ENGLISH PSYCHOLOGY. ENGLISH PSYCHOLOGY 
TRANSLA TED FROM THE FRENCH OF 
TH. RIBOT 
HARTLEY—JAMES MILL—HERBERT SPENCER 
A. BAIN—G. H. LEWES—SAMUEL BAILEY 
JOHN STUART MILL 
NEW YORK: 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 
1, 8, and 5 BOND STREET. 
1891. CONTENTS. 
INTRODUCTION. 
PAGE 
I. Past and future Philosophy—2. Two meanings of the word 
Philosophy—3. Why the Sciences become independent—4. 
That Philosophy will become Metaphysics; Poetry and Meta- 
physics—5. Psychology as an independent science—6. Object 
and method of ordinary Psychology—7. Object and method of 
experimental Psychology—8. Divisions of Psychology ; general, 
comparative, teratological Psychology,—science of character- 
istics—9. Object of the work, • I 
HARTLEY, 35 
MR. JAMES MILL, 44 
CHAPTER I.—SENSATIONS AND IDEAS. 
Sensations and Ideas.—I. The association of ideas—2. Language—3. 
Memory, imagination, classification, abstraction—4. Belief, , 47 
CHAP. II. ABSTRACT TERMS. 
General terms.—1. Of general terms—2. Space, time, movement, the 
infinite, .. . . .. . . . ..62 
CHAP. III.—THE FEELINGS AND THE WILL. 
Feeling and Will.—I. The insufficiency of English Psychology on this 
point—2. Feelings—3. Free-will, ..... 67 VI 
Contents. 
PA OB 
MR. JOHN STUART MILL, 78 
CHAPTER I.—OF METHOD IN PSYCHOLOGY. 
Of Method in Psychology.—1. The aim of psychology—2. Method of 
psychology : positivists, metaphysicians, and associationalists— 
3. The science of character, or Ethology, . . . .81 
CHAP. II.—PSYCHOLOGY. 
Psychology.—I. Consciousness—2. Exterior perception—3. Association 
of ideas—4. Causality—5. Necessary truths—6. Reasoning— 
7. Will 92 
CHAP. III.—PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY OF MATTER AND 
OF MIND. 
Psychological Theory of Matter and Mind.—1. Matter—2. Mind— 
3. The phenomenism of Hume and Mill, . . . .113 
MR. HERBERT SPENCER, 124 
CHAPTER I. THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. 
The Law of Evolution. — 1. Progress consists in the passage from 
the homogeneous to the heterogeneous : its law—2. The hypo- 
thesis of the nebulus—3. Living organism and social organism 
—4. The genesis of science—5. The knowable and the un- 
knowable, . . . . .. . . . . 130 
CHAP. II.—PSYCHOLOGY. 
Psychology.—I. The principles of psychology—2. Continuity and 
correspondence. Progress of correspondences, their co-ordina- 
tion and integration—3. The law of intelligence—4. Unity of 
composition of psychological phenomena. Consciousness re- 
duced to a double processus of assimilation and dissimilation— 
5. Summary—6. Is Mr. Herbert Spencer a Positivist ? . . 148 VII 
Contents. 
PAGE 
MR. BAIN, 
CHAPTER I.—OF THE SENSES, THE APPETITES, AND 
THE INSTINCTS. 
The Sensations.—1. Muscular Sense—2. Sight and Touch—3. Instinct, 
germ of Will, . . # . 198 
CHAP. II.—INTELLIGENCE. 
TnhtJigmce.—1. Association of Ideas—2. Of Consciousness—3. Asso- 
ciation by contiguity: exterior perception—4. Association by 
resemblance : scientific processus—5. Compound association— 
6. Constructive association, or imagination, . . , .210 
CHAP. III. THE EMOTIONS. 
The Feelings.—1. Judgment of Mr. Herbert Spencer—2. Classification 
of the emotions—3. Aesthetic feeling : of laughter—4. Moral 
feelings, , , 225 
CHAP. IV.—WILL. 
Will.—I. Division of the subject—2. Of the germ of the will— 
3. Growth of the voluntary power —4. Motives and resolution— 
5. Free-will—6. Conclusion, ....... 242 
MR. GEORGE HENRY LEWES, ...... 255 
CHAPTER I.—THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. 
The History of Philosophy.— 1. Characteristics of his History—2. His 
philosophy—3. The ancients: Sophists, Plato,the Academicians: 
of exterior perception—4. The moderns: Descartes, Hobbes, 
Berkeley (Idealism and Realism), Cabanis, Gall; French Eclec- 
ticism, .257 VIII 
Contents. 
CHAP. II. PSYCHOLOGY. 
PAGE 
Psychology—I. Physiology of common life—2. Organism and mechan- 
ism—3. Consciousness ; its various forms—4. Discussion of the 
current doctrine of reflex actions—5. Of sleep and heredity, . 291 
MR. SAMUEL BAILEY, ........ 315 
CONCLUSION, ENGLISH PSYCHOLOGY. 
INTRODUCTION. 
I. Past and future Philosophy—2. Two meanings of the word Philosophy—- 
3. Why the Sciences become independent—4. That Philosophy will 
become Metaphysics; Poetry and Metaphysics—5. Psychology as an 
independent science—6. Object and method of ordinary Psychology— 
7. Object and method of experimental Psychology—8. Divisions of 
Psychology ; general, comparative, teratological Psychology,—science of 
characteristics—9. Object of the work. 
I. 
To the question, What was philosophy in the beginning 1 a reply 
is easy. It was universal science. It would be more difficult to 
answer an inquiry as to what it is to be in the future; and yet 
the study of the past, and certain inductions founded upon history, 
may perhaps enable us to foretell its destiny. At its origin philo- 
sophy has for its object the universality of things, the All, and 
philosophy, like its object, is One; outside it there is no idea of 
distinct and independent sciences. It resembles those rudimentary 
organisms in which the physiological distribution of labour has 
not yet taken place. The slow and continuous labour of life, a 
natural tendency towards progress, will bring the sciences out of 
philosophy, as the organs are brought out of the embryo. Let us 
follow the march of this development in the past; it may cast a 
light upon the future, and afford us a glimpse of it. 
The first branch which became detached from the common tree, 
and entered upon a separate life, is the science of numbers and of 
sizes—Mathematics. The Pythagorean school confounded mathe- 
matics with philosophy, but two centuries later they became 
clearly separate. Plato did not admit that a man might be a 2 
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philosopher without having been a geometrician, but thenceforth 
geometry did without philosophy. The nature of mathematics 
explains this. Among all the sciences, not one has less need to 
disquiet itself concerning facts and experience. If, at their origin, 
mathematics were empirical, as they probably were, they speedily 
elevated themselves to the abstract notions which form their bases, 
and found their true method. In the third century b.c. there 
existed in Greece an order of precise, rigorous sciences, recognised 
as such, and perfectly distinct from philosophical researches. We 
are about to trace the continuation of the first example of this 
emancipation of the particular sciences. 
Many ages had to elapse before a new science was to achieve 
its autonomy. The ancient philosophy, which reached its greatest 
height in Plato and Aristotle, still remains the universal science, 
or nearly so; in it metaphysics follow physics, politics follow 
morals, studies in physiology were weighed with studies in psy- 
chology (Timcus, De Anima) ; it is still the science of all that is; 
it studies man, nature, and God. Thus it remains in the Middle 
Ages; outside of philosophy, there is nothing but mathematics 
and that which relates to them, and the Arts, such as medicine 
and alchemy. But now we find a new science growing up, aided 
by calculation and experience, which accumulates facts and seeks 
out laws, which observes instead of reasoning, and which speedily 
finds itself strong enough to assert its independence. This 
science is called physics. It was a slow and progressive emana- 
tion, whose facts are nearer to us, and better known, so that we 
can follow them. Galileo, though breaking away from Aristotle, 
is still a ‘ philosopher.’ He boasted of having devoted ‘ more 
years to philosophy than months to mathematics,’ and his doctrine 
is declared ‘ absurd in philosophy’ in the judgment of the Inqui- 
sition. Descartes held that philosophy is ‘a tree whose root is 
metaphysics, and whose trunk is physics.’ His system of physics, 
like that of Newton, is explained under the title Principia Philo- 
sophic. Philosophical instruction, which from its nature can 
only follow workers and inventors from afar, comprised physics 
until the end of the eighteenth century. The disruption was not 
rude; it took place because it was inevitable. When the domain 
of a science is actively utilized, when every corner of it is explored Introduction. 
3 
and turned over, when its object and its means are thoroughly 
understood, then that science has won her right to independence 
by success. 
But thenceforth philosophy could no longer claim as its object 
everything which exists : man, nature, and God. Physics and the 
kindred sciences wrest from it nature; shall man and God be 
left to it 2 
The science of language is a purely human science, cultivated 
by philosophers at first rather by chance, but whose import- 
ance never escaped their notice. Plato gives a sketch of it in his 
Cratylus. The Epicureans and the Stoics, two schools which had 
then fallen into decadence, had written largely on this subject. 
Among moderns, we need only recall the names of Leibnitz, 
Locke, Condillac, and their disciples. Less than a century ago, 
the science of language was at that point, when the discovery of 
Sanscrit enabled it to find its true method and line, and to 
establish itself as an independent science. Since then, it has 
collected facts, defined laws, classified languages, determined 
roots; it is constantly advancing in its almost chemical analysis 
of words ; it has its own vocabulary, its distinct parts, its phonetics, 
its morphology, etc. It is singularly jealous of its independence. 
It will have nothing in common with metaphysics, but repels such 
relation as a crime. Here then is a purely human science 
detached from the common trunk. 
In later times the science of morals has likewise claimed its 
independence. The task of some of our contemporaries has 
been to constitute the theory of the rights and duties of 
man, without asking the aid either of religion or philo- 
sophy; to invest morals with the rank of a primary science, 
arising from itself alone; to release it from the preliminary 
necessity of a metaphysical doctrine whose mere consequence it 
should be. This undertaking has found many partisans and 
many enemies. Without entering into the question of the value 
of this attempt, let us state the fact that the science of morals 
fearlessly asserts its independence, and claims a separate domain 
of its own. 
This would be the place in which to show that psychology has 
the same tendencies; to show that its most recent transformations 4 
English Psychology. 
have set it free from the yoke of metaphysics, and that it also 
demands its autonomy. But the subject is to be treated at length 
in a later portion of this work. 
Is it necessary to call attention to the fact that physiology is 
independent of philosophy? The truth is, that their relations 
never were close.1 Physiology is, above all, bom of experience. 
It has been science springing from an art, rather than a particular 
science arising from general science. Medicine, which has 
existed always and everywhere, has not been able to dispense 
with the study of the living body. Thus, physiology was, in the 
first place, a means, before it became a science with a self-contained 
object. In this it resembles chemistry, bom of certain practical 
inventions and of the mysterious researches of the Middle Ages 
into the transmutation of metals, which were not altogether dis- 
covered from philosophers, as the name ‘ hermetic philosophy,’ 
so frequently employed to designate those researches, proves. 
Besides, the popular imagination readily confounds the philo- 
sopher with the alchemist, placing him in one of the dark vaults 
which Rembrandt has painted, surrounded by books, furnaces, 
and crucibles. 
In short, all the special sciences which now exist have been 
derived from a double source,—from philosophy and from art. 
These latter, whose origin is the more humble, are not the least 
sound or fruitful. In comparing the facts accumulated by ex- 
perience, they have been able to eliminate accidents, to separate 
that which is fixed and permanent, and to define its laws ; that is 
to say, to arrive at precise knowledge, and ‘at that essential 
character of science which is to foresee.’ As for the independence 
of those sciences which have already come out, or are tending 
towards coming out from philosophy, we have seen it produced 
naturally, by unceasing and unwitting work, and the severance 
results from the very nature of things. An exact and positive 
science cannot limit itself to vague affirmations, it must prove 
and verify its assertions, it must weigh the most minute details; 
a chemist will not hesitate to devote several years to the study of 
1 Nevertheless, Aristotle did much for anatomy and biology ; and among 
the predecessors of Hippocrates his learned translator names the <f>viTioXtryoi, Introduction. 
5 
a single body and of its compounds; a zoologist would do the 
same for some humble infusoria visible only under the microscope. 
It is necessary to specialize one’s-self, as the present phrase is, 
to insure the progress of science. But a result of this endless 
analysis is that each particular science becomes a world. In 
fact, greatness is a relative thing. If chemistry be only a small 
item in the total of human knowledge, it is immense when com- 
pared to a simple study of azote and its compounds. How can 
we be surprised that it amply suffices to the labourers in it, and 
that they seek for nothing beyond its horizon ] It is the same 
everywhere. Beyond this, even; that interior process which 
resolves philosophy into particular sciences resolves them again 
into sub-sciences, physics into thermology, optics, acoustics; 
biology into physiology, etc. etc. In this labour of decomposi- 
tion, which has no assignable limits, each step in analysis leads 
further away from the primitive unity. 
II. 
Let us now inquire what remains to philosophy after those 
successive subtractions 1 What are its pretensions, it limits, its 
object] If we examine the different senses in which the word 
philosophy is used in correct language, discussions, or books, we 
shall be struck by the various acceptations to which it lends 
itself, and by the confusion which it may produce. A man who 
describes, analyses, and classifies the phenomena of thought like 
Mr. Herbert Spencer or Mr. A. Bain is called a philosopher. A 
man who regulates morals, lays down prescriptions, proposes an 
ideal of conduct, is equally a philosopher. Do you place logic 
among the recent discoveries of science, as Mr. Stuart Mill has 
done, or discourse upon the attributes of God, or search into first 
causes ]—the same title is bestowed upon you. A high philoso- 
phical bearing is justly acknowledged as belonging to a theory 
like that of the unity of physical forces, which establishes their 
correlations and transformations. Here are different significa- 
tions, and we may add to them many others. Whence this 
confusion] It seems to us to originate thus : Two very different 
things may be meant by philosophy; that which is, and that 
which tends to be; the first consisting of a rather incoherent 6 
English Psychology. 
assemblage of four or five sciences; the second offering a precise 
rational signification, having a determinate object, and limits 
assigned by experience. 
In the ordinary sense of the word this is philosophy. It is a 
study which comes from the human mind and from its various 
manifestations, which, by the faculty of reasoning, is led up to 
logic, and, by the faculty of willing and acting conformably to a 
law, is led up to morals, and from thence mounts up to the first 
cause of all things, to God; it is completed by some metaphy- 
sical researches into the essence of the soul, the nature of certi- 
tude, and the fundamental principles of morals. Can this be 
rightly designated a science having an object ? If you ask what 
is the object of physics, astronomy, chemistry, anthropology, the 
reply is easy and ready. But has philosophy an object, or 
objects, or portions of objects? It has one, in the first place, 
with which no other science occupies itself. That object is God. 
Must we add to this, Man? Assuredly not man as a whole, 
for anatomy, physiology, in short the biological sciences, have 
taken a share in him for themselves. A portion of man then,— 
his soul ? This is also to be contested. History, in its extended 
sense, the science of language, jurisprudence, even political 
economy, claim their share of that. It comes to this, then, that 
the object of philosophy is God, plus a certain portion of man, 
■—an object, plus a portion of an object. How can it henceforth 
claim the title of a primary and universal science ? How, above 
all, can it arrive at unity ? That would be possible only accord- 
ing to the idealist solution, which holds that God, nature, history, 
everything, has no reality except in human thought. 
This is what philosophy actually is. But what does it tend to 
become ? If we admit, as facts constrain us to admit, that the 
special sciences detach themselves from it, as time goes on, at 
uncertain intervals,—if it be granted that this rupture is naturally 
produced by the accumulation of facts, the incessant progress of 
analysis, and the necessity of specialization,—if we remark that 
psychology is already almost independent, that morals desires to 
become so, and that logic is only a portion of psychology, we 
foresee the possibility of new sciences, more or less distant, and 
a further impoverishment of philosophy, at least in appearance. Introduction. 
7 
Its actual incoherence appears to us to be caused by its con- 
taining, besides general science, special sciences, which are 
regarded as an integral part of itself. It resembles those beings 
which are reproduced by division, or cutting into pieces, and 
which, at certain moments, present the strange spectacle of three 
or four individuals still adhering to the common stem. 
III. 
In order that we may understand what philosophy tends to 
become by the progress of human knowledge, let us see what is 
produced in the special sciences when they detach themselves. 
Let us suppose mathematics cultivated by the philosophers, not 
as a special science, but as forming a portion of philosophy; this 
is what would happen. The method of all philosophic minds is 
to give the precedence to questions of principles over everything 
else ; they will therefore begin by examining axioms, discussing 
the legitimacy of method, investigating quantity, measuring time 
and space, at the risk of never believing themselves sufficiently 
certain to begin. They may even lose themselves in strange 
systems of numbers, like the Pythagoreans and Plato. Mathe- 
maticians go to work differently. They do not trouble them- 
selves to reconcile Newton with Leibnitz, or Locke with Kant, 
on the nature of time and space ; they accept axioms without 
discussing them, on the guarantee of common sense only, but 
they go on. The constitution and development of this science 
depended upon the condition that they should lay aside at the 
outset a number of unresolved questions, abandoning them to 
discussion by the philosophers. 
It is the same with physics. Before Galileo, physics were 
merely metaphysics with some roughly explained facts over and 
above. In Aristotle’s works the one is hardly to be distinguished 
from the other,—they succeed and supplement, and naturally 
suppose each other. What is matter 1 What is nature ? Does 
it comprehend matter and form. ? What is motion 1 Is it infinitely 
divisible 1 What is power, and what is action 1 Does the external 
world exist 1 What is the worth of our senses 1 May we trust 
them 1 All these questions are put aside by the physicist. He 
accepts the faith of common sense in the material world, and the 8 
English Psychology. 
senses which reveal it to us; he deals not with the essence, but 
with the facts and their laws; he controls the testimony of the 
senses without discussing it. He relegates to philosophy all 
researches into the ultimate reasons of things; let philosophy 
solve them, if it can. Even chemistry, which in analysis de- 
scends to quite the last elements, does not go beyond the study 
of secondary causes. 
In the science of language, the question dear to philosophy 
is that of origin. Put forward in the time of Democritus, it 
has been again debated in our days by the theological school 
of De Maistre and De Bonald. But when linguistics was de- 
finitively constituted a special science, this question of origin 
was laid aside, and though it appears obscure rather than in- 
soluble, it is banished from the positive study of languages. 
The linguist accepts the existence of various idioms and dia- 
lects as a fact; he classifies them, traces them, and explains 
their radiations, but the question of origin he regards as haz- 
ardous or at least premature. 
The study of economical facts is gaining in importance every 
day; in France especially, notwithstanding the strong prejudices 
against it. The dissent of the economists does not hinder the 
science from establishing itself, little by little, and destroying 
the pretended axioms of common sense by solid reasons. But 
political economy holds by facts, and though it presupposes 
philosophical principles, it does not discuss them. Locke, in 
his Essay on Civil Government, did not separate this science 
from the other methods of being of social life. Boisguillebert gave 
it a more distinct position ; at length Quesnay and Smith consti- 
tuted for it an independent domain, and since that time its 
independence, with respect to metaphysics, has increased daily. 
It would be easy to multiply proofs by mentioning other 
sciences ; for instance, to show that biology deals only with 
manifestations of life, but resolutely sets aside all theories on its 
nature and origin;—it places them outside scientific knowledge— 
that biology regards vitalism, animism, organism, etc., merely as 
ingenious, unverified systems. 
It appears still more unfortunate for philosophy, that from the 
moment at which any science shakes itself free from metaphysical Introduction. 
9 
researches, it immediately begins to make progress. This is 
exemplified by mathematics, with Archimedes and Euclid; as- 
tronomy, with Kepler and Copernicus; physics, with Galileo, 
Huyghens, and Newton; chemistry, with Lavoisier; biology, with 
Bichat and contemporaries; the science of language with Bopp 
and Max Muller. And yet this is not in reality surprising; there 
are very plain reasons for it: in the first place, because the 
genius which was expended in solving the insoluble and finding 
the undiscoverable is now devoted only to purely scientific 
researches; and in the second, because the aim of science is 
changed; theories are now subordinated to facts, and not facts 
to theories; systems pass away, but experiences remain. 
Thus then, everywhere and always, particular sciences which 
have a special object are only constituted by leaving a balance 
of unsolved questions aside at their outset. Exactly speaking, 
they have no commencement; they come out by chance, as they 
can; no one knows from whence they come, nor whither they 
go ; but on the other hand, every one knows what they are. To 
those who judge them as philosophers, their point of departure is 
ruinous, ill established, not discussed; but if philosophy con- 
demns, experience absolves them. And even logic does the 
same, by proving that thus they ought to proceed. Now we can 
understand under what conditions the particular sciences still 
adherent to philosophy will be able to render themselves inde- 
pendent of it. They must start from some postulate, from certain 
rational or experimental truths; they must not stop at questions 
of principles, and they must leave discussions to philosophy. 
Morals, for instance, will not seek beyond that which is good in 
itself. Psychology will not ask what the soul is; it will interdict 
all excursions into the region of primary causes. This is the 
absolute condition of their existence as exact sciences capable of 
progress. Those who have reproached these attempts at emanci- 
pation with an absence of foundation, who have said to morals 
and to psychology : ‘ It is anti-philosophical to endeavour to do 
without preliminary metaphysics ; your commencement is arbi- 
trary ; your data are affirmed, not discussed; you are not fixed 
upon principles ’—how have they failed to see that this was a 
logical necessity, and that debates on principles prevent arrival at 10 
English Psychology. 
consequences ? How have they failed to see that their reproaches 
might as well be directed to geometry, to physics, to chemistry, 
in short, to all the actually constituted sciences? Will they 
oppose the gratuitous difficulty that that which is possible for the 
study of nature is not possible for that of man; that we may do 
without first principles in investigating matter and its properties, 
but that we cannot dispense with them when we are concerned 
with mind and its manifestations? Not only would this assertion 
be devoid of facts, but it would be in contradiction to the facts. 
For, among the number of the sciences which are called moral,— 
that is to say, whose objects are the manifestations of human 
thought and will, do we not place the science of languages, law, 
political economy, which interdict as much as possible, and every 
day more strongly, all metaphysical discussions ? 
IV. 
We can now perceive what philosophy tends to become, and 
what a transformation the continuous coalition of the sciences 
must inevitably oblige it to undergo. Universal in its origin, 
philosophy will in the future be still universal, but in another 
manner. Formerly, it contained everything—principles and 
consequences, causes and facts, general truths and results. It 
now presents the strange spectacle of a science, universal on 
certain sides, particular on others. At a later date, it will con- 
tain only the general speculations of the human mind upon the 
first principles and the last reasons of all things. It will be 
metaphysics and nothing more. That which will thus occupy 
the philosophers, and constitute their own domain, will be that 
unknown upon which every science establishes itself, and which 
it then abandons to their disputes. In that there will still be an 
eternal source of discussion and research : and, as they will ex- 
tend over the whole field of human knowledge, of all sciences 
which exist, or which shall come into being, philosophy will 
remain universal. Nor is this all. The progress of particular 
sciences leads them necessarily to wider and wider generaliza- 
tions, supported upon facts indeed, but which frequently outrun 
them—such are the hypotheses which explain so many pheno- 
mena, summarize so many laws, have resisted so many verifica- Introduction. 
11 
tions, that they are almost demonstrated truths. In these will be 
other materials for future philosophy. The law of universal 
attraction, and that of the correlation of forces, enable us to fore- 
see what the sciences may discover by the accumulation of facts, 
by calculation, and exact methods. Let us suppose some ana- 
logous discovery in chemistry. Let us admit that some of its mys- 
teries are stolen from life, and that biology finds its Newton. 
Let us hope for some generalization in the phenomena of 
thought, which shall associate them with those of life; that 
history will, in part at least, yield up its secret to us. Let us add 
all the great views which we cannot forestal, all that the sciences 
yet unborn shall reveal to us; can we then believe that method 
will be wanting to philosophical minds, that is to say, to minds 
engaged upon the general whole ? Let it not be said either that 
there is a contradiction in maintaining that the progress of the 
sciences brings them back to philosophy, after its having been 
stated that it detaches them from it. All science is contradicted 
by the double action of analysis and synthesis. It arrives at 
precise, active, verified knowledge, only by constantly descending 
towards the infinitely little; it distinguishes, separates, divides, 
seeks out exceptions and differences. But a heap of well-estab- 
lished facts is not a science; the relations remain to be appre- 
ciated, the resemblances to be grouped, the laws to be reached 
by induction, the whole to be sought out. There must, therefore, 
be two orders of problems in philosophy, identical at bottom : 
those from which sciences spring, and those which are their 
result. Philosophy will be always sounding this double ignor- 
ance. The entire collection of human knowledge resembles a 
great river flowing full between its banks, under a sky glowing 
with light, but whose source and mouth are unknown, which 
springs and dies in the clouds. Bold spirits have never been 
able either to solve this mystery or to forget it. There are always 
some sufficiently intrepid to throw themselves resolutely into this 
inaccessible region, whence they return blinded, giddy, and 
relating such strange things that the world holds them to be 
hallucinations. 
Is philosophy, thus understood, to remain a science? How 
can it so remain, if everything which is scientifically to be known 12 
English Psychology. 
is taken away from it, if, wherever there are facts to be observed, 
laws to be sought into, rotations to be calculated, some particular 
science constitutes a domain of its own, and leaves to philosophy 
such questions only as it cannot solve? How can there be a 
science where there is no measure or verification possible ? 
Metaphysics is a collection of truths outside and above all demon- 
stration, because they are the foundation of all demonstration; it 
is negatively determined by the collective action of all the 
sciences, which eliminates everything that outruns them. Be- 
sides this, metaphysics is subjective, and science ought to be ob- 
jective. That which is demonstrated, established, formulated in 
laws, is invariably acquired independently of time and place. 
Mathematical truths are the same for the Hindu and the Greek, 
the Italian and the Englishman. Science does not reflect the 
genius of a race, it is the work of an impersonal spirit. There is 
no such thing as French physics as opposed to English physics; 
that which was true for Galileo is true for Ampere and Faraday. 
This must be so, since the affirmations of science are capable 
of verification, since science fashions the human mind after nature, 
instead of fashioning nature according to the arbitrary concep- 
tions of the human mind. In metaphysics the contrary is the 
case; the work is personal, it is impressed with the character of 
an individual, or at least of a race. It is local and ephemeral, 
for the individual communicates his fragility to his work. 
It has been ingeniously said ‘ that metaphysicians are poets 
who have missed their vocation.’1 The more one thinks of it, 
the more just the saying appears. When philosophy shall have 
become that which it ought to be, when nothing will remain to it 
but the general, the abstract, the ideal, then it will be seen clearly 
by every one to be the work of art rather than of science; to 
be, to some, tiresome ill-written poetry, while to others it is 
elevated, powerful, truly divine. 
Why should we not already face this truth, which is only para- 
doxical to those who stop at appearances ? If you are not one 
of those dull minds which cannot conceive anything above the 
1 M. Vaclierot, La Mitaphysique et la Science, vol. i. p. 5. He disputes 
this opinion. Introduction. 
13 
most vulgar reality, if you are searching for something under 
facts and above them, you enter into an ideal world. The poet 
conceives it to be in the image of ours, but more beautiful, more 
harmonious; life in it is wider and has more flavour; he contem- 
plates living forms, visible, palpable, concrete, more real to him 
than reality itself. To the metaphysician it is quite different. It 
is a region of abstract truths, of laws and formulas, accessible 
only to pure spirit, the mysterious domain of the impossible and 
the invisible, where the principles of all things reign, like the 
mothers of the second Faust, ‘ who are enthroned in the infinite, 
eternally solitary, their heads encircled with the images of life 
active, but without life.’ Both are creators several ways; 
one because he understands the handling of colours, words, the 
picturesque forms which give life and drapery to ideas; the other 
because he believes that he has seized the hidden springs which 
make the world move, the fruitful formulas which translate the 
laws of the universe, and whence the flow of phenomena issue as 
from an inexhaustible spring. Hence those philosophical con- 
structions which resemble great poems. Hence it is that, in gen- 
eral, metaphysics and the high order of poetry meet and mingle, 
as in the Paradise of Dante. Each reflects the genius of a 
people. In India, the Bhagavad-gita is the episode of an epopee. 
The reserved and, at bottom, little subversive Cartesianism, in 
which, as Ritter says (Histoire de la Philosophic Moderne, 
vol. i.)—1 the thought of the limitation of our knowledge evi- 
dently dominates/ resembles the sober and measured poetry of 
the seventeenth century. Hegel’s Logic borders on Faust. Who 
was more of a poet than Plato and Plotinus? We should go 
through the whole history of metaphysics, in order to show how 
closely it resembles poetry. They shared between them the 
ardent minds of the Renaissance, of which Giordano Bruno is the 
most complete type. When Hegel maintains (Gesch. d. Phil., 
p. 194, vol. iii.) ‘ that the mystics only knew how to philosophize/ 
does he not say that the higher metaphysics reaches the more it 
resembles an effusion or a reverie ? They who, like Aristotle, seem 
to have nothing of the poet about them, arrive at astonishing con- 
ceptions—that of a world which, in its ultimate depths aspires to 
good, is drawn by love, moved by a ‘ metaphysical Newtonism/ 14 
English Psychology. 
A great German poet, Heinrich Heine, has said of the driest of 
metaphysicians : ‘ The reading of Spinoza lays hold of us like the 
aspect of great nature in its living calm; it is a forest of thoughts, 
as lofty as the sky, whose crowned crests undulate harmoniously, 
while their indestructible stems plunge their roots into the eternal 
earth. In his writings one feels a breath which moves one in an 
indefinable way; it is as though one were breathing the air of the 
future.’ Metaphysicians are poets, whose aim is the reconstruc- 
tion of the synthesis of the world. 
Are these great cosmogonic epopees to disappear? Will the 
repeated experience of their insufficiency condemn them hope- 
lessly? Is philosgphy to continue to give us poetry for science, 
to drape its fictions in undecipherable formulas, and to announce 
to the world for the hundredth time that it has found the key to 
its enigma? 
Why not ? There are many in these days who think that the 
human mind ought to renounce those researches, to put them 
aside like the toys of childhood. This seems neither desirable 
nor possible. If positivism limited itself to stating that meta- 
physics could not be seriously regarded as a science, because it 
affirms but is unable to verify or demonstrate, no contradiction 
could be offered without shutting our eyes to evidence. When 
positivism applies itself to the elimination of all metaphysics from 
experimental sciences, it also does a service, since it follows the 
rules of a good method, separating the knowable from the un- 
knowable; preventing us from sacrificing everything to hypothesis; 
from bending facts to theories ; from kiting go the substance for the 
shadow. But to condemn all researches into ultimate reasons as a 
vain and dangerous illusion,—to consider all time lost which was 
consecrated to them,—to desire to cure the human mind of them, 
as if of a chronic infirmity, is in reality to lessen the human mind. 
The importance of studies is not measured by their success. To 
seek without hope is neither senseless nor vulgar,—one may dis- 
cern without finding. The true nobility of human intelligence con- 
sists less in the results which it obtains, than in the end which it 
proposes to itself, and in the efforts by which it essays to attain 
that aim. Experience is much, but it is not all. And, besides, 
who shall prove to us that facts are of more value than ideas, Introduction. 
15 
discoveries than researches? Philosophy must ever remain an 
eternal attempt upon the unknown. It will never find the last word 
of all things ; and that is well, because it may be said, without any 
paradox, that if metaphysics were to give all it promises, it would 
be better to force it to keep silence. Let us suppose all our 
questions concerning God, nature, and ourselves, finally answered, 
—what would remain for human intelligence to do ? This solution 
would be its death. All inquiring and active minds will be of Les- 
sing’s opinion on this point:—‘ There is more pleasure in coursing 
the hare than in catching it.’ Philosophy will keep up its activity 
by its magical and deceiving mirage. Were it never to render any 
other service to human intelligence than that of keeping it always 
on the alert, of elevating it above a narrow dogmatism, by 
showing it that mysterious beyond, which surrounds and presses 
upon it in every science, philosophy would do enough for it. 
V. 
Now let us approach the proper object of this study— 
psychology; the preceding remarks are merely prefatory. Our 
purpose is to show that psychology may be constituted an 
independent science, to investigate the conditions of such con- 
stitution, and to see whether that independence is not an accom- 
plished fact among several contemporaries. At first sight, I 
know, this proposition may appear unacceptable. Is not psy- 
chology the basis of philosophy, and the object of its most 
constant if not most ancient study ? How can they be separated? 
There is an equivoque in this which must be removed. Psychology, 
like every science, like physics, chemistry, or physiology, contains 
ultimate, transcendental questions,—questions of principles, of 
causes, of substances. What is the soul ? whence does it come ? 
whither is it going ? These are purely philosophical discussions. 
But there is more than that in psychology. There are facts of a 
special nature, difficult to observe, still more difficult to classify, 
but which do not the less constitute the most solid and the most 
indisputable portion of the science. 
It is the pure and simple study of these facts which can constitute 
an independent science. I observe that, since Wolf, a distinction 
is commonly made between an experimental psychology which 16 
English Psychology. 
occupies itself with phenomena only, and a rational psychology 
which occupies itself with substance only. But as, according to 
Wolf and those who follow him, these two studies are the comple- 
mentary parts of one same whole, to our mind this experimental 
psychology alone constitutes all psychology; the remainder be- 
longs to philosophy, or metaphysics, and is, consequently, outside 
of the science. 
Having laid this down, we propose, in the following pages, to 
examine the current conception of psychology, particularly in 
France, and to see to what results it leads. We shall then 
investigate purely experimental psychology, in what it consists 
and how it proceeds ; and finally, we shall endeavour to sketch 
its divisions. 
VI. 
Let us turn to the most accredited treatises on psychology for 
a definition of that science. ‘Psychology,’ says Jouffroy,1 ‘ is 
the science of the intelligent principle, of the man, of the me.' 
‘ Psychology is that part of philosophy whose object is the know- 
ledge of the soul and of its faculties, studied by the single means 
of consciousness.’—[Did. des Sciences Phil., Art. Psychol.) 
The first criticism to be made upon these definitions is, that 
they confound two very different things, psychological phenomena 
and their substratum ; or, as Kant would say, phenomena and 
noumena. Without going into the question whether we actually 
have a knowledge of things in (oujrselves, we must at least grant 
that it is very vague, since there is no common accord on this 
subject, and that it is not scientific, since it cannot be verified. 
I am not ignorant that of late years it has been repeated, after 
Maine de Biran and Jouffroy, that ‘ the soul knows itself, lays 
hold on itself, immediately.’ But not only have these psycholo- 
gists passed twenty or thirty years in study before they discovered 
this immediate knowledge (which is sufficiently surprising),—their 
discovery does not seem to advance us much ; because, when we 
1 Melanges Philosoph., p. 191. He even endeavours to establish that 
psychology is the science of the whole man, physiology occupying itself with 
the animal only. Introduction. 
17 
have long and scrupulously sought what this intimate essence 
thus revealed is, we succeed only in finding such vague expres- 
sions as ‘absolute activity,’ ‘pure spirit outside of time and 
space,’ whence we may conclude that still the clearest part of our 
knowledge consists in phenomena. The fault of the current 
definition, then, is that it confounds two essentially distinct things, 
psychological facts with ontological speculations. Hence it 
happens that the study of facts, which is fruitful, is so often 
abandoned for the construction of theories, which is sterile and 
slow,—useful observation forsaken for the rash and ruinous pro- 
cess of hypothesis. 
Nor is this all. We are told that psychology is the science of the 
human soul. That is a very narrow and incomplete idea of it. 
Is biology ever defined as the science of human life 1 Has phy- 
siology ever believed, even in its infancy, that its only object was 
man? Have they not considered, on the contrary, that every- 
thing which has organized and manifested life belongs to them, 
—the infusoria, as well as man ? Now, unless we admit the Car- 
tesian opinion of animal machines—which has no longer, to 
my knowledge, an adherent,—we must acknowledge that animals 
have their sensations, their sentiments, their desires, their plea- 
sures, their pains, their character, just like ourselves; that there 
is a collection of psychological facts which one has no right to 
subtract from the science. Who has studied those facts ? The 
naturalists, and not the psychologists. If we were to go further, 
we might show that ordinary psychology, in restricting itself to 
man, has not even included the whole of mankind ; that it has 
taken no heed of the inferior races (black and yellow), that it has 
contented itself with affirming that the human faculties are iden- 
tical in nature and various only in degree, as if the difference of 
degree might not sometimes be such as to be equivalent to a 
difference of nature; that in man it has taken the faculties 
already constituted, and rarely occupied itself with their mode of 
development; so that, finally, psychology, instead of being the 
science of psychical phenomena, has simply made man, adult, 
civilized, and white, its object. 
We have seen how psychology understands its object, let us 
now see how it understands its method. This consists entirely 18 
English Psychology. 
in reflection, or interior observation. Assuredly, no one believes 
more firmly than we do in the necessity of this mode of observa- 
tion ; it is the point of departure, the indispensable condition of 
all psychology, and those who have denied it, like Broussais and 
Aug. Comte, have so completely gone against evidence, and 
given the game to their adversaries, that their most faithful 
disciples have not gone so far with them. It is certain that the 
anatomist and the physiologist might pass centuries in studying the 
brain and the nerves, without ever suspecting what a pleasure or 
a pain is, if they have not felt both. 
No testimony is so valuable on this point as that of conscious- 
ness, and we are always brought back to that saying of an ana- 
tomist,—‘ In the presence of the fibres of the brain, we are like 
hackney coachmen, who know the streets and the houses, but 
know nothing of what takes place inside them.’ It is also certain 
that the objections made to this method of observation have been 
very well discussed. But is it true that interior observation is 
the unique method of psychology? that it reveals everything, 
that it suffices for everything? Taken in its rigorous meaning, 
this doctrine would lead to the impossibility of the science. 
For, if my reflection apprises me of that which passes in me, it is 
absolutely incapable of enabling me to penetrate into the mind 
of another. A more complicated process is necessary for that. 
We are talking; a man present at our conversation joins in it 
with an absent manner, says a few words with evident effort, and 
forces a smile; I conclude from all this that he is a prey to some 
hidden trouble. I may soon divine its causes if I have a pene- 
trating mind, and if I am acquainted with this man and his ante- 
cedents. But this psychological discovery is a very complex oper- 
ation, of which the following are the stages : perception of signs 
and gestures, interpretation of those signs, induction from effects 
to causes, inference, reasoning by analogy. It has nothing in 
common with interior observation except that aptitude for know- 
ing others better which comes from knowing one’s-self better. 
Thus, one of two things is the case : either psychology is limited 
to interior observations, and these being completely individual, it 
has no longer any scientific character; or else it is extended to 
other men, it searches out laws, it practises induction, it reasons, Introduction. 
19 
and then it is susceptible of progress ; but its method is to a great 
extent objective. Interior observation alone is not sufficient for 
the weakest psychology. 
Another defect of the ordinary method is, that it has led, as 
might have been foreseen, to abstraction. It has led philosophers 
to study the phenomena of mind rather as logicians than as 
psychologists, rather as reasoners than as observers. One of its 
chief consequences has been the current doctrine of faculties. 
It may be said, in many respects to be useful, to be necessary. 
Psychology has facts to classify, like physics or botany; it separ- 
ates those which are different, it unites those which are like, and 
thus it forms groups; to each group it assigns a name, which, like 
the terms heat, light, magnetism, designates the unknown causes 
of known phenomena. But the almost inevitable danger of this 
method is to personify causes, to erect them into distinct and in- 
dependent entities; we forget that these are only abstracts, con- 
venient formulas for the explanation of the science, which have 
no value unless they are referred back to the concretes whence 
they have been taken, that therein consists all their value, all 
their reality. The history of ancient physics, embarrassed by 
substantial forms and occult causes, shows us how the clearest 
minds yield to the temptation to realize abstractions. Hence, in 
psychology, we have a first result, which consists in the substitu- 
tion of a verbal study, that of faculties, for a real study, that of 
phenomena. Discussions on free-will might well be of that 
nature, the problem being perhaps inextricable only because it is 
ill stated. Thus the time which might be devoted to observa- 
tion is lost in idle disputes, and in place of impartial observers, 
parties are formed, who push their hypotheses to extremes, and 
who are perpetually contending for chimeras, because phantoms 
can neither be killed nor imprisoned. A third result is to dis- 
simulate the unity of composition of psychological phenomena. 
Mental life has its degrees, and, so to speak, its stages; they are 
only separated by vague limits made out by the doctrine of facul- 
ties to be fixed and absolute. Ad. Gamier says very justly that 
in order to attribute facts to diverse causes, it is necessary that 
the facts should be not only different, but independent of pheno- 
mena, not only very different from, but even opposed to, each 20 
English Psychology. 
other, as the ascent of gases to the fall of bodies; yet capable of 
having an identical cause. But we look in vain for this charac- 
ter of independence in psychological phenomena; we find them 
confounded, mixed up together, and reciprocally supposing each 
other. One of the philosophers of whom we propose to speak in 
this volume, Mr. Samuel Bailey, has acutely criticised the mixed 
phraseology which is inherent in the method by which faculties 
are erected into entities, distinct from man himself:—‘ The facul- 
ties have been represented acting like independent agents, giving 
birth to ideas, passing them on to each other mutually, and 
transacting their business among themselves. In this kind of 
phraseology the mind often appears like a sort of field, in which 
perception, reason, memory, imagination, will, conscience, the 
passions, produce their operations, like so many powers, either 
allied or hostile. Sometimes one of these faculties has the 
supremacy and the others are subordinate; one usurps the 
authority and the other yields, one explains and the others listen, 
one deceives and the other is deceived. Meantime the mind, or 
the intelligent being himself, is completely lost to view in the 
midst of these transactions, in which he does not appear to have 
any part. At other times we are shown these faculties treating 
with their proprietor or master, lending him their services, acting 
under his control, or his direction, furnishing him with evidence, 
instructing him, enlightening him by their revelations, as if he 
himself were detached and apart from the faculties which it is 
said he possesses, commands, and hearkens to.’ The same 
remarks may be made upon the senses ; the organs of the senses 
are no doubt distinct from the mind, but the senses themselves 
are not so. When a man sees or hears, it is he, it is the con- 
scious being, who sees or hears. To say that the senses see and 
hear is to make entities of them, whereas in reality there are 
simply certain mental affections produced. 
Hobbes, Locke, Leibnitz, Hume, have more than once criticised 
this inexact language without however succeeding in avoiding it 
themselves. Bailey quotes numerous examples, among which 
Kant would be the most flagrant, if M. Cousin had not written. 
According to German philosophy, the major of a syllogism refers 
to the understanding, the minor to the judgment, the conclusion Introduction, 
21 
to reason. ‘Thus,’ says Bailey, ‘ the intelligent being, like a 
constitutional monarch, governs regularly by means of his minis- 
ters ; the Understanding being the Secretary of State for the 
Home Department, the Faculty of Judging being the Chief Jus- 
tice of the Common Pleas, and the Reason the First Lord of the 
Treasury/ 
Is it always possible to avoid these expressions 1 No. ‘ And,’ 
continues Bailey, ‘ I have no more objection to make to the em- 
ployment of the term “ faculties ” on ordinary occasions than to 
the habit which one of my friends has of measuring distances 
with sufficient exactness by the number of his own strides. But 
the methodical “ investigation ” of the facts of consciousness 
demands as much exactness and precision as any researches 
into physics or mathematics ; and the method of “ faculties ” 
resembles that no more closely than my friend’s calculation 
resembles a carefully drawn up trigonometrical plan/ 1 
It would be no more reasonable to abandon the use of such 
terms as will, reason, memory, etc., than to cease to use the 
words much, little, some. But what would we think of a statis- 
tician who, instead of saying that in such and such a country 
each marriage produces on an average four children, and that 
three-fifths of the population know how to read and write, should 
content himself with announcing that these marriages produce 
sottie children, and that the people who can read and wrrite are 
numerous. The quantitative determination is the important 
matter. A criticism of ‘ imaginary operations/ almost entirely at 
the expense of M. Cousin, leads the author to conclude, that 
‘ the predominance of those imaginary facts in metaphysical 
(psychological) works shows that humanity in point of mental 
philosophy has arrived at the period at which, in physics, people 
talked of the transmutation of metals, the elixir of life, the 
abhorrence of a vacuum by nature, and other similar things/2 
1 Bailey's Letters on me Philosophy of the Human Mind, voL i. Letter 3. 
2 Ibid. Letter 5. 22 
English Psychology. 
VII. 
Psychology, understood in its ordinary sense, is then a study 
more occupied with abstractions than with facts, founded upon a 
subjective method, and full of metaphysical discussions. Let us 
now see what psychology might be, conceived of as an independ- 
ent science. 
We have seen that in every order of knowledge, when the 
number of facts and accumulated observations is tolerably large, 
there comes, by the very nature of things, a tendency to ana- 
tomy, and that the new science, leaving to metaphysics the care 
of discussing the first principles, constitutes itself on its own 
basis, sufficiently solid for its purpose, though often utterly in- 
secure to those who examine it in the light of philosophy. 
In a word, the conditions of independence are simply the 
constant study of facts and separation from metaphysics. 
Are there enough materials yet accumulated to constitute an 
experimental psychology ? They are so numerous that no one 
has yet been found to classify them, to set them in order, and to 
reduce them to a system. The progress of physical and natural 
sciences, of linguistics, and of history, has reached unexpected 
facts, suggested novel appreciations, at least to those who have 
no taste for a stagnant and scholastic psychology, studies on the 
mechanism of the sensations, on the conditions of memory, on the 
effects of the imagination and the association of ideas, on dreams, 
somnambulism, ecstasy, hallucination, madness, and idiocy, re- 
searches hitherto unknown into the relation between the physical 
and the moral, a new conception of moral (psychological) nature, 
of humanity, resulting from a profounder study of history and of 
races, languages serving, as it were, for a petrified psychology. 
An effort has been made of late to subject psychological acts 
to the precise control of measure. That is, in two words, what 
we find in thousands of books, memoirs, observations, or experi- 
ences ; an immense mass of facts which still awaits its Kepler or 
its Newton. Let us now bring these experimental data into con- 
nexion with the little which antiquity has left us on this subject 
(Aristotle: Treatise on the Soul, Sensation, Memory, Sleep, etc.). 
Then let us bring the ontological psychology of our time into con- Introduction. 
23 
nexion with the metaphysics of Plato and Aristotle. Where is 
the progress ? 
Does psychology tend to separate itself from metaphysics? 
Instead of deciding this question, I prefer to place certain facts 
before the reader. In the seventeenth century, the science of 
the soul was called metaphysics. There is no other word in 
Descartes, Malebranche, and Leibnitz. Locke and Condillac 
employ the same language. Nevertheless, the word psychology, 
invented by the obscure Goclenius, was used by Wolf as the title 
of a work. The Encyclopedists, while continuing to use the 
term metaphysics, limited its sense. ‘ Locke,’ says d’Alembert 
in the preliminary discourses of the Encyclopaedia, ‘reduces 
metaphysics to what it ought to be, the experimental physics of 
the soul.’ The Scotch employ it with reserve, and prefer the 
expression ‘ philosophy of the human mind.’ In short, the word 
psychology is coming into current use, and is common in 
Erance, Germany, and England. If it be further observed that 
in the two last-named countries psychology is cultivated as an 
independent science, and expurgated of metaphysics by writers 
who not only do not make any explicit profession of positivism, 
but are even in complete disagreement with that doctrine on 
several points, I think it will be granted that this anatomy is 
more than a mere tendency, that is in many respects an accom- 
plished fact.1 
The psychology in question here will then be purely experimen- 
tal ; it will have no other object than phenomena, their laws, and 
their immediate causes ; it will concern itself neither with the soul 
nor its essence, for this question, being above experience and 
1 Lewes’s Hist, of Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 225; Ribot, note, p. 29. ‘Seve- 
ral writers have remarked the enormous predominance of psychological 
inquiries from Spinoza to Fichte ; but the reason of this turn in the direction 
of philosophy has not, I think, been recognised. The fact is patent, the 
connexion of the predominance of psychology with the necessary decrease 
of ontology required explanation; the more so as psychology occupied but 
little attention in the ancient and mediaeval schools. I believe that the im- 
portance acquired by psychology, especially in its treatment of the origin and 
scope of human faculty, was the natural result of the same objective tendency 
which had given prominence to the inductive method.’ 24 
English Psychology. 
beyond verification, belongs to metaphysics. If it seem para- 
doxical that psychology, which is the science of the soul, does 
not occupy itself with the soul, let it be remarked that biology 
and physics do not any longer occupy themselves with life and 
matter; that while they did so they made no progress; and that 
psychology has only been enriched by the facts of experience, 
for its metaphysics has not perhaps made one step since Aristotle. 
Shall this psychology be spiritualist or materialist? We reply 
that such a question has no meaning, and might as well be asked 
in regard to experimental physics. Spiritualism and material- 
ism supply a solution of the question of substance, which is 
reserved .to metaphysics. It is possible that the psychologist 
may, in the pursuit of his studies, incline to one of the two solu- 
tions, or to another, as the physiologist may incline to mechanism 
or animism, but these are personal speculations which he does 
not confound with science. Psychology will have its metaphysics 
like the other sciences, while remaining entirely distinct from it. 
This no doubt makes it incomplete, but that is the cost of 
progress. If psychology desires to be both psychology and 
metaphysics at the same time, it will be neither. In this it will 
resemble the other sciences which all eliminate questions of 
origin and of end, referring them to metaphysics. Philosophy 
exists that they may be discussed. 
The method to be employed is at the same time subjective and 
objective. Discussions between those who will admit nothing 
but interior observation like Jouffroy, and those who recognise 
nothing but exterior obsei'vation like Broussais, resemble inde- 
cisive battles, after which both the combatants claim the victory. 
The former triumphantly produce their analysis and defy their 
adversaries to divine, without the aid of reflection, what it is to 
feel, to desire, to wish, to abstract. The latter reply that the 
dialogue of the ego with the ego cannot last long, and that they 
prefer to cultivate the fertile soil of experience. On both sides, 
the question is orfly half understood. Each of these systems has 
need of the other. In the ensuing essay on Mr. Herbert 
Spencer we shall see how they complete each other reciprocally, 
the subjective method proceeding by analysis, and the objective 
method by synthesis; the interior method being the most neces- Introduction. 
25 
sary, since without it we do not even know of what we are talking 
the exterior method being the most fruitful, since the field of its 
investigation is almost unlimited. 
But in what does this objective method consist 1 In studying 
psychological facts from the outside, not from the inside ; in the 
internal facts which translate them, not in the consciousness 
which gives them birth. The natural expression of the passions, 
the variety of languages, and the events of history are so many 
facts which permit us to trace the mental causes that have pro- 
duced them : the morbid derangement of the organism which 
produces intellectual disorders; anomalies, monsters in the 
psychological order, are to us as experiences prepared by nature, 
and all the more precious as the experimentation is more rare. 
Study of the instincts, passions, and habits of the different 
animals supplies us with facts whose interpretation (often difficult) 
enables us by induction, deduction, or analogy, to reconstruct a 
mode of psychological existence. In short, the objective method 
instead of being personal, like the simple method of reflection, 
lends to facts an impersonal character ; it bends before them ; it 
moulds its thrones upon the reality. Among other advantages, I 
propose to mention only two : it introduces the idea of progress 
into psychology, it renders a compared psychology possible. 
The idea of progress, of evolution, or of development, which of 
late has become preponderant in all the sciences which have a 
living object, has been suggested by the double study of natural 
sciences and of history. The scholastic ideas of the immutability 
of the forms of life, and the uniformity of the epochs of history 
have given place to a contrary conception. The doctrine of 
Heraclitus has been revived and confirmed by the experiences of 
twenty centuries; all melts, all changes, all moves, all becomes. 
Physiology, linguistics, religious, literary, political and artistic 
history bear testimony in favour of development. This idea, 
without which only an erroneous conception of life and history 
can be obtained, has remained inexplicably absent from ordinary 
psychology. And, nevertheless, it is not possible that the effects 
should differ incessantly, and the cause remain motionless. 
History being the result of two factors,—human activity and 
nature,—in which it displays itself, the source of change must 26 
English Psychology. 
needs be in either one or the other, and, as it is not in nature,1 it 
must be sought for in the human soul, and in its dynamic tenden- 
cies. If it be pretended that the psychologist ought to set aside 
all these accidental variations in order to arrive at the final and 
absolute condition of mental activity, then a concrete study must 
be turned into an abstract study, an entity substituted for a 
reality; as if a zoologist should take the ideal type of animality 
as the basis of his researches. Psychological phenomena are 
treated as pure mechanics treats bodies, motions, and forces. 
Spinoza is imitated without acknowledgment. ‘ I will analyse 
the actions and the appetites of men as if it were a question of 
lines, planes, and solids.’—(Ethics 3.) 2 
Whence comes this result, if not from the exclusive employment 
of the subjective method, which cannot lay hold of development 
in psychological facts ? The same method renders every attempt at 
comparative psychology impossible, because, if there are no other 
processes to follow than that of reflection, the psychical phenomena 
of the various races of animals cannot be studied. It is true that the 
method of interior observation being strictly personal, as soon as 
the results of it are applied to others, it is violated; the process 
becomes objective, and the most decisive step is taken. But 
other prejudices which need not be examined here oppose 
themselves to the extension of this study to animals. Hence 
resulted an enormous lacune in the science. The physiologist 
who should have experimented upon vertebrates only, would 
refuse to recognise in other animals those functions which are 
proper to the animal, because they are more simple and more 
obscure in them. But modern naturalists have traced the funda- 
mental functions in even the lowest mollusca and zoophytes. 
The acts are less numerous, less complicated, but the function 
exists for all that. Thus, while in almost all animals the chemical 
1 Nature also contributes; but at second-hand, by stimulus. On this point 
see Herder, and Buckle, Civilisation of England. 
2 It is certain that the elimination of what is variable and accidental is 
necessary to constitute the science, and to determine the general conditions, 
but then the statical study must be completed by the dynamical, as will 
appear hereafter. Introduction. 
27 
process takes place in the interior of the stomach, sometimes, as 
in the case of the hydra, the creatures seem to be entirely trans- 
formed into stomach; while in the case of others, the act is 
performed outside, between the numerous appendices which 
serve at once for mouth and arms. All naturalists are agreed 
that no study has been so fruitful for them as that of anatomy 
and of comparative physiology; that the knowledge of the rudi- 
mentary organs enables them better than anything else to 
understand the organs and the functions. Nothing like this has 
been attempted, or at least accepted, in ordinary psychology; the 
idea of a comparative method is hardly beginning to dawn. If it 
gains some adherents, the result will show what it is worth and 
what it gives. But even if this superior psychology should add 
nothing to our knowledge of man, it will remain none the less 
indispensable to it, since it is clear that psychology must embrace 
all the psychological phenomena. 
Thus understood it will lose the abstract character which 
frequently makes it resemble logic, to which, indeed, it is proper 
to proceed in abstrado; to take the fully constituted, adult mind, 
and to study its mechanism, it cannot and ought not to attach 
itself except to the invariable groundwork;1 while psychology 
studies the phenomena and the faculties in their origin, their 
development, and their transformation. Psychology must also 
keep clear of morals, because it is one thing to prove that 
which is, and another to prescribe that which ought to be, 
to abide by facts or to seek an ideal. The psychologist 
differs from the moralist, as the botanist differs from the 
gardener. For the one there are no vegetables either good or 
bad, they are all equally an object of study; for the other there 
are noxious or parasite plants, which must be extirpated and 
burnt; his rapid justice is concerned rather to condemn than 
1 See Cournot’s Fundamental Ideas, vol. i. p. 213, et seq. The author 
distinguishes two orders of sciences : those which relate to the ideas of order 
and of form, and those which study the functions of life, and make perpetual 
use of the idea of force. The former serve as a basis for the latter. Thus 
logic is opposed to psychology, etc. The obscurity of the idea of force 
accounts for the inferiority of these latter sciences. 28 
English Psychology. 
to know. Moral preoccupations have done harm to psychology 
more frequently than we think, by preventing it being seen as 
it is. 
VIII. 
Psychology, as understood in its widest sense, embracing all 
the phenomena of mind in all animals, and considering them, 
not only under their adult form, but in the successive phases of 
their development, offers an almost boundless field for research. 
Hence it is striking to observe how summary all the hitherto 
most accredited treatises upon Psychology are. If we subtract 
historical digressions, what, in many instances, remains? We 
shall be still more impressed by this brevity if we compare 
psychological books with those of naturalists, which are laden 
with details. Whence arises this difference, if not from the method, 
employed 1 The latter collect facts with indefatigable patience, 
noting exceptions and differences, the former consisting only of a 
vague sketch, and some abstract formulas. And yet, has not 
that principle which thinks, feels, acts, and wills, in animated 
beings, almost infinite varieties, which are to be revealed only by 
the most minute investigation ? Can we believe that a human 
soul may be described more briefly than a plant ? 
As the inevitable result of progress in every science is to pro- 
duce division and subdivision of labour in it, we may safely 
predict that an extended and truly complete psychology will sever 
itself into many branches, and form sub-sciences, which shall 
become the objects of special study. It would be rash to indi- 
cate those divisions beforehand, but perhaps we may foresee 
some of them. Mr. John Stuart Mill, in the weighty pages which 
he has devoted to method in psychology, after having pointed 
out that the object of this science is ‘ the uniformities of succes- 
sions,’ bids us remark that we can conceive an intermediate 
case between the perfect science and its extreme imperfection. 
Such is the theory of the tides; when we consider the general 
causes of this phenomenon only, it can be predicted with cer- 
tainty, but local or accidental circumstances (such as the con- 
figuration of the coasts or the direction of the wind) modify it, so Introduction. 
29 
as to render the result of the general calculation inexact. * The 
science of the tides is not yet an exact science, not because of a 
radical impossibility relating to nature, but because it is very 
difficult to establish desired uniformities with precision. The 
science of human nature is of the same kind/ 
Mr. Stuart Mill divides psychological studies into two great 
classes : of the one part, those which are experimental, of the 
other part, those which are deductive. 
Experimental psychology, founded upon observation, estab- 
lishes the facts from which it draws its laws, and ‘ constitutes the 
universal or abstract part of the philosophy of human nature/ 
Deductive psychology, which constitutes ethology, or the science 
of character, supposes the preceding. It examines into how the 
general laws of psychological facts produce such variety of 
national or individual character, by their meetings, their com- 
binations, their crossings. 
If, following these indications, we endeavour to trace the 
divisions of a truly scientific psychology, this is what we shall 
find it ought to contain. 
Firstly, we may comprehend in the term General Psychology 
the study of the phenomena of consciousness, sensations, thoughts, 
emotions, relations, etc., considered under their most general 
aspects. This study, which ought to serve as a point of depar- 
ture and a basis for all the others, is the only one which has 
hitherto been cultivated by the psychologists. It is, besides, 
clear that general psychology ought to profit by all the dis- 
coveries due to its subordinate parts. It would complete itself, 
firstly by Comparative Psychology, whose object and importance 
we have already endeavoured to show, and afterwards by a study 
of anomalies or monstrosities, which might be called Psycholo- 
gical Teratology. It is unnecessary to delay here in order to de- 
monstrate the usefulness of the study of deviations towards the 
complete understanding of phenomena, but the' indifference of 
psychology on this point is truly remarkable. With the excep- 
tion of Diderot’s Lettre sur les Aveugles, which does not fulfil its 
promises, the pages of Dugald Stewart upon James Mitchell 
(.Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Afind, vol. iii.), and 30 
English Psychology. 
some scattered observations, psychology has completely shut its 
eyes to exceptions and anomalies.1 
It is the physiologists who have drawn the conclusions to 
which it led from the curious history of Laura* Bridgeman, con- 
clusions totally contrary to the doctrine of transformed sensa- 
tions, and which, founded upon the facts, had not the vague char- 
acter of the ordinary arguments. A deaf man, a blind man, a 
man originally deprived of any sense, is he not a ready-made 
subject for observation, one to whom one of the strictest pro- 
cesses of method, the differential, may be applied 1 Have 
studies upon madness, though still very incomplete, been alto- 
gether sterile hitherto 1 
If we now pass from abstract to concrete psychology, if, quitting 
analysis for synthesis, we deal no longer with general but with 
derived laws; if we try to determine how these laws by cross- 
ing each other determine psychological varieties, we shall meet 
with a new science, that of character, or, as Mr. Mill calls it, 
Ethology. We can understand how ordinary psychology, which 
has little taste for facts, and an habitual tendency towards 
abstraction, has neglected this study. Phrenology and Cranio- 
scopics, which have been suffered to sleep, understood its impor- 
tance better. The science of characters constituted a practical 
or applied psychology, whose utility in education, in the con- 
i The philosopher of whom we have, already spoken in reference to the 
faculties, proposes to classify as follows all studies whose object is man, which 
he designates under the name of Anthropology:— 
I. Researches relative to man as an individual. 
1. Relative to Organism : Physiology and Anatomy. 
2. Relative to mental operations and affections : Psychology. 
3. Relative to the connexion between the phenomena of organism with the 
phenomena of consciousness (comprising Cranioscopics and Physio- 
gnomy). 
4. Relative to the individual character. 
II. Researches relative to humanity : its origin, races, progress, and 
civilisation. 
III. Researches relative to the connexion between humanity and 
superior beings, or theology. 
Samuel Bailey, Lella-s on the Philosophy of the Human Mind, vol. ii. 
Letter 20. Introduction. 
31 
duct of life, and even in politics, is evident. No doubt this 
science will always partake considerably of the nature of art; but 
will it not be sufficiently exact to render its employment legitimate ? 
The naturalists have discovered certain organic correlations, on 
which they rely for the reconstruction of an animal from a few 
fragments. They know that there is a relation between the foot 
and the jaw, that the tooth of a carnivorous animal indicates a 
bony structure, consequently a skeleton, a cerebro-spinal ax‘is, 
etc., etc. Might not psychological conditions be equally ar- 
rived at 1 Let us suppose that by an accumulation of sure and 
varied experiments, we were enabled to establish for instance, 
that a certain manner of feeling supposes a certain variety of 
imagination, which, in its turn, supposes a certain mode of judg- 
ing and reasoning, which again supposes a certain method of 
willing and acting, and that this determination should be as pre- 
cise as possible; surely by the aid of a single fact it might be 
possible to reconstitute a character, since the problem would 
reduce itself to the following: Given a number of the series, to 
find the entire series. 
It will be granted that this hypothesis is in no way chimerical, if 
we wall only remark that penetrating minds effect such a recon- 
struction instinctively, by a swift and sure intuition, though there 
is nothing scientific in it; that there exists a particular art which 
is called the knowledge of men. The question is, whether this 
Art may not become a Science; that is to say, whether, instead 
of being arbitrary, it may not be formulated into laws applicable 
to a great number of cases, and verified in the great majority. 
When this shall have been successfully done, Ethology will be 
constituted. 
It seems that Ethology might be divided into an ethology of 
of individuals, an ethology of peoples, and an ethology of races. 
Individual ethology, the most important and the most concrete 
of the three, would seek after the psychological differences result- 
ing from difference of sex and temperament. It would deter- 
mine the psychological characters which distinguish those various 
forms of mind which we designate under the names of poet, 
geometrician, industrial, warrior, etc. etc., thus limiting its study 
to that of a certain number of types. Among psychologists 32 
English Psychology. 
I know only Dugald Stewart who has attempted this task (Ap- 
pendix to his Philosophy of the Human Mind, vol. iii.), in 
incomplete and vague essays, whose diffuseness is not their 
least defect. 
The ethology of peoples and races would derive its materials 
from linguistics and history. It is easy to see that ethology is 
not in any way confounded with history. There is as much 
difference between defining the character of a people and 
relating its history, as there is between drawing a man’s likeness 
and writing his biography. The history of a people and the 
biography of a man are not only composed of that which comes 
from them, but also of the action of exterior circumstances upon 
them. Ethology eliminates this latter element, and takes no 
account of it, except in so far as it serves to elucidate the 
character. Ethology would not propose to itself simply a sta- 
tical study of characters, it would endeavour to determine the 
phases which they undergo, and to follow them throughout their 
evolution. 
Such, keeping in view phenomena only, and without speaking 
of the metaphysics of psychology, is the framework of one division 
of that science. But so long as it shall not be subdivided, it will 
be impossible for it to embrace the whole of its domain ; it will 
not get beyond the brevity and meagreness of the ordinary 
treatises.1 And yet, when we consider the immense variety of 
facts and questions contained in it, the task seems inexhaustible; 
infinite perspectives spread themselves before the seeker, and 
we find that there is so much to do that we venture to say 
nothing has been done. 
It seems to me that the best we can hope for psychology is 
that it may be entering upon that period of apparent disorder 
and real fecundity, in which every question is studied separately, 
and excavated to its utmost depths. A good collection of mono- 
graphs and memoirs upon special points would be perhaps the 
best service which could now be rendered to psychological 
i The only work, within our knowledge, in France, in which the insuffi- 
ciency of ordinary psychology and its neglect of many important questions 
are treated, is in Vacherot’s Essais de Philosophic Critique, p. 152 el see/. Introduction. 
33 
studies. No doubt all this is not a science, but without all this 
there is no science. Such a method would possess not only the 
advantage of substituting better tendencies for those which 
actually exist, the study of facts for hypothetical generalizations, 
it would also offer a task within the reach of all. In this work of 
detail each might share according to his measure and his strength. 
Many who could not be architects might cut stones skilfully 
enough. A hundred workers might perhaps wear themselves out 
over one obscure point. What matter, if a result be obtained 1 
The science will accept their work, and forget their names. It 
will assume its true character—impersonality. Multi pcrtransi- 
bunt, sed augebitur scientia. 
IX. 
We have only a few more words to say, relative to the aim of 
this work. Since the time of Hobbes and Locke, England has 
been the country which has done the most for psychology. In 
our own time two currents of doctrines have been produced there: 
on one side the a priori school, represented by Sir W. Hamilton, 
Dr. Whewell, Mr. Mansel, Mr. Ferrier,1 etc.; on the other, the 
a posteriori school (Association-Psychology), which numbers among 
its adherents James Mill, John Stuart Mill, Messrs. Bailey, Her- 
bert Spencer, Bain, Lewes, and several others.2 A complete 
1 Professor Ferrier, of the University of St. Andrews, has published Insti- 
tutes of Metaphysics in thirty-three propositions : ‘ one of the most remarkable 
books of our time,’ says Mr. Lewes (a positivist), ‘ but which resembles a 
solitary obelisk in a vast bare plain.’ It is remarkable that Professor Forier 
distinguishes experimental psychology very clearly from psychology meta- 
morphosed into metaphysics. ‘ In case,’ he says, ‘ it may be thought that 
psychology has not been sufficiently spared in this work, let it it be remarked 
that it is only in so much as psychology ventures to treat the fundamental 
question of knowledge, and to introduce itself into the region of prima 
philosophic, that it has been criticised and its insufficiency shown. In its 
own sphere, i.e. the study of mental operations, such as memory, the asso- 
ciation of ideas, etc., the labours of psychology ought not to be disdained in 
any respect.’—Institutes of Metaphysics, p. 116. 
2 Sir H. Holland, Chapters on Mental Physiology; Dr. Noble, Medical 
Psychology; Brodie, Psychological Enquiries; Dunn, Physiological Psycho- 
logy, etc. ; Morell, An Introduction to Mental Philosophy ; Maudsley, Patho- 
logy and Physiology of Mind; Murphy, Habit and Intelligence, etc. etc. English Psychology. 
34 
study of English contemporary psychology would necessarily 
comprehend both these schools. At present we shall only endea- 
vour to make known the second. As it is unknowm, or very 
nearly unknown, in France, and as it seems to hold the first 
rank, in virtue of the celebrity of the names which represent it, of 
its harmony with the general tendencies of the age, and the most 
recent discoveries of the natural and physical sciences, and of 
the originality of its researches and results, we believe that it 
must be useful to make known its doctrines, and that this work 
of pure exposition cannot be displeasing either to those who accept 
or to those who repel them. HARTLEY. 
In considering English contemporaneous psychology, the 
theories of Hartley have only a retrospective interest. Thus we 
give him in this instance the place of a precursor merely, for all 
that is to be found in his work is either left behind or forgotten. 
Nevertheless, it seems that he has not been done sufficient justice. 
On the appearance of his Observations on Man, his Frame, his Duty, 
and his Expectations (1748), the book had but moderate success. 
Hartley had preceded its publication, sixteen years previously, by 
that of a brief Latin treatise, entitled Conjecturce qucedam de Seusu, 
Motu, ct Idearum Generatione. This little work has been re- 
published by Dr. Parr in his Metaphysical Facts by English Philo- 
sophers of the Eighteenth Century (1837). But the public, Hartley’s 
contemporaries, seem to have been indifferent to this new manner 
of conceiving the mechanism of mind. On the other hand, the 
Association-Psychology, whose theory we propose to explain, is so 
superior to Hartley, that it is easy to see why that philosopher has 
almost fallen into oblivion. Nevertheless, as it is a fact that the 
original idea of associational-psychology is in Hartley, it will be 
interesting to explain it briefly in this place, were it only to enable 
us to measure the way which has been made since the Observa- 
tions on Man. 
Hartley is a plain, lucid, methodical writer,—perhaps he is a 
little too methodical. He proceeds by geometrical method, by 
propositions, corollaries, and scholia. He divides, subdivides, 
and distinguishes in a manner worthy of a scholastic. Without 
losing ourselves in all these subdivisions, let us examine some 
general points. 
The whole of Hartley’s system may be resolved into two prin- 
cipal theories :— 
1. The theory of vibrations, by which he explains all nervous 36 
English Psychology. 
phenomena, and consequently the relations of the physical and 
the moral. 
2. The theory of association, by which he explains all the 
mechanism of mind, and all psychological phenomena without 
exception. 
The first is borrowed from Newton’s Optics and Principia 
Philosophic. The second, from Locke’s doctrine of the associa- 
tion of ideas, contained in the Essay on the Human Understanding. 
The following is the explanation of what both consist in. 
L 
In order to understand what is new and original in the physio- 
logical portion of Hartley’s work, we must recall the current 
universally received ideas of his epoch. 
The physicists of the two last centuries habitually resorted, 
for the explanation of phenomena whose nature was imperfectly 
known to them* to the intervention of special electric fluids, so 
defined as to explain those phenomena. Thus they imagined 
two electric fluids, the one positive, the other negative, andvthey 
represented heat, light, and magnetism as other imponderable 
fluids. They even tried to explain nervous action by the inter- 
vention of a new fluid, circulating in the nerves, as if in tubes, 
and which would be thus conducted from the nervous extremities 
to the brain. 
This doctrine had obtained great credit when Hartley, struck 
with the important part which the discoveries of Newton attri- 
buted to vibrations in optics, and particularly in vision, conceived 
the idea that an analogous phenomenon must be produced 
in the cerebro-spinal system. He drew attention to the fact 
that since a luminous ray, falling upon the eye, determines 
vibrations in the retina, these vibrations must be propagated by 
the fibres of the optic nerves, until they reach the brain, in order 
to produce the sensation of vision, and that they may last for a 
long time; the same being the case, not only in the sense of 
sight, strictly speaking, but in the entire nervous system, so 
that that portion of our organism is in a state of continuous 
vibration. 
But how are these vibrations effected, and in what do they Hartley. 
37 
consist 1 * They are motions backwards and forwards of the small 
particles, of the same kind as the oscillation of the pendulum, 
and the trembling of particles of sounding bodies. They are 
excited, propagated, and kept up, partly by ether, partly by 
uniformity and continuity of the brain, spinal marrow, and 
nerves.’ 
We perceive that Hartley makes his explanation depend on the 
hypothesis of the ether, as established by Newton. ‘ Let us 
suppose the existence of the ether, with its properties, to be 
destitute of all direct evidence, still, if it serve to explain and 
account for a great variety of phenomena, it will have an in- 
direct evidence in its favour by those means.’ We must then 
conceive the nervous system as penetrated with this elastic com- 
pressible substance, apt to receive vibrations. ‘ It will therefore 
follow that the nerves are rather solid capillamenta according to 
Newton, than small tubuli according to Boerhaave.’ Hartley 
attaches the phenomena of light, heat, sound, attraction, and 
electricity to his hypothesis of vibrations, very ingeniously. 
Thus, the impression of any object upon our organism, dis- 
turbance of the nerves, vibrations, transmission of those vibrations 
to the brain, permanence of vibrations after the sensible object 
has disappeared, is a summary of the physiological hypothesis of 
Hartley. 
We shall not stop to show how insufficient such physiology is. 
We will only remind our readers that, at that time, the anatomy of 
the brain and of the nervous system hardly existed. Thus Hartley 
believes that it is the white substance of the encephalus which pre- 
sides over the psychological functions, whereas we now know that 
the grey substance is much the more important of the two. 
Nevertheless, we cannot deny that he is right upon a number 
of points. His hypothesis of vibrations, independently of all 
theories upon ether and its nature, agrees with the tendencies of 
modern physics and physiology, which incline to refer everything 
to movements. Recent researches have shown that there is no 
nervous fluid, or nervous circulation, such as Hartley’s contem- 
poraries believed in, but that impression travels in the nerves in 
an intermittent manner, like the electric current in a conducting 
wire. Certain physiologists of our time conceive the mechanism 38 
English Psychology. 
of thought as a communication of vibrations having their seat in 
the grey substance of the brain.1 The initial movement can 
transmit itself from one cell to another in every possible direction; 
hence the variety of associations. Thus, then, without pronounc- 
ing upon the value of Hartley’s hypothesis, we may say that the 
scientific theories which have been professed for a century are far 
from being unfavourable to him. 
II. 
Now let us approach the psychological study, with which we 
are more directly concerned. 
We have seen that the impression of exterior objects causes 
vibrations, by means of the ether, which produce sensation. 
Now, ‘sensory vibrations, by being often repeated, beget in the 
medullary substance of the brain a disposition to diminutive 
vibrations, which may also be called vibratiuncles, or miniature 
vibrations, corresponding to themselves respectively.’ These 
vibratiuncles, which are vestiges of the primitive vibration, may 
be called ‘ simple ideas of sensation.’ The vibratiuncles then 
produce Ideas. 
Hitherto we have explained only the simple elements of 
thought; we must now enter upon its conditions and complex 
operations. Here comes in the law of Association. 
‘Any associations, A, B, C, etc., by being associated with 
one another a sufficient number of times, get such a power over 
the corresponding ideas, A, B, C, etc., that any one of the sensa- 
tions A, when impressed alone, shall be able to excite in the 
mind B, C, etc., the ideas of the rest.’ (Prop, x.) 
‘ Any vibrations, A, B, C, etc., by being associated together a 
sufficient number of times, get such a power over a, b, c, etc., the 
corresponding miniature vibrations, that any of the vibrations A, 
when impressed alone, shall be able to excite b, c, etc., the mini- 
ature of the rest. (Prop, xi.) 
Thus, then, it is by means of association that simple ideas 
merge into complex ideas, and concur in their composition. 
1 Luys, Recherches sur le Systlme nerveux% cir&ro-spinal, Paris, 1S65. Hartley. 
39 
After having explained man as a thinking and feelmg being, he 
remains to be explained as an active being,—that is to say, capable 
of movement. Here also everything reverts to vibrations, vibra- 
tiuncles, and association. 
In the first place, ‘ That propensity to alienate construction 
and relaxation which is observed in almost all the muscles of the 
body, admits of a solution from the doctrine of vibrations; ’ the 
‘motory vibrations,’ which contract the muscles, account for 
automatic movements. 
If we admit that the motory vibrations leave vibratiuncles after 
them, exactly as sensory vibrations do, we may, by the aid of 
these motory vibrations explain voluntary and semi-voluntary 
movements. They are rendered possible by an association of 
the primitive motory vibrations. Hence the whole doctrine of 
association may be confirmed in the following theorem :— 
‘ If any sensation A, idea B, or muscular motion C, be asso- 
ciated for a sufficient number of times with any other sensation 
D, idea E, or muscular motion F, it will at last excite d, the idea 
belonging to the sensation D, the very idea E, or the very mus- 
cular motion F.’ (Prop, xx.) 
