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IX. Philosophy without Assumptions

ME. KIEKMAN, who was already well known as a mathematician, and as a vigorous assailant of modern Materialism, has, in a recent work on Philosophy without Assumptions, fairly entered the lists, and hung up his shield against all comers. As yet no lance has made it ring; nor is there any answer to his challenge. A few critics in anonymous articles, the squires in philosophy, have made a show of answering, hut no champion from the ranks of the Materialist philosophers, whom Mr. Kirkman has with no little outrecuidance defied, has accepted the combat. And yet assuredly it is not for want of provocation; for Mr. Kirkman, I will not say has ' cursed them by all his gods,' but he has bantered them with a Socratic irony, and mocked them with an irreverence which reads like the Clouds of Aristophanes.

With what success the skirmishers have attacked this book may be judged from one fact. Two of the chief critics begin with saying, ' Mr. Kirkman sets out from the dictum of Descartes, Cogito ergo sum:1 which is like saying, ' Lord Bacon bases his Novum Organum upon the syllogism of Aristotle.' Mr. Kirkman begins by exposing the dictum of Descartes as a vicious circle. We are before we think; and our consciousness of our own existence is not an inference, but a certainty anterior to all reasoning.

Mr. Kirkman's book has a twofold purpose. First, lie has endeavoured to construct a philosophy on primary certainties which each man of sound mind may ' find for himself, and show others how to find.' He therefore assumes nothing, takes nothing for granted, and uses no postulates. So far it is synthetical and positive. And secondly, he has undertaken to destroy the modern Materialistic philosophers by analysing their methods, which he contends are based on un proved assumptions and arbitrary assertions. He further denies in toto our knowledge of what matter is, in which some place ' all the potency of terrestrial life.' So far his book is destructive..The destructive part of the book is so much more profuse than the constructive, though the constructive lines do indeed run through it, that the reader more easily follows the polemical than the positive part of the work. At first this leaves an indefinite conception of Mr. Kirkman's affirmative system on the reader's mind; but upon further examination this impression will be for the most part removed. In fact, the primary certainties and truths of philosophy in the order of natural reason are few; but the applications of them to error are mani fold. There can only be one straight line, but curves may be almost without number.

We will endeavour,(1) first, to get at a synopsis of Mr. Kirkman's positions; (2) secondly, to note what seems to be insufficiently worked out; (3) thirdly, to draw out the scholastic philosophy upon the same points; and (4) lastly, to apply what has been said to the modern theories of Materialism.

The following summary of Mr. Kirkman's Philosophy without Assumptions is given in his own words. Lest I should misstate him, he shall speak for himself: I will therefore insert here an abstract of his book writ ten by his own hand.

STATEMENT OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL PROPOSITIONS.

I. Mr. Kirkman begins by stating first what he declines to investigate. He will not inquire either What is? or What must be? The first question, What is? — i.e. What is, per se? — he considers to be beyond the reach of his human powers. For the second, What must be? as distinct from What must logically follow? he expresses a profound contempt. Thus we seem to have one novelty at least in philosophy — the exclusion of the per-se-ity and must-be-ity ', which cut such a figure in what goes for metaphysics. He says:

' The question that I propose to myself at the beginning of philosophy is this: What do I find for myself without making unproved assumptions, and with demonstrations that I can write down, so that another thinker, if there be another who under stands me, can find it, and demonstrate for himself without un proved assumptions?!l ' This rule of demanding proof, whenever proof may without evident absurdity be required, reduces my stock of propositions at the start of my philosophy to the fundamental one of Descartes, which I write thus: " I am, and know that I am, thinking."2 I shall often write " I am" for the full proposition of Descartes.'3

He defines assumption thus:

'An assumption is the acceptance, without proof, of the truth 1 Philosophy without Assumptions, p. 4. 2 P. 5. s P. 6.

of a proposition, of which truth proof may, without a flat contra diction or a glaring absurdity, be demanded.'4

He defines demonstrated truth thus:

' First, the testimony of my present consciousness clear of all assumptions; or secondly, it is truth verifiable by me, the thinker, by facts in my consciousness, which I can repeat at my pleasure again and again without making any assumptions, or by logical inference from such facts.'5

Mr. Kirkman does not start from the Cogito ergo sum of Descartes. The ergo is a mistake.

' I am making no assumption, nor taking anything for granted, when I affirm that I am, and that I know that I am, thinking. For if I am really making an assumption, I can scientifically affirm that I am making it, that is, that I am thinking either right or wrong; and if I am affirming scientifically that I think, I am not making any assumption under that affirmation. Nor can any man inform me that I am assuming my " I am" without conceding and affirming my being and thinking.'6

Under thinking he includes all that Descartes comprised in his definition of cogitatio, ' every state or change of consciousness, every sensation, every volition, every will-effort of which I may be conscious, so that "I am thinking" includes "I will," when will is in conscious act.'7 But 'it is never a metaphysical proposition about being.' Nor does it include any affirmation ' about my body or other bodies or other thinkers.'

In Chapter II. he proposes his 'first clear question:'

' Can I find, without assumption and with demonstration, any other thing or being besides my thinking self?'

' Let me classify as well as I can the facts of my consciousness. They appear to fall into three compartments. The first compartment is that of my remembered listless indolence.'^

4 Philosophy without Assumptions, p. 4.

This state can be both remembered and verified at pleasure.

' Its marked feature, by which it is clearly known to me, is the total inaction of my will.' ' From what I can recall of such a state, nothing can be logically affirmed but my changing self.' ' The second compartment of " I remember" I call that of my ill-recorded will-effort. [The will is here active, but only with trains of thought.] There is no conscious relation to a not-me-the-thinker, nor any conflict but with pure difficulties of thought. Because these difficulties occur and are overcome, at more or less mental cost, I call the found and remembered state effort

I call it will-effort or will-force, because I know by ten thousand experiences that it depends upon my will I call it my ill-recorded will-force, because I find in memory no exact measures or comparisons of it.' ' I will not undertake to find in this second compartment, any more than in the first, the demonstration sought of finite being not my own.'9

In Chapter III., entitled ' The Solving Kelation/ the writer says:

' In niy " I am" / will is given; that is, my will-force — when will is making effort.'10

It is given in that second compartment, no not-self being posited or conceived in such will-effort.

' I am still in quest of being not myself. I think I remember once moving all my fingers at once, or fancying that I did it. I think I am doing it now. Yet it is certain that the desire to do it, and the idea of the apparent movement, do form one of the sequences of nature. But stop — how is this? I cannot do it now. The will-effort is clear enough, but there is bafflement. Do they call this a sequence? I affirm that it is a steady permanence in consciousness. My state is at one moment both active and passive. I am sure that this is a relation evident and abiding of my conscious will-force to a contemporaneous correlative. Neither of the terms of this relation is before or after the other. From this found measurable and abiding relation, and from the nature of a real measurable relation, which must in logic have two congruous terms, I infer that the contemporaneous correlative to my acting will-force is another acting force not my

9 Philosophy without Assumptions, p. 24. 10 P. 36.

own. From this logical law of a relation given I have demon strated an external world of force, and I can verify every step of the demonstration at any moment. Thus my first question is answered.'11

What is the use of the demonstration?

' To refute the teachers who maintain that no truth at all can be shown to follow from the mere facts of consciousness; from which, if it were true, it would follow that it is impossible to have a philosophy without assumptions, and that we ought to leave the learned who know so much about matter and law to make the right ones for us all.'12

How do we know that the resistance which we infer from the relation found in consciousness is not purely ideal and imaginary?

