“So far good. Secondly, he argues that they cannot be represented in thought as such real existences, because ‘to be conceived at all, a thing must be conceived as having attributes.’ Now here the metaphysical doctrine enables us to conceive them as real existences, and rebuts the argument for {228} their inconceivability; for the other element, the material element, the feeling or quality occupying Space and Time stands in the place and performs the function of the required attributes, composing together with the space and time which is occupied the empirical phenomena of perception. So far as this argument of Mr. Spencer goes, then, we are entitled to say that his case for the inconceivability of Space and Time as real existences is not made out.”
Whether the fault is in me or not I cannot say, but I fail to see that my argument is thus rebutted. On the contrary, it appears to me substantially conceded. What kind of entity is that which can exist only when occupied by something else? Dr. Hodgson’s own argument is a tacit assertion that Space by itself cannot be conceived as an existence; and this is all that I have alleged.
Dr. Hodgson deals next with the further argument, familiar to all readers, which I have added as showing the insurmountable difficulty in the way of conceiving Space and Time as objective entities; namely, that “all entities which we actually know as such are limited. . . . But of Space and Time we cannot assert either limitation, or the absence of limitation.” Without quoting at length the reasons Dr. Hodgson gives for distinguishing between Space as perceived and Space as conceived, it will suffice if I quote his own statement of the result to which they bring him: “So that Space and Time as perceived are not finite, but infinite, as conceived are not infinite, but finite.”
Most readers will, I think, be startled by the assertion that conception is less extensive in range than perception; but, without dwelling on this, I will content myself by asking in what case Space is perceived as infinite? Surely Dr. Hodgson does not mean to say that he can perceive the whole surrounding Space at once—that the Space behind is united in perception with the Space in front. Yet this is the necessary implication of his words. Taking his statement less literally, however, and not dwelling on the fact that in perception Space is habitually bounded by objects more or less distant, let us test his {229} assertion under the most favourable conditions. Supposing the eye directed upwards towards a clear sky; is not the space then perceived, laterally limited? The visual area, restricted by the visual apertures, cannot include in perception even 180° from side to side, and is still more confined in a direction at right angles to this. Even in the third direction, to which alone Dr. Hodgson evidently refers, it cannot properly be said that it is infinite in perception. Look at a position in the sky a thousand miles off. Now look at a position a million miles off. What is the difference in perception? Nothing. How then can an infinite distance be perceived when these immensely-unlike finite distances cannot be perceived as differing from one another, or from an infinite distance? Dr. Hodgson has used the wrong word. Instead of saying that Space as perceived is infinite, he should have said that, in perception, Space is finite in two dimensions, and becomes indefinite in the third when this becomes great.
I now come to the paragraph beginning “Mr. Spencer then turns to the second or subjective hypothesis, that of Kant.” This paragraph is somewhat difficult to deal with, because in it my reasoning is criticized both from the Kantian point of view and from Dr. Hodgson’s own point of view. Dissenting from Kant’s view, Dr. Hodgson says, “I hold that both Space and Time and Feeling, or the material element, are equally and alike subjective, equally and alike objective.” As I cannot understand this, I am unable to deal with those arguments against me which Dr. Hodgson bases upon it, and must limit myself to that which he urges on behalf of Kant. He says:—
“But I think that Mr. Spencer’s representation of Kant’s view is very incorrect; he seems to be misled by the large term non-ego. Kant held that Space and Time were in their origin subjective, but when applied to the non-ego resulted in phenomena, and were the formal element in those phenomena, among which some were phenomena of the internal sense or ego, others of the external sense or non-ego. The non-ego to which the forms of Space and Time did not apply and did not belong, was the Ding-an-sich, not the {230} phenomenal non-ego. Hence the objective existence of Space and Time in phenomena, but not in the Ding-an-sich, is a consistent and necessary consequence of Kant’s view of their subjective origin.”
If I have misunderstood Kant, as thus alleged, then my comment must be that I credited him with an hypothesis less objectionable than that which he held. I supposed his view to be that Space, as a form of intuition belonging to the ego, is imposed by it on the non-ego (by which I understood the thing in itself) in the act of intuition. But now the Kantian doctrine is said to be that Space, originating in the ego, when applied to the non-ego, results in phenomena (the non-ego meant being, in that case, necessarily the Ding-an-sich, or thing in itself); and that the phenomena so resulting become objective existences along with the Space given to them by the subject. The subject having imposed Space as a form on the primordial object, or thing in itself, and so created phenomena, this Space thereupon becomes an objective existence, independent of both the subject and the original thing in itself! To Dr. Hodgson this may seem a more tenable position than that which I ascribed to Kant; but to me it seems only a multiplication of inconceivabilities. I am content to leave it as it stands: not feeling my reasons for rejecting the Kantian hypothesis much weakened.[26]
The remaining reply which Dr. Hodgson makes runs thus:—
“But Mr. Spencer has a second argument to prove this inconceivability. It is this:—‘If Space and Time are forms of thought, they can never be {231} thought of; since it is impossible for anything to be at once the form of thought and the matter of thought.’ . . . . An instance will show the fallacy best. Syllogism is usually held to be a form of thought. Would it be any argument for the inconceivability of syllogisms to say, they cannot be at once the form and the matter of thought? Can we not syllogize about syllogism? Or, more plainly still,—no dog can bite himself, for it is impossible to be at once the thing that bites and the thing that is bitten.”
Had Dr. Hodgson quoted the whole of the passage from which he takes the above sentence; or had he considered it in conjunction with the Kantian doctrine to which it refers (namely, that Space survives in consciousness when all contents are expelled, which implies that then Space is the thing with which consciousness is occupied, or the object of consciousness), he would have seen that his reply has none of the cogency he supposes. If, taking his first illustration, he will ask himself whether it is possible to “syllogize about syllogism,” when syllogism has no content whatever, symbolic or other—has nonentity to serve for major, nonentity for minor, and nonentity for conclusion; he will, I think, see that syllogism, considered as surviving terms of every kind, cannot be syllogized about: the “pure form” of reason (supposing it to be syllogism, which it is not) if absolutely discharged of all it contains, cannot be represented in thought, and therefore cannot be reasoned about. Following Dr. Hodgson to his second illustration, I must express my surprise that a metaphysician of his acuteness should have used it. For an illustration to have any value, the relation between the terms of the analogous case {232} must have some parallelism to the relation between the terms of the case with which it is compared. Does Dr. Hodgson really think that the relation between a dog and the part of himself which he bites, is like the relation between matter and form? Suppose the dog bites his tail. Now the dog, as biting, stands, according to Dr. Hodgson, for the form as the containing mental faculty; and the tail, as bitten, stands for this mental faculty as contained. Now suppose the dog loses his tail. Can the faculty as containing and the faculty as contained be separated in the same way? Does the mental form when deprived of all content, even itself (granting that it can be its own content), continue to exist in the same way that a dog continues to exist when he has lost his tail? Even had this illustration been applicable, I should scarcely have expected Dr. Hodgson to remain satisfied with it. I should have thought he would prefer to meet my argument directly, rather than indirectly. Why has he not shown the invalidity of the reasoning used in the Principles of Psychology (§ 399, 2nd ed.)? Having there quoted the statement of Kant, that “Space and Time are not merely forms of sensuous intuition, but intuitions themselves;” I have written—