Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/174

Rh matter of experience, and hence of psychology, was the denial of the possibility of philosophy itself; and this was illustrated by historic examples. Before passing on to the second topic, I wish briefly to return to Prof. Caird's exposition, and shelter myself somewhat beneath the wings of his authority. In the article already referred to, he goes on to state that the natural objective science of man after all "omits the distinctive characteristic of man's being"; that while we may treat inorganic nature and even organic with purely natural objective methods and principles, because "they are not unities for themselves, but only for us," such treatment cannot be applied to man, for man is for himself, i.e., is not a pure object, but is self-consciousness. Thus, he continues (p. 89):

When it is stated, later on, that the natural science of man "is necessarily abstract and imperfect, as it omits from its view the central fact in the life of the object of which it treats" (p. 92), it is hardly worth while discussing whether there be any such science or not. But there is suggested for us in the quotation just made our second problem—the final relation of psychology, which confessedly must deal with self-consciousness, to philosophy. For there the problem of psychology was stated to be the question of the "absolute principle of self-consciousness, manifesting itself in the life of a being like man". That is, it is here suggested that psychology does not deal with the absolute principle in itself, but only with the modes by which this is manifested or realised in the life of man. Psychology no longer appears as an objective science; it now comes before us as a phenomenology, presupposing a science of the absolute reality itself. It is to this question that I now turn. Is psychology the science merely of the manifestation of the Absolute, or is it the science of the Absolute itself?