Philosophical Works of the Late James Frederick Ferrier/Institutes of Metaphysic (1875)/Section 1/Proposition 7
PROPOSITION VII.
WHAT THE UNIVERSAL AND THE PARTICULAR IN COGNITION ARE.
DEMONSTRATION.
It is a necessary truth of reason that the ego must be known (that is, must be known to itself) whenever it knows anything at all (by Prop. I.): in other words, no cognition, in which one does not apprehend oneself, is possible. Therefore the ego or oneself is known as the element common to all cognition—that is, as the summum genus of cognition. Again, it is not a necessary truth of reason that matter must be known whenever anything at all is known: in other words, cognitions in which no material element is apprehended, are, if not actual, at any rate possible and conceivable. No contradiction is involved in that supposition; and, therefore, matter is not known as the element common to all cognition, but only as the element peculiar to some cognitions—that is, as the differential part of some cognitions. And hence the ego is the unchangeable, necessary, and universal part of cognition, while matter, in all its varieties, is only a portion (not the whole) of the changeable, contingent, and particular part of cognition.
OBSERVATIONS AND EXPLANATIONS.
Why this Proposition is introduced.1. Although this proposition is, in its first clause, a mere repetition of Proposition I., its introduction is necessary, in order to mark distinctly what the elements are which enter into the constitution of knowledge. It is not enough to show, as was done in the immediately preceding proposition, that every cognition must embrace a particular and a universal part. What these parts are must also be exhibited; and this, accordingly, is done in the present article. The ego or self is, of necessity, known along with whatever is known; hence it enters into the composition of every cognition, and is the permanent and universal factor of knowledge. Wherever anything at all is known, it is known. Matter, on the other hand, is known as that which enters into the composition of many, perhaps of most, of our cognitions; but inasmuch as reason does not assure us that all knowledge is impossible, except when something (indefinitely) material is apprehended, and assures us still less that all knowledge is impossible, except when something (definitely) material is apprehended—matter is fixed, by that consideration, as the changeable, contingent, and particular part of cognition.
The ego is coextensive with the universal, matter is not coextensive with the particular, element.2. Matter is not to be regarded as constituting the whole of the particular element of knowledge. The particular may have many forms besides those which we call material. Matter, therefore, in all its varieties, is only a portion of the phases of the particular. The ego is necessarily identical with the whole of the common and permanent element; because nothing can possibly be conceived, except itself, which an intelligence must always be cognisant of. But matter is not necessarily coextensive with the particular and changeable element, because much may be conceived—if not actually by us, yet possibly by other intellects—besides matter, of which intelligence may be cognisant. Matter does not, of necessity, enter into the constitution of cognition. Something particular must be known whenever anything at all is known, but this particular need not be material; for, as has been said, the particular is not necessarily restricted to, and convertible with, matter, although the universal, when carried to its highest generalisation, is necessarily limited to, and convertible with, the ego.
Another reason for introducing this proposition.3. Another reason for the introduction of this proposition is, that it is required as a stepping-stone to the next.
Remarkable that this proposition should not have been propounded long ago.4. That the common, permanent, and necessary constituent of all knowledge should not have been brought clearly to light, and turned to good account, and had all its consequences pressed out of it long before now, is not a little remarkable. It has scarcely, however, been even enunciated—certainly not emphatically dwelt upon. There cannot be a doubt that speculation, from a very early period, has aimed at the ascertainment of the immutable and universal feature which all cognitions present. It might have been expected, therefore, that the first consideration which would have occurred to the inquirer would have been this, that the factor in question must be that which we are more familiar with than we are with anything else—must be that, to find which we must have a very short way to go. For, surely, that which we always know, and cannot help knowing, must be that which we are best acquainted with, that which lies nearest to our hand, and which may be most readily laid hold of This reflection might have been expected to bring him to the question, What, then, is that which we are most familiar with, and cannot help knowing, during every conscious moment of our lives? And this question would have been followed, one might have thought, by the prompt answer, It is ourselves. Nevertheless, both the question and the answer were missed. The common element has indeed been sometimes obscurely indicated, but its importance has never been sufficiently proclaimed; its fruits have never been gathered in. The words inscribed over the porch of the temple at Delphi, γνῶθι σεαυτόν—which, properly interpreted, must mean "Consider well; it is thyself, oh man, that thou art conscious of, in and along with all that comes before thee"—have been oracular in vain.
