CHAPTER IV.

We reach now the first of Chauncey’s letters to the sisters of Mr. Norton. These continue down to the end of his life, and it is in them that we shall find, after a little time, a large expression of his character and his wisdom. In the family of Mr. Norton, he had found culture, repose, and a degree of sympathy and of just and catholic appreciation which entirely won him. He grew very intimate with them all, and not only visited them at Ashfield, but at Cambridge also was on terms of very familiar friendship; so that at times, towards the end of his life, hardly a day passed without his being at their house. How great a service this was to him will appear farther on. He cherished for them all and to the end an affection which warmed his nature into beautiful expression, while it did not disturb, but rather deepened, that intellectual repose which was always characteristic of him, and which continued to give an increasing charm to his correspondence.

To Miss Grace Norton.

[1866 or 1867.]

... I beg you will not believe that I understood your objection to being called a “positivist” as an expression of serious dissent from the doctrine, and, indeed, I was but half in earnest in propounding the question; for I should myself be averse to accepting the name, except in the spirit in which many other appellations have been received by thinkers from their opponents, — as reproaches willingly borne for the sake of truth, or else humorously assumed as really harmless.

Besides, “positivism” is not a catechizing faith, and allows large latitude for beliefs, so far as they are professed as personal convictions, and are not imposed on all minds alike, on the penalty of forfeiting respect for intelligence or character.

Such a penalty properly applies only where the evidence is common to all minds, or where all admit the same fundamental facts of experience, as in physical science and in the elements of moral science. All observers not laboring under hallucinations of the senses are agreed, or can be made to agree, about facts of sensible experience, through evidence toward which the intellect is merely passive, and over which the individual will and character have no control. Such evidence is not the only kind which produces belief; though positivism maintains that it is the only kind which ought to produce so high a degree of confidence as all minds have or can be made to have through their agreements. And positivism maintains (to give the obverse of your formula) that, if the existence and character of God are to any mind not proved, they cannot be proved. If one cannot help believing it, then one has arrived, through other evidence than what can compel all minds, to a state of belief, perhaps fortunate, which is dependent on individual characters and experiences rather than on universal experience. Every mind has many similar beliefs, on many subjects beside theology, and holds them with various degrees of confidence. All that positivism demands in regard to theological beliefs is that they be put, intellectually and morally, on the same footing with others of this class; that the education, the experiences, and the type of character which produce such beliefs, shall not be regarded as intellectually and morally superior to those which fail to produce them. In other words, positivism holds that the intellect and the moral character, which ought to be the measures of each individual’s proficiency, rest in the concurrent, unquestioned experiences in nature and in human life of all minds and hearts;

for this is the widest experience. . . . Considerations which practically amount to proof — that is, actually do “determine the intellect to give or withhold assent”— are not regarded by positivism as on this account of equal weight with those by which unquestionable beliefs ought to be determined. But positivism does not demand that we should question to the extent of ejecting from the mind all questionable beliefs; for this would be to accept the equally questionable contradictory beliefs. It only prescribes that we shall try continually to test and correct our beliefs by the particulars of concrete experiences of a kind common to all, when this is possible; and, when it is not possible, that we shall hold our beliefs in a spirit which recognizes the absence of the most perfect proof, however great the interests or the hopes may be which our faith sustains.

Diversities of mind and character, resulting in differences of practical belief or faith, are not to be altogether deplored, but rather welcomed as parts of the riches of human life, provided they be subject to principles, which, whether we call them liberal or positive, are, I am sure, both yours and mine.

To Mr. Norton.

[Feb. 18, 1867.]

Being this morning inspired with certain reflections, which were suggested by our talk on your paper about religion, I have written out a “brief” of them; and as I am impatient to submit it to you, and cannot come this evening, as I should prefer, I enclose it in this note.

Religion (subjective) means a man’s devotion — the complete assent and concentration of his will — to any object which he acknowledges to have a right to his entire service, and supreme control over his life. Religion (objective) means the object or objects whose claims to this supremacy are

acknowledged. An irreligious man is, then, first, one who acknowledges no supreme ends or objects; or, secondly, one who, though he acknowledges, does not habitually submit his will to such a power.

Morality, as contradistinguished from religion, is, subjectively, the habit of observing certain rules of conduct, deemed worthy or conducive to generally desirable ends, whether with or without an acknowledgment of the supremacy of these rules as injunctions, or the supremacy of the ends which they are believed to subserve. Morality (objective), as contradistinguished from supreme ends, means the rules of conduct deemed worthy or subservient to any generally desirable ends, whether these are acknowledged as supreme or not. An immoral man is, then, one who does not observe habitually and consistently any principles of conduct: either, first, from infirmity of purpose or want of discipline; or, secondly, from pure selfishness or a disregard of generally desirable ends.

Religion and morality are both realized in the practical nature of man, in character, in the fashioning of his volitions and desires. Both are concerned with “duty” in the broadest sense of that word; and religious and moral duties are often indistinguishable. But religious duties, or acts which are believed to be religious duties, come to be distinguished from others by the predominance of two marks: first, their absolute or unconditional character; second, their inutility, or the immediacy of the relation of act to object or end.

Besides such immediate and unconditional or religious duties, civilization creates a host of others, and many other motives to their observance. Partial, relative, conditional duties, with which morality in the narrower sense of the word, or casuistry, has to deal, may be enforced by meaner motives than the acknowledgment of unconditional obligations as the grounds of all right conduct. Hence, the possibility of an irreligious morality.

The above discriminations are independent of any theory, utilitarian or other, of the source of moral and religious convictions and truths, and are designed to show that religion and morality are definable and distinguishable independently of creeds and codes. This is the same as Mill’s position.

To the Same.

Cambridge, June 13, 1867.

My visit to Northampton was only a short one, and was mainly filled with business. But I found it very pleasant, — almost as pleasant as living in Cambridge at this season. The town itself was even more beautiful. Cambridge has, however, the supreme advantage to me of having one spot in it where I can attain, at will, the greatest beatitude, — that of complete abstraction from the external world, even in a day in June. My room has become so familiar to me, that my knowledge of it has ripened into oblivion. I live here a disembodied spirit, undisturbed by the distractions of any thing foreign to me.

... It would have been very pleasant to have made my journey a vacation, and to have included in it a visit to you; but the “sweet nothing to do” is a luxury for which I fear I shall never have the means, since I spend my time here as unskilfully, and with as little forethought, as the New York capitalists do their money. I have not yet “learned the fine art of spending” time.

To Miss Jane Norton.

Cambridge, July 4, 1867.

. . . The only effort I have made lately, of much account, is a long reply to Rev. F. E. Abbot’s letter, in which I have rather plainly spoken my mind on the practical bearings of our debate. I have not yet summoned the courage to copy it for

him. Perhaps when I do, I may send it first to you. I scribble (perhaps I ought to tell you) my more deliberate thoughts in pencil on scraps of paper; for I cannot think deliberately in ink. It is too much like the captious office of the recording angel, making indelible the spontaneities of the moment, rather than the sincere principles of a lifetime.

To Mr. Abbot.

Cambridge, July 9, 1867.

. . . The long intervals in our debate add to it a certain dignity, let us believe. The discussion is one which reaches across the centuries, and rises above the conditions of time, space, and circumstance, by at least having these for its objects.

