Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/447

NEW SERIES. No. 32.] [OCTOBER, 1899. MIND A QUARTERLY REVIEW OF PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. I. PSYCHOLOGICAL PHILOSOPHIES. 1 BY SHADWOETH H. HODGSON. THE title Psychological Philosophies may, not improbably, suggest the objection But are not all philosophies of necessity psychological ? And it is true, that any philosophy must include some psychological theory or other, inasmuch as, being or aiming at being a Knowing of the most com- prehensive kind, it would be incomplete without taking account of the Subject, process, and function of Knowing, as well as of its content or object known. But this is not the sense in which the term psychological philosophy is here used. To see this we must consider, that the purpose of philo- sophy is to obtain, if possible, some true and systematic theory of the Universe of Being. That of psychology is to obtain an equally excellent theory of the Soul, Mind, Spirit, or other agent, of which, in the case of Man, Knowing is a function. The two pursuits are thus closely allied, Knowing as a function being at the least common to both ; while at the same time they are disparate, when they are compared with each other, and denned by the purposes at which they severally aim. It can now be seen what is meant by calling a certain class of philosophies psychological. They are those which base, or attempt to base, a theory of the Universe of Being upon psychological conceptions or psychological hypotheses ; or, in other words, to explain the nature and activities of the Universe, or of the Great First Cause, the Divine Being, 1 Bead at the Meeting of the Aristotelian Society, 12th June, 1899. 28