Page:Philosophical Review Volume 9.djvu/238

222 the possibility of our approximating to the moral ideal, but this ideal is either the purely formal moral law, or an artificial union of happiness and virtue; in either case it is lower than intellektuelle Anschauung And in the ''Kr. d. U.'', both æsthetic judgment and the concept of design reveal the fatal defect of human consciousness: the æsthetic Idea cannot be cognition, because it lacks the adequate concept; the concept of design is merely subjective. In distinction from Kant, Fichte makes it his fundamental presupposition that thought is essentially unitary. It must appear to itself dualistic, but the task of philosophy is to discover the unity behind this appearance. The difference between consciousness and its ideal is only one of degree. This means, not only that thought may gradually approximate to its infinite goal, but also that the ideal is immanent rather than transcendent. At his best, Fichte conceives this ideal as a perfect unity of form and matter; but sometimes he seems to think of it as empty form. Those who criticise him for this apparently overlook the passages in which he rises to the higher view. Some have also misinterpreted his statement, that, if the goal were ever reached, consciousness would have disappeared. Consciousness, for Fichte, means dualism, and therefore must disappear; but it is a mistake to suppose that the goal of the process is conceived as blank identity.

The writer aims in this article to piece together Hobbes's system of psychology, and to show the connection of his doctrines with previous thought. The psychology of Hobbes deals with man's rational powers, which are either cognitive or conative. His attitude is non-metaphysical, his method empirical. The subjective nature of sense is clearly stated in four propositions. Under the term 'imagination' are included the phenomena of memory-images, of dreams, and of fancy, with a brief notice of after-images. As a logical consequence of his explanation of sensation, the sole form of association recognized by Hobbes is association by contiguity. Prudence is differentiated from reason; the former is a forecast of the future and is based on experience, the latter a higher power, not born with us, but gained by industry. By reason, man is distinguished from the animals. From his discussion of pleasure and pain as subjective aspects of appetite and aversion, Hobbes proceeds to a purely mechanical and deterministic theory of volition. An examination of the psychology of Francis Bacon reveals the fact that he gives almost nothing by way of theory; his thought is scarcely systematized. It is not so much psychology, as suggestion in regard to what psychology must be. His influence upon Hobbes is chiefly a matter of tendency and attitude rather than of direct transmission of doctrine. To Bacon, Hobbes owes his conception of psychology as a science, and the empirical method by which he proceeds. From Descartes, Hobbes got his