I was much interested to learn from you, also, that your views have undergone considerable modifications in the form of concessions to empiricism. My interest in the questions between us has always been much less practical than yours. It has been almost entirely speculative, because I have always believed that the really essential positions of morals and religion could be sustained on the “lower” ground of common-sense, — on what men generally understand and believe independently of their philosophical theories; and I have always felt that philosophy was concerned with matters of theoretical interpretation rather than with practical matters of fact. Indeed, the history of philosophy hardly ever exhibits any divergence in opinion as to simple questions of practice, as to what should be done next in any given state of social circumstances, — though it is one of the weapons of the orthodox to deduce the direst practical consequences from their opponents’ theories. It is upon the causes of the admitted state of facts, or upon the grounds of the allowed desirable changes in them, that thinkers differ practically. The

distinction between “conservative” and “progressive” in practical matters, has hardly ever been coincident with fundamental differences in philosophical opinions; and in proportion as men become absorbed in practical questions do the old party lines of philosophical thought disappear. Witness the entirely distinct personalities which Mr. Mill presents as a speculative thinker and as a practical statesman. Few who have come to know and respect him in his later public capacity know or care about his theory of cognition.

I accordingly regard the duty of liberality in speculative matters as a disagreeable and compulsory one, only towards those thinkers, of whatever school, who maintain that their theories involve exclusively the welfare of mankind, — who accuse their opponents of denying some admitted and obvious facts in practical matters. Any one whom we are bound to respect is bound to know such facts, and to know how to act accordingly. If he does not, we put him in an asylum, —out of respect for the humanity which he has, nevertheless. Men conclude in matters affecting their own welfare so much better than they can justify rationally, — they are led by their instincts of reverence so surely to the safest known authority, that theory becomes in such matters an insignificant affair. How weak theory is in general, can be judged by the slow progress men have made in knowledge foreign to their immediate wants, — in scientific knowledge. And the explanations which they have hitherto given of their beliefs in practical rules of conduct afford the best possible evidence of the practical weakness of theory even in the most important matters. To stake any serious human concern on the truth of this or that philosophical theory seems to me, therefore, in the highest degree arrogant and absurd, as coming from a confused begging of some philosophical question, — from taking for granted that something is important practically which is in theory problematical; from taking for granted, for example, that our duties would

be different, or be more or less binding on us according as our faith in a future life should be well or ill founded.

My interest in philosophical and disputed matters is, therefore, almost entirely speculative. It is not quite so, because clear, scientific knowledge has important practical consequences. The truths of astronomy and chemistry, for example, have conferred great and unforeseen benefits, and so may the truths of philosophy when fully ascertained; but, so long as there is room for dispute and enlightened doubt, there are no practical applications which can rightly prejudge theory, though it is common enough in philosophical disputes to make an illogical reductio ad injuriam of an opponent’s views. When errors are really exploded, as in the case of the false religious philosophy of the “inquisition,” we see clearly what enormous practical consequences are involved in philosophical theories. And it is an interesting question, how much injury may be done by the influence of false views of philosophy, in the aims and methods of education now-a-days,—whether many poor bodies are not tortured to their deaths by a tax put upon them through an over-stimulation of the mind and conscience, by a tax which is philosophically credited to the supposed inexhaustible powers and undying nature of the soul. But to accuse a creed of such consequences, until scientifically proved, would be to commit the error in speculation which above all others I reprobate.

Your movement toward empiricism interests me the more, because I suspect that no genuine thinker can remain long in the position of an eclectic, such as M. Cousin held so many years. Eclectic systems have rarely outlived the vanity of their authors, who would be priests and philosophers at the same time. If, then, your conscience does not deceive you with illusive evidence, I am almost confident that you will come out in what you call “empiricism,” — in what Mill calls the experiential philosophy, or what Comte called positivism.

This philosophy denies nothing of orthodoxy except its confidence; but it discriminates between the desirableness of a belief and the evidence thereof. Faith is in this philosophy what it was with St. Paul, a sentiment, not a faculty of knowledge. A man who has invested all his goods in a mine believes the more readily in its hidden wealth, and is not so likely to suspend his judgment on the question, as he would be on the question of the habitableness of the planet Saturn. He will, nevertheless, if he remain of sane mind, admit that the judgment of an unprejudiced geologist, who can so suspend his judgment, is better than his own, and that the geologist’s report is a better guide than his own hope. So it is with the positivist. So far are his positions from leading to heterodox conclusions in religion, as they are constantly accused of doing, that it is only by a hitherto unrecognized formula of logic that they can possibly be conceived to do so; namely, “that sublating the reason sublates the consequence, and posits its contradictory,”— that to reject the authority of revelation and the validity of the arguments of natural theology is to prove atheism! A positivist in the pulpit would thus be no anomaly. He would only be a preacher who knows how much better the dignity of the highest moral character is than any excellence in a life common with that of the beasts, — whether it endure longer or not; who knows that duty is as real and as binding on all men, in subserving the real ends, which God is supposed to care for especially, as it would be if the evidence of God’s existence were a hundred-fold more cogent, and duty were really known to be his commandment.

But I have run a great way off the track in following the reflections which your apostasy from the orthodox philosophy has suggested. I meant, in writing to you, only to acknowledge your letter, and to resume, then, the thread of our debate.

You infer from my exposition of the empiricist’s doctrine of

space and time that I “deny them all independent objective existence.” I would modify a little this deduction. I regard them as objects, — phenomenal objects, — and not merely as forms of sensibility. As to their “independent objective” (if you mean by this, noumenal) existence, I can deny or affirm nothing,—only that space and time, as we know them, and, consequently, as they are, to us, are relations among phenomena; and, as we know, they depend, or “are conditioned on the existence of phenomena themselves.” Your conclusion, that “could we conceive the annihilation of phenomena, the relations subsisting between them would also be annihilated,” is, therefore, in substance, correctly deduced, though it should be more explicitly stated that the phenomena and the relations here spoken of are also “conditioned on the existence” of a knowing mind; and that the annihilation supposed is the annihilation of thought as well as of its object. What would remain we know nothing about. Things in themselves and their relations to one another, whether real or not, are not real to us, — are not objects of our knowledge; though, if they exist, they may be the causes of our knowledge.

I assent also to your inference that, in my opinion, “relations are objective realities;” but I would not be understood as allowing by this that I regard them as noumenal realities. Whether the latter exist, and whatever they may be, the relations of which we are treating are relations of objects, which are only known as objects to us, and as conditioned on our cognizance of them. I believe that the relations between such objects belong to them, — are objective, — and are not moulds or forms in us into which objects fit.

When I spoke of the relations of time and space as “intuitions of sense,” I ought, perhaps, to have explained that I did not hold the abstract cognizance of them as possible in sensuous, or, indeed, in any other intuition. Such cognizance implies, it seems to me, the abstractive action of the attention

in understanding, — not any intuitive power at all. More correctly, I should have said that the grounds of relations (fundamenta relationum) are intuitions of sense; the relations themselves, as distinct from their concrete terms, being cognizable, not intuitively, but only by abstraction, and being representable only by the reproduction of such and so many sensuous data as are implied in them. The cognizance of relations is, indeed, an abstractive grouping of phenomena. The twoness of two hats (to take your example) is as much in the hats as their color, texture, or form; but the cognizance of it in the abstract is not an intuitive process at all. It adds no content to the concrete cognizance of the group. It subtracts rather the texture, form, use, and all other attributes of the manifold object, — leaving to our attention only difference in space and a species of plurality, which, by similar acts, we have generalized under the name of “two.” I, “who admit the objectivity of relations, and hold them to be immediately known [in the concrete], can deny that here is logically necessitated a higher intuitive faculty than sense,” because to me intuition signifies a concrete addition to the content of our cognitions. I admit that space, time, and number are peculiar, — unlike most other apparently simple notions which we generalize from the manifold of sensuous intuitions. They are not referable to simple and unanalyzable sensations, such as give us the color and texture of the hats; nor are they analyzable into a plurality of simpler relations, such as is implied in the use of the hats. They resemble the latter notion in being distinctly cognizable only by abstraction. They resemble sensations in being apparently simple. It may be admitted, until an analysis has been proposed, that number, and perhaps also time, are simple, unanalyzable properties of things in general as objects of knowledge. That they appear only in acts of abstraction and understanding does not prove, however, that they are intuitions of a supersensuous faculty, unless it can be shown that the understanding adds as well as subtracts in its discursions.

