Evolution

by F. B. Jevons

We began, at the beginning of this book, by accepting Evolution as a fact, as all ordinarily educated persons in the present state of scientific knowledge are practically bound to do. Accepting it as a fact, we proceeded to inquire what, if anything, it had to tell us about the moral government of the world; and we found that very different interpretations were put upon the theory of Evolution by different authorities. According to one interpretation the process of Evolution was a continual progress from good to better: good could only give way to higher good. According to another interpretation goodness was a transient, evanescent phase in the process of evolution, of no permanent value: the ethical process was doomed to be defeated by its enemy, the cosmic process. According to a third interpretation the notion of good was a pure illusion, necessary indeed, inasmuch as without it there would be no survival for man in the struggle for existence, but none the less an illusion.

Much as these interpretations differ from one another as to the moral significance of the process of evolution, or indeed as to whether evolution has any moral significance at all, they are agreed upon one point. They are agreed that it is impossible to draw any inference from the facts of evolution as to the moral government of the universe. To affirm its moral government would be to claim knowledge of the Unknowable, which is an obvious absurdity. It would be to attribute power, consciousness, wisdom, and goodness to the Real; and the Real is and must ever be unknown.

This identification of the Real with the Unknowable leads us into the following ridiculous impasse: the vast majority of men look, and must always look, for guidance and information to science and theology; and theology is knowledge of the unknowable; science, knowledge of the unreal. Those who are content with this blind alley may remain in it. We propose to try to find our way out of it.

If we analyse our perception of any material object, that is to say, of any object which we perceive by means of the senses, we shall find that our perception of the object consists of the sensations which we have of it. To perceive an orange is to see that it is yellow, to feel that it is round, to smell it, taste it, and so on. These various sensations together constitute our perception of the orange. Now, the subjective idealist says that the perception is the orange, and that the orange is the perception. To the beginner in philosophy that sounds absurd: he knows that his perception is not the orange, and that the orange is something more than his perception of it. But when he is asked, "What more? If the orange is not the perception, what is it?" he does not generally produce any satisfactory reply; and then he is told that his notion, that there is anything in the orange except his own perception or sensations, is obviously not a fact of sensation or a thing directly observed, but merely a belief or inference of his. On the other hand, he generally puts a very natural question to his instructor: "If the orange is merely my perception, what becomes of the orange when I do not perceive it? Granted that it exists whenever I look at it, what becomes of it in the intervals when I am not looking at it? Does it exist then, or does it not?"

To this Bishop Berkeley replies that it does; that it exists then in exactly the same way as it does now, that is to say, it exists in idea (i.e. perception or sensation); but as it does not exist in my perception, when I am not looking at it, it must exist in the perception of some other mind, to which all things at all times are present.

With the fact which forms Berkeley's conclusion I have no quarrel. What I should like to show is that it does not follow from these premises.

Berkeley's argument is: All men believe, and rightly believe, that the things they see are permanent. The things they see are ideas (perceptions, sensations) of a mind. Therefore the permanent world is the idea of a permanent mind.[5]

But "the things they see" is an ambiguous expression. If by "the things that I see" is meant "my sensations of sight," then they are not permanent, for they only last as long as I look at the object, and consequently any argument based on their supposed permanence falls to the ground. On the other hand, if "the things that I see" are permanent, then they are not merely my sensations of sight—in which case subjective idealism is wrong, and my perception of a thing is not the whole account of the thing and does not exhaust its reality. The things which I perceive are not my sensations: they are things of which I have sensations. In fine, they are apprehended, at the moment of apprehension, as being both within and without consciousness.

To the question whether a thing exists when I am not looking at it, John Stuart Mill replies, in effect, that as often as I look at it I shall see it; that if I were looking I should see it. This is true enough; but it is no answer to the question. When further pressed, Mill further replies that, if things do not exist when we do not look, we should nevertheless necessarily be deluded by the association of ideas into imagining that they do exist when not looked at. Here, again, it is perfectly true that, if things are not real, it is a delusion to imagine they are. But that is no answer to the question. It is, in fact, a question which the subjective idealist cannot answer. To say "No! Things out of consciousness are non-existent," is to say that effects of which the causes are unobserved are effects produced by non-existent causes. To say "Yes" is to admit that things can exist out of consciousness as well as in, which is what subjective idealism is there to deny.

We submit, then, that the analysis of experience which subjective idealism makes is not an exhaustive analysis; and that, when the man of common sense says that in looking at anything he is aware both of his sensations of sight and of something more, he is stating the actual facts as they are given in experience to all of us.