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Of what use does this new logical doctrine promise to be? The first service it may be expected to render is that of correcting a considerable number of hasty assumptions about logic which have been allowed to affect philosophy. In the next place, if Kant has shown that metaphysical conceptions spring from formal logic, this great generalisation upon formal logic must lead to a new apprehension of the metaphysical conceptions which shall render them more adequate to the needs of science. In short, "exact" logic will prove a stepping-stone to "exact" metaphysics. In the next place, it must immensely widen our logical notions. For example, a class consisting of a lot of things jumbled higgledy-piggledy must now be seen to be but a degenerate form of the more general idea of a system. Generalisation, which has hitherto meant passing to a larger class, must mean taking in the conception of the whole system of which we see but a fragment, etc., etc. In the next place, it is already evident to those who know what has already been made out, that that speculative rhetoric, or objective logic, mentioned at the beginning of this article, is destined to grow into a colossal doctrine which may be expected to lead to most important philosophical conclusions. Finally, the calculus of the new logic, which is applicable to everything, will certainly be applied to settle certain logical questions of extreme difficulty relating to the foundations of mathematics. Whether or not it can lead to any method of discovering methods in mathematics it is difficult to say. Such a thing is

conceivable.

It is now more than thirty years since my first published contribution to "exact" logic. Among other serious studies, this has received a part of my attention ever since. I have contemplated it in all sorts of perspectives and have often reviewed my reasons for believing in its importance. My confidence that the key of philosophy is here, is stronger than ever after reading Schröder's last vol

One thing which helps to make me feel that we are developing a living science, and not a dead doctrine, is the healthy mental independence it fosters, as evidenced, for example, in the divergence between Professor Schröder's opinions and mine. There is no bovine nor ovine gregariousness here. But Professor Schröder and

I have a common method which we shall ultimately succeed in applying to our differences, and we shall settle them to our common satisfaction; and when that method is pouring in upon us new and incontrovertible positively valuable results, it will be as nothing to either of us to confess that where he had not yet been able to apply that method he has fallen into error.

NEW YORK CITY.

C. S. PEIRCE.

FROM BERKELEY TO HEGEL.

A CHAPTER OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY EMBODYING A CRITIQUE OF THE PANLOGIST

ACCORDING

PHASE OF IDEALISM.

τὸ δ' αὐτό ἐστιν ἡ κατ' ἐνέργειαν ἐπιστήμη τῷ рáyμari-Aristotle.

CCORDING to Schopenhauer, Berkeley is to be viewed as the "father of Idealism which is the foundation of all true philosophy," a tribute which probably voices the opinion of a very large number of persons. In sober truth, however, this tribute is misleading. Plato, Aristotle (whose idealistic leanings Berkeley himself noted with approval1), and Plotinus among the ancients; Descartes, Malebranche, etc., etc., among modern philosophers all had a share in the making of Idealism, and their claims to notice cannot be summarily dismissed in the fashion favored by Schopenhauer. Indeed, modern Idealism is a river with numerous sources. And Idealism as a whole is not only of great antiquity, but the forms which it has assumed are most varied. It cannot be traced back to any one originator. None the less, however, is the value of Berkeley's work to be emphasised. We may well honor him as the first of modern thinkers who gave the ground-principle of Idealism its full due, asserting as he did without show of reservation that empirical Reality, as well "physical" as "mental," is simply a presentment for consciousness. It is in championing this truth and exposing at the same time the fallacies of vulgar realism that his

1 Siris, $$ 304-329.

permanent contribution to philosophy consists. Some luminous psychological work apart, his other achievements are of scant value and show poorly alongside the more thorough thinking of the Germans. His positive metaphysic inspired, it would appear, by his study of the Greeks and designed to proffer a merely improved rendering of the particular form of Theism current in his time, possesses no more than a historic interest. To-day even Idealistic Theists look for light not to Berkeley, but rather to the leaders of the Hegelian "Right." However, the obsoleteness of the form of Theism, which he upheld, should in no way diminish our admiration of the beauty and force of his criticism of vulgar realism. If I may be allowed to cite what I have urged elsewhere, "He showed in sun-clear language that perception and its objects are inseparable; that the world is as truly suspended in consciousness as is the most subtle of thoughts or emotions. It is this emphatic preaching of Idealism which ennobles him. Others before him had been Idealists, but none gave so luminous a defence of their faith."1 Idealism is, of course, a term of wide import embracing strangely opposed schools of thought, but it may be confidently averred that "subjective," "sceptical," "critical," "psychological," "panlogist," etc., etc., idealists will all alike, when pressed, concede their indebtedness to the stimulus given by Berkeley. Sometimes, it is true, we note a tendency to patronise the Bishop,-and Kant himself is not altogether innocent in this regard,—but the attempts deceive nobody. Well has it been said that but for Berkeley there would have been no Hume and but for Hume no Kant. Aye, and but for Kant,-Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer, and many of the leading idealists of to-day might never have caught the sparks that kindled their genius.

Δὶς καὶ τρὶς τὸ καλόν. In studying Berkeley one is apt to think him a "padder," a thinker who beats out a few grains of gold so as to cover acres. The answer is, of course, that he spoke as a pioneer; as an innovator who had to win adhesion to first principles before venturing to construct an elaborate system. Owing to the

1 Riddle of the Universe, p. 51.

stupidity of his critics he had to waste time over the A B C of Idealism and to keep on restating one or two main points almost ad nauseam. That he felt desirous of completing a regular system we may fairly argue from the Siris, which certainly is an ambitious advance on the earlier works. But not even that advance, notable as in many ways it is, redeems his philosophy from sketchiness. "Without is within, says Berkeley. Let it be so, says Hegel, and philosophy has still to begin. The same things that were called without or noumenal are now called within or phenomenal, but, call them as you may, it is their systematic explanation that is wanted. Such systematic explanation, embracing man and the entire round of his experiences. . . is alone philosophy, and to that no repetition of without is within, or matter is phenomenal, will ever prove adequate." Berkeley of course really says more than this, but it will scarcely be disputed that it is his "without is within" rather than his metaphysical constructions, few and faulty as they are, that gives him his influence in philosophy. His standpoint, owing to the sketchiness above noted is one of a class the antithesis of that including Hegel-it admits of presentation in a short space. He is a Nominalist, and disciple of Locke who starts from the "given" from experience-yet with a wish as Churchman to get somehow satisfactorily beyond this "given." No word-jugglery, however, for him; the discipline of Empiricism has pruned that bias, he must think in the presence of the object, not of mere phantoms of verbal thought. The start, then, is from experience, viewed at first from a quite Humean standpoint, but latterly from that of an individualistic idealism. "The world is my presentment," matter a general name connoting phases of objects which are themselves only "ideas" or modes of consciousness-this contention is driven home persistently. The doubt that the seemingly individual "Ego" may possibly have to be resolved into a Universal Ego does

2

1Hutchison Stirling Notes to Schwegler's History of Philosophy, p. 419, 8th

edition.

2 The Mind (Ego) is described in the Commonplace Book as a "congeries of perceptions"-only in a later stage as that which has the perceptions. It is, of course, this phase of Berkeley that Hume subsequently developed.

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