With space, the case is different. Our apprehension of it may in one way be analyzed. Introspective analysis cannot, it is true, resolve it into simpler elements; but we can easily conceive of it as an idea of sensation (as Locke called it), as consisting of an unanalyzable group of sensations cemented by insoluble associations. On this hypothesis, the universality of space in our cognitions comes from its invariable association with other and really simpler sensations, and its simplicity comes from the limit in our powers of introspective analysis.

It appears to me that Kant’s division of our knowledges into the data of experience and the conditions of experience (the one being the intuitions of sense, and the other being the forms of sensibility and understanding) came from a mistaken deference to the philosophical prejudice that that must belong intrinsically to the mind which we cannot by abstraction extrude from thought. It doubtless does belong to the reflective and developed mind, and belongs to it as contrasted with further acquisition, or as contrasted with additional experience; but this does not prove or imply that the forms of sense and thought were not determined by experience in the first instance, or were not then, as ever afterwards, as much the data of experience as what is called “contingent knowledge.” I cannot therefore subscribe to Kant’s distinction of the “conditions” and the “data” of experience as fundamental ones; nor can I admit that there is any better ground for your distinction in similar terms. By intuition, I understand, not what we cannot analyze into simpler elements by introspection, but, generally, what cannot be supposed to be composed of simpler elements even in the infancy of the mind. Mr. Mill’s psychological method is supplementary to the introspective method of the thinkers of your school; and, until

its resources are exhausted, I cannot believe that the questions of philosophy are definitively settled.

To Mr. Norton.

Cambridge, July 24, 1867.

... I have been on the point, on several occasions, of writing to you, but my unconquerable indolence has prevailed, along with the claims of various duties (which I have not done), — enemies which I propitiate, after a barbarous fashion, by sacrificing to them all my nearest relations, with the exception of my ease. I have unintentionally taken a long and uneventful vacation, parleying with the thief of time, and giving myself up to ponderous amusements, such as reading the last “North American Review,” and writing fragmentary essays and criticisms. Do not expect me ever to finish any of them for the Review, for they are only notes of thoughts which seemed to me at the moment better cut and dried for future reference than allowed to resolve themselves into the humus of a fertile oblivion,—for fear that weeds might come up instead of better ones. Among my more serious diversions is the study of ----’s metaphysics in the Review. I can only take small quantities at a time, both on account of the density of the matter and the pungency of the style. I have read your general views on translation with great interest. . . .

I have had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Abbot, my metaphysical antagonist, personally, and debating in a pleasant conversation the various points of our controversy. I find him as able in talk as in his writings. I also met Mr. White of the Cornell College last week, and hope to meet him again before he leaves these parts, for I had but a few words with him after the dinner on Thursday.

Gurney and Lowell go to-morrow to Manomet, near Plymouth, for a few days by the seashore.

To Mr. Abbot.

Cambridge, Aug. 13, 1867.

Thank you for “the Radical’s Theology,” which I have read with great interest. I think it all excellent in style; and the first part (up to the “Grand Postulate”) admirable, compared with most that is written on the theme of religious freedom. On the “Grand Postulate” I am aground, and cannot go on with you.

Geometry is, I suppose, responsible for the idea that science in general must have some postulate to start with; since from the earliest times geometry has presented a misleading type to philosophy. A completed science, thrown into a synthetic form, has of course its postulates, taking for granted that certain things can be done, the demonstration of which would lie outside of the synthesis, or form no part of its organic structure. A postulate proper is a practical axiom determined by the end in view; and so far as science in general has any other end in view than simply to know every thing it can learn, it may have postulates, which are not, however, undemonstrable truths, though they are in general undemonstrable deductively. The law of causation may be looked upon as a postulate in science generally, since our search, as soon as it becomes systematic, implies the general fact that the explanations we seek are possible, — that some law or laws; after the general type we have ascertained already, exist among the unexplained phenomena, and give a unity to the universe of knowable things corresponding to the unity of knowledge sought in science. And so of the postulate or canon of induction, that a generalization is good and is to be accepted as a universal truth, provided there are no contrary instances, and that no other generalization can limit, condition, or qualify the first or show how it may not be universal.

But by what right are such postulates used in scientific reasoning?

Is it by their own a priori validity? They certainly cannot be proved deductively, since they are the broadest of generalizations, — but why not proved inductively? Are they not, in fact, simple statements of the summary results of all our experiences in the past, and the practical axioms of our expectations in the future? Are they other than truths coextensive with our universe at least, and with our conceptions and anticipations. The answer to this is, of course, that a limited experience cannot prove an unlimited proposition. But there are two issues to this objection, and the one commonly overlooked is, that propositions which, in form, are unconditioned and universal, still ought not in fact to be believed beyond their application to the known universe; nor yet to be disbelieved or doubted; because about what we really know nothing we ought not to affirm or deny any thing.

The position that an axiom cannot be proved, which the a priori school maintains, seems to me preposterous, — or else a mere quibble; for, to be sure, it might be said in defence of the doctrine, that an axiom, being avowedly a starting-point in deductive science, has implied in its very name that it cannot be proved. But all that is really implied in the name is that truths when called axioms are used for the deductive proof of other truths, and that their own proof is not involved in the process. This does not deny, however, that they may be, as truths, the conclusions of other processes; to wit, the inductions of experience. If they are, then the only ultimate truths are the particulars of concrete experience, and no postulate or general assumption is inherent in science until its proceedings become systematic, or the truths already reached give direction to further research.

But, waiving the “postulate,” you say that the principal question of Theology is this, “Is the mysterious Power which fills the universe a conscious spirit or an unconscious force? Is it Love or Fate that holds the throne of Being?”

And, again, “The question is simply between consciousness and unconsciousness, — which is the higher mode of being?” To my mind these questions are analyzable into still more fundamental ones. What is meant by “higher mode of being”? Higher relatively to what? If it means “best calculated to move and interest conscious beings,” then the conscious mode of being is undoubtedly the highest, but not necessarily the first in time. That conscious modes of being are at least a part, and the most interesting, morally and religiously, of the manifestations of “the mysterious Power which fills the universe,” there can be no doubt. Mind is at least manifested in man, the animals, and perhaps in some degree in all organic beings, and these belong to the universe. But when you ask whether this “mysterious Power” be itself a conscious spirit or an unconscious force, the alternative you present, if insisted on, would resolve the mystery, whichever branch you might take. Or perhaps you call this Power mysterious simply because we do not know which alternative to take? Is it resolvable into either the mystery of consciousness or the mystery of force?

But there is no such opposition between consciousness and force, between Love and Hate, as you appear — in common with nearly the whole religious world — to assert. This phraseology is probably descended from the barbarous doctrines of the earlier Christian centuries, the old dualism of the Manicheists. The supposed opposition is involved in the doctrine of free will, which finds, of course, a fundamental contrariety between the freedom of consciousness and the necessity of force, but the free-will doctrine is in fact a pure assumption, which ignores all just scientific method, and even contradicts some of the results of science. This “mysterious Power” manifests force, law, fate, if you will, — everywhere, in mental and spiritual, as well as in the merely physical phenomena of nature; and it manifests consciousness, in

varying degrees, throughout the whole organic world, reaching its highest manifestations in man. But man, however conscious, is none the less a part of fate, — though not compelled by an external fate to act by laws which are not his, or by determinations which are not in himself. No real fate or necessity is indeed manifested anywhere in the universe, — only a phenomenal regularity.

