IN attempting to give some idea of philosophy as it was
in Scotland in the earlier portion of the present century, we shall have to
go back two hundred years or thereabout, in order to find a satisfactory
basis from which to start. For philosophy, as no one realised more than
Ferrier, is no arbitrary succession of systems following one upon another as
their propounders might decree; it is a development in the truest and
highest significance of that word. It means the gradual working out of the
questions which reason sets to be answered; and though it seems as if we had
sometimes to turn our faces backwards, and to revert to systems of bygone
days, we always find, when we look more closely, that in our onward course
we have merely dropped some thread in our web, the recovery of which is
requisite in order that it may be duly taken up and woven with the rest.
At the time of which we write the so-called 'Scottish
School' of Reid, Stewart, and Beattie reigned supreme in orthodox Scotland;
it had undisputed power in the Universities, and besides this obtained a
very reputable place in the estimation of Europe, and more especially of
France. As it was this school more especially that Ferrier spent much of his
time in combating, it is its history and place that we wish shortly to
describe. To do so, however, it is needful to go back to its real founder,
Locke, in order that its point of view may fairly be set forth.
In applying his mind to the views of Locke, the
ordinary man finds himself arriving at very commonplace and well-accustomed
conceptions. Locke, indeed, may reasonably be said to represent the ideas of
common, everyday life. The ordinary man does not question the reality of
things, he accepts it without asking any questions, and bases his
theories—scientific or otherwise —upon this implied reality. Locke worked
out the theory which had been propounded by Lord Bacon, that knowledge is
obtained by the observation of facts which are implicitly accepted as
realities and what, it was asked, could be more self-evident and sane? It is
easy to conceive a number of perceiving minds upon the one hand, ready to
take up perceptions of an outside material substance upon the other. The
mind may be considered as a piece of white paper—a tabula rasa, as it was
called—on which external things may make what impression they will, and
knowledge is apparently explained at once. But though Locke certainly
succeeded in making these terms the common coin of ordinary life,
difficulties crop up when we come to examine them more closely. After all,
it is evident, the only knowledge our mind can have is a knowledge of its
own ideas - ideas which are, of course, caused by something which is
outside, or at least, as Locke would say, by its quality. Now, from this it
would appear that these 'ideas' after all come between the mind and the
'thing,' whatever it is, that causes them—that is to say, we can perhaps
maintain that we only know our 'ideas,' and not things as in themselves.
Locke passes into elaborate distinctions between primary qualities of
things, of which he holds exact representations are given, and secondary
qualities, which are not in the same position ; but the whole difficulty we
meet with is summed up in the question whether we really know substance, or
whether it is that we can only hope to know ideas, and 'suppose' some
substratum of reality outside. Then another difficulty is that we can hardly
really know our selves. How can we know that the self exists; and if, like
Malebranche, we speak of God revealing substance to us, how do we know about
God? We cannot form any 'general' impressions, have any 'general' knowledge;
only a sort of conglomeration of unrelated or detached bits of knowledge can
possibly come home to us. The fact is, that modern philosophy starts with
two separate and self-existent substances; that it does not see how they can
be combined, and that the 'white - paper' theory is so abstract that Nye can
never arrive at self-consciousness by its means.
Berkeley followed out the logical consequences of
Locke, though perhaps he hardly knew where these would carry him. He
acknowledged that we know nothing but ideas—nothing outside of our mind. But
he adds the conception of self, and by analogy the conception of God, who
acts as a principle of causation. Whether there is necessary connection in
his sensations or not, he does not say. Hume followed with criticism,
scathing and merciless. He states that all we know of is the experience we
have; and by experience he signifies perceptions. Ideas to him are nothing
more than perceptions, and whether they are ideas simply of the mind, or
ideas of some object, is to him the same. If we begin to imagine such
conceptions as those of universality or necessity, of God or the self,
beyond a complex of successive ideas, we are going farther than experience
permits. We cannot connect our perceptions with an object, nor can we get
beyond what experience allows. Custom merely brings about certain
conclusions which are often enough misleading. It connects effect and cause,
really different events: it brings about ideas of morality very often
deceptive. We have our custom of regarding things, another has his—who can
say which is correct? All we can do is, what seems a hopeless task enough—we
can try to show how these unrelated particulars seem by repetition to
produce an illusionary connection in our minds.