We can now arrive at a collective view of the entire doctrine, 
and see how all is explained by two things only, vibrations and 
association. 
To simple vibration corresponds sensation. 
To associated vibrations complex sensations. 
To the vibratiuncle, the simple idea. 
To associated vibratiuncles, complex ideas. 
To the motory vibrations automatic movement. 
To motory vibratiuncles, voluntary and semi-voluntary 
movements. 
Such are the general laws which, according to Hartley, regulate 
and explain all the mechanism of the human mind. It only 
remains for us now to say how he explains the various faculties, 
senses, memory, imagination, understanding, affections, and will, by 
attaching them to the law of association. 
i. There is no occasion for us to linger over his analyses of 
the senses. He distinguishes the general sense or feeling,, which 40 
English Psychology. 
is nothing but touch, from the four special senses, and applies 
himself to explain all by vibrations and associations. 
* 2. Memory is that faculty by which traces of sensations and 
ideas come, or are recalled, in the same order and proportion, 
accurately or nearly as they were once presented. The relations 
between memory and the association of ideas are so evident, so 
universally recognised, that it is useless to dwell upon them. 
3. It is the same with regard to the imagination. ‘ When ideas 
and trains of ideas occur, or are called up in a vivid manner, and 
without regard to the order of former actual impressions and per- 
ceptions, this is said to be done by the power of fancy.’ Odd 
and extravagant associations explain reverie, dreaming, mental 
alienation, and all their cognate phenomena. 
4. ‘ The understanding is that faculty by which we contem- 
plate mere sensations and ideas, pursue truth, and assent to or 
dissent from propositions.’ This faculty, in all its essentials, 
reduces itself to judgment, and, as Hartley says, to proposition, 
and leads itself back to an association of ideas. 
Propositions (affirmative and negative) are of two kinds, 
rational and practical. 
The former are those who have for their object mathematical 
truths: now, in this case, what is the process followed when I 
say 2X2 = 4, or 12X12 = 144! My rational assent to the pro- 
position may be defined as a readiness to affirm it to be true, 
proceeding from a close association of the ideas suggested by the 
proposition, with the idea or internal feeling belonging to the 
word truth. 
The latter are those which have for their object natural bodies. 
Hartley’s thought may be differently expressed, by saying that the 
objects of the one are abstracts, and the objects of the other 
are concretes. The former consist in associating a sensation or 
a group of sensations given by experience to another sensation, 
or group of sensations, equally given by experience. For in- 
stance : gold is ductile, or soluble in aqua regia. As we see, 
then, the fundamental operations by which we find scientific or 
vulgar truths, are brought back by final analysis to associations, 
to the fusion of simple elements. 
5. Hartley afterwards shows how the passions, i.e. the moral Hartley. 
41 
life of man, have their point of departure also in an association of 
ideas. They set out from two fundamental phenomena—plea- 
sure and pain. But complex sentiments proceed from these 
simple conditions, by fusion and association. 
The* passions result from certain sentiments, certain emotions 
which have been once or several times united to ideas or to 
circumstances which have the power to reawaken them by the 
very principle of association. 
Let us take fear, for example. We may observe any day that 
a child is not afraid of a thing except from the moment that 
that thing has been made to him the real or apparent cause of 
suffering or punishment. He is not afraid of fire until he has 
been burned ; or of a dog, until the dog has bitten him. In the 
same way, the passion of love is born of the association of agree- 
able circumstances with the idea of the object which produces 
this love. 
Our passions may also be all reduced to the sentiments of fear 
or of affection, varying according to the relation which subsists 
between their objects and ourselves. In its origin, every pas- 
sion is always interested, that is to say, it is engendered by an 
association of ideas founded on pain and on pleasure. But, in 
consequence of our associations, our passions, in becoming more 
complex, assume a disinterested character. It is thus that the 
child loves his mother or his nurse. The idea of that passion 
associates itself with the various pleasures which she has caused 
him, which he has experienced in her presence. 
Hartley classifies our passions in rather an arbitrary way, which 
is also a little confused, under the following titles :— 
The pleasure and pain of imagination, of ambition, of self- 
interest, of sympathy, of theopathy, of moral sense. 
When he discusses the instincts*he is weak. He shows, how- 
ever, that they lead back to association. Their point of depar- 
ture is automatic; the muscles have at first been contracted 
involuntarily, then this involuntary action has associated itself 
with the cerebral disturbance which has accompanied it; in other 
words, the idea unites itself to motion, and motion follows it 
immediately and mechanically. 
6. A mechanism so strict as Hartley’s leaves no place for 42 
English Psychology. 
free-will, and he is too rigid a logician to permit it to enter by an 
inconsequence. Thus, in the ordinary sense of the word, he 
absolutely rejects it. 
Free-will, he says, may be understood in one of the two 
following senses :—x. A power of doing either the action A, or 
its contrary a, while the previous circumstances remain the same. 
2. A power of beginning motion. Both one and the other of 
these two senses are perfectly incompatible with the hypothesis 
of the mechanism of the mind. 
‘ But, if by free-will be meant anything different from these two 
definitions of it, it may not perhaps be inconsistent with the 
mechanism of the mind here laid down. Thus, if free-will be 
defined as the power of doing what a person desires or wills to 
do, of deliberating, suspending, choosing, or of resisting the 
motives of sensuality, ambition, resentment, free-will, within 
certain limitations, is not only consistent with the doctrine of 
mechanism, but even flows from it; since it appears from the 
foregoing theory, that voluntary and semi-voluntary powers of 
calling up ideas, of exciting and restraining affections, and of 
performing and suspending actions, arise from the mechanism 
of our nature. This may be called free-will in the popular and 
practical sense, in contradistinction to that which is opposed to 
mechanism, and which may be called free-will in a philosophical 
sense.’ 
Hartley even maintains that the hypothesis of free-will, re- 
ducing itself to the admission pf effects without causes, ruins 
thereby the principle of causality, and consequently, the existence 
‘ of the First Cause.’ This constitutes the second portion of his 
book, into which wre shall not follow him. 
We do not wish to dwell here upon a philosopher who is inter 
esting, only because he was the first of a school which has gone 
far beyond him. 
His merit consists in two principles. He has clearly perceived 
that all the operations of the mind are reducible on final analysis 
to the law of association. He has said this very plainly, and he 
has tried to demonstrate it. Before him, nothing comparable 
was to be found in Locke, or even in Hobbes. He has perceived 
that the question of the relations between the physical and the Hartley. 
43 
moral seem to lead back to this question :—how is a nervous 
vibration united to a sentiment 1 This was much in his age, at 
an epoch in which the importance of the nervous system was too 
often misunderstood, when questions of this kind were put under 
the form of a strange or unintelligible hypothesis. Thus, he has 
perceived the fundamental law of psychology, and the funda- 
mental fact of the relations of the physical and the moral. 
On the other hand, he has the defects of his time, a somewhat 
superficial clearness, a talent for simplifying things which leads 
him to suppress difficulties. We are astonished to see how simple 
the complicated mechanism of the human soul becomes in his 
hands. All this comes from a defect of method. Hartley, 
though a physician, had the tendencies of a geometrician rather 
than a naturalist. Not with impunity did he borrow his prin- 
ciples from Newton. All his parade of demonstrations, of 
scholia, and of corollaries, shows that he is much more occupied 
in setting forth his theory in fine logical order, than in illustrating 
it by facts. After his day, the method of the natural sciences 
remained to be applied to psychology; but, though lie did not do 
this, he prepared the way for its being done. MR. JAMES MILL. 
‘The sceptre of psychology,’ says Mr. Stuart Mill, ‘has 
decidedly returned to England.’ We might go further, and 
maintain that it has never departed thence. No doubt, psycho- 
logical studies are now cultivated in England by first-class men, 
who, by the solidity of their method, and, which is more rare, by 
the precision of their results, have caused the science to enter 
upon a new epoch ; but this is rather a redoubling than a renewal 
of its brilliancy. Since the time of Locke, and even before it, 
the empirical study of the facts of consciousness has always 
been in favour among the English; no people have done so 
much for psychology considered apart from metaphysics. Ifi 
indeed, we look at the three or four peoples of modern Europe 
who only have had a philosophical development, with the 
exception of Germany, apt at everything, though loving meta- 
physics above all,1 we shall see that in Italy experimental psy- 
chology is poor, almost nil, because that light, imaginative 
race, whose life is all outside, have an instinctive repugnance to 
it; that in France it soon turns to logic, because we have too 
little taste for patient observation, for exceptions, for accumulated 
facts, and that we are too fond of compartments, divisions, and 
subdivisions, order, symmetry, brief and decisive formulas. In 
England it is natural; it is the simple result of that disposition 
to the interior life, to that falling back upon one’s-self, whence come 
poetry and romance of the order which we call intimes. The 
1 Among the contemporary German works in which psychology is more or 
less considered as ‘ a natural science,’ we may quote Wundt, Vorlesungen 
iiber die Menschen und Thierseele ; Waitz, Lehrbuch der Psychologie als Natur- 
wissenschaft; Fechner, Elemente der Psychophysik ; Lotze, Medicinische Psycho- 
logy, and the psychologists of the school of Herbart, Drobisch, Wolkmann, 
etc. etc. Mr. James Mill. 
45 
English contemporary school is therefore the continuation of an 
uninterrupted tradition; allied, through Brown, to the Scotch 
school, linked through James Mill with Hartley and Hume, and 
holding especially by the latter. 
As we are now occupied with contemporaries, we shall not go 
further back than the nineteenth century. As our object is the 
experimental school, we shall lay aside some illustrious names, 
such as Hamilton, Mansel, Ferrier, etc., those of metaphysicians 
or logicians rather than of psychologists. * 
James Mill, the first on our list, would seem to be excluded by 
the date of his death (1836). But some of our contemporaries 
acknowledge him as a precursor. A new edition of his Analysis 
of the Phenomena of the Human Mind has appeared lately, en- 
riched with full critical notes by Mr. John Stuart Mill, his son, and 
Mr. Bain, completed in all which concerns linguistics by a philo- 
logist, Mr. Andrew Findlater, and in all that concerns erudition 
by Mr. Grote. The date of this book makes it curious. It is too 
new, and yet not new enough to obtain a great success. It is a 
transitional work which is not well understood until after. Clear, 
lucid, methodical, well put together, the book errs from want of 
width and insufficiency of development. Now, opinion does 
not understand, and above all does not accept a doctrine except 
by dint of hearing it repeated. Contemporary labours, directed 
in the same sense, but less concise, and more familiar with the 
sciences, seem to have lent to his a retrospective value. 
The Analysis proceeds much more from Hartley than from the 
Scotch School. No declamation, no recourse to eloquence; it 
says, with Hobbes, 1 fhilosofhia vera, orationis non modo fucum, 
sed etiam omnia fere ornameJita ex professo rejicitl No appeal 
to prejudices or to common sense; no explanation by facul- 
ties which are invented to solve difficulties. He particularly 
dreads ‘ the mystic/ and ‘ the mysterious.'’ His explanation of 
the phenomena of mind is very simple, too simple indeed, for we 
find in it the logician rather than the psychologist. He reduces 
everything to sensations, ideas, and the associations of ideas. In 
the psychical world there is only one fact, sensation, only one law, 
association. 
What is his method1? He does not tell us that; but he almost 46 
English Psychology. 
always proceeds subjectively. In this respect he belongs to the 
eighteenth century. We do not find in his works any trace of a 
comparative psychology. He also belongs to this century by 
his tendency to consider phenomena only in adult minds, and 
among a civilized people. Carrying the practical spirit of his 
nation into psychological studies, he thinks, with reason, that 
education would be more enlightened and more systematic if 
psychology were more advanced; and that a good analysis of 
the phenomena of mind ought to serve as the basis of three 
practical treatises,—one Logical, to lead us to the true, one Moral, 
to regulate our actions, one Emotional, to develop the indivi- 
dual and the species. 
Mr. James Mill, who was at least as well known an historian 
and economist as philosopher, has left a History of British India, 
which is considered a powerful and fine work,1 and Principles of 
Political Economy, inspired by Smith and Ricardo, which com- 
petent judges regard as a solid book, a little difficult because it is 
so excessively concise, ‘ too abstract, perhaps, to be of popular 
utility.’ 
Some details borrowed from the recent Preface to his works will 
make the reader acquainted with the man :— 
‘ Though, like all who value their time for higher purposes, he 
went little into what is called society, he helped, encouraged, and 
not seldom prompted, many of the men who were most useful in 
their generation. From his obscure privacy he was during many 
years of his life the soul of what is now called the advanced 
Liberal party; and such was the effect of his conversation, and of 
the force of his character, on those who were within reach of its 
influence, that many then young, who have since made them- 
selves honoured in the world by a valuable career, look back to 
their intercourse with him as having had a considerable share of 
deciding their course through life. ... As a converser Mr. 
Mill had few equals; as an argumentative converser, in modern 
1 Mr. John Stuart Mill says in his Preface, that by his labours as Admini- 
strator of the East India Company, James Mill did much good, and prepared 
the way for much more, to the millions for whose good or ill government 
England is responsible. Mr. jf antes Mill. 
47 
times, probably none. All his mental resources seemed to be at 
his command at any moment.’1 
At the outset of his philosophic life, Hartley’s doctrine took 
strong hold of his mind. He applied himself to its completion 
and extension; he is, as Mr. Stuart Mill says, the second founder 
of the psychology of association. 
‘ I am far from thinking that the more recondite specimens of 
analysis are always successful, or that the author has not left 
something to be corrected as well as much to be completed by 
his successors. The completion has been especially the work of 
two distinguished thinkers in the present generation, Professor 
Bain and Mr. Herbert Spencer, in the writings of both of whom 
Association-Psychology has reached a still higher development. 
. . . What there is in the work that seems to need correc- 
tion, arises chiefly from two causes. First, the imperfection 
of physiological science at the time at which it was written. . . . 
Secondly, a certain impatience of detail. The bent of his mind 
was towards that, in which also his greatest strength lay, in seiz- 
ing the larger features of a subject—the commanding laws which 
govern and connect many phenomena. . . . From this cause (as it 
appears to me) he has occasionally gone further in the pursuit of 
simplification, and in the reduction of the more recondite mental 
phenomena to the more elementary, than I am able to follow him.’2 
We think that the majority of our readers will agree with Mr. 
Mill when they shall have perused the following analysis. 
CHAPTER I. 
SENSATIONS AND IDEAS. 
Sensations and ideas.—I. The association of ideas—2. Language—3. Memory, 
imagination, classification, abstraction—4. Belief. 
Every one who has read Hume’s Essays will remember that 
this philosopher explains all by three things,—impression, idea, 
1 Preface to the Works of James Mill, by John Stuart Mill, vol. i. p. xv. 
2 P. xv. voL i., Preface by John Stuart Mill. 48 
English Psychology. 
and the union of ideas. The primitive phenomenon is impression, 
or, as it is commonly called, sensation ; idea is a feebler copy of 
this ; then ideas associate themselves, unite, and there result com- 
plex or aggregate phenomena. Mr. James Mill admits only 
sensations, ideas, and associations of ideas? 
He classes our sensations under eight heads,—Smell, Hearing, 
Sight, Taste, Touch, Sensations of disorganization in some portion 
of the body, Muscular sensations, Sensations of the alimentary 
canal. As we shall see hereafter, contemporary psychologists 
generally reduce the last three groups to two,—muscular sensa- 
tions, organic sensations ; the former relating to the muscles, 
and which reveal tension or effort, the latter relating to the good 
or bad condition of the organs. But it is important to remark, 
that our author has seen more clearly than the Scotch school,2 
which, adhering to the traditional five senses only, could not 
achieve more than a curtailed analysis of the sensations. 
Thence came the impossibility of any scientific explanation of 
exterior perception; for had not this school neglected the 
analysis of the muscular sense, which reveals to us resistance; 
that is to say, the fundamental sensation of exteriority? Thus 
James Mill is right when he says, ‘ there is no element of con- 
sciousness which demands more attention than this, though until 
of late it has been deplorably neglected.’ 
It is a peculiarity of our constitution that when our sensa- 
tions cease through the absence of their objects, something re- 
mains. After having seen the sun, if I shut my eyes I no longer 
see it, but I can think of it. That which thus survives sen- 
sation I call ‘ a copy, an image of the sensation, sometimes a 
representation or a trace of the sensation.’ This copy is the 
idea.8 
The general faculty of having sensations is called sensation : 
the general faculty of having ideas is called by the author 
Ideation. As the idea is the copy of the sensation, and as 
1 See Essays 2 and 3. 
8 That of Reid, Dugald Stewart, and tlieir contemporaries. 
8 Analysis, etc., vol. i. ch. ii. p. 52. Mr. James Mill. 
49 
there are eight groups of sensations, there are eight groups of 
ideas of which it is easy to find examples.1 
We know the simple sensations and those secondary sensa- 
tions, which are their images. These are the two primitive states 
of consciousness. From thence all those combinations whose 
varieties are innumerable result; they are produced by the asso- 
ciation of ideas. 
All the philosophers of whom we treat regard the phenomenon 
of association as one of the most general laws of psychology, 
and even as the fundamental fact to which they endeavour to 
bring back everything in our mental life. This doctrine, known 
in England by the generic name of Association-Psychology, is 
only in its beginning in James Mill’s works, but supported by 
the preceding studies of Hume and Hartley, it is presented in a 
clear and decided form, as we shall presentlv see. 
Association is so general a fact that our whole life consists in 
a succession of sentiments {train of feelings). Can an order be 
discovered in this 1 Let us remark, in the first place, that asso- 
ciation is produced as well between sensations, as between ideas. 
Association between the sensations ought to take place 
conformably to the order established between the objects of 
nature ; that is to say, according to a synchronic order or ac- 
cording to a successive order. Synchronic order, or that of 
simultaneous existence, is order in space ; successive order, or 
that of anterior and posterior existence, is order in time. The 
taste of an apple, its resistance in my mouth ; the solidity of the 
earth which carries me, etc., this is synchronic association. I 
see a bombshell thrown, I follow it with my eyes, I see it fall, 
and cause destruction, this is successive association. 
As our ideas are derived, not from the objects themselves, but 
1 Mr. Stuart Mill calls attention in Note 24 to the fact that the idea, being 
the copy of the sensation, it may be asked whether there is not also a copy 
of the copy, an idea of the idea. My idea of Pericles, or of an existing 
person whom I have never seen, corresponds to a real existing object, or one 
which has been existent in the world of sensation. Nevertheless, as my idea 
is derived not from the object, but from the words of another person, my idea 
is not a copy of the original, but a copy of the copy of another ; it is the idea 
of an idea. 50 
English Psychology. 
from our sensations, we may expect from analogy that their 
order shall be derived from that of the sensations, and this most 
frequently occurs. ‘ Our ideas are born or exist in the order in 
which the sensations, of which they are the copies, have existed 
Such is the general law of the association of ideas.1 
When sensations are produced simultaneously, ideas are also 
awakened simultaneously ; when sensations have been successive, 
ideas spring up in succession. The causes of association seem 
to be two in number: the vivacity of the associated sentiments, 
and the frequency of the association. 
Association takes place not only between simple, but between 
complex ideas, which melt together so as to form an idea which 
appears simple. Such are our ideas of most familiar objects; 
the idea of a wall is a complex idea resulting from the already 
complex ideas of bricks and lime. 
Hume, as we know, had said that our ideas associate themselves 
on three principles : contiguity in time and space, resemblance, 
and causality. The author, who admits the first principle only, 
contiguity in space (synchronic order), and contiguity in time 
(successive order), endeavours to bring the two others into this 
one, an attempt at simplification which, in the judgment of Mr. 
J ohn Stuart Mill, ‘ is perhaps the least happy in the whole work ’ 
(Note 35). 
II. 
Before approaching imagination and memory, which, it would 
seem, ought immediately to follow, we shall find a study of 
words, parts of speech, the act of naming,, which appears to us 
the most antiquated portion of the book. 
It is remarkable that English contemporary psychologists, 
who have profited so largely by the recent progress of physio- 
logy, have borrowed nothing from linguistics. It may be main- 
1 Vol. i. ch. iii. 
2 In the tribunals, says the author, it is observed that ocular and auricular 
witnesses always follow the chronological order in their narratives ; tnat is to 
say, the order of their sensations, whereas those who invent seldom observe 
that order. Mr. James Mill, 
5* 
tained that that science is as yet neither sufficiently mature nor 
sufficiently well co-ordinated ; but it is incontestable that it has 
much to reveal to us concerning the constitution, and above all 
the development, of the human soul. It will become one of the 
elements of that objective and inductive method which tends to 
prevail in psychology. Maupertuis, in his Reflexions philoso- 
phiques sur I'origine des Langues, speaks of the utility of studying 
the languages of the savages, ‘ which are conceived on a plan of 
ideas so different from our own.' It has been done, and we can 
readily believe that comparative philology will reveal things to 
us, of much more intimate and delicate bearing upon the mechan- 
ism of the soul and its variations, than physiology. 
From the time of Aristotle, who said, ‘We do not think 
without images, and words are images/ until the almost contem- 
porary group of the ideologists, the sensualist school has always 
understood the importance of language. James Mill is of their 
school on this point; his general Grammar resembles that of 
Condillac or of Destutt de Tracy. His authorities are Horne 
Tooke and Harris. A long exposition of doctrines which have 
been left far behind since the author’s time, would be useless 
here. A few words will suffice. 
After having spoken of the simple states of consciousness, we 
must pass, he says, to the complex states. But all these imply, 
in some manner, the ‘ process of naming.’ We must, therefore, 
first see in what this ‘ artifice ’ consists. It consists of ‘ inventing’ 
signs or marks which we impose upon sensations and ideas. 
‘ Substantive’ names are marks ©f ideas or of sensations ; adjec- 
tive names are marks placed upon substantive names, or marks 
upon marks, in order to limit the signification of the substantive, 
and instead of marking one great class, to mark a subdivision of 
that class. Example: a * great ’ man. The verb is also a mark 
upon a mark. 
Three different sorts of marks render predication or affirmation 
possible. ‘ I have the name of the individual, John, and the 
name of the class, man. I can place in juxtaposition my two 
names, John, man. But it is not sufficient to effect the com- 
munication which I desire to make, that the word ‘ man ’ is a mark 
of the idea of which ‘John ’ is a mark, and a mark of other ideas 52 
English Psychology. 
with those; that is, those of which James, Thomas, etc., are the 
marks. In order to execute my design completely, I invent a 
mark, which, placed between my marks John and man, fixes the 
idea that I wish to express, and I say, “John is a man.” In 
every language the verb which denotes existence, has been 
employed to respond to the design of adding the copula in the 
affirmation.’ 
The method of the author, which is that of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, is unacceptable on several points, and is now generally 
rejected. It has the primary defect of explaining natural things 
artificially, of believing in too much regularity'in the march of 
the human mind, of not allowing a sufficient place to its spon- 
taneity. It has no feeling for that which is primitive, for that 
far distant epoch when the senses and the imagination predomi- 
nated, and when the mind seized only upon living and concrete 
things.1 It treats language after the fashion of logic, and not 
of psychology. A second defect is, that these explanations are 
at most applicable only to the family of Aryan languages. We 
cannot see how the theory of 1 marks of marks ’ can be applied to 
the agglutinative or monosyllabic languages. 
Thus Mr. A. Findlater makes important reservations in the 
name of comparative philology (Note 53). This theory of affir- 
mations, he says, is in conformity with the phenomena of the 
family of languages known as Indo-European. Logicians, in 
fact, in treating this subject, have never taken into consideration 
any other languages than Greek, Latin, and the modern literary 
languages of Europe. It may then be presumed that this theory 
would not apply to languages of a totally different structure. 
The mental process must, no doubt, be the same in all, but the 
means are new and without precedent. If the naturalists had 
wished to construct a type of animal organism without having 
ever seen anything but vertebrae, their theory would certainly 
have failed in its generalization. In the same way, the current 
theory of affirmation, considered by the light of a more and more 
profound knowledge of the organism of speech, seems to attach 
1 On this point see Renan, Dc foriginc du Langage; Max Muller, Science 
of Language, vol. ii. chiefly. Mr. James Mill. 
53 
an exaggerated importance to a power of affirmation presumed 
to be inherent in verbs, and particularly in the verbs of existence. 
It is now a well-known fact, that in the monosyllabic languages 
spoken by a third of the human kind, there is no distinction 
between the parts of speech. The substantive verb is wanting in 
many languages. Among the Malays, the Javanese, and in the 
peninsula of Malacca, pronouns or indeclinable particles take the 
place of the verb to be. The affirmative faculty belongs so little 
exclusively to the verb, that the pronouns and the articles very 
often express affirmation, as may be proved by numerous examples, 
especially from the agglutinative languages. As for the other verbs, 
comparative grammar finds no trace of a substantive verb form- 
ing part of their structure. 
It is now an accepted doctrine of philology that the root of a 
verb is of the nature of an abstract name, and that it becomes a 
verb simply by the addition of a pronominal affix} And Mr. Find- 
later concludes, that if this analysis of the verb is correct, affirm- 
ation of existence did not find expression in the early periods 
of language : the real copula, joining the subject with the predicate, 
was the proposition contained in the oblique case of the pronominal 
affix. 
III. 
After this excursion into the domain of philology, let us return 
to purely psychological analysis, with imagination and memory. 
Consciousness is the name of our feelings taken one by one, 
imagination is the name of a succession of sentiments or ideas. 
‘The phenomena classed under this head, are explained by 
modern philosophers upon the principles of association/ Dugald 
1 Findlater, according to Garnett, gives an example of a declension, a con- 
jugation of a verb in Wotiak, by means of pronominal affixes :— 
Pi-i, son of me. Bera-i, -word of me. (7 speak) 
• Pi-ed, son of thee. Bera-d, word of thee. 
Pi-ez, son of him. Bera-z, -word of him. 
Pi-mi, son of us. Bera-my, word of us. 
Pi-dy, son of you. Bera-dy, word of you. 
Pi-zy, son of them. Bera-zy, word of them. 54 
English Psychology. 
Stewart has given a technical sense to the word Imagination, 
without deriving any advantage from it: he restricts it to the case 
in which the mind creates, forms new combinations. 
Imagination, then, consists in a succession of ideas, but great 
is the diversity of these successions. They are different in the 
shopkeeper, occupied with purchase and sale, from those of the 
lawyer, occupied with judges, clients, and witnesses ; they mean 
one thing in the soldier, another in the metaphysician. The 
author ingeniously brings out the character by which the associa- 
tions of ideas of the poet differ from all others while appearing to 
resemble them. 
‘ The ideas of the poet are ideas of all that is most lovely and 
striking in the visible appearances of nature, and of all that is 
most interesting in the actions and affections of human beings. . . . 
There is also nothing surprising in this, that, being trains of plea- 
surable ideas, they should have attracted a peculiar degree of 
attention, and in an early age, when poetry was the only literature, 
should have been thought worthy of a more particular naming 
than the trains of any other class. . . . In the case of the lawyer, 
the train leads to a decision favourable to the side which he 
advocates. The train has nothing pleasurable in itself. The 
pleasure is all derived from the end. The same is the case with 
the merchant. His trains are directed to a particular end. And 
it is the end alone which gives value to the train. The end of 
the metaphysical and the end of the mathematical inquirer, is 
the discovery of truth; their trains are directed to that object; 
and are, or are not, a source of pleasure, as that end is or is not 
attained. But the case is perfectly different with the poet. His 
train is its own end. It is all delightful, or the purpose is 
frustrated.’1 
Memory, according to the opinion of all who have studied it, 
is a complex faculty.2 Into what has it been resolved 1 Accord- 
ing to the author, it contains only ideas and associations of 
ideas.3 
In the first place, it is certain that ideas constitute its funda- 
mental portion ; for we do not recall anything to ourselves except 
1 Mill’s Analysis, vol. i. p. 242. * Chap. vii. 8 Chap. x. Mr. James Mill. 
55 
by an idea, and in order that there may be memory, it is neces- 
sary that there should be an idea. 
But how is the idea, which forms a portion of the imagination, 
produced ? By association. It is easy to prove it. We have 
been acquainted with a person of whom we have not thought for 
a long time ; a letter from her, a remark which she liked to make, 
and which is repeated in our hearing, these are circumstances 
associated with the idea of the person, and which recall her to our 
memory. In the same way, when we try to remember something, 
we run through different series of ideas, with the hope that one 
or the other will suggest to us the idea which we seek. 
So far, then, there is no difficulty. In memory there are ideas, 
and these ideas are bound together by association. And yet, the 
memory is not the same thing as the imagination. There is in 
memory all that there is in imagination, with something more. 
What is this additional element 1 Let us remark, in the first place, 
that there are two cases in memory, the case in which we recall 
sensations, and the case in which we recall ideas. I remember to 
have seen George hi. deliver a speech on the opening of Par- 
liament : memory of sensations. I remember to have read the 
report of the sitting in which Napoleon i. opened the French 
Chambers for the first time : memory of ideas. 
In both one and the other case, the recognition of the remem- 
brance as belonging to the past, is a very complex idea, which 
consists of three principal elements:—i. A state of actual con- 
sciousness, which we call the remembering ego; 2. A state of 
consciousness, which we call the perceptive or conceptive ego; 
3. The successive states of consciousness, which fill up the inter- 
val between those two points. Thus, as we follow the author, we 
thread rapidly in our thought the series of the states of conscious- 
ness, intermediary between the moment of the remembrance and 
the moment at which the event took place, and it is by this rapid 
movement that a fact appears to us as past, and consequently 
that memory differs from imagination. Everything then reduces 
itself to an association of ideas, since there is only the idea of the 
present ego (the ego which remembers), the idea of the past ego 
(the word which one remembers), and the idea of a series of 
states of consciousness which fill up the interval. 56 
English Psychology. 
This explanation of memory is simple and ingenious; unfor- 
tunately it is not without difficulties. The difference between 
imagination and memory will probably continue to embarrass 
philosophers fora long time to come, says Mr. Stuart Mill (Note 
94), without inquiring whether, as the author has it, we really 
repeat in our thoughts, though briefly, the whole intermediate 
series. To explain memory by the ego, strongly resembles 
explaining a thing by that thing itself. For what notion can we 
have of the ego without memory ? ‘ The fact of remembering, 
that is to say, of having an idea combined with the belief that 
the corresponding sensation has been actually felt by me, this 
seems to be the elementary fact of the ego, the origin and the 
basis of that idea.’ 
We will now pass on to the operations which abstract and 
general notions give us ; classification and abstraction. 
Classification is the process of the mind by which we gather to- 
gether the objects of our senses and of our ideas into certain aggre- 
gates called classes.1 But, in what consists this process, by which, 
forming individuals into classes, separating such and such from 
others, ‘ we consider them under a certain idea of unity as being 
something in themselves’ 1 It has been regarded as a ‘ mysterious ’ 
thing, it has been ‘ explained mysteriously,’ expounded into a 
‘ mystic jargon,’ and has caused ages of warfare between the 
realists and the nominalists. Mr. James Mill explains it solely 
by means of the word, and of the association of ideas; as 
follows:— 
‘ The word man, we shall say, is first applied to an individual; 
it is first associated with the idea of that individual, and acquires 
the power of calling up the idea of him ; it is next applied 
to another individual, and acquires the power of calling up the 
idea of him ; so of another and another, till it has become asso- 
ciated with an indefinite number, and has acquired the power of 
calling up an indefinite number of those ideas indifferently. 
What happens 1 It does call up an indefinite number of the 
ideas of individuals, as often as it occurs ; and calling them 
up in close connexion, it forms them into a species of com- 
1 Chap. viii. Mr. James Mill. 
57 
plex idea. ... It thus appears that the word man is not 
a word having a very simple idea, as was the opinion of the 
Realists, nor a word having no idea at all, as was that of the 
Nominalists; but a word calling up an indefinite number of 
ideas, by the irresistible laws of association, and forming them 
into one very complex and indistinct, but not, therefore, unin- 
telligible idea.’1 
It is with the object of naming, and naming with a greater 
facility, that we form classes; and it is resemblance which, 
when we have applied a name to an individual, leads us to apply 
it to another and another, until the whole forms an aggregate, 
bound together by the common relation of the aggregate to one 
single and same name. The great peculiarity of this theory, as 
Mr. Grote remarks with regret, is that it does not employ, or 
even name abstraction. It sees in classification only a common 
name, associated with an indefinite and indistinct aggregate of 
concrete similar individuals. This is a novelty. But the former 
philosophers, ‘ who thought that abstraction is included in classi- 
fication, were, in my opinion, right,’ adds Mr. Grote, ‘ if we con- 
sider classification as a great operation. An aggregate of con- 
cretes is neither sufficient to constitute a class in the scientific 
sense, nor useful in the march of reasoning. We require, besides, 
a particular ma?iner of considering the aggregate (a phrase which 
Mr. James Mill calls mysterious, but which it would be difficult 
to exchange for more intelligible terms); one or several elements 
of a complex idea must be separated from the rest, which has 
received the name of Abstraction.’ 
This latter process, regarded by the author as subsidiary, is 
defined by him, and by every one else, as the act or separating 
a portion of that which is contained in a complex idea, in order 
to make of it an object to be considered in itself.2 Reduced 
almost entirely to a process of notatioti by means of words, 
abstraction does not seem to us to be treated in proportion to 
its importance. Association-psychology is in general more en- 
gaged with the means by which the mind adds its ideas and 
1 Mill’s Analysis, vol. i. pp. 264, 265. 
a Vol. i. chap. ix. p. 294. 58 
English Psychology. 
forms them into couples and into masses, than with the processes 
of decomposition which it applies to them. Nevertheless the 
mind employs not only addition but subtraction. If it com- 
poses it also decomposes ; if it unites the similar, it divides the 
dissimilar. How 1 No clear answer on this point. 
IV. 
We shall now see how the author of the Analysis employs 
association of ideas to explain various states of consciousness, 
which he comprises under the common name of belief.1 
It is difficult to treat separately of memory, belief, and judg- 
ment ; for a portion of memory is contained in the term belief, 
as is a portion of judgment. The different cases of belief may be 
classed under these heads : belief in events or in real existences; 
belief in testimony; belief in the truth of propositions. 
1. Belief in real events or existences, may have for their object 
the past, the prese?it, the future. 
(1.) Let us begin with the belief which has a present fact for its 
object. 
Here is a first case : that in which the fact is actually and 
immediately present to my senses. I believe that this is a rose. 
This belief implies, in the first place, belief in my sensations, and 
to believe in my sensations is purely and simply another mode 
of saying that I have sensations. But to believe in external 
objects, is not simply to believe in my present sensations. It is 
that, and something more. It is that something more which is 
the object of our search. In seeing a rose I have the sensation 
1 We collect in the following table the various forms of belief, classified 
and explained by the author:— 
Present to the senses : Ex. There is a rose. 
Not present to the senses : Ex. St. Paul’s 
Church exists. 
1-4 
«S .. 
I a 
Si-S'" 
X o 
.fci 
•-! rC 
V *J 
« 
1. Real facts. 
Actual. 
Past. 
Future. 
Ex. I have seen a certain theatre burning. 
Ex. It will be daylight to-morrow. 
2. Testimony. 
Ex. The great fire of London. 
Identical: Ex. Man is a reasonable 
animal. 
Non-identical : Ex. Man is an animaL 
3. The truth of propositions. Mr. James AIM. 
59 
of colour, but I have, besides, that of its distance, and its figure 
or form. Those ideas, which are due to touch, are associated with 
that of colour. Others, such as scent, taste, and resistance, may- 
associate themselves with these. My idea of a rose is thus formed 
by the fusion of several ideas, among which one or two are pre- 
dominant (colour and figure). Now I consider my sensations as 
an effect, and I believe in something, which is their cause, and 
it is to that cause, and not to the effect, that the name of objects 
is appropriated. ‘To each of the sensations which we have of a 
particular object, we join in our imagination a cause ; to these 
various causes we join a cause common to all, and we mark it 
with the name of substratum1 In short, we experience clusters 
of sensations; these sensations awaken the idea of antecedents 
(qualities) which awaken the idea of an antecedent common to 
all qualities (the substratum) and the substratum with its quali- 
ties we call the object.a Thus then in our belief in external ob- 
jects there are two things : first, a cluster of ideas melted into a 
whole by association; and then the idea of an antecedent (cause) 
of this whole. 
This belief then implies a theory of cause, which the author 
states very simply. Let a fact be B and an antecedent A: if 
their association is given as inseparable, and the order of their 
associations as constant, we shall say that A is the cause of B. 
Here is a second case : that in which the fact is not actually 
present to my senses. I believe that St. Paul’s, which I have 
seen this morning, still exists, which is equivalent to saying that 
if I, or one of my fellows, were placed in a certain part of London, 
we should have the sensation of St. Paul’s Cathedral. This be- 
lief implies the remembrance whose nature has been examined 
under the title of memory, and then an extension of past facts 
into the future, which we shall study presently. 
(2.) The belief which has for its object a past fact attaches itself 
to memory. When I say that I recall the burning of Drury Lane 
Theatre, my saying that I recall that incident, and that I believe 
it, is exactly the same thing; these are two indiscernible conditions 
of consciousness. 
1 Vol. i. p. 351. 
8 Vol. ii. p. ioo. 60 
English Psychology. 
(3.) The belief which has future facts for its object is the ground- 
work of that process of the mind which is called induction. The 
author thinks that it also may be resolved into a simple associa- 
tion. ‘ The anticipation of the future by means of the past, far 
from being a phenomenon suigeneris, is included in one of the 
most general laws of the human mind.’ When, therefore, Dugald 
Stewart and others exalt it into an object of admiration, into a 
prodigy, into a thing which is not included in any general law, 
and that they tell us it can only be referred to an instinct; which 
is equivalent to saying to nothing at all—the term instinct 
merely signifying, in every case, our ignorance,—they only show 
their powerlessness to bring the phenomena of mind under the 
great comprehensive law of association. They seem to have had 
a most inexplicable and most anti-philosophical aversion to ad- 
mit this law in its wide meaning; as if the simplicity, by virtue of 
which a certain law is included in a higher law, and so on, even 
to a small number in which all appear to be included, ought not 
to be found in the world of mind, as it is found in the world of 
matter.1 
Whatever may be thought of the following explanation, it must 
at least be acknowledged that the author has seen very clearly 
that a theory of induction is in fact a theory of cause. 
We carihot, he says, have an idea of the future, because, strictly 
speaking, the future is a non-entity, and we cannot have an idea 
of nothing. When we speak of the future, we speak in reality of 
the past. I believe that the sun will rise to-morrow, that there 
will be vehicles in the streets of London, that the tide will be full 
at London Bridge, etc.; these are ideas of the past. ‘ Our idea 
of the future and our idea of the past is the same thing, with this 
difference, that in the one case there is anticipation, and in the 
other there is retrospection.’ What is this anticipation 1 
The fundamental law of association consists in this, that when 
two things have been frequently found together, one recalls the 
other. Among these habitual conjunctions, there is none which 
interests us more than that of the antecedent and the consequent. 
But among the numerous antecedents and consequents which 
1 Vol. i. pp. 376, 377. Mr. James Mill. 
61 
form the matter of our experience, some present them in a con- 
stant, others in a variable order. Thus, I have seen a crow flying 
from the east to the west, as well as from the west to the east. 
On the contrary, a stone thrown into the air will not go from low 
to high as well as from high to low; it follows an immoveable 
direction. Thence an association of ideas whose order is also 
invariable. Thus the idea of every fact awakens the idea of con- 
stant antecedent (which produces it) and the idea of constant con- 
sequents (which it produces). This great law of our nature shows 
us immediately in what manner an idea of the future is produced. 
Night has always been followed by morning. The idea of night 
is followed by that of morning; the idea of morning by that of 
the incidents of the morning (the vehicles in the streets of Lon- 
don) and of the entire day. Then there is the idea of to-morrow, 
to which another to-morrow succeeds, and an indefinite number 
of those ‘ to-morrows ’ compose the complex idea of the future. 
But, it may be said, that is the idea of to-morrow, and not 
belief in to-morrow; tell us, what is that belief? I reply, that not 
only you have the idea of to-morrow, but you have it in an in- 
separable manner. Now it is to this case of indissoluble associa- 
tion of ideas, and to nothing else, that you apply the name of 
belief. 
2. There is no occasion for us to linger over belief in testimony. 
It also belongs to association. In short, I refer all the words 
(written or spoken) of my fellows to the facts and ideas which 
they represent: this is an association. Now, our belief in facts 
is founded upon our own experience, and this form of belief has 
already been explained.1 
3. A third class of beliefs is that in the truth of propositions, 
‘ in other words, in verbal truths.’ The process by which this 
belief is produced is called judgment. Proposition is the form of 
1 This explanation of belief in testimony does not seem satisfactory. 
* The belief in testimony is derived from the primary credulity of the mind, in 
certain instances left intact under the wear and tear of adverse experience 
Hardly any fact of the human mind is better attested than the primitive dis- 
position to receive all testimony with unflinching credence. It never occurs 
to the child to question any statement made to it, until some positive force on 
the side of scepticism has been developed.’—Bain’s Notes to Analysis, p. 386- 62 
English Psychology. 
affirmation. ‘Affirmation essentially consists in applying two 
marks to the same thing. Example: Man is a reasonable animal.’ 
‘ Or else names of which one has less and the other more ex- 
tension, are applied to the same thing. Example: Man is an 
animal.’ 
In the first case, the equivalence of the two words is acknow- 
ledged by association : man and reasonable animal are two words 
for one same condition of consciousness; they are associated as 
marks with a same group of ideas. 
In the second case, the association is more complex; that is 
all the difference. Man is the name of a cluster of ideas sug- 
gested by association (see on this subject, classification); animal 
is also the name of a cluster which includes the first cluster and 
others besides. 
Thus, sensations, ideas, associations of ideas ; the whole varied, 
complicated, aggregated, crossed, grouped in a thousand ways,— 
this is the whole mechanism of the human mind. 
CHAPTER II. 
ABSTRACT TERMS. 
General terms.—i. Of general terms—2. Space, time, movement, the infinite. 
I. 
£ Some words which require a special explanation,’ is the title 
of a long chapter in the Analysis,l devoted to the obscure and 
disputed questions of time, space, motion, etc. ‘ Under this 
modest title,’ says Mr. John Stuart Mill, ‘this chapter presents us 
with a series of discussions on some of the most profound and in- 
tricate questions in the whole of metaphysics. The title would 
give a very incomplete idea of the difficulty and importance of 
the speculations which it contains. It is almost as if a treatise 
upon chemistry had been given, as an explanation of the words 
air, water, potass, sulphuric acid, etc.’ 
1 Chap. xiv. pp. i to 176, vol. ii. Mr. James Mill. 
63 
It is really a study of the origin and the mode of the formation of 
the most general ideas, which we find under this title. The tran- 
sition period to which the work belongs makes itself particularly 
evident in this portion of it: the author is still wavering between 
the too verbal method of the eighteenth century, and the more con- 
crete analysis, which shall be that of his successors. We find in 
it, in the condition of sketches, and of foreseen solutions, a num- 
ber of explanations which have been given in a clearer and more 
complete manner by contemporaries. 
One of its principal merits, in our opinion, is that it endeavours 
to show that certain abstract terms appear to be inexplicable, 
only because they are too distant from their concretes. Perhaps 
it has never been sufficiently borne in mind that abstraction has 
its degrees, as number has its powers: red is an abstract, colour is 
more abstract, attribute is still more abstract. This growth in 
abstraction, very easy to prove in this instance, is not always so. 
But if philosophy should arrive at noting the ascending degrees 
of abstraction with sufficient exactness, as arithmetic determines 
the growing powers of a number; if it should succeed, as far as the 
nature of things permits, in doing for quality that which has been 
done for quantity; if it should succeed in resolving the highest 
abstractions in inferior abstractions, and these into concretes, it 
seems to us that many vain questions and factitious difficulties 
would disappear. Here and there some such attempts are made 
by our author, but they are very incomplete. Now, so long 
as precise verification shall be wanting, sensualism will in vain 
claim for itself simplicity, truthful-seeming, and above all, that 
most scientific characteristic, the elimination of everything super- 
natural ; the question will always remain an open one between its 
adversaries and itself. 
II. 
Under the name Relative Terms, the author treats of the 
various ideas of relation. Their essential character is to exist 
only by couples or pairs, such as high and low, like and unlike, 
antecedent and consequent. These couples are suggested to us by 
association. 64 
English Psychology. 
Under the name Primitive Terms, he treats of the ideas which 
are generally called negative. 
As it is almost impossible to analyse exactly an analysis, we 
shall not try to follow the author in his examination of the ideas of 
resemblance and difference, antecedent and consequent, position 
in space, order in time, quantity, quality, etc. We shall find the 
substance of all this when we have to deal with the other philo- 
sophers. Thus Mill seems to have partly seen that which Bain 
and Spencer will hereafter show us more clearly, that the fact of 
primitive consciousness consists, in the first place, in the percep- 
tion of a difference, and then in the perception of a resemblance. 
Let us restrict ourselves to the important ideas of space, infinite, 
time, and motion. 
Space.—Let us remark, firstly, that concrete terms are conno- 
tative, abstract terms are non-connotative; that is to say, that 
concrete terms, in expressing one or several qualities which 
is their notation, or principal signification, connote the object to 
which these qualities belong. Thus the concrete ‘red’ always 
connotes something which is red, such as a rose. Now, how is 
the abstract formed 1 It is formed of the concrete, and it notes 
precisely that which is noted by the concrete, but rejecting the con- 
notation. Thus, in red,, take away the connotation and you have 
redness; in hot, take away the connotation and you have heat. 
Red signifies something red, redness signifies redness without 
something. There is the same difference between the concrete 
extended and the abstract extension. What the concrete ex- 
tended is with its connotation, the abstract extension is without 
that connotation. We have then to explain in what this con- 
notation consists. When we say extended, signifying something 
of extent, we mean one or other of these three things,—a line, a 
surface, a volume. We owe these ideas to different sensations, 
among which we must count in the first place those due to touch 
and to muscular action. The sensation or sensations which we 
mark by the word resistant, seem to be the only ones connoted 
by the word extended. Thus the essential connotation of the 
concrete ‘ extended ’ is resistant, and nothing else. It is true 
that those who enjoy the faculty of seeing, cannot conceive of a 
thing as extended without conceiving of it as coloured; they Mr. James Mill. 
65 
unite the visual qualities to the tactile qualities, which even be- 
come predominant by association. But for the man who is born 
blind there exists only the sensation of the tactile qualities, that 
is to say, resistance. 
Now, we can understand what extension is in all its cases. 
Linear extension is the idea of a line without the connotation ; that 
is to say, without the idea of resistance. Extension in superficies 
is the idea of a surface without the connotation (resistance). 
Extension in volume, is the idea of a volume without the con- 
notation (resistance). But a volume without resistance, what 
is it 1 The place for a volume. And this place, what is it ? A 
portion of space, or, more exactly, space itself without limit. 
Infinite.—The idea of infinite is comprised in that of space. 
‘When the word infinite is not employed metaphorically, as 
when we speak of the infinite perfections of God (in which case it 
is not a name of an idea, but a name for a lack of ideas), it is 
applied only to number, extension, and duration.’ 
We augment numbers by adding one to one, one to two, etc. ; 
and by giving a name to each aggregate. It is the association of 
ideas that constitutes this process. Number is limited, conse- 
quently not infinite. Number is the negation of the infinite, as 
black is the negation of white. The word infinite, in this case, is 
only a mark for that condition of consciousness in which the idea 
of one more is intimately associated with every number that 
presents itself. In short, the abstract term is the particular idea 
without the connotation. 
We also apply this word to extension by the same process. A 
strict irresistible association of ideas makes us conceive of the 
continuous increase of a line, of a surface, of a volume. ‘ That 
which we call the idea of an infinite extension, and which some 
call the necessary idea, simply signifies that the idea of an 
additional portion is necessarily awakened; that is to say, by in- 
dissoluble association, and that we cannot prevent it.’ 
The idea of infinite, which has been called a simple idea, is in 
reality an extremely complex idea. But the association which is 
its foundation is so close that it appears to us a unit. 
Time.—Space is a comprehensive word, comprising all posi- 
tions, or the totality of the synchronical order. Time is a com- 66 
English Psychology. 
prehensive word, comprising all successions or the totality of the 
successive order. 
The idea of time is an idea of successions ; it consists in that, 
and nothing more. Let us now recall how a concrete may be 
changed into an abstract, by taking away the connotation, and let 
us apply this doctrine to the case of successions. When a man 
recalls the peculiarities of a battle in which he commanded, a 
succession of sensations or ideas cross his mind. In this succes- 
sion, as in every other, there are always ideas, past, present, and 
future. Take away the connotation of ‘ something present,’ 
‘ something past,5 and of ‘ something future,5 and you have past, 
present, and future. But these three things are time. It is an 
abstract term, covering the signification of three distinct abstracts. 
Motion.—The word ‘ motion5 is abstract of ‘ moving.5 What 
we have to look for, are the sensations by virtue of which we call 
a body ‘ moving,’ motion being simply moving without the conno- 
tation. In the idea of a moving body we find the following ele- 
ments : the idea of a line (for a body always moves according to 
a line, right or otherwise), and the idea of succession. All these 
ideas are complex, some of them are very complex. United in 
one idea (motion), they compose one of the most complex of our 
ideas. 
It is important to observe that, though it is most frequently the 
eye which informs us of motion, it is not from the sensations of 
sight that the idea of motion is derived. It is only by an associa- 
tion of ideas that we imagine that we see motion. This idea 
comes to us, like that of extent, from the muscular and tactile sen- 
sations. A man born blind has the idea of motion just as we 
have it. Our ideas of extension and of motion are derived, with- 
out any doubt, from the action of our own body. 
I touch something, and I have the sensation of resistance, the 
idea of resistance being that which is fundamental in every aggre- 
gate to which we give the name of object. In this case there are 
two things : the object touched, the finger which touches. Here 
is another case : I lent an action to my finger in touching the 
object. This action implies certain sensations ; I combine them 
with the object and with my finger, and thus I have two ideas : 
the object extended, the finger moved. Our idea of a moving Mr. James Mill. 
67 
body consists of a series of successive sensations ; a sum in which 
the present condition is united, thanks to memory, with all the 
anterior conditions. And when we have familiarized ourselves 
with the application of the term moved, as a connotative term to 
various objects, it is easy, in the various cases, to suppress the 
connotation, and thus we have the abstract—motion.1 
CHAPTER III. 
THE FEELINGS AND THE WILL. 
Feeling and Will. — I. The insufficiency of English Psychology on this point — 
2. Feelings—3. Free Will—Mr. John Stuart Mill. 
The doctrines of the English experimental school on the psy- 
chology of the feelings, the emotions, the affective phenomena in 
general, do not seem to be so precise or so complete as upon the 
question of sensations and ideas. By some it is not handled at 
all, by others, for instance Mr. Herbert Spencer and Mr. John 
Stuart Mill, it has been as yet barely touched. Two only have 
attempted to treat it profoundly—our author and Mr. Bain. The 
work of the latter, probably the fullest and deepest which has yet 
appeared on this subject, seems to us nevertheless the weakest 
portion of his labours.2 
Whence arises this inferiority? Must we believe that among 
philosophers there exists a certain tendency to neglect the affec- 
tive phenomena and to study the psychology of the mind more 
than that of the heart ? May we not think that it is rather the com- 
plexity, the heterogeneousness of these phenomena which renders 
their analysis so difficult ? Judgment, reasoning, abstract con- 
ception, association of ideas, are facts naturally simple and above 
Mr. John Stuart Mill points out that this explanation is to be found in 
other words, but identical in meaning, in the works of Messrs. Bain and Her- 
bert Spencer. 
See chap, iii., Mr. Bain. 68 
English Psychology. 
all honiogeneous. But a passion, a feeling, an emotion, most 
frequently comprehends very various elements; firstly, physio- 
logical phenomena, variable according to organization, tempera- 
ment, sex, etc., but which nevertheless play a preponderating part, 
and afterwards a condition of pleasure or pain, which is, properly 
speaking, the affective element; finally, an idea, a notion ; for the 
sensible phenomenon cannot be absolutely separated and de- 
tached from all knowledge; a pain envelops the idea of that 
which causes it, an emotion implies the knowledge of its object. 
The ideal of psychology would evidently be to be able to explain 
all sentiments by a double method of synthesis and analysis; to be 
able to trace back a complex emotion to one more simple, and 
thus to arrive gradually at an irreducible fact; or, 'on the con- 
trary, to start from the simplest affective phenomena, and to show 
how, by addition, aggregates of more and more complex emotions 
are found, and thus theoretically to reconstitute the reality. But 
we are very far from that ideal. The fundamental irreducible 
emotions are not yet even determined. Mr. Bain gives nine. 
We shall see hereafter what this classification is, and what may 
be thought of it. Mr. Herbert Spencer, who has been especially 
occupied with the question of method, takes the point of view of 
comparative psychology. He wishes to have the most general 
emotions determined ; in the first place, those which are common 
to all animals ; secondly, those which are common to.us and to 
the inferior races; then those which are proper to us, and the 
order of their evolution. Our author, exclusively occupied with 
the human point of view, has chiefly sought to show how the 
complex emotions come by association from the simple emotions. 
The method then remains the same, and the doctrine of associa- 
tion is also at the bottom of the study of the feelings. The mode 
of exposition is clear, lucid, simple,—perhaps simple to excess, 
which is very near inexactness ;—for, though clearness and simpli- 
city are eminently philosophical sentiments, when we see that an 
author replies to a complex question by a precise formula, and 
pretends to embrace all phenomena, and to clear up all obscuri- 
ties, it is well to be on our guard against some errors. 
An exposition of the physiological conditions of the sentiments 
and the emotions is wanting in this work. We also look in vain Mr. y antes Mill. 
69 
for a study of the appetites and the instincts, and the chapter on 
the Will suffers accordingly. In our opinion these deficiencies are 
partly explained by the epoch at which the book appeared. Later 
psychologists have largely supplemented it. 
II. 
The phenomena of thought, says the author, have long been 
divided into two classes : intellectual faculties, and active 
faculties. In the first, sensations and ideas are considered as 
simply existing; in the second, they are considered as exciting 
to action. 
We have seen that those of the first class may be formed into 
more or less complex groups, and that they succeed each other, 
following certain laws. Those of the second class are equally 
capable of being formed into groups, and of succeeding each 
other, following certain laws. So far, then, there is an agree- 
ment between the two classes of phenomena. It remains for us 
now to seek the differences proper to the last.1 
All our sensations are agreeable, disagreeable, or indifferent. 
We desire to prolong the first; to put an end to the second ; as 
to the third, we do not seek either to prolong or to abridge 
them. The author limits himself to saying that the indifferent 
sensations are probably the most numerous, without studying 
them. 
Pleasure and pain,—these are the two primitive facts. But 
the facts are causes, and these causes are of two sorts : proximate 
and distant. The bitter medicine which I swallow is the imme- 
diate or proximate cause of my sensation of disgust: the sen- 
tence of the judge is the distant cause of the execution of a 
criminal. 
This is not all. We have seen that all sensations may be pre- 
served and reproduced by the mind, and that these mental repro- 
ductions of sensations are- called ideas. So every sensation of 
pleasure or of pain may be reproduced by the mind, and thus 
ideas of pleasure and pain be formed. 
An idea of pleasure or of pain is a very clear condition of 
1 Vol. ii. chap. xvi. 70 
English Psychology. 
consciousness, familiar to us all. But the idea of a pleasure is 
not a pleasure, and the idea of a pain is not a pain. The idea 
of burning one’s hand does not cause pain, the idea of eating 
sugar does not cause pleasure. The idea of a pleasure is called 
desire, the idea of a pain is called aversion. Agreeable or dis- 
agreeable sensations, and the ideas of those sensations, are not 
only actual. They may be related to the past by memory, to 
the future by anticipation. We know the mechanism of memory. 
As for ‘ the anticipation of the future, it consists in the same 
series of associations, with this difference, that in the memory 
the association of states of consciousness which converts the 
idea into memory goes from the consequent to the antecedent, 
that is to say, backwards; whereas, in the case of anticipation, 
association goes from the antecedent to the consequent, that is 
to say, forwards.’ 
When an agreeable sensation is conceived of as future, but 
without one’s being certain of it, this state of consciousness is 
called hope; if one is certain of it, it is called joy. When a dis- 
agreeable sensation is conceived of as future, but uncertain, that 
state of consciousness is called fear; if it is certain, it is called 
sorrow. An agreeable sensation, or the idea of that sensation, 
joined to the idea of the cause which produces it, engenders 
affedioti or love for that cause. A disagreeable sensation, joined 
to the idea of its cause, engenders antipaihy or hatred for that 
cause.2 
The causes of our pleasures and of our pains are, as we have 
already seen, proximate or remote. According to the author, 
the immediate causes are much the less interesting. This ap- 
parent paradox is the necessary result of one of the most general 
of the laws of our nature ; those immediate causes never having 
a very extensive field of operations, the idea of them is associated 
with only a limited number of pleasures or pains. Compare, 
1 Vol. ii. chap. xx. 
2 Love is nothing but joy accompanied by the idea of an exterior cause. 
Hate is nothing but sadness accompanied by the idea of an exterior cause. 
Spinoza, Ethics, iii. prop. 13. Compare the Third Book of the Ethics with 
Mill’s Analysis, props. 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, and Appendix to Book III. Mr. James Mill. 
71 
for example, an immediate cause of pleasure, food, with a remote 
cause, money, and you will see that the latter plays a pre- 
ponderating part, because it is an instrument calculated to pro- 
cure for us almost every pleasure. ‘When the idea of one 
object is associated with a hundred times more pleasure than 
anothir idea, it is generally a hundred times more pleasant.’ 
Thus the author confines himself almost entirely to these remote 
causes, which he ranges under three heads :— 
1. Riches, power, dignity, and their contraries. 
2. Our fellows : relatives, friends, fellow-citizens, etc. 
3. Objects which are known as beautiful and sublime. 
These remote causes of our pleasures and our pains may be 
called egoistical causes, social causes, and aesthetic causes. Let 
us examine them. 
One remarkable thing is, first of all, to be noticed : the three 
above-named great causes of our pleasure agree in this, that 
they are all the means of procuring for us the services of our 
fellow-creatures, and themselves contribute to our pleasures in 
hardly any other way. It is obvious from this remark, that the 
services of our fellow-creatures are the great cause of all our 
pleasures; since wealth, power, and dignity, which appear to 
most people to sum up the means of human happiness, are 
nothing more than means of procuring those services. This is 
a fact of the highest importance, both in morals and in philo- 
sophy.1 
1. The author easily shows that wealth is a means of procuring 
the services of others, by remunerating them; that power is a 
means of bending them to submission through hope or fear; 
that dignities procure for us their respect, not only in outward 
appearance, but as manifested by their actions.2 
It is, in the first place, however, to be observed, that wealth, 
power, and dignity afford, perhaps, the most remarkable of all 
examples of that extraordinary case of association where the 
means to an end, means valuable to us solely on account of this 
end, not only engross more of our attention than the end itself, 
but actually supplant it in our affections. 
1 Mill’s Analysis, vol. ii. p. 207. a Ibid. p. 215, 72 
English Psychology. 
How few men seem to be at all concerned about their fellow- 
creatures ! How completely are the lives of most men absorbed 
in the pursuit of wealth and ambition ! With how many men 
does the love of family, of country, of mankind, appear com- 
pletely impotent when opposed to their love of wealth, or of 
power ! This is an effect of misguided association, which requires 
the greatest attention in education and morals. 
2. Wealth, power, and dignity being the source of such power- 
ful affections to our fellow-men, it would be surprising if our 
fellows themselves were not a source of affections to us. They 
are a cause of various pleasures, whether individually or in groups. 
Friendship, Kindness, Family, Country, Party, Humanity, such 
are the six somewhat confused titles under which the author 
classes them. The object of his analysis is to show that our 
strongest sentiments are aggregates, and that hence is their 
strength ; that they are formed by juxtaposition, or, as it is better 
expressed, by the fusion of the simple sentiments ; that affection 
being the result of a pleasure, a profound affection results from 
a great sum of pleasures experienced. In order to understand 
this doctrine more clearly, suppose an unknown person to render 
you a small service,—he causes you a pleasure, and the idea of 
this pleasure makes the unknown person an object of affection 
to you—an affection as slight as the pleasure caused. But if 
you come to know this man better, so that his mind, his heart, his 
society, his confidence, all become to you the cause of so many 
pleasures, and that these are repeated during many years, a 
strong affection will be produced, the result of a crowd of sen- 
timents of affection, which are themselves the result of a crowd 
of sentiments of pleasure. Everything is thus explained in final 
analysis by association. 
Let us now see how the author accounts for one of our most 
general sentiments, the love of parents for children.1 
In the first place, it is well known that the pleasures and pains 
of others affect us; that is to say, associate themselves with the 
ideas of our own pleasures and pains. This phenomenon has 
1 Vol. ii. ch. xxi. section 2. Mr. James Mill. 
73 
been correctly called sympathy. Now, a child can, like every 
other person, excite this sentiment in us. 
Moreover, a man regards his child .as a cause, much more 
certain than any other, of pleasures and of pains. To him his 
child is an object of great interest; in other words, a succession 
of interesting ideas,—ideas of pleasure or of pain,—associate 
themselves with him. The vivacity and simplicity of a child’s 
expressions, of his ways and attitudes, give him a special power 
of awakening our sympathy. As the child is, besides, in a state 
of entire dependence on his parents, who must incessantly watch 
over his safety, the idea of him is therefore constantly associated 
with those of pleasures and of pains, in addition to which it 
awakens an idea of power which is always agreeable. Another 
source of pleasant association is the following: It is a fact of 
daily experience, that we come to love a person to whom we 
have frequently done good. This is not only true in the case of 
our fellows, but also in that of animals. By the mere fact that 
they have been the object of repeated acts of kindness on our 
part, they become an object of affection to us. The idea of 
those individuals, united to that of the pleasures which we 
experience, form a composite idea, an affection. 
Every time a man is placed in the circumstances which pro- 
duce these associations, he feels the paternal affection even when 
parentage does not exist; as in the case of a husband, who, being 
ignorant of the infidelity of his wife, loves the child of-another 
man as though he were his own son. 
In very rich and in very poor families, circumstances are but 
little favourable to those associations from which the affection of 
parents results. 
In the case of extreme (not moderate) poverty, the circum- 
stances which lead to the association of the idea of the child 
are either wanting, or are neutralized by the necessity for cease- 
less toil, for being but little occupied with him, etc. 
In the case of extreme opulence, parents are engrossed by the 
pleasures and obligations of society, etc. As they attend but 
little to his education, they can associate but few pains or plea- 
sures with his idea. Thence comes an imperfect affection. 
3. Objects called beautiful or sublime, and their contraries, 74 
English Psychology. 
are a third source of pleasures or pains to us. These aesthetic 
emotions 1 are also referable to an association. Regarded as a 
whole, feeling for the sublime and for the beautiful appears per- 
fectly simple.* It is by taking their stand on these appearances, 
many, even eminent, philosophers have argued that a particular 
sense was necessary to explain their existence. This apparent 
simplicity is only an example of that mode of association which 
unites several ideas so closely that they appear to be no longe.* 
several ideas but one alone. 
A sound, a colour, any object is called beautiful or sublime, 
according to the ideas which it awakens in us by association. 
Thus the sounds which associate themselves with ideas of power, 
majesty, and profound melancholy, are generally sublime; 
such as the roar of a tempest, the fall of a cataract, the tones of 
the organ. Sounds of another kind produce the feeling of the 
beautiful,—a water-fall, the murmurs of a stream, the bells of a 
flock of sheep.3 
1 It is the custom of English philosophers to comprehend in their study of 
the affective phenomena that of the pleasures and pains which are caused us by 
the beautiful and the ugly, by good and evil. They thus include Aesthetics 
and Morals among their psychological ground-work. The feeling of the 
Beautiful and that of the Good admits of manifestations as varied and im- 
portant as those of the Fine Arts, Manners, Legislation, etc., and we can- 
not be astonished at the importance accorded to them. But should not the 
same be granted to the religious sentiment ? Our author does not mention 
it. Mr. Bain, generally so thorough in his treatment, disposes of it in two 
pages (Emotions and Will, ch. vi.) The Germans study this point See 
Wundt, vol. ii. p. 218 to 311. 
2 Vol. ii. chap. xxi. p. 250. 
8 The author, who relies here upon Alison’s theories, does not say in what 
the associations consist which awaken the feeling of the Beautiful. The ex- 
amples given seem rather to refer to the Agreeable. Mr. John Stuart Mill 
(Note 48) directs us to Mr. Ruskin on this point, saying that he supplies 
unconscious evidence in favour of the theory of association. According to 
Mr. Ruskin, 1 we call all those objects beautiful and sublime which express 
these ideas :—Infinite,JJnity, Repose, Symmetry, Purity, Measure, Adapta- 
tion to an end.’ Is not this saying that the things which excite the emotion 
of the Sublime and Beautiful, are those which are naturally associated with 
certain ideas profoundly rooted in us ? ’ The above list is neither exact nor 
complete ; but that does not affect the correctness of the doctrine. Mr. James Mill. 
75 
White pleases us, because it recalls day and light; black dis- 
pleases us, because it reminds us of darkness. These associations 
vary according to different countries, and are not absolute. In 
China, white is the colour of mourning, and consequently is far 
from being considered beautiful. In Spain, black is liked, be- 
cause it is the colour of the garments worn by the grandees.1 
A more true and weighty remark than the preceding is, that 
those who do not associate any agreeable idea with sounds or 
colours have no feeling for the beautiful. ‘Children wait long 
before they evince any sensibility to the beauty of sound. And 
the majority of men are totally indifferent to a great number of 
sounds which we call beautiful. To the peasant the curfew marks 
simply the hour of evening, the sheep-bells are merely a sign 
that there is a flock in the vicinity, the noise of a cascade only 
announces a fall of water. Give him the associations which 
cultivated imaginations join to these sounds, and he will infal- 
libly feel their beauty.’3 
III. 
When the idea of an action emanating from us (cause) asso- 
ciates itself with the idea of a pleasure (effect), a particular state 
of mind is produced, characterized by tendency to action, 
and which is properly called motive. A motive is the idea of a 
pleasure which may be attained; a particular motive is the idea 
of a particular pleasure which may be attained (Fragment on 
Mackintosh, Note 49). Motive, according to the author, means 
aim, end, term. 
Not only pleasures and pains, but also the causes of pleasures 
and of pains, become motives of action. These causes, associating 
themselves in our mind with the pleasures and pains which they 
produce, become, in the first place, agreeable or disagreeable in 
themselves; afterwards, associating themselves with such of our 
actions as may put them into execution, they become very strong 
motives. Thus it is that wealth, power, dignities, our fellows, the 
1 Might it not just as well be said that black is the colour of the garments 
of the grandees, because Spaniards like black ? 
2 Vol. ii. p 240. 76 
English Psychology. 
beautiful and sublime objects which, as we have seen, have be- 
come affectio?is through association, become also motives. 
We can now explain the phenomena classed under the titles 
moral sense, and moral faculties or affections. Although many 
of the psychologists with whom we are engaged have a marked 
tendency towards sketching a treatise on morals, we shall be very 
brief on this point, for though psychology touches upon Morals, 
it is not Morals.1 
The actions from which men derive advantage, have all been 
classed under four titles,—Prudence, Fortitude, Justice, Benefi- 
cence. 
In the present state of education, the praise and blame of most 
men are very erroneously bestowed, with great precipitation, com- 
monly in excess upon small occasions, with little regard to its 
justice ; blame being very often inflicted where applause is due, 
and applause lavished where blame ought to be bestowed. When 
education is good, no point of morality will be reckoned of more 
importance than the distribution of praise and blame ; no act 
will be considered more immoral than the misapplication of 
them.2 
Motives lead us to the Will. 
The work on the Will, though very insufficient in many respects, 
is valuable, especially on account of the questions which it indi- 
cates, and the method which it inaugurates. When we compare 
two Analyses of the Will, one written by Mr. Mill, the other by 
Mr. Bain, with an interval of thirty years between them ; when we 
see how far the last surpasses the first in the amount of facts 
observed, in precision, in descriptive exactitude, we are forced to 
conceive a good opinion of the experimental method in 
psychology,—of a method which, taking up the task where the 
forerunners had laid it down, profits by acquired results, by the 
progress of years, by discoveries, ever adding to them, and thus 
causes the science to grow, instead of constantly beginning over 
again. 
One of the principal merits of the author of the Analysis 
1 Mill’s Analysis, vol. ii. p. 280, line 15. 
2 Vol. ii. p. 300, line 16. Air. James AIM. 
77 
is that he saw the necessity for studying the development of 
voluntary power.1 He understood the falseness of the idea of 
a Will being, so to speak, armed at all points, whose first act 
would be to command imperiously, and to be instantly obeyed. 
He had endeavoured, though imperfectly, to show the first efforts 
and the first conquests of the Will. He may be reproached with 
errors in his choice of examples, with confusion between volun- 
tary acts and acts which are purely reflex, into which a more 
advanced physiologist would not have fallen; but the fundamental 
fact remains, that he perceived the method. 
The author, though not absolutely silent on the subject of free- 
will, barely touches it, and does not use the word at all. No 
doubt, ‘an Analysis of the phenomena of the human mind,’ 
ought to limit itself to facts ; but liberty, whether one regards it 
as real or illusory, is also a question of fact, and it is not possible 
to relegate it to the domain of Metaphysics. 
In the only passage in which he touches the question (ch. xxiv. 
p. 328), the author says that a false conception of the idea of 
cause has obscured the ‘ controversy ’ on that state of the mind 
which we call will. Will was invariably and with reason re- 
garded as the cause of action; unfortunately an element which 
has been found to be entirely imaginary, was also always regarded 
as making a portion of the idea of that cause. In the sequence 
of events called cause and effect, a third thing was imagined, 
called force or power, which was not the cause, but emanated 
from it. A recent philosopher2 has shown incontestably that 
cause and power are one; and thus everything is reduced to 
inquiring into ‘ What is the state of mind which immediately 
precedes an act V 
. We will not analyse this chapter on the Will, as it is our chief 
• aim to make results known, and we shall find them more fully 
stated by Mr. Bain. 
1 We find the study carried out by Mr. Bain. 
4 The philosopher to whom the author alludes, without naming him, is 
Thomas Brown, in his Inquiry into the Relation of Cause and Effect. MR. JOHN STUART MILL. 
Mr. John Stuart Mill is well known in France. His re- 
putation as an economist; his works on politics and social ques- 
tions ; his various translations; an analysis of his Logic, which 
the author M. Taine in his Etude sur Stuart Mill pronounces 
‘ masterly ; ’ the attacks of his numerous adversaries;—all these 
have contributed to spread abroad his fame. No name has been 
more frequently quoted among us in contemporary polemics. 
Unfortunately for philosophy, many of those who have spoken of 
him, seem to have known him only vaguely and at second- 
hand. They have contented themselves, in general, with making 
him out to be an adherent of Auguste Comte, and classing him 
among the ‘ positivists,’ which is merely a quick and ready 
mode of judging a cause without hearing it. 
The word positivism, which is so frequently used in these days, 
is a very vague term, with an apparent precision about it; it is 
applied to ways of philosophizing which are in reality quite 
different, and it confounds with the pure disciples of Comte 
men who have more than once insisted upon their independence 
of thought. 
Strictly speaking, there ought to be only one positivism, that 
of Auguste Comte, as there can be only one true Cartesianism, 
that of Descartes, or one true Kantism, that of Kant. But, since 
the doctrine of Comte, taken in its totality, is, as every one knows, 
rather incoherent, since his religion and his politics have done 
nothing but furnish arms to his opponents, and grieve his ad- 
mirers, it is easily to be understood that another positivism than 
his has been formed. This positivism, which may be called 
orthodox, eliminating the subjective portion of the founder’s work, 
restricts itself to some rigorously fixed fundamental principles, Mr. John Stuart Mill. 
79 
which it declares invariable; such as the suppression of all 
researches beyond phenomena; the law of the three conditions, 
theological, metaphysical, positive ; the division of the sciences 
into concrete and abstract; and the hierarchical classification of 
the abstract sciences according to their order of increasing com- 
plexity and decreasing generality, thus, mathematics, astronomy, 
physics, chemistry, biology, sociology. Any one who does not 
admit these principles, with all that logically flows from them, 
is rejected by the School. 
Mr. Mill is of the number. If he admits the law of the three 
states (Comte and Positivism, p. 33); if he eliminates all tran- 
scendental researches, it is because he holds that ‘ the positive mode 
of thinking is not necessarily a negation of the supernatural.’ He 
thus restores to sentiment or to individual faith which he cuts 
off from science. On questions of origin, he says, the philosopher 
is free to form any opinion he pleases ; this is not one of the points 
on which agreement is necessary, ‘ but it is a mistake on the part 
of M. Comte to leave no open questions.’ As for the classification 
of the sciences, a capital point with this school, Mr. Mill, while 
doing justice to Auguste Comte, reproaches him for his omission 
of psychology and all belonging to it, logic, the theory of the 
criterion, etc., for his disdain of political economy,—in short, he 
declares that he has failed in his most ambitious work, saying 
‘ that he has not created sociology’ (ibid. pp. 70 and 130), which 
in the absence of a psychology could not but be imperfect. We have 
nothing to do with this discussion. But does it not seem strange 
that Mr. Mill, while differing so materially from them, should be 
classed by public opinion, at least in France, among the posi- 
tivists? Whence arises this confusion 1 We account for it thus. 
A general tendency, a method of investigation, a mode of 
thought which may be described as scientific, and even empiri- 
cal, is common to many of the fine intellects of the seven- 
teenth century. It consists in circumscribing as closely as pos- 
sible the domain of hypothesis, and of admitting as an object of 
science only that which may be observed as a fact, or formu- 
lated as a law, and verified. This mode of thought, the work 
of several generations of philosophers and savants, and among 
whose promoters Mr. Mill names Bacon, Descartes, Newton, 80 
English Psychology. 
Hume, Kant, Bentham, and even Hamilton, existed before posi- 
tivism, and is not in any respect the creation of Auguste Comte. 
The foundation of M. Comte’s philosophy is in no way 
peculiar to him, but the general property of the age, and far as 
yet from being universally accepted, even by thoughtful minds. 
The philosophy called Positive is not a recent invention of M. 
Comte, but a simple adherence to the traditions of all the great 
scientific minds whose discoveries have made the human race 
what it is. M. Comte has never presented it in any other light. 
But he has made the doctrine his own by his method of treat- 
ing it.1 
Positivism is, then, a form of the modern scientific spirit, but 
it is only a particular form of it, it is only a wave of the great 
current, it is species in the genus. Everything which the 
scientific mind supposes, exists in positivism, but with something 
more,—these are the fundamental principles which constitute the 
credo of the school. Between the positive mind, and positivism, 
we, for our part, discern as much difference as between the phi- 
losophic mind, and philosophy, that is to say, between that which 
remains and that which passes away. But as positivism is very 
categorical in its negations, very decided in its dogmas, very clear 
in its formulas, it is more imposing than the less affirmative 
method of the purely scientific mind. Thence the general con- 
fusion which so often makes of a savant or a philosopher a posi- 
tivist in spite of himself. 
On the contrary, that which constitutes, in our opinion, one of 
the principal merits of Mr. Mill, is liberty of investigation, with- 
out which there is no philosophical spirit; the taste for polemics 
and discussion which makes him rank so high the dialectics of 
a great idealist—Plato—which he values above all as a method 
of research ; the largeness of mind which accepts all objections, 
the philosophical good faith with which he plainly declares what 
is, in his opinion, the value of each of his solutions, without con- 
cealing its incompleteness and insufficiency. 
