第92章 Psychology(6)

The indefinite power thus attributed to association became,as we shall see,Mill's most characteristic doctrine.Meanwhile,I will only mention one inference which illustrates Brown's philosophical tendencies.Stewart had spoken doubtfully of the ontological argument for theology.Brown throws it over altogether.He does not even change it into an 'intuition.'He has always,he says,regarded it as 'absolutely void of force'unless it tacitly assumes the 'physical argument.'Nay,it is one proof of the force of this physical argument that it has saved us from doubts which would be rather strengthened than weakened by the 'metaphysical arguments.'39The 'physical argument'means the argument from design,which thus becomes the sole support of theology.

Hamilton naturally regards Brown as a mere sceptic in disguise.His theory of perception destroys his theory of personal identity.He has refused to accept our intuitive belief in one case,and cannot appeal to it in the other.He leaves no room for 'liberty of will,'and advances 'no argument in support of this condition of our moral being.'40Indeed,as Stewart complained,Brown,by identifying 'will'and 'desire,'has got rid of the will altogether.

It is only natural that a man who is making a scientific study of the laws of human nature should find no room for an assertion that within a certain sphere there are no laws.A physiologist might as well admit that some vital processes are uncaused.

Brown thus illustrates the gravitation of the 'common-sense'philosophy to pure empiricism.He was the last in the genuine line of Scottish common-sense philosophers.When after what may be called the unphilosophical interregnum which followed Brown's death,Hamilton became professor,the Scottish tradition was blended with the very different theories derived from Kant.Upon Brown's version,the Scottish philosophy had virtually declared itself bankrupt.The substance of his teaching was that of the very school which his predecessors had attempted to confute,carefully as the fact might be hidden by dexterous rhetoric and manipulation of technical terms.He agrees with Hume's premises,and adopts the method of Condillac,this was perceived by his most remarkable hearer.Carlyle went to Edinburgh at the end of 1809.Brown,'an eloquent,acute little gentleman,full of enthusiasm about simple suggestions,relative,etc.was 'utterly unprofitable'to him,disspiriting,as the autumn winds among withered leaves.'41In Signs of the Times (1829)Carlyle gave his view of the Scottish philosophy generally.They had,he says,started from the 'mechanical'premises suggested by Hume.'they let loose instinct as an indiscriminatory bandog to guard them against (his)conclusions';'they tugged lustily at the logical chain by which Hume was so coldly towing them and the world into bottomless abysses of Atheism and Fatalism,But the chain somehow snapped between them,and the issue has been that nobody now cares about either --any more than about Hartley's,Darwin's,or Priestley's contemporaneous doings in England.'42The judgment goes to the root of the matter.The method of Reid inevitably led to this result.Consider the philosophy as based upon,if not identical with,an inductive science of psychology,and the end is clear.You may study and analyse the phenomena as carefully as you please;and may,as the Scottish professors did,produce,if not a scientific psychology,yet a mass of acute prolegomena to a science.But the analysis can only reveal the actual combinations,chemical or mechanical,of thought,the ultimate principles which the teachers profess to discover are simply provisional;products not yet analysed,but not therefore incapable of analysis.It was very desirable to point them out:an insistence upon the insufficiency of Hume's or Condillac's theories was a most valuable service;but it was valuable precisely because every indication of such an unresolved element was a challenge to the next comer to resolve it by closer analysis.And thus,in fact,the intuitions,which had played so great a part with Reid,come in Brown's hands to be so clearly limited to the materials given by sensation or experience that any show of 'philosophy,'meaning an independent theory of the universe,was an illusory combination of fine phrases.

II.JAMES MILL'S 'ANALYSIS'

James Mill's Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind is on the one hand an exposition of the principles implied in Bentham's writings,and,on the other hand,a statement of the position from which the younger Mill started.J.S.

Mill discussed the book with his father during its composition,and in 1869he published a new edition,with elaborate notes by himself,George Grote,Professor Bain,and Andrew Findlater,44the commentary is of great importance in defining the relation between the two successors to the throne of Bentham.

Mill's Analysis,though not widely read,made a deep impression upon Mill's own disciples.It is terse,trenchant,and uncompromising.It reminds us in point of style of the French writers,with whom he sympathised,rather than of the English predecessors,to whom much of the substance was owing.The discursive rhetoric of Brown or Stewart is replaced by good,hard,sinewy logic.The writer is plainly in earnest.If over confident,he has no petty vanity,and at least believes every word that he says.Certain limitations are at once obvious.Mill,as a publicist,a historian,and a busy official,had not had much time to spare for purely philosophic reading.He was not a professor in want of a system,but an energetic man of business,wishing to strike at the root of the superstitions to which his political opponents appealed for support.He had heard of Kant,and seen what 'the poor man would be at.'