The oversight accounted for. Effect of familiarity.5. Several causes might be pointed out in explanation of this oversight: they are, however, mostly, if not entirely, reducible to the one great and leading cause which has been already referred to (Prop. I., obs. 6); to wit, familiarity. The influence of this principle in deadening the activity and susceptibility of the mind is overwhelming to an extreme. Drugged with this narcotic, man's intellect turns with indifference from the common and the trite, and courts only the startling and the strange. Every one must have remarked, both in his own case and in that of others, how prone we are to suppose that little advantage, and no valuable result, can accrue from a careful study of that to which we are thoroughly habituated. "Perpetual custom," says Cicero, "makes the mind callous, and people neither admire nor require a reason for those things which they constantly behold." Rare events are the natural ailment of wonder; and, when it cannot be supplied with these, our inquisitiveness is apt to languish and expire. Abundant examples of this tendency—this proneness to prefer the unusual to the customary, and to conceive that things are marvellous in proportion to their rarity, and that the seldomer they appear the more are they entitled to our regard—might be drawn from the practice of mankind in the daily conduct of life, as well as from the history of science in all periods, but especially in the earlier stages of its development. The Science of an untutored age passes by unheeded the ordinary appearances of nature; but her interest is easily aroused, her attention is readily enchained, by such mysterious portents as the earthquake and the eclipse. She is blind to the common and familiar phenomena of light; she is deaf to the common and familiar phenomena of sound: she has eyes only for the lightning; ears only for the thunder. She asks with eager curiosity,
Quæ fulminis esset origo,—
Jupiter, an venti, discussâ nube tonarent?
But she leaves unquestioned the normal or everyday presentments of the senses and the universe; she pays the tribute of admiration to nature's exceptions far more promptly than to her majestic rule.
We study the strange rather than the familiar, hence truth escapes us.6. It is thus that uncultivated men neglect their own household divinities, their tutelary Penates, and go gadding after idols that are strange. But this proclivity is not confined to them; it is a malady which all flesh is heir to. It is the besetting infirmity of the whole brotherhood of man. We naturally suppose that truth lies in the distance, and not at our very feet; that it is hid from our view, not by its proximity, but by its remoteness; that it is a commodity of foreign importation, and not of domestic growth. The farther it is fetched the better do we like it—the more genuine are we disposed to think it. The extraordinary moves us more, and is more relished than the ordinary. The heavens are imagined to hold sublimer secrets than the earth. We conceive that what is the astonishing to us, is also the astonishing in itself; thus truly making "man the measure of the universe." In this superstition the savage and the savan fraternise (bear witness, mesmerism, with all thy frightful follies!)—and, drunk with this idolatry, they seek for truth at the shrine of the far-off and the uncommon; not knowing that her ancient altars, invisible because continually beheld, rise close at hand, and stand on beaten ways. Well has the poet said,
" That is the truly secret which lies ever open before us;
And the least seen is that which the eye constantly sees."
—Schiller.
But, dead to the sense of these inspired words, we make no effort to shake off the drowsing influence, or to rescue our souls from the acquiescent torpor, which they denounce—no struggle to behold that which we lose sight off, only because we behold it too much, or to penetrate the heart of a secret which escapes us only by being too glaringly revealed. Instead of striving, as we ought, to render ourselves strange to the familiar, we strive, on the contrary, to render ourselves familiar with the strange. Hence our better genius is overpowered; and we are given over to a delirium, which we mistake for wisdom. Hence we are the slaves of mechanism, the inheritors and transmitters of privileged error; the bondsmen of convention, and not the free and deep-seeing children of reason. Hence we remain insensible to the true grandeurs and the sublimer wonders of Providence; for, is it to be conceived that the operations of God, and the order of the universe, are not admirable, precisely in proportion as they are ordinary; that they are not glorious, precisely in proportion as they are manifest; that they are not astounding, precisely in proportion as they are common? But man, blind to the marvels which he really see; sees others to which he is really blind. He keeps stretching forwards into the distant; he ought to be straining backwards, and more back, into the near; for there, and only there, is the object of his longing to be found. Perhaps he may come round at last. Meanwhile, it is inevitable that he should miss the truth.