Such, it seems to me, is the scientific answer to so much of your question as submits itself to scientific comprehension. In another form, the question of the hidden nature of “the Power of the universe” may be more fairly brought before the tribunal of science. Does the production in nature of the phenomena of consciousness, and the various instrumentalities by which consciousness is developed, — such as organs of sense, the human eye, for example, — does this imply the existence of an independent and superior consciousness, which, being able to see without eyes, could provide vision for his creatures? That “the mysterious Power of the universe” actually manifests vision in the eyes of men and animals, there can be no doubt; but the question is whether, prior to the existence of living creatures and the laws of their growth, some other form of consciousness was not required for the “contrivance” of the organs and vital conditions of consciousness?

Not from any truths of creation which science has yet reached can she answer this question. What, indeed, do we know about the creation of organic beings, except perhaps that they began to exist on the earth within a limited time, and that various races have succeeded one another? So long as men compared, after a childish imagination, creation to the making of any thing in the operation of various human handicrafts, so long there could be no doubt or mystery about this question. The Maker of the eye must, of course, be able to see. So long as vision, so important to man, was regarded as

a divine power, and so long as he allowed his reason to be governed by such empty maxims as “that the greater cannot be produced by the less” (whatever this may mean), so long the problem admitted of an easy solution. “The Creator must have powers equal at least to those he creates.” Yes, certainly; but what is here meant by “equal,” “less,” or “greater”? A man with sight has a supreme advantage over the blind man, from a human point of view, and with reference to various human needs and enjoyments; but is God superior to a man in this merely, — that he has superior powers to compass his various ends? To ascribe to creation the possession of various powers as means to ends is to put an anthropological interpretation upon it, — is to describe creation as a manufacture. To escape such a crude imagination, the consciousness that is ascribed to “the mysterious Power of the universe,” by those who really recognize it as mysterious, is supposed to be only the essence of consciousness, an “abstract entity,” the metaphysical consciousness ; not the powers of the five senses, with memory, imagination, reasoning, which are only powers relative to weakness and limitation, but something common to them all, and transcending them all, which in fact gives being to mental powers in men and animals.

That “the mysterious Power of the universe” really does manifest mental and spiritual powers at least in men and animals, is a fact which science fully recognizes; and that these powers are by far the most interesting, to the moral and religious nature of man, of all the phenomena of nature, is the fact with which religion is chiefly concerned.

I have tried in the above to sketch briefly the method in which true science should approach these questions, avoiding as far as possible the terms which have attached to them good and bad meanings, in place of scientific distinctness, — terms which have a moral connotation as well as a scientific one.

Such terms and arguments are constantly employed in questions like these, — “which is the worthier, which the ‘higher’ of two conceptions,” or “which is the more elevating, the less degrading belief?” This is really to argue as much on “the principle of authority,” as the Romanist, the Protestant, or the Unitarian; for the Church, the Bible, and the Christ have fashioned human language, — have tied meanings and feelings together in words, which science has the right to separate. All older authorities are represented in the authority still exerted over human reverence through the moral associations of words. You say that science has rejected the “principle of Authority.” In fact, true science never knew it, — wholly ignores, instead of rejecting this principle.

Those thinkers whose beliefs are mainly determined by the moral tone of their times and by as much of pure science as they can attain to, — still adhering in their questions and definitions to the use of good and bad words,—reject the older authorities, indeed, in the concrete, but do not reject the principle of authority absolutely. They substitute for the dogmas of the Church, and the sacred Scriptures, and the teachings of Christ, the teachings of good and bad words, which retain the unction of all effective past authority. Words have “reputations” as well as other authorities, and there is a tyranny in their reputations even more fatal to freedom of thought. True science deals with nothing but questions of facts, — and in terms, if possible, which shall not determine beforehand how we ought to feel about the facts; for this is one of the most certain and fatal means of corrupting evidence. If the facts are determined, and, as far as may be, free from moral biases, then practical science comes in to determine what, in view of the facts, our feelings and rules of conduct ought to be; but practical science has no inherent postulates any more than speculative science. Its ultimate grounds are the particular goods or ends of human life.

To Mr. Norton.

Cambridge, Aug. 18, 1867.

. . . Since our talk last summer on what religion is, and the subsequent development of our ideas on this subject, I have meditated more and more, impelled by a dissatisfaction with the state in which we left the distinction between moral and religious duties. The idea that the one consists of the obligations of the highest expediency, while the other is concerned with absolute obligations, has come to seem quite trivial, and inadequate to distinguish the objects of feelings so different as our religious and moral sentiments. But I think that the true distinction is discoverable in the classification of duties which Mill adopts from the Catholic casuists.

The Calvinist, regarding this life and the next as all one and part of a grand moral scheme, in which obligations, duties, rights, and sanctions are completely balanced and mutually fitted to each other, conceives three different classes of virtues as essentially one, — as all on the type of legal duties, that is, of duties of “perfect obligation,” with corresponding rights either in human beings or in the Divine Being. This identification of religious and all other obligations with legality is the characteristic of the extreme Protestant or Calvinistic creed. But such an identification confounds these distinct elements: namely, 1. The truly legal duties, which have corresponding rights in other human beings and real sanctions in the punitive powers of the State, — such as duties of refraining from various forms of violence, for example; or paying one’s debts, and keeping other legally sanctioned contracts; 2. The positively moral duties, which are without legal sanctions, and are not enforced except by depriving the delinquent of voluntarily, or freely rendered benefits, and by the consequent evils of such deprivation; 3. Those duties which are above the sanctions of fear or favor, and have their rewards and their sanctions

either in another life or in themselves, — or in the evils of the absence of the requisite motive to them.

These last seem to me to be the strictly religious duties, as distinguished from legal and merely moral ones. Over and above what society requires and enforces by its power, and beyond what individual consciences demand of others and obtain by the power of opinion, or by moral means, there are other duties, in the modern religious sense of the word, which the individual conscience recognizes, and to which the individual conscience is constrained by sanctions either wholly self-subsisting, or sustained by a superstitious faith in another life. From doing a religious duty there are no visible benefits to the agent, and from neglecting to do it no visible evils, evident to any but himself. If his imagination of a future reward or punishment determines this invisible restraint, his religion is superstitious. But if immediate happiness in doing his duty, or misery in not doing it, is the ultimate sanction, then his religion is real, or a part of his character.

The earliest recognition of this idea, the intrinsic happiness of duty, is the Socratic doctrine, — that to suffer injustice is better than to do it. The later Stoic doctrine, that virtue is its own reward, is an affirmation of the same essential principle. This is the religious idea of duty, as distinguished from those acts whose sanctions are external, either in the legal exercise of power or in the free exercise of opinion and favor. Neither force nor favor, neither negative nor positive external sanctions, are the adequate grounds of action to the truly religious soul. Whether the doctrine of a future life (rewarding by external benefits and punishing by external evils) is true or not, the true idea of religious duty is independent of it. This idea rests wholly on the value of the act, per se, to the agent, — on the happiness it gives him, or the misery he suffers from omitting to do it.

