MR. COURTNEY ON MILL.* Tins is a criticism of very

great merit. It is terse, lucid, and very careful in exposition, and promises for its author, if he be, as we should conjecture, a young man, a considerable career in English philosophy. It is not given to every one to put so much criticism, without any trace of either obscurity or over- condensation, into so small a space. Mr. Courtney knows John Stuart Mill well, not only the Logic, but the Examination, of Sir William Hamilton, and he takes the greatest pains to collate together the various passages from which Mill's own metaphysical doctrine may best be collected. Nor does he ever care to insist on the character of an accidental phrase, unless there is clear evidence that Mill used it with deliberation, and in keeping with the general tenor of what he was writing at the time. Thus the substance of Mr. Courtney's criticism is dependent on no forced use of special passages.

It proves conclusively, we think, the inadequacy and the fluc- tuating character of Mr. Mill's psychology ; and confirms strongly the view taken by Professor Stanley Jevons of Mr. Mill's analysis of the basis of mathematical reasoning. Nothing, for instance, can well be more illustrative of the wavering hold of Mr. Mill over the principles of psychology than the following instructive note, appended by Mr. Courtney to his fifth chapter :—

"It is very difficult to be sure of Mill's opinions on some of the points discussed in this chapter, notwithstanding Mill's important Appendix in the 3rd edition. The difficulties may be briefly sum- marised. 1. Are 'feelings' and 'sensations' equivalent expressions ? Mill says as much, when he quotes with approbation James Mill's remark, Having a sensation and having a feeling are not two things. The thing is one, the names only are two.' (p. 139.) But in the Appendix, Mill seems to imply more by the word feeling ? and in the Logic (Bk. i.) he says, 'Feeling is a genus, of which Sensation, Emotion, and Thought are subordinate species.' 2. Do 'relations' grow out of sensations by the Laws of Association, in Mill's opinion ? On page 13, he says, speaking of the opinions of his own school, Place, Extension, Substance, Cause, and the rest, are conceptions put together out of ideas of sensation by the known laws of associa- tion.' As he has just been speaking of Kantian forms, I suppose that Time and Relations generally are included in the expression and the rest.' In the Appendix, however, he takes a different tone. We are direct/Id conscious of succession, in the fact of having successive sensations.' (p. 256.) But in the next page he contradicts himself. We are forced to apprehend every part of the series as linked with the other parts by something in common, which is not the feelings themselves, any more than the succession of the feelings is the feelings themselves.' (p. 257.) Are 'relations' the conditions which are themselves sensational,' of which he speaks on p. 249? Are they flume's Imanners of feeling,' or not ? 3. The words 'permanence'

and 'possibility' are very perplexing. Permanent' must mean present with every state of consciousness,' and 'possibility' ought

to mean idea.' In that case, 'matter' defined permanent possi- bility of sensation' is an explanation which sadly needs to be ex- plained. For what is the 'possible' but the 'ideal ?' And bow, then, can knowledge be said to be concerned, not with ideas,' but with things ?' "

But though we believe Mr. Courtney's exposition of Mr. Mill's metaphysical principles to be most acute and careful, we cannot agree with him that there is any necessary contradiction be-

The Metaphysies of John Stuart Mitt. By W. L. Courtney, M.A., Fellow of New College, Oxford. London: 0. Kegan Paul and Co.

tween the view of his Logic and the vieu of his Examination of Hamilton, as to the objective or subjective character of what we call the material world. Mr. Courtney's contrast in the following passage admits, we suspect, of pretty easy refutation :—

