MR. WALLACE'S EDITION OF THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ARISTOTLE.*
" IN England, the contributions to Aristotelian literature have borne no sort of proportion to the extent to which minds have been educationally imbued with certain of Aristotle's works. The unproductiveness of Oxford in this respect is certainly a matter of reproach to that University." In the ninth edition of the Encyclopcedia Britannica, in the article "Aristotle," Sir Alex- ander Grant thus gave expression to a feeling which was cer- tainly in the minds of all who had ever thought on the matter. For some, at least, of Aristotle's works had been taught and lectured on in Oxford for many generations, and yet, both for textual criticism and for philosophical commentary, students of Aristotle had to leave England, and go to Ger- many. It is not easy to account for this state of matters.. Certainly, the classical tradition of Oxford is second to none, and could not have been unequal to the task of expounding Aristotle as a classic is usually expounded. But for a true exposition of the works of Aristotle, more is needed than a merely classical culture. Above all things, the- expositor of Aristotle must be one accustomed to metaphysical thought, read in the history of philosophy, and able to walk freely on the elevated table-land of abstract speculation. While Oxford has been indeed great in Classics, it is simply matter of history to say that few are the names belonging to Oxford which find a place in the history of human thought, and not one, do. we remember, whose writings mark an epoch in philosophy. It, may be that the reason why Oxford has been so unproductive- in Aristotelian literature, is precisely that reason which has made her classical tradition so great, and her philosophical one- so meagre.
• Aristotle's Psychology, in Greek and English. With Introduction and Notes, br Edwin Wallace, Y.A. Cambridge : University Press.
Of recent years, however, a change has come over the spirit of Oxford, and she has begun to take the place which rightfully be- longs to her as 'a worker in philosophy, and a leader in pare thought. Those of her sons, such as the two Wallaces, Mr. Nettle- ship, and the late Professor Green, who have found a home and a
sphere of work within-her ancient halls, as well as those who, like Professor Edward (laird, of Glasgow, have gone elsewhere, have done much to redeent her failure in the past. Of present workers in philosophy, Oxford can claim not a few of the highest names. It is not a little curious to reflects however, that this most hopeful state of matters has not arisen from the pure Oxford tradition, but from an influence which was not native to Oxford, but which, to her honour be it spoken, she gladly and warmly welcomed. How much of the new work done in philosophy by Oxford men is to be traced to that class of young students with whom Max Muller read Kant's great work, a good many year's ago ! Very quietly and incidentally, in his preface to the translation of the Critique, Max Muller
mentions this fact, and gives the names of Appleton, Caird, Nettleship, and Wallace, as among those students who read with him Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Little did Bunsen think, when he helped to bring Max Miller to England, that he was taking a step of first-rate importance for the re- vival of the study of philosophy in our land and language. Bat to the work done by Max Muller in enabling these young men to read Kant may be traced, among many other writings of importance, this edition of Aristotle's Psychology. For though the editor of this work is not the Wallace who read Kant with Max Muller, yet he is his younger brother, and has evidently studied philosophy in the same school. Here, then, we have the great Classical tradition: of Oxford harmoniously united with that Philosophical movement in Germany which is always associated with the names of Kant and Hegel. And the result is manifest in this edition of Aristotle's Psychology, which of itself will largely help to take away the reproach attached to Oxford by Sir Alexander Grant.
While textual criticism has not been the main end which Mr. Wallace has had in view, yet no slight attention has been given to the text itself. With becoming modesty, Mr. Wallace says that the various readings are only a selec- tion from the fuller list given in Trendelenbarg and Tor- strik. He has maintained his independence, and the text he actually gives us has been chosen on good critical grounds. His Oxford training in exact scholarship has given him the requisite sureness of step and delicacy of critical per- ception. The notes are exactly what such notes ought to be,— helps to the student, not mere displays of learning. By far the more valuable parts of the notes are neither critical nor literary, but philosophical and expository of the thought, and of the connection of thought, in the treatise itself. In this relation the notes are invaluable. Of the translation, it may be said that an English reader may fairly master by means of it this great treatise of Aristotle. It may not come up to the ideal standard of what such a translation ought to be, but compared with what has been attained in similar efforts it stands in the front rank,
and is of quite conspicuous excellence. The one criticism we would venture to make is this,—we observe a tendency on the part of Mr. Wallace to translate the technical terms of Aristotle by the technical terms of the Kantian philosophy. For ex- ample, the Greek term ataXsxerpeO; is rendered by the term tran- scendentalist. Now, the term transcendentalist suggests to the student of philosophy a whole world of ideas which are quite foreign to the philosophy of Aristotle, and are peculiar to the history of philosophy subsequent to Kant. If we could get rid of the Kantian connotation of this word, it might not be unsuitable; but as words are used at present, the word is an anachronism. Nor is this the only instance in which terms
which imply the Kantian and Hegelian philosophy are used. This may be permitted when Mr. Wallace is setting forth, as he does in the introduction, his own conception of the problems of psychology, as these presented themselves to Aristotle ; but in the translation itself, the use of words which imply thoughts which were never, and could never be, in the mind of Aristotle, ought to be avoided.