This, according to Mr. Grote, was a novel idea in the

time of Socrates. Up to that time, the pagan world had no feeling of duty other than to deserve exemption from punishment or else the favor of other men or of the gods. The invisible restraints and sanctions of superstitious beliefs were the only ones which deserved the name of religious motives. The most enviable man — the happiest man — was he who possessed the most power to secure the visible goods of life, without fear or favor. In our time, the religious idea of duty has grown so prominent, through the influence of Christianity, that the novelty of it to the childish mind of the Greeks can hardly be realized.

With this change in the moral feelings of the world, the distribution of duties into the three classes has also changed, and is progressively changing as the world moves on. Moral duties become legal ones, or are peremptorily required by law. Religious duties become moral ones, or are demanded of us by the consciences of other men; and with intellectual progress (which is the fundamental one), duties of which men were ignorant become known, and the extent of what good we can do (ideally meritorious, without being either morally or legally binding on us) is constantly growing.

But nothing is properly called a duty which has not some sanction; that is, some real motive, in fact, to do it; and it is by their actual sanctions that duties are distributed into the three classes. Religious duties are not a merely negative class, a class without sanctions, or real motives to do them. The peculiarity of this class is that their sanctions, not being external or independent of the religious character, cannot directly produce this character. Men may take on trust the fact of the superior happiness of a supremely virtuous life over a merely moral one, or may be persuaded by external and non-religious motives, such as a superstitious respect for superior authority, or a belief in future rewards and punishments; but the true religious sanction is the real superiority

of disinterested rational actions as a source of happiness to the agent himself. His actions cannot be disinterested in the absolute sense of the term, — cannot be independent of the happiness of the agent in the widest sense of happiness. He may observe his religious duties, because he is happier in following the authority he respects or in the anticipations of a future happiness, than in following the momentary impulses of his lower nature; but his conduct is strictly religious only when determined by the immediate, peculiar, and supreme happiness, which the acting for universal ends, without fear or favor, causes in the mature religious character. This is the sanction which determines, not, indeed, what really are religious duties, but which of our actions are done in the truly religious spirit.

The whole question of what are our duties in general is dependent on wholly different considerations from those which determine the classification of them under legal, moral, and religious duties. The question is fundamentally a scientific one (the question of Deontology), of what ought to be done, whatever the sanctions may be by which a principle or rule of conduct is enforced. The classification of duties according to their sanctions is not scientific and permanent, but historic and subject to change with the moral and intellectual advance of the race. The science of duty decides what ought to be done, on principles which may or may not be effectively appealed to as the motives to right conduct. But the distinction we are considering is properly one of real sanctions, — the distinction of duties according to such sanctions. From the scientific point of view, there is but one fundamental sanction, to wit, the test of all right conduct (for the test of conduct is fundamentally the warrant of it), namely, the “highest good.” To act from this sanction, from the love of the “highest good,” is to act religiously, disinterestedly, and “on principle.”

The unity which the Calvinist sought by reducing all virtue

to the legal type is an end really to be sought in the philosophic type of utilitarian morality; for this is the only truly philosophic scheme, the only one which does not base itself arbitrarily on opinion, — on the shifting, historic ground of the so-called “moral sense.” There is no other test of what duty is in general, and no higher or more religious motive to it, than that it conduces to the highest good of the greatest number.

I have yielded one point to you by using the words “religion” and “religious” in their unhistoric, though not conventional, sense, against my last summer’s protest. I felt then a prejudice against these words, as falsely uniting the noblest feelings with the meanest ideas; as being of those good words through which one of the subtlest forms of tyranny is exercised over freedom of thought.

The practical lesson of this sermon is that there are many actions which, though they may be recognized as obligatory by the conscience of the one who does them, ought not to be imposed as such on any one by any other human being. But, so far as such actions are really beneficent, and are recognized as such by others, they should be classed as positively meritorious, as works of supererogation. We should not seek to make them obligatory simply on the ground of their positive worth. For, by this reasoning, the more worthy an act is, the more obligatory the act would be, and saintliness would be imperatively demanded of us, — the Calvinist’s paradox. It is not by laws and legal sanctions, nor yet by opinion and moral sanctions, but only by worship, — the positive reverence due to the highest even of human virtues, — that such virtues have a foothold in the world.

But I may be guilty myself of violating the great principle of religious liberty by compelling you to read so long a sermon. A sermon never naturally comes to an end. It is a series of endless evolutions of thoughts and sentiments, with but little

help from art, and no help at all from the great art of making an end. It is necessary to arrest such discourses flagranti delicto, in the very act of starting on another theme, — which I do.

To Miss Howard.

Cambridge, Sept. 18, 1867.

. . . Your question (the best book on psychology for the young ladies) has just recently been considered and debated by Professor Gurney and me, with reference to the wants of a young gentleman, recently graduated, who also proposes to teach philosophy to young ladies. . . .

We have concluded that as good a book for this purpose as can be found, among many poor ones, is Dugald Stewart’s “Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind.” An edition of this work, abridged and annotated by Professor Bowen, has been used as a text-book in this college in past years; and Professor Gurney proposes to continue the use of it as an introduction to the college course of philosophy. This reprint has passed to a second edition, published in 1864 by William H. Dennet, of Boston. But your Springfield booksellers will know all about that. What they may not know about the book is that, in my opinion, it is an elegantly shallow treatise, not difficult to understand, because superficial; and it ought to be rather interesting to beginners. Professor Stewart was a good man, and is doubtless now in heaven. He wrote on philosophy in the interest of all that is lovely and of good report. There are no heresies in his book.

I hardly think you will need any other book to help you understand this one. But you might get some useful hints from Sir William Hamilton’s “Lectures on Metaphysics,” of which Professor Bowen has also edited an abridged edition. And, if you want to have all the ideas which you will get familiar with in these books completely upset and overthrown,

read Mill’s “Logic” and his “Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy.” I can hardly conceive of a more wholesome discipline of the human understanding than an interested study of Hamilton’s Philosophy, followed by a reading of Mill’s criticisms of it; but I think Stewart’s book the best to begin with.

I venture to volunteer the advice that, in teaching philosophy, it is well to call in question and refute every thing you can, with the aid of collateral reading, in order that the young ladies may never forget that they are not studying their catechisms,— not merely studying to acquire true and settled doctrines, but mainly to strengthen their understandings, to learn to think, and doubt, and inquire with equanimity. To help you teach this is the chief advantage of a parallel course of study. Still better, perhaps, since you would not have leisure to do all this reading, would it be to set those zealots of the class who are not satisfied with the length of the lessons in Stewart to reading other books for the sake of discussion. Let each come armed with some confounding objection to the doctrines of the text, and the recitations will be lively and profitable exercises. But this is rather an ideal advice, not founded on my own experience.

I am glad to hear from you that you have had so pleasant a summer. You only dread the coming work because it is strange. My dread of mine is because it is so dreadfully familiar. I have treated it all summer with a familiar neglect.

As this is the last of the letters to Miss Howard, I will add here some passages relating to Chauncey, from a note which she has kindly sent me: —

. . . “My remembrance is of the sweetest courtesy in explaining often very abstruse or scientific matters to very incompetent people, and he never even looked surprised at

any thing you did not know. He often went to Northampton to spend Thanksgiving, and always came here to tea on his way back, with the faithfulness which marked his friendships; and we were in the habit of storing up difficult questions which came up in our classes for Mr. Wright’s annual visit. The late train to Boston left Springfield at two o’clock at night; and you know how oblivious he was of the lapse of time when he was talking on subjects that interested him. With labors behind and before us, and the subject not unfrequently above our heads, we often felt shivers of sleepiness; but Mr. Wright would seem unconscious of every thing, and placidly say, as he rose to go in the small hours, ‘ I see you keep the same late hours you always did.’ — Once we were talking about the disintegration of the rocks in Conway, and S. said, ‘If rocks go to pieces, what can you trust in?’ Mr. Wright replied, with his inimitable serio-comic manner, ‘Truth!’ — He wanted to tell me about some book on one occasion; and I told him I was going to pass my Christmas vacation in Roxbury, and asked him to come there and see us. He said he would; and shutting his eyes, as if he were studying a problem, he said, ‘By what system of mnemonics can I recall that?’ and he did not invent a system, for he did not come.

