*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 49228 ***
THE ORIGIN
OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF
RIGHT AND WRONG
THE ORIGIN
OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF
RIGHT AND WRONG
BY FRANZ BRENTANO
ENGLISH TRANSLATION
BY CECIL HAGUE
FORMERLY LECTOR AT
PRAGUE UNIVERSITY
WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
WESTMINSTER
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO LTD
2 WHITEHALL GARDENS
1902
BUTLER & TANNER,
THE SELWOOD PRINTING WORKS,
FROME, AND LONDON.
The present translation owes its origin to a desire on the part of the
translator of bringing to the wider notice of his fellow-countrymen a
work which has proved beneficial and stimulating to himself. Written
during short intervals of leisure while studying with Professor Anton
Marty of Prague University, it has had the advantage of his careful and
constant supervision. Without his aid it would scarcely have seen the
light. The translator has especially to thank Professor S. A. Alexander,
of Owens College, Manchester, for his valuable help in the general
revision and the translation of several difficult passages. It is now,
alas, too late to do more than record the translator’s debt to the late
Professor Adamson, of Glasgow University, whose revision and correction
of this essay was one of the last services rendered to the cause of
truth by a life-long disciple.
_West Dulwich, 1902._
AUTHOR’S PREFACE
This lecture, which I now bring before the notice of a larger public,
was delivered by me before the Vienna Law Society on January 23, 1889.
It then bore the title: “Of the Natural Sanction for Law and Morality.”
This title I have changed in order to bring its general purport more
clearly into prominence; otherwise I have made scarcely any further
alteration. Numerous notes have been added, and an already published
essay: “Miklosich on Subjectless Propositions” appended. In what way it
bears upon inquiries apparently so remote will be evident in the sequel.
The occasion of the lecture was an invitation extended to me by Baron
Von Hye, President of the Society. It was his wish that what had been
said here a few years ago by Ihering, as jurist, in his address, _Über
die Entstehung des Rechtsgefühls_, might in the same Society be
illustrated by me from the philosophic point of view. It would be a
mistake to assume from the incidental nature of the circumstances to
which it owed its first appearance that the Essay was only a fugitive,
occasional study. It embraces the fruits of many years’ reflection. The
discussions it contains form the ripest product of all that I have
hitherto published.
These thoughts form a fragment of a Descriptive Psychology, which, as I
now venture to hope, I may be enabled in the near future to publish in
its complete form. In its wide divergence from all that has hitherto
been put forward, and especially by reason of its being an essential
stage in the further development of some of the views advocated in my
_Psychology from the Empirical Standpoint_ it will be sufficiently
evident that during the period of my long literary retirement I have not
been idle.
Specialists in philosophy will find also in this lecture what will be at
once recognized as new. As regards the general reader, the rapidity with
which I pass from one question to another might at first completely
conceal many a sunken reef which required to be circumnavigated, many a
precipice which had to be avoided. Surely I, if any one, have reason,
owing to the conciseness of statement employed, to remember the saying
of Leibnitz and pay little attention to refutation and much to
demonstration. A glance at the notes--which, were they to do full
justice to the subject, would need to be multiplied an hundredfold--will
give him a further idea of those bye-paths which have misled so many,
and prevented their finding an issue to the labyrinth. Meantime I would
be well content--nay, I would regard it as the crown to all my
efforts--should all that has been said appear so self-evident to him
that he does not deem himself bound to thank me once in return.
No one has determined the principles of ethics as, on the basis of new
analyses, I have found it necessary to determine them, no one,
especially among those who hold that in the foundation of those
principles the feelings must find a place, have so radically and
completely broken with the subjective view of ethics. I except only
Herbart. But he lost himself in the sphere of aesthetic feeling, until
at last we find him so far from the track that he, who in the
theoretical philosophy is the irreconcilable enemy of contradiction,
nevertheless in practical philosophy (i.e. ethics) tolerates it when his
principles--the highest universally valid ideas--rush into conflict with
one another. Still his teaching remains in a certain aspect truly
related with mine, while, on other sides, other celebrated attempts to
discover a basis for ethics find in it points of contact.
In the notes, individual points are more sharply defined, a very
detailed examination of which would have been too prolix in the lecture.
Many an objection already urged has been met, many an expected rejoinder
anticipated. I also hope that some will be interested in the several
historical contributions, especially in the inquiries concerning
Descartes, where I trace back the doctrine of evidence to its causes and
point out two further thoughts, one of which has been misunderstood, the
other scarcely noticed, neither treated with the consideration they
deserve. I refer to his fundamental classification of mental states and
to his doctrine of the relation of love to joy, and of hate to sadness.
With several highly honoured investigators of the present--assuredly not
least honoured by myself--I have entered into a polemical debate, and
indeed most vigorously with those whose previous attack has compelled
me to a defence. I hope that they do not regard it as a violation of
_their_ claims, when I seek, to the utmost of my power, to help the
truth, which we in common serve, to her rights, and I assure them in
turn, that as I myself speak frankly, so also none the less do I welcome
with all my heart every sincere word of my opponent.
FRANZ BRENTANO.
CONTENTS
THE ORIGIN OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF RIGHT AND WRONG
A LECTURE
PAGE
1. Value of History and Philosophy for Jurisprudence; the new proposals
for the reform of legal studies in Austria 1
2. Our theme; Relation to Ihering’s lecture before the Vienna Law
Society 2
3. Twofold meaning of the expression “natural right” 2
4. Points of agreement with Ihering; rejection of the “jus naturae”
and “jus gentium”; pre-ethical political statutes 3
5. Opposition to Ihering; There exists a universally valid naturally
recognizable moral law. Relative independence of the question 4
6. The notion “natural sanction” 4
7. Manifold misconception of the same by philosophers 6
8. Habitually developed feeling of compulsion as such is no sanction 6
9. Motives of hope and fear as such not yet sanction 6
10. The thought of the arbitrary command of a higher power is not the
natural sanction 7
11. The ethical sanction is a command similar to the logical rule 8
12. The aesthetic point of view; as little in ethics as in logic
the right one 9
13. Kant’s Categorical Imperative an impracticable fiction 10
14. Necessity for preliminary psychological inquiries 10
15. No willing without a final end 10
16. The problem: which end is right? the chief problem of ethics 11
17. The right end is the best among attainable ends; obscureness
of this definition 11
18. Of the origin of the conception of the good; it has not its origin in
the sphere of the so-called external impression 12
19. The common characteristic of everything psychical 12
20. The three fundamental classes of psychical phenomena; idea
(Vorstellung), judgment, feeling (Gemütsbewegung) 13
21. The contrasts, belief and denial, love and hate 15
22. Of these opposed modes of relation one is always right, one wrong 15
23. The conception of the good 15
24. Distinction of the good in the narrow sense from what is good for
the sake of some other good 16
25. Love is not always a proof that an object is worthy to be loved 16
26. “Blind” and “self-evident” judgment 17
27. Analogous distinction in the sphere of pleasure and displeasure;
criterion of the good 18
28. Plurality of the good; problems associated therewith 21
29. Whether by “the better” is to be understood that which deserves
to be loved with more intensity 21
30. Right determination of the conception 22
31. When and how do we recognize that anything is in itself preferable?
The case of the opposite, of absence, of the addition of
like to like 23
32. Cases where the problem is insoluble 25
33. Whether the Hedonists in this respect would have the advantage 26
34. Why these failures prove less disadvantageous than might
be feared 27
35. The sphere of the highest practical good 28
36. The harmonious development 28
37. The natural sanction respecting the limits of right 29
38. The natural sanction for positive ethical laws 29
39. The power of the natural sanction 30
40. True and false relativity respecting ethical rules 30
41. Derivation of well known special enactments 32
42. Why other philosophers, by other ways, arrive at the same goal 32
43. Whence arise the universally extended ethical truths? Unclearness
concerning processes in one’s own consciousness 33
44. Trace of the influence of the moments severally mentioned 35
45. Lower currents exercising an influence 37
46. Necessity of guarding against overlooking the distinction between
ethical and pseudo-ethical development 39
47. Value of such developments in the pre-ethical time; establishment
of the social order; formation of dispositions; outlines of laws
at the disposal of legislative ethical authority; security against
doctrinaire tendencies 39
48. Beneficent influences which still operate continually
from this side 41
49. A further word on the reform of politico-legal studies 42
NOTES.
PAGE
13. In defence of my characterization of Herbart’s ethical criterion 44
14. Of Kant’s Categorical Imperative 44
16. The Nicomachean Ethics and Ihering’s “fundamental idea” in
his work; _Der Zweck im Recht_ 46
17. Of the cases of smaller chances in the effort after higher ends 46
18. Of the dependence of the conceptions upon concrete perceptions 46
19. The term “intentional” 47
21. The fundamental classification of mental states in Descartes 47
22. Windelband’s error in respect of the fundamental classification of
mental states; short defence of various attacks upon my _Psychology
from the Empirical Standpoint_; Land, on a supposed improvement on
formal logic; Steinthal’s criticism of my doctrine of judgment 50
23. In criticism of Sigwart’s theories of the existential and
negative judgments 55
24. Descartes on the relation of “love” to “joy” and of “hate” to
“sadness” 69
25. Of the notions of truth and existence 69
26. Of the unity of the notion of the good 71
27. Of “evidence.” Descartes “Clara et distincta perceptio.” Sigwart’s
doctrine of “evidence” and his “postulates” 71
28. Of ethical subjectivism. Aristotle’s oversight in respect of the
source of our knowledge of the good. Parallels between his
error in respect of the feelings (Gemütsthätigkeit), and Descartes’
doctrine of the “Clara et distincta perceptio” as a pre-condition
of the logically justified judgment; modern views which approach
to this doctrine 78
29. Of the expressions “gut gefallen” and “schlecht gefallen” 84
31. Typical case of a constant geometrical relation of mental values 85
32. Cases in which something at the same time both pleases and
displeases 85
33. Establishment of universal laws of valuation on the basis of a
single experience 86
34. Certain moments in the theory of ethical knowledge are of more
importance for the theodicy than for ethics itself 87
35. Explanation of the manner in which anything in certain cases is
recognized as preferable 87
36. The two cases, unique in their kind, in which preferability becomes
clear for us from a certain character in the act of preference 87
39. Gauss on the measurement of intensities 89
40. Against exaggerated expectations from the so-called psycho-physical
law 89
40. Defence against the objection of a too great ethical rigour 90
41. Love of neighbour in harmony with greater care of one’s own good 91
43. Why the narrowness of human foresight should not do injury to
moral courage 92
44. In criticism of Ihering’s view of the notion of right and of his
criticism of older views 93
45. Of the provisional ethical sanction of objectionable laws 96
60. Self-contradiction of Epicurus 97
64-65. Proof for the law of addition of like to like; testimony for it in
the teaching of the Stoa, of the theistic Hedonists, and in the
demand for immortality; Helmholtz 98
67. The great theologians are opponents of the arbitrary character of
the divine law of morals 99
68. John Stuart Mill on the doctrine of the distinction between
“blind” and “self-evident judgments” 99
(The numbers missing in the index contain only literary references.)
MIKLOSICH ON SUBJECTLESS PROPOSITIONS
(Appendix to pages 14 and 55).
I. Short sketch of the essential features treated in Miklosich’s
article 105
II. Critical remarks 110
Biographical Note 119
A LECTURE
1. The invitation to lecture extended to me by the Law Society was the
more binding as it gave expression in strong terms to a conviction
which, unfortunately, seems on the point of falling into abeyance.
Proposals for a reform of legal studies have been heard (and they are
even said to have proceeded from university circles) which can only mean
that the roots of jurisprudence deeply implanted as they are in the
spheres of ethics and national history may be severed, without the
organism itself suffering any vital injury.
As regards history, this counsel is to me, I confess, utterly
inexplicable; in respect of philosophy, I can excuse it only on the
ground that the men who at present occupy the chairs in the legal
faculty have taken a deep and gloomy impression of the mistakes of a
period which has lately passed away. A personal reproach may therefore
well be spared them. Yet indeed such suggestions were every bit as wise
as would be the case if a medical faculty were to propose to erase from
their plan of obligatory studies zoology, physics and chemistry.
If Leibnitz in his _Vita a se ipso lineata_, speaking of himself, says:
“I found that my earlier studies in history and philosophy lightened
materially my study of law,” and if, as in his _Specimen difficultatis
in jure_, deploring the prejudices of contemporary jurists, he exclaims:
“Oh! that those who busy themselves with the study of law would throw
aside their contempt of philosophy and see that without philosophy most
of the questions of their jus form a labyrinth without issue!” what
indeed would he say were he to rise again to-day, to these retrograde
reform movements?
2. The worthy President of the Society, who has retained such a lively
and wide sense of the real scientific needs of his profession, expressed
to me his own special wishes respecting the theme to be chosen. The
question as to the existence of a natural right was, he said, a subject
which enjoyed an exceptional interest with the members of the Law
Society; and he himself was anxious to learn what attitude I would adopt
with regard to the views there expressed by Ihering some years ago.[1]
I consented gladly, and have therefore designated as the subject of my
lecture the natural sanction for law and morality, wishing thereby, at
the same time, to indicate in what sense alone I believe in a natural
right.
3. For a two-fold meaning may be associated with the term “natural”:--
(1) It may mean as much as “given by nature,” “innate,” in
contradistinction to what has been acquired during historical
development either by deduction or by experience.
(2) It may mean, in contradistinction to what is determined by the
arbitrary will of a dictator, the rules which, in and for
themselves and in virtue of their nature are recognized as right
and binding.
Ihering rejects natural right in either of these meanings.[2] I, for my
part, agree as thoroughly with him regarding the one meaning as I differ
from him regarding the other.
4. I agree completely with Ihering when, following the example of John
Locke, he denies all innate moral principles.
Further, like him, I believe neither in the grotesque _jus naturae_,
i.e. _quod natura ipsa omnia animalia docuit_, nor in a _jus gentium_,
in a right which, as the Roman jurists defined it, is recognized as a
natural law of reason by the universal agreement of all nations.
It is not necessary to have gone deeply into zoology and physiology in
order to see that we can no longer use the animal world as a criterion
for the setting up of ethical standards, even if one is not disposed to
go so far as Rokitansky in pronouncing protoplasma, with its aggressive
character, an unrighteous and evil principle.
As to a common code of right for all nations, such a belief was a
delusion which might hold good in the antique world; in modern times
when the ethnographical horizon has been extended, and the customs of
barbarous races drawn upon for comparison, these laws can no longer be
recognized as a product of nature, but only as a product of culture
common to the more advanced nations.
As regards all this, therefore, I am in agreement with Ihering; I am
also substantially in agreement with him when he asserts that there have
been times without any trace of ethical knowledge and ethical feeling;
at any rate without anything of the kind that was commonly accepted.
Indeed I acknowledge unhesitatingly that this state of things continued
even when larger communities under state government had been
constituted. When Ihering, in support of this view, points to Greek
mythology with its gods and goddesses destitute of moral thought and
feeling, and maintains that, by the lives of the gods, the life of
mankind in the period in which these myths took shape may be
interpreted,[3] he does but use a method of proof which Aristotle has
already employed in a similar manner in his _Politics_.[4] This also
must therefore be conceded him, and we shall, on this ground, no longer
deny that the earliest political laws supported by penal sanction were
established without the help of any feeling of right founded upon moral
insight. There are, therefore, no natural moral laws and legal precepts
in the sense that they are given by nature herself, that they are
innate; in this respect, Ihering’s views have our entire approval.
5. We have now to meet the second and far more important question: Do
there exist truths concerning morality, taught by nature herself, and is
there moral truth, independent of all ecclesiastical, political, in fact
every kind of social authority? Is there a natural moral law which, in
its nature, is universally and incontestably valid for men of every
place and time, valid indeed for every kind of thinking and sentient
being; and does the knowledge of it lie within the realm of our mental
faculties? Here we are at the point where I join issue with Ihering. To
this question, which Ihering answers in the negative, I return a decided
affirmative. Which of us is here in the right our present inquiry into
the natural sanction for law and morality will, I hope, make clear.
At any rate, the decision as to the former question, whatever Ihering[5]
himself may think to the contrary, does not in any way prejudge the
latter. Innate prejudices do exist; these are natural in the former
sense, but they lack natural sanction; whether true or false, they
possess no immediate validity. On the other hand, there are many
propositions recognized after a natural manner, which are incontestably
certain and have universal validity for all thinking beings, which,
however, as, for example, the Pythagorean theorem are anything but
innate, else the blissful first discoverer had never offered his
hecatomb to the god.
6. In what has been said I have made it sufficiently evident how, when I
speak of natural sanction, I understand the notion of sanction. Yet it
will be well to linger a moment in order to exclude another inadequate
view.
“Sanction” signifies “making fast.” Now a law may be fixed in a double
sense:
(1) It may be fixed in the sense of becoming law, as when a
proposed law receives validity by ratification on the part of the
highest legislative authority.
(2) In the sense of being rendered more effectual by attaching to
it positive punishments, perhaps also rewards.
It is in this latter sense that sanction was spoken of by writers of
antiquity, as when Cicero[6] says of the leges Porciae: “Neque quicquam
praeter sanctionem attulerunt novi”; and Ulpian:[7] “Interdum in
sanctionibus adijicitur, ut qui ibi aliquid commisit, capite puniatur.”
It is in the former sense that the expression is more usual in modern
times; a law is said to be “sanctioned” when it secures validity by
receiving confirmation at the hands of the highest authority.
Manifestly sanction in the second sense presupposes sanction in the
first, which sanction is the more essential, since, without it, the law
would not truly be law at all. Such a natural sanction therefore is of
the last necessity if anything whatever is to bear by nature the stamp
of law or morality.
7. If we now compare with such a view what has been said by philosophers
concerning the natural sanction for morality, it will be easily seen how
often they have overlooked its essential character.
8. Many think that they have discovered a natural sanction in respect of
a certain line of conduct when they have shown that a certain feeling of
compulsion so to act is developed within the individual. Since every
one, for example, renders services to others in order to receive similar
services in return, there at last arises a habit of performing such
services even in cases where there has been no thought of recompense.[8]
This it is which is thought to constitute the sanction for love of our
neighbour.
But this view is entirely erroneous. Such a feeling of compulsion is
certainly a force driving to action, but it is assuredly not a sanction
conferring validity. Besides, the inclination to vice develops according
to the same law of habit, and exercises, as an impulse, the most
unbounded sway. The miser’s passion which leads him, in his desire of
amassing riches, to submit to the heaviest sacrifices and to commit the
most extreme cruelties, certainly constitutes no sanction for his
conduct.
9. Again, motives of hope or fear that a certain manner of behaviour,
as, for example, regard for the general good, will render us agreeable
or disagreeable to other and more powerful beings, these it has often
been sought to regard as a sanction for such conduct.[9] But it is
manifest that the most cringing cowardice, the most servile flattery
might then boast a natural sanction. As a matter of fact virtue shines
out most brightly where neither threats nor entreaties are able to
divert her from the right path.
10. Some speak of an education in which man, as belonging to an order of
living beings accustomed to live in society, receives from those by whom
he is surrounded. An injunction is repeatedly laid upon him, the
command: “You ought.” It lies in the nature of things that certain
actions are very frequently and generally required of him. There is thus
formed an association between his mode of action and the thought: “You
ought.” And so it may happen that he may come to regard, as the source
of this command, the society in which he lives, or even something
vaguely conceived to be higher than an individual, that is to say,
something regarded in a way as superhuman. The “ought” associated by him
with such a being would then constitute the sanction of conscience.[10]
In this case the natural sanction would then consist in the naturally
developed belief in the command of a more powerful will.
But it is manifest that such a belief in the command of a more powerful
being contains, as yet, nothing which deserves the name of a sanction.
Such a conviction is shared by one who knows himself to be at the mercy
of a tyrant or of a robber horde. Whether he obey, or bid defiance, the
command itself contains nothing able to give to the required act a
sanction similar to that of the conscience. Even if he obey he does so
through fear, not because he regards the command as one based on right.
The thought, therefore, that an act is commanded by some one does not
constitute a natural sanction. In the case of every command issued by an
external will the question arises: Is such a command authorized or is
it not? Neither is there any reference here to a command enforced by a
still higher power enjoining obedience to the former. For then the
question would again reappear, and we should proceed from one command to
another enjoining obedience to the former, and from that to a third
enjoining in like manner obedience to the second, and so on _ad infin_.
Just as in the case of the feeling of compulsion, and in that of the
fear or hope of recompense, so also the thought of the command of an
external will cannot possibly be the sanction for law and morality.
11. But there are also commands in an essentially different sense;
commands in the sense in which we speak of the commands of logic
respecting our judgments and conclusions. We are not here concerned with
the will of logic, since a will logic manifestly has not, nor with the
will of the logician, to which we have in no way sworn allegiance. The
laws of logic are naturally valid rules of judging, that is to say, we
are obliged to conform to them, since conformity to these rules ensures
certainty in our judgments, whereas judgments diverging from these rules
are liable to error. What we therefore mean is a natural superiority
which thought-processes in conformity with law have over such as are
contrary to law. So also in ethics, we are not concerned with the
command of an external will but rather with a natural preference similar
to that in logic, and the law founded on that preference. This has been
emphasized not only by Kant but also by the majority of great thinkers
before him. Nevertheless there are still many--unfortunately even among
the adherents of the empirical school to which I myself belong--by whom
this fact has neither been rightly understood nor appreciated.
12. In what then lies this special superiority which gives to morality
its natural sanction? Some regarded it as, in a sense, external, they
believed its superiority to consist in beauty of appearance. The Greeks
called noble and virtuous conduct Τὀ καλὁν, the beautiful, and the
perfect man of honour καλοκἀγαθός; though none of the philosophers of
antiquity set up this aesthetic view as a criterion. On the other hand,
David Hume[11], among modern thinkers, has spoken of a moral sense of
the beautiful which acts as arbiter between the moral and the immoral,
while still more recently the German philosopher, Herbart,[12] has
subordinated ethics to aesthetics.
Now I do not deny that the aspect of virtue is more agreeable than that
of moral perversity. But I cannot concede that in this consists the only
and essential superiority of ethical conduct. It is rather an inner
superiority which distinguishes the moral from the immoral will, in the
same way that it is an inner superiority which distinguishes true and
self evident judgments and conclusions from prejudices and fallacies.
Here also it cannot be denied that a prejudice, a fallacy has in it
something unbeautiful, often indeed something ridiculously
narrow-minded, which makes the person so scantily favoured by Minerva
appear in a most disadvantageous attitude; yet who, on this account,
would class the rules of logic among those of aesthetics, or make logic
a branch of aesthetics?[13] No, the real logical superiority is no mere
aesthetic appearance but a certain inward rightness which then carries
with it a certain superiority of appearance. It will, therefore, be
also a certain inward rightness which constitutes the essential
superiority of one particular act of will over another of an opposite
character; in which consists the superiority of the moral over the
immoral.
The belief in this superiority is an ethical motive; the knowledge of it
is the right ethical motive, the sanction which gives to ethical law
permanence and validity.
13. But are we capable of attaining to such knowledge? Here lies the
difficulty which philosophers have for a long time sought in vain to
solve. Even to Kant it seemed as though none had found the right end of
the thread by means of which to unravel the skein. This the Categorical
Imperative was to do. It resembled however, rather the sword drawn by
Alexander to cut the Gordian knot. With such a palpable fiction the
matter is not to be set right.[14]
14. In order to gain an insight into the true origin of ethical
knowledge it will be necessary to take some account of the results of
later researches in the sphere of descriptive psychology. The limited
time at my disposal makes it necessary for me to set forth my views very
briefly, and I have reason to fear that by its conciseness the
completeness of the statement may suffer. Yet it is just here that I ask
your special attention, in order that what is most essential to a right
understanding of the problem be not overlooked.
15. The subject of the moral and immoral is termed the will. What we
will is, in many cases, a means to an end. In that case we will this end
also, and even in a higher degree than the means. The end itself may
often be the means to a further end; in a far reaching plan there may
often appear a whole series of ends, the one being always connected in
subordination to the other as a means. There must be present, however,
one end, which is desired above all others and for its own sake; without
this essential and final end all incentive would be lacking, and this
would involve the absurdity of aiming without a goal at which to aim.
16. The means we employ in order to gain an end may be manifold, may be
right or wrong. They are right when they are really adapted to the
attainment of the end.
The ends, also, even the most essential and final ends, may be manifold.
It is a mistake which appeared especially in the eighteenth century,
nowadays the tendency is more and more to abandon it, that every one
seeks the same end, namely, his own highest possible pleasure.[15]
Whoever can believe that the martyr facing with full consciousness the
most terrible tortures for the sake of his conviction--and there were
some who had no hope of recompense hereafter--was thus inspired by a
desire after the greatest possible pleasure, such a man must have either
a very defective sense of the facts of the case, or, indeed, have lost
all measure of the intensities of pleasure and pain.
This, therefore, is certain: even final ends are manifold, between them
hovers the choice, which, since the final end is for everything the
determining principle, is of the most importance. What ought I to strive
after? Which end is the right one, which wrong? This, as Aristotle long
ago declared, is the essential, the cardinal question in ethics.[16]
17. Which end is right, for which should our choice declare itself?
Where the end is fixed and it is merely a question as to the choice of
means, we reply: Choose means which will certainly attain the end. Where
it is a question as to the choice of ends we would say: Choose an end
which reason regards as really attainable. This answer is, however,
insufficient, many a thing attainable is rather to be shunned than
sought after; choose the best among attainable ends, this alone is the
adequate answer.[17]
But the answer is obscure; what do we mean by “the best”? what can be
called “good” at all? and how can we attain to the knowledge that one
thing is good and better than another?
18. In order to answer this question satisfactorily, we must, above all,
inquire into the origin of the conception of the good, which lies, like
the origin of all our conceptions, in certain concrete impressions.[18]
We possess impressions with _physical_ content. These exhibit to us
sensuous qualities localized in space. Out of this sphere arise the
conceptions of colour, sound, space and many others. The conception of
the good, however, has not here its origin. It is easily recognizable
that the conception of the good like that of the true, which, as having
affinity, is rightly placed side by side with it, derives its origin
from concrete impressions with _psychical_ content.
19. The common feature of everything psychical consists in what has been
called by a very unfortunate and ambiguous term, consciousness; i.e. in
a subject-attitude; in what has been termed an _intentional_ relation to
something which, though perhaps not real, is none the less an inner
object of perception[19] No hearing without the heard, no believing
without the believed, no hoping without the hoped for, no striving
without the striven for, no joy without the enjoyed, and so with other
mental phenomena.
20. The sensuous qualities which are given in our impressions with
physical content exhibit manifold differences. So also do the
intentional relations given in our impressions with psychical content.
And, as in the former case, the number of the senses is determined by
reference to those distinctions between sensuous qualities which are
most fundamental (called by Helmholtz distinctions of modality), so in
the latter case the number of fundamental classes of mental phenomena is
fixed by reference to the most fundamental distinctions of intentional
relation.[20]
In this way we distinguish three fundamental classes. Descartes in his
_Meditations_[21] was the first to exhibit these rightly and completely;
but sufficient attention has not been paid to his observations, and they
were soon quite forgotten, until in recent times, and independently of
him, these were again discovered. Nowadays they may lay claim to
sufficient verification.[22]
The first fundamental class is that of ideas (Vorstellungen) in the
widest sense of the term (Descartes’ ideae). This class embraces
concrete impressions, those for example which are given to us through
the senses, as well as every abstract conception.
The second fundamental class is judgment (Descartes’ judicia). Previous
to Descartes these were thought of as forming, along with ideas, _one_
fundamental class, and since Descartes’ time philosophy has fallen once
more into this error. This view regarded judgment as consisting
essentially in a combination or relation of ideas to one another. This
was a gross misconception of its true nature. We may combine or relate
ideas as we please, as in speaking of a golden mountain, the father of a
hundred children, a friend of science; but as long as nothing further
takes place there can be no judgment. Equally true is it that an idea
always forms the basis of a judgment, as also of a desire; but it is not
true that, in a judgment, there are always several ideas related to one
another as subject and predicate. This is certainly the case when I say:
“God is just,” though not when I say: “There is a God.”
What, therefore, distinguishes those cases where I have not only an idea
but also a judgment? There is here added to the act of presentation a
second intentional relation to the object given in presentation, a
relation either of recognition or rejection. Whoever says: “God,” gives
expression to the idea of God; whoever says: “There is a God,” gives
expression to a belief in him.
I must not linger here, and can only assure you that this, if anything,
admits to-day of no denial. From the philological standpoint Miklosich
confirms the results of psychological analysis.[23]
The third fundamental class consists of the emotions in the widest sense
of the term, from the simple forms of inclination or disinclination in
respect of the mere idea, to joy and sadness arising from conviction and
to the most complicated phenomena as to the choice of ends and means.