The Introduction is a piece of work thoroughly well done.
Instead of entering into any detailed description of it, we quote the general estimate with which it concludes :-
" (1.) To begin with, Aristotle was the first who constituted psycho- logy into a special science. He mapped out the phenomena of mind as the subject of a particular lerrapia, and gave a definite turn to the humanitarian studies of Socrates, by showing that the knowledge of man involved particularly a knowledge of the nature of man's 4,uxh. But (2), while holding that psychology was to be studied as an inde- pendent science, Aristotle further saw that the study of soul could not be successfully conducted, so long as it was confined exclusively to the human manifestation of it. Man's +uxh, in fact, Aristotle found was simply one phase of that general tendency which Nature at each stage of life displayed,—a tendency to concentrate the specific: functional activity of that stage in some definite form. And the law of such stages of life was, he found, one of regular subordination, so that the faculties of thought implied the possession of sense, and these, again, the faculties of nutrition. Thus (3), he called attention to the semi-physiological and corporeal character of some mental phenomena ; he was especially struck by the material, bodily side of the feelings ; and he maintained that the body was not to be studied as an abstract entity, but with particular reference to the bodily organisation adapted to it. (4.) He recognised and yet partially solved this dualism in man's nature by his own definition of the rkuich as the implicit realisation or truth of body. While unable fully to explain. the union of the antithesis, he yet showed that soul and body were not so much two contradictory forces, as two complementary counter- parts in human nature. But (5), he did not merely content himself with such an abstract explanation of man's 'perk : he expanded and illustrated it by an enumeration of the different stages in. the development of this soul from lower forms ; and by his explana- tion of the relation of these faculties to one another, he advanced' considerably beyond the stand-point of Plato. (6.) He sketched with. considerable success the object, organs, operations, of the several senses. His analysis of sound and colour especially deserves moth* for its anticipation of modern research. But (7), he also showed the need of rising above sense, in order to explain its intimations. Hie theory of a central or common-sense, though mistaken in ascribing to sense what sense as such is unable to bestow—the distinction,. comparison, and interpretation of sensations—directs attention, nevertheless, to the presuppositions of every purely sensational' system of cognition. And the unity of consciousness which he claims' for the exercise of sense goes some way in explaining how the different faculties of soul become an indivisible, personal self. Stilt more is this brought out (8), in his theory of a creative reason, as the presupposition of the exercise of ordinary thought. For, frag- mentary though the theory is', it is, nevertheless, an emphatic asser- tion of the priority of thought to matter in the universe. How, Aristotle finds himself obliged to ask, does thought thini things,—how does an immaterial force come to receive and know material phenomena ? And his answer is, as we have seen, that thought knows and thinks thing; only in so far as things are thought, so far as they are the work of reason, so that. oar subjective thought is bat finding itself in outward things. Lastly (9), Aristotle's theory of will forms a natural pendant to this same theory of reason. In place of the vague conception of evpaSs in Plato, we find the will conceived not as a single faculty, but as the con- silience of reason and feeling ; while, at the same time, Aristotle never loses sight of the fact that mere appetite, as such, does not lead, to action, but requires to be constituted by thought as a rational desire, before it can issue in conduct."
The quotation is unusually long, but we feel bound to insert. it as it stands, because it sums up in terse and vigorous form the results won by Mr. Wallace, and because it will reveal to- readers of intelligence, who know the mode of speech of current systems of philosophy, the philosophical position of Mr. Wallace. In every sentence of the foregoing passage, the influence of Hegel is apparent, and the volume throughout bears traces of the moulding influence on the thought of Mr. Wallace of the English Hegelian school. So much is this the case that we are constantly haunted with the suspicion that he has read Hegel into Aristotle, and at least rounded out the rather fragmentary discussions of -Aristotle into the fulness of Hegel. If, in this way, the real exposition of the thought of Aristotle seems sometimes to be overloaded with the thought of other thinkers, yet the reader has it in his power, in the volume itself, to get at the real meaning of Aristotle from the text, translation, and notes. And the Greek index is so complete, and the references so adequate, that any passage may be readily found. In fact, Mr. Wallace has made us independent of his own view of Aristotle's psychology, as he has set it forth in the introduction, by giving us ample material for the formation of our own unbiassed judgment. It would be unpardonable, how- ever, to forget to call attention to several features of the intro- duction. We refer more especially to the lucid description of the relation which this psychological treatise of Aristotle bears to his other works, and to the section on the pre-Aristotelian psychology. Here, Mr. Wallace is at his best, and his exposi. tion is calm, lucid, and objective.
Previous page