" If Mill's theory means anything, it certainly means that Matter is for us not something objective, but merely subjective. Or,

as he expressly states it, we know no more of things than what sensations give us,' and sensations testify to nothing but themselves. That being so, we desire to ask two questions before proceeding further. In the first place, what are we to understand that know- ledge, according to Mill, is ? The answer, if we take these chapters we have been considering, is perfectly plain. Knowledge is the pro- cess by which ideas are formed out of sensations, and the agreement or disagreement of these ideas would seem to be knowledge. We turn to the Logic, and we find, to our amazement, that the theory that knowledge has to do with ideas is described as one of the most fatal errors ever introduced into the philosophy of Logic.' 'Proposi- tions are not assertions respecting our ideas of things, but assertions respecting the things themselves ;' the doctrine that the investiga- tion of truth consists in contemplating and handling our ideas, or conceptions of things, instead of the things themselves,' is described as tantamount to the assertion that the only mode of acquiring knowledge of nature is to study it at second-hand, as represented in our owe minds.' What are we to make of this ? The very doctrine that the only mode of acquiring knowledge of nature is to study it at second-hand, as represented in our minds,' which Mill so earnestly repudiates in his Logic, is an exact description of the doctrine which he as earnestly maintains in the Psychological Theory of the Belief in. an Erternal World. A better proof could hardly be furnished of the very different philosophical bases on which his two treatises respec- tively rest. In the second place, we wish to know, with exactness, what Mill means by 'a phenomenon ?' Does he mean a simple inti- mation of a sense-perception, or does he mean a single, individual, concrete, real, fact ? The first is what he ought to mean, by the re- quirements of his Sensationalist position. Sense gives us pheno- nomena ; with phenomena only we have to deal, in opposition to the so-called noiimena, or things in themselves ; a phenomenon, then, is a fact as it appears to us, and as it is represented by our modes of consciousness. But 'phenomenon' does not mean this, when we are told, as in the Logic, that a proposition deals with 'phenomena,' and that we are to study Nature first-band, and not at second-hand, as represented in our own minds. 'Phenomenon' does not mean this, when the Inductive Methods are applied to phenomena to elicit their laws. Then it means a real, objective, concrete fact, and if that is immediately known by us, then we are not in the position of Idealism, but of Realism. The fact is, that Mill, as an Inductive Logician, supposes that phenomena (objective facts) are immediately cognised by us ; while Mill as a Psychologist, a critic of Hamilton, and a meta- physician, supposes that phenomena, the facts immediately cognised by us, are mere subjective presentations."

But so far as we can judge, all that Mill means to say in the Logic is, that when we make such a statement as "arsenic is poisonous" or "gold glitters," we do not mean to state some- thing concerning the idea we have already formed from a limited experience of arsenic or of gold, but something concerning that "permanent possibility of sensation," as Mill would term it, a lump of arsenic or a lump of gold. Now it may be admitted at once that a "permanent possibility of sensation," if it be only the unknown source of a group of sensations, is a purely subjective affair, which we have no means of showing to be out- side ourselves at all. We cannot get at it, nor even near it, nor can we test it in any way, except through what Mr. Mill regards as merely subjective sensations. Still admitting this freely, we may, surely, also admit that the subjective conception which we call our idea of arsenic or of gold, as gathered from the past, is not the same as the "permanent possibility" of subjective sensa- tions, which we call a lump of arsenic or a lump of gold. Even if both be as subjective as Mr. Mill's philosophy would require, they are yet quite different, and not the same. The former is the abstract idea gathered from our past experience of arsenic and gold ; the latter is a source of direct sensation, guaranteeing us a considerable number of other direct sensations, if we care to take the trouble to have them. Now all that Mr. J. S. Mill is really contending for in his Logic is a principle which, so far as we know, may be translated into the philosophic dialect of idealism quite as easily as into the philosophic dialect of realism. It is that when we assert something about arsenic, or gold, or any other object which we are in the habit of discriminating (truly or falsely) from our own minds, we do not mean to assert it simply of the abstract idea which we happen to have formed of that object by a very limited experience, but rather of the source (whatever it be) of our past as well as of all future experience. We do not mean to say, when we say, "Arsenic is poisonous," that, from our limited experience of arsenic, the idea of poison is associated in our minds with the other notes of arsenic. What we mean to say is, that wherever in human experience arsenic has been or shall be properly tested, it will be proved always to have exerted, and in future to exert on

the body of him who takes it in sufficient quantity, the sort of deleterious influence dangerous to life which we describe by "poison." Surely no system of philosophy could be conceived at all into which it would not be possible to convey this distinction; or if there were, it would be self-condemned. Make out, if you please, that all matter is subjective ; still, while your idealism pretends to explain the world at all, it must admit of distinguish-

