain mediæval saints or the stoic _ataraxy_. the saint's feats of spiritual athletics may have served a useful purpose, in ruder times, as evidence of human power to lead a virtuous and thoughtful life, but can such self-denial now be required of the moral man? it is apparent, in short, that the superficially conceived ideal must be analyzed. we must consider the "spirit" of our saint or hero, not the letter of his conduct, as we say, and in interpreting it make due allowance for the conditions of the time in which he lived and the grade of general intelligence of those he sought to edify. whether our standard is a person or a parable or an abstractly formulated precept, the logic of the situation is the same in every case of judgment. the analysis of a standard cannot proceed without the "synthesis" or co-ordination of the type of conduct thereby defined with other distinguishable recognized types of conduct into a comprehensive ideal of life as a whole. in the last resort the implicit relations of all the virtues will be made explicit in the process of defining accurately any one of them. in the last resort, then, the predicate of the ethical judgment is the whole system of the recognized habits of the agent, and each judgment-process is in its outcome a readjustment of the system to accommodate the new habit that has been seeking admission. both the old habits and the new impulse have been modified in the process just as the intension of a class term and the particular "subsumed" under the class are reciprocally modified in the ordinary judgment of sense-perception. we are once more able to see that the process of ethical judgment or valuation is not a process of subsumption or classification, of _ascertaining_ the value of particular modes of conduct, but on the contrary a process of determining or _assigning_ value. each judgment process means a new and more or less thoroughgoing redetermination of the self and hence a fixation of the ethical value of the conduct whose emergence as a purpose gave rise to the process. the moral experience is not essentially and in its typical emergencies a _recognition_ of values with a view to shaping one's course accordingly, but rather a determining or a _fixation_ of values which shall serve for the time being, but be subject at all times to re-appraisal. if the present discussion were primarily intended as a contribution to general ethical theory, it would be a part of our purpose to show in detail that any formulation of an ethical ideal in contentual "material" terms must always be inadequate for practical purposes and hence theoretically indefensible. this, as we believe, could be shown true of the popularly current ideal of self-realization as well as of hedonism in its various forms and the older systems of conscience or the moral sense. these all are essentially fixed ideals admitting of more or less complete specification in point of content and regarded as tests or canons by appeal to which the moral quality of any concrete act can be deductively ascertained. they are the ethical analogues of such metaphysical principles as the cartesian god or the substance of spinoza, and the logic implied in regarding them as adequate standards for the valuation of conduct is the logic whereby the rationalist sought to deduce from concepts the world of particular things. the present desideratum in ethical theory would appear to be, not further attempts at definition of a moral ideal of any sort, but the development of a logical method for the valuation of ideals and ends in which the results of more modern researches in the theory of knowledge should be made use of--in which the concept of self should play the part, not of the concept of substance in a rationalistic metaphysics,[142] but of such a principle as that of the conservation of energy, for example, in scientific inference.[143] we have, then, in each readjustment of the activities of the self a reconstruction in knowledge of ethical reality--a reconstruction which at the same time involves the assignment of a definite value to the new mode of conduct which has been worked out in the readjustment. we conclude, then, that the ethical experience is one of continuous construction and reconstruction of an order of objective reality, within which the world of sense-perception is comprised as the world of more or less refractory means to the attainment of ethical purposes. in this process of construction of ethical reality current moral standards play the same part as concepts already defined--that is to say, the agent's present habits--do in the typical judgment of sense-perception. they play the part of symbols suggestive of recognized and heretofore habitual modes of action with reference to conduct of the type of the particular instance that is under consideration, serving thus to bring to bear upon the subject of the judgment sooner or later the entire moral self. the outcome is a new self, and so for the future a new standard, in which the past self as represented by the former standard and the new impulse have been brought to mutual adjustment. our position is that this adjustment is essentially experimental and that in it the _general principle_ of the unity and expansion of the self must be presupposed, as in inductive inference general principles of teleology, of the conservation of energy, and of organic interconnection of parts in living things are presupposed. the unity and increase of the self is not a test or canon, but a principle of moral experimentation.[144] finally, we must note one further parallel between ethical judgment and the judgment of sense-perception and science. however the man of science may, as a nominalist, regard the laws of nature as mere observed uniformities of fact and particulars as the true realities, these same laws will nevertheless on occasion have a distinctly objective character in his actual apprehension of them. the stubbornness with which a certain material may refuse to lend itself to a desired purpose will commonly be reinforced, as a matter of apprehension, by one's recognition of the "scientific necessity" of the phenomenon. as offering resistance the thing itself, as we have seen, becomes objective; so also does the law of which this case may be recognized as only a particular example--and the other type of objectivity experience we need not here do more than mention as likewise possible in one's apprehension of the law as well as of the "facts" of nature. both types of objectivity attach to the moral law as well. the standard that restrains is one "above" us or "beyond" us. even kant, as the similitude of the starry heavens would suggest, was not incapable of a faint "emotion of the heteronomous," and authority in one form or another is a moral force whose objective validity as moral, both in its inhibiting and in its sanctioning aspects, human nature is prone to acknowledge. the apprehension of objectivity is everywhere, as we have held, emotional. one type of situation in which the moral law takes on this character is found in the interposition of the law to check a forward tendency; the other is found in the instant of transition from doubt to the new adjustment that has been reached. in the one case the law is "inexorable" in its demands. in the other case there are two possibilities: if the adjustment has been essentially a rejection of the new "temptation," the law which one obeys is one no longer inexorable, but sustaining, as a rock of salvation. if the adjustment is a distinctly new attitude, the sense of the objectivity of the principle embodied in it will commonly be less strong, if not for the time being almost wholly wanting; but in the moment of overt action it will in some degree wear the character of a firm truth upon which one has taken his stand. this general view of the logical constitution of the moral experience may suggest a comparison with the fundamental doctrine of the british intellectualist school. the intellectualist writers were very largely guided in their expositions by the desire of refuting on the one hand hobbes and on the other shaftesbury and hutcheson. against hobbes they wished to establish the obligatory character of the moral law entirely apart from sanction or enactment by political authority. against the sentimentalists they wished to vindicate its objectivity and permanence. this twofold purpose they accomplished by holding that the morality of conduct lies in its conformity to the "objective nature of things," the knowledge of which, in its moral aspects, is logically deducible from certain moral axioms, self-evident like those of mathematics. now this mathematical analogy is the key to the whole position of the intellectualist writers. by so conceiving the nature of knowledge these men seriously weakened their strong general position. mathematics is just that species of knowledge which is most remote from and apparently independent of any reference to conduct, and the intellectualists, by choosing it as their ideal, were thereby rendered incapable of explaining the obligatoriness of the moral law. an adequate psychology of knowledge would have obviated this difficulty in their system. the occasion for economic judgment is given, as we have seen, in a conflict between ends not incompatible, in view of any ascertainable conditions of the agent's nature as an empirical self, but inhibitory of each other in view of what we have described as conditions external to the agent. thus the lawyer in our illustration found his plan of compromise thwarted by the existence of such sociological conditions as would make the practice of his profession, in the manner intended, impossible, and so cut off his income. similarly the peasant in a european country finds that (for reasons which, more probably, he does not understand) he can no longer earn a living in the accustomed way, and emigrates to a country in which his capital and his physical energies may be more profitably employed. so also in the everyday lives of all of us ends and interests quite disparate, so far as any relation to each other through our psychical capacities is concerned, stand very frequently in opposition, nevertheless, and calling for adjustment. we must make a choice between amusement or intellectual pursuits or the means of æsthetic culture, on the one hand, and the common necessaries of life on the other, and the difficulty of the situation lies just in absence of any sort of "spiritual affinity" between these ends. there is no necessary ratio between the satisfaction of the common needs of life and the cultivation of the higher faculties--no ratio for which the individual can ever find a sanction in the constitution of his empirical self through the direct method of ethical valuation. the common needs must have their measure of recognition, but no attempted ethical valuation of them can ever come to a result convincingly warranted to the "energetic" self by psychological conditions. the economic situation as such is in this sense (that is, from the standpoint of any recognized ethical standards) unintelligible. it is this ethical unintelligibility that often lends a genuine element of tragedy to situations which press urgently and in which the ends at issue are of great ethical moment. it is no small matter to the emigrant, for example, that he must cut the very roots by which he has grown to the sort of man he finds himself to be. his whole nature protests against this violence, and questions its necessity, though the necessity is unmistakable and it would be quite impossible for him not to act accordingly. nevertheless, tragic as such a conflict may well be, it does not differ in any logically essential way, does not differ in its degree of strictly logical difficulty, from the ethically much less serious economic problems of our everyday life. now, we have already defined the economic act for which economic judgment is preparatory as being, in general terms, the diversion of certain means from a present use to which they have been devoted to a new use which has come to seem in a general way desirable.[145] thus, in the cases just mentioned, the lawyer contemplates the virtual purchase of his new career by the income which his profession might in years to come afford him, the emigrant seeks a better market for his labor, and the pleasure-seeker and the ambitious student and the buyer of a commodity in the market propose to themselves, each one, the diversion from some hitherto intended use of a sum of money. manifestly it is immaterial from our logical point of view whether the means in question which one proposes to apply in some new way are in the nature of physical and mental strength, or materials and implements of manufacture ready to be used, or means of purchase of some sort wherewith the desired service or commodity may be obtained at once. the economic problem, to state it technically, is the problem of the _reapplicability of the means_, interpreting the category of means quite broadly. in a word, then, the method of procedure adapted to the economic type of situation is that of valuation of the means, not that of direct valuation of the ends. this method is one of valuation since, like the ethical method, it is determinative of a purpose, but it accomplishes this result in its own distinctive way. the problem of our present analysis will accordingly be how this method of valuation of the means is able to help toward an adjustment of disparate or unrelated ends which the ethical method is inadequate to effect. let us assume that a vague purpose of foreign travel, for example, has presented itself in imagination, and that the preliminary stage of ethical judgment has been passed through, with the result that the purpose, in a more definite form than it could have at first, is now ready for economic consideration. in the first place the cost of the journey must be determined, and this step, in terms of our present point of view, is simply a methodological device whereby certain ends which the standards involved in the stage of ethical judgment could not suggest or could not effectually take into co-operation with themselves in their determination of the end are brought into play. ascertaining the means suggests these disparate ends, these established modes of use of the means, with the result that the agent's "forward tendency" is checked. shall the necessary sums be spent in foreign travel or shall they be spent in the present ways--in providing various physical necessities and comforts, or for various forms of amusement, or in increasing investments in business enterprises? these modes of use do not admit of ethical comparison with the plan of foreign travel, and the agent's interest must therefore now be centered on the means. it is in this check to the agent's forward tendency that the logical status of the means is evinced. as merely so much money the means could only serve to further the execution of the purpose that is forming, since under the circumstances it could only prompt immediate expenditure. like the subject in factual judgment, the means in economic judgment have their problematic aspect which as effectually hinders the desired use of them as could any palpable physical defect. this problematic aspect consists in the fact of the present established mode of use which the now-forming purpose threatens to disturb, and it is the agent's interest in this mode of use that turns his attention to the valuation of the means. it need hardly be pointed out that in the economic life we find situations exactly corresponding to those of "conscience and temptation" and mechanical "pull and haul" which were discriminated in the ethical sphere and marked off from judgment properly so called. indeed it seems reasonable to think, on general grounds of introspection, that these methods of decision (if they deserve the name) are, relatively speaking, more frequently relied upon in the economic than in the moral life. the economic method of true judgment is roundabout and more complex and more difficult than ethical, and involves a more express recourse to those abstract conceptions which for the most part are only implicitly involved in valuation of the other type. the economic type of valuation, in fact, differs from the ethical, not in an absolute or essential way, but rather in the explicitness with which it brings to light and lays bare the vital elements in valuation as such. in general, then, the economic process would seem necessarily to embrace three stages, which will first of all be enumerated and then very briefly explained and discussed. these are: (1) a preliminary consideration of the means necessary to attain the end--which must be vague and tentative, of course, for the reason that the end as imagined is so, as compared with the fulness of detail which must belong to it before it can be finally accepted; (2) a consideration of the means, as thus provisionally taken, in the light of their present devotion to other purposes, this present devotion of them being the outcome, in some degree at least, of past valuation; (3) final definition of the means with reference to the proposed use through an adjustment effected between this and the factors involved in the past valuation. 1. in the first stage as throughout, it must be carefully noted, the means are under consideration not primarily in their physical aspect, but simply as _subject to a possible redisposition_. thus it is not money as lawful currency receivable at the steamship office for an ocean passage, nor tools and materials and labor-power technically suitable for the production of a desired object, that is the subject of the economic judgment. the problem of redisposition would of course not be raised were the means not technically adaptable to the purpose, nor on the other hand can the means in the course of economic judgment, as a rule, escape some measure of further (factual) inquiry into their technical properties; but the standpoints are nevertheless distinct. again, it must be noted that the means in this first stage will be only roughly measured. the length of one's stay abroad, the size of the house one wishes to build, the purpose whatever it may be, is still undefined--these are in fact the very matters which the process must determine--and in the first instance it is "money in general" or "a large sum of money" with reference to which we raise the economic problem. the category of quantity is in fact essentially an economic one; it is essentially a standpoint for determining the means of action in such a way as to facilitate their economic valuation. the reader familiar with the writings of the austrian school of economists will easily recall how uniformly in their discussions of the principle of marginal utility these writers assume outright in the first place the division of the stock of goods into definite units, and then raise the question of how the value of a unit is measured. the stock contains already a hundred bushels of wheat or ten loaves of bread--apparently as a matter of metaphysical necessity--whereas in fact the essential economic problem is this very one of how "wheat at large" comes to be put in sacks of a certain size and "bread in general" to be baked in twelve-ounce loaves. the subdivision of the stock and the valuation of the unit are not successive stages, but inseparably correlative phases of the valuation-process as a whole. the outcome may be stated either way, in accordance with one's interest in the situation. 2. but the unmeasured means as redisposable in an as yet undetermined way bring to consciousness established measured uses to which the means have been heretofore assigned in definite amounts. in this way the process of determining a definite quantum as redisposable (which is to say, of attaining to a definite acceptable plan of conduct) can begin. how, then, does this fact of past assignment to uses still recognized as desirable figure in the situation? in the first place the past assignment may have been (1) an outcome of past economic valuation, (2) an unhesitating or non-economic act executive of an ethical decision, or (3) an act of more or less conscious obedience to "conscience" or "authority." in either case it now stands as a course of conduct which at the time was, in the way explained above, _sanctioned_ to the agent, to the "energetic" self, by the means and conditions recognized as bearing upon it. in this sense, then, we have, in this recognition of the past adjustment and of the economic character which the means now have in virtue of it, what we may term a judgment of "energy-equivalence" between the means and their established uses. for to the agent it was the essential meaning of the sense of sanction felt when the means were assigned to these uses that the "energetic" self would on the whole be furthered thereby--and this in view of all the sacrifices that this use would entail, or in view of the sacrifices required for the production of the means, if the case were one in which the means were not at hand and could only be secured by a more or less extended production process. in the illustration we have been considering, it will be observed, there is an extensive schedule of present uses which the new project calls in question and from which the means must be diverted. this is in fact the commoner case. a new use of money will affect, as a rule, not simply a single present mode of expenditure, but will very probably involve a readjustment throughout the whole schedule of expenditure which our separate past valuations of money have in effect co-operated in establishing. so likewise if we wish to use part of a store of building materials or of food, or of any other subdivisible commodity, we encounter an ordered system of consumption rather than a single predetermined use which we have not yet enjoyed. where this is the case the whole process of valuation is greatly facilitated, but this is not essential. the means in cases of true economic valuation may be capable of but a single use, like a railroad ticket or a perishable piece of fruit, or of a virtually endless series of uses, like a painting or a literary masterpiece. whether the means figure as representing but a single use or stand for the conservation of an extensive system, their economic significance is the same. they are the "energy-equivalent" of this use or system of uses considered as an act or system of acts of consumption in furtherance of the self. their past assignment meant then and means now simply this, that the "energetic" self would thereby gain more than it would lose through the inevitable sacrifices. this is the economic significance of the means in virtue of which they are now problematic to the extent of checking, for a time at least, forward tendency toward the desired end.[146] 3. the judgment of energy-equivalence, then, defines the inhibiting economic aspect of the means, and moreover defines it for the means as subdivided and set apart for a schedule of uses if this was the form of the past adjustments to which reference is made. the problem of the third stage of the process is that of "bringing subject and predicate together," as we have elsewhere expressed it--that is, of determining, in the light of the economic character of the means as just ascertained, what measure of satisfaction, if any, may be accorded to the new and as yet undefined desire. the new disposition of the means, if one is to be made, must bring to the "energetic" self a degree of furtherance and development which shall be sensibly as great as would come from the established method of consumption. the means, as economic, are means to the conservation of the old adjustment, and any new disposal of them or of any portion of them for a full or partial execution of the new purpose must make out at least as good a case. it must appear that the new disposition is not only physically possible, but also economically necessary in the light of the same principle of expansion of the self as sanctioned the disposition now in force. it must make the self in some way more efficient--whether more strong and symmetrical in body, more skilled in work, more clear of brain, or more efficient in whatever other concrete way may be desired. psychologically the sanction of any course of action which is taken as evidence of conformity to the general rule thus inadequately stated is the more or less strong sense of "relaxation" of attentive strain which comes with the shift of attention, in the final survey, from means to end. we may accordingly, for the sake of greater definiteness, restate in the following terms the process which has just been sketched: the ends in conflict at the outset are ends which do not sensibly bear upon each other through their dependence upon a common fund of psychical capacities or energies. they are related in the agent's experience solely through their dependence upon a common stock of physical means, and they do not therefore admit of adjustment through the ethical type of process. the economic process consists essentially of a revival in imagination of the experiences accompanying the former disposition of the means and a re-enforcement by these of the means in their adherence to that former and still recognized disposition. if an adapted form of the new end can be imagined which will mediate a like experience of relaxation when the attention shifts from the means, thus emotionally re-enforced in their economic status, to the end as thus conceived, the means will be recognized as economically redisposable. thus the method of valuation of the means makes possible, through appeal to the sensibly invariable experience of relaxation or assurance in the outcome of judgment, a co-ordination of disparate ends which the ethical method of direct adjustment could not effect.[147] the economic process thus presents on analysis the same factors as does the ethical. on the subject side we have the means--which as economic are problematic as to their reapplicability. on the predicate side we have the suggested mode of reapplication in tension against conservative ideals of application to established purposes. just as it may be held that the general ethical predicate is that of right or good--that is, deserving of adoption into the system of one's ends--so the economic predicate applied to the means as these come in the end to be defined is the general concept reappliable. and in general the distinction of the types is not an ultimate one, for the more deliberately and rigorously the method of economic valuation is pursued--in such a case, for example, as that of the prospective emigrant--the stronger will be the agent's sense of a genuinely ethical sanction as belonging to the decision which is in the end worked out. the more certain and sincere, therefore, will be the agent's judgment that the means must be reapplied, for on the sense of sanction of which we speak rests the explicit judgment that the purpose formed is expansive of the self. from the analysis thus presented it must appear, therefore, that the economic type of judgment is in our sense a constructive process. its function is to determine a particular commodity or portion of a stock of some commodity in its economic character as _disposable_, and in performing this function it presents a definite reality in the economic order. moreover, in thus defining the particular, recourse is had to more or less distinctively namable economic standards which are in the last resort symbols representing established habits of consumption in the light of which the means, _prima facie_, seem not to be available for any other purposes. these economic standards, like ethical standards and the class concepts of science and our ordinary perceptual experience, are, with all due respect to nominalism, constitutive of a real world--a world which is real because it lends form and significance to our knowledge of particulars as stimuli to conduct. we have now before us sufficient reason for our thesis that the valuation-process in both its forms is constructive of an order of reality, and we have sufficiently explained the relation which the economic order bears to the inclusive and logically prior order of ethical objects and relations. we are now in a position to see that in being thus constructive of reality (taking the conception in its proper functional meaning) they are at the same time constructive of the self, since the reality which they construct is in its functional aspect the assemblage of means and conditions, of stimuli, in short, for the development and expansion of the self. we shall bring this main division of our study to a close with a series of remarks in explanation and illustration of this view. let us consider once more the factors present in the agent's final survey of the situation after the completion of the judgment-process and on the verge of action. these factors are, as we have seen, (1) recognition of conditions sanctioning the purpose formed, (2) recognition of the purpose as, in view of this sanction, warranted to the "energetic" self as an eligible method of expansion and development, and (3) recognition of the "energetic" self, conversely, as in possession, in virtue of the favorable conditions given in factual judgment, of this new method of furtherance. these three factors are manifestly not so much factors co-operating in the situation as inseparable aspects of it distinguishable from each other and admitting of discriminative emphasis in accordance with the degree of reflective power which the individual may possess or choose to exercise. strictly speaking these three aspects are present in every conscious recognition of a purpose as one's own and as presently to be carried into effect, but they are not always present in equal conspicuousness, and never with equal logical importance for the individual. in fact this enumeration of aspects coincides with our enumeration of the three stages in the evolution of the individual's conscious moral attitude toward new purposes given in impulse--in the third of which the last named of these aspects comes to the fore with the others in logical or functional subordination to it. now it will be apparent on grounds of logic, as on the evidence of simple introspection, that in this third type of attitude--in the attitude of true valuation, that is to say--the energetic self cannot be identified with the chosen purpose. the purpose is a determinate specified act to be performed subject to recognized conditions, and with the use of the co-ordinated means; the self, on the other hand, is a process to which this particular purpose is, indeed, from the standpoint of the self's conservation and increase, indispensable, but which is nevertheless apart from the purpose in the sense that without the purpose it would still be a self, though perhaps a narrower and less developed one. our standpoint here as elsewhere, the reader must remember, is the logical. it is the standpoint of the agent's own interpretation of his experience of judgment during the judgment-process and at its close, and not the standpoint of the psychological mediation of this experience as a series of occurrences. thus we are here far from wishing to deny the general proposition that a man's purposes are an expression of his nature, as the psychologist might describe it, or the proposition that a man's conduct and his character are one and the same thing viewed from different points of view. we wish merely to insist upon the fact that these psychological propositions are not a true account of the agent's own experience of himself and of his purposes _while these latter are in the making or are on the verge of execution_. there is indeed no conflict between this "inside view" of the judgment-process and of the final survey and the psychological propositions just mentioned. the identity of conduct and character means not simply that as the man is so does he act, but quite as much, and in a more important way, that as he acts so is he and so does he become. it is, then, the essence of the agent's own view of the situation that his character is in the making and that the purpose is the method to be taken. to the agent the self is not, indeed, independent of the purpose, for plainly it is recognized that upon just this purpose the self is, in the sense explained, in a vital way dependent. nevertheless the self is in the agent's apprehension essentially beyond the purpose, and larger than the purpose, and even, we may say, metaphysically apart from it. now the conclusion which we wish to draw from this examination of the agent's attitude in judgment is that no formulation of an ideal self can ever be adequate to his purposes, not simply because any such formulation must, as green allows, inevitably be incomplete and inconsistent, but because the self as a process is in the agent's own apprehension of it inherently incapable of formulation. any formulation that might be attempted must be in terms of particular purposes (since in a modern ethical theory the self must be a "concrete" and not an abstract universal), and it is easy to see that any such would be, to the agent in the attitude of true ethical judgment, worse than useless. it could as contentual and concrete only be a composite of existing standards, more or less coherently put together, offered to the agent as a substitute for the new standard which he is trying to work out. if there were not need of a new standard there would be no judgment-process; the agent must be, to say the least, embarrassed, even if the unwitting imposture does not deceive him, when such a composite, useful and indeed indispensable in its proper place as a standard of reference and a source of suggestion, is urged upon him as suitable for a purpose which in the very nature of the case it is logically incapable of serving.