Practical Essays by Alexander Bain (best electronic book reader TXT) 📕

you should, in your debates, overhaul portions or chapters of systematic logic, with a view to present the difficulties in their natural position in the subject. You might, for example, take up the question as to the Province of logic, with its divisions, parts, and order--all which admit of many various views--and bring forward the vexed controversies under lights favourable to their resolution. Regarding logic as an aid to the faculties in tackling whatever is abstruse, you should endeavour to cultivate and enhance its powers, in this particular, by detailed exposition and criticism of all its canons and prescriptions. The department of Classification is a good instance; a region full of delicate subtleties as well as "bread-and-butter" applications.

It is in this last view of logic that we can canvass philosophical systems upon the ground of their method or procedure alone. Looking at the absence, in any given system, of the arts and precautions that are indispensable to the establishment of truth in the special case, we may pronounce against it, _a priori_; we know that such a system can be true only by accident, or else by miracle. We may reasonably demand of a system-builder--Is he in the narrow way that leadeth to truth, or in the broad way that leadeth somewhere else?

I have said that I consider the connection between Logic and Psychology to be but slender, although not unimportant. The amount and nature of this connection would reward a careful consideration. There would be considerable difficulty in seeing any connection at all between the Aristotelian Syllogism and psychology, but for the high-sounding designations appended to the notion and the proposition--simple apprehension and judgment--of which I fail to discover the propriety or relevance. I know that Grote gave a very profound turn to the employment of the term "judgment" by Aristotle, as being a recognition of the relativity of knowledge to the affirming mind. I am not to say, absolutely, "Ice is cold"; I am to say that, to the best of my judgment or belief, or in so far as I am concerned, ice is cold. This, however, has little to do with the logic of the syllogism, and not much with any logic. So, when we speak of a "notion," we must understand it as apprehended by some mind; but for nearly all purposes, this is assumed tacitly; it need not appear in a formal designation, which, not being wanted, is calculated to mislead.

* * * * *


[APPLIED OR DERIVATIVE SCIENCES.]

With these remarks on the two fundamental sciences of our group, I now turn to the _applied_ or _derivative_ sciences, wherein the great controversies stand out most conspicuous, which, in fact, exist for the purpose of contention--Ontology and Ethics. These branches were in request long before the mother sciences--psychology and logic--came into being at all. They had occupied their chief positions without consulting the others, partly because these were not there to consult, and partly because they were not inclined to consult any extraneous authority. By Ontology we may designate the standing controversies of the intellectual powers--perception, innate ideas, nominalism _versus_ realism, and noumenon _versus_ phenomenon. I am not going to pronounce upon these questions; I have already recommended the alternative mode of approaching them under systematic psychology and logic; and I will now regard them as constituents of the fourfold enumeration of the metaphysical sciences.

The Germans may be credited for teaching us, or trying to teach us, to distinguish "bread and butter" from what passes beyond, transcends bread and butter. With them the distinction is thoroughly ingrained, and comes to hand at a moment's notice. If I am to review in detail what may be considered the practical or applied departments of logic and psychology, I am in danger of trenching on their "bread-and-butter" region. Before descending, therefore, into the larder, let us first spend a few seconds in considering psychology as the pursuit of _truth_ in all that relates to our mental constitution. If difficulty be a stimulus to the human exertions, it may be found here. To ascertain, fix, and embody the precise truth in regard to the facts of the mind is about as hard an undertaking as could be prescribed to a man. But this is another way of saying that psychology is not a very advanced science; is not well stored with clear and certain doctrines; and is unable, therefore, to confer any very great precision on its dependent branches, whether purely speculative or practical. In a word, the greatest modesty or humility is the deportment most becoming to all that engage in this field of labour, even when doing their best; while the same virtues in even greater measure are due from those engaging in it without doing their best.

