Philosophical Works of the Late James Frederick Ferrier/Institutes of Metaphysic (1875)/Section 1/Proposition 8
PROPOSITION VIII.
THE EGO IN COGNITION.
DEMONSTRATION.
The ego is known as that which is common to all cognitions, and matter is known as that which is peculiar to some cognitions (Prop. VII.) But that which is known as common to all cognitions cannot be known as that which is peculiar to some cognitions, without supposing that a thing can be known to be different from what it is known to be,—which supposition is a violation of the law of contradiction (see Introduction, § 28). Therefore the ego cannot be known to be material, &c.
Or, again: Matter, in its various forms, is known as the changeable, contingent, and particular element of cognition (Prop. VII.) Therefore, if the ego could be known to be material, it would be known as the changeable, contingent, and particular element of cognition. But the ego is known as the unchangeable, necessary, and universal element of cognition (Prop. VII.) Therefore the ego cannot be known to be material, &c.
Or, again: Matter, in its various forms, is known as the particular element of cognition. If therefore, the ego could be known to be material as well as the bodies which it knows, it would be known as some form of the particular element of cognition; in which case a cognition would be formed, consisting entirely of the particular constituent of knowledge: (for, of course, no variety in the particular element can ever make it other than particular.) But this supposition contradicts Proposition VI., which declares that every cognition must contain a common or universal, as well as a particular and peculiar constituent. Therefore the ego cannot be known to be material.
Or, once more: The universal element of cognition is known as such, precisely because it is known as not the particular element; and conversely the particular element is known as such, precisely because it is known as not the universal element. Hence the ego, which is known as the universal element, and matter, which is known as the particular element, cannot, either of them, be known to be the other of them: and therefore the ego cannot be known to be material—or, in other word; that part of every object of cognition which is usually called the subject or oneself, cannot be known to be of the same nature with that part of every object of cognition which is usually called the object.
OBSERVATIONS AND EXPLANATIONS.
A caveat.1. Observe, this proposition does not demonstrate that the mind cannot be material; it only proves that it cannot be known to be such. Although in the "Observations and Explanations" appended to the propositions in the first section of our science, remarks, and even conclusions, of an ontological character may be occasionally introduced, the reader is again requested to bear in mind that all that is strictly proved, or attempted to be proved, in the demonstrations, is what is to be known or not to be known—not what is, or is not.
Important law of knowledge.2. This demonstration yields as its result this important law of knowledge, that intelligence, of whatever order it may be, cannot, upon any terms, know itself to be material. Show a man to himself as a material thing; take out of his brain his pineal gland, or whatever else you please, and, presenting it to him on a plate,[1] say, That, sir, is you, your ego: the exhibition (supposing it to be possible) would instantly prove that the self so shown was not himself; because the man would say,—I know myself along with that material thing; which words would prove that he was cognisant of something over and above the mere material thing, and would prove, moreover, that this additional element (himself) was known by him as the universal constituent of that, and of all his cognitions; while the element before him, the pineal gland, or whatever else it might be, was known by him as the particular constituent merely of that cognition: so that to suppose him to know it to be himself would be to suppose him to know that one part of his cognition was another part of his cognition—in other words, that the universal part was the particular part, which, of course, is absurd, and a violation of the first law of reason, which declares that we must know a thing to be what we know it to be.
Materiality and immateriality. Eighth connter-proposition.3. It is at this point that the controversies respecting the materiality and the immateriality of the thinking principle take off from the main trunk of the speculative tree. The eighth counter-proposition, embodying the inadvertent result of ordinary thinking, and embodying also the doctrine of our popular psychologies, whether these psychologies favour, as some of them do, the materiality, or, as others of them do, the immateriality of the mind, is this—Eighth counter-proposition: "The ego might possibly be known to be material. There is no necessary law of reason which prevents it from being apprehended by the senses."
