Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/121

 108 CRITICAL NOTICES : We come at last to the antinomy of evidence and belief, on which, according to M. Eenouvier, everything else depends. Eeal indetermination of actions, he maintains, requires real inde- termination of judgments. This doctrine of the indetermina- tion of judgments is traced to Eousseau. Eousseau's ethical doctrine, although superficially it looks like a " doctrine of senti- ment,'' is really, M. Eenouvier contends, a '* doctrine of the prac- tical reason". The admiration of Kant for Eousseau is well known ; and M. Eenouvier traces Kant's optimism in viewing the history of the world as determined in accordance with the postulates to Eousseau, as he finds in Voltaire the literary in- spiration of Schopenhauer's pessimism. That belief the free choice of a judgment as to the ultimate nature of things is some- thing more profound than " evidence," must be the view of those who hold to the doctrine of consciousness. To affirm the exist- ence of other personalities and of the uniformity of nature is to go beyond what is given in the actual phenomena. We are not, indeed, without motives for believing ; there is evidence that sug- gests belief ; but there is also an active factor. The mind in part creates the truth to which it gives its assent, as it is creative in volition. Those, on the other hand, who decide for the panthe- istic system of the eternal evolution of an infinite substance, always hold in some way, even when, like Mr. Spencer, they speak of ultimate " beliefs," that they are asserting a truth forced on the mind from without, or given in a sort of intellectual "vision," a truth of which denial is impossible. But to anyone who speaks of universal beliefs, of propositions the negation of which is inconceivable, the history of philosophy is a sufficient reply. There is no proposition, not even the law of contradiction, of which the application to real being has not been denied by some philosopher. The appeal to " evidence " is therefore only a statement of the belief of a particular person that he possesses a certain kind of insight which, it must be supposed, he has by necessity, while others are necessarily in error. Since M. Eenouvier makes everything depend on his doctrine of belief, we must examine this doctrine closely before pro- ceeding to criticise any other part of his system. The choice of an ultimate belief, in M. Eenouvier's view, is an act of free- will ; but he does not represent the doctrine of belief as abso- lutely bound up with indeterminism. Indeed he shows, in more than one passage, how a determinist may recognise the active factor in judging. Indeterminism being excluded, there seems to be no reason why an opponent on ultimate philosophical questions should not admit the essential part of M. Eenouvier's contention, viz., that there is a personal element in all systems of metaphysics ; that in this element there are active as well as pas- sive factors of belief; and that whenever we go beyond the mere present phenomenon there is a " wish to believe " one proposition rather than another, determined either by intellectual or practical