Aristotle long since included these under the term Ὄρεζις. Descartes
says this class embraces the _voluntates sive affectus_. As in the
second fundamental class the intentional relation was one of recognition
or rejection, so in the third class it is one of love or hate, (or, as
it might be equally well expressed,) a form of pleasing or displeasing.
Loving, pleasing, hating, displeasing, these are given in the simplest
forms of inclination or disinclination, in victorious joy as well as in
despairing sorrow, in hope and fear, and in every form of voluntary
activity. “Plait-il?” asks the Frenchman; “es hat Gott gefallen,” one
reads in (German) announcements of a death; while the “Placet,” written
when confirming an act, is the expression of the determining fiat of
will.[24]
21. In comparing these three classes of phenomena it is found that the
two last mentioned show an analogy which, in the first, is absent. There
exists, that is, an opposition of intentional relation; in the case of
judgment, recognition or rejection, in the case of the emotions, love or
hate, pleasure or displeasure. The idea shows nothing of a similar
nature. I can, it is true, conceive of opposites, as for example white
and black, but whether I believe in this black or deny it, I can only
represent it to myself in one way; the representation does not alter
with the opposite act of judgment; nor again, in the case of the
feelings, when I change my attitude towards it according as it pleases
or displeases me.
22. From this fact follows an important conclusion. Concerning acts of
the first class none can be called either right or wrong. In the case of
the second class on the other hand, one of the two opposed modes of
relation, affirmation and rejection, is right the other wrong, as logic
has long affirmed. The same naturally holds good of the third class. Of
the two opposed modes of relation, love and hate, pleasure and
displeasure, in each case one is right the other wrong.
23. We have now reached the place where the notions of good and bad,
along with the notions of the true and the false which we have been
seeking, have their source. We call anything true when the recognition
related to it is right.[25] We call something good when the love
relating to it is right. That which can be loved with a right love, that
which is worthy of love, is good in the widest sense of the term.
24. Since everything which pleases does so, either for its own sake, or
for the sake of something else which is thereby produced, conserved or
rendered probable, we must distinguish between a primary and a secondary
good, i.e. what is good in itself, and what is good on account of
something else, as is specially the case in the sphere of the useful.
What is good in itself is the good in the narrower sense. It alone can
stand side by side with the true. For everything which is true is true
in itself, even when only mediately known. When we speak of good later
we shall therefore mean, whenever the contrary is not expressly
asserted, that which is good in itself.
In this way we have, I hope, made clear the notion of good.[26]
25. There follows now the still more important question: How are we to
know that anything is good? Ought we to say that whatever is loved and
is capable of being loved is worthy of love and is good? This is
manifestly untrue, and it is almost inconceivable that some have fallen
into this error. One loves what another hates, and, in accordance with a
well known psychological law already previously referred to it often
happens that what at first was desired merely as a means to something
else, comes at last from habit to be desired for its own sake. In such a
way the miser is irrationally led to heap up riches and even to
sacrifice himself for their sake. The actual presence of love,
therefore, by no means testifies unconditionally to the worthiness of
the object to be loved, just as affirmation is no unconditional proof of
what is true.
It might even be said that the first statement is even more _evident_
than the second, since it can hardly happen that he who affirms anything
at the same time holds it to be false, whereas it frequently happens
that a person, even while loving something, confesses himself that it is
unworthy of his love:
“Video meliora proboque,
Deteriora sequor.”
How then are we to know that anything is good?
26. The matter appears enigmatical, but the enigma finds a very easy
solution.
As a preliminary step to answering the question, let us turn our glance
from the good to the true.
Not everything which we affirm is on this account true. Our judgments
are frequently quite blind. Many a prejudice which we drank in, as it
were, with our mother’s milk presents to us the appearance of an
irrefutable principle. To other equally blind judgments all men have, by
nature, a kind of instinctive impulsion, as, for example, in trusting
blindly to the so-called external impression, or to a recent
remembrance. What is so recognized may often be true, but it may equally
well be false since the affirming judgment contains nothing which gives
to it the character of rightness.
Such, however, is the case in certain other judgments, which in
contradistinction to these blind judgments may be termed “obvious,”
“self-evident” judgments; as, for example, the Principle of
Contradiction, and every so-called inner perception which informs me
that I am now experiencing sensations of sound or colour, or think and
will this or that.
In what, then, does the distinction between these lower and higher forms
of judgment essentially consist? Is it a distinction in the degree of
belief, or is it something else? It is not a distinction in the degree
of belief; the instinctive blind assumptions arising from habit are
often not in the slightest degree weakened by doubts, and we are unable
to get rid of some even when we have already seen their logical falsity.
But such assumptions are the results of blind impulse, they have nothing
of the clearness peculiar to the higher forms of judgment. Were the
question to be raised: “What is then your reason for believing that?” no
rational answer would be forthcoming. It is quite true that if the same
inquiry were to be made respecting the immediately evident judgment here
also no reason could be given, but in face of the clearness of the
judgment the inquiry would appear utterly beside the point, in fact
ridiculous. Every one experiences for himself the difference between
these two classes of judgment, and in the reference to this experience,
consists, as in the case of every conception, the final explanation.
27. All this is, in its essentials, universally known,[27] and is
contested only by a few, and then not without great inconsistency. Far
fewer have noticed an analogous distinction between the higher and lower
forms of the feelings of pleasure and displeasure.
Our pleasure or displeasure is often quite like blind judgment, only an
instinctive or habitual impulse. This is so in the case of the miser’s
pleasure in piling up, in those powerful feelings of pleasure and pain
connected in men and animals alike with the appearance of certain
sensuous qualities, moreover, as is especially noticeable in tastes,
different species and even different individuals, are affected in a
quite contrary manner.
Many philosophers, and among them very considerable thinkers, have
regarded only that mode of pleasure which is peculiar to the lower
phenomena of the class, and have entirely overlooked the fact that there
exists a pleasure and a displeasure of a higher kind. David Hume, for
example, betrays almost in every word that he has absolutely no idea of
the existence of this higher class.[28] How general this oversight has
been may be judged from the fact that language has no common name for
it.[29] Yet the fact is undeniable and we propose now to elucidate it by
a few examples.
We have already said that we are endowed by nature with a pleasure for
some tastes and an antipathy for others, both of which are purely
instinctive. We also naturally take pleasure in clear insight,
displeasure in error or ignorance. “All men,” says Aristotle in the
beautiful introductory words of his _Metaphysics_,[30] “naturally desire
knowledge.” This desire is an example which will serve our purpose. It
is a pleasure of that higher form which is analogous to _self-evidence_
in the sphere of judgment. In our species it is universal. Were there
another species which, while having different preferences from us in
respect of sensible qualities, were opposed to us in loving error for
its own sake and hating insight, then assuredly we should not in the
latter as in the former case say: that it was a matter of taste, “de
gustibus non est disputandum”; rather we should here answer decisively
that such love and hatred were fundamentally absurd, that such a species
hated what was undeniably good, and loved what was undeniably bad in
itself. Now why, where the feeling of compulsion is equally strong, do
we answer differently in the one case than in the other? The answer is
simple. In the former case the feeling of compulsion was an instinctive
impulse; in the latter the natural feeling of pleasure is a higher love,
having the character of rightness.[31] We therefore notice when we
ourselves have such a feeling, that its object is not merely loved and
lovable, its opposite hated and unlovable, but also that the one is
worthy of love, the other worthy of hatred, and therefore that one is
good, the other bad.
Another example. As we prefer insight to error, so also, generally
speaking, we prefer joy (unless indeed it be joy in what is bad) to
sadness. Were there beings among whom the reverse held good, we should
regard such conduct as perverse, and rightly so. Here too it is because
our love and our hatred are qualified as right.
A third example is found in feeling itself so far as it is right and has
the character of rightness. As was the case with the rightness and
evidence of the judgment, so also the rightness and higher character of
the feelings are also reckoned as good, while love of the bad is itself
bad.[32]
In order that, in the sphere of ideas, we may not leave the
corresponding experiences unmentioned: here in the same way every idea
is found to be something good in itself, and that with every enlargement
in the realm of our ideas, quite apart from what of good or bad may
result therefrom, the good within us is increased.[33]
Here then, and from such experiences of love qualified as right, arises
within us the knowledge that anything is truly and unmistakably good in
the full extent to which we are capable of such knowledge.[34]
This last clause is added advisedly; for we must not, of course, conceal
from ourselves the fact that we have no guarantee that everything which
is good will arouse within us a love with the character of rightness.
Wherever this is not the case our criterion fails, and the good then, so
far as our knowledge and practical account of it are concerned, is as
much as non-existent.[35]
28. It is, however, not _one_ but many things which we thus recognize as
good. And so the questions remain: In that which is good, and especially
in what, as good, is attainable, which is the better? and further, which
is the highest practical good? so that it may become the standard for
our actions.
29. We must first inquire: When is anything better than anything else
and recognized by us as better? and what is meant by “the better” at
all?
The answer now lies ready to hand though not in such a way as to render
it unnecessary to exclude a very possible error. If by “good” is meant
that which is worthy of being loved for its own sake, then by “better”
appears to be meant that which is worthy of being loved with a greater
love. But is this really so? What is meant by “with greater love”? Is it
spatial magnitude? Hardly; no one would propose to measure pleasure or
displeasure in feet and inches. “The intensity of the pleasure,” some
will perhaps say, “is what is meant in speaking of love as great.”
According to this “better” would mean that which pleases with a more
intense pleasure. But such a definition closely examined would involve
the greatest absurdities. According to this view, each single case in
which joy is felt in anything would seem only to admit of a certain
measure of joy, whereas one would naturally think that it could not
possibly be reprehensible to rejoice in what is really good to the
fullest extent possible. Or, as we say, “with all one’s heart.”
Descartes has already observed that the act of loving (when directed
towards what is good at all) can never be too intense.[36] And he is
manifestly right. Were it otherwise what cautiousness should we not be
called upon to exercise considering the limits of our mental strength!
Every time one wished to rejoice over something good, an anxious survey
would be necessary respecting other existing goods in order that the
measure of proportion to our total strength might in no way be exceeded.
And if one believes in a God, understanding thereby the Infinite Good,
the Ideal of all ideals, then, since a man, even with his whole soul and
strength can only love God with an act of love of finite intensity he
will therefore be compelled to love every other good with an infinitely
small degree of intensity, and, since this is impossible, must cease as
a matter of fact to love it at all.
All this is manifestly absurd.
30. And yet it must be said that the better is that which is rightly
loved with a greater love, which is rightly more pleasing, though in
quite another sense. The “more” refers not to the relation of intensity
between the two acts, but rather to a peculiar species of phenomena
belonging to the general class of pleasure and displeasure, i.e., to the
phenomena of choice. Thereby are meant relating acts which in their
peculiar nature are known to every one in experience. In the province of
ideas there is nothing analogous. In the province of judgment there are,
it is true, alongside the simple, subjectless propositions, predicative
judgments which are acts of a relative character, but this resemblance
is very imperfect. The case here which has most similarity is that of a
decision respecting a dialectically propounded question: “Is this true
or false?” in which a sort of preference is given to one above the
other. But even here it is always something true which is, so to speak,
preferred to something false, never something more true over something
less true. Whatever is true is true in a like degree, but whatever is
good is not good in equal degree, and by “better” nothing else is meant
than what, when compared with another good, is preferable, i.e.
something which for its own sake, is preferred with a right preference.
For the rest a somewhat wider usage of language allows us also to speak
of a good as “better” over against a bad or purely indifferent, or even
to call something bad over against something still worse “the better.”
We then say not of course that it is good, but still better than the
other.
This shortly in explanation of the notion of the better.
31. Next the question: How do we know that anything is really the
better? Assuming the existence of simple knowledge of things as good and
bad, we appear, so analogy suggests, to derive this insight from certain
acts of preferring which have the character of rightness. For, like the
simple exercise of pleasure, so also the act of preferring is sometimes
of a lower or impulsive, and sometimes of a higher kind, and like the
evident judgment, is qualified as right. The cases in point are,
however, of such a nature that many might say, and perhaps with a better
right, that it is analytical judgments which furnish us here with the
means of progress, and that instead of our learning the preferability
from the actual preferences, the preferences have the qualification of
rightness because they already presume the recognition of the standard
of preferability.[37]
Chiefly belonging to this class are obviously (1) the case where we
prefer something good, and recognized as good, to something bad, and
recognized as bad. Also (2) the case where we prefer the existence of
something recognized as good to its non-existence, or the non-existence
of something recognized as bad to its existence.
This case embraces in itself a series of important cases, as the case
where we prefer a good to the same good with an admixture of the bad;
and, on the other hand, where we prefer something bad, with an admixture
of good, to the same bad purely for its own sake. Further, the cases in
which we prefer the whole of a good to its part, and again, the part of
something bad to its whole. Aristotle has already called attention to
the fact that in the case of the good the sum is always better than the
separate parts which together make up its sum. Such a case of summation
presents itself wherever a state has a certain permanence. The same
amount of joy which endures an hour is better than if it only lasted for
a moment. Whoever denies this, like Epicurus when he would console us on
account of the mortality of the soul, may easily be led into still more
striking absurdities. For then an hour’s torture would be no worse than
that of a moment. And, by combining both these propositions, we should
have to assume that an entire life full of joy with a single moment of
pain is in no way preferable to an entire life full of pain with a
single moment of joy. This is a result at which not only every sound
mind in general would demur, but also one respecting which Epicurus in
particular, expressly asserts the contrary.
Closely related to this is the case (3) where one good is preferred to
another, which, while forming no part of the first, is yet similar in
every respect to one of its parts. It is not merely by adding a good to
the same good but also by adding it to a good which is in every respect
similar that we get a better for total. The case is analogous when to a
similar bad another bad is thought of as added. When therefore, for
example, a fine picture is seen, the first time as a whole, the second
time only partially though exactly in the same way, we must then say
that the first view, considered in itself, is better: Or, when one
imagines something that is good and a second time not only imagines it
even as perfectly as before, but also loves it, this latter sum of
psychical acts is then something better.
Cases of difference in degree belong also to this third class, and are
especially worthy of mention. If one good, e.g. one joy is in every
respect quite equal to another, only more intense, then the preference
which is given to the more intense is qualified as right, the more
intense is the better. Conversely, the bad which is more intense, e.g. a
more intense pain, is worse. That is to say: the degree of intensity
corresponds with the distance from the zero point, and the distance of
the greater degree of intensity from zero is compounded of its distance
from the weaker degree of intensity plus the distance of this from zero.
We have, therefore, really to do with a kind of addition, a view which
has been disputed.
32. Many a one will, perhaps, think to himself that the three cases
which I have set forth are so self-evident and insignificant that it is
a matter for surprise that I have lingered over them at all.
Self-evident they are of course, and this must be so, since we have
here to do with what has to serve as a fundamentum. The case would be
worse if they were insignificant; for, I confess it frankly, I have
scarcely another further case to add: in all, or, at any rate, most of
the cases not here included a criterion fails us completely.[38]
An example. All insight is, we have said, something good in itself, and
all noble love is likewise something good in itself. We recognize both
these things clearly. But who shall say whether this act of insight or
that act of love is in itself, the better? There have, of course, not
been wanting those who have given a verdict on this point; some have
even asserted that it is certain every act of noble love for its own
sake is a good so high that, taken by itself, it is better than all
scientific insight taken together. In my judgment this view is not only
doubtful but altogether absurd. For a single act of noble love worthy as
it is, is yet a certain finite good. But every act of insight is also a
finite good and if I keep adding this finite quantity to itself _ad
libitum_, its sum is bound some time to exceed every given finite
measure of good. On the other hand, Plato and Aristotle were inclined to
regard the act of knowing considered in itself as higher than ethically
virtuous acts, this also quite unjustly, and I only mention it since the
opposition of opinions here is a confirmatory proof of the absence of
any criterion. As often happens in the sphere of the psychical,[39] so
also here, real measurements are impossible. Now where the inner
preference is not to be detected there holds good here what was said in
a similar case of simple goodness--as far as our knowledge and practical
concern go it is as good as non-existent.
33. There are some who, in opposition to the clear teaching of
experience, assert that only pleasure is good for its own sake, and
pleasure is _the_ good. Assuming this view to be right, would it have
the advantage, as many have believed, and as Bentham in particular
maintained in its favour,[40] that we should at once attain to a
determination of the relative value of goods, seeing that now we should
have only homogeneous goods and these admit of being measured side by
side? Every more intense pleasure would then be a greater good than one
less intense, and a good having double the intensity would be equal to
two of half the intensity. In this way everything would become clear.
A moment’s reflection only is needed to shatter an illusion born of such
hope. Are we really able to find out that one pleasure is twice as great
as another? Gauss[41] himself, who knew something about measurements,
has denied this. A more intense pleasure is never really made up of
twelve less intense pleasures distinguishable as equal parts within it,
as a foot is made up of twelve inches. So the matter presents itself
even in simpler cases. But how foolish would any one appear were he to
assert that the pleasure he had in smoking a good cigar increased 127,
or, let us say, 1077 times in intensity yielded a measure of the
pleasure experienced by him in listening to a symphony of Beethoven or
contemplating one of Raphael’s madonnas![42] I think I have said enough,
and do not need to allude to the further difficulty involved in
comparing the intensity of pleasure with that of pain.
34. Only therefore to this very limited extent are we able to derive
from experience a knowledge of what is better in itself.
I can well understand how any one, reflecting upon this for the first
time, will be led to fear that the great gaps which remain must, in
practice, prove in the highest degree embarrassing. Yet as we proceed
and make a vigorous use of what we do possess, we shall find that the
most sensible deficiencies may fortunately turn out harmless in
practice.
35. For, from the cases we adduced of preference qualified as right, the
important proposition follows that the province of the highest practical
good embraces everything which is subject to our rational operation in
so far as a good can be realized in such matter. Not merely the self but
also the family, the town, the state, the whole present world of life,
even distant future times, may here be taken into account. All this
follows from the principle of the summation of the good. To promote as
far as possible the good throughout this great whole, that is manifestly
the right end in life, towards which every act is to be ordered; that is
the one, the highest command upon which all the rest depend.[43]
Self-devotion and, on occasion, self-sacrifice are, therefore, duties;
an equal good wherever it be, and therefore in the person of another
also, is, in proportion to its value, and, therefore, everywhere equally
to be loved, and jealousy and malignant envy are excluded.
36. And now, since all lesser goods are to be made subservient to the
good of this widest sphere, light may also be shed from utilitarian
considerations upon those dark regions where before we found a standard
of choice wanting. If, for example, it was true that acts of insight and
acts of noble love are not to be measured as to their inner worth in
terms of one another, it is now clear that at any rate neither of these
two sides may be entirely neglected at the expense of the other. If one
person had perfect knowledge without noble love, and another perfect
noble love without knowledge, neither would be able to use his gifts in
the service of the still greater collective good. A certain harmonious
development and exercise of all our noblest powers seems, therefore,
from this point of view to be, at any rate, what we must strive
after.[44]
37. And now after seeing how many duties of love towards the highest
practical good come to light, we proceed to the origin of duties of law.
That association which renders possible a division of labour is the
indispensable condition of the advancement of the highest good as we
have learnt to understand it. Man therefore is morally destined to live
in society, and it is easily demonstrable that limits must exist in
order that one member of society may not be more of a hindrance than a
help to another,[45] and that these limits (though much in this respect
is settled by considerations of natural common-sense) require to be more
exactly marked by positive laws, and need the further security and
support of public authority.
And while in this way our natural insight demands and sanctions positive
law in general, it may, in particular, raise demands on the fulfillment
of which depends the measure of the blessing which the state of law is
to bring with it.
In this way does truth, bearing the supreme crown, give, or refuse, to
the products of positive legislation its sanction, and it is from this
crown that they derive their true binding force.[46] For as the old sage
of Ephesus says in one of his pregnant Sibyl-like utterances: “All human
laws are fed from the _one_ divine law.”[47]
38. Besides the laws referring to the limits of right, in every society
there are other positive enactments as to the way in which an individual
is to act inside his own sphere of right, how he is to make use of his
liberty and his property. Public opinion approves industry, generosity,
and economy each in its place, while disapproving idleness, greed,
prodigality and much else. In the statutes no such laws are to be found,
but they stand written within the hearts of the people. Nor are reward
and punishment lacking as regards this kind of positive law. These
consist in the advantages and disadvantages of good and bad reputation.
There exists here, as it were, a positive code of morality, the
complement of the positive code of law. This positive code of morality
also may contain both right and wrong enactments. To be truly binding
they need to be in accord with the rules which, as we have already seen,
are capable of recognition by the reason, as a duty of love towards the
highest practical good.
And so we have really found the natural sanction of morality which we
sought.
39. I do not linger here to show how this sanction operates. Every one
would rather say to himself: “I am acting rightly,” than “I am acting
foolishly.” And to no one capable of recognizing what is better is this
fact entirely indifferent in choosing. In the case of some it is nearly
so, whereas for others it is of the very first importance. Innate
dispositions are themselves diverse and much advance may be made by
education and one’s own ethical conduct. Enough, truth speaks, and
whoever is of the truth hears her voice.
40. Throughout the multiplicity of derived laws graven by nature herself
upon the tables of the law, utilitarian considerations, as we have seen,
form the standard. As now, in different situations, we resort to
different means, so also with regard to these different situations
different special precepts must hold good. They may be quite conflicting
in their tenour without of course being really contradictory, since they
are intended for different circumstances. In this sense, then, a
relativity in ethics is rightly asserted.
Ihering has drawn attention to this,[48] but he is not as he seems to
think, one of the first. On the contrary the doctrine was known of old
and is insisted upon by Plato in his _Republic_.[49] Aristotle in his
_Ethics_, and with special emphasis in his _Politics_ has affirmed
it.[50] The scholastic philosophers also held fast to the doctrine, and
in modern times men even of such energetic ethical and political
convictions as Bentham[51] have not denied it. If the fanatics of the
French Revolution failed to recognize it, still the clear-headed among
their fellow-citizens, even in that time, did not fall into such a
delusion. Laplace, for example, in his _Essai philosophique sur les
probabilités_ occasionally bears witness to the true teaching and raises
his voice in warning.[52]
Thus it happens that the distinguished investigator who has disclosed to
us the spirit of Roman law and to whom, as the author of _Der Zweck im
Recht_, we also are bound in many respects to tender our thanks, has yet
here, as we see, done nothing else than render the doctrine unclear by
confounding it with an essentially different and false doctrine of
relativity. According to this doctrine, no proposition in ethics, not
even the proposition that the best in the widest sphere ought to be the
determining standard of action, would have unexceptional validity. In
primitive times and even later, throughout long centuries, such a
procedure would, he expressly says, have been as immoral as, in later
times, the opposite conduct. We must, he thinks, on looking back into
the times of cannibalism sympathize rather with the cannibals, and not
with those who perhaps, in advance of their time, preached even then the
universal love of neighbour.[53] These are errors which have been
crushingly refuted not merely by philosophical reflection upon the
fundamental principles of ethics, but also by the successes of Christian
missionaries.
41. Thus the road leading to the goal which we set before us has been
traversed. For a time it led us through strange and rarely trodden
districts, finally, however, the results at which we have arrived smile
upon us like old acquaintances. In declaring love of neighbour and
self-sacrifice, both for our country and for mankind to be duties, we
are only echoing what is proclaimed all around us. We should also find
by going further into particulars that lying, treachery, murder,
debauchery and much besides that is held to be morally base are,
measured by the standard of the principles we have set up, condemned,
one as unjust, another as immoral.
All this would seem, in a measure, familiar to us as the shores of his
native land to the sea-farer when, after a voyage happily consummated,
he sees them rise suddenly into view, and the smoke curling from the old
familiar chimney.
42. And certainly we are at liberty to rejoice over this. The absolute
clearness with which all this follows is good omen for the success of
our undertaking, since it is the method by which we arrived at our
result, which is obviously the most essential feature in it. Without it
what advantage can our inquiry be said to have over that of others?
Even Kant, for example, whose doctrines concerning the principles of
ethics were quite different, arrived, in the further course of his
statement, pretty much to the popular view. But what we miss in him is
strict logical coherence. Beneke has shown that the Categorical
Imperative as Kant used it, may be so employed as to prove, in the same
case, contradictory statements and so everything and nothing.[54] If,
none the less, Kant is able to arrive so often at right conclusions,
this must be attributed to the fact that from the outset he had
harboured such opinions. Even Hegel, had he not known in other ways that
the sky was blue, would certainly never have succeeded by means of his
dialectic in deducing this _à priori_. Did he not equally succeed in
demonstrating that there were seven planets, a number accepted in his
day, but which in our time science has long left behind?
The causes of this phenomenon, therefore, are easily understood.
43. But there is another point which appears enigmatical. How does it
happen that the prevailing public opinion respecting law and morality is
itself, in so many respects, obviously right? If a thinker like Kant was
unable to discover the sources from which ethical knowledge flows, how
can we believe that the common folk succeeded in drawing therefrom? And
if this were not the case, how were they able, while ignorant of the
premises, still to reach the conclusions? Here the phenomenon cannot
possibly be explained from the fact that the right view was long before
established.
This difficulty also resolves itself in a very simple manner when we
reflect that much in our store of knowledge exists, and contributes
towards the attainment of new knowledge, without the knowledge of the
process itself being clearly present to consciousness.
It must not be supposed that in saying this I am an adherent of the
wonderful philosophy of the unconscious. I am speaking here only of
undeniable and well known truths. Thus it has often been observed that
for thousands of years men have drawn right conclusions without bringing
the procedure and the principles which form the condition of the formal
validity of the inference into clear consciousness by means of
reflection. Indeed when Plato first took the step of reflecting upon it,
he was led to set up an entirely false theory which assumed that every
inference was a process of reminiscence.[55] What was perceived and
experienced on earth recalled to the memory knowledge acquired in a
pre-mundane existence. Nowadays this error has disappeared. Still, false
theories concerning the fundamental principles of syllogism are
continually emerging, as, for example, when Albert Lange,[56] finds them
in space-perceptions and in synthetic propositions _à priori_, or
Alexander Bain[57] in the experience that the moods Barbara, Celarent,
etc., have up to the present time been found to be valid in every case:
mere crude errors which overlook the immediate intuitions forming the
conditions of right conclusions, but which do not prevent Plato, Lange,
and Bain from arguing in general exactly like other people. In spite of
their false conception of the true fundamental principles, these still
continue to operate in their reasoning.
But why do I go so far for examples? Let the experiment be made with the
first “plain man” who has just drawn a right conclusion, and demand of
him that he give you the premises of his conclusion. This he will
usually be unable to do and may perhaps make entirely false statements
about it. On requiring the same man to define a notion with which he is
familiar, he will make the most glaring mistakes and so show once again
that he is not able rightly to describe his own thinking.
44. Meantime, however dark the road to ethical knowledge might appear,
both to the “plain man” and to the philosopher, we must still expect,
since the process is a complicated one and many combined principles
operate therein, that the traces of the operation of each separate
principle will be evident in history, and this fact, even more than
agreement in respect of the final results, is a confirmation of the
right theory.
This also, if only the time permitted, in what fulness would I not be
able to lay before you! Who is there, for example, who would not, as we
have done, regard joy as something evidently good in itself, if only it
were not joy in what is bad. Nor has there been any lack of writers on
ethics who have asserted that pleasure and the good were strictly
identical conceptions.[58] Opposed to these were others who bore witness
to the inner worth of insight and such will be supported by all
unprejudiced minds. Many philosophers have wished to exalt knowledge
above all else as the highest good.[59] They recognized, however, at the
same time, a certain inner worth in each act of virtue, while others
have carried this view so far as to recognize only in virtuous action
the highest good.[60]
On the one hand, therefore, we have had sufficient confirmatory tests in
support of our view.
Next with regard to the principles of choice, how often do we not see
the principle of summation applied as, for example, when it is said that
the measure of the happiness of life as a whole and not that of the
passing moment is to be considered.[61] And, again, passing beyond the
limits of the self, when, for example, Aristotle says, that the
happiness of a nation seems to be a higher end than that of an
individual happiness,[62] and that in the same way in a work of art, or
in an organism and similarly in the case of the family, the part always
exists for the sake of the whole; everything is here subordinate to the
“common” (“εἰς τὀ κοινόν”).[63] Even in the case of the whole creation
he makes the same principle hold good. “In what,” he asks,[64]
“regarding all created things consists the good, and the best, which is
its final aim”? Is it immanent or transcendent? And he answers: “Both,”
setting forth as the transcendent aim the divine first cause, likeness
to which everything strives after, while the immanent aim is the
world-order as a whole. The like testimony to the principle of summation
might be taken from the lips of the Stoics.[65] It reappears in every
attempt to construct a theodicy from Plato down to Leibnitz and even
later.[66]
In the precepts of our popular religion, again, the operation of this
principle is also distinctly visible. When it ordains us to love our
neighbour as ourselves, what else is taught but that, in the right
choice, equality (be it our own or that of others) shall fall with equal
weight into the balance, from which follows the subordination of the
single individual to the good of the collective whole; just as the
ethical ideal of Christianity--the Saviour--offers himself as a
sacrifice for the salvation of the world.