Eighth counter-proposition property of materialist and spiritualist.4. This counter-proposition is the common property both of the materialistic and of the spiritual psychologists. The materialist holds that nothing except matter is known: hence he holds that, if the ego or mind is known at all, it is known as material. The only distinction which he acknowledges between mind and matter is, that the one is matter knowing, and the other matter known. Mind is supposed to be either itself a highly-refined species of matter, or else a property of certain kinds or combinations of matter—a mere result of physical organisation. The brain produces intelligence, just as the stomach, or rather some part of the nervous apparatus, produces hunger. At any rate, according to the materialist, there is no necessary law of reason which prevents the mind from being known as matter, or as some sort of dependency on matter. The spiritualist, again, though he denies, as a question of fact, that the mind is known to be material, does not deny this as a question of possibility. His denial does not amount to the assertion, much less to the proof, of Proposition VIII. It is merely a dissuasive, intimating that it is better, on the whole, to suppose that the mind is not material. A critical remark or two may be offered both on the materialistic and the spiritualistic conception of mind.
Early conception of mind as material. Ghosts, clairvoyance, spirit rapping.5. Both parties are in error at the outset. They undertake to declare what the mind is, before they have determined what it is known as. The early physiologists gave out that the mind was some kind of aura or finer breath, some highly attenuated species of matter; but they certainly never succeeded in showing that it was known as this. That very important point was prejudged. Their hypothesis was founded upon analogy. Matter was patent to universal observation. All things were seen to be material. Man's organism was material,—why should not his mind, his most intimate self, follow the same analogy, and be material too? Hence its materiality was assumed. The word, indeed, by which the thinking principle is designated in all languages bears evidence to the inveteracy of the superstition that the conception of mind might be formed by conceiving a material substance of extreme fineness and tenuity. Many circumstances have conspired to keep this fanaticism in life. The supposed visibility of ghosts helps it on considerably; and it is still further reinforced by some of the fashionable deliraments of the day, such as clairvoyance and (even A.D. 1854, credite posteri!) spirit-rapping. These, however, are not to be set down—at least so it is to be hoped—among the normal and catholic superstitions incident to humanity. They are much worse than the worst form of the doctrine of materiality. These aberrations betoken a perverse and prurient play of the abnormal fancy—groping for the very holy of holies in kennels running with the most senseless and god-abandoned abominations. Our natural superstitions are bad enough; but thus to make a systematic business of fatuity, imposture, and profanity, and to imagine, all the while, that we are touching on the precincts of God's spiritual kingdom, is unspeakably shocking. The horror and disgrace of such proceedings were never even approached in the darkest days of heathendom and idolatry. Ye who make shattered nerves and depraved sensations the interpreters of truth, the keys which shall unlock the gates of heaven, and open the secrets of futurity—ye who inaugurate disease as the prophet of all wisdom, thus making sin, death, and the devil, the lords paramount of creation—have ye bethought yourselves of the backward and downward course which ye are running into the pit of the bestial and the abhorred? Oh, ye miserable mystics! when will ye know that all God's truths and all man's blessings lie in the broad health, in the trodden ways, and in the laughing sunshine of the universe, and that all intellect, all genius, is merely the power of seeing wonders in common things!
6. The materialistic conception of mind, or the Conception of mind as material substance dismissed.ego, as a fine or subtle species of matter, is obviously no conception of it at all. Not in this way is the idea of intelligence to be approached. The conception of the most gossamer and ghostlike tissue that ever floated in the dreams of fancy, is not one whit nearer to the conception of spirit than is the conception of the most solid lead that ever acted as ballast to a seventy-four-gun ship. The mind of man is certainly adamant, just as much as it is ether. This conception, therefore, may be dismissed as unworthy of further consideration.
Conception of mind as result of organisation: phrenology.7. The other form of materialism—that which pronounces the mind to be the result of physical organisation, (phrenology, in short)—is more plausible, and more difficult to overcome. The particles of matter assume a certain configuration or arrangement called the human brain, and intelligence is manifested in consequence, the degrees of which are found generally to be in proportion to the size of the organ, and the depth and number of its convolutions. Why, asks the materialist, ought this plain fact to cause more astonishment, or meet with less acquiescence, than any other effect resulting from the various combinations of matter? All that we know of causation is uniform sequence. When certain conditions concur, certain results follow. When the material conditions requisite to the development of mind are fulfilled, why should not intelligence ensue? They are fulfilled when matter takes that form which we term a human organisation, and intellect is put forth accordingly. Mind, or the ego, is thus made a result contingent on certain material combinations. It is subordinated to the body; it holds its place by a very precarious tenure, and has no absolutely independent status.