M. Littre objects to Mr. Mill’s psychological and logical point 
of view, as opposed to the objective point of view of the positive 
1 Mill’s Auguste Comte and Positivism. Mr. John Stuart Mill. 
81 
school. He also objects to his definition of philosophy as ‘the 
science of man as an intelligent, moral, and social being.’ To 
us, who have only to treat of the psychologist, this is a good 
augury. Continuing the tradition of James Mill and of Brown, 
but adding to them the results of half a century of progress, he 
recognises them for his masters, and not Comte, from whom he 
has been supposed, by a retrospective illusion, to derive his in- 
spiration. He says, in his Examination of Hamilton's Philosophy 
(ch. xiv. p. 266, note 2), ‘ More than half of my System of Logic, 
comprehending all its fundamental doctrines, was written before 
I had seen the Course of Positive Philosophy. My work is 
indebted to Comte for several important ideas, but a short list 
would exhaust the chapters and even the pages which contain 
them. As to the general doctrine (that which eliminates first or 
final causes), it was familiar to me in my childhood, thanks to the 
teaching of my father, who had learned it where M. Comte 
learned it, that is to say, in the method of the physical sciences, 
and the writings of former philosophers. Since Hume, this doc- 
trine has been the common property of the philosophic world. 
Since Brown, it has entered into popular philosophy.’ 
A declared partisan of the psychology of association, Mr. Mill 
has not explained his doctrine under a systematic form, like James 
Mill, Herbert Spencer, or Mr. Bain. Let us now try to collect 
the doctrines scattered through the Logic, Hamilton's Philosophy, 
and the Dissertations, and to explain them under these three 
titles: Method in Psychology, Psychology strictly so called, the 
psychological theory of Mind and Matter. 
CHAPTER I. 
OF METHOD IN PSYCHOLOGY. 
Of Method in Psychology.—i. The aim of psychology—2. Method of psy- 
chology : positivists, metaphysicians, and associationalists—3. The 
science of character, or Ethology. 
i. 
In every science method is of capital importance; it is all the 
more so in proportion as the science is less advanced, and more 82 
English Psychology. 
hesitating in its march. This is the case with psychology, and 
it is not rash to say that the insufficiency of its progress has been 
the inevitable result of the method generally employed. Mj. 
Stuart Mill, who justly calls attention to the little advance made 
in the method of the moral and social sciences, has resolutely 
attacked that of psychology; he returns to the charge several 
times,1 and he makes his thoughts on this point perfectly clear. 
‘ Psychology/ he says, ‘ has for its aim the uniformities of suc- 
cession ; the laws, whether primitive or derivative, according to 
which one mental condition succeeds another, is the cause of 
another, or at least the cause of the coming of another.’ 
It is a common opinion that the thoughts, sentiments, and 
actions of sensible beings cannot be the object of a science, in 
the same sense as the beings and phenomena of the exterior 
world. That opinion rests upon a confusion ; all science is con- 
founded with exact science. But we may conceive an intermediate 
case between the perfection of the science and its extreme im- 
perfection. For example, a phenomenon may result from two 
sorts of causes,—from major causes accessible to observation or 
to calculation;—from minor, secondary causes, which are not con- 
stantly accessible to exact observation, or even which are not so 
at all. In such a case, we may account for the principal part of 
the phenomenon, but there will be variations and modifications 
which we cannot completely explain. 
This occurs in the theory of the tides. There are the major 
causes, the attraction of the sun and of the moon,—all that depend 
on that attraction may be explained and predicted for any portion 
whatever, even an unexplored portion, of the earth’s surface. But 
there are also secondary causes,—the direction of the wfind, local 
circumstances, the configuration of the bottom of the ocean, etc., 
—which have a great influence on the height and the hour of 
the tide, and which, in most cases, cannot be calculated or 
predicted. Nevertheless, not only is it certain that these varia- 
tions have causes which act in accordance with perfectly uniform 
laws,—not only is the theory of the tides, therefore, a science 
like meteorology, but it is more practically useful. For the 
1 See Logic, vol. ii. book 6, and Dissertations and Discussions, vol. iii. p. 97. Mr. John Stuart Mill. 
83 
general laws of the tides maybe established, and previsions which 
shall be almost entirely correct may be founded upon these laws. 
This is what is meant, or ought to be meant, when sciences which 
are not exact sciences are spoken of. Astronomy was a science 
before it became an exact science. It has only been exact since 
it has explained not only the planetary motions, but also their 
perturbations. 
The science of the tides is not yet an exact science, not 
by a radical impossibility in its nature, but because it is very 
difficult to establish the derivative uniformities with precision. 
‘ The science of human nature is of the same kind,It is far from 
being of the same exactness as our present astronomy, but there 
is no reason why it should not be a science, like that of the stars, 
or even such as astronomy was, while as yet its calculations in- 
cluded only the principal phenomena, and not the perturbations. 
1. The phenomena with which this science is conversant being 
the thoughts, feelings, and actions of human beings, it would have 
attained the ideal perfection of a science, if it enabled us to fore- 
tell how an individual would think, feel, or act throughout life, 
with the same certainty with which astronomy enables us to pre- 
dict the places and the occultations of the heavenly bodies. It 
needs scarcely be stated that nothing approaching to this can be 
done. Hence, even if our science of human nature were theo- 
retically perfect, that is, if we could calculate any character as we 
can calculate the orbit of any planet, from given data, still, as the 
data are never all given, nor ever precisely alike in different 
cases, we could neither make positive predictions, nor lay down 
universal propositions.’1 
But the approximative generalizations are sufficiently exact for 
practical life ; that which is only probable when it is affirmed 
of individuals taken at hazard, is certain when it is affirmed of 
the conduct of the masses; and therein lies the utility of psycho- 
logy.2 
Thus the aim of psychology is fixed : its object is the phe- 
nomena of mind. Its character is determined; it is (or may be) 
1 Mill’s Logic, ed. 1856, p. 421. 2 Logic, b. vi. ch. iii. 84 
English Psychology. 
a science; not exact, but approximative, and sufficient for practical 
purposes. Let us now see the method of it.1 
Two entirely opposite schools have contributed to its deviation 
from the right way,—on one side, that of Auguste Comte ; on the 
other, that of German metaphysics. Mr. Mill writes thus of the 
former:— 
M. Comte claims for physiologists alone the scientific know- 
ledge of intellectual and moral phenomena. He totally rejects 
psychological observations properly so called, the internal con- 
sciousness. He thinks that we have to acquire our knowledge of 
the human mind by observing others. How can we observe and 
interpret the mental operations of others without previously know- 
ing our own 1 He does not tell us this. But he considers it evi- 
dent that the observation of ourselves by ourselves can teach us 
only very little concerning feelings, and nothing on the subject of 
understanding. ‘ It is not necessary/ adds Mr. Stuart Mill, * to 
refute a sophism at length, whose most surprising part is, that it 
should have imposed on any one. Two answers may be made to 
it:—i. M. Comte may be referred to the experience as well as 
to the writings of the psychologists as a proof that the mind can 
not only be conscious of more than one impression at a time, and 
even perceive a considerable number (according to Hamilton), 
but even lend them all attention. 2. It might have occurred to 
M. Comte that it is possible to study a fact by means of memory, 
not at the instant in which we perceive it, but the moment after, 
and this is, in reality, the mode by which we acquire the best of our 
knowledge of intellectual actions. Besides, in fact, we know what 
passes in ourselves, whether thanks to consciousness or thanks to 
memory, but in a direct way in both cases, and not (as happens 
about what we do in a state of somnambulism) by their results.’ 
This simple fact destroys the entire argument of M. Comte. 
Everything of which we have direct consciousness we can observe. 
The successions, therefore, which obtain among mental pheno- 
mena, do not admit of being deduced from the physiological 
laws of our nervous organization; and all real knowledge of them 
must continue, for a long time at least, if not for ever, to be 
1 Logic, loc. cit. Mr. John Stuart Mill. 
85 
sought in the direct study, by observation and experiment, of the 
mental successions themselves. Since, therefore, the order of 
our mental phenomena must be studied in those phenomena, and 
not inferred from the laws of any phenomena more general, there 
is a distinct and sepafate science of mind. 
The relations, indeed, of that science to the science of physio- 
logy must never be overlooked or undervalued. It must by no 
means be forgotten that the laws of mind may be derivative laws 
resulting from the laws of animal life, and that their truth there- 
fore may ultimately depend on physical conditions. . . . But on 
the other hand, to reject the resource of psychological analysis, and 
construct the theory of the mind solely on such data as physio- 
logy at present affords, seems to me as great an error in principle, 
and an even more serious one in practice. Imperfect as is the 
science of mind, I do not scruple to affirm that it is in a consider- 
ably more advanced state than the portion of physiology that cor- 
responds to it; and to discard the former for the latter appears to 
me an infringement of the true canons of inductive philosophy. 
Thus, then, we have direct observation clearly established, 
against positivism.1 Let us now see how our author combats the 
opposite school, the metaphysicians, German or otherwise, whom 
he calls, in general terms, philosophers d priori. 
The dispute between the d priori philosophers and the d pos- 
teriori philosophy, he says, goes far beyond the bounds and the 
bearing of psychology, and is especially concentrated on the field 
of ontology. I have no intention of declaring myself a partisan 
of either, both having done much for humanity, both requiring to 
be known by whoever purposes to approach philosophical ques- 
tions, each having largely pronted by the criticisms of the other. 
‘ By concentrating the question simply on the ground of psy- 
chology, we find that the difference between the two philosophies 
consists in the different theories which they give of the complex 
phenomena of the human mind.3 
Experience is not the exclusive property of one of them. They 
both depend on it for their materials. The fundamental differ- 
ence has reference, not to the facts themselves, but to their origin. 
1 See Logic, book vi. chap, iv., and Comte and Positivism, p. 67. 86 
English Psychology. 
We may say briefly and generally that one of these theories con- 
siders the most complex phenomena of the mind as being the pro- 
duct of experience, whereas the other considers them as original. 
A priori psychology maintains that, in every act of thought, 
even the most elementary, there is an element which is not given 
to the mind, but which is furnished by the mind, in virtue of its 
own faculties. The most simple of all the phenomena, an exterior 
sensation, requires, according to it, a mental element to be a per- 
ception, and thus to become, instead or a passive and fugitive 
condition of our being, a durable object exterior to the mind. 
The notions of extent, solidity, number, force, etc., although 
acquired by the senses, are not copies of impressions made upon 
the senses, but creations of the laws oi our minds put in action 
by sensations. Experience, instead of being the source and the 
prototype of our ideas, is itself a product of the forces proper to 
the mind, elaborating the impressions which we receive from 
without; it contains a mental as well as an external element. 
Experience, invoked in vain to account for our mental laws, is 
only possible by those laws. Now, if experience does not 
explain experience, d fortiori it does not explain the ideas of 
moral, super-sensible things ; experience is their occasion, but not 
their source. 
A posteriori psychology, on the contrary, while it recognises the 
existence of a mental element in our ideas, and admits that our 
ideas of extent, solidity, time, space, virtue, are not exact copies 
of impressions made upon our senses, but a product of the labour 
of the mind, does not consider this production as the result of 
particular and impenetrable laws, which cannot be accounted for. 
It thinks, on the contrary, that that is possible. It thinks that the 
mental element is a fact, but not an ultimate fact. It thinks that 
it may be resolved into simpler laws and more general facts, and 
that it is possible to discover the process followed by the mind in 
the construction of these great ideas ; in a word, that their genesis 
can be determined. 
Let us define the difference between the two Schools of psy- 
chology by an example. The transcendentalists examine our 
ideas of space and time: they find that each contains in itself in 
an indissoluble manner the idea of the infinite. Naturally we Mr. yohn Stuart Mill. 
87 
have no experimental knowledge of the infinite; all our ideas 
derived from experience are ideas of finite things. Nevertheless 
it is impossible to conceive of time and space otherwise than as 
infinite, and it is impossible to derive them from experience ; 
these are the necessary conceptions of the mind. The a posteriori 
psychologist, on his side, sees clearly that we cannot think of 
time and space otherwise than as infinite, but he does not consider 
that as an ultimate fact. He sees in it an ordinary manifestation 
of one of the laws of the association of ideas,—the law that the 
idea of a thing irresistibly suggests the idea of another thing with 
which it has often been found by experience to be intimately 
united. As we have never had any experience of a point in space 
without other points beyond it, nor of a point in time without 
other points which follow it, the law of inseparable association 
causes us to be unable to think of any point in time or space, 
however distant, without immediately imagining other points yet 
more distant. This explains their infinitude without introducing 
‘ necessity.’ It may be that time and space have limits, but in 
our present condition we are totally unable to conceive of them. 
If we could reach the end of space, we should be apprised of it 
no doubt by some novel and strange impression of our senses, but 
of which we cannot at present form the very slightest idea. 
The preceding example brings out clearly the two principal 
doctrines of the most advanced a posteriori psychology :— 
1. That the most abstruse phenomena of the mind are formed 
of more simple and elementary phenomena. 
2. That the mental law by means of which this formation takes 
place is the law of association. 
The most complete and scientific form of a posreriori psycho- 
logy, is that which considers the law of association as the supreme 
principle. Its great problem is to determine, not how far this law 
extends—for it extends to everything : ideas, emotions, desires, 
volitions, etc.,—but how many mental phenomena it is capable of 
explaining, and how it explains them. On this part of the subject 
there are differences of doctrine, and the theory, like every 
theory in an incomplete science, progresses steadily.1 
1 Loc. cit. p. 108. 88 
English Psychology. 
This manner of interpreting the phenomena of the mind, con- 
tinues Mr. Mill, has been often stigmatized as materialist. In 
order to see what justice there is in the accusation, we have only 
to remember that the idealism of Berkeley is one of the develop- 
ments of this theory. If there be materialism in endeavouring to 
determine the material conditions of our mental operations, all 
somewhat comprehensive theories of the mind may, in that case, 
be taxed with materialism. We shall probably never know 
whether organization alone can produce thought and life j but 
we know, beyond doubt, that the mind employs a material organ. 
Now, this admitted, what materialism is there in following out the 
physiological explanations so far as they can lead us 1 
It is certainly true that associative-psychology represents several 
of the superior mental conditions as being in a certain sense the 
development of inferior mental conditions. But in other similar 
cases, as the author acutely remarks, the wisdom and tht marvellous 
art of nature which draws the better from the worse, and good from 
evil, have been magnified. Besides, if those, the most noble por- 
tions of our nature, are not original, they are not therefore factitious 
and non-natural. The products are as much a part of human 
nature as the elements which compose it. Water is as much a sub- 
stance of the external world as hydrogen and oxygen. It is only 
for vulgar minds that a great and beautiful object loses its charm 
in losing something of its mysteriousness, in unveiling a portion 
of the secret process by which nature has engendered it.51 
Mr. Stuart Mill requires us to be exacting with respect to expla- 
nations founded on association : we must not limit ourselves to 
semblances of analysis. Now nothing is more useful in getting at 
the bottom and into the intimate essence of complex facts, than 
the examination of exceptions and rare cases. Children, young 
animals, persons deprived of certain senses, those who, born blind, 
have recovered their sight, persons who have grown up in solitude 
like Caspar Hauser, furnish numerous sources of information, 
which are unhappily but rarely used. 
In short, two kinds of investigations are equally necessary for 
1 Loc. cit. p. HI. 
2 Mtmoires des VAca.de.mic dcs ■Sciences Morales, tom. i. 1833. Mr. John Stuart Mill. 
89 
the study of the phenomena of mind, and for that of material 
phenomena; the first, of which Newton’s generalization is the 
type, applies itself, not to successions of phenomena, but to com- 
plex phenomena themselves, and resolves them into simple ele- 
ments, just as chemistry resolves compound bodies. The first 
analyses laws into simpler laws, the second analyses subtances into 
simpler substances.1 
III. 
After having determined the object and the method of psycho- 
logy, we have to seek whether there be not an Art to which this 
science may serve as a basis,—whether there be not some derived 
science applicable to practical life, which supposes, as primary 
science, a general knowledge of the phenomena of the mind. 
Every science, as soon as it is firmly constituted, comes naturally 
out of pure theory, and leads to practical consequences, whether 
they be sought for, or only found. And, in our opinion, there is 
no greater proof of the long lingering of psychology in its in- 
fancy, than the striking fact that no application, no useful art, has 
proceeded from it. Thus it was for centuries with physics and 
chemistry, thus with the biological sciences, whose results are 
even yet but dimly foreseen; nevertheless who can fail to under- 
stand that if the fundamental laws of the mind were discovered, 
if the circumstances which modify them were known, if, in a 
word, we knew the essential and the accidental, as in the case of 
the tides, already quoted by Mr. Mill, if we could reconstitute 
a psychological situation by synthesis, as we can calculate an 
astronomical position, if we were capable of foreseeing,—an 
important secret would be made known to men, available for 
their aid in education, politics, all the moral and social sciences, 
and that psychology would be the basis of those sciences, even 
as physics is the basis of the sciences of matter. 
The possibility of this art, or, if we prefer so to style it, this 
derivative science, founded upon psychology, is entertained by 
only a few minds.2 We shall see that Mr. Mill defines its nature 
1 Stuart Mill, Preface to James Mill’s Analysis, p. 6. 
2 Mr. Bain has published a'volume On the Study of Character, including an 
estimate of phrenology. 90 
English Psychology. 
and its method. Let us say at once that he designates it Etho- 
logy, or the science of character, and that he assigns to it, as a 
process of investigation, the deductive method with verification.1 
The object of psychology is the general laws of human nature, 
the object of ethology is the derivative laws. Psychology occu- 
pies itself with genus, ethology with species and varieties. 
We employ the name psychology for the science of the ele- 
mentary laws of mind; ethology will serve for the ulterior science 
which determines the kind of character produced, in conformity 
to those general laws, by any set of circumstances, physical and 
moral. According to this definition, ethology is the science 
which corresponds to the art of education, in the widest sense of 
the term, including the formation of national or collective char- 
acter, as well as individual. . . . Ethology may be called the 
exact science of human nature.’2 
But it is only exact in the affirmation of tendencies, not of facts. 
It declares, not that such a thing will always happen, but that the 
effect of a given cause will be such, so long as that cause shall 
operate without interruption ; for instance : it is a scientific pro- 
position that muscular strength tends to make men courageous, 
but not that it always does make them so; that experience tends 
to produce wisdom, but not that it always does produce it. 
While psychology is entirely or principally a science of obser- 
vation and experimentation, ethology is an entirely deductive 
science. The relation of ethology to psychology is analogous to 
that of the different branches of physics to mechanics. The 
principles of ethology are, properly speaking, the axiomata media 
of the science of the mind. These principles are distinct, on the 
one hand, from empirical laws resulting from simple observation, 
on the other, from lofty generalizations. As Bacon has boldly 
pointed out, the axiomata media of any science constitute the 
principal value of that science. Inferior generalizations, so long 
as they have not been explained and reduced to the axiomata 
media, whose consequences they are, possess only the precarious 
value of empirical laws ; and the most general laws are too gene- 
ral to explain individual cases. 
1 Logic, bk. vi. ch. v. 
2 Ibid. vol. ii. pp. 445-6, 4th ed. Mr. John Shtart Mill. 
91 
Mr. Stuart Mill shows very clearly that the deductive method, 
with verification, is the only one applicable to ethology. Natural 
laws, he says, can only be determined in two ways : by deduction 
or by experience. Are the laws of formation of character ap- 
proachable by the experimental method 1 Evidently not. In 
fact, this method has two principal processes, experimentation 
and observation. 
1. Is experimentation possible 1 It might be for an oriental 
despot, but even if he ventured to attempt it, how much advance 
would be made 1 It would be necessary to rear, from infancy to 
maturity, a number of human beings, to note each sensation or 
impression experienced by the subject, or to note the causes and 
what he thinks of them. A single apparently insignificant cir- 
cumstance which might be neglected would suffice to vitiate the 
experiment. 
2. Is observation possible 1 If it be not possible to know in- 
fluential circumstances with entire certainty when we arrange them 
ourselves, a fortiori we cannot know them in cases beyond our 
control. We can only make observations wholesale and in the 
lump, that is to say, we can only aim at a purely approximative 
generalization. There remains, then, the deductive method, 
which starts from laws. 
In other words, mankind have not one universal character, but 
there exist universal laws for the formation of character. And 
since it is by these laws, combined with the facts of each particu- 
lar case, that the whole of the phenomena of human action and 
feeling are produced, it is on these that every rational attempt to 
construct the science of human nature in the concrete, and for 
practical purposes, must proceed.1 
Ethology is still to be created. But its creation has at length 
become practicable; . . . though little has yet been done, and 
that little not at all systematically, towards forming it.2 
The progress of this important science will depend on the em- 
ployment of a double process :— 
i. Given a certain particular circumstance, to deduct theo- 
retically from it the ethological consequences, and to compare 
them with that which our common experience teaches us. 
1 Logic, vol. ii. p. 440, 4th edit. 
3 Ibid. p. 450. 92 
English Psychology. 
2. To perform the inverse operation, that is to say, to study 
the different types of human nature, to analyse them, to note the 
circumstances in which these types predominate, and to explain 
the characteristic features of the type by the peculiarities of the 
circumstances. 
It is hardly necessary, says Mr. Mill in conclusion, to repeat 
that in ethology, as well as in every other inductive science, veri- 
fication a posteriori ought to go pari passu with deduction ct priori, 
the conclusions of the theory deserving no confidence except so 
far as they are confirmed by experience. The agreement between 
these two kinds of proofs is the sole sufficient basis of the prin- 
ciples of a science thus noted in facts, and relative to phenomena 
so complex and so concrete as those of ethology. 
Thus a general, abstract science, founded on observation and 
experience, having for its object the fundamental phenomena of 
the human mind, and a special science, having for its object 
varieties of character,—such is the almost inexhaustible and 
almost entirely novel task which Mr. Mill has assigned to future 
psychology. 
CHAPTER II. 
PSYCHOLOGY. 
Psychology.—I. Consciousness—2. Exterior perception—3. Association of 
ideas—4. Causality—5. Necessary truths—6. Reasoning—7. Will. 
I. 
We comprise under the following titles, Conscience, Perception, 
Association, Idea of Cause, Necessary Truths, Reasoning, Will, 
the principal psychological studies of Mr. John Stuart Mill. 
‘ If the word spu-it means anything, it signifies that which feels.’ 
The phenomena which manifest it are sensations, ideas, emotions, 
and volitions.1 Consciousness is an intuitive knowledge which 
constitutes the foundation of our mental conditions, which exist 
only in consciousness and by consciousness; to have an idea, to 
have a sensation, is in reality to have the consciousness of an 
1 Logic, book vi. ch. iv. Mr. John Stuart Mill. 
93 
idea, of a sensation.1 The verdict of consciousness is without 
appeal. Scepticism, which should dispute it (if such there be) 
would not be admissible ; because in denying all consciousness 
it would no longer deny any. But we must not confound the 
knowledge which is intuitive, and consequently without appeal, of 
consciousness, with the reasonings, inductions, and interpretations 
of the facts of consciousness, which are fallible, and which 
demand verification. 
Are there, beside the phenomena of which we have conscious- 
ness, unconscious mental modifications 1 Sir William Hamilton 
is probably the first of the English philosophers who has declared 
for the affirmative, without limiting himself to the specious pre- 
text that an unconscious action or passion of the mind is unin- 
telligible. This hypothesis of unconscious activity, which has 
since made much way in England, in Germany,2 and in France, 
was sustained by Hamilton on three sorts of facts :— 
1. We know a science or a language, etc. They exist L us in 
the latent state, so long as we do not make use of them. 
2. Certain abnormal conditions, such as madness, delirium, 
somnambulism, reveal to us knowledge, or habits of action which 
we have no consciousness of possessing in our normal state. 
3. In our ordinary life, every visible object is composed of 
very small portions, or minima visibilia. But each minimum 
visibile is composed of still smaller portions, of which each singly 
is to the consciousness as zero. It is the same as regards the 
minimum audibile. Finally, certain associations of ideas cannot 
be explained except by the intermediary associations which are 
produced without unconsciousness. 
Mr. Mill, after having criticised the interpretation of these 
facts given by Hamilton, explains them by physiology:—‘ I am 
myself inclined to agree with Sir W. Hamilton, and to admit his 
unconscious mental modifications, in the only shape in which I 
1 An Examination of Sir W. Hamiltotis Philosophy, chaps, viii. ix. We 
shall find hereafter, in Spencer and Bain, a complete and remarkable theory 
of consciousness, brought back to two primitive acts : the perception of a dif- 
ference, the perception of a resemblance. 
2 Wundt, Vorlesungen iiber die Menschen und Thierseelei 1863. 94 
English Psychology. 
can attach any very distinct meaning to them, namely, uncon- 
scious modifications of the nerves.’1 
In the case of a soldier wounded in battle, and prevented 
by the heat of the action from feeling his wound, the most pro- 
bable hypothesis is, that the nerves of the wounded part have 
really been affected; but that the nervous centres, being much 
occupied with other impressions, the affection does not reach 
the centres, and that consequently the sensation does not take 
place. So also in respect to latent association, if we admit (and 
physiology is making it more and more probable) that all our 
sentiments, like all our sensations, have for their physical ante- 
cedents a particular state of the nerves, we may easily believe 
that the association between two ideas can appear to be inter- 
rupted, only because it is physically continued by organic con- 
ditions of the nerves succeeding each other so rapidly that the 
state of consciousness appropriate to each of them cannot be 
produced.2 
II. 
In all probability the notion of the ego and the non-ego are not 
produced at the outset. We have not the notion of the non-ego 
until after we have experienced a number of sensations accord- 
ing to first laws and in clusters; and it is not credible that the 
first sensation which we experience should awaken in us the 
notion of an ego.3 The opposition of these two terms, ego and 
non-ego, subject and object, spirit and matter, reduces itself to 
the opposition of sensation considered subjectively, and sen- 
sation considered objectively. There is, on one side, the series of 
states of consciousness (of which sensation forms part), which 
is the subject of sensation. On the other side, there is the 
1 Mill’s Hamilton’s Philosophy, p. 285. 
2 We refer to Leibnitz those who might be tempted to discover materialism 
in this mode of explanation. ‘ All that association makes the soul of Caesar to 
do, is also represented in his body ; there is a certain condition of body which 
responds to even the most abstract reasonings.’ It is true that Leibnitz does 
not say that this state of body is the antecedent of it; that would have been 
in discord with his pre-established harmony. 
3 An Examination, etc., chap. xiii. p. 258. Mr. John Stuart Mill. 
95 
cluster of permanent possibility of sensation, partly realized in 
the actual sensation action, and which is the object of the sensa- 
tion.1 
Among our sensations we are in the habit of considering some 
subjectively, and others objectively. In the first case, we con- 
sider them principally in their relation to our various sentiments, 
and consequently to the subject, which is the sum of them. In 
the second case, we consider them principally in their relation 
to one or several clusters of that possibility of sensation which 
we call the object. ‘The difference between these two classes 
of our sensations answers to the distinction drawn by the majority 
of philosophers, between the second qualities and the first quali- 
ties of matter.’ 
According to Mr. Mill, the first qualities are resistance, extent, 
and figure. These are the three principal elements of all the 
groups ; wherever they are, there is a group ; every other element 
of the group presents itself to our thought, less for what it is, 
than as a mark of those three elements. In that group of per- 
manent possibilities of sensation which we call object, the per- 
manent possibility of tactiles 1 and muscular sensations forms a 
group within a group, a sort of interior nucleus, conceived of as 
more fundamental than the rest, and on which all the other 
possibilities of sensation contained in the group seem to depend. 
This nucleus, sometimes considered as cause or substance, is 
our first conception of matter, which thus reduces itself to resist- 
ance, extent, and figure. 
The most fundamental of these three properties is resistance, 
which is given to us by muscular sensations. As the sentiment 
of resistance is invariably accompanied by tactile sensations, 
by the contact of our skin wfith some object, it results, in 
virtue of the law of inseparable association, that the sensations 
of contact and resistance become inseparably united. An 
object which touches our skin, even without pressure, and with- 
out causing any muscular reaction, is spontaneously referred to 
some external cause. By association, our sensations of touch 
have become representatives of the sensations of resistance, with 
1 For details on this point, see chap. iii. following. 96 
English Psychology. 
which they habitually co-exist; as the different shades of colours, 
and the muscular sensations, which accompany the various move- 
ments of eye, become representatives of the sensations of touch 
and locomotion. 
The second of the fundamental qualities of the body is extent; 
a notion which was for a long time considered irreducible by 
the intuitive school of Reid and Stewart, but whose origin has 
been explained by the psychological analysis of the experimental 
school. We shall leave the care of expounding it to Mr. Bain 
and Mr. Herbert Spencer. Mr. Mill is in perfect accord with 
them, and quotes them at length. We must limit ourselves to a 
brief summary of the doctrine. 
The sensation of muscular motion, unimpeded, constitutes our 
notion of empty space; the sensation of muscular motion, im- 
peded, constitutes our notion of full space or extent. The idea 
of space is derived from a phenomenon which is not synchronized 
but successive. If we find this difficult to believe, it is because 
the eye, in contributing to produce our actual notion of extent, 
alters its character very much, and prevents us from recognising 
that the notion of extent has been, in its origin, successive. 
In order to establish it categorically, it would be necessary to 
find a born blind psychologist, as there have been born blind 
geometricians and mathematicians. His declarations and inter- 
pretations would be decisive. But, in default of such a case, we 
have an analogous one, that of a man born blind, whom Platner, 
a philosopher and physician of the last century, attended and in- 
terrogated.1 Platner tells us :— 
‘ This observation, I say, has convinced me, that the sense of 
touch, by itself, is altogether incompetent to afford us the repre- 
sentation of extension and space, and is not even cognisant of 
local exteriority; in a word, that a man deprived of sight has 
absolutely no perception of an outer world beyond the existence 
1 Platner began this study in 1785. For a century the blind man of 
Cheselden has been cited in all the treatises on pyschology. Mr. Mill, besides 
the blind man of Platner, quotes two others, one who was operated upon by 
Dr. Franz of Leipsic in 1841, the other more recently, and who is mentioned 
by Professor Fraser in the North British Review. Mr. John Stuart Mill. 
97 
of something effective, different from his own feeling of passivity, 
and in general only of the numerical diversity—shall I say of 
impressions, or of things? In fact, to those born blind time serves 
instead of space. Vicinity and distance means in their mouths 
nothing more than the shorter or longer time, the smaller or 
greater number of feelings, which they find necessary to attain 
from some one feeling to another.’1 
In short, the idea of space is at bottom an idea of time, and 
the notion of distance or extent is that of a movement of the 
muscles continued for a greater or lesser duration. 
III. 
We have already seen how complete is Mr. Mill’s adhesion 
to Associative psychology. The law of association is, in his 
opinion, the most general which rules psychological phenomena. 
‘ That which the law of gravitation is to astronomy, that which 
the elementary properties of the tissues are to physiology, the 
law of the association of ideas is to psychology.’2 It is the 
ultimate fact to which everything returns, the most general mode 
of explanation, the most powerful instrument of the experimental 
school in its psychological investigations.8 
Although we do not find in Mr. Mill’s works so elaborate a 
study of association as in those of Mr. Herbert Spencer, and 
especially of Mr. Bain, we shall hereafter see that he reduces the 
fundamental idea of cause to an inseparable and unconditional 
association, and that he founds on cause, that is to say, on an 
association, the entire theory of reasoning. 
The first law of association is, that similar ideas tend to awaken 
each other. 
The second law is, that when two impressions or ideas have 
been experienced simultaneously, or in immediate succession, 
one tends to awaken the other. 
1 Mill’s Examination of Hamiltotis Philosophy, p. 232. 
3 Comte and Positivism, p. 53. 
3 Mr. Mill quotes the Elude sur Vassociation des idles, by M. Mervoyer, as 
the only work on this subject which has appeared in France. M. Renouvier, 
in his Annee philosophique, 1868, recently published, promises a criticism in 
detail of * Associationalism.’ 98 
English Psychology. 
The third law is, that a greater intensity of one of these im- 
pressions or of both is equivalent, in order to render them likely 
to excite each other, to a greater frequency of conjunction.1 
Now or later, psychology ought to be able to explain the most 
complex phenomena by means of the laws of association. But 
its task is rendered very difficult, because the combined action of 
different causes sometimes produces combinations in which it is 
difficult to find the constituent elements. In fact, when a com- 
plex phenomenon is the result of several causes, two principal 
cases may present themselves : that of the mechanical, that of the 
chemical laws. In the case of the mechanical law, each cause 
is to be found in the effect, as if it had acted singly. The effect 
of concurrent causes is exactly the sum of the separate effects 
of each. On the contrary, the chemical combination of two 
substances produces a third whose proportions are completely 
different from each of the two others, whether taken separately or 
together. 
The laws of the phenomena of mind are analogous, now to 
mechanical, again to chemical laws. As an example of mental 
combination, we may give the colour white resulting from the 
rapid succession of the seven colours of the prism before our 
eyes. The idea of an orange, on the contrary, really results 
from the simple ideas of colour, form, taste, etc., because, when we 
interrogate our consciousness, we can discern all these sentiments 
in our idea. There are cases of mental chemistry in which it is 
more exact to say that simple ideas produce complex ideas, than 
to say that they compose them.2 The knowledge of the constituent 
elements of a complex fact in psychological chemistry, no more 
dispenses us from studying the fact itself, than the knowledge of 
the properties of oxygen and sulphur dispenses us from studying 
those of sulphuric acid. 
Mr. Mill (Logic, iii. 13 ; vi. 4) explains two great varieties of 
mind by two different modes of association. 
Simultaneous (or synchronical) associations predominate in 
persons endowed with keen organic sensibility; because it is an 
acknowledged fact that all the sensations or ideas experienced 
1 Logic, book vi. ch. iv., and book iii. ch. vi. 
2 Ibid. Mr. John Stuart Mill. 
99 
under a strong impression are intimately associated with each 
other. Now this predominance of synchronical associations pro- 
duces a tendency to conceive of things under concrete forms, 
highly coloured, rich in attributes and details ; a disposition of 
mind which is called imagination, and which is one of the 
faculties of the painter and of the poet. 
Successive associations predominate in less impressionable 
people. If they possess lofty intelligence, they will apply them- 
selves to history or the sciences rather than to an art. The 
result of their inferior sensibility will be love of science, or of 
abstract truth, and lack of taste and warmth. 
Let us now consider associative psychology in antagonism with 
the notion of cause. 
IV. 
If the theory of consciousness and of exterior perception is the 
basis of all psychology, the theory of cause is the key of all 
philosophy; it even opens up to us regions into which we are 
not bound to penetrate. Let us keep to psychology. Thus Mr. 
Mill declares that he does not concern himself with the first or 
metaphysical cause of anything whatever.1 
‘ The causes with which I concern myself are not efficient but 
physical causes. They are causes in that sense alone, in which 
one physical fact is said to be the cause of another. Of the 
efficient causes of phenomena, or whether any such causes exist 
at all, I am not called upon to give an opinion. The notion of 
causation is deemed, by the schools of metaphysics most in 
vogue at the present moment, to imply a mysterious and most 
powerful tie such as cannot, or at least does not exist, between 
any physical fact and that other physical fact on which it is in- 
variably consequent, and which is popularly termed its cause ; 
and thence is deduced the supposed necessity of ascending 
higher into the essences and inherent constitution of things to find 
the true cause, the cause which is not only followed by, but 
actually produces, the effect.2 
1 Logic, book iii. ch. v. 
2 Ibid. vol. i. p. 359, 4th edition. 100 
English Psychology. 
But Mr. Mill, as we may suppose, denies himself this excur- 
sion. 
In his Examination of Hamilton’s Philosophy,1 he has sharply 
criticised that philosopher’s theory of causality. According to 
Hamilton, the idea of cause is not a principle sui generis of our 
intelligence : it is explained by the impossibility of our conceiving 
of anything as absolutely commencing. It comes back to the 
axiom— 
Ex nihilo nihil, in nihilum nil posse reverti. 
It is because we cannot conceive of nothing becoming some- 
thing that we are always asking the cause of every effect, that is 
to say, that from which the effect draws its existence, and is only 
a transformation. If we examine Hamilton’s doctrine, we shall 
see that, pushed to its ultimate consequences, it would end in 
giving to all phenomena an eternal substratum whose causes 
and effects would be only manifestations in time ; that is to say, 
that it is completely opposed in spirit and tendencies to empiri- 
cism, whereas Mr. Mill acknowledges nothing but empirical 
causes. 
The phenomena of nature, he says, hold two different relations 
with respect to each other, simultaneousness and succession.2 
Causality belongs to the category of relations of succession ; but 
every relation of succession is not a relation of causality; in 
order to be so, it must fulfil essential conditions which we are 
about to determine. 
Certain facts succeed and, as we believe, always will succeed 
certain other facts. The invariable antecedent is called cause, the 
invariable consequent is called effect. The relation of cause to 
effect is ordinarily placed between a group of antecedents and a 
group of consequences, although, in general, by a quite arbitrary 
process, one of these antecedents is set apart under the name of 
cause, the others being called simply conditions. Thus a man 
eats of a certain aliment, and dies of it; it is said that this ali- 
ment is the cause of his death. But the true relation of causality 
is between the totality of the antecedents (the special constitu- 
1 An Examination, etc., ch. xvi. p. 340. 
* Logic, loc. cit. Mr. John Stuart Mill. 
101 
tion of body, state of health, state of the atmosphere, etc.,) and 
the totality of the consequences (phenomena which constitute 
death). In the exact language proper to philosophy the cause 
is ‘#the sum of the positive and negative conditions taken to- 
gether, the total of the contingencies of every nature which the 
consequence invariably follows, when they are realized.’ 
This definition of cause is, however, only partial. Invariable 
sequence is not the synonym of causality; the sequence must 
also be unconditional. There are sequences as uniform as pos- 
sible, which are not considered for that reason as cases of causality: 
thus, night invariably succeeds day, but probably no one has ever 
believed that the night is the cause of the day. This suc- 
cession is not unconditional; the production of the day is sub- 
ject to a condition which is not the anteriority of the night, but 
the presence of the sun. This is what authors wish to express 
when they say that the notion of cause implies the idea of 
necessity. 
Necessity signifies unconditionality. The cause of a phenomenon 
may therefore be defined as the antecedent, or the collection of 
antecedents, of which the phenomenon is invariably and uncondi- 
tionally the consequent. 
But, to say that a case of succession is necessary, uncon- 
ditional, in other words, invariable in every possible change of 
circumstances, is not this to acknowledge in causation an ele- 
ment of belief not derived from experience ? By no means; it is 
experience itself which teaches us that such a succession is con- 
ditional, and that such another is not; that the succession of day 
and night, for example, is a derived succession, dependent on 
something else; in a word, experience, without anything to go 
beyond it, explains our ideas of causality.1 
As for the theory which perceives in our voluntary activity the 
sole source of this idea, and which even maintains that it is that 
voluntary activity which reveals to us what is an efficient cause, 
Mr. Mill replies that he sees in the will only aphysical cause like 
any other; that it is the cause of our corporeal actions, in the 
same manner as cold is the cause of ice, and a spark is the cause 
Logic, book iii. ch. v. 102 
English Psychology. 
of the explosion of powder. Volition is the antecedent, the 
motion of our limbs is the consequent ; but we have not 
direct consciousness of this sequence in the sense which the 
theory requires. Mr Mill, agreeing with Hamilton, bids us 
observe that ‘ it is refuted by the consideration, that between 
the overt fact of corporeal movement of which we are cognisant, 
and the internal act of mental determination, of which we are 
also cognisant, there intervenes a numerous series of intermediate 
agencies of which we have no knowledge; and, consequently, 
that we have no consciousness of any causal connexion between 
the extreme links of this chain, the volition to move, and the 
limb moving, as this hypothesis asserts.’ 2 
v. 
Thus then this fundamental idea of causality, implied in the 
most ordinary actions as in the loftiest knowledge, the basis of 
all science, the ‘ hidden root ’ of all induction; that is to say, 
according to our author, of all reasoning, is explained by experi- 
ence ptire and simple ; it is only invariable and unconditional 
succession. Mr. Mill even refers axioms and necessary truths to 
experience. 4 
Let us observe, in the first place, that there are two sorts of 
general propositions, those which, according to everybody’s 
belief, are born of experience and do not go beyond it, being no 
more than experience generalized (Example : All men are mor- 
tal) ; and those which, although suggested by experience, seem to 
go beyond it by their character of necessity (Example : Two 
parallels are everywhere equidistant). According to Mr. Mill, 
these latter propositions are neither truths d priori, as the 
rationalists would have them, nor are they mere words, as the 
nominalists with Hobbes at their head would have them. 
What are they then 1 Empirical propositions. This is how he 
establishes it. 
The reasons brought forward for granting a particular origin 
1 Mill’s Logic, book iii. chap. v. 
* Ibid, book iii. vol. i. p. 389, 5th edition. 
8 Ibid, book ii. chap. v. vi. vii. Mr. John Stuart Mill. 
103 
to these truths reduce themselves to two : they are a priori, they 
are necessary. 
Axioms are not cL priori; they are experimental truths, gener- 
alizations of observation. The proposition, ‘ two right lines 
cannot enclose a space/ is a deduction resulting from the testi- 
mony of the senses. No doubt experience gives us only an 
actual knowledge of this truth, and thence it seems insufficient 
to found an axiom; but, let us observe, that the imagination 
supplies for it; we make for ourselves a mental image of two 
lines, and we see that as soon as they meet each other they 
cease to be right lines. It is, therefore, upon an internal 
production and reproduction of experience that the truths called 
d priori rest. 
Then there is the character of necessity. What is a necessary 
truth 1 It is a proposition, the negation of which is not only 
false, but also inconceivable. Mr. Mill categorically rejects this 
criticism of inconceivability.1 He absolutely denies that we can 
say such a thing is not, since it is inconceivable by us. And, he 
adds, he has only to open the history of the sciences in order to 
justify his assertion. A number of propositions have been held 
to be inconceivable, which have now passed into science as un- 
contested truths, such as the existence of the antipodes, and the 
existence of gravitation, which the Cartesians repelled, because 
they regarded motion without contact as impossible. The in- 
conceivability of the negative is but a case of inseparable asso- 
ciation. We experience the greatest difficulty in uniting two 
ideas for the first time; then, by habit and repetition, they 
become so thoroughly associated that their disunion appears in- 
conceivable, even to enlightened minds. Axioms are then 
experimental truths of which there is superabundant evidence, 
whose basis is experience, and whose criterion is verification. 
‘ They are only a class, the most universal class, of inductions 
1 Mr. Mill has maintained, on several occasions, and without any variation, 
that the truth of a proposition is not sufficiently established by the incon- 
ceivability of its negative. On this point he combats Messrs. Spencer and 
Lewes.—See Mill’s Logic, and An Examination, etc., Spencer’s Principles of 
Psychology, and Lewes’s History of Philosophy. 104 
English Psychology. 
from experience, the easiest and simplest generalizations of the 
facts furnished by the senses and the consciousness.’1 
VI. 
The preceding discussion has led us to the confines of logic, 
beyond which we will not go. Not that we hold the barrier to 
be impassable; it is even a little conventional, seeing that logic 
is contained in psychology, as the part is contained in the whole. 
We regret that Mr. Mill, with his great philosophical authority, 
should not have treated in some of his works of the relations 
between psychology and logic. This question is not so idle as it 
may appear ; because clearly to determine the relations be- 
tween two neighbouring sciences is to define their object with 
precision, afterwards to define their method, and so to render 
their progress possible. It is so much the more important be- 
cause psychology, which is hardly constituted as an independent 
science, has hitherto been absorbed, now by metaphysics, and 
then by logic, the one debating substances and first causes, and 
the other considering human faculties in abstracto only, the 
science of facts, experimental psychology, was stifled, or merely 
vegetated.2 
If, placing ourselves at the point of view of the school which 
we are considering (or even of any other, provided it gives a 
large share to facts), we examine the relations of psychology to 
logic, we shall see that logic is only a branch broken off 
from psychology. In fact, the latter has for its object the facts of 
consciousness, their immediate causes and their laws ; it ought to 
embrace them all, whilst logic occupies itself only with the single 
faculty of inference and its mechanism. Besides, psychology ought 
to study our faculties in the entire series of their evolution, in their 
variations, ethnological or otherwise, whilst logic considers the 
faculty of reasoning only under its adult, impersonal, scientific 
form, and rejects the exceptions. Psychology is concrete, whilst 
logic, even when understood in the modern fashion—that is to 
say, stripped of scholastic formalism—remains abstract; a me- 
1 Logic, book ii. chap. vi. 
8 Among ancients, Aristotle must be excepted. He frequently proceeds 
as a naturalist, and his psychology is astonishing, considering the epoch. Mr. John Stuart Mill. 
105 
chanism of reasoning being much more important to it than the 
matter to which it is applied. Logic is, then, only a small 
portion of psychology. Nevertheless it constitutes, as it is justly 
entitled to do, a science apart, because it can be studied sepa- 
rately, and because, by reason of the simplicity of its object, it is 
much more advanced than psychology. 
We shall, therefore, lay logic aside, although we are now 
dealing with one of the most celebrated logicians of the nine- 
teenth century, and we shall explain his psychological theory of 
reasoning only. 
On this point the opposition of empiricism and idealism is 
remarkable. Idealism, which considers deduction as the funda- 
mental operation, because it starts from the general, sees nothing 
in induction except an operation which brings it back thither. 
For empiricism induction is everything, because it starts from the 
facts, and is the experimental process; deduction supposes it, 
and is in many other respects no other than verification.1 We 
shall not therefore be surprised at the preponderance which Mr. 
Mill assigns to the inductive process. 
In order to reason, that is to say, in order to go from what 
one knows to what one does not know, a point of departure, a 
foundation, is necessary. This point of departure, says Mr. Mill, 
is the particular. ‘ To infer or reason is the process of the mind 
by which one starts from known truths to arrive at others really 
distinct from the first/—(Logic, B. ii. p. 1.) It is generally 
divided into two kinds, induction and syllogism. But there is 
a third kind of reasoning, distinct from the preceding two, ‘ and 
which, nevertheless, is not only valid, but is the foundation of 
the two others/ This is inference, which goes from the particular 
to the particular. 
Let us consider the first mode of reasoning. Logicians err in 
considering the dictum de omni et multo as the basis of all reason- 
ing ; in reality, ‘ every inference is from the particular to the par- 
ticular/ 2 ‘ Not only may we reason from particulars to particulars 
without passing through generals, but we perpetually do so reason/ 
1 See Ravaisson, La Philosophic en France au Siecle, §15, 33. 
2 Logic, book ii. chap. iii. 106 
English Psychology. 
‘ All our earliest inferences are of this nature. From the first 
dawn of intelligence we draw inferences, but years elapse before 
we learn the use of general language. The child, who, having 
burnt his fingers, avoids to thrust them again into the fire, has 
reasoned and inferred, though he has never thought of the 
general maxim, Fire bums. . . . He is not generalizing; he is 
inferring a particular from particulars. In the same way also 
brutes reason/1 
Mr. Mill thinks that, when we draw consequences from our 
personal experience, we conclude more often from the parti- 
ticular to the particular, than by the intermediary of a general 
proposition. 
Among the higher order of practical intellects, there have 
been many of whom it was remarked how admirably they suited 
their means to their ends, without being able to give any suffi- 
cient reasons for what they did ; and applied, or seemed to 
apply, recondite principles, which they were wholly unable to 
state. This is the natural consequence of having a mind 
stored with appropriate particulars, and having been long accus- 
tomed to reason at once from these to fresh particulars, without 
practising the habit of stating to one’s-self or to others the corre- 
sponding general propositions.2 
General propositions are simple registers of inferences already 
effectuated, and of short formulas for the formation of others.3 
We store up our experiences in them, as it were, that we may 
use them at need. Reasoning from the particular to the parti- 
cular bring us then naturally to induction. 
Induction is, in fact, the mode of reference which goes from 
the particular to the general, from the known to the unknown. 
It may be defined as a generalization of experience,4 or as ‘ the 
means of discovering and proving general propositions/ Its 
foundation is not, as the Scotch pretend, our belief in the uni- 
formity of the course of nature, seeing that this beliet itself is an 
example of induction, and of an induction not the easiest or 
most evident, since, before we reach it, we must have con- 
1 Mill’s Logic, vol. i. p. 212, 4th edition. 2 Ibid. vol. i. p. 213. 
8 Ibid, book iii. chap. iii. 1 Ibid, book iii. chap, iii. Mr. yohn Stuart Mill. 
107 
ceived the particular uniformities, whose general uniformity is 
the resultant and the synthesis. What then is the foundation 
of induction ? It is the idea of causality. ‘ The notion of cause 
is the root of all the theory of induction.’1 We have already 
seen that, according to Mr. Mill, cause is the invisible antece- 
dent, and that the relation of causality is unconditional succes- 
sion. Hence, if two facts or groups of facts are such as expe- 
rience has shown them to us, up to this time (without any 
known exception) in a relation of irreversible and unconditional 
succession, it results from this, that one of the terms gives the 
other, with which it is indissolubly united; that if we hold the 
cause, we can infer the effect; that, if we know the effect, we 
can infer the cause; and that the passage is thus legitimately 
performed between the known and the unknown; and that, be- 
ides, the uniformity of causes supposing that of effects, and vice 
versa, we pass thus from the particular to the general. 
‘ The inductive process is essentially an inquiry into cases of 
causation. ... If we could determine what causes are correctly 
assigned to what effects, and what effects to what causes, we 
should be virtually acquainted with the whole course of nature. 
All those uniformities which are mere results of causation, might 
then be explained and accounted for, and every individual fact 
or event might be predicted. ... To ascertain, therefore, what 
are the laws of causation which exist in nature, to determine the 
effects of every cause, and the causes of all effects, is the main 
business of induction.’ 2 
Deduction is thus relegated to a secondary rank. Whilst cer- 
tain logicians see in it the universal type of reasoning, and think 
that every discursive process is reduced by final analysis to the 
drawing of ideas one from the others, Mr. Mill says, ‘ the em- 
ployment of the syllogism is in reality only the employment of 
general propositions in reasoning.’ Now, a general proposition is 
only a memorandum, a ‘ condensation’ of a number of instances 
drawn from particular cases. ‘ We can reason without them, and 
we do so, in the more simple cases; they are only necessary to the 
advance and progress of the reasoning. They simplify it, and permit 
1 Logic, book iii. chap. v. 
2 Ibid. vol. i. p. 407. 108 
English Psychology. 
its validity to be verified.’1 Mr. Mill, although he refuses to re- 
cognise deduction as a fundamental process, gives it a high 
place, holding that several sciences have hitherto made but 
little progress, because they have used induction in place of 
deduction.* 
In short, reason, in its lowest degree, is, properly speaking, 
nothing but an association of ideas; for we cannot see anything 
else in the inference from the particular to the particular. It is 
because the ideas of a lighted candle, a burnt finger, and pain, 
are associated with one another, that later on one recalls the 
other.3 True reasoning is produced only when we seize, in place 
of fortuitous successions, constant and unconditional succes- 
sions, that is to say, relations of causality.4 
VII. 
Mr. John Stuart Mill has repeatedly and extensively treated 
the question of liberty.6 Is he a fatalist? Is he a partisan of 
free-will ? He is neither one nor the other. He believes 
that the question is wrongly put, and the same opinion is pro- 
fessed, though in different terms, by the whole of the school 
which we are now considering. 
The partisan of necessity says : Volition is an effect; like every 
effect, it has its cause—motives are this cause. Who can doubt 
1 Logic, book ii. chap. iii. 2 Ibid. ch. vi. 
8 Leibnitz called the inference from the particular to the particular an empi~ 
rical consecution. As, for example, that of a Dutchman who goes into a 
tavern in Asia, and expects to be served with Dutch beer.—De Anima Bru- 
torurn, vol. ii. 
4 Upon the general character of Mill’s logic, and its relations to the theories 
of Hobbes and Hume, see Ravaisson, op. cit., p. 63. Reason, he says, does 
not consist in Mr. Mill’s drawing one thing from another thing, but simply in 
recalling how near to one thing another thing approaches, otherwise said to 
reproduce in a different order that which has been the result of observation and 
induction. Induction itself, in which all reason is resolved, consists but in 
mechanically adding to the succession of facts which experience offers, similar 
successions. It is an instinctive operation, by which we pass from one parti- 
cular fact to another particular fact, without which there fails to be any kind 
of reasoning. 
* Logic, book vi. chap. ii. An Examination, etc., chap. xxv. Mr. John Stuart Mill. 
109 
that, if we thoroughly knew the character of an individual, and all 
the circumstances which act upon it, we could predict the 
resolutions of that individual with certainty? The partisan of 
liberty says : In the first place I have on my side the intimate 
sentiment of my free-will; and then my projects, my plans, even 
the most ordinary actions of my life show me that I am not the 
slave of necessity, that I do not act like an automaton, but that I 
participate. 
These two doctrines are partly wrong and partly right. The 
confusion and disagreement arise from an erroneous theory of 
causality, which considers the relation of cause to effect as neces- 
sary, which imagines a mysterious constraint exercised by the an- 
tecedent upon the consequent, which could not exist, in fact, 
without destroying free will. 
‘ We are certain that, in the case of our volitions, there is not 
this mysterious constraint. We know that we are not compelled, 
as by a magical spell, to obey any particular motive. We feel 
that if we wished to prove that we have the power of resisting 
the motive we could do so (that wish being, it need scarcely be 
observed, a new a?itecedent), and it would be humiliating to our 
pride, and paralysing to our desire of excellence, if we thought 
otherwise. But neither is any such mysterious compulsion now 
supposed by the best philosophical authorities to be exercised by 
any cause over its effects. Those who think that causes draw 
their effects after them by a mystical tie, are right in believing 
that the relations between volitions and their antecedents is of 
another nature.’1 
The error of the necessitarians consists in understanding by 
the necessity which they recognise in our actions, anything more 
than a simple uniformity of succession which permits them to be 
foreseen : they have, at bottom, the idea that there is a much 
stricter bond between volitions and their causes.2 
The error depends almost solely upon the associations sug- 
gested by the word necessity, and it would be avoided by abs- 
taining from the use of a term so completely inappropriate to 
express the simple fact of causality. This word, in fact, implies 
1 Mill’s Logic, vol. ii. p. 411, 4th edition. 
2 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 420. 110 
English Psychology. 
much more than a simple uniformity of succession; it implies 
irresistibility. If it may be applied to the natural agents which 
are, for the most part, irresistible, we can see how far its appli- 
cation to the springs of human action is inexact. 
‘ There are physical sequences which we call necessary, as death 
for want of food or air; there are others which are not said to be 
necessary, as death from poison, which an antidote, or the use of 
the stomach-pump, will sometimes avert.’2 
Human actions are in this category. In short, the question 
never can be understood until the improper term necessity shall 
have been suppressed. 
‘The free-will doctrine, by keeping in view precisely that portion 
of truth which the word necessity puts out of sight, namely, the 
power of the mind to co-operate in the formation of its own char- 
acter, has given to its adherents a practical feeling much nearer 
to the truth than has generally, I believe, existed in the minds of 
necessarians.’ 3 
Mr. Mill lays no great stress upon the proof of our free-will so 
frequently drawn from consciousness. To have consciousness of 
our free-will, he says, can only signify one thing: that I have 
consciousness, before I decide, that I can decide in one sense or 
the other. 
But the use of the word consciousness, thus applied, may be 
criticised in limine. Consciousness tells me that which I feel, 
or do, but it does not tell me that which I may do. Conscious- 
ness has not the gift of prophecy. We have consciousness of 
that which is, not of that which shall or may be. 
But this conviction that we are free, whether it be conscious- 
ness or belief, what is it? It consists, I am told, in this, that 
although I decide, I feel that I might have decided in another 
way. Take, for example, the alternative of assassinating or 
not assassinating. I am told that if I decide on assassinating, I 
have the consciousness that I should have been able to abstain 
from doing so. But have I the consciousness that I should have 
1 Mill’s Logic, vol. ii. p. 413, 4th edition. 
2 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 416, 4th edition. 
8 An Examination, etc., chap. xxv. p. 564. Mr. John Stuart Mill. 
111 
been able to abstain, if my aversion to the crime and my fear of 
its consequences had been weaker than my temptation! If I 
chose to abstain, in what case have I the consciousness that I 
should have been able to choose to commit the crime ? In the 
case that my desire to assassinate should have been stronger 
than my horror of murder. When, by an hypothesis, we repre- 
sent ourselves to ourselves as having acted otherwise than we 
have acted, we always suppose a difference in the antecedents of 
the action. 
Should it be objected, that in resisting I have the conscious- 
ness of making an effort, and that if the temptation lasts long I 
am as sensibly exhausted by it as I should be after physical 
exercise? To this Mr. Mill replies: that the battle between con- 
tending motives is not decided in a moment; that their conflict 
may last a long time, and that when the strife takes place 
between violent sentiments, it exhausts nervous force to an ex- 
traordinary degree. Now, that consciousness of effort, of which 
we are told, is the consciousness of this state of conflict. The 
conflict is not between me and a strange power which beats me, 
or which I beat; it is between me and myself, between the self 
which desires a certain thing, for instance, and the self which 
fears remorse. The feeling of effort (a very inappropriate word 
to be used here) is the result of the battle : it comes from the 
conquered as well as from the conquerors. 
The will cannot be touched without arousing the objection of 
moral responsibility, which, it is said, cannot exist without it. 
Mr. Stuart Mill has discussed it. 
• Suppose that there were two peculiar breeds of human beings, 
one of them so constituted from the beginning, that, however 
educated or treated, nothing could prevent them from always 
feeling and acting so as to be a blessing to all whom they ap- 
proached ; another of such original perversity of nature that 
neither education nor punishment could inspire them with a 
feeling of duty, or prevent them from being active in evil-doing. 
Neither of these races of human beings would have free-will, yet 
the former would be honoured as demigods, while the latter 
would be regarded and treated as noxious beasts . . . kept 
carefully at a distance, and killed like other dangerous creatures, 112 
English Psychology. 
when there was no other convenient way of being rid of 
them.1 
We see, therefore, that if the doctrine of necessity be pushed to 
its most complete exaggeration, the distinction between moral 
good and evil must nevertheless subsist. 
‘We thus see that even under the utmost possible exaggera- 
tion of the doctrine of Necessity, the distinction between moral 
good and evil in conduct would not only subsist, but would 
stand out in a more marked manner than ever, when the good 
and the wicked, however unlike, are still regarded as of one 
common nature.’ 2 And that he who has contrary tendencies is a 
natural and legitimate object of aversion ; and this, whether each 
enjoys liberty or not. 
Mr. Mill’s doctrine, as we see, is, that even putting things 
at the worst, absolute fatalism would not suppress responsi- 
bility, that is to say, punishment.3 We should be bom good or 
evil, as we are born handsome or ugly, foolish or clever; but 
then we should compassionate crime as we pity ugliness, we 
should reprove it as we reprove folly, or should shut it up as 
we shut up madness. Let us remember that Mr. Mill is not a 
fatalist.4 
The question deemed to be so puzzling is, how punishment 
can be justified, if men’s actions are determined by motives, 
among which motives punishment is one. A more difficult ques- 
tion would be, how it can be justified if they are not so deter- 
mined. Punishment proceeds on the assumption that the will is 
governed by motives. If punishment had no power of acting 
on the will, it would be illegitimate, however natural might be 
the inclination to inflict it. Just so far as the will is supposed 
free, that is, capable of acting against motives, punishment is dis- 
appointed of its object, and deprived of its justification.5 
To conclude on this point, Mr. Mill distinguishes, relatively to 
1 Mill’s Examination of Hamilton'1 s Philosophy, p. 509. a Ibid. 
8 Responsibility means punishment, p. 570, loc. cii. On this subject, see 
Letter 25 of Opera Posthuma of Spinoza, addressed to H. Oldenburg. 
4 Page 576. 
5 Mill’s Hamilton's Philosophy, p. 510. Mr. John Stuart Mill. 
113 
the influence of motives, three doctrines, of which he rejects two, 
and accepts one :— 
Fatalism pure and simple,—Asiatic fatalism, or that of QEdipus,— 
maintains that our actions do not depend on our desires. A 
sovereign power, an inexorable destiny, governs all our actions. 
Our love of good, and our hatred of evil, are of use to us as 
regards our conduct. Fatalism which may be called ?nodified,, 
maintains that our actions are determined by our will, our will by 
our desires, and our desires by the joint influence of the motives 
which present themselves to us, and of our individual character; 
but that, this character having been made for us, and not by us, 
we are not responsible for it, or for the actions to which it leads 
us, and that we should in vain attempt to modify it. 
In short, the true doctrine of the causality of human actions 
maintains, against the two preceding doctrines, that not only pur 
conduct, but also our character, depends in' fact upon our will; 
that we can ameliorate it, by the use of proper means, and that, 
if it be such that by its nature it constrains us to do evil, it will 
be right to employ motives which constrain us to make an effort 
to improve this bad character. In other words, we are subject 
to the moral obligation to seek the amelioration of our vioral 
character. 
The latter solution, which is Mr. Mill’s, supposes in us not 
only spontaneity but the possibility of regulating its develop- 
ment. But this directing power, this faculty of placing ourselves 
in circumstances favourable to our perfection, what is it at 
bottom 1 This is a capital question, it seems to us, and the school 
which we are considering is very vague upon the point. 
CHAPTER III. 
PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY OF MATTER AND OF MIND. 
Psychological Theory of Matter and Mind.—I. Matter—2. Mind—3. The 
phenomenism of Hume and Mill. 
We do not enter, in this place, as might be supposed, into 
metaphysics ; at least there will be no question of matter or of 114 
English Psychology. 
mind, considered as substances. The ‘ psychological theory of 
mind and of matter/ which is the summary and the result of the 
preceding, is opposed to the introspective theory of Reid, Stewart, 
and the majority of the philosophers, inasmuch as the latter con- 
sider the subject and the object to be two fundamental terms, 
irreducible, revealed to us by consciousness from the beginning 
of life, while the experimental school hold that the notions of 
matter and mind are complex, and formed at a later period ; 
and that, in consequence, by applying analysis to them, we may 
discover and trace their genesis. The experimental school sees a 
question of origin and embryological research where the rival 
school sees only two facts to be stated, which are inexplicable by 
any process. It proposes to establish that matter is nothing but 
the permanent possibility of our sensations, and that mind is 
noting but the permanent possibility of our states of conscious- 
ness ; thus approaching Berkeley on the first, and Hume on 
the second point. 
We begin with matter.1 
The psychological theory of the belief in an exterior world 
requires, in order to constitute it, some postulates, which are all 
proved by experience. 
The first postulate is, that the human mind is capable of expec- 
tation ; in other words, that after having had actual sensations, 
we are capable of forming the conception of possible sensations. 
The second postulate is, that our ideas associate themselves 
according to certain laws. Among the laws of the association of 
ideas, those with which we are concerned at present are:— 
1. There exists a tendency to think of similar phenomena 
together. 
2. There is a tendency to think together of phenomena which 
have been*experienced or conceived of as contiguous in time 
or space. 
3. The associations produced by contiguity become more 
certain and more rapid by repetition ; and thus inseparable or 
indissoluble association is produced. 
4. When association has acquired this character of insepara- 
1 An Examination, etc., ch. xi. Mr. John Stuart Mill. 
115 
bility, not only do the two ideas become inseparable in conscious- 
ness, but the facts or phenomena which correspond to those ideas 
finally arrive at appearing to be inseparable in existence. We 
find numerous examples of this in the acquired perceptions of 
sight. Thus, we see artificially that a body is hot or cold, hard 
or soft, etc. 
These postulates stated: 
‘ Perhaps it may be objected, that the very possibility of forming 
such a notion of matter as Sir William Hamilton’s—the capacity 
in the human mind of imagining an external world which is any- 
thing more than what the psychological theory makes it— 
amounts to a disproof of the theory. If, it may be said, we had no 
revelation in consciousness of a world which is not in some way 
or other identified with sensation, we should be unable to have 
the notion of such a world. If the only idea we had of external 
objects were ideas of our sensations supplemented by an acquired 
notion of permanent possibilities of sensation, we must, it is 
thought, be incapable of conceiving, and still more incapable of 
fancying that we perceive, things which are not sensations at 
all.’1 
And first, what do we mean by those words : an exterior world, 
an external substance ? We mean that our perceptions have re- 
lation to something which exists, even when we are not thinking 
of it, which has existed before we have thought of it, which should 
exist even if we should be annihilated; we mean that things 
exist, which neither we nor any man have ever seen, touched, or 
perceived. The idea of this something fixed, which is dis- 
tinguished from our floating impressions by that character which 
Kant calls permanence, is our belief in matter. Now, according 
to the psychological theory, all that is only the form imposed by 
the known laws of association upon our notions of contingent 
sensations, obtained by experience. 
I see a piece of white paper upon a table. I pass into another 
room and I no longer see it, nevertheless I am persuaded that 
the paper is still there, and that should I go back into that room, 
I should see it again. I believe that Calcutta exists, although 
1 Mill’s Hamilton's Philosophy, p. 199. 116 
English Psychology. 
I do not see it, and that it would still exist even though all its 
inhabitants should be suddenly stricken with death. Analyse 
my belief, and you will see that it reduces itself to this : if I 
Avere suddenly transported to the shores of the Hooghly, I should 
experience sensations which would lead me to believe that Cal- 
cutta exists. In these two cases (and they include the whole), 
my idea of the exterior world is the idea of actual or possible 
sensations. These different possibilities are the most important 
thing in the world for me. My present sensations are generally 
fugitive and of little importance; the possibilities, on the con- 
trary, are permanent; which is precisely the characteristic which 
distinguishes our idea of substance or matter from our idea of 
sensation. 
There is another important characteristic which adds to the 
certitude or guarantee of these possibilities of sensation ; it is, 
that the sensations are not isolated but united in clusters. When 
we think of any body or material object, we think not of one single 
sensation, but of a varied and indefinite series of sensations 
ordinarily belonging to different senses, but so united that the 
presence of one generally announces the possible and simultaneous 
presence of all the rest. Consequently, the cluster, considered 
as a whole, presents itself to the mind as permanent,—the prin. 
cipal characteristic which distinguishes our idea of substance or 
matter from our idea of sensation. 
In short, we do not only recognise fixed groups, but also a 
fixed order in our sensations, an order of succession which, when 
confirmed by experience, gives rise to the ideas of cause and 
effect. But this invariable succession of antecedent and conse- 
quent takes place most frequently, not between an actual antece- 
dent and an actual consequent, but between the groups of which 
only one portion is actually present to us. Therefore, our ideas 
of cause, power, and activity unite themselves not to sensations, 
but to groups of possibilities of sensations. The whole of these 
sensations, considered as possible, form a permanent basis for 
actual sensations * the relation of the possible sensations is con- 
sidered as the relation of a cause to its effects, of a canvas to the 
figures painted upon it, of a root to its trunk, its leaves, and ita 
flowers, of a substratum to that which covers it. Mr. John Stuart Mill. 
117 
Nor is this all. Having reached this point, we consider these 
permanent possibilities as different from sensation. We forget 
that they are founded in sensation, and we suppose that they are 
intrinsically distinct from it. Now we discover that other human 
or feeling beings formed their expectation or their conduct, as we 
do, upon the possibilities of sensations. We see that they hare 
not exactly the same sensations as we have, but that they have 
their possibilities of sensations like us ; that everything indicates 
that there is in them a possibility of sensations similar to ours, if 
indeed their organs do not differ from the type of ours. This 
agreement between ourselves and our fellows finishes and com- 
pletes our idea,—that groups of possibilities are the fundamental 
reality of nature. 
In a word, possible sensations, groups of sensations, order in 
these groups, and agreement between our belief and that of our 
fellows : in these consists our whole idea of matter. 
‘ Matter, then, may be defined a Permanent Possibility of 
Sensation. If I am asked whether I believe in matter, I ask 
whether the questioner accepts this definition of it. If he does, 
I believe in matter: and so do all Berkeleians. In any other 
sense than this, I do not. But I affirm with confidence, that 
this conception of matter includes the whole meaning attached to 
it by the common world, apart from philosophical and sometimes 
from theological theories.’1 
‘ It may perhaps be said, that the preceding theory gives, 
indeed, some account of the idea of permanent existence, which 
forms part of our conception of matter, but gives no explanation 
of our believing these permanent objects to be external, or out of 
ourselves. I apprehend, on the contrary, that the very idea of 
anything out of ourselves is derived solely from the knowledge 
experience gives us of the Permanent Possibilities. Our sensa- 
tions we carry with us wherever we go, and they never exist where 
we are not; but when we change our place we do not carry 
away with us the Permanent Possibilities of sensation; they re- 
main until we return, or arise and cease under conditions with 
which our presence has in general nothing to do. • And more 
1 Mill’s Hamilton's Philosophy, p. 227. 118 
English Psychology. 
than all—they are, and will be after we have ceased to feel 
Permanent Possibilities of sensation to other beings than our- 
selves. Thus our actual sensations and the permanent possi- 
bilities of sensation stand out in obtrusive contrast to one 
another; and when the idea of cause has been acquired and 
extended by generalization from the parts of our experience to 
its aggregate whole, nothing can be more natural than that the 
Permanent Possibilities should be classed by us as existences 
generically distinct from our sensations, but of which our sensa- 
tions are the effect. ’1 
II. 
Let us now apply this psychological theory to Mind.2 It is 
evident that our knowledge of Mind is, like our knowledge of 
Matter, entirely relative. We do not know what it is, outside 
of the manifestations of consciousness. We can neither know it, 
nor imagine it, under any other form than the succession of 
different states of consciousness. It is none the less true that 
our notion of Mind, like our notion of Matter, is the notion 
of something permanent, as opposed to the perpetual flux of 
states of consciousness which we refer to it. This ‘ permanent ’ 
may be, as regards mind as well as matter, only a possibility. I 
believe that my mind exists, even when it does not feel, does not 
think, and has not consciousness of its existence. To what does 
this reduce itself?—to believing in a permanent possibility of these 
conditions. Thus, then, our idea of mind is nothing more than 
the idea of the series of our actual sensations, and of the infinite 
possibilities of sensations which shall realize themselves under 
appropriate conditions. 
But, before going further, Mr. Mill, aware that the majority 
of people hasten to the real or presumed consequences of a 
doctrine in order to judge it, proposes to examine them. This 
doctrine is accused, he says, of destroying our belief in the 
existence of our fellows, in the existence of a supra-sensible 
world, in God, and in immortality. 
1 Mill’s Hamilton's Philosophy, p. 137. 
2 An Examination, etc., ch. xii. Mr. John Stuart Mill. 
119 
On the first point, there is absolutely nothing in this theory 
which can prevent my thinking that there are other beings like 
me, whose minds like mine are only a series of sentiments. How 
am I brought to believe that the beings whom I now see walking 
about, whom I hear speaking, have sentiments and ideas, 
that they possess a mind ? Evidently it is not by intuition. 
I go from the signs to the sentiments which they translate. My 
own experience is the basis of my induction. But this logical 
process loses nothing of its legitimacy in the hypothesis that 
neither mind nor matter is anything but a permanent possibility 
of feeling. 
The psychological theory of mind leaves my certainty of the 
existence of my fellows exactly as it was before; and so it is as 
regards the existence of God. Supposing that I consider the 
Divine Spirit simply as the series of Divine thoughts prolonged 
during eternity, this would assuredly be to consider the existence 
of God as real as my own; this would be to do that which in 
reality one always does, to infer the Divine nature from the 
human. Belief in God has, therefore, nothing to gain or lose 
from the present theory. 
So it is in the case of immortality. It is as easy to conceive of 
a succession of sentiments, a thread of consciousness eternally 
prolonged, as of a spiritual substance which always continues to 
exist; and if there are any arguments in proof, they are as 
capable of application to the one theory as to the other. 
Thus these, the extrinsic objections, are disposed of. But the 
theory which resolves mind into a series of actual sentiments, 
with a basis of possible sentiments, contains intrinsic difficulties, 
which it does not appear, says Mr. Mill, that psychological 
analysis can resolve. In fact the thread of consciousness which 
constitutes the phenomenal life of the mind is composed not 
only of present sensations, but also of expectations and of 
recollections; it is not limited to the present, it embraces the 
past and the future. 
‘ If therefore, we speak of the mind as a series of feelings, we 
are obliged to complete the statement by calling it a series of 
feelings which is aware of itself as past and future ; and we are 
reduced to the alternative of believing that the mind, or ego, is 120 
English Psychology. 
something different from any series of feelings, or possibilities of 
them, or of accepting the paradox that something, which ex 
hypothesi is but a series of feelings, can be aware of itself as a 
series.’1 
The truth is, adds Mr. Mill, that here we find ourselves brought 
face to face with that inexplicable which is necessarily to be 
encountered when we touch upon ultimate facts. And he thinks 
that if his method of explaining facts appears to be more incom- 
prehensible than another, it is because it is less accommodated to 
correct language, and consequently presents occasional contra- 
dictions in terms. 
11 think by far the wisest thing we can do, is to accept the 
inexplicable fact, without any theory of how it takes place; and 
when we are obliged to speak of it in terms which assume a 
theory, to use them with reservation as to their meaning.’ 2 
in. 
This theory of mind and matter, which in certain respects goes 
beyond purely experimental psychology, appears to have given 
rise to vehement discussion in England, if we may judge by the 
great number of books, pamphlets, and articles in newspapers and 
reviews which Mr. Mill quotes, discusses, and sometimes approves. 
With that taste for free criticism, and that perfect loyalty which 
are characteristic of him, he likes to quote his adversaries, to bring 
certain objections into strong relief, and even to tell us plainly 
what those are which he regards as insoluble. 
We must first note some differences between the psychologic 
theory of matter and that of mind. Mr. Mill gives the former 
as complete, but he expressly refuses so to characterize the latter.3 
The one would be unreservedly accepted by an idealist, the 
other is confined to absolute empiricism; the one touches upon 
Berkeley, the other upon Hume. 
What is there, notwithstanding, in common between the two 
theories which the author ranges under the same name 1 There 
is this: as the one reduces matter to a collection of attributes, 
1 Mill’s Hamilton's Philosophy, p. 212. 
3 Ibid. Appendix, p. 245. 
2 Ibid. p. 213. Mr. John Stuart Mill. 
121 
and the other reduces mind, at least in appearance, to a collec- 
tion of states of consciousness, it seems that all idea of sub- 
stance disappears. Now, this theory has a special name, 
phenomenism. We find it in Hume; let us see if it is to be attri- 
buted to Mr. Mill. 
The author, who complains of the reception his doctrine has 
met with from those ‘whose opinions were already formed,’ 
acknowledges that the least unfavourable judgment has been that 
of the partisans of Berkeley or any other idealist. We do not 
see, in fact, why they should not accept his theory of matter. 
For, what does the idealist maintain 1 That all the reality of the 
exterior world is in the mind which knows it; that we do not 
know anything of matter except that which is told by our sensa- 
tions and our ideas,—sensation revealing attributes, and idea 
revealing the order of the attributes, the first being rather 
ordinary consciousness, and the second scientific consciousness ; 
but that as the whole reduces itself by final analysis to states, of 
consciousness, we may maintain that the reality of matter is in 
us. But this is in no sense to deny the existence of matter ; it 
is simply to say that we have a relative knowledge of it, and that 
it is not the possible cause of our sensations and our ideas. But 
Mr. Mill, as we have already seen, does not maintain anything else. 
The debate concentrates itself upon the psychological theory 
of mind. Here the idealists abandon us, and the difficulty in- 
creases. We can admit, if necessary, that the exterior world is a 
collection of phenomena without substratum; because there still 
remains a mind which makes its synthesis, and serves as its 
support. But if the mind be also reduced to a collection of 
states of consciousness without any substance, we no longer find 
anything solid to take hold of, either in us, or out of us. Kapt 
saw in our idea of substance a certain way of uniting and aggre- 
gating phenomena, proper to the human mind ; he did not deny 
the possible existence of a substratum, of an inaccessible nou- 
menon, a sort of mysterious stuff, on which phenomena are drawn ; 
but here the phenomenism is absolute. In fact, says Mr. Mill, 
all the philosophers who have closely examined the question have 
decided that there is no need of substance, except as the support 
and the bond of phenomena. Let us, then, simply lay aside this 122 
English Psychology. 
support out of our thought, and suppose that the phenomena 
remain, and that they form the same groups and the same series, 
thanks to some other agent, or even without any agent, if this be 
not an internal law, and we shall arrive, without substance, at the 
consequences in view of which substance was supposed. The 
Hindus think that the earth requires to be sustained by an 
elephant; but the earth sustains itself perfectly in space, without 
being supported by anything. Descartes supposed a material 
medium between the sun and the earth, to explain their reciprocal 
action; but the law of universal attraction explains it much bet- 
ter than whirlwinds. 