And when it is said: “Love God above all else” (and Aristotle also says
that God is much rather to be called the best than the world as a
whole),[67] here also there is a special application of the law of
summation. For how else do we think of God than as the sum of all that
is good raised to an infinite degree?
And so the two propositions: that we should love our neighbour as
ourselves, and love God above all else, are manifestly so closely
related that we are no longer surprised to find added the words that the
one law is like unto the other. The law that we are to love our
neighbour, it should be carefully noted, is not subordinated to that of
love of God, and derived from it, it is, according to the Christian
view, not right because God has required it, rather he requires it
because it is by nature right;[68] and this rightness is made manifest
in the same way, and with the same clearness by means, so to speak, of
the same ray of natural knowledge.
Sufficient testimony has perhaps been offered to the shaping operation
of those factors which have been separately set forth by us, and so we
have, on the one hand, a strengthening of our theory while, on the other
hand, we have in essentials the explanation of that paradoxical
anticipation of philosophical results.
45. We are not to suppose, however, that all has now been said. Not
every opinion regarding law and morality holding good in society to-day,
and which has also the sanction of ethics, flows from these pure and
noble sources which, even when hid, have none the less discharged their
waters in rich abundance. Many such views have arisen in a way quite
unjustifiable from a logical point of view, and an inquiry into the
history of their origin shows that they take their rise in lower
impulses, in egoistic desires through a transformation due, not to
higher influences, but simply to the instinctive force of habit. It is
really true, as so many utilitarians have pointed out, that egoism
prompts men to make themselves agreeable to others and that such
conduct continually practised, develops finally into a habit which is
blind to the original ends. The chief reason for this is the limits of
our mind, the so-called “narrowness of consciousness,” which does not
allow of our always keeping clearly before us the more remote and final
ends side by side with what is immediately in question. In such a way
many a one may be frequently led, by the blind force of habit, to have
regard also for the well-being of others with a certain
self-forgetfulness. Further, it is true, as some have particularly
insisted, that in history it must often have happened that a powerful
person has selfishly reduced to subjection a weaker individual, and
transformed him by force of habit more and more into a willing slave.
And then in this slave-soul an αὐτὀς ἒφα comes in the end to operate
with a blind, but none the less powerful force, an impelling “you
ought,” as though it were a revelation of nature regarding good and bad.
On every violation of a command he feels himself, like a well-trained
dog, uneasy and inwardly tormented. When such a tyrant had, in this way,
reduced many to subjection his prudent egoism would cause him to give
commands helpful to the maintenance of his horde. These orders would in
the same slavish manner become habitual, and as it were, natural to his
subjects. And so regard for the whole of this community would gradually
become for each subject something into which he felt himself driven in
the manner above described. At the same time, we may easily recognize
how, owing to the constant care exercised towards his subjects, habits
must be formed in the tyrant himself favourable to a regard for the
welfare of the community. It may even happen at last that, just as in
the case of the miser, who sacrifices himself for the sake of his gold,
the tyrant may be ready to die for the maintenance of his people.
Throughout the whole process thus described ethical principles do not
exercise the slightest influence. The compulsion which in this way
arises, and the opinions which as a result approve or disapprove of a
certain procedure have nothing whatever to do with the natural sanction
and are devoid of all ethical worth. It may, however, be easily
understood--especially if one considers how one tribe enters into
relations with another and considerations of friendliness begin here too
to prove advantageous,--how this kind of training may lead, indeed one
may venture to say _must_, sooner or later, lead to opinions in
agreement with the principles springing from a true appreciation of the
good.
46. Thus also the blind, purely habitual expectation of similar events
under similar circumstances which animals, and also we ourselves,
practise in countless instances, often coincide with the results which a
complete induction according to the principles of the calculation of
probability would, in the same case, have brought about. The very
similarity of result has led people even with a psychological
education,[69] to regard the two processes as exactly identical,
although they stand wide as the poles asunder, the one completing itself
by means of a purely blind instinct, while the other is illumined by
mathematical evidence. We ourselves should, therefore, be well on our
guard against supposing in such pseudo-ethical developments the
concealed influence of the true ethical sanction.
47. Great, however, as is the contrast, still even these lower processes
have their worth. Nature--and this has been often insisted
on[70]--frequently does well in leaving much which concerns our welfare
to instinctive impulses like hunger and thirst rather than leave
everything to our reason. This, also, is confirmed in our case.
In those very early times in which, as I conceded to Ihering, (why you
will, perhaps, now be better able to see,) nearly every trace of ethical
thought and feeling was absent, much nevertheless was done which was a
preparation for true virtue. Public laws, however much in the first
instance established under the influence of lower motives, were yet
preliminary conditions for the free unfolding of our noblest capacities.
Nor is it a matter of no consequence that, under the influence of this
training, certain passions became moderated and certain dispositions
implanted which made it easier to follow the true moral law in the same
direction. Catiline’s courage was assuredly not the true virtue of
courage if Aristotle is right when he says that they only have such who
go to danger and to death “τοῦ καλοῦ ἔνεκα,” “for the sake of the
morally beautiful.”[71] Augustine might have made use of this instance
when he said: “virtutes ethnicorum splendida vitia.” But who will deny
that if such a man as Catiline had been converted, the dispositions he
had acquired earlier would have made it easier for him to venture to
extremes in the service of the good too? In this way, the ground was
made receptive for the admission of truly ethical impulses and therein
lay a powerful encouragement to the propagation of truth on the part of
those who were foremost in the discovery of ethical knowledge, and first
to hear the voice of a natural sanction. It is in this sense that
Aristotle observed that it is not every one who can study ethics. He who
is to hear about law and morality, must be already well conducted by
dint of habit. In the case of others, he thinks, it is but a waste of
pains.[72]
Indeed, still more may be said in praise of the services rendered to the
recognition of natural law and morality by these pre-ethical, though not
pre-historical, times. The legal ordinances and customs formed in this
time, owing to the reasons previously assigned, approached so closely to
what ethics demands, that this peculiar kind of mimicry blinded many to
the absence of a more thorough going affinity. What, in the one case, a
blind impulse and in the other, knowledge of the good exalts into a law,
is often completely the same in substance. The legislative moral
authority found therefore in these already codified laws and customs the
rough drafts, as it were, of laws, which with a few changes, it could
sanction without more ado. These were the more valuable because, as
seems required from a utilitarian point of view, they were adapted to
the special circumstances of the people. A comparison of the one
constitution with the other made this noticeable, and early helped to
lead to the important knowledge of the real relativity of natural right
and of natural morality. Who knows whether otherwise, it would have been
possible, even for an Aristotle, to succeed to the degree in which he
did in steering clear of all cut and dried doctrinaire theories?
So much, therefore, concerning the pre-ethical times, in order that
these may not be denied the acknowledgment which they deserve.
48. Nevertheless it was then night; though a night which heralded the
coming day, and the dawn of that day witnessed assuredly the most
glorious sunrise which, in the history of the world is yet to rise into
full splendour. I say, is to rise, not has risen, for we still see the
light struggling with the powers of darkness. True ethical motives, in
private as in public life, are still far from being everywhere the
determining standard. These forces--to use the language of the
poet[A]--prove themselves still too little developed to hold together
the structure of the world; and so nature,--and we have need to be
thankful that it is so--keeps the machine going by hunger and love, and,
we must also add, by all those other dark strivings which, as we have
seen, may be developed from self-seeking desires.
[A] Schiller.
49. Of these, and their psychological laws the jurist must, therefore,
if he would truly understand his time, and influence it beneficially,
take cognizance, as well as of the doctrines of natural right and
natural morality which our inquiry has shown to be not the first but--in
so far as hope in the realization of a complete ideal may be cherished
at all--will be the last in the history of the development of law and
morality.
Thus the near relationships of jurisprudence and politics of which
Leibnitz spoke, become evident in their full range.
Plato has said: “It will never be well with the state until the true
philosopher is king, or kings philosophize rightly.” In our
constitutional times we should express ourselves better by saying that
there will never be a change for the better regarding the many evils in
our national life until the authorities, instead of abolishing the
limited philosophical culture required for law students by the existing
regulations, shall rather strive hard to secure that for their noble
profession they shall really receive an adequate philosophical culture.
NOTES
[1] (_p. 2_). Cf. “Über die Entstehung des Rechtsgefühls.” Lecture by
Dr. Rudolf von Ihering, delivered before the Vienna Law Society, March
12, 1884 (_Allgem. Juristenzeitung_, 7 Jahrg., No. 11 seq., Vienna,
March 16-April 13, 1884). Cf. further, v. Ihering, _Der Zweck im
Recht_, vol. ii. Leipzig, 1877-83.
[2] (_p. 2_). For the first point, cf. _Allgem. Juristenzeitung_, 7
Jahrg. p. 122 seq., _Zweck im Recht_, vol. ii. p. 109 seq. For the
second point _Allgem. Juristenzeitung_, 7 Jahrg. p. 171, _Zweck im
Recht_, pp. 118-123. It is here denied that there is any absolutely
valid ethical rule (pp. 118, 122 seq.); further every “psychological”
treatment of ethics, according to which ethics is represented “as twin
sister of logic” is contested.
[3] (_p. 4_). _Allgem. Juristenzeitung_, 7 Jahrg., p. 147; cf. _Zweck
im Recht_, vol. ii. p. 124 seq.
[4] (_p. 4_). Aristotle, _Politics_, i. 2, p. 1252 b. 24.
[5] (_p. 4_). Cf. e.g. _Allgem. Juristenzeitung_, 7 Jahrg. p. 146.
[6] (_p. 5_). _Rep._ 2. 31.
[7] (_p. 5_). _Dig._ 1. 8, 9.
[8] (_p. 6_). Amongst the numerous adherents of this view and one of
its best advocates is J. S. Mill in his _Utilitarianism_, chap. iii.
[9] (_p. 6_). Here also, along with many others, J. S. Mill may
be cited. The motives of hope and fear are, according to him, the
_external_; the motives first described, the feelings developed by
habit, the internal sanction. _Utilitarianism_, chap. iii.
[10] (_p. 7_). Cf. espec. here a discussion in James Mill’s _Fragment
on Mackintosh_, printed by J. S. Mill in the second edition of his
_Analysis of the phenomena of the human mind_, vol. ii. p. 309 seq.;
and Grote’s powerful essay published by A. Bain under the title,
“_Fragments on Ethical Subjects_, by the late George Grote, F.R.S.,”
being a selection from his posthumous papers, London, 1876; Espec.
Essay 1, _On the Origin and Nature of Ethical Sentiment_.
[11] (_p. 9_). D. Hume, _An Enquiry concerning the Principles of
Morals_, London, 1751.
[12] (_p. 9_). Herbart, _Lehrbuch zur Einleitung in die Philosophie_,
81 seq. _Collected Works_, vol. i. p. 124 seq.
[13] (_p. 9_). This comparison with logic should be my best defence
against the charge of placing Herbart’s doctrine in a false light.
Were the logical criterion to consist in judgments of taste
experienced on the appearance of thought-processes in accordance with
or opposition to rule, it would then, in comparison with what it
actually is (the internal self-evidence of a process in accordance
with rule) have to be called external. Similarly Herbart’s criterion
of ethics is rightly characterized as external, however loudly
Herbartians may insist that in the judgment of taste which arises
spontaneously on the contemplation of certain relations of will, an
inner superiority regarding these relations is recognizable.
[14] (_p. 10_). In his _Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten_, Kant
enunciates his Categorical Imperative in the following forms: “Act
only in accordance with that maxim which you can at the same time
will should become a universal law,” and “Act as if the maxim of your
action were by your will to be raised to a universal law.”
In the _Critique of Practical Reason_ it runs “Act so that the
maxim of your will could on each occasion be valid as a universal
legislative principle,” i.e. as Kant himself explains, in such a way
that the maxim, when raised to a universal law, does not lead to
contradictions and consequent self-abrogation. The consciousness of
this fundamental law was, for Kant, a fact of pure reason, thereby
proclaiming itself to be legislative (sic volo sic jubeo). Beneke has
already observed (_Grundlinien der Sittenlehre_, vol. ii. p. xviii.,
1841; cf. his _Grundlegung zur Physik der Sitten_, a counterpart to
Kant’s _Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten_, 1822) that it is
nothing more than a “psychologische Dichtung,” and to-day no one able
to judge is any longer in doubt concerning it. It deserves to be noted
that even philosophers like Mansel, who have the highest reverence
for Kant, admit that the Categorical Imperative is a fiction and
absolutely untenable.
The Categorical Imperative has at the same time another and not less
serious defect, i.e. that even when admitted, it leads to no ethical
conclusions. Kant fails, as Mill (_Utilitarianism_, chap. i.) rightly
says “in an almost grotesque fashion” to deduce what he seeks. His
favourite example of a deduction, by which he illustrates his manner
of procedure not only in his _Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten_
but also in the _Critique of Practical Reason_ is as follows: May
a person, he asks, retain for himself a possession which has been
entrusted to him without a receipt or other acknowledgment? He
answers, No. For he thinks, were the opposite maxim to be raised to
a law, nobody, under such circumstances, would entrust anything to
anybody. The law would then be without possibility of application,
therefore impracticable and so self-abrogated.
It may easily be seen that Kant’s argumentation is false, indeed
absurd. If, in consequence of the law, certain actions ceased to be
practised, the law exercises an influence; it therefore still exists
and has in no way annulled itself. How ridiculous would it appear if
the following question were treated after an analogous fashion: “May
I yield to a person who desires to bribe me?” Yes, since, were I to
think of the opposite maxim as raised to a universal law, then nobody
would seek any longer to bribe another; therefore the law would be
without application, therefore, impracticable, and so self-abrogated.
[15] (_p. 11_). Cf. J. S. Mill, _System of Deductive and Inductive
Logic_, vol. iv. chap. iv. section vi. (towards the end); vol. vi.
chap. ii. section iv. and elsewhere, e.g. in his _Utilitarianism_,
_Essays on Religion_, and in his article on _Comte and Positivism_,
part ii.
[16] (_p. 11_). Cf. with what has been said in the lecture the first
chapter of the Nicomachian Ethics, and it will be seen that Ihering’s
“fundamental thought” in his work _Der Zweck im Recht_, vol. i. p.
vi., viz.: “that no legal formula exists which does not owe its origin
to an end,” is as old as ethics itself.
[17] (_p. 12_). Cases may arise where the consequence of certain
efforts remains in doubt, and two courses are open: one presenting
the prospect of a greater good but with less probability, the other a
lesser good but with a greater probability. In choosing here, account
must be taken of the degree of probability. If A is three times better
than B, but B has ten times as many chances of being attained as A,
then practical wisdom will prefer course B. Supposing that, under
like circumstances, such a procedure always takes place, then (in
accordance with the law of great numbers) the better would, generally
speaking, be realized, a sufficient number of cases being assumed,
and so such a manner of choosing would still obviously correspond to
the principle laid down in the text, i.e. “Choose the best that is
attainable.” The full significance of this remark will be made still
more evident in the course of the inquiry.
[18] (_p. 12_). This truth was familiar to Aristotle (cf. e.g. _De
Anima_, iii. 8). The Middle Ages maintained it, but expressed it
unfortunately in the proposition: _nihil est in intelluctu, quod
non prius fuerit in sensu_. The notions “willing,” “concluding” are
not gained from sensuous perception; the term “sensuous” would in
that case have to be taken so generally that all distinction between
“sensuous” and “super-sensuous” disappears. These notions have
their origin in certain concrete impressions with psychical content
(Anschauungen psychischen Inhalts). From the same source arise the
notions “end,” “cause” (we observe, for example, a causal relation
existing between our belief in the premises and in the conclusion),
“impossibility” and “necessity” (we gain these from judgments which
accept or reject not merely assertorically, but, as it is usually
expressed, apodictically,) and many other notions which some modern
philosophers, failing in detecting the true origin of them, have
sought to regard as categories given _à priori_. I may mention, by
the way, that I am well aware Sigwart and others influenced by him
have recently questioned the peculiar nature of apodictic as opposed
to assertorical judgments. But this is a psychological error which it
is not the place to discuss here. Cf. note 27, p. 83 sub.
[19] (_p. 12_). This doctrine in germ is also found in Aristotle; cf.
espec. _Metaph._: Δ 15, p. 1021 a. 29. This term “intentional,” like
many other terms for important notions, comes from the scholastics.
[20] (_p. 13_). The question of the grounds of this division
is discussed in more detail in my _Psychologie vom empirischen
Standpunkte_ (1874, Bk. ii. chap. vi.; cf. also chap. i. section 5).
The statements there made regarding this division I still consider to
be substantially correct in spite of many modifications respecting
points of detail.
[21] (_p. 13_). Meditat. iii. “Nunc autem ordo videtur exigere, ut
prius omnes meas cogitationes (all psychical acts) in certa genera
distribuam.... Quaedam ex his tanquam rerum imagines sunt, quibus
solis proprie convenit _ideae_ nomen, ut cum hominem, vel chimaeram,
vel coelum, vel angelum, vel Deum cogito; aliae vero alias quasdam
praeterea formas habent, ut cum volo cum timeo, cum affirmo, cum nego,
semper quidem aliquam rem ut subjectum meae cogitationis apprehendo,
sed aliquid etiam amplius quam istius rei similitudinem cogitatione
complector; et ex his aliae _voluntates_ sive _affectus_ aliae autem
_judicia_ appellantur.”
Strangely enough this clear passage has not prevented Windelband
(_Strassb. philos. Abhandl._ p. 171) from ascribing to Descartes the
view that the judgment is an act of volition. What led him astray
is a discussion in the fourth Meditation on the influence of the
will in the formation of judgment. Even scholastics like Suarez had
ascribed too much to this influence, and Descartes goes so far in
exaggeration of this dependence that he considers every judgment (even
the self-evident judgments) as the work of the will. But to “produce
the judgment” and “to be the judgment” are yet manifestly not one
and the same. And, therefore, although Descartes, in the passage
cited, allows his view as to the influence of the will to appear, and
probably it is only on this account that he assigns to the judgment
the third place in the fundamental classification of psychical
phenomena, yet none the less he says without contradiction: _aliae_
voluntates--_aliae_ judicia appellantur.
More illusive are a couple of passages in his later writings, i.e.
in his _Principia Philosophiae_ (i. 32), published three years after
the Meditations, and in a work also written three years later: Notae
in Programma quoddam, sub finem Anni 1647 in Belgio editum, cum
hoc Titulo: Explicatio mentis humanae sive animae rationalis, ubi
explicatur quid sit, et quid esse possit.” Particularly might the
passage in the _Principles_ lead to the opinion that Descartes must
have changed his view, and it is astonishing that Windelband has not
appealed to this passage rather than to that in the Meditations. We
read here:--Ordines _modi cognitandi_ quos in nobis experimur, _ad
duos generales_ referri possunt; quorum unus est, _perceptio sive
operatio intellectus_; alius vero _volitio sive operatio voluntatis_.
Nam sentire, imaginari, et pure intellegere, sunt tantum diversi modi
percipiendi; _ut et cupere, aversari, affirmare, negare, dubitare,
sunt diversi modi volendi_.
At first sight this passage appears to be so clearly in contradiction
to the one in the third Meditation that, as we have said, it is
scarcely possible to avoid the supposition that Descartes had meantime
rejected his thesis as to the three fundamental classes of psychical
phenomena, so shunning Scylla only to plunge into Charybdis; avoiding
the old mistake of confusing the judgment with the idea (Vorstellung),
he would now seem to confound it with the will. But a more attentive
examination of all the circumstances will suffice to exonerate
Descartes from such a charge, and this on the following grounds: (1)
There is not the slightest sign that Descartes was ever conscious of
having become untrue to the view expressed in the Meditations. (2)
Further, in the year 1647 (three years after the publication of the
Meditations and shortly before writing the Notae to his Programma) the
Meditations appeared in a translation revised by Descartes himself,
where, remarkably enough, not the slightest alteration is to be
found in the decisive passage in the third Meditation. “Entre mes
pensées,” it reads, “quelques unes sont commes les images des choses,
et c’est à celles-là scules que convient proprement le nom d’idée....
D’autres, outre cela ont quelques autres formes; ... et de ce genre de
pensées _les unes sont appelées volontés ou affections, et les autres
jugements_.” (3) In the _Principles_ itself he says directly after
(i. No. 42) that all our errors depend upon our will (a voluntate
pendere); but so far is he from regarding the “error” as an act of
volition, that he says there is no one who errs voluntarily (nemo est
qui velit falli). Still clearer is it that he does not regard the
judgment like the desires and dislikes as inner activities of the will
itself, but only as a product of the will, since he at once adds:
sed longe aliud est velle falli quam velle assentiri iis, in quibus
contingit errorem reperiri,” etc. He does not say of the will that it
desires, affirms, assents, but that it wills the assent; so also, not
that it _is_ true but that it desires the truth (veritatis assequendae
cupiditas ... _efficit_, ut ... judicium ferant).
As to Descartes’ real view, therefore, there can be no doubt; his
doctrine has not in this respect suffered the slightest change.
It only remains, therefore, to come to an understanding of his
obviously variable modes of expression, and this is, I believe,
solved incontrovertibly in the following manner. Descartes, while
regarding will and judgment as two classes differing fundamentally,
none the less finds that in contradistinction to the first fundamental
class--that of ideas--these have something in common. In the third
Meditation he designates (cf. the above passage) as the common element
the fact that although essentially based upon an idea, in both alike
there is contained a further special form. In the fourth Meditation
a further common character appears, i.e. that the will decides
concerning them; not only can it determine and suspend its own acts,
but also those of the judgment. It is this common character which he
was bound to regard as especially, indeed all important, in the first
part of the _Principles_, xxix.-xlii. Accordingly, he classes them, in
opposition to the ideas (which he calls operationes intellectus) under
the term operationes voluntatis. In the Notae to the Programma he
calls them distinctly in the same sense, “determinationes voluntatis.”
“Ego enim, cum viderem, praeter perceptionem, quae praerequiritur
ut judicemus, opus esse affirmatione vel negatione ad formam
judicii constituendam, _nobisque saepe esse liberum ut cohibeamus
assensionem_, etiamsi rem percipiamus, ipsum actum judicandi, qui non
nisi in assensu, hoc est in affirmatione vel negatione consistit, non
retuli ad perceptionem intellectus sed ad determinationem voluntatis.”
He does not even hesitate in the _Principles_ to term both these two
classes of _modi cogitandi_, “_modi volendi_” the context seeming
sufficiently to indicate that he means only to express thereby the
fact that they fall within the domain of the will.
In further support of this explanation we may compare the scholastic
terminology into which Descartes as a young man was initiated. It was
customary to denote under the term _actus voluntatis_ not merely the
movement of the will itself but also the act performed in obedience
to the will. In accordance with this custom, the _actus voluntatis_
fell into two classes; the _actus elicitus voluntatis_ and the _actus
imperatus voluntatis_. In a similar manner Descartes groups the class
which, according to him, was only possible as an _actus imperatus_ of
the will along with his _actus elicitus_. There is here, therefore, no
question of a common fundamental character of the intentional relation.
Clear as all this is to those who carefully attach due weight to
the various moments, it would yet appear that Spinoza (probably
misled rather by the passage in the _Principles_ than by that cited
by Windelband), anticipates Windelband in this misunderstanding of
the Cartesian doctrine. In his _Ethics_, ii. prop. 49, he actually,
and in the most real sense, regards the _affirmatio_ and _negatio_
as “_volitiones mentis_,” and by a further confusion, comes finally
to obliterate the distinction between the two classes _ideae_ and
_voluntates_. “_Voluntas et intellectus unum et idem sunt_” his thesis
now reads, so overthrowing not only the three-fold classification of
Descartes, but also the old Aristotelian dual classification. Spinoza
has here, as usual, done nothing else than corrupt the teaching of his
great master.
[22] (_p. 13_). I do not mean to say that the classification is,
universally recognized to-day. It would not even be possible to regard
as certain the Principle of Contradiction if in order to do so we
were to await universal assent. In the present instance it is not
difficult to understand that old, deeply-rooted prejudices cannot all
at once be banished. But that even under such circumstances it has not
been possible to urge a single important objection affords the best
confirmation of our doctrine.
Some, as for instance, Windelband--while giving up the attempt at
including judgment and idea (Vorstellung) in _one_ fundamental class,
on the other hand believe it possible to subsume judgment under
feeling, thus falling back into the error which Hume committed earlier
in his inquiry into the nature of belief. According to these writers,
to affirm implies an act of approval, an appreciation on the part of
the feelings, while denial is an act of disapproval, a feeling of
repugnance.
Despite a certain analogy the confusion is hard to understand. There
are people who recognize both the goodness of God and the wickedness
of the devil, the being of Ormuzd and the being of Ahriman, with an
equal degree of conviction, and yet, while prizing the nature of the
one above all else, they feel themselves absolutely repelled by that
of the other. Since we love knowledge and hate error it is, of course,
proper that those _judgments_ we hold to be right (and this is true
of all those judgments which we ourselves make) are for this very
reason dear to us, i.e. we estimate them in some way or other through
feeling. But who on this account would be misled into regarding the
judgments themselves which are loved as acts of loving?. The confusion
would be almost as gross as if we should fail to distinguish wife and
child, money and possessions, from the activity which is directed
towards these, inasmuch they are the objects of affection. Cf. also
what has been said (note 21) with regard to Windelband, where,
misunderstanding Descartes, he ascribes to him the same teaching;
further, note 26 (on the unity of the idea of the good) as well as
what is urged by Sigwart in the note (in part much to the point) on
Windelband (_Logic_, vol. i. chap. ii. p. 156 seq.). To those who,
despite all that has been said, still wish further arguments for the
distinction between the second and third fundamental classes, I may,
perhaps, be allowed to refer them, by anticipation, to my _Descriptive
Psychology_, which I have alluded to in the preface as an almost
completed work, and which will appear if not as a continuation, yet
still as a further development of my _Psychology from the Empirical
Standpoint_.
As against Windelband, I here add the following observations:
1. It is false and a serious oversight, as he himself will be
convinced on reading again in my _Psychology_, vol. i. p. 262, when
he (p. 172) makes me assert, and that too as a quotation from my own
work, that “love and hate” is not an appropriate term for the third
fundamental class.
2. It is false, and a quite unjustifiable supposition when (p. 178)
he ascribes to me the opinion that the classification of judgments
according to quality is the only essential classification belonging
to the act of judgment itself. I believe exactly the contrary. I
regard, for example (of course in opposition to Windelband), the
distinction between assertorical and apodictic judgments (cf. here
note 27, p. 83), as also the distinction between self-evident and
blind judgments as belonging and highly essential, to the act of
judgment itself. Other differences, again, especially the distinction
between simple and compound acts of judgment, I might mention. For
it is not every compound judgment that can be resolved into quite
simple elements, and something similar takes place also in the case
of certain notions, a fact known to Aristotle. What is red?--Red
colour. What is colour?--The quality of colour. The difference, it is
seen, contains in both cases the notion of the genus. The separating
of the one logical element from the other is only possible from the
one side. A similar one-sided capacity to separate appears also in
certain compound judgments. J. S. Mill is, therefore, quite wrong when
he (_Deductive and Inductive Logic_, vol. i. chap. iv. section 3),
regards as ridiculous the old classification of judgments into simple
and compound, and thinks that the procedure in such a case is exactly
as if one should wish to divide horses into single horses and teams
of horses; otherwise the same argument would hold good against the
classification of conceptions into simple and compound.
3. It is false, though an error which finds almost universal
acceptance, and one from which I myself at the time of writing the
first volume of my _Psychology_ was not yet free, that the so-called
degree of conviction consists in a degree of intensity of the
judgment which can be brought into analogy with the intensity of
pleasure and pain. Had Windelband charged me with _this_ error I
would have acknowledged the complete justice of the charge. Instead
of this he finds fault with me because I recognize intensity with
regard to the judgment, only in a sense analogous, and not identical
to that in the case of feeling, and because I assert the impossibility
of comparing in respect of magnitude, the supposed intensity of the
belief and the real intensity of feeling. Here we have one of the
results of his improved theory of judgment!