The spiritualist's conception of mind is as null as the materialist's.8. Is there any weapon in the armoury of spiritualism by which this disagreeable conclusion can be effectually rebutted? There is not one, as spiritualism is at present provided. In vain does the spiritualist found an argument for the existence of a separate immaterial[2] substance on the alleged incompatibility of the intellectual and the physical phenomena to coin here in the same substratum. Materiality may very well stand the brunt of that unshotted broadside. This mild artifice can scarcely expect to be treated as a serious observation. Such an hypothesis cannot be meant in earnest. Who is to dictate to nature—what phenomena or qualities can inhere in what substances—what effects may result from what causes? Why should not thought be a property or result of matter, just as well as extension, or hardness, or weight, or digestion, or electricity? The psychologist must show that this cannot be the case, either because the supposition contradicts reason, or because it contradicts experience. If it contradicts reason, let him point out the contradiction: if it contradicts experience, let him show that it does so. He can do neither; he never attempts to do either; and therefore he does not prove, he merely asserts. But the materialist also asserts, and with better reason, in so far as probabilities and plausibilities are concerned. Matter is already in the field as an acknowledged entity—this both parties admit. Mind, considered as an independent entity, is not so clearly and unmistakably in the field. Therefore, on the principle that entities are not to be multiplied without necessity, the defender of immaterialism is not entitled to postulate an unknown basis for the intellectual phenomena, and an unknown cause for the intellectual effects, so long as it is possible to refer them to the known basis, or to account for them by the known cause, already in existence. Now this possibility has never been disproved on necessary grounds of reason.
Both parties hold mind to be particular.9. The fundamental disturbance which oversets the schemes, both of the materialist and of the spiritualist, and prevents either of them from attaining to any distinct conception of the mind, is to be found, as has been said, in the circumstance that they attempted to declare what it was, before they had ascertained what it was known as. They undertook to settle how or in what capacity it existed, before they had settled how or in what capacity it was known. And hence, being imbued with the opinion that all existence is particular, they made it their aim to determine, or at least to announce, what particular kind or character of existence the mind, or ego, had. The materialist held, as has been said, that it was either some peculiar form of matter, or some peculiar result of material combinations. The immaterialist held that it was at bottom a particular sort of substance different from matter, and therefore to be called immaterial Differing as they did, they both agreed in holding it to be something particular.
It is known only as the universal.10. Whether all existence is particular, and whether the ego is something particular (be it material, or be it immaterial), is a question with which the epistemology has no concern. This section of the science decides only what the ego is known, and not known, as; and it declares (as it has already declared in Prop. VII.) in emphatic terms, that the ego or mind is not known as any particular thing, either material or immaterial, but is known only as a universal, that is, as the element common to all cognition, and not peculiar to any. The element which every cognition presents, and must present, can have no particularity attaching to it, except the characteristic of absolute universality. To attempt to conceive it as some particular thing, by affixing to it some peculiar or distinctive mark, would be to reduce it from universality to particularity—in other words, would be to destroy the conception of mind in the very act of forming it.
The materialist's error consists in his holding mind to be particular.11. This observation brings us to close quarters with the fundamental error both of the materialist and the spiritualist. The fundamental error of the materialist does not consist in his holding the mind, or ego, to be a material substance or a material result. That is no doubt wrong; but the feeding or mother blunder consists in his supposing that it is a particular substance or a particular result. It is only through his occupation of the latter position that the materialist is able to maintain with any show of meaning that the mind is some sort of matter, or some sort of dependency on organisation. Whether it is this—whether it be any particular thing or particular dependency—is, as we have said, not the question. It is certain that it cannot be known as such. It can be known only as the universal part, in contradistinction to the particular part, of every cognition. It therefore can be conceived only as this: and every attempt to conceive it as some form of matter, or as some result of matter, must necessarily be a failure, and must terminate in no conception of it at all. A moderate degree of reflection may convince any one that he can, and does, entertain the conception of himself only as that which is the universal and identical part of all his conceptions and cognition; and that he cannot form any idea of himself except as this.