Both mind and matter appear, then, to be wanting, and
experience alone is suggested as the means of solving the difficulty in
which we are placed—a point in the argument which left an opportunity open
to Kant to suggest a new development, to ask whether things being found
inadequate in producing knowledge, Nye might not ask if knowledge could not
be more successful with things. But it is the Scottish lines of attempted
solution that we wish to follow out, and not the German. Perhaps they are
not so very different.
Philosophy, as Reid found it, was in a bad way enough,
as far as the orthodox mind of Scotland was concerned. All justification for
belief in God, in immortality, in all that was held sacred in a century of
much orthodoxy if little zeal, was gone. Such things might be believed in by
those who found any comfort in so believing, but to the educated man who had
seriously reflected on them, they were anachronisms. The very desperateness
of the case, however, seemed to promise a remedy. Alen could not rest in a
state of permanent scepticism, in a world utterly incapable of being
rationally explained. Even the propounder of the theories allowed this to be
true and as for others, they felt that they were rational beings, and this
signified that there was system in the world.
A champion arose when things were at their worst in
Thomas Reid, the founder, or at least the chiefest ornament, of the
so-called Scottish School of Philosophy. He it was who set himself to add
the principle of the coherence of the Universe, and the consequent
possibility of establishing Faith once more in the world. Reid, to begin
with, instead of looking at Hume's results as serious, regarded them as
necessarily absurd. He started a new theory of his own, the theory of
Immediate Perception, which signified that we are able immediately to
apprehend—not ideas only, but the Truth. And how, we may ask, can this be
done?
It had been pointed out first of all that sensations as
understood by Locke—that is, the relations so called by Locke—might be
separated from sensation in itself; in fact, that these first pertained to
mind. Hence we have a dualistic system given us to start with, and the
question is how the two sides are to be connected? What does this theory of
Immediate Perception, which Reid puts forward as the solution, mean? Is it
just a mechanical union of two antitheses, or is it something more?
As to this last, perhaps the real answer would be that
it both is, and is not. That is, the philosophy of Reid would seem still
dualistic in its nature; it certainly implies the mechanical contact of two
confronting substances whose independence is vigorously maintained, in
opposition to the idealistic system which it superseded; but in reference to
Reid we must recollect that his theory of Immediate Perception was also
something more. As regards sensation, for example, he says that we do not
begin with unrelated sensations, but with judgment—that is, we refer our
sensations to a permanent subject, 'I.' Sensations 'suggest' the nature of a
mind and the belief in its existence. And this signifies that we have the
power of making inferences —how we do not exactly know, but we believe it to
be, not by any special reasoning process, but by the 'common - sense'
innately born within us. Commonsense is responsible for a good deal more—for
the conceptions of existence and of cause, for instance; for Reid
acknowledges that sensations alone must fail to account for ideas such as
those of extension, space, and motion. This standpoint seems indeed as if it
did not differ widely from the Kantian, but at the same time Reid appears to
think that it is not an essential that feelings should be perceptively
referred to an external object; the first part of the process of perception
is carried on without our consciousness—the mental sensation merely
follows—and sensation simply supposes a sentient being and a certain manner
in which that being is affected, which leaves us much where we were, as far
as the subjectivity of our ideas is concerned. He does not hold that all
sensation is a percept involving extension and much else—involving, indeed,
existence.
