Being now debarred from the philosophical arena by failure of health, I do not come under any pledge to vindicate whatever either critic or opponent may think fit to challenge or impugn, nor to reconcile seeming inconsistencies, in these reprints. They are avowedly my sole amends for inability to execute that thorough revision of The Emotions and the Will which, although at one time resolved upon, had to be abandoned for the reasons given in the Preface to the Fourth Edition. ABERDEEN, January, 1903. CONTENTS. IS THERE SUCH A THING AS PURE MALEVOLENCE? (MR. BRADLEY) PAGE THE MEANING OF EXISTENCE' AND DESCARTES'S 'COGITO'. (Mind, ii., 259.) 6 The practice of resolving difficult abstractions into corresponding particulars. How this is prescribed by Samuel Bailey, and what he considers the result of the prescription. Certain abstractions difficult to handle from their complexity-such as 'Life'. The notion of Force' less complex, but involving a particular danger-exemplified in Plato's Ideas' and Aristotle's 'Form'. The notion of 'Existence' specially requires the aids that Logic can supply. In using a word ('Existence') that means everything, you may mean nothing. 'Existence' an unreal notion, because it has no real negative. Mill's inclusion of Existence among the Universal Predicates counterargued. Mill's reply as to the Law of Relativity being sufficiently complied with by the notion of non-entity, and what Existence' means. He cites Hobbes, and alludes to Hegel's self-contradictory proposition with regard to ‘Being'. Mill refuted on the grounds that 'existence,' thing,' and 'being' are supra-relative terms, that Existence' is elliptical, that it has no specific or independent meaning. Illustrations: best example-Being or Existence as applied to the Deity. Thomas Brown referred to-who scouts the idea of Necessary Existence,' in proceeding upon the argument from Design. Dougald Stewart also cited-as proving Being or Existence by Cause and Effect. Descartes's handling of Theism is still a proof from causation. Matthew Arnold's criticism of cogito ergo sum,' as expended on the sum. Sum or exist as meaning Mill's something-i.e., ‘I think, therefore, I am something'-which carries the question, not forward, but backward. Examples of real inferences from 'I think'. If the proposition 'I think' is divided into subject and predicate, the latter does: not add anything to the former: as the 'I' includes all the parts and functions of body and mind, the predicate only repeats part of the meaning of the subject. This further shows the illogical character of the formula. In dealing with very difficult abstractions, logicians inculcate the practice of resolving them into the corresponding particulars.. The prescription is well put by Samuel Bailey thus: "If the student of philosophy would always, or at least in: /3 cases of importance, adopt the rule of throwing the abstract language in which it is so frequently couched into a concrete form, he would find it a powerful aid in dealing with the obscurities and perplexities of metaphysical speculation. He would then see clearly the character of the immense mass of nothings which constitute what passes for philosophy." Certain abstractions are difficult to handle from their complexity such, for example, is 'Life'. The rule to refer to the particular things is especially called for in this case. Less complex is the notion of 'Force'; still, the particulars are so different in their nature, that we must be sure to represent all the classes-mechanical or molar forces, molecular forces, and the forces of voluntary agents. The danger here is that we coin an abstraction distinct from matter altogether, like Plato's Ideas' and Aristotle's 'Form'. If any abstract notion stands in need of all the aids that logic can supply, it is Existence'. Try it, then, by the method of particulars. What are the things that are said to exist? There is no difficulty in finding such things: stars, seas, mountains, minerals, plants, human beings, kingdoms, cities, commerce,-exist. It is not for want of particulars, therefore, that we are in any doubt about the meaning of 'Existence'; it is rather for the opposite reason-we have too many particulars. In fact, the word 'exist' means everything, excludes nothing. In all other notions, there is a division of the universe into objects possessing the attribute, and objects devoid of it; 'Life' both includes and excludes. But Existence' is the entire Universe-extended and unextended, matter and mind. Is there not a risk that, when you mean everything, you mean nothing? I have maintained (Deductive Logic, p. 59) that 'Existence' is an unreal notion, for the very reason that it has no real negative. According to the Law of Universal Relativity, the summa genera of things must be at least two: say mind and not-mind, subject and object. We may in form put the two into one sum, and give it a name Existence'; but we cannot thereby construct a new meaning. There still remain the two distinct genera, in mutual contrast. |