Twenty objects in one consciousness must not be confounded with twenty objects in another. When we speak of two men as seeing the same thing, we do not mean that the object in one mind is the same with the object in the other in sense first, but in sense sixth. This does not prevent them from being two. A single object in one mind may be the same with itself in sense first. A number of similar objects in one mind may be the same in sense fourth. Two objects or two classes of objects in different minds may be the same in sense sixth. One may, to be sure, think of twenty objects in one mind, and of the same (sense sixth) twenty objects in another mind as forty objects. Philosophical reflection naturally leads to this. I am inducing a reader to do it when I tell him that an object in one mind and the same object in another are two objects. But in doing this, one must bear in mind the fact that the forty objects belong to two quite distinct classes, and that common language would not reckon them as forty, but as twenty. In this there is, of course, a pitfall for the unwary.
Now, when Plato looked for the object of the general name, for the x contained in a class of similar objects, what did he do? He created a new object distinct from and apart from all the others. He is very vague in his statements, and he was probably quite as vague in his thought; but I cannot see how anyone familiar with the Phaedrus, the Republic, the Timaeus, the Symposium and the Parmenides, and familiar with Plato's concrete way of thinking in images, can avoid coming to the conclusion that the Idea was to him predominantly an object, an individual—a vague and inconsistent object, if you please, but still an object. But an x is in no sense a universal. It is the same with other x's only in sense fourth; that is, it is like them. The x that they have in common must be x considered simply, not x considered as here or there, in this place or in that. All such differences must be eliminated if one is to get not an individual, but a universal. If the Idea may be considered as apart from objects, it is an object in so far not essentially differing from the others. Again, the Platonic Idea is an object, but not to be put upon the same plane with other objects. They suffer change, while it is immutable; they are perceivable by the senses, and it is not. The objects of sense and the Idea are in different worlds; and though we cannot accuse Plato of drawing the distinctions of the modern hypothetical realist, he has certainly given us a suggestive parallel to the Lockian ideas and "real" things. The trouble has arisen out of his difficulty in keeping an abstraction abstract; he has turned it into a concrete, and, finding in the world of sense no place for this concrete, this new individual, he has given it a world of its own. Whatever this object in this world apart may be, it is certainly not what is common to twenty individuals in the world of sensible things.
Aristotle, seeing this difficulty, placed the idea in the objects forming the class. It may be objected that putting x in a place individualizes it as much as putting it out of a place. This is quite true if the "in" is taken locally—taken as it is when we speak of a man as being in one room rather than another. The x in one object is not identically the x in another object. We do not get the universal, x in the abstract, until we lose the distinctions "in the one object," and "in the other object." Two x's cannot be the same in sense first, from the mere fact that they are two; an x in one place and an x in another place are always two. If, however, by the statement that the universal is in the objects, one mean merely that the universal is that element x, which, combined with certain elements, forms a total which is known as this object, and combined with certain others forms a total which is known as that, but taken by itself contains no distinction of this and that; if this is all that is meant by the "in," there is no objection to the use of the statement, and it is strictly true. The x element is a part of each of the objects, but, until some addition is made to it, it is not "the x in this object" or "the x in that object"; it is what they have in common. The "in common" means just this.
The Nominalistic doctrine that only individuals have real existence, and that the universal, whatever it may be, is to be sought in the mind, distinguishes between the spheres of being and denies to one what it allows to another. Of the extreme nominalistic position, that the only true universal is the word, which may be applied indifferently to several distinct objects, I shall not here speak. I have discussed this wholly untenable view elsewhere.[46] But the more reasonable Nominalism, the conceptualistic, is worthy of examination here. In so far as it holds that the mind can form a concept, which shall consist of the element or elements several objects have in common, we have no quarrel with it. Here we find a true universal, obtained by discarding differences which distinguish objects from one another. We obtain by this that mental core common to several similar mental objects. If, however, we distinguish between mental objects and "real" things corresponding to them, we have evidently two distinct fields to consider. When we say a number of objects in consciousness are alike, we are simply pointing out the fact that they contain a universal element as well as individual differences. Can we say that a number of "real" objects are alike? If so, what do we mean in saying it? If there is nothing to prevent us from calling them individuals, there would seem to be nothing to prevent us from affirming that they are "really" alike. Does likeness ever mean anything except sameness in difference? Is not, then, the element in which several objects resemble each other a universal element, whether the objects be mental or "real?" What else does universal mean? The excuse for speaking ceases when language ceases to be significant. One does not in the least explain the similarity, or sameness in the fourth sense, of a number of "real" objects, by assuming a universal in a quite different world—one which could not possibly exist in the world of the objects. This solution of the problem is Platonic. The element which twenty real objects have in common must be a "real" element, or it cannot be a constituent part of each object. If it is not a constituent part of each object, it is absurd to speak of the objects as having it in common. If they have nothing in common, it is absurd to say that they are alike. Twenty similar objects must have a universal element, to whatever sphere of being they belong; and this element must belong to the same sphere as the objects. A mental universal is the same with a "real" universal only in sense seventh, and it can furnish no explanation of the likeness of "real" things.