[148] to the agent, then, the "energetic" self can never be represented as an ideal--can never be expressed in terms of purpose--since it is in its very nature logically incongruous with any possible particular purpose or generalization of such purposes. it is commonly imaged by the agent in some manner of sensuous terms, but it is imaged, in so far as the case is one of judgment in a proper sense, for use as a stimulus to the methodical process of valuation--not as a standard, which if really adequate would make valuation unnecessary. the agent's consciousness of himself as "energetic" cannot be an ideal; it comes to consciousness only through the endeavor, first to follow, and then, in a later stage of moral development, to use ideals, and has for its function, as a presentation, the incitement of the process of methodical use of standards in the control of the agent's impulsive ends. it is not an anticipatory vision of the final goal of life, but the agent's coming to consciousness of the general impulse and movement of the life that is. it is an inevitable consequence of acceptance of a contentual view of the "energetic" self as one's ideal that reflective morality should tend to degenerate into an introspective conscientiousness constantly in unstable equilibrium between a pharisaical selfishness on the one hand and a morally scarcely more dangerous hypocrisy on the other. there is certainly much justice in the stinging characterization of "neo-hegelian egoism" which mr. taylor somewhere in his unsearchable book applies to the currently prevailing conventionalized type of idealistic ethics. if the self of the valuation-process is an ultimate goal of effort, then there must certainly be an irreconcilable contrast to the disadvantage of the latter between the plain man's objective desire for right conduct, as such, and for the welfare of his fellow-beings, and the moralist's anxious questionings of the rectitude of the motives by which his conformity to the fixed moral standard are prompted.[149] into the value and significance of the attitude of conscientious examination of one's moral motives we are not here concerned to inquire, but need only insist, in accordance with our present view, that its value must be distinctly subordinate and incidental to the general course and outcome of the valuation-process. in the valuation-process, consciousness of self is not an object of solicitude, but simply, we repeat, a pure presentation of stimulus, having for its office the incitement, and if need be the reincitement, of the attitude of deference to the suggestions of old standards and openness to the petitions of new impulse, and of methodically bringing these to bear upon each other. the outcome of such a process, of course, cannot be predicted--and for the same reasons as make unpredictable the scientist's factual hypothesis. just as the scientist's data are incomplete and ill-assorted and unorganized, for the reason that they have, of necessity, been collected, and must at the outset be interpreted, in the light of present concepts, whose inadequacy the very existence of the problem at issue demonstrates, so the final moral purpose that shall be developed is not to be deduced from any possible inventory of the situation as it stands. the process in both cases is one of reconstruction, and the test of the validity of the reconstruction must in both cases be of the same essentially practical character. in both cases the process is constructive of reality, in the functional signification of the term. in both, the judgment process is constructive also of the self, in the sense that upon the determination of the agent's future attitude the cumulative outcome of his past attitudes is methodically brought to bear.[150] v judgments of value are, then, objective in their import in the same sense as are the factual judgments in which the conditions of action are presented. the ideal problematic situation is, in the last resort, ethical, in the sense of requiring for its solution determination of the new end that has arisen with reference to existing standards. in structure and in function the judgment in which the outcome of this process is presented is knowledge, and objective in the only valid acceptation of the term. but, after all, it may be urged, is it not the essential mark of the objective that it should be accessible to all men, and not in the nature of the case valid for only a single individual? at best the objectivity of content which has been made out for the judgment of value is purely functional, and not such as can be verified by appeal to the consensus of other persons. the agent's _assurance_ of the reality of the economic or ethical subject-matter which he is endeavoring to determine, and his sense of the objectivity of the results which he reaches, need not be denied. these may well enough be illusions of personal prejudice or passion, or even normal illusions of the reflective faculty, like that of interpreting the secondary qualities of bodies as objective in the same sense as are the "bulk, figure, extension, number, and motion of their solid parts."[151] any man can see the physical object to which i point, and verify with his own eyes the qualities which i ascribe to it, but no man can either understand or verify my judgment that the purpose i have formed is in accord with rational ideals of industry and self-denial, or that this portion of my winter's fuel may be given to a neighbor who has none. but this line of objection proves too much, for, made consistent with itself, it really amounts to a denial that the very judgment of sense-perception, to which it appeals so confidently as a criterion, has objective import. the first division of this study was intended to show that every object in the experience of each individual is for the individual a unique construction of his own, determined in form and in details by individual interests and purposes, and therefore different from that object in the experience of any other individual which in social intercourse passes current as the same. the real object is for me the object which functions in my experience, presenting problematic aspects for solution, and lending itself more or less serviceably to my purposes; and this object is, we hold, not the object as socially current, but the complete object which, as complete in its determination with reference to my unique purposes, cannot possibly have social currency. the objection as stated cuts away the very ground on which it rests, since the shortcoming which it finds in the judgment of ethical or economic value is present in the particular judgment of sense-perception also. the object about which i can assure myself by an immediate appeal to other persons is the object in its bare "conceptual" aspects--the object as a dictionary might define it, the commodity as it might be described in a trade catalogue, or the ethical act as defined by the criminal code or in the treatise of a moral philosopher. it is an object consisting of a central core or fixed deposit of meaning, which renders it significant in a certain general way to a number of persons, or even to all men, but which is not yet adequately known by me from the standpoint of my present forming purpose. in virtue of these conceptual characters it is adaptable to my purpose, which is as yet general and indeterminate; but in the nature of the case it cannot yet be known to me as applicable to my prospective concrete purpose, as this shall come to be through judgment. thus, if the test of objectivity of import is to be that the judgment shall present an object or a fact which, as presented, is socially current among men and not shut away in the individual intelligence apart from the possibility of social verification, then the apparent nominalism of the objection we are considering turns out to be the uttermost extreme of realism. such a test amounts to a virtual affirmation that the sole objective reality is the conceptual, and that the "accidents" of one's particular object of sense-perception are the arbitrary play of private preference or fancy. at this point, however, the objection may shift its ground and take refuge in some such position as the following: the real object is indeed the object which the individual knows in relation to his particular purpose, and it is indeed impossible that the individual's judgment should be limited in its content to coincidence with the conceptual elements of meaning which are socially current. the building-stone which one has judged precisely fit for a special purpose, the specimen which the mineralogist or the botanist examines under his microscope, the tool whose peculiarity of working one has learned to make allowance for in use--these all are, of course, highly individual objects, possessing for the person in question an indefinite number of objective aspects of which no other person can possibly be conscious at the time. and, more than this, even though the individual may, in his scrutiny of the object, have discovered no conspicuous new qualities in it which were not present in the socially current meaning, the object will still possess an individuality making it genuinely unique merely through its co-ordination with other objects in the mechanical process of working out the purpose in hand. it is at least an object standing here at just this time, a tool cutting this particular piece of stone and striking at this instant with this particular ringing sound, and these perhaps wholly nonessential facts will nevertheless serve to individualize the object (if one chances to think of them) in the sense of making it such a one as no other person knows. all this may be granted, the objection may allow, and yet the vital point remains; for this is not what it was intended, even in the first place, to deny. the vital point at issue is not whether the object which i know _is_ known as i know it by any other person, but whether, in the nature of things, it is one that _can_ be so known. herein, then, lies the difference between judgments of fact and judgments of value. the mineralogist can train his pupil to see precisely what he himself sees; and so likewise in any case of sense-perception, the object, however recondite may be the qualities or features which one may see in it, _can_ nevertheless be seen by any other person in precisely the same way on the single, more often not insuperably difficult, condition that the discoverer shall point these out or otherwise prepare the other for seeing them. but with the ton of coal which one may judge economically disposable for a charitable purpose the case stands differently, since it is not in its visible or other physical aspects that the ton of coal is here the subject of the judgment. it is as having been set apart _by oneself exclusively_ for other uses that the ton of coal now functions as an object and now possesses the character which the economic judgment has given it; and the case stands similarly with a contemplated act, of telling the truth in a trying situation. the valuation placed upon the commodity or upon the moral act depends essentially upon psychological conditions of temperament, disposition, mood, or whim into which it would be impossible for another person to enter, and these depend upon conditions of past training and native endowment which can never occur or be combined in future in precisely the same way for any other individual. in short, the physical object is _describable_ and _can_ be made socially current, though doubtless with more or less of difficulty, if other persons will attend to it and learn to see it as i see it; but the value of an economic object or a moral act depends upon my desires and feelings, and therefore must remain a matter of my private appreciation. in answering this amended form of the objection it is entirely unnecessary to discuss the issue of fact which it has raised as to whether or not complete description of a physical object or event is a practical or theoretical possibility. it need only be pointed out that at best such complete description can only be successful in its purpose on condition that the individual upon whom the experiment is tried be willing to attend and have the requisite "apperceptive background." the accuracy with which another person's knowledge shall copy the knowledge which i endeavor to impart to him must manifestly depend upon these two leading conditions, not to mention also the measure of my own pedagogical and literary skill. any consideration of such a purely psychological problem as is here suggested would be entirely out of place in a discussion the purpose of which is not that of analyzing the process of judgment, but that of interpreting its meaning aspects. let us grant the entire psychological possibility of making socially current in the manner here suggested the most highly individual and concrete cognition of an object one may please, and let us grant, moreover, that this possibility has been actually realized. this concurrent testimony of the witness will doubtless confirm one's impression of the accuracy of the process of observation and inference whereby the knowledge which has been imparted was first gained, but we must deny that it can do more than this. for indeed, apart from some independent self-reliant conviction of the objective validity of the knowledge in question, how should another's assent be taken as _confirmation_ and not rather as evidence of one's own mere skill in suggestion and of the other's susceptibility thereto? we must deny that even in the improved form the criterion of social currency is a valid one. in a word, the social currency of knowledge to the extent to which it can exist requires as its condition, and is evidence of, the equal social currency of certain interests, purposes, or points of view for predication; and if it be possible to make socially current an item of concrete knowledge, with all its concrete fulness of detail, then _a fortiori_ it must be possible to make socially current the concrete individual purpose with reference to which this item of knowledge first of all took form. whether such a thing be psychologically possible at all the reader may decide; but if it be possible in the sphere of knowledge of fact, then it must be possible in the sphere of valuation. in short, judgment in either field, in definition of a certain object or commodity or moral act as, for the agent, an objective fact possessing certain characters, involves the tacit assumption of social verifiability as a matter of course; but it does not rest upon this assumption, nor is this assumption the essence of its meaning. to say that my judgment is socially verifiable, that my concrete object of perception or of valuation would be seen as i see it by any person in precisely my place, is merely a tautological way of formally announcing that _i have made the judgment_ and have now a definite object which to me has a certain definite functional meaning. thus, instead of drawing a distinction between the realms of fact and value, as between what is or can be common to all intelligent beings and what must be unique for each individual one, we must hold that the two realms are coextensive. the socially current object answers to a certain general type of conscious purpose or interest active in the individual and so to a general habit of valuation, and the concrete object to a special determination of this type of purpose with reference to others in the recognized working system of life. the agent's final attitude, on the conclusion of the judgment-process, may be expressed in either sort of judgment--in a judgment of the value of commodity or moral purpose, or in a judgment of concrete fact setting forth the "external" conditions which warrant the purpose to the "energetic" self. throughout the judgment-process there is a correlation between the movement whereby the socially current object develops into the adapted means and that whereby the socially current type of conduct develops into the defined and valued purpose.[152] at this point, however, a second general objection presents itself. however individual the content of my knowledge of physical fact may be, and however irrelevant, from the logical point of view, to my confidence in its objective validity may be the possibility of sharing it with other persons, nevertheless it refers to an object which is in some sense permanent, and therein differs from my valuations. in economic valuation i reach a definition of a certain commodity and am confirmed in it by all the conditions that enter into my final survey of the situation. but my desire for the new sort of consumption may fail, and so expose my valuation to easy attack from any new desire that may arise; or my supply of the commodity in question may be suddenly increased or diminished, and my valuation of the unit quantity thereby changed. likewise my ethical valuation may have to be reversed (as mr. taylor has insisted) by reason of a change of disposition or particular desire which makes impossible, except in obedience to some other and inclusive valuation, further adherence to it. and these changes take place without any accompanying sense of their doing violence to objective fact or, on the other hand, any judgment of their being in the nature of corrections of previous errors in valuation, and so more closely in accordance with the truth. moreover, a new valuation, taking the place of an old, does not supplement its predecessor as one set of judgments about a physical object may supplement another, made from a different point of view, but does literally take its place, and this without necessarily condemning it as having been erroneous. this general objection rests upon a number of fairly obvious misconceptions, and its strength is apparent only. in the first place, the question of the objectivity of any type of judgment must in the end, as we have seen, reduce itself to a question of the judgment's import to the agent. however the agent's valuations may shift from time to time, each several one will be sanctioned to the agent by the changed conditions exhibited in the inventory which the agent takes at the close of judgment which has formed it. the conditions have changed, and the valuation of the earlier purpose has likewise changed; but the new purpose is sanctioned by the new conditions, and the test of the presumed validity of the new valuation can only be in the manner already discussed[153] the test of actual execution of the purpose. in the change, as the agent interprets the situation, there is no violation of the former purpose nor a nearer approach to truth. each valuation is true for the situation to which it corresponds. we are obviously not here considering the case of error. an error in valuation is evidenced to the agent, not by the need of a new valuation answering to changed conditions, but by the failure of a given valuation to make good its promise, although to all appearance conditions have remained unchanged. if the conditions have changed, then the purpose and the conditions _must_ be redetermined, if the expansion of the "energetic" self is to continue; but the former valuation does not thereby become untrue. these brief remarks should suffice by way of answer, but it will serve advantageously to illustrate our general position if we pursue the objection somewhat farther. the physical object is, nevertheless, _permanent_, it will be said, and this surely distinguishes it from the object (now freely acknowledged as such) of the value-judgment. to one man gold may be soluble in _aqua regia_ and to another worth so many pence an ounce, but different and individual as are these judgments and the standpoints they respectively imply, the gold is _one_, impartially admitting at the same time of both characterizations. on the other hand, one cannot judge an act good and bad at once. the purpose of deception that may be good is one controlled and shaped by ideals quite different from those which permit deception of the evil sort--is, in truth, taken as a total act, altogether different from the purpose of deception which one condemns, and not, like the "parcel of matter" in the two judgments about gold, the subject of both valuations. a brief consideration of the meaning of this "parcel of matter" will easily expose the weakness of the plea. in the last analysis the "parcel of matter" must for the agent reduce itself, let us say, to certain controllable energies centering about certain closely contiguous points in space and capable, in their exercise, of setting free or checking other energies in the system of nature. thus, put in _aqua regia_ the gold will dissolve, but in the atmosphere it retains its brilliant color, and in the photographer's solution its energies have still a different mode of manifestation. and thus it would appear that the various predicates which are applied to "gold" imply, each one, a unique set of conditions. gold is soluble in _aqua regia_, but not if it is to retain its yellow luster; which predicate is to be true of it depends upon the conditions under which the energies "resident in the gold" are to be set free, just as the moral character of an act depends upon the social conditions obtaining at the time of its performance--that is, upon the ideals with reference to which it has been shaped in judgment. how can one maintain that in a literal and concrete physical sense gold in process of solution is the "same" as gold entering into chemical combination? surely the energy conditions which constitute the "gold" in the two processes are not the same--and can one nowadays hope to find sameness in unchangeable atoms?[154] in a word, the permanent substance or "real essence" that admits of various mutually supplementary determinations corresponding to diverse points of view is, strictly speaking, a convenient abstraction, and not an existent fact in time--and we shall maintain that the same species of abstraction has its proper place, and in fact occurs, in the sphere of moral judgment. the type of moral conduct that in every actual case of its occurrence in the moral order is determined in some unique and special way by relation to other standards is precisely analogous to the "substance" that is now dissolved in _aqua regia_ and now made to pass in the form of current coin, but cannot be treated in both ways at once. both are abstractions. the "gold" is a name for the general possibility of attaining any one of a certain set of particular ends by appropriately co-ordinating certain energies, resident elsewhere in the physical system, with those at present stored in this particular "parcel of matter;" the result to be attained depends not alone upon the "parcel of matter," but also upon the particular energies brought to bear upon it from without. now let us take a type of conduct which is sometimes judged good and sometimes bad. deception, for example, is such a type--and as a type it simply stands for the general possibility of furtherance or detriment to the "energetic" self according as it is determined in the concrete instance by ideals of social well-being or by considerations of immediate personal advantage. for the type-form of conduct--when considered, not as a type of mere physical performance, but as conduct in the technical sense of a possible purpose of the self--is, in the sense we have explained, a symbol for the general possibility of access or dissipation of spiritual energy--energy which must be set free by the bringing to bear of other energies upon it, and which furthers or works counter to the enlargement and development of the self according to the mode of its co-ordination with other energies which the self has already turned to its purposes.[155] but actual conduct is concrete always and never typical; and so likewise, we have sought to show, actual "substance," the objective thing referred to in the factual judgment, is always concrete and never an essence. it is not a fixed thing admitting of a simultaneous variety of conflicting determinations and practical uses, but absolutely unique and already determined to its unique character by the whole assemblage of physical conditions which affect it at the time and which it in turn reacts upon. in the moral as in the physical sphere the fundamental category would, on our present account, appear to be that of energy. the particular physical object given in judgment is a concrete realization, in the form of a particular means or instrument, of that general possibility of attaining ends which the concept of a fixed fund of energy, interpreted as a logical postulate or principle of inference, expresses. the particular moral or economic act is a particular way in which the energy of the self may be increased or diminished. in both spheres the reality presented in the finished judgment is objective as being a stimulus to the setting free of the energies for which it stands. once more, then, our answer to the objection we have been considering must be that the object as the permanent substrate is merely an abstract symbol standing for the indeterminate means in general set over against the self. corresponding to it we have, on the other side, the concept of the "energetic" self--the self that is purposive in general, expansive somehow or other. the function of completed factual judgment in the development of experience is, we have held, that of warranting to the agent the completed purpose which his judgment of value expresses. this view calls for some further comment and illustration in closing the present division. in the first place the statement implies that the conditions which factual judgment presents in the "final survey" as sanctioning the purpose have not _determined_ the purpose, since prior to the determination of the purpose the conditions were not, and could not be, so presented. the question, therefore, naturally arises whether our meaning is that in the formation of our purposes in valuation the recognition of existing conditions plays no part. our answer can be indicated only in the barest outline as follows: the agent must, of course, in an economic judgment-process, recognize and take account of such facts as the technical adaptability of the means he is proposing to use to the new purpose that is forming, as also of environing conditions which may affect the success which he may meet with in applying them. he must consider also his own physical strength and qualities of mind with a view to this same technical problem. and similarly in ethical valuation, as we have seen, the psychology of the "empirical ego" must play its part. but the conditions thus recognized are, as we might seek to show more in detail, explainable as the outcome of past factual judgment-processes, and on the occasion of their original definition in the form in which they now are known played the sanctioning part of which we have so often spoken. they therefore correspond to the agent's accepted practical ideals, so that the control which his past experience exercises over his present conduct may be stated equally well in either sort of terms--in terms of his prevailing recognized standards, or in terms of his present knowledge of the conditions which his new purpose must respect. thus, in general, the concept of a physical order conditioning the conduct of all men and presented in a definite body of socially current knowledge is the logical correlate of the moral law conceived as a categorical imperative prescribing certain types of conduct. thus the error of regarding the agent's conduct in a present emergency as an outcome of existing determining conditions is logically identical with the corresponding error of the ethical theory of self-realization. the latter holds the logical possibility of a determinate descriptive ideal (already realized in the unchanging absolute self) which is adequate to the solution of all possible ethical problems. the former holds that all conduct must be subject to the determining force of external conditions which, if not at present completely known, are at least in theory knowable. the physical universe in its original nebulous state contained the "promise and potency" of all that has been in the way of human conduct and of all that is to be. into the fixed mechanical system no new energy can enter and from it none of the original fund of energy can be lost. this mechanical theory of conduct is the essential basis of the hedonistic theory of ethics; and it would not be difficult to show that green's criticism of this latter and his own affirmative theory of the moral ideal (as also the current conventional criticism of hedonism in the same tenor by the school of green) are in a logical sense identical with it. for the assumption that conduct is determined by existing objective conditions is precisely the logical correlate of the concept of a contentual and "realizable" ideal moral self.