Following upon Reid, Dugald Stewart obtained a very
considerable reputation, and he was living and writing at the time Ferrier
was a young man. His main idea would, however, seem to have been to guard
his utterances carefully, and enter upon no keen discussions or contentions:
when a bold assertion is made, it is always under shelter of some good
authority. But his rounded phrases gained him considerable admiration, as
such writing often does. lie carried— perhaps inadvertently- Reid's views
farther than he would probably have held as justifiable. lie says we are
not, properly speaking, conscious of self or the existence of self, but
merely of a sensation or some other quality, which, by a subsequent
suggestion of the understanding, leads to a belief in that which exercises
the quality. This is the doctrine of Reid put very crudely, and in a manner
calculated to bring us back to unrelated sensation in earnest. Stewart
adopted a new expression for Reid's 'common-sense,' i.e. the 'fundamental
laws of belief,' which might be less ambiguous, but never took popular hold
as did the first.
There were many others belonging to this school besides
Reid and Stewart, whom it would be impossible to speak of here. The Scottish
Philosophy had its work to do, and no doubt understood that work—the first
essential in a criticism: it endeavoured to vindicate perception as against
sensational idealism, and it only partially succeeded in its task. But we
must be careful not to forget that it opened up the way for a more
comprehensive and satisfactory point of view. It was with Kant that the
distinction arose between sensation and the forms necessary to its
perception, the form of space and time, and so on. As to this part of the
theory of knowledge, Reid and his school were not clear; they only made an
effort to express the fact that something was required to verify our
knowledge, but they were far from satisfactorily attaining to their goal.
The very name of 'common-sense' was misleading—making people imagine, as it
did, that there was nothing in philosophy after all that the man in the
street could not know by applying the smallest modicum of reflection to the
subject. Philosophy thus came to be considered as superfluous, and it was
thought that the sooner we got rid of it and were content to observe the
mandates of our hearts, the better for all concerned.
What then, was the work which Ferrier placed before
himself when he commenced to write upon and teach philosophy? He was
thoroughly and entirely dissatisfied with the old point of view, the point
of view of the 'common - sense' school of metaphysicians, to begin with.
Sometimes it seems as though we could not judge a system altogether from the
best exponent of it, although theoretically we are always bound to turn to
him. In a national philosophy, at least, we want something that will wear,
that will bear to be put in ordinary language, something which can be
understood of the people, which can be assimilated with the popular religion
and politics—in fact, which can really be lived as well as thought; and it
is only after many years of use that we can really tell whether these
conditions have been fulfilled. For this reason we are in some measure
justified in taking the popular estimate of a system, and in considering its
practical results as well as the value of its theory. Now, the commonly
accepted view of the eighteenth- century philosophers in Scotland is that
there is nothing very wonderful about the subject—like the Bourgeois
Genlilhomme of Moliere, we are shown that we have been philosophising all
our lives, only we never knew it. 'Common-sense '- an attribute with which
we all believe we are in some small measure endowed—explains everything if
we simply exercise it, and that is open to us all: there has been much talk,
it would seem, about nothing; secrets hidden to wise men are revealed to
babes, and we have but to keep our minds open in order to receive them.
We are all acquainted with this talk in speculative
regions of knowledge, but we most of us also know how disastrous it is to
any true advancement in such directions. What happens now is just what
happened in the eighteenth century. Men relapse into a self-satisfied
indolence of mind: in religion they are content with believing in a sort of
general divine Beneficence which will somehow make matters straight, however
crooked they may seem to be; and in philosophy they are guided by their
instincts, which teach them that what they wish to believe is true.
Now, all this is what Ferrier and the modern movement,
largely influenced by German modes of thought, wish to protest against with
all their might. The scepticism of Hume and Gibbon was logical, if utterly
impossible as a working creed and necessarily ending in absurdity; but this
irrational kind of optimism was altogether repugnant to those who demanded a
reasonable explanation of themselves and of their place in nature. The
question had become summed up in one of superlative importance, namely, the
distinction that existed between the natural and supernatural sides of our
existence. The materialistic school had practically done away with the
latter in its entirety, had said that nature is capable of being explained
by mechanical means, and that these must necessarily suffice for us. But the
orthodox section adopted other lines ; it accepted all the ordinarily
received ideas of God, immortality, and the like, but it maintained the
existence of an Absolute which can only be inferred, but not presented to
the mind, and, strangest of all, declared that the 'last and highest
consecration of all true religion must be an altar "To the unknown and
unknowable God." 'I This so-called 'pious' philosophy declares that 'To
think that God is, as we can think Him to be, is blasphemy,' and 'A God
understood would be no God at all.' The German philosophy saw that if once
we are to renounce our reason, or trust to it only within a certain sphere,
all hope for us is lost, as far as withstanding the attack of outside
enemies is concerned. We are liable to sceptical attacks from every side,
and all we can maintain against them is a personal conviction which is not
proof. How, then, was the difficulty met?