Hence neglect of this proposition.7. The general fact which these remarks are intended to express is, that our knowledge of a thing is always naturally in an inverse ratio to our familiarity with it; that insight is always naturally at its minimum, wherever intimacy is at its maximum: in a word, that, under the influence of custom, the patent becomes the latent. This truth being unquestionable, it is not difficult to understand how philosophers should have failed to apprehend, or at least, to give a marked prominence in their systems to the necessary and permanent element of all cognition. This element is the ego, or oneself. But the ego comes before us along with whatever comes before us. Hence we are familiar with it to an excess. We are absolutely surfeited with its presence. Hence we almost entirely overlook it; we attend to it but little. That neglect is inevitable. Its perpetual presence is almost equivalent to its perpetual absence. And thus the ego, from the very circumstance of its being never absent from our cognitions, comes to be almost regarded as that which is never present in them at all. Our intimacy with self being the maximum of intimacy, our attention to self conformably to the law of familiarity, is naturally the minimum of attention. It is thus that we would explain how it has happened that, although the article which philosophers were in quest of was one which, by the very terms of their search, was necessarily and continually known to them—inasmuch as what they wanted to lay hold of was the common and ever-present and never-changing element in all their knowledge—it should still have evaded their pursuit. The foregoing considerations may perhaps be sufficient to account for this memorable oversight, and to explain how the ego, from our very familiarity with it, should have escaped notice, as the permanent, necessary, and universal constituent of cognition; and how, consequently, the proposition which declares that such is its character should have failed, hitherto, to obtain in philosophy the place and the recognition which it deserves.
8. This also may be added, that the importance of a principle is never perceived, nor the necessity of Another circumstance which may have caused the neglect of this proposition.announcing it ever felt like a commandment, until its consequences have been seen to be weighty, and its fruits abundant. Here, before us, is a germ which, to the scythe of reason, yields a harvest of inestimable truth. But it seems, at first, to be little better than a barren truism; hence it has been suffered to slumber on, pregnant with unsuspected wealth, and charged with a moral sublimity more dread than "all the dread magnificence of heaven."
The ego is the summum genus of cognition. Ontological generalisation.9. The ego is the known summum genus of cognitions—just as ens is laid down by logic, or rather by a spurious and perfunctory ontology, as the summum genus of things. Viewed even as a generalisation from experience, the ego may very easily be shown to occupy this position. Lay out of view, as much as possible, all the differences which our manifold cognitions present and the ego, or oneself, will remain as their common point of agreement or resemblance. This is generalisation—the ascertainment of the one in the many by leaving out of account, as much as possible, the differences, and attending, as exclusively as may be, to the agreements of things. The epistemological must not be confounded with the ontological generalisation: much mischief has been done by confusing them. We perceive a number of living creatures. Overlooking their differences, and attending to their agreements, we give the name "animal" to the sum of the agreements observed in these creatures. We perceive a number of vegetable formations. Overlooking their differences, and attending to their agreements, we give the name of "plant" to the sum of these agreements. Again overlooking the differences, and attending to the resemblances in animals and plants, we give the name of "organic" to the sum of these resemblances. And so on in regard to all other things. By overlooking the differences, and attending to the resemblances of singulars, we form a species; by overlooking the differences, and attending to the resemblances of species, we form a genus; by overlooking the differences, and attending to the resemblance of genera, we form a still higher genus, until we ascend up to ens, or "Being," the highest generalisation of ordinary ontology as described in the common schoolbooks upon logic. With this kind of generalisation we have no concern. It has been pointed out only that it may be carefully distinguished from the process now to be described.