' The reply is easy; from the law of a real relation, that both its terms are real, or both imaginary. My will-force I know to be as real as my own "I am."13 I call my related will-force well-recorded, because it is well-measured and graduated in memory of repeated experiments, and in accurate consciousness of present power.14 Go talk of your eternal conservation, invariabilities, and indestructibilities! I can confute you, and spoil them all, within a certain sphere, whenever I please. For this I can give you all the proof that reason can require; by prediction and fulfilment: fulfilment that no other prophet nor philosopher can foretell: prediction that no other finite agent can accomplish.'15

In the fourth chapter, entitled (Dynamical Founda tions/ the author establishes the three following propo sitions:

' 1. The only force which is directly given and immediately known to me is my own will-force; and all my knowledge of other forces acting in the Cosmos is mediate, and found by me by logical inference.16

  1. My will-force is my only force-finder.17

  2. In my every train of reasoned thought about any force or forces found in action in the Cosmos, the fundamental proposition,

11 Philosophy without Assumptions, p. 44.

12 P. 44. 13 P. 49. 14 P. 55. 15 P. 55. ie P. 59. 17 P. 61.

out of which all my other propositions flow, and on the certainty of which, their truth to me depends, is this: in finding force, I will in act, and I know that I will; so that if all the steps of the reasoning be written down without omission in their order, this proposition must stand written at the head of all — In first finding force in this inquiry I willed in act, and I know that I willed.'18

By these theories Mr. Kirkrnan easily reduces to a vicious circle the pretences of Materialist biology and psychology to deduce will as a resultant of other forces in action in the Cosmos.

In Chapter V., ' On the Evidence of the Presence of so-called Matter in the Cosmos,' the author pro pounds his second question:

' Where and how can I find what they call matter without assumption and with demonstration, so that I can show others, if there be others, how to find it?

I believe with Boscovich that the smallest locus of force is a point without parts, and I agree with the thinkers who foretell that dynamical science will eventually begin where Geometry long ago began. The starting conceptions will perhaps be stated thus — in Geometry from points which have unchanging positions and no parts; in Dynamics, from points which have changing positions and no parts. In the definition that dynamical points change their positions (the changes being referred to an adequate cause which works at the positions by laws of action depending on the number and the distances of related points, and being for all finite observation and computation continuous changes), all that we mean by force and inertia is logically included, and would be stated in definition or axioms following.'19

In Chapter VI., * Something about Boscovich, Berkeley, and Kant,' the author pursues his inquiry about matter, concluding with an attack on Kant's definitions, at the opening of his Kritik, of the matter and form of a phenomenon.

Chapter VII. is entitled 'Continuation of the Search

18 Philosophy without Assumptions, p. 70. I9 P. 77.

for so-called Matter, with the Help of its Assertors.' He here points out how unsatisfactory and inconsistent are the notions, so far as they are expounded by leading teachers, of Materialistic philosophy concerning matter and ether.

In Chapter VIII., ' On Maxima and Minima/ he propounds his third question: Can we find or affirm the existence of a minimum finite body or force-locus?

In Chapter IX., * The Maximum Brain and Mr. Matthew Arnold,' he handles a fourth question concerning a highest finite intelligence:

' It is the craftsmen of atheism, not we, who are the grovelling, self-magnifying anthropomorphists. Do they deny that they affirm this highest finite intelligence above which there is absolutely none in being? I will compel them to confess it. They deny that there is an Infinite Mind; wherefore it must follow, and it does follow even to them, that there is somewhere either one supreme finite intelligence, absolutely above all, or else a round table of them, all of equal brain-power, unsurpassed in all existence.'20 ' The conclusions from the train of thought in this and the preceding chapters, which to my faculties appear inevitable, are these. First, by the absurdities inherent in the dogma of an absolutely minimum body existing in space, called atom, the stuff spoken of as matter is exploded, and disappears to scientific thought. Secondly, by the absurdities in the atheistic dogma of a finite maximum intellect now supreme in the Cosmos, the Being of God Omniscient and Almighty is confirmed. I say not, is demonstrated; for the demonstrations of logic concerning the infinite are of little value, and my belief in God rests on foundations in my soul, which are deeper and nobler than those of logic.'21

In Chapter X. Mr. Kirkman propounds his fifth definite question:

' Can I find and demonstrate, without assumptions unproved, the existence of any finite conscious thinker besides myself? How can I prove thou art a thinker?'

20 Philosophy without Assumptions, p. 161. 21 P. 175.

A says of B, This B is a group of indications of intelligence, thought, and will; and draws the conclusion, ergo B is an intelligent thinker. But two pro positions cannot build a demonstration. A major is wanted, which Mr. Kirkman endeavours to assign from his certain knowledge of the conclusion. He finds it in nothing less than the general theorem — All continued and consistent phenomenal indications to me of invisible consciousness, intelligence, and will are verily to me demonstrations of the unseen verities indicated.

' If next I am required to prove this most general theorem, I answer boldly that it is a fundamental truth of reason, the denial of which is utterly absurd. Beyond that point I shall not pretend to debate. I leave it there; for, wherever it is left, the appeal must be to the consciousness of rational thinkers. I do not here claim any formal logical triumph in this difficult topic over the men who consider this old inference from intelligent design and work to a conscious designer and worker as unphilosophical. I am familiar with the style in which they contrive to amuse themselves at my expense.'22

It is here evident that the author expected to hear from hostile critics exactly what they have uttered. Most of them have displayed their cleverness on the shortest of his chapters, leaving all the rest untouched. In the face of the writer's disclaimer of logical triumph, one says, ' He just postulates "a fundamental truth of reason," which assumes the whole thing to be proved, and thereupon triumphantly constructs his perfect syllogism.' Another remarks, ' The major premiss of his syllogism is as neat a petitio principii as we ever saw.'

The question on the proof of ' Thou art' has this

22 Philosophy without Assumptions, p. 182. VOL. II. Y peculiarity — that while it is not irrational for A, thinking alone, to ask of himself a demonstration that B is a conscious thinker, or to charge himself with an assumption if he has never demanded such proof, it is a flag rant absurdity for B to charge A with such assumption in serious debate. Mr. Turkman's object is legitimate and useful. He says, ' It would be a useful exercise of scientific thought if they would try to construct a demonstration of this " Thou art," which will satisfy an exigent scepticism like that which they are else where so forward to display.'

Mr. Kirkman might have remarked that social instinct gives the desire of fellowship, but it does not demonstrate it. It is easily cheated. We know one who, when in childhood he visited Madame Tussaud's exhibition, was led by his social instinct to ask a question of an old lady in a chair, the waxen double of her whom he had just seen below.

Mr. Kirkman takes the pains to inform us exactly what he means by an assumption, and has tried to do good service in insisting on the exclusion of assump tions from philosophy. To some of his critics this is an intolerable demand. They have diligently read the title-page. Some of them are evidently unable to make a distinction between an assumption and a truth, of which, from its simplicity, the demonstration cannot be written down. Such writers victoriously treat ' I am thinking' as an assumption, which makes Mr. Kirkman's title ridiculous. Others may be pardoned for fancying that he starts from the Cartesian Cogito ergo sum. It surprised him, probably, to see it laid down:

' Correct and modify the Cartesian formula as we please, we never can vamp it up, as Mr. Kirkman seeks to do, into a true philosophic starting-point. It is an arbitrary assumption for an orthodox system of metaphysics or theology.'23

And again:

'Philosophy, rightly considered, is nothing else than the science of rejecting wrong assumptions and replacing them with right.'24

Then philosophy is impossible where there are no wrong assumptions!

One of the most useful and provoking of the theorems laid down in this book is this very simple one, that ' I am/ being the starting-point of every train of reasoned thought, can never be the conclusion of any one, for it can only complete a vicious circle. With this argument from the vicious circle the author makes havoc with the logic of the evolutionists and biologists. To his onslaughts on these philosophers none of the adverse critics have made any reply except one, whose courage is very commendable. His words are:

' He proceeds to demonstrate the absurdity of conceiving the individual consciousness as a result of material evolution. The argument is exceedingly curious Its principal step is as follows: In the order of knowledge or thought, my own existence as thinker is the starting-point— ergo, in the temporal order of objective existence, I cannot follow as an effect from processes outside my consciousness.'25

This critic, in a distinguished weekly journal, agrees with our author that ' I am' is the starting-point; also that ' I am' cannot follow in the order of knowledge or thought, because that would be a vicious circle begin ning and ending with (I am.' 'But,' says he, '"I

23 Literary World, April 28, 1876. u Ibid. 25 Examiner, June 3, 1876.

am" may 'follow and does follow in another order — namely, in the order of temporal objective existence, thus closing correctly the train of thought beginning with "lam."' The critic is talking of course about what he quite understands; but unfortunately he does not inform us at what point of his sequence of propositions and train of thought he steps out of the order of knowledge into that of objective existence, nor how he manages to get hold of the T in this latter order, which is quite different from that of thought and know ledge. Well may our philosophical ladies and gentle men glory in that noble instrument of philosophy? objective! What is there that you cannot accomplish with it? This critic goes on to say:

' It is hardly possible to give the reader an adequate conception of the philosophic ignorance, incompetence in argument, &c., which constitute Mr. Kirkman's " refutation" of modern philosophy and science. His competence for philosophical discussion may perhaps be judged by the fact that he cannot distinguish Mill's " unconditionalness" in causation, which is as much known from experience as sequence itself, from the " necessity" of the ontologist.'26

This is in reference to our author's criticism (p. 209) on the following words of J. S. Mill on causation:

' This is what writers mean when they say that the notion of a cause involves the idea of necessity. If there be any meaning which confessedly belongs to the term necessity, it is unconditionalness.'27

From these words of Mill, it is to be feared that he also could not distinguish, and must come, like Mr. Kirkman, under the critic's lash. There are many people who know sequence in the past from experience, and

26 Examiner, June 3, 1876. 27 Logic, book iii. c. v. § 5.

some who think they know it certainly for the future; but a very choice few only can know with this deep critic unconditional ess, either in the past or in the future, from experience alone.

Such is Mr. Kirkman's abbreviation of his own book.

II. No one who has read anything either of the Scholastic or the modern metaphysics will fail to see that he has thought for himself. His method of philosophy is a vigorous creation of his own mind, upon the lines which natural reason or the light of Nature has traced upon us. It may be called the philosophy of common sense; for common sense is the witness of the human reason in its normal state as it is found in the race of mankind, save only in abnormal cases, which are exceptions, like the imperfect ear of wheat in a harvest-field.

  1. First, it must not be supposed that Mr. Kirkman lays down his method as the way by which all men arrive at the knowledge of themselves or of others. His method is the way in which ive may prove the certainty of the truths ivhich come to us "by inheritance. He does not suppose that we all have need to start like Peter the wild boy, in isolation from society and exiled from the common sense of mankind. He means, if I understand him rightly, ' that the intellectual system of the world may be verified and found by individuals for themselves, and shown to others by the method he has indicated.' Mr. Kirkman certainly does not mean that we all are required to attain the knowledge of our own existence, thought, will, and body, by dividing our consciousness into three compartments, or that we find out the existence of others by the resistance of force-points, or the cumulus of indications of intelligence and will. In this way the greater part of men would be doomed to idiotcy. Our knowledge of our existence, thought, will, conscience, right arid wrong, duty, moral relations to God and to man, comes to us as a heirloom. We inherit it, not as an. assumption, though it be un proved by us, nor as a postulate, for we never ask it, but as a truth, or rather as an intellectual system of truths, known without discovery, needing no demonstration though capable of proof, learned with our mother-tongue from human society, which, as the mother and teacher of its children, guides the spontaneous processes of our intelligence ex vi suCi in the apprehension of truth. Nevertheless Mr. Kirkman's method is of great value. It exists in the nature of things. To some individuals at all times, and to some nations at certain periods, it becomes a necessity. When men or nations have been disinherited of the truths of the natural order, it is the fevregog tf'koug: if we cannot sail, we must row. It is the tabula post naufragium, like ' the Sacrament of Penance after the loss of baptismal innocence. In these last centuries men have thought, under Luther's guidance, to perfect their religion by breaking with the traditions of the Christian faith, and they have landed in rationalism. They have thought also, under the guidance of Descartes, to perfect their mental philosophy by departing from the intellectual system of the world, and they have ended in scepticism. We are now in a period of return and of verification:

men are forced to find ' a reason for the faith that is in them,' not only in the order of faith, but in the order of intellect.

By the intellectual system of the world I mean the unbroken tradition and lineage of truth which from the beginning has descended as the inheritance of mankind. In this inheritance are included the existence and moral character of God, the existence and immortality of the soul, the eternal distinction of good and evil, right and wrong; the conscience and responsibility of man to a moral Lawgiver and Judge in this life and after death. This group of truths has resided universally in the reason of man, varying in degree of clearness and completeness from its whole outline down to the verge of extinction in races and individuals: but in the lowest intellectual state it has everywhere been implicitly found. There has always been a notion of God to debase. Fetichism bears witness to natural theology. No one can read the Ethics of Aristotle, or the Tusculan Disputations of Cicero, without perceiving the outlines of this intellectual order. What they held by inheritance, with a kind of sceptical uncertainty as to the higher truths, we inherit with the confirmation and certainty of revelation. Nevertheless for them the logical analysis and demonstration was possible, and it is also possible to us. They who at this day have lapsed into Pyrrhonism and scepticism are bound to show cause why they reject the first lights of Nature, and it is for them that Mr. Kirkman writes.

  1. It is a reasonable and healthy exercise of the intellect to analyse and to verify its own convictions.

There is no rationalism in a reflex examination of what we believe. It is well for us to find the limits and the outline of our natural reason, and to ask, ' What can I find or prove for myself of that group of truths which I have inherited from society and tradition?'

Now of my existence I have no need of logical proof. It is a consciousness antecedent to all other certainties. I know that I am; I know that I am myself; I know that I am the same identical being who has passed through a succession of times and states. I know that I am thinking, and I know that (putting out my will) I will or am willing. All these are facts of my internal consciousness, of a sensus intimus which, as even Hume declared, never deceives.28 I do not infer my existence from my thoughts or from my will. ' Cogito ergo sum' is a ' therefore' outside of logic. There is no illation. One and the same consciousness at the same moment knows both. And yet my being and my thought are not one and the same. I cannot say, ' Ego sum cogitatio mea.' All that is in God is God, for God is His own being, His own intelligence, and His own will. But in man neither intelligence nor will is the soul, but faculties and powers of the soul. To affect to doubt whether I am thinking or willing is not reason, but unreason: it is not philosophy, but folly. There is.no proof of my own existence higher than my consciousness of my own existence, and no proof of the facts of my intimate consciousness higher than the sensus intimus itself. S. Paul was philosophising in the order of Nature when 28 Kirkinan, p, 46.

he said, ' What man knoweth the things of man but the spirit of man that is in him?'29 If this consciousness he not sufficient to convince any man of his own intellectual and moral nature, no logical argument ab extra will suffice. Such scepticism is a paralysis of the reason itself; and such appears to me to he the diagnosis of the scepticism which either denies the existence of the soul or professes Agnosticism ahout the existence of the soul, or, lastly and much more peremptorily, which affirms that we have no immaterial part in our composite nature, and therefore that matter thinks. I have no will to give offence; but I must say that this philosophy seems to be the result of an ossification of the highest parts of our human nature, or a loss of perception in the nerves of internal sense. If any man's intimate consciousness, does not assure him of somewhat within him more subtil and lifeful than matter, a whole battery of reasons from without can hardly awaken > it.

  1. And here I am afraid I must part company with Mr. Kirkman, unless upon explanation we can find a solution of a difficulty he has raised in the following passage: ' Substance, substratum, matter, or catter,, supposed finite realities to man distinct.from found force arising in found locus, appear to be: fictions of ignorance.'30

Mr. Kirkman does not deny the existence of being, and he affirms being to be real; but he rejects the notion of matter or stuff, and of substance in the sense of stuff or matter.

29 1 Cor. ii. 11. 3« Kirkman, p. 75.

And yet he says that he does not deny the existence of matter, but he denies only that we can reach to the cognisance of matter, or that we can declare what it is.

Now, from what has been said, it would appear that we have a consciousness of our own existence distinct from our thought and from our will. Thinking and willing are actions of Me-the-Thinker and of Me-the-Willer, as Mr. Kirkman has it. That is, I am before I think or I ivill. And the I is distinct from both thought and will.

S. Thomas teaches that the soul is known to itself only through it& own operations. But that does not say that the operations of the soul are the soul, or that the soul is only the cumulus of its own operations. It is the radix of all vital operations. And the soul bears them, not they it.

In this, then, we have the idea or notion of being as distinct from operations.

