Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 9.djvu/248

V. DISCUSSIONS. COMPABISON OF SOME VIEWS OF SPENCER AND KANT. THE following definite comparison of some views of Spencer and of Kant may be deemed of sufficient interest for publication. Mr. Spencer holds " that Space is a relative reality " l while entirely rejecting Kant's idea to the effect that Space is a property of the perceiving mind, or a subjective phenomenon. But if Space be relative, how can it be otherwise than partly subjective at least? For that which is "phenomenal" every "phenomenon" must be, at any rate, partly subjective or depen- dent on the subject. And Mr. Spencer indeed affirms : " There is some ontological order whence arises the phenomenal 2 order we know as Space" (Principles of Psychology, vol. i., 3rd ed., p. 227). This to judge from the wording is an inferred conclusion, not a statement of an hypothesis. This means that when we are contemplating or analysing Space, we are not contemplating something absolutely existing as most seem to suppose which we want to analyse, but we are contemplating a phenomenon or effect ; i.e. the effect of the action of some unknown existence on our consciousness. What acts on consciousness to produce th& impression " space," we cannot say. One is not analysing space then as something existing independently : but one is analysing the residtant of the action of something on the mind (according to the Principles of Psychology). But is Mr. Spencer's conclusion demonstrable : if so, Kant, whom he repudiates entirely, is at least partly right. Now, it ia at least certain that space (regarded in the Principles of Psychology as a "phenomenal order") cannot be conceived to be absent. In the First Principles (5th ed.), the author says : " The non-existence of space cannot by any mental effort be imagined " (p. 34). Nevertheless if what " we know as Space " be phenomenal, phenomenal space must have been non-existent before mind existed : since (by Mr. Spencer's definition) phe- nomenal space is the product or resultant of the action of an " ontological order " or absolute existence on mind. The non- 1 "All we can assert is that Space is a relative reality " (First Principle,* T 6th ed., p. 165). 2 The italics are mine.