“Whether the pre-historic genesis of these congenital dispositions or inherited necessities of thought, as suggested by Mr. Herbert Spencer, be right or wrong, does not signify for the purpose which Kant had in view. In admitting that there is something in our mind, which is not the result of our own à posteriori experience, Mr. Herbert Spencer is a thorough Kantian, and we shall see that he is a Kantian in other respects too. If it could be proved that nervous modifications, accumulated from generation to generation, could result in nervous structures that are fixed in proportion as the outer relations to which they answer are fixed, we, as followers of Kant, should only have to put in the place of Kant’s intuitions of Space and Time ‘the constant space-re­la­tions expressed in definite nervous structures, congenitally framed to act in definite ways, and incapable of acting in any other {236} way.’ If Mr. Herbert Spencer had not misunderstood the exact meaning of what Kant calls the intuitions of Space and Time, he would have perceived that, barring his theory of the pre-historic origin of these intuitions, he was quite at one with Kant.”

On this passage let me remark, first, that the word “pre-historic,” ordinarily employed only in respect to human history, is misleading when applied to the history of Life in general; and his use of it leaves me in some doubt whether Professor Max Müller has rightly conceived the hypothesis he refers to.

My second comment is, that the description of me as “quite at one with Kant,” “barring” the “theory of the prehistoric origin of these intuitions,” curiously implies that it is a matter of comparative indifference whether the forms of thought are held to be naturally generated by intercourse between the organism and its environing relations, during the evolution of the lowest into the highest types, or whether such forms are held to be supernaturally given to the human mind, and are independent both of environing relations and of ancestral minds. But now, addressing myself to the essential point, I must meet the statement that I have “misunderstood the exact meaning of what Kant calls the intuitions of Space and Time,” by saying that I think Professor Max Müller has overlooked certain passages which justify my interpretation, and render his interpretation untenable. For Kant says “Space is nothing else than the form of all phenomena of the external sense;” further, he says that “Time is nothing but the form of our internal intuition;” and, to repeat words I have used elsewhere, “He distinctly shuts out the supposition that there are forms of the non-ego to which these forms of the ego correspond, by saying that ‘Space is not a conception which has been derived from outward experiences.’” Now so far from being in harmony with, these statements are in direct contradiction to, the view which I hold; and seem to me absolutely irreconcilable with it. How can it be said that, “barring” a difference represented as trivial, I am {237} “quite at one with Kant,” when I contend that these subjective forms of intuition are moulded into correspondence with, and therefore derived from, some objective form or nexus, and therefore dependent upon it; while the Kantian hypothesis is that these subjective forms are not derived from the object, but pre-exist in the subject—are imposed by the ego on the non-ego. It seems to me that not only do Kant’s words, as above given, exclude the view which I hold, but also that Kant could not consistently have held any such view. Rightly recognizing, as he did, these forms of intuition as innate, he was, from his stand-point, obliged to regard them as imposed on the matter of intuition in the act of intuition. In the absence of the hypothesis that intelligence has been evolved, it was not possible for him to regard these subjective forms as having been derived from objective forms.

A disciple of Locke might, I think, say that the Evolution-view of our con­scious­ness of Space and Time is essentially Lockian, with more truth than Professor Max Müller can represent it as essentially Kantian. The Evolution-view is completely experiential. It differs from the original view of the ex­pe­rien­tial­ists by containing a great extension of that view. With the relatively-small effects of individual experiences, it joins the relatively-vast effects of the experiences of antecedent individuals. But the view of Kant is avowedly and absolutely unexperiential. Surely this makes the predominance of kinship manifest.

In Professor Max Müller’s replies to my criticisms on Kant, I cannot see greater validity than in this affiliation to which I have demurred. One of his arguments is that which Dr. Hodgson has used, and which I have already answered; and I think that the others, when compared with the passages of the Principles of Psychology which they concern, will not be found adequate. I refer to them here {238} chiefly for the purpose of pointing out that when he speaks of me as bringing “three arguments against Kant’s view,” he understates the number. Let me close what I have to say on this disputed question, by quoting the summary of reasons I have given for rejecting the Kantian hypothesis:—

