Page:Philosophical Review Volume 3.djvu/266

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THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW.
[Vol. III.

to satisfy the imitative impulse shows itself in analogies in the spheres of art and of play. (c) The third motive is the simultaneous striving for repetition and change. This shows itself in the forms of proverbial expressions, in the choice of pictorial words and phrases for description, etc. The author might with advantage have availed himself, under this head, of the results of Dr. Lehmann's work upon the laws of Feeling, in order to give his exposition a more secure psychological foundation. The subject of Chap. III is analogical completion. Its introductory paragraphs contain some good remarks upon ideational association. Especially noticeable is the definite equating of (logical) relation with (psychological) associability. (1) The analogical inference, (α) Unconcious or involuntary; e.g., the passing-over of a printer's error. Its causes are principally three. (a) Interpretation of sensations; (b) interpretation of the external world in terms of our self; and (c) association of name and object. It is to be regretted that the author, in reproducing here the Helmholtz terminology, tends to fall into the Helmholtz error of confusing logic with psychology, an error which he had previously avoided, and which is the less excusable in the present case, as attention had already been called to it by Wundt (Einfluss der Philosophie, etc., 1876, pp. 10, 11). (β) The analogical inference proper is based on accidental but intimate association, or on the insufficient regard of signs of difference; while there often occurs the non-recognition of true coincidence, through the occasional absence of the causal nexus, whose terms have been intimately associated. (γ) The more perfect forms of the analogical inference, and the influence of natural selection upon thought.[1] There are two such forms, the syllogistic (here the writer follows Göring) and the inductive. (δ) The subjectivistic analogical inference is the most important of all (Beneke). We find it in animal psychology (Vignoli), in fetishism (Dilthey), and in anthropomorphism; in the concepts of cause, force, and end. The remarks on Hume (p. 107) are a little superficial. What Hume 'confused' was the general problem of causality (psychological) with the problem of causality in the particular case. There follows a consideration of subjectivistic analogy in the developed human consciousness. It has four modes. We infer, first, from a large number of constant external characters, that the total character of mental life, i.e., the internal relations of the mental elements, will be similar. Secondly, we conclude that certain particular external processes arouse in others similar mental processes. Thirdly, that in external processes there are manifested in both cases similar mental processes. Fourthly, we combine the second and third inferences, and regard the physical fact in the case of one individual as expression, in the case of another as occasion of the same mental event.

  1. In logic and epistemology, the author tells us, the consistent application of the Darwinian principle will lead to "höchst furchtbare Ergebnisse," p. 89. His very misprints are analogical.