Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/753

HERBART 719 minations, A and B, then either these are reducible to one, which is the true quality, or they are not, when each is conditioned by the other and their position is no longer absolute. (3) All quantitative conceptions are excluded, for quantity implies parts, and these are incompatible with simplicity. (4) But there may be a plurality of " reals," albeit the mere conception of being can tell us nothing as to this. The doctrine here developed is the first cardinal point of Herbart s system, and has obtained for it the name of "pluralistic realism." The contradictions he finds in the common-sense conception of inherence, or of "a thing with several attributes," will now become obvious. Let us take some thing, say A, having n attributes, a, b, c . . . : we are forced to posit each of these because each is pre sented in intuition. But in conceiving A we make, not n positions, still less Ti + 1 positions, but one position simply ; for common sense removes the absolute position from its original source, sensation. So when we ask, "What is the one posited ? we are told the possessor of a, l>, c . . . , or in other words, their seat or sub stance. But if so, then A, as a real, being simple, must = a ; similarly it must = b ; and so on. Now this would be possible if a, b, c . . . were but "contingent aspects" of A, as e.g., 2 :i , V64, 4-1-34-1 are contingent aspects of 8. Such, of course, is not the case, and so we have as many contradictions as there are attri butes ; for we must say A is a, is not a, is b, is not b, &c. There must then, according to the method of relations, be several As. For a let us assume Aj + A t + A t . . . ; for b, A. 2 + A. 2 +A a . . . ; and so on for the rest. But now what relation can there be among these several As, which will restore to us the unity of our original A or substance ? There is but one ; we must assume that the first A of every series is identical, just as the centre is the same point in every radius. By way of concrete illustration Herbart instances "the common observation that the properties of things exist only under external conditions. Bodies, we say, are coloured, but colour is nothing without light, and nothing without eyes. They sound, but only in a vibrating medium, and for healthy ears. Colour and tone present the appearance of inherence, but on look ing closer we find they are not really immanent in things but rather presuppose a communion among several." The result then is briefly thus: In place of the one absolute position, which in some un thinkable way the common understanding substitutes for the absolute positions of the n attributes, we have really a series of two or more positions for each attribute, every series, however, begin ning with the same (as it were, central) real (hence the unity of substance in a group of attributes), but each being continued by different reals (hence the plurality and difference of attributes in unity of substance). Where there is the appearance of inherence, therefore, there is always a plurality of reals ; no such correlative to substance as attribute or accident can be admitted at all. Sub stantiality is impossible without causality, and to this as its true correlative we now turn. The common-sense conception of change involves at bottom the same contradiction of opposing qualities in one real. The same A that was a,b,c. . . becomes a,b,d... ; and this, which experi ence thrusts upon us, proves on reflexion unthinkable. The meta physical supplementing is also fundamentally as before. Since c depended on a series of reals A 3 + A 3 + A ;} . . . in connexion with A, and d may be said similarly to depend on a series A 4 + A t + A 4 . . ., then the change from c to d means, not that the central real A or any real has changed, but that A is now in con nexion with A 4 , &c. , and no longer in connexion with A 3 , &c. But to think a number of reals "in connexion" (Zusammensein] will not suffice as an explanation of phenomena ; something or other must happen when they are in connexion ; what is it ? The answer to this question is the second hinge-point of Herbart s theoretical philosophy. What "actually happens" as distinct from all that seems to happen, when two reals A and B are together is that, assuming them to differ in quality, they tend to disturb each other to the extent of that difference,, at the same time that each preserves itself intact by resisting, as it were, the other s disturbance. And so by coming into connexion with different reals the " self-preserva tions " of A will vary accordingly, A remaining the same through all; just as, by way of illustration, hydrogen remains the same in water and in ammonia, or as the same line may be now a normal and now a tangent. But to indicate this opposition in the qualities of the reals A + B, we must substitute for these symbols others, which, though only "contingent aspects" of A and B, i.e., repre senting their relations, not themselves, yet like similar devices in mathematics enable thought to advance. Thus we may put A = + - 7> B = 7)i + n + 7 ; y then represents the character of the self- preservations in this case, and a+ + in + n represents all that could be observed by a spectator who did not know the simple qualities, but was himself involved in the relations of A to B ; and such is exactly our position. Having thus determined what really is and what actually happens, our philosopher proceeds next to explain synthetically the objective semblance (der objective Scheiri) that results from these. But if this construction is to be truly objective, i.e., valid