What I find in myself I predicate of others. By the grasp of a man's hand I know that I am in the presence of another having power, will, and intelligence like myself. The cumulus of intelligent and moral phenomena prove to me the presence of a nature like my own. But these phenomena are no more the being who is before me than the facts of my own internal consciousness are my own being.

I am compelled to predicate will, thought, and being of the other, who is so far ascertainably like myself. All these are facts of immediate consciousness in myself: in another they are mediately and logically inferred. Cicero anticipated the argument of Bishop Berkeley in his Alciphron when he said, Nos non sumus corpora nostra, nee hoe dico corpori tuo seel tibi.

Now I am willing with Mr. Kirkman to say that this tibi is not matter, nor eatter, nor stuff; but I can not admit that it is not being, and I affirm that this being is substance. I am not unwilling to admit that it is not an object of sense, but only of the reason, and that except by knowing what it is not, that is, per mam remotionis,-! cannot say what it is. I can indeed say that it is neither matter nor stuff, for the soul is immaterial. Yet it is real being. But this Mr. Kirkman does not deny.

Let us go further. If I grasp, not the hand of a man, but the horn of an ox, I am soon conscious both of power and actio^ and if not of thought or will, at least of a purpose to get rid of me bodily. Now the cumulus of these phenomena will not warrant my pre dicating either an intellectual or a moral nature. But they certainly prove a living being with spontaneous agency and self-originated motion and a fixed purpose, What this agent is I do not know, but I agree with Mr,. Kirkman that it is not mere matter or stuff, and yet I cannot affirm that it is a being like myself. Nevertheless the phenomena prove that something more lifeful than matter with spontaneous agency and definite purpose is demanded by our reason, to account for their manifestation.

But still further. Next time I grasp, not the horn of an ox, but the bars of an iron gate. A strength greater than my own resists me. I cannot predicate thought, will, or spontaneity,, but assuredly I must predicate the existence of something which hinders my advance. If you tell me that this is a cumulus of atoms or an array of force-points, I answer I have just as much and just as little conception of your atoms or your force-points as I have of matter or substance. Matter and substance have just as much meaning to me as force-points and atoms. We are all alike in the dark, and neither a more elaborate nor a more modern theory has yet rent the veil which hangs between my reason and the nature of substance or matter. If you tell me it is resistance, I answer that resistance is the sensible effect upon me. But what resists me? You say you do not know, but you cannot deny the existence of a cause or a reason of that resistance. I call that cause substance. My reason demands it. After all it may be your atoms or force-points, or it may be cotter or stuff; but resistance is an action of something, and thing and being are one and the same,

And here I must confess that between ovffia and essentia and being in the abstract I can find no difference; and that between something and nothing I can find no intermediate except potentia, which does not mean force, but possibility. Mr. Kirkman freely admits reality; but he hesitates at substance. And yet if the action of the ox or the resistance of the iron gate is not a mere phenomenon, each has a vwo»$f{AWO», or a substance which is the radix actionis, as our will is the cause of our actions, but our being is the radix of all our operations. This analogy seems to me to be a strict process of reason; but if wrong I shall be happy to be corrected.

Mr. Kirkman does not believe the external world to be merely phenomenal. He affirms it to be real. But if the real is not an object of sense, it is * objectum rationis' by a necessity of reason.

I must acknowledge that I do not feel the difficulty which Mr. Kirkman seems to find. No one has better proved than he has that our first and surest knowledge is anterior to the reports of sense, and independent of them, inasmuch as they are the facts of our internal consciousness. But when the reports of sense are received, the reason at once predicates about them. The sense and the reason act simultaneously in the judgments of a normal intelligence. No one supposes that we find substance by ' an inquiring touch.' But we find the phenomena, on which the reason is taught by its own internal consciousness of being, as distinct from operations, to predicate being of external objects, in like manner, as distinct from their operations.

I do not, however, suppose that Mr. Kirkman would deny this. All he seems to say is that he does not know ivhat it is, and that he cannot affirm it. And yet it appears to me that in affirming 'forces,' 'loci,' 1 repulsions,' ' attractions,' ' equilibriums,' ' films of indefinite tenuity,' &c., he is affirming much more about this unknown ' being' or ' reality' than any Scholastic would venture to assert. If Mr. Kirkman plays the sceptic to the Materialist, I must play the sceptic to him in turn. I will not here take upon me to deny that the theory of Dynamism may be true, but it is far more profuse in its assertions about the un known and the conjectural than the Scholastic philosophy, which contents itself with affirming without analysis chemical or dynamical that substance and matter exist.

Thus far I have endeavoured to point out where Mr. Kirkman's philosophy seems to me to be insufficient on its positive side; but on its destructive side, as against Materialism, it appears to be decisive.

  1. First, it restores to its rightful place in philosophy the reason and its consciousness. When the philosophers of sense affirmed as the first axiom of human knowledge, ' Nihil in intellectu quod non prius in sensu,' Leibnitz truly added, 'Nisi intellectus ipse.' These words are few; but they bring in a whole intellectual world with them. Tliey contain all that Mr. Kirkman has affirmed of our consciousness of being, thought, and will, of our sensus intimus and all its operations and facts, which are antecedent to and independent of the reports of sense. If a Materialist tells me that this ' intellect' is only a function of matter, I would ask, how do you know that? You acknowledge that you do not know what matter is; you tell me that Berkeley has shown that matter beyond the phenomena does not exist; how then is intellect a function of matter? If you mean that it is only one of the phenomena of matter, I answer that if matter does not exist, it can have no phenomena. But, again, the phenomena of intellect and the phenomena of matter are as widely distinct as the phenomena of earth and the phenomena of light. It is a phenomenon and a function of earth to crush me. It is a phenomenon of light to touch all things with an imponderable agency.

It is a phenomenon of matter to be inert. It is a phenomenon or function of intellect to create the Iliad. Will you tell me that these two groups of phenomena or functions point to the same reality, or being, or entity, or that they have no entity or radix operationum whatsoever to which they are related?

There are harder things in this philosophy than in all the Schoolmen. This makes demand on my belief which passes my credulity. 'Increduius odi.'

  1. Next, it seems to me that Mr. Kirkman has vindicated the existence and power of an immaterial order of being and agency against the philosophy which would resolve all being and agency into ' matter and stuff.' He has turned Agnosticism against Materialism; and has shown that both they who deny the existence of an immaterial being which we call the soul, and they also who ascribe to matter the functions and agencies which we ascribe to the soul or immaterial being, are more positive and confident in their unproved assertions and their assumed knowledge than any who believe and speak in the language of ordinary men. If matter does not exist, how does it think? Even if it exist, why should thought be one of its functions? The existence of matter, if proved, does not disprove the existence of an immaterial being distinct from matter, which works in or by a material organisation. A musician is not a harp; take away the harp, the music ceases to be heard, but the musician does not cease to exist. The whole world of music which is in him is there still, and he can hear it with all its harmonies in his inward ear and write it with all its chords, though, like Beethoven, his ear of sense be deprived of hearing! I must acknowledge that this Materialistic philosophy has always appeared to me to be at best raw thought with ragged edges, indistinct, incomplete, and inconsecutive. Mr. Kirkman throws unanswerably upon the Materialist the burden, I will not say of disproving, but even of doubting reasonably, the existence and the immortality of the immaterial being we call soul.

  2. The eleventh chapter, on the will, is one of the ablest in the book. The author affirms r

' As a scientific thinker I know that I am, within certain limits of choice and action, absolutely free from all compulsion of the forces, vital, social, or dynamical, which I find at work in the Cosmos. As a moral being I know that I am justly accountable, within a sphere about whose limits I am sufficiently informed for my general duty and peace, to my Cause and Preserver (of whom more in the next chapter) for my use of my faculties of thought and action. The proof of all this I have in my verifications of " I can," " I will," and " I ought;" verifications from consciousness and conscience.' ' This " I am" and " I will," from which my only possible philosophy at every moment begins, is no quibble. It is a fact and & force of the Cosmos, the first of all given to me, and that with a certainty transcending all deductions from it.'