If the degree of conviction of my belief that 2 + 1 = 3 were one of
intensity how powerful would this be! And if the said belief were to
be identified, as by Windelband (p. 186), with feeling, not merely
regarded as analogous to feeling, how destructive to our nervous
system would the violence of such a shock to the feelings prove! Every
physician would be compelled to warn the public against the study
of mathematics as calculated to destroy health. (Cf. with regard to
this so-called degree of conviction the view of Henry Newman in his
interesting work: _An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent_--a work
scarcely noticed in Germany.)
4. When Windelband (p. 183) wonders how I can regard the word “is” in
such propositions as “God is,” “A man is” (ein Mensch ist), “A lack
is” (ein Mangel ist), “A possibility is,” “A truth is,” (i.e. There is
a truth), etc., as having the same meaning and finds it extraordinary
(184, note 1) in the author of _Von der mannigfachen Bedeutung des
Seienden nach Aristoteles_ that he should fail to recognize the
manifold significance of “to be,” I can only reply that he who in
this view does not perceive the simple consequence of my theory of
the judgment can hardly have understood this doctrine. With regard to
Aristotle it never occurs to him, while dividing the “ὄν” in the sense
of reality into various categories, and into an “ ὂν ὲνεργεία and ὂν
δυνάμει”, to do the same with the “ἔστιν” transforming what is the
expression of an idea into that of a judgment and the “ὂν ὡς ἀληθές”
as he calls it. This could only be done by those who, like Herbart
and many others after him, did not know how to hold apart the notion
of being in the sense of absolute position and being in the sense of
reality (cf. the following note).
5. I have just said that there exist simple and compound judgments,
and that many a compound judgment is not, without a residue,
resolvable into simple judgments. Special attention must be paid to
this in seeking to convert judgments otherwise expressed into the
existential form. It is self-evident that only simple judgments, i.e.
such as are, strictly speaking, without parts, are so convertible. I
may therefore be excused for not thinking it necessary to emphasize
this expressly in my _Psychology_. If this restriction hold good
universally it is, of course, valid also of the categorical form.
In the propositions categorical in form, which the formal logicians
have denoted by the signs A.E.I. and O. they wish to express strictly
simple judgments. These are therefore one and all convertible into
the existential form (cf. my _Psychology_, vol. i. p. 283). The same,
however, will not hold good when propositions categorical in form
contain in consequence of an ambiguity of expression (cf. p. 120, note
to Appendix) a plurality of judgments. In such a case the existential
form may certainly be the expression of a simple judgment equivalent
to the compound one, but cannot be the expression of the judgment
itself.
This is a point which Windelband ought to have considered in examining
(p. 184) the proposition: “The rose is a flower” with respect to its
convertibility into an existential proposition. He is quite right
in protesting against its conversion into the proposition: “There
is no rose which is not a flower,” but he is not equally right in
ascribing this conversion to me. Neither in the passage cited by him
nor elsewhere have I made such a conversion, and I consider it just as
false as that attempted by Windelband and all such as may be attempted
by anybody else. The judgment here expressed in the proposition is
made up of two judgments of which one is the recognition of the
subject (whether it be that thereby is meant “rose” in the ordinary
sense, or “what is called rose,” “what is understood by rose”), and
this, as we have just said, is not always the case where a proposition
is given of the form: All A is B.
Unfortunately Land also has overlooked this, the only one among
my critics who has succeeded in comprehending, in their necessary
connection with the principle, what Windelband has termed the
“mysterious” hints which I have thrown out towards the reform of
elementary logic, and in deducing them correctly from it. (Cf. Land,
“On a supposed improvement in Formal Logic” in the papers of the _Kgl.
Niederländischen Akademie der Wissenschaften_, 1876.)
I conclude with a curiosity recently furnished by Steinthal in his
_Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie_ (chap. xviii. p. 175). I there
read with astonishment: “Brentano’s confusion in completely severing
judgments from idea and thoughts (!) and grouping the judgments as
acts of recognition or rejection, with love and hate (!!) is instantly
removed if such (?) a judgment, as an aesthetic judgment is termed
“Beurteilen” (!). Probably Steinthal has never once glanced into my
_Psychology_, and has only read Windelband’s statement concerning it;
this, however, so hastily that I hope he will not be ungrateful at my
sending his lines to Windelband for correction.
[23] (_p. 14_). Miklosich, _Subjectlose Sätze_, second edition,
Vienna, 1883.
In order to make the reader familiar with the contents of this
valuable little book a notice written at the time for the _Vienna
Evening Post_ may prove useful. Through an oversight it was printed
as a feuilleton in the Vienna newspaper. As no one certainly would
look for it there, I will include it here by way of an appendix.
Meantime, Sigwart’s monograph, _The Impersonalia_ has appeared, in
which he opposes Miklosich. Marty has submitted this, as well as
(shortly before) the corresponding section in Sigwart’s _Logic_ to a
telling criticism in the _Vierteljahrsschrift für wissenschaftliche
Philosopie_, with regard to which criticism Sigwart, though without
any reasonable ground, has shown himself highly indignant. “Il se
fache,” the French say, “donc il a tort.” That Sigwart’s theory in
its essential points has not succeeded, even Steinthal really allows,
though in his _Zeitschrift_ (chap. xviii. p. 172 seq.) he burns thick
clouds of incense to the writer of the monograph, and even in his
preface to the fourth edition of his _Origin of Language_ applauds
a form of conduct which every true friend of that deserving man
(Sigwart) must regret. After the high praise awarded to him at the
outset, one feels somewhat disappointed finally by the criticism.
Steinthal rejects (pp. 177-180) Sigwart’s theory on its grammatical
side. There would only remain therefore as really successful Sigwart’s
psychological theory. But the psychological portion is not that
concerning which Steinthal’s estimate is authoritative; for in that
case, one would be bound to take seriously the following remark: “In
the proposition: “Da bückt sich’s hinunter mit liebendem Blick” (a
line from Schiller’s _Diver_), it is obvious that everybody must think
of the king’s daughter, but it is not she which stands before me but
a subjectless “sich hinunter-bücken,” and now I have all the more
fellow-feeling for her. According to my (Steinthal’s) psychology, I
should say the idea of the king’s daughter “fluctuates” (schwingt) but
does not enter into consciousness.” This calls for something more than
the old saying: _Sapienti sat_.
I
The psychological theory of Sigwart shows itself in all its weakness
when he seeks to give an account of the notion of “_existence_.” It
has been already recognized by Aristotle, that this notion is gained
by reflection upon the affirmative judgment. But Sigwart, like most
modern logicians, neglects to make use of this hint. Instead of saying
that to the existent belongs everything of which the affirmative
judgment is true, he becomes repeatedly, and once more in the second
edition of his logic (pp. 88-95) involved in diffuse discussions upon
the notion of being and upon existential propositions, which cannot
in any way conduce to clearness, seeing that they move in false
directions.
“To be,” according to Sigwart, expresses a relation (pp. 88, 95);
if it be asked: What kind of a relation? the answer would, at first
sight (92), appear to be, a relation to me as thinking. But no; the
existential proposition asserts just this: “that the existing also
exists, apart from its relation to me and to another thinking being.”
It cannot, therefore, be “a relation to me as thinking.” But what
other relation can be meant? Not until p. 94 is this brought out more
clearly. The relation ought to mean (of course he adds “zunächst”,
provisionally) the agreement (“identity” ib.) of the thing represented
with a possible impression (“einem Wahrnehmbaren” ib. “something which
may be perceived by me,” ib. p. 90).
Now it will be immediately recognized that this notion of existence is
too narrow; for it might very well be asserted that much exists which
it is not possible to perceive, e.g. a past and a future, an empty
space, and any sort of deficiency, a possibility or impossibility,
etc., etc. It is therefore not surprising that Sigwart himself seeks
to widen the notion. But he does this in a manner which I find it
difficult to understand. At first sight he appears to say in order
that something may exist it is not necessary that it can be perceived
by me; it is enough if it can be perceived by anybody. Or what else
can be meant when Sigwart, after what has just been said, that
existence was the agreement of the thing represented with a possible
impression, thus continues: “That which exists stands not merely _in
this relation_ to me but to all other existing beings?” It cannot
surely mean that Sigwart is inclined to ascribe to every existing
being the capacity to receive every impression. It may be he only
wishes to say that everything which exists stands to every other
existing being in the relation of existence, and then it might be
concluded from what immediately follows that this rather meaningless
definition is intended to express that existence is the capacity to
act or to be acted upon. (“What exists ... stands in causal relations
to the rest of the world”; similar also is p. 91, note: the existent
is something which “can exercise effects upon me and others.”)
Finally, however, there is some ground for thinking Sigwart would
say: what exists is that which can be perceived or can be inferred
as perceivable, for he adds: “hence (on account of this causal
relation) from what is _perceivable_ also an existence which is merely
_inferred_ may be asserted.”
That all this is equally to be rejected it is not difficult to
recognize.
For (1) To “infer” the existence of something does not mean so much as
“to infer that it is capable of being perceived.” If, for example, the
existence of atoms and of empty spaces could be assured by inference,
we should still be very far from proving their perceptibility either
to ourselves or to some other being. If any one were to conclude the
existence of God while giving up the attempt “to give vividness” to
the thought by anthropomorphic means, he would not on this account
believe that God must be perceptible to one of his creatures or even
that he is the object of his own perception.
2. From this point of view it would be absurd for any one to say: “I
am convinced that there is much the existence of which can neither be
perceived at any time or even inferred by anybody.” For that would
mean: “I am convinced that much can be perceived or can be inferred
to be capable of perception which yet can never be perceived or
inferred.” Who does not recognize here how far Sigwart has strayed
from the true notion of existence!
3. Should Sigwart wish in this passage to widen the notion of
existence to such a degree as to think that existence is that which
can either be perceived or inferred from some perceivable object, or
again, stands in some sort of causal relation to what is perceivable,
it might be replied--if indeed such a monstrous notion of existence
still require refutation--that even this notion is still too narrow.
If, for example, I say: It may be that an empty space exists but
this can never with certainty be known by any one, I thereby confess
that existence may perhaps belong to empty space; but I deny most
definitely that it is perceptible, or that it is to be inferred from
that which is perceptible. In regard to relations of cause and effect
on the other hand, it is of course impossible that empty space (which
is certainly no thing) can stand in such a relation to anything
perceivable. We should thus once again arrive at an absurd meaning in
interpretation of an assertion in no way absurd.
How wrongly Sigwart has analysed the notion of existence is also
proved very simply by means of the following proposition: A real
centaur does not exist; a centaur _in idea_, however, certainly
exists, and that as often as I imagine it. Whoever does not clearly
recognize here the distinction of the “ὂν ὡς ἀληθές i.e. in the sense
of existing, from ὂν in the sense of real (wesenhaft) will I fear
hardly be brought to recognize it by the fullest illustrations which
might be furnished by further examples. We may, however, also consider
briefly the following point: According to Sigwart, the knowledge of
the existence of anything consists in the knowledge of the agreement
of something represented in idea with, let us say, χ, since I do
not clearly understand with what. What now is necessary in order to
recognize the agreement of something with something else? Manifestly,
the knowledge of everything which is required in order that this
agreement should really exist. But this requires (1) that the one
element exist, (2) that the other element exist, and (3) that between
them there exist the relation of identity since what does not exist
can be neither like something nor different from it. But the knowledge
of the first element constitutes already in itself a knowledge of
existence. Hence the knowledge of the two remaining elements is no
longer necessary to the recognition of any existence, and Sigwart’s
theory leads to a contradiction. (Cf. with what has been said here,
Sigwart’s polemic against my _Psychology_, book ii. chap. vii. in his
work; _The Impersonalia_, p. 50 seq., and _Logic_, vol. i. second
edition, p. 89 seq. note, as well as Marty’s polemic against Sigwart
in the articles: “Über Subjectlose Sätze” in the _Vierteljahrsschrift
für wissenschaftliche Philosophie_, viii. i. seq.)[A]
[A] I had already written my Critique of Sigwart’s notion of existence
when I became aware of a note in his _Logic_, second ed, p. 390, a
passage which, while it has not made it necessary to alter anything
which I had written, has led me to insert it for the purpose of
comparison. “Das Seiende überhaupt,” Sigwart writes, “kann nicht als
wahrer Gattungsbegriff zu dem einzelnen Seienden betrachtet werden;
es ist, begrifflich betrachtet, nur ein gemeinschaftlicher Name.
Denn, da ‘Sein’ für uns ein Relationsprädikat ist, kann es kein
gemeinschaftliches Merkmal sein, es müsste denn gezeigt werden, dass
dieses Prädikat in einer dem Begriffe alles Seienden gemeinsamen
Bestimmung wurzle.” I fear that the reader will, just as little as
myself, attain by this explanation to clearness concerning Sigwart’s
notion of existence. He will perhaps the better understand why all my
efforts regarding it have proved futile.
s
Sigwart has failed to grasp the nature of judgment in general he
is not, of course, able to understand that of the _negative_ judgment
in particular. He has gone so far in error as to deny to it an equal
right as species along with the positive judgment; no negative
judgment is, he thinks, a direct judgment, its object is rather always
another actual judgment or the attempt to form such a judgment.
In this assertion Sigwart is opposed to some important psychological
views which I have made good in my lecture. It would therefore seem
fitting to resist his attack. For this purpose I shall show: (1)
that Sigwart’s doctrine is badly founded; (2) that it leads to an
irremediable confusion, as in that case Sigwart’s affirmative judgment
is a negative judgment, while his negative judgment if indeed a
judgment at all, and not rather the absence of one, is a positive
judgment, and that moreover his positive judgment really involves a
negative one, along with other similar confusions. (3) Finally I think
it will be possible--thanks to Sigwart’s detailed explanations--to
show the genesis of his error.
1. The first inquiry in the case of an assertion so novel and so
widely diverging from the general view, will be as to its foundation.
With regard to this, he insists above all (p. 150) that the negative
judgment would have no meaning if the thought of the positive
attribution of a predicate had not preceded. But what can this mean?
Either there is here a clear _petitio principii_, or it cannot mean
anything more than that a connection of ideas must have preceded. Now
granting this for a moment (although I have in my _Psychology_ shown
its falsity) this would by no means prove his proposition, since
Sigwart himself recognizes (p. 89 note, and elsewhere) that such a
“subjective connexion of ideas” would still not be a judgment; that
there needs rather to be added to it a certain feeling of constraint.
An argument follows later (p. 151) the logical connexion of which I
understand just as little. It is rightly observed that in and for
itself we have the right to deny of anything an infinite number of
predicates, and it is with equal right added that in spite of this,
we do not really pass all these negative judgments. And now what
conclusion is drawn from these premisses? Perhaps this, that the
fact that a certain negative judgment is warranted is not sufficient
in itself to explain the entrance of the judgment. This we may
without hesitation admit. But Sigwart concludes quite otherwise; he
permits himself to assert, it follows from this that the further
condition which is here lacking is that the corresponding positive
affirmation has not yet been attempted. This is indeed a bold leap,
and one which my logic at least is not able to follow. And why, if
one were to inquire further, are not all the positive judgments here
concerned really attempted? The most probable answer, judging by the
examples given by Sigwart (this stone reads, writes, sings, composes;
justice is blue, green, heptagonal, rotating), is, that this has
not been done because the negative judgment has already been made
with evident certainty; for this would best explain why there is no
“danger of any one attributing these predicates to the stone or to
justice.” If, however, any one prefer to answer that “the narrowness
of consciousness” makes it impossible to attempt at the same time
an infinite number of positive judgments, I am content with this
expedient also, only it must then be asked if this appeal ought not to
have been made directly and earlier, since Sigwart himself calls the
possible negative judgments an “_immeasurable_ quantity.”
It is also a curious error (Marty has already called attention to it),
when Sigwart asserts that in contradistinction to what holds good of
the negative judgment “every subject admits only of a limited number
of predicates being affirmed.” But why? Can we not, for example, say a
whole hour is greater than half an hour, greater than a third, greater
than a fourth and so on _ad infin._?... If then, notwithstanding, I do
not really make all these judgments, there are evidently good reasons
for this; above all that the “narrowness of consciousness” forbids it.
But then this might also be applied most successfully in regard to
negative judgments.
Somewhat later we meet a third argument which, as I have already by
anticipation refuted it in my _Psychology_ (book ii. chap. 7, section
v.), will be treated quite shortly here. If the negative judgment
were a direct one, co-ordinated with the affirmative judgment as
species then, thinks Sigwart (p. 155 seq.), whoever in an affirmative
categorical proposition regards the affirmation of the subject as
involved must, to be consistent, regard the denial of the subject
as involved in the negative proposition, which is not the case. The
latter observation is correct, the former assertion, however, quite
untenable, as it involves in itself a contradiction. For exactly
because the existence of each part in a whole is involved in the
existence of the whole, the whole no longer exists if but one of its
parts is missing.
It only remains now to consider a point of language by which Sigwart
believes himself able to support his view. A testimony for it is,
he thinks, to be found in the fact that the symbol for the negative
judgment is formed in every case by means of a combination with the
symbol of affirmation, the word “not” being added to the copula. In
order to judge what is here actually the fact, we will glance for a
moment at the sphere of feeling. Sigwart agrees, I think, with me and
everybody else that pleasing and displeasing, rejoicing and sorrowing,
loving and hating, etc., are co-ordinate with each other. Yet a
complete series of expressions denoting a disinclination of feeling
are found in dependence upon the expression for the corresponding
inclination. For example, inclination, disinclination; pleasure,
displeasure; ease, disease; Wille, Widerwille; froh, unfroh; happy,
unhappy; beautiful, unbeautiful; pleasant, unpleasant;--even “ungut”
is used. The explanation of this is, I believe, not difficult for the
psychologist, notwithstanding the equally primordial character of
these opposite modes of feeling. Ought then the explanation of the
phenomenon lying before us in the expression of the negative judgment,
closely related as it is to the before mentioned phenomenon, to be
really so very difficult, even assuming the primordial character?
As a matter of fact the case must be very bad when thinkers like
Sigwart in making statements so important in principle, and at the
same time so unusual, have to resort to arguments so weak.
2. The grounds on which Sigwart’s doctrine concerning the negative
judgment rest have, therefore, each and all proved untenable. This
must be so; for how could the truth of any doctrine be shown which
would plunge everything into the greatest confusion?
Sigwart finds himself compelled to distinguish between the positive
and the affirmative judgment, and the affirmative judgment--one hears
and wonders at the new terminology--is according to him, closely
examined, a negative judgment. On page 150 he says literally: “The
primordial judgment can certainly not be termed the affirmative
judgment, but is better described as the positive judgment, for
only in opposition to the negative judgment, and _in so far as it
rejects_ the possibility of a negation, is the simple statement A is
B an affirmation,” and so on. Inasmuch as it “rejects.” What else
can that mean than “so far as it denies”? As a matter of fact only
those negations can, according to this new and extraordinary use of
language, be called affirmations! Yet this would really mean, and
particularly when it is said that the proposition A is B _is_ often
such a negation (cf. the expressions just quoted), that the use
of language would be reduced to a confusion quite unnecessary and
altogether unendurable.
Not only is the affirmation--as set forth--according to Sigwart really
a negation but also, paradoxical as it may seem, the negation, on
close consideration, proves to be a positive judgment. It is true,
Sigwart protests against those who, like Hobbes, would regard all
negatives as affirmative judgments with negative predicates. But,
following Sigwart, if this is not so, then these must be affirmative
judgments with affirmative predicates, since he teaches that the
subject is in every case a judgment, the predicate being the notion of
invalidity. On p. 160 he says in the note the negation does away with
a supposition, denies the validity, and this expression, considered
in itself, might be taken to mean that Sigwart assumes here a special
function of denial (absprechen) the contrary of that of affirmation
(zusprechen). But no; a negative copula (cf. p. 153) according to him
there is not.
Now what in the world is one to understand by “denial” (absprechen)?
Does it mean the simple suppression (Aufhörenlassen) of the positive
judgment upon the given subject matter, that is, according to Sigwart,
the falling away of the feeling of compulsion previously given in
a connexion between ideas? This is impossible, since the removal
of this would bring about a condition in which the connexion of
ideas remains, without being either affirmed or denied. How often
does something of which we were previously certain become uncertain
without our on this account denying it. What then is this denying?
May we perhaps say that according to Sigwart it is a feeling oneself
compelled (sich-genötigt-fühlen) to annul, whereas affirming is a
feeling oneself compelled to posit? We should then have to say that
all the while we are passing a negative judgment, we are in reality
always seeking to pass a positive judgment, but that we experience a
hindrance in so doing. The same consciousness, however, is felt by
one who is clearly aware of the entire absence of a positive ground.
For how can any one succeed in believing anything which he at the
same time holds to be entirely ungrounded? Of no one, especially if
Sigwart’s definition of the judgment be applied as the standard,
is this conceivable; that is to say, every one in such a case will
experience failure in such an attempt. Accordingly there is, as
yet, no negative judgment. If then the rejection does not signify a
negative copula it must manifestly be regarded as an instance of the
affirmation of the predicate “false,” or (to use Sigwart’s term) as
its “identification” with the judgment which in this case should be
the subject. This “false” also cannot simply mean “untrue,” for I
can assert “untrue” of thousands of things with regard to which the
predicate “false,” which appears in certain judgments, would not be
in place. If only judgments are true, then of everything which is not
a judgment the predicate “untrue” must be affirmed, though certainly
not on that account the predicate “false.” “False” must therefore be
regarded as a positive predicate; and so from Sigwart’s point of view
absolutely false in principle, certain as it is that the merely not
being convinced (nicht-überzeugt-sein) is no denial, it is equally
certain that we have actually no choice; we should be compelled to
regard every negative judgment as a positive judgment with a positive
predicate. So we arrive at a second and greater paradox.
But here a third factor enters which completes the confusion. If
we examine Sigwart’s view as to the nature of judgment in general,
it may be shown in the clearest manner possible that the simple
positive judgment itself involves in turn, a negative judgment. That
is to say, following Sigwart, every judgment involves besides a
certain combination of ideas, a consciousness of the necessity of
our “identification” (unseres Einssetzens) and the impossibility of
its contradictory (cf. espec. p. 102), the consciousness, moreover,
of such a necessity and impossibility valid for all thinking beings
(cf. pp. 102 and 107), which, by the way, is of course quite as false
as Sigwart’s whole view of the nature of judgment in general. All
judgments without exception are, on account of this peculiarity,
called by Sigwart apodictic: nor will he admit the validity of any
distinction between the assertorical and apodictic forms of judgment
(cf. p. 229 seq.). I now ask: Have we not here a negative judgment
distinctly involved? Otherwise what meaning can be given to the
statement when we hear Sigwart speak of a “consciousness of the
impossibility of the contradictory.” Further I have already shown in
my _Psychology_ how all universal judgments are negative, since to
be conscious of universality means nothing else than to be convinced
that there exists no exception; if this negative be not added, the
most extensive list of positive assertions will never constitute a
belief in universality. When therefore, a consciousness that every
one must so think is here spoken of, there is in this fact a further
proof of what I have asserted, namely that according to Sigwart’s
doctrine of judgment the simplest positive acts of judgment must
involve a negative act of judgment. And yet we are called upon at the
same time to believe that the negative judgment, as set forth (p. 159
seq.), arose relatively late, and that therefore on this, as well as
on other grounds, it is unworthy of being placed side by side, with
the positive judgment as a species equally primordial! Sigwart would
surely not have expected this of us had he been conscious of all that
I have here set forth in detail, and which is the more clearly seen to
be involved in his exposition, often so difficult to comprehend the
more carefully it is submitted to reflection. Of course expressions
may be found where Sigwart, respecting this or that point of detail,
asserts the contrary of what is here deduced; for what else can be
expected where everything is left in such ambiguity, and where the
attempt to make things clear exhibits the most manifold contradictions?
3. Finally, we have still to show the genesis of the error in which
this able logician has involved himself in a relatively simple
question after having once mistaken the nature of the judgment. The
_proton pseudos_ is to be sought in a delusion which has come down
to us from the older logic that to the essence of the judgment there
belongs the relation of two ideas with one another. Aristotle has
described this relation as combination and separation (σύνθεσις καἰ
διαίρεσις) although he was well aware of the imperfect propriety of
the expressions, adding at the same time that in a certain sense
both relations might be described as a combination (σύνθεσις, cf.
_de Anima_, iii. 6). Scholastic and modern logic held fast to the
expressions “combination” and “separation”; in grammar, however,
both these relations were termed “combination,” and the symbol for
this combination the “copula.” Sigwart now takes seriously the
expressions “combination” and “separation,” and so a negative copula
seems to him a contradiction (cf. p. 153), the positive judgment,
on the other hand, appears to be a presupposition of the negative
judgment, since, before a combination has been set up, it cannot be
separated. And so it appears to him that a negative judgment without
a preceding positive judgment is quite meaningless (cf. p. 150 and
above). Consequently we find this celebrated inquirer in a position
which compels him to put forth the most strenuous efforts all to no
purpose--the negative judgment remains inexplicable.
In a note (p. 159) he gives us, as a result of such attempts, a
remarkable description of the process by which we arrive at the
negative judgment--a result in which he believes himself finally
able to rest satisfied. In this account the false steps which he
successively makes become, each in turn, evident to the attentive
observer. Long before the point is reached where he believes himself
to have come upon the negative judgment, he has as a matter of fact
already anticipated it.
He sets out with the correct observation that the first judgments
which we make are all positive in character. These judgments are
evident and made with full confidence. “Now, however,” he continues,
“our thought goes out beyond the given; by the aid of recollections
and associations, judgments arise which are at first also formed in
the belief that they express reality” (which means, according to
other expressions of Sigwart, that the ideas are combined with the
consciousness of objective validity; for this (xiv. p. 98) belongs
to the essence of the judgment) “as, for example, when we expect to
find something with which we are acquainted in its usual place or
pre-suppose respecting a flower that it smells. Now, however, a part
of what is thus supposed _contradicts_ our immediate knowledge.” (We
leave Sigwart to show here how we are able to recognize anything as
“contradictory” when we are not as yet in possession of negative
judgments and negative notions. The difficulty becomes still more
sharply apparent as he proceeds:) “when we do _not find_ what we
expected, we become conscious of the _difference_ between what exists
_merely_ in idea and what is real.” (What does “not find” mean here?
I had not found it previously; obviously I now find that what was
erroneously supposed to be associated with another object is _without_
it, and this I can only do by recognizing the one and denying the
other, i.e. recognize it as _not_ being with it. Further what is meant
here by “difference”? To recognize difference means to recognize that
of two things the one is _not_ the other. What is meant by existing
“merely in idea”? Manifestly, “what exists in idea which is _not_ at
the same time also real.” It would seem, however, that Sigwart is
still unaware that in what he is describing the negative function
of the judgment is already more than once involved. He continues:)
“That of which we are immediately certain is _another_ than that”
(i.e. it is not the same, it is indeed absolutely incompatible with
that) “which we have judged in anticipation, and now” (i.e. after and
since we have already passed all these negative judgments) “appears
the negation which annuls the supposition and denies of it validity.
_And here a new attitude is involved in so far as the subjective
combination is separated from the consciousness of certainty._ The
subjective combination is compared with one bearing the stamp of
certainty, its distinction therefrom recognized, and out of this
arises the notion of invalidity.” This last would almost seem to be
a carelessness of expression, for if invalid were to mean as much
as “false” and not “uncertain” it could not be derived from the
distinction between a combination with and a combination without
certainty, but only from the opposition existing between combination
which is denied and one which is affirmed. As a matter of fact, the
opposite affirmative judgment is not at all necessary to it. The
opposition, the incompatibility of the qualities in a real, is already
evident on the ground of the combination of ideas representing the
opposite qualities which, as I repeat once more, cannot, according to
Sigwart himself (p. 89 note; and p. 98 seq.), be called an attempt
at positive judgment. Although this may now and again happen in the
case of contradictory ideas, it certainly does not happen always. If,
for example, the question is put to me: Does there exist a regular
chiliagon with 1001 sides? then--assuming that I am not perfectly
clear in my own mind, as will be the case with most men, that there
does exist a regular chiliagon, I certainly do not attempt to form a
judgment (i.e. according to Sigwart, confidently assume) that there
exists a regular chiliagon having 1001 sides before forming the
negative judgment that no such figure exists on the ground of the
opposition between the qualities.