Still, when this first difficulty has been surmounted, there re- 
mains another more serious one, and this, Mr. Mill acknowledges, 
he does not solve. You reduce the ego to a series of states of 
consciousness, but there is something wanting to unite those 
states to one another. If you have a necklace of beads, and 
you remove the string, what remains 1 Separate beads, but no 
longer a necklace. Our author seems to admit that the bond, 
‘ the organic union/ which exists between past and present con- 
sciousness, in constituting memory also constitutes the ego. 
‘ I hold it to be indubitable/ he says, * that there is something 
real in this bond, real as the sensations themselves; and which is 
not simply a product of the laws of thought without anything 
which corresponds to it. The precise nature of the process by 
which we know it is an ample subject for discussion ... I do 
not attempt to decide upon it. But that original element which 
has no community of nature with anything answering to our 
names, and to which we can give no other name than its own 
without implying some false or unsteady theory, is the ego. As 
such, I recognise in the myself—in my own mind—a reality dif- 
ferent from that real existence as a permanent possibility, which 
is the only one that I recognise in matter.’ 
It would be unjust, after having read the preceding, to con- 
found this doctrine with that of Hume. The scepticism of the 
Scotch philosopher led to such strange conclusions, that with him 
there is nothing but the inexplicable, and he gets out of it with 
1 Appendix to chaps, xi. xii. Mr. John Stuart Mill. 
123 
the words ‘habit, belief, instinct.’ In a world where there is, by- 
hypothesis, nothing but attributes and states of consciousness 
without anything to unite them, there is really nothing astonish- 
ing but their harmony. Thus he acknowledges that, to him, the 
production of ideas is a miracle. 
‘ There is, then, a kind of pre-established harmony between the 
course of nature and the succession of our ideas; and though the 
powers and forces by which the former is governed be wholly un- 
known to us, yet our thoughts and conceptions have still, we find, 
gone on in the same train with the other works of nature. Cus- 
tom is that principle by which this correspondence has been 
effected.’1 
The same philosopher ha§ said that ‘ Physics, in its highest 
perfection, can do no more than remove our ignorance a little.’ 
Might we not say that such metaphysic does but redouble it 1 
Mr. Mill, besides facts, admits order between minds. In ad- 
dition, he grants to the bond which unites states of consciousness 
as much reality as to the states themselves. If he is vague, he is 
designedly so; it is because the obscure cannot be clearly ex- 
plained. All considered, there is in his doctrine more solidity 
than in pure phenomenism ; and in any case we must not forget 
that he means to leave the question open. 
1 Hume’s Essays, ‘ Inquiry concerning Human Understanding,’section 
v., last paragraph but one. MR. HERBERT SPENCER. 
Among Philosophers, as among scientific men, there are 
original and independent minds, of an order above those who 
explain, comment upon, and develop truths already discovered 
or foreseen, and make them known to all. These original minds 
are, so to speak, creators, who are felt, on approaching them, to 
be like men of another race, in power, depth, and unity of 
thought. Whether their discoveries remain permanent acquisi- 
tions, or whether they only give a new aspect to insoluble pro- 
blems, they are recognised in the sovereign fashion which is due 
to them; they cannot touch any question without setting their 
mark upon it. Mr. Herbert Spencer appears to us to be 
a man of this order. One of his countrymen, who is well 
entitled to be critical, Mr. Stuart Mill, unhesitatingly places him 
among the greatest of the .philosophers, and says that the variety 
and depth of his encyclopedic knowledge would permit him 
to treat, as equal with equal, with the founder of the positivist 
school himself; that he is not a disciple, but a master. 
‘ Mr. Spencer is one of the small number of persons who, by 
the solidity and encyclopedical character of their knowledge, and 
their power of co-ordination and concatenation, may claim 
to be the peers of M. Comte, and entitled to a vote in 
the estimation of him.’1 
When we have studied his works very closely, we find our- 
selves impressed, not only by his superior science, by the 
immense variety of his precise and positive information, now 
1 Mill’s Comte, p. 41. Mr. Herbert Spencer. 
125 
almost indispensable to the philosopher, but especially by the 
firmness of his thought, by his self-mastery, by his solidity of 
method, and his lucidity of exposition. His mind is drilled and 
disciplined by scientific research; he does better than descant 
upon method, he practises it. He knows how to distinguish the 
certain from the probable, and, as he says, the knowable from 
the unknowable. In everything he insists on seeing clearly, he is 
not content with chimerical solutions, and he never confounds 
reasons with metaphors. 
The philosophical mind is a certain manner of thinking, not 
acquired, but developed by culture, which has its characteristic 
traits, just like the poetic or the scientific mind. If there be a 
definition which expresses its qualities and its defects, which 
may be accepted by every one, and agreed to by all the schools, 
it appears to be the following :— 
It is the mind which generalizes. The ideal would consist in 
laying hold, not only of the general formulas which simplify facts, 
but on the facts which verify the formulas; in seeing laws in 
tacts and facts in laws. But this is an ideal, that is to say, what 
we may hope for, but not attain. In his study of psychological 
phenomena, with which only we are now occupied, Mr. Herbert 
Spencer has employed the fundamental processes of every 
method, synthesis and analysis. In our eyes, one of the greatest 
merits of this rare mind is his skill in handling these two differ- 
ent instruments, one of which distinguishes, divides, separates, 
while the other collects, draws together, identifies. It is with 
great difficulty that these two modes of thought, each of which, 
by its very nature, excludes the other, constitute a perfect equili- 
brium, so balanced that the talent of analysis may be exactly 
equal to the aptitude for synthesis. In Mr. Herbert Spencer 
synthesis predominates ; he takes sensible pleasure in tracing 
grand outlines, in sweeping vast horizons, in seeking out 
simple and rich formulas, the large and comprehensive laws 
from whence we dominate the innumerable mass of facts; and 
this is his especial claim to the title of philosopher. Never- 
theless, he can also handle analysis so as to satisfy the most 
competent and the most critical on this point. 
A philosopher must have a method. This is the point com- 126 
English Psychology. 
mon to all, from Plato and Aristotle down to Auguste Comte and 
Hegel. In minds of that stamp, ideas fall naturally into order; 
they think collectively, and not in detail, because each detail is 
to them a portion of the whole which they are reconstituting. This 
unity of method, this mode of systematic thinking, is common to 
Mr. Herbert Spencer and to the great masters. Let us see then, 
what is the governing idea of his philosophy, and the collective 
conception to which all the rest is attached. The great English 
naturalist, Professor Huxley, said on a recent occasion:— 
‘ The only complete and methodical exposition known to me 
of the theory of evolution, is to be found in Herbert Spencer’s 
System of Philosophy, a work that should be carefully studied by 
those who desire to become acquainted with the tendencies of 
scientific thought.’ 
The idea of evolution or of progress; such is in fact the funda- 
mental idea of our philosopher; he applies it to everything, and 
he finds it everywhere. The formation of the worlds coming 
forth from a primitive nebulus, according to the hypothesis of 
Laplace, the unfolding of life, of thought, and of all which mani- 
fests it; science, arts, civilisation, all is explained by a progress. 
The hypothesis of development is the substitution of mobility for 
fixity, of becoming for being, but also of the relative for the 
absolute. No more of stable existence. We cannot say of anything 
that it is, in so far as that word implies fixity. And if everything 
varies and is transformed, all existence is no more than a transi- 
tion, a moment between that which is ending and that which is 
beginning; a striking thought, because in this universal flux we 
feel that the infinite presses upon us on all sides, that everything 
holds to everything. In the human individual we see the genera- 
tion which produces it, and that which shall follow ; in one human 
generation, we see humanity; in humanity, the mysterious evolution 
of life; in life, the geological transformations which have rendered 
it possible; in them, a mode of existence so vague that it can 
hardly be discerned, and thus we ascend from second causes to 
second causes, to the point at which faith begins, and where 
science ends. 
Is this idea of progress, such as we are about to find it in Mr. 
Herbert Spence’s works, a novelty in philosophy 1 We must be Mr. Herbert Spencer. 
127 
clear upon this point. It is an idea anterior to him, but which 
was formerly otherwise understood. Leibnitz, who in so many 
respects has anticipated the most recent theories, substituted 
the idea of a continuous progress for the geometrical mechanism 
of Descartes. The Hegelian dialectic, also founded on the idea of 
becoming, pretends to reproduce by its synthesis the evolution of 
the world, from void existence up to thought and absolute con- 
sciousness. But whilst the theory of Leibnitz is only a view of 
the future by a genius, an hypothesis not then verified by facts, 
while the theory of Hegel is an entirely metaphysical conception, 
completely subjective, encumbered with its triple movement of 
thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, boldly bending facts to its a 
priori conceptions, the hypothesis of development is quite other- 
wise presented by Mr. Herbert Spencer. It is produced objec- 
tively, the facts suggest it to the mind, the mind does not impose 
it upon the facts. It arises of itself, out of the study of the 
sciences, or at least of those in which there is movement and 
life: geology, botany, physiology, psychology, sesthetics, morals, 
linguistics, history, etc. It is supported by an almost infinite 
mass of facts and experiences. Besides, and this is a great point, 
it claims to be only an hypothesis; the only concession which it 
demands is that no other hypothesis approaches it in probability. 
It is, if we please, the hypothesis of Leibnitz revived, but free 
from metaphysics, and supported by the experience of nearly two 
centuries. 
I have no intention of establishing a comparison which would 
be inexact, and which Mr. Herbert Spencer would disclaim, 
between him and Leibnitz; nevertheless, I wish to cite some of 
the points common to both, which it is impossible to fail to 
remark, and which relate to their dynamism. 
First, the idea of continuity, or universal compenetration, 
whence it comes that all things hold together, that all things 
are ‘ caused and causing/ and that the process by which the 
human mind separates them is arbitrary, though necessary. 
Properly speaking, this idea and that of progress are the same, the 
one but another aspect of the other, because, if everything is 
transformed and metamorphosed, everything holds together'; there 
is not in nature a hiatus, or any solution of continuity. Only, 128 
English Psychology. 
the idea of progress is dynamic, and the idea of continuity is 
static. 
We know that Leibnitz, in his explanation of the universe, had 
imagined monads, a kind of metaphysical atoms, having all pos- 
sible degrees, from the simple antitype to the most perfect 
aperception. According to their nature, they constitute brute 
matter, or the living being, the animal, the man, or the angel. 
And as, in the universe, nothing is isolated, a certain monad being 
given, all the universe acts upon it, and thus expresses it. 
Each monad is then a mirror which reflects differently. Set this 
grand conception free from the metaphysical phraseology which 
is proper to it, and there remains a positive incontestable truth. 
Place in the same spot different beings, a stone, a tree, a dog, a 
savage, an European, Newton or Shakespeare; each will reflect 
it according to his nature, one a little, the other much. There 
will exist between the being and its place that which Mr. Her- 
bert Spencer calls a correspondence, and the degree of life will be 
measured by the degree of correspondence, the ideal mode of 
life being perfect correspondence. The man who could attain to 
that degree would reflect in himself, in a complete manner, all 
the reality of the universe; he would be a microcosm adequate to 
the microcosm. This idea of a correspondence, which holds the 
chief place in our author’s psychology, as we shall see, appears to 
me to be a translation of Leibnitz’s words into the language of 
experimental psychology; every monad is a mirror which reflects 
the universe. 
One of the chief traits of the philosopher who occupies us at 
present is his systematic character. This is to be noted. Cer- 
tainly, the country which has produced Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, 
Hume, without mentioning the Scotch philosophers, and Mr. Her- 
bert Spencer’s contemporaries, has done much for philosophy; 
but the English genius has generally preferred researches into 
detail to great collective views; according to Buckle, it finds 
pleasure in induction and analysis. In Mr. Herbert Spencer, on 
the contrary, there is great boldness and breadth, some would 
perhaps say rashness. But even that proves his power, for fertile 
minds err rather through audacity than through timidity. His 
System of Philosophy, of which only the two first parts have been Mr. Herbert Spencer. 
129 
entirely published, will embrace an immense number of facts and 
problems. It would be inappropriate to our subject to speak of 
it here, and it is not a work to be judged passingly or in haste. 
The First Principles are, as it were, the vestibule of this great 
building. The purpose of this work, which, if we were not afraid 
of being misunderstood, we would call the Metaphysics of Posi- 
tivism, is to show that outside of science there is a region inac- 
cessible to its processes and its methods, that outside of the 
knowable is the unknowable, and thus to place the old quarrel 
between religion and science, demonstration and faith, on new 
ground, by showing that there is absolutely nothing in common 
between them,—to endeavour, by a daring synthesis founded 
upon the positive sciences, to bring everything back to the law 
of equivalents or of correlation of forces ; and to show that all 
phenomena are convertible between themselves, from physical 
manifestations, even to life, thought, and the development of his- 
tory; thus to condemn spiritualism and materialism, and to reject 
both as vain solutions. This work is followed by the Prin- 
ciples of Biology, which traces the morphological and physio- 
logical evolution of life ; the Principles of Psychology, now in 
course of publication ; which will be followed by the Prijiciples of 
Sociology, and the Principles of Morals. Add to these two im- 
portant volumes of essays, a treatise on Moral, Intellectual, and 
Physical Education, one on Social Statics, in which are deter- 
mined the essential conditions of human happiness, and a Classi- 
fication of the Sciences, and we can form an idea of the various 
subjects which this fertile mind has entertained, and on each of 
which it has produced profound and original ideas sufficient to 
make the reputation of one less prolific. 
We cannot discuss, even passingly, all these titles to fame in 
this place, where we are principally concerned with psychology. 
As, however, the fundamental doctrine of evolution is frequently 
expounded in the Essays, and applied to the most various 
questions, and this work is but little known in France, though it 
is calculated to make the philosophy of the author familiar, we 
propose to make a special study of it. 130 
English Psychology. 
CHAPTER I. 
THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. 
Jhe Law of Evolution. — I. Progress consists in the passage from the 
homogeneous to the heterogeneous : its law—2. The hypothesis of the 
nebulus—3. Living organism and social organism—4. The genesis of 
science—5. The knowable and the unknowable. 
I. 
Our purpose is to explain the doctrine of progress and devel- 
opment, according to the Essays,1 and to show how Mr. Her- 
bert Spencer applies it to the different orders of phenomena. 
After having seen what is to be understood by progress, we shall 
follow the law of evolution in its explanation of the cosmical 
genesis, of the development of the social organism, and finally 
of the genesis of science. 
The idea which is generally attached to the word progress is 
not only vague, but erroneous. Progress in itself is confounded 
with that which accompanies it, with the benefits and useful results 
which it brings to man. The vice of the current conception 
arises from its being teleological; facts are judged by their rela- 
tion to human happiness, the only concern felt is for that which 
increases or tends to increase it. This process takes the shadow 
for the reality. In order to understand what progress is, we 
must study, apart from our own interest, what is the nature of 
the changes which produce it. 
The German physiologists have established that in individual 
organisms progress consists in the passage from a homogeneous 
to a heterogeneous structure. Every genn at its origin is an 
uniform substance, in the double sense of its texture, and its 
chemical composition ; by successive and almost infinite differen- 
tiations, that complex combination of tissues and organs which 
constitutes the animal or the adult plant is produced. This is the 
1 Essays ; Scientific, Political, and Speculative. London, 1861. This will 
be found in a much more learned form in the First Principles. Mr. fferbert Spencer. 
131 
history of every organism. Mr. Herbert Spencer proposes to 
show that this law of organic progress is the law of all pro- 
gress; that the development of the earth, of the life on its sur- 
face, of society, of government, of industry, of commerce, of 
language, of literature, of science, and of art, supposes the same 
evolution of the simple into the complex by successive differ- 
entiations. 
In the first place, if the hypothesis of the nebulas be admitted as 
true, the formation of the solar system furnishes us with a verifica- 
tion of this law. In its first condition, it consisted of a medium 
indefinitely extended, and almost homogeneous in density, tem- 
perature, and other physical attributes. The first progress to- 
wards consolidation brought about a differentiation between the 
space still occupied by the nebulous mass and the unoccupied 
space which it had formerly filled. At the same time differences 
in density and temperature are produced, between the interior 
and the exterior of the mass, then in the speed of the motion of 
rotation, which varied according to the distance from the centre. 
Let us reflect upon the numerous differences between the planets 
and satellites, with respect to distance, to the inclination of their 
orbits, the inclination of their axes, the time of their rotation, 
their density, their physical constitution, etc.; and we shall see 
how heterogeneous the solar system is, compared to the almost 
complete homogeneity of the nebulous mass from which it is 
supposed to have issued. 
But as this is only a hypothesis, each person may take it for 
as much as he pleases ; this does not in any way prejudice the 
general doctrine which we are about to verify on more solid 
ground. Let us take our globe. In the beginning, according to 
almost all geologists, the earth was a mass of matter, in a state 
of fusion, and consequently was of homogeneous consistence, and 
relatively homogeneous temperature. And now, merely looking 
at its surface, how heterogeneous it appears to us ! Igneous 
rocks, sedimentary strata, metallic veins, endless irregularities, 
mountains, continents, seas, differences of climates, in short, 
such a variety of phenomena that all the geographers, geologists, 
mineralogists, and meteorologists put together, have not yet 
succeeded in enumerating them. If we pass on from the earth 132 
English Psychology. 
to the planets and the animals which are now living, or have 
lived, facts to verify the law are wanting ; not that it is doubtful 
that in the individual organism progress is made from the simple 
to the compound; but, if we pass from the individual forms of 
life to life in general, we cannot say whether the modern flora 
and fauna are more heterogeneous than those of the past. The 
actual data of palaeontology do not permit us to affirm anything. 
Nevertheless, the facts, taken together, tend to show that the 
most heterogeneous organisms are the last produced. To go 
no further than the branching off of vertebrates, the first known to 
us are fishes, the most homogeneous of all; reptiles appear later 
and are more heterogeneous ; mammifers and birds appear still 
later, and are yet more heterogeneous. Then, the most ancient 
remains which we know of the class of mammifers are those small 
marsupials which are the lowest type of this class, whilst the 
highest type, man, is the most recent. We must observe, that 
taking the vertebrate fauna as a whole, the palaeozoic period, 
entirely composed of fishes (in so far as we know) was much 
less heterogeneous than the present period, which, besides 
reptiles, comprehends birds and mammifers of widely various 
kinds. 
But, if we choose to leave the question open on this point, it 
is at least clear that as regards man, the most heterogeneous of 
animals, heterogeneity has been most largely produced in the 
civilized subdivisions of the species ; that the species has become 
more heterogeneous in virtue of the multiplication of races and 
the differentiation of races among themselves. The Papuan, 
whose body and arms are often well developed, has very small 
legs, resembling in this the quadrumanous kind, while in the 
case of the European, whose legs are longer and more massive, 
there is more heterogeneity between the upper and lower limbs. 
The differences between the skulls and the faces of men are 
greater than in any other race of animals, and greater among 
Europeans than among savages.1 Ethnology, by its divisions and 
subdivisions of races, puts this progress in heterogeneity beyond 
a doubt. Within a few generations, has not the Saxon race given 
1 See Vogt, Lemons sur thomme, chap. ii. Mr. Herbert Spencer. 
133 
birth to the Anglo-American variety, and is not another springing 
up in Australia ? 
If we pass on to humanity considered in its social organism, 
vve find numerous facts to sustain our law. Society in its origin, 
such as we find it among savage tribes, is a homogeneous aggre- 
gate of individuals having the same powers and the same functions; 
every man is a warrior, a hunter, a fisher, and a workman; the 
only differences are those which result from sex. The first differ- 
entiation is that which takes place between the governing and 
the governed ; this increases, authority becomes hereditary, the 
king assumes an almost Divine character ; for, at this epoch, 
religion and government are closely associated, and during cen- 
turies the religious and civil laws are hardly separate. Now, if 
we observe that among modern Europeans, not only are the 
State and the Church separating from each other more and more 
widely, but that the political organization is very complex, that 
it presupposes subdivisions in justice, finance, etc., we cannot 
doubt that in this instance progress is made from the homo- 
geneous to the heterogeneous. 
In industry it is the same; the subdivision of labour is an 
evident truth. 
The most rudimentary form of language is the exclamation. 
Did it alone originally constitute simply human language 1 This we 
cannot tell. Linguistics shows us that in all languages there are 
words which may be grouped in families and referred to a com- 
mon root. The development of idioms then also supposes 
heterogeneity. Whether we hold, with Max Muller and Bunsen, 
that all languages are derived from a single stem, or with other 
linguists that there are two or more, the development of the 
European languages, derived from one and the same source, 
would in itself show us that the evolution of languages is also in 
conformity with the law of progress. 
Writing (ideographical at its origin) connects itself with 
painting, and both, together with sculpture, were at first simple 
appendices of architecture, which was itself the historical or 
religious art: the palaces and temples of Assyria, the monuments 
of Egypt or of India bear witness to this. These arts became 
separate in the lapse of centuries; writing was transformed into 134 
English Psychology. 
printing. ‘ However dissimilar they may appear to us to-day, the 
bust which stands upon the console, the picture which hangs 
upon the wall, the copy of the Times which lies upon the table, are 
related to each other, not only by nature but by origin.’ Poetry, 
music, and dancing also originally formed an inseparable group. 
The dances of savage tribes, accompanied by monotonous songs, 
the sacred dances of the Egyptians, and of David before the ark, 
of the Lupercalia and the Saturnalia of Rome, the triumphal ode 
of Moses, accompanied by dancing and the cymbals,—these are 
only a few examples among thousands. These arts became 
separated by progress, and we may remark that in each instance 
that progress took place from the homogeneous to the hetero- 
geneous. In literature, primitive works comprise everything;— 
the Scriptures contain the theology, cosmogony, history, legis- 
lation, morals, etc., of the Hebrews ; in the Iliad there are re- 
ligious, military, epic, lyric, and dramatic elements, which, at a 
later period, form so many kinds. 
It is the same with science, as we shall see hereafter. Let us 
then fearlessly conclude, from this rapid examination of facts, 
that the law of progress is the passage from the homogeneous to 
the heterogeneous. And now, does not this uniform processus 
presuppose a fundamental necessity from whence it results'? 
Does not this universal law imply a universal cause l There is 
no question of having an absolute knowledge of this cause : that is 
a mystery above the reach of human intelligence ; we have simply 
to transform our empirical generalization into a rational generaliza- 
tion. Exactly as it has been possible to show the necessary conse- 
quences of the law of gravitation in the laws of Kepler, so it 
may be possible to show that the law of progress is the necessary 
consequence of some equally universal principle. 
This law, which explains the universal transformation of the 
homogeneous into the heterogeneous, is as follows : Every active 
force produces more than one change; every cause produces more 
than one effect. 
One body strikes another; to our eyes the effect consists in a 
change in the position or the motion of one or both of the two 
bodies. But that is a very incomplete view, because more than 
one sound is produced; and the vibrations of the air are pro- Mr. Herbert Spencer. 
135 
duced, not only by the sound, but by the motion of the bodies ; 
a derangement of the molecules at the point of collision has 
taken place; consequently condensation and disengagement of 
heat, sometimes even a spark, that is to say, the production of 
light. We have therefore at least five species of changes pro- 
duced by a simple shock. 
Some one lights a candle, that is a simple fact; but there re- 
sults from it a production of light, a production of heat, an 
ascending column of hot gases, currents established in the sur- 
rounding air, a continuous formation of carbonic acid, water, etc. 
Besides, each of the changes thus produced gives rise in its 
turn to other changes. The disengaged carbonic acid will com- 
bine itself little by little with some basis, or, under the influence 
of the solar light, it will give out its carbon to the leaf of a plant. 
The water will modify the hygrometric condition of the sur- 
rounding air, etc. 
A small quantity of virus from smallpox, introduced into the 
system, may cause, during the first period, stiffness, heat of the 
skin, acceleration of the pulse, loss of appetiTe, thirst, gastric 
disturbance, vomiting, headaches, etc.; during the second period, 
cutaneous eruption, cough, etc.; during the third period, 
cedematous inflammation, pneumonia, pleurisy, diarrhoea, etc. 
A living species, animal or vegetable, in proportion as it spreads 
itself out, and occupies a more extended area, finds itself ex- 
posed to very different conditions of climate, sun, light, and heat, 
and thus we see it give birth to numerous varieties. This 
happens even in the case of domestic animals. 
We have now mentioned a sufficient number of the various 
examples which the author borrows from geology, linguistics, 
ethnology, chemistry, industry, and commerce, to elucidate his 
thought. He always calls upon us to observe that if there be in 
reality complex causes of which we have spoken as simple causes, 
it still remains true that these causes are much less complex than 
their results. ‘ Finally, the facts tend to show that each kind 
of progress is from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, and 
that this is because each change is followed by several changes.’1 
1 Perhaps it may be objected, that it is notin reality one single cause which 
produces several effects ; that in the case of the shock, for example, there must 136 
English Psychology. 
II. 
In a long essay upon the hypothesis of the Nebulae, the author 
attaches the hypothesis of Laplace to the doctrine of evolution, 
defending it against the objections to it raised by science. Lord 
Rosse’s powerful telescope having enabled astronomers to solve 
the hitherto insoluble Nebulae, it has been concluded that if we 
had sufficiently powerful instruments, we could resolve every 
nebulus into stars. Is this a sufficient reason for rejecting the 
hypothesis 1 By no means. A priori, it was very improbable, if 
not impossible, that nebular masses should still remain uncon- 
densed when others have been condensed for millions of years. 
In comparison with the doctrine of finality, or, as Mr. Herbert 
Spencer calls it, manufacture, the hypothesis of the nebulus has 
a great deal of probability and many facts in its favour. It ex- 
plains much better the necessities of constitution and of the 
motions of the planets, the anomalies in the distribution and the 
motion of the satellites, the speed of the planetary rotation ; 
and then in thes#later times, the spectrum analysis has arisen to 
corroborate the hypothesis of a community of origin between all 
the parts of our universe. Into this purely scientific domain, 
otherwise outside our limits, the conclusion draws us. It is this : 
‘ It remains only to point out that while the genesis of the solar 
system, and of countless other systems like it, is thus rendered * 
comprehensible, the ultimate mystery continues as great as 
ever. The problem of existence is not solved ; it is simply 
removed further back. The Nebular Hypothesis throws no light 
on the origin of diffused matter, and diffused matter as much 
needs accounting for as concrete matter. The genesis of an atom 
is not easier to conceive than the genesis of a planet. Nay, in- 
deed, so far from making the universe a less mystery than before, 
exist, besides the shock, certain conditions of the bodies concerned which 
render the production of sound, heat, etc., possible. There w'ould also be, 
besides the visible cause, virtual causes acting with it, and the passage from 
the homogeneous to the heterogeneous would be the actualization of these 
virtual causes. We think Mr. Spencer would reply that to put the question 
thus would be to transfer it to the ground of the noumena, which he does 
not wish to approach ; and that if a simple statement of facts be adhered to, 
one shock is followed by several effects. Mr. Herbert Spencer. 
137 
it makes it a greater mystery. Creation by manufacture is a 
much lower thing than creation by evolution. A man may put 
together a machine, but he cannot make a machine develop itself. 
. . . That our harmonious universe once existed potentially as 
formless diffused matter, and has slowly grown into its present 
organized state, is a far more astonishing fact than would have 
been its formation after the artificial method vulgarly supposed. 
Those who hold it legitimate to argue from phenomena to 
noumena, may rightly contend that the Nebular Hypothesis im- 
plies a First Cause as much transcending the mechanical God 
of Paley, as this does the fetish of the savage.’ 1 
in. 
The result of the idea of evolution, applied to social and politi- 
cal phenomena, is to bring out the analogy between society and 
the organized body. It may be thought that the author’s com- 
parisons in his Essay upon Social Organization are far-fetched. At 
least it cannot be denied that his combinations are ingenious, in 
many respects sustainable, and, taken collectively, incontestable. 
Nothing being true except within certain limits, the danger for a 
correct idea is that of being pushed to extremes. We must, 
therefore, in observing the following combinations, confine our- 
selves to the consideration of them as an illustration, a throwing 
of light upon social phenomena by biological phenomena. 
The social body, like the living body, is not a simple aggregate 
of parts, it supposes a consensus between them. Both are subject 
to the same law of evolution, to the same varieties of form; there 
are rudimentary societies, just like coarse organisms; there are 
learned and complex social organizations, just like the organisms 
whose mode of life is rich and complex. Forages this parallelism 
was felt by the philosophers. Thus Plato drew his ideal republic 
upon the model of the faculties of the human soul. Hobbes goes 
faither; his city is an immense body {Leviathan), whose sovereign 
is the soul, the magistrates are the articulations, the sanctions are 
the nerves, the wealth of the whole is the strength, their concord 
is the health, etc. But, in the absence of really comprehensive 
1 Spencer’s Essays, vol. i. p. 55-6, edition 1863. 138 
English Psychology. 
physiological generalizations, these comparisons necessarily re- 
✓ mained vague. So little was the natural and necessary law of 
development conceived of, that that true saying of Mackintosh: 
‘constitutions are not made, they make themselves,’ at first 
caused only surprise. Has not history been explained by super- 
natural interventions ; by the preponderating action of great men, 
instead of its being understood that the great man can only dis- 
turb, retard, or aid the general evolution, but that, taken in its 
totality, it remains out of his reach. Mr. Herbert Spencer re- 
duces the principal resemblances which exist between social 
organization and living organism to four :— 
1. That, commencing as small aggregations, they insensibly 
augment in mass ; some of them eventually reaching ten thousand 
times what they originally were. 
2. That while at first so simple in structure as to be con- 
sidered structureless, they assume in the course of their growth a 
continually-increasing complexity of structure. 
3. That though in their early, undeveloped states, there exists 
in them scarcely any mutual dependence of parts, their parts 
gradually acquire a mutual dependence; which becomes at last 
so great, that the activity and life of each part is made possible 
only by the activity and life of the rest. 
4. That the life and development of a society is independent 
of, and far more prolonged than, the life and development of any 
of its component units ; who are severally born, grow, work, re- 
produce, and die, while the body politic composed of them sur- 
vives generation after generation, increasing in mass, complete- 
ness of structure, and functional activity. 
On the other hand, the leading differences between societies 
and individual organisms are these :—■ 
1. That societies have no specific external forms. This, how- 
ever, is a point of contrast which loses much of its importance, 
when we remember that throughout the vegetable kingdom, as 
well as in some lower divisions of the animal kingdom, the forms 
are often very indefinite. 
2. That, though the living tissue whereof an individual organism 
consists, forms a continuous mass; the living elements of a 
society do not form a continuous mass. Mr. Herbert Spencer. 
139 
3- That while the ultimate living elements of an individual 
organism are mostly fixed in their relative positions, those of the 
social organism are capable of moving from place to place, seems 
a marked disagreement. But here, too, the disagreement is 
much less than would be supposed. For while citizens are loco- 
motive in their private capacities, they are fixed in their public 
capacities. . . . Each great centre of production, each manufactur- 
ing town or district, continues always in the same place; and many 
of the firms in such town or district are for generations carried on 
either by the descendants or successors of those who founded them. 
4. The last and perhaps the most important distinction is, that 
while in the body of an animal only a special tissue is endowed 
with feeling, in a society all the members are endowed with 
feeling. Even this distinction, however, is by no means a com- 
plete one. For in some of the lowest animals, characterized by 
the absence of a nervous system, such sensitiveness as exists is 
possessed by all parts. It is only in the more organized forms 
that feeling is monopolized by one class of the vital elements. 
Moreover, we must remember that societies, too, are not without 
a certain differentiation of this kind. Though the units of a 
community are all sensitive, yet they are so in unequal degrees. 
The classes engaged in agriculture, and laborious occupations in 
general, are much less susceptible, intellectually and emotionally, 
than the rest; and especially less so than the classes of highest 
mental culture.1 
In short, the resemblances are fundamental, essential; and 
the differences all exterior, and, strictly speaking, contestable. 
The analogy is much more striking if we consider them in 
their development, if we remark how closely the lower forms 
of life resemble the lower forms of social organization. Are 
there not analogies between the almost structureless protozoa, 
such as rhizopodes, the foraminifera, the vorticellm, which form 
aggregates of cells, without subordination of parts, and inferior 
races, such as the Bushmen, among whom society is sometimes 
reduced to two or three families, and division of labour exists 
only between the sexes 11 
1 Spencer’s Essays, 2d ed., vol. i. p. 391. 140 
English Psychology. 
Physiological division of labour appears in the common 
polype ; this is a progress. In the same way a less rude society 
comprehends warriors and a chief council invested with author- 
ity. Certain zoophytes, like the hydra, produce others by a 
process of germination; a tribe also produces its slips; jeal- 
ousies, quarrels, cause divisions, a chief takes the initiative of 
the rupture, and the members part, and emigrate. 
In the germ of a polype, as in the human egg, the aggregate 
of cells whence the animal is to come forth, gives birth to a 
peripherical layer of cells which afterwards subdivides itself into 
two, the one interior, called mucous or endodermous; the other, 
exterior, called serous or ectodermous. From the latter come 
the digestive and respiratory organs; from the former the nervous, 
muscular, and bony systems. In the social evolution we see an 
analogous first differentiation of species, that of the governing 
and the governed, of masters and of slaves, of nobles and of 
serfs. And in the same way that at a later stage, between the 
mucous and the serous layer, a third is formed, called 
vascular, whence come the blood-vessels; so, when a society is 
growing up, an intermediate class forms itself, a class given to 
industry and commerce, which is also the distributing organ of 
that society, as the blood-vessels are the distributing apparatus 
of the body. 
The lower animals have no blood or circulating channels in 
the bulk of the body, thus uniting the different portions; but 
as soon as the being becomes more complex, they are a necessity; 
each portion of the organism must receive the materials which it 
assimilates. An inferior society has no roads, no way of com- 
munication ; but the development of civilisation necessarily 
supposes them. Where civilisation is only beginning there are 
some rude tracks traced out by use, like those lacuna which 
serve in the inferior animals for the distribution of the nutritive 
fluids. 
Again, if we come to the nervous system, we find ganglions 
in the inferior organisms which are sometimes almost independ- 
ent, just as in feudal society we see the barons and the other 
lords governing without any control; sovereignty, almost local, 
exercised within narrow limits. The superior animal, on the Mr. Herbert Spencer. 
141 
contrary, has his nerves, his cerebro-spinal axis of a complicated 
structure; just as England has her parliament, her ministers, her 
sheriffs, and her judges, animated by the same thought and 
obedient to a common impulsion. 
IV. 
Thus, in a few words, we have explained how the law of 
evolution draws together social and biological phemomena. If 
we go into another domain, that of science, we shall find there 
also continuity in development. It is organically produced; 
its genesis is the work of an inherent progress; it comes out of 
vulgar knowledge, as the oak comes out of the acorn. If we 
consider the current opinions, we find science regarded as a kind 
of knowledge apart, sui generis, placed in an almost inaccessible 
region, having processes of research proper to itself, totally 
foreign (save in its applications) to the reasonings and the habits 
of common life. The doctrine of evolution, on the contrary, 
shows that between science and common knowledge any line of 
demarcation is impossible ; that they differ in degree, not in kind, 
and that any absolute separation between them is illusory and 
chimerical. More than this, as development implies continuity, 
all the sciences hold by each other; they are the parts of one 
whole, there is between them unity of composition, and each in- 
fluences the others; one progress renders new discoveries pos- 
sible, which shall throw more light upon that which has been 
already acquired. Everything coheres ; high civilisation is pos- 
sible only through the culture of the sciences; but let it be 
borne in mind that the culture of the sciences is only possible 
through civilisation; thus, cause becomes effect and effect be- 
comes cause, because in everything that lives the supreme law is 
reciprocity of action. 
We shall now leave it to Mr. Herbert Spencer to trace back 
the Genesis of Science (Essays, vol. i. p. 166-193); that is to 
say, its evolution. 
If we oppose to science under its most precise form, that of 
mathematics, our everyday modes of thought, in which there is no 
method, the contrast is striking. But only a little reflection is 
required to see that in the two cases the same faculties are 142 
English Psychology. 
brought into play, and that their mode of operation is the same 
at bottom. Shall we say that science is organized knowledge? 
But all knowledge is more or less organized ; the commonest 
domestic actions presuppose facts observed, inferences drawn, 
results expected. Shall we say that science is a prevision 1 The 
definition would then be too extended; for the child who sees 
an apple, foresees that it will be resistant, soft to the touch, and 
of a certain flavour. Shall we say that science is an exact pre- 
vision 1 But there are sciences which are not and which never 
can become exact, like physiology, and there are exact previ- 
sions which we do not regard as science; for instance, that a 
light will be extinguished in water, and that ice will melt on the 
fire. Logically, then, the distinction between scientific know- 
ledge and common knowledge is not justifiable. 
If they do not differ in kind, what relation is there between 
them 1 (i.) That which science reveals is more distant from 
perception than that which is given by common knowledge : 
the prediction of an eclipse of the moon by an astronomer 
differs, in this respect, from the prevision of a servant that fire 
will make water boil. It may be said, from this point of view, 
that science is an extension of the perceptions by means of reasoning. 
(2.) Science, undeveloped, is a qualitative prevision; science deve- 
loped is a quantitative prevision. To foresee that a piece of lead 
will weigh more than a piece of wood of the same size; and to 
foresee that at a certain moment two specified planets will be in 
conjunction—that is the difference between qualitative and quan- 
titative prevision. There is no true science except where the 
phenomena are measurable. Space is measurable, thence geo- 
metry ; force and space are measurable, thence statics ; time, 
space, and force are measurable, thence dynamics. No measure 
is possible for our sensations; thus, there is no science of 
flavours or of odours. 
In proportion as we pass from qualitative to quantitative pre- 
vision, we pass from inductive to deductive science. While 
science is purely inductive, it is purely qualitative; when it 
becomes imperfectly quantitative, it comprehends deduction and 
induction; when perfectly quantitative, it is completely deduc- 
tive. Mr. Herbert Spencer. 
143 
Every science, at its origin, has been qualitative, and has 
sometimes taken thousands of years to arrive at its quantitative 
period ; chemistry has entered it only recently. It must not be 
lost sight of that science and ordinary knowledge are of the 
same nature, and that the one is only the extension and perfec- 
tion of the other.1 
Since science, by its processus of evolution, comes out of 
common knowledge, that which is given us by reason and our 
senses reduced to themselves merely; and that common know- 
ledge itself proceeds from simple perceptions; the genesis of 
science ought, strictly speaking, to take the origin of knowledge 
as its point of departure. At the risk of beginning after an 
abrupt fashion, let us take the adult savage. 
In order to live, it is necessary that he should know what will 
nourish him, what may hurt him, what he ought to avoid ; he 
must distinguish a great variety of substances, plants, animals, 
tools, persons, etc. But what does this distinction or classification 
of objects presuppose? A recognition of the resemblance or the 
dissimilarity of things. By a natural progress, classification goes 
from rude resemblances to more subtle ones; sub-classes, accord- 
ing to degrees of dissimilarity, are formed in the classes; and the 
mind, always eliminating the dissimilar, seeking more and more 
close resemblances, finally tends towards the notion of complete 
resemblance which supposes non-difference. 
1 Here Mr. Herbert Spencer examines the classification of the sciences 
by Hegel, Oken, and A. Comte. He is not favourable to ‘ the bastard a 
priori method ’ of the two first. As lor the third, while making much of his 
doctrine, he criticises him for having said that the order of decreasing 
generality is that in which the sciences are historically produced. In fact, 
algebra, which is more general than arithmetic, is posterior to it; there is 
an increasing generality of arithmetic in the differential calculus. The solu- 
tion of A. Comte is a half-truth ; the progress of science is double ; it goes 
from the general to the special, and from the special to the general. Its 
serial arrangement of the sciences is a vicious conception ; there is a consensus 
between them, which Comte has been wrong in not acknowledging. Each 
discovery of a science influences the others. Mr. Spencer has developed 
these ideas in his Classification of the Sciences, a special work ; and M. Littre 
has discussed at length the objections of the English philosopher in his work 
on Auguste Comte and Positivism. 144 
English Psychology. 
That which we have just seen in the perception and classifica- 
tion of objects is produced in the same way in the genesis of 
reasoning. To class, is to group together similar things; to 
reason is to group together similar relations. It is of the essence 
of reasoning to perceive a resembla?ice between cases, and the idea 
which is at the bottom of all our processes of reasoning, is the 
idea of rese7nblance. And in the same way as the final progress 
of classification consists in forming groups of completely similar 
objects, so the perfection of reasoning consists in forming groups 
of completely similar cases. 
It is now possible for us to understand how the passage from 
qualitative to quantitative knowledge takes place. The pro- 
cessus of classification, by a progress proper to itself, tends 
towards complete resemblance, or equality; when it has attained 
that, science has become quantitative. 
Whence comes the notion of equality? From experience. 
The things which we call equal (lines, angles, weights, tempera- 
tures, sounds, colours) are those ‘ which produce in us sensations 
which we cannot distinguish from one another,’ the idea of 
equality is drawn by abstraction from artificial objects. After- 
wards experience separates the idea of equality into two ideas, 
equality of things; equality of relations (two equal triangles and 
two similar triangles). The first idea is the concrete germ of the 
exact science; the second is the abstract germ, and both come 
from that resemblance of things and that resemblance of relations 
which we have already seen. 
At the same time and in the same way distinct ideas of number 
are produced. Number, equality, resemblance, these are notions 
which are intimately related. Simple enumeration is a registra- 
tion of experiences repeated in a certain way; in order that they 
may be susceptible of enumeration, they must be more or less 
similar; and in order that absolutely true numerical results should 
be obtained, the units must be absolutely equal. We apply num 
ber on occasion to unequal units, like the animals on a farm, but* 
every calculation supposes the perfect equality of the units, and 
reaches exact results only in virtue of that hypothesis; the first 
ideas of number are those derived from equal or similar magni- 
tudes, especially in inorganic objects; and consequently geo- Mr. Herbert Spencer. 
145 
metry and arithmetic have a simultaneous origin. We should 
also remark that several nations, who do not seem to have any 
relation between them, have adopted ten (the ten fingers) as the 
basis of their enumeration, or five (the five fingers of one hand), 
or twenty (the fingers and toes), which shows that the fingers 
have been the original unit of numeration. 
Thus, then, we know the idea of equality as the basis of all 
science, but how do we apply it? How do we pass from the 
vague perception of equality to the exact perception proper to 
science 1 By the juxtaposition of the things compared. Hence 
it arises that if we wish to judge of two shades of colour, we place 
them side by side ; that if we wish to estimate two weights, we 
take one in each hand, and compare their pressure, making our 
thought pass rapidly from one to the other, and ‘ as of all great- 
nesses, those of linear extension are those whose equality may be 
most easily ascertained, it results that it is to those we should 
reduce all others.’ It is the property of linear extension that it 
alone admits of absolute juxtaposition or coincidence, such as 
befalls two mathematical lines, equality then becoming identity. 
4 Thus it is that all exact science is reducible by final analysis to 
results measured in equal units of linear extension.’ 
The idea of measure by juxtaposition is suggested to us by ex- 
perience. We must all have remarked that when two men, two 
animals, any two objects, are near one another, the inequality 
becomes more visible. This experience, repeated constantly, has 
given us our first lessons. 
In short, all knowledge, whether scientific or vulgar, presup- 
poses resemblances which may vary from the vaguest analogy to 
perfect equality, which alone constitutes quantitative science; 
equality being given and verified by an empirical juxtaposition. 
The terms foot, thumb, finger, pace, and others of a similar kind 
used in the origin of almost all languages, are they not facts which 
come to the support of the empirical origin of the idea of measure, 
if it be disputed by sceptics ? 
We should exceed our limits did we follow Mr. Herbert Spencer 
through his picture of the production of the various sciences. 
He brings out, by numerous facts, their close relations and their 
reciprocal dependence. In our time, he says, the consensus 146 
English Psychology. 
between the sciences has become such, that there is no con- 
siderable discovery in one order of facts which does not soon 
lead to important discoveries in others. And each serves the 
others; the observation of a star supposes the employment of 
highly-perfected instruments, and the assistance of optics, ther- 
mology, hygrometry, barology, electricity, for the registration of 
certain minute observations, and even of psychology itself, to 
correct the ‘personal equation.’ Such is the complication of 
sciences involved in so seemingly simple a thing as fixing the 
position of a star. 
V. 
Here we leave the law of evolution. No doubt the author 
will at some future time carry it into questions of morals, whither 
it would have been interesting to follow him; for the hypothesis 
of progress alone can produce an agreement between those who 
maintain against all evidence that morals do not vary, and those 
who maintain against all reason that there is nothing in morals 
but the mobile and the arbitrary. A short essay on Anthropo- 
morphism (vol. i. p. 440) shows how the idea of development 
can also transform the study of religions, from that of the 
grossest fetichism to that of monotheism under its purest forms. 
But what it behoves us thoroughly to understand is, that the 
idea of evolution, whether it explains cosmical and biological 
phenomena, or whether it penetrates the world of thought and of 
history, never explains first causes. Everything which goes be- 
yond experience escapes it. We shall let the author state his 
conclusions on this point himself. 
‘ Probably not a few will conclude that here is an attempted 
solution of the great questions with which philosophy in all ages 
has perplexed itself. Let none thus deceive themselves. Only 
such as know not the scope and the limits of science can fall into 
so grave an error. The foregoing generalizations apply not to 
the genesis of things in themselves, but to their genesis as mani- 
fested to the human consciousness. After all that has been said, 
the ultimate mystery remains just as it was. The explanation of 
that which is explicable does but bring out into greater clearness 
the inexplicableness of that which remains behind. However we Air. Herbert Spencer. 
147 
may succeed in reducing the equation to its lowest terms, we are 
not thereby enabled to determine the unknown quantity; on the 
contrary, it only becomes more manifest that the unknown quan- 
tity can never be found. 
* Little as it seems to do so, fearless inquiry tends continually 
to give a firmer basis to all true religion. The timid sectarian, 
alarmed at the progress of knowledge, obliged to abandon one by 
one the superstitions of his ancestors, and daily finding his cher- 
ished beliefs more and more shaken, secretly fears that all things 
may some day be explained, and has a corresponding dread of 
science : thus evincing the profoundest of all infidelity—the fear 
lest the truth be bad. On the other hand, the sincere man of 
science, content to follow wherever the evidence leads him, 
becomes by each new inquiry more profoundly convinced that 
the universe is an insoluble problem. Alike in the external and 
the internal worlds, he sees himself in the midst of perpetual 
changes, of which he can discover neither the beginning nor the 
end. If, tracing back the evolution of things, he allows himself 
to entertain the hypothesis that all matter once existed in a dif- 
fused form, he finds it utterly impossible to conceive how this 
came to be so, and equally, if he speculates on the future, he can 
assign no limit to the grand succession of phenomena ever un- 
folding themselves before him. On the other hand, if he looks 
inward, he perceives that both terminations of the thread of con- 
sciousness are beyond his grasp; he cannot remember when or 
how consciousness commenced, and he cannot examine the con- 
sciousness that at any moment exists, for only a state of con- 
sciousness that is already past can become the object of thought, 
and never one which is passing. When, again, he turns from the 
succession of phenomena, external or internal, to their essential 
nature, he is equally at fault. Though he may succeed in resolv- 
ing all properties of objects into manifestations of force, he is not 
thereby enabled to realize what force is, but finds, on the con- 
trary, that the more he thinks about it the more he is baffled. 
Similarly, though analysis of mental actions may finally bring him 
down to sensations as the original materials out of which all 
thought is woven, he is none the forwarder; for he cannot in the 
least comprehend sensation—cannot even conceive how sensation 148 
English Psychology. 
is possible. Inward and outward things he thus discovers to be 
alike inscrutable in their ultimate genesis and nature. He sees 
that the materialist and spiritualist controversy is a mere war of 
words; the disputants being equally absurd—each believing he 
understands that which it is impossible for any man to under- 
stand. In all directions his investigations eventually bring him 
face to face with the unknowable, and he ever more clearly per- 
ceives it to be the unknowable. He learns at once the greatness 
and the littleness of human intellect—its power in dealing with 
all that comes within the range of experience; its impotence in 
dealing with all that transcends experience. He feels, with a 
vividness which no others can, the utter incomprehensibleness of 
the simplest fact, considered in itself. He alone truly sees that 
absolute knowledge is impossible. He alone knows that under 
all things lies an impenetrable mystery.51 
CHAPTER II. 
PSYCHOLOGY. 
Psychology.—I. The principles of psychology—2. Continuity and corre- 
spondence. Progress of correspondences, their co-ordination and integra- 
tion—3. The law of intelligence—4. Unity of composition of psycholo- 
gical phenomena. Consciousness reduced to a double processus of 
assimilation and dissimilation—5. Summary—6. Is Mr. Herbert Spencer 
a Positivist ? 
The law of evolution is about to appear to us under a new 
aspect. The Principles of Psychology, the study of which we are 
approaching, have for their object the establishment, by a double 
process of analysis and of synthesis, the unity of composition of the 
phenomena of mind, and the continuity of their development. 
As the word ‘ principles 5 indicates, there is no question here of 
a simple description of the facts of consciousness, of a complete 
1 Spencer’s Essays, p. 58, 2d edition, 2 vols., 1S68. Mr. Herbert Spencer. 
149 
enumeration of phenomena, of a review in which nothing shall be 
omitted; this would be to set up a psychological repertory, in 
which every fact should be described, almost as melodies are 
described in pathological and plants in botanical treatises. Such 
a task would be of great utility, but Mr. Herbert Spencer has not 
proposed to fulfil it. His enterprise is more philosophical and 
more systematic. He does not pretend to exhaust his subject, 
whether it be biology, psychology, sociology, or morals; he aims 
only at the establishment of principles, accompanying them with 
sufficient elucidation and example to render their relations and 
their results comprehensible. 
The first result of the law of continuity is that there is x\o pre- 
cise line of demarcation between physiological and psychological 
facts, and that every absolute distinction is illusory. Sensations, 
sentiments, instincts, intelligence, all constitute a world apart; 
but which comes out of the animal world, in which it is rooted, 
of which it is, as it were, the efflorescence. Between the most 
humble function and the most lofty thought there is no opposition 
of nature, but there is difference in degree, each being only one 
of the innumerable manifestations of life. ‘ The life of the body 
and mental life are species, of which life, properly so called, is 
the genus ’ (.Principles of Psychology). While ordinary psychology, 
founded exclusively upon interior observation and the employ- 
ment of the subjective method, restricts itself to the study of man, 
without any care for the inferior forms of intellectual life, experi- 
mental psychology aspires to describe and to classify the various 
modes of sensation and of thought, to follow their slow and con- 
tinuous evolution, from the infusoria to the civilized white man. 
It is, then, not only a static but a dynamic study; it not only 
establishes facts, it studies their genesis, their development, their 
transformations. This is not all; while vulgar psychology sepa- 
rates the thinking being from its mechanism, thus reducing itself 
to abstraction, experimental psychology never separates these 
two terms. Between the external and the internal world there is 
a constant and necessary correspondence. It is only by the 
action of the without on the within, and by the reaction of the 
within on the without, that mental life is possible. It is in the 150 
English Psychology. 
material world that we must seek the ultimate reason of the 
nature of our thoughts, of the order of their succession. Where 
is the source of our ideas of simultaneousness and of succession 
if not in external co-existences and sequences ? What should be 
the cause of the mode by which our ideas are linked together if 
not anterior experience 1 By and bye all this will be made clear. 
The work which now occupies us comprehends an analytical 
and a synthetical study. 
The synthetical study sets out with purely physiological life, 
and shows how intellectual life, which is not to be distinguished 
from it at first, begins its slow evolution, and constitutes itself 
little by little by successive additions; how mental activity, 
which at first reproduced only the simplest, most elementary modi- 
fications of the external world, arrives at explaining the most 
varied and complex relations with completeness.' 
The aim of the analytical study, which might also be called 
subjective as contrasted with the preceding, which is rather ob- 
jective, is to reduce every kind of knowledge to its ultimate 
elements. It examines the most complicated reasonings, and, by 
successive decompositions, resolving that which is more into that 
which is less complex, getting down to that which is simple, 
primitive, irreducible, it finally reaches the constitutive principles 
and the indispensable conditions of ail thought. 
Before we enter upon this double study, it will be well to state 
briefly how the author understands psychology and its object. 
The object of psychology is ‘ not the connexion between 
internal phenomena, nor the connexion between external 
phenomena, but the connexion between these two connexions.’ 
A psychological proposition is necessarily composed of two 
propositions, one of which concerns the subject and the other 
the object: consequently it implies four terms. Let us suppose 
that A and B are an internal connexion—the flavour and the 
colour of a fruit. So long as we only occupy ourselves with this 
connexion we are dealing with physics. But suppose that a and 
b are the sensations produced in the organism by these two ex- 
ternal conditions. So long as we study the action of A upon the 
optic centres, and of B upon the organs of taste, we are dealing Mr. Herbert Spencer. 
151 
with physiology. We pass into the domain of psychology from 
the moment at which we examine how there can exist in the 
organism a relation between a and b which corresponds in one 
way or another to the relation between A and B. Psychology 
occupies itself solely with the connexion between a b and A B, 
in its nature, its origin, and its signification. 
Thus phenomena constitute the object of psychology, and 
especially the relations between phenomena. As for ‘ the sub- 
stance of the mind,’ considered independently of its modes, we 
can know nothing about it, for such knowledge is altogether out 
of the reach of human intelligence. But although the sensations 
and emotions, real or ideal, which form consciousness, seem to 
be simple, homogeneous, not to be analysed, they are not so. 
In endeavouring to analyse them we can attempt a genesis of 
mind, considered under its phenomenal form. This is one of the 
most curious and original portions of the work of Mr. Herbert 
Spencer. 
The elements of which mind is composed are of two sorts— 
feelings, and the relations between feelings. Each of these feel- 
ings, which seems simple to consciousness, decomposes itself into 
elements still more simple, into simple nervous shocks, and it is 
from the integration of those nervous shocks that sensation, pro- 
perly so called, results. 
Let us take as an illustration the seemingly simple sensation 
which we call musical sound. We know that if the vibrations do 
not exceed sixteen in a second, each may be considered as a 
distinct noise; but if they become more rapid, the noises, 
instead of being each known as a distinct state of consciousness, 
melt into an unique and continuous state of consciousness, which 
is the musical sound. If the rapidity of the vibrations increases, 
the quality of the sound varies, it becomes sharper; and if the 
rapidity continues to increase, it attains such a degree of acute- 
ness that soon it is no longer appreciable as a sound. This is not 
all; the researches of Helmholtz have shown that the difference 
of tone between instruments (violin, horn, clarionet, flute) is due 
to the addition of various harmonies to the fundamental sound. 
These differences of sensation, known as difference of tone, are 152 
English Psychology. 
then due to the simultaneous integration of other series, having 
other degrees of integration with the primitive series. 
This analysis may make us understand how illusory is the 
apparent simplicity of the phenomenon called sensation, be- 
cause the same applies to savours, colours, scents, and all the 
sensations in general. Sensation is, then, a composite pheno- 
menon. But what is its primordial element1? Can it be dis- 
covered ? 
Mr. Herbert Spencer believes that it can. ‘ The last unit of 
consciousness is what we may call a nervous shock.’ If we 
examine our various feelings we shall see that notwithstanding 
their specific differences, there is something in common in 
them, and that the nervous shock is at the bottom of them all. 
The effect produced upon us by a sudden cracking noise which 
has no appreciable duration is a nervous shock. An electric 
discharge which traverses the body, a flash of lightning which 
strikes the eyes, are also to be assimilated to a nervous shock. 
The state of consciousness thus produced is comparable in 
quality to the state of consciousness caused by a blow (abs- 
tracting from it the pain which ensues), so that this may be taken 
for the primitive and typical form of the nervous shock. It is 
then possible and even probable that something of the same 
order as that which we call a nervous shock is the final unit of 
consciousness, and that all the differences between our feelings re- 
sult from different modes of integration of this final unit. We must 
remark that there is a perfect agreement between this opinion and 
the well-known character of nervous action. Experience shows that 
the nervous current is intermittent, that it consists of waves. The 
external stimulus does not act continually on the sensitive 
centre, but it sends towards it a series of pulses of molecular 
motion. Consequently, in concluding that its subjective effect, 
that is to say the feeling; is composed of a succession of mental 
shocks, we simply conclude that there is a resemblance between 
the effect and its objective cause.1 
This being established, it is easy to understand that the evolu- 
tion of the mind consists in a progressive integration. We 
1 Principles of Psychology, 2d edit. p. 60. Mr. Herbert Spencer. 
153 
cannot follow the author through this very long and delicate 
analysis, in which he traces the genesis. We must limit our- 
selves to a few words. 
The result of the first integration, as we have seen, is to 
unite together a certain number of nervous shocks, and make a 
sensation of them. Each integration of this kind supplies what 
we call a simple sensation. But these sensations themselves 
may be mingled together, and produce by their integration a 
composite sensation. Now, similar sensations become integrate 
among themselves. Again, a sensation unites itself so as to form 
an aggregate with other sensations which limit it in time or 
space. Finally, the integrate clusters which result therefrom enter 
into the higher integrations of one kind and the other. Let us 
remark in support of the preceding, that in the domain of mind 
we hardly comprise these series of states of consciousness whose 
integration is imperfect, and that, on the contrary, the series 
whose integration is pushed the furthest possible are those which 
we consider as belonging especially to mind. For instance, 
hunger, thirst, sickness, all the visceral sensations in general, 
and even feelings like love and anger, which have but little 
cohesion between them, which form badly integrated clusters, 
are regarded as occupying only a subordinate place in what we 
call mental life. Mental acts, on the contrary, are those which 
belong to the order of tactile, auditive, visual sensations, which 
have much cohesion, and are remarkably integrate. Our intel- 
lectual operations are almost always restricted to the sensations 
of hearing (integrate in words) and to visual sensations (inte- 
grate in impressions, objects, and their relations). 
The nature of mind being thus conceived, it will be elucidated 
by comparing it with the nature of matter, and this fact, that 
there exists a parallelism that which chemists have 
established relatively to matter and that which we suppose 
here relatively to mind, will aid us to justify our conception. 
It is established that a great number of substances which 
seem homogeneous and simple, are in reality heterogeneous and 
composite, and it is shown by analysis that many which seem 
entirely without relation to each other are in truth analogous. 
There is a large class of salts formed by sulphuric acid, another 154 
English Psychology. 
large class formed by nitric acid, and another large class formed 
by acetic acid, and so on in succession. These classes of acids 
are different in many respects, but it has been discovered that 
the former have a characteristic common to them with many 
others, the possession of oxygen as an active element. Further, 
there is reason to suspect that the substantives called simple are 
themselves composite, and that there is finally only one ultimate 
form of matter, of which all the other forms are only composi- 
tions more and more complex. 
So it is with regard to mind. We can conceive that these 
innumerable forms of spiritual life, which are given to us at dif- 
ferent states of consciousness may be finally composed of simple 
units of feeling, and even of units which are at bottom of the 
same kind. But these homogeneous units produced by inte- 
grations of a different sort produce feelings relatively simple, 
then feelings more and more complex and different, and thus 
continually. 
It must not, however, be supposed that all that has just been 
said about mind is in disagreement with the preceding assertion 
of the author. We know nothing about mind. When those 
two modes of existence which we call subject and object have 
been reduced, each to its ultimate expression, it only remains for 
us to endeavour to assimilate those two ultimate expressions to 
each other. But the distinction of subject and object in itself 
implies the impossibility of any assimilation, ‘ for this distinction 
is the consciousness of a difference which surpasses all other 
differences.’ On this important point we shall let the author 
himself speak :— 
‘ Here, indeed, we arrive at the barrier which needs to be per- 
petually pointed out, alike to those who seek materialistic ex- 
planations of mental phenomena and to those who are alarmed 
lest such explanations may be found. The last class prove 
by their fear almost as much as the first prove by their hope, 
that they believe Mind may possibly be interpreted in terms of 
Matter; whereas many whom they vituperate as materialists are 
profoundly convinced that there is not the remotest possibility of 
so interpreting them. For those, who, not deterred by foregone 
conclusions, have pushed their analysis to the uttermost, see very Mr. Herbert Spencer. 
155 
clearly that the conception that we form to ourselves of matter is 
but the symbol of some form of power absolutely and for ever 
unknown to us, and a symbol which we cannot suppose to be 
like the reality without involving ourselves in contradictions 
{First Principles, p. x 6, etc.) They also see that the representation 
of all objective activities in terms of motion is but a representa- 
tion of them and not a knowledge of them, and that we are 
immediately brought to alternative absurdities if we assume the 
power manifested to us as motion to be in itself that which we 
conceive as motion.’1 
When, to these conclusions, that matter and motion, such as 
we think them, are only the symbols of unknowable forms of 
existence, we join the recently drawn conclusion that mind is 
also unknowable, and that the most simple form under which we 
can think substance is only a symbol of something which can 
never come under thought, then we see that the whole question 
reduces itself to knowing whether these symbols may be expressed 
in terms as symbols of so-and-so, a question which is hardly worth 
decision, since either reply leaves us as entirely ignorant of the 
reality as we were before. 
Nevertheless it may be well to say, once for all, that if we were 
constrained to choose between the alternative of translating 
mental into physical phenomena, or physical into mental, the 
latter would seem the more acceptable of the two. Mind, such 
as it is known to be by him who possesses it, is a circumscribed 
aggregate of activities, and the cohesion of these activities one 
with the other postulate a something of which they are the 
activities. But the same experiences which make him know this 
coherent aggregate of mental activities make him simultaneously 
know activities which are not included in the aggregate—ac- 
tivities placed outside, which are only known by their effects on 
this aggregate, but which, as experience proves, have no cohesion 
with the aggregate, though they have cohesion between them- 
selves {First Principles, pp. 43, 44). As, by their definition, these 
external activities cannot be comprised in the aggregate of ac- 
tivities designated under the name mind, they must always remain 
1 Spencer’s Principles of Psychology, 2d edition, p. 158. 156 
English Psychology. 
for him the unknown connotations of their effects on that aggre- 
gate, and they cannot be thought except in terms furnished by 
that aggregate. Consequently, if he considers his conceptions 
on these activities placed outside of mind as constituting know- 
ledge of them, he deceives himself; he does no more than repre- 
sent these activities to himself in expressions of the mind, and he 
cannot do otherwise. He is obliged to admit that his ideas of 
matter and motion, pure symbols of unknowable realities, are 
complex states of consciousness produced by units of sensation. 
But if, after having admitted this, he persists in asking if units of 
consciousness are of the same nature as units of force distinguished 
as external; or if the units of force distinguished as external are 
of the same nature as the units of sensation, then the answer, 
always fundamentally the same, must be, that it will advance us 
no further to conceive of the units of external force as identical 
with the units of sensation, than to conceive of the units of sen- 
sation as identical with the units of external force. It is clear 
that if the units of external force are regarded as absolutely un- 
known and unknowable, then, to translate the units of sensation 
into them is to translate the known into the unknown, which is 
absurd. And if they are only what they are supposed to be by 
those who identify them with thetr symbols, then the difficulty of 
translating units of sensation into units of force is insurmountable. 
If force, such as it exists objectively is absolutely foreign in its 
nature to that which exists subjectively as sensation, then the 
transformation of force into sensation is unthinkable; that is to 
say, it is impossible to interpret intimate existence by terms of 
external existence. But if, on the other hand, units of force 
such as they exist objectively are essentially the same in nature 
as those which manifest themselves objectively as units of sensa- 
tion, then a becoming hypothesis remains open. Each element 
of that aggregate of activities which constitutes a consciousness 
is known as belonging to the consciousness only by its cohesion 
with the rest. Beyond the limits of that coherent aggregate of 
activities, there are other activities completely independent of it, 
and which cannot enter into it. We can imagine then that by 
their exclusion from the circle of those activities which constitute 
consciousness, the external activities, although of the same Mr. Herbert Spencer. 
157 
intrinsic nature, assume an antithetical aspect. Being separated 
from consciousness, and cut off by its boundaries, they become 
foreign to it. Not being incorporated with the activities of con- 
sciousness, nor united with them, as they are among themselves, 
consciousness cannot, so to speak, traverse them, and thus they 
are figured as unconscious; they are represented as having the 
nature called material, in opposition to that which we call spiri- 
tual. Nevertheless, although this shews that it is possible to 
imagine that the units of external force are identical in nature 
with the units of force known as sensation, we do not, by repre- 
senting them thus, arrive at understanding external force any 
better, because, as it has already been seen, in supposing that all 
forms of mind be composed of homogeneous units of sensation 
differently aggregated, this resolution into units leaves us as in- 
capable as before of understanding how the substance of mind 
can consist of such units; and thus, when we could even really 
figure to ourselves all the units of external force as being essen- 
tially the same as the units of force known as sensation, so that 
they should constitute a universal sensibility, we should still be 
for ever as far off from forming an idea of this universal sen- 
soriurn. 
Consequently, though it seems more easy to translate that 
which we call matter into that which we call mind, than to trans- 
late that which we call mind into that which we call matter (an 
operation which is, in fact, completely impossible) nevertheless 
our translation cannot lead us further than our symbols. Those 
vast conceptions which we see from afar are illusions evoked by 
the false connotation of our words. The expression * substance 
of mind,3' regarded as anything by the x of our equation, leads 
us inevitably into error, for we cannot think a substance except 
in terms which imply material properties. All our progress con- 
sists in acknowledging that our symbols are only symbols, 
and that our constitution necessitates the unknowable such as it 
manifests itself within the limits of consciousness and under the 
form of sensation, no less impenetrable than the unknowable 
such as it manifests itself outside these limits and under other 
forms. We do not arrive at understanding it better by translat- 
ing the second into the first. The conditional form in which 158 
English Psychology. 
being is presented in the subject, cannot, any more than the 
conditional form in which being is presented in the object, be the 
unconditional being common to the two. 
II. 
Two fundamental ideas rule the psychology of Mr. Herbert 
Spencer : that of the continuity of psychological phenomena ; 
that of the intimate relation between the being and its medium. 
These two points virtually contain his doctrine. We have seen 
that the idea of progress, evolution, development tends to pre- 
vail in modern sciences. In nature, as in history, nothing is 
isolated ; everything is linked to something else, and forms a 
series; each phenomenon proceeds from those which precede, 
and contains the germ of those which are about to follow it. But 
the human mind is so constructed, that it cannot lay hold of 
objects except when they offer themselves to it under defined, dis- 
continued forms, when they present sufficiently marked charac- 
teristics. Every science must settle the boundaries of its object; 
it is only possible on this condition ; but that settlement is fre- 
quently arbitrary, and phenomena do not allow themselves to be 
imprisoned within our conventional divisions. Thus mental life 
comes out of physiological life, in virtue of this law of continuous 
progress slowly step by step, by infinitesimal transformations, and 
without our being able to say,—There is its place of birth. 
‘ Though we commonly regard mental and bodily life as distinct, 
it needs only to ascend somewhat above the ordinary point of 
view, to see that they are but sub-divisions of life in general; and 
that no line of demarcation can be drawn between them otherwise 
than arbitrarily. Doubtless, to those who persist, after the popular 
fashion, in contemplating only the extreme forms of the two, this 
assertion will appear incredible. ... It is not more certain that, 
from the simple reflection by which the infant sucks, up to the 
elaborate reasonings of the adult man, the progress is by daily 
infinitesimal steps, than it is certain that between the automatic 
actions of the lowest creatures, and the highest conscious actions 
of the human race, a series of actions displayed by the various 
tribes of the animal kingdom may be so placed as to render it Mr. Herbert Spencer. 
159 
impossible to say of any one step in the series,—Here intelligence 
begins.’1 
If, from the savant who pursues his researches with the full 
consciousness of the processes of reasoning and induction which 
he employs, we descend to the man of ordinary education, who 
reasons well and intelligently, but without knowing how ; if from 
him we descend to the villager, whose highest generalizations do 
not go beyond local facts ; if from thence we go to the inferior 
human races, whom we cannot regard as thinking creatures, whose 
numerical conceptions hardly go beyond those of the dog ; if we 
put aside the most elevated in the race of quadrumanes whose 
actions are as reasonable as those of a little schoolboy, if from 
them we reach the domestic animals, and thence pass on from 
the more to the less sagacious quadrupeds ; that is to say, those 
which cannot modify their actions according to circumstances, 
but are guided by an immutable instinct; then, if we remark 
that instinct, which at first consisted of a complicated combi- 
nation of motions produced by a complicated combination of 
stimulus, takes lower forms in which stimulus and motions be- 
come less and less complex; if from thence we come to reflex 
action, and ‘ if we descend from the animals in whom this action 
implies the irritation of a nerve and the contraction of a muscle, 
to the animals unprovided with a nervous and muscular system, 
and that we discover that in them too, it is the same tissue which 
manifests irritation and contractibility, which tissue likewise fulfils 
the functions of assimilation, secretion, respiration, and reproduc- 
tion ; and if, finally, we remark that each of the phases of intelli- 
gences enumerated here is founded upon the neighbouring one 
by modifications too numerous to be specifically distinguished, 
and too imperceptible to be described, we shall have to some 
extent shown the reality of this fact, that no precise separation 
can be effected between the phenomena of intelligence and those 
of life in general.’2 
The other basis of the doctrine is the necessary correlation 
of being and its medium, which the author expresses by saying 
that life is a correspondence,—‘ a continuous adjustment of internal 
1 Spencer, Principles of Psychology, p. 349. 2 General Synthesis, chap. ii. 160 
English Psychology. 
to external relations.’ The living being, whatever he may be, 
tree, infusoria, or man, cannot subsist if there be not harmony 
between his organism and his medium ; and, if to physical life be 
added psychical life, the adjustment becomes more complex. In 
order that the game may escape the falcon, there must be inside 
of it certain modifications which correspond to the modifications 
outside of it, there must be correspondence between its flight and 
the pursuit of its enemy. And so, when Newton conceives the 
system of the world, it is necessary that the nature and the 
sequence of his ideas should correspond with the nature and the 
concatenation of the real phenomena; that which is within him 
must be adjusted to that which is without him. Life is then 
truly a correspondence, under both the highest and the lowest 
forms. Thus the degree of life varies, like the degree of corre- 
spondence. Life is rich or poor according as it reflects the uni- 
verse, or the simple mechanical modifications of some neighbour- 
ing molecule. From the entozoa, confined in a tissue, to the 
thought of Shakespeare or of Newton, which reproduces the con- 
crete or abstract reality of the world, there is room for every 
possible degree of correspondence; but parallelism always exists 
between the being and its medium. The author retraces for us the 
various stages of this progress, which is nothing else than the history 
of the passage from physical to psychical life. We see the latter, 
feeble at the commencement, becoming firm and strong by degrees. 
Let us follow him step by step in this synthetical exposition. 
At the lowest step, the correspondence between the living 
being and its medium is direct and homogeneous. As the highest 
life is to be found in the most complicated medium, so the lowest 
is only to be found in the simplest. Such are the germ of yeast, 
the mushroom called protococcus novilis, the parasite cellule which 
causes smallpox, the gregarina, a monocellular animal which lives 
in the intestines of certain insects, is moistened by the nutritive 
fluid which it assimilates, which is kept at an almost constantly 
equal temperature, and can only continue to exist as long as its 
special medium exists. Here there are few changes, and they 
relate only to a homogeneous medium. 
Above this is direct but heterogeneous correspondence, of which 
the zoophyte offers us an example, when its tentacles are extended Mr. Herbert Spencer. 
161 
and touched. To a relation of co-existence between the pro- 
perties, tangible and otherwise, presented by the surrounding 
medium, there corresponds in the organism a relation of sequence 
between certain tactile impressions, and certain contractions. 
But correspondence between distant internal and external rela- 
tions is absent in all these forms of life. 
Let us now see how correspondence extends itself in space. 
The special senses are constituted and gradually developed by a 
continuous progress. Take, for example, sight. In the zoophyte, 
where the entire tissue has the property of responding to the 
marked changes in the quantity of light which falls upon it, there 
is, as it were, a stretch of the visual faculty and of the corre- 
spondences which result from it. 
‘ The rudimentary eye, consisting, as in the Planaria, of a few 
pigment grains beneath the integument, may be considered as 
simply a part of the surface more irritable by light than the rest. 
We may form some idea of the impression it is probably fitted to 
receive, by turning our closed eyes towards the light, and passing 
the hand backwards and forwards before them.’ 1 
Nevertheless, even this little specialization of function implies 
a progress in correspondence. If, from the polyp, which stirs 
only when it is touched, we go on and up to the articulated mol- 
lusca, to the vertebrates which inhabit the water, and thence to 
the more elevated animals which dwell in a more rarefied medium, 
we shall find, under varied forms and modifications, a more com- 
plex visual apparatus, and an increasing distance in the extension 
of the correspondence. We cannot in this place follow the 
details of this progress which leads to such astonishing results in 
the case of civilized man. 
‘ A ship guided by compass and stars and chronometer brings 
him from the other side of the Atlantic information by which his 
purchases here are adapted to the prices there. An examination 
of the surface-strata, from which he infers the presence of coal 
below, enables him to bring his actions into correspondence with 
the co-existences a thousand feet underneath. Nor is the range 
of environment through which his correspondences reach con- 
1 Spencer’s Principles of Psychology, p. 406. 162 
English Psychology. 
fined to the surface and the substance of the earth. It stretches 
into the surrounding sphere of infinity. It was extended to the 
moon when the Chaldeans discovered how to predict eclipses ; to 
the sun and nearer planets when the Copernican system was 
established ; to the remoter planets when an improved telescope 
disclosed one and calculation fixed the position of the other; to 
the stars when their parallax and proper motion were measured ; 
and, in a vague way, even to the nebulae when their composition 
and forms of structure were ascertained.’1 
To correspondence in space, correspondence in time adds itself. 
The living being at first seizes upon the simplest and shortest 
mechanical sequences, then by successive conquests, he adjusts 
himself to longer and longer periods ; he takes possession of the 
future; he foresees future events, like the dog who hides a bone 
for the time when he shall be hungry. 
‘ This higher order of correspondence in time, which, for the 
reasons assigned, is impossible to creatures of inferior type, which 
is but vaguely discernible in the higher animals, and which is 
definitely exhibited only when we arrive at the human race, 
has made marked progress in the course of civilisation. Among 
the lowest tribes of men, who are without habitations, and who 
wander from place to place as the varying supplies of wild 
animals, roots, and insects dictate, a year is the longest period to 
which their conduct is adapted. Hardly yet worthy to be defined 
as creatures “ looking before and after,” they show by their utter 
improvidence and their apparent incapacity to realize future con- 
sequences, that it is only to the conspicuous and often-recurring 
phenomena of the seasons that their actions respond. But in the 
succeeding stages of progress, we see, in the building of huts, the 
breeding and accumulation of cattle, and the storing of com- 
modities, that longer sequences are recognised and measures 
taken to meet them. And gradually, as we advance to higher 
social states, men show, by planting trees that will not bear fruit 
for a generation, by the elaborate education they give their chil- 
dren, by building houses that will last for centuries, by insuring 
their lives, by all those struggles for future wealth or fame, which 
1 Spencer’s Principles of Psychology, p. 409. Mr. Herbert Spencer. 
163 
now mainly occupy the educated classes, that in them internal 
antecedents and consequences are habitually adjusted to external 
ones that are extremely long in their intervals. More especially, 
however, is this extension of the correspondence in time dis- 
played in the progress of science. Beginning with a recognition 
of the sequences of day and night, men next advanced to those 
monthly ones exhibited by the moon, next to the sun’s annual 
cycle; next to the cycle of the moon’s eclipses, afterwards to the 
periods of the superior planets; while modern astronomy deter- 
mines the vast interval after which the earth’s axis will again 
point to the same place in the heavens, and the scarcely conceiv- 
able epoch in which planetary perturbations repeat themselves.’1 
Fresh progress consists in the growth in speciality of the corre- 
spondence. The organism is in a condition to foresee smaller 
and smaller differences. In the evolution of the visual faculty, 
for instance, a growing aptitude to distinguish the various inten- 
sities of colours, intermediate shades, and tints of light and shade 
is produced. This progress of correspondence in specialty leads 
in the course of human development to the passage from ordinary 
knowledge to science, from the quantitative provision which is 
vague to the quantitative provision which is precise. 