The italics are mine. Here is nothing more than the sensus intimus which is the source of our first know ledge, and a primary certainty of the highest kind. Modern metaphysicians or psychologists despise these simple elements of knowledge and certainty. They account for what we call the will by theories of which the terms appear to me to have no corresponding intellectual equivalents. When Mr. Kirkman says, ' My free volition can never be known or imagined by me either as an effect without a cause, or a fact without a reason. I there and then am both the cause and the reason of it,' I understand him at once, and my consciousness responds to and confirms his assertion. • My will is the cause of my own action, and my determinate thought is the reason why I so will. But when I am told by Mr. Herbert Spencer that my will is ' a group of psychical states,' and that I am led into error if I suppose that there is something distinct from the ' impulse' given by these ' psychical states' which determines my action,— when, I say, Mr. Herbert Spencer tells me this, I confess that I do not understand him. And I believe that I do not understand him through no fault of mine', but because no intellectual equivalent can be found for his terms. Are these < psychical states' the desires or dispositions antecedent to my action? They are not myself; and I am conscious of sometimes going against them by a deliberate antagonism of my free will. Do they contain the finis intentus or the final cause of my actions? How does this necessitate my will if the end of my action is freely chosen? Am I deceived in thinking that my choice is free? The consciousness that I have a power to go against my strongest desires, and, under the dictate of my reason, that is, of my conscience, to select the end which is the least attractive, or rather the most repulsive, to my desire or appetite, remains both a primary and an ultimate consciousness which cannot be denied nor explained away, nor squared with 'the impulse of psychical states.' In the action of the will the strongest appetites are freely but absolutely under control of the reason. I have the strongest repugnance to pain, but I willingly go to the rack rather than turn Mussulman. Why? Because my reason tells VOL. ii. z me that pain is to be chosen rather than apostasy. The will is accurately defined to he appetitus rationalis. Our desires pass under the cognisance of the reason, and hy the guidance of the reason the end most opposed to natural appetite is often freely chosen. Such was the will of the martyrs; such is the risking of life hy fire or water to save the life of another of whom we know nothing hut his peril. Such was the will of the prisoner condemned to death who, to escape hanging, starved himself in prison. It is no answer to say these were their dominant appetites. They were not so as appetites, hut as deliberate decisions of reason con trolling the appetite by an act of the will. That there is a power of determination which is not a l psychical state,' but a deliberate choice followed by a decisive action, is as certain as my consciousness of existence. ' I am ' and ' I will ' are certainties of which I have an immediate knowledge in myself. If Mr. Spencer includes all this in the ' psychical state,' why not say so? To tell me that ' I myself am only a group of psychical states which are always changing,' is contradicted by my immanent and permanent consciousness of my own identity. To tell me that my own identity is an illusion, and is only a psychical state, or a group of such states, and then to tell me that such states are always changing, while my consciousness of personal identity never changes, but is always permanent, is to me not philosophy, but a contradiction in terms. If I break my leg I have a group of psychical states arising from the pain and terror of the accident; they may pass, or vary, or return, but my consciousness that I am the ego who broke his leg remains always without variation. To tell me that I am a group of variable psychical states is to tell me that I have no permanent or conscious identity or ego; and to tell me this is, I think, to try to talk me blind. I can hardly believe that any metaphysician has ever intended to hold or to say this. But to me they seem to say it, whatever they may hold. This is the only meaning I could attach to Mr. Buckle's words on personal identity and free will in his first volume on Civilisation, and the only sense I can attach to Mr. Herbert Spencer's words now. If this be not his meaning, I can find no intellectual equivalent to his terms. But I shall rejoice to find that I am mistaken. 4. From this we may next proceed to Cause. It is certain that I am here, and that I did not cause my own existence. How came I here? It is no answer to say that I am a consequent upon an antecedent or a group of antecedents, which only went before, but did not cause me to be here. This is to beg the question, and to dogmatise in the most arbitrary tone. If I merely follow on antecedents which are not causes, then I am uncaused. Then the whole race of man is uncaused. All existence, the whole Cosmos, is uncaused. That is, either the whole Cosmos follows after ante cedents that have no productive power or efficient relation to its existence, or the Cosmos is self-existing — that is, self-caused. What we call cause Mr. Mill is pleased to call invariable sequence. This seems to me to be like changing a name to conceal identity. It is an alias in philosophy to hide an equivocation. Now I can conceive no antecedent to my existence, thought, and will, but an I am, I think, I will, adequate to go before my I am, I think, I will. In the world around me I find others like myself in these three things; but none of them, nor all of them together, will account to me for my being here, and for my being what I am. I am certainly not eternal, nor self-caused, nor uncaused. The conclusion is inevitable by a necessity of reason, and my reason is a spontaneous act of my consciousness, which in this primary certainty cannot err. Mr. Kirkman says, ' I live, I think, I know, I work, I love: and there is a cause out of which all this springs.' Mr. Martineau, in an article on ' Modern Materialism/ has shown with peremptory reasoning that materialistic Agnosticism either deifies man, or compels the belief of an intelligence and will transcending all intelligence and will of man, which is in one word God. Mr. Kirk man appears to me to expand this argument with great amplitude and force of reason:

' Through the Infinite I cannot think; but upwards, still upwards, towards it my soul can soar, scorning the finite. That Infinite scientifically I cannot know; but the Infinite is my cause. Believing and adoring, I affirm Him with a boldness and a conviction surpassing all that I can feel or utter on my themes of finite science. My Cause lives— the infinite Life. My Cause thinks, knows, and works— the infinite intuition, counsel, and energy works in the full harmony of victorious science in every point and line of force, in every throb of consciousness — never absent nor forgetting, never pausing nor weary. And my Cause loves — the Infinite Love.'31

Mr. Kirkman expands this proof of the existence of God 'per ea quse facta sunt' — that is, by the Cosmos around — in the following passage, which, to be appreciated, must be read entire:

« Kirkman, p. 262.

A. Your inquiry is to me a very solemn one. What these dread forces are, I know not for certain. But I will confess to you what, every moment that I live under their untiring, unchanging, and beneficent teaching, they more and more appear to me to be. I meet them not, I have never met them, nor have been able to conceive them, but under one form, as equivalents or multiples of my own will-force. These forces never clearly speak to me, nor verify themselves to my intellect, but at the challenge of my wakeful, active will. If I had never put forth the question of my will, I should never have been able to conceive of their action as either real or possible. They play with the sportive child; they wrestle, like the veiled Seraph of Peniel, with the strenuous man; but by neither are they observed or remembered as acting, except as equivalents of will; yet every encounter of the will of either with them leaves him richer in the lore of exquisite science, and gifted with a bolder prophetic power. Now if the child, when lie becomes a man, should ask himself, " What are those wondrous workings?" may he not be pardoned if, despising the dogmas of mock science, and reasoning only from what he knows, he compares these energies with the only force of which he is master — his own will-force? If this balances them here, overcomes them there, and wherever it yields to them, in lessons that are safe and profitable, can measure them on its own scale with unerring accuracy, and predict them from its own experience, and, what is more, combine itself with them in ways innumerable into one homogeneous and fore told result, is he to be blamed for superstition and unphilosophical spirit if he says, "What can balance will but will? What can be measured by will but will? What can combine and har monise with will but will? What can have equivalence and real relation in thought and act to will but will?" When a man has dared to doubt, and, doubting, to think boldly up to this point, you might as well beseech this stone, falling freely, not to rush towards the earth's centre, as try to prevent that soul from bursting out, like the smitten unbeliever in Bethel, •" Surely God is in this place, and I knew it not!" I glory in believing that all these forces are manifestations of the conscious present working will of the God in whom I live and move and Jiave my being. F-O-R-C-E spells WiLL.'32

32 iirkman, pp. 262, 263.1

He adds:

' And if you try to tell them the inspiring truth, the atheist cries out, " Anthropomorphism;" whereupon a number of knowing ones reply, " Ha! ha! Anthropomorphism!" and, pleased with that long word, they find themselves philosophers.

