On this page
-
Text (2)
-
734r SHI* ./I<-RA :p ' :B&. Pfo* 279;m&j...
-
ESSAYS FROM THE "EDINBURGH REVIEW." Essa...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
The Future Of German Philosophy. Gegenwa...
£ i ^ lOs ^^ y ofwhat acon calls " fruit" can be obtained . In fact , the eiSt of iiis pnflosbphlcal labouis is partly to map out the road which John Mill ( to whose work he seems to have given imperfect attention ) lias actually wrought out and made available . It is curious that while IiOcke Is , on the one hand , accused of being the originator of the French Sensational Philosophy , he is , on the other hand , as in the present work , reproached for haying formed a step towards the ' speculative systems ot Germany , in admitting ideas of reflection * thus severing ideas from things . This , says Professor Crruppe , is the fundamental error of philosophy , _ and , from Parmeriides downwards , has issued in nothing hut the bewilderment of the human intellect . Kant ' s classification of Infinity and Universality as ideas a-priori , and of Space and . Time as purely subjective forms of the intelligenceis a further elaboration of this fundamental
, error . These abstract terms on which speculation has built its huge fabrics are simply the a : and y by which we mark the boundary ot our knowledge ; they have no value except in connexion with the concrete . The abstract is derived from the concrete : what , then , can we expect from a philosophy the essence of which is the derivation of the concrete from tih 0 % i ) Stract ? The chief argument in favour of a priori ideas , as insisted on by teibnitz and Kant is , that they can never be arrived at by induction ; that induction may lead to the general but never to the umversal , * t * A + V »« l * l nAVAi-riielftss . this idea of universality is found in speech and in
thought with the mark of necessity . But this argument will not bear a rigid exammation . The language of all peoples soon attains to the expressions all , universal , necessary , but these expressions have their origin purely in the observations of the senses ; they are simply a practical expedient , and are valued only under certain well-known and presupposed conditions . To isolate such expressions , to operate with them apart from experience , to exalt their relativevalue into an absolute value , to deduce knowledge from them alone , and to make them a standing point higher than all experience—this , which is what Parmenides and all speculative philosophers since him have done , is an attempt to poise the universe on one ' s head , and no -wonder if duziness and delusion are the consequence . landbut to find them
These views are familiar enough to us in Eng , urged by a German professor is not so familiar . A system of logic , says Herr Gruppe , which assigns the first place to general ideas , and makes them prior to judgment , invert * the true OTder of things . The true object of investigation is the formation of ideas from judgments , and in order to ascertain the law of their formation , we must direct our observation to those cases in which a new judgment or perception occurs , and is embodied in language , to the mental process which takes a discovery in natural science is made and is expressed in words , to the place when development of language , and to the application of language by children . In ^ these three ways the formation of general ideas is daily carried forward . According to these tests , every judgment exhibits itself as a comparison , or perception of likeness in the midst of difference : the h
metaphor is no mere ornament of speech , but belongs to its essence , thoug usage gradually dispenses with it . When we say the evening sky is red , the lily is white , it may seem as if red and white were independent , immediate ideas ; not so , when we say the sky is rose-red or rosy , the lily snowwhite or snowy . Again , when we hear a child call the neighbour ' s dog , not a dog , but Caro , because its own dog is named Caro , we see the origin of lie idea of species , or of general ideas ; this is the first step towards the remotest abstractions . A consideration oftexamples , taken from the doctrines of natural science , shows , what has hitherto been overlooked by logicians , that every true judgment inevitably alters the idea both of the subject and predicate . Thus , when we say granite is volcanic , we modify both the idea of granite and of the predicate volcanic : a new quality is attributed to granite , and the predicate volcanic receives a wider extension . Kantthenwas mistaken in regarding synthetical and analytical judgments
, , as , two distinct classes . The true statement is , that every analytical judgment has previously been synthetic , and every synthetic judgment is such only once , and immediately becomes analytic . By a synthetic judgment , the idea of the predicate passes into that of the subject , and is incorporated with : it , so that when . I repeat this judgment it is necessarily analytic . Thus , from the simple act of judgment we ascend to the formation of ideas , io their modification , and their generalisation . And by a series of ascending generalisations we are led to the most comprehensive , abstract ideas . But Bjr the side of these abstract ideas , to which we attain by an ascent from positive particulars , there is another set of ideas which owe their origin to ^ npr ecise , eipr ^ aBJons and mere devices of language , by which we bridge Over our ignorance or eke out our limitation , and singularly enough these are the very ideas which have been enthroned as the absolute .