Kant, as we have said, made an important development
upon the position of Hume. Flume had arrived at the point of declaring the
particular mind and matter equally incompetent to afford an ultimate
explanation of things, and he suggested experience in their place. This is
the first note of the new philosophy: experience, not a process of the
interaction of two separate things, mind on the one hand, matter on the
other, but something comprehending both. This, however, was scarcely
realised either by Hume or Kant, though the latter came very near the
formulation of it. Kant saw, at least, that things could not produce
knowledge, and he therefore changed his front and suggested starting with
the knowledge that was before regarded as result—a change in point of view
that caused a revolution in thought similar to that caused in our ideas of
the natural world by the introduction of the system of Copernicus. Still,
while following out his Copernican theory, Kant did not go far enough. His
methods were still somewhat psychological in nature. He still regarded
thought as something which can be separated from the thinker; he still
maintained the existence of things in themselves independent and outside of
thought. He gives us a 'theory' of knowledge, when what we want to reach is
knowledge itself, and not a subjective conception of it.
Here it is that the Absolute Idealism comes in—the
Idealism most associated with the name of Hegel. Hegel takes experience,
knowledge, or thought, in another and much more comprehensive fashion than
did his predecessors. Knowledge, in fact, is all-comprehending; it embraces
both sides in itself, and explains them as 'moments,' i.e. complementary
factors in the one Reality. To make this clearer: we have been all along
taking knowledge as a dualistic process, as having two sides involved in it,
a subject and an object. Now, Hegel says our mistake is this: we cannot make
a separation of such a kind except by a process of abstraction: the one
really implies the other, and could not possibly exist without it. We may in
our ordinary pursuits do so, without doubt; we may concentrate our attention
on one side or the other, as the case may be; we may look at the world as if
it could be explained by mechanical means, as, indeed, to a certain point it
can. But, Hegel says, these explanations are not sufficient; they can easily
be shown to be untrue, when driven far enough: the world is something
larger; it has the ideal side as well as the real, and, as we are placed,
they are both necessarily there, and must both be recognised, if Nye are to
attain to true conceptions.
Without saying that Ferrier wholly assimilated the
modern German view,—for of course he did not,—he was clearly largely
influenced by it, more largely perhaps than he was even himself aware. It
particularly met the present difficulties with which he was confronted. The
negative attitude was felt to be impossible, and the other, the Belief which
then, as now, was so strongly advocated, the Belief which meant a more or
less blind acceptance of a spiritual power beyond our own, the Belief in the
God we cannot know and glory in not being able so to know, he felt to be an
equal impossibility. Ferrier, and many others, asked the question, Are these
alternatives exhaustive? Can we not have a rational explanation of the world
and of ourselves? can we not, that is, attain to freedom? The new point of
view seemed in some measure to meet the difficulty, and therefore it was
looked to with hope and anticipation even although its bearing was not at
first entirely comprehended. Ferrier was one of those who perceived the
momentous consequences which such a change of front would cause, and he set
himself to work it out as best he could. In an interesting paper which he
writes on 'The Philosophy of Common-Sense,' with special reference to Sir
William Hamilton's edition of the works of Dr. Reid, we see in what way his
opinions had developed.
