Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative; Vol. 2 of 3: Library Edition (1891), Containing Seven Essays not before Republished, and Various other Additions.Spencer, Herbert
Philosophy
Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative; Vol. 2 of 3: Library Edition (1891), Containing Seven Essays not before Republished, and Various other Additions.
Spencer, Herbert
Philosophy; Political science; Science
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
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