The living being can now seize no longer differences only, 
but resemblances, forming within him groups of interior relations 
which respond to the groups of external relations and attributes; 
correspondence grows in generality and in complexity. The im- 
pression which the organism receives from each object becomes 
more and more heterogeneous. The eye not only seizes colour, 
size, and form, but distance in space, motion, species, direction, 
rapidity. 
‘ It suffices to cite an extreme case, such as that afforded by 
the mineralogist, who, in identifying a mass of matter as of a kind 
fitted for a certain use, examines its crystalline form, its colour, 
texture, hardness, cleavage, fracture, degree of transparency, 
lustre, specific gravity, taste, smell, fusibility, magnetic and elec- 
tric properties, etc., and is decided in his conduct by all these 
taken together.’2 
1 Spencer’s Psychology, p. 419* 
2 Ibid. p. 447. 164 
English Psychology. 
Correspondence between the being and its medium is thus 
fully constituted by successive conquests; it remains only to co- 
ordinate these different elements. The co-ordmation of corre- 
spondences goes through every possible degree, from that of the 
hunted animal which flies to its earth, to that of quantitative 
science, which embraces the most precise relations and the most 
complex data. 
From the co-ordination of correspondences springs their inte- 
gration; that is to say, the simplest correspondences melt into 
one another and become intimately united, so that they become 
separable only by analysis. Thus, in the case of an adult, a 
glance cast upon a visible object awakens simultaneously the idea 
of tangible extent, of resistance, of texture, of weight; all these 
various elements are associated, integrated, by repetition. It is 
thus we learn to understand a foreign language, thus the child, 
at first hesitating over the letters and the syllables, comes to 
interpret the words and the phrases fluently. 
We are, then, led to this necessary conclusion that intelligence 
has not distinct degrees, that it is not formed of really indepen- 
dent faculties; but that the most elevated phenomena are the 
effects of a complication which has come out of the simplest 
elements by insensible degrees. 
‘ Evidently, then, the classification current in our philosophies 
of the mind can be but superficially true. Instinct, reason, per- 
ception, conception, memory, imagination, feeling, will, etc. etc., 
can be nothing more than either conventional groupings of the 
correspondences, or subordinate divisions among the various 
operations which are instrumental in effecting the correspon- 
dences. However widely contrasted they may seem, these various 
forms of intelligence cannot be anything else than either particular 
modes in which the adjustment of inner to outer relations is 
achieved, or particular parts of the process of adjustment.’1 
hi. 
After having sketched in outline the genesis of psychical life, 
after having seen it proceed, little by little, from organic and 
1 Spencer's Psychology, p. 486. Mr. Herbert Spencer. 
165 
animal life, and constitute an order of facts sufficiently vast to 
become the object of a special study, we must now consider this 
study itself, and see how the most complex psychological pro- 
blems come out of the most simple, in virtue of a natural pro- 
cessus. This is the object of special synthesis. 
At the point which we have now reached, we may endeavour 
to define the characteristics which distinguish physical from 
mental life. Let us be on our guard against any misapprehen- 
sion. This distinction is only approximately possible, and only 
a wholesale truth; there is nothing set or absolute about it; the 
law of continuity does not admit of exceptions. 
‘ The two great classes of vital phenomena which physiology 
and psychology respectively embrace are broadly distinguished 
in this—that while the one class includes both simultaneous and 
successive changes, the other includes successive 'changes only. 
While the phenomena forming the subject-matter of physiology 
exhibit themselves in an immense number of different series 
bound up together, those forming the subject-matter of psycho- 
logy exhibit themselves as but a single series. The briefest 
consideration of the many continuous actions constituting the 
life of the body at large suffices to show that they are syn- 
chronous—that digestion, circulation, respiration, excretion, 
secretion, etc., in all their many subdivisions, are going on at one 
time in mutual dependence. And the briefest introspection 
serves to make it clear that the actions constituting thought 
occur, not together, but one after another. Should a rigorous 
criticism demand qualifications of this statement, they cannot be 
such as to diminish its general truth. Life being the definite 
combination of heterogeneous changes, both simultaneous and 
successive, in correspondence with external co-existences and 
sequences, the two great divisions of life must ever be distin- 
guished as, the one a correspondence that is both simultaneous 
and successive, and the other a correspondence that is successive 
only. 
‘ At first sight this may be supposed to constitute an impassable 
distinction between the two. Such, however, is by no means the 
fact. Even were the highest psychical life thus absolutely distin- 
guished from physical life, which we shall presently see reason to 166 
English Psychology. 
doubt, it would still be true that psychical life, in its earlier and 
lower phases, is not thus distinguished; but that the distinction 
arises only in the course of that progression by which life in 
general attains to its more perfect forms.’1 
Thus, then, the two great divisions of life consist—one of a 
correspondence both simultaneous and successive, the other of 
successive correspondence only. And this is a necessity. For 
the most essential characteristic of psychological phenomena is 
that of being conscious, and as a state of consciousness neces- 
sarily excludes every other, these states must produce themselves 
under the form of a simple series. This tendency of the psychi- 
cal phenomena to form themselves into a successive chain is, 
however, true only in theory, and never reaches a complete 
realization. ‘ The vital actions which are the object of psycho- 
logy, though they are distinguished from all the others by their 
tendency to take the form of a simple series, never attain this 
form in an absolute manner.’ At the beginning, the different 
manifestations of mental activity are rather simultaneous than 
successive, consequently more physical than psychological. Here 
are the proofs of this : Among the radiates of the highest order 
each of the similar parts which form the body is bound to a 
ganglionic centre, which seems to serve only for the functions of 
that part which belongs to it, consequently the psychical changes 
which are produced in the animal localize themselves simul- 
taneously in the different portions of its body. Among mollusca, 
the actions of the various ganglions are very imperfectly co-ordi- 
nated. Finally, the articulates have a structure which fits them 
to demonstrate this dispersion of psychical life. If the head of 
a centipede be cut off while it is in motion, the body will con- 
tinue to advance by the movement of the feet alone, and the 
same thing will take place in the separated portions, if the body 
be divided into several distinct sections. Analogous experi- 
ments made on the Mantis religiosa have often been quoted 
(See Duges, Physiol. Comp. vol. i. p. 337). 
Little by little the simultaneous form decreases before the suc- 
cessive, thus bringing about new progress in the psychical life. 
1 Spencer’s Psychology, p. 491. Mr. Herbert Spencer. 
167 
Besides, in order that correspondence between the being and its 
medium should be possible, it is necessary that in proportion as 
the organism is exposed to more numerous impressions, these 
impressions should become co-ordinate, should be centralized, and 
constantly tend to unity. The serial form is thus the special 
characteristic of intelligence. ‘A continuous series of changes 
being thus the subject of psychology, its work is to determine 
the law of their succession. That these changes are not pro- 
duced by chance is manifest. That they follow one another in 
a special manner, the very existence of intelligence testifies. 
The problem consists, then, in determining their order/ that is 
to say, in determining the law of intelligence. 
Intelligence, like life, consists in a correspondence. There 
must be a parallelism between the thinking being and the co- 
existences or external sequences which his thought reflects. 
But these co-existences and sequences have all kinds of relations 
between them. There are some which are assisted by fixed 
immutable relations, known without exception; there are some 
so slightly linked that they have been perhaps only once given 
by experience as associated. Between these two kinds of rela- 
tions, the one intimate, the other fortuitous, there are all possible 
degrees of cohesion. In order that the correspondence may be 
realized, the intelligence must also reproduce all these degrees. 
To fortuitous sequences and co-existences, or those which are 
simply possible, a very weak attraction between the internal 
conditions which represent them will answer, and so on. In a 
word, the law of intelligence may be formulated as follows :—- 
‘ The law of intelligence, therefore, is that the strength of the 
tendency which the antecedent of any psychical change has to 
be followed by its consequent, is proportionate to the persis- 
tency of the union between the external things they symbolize. 
‘To say, however, that this is the law of intelligence, is by no 
means to say that it is conformed to by any intelligence with 
which we are acquainted. It is the law of intelligence in the 
abstract; and is conformed to by existing intelligences in degrees 
more or less imperfect.’1 
1 Spencer’s Psychology, p. “Jio. 168 
English Psychology. 
Intelligence, considered at its foundation, reduces itself then to 
the association of its ideas, which is, so to speak, its fundamental 
property. On this point, Mr. Herbert Spencer agrees with Mr. 
John Stuart Mill and Mr. Alexander Bain. 
After having defined the law of intelligence, let us now examine 
the successive phases of its development. In its lowest degree 
it is reflex action, it then becomes mstinct; from which proceed, 
on one side, the cognitive manifestations, memory and reason, 
and on the other the affective powers, sentiment and will. 
Reflex action is hardly a mode of psychical life. It has how- 
ever its importance, from the point of view which occupies us, 
in that it forms the transition from purely physical life to instinct. 
In employing the word instinct, not as it is commonly used, to 
designate all kinds of intelligence other than that of man, but in 
restricting it to its proper signification, instinct may be defined as 
a composite reflex action. Strictly speaking, we cannot draw any 
line of demarcation between it and the simple reflex action, from 
which it issues by successive complications. While, in simple 
reflex action a single impression is followed by a single con- 
traction ; while, in all the more developed forms of reflex action, 
one single impression is followed by a combination of contrac- 
tions ; in that which we distinguish by the name of instinct, a 
combination of impressions produces a combination of contrac- 
tions ; and in the highest form, in the most complex instinct, 
there are co-ordinations which tend at once to direct and to 
execute. The transformation of simple reflex action into com- 
posite reflex action, that is to say, into instinct, is explained by 
the accumulation of experiences, and hereditary transmission.l 
But instinct, in proportion as it grows in complexity, approaches 
its end; for, as the instincts become more elevated, the various 
psychical changes which compose them become less coherent, co- 
ordinate themselves less and less perfectly, and the time comes 
when their co-ordination will no longer be regular. Then these 
actions begin to lose the automatic character which distinguishes 
1 The author devotes a long and interesting chapter, which, however, is not 
susceptible of analysis, to Instinct. We therefore refer the reader to it. 
Part iv. eh. 5. Mr. Herbert Spencer. 
169 
them, and that which we call instinct will gradually become lost 
in something higher. 
Thence results memory. These two modes of intelligence 
are transformed one into the other. As instinct may be con- 
sidered a kind of organized memory, so memory may be re- 
garded as a dawning instinct. Let us see how memory becomes 
instinct. To remember the colour red is to be to a slight degree 
in the psychical state which is produced by the presentation of the 
colour red. To remember a movement made with the arm is to 
feel, in a slight degree, the repetition of those internal conditions 
which accompany the movement; it is a commencement of the 
excitement of all the nerves whose stronger excitement has been 
experienced during the movement. Recollection is then a com- 
mencement of nervous excitement. It consists in feeling, to a 
slight degree, a movement, a sensation, an impression. But 
when instinct becomes too complex to produce itself with the 
automatic certainty proper to it, there results a conflict between 
all the movements. Those which do not succeed in realizing 
themselves remain in the condition of simple tendencies, that is 
to say, of movements simply conceived; those internal impres- 
sions arouse others; and thus that succession of regular, or 
irregular, ideas which we call memory is formed. 
Let us now see how memory becomes instinct again, that is to 
say, how it returns to its point of departure. Examples of this 
are easily found. The pianist who plays instinctively, and with 
automatic precision, certain pieces of music which he has learned, 
is a ready case in point. 
It is clearly implied by all the preceding that the line of de- 
marcation generally traced out between instinct and reason does 
not exist. Each is an adjustment of internal to external relations, 
with this single difference, that in the case of instinct the corre- 
spondence is very simple and very general, while, without reason, 
the correspondence is between internal and external relations 
which are complex, or abstract, or rare. The experimental hypo- 
thesis also suffices to explain the progress from the lowest to the 
highest forms of reason. From that reasoning, from the par- 
ticular to the particular, which is the reasoning of children, of 
domestic animals, and, in general, of the superior mammifers, 170 
English Psychology. 
to inductive or deductive reasoning, progress is determined by 
the accumulation of experiences. And the case is the same as 
regards the progress of all human knowledge, even to its widest 
generalizations. 
Every one is acquainted with the famous disputes which have 
arisen concerning the nature of reason, and how idealism and 
empiricism have fought over the question from the days of an- 
tiquity to our own. Mr. Herbert Spencer is neither for Locke, 
nor for the contrary doctrine of ‘forms of thought.’ 
‘ To rest with the unqualified assertion, that, antecedent to 
experience, the mind is a blank, is to ignore the all-essential 
questions—whence comes the power of organizing experiences ? 
whence arise the different degrees of that power possessed by 
different races of organisms and different individuals of the same 
race ? If, at birth, there exists nothing but a passive receptivity 
of impressions, why should not a horse be as educable as a man 1 
or, should it be said that language makes the difference, then 
why should not the cat and dog, out of the same household ex- 
periences, arrive at equal degrees and kinds of intelligence? 
Understood in its current form, the experience-hypothesis implies 
that the presence of a definitely organized nervous system is a 
circumstance of no moment—a fact not needing to be taken into 
account. Yet it is the all-important fact—the fact to which, in 
one sense, the criticism of Leibnitz and others pointed—the fact 
without which an assimilation of experiences is utterly inex- 
plicable.’ 1 
On the other hand, if the doctrine of forms of thought is unac- 
ceptable in the transcendental sense of Leibnitz and of Kant, it 
contains a foundation of truth, and only needs to undergo a 
physiological transformation. That innateness on which so much 
stress has been laid is explained by inheritance. In the sense 
then that certain pre-established relations corresponding to re- 
lations in the surrounding medium exist in the nervous system, 
there is truth in the doctrine of forms of thought, not the truth 
maintained by its supporters, but a truth of a parallel order. 
These pre-established internal relations, although independent of 
1 Spencer’s Psychology, p. 580. Mr. Herbert Spencer. 
171 
the experience of the individual, are not independent of general 
experience; they have been established by the accumulated ex- 
perience of preceding organisms. They are legacies, both capital 
and interest. And thus the European arrives at having some 
cubic inches more brain than the Papuan ; that savages, incapable 
of counting beyond the number of their fingers, and speaking a 
formless language, have, in the course of ages, Newtons and Shake- 
speares for their descendants. 
The intimate relation between sentiment and reason has long 
been established; every emotion implying knowledge, and all 
knowledge some sort of emotion. The evolution of the senti- 
ments also consists in a development of correspondences, and 
their progress is made by additions and by increase of com- 
plexity. The lowest degree is desire, then some simple impul- 
sions corresponding to only slightly complex impressions; then 
the simple sentiments form groups; then the groups aggregate 
themselvps. Place a child in the midst of great mountains, he 
remains insensible to the sublime spectacle, but he will look at 
a toy with pleasure. If he is older he may experience an agree- 
able emotion while looking at a field, a street, his house, his 
garden. But in youth, and in mature age :— 
‘The various minor groups of states that have been in 
earlier days severally produced by trees, by fields, by streams, 
by cascades, by rocks, by precipices, by mountains, by clouds, 
are aroused together. Along with the sensations, immediately 
received, there are partially excited the myriads of sensations 
that have been in times past received from objects such as 
there presented; further, there are partially excited the various in- 
cidental feelings that were experienced on all these countless 
past occasions, and there are probably also excited certain 
deeper, but now vague combinations of states that were organ- 
ized in the race during barbarous times, when its pleasurable 
activities were chiefly among the woods and waters. And out of 
these excitations, some of them actual, but most of them nas- 
cent, is composed the emotion which a fine landscape produces 
in us.’1 
i Spencer’s Psychology, p. 599. 172 
English Psychology. 
Hence, we must conclude that the emotions will be strong in 
proportion as they shall include a greater number of actual or 
dawning sensations. And this it is which explains the irresistible 
character of love. 
‘ As supplying a marked illustration of this truth, I may cite 
the passion which unites the sexes. This is habitually, but very 
erroneously spoken of as though it were a simple feeling, whereas 
it is in fact the most compound, and therefore the most powerful, 
of all the feelings. Added to the purely physical element of it, 
are first to be noticed those highly complex impressions pro- 
duced by personal beauty; around which are aggregated a 
variety of pleasurable ideas, not in themselves amatory, but 
which have an organized relation to the amatory feeling. With 
this there is united the complex sentiment which we term affec- 
tion—a sentiment which, as it can exist between those of the 
same sex, must be regarded as in itself an independent senti- 
ment; but which assumes its highest activity betweep lovers. 
Then there is the sentiment of admiration, respect, or reverence, 
in itself one of considerable power, and which in this relation 
becomes in a high degree active. Next there must be added 
the feeling which phrenologists have named love of approbation. 
To be preferred above all the world, and that by one admired 
beyond all others, is to have the love of approbation gratified in 
a degree passing every previous experience; especially as to 
this direct gratification of it there must be added that reflex 
gratification of it which results from the preference being 
witnessed by unconcerned persons. Further there is the allied 
emotion of self-esteem. To have succeeded in gaining such 
attachment from, and sway over, another, is a practical proof of 
power, of superiority, which cannot fail agreeably to excite the 
amourpropre. Yet again the proprietary feeling has its share in 
the general activity, there is the pleasure of possession; the two 
belong to each other—claim each as a species of property. Once 
more, there is involved an extended liberty of action. Towards 
other persons a restrained behaviour is requisite : round each 
there is a certain subtle boundary which may not be crossed— 
an individuality on which none may trespass. But in this case 
the barriers are thrown down; the freedom of another’s in- Air. Herbert Spencer. 
173 
dividuality is conceded, and thus the love of unrestrained 
activity is gratified. Finally, there is an exaltation of the sym- 
pathies, purely personal pleasures are doubled by being shared 
with another, and the pleasures of another are added to the 
purely personal pleasures. Thus, round the physical feeling 
forming the nucleus of the whole, there are gathered the feelings 
produced by personal beauty, that constituting simple attach- 
ment, those of reverence, of love of approbation, of self-esteem, 
of property, of love of freedom, of sympathy. All these, each 
excited in the highest degree, and severally tending to reflect 
their excitement on each other, form the composite psychical 
state we call love. And as each of these feelings is in itself 
highly complicated, uniting a wide range of states of conscious- 
ness, we may say that this passion fuses into one immense 
aggregation nearly all the elementary excitations of which we 
are capable ; and that from this results its irresistible power.’1 
Those who have followed the synthesis so far will clearly per- 
ceive that the will cannot be anything but another aspect of the 
same general processus, from which sentiment and reason have 
come forth :— 
‘ When, as a result of the organization of accumulating expe- 
riences, the automatic actions become so involved, so varied 
in kind, and severally so infrequent, as no longer to be per- 
formed with unhesitating precision—when, after the reception of 
one of the more complex impressions, the appropriate motor 
changes become nascent, but all prevented from passing into 
immediate action by the antagonism of certain other nascent 
motor changes appropriate to some nearly allied impression, 
there is constituted a state of consciousness which, when it 
finally issues in action, exhibits what we term volition.’2 
The phenomena of affective life are then the source of volun- 
tary development, and the root of our volitions is in desire. At 
the point which we have reached, says the author, it is very 
easy to see that the work is in complete disagreement with 
current opinions upon free will. But, whence does the general 
illusion proceed 1 
1 Spencer’s Psychology, p. 601. 
1 Ibid. p. 613. 174 
English Psychology. 
‘ Considered as an internal perception, the illusion appears 
chiefly to consist in supposing that at each moment the ego is 
something more than the composite state of consciousness which 
then exists. A man wdio, after being subject to an impulse con- 
sisting of a group of psychical states positive and nascent, per- 
forms a certain action, usually asserts that he determined to 
perform the action, and performed it under the influence of this 
impulse : and by speaking of himself as being something separate 
from the group of psychical states constituting the impulse, he 
falls into the error of supposing that it was not the impulse 
alone which determined the action. But the entire group of 
the psychical states which constituted the antecedent of the 
action, also constituted himself at that moment—constituted his 
psychical self, that is, as distinguished from his physical self.’1 
In other words, we say that an action is free, because we con- 
sider it as our work, as proceeding from our ego. But the ego, 
anterior to the resolution, is not and cannot be anything but the 
sum of our actual psychical conditions, which are determined by 
experience :— 
‘ Thus it is natural enough that the subject of such psychical 
changes should say that he wills the action; seeing that, 
psychically considered, he is at that moment nothing more 
than the composite state of consciousness by which the action 
is excited. But to say that the performance of the action is, 
therefore, the result of his free-will, is to say that he deter- 
mines the cohesions of psychical states by which the action is 
aroused; and as these psychical states constitute himself at 
that moment, this is to say that these psychical states determine 
their own cohesions, which is absurd.’2 
This cohesion results from character and inheritance. 
IV. 
If we now pass from the synthetical to the analytical study of 
the phenomena of consciousness, we are led to the same results. 
The analysis verifies the synthesis, and the conclusion which it 
necessitates as certain, or at least suggests as very probable, is 
again that of the law of continuous progress, the doctrine of 
1 Spencer’s Psychology, p. 617. 
2 Ibid. p. 618. Mr. Herbert Spencer: 
175 
evolution. That it may only be an hypothesis the author grants. 
He claims only one concession in its favour, which is, that of all 
theories it is the most simple, the most natural, and that which 
is supported by the greatest number of positive facts. 
The fundamental idea which governs Mr. Herbert Spencer’s 
analytical psychology is that there exists between all the pheno- 
mena of intelligence an unity of composition. There is identity of 
nature between the process followed by the savant, in his most 
lengthened and complicated reasonings, and that by which a 
dawning consciousness essays thought. Both consist in seizing 
upon resemblances and differences, only that the savant perceives 
them by hundreds and thousands, where the child or the animal 
sees only a few. There is only a difference of degree. The 
entire task of analytical psychology is to prove this truth, or to 
speak more precisely, to discover it, for it is a voyage of dis- 
covery. 
Its ultimate result is, that intellectual life consists of two fun- 
damental processes, one which verifies, the other which differen- 
tiates ; one which seizes upon analogies, equalities, identities, 
the other which attaches itself to oppositions and contrasts; one 
which assimilates impressions, the other which disassimiiates 
them; one which consists in an integration, the other in a disin- 
tegration. 
Let us see how the author reaches this result—how he estab- 
lishes this unity in the composition of intellectual phenomena:— 
and how this double processus, by its incessant working, and its 
immeasurable complications, constitutes our mental life. 
We must, in the first place, keep in mind that we are about to 
follow a system totally opposed to that of synthesis :— 
‘ An analysis, conducted in a truly systematic manner, must 
commence with the most complex phenomena of the series to be 
analysed; must seek to resolve these into the phenomena that 
stand next in order of complexity; must proceed after like fashion 
with the less complex phenomena thus disclosed; and so, by 
successive decompositions, must descend step by step to the 
simpler and more general phenomena, reaching at last the 
simplest and most general.’1 
1 Spencer’s Psychology, p. 71. 176 
English Psychology. 
We are going to take this edifice of human intelligence to 
pieces, beginning from the top, pulling down each successive 
storey, until we reach the foundations, and the immutable earth 
which supports them. We are going from the adult tree to the 
germ whose fruit it is. In our retrogression we descend from 
our intellectual phenomenon to that which is its immediate con- 
dition and support. Let us sketch the various phases of this 
decomposition. 
The most complex intellectual action, says Mr. Herbert 
Spencer, is composite quantitative reasoning. It is so for several 
reasons ; first, because the knowledge in this case must be precise, 
it does not admit of the aimosf, or the nearly, and then because 
the relations are very numerous. Here is an example of this 
mode of reasoning. An engineer, after having built an iron 
tubular bridge, is commissioned to build another, of double 
strength. He knows that it will not suffice to double all the 
dimensions, but he arrives at this negative conclusion only by 
taking count of a great number of elements, and of defined re- 
lations, of several precise laws taught by physics and mechanics. 
In algebra and geometry, in all quantitative reasoning whatever, 
the intelligence passes through a series of identities. The rela- 
tions which it perceives, adds, transforms, compares, are homo- 
geneous. More than that, their resemblance is the highest 
possible ; it is that which is called equality or identity. 
.Composite quantitative reasoning resolves itself into simple 
quantitative reasoning: the object of the first being £ the quantita- 
tive relations of quantitative relationsthe second reducing 
itself to a direct and immediate intuition of relation of quantity. 
But, in simplifying itself, the process remains identical and al- 
ways consists in the perception of identities. 
‘ Ability to perceive quality implies a correlative ability to per- 
ceive inequality; neither can exist without the other. But though 
inseparable in origin, the cognitions of equality and inequality, 
whether between things or relations, altogether differ in this, 
*shat whilst the one is essentially definite the other is essentially 
indefinite. There is but one equality; but there may be num- 
berless degrees of inequality.’1 
1 Spencer’s Psychology, p. 93. Mr. Herbert Spencer. 
177 
From this results a new sort of reasoning, which operates upon 
inequalities; this is quantitative reasoning, simple and imperfect. 
That which gives to quantitative reasoning, under all its forms, a 
character of incontestable rigour is its applicability, not to rela- 
tions of every kind, but to a restricted number. Identity of 
nature in the objects compared, identity of co-existence in time, 
identity of co-extension in space,—these are the only notions per- 
fectly defined by us, and consequently the only notions which 
pennit exact conclusions. If we pass from the comparisons of 
sizes to that of intensities—‘ from co-extension to co-intensity,’— 
precision disappears. We operate no longer on quantities, but 
on qualities; the reasoning has become qualitative. Its object 
is to determine ‘ the co-existence or non-co-existence of things, 
attributes, or relations which are identical in nature with certain 
other things, attributes, or relations.’ 
We cannot however trace a strict line of demarcation between 
the reasoning which has quantity for its object, and that which 
applies itself to quality, any more than between the two kinds ot 
quantitative reasoning, the perfect and the imperfect. All the 
difference consists in our passing from equality to simple re- 
semblance. The compared relations are no longer considered 
as equal or unequal, but as like or unlike; and as resemblance is 
of all possible degrees, the probability of the conclusions varies in 
the same relation. It is to qualificative reasoning that induction, 
analogy, and the syllogism belong; on the subject of the latter 
it would be difficult to explain how so many logicians have main- 
tained that it represents the process of mind by which we habi- 
tually reason, but for the immense influence of authority on 
human opinions. The author shows clearly that it is only a 
process of verification. 
In short, we must add a third mode of reasoning to that which 
goes from the general to the particular, and that which goes from 
the particular to the general, a mode which Mr. Mill has called 
reasoning from the particular to the particular, proper to children 
and the higher animals. 
The whole study of reason may be defined as a classification 
of relations. But what does the word classification signify? It 
signifies the act of grouping together the similar relations, and 178 
English Psychology. 
the act of separating the similar from the dissimilar. To infer a 
relation is to think that it is similar or dissimilar in certain other 
relations. All reasoning, then, reduces itself to an assimilation 
or a disassimilation. 
From reasoning to classification there is only one step. The 
unity of composition of the two processes is manifest. If it be 
true to say that all reasoning is a classification, it is equally true 
that all classification supposes reasoning. A simple example is 
sufficient. The image of a yellow spherical fruit is produced 
upon my retina; I class it with others like it, which I have pre- 
viously seen, under the name of orange. But this classification 
implies something more than the actual sensation, it implies 
tangible attributes, an odour, a flavour, an interior structure, which 
are only inferred consequently to the visual sensation. And the 
proof of this is that the object may be a mere imitation, in which 
case touch, taste, and smell rectify my inference, and the object 
is no more classed among oranges. 
Transition from classification to perception is equally easy ; 
because there is identity of nature between these two processes, 
which, strictly speaking, are inseparable. Every classification 
supposes perception, and every perception is a classification. To 
perceive a special, defined, concrete object, is to range it in the 
same category with those which resemble it; and as this classifi- 
cation is effected spontaneously, and co-ordinates attributes by a 
natural process, perception may be called an organic classification. 
To say that a thing is, is to say what is like it,—to what class it 
belongs. Here is, then, a double process of assimilation and 
differentiation. 
The relation which establishes itself between the subject and 
the object in the act of perception is of a triple kind. It takes 
three distinct aspects, according to the activity which exists on 
the part of the object, on the part of the subject, or on the part of 
both :—i. If, while the subject is passive, the object produces 
an effect upon him (Ex.: radiation of heat, emission of odour, 
propagation of sound), there results in the subject a perception of 
what is commonly called a secondary property of the body; but 
which may be more correctly called a dynamic property. 2. If 
the subject acts directly upon the object, by seizing it, drawing, Mr. Herbert Spencer. 
179 
pushing, or subjecting it to some other mechanical process, and 
if the object reacts in an equal measure, the subject perceives 
those kinds of resistance which have been called second-primaries, 
but which I prefer to class under the name of statico-dynamics. 
3. If the subject only is active; if that which occupies conscious- 
ness is not an action or a reaction of the object, but something 
which has been known by means of these actions and reactions 
(such as face, form, position), then the property is of the kind 
generally called primary, but which we shall here call Statics} 
The author, in a long and minute analysis, through which we 
cannot follow him, descends from the dynamic and statico-dynamic 
attributes to the static attributes, which are the fundamental ele- 
ments of perception. He shows that the figure is resolvable in 
reference to size, size in reference to position, and that all the 
relations of positions may be finally reduced to positions of 
perceiving subject and perceived object. Briefly, the visual or 
tactile perception of each static attribute of the body is resolv- 
able into perceptions of relative positions which are acquired by 
movement. 
Let us now pass from the perception of real extended objects 
to the perception of space, which is their receptacle ; and of time, 
which is their condition. First of all, let us set aside the hypo- 
thesis of Kant, on the transcendental origin of these two notions. 
Placed on the ground of facts, the question reduces itself to this : 
How can the experience of an occupied extent, that is to say, of 
the body, give us the notion of unoccupied extent, that is to say, 
of space ? How do we come, from the perception of a relation 
between resistant positions, to the perception of a relation between 
non-resistant positions 1 It is by a complicated process, although 
repetition and habit have rendered it simple. We only know two 
relative positions A and J5, by the number of intermediate posi- 
tions, and this knowledge is due to our sensations. To perceive 
between these two points, no longer a concrete extent, but a void 
extent simply possible, a space, there must be produced in us, in 
a dawning condition, the idea of the different muscular, tactile, 
1 Special Analysis, chap. x. 180 
English Psychology. 
and visual sensations which have been previously given by experi- 
ence between A and B. 
‘ If the reader, whilst looking at his hand, or any equally close 
object, will consider what kind of knowledge he has of the space 
lying between it and his eyes, he will perceive that his knowledge of 
it is, as it were, exhaustive. He is conscious of the minutest differ- 
ences of position in it. He has an extremely complete or detailed 
perception of it. If now he will direct his eyes to the farther side 
of the room, and contemplate an equal portion of that more remote 
space, he will find that he has but a comparatively vague cogni- 
tion of it He has nothing like so intimate an acquaintance with 
its constituent parts. If, again, he will look through the window, 
and observe what consciousness he has of a space that is a hun- 
dred yards away, he will discover it to be a still less specific con- 
sciousness. And, on gazing at the distant horizon, he will perceive 
that he has scarcely any perception of that far-off space—has 
rather an indistinct exception, than a distinct perception. This 
now is exactly the kind of knowledge that would result from the 
organized experiences above described. Of the space that is so 
close to us as to be within the range of our hands, we have the 
most complete perception, because we have had myriads of 
experiences of relative positions within that space. And of space 
as it recedes from us we have a less and less complete perception, 
because our experiences of the relative positions contained in it 
have been fewer and fewer.5 1 
The strange feelings which accompany certain abnormal ac- 
tions of the nervous system furnish similar evidence. De 
Quincey tells, in his Confessions of an Opium-Eater, that there 
appeared to him buildings and landscapes of proportions so vast 
that the bodily eye is not capable of taking them in. Space 
stretched itself out, and became of an infinite inexpressible vast- 
ness. It is not at all uncommon to find, among nervous subjects, 
persons who have illusory perceptions, in which the body seems 
to extend itself enormously, sometimes so as to cover an acre of 
ground. Now the state in which these phenomena are produced 
1 Spencer’s Psychology, p. 240. Mr. Herbert Spencer. 
181 
is one of exaggerated nervous activity,—a state in which De 
Quincey describes himself as seeing, in their smallest details, the 
long-forgotten facts of his childhood. And, if we consider that 
an effect must be produced upon our consciousness of space by 
an excitement which resuscitates our forgotten experiences in 
great abundance, we shal. see that it would cause the illusion of 
which he speaks. Evidently, we only recall a portion of the in- 
numerable experiences of surrounding positions which we have 
accumulated during our life. They tend, like all other experi- 
ences, to disappear from the mind, and the perception of space 
would end by becoming indistinct, if they were not refreshed 
each day, or replaced by new ones. Let us now imagine that 
these innumerable experiences of relative positions are suddenly 
revived, that they become present in a distinct manner to con- 
sciousness. What must be the result ? That space would be- 
come known to us in relatively microscopic detail; that a much 
greater number of positions would be perceived in it; that, as De 
Quincey says, it would become swollen. 
The idea of time is inseparable from that of sequence, as the 
idea of space is inseparable from that of co-existence. The doc- 
trine that time is only known to us by the succession of our 
mental conditions is so ancient and so well established that it is 
useless to explain it. Time in abstracto is a relation of position 
between states of consciousness. Our notion of a certain period 
of time varies according to the number of our states of conscious- 
ness. Thus, every one knows that a week passed in travelling, 
and which consequently excites much activity of mind, appears to 
us retrospectively much longer than a week passed at home. A 
road by which one travels for the first time seems much longer 
than when it has become familiar. The phenomena which 
accompany certain morbid conditions of the brain furnish analo- 
gous examples. In his description of his dreams caused by 
opium, De Quincey says that he has seemed to live fifty or one 
hundred years in a single night; and again, that he has had 
feelings which seemed to him to have lasted a thousand years, or 
rather for a lapse of time which exceeded the limits of all human 
experience. Have we not known what it is, during the swoon of 
a few minutes, to have dreams which seem to have lasted for a 182 
English Psychology. 
considerable time ? All these facts, to which wre may add many 
others, show us plainly that our notion of a period of time is de- 
fined by the series of states of consciousness which we recall. 
Analysis finally leads us to fundamental experience. By 
successive decompositions of our knowledge into elements more 
and more simple, we must finally arrive at the most simple, 
at the ultimate material element or substratum. What is this 
substratum 1 It is the impression of resistance. 
‘ It is primordial, alike in the sense that it is an impression of 
which the lowest orders of living beings show themselves suscep- 
tible, and in the sense that it is the first species of impressions 
received by the infant—alike in the sense that it is appreciated 
by the nerveless tissue of the zoophyte, and in the sense that it is 
presented in a vague manner even to the nascent consciousness 
of the unborn child. 
‘ It is universal, both as being cognizable (using that word not 
in a human, but in a wider sense) by every creature possessing 
any sensitiveness, and usually as being cognizable by all parts of 
the body of each—both as being common to all sensitive organ- 
isms, and in most cases as being common to their entire surfaces. 
It is ever present, inasmuch as every creature, or at any rate every 
terrestrial creature, is subject to it during the whole of its existence. 
Excluding those lowest animals which make no visible response 
to external stimuli, and those which float passively suspended in 
the wrater, there are none but what have, at every moment of 
their lives, some impressions of resistance, proceeding either from 
the surfaces on which they rest, or the reaction of their members 
during locomotion, or both. Thus impressions of resistance, as 
being the earliest that are appreciated by the sensitive creation 
regarded as a progressive whole, and by every higher creature in 
the course of its evolutions, and as being appreciated by almost 
all parts of the body in the great majority of creatures, are neces- 
sarily the first materials put together in the genesis of intelligence, 
and as being the impression continuously present in one form or 
other throughout life, they necessarily constitute that thread of 
consciousness on which all other impressions'are strung.’1 
1 Spencer’s Psychology, p. 265. Mr. Herbert Spencer. 
183 
If, after having analysed the various forms of perception, we 
now seek for that which is common to all, we are led to conclude 
that perception, considered with respect to all that is most general 
in it, consists in catching the relations of the senses to each 
other, in perceiving a relation or relations between actual or pre- 
vious states of consciousness, in a word, to perceive is to classify 
relations.1 
Mr. Herbert Spencer examines in detail the various relations 
of cointensity, coexistence, and connature. He shows that they 
all lead back, in final analysis, to the relations of resemblance and 
of difference. But difference may be called change, and resem- 
blance non-change. In fact, in order that two objects may be 
known as different, there must be two corresponding states in the 
consciousness, and consequently a change from the first to the 
1 Among the lengthy analyses made by Mr. Herbert Spencer, of different 
relations, one of the most remarkable and often quoted, is that which 
resolves the relation of co-existence or simultaneousness into a relation of 
sequence. It is as follows : — 
‘ So that the relation of co-existence is to be defined as a union of two rela- 
tions of sequence, such that while the terms of the one are exactly like those 
of the other in kind and degree, and exactly the reverse in their order of suc- 
cession, they are exactly like them in the feeling which accompanies that suc- 
cession. Or, otherwise, it may be defined as consisting of two changes in 
consciousness, which, though absolutely opposite in other respects, are per- 
fectly alike in the absence of strain. And of course the relation of non- 
co-existence differs in this, that though one of the two changes occurs without 
any feeling of tension, the other does not. 
‘ It may be worth while to point out, that these conclusions are indicated even 
by a priori considerations. For if, on the one hand, the great mass of out- 
ward things are statical, are persistent, are not manifesting any active change, 
and if, on the other hand, perpetual change is the law of the inner world—is 
the primary condition under which only consciousness can continue,—there 
arises the questions,—How can the outer statical phenomena be ever represented 
by the inner dynamical phenomena ?— How can the no-changes outside even 
be symbolized by the changes inside ? That changes in the non-ego may be 
expressed by changes in the ego is comprehensible enough, but how is it pos- 
sible that objective rest can be signified by subjective motion ? Evidently 
there is only one possibility, a consciousness ever in a state of change can re- 
present to itself a no-change only by an inversion of one of its changes—by a 
duplication of consciousness equivalent to an arrest—by a regress which 
undoes a previous progress—by two changes which exactly neutralize each 
other.’—Psychology, p. 308. 184 
English Psychotogy. 
second; the perception of similitude, on the contrary, does not 
imply any internal change. Here we reach the final term of the 
analysis. The most simple relation which intelligence can per- 
ceive, is a relation of sequence or of succession; this is the pri- 
mordial relation which constitutes the foundation of conscious- 
ness, and consequently the condition of all thought is change, 
succession, dissimilarity. 
A homogeneous or continuous state of consciousness is an 
impossibility, a non-consciousness. A being in a state of total 
repose, a being who undergoes absolutely no change, is dead, 
and a consciousness which has become stationary is a conscious- 
ness which has ceased. Nevertheless a succession of changes 
does not suffice to constitute consciousness. This succession 
must be regular. Changes form only the raw material of con- 
sciousness, it is necessary in addition that they be organized\ 
that is to say, classed according to resemblances and differences. 
In fact, then, the first act of consciousness, the most simple of 
all, is the perception of a difference, the second act is the per- 
ception of a resemblance. Henceforth, intelligence is consti- 
tuted. To assimilate and to differentiate, therein is the whole 
mechanism of thought; and all its progress consists in accumu- 
lating resemblances and differences. The unity of composition 
is established and verified by analysis. From the humblest act 
of consciousness up to the most complicated reasoning, from the 
intuition of a coarse resemblance, which is only a distant ana- 
logy, to the intuition of that perfect resemblance which is an 
identity, the processus invariably remains the same. 
We will let the author himself explain these important results, 
and bring together the double psychological processus of the 
double processus which constitutes physical life :— 
‘ We have seen that the condition on which only conscious- 
ness can begin to exist, is the occurrence of a change of state, 
and that this change of state necessarily generates the terms 
of a relation of unlikeness. We have seen that not simply 
does consciousness become nascent only by virtue of a change— 
by the occurrence of a state unlike the previous state ; but that 
consciousness can continue only so long as changes continue— 
only so long as relations of unlikeness are being established. Mr. Herbert Spencer. 
185 
Hence, then, consciousness can neither arise nor be maintained 
without occurrences of differences in its state. It must be ever 
passing from one state into a different state. In other words, 
there must be a continuous differe?itiation of its states. 
‘ But we have also seen that the states of consciousness succes- 
sively arising can become elements of thought only by being 
known as like certain before-experienced states. If no note be 
taken of the different states as they occur—if they pass through 
consciousness simply as images pass over a mirror, there can be 
no intelligence, however long the process be continued. Intelli- 
gence can arise only by the organization, by the arrangement, 
by the classification of these states. If they are severally taken 
note of, it can only be as more or less like certain previous ones. 
They are thinkable only as such or such ; that is, as like such 
or such before-experienced states. The act of knowing them is 
impossible, except by classing them with others of the same 
nature—assimilating them to those others. Hence then, in 
being known, each state must become one with certain previous 
states—must be integrated with those previous states. Each 
successive act of knowing must be an act of integrating. That 
is to say, there must be a continuous mtegration of states of con- 
sciousness. 
‘ These, then, are the two antagonistic processes by which 
consciousness subsists—the centrifugal and centripetal actions 
by which its balance is maintained. That these may be the 
material for thought, consciousness must every moment have its 
state differentiated. And for the new state hence resulting to 
become a thought, it must be integrated with before-experienced 
states. This perpetual alteration is the characteristic of all 
consciousness, from the very lowest to the very highest. It is 
distinctly typified in that oscillation between two states, consti- 
tuting the simplest conceivable form of consciousness; and it is 
illustrated in the most complex thinkings of the advanced man 
of science. 
‘ Nor is it only in every passing process of thought that this 
law is displayed : it is traceable also in the general progress of 
thought. Those minor differentiations and integrations that 
are going on from moment to moment, result in the greater 186 
English Psychology. 
differentiations and integrations which constitute mental devel- 
opment. Every case in which an advancing intelligence dis- 
tinguishes between objects, or phenomena, or laws, that were 
previously confounded together as of like kind, implies a differ- 
entiation of states of consciousness. And every case in which 
such advancing intelligence recognises, as of the same essential 
nature, objects, or phenomena, or laws, that were previously 
thought distinct, implies an integration of the states of conscious- 
ness. 
‘ Under its most general aspect, therefore, all mental action 
whatever is definable as the contmuous differentiation and integra- 
tion of states of consciousness. 
‘ The only further fact of importance here needing to be 
pointed out is, the harmony which subsists between this final 
result and that reached by a kindred science. The widest truth 
disclosed by the inquiries of physiologists is parallel to the one 
at which we have just arrived. 
‘ As there are two antagonistic processes by which conscious- 
ness is maintained, so there are two antagonistic processes by 
which bodily life is maintained; and the same two antagonistic 
processes are common to both. By the action of oxygen every 
tissue is being differentiated; and every tissue is integrating the 
materials supplied by the blood. 
‘No function can be performed without the differentiation of 
the tissue performing it; and no tissue is enabled to perform its 
function save by the integration of nutriment. In the balance 
of these two actions the organic life consists. By each new 
integration, an organ is fitted for being again differentiated : 
each new differentiation enables the organs again to integrate. 
And as with the psychical life, so with the physical—the stopping 
of either process is the stopping of both.’1 
V. 
The Physical Synthesis is one of the most original portions of 
the work, but, especially on its physiological side, it exceeds the 
limits of our present study. The theory of evolution is put forth 
1 Spencer’s Psychology, p. 332. Mr. Herbert Spencer. 
187 
there, under its boldest aspect, since it serves to explain the 
genesis of even the nervous system, that is to say, of the indis- 
pensable condition of all mental life. 
Founding his argument upon the principle, ‘that motion fol- 
lows the line of the greatest traction, or the line of the least 
resistance, or the resultant of the two,' and that * motion, when 
once it has begun along a line, itself becomes a cause of subse- 
quent motion throughout that line,’ the author explains, in his 
Principles of Biology, and again, with much more detail, in his 
Principles of Psychology,1 how a nerve may be produced in an ex- 
tremely simple primitive organism. And as evolutions always 
go from the simple to the complex, from the homogeneous to the 
heterogeneous, from the indefinite and the incoherent to the defi- 
nite and the coherent, systems more or less complicated may have 
come out of this primitive genesis. Following this ascending evo- 
lution through the entire animal kingdom, Mr. Herbert Spencer 
retraces for us successively the genesis of the simple nervous sys- 
tems, of the compound nervous systems, and the doubly compound 
nervous systems, with the variations of functions which are in 
relation with these variations of structure. These functions have 
a psychological character, at which we ought to pause, in order to 
examine how the three essential states of consciousness, percep- 
tion, idea, and emotion, are formed. 
Between a perception considered physiologically and a percep- 
tion considered psychologically there is a manifest relation. Per- 
ception, that is to say consciousness of an external object, cannot 
result from the excitement of a simple fibre, or of a single cellule ; 
it requires the excitement of a plexus of fibres and cellules. How 
can this excitement of so restricted a number of elements pro- 
duce the almost infinite variety of the perceptions ] An example 
will make us understand. 
A good piano comprises, taking the demi-notes into account, 
between eighty and ninety notes ; let us, for the sake of the calcu- 
lation, say one hundred. If each note be separately struck, the 
piano can yield only one hundred different tones. If two be 
struck at a time, the different possible combinations rise to 4550, 
1 Biology, p. 302 ; Psychology, Part v. 188 
English Psychology. 
if three be struck together, to 1,617,000 ; if four, to 3,922,225 ; if 
five, to 75,287,250. The numbers may then be indefinitely in- 
creased. Now, instead of the notes of a piano, let us suppose 
sensitive bodies like those which form the retina, instead of 
vibrating chords, excited ganglions, and we can easily see how a 
limited number of cellules and of fibres become the seat of a rela- 
tively unlimited number of perceptions. And yet this is only a 
rough comparison, because how can a dead instrument like a 
piano resemble a living instrument ? 
Let us now pass from perceptions to ideas properly so called. 
That which characterizes the latter, when they are completely 
developed, is their detachableness. But to return to our compari- 
son. A being who should be composed after such a fashion that 
he should not be capable of conceiving ideas except when im- 
pressions suggest them, would resemble a piano which remains 
dumb so long as the musician does not touch it. When are 
ideas really born % They are born when compound co-ordination 
passes into doubly compound co-ordination. So long as internal 
impression remains linked with external impression, it is com- 
pletely dependent upon it, but when clusters of internal impres- 
sions become united among themselves, for example, a group of 
visual sensations with a group of tactile sensations, the relation, 
the co-ordination established between these psychical conditions 
permits them to recall, to excite one another; and thus ideas, 
that is to say detachable independent phenomena, are formed. 
The process which gives birth to them is then, at bottom, the law 
of association. 
We have seen what is to be understood by emotions, and how 
inheritance plays a great part in their formation. Emotions are 
formed in the same way as ideas, and by an analogous co-ordina- 
tion. Placing ourselves at the point of view proper to Physical 
Synthesis, which considers the emotions as a function of the nerv- 
ous structures, we may say that each plexus has been inherited 
under the form of a series of well-organized connexions, in the 
midst of many less defined, and a multitude of slight connexions, 
—that is to say, between the plexus, which are such that one is 
habitually excited after the other. The subjective results which 
ensue are these :—If, for example, a body approaches an animal, Mr. Herbert Spencer. 
189 
producing sounds and emotions of a certain kind, the conscious- 
ness in the animal of this phenomenon is followed by disagree- 
able sensorial and motor conditions; in short, a complex emotion, 
fear, is produced.1 
VI. 
Such is, in the briefest form, and reduced to essentials, the 
psychology of Mr. Herbert Spencer. Let us endeavour to sum- 
marize it. 
We may give the title Genesis of Psychological Life to the 
whole of the synthetical portion. It appears to us to be the most 
original part of the book, because of its strict connexion and the 
novelty of its method. It is the first truly scientific attempt at a 
history of the different phases through which the evolution of 
mental life passes. If we compare it with the attempts of Locke 
and Condillac on this subject, the sensualist genesis will seem to 
be infantine simplicity. The author, taking pyschological life 
at its lowest degree, leads it up by successive additions to 
its fulness ; its fundamental characteristics being a correspond- 
ence which, in proportion as it completes itself, reproduces sub- 
jectively the objective reality of the world. It is successively 
direct and homogeneous, direct and heterogeneous ; it extends 
to space, to time ; it grows in speciality, in generality, in com- 
plexity ; it finally co-ordinates its different elements, and thus 
produces an integration, that is to say, a fusion of originally 
separate elements. Such are the periods traversed by psycho- 
logical life in order to constitute itself. Considered no longer 
in its mode of formation but in its manifestations, it is at first 
reflex action, then instinct, which is only composite reflex action. 
There, properly speaking, conscious life commences, which is 
on one side memory and reason, on the other, sentiment and 
will. 
If therefore we take an adult human soul in the full exercise of 
its faculties, that is to say, the most elevated type which we can 
know of the psychological life, we resolve it by analysis into its 
elements, going from the more to the less compound, from the 
1 Pp. 245,247. English Psychology. 
190 
compound to the simple, from the simple to the very simple and 
to the irreducible, we traverse a descending progression, thus : 
■—compound qualitative reasoning, simple qualitative reasoning 
qualitative reasoning simple and imperfect, perfect qualitative 
reasoning, imperfect qualitative reasoning, reasoning in general. 
Reasoning is classification of relations, perception is classifica- 
tion of attributes. The concrete object of perception submitted 
to analysis is, in the first place, stripped of its dynamic attributes, 
and afterwards of its statico-dynamic attributes. The funda- 
mental perception is that of resistance. Generally considered, 
perception is an organic classification of relations, the two simplest 
are those of similarity and dissimilarity, and that of succession, 
so that the most simple act of consciousness is, first, the percep- 
tion of a difference, and afterwards the perception of a resem- 
blance. 
We shall limit ourselves to observing that it is perhaps to be 
regretted that Mr. Herbert Spencer has not included volitions 
and emotions in his analysis, and has not shown us how this 
branch unites itself to the common truth. By doing so, he 
would have supplied a new verification of his principle of unity 
ot composition. 
VII. 
If we bear in mind that we have sketched only a very small 
portion of the work of our philosopher, and if we have been 
struck, as we ought to be, with the vigour of his thought and the 
originality of his method, we shall not be surprised to find it said 
by a contemporaiy:— 
‘ It is questionable whether any thinker of finer calibre has 
appeared in our country, although the future alone can determine 
the position he is to assume in history. v . . He alone of British 
thinkers has organized a system of Philosophy. Seeing that he 
adopts the positive method, is thoroughly imbued with the 
positive spirit, and constructs his system solely out of the positive 
sciences, one cannot but raise the question,—What is his rela- 
tion to the Positive Philosophy 1 ’1 
1 Lewes, History of Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 653 (Spencer). Mr. Herbert Spencer. 
igi 
In a small work entitled Reasons for Dissenting from the 
Philosophy of M. Comte,1 Mr. Herbert Spencer has clearly as- 
serted his independence with regard to that school. 
A common error, he says, consists in confounding those who 
follow the method of the sciences with the positivists, and setting 
them down as disciples of Auguste Comte. The enemies of this 
philosopher, as well as his friends, have contributed to keep up 
the confusion of the two terms, ‘savants’and ‘positivists.’ That 
Comte has given a general explanation of the doctrine and the 
method of sciences is true. But it is not true that those who 
accept that doctrine and follow that method are disciples of 
Comte. As the savant limits himself to studying the facts and 
deducing from them their laws as immediate causes, he is ‘ posi- 
tivist ’ in a certain sense, and in this sense positivism existed 
before Auguste Comte, and will exist so long as human science 
shall endure. But this scientific positivism is not identical with 
the positive philosophy. 
‘ A thinker who re-organizes the scientific method and know- 
ledge of his age, and whose re-organization is accepted by his 
successors, may rightly be said to have such successors for his 
disciples. But successors who accept this method and knowledge 
of his age, minus his re-organization, are certainly not his disciples. 
How then stands the case with M. Comte ? There are some few 
who receive his doctrines with but little reservation; and these 
are his disciples truly so called. There are others who regard 
with approval certain of his leading doctrines, but not the rest; 
these we may distinguish as partial adherents. There are others 
who reject all his distinctive doctrines, and these must be classed 
as his antagonists. The members of this class stand substantially 
in the same position as they would have done had he not written. 
Declining his reorganization of scientific doctrine, they possess 
this scientific doctrine in its pre-existing state, as the common 
heritage bequeathed by the past to the present; and their adhesion 
to this scientific doctrine in no sense implicates them with M. 
1 Published in 1864, with reference to an article by M. Aug. Laugel, upon 
the First Principles in the Revue des Deux Mo tides, 15 th February 1864. 
New edition, 1869. 192 
English Psychology. 
Comte. In this class stand the great body of men of science, 
and in this class I stand myself.’1 
Going still further, Mr. Herbert Spencer declares that the points 
on which he agrees with Comte are not proper to that philosopher, 
and that on those which are proper to him, he disagrees with 
him. I acknowledge, he says, with Auguste Comte, that all 
knowledge comes from the senses,—that all knowledge is relative, 
—that it is a false explanation which assigns distinct entities as 
the cause of phenomena,—that there are in nature invariable 
laws. But these doctrines had entered into the domain of philo- 
sophy long before him. 
As to the dissent of Mr. Herbert Spencer from the doctrines 
proper to M. Auguste Comte, they are ascertainable from the fol- 
lowing examples :— 
Auguste Comte. 
Each branch of our know- 
ledge passes through three dif- 
ferent and successive states,— 
theological, metaphysical, posi- 
tive. 
The perfection of the positive 
system would be to consider all 
researches into fi7'st and final 
causes as absolutely devoid ot 
sense, and inaccessible. 
There are six fundamental 
sciences, with an order of filia- 
tion between them. 
Herbert Spencer. 
There are not three radically 
opposed manners of philosophy, 
but one method, which remains 
in its essence the same. 
The idea of cause will govern 
at the end, as it has done at the 
beginning. The idea of cause 
cannot be abolished, except by 
the abolition of thought itself. 
{First Principles, p. 26.) 
There are three categories of 
sciences: 1. Abstract (mathe- 
matics, logic). 2. Abstract 
concretes (mechanics, physics, 
chemistry, etc.). 3. Concrete 
(geology, biology, psychology, 
etc.). There is no order ot 
filiation between them. 
1 Spencer’s Reasons for Dissenting from the Philosophy of M. Comte, p. 
3d edition, 1871. Mr. Herbert Spencer. 
193 
The part of biology which 
treats of these questions is the 
most important of all, the others 
are only subsidiary. 
One half of the Principles of 
Psychology is devoted to a sub- 
jective analysis. 
The ideal of government 
ought to be a minimum of go- 
vernment, and a maximum of 
liberty, etc. 
All researches into the origin 
of beings and species is useless. 
All subjective analysis of our 
ideas is impossible. 
The ideal of government is 
to subordinate the individual to 
society, etc. 
We refer the reader for further details of this dissent to the 
First Prviciples. Perhaps we have already exceeded the limits of 
our subject. But the great philosopher of whom we now take 
leave is so little known in France that we fear we have been too 
brief. MR. BAIN. 
The Chair of Logic in the University of Aberdeen, a city 
celebrated in the history of the sciences and of philosophy, is 
occupied by Mr. Bain, who has been placed in the first rank of 
English psychologists by his two works, The Senses and the Intel- 
ligence, The Emotions and the Will. The most illustrious repre- 
sentatives of the Scotch school, could they return to the world, 
would not disown their successor. There would be grave dis- 
agreement on more than one point, but they would have to 
acknowledge that he has followed that sure method which led 
them to sound discoveries, and that he has continued the tradi- 
tion of the school, better than the metaphysicians, like Ferrier, 
or than the Kantists, like Hamilton. The Scotch philosophy, 
which has been by turns too much praised and too much criti- 
cised in France, has done real service. The timidity which is its 
ruling characteristic explains both its merits and its defects. 
Among the merits of the school I place reserve in metaphysics 
which has preserved them from a rush into the region of ideas, and 
from dangerous constructions. This reserve, which was rather 
an instinct than a system, has permitted them to observe patiently. 
They have a taste for the small facts, for the curiosities of psy- 
chology, for rare cases, for exceptions, without which one cannot get 
to the bottom of things; and yet they have not had taste enough. 
Among their defects is an excessive anxiety to be always ‘ in 
accord with common sense/ a horror of doubt, singular among 
philosophers, and which has often led them on to empty and 
ridiculous declamation (see Reid on the Human Understatiding, Mr. Bain. 
195 
chap, i sects. 3 and 6). They have had sufficient ability for 
generalization and synthesis; from whence it arises that their 
analyses are often made by chance, and that they and their dis- 
ciples have provided us with an indefinite number of sub-faculties, 
without having taken the trouble to simplify and reduce all this 
feudal psychology. Still, everything compared, no school has 
done more for experimental psychology, in virtue of which princi- 
pally Mr. Bain belongs to it. 
Nevertheless, we should form an erroneous idea of the author, 
if we saw in him only one of the Scotch school, in the ordinary 
acceptation of the word. The philosophy of Leibnitz has been 
defined as ‘ a Cartesianism in progress and movement.’ This 
formula might be applied to Mr. Bain. His is a Scotch psycho- 
logy which goes with the age, that is to say, much modified, and 
upon many points. If Reid or Dugald Stewart were, by a miracle, 
to revisit Edinburgh, Aberdeen, or Glasgow, and to read the 
books which we are now considering, this is what would pro- 
bably occur :—First, they would be profoundly astonished upon 
several points, then profoundly indignant upon others, and Reid 
would perhaps even contemplate a rupture. But, instead of a 
hurried reading of these books, let us suppose that the two 
illustrious resuscitated philosophers had been initiated beforehand 
into the progress of the biological sciences, and into the meta- 
morphoses of philosophical thought during the last half-century, 
and we should find their language very different. I cannot help 
thinking that if Dugald Stewart (born in 1753) had been bom 
sixty years later, he would have written a psychological treatise 
analogous to that of Mr. Bain. 
The Scotch school says that the method of the physical sciences 
ought to be applied to psychology. Mr. Bain says the method 
of the natural sciences ought to be applied to it, and in that con- 
sists all his superiority. 
‘ The object of this treatise is to give a full and systematic 
account of two principal divisions of the science of mind,—the 
Senses and the Intellect. The remaining two divisions, compris- 
ing the Emotions and the Will, will be the object of a future 
treatise. 196 
English Psychology. 
‘ While endeavouring to present in a methodical form all the 
important facts and doctrines bearing upon the mind, considered 
as a branch of science, I have seen reason to adopt some new 
views, and to depart in a few instances from the most usual 
arrangement of the topics. . . . 
‘ However imperfect may be the first attempt to construct a 
natural history of the feelings, upon the basis of a uniform de- 
scriptive method, the subject of mind cannot attain a high scien- 
tific character until some progress has been made towards the 
accomplishment of this object.’1 
We must then expect to find the author frequently speaking as 
a physiologist. Besides some purely physiological chapters, he 
has made it a rule from which he never departs to consider all 
the phenomena which he studies under their double physical and 
mental aspect. He has thought, rightly, that purely psychological 
study is abstract and incomplete; that an agreeable or painful 
emotion, for example, is so intimately connected with the cor- 
poreal conditions which express it, that analysis which separates 
them is arbitrary, and in many respects erroneous. 
‘ Mr. Bain,’ says Mr. Stuart Mill, 1 has pushed analytical re- 
search into mental phenomena, by the method of the physical 
sciences, to the farthest point which it has yet attained, and has 
worthily inscribed his name beside those of the successive builders 
of an edifice to which Hartley, Brown, and James Mill have con- 
tributed their share of toil.’ 
In an article specially devoted to Mr. Bain’s work, after having 
shown that it belongs essentially to the associationist school, 
which he has helped to popularize, to illustrate, and to reinforce 
by new proofs, Mr. Mill adds that he has caused associative 
psychology to advance considerably. This progress consists in 
bringing the spontaneity of mind into relief. 
‘ Mr. Bain’s theory, the germ of which is in a passage cited by 
him from the eminent physiologist Miiller, stands in nearly the same 
relation to Hartley’s as Laromiguiere’s to that of Condillac. . . . 
He holds that the brain does not act solely in obedience to im- 
1 Bain’s Senses and Intellect, ed. 1855, Preface. Mr. Bain. 
197 
pulses, but is also a self-acting instrument, that the nervous influ- 
ence,which, being conveyed through the motory nerves, excites the 
muscles into action, is generated automatically in the brain itself, 
not of course lawlessly and without a cause, but under the organic 
stimulus of nutrition, and manifests itself in the general rush of 
bodily activity which all healthy animals exhibit after food and 
repose, and in the random motions which we see constantly made 
without apparent end or purpose by infants, and his doctrine, of 
which the accumulated proofs will be found in Mr. Bain’s first 
volume (pp. 73 to 80), supplies him with a simple explanation of 
the origin of voluntary power.’1 
Thus sensation, memory, association, are passive facts; the 
mind is simply their recipient. A theory of association which 
stops there seems sufficient to explain our dreams, our reveries, 
our fortuitous thoughts, but not all our nature; because the mind 
is active as well as passive. This appearance of absolute passive- 
ness in the theory has helped to alienate from it certain minds 
who had really studied it. Among them Mr. Mill quotes 
Coleridge, who was at first attracted by the mechanism of Hartley, 
but whom it could not finally satisfy. 
Activity cannot come forth from passive elements; a primordial 
active element must be found somewhere. Mr. Bain, who has 
found it, is therefore greatly in advance of Hartley’s theory. In 
France, adds our critic, the progress made from Condillac to 
Laromiguiere is frequently cited; the first making sensation, a 
passive phenomenon, the basis of his system, the second substi- 
tuting attention, an active phenomenon. 
‘Those who have studied the writings of the Association- 
Psychologists must often have been unfavourably impressed by 
the almost total absence, in their analytical expositions, of the 
recognition of any active element, as spontaneity, in the mind 
itself.’s 
1 Mill’s Dissertations and Discussions, Art. ‘Bain.5 
1 Ibid. Bain’s Psychology, p. 119. 198 
English Psychology. 
CHAPTER I. 
OF THE SENSES, THE APPETITES, AND THE INSTINCTS. 
The Sensations.—I. Muscular sense—2. Sight and Touch—3. Instinct, 
germ of Will. 
I. 
Every study of experimental psychology, whose object is the 
exact description of facts, and research into their laws, must 
henceforth set out with a physiological exposition, that of the 
nervous system. Mr. Bain has done this, and also Mr. Herbert 
Spencer (in his latest edition of the Principles of Psychology). 
This is the obligatory point of departure, not resulting from a 
passing fashion, but from nature itself, because the existence of 
a nervous system being the condition of psychological life, we 
must return to the source, and show how the phenomena of 
mental activity graft themselves upon the more general mani- 
festations of physical life. Mr. Bain describes the brain, the 
cerebellum, the marrow, the spinal cord, and the spinal and 
cerebral nerves. The nervous force acts upon these different 
portions of the body after the manner of a current. 
‘ It is nevertheless manifest that the nervous power is gener- 
ated from the action of the nutriment supplied to the body, and 
is therefore of the class of forces having a common origin, and 
capable of being mutually transmitted,—including mechanical 
momentum, heat, electricity, magnetism, and chemical decom- 
position. The power that animates the human frame and keeps 
alive the currents of brain, has its origin in the grand primal 
source of reviving power, the sun.’1 
If our means of observation and of measurement were per- 
fect, we could see how nourishment is consumed in the human 
being, one part being attributed to the animal heat, another 
to the action of the viscera, another to the activity of the 
brain, and so on. The nervous force which thus results from 
the expenditure of a given quantity of nourishment may be con- 
verted into every other form of animal life. 
Hence we must conclude, contrary to the received opinion, 
1 Bain’s Senses and the Intellect, edit. 1855, p. 59. Mr. Bain. 
199 
that the brain alone does not constitute the sensorium, that it is 
not the only seat of the mind; but that that seat is wherever 
there are nervous currents, including the brain, the nerves, the 
muscles, the organs of the senses, and the viscera. 
From this completely physiological beginning we pass on to 
the first class of phenomena properly belonging to mind. This 
is not, as it might at first be supposed, the study of our various 
sensations. There are more general phenomena, hitherto 
neglected by psychology, which the author describes and examines 
with that wealth of details, that abundance of facts, which char- 
acterize true experimental study. 
These are the phenomena of spontaneous activity, known to us 
by muscular sense. This sense, whose objects are sensations 
attached to the movements of the body, or to the action of 
the muscles, must not be confounded with the five ordinary 
senses ; it is generally admitted that it ought to be studied 
separately. 
The chapter which the author devotes to this subject affords 
a specimen of his learned and scrupulous method. Always in 
search of experiences, bent on obtaining completeness, he illus- 
trates by his fine and ingenious remarks a great number of 
curious and common facts which metaphysics, looking down 
upon them from its height, does not seem to have observed. I 
cannot, however, attempt to analyse his minute analyses. 
We generally see in our own activity, interpreted by our 
movements and our desires, the result of some anterior sensation 
or knowledge; but prior to the former, there is a spontaneous 
activity coming from ourselves—coming from within, and no' 
from without, which acts of itself, and not by reaction against 
the exterior world. The facts which best establish the existence 
of this is the tonicity of the muscles, the state of permanent 
closing of the sphincter muscles, the morbid activity and excite- 
ment which it causes, the extreme mobility of childhood, and of 
second childhood, which can only be explained by a surplus of 
activity. This spontaneity, to which psychology is apparently 
indifferent, nevertheless contains, as we shall see, the germ of 
the development of the will. 
Muscular sensation, although it very nearly approaches sensa- 200 
English Psychology. 
tion properly so called, differs from it in this, that the one is 
associated with an internal stimulus, the other with an external 
stimulus. United to the organic condition of the muscles, it 
reveals to us the pains and the pleasures which result from 
exercise, the different modes of tension of the organs in move- 
ment; and it gives the measure of the effort. We might per- 
haps especially call it the sense of our movements, and of that 
which relates to them. 
The muscular sensations have a double character, affective 
or emotional, and intellectual; each in an inverse ratio to the 
other.1 
In considering these under their emotional aspect we find 
two great classes of movement, whence very different muscular 
sensations result. Slow movements induce sleep; they pro- 
duce calm after morbid agitation ; they inspire gravity and sad- 
ness. After a day of exertion and tumult we recover tranquillity 
by the sympathetic effect of measured movements, such as music 
and the conversation of calm persons. Thence also the slow 
pronunciation in exercises of devotion—the melancholy sounds 
of the organ. Quick movement, on the contrary, causes great 
excitement of the nerves. These rapid movements are in fact a 
sort of mechanical intoxication. Every organ in a state of rapid 
motion communicates its excitement to all the other organs in 
motion. If we walk quickly, still more if we run, the mental 
tone is excited, our gestures and speech become hurried. As 
examples of this class of muscular excitement and movement, 
we may cite hunting, dancing, the orgie-like worships of the 
East, and the rites sacred to Dionysus and Demeter. Finally, 
muscular sensation may be given to us simply by effort, and inde- 
pendently of all movement; for example, carrying a weight, sus- 
taining one’s body, are cases of dead tension. 
Considered under their intellectual aspect, the muscular sen- 
sations are very important from the point of view of knowledge. 
If to a weight of four pounds held in the hand we add another 
1 It is a psychological law that in a complex phenomenon like a sensation, 
knowledge is clear and complete in proportion as pleasure and pain have 
been slight, and vice versa. Mr. Bain. 
201 
pound, the state of consciousness changes : this change of con- 
stitution is discrimination, or the faculty of discerning, and it is 
the foundation of our intelligence. Let us note this definition 
of our author; later on we shall discover its import. 
The different modifications of muscular action make us know 
three things : first, resistancewhich is the fundamental experience : 
secondly, continuation of effort, accompanied by movement or 
not; finally, rapidity of contraction of the muscle corresponding 
to the rapidity of the movement of the organ. We have only 
to reflect a little in order to see that these are important notions, 
whence several others are derived. Thus the degree of effort 
or of force expended gives not only the measure of resistance, 
but the inertia, the weight, and the mechanical properties of 
matter. The continuation of muscular action gives ideas of 
duration and extent. 
‘ The difference between six inches and eighteen inches is ex- 
pressed to us by the different degrees of contraction of some one 
group of muscles, those for example that flex the arm, or in 
walking, those that flex or extend the lower limb.’1 
Finally, the knowledge which we have of the degree of rapidity 
of our movements permits us to estimate the speed of other 
bodies in motion, the measure being at first borrowed from our 
own movements. 
II. 
We will now pass on to the study of sensations. They are dis- 
tributed into six classes : sensations of organic life, of taste, of 
smell, of touch, of hearing, and of sight. The three latter are 
especially intellectual. Mr. Bain gives the pre-eminence to sight, 
and even places hearing above touch. His analysis, ample and 
detailed as it always is, is largely indebted to chemistry and psy- 
chology. We shall confine ourselves to selecting three essential 
points in this study, which are treated with originality and depth : 
the nature of organic sense, the perception of the exterior world 
by touch, and by sight. 
Even in France we begin to consider the sensations of organic 
1 Bain, Senses and Intellect, p. 114. 202 
English Psychology. 
life as a separate group.1 Spread over the whole body, particularly 
in the viscera, they have no organs proper to themselves. Their 
obscure and continuous action exercises an incontestable influ- 
ence over our psychological life. Distinct from muscular sensa- 
tions which especially reveal to us the movement and the effort of 
the muscles, they reveal themselves to us by the pleasure or the 
pain which they cause us; they are most frequently affective. 
Mr. Bain particularizes seven species. 
The sensations due to the condition of the muscles, the pain 
experienced by their being cut, the suffering caused by excessive 
fatigue, broken bones, torn ligaments; in a word, all the violent 
damage which can be done to the muscular system. 
The nervous system is not only the instrument proper to the 
faculty of feeling, it also has organic sensations resulting from the 
condition of its tissue ; for instance, neuralgia, nervous exhaus- 
tion, and tic-douloureux are examples of pain proceeding from the 
tissue itself. 
Circulation and respiration, with the sensations of hunger, 
thirst, and suffocation, which belong to them, the pleasure of 
breathing pure air, the uneasiness produced by a confined atmo- 
sphere, have considerable influence upon our condition. 
The state of consciousness which results from a healthy circu- 
lation may be considered as the characteristic sensation of animal 
existence. 
Digestion, like respiration, presents all the conditions of a 
sense ; an external object, nourishment, and a special organ, the 
alimentary canal. To it we owe the agreeable sensations pro- 
duced by a good condition of the digestive organs, the malignant 
influence exercised by their deranged condition, the sensations of 
nausea and disgust, and the melancholy caused by diseases of the 
stomach and intestines. 
We may add the sensations of cold and of heat, their influence 
upon the activity of the organic functions; and, finally, the sen- 
1 See in particular M. A. Lemoine, U A me et le Corps, and M. L. Peisse 
La Medecine et les Medecins. The sensations, says the latter, proper to head- 
ache, indigestion, and palpitation prevent our being ignorant of where our 
organs are, apart from the aid of dissection. Mr. Bain. 
203 
sations of an electrical condition, whether they result from the 
employment of machines, or have a natural cause, such as the 
state of uneasiness which precedes a storm. 
From the preceding, the writer will see how much the author 
excels in this naturalist method, which consists of classification 
and description ; but there are analyses of a more difficult order, 
whose object is the perception of exteriority and extension. 
Touch is the most general sense; it is probable that it is not 
wanting in any being endowed with sensibility, and its intellec- 
tual importance is great. It gives us notions of size, form, direc- 
tion, distance, and situation. Touch, considered as a source of 
these ideas, is not a simple sense; it supposes, in addition, the 
sense of motion. Our appreciation of the weight of a body de- 
pends very much upon the exercise of the muscles, although it 
may result from a simple sensation of pressure exercised upon 
the skin. Weber shows this by an experiment. If we lay a 
weight of thirty-two ounces upon a motionless and supported 
hand, we may vary the quantity of this weight from eight to 
twelve ounces without the variation being perceptible to the sub- 
ject of it; on the contrary, if the muscles of the hand are in 
action, no imperceptible variation, except between one and a half 
to four is possible. Whence Weber concludes that the valuation 
of the weight is more than doubled by the play of the muscles. 
Muscular sense is no less important for the perception of ex- 
tension. Prpperly speaking, this quality, and those of size, form, 
etc., which belong it, are revealed to us, as we have seen, by the 
movements which they cause in us; the feelings which they 
produce are the feelings of motion or of the condition of the 
muscles. What we have now to ascertain is to what point the 
sense of touch contributes to our fundamental notion of the 
exterior world; that is to say, to extension, of which distance, 
direction, position, and form are only modifications. 
Let an arm be moved in empty space, and see what is the 
result. The absence of determinate marks to limit the beginning 
and the end of the muscular movement leaves a certain vague 
character upon our sensation of motion. But if to the sense of 
motioti we add the sense of touch, if the movement takes place, for 
instance, from one side of a box to the other, there we get resist- 204 
English Psychology. 
ance, and two distinct conditions, which constitute a mark in 
consciousness. In the same way, if we pass our hand over a 
surface, we feel at the same time a tactile sensation and a sensa- 
tion of continued motion. It must also be remarked, that the 
movement of the arm in empty space not being determined by 
any contact, renders us incapable of distinguishing the successive 
from the co-existent (or time from space). Now, so long as this 
distinction is impossible, we cannot know extension, the founda- 
tion of which is co-existence. Time and space are two correla- 
tives, one of which cannot be known without the other, but 
which are distinct the one from the other. Succession is a simple 
fact, co-existence is a complex fact. When the serial order of 
our sensations can neither be changed nor replaced, that is a 
succession. When it can be replaced, taken in an indifferent 
order, there is co-existence. Mr. Herbert Spencer is quoted on 
this subject by Mr. Bain as follows :— 
‘ The chain of states of consciousness, A to Z, produced by the 
motion of a limb, or of something over the skin, or of the eye along 
the outline of an object, may with equal facility be gone through 
from Z to A. Unlike the states of consciousness constituting 
our perception of sequence, which do not admit of an unresisted 
change in their order, those which constitute our perception of 
co-existence admit of their order being inverted—occur as readily 
in one direction as the other.’1 It is not without interest to 
compare this explanation with that of Kant. 
The combined sensations of movement and of touch give us 
notions of length, of surface (extension to two dimensions), solidity 
(extension to three dimensions). Distance supposes two fixed 
points which may be recognised by a movement of the hand, the 
arm, or the body. Direction implies a marking point, our body 
is the most natural; it serves to measure the right, the left, the 
back, and the front. Situation, that is to say relative position, 
is known if direction and distance are known. Form depends 
upon muscular movements, made in order to follow the outlines 
of a material body. 
It has been more than once discussed, whether the superior 
1 Spencer’s Psychology, p. 384. Bain. Mr. Bain. 
205 
sense is sight or touch. The two solutions may be found in 
Condillac. Most psychologists have declared for touch; most 
physiologists for sight. Mr. Bain is of opinion of the latter; we 
have seen that he even places touch below hearing. Without 
stopping at the physiological study of the sense of sight, and of 
the mechanism of the muscles which regulate its adaptation, let 
us examine three disputed questions, that of binocular vision, of 
rellex images, and of the complex perceptions of sight. 
How does it happen that although the image of each object 
paints itself in the depth of each eye, upon each retina, the object 
is nevertheless perceived as simple, and not as double ? This so 
often discussed problem has assumed a new aspect since the 
communication made by Wheatstone to the Royal Society on 
presenting his stereoscope. When we regard a distant object, 
says this physiologist, the two visual axes are sensibly parallel, 
and the images which depict themselves in each eye are similar; 
in this case there is no difference between the visual appearance 
of an object in relief and its projection upon a plane surface. 