[156] we may now interpret, in the light of our general view of the function of factual judgment, the concept of the "empirical self" referred to in our discussion of the various types of sanctioning condition which may enter into the "final survey." the "empirical self" of psychological science is a construction gradually put together by psychologist or introspective layman as an interpretation of the way in which accepted concrete modes of conduct, in the determination of which standards have been operative, have worked out in practice to the furtherance or impoverishment of the "energetic" self. we have seen that the ambiguous presented self which functions in the moral attitude of obedience to authority or to conscience gives place in the attitude of conscious valuation to apprehension of the "energetic" self, on the one hand, and descriptive concepts of particular types of conduct, on the other. the "empirical self" at the same time makes its appearance as a constantly expanding inventory of the "spiritual resources" which the "energetic" self has at its disposal. these are the functions of the soul which a functional psychology shows us in operation--powers of attention, strength of memory, fertility in associative recall, and the like--and these are the resources wherewith the "energetic" self may execute, and so exploit to its own furtherance, the purposes which, in particular emergencies, new end and recognized standards may work out in co-operation.[157] vi in the foregoing pages we have consistently used the expressions "ethical and economic judgment" and "judgment of valuation" as synonymous. this may have seemed to the reader something very like a begging of the question from the outset, as taking for granted that very judgmental character of our valuational experience which it was the professed object of our discussion to establish. we are thus called upon very briefly to consider, first of all, the relations which subsist between the consciousness of value and the process which we have described as that of valuation. this will enable us, in the second place, to determine the logical function which belongs to the consciousness of value in the general economy of life. the consciousness of value is a perfectly definite and distinctive psychical fact mediated by a doubtless highly complex set of psychical or ultimately physiological conditions. as such it admits of descriptive analysis, and in a complete theory of value such descriptive analysis should certainly find a place. it would doubtless throw much light upon the origin of valuation as a process, and of valuing as an attitude, and admirably illustrate the view of the function of the consciousness of value to which a logical study of valuation as a process seems to lead us. this problem in analysis belongs, however, to psychology, and therefore lies apart from our present purpose; nor is it necessary to the establishment of our present view to undertake it. it is necessary for our purpose only to suggest, for purposes of identification, a brief description of the value-consciousness, and to indicate its place in the process of reflective thought. the consciousness of value may best be described, by way of first approximation, in the language of the austrian economists as a sense of the "importance" to oneself of a commodity or defined moral purpose. it belongs to the agent's attitude of survey or recapitulation which ensues upon the completion of the judgment-process and is mediated by attention to the ethical or economic object in its newly defined character of specific conduciveness to the well-being of the self. the commodity, in virtue of its ascertained physical properties, is adapted to certain modes of use or consumption which, through valuation of the commodity, have come to be accepted as desirable. the moral act likewise has been approved by virtue of its having certain definite sociological tendencies, or being conducive to the welfare and happiness of a friend. thus commodity or moral act, as the case may be, has a determinate complexity of meaning which has been judged as, in one sense, expansive of the self, and the value-consciousness we may identify as that sense of the valued object's importance which is mediated by recognition of it as the bearer of this complexity of concrete meaning. the meaning is, as we may say, "condensed" or "compacted" into the object as given in sense-perception, and because the meaning stands for expansion of the self, the object in taking it up into itself receives the character of importance as a valued object. the sense of importance thus is expressive of an attitude upon the agent's part. the concrete meanings which make up the content of the object's importance would inevitably, if left to themselves, prompt overt action. the commodity would forthwith be applied to its new use or the moral act would be performed. the self would, as we may express it, possess itself of the spiritual energies resident in the chosen purpose. the attitude of survey, however, inhibits this action of the self and the sense of importance is the resulting emotional apprehension of the value of the object hereby brought to recognition. now, it should be carefully observed that the particular concrete emotions appropriate to the details of the valued purpose are not what we here intend. the purpose may spring from some impulse of self-interest, hatred, patriotism, or love, and the psychical material of its presentation during the agent's survey will be the varied complex of qualitative emotion that comes from inhibition of the detailed activities which make up the purpose as a whole. so also the apprehension of the physical object of economic valuation is largely, if not altogether, emotional in its psychical constitution. psychologically these emotions are the purpose--they are the "stuff" of which the purpose as a psychical fact occurring in time is made. but we must bear in mind that it is not the purpose as a psychical fact that is the object of the agent's valuing--any more than is the tool with which one cuts perceived as a molecular mass or as an aggregation of centers of ether-stress. as a cognized object of value the purpose is, in our schematic terminology, a source of energy for the increase of the self, and thus the consciousness of value is the perfectly specific emotion arising from restraint put upon the self in its movement of appropriation of this energy. in contrast with the concrete emotions which are the substance of the purpose as presented, the consciousness of value may be called a "formal" emotion or the emotion of a typical reflective attitude. the valuing attitude we may then describe as that of "resolution" on the part of the self to adhere to the finished purpose which it now surveys, with a view to exploitation of the purpose. the connection between the valuation-process and the consciousness of value may be stated thus: the valuation-process works out (and necessarily in cognitive, objective terms) the purpose which is valued in the agent's survey. but this development of the purpose is at the same time determination of the "energetic" self to acceptance of the purpose that shall be worked out. thus the valuation-process is the source of the consciousness of value in the twofold way (1) of defining the object valued, and (2) of determining the self to the attitude of resolution to adhere to it and exploit it.[158] the consciousness of value is the apprehension of an object in its complete functional character as a factor in experience. the function of the consciousness of value must now be very briefly considered. the phenomenon is a striking one, and apparently, as the economists especially have insisted, of much practical importance in the conduct of life.[159] and yet on our account of the phenomenon, as it may appear, the problem of assigning to it a function must be, to say the least, difficult. for the consciousness of value is, we have held, emotional, and, on the conception of emotion in general which we have taken for granted throughout our present discussion, this mode of being conscious is merely a reflex of a state of tension in activity. as such it merely reports in consciousness a process of motor co-ordination already going on and in the nature of the case can contribute nothing to the outcome. now if it were in a direct way as immediately felt emotion that the consciousness of value must be functional if functional at all, then the problem might well be given up; but it would be a serious blunder to conceive the problem in this strictly psychological way. a logical statement of the problem would raise a different issue--not the question of whether emotion as emotion can in any sense be functional in experience, but whether the consciousness of value and emotion in general may not receive reflective interpretation and thereby, becoming objective, play a part as a factor in subsequent valuation-processes. indeed, the psychological statement of the problem misses the entire point at issue and leads directly to the wholly irrelevant general problem of whether any mode of consciousness whatever can, _as consciousness_, put forth energy and be a factor in controlling conduct. the present problem is properly a logical one. what is the agent's apprehension of the matter? in his subsequent reflective processes of valuation does the consciousness of value, which was a feature of the survey on a past occasion, receive recognition in any way and so play a part? this is simply a question of fact and clearly, as a question relating to the logical content of the agent's reflective process, has no connection with or interest in the problem of a possible dynamic efficacy of consciousness as such. the question properly is logical, not psychological or metaphysical. thus stated, then, the problem seems to admit of answer--and along the line already suggested in our account of economic valuation.[160] recognition of the fact that the consciousness of value was experienced in the survey of a certain purpose on an earlier occasion confirms this purpose, holding the means, in an economic situation, to their appointed use and strengthening adherence to the standard in the ethical case. this recognition serves as stimulus to a reproduction, in memory, of the cognitive details of the earlier survey, and so in the ideal case to a more or less complete and recognizably adequate reinstatement of the earlier valuing attitude, and so to a reinstatement of the consciousness of value itself. the result is a strengthening of the established valuation, a more efficacious control of the new end claiming recognition, and an assured measure of continuity of ethical development from the old valuation to the new. the function thus assigned to the consciousness of value finds abundant illustration elsewhere in the field of emotion. the stated festivals of antiquity commemorative of regularly recurrent phases of agricultural and pastoral life, as also the festivals in observance of signal events in the private and political life of the individual, would appear to find, more or less distinctly, here their explanation. these festivals must have been prompted by a more or less conscious recognition of the social value inherent in the important functions making up the life of the community, and of the individual citizen as a member of the community and as an individual. they secured the end of a sustained and enhanced interest in these normal functions by effecting, through a symbolic reproduction of these, an intensified and glorified experience of the emotional meaning normally and inherently belonging to them.[161] in the same way the rites of the religious cults of greece, not to mention kindred phenomena so abundantly to be found in lower civilizations as well as in our own, served to fortify the individual in a certain consistent and salutary course of institutional and private life.[162] it has been taken for granted throughout that there are but two forms of valuation-process, the ethical and the economic. the reason for this limitation may already be sufficiently apparent, but it will further illustrate our general conception of the valuation-process briefly to indicate it in detail. what shall be said, for example, of the common use of the term "value" in such expressions as the "value of life," the "emotional value" of an object or a moral act, the "natural value" of a type of impulsive activity? in these uses of the word the reference is apparently to one's own incommunicable inner experience of living, of perception of the object, or of the impulse, which cannot be suggested to any other person who has not himself had the experience. my pleasure, my color-sensation in its affective aspect, my emotion, are inner and subjective, and i distinguish them by such expressions as the above from the visible, tangible object to which i ascribe them as constituting its immediate or natural value to me. this broader use of the term "value" has not found recognition in the foregoing pages, and it requires here a word of comment. so long as these phases of the experience of the object are not recognized as separable in thought from the object viewed as an external condition or means, they would apparently be better characterized in some other way. if, however, they are so recognized, and are thereby taken as determinative of the agent's practical attitude toward the thing, we have merely our typical situation of ethical valuation of some implied purpose as conducive to the self and economic valuation of the means as requisites for execution of the purpose. our general criterion for the propriety of terming any mode of consciousness the _value_ of an object must be that it shall perform a logical function and not simply be referred to in its aspect of psychical fact. the feeling or emotion, or whatever the mode of consciousness in question may be, must play the recognized part, in the agent's survey of the situation, of prompting and supporting a definite practical attitude with reference to the object. if, in short, the experience in question enters in any way into a conscious purpose of the agent, it may properly be termed a value.[163] æsthetic value also has not been recognized, and for the opposite reason. the sense of beauty would appear to be a correlate of relatively perfect attained adjustment between the agent and his natural environment or the conditions suggested more or less impressively by the work of art. there must, indeed, be present in the æsthetic experience an element of unsatisfied curiosity sufficient to stimulate an interest in the changing or diverse aspects of the beautiful object, but this must not be sufficient to prompt reflective judgment of the details presented. on the whole, the æsthetic experience would appear to be essentially post-judgmental and appreciative. it comes on the particular occasion, not as the result of a judgment-process of the valuational type, but as an immediate appreciation. as an immediate appreciation it has no logical function and on our principles must be denied the name of value. our standpoint must be that of the experiencing individual. the æsthetic experience as a type may well be a development out of the artistic and so find its ultimate explanation in the psychology of man's primitive technological occupations in the ordinary course of life. it is, as we have said, of the post-judgmental type, and so may very probably be but the cumulative outcome of closer and closer approximations along certain lines to a perfected adjustment with the conditions of life. it may thus have its origin in past processes of the reflective valuational type. nevertheless, viewed in the light of its actual present character and status in experience, the æsthetic must be excluded from the sphere of values. thus the realms of fact and value are both real, but that of value is logically prior and so the "more real." the realm of fact is that of conditions warranting the purposes of the self; as a separate order, complete and absolute in itself, it is an abstraction that has forgotten the reason for which it was made. reality in the logical sense is that which furthers the development of the self. the purpose that falls short of its promise in this regard is unreal--not, indeed, in the psychological sense that it never existed in imagination, but in the logical sense that it is no longer valued. within the inclusive realm of reality the realm of fact is that of the means which serve the concrete purposes which the self accepts. the completed purpose, however, is not _means_, since still behind and beyond it there can be no other concrete valued purpose which it can serve. nor is it an ultimate _end_, since in its character of accepted and valued end the self adheres _to_ it, and it therefore cannot express the _whole_ purpose of the self to whose unspecifiable fulness and increase of activity it is but a temporary probational contributor. it is rather in the nature of a formula or method of behavior to which the self ascribes reality by recognizing and accepting it as its own. xi some logical aspects of purpose introductory whenever and wherever it was discovered that the content of experience as given in immediate perception could be reconstructed through ideas, then and there began to emerge such questions as these: what is the significance of this reconstructive power? what is the relation between it and the immediate experience? what is the relative value of each in experience as a whole? what is their relation to truth and error? if thinking leads to truth, and thought must yet get its material from perception, how then shall the product of thought escape infection from the material? on the other hand, if truth is to be found in the immediate experience, can it here be preserved from the blighting effects of thought? for so insistent and pervasive is this activity of thought that it appears to penetrate into the sanctum of perception itself. turning to a third possibility, if it should be found that truth and error are concerned with both--that they are products of the combined activity of perception and reflection--then just what does each do? and what in their operations marks the difference between truth and error? or still again, if truth and error cannot be found in the operations of perception and reflection as such, then they must be located in the relation of these processes to something else. if so, what is this something else? out of such questions as these is logic born. there may be those who will object to some of these questions as "logical" problems--those who would limit logic to a description of the forms and processes of reconstruction, relegating the question of the criterion of truth and error to "epistemology." this objection we must here dismiss summarily by saying that, by whatever name it is called, a treatment of the forms and processes of thought must deal with the criterion of truth and error, since these different "forms" are just those which thought assumes in attempting to reach truth under different conditions. certainly in the beginning the greeks regarded their newly discovered power of thought as anything but formal. indeed, it soon became so "substantial" that it was regarded as simply a new world of fact, of existence alongside of, or rather above, the world of perception. but socrates hailed ideas as deliverers from the contradictions and paradoxes into which experience interpreted in terms of immediate sense-perception had fallen. in the concept socrates found a solution for the then pressing problems of social life. the socratic universal is not a mere empty form which thought imposes upon the world. it is something which thought creates in order that a life of social interaction and reciprocity may go on. this need not mean that the greeks were reflectively conscious of this, but that this was the way the concept was actually used and developed by socrates. in attempting to formulate the relation between this new world of ideas and immediate sense-experience, plato constructed his scheme of substantiation and participation. the platonic doctrine of substantiation and participation is an expression of the conviction that anything so valuable as socrates had shown ideas to be could not be merely formal or unreal. up to the discovery of these ideas reality lay in the "substances" of perception. hence in order to have that reality to which their worth, their value in life, entitled them, the ideas must be substantiated. this introduction of the newly discovered ideas into the world of substances and reality wrought, of course, a change in the conception of the latter--a change which has well-nigh dominated the entire philosophic development ever since. let us recall that the aim of socrates was to find something that would prevent society from going to pieces under the influence of the disintegrating conception of experience as a mere flux of given immediate content. now, in the concepts socrates discovered the basis for just this much-needed wholeness and stability. moreover, the fact that unity and stability were the actual social needs of the hour led not only to the concepts which furnished them being conceived as substantial and real, but to their being regarded as a higher type of reality, as "more real" than the given, immediate experiences of perception. they were higher and more real because, just then, they answered the pressing social need. the ideas supplied this unity because they furnished ends, purposes, to the given material of perception. the given is now given for something; for something more, too, than mere contemplation. socrates also showed, by the most acute analysis, that the content of these ends, these purposes, was social through and through. from the ethical standpoint this teleological character of the idea is clearly recognized. but as "real," the ideas must be stated in the metaphysical terms of substance and attribute. here the social need is abstracted from and lost to sight. the fundamental attributes of the ideas are now a metaphysical unity and stability. hence unity and stability, wholeness and completeness, are the very essence of reality, while multiplicity and change constitute the nature of appearance. thus does plato's reality become, as windelband says, "an immaterial eleaticism which seeks true being in the ideas without troubling itself about the world of generation and occurrence which it leaves to perception and opinion."[164] now it is the momentum of this conception of reality as a stable and complete system of absolute ideas, the development of which we have just roughly sketched, that is so important historically. why this conception of reality, which apparently grew out of a particular historical situation, should have dominated philosophic theory for over two thousand years appears at first somewhat puzzling. those who still hold and defend it will of course say that this survival is evidence of its validity. but, after all, our human world may be yet very young. it may be that "a thousand years are but as yesterday." at any rate philosophy has never been in a hurry to reconstruct conceptions which served their day and generation with such distinction as did the platonic conception of reality. and this is true to the evolutionary instinct that experience has only its own products as material for further construction. on the other hand, the principle of evolution with equal force demands that only as _material_, not as final forms of experience, shall these products continue. it may be that philosophy has not yet taken the conception of evolution quite seriously. at all events it is certain that long after it has been found that, instead of being eternal and complete, the concept undergoes change, that it has simply the stability and wholeness demanded by a particular and concrete situation; after it has been discovered, in other words, that the stability and wholeness, instead of attaching to the content of an idea, are simply the functions of any content used as a purpose--after all this has been accepted in psychology, the conception of truth and reality which arose under an entirely different conception of the nature of thought still survives. this change in the conception of the character of the ideas, with no corresponding change in the conception of reality, marks the divorce of thought and reality and the rise of the epistemological problem. let us recall that in plato the relation between the higher and ultimate reality, as constituted by the complete and "eternal ideas," and the lower reality of perception, is that of archetype and ectype. perceptions attempt to imitate and copy the ideas. now, when the ideas are found to be changing, and when further the interpenetration of perception and conception is discovered, reality as fixed and complete must be located elsewhere. and just as in the old system it was the business of perception to imitate the "eternal ideas," so here it is still assumed that thought is to imitate the reality wherever now it is to be located. and as regards the matter of location, the old conception is not abandoned. the elder plato is mighty yet. reality must still be a completed system of fixed and eternal "things in themselves," "relations," or "noumena" of some sort which _our_ ideas, now constituted by both perception and conceptional processes, are still to "imitate," "copy," "reflect," "represent," or at least "symbolize" in some fashion. from this point on, then, thought has two functions: one, to help experience meet and reorganize into itself the results of its own past activity; the other, to reflect or represent in some sense the absolute system of reality. for a very long time the latter has continued to constitute the logical problem, the former being relegated to the realm of psychology. but this discovery of the reconstructive function of the idea and its assignment to the jurisdiction of psychology did not leave logic where it was before, nor did it lighten its task. logic could not shut its eyes to this "psychological" character of the idea.[165] indeed, logic had to take the idea as psychology described it, then do the best it could with it for its purpose. the embarrassment of logic by this reconstructive character of the idea even aristotle discovered to some extent in the relation of the platonic perceptions to the eternal ideas. he found great difficulty in getting a flowing stream of consciousness to imitate or even symbolize an eternally fixed and completed reality. and since we have discovered, in addition, that the idea is so palpably a reconstructive activity, the difficulties have not diminished. in such a situation it could only be a question of time until solutions of the problem should be sought by attempting to bring together these two functions of the idea. perhaps after all the representation of objects in an absolute system is involved in the reconstruction of our experience. or perhaps what appears as reconstructions of our experience--as desiring, struggling, deliberating, choosing, willing, as sorrows and joys, failures and triumphs--are but the machinery by which the absolute system is represented. at any rate, these two functions surely cannot be regarded as belonging to the idea as color and form belong to a stone. we should never be satisfied with such a brute dualism as this. without any further historical sketch of attempts at this synthesis, i desire to pass at once to a consideration of what i am sure everyone will agree must stand as one of the most brilliant and in every way notable efforts in this direction--mr. royce's aberdeen lectures on "the world and the individual." it is the purpose here to examine that part of these lectures, and it is the heart of the whole matter, in which the key to the solution of the problem of the relation between ideas and reality is sought precisely in the purposive character of the idea. this will be found especially in the "introduction" and in the chapter on "internal and external meaning of ideas."