The point which Ferrier made the real crux of the whole
question of philosophy was the distinction which exists between the ordinary
psychological doctrine of perception and the metaphysical. The former drew a
distinction between the perceiving mind and matter, and based its reasonings
on the assumed modification of our minds brought about by matter regarded as
self-existent, i.e. existent in itself and without regard to any perceiving
mind. Now, Ferrier points out that this system of 'representationalism,' of
representative ideas, necessarily leads to scepticism; for who can tell us
more, than that we have certain ideas—that is, how can it be known that the
real matter supposed to cause them has any part at all in the process?
Scepticism, as Nye saw before, has the way opened up for it, and it doubts
the existence of matter, seeing that it has been given no reasonable grounds
for belief in it, while Idealism boldly denies its instrumentality and
existence. What then, he asks, of 1)r. Reid and his School of Common-Sense?
Reid cannot say that matter is known in consciousness, but what he does say
is that something innately born within us forces us to believe in its
existence. But then, as Ferrier pertinently points out, scepticism and
idealism do not merely doubt and deny the existence of a self-existent
matter as an object of consciousness, but also because it is no object of
belief. And what has Reid to show for his beliefs? Nothing but his word. We
must all, Ferrier says, be sceptics or idealists; we are all forced on to
deny that matter in any form exists, for it is only self-existent matter
that we recognise as psychologists. Stewart tries to reinstate it by an
appeal to 'direct observation,' an appeal which, Ferrier truly says, is
manifestly absurd; reasoning is useless, and we must, it would appear, allow
any efforts we might make towards rectifying our position to be recognised
as futile.
But now, Ferrier says, the metaphysical solution of the
problem comes in. We are in an im4tasse, it would appear; the analysis of
the given fact is found impossible. But the failure of psychology opens up
the way to metaphysic. 'The turning-round of thought from psychology to
metaphysic is the true interpretation of the Platonic conversion of the soul
from ignorance to knowledge, from mere opinion to certainty and
satisfaction; in other words, from a discipline in which the thinking is
only apparent, to a discipline in which the thinking is real.' The
difference is as great between "the science of the human mind" and
metaphysic, as it is between the Ptolemaic and the Copernican astronomy, and
it is very much of the same kind.' It is not that metaphysic proposes to do
more than psychology; it aims at nothing but what it can fully overtake, and
does not propose to carry a man farther than his tether extends, or the
surroundings in which he finds himself. Metaphysic in the hands of all true
astronomers of thought, from Plato to Hegel, if it accomplishes more,
attempts less.
Metaphysic, Ferrier says, demands the whole given fact,
and that fact is summed up in this: 'We apprehend the perception of an
object,' and nothing short of this suffices—that is, not the perception of
matter, but our apprehension of that perception, or what we before called
knowledge, ultimate knowledge in its widest sense. And this given fact is
unlike the mere perception of matter, for it is capable of analysis and is
not simply subjective and egoistic. Psychology recognises perception on the
one hand (subjective), and matter on the other (objective), but metaphysic
says the distinction ought to be drawn between 'our apprehension' and 'the
perceptionof-matter,' the latter being one fact and indivisible, and on no
account to be taken as two separate facts or thoughts. The whole point is,
that by no possible means can the perception-of-matter be divided into two
facts or existences, as was done by psychology. And Ferrier goes on to point
out that this is not a subjective idealism, it is not a condition of the
human soul alone, but it 'dwells apart, a mighty and independent system, a
city fitted up and upheld by the living God.' And in authenticating this
last belief Ferrier calls in internal convictions, 'common-sense,' to assist
the evidence of speculative reason, where, had he followed more upon the
lines of the great German Idealists, he might have done without it.
Now, Ferrier continues, we are safe against the cavils
of scepticism; the metaphysical theory of perception steers clear of all the
perplexities of representationalism; for it gives us in perception one only
object, the perception of matter; the objectivity of this datum keeps us
clear from subjective idealism.
From the perception of matter, a fact in which man
merely participates, Ferrier infers a Divine mind, of which perceptions are
the property: they are states of the everlasting intellect. The exercise of
the senses is the condition upon which we are permitted to apprehend or
participate in the objective perception of material things. This, shortly,
is the position from which he starts.
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