“Kant tells us that Space is the form of all external intuition; which is not true. He tells us that the con­scious­ness of Space continues when the con­scious­ness of all things contained in it is suppressed; which is also not true. From these alleged facts he infers that Space is an à priori form of intuition. I say infers, because this conclusion is not presented in necessary union with the premises, in the same way that the con­scious­ness of duality is necessarily presented along with the con­scious­ness of inequality; but it is a conclusion voluntarily drawn for the purpose of explaining the alleged facts. And then that we may accept this conclusion, which is not necessarily presented along with these alleged facts which are not true, we are obliged to affirm several propositions which cannot be rendered into thought. When Space is itself contemplated, we have to conceive it as at once the form of intuition and the matter of intuition; which is impossible. We have to unite that which we are conscious of as Space with that which we are conscious of as the ego, and contemplate the one as a property of the other; which is impossible. We have at the same time to disunite that which we are conscious of as Space, from that which we are conscious of as the non-ego, and contemplate the one as separate from the other; which is also impossible. Further, this hypothesis that Space is “nothing else” than a form of intuition belonging wholly to the ego, commits us to one of the two alternatives, that the non-ego is formless or that its form produces absolutely no effect upon the ego; both of which alternatives involve us in impossibilities of thought.”—Prin. of Psy., § 399.

Objections of another, though allied, class have been made in a review of the Principles of Psychology by Mr. H. Sidgwick—a critic whose remarks on questions of mental philosophy always deserve respectful consideration.

Mr. Sidgwick’s chief aim is to show what he calls “the mazy inconsistency of his [my] metaphysical results.” More specifically, he expresses thus the proposition he seeks to justify—“His view of the subject appears to have a fundamental incoherence, which shows itself in various ways on the surface of his exposition, but of which the root lies {239} much deeper, in his inability to harmonise different lines of thought.”

Before dealing with the reasons given for this judgment, let me say that, in addition to the value which candid criticisms have as showing where more explanation is needed, they are almost indispensable as revealing to a writer incongruities he had not perceived. Especially where, as in this case, the subject-matter has many aspects, and where the words supplied by our language are so inadequate in number that, to avoid cumbrous circumlocution, they have to be used in senses that vary according to the context, it is extremely difficult to avoid imperfections of statement. But while I acknowledge sundry such imperfections and the resulting incongruities, I cannot see that these are, as Mr. Sidgwick says, fundamental. Contrariwise, their superficiality seems to me proved by the fact that they may be rectified without otherwise altering the expositions in which they occur. Here is an instance.

Mr. Sidgwick points out that, when treating of the “Data of Psychology,” I have said (in § 56) that, though we reach inferentially “the belief that mind and nervous action are the subjective and objective faces of the same thing, we remain utterly incapable of seeing, and even of imagining, how the two are related” (I quote the passage more fully than he does). He then goes on to show that in the “Special Synthesis,” where I have sketched the evolution of Intelligence under its objective aspect, as displayed in the processes by which beings of various grades adjust themselves to surrounding actions, I “speak as if” we could see how con­scious­ness “naturally arises at a particular stage” of nervous action. The chapter he here refers to is one describing that “dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion of the psychical from the physical life” which accompanies advancing organization, and more especially advancing development of the nervous system. In it I have shown {240} that, while the changes constituting physical life continue to be characterized by the simultaneity with which all kinds of them go on throughout the organism, the changes constituting psychical life, arising as the nervous system develops, become gradually more distinguished by their seriality. And I have said that as nervous integration advances, “there must result an unbroken series of these changes—there must arise a con­scious­ness.” Now I admit that here is an apparent inconsistency. I ought to have said that “there must result an unbroken series of these changes,” which, taking place in the nervous system of a highly-organized creature, gives coherence to its conduct; and along with which we assume a con­scious­ness, because con­scious­ness goes along with coherent conduct in ourselves. If Mr. Sidgwick will substitute this statement for the statement as it stands, he will see that the arguments and conclusions remain intact. A survey of the chapter as a whole, proves that its aim is not in the least to explain how nervous changes, considered as waves of molecular motion, become the feelings constituting con­scious­ness; but that, contemplating the facts objectively in living creatures at large, it points out the cardinal distinction between vital actions in general, and those particular vital actions which, in a creature displaying them, lead us to speak of it as intelligent. It is shown that the rise of such actions becomes marked in proportion as the changes taking place in the part called the nervous system, are made more and more distinctly serial, by union in a supreme centre of co-ordination. The introduction of the word con­scious­ness, arises in the effort to show what fundamental character there is in these particular physiological changes which is parallel to a fundamental character in the psychological changes.