body, or any mind but mind of body, or any distinct thing or
substance except body. This is materialism.
2. Materialistic Tendencies.—Besides these direct instances of materialism, there are philosophers to whom the scientific tendencies of the age have given a materialistic tendency. In Germany, for example, Eugen Dühring (q.v.) was a realist, whose intention is to prove against Kant a knowledge of the thing in itself by attributing time, space and categories generally to the real world. But, under the influence of Trendelenburg’s attempt to reconcile thought and being by assigning motion to both, his Wirklichkeitsphilosophie, in a similar effort after a unity of being, lands him in the contention that matter is absolute being, the support of all reality underlying all bodily and mental states. So Avenarius (q.v.) was no materialist, but only an empiricist anxious to reclaim man’s natural view of the world from philosophic incrustations, yet when his Empiriokriticismus ends in nothing but environment, nervous system, and statements dependent on them, without soul, though within experience, he comes near to materialism, as Wundt has remarked. In France, again, positivism is not materialism, but rather the refusal to frame a metaphysical theory. Comte tells us that man first gets over theology, then over metaphysics, and finally rests in positivism. Yet in getting over theology he ceases to believe in God, and in getting over metaphysics he ceases to believe in soul. As Paul Janet truly remarked, positivism contains an unconscious metaphysics in rejecting final causes and an immaterial soul. Now, when in surrendering theology and metaphysics we have also to surrender God and the soul, we are not free from materialism. Positivism, however, shelters itself behind the vague word “phenomena.” Lastly, in England we have not only an influence of positivism, but also, what is more important, the synthetic philosophy of Herbert Spencer. The Spencer.point of this philosophy is not materialism, but realism. The author himself says that it is transfigured realism—which is realism in asserting objective existence as separate from subjective existence, but anti-realism in denying that objective existence is to be known. In his Principles of Psychology he twice quotes his point that “what we are conscious of as properties of matter, even down to its weight and resistance, are but subjective affections produced by objective agencies which are unknown and unknowable.” This then is his transfigured realism, which, as far as what is known goes, is idealism, but as far as what exists goes, realism—of a sort. His First Principles, his book on metaphysics, is founded on this same point, that what we know is phenomena produced by an unknown noumenal power. He himself identifies phenomenon, appearance, effect or impression produced on consciousness through any of the senses. He divides phenomena into impressions and ideas, vivid and faint, object and subject, non-ego and ego, outer and inner, physical and psychical, matter and spirit; all of which are expressions of the same antithesis among phenomena. He holds that all the time, space, motion, matter known to us are phenomena; and that force, the ultimate of ultimates, is, as known to us, a phenomenon, “an affection of consciousness.” If so, then all we know is these phenomena, affections of consciousness, subjective affections, but produced by an unknown power. So far as this main point of transfigured realism is steadily maintained, it is a compound of idealism and realism, but not materialism. But it is not maintained, on the side either of phenomena or of noumena; and hence its tendency to materialism.
In the first place, the term “phenomenon” is ambiguous, sometimes meaning a conscious affection and sometimes any fact whatever. Spencer sets himself to find the laws of all phenomena. He finds that throughout the universe there is an unceasing redistribution of matter and motion, and that this redistribution constitutes evolution when there is a predominant integration of matter and dissipation of motion, and constitutes dissolution where there is a predominant absorption of motion and disintegration of matter. He supposes that evolution is primarily integration, from the incoherent to the coherent, exemplified in the solar nebula evolving into the solar system; secondly differentiation, from the more homogeneous to the more heterogeneous, exemplified by the solar system evolving into different bodies; thirdly determination, from the indefinite to the definite, exemplified by the solar system with different bodies evolving into an order. He supposes that this evolution does not remain cosmic, but becomes organic. In accordance with Lamarck’s hypothesis, he supposes an evolution of organisms by hereditary adaptation to the environment (which he considers necessary to natural selection), and even the possibility of an evolution of life, which, according to him, is the continuous adjustment of internal to external relations. Next, he supposes that mind obeys the same law of evolution, and exemplifies integration by generalization, differentiation by the development of the five senses, and determination by the development of the order of consciousness. He holds that we pass without break from the phenomena of bodily life to the phenomena of mental life, that consciousness arises in the course of the living being’s adaptation to its environment, and that there is a continuous evolution from reflex action through instinct and memory up to reason. He throws out the brilliant suggestion that the experience of the race is in a sense inherited by the individual; which is true in the sense that animal organisms become hereditarily better adapted to perform mental operations, though no proof that any elements of knowledge become a priori.