Epistemological generalisation is very different.10. The epistemological generalisation is altogether different. It has nothing to do with things, but only with cognitions of things. We have a number of cognitions of things—cognitions of living creatures, for example. Overlooking the differences as much as possible, and attending to the agreements of these cognitions, we give the name of "animal" to the sum of these agreements—not assigning it, however, to any resemblance in the creatures, but only to a resemblance in our cognitions of them. And so on as before—the only difference being (and it is a very important one) that the words expressive of species and genera mark, not the resemblances among things, but the resemblances among cognitions. Thus the word "animal" betokens a point or points in which certain of our cognitions agree. So do the words "man" and "tree." Each of them is the expression of agreement among certain of our cognitions. Again, the word "organic" denotes a still higher generalisation—records a still higher unity among our cognitions. It indicates a point in which our cognitions of trees resemble our cognitions of animals. The word "body" expresses a still higher genus of cognition, for it indicates some feature in which our cognitions of trees, our cognitions of animals, and our cognitions of stones, all resemble one another. These words, and others like them, stand either for species, or lower or higher genera, not of existence, but of cognition. But none of them ever approaches to the universality which is expressed by the word me. For this term indicates a feature of resemblance, not merely among certain of our cognitions, but among the whole of them—the whole of them, possible as well as actual—the whole of them, past, present, and to come. All the other resemblances in our cognitions are, from a higher point of view, regarded as differences. Thus the resemblance in the cognitions expressed by the word "animal" is a difference when set off against the resemblance in the cognitions expressed by the word "tree." But the resemblance in all our cognitions, which is properly signified by the word me, can never be converted into a difference. No class, or classes, of my cognitions are distinguished from another class, or classes, by the circumstance that they are mine. This is the very circumstance in which they are all not distinguished from each other—the very point in which the whole of them, whatever their character otherwise may be, are merged in identity. Hence "oneself," or the ego, is the summum genus of cognition—the ultimate generalisation beyond which epistemology cannot ascend. And a very different universal this is, from the ordinary abstract universal named ens, which is the logician's delight.
The ego not a mere generalisation from experience.11. From these remarks it must not be concluded that the ego, considered as the summum genus of cognition, is a mere generalisation from experience. Were this the case, it would be destitute of that strict universality and necessity which reason claims for it, as the common element in every possible cognition of every possible intelligence. It is this by a necessary law of all cognition. But every necessary truth of reason, although not dependent on experience for its establishment, admits, nevertheless, of being exhibited as a generalisation from experience; and accordingly the ego has been exhibited as such in the foregoing observations, in order that its character may be more clearly understood, and its universality more fully appreciated.
Shortcoming of the Platonic ideas.12. One source of perplexity, in studying the Platonic ideas, is the uncertainty whether they are genera of cognitions or genera of things. Probably they were intended as both—another instance of ontology running prematurely into the same mould with epistemology. But the confusion signifies little; for, whether they be understood in reference to cognitions or in reference to things, it is certain that not one of them represents the highest unity, either of knowledge or of existence. It may be true that the mind cannot have cognitions of trees, unless it carries them up into the higher cognition (or unity) expressed by the genus "tree." But neither can the mind have these or any other cognitions, unless it carries them all up into the still higher cognition, or unity, expressed by the genus "self." All the other species and genera of cognition, expressed, for example, by the words "man," "flower," "animal,"" body," &c., are mere subordinate unities, mere abstractions, which have no meaning, and no presentability to the mind, until carried up into the higher unity of oneself, and contemplated by me as my, or by him, whoever the person may be, as his, cognitions. Then only is our cognition concrete—that is, real, actual, completed, and comprehensible. When I gaze upon an oak-tree, the concrete indivisible cognition before me consists of the four following items, none of which are cognitions, but all of which are mere elements of cognition:—first, The highest genus of cognition, myself; secondly, A lower genus of cognition, tree; thirdly, A still lower genus, or rather species, of cognition, oak tree; and, fourthly, The particular specimen. That is the actual inseparable concretion which exists for thought, whatever may be the actual concretion which exists in nature—with that we have nothing to do at present. The Platonic ideas appear to fall short of this—the concrete totality of Knowing. They correct to some extent the contradictory inadvertency of ordinary thinking, which, moving in abstractions, supposes that the abstract particular—some merely particular tree, for instance—is cognisable. It is not more cognisable than the abstract universal, the mere genus "tree," or the mere genus "me." They are only cognisable together. But Plato's theory of ideas does not completely correct this popular delusion. More plainly stated, the popular inadvertency is this: in dealing with external objects, we always apparently know and think of less than we really know and think of. The doctrine of ideas was designed by Plato to correct this contradictory thinking, by pointing out the suppressed element, which, although really present in cognition, is, for the most part, overlooked. But the doctrine was incomplete, and only partially successful. Plato fell short, as has been said, of the summum genus, the universal constituent of cognition—that which we are all intimately familiar with, and usually a good deal concerned about—namely, ourselves.
