On the Philosophy of Discovery, Chapters Historical and Critical

CHAPTER XXIV.
Modern German Philosophy ²⁹⁵

I. Science is the Idealization of Facts

1. I have spoken, a few chapters back, of the Reaction against the doctrines of the Sensational School in England and France. In Germany also there was a Reaction against these doctrines;—but there, this movement took a direction different from its direction in other countries. Omitting many other names, Kant, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel may be regarded as the writers who mark, in a prominent manner, this Germanic line of speculation. The problem of philosophy, in the way in which they conceived it, may best be explained by reference to that Fundamental Antithesis of which I had occasion to speak in the History of Scientific Ideas²⁹⁶. And in order to characterize the steps taken by these modern German philosophers, I must return to what I have said concerning the Fundamental Antithesis.

This Antithesis, as I have there remarked, is stated in various ways:—as the Antithesis of Thoughts and Things; of Ideas and Sensations; of Theory and Facts; of Necessary Truth and Experience; of the Subjective and Objective elements of our knowledge; and in other phrases. I have further remarked that the elements thus spoken of, though opposed, are inseparable. We cannot have the one without the other. We cannot have thoughts without thinking of Things: we cannot have things before us without thinking of them.

Further, it has been shown, I conceive, that our knowledge derives from the former of these two elements, namely our Ideas, its form and character of knowledge; our ideas being the necessary Forms of knowledge, while the Matter of our knowledge in each case is supplied by the appropriate perception or outward experience.

Thus our Ideas of Space and Time are the necessary Forms of our geometrical and arithmetical knowledge; and no sensations or experience are needed as the matter of such knowledge, except in so far as sensation and experience are needed to evoke our Ideas in any degree. And hence these sciences are sometimes called Formal sciences. All other Sciences involve, along with the experience and observation appropriate to each, a development of the ideal conditions of knowledge existing in our minds; and I have given the history, both of this development of ideas and of the matter derived from experience, in two former works, the History of Scientific Ideas, and the History of the Inductive Sciences. I have there traced this history through the whole body of the physical sciences.

But though Ideas and Perceptions are thus separate elements in our philosophy, they cannot in fact be distinguished and separated, but are different aspects of the same thing. And the only way in which we can approach to truth is by gradually and successively, in one instance after another, advancing from the perception to the idea; from the fact to the theory.

2. I would now further observe, that in this progression from fact to theory, we advance (when the theory is complete and completely possessed by the mind) from the apprehension of truths as actual to the apprehension of them as necessary; and thus Facts which were originally observed merely as Facts become the consequences of theory, and are thus brought within the domain of Ideas. That which was a part of the objective world becomes also a part of the subjective world; a necessary part of the thoughts of the theorist. And in this way the progress of true theory is the Idealization of Facts.

Thus the Progress of Science consists in a perpetual reduction of Facts to Ideas. Portions are perpetually transferred from one side to another of the Fundamental Antithesis: namely, from the Objective to the Subjective side. The Centre or Fulcrum of the Antithesis is shifted by every movement which is made in the advance of science, and is shifted so that the ideal side gains something from the real side.

3. I will proceed to illustrate this Proposition a little further. Necessary Truths belong to the Subjective, Observed Facts to the Objective side of our knowledge. Now in the progress of that exact speculative knowledge which we call Science, Facts which were at a previous period merely Observed Facts, come to be known as Necessary Truths; and the attempts at new advances in science generally introduce the representation of known truths of fact, as included in higher and wider truths, and therefore, so far, necessary.

We may exemplify this progress in the history of the science of Mechanics. Thus the property of the lever, the inverse proportion of the weights and arms, was known as a fact before the time of Aristotle, and known as no more; for he gives many fantastical and inapplicable reasons for the fact. But in the writings of Archimedes we find this fact brought within the domain of necessary truth. It was there transferred from the empirical to the ideal side of the Fundamental Antithesis; and thus a progressive step was made in science. In like manner, it was at first taken by Galileo as a mere fact of experience, that in a falling body, the velocity increases in proportion to the time; but his followers have seen in this the necessary effect of the uniform force of gravity. In like manner, Kepler's empirical Laws were shown by Newton to be necessary results of a central force attracting inversely as the square of the distance. And if it be still, even at present, doubtful whether this is the necessary law of a central force, as some philosophers have maintained that it is, we cannot doubt that if now or hereafter, those philosophers could establish their doctrine as certain, they would make an important step in science, in addition to those already made.

And thus, such steps in science are made, whenever empirical facts are discerned to be necessary laws; or, if I may be allowed to use a briefer expression, whenever facts are idealized.