[166] i. the purposive character of ideas with his unerring sense for fundamentals, mr. royce begins by telling us that the first thing called for by the problem of the relation of ideas to reality is a discussion of the nature of ideas. here mr. royce says he shall "be guided by certain psychological analyses of the mere contents of our consciousness, which have become prominent in recent discussion."[167] your intelligent ideas of things never consist of mere imagery of the thing, but always involve a consciousness of how you propose to act toward the thing of which you have ideas.... complex scientific ideas viewed as to their conscious significance are, as professor stout has well said, plans of action, ways of constructing the object of your scientific consciousness.... by the word idea, then, as we shall use it, when, after having criticised opposing theory, we come to state in these lectures our own thesis, i shall mean in the end any state of consciousness, whether simple or complex, which when present is then and there viewed as at least a partial expression, or embodiment of a single conscious purpose.... in brief, an idea in my present definition may, and in fact always does, if you please, appear to be representative of a fact existent beyond itself. but the _primary_ character which makes it an idea is _not its representative character_, is not its vicarious assumption of the responsibility of standing for a being beyond itself, but is its inner character as _relatively fulfilling the purpose_, that is as presenting the partial fulfilment of the purpose which is in the consciousness of the moment wherein the idea takes place.[168]... now this purpose, just in so far as it gets a present conscious embodiment in the contents, and in the form of the complex state called the idea, constitutes what i shall hereafter call the internal meaning of the idea.[169]... but ideas often seem to have a meaning; yes, as one must add, finite ideas always undertake or appear to have a meaning that is not exhausted by this conscious internal meaning presented and relatively fulfilled at the moment when the idea is there for our finite view. the melody sung, the artists' idea, the thought of your absent friend, a thought on which you love to dwell, all these not merely have their obvious internal meaning as meeting a conscious purpose by their very presence, but also they at least appear to have that other sort of meaning, that reference beyond themselves to objects, that cognitive relation to outer facts, that attempted correspondence with outer facts, which many accounts of our ideas regard as their primary inexplicable and ultimate character. i call this second, and for me still problematic, and derived aspect of the nature of ideas, their apparently external meaning.[170] from all this it is quite evident that mr. royce accepts and welcomes the results of the work of modern psychology on the nature of the idea. the difficulty will come in making the connection between these accepted results and the platonic conception of ultimate reality as stated in the following: to be means simply to express, to embody the complete internal meaning of _a certain absolute system of ideas_. a system, moreover, which is genuinely implied in the true internal meaning or purpose of every finite idea, however fragmentary.[171] it may be well to note here in passing that, notwithstanding the avowed subordination here of the representative to the reconstructive character of the ideas, the former becomes very important in the chapter on the relation of internal to external meaning, where the problem of truth and error is considered. in this account of the two meanings of the idea, which i have tried to state as nearly as possible in the author's own words, there appear some conceptions of idea, of purpose, and of their relation to each other, that play an important part in the further treatment and in determining the final outcome. in the description of the internal meaning there appear to be two quite different conceptions of the relation of idea to purpose. one regards the idea as itself constituting the purpose or plan of action; the other describes the idea as "the partial fulfilment" of the purpose. (1) "complex scientific ideas, viewed as to their conscious significance, are, as professor stout has well said, _plans of action_." (2) "you sing to yourself a melody; you are then and there conscious that the melody, as you hear yourself singing it, _partially fulfils_ and embodies a purpose."[172] when we come to the problem of the relation between the internal and external meaning, we shall find that the idea as internal meaning comes into a third relation to purpose, viz., that of _having_ the further purpose to agree or correspond to the external meaning. "is the correspondence reached between idea and object the precise correspondence that the idea itself intended? if it is, the idea is true.... thus it is not mere agreement, but intended agreement, that constitutes truth."[173] thus the idea is (1) the purpose, (2) the partial fulfilment of the purpose, and (3) has a further purpose--to correspond to an object in the "absolute system of ideas." the first statement of the internal meaning as constituting the plan or purpose is, i take it, the conception of the internal meaning as an ideal construction which gives a working form, a definition to the "indefinite sort of restlessness" and blind feeling of dissatisfaction out of which the need of and demand for thought arises.[174] this accords with the scientific conception of the idea as a working hypothesis. if this interpretation of idea were steadily followed throughout, it is difficult to see how it could fail to lead to a conception of reality quite different from that described as "a certain absolute system of ideas." the second definition of internal meaning is the one in which it is stated as the "partial expression," "embodiment," and "fulfilment" of a single conscious purpose, and in which subsequently and consequently the idea is identified with "any conscious act," for example, singing. the first part of the statement appears to say that the idea of a melody is in "partial fulfilment" of the idea regarded as the purpose to sing the melody. but, as the first statement of internal meaning implies, how can one have a purpose to sing the melody except in and through the idea? it is precisely the construction of an idea that transforms the vague "indefinite restlessness" and dissatisfaction into a purpose. the idea is the defining, the sharpening of the blind activity of mere sensation, mere want, into a plan of action. however, mr. royce meets this difficulty at once by the statement that the term "idea" here not only covers the activity involved in forming the idea, _e. g._, the idea of singing, but includes the action of singing, which fulfils this purpose. "in the same sense _any conscious act_ at the moment when you perform it not merely expresses, but is, in my present sense, an idea."[175] but this sort of an adjustment between the idea as the purpose and as the fulfilment of the purpose raises a new question. what here becomes of the distinction between immediate and mediating experience? surely there is a pretty discernible difference between experience as a purposive idea and the experience which fulfils this purpose. to call them both "ideas" is at least confusing, and indeed it appears that it is just this confusion that obscures the fundamental difficulty in dealing, later on, with the problem of truth and error. to be sure, the very formation of the idea as the purpose, the "plan of action," is the beginning of the relief from the "indefinite restlessness." on the other hand, it defines and sharpens the dissatisfaction. when this vague unrest takes the form of a purpose to attain food or shelter, or to sing in tune, it is of course the first step toward solution. but this very definition of the dissatisfaction intensifies it. the idea as purpose, then, instead of being the fulfilment, appears to be the plan, the method of fulfilment. the fulfilling experience is the further experience to which the idea points and leads. to follow a little farther this relation between the purposive and fulfilling aspects of experience, it is of course apparent that the idea as the purpose, the "plan of action," must as a function go over into the fulfilling experience. my purpose to sing the melody must remain, in so far as the action is a conscious one, until the melody is sung. i say "as a function," for the specific content of this purpose is continuously changing. the purpose is certainly not the same in content after half the melody has been sung as it is at the beginning. this means that the purpose is being progressively fulfilled; and as part of the purpose is fulfilled each moment, so a part of the original content of the idea drops out; and when the fulfilling process of this particular purpose is complete, or is suspended--for, in mr. royce's view, it never is complete in human experience--that purpose then gives way to some other, perhaps one growing out of it, but still one regarded as another. a purpose realized, fulfilled, cannot persist as a purpose. we may desire to repeat the experience in memory; _i. e._, instead of singing aloud, simply, as mr. royce says, "silently recall and listen to its imagined presence." but here we must remember that the memory experience, as such, is not an idea in the logical sense at all. it is an immediate experience that is fulfilling the idea of the song which constitutes the purpose to recall it, just as truly as the singing aloud fulfils the idea of singing aloud. shouting, whistling, or "listening in memory to the silent notes" may all be equally immediate, fulfilling experiences. doubtless the idea as purpose involves memory, as mr. royce says.[176] but it is a memory used as a purpose, and it is just this use of the memory material as a purpose that makes it a logical idea. in its content the purposive idea is just as immediate and as mechanical as any other part of experience. "psychology explains the presence and the partial present efficacy of this purpose by the laws of motor processes, of habit, or of what is often called association."[177] here "idea," however, simply means, as mr. royce takes it in his second statement, conscious content of any sort. but this is not the meaning of "idea" in the logical sense. the logical idea is a conscious content used as an organizer, as "a plan of action," to get other contents. if, for example, in the course of writing a paper one wishes to recall an abstract distinction, as the distinction dawns in consciousness, it is not an idea in the logical sense. it is just as truly an immediate fulfilling experience as is a good golf stroke. so in the mathematician's most abstruse processes, which mr. royce so admirably portrays, the results for which he watches "as empirically as the astronomer alone with his star" are not ideas in the logical sense; they are immediate, fulfilling experiences.[178] the distinction between the idea as the mediating experience--that is, the logical idea--and the immediate fulfilling experience is therefore not one of content, but of use. there is a sense, however, in which the idea as a purpose can be taken as the partial fulfilment of another purpose; in the sense that any purpose is the outgrowth of activity involving previous purposes. this becomes evident when we inquire into the "indefinite restlessness" and dissatisfaction out of which the idea as purpose springs. dissatisfaction presupposes some activity already going on in attempted fulfilment of some previous purpose. if one is dissatisfied with his singing, or with not singing, it is because one has already purposed to participate in the performance of a company of people which now he finds singing a certain melody, or one has rashly contracted to entertain a strenuous infant who is vociferously demanding his favorite ditty. this is only saying that any given dissatisfaction and the purpose to which it gives rise grow out of activity involving previous purposing. but this does not do away with the distinction between the idea as a purpose and the immediate fulfilling experience. if the discussion appears at this point to be growing somewhat captious, let us pass to a consideration of the relation between internal and external meanings, where the problem of truth and error appears, and where the vital import of these distinctions becomes more obvious. ii. purpose and the judgment mr. royce begins with the traditional definition of truth, which he then proceeds to reinterpret: truth is very frequently defined in terms of external meaning as _that about which we judge_.... in the second place, truth has been defined as the _correspondence between our ideas and their objects_[179].... when we undertake to express the objective validity of any truth, we use judgment. these judgments, if subjectively regarded, that is, if viewed merely as processes of our own present thinking, whose objects are external to themselves, involve in all their more complex forms, combinations of ideas, devices whereby we weave already present ideas into more manifold structure, thereby enriching our internal meaning; but the act of judgment has always its other, its objective aspect. the ideas when we judge are also to possess external meaning.... it is true, as mr. bradley has well said, that the intended subject of every judgment is reality itself. the ideas that we combine when we judge about external meanings are to have value for us as truth only in so far as they not only possess internal meaning, but also imitate, by their structure, what is at once other than themselves, and, in significance, something above themselves. that, at least, is the natural view of our consciousness, just in so far as, in judging, we conceive our thought as essentially other than its external object, and as destined merely to correspond thereto. now we have by this time come to feel how hard it is to define the reality to which our ideas are thus to conform, and about which our judgments are said to be made, so long as we thus sunder external and internal meanings.[180] _the universal judgment._--the problem is, then, to discover just the nature and ground of this relation between the internal and external meaning, between the idea and its object. this relation is established in the act of judgment. taking first _the universal judgment_, we find here that the internal meaning has at best only a negative relation to the external meaning. to say that all a is b is in fact merely to assert that the real world contains no objects that are a, but that fail to be of the class b. to say that no a is b is to assert that the real world contains no objects that are at once a and b.[181] the universal judgments then "tell us indirectly what is in the realm of external meaning; but only by first telling us what is not."[182] however, these universal judgments have after all a positive value in the realm of internal meaning; that is, as mere thought. this negative character of the universal judgments holds true of them, as we have just said, just in so far as you sunder the external and internal meaning, and just in so far as you view the real as the beyond, and as the merely beyond. if you turn your attention once more to the realm of ideas, viewed as internal meaning, you see, indeed, that they are constantly becoming enriched in their inner life by all this process. to know by inner demonstration that 2+2=4 and that this is necessarily so, is not yet to know that the external world, taken merely as the beyond, contains any true or finally valid variety of objects at all, any two or four objects that can be counted.... on the other hand, so far as your internal meaning goes, to have experienced within that which makes you call this judgment necessary, is indeed to have observed a character about your own ideas which rightly seems to you very positive.[183] this passage deserves especial attention. in the light of kant, and in view of mr. royce's general definition of the judgment as the reference of internal to external meanings, one is puzzled to find that for the mathematician the positive value of the judgment "two and two are four" is confined to the realm of internal meaning. to be sure, mr. royce says that this limitation of the positive value of the universal judgment to the world of internal meaning occurs only when the external and internal meaning are sundered. but the point is: does the mathematician or anyone else ever so sunder as to regard the judgment "two and two are four" as of positive value only as internal meaning? indeed, in another connection mr. royce himself shows most clearly that mathematical results are as objective and as empirical as the astronomer's star.[184] nor would it appear competent for anyone to say here: "of course, they are not internal meanings _after_ we come to see, through the kind offices of the epistemologist, that the internal meanings are valid of the external world." we are insisting that they are never taken by the mathematician and scientists at first as merely internal meaning whose external meaning is then to be established. surely the mathematical judgment, or any other, does not require an epistemological midwife to effect the passage from internal to external meaning. the external meaning is there all the while in the form of the diagrams and motor tensions and images with which the mathematician works. the difficulty here again seems to be that the distinction above discussed between the idea in the logical sense, as purpose, and the immediate fulfilling experience is lost sight of. the relation between two and four is not first discovered as a merely internal meaning. it is discovered in the process of fulfilling some purpose involving the working out of this relation. so the sum of the angles of a triangle is not discovered as a mere internal meaning whose external meaning is then to be found. it is found _in working with_ the triangle. it is discovered _in_ the triangle. and, once more, it matters not if the triangle here is a mere memory image. in relation to the purpose, to the logical idea, it is as truly external and objective as pine sticks or chalk marks. the streams of motor, etc., images that flow spontaneously under the stimulus of the purpose are just as immediate fulfilling experiences as the manipulation of sticks or chalk lines. the difficulty in keeping the universal judgment, as a judgment, in terms of merely internal meaning may be seen from the following: as to these two types of judgments, the universal and the particular, they both, as we have seen, make use of experience. the universal judgments arise in the realm where experience and idea have already fused into one whole; and this is precisely the realm of internal meanings. here one constructs and observes the consequences of one's construction. but the construction is at once an experience _of fact and an idea_.... upon the basis of such ideal constructions one makes universal judgments. these in a fashion still to us, at this stage, mysterious, undertake to be valid of that other world--the world of external meaning.[185] one is somewhat puzzled to know just what is meant by the fusion "of experience and idea." we must infer that it means the fusion of some aspect of experience which can be set over against idea, and this has always meant the external meaning, and this interpretation seems further warranted by the statement immediately following which describes the fusion as one "of _fact_ and idea." the situation then seems to be this: an internal and an external meaning, a fact and an idea, "fuse into one whole" and thus constitute that which is yet "precisely the realm of internal meanings," which aims to be valid of still another world of external meanings. and this waives the question of how experience fused into one whole can be an internal meaning, since as such it must be in opposition and reference to an external meaning; or conversely, how experience can be at once fact _and_ idea and still be "fused into one whole." nor does the difficulty disappear when we turn to the aspects of universality and necessity. what is the significance and basis of universality and necessity as confined merely to the realm of internal meaning? so far as your internal meaning goes, _to have experienced within that which makes you call this judgment necessary_ is, indeed, to have observed a character about your own ideas which rightly seems to you very positive.[186] but what is it that we "experience within" which makes us call this judgment necessary? in the discussion of the relation of the universal judgment to the disjunctive judgment, through which the former is shown to get even its negative force, there is an interesting statement: one who inquires into a matter upon which he believes himself able to decide in universal terms, _e. g._, in mathematics, has present to his mind, at the outset, questions such as admit of alternative answers. "a," he declares, "in case it exists at all, is either b or c." further research shows universally, perhaps, that no a is b. the last sentence is the statement referred to. what is meant by "further research shows universally, perhaps, that no a is b"? what kind of "research," internal or external, can show this? in short, there appears to be as much difficulty with universality and necessity in the realm of internal meaning as in the reference of internal to external meaning.[187] instead, however, of discussing this point, mr. royce pursues the problem of the relation of the external and internal meaning, and finds that regarded as sundered there is no basis so far for even the negative universality and necessity in the reference of the internal meaning to the external. for at this point arises the ancient question, how can you know at all that your judgment is universally valid, even in this ideal and negative way, about that external realm of validity, in so far as it is external, and is merely your other,--the beyond? must you not just dogmatically say that that world must agree with your negations? this judgment is indeed positive. but how do you prove it? the only answer has to be in terms which already suggest how vain is the very sundering in question. if you can predetermine, even if but thus negatively, what cannot exist in the object, the object then cannot be merely foreign to you. it must be somewhat predetermined by your meaning.[188] but in the universal judgment this determination, as referred to the external meaning, is only negative. _the particular judgment._--it is then through the particular judgment that the universal judgment is to get any positive value in its reference to the external meaning. as has been repeatedly pointed out in the discussions on recent logic, the particular judgments--whose form is some a is b, or some a is not b--are the typical judgments that positively assert being in the object viewed as external. this fact constitutes their essential contrast with the universal judgments. they undertake to cross the chasm that is said to sunder internal and external meanings; and the means by which they do so is always what is called "external experience." it is now high time to ask why the internal meaning seeks this external meaning. why does it seek an object? why does it want to cross the chasm? in other words, what is the significance of the demand for the particular judgment? in the introduction we have been told, as a matter of description, that the internal meanings do seek the external meaning, but why do they? we have also been told that universal judgments "develop and enrich the realm of internal meaning." why, then, should there be a demand for the external meaning, for a further object? the answer is: we have our internal meanings. we develop them in inner experience. there they get presented as something of universal value, _but always in fragments_. they, therefore, so far dissatisfy. we conceive of the other wherein these meanings shall get some sort of final fulfilment.[189] it is, then, the incomplete and fragmentary character of the internal meaning that demands the particular judgment. the particular judgment is to further complete and determine the incomplete and indeterminate internal meaning. and yet no sooner is this particular judgment made than we are told that "it is a form at once positive, and very unsatisfactorily indeterminate." again:[190] the judgments of experience, the particular judgments, express a positive but still imperfect determination of internal meaning through external experience. the limit or goal of this process would be an individual judgment wherein the will expressed its own final determination.[191] apparently, then, the particular judgment to which the internal meaning appeals for completion and determination only succeeds in increasing the fragmentary and indeterminate character. this brings us to another "previous question." just what are we to understand by this "fragmentary" and "indeterminate" character of the internal meaning? in what sense, with reference to what, is it incomplete and fragmentary? later we shall be told that it is with reference to "its own final and completely individual expression." this is to be reached in the individual judgment. and if we ask what is meant by this final, complete, and individual expression--which, by the way, no human being can experience--we read, wondering all the while how it can be known, that it is simply "the expression that seeks no other," that "is satisfied," that "is conclusive of the search for perfection."[192] waiving for the present questions concerning the basis of this satisfaction and perfection, all this leaves unanswered our query concerning the other end of the matter, viz., the meaning and criterion of the fragmentary and indeterminate character of these internal meanings. if we here return to the first definition of internal meaning of the idea as a purpose in the sense of "a plan of action," such as "singing in tune," or getting the properties of a geometrical figure, it does not seem difficult to find a basis and meaning for this fragmentary and indeterminate character. first we may note in a general way that it is of the very essence of a plan or purpose to lead on to a fulfilling experience such as singing in tune, or reaching a mathematical equation. but here this fulfilling experience to which the plan points is not a mere working out of detail inside the plan itself, although, indeed, this does take place. if this were all the fulfilling experience meant, it is difficult to see how we should escape subjective idealism.[193] we start with a relatively indeterminate idea and end with a more determinate _idea_, though, indeed, there is yet no criterion for this increased determination. to be sure, the idea as a plan of action, as has already been stated, does undergo change and does become, if you please, more definite and complete as a plan; but this does not constitute its fulfilment. its fulfilment surely is to be found in the immediate experiences of singing, etc., to which the idea points and leads. the fragmentary and incomplete character of the internal meaning as a plan of action does not, then, after all, so much describe the plan itself as it does the general condition of experience out of which the idea arises. experience takes on the form of a plan, of an idea, precisely because it has fallen apart, has become "fragmentary." it is just the business of the internal meaning, as mr. royce so well shows, to form a plan, an ideal, an hypothetical synthesis that shall stimulate an activity, which shall satisfactorily heal the breach. "fragmentary" is a quality, then, that belongs, not to the idea in itself considered, but to the general condition of experience, of which the idea as a plan is an expression. if, now, the fragmentary character of the internal meaning is determined simply with relation to the fulfilling experiences, such as singing in tune, adjustments of geometrical figures, etc., to which it points and leads, it seems as if the completion of the internal meaning must be defined in the same terms. and this would appear to open a pretty straight path to the redefinition of truth and error. iii. the criterion of truth and error at the outset, truth was defined as the "correspondence" or "agreement" of an idea with its object. but we have seen that correspondence or agreement with an object means the completion and determination of the idea itself, and since the idea is here a specific "plan of action," it would seem that the "true" idea would be the one that can complete itself by stimulating a satisfying activity. the false idea would be one that cannot complete itself in a satisfying activity, such as singing in tune, constructing a mathematical equation, etc., and just this solution is very clearly expounded by our author. in the case of mathematical inquiry, in just so far as we _pause satisfied_ we observe that there "is no other" mathematical fact to be sought _in the direction of the particular inquiry in hand_. satisfaction of purpose by means of _presented fact_ and such determinate satisfaction as sends us to no other experience for further light and fulfillment, precisely this outcome is itself the other that is sought when we begin our inquiry.[194] so "when other facts of experience are sought," if i watch for stars or for a chemical precipitate, or for a turn in the stock market, or in the sickness of a friend, my ideas are true when they are satisfied with "the presented facts." again, it follows that the finally determinate form of the object of any finite idea is that form which the idea itself would assume whenever it became individuated, or in other words, became a completely determined idea, an idea or will fulfilled by a wholly adequate empirical content, for which no other content need be substituted or from the point of view of the satisfied idea, could be substituted.