Sigwart himself, as his language frequently betrays (cf. e.g. pp. 152
and 150) recognizes at bottom, as he is bound to recognize, in spite
of his attack upon the negative copula, that negation and denial are
just as much a special function of the judgment as affirmation and
recognition. If this be granted, then the range of their application
is by no means so limited as he erroneously asserts. It is false that
in every case where a denial takes place the predicate denied is the
notion “valid.” Even of a judgment we may deny now its validity, now
its certainty, now its _à priori_ character. And just in the same way
the subject of the judgment can change most frequently. Of a judgment
we may deny certainty, and validity; of a request, modesty; and so
in every case, universally expressed, we may deny B of A. Sigwart
himself, of course, does this just like any one else. Indeed he
sometimes speaks unintentionally far more correctly than his theory
would admit, and witnesses, as it were, instinctively to the truth;
as, e.g. p. 151, where he declares not--as he elsewhere teaches--that
the subject of a negative proposition is always a judgment, and its
predicate the term “valid,” but “that of _every subject_ ... _a
countless_ _number of predicates may be denied_.” This is certainly
true and just on this account the old doctrine holds that affirmation
and denial are equally primordial species.
[24] (_p. 15_). The discovery that every act of love is a “pleasing,”
every act of hate a “displeasing,” was very near to Descartes when
he wrote his valuable little work on _The Affections_. In the second
book, _Des Passions_, ii. art. 139, he says: “Lorsque les choses
qu’elles (l’amour et la haine) nous portent à aimer sont véritablement
bonnes, et celles qu’elles nous portent à haïr, sont véritablement
mauvaises, l’amour est incomparablement meilleure que la haine; elle
ne saurait être trop grande et elle ne manque jamais de produire la
joie”; and this agrees with what he says a little later: “La haine, au
contraire ne saurait être si petite qu’elle ne nuise, et elle n’est
jamais sans tristesse.”
In ordinary life, however, the expressions “joy” and “sadness,”
“pleasure” and “pain” are only used when the pleasure and displeasure
have attained a certain degree of liveliness. A sharp boundary in
this unscientific division there is not; we may, however, be allowed
to make use of it as it stands. It is enough that the expressions,
“pleasure” and “displeasure” are not narrowed down by any such limit.
[25] (_p. 16_). The expressions “true” and “false” are employed in a
manifold sense; in one sense we employ them in speaking of true and
false judgments; again (somewhat modifying the meaning), of objects,
as when we say, “a true friend,” “false money.” I need scarcely
observe that where I use the expressions “true” and “false” in this
lecture, I associate therewith not the first and proper meaning, but
rather a metaphorical one having reference to objects. True, is,
therefore, what is; false, what is not. Just as Aristotle spoke of “ὂν
ὡς ἀληθές” so we might also say, “ἀληθές ὡς ὂν.”
Of truth in its proper sense it has often been said that it is
the agreement of the judgment with the object (adequatio rei et
intellectus, as the scholastics said). This expression, true in a
certain sense, is yet in the highest degree open to misunderstanding,
and has led to serious errors. The agreement is regarded as a kind of
identity between something contained in the judgment, or in the idea
lying at the root of the judgment and something situated without
the mind. But this cannot be the meaning here; “to agree” means here
rather as much as “to be appropriate,” “to be in harmony with,”
“suit,” “correspond.” It is as though in the sphere of feeling one
should say, the rightness of love and hate consists in the agreement
of the feelings with the object. Properly understood this also would
be unquestionably right; whoever loves and hates rightly, has his
feelings adequately related to the object, i.e. the relation is
appropriate, suitable, corresponds suitably, whereas it would be
manifestly absurd were one to believe that in a rightly directed love
or hate there was found to be an identity between these feelings or
the ideas lying at their root on the one hand, and something lying
outside the feelings on the other, an identity which is absent where
the attitude of the feelings is unrightly directed. Among other
circumstances this misunderstanding has also conduced towards bringing
the doctrine of judgment into that sad confusion from which to-day
psychology and logic seek with such painful efforts to set themselves
free.
The conceptions of existence and non-existence are the correlates
of the conceptions of the truth of the (simple) affirmative and
negative judgments. Just as to judgment belongs what is judged, to
the affirmative judgment what is judged of affirmatively, to the
negative judgment, what is judged of negatively, so to the rightness
of the affirmative judgment belongs the existence of what is judged
of affirmatively, to the rightness of the negative judgment the
non-existence of what is judged of negatively; and whether I say an
affirmative judgment is true, or, its object is existent; whether I
say a negative judgment is true, or its object is non-existent; in
both cases I am saying one and the same thing. In the same way, it is
essentially one and the same logical principle whether I say, in each
case either the (simple) affirmative or negative judgment is true, or,
each is either existent or non-existent.
Thus, for example, the assertion of the truth of the judgment, “a man
is learned,” is the correlate of the assertion of the existence of
the object, “a learned man”; and the assertion of the truth of the
judgment, “no stone is alive,” is the correlate of the assertion of
the non-existence of its object, “a living stone.” The correlative
assertions are here, as everywhere, inseparable. The case is exactly
the same as in the assertions A > B and that B < A; that A is the
cause of B, and that B is produced by A.
[26] (_p. 16_). The notion of the good, in and for itself, is
accordingly a unity in the strict sense, and not, as Aristotle teaches
(in consequence of a confusion which we shall have to speak of later)
a unity in a merely analogous sense. German philosophers also have
failed to grasp the unity of the conception. This is the case with
Kant, and, quite recently, with Windelband. There is a defect in our
ordinary way of speaking which may prove very misleading to Germans
inasmuch as for the opposite of the term “good” there is no common
expression current, but this is designated now as “schlimm,” now
as “übel,” now as “böse,” now as “arg,” now as “abscheulich,” now
as “schlecht,” etc. It might very well, as in similar cases, come
to be thought that not only the common name is wanting, but also
the common notion. And if the notion is wanting on the one side of
the antithesis, it would also be wanting on the other, and so the
expression “good” would seem an equivocal term.
Of all the expressions quoted, it seems to me (and philologists
also, whose advice I have asked, are of the same opinion), that the
expression “schlecht,” like the Latin “malum,” is most applicable as
the opposite of the good in its full universality, and in this way I
shall allow myself to use this expression in what follows.
The fact that I adhere to the view of a certain common character
regarding the intentional relation of love and hate does not debar my
recognizing along with this view, special forms for particular cases.
If, therefore, “bad” is a truly universal simple class conception,
there may yet be distinguished special classes within its domain of
which one may be suitably termed “böse,” another “übel,” etc.
[27] (_p. 18_). The distinction between “self-evident” and “blind”
judgments is something too striking to have altogether escaped notice.
Even the sceptical Hume is very far from denying the distinction.
_Self-evidence_, according to him (_Enq. concerning Hum. Underst._
iv.) may be ascribed, on the one hand, to analytic judgments (to which
class belong also the axioms of mathematics and the mathematical
demonstrations), and, on the other hand, to certain impressions, but
not to the so-called truths of experience. Reason does not lead us
here, but rather habit, after a manner entirely irrational; belief, in
this case is _instinctive_ and _mechanical_ (_ib._ v.).
But to observe a fact does not mean to set forth its nature clearly
and distinctly. As the nature of the judgment has, until recent times,
been almost universally misunderstood, how could it be possible
rightly to understand its self-evidence? It is just here that even
Descartes’ discernment fails him. How very closely the phenomenon
occupied him a passage in the Meditations bears witness: “Cum hic dico
me ita doctum esse a natura (he is speaking of the so-called external
impressions) intelligo tantum _spontaneo quodam impetu_ me ferri ad
hoc credendum _non lumine aliquo naturali_ mihi ostendi esse verum,
quae duo multum discrepant. Nam quaecunque _lumine naturali_ mihi
ostenduntur (ut quod ex eo quo dubitem sequatur me esse et similia)
nullo modo dubia esse possunt quia nulla alia facultas esse potest,
cui aeque fidam ac lumini isti, quaeque illa non vera esse possit
docere; sed quantum ad impetus naturales jam saepe olim judicavi me
ab illis in deteriorem partem fuisse impulsum cum de bono eligendo
ageretur, nec video cur iisdem in ulla alia re magis fidam.”--(Medit.
iii.).
That Descartes did not mark the fact of self-evidence, that he did not
observe the distinction between intuition and blind judgment certainly
cannot be affirmed from the above. But, while separating the judgment
as a class from the idea, he still leaves behind in the class of ideas
the character of self-evidence which distinguishes the judgments of
intuition. It consists, according to him, in a special mark of the
perception, that is, of the idea lying at the root of the judgment.
Descartes even goes so far as actually to call this act of perception
a “cognoscere,” a “knowing.” A “knowing,” that is, and still not an
act of judgment! These are rudimentary organs which after the progress
made, owing to Descartes, in the doctrine of judgment, remind us of
a stage of life in Psychology which has been surmounted; but with
this distinction, in opposition to similar phenomena in the history of
the development of the species, that these organs, in no way adapted,
become in the highest degree troublesome, and render all Descartes’
further efforts for the theory of knowledge ineffective. He remains,
to use Leibnitz’ phrase, “in the antechamber of truth” (cf. here
note 28, towards the end). Only in this way does Descartes’ clara et
distincta perceptio--concerning which term itself it is so difficult
to gain a clear and distinct idea--in its curious dual nature become
perfectly intelligible. The only means of overcoming this confusion
is to seek that which distinguishes insight in opposition to other
judgments as an inner quality belonging to the act of insight itself.
It is true that some who have sought here have yet failed to find. We
saw (cf. note 23) how Sigwart conceives the nature of the judgment. To
this, he teaches, there belongs a relation of ideas to one another,
and along with this a feeling of obligation respecting this connexion.
(Cf. sections 14 and 31, espec. 4 and 5.) Such a feeling therefore,
always exists even in the case of the blindest prejudice. It is then
abnormal, but is held (as Sigwart expressly explains) to be normal and
of universal validity. And what now in contrast to this case, is given
in the case of insight? Sigwart replies that its evidence consists
in the same feeling (cf. e.g. section 3) which now, however, is not
merely held to be normal and universally valid, but is really normal
and universally valid.
It seems to me that the weakness of this theory is at once apparent;
and it is on many grounds to be rejected.
1. The peculiar nature of insight, the clearness and evidence of
certain judgments from which their truth is inseparable has little
or nothing to do with any feeling of compulsion. It may well happen
that at a given moment I cannot refrain from so judging, yet none the
less the essence of its clearness does not consist in the feeling of
compulsion, and no consciousness of an obligation so to judge could,
as such, afford security as to its truth. He who disbelieves in every
form of indeterminism in respect of judging, regards all judgments
under the circumstances in which they were passed as necessary, but he
does not--and with indisputable right--regard all of them as on that
account true.
2. Sigwart, in seeking the consciousness of insight in a feeling
of necessity so to think, asserts that the consciousness of one’s
being compelled is, at the same time, a consciousness of a necessity
for all thinking beings whenever the same grounds are present. If
he means, however, that the one conviction is doubtless connected
with the other, this is an error. Why, when a person feels bound to
pass a judgment upon certain data, should the same compulsion hold
good in respect of every other thinking being to whom the same data
are also given? It is obvious that only an appeal to the law of
causality which, under like conditions demands like results, could
be the ground of the logical connexion. Its application, however,
to the present case would be entirely erroneous, since this would
involve the ignoring of the special psychical dispositions, which,
although they do not directly enter into consciousness at all, must
yet be regarded, along with the conscious data, as pre-determining
conditions, and these are very different in the case of different
persons. Hegel and his school, misled by paralogisms, have denied the
principle of contradiction; Trendelenburg, who opposed Hegel, has at
least restricted its validity (cf. his _Abhandlungen über Herbarts
Metaphysik_). The universal impossibility of inwardly denying the
principle which Aristotle asserted cannot therefore, to-day, be any
longer defended; Aristotle himself, however, for whom the principle
was self-evident, assuredly found its denial impossible.
Whatever is evident to any one is of course certain not only for him,
but also for every one else who, in the same way, sees its evidence.
The judgment, moreover, which is seen to be evident by any one has
also universal validity, i.e. the contradictory of what is seen to be
evident by one person, cannot be seen to be evident by another person,
and every one who believes in its contradictory is in error. Further,
since what is here said belongs to the essence of truth, whoever has
evidence of the truth of anything may perceive that he is justified
in regarding it as true for all. But he would be guilty of a flagrant
confusion of ideas who should regard such a consciousness that a
truth is true for all, as equivalent to a consciousness of a universal
necessity of thinking.
3. Sigwart involves himself in a multitude of contradictions. He
asserts and must assert--if he is not to yield to the sceptics and
relinquish his entire logical system--that evident judgments are
not merely different from non-evident judgments, but that they are
also distinguishable in consciousness. The one class must therefore
appear as normal and of universal validity, the other class as
not so. But if evident and non-evident judgments alike carry with
them the consciousness of universal validity, then the two classes
would at first sight exactly agree in the manner in which they
present themselves, and only as it were, afterwards (or at the same
time, though as a mere concomitant), and by reflection upon some
sort of criterion which is applied to them as a standard could the
distinction be discovered. And passages are actually to be found in
Sigwart where he speaks of a consciousness of agreement with the
universal rules which accompany the fully evident judgment. (Cf.
e.g. _Logic_, 2nd ed., 39, p. 311.) But apart from the fact that
this contradicts experience--for long before the discovery of the
syllogism, conclusions were reached syllogistically and with complete
evidence--it is also to be rejected inasmuch as, seeing that the rule
itself must be assured, it would lead either to an infinite regress,
or to a _circulus vitiosus_.
4. Another contradiction with which I have to charge Sigwart (though
in my opinion it might have been avoided even after his erroneous
view as to the nature of the judgment and as to the nature of
self-evidence), we meet with in his doctrine of self-consciousness.
The knowledge that I am contains _only_ self-evidence, and this exists
independent of any consciousness of an obligation so to think and of
a necessity which is common to all alike. (At least I am not able
otherwise to understand the passage, _Logic_, 2nd ed., p. 310: “The
certainty that I am and think is the absolutely last and fundamental
one--the condition of all thinking and certainty at all; here, only
immediate evidence can be given; one cannot even say that this thought
is necessary, since it is previous to all necessity, and just as
immediate and evident is the conscious certainty that I think this
or that; it is inextricably interwoven with my self-consciousness;
the one is given with the other.”) After Sigwart’s doctrine already
examined, this would appear to be a _contradictio in adjecto_ and, as
such, quite indefensible.
5. Further contradictions appear in Sigwart’s very peculiar and
doubtful doctrine concerning the postulates, which he opposes to the
axioms. The latter are to be regarded as certain on the ground of
their real intellectual necessity; the former, not on the ground of
purely intellectual motives, but on psychological motives of another
kind, on the ground of practical needs. (_Logic_, 2nd ed. p. 412 seq.)
The law of causality: e.g. is, according to him, not an axiom, but a
mere postulate; we regard it as certain, since we find that without
affirming it we should not be able to investigate nature. Sigwart,
by this mode of accepting the law of causality, that is, affirming,
out of mere good-will, that in nature under like conditions, the same
results would constantly be forthcoming, manifestly takes it for
granted without being conscious of its intellectual necessity. But, if
all “taking-as-true” (Fürwahrhalten) is an act of judgment, this is
quite incompatible with his views as to the nature of the judgment.
Sigwart has here, as far as I can see, but one way of escape, i.e. to
confess that he does not believe in what, as a postulate, he accepts
as certain (as e.g. the law of causality); then, however, he will be
hardly serious in hoping for it.
6. This point becomes still more doubtful on reflection upon what
(2) has been previously discussed. The consciousness of a universal
necessity of thought does not, according to Sigwart, belong to the
postulates, but rather to the axioms. (Cf. 5.) But Sigwart could only
with any plausibility exhibit the consciousness of this universal
necessity of thinking as operating in the consciousness of one’s
personal necessity of thinking by making use of the universal law
of causation. But this causal law is itself merely a postulate; it
is destitute of self-evidence. It is therefore obvious that the
universal thought-necessity in the case of the axioms is also a
postulate, and consequently they lose what, according to Sigwart, is
their most essential distinction from the postulates. It may perhaps
be in accordance with this that Sigwart calls the belief in the
trustworthiness of “self-evidence” a postulate. But how the statement
so interpreted, can be brought into harmony with the remaining parts
of his doctrine I am at a loss to conceive.
7. Sigwart denies (31) the distinction between assertorical and
apodictic judgments, since in every judgment the sense of necessity
in respect of its function is essential. Consequently this assertion
likewise hangs together with his erroneous fundamental view of
the judgment; he would appear to identify the feeling which he
sometimes calls the feeling of evidence with the apodictic character
of a judgment. But it would be quite unjustifiable to overlook the
modal peculiarity of certain judgments, as for example, the law of
contradiction in distinction from other forms of judgment like that of
the consciousness that I am. In the first instance, we have to do with
what is “necessarily true or false,” in the second instance only with
what is “true or false as a matter of fact,” though both are in the
same sense evident and do not differ in respect of their certainty.
Only in the case of judgments like the former, not, however, from such
as the latter do we draw the notions of impossibility and necessity.
That Sigwart, in opposing the view which regards the apodictic
judgment as a special class, also occasionally bears witness against
himself is clear from what has been already said (4). The knowledge
that I am, he calls, in opposition to the knowledge of an axiom, the
knowledge of a simple actual truth (p. 312). Here he speaks more
soundly than his general statements would really allow.
Sigwart’s theory of self-evidence is, therefore, essentially false.
As in the case of Descartes, so here it cannot be said that Sigwart
was not conscious of the phenomenon; indeed, we must rather say in
his praise, that with the greatest zeal he has sought to analyze it,
but as is the case with many in psychological analysis, it would seem
that in the eagerness of analyzing he did not stop at the right point,
and has sought to resolve into one another phenomena very distinct in
nature.
It is obvious that an error respecting the nature of evidence is
fraught with the gravest consequence for the logician. It might well
be said that we have here touched upon the deep-seated organic disease
in Sigwart’s logic, if this may not rather be said to consist in a
misunderstanding of the nature of the judgment in general. Again and
again its evil results become manifest, as for example, in Sigwart’s
inability to understand the most essential causes of our errors, Cf.
_Logic_, vol. i. 2nd ed. p. 103, note, where, with strange partiality
he assigns the chief blame to the defective development of our
language.
For the rest, many another celebrated logician in recent times can
claim no superiority over Sigwart here. As a further example we need
only observe how the doctrine of evidence fares at the hands of the
admirable J. S. Mill. Cf. note 69, p. 99.
Owing to the great unclearness as to the nature of evidence, almost
universal, it becomes conceivable why, as often happens, we meet
with the expression “more or less self-evident.” Even Descartes and
Pascal use such expressions, although it is clearly quite unsuitable.
Whatever is self-evident is certain, and certainty in the real sense
knows no distinctions of degree. Even quite recently we find the
opinion expressed in the _Vierteljahrsschrift für wissenschaftliche
Philosophie_ (and the writer is manifestly quite serious), that
there exist _self-evident suppositions_ which, in spite of their
self-evidence, may quite well be false. It is unnecessary to add that
I hold this to be opposed to reason. I may here, however, express
regret that lectures delivered by me at a time when I still regarded
degrees of conviction as intensities of judgment, seem to have given
an occasion for such confusions.
[28] (_p. 19_). Cf. Hume’s Essay, already cited: _An Enquiry
concerning the Principles of Morals._ Other philosophers, who have
placed the foundation of ethics in the feelings, as e.g. Beneke and
Uberweg (who follows him) have seen further than Hume here. (Cf. the
presentation of Beneke’s ethics in his _Grundriss der Geschichte der
Philosophie_, iii.) Herbart comes still nearer to the truth when he
speaks of self-evident judgments of taste (these, however, are really
not judgments at all, but feelings, and as such are not self-evident,
but can only be said to have something analogous to self-evident
judgments) and when he further opposes to the merely pleasurable
the beautiful, ascribing to the latter as distinct from the former,
universal validity and undeniable worth. Unfortunately, there is
always something false mixed up with his view, and Herbart loses at
once and for ever the right path, so that his ethics in its course
diverges much further from the truth than the doctrine of Hume.
Those thinkers who have completely overlooked the distinction between
pleasure with the character of rightness and pleasure which is not
so qualified, are in danger of falling into opposite errors. The one
class view the matter as though _all_ pleasure had the character of
rightness, the other class as though _no_ pleasure were so qualified.
By the one class the notion of the good as that which rightly
pleases, is entirely given up; “worthy of desire” (begehrenswert) in
distinction from “desirable” (begehrbar), is an unmeaning expression.
For the other class, “worthy of desire” (begehrenswert) remains as a
separate notion, so that there is no tautology in their saying nothing
is in itself desirable except in so far as it is in itself worthy of
desire, is good in itself. Manifestly they must, to be consistent,
assert this, and this they have really taught. The extreme hedonists
all belong to this class; but, along with them, many others; in the
Middle Ages, for example, the teaching is found in Thomas Aquinas,
whose greatness receives fresh appreciation from Ihering (cf. Summ.
theol. I.a. qu. 80, qu. 82, art. 2 ad. 1, etc.).
But even then such a view cannot be maintained in the light of the
facts without exposing the nature of good and bad to a falsification
which involves a form of subjectivism similar to that formerly
committed by Protagoras respecting the notions of truth and falsehood.
Just as, according to this subjectivist in the sphere of the judgment,
man is the measure of all things, and often what is true for one,
may at the same time be false for another--so the advocates of the
view that only the good can be loved, only the bad hated, are really
compelled to assume that, in this sphere, each is himself the measure
of all things; for the good, in that it is good; for the bad, that it
is bad; so that often something is, in itself and at the same time,
both good and bad: good in itself, in the case of all who love it for
its own sake; bad in itself, in the case of all who hate it for its
own sake. This is absurd, and the subjectivistic falsification of the
notion of the good is to be rejected equally with the subjectivistic
falsification of the notions of truth and existence by Protagoras,
but with this difference: that the subjectivistic error in the sphere
of what is rightly pleasing and displeasing takes root more easily
and infects most ethical systems even to-day. Some, as recently,
Sigwart (_Vorfragen der Ethik_, p. 6), confess it openly; others fall
into this error without themselves becoming clearly conscious of the
subjectivistic character of their view.[A]
[A] Those especially who teach that generally speaking the knowledge,
pleasure, and perfection of each individual is, for him, good, their
opposites bad, and that all else is in itself indifferent, will
perhaps protest against my classing them among the subjectivists.
It might even seem on a superficial survey, that they have set up a
doctrine of the good equally valid for all. But on a more careful
examination we find that this teaching does not even in a single
instance, hold one and the same object to be good universally.
For example, my own knowledge is, according to this view, for me
worthy of love; for every one else indifferent in itself, while the
knowledge of another individual is in itself for me indifferent. It
is curious to observe theistic thinkers, as often happens, setting
up a subjectivistic view respecting the good, valid of all mortal
loving and willing, while, at the same time assuming that God, without
respect of person, estimates every perfection by a kind of objective
standard. This exception with regard to the loving and willing of
God and the notion of Him as eternal Judge is then meant to render
harmless in respect of its practical consequences, the egoism which
such a principle implies.
elebrated controversy between Bossuet and Fenelon it may be said that
the great bishop of Meaux advocated a kind of subjectivism. Fenelon’s
theses, though he advocated a system of morality neither ignoble nor
unchristian, were finally condemned by the Church of Rome, though it
did not go so far as to reject his teaching as heretical. Otherwise
one would really be compelled to condemn also those fine glowing lines
attributed by many to St. Theresa, that in a very imperfect Latin
translation have found their way into many Catholic prayer-books which
is much more than their escaping the ecclesiastical censor. I give
them translated directly from the Spanish
Nicht Hoffnung auf des Himmels sel’ge Freuden
Hat Dir, mein Gott, zum Dienste mich verbunden.
Nicht Furcht, die ich vor ew’gem Graus empfunden,
Hat mich bewegt der Sünder Pfad zu meiden.
Du Herr bewegst mich, mich bewegt Dein Leiden.
Dein Anblick in den letzten, bangen Stunden.
Der Geisseln Wuth. Dein Haupt von Dorn umwunden.
Dein schweres Kreuz und--ach!--Dein bittres Scheiden.
_Herr, Du bewegest mich mit solchem Triebe,_
_Das ich Dich liebte, wär’ kein Himmel offen._
_Dich fürchtete, wenn auch kein Abgrund schreckte;_
_Nichts kannst Du geben, was mir Liebe weckte;_
_Denn würd’ ich auch nicht, wie ich hoffe, hoffen,_
_Ich würde dennoch lieben, wie ich liebe.”_
The teaching of Thomas Aquinas has often been so represented as though
it were pure subjectivism. It is true that much of his teaching
sounds quite subjectivistic (cf. e.g. Summ. theol. 1a. q. 80, art.
1, especially the objections and replies as well as the passages in
which he declares that the happiness of each is the highest and final
end, asserting even of the saints in heaven that each rightly desires
more his own blessedness than the blessedness of all others). Along
with these, however, are to be found statements in which he soars
above this subjectivistic view as, for example, when he declares (as
Plato and Aristotle before him and Descartes and Leibnitz after) that
everything which exists is good as such, not good merely as a means
but also--a point which pure subjectivists (as recently Sigwart,
_Vorfr. d. Ethik_, p. 6) expressly deny--good in itself, and again,
when he affirms that in case any one--an impossible case--had at any
time to choose between his own eternal ruin and an injury to the
Divine love, the right course would be to prefer his own eternal
unhappiness.
There the moral feeling of western Christendom touches the feeling of
the heathen Hindu, as is shown in a somewhat strange story of a maiden
who renounces her own everlasting blessedness for the salvation of the
rest of the world; as also that of a positivist thinker like Mill when
he declares sooner than bow in prayer before a being not truly good,
“to hell he will go.” I knew a Catholic priest who, on account of this
utterance of Mill’s, voted for him at the parliamentary election.]
Whoever, as I have said, has once accepted the view that nothing can
please except in so far as it is really good, nothing displease,
except in so far as it is really bad, is on a way which, if
consistently followed, must lead him to subjectivism. This is
evident as soon as it is admitted (and at first sight, it is true,
it may be denied) that opposite tastes, here desire, there dislike,
may be associated with the same sense phenomenon. One might, in
defence, argue that here, in spite of the similarity of the external
stimulus the corresponding subjective idea may have an essentially
different content. But such a view refutes itself in those cases
where we ourselves repeatedly experience the same phenomenon, and, in
consequence of a further development in age or by reason of a changed
habit (cf. text 25, p. 16) thereby experience a different feeling,
dislike for desire, or desire for dislike. There remains, then, no
doubt, that as a fact the feelings may take an opposed attitude
towards the same phenomenon: and again, in the case where ideas
instinctively repel us, while at the same time arousing within us a
pleasure of a higher kind (cf. note 32, p. 92), what has been said is
also clearly evident.
Finally, we should expect from one who thinks that every act of simple
pleasure is right, and that one act never contradicts another, a
similar doctrine in respect of the act of choosing. But the reverse
is here so obvious that the advocates of this view have in striking
contrast always asserted in the most definite manner that different
individuals have preferences opposite in character, and that one is
right, the other wrong.
Glancing back from the disciples of Aristotle in the Middle Ages to
the master himself, we find his teaching appears to be a different
one. Aristotle recognizes a right and a wrong kind of desire (Ὄρεξις
ὀρθᾐ καἰ οὐκ οὐκ ὀρθή) and that what is desired (ὀρεκτόν) is not
always the good. (_De Anima_, iii. 10.) In the same way he affirms in
respect of pleasure (ἡδονή) in the _Nicomachian Ethics_ that not every
pleasure is good; there is a pleasure in the bad, which is itself bad
(_Nic. Eth._ x. 2). In his _Metaphysics_ he distinguishes between a
lower and a higher kind of desire (ἐπιθμία and βούλησις); whatever is
desired by the higher kind for its own sake is truly good (_Metaph._ Δ
7, p. 1072 a. 28). A certain approach to the right view seems already
to have been reached here. It is of special interest (a point I have
only discovered later) that Aristotle has suggested an analogy between
ethical subjectivism and the logical subjectivism of Protagoras, and
equally repudiates both (_Metaph._ Κ 6, p. 1062 b. 16, and 1063 a. 5).
On the other hand it would appear from the lines immediately following
as though Aristotle had fallen into the very obvious temptation of
believing that we can know the good as good, independent of the
excitation of the emotions. (_Metaph._ 29; cf. _De Anima_, iii. 9 and
10.)
In close connection with this appears to be the passage (_Nic. Eth._
i. 4) where he denies that there is any uniform notion of the good
(understanding, of course, the good in itself, cf. respecting this,
note 26, p. 77), thinking rather that only by way of analogy does
there exist a unity in the case of the good of rational thinking
and seeing, joy, etc., and when, in another passage (_Metaph._ Ε 4,
p. 1027 b. 25), he says that the true and the false are not in the
things, where the good and the bad are, i.e. the former predicates
(e.g. true God, false friend) are ascribed to the things only in
respect of certain mental acts, the true and false judgments, while
the latter, on the other hand, are not in a similar way ascribed to
them merely in respect of a certain class of mental activities:--all
of which, incorrect as it is, is still connected as a necessary result
with the aforesaid error. He is more in agreement with the true
doctrine of the origin of our notion and knowledge of the good, when
(_Nic. Ethics_, x. 2) he adduces as an argument against the assumption
that joy does not belong to the good, the fact that all desire it,
and adds: “For if only irrational beings desired it, the opposition
to this argument would still contain a certain justification; but if
every rational being also does so, how can anything be said against
it?” Yet even this utterance is reconcilable with his erroneous view.
