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which must be impressed on our sensations before they can become perceptions, judgments, reasons, knowledge. It is the same with our beliefs, and the assents we give to truths of various kinds. The Metaphysician does not, as such, profess to tell us what, under given circumstances, men will believe about any concrete human interest whatever-any religion, institution, form of government, state of society—or how they were produced; he does not tell us to what propositions we shall give our assent, or from what we shall withhold it, but merely discusses in what the mental act of belief or assent consists; Locke holding that the degree of belief or assent we give to any proposition is strictly proportioned to the probabilities in its favour, and the evidence by which it is supported; while Cardinal Newman contends, on the contrary, that there are no degrees to a man's assent, and that it may be often yielded when the reasons adduced for the belief would be far from carrying conviction to another's mind.

But, besides the judgments, the beliefs, the reasoning processes on every variety of topic, that make up so much of our life, we are the subjects of feelings, sentiments, passions, desires, and aspirations, which ever and anon cross the current of our thoughts, diverting them in an easy unconscious way into their own channels, or concentrating them fixedly on some special object. There is the feeling of love, for example, which plays so large a part in human life, and is so pregnant with important issues; the feeling of duty, so essential to individual and social well-being; the feelings of benevolence, reverence, mercy, pity, and the like. On these, too, as on the intellectual faculties proper, the Metaphysicians set to work with their scalpels to dissect and analyse them into their constituent elements; disputing as to which are to be set aside as simple and ultimate, and which are further resolvable into modes of pleasure and pain, of self-interest, self-love, expediency and the like. And, lastly, the Metaphysicians have put the Will under the microscope, and, as we all know, have filled the libraries of the world with

their endless discussions as to its nature, what it is in itself, and whether it is really or only apparently free.

The above are examples of the questions with which all Metaphysics outside the range of Theology are concerned; and it will, I think, be evident, without further comment, that their results, however useful in themselves, can be of no service for my present purpose; as no explanation or analysis, however ultimate and complete, of what a judgment is, what a reason is, what a belief is, or of what love is, duty is, hope is, will is, can throw the least light on what, under given circumstances, a man will believe, will consider his duty to be, and will consequently do. And as each and every concrete religion of the world has prescribed more or less definitely and minutely to its votaries the number and character of the deities they are to believe in, the propositions they are to hold about the nature and attributes of these deities, who and what they are to love and revere, what they must will to do or avoid, what they are to fear, and what they are to hope for, it is evident that Metaphysics, in so far as it is engaged in isolating the different faculties, feelings, and sentiments of the mind, and analysing them into their constituent elements, can throw no light whatever on the origin of these concrete religions, on the great laws on which they are constructed, and along which they are evolved, and on the part they play in civilization and progress; and so cannot supply us with the organon or instrument we require.

Before leaving the subject of Metaphysics, however, I desire to remark that the question as to whether Metaphysics has played any positive part in advancing knowledge, whether and in what way its results have modified our views of the world and of human life, I shall postpone until I have considered the value for my purposes of the modern science of Psychology, to which I shall now address myself.

CHAPTER IV.

PSYCHOLOGY.

WITHIN the last fifty years the science of Biology has made

gigantic strides, and among other things the connexion between the brain and the mind, based on an immense induction of observation and experiment, has been shown to be so minute and exact, that the conclusions drawn from the truth of this connexion have profoundly modified the old systems of Metaphysics, if, indeed, they have not altogether superseded them. While the Metaphysicians of the old school have gone on tumbling and tossing on a shoreless and bottomless sea of speculation, revolving in endless vortices unable to advance, devouring and being devoured by each other in turn, the Biologist standing looking on, secure in his new-found truth, has practically addressed them as follows:-All attempts to analyse the Human Mind and resolve it into its original elements, when it is detached from that material structure which is its counterpart and regarded as pure spirit alone, have hitherto proved and are forever likely to prove impotent and vain. Now, if you will allow me, I shall be pleased to offer you in your perplexities, fluctuations, and uncertainties, one fixed point at least on which you may stand secure, and from which you may take a new departure; and that point is the fact, that for every thought, feeling, or emotion passing through the mind, there is a corresponding change in the movements of the brain and nerve centres. The use to which you can put this suggestion is this, that if you are unable to satisfactorily analyse the Mind by a direct introspection of its operations, you may be able to do so indirectly by an analysis of what is always open to you, viz.-the structure of the brain.

That is to say, if by a wide and minute comparison of the brains of all animals from the lowest to the highest, you can discover any principle on which the higher have been built-up out of the lower; if you can find any unity of plan running through the nervous mechanism of them all; if you can show, in a word, that the highest organizations are built on the same type as the lowest, by the mere compounding and recompounding of the same original elements; you will possess a clue as to the way in which the human mind itself has been built up, which will be of the very highest value. For all you will then have to do will be to find, by observation and reflection, the key to the cypher which shall correctly translate the material changes into the mental changes, and to apply this key consistently throughout; at the same time that by a process of introspection you verify the conclusions arrived at. Acting on this suggestion Herbert Spencer, of all metaphysicians the one most profoundly acquainted with the results of biological research, proceeded to compare the nervous systems of all orders of animals, and by the aid of that principle of Evolution which was of such universal application in other fields, was soon able to announce what he called the unit of the nervous system -a nervous nodule with two filaments, sensory and motor attached-and to show that the nervous systems of all animals, up to man himself, were but the compounding and recompounding of this simple unit, in more definite, more complex, and more concentrated forms. And having discovered, further, that the mental side or face of this primitive unit of nerve structure was what is known as Reflex Action, it became comparatively easy for him to demonstrate that Instinct, Perception, Reason, Memory, Imagination, Will, and all the higher activities of the human mind, were but different sides of this simple reflex act, of greater and greater complexity, and on higher and higher planes. Introspection confirmed this objective analysis, and showed that all mental operations whatever, however complex and remote-operations which the

old school of metaphysicians had found it impossible to reduce to unity-could be demonstrated by the assistance of these biological researches to be compounded out of, and therefore resolvable again into, one simple act. At the same time, too, Spencer was able, by following this biological method, to reconcile the chronic antagonism which had existed between rival schools of metaphysicians since the days of Plato and Aristotle; for while holding with the school of Locke and Mill that all knowledge was derived from experience and association of ideas, his conclusions justified the splendid insight of Kant, who perceived that there must be mental moulds or "categories" to give form to such experience; while at the same time they showed that these categories themselves, instead of being native to the mind, and underived, as Kant thought them, were really the well-worn ruts and channels which similar impressions from without had made for themselves through the mind, during a long course of hereditary transmission.

But while psychology has thus been able to give us a more scientific analysis of the faculties of the mind than the old metaphysical systems, and one, too, resting to a great extent on a basis of demonstrable fact, it nevertheless, like Metaphysics, ends in analysis only. It undertakes to show us what reflex action is, what instinct is, what judgment is, what the imagination is, what the will is, and the like, but cannot, indeed does not profess to show us what men, under given circumstances, will believe on any great concrete interest of human life-on religion, government, and society-nor can it show the effects of these on the human mind; it gives us no help in understanding the concrete religions of the world, or the great laws of the mind on which they are constructed, and along the lines of which they are evolved. It can throw no light therefore on the problems attempted in this work—the problems of Civilization-and, so far, may be dismissed as unsuitable for our purpose. But I should be indirectly doing a real injustice to Metaphysics and Psychology, if, while setting

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