A. Yes, truly: anthropomorphism is next akin to anthropophagy. It is unscientific to anthropomorphise. "We are forbidden to imagine behind the mysterious veil of phenomena tl^e presence and action of what has kindred with our own consciousness. And yet it is perfectly philosophical — nay, it is" my bounden duty — when that queer bundle of phenomena which I call Atheist is before me, to conceive that I am verily in the presence of an invisible thinker, of a mind very like my own, but differing from mine by its superior wisdom. But in the name of all proportion and modesty have I not ten thousand million times more pregnant evidence, in this daily course of life and mercy, and in all these convincing voices within and without me, that the living God is here in the plenitude of love and wis dom, than I have that, inside that incongruous heap and patch work of appearances yclept Atheist, there is a mind and conscience like my own?'33

I do not see what modern Materialism or Agnosticism has to say in reply to all this. Polemically and destructively, it seems to be complete. It is certainly the most formidable assault that has been delivered of late along the whole line of sceptical and materialistic philosophy. I only hope that the authorities so unrelentingly summoned to combat will not decline the passage of arms because of the jaunty defiance of Mr. Kirkman's trumpet. His gibes go at times undeniably as far as the courtesy of chivalry admits; but his blows are knightly, and cannot be declined without loss of victory and of honour.

III. I have thus far endeavoured to give an outline of the results of Philosophy without Assumptions, and

53 Kirkman, pp. 266, 267.

to show its destructive force as against the sceptical and materialistic philosophy of this day. It would be out of place to attempt here a constructive statement of Mr. Kirkman's system, or to point out where it is incomplete. In a Catholic philosophy we should desiderate not a few points, and a more positive and confident tone on others.

  1. The first certain truth in human knowledge is that of our own existence.84 It is not a conclusion, but a consciousness, which Eothenflue calls * spontaneitas supra proprias suas operationes quasi replicata.'85 This spontaneous reflex action perceives simultaneously our thought, will, and existence. But this is not a perception of the essence of the soul, but of its operations, that is, of the internal facts of our intelligence and will by the sensus intimus, the action of which is not logical, but intuitive, and independent of all external sense. S. Thomas says:

' As to our first knowledge (of the existence of the soul) we must distinguish, because anything may be known by a habit or by an act. As to actual knowledge, by which a man knows that he has a soul, I say that the soul is known by its acts. For in this he perceives that he has a soul, that he lives, and that he is, because he perceives that he feels, and understands, and exercises other vital operations of this kind, as Aristotle says (Ethics, t. i. ix. c. ix.), " We perceive that we perceive, and know that we know: and because we perceive and know this, we know that we are." But as for the habitual knowledge I say that the soul sees itself by its own essence, that is, because its essence is present to itself.' ' For this the essence of the soul alone, which is present in the mind, is sufficient: for out of it proceed the acts by which it is actually perceived.'36

34 Maurus, torn. iii. p. 282.

35 Psychologia Empirica, torn. i. p. 1.2

  1. From this flows the knowledge of the phenomena of an.interior world so continuous, multitudinous, and self-evident, that the materialistic philosophy has always seemed to me to he the result of a privation of inward sight. They who believe thought to he a function of matter for the most part reject metaphysics as an intellectual illusion, and ethics as a conventional superstition. Nor is this unnatural; for the laws of the intellect and the laws of morals are phenomena of the soul, which is an intelligent and moral nature. The objects of our reason and conscience are truth and falsehood, right and wrong, and these are the subject-matter of action and of responsibility. Matter is not responsible unless it be an intelligent and moral nature. If any man would affirm it to be moral and intellectual, he is denying, not the existence of the soul, but the immateriality of the soul. Nevertheless this denial is fraught with consequences destructive of the intellectual and moral order of the world.

  2. Mr. Kirkman has seemed in one place to make a concession, which I am sure he does not intend. After arguing with great force for the existence of God from the idea of will and cause, he adds, ' The answer cannot be scientific.'37 But the answer is at least certain, and excludes all doubt.

An objector might take advantage of this, and say that he removes the proof of the existence of God from the sphere of intellect to the region of faith or of religious feeling. No doubt he meant to say that the proof of the existence of God is by the whole soul in all 37 Kirkman, p. 262, its intellectual, moral, spiritual powers and faculties, and is corroborated and consolidated by all the affec tions, aspirations, and instincts of love -and experience. This is most true; but it is of vital necessity to main tain that the existence of God is a truth which may be proved by reasoning within the sphere of intellect. If this were not so, then they who know not God would not be, as the Apostle declares, ' inexcusable.'38 The Sovereign Pontiff, in 1840, defined — ' Eatiocinatio Dei existentiam cum certitudine probare valet;'39 and the Vatican Council, in 1870, decreed — that the existence of God ' can with certainty be known by the natural light of human reason through the things that are made.'40

The Scholastic philosophy teaches, with a rigorous logic which has never been answered, that the existence of God may be demonstrated — first, under the conception of the First Cause; secondly, under the conception of the First Power of Motion, itself immovable; thirdly, under the conception of a Necessary Existence; and lastly, that this First Cause, First Mover, and First Necessary Existence is an Intelligence separate from all creation.41

The ethical arguments, and the testimony of common sense and of mankind, are distinct from this intellectual demonstration. I do not doubt that the author of Philosophy ivithout Assumptions was fully conscious

38 Eom. i. 20.

39 Denzinger, Enchiridion, p. 441.

40 Prima Constitutio, De Fide Cath. Canones, 1L

41 S. Thomas, Summa contra Gentes, lib. i. cap. xiii. Maurus, Qucest. Philosophies, torn. iii, pp. 20-33.

of this, and it is. to be wished that he would complete his argument in another volume of clearness and power like that now before us.

I will endeavour to draw out very briefly what the Scholastic philosophy holds and hands down on the much-disputed but indisputable reality of matter.

As to the existence of.matter, I am glad to repeat that Mr. Kirkman does not deny that it exists; as to Its physical nature, or what it is, all philosophers are more or less in the same plight.

As to its existence, I can hardly understand how any man can deny or doubt that in the metaphysical or hyper-physical order the existence of matter or substance is present to our mind by a necessity of the reason. Whether a man believe in its existence or not, this is certain, that in the physical order, if he fall upon its phenomena, he is broken; and if its phenomena fall upon him, they grind him to powder. If he be pleased to say that he was pulverised by phenomena which had no substratum, or by forces which were points having position and no parts, I will not contend with him. It would be a refined mode of extinction, worthy of heroes and philosophers — a noble scientific euthanasia. When the Scholastics describe substance or matter as ens rationis tantum, they intend only that it is beyond the jurisdiction of sense. They affirm it to be ens reale, though not cognisant by sense. When the author of Philosophy without Assumptions says that he ' cannot find it nor show any one else how to find it,' he seems to have slipped from the order of reason into the order of sense; for though matter eludes the sense, it is present by an intellectual necessity to the reason.

It would seem, also, that in our modern controversies the distinction between metaphysical and physical matter has been for the most part overlooked. The existence of matter belongs primarily to meta physics. Eeason affirms that matter exists. The question, what is it? belongs to Physics.

We are told that physically it consists of atoms or of forces. Such are the theories of Atomists and Dynamists. The Atomic theory, besides other intrinsic diffi culties, gives no sufficient account of the unity, cohesion, specification, and action of bodies; nevertheless Atom ism affirms the existence of matter. The Dynamical theory gives an account of the action of bodies, but no reason why the force-points should aggregate themselves into species. It either reduces all things to phenomenal forces without specific laws or forms, or it supposes the Will of God to be the Force present in all forces. Nevertheless Dynamism acknowledges the presence of an active principle.

The Scholastic philosophy combines both the active principle of Dynamism in the form and the passive principle of Atomism in the matter which unite in the specific existence of all things.

I hardly know where to class those who tell us that matter thinks, or those who find in it all the promise and potency of life. But the length of this article warns me to make an end, and I cannot better do so than by adding a brief statement of the Scholastic philosophy on the points we have been treating.

The following will be, I believe, a correct statement of the Scholastic teaching:

  1. By strict process of reason we demonstrate a First Existence, a First Cause, a First Mover; and that this Existence, Cause, and Mover is Intelligence and Power.

  2. This Power is eternal, and from all eternity has been in its fullest amplitude; nothing in it is latent, dormant, or in germ: but its whole existence is in actu, that is; in actual perfection, and in complete expansion or actuality. In other words God is Actus Purus, in whose being nothing is potential, in potentid, but in Him 'all things potentially exist.