Upon this the diorama is founded. On the contrary, when the 
object is near, as the visual axes must converge, the images 
become dissimilar, and they are the more unlike as their con- 
vergence becomes greater. It is this dissimilarity, of images 
which is, in optics, the indicator of solidity or of the three dimen- 
sions. The greater the dissimilarity, the more clearly the third 
dimension is suggested. The stereoscope gives the illusion of 
solidity by presenting to the eye two dissimilar images; by these 
means it imitates nature, and produces the same effects, while 
painting, which produces two similar images, cannot be con- 
founded with solid objects. And now, if we remark that the 
images painted on the retina are the materials of vision, that they 
serve to suggest to us a mental construction, which alone consti- 
tutes sight properly so called, that there is produced in the mind, 
by the sight of an exterior object, an aggregate of past impres- 
sions which the impression of the moment suggests and does not 
constitute, we understand that it matters very little whether 
these materials which serve to the ulterior working of the mind 
be furnished by two images, as in man, or by thousands, as in 
insects. The difference or the resemblance of images only teaches 
us whether the object is distant or near. 206 
English Psychology. 
As to that frequently offered difficulty, how images reversed 
upon the retina can appear straight to us,—it only shows that 
one is completely mistaken concerning the processes proper to 
the sense of sight. Our ideas of high and low are due to our 
sense of movement, and in no way to optic images. 
The complex sensations of sight result from the combination 
of optic effects, and the sensations of movements produced by 
the muscles of the globe of the eye. Here, as in the case of 
touch, the combination of visual perceptions and of movements 
is the groundwork of our perception of the exterior world. If 
we follow a moving light with the eye, we experience at the 
same time two sensations : one of light, the other of movement. 
The latter varies according as the right or left muscles are 
employed to move the eye, as a consequence of the direction of 
the light. The combined sensations of sight and movement 
give us speed, distance, succession, and co-existence. The par- 
ticular movements of the muscles cause us to know the circle, 
angles, complex angles, surfaces, and solids. In short, all that 
has been stated of the combined sensations of touch and motion 
applies, mutatis mutandis, to the combined sensations of sight 
and motion. 
III. 
Before ascending into the higher region of psychology, by 
passing from sensation to thought, we have to review in as 
complete a manner as possible all the phenomena which are 
the raw material of intelligence and of will. Such are the appe- 
tites and the instincts. 
Instinct is defined as the opposite to that which is acquired by 
education or experience.1 We may say that it is an unlearnt 
power of accomplishing actions of every sort, particularly those 
which are necessary and useful to the animal. This study of 
the instincts, which Mr. Bain justly claims as one of the most 
original portions of his work, has not hitherto been the object of 
any important researches by psychologists. Psychologists are 
1 Senses and Intellect, chap. iv. Mr. Bain. 
207 
indeed very incomplete upon many points. Several explana- 
tions, however, are to be found in the germ in Muller, and the 
author states in many instances that he has taken advantage of 
them.1 In our opinion the word instinct tends to produce 
errors. In the first place, it may be thought that it is a question 
of those curious phenomena proper to the lower animals, whose 
origin and cause still remain impenetrable ; and thus we imme- 
diately get the idea of a general and comparative psychology 
which shall embrace all the manifestations of mental life. This is 
in no wise the case. The author keeps to man, and this instinct 
which he is about to study may be illustrated by the clearer 
term instinctive movements. Taken in their entirety, they con- 
stitute a complete order of primitive dispositions, a complete 
primordial structure, which serves as a basis for what the human 
being shall become at a later stage, on the development of 
sentiment, of volition, and of intelligence. These instinctive 
acts form five groups :—- 
First, Reflex actions. 
Secondly, The special mechanism of the voice. 
Thirdly, The primitive arrangements which render harmony 
and combination of certain actions possible. 
Fourthly, The union of feeling with its physical manifestations. 
Fifthly, The instinctive germ of volition. 
The author treats of the two first points as a simple physiolo- 
gist, and I have regretted for my part that language has been 
nowhere studied in his work as a psychological faculty. 
What are the actions which are due to the primitive impulses 
of the nervous and muscular mechanism 1 That is what we are 
about to find out. Let us first remark movements which are 
associated among themselves prior to all experience, and to 
all volition. Such is the alternate movement of a child’s two 
legs, even before he knows how to walk. Other associated 
movements are simultaneous ; for example, that of the child’s two 
arms and two eyes. It may be said that there is a general 
law of harmony in the whole muscular system, from whence 
it arises that when we look or listen attentively the body stops, 
1 See Muller, Manual of Physiology, vol. i. p. 632. 208 
English Psychology. 
the features of the face remain fixed, the mouth is open, our 
elocution accords with our gestures; rapid walking awakens 
thought, etc. Let us also remark the intimate relation which 
exists between taste, smell, and the stomach, and we shall con- 
clude from all these facts that natural harmony between our 
movements exercises a great influence upon our mental life. 
The expression of feeling has also its distinctive and original 
mechanism. It translates itself: first, by the movements pro- 
duced by the muscular system, especially by the different 
muscles of the face, whence results the play of the physiognomy;1 
Secondly, by the organic effects, that is to say, by an influence 
on the viscera. Grief troubles the digestion, joy exhilarates it; 
fear dries up the saliva and causes cold sweat; the heart, the lacteal 
gland in women, feel the shock of the emotions ; the lachrymal 
gland, which constantly secretes its liquid, lets it escape with 
more abundance in the fervour of tender emotions. All these 
facts, and a number of others, may be reduced to the following 
principle : the conditions of pleasure are united with an increase, 
the conditions of pain with a diminution of all or some of the 
vital functions. Nevertheless, if we submit this formula to a 
verification in detail, we shall see that it admits of exceptions. 
It is not true that augmentation of the vital energy is always co- 
existent with augmentation of the degree of pleasure. A sweet 
flavour, an agreeable contact, do not cause an increase of 
activity; a smart, on the contrary, excites a momentary develop- 
ment. It is the same with those narcotics which, while they 
cause pleasure, weaken vital power. In fact, neither the doctrine 
which unites pleasure to self-preservation, nor that which unites 
pleasure to the increase of activity, is sufficient if taken separately ; 
they must be united in order to arrive at a complete expla- 
nation. 
This portion of the work, a little vague in expression, is rather 
touched upon than treated. The question which lies at the 
bottom of it is this : all our pleasures and all our pains, whatever 
be their nature, may they be explained by one single principle ?— 
1 Miiller ; see Lemoine, La Physionomie el la Parole, chap. iii. el seq. Mr. Bain. 
209 
are they reducible to one or two fundamental laws 11 This is by 
no means an idle question, because the progress of a science 
consists in uniting particular causes and derivative laws in a for- 
mula which shall contain both. The descriptive and analytical 
method of Mr. Bain seems to us insufficient. His study upon 
the emotions, which we shall explain hereafter, though excellent 
in detail, is only a succession of fragments, whose connexion is 
not shown with sufficient clearness; and this defect is in our 
opinion referable to the following cause. It is in that obscure 
region of the primitive phenomena of affective life, that the germs 
of pleasures, pains, and passions of every kirfd, which the play 
of life breeds, transforms, and incessantly refines, ought to be 
sought for. 
The author has done this in the case of the will. He has 
sought for its germ in that spontaneous activity which has its 
seat in the nervous centres, which acts without any impres- 
sions from without, or former sentiment of any kind. This 
is the essential prelude of every development of voluntary power ; 
this activity is one of the terms or elements of volition ; volition, 
in a word, is a compound, formed of this spontaneous activity, 
and of something beside. It is in Muller’s work that we must 
seek for this.2 No previous psychologist had demonstrated the 
part played by these instinctive movements, and their influence 
upon the will. This physiologist points out that the foetus pro- 
duces motions which evidently cannot depend upon the complex 
circumstances which give rise to the same in the adult; if the 
foetus moves his limbs, it is therefore because he can move them. 
Let us remark, besides, that nervous force cannot be equally dis- 
tributed, and that the nervous centres are not equally charged; 
but that there is a condition of constitution or nutritive vigour 
which impels the foetus to move one foot rather than the other. 
Spontaneous excitement gives birth to movements, to changes of 
position, consequently to sensations ; there is thus established 
1 We know that Spinoza refers all our inclinations to the self-love of each 
individual. The most complete treatise on this subject is the Monograph of 
M. Bouillier, Du Plaisir et de la Douleur. 
2 Muller, vol. ii. p. 312. 210 
English Psychology. 
in the still empty mind a connexion between certain sensations 
and certain movements; and later, when the sensation shall be 
excited by some exterior cause, the mind will know that a cer- 
tain movement will be executed, in consequence, by that part of 
the body. The nervous system may thus be compared to an 
organ whose pipes are constantly full of air, which discharges it- 
self in such and such directions, according to the particular stops 
which are employed. The stimulus produced from our sensa- 
tions and from our feelings does not furnish the internal power, 
but it determines the method and the place of the discharge. 
What is there in Will more than this discharge of spontaneous 
impulses 1 There is this, that spontaneous activity is regulated 
by physical circumstances and not by the final well-being of the 
animal. The dog, who in the morning runs wildly about, and 
expends his superabundance of activity, follows his instinct only; 
but it is just at the moment when he becomes exhausted that he 
feels the need of food, and that he is obliged to exert himself to 
procure it. Pure spontaneity falls short of that which it ought 
to do for self-preservation. Will, on the contrary, knows the 
end and the means* and does not expend itself by chance. Let 
us take account of the existence of this spontaneity, of this in- 
stinctive activity, -which will aid us hereafter to a better compre- 
hension of the nature of Will. 
CHAPTER II. 
INTELLIGENCE. 
Intelligence.—I. Association of ideas—2. Of consciousness—3. Association by 
contiguity : exterior perception—4. Association by resemblance: scientific 
processus—5. Compound association—6. Constructive association, or 
imagination. 
‘ In treating of intelligence,’ says the author in his Preface, ‘ I 
have abandoned subdivision into faculties. This explanation 
is entirely founded upon the laws of association; very small 
details have been given as examples, and they have been followed 
up in the variety of their applications.’ The treatment of this Mr. Bain. 
21 I 
portion of the work is masterly, as excellent in synthesis as it 
is in analysis. The collecting an innumerable multitude of facts 
around some fundamental principles, and submitting principles to 
verification by facts, is a truly experimental method. Thus, 
notwithstanding long enumeration of details and examples, the 
mind keeps a clear impression of this explanation, because it 
always has a clue to guide it. It knows that each illustration is 
a proof in support of some particular form of association of ideas ; 
above the facts, it sees partial laws; above partial laws, a general 
and fundamental law, that irreducible property of intelligence by 
virtue of which our ideas direct each other and form a succession. 
When we see that Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, and Bain, in 
England; with the physiologists Luys and Vulpian, in France, 
and previous to them Herbart and Miiller,1 in Germany, attach 
all our psychological acts to different methods of association be- 
tween our ideas, feelings, sensations, and desires, we cannot help 
believing that this law of association is destined to become pre- 
ponderant in experimental psychology, to remain for some time 
at least the ulterior mode of explanation of psychical phenomena; 
and thus it will take in the world of ideas a position analogous to 
that of attraction in the world of matter. It is strange that this 
discovery should have been arrived at so late. Nothing is more 
simple in appearance than to remark that this law of association 
is a realistic, fundamental, irreducible phenomenon of our mental 
life ; that it is at the bottom of all our actions; that it admits of 
no exception ; that neither dreams, reveries, mystic ecstasy, nor 
the most abstract reasoning can dispense with it; that its exter- 
mination would be the suppression of thought itself; and never- 
theless no ancient has understood this, for we cannot seriously 
maintain that the few lines collected here and there from Aristotle 
and the Stoics constitute a theory and a distinct view upon the 
subject.2 It is to Hobbes, Hume, and Hartley that we must refer 
the origin of these studies on the connexion of our ideas. The 
discovery of the final law of our psychological acts has this in 
1 Miiller, vol. ii. p. 512. 
2 See, for the history of the question, Mervoyer, Etude sur Vassociation des 
idees, and Hamilton, in his edition of Reid. 212 
English Psychology. 
common with many other discoveries, that it has come late, and 
every one is astonished at its apparent simplicity. 
Perhaps it is not superfluous to ask in what this method of ex- 
planation is superior to that of the faculties. The most general 
mode consists, as we know, of dividing the intellectual phenomena 
into classes, of separating those which differ, and grouping 
together those of the same nature, giving them a common name, 
and attributing them to one and the same cause; thus we have 
arrived at distinguishing those different aspects of intelligence 
which are called judgment, reasoning, abstraction, perception, 
etc. This method is exactly the same as that followed in physics, 
in which the words heat, electricity, weight, designate the un- 
known causes of certain groups of phenomena. If we do not 
lose sight of the fact that the various faculties are also only the 
unknown causes of known phenomena, that they are only a con- 
venient means of classifying facts and speaking of them; if we 
do not fall into the common error of making them substantial 
entities, personages who form a little republic in intelligence; we 
do not see that there can be anything reprehensible in this dis- 
tribution into faculties, in conformity with the rules of a healthy 
method and a good natural classification. In what then is Mr. 
Bain’s manner of proceeding superior to the method of the facul- 
ties ? In that the latter is only a classification, while his is an 
explanation. There is the same difference, in our opinion, be- 
tween the psychology which attaches intellectual facts to certain 
faculties, and that which reduces them to the single law of 
association, as there is between the system of physics which 
attributes phenomena to five or six causes, and that which 
attaches weight, heat, light, etc., to motion. The system of 
the faculties explains nothing, since each of them is no more 
than a flatus vocis, only valuable for the phenomena which it con- 
tains, and signifying nothing less nor more than these phenomena. 
The new theory, on the contrary, shows that the different pro- 
cesses of intelligence are only the different forms of an unique 
law; that to imagine, to deduct, to induct, to perceive, etc., is to 
combine ideas in a definite manner; and that the differences of 
faculties are only differences of association. It explains all intel- 
lectual facts, not after the fashion of metaphysics, which insists Mr. Bain. 
213 
upon the ultimate and absolute reason of things, but after the 
fashion of physics, which seeks only their proxi- 
mate cause. 
We may regret that Mr. Bain has not endeavoured to show in 
detail how his explanation is to replace the ordinary theory of tht 
faculties, and how each of the latter is attached to a particulai 
method of association. The materials for this study being 
scattered about in his book, I shall endeavour to indicate it in 
few words. Consciousness is the fundamental mode of intellec- 
tual activity. Who says consciousness, says change, succession, 
series; it consists of an uninterrupted current of ideas, sensations, 
and desires; it is therefore the linking together, the association 
of our internal conditions which constitutes it. 
The perception of an exterior object is founded upon associa- 
tions by contiguity in time and space. It is because we associate 
the data of our various senses ; that is, of sight, touch, muscular 
feeling, smell, etc., that we perceive concrete objects, which are 
exterior. To perceive a house is to associate in a single group 
the ideas of form, height, solidity, colour, position, distance, etc., 
by a repetition, and by habit these notions are combined in a 
whole which is perceived almost instantaneously. Mr. Herbert 
Spencer, in his Principles of Psychology, calls these associations 
organic, or organized, and in another place, integrate, because 
they, so to speak, enter one into the other. 
That which Mr. Bain calls constructive association is imagina- 
tion. To imagine is to associate ideas or sentiments previously 
acquired in order to produce some construction which resembles 
reality. It is by association that I can imagine the drunkenness 
produced by opium, or the feudal system of the thirteenth 
century. 
Association, founded no longer upon contiguity, but upon re- 
semblances, explains classification, abstraction, definition, induc- 
tion, generalization, judgment, reasoning, deduction, analogy ; 
all these operations reducing themselves to the associating of 
ideas, which resemble each other, which differ from each other, or 
which resemble and differ at the same time. 214 
English Psychology. 
II. 
Before we enter into a detailed explanation of the various 
forms of the law of association, let us examine the fundamental 
properties of intelligence. This prior examination is in reality an 
analytical study of consciousness.1 
‘ The word consciousness signifies mental life, with its various 
energies, in so far as it is distinguished from the purely vital func- 
tions, and from the conditions of sleep, torpor, insensibility, etc/ 
It also indicates that the mind is occupied with itself, instead of 
being applied to the exterior world ; because those pre-occupa- 
tions whose objects are external present an ansesthetic char- 
acter. 
The primitive and fundamental attributes of intelligence are 
consciousness of difference, cotisciousness of resemblance, and reten- 
tiveness, which includes memory and recollection. 
1. The most primitive fact of thought is the sense of difference 
or discrimination; it consists of seeing that two sensations are 
different in nature or in intensity. To thoroughly comprehend 
the thought of the author, we must remark that consciousness 
is entirely produced by change. So long as the living being has 
consciousness, he leads a purely psychological life. If we 
imagine in any one a single and invariable sensation, there is not 
yet consciousness. If there are two successive sensations, with a 
difference of nature between them, still less a simple hiatus 
between two moments of the same sensation, still less a differ- 
ence of intensity, then we have a more or less clear conscious- 
ness : psychological life is born. It is impossible for us to be 
conscious without experiencing transitions or changes. There are 
in us many changes, which are slight, or even nil, so far as plea- 
sure or pain is concerned, but which are important as transi- 
tions, that is to say, as differences. 
Discrimination is the foundation of association by contrast. 
2. When intelligence is awakened to life, so as to grasp a differ- 
ence, what does it do 1 It retains it. Retentiveness is then the 
condition which immediately succeeds to the consciousness of 
1 This study is to be found in three parts of Mr. Bain’s work, vol. i., on The 
Senses, Introduction ; The Intellect, Introduction ; vol. ii. concluding chapter. Mr. Bain. 
215 
difference. It consists of the persistence of mental impressions, 
after the disappearance of the external agent; we can live a life 
in ideas, added to our actual life. We can revive sensations and 
sentiments long past, under the form of ideas. How is that 
done ? Impressions which have always accompanied each other 
become as it were inseparable. 
Retentiveness is the foundation of memory, almost entirely ; 
and of association by contiguity. 
3. The third fundamental property of mind is agreement, or 
consciousness of resemblance. An impression which constantly 
remains without variation, ceases to affect us ; but if it produces 
another, and that this first impression returns afterwards, then we 
recognise it, we have consciousness of resemblance. It is 
owing to this power of recognising the similar in the dissimilar, 
that what we call general ideas or principles are produced. 
Consciousness of resemblance is the foundation of abstraction 
of reasoning, and association between the similar. 
This analytical study of consciousness is, as we see, substan- 
tially identical with that of Mr. Herbert Spencer. Let us now 
observe its consequences. 
The fundamental property of intelligence or discrimination 
implies the law of relativity, which may be thus explained : as a 
change of impression is an indispensable condition of all con- 
sciousness, our mental experience is necessarily double. We 
can neither know nor feel heat except by a transition from 
cold to heat. In every feeling there are two opposite con- 
ditions; in every act of knowledge there are two things which 
are known together. No mental impression can be called know- 
ledge, unless it co-exists with some other which is compared with 
it. These are like the two electricities, or the tw'O poles of a 
magnet, which cannot exist the one without the other. ‘ A simple 
impression is equivalent to a non-impression/ The applications 
of this law of relativity are numerous and important; it applies 
itself to the useful arts, to the fine arts, to the communication of 
science, and ‘ in metaphysics it combats the doctrine of the ab- 
solute.J 1 
1 Vol. i. p. io. 216 
English Psychology. 
Mr. Bain, who has very little taste, as we may perceive, for 
metaphysical excursions, declares that he will not approach the 
problem of the nature of knowledge, difficult in itself, and ob- 
scured by centuries of discussion. The little which he says 
about it, however, shows that his solution might be brought into 
relation with that of Mr. Herbert Spencer, who reduces percep- 
tion to a classification. To feel is not to know; it is erroneous 
to believe that knowledge can have as much extension as sensa- 
tion or consciousness. We may say that a child feels all which 
occurs to him through his eyes or his ears, that he is conscious 
of it; but to make out of these elements knowledge, choice, clas- 
sification, and specialization are required. That which we call 
attention, observation, concentration of mind, must be added to 
the act of discrimination, in order that knowledge may begin. 
‘ The process of knowledge is essentially a process of selection/ 
The essential elements of knowledge may be thus summarized. 
1. To know a thing is to know that it resembles certain 
others, and differs from certain others. 
2. When knowledge is an affirmation, two known things are 
required, which two must be brought together under a third 
general property; for example, co-existence or succession. 
3. Into these affirmations an active condition, that disposition 
called belief, must enter. 
hi. 
In approaching the study of the various forms of the law of 
association, I think it will be useful to summarize them in the fol- 
lowing table, which may serve as a guide for the reader :— 
I. Simple Associations. 
conjuncts. 
successive. 
i. By contiguity 
II. Compound Associatiojis. 
x. Contiguity. , 
2. Resemblance. 
3. Contiguity and resemblance. 
III. Constructive Associations. 
2. By resemblance. Mr. Bain. 
217 
A primary species of associations has contiguity for its founda- 
tion. This mode of mental reproduction may be established 
after the following fashion :— 
‘ Actions, sensations, and sentiments which are produced toge- 
ther, or succeed each other immediately, tend to spring up 
together, to adhere in such a fashion that when, afterwards, one 
of them presents itself to the mind, the others are also repre- 
sented.’ 
The associated conditions may be either of the same nature (as 
sounds with sounds, movement with movement, etc.), or of a dif- 
ferent nature (as colour with resistance, movement with distance, 
etc.). The following are examples of both cases.1 
Association by contiguity plays a great part in our movements. 
All those which are voluntary present great difficulties during 
early childhood. Each of them is produced separately and with 
effort. It is by association that series or aggregates of me- 
chanical motions produce themselves rapidly. Such are all 
those necessary for writing, playing the piano, knitting, etc. 
The physiological condition of these associations by contiguity is 
a fusion of the nervous currents. It is in the cerebral hemispheres 
that the cohesion of associated acts is produced; two currents 
of nervous force call two muscles into play, one after the other; 
these currents, flowing together to the brain, form a partial 
fusion, which in time becomes total fusion. What is still more 
curious than this fusion of real movements, is the fusion of simple 
ideas of movements. They associate themselves perfectly accord- 
ing to the law of contiguity, ist, What relation is there between 
the reality and the idea? The idea is weakened reality; between 
conceiving a sensation and really perceiving it, there is only a 
difference of degree. And as sensation has its seat in one posi- 
tion of the organism, as is generally supposed, which is not the 
brain only, but also the affected nerves,—the idea, or the ideal sen- 
sations, must have the same seat. The continuation of an impres- 
1 It is almost needless to say that the author remains faithful to his com- 
plete method, that each group is separately examined, and then in its rela- 
tions with the others. The study of the Law of Contiguity extends over no 
less than 130 pages. 218 
English Psychology. 
sion being the continuation of the nervous circuit, its reproduction 
must be of the same nature. The idea of an impression is then a 
reproduction in a feebler form of those nervous conditions which 
cause the impression itself. This explains why the idea of a 
movement, when it becomes very lively, induces a movement 
spontaneously of itself, without the intervention of our will, the 
excited nervous current being as intense as in the case of a real 
impression coming from without.1 
‘ The tendency of the idea of an action to produce the fact, 
shows that the idea is already the fact in a weaker form. Think- 
ing is restrained speaking or acting. . . . The tendency of an 
idea of the mind to become the reality is one of the controlling 
forces of our constitution, it is a distinct source of active im- 
pulses. Our chief active faculty is expressed by the will, or voli- 
tion, whose nature it is to urge us from pain on to pleasure. 
But the disposition to pass from a mere recollection, imagina- 
tion, or idea to the action that it represents—not merely to think 
an act, but to do it—is also a determining principle of human 
conduct.’ 2 
The author shows how many curious facts in psychology are 
explained by this tendency of the idea to realize itself; the fasci- 
nation exerted by a precipice, the phenomena produced by fixed 
ideas, by magnetic sleep, and the sensation caused by sympathy. 
Let us now examine a case of association by contiguity, 
between the data of the various senses: a subject already 
handled by the author, and again resumed. These repetitions, 
hardly justifiable in a literary work, appear to me to be useful in 
this case; they permit us to see the different aspects of the ques- 
tion more clearly. We already know that knowledge of the ex- 
terior world is due to the associated sensations of touch, sight, 
and the muscular sense. 
‘ The relations between these four distinct facts—namely, 
ocular adjustment for seeing an object, the extent of the image 
on the retina, the distance, and the true magnitude of the object, 
1 On this mechanism of the idea returning to its starting-point, see Lelut, 
FAmulette de Pascal, Introduction. See also Chevreul, Du Pendule explorateur, 
* Bain, The Senses and Die Intellect, p. 346. Mr. Bain. 
219 
are what we have to consider, for we find that in the educated 
eye these circumstances are suggestive of one another.1 . . . 
“Thus as we approach the object, or as it is brought nearer to 
us, the magnitude of the picture on the retina increases ; the 
inclination of the optic axes required to cause the pictures to 
fall on corresponding places of the retina becomes greater.” . . . 
Accordingly, Mr. Wheatstone has devised an instrument, being 
a modification of his reflecting stereoscope, whereby he can 
expose pictures to the two eyes in such a manner that the dis- 
tance can be changed while the convergence of the two eyes 
remains the same, or the convergence be altered while the dis- 
tance remains the same ; thus disassociating two facts that con- 
stantly go together in ordinary vision. The result of the 
experiments showed the influence of both circumstances,— 
namely, the convergence of the eyes and the size of the picture 
on the retina (which is greater as the object is nearer) in deter- 
mining our judgment of distances. He finds that the distance 
of the object remaining the same, the greater convergence of 
the two eyes makes the object seem smaller, this increased con- 
vergence being required in ordinary vision when a thing is 
brought nearer. It appears, therefore, that while the retinal 
magnitude is unaltered, greater convergence gives a perception 
of smaller size. On the other hand, leaving the inclination 
of the axes unchanged, and bringing the pictures nearer, thereby 
increasing the picture on the retina, there is a perception of 
increased size in the object. . . . Now, according to Mr. Wheat- 
stone, the inclination of the axes, in company with a given 
retinal picture, suggests the magnitude first, and from the true 
magnitude thus known and the retinal magnitude we infer the 
distanced 2 
Perhaps some intractable adversary of metaphysics will re- 
proach Mr. Bain with having gone away from experimental 
analysis to ask how we perceive the exterior world ? and why we 
believe in it? We shall reply that he submits a few remarks. 
‘ There is no possible knowledge of the world, except in refer- 
ence to our minds. Knowledge means a state of mind; the 
1 Wheatstone. 
2 Bain, Senses and Intellect, p. 377> 378. 220 
English Psychology. 
notion of material things is a mental thing. We are incapable 
of discussing the existence of an independent material world; 
the very act is a contradiction. We can speak only of a world 
presented to our own minds. By an illusion of language, we 
fancy that we are capable of contemplating a world which does 
not enter into our own mental existence; but the attempt 
belies itself, for this contemplation is an effort of mind.’1 
Let us observe, besides, that which we ourselves put into the 
act of perception. Solidity, extension, and space, which are the 
fundamental properties of the material world, respond to certain 
movements of our own bodies, and exist in our minds in the 
form of sentiments of force, and of visual and tactile impressions. 
The sense of exteriority is then the consciousness of particular 
energies and activities proper to us. All the difference between 
ideal sensation and an actual sensation is, that the latter is 
entirely at the mercy of our movements. We turn our head to 
the right, or to the left; we move our body, and our perception 
varies; thus we arrive at distinguishing things, which our move- 
ments cause to change their places, from the ideas or dreams 
which vary of themselves, when we are in repose. In communi- 
cating with other beings, and in knowing that they have the 
same experiences as ourselves, we form an abstraction of our 
past experiences, and of those of others, and that is the greatest 
height we can attain with relation to the material world. 
‘ Nevertheless, a possible world implies a possible mind to per- 
ceive it, just as an actual world implies an actual mind.’ 
The conclusion at which Mr. Bain arrives in these remarks, so 
far as we can define it, would not displease an idealist, since it 
would place a portion of the reality of the world in the mind : 
the feeling and the felt being for him not two terms, but two 
complementary parts of the same whole. 
He says in a note to his recent edition of James Mill:— 
‘ The contrasted terms “ Object” and “Subject ” are the least 
exceptionable for expressing the fundamental antithesis of con- 
sciousness and of existence. Matter and Mind, External and 
Internal, are the popular synonyms, but are less free from mis- 
1 Bain, Senses and Intellect, p. 370. Mr. Bain. 
221 
leading suggestions. Extension is the object fact by pre-emi- 
nence ; Pleasure and Pain are the most marked phases of pure 
subjectivity. Between the consciousness of extension and the 
consciousness of a pleasure there is the broadest line that can 
be drawn within the human experience; the broadest distinction 
in the whole universe of being. These then are the Object and 
Subject extremes, and, in the final analysis, the Object extreme 
appears to be grounded on the feeling of expended muscular 
energy.’1 
IV. 
A second method of association is founded upon resemblance. 
The law which regulates it is thus enunciated : ‘ Actions, sensa- 
tions, thoughts, or emotions which are present, tend to revive 
those which resemble them among anterior impressions or 
states.’ 
Association by contiguity serves above all to acquire, associa- 
tion by resemblance serves above all to discover: it plays a 
preponderant part in reason, and in the various scientific pro- 
cesses. At one time we grasp the resemblances between 
continued co-existent aggregates ; for example, we forget the 
differences which separate a horse, a fall of water, a steam- 
engine, in order to see in them nothing but a motive power. 
At another time we grasp resemblances in successions. Thus, 
in studies of embryology, the same being is recognised through 
all the different phases of its evolution. In the comparative 
study of social and political constitutions, understood in the 
manner of Aristotle, Vico, Montesquieu, Condorcet, Hume, De 
Tocqueville, we must have ‘a penetrating mind ; in other words, 
a strong identifying faculty, which can unite and extract obscure 
resemblances from differences.’2 
The progress of a classification consists of associating in the' 
same groups beings more and more similar; in passing from 
superficial identities to fundamental identities, from the Aristo- 
telian division of animals into terrestrial, marine, and aerial, 
to Cuvier’s division, founded upon true nature, and not upon 
accidental resemblances. 
1 Mill’s Analysis, note I, p. 5, line 20. 
2 Vol. i. p. 519. 222 
English Psychology. 
In the mineral kingdom we naturally group the metals to- 
gether. A greater progress consists in discerning, as Davy has 
done, that there is a metallic substance in soda and potash, by 
building upon purely intellectual resemblances. 
In the vegetable kingdom, division into trees and shrubs pre- 
ceded that of Linnaeus. At a later date Goethe grasped an 
analogy between the flower and the entire plant. Oken recog- 
nised the plant in the leaf. 
In the animal kingdom comparison between the different 
part which compose each individual leads to the discovery of 
Homologies. Oken, walking one day in a forest, came upon the 
bare and whitened skull of a wild beast. He took it up, 
examined it, and discovered that the skull consists of four 
vertebrae, that it is only a continuation of the vertebral 
column. 
The modes of reasoning and scientific processes founded upon 
an association by resemblance are arranged by Mr. Bain under 
these four titles :—• 
ist, Classification, abstraction, generalization of notions, general 
names, definitions: the classification consisting in grouping 
objects according to resemblance, whence results a generaliza- 
tion, or abstract idea which represents what there is in common 
in the group; and a definition which expresses the common 
characteristics of the class. 
2d, Induction, indirect generalization, conjoint properties, 
affirmations, propositions, judgments, laws of nature. Here we 
obtain no longer ideas, as in the first case, but judgments. 
3d, Inference, deduction, reasoning, syllogism, extension of 
inductions. Mr. Bain adopts, without restriction, the doctrine of 
Stuart Mill, that all reasoning goes from the particular to the par- 
ticular. The syllogism is only a precaution against error, or, as 
Mr. Herbert Spencer says, a verification. 
4th, Analogy. Here is less than identity; hence those false 
comparisons which have given rise to false conclusions, such as 
the assimilation of society to the family, which would tend to 
make of a sovereign a guardian or a despot. Mr. Bain. 
223 
V. 
It remains to us to consider the cases in which a plurality of 
rings or links concur in reviving some anterior thought .or mental 
condition. Associations individually too weak to revive a past 
idea may succeed in doing so when they act together. The 
general law of this mode of association is thus established. ‘ Past 
actions, sensations, thoughts, and emotions are more easily re- 
called when they are associated by contiguity or resemblance 
with more than one impression, or with a present object/ 
Compound associations result from single contiguities, from 
single resemblances, or from united contiguities and resem- 
blances. 
Here are some examples of the first case:—We feel the odour 
of a liquid; this sensation alone does not suffice to recall its 
name; but we afterwards taste it, and remembrance is effected 
by these united sensations. Complex objects, and concrete 
wholes, which we see in nature, such as a tree, an orange, a 
locality, or a person, are aggregates of ideas, and of contiguous 
sensations. 
A person who has previously read the two CEdipes of Sophocles 
will recollect them in reading ‘ King Lear / because a composi 
tion of resemblances naturally leads to comparison. 
Finally, if, in describing a tempest, you say, * the strife of the 
elements/ you associate by resemblance, because there is strife 
and combat in a tempest; and by contiguity, because this meta- 
phor is so generally used that the two ideas are connected. 
Whence the defects of the banal style, and of frequently used 
expressions. 
It may be asked, why the author has not recognised a particular 
mode of association by contrast i It is because he sees therein 
not so much a form of the fundamental law of intelligence, as the 
condition inherent to every act of knowledge, and without which 
it is not possible. 
‘ Contrast is the reproductive phase of the first law of mind, re- 
lativity, or discrimination : everything known to us is known in 
connexion with something else, the opposite or negation of itself; 
light implies darkness; heat supposes cold. Knowledge, like 224 
English Psychology. 
consciousness, in the last resort is a transition from one state to 
another, and both states are included in the act of knowing 
either.11 
The necessity inherent in every idea of completing itself by its 
contrary, produces the love of contradiction in discussions. 
Among the Greeks it gave rise to the doctrine of the Nemesis. 
VI. 
Hitherto we have only had in sight the resurrection, the literal 
awakening of sensations, images, emotions, consequences of 
anterior thoughts. 
But there are other modes of association, known under the 
names of imagination and creation. Here we unite new forms, 
we construct images, pictures, conceptions, mechanisms, differing 
from all which experience has previously given. The painter, 
the poet, the musician, the inventor in the arts and sciences, 
furnish us with examples. This is the law :— 
‘ By means of association the mind has the power of forming 
combinations or aggregates, differing from everything which has 
been presented in the course of experience.’ 
The essay upon constructive association, or the theory of imagi- 
nation, is equal to the best analyses of the work, for its order, its 
clearness, its fulness, the exactitude of its details, and the interest 
of the questions which it raises. 
Constructiveuess permits us by associations of sensations to 
imagine new sensations. You hear a passage read, you have 
already heard Rachel or Macready, and you say : ‘ Imagine 
Macready or Rachel delivering that passage.’ You wish to re- 
model the plan of your garden, it is by a constructive association 
that you can imagine the effect which will be produced when the 
new plan shall be realized. 
So it is with the emotions. The sentiments of men who differ 
altogether from us in their position, their character, their occupa- 
tions, can only be conceived by a constructive proceeding. 
Every one has experienced fear, anger, love, etc., these are the 
elementary facts which serve for our constructions; but it is 
1 Bain, The Senses and the Intellect, p. 579. Mr. Bain, 
225 
impossible to comprehend a sentiment of which one has not in 
one’s-self the source : this it is which renders religious or artistic 
forms, different from those to which they are accustomed, unin- 
telligible to so many people. Many historians have made this 
remark—Mr. Grote for example :—‘ We cannot comprehend,’ he 
says, ‘ the terror of the Athenians on learning the mutilation of 
the Hermes, except by remembering that, in their eyes, it was a 
pledge of security that the gods should dwell upon their soil.’ 
Constructive association in the fine arts, or imagination pro- 
perly so called, presents a peculiarity: it is the presence of an 
emotional element in the combinations. It is the artist’s ambi- 
tion to give pleasure to human nature, ‘ to increase the sum of its 
happiness.’ The first aim of the artist must be to satisfy taste. 
‘I cannot, then,’ says Mr. Bain, ‘accept the current doctrine 
which would make of nature his criterion, and of reality his end. 
The criterion of the artist is sentiment, his end is a delicate 
pleasure/ 
Here we perceive the testhetics of the author. We shall find 
them amply explained under the title of the emotions. 
CHAPTER III. 
THE EMOTIONS. 
The Feelings.—I. Judgment of Mr. Herbert Spencer—2. Classification of the 
emotions—3. Aesthetic feeling : of laughter—4. Moral feelings. 
I. 
We are now about to consider the weakest portion of the 
great work which occupies us,1 and its objects are the emo- 
tions. Although the author announces in his preface that he 
wishes to proceed as a naturalist, and to continue in the affective 
region what he has done for intelligence, appetites, and sensa- 
tions, we do not find such certainty of method as satisfies the 
mind, more than it is satisfied by analyses and discoveries. The 
Such also is Mr. Mill’s opinion in the article previously quoted. 226 
English Psychology. 
method of the naturalist, in fact, comprehends two essential 
operations—classification and description. The descriptive por- 
tion is excellent, and we could not desire it to be more complete. 
Each species of emotion is carefully characterized, considered in 
its effects, in its modifications, its influence, and its transforma- 
tions. The author never fails to study it under its double 
aspect, physical and mental, thus attaching the psychology of the 
passions to the physiology of the passions; and thereby exhibit- 
ing, as he remarks, the relation of the physical to the moral. 
This explanation, made in detail, and by fragments, under the 
special title of each emotion, gains in precision by this method, 
in which we find all the ability of his preceding essays. 
The defect of the work appears to us to exist in its classifica- 
tion of the affective phenomena. And here we will allow a better 
judge than ourselves to speak. Mr. Herbert Spencer, in an 
article published in i860 by the Medico-Chirurgical Review, and 
since reproduced in his essays (volume i., 1868), has given a 
detailed criticism of Mr. Bain’s book upon the emotions, of 
which we reproduce the substance. 
Notwithstanding its merits, Mr. Bain’s work is provisional—it 
is a transitional study. His declared intention is to follow a 
natural method, and he does it in many respects. But his clas- 
sifications are not founded on this method, for this reason : A 
natural classification supposes two things—a comparison of 
phenomena, and a close analysis, which, without stopping at its 
accidental characteristics, penetrates to all that is fundamental. 
This double labour is missing here ; description replaces analysis 
too far. Mr. Bain acknowledges that he has adopted as the 
the basis of classification the most manifest characters of the 
emotions, such as they are given to us, subjectively and objec- 
tively. From the objective point of view he refers to the natural 
language of the emotions, and the social phenomena which result 
from them. From the subjective point of view, he holds as 
primitive, and not to be decomposed, the emotions, given as such 
by the analysis of consciousness. Nevertheless, psychologists 
know well that there are intellectual acts which consciousness gives 
as simple, and not to be decomposed, and which analysis perfectly 
resolves. It ought to be the same in the case of the emotions as Mr. Bain. 
227 
in that of intellectual acts. Just as the conception of space re- 
solves itself into experiences altogether different from that con- 
ception ; so it is probable that the sentiment of affection or of 
respect is composed of elements each acting differently from the 
whole which they compose. 
How is it that Mr. Bain has not seen that to keep to the mani- 
fest characteristics is to follow the method of the ancient natural- 
ists, who, in virtue of exterior and superficial resemblances, place 
cetacea among fish and zoophytes among seaweeds 1 Every 
classification which is not founded upon real relations may con- 
tain many truths; it is useful at the commencement of a science, 
but it can only be provisional. 
Mr. Herbert Spencer then asks how the strict analysis which 
ought to precede classification should have been set about. It is 
assuredly more easy, he says, to compare animals and organs 
than emotions; there is the first difficulty. A second, which is 
more grave, is that of a good psychological classification, suppos- 
ing that a certain number of biological questions had been 
resolved, which in the actual state of science are not so. We 
may then aspire to progress, not to a definite result; and the fol- 
lowing are the conditions of that progress :— 
1. We must study the ascending evolution of the emotions 
through the animal kingdom; seeking out those which appear 
first, and which co-exist with the lowest forms of organization 
and intelligence. 
2. We must note the emotional differences which exist be- 
tween the lower and higher human races; those which are com- 
mon to all may be considered as primitive and simple, and those 
which are proper to the civilized races as ulterior and compound. 
3. We must observe the order of evolution, and of the develop- 
ment of the emotions, from earliest infancy to mature age. 
The comparison of this triple study of emotion in the animal 
kingdom, the progress of civilisation and of individual develop- 
ment, will render a truly scientific analysis of the affective pheno- 
mena more easy. The order of the evolution of the emotions 
would give the order of their mutual dependence. We should 
see, for example, that the lowest savage races ignore justice and 
pity; that they hardly know certain aesthetic emotions, like those 228 
English Psychology. 
of music; that the love of property is produced late, and is con- 
sequently an ulterior and derived sentiment. 
Finally, Mr. Bain has taken no account of hereditary transmis- 
sion, which, nevertheless, creates such great differences between 
savage and civilized races.1 
To these criticisms we venture to add a final one: Mr. Bain 
considers the number of simple emotions to be nine. Must we 
believe that they are absolutely irreducible 1 Is there not some 
fundamental inclination which is their source, and which explains 
them ? Cannot all the affective phenomena be reduced to a final 
law, as the intellectual phenomena may be reduced to a particular 
mode of association? Spinoza, as we know, explained all our 
passions by desire, joy, and pain, which he referred to the funda- 
mental inclination of every being ‘ to be and to persevere in his 
being.’ Jouffroy arrived at the same conclusion in another form, 
and in another manner. All the simple or compound emotions 
had the love of self for their first source. The positivists divided 
them into two sections—egotistical affections, affections for others. 
It seems to us regrettable that Mr. Bain should not have also 
tried a reduction, or at least that he should not have given us 
his mind upon the current doctrines. 
11. 
‘ Feeling,’ he says, ‘ comprehends all our pleasures and pains, 
and certain modes of excitement of a neutral character, which 
shall be defined later.’ Feeling comprehends at once diverse 
sensatiotis previously examined, and the emotions.a The former 
1 Mr. Bain has replied in a note to the last edition of The Emotions and 
the Will, p. 601. He points out that the point of view of Mr. Spencer, that 
of the doctrine of evolution, must have brought with it a difference of plan. 
He believes, in addition, that the disagreements are more apparent than real, 
and thus concludes the discussion : * It appears, therefore, that I have given 
a classification as nearly agreeing with Mr. Spencer’s, as two independent 
minds can be expected to agree in so vast a subject; the scheme whereby he 
proposes to reorganize, on an advanced idea, the psychology of the feelings, 
differing from mine only in form and appearance. ’—Bain’s Emotions and thl 
Will, p. 605. 
8 Emotions and Will, chap. iv. Mr. Bam. 
229 
are the primitive feelings, the latter the secondary, derivative, 
complex feelings. 
‘ The most general principle that we are able to lay down 
respecting the concomitance of mind and body may be called 
the law of diffusion. It is expressed thus : “ When an impression 
is accompanied with feeling, or any kind of consciousness, the 
aroused currents diffuse themselves freely over the brain, leading 
to a general agitation of the moving organs, as well as affecting 
the viscera.” 11 
The reflex action, on the contrary, which is not felt, is 
restrained in its influence to a very narrow nervous circuit. 
This law of diffusion causes motions to be transmitted by 
waves to the heart, stomach, and viscera, and manifests itself by 
the features of the countenance, etc. ‘It constitutes a consi- 
derable support to the doctrine of the unity of consciousness. 
Several nervous excitements may co-exist, but they can Only 
affect consciousness successively, each one in its turn.’ 
It is upon these exterior manifestations of the emotions, upon 
their results, and their subjective characteristics, that their clas- 
sification is founded. The author acknowledges the eleven fol- 
lowing classes :— 
1. We will begin with the Law of Harmony and Conflict. 
The principle that Harmony is connected with Pleasure, and 
Conflict with Pain, is probably an offshoot of the Law of Self- 
Conservation. 
2. There are certain emotions essentially depending on the 
Law of Relativity. Such are Novelty, Wonder, and the 
Feeling of Liberty. These are all purely relative to certain 
other states that go before ; Novelty and Wonder presuppose 
the ordinary or the common; Liberty implies foregone restraint. 
The emotion of Power also subsists upon comparison with some 
allied state of impotence. 
3. The emotion of Terror is a wide-spread influence in human 
life. The revulsion from suffering implied in our volitional 
nature, instead of producing always the simple effect of inspiring 
actions for relieving the pain, not unfrequently excites a convul- 
1 Bain, ibid. p. 3. 230 
English Psychology. 
sive trepidation of the whole system, accompanied with a new 
state of suffering, and with other important consequences. This 
special outgoing belongs to certain modes of pain rather than to 
others; and all sentient beings are subject to the condition, 
although in very unequal degrees. As a general rule, the sus- 
ceptibility to terror is a weakness and an evil, and the considera- 
tion of the means of avoiding or subduing it is of great practical 
moment. 
4. The extensive group of feelings implied under the title of 
the Tender Affections constitutes a well-marked order or 
genus of emotion. Being principally manifested towards living 
beings, their first development in the child comes with the recog- 
nition of personality. When they are once made to flow freely, 
human attachments begin to be formed; and a considerable por- 
tion of the pleasure of life springs from this fountain-head. If it 
were permitted to writers on the human mind to advert specifi- 
cally to the feelings of the sexual relations, these would find an 
appropriate place anterior to the present division. 
5. When a human being recognises or imagines in himself the 
qualities that draw forth admiration, love, reverence, esteem, 
when seen in others, he is affected by a peculiar kind of emotion, 
which passes current under such names as Self-complacency, 
Self-gratulation, Self-esteem. I am disposed to think that 
there is here only a special offshoot or diversion of the tender 
sensibility. [A still further emotional effect is produced by being 
the subject of the admiration or esteem of our fellows, which is 
commonly denominated Approbation, Praise, Glory, Reputa- 
tion, and the like.] 
6. The elation of superior Power is a very marked and widely 
ramifying sentiment of our constitution : implying, as its correla- 
tive, the depression of Impotence, inferiority, and insignificance. 
7. The Irascible Emotion is a notable attribute of our 
humanity, the peculiar characteristic of which is the pleasure 
arising from malevolent action and sentiment. 
8. Under Action there are certain distinct modes of feeling to 
be mentioned, as contributing largely to the interest of life. 
Besides the pleasures and pains of exercise, and the gratification 
of succeeding in an end, with the opposite mortification of miss- Mr. Bain. 
231 
ing what is laboured for, there is in the attitude of pursuit a 
peculiar state of mind, so far agreeable in itself that factitious 
occupations are instituted to bring it into play. When I use the 
term Plot-Interest, the character of the situation alluded to 
will be suggested with tolerable distinctness. 
9. The exercise of the Intellect gives birth to certain species of 
emotions which it is interesting to study. The routine opera- 
tions sustained by mere contiguity evolve no feeling; the more 
perfect the intellectual habits, the less consciousness is associated 
with them. A practised accountant approaches to a calculating 
machine. But in the operation of the Law of Similarity, where 
new identifications are struck out, there is an emotion of agree- 
able surprise accompanying the flash. Hence, although routine 
is unconscious, originality is intensely stimulating. Part of the 
pleasure of works of genius proceeds from this effect, and we 
shall see in it one of the rewards of intellectual pursuit. [Under 
the same head is to be reckoned the very characteristic pain pro- 
duced by Inconsistency, in the susceptibility to which tempera- 
ments differ greatly. The genuine love of Truth is greatly fos- 
tered by the desire of escaping from contradictions.1] 
While the sentiments ranged under the nine preceding titles 
are simple and irreducible, the sesthetic and the moral emotions 
which form the two last groups are compound. The author has 
studied them in detail, and we must now pause to consider them. 
hi. 
Two entire chapters (the thirteenth and fourteenth) on sympathy, 
imitation, and ideal emotion, that is to say, the emotion which 
is caused by pure ideas, and not by realities, precede the aesthetic 
explanation. 
‘We understand by sympathy and imitation, the tendency 
of an individual to agree with the active or emotional conditions 
of others; these conditions being revealed by certain means of 
expression.' Sympathy and imitation have an identical founda- 
tion ; but the one expression is used for feelings, and the other for 
action. Two laws regulate sympathy. The first is the tendency 
1 Bain, Emotions and the Will, 2d edition, 1865, p. 36. 232 
English Psychology. 
to take a condition, attitude, or corporeal movement, when we 
see another person producing it. The second is the tendency to 
take a state of consciousness by means of the corporeal conditions 
which accompany it. These two laws explain contagious 
emotions,—the propagation of yawning or laughing. A great 
nervous weakness predisposes to sensations of sympathy, and to 
the strange facts produced by magnetic sleep. 
It would be inexact to say that Mr. Bain has given us in his 
work a system of aesthetics, or of morals; we do, however, find 
them sketched there. His experimental method, which is very 
good when applied to simple psychical phenomena, does not ap- 
pear to us so happy, when it consists less of facts than of an ideal, 
—less of what is, than of what ought to be. The relation between 
the good and the beautiful is so intimate that some, for instance 
Goethe, have thought that morals are only aesthetics applied to 
life,—an idea to which Plato was not a stranger. Virtue then 
appears like another form of beauty. And no doubt, when we 
think of it, we must consider these researches, whose object is to 
fix the essence of the beautiful and the good, as somewhat 
vain. Here precision is only awkwardness and want of 
skill; these things are so delicate, that all scholastic stiffness 
endangers or breaks them. We must renounce the idea of 
grasping the unfathomable, and of translating the ideal by the 
imperfect formulse of science, whose apparent exactitude is on 
the surface only. 
Only one single truly serious method is to be found in aesthetics, 
one method which can not lead to illusion, while we believe that 
it tends to truth. It is that which proceeds subjectively, which 
does not seek out the beautiful, which does not try to add a new 
definition, equally, though otherwise insufficient, to those already 
given, which limits itself to the study of internal phenomena; 
that is to say, the effects which the beautiful produces upon us. 
There are a certain number of sentiments or emotions which we 
call aesthetic ; what is their nature, what are their characteristics 1 
Thus the whole task of aesthetics is to state phenomena, to ana- 
lyse them, and to describe them. Jouffroyhas given an example 
in his Cours d’esthetique, unhappily unfinished. thus 
understood, is a necessary accompaniment of psychology; it forms Mr. Bain. 
233 
a chapter of it, which can hardly be detached, and it seems that 
at least it cannot be otherwise understood in any analytical 
treatise upon the phenomena of consciousness. 
All our senses, says Mr. Bain, are not capable of furnishing us 
with aesthetic emotions; because we must exclude from this cate- 
gory the purely sensual pleasures : in the first place, because, 
being indispensable to our existence, they have not a disinterested 
character ; secondly, because they are sometimes united to certain 
repugnant facts ; finally, because they are egotistical or individual; 
two men may enjoy the same picture, they cannot enjoy the 
same piece of food. In order that sensations may have an 
aesthetic character, they must cease to be a simple property of the 
individual; thus it is that the eye and the ear are especially 
aesthetic senses. 
‘ Ever since the dawn of philosophical speculation, the nature 
of the Beautiful has been a matter of discussion. In the conver- 
sations of Socrates, in the dialogues of Plato, this inquiry had a 
place side by side with others conducted in a kindred spirit, as into 
the Good, the Just, the Fit. Most of the inquirers laboured 
under a fallacy or misapprehension, rendering the discussion futile 
as regarded analytic results ; they proceeded on the supposition, 
that some single thing could be found, entering as a common 
ingredient into the whole class of things named beautiful.’1 
But that is not the case ; were it so, two thousand years ago 
this beautiful type would have been discovered. Besides, we 
moderns, habituated to the doctrine of the plurality of causes, 
have no repugnance in admitting not only the beautiful in itself, 
but many things which are beautiful. The whole meaning of 
this aesthetic exposition is, that harmony is the soul of art. The 
sublime is a sentiment explained by sympathy. 
‘The objects of the sublime have, in fact, a certain community 
of character, such as belongs only to very small portions of the 
wide field of the beautiful. They are principally the objects, 
aspects, and appearances that betoken great might, energy, or 
force, and which are capable of dilating the mind with a borrowed 
sentiment of power. ... So enjoyable is the sense of power, that 
1 Bain, Emotions and Will, p. 249. 234 
English Psychology. 
we welcome every mode of making it present. When we have it 
not in actual, though unmanifested, energy of our own, we seek 
for it in the ideal by witnessing the energy displayed around 
us.’ 1 
‘ Human power is the true and literal sublime, and it is the 
starting-point for the sublimity of power in everything else. 
Nature, by a bold extension of analogy, is assimilated to humanity, 
and invested with mental attributes.’ 
An interesting question, but little studied hitherto, terminates 
this sketch of sesthetics : it is that of laughter. Mr. Bain merely 
touches upon it. Mr. Herbert Spencer has published a brief 
but substantial essay upon the same subject. We shall unite 
them here.2 
The causes of laughter, says Mr. Bain, are sometimes physical, 
for instance cold, tickling, certain acute pains, and hysteria; 
sometimes mental, for instance, gaiety : the laughter of the gods, 
in Homer, is the exuberance of their celestial joy, after their 
daily banquet. It seems that everything which produces an aug- 
mentation of gaiety, by setting us free from constraint, or by in- 
creasing the consciousness of our energy, produces an agreeable 
emotion which manifests itself by laughter. A tender feeling, on 
the contrary, would give rise to a manifestation of a less distinct 
character, the smile; if indeed it be correct to define the smile 
as a species of laughter. 
It is commonly said that the laughable is caused by an incon- 
gruity ; that in order to produce it there must be at least two 
things or qualities naturally opposed to each other. But there 
are incongruities which cause anything but laughter • an old man 
bending under a heavy burthen, snow in May, a wolf in a sheep- 
fold, and twenty other facts of this kind, excite pity, astonishment, 
fear, but not laughter. Hobbes defines laughter as * a sudden 
feeling of exultation springing from the sudden idea of some 
superiority proper to us, in comparison with the inferiority of 
1 Bain, Emotions and Will, p. 273. 
3 Physiology of Laughter, in Macmillan's Magazine, March 1860, reprinted 
jn the Essays, vol. i., on Laughter; see Leveque, Revue des Deux Mo tides, 
1st September 1863, and Leon Dumont, Des Causes du Eire. Mr. Bain. 
235 
others, or with our own previous inferiority.’ This purely egotis- 
tical application of laughter explains neither that which is caused 
by sympathy nor that which is induced by comic literature. 
Mr. Bain seems to trace the cause of laughter to a feeling of 
power or of superioriry, and in liberation from constraint. A 
serious, grave, dignified, solemn demeanour obliges us to be 
constrained ; as soon as we can throw it off we feel free. Serious- 
ness demands toil and effort; abandonment, liberty, laisser-aller, 
are produced of themselves, and have an air of gaiety which arises 
from the absence of all constraint. 
We must now let Mr. Herbert Spencer speak. His short 
article upon the physiology of laughter seems to us one of the 
best of his Essays. We perceive by the title that he is less occu- 
pied with the psychological side of the question than Mr. Bain ; 
perhaps he is the more successful in consequence. Nowhere 
has he leaned more firmly upon his great doctrine of the con- 
tinuity of natural phenomena, in virtue of which there are no 
creations but only transformations of motions. Consequently he 
has not studied laughter separately in itself; he has attached it 
to its causes, to its conditions, and considered it as the moment 
of a whole, from which it cannot be separated. 
When we ask, Whence comes laughter 1 the ordinary answer 
is, From an incongruity. In allowing that this reply does not 
admit of an objection, we must also admit that it hardly affects 
the problem, since the real difficulty is this:—Why, when we 
experience a keen pleasure, when we are struck by an unexpected 
contrast between ideas, is a particular contraction of the muscles 
of the face and of certain muscles of the chest and the abdomen 
produced 1 Physiology only can answer that question. 
It teaches us that it is of the nature of nervous force to expend 
itself, to discharge itself in one of the following ways :— 
i. Nervous excitement always te?ids to produce muscular 
motion, and always produces it when it attains a certain intensity. 
Hence gestures, the expression of the physiognomy, in short all 
those states of the muscles which allow us to read the feelings of 
others. The nervous discharge can even produce extraordinary 
effects, for instance, in the case of paralytics who have momen- 
tarily recovered the use of their limbs, in consequence of some 236 
English Psychology. 
violent emotion. The emotions and the feelings tend then to 
produce bodily movements in proportion to their intensity. 
2. But this is not the only direction which nervous action can 
take in order to expend itself. The viscera as well as the muscles 
can receive the discharge. Hence the influence of the emotions 
upon the heart and the digestive organs. 
3. Finally, the nervous discharge may be effected in another 
direction, which it usually takes when the excitement is not great. 
It consists in causing the excitement to pass into some other part 
of the nervous system. This is produced when our thoughts and 
feelings are calm, and thence result the successive conditions 
which constitute consciousness. Sensations excite ideas and 
emotions; the latter, in their turn, awaken other ideas and 
emotions, and so on ; that is to say, the tension which exists in 
certain nerves or clusters of nerves, when they procure sensations, 
ideas, or emotions for us, engender an equivalent tension in other 
nerves with which they are connected. 
It is a necessity that nervous force, existing in every instant, 
and producing in an inexplicable manner what we call feeling, 
should follow one of these three directions ; to excite new feelings, 
to act upon the viscera, to produce motion. Well-known facts 
attest this. Great griefs are silent. Why? Because in their 
case the nervous excitement awakens melancholy ideas instead 
of producing exterior manifestations. Those persons who con- 
ceal their anger are always the most vindictive. Why ? Because 
emotion increases by accumulation. Bodily activity, on the con- 
trary, the necessity for a life of effort, weakens the emotions, 
because the nervous excitement expends itself materially. 
All this explains the question of laughter. Nervous excitement 
must follow that one of the three channels which shall open itself 
most readily: in the case of laughter the discharge acts upon the 
muscles. Take the laughter which results from a physical cause 
(cold, tickling, etc.); the discharge will act first upon the muscles 
which are the most habitually moved, that is to say, upon those 
of the mouth and of the organs of the voice ; if it be very strong, 
it will act upon the other parts of the body, as in violent laughter. 
Now take the laughter which arises from an incongruity. You 
axe at the theatre, an interesting drama is being played, and the Mr. Bain. 
237 
actors have reached the chief scene, the reconciliation of the 
hero and the heroine, after a long and grievous estrangement. 
But, of a sudden, a goat makes its appearance from behind the 
scenes, and after surveying the audience with amazement, goes 
ba-a-ing towards the lovers. You laugh. Why ? Because you 
were under the influence of a strong emotion, or, to put it physio- 
logically, your nervous system was in a state of tension. A sud- 
den interruption takes place, the sight of the goat cannot cause 
you an emotion equal to that caused by the reconciliation of the 
two lovers; there is then a surplus of emotion which must run 
over; it discharges itself through the channel which it finds open, 
and produces laughter. * 
If we examine, in the sense of a counter proof, the incongrui- 
ties which do not produce laughter—such as an old man carrying 
a heavy burthen—we shall see that here the two states of con- 
sciousness, though opposed, are of the same bulk, and therefore 
there is no discharge to be expended. The orator who, in 
Parliament, incessantly takes out and replaces his eyeglass, the 
schoolboy who, while reciting his lesson, constantly twists some- 
thing between his fingers, the automatic actions of certain advo- 
cates and other persons while speaking in public, are so many 
examples of the manner in which the surplusage of the emotions 
expends itself, and consequently escapes from paralysing intelli- 
gence. 
IV. 
The preceding study is another proof of how systematic is 
Mr. Spencer’s analysis; so that we would not neglect this 
important psychological monograph. Let us return to Mr. Bain 
and his analysis of the moral emotions. Very clear in detail, it 
is more difficult to grasp and exhibit in its entirety. It seems 
that his chief care has been to give a purely human character to 
morality. The conception of a higher law appears to be 
repugnant to him, because it presents itself as a super-sensible fact, 
in disagreement with his empirical habits. If the language of 
German philosophy should not seem out of place here, we would 
say in one word that Mr. Bain’s theory of morals is immanent, and 
opposed to all transcendence. He has aimed above all at founding 
it, not upon an abstraction, but upon a fact, and a human fact. 238 
English Psychology. 
In their proper sense, says Mr. Bain, I consider the words, 
morality, duty, obligation, right, as belonging to the class of 
actions, which is supported and reinforced by the sanction of a 
punishment. We may disapprove a mode of conduct, but so 
long as we do not proceed against it, we do not regard it as 
obligatory. 
‘ The powers that impose the obligatory sanction are Law 
and Society, or the community acting through the Government by 
public judicial acts, and apart from the Government by the 
unofficial expressions of disapprobation and the exclusion from 
social good offices. The murderer and the thief are punished by 
the law ; the coward, the adulterer, the heretic, the eccentric 
person are punished by the community acting as private indi- 
viduals, and agreeing by consent to censure and excommunicate 
the offender. A third power concerned in obligation is con- 
science, which is an ideal reflection of public authority growing 
up in the individual mind, and making to the same end.’1 
The various moral systems founded upon positive law, the 
divine will, strict reason, moral sense, personal interest, and 
general interest, are successively examined and rejected by the 
author. He very clearly shows the insufficiency of egotistical 
and utilitarian doctrines. It is not true that all our acts reduce 
themselves to the love of ourselves, 1 because sympathy is a fact 
of human nature whose influence makes itself readily felt at a 
distance, and constantly modifies and contradicts purely egotis- 
tical impulses.’ And in the same way utility does not always explain 
all our actions, since it is not rare to see a man refuse to embrace 
a lucrative profession, which would appear to him to be dis- 
honourable to the traditions of his family pride, and to choose 
instead a life of privations and poverty. 
The doctrine of an independent moral law which serves as a 
criterion and regulator, is not more acceptable, because it attri- 
butes to this criterion an independent existence relating to 
nothing,—in fact, hardly conceivable. We have for our weights and 
measures an independent standard, by which we can compare 
them; for the regulation of our watches we have our astronomi- 
1 Bain, Emotions and Will, p. 286. Mr. Bain. 
239 
cal observations, and we have the Observatory at Greenwich, 
which is our regulator; but in morals there is no criterion of this 
kind. It is doing violence to language to maintain the existence 
of an abstract truth; it is the same with moral ideas. They 
must be sought in the human mind, and not in anything exterior 
to the human mind. If mechanical and metaphysical laws are 
true, it is not in virtue of a certain abstract truth from which they are 
derived, but because the perceptions of men in this region of phenomena 
are imiform when they are compared. When this uniformity does 
not exist in our perceptions (those of taste, for example), then 
the criterion fails. ‘There is no more universal consciousness 
than universal reason; consciousness, like reason, is always 
individual.’ Only men agree in their moral approbation and 
disapprobation, as they agree in their judgment upon truth. To 
suppose a true or a good independent of individual judgments is 
to resemble a man who, hearing a choir sing, should suppose an 
abstract universal voice, distinct and independent of particular 
voices. 
We may translate this doctrine into the language of Kant, by 
saying, scientific and moral truths are subjective; all their reality 
is in us, and not out of us. The true and the good are only 
realized abstractions : they result from our judgments, instead of 
being the cause of them; so far from being anterior to them, 
they are produced after and by them. The fundamental fact is 
then that of moral approbation and disapprobation. Are all 
men agreed to approve and disapprove the same things % In 
order to answer this question it would be necessary to have a 
complete collection of all the codes which have ever existed. 
In the absence of them, we may say that the supposed uni- 
formity of moral decisions resolves itself into the two following 
elements :— 
The duties which tend to preserve public security, which in- 
cludes individual security. Consequently respect for protective 
authority, distinction between the meum and the tuum, the union 
of the s<;xes, the care of the mother for the child. Every society 
which does not fulfil these conditions, disappears, de- 
stroyed by a vice inherent in its own nature. 
The duties of pure feeling, imposing prescriptions not essential 240 
English Psychology. 
to the maintenance of society; duties which are variable accord- 
ing to time and peoples: such as drinking wine in honour of 
Bacchus, going out veiled like the Mussulmans, abstaining from 
animal food like the Brahmins, etc. 
Finally, we must conclude ‘ that the moral laws which prevail 
in almost all societies, if not in all, are partly founded upon utility, 
and partly upon feelingl And to this question, What is the moral 
criterion 1 we must reply :—‘ The laws promulgated by existing 
society, which were derived from a man who was invested in his 
time with the authority of a moral legislator.' In support of this 
doctrine we may invoke the mode of promulgation of moral 
laws : they are imposed by a real power, and by an individual 
whose power is sometimes dictatorial. Such were Mahomet, 
Confucius, Buddha, Solon, and the ‘ traditional’ Lycurgus. 
We may also invoke their mode of abrogation, of which the 
Reformation and the French Revolution have given us ex- 
amples. 
As to individual consciousness, the author declares himself in 
complete disagreement with those who consider it to be primitive 
and independent. * I maintain, on the contrary,’ he says, ‘ that 
consciousness is an imitation, from within ourselves, of the 
government which is without. It is formed and developed by 
education.’1 
The object of my work being to explain, not to criticise, I shall 
not stop here to discuss this doctrine, however open to objection 
it may appear to me in many respects. Still I cannot refrain 
from making a few short remarks upon it. 
Nothing appears more contrary to facts than to place the rule 
of morals in a promulgated legislation, and to regard it as the type 
upon which the individual conscience fashions itself. In the 
first place one objection naturally presents itself. How can it 
be then that the individual conscience frequently makes for itself 
an individual law in disagreement with the general laws, or at least 
outside of them 1 The author has stated this difficulty, which he 
considers ‘ formidable in appearance,’ but I venture to thmk that 
he has not in any degree resolved it. Besides, how can we fail to 
1 Page 283. Mr. Bain. 
241 
see that these promulgated laws are the result of individual con- 
sciences, of a dull latent labour which has lasted sometimes for 
centuries ? History teaches us that all new or good legislation 
is in agreement with the desires and the tendencies of particular 
consciences, and that it is accepted by the majority, and imposes 
itself by degrees upon its opponents, or else it is the work of a 
caprice, and then it has neither duration nor stability. Promul- 
gated laws are then the result of individual consciences, 
instead of being their cause. The legislations of Buddha, of 
Solon, of Lycurgus, of Confucius, of Mahomet, are not pure 
creations of their brain. Confucius declares that he follows 
the tradition of his ancestors, who were so powerful in China. 
Mahomet states himself to be a restorer. Buddhism is born of 
an effusion of hearts towards charity, tenderness and the doctrine 
of inaction. Solon and Lycurgus give a body to ancient Ionic 
or Doric institutions. All these men have only told the secret 
of all the world. 
Is it not also to be regretted that the study of moral senti- 
ments should say nothing of their development ? How can their 
nature be shown, if their evolutions be not described? Un- 
doubtedly, we cannot accept either the doctrine which maintains 
the absolute immutability of morals, to which facts give the 
most utter denial, or the doctrine of its absolute mobility, which 
is not less forcibly contradicted by experience. But how does 
the development take place, and in what measure? How, by 
the composition of simple elements, have new moral emotions 
been able to produce themselves for man ? The reply to these 
questions is missing.1 
1 On the moral theory of Bain see Janet, Revue des Deux Mondes, Oct. 
IS, 1868. 242 
English Psychology. 
CHAPTER IV. 
Will.—I. Division of the subject—2. Of the germ of the will—3. Growth of 
the voluntary power—4. Motives and resolution—5. Free will—6. Con- 
clusion. 
THE WILL. 
I. 
The idea of progress, evolution, and development, which we 
regret is wanting in the study of Mr. Bain upon the emotions, 
appears in the half volume devoted to the Will. In that he 
follows through all its phases the growth of voluntary power, from 
the moment when it was scarcely an obscure germ, an almost 
physiological instinct, to its final period of completion, when in 
the name of liberty it supposes intelligence and founds morality. 
In the place of an artificial and abstract method, which, taking 
the will as completely constituted in its adult age, can only half 
explain it, we have here a natural and concrete method which 
completes the static study by a dynamic explanation. It is 
remarkable that in France the plan followed in the study of the 
will has almost always issued in metamorphosing it into an 
abstraction. The fact of determining its conditions and its 
results, that which precedes and that which follows it, has 
been so exclusively isolated, that it has been reduced to a 
mathematical point, to an almost imperceptible moment, which 
has no more reality. The current theories, in short, when 
reduced to what they have essentially in common, distinguish 
three moments in a voluntary act; the production of motives 
and their conflict, the resolution and the action which interpret 
it. They are not occupied with the first or with the third, 
because they belong either to intelligence or to physiology; 
they intrench themselves in the second exclusively, in order to 
work out the whole of the will. Hence these factitious ques- 
tions and strange assertions; for example, that the will ‘ is equal 
in all men,’ it is in complete disagreement with the facts, but 
in complete agreement with the abstraction which has been 
substituted for reality. Here, as everywhere, the important 
matter was to state the question clearly, but the method of the Mr. Bain. 
243 
faculties has not a little contributed to separate that which ought 
not to be disunited, and thus to produce a false interpretation of 
the facts. To follow them in their development, is not only to 
be more complete, but also to be more exact; it is to rectify an 
error ; because to give only a portion of the truth is error. 
The table of the genesis of our volitions, as drawn up by Mr. 
Bain, may be reduced to the following points:— 
1. Examination of the instinctive germ of the will. 
2. First essays of voluntary power. 
3. Motives, their conflict, resolution, and effort. 
4. Finally, the so often discussed question of liberty. 
11. 
The instinctive germs, the primitive elements, of will are 
two in number: the existence of a spontaneous activity and the 
link which exists between our feelings and the actions which 
interpret them. 
We have already seen (ch. i.) that there exists in us a spon- 
taneous activity which displays itself without an exterior exciting 
cause, and which can only be explained by a superabundance, an 
excess, and an effusion of power; that it especially exhibits itself 
in the restless activity of childhood and youth; that it acts upon 
our locomotive members, and that often faint cries and emissions 
of the voice are due to a surplus of central energy. 
There is one condition indispensable to the commencement of 
voluntary power: it is that the organs which afterwards we shall 
command separately or individually, should be, in the first instance, 
susceptible of being isolated. For example, we can make the 
forefinger produce an independent movement, while with the third 
finger this is impossible; the external ear is motionless in man, 
but moveable in other animals; with the foot the toes go together, 
although they may sometimes be isolated, as we see in persons 
who write or work with their feet. It is necessary for this that 
the nervous current should be capable of isolation and rendered 
independent. In short, every movement produced voluntarily 
must be preceded by a spontaneous movement. 
What are the conditions of this spontaneous discharge 1 The 
most general are: the natural vigour of the constitution, and the 244 
English Psychology. 
unaccustomed afflux of central nervous energy, due to physical 
exciting causes, such as food or drink, and intellectual excite- 
ments, such as pleasure and pain. 
The second germ of the will is found in the natural tie uniting 
sentiments and action (ch. i. sec. 3). The law of self-preser- 
vation, we have seen, unites pleasure to an increase of activity, 
and pain to a diminution of vitality. But the movements caused 
by the emotions are very different from those caused by the will: 
the former act upon the often exerted muscles, like those of the 
face and of the voice, the latter act especially upon those which 
. can increase pleasure or diminish pain. Our spontaneous move- 
ments naturally give birth to pleasure or to pain. Is pleasure 
produced? Then there is an increase of vital energy, which pro- 
duces a new increase of movement, and consequently of plea- 
sure. Is pain produced ? Pain diminishes the vital energy, the 
movements which have caused the pain diminish also, and this 
diminution will be the remedy. Now let the fortuitous con- 
currence of a pleasure and of a certain movement be produced 
several times, and soon, under the influence of the law of reten- 
tiveness, these things will be so intimately united that pleasure, 
or even the simple idea of pleasure, will evoke an appropriate 
movement. 
In short, spontaneity or chance always produces, in the first 
place, actions united to our sensations and feelings \ conscious 
and intelligent activity produces them afterwards. 
in. 
The bases of voluntary power are then spontaneity, self- 
preservation, and retentiveness. Let us now enter into the 
history of its development; let us see by what processes deter- 
minate actions unite themselves to determinate feelings, so that 
afterwards the one may command the other. 
‘ The will is a machinery of detail: the learning of a foreign 
tongue is not more a matter of multiplied and separate acquisi- 
tions. The fancied unity of the voluntary power suggested by 
the appearance assumed by it in mature life, when we seem able 
to set agoing any action on the slightest wish, is the culmination of Mr. Bam. 
245 
a vast range of detailed associations, whose history has been lost 
sight of or forgotten.’1 
Let us examine how the edifice of our will is constructed, 
piece by piece, by passing in review the different sorts of sensa- 
tions and feelings.2 The exercise of our muscular sense, of the 
organism of taste, smell, hearing, touch, and sight, cannot be- 
come voluntary, except after numerous efforts, and sometimes 
unfruitful attempts. We cannot follow Mr. Bain in his details ; 
a few examples will suffice. 
In organic life, there is not at the commencement any con- 
nexion between physical suffering, and the actions calculated to 
relieve it. There is a general tendency to diminish vitality; that 
is all. ‘ It is impossible to say how many fortuitous conjunctions 
are required to produce an adhesion sufficiently strong to raise 
us above the indecisions of a spontaneous commencement.’ Few 
of our necessities are so pressing as thirst; nevertheless, an 
animal does not distinguish at first that the water in the pond 
can appease it: maternal milk, the moisture of the food, suffice 
in the beginning; it is only later in his wanderings that he comes 
to apply his tongue to the surface of the water, and to feel the 
relief which it affords, and thus to learn what he ought to will. 
An act so simple in appearance as that of spitting, demands so 
many efforts that a child can only accomplish it at the end of his 
second year. We only arrive at smelling an object when we know 
how to shut our mouth and respire. It is by tactile sensations 
that animals are trained ; pain is inflicted upon them to lead them 
to the desired end. The animal produces movements, and sees 
that one of these is not followed by blows ; these two facts, a 
movement produced, and the absence of the blow, unite them- 
selves in his mind,—thus the first step of his education is made. 
One established connexion serves to establish others : the be- 
ginning only is difficult. 
We may also regulate and control our sentiments. This is too 
common a fact to be doubted. If a feeling, such as anger, de- 
1 Bain, The Emotions and the Will, p. 343* 
2 Chap. ii. and iii. 246 
English Psychology. 
termines violent movements of the muscles, a counter current 
may act upon the same muscles. 
IV. 
It may be said that the proper function of our active faculties 
is to divert pain, to preserve and reproduce pleasure.1 Thither 
tend the different motives which cause us to act, and which may 
be classed under the following heads :— 
All the phenomena of pleasure and of pain derived from the 
muscular system, from the organic sensations, from the five 
senses properly speaking, from the various emotions; these 
motives can determine us, either by their actual, real, present, 
existence, or else by an ideal action, by an influence of pure 
provision. Precautions against the causes of illness, against 
attacks on our property, on our reputation, etc., are of the 
second kind. Retentiveness and repetition tend to strengthen 
those motives which have not for their aim an actual object. 
Aggregate or grouped ends, such as money, health, education, 
social position, professional success, all those things which sup- 
pose the addition of several special ends. 
Derived or intermediate ends, which consist in seeking and 
loving for itself that which was at first only a means. Such is 
the love of forms, and of money as money. 
Passionate and exaggerated ends ; discordant with reason, such 
as fascination, intoxication, a fixed idea, these are to be seen in 
the eccentric facts of the magnetic sleep and of table-turning. 
Such are the motives between which conflict takes place ; now 
the strife is waged between two actual motives, again between an 
actual motive and an idea, and the latter will carry the day, if 
remembrance be sufficiently keen to enable the ideal to vanquish 
the real, as in the case of persons much preoccupied about their 
health. Impetuous and passionate motives do not admit rival 
considerations, they can be neutralized only by a motive of their 
own nature. 
Deliberation is voluntary action producing itself under a con- 
1 Chaps, v. and vi. Mr. Bain. 
247 
currence or complication of motives.1 A well-disciplined will is 
one which acts neither too soon nor too late; but various causes, 
such as youth and a vigorous temperament, do not admit of delay. 
In order to remedy the dangers of hasty decision, Franklin 
invented his Moral Algebra. You are hesitating, he says, on 
a course to be taken. Reflect three or four days, rule a sheet of 
paper in two columns, one to note the pros, the other the cons; 
enter each of your provisional conclusions ; then, when that time 
shall have elapsed, compare the two columns, strike the balance, 
wait for three days longer, and then act. He frequently resorted 
to this method, upon which he congratulated himself. 
