CHAPTER II.

THE NATURE OF INTELLECTION.

Modern writers, as was stated on p. 7, have shown a general tendency to widen the meaning of the term intellection at the expense of the term sensation, yet different theories of the former, corresponding to those of the latter, have not appeared. In fact, intellection seems never to have been precisely defined by psychologists. It has been alluded to, on p. 11, as the funcion of the intellect; but just what this function is, can best be shown after both intellection and sensation have been analyzed, since the distinction between the two enters into the definition of each. In general, however, intellection may be said to include the fundamental principles of finite knowledge, the primary laws resting upon them, and the universal processes of thought governed by these laws. The disclosure of these principles, laws and processes has progressed from the particular to the general; and hence it will be easier to analyze and define them in their historical order.

SOCRATES led the way in the discovery that universal processes of thought dominate every individual consciousness in every field of thought. Before his time such processes had been recognized in the subject of mathematics, but he disclosed their presence also in the defining of concepts and in the field of morals.

PLATO made the first attempt to systematize universal processes of thought, and to set forth their relations to objects of sense. But inasmuch as he regarded change as belonging to the individual objects of sense-perception, he held all universals to be unchangeable entities existing independent of consciousness; and

hence his system of ideas, although each was supposed to sustain a generic relation to a multitude of sensible objects, were indefinable and incapable either of enumeration or of classification among themselves. Had Plato understood the nature of his problem, had he realized that he was dealing with universal processes of thought instead of unchangeable things, he doubtless would have perceived that the universal aspect of consciousness, or intellect, could have no meaning or existence except in connection with the variable aspect, or sense. But failing to perceive this, he discarded sense-perception as deceptive; and thus reduced universal processes of thought to mere abstractions, and rendered the classification of sense-objects meaningless.

ARISTOTLE again restored unity to consciousness by uniting the functions of sense and intellect in every activity of thought. This enabled him to systematize a classification of generic and specific names for objects of sense and to adapt this classification to the variable inductions of individual experience.

Another advance which he made upon Plato was his definite enumeration of the categories, or universal processes of thought. And his distinct recognition, in opposition to Plato, of the validity of the data of sense-perception, further showed itself in the fact that his list of categories, viz., substance, quantity, quality, relation, where, when, action, passion and possession, includes several in which the sensational element is prominent.

A third and most important advance made by Aristotle was the formulation of the law of identity and contradiction. From the fact that his system of classification was perfectly adapted both to sense-objects and to the quantitative relations of pure-mathematics, and from the further fact that the law of identity and contradiction applied equally to both, Aristotle failed to distinguish between empirical and a priori judgments. This necessarily led him somewhat astray in regard to both. His treatment of a judgment as the inclusion of a minor

term in a major does not strictly apply to inductions of experience; and, on the other hand, the law of identity and contradiction applies to a priori judgments only when they express mathematical relations.

DESCARTES, in modern times, took a more advanced position, when he made the conscious ego the basis of all certitude in thought. This makes the conscious self a correlate of every object of thought; yet Descartes so far failed to see this that he set up an antithesis of spirit and matter, making thought an attribute of spirit, and extension an attribute of matter independent of thought. From Descartes' classification of ideas into fictæ, adventitiæ, and innatiæ, the theory of innate ideas originated; and in this theory the categories assumed the character of innate ideas.

GEULINCX, in his doctrine of occasionalism, caught obscurely an important principle, which is an advance upon Aristotle's reference of all phenomena to an origin in an unmoved cause of motion. This advance consisted in making human consciousness an intermediate agency between infinite consciousness and the origin of phenomena. Geulincx, however, reversed the true logical order by representing human consciousness as the originating source, and infinite consciousness as the medium of expression.

MALEBRANCHE corrects this position in two respects. He made human consciousness intermediate between infinite consciousness and phenomena, and he also represented the manifestations of conscious activity as governed by fixed laws instead of by occasional impulses.

SPINOZA showed by his method of reasoning from the finite to the infinite that he consciously transcended the law of identity and contradiction, and grasped the principles underlying two other primary laws of thought, one governing the use of strict correlatives, and the other restricting the application of categories when they come into mutual conflict. His conception of the infinite was incompatible with his conception of an efficient cause, for the latter implied and the former precluded temporal limitations. Spinoza therefore discarded the category of caus

ality, and reasoned to the infinite from the finite through the principle of correlativity. Had he, however, comprehended the nature of this correlation, as affected by Des cartes' reference of all objects of thought to the conscious ego as a correlate, he never would have made thought an attribute of substance, but would have made substance a category of thought.

LEIBNIZ did philosophy a great service by counteracting the pantheistic tendency which Spinoza's doctrine of substance had given it. Having rejected Spinoza's conclusion, Leibniz naturally rejected his method of reasoning also; but feeling the inadequacy of the principle of causality, he sought a better one in what he termed the "principle of sufficient reason," "principium rationis sufficientis." This principle has never been defined otherwise than as "necessity in thought;" but as necessity in thought comes only through the law of identity or the law of correlation, it must come under one of these laws. As the principle of sufficient reason is usually employed, it is the same as that of correlativity. Leibniz' monadology, although full of inconsistencies, has done much to maintain the view that finite consciousness is characterized by individuality and spontaneity.

Contemporaneous with this last group of writers, to whom we are greatly indebted for the elucidation of the principles of intellection, was a class of sensational writers, whose work, even though it held to the principle "Nihil est in intellectu quod non ante fuerit in sensu," greatly helped to bring to the front the laws and principles of intellection. Thus, Locke really rendered an important service to the intellectualists by his polemic against innate ideas. Hume's challenge concerning the principle of causality but forced them to a new and an important advance. From the sensational standpoint, the category of causality must either come through the senses or be an illusory fiction; yet Hume proved that it could not come through the senses. The intellectualists then had to give a satisfactory account of it, or surrender it as illusory. To surrender it

was to surrender all claim to either science or philosophy. Hume's challenge met a master intellect in Kant, who not only gave a satisfactory account of the origin of the category of causality, but also disclosed the fundamental fallacies of sensationalism.

KANT Successfully terminated the long-continued effort to discover the origin of necessary ideas, by showing that they are the product of universal processes of thought. Profiting by Locke's polemic against innate ideas, he states that "they admit, if separated from sensibility, of no use at all; that is, they cannot be applied to any possible object, and are nothing but the pure form of the use of the understanding with reference to objects in general." In answer to Hurne's sensationalism, he shows that all experience must be organically related to a "unity of apperception;" and that this organic unification requires, possesses, and discloses universal and invariable processes of thought. These universal processes of thought are the categories, with the use of which he connected "the concept, or, if the term be preferred, the judgment, 'I think,"" which he styled "the vehicle of all concepts in general." That Kant failed, however, to perceive the correlative nature of the categories is shown by his agreement with Aristotle on the application of the law of contradiction, by his first two groups of categories, and by his antinomies of pure reason. But that he perceived the necessity for some limitation of the categories when they came into mutual conflict, is shown by his doctrine of phenomena and noumena.

FICHTE brought to attention the correlative nature of the universal processes of thought by showing that a category is a synthesis of two correlative opposites, and that each correlate included as well as excluded the other. He failed, however, to perceive the full force of the correlative principle, and represented a pair of correlates as inclusive only in part and as exclusive only in so far as they were not inclusive. This is shown in his treatment of

1 "Critique of Pure Reason," Max Mueller's Translation, p. 216.

2 id. p. 297.