Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/102

Rh 92 METAPHYSIC the distinction, and this means that the distinction itself is not absolute, but that there is a point of view from which the a posteriori may be regarded as a priori, and that which is given from without to the spirit may be referred to its own self-determined development. Now it is just here that we come upon the turning-point of the philosophical controversy, in the form which it has taken in modern times. The problem may be expressed thus In what sense can we apply the idea of development to the human spirit ? Are we to treat that development as merely a determination from without, or as an evolution from within, or as partly the one and partly the other 1 In a sense all writers of the present day would admit that this last is the case. For, on the one hand, even the Darwinian theory accounts for development by aid of what we may call the a priori tendency of the individual to maintain itself in the struggle for existence, though it supposes that the condition or medium in which the indi vidual is placed determines the direction in which that development proceeds. And, on the other hand, no one now would adopt the Leibnitzian theory that the indi vidual is a monad, whose self-development is entirely con ditioned by itself in such a sense that all the relations which it has to other existences are merely apparent, and that the coincidence of its life with the life of the world is the result of a pre-established harmony. On both sides, therefore, the idea of self-determination would be admitted, though the tendency of the Darwinians would be to regard this self-determination as something merely formal ; and on both sides it would also be admitted that the self- determination does not exclude a determination from with out, though extreme opponents of Darwin might be inclined to reduce this determination to a mere stimulus or external condition of the development of the nature of the subject to which the stimulus is applied. The question, however, remains whether, after all, this opposition of without and within is an absolute one, or whether there is any point of view from which it may be transcended. To Aristotle it seemed possible to answer this question in the affirmative, because he conceived that the reason of man is a pure or universal 8wa/us, the evolution of which to complete self- consciousness is one with the process whereby the objective world comes to be known. Yet, as Aristotle admitted the existence in the world of a material principle which was essentially different from the ideal principle of reason, he was obliged to limit his statement as to the possible unity of the subjective and the objective consciousness, and to say merely that &quot; in things ivithout matter the knower is identical with the known.&quot; But this would immediately lead to the conclusion that the pure development of reason must be secured by abstraction from all finite and material objects, rather than by a thorough comprehension of them. The freedom of the spirit, on this theory, must be a negative and not a positive freedom, a freedom won, not by over coming the world, but by withdrawing ourselves from its influence. It remained, therefore, for modern philosophy to work out the Aristotelian idea that the rational being as such, in spite of its necessary relation to and depend ence on an external world, is never in an absolute sense externally determined. And, as we have already seen, the Kantian philosophy brought this problem within the reach of solution, in so far as it showed, first, that objective existence can have no meaning except existence for a thinking self, and, secondly, that existence for a thinking self means existence the consciousness of which is &quot; capable of being combined with the consciousness of self.&quot; Add further to these propositions what was shown by Kant s successors, that that only can be combined with the con sciousness of self which is essentially related to it, and we arrive at an idealistic theory of the world, which enables us at once to understand the relative value of the distinc tion between self-determination and determination from without, and at the same time to see that its value is only relative. If it be true that nothing exists which is not a possible object of consciousness, and again that there is no possible object of consciousness which is not essentially related to self-consciousness, then the phenomena of the external world, which at first present themselves under the aspect of contingent facts, must be capable of being ulti mately recognized as the manifestation of reason ; and the history of the conscious being in his relations with that world is not a struggle between two independent and unrelated forces, but the evolution by antagonism of one spiritual principle. It is, on this view, the same life which within us is striving for development, and which without us conditions that development. And the reason why the two terms, the self and the not-self, thus appear to be independent of each other, or to be brought together only as they externally act or react upon each other, lies in this, that the object is imperfectly known, and the subject is imperfectly self-conscious. This, however, does not make it less true that in self-consciousness is to be found the prin ciple in reference to which the whole process may be explained, and therefore that the self-conscious subject, as such, lives a life which belongs to him, not merely as one object among others, but as having in himself the principle from which the life and being of all proceeds. From this point of view, as has been already indicated, the relative value of a theory of human development, such as that which might be based on the ideas of Darwin, would not be denied. The conscious being may be regarded simply as an externally determined object, and the incorrect ness of this assumption will not entirely destroy the value of the results attained, especially if, as is often the case with those who seek to construct a natural science of man, the assumption itself is not very strictly adhered to, but corrected by the tacit admission of other conceptions some what inconsistent with it. But, at the same time, it would require to be pointed out that such a science is necessarily abstract and imperfect, as it omits from its view the central fact in the life of the object of which it treats. It can do nothing to account for man s consciousness, or his capacity of becoming conscious, of the influences by which he is supposed to be determined ; or, to put it from the other side, it takes for granted that the objects that influence man are intelligible objects, &quot;capable of being combined with the consciousness of self,&quot; without seeing how much is involved in this assumption. Now it is evident that the consciousness of an influence cannot be explained by the influence itself, nor even by that taken together with the nature of the sensitive beings subjected to it. It is evident also that an influence mediated by consciousness is not, strictly speaking, an external influence, but that it is already transformed, and in process of being further transformed, by the development of the self to which it is present. For the dawn of consciousness, in which the external object first comes into existence for us as opposed to the self, is at the same time the beginning of the process by which its externality is negated or over come. Self-consciousness is that which makes us indi viduals in. a sense in which individuality can be predicated of none but a self-conscious being. For, in determining himself as a self, the individual at the same time excludes from himself every other thing and being, and determines them as external objects. He emancipates himself from the world at the same time that he repels the world from himself. Yet this movement of thought, by which his individuality is constituted, is also that by which he is lifted above mere individuality, for, in becoming conscious of self and not-self in their opposition and relation, he ceases to