Professor Gruppe , in common with many before him , makes war against the syllogism aa njpetitio principii , and even seems to reject it altogether as an instruments He seems to us not to have rightly apprehended Mill ' s analysis of the syllogism and the function he assigns to it , since he makes it an objection to that writer's views that he gives an important place to deduction in his method . Deduction , as Mill shows , is not properly opposed to induction but to experiment , and is a means of registering and using the result ? of induction ,, indispensable to any great progress in science . But these are questions which this is not the p lace to discuss . . "What then , asks Herr Gruppe in conclusion , is the future sphere of Philosophy P It m , ust renounce metaphysics : it must renounce tho ambitious attempt to form a theory of the universe , to know things in their causes and first principles . But in its function of determining logic or method , it is still the centre and heart of , human knowledge , and it baa to apply this method to the investigation of Psychology , with its subordinate department iBsthetics ; to Ethics ; and to the principles of Jurisprudence . A sufficient task ! ¦
> ' These are rather abstruse subjects to enter on in a short space , but we have at least been able to present one point of interest to our readers , in the Iftct that a German professor of philosophy renounces the attempt to climb & heaven by the rainbow bridge of " the high priori road , " and is content tmttfbly to use his muscles in treading the uphill a posteriori path which will lead * ! not indeed to heaven , but to an eminence whence we may see very bright and blessed things on earth .
734r Shi* ./I<-Ra :P ' :B&. Pfo* 279;M&J...
734 r SHI * . / I < -RA : p ' : B & . Pfo * 279 ; m & jrvm ) XTi _
Essays From The "Edinburgh Review." Essa...
ESSAYS FROM THE " EDINBURGH REVIEW . " Essays ; selected from Contributions to the " Edinburgh Xevieio . " By Henry Rogers . In Three Volumes . New edition . Longman . The most important essay in this Miscellany is the one on " Reason and Faith ; their Claims and Conflicts , " with an appendix containing an attack oil Strauss . We say it is important because Mr . Kogers has obtained a certain name as an apologist , and not because the essay contains any very important matter . Mr . Rogers , so far as we can see , has never been at the pains thoroughly to analyse tl » e nature of Faith , or to find any grounds for its existence , independently of a deficiency in the Christian evidence which requires something to supply it . Analogies drawn from the trust wo repose in the knowledge or advice of other people , or which a child reposes in the
direction of its parent , are totally irrelevant . In these cases there is no attempt to crush a doubt , or keep objections out of sight . There is a provisional confidence , given on sufficient grounds , and withdrawn the moment the grounds cease to be sufficient . Moreover , this confidence is of a practical , not of a speculative , kind . It regulates our actions , which , must be a choice between alternatives , but it does not commit our intellects to the dogmatic assertion of that which we doubt or know to be false . Sir . Rogers is equally at fault with regard to probability . He admits that the evidence for Christianity is probable only ( faith making up what is wanted for affirmation ) , and then he tells you , with Butler , that probability is the cuide of lifeThe guide of life of course it is—that isof action ; but
. , it is not the guide of speculation—at least it leads in speculation only to probable truth . We act on a balance of probabilities , because we must do so or not act at all ; but -we do not call these probabilities certainties , or formulate them into dogmatic creeds . It is hard , indeed , to conceive that such a supposition could be entertained for a moment by any man who really knows what conviction is . Mr . ltogers , therefore , must take other ground . He must either prove that the historical evidences of Christianity , ike the psychological evidences of morality , are not probable , but certain , or he must show on some rational grounds , apart from metaphors and xopes , that the historical evidences of Christianity have a special claim , where they are deficient , to be supplied by faith . i who in