[195] in such passages as these it seems clear that the test of the truth of an idea is its power to bring us to the point where we "pause satisfied," where "no other content need be substituted," etc. nor in such passages does there seem to be any doubt of reaching satisfaction in particular cases. here, it appears, we _may_ sing in tune, we _may_ get the desired precipitate, and possibly even interpret the stock market correctly. of course, the discord, the hunger, the loss, will come again; but so will new ideas, new truths. "man thinks in order to get control of his world and thereby of himself."[196] then the control actually gained must measure the value, the truth of his thought. do you wish to sing in tune, "then your musical ideas are false if they lead you to strike what are then called false notes."[197] it should also be noticed that here this desired determination does not consist in a further determination of the mere idea as such. it is found in "the presented fact," in the immediate activity of singing, of getting precipitates, etc. as has already been pointed out, it is only by using the term "idea" for both the purpose and the fulfilling act of singing that this "pause of satisfaction" can be ascribed to the further determination of the idea. as such, as also before remarked, the sort of determination that the idea here gets means its termination, its disappearance in the immediate experiences of singing, etc., to which it leads. the "indefinite restlessness" of hunger and cold would scarcely be satisfied by getting more determinate and specific _ideas_ only of food and shelter. the satisfaction comes when the ideas are "realized," when the "plans" are swallowed up in fulfilment. but in all this nothing has been said about "the certain absolute system of ideas," nor does there appear to be here any demand for it. to be sure, in the passages just considered, experience has been found to become "fragmentary," but it has also been found capable of healing, of wholing itself, not of course into any "final whole," but into the unity of "satisfaction" as regards "the particular inquiry in hand." there is of course failure as well, but this also is not final. it means simply that we must look farther for the "pause of satisfaction," that we must construct another idea, another "plan of action." but, after having shown that the idea as a plan of action may lead to satisfaction in the particular case, and that its success or failure so to do is one measure of its truth or falsity, we are now suddenly aroused to the fact that after all thought does not lead us to the completed "absolute system of ideas," to a final stage of eternal unbroken satisfaction. but never in our human process of experience do we reach that determination. it is for us the object of love and of hope, of desire and of will, of faith and of work, but never of present finding.[198] if at this point one asks: whence this absolute system of ideas? why have we to reckon with it at all? there appears to be little that is satisfying. indeed, it seems difficult to get rid of the impression that this "certain absolute system of ideas" is on our hands as a philosophical heirloom from the time of plato, so hallowed by time and so established by centuries of acceptance that we have ceased to ask for its credentials. to ground it in the "essentially fragmentary character of human experience" appears to be a _petitio_, for experience does not appear "essentially fragmentary" in this sense until after the absolute system has been posited. and this brings to notice that at this point both the fragmentary and unitary characters of experience take on new meaning. so far this fragmentary character has been defined with reference to "the particular inquiry in hand." now, since the distinction between absolute and human experience has emerged, the fragmentary character becomes an absolute quality of the latter in contrast with the former. so, _mutatis mutandis_, of unity. up to this point unity, wholeness, has been possible within human experience in the case of particular problems, such as singing in tune, etc. but with the appearance of the absolute system of ideas, wholeness is now the exclusive quality of the latter, as incompleteness is of human experience, though of course the _working_ unity, the unity resulting in "pauses of satisfaction," must still remain in the latter. the problem now is to somehow work the absolute system of ideas into connection with the conception of the idea as a purpose, as a concrete plan of action. here is where the third conception of the relation between idea and purpose, described at the beginning, comes into play--the conception in which the idea, instead of being the purpose, or the fulfilment of a purpose, _has_ the purpose to correspond with, or represent "its own final and completely individual expression," contained in the absolute system. from the previous standpoint the idea's "own final and completely individual expression" has been found in the fulfilling experiences of singing in tune, getting mathematical equations, chemical precipitates, etc. here this complete individual experience can never be found in finite, human experience, but must be sought in the absolute system--and this can be only "the object of love and hope, of desire and will, never of present finding." notwithstanding the many previous protestations that the purposive function of the idea is its "primary" and "most essential" character, we are here forced to fall back upon correspondence--representation as the primary, the essential, and indeed, it appears at times, as the sole function. for in the attempt to bring these two functions together the purposive function is swallowed up in the representative. the idea still is, or has a purpose, a "plan of action," but this purpose, this plan, is now nothing but to represent and correspond with its own final and completed form in the absolute system. by this simple _coup_ is the purposive function of the idea reduced at once to the representative. nor is it pertinent to urge at this point that every purpose involves representation, that the plan must be some sort of an image or scheme which symbolizes and stimulates the thing to be done. this no one would question, but now the sole "thing to be done" apparently is to perfect this representation of the complete and individual form in the absolute system.[199] once more, an array of passages could be marshaled from almost every page refuting any such interpretation as this, but they would be passages expounding the part played by the idea in such concrete experiences as singing, measuring, etc., not in representing an absolute system of ideas. even as regards the latter one might urge that, by insisting on the active character of the idea, we could after all regard this absolute system as a life of will after the fashion of our own, were it not at once described as "the complete embodiment," "the final fulfilment," of finite ideas. a life consisting of mere fulfilment seems a baffling paradox. and its timeless character only adds to the difficulty. moreover, if we regard the system as constituted by such concrete activities as measuring and singing, etc., while we have saved will, we shall now have to fallback upon our first conception of truth as found in the idea which unifies the fragmentary condition of experience as related to specific problems, not fragmentary as related to an absolute system. this brings us to the final and crucial point of the discussion, the part which purpose plays in the determination of _truth_ and _error_ from the standpoint of "the absolute system of ideas." when is this purpose of the idea to correspond with its absolute, final, and completed form fulfilled, or partially fulfilled? and here at the very outset is a difficulty. we have read repeatedly that the idea is itself "the partial fulfilment of a purpose." it is now to seek an object which shall increase this degree of fulfilment, but still this fulfilment shall be incomplete. and when we come to consider error, it too will be found to consist in a partial fulfilment. so it appears that there are three stages of "partial fulfilment" to be discriminated, one belonging to the idea itself, another to finite truth, and still another to error. returning to the problem, from this point on we find the two standpoints, that of the specific situation and that of the absolute system, so closely interwoven and entangled that they are followed with great difficulty. we have already seen that the idea seeks correspondence with its object, because it is "fragmentary," "incomplete," "indetermined." and there we found that this indeterminate and fragmentary character belonged to the idea as a purpose, a plan of seeking relief from some sort of "restlessness" and "dissatisfaction," such as singing out of tune, etc. here it is the incompleteness of an imperfect representation of its object in the absolute system that is the _motif_, and how it is to effect an improvement in its imperfect condition is now the problem. here again the appeal is to purpose. whatever may constitute the absolute system, one thing is assured: nothing in it can be an object except as the finite idea "intends it," purposes it, to be its object. again must we ask: on what basis is this object in the absolute system selected at all? in general the answer is: on the basis of a need of "further determination;" but when we further analyze this, we find it means on the basis of a specific want or need, such as food, shelter, measuring, singing, etc. the basis of the selection, then, is entirely on the side of the concrete, finite situation. here, too, we might ask: whence the confidence that there will be found something in the absolute system that will fulfil the purpose generated on the side of the finite? must we not here fall back on something like a pre-established harmony? to this our author would say: "yea, verily. the fact that the absolute system responds to the finite needs does precisely show that the finite and the absolute cannot be sundered." but when we try to state _how_ the purpose generated on the side of the finite can be met by the absolute system, the account again seems to run so much in terms of the finite experience that to call it a system of "final," "completed," and "fulfilled" ideas does not seem accurate. we must note here, too, the shifting in the sense of "purpose." the idea selects its object on the basis of the material needed to relieve the unrest and dissatisfaction of singing out of tune, etc. but now it is to be satisfied by increasing the extent of its representation of its object in the absolute system. and now, finally, what shall mark the attainment of this purpose of the idea to correspond and represent "its own completed form"? when is the correspondence and representation true? simply at the point where "we pause satisfied," where "no other content need be substituted, or from the point of view of the satisfied idea could be substituted." that is all; there is no other answer. there are other statements, but they all come to the same thing. for instance: it is true--this instant's idea--if, in its own measure, and on its own plan, it corresponds, even in its vagueness, to its own final and completely individual expression.[200] but the moment we ask what this "final and individual expression" is, and what is meant by "in its own measure," and "on its own plan," we are thrown back at once upon the preceding statement. the next sentence following the passage just quoted does indeed define this "individual expression." "its expression would be the very life of fulfilment of purpose which this present idea already fragmentarily begins, as it were, to express." but how can we know that the expression is "fragmentary" unless we have some experience of wholeness? and here perhaps is the place to say, what has been implied all along, that this absolutely "fragmentary" character of human experience is an abstraction of the relatively disintegrated condition into which experience temporarily falls, which abstraction is then reinstated as a fixed quality, overlooking the fact that experience becomes fragmentary only that it may again become whole. the absolute system, the final fulfilment, is in the same case. it too is but the hypostatized abstraction of the function of becoming whole, of wholing and fulfilling, which manifests itself in the "pauses of satisfaction." "but," mr. royce would say, "the wholeness of the particular instance is after all not a true and perfect wholeness, because we can always think of the fulfilling experience as possibly different, as having a possibly different embodiment." but this implies also a different purpose. moreover, it abstracts the purpose from the specific conditions under which the purpose develops. thus in singing in tune one doubtless could easily imagine himself singing another tune, on another occasion, in another key, in a clear tenor instead of a cracked bass, etc. but if on _this_ occasion, in _this_ song, and with _this_ cracked bass voice one, accepting all these conditions, does, with malice aforethought, purpose to strike the tune, and happily succeeds, why, for that purpose formed under the known and accepted conditions, is not the accomplishment final and absolute? nor is the case any different, so far as i can see, in mathematical experience. to quote again: you think of numbers, and accordingly count one, two, three. your idea of these numbers is abstract, a mere generality. why? because there could be other cases of counting, and other numbers counted than the present counting process shows you, and why so? because your purpose in counting is not wholly fulfilled by the numbers now counted.[201] i confess i cannot see here in what respect the purpose is not fulfilled. doubtless there could be "other cases of counting," and "other numbers," but these may not be included in my present purpose, which is simply to count here and now. in this passage the purpose is not very fully defined. one's counting is usually for something, if for nothing more than merely to illustrate the process. in this latter case one's purpose would be completely fulfilled by just the numbers used when he should "pause satisfied" with the illustration. or, if i wish to show the properties of numbers, then the discovery that there can always be more of them fulfils my purpose, since this endless progression is one of the properties. or yet again, if one should suddenly become enamored of the process of counting, and forthwith should purpose to devote the rest of his days to it, it would still be fortunate that there were always other numbers to be counted. in other words, the idea as a purpose is formed with reference to, and out of, specific conditions. in the last analysis the problem always is: what is to be done here and now with the actual material at hand, under the present conditions? as the purpose is determined by these specific conditions, so is the fulfilment. to say that the fulfilment might be different is virtually to say that the purpose might have been different, or indeed that the universe might have been different. this necessity of falling back upon the character of the idea as a purpose in the sense of the specific "plan of action" comes into still bolder relief in the consideration of error from the standpoint of "the absolute system of ideas." as already mentioned, the initial and persistent problem here is to distinguish at all between truth and error in our experience from this standpoint. all our efforts at representing the absolute system must fall short. what can we mean, then, by calling some of our ideas true and others false? the definition of error is as follows: an error is an error about a specific object, only in case the purpose, imperfectly defined by the vague idea at the instant when the error is made, is better defined, is in fact, better fulfilled by an object whose determinate character in some wise, although never absolutely, opposes the fragmentary efforts first made to define them.[202] but in relation to the absolute system the later part of this statement holds of all our ideas. there always is the absolute object which would "better define" and "better fulfil" our purposes. hence it is only in reference to the "specific" instances of singing, measuring, etc., that a basis for the distinction can be found. here our plan is not true so long as its mission of relieving the specific unrest and dissatisfaction, the specific discord or hunger, is unfulfilled. the only criterion, then, which we have been able to find for the fulfilment of the purpose, for the truth of the idea as representing an object in the absolute system, is the sense of wholeness, the "pause of satisfaction," which we experience in realizing such specific purposes as "singing in tune." and if it be said again: "precisely so; this only shows how intimate is the relation between our experience and the absolute system of ideas;" then must it also be said once more, either that the absolute system can be nothing more than an abstraction of the element of wholeness or wholing in our experience, or that thus far the relation appears to rest upon sheer assumption. again, it may be insisted, as suggested at the outset of this discussion, that the idea can well have two purposes: one to help constitute and solve the specific problems of daily life; the other to represent the absolute system. very well, we must then make out a case for the latter. if the purposes are to be different, the purpose to represent the absolute should have a criterion of its own. this we have not been able to find. on the contrary, whenever pushed to the point of stating a criterion for the representation of the absolute system, we have had to appeal, in every case, to the fulfilment of a specific finite purpose. and even if this purpose to represent the absolute system had some apparent standard of its own, we should not be content to leave the matter so. we should scarcely be satisfied to observe as a mere matter of fact that the idea has a reconstructive function, and _also_ a representative function. such a brute dualism would be intolerable. iv. summary and conclusions in the end, the outcome of the endeavor to establish a connection between the relation of the idea to human experience and its relation to the absolute system does not appear satisfying. the idea is left either with two independent purposes--one to reconstruct finite experience, the other to represent and symbolize the absolute system--or one of these purposes is merged in the other. when the attempt is made from the standpoint of the absolute system, the reconstructive purpose is swallowed up in the representative. when, on the other hand, the need for a basis of distinction between truth and error "here on this bank and shoal of time" is felt, the representative disappears in the reconstructive function. nowhere are we able to discover a true unification. to be sure, we have been told again and again that the representation of the absolute object, if only we could accomplish it, would be "the final fulfilment," "completion," and "realization" of the human, finite purpose. but besides a confessed impotency at the very start, this involves, as we have seen, either a sudden transformation of the specific purpose of singing in tune, etc., into that of representing the absolute system, or a sheer assumption that the representation of the absolute object does somehow help in the realization of the specific finite purpose. nowhere is there any account of _how_ this help would be given. and this suggests that if the analysis of the idea as purpose, given at the outset of mr. royce's lecture, had been developed further, if the conditions and origin of purpose had been examined, it is difficult to see how this discrepancy could have escaped disclosure. mr. royce starts his account by simply accepting from psychology a general description of the purposive character of the idea. even in the more detailed passages on purpose we have nothing but descriptions of purpose after it is formed. nothing is said of the origin of this purposiveness. the purposive character of experience is of course very manifest, but what is the significance of this purposing in experience as a whole? what is the source and the material of the purposes? it is this uncritical acceptance of the purposive quality of the idea that obscures the irrelevancy of its relation to the absolute system. if the idea must merely be or have a purpose, then it may as well be that of representing the absolute system as any other. of course, there are troublesome questions as to how our finite ideas ever got such a purpose; but, after all, if it is simply a matter of having any sort of a purpose, representing the absolute system may answer as well as anything. but when now we come to deal with the problem of fulfilment, with the question of truth and error, we have to reckon with this neglect of the source of this purposiveness. it is this unanalyzed ground of the purpose that makes the matter of fulfilment so ambiguous. such an analysis, we believe, would have shown that the conditions out of which the idea as a purpose arises determine also the sort of fulfilment possible. there are, indeed, one or two very general, but very significant, statements in this direction, if they were only followed up. for instance: in doing what we often call "making up our minds" we pass from a vague to a definite state of will and of resolution. in such cases we begin with perhaps a very indefinite sort of restlessness which arouses the question: "what is it that i want, what do i desire, what is my real purpose?" in other words, what does this restlessness mean? what is the matter? what is to be done? purpose is born, then, out of restlessness and dissatisfaction. but whence comes this restlessness and dissatisfaction? surely we cannot at this point charge it to a discrepancy between our finite idea and the absolute object, since it is just this restlessness that is giving birth to the purposive idea. one thing, at any rate, appears pretty certain: this "indefinite restlessness" presupposes some sort of activity already going on. the restlessness is not generated in a vacuum. but why should this activity get into a condition to be described as "indefinite restlessness" and dissatisfaction? repugnant as it will be to many to have psycho-physical, to say nothing of biological, doctrines introduced into a logical discussion, i confess that, at this point facing the issue squarely, i see no other way. and it appears to me that just at this point it is the fear of phenomenalistic giants that has kept logic wandering so many years in the wilderness. what, then, in this action already going on is responsible for this restlessness? first let us note that "indefinite restlessness" and "dissatisfaction" are terms descriptive of what mr. james calls "the first thing in the way of consciousness." this assumes consciousness as a factor in activity. so that our question now becomes: what is the significance of this factor of restless, dissatisfied consciousness in activity? now, there appears no way of getting at the part which consciousness plays different from that of discovering the function of anything else. and this way is simply that of observing, as best we may, the conditions under which consciousness operates, and what it does. here the biologist and psychologist with one voice inform us that this indefinite restlessness which marks the point of the operation of consciousness arises where, in a co-ordinated system of activities, there develop out of the continuation of the activity itself new conditions calling for a readjustment and reconstruction of the activity, if it is to go on. consciousness then appears to be the function which makes possible the reorganization of the results of a process back into the process itself, thus constituting and preserving the continuity of activity. so interpreted, consciousness appears to be an essential element in the conception of a self-sustaining activity. this "indefinite restlessness," in which consciousness begins, marks, then, the operation of the function of reconstruction without which activity would utterly break down. precisely because, then, the idea "as a plan" is projected and constructed in response to this restlessness must its fulfilment be relevant to it. it is when the idea as a purpose, a plan, born out of this matrix of restlessness, begins to aspire to the absolute system, and attempts to ignore or repudiate its lowly antecedents, that the difficulties concerning fulfilment begin. they are the difficulties that beset every ambition which aspires to things foreign to its inherited powers and equipment. a detailed account at this point of the construction and fulfilment of the idea as "a plan of action" would contain a consecutive reinterpretation of mr. royce's principal rubrics. such an account the limits of this paper forbid. we shall have to be content with pointing out in a general way a few instances by way of illustration. in the first place, it is in this matrix of indefinite restlessness out of which the idea is born that the "fragmentary character of experience," of which mr. royce is so keenly conscious, appears. but, once more, this fragmentary character is discernible only by contrast with the wholeness on both sides of the fragments; the wholeness that precedes the restlessness, and the new "pause of satisfaction" toward which it points. nor must we forget that the habit matrix, out of the disintegration of which the restlessness is immediately born, does not exist as some metaphysical ultimate out of which thought as such has evolved. back of it is some previous purpose in whose service habit was enlisted. on the other hand, this disintegration means that the old purpose, the old plan, must be reconstructed; that it, along with the disintegrated habit, becomes the material for a new plan, a new wholing of experience. in the next place, the construction of this new plan of action does involve "re-presentation." the first step in the transition from the condition of "indefinite restlessness" toward a "plan" is the diagnosis, the definition of the restlessness. this involves the re-presentation in consciousness of the activities, out of which the restlessness has arisen. this re-presentation is also the beginning of the reconstruction. the diagnosis of the singing activity as being "out of tune" is the negative side of beginning to sing in tune. it is now a commonplace of psychology that all representation is reconstruction. and this is where mr. royce's emphasis of the symbolic, the algebraic, as against the copy type of representation, has its application. all we want here is some sort of an image--visual, auditory, motor, it matters not--that shall serve to focus attention upon the singing activities until they are reconstructed sufficiently to bring us to the "pause of satisfaction."[203] but nowhere in all this is there any reference to the idea's object in the absolute system. nor does there appear to be any call or place for such reference. the representation here is a part of the very process of forming the plan of further reconstruction out of the materials of the specific situation. representation is not the plan's own end and aim. this is to stimulate a new set of activities that shall lead out of the present state of unrest and dissatisfaction. it is also true, as already mentioned, that in the process of fulfilling the plan, of realizing the idea, further determination and specification is produced in the plan itself. the idea as a plan is certainly not formed all at once. nor does it reach and maintain a fixed content. no purpose is ever realized in its original content. but this does not mean that its realization is, therefore, "partial," "incomplete," or "fragmentary." it is a part of its business to change. the purpose is not there for its own sake. the purpose is there as a _means_ to the reorganization and reconstruction of experience. it exists, as mr. royce says, as an instrument, "as a tool" for "introducing control into experience." and as, in the process of use, a tool always undergoes modification, so here, as an instrument for reconstructing habit, the plan, too, undergoes reconstruction. indeed, as regards its content, it is itself, as mr. royce says, as much a habit, as much "the product of association," as any part of experience. the purposing function, the purposing activity, remains; its content is constantly shifting. here, too, is where "the submission of the idea to the object" takes place. only, here, it is not a submission to an object already constituted as it is in mr. royce's conception of the absolute system. the idea as an hypothetical plan of action, as a trial construction, must be tested by the activities it is attempting to reconstruct. that is to say, at this point the question is: does the plan apply to the activities actually involved in the unrest? has it diagnosed the case properly, and is it therefore one in and through which these activities can operate and come to unity again? the "submission" here is the submission of the purpose, the end, to the material out of which it is formed, and with which it must work. but again this material to which the idea submits itself is anything but finally fixed and "complete" in form. on the contrary, as we have seen, it is just the fragmentary and incomplete condition of this material that calls for the idea. yet the idea as a plan must be true to its mission, and to this material, and in this sense must submit itself to whatever modifications and reconstruction the material "dictates" as necessary in order that it may function in and through the plan.