The spiritualist's error consists in his holding mind to be particular.12. The error of the spiritualist is of precisely the same character. He holds the ego, or mind, to be an immaterial substance. This also is wrong, as the immaterialist puts it; because he rests this statement on the assumption that the ego is a particular substance. At any rate, it is a mere expenditure of words to which no meaning can be attached. The spiritualist is a torment to mankind fully as much as the materialist, because, undertaking to teach us what the mind is, he leaves us totally in the dark as to what it is known as; and the consequence is, that he fails to teach us what it is, and merely palms off upon us certain crude fancies which enjoy the credit of being somewhat more reputable and orthodox than the tenets of his opponent. There can be no conception of the mind as a particular immaterial substance, any more than there can be a conception of it as a particular material substance; because, as has been shown, the only conception of it which is possible is the conception of it as the universal and unchangeable factor in all our cognitions,—whether these cognition contain, as their particular factor, phenomena which are material, or phenomena which are immaterial. If the word immaterial be used as a synonym for universal, it would be quite right to say that the ego was immaterial; but if it be used to designate anything particular, in that case the ego is certainly no more immaterial than it is material. But it is in the latter acceptation that the psychologist employs the term: and hence he is in error. I am not this table, or my own body, or any particular material thing that can be presented to me; but just as little am I any particular thought, or feeling, that may occur to me. When I think of the death of Julius Cæsar, I am not that immaterial thought. When I entertain the feeling of resentment, I am not the resentment which I entertain. I am not the anger or the pain which I experience, any more than I am the chair or the table which I perceive. Caliban, indeed, (in The Tempest), declares that he is "a cramp—an incarnate rheumatism; but this is a flight of speech—a hyperbole rather poetical than philosophical. Whether a particular material thing or a particular immaterial thought is before me, "I" am not the total cognition which I may be dealing with. I am simply known to myself as the universal part of that, and of all my other cognitions.
13. The error, then, of the materialist consists in the supposition that the mind or self is a particular The two errors summed up.material thing, or a particular development from material conditions. The error of the immaterialist consists in the supposition that the mind or self is a particular immaterial thing. Such statements are mere hypotheses—indeed, mere words, to which no conception is attached. The doom of both is settled by the remark, that the ego cannot be known as a particular thing at all, but only as the One Known in All Known.
Recapitulation of the institutional proof of immateriality.14. In conclusion, it is humbly submitted that this eighth proposition, and its demonstration, constitute the only proof by which the true immateriality of the mind can be rationally established. The necessity of Propositions VII. and VI., as supplying the only premises for such a conclusion, must also, it is conceived, be now apparent. These three propositions are the institutes to which every controversy about the materiality or immateriality of the mind must be referred for settlement. A conception of the mind as immaterial can only be attained by, first of all, conceiving it as that which is the universal part, as contradistinguished from all that is the particular part, of every cognition. Hence the necessity of Proposition VII., which fixes the ego as the universal part of all, and matter, in its various forms, as the particular part of some, cognitions. But to establish Proposition VII. it was necessary to show that there is a universal and a particular part in all cognition. Hence the necessity of Proposition VI., in which that truth is established. These data having been fixed, the conclusion can be logically drawn, as the following short recapitulation will show: First, Every cognition contains a universal part (the same in each), and also a particular part (different in each)—Proposition VI. Second, The ego is the universal part (the same in each); matter, in its various forms, is the particular part (different in each)—Proposition VII. Third, Therefore the ego, being the universal part, cannot be the particular part of cognition; and not being the particular part, it cannot be matter, because matter is the particular part. Therefore the ego or mind cannot be material, or rather cannot be known as such (Prop. VIII.); for it is only as a question of knowing that this subject is at present under consideration. If the word immateriality be understood, as it very well may, in the sense of universality, we may assert, with perfect truth and propriety, and as a known and proved fact, the immateriality of the mind, ego, or thinking principle. Taken with this explanation, the doctrine advocated in these Institutes coincides with the opinion of the spiritualists. But the instant any attempt is made to describe the mind, or oneself, as a particular immaterial substance, distinct from another particular kind of substance called matter, these Institutes part company with the psychology of immaterialism, and disclaim having anything in common with so unthinkable a scheme. Certain difficulties to which the institutional settlement of the question, and the institutional construction of the conception, of immateriality may seem to give rise, shall be explained away in the next article.