Perhaps the ego is the summum genus of existence as well as of cognition.13. In connection with these remarks, this short observation may be made, that the ego having been shown by the epistemological generalisation to be the summum genus of cognition, it may also turn out to be the summum genus of existence; and that thus far, at least, Knowing and Being are coincident. We should thus obtain, not an abstract and unintelligible universal, like ens, but, instead of this, an actual, living, and intelligible universal at the head of all things. We must either suppose this, or fall into the frightful scepticism of holding that the laws of thought bear no sort of analogy to the laws of existence; that there is no parallelism between them; and that there can be no true knowledge, in any quarter, of anything which truly is, but only a false knowledge of that which wears the false semblance of Being. All psychology hangs by a thread over the abyss of this hideous hypothesis A touch might sever the slender chord, and let her drop. But meanwhile she may remain suspended; for the stroke must come from ontology, and not from epistemology, and much has to be done before that stroke can be applied.
The second clause of proposition has had a standing in philosophy from the earliest times.14. A few remarks must now be made on the second member of the proposition. If philosophers, in general, have been at a loss in regard to the constant and necessary factor of cognition, and unable to name it, they have been quite at home with the other, though less familiar, element and have experienced no difficulty in declaring what the variable and particular factor, for the most part, is. It is the complement of the phenomena of sense—the whole system of material things. This is the contingent and particular and fluctuating constituent of cognition. Matter is described by the old philosophers, in very plain terms, as that which is always inchoate, but never completed—as that which has no permanency—that which is subject to perpetual vicissitude, and afflicted with a chronic and incurable diarrhæa.
A ground of perplexity.15. Here, however, there is still as usual some ground for perplexity, and it is occasioned by the old cause, the neglect to distinguish between things as known, and things as existent. When the old philosophers talk of material things as fluctuating and evanescent, do they mean that they are fluctuating creatures of existence, or fluctuating objects of cognition? In other words, is it the existence of them which is evanescent, or is it the knowledge of them which is evanescent? Is the generation and the corruption which they speak of as the characteristic of all material things, to be understood as a cessation and a restoration of Being, or as a cessation and a restoration of Knowing?
Demur as to matter being the fluctuating in existence.16. It is necessary to come to a right understanding on this point, because, while the statement may be very readily acquiesced in as an epistemological truth, it must naturally occasion considerable demur if propounded as an ontological tenet. Who can bear to be told, without some preparatory explanation at least, that a mountain is constantly fluctuating, that a forest of oak trees is evanescent, that there is no permanency in a stone, that the chair on which he sits is in a state of perpetual fluidity, and that all things are running away before his eyes? And let it not be supposed that all that such a statement can mean is, that processes of renovation and decay are continually at work over the whole length and breadth of the creation. Such a trivial remark as that fell not within the scope of Greek observation. Speculation had then a higher aim than to inform people that the earth is continually changing, and that not a minute passes over the grassy fields, or the summer woods, or the wintry shore, without altering the structure of every blade and of every leaf, and the position of every particle of sand. The statement, if understood in reference to the existence of things, must be held to mean that matter itself, even in its ultimate atoms, has no persistency, no abiding footing in the universe, either in a compound or in an elementary capacity. But that dogma, thus nakedly presented, could scarcely expect to be welcomed as an article of any man's philosophical creed. It is untenable, because it is unintelligible.
It is certainly the fluctuating in cognition.17. On the other hand, if this announcement be understood, not in reference to the existence of things, but in reference to our knowledge of them, it becomes the truest and most intelligible of propositions. A mountain is a fluctuating and evanescent thing—in cognition, because no man is under the necessity of perpetually apprehending it: so is the sea; so is the whole earth, with all its variegated pomp, and the whole heavens, with all their diversified splendour. These things are the vanishing and the transitory in knowledge, because no law declares that they must be unceasingly and everlastingly known.