Considered in this aspect, the moralist of sentiment
(Gefühls-moralist), Hume, has here the advantage of him, for Hume
rightly urges, how is any one to recognize that anything is to be
loved without experiencing the love?
I have said that the temptation into which Aristotle has fallen
appears quite conceivable. It arises from the fact that, along with
the experience of an emotion qualified as right there is given at the
same time the knowledge that the object itself is good. Thus it may
easily happen that the relation is then perverted and the love is
thought to follow as a consequence of the knowledge, and recognized as
right by reason of its agreement with this its rule.
It is not without interest to compare the error here made by Aristotle
in respect of emotion qualified as right with that which we have seen
was committed by Descartes in respect of the similarly qualified
judgment (cf. note 27, p. 78). The cases are essentially analogous; in
both cases the distinguishing mark is sought in the special character
of the idea which forms the basis of the act rather than in the act
itself qualified as right. In fact it seems to me evident from various
passages in his treatise _Des Passions_, that Descartes himself has
treated the matter in a way quite similar to that of Aristotle, and in
a manner essentially analogous to his doctrine of the self-evident
judgment.
At the present time many approach very near to Descartes’ error in
respect of the marks of self-evidence (if we are not rather to say
that the error is really implicitly contained in their statements)
when they regard the matter as though in the case of every
self-evident judgment a criterion were referred to. In this case it
must have been previously given somewhere, either as recognized--and
this would lead to infinity--or (and this is the only alternative),
it is given in the idea. It may be said that here also the temptation
to such a misconception lies ready to hand and this may well have
exercised a misleading influence upon Descartes. Aristotle’s error
is less general, though only because the phenomenon of the emotion
qualified as right has, generally speaking, come less frequently under
consideration than that of the similarly qualified judgment.
If the nature of the former has been misunderstood, the latter has
often been so overlooked as not even to admit of its essential nature
being misinterpreted.
[29] (_p. 19_). When I affirmed that the language of common life
offers no suitable terms for activities of feeling qualified as right,
I did not mean thereby to deny that certain expressions are, in
themselves, well suited, indeed they would seem to have been created
for this purpose, particularly, for example, the expressions “_to be
well pleasing_,” and “_to be ill pleasing_” (gut gefallen and schlecht
gefallen), as distinct from the simple “to be pleasing” and “to be
mis-pleasing.” Though, however, it might seem advisable to limit these
terms in this way and so to make them serve as scientific terms,
scarcely any trace of such a limitation is to be found in ordinary
language. One does not, of course, care to say: “the good pleases him
ill,” “the bad pleases him well,” though one still says that to one
this tastes good, to another that, and so on, i.e. the expression
“_to be well pleasing_” is applied unhesitatingly even in the case
where pleasure is given in the lowest instinctive form. Indeed the
term-“impression” (Wahrnehmung) has degenerated in an almost similar
way. Only really appropriate in respect of knowledge, it came to be
applied in the case of the so-called external impression (äussere
Wahrnehmung), i.e. in cases of a belief, blind, and in its essential
relations, erroneous, and consequently would require, in order, as a
terminus technicus to have scientific application, an important reform
of the usual terminology and one which would essentially narrow the
range of the term.
[30] (_p. 19_). _Metaph._, Α 1, p. 980 a. 22.
[31] (_p. 20_) i.e., “Als richtig characterisiert.” This phrase, which
occurs frequently, I have translated sometimes as above, sometimes by
“qualified as right.” By this phrase and its equivalents is meant that
the act (sc. of loving, hating, or preferring,) is at once perceived
by us to be a right one, bears the mark or character of rightness.
[32] (_p. 20_). In order to exclude a misunderstanding and the
doubts necessarily connected therewith, I add the following remark
to what has been suggested shortly in the text. In order that an
act of feeling may be called purely good in itself it is requisite:
(1) that it be right; (2) that it be an act of pleasing and not an
act of displeasing. If either condition be absent, it is already,
in a certain respect, bad in itself; pleasure at the misfortunes of
others (Schadenfreude) is bad on the first ground; pain at the sight
of injustice, on the second ground. If both conditions are lacking,
the act is still worse, in accordance with the principle of summation
of which we shall speak later in the lecture. According to this same
principle, where a feeling is good, its increase increases also the
goodness of the act, while, similarly, where an act is purely bad, or
at least participates in any respect in the bad, with the intensity
of the feeling increases the badness of the act. When the act is a
mixed one, good and bad manifestly increase, or diminish, in simple
proportion to one another. The “plus” belonging to the one or the
other side, must therefore, with the increase in intensity of the
act become ever greater, with its decrease ever smaller. And so the
surplus of good in the act may, under certain circumstances in spite
of its impurity, be described as a very great good, while conversely,
the surplus of the bad may, despite the admixture of the good, be
described as something very bad (cf. note 36).
[33] (_p. 20_). It may happen that, at the same time, one and the
same thing is both pleasing and displeasing. First, something in
itself displeasing may yet be pleasing as a means to something else,
and vice versa; then a case may arise where something instinctively
repels us, while at the same time it is loved by us with a higher
love. We may thus have an instinctive repugnance to a sensation, which
is yet at the same time (and every idea, qua idea, is good), a welcome
enrichment of our world of ideas. Aristotle has said: “It happens
that desires enter into conflict with each other. This happens when
the reason (λὁγος) and the lower desires (ἐπιθυμα) are in opposition
(_De Anima_ iii. 10). And again: “Now the lower desires (ἐπιθυμία)
gain a victory over the higher, now the higher over the lower, and as”
(according to the ancient astronomy) “one celestial sphere the other,
so one desire draws off the other with it when the individual has lost
the firm rule over himself” (_De Anima_ ii.).
[34] (_p. 21_). Just as love and hate may be directed towards single
individuals, so also they may be directed to whole classes. This
Aristotle has already observed. We are, he thinks, “not only angry
with the individual thief who has robbed us, and with the individual
sycophant who deceives our confiding nature, but we hate thieves and
sycophants in general” (_Rhet._ ii. 4). Acts of loving and hating,
where in this way there is an underlying general conception, also
possess frequently the character of rightness. And so quite naturally
along with the experience of this given act of love or hate, the
goodness or badness of the entire class becomes manifest at one
stroke, and apart from every induction from special cases. In this
way, for example, we attain to the general knowledge that insight as
such is good. It is easy to understand how near the temptation lies,
in the case of such knowledge of a general truth without any induction
from single cases otherwise demanded in truths of experience,
entirely to overlook the preparatory experience of a feeling having
the character of rightness, and to regard the universal judgment
as an immediate synthetic _à priori_ form of knowledge. Herbart’s
very remarkable doctrine of a sudden elevation to general ethical
principles seems to me to point to the fact that he had observed
something of this peculiar process without at the same time becoming
quite clear about it.
[35] (_p. 21_). It is easy to see how important this proposition may
become for a theodicy. As regards ethics it might be feared that
its security becomes thereby seriously endangered, perhaps, indeed,
completely destroyed. To see how unfounded such a fear is, cf. note
43, p. 99.
[36] (_p. 22_). It seems to me evident even from analysis of the
notion of choice (1) that everything which is good is to be preferred,
i.e. that in an act of choice it shall fall as a reasonable moment
into the balance; (2) that everything bad forms a reasonable
anti-moment, and therefore also that (3) in such cases--partly by
direct means, partly by an addition in which the good and the bad
are to be taken into account as quantities with opposite signs--the
preponderance in which right choice is to be grounded may become
evident, i.e. the preferability or superiority of the one as opposed
to the other. According to this view, it does not, closely examined,
require the special experience of an act of preference having the
character of rightness, but only the experience of simple similarly
qualified acts of pleasing and displeasing, in order to attain in the
above-mentioned cases to the knowledge of the better. And therefore
I have said that we derived our knowledge of preferability, not from
the fact that our experience has the character of rightness, but
that the said preferences possess the character of rightness because
the knowledge of preferability has here been made the determining
standard. I do not, however, mean to say that the same distinguishing
character which was previously insisted upon in the case of certain
simple acts of pleasing is not also here really present.
[37] (_p. 24_). In order that the procedure here might have been
rendered quite exact and really exhaustive, two other very important
cases would still need to have been mentioned in the lecture. The one
case is that of pleasure in the bad, the other that of displeasure
in the bad. If we enquire: Is pleasure in the bad good? the answer
has already been given in a measure quite rightly by Aristotle: No.
“No one,” he says in the _Nicomachian Ethics_ (x. 2, p. 1174 a. 1),
“would wish to feel joy in what is shameful even if it were made
certain to him that no harm would result therefrom.” The hedonists,
to which class belonged such noble men as Fechner (cf. his work on
_The Highest Good_) contradicted this view. Their teaching is to be
rejected; in practice as Hume has observed, they fortunately proved
much better than in theory. There is still, however, a grain of truth
in their view. The pleasure in the bad is, qua pleasure, good, and
only at the same time bad as a wrong activity of feeling, and though,
by reason of this perversion, it may be described as a preponderance
of the bad, it cannot be regarded as something purely bad. While,
therefore, abhorring it as bad, we are really making an act of choice
in which freedom from what in the object is bad is preferred to the
possession of what is good. And when we recognize the aversion as
right, this is possible only because the preference has the character
of rightness.
The case is similar when we inquire if a similarly qualified
displeasure in the bad is good, as e.g. where a noble heart feels pain
on seeing the innocent oppressed, or where some one, looking back upon
his past life, feels remorse at the consciousness of a bad action.
Here the case is in every respect the reverse of the one preceding.
Such a feeling arouses a state in which pleasure preponderates, but
this pleasure is not pure; it cannot be called a pure good like the
joy which would have arisen were the opposite of that over which we
now mourn a fact, hence Descartes’ advice (cf. 24, p. 75)--to turn the
attention and feeling in an equal degree rather to the good--would
really not lose its significance. We recognize all this clearly, and
have therefore, once more a preference with the character of rightness
as the source of our knowledge of what is worthy of preference.
In order not to introduce too many complications, I omitted in my
lecture when discussing preferences to mention these cases. And this
seemed to me the more admissible, because it would practically lead
to the same result, if (like Aristotle in the case of disgraceful
pleasure) one were to treat hate qualified as right on the one hand
and love qualified as right on the other, as phenomena of simple
disinclination and inclination.
It may be easily seen that from these special cases of a possible
determination of a quantitative relation between good and bad pleasure
and displeasure, on the one hand, and of rightness and unrightness on
the other hand (cf. for these also Note 31, p. 91) there is no hope of
filling in the great gaps referred to in the lecture in a way valid
for all cases.
[38] (_p. 26_). Cf. my _Psych. from the Empirical Standpoint_, book
ii. chap. iv.
[39] (_p. 26_). E. Dumont. _Traités de législation civile et pénale,
extraits des manuscrits de J. Bentham_; espec. in the section bearing
the title: “Principes des législation,” chap. iii. section 1 towards
the end; chap. vi. section 2 towards the end; and chaps. viii. and ix.
[40] (_p. 27_). S. Rudolph Wagner. _Der Kampf um die Seele, vom
Standpunkt der Wissenschaft._ (Sendschreiben an Herrn Leibarzt Dr.
Beneke in Oldenburg.) Göttingen, 1857, p. 94 note. “Gauss said, the
author (of a certain psychological work) spoke of a want of exact
measurements in the case of psychical phenomena, but it would be good
if we only had clumsy ones, one could then make a beginning; but we
have none. There is here wanting the _conditio sine quâ non_ of all
mathematical treatment, i.e. whether and how far the changing of an
intensive into an extensive quantity is possible. Yet this is the
first and indispensable condition; then there were also others. On
this occasion Gauss spoke also about the usual incorrect definition
of quantity as an ‘ens’ which is capable of being increased or
diminished; one ought rather to say, an ‘ens’ that admits of being
divided into equal parts....”
[41] (_p. 27_). Fechner’s psycho-physical law, even were it assured,
whereas it awakens continually increasing doubt and opposition, could
only be used as a means of measuring the intensity of the content
of certain concrete perceptions, not, however, for measuring the
strength of the emotions like joy and sorrow. Attempts have been made
at determining the measure of feelings by means of the involuntary
movements and other externally visible changes accompanying them. To
me, this seems very much as if one were to seek to reckon the exact
date of the day of the month by means of the weather. The direct inner
consciousness, however imperfect its testimony may be, nevertheless
offers here far more. At least one draws from the spring itself,
whereas in the other case one has to do with water rendered impure by
a variety of influences.
42
: (_p. 27_). Sigwart, in his _Vorfragen der Ethik_ (p. 42),
emphasizes the fact that no more must be required from the human will
than what it is able to perform. This utterance, which coming from the
lips of so decided an indeterminist (cf. _Logic_, ii. p. 592) may
especially excite surprise, hangs together with his subjective view of
the good, from which view, in my opinion, there is offered no logical,
normal path to the peace of all who possess a good will. (Cf. e.g. the
way in which Sigwart, p. 15, passes over from egoism to regard for the
general good.)
But similar expressions are also heard from others. And it might really
appear doubtful whether the sublime command which bids us to subordinate
all our actions to the highest practical good is really the right
ethical principle. For, putting aside cases of want of reflection, which
do not, of course, enter here into consideration, the demand for such
complete self-devotion still seems too stringent, since there is no one,
however carefully he may conduct himself, who, looking sincerely into
his heart, will not frequently be compelled to say with Horace:--
“Nunc in Aristippi furtim praecepta relabor,
Et mihi res, non me rebus subjungere conor.”
And yet the doubt is unfounded, and a comparison may serve to make this
clear. It is certain that no one can entirely avoid error; still,
avoidable or unavoidable, every error remains a judgment, which is what
it should not be, and is opposed to the indispensable demands of logic.
What applies to logic in respect of weakness of thought applies to
ethics on the ground of weakness of will. Ethics cannot cease to demand
from a man that he should love the acknowledged good and prefer that
which is recognized to be better, not putting anything else before the
highest practical good. Even were it proved (which is not the case),
that in a definite class of cases all men without exception in respect
of these were never able to remain true to the highest practical good,
this would still not afford the slightest justification for setting
aside the fundamental ethical demand. Even then it would still remain an
evident and unchangeable truth, the sole and only right rule, here as
everywhere, to give the preference to the better over what is less good.
J. S. Mill fears that this would lead to endless self-reproaches and
that these constant reproaches would embitter the life of each
individual. This, however, is so little implied by the rule that it is
easily demonstrable that such a result is excluded. Goethe well
understood this,--
“Nichts taugt Ungeduld”
i.e. impatience in respect of one’s own imperfections, he says in one of
his by no means lax sayings,--
“Noch weniger Reue,”
--giving way to the stings of conscience, when fresh joyous resolve is
alone available,--
“Jene vermehrt die Schuld,
Diese schafft neue.”[A]
[A]
“Impatience naught avails
Nor more availeth rue,
One addeth to the fault,
The other maketh new.”--Tr.
In an album I once found in the hand of the pious Abbot Haneberg,
afterwards Bishop of Spires, the following lines, written to the same
effect:--
“Sonne dich mit Lust an Gottes Huld,
Hab’ mit allen--auch mit dir, Geduld.”[B]
[B]
“Bathe thyself with delight in the sunshine of heavenly grace,
Let patience toward all men abound--e’en with thyself find a place.”--Tr.
[43] (_p. 28_). It is necessary to be on one’s guard against drawing
from the principle of love of our neighbour the conclusion that each
has to _care for_ every other individual in the same degree as for
himself, which, far from conducing towards the universal good, would
rather essentially prejudice it. This is seen by reflecting on the
circumstance that to ourselves we stand in a position different from
that in which we stand to everybody else, while again in respect of
these others we are in a position to help, or to injure, one more,
the other less. If there are human beings in Mars the inhabitants of
the earth can and ought to wish them good also, not however to strive
after their good in the same manner as for himself and his fellow-men.
It is in this connexion that the injunction to take thought in the
first instance for oneself, a precept to be found in every system
of morality, is justifiable: “γνῷθι σαυτόν,” “Sweep before your own
doorstep,” etc. The demand to seek first of all the welfare of wife
and child, home and fatherland, is also universal. The command: “Take
no thought for the morrow,” in the sense in which it really offers
wise counsel, also flows as a result from the same source. That
my future happiness ought not to be so _dear_ to me as my present
happiness is not here implied.
So regarded, the communistic doctrines which illogical impetuosity
would seek to derive from the lofty principle of universal brotherhood
are shown to be unjustifiable.
[44] (_p. 29_). The fact that we are often unable to measure the more
remote results of our actions offers a more serious difficulty.
But even this thought will not discourage us if we love the universal
good. It may be said of all results which are unrecognizable in an
exactly equal degree, that one has just as many chances in its favour
as the others. According to the law of great numbers a compensation
will on the whole result, and so whatever calculable good we create
will stand as a plus on the one side and, just as though it stood
alone, will justify our choice.
From the same point of view, as I have already suggested in the
lecture (p. 22), the doubt is removed which in a similar manner might
arise through uncertainty as to whether everything that is good draws
from us a love having the qualification of rightness, and whether,
therefore, we are able to recognize it as good and to take due account
of it.
[45] (_p. 29_). That in the case of the limits of right
(Rechtsgrenzen) we have essentially to do with spheres which lie at
the disposal of the individual will has been frequently emphasized
both by philosophers (cf. in this respect e.g. Herbart’s Idea of
Right) and by able jurists. Ihering in his _Geist des römischen
Rechts_, iii. 1 (p. 320 note), demonstrates this with numerous
citations. Arndt e.g. in his _Handbuch der Pandekten_ defines law as
“supremacy of the will regarding an object”; for Sintenis it is, “the
will of one person raised to the universal will.” Windscheid defines
it as “a certain volition (Willensinhalt) of which the legal code in
a concrete case affirms that it may be made valid as against every
other will.” Puchta, who has perhaps expressed the thought in the
most manifold ways, says in his digest of Roman law, section 22, “as
the subjects of such a _will_ thought of potentially men are called
persons, ... personality is therefore the subjective possibility of
the legalized will, of a legal power.” In the same work (section 118,
note b) he observes in regard to a want of personality: “The principle
of modern law is inability to dispose of property”; many other of his
expressions convey the same meaning.
As however these legal authorities have concentrated their attention
exclusively upon legal duties, and do not touch upon the problem as to
the way in which the individual will has to rule in its legal sphere,
Ihering has interpreted them as meaning that they considered the
true and highest good, and the most intrinsic and final end, towards
which the legal code strives, to be the exercise of the will as will,
the joy of the individual in his volitional activity; “the final end
of all law is, for them, willing” (pp. 320, 325); “the end of law
(according to them) consists once for all in the power of the will,
in its supremacy” (p. 326). One can well understand how he comes to
condemn a theory so interpreted (p. 327), and even that he succeeds
in making it appear ridiculous. “According to this view,” he says,
(p. 320) “all private right is nothing less than an arena in which
the will moves and exercises itself; the will is the organ by which
the individual enjoys his right, the profit obtained from legal right
consists in feeling the joy and glory of power, in the satisfaction of
having realized an act of will, e.g. of having effected a mortgage,
transferred a title, and so proved oneself to be a legal personality.
What a poor thing would the will be if the bare and low regions of law
were the proper “sphere of its activity!”
Certainly the heaviest charges of absurdity and ridiculousness would
be well deserved if those scholars who regard the _immediate_ aim of
law as consisting in a limitation of the spheres at the disposal of
the will had intended in so doing to disavow all regard for the _final
ethical end_, i.e. the advancement of the highest practical good.
There is, however, absolutely nothing to justify this insinuation,
and therefore one could perhaps with more right smile at the zeal
of an attack which is really levelled merely against windmills.
Moreover, what Ihering proposes to set in its place is certainly a
bad substitute. For, in regarding the sphere ascribed by the legal
authority to the individual simply as a sphere consigned to their
egoism (a view which, as the author of _Der Zweck im Recht_, he
perhaps no longer holds), he is thus led to his definition: “Law
(Recht) is legal security for enjoyment,” whereas he would have been
more correct in saying: “Law is legal security for the undisturbed
disposal of individual power in the advancement of the highest good.”
Is then injustice something which exhausts bad conduct? By no means;
legal duties have limits; duty in general governs all our actions,
and this our popular religion expressly emphasizes, as, for instance,
when it asserts that for every idle word the individual must render an
account.
Besides this first objection, which rests upon a simple
misunderstanding of the intention, Ihering has also raised several
others which are essentially due to imperfections in the use of
language. If the legal code essentially consists in setting certain
limits to the activity of the individual will in order that one person
may not disturb the other in striving after the good, it follows that
he who has, or had, or will have no will has also no legal sphere. I
say, “has, or had, or will have,” for obviously regard must be paid to
the past and to the future. A dead man often exercises an influence
extending into the far distant future, so that Comte well says: the
living are more and more dominated by the dead. In like manner, the
situation will entail that, in respect of many problems, we leave
the decision to the future, i.e. renounce the sovereignty in favour
of a future will. This consideration resolves many a paradox urged
by Ihering (pp. 320-325); not however, all. In the case of one who
from birth has been an incurable imbecile, it is obvious that no
power of will whatever can be found, to which regard for the highest
practical good might allow a sphere; there remains therefore to him,
according to our view, really no legal sphere, and yet on every hand
we hear of a right which he possesses in his own life; even under
some circumstances, we refer to him as the owner of a great estate,
or ascribe to him the right of a crown or kingly rule. On examining
the relations closely, we find that we are never concerned here with
a true legal sphere respecting a subject incapable of being held
responsible, but rather with the legal spheres of other individuals,
as, for example, that of a father who, in providing for his imbecile
child, gives instructions in his will concerning his property, the
dominion of whose will is safeguarded after his death by the law of
the land; or (as, for example, the case where the imbecile’s life is
held to be sacred), quite apart from the injury done to the simple
duty of affection which this would involve, there is also in question
the State’s legal sphere, which permits no one else to commit a fatal
attack, and accordingly often imposes a punishment, even in the case
of an attempt at suicide.
A third objection of Ihering’s, i.e. that by a limitation of rights
as affecting spheres of will, even the most senseless dispositions of
will must be allowed legal validity (p. 325), this offers, after what
has been said, hardly any further difficulty. Certainly many a foolish
disposition of will must be allowed. Were the State not to admit
this, then it alone would possess a definitive right of disposal; all
private right would be at an end. So long as not merely subjects, but
also governments, are liable to commit acts of foolishness, such an
extension of the power of the State cannot be recommended. For the
rest, just as secondary ethical rules in general suffer exceptions,
and in particular expropriations in the case of private owners are
frequently necessary, so also it is clear and to be admitted without
contradiction, that senseless dispositions or dispositions which have
evidently lost all meaning and reference to the highest practical good
can be annulled by the State. Regard for the highest practical good
is here, as is the case of every other so-called collision of duties,
decisive.
[46] (_p. 29_). That a law, which in and for itself is bad and
contrary to nature, however condemnable from an ethical point of view,
and its modification urgently necessary, may yet in many cases receive
a provisional sanction from the reason, this has long been recognized
and made clear, as e.g. by Bentham in his _Traités de Législation
civ. et pén._ In antiquity Socrates, who deemed himself worthy to be
feasted in the Prytaneum, died for the sake of this conviction. The
positive legal code, despite all its defects, creates a condition
of things which is better than anarchy, and since each act of
insubordination to the law threatens to injure its force in general,
so in those circumstances brought about by the law itself, it may be
that provisionally and for the individual a mode of action even from
the rational standpoint is right, which, apart from this, would be in
no way justifiable. All this results without doubt from the relativity
of the secondary ethical rules, which will be treated later.
It may be added that errors respecting the laws of positive morality
(a point shortly to be discussed in the lecture) in a similar way
demand, under certain circumstances, to be taken into account.
It dare not, on the other hand, be overlooked that there are here
limits, and that the saying: “We ought to obey God rather than man,”
may not, in its free and sublime range, be allowed to suffer injury.
[47] (_p. 29_). Heraclitus of Ephesus (B.C. 500), the
oldest of the Greek philosophers, of whose philosophy we possess
rather extensive fragments.
[48] (_p. 31_). Ihering, _Der Zweck im Recht_, vol. ii. p. 119, and
other passages.
[49] (_p. 31_). _Politics_, vol. i. chap. 5.
[50] (_p. 31_). _Nic. Ethics_, v. 14, p. 1137 b. 13. _Politics_, iii.
and iv.
[51] (_p. 31_). Cf. Discours préliminaire to the _Traités de
Législation_, also the section “De l’influence des temps et des lieux
en matière de législation” of that work.
[52] (_p. 31_). _Philos. Versuch über die Wahrscheinlichkeiten von
Laplace_, translated from the sixth edition of the original text by N.
Schwaiger, Leipzig, 1886, p. 93 seq. (Application of the calculation
of probabilities to moral science.)
[53] (_p. 32_). Cf. _Allg. Juristenzeitung_, vii. p. 171; _Zweck im
Recht_, vol. ii. p. 118; 122 seq.
[54] (_p. 33_). _Grundlegung zur Physik der Sitten._ Cf. above note
14, p. 49.
[55] (_p. 34_). Cf. e.g. the Meno dialogue.
[56] (_p. 34_). Friedr. Alb. Lange, _Logische Studien, ein Beitrag zur
Neubegründung der formalen Logik und der Erkenntnislehre_. Iserlohn,
1877.
[57] (_p. 34_). Alex. Bain, _Logic_, pt. 1. Deduction. London, 1870,
p. 159 seq.
[58] (_p. 35_). e.g. Bentham, also, in antiquity, Epicurus.
[59] (_p. 35_). e.g. Plato and Aristotle, and following them Thomas
Aquinas.
[60] (_p. 35_). The Stoics, and in the Middle Ages, the followers of
Scotus.
[61] (_p. 36_). This even Epicurus did not deny (little in harmony as
it is with his utterance quoted p. 54).
[62] (_p. 36_). _Nic. Ethics_, I. i.
[63] (_p. 36_). _Metaph._ Δ 10.
[64] (_p. 36_). _Metaph._ Δ 10.
[65] (_p. 36_). They made the relation to the greater whole serve as
an argument in favour of the view that the practical life (of the
politician) stands higher than that of the theorist.
[66] (_p. 36_). This testimony to the principle of summation likewise
reappears as often as in a theory based upon egoistic and utilitarian
grounds, the notion of God is employed in the construction of ethics
(e.g. Locke; Fechner in his work on the highest good; cf. also for
Leibnitz, Trendelenburg, _Histor. Beiträge_, vol. ii. p. 245). God,
so runs their argument, loves each of His creatures, and therefore
their totality more than the single individual; He therefore approves
and rewards the sacrifice of the individual to the whole, while
disapproving and punishing self-seeking injury.
In the desire after immortality also, the influence of the principle
of summation is manifest. Thus Helmholtz, (_über die Entstehung des
Planetensystems_, lecture delivered at Heidelberg and Cologne, 1871),
in seeking to offer a hopeful prospect to those who cherish this
desire, says: “The individual (if that which we achieve can ennoble
the lives of those who succeed us) may face fearlessly the thought
that the thread of his own consciousness will one day be broken. But
to the thought of a final annihilation of the race of living mortals,
and with them, the fruits of the striving of all past generations,
even men of minds so unfettered and great as Lessing and David Strauss
could scarcely reconcile themselves.” When it is scientifically shown
that the earth will one day be incapable of supporting living beings,
then, he thinks, the need of immortality will irresistibly return, and
we shall feel bound to cast about for something which will afford us
the possibility of assuming it.
[67] (_p. 34_). _Metaph._ Δ 10.
[68] (_p. 37_). This is the standing doctrine of the great
theologians, as e.g. Thomas Aquinas in his _Summa Theologica_.
Only certain nominalists, like Robert Holcot, teach the complete
arbitrariness of the divine commands. Cf. my essay on the _Geschichte
der kirchlichen Wissenschaften im Mittelalter_, in Möhler’s _Church
History_ (published by Gams, 1867) vol. ii. 526 seq., respecting
which, however, the reader is asked not to overlook the revision of
the printer’s errors in the “errata,” p. 103 seq., at the end of that
work.