  3. In the power of God, therefore, exists the original matter (prima materia) of all material things; but that prima materia is pur a potentia, a nihilo distincta, a mere potentiality or possibility; nevertheless it is not a nothing, but a possible existence. When it is said that the prima materia of all things exists in the power of God, it does not mean that it is of the existence of God, which would involve Pantheism, but that its actual existence is possible.

  4. Of things possible by the power of God, some come into actual existence, and their existence is determined by the impression of a form upon this materia prima. The form is the first act which determines the existence and the species of each, and this act is wrought by the will and power of God. By this union of form with the materia prima, the materia seeunda or the materia signata is constituted.

  5. This form is called forma substantialis because it determines the being of each existence, and is the root of all its properties, and the cause of all its opera tions.

  6. And yet the materia prima has no actual existence before the form is impressed. They come into existence simultaneously;42 as the voice and articulation, to use S. Augustin's illustration, are simultaneous in speech.

  7. In all existing things there are, therefore, two principles — the one active, which is the form; the other passive, which is the matter; but when united, they have a unity which determines the existence of the species. The form is that by which each is what it is.

  8. It is the form that gives to each its unity of cohesion, its law, and its specific nature.43

When, therefore, we are asked whether matter exists

42 Kleutgen, p. 294.

43 The following quotations will show the definitions of S. Thomas as to Matter, Existence, Act, Potentia, Form, substantial and accidental:

' Genuina notio materiae primae, earn scilicet esse quidem quidpiam reale et positivum, non esse tamen actu substantiam sed solum potentiam realem in omnium substantiarum species, quae generatione fieri possunt.' — Goudin, Pliilosophia Dim. Thomce, torn. ii. p. 45.

' Concludamus igiturcum D. Thoma, 2 Contra Gentes, cap. xlv., in rebus tres gradus reperiri. Invenitur enim aliqua res quae est Actus tantum, scilicet Deus Optimus Maximus: et alia res quae est potentia tantum, scilicet materia prima: et demum alia res, qusa miscetur ex actis et potentia, cujus modi sunt omnes creaturae inter Deum et materiam primam positae.' — Ibid. p. 82.

' Existentia est extra nihilum et causas sistentia.... Quia vero res censetur sisti extra causas et nihilum, cum nihil ei deesse requisitum ad rationem entis, ideo metaphysici definiunt existentiam, ultimam entis actualitatem.' — Ibid. p. 89.

' Secunda sententia materiae omnem prorsus existenHam propriam abnegat, eamque censet meram potentiam realem et positivam existentiae capacem. Ita Thomistae omnes plerique alii.' — Ibid. p. 89.

' Conclusio. Materia prima nullam ex se habet existentiam, sed or no, we answer, It is as certain that matter exists as that form exists; but all the phenomena which fall under sense prove the existence of the unity, cohesion, species, that is, of the form of each, and this is a proof that what was once in mere possibility is now in actual existence. It is, and that is both form and matter.

When we are further asked what is matter, we answer readily, It is not God, nor the substance of God; nor the presence of God arrayed in phenomena; nor the uncreated will of God veiled in a world of illusions, deluding us with shadows into the belief of substance: much less is it catter, and still less is it nothing. It is a reality, the physical kind or nature of which is as unknown in its quiddity or quality as its existence is certainly known to the reason of man.

This may be the place to show in what way the Scholastic philosophy rejects both the Atomic and the Dynamic theories of matter as inadequate to explain the phenomena cognisable by sense, and at the same time combines both these theories in a larger and more existit per existentiam totius composite quo illi competit per formam.' — Ibid.

' Forma substantialis recte definitur Actus primus materice. Dicitur in primis Actus ad differentiam materiae, quae est pura potentia. Dici tur primus ad differential!! existentise, quae est actus ultimus entis: etad differentiam formarum accidentalium, quae sunt solum actus secundarii, praesupponentes actum substantialem. Additur materice ad differentiam formarum per se subsistentium, quales sunt angeli, quae sunt actus sed non recipiuntur in materia.' — Ibid. p. 112.

' Forma informans dividitur in substantialem, et accidentalem. Substantialis est quae dat esse simpliciter.... Sic anima rationalis est forma substantialis, quia dat esse humanum:.... at vero scientia est forma accidentalis quia dat solum esse secundarium et addititium esse humano.' That is to say, the rational soul consti tutes man: science a learned man. But the former is the substance of humanity, the latter an accidental excellence.

adequate conception. I will draw out the treatment of this subject by Kleutgen in his Philosophic Scholastique, and Sanseverino in his Filosqfia Speculative^.

Kleutgen, after stating the doctrines of Atomism and Dynamism, points out that neither can give any adequate account of the phenomena of matter determined in forms or species. He then compares these two systems with the Scholastic philosophy as follows:

' De nouvelles difficultes viennent s'ajouter a ces arguments, si Ton considere 1'essence des corps; c'est que, si 1'atomisme n'explique pas, mais presuppose la matiere comme une substance etendue, le dynamisme cherche bien a en trouver 1'explication, mais il s'entortille en tant de difficultes qu'il menace de faire disparaitre la realite de la substance meme aussi bien que celle de 1'extension.' — La Philosophie Scholastique, torn. iii. p. 335.

' Dans la Philosophie pantheistique, les etres individuels de la nature ne sont plus que des phenomenes de la substance qui est tout, tandis que dans le systemedes atomes ou de monades ils ne • sont plus que des phenomenes de ces elements.' — Ibid. p. 337.

' Si maintenant nous dirigeons notre regard sur la theorie de la Scholastique nous avons a remarquer avant tout que, soutenant 1'unite substantielle, et la substance propre des etres indivi duels qui compose la nature, elle rejette aussi bien la multiplicity infinie de substances elementaires (atomes ou monades) que la substance unique qui se fractionne elle-meme pour se recueillir ou se rassembler de nouveau telle que 1'admettent les Pantheistes.' — Ibid.

' II pretend (dynamisme) qu'en defmissant 1'essence du corps on ne doit passe contenter d'admettre simplement 1'extension ou la masse etendue, mais qu'il faut chercher a concevoir cette masse et son etendue, comme derivant d'un principe actif. Or, qu'est-ce que la forme dont parlent les Scholastiques, si ce n'est un principe sans lequel la matiere n'aurait ni quantite ni extension? Toutefois, si certains Dynamistes font consister 'toute 1'essence du corps dans les forces elementaires aussi exclusive-ment que les Atomistes la cherchent dans la masse inerte, les Scholastiques la decouvrent dans 1'union de la matiere et de la forme.' — Ibid. p. 338.

' L'atomisme purement mecanique considerait le corps comme une masse etendue, sans aucune force immanente, et par consequent sans aucune activite propre; tandis que, au contraire, le dynamisme extreme ne decouvrait 1'essence du corps que dans la seule force, excluant ainsi de la substance du corps la matiere comme etant un simple phenomene.

Mais comment devons-nous concevoir la relation qui existe dans le corps entre la force et la matiere?

Nous aurions ainsi a faire consister le sujet des forces dans la matiere determined par la forme a etre une essence propre, specifique. Or, voila ce qui forme precisement la doctrine de 1'antiquite. Suivant cette doctrine, il est vrai ce n'est pas la matiere mais le corps qui est ce dont les parties sont dans 1'espace, les unes dehors des autres, et ce n'est pas la forme mais bien le corps qui est doue de force; toutefois le corps est etendu parcequ'il est materiel, et il possede la force et 1'activite en vertu de sa forme.'— Ibid. p. 339.

Kleutgen sums up his argument in these words:

' Si nous parvenions, dans cette etude, a prouver suffisamment la verite de la theorie scliolastique, il nous serait permis de dire, qu'elle reunissait en elle ce que I'atomisme et le dynam isme contiennent de vrai, mais en evitant egalement les erreurs et les exagerations de 1'un et de 1'autre systeme.' — Ibid. p. 343.

