[54]. This consideration obviously influenced Leibnitz. It is a much-decried doctrine in his system that every “monad,” or simple real thing, perceives nothing but its own internal states; there are no “windows” through which one monad can behold the states of another. It is easy to show that this doctrine leads to extremely far-fetched and fantastic hypotheses to account for the apparent communication between different monads, but not so easy to show that Pluralism can afford to dispense with it. See in particular Leibnitz’s New System of the Nature of Substances (Works, ed. Erdmann, 124 ff.; ed. Gerhardt, iv. 477 ff.; Eng. trans. in Latta’s Leibnis: the Monadology, etc., p. 297 ff.), especially §§ 13-17 and Monadology, §§ 7-9, 51.
[55]. See for a recent treatment of this point in its bearing upon the theory of volition and moral accountability, Mr. Bradley’s article on “Mental Conflict and Imputation” in Mind for July 1902. There is probably no part of Psychology which suffers more from an improper over-simplification of awkward facts.
[56]. As the reader will readily collect from the preceding discussion, I do not myself admit that they are justified. On the contrary, I should hold that any consistent Pluralism must issue in what, if I held it myself, I should feel compelled to describe as Atheism, and the doctrine of blind chance as the arbiter of all things. In this matter I should like to associate myself entirely with the emphatic protest of Mr. Bradley, in Mind July 1902, p. 313, and with the remarks of Mr. B. Russell in his work on The Philosophy of Leibniz, p. 172. I need not say that I do not make these remarks for the purpose of disparagement. By all means, if Atheism is the logical outcome of consistent thinking, let us say so; what I object to is the constant appeal to theistic beliefs on the part of metaphysicians who, so far as I can see, ought to be atheists if they were in earnest with their own position.
[57]. For a popular exemplification of the kind of appeal to religious and ethical interests here objected to, see the first essay in Prof. James’s Will to Believe. I have never been able to understand why these appeals, if legitimate, should not be allowed in Psychology or any other science as readily as in Metaphysics. Would Prof. James regard it as a valid argument for the “timeless self” or the Innervationsgefühle, that some men may be better or happier for believing in them? Or again, is it in itself an objection to the study of Ethics that certain persons may become both less moral and less happy as a consequence of studying it?
[58]. N.B.—These possibilities, it must be remembered, though numerically infinite, are assumed to be qualitatively determinate, being constituted of the condition of conformity to the logical principle of non-contradiction. Now there is no reason in the nature of a plurality of independent things why this principle should be recognised rather than not.
[59]. A medley of independent things would not even be really “many.” For until you can count “first, second, third....” you have not your Many. And nothing but the terms of a coherent connected series can be counted. What you can count as many is shown by the very fact of your ability to count it to have a common nature or ground which permits of its orderly arrangement, and thus to be part of one system. Compare Plato, Parmenides, 164, 165.
[60]. As Aristotle more than once says, a human hand, for instance, is not when severed from the rest of the body a “hand” at all, except ὁμωνύμως “equivocally,” any more than the “hand” of a statue is a true hand. (I.e. it is only a “true hand” so long as it does the work of a hand. Captain Cuttle’s hook probably deserved the name of “hand” better than the severed member it replaced).
[61]. I shall attempt to show in a later chapter (Bk. IV. chap. 3) that, in any useful signification of the term “self,” Reality is not a “self” nor yet a mere community of “selves.”
[62]. Again, I must remind the reader that this recognition of the teleological character of mind does not in the least preclude the necessity for psychological analysis of mental states. Still less does it require us to include in our analysis a volitional element as one distinguishable aspect or component of the isolated mental state by the side of others, such as the presentational and emotional aspects. It might even be contended that a “tripartite” or three-aspect Psychology commits the mistake of counting in the whole psychical fact as one of its own components.
[63]. See infra, Bk. IV. chap. 3, where we shall find that the relation of the individual self to a social whole probably furnishes a still better, though not altogether satisfactory, illustration of our principle.