The term of deliberation is resolution. The nature of the will 
is to pass on immediately to the act. When there is a suspension, 
that results from a new influence, which arrests the ordinary and 
regular course of the will. You are in a shop, several objects 
solicit your preference ; one of them obtains it; you have taken 
your resolution. 
It is followed by a feeling of a special kind which we call 
effort. ‘This word signifies in reality the muscular conscious- 
ness which accompanies voluntary activity, and the more 
specially when it is painful.’ Great importance is attached 
to the feeling of effort; it has been supposed that there is in it a 
mechanical power whose source is a purely mental activity. 
‘ The doctrine, so long predominant, which represents volition 
as the source of all motive power, is regarded as receiving 
its strongest confirmation from the effort which accompanies the 
production of muscular energy.’ Let us see what we are to 
believe. According to Mr. Bain, the source of effort ought to 
be looked for in organism ; consciousness asserts effort and does 
not constitute it; it is only the accidental portion of it. On this 
important point we shall let him explain himself. 
A labourer prepares himself, in the morning, to work in a 
field : that is his will. And in that volition there is a certain 
consciousness, but it is not that consciousness which, in itself, 
put him into the condition to labour. 
‘ A large expenditure of muscular and nervous energy, derived 
1 Chap. vii. 248 
English Psychology. 
in the final resort from his well-digested meals and healthy re- 
spirations, is the true source, the veritable antecedent of all that 
muscular power. It is now-a-days a truism to compare a living 
animal with a steam-engine as regards the source of the moving 
power. What the coal by its combustion is to the engine, the 
food and inspired air are to the living system; the concurring 
consciousness of expended power is no more the cause of that 
power than the illumination cast by the engine furnace is the 
source of the movements generated.’1 
Is it not strange to think that consciousness of effort is the 
cause of the voluntary motion, when we see that if power be as 
great as possible, effort is nil,, and if effort be as great as possi- 
ble, power is nil l 2 
‘ The pleasure or pain, that is, the mental antecedent of a 
voluntary act, is embodied in the nervous and other organs, and 
rises and falls with their physical condition. When a feeling of 
either sort prompts the voluntary executive, a new kind of con- 
sciousness arises, that belonging to the expenditure of motive 
power; but in a way, if possible, still more decided, does this 
consciousness repose upon material processes. The nervous 
centres are drained of their energy, the muscles part with theirs, 
and in a very short time the whole system is run down like a 
steam-engine with its fire burnt out. . . . On a close examina- 
tion it turns out that the animal system puts forth active energy 
without as well as with consciousness; but in no case without 
the expenditure of nutritive material. 
Voluntary actions are distinguished from reflex and spontaneous 
activity by the directive intervention of a feeling in their produc- 
tion ; and the phenomenon is altogether a remarkable one. . . . 
If it so please us, we are at liberty to say mind is a source of 
1 Bain, Emotions and Will, p. 475. 
2 We must not forget that Mr. Bain, arguing upon the tendency of idea to 
pass into action, never separates resolution from action. The latter mode is 
part of the voluntary development, and crowns it. To him, resolution not 
followed by action is a demi-volition, a sort of psychological abortion. * The 
form of volition in which there is a motive, without the ability to accomplish 
it, is Desire.’—Chap. viii. Mr. Bain. 
249 
power; but we must then mean by mind the consciousness in 
conjunction with the whole body; and we must also be prepared 
to admit, that the physical energy is the indispensable condi- 
tion, and the consciousness the casual.’1 
v. 
* All that has hitherto been explained in relatiomto the volun- 
tary actions of living beings, implies the predominance of a 
uniformity, or of a law in that class of phenomena, by granting a 
complication of numerous antecedents which are not always 
perfectly known.’ The practice of life is generally in accordance 
with this theory; we predict the future conduct of each person 
according to his past; we call a just man, Aristides; a moral 
hero, Socrates: a monster of cruelty, Nero. Why? Because 
we take for granted a certain persistence and regularity in the 
influence of motives almost as much as when we affirm that 
bread nourishes, that smoke rises, or any other such attribute of 
material bodies. The question of liberty, ‘ that hampered lock of 
metaphysics,’ that ‘ paradox of the first degree,’ ‘ that inextricable 
knot,’ belongs to the category of artificial problems, like the 
famous arguments of Zeno, on the race between Achilles and the 
tortoise, and the difficulties raised by Berkeley against the differ- 
ential calculus. 
The notion of human free-will appeared for the first time 
among the Stoics, and later in the writings of Philo the Jew; by 
a metaphor the virtuous man was called free, and the vicious 
man was called a slave. The metaphysical elaboration of the 
doctrine of free-will and necessity is especially due to Saint Augus- 
tine, in his controversy with Pelagius, and to the strife between 
the Arminians and the Calvinists. ‘A fitting answer to the 
advocates of free-will is the utter unfitness of the word or the 
idea to express the phenomenon in question.’ We may produce 
an entire mystery, an entire extricable difficulty, by persisting in 
preserving a phraseology which does not adopt itself to the facts. 
The Newtonian theory of gravitation explains natural phenomena 
in a complete and scientific manner, but substitute another idea 
1 Bain, Emotions and Will, p. 475-6. 250 
English Psychology. 
for gravity, that of a polarity, for example, such as exists in a 
loadstone, make of it the type and the foundation of all the 
groundwork of all the forces of nature, and see how everything 
becomes entangled, how you substitute an unintelligible mystery 
for a simple explanation. In the same way, to ask whether or 
not our volitions are free, is to confuse everything, it is to add 
artificial difficulties to a problem not of itself insoluble, it is to 
resemble the personage whom Carlyle makes to ask, ‘ Is virtue a 
gas 1 ’ A motive, hunger, impels me : I take the food which is 
before me: I go to an eating-house, where I fulfil some other 
preliminary condition : here is a plain and simple sequence ; 
make the idea of liberty enter into it, and it becomes a chaos. 
The term ability is inoffensive and intelligible, but the term 
libei'ty has been forcibly dragged into a phenomenon with which 
it has nothing in common. A metaphor relative to virtue having 
given rise to this question, we might as well have asked ourselves 
whether the will is rich or poor, noble or ignoble, sovereign or 
subject, since all that has been said about virtue ! 
The word necessity is also an improper expression, which ought 
indeed to be banished from all the sciences, physical or moral. 
At present it is only troublesome, and the words which we are 
tending to substitute, such as uniform, conditional, unconditional, 
sequence, antecedent, consequent, have a precise meaning, and do 
not admit of confused associations. 
By liberty of choice, we mean one thing only, the denial of all 
foreign intervention. It is no more than this : if, a person inter- 
vening, I am led by that person to act in a certain manner, as a 
child who is taken into a shop to purchase an article of clothing, 
but who is not suffered to choose for himself. But, applied to 
the various motions of my own mind, the word ‘ liberty of choice’ 
has no meaning. Various motives concur in pushing me into 
action; the result of the conflict shows that one group is 
stronger than another, and the whole case lies in that. The 
question of liberty of choice consists, then, in knowing whether 
the action is my own, or whether another person has used me 
as an instrument; and it cannot be too much deplored that 
psychology should have been pulled up for so long in the front 
of an entirely gratuitous difficulty. Mr. Bain. 
251 
Now, what is to be understood by spontaneity, by self-deter- 
mination ? Must we look for something more in it than the 
operation of sensible motives, added to the central spontaneity 
of the system] Is some unknown, mysterious power hidden 
behind the scenes] Is there, between the feelings, the will, 
and the intelligence, a fourth unexplored region — that of the 
Ego ? 
‘ The proper meaning of self can be nothing more than my 
corporeal existence, coupled with my sensations, thoughts, emo- 
tions, and volitions, supposing the classification exhaustive, and 
the sum of these in the past, present, and future. ... I am not 
able to concede the existence of an inscrutable entity in the depths 
of one’s being, to which the name I is to be distinctively applied, 
and not consisting of any bodily organ or function, or of any one 
mental phenomenon that can be specified.’1 
As to the appeal which has been made to consciousness, as 
testifying in an indisputable manner to our freedom of will, we 
must think of that as follows :—Consciousness has been said to 
be our ultimate and infallible criterion of truth ; to affirm that 
it deceives itself is to destroy the mere possibility of every cer- 
tain science. In the first place, let us remark that consciousness 
is co internal phenomena what observation is to external facts. 
The generality of people know that they think and feel, with- 
out exactly knowing the laws of thought, of mental co-existences 
and sequences, in the same way as their senses reveal rivers, 
mountains, cities, etc., to them, but without giving them an exact 
and precise knowledge of these things. Nothing is more com- 
mon than disagreement in human appreciations of size, forces, 
weight, forms, colours, etc. If this be so in the case of the 
objects of our external senses, what reason have we for believing 
that the internal sense is more exact] Are not metaphysical 
disputes in themselves a proof of the contrary ] Besides, if we 
grant to consciousness the privilege of infallibility, it can last for 
only a short moment; and that does not constitute a science. 
Consciousness being strictly applicable to any individual person, 
and for one instant only, it contains the minimum of information. 
1 Bain, Emotions and Will, p. 554. 252 
English Psychology. 
This is the atom of knowledge. If we wish to go beyond this 
short moment, we must have recourse to memory, and we know 
that memory is fallible. Thus, while the infallibility lasts, there 
is no science, and when the science begins, there is no infalli- 
bility. Now, the notion of free-will is in nowise an intuition; 
there is in it a collection of anterior volitions, and a comparison 
established between them and a certain condition of sentient 
beings, the condition of being free from constraint, like that of a 
dog untied, or a prisoner set at large; and comparison is not 
an infallible operation. 
VI. 
Here we come to the end without lingering over some chapters 
in which the author completes his moral theory, but which do 
not add anything essential to it. Let us summarize the merits 
and defects of this important Treatise on Psychology. It will 
please those who love facts, who think that facts are the very sub- 
stance of an experimental science, that it only lives by them; 
that every generalization is empty and vain, without an ample 
collection of phenomena which serves it as a starting-point, and 
as a verification. It is, to my knowledge, the most complete 
repertory in existence of exact and positive psychology, placed 
an courant of recent discoveries : we in France have nothing to 
approach it. Garnier’s Traite des Facultes, founded, as its title 
indicates, upon a method which subordinates phenomena to 
causes, facts to faculties, embarrassed too by metaphysical dis- 
cussions, cannot be compared in any way to Mr. Bain’s work. 
Let us add, that, according to the customs of the Eclectic School, 
this treatise has given so ample a space to the history of theories 
that the dogmatic part is singularly limited. In its mode oi 
explanation, its method, and the general impression it produces 
upon the reader, Mr. Bain’s work can only be compared to a 
physiology. Examined in detail, the composition of the book 
is not quite irreproachable; its order is sometimes more appa- 
rent than real; the author takes up the same questions several 
times, and discusses them over and over again. But, perhaps,' 
this is an inherent defect in works of this nature, in which the Mr. Bain. 
253 
number and variety of observations are such that one can hardly 
avoid losing one’s-self in the crowd. 
I regret, for my part, that the author should have dealt so briefly 
with the phenomena which mark the transition from normal 
psychology to morbid psychology (dreams, magnetic sleep, etc.), 
and which he seemed in such favourable conditions for studying. 
But the want of comparative method is one of the defects of the 
book. Let us add to this the too frequent absence of the idea 
of progress, and the consequent neglect of the dynamic study of 
phenomena. 
‘ The work of Mr. Alexander Bain gives us, in orderly arrange- 
ment, the facts brought to light by anatomists and physiologists 
during the last fifty years. It is not in itself a system of mental 
philosophy, properly so called, but a classified collection of 
materials for such a system, presented with that method and 
insight which scientific discipline generates, and accompanied 
with occasional passages of an analytical character. It is indeed 
that which it in the main it professes to be—a natural history 
of the mind. Were we to say that the researches of the 
naturalist who collects, and dissects, and describes species, bear 
the same relation to the researches of the comparative anatomist 
tracing out the laws of organization, which Mr. Bain’s labours 
bear to the labours of the abstract psychologist, we should be 
going somewhat too far, for Mr. Bain’s work is not wholly de- 
scriptive. Still, however, such an analogy conveys the best 
general conception of what he has done ; and serves most clearly 
to indicate its needfulness. .. . Until recently mental science has 
been pursued much as physical science was pursued by the 
ancients : not by drawing conclusions from observations and ex- 
periments, but by drawing them from arbitrary a priori assump- 
tions. This course, long since abandoned in the one case with 
immense advantage, is gradually being abandoned in the other ; 
and the treatment of psychology as a division of natural history 
shows that the abandonment will soon be complete. Estimated 
as a means to higher results, Mr. Bain’s work is of great value. 
. . . We repeat, that as a natural history of the mind, we believe 
it to be the best yet produced. It is a most valuable collection 
of carefully elaborated materials. Perhaps we cannot better 254 
English Psychology. 
express our sense of its worth than by saying that to those who 
hereafter give to this branch of psychology a thoroughly scientific 
organization, Mr. Bain’s book will be indispensable.’1 
In*addition to the great works which have served as a foun- 
dation for the preceding essay, Mr. Bain has published a book 
On the Study oj Character, including a?i estimate of Phrenology 
(1861), with the object of reviving analytical studies upon human 
character, * which seemed to have followed the decline of 
phrenology.’ 
After having passed in review the very few works devoted to 
the science of character before Gall (Theophrastus, La Bruyere, 
and Fourier), and after having devoted half the work to a detailed 
and impartial criticism of phrenological classifications, Mr. Bain 
explains his own ideas. 
His method is identical with that indicated by Mr. Stuart 
Mill (vide page 103.) It consists in founding ethology upon 
psychology, in coming down from the general laws of human 
nature to individual varieties. He then proposes, as the basis of 
the study of character, the triple division of the mind into will, 
emotion, and intelligence. 
1st, The source of volition, as we have seen, is in that spon- 
taneous energy which has its physical seat in the muscles, but 
which depends still more upon the brain than the muscular system, 
and gives birth, when it is in its maximum to the character or 
energetic temperament. 
2d, The emotional character is distinguished by the predomi- 
nance of the affections, and of their external manifestations. We 
may cite as examples the Celtic races, and amongst individuals, 
Fox, Mirabeau, Alfieri, etc. 
3d, A third type is that in which intelligence predominates. 
We shall not follow Mr. Bain into his examination of the very 
numerous varieties of this and of the preceding types ; seeing 
that his work is rather a sketch than a definitive exposition of 
ethology. 
1 Spencer’s Essays, edition 1863, vol. i. p. 121, 122 (Lewes). MR. GEORGE H. LEWES. 
Mr. Lewes is a physiologist. But as all reflective spirits who 
please themselves with conceptions of entirety, find philosophy 
at the end of every science, so Mr. Lewes has found it there. 
He embarked early in search of it. It is twenty-four years since 
(in 1845) he addressed ‘ to the public rather than to the learned,’ 
a Biographical History of Philosophy, with the avowed intention of 
disgusting them with metaphysical speculations. Twice revised, 
and partly re-written, this book has become a history of philoso- 
phy from Thales to Auguste Comte : an original work, especially 
dogmatic and critical, as we shall see. Mr. Lewes, a man ot 
refined and elegant mind, who does not disdain anecdote and 
satire, lends variety and interest to every subject of which he 
treats. Although well acquainted with the philosophical and 
scientific literature of the Continent, and of France in particular, 
he plainly prefers the researches of the naturalist to those of the 
scholar.1 
In philosophy, he declares himself a positivist. While Mr. 
Herbert Spencer and Mr. Mill are at variance with this school 
upon several important points, notably upon the classification of 
the sciences and method of psychology; while Mr. Bain has not 
made any avowal upon the subject,—the adhesion of Mr. Lewes 
is full and entire, not to be shaken, even enthusiastic, as we 
shall see. 
‘ I adhered to the Positive philosophy in 1845, and I adhere 
to it still,’ says he, in a preface dated May 1867. ‘What I have 
1 Besides his History of Philosophy and his Physiology of Common Life, 
which we are about to mention, his works are:—Studies of Animal Life; 
Studies on the Sea-shore; Aristotle—A Chapter from the History of Science; 
The Life of Goethe. 256 
English Psychology. 
attempted is not such a detailed exposition as would flatter the 
incurious indolence of men who love to talk confidently upon 
second-hand knowledge, but such general indications of the 
Positive philosophy as will enable the student to appreciate its 
drift and importance, and will guide him in the understanding of 
Comte’s writings. I am often asked to recommend some “ brief 
account of the system,” by those who wish to profit by Comte’s 
labours (or perhaps only to talk knowingly of them), yet shirk 
the labour of reading the works which they profess to consider of 
importance. My answer is, study the Philosophic Positive for 
yourself, study it patiently, give it the time and thought you 
would not grudge to a new science or a new language, and then, 
whether you accept or reject the system, you will find your mental 
horizon irrevocably enlarged. “ But six stout volumes!” exclaims 
the hesitating aspirant. Well, yes, six volumes, requiring to be 
meditated as well as read: I admit that they “ give pause ” in 
this busy, bustling world of ours ; but if you reflect how willingly 
six separate volumes of philosophy would be read in the course 
of the year, the undertaking seems less formidable. . . . And no 
one who considers the immense importance of a doctrine which 
will give unity to his life, would hesitate to pay a higher price 
than that of a year’s study.’1 
This admiration is nowhere weakened, and the book finishes 
by a triumphal act of faith in the future. I do not know to what 
point this positivism is rigorously orthodox. When we see with 
what eagerness Mr. Lewes draws into his camp several contem- 
poraries who are frequently at variance with the school, we may 
believe that he is very lenient on many points, and his positivism 
appears to me to be, above all, independent. This, however, it is 
not our place to decide. 
As the psychological doctrines of Mr. Lewes, with which only 
we are now occupied, are not reduced to a system, we cannpt 
pursue so methodical an exposition of them as in preceding 
instances. It appears to us that to reduce detached views to a 
rigorous order and a systematic connexion, would be to force 
the thought of the author, and to incur the risk of inexactness. 
1 Lewes’s History of Philosophy, Preface. Mr. George H. Lewes. 
257 
We borrow our materials from the History of Philosophy (2 vols.) 
and from the Physiology of Common Life (2 vols.). 
CHAPTER I. 
The History of Philosophy.—I. Characteristics of his History—2. His philo- 
sophy—3. The Ancients: the Sophists, Plato, the Academicians ; of 
exterior perception—4. The Modems: Descartes, Hobbes, Berkeley 
(Idealism and Realism), Cabanis, Gall; French Eclecticism. 
THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. 
I. 
History may be written in many ways. The best, the only 
true way, consists in the minute examination of documents and of 
facts, and in a complete and conscientious exposition of them. 
The historian forgets himself in the presence of his work, and has 
no care except for truth. He imposes nothing, he proposes; 
and although it is impossible that the long sojourn in the midst 
of doctrines, and of the strife of systems, should have left his 
thoughts indifferent, he would aim at the appearance of impassive- 
ness, in consequence of the impartiality of his judgment, and the 
sincerity of his studies. Ritter is amongst this number; his history 
of philosophy, scrupulous, loyal, to which polemics are unknown, 
is a safe guide in study. 
Another manner, entirely opposed to the preceding one, con- 
sists in making history a pretext for conflict. The author is less 
occupied with the exposition of facts than he is with his method 
of warfare; he thinks less of being exact than of being clever. 
Books of this kind, which are interesting, and often valuable, are 
evidently not histories. 
In short, we seek for instruction, for lessons, from the history of 
philosophy; we derive morality from it; it is like a verification 
on a large scale in support of a thesis. Mr. Lewes’s work appears 
to us to belong to this category. He has evidently no taste, or 
if we prefer so to put it, he has not the virtue necessary to face 
these formidable folios, these undigested texts of scholastic learning 
which the historian of philosophy ought to penetrate, however 258 
English Psychology. 
repulsive to his positive and lucid mind. ‘ More than once,’ he 
tells us, & propos of Albertus Magnus, i I have opened his pon- 
derous folios, with the determination to master at least some por- 
tion of their contents ; but I shut them again with an alacrity of 
impatience, which will be best comprehended by any one who 
makes a similar attempt.’1 
What an immense task must be a history composed at first 
hand ; obscure texts and strange theories in antiquity; empty 
dissertations in the middle ages ; complicated doctrines and a 
superabundance of documents in modern times; here is work 
for any historian. The life of a man would not suffice for it; 
especially if to this list we were to add the materials supplied 
oy the East. 
Mr. Lewes lacks the vocation of the scholar, which indeed is 
generally wanting in original minds. His history resembles 
rather that of Hegel, than that of Ritter. His review of the 
labours of philosophers is rather occupied with that which they 
have thought, than with their comparative importance. He 
judges rather than expounds : his history is fastidious and critical. 
It is the work of a clear, precise, and elegant mind, always 
that of a writer, often witty, measured, possessing no taste 
for declamation, avoiding exclusive solutions; and making its 
interest profitable to the reader whom he forces to think. There 
are many ideas in this book. Besides an important introduction 
consisting of 120 pages, the author frequently expresses his own 
opinions, in appreciating those of others : an almost entire 
system of philosophy may be extracted from them. This gives 
him a right to figure in our work ; we should have had nothing 
to ask for in an ordinary history; in this instance so much 
has been given us that we are obliged to make a choice. 
What is the thesis of Mr. Lewes ? It is the radical weakness 
of all metaphysics, demonstrated by history. In his first edition 
(1845), he proposed to himself as his object to turn men’s minds 
away from this study by demonstrating the successive failures 
of successive schools : at present he declares that his adhesion to 
positivism is firm and complete. This avowal is more loyal 
1 History of Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 74. Mr. George H. Lewes. 
259 
than reassuring : no doubt it appears strange and interesting to 
see the history of philosophy reconstructed by a positivist; but 
has he nothing to dread from inquiry ? I acknowledge that I 
expected it. Nothing of the sort has taken place. Pythagoras 
and Parmenides, Plato and Plotinus, Spinoza and Berkeley are 
treated as masters of human thought, and with sincere admiration. 
No indifferent person has written these lines upon Pythagoras: 
‘ He who could transcend all earthly struggles, and the great 
ambition of the greatest of men, to live only for the sake of 
wisdom, was he not of a higher stamp than ordinary mortals ? 
Well might later historians picture him as clothed in robes of 
white, his head crowned with gold, his aspect grave, majestical, 
and calm ; above the manifestation of any human joy, of any 
human sorrow; enwrapt in contemplation of the deeper mysteries 
of existence ; listening to music and the hymns of Homer, 
Plesiod, and Thales, or listening to the harmony of the spheres. 
And to a lively, talkative, quibbling, active, versatile people like 
the Greeks, what a grand phenomenon must this solemn, earnest, 
silent, meditative man have appeared ! ’1 And afterwards, com- 
paring Homer and Xenophanes, both of them rhapsodists : what a 
fate is that of the philosopher ! his mutilated work is visited only 
by some rare scholar, or by some dilettanti spiders ; the other, 
the poet’s, lives in the memory of all mankind. Joy and uni- 
versal life are echoed by Homer; in Xenophanes, distress, con- 
vulsive agitation, infinite doubt, infinite sadness.2 
More than once we shall find this melancholy strain of the 
historian, upon the vain effort of human thought which seeks 
without finding, and aspires without attaining. 
11.. 
An ample, but entirely dogmatic, Preface first calls for our 
attention.3 ‘Theology, philosophy, and science,’ says Mr. Lewes, 
‘ constitute our spiritual triumvirate.’ ‘ Its [theology’s] main pro- 
vince is the province of Feeling; its office is the systematization of 
1 Lewes, History of Philosophy, vol. i. p. 23. Ibid. p. 43. 
3 These prolegomena comprise the following questions :—What is philoso- 
phy? Objective and subjective method. Criterion of truth. Some infirmi- 
ties of thought. Necessary truths. 260 
English Psychology. 
our religious conceptions. The office of Science is distinct. It may 
be defined as the systematization of the order of phenomena consi- 
dered as phenomena. The office of Philosophy is again distinct 
from these. It is the systanatization of the conceptions furnished by 
Theology and Science. It is kirum'ifiT] i 
Psychology is to the other sciences what geography is to topo- 
graphy. Its history is the story of its emancipation with regard 
to theology, its transformation into science. 
Understood in the sense of metaphysics, philosophy is com- 
pletely vain; because it seeks for noumena which will always be 
out of its reach. And the objection is founded less upon the 
objects of its research, God, liberty, causality, etc., than upon its 
method, which, being separated from verification, is therefore 
outside of science. 
‘ The History of Philosophy presents the spectacle of thousands 
of intellects—some the greatest that have made our race illustri- 
ous—steadily concentrated on problems believed to be of vital 
importance, yet producing no other result than a conviction of 
the extreme facility of error, and the remoteness of any probability 
that truth can be reached. The only conquest has been critical’ 
that is to say, psychological.’2 
‘ There are many who deplore the encroachment of Science, 
fondly imagining that Metaphysical Philosophy would respond 
better to the higher wants of man. This regret is partly un- 
reasoning sentiment, partly ignorance of the limitations of human 
faculty. Even among those who admit that Ontology is an im- 
possible attempt, there are many who think it should be per- 
severed in, because of the “ lofty views ” it is supposed to open to 
us. This is as if a man desirous of going to America should insist 
on walking there, because journeys on foot are more poetical than 
journeys by steam ; in vain is he shown the impossibility of cross- 
ing the Atlantic on foot; he admits that grovelling fact, but his 
lofty soul has visions of some mysterious overland route by which 
he hopes to pass. He dies without reaching America, but to the 
last gasp he maintains that he has discovered the route on which 
others may reach it.’ 3 
1 Lewes, Prolegomena, p. xvii. 8 Ibid, xxvii. 3 Ibid. p. xxviii. Mr. George H. Lewes. 
261 
Science seeks truth; but what is truth 1 ‘ Truth is the cor- 
respondence between the order of ideas and the order of pheno- 
mena, so that the one is the reflection of the other—the movement 
of Thought following the movement of Things.’1 
Let us remark these terms, ‘ the order of ideas,’ ‘ the move- 
ment of thought,’ substituted for the ordinary formula—conformity 
of the idea with the object. If we accept the latter, truth is a 
chimera, and idealism is irresistible. The utmost end of know- 
ledge is adaptation, and we call truth precise adaptation. What 
the body and the fall of bodies are in themselves matters not to 
us. If the movement of our thought is controlled by the move- 
ments of things, there is truth: if our ideas are arranged in an 
order which does not correspond with the order of phenomena, 
there is error. 
To attain this correspondence between an internal and exter- 
nal order is what we seek, and for this we employ two methods :— 
‘a. The Objective Method, which moulds its conceptions on 
realities by closely following the movements of the objects as they 
severally present themselves to Sense, so that the movements of 
Thought may synchronize with the movements of Things. 
‘/I. The Subjective Method, which moulds realities on its con- 
ceptions, endeavouring to discern the order of Things, not by step 
by step adjustments of the order of ideas to it, but by the antici- 
patory rush of Thought, the direction of which is determined by 
Thoughts and not co?itrolled by Objects.’ 
Every research contains an observation, a conjecture, and a 
verification. The subjective method stops at the second term: 
its function is hypothesis. The objective method embraces three 
terms: its function is verification. It absorbs whatever there is 
of good in the subjective method, adding to it control. The 
subjective method seeks for truth in the relations of ideas, the 
objective method seeks for truth in the relations of objects. 
An exact reasoning is the ideal union of’objects in their true 
relations of co-existence and succession : it is to see with the eye 
of the mind. A chain of reasoning is an ideal representation of 
details, actually non-apparent to the senses. This may make us 
1 Prolegomena, p. xxxL 
2 Ibid. p. xxxiii. 262 
English Psychology. 
understand what exact sense we ought to give to the word fact. 
Generally, it is considered as a final verity. This we say is a fact, 
not a theory; that is to say, an indisputable fact, not a disputable 
view of truth. But a fact is in reality a bundle of inferences; a 
fact so simple as that of seeing an apple upon a table, supposes, 
in addition to the simple sensation of colour, the recall of the 
ideas of roundness, savour, odour, etc. If facts are inextricably 
mingled with inferences, and if reasoning is a mental vision which 
establishes details that are not present, thenceforth how can we 
sustain the opposition of fact and of theory] They are both fal- 
lible, and radical opposition exists between verified inferences 
and non-verified inferences. 
The weakness of the subjective method consists in the impos- 
sibility of verification. The objective method simply co-ordains 
materials furnished by experience, without introducing any which 
are new. The subjective method commits the fault of drawing 
matter from the subject, instead of simply drawing form. The 
fundamental distinction between metaphysics and science is then 
in their method, and not in the nature of their object. Add a 
verifiable method to a metaphysical theory, and you make of it 
a scientific theory; subtract from a scientific theory the verifiable 
element, and you make of it a metaphysical theory. Remove 
from the law of gravitation the verifiable formula ‘ the direct 
relation of masses in their inverse relation to the square of the 
distances,’ and there only remains an occult attraction : this is 
metaphysics. 
Two travellers come from a country where clocks are not 
known, even by hearsay. The one has metaphysical, the other 
has scientific tendencies. They both stand before this new 
object. The metaphysician will say: This explains itself by a 
vital principle: the beating of the pendulum resembles that of 
the heart, the hands travel like antennae, the striking of the hour 
resembles a cry of anger or of pain ; and he will exhaust himself 
in ingenious explanations of this kind. Here you have the sub- 
jective method, which deduces instead of verifying. The other 
man will say to him : I have grave doubts of your conjectures. 
I have belonging to me a powerful instrument called analysis. 
I am going to make use of it. I take away the face of this Mr. George H. Lewes. 
263 
object and all the exterior: nothing is changed; I stop the pen- 
dulum, and everything stops. I put it in motion, and everything 
goes on again. I pull a weight forcibly, I see that the hands 
move very swiftly, and the sounds are quickened. I repeat the 
experiments, and I conclude from it that this is a mechanism. I 
have already seen others which are very different, but I recog- 
nise their essential characteristics. Here we see the objective 
method, which verifies instead of conjecturing. 
The metaphysician is a merchant who speculates boldly, but 
without convertible capital to enable him to keep his engage- 
ments. He gives bills, but he has neither money nor goods to 
represent them. The first obstinate creditor who insisted upon 
being paid would make him bankrupt. The man of science is 
also daring, but he always keeps by him a solid capital, which may 
be produced upon occasion to honour his bills; and he knows 
that if he exceeds it bankruptcy awaits him. A verification is 
then necessary. But on what does it rest 1 What is our criterion 
of truth 1 
Consciousness being unable to come out of its proper sphere, 
it is to it that we must have recourse as a last appeal: in this 
sense we may say that every criterion is subjective; we can never 
know objects in themselves, but only by states of consciousness. 
But as truth is simply a correspondence between the internal order 
and the external order, we assure ourselves of its exactitude by 
the certainty of its adjustment. The touchstone of knowledge is 
prevision. 
‘ The subjective test of a Truth is the unthinkableness of its 
negative, in other words the reduction to A is A. . . . Conscious- 
ness is only infallible in verdicts limited to identical propositions 
Here and only here there is no fallibility.’1 
As there is always room for error wherever the proposition is 
not identical, and as a probability variable in degrees is all that 
we can obtain in the greater part of our conclusions, it is easy to 
extend the logical principle which determines infallibility to the 
variable degrees of probability, and consequently to render error 
impossible. What is the logical justification that A is A? 
* Prolegomena, pp. lxvi., lxii. 264 
English Psychology. 
The incomprehensibility of the negative. What would be the 
logical justification of a proposition composed of complex and 
distant inferences, and as such having more or less probability? 
The difficulty of admitting its negative. 
To sum up, ‘ I have shown that a proposition is absolutely true 
only when its terms are equivalent, and that, as this rests upon 
the impossibility of our thinking a negative of the proposition, 
the varying degrees of probability will depend on the possibility 
of admitting a negative.’1 
I pass over the reflections of the author upon some infirmities 
of thought, such as belief in final causes, in the distinction 
between power and act, in the vital principle, etc. This would 
lead us too far, and a fitter place would be found for it elsewhere. 
But the great question of necessary truths is within our reach, 
and merits close examination. 
Let us at once give the opinion of Mr. Lewes upon this point. 
What is experience? It is the sum of the action of objects upon 
consciousness. This sum comprises two elements : the materials 
which the senses bring to consciousness; the transformations, 
combinations, and modifications which consciousness causes them 
to undergo. Thus there are two factors, sensation and the laws 
of consciousness ; matter and form, as Kant would say. But 
what are the laws of consciousness ? They are the result of the 
experience of the individual, and of the experience of the race. 
To maintain that experience itself,—which is the product of 
sensation and of the laws of consciousness,—produces these laws, 
seems at first an absurdity ; but the contradiction is only verbal. 
In order to dissipate it, we need to distinguish experience from 
experiences. All particular modification of consciousness is a 
particular experience. Every modification paves the way for the 
following ones, and influences them. The laws of consciousness 
issue by development from these successive modifications, and 
experience is the general term which expresses the sum of these 
modifications. 
The school of sensation has largely obscured the question by 
its anti-scientific conception of the tabula rasa: the mind is not 
1 Lewes, Prolegomena, p. lxxvii. Mr. George H. Lewes. 
265 
a mirror which passively reflects objects. The a priori school 
commits a contrary error by regarding consciousness as a pure 
spontaneity, bearing in itself, and in advance, organized laws 
which are derived from a supersensible source. 
This is not all: we must also take account of inheritance. 
Biology teaches us that the sensible organism inherits certain 
dispositions from its parents, as it inherits their structure, so that 
we may say that the individual summarizes the experience of the 
race. Faculties increase with the development of race. The 
forms of thought which are essential portions of the mechanism 
of experience, are developed like the forms of other vital func- 
tions. In fact, as the function is only the form of activity of an 
organ, it is clear that if the organ is developed, the function 
develops itself, and with it the laws of its action. 
For the mind, as for the body, there is no pre-formation or pre- 
existence, but evolution and epigenesis. The error of Kant, and of 
those who proceeded like him, is to confuse anatomy with morpho- 
logy, and logic with psychology. Taking the adult human mind, 
they have considered its constitutive forms as initial conditions. They 
say : These forms are implied in particular experiences. Granted ; 
because if they were not implied, we could not draw them out. 
This process is perfect in logic, which has to show the forms 
of thought, and not their origin. But the question of experience 
is a question of origin, and psychology reveals to us that experi- 
ence is the tissue of thought spontaneously woven, of which each 
thread is an experience. People who reason a priori, consider 
the vertebrate type as the necessary form which renders vertebra- 
tion possible. Anatomically this is acceptable. But what says 
morphology 1 It shows that typical forms come out of successive 
phases of the development of the animal. Evidently the idea of 
pre-existence is a fiction—it is simply a varrepov irporepov. 
In order to understand the thoughts of the author better, let 
us see in detail how he estimates Condillac and Kant, the one 
recognising only pure sensation, the other placing the forms 
of thought as necessary, and a priori. 
‘He [Condillac] was unable to pursue the investigation, not 
having a right method. Instead of biological, he pursued verbal 
analysis. A verbal analysis of the phenomena was approximately 266 
English Psychology. 
made, and this was accepted as a substitute for the analysis of organ 
and function. . . . Thus, while he pretends to evolve all know- 
ledge and all the faculties out of sensation and the transformations 
of sensation (which is to be his advance on Locke), we cannot but 
observe that in his evolution the presence is tacitly admitted 
of those very faculties which are said to be evolved. In fact, he 
confounds the faculties with the operations of the faculties. Nor 
was there any alternative for him. In the absence of the facul- 
ties which elaborate sensations into perceptions, judgments, 
reasonings, the senses would never have raised man above the 
condition of idiocy. A man reduced to mere sensations would 
be like the pigeon, whose cerebrum is removed, sensitive indeed, 
but incapable of memory, judgment, thought. . . . The second 
objection is, that if the mind is a tabula rasa as to knowledge, 
and is not even pre-existent as faculty (according to the meta- 
physicians), or as organism (according to the biologists) ; if, in a 
word, sensations and combinations of sensations create both 
knowledge and the knowing faculties, how can we explain the 
phenomena of idiocy? How is it that brutes with senses re- 
sembling our own have minds so markedly distinguished from our 
own ? The sensations of the idiot are as vivid and varied as those 
of a rational man; the differences arise in the cerebrations of the 
two. . . . Finally, if Sensation is the origin and end of all mental 
faculty, how is it that men of vivid sensuous activity are not also 
the men of powerful intellect, which they notoriously are not; 
how can such a case as that of Laura Bridgman be explained ? 
—a girl born deaf, dumb, and blind, yet manifesting unusual and 
varied and intellectual activity. The biologist sees no difficulty 
here; nor does the ordinary psychologist. The one sees a 
cerebral organism with its inherited aptitudes ready for its work ; 
the other sees a Mind with its constituent faculties. But the 
sensationalist has no such refuge.'1 
Condillac has confounded under the name of sensation two 
things, which are in reality different: sensation properly so 
called, and idealism (or the faculty of having ideas). These are 
1 Lewes, History of Philosophy, vol. ii. pp. 333, 334. Mr. George H. Lewes. 
267 
two distinct functions having two distinct organs. Sensation 
comprehends all that belongs to the organs of sense, and that 
which is so often neglected, the action of the viscera and the 
muscles. Ideation is another thing: we can no more separate 
it from sensation than we can separate the movement of a 
muscle from the sensation which causes it. But it is the action 
of a special organ ; it is subject to special laws, and that suffices 
to distinguish it from the activity of the senses. The common 
opinion that ideas are only weakened impressions, and copies of 
sensations, has contributed to lead Condillac into error. It is 
not the case. ‘ So little is idea a weakened sensation, that it is 
not a sensation at all, it is totally different from sensation.’ And 
this is not surprising; sensation is the product of a distinct part 
of the nervous system, the brain. The rigorous distinction be- 
tween sensation on the one side, and ideation on the other side, 
is found in no treatise on psychology, even of a spiritualistic kind. 
Nevertheless comparative anatomy has shown the independence 
of the organs of sense, and of the brain, although it has not yet 
discovered the relations connecting them. We know that the 
brain is an additmi to the organs of sense, just as these organs 
are an addition to the nervous system of the lower animals. As 
we descend to the lowest degree of the animal scale, we shall 
not find any trace of the nervous system ; as we ascend it, we 
find a simple ganglion with its prolongations ; higher still, several 
ganglions and rudimentary senses; higher still, organs, more 
complex senses, and a rudimentary brain : in man, complex 
organs, and a complete brain. Consequently sensation and 
ideation are as independent of each other as the organs of which 
they are the function; and though ideation be organically united 
with sensation, it is only so much united as movement is united 
with sensation. 
Each sense has its special centre or sensorium, and each is 
perfectly independent of the brain, can act without it, and even 
in its absence. A bird deprived of brains is sensible to light, 
sound, -etc. But in their normal condition, these centres are in- 
timately connected with the brain, and affect it. This explains 
how we may experience sensations without being conscious of 
them (for instance, receiving a wound in the heat of battle) j we 268 
English Psychology. 
can think without experiencing any special sensation, except 
those of organic life; as for instance, when we are reflecting in 
our bed in the midst of the silence of night. 
Thus the independence of ideation and of sensation is proved 
psychologically and anatomically, and uproots the doctrine of 
Condillac. 
Let us now see that of Kant.1 Mr. Lewes ardently admires 
this philosopher, whom he calls * the greatest of modern meta 
physicians.' He is above all thankful to him for having laid 
bare the nothingness of ontology, of having shown with more 
clearness and precision than any one prior to himself, that human 
knowledge is relative; but upon the point which occupies us on 
the nature of the laws or forms of thought, Mr. Lewes dissents 
from him. ‘ The forms of thought like the forms of life are 
evolutions, not preformations.’ Kant did not see that. His 
method was incomplete. He has employed only the metaphy- 
sical method of subjective analysis, when he should also have 
employed the biological method of objective analysis. Trans- 
porting into psychology the old Aristotelian error of matter and 
of form considered as really separable (while they are only 
separated by abstraction), he regarded the forms of thought as 
ready-made factors, anterior to and independent of experience. 
Now these formulae ought to be sought, either physiologically, 
that is to say, in organic conditions; or psychologically, that is 
to say, in the evolution of thought. Such is the nature of our 
mind, that we think as successive that which is in its nature 
simultaneous; the condition of thought is change. To think is 
to exercise judgment, that is, to unite a predicate to a subject. 
But these forms or conditions of thought are a result of a de- 
velopment, not of pre-existing elements. Kant has done the 
same thing as if he had said that the form of the oak pre-exists in 
the acorn, because the form of the oak comes out of the acorn. 
But scientific botany would not accept this solution, and scien- 
tific psychology refuses even to accept as a priori conditions of 
experience that which is the result of volition and of experience. 
Besides this the forms enumerated by Kant are not sufficiently 
1 History of Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 474. Mr. George H. Lewes. 
269 
numerous to express the subjective conditions. He puts forward 
for example pleasure and pain, which are inseparable elements 
of all sensation and which determine every action. He says 
nothing of the various senses and of their conditions; neverthe- 
less it is the organization of the retina and of the skin which 
makes vibration upon the one produce the sensation of light, and 
upon the other the sensation of heat. Sight, heat, and sound 
are forms of sensibility which serve to clothe the thing in itself 
{Ding an sich), just like time and space, which it gives singly. 
The distinction between the subjective element and the objec- 
tive element of thought is rightly regarded as the principal achieve- 
ment of critical philosophy. Nevertheless it hides a fundamental 
error because it endeavours to isolate the elements of an indis- 
soluble act. 
‘ It was one thing to assume that there are necessarily two 
co-efficients in the function; another thing to assume that these 
could be isolated and studied apart. It was one thing to say, 
Here is an organism with its inherited structure, and aptitudes 
dependent on that structure, which must be considered as neces- 
sarily determining the forms in which it will be affected by ex- 
ternal agencies, so that all experience will be a compound of sub- 
jective and objective conditions; another thing to say, Here is 
the pure a priori element in every experience, the form which the 
mind impresses on the matter given externally. The first was 
almost an inevitable conclusion, the second was a fiction. Psy- 
chology, if it can show us anything, can show the absolute impos- 
sibility of our discriminating the objective from the subjective 
elements. In the first place the attempt would only be possible 
on the ground that we could, at any time and in any way, disen- 
gage thought from its content; separate in Feeling the object, as 
it is, out of all relation to Sensibility, or the subject as pure sub- 
ject. If we could do this in one instance we should have a basis 
for the investigation. The chemist who has learned to detect the 
existence of an acid, by its reactions in one case, can by its re- 
actions determine it in other cases. Having experience of an 
acid and an alkali, each apart from the other, he can separate 
them when finding them combined in a salt, or he can combine 
them when he finds them separate. His analysis and synthesis 270 
English Psychology. 
are possible, because he has elsewhere learned the nature of each 
element separately. But such analysis or synthesis is impossible 
with the objective and subjective elements of thought. Neither 
element is ever given alone. Pure thought and pure matter are 
unknown quantities, to be reached by no equation.’1 
Thought is necessarily and universally a subject-object; matter 
is necessarily and universally an object-subject. The subject and 
the object are combined in knowledge as the acid and the basis 
are combined in salt.2 
ill. 
Let us now pass on to the history properly so called. As it is, 
above all, dogmatic and critical, and as it has frequently given 
the author an opportunity for airing his own ideas, we might 
easily collect these fragments of a scattered doctrine and con- 
struct a whole out of them. We have, however, preferred to 
respect the order followed by the author. We are now going to 
pass rapidly through the history, rejecting the learning in favour 
of the ideas, especially those which belong to the domain of 
psychology. 
In his history of ancient philosophy Mr. Lewes appears to 
attach himself principally to two points; the examination of 
theories upon knowledge and the bringing out of the negative 
side of doctrines. Perhaps some philosophers of the adverse 
schools will consider that he reads a little too favourably for his 
own view those old texts whose elasticity renders them easily 
manageable. Thus, he finds in Xenophanes at least the germs 
of scepticism;3 his disciple Parmenides * had not a mere vague 
and general notion of the uncertainty of human knowledge. He 
maintained that thought was delusive, because dependent upon 
organization,’4 which at least touches upon materialism. Heraclitus 
sees in everything only a becoming; Empedocles laments upon 
the uncertainty of knowledge and the frailty of human life. 
Anaxagoras, ‘ on the great subject of the origin and certainty 
of our knowledge, differed from Xenophanes and Heraclitus. 
2 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 484. 
4 Ibid. p. 53. 
1 Lewes, History of Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 483. 
3 Ibid. voL i. p. 49. Mr. George H. Lewes. 
271 
He thought, with the former, that all sense-knowledge is de- 
lusive ; and with the latter, that all knowledge comes through 
the senses. Here is a double scepticism brought into play. 
It has usually been held that these two opinions contradict 
each other; that he could not have maintained both. Yet 
both opinions are tenable. His reason for denying certainty to 
the senses was the incapacity of distinguishing all the real objec- 
tive elements of which things are composed. Thus the eye dis- 
cerns a complex mass which we call a flower; but discerns 
nothing of that of which the flower is composed. In other 
words, the senses perceive phenomena, but do not and cannot 
observe noumena,—an anticipation of the greatest discovery of 
psychology, though seen dimly and confusedly by Anaxagoras.’1 
Mr. Lewes holds that he has made the same discovery in 
Democritus (p. 97, vol. i.) Whatever we may think of these 
interpretations, they at least prove that the author takes more 
seriously than we should have been inclined to think he would 
these first essays of philosophical thought. His heart is with 
the men of these ancient days, he admires them, and he cannot 
think without emotion of this flight of daring human indefatigable 
curiosity set free for the first time. 
The question of the Sophists has been much discussed in our 
days. After Hegel, who rehabilitates Protagoras, Mr. Grote 
takes them in hand.2 Justice is due to every one, even to the 
sophists; they will not obtain it without difficulty. It is, never- 
theless, clear that they were condemned upon the deposition of 
bitter enemies ; that to judge Protagoras or Callicles according 
to Plato is to judge Socrates according to the Nubes. Mr. 
Lewes, agreeing with his compatriot, shows how far this question 
has been obscured and misunderstood. He does not wish to 
glorify the Sophists or to absolve them from all reproach, he 
merely asks that those who judge them should place themselves 
in imagination in their time :— 
‘ The Sophists were wealthy ; the Sophists were powerful; the 
1 Lewes, History of Philosophy, vol. i. p. 75- 
* In his work on Plato and the Socratics, and in his History of Greece, 
vol. viii. 272 
English Psychology. 
Sophists were dazzling, rhetorical, and not profound. Interro- 
gate human nature—above all the nature of philosophers—and 
ask what will be the sentiment entertained respecting these 
Sophists by their rivals. Ask the solitary thinker what is his 
opinion of the showy, powerful, but shallow rhetorician, who 
usurps the attention of the world. The man of conviction has at 
all times a superb contempt for the man of mere oratorical or 
dialectical display. The thinker knows that the world is ruled 
by Thought, yet he sees Expression gaining the world’s attention. 
He know’s, perhaps, that he has within him thoughts pregnant 
with human welfare; yet he sees the giddy multitude intoxicated 
with the enthusiasm excited by some plausible fallacy, clothed 
in persuasive language. He sees through the fallacy, but cannot 
make others as clear-sighted. His warning is unheeded ; his 
wisdom is spurned ; his ambition is frustrated; the popular idol 
is carried onward in triumph. The neglected thinker would not 
be human if he bore this with equanimity. He does not. He 
is loud and angry in lamenting the fate of a world that can be 
so led; loud and angry in his contempt of one who could so 
lead it. Should he become the critic or the historian of his age, 
what exactness ought we to expect in his account of the popular 
idol ?' 
The immorality imputed to them, says Mr. Lewes, is not 
sustained by examination. Athens was not peopled only by 
architects, sculptors, poets, and philosophers; there were true 
citizens, human beings having human passions. How can we 
suppose that they have suffered it to be proclaimed and repeated 
that all morality is a farce and all law a quibble? That they 
would have permitted open blasphemy against all justice, against 
the basis of every social contract ? Such charlatans would have 
inspired only ridicule or horror. And nevertheless the sophists 
were rich, admired, intrusted with delicate missions, sent on 
embassies, surrounded by rich and noble young men ; they were 
the intellectual leaders of their age, and ‘ if they had been what 
their adversaries describe them, Greece could only have been an 
earthly Pandemonium, where Belial was King.’ 2 
Lewes, History of Philosophy, p. 106. 
3 Vol. L p. no. Mr. George H. Lewes. 
273 
There was no sophistic doctrine, but a sophistic art. This art 
might have grave consequences, as Aristotle and Plato saw, but 
the Sophists did not profess them ; and we can quite understand 
that Gorgias, after having read the dialogue which bears his name, 
should have said, ‘ I do not recognise myself; but the young man 
has a great talent for satire.’ 
‘ The Sophists were the natural production of the opinions of 
the epoch. In them we see the first energetic protest against the 
possibility of metaphysical science. This protest, however, must 
not be confounded with the protest of Bacon—must not be mis- 
taken for the germ of positive philosophy. It was the protest of 
baffled minds. The philosophy of the day led to scepticism ; 
but with scepticism no energetic man could remain contented.’1 
Then Socrates appeared. 
The principal merit of Socrates is his negative method; up to 
his time dogmatism had had it all its own way; he applied himself 
to examination. His process of truly contradictory discussion and 
cross-questioning is a first attempt at verification ; unhappily it is 
entirely subjective. Further, it was at this epoch that the human 
mind, for the first time, showed a clear consciousness of the 
notions of kinds, species, individuals, general terms, and general 
ideas. The philosopher, according to the showing of Plato, is 
‘ he who sees"the one in the many, and the many in the one;’ 
but this had a dangerous tendency. It was imagined that to 
these general ideas an objective reality corresponded ; it was pre- 
tended that the lyre, the horse, the young girl, and the generous 
action had something in common—beauty ; where it ought to have 
been said, it is because men are capable of an agreeable emotion 
excited by these various objects, that they are united under the 
general term ‘ beautiful.’ 
Sextus Empirius 2 has told us that the ancients were divided 
upon the point whether Plato was dogmatic or sceptical. 
One can understand this difficulty, and for my part, says Mr. 
Lewes, ‘ after having read every one of Plato’s Dialogues (an 
excessively wearisome labour), and done my best to arrive at a 
distinct understanding of their purpose, I come to the conclusion 
1 Lewes, Philosophy ol. i. p. 124. 
a Hypot. Pyrrh. i. 44. 274 
English Psychology. 
that he never systematized his thoughts, but allowed free-play to 
scepticism, taking opposite sides in every debate because he had 
no steady conviction to guide him ; unsaying to-day what he had 
said yesterday, satisfied to show the weakness of an opponent.’1 
He does not believe, any more than Mr. Grote, in the system 
of interpretation which consists in saying that one dialogue re- 
solves the difficulties proposed by another. That which we take 
for a game of dialectics is really the ‘ groping ’ of Plato himself. 
He had not a philosophy ; he had philosophies ; he was above 
all great as a promoter; his doctrine, which is valuable ‘ ad 
edocendum parum, ad impellendum satis, remains still, and always 
will remain, a source of power.’2 
Mr. Lewes, as we have already stated, has devoted a special 
essay to Aristotle; in him he praises the founder of the experi- 
mental school; he criticises the author of the Metaphysics. He 
may be rightly called the father of the inductive philosophy, because 
he was the first to lay down its principles with an exactness and 
precision which Bacon himself has not surpassed. ‘ Anticipating 
modern Psychology, he taught, confusedly indeed, that intelli- 
gence is a late development; that the understanding is built up 
from sensuous materials,’3 that memory produces experience, 
and that experience renders induction possible. But still his 
method is not that of positive science—verification is missing. 
That which removes all scientific value from it is his theory of 
the Four Causes—an entirely subjective conception, founded upon 
pure ideas, and consequently hypothetical, and not verifiable. 
The semi-scepticism of the new academy furnishes to Mr. 
Lewes the materials for an essay on perception. We know that 
Arcesilaus and Carneades disputed with the Stoics, the dogmatists 
of that time, upon the legitimacy of the criterion, and in particular 
upon this question : Does every modification of the mind corre- 
spond exactly to the external object which causes it? Sensation, 
says Mr. Lewes, corresponds in nothing with its object, unless in 
the relation of effect to cause. At first this will surprise any one 
who has not reflected upon the point. Ask such a person if he con- 
1 Lewes, Hist, of p. 218. 
3 Ibid. p. 288. 
2 Vol. i. p. 221. 
* Ibid. pp. 367-372. Mr. George H. Lewes. 
275 
siders his perceptions as copies of particular objects, if he thinks 
that the flower which is before him can exist independently of 
him, or of all human beings, and if it can exist with the same 
attributes of form, taste, smell, etc. 1 His answer will be in the 
affirmative. He will regard you as a mad man if you doubt 
it. Nevertheless, a modification cannot be in any way a copy of 
the object which modifies. The pain caused by a burn is not the 
copy of the fire. Does it resemble the fire in any way 1 It simply 
expresses the relation between us and the fire, an effect which 
fire may produce upon us. We hear thunder ; our sensation is not 
a copy of the phenomenon; it simply expresses an effect pro- 
duced upon us by a certain vibration of the air. It is the same 
with regard to sensations of sight, although the prejudice to the 
contrary is very difficult to uproot. There are many persons 
who will agree that the pain caused by fire is not a copy of the 
fire, but who will maintain that the appearance produced upon 
our eyes by fire is the real appearance of the fire, independently 
of human vision. ‘Yet if all sentient beings were at once swept 
from the face of the earth, the fire would have no attribute at all 
resembling pain ; because pain is a modification, not of fire, but of 
a sentient being. In like manner, if all sentient beings were at 
once swept from the face of the earth, the fire would have no 
attributes at all resembling light and colour; because light and 
colour are modifications of the sentient being, caused by so?nethmg 
external, but no more resembling its cause than the pain inflicted 
by an instrument resembles that instrument.’1 
The radical error of those who think that we perceive things as 
they are, consists in adopting a metaphor as a fact, and believing 
that perception resembles a mirror, in which certain objects reflect 
themselves. Perception is no more than a condition of the sub- 
ject perceiving, tha.t is to say, a state of consciousness which may 
be caused by external objects, but which it does not in any way 
resemble. Then all that we can do is to endeavour to identify 
certain external appearances with certain internal changes, to 
identify the phenomenon which we call fire with certain sensa- 
tions which are produced when we approach it. The world 
1 Lewes, History of Philosophy, vol. i. p. 368. 276 
English Psychology. 
considered independently of consciousness, the world in itself, is 
in all probability very different from the world as we know it. 
‘ Light, colour, sound, taste, smell, are all states of consciousness ; 
what they are beyond consciousness, as existences per se, we 
cannot know, we cannot imagine, because we can only conceive 
them as we know them. Light, with its myriad forms and 
colours—Sound, with its thousand-fold life—are the investitures 
with which we clothe the world. Nature, in her insentient 
solitude, is an eternal darkness—an eternal silence.’1 
Perception is then an effect, and its truth is a truth not of 
resemblance, but of relation. It cannot make us know what 
things are, but what they are in relation to us. 
VI. 
‘Although the Middle Ages extend over nearly a thousand 
years, we must, as Hegel says, put on seven-league boots to 
traverse them.’ 2 Thus says Mr. Lewes, and he keeps his word. 
We shall be perhaps astonished to find that St. Thomas Aquinas, 
Duns Scotus, Telesio, and Vanini are not named; but if we 
remember that the aim of the author is, above all, critical and 
dogmatic, we shall be less surprised at it. He is in haste to 
reach the moderns. 
Of the two founders of modern philosophy, Descartes is the 
best handled. Bacon 3 was above all an initiator, and he had the 
merit of crying aloud, of being the herald of a new era, of giving 
to scientific research the dignity and the hope of a brilliant 
future. But while insisting upon the importance of the experi- 
mental method, he has totally deceived himself upon the pro- 
cess to be followed, and Harvey was not altogether unjust when 
he said of him, ‘ he talks of science like a Lord Chancellor.’ 
Dugald Stewart was right in saying that Descartes is the 
father of experimental psychology; and Condorcet in maintaining 
that he has done more than Galileo or Bacon for the experi- 
mental method, exaggerated a little, but not without foundation. 
1 Vol. i. p. 371. 
3 VoL ii. pp. 119, 120, 126. 
8 Vol. ii. p. 2. 
* Ibid. p. 145. Mr. George H. Lezves. 
277 
Cartesianism is summed up in two things : consciousness is the 
sole foundation of certitude; mathematics is the sole method 
of certitude. Bacon had said nothing of the deductive method : 
Descartes supplies this deficiency. But the deductive method, 
excellent in itself, must proceed objectively, and in that Des- 
cartes is often wanting. Whilst his reaction against the scholastic 
philosophy leads him to the objective point of view in cosmology, 
his psychological studies bring him back to the subjective point 
of view; he believes that reason can solve theological and meta- 
physical problems. To found the deductive method upon the 
basis of consciousness—such was his object. No thinker save 
Spinoza has so clearly established his criterion. But this 
criterion is deceptive. Consciousness is the last foundation of 
certitude : yes, for me. But what certitude does it give me for 
all which is not me. Consciousness is restricted, confined to 
self and to what passes in self; all the ideas which we have 
upon the non-ego can be founded only upon inferences. I burn 
myself. I have consciousness of a sensation, I have a certain 
and immediate knowledge of it. But when from the change 
produced I infer the existence of something which is not me, 
consciousness itself guarantees me nothing, and my whole 
knowledge of the object is mediate and uncertain. Conse- 
quently, as soon as we abandon consciousness for inference 
doubt becomes possible.1 
We must resolutely but regretfully sacrifice everything in the 
history of modern philosophy which is apart from our subject, 
and only show how Mr. Lewes traces and comprehends the 
process of psychology.2 
It is Hobbes, he says,3 and not Locke, who is the precursor 
of that psychology of the eighteenth century which resulted in 
the celebrated formula, ‘ to think is to feel.’ We must also 
1 Vol. ii. p. 155. 
2 The author is familiar with the most recent works published in France 
upon the History of Philosophy, whether general histories or monographs. 
He treats Spinoza at length : it is to be regretted that the essay on Leibnitz 
is so brief, and that there is nothing about Malebranche. 
3 P. 229. 278 
English Psychology. 
reproach him with materialism.1 But the aid he has lent to psy- 
chologists is considerable. In the first place, he has proclaimed 
it a science of observation : he discovered that our sensations do 
not correspond with external qualities, that they are only a modi- 
fication of the sentient subject, a discovery which Descartes has 
adopted or made for himself in his Meditations ; finally, he wrote 
a ‘ masterly ’ chapter on the association of ideas, ‘ though he 
evidently was quite unaware of its extensive application.’ 
Locke is the founder of modern psychology; he understood 
the necessity of a critical determination of the limits of the human 
mind. He commenced the history of the development of our 
thoughts, others having been content to take ideas as they found 
them; Locke carefully sought for the origin of all our ideas. In 
order to complete his psychology he ought to have searched for 
the origin of our faculties. M. Victor Cousin, who, ‘as a 
rhetorician,’2 opposes Locke, complains of his speaking of savages, 
of children, of travellers’ tales, and he does not see that Locke 
was trying the comparative method. When John Hunter sought 
for the elucidation of several anatomical problems in comparative 
anatomy, he was laughed at; and now every one knows that 
comparative physiology and embryology are the surest guides 
in all biological questions : because simple organisms are more 
easy to study than complex organisms. Locke also foresaw, but 
confusedly, the possibility of this comparative study in psycho- 
logy. 
Psychology owes only one thing to Leibnitz, but which is of 
immense value : the distinction between perception and appercep- 
tion.3 
‘ There are few men of whom England has better reason to be 
proud than of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne.’4 He has not 
been spared raillery or attack, but most frequently his critics have 
not understood him. 
‘ When Berkeley denied the existence of matter, he meant by 
“ matter ” that unknown substratum, the existence of which Locke 
had declared to be a necessary infere7ice from our knowledge of 
qualities, but the nature of which must ever be altogether hidden 
1 Vol. ii. p. 226. 
' 11 p. 246. 
8 p. 280. 
4 p. 281. Mr. George H. Lewes. 
279 
from us. Philosophers had assumed the existence of Substance, 
i.e. of a iioumeiion lying underneath all phenomena—a substratum 
supporting all qualities—a something in which all accidents inhere. 
This unknown Substance Berkeley rejects.’1 
This is why he says that he believes as fully in matter as any 
one; but that in his belief he separates himself from the philoso- 
pher, and agrees with the vulgar. He denies matter, then, not in 
the vulgar sense, but in the philosophical sense of the word. We 
must acknowledge, however, that his language is ambiguous, and 
tends to mistakes.2 
When philosophy examines the notions of common sense, rela- 
tive to the exterior world, it meets with this problem. Our senses 
inform us of certain sensible qualities,—extent, colour, etc. But 
our reason tells us that these qualities must be the qualities of 
something. What is that something 1 It is the unknown sub- 
stance which serves for support to the qualities. So that in the 
ultimate analysis our only reason for inferring the existence of 
matter is the necessity of a synthesis of attributes. What says Ber- 
keley to this 1 He boldly resolves the problem by saying that 
the synthesis is a mental synthesis. He first causes us to remark that 
the objects of our knowledge are ideas, an indisputable assertion, 
rigidly founded upon the facts of consciousness, and which can 
appear paradoxical only to those who are unused to questions of 
this kind. ‘ When,’ he says, ‘ we do everything in our power to 
conceive the existence of external bodies, we are all the time 
doing nothing but contemplating our own ideas.’ These objects 
and ideas are the same thing, then; nothing exists, then, but 
what is perceived. Can we maintain that in addition to ideas, 
there are things of which ideas are copies 1 As an idea can only 
resemble an idea, of two things one must be true : either the 
object of which we speak is an idea, and then idealism triumphs ; 
or we maintain that a colour resembles something invisible, the 
rough object an intangible thing. 
Realism, says Mr. Lewes, has not the shadow of an answer to 
1 Lewes, History of Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 283. 
2 In support of his interpretation Mr. Lewes quotes several passages from 
Berkeley. See Principles of Human Knowledge, § 35 et seq. 280 
English Psychology. 
make. Applied to the facts of the adult consciousness, the ana- 
lysis of Berkeley is unimpeachable •} unless we should deny that 
consciousness is immediately affected by sensations, and affirm 
that it is immediately affected by external objects ; which no 
metaphysician would do, because this would lead him to maintain 
that consciousness is nothing but sensations produced in the 
organism by external influences, and so cause the substratum 
mind to disappear altogether. 
The question of knowing whether consciousness is something 
superior to its acts (if it is, to use the language of French psycho- 
logists, a distinct faculty) may be considered to have been 
established since Brown. Nevertheless, we still find the old 
notion of a duplication of consciousness, of a consciousness 
which is a feeling of feeling, that will remain until the notion of 
mind as an entity shall have been banished from psychology. 
Are there two distinct existences, matter and spirit 1—is there 
only one 1 And which 1 Such is, when we reflect upon it, the 
point in debate in the question which occupies us. 
The idealist says, There is only one existence, the mind. 
Analyse the conception of matter, and you will discover that it 
is only a mental synthesis of qualities. 
The realist will say, There is only one existence, matter. 
Analyse your conception of mind, and you will discover that it 
is only a synthesis of qualities (states of consciousness), which 
are the activities of the organism. The synthesis is the organism. 
The sceptic, in agreement with both, and in disagreement 
with both, says: Your matter is only a floating succession of 
phenomena ; your mind a floating succession of ideas. 
The dualist says, There is spirit, and there is matter; each is 
essentially distinct; they have nothing in common. Neverthe- 
less, they can act one upon the other. How 1 That is a mystery. 
No doubt; but as philosophy cannot be contented with phrases, 
it remarks that where realism and idealism admit only one factor, 
dualism introduces two ; consequently it rejects it in virtue of 
the rule, Entia non sunt multiplicanda prccter necessitatem? 
Must we now, taking the side of idealism, conclude with 
1 Vol. ii. p. 295. 
2 Ibid. p. 296. Mr. George H. Lewes. 
281 
Berkeley, that as we only know ideas, objects must be identified 
with ideas, and that the esse of objects for us is fercipi 1 There 
is an ambiguity in that. No doubt we cannot think of an object 
without making it subject to the laws of nature, under the con- 
ditions of our thought; but it is quite different to say, ‘ I cannot 
conceive things otherwise, therefore they cannot exist otherwise.’ 
Idealism here assumes that human knowledge is absolute, not 
relative ; that man is the measure of everything. 
‘ Perception is the identity of the ego and the non-ego—the 
relation of two terms, the tertium quid of two united forces; 
as water is the identity of oxygen and hydrogen. The ego can 
never have any knowledge of the non-ego in which it (the ego) 
is not indissolubly bound up; as oxygen can never unite with 
hydrogen to form water without merging itself and the hydrogen 
in a tertium quid. Let us suppose the oxygen to be a process of 
consciousness, i.e. a feeling of changes. It would attribute the 
change not to hydrogen, which is necessarily hidden from it, but 
to water, the only form under which hydrogen is known to it. 
In its consciousness it would find the state named water, which 
would be very unlike its previous state; and it would suppose 
that this state, so unlike the previous one, was a representation 
of that which caused it. We say then that, although the hydro- 
gen can only exist for the oxygen (in the above case) in the 
identity of both as water, this is no proof that hydrogen does not 
exist under some other relations to other gases. In like manner, 
although the non-ego cannot exist in relation to mind otherwise 
than in the identity of the two (perception), this is no sort of 
proof that it does not exist in relation to other beings under 
quite different conditions.’1 
We admit then, with the idealists, that our knowledge is subjec- 
tive ; but we believe in the existence of an external world, alto- 
gether independent of the perceiving subject. The argumentation 
by which idealism seeks to disturb this belief is vitiated by the 
assumption that our knowledge is the criterion of existence ; 
this is conferring upon it an absolute value that it does not 
possess. 
1 History of Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 302. 282 
English Psychology. 
Hume follows up Berkeley. He suppresses the mind as an entity, 
and reduces it to a series of impressions, or, as modern psycho- 
logists would say, to a series of states of consciousness. But how 
then is continuity of consciousness to be explained, since between 
two states there is necessarily an interval 1 Does consciousness 
vanish during this interval, to re-appear with the after state! 
Hume does not solve this question ; he does not even put it. 
The metaphysician replies, Yes : the mind continues and unites 
all its manifestations in one synthesis. 
The biologist replies, Consciousness being a vital process, not 
an entity, has its synthesis in the continuity of the vital con- 
ditions. The nervous mechanism, of which consciousness is a 
function, continues to exist in the interval between two acts of 
consciousness. 
If the metaphysician objects that the reality of the mind is 
proved by consciousness, and by the fact that t say, My body; 
the biologist will reply, that the testimony of consciousness 
needs sifting by analysis; and that if I say, My body, I also 
say, My mind. Its personality is a notion whose genesis has 
not been yet clearly traced by any psychologist.1 
After Hume, psychology is represented by Hartley, Darwin, 
and the Scotch school. 
Hartley is the first who has attempted to explain the physiologi- 
cal mechanism of psychological phenomena.2 He explains sensa- 
tions by vibratory movements; a hypothesis which adds nothing 
to our knowledge of psychical processes. To speak of vibrations 
and vibratiuncles does not at all enlarge our horizon. Al- 
though since Hartley the progress of science has given a high 
degree of probability to the general doctrine of vibrations, 
nevertheless, even now, our knowledge of sensations is much 
more certain than that of the vibrations involved. The doctrine of 
vibrations would be useful, if from the known laws of vibratory 
bodies we could deduce and explain the still unexplained mental 
phenomena; but nothing of the kind has been done as' yet, and 
the theory of Hartley is much too vague to aid us.3 
1 History of Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 316. 
2 Ibid p. 349. 
8 Ibid. p. 353. Mr. George H. Lewes. 
283 
Darwin (Erasmus) professes the same theory, substituting for 
the word * vibration ’ the expression * sensorial movements.’ 
Although his system is full of ‘ absurd hypotheses,’ he has the 
merit of seeing that psychology is subordinate to the laws of life, 
and of cutting short ill-put questions and factitious problems. 
Why with two eyes do we see objects single 1 Why, the images 
being reversed upon the retina, do we see objects straight ? 
These questions and those of the same kind are psychological, 
and cannot be resolved either by optics or anatomy. We might 
as well deduce the assimilation of sugar from the angles of its 
crystals, as deduce the perception of an object from the laws of 
optics ; sugar must be dissolved before being assimilated, and so 
the retinal images must be transformed by the sensational centre, 
before affecting the brain.1 And this is not a gratuitous hypo- 
thesis, it is sustained by facts. It can be demonstrated. We 
see objects single with our two eyes, but we also hear sounds 
as single with our two ears ; our two nostrils give us a single 
scent; our five fingers give us objects as single. These facts 
have a bearing upon one another, and they demand reflec- 
tion. Their explanation ought to be psychological, and I think, 
saj's Mr. Lewes, that it is very simple. Here it is :— 
‘ I believe the explanation to be very simple. We cannot have 
two precisely similar sensations at precisely the same instant; the 
simultaneousness of the two sensations renders them indistinguishable. 
Two sounds of precisely the same pitch and intensity, succeeding 
each other by an appreciable interval, will be heard as two sounds; 
but if they succeed each other so rapidly that the interval is 
inappreciable, no distinction will be felt, and the two will be 
heard as one, because heard simultaneously. . . . The various 
Sensational Centres are variously affected by the same stimuli : 
electricity giving to the gustatory nerve the stimulus of savorous 
bodies, to the auditory nerve the stimulus of sonorous vibrations, 
to the optic nerve the stimulus of luminous bodies, to the tactile 
nerves the stimulus of touch. . . . Nor is this all : narcotics 
introduced into the blood excite in each Sensational Centre the 
1 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 358. 284 
English Psychology. 
specific sensation normally excited by its external stimuli. . . . 
From these indubitable facts it is not difficult to elicit a conclu- 
sion, namely, that sensation depends on the Sensational Centre, 
and not on the external stimulus, . . . and there the impression 
first becomes a sensation. . . . When therefore it is asked,—1 
Why do we see objects erect, when they throw inverted images on 
the retina ? the answer is,—Because we do not see the retinal 
image at all; we see, or are affected by, the object; and our 
perception of the erectness of that object does not depend on 
vision, but on our conceptions of space and the relations of 
space, which are not given in the visual sensation.’1 
The Scotch school is summarily treated;2 although its psy- 
chology contains much available matter for students, it is entirely 
dead as a doctrine. It is dead, and it deserved to die, because 
it had no object and no true method. It has added verbal 
analysis to verbal analysis, metaphysical explanation to meta- 
physical explanation; whilst physiologists and some psycholo- 
gists were going to the bottom of things. 
Those to whom this allusion is made appear to be Cabanis 
and Gall. 
The mention of the name of Cabanis immediately recalls the 
famous ‘ secretion of thought.’ By an unhappy phrase, says Mr. 
Lewes,3 Cabanis has given the advantage to his adversaries, 
and has prevented the progress of his own doctrines.4 He has 
been understood to have said that the brain secretes thought as 
the liver secretes bile. He never said anything of the sort. It is 
true that by a deplorable ambiguity of language he may lead us 
to interpret him as holding that thought is a secretion, while 
in reality he meant to say that it is a function. ‘ Certainly, if he 
did regard thought as a secretion, the error was monstrous, 
and the outcry against him was justifiable.’6 But the truth is, 
that he, like many biologists and psychologists, had very obscure 
1 Lewes, History of Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 359-361. 
2 Ibid. p. 393. 3 Ibid. p. 375. 
4 For the text of the phrase, see Cabanis, Rapports du Physique et du Moral\ 
ed. Peisse, p. 138, with a note by the editor, who does not take it seriously. 
* History of Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 376.- Mr. George H. Lewes. 
235 
ideas upon function.1 His great merit has been clear perception 
of the relations of psychology to the science of life, and the 
recognition of a great truth, already clearly seen by Aristotle, and 
thus expressed by St. Thomas Aquinas : ‘ Impossibile est in uno 
homine esse plures animas per essentiam differentes, sed una 
tantum est anima intellectiva quse vegetativo et sensitivo et 
intellectivo officiis fungitur.’ 
Gall is treated with fulness and favour in pages 394 to 435 ; 
Mr. Lewes attributes to him one merit, that of having rendered 
service to physiology and to psychology even by the daring of his 
hypotheses ; and two defects, that of completely neglecting sub- 
jective analysis in psychology, and of having founded a phrenology 
or cranioscopy belied by facts and the progress of science. 
If Gall has been accused of materialism, it has been wrong- 
fully, because he has several times declared that he 4 confines him- 
self to phenomena,’ and that he has never comprised in his re- 
searches anything relating to the essence of the body, or of the 
soul. ‘ I do not understand,’ he says, ‘ that our faculties are a pro- 
duct of organization, because this would be to confound the con- 
ditions with the efficient causes.’ It may be said that Gall has put 
a definite end to the dispute between the partisans of innate ideas, 
and the doctrine of sensation, by showing that there are innate 
tendencies, as much affective as intellectual, which belong to the 
organic structure of man. Two psychological facts, already 
vaguely perceived, have been brought out by him :— 
I. The fundamental tendencies are innate, and cannot be created 
by education. 
II. The various faculties are essentially distinct and independent, 
though intimately united among themselves. 
He has also clearly seen and clearly expressed that the 
greatest obstacle to the progress of psychological researches is 
to isolate man from the animal series, and to consider him as 
governed by totally special organic laws. 
He has understood that psychology, being a branch of biology, 
1 Mr. Lewes, quoting in p. 648 an analogous expression of Vogt’s, mani- 
fests his distaste to phrases made for effect, aiming at terrifying, and which he 
calls ‘pistol-shots.’ 286 
E-nglish Psychology. 
and consequently subject to all the biological laws, must be 
studied according to biological methods. Zoological, anatomical, 
philosophical, and pathological observations, all these are neces- 
sary as a basis : and certainly Gall has amassed more facts of this 
sort than any of his predecessors ; he has exhibited the patiencfe 
and the skill of an investigator, although he may have drawn 
from all his collection of materials false interpretations and un- 
verified conclusions. But there is another very important instru- 
ment of research, which Gall has omitted ; this is subjective ana- 
lysis ; an instrument so necessary that several psychologists, 
neglecting the importance of biological researches, maintain that 
psychology ought to be erected into a distinct science, and 
founded upon that analysis. Hence the weakness of the psycho- 
logical classifications of Gall, Spurzheim, and George Combe has 
rendered them rather more acceptable, but no one has had the 
faintest conception of what psychological analysis ought to be, of 
its means, of its conditions, and of the problems which it has to 
solve. How are we to determine whether a mental manifestation 
is the direct product of a faculty, or the indirect product of two or 
more faculties'? How are we to distinguish between faculties and 
modes, between elementary actions and associated actions, be- 
tween energies and synergies 1 These are very important ques- 
tions, which no one has tried to solve. Gall attributes to us 
twenty-seven faculties, among which are those of veneration, of 
individuality, of colour, of eventuality, and many others which 
evidently are not at all original faculties. His doctrine is thus very 
weak on this point. Nevertheless, the great principle of Kant, 
that we must seek in the laws of thought a solution of philoso- 
phical problems, Gall has had the merit of approaching on the 
biological side. 
‘ We ought to seek our ideas and our knowledge partly in the 
phenomena of the exterior world, and in their rational employ- 
ment, and partly in the innate laws of the moral and intellectual 
faculties.’1 
Physiologically he takes his revenge. His novelty consists in 
his precision. The relations between the physical and the moral 
1 Gall, Functions of the Brain, i 84. Mr. George H. Lewes. 
287 
nature had been vaguely recognised; also general relations of the 
nervous system and the mental functions; but none had ever at- 
tempted a precise demonstration of them. Many facts were 
known, such as the following : the toothache, which disappears 
when we reach the dentist’s door; taking water, fancying that it 
is an emetic, and vomiting in consequence. These facts were 
explained by attributing them to the imagination. That is well; 
but by what material conditions did imagination act upon the vis- 
cera or upon the tooth 1 These simple-minded explanations sup- 
posed a sort of autocratic imagination, without feeling any neces- 
sity of discovering a particular mechanism for the production of 
the results. Gall has not succeeded in discovering one, but #at 
least he has seen that it was necessary to substitute precise ideas 
for the vague generalities then current. Phrenology or cranio- 
scopy had this aim; it assigned each part of the cerebral mass as 
the seat of one particular faculty. But this hypothesis had to be 
confronted with facts, and it was found to be false. The most 
eminent neurologists declared against it, so that now phrenology 
finds itself in the rear of the discoveries of physiology, without 
having ever succeeded in constituting its psychology. 