“---- was on the conservative side always, in religious talks with Mr. Wright, and once told him she believed implicitly that the world was made in six days. He looked at her as if she were a new order of being, and I never shall forget the tone of his exclamation, ‘Is it possible?’

“We saw him constantly during a little visit which he made at Nantucket in the summer of 1871. You know how apt he was to lead the conversation to religious subjects. ---- was really pained by the turn the conversation took one evening, and she said most earnestly, ‘Mr. Wright, don’t you believe in the immortality of the soul?’ I felt almost nervous

at this direct question, for fear what his direct answer might be, but it has been my sheet-anchor since: ‘I think there is more reason to believe it than to disbelieve it.’

“You remember that Professor Peirce gave a course of lectures at the Lowell Institute. Mr. Wright had a seat near the front, and was always there till Mr. Peirce referred in a very complimentary manner to Chauncey Wright. He seemed utterly overwhelmed, and never appeared at the lectures again.

. . . “But the sweetest thing I remember in him was the way of advancing these ideas: there was nothing in the least aggressive about it, and a something that was almost tender in his way of trying to see your side of the question.”

In the last letter to Miss Howard, Chauncey humorously speaks of “dreading” his work because it is so “dreadfully familiar.” President Runkle of the Institute of Technology at Boston, who was for years associated with him in his work upon the Nautical Almanac, has sent me some information as to Chauncey’s habits of work, from which I will here quote: —

“His Almanac work,” he says, “always seemed the greatest drudgery, and he never did it till the last minute. When he could postpone no longer, he laid all else aside, and worked, almost literally, day and night till it was done. But it was done most conscientiously. For the sake of system, and to reduce the mental tax as much as possible and also to secure accuracy, he was willing to make many additional figures; and he rested his mind by changing from one part of the work to another. For instance, if he had a long series of numbers to convert into logarithms or the converse, he would lay these aside, and perform additions for an hour or two, for the sake of rest. I have known more rapid workers for a short time, but never one who could do such a vast amount of work on a long stretch. . . . For many years I knew Chauncey

intimately, and I am certain that I have never known a man so little influenced by external circumstances. He lived almost wholly in an ideal world.

. . . “After my coming to live in this town, Chauncey often came over to spend an evening. Mr. Runkle’s house was at Brookline, and about three miles from Cambridge. Chauncey’s visits were made during the years 1866 and 1867. ⁴⁴ He arrived late, and it was always early morning before we were ready to separate. He never would accept a bed, always saying that he liked the walk in the early morning. He probably felt that, once in his own room, he could prolong his nap without interfering with any one’s household arrangements.

“If he had had the ambitions which spur many men, he could have won almost any place, and I once felt sorry that he did not have them; but now I am thankful to have known one soul above the petty motives which actuate common mortals, — whose only aim was to discover the truth, and who was never even conscious that there could be any reason why he should not state it, no matter what private or public opinion might be upon the subject in hand.”

To Mr. Abbot.

Cambridge, Oct. 28, 1867.

I was very glad to hear again so soon from you on the subjects of our debate, and to know that you still retain so fresh an interest in them in spite of your recent losses and perplexities. Mr. Abbot was at this time a Unitarian clergyman at Dover, New Hampshire. The allusion is to difficulties which arose out of a growing divergence between the opinions held by him and those commonly held by his denomination. These controversies culminated in litigation of a very interesting character, of which an account may be found in the case of Hale v. Everett, 53 New Hampshire Reports, p. 1. ⁴⁵

Your letter interests me very much. It is so full of

suggestive points, and affords so much light to me on the real grounds of our differences, that I hardly feel able in the limited space of a letter to say all I wish to on its various topics. The most profitable discussion is, after all, a study of other minds, — seeing how others see, rather than the dissection of mere propositions. The restatement of fundamental doctrines in new connections affords a parallax of their philosophical stand-points (unless these be buried in the infinite depths), which adds much to our knowledge of one another’s thought.

Concerning the foundation of experientialism, I agree with you “that experience includes more than a heterogeneous mass of particular sensuous impressions, and cannot be explained by a mere ‘law of association’ among such impressions.” Our cognitions are indeed more than the mere chronicles of a sensuous history. There are orders and forms in them which do not come directly from the transient details of sense-perceptions. Indeed, without the constant reaction of the mind through memory upon the presentations of the senses, there could arise nothing worth the name of knowledge. If our memories were only retentive and not also co-operative with the senses, only associations of the very lowest order could be formed. We should not each know the same world, but only each his own world. It is only by the accumulation, the perpetual shifting, and the thoroughgoing comparison of impressions, associating, dissociating, and reassociating them according to laws of understanding, that the order of true cognition is finally brought out of the chaos of sensuous impressions. This order, once established to any degree, exercises a constant control over the senses, and governs our attention in perception. This ferment of the mind, giving rise to an intellectual order, establishes the strongest associations among its elements, and some associations which are insoluble.

This process is not determined solely by the laws of association among the elements of the primitive impressions. There is always an a priori, or mnemonic element involved. Associations, either original to the mind or early established, control the formation of new ones. Of the manifold of a presentation, only parts are retained in the mind and remain adherent to one another; and this selection is determined a priori, by the orders of impressions already experienced, or else by an order inherent in the very nature of the intellect.

The “a priori theory” holds that this final order of cognition belongs to a pre-existent intellectus ipse, and is, in some respects at least, independent of the primitive orders of sense-associations. It holds that the final products of understanding contain elements not contained in the primitive impressions and educible by the permutations of them in reflection. It holds, in other words, that the higher faculties of knowledge are like the organs of sense, already existent and equipped for action prior to the occasions and independently of the matter of knowledge; that thinking is a process performed on the impressions of sense by powers which are not in any way determined by the matter of thoughts, and which consequently add to the result elements not contained in the sense-impressions.

If I understand the form in which you hold to this doctrine, it is that the elements added by understanding are objective ones, not forms of understanding, but facts of experience, which the understanding intuites in sense-impressions. As the material forces of light, heat, sound, pressure, and chemical change, could not of themselves, without the organs of sense, produce the sense-impressions, so neither can these pass on of their own inherent powers into abstract thought, but must come into the form of thought through a pre-existent organ of thought, acting by laws peculiar to itself. The relations of sensible objects — the twoness of two hats, the

superposition of the book on the shelf, and the like matters of thought—are not, according to you, intuited by sense, any more than the color of a sonorous body is intuited by hearing or the tone of a colored body by sight. If we could not be conscious of the two hats without being conscious that they are two, or conscious of the book and the shelf without being conscious that the book is on the shelf, this would only prove that the understanding acts simultaneously with the sense, and that only the vaguest sense-impressions can be cognized without an action of the understanding upon them, to discover their relations.

To this I fully agree. In fact, I would go further, and maintain that there is no cognition by the senses in contradistinction from the mental powers generally. Instead of allowing two orders of independent cognitions, those of the senses and those of the intellect, I would maintain that all cognitions alike involve understanding in some degree, or some relation of the new impression to the previous content of the mind. An impression is cognized only when brought into consciousness; that is, into relations with what we have previously thought or felt or desired.

