No philosophy will endure which does not freely allow to every reason, every fact, its full force. But this school is forever exaggerating the resemblances of psychical and physical phenomena, forever extenuating their differences. Ribot, for example, often speaks of the “mechanism of association,” and even attempts to apply to it the physical distinction of potential and kinetic energy. But looking at the matter without prepossession, or with that of a student of mechanics, the analogy between the process of association and any mechanical motion does not appear to be very close. Both are operations governed by law, it is true. But the law of mechanics is absolute, prescribing (after two positions are given) the precise point of space where each particle shall be at each instant of time; while the force of association is essentially a gentle one (two ideas that have occurred together having a gentle tendency to suggest one another), and if it were made absolute, ideas would at once be rigidly bound together, and the whole phenomena of learning, or generalization, which is the essence of association, would be put to death.
Again, alike in the physical and the psychical world, we find trains of causation. In the latter, it is the past alone which directly and involuntarily influences the present by association; the future we only divine; and all our efforts are to make our present actions conform to our idea of that future. In the physical world, on the contrary, regard being had to the law of the conservation of energy, which denies any primordial force dependent on velocity, the past and the future are in relations to the present precisely similar to one another—a fact which appears from the circumstance that, in the equations of motion, the sign of the flow of time may be reversed, provided the signs of the velocities are reversed, the forces being unchanged, and still the formulae will remain intact. We will not say that these distinctions between mental and mechanical actions are facts large enough to blot out their slight resemblances, for these latter should neither be overlooked nor disregarded; but the distinctions will certainly be prominent in a well-proportioned view of the subjects. Undoubtedly, there are physical phenomena in which gentle forces seem to act, and others which seem to violate the principle of energy; but these appearances are due to a principle different from a law of motion, namely, to the action of probability. The type of such phenomena is the viscosity of a gas; and the regularity of this, closely approximate but not strictly exact, is due to the countless trillions of molecules which are flying about in all directions with almost every rate of speed. That there is analogy between spreading of motion through a gas by viscosity and association of ideas need not be denied.
In regard to the doctrine that volition consists in, or is an aspect of, muscular contraction or inhibition, it is to be considered that considerable time elapses during the passage of the motor impulse down the nerve. During this interval we seem to be aware of a striving, like that of nightmare. At any rate, something has taken place in which the muscle had no part. The muscle might even be amputated before the impulse reached it. But if a motor impulse can thus be communicated to a nerve fibre to be transmitted over it, how can we be sure that this latter may not abut against a nerve cell instead of against a muscle cell?
Ribot’s terminology sometimes seems open to criticism. Of the two forms of attention, that which is governed by the course of outward perceptions and that which is controlled from within by definite purposes, he terms the former spontaneous, the latter voluntary. Now, suppose a man in a sudden fit of anger blackguards another, can it be said that his speech was involuntary simply because it was not controlled? And if he wished to excuse himself on the ground of sudden provocation, would he say that his language was purely spontaneous? It would seem better to call every action which is subject to inward control voluntary, whether actually controlled or not, and to apply the term spontaneous only to those acts which are not reflexes from external stimuli.
The translation is sufficiently good, and the Open Court is doing useful work in publishing such books.
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Six Lectures of Hints toward a Theory of the Universe
| Spring 1890 | Houghton Library |
Lecture I. Right reasoning in philosophy is only possible if grounded on a sound theory of logic.
Fruitful thinking and experimentation are only two branches of one process. They are essentially one. Thinking is experimentation; its results as startling, as inexplicable. Experimentation is thinking.
The law of the development of fruitful conceptions, made out from the history of science. A genuine development.
The nature of assurance. Induction & Hypothesis.
Lecture II. The ideas of philosophy must be drawn from logic, as Kant draws his categories. For so far as anything intelligible and reasonable can be found in the universe, so far the process of nature and the process of thought are at one.
What are the fundamental conceptions of logic? First, Second, Third. Explanation and illustrations.
Chance, Law, and Continuity must be the great elements in the explanation of the universe.
Lecture III. Critical survey of mental development in the last three centuries, and the ideas of today.
The social situation. Its philosophical suggestions.
The present conception of mathematics. The axioms exploded. Consequences for philosophy.
The present state of molecular physics. Unpromising forecast. Our only hope is in a natural history of laws and forces.
Modern psychology. Its lessons for philosophy.
Lecture IV. The mathematical infinite and absolute. Their relations to philosophy.
Mathematical “imaginaries.” Cauchy’s view.
Infinity; Cantor’s views partly accepted, partly rejected.
Modern geometry; elementary explanation.
Non-Euclidean geometry and the absolute.
Theory of the absolute by Klein.
Application of these ideas to philosophy; Epicureanism, Pessimism, Evolutionism.
Lecture V. Cartesian dualism, examined & rejected. Three systems remain: Materialism, monism, idealism. The absurdity of materialism. Monism consistently carried out would reduce itself to absurdity; but practically it is but a modification of materialism. Idealism, reasonable. Matter is effete mind.
The controversy concerning Darwinian and Lamarckian evolution. Abstract statement of Darwinianism, so as to show its applicability wherever there is evolution of any kind. Abstract statement of Lamarckianism; its harmony with idealism. Is any third mode of evolution conceivable?
Lecture VI. The ideal beginning of things. The law of assimilation, and the breaking up of law.
The development of time.
The development of space, energy, inertia, etc.
Gravitation and molecular force.
The chemical elements.
Protoplasm.
The development of Consciousness, individual, social, macrocosmic.
The ideal end of things.