Mr . Rogers unfortunately belongs to that school of apologsts , - stead of trying to enter into the doubts and difficulties of sceptics ( which , considering the aspect Christendom now presents , can hardly be ipso facto criminal ) , sets himself to work to put them down by chopping logic and to stop their mouths . He has borrowed from Butler the universally applicable , and therefore almost universally worthless , argument from analogy ; and this he uses indiscriminately upon everybody , as a policeman uses his truncheon on a crowd . In this way he may break some heads ; but he will not satisfy a single heart . We advise him first to do that which his Master most unconscientiously failed to do—to analyse the argument from analogy , and see how far he is really justified in reasoning from nature to revelation , from the body to the soul , from the temporal to the eternal destiny of
man . Mr . Rogers is a very despotic logician , and very intolerant of a logienl slip in his opponents . Let him reconsider the following page of his essay , and learn charity : — Secondly , tvc aro fully disposed to concede to the objector that there are , in the books of Scripture , not only apparent but real discrepancies , —a point which many of the advocates of Christianity arc , indeed , reluctant to adinp ., but which , we think , no candid advocate will feel to bo the less true . Nevertheless , even such an advocate of the Scriptures may justly contend that the very reasons which necessitate this admission of discrepancies also reduce them to such a limit that they do not affect , in the slightest degree , the substantial credibility of the sacred records ; and in our judgment , Christians have unwisely damaged their cause , and given a needless advantage to the infidel , by denying that any discrepancies exist , or by endeavouring to prove that they do not . The discrepancies to , which wo refer are just those which , in the course of the transmission of ancient books , divine or human , through many ages , —their
constant transcription by different hands , —their translation into various languages , — may not only bo expected to occur , but must occur , unless there be a perpetual series of most minute and ludicrous miracles—certainly nevor promised , and as certainly never performed—to counteract all tho effects of negligence and inadvertence , to guide the pen of every transcriber to infallible accuracy , and to prevent his over deviating into any casual error ! Such miraculous intervention , wo need not say , haa never been pleaded for by any apologist of Christianity ; has certainly never been promised ; and , if it had , —since we see , at a matter of fact , that the promise haa never been fulfilled , —the whole of Christianity would fall to the ground . But then , from a large induction , we know that the limits within which discrepancies and errors from such causes will occur , must be very moderate ; we know , from numberless examples of other writings , what the maximum is , —and that it leaves their substantial authenticity untouched and unimpeached- No one supposes the writings of Pluto and Cicero , of Thucydides and Tacitus , of Bacon or Shak » pcarc , fundamentally vitiated by the like discrepancies , errors , and absurdities which time and inadvertence have occasioned .
One would euppose that tho difference between errors of transcription , gucli as occur in the manuscripts of the classics , and the discrepancies alleged to exist between statements in tho Gospels , as between the genealogies and the accounts of the birth of Christ , could scarcely have been overlooked by any candid controversialist . We have said that Mr . Jtogcrs ' s mode of argument is objectionable : hi * tone , is often equally so . Strauss may have erred , and if he has erred Mr . Rogers will do nim as well as others a service by confuting him . But ho has written learnedland conscientiousl d he is entitled to tho treatment ot
y y , an a scholar and a conscientious man . In freely examining the documentary evidences of Christianity , lie has only exercised the samo privilege and performed the same duty that Mr . Rogcrs ' s ancestors exercised and performed for him in freely examining the claims and evidences of the Church of Rome . And , therefore , to tell sucli u man to ' relapse into his native stolidity , " & c . & c , is neither wise nor just . Do lot us remember that in this momentous controversy we are all alike- interested in finding the truth , and loarn on all accounts to show courtesy and charity , so long as we have to deal with honest men .
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), July 28, 1855, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_28071855/page/16/
-