[204] on the other hand--and this is the point to which mr. royce gives most emphasis--it is equally apparent that "the idea must determine its object." on this all philosophy, from plato down, which approaches reality "from the side of ideas" is at stake. and this does not appear impossible if, again, the object is not already and eternally fixed and complete. if the object is one constructed out of the very mass of habit material which the idea is reconstructing, and if "determination" means not copying, but construction, then, indeed, must the idea "determine its object." just for that does it have its being. that is its sole mission. here the determination of the object by the idea is not a mere abstract postulate; it is not based upon a general consideration of the disastrous consequences to our logical and ethical assumptions, if it were not so determined. here not only the general necessity for it, but the _modus operandi_ of this determination, is apparent. but, at the risk of tedious iteration, must it again be said that for the determination of the completed and perfected object in the absolute system not only is there nowhere any _modus_ to be found, but, even if there were, it is difficult to see what it would have to do with the kind of determination demanded by such a specific sort of unrest as "singing out of tune," etc. the process of submission is thus a reciprocal one. neither in the object nor in the idea is there a fixed scheme or order _to_ which the other must submit and conform. and this is simply the logical commonplace that submission cannot be a one-sided affair, that determination must be reciprocal. this brings us to what might as well have been our introductory as our concluding observation. it has just been said that the determination of the object by the idea is a vital matter in any philosophy which approaches reality "from the side of ideas." such a way of approach must assert "the primacy of the world of ideas over the world as a fact."[205] mr. royce thus further states the case: i am one of those who hold that when you ask what is an idea, and how can ideas stand in any true relation to reality, you attack the world knot in the way that promises most for the untying of its meshes. this way is of course very ancient. it is the way of plato.... it is in a different sense the way of kant. if you view philosophy in this fashion, you subordinate the study of the world as fact to a reflection upon the world as idea. begin by accepting upon faith and tradition the mere brute reality of the world as fact, and there you are sunk deep in an ocean of mystery.... the world of fact surprises you with all sorts of strange contrasts.... it baffles you with caprices like a charming and yet hopelessly wayward child, or like a bad fairy. the world of fact daily announces itself to you as a defiant mystery.[206] here we have concisely stated at the outset of the lectures the position which we have seen to be fraught with so many difficulties: the position, namely, which accepts to start with the opposition of the world as idea and the world as fact, as something given, instead of something to be accounted for; and which assumes that this opposition stands in the way of reaching reality, whereas it possibly may be of the very essence of reality. to be sure, the above statement of this opposition between the world as fact and as idea is but the expository starting-point. and it is true that the rest of the argument is occupied in the attempt to close this breach. but, as we have seen, except where the idea is expounded as a specific purpose, arising out of a specific experience of unrest, such as singing out of tune, etc.--except in this case, the breach is taken as found and the attempt to heal it is made by working forward from the opposition as given instead of back to its source. this opposition, of course, has its forward goal, but the difficulty is to find it without an exploration of its source. it is back in that matrix out of which the opposition has arisen that the line of direction to the goal is to be found. moreover, in starting from this opposition of fact and idea as given, the only method of quelling it seems to be either that of reducing one side to terms of the other, or of appealing to some new, and therefore external unifying, agency. but if the factors in the opposition are found, not one in submission _to_ the other, nor having the "primacy" _over_ the other, but as co-ordinate and mutually determining functions, developed from a common matrix and co-operating in the work of reconstructing experience, some of the difficulties involved in the alternative methods just mentioned appear to drop out.[207] the point may be clearer if we recur to the passage and ask just what is meant by "the defiantly mysterious," "baffling," and "capricious" character of the world as fact--as "brute reality." first, if by the world as "fact;" as "brute reality," we mean experience so brute that it is not yet "lighted up with ideas," it is difficult to see how it could be mysterious or capricious, since mystery and caprice appear only when experience ceases to be taken merely as it comes and an inquiry for connections and meanings has begun. that is to say, there can be neither mystery nor caprice except in relation to some sort of order. and order is always a matter of ideas. but it is sufficient to submit mr. royce's own statement on this point: we all of us from moment to moment have experience. this experience comes to us in part as brute fact; light and shade, sound and silence, pain and grief and joy.... these given facts flow by; and were they all, our world would be too much of a blind problem for us even to be puzzled by its meaningless presence.[208] if next we take the world of fact as in contrast and co-ordinate with the world of ideas, mystery and caprice here, certainly, are not all on the side of the fact. here, again, must they be functions of the relation between fact and idea. we have seen that without thought there is neither mystery nor caprice. the idea then cannot take part in the production of mystery and caprice, and forthwith deny its parenthood. of course, mystery and caprice are not the final fruits of this co-ordinate opposition of fact and idea. they are but the _first_ fruits--the relatively unorganized embryonic mass which through the further activities of the parent functions shall develop into the symmetry of truth and law. there appears then no ultimate "primacy" of either idea or fact over the other. nor does either appear as a better way of approach _to_ reality than the other. it is only when we say: "lo! here in the idea," _or_ "lo! there in the fact is reality," that we find it "imperfect," "incomplete," and "fragmentary," and must straightway "look for another." but surely not in "a certain absolute system of ideas," which is "the object of love and hope, of desire and will, of faith and work, but never of present finding," shall we seek it. rather precisely in the loving and hoping, desiring and willing, believing and working, shall we find that reality in which and for which both the "world as fact" and the "world as idea" have their being. index absolute: as constituting reality, 348; as related to truth and error, 363 ff.; as a hypostatized abstraction, 369. absolute self, 330. accessory: thought as, 58 ff. activity: as social, 74; thought as, 78; interrupted, and judgment, 154; and hypothesis, 170; as sensori-motor, 193, 200; (see function, reconstruction). æsthetic experience: appreciative rather than reflective, 255; not a form of valuation, 339, 340. alternatives: in judgment, 155; (see disjunction). analogy, 171, 172, 175; in relation to habit, 176. anaxagoras: in relation to the one and the many, 219; his [greek: nous], 220, 221. anaximander: and the infinite, 209; his process of segregation, 214, 215. anaximenes: his [greek: archê], 209; his scheme of rarefaction and condensation, 209, 213, 215, 224. angell, j. r., 14 note, 345 note. animism, 49 note. antecedents of thought (see stimulus). applied logic: lotze's definition, 6. appreciation: distinguished from reflection, 255, 339; not to be identified with valuation, 320-24, 338. [greek: archê]: meaning of search for, 211 ff. association of ideas: refers to meanings, 33, 34; connection with thought, 80; doctrine of: analogous to subjectivism in ethics, 261; presupposes a mechanical metaphysics, 330, 331 note. atomists: treatment of the one and the many, 221. austrian economists, 307, 333. authority and custom: logic of attitude of obedience to, 286; social conditions compatible with dominance of, 286; failure of, as moral control, 286. bacon: extreme empirical position, 156 ff.; view of induction, 157, 158. "bad": practical significance of, as moral predicate, 259; relation to "wrong," 335. baldwin, j. m., 257 note, 378 note. becoming: as relative, 206. "begründung" and "bestätigung": wundt's distinction of, 179; criticised, 181, 182. biology: view of sensation, 58; use of, in logic, 374, 375. bosanquet, b., 59 note, 147, 189, 190, 191, 300; (see study v). bradley, f. h., 47 note, 54 note, 90 ff., 147, 189, 190, 191, 192, 194, 299 note 2, 331 note, 332 note, 353. brentano, 250 note. butler, j., 277. certain, the: relation to tension, 50, 51; as datum, 57. coefficients of reality, perception, and recognition: defined, 263-7; present in economic and ethical experience, 267-9. coexistence, coincidence, and coherence, 28, 29, 33-6, 58, 59, 68. conceptions: lotze's view of, 59; bacon's attitude toward, 157; relation to fact, 168; function in greek philosophy, 342; (see idea, image, hypothesis). conceptual logic: as related to idea and image, 188-92. conscience: evolution of, 286, 287; ambiguous and transitional character of, 287; metaphysical implications of, as moral standard, 288; not autonomous, 288. conscientiousness: dangers of, consequent upon ideal of self-realization, 316; green's defense of, referred to, 316 note. conservation: of energy and mass, 206; (see energy). content of knowledge: and logical object, originates in tension, 49; thought's own, 65; and datum, 69; as truth, 79 ff.; as static and dynamic, 73, 93 ff., 110 ff.; (see study iv; objectivity, validity). continuity, 10, 13, 55. control: idea and, 75, 129. conversion of propositions, 171; in relation to habit, 176. copernicus: his theory, 178; compared with galileo's supposition, 179-81. copula, 118 ff.; scheme of mediation between subject and predicate, 208, 214 ff. correspondence: of datum and idea, 51; of thought-content and thought-activity, 70; as criterion of truth, 82 ff., 353 ff. darwin, charles, 146, 150, 179. datum of thought, 7, 8, 24; as fact, 26, 50, 52; lotze's theory of, stated, 55; criticised, 56 ff.; relation to induction, 61; and content, 60, 70; (see study iii; content, fact, stimulus). deduction, 211, 212. definition: invented by socrates, 203. democritus: attempts at definition, 203. demonstrative judgment, 134. determination: as criterion of truth, 362 ff.; impossibility of complete, in finite experience, 364. dewey, john, 58 note, 86 note, 266 note 2, 316 note, 381 note. dialectic: zeno as originator of, 203. diogenes of apollonia, 222 ff. disjunction: in judgment, 115, 138. dynamic: ideas as, and as static, 73, 76; reality as, 126. earth: as an element, 213. economic judgment: involves same type of process as physical, 235; a process of valuation, 236; type of situation evoking, 241-6, 293-5, 302, 303; distinguished from ethical, 243 note, 246 note, 271, 302, 303; relation to physical, 246 note 3; subject of, the means of action, 259, 304; analysis of process of, 304-12; distinguished from "pull and haul," 237, 238; psychological account of, 310, 311; a reconstructive process, 311, 312. "egoism, neo-hegelian," 316. ehrenfels, c. von, 318 note. eidola: bacon's view of, 157. eleatics: their logical position, 216 ff. elements: as four, 213; as infinite, 213 ff. emerson, r. w., 204, 246 note. empedocles: attempts at definition, 203; treatment of the one and the many, 218 ff. empiricism, 11, 29, 47, 48, 61 ff.; and rationalism, 80; criticised, 156; jevons, 169; treatment of imagery, 186-8. ends: controlling factors in acquisition of knowledge, 229; may themselves be objects of attention and judgment, 233; judgment of, inseparable from factual judgment, 234; conflict of, related, the occasion for ethical judgment, 238-41; indirect conflict of unrelated, the occasion for economic judgment, 241-3; the subject-matter of ethical judgment, 258, 259; definition of, the goal of all judgment, 264, 272; not always explicit in judgment-process, 269, 270; nature of relation between, in ethical judgment, 273, 274, 291, 292; types of factual condition implied in acceptance of, 275, 276; warranted by factual judgment, 276; nature of, unrelatedness of, in economic judgment, 293-5, 302, 303; (see purpose). energy: principle of conservation of, 206, 299, 300; not valid in sphere of valuation, 328. "energy-equivalence": principle of, in economic judgment, 308, 309; meaning of, 309 note. epistemology, 5-7, 10, 11, 13, 17, 18, 47, 73, 341; origin of problem of, 344, 345. erdmann, benno: concerning induction, 173. error: criterion of, 371. ethical judgment: involves same type of process as physical, 235; a process of valuation, 236, 332; type of situation evoking, 237-41, 291-4; distinguished from mechanical "pull and haul" between ends, 237, 238; distinguished from economic judgment, 243 note, 246 note, 271, 302, 303; subject of, an end of action, 258; analysis of process of, 295-302; a reconstructive process, 295, 299. existence: _versus_ meaning, 216, 217. experience: duality of, 16; logic of, 19-21; how organized, 42; relation of thought to organization of, 43-8; as disorganized, 75; (see absolute, functions). experiment: as form of deduction, 212. fact: as equivalent to datum, 26, 50 ff.; criteria for determining, 106 ff.; as reality, 110; in relation to both idea and reality, 380 ff.; and theory, conflict between, 150, 151; mutual dependence of, 168; whewell's view of, 163; (see datum, idea, reality, truth). factual judgment: inadequate to complete mediation of conduct, 230-34; controlled by ends, 269; incidental to judgments of valuation, 272, 295; types of, implied in acceptance of an end, 275, 276; presents warrant for acceptance of ends, 277. fite, w., 331 note. fragmentary, 72; as quality of internal meaning, 360, 361; as an attribute of finite experience, 364, 376; (see stimulus, tension). functions: of experience, 16; logic of, 18, 23; distinguished from status, 16; of thought, 23, 24, 78, 85; total, as stimulus to thought, 36-8, 80; different, and logical distinctions, 42; different, confused by lotze, 56; sensations as, 58. genetic: method, significance of, 14, 15, 187; distinctions, importance of, 24, 53, 62, 71, 85; effect of ignoring, 53, 62, 71; (see psychology). "good": practical significance of, as moral predicate, 259; relation to "right," 335. gore, w. c., 377 note. gorgias, 225. greek view of thought and reality, 342 ff. green, t. h., 274 note, 288 note 3, 315 note, 316 note, 330, 331. habit: relation of judgment to, interruption and resumption of, 154; and hypothesis, 170; and analogy, 176; and simple enumeration, 176; and conversion, 176; and logical meaning, 198; logical function of, 375, 376. heraclitus: his position, 215 ff. hippo, 209. hobbes, thomas, 301. homogeneity: of the world-ground, 207; of the world, 209, 210. hutcheson, f., 301. hypothesis: nature of, vii, 143-83; unequal stress commonly laid on its origin, structure, and function, 143-5; relation of data and hypothesis strictly correlative, 145, 152, 168; as predicate, 146, 183; negative and positive sides of, 146, 155; came to be recognized with rise of experimentalism, 159; and test, 174, 175, 177 ff.; origin of, 170, 171 ff.; supposition and, 178; interdependence of formation and test of, 182. idea: continuous with fact, 9, 10, 12; distinction from fact, 13, 110; lotze's confusion regarding, 31, 32, 41, 65; association of, 33; contrast with datum, 52-4; functional conception of, 70, 112 ff.; objective validity of, 72-5; as entire content of judgment, 119; existential aspect of, 97, 99 ff., 113; in relation to reference, 97 ff., 103, 129; representational theory of, 100 ff., 113 ff., 141, 347 ff., 372 ff.; universality of, 97 ff., 113 ff.; as not referred to reality, 97 ff.; as forms of control, 129; function in judgment, 153, 154; distinguished from image, 183-93; distinction criticised, 199-202; problems accompanying discovery of, 341; in greek thought, 342; instrumental and representative functions of, 346 ff., 372 ff.; purposive character of, 347 ff.; external and internal meaning of, 347 ff.; royce's absolute system of, 348; triple relation to purpose in royce's account, 349 ff.; logical _versus_ memorial, 351; in relation to fact and reality, 379 ff.; (see hypothesis, image, predicate). ideas: platonic, 247. image: as merely fanciful, 53; in relation to meaning, 54; place of, in judgment, 154; distinction from idea, 189-93; distinction criticised, 199-202; as direct and indirect stimulus, 195-7. imagery: empirical criteria of, 186; function of, 187; as representative, 186-8, 194; psychological function of, 193-7; logical function of, 198, 199. immediate: as related to mediation, 342, 350 ff. impression: lotze's definition of, 27, 28, 29, 32; objective determination of, 30, 31; objective quality of, 31, 68; as psychic, 53; as transformed by thought into meanings or ideas, 67 ff.; (see idea, meaning, sensation). indeterminate: as quality of finite experience, 364. induction: bacon's view of, 157; by enumeration and allied processes, 171; and habit, 176; _versus_ deduction, 211, 212. inference: lotze's view of, 60; in relation to judgment, 117. instrumental: as character of thought, 78-82, 128, 140, 346 ff., 372 ff.; (see purpose). interaction: physical, 218 ff. interest: direction of, 205. invention: form of deduction, 212. james, william, 81 note, 352 note, 375. jevons, w. stanley, 169, 173. jones, henry, 43 note, 59 note, 66. judgment: lotze's definition of, 59 and note; relation of, to ideas, 60; structure of, 75 note; bosanquet's theory of, 86 ff.; as a function, 107 ff.; dead and live, 108; definition of, 86, 111; relation to inference, 116 ff.; limits of single, 123 ff.; negative, 114 ff.; of perception, 88 ff., 96; parts of, 118 ff., 207, 208; time relations of, 120 ff.; as individual, 136; as instrumental, 128, 140; as categorical and hypothetical, 136; as impersonal, 131; as intuitive, 139; various definitions of, 147 ff.; analysis of, 149 ff.; disjunctive, 155; psychology of, 153; purpose of, 154; and interrupted activity, 154; unique system of, 224-30; general analysis of, 230-32; purposive character of, 353 ff.; universal, 354; particular, 358; individual, 359, 360; mathematical, 354 ff., 370; (see economic, ethical, factual judgments, copula, predicate, reflection, subject). kant, i., 43, 46, 60 note, 163, 263, 301. kepler, 146, 181. knowledge: in relation to reality, 102 ff.; meaning and, 128; "copy" and "instrumental" theories of, 129, 140, 141; (see judgment, truth). külpe, o., 250 note. logic: origin of, 4; types of, 5-22; as generic and specific, 18, 23; relations to psychology, 14, 15, 63, 64, 184, 185, 192 ff.; effect of modern psychology upon, 345; relation to genetic method, 15-18; problems illustrated, 19, 20; social significance of, 20; eristic the source of formal, 203; pre-socratic, 203; and epistemology, 341, 342; (see epistemology, psychology). lotze: criticised, studies ii, iii, iv; applied logic, 6; thought as accessory, 56; view of judgment, 147; similarity between him and whewell, 165 note; quoted, 6, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 42, 56 note, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 73, 77, 83, 84. many: the, and the one, 210 ff., 218 ff. marginal utility: principle of, 307, 337 note. martineau, j., 262. mathematics: certain forms of proof in, 172 ff.; judgments of, 354 ff., 370. mcgilvary, e. b., 257 note. mead, g. h., 38 note, 337 note. meaning: and logical idea, 30, 31, 32, 33, 41, 97; as content of thought, 66 ff.; three types of, 68; as property of independent idea, 73-5; and association of ideas, 33, 80; and reference, 97; world of, 98, 103, 112; and knowledge, 89, 128, 190; equivalent to response, 198; _versus_ existence, 216-18; inner and outer, 347 ff.; (see content, idea, reference). means: as external and constitutive, 78; reapplication of, the problem of economic valuation, 242, 243, 246, 259, 260, 303, 304; objective in so far as not known adequately for one's purpose, 256; definition of, incidental to all judgment, 272; factual determination of, sometimes determinative of ends also, 270. mediation: in relation to the immediate, 350 ff. melissus: his dialectic, 214. metaphysics, 8, 9, 13, 18, 85; and logic of experience, 13; as natural history, 13-18; worth, 19-22; logical and, 72, 74; (see epistemology, logic). mill, j. stuart, 147, 160 ff., 162, 166. mixture: logical meaning of idea of, 219, 220, 222. monism, 224. moore, a. w., 76 note, 346 note. motion: conservation of, 206. negation, 97, 114 ff. neo-hegelian, 43, 316. newton, i., 146, 159, 179; his notes for philosophizing, 159 note. [greek: nomô] _versus_ [greek: physei], 226. normative and genetic, 16; (see end, purpose, validity, value). obedience: a factor in genesis of morality, 257 (see also authority and custom). object: how defined, 38, 39, 74, 76; socially current, 230; real, individual in significance, 230; nature of the ethical, 240, 328; of the economic, 259, 260, 328; (see substance). objectivity: lotze's view of, 68 (see study iv); types of, 68; lotze's distinction of logical and ontological, 72, 73; distinction denied, 341, 342; scope of conception of, 235; commonly denied to other than factual judgments, 247, 248; not a property of sense-elements as such, 248, 249; a category of "apperception," 250; a mark of the problematic as such, 250, 251, 255; not ascertainable by any specific method, 252; "obtrusiveness" as evidence of, 253; "reliability" as evidence of, 263; conditions of experience of, 253-6; conditions of, present in the ethical and economic situations, 257-60; a real characteristic of ethical and economic judgment, 261-3; not dependent on social currency, 318-20; nor on possibility of social currency, 320-24; nor on permanence, 324-9; (see reality, validity). one: the, and the many, 210 ff., 218 ff. parmenides: his logical position, 216 ff.; influence on platonic-aristotelian logic, 217. participation: significance of, in plato, 342 ff. particularity: of an idea, 99, 113; of a judgment, 358. perception: judgments of, 88 ff., 96. perfect, the, 126. physical judgment (see factual judgment). [greek: physei] _versus_ [greek: nomô], 226. [greek: physis], 207, 224. plato, 53 note; on ideas and reality, 342 ff., 378, 379. pluralism, 81 note. positing: thought as, 68. predicate: how constituted, 75 note; in relation to reality, 101, 103; as hypothesis, 147, 153, 155, 156, 183, 186; develops out of imaged end, 232; interaction with subject, 232; in ethical judgment, 258, 291-6; in economic, 259, 260, 309-11; (see copula, judgment, hypothesis, idea, image). predication, 118 ff. pre-established harmony: in royce's philosophy, 368. presuppositions, 204, 206. problematic (see tension). proof: inductive, 172, 173; of hypothesis, 174, 175; relation of, to origin of hypothesis, 179-82; wundt's view of, 177, 178. proposition: and judgment, 118. protagoras, 226. prudence: ethical status of, as a virtue, 246. pythagoreans, the: their logical position, 216; use of experiment, 216. psychical: distinguished from physical, 25; lotze's view of impression as barely, 27, 28, 30; view criticised, 31-4, 41, 42; two meanings of, 38 note; psychical mechanism, 31; idea as, 53; problem of logical and, 54 and note, 64; activity of thought also made, by lotze, 77 and note; subjective result, 84; (see impression). psychology: and logic, 14-16, 26, 63, 64, 153, 154, 184, 185, 192 ff., 345, 348; principle of, functional, 229, 230; genesis of, 280, 281; logical value of functional, 293. psychologists' fallacy, 37. purpose: logical importance of, 4, 9, 10, 13, 15, 20, 35, 58, 76, 80, 154; logical aspects of, study xi; in an idea, 347 ff.; in judgment, 353 ff.; in criterion of truth and error, 361 ff.; origin of, as idea, 373 ff.; as method, 377; (see end, reconstruction). quales: of sensation, 55, 56, 60 note. qualities: primary and secondary, 221. question: and judgment, 97, 114 ff. rationalism: criticised, 156 ff., 188 ff., 298 ff. rationality: of world, 206. reality: as constructed by thought, 94 ff., 104; as developing, 126; as including fact and idea, 108, 110, 125, 382; as independent of thought, 85, 87 ff., 104; as subject of subject, 88 ff.; popular criterion of, 105 ff.; possibility of knowledge of, 91 ff., 102 ff., 125; for the individual, 94 ff., 103, 112, 224 ff.; as relative to judging, 149; as given in sensation, 160; "perception" and "recognition" coefficients of, 263-7, 277; these present in ethical and economical experience, 267-9; apprehension of, emotional, 263; scope of complete conception of, 235, 340; degrees of, 340; platonic conception of, 343 ff.; royce's conception of, 348; as related to fact and idea, 379 ff.; (see fact, truth, validity). reason, sufficient: principle of, 206. reconstruction: the function of thinking, 38, 40, 46, 75, 76, 85; effect of denying this, 47, 71, 72; data and, 49 ff.; in judgment, 154, 291, 295, 299, 311, 312, 346, 347; (see habit, stimulus, tension). reference: as social, 74; problem of reference of ideas, 82 ff.; as meaning, 97 ff.; functional conception of, 113; paradox of, 99; idea as, 129. reflection: as derived, 1-12; naïve, 3, 9; subject-matter of, 7, 8; logic and, 3, 18, 23; _versus_ constitutive thought, 43-8; distinguished, 255; general nature of, 269; end not always explicit in, 270; outcome of, statable in terms of end or means, 272; (see judgment, thought). reflective judgment, 134. representation: as one of the two functions of an idea, 345, 347 ff., 372; significance of, in ideal reconstruction, 376. response: failure of, and origin of judgment, 154. restlessness: as source of reflection and purpose, 374 ff.; (see tension). rhetoric: origin of, 203, 204. "right" (see "good"). royce, josiah: referred to, 76 note, 147; theory of ideas discussed, 346-82; quoted, 347, 348, 349, 350, 352, 353, 354, 355, 356, 357, 358, 359, 362, 364, 366 note, 368, 370, 371, 374, 379, 380, 381. satisfaction: pause of, as marking attainment of truth, 362 ff. schiller, f. c. s., 327 note, 345 note. science: relation to naïve experience, 10, 11; its historic stages, 11, 12; distinction of logical procedure from epistemology, 13; same history as philosophy, 21, 22. self, empirical: genesis and content of concept of, 290, 292, 331, 332 note 1. self, "energetic": implied in experience of "warrant," 277, 278; stimulus to development of concept of empirical self, 279-81; essential principle in all valuation, 281-5; evolution of moral attitude of reference to, 285-9; logical function of, in valuation, 296; important place in economic valuation, 308, 309; not capable of being described in terms of purpose or ideal, 313-16; bradley's misinterpretation of, 332 note. self-realization (see also green, t. h.): theory of, as moral ideal futile, 298; logically congruous with determinism and hedonism, 330, 331. sensations: logical import of, 57; as functions of experience, 58; as point of contact with reality, 90; place in judgment, 154; and ideas, 164 ff.; (see impressions, psychical). sensori-motor activity, 193, 200. shaftesbury, 301. sigwart, c.: view of judgment, 147. skepticism, 50 note, 85. "social currency": implies an identity of aspect of an object to different persons, 229; object having, an abstraction like social individual, 229; not a test of objectivity, 318-29. socrates: function of concept, 342. sophists, the, 225. spencer, h., 248, 250 note 1, 315 note. standard (see also predicate): identified with predicate in ethical judgment, 238-40; function of, in ethical judgment, 274, 299, 300; morphology and mode of reconstruction of, 296, 297; an ultimate ethical, impossible, 299; objectivity of, 300, 301. stimulus: of thought, 7, 8, 17, 24, 37-40, 47, 81; lotze's view of, 27, 29, 30; view criticised, 30-36; confusion of datum with, 61; defined, 75; and judgment, 153-4; as condition of thinking, 193 ff.; as direct and indirect, 195-7; of ethical judgment, 238-41, 291; of economic, judgment, 241-6, 302; (see content, datum). stout, g. f.: referred to, 349. stratton, g. m., 318 note. structure, 15, 16, 17, 18, 24, 75; (see function). subject: of judgment, how constituted, 75 note; as constructed by thought, 94 ff., 103; as a part of judgment, 118 ff.; as reality, 88 ff.; as inside and outside of judgment, 93, 96; functional theory of, 111, 125; as that requiring explanation, 208, 211 ff.; as modified by deduction, 212; given by analysis of situation, 232; interacts with predicate in judgment, 232; of ethical judgment, 258, 296-8; of economic judgment, 259, 260, 304, 309-11; (see copula, datum, judgment, predicate). subjective: distinguished from objective, 25; lotze's view of impressions as purely, 27, 28; view criticised, 31; definition of, 39; developed only within reflection, 52, 53; (see psychical). subjectivism: in lotze, 83, 84; in royce, 360. subject-matter of thought: distinguished as stimulus, datum, and content, 7, 8, 24; confusion of these (genetic) distinctions, 17, 18; as antecedent, study ii; as datum, study iii; as content, study iv. substance: ethical theories based on logic involved in rationalistic conception of, 298, 299; meaning of concept of, 326, 327; type-form of conduct analogous to concept of a particular kind of, 327, 328. substantiation: significance of plato's, of ideas, 342 ff. supposition and hypothesis, 178-81. sweet, henry: quoted, 153 note. synthetic (see reconstruction). taylor, a. e., 299 note 2, 315 note, 316, 324. teleology (see end, purpose). temptation: ethical, 238, 301; economic, 305. tension: as stimulus to thought, 37, 38, 49, 50, 53, 70, 85; in relation to constitution of sensory datum, 53, 58, 59, 70; constitution of meaning as distinct from fact, 75, 85, 154, 237-46, 250, 251, 255, 291-5, 374 ff.; (see purpose, reconstruction). thales: his [greek: archê], water, 209; in relation to deduction, 