We have not to follow Mr. Lewes in his explanation of German 
philosophy, nor in his criticism on Auguste Comte. Here, how- 
ever, there is one point which we must notice. We know that 
Stuart Mill has keenly criticised the omission of psychology in 
the classification of the sciences, such as is admitted by the 
positive school.1 Mr. Lewes replies to this criticism by the fol- 
lowing distinction : If it is a question of recognising that psycho- 
logy is a possible science, and of great value, that subjective 
analysis has been misunderstood by Comte, and that he has done 
wrong in regarding internal observation as an illusory process, 
I agree with Mr. Mill. But if it is a question of recognising in psy- 
chology an independent science, separate from biology, and to 
assign it a place of its own in the hierarchy of abstract sciences, 
then I am with M. Comte. Psychology may be a concrete 
1 On this point see Littre, Auguste Comte et Stuart Mill, and two articles 
in the Revue des Deux Mondes, on La Philosophic positive, September and 
November 1867. 288 
English Psychology. 
science, like physiology and botany, but it must be derived from 
abstract science of biology.1 
The conclusion of the work is a rapid review of the present 
philosophical situation of Europe. The author thinks that, in 
spite of appearances, the future belongs to positivism, and he 
carefully notices all the symptoms of it. If, as we sometimes say, 
the judgment of foreigners is for us a contemporary posterity, 
perhaps it will not be without interest to know what Mr. Lewes 
thinks of French philosophy. 
It began, he says, by a movement of reaction against the doc- 
trines of the eighteenth century—a vigorous reaction, because the 
excesses of the Revolution and the saturnalia of the Terror were 
associated in people’s minds with the philosophical opinions of 
Condillac, Diderot, and Cabanis. Men were afraid of the 
consequences, and rejected these doctrines en masse without 
troubling themselves to know what good they may have con- 
tained. 
‘ Men may, unhappily, be frightened from the truth, and 
cajoled into error, and in France the cajolery has been openly 
avowed, Victor Cousin frankly appealing to the “ patriotism ” of 
his audience in favour of “ nos belles doctrines.” . . . The history 
of the reaction in France is very instructive, but it would require 
more space than can here be given adequately to narrate the story. 
Four streams of influence converged into one, all starting from 
the same source, namely, horror at the Revolutionary excesses. 
The Catholics, with the great Joseph de Maistre and M. de 
Bonald at their head, appealed to the religious sentiments; the 
Royalists, with Chateaubriand and Madame de Stael, appealed 
to the monarchical and literary sentiments; the metaphysicians, 
with Laromiguibre and Maine de Biran; and the moralists, with 
Royer-Col lard,—one and all attacked the weak points of Sensa- 
tionalism, and prepared the way for the enthusiastic reception of 
the Scotch and German philosophies. A glance at almost any 
of these writers will suffice to convince the student that their main 
purpose is to defend morality and order, which they believe to be 
necessarily imperilled by the philosophy they attack. The 
1 p. 624. Mr. George H. Lewes. 
289 
appeals to the prejudices and sentiments are incessant. Elo- 
quence is made to supply the deficiencies of argument; emotion 
takes the place of demonstration. . . . One doctrine, and one 
alone, emerged from these attempts, and held for some time the 
position of a School. . . . Eclecticism is dead, but it produced 
some good results, if only by the impetus it gave to historical 
research, and by the confirmation it gave, in its very weakness, to 
the conclusion that an d priori solution of transcendental problems 
is impossible. . . . 
‘ Victor Cousin and Theodore Jouffroy are the chiefs of this 
School; one a brilliant rhetorician utterly destitute of originality, 
the other a sincere thinker, whose merits have been thrown into 
the shade by his brilliant colleague. As a man of letters, M. 
Cousin deserves the respect which attends his name, if we except 
the more than questionable use which he has made of the labours 
of pupils and assistants without acknowledgment . . . But 
Victor Cousin’s restless activity led him to the study of Kant:—- 
and certain doctrines of the “ Kdnigsberg sage ” were preached 
by him with the same ardour as that which he had formerly 
devoted to the Scotch. As soon as the Parisians began to know 
something of Kant, M. Cousin started off to Alexandria for a 
doctrine ; he found one in Proclus. He edited Proclus ; lectured 
on him ; borrowed some of his ideas, and would have set him on 
the throne of philosophy had the public been willing. A trip to 
Germany in 1824 made him acquainted with the modem Proclus 
—Hegel. On his return to Paris he presented the public with as 
much of Hegel’s doctrines as he could understand. His cele- 
brated Eclecticism is nothing but a misconception of Hegel’s 
History of Philosophy, fenced round with several plausible argu- 
ments. 
‘ Gifted with great oratorical power, flattering the prejudices 
and passions of the majority, tempted as most orators are 
to sacrifice everything to effect, and incapable, from native in- 
capacity or from defective training, of gaining any clear insight, 
Victor Cousin by his qualities and defects rose to an eminence 
which was regrettable, because it overshadowed the efforts of 
nobler minds. He was the source of philosophical patronage, 
and he filled the chairs of France with professors who were his 290 
English Psychology. 
adherents, or who dared not openly expose his weakness. The 
consequence was that, being crassly ignorant of Science, he kept 
Philosophy aloof from all scientific influences. The progress of 
centuries was ignored, and the methods of Scholasticism were 
once more brought into vogue. A painful cant of “ question- 
begging” eloquence supplied the place of research. The clear, 
precise genius of France was for a time ashamed of its clear- 
ness, and in sheer terror of being thought superficial and immoral 
rejected the aid of Science, and went maundering on about le 
Moi, IcaU interne; /’Infini, le Vrai', le Beau, et le Bien 1 in a pitiable 
manner.’ 
This judgment is severe, at least in form, but we have con- 
tented ourselves with merely translating it. 
Is this, of which the foregoing pages are an exposition, an 
ordinary history of philosophy ] Evidently not; it is the work of an 
original mind which has a great deal to say, and yields voluntarily to 
the pleasure of saying it, a mind which handles texts like a thinker, 
not like a scholar. Assuredly we must not search Mr. Lewes’s 
pages for enlightenment upon obscure points and upon contro- 
verted passages ; but in this long journey from Thales to Comte, 
the author has taken amazing pains, and has put forth enough 
teaching to content some, to leave others discontented, and to 
make every one reflect. We know our philosopher already, al- 
though we have only examined the historian in him. Let us now 
approach the psychologist. 
1 These words are in French in the text, 
2 Lewes, Philosophy, vol. ii. pp. 645-6. Mr. George //. Lewes. 
291 
CHAPTER II. 
PSYCHOLOGY. 
Psychology.—I. Psychology of common life—2. Organism and mechanism— 
3. Consciousness : its various forms—4. Discussion of the current doc- 
trine of reflex actions—5. Of sleep and heredity. 
I. 
We are destined never to come face to face with Mr. Lewes, 
we can only take him obliquely. Just now he was an historian, 
at present he is a psychologist. But while he protests that he 
will not come out of ‘ his science,’ and that he renounces pene- 
tration of the mysteries of psychology, it may be said that he is 
always coquetting with that science,—that he frequently yields to 
the temptation of speaking of it, and that it occupies a great part 
of his work, although he does not treat of it explicitly. The Phy- 
siology of Common Life, as its title expresses, proceeds to exhibit 
under a simple form the mechanism of the vital functions, and to 
give a notion of the principal laws of physiology sufficient to serve 
as a guide in practice.1 It differs however from books of popu- 
lar science, in that the author, instead of being a simple inter- 
mediary between the public and the sava?il, brings forward the 
result of his personal researches, which differ upon more than one 
point from received opinions. 
‘ Feeling and Thinking are of too profound an interest, and 
too closely allied with all vital phenomena, not to find a large 
place in the Physiology of Common Life. But what place must 
we give them? How must these difficult subjects be treated? 
Their very depth and extent of interest oblige us to select only 
those aspects which fall strictly within the scope of this work. 
They have psychological aspects and physiological aspects, both 
of great importance; but as our business here is not to discuss 
any but physiological problems, we confine ourselves to what 
are strictly the physiological aspects of thought and sensation. 
1 Physiology of Common Life, vol. ii. p. 453. 292 
English Psychology. 
‘ Psychology is the science of Mind. This science may seek—- 
and I follow those who think it ought to seek—important means 
of investigation in the laws of physiology; just as Physiology itself 
must seek important aids in Chemistry and Physics. But as an 
independent branch of inquiry, its results cannot be amenable 
to physiological canons; their validity cannot be decided by 
agreement or disagreement with physiological laws. To cite an 
example: Psychology announces that the mind has different 
faculties. That fact seems established on ample evidence, and is 
valid in Psychology, although hitherto no corresponding fact in 
Physiology has been discovered.’1 
Mr. Lewes concedes independence to the two sciences, 
although he maintains their relations. 
This book then being not a treatise on psychology, although 
containing much of it, we shall proceed, as we did with the pre- 
ceding one,—that is to say, gleaning from it; and we shall 
endeavour to embody the doctrines of the author under the 
following titles :— 
1. Of the nature of life, and of the vital principle. 
2. Of consciousness and its forms. 
3. Of sleep. 
4. Of heredity from a psychological point of view. 
11. 
We must count in the number of infirmities of thought, says 
Mr. Lewes,2 the tendency of the human mind to realize abstrac- 
tions. and to give to them an objective and independent exist- 
ence. A good example of this tendency is the formerly popular 
doctrine of a vital principle, which is now by degrees disap- 
pearing. 
Life is the connexus of organic activities; it is a collection 
of various particular facts, abstracted from these facts, erected 
into objective reality, each organ is composed of constituent 
tissues, each tissue has its constitutive elements, each element, 
1 Physiology of Common Life, pp. 2, 3. 
8 History of Philosophy, Proleg. § 45-49. Mr. George H. Lewes. 
293 
each tissue, has its specific properties, the activity of each organ 
is the sum of these properties, organism is the connexus of the 
totality. Life is then only a conception drawn from particular 
facts. But we have forgotten it, and we have realized this 
abstraction; we have declared that this resultant is a necessary 
antecedent. We have spoken of a vital principle anterior to all 
organic activities, and independent of them. Although this 
hypothesis has at the present day eminent partisans, it suffices, to 
dissipate the illusion, that we should resolve the abstract into the 
concrete forms from which it is drawn. 
A shred of muscle detached from the organism will manifest 
all its vital properties so long as its specific constitution of 
muscle shall subsist, so long as it shall resist disintegration; 
it will absorb oxygen, exhale carbonic acid, it will contract 
itself under an appropriate stimulus. A gland separated from the 
body continues to be a small laboratory of chemical changes, 
secreting as it secreted in the organism. A nerve detached from 
the body continues to manifest its specific property of neurility. 
These phenomena prove that what each part does in the organ- 
ism each part does out of the organism. In other words, the 
life of the animal is the sum of particular vital activities; it 
is not the source of the phenomena, but their personification.1 
The action of life is similar to that of mechanism, and differs 
from it only by the greater complication of its parts and of its 
effects. 
Many persons, however, object to such a conception. Life 
seems to them the antithesis of mechanical action. This repug- 
nance will be diminished if they could get well into their minds 
that between a mechanism and an organism there is resemblance, 
but not identity; that organism is a mechanism, but a vital 
mechanism, vitality being the source of profound differences. 
Attention has in general been fixed upon mechanical adjustment, 
and the sensatmis which guide it have been forgotten. No doubt 
animal mechanism, when it is put in action, acts like the mechan- 
1 ‘ The life of the individual is the sum of a multitude of lives, each be- 
longing of right to one of the elements of the organism.’—Milne-Edwards’s 
Rapports sur les progres des sciences zoolog., pp. 50 and 59. 294 
English Psychology. 
ism of a watch, but in order to put it in action and to maintain 
it in action the constant pressure of sensation is necessary. 
Sensation is an indispensable portion of mechanism, it is the main- 
spring of the watch, it is the fuel of the steam-engine. In short, 
organism is a mechanism, and it acts mechanically, in so far as its 
actions are necessarily determined by the adjustment of its organs, 
but organism differs from mechanism in that it has sensibility for 
mainspring, and that its so-called automatic actions are all 
determined by the movement of directing sensations.1 
The hypothesis of a vital principle, which was held for several 
centuries, and which is now rejected by every one except by 
a few metaphysicians and metaphysiologists, was only a verbal 
explanation ; it substituted words for ideas; almost the same 
might be said of the modern doctrine of vital force or vital 
forces: this is only a realized abstraction,2 a term which serves 
to veil our ignorance. 
The only three arguments given in favour of a vital principle 
which deserve consideration are the following :—xst, Life governs 
chemical affinities ; 2d, Life precedes organization, and conse- 
quently cannot be the result of it; 3d, Life is a directing unity. 
Does life govern chemical affinities 1 There is nothing more 
striking at first than this fact,—a living body preserves its form, 
and does not seem to yield to the destructive action of chemical 
agents ; whereas, as soon as life is extinct, the molecules yield to the 
action of chemical affinities. But on looking closer we see that 
instead of saying that the chemical affinities are controlled by 
vitality, Ave ought to say that there is no vital action possible 
without the incessant and complicated action of chemical 
affinities ; nutrition, secretion, movement, all depend on chemical 
actions. 
Does life precede organization 1 The word organization in- 
cludes an ambiguity; but if we remark that by this word we 
understand the totality of the necessary conditions, not less than the 
organic constitution, we easily understand that life is proportional 
to the organization. The life of a simple cellule is the totality of 
the activities of that cellule. The life of an animal of higher 
1 Physiology of Common Life, vol. ii. cliap. ix. 
2 Ibid, chap. xiii. Mr. George H. Lezves. 
295 
organization is the sum of the activities of all the forces in 
motion, and its complexity is in proportion to the complexity of 
the organization. Life being then a result, and varying according 
to the degrees of organism, we cannot say that it precedes organi- 
zation. 
Is it a directing principle 1 A superior unity ? We say the body 
is one, all its parts are subordinate, assembled together to form a 
superior unity : our consciousness assures us that life is a unity. 
This argument is founded upon an important fact, but one which 
is misinterpreted. Yes, there is a unity, there is a consensus in 
the organism; but we must not attribute it to a vital principle 
independent of the organism. It is due to the subordination of 
the organs ; all the parts have relations, all act together by means 
of the nervous system. Where there is not that connexion be- 
tween the parts, there cannot be this connexion between the 
organs. If we cut a polype or a worm into several pieces, each 
piece will continue to live and develop itself; nevertheless we 
cannot suppose that in such a case we have cut the vital principle 
into several principles. It is that there is a lifd in each part, 
and a life of the entire organism; each microscopic cellule has 
its independent existence, furnishes its career from birth to death, 
and the totality of these lives forms what we call the life of the 
animal; unity is an -aggregate of forces, and not a superior 
force. 
‘ It is surely more philosophical to consider life as an ultimate 
fact; one of the great revelations of the unknowable ; one of the 
many mysteries surrounding us. . . . We no longer set up 
fictions of our imagination in the place of a reverent observation. 
There are minds, indeed, which feel distrust at such resignation; 
they seem to dread lest life should be robbed of its solemn signi- 
ficance, in the attempt to associate it, even remotely, with in- 
organic phenomena. But this fear arises from narrow views of 
nature. It is because reverence for nature has not been duly 
cultivated, because familiarity with inorganic phenomena has 
blunted our sense of their unspeakable mystery. Men who are 
thrilled at the tokens of the past life of man, when they see, or 
read of, buried cities, Palmyra, Nineveh, or Yucatan, tremble 
with no delicious awe at the tokens of the past life of this earth, 296 
English Psychology. 
when they stand in a quarry, or ramble through a geological 
museum. Yet surely the crystal is not less mysterious than the 
plant, the ebb and the flow of the tides not less solemn than the 
beating of the human heart 1 And if patient observation and 
induction have enabled us to trace something of the order of 
nature in crystallization and the tides, without aid from the 
metaphysician, they may also enable us to understand some- 
thing of the laws of life.'1 
III. 
The theory of consciousness which we are about to study is 
original in several respects. The author, placing himself 
especially in a psychological point of view, examines the question 
of latent or insensible perceptions, so much disputed since Leib- 
nitz, but which 'appears in these last days to be almost uni- 
versally accepted. These infinitely littles of perception may 
play in psychological life a part as important as microscopic 
organisms in the material world, and one may be more than once 
surprised at the disproportion which exists between infinitesimal 
causes and the consequences which they engender. Mr. Lewes 
accepts them; her even distinguishes varieties, as we are about 
to see, and builds up, as it were, a hierarchy of consciousnesses. 
One of the points which our author is most anxious to establish 
is, that the sensorium, that is to say, the Seat of sensation and of 
consciousness, is not limited to the brain, that sensibility being 
the fundamental property of the ganglionary tissue inherent in 
this tissue, we ought to consider the sensorium as having the 
same extension as the nervous centres. He then defines the 
common sensorium ‘the sum of all the nervous centres, each 
centre being itself a small sensorium.’ Sensibility is a histologic 
property, and not a morphologic one, the disposition of the organ 
is then secondary. 
‘The current view is this: sensibility belongs only to the 
Ibid. p. 43. 
1 Fhysiology of Common Life, vol. ii. pp. 22, 2g. Mr. George H. Lewes. 
297 
centres within the skull; all other centres have only the property 
of reflecting impressions. By this reflection of impressions is 
meant that when an impression is made on a sensory nerve, and 
by it carried to the spinal cord, the impression there becomes 
reflected into a motion; the motor-nerve carries the impulse to a 
muscle, and thus an action results, unprompted or unaccom- 
panied by any sensation whatever. In direct opposition to this, 
I maintain that unless an impression on the sensory nerve excites 
a sensation in the centre, no motion whatever takes place.’1 
According to the ordinary doctrine, consciousness being held 
to have its seat in the brain, we naturally admit impression, 
so long as it is not upon the brain, produces no sensation, and 
if an animal deprived of the brain gives signs of sensation, 
physiologists maintain that it has no real sensation, but sensitive 
impressions which produce reflex actions without consciousness 
on the part of the animal. 
The word consciousness has a very vague meaning. Its most 
general meaning is sensation. It is indisputable that we have 
a sensitive organism which is necessarily excited by internal and 
external stimulus, that each of these excitements is a sensation, 
and that all these sensations must be elements of consciousness. 
We also admit that amongst these excitements those only which 
are of sufficient account to predominate over the myriads of vague 
excitements of organism are properly called sensations. We say 
that we have consciousness of them—the rest is considered 
as non-existent;—these are the unconscious impressions which 
lead to actions, but they are not consciousness. 
The apparently contradictory expression, ‘unconscious con- 
sciousness,’ ‘unfelt sensations,’ often employed in such cases, 
would not be embarrassing if the difference between sensation 
and perception had been clearly distinguished.2 ‘Sensation is 
simply an active state of sensibility which is the property of 
1 Physiology of Common Life, vol. ii. 
2 The distinction drawn by Mr. Lewes between sensation and perception, 
may be likened to that drawn by Leibnitz between perception and appercep- 
tion. 298 
English Psychology. 
the ganglionary tissue.’ Sensation being thus defined, can there 
be sensation without perception 1 
It is quite certain that we have many sensations that are not at 
all perceived, and of which we are, as we say, ‘ totally uncon- 
scious.’ They are either so weak or so familiar, or so lost in 
strong sensations, or so incapable of exciting ‘ associations ’ of 
ideas, that we are not ‘ conscious ’ of them in the present, and 
that we cannot recall them afterwards. This happens when we 
sleep during a sermon or a lecture ; we have the sensation of 
sounds emitted by some one who speaks ; we have no percep- 
tion of them.m This cannot be doubted, because, on the one 
hand, we do not know what has been read or said; on the other 
hand, if the sermon or lecture cease suddenly, we awake, which 
shows that we had the sensation of sounds. Mr. Lewes relates 
that having gone into an eating-house and found a waiter fast 
asleep, in the midst of the noise he vainly called him by his 
name, and by his Christian name, but as soon as he had pro- 
nounced the word ‘ waiter,’ the sleeper awoke. Admiral -Cod- 
rington, when a midshipman, could not be raised out of a 
sound sleep except by the word ‘ signal.’ These facts, which 
have many fellows, show that there may be sensation without 
perception and sensation accompanied by perception. 
‘ It would be an unfortunate mistake in language which should 
make it absurd to speak of non-perceived sensations. Per- 
ception has been so often confounded with sensation, because 
they have been constantly mixed up together, that we are as- 
tonished when it is said that one can be produced without the 
other. In spite of verbal difficulties we must get well into our 
minds that every excitement of a nervous centre produces a sen- 
sation, and that the totality of these excitements form general 
consciousness, or the sense of existence. 
‘ We do not see the stars at noon-day, yet they shine. We do 
not see the sunbeams playing among the leaves, on a cloudy 
day, yet it is by these beams that the leaves and all other objects 
are visible. There is a general illumination from the sun and 
stars, but of this we are seldom aware, because our attention 
falls upon the illumined objects, brighter or darker than this Mr. George H. Lezves. 
299 
general tone. There is a sort of analogy to this in the general 
consciousness which is composed of the sum of sensations ex- 
cited by the incessant simultaneous action of internal and ex- 
ternal stimuli. This forms, as it were, the daylight of our 
existence. We do not habitually attend to it, because attention 
falls on those particular sensations of pleasure or of pain, of 
greater or of less intensity, which usurp a prominence among the 
objects of the sensitive panorama. 
‘ The amount of light received from the stars may be small, 
but it is present. The greater glory of the sunlight may render 
the starlight inappreciable, but it does not render it inoperative. 
In like manner the amount of sensation received from some of 
the smaller ganglia may be inappreciable in the presence of 
more massive influences from other centres, but though inap- 
preciable it cannot be inoperative—it must form an integer in 
the sum.’1 
We can now close this discussion by rejecting the current 
hypothesis which will have it that a sensation does not exist 
except it is perceived, without which it is a pure impression. Mr. 
Lewes points out that in distinguishing sensation from percep- 
tion he does not make a purely verbal distinction, which would 
consist in calling that 1 sensation’ that others call ‘ impression.’ 
By no means ; by sensation he understands the sensibility proper 
to each centre. The naturalist, he says, knows that there is an 
enormous difference between the monkey and the oyster, but he 
also knows that notwithstanding their differences all animals 
obey the same biological laws. I should like to see the same 
reform introduced into our physiology of the nervous system. I 
should wish to see it recognised, that notwithstanding diver- 
sities, all nervous centres, in so far as they are centres, have 
properties and laws in common. 
Consciousness, in its general sense, being the sum of all our 
sensibilities, the overflow of several currents of sensations, it results 
from this, that in the lower animals endowed with a simple nerv- 
1 Physiology of Common Life, vol. ii. p. 65. English Psychology. 
300 
ous system, the sensitive phenomena are simple, and that by 
degrees as organization increases in complexity the sensible phe- 
nomena become necessarily more complex, and the elements of 
general consciousness become more numerous. This leads to 
the examination of the question of the various forms of con- 
sciousness. 
The unity of the nervous system throughout the whole animal 
kingdom has been generally recognised, but it is strange that* 
unity of consciousness has not been deduced from it. 
‘ The various forms of consciousness or sensibility may be 
properly grouped under these three titles :—First, systemic con- 
sciousness ; second, sense-consciousness • thirdly, thought-ton- 
sciousness.’1 
Systemic consciousness, which gives us the principal elements of 
the sense of existence, includes all the sensations springing from 
the system of the organic functions in general and in particular. 
Short of adopting the hypothesis of Descartes upon animal 
machines, we must admit that the humblest animals have this 
form of consciousness. Those who reject this conclusion are the 
dupes of equivocal language, which leads them to suppose that 
there is some element of thought included in consciousness, and 
even in sensation. But though every animal must feel, it does 
not follow that it must think. Let us remark besides the absurdity 
of the consequences. If a mollusc has no sensation, it would be 
the same as to the Crustacea. If the crab is a machine, the bee, 
the beaver, the elephant, the dog, and the monkey, are also 
machines. ‘ Short of throwing science to the winds, we must 
admit that all animals have sensations, although they have not 
each the same form of consciousness.’ 
Sense-consciousness includes all those sensations derived from 
the organs of the five senses. 
Thought-consciousness includes all those phenomena of thought 
and emotion with which the psychologist is particularly con- 
cerned ; all that the physiologist can do is to indicate the rela- 
tions of this form of consciousness with the lower animals, and 
1 Physiology of Common Life, vol. ii. p. 74. Mr. George //. Lewes. 
<3 
301 
the portions of the nervous system which serve them as organs. 
As for thought we do not know, and perhaps we never shall 
know, what it is ; nor do we know what life is. But we can learn 
what are the laws of life and the laws of thought. To the 
physiologist belongs the former task, to the psychologist the 
latter. 
The insufficiency of the preceding theory may be explained by 
remembering that Mr. Lewes only intends to place himself in a 
physiological point of view. Mr. Herbert Spencer and Mr. Bain 
have made us penetrate much more deeply into the mechanism 
of human consciousness by showing us this double current of in- 
tegration and of disintegration which constitute it, the condition 
of time which imposes itself upon it and gives to it the form of a 
succession. But Mr. Lewes us into another world, 
and this example appears to us to show, what we have endea- 
voured to establish in the introduction, namely, that in psychology 
the subjective method and the objective method are both equally 
necessary. 
IV. 
The theory of reflex actions attaches itself strongly to the pre- 
ceding considerations upon unconscious sensations. It is striking 
and instructive to remark how little French psychology has 
occupied itself with this matter. Restricted to the facts of con- 
sciousness, it has avoided everything which has a physiological 
appearance. And whilst the invading spirit of physiology led it 
constantly to extend its domain, and even to come out of it on 
all sides, psychology, confined within strict limits, allowed many 
a portion of its territory to escape, and asked nothing. The 
discussions upon the boundary line of the two sciences, which 
filled the first half of the nineteenth century, sought to define 
frontiers which have no existence. 
Between psychology and physiology there are no natural 
boundaries. No doubt a purely physiological act, such as circu- 
lation, differs entirely from a purely psychological act, such as de- 
ductive reasoning ; but there is an entire order of facts, insensible 
perceptions, reflex actions, instincts, etc., by means of which the 
two lives mingle and are confounded. This subject might have 302 
English Psychology. 
been less discussed if it had been better understood that our 
divisions are to a great extent arbitrary in consequence of the 
continuity of phenomena: that man distinguishes that which 
nature mixes, and that, if science is an analysis, the world is a 
synthesis. 
The study of reflex actions is the continuation of that of con- 
sciousness. In fact, whilst according to the current theory the 
sensorium is restricted to the brain, the action which has its 
centre in the spinal marrow is called reflex, and is considered to 
be of a totally different nature ; the theory of Mr. Lewes, which 
extends tire sensorium to all the nervous centres, only admits 
that there is a difference of degree between the action of the brain 
and that of the spinal marrow. To establish that the spinal cord 
is a sentient centre is his aim, building upon his owm experience, 
upon that of others, and upon the deduction which he draws 
from them. He wishes to ‘ give the final blow ’1 to the theory 
of reflex action, upon which he even casts ridicule. 
The doctrine of the schools, he says, is this :— 
‘ Mental nervous actions (acts of volition and sensation) cannot 
take place without a brain. ... If you pinch a dog’s tail, he cries 
out. His cry is supposed to indicate a sensation of pain. But 
the physiologist who would reprove you for having hurt his yelp- 
ing puppy would quietly assure you that this puppy’s cries were 
no evidence of pain or sensation after its brain had been removed. 
“ Merely reflex, my dear sir,” and he would smile at your suppo- 
sition that an animal without a brain could feel any sensation.’2 
In support of this doctrine he quotes facts and experfments. 
‘ The researches of Flourens had their time. They were truly 
striking; the conclusions which he drew from them were com- 
menced in that systematic, derisive, absolute style which charac- 
terizes French writers;’ hence their European popularity, in 
spite of the reservations of Muller and Cuvier. Flourens main- 
tains that the animal deprived of brain loses all sensation, all 
perception, all instinct, and all volition. But the contrary ex- 
periences of Bouillaud, Longet, and Dalton have weakened his 
conclusions. 
1 Physiology of Common Life, p. 526. 
2 Ibid. vol. ii. pp. 84, 85. Mr. George H. Lewes. 
303 
‘ It would be to misunderstand me,’ says Mr. Lewes, ‘ if it were 
supposed that I do not consider the brain as the principal and 
dominating organ of all psychical life. 
‘ I have said before that it has the noblest functions, but it does 
not exclude the other ganglia from their share in the general 
consciousness. In it all the sensations derived through the senses 
and viscera are summed up, combined, modified, and in some 
profoundly mysterious manner elaborated into ideas. It is gene- 
ralissimo of the whole army, controlling, directing, and inspiring 
the actions of all subordinate officers. But to suppose that the 
subordinates have not also their independent functions is a mis- 
take. The generals, colonels, captains, sergeants, corporals, and 
common soldiers, are individual men, like their commander-in- 
chief, with inferior power and with different functions, according 
to their respective positions. But if the commander-in-chief be 
killed, the army has still its generals. If the generals be killed, 
the regiments have still their colonels. Nay, even a corporal’s 
company may be kept together by an energetic corporal. And 
this we shall see to be the case with animals when their brain has 
been removed; each separate part of the organism has its gene- 
ral, colonel, or corporal.’1 
Every nervous centre having, then, a sensibility belonging to 
itself, ‘a fundamental point,’ says Mr. Lewes, ‘which appears to 
me totally inadmissible, is the hypothesis that reflex mechanism 
is independent of sensibility, and that reflex actions take place 
without sensation.’2 
He cannot ‘ refrain from expressing his surprise at the weak- 
ness of the evidence which serves as a basis for the celebrated 
theory of reflex actions.’3 In order to prove that reflex actions 
are independent of sensation, it is necessary to prove in the first 
place that the actions of the spinal cord are independent of sen- 
sation ; this has never been proved, and has even been placed 
beyond all evidence.4 
It would be beside our subject, and out of our power, to 
follow Mr. Lewes in his long essay upon reflex actions ; we can 
1 Physiology of Common Life, vol. ii. pp. 96, 97. 
8 P. 183. 
2 P. 167. 
4 P. 226. 304 
English Psychology. 
only summarize its principal points, and briefly state the reasons 
upon which he founds his belief that the spinal cord is a centre 
of sensation. 
1. The opinions of previous physiologists.—The doctrine which 
recognises sensitive functions in the spinal cord is not new. 
Robert Whytt held it. Prochaska considered the spinal cord as 
forming a considerable portion of the commo?i sensorium, and he 
advanced in proof of it the well-known facts of sensibility mani- 
fested by headless animals. J. J. Sue, father of the celebrated 
novelist, saw that the spinal marrow could, to a certain extent, 
replace the functions of the brain. Legallois, Wilson, Philipi, 
Lallemand, and Calmeil arrived at analogous conclusions, under 
different forms. Thus several facts establishing the sensitive 
functions of the spinal cord were known, and even a vague con- 
ception of their real sense was generally spread abroad, up to the 
time when the reflex theory arose to explain these facts as the re- 
sult of a mechanical adjustment. But this doctrine has found its 
opponents. J. W. Arnold has refuted it. Carus said ironically that 
the word reflex was a key to open every lock. Schiff maintains 
that all the cerebral actions, as well as the spinal, are reflex, and 
depend upon a mechanical arrangement.1 
If we pass from historical considerations to the facts them- 
selves, we may consider the evidence which they furnish under 
two aspects, deductively and inductively. 
2. Deductive evidence.—A resemblance of structure implies a 
resemblance of property, and the ganglionic structure of the 
spinal cord being of a nature similar to the ganglionic substance 
of the brain, there must necessarily be a community of property 
between the two. 
‘ The only ground for denying that the actions of decapitated 
animals are determined by sensation, is because the brain, or en- 
cephalon, is believed to be the sole seat of sensation. To ex- 
plain the resemblance between the actions of animals with and 
without their brains, a theory is invented, which says, These 
actions are reflex. But in the uninjured animal there is reflex 
action plus the transmission of an impression to the brain, and 
1 Physiology of Common Life, vol. ii. p. 231. Mr. George H. Lewes. 
305 
it is this which produces sensation; in the headless animal we 
see reflex action, minus the transmission to the brain.’ 1 
A gentleman once maintained that there were no gold mines 
except in Mexico and Peru. His assertions were met by showing 
him an ingot just come from California. Without being in 
the least disconcerted, he replied : ‘ This metal, I acknowledge? 
resembles gold closely; you tell me that it passes for such 
among the essayers and on the market. I do not dispute that; 
nevertheless this metal is not gold, but auruminium; it cannot 
be gold, because gold only comes from Mexico and Peru.’ 
The decapitated animal defends itself instinctively from the 
suffering that it is caused, disentangles itself, accomplishes several 
of its ordinary actions; but they say that it does all this without 
that sensibility which would guide it if it were not decapitated. 
This is a case of gold being not gold but auruminium. 
In the Fiji Islands, when a man is about to die, some hours 
before his death his body is taken out of his house. Some of 
these persons during that time can eat and speak. But they 
are reported dead. To eat, to drink, to speak, are involuntary 
acts of the body, of the empty shell, as the inhabitants of these 
islands say, but according to them the soul has left it; the theory 
of reflex action recalls this eccentric belief to Mr. Lewes’s 
memory.2 
3. Inductive evidence.-—Spontaneity and choice are two palpable 
signs by which we recognise the presence of sensation and of 
will. Let us then see if decapitated animals manifest these pal- 
pable signs. In the first place, let us look for spontaneity. We 
should remark, says Mr. Lewes, that a decapitated animal is 
deprived of the various stimuli which he may receive through the 
eyes, the ears, and the smell, which determine his movements ; 
he therefore necessarily remains in repose if he be not excited by 
visceral sensations. He affirms that an attentive and repeater' 
examination of decapitated animals furnishes an abundant evidence 
of spontaneous actions.3 Let us give an example. Mr. Lewes 
subjects a strong and healthy triton to various experiments. He 
touches it, pricks it, burns it with acetic acid, etc. . . . He 
1 Ibid. p. 234. 
14 
2 p. 236. 
8 p. 240. 306 
English Psychology. 
carefully notes the movements of the animal. Next, having de- 
capitated it, he afresh subjects it to the same experiments ; the 
reactions of the animal are precisely similar; it tries to free itself 
from the pain, to rub off the acid which is burning it. These 
experiments, to which Mr. Lewes adds a good number of others, 
lead him to conclude that the evidence of spontaneity and of 
choice, of sensibility and of volition, does not admit of mis- 
take, and that, consequently, ‘ the Spinal Cord is a sentient 
centre.’1 
4. Examination of objections.—After having examined the 
reasons and the facts in favour of the sensibility of the spinal 
marrow, we must see what is the value of the evidence set against 
it. Let us lay aside the first argument, drawn from the universal 
prejudice that the brain is the only sensorium, because that is 
simply begging the question. Let us lay aside a second argu- 
ment, that several actions take place without awaking a con- 
sciousness or a distinct attention, such as breathing, digesting, 
etc. This argument either proves nothing, or it proves too 
much. An action may be sensational without producing this 
secondary feeling, generally called consciousness, and in this sense 
we might even say that thought is unconscious, much more truly 
than sensations are so. There remains the striking case of 
maladies or injuries of the spinal marrow, as a result of which 
nothing is felt below the wounded part. This is the cheval dc 
bataille of the reflex theory. 
‘ But/ says Mr. Lewes, ‘ when a man has a diseased spinal 
cord, the seat of injury causes for the time at least a division of 
the cerebro-spinal axis into two independent centres. For all 
purposes of sensation and volition it is the same as if he were cut 
in half; his nervous mechanism is cut in half. How then can any 
cerebral volition be obeyed by his legs 1 how can any impression 
on his legs be felt by his cerebrum 1 As well might we expect the 
man whose arm has been amputated to feel the incisions of the 
scalpel when that limb is conveyed to the dissecting-table, as to 
feel in his brain impressions made upon parts wholly divorced 
from organic connexion with the brain. 
1 Lewes, Physiology of Common Life, vol. ii. pp. 245-258. Mr. George H. Lewes. 
307 
‘ But, it may be objected, this is the very point urged. The man 
himself does not feel the impressions on his limbs when his spine 
has been injured; he is as insensible to them as to the dissection 
of his amputated arm. Very true. He does not feel it. But if the 
amputated arm were to strike the anatomist who began its dissec- 
tion, if its fingers were to grasp the scalpel and push it away, or with 
the thumb to rub off the acid irritating one of the fingers, I do not 
see how we could refuse to admit that the arm felt, although the 
■man did not. And this is the case with the extremities of a man 
whose spine is injured. . . .’1 
‘ It is true that the man himself, when interrogated, declares 
that he feels nothing; the cerebral segment has attached to it 
organs of speech and expressive features, by which its sensations 
can be communicated to others; whereas the spinal segment has 
no such means of communicating its sensations, but those which 
it has it employs.’ 
We here terminate this brief explanation of the opinions of 
our author upon the current doctrine of reflex actions. Perhaps 
it seems slightly external to our subject. But the new psychology, 
which we are endeavouring to exhibit here according to its' 
most eminent representatives, embraces a much wider domain in 
the reign of facts than the ordinary psychology. It believes that 
these obscure phenomena into which psychical life has hardly 
begun to penetrate are in many respects the most curious and 
the most profitable to study. We have already seen that Mr. 
Herbert Spencer assigns a place to reflex action in the ascendant 
evolution of mental life, and the identity of the doctrines of Mr. 
Bain and Mr. Lewes upon the nature and the seat of the 
common sensorium must also have been remarked by the 
reader. 
v. 
The remainder of the work is devoted to the senses and sen- 
sations, to sleep and to the phenomena of heredity. 
‘ “ How many senses have you ?” inquired the traveller from 
1 Ibid. pp. 263-264. 308 
English Psychology. 
Sirius, in Voltaire’s exquisite satire; upon which the inhabitant 
of Saturn replied, “ Seventy-two; but every day we live we 
lament we have so few.” 
£ The European has been taught to be so well satisfied with 
five senses, that he is apt to regard as an absurdity the attempt 
to alter or enlarge that sacred number. ... “ The division of 
our external senses,” says Hutcheson, “into five common classes, 
is ridiculously imperfect.” ’1 
Mr. Lewes thinks that this is a very difficult question, and 
that only a profound anatomist can determine how many dis- 
tinct organs we have for the senses. He adopts however the 
following division :— 
1. Sensations proceeding from the system, which comprehend, 
ist, organic sensations; 2d, surface sensations, given to us by 
the skin. 
2. Sensations proceeding from the senses properly so called, 
and which comprehend touch, taste, hearing, smell, and sight 
‘ Finally, I would call attention to the psychological impor- 
tance of that vast class of sensations which has been termed 
►Systemic consciousness, and which psychologists and physio- 
logists have so strangely neglected. They have given to the 
Sense-Sensations an almost exclusive part in the formation of our 
sensational activity, and often spoken of the mind as a mere 
educt of the Five Senses. The most striking example of this 
is seen in Condillac’s famous statue, which is endowed succes- 
sively with each of the five senses, and with each endowment 
develops gradually a complete mind. Monstrous as this hypo- 
thetical statue is, it is only a logical development of the concep- 
tion that mind is the combination of the five senses. 
‘ In these pages an attempt has been made to show that 
Mind is the psychical aspect of Life—that it is as much 
the sum-total of the whole sensitive organism as life is the 
sum-total of the whole vital organism—that various organs 
may be set apart for the performance of various special 
functions, mental as well as vital, but that no one exclusive organ 
of Mind can be said to exist any more than one exclusive organ 
i Lewes, Physiology of Common Life, vol. ii. p. 273. Mr. George II. Lewes. 
309 
of Life can be said to exist. The reader may reject this view, 
which is submitted to him as the result of many years’ medita- 
tion, and with that hesitation which naturally belongs to an 
opinion incapable of proof.’1 
If we now wish to know (2.) under what principal divisions 
these psychical phenomena may be grouped, we shall find that 
the popular classification into feeling and thinking, or mind and 
heart, indicate roughly the first groups. We can divide them after- 
wards into ‘ six centres, three for each division.’ In the first group 
we may place sensations, perceptions, and ideas, which represent in- 
tellectual activity. In the second group we may place sensations, 
instincts or appetites, and emotions which represent moral ac- 
tivity. Thus sensation forms the starting point of each series. 
But we have already seen that there are different species of sen- 
sations, forming two principal groups,—sensations of the senses, 
and sensations of the system. 
The first have been almost always considered as impersonal, 
because they place us in conscious relation with external objects, 
with the non-ego. The second (sensations of the muscles and 
of the viscera) are on the contrary extremely personal, because 
they place us in conscious relation only with that which takes 
place in our body. The emotions are profoundly rooted in 
our personality. 
The exteriority of the sensations of the senses, and the in- 
teriority of the sensations of the system, create a wide line of 
demarcation between the perceptions which are produced from 
the one, and the appetites or instincts which are supplied from 
the other; and the latter in their turn give birth to the various 
forms of sensibility, known under the names of thought and 
emotion. 
It has never been doubted that our perceptions and ideas have 
their origin in sensation. The old adage nihil est in intellectu, 
etc., may be equivocal, but it shows this incontestable fact, that 
sensation is at the foundation of every intellectual operation. 
‘ I feel myself justified, therefore, in considering ideation as 
the form of cerebral sensibility which is determined by the 
1 Ibid. p. 344. English Psychology. 
310 
cerebral connexions with the ganglia of special Sense. In like 
manner, emotion may be considered as the form of cerebral sen- 
sibility which is determined by connexions with the ganglia of 
visceral sensation.’1 
And thus the popular opinion which places in the ‘ bowels * 
the principal source of the emotions would be justified. 
Sleep and hereditary transmission have been the object of 
such important and such numerous studies in France, that we 
cannot dwell upon them long, our object being above all to make 
known the newest results of English psychology. 
Under the title of ‘a new theory of dreaming,’ Mr. Lewes 
explains this phenomenon as follows :— 
‘ If we reflect that the nervous centres must be incessantly 
called into activity, either through the imperfectly closed channels 
of the Five Senses, or through the Systemic Senses, and that 
these centres, once excited, must necessarily play on each other, 
and if we reflect further, that the sensational and ideational 
activities thus stimulated operate under very different conditions, 
and in very different conjunctions, during sleep, we shall be 
at no loss to understand both the incoherence and the coherence 
of dreams—the perfect congruity of certain trains of thought 
amid the most absurd incongruities. The coherence of dreams 
results from the succession of associated ideas; the train of 
thought follows very much the course it would follow in waking 
moments, at least when uncontrolled by reference to external 
things—as in Reverie. The incoherence results from this train 
being interrupted or diverted from its course by the suggestion 
of some other train, either arising by the laws of association or 
from the stimulus of some new sensation. . . . That Law of Sensi- 
bility, which has been so fully expounded in previous pages, 
whereby every sensation discharges itself either in a reflex action 
or a reflex feeling (or in both together), and whereby every centre 
once stimulated must inevitably stimulate some other, gives us 
the explanation why subjective sensations may arise in sleep or 
waking, and why they must stimulate cerebral action. ... In 
our waking condition we are familiar with what has been styled 
1 Lewes, Physiology of Common Life, vol. ii. p. 118. Mr. George //. Lewes. 
311 
subjective sensations; that is to say, we see objects very vividly 
where no such objects exist; we hear sounds of many kinds where 
none of their external causes exist; we taste flavours in an empty 
mouth; we smell odours where no volatile substance is pre- 
sent ; and we feel prickings or pains in limbs which have been 
amputated. These are actual, not imaginary sensations. . . . 
And as it is the inevitable tendency of our nature to connect 
every sensation with an external cause—to project it outside of 
us, so to speak,—we should never think of doubting that every 
one of these subjective sensations had a corresponding object, 
did not the suggestions of some other sense control this idea. A 
man feels prickings in his amputated fingers, but he sees that 
the fingers are not there, and consequently he knows that his 
sensation is deceptive. He smells the horrible stench of a sewer 
long after he has passed out of the reach of its volatile gases. 
He tastes the bitter flavour long after the bitter substance has 
been removed. But the sensations require constant confrontation 
with the reports of other senses, otherwise they would be credited 
as sensations, produced by actual objects. ... If I sit in my 
study, and my thoughts wander to Bagdad or Bussora, the con- 
tinual presence of my books, chairs, microscope, engravings, etc., 
infallibly brings me back again before long, and prevents my 
believing myself to be in the East. ... In the state of cerebral 
excitement named Hallucination this confrontation is disre- 
garded; in the state of cerebral isolation named Dreaming this 
confrontation is impossible. The first condition is one in which 
the cerebral activity completely domineers over the excitations 
from without; the second condition is one in which the cerebral 
activity, though feeble, is entirely isolated from external excita- 
tions,—thus, in both cases, the cerebral reflexes are undis- 
turbed, uncontrolled by reflexes from Sense.’1 
This doctrine, which agrees with that of the highest French 
writers, leads Mr. Lewes to answer the question, c Do we always 
dream 1 ’ in the affirmative. Since the nervous centres are con- 
stantly excited by internal or external stimuli, and since this 
activity gives birth to a succession of ideas, induction leads us 
1 Ibid. pp. 370-372. 312 
English Psychology. 
to conclude that we always think, though we may lose the re- 
membrance of our thoughts. 
The chapter devoted to inheritance may perhaps seem 
rather meagre. But in a Physiology of Cotnmon Life, a sub- 
ject still so full of obscurity and important problems could 
hardly be touched upon. Mr. Lewes, who is very severe 
upon the most important work which has appeared upon 
this question in France, recognises its importance and its diffi- 
culties. In our opinion, the studies upon hereditary transmission, 
considered from a psychological point of view, are destined one 
day to play a great part, when science shall have completely 
entered upon that path which it is now only attempting. We 
have seen that Mr. Herbert Spencer and Mr. Lewes2 demand 
from heredity an entirely novel solution of the origin of ideas. 
But those who may refuse to follow them to that point, and who 
admit that heredity may decide one of the most important 
and the most controverted questions of philosophy, even they 
may be obliged to agree that a large number of psychological 
facts have their source in hereditary transmission. As I think there 
is no spiritualist who would deny the influence of the organism 
upon our tendencies, our passions, our ideas, and our aptitudes, 
and as organism is inherited, it is a matter of course that the 
influence of heredity must make itself felt at least mediately 
upon our psychological constitution. Common experience made 
this discovery a long time ago ; it remains for science to-define 
and explain it. Certain monstrosities in the moral order, certain 
precocious depravities and extraordinary tastes, appear explicable 
only by heredity. Thus we, together with Mr. Lewes, may 
be astonished to find one of the most celebrated philosophical 
historians of England, Mr. Buckle, maintaining that in the quoted 
cases there is nothing but empirical coincidences, of which we 
may make what we can.3 
1 Prosper Lucas, Traite physiologiqne et philosophique de VMredite, naiurdle. 
Mr. Lewes calls it ‘an extensive but uncritical work.’ See also Moreau de 
Tours, Psychologie morbide. 
2 See on this point Moreau de Tours, p. I io et seq. 
8 Buckle, Civilisation in England, voL i. chap. ii. Mr. George H. Lewes. 
313 
The opponents of heredity quote facts which appear to 
them conclusive : the frequent absence of resemblance between 
parents and children, and the frequent mediocrity of the de- 
scendants of men of genius. Pericles produced a Paralus and 
a Xanthippus. The austere Aristides produced the infamous 
Lysimachus. The powerful-minded Thucydides was represented 
by an idiotic Milesias and a stupid Stephanos. Was the great 
soul of Oliver Cromwell to be found in his son Richard i What 
were the inheritors of Henry iv. and of Peter the Great ? What 
were the children of Shakespeare and the daughters of Milton 1 
What was the only son of Addison 1 An idiot. 
The supporters of heredity retort upon this argument by 
saying, What is the meaning of these proverbial phrases, ‘ the wit 
of the Mortemarts,’ ‘ the wit of the Sheridans,’ if one does not 
believe in transmission 1 Torquato Tasso was the son of a 
celebrated father. We have the two Herschels, the two Col- 
mans, the Kemble family, and the Coleridges. Finally, the 
most striking example is that of Sebastian Bach, whose musical 
genius was found, in an inferior degree, among three hundred 
Bachs, the children of very various mothers. 
The question of heredity is still more complicated when we 
endeavour to find out if it be true, as certain authors have ad- 
vanced, that the father gives the organs of animal life, and the 
mother the organs of vegetable life. 
Mr. Lewes, who rejects this opinion, maintains the law of 
heredity, remarking that it is the rule, but that we must take 
account of the disturbing causes which explain the exceptions. 
Physiology tells us that always and necessarily the race inherits 
the organization of the parents ; and that if the organization be 
inherited, so are the tendencies and aptitudes. Our experience 
of heredity is so constant that nothing can seem to us more 
incredible than that negro parents should give birth to a child 
with the features of a European, or that two sheep should pro- 
duce a goat. But while there is a constancy in the transmission 
of general characteristics, there is a considerable variation in the 
transmission of individual peculiarities. 
A child may inherit from both parents, or from one only. 
We do not expect two scrofulous parents to have healthy children, 314 
English Psychology. 
irascible parents to produce gentle natures, or two idiots to give 
birth to a man of genius. But if the aptitudes of the parents are 
different, if the father have a talent for music and the mother 
have not, and if two children be born of their marriage, it is 
very possible that one may be musical like the father, the other 
insensible to music like the mother, or that both may be 
musicians, or neither. We should not have exaggerated the 
bearings of the objections, if we had remarked that the influence 
of one of the two parents may destroy that of the other, and 
that, consequently, the apparent exceptions to the law of heredity 
on the contrary confirm that law. 
This question leads to many others, says Mr. Lewes, upon 
which he declines to enter, and he sends us to Mr. Herbert 
Spencer for everything which concerns the hereditary transmis- 
sion of intellectual or moral development. It is perhaps ap- 
propriate to remark that he brings fonvard a collection of facts 
which may serve as proofs in favour of the law of evolution, and 
of the continuity of natural phenomena. MR. SAMUEL BAILEY. 
Mr. Samuel Bailey would merit a separate essay in conse- 
quence of the number of his philosophical publications, many of 
which date very far back,1 if we had proposed to ourselves anything 
but a short sketch of English contemporary psychology. It is 
not possible to classify him. As a declared partisan of ex- 
perience, he forms a sort of transition between the Scotch 
school and the psychologists of whom we have just spoken. In 
his clear, exact, precise, and rather dry manner, he differs 
totally from the descriptive psychology of which Mr. Bain has 
offered us the most complete type ; he reminds us rather of the 
eighteenth century, and the somewhat meagre lucidity of Con- 
dillac and of Destutt de Tracy. He is, like them, more a logician 
than a psychologist, and his verbal analysis does not penetrate 
sufficiently far into a science ‘ so buried in facts * as psychology. 
With a mind penetrating rather than extensive, greedy for clear- 
ness, he pursues metaphors with intense enmity; he hates all 
vague phraseology, all rhetorical arguments which usurp the place 
of science, and explanations which pretend to resolve its difficulties; 
he demands for psychology a language as precise as possible. 
He is nevertheless not so devoted to algebra but that he will 
yield to the attractions of eloquence in its proper place, and he 
has revindicated the rights of science in language so firm and so 
lofty that we must quote it:— 
• ‘ What! shall thousands of scientific men, with triumphant 
acclaim, employ themselves in almost infinitesimal physical in- 
vestigations ; in searching into the atomic composition and 
1 His principal works are : Letters on the Philosophy of the Human Mind,, 
3 vols. 1855-1863 ; The Thtory of Reasoning; A Review of Berkeley's Theory 
of Vision, etc. 316 
English Psychology. 
microscopic structure of bodies ; in exploring the innumerable 
forms of animal and vegetable life which are invisible to the un- 
assisted sight; in discovering planets that have for ages rolled 
unmarked through their obscure orbits; in condensing with 
telescopic power into suns and systems what was recently regarded 
(so to speak) as the elemental vapour of stars; in throwing into 
arithmetical expression inconceivably rapid vibrations, in the 
apparently steady ray that even the strongest wind cannot shake ; 
thus bringing into view, from the distant and the diminutive, the 
most recondite parts of the material universe ; and shall the exact 
analysis of the phenomena of consciousness, the discrimination of 
differences in feeling and intellectual operations, however fine 
and minute, the vigilant detection, the subtlest concatenations of 
thought, the firm yet delicate grasp of mental analogies which 
elude the rough and careless handling of common observation, 
the nice appreciation of language, and all its changing hues and 
latent expedients; the decomposition of the processes of reason- 
ing and laying bare the foundations of evidence,—shall these, I 
say, be stigmatized as an over-exercise of acuteness, a waste of 
analytic power, a useless splitting of hairs, and a worthless weav- 
ing of cobwebs 1 Amidst the honours lavished on investigations 
into the most secluded recesses of the material world, are we to be 
told that the close and minute and discriminating examination of 
our own mental nature is a vain and superfluous labour, leading 
to no beneficial or important issue 1 
‘ Believe it not: rest assured that here untiring investigation, 
minute analysis, close scrutiny, careful discrimination of things 
apt to be confounded, scrupulous accuracy in pursuing processes, 
and precision in recording results, are as apposite, as fruitful, as 
important, as indispensable, as dignified if you will, as they are (I 
say it without disparagement) in tracking invisible stars, calculat- 
ing the millions of imperceptible undulations in a ray of light, 
weighing the atoms of chemical elements, peering into the cells 
of organic structures, studying the anatomy of mites and midges, 
and even searching into the specific characters and peculiar habits 
of molluscs and animalcules.’1 
1 Bailey, Letters on the Philosophy of the Human Mind, vol. ii. p. 271. Mr. Samuel Bailey. 
317 
Mr. Bailey recognises only one method for the facts of con- 
sciousness,—that of the sciences of matter.1 He nevertheless com- 
plains in another place2 of the invasions of physiology; he even 
maintains that the knowledge of physiological facts does not 
clear up that of psychological facts ; that even if we knew the 
material conditions of memory and of perception, etc., we should 
still remain ignorant of what it is. The science of acoustics, 
he says, is useless in producing good music; in the same way 
the knowledge of physical or mechanical means which engender 
or influence psychological phenomena does not enable us to 
penetrate their nature. 
It is not very easy to reconcile these assertions. In all cases 
the reasoning of the author, incontestable from the point of view 
of first causes, appears to be deficient in solidity so far as second 
causes are concerned. Now the proper object of every science 
which separates itself from metaphysics is the research of these 
immediate and approximate causes. Let us add that the pro- 
gress of science seems to contradict the author. 
We have seen in the Introduction,3 with what vivacity he com- 
bats the doctrine of faculties; so also he classes facts of con- 
science only cursorily and without attaching much importance to 
matter.4 The following is his classification of the phenomena of 
consciousness :— 
1st Order.—Sensitive affections. 
Genus i. Corporeal sensations. 
Genus 2. Mental emotions. 
2d Order.—Intellectual operations. 
Genus 1. Perceiving. 
Genus 2. Conceiving. 
Genus 3. Believing (judging). 
Genus 4. Reasoning. 
3d Order.—Will. 
Genus 1. Relative to the body. 
Genus 2. Relative to the mind. 
We shall not follow him into detail, which indeed is not very 
1 VoL i. Letter 2. * Vol. ii. Letter 16. 8 § 8. 4 Vol. i. Letter 6. 318 
English Psychology. 
exact, because the author had no intention of producing a com- 
plete methodical treatise, but merely meant to indicate the ques- 
tions upon which he has something to say. Wc shall limit our- 
selves to these two points,—exterior perception and will. On the 
first of these he writes almost like Reid ; on the second, he goes 
beyond his contemporaries. 
Let us briefly recall the explanation of external perception 
given by the Scotch school. Properly speaking, that school does 
not explain it; it is plain to us that we perceive the external 
world, because we have the faculty of perceiving it. This is an 
irreducible fact; more than that, we perceive things as they are. 
I see a cat, I touch a glass. According to Reid and his disciples, 
the cat is in itself such as I see it, the glass such as I touch it. 
Supposing that neither I nor my fellows were to see the cat or 
touch the glass, these objects would nevertheless remain such as 
I saw them, with their proper qualities of form, of resistance, etc. 
To maintain the contrary is, according to them, to introduce 
scepticism. According to the contemporary school, perception 
is the common act of the subject and of the object; my perception 
is my work ; I put into the external world at least as much as I 
receive from it. There is some external thing which I call a cat or 
a glass, but nothing proves that they correspond with the idea 
which I form of them ; it is even probable that they differ very 
much from it. Perception being a relation, there is nothing 
astonishing in its varying with the two terms, and as they do ; 
this is a quite natural fact, there is no shadow of scepticism in 
maintaining it. 
Mr. Bailey agrees with Reid, or differs from him only by a 
shade. ‘ I differ/ he says, ‘ from the Scotch school, because it ad- 
mits an irresistible belief in an external world, and I admit a 
knowledge.' The criticism which he makes of Berkeley does not 
appear to me to go to the root of the question; that on Kant 
is inexact, if we are to believe that he reproaches him with 
having regarded perception as an analysable fact, in place of 
seeing in it a fact of indecomposable consciousness;1 now it is 
precisely herein that we find progress. 
1 VoL ii. Letter 2. Mr. Samuel Bailey. 
319 
The celebrated opinion of the author upon sight hangs 
upon his doctrine of passive and immediate perception. In 
England the name of the Berkeleyan theory of vision is given to 
that which distinguishes the natural perceptions of sight (light, 
colours, etc.) from the acquired perceptions (distance, move- 
ment, etc.), the latter being matter of induction, and not of 
direct perception. The eye gives us only the apparent figure, posi- 
tion, and size; touch alone gives us the real figure, position, and 
size. But as the differences in the reality are usually accompanied 
by differences in appearances, the mind infers the real from 
the apparent. Mr. Bailey has strongly opposed this theory 
in order to expressly admit a direct and immediate vision. 
Although the entirety of his arguments does not appear naturally 
to produce conviction, we must acknowledge that he has 
brought forward facts very difficult to explain by an opinion con- 
trary to his own. Among children, he says, sight is developed 
before touch. He maintains most positively that young animals 
see as soon as they are born. The duckling runs to the water on 
coming out of its egg, the little crocodile, hatched without being 
incubated by its parents, also runs to the water, or bites a stick 
if it be presented to it. In short, he denies that the famous 
blind man operated upon by Cheselden, who said that every 
object touched his eyes, furnishes an argument against this 
doctrine. 
Mr. John Stuart Mill, who has discussed this theory,1 comes 
to the conclusion that the arguments of Mr. Bailey have thrown 
no new light whatever upon the question, and have left the 
theory of Berkeley such as it was before. It seems difficult 
to be of any other opinion. 
We have said that in his essay upon the Will, Mr. Bailey 
appears no longer as a dissenter from the Scotch school, but as a 
precursor of his contemporaries. 
‘ If/ he says, ‘ psychology studied the affections and operations 
instead of the faculties, and regulated its language in consequence, 
it seems as if we should be rid of a number of embarrassing 
1 In an article in the West?ninster Review, reprinted in the Dissertations and 
Discussions, vol. ii. p. 84. 320 
English Psychology. 
questions, among which we must number the controversy upon 
the freedom of the will, which is literally the liberty of a non- 
existence.’ 1 
The question, when closely examined, reduces itself, according 
to the author, to demanding, not if we are free to act in certain 
cases as we please—for nobody, I think, will dispute that we 
are—but if there are regular causes which place us in a condition 
to wish to act as we do act. Now this is a question of fact, and 
examples abound which show that, in many cases, the circum- 
stances being determined, our acts may be predicted, and that 
there are regular causes which determine us to will, as there are 
physical causes which produce the different material facts. 
Forty-three years ago (in 1826) Mr. Bailey published a disserta- 
tion upon the U7iiformity of Causality, with the object of bringing 
voluntary phenomena under the common law. This is the sub- 
ject of the curious essay which he has reproduced in his Letters 
ufon the Philosophy of the Human Mind? 
It is surprising that the connexion of motives and actions 
could have been theoretically regarded as doubtful. Practical 
life depends entirely upon this principle, which is speculatively 
rejected. The speeches of an orator, the treatises of an author, 
the prescriptions of the legislator, the manoeuvres of the general, 
and the decrees of the monarch, all equally resemble it. A 
general who commands an army and directs a battle count? 
on the obedience of his officers and of his soldiers; is he less 
confident in the result of his orders, than when he accomplishes 
some material act, such as drawing his sword or sealing a de- 
spatch ? 
Commercial transactions of every kind attest the same sort of 
confidence. A merchant draws upon his banker a bill payable 
on such a day ; the bill circulates, and the drawer does not doubt 
about the final volition which will cause the banker to pay it. 
Political economy offers us still more numerous examples. It 
is in a great measure an inquiry into the action of motives, and 
it is founded upon this principle, that human volitions are under 
the influence of precise and determinable causes—the rise and 
1 Letters, etc., vol. ii. chap. xv. 
8 Ibid. p. 166. Mr. Samuel Bailey. 
321 
the fall of stocks, the fluctuations in exchange, the variations 
between supply and demand, the return of paper to the banker 
after an excessive issue, the disappearance of specie,—all the facts 
of this nature result from definite causes which act with regu- 
larity. 
Thus, when we lay aside vague language upon the liberty of 
the will—which, as we have said, is the liberty of something 
which does not exist—the true question presents itself under a 
form that no longer allows room for divergence of opinion. 
But after all, it may be objected, when we thus predict or cal- 
culate the voluntary actions of our fellows, we only regard their 
production as probable; there is no necessity in this case, they 
may produce themselves or not produce themselves; there is a 
sort of latitude which prevails, and does not permit us to suppose 
that these actions depend upon regular and invariable causes. 
To this Mr. Bailey replies, as may be expected, that it is our 
ignorance of all the causes in action which render voluntary 
events only probable to us; if we knew them all, there would be 
a perfect certainty—the variations in probability are entirely due 
to variations in the state of our own knowledge; and this is 
equally true as regards physical and moral phenomena. 
In short, there are two incontestable facts, says Mr. Bailey, 
‘ ist, That voluntary actions are not only constantly predicted, but 
purposely produced by the motives which human beings present to 
each other; and 2dly, That in performing such actions we neverthe- 
less do as we please : we act with perfect freedom ; an option is 
presented to us, and we choose to do the actions rather than not 
to do them. Mankind, however, seem not to understand the rela- 
tion in which these two facts (both incontrovertibly true) stand 
to each other. It is generally apprehended that there is some 
discrepancy, or inconsistency, or incompatibility between them, 
but for my own part I see none; and if both are real facts, they 
cannot, I scarcely need say, be discordant or incompatible one 
with the other. 
‘ Why should there seem to be any incompatibility between 
your doing as you please, and my predicting what you will do, 
and even causing you to please to do it 1 
1 My purposely producing in you the state of pleasing to do a 322 
English Psychology. 
thing—which implies, of course, my foreseeing the action—is not 
compelling you to do it, but the reverse. . . . The same human 
actions may be willed with perfect freedom by the performer, and 
predicted with perfect confidence by the looker-on.1 ’ 
This theory of the Will agrees so perfectly with that of the con- 
temporary school, that Mr. Bain has transcribed several pages of 
it in his great work on The Emotions and the Will. If we add 
that in his special treatise on The Theory of Reasoning (2d edition) 
Mr. Bailey approaches Mr. John Stuart Mill in several respects, 
we may conclude that his psychology bears the mark of an epoch 
of transition, being however nearer to the future than to the 
past. 
1 Bailey’s Philosophy of the Human Mind., voL ii. p. 172. CONCLUSION. 
In perusing the preceding pages the reader must have been 
struck by two things—the agreement of the philosophers 
whom we have passed in review, upon the chief questions of 
psychology, and their disagreement upon certain secondary 
points. If, then, laying aside personal opinions and disputed 
solutions, we bring forward the points on which they are agreed, 
we shall thus procure a summary of the labours and results 
of the experimental school of psychology. We shall endeavour 
to reduce them to certain fundamental propositions, and to 
exhibit them in methodical order. 
The object of psychology is the facts of consciousness, their 
laws, their immediate conditions and causes. Psychology pro- 
poses to itself gither to analyse complex facts, or simply to 
show how they are formed by a synthesis of simple facts. 
Psychology deals with phenomena only. It does not know 
what the soul or the mind is. That is a question out of its 
reach, which it refers to metaphysics. It is neither spiritualist 
nor materialist: it is experimental. 
Its method is double : it studies psychological phenomena, 
subjectively, by means of consciousness, memory, and reasoning; 
objectively, by means of the facts, signs, opinions, and actions 
which interpret them. Psychology does not study the facts of 
consciousness simply in the adult state; it endeavours to dis- 
cover and to follow their development. It contains a mor- 
phology. 
It also has recourse to the comparative method. It does not 
disdain the humblest manifestations of psychical life, remember- 
ing that nothing has been more useful to comparative physiology 
than the study of minute organisms. 324 
English Psychology. 
Consciousness is the word which expresses, in the most 
general way, the various manifestations of psychological life. 
It consists of a continuous current of sensations, ideas, voli- 
tions, feelings, etc. 
The first fundamental fact—that which constitutes conscious 
ness—is the perception of a difference. 
The second fundamental fact—that which continues con- 
sciousness—is the perception of a resemblance. 
The only primitive and irreducible psychological fact is 
SENSATION. 
Our various sensations may be classed in seven principal 
groups:—i. muscular sensations; they inform us of the nature 
and the degree of effort of our muscles; these sensations, of a 
very general character, and which come first in chronological 
order, form a separate kind; 2. organic sensations, which 
reveal to us the good or bad state of our internal organs; 3. 
taste ; 4. smell; 5. touch ; 6. hearing ; 7. sight. The sensations 
of this last group are the most elevated and the most important; 
they only, with the sensations of hearing, have an sesthetic 
character. 
The most general law which regulates psychological pheno- 
mena is the law of association. In its comprehensive character 
it is comparable to the law of attraction in the physical world. 
Association takes place either between facts of the same nature, 
association of sensations among themselves, of ideas among them- 
selves, of volitions among themselves, etc., or between facts of 
a different nature: associations of sentiments with ideas, of 
sensations with volitions, etc. 
The two principal facts which serve as the basis of association 
are resemblance and contiguity. 
Association produces either successions or simultaneities. 
The objects which we call external (a man, a house) are 
aggregates formed by simultaneous association. How do we 
perceive them 1 
Perception of the external world is not a purely passive state, 
in which the mind would resemble a mirror reflecting objects in 
a dull dead way. It is the common work of the sentient subject 
and the object felt. Conclusion. 
325 
Outside of us, and independently of our perceptions, there 
exists a material world, which condemns idealism. It is con- 
formable to the data of the sciences to believe that this material 
world, taken in itself, does not resemble the perceptions of it 
which we have ; this condemns vulgar realism. 
Our perceptions are then internal conditions which correspojid 
t'o external existences, but which do not resemble them. When 
I perceive an oak, my perception corresponds to a particular 
external object, but it is not the copy of it. 
Perception is a product which differs from its two factors (sub- 
ject, object) as water differs from oxygen and hydrogen. 
The correlatives ‘subject’ and ‘object’ are the two least in- 
exact term by which the fundamental antithesis of knowledge 
and of existence can be expressed. Matter and Spirit, exter- 
nal and internal, are the popular synonyms for them, but lend 
themselves more to an equivocal interpretation. 
The fundamental irreducible experience which gives the notion 
of externality is resistance. 
The facts of consciousness having the property of lasting, of 
leaving their trace, and reappearing, thence result memory and 
imagination. Association is the groundwork of these pheno- 
mena, although it does not entirely explain them. 
The question of belief or affirmation remains stated, but 
not solved, by common consent. Some, Mr. James Mill and 
Mr. Herbert Spencer, explain it by an indissoluble association; 
others, Mr. A. Bain and Mr. John Stuart Mill, discern in it a form 
of our active nature, that is to say, of our will. 
Reasoning, under its primitive form, goes from the particular 
to the particular. By the accumulation of particular truths 
general propositions are formed; and then reasoning is called 
induction. The general proposition is a simplification, a meinoran- 
dum, a register of notes grouped under a single formula. It 
serves as a starting-point for deduction. 
In short, the process of reasoning, taken in its totality, sets 
out from the particular and issues in tire particular, by traversing 
the general, which is a collection of particulars. 
Syllogism is so little the type of reasoning that it is, properly 
speaking, only a process of verification. 326 
English Psychology. 
On the origin of ideas the school with which we are now 
occupied does not go with the sensualists (Locke, Condillac), nor 
with the rationalists (Descartes, Leibnitz), nor with the criticists 
(Kant). 
It says to the sensualists : Your hypothesis of tabula rasa is 
false, contrary to facts. It forgets that in the act of knowing 
the mind gives out at least as much as it receives. Whence 
comes it that two men, having had the same education, the same 
impressions, the same surroundings, are sometimes entirely diffe- 
rent in everything % This fact alone checkmates your theory. 
It says to the rationalists : You have correctly perceived that 
in the act of knowing there is something which comes from 
within, but your hypothesis of ideas innate, or virtually so, is 
untenable. What is an idea in a latent state, an idea which one 
does not think ? Besides, if these ideas are primitive and ready- 
made in intelligence, why are they produced so late, instead of 
being the first in chronological order 1 
It says to the partisans of Kant: Your transcendental doctrine 
of the forms of thought, though sound in logic, is bad in psy- 
chology. It is quite true that these forms are at the bottom of 
our consciousness, since we can draw them from it, but how do 
they come there % This is a question of genesis which you do not 
examine, because you always reason upon the hypothesis of an 
adult and completely constituted mind. 
These solutions set aside, the school gives its own. It recog- 
nises in mind a proper spontaneity which elaborates and trans- 
forms materials which come from without; but this spontaneity 
has its root in the organism, especially in the constitution of the 
nervous system. Several peculiarities are explained by the trans- 
mission of the hereditary system. 
In short, this solution is the physiological transformation of 
the Kantian doctrine of the forms of thought. 
The two most general relations conceived by human intelli- 
gence are those of succession and simultaneousness. 
The relation of succession is the more simple : it constitutes 
the fact of primitive consciousness. 
The relation of simultaneousness is a duplication of the pre- 
ceding : it consists in a succession which can be reversed, that Conclusion. 
327 
is to say, thought indifferently, at first in a certain order, after- 
wards in the contrary order, so that one goes from A to C and 
from C to A equally. 
An important notion attaches itself to the relation of succes- 
sion, that of cause, or, as the school has it, of sequence, of which 
it is only a particular case. 
Causality is constant and uniform succession. The invariable 
antecedent is called cause, the invariable consequent is called 
effect. The hypothesis of an efficacious power, forming a 
mysterious link between them, is an imaginary complication, in 
so far as we hold to phenomenal causes, as the school intends us 
to do. 
The whole of the relations of succession is Time. 
The whole of the relations of simultaneousness is Space. 
The character of infinitude proper to these two ideas of time and 
space, that is to say, the impossibility to our intelligence of con- 
ceiving them to have limits, is explained by the law of association. 
We cannot conceive a moment of time without that idea awaken- 
ing irresistibly in us the idea of a moment to follow, and then of 
another. It is the same with space. Association is irresistible, 
because the experimental data which serve as its basis have al- 
ways been without exception. 
The study of the affective phenomena,—emotions and feelings, 
-—is very incomplete in the English experimental school. The 
following small number of points are those on which its members 
are agreed :— 
The two fundamental facts are pleasure and pain. 
The emotions or passions are of two kinds, simple and com- 
pound. 
There is no agreement upon either the name or the number of 
the simple emotions. 
All manifestations of aesthetics or moral feeling are unani- 
mously ranged among the compound emotions. 
The will has its source in the activity either of the organism 
or of the instincts, appetites, and passions. 
Under its adult form, will is a directing, regulating power. 
But before it reaches that condition it goes through a period 
of gropings, of efforts, and of conquest. Voluntary power, 328 
English Psychology. 
though simple in appearance, is a complicated machine, made 
of self-adjusting pieces. 
Voluntary facts are subject to the universal law of causality. 
Are they our own work? No doubt, since they are the result 
of the totality of the states of consciousness which precede the 
resolution, and that this whole of states of consciousness is our 
ego. 
Are they free ? This question is artificial, unintelligible, con- 
sequently insoluble. The word liberty must be expunged from 
psychology, as an inexact term which serves only to create con- 
fusion, and the word aptitude must be substituted for it. 
Psychology thus conceived can and ought to be a distinct 
science. But it neither can nor ought to isolate itself from the 
kindred sciences, especially physiology, and, strictly speaking, 
there is no line of demarcation to be traced between them, be- 
cause certain phenomena are common to both. 
If psychology has its basis in physiology, it serves in its turn 
as a basis for the moral, social, and political sciences. 
Therefore it ought to complete itself by a practical study, 
by ethology, or the science of the formation of characters, 
whether individual or national. 
Such is the summary of the fundamental solutions of associa- 
tive psychology. Our aim was to explain them : it is fulfilled. 
We leave the task of estimating their value to those who have 
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highest law in physical science, the principle of the conservation of force. 
Sufficient attention has not been paid to the publication of collected mono- 
graphs or memoirs upon special subjects. Dr. Youmans’s work exhibits 
the value of such collections in a very striking manner, and we earnestly 
hope his excellent example may be followed in other branches of science.” 
American Journal of Science. 
New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street. D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
DR. W. B. CARPENTER’S WORKS. 
PRINCIPLES OF MENTAL PHYSIOLOGY. WITH THEIR 
APPLICATION TO THE TRAINING AND DISCIPLINE OF 
THE MIND, AND THE STUDY OF ITS MORBID CONDITIONS. 
By William B. Carpenter, M. D., LL. D., etc. 12mo. Cloth, 
$3.00. 
“It is the object of this treatise to take up and extend the inquiry into the 
action of body upon mind, as well as of mind upon body, on the basis of our 
existing knowledge, so as to elucidate, as far as may be at present possible, the 
working of that physiological mechanism which takes a most important share 
in our psychical operations, and thus to distinguish what may be called the 
automatic activity of the mind from that which is under volitional direction and 
control.” 
MESMERISM, SPIRITUALISM, ETC., HISTORICALLY 
AND SCIENTIFICALLY CONSIDERED. By William 
B. Carpenter, M. D., LL. D., etc. 12mo. Cloth, $1.26. 
“The reader of these lectures will see that my whole aim is to discover, on 
the generally accepted principles of testimony, what are facts; and to dis- 
criminate between facts and the inferences drawn from them. I have no other 
‘ theory ’ to support than that of the constancy of the well-ascertained laws of 
Nature.”—.From the Preface. 
NATURE AND MAN: ESSAYS, SCIENTIFIC AND PHILO- 
SOPHICAL. By the late William Benjamin Carpenter, M. D., 
F. R. S. With an Introductory Memoir by J. Estlin Carpenter, 
M. A., and a Portrait. 12mo. Cloth, $2.26. 
“ Mr. Estlin Carpenter’s memoir of his father is just what such a memoir 
should be—a simple record of a life uneventful in itself, whose interest for us 
lies mainly in the nature of the intellectual task, so early undertaken, so strenu- 
ously carried on, so amply and nobly accomplished, to which it was devoted.”— 
Spectator. 
H. CHARLTON BASTIAN’S WORKS. 
THE BRAIN AS AN ORGAN OF MIND. By E. Charlton 
Bastian. With numerous Illustrations. 12mo. Cloth, $2.60. 
“ The fullest scientific exposition yet published of the views held on the sub - 
ject of psychology by the advanced physiological school. It teems with new 
and suggestive ideas.”—London Athenaeum. 
ON PARALYSIS FROM BRAIN-DISEASE IN ITS COM- 
MON FORMS. By H. Ciiaulton Bastian. 12mo. Cloth, 
$1.75. 
D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street, New York.