The old philosophers held it to be both.18. The question is, In which of these applications did the old philosophers intend their declaration to be received? The fact is, that they intended it to be received in both, and the consequence has been, that it was intelligently accepted in neither. They ran, as has been said, their epistemology into the same mould with their ontology. Their doctrine of Knowing was absorbed in their doctrine of Being; and their expositors have not been at pains to separate the components of that original fusion. Looking more to the ontological than to the epistemological aspects of the ancient systems, they have failed to do justice to the opinions which they contain. The case in hand is a striking exemplification of this. By expounding this speculation touching the perpetual flux of all material things as an ontological dogma, and by leaving it unexplained as an epistemological truth, the commentators on philosophy have done much injury both to the science itself, and to those who were its original cultivators.
More attention should have been paid to their assertion that it was the fluctuating in cognition.19. They ought to have attended more to the epistemological side of this opinion, and then they would have perceived its merit and its truth. They ought to have understood that when the old philosophers spoke of the incessant generation and corruption to which all material things are subject, what they meant to say was, that these things are, at times, the objects of our cognition, and that, at times, they are not so. If this was not the whole, it was at any rate a very important part, of what the early speculators intended to affirm when they pronounced the entire material universe to be of a fluxional character, and in a constantly perishing condition. Material things are continually dying, and coming alive again, in knowing, if not in being. It is quite possible that the existence of these things may catch the infection of fluctuation (if we may so speak) from the fluctuation which is notoriously inherent in the knowledge of them, and that the old philosophers meant to affirm that they had caught this infection, and that they were vanishing existences, as well as vanishing cognitions; but if so, that was not their fault—nor is it ours.
Matter as the fluctuating in cognition: explained.20. But the only point which calls for consideration and settlement in the first section of our science is, whether material things are known, and can be known, only as fluctuating and contingent. Whether they are so, is no question for the epistemology. In what has been already said, enough perhaps has been advanced to show that they are wholly of this character. The following reiteration may be added.
This is the fluctuation which epistemology attends to.21. Material things come into, and go out of, our knowledge. Not one of them has the privilege of holding perpetual possession of the mind: a man need not at all times be cognisant even of his own body; and even although it were true that he always was cognisant of this, or of some other material thing, still, inasmuch as reason does not declare that all cognition is impossible unless some material thing be apprehended, none of them are fixed as having a necessary place or an absolute perpetuity in cognition. Not one of them is for ever before us, therefore not one of them is the permanent in cognition: not one of them is everywhere before us, therefore not one of them is the universal in cognition: not one of them is incapable of being removed from our cognisance, therefore not one of them is the necessary in cognition. And thus the whole material universe is shown without difficulty to be the fluctuating (or non-permanent), the particular (or non-universal), the contingent (or non-necessary), element of knowledge. And thus far, at least, the doctrine advocated by the older systems is both tenable and true. Viewed ontologically, the inchoation and incessant flux ascribed to matter may be an enigma to the student; but viewed epistemologically, it need not puzzle him at all.
A hint as to its fluctuation in existence.22. Even viewed ontologically, it need not puzzle him much after all that has been said. If every completed object of cognition must consist of object plus the subject, the object without the subject must be incompleted—that is, inchoate—that is, no possible object of knowledge at all. This is the distressing predicament to which matter per se is reduced by the tactics of speculation; and this predicament is described not unaptly by calling it a flux—or as we have depicted it elsewhere, perhaps more philosophically, as a never-ending redemption of nonsense into sense, and a never-ending relapse of sense into nonsense. (For further particulars, see Prop. X.; also Prop. IV., Obs. 16-22.)
The ego as the non-fluctuating in cognition: explained.23. Turn now to the other factor of cognition—the ego, or oneself—and contrast the perpetuity in cognition of this element, compared with the inconstancy of matter. This element does not come into and go out of our knowledge, like a rock, a river, or a tree; it is always there, and always the same. This factor knows no flux, is obnoxious to no vicissitude. It is the permanent in all our knowledge, because it never entirely disappears: it is the universal in all our knowledge, because we are in all our knowledge: it is the necessary in all our knowledge, because no cognisance is possible without this cognisance. The contrast between the two elements, in point of fixedness and fluctuation, is manifest and decided.