4. In order to show how widely this statement is applicable, I will exemplify it in some of the other sciences.

In Chemistry, not to speak of earlier steps in the science, which might be presented as instances of the same general process, we may remark that the analyses of various compounds into their elements, according to the quantity of the elements, form a vast multitude of facts, which were previously empirical only, but which are reduced to a law, and therefore to a certain kind of ideal necessity, by the discovery of their being compounded according to definite and multiple proportions. And again, this very law of definite proportions, which may at first be taken as a law given by experience only, it has been attempted to make into a necessary truth, by asserting that bodies must necessarily consist of atoms, and atoms must necessarily combine in definite small numbers. And however doubtful this Atomic Theory may at present be, it will not be questioned that any chemical philosopher who could establish it, or any other Theory which would produce an equivalent change in the aspect of the science, would make a great scientific advance. And thus, in this Science also, the Progress of Science consists in the transfer of facts from the empirical to the necessary side of the antithesis; or, as it was before expressed, in the idealization of facts.

5. We may illustrate the same process in the Natural History Sciences. The discovery of the principle of Morphology in plants was the reduction of a vast mass of Facts to an Idea; as Schiller said to Göthe when he explained the discovery; although the latter, cherishing a horror of the term Idea, which perhaps is quite as common in England as in Germany, was extremely vexed at being told that he possessed such furniture in his mind. The applications of this Principle to special cases, for instance, to Euphorbia by Brown, to Reseda by Lindley, have been attempts to idealize the facts of these special cases.

6. We may apply the same view to steps in Science which are still under discussion;—the question being, whether an advance has really been made in science or not. For instance, in Astronomy, the Nebular Hypothesis has been propounded, as an explanation of many of the observed phenomena of the Universe. If this Hypothesis could be conceived ever to be established as a true Theory, this must be done by its taking into itself, as necessary parts of the whole Idea, many Facts which have already been observed; such as the various form of nebulæ;—many Facts which it must require a long course of years to observe, such as the changes of nebulæ from one form to another;—and many facts which, so far as we can at present judge, are utterly at variance with the Idea, such as the motions of satellites, the relations of the material elements of planets, the existence of vegetable and animal life upon their surfaces. But if all these Facts, when fully studied, should appear to be included in the general Idea of Nebular Condensation according to the Laws of Nature, the Facts so idealized would undoubtedly constitute a very remarkable advance in science. But then, we are to recollect that we are not to suppose that the Facts will agree with the Idea, merely because the Idea, considered by itself, and without carefully attending to the Facts, is a large and striking Idea. And we are also to recollect that the Facts may be compared with another Idea, no less large and striking; and that if we take into our account, (as, in forming an Idea of the Course of the Universe, we must do,) not only vegetable and animal, but also human life, this other Idea appears likely to take into it a far larger portion of the known Facts, than the Idea of the Nebular Hypothesis. The other Idea which I speak of is the Idea of Man as the principal Object in the Creation; to whose sustenance and development the other parts of the Universe are subservient as means to an end; and although, in our attempts to include all known Facts in this Idea, we again meet with many difficulties, and find many trains of Facts which have no apparent congruity with the Idea; yet we may say that, taking into account the Facts of man's intellectual and moral condition, and his history, as well as the mere Facts of the material world, the difficulties and apparent incongruities are far less when we attempt to idealize the Facts by reference to this Idea, of Man as the End of Creation, than according to the other Idea, of the World as the result of Nebular Condensation, without any conceivable End or Purpose. I am now, of course, merely comparing these two views of the Universe, as supposed steps in science, according to the general notion which I have just been endeavouring to explain, that a step in science is some Idealization of Facts.

7. Perhaps it will be objected, that what I have said of the Idealization of Facts, as the manner in which the progress of science goes on, amounts to no more than the usual expressions, that the progress of science consists in reducing Facts to Theories. And to this I reply, that the advantage at which I aim, by the expression which I have used, is this, to remind the reader, that Fact and Theory, in every subject, are not marked by separate and prominent features of difference, but only by their present opposition, which is a transient relation. They are related to each other no otherwise than as the poles of the fundamental antithesis: the point which separates those poles shifts with every advance of science; and then, what was Theory becomes Fact. As I have already said elsewhere, a true Theory is a Fact; a Fact is a familiar Theory. If we bear this in mind, we express the view on which I am now insisting when we say that the progress of science consists in reducing Facts to Theories. But I think that speaking of Ideas as opposed to Facts, we express more pointedly the original Antithesis, and the subsequent identification of the Facts with the Idea. The expression appears to be simple and apt, when we say, for instance, that the Facts of Geography are identified with the Idea of globular Earth; the Facts of Planetary Astronomy with the Idea of the Heliocentric system; and ultimately, with the Idea of Universal Gravitation.