Sanseverino states very tersely in the following passage the inadequacy both of Atomism and of Dynamism:

' I dinamici dimostrano clie la materia per esistere ha bisogno di un vero principio di unita e di azione, senza del quale le parti si disgregherebbero, e 1' individualita e la sustanza stessa dello essere svanirebbero. Gli atomisti poi oppongono, che il prin cipio di unita e di azione per se solo non basta per dare origine ad un esteso, che sia una vera realta, e non una ingannevole apparenza. Adunque per cansare gli assurdi dei primi e dei secondi e giocoforza ammettare che e corpi costano di un prin cipio passive e di un principio attivo, del multiple e del uno, del determinabile e del determinante; in altri termini della materia e della forma.' — Filos. Specul. vol. ii. pp. 214, 215.

Mr. Kirkman repeats again and again in his book his rejection of matter as ' stuff filling space.' But the Scholastic philosophy does not speak of matters filling space. It teaches that bodies having extension fill space. But it affirms that bodies consist of form and matter, and that neither can the form exist without matter, nor the matter without form; and therefore neither matter nor form as such or separately can fill space. S. Thomas teaches that it is impossible even to the omnipotence of God that matter should exist without form, much more that it should fill space. But when united they compose a body which has extension, and an extended body fills space, and yet so that extension is not a constituent part of the essence of a body, but a necessary consequence of its existence. But extension is a phenomenon cognisable and measurable by sense, and is therefore no assumption.44

IV. Let us turn now for a moment to modern philo sophies, which teach either that matter does not exist or that we cannot know its existence. If they said only that we do not know ivhat it is, we should have no contention with them. But to deny its existence is to contradict a law of our reason: to doubt of its existence is to doubt of the certainty of our reason.

But I fear the cause lies deeper. We have already seen that the Scholastic philosophy passes at once from the immediate certainty of our own existence to the intellectual and logical certainty of the existence of God, and from that beginning it descends through all orders of existences. The modern philosophies not

44 Kleutgen says: ' L'etendue, a la verite, est essentielle an corps en ce sens qu'il est de sa nature d'etre etendu: mais nous ne pouvons pas dire pour cela qu'elle appartienne a 1'essence meme du corps, car elle en est une consequence necessaire, mais non une partie constitutive.' — La Philosophic Scholastiquc, torn. iii. p. 315.

VOL. II. AA only invert this method, which might be legitimately done, but they fail or refuse to ascend to the First Existence and the First Cause. They begin their work by sense in the midst of phenomena. All beyond this veil to them has no cognisable existence. Is not this an abdication of reason in its highest prerogatives?' Is it not a suppression of one-half of the knowledge which sense and reason, acting simultaneously, convey to us? When the sense reports from without, the reason pronounces within. We are not sense only, nor reason only; both act together in every normal process of our rational nature. When the senses report phenomena the reason predicates existence, and in that existence substance, or matter, or cattcr, or stuff, or what you will, a being and a reality are there of which the sense can only report the apparel and the appearance. And yet the physical sciences, by anatomy and analysis and chemistry, report a great deal more than appearances. They test and superinduce changes and corruptions and transformations — of what, and into what? Of phenomena only, or atoms, or force-loci, or points having position and no parts? My sceptical mind finds this hard of digestion. When I am told that atoms or force-points, by cohesion, or attraction, or repulsion, or equilibrium, can account for all diversities of species and kinds and proportions, and operations and qualities, and extensions and dimensions,. in all the unities which we call bodies, my reason de mands a mind and a cause, a law and a plastic power,, in which all second causes are enveloped, and from which they all come. Unless the Atomists andDynamists ascend to the Creator, and see Him in all atoms and forces and points as the sole intelligible reason of the Cosmos, they speak hut half truths, which the rea son rejects as inadequate.

Mr. Kirkman, as a champion of Dynamism, has challenged single-handed all Atomists and Materialists, and the victory is decisively with him in so far as neither Atomism nor Materialism can give any rational account of the unity of every several existence, nor of their action, power, or force, nor of their life and vital opera tions of will and thought. When they deny the free dom and power of the will they sign their own sentence of death. Not to he able to account for the will is ruin to a philosophy; to deny the self-determining power of the will is to commit a philosophical suicide. The freedom of the will is a fact of consciousness, and consciousness, as Hume affirms, never errs. In this he was still restrained by the old Philosophy, and by common sense. Sanseverino, treating of consciousness, says:

' L' uomo non solo ha le conoscenze sensitive ed intelletive, ma sa eel avierte ancora cli aveiie. Questa consapevolezza cho 1' anima ha degli atti suoi e dai filosofi odierni detta senso intiuio avvero coscienza. Noi preferiamo la seconda denoininazione.' — Filosojia Speoulativa, vol. i. p. 248.

He further defines this consciousness, ' 1' avvertenza che 1' anima ha degli atti suoi.' 45

45 Filosojia Speculative!, vol. i. p. 250.

4G Mauri Qucest. PhilosopJiuc, torn. iii. p. 282.3

Deny this, and you really deny that man is a rational being; deny the certainty of this inward consciousness, and there is no certainty left even for sceptics to affirm that we can be certain of nothing.

One of Mr. Kirkman's critics says: * It has been long ago seen that to assume the fact of consciousness — a highly complex one, and the result of a mixed state of sense-perception and inward reflection — as the starting-point of all philosophy, is to begin at the wrong end. It is to make the goal our starting-point. The man who has reached consciousness — in other words, who knows that he knows — has made a very great advance.' The primordial fact of human nature is not 'I know,' but 'I want.' But who wants? Here, even in the infant crying for food, are all the elements of consciousness in full action. The infant wants food, and knows whence to derive it. It knows when it obtains it, and when its want is satisfied. To say that this is only sense would not be true even of a calf. Instinct and sense are there together. In the child the * I' is sentient, and the sentient ' I' is intelligent in the measure of infancy. It is not a reflective act, but a direct act. So also is consciousness. Its first intuitions precede all acts of reflection upon ourselves. There may be consciousness without reflection, but there cannot be reflection without consciousness. Consciousness knows the personal self, reflection knows that it knows. I am conscious that I am awake without reflection. To pinch myself to prove that I am awake would indeed be a reflex act. But consciousness precedes all such needless torments.

The author of Philosophy ivithout Assumptions, trusting too implicitly to Boscovich, too confidingly adopts the Dynamical Philosophy, which in the last analysis can be resolved only into one of two theories — either that all existences are only forces, activities without an agent; or that the agent behind them all is God, which may be verbally, but cannot be logically, distinguished from Pantheism. Mr. Kirkman affirms the existence of God, and does not deny the existence of matter; but in page 277 he, with less than his usual precision of thought, makes light of the word and idea of person as applicable to God. But an impersonal God sustaining the activities of the world is hardly to be distinguished from the Anima Mundi, or from a cultured Pantheism. I am sure that nothing was further from Mr. Kirkman's mind, and that he would promptly show that I have not fully understood him.

I cannot close this hasty treatment of the largest subject except Theology without expressing my sorrow to see minds so great and varied and subtil and fertile as those Mr. Kirkman has criticised, describing almost every imaginable curve and deviation from the traditional philosophy and the intellectual system of the world. These are bold words, but I believe them to be true. I ascribe this lamentable waste of great gifts and powers to the complete forgetfulness and desuetude into which the old philosophies and their scientific terminology have fallen. If they had been known it would have been impossible for any mind of far less subtilty than Professor Tyndall's to have uttered the words:

' By an intellectual necessity I cross the boundary of experience, and discern in that matter which we in our ignorance of its latent powers, and notwithstanding our professed reverence for its Creator, have hitherto covered with opprobrium, the promise and potency of all terrestrial life.'47

If the meaning of this proposition be that all things are potentially in the matcria prima of the Schoolmen, it is true enough, but inadequate: if it be not this, it seems to be either a deification of matter, or an inaccurate and inadequate expression of the agency of second causes; or, if it be none of these, it is, I believe, a phrase without an intellectual equivalent.

47 Address at Belfast, p. 55 (Longmans, 1874).

Footnotes

  1. B. Let me ask'you one question more. Have you formed any clear notion what these forces, of whose constant presence and action you are convinced, really are in themselves? ↩

  2. Kleutgen, La Philosophic Scholastique, torn. i. pp. 211, 215. ↩

  3. Evidens est, quod homo est animal rationale, sen-tiens nimirum et intelligens: unusquisque enirn experitur se sentire, videre, audire, intelligere, velle,' &c.4G ↩

Chapter 9 of 10