ing I,etween abstract ideas—the representative notions grounded on Imperfect generalisations—and the originals of those ideas,—

eriginals which are capable of verifying or correcting the sub- stance of previous generalisations, and of helping us to enlarge and to improve them. Berkeley did not deny the distinction in kind between nature and the reflected image of nature in the mind of men, because he regarded both the one and the other as ideas. And Mill is not precluded from maintaining that when you affirm anything to be true of gold, you do not mean merely to affirm it to be true of the speaker's own conception of gold, because he was also ready to affirm that gold itself is nothing but the unknown cause of a certain number of human sensations. Mill's sensational idealism is, as we think Mr. Courtney suffi- ciently proves, a very unsound philosophical doctrine. There we heartily agree with him. But unsound or sound, we must not deny Mill the right to translate into it, as best he may, all the ordinary distinctions of human speech. And certainly, any system which did not leave its adherent the power of distinguish- ing between what men usually call the external object that gives rise to our sensations, and the abstract representation of that object, as it is formed by past experience in the mind of the thinker, would not deserve the name of a system of philosophy at all.

Mr. Courtney is much more successful when he points out that Mill's explanation respectively of matter and of mind, as

centres of "permanent possibilities "—in the former ease, of sensation, in the latter case of feeling,—is really an explanation depending upon mental states which Mill's philosophy first ignores, and then openly declares to involve insoluble enigmas. This is Mr. Courtney's very clear and terse summary of Mill's explanation of the prevalence of a belief in an external world, —an explanation certainly needful from one who, holding, as Mill held, that nothing is known except human sensations, must have regarded such a belief as at first sight quite an anomaly :—

"The Psychological theory undertakes to prove that the concep- tion of External Matter would necessarily be generated (if it was

not an original datum of consciousness) by the known laws of the Mind. The steps in this gradual belief in Externality may be reduced to four :-1. We have a present sensation, and we conceive of possibilities of sensation (by experience). The possibilities of sensation are permanent, while the present sensation is fugitive. 2. The possibility of sensation refers not to a single sensation,

but to a group of sensations. Now if I experience one of them, I know I could experience all. Hence the possibilities of sensation are conceived of as permanent, not only in opposition to the temporariness of my bodily presence, but to the temporary character of any one of the sensations, of which the group referred to is com- posed. Here we observe that the idea of a 'substratum' is in process of formation. 3. Experience of an order in our sensations leads to the belief in the law of Cause and Effect. Now the antecedent of a sensation is in most cases a possibility of sensation, involving a group of contingent sensations. The Idea of 'Cause,' therefore, is con- nected with these permanent possibilities, as are also ideas of 'power,' 'activity,' 'energy,' and the like : and the actual sensations are supposed to have a background in the possibilities of sensation. The idea of a 'substratum' is now fully developed. 4. One more step, and the analysis is complete. We find other people acting on the supposition of these permanent possibilities of sensation, as well as ourselves : whereas our actual sensations are not common to our fellow-creatures. The World, then, of Possible Sensations, belonging to other people, as well as to me, is held to constitute an External World. Such is Mill's extremely acute and subtle analysis of the growth of our belief in Externality. The conclusion is plain. If we ask, What is Matter ? the only answer which a psychologist can give, is that it is merely 'a Permanent Possibility of Sensation.' This is all, says Mill, that is essential to the belief in Matter, whether held by philosophers or ordinary humanity."