8. We may further remark, that though by successive steps in science, successive Facts are reduced to Ideas, this process can never be complete. However the point may shift which separates the two poles, the two poles will always remain. However, far the ideal element may extend, there will always be something beyond it. However far the phenomena may be idealized, there will always remain some which are not idealized, and which are mere phenomena. This also is implied by making our expressions refer to the fundamental antithesis: for because the antithesis is fundamental, its two elements will always be present; the objective as well as the subjective. And thus, in the contemplation of the universe, however much we understand, there must always be something which we do not understand; however far we may trace necessary truths, there must always be things which are to our apprehension arbitrary: however far we may extend the sphere of our internal world, in which we feel power and see light, it must always be surrounded by our external world, in which we see no light, and only feel resistance. Our subjective being is inclosed in an objective shell, which, though it seems to yield to our efforts, continues entire and impenetrable beyond our reach, and even enlarges in its extent while it appears to give up to us a portion of its substance.

II. Successive German Philosophies

9. The doctrine of the Fundamental Antithesis of two elements of which the union is involved in all knowledge, and of which the separation is the task of all philosophy, affords us a special and distinct mode of criticizing the philosophies which have succeeded each other in the world; and we may apply it to the German Philosophies of which we have spoken.

The doctrine of the Fundamental Antithesis is briefly this:

That in every act of knowledge (1) there are two opposite elements which we may call Ideas and Perceptions; but of which the opposition appears in various other antitheses; as Thoughts and Things, Theories and Facts, Necessary Truths and Experiential Truths; and the like: (2) that our knowledge derives from the former of these elements, namely our Ideas, its form and character as knowledge, our Ideas of space and time being the necessary forms, for instance, of our geometrical and arithmetical knowledge; (3) and in like manner, all our other knowledge involving a development of the ideal conditions of knowledge existing in our minds: (4) but that though ideas and perceptions are thus separate elements in our philosophy, they cannot, in fact, be distinguished and separated, but are different aspects of the same thing; (5) that the only way in which we can approach to truth is by gradually and successively, in one instance after another, advancing from the perception to the idea; from the fact to the theory; from the apprehension of truths as actual to the apprehension of them as necessary. (6) This successive and various progress from fact to theory constitutes the history of science; (7) and this progress, though always leading us nearer to that central unity of which both the idea and the fact are emanations, can never lead us to that point, nor to any measurable proximity to it, or definite comprehension of its place and nature.

10. Now the doctrine being thus stated, successive sentences of the statement contain successive steps of German philosophy, as it has appeared in the series of celebrated authors whom I have named.

Ideas, and Perceptions or Sensations, being regarded as the two elements of our knowledge, Locke, or at least the successors of Locke, had rejected the former element, Ideas, and professed to resolve all our knowledge into Sensation. After this philosophy had prevailed for a time, Kant exposed, to the entire conviction of the great body of German speculators, the untenable nature of this account of our knowledge. He taught (one of the first sentences of the above statement) that (2) Our knowledge derives from our Ideas its form and character as knowledge; our Ideas of space and time being, for instance, the necessary forms of our geometrical and arithmetical knowledge. Fichte carried still further this view of our knowledge, as derived from our Ideas, or from its nature as knowledge; and held that (3) all our knowledge is a development of the ideal conditions of knowledge existing in our minds (one of our next following sentences). But when the ideal element of our knowledge was thus exclusively dwelt upon, it was soon seen that this ideal system no more gave a complete explanation of the real nature of knowledge, than the old sensational doctrine had done. Both elements, Ideas and Sensations, must be taken into account. And this was attempted by Schelling, who, in his earlier works, taught (as we have also stated above) that (4) Ideas and Facts are different aspects of the same thing:—this thing, the central basis of truth in which both elements are involved and identified, being, in Schelling's language, the Absolute, while each of the separate elements is subjected to conditions arising from their union. But this Absolute, being a point inaccessible to us, and inconceivable by us, as our philosophy teaches (as above), cannot to any purpose be made the basis of our philosophy: and accordingly this Philosophy of the Absolute has not been more permanent than its predecessors. Yet the philosophy of Hegel, which still has a wide and powerful sway in Germany, is, in the main, a development of the same principle as that of Schelling;—the identity of the idea and the fact; and Hegel's Identity-System, is rather a more methodical and technical exposition of Schelling's Philosophy of the Absolute than a new system. But Hegel traces the manifestation of the identity of the idea and fact in the progress of human knowledge; and thus in some measure approaches to our doctrine (above stated), that (5) the way in which we approach to truth is by gradually and successively, in one instance after another, that is, historically, advancing from the perception to the idea, from the fact to the theory: while at the same time Hegel has not carried out this view in any comprehensive or complete manner, so as to show that (6) this process constitutes the history of science: and as with Schelling, his system shows an entire want of the conviction (above expressed as part of our doctrine), (7) that we can never, in our speculations reach or approach to the central unity of which both idea and fact are emanations.