Nevertheless, I regard as valid the distinction of intuitive and abstract cognitions. The first we have without any consciousness of its cause; that is, without any other mental facts preceding and generating it in a recognizable general process, of which we may be reflectively conscious. Abstract cognitions we have as consequent upon others, and may attend to the process of their generation. In both, there is a sensuous basis, though not one separately cognizable. I can realize in thought a relation, like superposition, only by imagining things in this relation, — that is, by having subjectively determined sense-impressions of some things superposed on other things; and I arrive at the abstract notion of superposition by attending to compound objects which

resemble each other in this respect, like my hat on my head, the book on the shelf, the inkstand on the table, &c. I maintain that relations which can by abstraction be thought as in objects, must exist in objects as intuited, and also that the intuition must be more or less understood,—brought under classes, or associated with previous experience, in order to be properly cognized at all.

You would regard the color and the shape of an object as intuited by two distinctly different modes of mental action. The sense of sight cognizes the color, the understanding the shape ; for the shape can only be cognized by comparison with abstract forms, which “brings the object into relation” with other objects. But I maintain that the color of the object is cognized in precisely the same way, as being like or unlike the color of other objects. The color announces itself, — is presented to consciousness, by rousing all the colors of memory which similitude or contrast can by association connect with it. This is a process of which we are distinctly conscious only in its effect, as when we name the color. Without some movement towards this reasoning, there is no attention to the color, no cognition, no effective intuition. When this movement is also cognized as a process of thought, the cognition ceases to be intuitive, — is the result of conscious understanding,—but is none the less a movement of impressions, either objectively or subjectively determined, which are as sensuous as color. It is true, as you say, that “in the book singly, or in the shelf singly, there is no relation of superposition;” but the fact that you can attend to them singly, abstracting the relation, does not prove that, after being presented, they need to be “brought into relation” by an act of understanding. It is by an abstractive act, indeed, that you attend to them singly and out of the relation which is as much in the sensuous intuition of them as their colors or shapes. It is a favorite formula with me that there are two

kinds of memory or reminiscence, — the memory of representation and the memory of judgment. In the first, we recognize singular facts of experience individually; in the second, in their generalized results. In the first, through the pictures of imagination; in the second, by the language of abstract thought. Every item of experience adds to the cogency of a common-sense judgment, though not distinctly recognized or consciously added to the weight of evidence. But, if it is recognized as a ground of evidence, it must be as an instance of a rule, or as a fact similar to other facts. For what is it in the intuition which is cognizable, unless it be its likeness or unlikeness to other intuitions? The book on the shelf, the hat on the head, the inkstand on the table, are similar compound or plural objects in respect to the relation of superposition. This similitude is not apprehended by the senses independently of mental operations; but neither is the color nor the weight nor the texture of these objects apprehended by the senses, independently of memory, imagination, and abstraction.

What you call intellectual intuition. I should regard as belonging to all cognitions alike. Indeed, the distinction between the intuitive and the non-intuitive knowledges is rather a logical than a psychological one. Cognitions which cannot be analyzed by introspection are called intuitions. These are the data, the axioms, the premises of logical processes, and the conclusions of such processes, being distinctly exhibited as consequent on other cognitions, are non-intuitive, derivative knowledges. But no amount of introspection can analyze a cognition down to the bare, unrelated data of the senses, strictly speaking; for this would be to dissolve all the links which bind the sensuous impression to consciousness, and to extrude it from the mind altogether.

But we may hypothetically descend to such a basis of knowledge. In accordance with physiological science, we

may suppose, with Mill and Bain, that the higher mental faculties are formed by experience, that consciousness is a growth out of such primitive elements, a growth governed by laws of association, at first wholly chronological, or by the association of contiguity, — and afterwards more and more dependent, through memory, on associations of likeness and unlikeness. Though this theory has not yet shown itself competent to explain all mental phenomena satisfactorily, it has not been shown to be incompetent to this end, and seems to me in all respects a legitimate hypothesis.

It seems to me that the experiential philosophy is far from ignoring, as you affirm, the distinction of the “must” and the “is,” though it doubtless makes less account of the distinction than the a priori school. The fact itself, that some of our beliefs are unconditional and do not admit, so far as we can conceive, of any exceptions, is recognized fully and explained by this school on their principles. The range of our beliefs is determined in its capacity beforehand, by the range of our conceptive powers. But our conceptions are not limited to the range of beliefs in general, though in some matters we cannot conceive the contradictory of what we believe. The belief is then said to be necessary. This is the phenomenon to be explained. The doctrine that our conceptive powers are acquired by experience, as well as our beliefs, does not ignore this problem, though it makes it a less fundamental one in philosophy. If the testimony of all our experiences, including those which have fashioned language and our conceptive powers, be in favor of any proposition; this has all the marks of what is called Universality. “The universal is more than the general,” as you justly say, since conscious generalization must form a predication in terms which have previously been separated in our conceptions of them. Thus, in “all matter has weight,” the term “matter” connotes

attributes which we can conceive without thinking of weight. But “all bodies are extended,” unites terms each of which would be inconceivable without the other. Bodies may have other properties besides extension; but these cannot be conceived of, separated from extension. When language is exactly adequate to express a fact which is invariable and unconditional in our experience, it expresses what is called a universal truth.

You say that, in reading such explanations as this, you are “continually conscious of an unsatisfied expectation.” You wish to know not the “how,” but the “why” of the matter; that is, I suppose, you demand to know why you must believe certain facts, not simply how such beliefs are generated. But it seems to me that the “why” of the “must” is a contradiction of terms, when the “must” is an ultimate premise. There are two kinds of necessity in propositions, — a deductive necessity which contains the “why,” and a logically fundamental necessity which excludes any question of fact. The Pythagorean proposition is as necessary as any axiom of geometry; but reasons for it are required to compel assent. Assent to a belief can be compelled only by other beliefs, in themselves irresistible, and brought to bear on the proposition by the irresistible connection of beliefs or by logical laws. The a priori school founds philosophy on such beliefs and laws, maintains their eternal and indestructible existence as mental facts, and refuses to listen to any explanation of how the mental facts might be generated as an inductive consequence of the actual orders of concrete, sensible experience, and be made apodeictic by the limits in the conceptive faculties, which are also determined by experience.

I do not understand that Mr. Mill accepts the distinction of phenomena and noumena as a valid division of real existences. On the contrary, he only accepts the question implied

in the distinction, and decides that noumena are non-existent to us. The discrimination is a valid one, even if noumena do not exist at all. To say that phenomena are all that exists is to say that, in knowing phenomena, we know all the natures that exist. To affirm the existence of noumena is — at any rate to the positivist—to affirm that something exists of an incognizable nature. Mr. Mill is surely not guilty of accepting “that pernicious theory of Dinge an sich,” in simply entertaining a question of them, and dismissing them to the limbo of incognizability. On the contrary, he thereby signalizes that important doctrine of positivism,—the relativity of knowledge,—that the only objects immediately known are really mental states, effects in us which we attribute, according to their connections, either to a self or to an external world, without further capacity for knowing more about their subjects.