Now, Spencer has clearly, though unconsciously, changed the meaning of the term “phenomenon” from subjective affection of consciousness to any fact of nature, in regarding all this evolution, cosmic, organic, mental, social and ethical, as an evolution of phenomena. The greater part of the process is a change in the facts of nature before consciousness; and in all that part, at all events, the phenomena evolved must mean physical facts which are not conscious affections, but, as they develop, are causes which gradually produce life and consciousness. Moreover, evolution is defined universally as an “integration of matter and dissipation of motion,” and yet mental, social and moral developments are also called evolution, so that, in accordance with the definition, they are also integrations of matter and dissipations of motion. It is true that the author did not see that he was passing from transfigured realism into materialism. He thinks that he is always speaking of phenomena in the sense of subjective affections; and in spite of his definition, he half unconsciously changes the meaning of evolution from a change in matter and motion, first into a change in states of consciousness, then to a change in social institutions, and finally into a change in moral motives. He also admits himself that mental evolution exemplifies integration of matter and dissipation of motion only indirectly. But here he becomes hopelessly inconsistent, because he had already said, in defining it, that “evolution is an integration of matter and concomitant dissipation of motion” (First Principles, § 145). However, with all the author’s disclaimers, the general effect left on the reader’s mind is that throughout the universe there is an unceasing change of matter and motion, that evolution is always such a change, that it begins with phenomena in the sense of physical facts, gradually issues in life and consciousness, and ends with phenomena in the sense of subjective affections of consciousness.
In the second place, having declared the noumenal power, which causes phenomena, or conscious affections, to be unknowable, and having left anybody who pleased to make it a god and an object of religion, he proceeds to describe it as if it were known force, and known in two respects as persistent and as resistant force. He supposes that the law of evolution is deducible from the law of persistent force, and includes in force what is now called energy. Then having discussed force as something thoroughly material, and laying special emphasis on resistance, he tells us that “the force of which we assert persistence is that Absolute Force of which we are indefinitely conscious as the necessary correlate of the force we know” (First Principles, § 62). Similarly, both in First Principles and in the Principles of Psychology, he assigns to us, in addition to our definite consciousness of our subjective affections, an indefinite consciousness of something out of consciousness, of something which resists, of objective existence. Thus it turns out that the objective agency, the noumenal power, the absolute force, declared unknown and unknowable, is known after all to exist, persist, resist and cause our subjective affections or phenomena, yet not to think or to will. Such a noumenon looks very like body or matter. Lastly, when a theory of the world supposes a noumenal power, a resistent and persistent force, which results in an evolution, defined as an integration of matter and a dissipation of motion, which having resulted in inorganic nature and organic nature, further results without break in consciousness, reason, society and morals, then such a theory will be construed as materialistically as that of Haeckel by the reader, whatever the intention of the author.
It may be urged in reply that the synthetic philosophy could be made consistent by transferring the knowable resistance and persistence of the unknowable noumenon to knowable phenomena on the one hand, and on the other hand by maintaining that all phenomena from the original nebula to the rise of consciousness are only “impressions produced on consciousness through any of the senses,” after all. But in that case what will become of Spencer’s theory of evolution? It will have asserted the evolution of man and his consciousness out of the phenomena of his consciousness. The truth is that his theory of evolution can be carried through the whole process without a break, only by giving the synthetic philosophy
a materialistic interpretation, and by adhering consistently to