11. This view of the relation of the Sensational School, of the Schools of Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, and of the fundamental defects of all, may be further illustrated. It will, of course, be understood that our illustration is given only as a slight and imperfect sketch of these philosophies; but their relation may perhaps become more apparent by the very brevity with which it is stated; and the object of the present chapter is not the detailed criticism of systems, but this very relation of systems to each other.

The actual and the ideal, the external and the internal elements of knowledge, were called by the Germans the objective and the subjective elements respectively. The forms of knowledge and especially space and time, were pronounced by Kant to be essentially subjective; and this view of the nature of knowledge, more fully unfolded and extended to all knowledge, became the subjective ideality of Fichte. But the subjective and the objective are, as we have said, in their ultimate and supreme form, one; and hence we are told of the subjective-objective, a phrase which has also been employed by Mr. Coleridge. Fichte had spoken of the subjective element as the Me, (das Ich); and of the objective element as the Not-me, (das Nicht-Ich); and has deduced the Not-me from the Me. Schelling, on the contrary, laboured with great subtlety to deduce the Me from the Absolute which includes both. And this Absolute, or Subjective-objective, is spoken of by Schelling as unfolding itself into endless other antitheses. It was held that from the assumption of such a principle might be deduced and explained the oppositions which, in the contemplation of nature, present themselves at every step, as leading points of general philosophy:—for example, the opposition of matter as passive and active, as dead and organized, as unconscious or conscious; the opposition of individual and species, of will and moral rule. And this antithetical development was carried further by Hegel, who taught that the Absolute Idea developes itself so as to assume qualities, limitations, and seeming oppositions, and then completes the cycle of its development by returning into unity.

12. That there is, in the history of Science, much which easily lends itself to such a formula, the views which I have endeavoured to expound, show and exemplify in detail. But yet the attempts to carry this view into detail by conjecture—by a sort of divination—with little or no attention to the historical progress and actual condition of knowledge, (and such are those which have been made by the philosophers whom I have mentioned,) have led to arbitrary and baseless views of almost every branch of knowledge. Such oppositions and differences as are found to exist in nature, are assumed as the representatives of the elements of necessary antitheses, in a manner in which scientific truth and inductive reasoning are altogether slighted. Thus, this peculiar and necessary antithetical character is assumed to be displayed in attraction and repulsion, in centripetal and centrifugal forces, in a supposed positive and negative electricity, in a supposed positive and negative magnetism; in still more doubtful positive and negative elements of light and heat; in the different elements of the atmosphere, which are, quite groundlessly, assumed to have a peculiar antithetical character: in animal and vegetable life: in the two sexes; in gravity and light. These and many others, are given by Schelling, as instances of the radical opposition of forces and elements which necessarily pervades all nature. I conceive that the heterogeneous and erroneous principles involved in these views of the material world show us how unsafe and misleading is the philosophical assumption on which they rest. And the Triads of Hegel, consisting of Thesis, Antithesis, and Union, are still more at variance with all sound science. Thus we are told that matter and motion are determined as inertia, impulsion, fall; that Absolute Mechanics determines itself as centripetal force, centrifugal force, universal gravitation. Light, it is taught, is a secondary determination of matter. Light is the most intimate element of nature, and might be called the Me of nature: it is limited by what we may call negative light, which is darkness.

13. In these rash and blind attempts to construct physical science à priori, we may see how imperfect the Hegelian doctrines are as a complete philosophy. In the views of moral and political subjects the results of such a scheme are naturally less obviously absurd, and may often be for a moment striking and attractive, as is usually the case with attempts to reduce history to a formula. Thus we are told that the State appears under the following determinations:—first as one, substantial, self-included: next, varied, individual, active, disengaging itself from the substantial and motionless unity: next, as two principles, altogether distinct, and placed front to front in a marked and active opposition: then, arising out of the ruins of the preceding, the idea appears afresh, one, identical, harmonious. And the East, Greece, Rome, Germany, are declared to be the historical forms of these successive determinations. Whatever amount of real historical colour there may be for this representation, it will hardly, I think, be accepted as evidence of a profound political philosophy; but on such parts of the subject I shall not here dwell.

