Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/571

 SEPARATION OF QUESTIONS IN PHILOSOPHY. 559 Equally irrelevant is it in a logical treatise, to raise the ques- tion of the Association of Ideas, or the question as to the Belativity of Knowledge. Although both of these have distinct logical bearings, and although our mode of regarding them will levitably affect our treatment of Logic itself, nevertheless the 11 discussion belongs of right to Psychology, and to transfer it Logic is simply to burden one province with the subject- matter of another, and thereby to remove boundaries and obli- terate distinctions which can alone secure successful exposition. Passing next to Ethics, we are met by similar confusion. Thus, in ethical discussion at the present day, Morality and Free-will are often inextricably blended; and the result has been confusion more confounded. The earlier English moralists knew better. Shaftesbury, the framer of the moral-sense theory, has no handling of the free-will problem at all ; and he is followed almost exactly, in this respect, by Hutcheson. Both saw that Conscience, Eight and Wrong, Duty, Obligation are what they are whatever be our teaching as to free agency ; and one need never expect either clearness or precision in Moral Science until the earlier position be reverted to. Similarly, Ethics and Sociology are near of kin ; but they must not be identified. The present tendency is to obliterate the lines of demarcation between them and to absorb the one in the other; and in proportion to the strength of the destructive force should be the vigour of the resistance. Again, leaving Ethics, let the question be asked, " How do we know Mind ? " This question is susceptible of various modes of treatment, according to the province in which it is put or to which it is understood to refer. If it is asked in Psychology, then very naturally the answer lays the stress on the subjective or introspective method on the examination and interrogation of individual consciousness, and allows only a secondary (albeit a very important) place to the objective lethod, or attention to the outward expression of mental cha- 2teristics in others. If, on the other hand, it is put in con- nexion with Evolution, then the emphasis is necessarily laid on the objective method on the study of mental expression in other sentient beings, more particularly in the lower animals or brute creation. And if it be put with special regard to Educa- tion and the teacher, then the objective method still occupies the prominent place ; only, the expression watched and the mental growth registered are mainly those of young folk and children. Everywhere, in cases such as these, there is need for a scrupu- lous application of the analytic di*tin(nto ; and for want of this, ambiguity creeps in and confusion prevails. So with other branches of mental science. There is chaos at present as to boundary lines ; and, although there will always no doubt be a disputable margin at the confines of every province of philosophy, the general territory needs not be other than well-