and psycho-genetic method which had for centuries been the predominant feature of English philosophy,[1] a righteous vindication of the eternity of consciousness and thought against those who would fain regard it as a contingent phenomenon, having its origin in time, and doomed to vanish in time. It must be said in his favour that he is not carried away by the facile enthusiasm for the new theory of evolution, and that he clearly saw the petitio principi concealed in every alleged biological explanation of consciousness.[2]
The world of nature and experience, in so far as it is a series of inter-connected facts, presupposes the conscious and intelligent principle which is supposed to be derived therefrom;[3] an experience without a subject is an epistemological absurdity, just as would be an eternal system of relations (such as the physicist’s conception of the world) without an Eternal Thought to impart reality to that system. The consciousness of change cannot be in its turn a process of change, since it must be present at all stages of that process; experience of a series developing in time presupposes a conscious principle external to time, and hence not of natural origin.
We cannot conceive of any reality external to this Eternal Thought which comprehends within itself the whole system of objective relations: the dualism of Kant, according to which the form of phenomena, i.e. their relations, is derived from the intellect, while matter, i.e. sensations, takes its rise in some mysterious source beyond all thought, is therefore inadmissible.[4] Kant’s error lies in assuming as a possibility the existence of a formless sensation, not qualified by thought; whereas every form of experience implies at least the distinction between the actual fact and the preceding moment, and hence an intellectual reference. If everything be eliminated which can be expressed in terms of relations, no reality will remain. If we divest our knowledge of a thing of every relation, that is to say of every thought, not even simple consciousness is left, since consciousness cannot exist where change and difference cannot be
- ↑ Hume, A Treatise on Human Nature, edited by T. H. Green and T. H. Grose (new edition, London, 1878). The “Introduction” prefixed by Green to vol. i. is a criticism of the philosophy of Locke (pp. 5-132), Berkeley (pp. 133-151), and Hume (p. 161 to end).
- ↑ “Mr. Herbert Spencer and Mr. G. H. Lewes: Their Application of the Doctrine of Evolution to Thought,” Contemporary Review, 1877-78, vol. xxx. pp. 25-53, 745-69; vol. xxxii. pp. 751-772.
- ↑ “. . . Experience in the sense of a consciousness of events as a related series . . . cannot be explained by any natural history, properly so called. It is not the product of a series of events” (Prolegomena to Ethics, Oxford, 1899, 4th ed., p. 25. See also his introduction to Hume, p. 164 ff.).
- ↑ Prolegomena to Ethics, p. 45.