You appear to me to use the words “noumena” and “objects” in rather unusual senses, when, in the first place, you say that “noumena are known in phenomena, which are their manifestation.” You define a noumenon as the something which appears, the phenomena being “only appearances.” I had supposed the phenomenon itself to be the something which appears and disappears, and the noumenon to be a supposed permanent reality, which, if known, could not be known by the occasional appearance and disappearance of phenomena, but only by the “pure intelligence.” Hence, their name. Noumena should not be confounded with “the permanent possibilities of phenomena,” which arc determined by the general laws of phenomena, and represented by our expectations and anticipations; for, by definition, noumena are actual permanences, which, if known, are known absolutely, — that is, immediately as they are, as permanent immutable entities. Laws are permanent, and are really the grounds of our expectations; but laws are abstractions, not

“things in themselves.” If the laws or relations of phenomena were immediately known, — that is, independently of the frequency of occurrence and the individual likenesses of phenomena, — then we should have an a priori and immediate knowledge of the immutable and the necessary, or a knowledge of noumena.

Secondly, you surprise me by asking if Idealism is not “the very negation of objective science?” By objective science, I understand the science of the objects of knowledge, as contradistinguished from the processes and faculties of knowing. Does Idealism deny that there are such objects? Is not its doctrine rather a definition of the nature of these objects than a denial of their existence? There is nothing in positive science, or the study of phenomena and their laws, which Idealism conflicts with. (See Berkeley.) Astronomy is just as real a science, as true an account of phenomena and their laws, if phenomena are only mental states, as on the other theory.

You say that “the facts and laws of the universe recorded in Humboldt’s ‘Cosmos’ were in no wise conditional on the existence of Humboldt’s mind, or of any other human mind.” I readily admit that little or nothing characteristic of an individual mind like Humboldt’s would be likely to appear among the recorded facts and laws of the universe; yet these facts and laws are accounts of things seen and heard and weighed and smelt and tasted. They are the orders of invariable and unconditional sequences and coexistences among the sensations of colors and sounds and pressures and odor and savors, none of which could exist without a mind. These facts and laws, you say, “survive the death of generation after generation of scientific men;” but, as they describe what only eyes can see and ears hear, some sort of minds, human or other, scientific or vulgar, are essential to their continued existence. What would be those aspects of the heavens which astronomers

observe and predict, if no minds were in existence? Nothing surely but a potentiality. A statement of what can be seen under given circumstances must surely include the circumstances of the presence of eyes with a mind to see.

You ask to be admitted to my confidence by learning from me my speculative beliefs concerning the existence of a God and the immortality of the soul, and promise not to be shocked by any revelations I may make. The verdict of “not proven” is the kind of judgment I have formed on these matters; but not on that account am I warranted in taking up a position against the general opinion of my fellow-citizens, for this would be to become as illogical as the most confident among them. Atheism is speculatively as unfounded as theism, and practically can only spring from bad motives. I mean, of course, dogmatic atheism. A bigoted atheist seems to me the meanest and narrowest of men. In fact, practical considerations determine that a state of suspended judgment on these themes is the state of stable equilibrium. I have no desire to wake into a strange, unknown future life, and I can discover no valid reasons for any confidence in such a waking. As purely speculative or scientific doctrines, these demand assent no more cogently than a theory that some distant planet is inhabited, or, better still, that the planet is largely composed of granite or some other stated substance,—for we might have a sentimental bias in favor of an inhabited planet.

Practical grounds are really the basis of belief in the doctrines of theology. The higher moral sentiments have attached themselves so strongly to these traditions that doubts of them seem to the believers like contempt for all that is noble or worthy in human character. This paralogism even goes so far as to declare man’s life utterly worthless, unless it is to be prolonged to infinity; that is, I suppose, the worth of any part — say a year’s life — is infinitesimal, even if filled

with the purest enjoyments, the noblest sympathies, and the most beneficent activities. In whichever conclusion respecting a future life I might seek at last to cease from questioning and to wilfully resolve my doubts, I should never cease to repudiate such a view of the value of the present human life.

You perceive that on practical grounds I openly dissent from orthodoxy, but I may appear to you to evade the speculative questions. I do not think that I do; for though I may not consistently hold on all occasions the even balance of judgment and the open mind, which I think as proper in such matters as in all others, it is at any rate my design to do so. Whichever way we yield assent, we feel ourselves carried, not by evidence, but by the prejudices of feeling. We fall into one or another form of superstitious belief. Suspension of judgment appears to me to be demanded, therefore, not merely by the evidence, but as a discipline of character, — that faith and moral effort may not waste themselves on idle dreams, but work among the realities of life. Practical theism, if it means, as it ordinarily does, the exclusion from the mind of all evidence not favorable to received religious doctrines, seems to me to put religious sentiment in a false position, — one incompatible, not only with intellectual freedom, but with the soundest development of religious character, — with that unreserved devotion to the best we know, which tries all things, and holds fast to that which is good.

Very few men could confess a belief in a God or a disbelief in one, without expressing more than their speculative convictions. So far from being like their opinions on the law of gravitation, it would almost necessarily be with feelings of exultation, enthusiasm, and hope, or with bitterness, contempt, or despair, — so strong are the associations of feeling attached to this word. Nevertheless, it is a doctrine of positivism that the real interests of moral and religious culture, no less than those of scientific knowledge, are quite independent in fact

(and might be made so in education) of these doctrines and associations. And this is also my belief.

I sincerely regret to learn from you that your views have brought you into such difficulties as to render it necessary to give up your profession. Would teaching private pupils, fitting boys for college, be an employment you would like? It is one of the most remunerative to those who are in the way to get it; and, although I am not in that way, I think it would not be difficult to find such employment. I should be happy to use all my influence to this end. I am told that there is a good opportunity at present to start a school for young ladies in Boston; for, though there are several excellent schools kept by ladies, there are none equal to Professor Torrey’s, which he gave up when he came to Cambridge.

But I hope that I have misunderstood you, and that you will be able to continue, as a religious instructor, to exemplify how irrelevant metaphysics really are to the clergyman’s true influence, — quite as much so, I think, as to that of the scientific teacher. The pursuit of philosophy ought to be a side study. Nothing so much justifies that shameful assumption by ecclesiastical bodies of control over speculative opinions as the inconsiderate preaching of such opinions, in place of the warnings, encouragements, sympathies, and persuasions of the true religious instructor. The lessons which he has to deliver are really very easy to understand, but hard to live up to. To help to live up to the true ideals of life seems to me the noblest, if not the only, duty of the preacher.

To Miss Jane Norton.

Sunday morning [November or December, 1867].

I am not so sure as you seem to be that -----’s “house must fall,” especially if the “overwhelming agents” are as scrupulous as you think becoming in the “perfected philosopher.”

I am not one of those who believe that truth will prevail by its own inherent force, — that is, the weight of evidence. The force by which truth will prevail, if it ever does, is the force of flat contradiction, undermining and beating down inveterate prejudice. Unless the floods and the winds beat upon that house, it is just as secure on the sand as on the rock. The temptation there is for assaulting a reputation like ----’s is the obvious one that such personal reputations are the strongest props of the prejudices we oppose. Almost all false dogmas gain currency through the reputation for wisdom of their authors and promulgators; and, as prejudice is more than error, so it must be met by a force more soul-compelling than evidence. A just indignation is not inconsistent with such a “balance of abstract wisdom and justice” as can be maintained in the presence of concrete folly and wrong. Simple truth will outweigh mere error (else it would not be truth); but it requires the strains and blows of passion to overcome the resistance's and tenacities of prejudice, and, if the passion be subject to justice, compassion for the enemy is weakness.

But passionate opposition is no more likely to be just than is tenacious prejudice to be true; and any appearance of such feeling is likely to lessen the effect of just criticism. Consequently, I am greatly indebted to you for your suggestions touching certain words and phrases in my article, which you have promised to note for me.

Forgive the aphorismatic emphasis of these remarks.