[69] (_p. 39_). At a time when psychology was far less advanced
and inquiries into the province of the calculation of probability
had not brought sufficient clearness into the process of rational
induction, it was possible even for a Hume to fall a victim to this
gross confusion. Cf. his _Enq. concern. Hum. Underst._, chaps. v.
and vi. More striking is it that James Mill and Herbert Spencer have
still not advanced in the slightest degree beyond Hume; (Cf. _Anal.
of the Phen. of the Hum. Mind_, vol. ii. chap. ix. and note 108), and
that even the acute thinker, J. S. Mill, although Laplace’s _Essai
Philosophique sur les Probabilités_ lay at his disposal, never arrived
at a clear distinction of the essential difference between these two
forms of procedure. This hangs together with his failure to appreciate
the purely analytic character of mathematics and the import of the
deductive procedure in general. Indeed he has absolutely denied that
the syllogism leads to new knowledge. Whoever bases the whole of
mathematics upon induction cannot possibly justify mathematically the
inductive procedure. It would be for him a _circulus vitiosus_. It is
here beyond question that Jevon’s _Logic_ takes a truer view.
Even in the case of Mill, it sometimes appears as if an inkling of
the immense difference had begun to dawn upon him, as when, in a note
to his _Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind_ (vol. i., chap.
xi. p. 407), in criticizing his father’s theory, he says: “If belief
is only an inseparable association, belief is a matter of _habit_
and accident and not of reason. Assuredly an association, however
close, between two ideas is not a sufficient _ground_ (the italics
are his own) of belief; it is not evidence that the corresponding
facts are united in external nature. The theory seems to annihilate
all distinction between the belief of the wise, _which is regulated
by evidence_ and conforms to the real successions and co-existences
of the facts of the universe, and the belief of fools _which is
mechanically produced_ by any accidental association that suggests
the idea of a succession or co-existence to the mind; a belief aptly
characterized by the popular expression, believing a thing because
they have taken it into their heads.” This is all excellent. But it
is robbed of its most essential worth, when, in a later note (vol.
i. p. 438. note 110) we hear J. S. Mill say: “It must be conceded to
him (the author of the _Analysis_) that an association sufficiently
strong to exclude all ideas that would exclude itself, _produces
a kind of mechanical belief_, and that the processes by which the
belief is corrected, or reduced to rational bounds, _all consist in
the growth of a counter-association_ tending to raise the idea of a
disappointment of the first expectation, and as the one or the other
prevails in the particular case, the belief or expectation exists or
does not exist exactly as if the belief were the same thing with the
association,” and so on.
There is much here that calls for criticism. When ideas are mentioned
which mutually exclude one another it may well be asked what kind
of ideas these are? According to another utterance of Mill’s (vol.
i. p. 98 seq. note 30 and elsewhere), he knows “no case of absolute
incompatibility of thought except between the thought of the
presence of something and that of its absence.” But are even these
incompatible? Mill himself teaches elsewhere the very opposite when he
thinks that along with the idea of existence there is always given at
the same time the idea of non-existence (p. 126, note 39; “we are only
conscious,” he says, “of the presence of an object by comparison with
its absence”). Apart, however, from all this, how strange is it that
Mill here overlooks the fact that he abandons entirely the distinctive
character of self-evidence, and retains only that blind and mechanical
formation of judgment, which he rightly treats with contempt. The
sceptic Hume stands in this respect far higher, since he at least sees
that such an empirical (empiristisch) view of the process of induction
does not satisfy the requirements of our reason. Sigwart’s criticism
of Mill’s theory of Induction (_Logic_, vol. ii. p. 371) contains
here much that is true, though in appealing to his postulates he has
certainly not substituted anything truly satisfactory in the place of
what is defective in Mill.
[70] (_p. 40_). Cf. Hume, _Enquiry concerning Human Understanding_,
vol. ii. towards the end.
[71] (_p. 40_). _Nic. Ethics_, iii. 10. Cf. the subtle discussions in
the subsequent chapter on the five kinds of false courage.
[72] (_p. 41_). _Nic. Ethics_, i. 2.
APPENDIX I
I
“Subjectless propositions” so the celebrated philologer has entitled a
little work which, on its first appearance, bore the title, _The Verba
Impersonalia in the Slav Languages_.
The change of name may well be connected with considerable additions in
the second edition. The new designation would, however, even in the
earlier form, have been the more suitable title. For, far from treating
the special nature of merely _one_ family of languages, the author sets
up a theory of wide-reaching significance, which, while contradicting
the prevailing view, only deserves all the more on this account general
attention. Not only philology, but also psychology and metaphysics have
an interest in the problem. Moreover, the new doctrine promised to bring
profit not only to the inquirer in these lofty spheres but also to the
schoolboy at present tortured by the school-master with impossible and
incomprehensible theories (cf. p. 23 seq.).
Such an influence, however, the treatise has not exercised. The earlier
views still hold unbroken sway even to-day, and although the appearance
of the monograph in a new edition bears testimony to a certain interest
in wider circles, this is manifestly not due to the circumstance that
the work was believed to have thrown light upon old doubts and errors.
Darwin’s epoch-making work, quite apart from the truth of its
hypothesis, had, even for its opponents, an indisputable worth; the
wealth of important observations and ingenious combinations every one
had to acknowledge with admiration. So also in the case of Miklosich,
who has compressed into a few pages a rich store of learning and
interspersed the most subtle observations. Many who have withheld their
assent to his principal thesis may still feel indebted to him for many
points of detail.
Here, however, we wish chiefly to consider the main problem and, very
briefly, to make ourselves clear respecting that with which it really
deals.
It is an old assertion of logic that the judgment consists essentially
in a binding or separating, in a relation of ideas to one another. This
view, almost unanimously maintained for two thousand years, has
exercised an influence upon other disciplines. And so we find
grammarians from very early times teaching that no more simple form of
expression in the case of the judgment exists, or can exist, than the
categorical, which combines a subject with a predicate.
That the carrying out of this doctrine brings with it difficulties could
not, of course, be permanently concealed. Propositions like: it rains,
it lightens, appear as though they had no wish to conform to this view.
Yet none the less the majority of inquirers were so firmly convinced,
that in such cases they felt compelled, not so much to doubt the
universal validity of their theory as rather to search for the subjects,
which in their view were only apparently missing. Many really believed
themselves to be in possession of the same. Now, however, in marked
contrast to the unity which had hitherto prevailed, they branched off in
the most varied directions. And if we examine somewhat closely and in
detail the various attempts at an explanation, we shall easily be able
to understand, why none of these were able to give permanent
satisfaction, or even for a time to bring about unanimity.
Science explains by reason of its comprehending a multiplicity as a
unity. Here also, of course, every effort has been made to accomplish
this, but every attempt has proved futile. When we say: it rains, many
have supposed that the unnamed subject denoted by the indefinite “it” is
“Zeus”: Zeus rains. But when we say: “es rauscht,” it is obvious that
Zeus cannot be the subject. Others again have thought that the subject
is here “das Rauschen”; consequently the meaning of the proposition
would be: “das Rauschen rauscht.” The previous example they also
completed in the same manner: “Raining, (or the rain) rains.”
When, however, we now say: “es fehlt an Geld,” the meaning must
therefore be: “das Fehlen an Geld fehlt an Geld.” But this is absurd. It
was therefore explained that the subject here is “Geld,” and the meaning
of the proposition is: “Geld fehlt an Geld.” Closely examined, this
would seem to strike a blow at the wished-for unity of explanation. If,
however, by closing one eye, the failure here may be partially ignored,
even this is useless when we stumble upon propositions like: “es giebt
einen Gott,” respecting which we arrive at no satisfactory meaning
either in the proposition: “das einen Gott geben giebt einen Gott; das
Geben giebt einen Gott,” or in the proposition, “Gott giebt einen Gott.”
It was therefore necessary to look for an explanation of an entirely
different character. But where was such an explanation to be found? And
even if ingenuity were here able to hit upon some expedient, what
availed such leaping from case to case, which could only be called the
caricature of a truly scientific explanation? Not a single designation
of the subject which has been so far suggested, can be termed suitable,
unless indeed it be a saying of Schleiermacher’s. For if this
philosopher (cf. p. 16) has really asserted that the subject in such
cases is _chaos_, this utterance must be regarded, not so much as an
attempt at explanation as rather a satire upon the hypotheses hitherto
set up by philologists.
Many inquirers are therefore of opinion that the real subjects of such
propositions as: it rains, it lightens, have, up to the present time,
not been discovered, and that even at the present time it is the
business of science to find them. But, would it not be strange if the
tracing of a subject, which is thought of by everyone, and which, though
unexpressed, forms the basis of the judgment, should yet offer such
extraordinary difficulties?
Steinthal seeks to explain this by saying that by the grammatical
subject something is suggested, which is yet unthinkable. But many will
reply with Miklosich (p. 23): “We would not, I think, be going too far
in asserting that grammar is not concerned with the unthinkable.”
The totality of the phenomena and the absolutely grotesque failure of
every attempt to determine the nature of the subject, however often and
however ingeniously this has been attempted, are the chief grounds on
which Miklosich bases his assertion that, generally speaking, the
supposed subject in the case of such propositions is a delusion, that
the proposition is no combination of subject and predicate, that, as
Miklosich expresses it, the proposition is subjectless.
Further reflections go to confirm this view, and among these one
consideration as to the nature of the judgment requires to be emphasized
on account of its special importance. Miklosich combats those who, like
Steinthal, deny that there is any reciprocal relation between grammar
and logic, at the same time repelling the attacks which, on the ground
of such a reciprocal relation, might be made against his doctrine by
psychologists and logicians. Indeed he arrives at the result that, in
consequence of the special peculiarity of certain judgments, subjectless
propositions must from the very first be expected in language. According
to his view it is wrong to suppose that every judgment is a relation
existing between ideas. It often happens that in a proposition only one
fact is affirmed or denied. In such cases a mode of expression is also
necessary, and it is obvious that this cannot well consist in a
combination of subject and predicate. Miklosich shows how philosophers
have been repeatedly led to this knowledge, though, as a rule, they have
not appreciated sufficiently the significance of their discovery. Not
sufficiently clear themselves as to the new truth to which they gave
expression, and, at the same time, clinging with strange indecision to
certain residues of the older view, it came about that what at first
they affirmed they at last essentially deny. Thus Trendelenburg chose to
find expressed in the proposition, “it lightens,” in the last resort, no
real judgment, but only the rudiments of a judgment which precedes the
notion of lightning and settles down into it, thereby forming the basis
for the complete judgment, “lightning is conducted by iron.” Herbart
finally declared such judgments as “es rauscht,” to be no judgments in
the ordinary sense, not, he thought, what in logic is, strictly
speaking, termed a judgment. The passage in which our author censures
the inconsistency of these philosophers, and shows that the source of
their confusion lies in their misunderstanding of the nature of judgment
and in their erroneous definition of it (p. 21 seq.), is excellent.
From all this Miklosich draws the conclusion that his subjectless
propositions are completely assured. And not only does he consider their
existence beyond doubt, he further shows that their appearance is by no
means so rare as might be supposed from the controversy into which it
has been necessary to enter concerning them. Their great variety had led
him, in the second part of his treatise (pp. 33-72) to set forth their
chief classes, and there we find subjectless propositions with the
Active Verb, the Reflexive Verb, the Passive Verb and the verb “to be,”
each of these four classes being illustrated by means of numerous
examples from the most various languages. This is especially the case
with the first class, where he makes an eightfold division with the
object of grouping the propositions according to the difference in their
content. He mentions as universally true (p. 6) that the finite verb of
the subjectless propositions always stands in the third person singular,
and, where the form admits a difference of gender, in the neuter.
In other directions also he traces the matter further. He shows how
these propositions did not arise later than those which predicate
something of a subject, but appear from the very outset among the
various forms of propositions (p. 13 seq., p. 19), and how, in the
course of time, they have disappeared from several languages (p. 26). He
proves that the languages in which they are preserved enjoy an
advantage, inasmuch as their application lends to the language a special
liveliness (26), and he shows how in other respects also it is not
always possible to substitute for the subjectless proposition the
categorical form, with which it is supposed to be identical. “Ich
friere” is, for instance, not fully identical with “mich friert.”
Instead of, was frierst du draussen? Komme doch herein! we cannot say:
was friert dich’s draussen? etc. “Mich friert” cannot be applied if I
expose myself voluntarily to the cold (p. 37).
II
This, shortly, is the substance of his book, regarding which I venture
to make a few critical observations.
I have sufficiently expressed in this summary, my approval of the
treatise in general, especially in respect of the main argument. The
proofs appear to me to be of so cogent a nature, that even the unwilling
will scarcely be able to escape from the truth. Quite independent of
these arguments, however, I had myself, long ago, arrived at the same
view, by way of a purely psychological analysis, and gave, in the most
decisive manner, public expression to it, when in 1874 I published my
_Psychology_.
Great, however, as were the pains I then took to set the teaching in a
clear light and to show every former view untenable, my success so far
has been slight. Apart from isolated individuals, I have been just as
little able to convince the philosopher, as Miklosich, in his first
edition, was able to convince philologists. Where a prejudice has,
during centuries, become ever more and more firmly rooted, where a
doctrine has penetrated even to the primary school, when a theory has
come to be regarded as fundamental upon which much else rests, and so,
as it were, by its weight rendered the foundation immovable, in such a
case, it is not to be expected that the error will immediately disappear
as soon as its refutation is established; on the contrary, it is to be
feared that distrust of the new view will be so great, as not even to
admit of a closer examination being made regarding the grounds on which
it rests. And yet when two investigators completely independent of each
other agree in their testimony, when by quite different paths they
arrive at the same goal, it may be hoped that this concurrence will not
be regarded as a mere coincidence, but that a more careful attention
will be bestowed upon the arguments on either side. I hope that this
will be so in the case of the new edition of Miklosich, in which I am
glad to see regard paid to my own work.
The agreement with regard to the main points makes subordinate points,
in respect of which we differ, of less moment. I shall, notwithstanding,
briefly touch on these.
Miklosich has termed those simple propositions, in which there is
contained no combination of subject and predicate, and in the
recognition of which I am in agreement with him, “subjectless
propositions.” I am not able entirely to approve his _use_ of the term
and the _grounds_ which he has given for its use.
Subject and predicate are correlative conceptions and stand or fall
together. A proposition which is truly without a subject must with equal
right be regarded as without a predicate. It does not therefore seem to
me quite fitting that Miklosich should always term such propositions
subjectless, and it is quite incorrect when he calls them mere
predicative propositions. (Cf. pp. 3, 25, 26, and elsewhere.) This might
suggest the view that he likewise believes a second conception (the
subject) is understood though not expressed, had he not in the most
decided manner denied this (p. 3 seq. and elsewhere); or that he
regarded such propositions as stunted forms of categorical propositions,
and the latter form as the original, had he not expressly refuted this
also (p. 13 seq.). His view rather seems to be, that the natural
development from the simple to the categorical form in thinking and
speaking is generally accomplished in such a way that the notion which
stands alone in the former proposition is combined with a second as
subject. “The subjectless propositions,” he says, p. 25, “are
propositions which consist only of a predicate, of what, in the natural
process of thought-formation must, in a great number of propositions, be
regarded as the prius, for which a subject may, but not necessarily
_must_ be sought.”
But this also can hardly be right, and the expression “subject” scarcely
seems to favour this view. That which forms the basis is, of course,
certainly that which in the construction of the judgment stands first.
The temporal succession of the words also agrees ill with such a view,
since, in the categorical proposition, we usually begin with the
subject. In opposition to such a view it may also be contended that the
emphasis usually falls upon the predicate (and Trendelenburg has made
use of this to indicate that the predicate is the main conception, and
even with exaggeration goes on to say: “We think in predicates,” cf. p.
19). If the predicative conception is what is newly added, it will,
accordingly, be the object of greater interest. On the other hand, we
would be compelled to expect exactly the opposite if the notion of the
subject contained the newly added moment.
It may just as truly be said, “a bird is black,” as, “something black is
a bird”; “Socrates is a man,” as, “a man is Socrates”; but Aristotle has
already observed that only the former predication is natural, the latter
form is opposed to the natural order. And this is really so far true,
that we naturally make _that_ term the subject to which we first pay
regard in forming a judgment, or to which the hearer must first attend
in order to understand the proposition, or to gain knowledge as to its
truth or falsity. We can be assured of the existence of a black bird by
seeking it among birds or among black objects, more easily, however,
among the former. In the same way we may be more easily assured that an
individual belongs to a particular species or genus by analysing its
nature than by running over the entire range of the corresponding
general notion. The cases of exceptions clearly confirm the rule and the
grounds on which it rests, as, for instance, when I say: “There is
something black; this something black is a bird,” in which case it is
just because I have first recognized the colour that I accordingly make
it the subject in the categorical proposition so formed.
Of the two categorical Sorites, the Aristotelian and the Goclenian, the
former in every succeeding link makes that term the subject which is
common to it and to the one preceding, the latter form makes it the
predicate. It is just on this account that the former appears the more
natural, and as such is generally regarded as the regular, the latter as
the reversed form. In like manner where, to a proposition not consisting
of a combination of ideas, we add a categorical proposition having one
term in common with the former, we usually apply this not as a predicate
but as a subject, and we should therefore prefer to say that a predicate
has been sought for a subject rather than that a subject has been
sought for a predicate. For example: es rauscht; das Rauschen kommt von
einem Bache (there is a sound of running water; the sound comes from the
brook). Es donnert; der Donner verkündet ein nahendes Gewitter (it
thunders; the thunder heralds an approaching storm). Es riecht nach
Rosen; dieser Rosengeruch kommt aus dem Nachbargarten (there is a smell
of roses; the rose-scent comes from a neighbour’s garden). Es wird
gelacht; das Gelächter gilt dem Hanswurste (there is laughter; the
laughter is due to the clown). Es fehlt an Geld; dieser Geldmangel ist
die Ursache der Stockung der Geschäfte (there is a lack of money; this
dearth of money is the cause of the depression in trade). Es giebt einen
Gott; dieser Gott ist der Schöpfer des Himmels und der Erde (there is a
God; this God is the maker of heaven and earth), etc., etc.
Only in _one_ sense, therefore, does the term “subjectless proposition”
appear to me justifiable, and even perhaps deserving of recommendation,
in so far as regard is paid to the fact, that the notion which is
contained thereby is the only, and therefore, of course, the main
conception; a preference which in the categorical proposition belongs,
as we have seen, to the predicate. Similarly also in respect of
categorical in relation to hypothetical propositions we would much
rather say that they are propositions without an antecedent, than
propositions without a consequent proposition; not as though we meant
that where there is no antecedent there may still be a consequent
proposition, but that in the hypothetical construction the consequent is
the main proposition. In this way then I might perhaps agree with the
author respecting the term “subjectless proposition.”
Another point, however, in which I am unable fully to agree with him is
the question as to what extent subjectless propositions are applicable.
Miklosich rightly emphasizes the fact that the limits are on no account
to be drawn too tightly. But he thinks such limits at any rate exist,
and this is just what is shown most clearly in his attempt to classify
and divide the varied nature of the matter capable of being expressed by
subjectless sentences. But this appears to me incorrect. The
applicability of the subjectless form may, strictly speaking, be rather
regarded as unlimited, since--as I believe I have already shown in my
_Psychology_--every judgment, whether expressed in categorical,
hypothetical or disjunctive form admits, without the slightest
alteration in the sense, of being expressed in the form of a subjectless
proposition or, as I expressed it, of an existential proposition. Thus
the proposition, “A man is ill,” is synonymous with “There is a sick
man”; and the proposition, “All men are mortal,” with the proposition,
“There is no immortal man,” and the like.[A]
[A] Supplementary note. What is here said of the general applicability
of the existential form holds good only with the one manifest
limitation, in respect of judgments which are really completely
simple. In expressing such judgment logic has always made use of
the categorical form; in common life they are often applied as the
expression of a plurality of judgments based upon each other. This
is clearly the case in the proposition, “this is a man.” In the
demonstrative “this” the belief in existence is already included; a
second judgment then ascribes to him the predicate “man.” Similar
cases are frequent elsewhere. In my opinion it was the original
purpose of the categorical form to serve as a means of expressing
such double judgments (Doppelurteile), which recognize something
while affirming or denying something else of it. I also believe that
the existential and impersonal forms have, by a change in function,
proceeded from this form. This does not alter its essential nature:
a lung is not a swim-bladder (Fisch-blase) even though it has
developed therefrom, and the word “kraft” is none the less a merely
syncategorematic word (Cf. Mill, _Logic_, i. 2, § 2), even though its
origin may be traced to a substantive.
In yet another direction Miklosich appears to me to have limited too
narrowly the applicability of his subjectless propositions. We have
heard that such propositions constitute “an excellence in a language,”
“respecting which all languages are very far from being able to boast”
(p. 26). This, however, appears scarcely credible if it be true, as in
another passage he has so convincingly shown, that there are and always
have been judgments which do not consist in any combination of two ideas
with each other, and which therefore it is impossible to express by
means of a connexion of a subject with a predicate (p. 16). From this
must follow, not merely, as Miklosich _affirms_, the necessary existence
of subjectless propositions generally, but further (which he _denies_)
the existence of such propositions in all languages.
That the author has here fallen into error seems to me partly explicable
from the fact that in order to proceed with the utmost caution and lay
claim to no unwarrantable example, he has not ventured to regard certain
propositions as subjectless, which, in truth, really are so. We saw that
Miklosich expressed the view that the finite verb of subjectless
propositions always stands in the third person of the singular, and,
when the form admits a difference of gender, in the neuter. This was
certainly too narrow a limit, a limit which he himself transgresses,
though this appears in a much later passage. In the second part of his
treatise he says: “In ‘es ist ein Gott,’ the notion ‘Gott’ is affirmed
absolutely without a subject, and this is also the case in the
proposition ‘_es sind Götter_’”; and he adds: The “ist” of the
existential proposition _takes the place of the so-called copula “ist,”_
which in many, though by no means in all, languages, is indispensable to
the expression of the judgment, and has the same significance as the
termination of person in the finite verb as is clearly shown in the
proposition “es ist Sommer, es ist Nacht” alongside the propositions,
“es sommert, es nachtet.” “Ist” is accordingly not a predicate (p. 34;
cf. also p. 21 above). As a matter of fact, if the proposition, “es
giebt einen Gott,” is to be considered subjectless, so also must the
proposition, “es ist ein Gott,” and therefore also, “es sind Götter”;
and thus the rule previously laid down has proved to be too narrow. That
the existential propositions and other analogous forms, which may be
found, are all to be reckoned as subjectless propositions may serve to
confirm what we have sought to show above, i.e. that no language exists,
or can exist, which entirely dispenses with these simplest forms of
propositions. Only certain special kinds of subjectless propositions
therefore, am I able, with Miklosich, to recognize as the peculiar
advantage of certain languages.
These are the criticisms which I have thought it necessary to make. It
will be seen that, if found to be justified, they do not in the
slightest degree prejudice either the correctness or the value of the
author’s main argument, but rather lend to it a still wider
significance. And so I conclude by expressing once again the wish that
this suggestive little work, which, on its first appearance did not
meet with sufficient general recognition, may in its second
edition--where individual points have been corrected, much extended, and
particularly the critical objections of scholars like Benfey, Steinthal
and others, refuted with a laconic brevity, yet rare dialectical
power--find that interest which the importance of the inquiry and its
excellent treatment deserve.
APPENDIX II
Franz Brentano, son of Christian Brentano, and nephew of Clemens
Brentano and Bettina von Arnim, was born on January 16, 1838, at
Marienberg, near Boppard on the Rhine. He early embraced the study of
philosophy and theology, both at Berlin, under Trendelenburg, and also
at Munich. In 1864 he was ordained priest, and two years later became
_privat docent_ in the University of Würzburg. In 1873 he was appointed
professor there, but in the same year resigned his office in consequence
of his changed attitude towards the Church, and as an opponent of the
Vatican Council. Somewhat later, in response to this change in his
convictions, he separated himself definitely from the Church.
In 1874 Brentano received a call to the University of Vienna, and
continued there teaching Philosophy until 1895, first as ordinary
professor, and afterwards, having meantime renounced his professorship,
as _privat docent_. The reasons which led him to retire from this post
also, are set forth in his work, _My Last Wishes for Austria_
(Stuttgart, 1895). After withdrawing from his post as teacher he took up
his residence at Florence.
Brentano regards Aristotle as his real teacher in philosophy, and his
two earliest publications, _Von der mannigfachen Bedeutung des Seienden
nach Aristoteles_ (Freiburg, i. Br. 1862), and _Die Psychologie des
Aristoteles insbesondere seine Lehre vom_ νοῦς ποιητικός (Mainz, 1867),
are a testimony to his comprehensive study and thorough knowledge of
Aristotelian philosophy. Especially is he in agreement with the
Stagirite regarding the high position he would assign to the application
of the empirical method as the only one which, in regard alike to
scientific and philosophical problems, is able by cautious and gradual
advance, to attain to knowledge. These first principles of method,
especially in their relation to psychological research, he has set forth
and practised in his first systematic work, _Psychologie vom Empirischen
Standpunkte_ (vol. i., Leipzig, 1874). It was also his regard for this
method of inquiry which early imbued him with a special interest for the
works of the most eminent English philosophers of modern times, not only
John Locke and David Hume, but also Bentham, the two Mills, Jevons and
others. A study of these writers led Brentano to enter at length in his
Würzburg lectures into a critical and explanatory treatment of English
psychology and logic, characterizing it as a source of instruction and
inspiration at a time when other distinguished advocates of German
philosophy looked askance at this attitude towards English thought,
believing that by its contact with English writers the peculiar
character of German thought might suffer. It will be observed that only
the first volume of the _Psychology from the Empirical Standpoint_ has
hitherto appeared, and it seems hardly likely that the work in its
present form will be continued, for further reflection convinced
Brentano that _descriptive_[A] psychology, or Psychognosy, as of most
importance in the examination and presentation of psychological
problems, must be separated from _genetic psychology_,[B] a study
necessarily half physiological in character; and that the former problem
as the naturally earlier and least difficult study should first be as
far as possible completed.
[A] i.e. the closest possible description and analysis of psychical
_events_ and their contents, on the basis of inner observation.
[B] i.e. the more difficult inquiry into the laws underlying the
origin of phenomena.
Such _psychognostical inquiries_, although not yet in principle
separated from genetic inquiry, occupy by far the greater part of the
first volume of the _Psychology from the Empirical Standpoint_. Among
the subjects there treated are: 1, the fundamental revision of the
classification of psychical phenomena, and their division into the three
main classes: ideas, judgments, and phenomena of love and hate; 2, and
in particular, a new and more appropriate characterization of the
judgment.
The insufficiency of the old doctrine according to which judgment
consists essentially in a connexion of ideas, had already been shown by
Hume, and more recently was strongly emphasized by Mill, though neither
was able to arrive at perfect clearness respecting its real nature.
Notwithstanding this, the affinity of Brentano’s doctrine of the
judgment with that of Mill, led to a scientific correspondence, and
later to arrangements for a personal interview, when, at the last
moment, the plan was frustrated by the death of the great English
investigator.
The new description of the judgment and its essential qualities form the
basis for a reform of logic even in its most elementary stages, a reform
which, in its essential features, is suggested in the above-mentioned
work, and also touched upon in the Essay here translated; but this truer
description of the phenomenon of judgment also throws light upon the
description and classification of the _modes of speech from the point of
view of their function or meaning_,--a classification based upon true
and most essential distinctions. In comparison with phonetics this
branch is still little developed. What is here said, was seen by eminent
philologists like Fr. von Miklosich, the pioneer in the sphere of Slav
comparative philology. In the appendix will be found an article bearing
upon this view.
While engaged in a profound study of the descriptive peculiarities
connected with the third fundamental class of psychical states above
referred to--a study analogous to that previously undertaken by him with
regard to the judgment--Brentano was led to the discovery of the
_principles of ethical knowledge_ which form the subject of this
lecture. The author, in his lectures delivered before students of all
faculties, but especially to students in the faculty of law, during each
winter session throughout many years, presented a complete and fully
developed system of ethical teaching based upon these principles.[A]
Unfortunately, this lecture still remains unpublished. The same holds
good of many of his inquiries into “descriptive psychology,” or
psychognosie, e.g. inquiries into the nature of sense perceptions
according to their qualitative and spatial nature, the nature of the
continuum, the time phenomenon, etc., the results of which are hitherto
familiar only to those who have either attended his lectures, or have
been present during private conversations.
[A] Since this essay was written the statements as to the principles
here developed have been modified only in respect of two points which,
if not practically important, are still theoretically so, and these,
with the author’s permission, may be here shortly referred to:--
1. In the lecture (p. 15) it is said that anything may be either
affirmed or denied, and that if the affirmation is right its denial
must be considered wrong, and vice versâ. It is also stated that this
is true analogously in respect of love and hate.