for all intelli gences, ontology must furnish us with a clue. This we have in the forms of Space, Time, and Motion which are involved whenever we think the reals as being in, or coming into, connexion, and the opposite. These forms then cannot be merely the products of our psychological mechanism, though they may turn out to coincide with these. Meanwhile let us call them "intelligible," as being valid for all who comprehend the real and actual by thought, although no such forms are predicable of the real and actual them selves. The elementary spatial relation Herbart conceives to be "the contiguity (Aneinandcr) of two points," so that every "pure and independent line" is discrete. But an investigation of depend ent lines which are often incommensurable forces us to adopt the contradictory fiction of partially overlapping, i.e., divisible points, or in other words, the conception of Continuity. 1 But the contra diction here is one we cannot eliminate by the method of relations, because it does not involve anything real ; and in fact as a necessary outcome of an " intelligible" form, the fiction of continuity is valid for the "objective semblance," and no more to be discarded than say V - 1. By its help we are enabled to comprehend what actually happens among reals to produce the appearance of matter. When three or more reals are together, each disturbance and self-preserva tion will (in general) be imperfect, i.e. , of less intensity than when only two reals are together. But "objective semblance" corre sponds with reality ; the spatial or external relations of the reals in this case must, therefore, tally with their inner or actual states. Had the self-preservations been perfect, the coincidence in space would have been complete, and the group of reals would have been inextended ; or had the several reals been simply contiguous, i.e., without connexion, then, as nothing would actually have happened, nothing would appear. As it is we shall find a continuous molecule manifesting attractive and repulsive forces ; attraction corresponding to the tendency of the self-preservations to become perfect, repulsion to the frustration of this. Motion, even more evidently than space, implicates the contradictory conception of continuity, and cannot, therefore, be a real predicate, though valid as an intelligible form and necessary to the comprehension of the objective semblance. For we have to think of the reals as absolutely independent and yet as entering into connexions. This we can only do by conceiving them as originally moving through intelligible space in rectilinear paths and with uniform velocities. For such motion no cause need be supposed ; motion, in fact, is no more a state of the moving real than rest is, both alike being but relations, with which, therefore, the real has no concern. The changes in this motion, however, for which we should require a cause, would be the objective semblance of the self-preservations that actually occur when reals meet. Further, by means of such motion these actual occurrences, which are in them selves timeless, fall for an observer in a definite time a time which becomes continuous through the partial coincidence of events. But in all this it has been assumed that we are spectators of the objective semblance ; it remains to make good this assumption, or, in other words, to show the possibility of knowledge ; this is the pro blem of what Herbart terms Eidolology, and forms the transition from metaphysic to psychology. Here, again, a contradictory con ception blocks the way, that, viz., of the Ego as the identity of knowing and being, and as such the stronghold of idealism. The contradiction becomes more evident when the ego is defined to be a subject (and so a real) that is its own object. As real and not merely formal, this conception of the e^ o is amenable to the method of relations. The solution this method furnishes is summarily that there are several objects which mutually modify each other, and so constitute that ego we take for the presented real. But to explain this modification is the business of psychology ; it is enough now to see that the subject like all reals is necessarily unknown, and that, therefore, the idealist s theory of knowledge is unsound. But though the simple quality of the subject or soul is beyond know ledge, we know what actually happens when it is in connexion with other s reals, for its self-preservations then are what we call sensa tions. And these sensations are the sole material of our knowledge ; but they are not given to us as a chaos but in definite groups and series, whence we come to know the relations of those reals, which, though themselves unknown, our sensations compel us to posit absolutely. In his Psychology Herbart rejects altogether the doctrine of mental faculties as one refuted by his metaphysics, and tries to show that all psychical phenomena whatever result from the action and interaction of elementary ideas or presentations ( Vorstellungen). The soul being one and simple, its separate acts of self-preservation or primary presentations must be simple too, and its several pre sentations must become united together. And this they can do at once and completely when, as is the case, for example, with the several attributes of an object, they are not of opposite quality. But otherwise there ensues a conflict in which the opposed presenta tions comport themselves like forces and mutually suppress or obscure each other. The act of presentation ( Vorstdlen) then 1 Hence Herbart gives the name Synechology to this branch of

metaphysics, instead of the usual one, Cosmology.