Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

τὴν ἐξουσίαν ταύτην ;' • By what Authority doest thou these things, and who gave thee that Authority?' The one question applies more particularly to the Doctrines, the other to the Action of Christianity, and the rules it lays down for Conduct. Christianity intrudes into Philosophy with its theories. But What is Truth?' Answer first that, and let us see if we agree on that fundamental question. For, if we should chance to have different conceptions of what Truth is, your theories can be for me but mere hypotheses, waiting for judgment, if they have not, indeed, already been pronounced false. Into Legislation Christianity intrudes with its Laws. But By what Authority doest thou these things, and who gave thee that Authority?' Answer first that question, and without the evasion to which he had recourse 2 to whom it was so pertinently put by the chief priests and elders of the people. For if we should chance to acknowledge some different kind of authority, and to appeal to quite other sanctions, then your laws will have still to justify themselves, if they have not, indeed, already been condemned as unjust, and your rules, even if they should be approved, will have to be quite otherwise sanctioned. Nor is it a mere fancy the putting to Christianity of these two crucial questions, which were, the one' unanswered, the other evaded by Christ. For if Modern Metaphysics has, as I have above pointed out, arisen from doubt of the Christian conception of Truth, and has, in its characteristic critiques and inquiries, had for its aim the establishment of a new doctrine of 2 Ibid. 24-27.

1 Matt. xxi. 23.

L

Truth, Modern Ethics has arisen from dissatisfaction with the Christian principle of Authority, and has had for the aim of its characteristic theories the establishment of another principle of Authority than the Christian. But whence this dissatisfaction? It arose simply from this, that the principle of Authority, or Ethical Standard of Christian Philosophy, was one which doubt of the Christian theory of History, and of the truth, therefore, of the Christian conception of Truth, utterly undermined. And hence, in discovering and defining those postulates of Truth, which are the Ultimate Principles of our New Method, our work has been of a character neither more nor less profoundly practical than the discovery and definition of postulates from which will be derived new Principles of Authority.

1 'Another,' I do not say a principle opposed to that of Christianity. For, as Mr. Mill remarks, 'with regard to the religious motive, if men believe, as most profess to do, in the goodness of God, those who think that conduciveness to the general happiness is the essence, or even only the criterion of Good, must necessarily believe that it is also that which God approves.' (See Utilitarianism, p. 41.) And so Mr. Austin makes the 'theory of general utility' an 'index to the tacit commands of the Deity.' (See Province of Jurisprudence, vol. I. pp. xlii. flg.) But evidently it may be found that the natural sanction is enough, without the hypothesis of its being but an 'index' to an hypothetical command;' and enough may conduciveness to the general happiness' be found to be, without the hypothesis of a supernatural 'approval.'

SECTION III.

THE DISCOVERY OF THE ULTIMATE LAW OF HISTORY.

'Das verschlossene Wesen des Universums hat keine Kraft in sich, welche dem Muthe des Erkennens Widerstand leisten könnte; es muss sich vor ihm aufthun, und seinen Reichthum und seine Tiefen ihm vor Augen legen, und zum Genusse bringen.'

IIEGEL, Encyklopädie, Anrede. Werke, b. VI. s. xi,

SUBSECTION I.

The Inductive Generalisation of the Law of History. 1. I WOULD now proceed to state, with the summary brevity here necessary, the first general results of the application of the principles of our New Philosophical Method. For we have seen, in our first section, that, a New Philosophy of History having sprung up which rendered utterly incredible that system of Christian dogma which is, in fact, another philosophy of History; there is an urgent needfulness for the completion of this New Philosophy by the discovery of an Ultimate Law which may be the basis of that reconstruction, rendered necessary by the destruction of that Christian Philosophy of History which is, or from which is derived, the basis, not only of the existing Religious Ideal, but also of the established Social Polity. Further, in summarily reviewing the development hitherto of the New Philosophy of History, we found that any hopeful attempt at discovering that Ultimate Law, which will be at once the completion of the New Philosophy, and the basis of the reconstruction of the Ideal, and

of Polity, must be itself based on a reconciliation of those antagonistic Causation-theories of Idealism and Materialism, to which is owing the imperfect statement, discordance, and incomplete verification which characterise those historical Laws in which the New Philosophy has as yet issued. But such a reconciliation can be accomplished only by a truly synthetic method. In our foregoing Second Section, therefore, we set forth the principles of a New Method which we trust may be found to be, in the logical results of its fundamental principles, thus truly synthetic. And I would now state what the general results have actually been of the application of this method to a new inquiry into Causation. For we shall find that these general results lead us up directly to a Law of History, and thus justify our hope that we might find this new inquiry into Causation to be, not only a necessary preliminary of any further attempt at, but the most direct road to the discovery of, that great Law of which we are in quest. But one cannot set out on an inquiry without some presupposition which will more or less affect the application of, and the results obtained from, even a new method. Now the conception of Causation which happened to be my historical inheritance was that defined by the great founder of the Scottish School,' with whom I would still naturally desire more particularly to connect myself. A Cause was defined by Hume an object followed by another whose appearance always conveys the thought to

As to Hume, and not the worthy divine, but quite mediocre philosopher, Dr. Reid, being the true founder of the Scottish School, see above, sect. I. p. 17.

that other.' And by Mill, the (alas! just-departed) head of that school,2 and who has in so many directions, and with so great originality, worked out the thoughts both of Hume and of Adam Smith, Cause, as Hume interpreted it, is affirmed to mean the 'invariable antecedent,' and we may therefore, he says, 'define the cause of a phenomenon to be the antecedent, or the concurrence of antecedents, on which it is invariably and unconditionally dependent.' I now think with Dr. Stirling, that this is a misrepresentation of Hume's doctrine, and that 'Hume, in custom, argued, in effect, for the variability of Causality." It was, however, with the notion of Cause as 'the invariable antecedent' that I started on my new inquiry. But so starting, I proceeded to ask, 'Is it possible to generalise the invariable antecedent of Changes? What is, in general, the nature of such antecedents? Or, what are the general conditions of Changes? Thus

1 Inquiry concerning Human Understanding. Philosophical Works, vol. IV. p. 90.

2 M. Taine, indeed, in his two essays on Mr. Mill and on Mr. Carlyle, calls the former the representative of 'Le Positivisme anglais,' and the latter of 'L'Idéalisme anglais.' But they, in fact, represent two currents of Thought, which have been characteristic of the Scottish School throughout its history. And Mr. Spencer, rather than Mr. Mill, should be named as the representative of 'Le Positivisme anglais,' though it is indeed with Sir W. Hamilton, and not with any English philosopher, that even he more particularly connects himself.

3 System of Logic, vol. 1. p. 377.

4 This was his express sceptical object indeed; and it was not the invariability which Hume saw in Causality that Kant contested, but, on the contrary, the variability,-the variability, that is, which Hume, as it were, sought sceptically to insinuate into Causality by resting the (supposititious) necessary connection which its idea seemed to involve on habit, custom, and the resultant subjective expectation.' See Annotations to Schwegler, History of Philosophy, p. 455.

« ForrigeFortsæt »