completely rises above the level of agnosticism. But this fact only renders more confusing the system as a whole.

For instance, when we find such plain declarations of our utter inability to understand the principles of knowledge as occur in Spencer's opening volume we naturally look with distrust upon all subsequent attempts to explain these principles. In a word, why should Mr. Spencer expect us to put faith in his analysis of those facts which in the very outset of his work he tells us it is impossible to understand? Thus in the Chapter on Ultimate Scientific Ideas we have the following declarations:

"It results, therefore, that Space and Time are wholly incomprehensible. The immediate knowledge which we seem to have of them proves, when examined, to be total ignorance. While our belief in their objective reality is insurmountable, we are unable to give any rational account of it. And to posit the alternative belief (possible to state but impossible to realize) is merely to multiply irrationalities."

"Matter, then, in its ultimate nature, is as absolutely incomprehensible as Space and Time. Frame what suppositions we may, we find, on tracing out their implications, that they leave us nothing but a choice between opposite absurdities."

"Thus neither when considered in connection with Space, nor when considered in connection with Matter, nor when considered in connection with Rest, do we find that Motion is truly cognizable. All efforts to understand its essential nature do but bring us to alternative impossibilities of thought."

"While, then, it is impossible to form any idea of Force in itself, it is equally impossible to comprehend its mode of exercise."

And lastly: "Hence, while we are unable either to believe or to conceive that the duration of consciousness is infinite, we are equally unable either to know it as finite, or to conceive it as finite."1

First Principles," ch. iii.

Here is, indeed, a cheerful prospect at the beginning of a study of perception! All those principles which are acknowledged by writers upon metaphysics to be “ultimate realities," or fundamental ideas, are declared to be utterly incomprehensible; and, in way of reassurance, we are told that to try to understand consciousness itself can but lead to "absurdities." If agnosticism is an aggravated form of skepticism, surely this is a high type of agnosticism!

The first requisite in forming a true conception of Knowledge is to understand that the word, in its widest application, means the same thing as life; and that life is coextensive in fact, and therefore in meaning, with the universal principle, Motion. All activities are expressions of this principle, whether they display the structure and function of consciousness (the subjective world) or the statical and dynamical aspects of nature (the objective world). Structure and function are but the obverse aspects of every activity; they correspond to the more abstract or general terms Matter and Force, using the word force, as is so often done, to signify motion considered apart from its space-aspect. The more acceptable terms Space and Time are also the equivalents of structure and function. Bearing these truths in mind, the difficulty of forming a rational theory of perception, or thought, disappears.

If thought is an activity, to comprehend it we have but to state its conditions. The theory that thought is the expression of an absolute or unconditioned principle has but to be reduced to its simplest terms in order to expose its absurdity. The word absolute, or unconditioned, is a muchabused term in metaphysical writings; it is an outgrowth of our conception of Time, which, when regarded as a principle in itself, certainly seems to move, independently of any imaginable conditions. If whenever the word absolute occurs its equivalent Time is understood, we cannot be misled. To call thought an entity, or an absolute principle in itself, is but to block the progress of analysis by clinging to one of the aspects of the phenomenon and disregarding

the other. If thought is an activity, it must have structure as well as function; it must have a space-aspect as well as a time-aspect; it must be an expression of the universal principle, Motion. If there are two great opposite spheres of existence, known as the subjective and the objective, the ego and the non-ego, the conscious and the unconscious, they are not absolutely different spheres, but are interdependent, or related; they act and react upon each other, and are expressions of a fundamental fact which underlies them both. What becomes of the charge that such a theory as this is materialistic, when we remember that the attributes of this principle are those which are universally ascribed to God? This, however, is but an ultimate analysis, it is not the living synthesis, of life.

The theory of Evolution is, that every phenomenon or change is the product, or function, of its conditions. Every phenomenon is a relation, or the joint expression of its terms. The ultimate relation is Motion, and its terms are Space and Time. The relation or fact called consciousness has for its terms the objective and the subjective worlds. The study of consciousness or perception (they are, in their widest sense, equivalent terms) is the study of the conditions of mental life, which are only relatively separable from the conditions of general life, or the universe. If we would single out from this plexus of relations an ultimate relation, or from this vast array of conditions ultimate conditions, we have for result the ultimate relation, Motion; the ultimate conditions, Space and Time.

CHAPTER X.

HERBERT SPENCER (CONTINUED).

An Independent Study of the Relation of Perception to Organic Life-The Interdependence of Thought, Feeling, and Action.

THE study of psychology is fast becoming a definite science. Little by little its ontological superstitions are giving way to the more rational method of approaching the mind through the medium of its functions and structures. The old system of taking for granted the existence of a psychical principle as the only means of explaining thought, is yielding to the belief in a universal principle in which all lines of cause and effect converge, whether they describe physical, mental, or moral phenomena. Speaking on this subject, Lewes says: "Psychology investigates the Human Mind, not an individual's thoughts and feelings; and has to consider it as the product of the Human Organism, not only in relation to the Cosmos, but also in relation to Society. For man is distinctively a social being; his animal impulses are profoundly modified by social influences, and his higher faculties are evolved through social needs. By this recognition of the social factor as the complement to the biological factor, this recognition of the Mind as an expression of organic and social conditions, the first step is taken toward the constitution of our science. ✶✶✶ An organism when in action is only to be understood by understanding both it and the medium from which it draws its materials, and on which it reacts. Its conditions of existence are, first, the structural mechanism, and, secondly, the medium in which it is placed. When we know the part played by the mechanism, and the part played by the medium, we have gone as far as analysis

can help us; we have scientifically explained the actions of the organism. This, which is so obvious in reference to vital actions that it is a physiological commonplace, is so little understood in reference to the mental class of vital actions. that it may appear a psychological paradox, and a paradox which no explanation can make acceptable so long as the Mind is thought to be an entity inhabiting the organism, using it as an instrument; and so long as Society is thought to be an artificial product of man's mind,-in which case it cannot be one of the conditions of mental evolution."

What is known, then, as the social factor in the study of psychology is that feature of the science which is by far the most difficult to comprehend. A theory of perception which neglects the influence of this factor is thereby apparently simplified, but it is incomplete; for it is from the relations of man to society that the bewildering complexities of mental phenomena arise. The rudimentary communications of sentient beings gave birth to intelligence, or the representative faculty, and by the continued development of this faculty language came into existence. Language, which is the condensing or grouping of thoughts into symbols, has attained to such perfection that a climax in its development has been reached in the creation of a single word to express the interdependencies of the universe. In studying mental phenomena, in tracing the connections of cause and effect throughout the labyrinths of sentiency, we have to view human intelligence, as a whole, in the light of an achievement or superstructure of organic evolution. This is what is meant by taking into account the social factor, the combined influences of life upon life, of mind upon mind. The simplest definition of organic life is the adjustment of the organism to its environment. Society, as a whole, is an important part of the environment of each human organism, for the response of each organism to humanity marks the degree of development-the quality of life. The counterpart of this view of the social factor is what might be called the individual factor, the other term of