This Brentano no longer asserts, but rather observes that whereas the
whole must be denied, if but a part is untrue, a sum of good and bad,
on the other hand, may be of such a nature as nevertheless as a whole
to be worthy of love. It may be also so constituted that good and bad
remain in equilibrium.
2. In the lecture (p. 24), and in the corresponding note 37 (p. 87),
it is said that our preference qualified as right in the case where,
for instance, to one good another is added, is drawn, not from our
knowledge of the preferability of the sum as opposed to the parts,
but that analytic judgments here yield the means of our advance in
knowledge, and that the corresponding preferences are therefore
qualified as right, since the knowledge (given analytically) is here
the criterion. Here it is overlooked that without the experience of
acts of preferring we neither have nor could have the conception,
and therefore also our notion of preferability. And so it is also
true that it is by no means evident from analysis that one good plus
another is preferable to each of these goods taken singly. Here also a
complete analogy to the sphere of the true is wanting.
One truth added to another does not yield something more true. On
the other hand, one good plus another good yields a better. But that
this is so can only be understood by means of a special experience
belonging peculiarly to this sphere, i.e. by means of the experience
of acts of preferring which are qualified as right.
As to the other branches of philosophy, the work of Brentano already
published forms but a portion--often but the smaller portion--of
investigations, which, in the manner above described, have become known
to a larger or smaller circle of disciples. This explains the striking
fact that, in proportion to the extent of what has been published, an
unusually large number of investigators and scholars appear in a greater
or lesser degree to have been influenced by Brentano. (Überweg-Heinze,
in the eighth edition of the _Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie_,
reckons, as belonging to his school, six names of men at present
occupying important positions as teachers of philosophy.)
One section of Brentano’s doctrine of sense-perception forms the
substance of a lecture, _Zur Lehre von der Empfindung_, delivered at the
Third International Psychological Congress held in Munich (1896), and
published in the report of its proceedings (1897). A fragment of the
above system of ethical inquiry, _Über das Schlechte als Gegenstand
dichterischer Darstellung_ (Leipzig, 1892), treats of the worth and
preferability of the ideas employed by the artist.
With regard to psycho-genetic problems, apart from the question as to
the meaning and validity of Fechner’s psycho-physical law, a question
discussed in the first volume of his _Psychology_ and elsewhere, and
that of the spirituality and immortality of the soul, which formed
repeatedly the substance of lectures at Vienna University, Brentano has
especially occupied himself with the laws of the association of ideas.
One result of this study is his lecture, _Das Genie_, published in 1892,
which seeks to explain the artistic productions of men of genius--often
regarded as something quite unique and inexplicable--as a development of
psychical events which universally control our imaginative life.
Of Brentano’s researches in _metaphysics_ and in the _theory of
knowledge_ it must also be said that hitherto they remain still
unpublished, though they are familiar to a greater or smaller circle of
disciples. In this latter sphere are to be mentioned particularly his
inquiries respecting the nature of our insight into the law of
causality, the logical justification of induction, the _a priori_ nature
of mathematics, and the nature of analytic judgments. In ontological
questions also psychognosie has proved fruitful to the investigator in
leading him to an understanding and to an analysis based upon
experience, of the most important metaphysical notions, as, for
instance, causality, substance, necessity, impossibility, etc., notions
which some, despairing of the task rightly insisted upon by Hume, of
showing their origin to be based upon perception and experience, have
sought to explain straight away as _a priori_ categories.
For the rest, Brentano, in regard to metaphysics, is a decided theist.
He is an adherent of the theory of evolution, while denying that
accidental variations and natural selection in the struggle for
existence render explicable the phenomena of evolution and the
teleological character of the organism, basing his objections, among
other things, upon the fact that this attempt at a solution not only
leaves unexplained the first beginnings of an organism, but also takes
too little account of the fact that with the increasing perfection and
complication of the organism it becomes more and more improbable that an
accidental variation will lead to an improvement upon that which already
exists. And yet if there is to be progress, the organisms which, in the
struggle for existence, survive must not only be more perfect than those
which perish, but also more perfect than the organisms through which
they themselves are descended.
Brentano’s views on the historical development of philosophical inquiry
and the causes determining that development, the present state of
philosophy and its views regarding the future, he has set forth in
various publications: _Die Geschichte der Philosophie im Mittelalter_
(Möhler’s _Kirchengeschichte_, vol. ii. 1868); _Über die Gründe der
Entmutigung auf philosophischem Gebiete_ (Vienna, 1874), delivered as an
inaugural address on entering upon his work at Vienna University; _Was
für ein Philosoph manchmal Epoche macht_ (Vienna, 1876); _Über die
Zukunft der Philosophie_ (Vienna, 1893); and _Die vier Phasen der
Philosophie und ihr augenblicklicher Stand_ (Stuttgart, 1895).
In the last work a concise survey is made of the entire course of the
History of Philosophy, and it is there shown how in the three periods,
rightly regarded as distinct (Greek Philosophy, the Philosophy of the
Middle Ages, and Modern Philosophy), there is each time an analogous
change, a rising or blossoming period, and three periods of decadence,
of which those which succeed are always the psychologically necessary
result of the preceding. That in so doing Brentano has characterized the
latest phase of German philosophy, the so-called idealistic direction
from Kant to Hegel as the third or mystic period of decadence (howbeit
with all due recognition of the talents of these writers) has naturally
aroused violent opposition, though it has not found any real refutation.
It has been already said that Brentano’s earliest efforts were directed
to historical inquiries and especially to a presentation of the
Aristotelian psychology and to important sections of his Metaphysics.
The results of these researches, diverging as they did in many respects
from the traditional view, did not fail to awaken the attention of other
investigators. Their attitude, however (with a few exceptions like
Trendelenburg, and in part also Grote), was, on the whole, hostile and
polemic. This was especially so in the case of E. Zeller, in the later
edition of his _Greek Philosophy_, and in view of the reputation which
this work enjoys, Brentano thought it necessary to offer, as against
Zeller’s attacks, at least with regard to one point, an apology for his
own view, a point where the threads of metaphysics and psychology become
most intimately related, and where at the same time, the contrast
between the opposing views of these two writers in the psychological and
metaphysical spheres alike culminate. And so there appeared in the
_Report of the Proceedings of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in
Vienna_ (1882) Brentano’s article: “Über den Creatianismus des
Aristoteles, in regard to which E. Zeller in the same year, in the
_Report of the Proceedings of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences in
Berlin_, (vol. 49), published a detailed reply under the title: “Über
die Lehre des Aristoteles von der Ewigkeit des Geistes.” The charge
which is there made by Zeller against Brentano of interpreting Aristotle
without sufficient confirmation and with over-confidence, Brentano has
sufficiently repelled in his _Offener Brief an Herrn Prof. Dr. E.
Zeller_ (Leipzig, 1883), and the proofs which are here offered of the
way in which Zeller, on his part, bases his own attempts at explanation
and his charges against Brentano show distinctly that, if here one of
the two opponents is really open to the charge of over-confidence, it is
at any rate not Brentano.
* * * * *
Dante and Giovanni del Vergilio
By PHILIP H. WICKSTEED, M.A., and
EDMUND G. GARDNER, M.A.
Demy 8vo. 12_s._
The Mind of Tennyson
HIS THOUGHTS ON GOD, FREEDOM, AND IMMORTALITY
By E. HERSHEY SNEATH, PH.D.
Professor of Philosophy in Yale University.
Crown 8vo. 5_s._ net. Third Edition.
“Admirably sums up for us Tennyson’s philosophic ideas and the creed he
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The Teachings of Dante
By CHARLES ALLEN DINSMORE
With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo. 5_s._ net.
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The Chronicle of Villani
Translated by ROSE E. SELFE. Edited by Rev. P. H. WICKSTEED
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* * * * *
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(Stanhope Prize Essay.) By R. W. SETON WATSON
Illustrated. 5_s._ net.
“A sound and well-considered piece of historical criticism.”--_Daily
News._
“A notable essay.”--_Morning Post._
By G. S. STREET, Author of “The Trials of the Bantocks,”
“The Autobiography of a Boy,” “A Book of Stories,” etc.
Crown 8vo. Cloth Gilt. 6_s._
A volume of essays divided under three headings: (1) London; (2) Books
and Men; (3) Various.
Studies in the Lives of the Saints
By EDWARD HUTTON, Author of “Frederic Uvedale.”
Fcap. 8vo. 3_s._ 6_d._ net.
Ephemera Critica
PLAIN TRUTHS ABOUT CURRENT LITERATURE
By JOHN CHURTON COLLINS
Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 7_s._ 6_d._
“A book of uncommon interest and importance. A collection of essays
united in a common aim, and inspired by a genuine enthusiasm for
literature; it has something to say and says it without fear or
favour.”--_Literature._
Chalmers on Charity
A Selection of Passages and Scenes to illustrate the Social Teaching and
Practical Work of THOMAS CHALMERS, D.D.
Arranged and Edited by N. MASTERMAN, M.A.
Eighteen years Member of the London Charity Organization Society,
and some time Guardian in the Parish of Kensington.
414 pp. Price 7_s._ 6_d._ net. With a Frontispiece.
“We should advise such of our readers as care to know the arguments
against public poor relief to look at a book which has just been
published by Mr. N. Masterman.... He has succeeded in making the
unpopular side of a dry subject keenly interesting.”--_Spectator._
Human Immortality
By WILLIAM JAMES, Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University.
Fourth Edition. 16mo. 2_s._ 6_d._
“Professor James is well known as one of the most suggestive and
original writers, and as certainly the most brilliant psychologist
living. Whatever, therefore, he has to say on this subject is worth
listening to; for he thinks freely, and he knows all that the scientist
knows, and more too.”--_Spectator._
* * * * *
A CATALOGUE OF BOOKS
PUBLISHED BY
Archibald Constable & Co Ltd
2 WHITEHALL GARDENS
WESTMINSTER
PAGE
HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, AND CRITICISM 3
TRAVEL 14
SPORT 17
NAVAL AND MILITARY 18
FINE ART 20
EDUCATIONAL AND TECHNICAL 22
RELIGIOUS 31
FICTION 33
POETRY 42
BOOKS FOR THE YOUNG 47
INDEX 49
BOOKS ARRANGED IN ORDER OF PRICES 53
* * * * *
THE ANCESTOR
A Quarterly Review of County and
Family History, Heraldry
and Antiquities
EDITED BY OSWALD BARRON, F.S.A.
_Large Super Royal, in paper boards
with numerous Illustrations_
_5s. net Quarterly_
“Thoroughly original in scope and style, the publishers are to be
congratulated on its effective appearance. _The Ancestor_ intends to
apply the spirit of a new and conscientious criticism to the revived
interest in genealogy and family history.”--THE ATHENÆUM.
“Such a new departure is certainly designed to fill a want which has
long been felt, and the names of its contributors guarantee the accuracy
and importance of its contents.”--THE TIMES.
“Printed in old-faced type, and neatly bound in studious-looking boards,
the new periodical makes a very handsome appearance. The pages of _The
Ancestor_ are brightened by portraits, illustrations of old armorial
glass, and so on. It is edited carefully and with knowledge, and should
command popularity among the large number of readers to whom it
appeals.”--THE STANDARD.
“Clearly printed on good paper, and freely and excellently illustrated.
The literary contents of the number are of solid and varied interest.
Altogether _The Ancestor_ is quite admirable in its aims, which it seems
determined to achieve in scholarly and attractive fashion.”--THE GLOBE.
“The promise of a really authoritative periodical of English genealogy
and family history will be received with general satisfaction. This is
given us in the announcement of _The Ancestor_, a quarterly to be edited
by Mr. Oswald Barron and published by Archibald Constable & Co., London.
Mr. Barron’s unusual knowledge in the field to be covered is well known
to many who are interested in it. The list of contributors, including
among others Sir George Sitwell, Sir H. Maxwell-Lyte, Mr. J. Horace
Round, and Mr. St. John Hope, besides the editor, certainly supports the
promise of accuracy and authority.”--THE NATION, NEW YORK.
* * * * *
History, Biography, and
Criticism.
=ANITCHKOW, MICHAEL.= =War and Labour.= Demy 8vo. 18s.
=ANON.= =Regeneration.= A Reply to Max Nordau. Demy 8vo. 14s.
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=BEATTY, WILLIAM, M.D.= (Surgeon of H.M.S. _Victory_). =An Authentic
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=BIRRELL, AUGUSTINE, Q.C.= See =Boswell.=
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=BRADLEY, A. G.= =The Fight with France for North America.= New
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=BRIGHT, E. B.=, and =CHARLES, F.R.S.E.= =The Life of Sir Charles
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=BROWN’S LETTERS.= Edited by Sidney T. Irwin. See page 8.
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=COLLINS, J. CHURTON.= =Ephemera Critica=: Plain Truths about Current
Literature. Crown 8vo. Second Edition. 7s. 6d.
=COURTNEY, W. L.= =The Idea of Tragedy.= With a Prefatory Note by A. W.
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=CURRIE, MAJOR-GENERAL FENDALL.= =Below the Surface.= Sketches of Civil
and Native Life in India. Crown 8vo. 6s.
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India). =Problems of the Far East--China, Japan, Korea.= With
numerous Illustrations and Maps. Extra Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d.
=DALE, T. F., M.A.= (Stoneclink). =The History of the Belvoir Hunt
from the Year 1720.= See page 17.
=---- = =The Eighth Duke of Beaufort and the Badminton Hunt.= See page
17.
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=DE BURY, MLLE. BLAZE.= =French Literature of To-day.= Crown 8vo. 6s.
=DEIGHTON, KENNETH.= =Conjectural Readings in the Old Dramatists.=
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=DINSMORE, CHARLES A.= =The Teachings of Dante.= With illustrations.
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=DUFF, C. MABEL.= =The Chronology of India.= From the Earliest Times to
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=FOX, ARTHUR W., M.A.= =A Book of Bachelors.= Essays on Ten Celebrated
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Edited by JAMES GAIRDNER, of the Public Record Office. Photogravure
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=GODKIN, E. L.= =Problems of Modern Democracy.= Large Crown 8vo. 7s.
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=Backwards or Forwards?= }
=Can Russia Invade India?= } See page 18.
=India’s Scientific Frontier.= }
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=HOUFE, C. A.= =The Question of the Houses.= Small 16mo. 2s. 6d.
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Travel.
=BATTYE, AUBYN TREVOR-, F.L.S., F.Z.S.= =Author of ‘Icebound on
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=A Northern Highway of the Czar.= Fully Illustrated. Crown 8vo. 6s.
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This Atlas will be found of great use not only to tourists and
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INDEX TO AUTHORS
Addison, Joseph, 22.
‘Alien,’ 33.
Allen, Rev. G. C., 42.
Andom, R., 33.
Anitchkow, Michael, 3.
Anon., 3, 33.
Arber, Professor Edward, 22-25.
Argyll, Duke of, 33.
Armstrong, Arthur Coles, 42.
Arnold, T. W., 3.
Arnold, Sir Edwin, 45.
Ascham, Roger, 22, 23.
Bacon, Lord, 23.
Bain, R. Nisbet, 3.
Ballin, Mrs. A., 26.
Bankes, Roden, 26.
Barmby, Beatrice Helen, 42.
Barnfield, Richard, 25.
Bartholomew, J. G., F.R.G.S., 14.
Bates, Arlo, 33.
Battersby, Caryl, 42.
Battye, A. Trevor-, F.L.S., 14.
Baughan, B. E., 42.
Bayley, Sir Steuart Colvin, 7.
Beatty, William, M.D., 3.
Beaumont, Worby, 26.
Berthet, E., 33.
Bertram, James, 4.
Bidder, George, 42.
Bidder, M., 33.
Birdwood, Sir George, M.D., K.C.I.E., C.S.I., LL.D., 15.
Birrell, Augustine, Q.C., M.P., 4.
Black, C. E. D., 10.
Blount, Bertram, 26.
Bonavia, Emmanuel, M.D., 26.
Boswell, James, 4.
Bower, Marian, 33.
Brabant, Arthur Baring, 10.
Bradley, A. G., 4.
Brame, J. S. S., 28.
Bright, Charles, F.R.S.E., 4.
Bright, Edward Brailston, C.E., 4.
Brownell, W. C., 20.
Browning, Robert, 42.
Bryden, H. A., 33.
Burroughs, John, 5.
Cairnes, Capt. W. E., 33.
Campbell, James Dykes, 42.
Campbell, Lord Archibald, 5.
Capes, Bernard, 33.
Carmichael, M., 34.
Caxton, William, 24.
‘Centurion,’ 5.
Chailley-Bert, J., 5.
Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. Joseph, M.P., D.C.L., LL.D., 5.
Chambers, R. W., 34.
Charles, Joseph F., 34.
Charrington, Charles, 34.
Coldstream, J. P., 26.
Cole, Alan S., 20.
Collins, J. Churton, 5.
Conway, Sir William Martin, 14.
Cooper, Bishop Thomas, 25.
Cooper, E. H., 34.
Cornish, F. Warre, 34.
Courtney, W. L., 5.
Coxon, Ethel, 34.
Cunynghame, Henry, 20.
Currie, Maj.-Gen. Fendall, 5.
Curzon, The Right Hon. George N. (Lord Curzon of Kedleston), 5.
Dale, T. F. (Stoneclink), 17, 34.
Daniell, A. E., 20, 31.
Danvers, Fred. Charles, 7.
Darnley, Countess of, 34.
Davidson, Thomas, 6.
Decker, Thomas, 24.
Deighton, Kenneth, 6.
De Bury, Mlle. Blaze, 6.
Denny, Charles E., 34.
Dinsmore, Charles A., 6.
Doughty, Charles, 43.
Doyle, C. W., 34.
Dryden, John, 43.
Duff, C. M., 6.
Durand, Lady, 15.
Dutt, R. C., C.I.E., 6.
Earle, Alice Morse, 12.
Earle, John, 22.
Elliott, Robert H., 15.
Englehardt, A. P., 15.
Filippi, Filippo de, 15.
Fish, Simon, 24.
Flowerdew, Herbert, 35.
Forbes-Robertson, Frances, 35.
Ford, Paul Leicester, 35.
Fox, Arthur W., 6.
Gairdner, James, 6.
Gale, Norman, 43.
Gall, John, M.A., LL.B., 27.
Gardner, Edmund, 43.
Gascoigne, George, 22.
Gemmer, C. M., 43.
Glasgow, Ellen, 35.
Godkin, E. L., 6, 7.
Goffic, Charles le, 36.
Gomme, G. Laurence, 7, 36, 37, 47.
Googe, Barnabe, 23.
Gosson, Stephen, 22.
Graham, David, 43.
Granby, Marchioness of, 20.
Greene, Robert, M.A., 24.
Gribble, Francis, 7.
Guillemard, Dr. F. H. H., 16.
Gwynn, Paul, 35.
Habington, William, 23.
Hackel, Eduard, 27.
Hake, A. Egmont, 7.
Hanna, Col. H. B., 7, 18.
Hannan, Charles, F.R.G.S., 35.
Harald, J. H., 31.
Harewood, Fred., 33.
Harris, Joel Chandler (Uncle Remus), 35.
Hayden, E. G., 7.
Hewitt, J. F., 7.
Hewlett, Maurice, 35.
Hodgson, R. Ll., 15, 34.
Holden, Ed. S., LL.D., 8.
Holland, Clive, 27.
Hope, W. H. St. John, 8, 20.
Houfe, C. A., 8.
Howell, James, 23.
Hunter, Sir W. W., 8.
Hutten, Baroness von, 35.
Hyde, William, 21.
Irwin, Sidney T., 8.
James, Henry, 35, 36.
James, King, the First, 23.
James, William, 8.
Jardine, Hon. Mr. Justice, 16.
Johnston, Mary, 35, 36.
Joy, George, 25.
Kennedy, Admiral, 17.
Kingsley, Charles, 36.
Knox, John, 24.
Krehbiel, Henry E., 8.
Lachambre, Henri, 15.
Lafargue, Philip, 36.
Lane-Poole, Stanley, 8.
Latimer, Hugh, 22.
Leach, A. F., M.A., 8, 27.
Leaf, Cecil H., M.A., 27.
Leaf, H. M., M.I.E.E., 27.
Legg, L. G. Wickham, 8, 21.
Lever, Rev. Thomas, 23.
Lewes, Vivian B., 28.
Loti, Pierre, 36.
Lover, Samuel, 36.
Lyly, John, 22.
Lytton, Lord, 36.
Macfarlane, Charles, 37.
MacGeorge, G. W., 8.
Machuron, Alexis, 15.
MacIlwaine, Herbert C., 37.
Macleod, Fiona, 37, 48.
MacNair, Major J. F. A., 9.
Machray, Robert, 37.
Madge, H. D., Rev., 31.
Marprelate, Martin, 24.
Mason, A. E. W., 37.
Masterman, N., 9.
Mayo, John Horsley, 18.
M’Candlish, J. M., 10.
McIlwraith, Jean, 37.
McLaws, Lafayette, 37.
Meakin, A. M. B., 16.
Meredith, George, 9, 21, 37, 38, 43.
Merejkowski, Dmitri, 38.
Metcalfe, Charles Theophilus, C.S.I., 9.
Meynell, Alice, 21.
Mills, E. J., 44.
Milton, John, 22.
Mitchell, H. G., 32.
Monier-Williams, Sir M., K.C.I.E., 7.
Monk of Evesham, A, 23.
Montague, Charles, 39.
More, Sir Thomas, 22.
Morison, M., 9, 28.
Morison, Theodore, 9.
Mowbray, J. P., 39.
Münsterberg, Hugo, 9.
Nansen, Fridtjof, 16.
Naunton, Sir Robert, 23.
Nesbit, E., 44.
Newberry, Percy E., 10, 21.
Newman, Mrs., 39.
Nisbet, John, 10.
O’Donoghue, J. T., 56.
Ookhtomsky, Prince E., 16.
Oppert, Gustav, 10.
Paine, Albert Bigelow, 48.
Palmer, Walter, M.P., 10.
Parker, Nella, 39.
Payne, Will, 39.
Peel, Mrs., 28.
Penrose, Mrs. H. H., 39.
Perks, Mrs. Hartley, 39.
Piatt, John James, 44.
Piatt, Mrs., 44.
Pickering, Sidney, 39.
Pincott, F., 44.
Popowski, Joseph, 10.
Powell, F. York, 42.
Prichard, Hesketh, 16.
Prichard, K. & Hesketh, 39.
Puttenham, George, 23.
Rait, R. S., 10, 44, 45.
Raleigh, Sir Walter, 23.
Reed, Marcus, 39, 58.
Rice, Louis, 10.
Rinder, E. Wingate, 36.
‘Rita,’ 39.
Roberts, Morley, 16.
Robertson, David, 27.
Robinson, Clement, 24.
Rogers, Alexander, 45.
Rogers, C. J., 28.
Roosevelt, Theodore, 11.
Round, J. Horace, M.A., 11.
Roy, W., 23.
Russell, W. Clark, 40.
Ryley, Rev. J. Buchanan, 11, 32.
Sangermano, Father, 16.
Sapte, Brand, 7.
Schweitzer, Georg, 11.
Scott, Eva, 11.
Scott, Sir Walter, 40.
Scrutton, Percy E., 28.
Selden, John, 22.
Selfe, Rose E., 12.
Setoun, Gabriel, 40.
Shakespeare, William, 45.
Sharp, William, 40.
Siborne, Captain William, 11, 18.
Sichel, Edith, 12.
Sidney, Sir Philip, 22.
Sinclair, May, 40.
Sinclair, Ven. Archdeacon, D.D., 52.
Skrine, J. Huntley, 32, 45.
Slaughter, Frances, 34.
Smith, Edward, 12.
Smith, F. Hopkinson, 40.
Smith, Captain John, 25.
Smythe, A. J., 12.
Sneath, E. Hershey, 12, 32.
Soane, John, 40.
Somervell, Arthur, 48.
Somerville, William, 43.
Spalding, Thomas Alfred, 12, 18.
Spenser, Edmund, 45.
Stadling, J., 16.
Stanihurst, Richard, 24.
Stanton, Frank L., 45.
Steel, Flora Annie, 40.
Stein, M. A., 12.
Stevenson, Wallace, 45.
Stoker, Bram, 40, 41.
Stoneclink (T. F. Dale), 6, 17, 34.
Street, G. S., 12, 41.
Stuart, John, 12.
Sturgis, Julian, 41.
Tarver, J. C., 29.
Thompson, Francis, 46.
Thomson, J. J., F.R.S., 29.
Thomson, James, 46.
Thorburn, S. S., 41.
Thornton, Surg.-General, C.B., 13.
Torrey, Joseph, 29.
Tottel, R., 23.
Townsend, Meredith, 12.
Traill, H. D., 13.
Trench, Herbert, 38.
Turner, H. H., F.R.S., 29.
Tynan, Katharine, 41.
Udall, Rev. John, 24.
Udall, Nicholas, 23.
Vallery-Radot, R., 13.
Vibart, Colonel Henry M., 13, 19.
Villiers, George, 22.
Waddell, Surg.-Maj. J. A., 16.
Walker, Charles, 17.
Warren, Kate M., 28, 30.
Watson, Thomas. 23.
Webb, Surgeon-Captain, W. W., 30.
Webbe, E., 22.
Webbe, William, 23.
Wesslau, O. E., 7.
White, W. Hale, 42.
White, Percy, 41.
White, Stewart E., 41.
Whiteway, R. S., 13.
Wicksteed, Rev. P. H., 13, 43.
Wigram, Percy, 7.
Wilkinson, Spenser, 13, 18, 19.
Wilson, A. J., 17.
Wilson, J. M., M.A., 32.
Wilson, Robert, 46.
Wilson, Sarah, 32.
Winslow, Anna Green, 13.
Wood, Walter, 13.
Young, Ernest, 16.
‘Zack,’ 41.
Zimmermann, Dr. A., 50.
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* * * * *
THE WAVERLEY NOVELS.
Facsimile Reprint of the Favourite Edition of SIR
WALTER SCOTT. With all the Original Plates
and Vignettes.
Red cloth, paper back title. Price 1s. 6d. per vol. net.
Cloth gilt, gilt top. Price 2s. per vol. net.
Quarter leather, gilt top. Price 2s. 6d. per vol. net.
Vols. 1, 2. =Waverley.=
Vols. 3, 4. =Guy Mannering.=
Vols. 5, 6. =The Antiquary.=
Vols. 7, 8. =Rob Roy.=
Vol. 9. =The Black Dwarf.=
Vols. 10, 11. =Old Mortality.=
Vols. 12, 13. =Heart of Midlothian.=
Vol. 14. =Bride of Lammermoor.=
Vol. 15. =Legend of Montrose.=
Vols. 16, 17. =Ivanhoe.=
Vols. 18, 19. =The Monastery.=
Vols. 20, 21. =The Abbot.=
Vols. 22, 23. =Kenilworth.=
Vols. 24, 25. =The Pirate.=
Vols. 26, 27. =Fortunes of Nigel.=
Vols. 28, 29, 30. =Peveril of the Peak.=
Vols. 31, 32. =Quentin Durward.=
Vols. 33, 34. =St. Ronan’s Well.=
Vols. 35, 36. =Redgauntlet.=
Vol. 37. =The Betrothed.=
Vol. 38. =The Talisman.=
Vols. 39, 40. =Woodstock.=
Vol. 41. =Highland Widow, etc.=
Vols. 42, 43. =Fair Maid of Perth.=
Vols. 44, 45. =Anne of Geierstein.=
Vols. 46, 47. =Count Robert of Paris.= =Castle Dangerous.=
Vol. 48. =The Surgeon’s Daughter.= =Glossary.=
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber: natually desire
knowledge=> naturally desire knowledge {pg 19}
“ber Üdie Entstehung des Rechtsgefühls.”=> “Über die Entstehung des
Rechtsgefühls.” {pg 43}
is is obvious that Zeus=> it is obvious that Zeus {pg 106}
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Origin of the Knowledge of Right
and Wrong, by Franz Brentano
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The Origin of the Knowledge of Right and Wrong
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THE ORIGIN
OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF
RIGHT AND WRONG
THE ORIGIN
OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF
RIGHT AND WRONG
ENGLISH TRANSLATION
BY CECIL HAGUE
FORMERLY LECTOR AT
PRAGUE UNIVERSITY
WESTMINSTER
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO LTD
2 WHITEHALL GARDENS
1902
BUTLER &...
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Book Information
- Title
- The Origin of the Knowledge of Right and Wrong
- Author(s)
- Brentano, Franz
- Language
- English
- Type
- Text
- Release Date
- June 17, 2015
- Word Count
- 55,871 words
- Library of Congress Classification
- BJ
- Bookshelves
- Browsing: Philosophy & Ethics, Browsing: Psychiatry/Psychology, Browsing: Religion/Spirituality/Paranormal
- Rights
- Public domain in the USA.
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