In the light of the foregoing analysis a goodly number of the scholastic arguments regarding universals are easily seen to contain errors. The Anselmic view of genera and species as universal substances,[47] for instance, makes an abstraction a thing and distinguishes it from other things. It fails to keep it abstract. The doctrine attributed to William of Champeaux, by Abelard, that universals are essentially and wholly present in each of their individuals, in which latter there is no diversity of essence, but only variety through accidents,[48] is tenable or not according to the sense in which the words are taken. The word "wholly" is an awkward one, and would incline one to the view that William regarded the universal as a thing, a concrete, which may be in this place or that. If this were his opinion, and it is perhaps more reasonable to believe that it was, the objection of Abelard, that this would necessitate the same thing's being in different places at the same time, would hold good. If the essence of humanity be wholly in Socrates, it must be where Socrates is. It cannot, then, be somewhere else in Plato. Manifestly humanity, so regarded, is not a universal at all. It is "this humanity" or "that humanity," i. e., this or that occurrence of humanity; and two occurrences of a quality or group of qualities are two individuals. The word "in" I have shown to be ambiguous. Any element, regarded as, in one sense, in an individual, retains the local flavor which makes universality impossible. But if William meant nothing more by his statement than that the element common to the individuals is a constituent part of each, and that there is in it no distinction which will allow us to put it part here and part there, the polemic of Abelard is not justifiable. Whatever he may have intended to say, there can be no mistake as to the meaning of the following sentence from Robert Pulleyn: "The species is the whole substance of individuals, and the whole species is the same in each individual: therefore the species is one substance, but its individuals many persons, and these many persons are that one substance."[49] The dialectician represented as saying this, ought to have been a prey to profound melancholy; his samenesses are clearly in deplorable confusion. He makes his universal an individual, and then imposes upon it duties which no individual can fulfil with credit. It is to be one and yet not one: distinct from something else, and yet identical with it. It is to be a universal and not a universal. It is by no means to be envied. The conceptualistic position of Abelard, that we may gain a subjective universal by abstraction, but that only individuals exist in reality, is open to the objections that I advanced in discussing Nominalism. The position is supported[50] by the argument that we may abstract the form from the substantial subject to which it is united, and consider it separately, while in nature there is no such abstraction, the form and the subject forming a united whole. To this one may answer, as I have indicated above, that, whatever it may be united with, the form in the several individuals is in some sense the same, or the individuals would not be alike, and the concept would be of no service in representing it. What is meant by such sameness? Is it anything but sameness in sense fourth? When several objects are the same in sense fourth, is not the element common to them a universal? Why make this conceptualistic discrimination between things in mind and "real" things?
Finally, in passing from scholasticism, I would suggest that it is conducive to clearness in thinking to bear in mind that when Albert, or Thomas, or Duns, declares in favor of all three kinds of universal, ante rem, in re, and post rem, he is declaring for three things and not one. He is not at all in the position of the old Platonic Realist; but is rather, if I may so express it, a kind of triple Aristotelian. One may perfectly well hold to all three universals, by putting one in the mind of God, one in things, and one in a human mind; but an individual may be given this three-fold existence quite as well as a universal. In the old Realism the problem of the universal called into existence a new sphere of being. Here a new sphere of being, assumed upon extraneous grounds, furnishes one more universal. The universals in the mind of God are not assumed as the object of the general name applied to twenty "real" objects. The object of this name is the in re. The ante rem universal cannot, then, be gotten as Plato got it. In this distinction between the different spheres of being we have an advance in reflection; but as I have said, on this new ground the individual may demand its rights. The ante rem Realism of the great scholastics of the thirteenth century should not be confounded with that of an earlier period. It is not open to the same objections. But on the other hand, it has not the same excuse for existence. It is a historical relic.