But it is obvious that this explanation assumes BS its very basis a continuous chain of memories, and a fixed habit of expecta- tion. You remember that the sensations of weight and glitter associated with gold, were the antecedents of other sensible experiences of the properties of gold. And therefore you expect that when you come across some of these again, you may (if you please) experience the others also. This is the first step, ac- cording to Mill, in the growth of the belief in an external world. But this first step would be itself unintelligible, unless Mill's philosophy has room for, and can admit, some rational ex- planation of memory and expectation. Yet this is just what Mill is candid enough to declare that his philosophy cannot do. He believes in no self, except a succession of feel- ings, and he sees clearly that for a series of feelings to re- member or to expect, is an absurdity. Mr. Mill himself says of this mental feat of memory and expectation, a propos of his theory of mind, "I think by far the wisest thing we can do is to accept the inexplicable fact, without any theory of how it takes place." Oddly enough, however, he does not see that the inex- plicable fact is quite as deeply involved in his theory of matter as it is in his theory of mind. Mr. Courtney shows this with great lucidity in the course of the following admirable passage :— " Let us tarn, for a moment, to the Psychological Theory of the Belief in an External World. What does it postulate, according to Mill ? It postulates, first, that the human mind is capable of expecta- tion. But expectation, we find, is just that which the theory of mind cannot explain and has to accept as a final inexplicability. Conse- quently the Theory of the External World rests on a function of the Mind, which the corresponding theory finds itself unable to explain. That is to say, if words have any meaning, that, as the one theory rests on the other, they both rest on a final inexplicability. Yet, says Mill, with almost unparalleled hardihood, No such difficulties attend the theory in its application to matter.' Though Mill allows himself here to speak of a final inexplicability,' he will not allow others to do the same. In the earlier part of his Examination,' he notices with pain that Hamilton had left the relations of Belief and Know- ledge unsolved. This be calls 'an extremely unphilosophica1 liberty' to take. The next words are exactly applicable to the present case. But when a thinker is compelled by one part of his philosophy to contradict another part, he cannot leave the conflicting assertions standing, and throw the responsibility of his scrape on the arduous- ness of the subject. A palpable self-contradiction is not one of the difficulties which can he adjourned, as belonging to a higher depart- ment of science.' Yet here, notwithstanding these brave words, is an instance of Mill taking an 'extremely unphilosophical liberty,' pre- cisely similar to that which he reprobates in Hamilton. Of course, the truth is that Mill has here got hold of that which must be a stum- bling-block in Sensational schemes of Philosophy. You reduce mind to a series of feelings, and then have to answer the pertinent question, How can a series be aware of itself in past and future time P The fact is that such a series can never be summed, and Personal Identity vanishes in the process. And yet Mill says that this theory leaves Immortality just as it was before. It is precisely as easy to conceive that a succession of feelings, a thread of consciousness, may be pro-

longed to eternity, as that a spiritual substance continues to exist.' If, indeed, despite the fact of Self being sequel:it feelings,' Personal Identity remains all the same, perhaps this is conceivable. But the ambiguity lurks in the words 'thread' and succession.' If it is 'a thread' of consciousness, it may, of course, be prolonged. But a 'thread' means something one and continuous, and Sensations coming and going (seqnent feelings) are not one and continuous. Successive feelings' are by no means the same thing as 'a succession of feelings,' despite Mill's assertion that we are conscious of a succession, in the fact of having successive sensations.' For 'a succession' of feelings is only possible to a self-consciousness, which remains constant and identical throughout all the successive sensuous modifications. But a self-consciousness, constant and identical, can never be admitted by Mill."

Our readers will by this time have had full means of measuring the clearness and the vividness of this terse little criticism, which for ability may almost compare with Mill's own Examination of Hamilton, while its philosophical assumptions seem to us much sounder. Mr. Courtney's own philosophical creed is, however, only hinted in these pages. We infer that he holds some modifi- cation of Kant's view,— a modification perhaps determined by his evident admiration of the chief Oxford expositor of HegeL On some of his own views we Should, if they were more than hinted, be glad to pass a criticism. But in dealing with a book so purely critical as this, and one the positive assumptions of which are kept so much in the background, that course would be a mistake. We must leave it with a very strong recommendation of it to all readers and admirers of Mill. Even. if it does not shake their adhesion to Mill, it will certainly help them to discriminate more distinctly the weak points in his philosophy, and to eke out for themselves the deficiencies of his theory by considerations which had escaped Mill, wherever they do not find it possible to prove that the fault is not in his system, but only in the accidental imperfections of his exposition of it.