Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/99

Rh METAPHYSIC answer is nevertheless a good one ; for the objector also stands within the very circle which he seeks to break, and has no means of breaking it except itself. As soon as he speaks, he can be refuted by his own words ; for his doubts also presuppose that unity of the intelligence and the intelligible world which he pretends to deny. The error, however, cannot be fully corrected until we consider what gives it plausibility. The confusion of the metaphysical with the psychological problem is due to the fact that the being who is the subject of knowledge, for whom all exists that does exist, appears to be one, and only one, of the many objects of knowledge. When we say that existence means only an existence for a thinking self, we seem to be identifying the whole world with the feelings and ideas of men, i.e., with certain phenomena that belong to the life of a class of beings which only forms a part of that world, phenomena, moreover, that are not exactly the same in any two of that class of beings. If we are to escape this difficulty it is obvious that we must be able to separate the conscious self or subject, as it is implied in all knowledge, from the nature of man as a being who &quot; though formally self-conscious &quot; is yet &quot; part of this par tial world,&quot; i.e., one of the objects which we know along with and in distinction from other objects, and in whom &quot;the self-consciousness which is in itself complete, and which in its completeness includes the world as its object,&quot; is only progressively realized. 1 Metaphysic has to deal with con ditions of the knowable, and hence with self-consciousness as that unity which is implied in all that is and is known. Psychology has to inquire how this self -consciousness is realized or developed in man, in whom the consciousness of self grows with the consciousness of a world in space and time, of which he individually is only a part, and to parts of which only he stands in immediate relation. In con sidering the former question we are considering the sphere within which all knowledge and all objects of knowledge are contained. In considering the latter we are selecting one particular object or class of objects within this sphere, although no doubt it must make a great difference in our treatment of this object that we have to consider it as existing not only for us but for itself. If nature &quot; becomes self-conscious in man,&quot; it is impossible to treat man merely as one among the other objects of nature. But it is not less true that he is one of those objects, and, in this point of view, the department of science and philosophy that deals with his life is as distinct from metaphysic which deals with the conditions of all knowing and being as is astronomy or physics. In both cases we have before us objects which we may consider in themselves apart from their relations to the conscious subject, and in both cases we must take cognizance of these relations if we would have a complete and final view of those objects. It is possible to have a purely objective anthropology or psychology which abstracts from the relation of man to the mind that knows him just as it is possible to have a purely objective science of nature. Such a natural science of man, however, will necessarily abstract at the same time from the fact that in man is manifested that universal principle in relation to which all things are and are known. In other words, it will omit that distinctive characteristic of man s being in virtue of which he is a subject of knowledge and a moral agent. Hence the abstraction in this case is more likely to lead to positive error, more likely to produce not only an imperfect but a distorted view of the object. Inorganic nature, if we take it in itself, is not untruly viewed, under the categories of causality and reciprocity, as a collection of objects externally determined by each other ; the error lies only in taking it as if it could exist 1 Hume, vol. i. p. 131 (Green s edition). in itself. Even organic beings do not suffer much injustice in being brought under such categories; for, though, as living and still more as sensitive beings, they involve in themselves and in their relation to the world a kind of unity of differences to which the categories of external relation imperfectly correspond, yet they are not such unities for themselves, but only for us. In other words, the principle through which they are and are known is still external to them. Hence also they are determined by outward influences, though these influences act rather as stimuli to what we may call the self-determined movement of their own life than as mechanical or chemical forces which change it. But in man, in so far as he is self-con scious, and it is self-consciousness that makes him man, the unity through which all things are and are known is manifested ; and therefore he is emancipated, or at least is continually emancipating himself, from the law of external influence. Nature and necessity exist for him as that from which his life starts, in relation to which he becomes conscious of himself, against which he has to assert himself, and in the complete overcoming of which lies the end of all his endeavour. Nature is the negative rather than the positive starting-point of his existence, the presupposition against which he reacts rather than that on which he proceeds ; and, therefore, to treat him simply as a natural being is even more inaccurate and misleading than to forget or deny his relation to nature altogether. A true psychology must, however, avoid both errors : it must conceive man as at once spiritual and natural ; it must find a reconciliation of freedom and necessity. It must face all the difficulties involved in the conception of the absolute principle of self-consciousness, through which all things are and are known, as manifesting itself in the life of a being like man, who &quot; comes to himself &quot; only by a long process of development out of the uncon sciousness of a merely animal existence. This problem first presented itself in a distinct form in the discussions of the Socratic school as to the nature of knowledge, discussions which turn mainly upon the relation of the conscious to the unconscious element in thought. Socrates, by his method more than by any direct state ment, drew attention to the fact that all particular judg ments in morals involve or presuppose a universal principle. At the same time he pointed out that, so far from this universal principle being known to those who are con tinually making such judgments, they are not even conscious of its existence. They constantly use general terms whose meaning they have never even thought of defining. The beginning of a rational life for them must therefore lie in their becoming conscious of their ignorance, i.e., conscious that they have been all along judging, and therefore acting, on untested and even unknown assump tions. They must bring the unconscious universal to the light of day and define it, for until that is done it is impossible to live a moral, that is, a rational life. &quot; Virtue is knowledge,&quot; i.e., it is acting, not according to opinions, or particular judgments, whose universal is unknown, and which therefore may be regarded as expressing merely the impulses or habits of the individual, but in view of a universal principle determined by reason. The onesidedness of this view which absolutely con demns as vice all virtue that is not based on conscious principle was partly corrected by another part of the doctrine of Socrates, who taught that knowledge is some thing that must be evolved from within the mind, and not merely communicated to it from without. For this implies that the moral principle may be present in men s minds, and may rule their thoughts and actions, long before they become directly conscious of it. They are rational althouo-h they have never thought about reason, and they XVI. 12