Sec. 29. The first of the moderns to whom I shall refer is Descartes. There are certain passages in the Meditations which will well illustrate the efforts made by this remarkable man in the direction of accurate analysis, as also the errors into which he fell through a confusion of the kinds of sameness. I shall quote from the second and third Meditations:
"Let us now accordingly consider the things which are commonly thought the easiest of all to know, and which are thought also to be the most distinctly known, that is, the bodies that we touch and see; not indeed bodies in general, for these general notions are usually a little more confused: but let us consider a single one of them. Let us take, for example, this bit of wax; it has just been taken from the hive; it has not yet lost the sweetness of the honey it contained; it still keeps something of the odor of the flowers from which it has been gathered; its color, its figure, its size, are apparent; it is hard, it is cold, it is easily handled, and if struck it gives a sound. In a word, everything that can make a body distinctly known is found in this one. But notice, while I speak, it is placed near the fire; what remained of savor and odor disappears, its color changes, its figure is lost, its size increases, it becomes liquid, grows hot, one can scarcely handle it, and when struck it no longer gives a sound. Does the same wax remain after this change? One must admit that it does; no one doubts it; no one judges otherwise. What then was it that was known with so much distinctness in this bit of wax? Certainly nothing that I perceived by means of the senses, for all the things which fall under taste, smell, sight, touch and hearing, are changed, and yet the same wax remains. Perhaps it was what I think now, namely, that this wax was neither the sweetness of honey, the agreeable odor of flowers, the whiteness, the figure, nor the sound, but only a body which a little before appeared to my senses under these forms, and which now appears to them under others. But to speak precisely, what do I imagine when I think it in this way? Let us consider it attentively, and abstracting all that does not belong to the wax, let us see what remains. Surely nothing remains but something extended, flexible and mutable. But what is that, flexible and mutable? Is it not that I imagine that this bit of wax, being round, is capable of becoming square and of changing from square to triangular? No, it is certainly not that, for I think it capable of an infinite number of similar changes; but I could not run through this infinite number by my imagination, and consequently this conception that I have of the wax is not due to the faculty of imagination. But what now is this extension? Is it not also unknown? For it becomes greater when the wax melts, greater when it boils, and still greater when the heat increases, and I could not conceive clearly and truly what wax is, if I did not think that even this bit that we are considering is capable of receiving more varieties of extension than I have ever imagined. It must then be admitted that I could not comprehend by imagination even what this bit of wax is, and that only my understanding can comprehend it. I say this particular bit of wax; for as for wax in general, it is still more evident. But what is this bit of wax that cannot be comprehended save by the understanding or the mind? It is certainly the same that I see, that I touch, that I imagine; it is, in a word, the same that I have always thought it from the beginning. But, what is important to note here is, that my perception is not a sensation of sight, nor of touch, nor an act of the imagination, and it has never been this, although it may have seemed so before; but it is merely an intuition (inspection) of the mind, which may be imperfect and confused as it was before, or clear and distinct as it is at present, according as my attention is directed more or less to the elements in it, and of which it is composed.
"However, I cannot be too much surprised when I consider the weakness of my mind and its proneness to be carried insensibly into error. For even when I consider all this in my own mind, and without using language, the words arrest me, and I am almost deceived by the terms in common use; for we say that we see the same wax if it be present, and not that we judge that it is the same, from its having the same color and figure; whence I might be tempted to conclude that one knows the wax by the sight of the eyes, and not merely by the intuition of the mind, were it not that, in looking from a window at men passing in the street, I say that I see men, just as I say that I see the wax; and yet what do I see from this window except hats and cloaks which might cover machines moved by springs? But I judge that they are men, and thus comprehend only by the power of judging, which is in my mind, what I thought I saw with my eyes."[51]
What Descartes is feeling for in this is sameness in sense third. When we use the words "a bit of wax," we do not have in mind a single experience. The wax in a solid and the wax in a liquid state is to us the same wax. I have pointed out what the word same, so used, means. It means that these two experiences are recognized as belonging to the one group or series of experiences; and the wax, completely known, is the sum total of the series. Descartes saw very well that the two experiences under discussion are not strictly identical (the same in sense first), and he saw also that they are very unlike. He naturally asked, In what then are they the same? or, what is there that is here the same? And, instead of accepting the fact that such a sameness as this cannot be reduced to one of the others, he solved the problem by passing from the experiences, the "hats and cloaks," to a "real" thing underlying. In other words, to explain the sameness of two experiences of a bit of wax, sameness in sense third, he assumed "real" wax, which is the same with the experiences which represent it only in sense seventh. This real wax, or something in it, he supposes to remain the same on two occasions. It is this to which he makes the mind refer when it calls the wax the same. But when a man advances statements about a bit of wax, his information rests ultimately upon his experiences, if it be grounded at all. From the experience one infers the "real" thing, and not vice versa. No one knew this better than Descartes, with his fundamental principle of the certainty of consciousness and the uncertainty of what is "external." He got his "real" world by a process of reasoning, and put it in a realm wholly cut off from direct observation. This being the case, one cannot but wonder at his inconsistency in the present instance. Is one to remain in doubt whether a piece of wax felt to be hard, and then melted before the fire, is the same, until one has had some means of discovering that the same "real" wax is present on the two occasions? How is one to find out whether "real" wax is ever present unless he infer its presence from some experience? And how is one to know that the same "real" wax is present on two occasions unless he infer it from the fact that what is directly perceived on the two occasions is the same in some sense of the word? Whatever sameness there is rests ultimately for its evidence upon the experiences. There is nothing else to judge from. The reasoning, which would base the sameness of what is experienced upon the sameness of a corresponding "real" thing, when the sameness of this latter is to be inferred from the former, reminds one of the stupid argument, still occasionally met with, which would infer a God from data of consciousness, and then found a belief in the veracity of consciousness upon the goodness of God. One may believe, if one please, that, when we have two distinct experiences so connected that we call them two perceptions of the same wax, there is in some way connected with them a bit of "real" wax which remains in some sense the same. But one should never suppose that any given experienced wax is proved the same by reference to this. It is judged the same upon observation.