Seventh Counter-proposition.24. Seventh counter-proposition.—"The ego (or mind) is known as a particular or special cognition, and not as the element common to all cognitions; in other words, our cognition of ourselves is a mere particular cognition, just as our cognitions of material things are mere particular cognitions. Thus we have a number of particular cognitions. One of these is the knowledge of self. This cognition is distinguished from the others, as they are reciprocally distinguished from each other—that is, it is distinguished from them, not by its universality, but by its particularity—not by the circumstance that it is the point of identity in all our cognitions, but by the circumstance that it is itself a special and completed cognition. The unity in our cognitions (that is, their reduction to a class) is effected, not by the observation that they are our cognitions, but simply by the observation that they are cognitions; in other words, they are formed into a genus, not from their containing and presenting the common and unchangeable element which we call self but from some other cause which the counter-proposition—finds it difficult, indeed impossible, even to name."
Expresses the contradictory inadvertency of ordinary thinking: illustration.25. This counter-proposition expresses, more explicitly than has yet been done, the inadvertency of ordinary thinking in regard to the cognition or conception of oneself. Its substance may be readily understood from the following plain illustration: I have the cognition of a book—this is, in the estimation of my ordinary thinking, a particular and completed cognition. I have the cognition of a tree—that too, in the estimation of my ordinary thinking, is a particular and completed cognition, distinct altogether from the first. Again, I have the cognition of myself—this also, in the estimation of my ordinary thinking, is a particular and completed cognition, distinct from the other two, just as they are distinct from each other. There cannot be a doubt that this, in our ordinary moods, is the way in which we reckon up the relation which subsists between ourselves and surrounding things.
Corrective illustration.26. But this reckoning is at variance both with fact and with reason. It is contradictory; it implies that there can be a knowledge of the particular without a knowledge of the universal, a knowledge of things without a knowledge of me. It never really and truly takes place; it only appears to take place. The true reckoning is this: the book and "I" together constitute a distinct and completed cognition. The tree and "I" together constitute another distinct and completed cognition. In short, whatever the things or complexus of things may be, it is always they and "I" together which make up the cognition: but such a cognition never is and never can be particular; it is always a synthesis of the particular (the thing, or rather element, whatever it may be) and the universal (the me). When I observe a book, I also observe myself; when I observe a tree, I also observe myself; when II think of Julius Cæsar, I also take note of myself; and so on (see Prop. HI, Obs. 4.) Is not this consideration sufficient to prove, and to make perfectly intelligible, the statement that "self" is the common element, the "universal" in all cognition, and that, therefore, it cannot by any possibility have a particular cognition corresponding to it, or be known as a particular, as this counter-proposition, the exponent of our inadvertent thinking, maintains.
Psychology adopts Counter-proposition VII.27. Psychology must be understood to adopt the counter-proposition in all its latitude. Counter-proposition VII. is an inevitable consequent of Counter-proposition VI., in which all our cognitions are stated to be, in the first instance at least, particular. How the unity in our cognitions is obtained—how they are reduced to the genus called cognition—is a point which psychology has left altogether unexplained. It is by looking to the resemblances of things, says psychology, and by giving a name to that resemblance, that we reduce things to a genus, or form a class. Very well; one might have expected that psychology would also have told us that it was by looking to the resemblance among cognitions, and by giving a name to that resemblance, that we were able to reduce cognitions to a class; and further, that the point of resemblance to which the name was given was no other, and could be no other—when the whole of our cognitions were taken into account—than the "me," the self of each individual knower. But no; psychology tells us nothing of this kind—teaches no such doctrine—teaches the very reverse. She holds that the "me" is a special cognition distinguished numerically from our other cognitions, just as they are numerically distinct from one another. The common element, in virtue of which our cognitions constitute a class, has obtained no expression in all the deliverances of psychology.
And thereby loses hold of the only argument for immateriality.28. The most memorable consequence of this blundering procedure on the part of psychology, is that it has caused her to miss the only argument which has any degree of force or reason in favour of the immateriality of the ego, mind, subject, or thinking principle. The present and the preceding proposition afford the sole premises from which that conclusion can be deduced; and therefore psychology, having virtually denied both of these premises, is unable to adduce any valid, or even intelligible, ground in support of her opinion when she advocates the immateriality of the mind. Here the spiritualist is at fault quite as much as the materialist, in so far as reasoning is concerned, as shall be shown in the next proposition and its appendages.