212, 214. thought: forms of, 58 ff.; as modes of organizing data, 63; three kinds according to lotze, 68, 69; as positing and distinguishing, 69; validity of its function, 76-82; of its products, 82-5; instrumental character, 78-82; as discriminating sensory qualities, 200-202; (see judgment, reflection). time: as involved in judgment, 120 ff. transcendentalism, 29, 43-8. trendelenburg, a.: view of judgment, 147. truth: criterion of, 84; bosanquet's conception of, 105; popular criterion of, 105 ff.; and purpose, study xi; representational _versus_ teleological view of, 341 ff.; criterion of, 361 ff.; (see objectivity, validity). ueberweg: view of judgment, 147. uniformity: of nature, 206. unity: of the world, 207. universal: first and second according to lotze, 56, 59, 69; ideas as, 97 ff., 113; judgment as, 136; mr. royce's treatment of, 354 ff.; necessity and, 357. validity: of thought, 7, 8; relation to genesis, 14, 15; test, 17, 18; defines content of thought, 24; problem of, study iv; lotze's dilemma regarding, 71-85; of bare object of thought, 72-6; of activity of thought, 76-82; of product of thought, 82-5; (see objectivity, reality, truth). value: lotze's distinction of, from existence, 28, 29; view criticised, 31, 41, 45; organized, of experience, 42-8; determined in and by a logical process, 233; nature of consciousness of, 273, 333-5; function of consciousness of, 335-7; properly mediate and functional in character, 338-40. valuation (see also ethical judgment, economic judgment): includes only ethical and economic types of judgment, 227, 236, 338-40; general account of process of, 272, 295; reconstructive of self as well as of reality, 312. venn, john: origin of hypothesis, 169. "warrant": consciousness of, accompanies purely factual as well as valuational judgment processes, 276, 277; the constitutive feature of survey of factual conditions, 278, 279. welton, j.: origin of hypothesis, 171. whewell, william, 163; view of sensations and ideas, 164, 165; of induction, 165; a certain agreement between him and mill, 166. wieser, f. von, 335 note 2. will: as related to thought, 366 note; (see activity, end, purpose). wundt, w.: view of judgment, 147; view of mathematical induction, 173; formation and proof of hypothesis, 177 ff.; distinction between supposition and hypothesis, 178 ff. "wrong" (see "bad"). xenophanes: his logical position, 216. zeno: his dialectic, 214. footnotes [1] _logic_ (translation, oxford, 1888), vol. i, pp. 10, 11. italics mine. [2] see angell, "the relations of structural and functional psychology to philosophy," _the decennial publications of the university of chicago_, vol. iii (1903), part ii, pp. 61-6, 70-72. [3] see _philosophical review_, vol. xi, pp. 117-20. [4] see statements regarding the psychological and the logical in _the child and the curriculum_, pp. 28, 29. [5] lotze, _logic_ (translation, oxford, 1888), vol. i, p. 2. for the preceding exposition see vol. i, pp. 1, 2, 13, 14, 37, 38; also _microkosmus_, book v, chap. 4. [6] lotze, _logic_, vol. i, pp. 6, 7. [7] lotze, _logic_ (translation, oxford, 1888), vol. i, p. 25. [8] _ibid._, vol. i, p. 36. [9] _ibid._ [10] _microkosmus_, book v, chap. 4. [11] _logic_, vol. ii, p. 235; see the whole discussion, §§ 325 through 327. [12] the emphasis here is upon the term "existences," and in its plural form. doubtless the distinction of some experiences as belonging to me, as mine in a peculiarly intimate way, from others as chiefly concerning other persons, or as having to do with things, is an early one. but this is a distinction of _concern_, of value. the distinction referred to above is that of making an _object_, or presentation, out of this felt type of value, and thereby breaking it up into distinct "events," etc., with their own laws of inner connection. this is the work of psychological analysis. upon the whole matter of the psychical i am glad to refer to professor george h. mead's article entitled "the definition of the psychical," vol. iii, part ii, of _the decennial publications of the university of chicago_. [13] we have a most acute and valuable criticism of lotze from this point of view in professor henry jones, _philosophy of lotze_, 1895. my specific criticisms agree in the main with his, and i am glad to acknowledge my indebtedness. but i cannot agree in the belief that the business of thought is to qualify reality as such; its occupation appears to me to be determining the reconstruction of some aspect or portion of reality, and to fall within the course of reality itself; being, indeed, the characteristic medium of its activity. and i cannot agree that reality as such, with increasing fulness of knowledge, presents itself as a thought-system, though, as just indicated, i have no doubt that reality appears as thought-specifications or values, just as it does as affectional and æsthetic and the rest of them. [14] bradley's criticisms of rationalistic idealism should have made the force of this point reasonably familiar. [15] the common statement that primitive man projects his own volitions, emotions, etc., into objects is but a back-handed way of expressing the truth that "objects," etc., have only gradually emerged from their life-matrix. looking back, it is almost impossible to avoid the fallacy of supposing that somehow such objects were there first and were afterward emotionally appreciated. [16] of course, this very element may be the precarious, the ideal, and possibly fanciful of some other situation. but it is to change the historic into the absolute to conclude that therefore everything is uncertain, all at once, or as such. this gives metaphysical skepticism as distinct from the working skepticism which is an inherent factor in all reflection and scientific inquiry. [17] but this is a slow progress within reflection. plato, who was influential in bringing this general distinction to consciousness, still thought and wrote as if "image" were itself a queer sort of objective existence; it was only gradually that it was disposed of as psychical, or a phase of immediate experience. [18] of course, this means that what is excluded and so left behind in the problem of determination of _this_ objective content is regarded as psychical. with reference to other problems and aims this same psychic existence is initial, not survival. released from its prior absorption in some unanalyzed experience it gains standing and momentum on its own account; _e. g._, the "personal equation" represents what is eliminated from a given astronomic time-determination as being purely subjective, or "source-of-error." but it is initiatory in reference to new modes of technique, re-readings of previous data--new considerations in psychology, even new socio-ethical judgments. moreover, it remains a fact, and even a worthful fact, as a part of one's own "inner" experience, as an immediate _psychical reality_. that is to say, there is a region of _personal_ experience (mainly emotive or affectional) already recognized as a sphere of value. the "source of error" is disposed of by making it a _fact_ of this region. the recognition of falsity does not _originate_ the psychic (p. 38, note). [19] of course, this is a further reflective distinction. the plain man and the student do not determine the extraneous, irrelevant, and misleading matter as image in a _psychological_ sense, but only as _fanciful_ or fantastic. only to the psychologist and for _his_ purpose does it break up into image and meaning. [20] bradley, more than any other writer, has seized upon this double antithesis, and used it first to condemn the logical as such, and then turned it around as the impartial condemnation of the psychical also. see _appearance and reality_. in chap. 15 he metes out condemnation to "thought" because it can never take in the psychical existence or reality which is present; in chap. 19, he passes similar judgment upon the "psychical" because it is brutally fragmentary. other epistemological logicians have wrestled--or writhed--with this problem, but i believe bradley's position is impregnable--from the standpoint of ready-made differences. when the antithesis is treated as part and lot of the process of defining the truth of a particular subject-matter, and thus as historic and relative, the case is quite otherwise. [21] vol. i, pp. 28-34. [22] it is interesting to see how explicitly lotze is compelled finally to differentiate two aspects in the antecedents of thoughts, one of which is necessary in order that there may be anything to call out thought (a lack, or problem); the other in order that when thought is evoked it may find data at hand--that is, material in shape to receive and respond to its exercise. "the manifold matter of ideas is brought before us, not only in the _systematic order of its qualitative relationships_, but in the rich _variety of local and temporal combinations_.... the _combinations of heterogeneous ideas_ ... forms the _problems_, in connection with which the efforts of thought to reduce coexistence to coherence will _subsequently_ be made. the _homogeneous or similar_ ideas, on the other hand, give occasion to separate, to connect, and to count their repetitions." (vol. i, pp. 33, 34; italics mine.) without the heterogeneous variety of the local and temporal juxtapositions there would be nothing to excite thought. without the systematic arrangement of quality there would be nothing to meet thought and reward it for its efforts. the homogeneity of qualitative relationships, _in the pre-thought material_, gives the tools or instruments by which thought is enabled successfully to tackle the heterogeneity of collocations and conjunctions also found in the same material! one would suppose that when lotze reached this point he might have been led to suspect that in this remarkable adjustment of thought-stimuli, thought-material, and thought-tools to one another, he must after all be dealing, not with something prior to the thought-function, but with the necessary elements in and of the thought-situation. [23] _supra_, p. 30. [24] for the identity of sensory experience with the point of greatest strain and stress in conflicting or tensional experience, see "the reflex arc concept in psychology," _psychological review_, vol. iii, p. 57. [25] for the "accessory" character of thought, see lotze, vol. i, pp. 7, 25-7, 61, etc. [26] bosanquet, _logic_ (vol. i, pp. 30-34), and jones (_philosophy of lotze_, 1895, chap. 4) have called attention to a curious inconsistency in lotzes's treatment of judgment. on one hand, the statement is as given above. judgment grows out of conception in making explicit the determining relation of universal to its own particular, implied in conception. but, on the other hand, judgment grows not out of conception at all, but out of the question of determining connection in change. lotze's nominal reason for this latter view is that the conceptual world is purely static; since the actual world is one of change, we need to pass upon what really goes together (is causal) in the change as distinct from such as are merely coincident. but, as jones clearly shows, it is also connected with the fact that, while lotze nominally asserts that judgment grows out of conception, he treats conception as the result of judgment since the first view makes judgment a mere explication of the content of an idea, and hence merely expository or analytic (in the kantian sense) and so of more than doubtful applicability to reality. the affair is too large to discuss here, and i will content myself with referring to the oscillation between conflicting contents, and gradation of sensory qualities already discussed (p. 56, note). it is judgment which grows out of the former, because judgment is the whole situation as such; conception is referable to the latter because it _is_ one abstraction within the whole (the solution of possible meanings of the data) just as the datum is another. in truth, since the sensory datum is not absolute, but comes in a historical context, the qualities apprehended as constituting the datum simply define the locus of conflict in the entire situation. they are attributives of the contents-in-tension of the colliding things, not calm untroubled ultimates. on pp. 33 and 34 of vol. i, lotze recognizes (as we have just seen) that, as matter of fact, it is both sensory qualities in their systematic grading, or quantitative determinations (see vol. i, p. 43, for the recognition of the necessary place of the quantitative in the true concept), _and_ the "rich variety of local and temporal combinations," that provoke thought and supply it with material. but, as usual, he treats this simply as a historical accident, not as furnishing the key to the whole matter. in fine, while the heterogeneous collocations and successions constitute the problematic element that stimulates thought, quantitative determination of the sensory quality furnishes one of the two chief means through which thought deals with the problem. it is a reduction of the original colliding contents to a form in which the effort at redintegration gets maximum efficiency. the concept, as ideal meaning, is of course the other partner to the transaction. it is getting the various possible meanings-of-the-data into such shape as to make them most useful in construing the data. the bearing of this upon the subject and predicate of judgment cannot be discussed here. [27] see vol. i, pp. 38, 59, 61, 105, 129, 197, for lotze's treatment of these distinctions. [28] vol. i, p. 36; see also vol. ii, pp. 290, 291. [29] vol. ii, p. 246; the same is reiterated in vol. ii, p. 250, where the question of origin is referred to as a corruption in logic. certain psychical acts are necessary as "conditions and occasions" of logical operations, but the "deep gulf between psychical mechanism and thought remains unfilled." [30] _philosophy of lotze_, chap. 3, "thought and the preliminary process of experience." [31] vol. i, p. 38. [32] vol. i, p. 13; last italics mine. [33] vol. i, p. 14; italics mine. [34] see vol. i, pp. 16-20. on p. 22 this work is declared to be not only the first, but the most indispensable of all thought's operations. [35] vol. i, p. 26. [36] vol. i, p. 35. [37] vol. i, p. 36; see the strong statements already quoted, p. 30. what if this canon were applied in the first act of thought referred to above: the original objectification which transforms the mere state into an abiding quality or meaning? suppose, that is, it were said that the first objectifying act cannot make a substantial (or attached) quale out of a mere state of feeling; it must _find_ the distinction it makes there already! it is clear we should at once get a _regressus ad infinitum_. we here find lotze face to face with this fundamental dilemma: thought either arbitrarily forces in its own distinctions, or else just repeats what is already there--is either falsifying or futile. this same contradiction, so far as it affects the impression, has already been discussed. see p. 31. [38] vol. i, p. 31. [39] as we have already seen, the concept, the meaning as such, is always a factor or status in a reflective situation; it is always a predicate of judgment, in use in interpreting and developing the logical subject, or datum of perception. see study vii, on the hypothesis. [40] royce, in his _world and individual_, vol. i, chaps. 6 and 7, has criticised the conception of meaning as valid, but in a way which implies that there is a difference between validity and reality, in the sense that the meaning or content of the valid idea becomes real only when it is experienced in direct feeling. the above implies, of course, a difference between validity and reality, but finds the test of validity in exercise of the function of direction or control to which the idea makes pretension or claim. the same point of view would profoundly modify royce's interpretation of what he terms "inner" and "outer" meaning. see moore, _the university of chicago decennial publications_, vol. iii, on "existence, meaning, and reality." [41] vol. ii, pp. 257, 265 and in general book iii, chap. 4. it is significant that thought itself, appearing as an act of thinking over against its own content, is here treated as psychical. even this explicit placing of thinking in the psychical sphere, along with sensations and the associative mechanism, does not, however, lead lotze to reconsider his statement that the psychological problem is totally irrelevant and even corrupting as regards the logical. consequently, as we see in the text, it only gives him one more difficulty to wrestle with: how a process which is _ex officio_ purely psychical and subjective can yet yield results which are valid, in a logical, to say nothing of an ontological, sense. [42] professor james's satisfaction in the contemplation of bare pluralism, of disconnection, of radical having-nothing-to-do-with-one-another, is a case in point. the satisfaction points to an æsthetic attitude in which the brute diversity becomes itself one interesting object; and thus unity asserts itself in its own denial. when discords are hard and stubborn, and intellectual and practical unification are far to seek, nothing is commoner than the device of securing the needed unity by recourse to an emotion which feeds on the very brute variety. religion and art and romantic affection are full of examples. [43] lotze even goes so far in this connection as to say that the antithesis between our ideas and the objects to which they are directed is itself a part of the world of ideas (vol. ii, p. 192). barring the phrase "world of _ideas_" (as against world of continuous experiencing) he need only have commenced at this point to have traveled straight and arrived somewhere. but it is absolutely impossible to hold both this view and that of the original independent existence of something given to and in thought and an independent existence of a thought-activity, thought-forms, and thought-contents. [44] the criticism of bosanquet's theory of the judgment offered in this paper is from the standpoint of the theory of the judgment developed by professor john dewey, in his lectures on "the theory of logic." while the chief interest of the paper, as the title implies, is critical, it has been necessary to devote a portion of it to the exposition of the point of view from which the criticism is made.--h. b. t. [45] the references throughout this paper are to the pages of vol. i of bernard bosanquet, _logic or the morphology of knowledge_, oxford, 1888. [46] f. h. bradley, _principles of logic_, p. 64. [47] the difficulty, of course, is not a merely formal one, much less a verbal one. instinctively we grant to bosanquet his statement that reality is a continuous whole; we feel it almost captious to question his right to it. but why? because the _content of judgment_ is continuous; judgment is always engaged with the determination of a related totality. but if all content is ideal, and judgment is just the application of this content to reality in virtue of an isolated contact, surely it begs the entire question to say that reality apart from the content applied is continuous, and then to use this assertion to justify the objective validity of the judgment--its element of permanent truth. [48] there is good reason for believing that mr. bosanquet escapes, in his own mind, the difficulty by the term "correspondence." "the name stands for these elements in the idea which _correspond_ in the separate worlds;" we may even be accused of injustice in confusing this correspondence with bare identity of existence. but if one idea corresponds to another in the sense of referring to it, what is this but the fact to be explained--how an existence can refer beyond itself? [49] this conclusion is clearly recognized by bradley, _appearance and reality_, chap. 4. [50] it would be suggestive to inquire in what sense conscious thought claims to know. is it a general claim which thought _qua_ thought puts forth, or is it the claim of the content of some particular thought? the former, of course, is a mere pious aspiration having no reference to specific validity or truth; the latter is precisely the problem under consideration. [51] bosanquet would seem to have followed lotze in this insertion of a world of "meanings" intermediate between the individual idea as such and the real object as such. see the criticism already passed, pp. 93-5. [52] or, the situation as questioned is itself a fact, and a perfectly determinate (though not determined) one. see pp. 38, 50. [53] of course, the distinction between the process of arriving as temporal, and the essential relation of subject and predicate as eternal, harks back to the notion of judgment as the process by which "we" reproduce, or make real for ourselves, a reality already real within itself. and it involves just the same difficulties. the relation of subject and predicate--this simultaneous distinction and mutual reference--has meaning only in an act of adjustment, of attempt to control, within which we distribute our conditions. when the act is completed, the relation of subject and predicate, as subject and predicate, quite disappears. an eternal relation of the two is meaningless; we might as well talk of an eternal reaching for the same distant object by the same hand. in such conceptions, we have only grasped a momentary phase of a situation, isolated it, and set it up as an entity. significant results would be reached by considering the "synthetic" character (in the kantian sense) of judgment from this point of view. all modern logicians agree that judgment must be ampliative, must extend knowledge; that a "trifling proposition" is no judgment at all. what does this mean save that judgment is developmental, transitive, in effect and purport? and yet these same writers conceive of reality as a _finished system of content in a complete and unchangeable single judgment_! it is impossible to evade the contradiction save by recognizing that since it is the business of judgment to transform, its test (or truth) is successful performance of the particular transformation it has set itself, and that transformation is temporal. [54] it is worth considering whether this may not be the reality of royce's distinction between outer and inner meaning. an anticipation of experience is the working prerequisite of the control which will realize the idea, _i. e._, the experience anticipated. one is no more "inner" or "outer" than the other. [55] _logik_, p. 304. [56] de morgan, _budget of paradoxes_, pp. 55, 56; quoted by welton, _logic_, vol. ii, p. 60. [57] advanced grammarians treat this matter in a way which should be instructive to logicians. the hypothesis, says sweet (§ 295 of _a new english grammar, logical and historical_, oxford, 1892), suggests an affirmation or negation "as objects of thought." "in fact, we often say _supposing_ (that is, 'thinking') _it is true_, instead of _if it is true_." in a word, the hypothetical judgment as such puts explicitly before us the content of thought, of the predicate or hypothesis; and in so far is a moment in judgment rather than adequate judgment itself. [58] this carries with it, of course, the notion that "sensation" and "image" are not distinct psychical existences in themselves, but are distinguished logical forces. [59] concerning the strict correlativity of subject and predicate, data and hypothesis, see p. 34. [60] _novum organum_, vol. i, p. 61. [61] newton's "rules for philosophizing" (_principia_, book iii) are as follows: rule i. "no more causes of natural things are to be admitted than such as are both true, and sufficient to explain the phenomena of those things." rule ii. "natural effects of the same kind are to be referred as far as possible to the same causes." rule iii. "those qualities of bodies that can neither be increased nor diminished in intensity, and which are found to belong to all bodies within reach of our experiments are to be regarded as qualities of all bodies whatever." rule iv. "in experimental philosophy propositions collected by induction from phenomena are to be regarded either as accurately true or very nearly true notwithstanding any contrary hypothesis, till other phenomena occur, by which they are made more accurate or are rendered subject to exceptions." [62] book iii, chap. 2, sec. 5; italics mine. the latter part of the passage, beginning with the words "if we did not often commence," etc., is quoted by mill from comte. the words "neither induction nor deduction would enable us to understand even the simplest phenomena" are his own. [63] book iii, chap. 7, sec. 1. [64] book iii, chap. 14, secs. 4 and 5. [65] william whewell, _the philosophy of the inductive sciences_, london, 1840. [66] the essential similarity between whewell's view and that of lotze, already discussed (see chap. 3) is of course explainable on the basis of their common relationship to kant. [67] _logic_, book iv, chap. 2, sec. 2; italics mine. [68] _ibid._ [69] _ibid._, sec. 4; in sec. 6 he states even more expressly that any conception is appropriate in the degree in which it "helps us toward what we wish to understand." [70] _ibid._, sec. 6; italics mine. [71] venn, _empirical logic_, p. 383. [72] venn, _empirical logic_, p. 25; italics mine. [73] welton, _manual of logic_, vol. ii, chap. 3. [74] w. s. jevons, _principles of science_, pp. 231, 232. [75] b. erdmann, "zur theorie des syllogismus und der induktion," _philosophische abhandlungen_, vol. vi, p. 230. [76] wundt, _logik_, 2d ed., vol. ii, p. 131. [77] welton, _manual of logic_, vol. ii, p. 72. [78] _op. cit._, vol. i, p. 452 ff. [79] _op. cit._, vol. i, pp. 454-461. [80] bosanquet, _logic_, vol. i, p. 46. [81] bradley, _principles of logic_, p. 10. [82] _op. cit._, vol. i, p. 74. [83] bradley, _principles of logic_, p. 11. [84] _op. cit._, vol. i, pp. 75, 76. [85] bradley, _op. cit._, pp. 4-6. [86] _op. cit._, pp. 7, 8. [87] this study may be regarded as in some sense a development of pp. 7-10 of _the necessary and the contingent in the aristotelian system_, published in 1896 by the university of chicago press. while quite independent in treatment, the two papers supplement each other. [88] the best special illustration of this truth with which i am acquainted is presented for the science of chemistry in an article by f. wald, "die genesis der stöchiometrischen grundgesetze," in _zeitschrift für physikalische chemie_, vol. xviii (1895), pp. 337 ff. [89] [greek: xi] 201, 246. [90] h 99. [91] in allusion to fr. 90 (diels). diels finds in fr. 108 (fr. 18, bywater), [greek: oti sophon esti pantôn kechôrismenon] the thought that god is the absolute, comparing the [greek: nous] of anaxagoras and the [greek: chôristê idea] of plato and the [greek: ousia chôristê] of aristotle. he assumes that [greek: sophon]=[greek: logos] and concedes great significance to the fragment. but this interpretation is utterly incompatible with everything else that we know of heraclitus, and should be admitted only if it were the only one admissible. zeller discusses the fragment at length, vol. i, p. 629, 1. if diels's interpretation be accepted, the exposition above given of heraclitus's logical position must be abandoned. [92] it has been, and in some quarters is still, the fashion to say that heraclitus is the originator of the doctrine of relativity; but zeller is quite right in denying the charge. no doubt his teachings lent themselves readily to such a development, but he did not so express himself. according to him the _contrarieties coexist in the process_. [93] _cf._ ritter-preller, § 65_c_. [94] this, in a word, is the burden of my study of _the necessary and the contingent in the aristotelian system_. [95] i have in preparation a study of the problem of physical interaction in pre-socratic philosophy which deals with this question in all its phases. [96] this statement is, of course, figurative, since empedocles denied the existence of a void. [97] i cannot now undertake a defense of this statement, which runs counter to certain ancient reports, but must reserve a full discussion for my account of physical interaction. [98] the motive for making this assumption was clearly the desire to make of the [greek: nous] the prime mover in the world while exempting it from reaction on the part of the world, which would have been unavoidable if its nature had contained parts of other things. it is the same problem of "touching without being touched in return" that led aristotle to a similar definition of god and of the rational soul. the same difficulty besets the absolutely "simple" soul of plato's _phaedo_ and the causality of the ideas. [99] aristotle, _de generatione et corruptione_, 323^b 10 f. [100] we have seen that this distinction was latent in anaximenes's process of rarefaction and condensation. for other matters see chaignet, _histoire de la psychologie_, vol. i, p. 114, whose account, however, needs to be corrected in some particulars. [101] i say "perhaps" because ancient reports differ as to the precise relation of position and arrangement to the distinction between qualities, primary and secondary. [102] this is only another instance of what mr. venn (_empirical logic_, p. 56) has wittily alluded to as "screwing up the cause and the effect into close juxtaposition." [103] simplicius says [greek: euthys meta to prooimion]; see diels, _die fragmente der vorsokratiker_ (berlin, 1903), p. 347, l. 18. [104] fr. 2, diels. [105] see diels, _fragmente der vorsokratiker_, p. 343, l. 2; p. 344, l. 27. [106] 320 c f. [107] considerations of space as well as circumstances attending the immediate preparation of this discussion for the press have precluded any but the most general and casual reference to the recent literature of the subject. much of this literature only imperfectly distinguishes the logical and psychological points of view, so that critical reference to it, unaccompanied by detailed restatement and analysis of the positions criticised, would be useless. [108] in order to avoid complicating the problems, we have here employed the common notion that the physical world, physical object, and property may be taken for granted as possible adequate