14. I may observe that in the series of philosophical systems now described, the two elements of the Fundamental Antithesis are alternately dwelt upon in an exaggerated degree, and then confounded. The Sensational School could see in human knowledge nothing but facts: Kant and Fichte fixed their attention almost entirely upon ideas: Schelling and Hegel assume the identity of the two, (a point we never can reach,) as the origin of their philosophy. The external world in Locke's school was all in all. In the speculations of Kant this external world became a dim and unknown region. Things were acknowledged to be something in themselves, but what, the philosopher could not tell. Besides the phænomenon which we see, Kant acknowledged a noumenon which we think of; but this assumption, for such it is, exercises no influence upon his philosophy.

15. We may for the sake of illustration imagine to ourselves each system of philosophy as a Drama in which Things are the Dramatis Personæ and the Idea which governs the system is the Plot of the drama. In Kant's Drama, Things in themselves are merely a kind of 'Mute Personages,' κωφὰ πρόσωπα, which stand on the stage to be pointed at and talked about, but which do not tell us anything, or enter into the action of the piece. Fichte carries this further, and if we go on with the same illustration, we may say that he makes the whole drama into a kind of Monologue; in which the author tells the story, and merely names the persons who appear. If we would still carry on the image, we may say that Schelling, going upon the principle that the whole of the drama is merely a progress to the Denouement, which denouement contains the result of all the preceding scenes and events, starts with the last scene of the piece; and bringing all the characters on the stage in their final attitudes, would elicit the story from this. While the true mode of proceeding is, to follow the drama Scene by Scene, learning as much as we can of the Action and the Characters, but knowing that we shall not be allowed to see the Denouement, and that to do so is probably not the lot of our species on earth. So far as any philosopher has thus followed the historical progress of the grand spectacle offered to the eyes of speculative man, in which the Phenomena of Nature are the Scenes, and the Theory of them the Plot, he has taken the course by which knowledge really has made its advances. But those who have partially done this, have often, like Hegel, assumed that they had divined the whole course and end of the story, and have thus criticised the scenes and the characters in a spirit quite at variance with that by which any real insight into the import of the representation can be obtained.

If it be asked which position we can assign, in this dramatic illustration, to those who hold that all our knowledge is derived from facts only, and who reject the supposition of ideas; we may say that they look on with a belief that the drama has no plot, and that these scenes are improvised without connexion or purpose.

16. I will only offer one more illustration of the relative position of these successive philosophies. Kant compares the change which he introduced into philosophy to the change which Copernicus introduced into astronomical theory. When Copernicus found that nothing could be made of the phenomena of the heavens so long as everything was made to turn round the spectator, he tried whether the matter might not be better explained if he made the spectator turn, and left the stars at rest. So Kant conceives that our experience is regulated by our own faculties, as the phenomena of the heavens are regulated by our own motions. But accepting and carrying out this illustration, we may say that Kant, in explaining the phenomena of the heavens by means of the motions of the earth, has almost forgotten that the planets have their own proper motions, and has given us a system which hardly explains anything besides broadest appearances, such as the annual and daily motions of the sun; and that Fichte appears as if he wished to deduce all the motions of the planets, as well as of the sun, from the conditions of the spectator;—while Schelling goes to the origin of the system, like Descartes, and is not content to show how the bodies move, without also proving that from some assumed original condition, all the movements and relations of the system must necessarily be what they are. It may be that a theory which explains how the planets, with their orbits and accompaniments, have come into being, may offer itself to bold speculators, like those who have framed and produced the nebular hypothesis. But I need not remind my readers either how precarious such a hypothesis is; or, that if it be capable of being considered probable, its proofs must gradually dawn upon us, step by step, age after age: and that a system of doctrine which assumes such a scheme as a certain and fundamental truth, and deduces the whole of astronomy from it, must needs be arbitrary, and liable to the gravest error at every step. Such a precarious and premature philosophy, at best, is that of Schelling and Hegel; especially as applied to those sciences in which, by the past progress of all sure knowledge, we are taught what the real cause and progress of knowledge is: while at the same time we may allow that all these forms of philosophy, since they do recognize the condition and motion of the spectator, as a necessary element in the explanation of the phenomena, are a large advance upon the Ptolemaic scheme—the view of those who appeal to phenomena alone as the source of our knowledge, and say that the sun, the moon, and the planets move as we see them move, and that all further theory is imaginary and fantastical.