contents of judgment, and that the problem is only as to the objectivity of economic and ethical contents. of course we may, in the end, come to believe that the "physical" object is itself an economic construct, in the large sense of "economic;" that is, an instrument of an effective or successful experience. thus in terms of the illustration used above, in the attitude of entertaining in a general way the plan of building a house _of some sort or other_, one may have before him various building materials the ascertained qualities of which are, it may be, socially recognized as in a general way fitting them for such a use. there is doubtless so much of real foundation for the common notion here referred to. but along with the _definition_ of the plan in ethical and economic judgment, along with the determination actually to build a house, and a house of a certain specific kind, must go _further_ determination of the means in their physical aspects, a determination which all the while reacts into the process of determination of the end. see below, p. 246, note 3. [109] in the moral life, as elsewhere, the distinction of deduction and induction is one of degree. there is but one _type_ or _method_ of inference, though some inferences may approach more closely than do others the limit of pure "subsumption." [110] see iii below. [111] it is no part of the present view that the ends which enter into economic conflict are incapable of becoming organic and intrinsically interrelated members of the provisional system of life. on the contrary, the very essence of our contention is that adjustment established between two such conflicting ends in economic judgment is in itself ethical and a member of the provisional system of the individual's ends of life, and will stand as such, subject to modification through changes elsewhere in the system, so long as the economic conditions in view of which it was determined remained unchanged. the "mutual exclusiveness" of the ends in ethical deliberation is simply the correlate of a relative fixity in certain of the conditions of life. a man's command over the means of obtaining such things as books and fuel varies much and often suddenly in a society like ours from time to time; but, on the other hand, his physical condition, his intelligence, his powers of sympathy, and his spiritual capacity for social service commonly do not. hence there can be and is a certain more or less definite and permanent comprehensive scheme of conduct morally obligatory upon him so far as the exercise of these latter faculties is concerned, but so far as his conduct depends upon the variable conditions mentioned, it cannot be prescribed in general terms, nor will any provisional ideal of moral selfhood admit any such prescriptions as integral elements into itself. the moral self is an ideal construct based upon these fixed conditions of life--conditions so fixed that the spiritual furtherance or deterioration likely to result from certain modes of conduct involving and affecting them can be estimated directly and with relative ease by the "ethical" method of judgment. implied in such a construct is, of course, a reference to certain relatively permanent social and also physical conditions. in so far as society and physical nature, and for that matter the individual's own nature, are _variable_, these are the subjects of "scientific" or "factual" judgments incidental to the determination of problems by the "economic" method--problems, that is, for which no _general_ answer, through reference to a more or less definite and stable working concept of the self, can be given. thus our knowledge of the physical universe is largely, if not chiefly, incidental to and conditioned by our economic experience. again, our economic judgments are in every case determinative of the self in situations in which, as presented by (perhaps even momentarily) variable conditions, physical, social, or personal, the ethical method is inapplicable. in a socialistic state, in which economic conditions might be more stable than in our present one, many problems in consumption which now are economic in one sense would be ethical because admitting of solution by reference to the type of self presupposed in the established state program of production and distribution. even now it is not easy to specify an economic situation the solution of which is absolutely indifferent ethically. there is a possibility of intemperance even in so "æsthetic" an indulgence as turkish rugs. [112] accordingly there can be no distinction of ends, some as ethical, others as economic, but from an ethical standpoint indifferent, and yet others as amenable neither to ethical nor to economic judgment. the type of situation and the corresponding mode of judgment employed determines whether an end shall be for the time being ethical, economic, or of neither sort conspicuously. [113] the right of prudence to rank among the virtues cannot, on our present view, be questioned. economic judgment, though it must be valuation of means, is essentially choice of ends--and, as would appear, choice of a sort peculiarly difficult by reason of the usually slight intrinsic relation between the ends involved and also by reason of the absence of effective points of view for comparison. culture, as emerson remarks, "sees prudence not to be a several faculty, but a name for wisdom and virtue conversing with the body and its wants." and again, "the spurious prudence, making the senses final, is the god of sots and cowards, and is the subject of all comedy.... [the true prudence] takes the laws of the world whereby man's being is conditioned, as they are, and keeps these laws that it may enjoy their proper good" (essay on _prudence_). [114] here again we purposely use inaccurate language. strictly, the ends here spoken of as competing are such, we must say, only because they are as yet in a measure indeterminate, wanting in "clearness," and are not yet understood in their true economic character; likewise the means are wanting in that final shade or degree of physical and mechanical determinateness which they are presently to possess as means to a finally determinate economic end. thus economic judgment, by which is to be understood determination of an end of action by the economic method and in accordance with economic principles, involves in general physical re-determination of the means. the means which at the outset of the present economic judgment-process appear as physically available indifferently for either of the tentative ends under consideration are only in a general way the same means for knowledge as they will be when the economic problem has been solved. they are, so far as now determinate, the outcome of former physical judgment-processes incidental to the definition of economic ends in former situations like the present. [115] in our discussion of this preliminary question there is no attempt to furnish what might be called an _analysis_ of the consciousness of objectivity. this has been undertaken by various psychologists in recent well-known contributions to the subject. for our purpose it is necessary only to specify the intellectual and practical attitude out of which the consciousness of objectivity arises; not the sensory "elements" or factors involved in its production as an experience. [116] so, on the other hand, our vague organic sensations are possibly more instructive as they are, _for their own purpose_, than they would be if more sharply discriminated and complexly referred. for convenience we here meet the view under consideration with its own terminology; we by no means wish to be understood as indorsing this terminology as psychologically correct. the sense-quality of which we read in "structural psychology" is, we hold, not a structural unit at all, but in fact a highly abstract development out of that unorganized whole of sensory experience in which reflective attention begins. there is, for example, no such thing as the simple unanalyzable sense-quality "red" in consciousness until judgment has proceeded far enough to have constructed a definite and measured experience which may be symbolized as "object-before-me-possessing-the-attribute-red." in place of the original sensory total-experience we now have a more or less developed perceptual (_i. e._, judgmental) total-experience. it is an instance of the "psychological fallacy" to interpret what are really elements of _meaning_ in a perceived object constructed in judgment (for this is the true nature of the "simple idea of sensation" or "sense-element") as so many bits of psychical material which were isolated from each other at the outset, and have been externally joined together in their present combination. [117] the phrase is külpe's and is used in his sense of consciousness taken as a whole, as, for example, attentive, apperceptive, volitional, rather than in the sense made familiar by spencer and others. [118] the foregoing discussion is in many ways similar to brentano's upon the same subject. in discussing his first class of modes of consciousness, the _vorstellungen_, he says: "we find no contrasts between presentations excepting those of the objects to which the presentations refer. only in so far as warm and cold, light and dark, a high note and a low, form contrasts can we speak of the corresponding presentations as contrasted; and, in general, there is in any other sense than this no contrast within the entire range of these conscious processes" (_psychologie vom empirischen standpunkte_, bd. i, p. 29). this may stand as against any attempt to find contrast between abstract sense-qualities taken apart from their objective reference. what is, however, the ground of distinction between the presented objects? apparently this must be answered in the last resort as above. in this sense we should need finally to interpret "sensuous" and "material" in terms of objectivity as above defined, rather than the reverse. they are cases in or specifications of the determination of adequate stimuli. [119] in this connection reference may be made to the well-known disturbing effect of the forced introduction of attention to details into established sensori-motor co-ordinations, such as "typewriting," playing upon the piano, and the like. [120] _cf._ professor baldwin's _social and ethical interpretations_, and professor mcgilvary's recent paper on "moral obligation," _philosophical review_, vol. xi, especially pp. 349 f. [121] manifestly, as indicated just above, this accepted value of the object implies fuller physical knowledge of the object than was possessed at the outset of the economic judgment. see above, p. 234, note; p. 246, note 3; and p. 271, below. [122] _types of ethical theory_, vol. ii, p. 5. [123] see p. 253 above. [124] it is not so much the case that the object, on the one side, excites in the agent's consciousness, on the other, the "sensations of resistance" which have played such a part in recent controversy on the subject, as that (1) the object in certain of its promptings is "resisting" certain other of its promptings, or that (2) certain "positive" activities of the agent are being inhibited by certain "negative" activities, thereby giving rise to the "emotion of resistance." that "positive" and "negative" are here used in a teleological way will be apparent. it is surely misleading to speak of "_sensations_ of resistance" even in deprecatory quotation marks, except as "sensation" is used in its everyday meaning, viz., experience of strongly sensory quality. [125] the general theory of emotion which is here presupposed, and indeed is fundamental to the entire discussion, may be found in professor dewey's papers on "the theory of emotion," _psychological review_, vol. i, p. 553; vol. ii, p. 13. [126] such is, in fact, the teaching of the various forms of ethical intuitionism, and we find it not merely implied, but explicitly affirmed, in a work in many respects so remote from intuitionism in its standpoint as green's _prolegomena to ethics_. see pp. 178-81, and especially pp. 355-9. [127] sermon ii. [128] not to imply of course that psychologically or logically the distinction of conditions and means is other than a convenient superficial one. [129] manifestly we have here been approaching from a new direction the "recognition coefficient" of reality described above. see p. 266. [130] this, if it were intended as an account of the genesis of psychology as a science and of the psychological interest on the part of the individual, would doubtless be most inadequate. we have, for one thing, made no mention of the part which error and resulting practical failure play in stimulating an interest in the _judgmental_ processes of observation and the like, and in technique of the control of these. here, as well as in the processes of _execution_ of our purposes, must be found many of the roots of psychology as a science. moreover, no explanation has been offered above for the appropriation by the "energetic" self of these phenomena of interruption and retardation of its energy as being, in fact, its own, or within itself. the problem would appear to be psychological, and so without our province, and we gladly pass it by. [131] we can, of course, undertake no minute analysis of the psychological mechanism or concatenation of the process here sketched in barest outline. our present purpose is wholly that of description. slight as our account of the process of transition is, we give it space only because it seems necessary to do so in order to make intelligible the accounts yet to be given of the conscious valuation processes for which the movement here described prepares the way. it will be observed that we assume above that the purpose is _successful as planned_ and _by succeeding_ brings about the undesirable results. failure in execution of the purpose as such could only, in the manner already outlined, prompt a more adequate investigation of the _factual conditions_. [132] the case is not essentially altered in logical character if for the levitical law be substituted the general principles of the new dispensation read off details by an authoritative church or by "private judgment." [133] a remark may be added here by way of caution. the presented self, we have said, attenuates to a mere maxim or tacit presumption in favor of a certain type of logical procedure in dealing with the situation. it must be remembered that the presented self, like all other presentation, is and comes to be for the sake of its function in experience, and so is practical from the start. the process sketched above is therefore not from bare presented content as such to a methodological presumption, which, as methodological and not contentual, is qualitatively different from what preceded it. [134] _recognized_ authority is, of course, not the same thing by any means as authority unrecognized because absolutely dominant. [135] we may be pardoned for supplying from the history of ethics no illustrations of this slight sketch. [136] in fact, as suggested above, the _prolegomena to ethics_ is in many respects essentially intuitional in spirit, though its intuitionism is of a modern discreetly attenuated sort. [137] this would appear to be the logical value of functional psychology as a science of mental process. [138] we have already given a slight sketch of the historical process here characterized in the barest logical terms. [139] further consideration of the problem of factual judgment must be deferred to part v. [140] the relation of the empirical self to the "energetic" and to standards will come in for statement in part v in the connection just referred to. [141] it might be possible to construct a "logic" of these various types of working moral standard in such a way as to show that in each type there is implied the one next higher morphologically, and ultimately the highest--that is, some sort of concept of the "energetic" self. [142] it matters not at all whether, in ethics or metaphysics, our universal be abstract or on the other hand "concrete," like green's conception of the self, or a "hegelian" absolute. its logical use in the determination of particulars must be essentially the same in either case. [143] in this connection reference may be made to mr. taylor's recent work, _the problem of conduct_. mr. taylor reduces the moral life to terms of an ultimate conflict between the ideals of egoism and social justice, holding that the conflict is in theory irreconcilable. with this negative attitude toward current standards in ethical theory one may well be in accord without accepting mr. taylor's further contention that a theory of ethics is therefore impossible. because the "ethics of subsumption" is demonstrably futile it by no means follows that a method of ethics cannot be developed along the lines of modern scientific logic which shall be as valid as the procedure of the investigator in the sciences. mr. taylor's _logic_ is virtually the same as that of the ethical theories which he criticises; because an ethical _ideal_ is impossible, a theory of ethics is impossible also. one is reminded of mr. bradley's criticism of knowledge in the closing chapters of the _logic_ as an interesting parallel. [144] mr. bosanquet's discussion of the place of the principle of teleology in analogical inference will be found suggestive in this connection (_logic_, vol. ii, chap. iii). [145] see above, p. 243 and p. 259 _ad fin._ [146] we use the expression "energy-_equivalent_" because the "excess" gained by the self through the past adjustment is not of importance at just this point. the essential significance of the means now is not that they "cost" less than they promised to bring in in energy, but that _because they required sacrifice the self will now lose unless they are allowed to fulfil the promise_. they are the logical equivalent of the established modes of consumption from the standpoint of conservation of the energies of the self, not the mathematical equivalent. it would be desirable, if there were space, to present a brief account of the psychological basis of the concepts of energy and energy-equivalence which here come into play, but this must be omitted. [147] putting it negatively, the renunciation of the new end involves a "greater" sacrifice than all the sacrifices which adherence to the present system of consumption can compensate. [148] green, as is well known, allows that any formulation of the ideal self must be incomplete, but holds that it is not for this reason useless. but this is to assume that development in the ideal is never to be radically reconstructive, that the ideal is to expand and fill out along established and unchangeable lines of growth so that all increase shall be in the nature of accretion. the self as a system is fixed and all individual moral growth is in the nature of approximation to this absolute ideal. this would appear to be essentially identical in a logical sense with mr. spencer's hypothesis of social evolution as a process of gradual approach to a condition of perfect adaptation of society and the individual to each other in an environment to which society is perfectly adapted--a condition in which "perfectly evolved" individuals shall live in a state of blessedness in conformity to the requirements of "absolute ethics." for a criticism of this latter type of view see mr. taylor's above-mentioned work (chap. v, _passim_). [149] for green's cautious defense of conscientiousness as a moral attitude see the _prolegomena to ethics_, book iv, chap. i; and for a statement of the present point of view as bearing upon green's difficulty, see dewey, _the study of ethics: a syllabus_, p. 37 _ad fin._, and _philosophical review_, vol. ii, pp. 661, 662. [150] along the line thus inadequately suggested might be found an answer to certain criticisms of the attempt to dispense with a metaphysical idea of the self. such criticisms usually urge that without reference to a metaphysical ideal no meaning attaches to such conceptions as "adjustment," "expansion," "furtherance," and the like as predicated of the moral acts of an agent in their effect upon the "energetic" self. anything that one may do, it is said, is expansive of the self, if it be something new, except as we judge it by a metaphysical ideal of a rightly expanded self. for an excellent statement of this general line of criticism see stratton, "a psychological test of virtue," _international journal of ethics_, vol. xi, p. 200. [151] the polemic of certain recent writers (as, for example, ehrenfels in his _system der werttheorie_) against the objectivity of judgments of value appears to rest upon an uncritical acceptance of the time-honored distinction between "primary" and "secondary" qualities as equivalent to the logical distinction of subjective and objective. thus ehrenfels confutes "das vorurteil von der objectiven bedeutung des wertbegriffes" by explaining it as due to a misleading usage of speech expressive of "an impulse, deep-rooted in the human understanding, to objectify its presentations" and then goes on to say "we do not desire things because we recognize the presence in them of a mysterious impalpable essence of value but we ascribe value to them because we desire them." (_op. cit._, bd. i, p. 2.) this may serve to illustrate the easy possibility of confusing the logical and psychological points of view, as likewise does ehrenfels's formal definition of value. (bd. i., p. 65.) [152] the essential dependence of factual judgment upon the rise of economic and ethical conflict is implied in the widely current doctrine of the teleological character of knowledge. it is indeed nowadays something like a commonplace to say in one sense or another that knowledge is relative to ends, but it is not always recognized by those who hold this view that an end never appears as such in consciousness alone. the end that guides in the construction of factual knowledge is an end in ethical or economic conflict with some other likewise indeterminate end in the manner above discussed. [153] see above, pp. 282, 283. [154] _cf._ schiller, _riddles of the sphinx_, chap. vii, §§ 10-14. [155] it would appear that the principle of the conservation of energy is valid only in the physical sphere; but the logical significance of this limitation cannot be here discussed. [156] that the assumption mentioned is the essential basis of the twin theories of associationism in psychology and hedonism in ethics is shown by dr. warner fite in his article, "the associational conception of experience," _philosophical review_, vol. ix, pp. 283 ff. _cf._ mr. bradley's remarks on the logic of hedonism in his _principles of logic_, pp. 244-9. [157] the "energetic" self is apparently mr. bradley's fourth "meaning of self," the self as monad--"something moving parallel with the life of a man, or, rather, something not moving, but literally _standing_ in relation to his successive variety" (_appearance and reality_ [1st ed.] p. 86, in chap. ix, "the meanings of the self"). mr. bradley's difficulty appears to come from his desiring a psychological content for what is essentially a logical conception--a confusion (if we may be permitted the remark) which runs through the entire chapter to which we refer and is responsible for the undeniable and hopeless incoherency of the various meanings of the self, as mr. bradley therein expounds them. "if the monad stands aloof," says mr. bradley, "either with no character at all or a private character apart, then it may be a fine thing in itself, but it is a mere mockery to call it the self of a man" (p. 87). surely this is to misconstrue and then find fault with that very character of essential _logical_ apartness from any possibility of determination in point of descriptive psychological content which constitutes the whole value of the "energetic" self as a logical conception stimulative of the valuation-process and so inevitably of factual judgment. see pp. 258, 259, above. the reader may find for himself in mr. bradley's enumeration of meanings our concept of the empirical self. but surely the "energetic" and empirical selves would appear on our showing to have no necessary conflict with each other. [158] in the first of these inseparable aspects valuation is determinative of rightness and wrongness; in the second it presents the object as good or bad. see p. 259, above. [159] see, for example, wieser, _natural value_ (eng. trans.), p. 17. [160] see pp. 307-12 above. [161] the illustration, as also the general principle which it here is used to illustrate, was suggested some years since by professor g. h. mead in a lecture course on the "history of psychology," which the writer had the advantage of attending. [162] the conservative function of valuation may be further illustrated by reference to the well-known principle of marginal utility of which we have already made mention (p. 307 above), and which has played so great a part in modern economic theory. the value of the unit quantity of a stock of any commodity is, according to this principle, measured by the least important single use in the schedule of uses to which the stock as a whole is to be applied. manifestly, then, adherence to this valuation placed upon the unit quantity is in so far conservative of the whole schedule and the marginal value is a "short-hand" symbol expressive of the value of the whole complex purpose presented in the schedule. moreover, the increase of marginal value concurrently with diminution of the stock through consumption, loss, or reapplication is not indicative so much of a change of purpose as of determination to adhere to so much of the original program of consumption as may still be possible of attainment with the depleted supply of the commodity. [163] thus except on this condition we should deny the propriety of speaking of the value of a friend or of a memento or sacred relic. the purpose of accurate definition of the function of such objects as these in the attainment of one's ends is foreign to the proper attitude of loving, prizing, or venerating them. we may ethically value the _act_ of sacrifice for a friend or of solicitous care of the memento, but the object of our sacrifice or solicitude has simply the direct or immediate "qualitative" emotional character appropriate to the kinds of activity to which it is the adequate stimulus. [164] _history of philosophy_ (tuft's translation), p. 117. [165] _cf._ professor j. r. angell's article, "relations of structural and functional psychology to philosophy," _decennial publications of the university of chicago_, vol. iii, pp. 10-12; also _philosophical review_, vol. xii, no. 3. _cf._ also mr. schiller's essay on "axioms as postulates" in _personal idealism_. [166] from this point on this paper is an expansion of some paragraphs, pp. 11-13, in an article on "existence, meaning, and reality," printed from vol. iii of the first series of the _decennial publications of the university of chicago_. [167] p. 22. [168] pp. 22, 23; italics mine. [169] p. 25. [170] p. 26. [171] p. 36; italics mine. [172] pp. 22, 23; italics mine. [173] p. 307. [174] p. 327. [175] p. 23; italics mine. [176] _cf._ p. 34; also p. 22. [177] p. 35. [178] this warns us that in the phrase, "a plan of action," the term "action" must be more inclusive than it is in much current discussion. it must not be limited to gymnastic performance. it must apply to any sort of activity planned for, and which, when it arrives, fulfils the plan. this, i take it, is the import of the paragraph at the top of p. 7 of professor james's _philosophical conceptions and practical results_. [179] p. 270. [180] pp. 270, 271. [181] p. 276. [182] p. 277. [183] pp. 280, 281. [184] see p. 256. [185] p. 289; italics mine. [186] p. 281; italics mine. [187] it is worth noting in passing that here the universal appears to be located in finite experience, while the ground of the particular is in the absolute. [188] p. 282. [189] p. 284; italics mine. [190] p. 283. [191] p. 332. [192] p. 339. [193] this ghost of subjectivism haunts the entire part of the essay in which the final fulfilment of finite ideas is found in "a certain absolute system of ideas." [194] p. 330; italics mine. [195] p. 337. [196] p. 286. [197] p. 307. [198] p. 297. [199] this reduction of the purposive to the representative function carries with it an interesting implication concerning the whole character and relationship of thought and will. from beginning to end, on almost every page, mr. royce insists upon the idea as an expression of will. at the outset we read: "when we try to define the idea in itself, as a conscious fact, our best means is to lay stress upon the sort of will or active meaning which any idea involves for the mind that forms the idea" (p. 22). again: "the idea is a will seeking its own determination. it is nothing else" (p. 332)--and so on throughout the lectures. and we have already seen how consistently this is worked out in the analysis of concrete acts, such as singing, etc. but now, as related to the absolute system, the will, as embodied in the idea, is to find its final determination in approximating the certain absolute system of ideas. this would seem to make will but little more than the mere form of representation itself. the idea is a will, but in its relation to truth its will is "to correspond even in its vagueness to its own final and completely individual expression." [200] p. 339. [201] p. 338. [202] p. 335. [203] _cf._ mr. gore's paper, above. [204] _cf._ baldwin's _development and evolution_, pp. 250, 251, on the necessity of the submission of the "new experience" to the test of its ability to utilize habit. interpreted broadly, habit might here mean the whole mechanical side, including organism _and_ environment, and so include mr. baldwin's second or "extra-organic" test. [205] p. 19. [206] pp. 17, 18. [207] see, above, professor dewey's study iii, pp. 49 ff. [208] p. 55. * * * * * transcriber's note: 1. footnotes have been renumbered and moved from the middle of a chapter to the end of the main text. 2. other than that, printer's inconsistencies in spelling, punctuation, hyphenation, and ligature usage have been retained. 