It must be admitted, however, that the highest evidence and safeguard of truth is application. In every other science, the utility test is final. The great parent sciences--mathematics, physics, chemistry, physiology--have each a host of filial dependents, in close contact with the supply of human wants; and the success of the applications is the testimony to the truth of the sciences applied. Thus, although we may not narrow the sphere of truth to bread and butter, yet we have no surer test of the truth itself. Our trade requires navigation, and navigation verifies astronomy; and, but for navigation, we may be pretty confident that astronomy would now have very little accuracy to boast of.

To come then to the practical bearings or outgoings of psychology, assisted by logic. My contention is that the parent sciences and the filial sciences should be carried on together; that theses should be extracted by turns from all; that the lights thus obtained would be mutual. I will support the position by a review of the subjects thus drawn into the metaphysical field.

* * * * *


[PROBLEMS OF EDUCATION.]

Foremost among these applied sciences I would place EDUCATION, the subject of the day. The priority of mention is due not so much to its special or pre-eminent importance, as to its being the most feasible and hopeful of the practical applications of conjoined psychology and logic. I say this, however, with a more express eye to _intellectual_ education. I deem it quite possible to frame a practical, science applicable to the training of the intellect that shall be precise and definite in a very considerable measure. The elements that make up our intellectual furniture can be stated with clearness; the laws of intellectual growth or acquisition are almost the best ascertained generalities of the human mind; even the most complicated studies can be analyzed into their components, partly by psychology and partly by the higher logic. In a word, if we cannot make a science of education, as far as Intellect is concerned, we may abandon metaphysical study altogether.

I do not speak with the same confidence as to _moral_ education. There has long been in existence a respectable rule-of-thumb practice in this region, the result of a sufficiently wide experience. There are certain psychological laws, especially those relating to the formation of moral habits, that have a considerable value; but to frame a theory of moral education, on a level in a point of definiteness with the possible theory of intellectual education, is a task that I should not like to have imposed upon me. In point of fact, two problems are joined in one, to the confusion of both. There is _first_ the vast question of _moral control_, which stretches far and wide over many fields, and would have to be tracked with immense labour: it belongs to the arts of government; it comes under moral suasion, as exercised by the preacher and orator; it even implicates the tact of diplomacy. I do not regard this as a properly educational question (although it refers to an art that every teacher must try to master); that is to say, its solution is not connected with education processes strictly so called. The _second_ problem of moral education is the one really within the scope of the subject--the problem of _fixing moral bents_ or habits, when the right conduct is once initiated. On this head, some scientific insight is attainable; and suggestions of solid value may in time accrue, although there never can be the precision attainable in the intellectual region.

* * * * *


I will next advert to the applied science of Art or Aesthetics, long a barren ground, so far as scientific handling was concerned, but now a land of promise. The old thesis, "What is Beauty?" a good debating society topic, is, I hope, past contending about. The numerous influences that concur in works of art, or in natural beauty, present a fine opening for delicate analysis; at the same time, they implicate the vaguest and least advanced portion of psychology--the Emotions. The German philosophers have usually ranked aesthetics as one of the subjective sciences; but, it is only of late that the department has taken shape in their country. Lessing gave a great impulse to literary art, and originated a number of pregnant suggestions; and the German love of music has necessarily led to theories as well as to compositions. We are now in the way to that consummation of aesthetics which may be described as containing (1) a reference to psychology as the mother science, (2) a classification, comparison, and contrast of the fine arts themselves, and (3) an induction of the principles of art composition from the best examples. Anything like a thorough sifting of fine-art questions would strain psychology at every point--senses, emotions, intellect; and, if criticism is to go deep, it must ground upon psychological reasons. Now the mere artist can never be a psychologist; the art critic may, but seldom will; hence, as they will not come over to us, some of us must go over to them. The Art discussion of the greatest fountains of human feeling--love and anger--would react with advantage upon the very difficult psychology of these emotions, so long the sport of superficiality.

[AESTHETICS: HEDONICS.]

But I hold that aesthetics is but a corner of a larger field that is seldom even named among the sciences of mind; I mean human happiness as a whole, "eudaemonics," or "hedonics," or whatever you please to call it. That the subject is neglected, I do not affirm; but it is not cultivated in the proper place, or in the proper light-giving connection--that is to say, under the psychology of the human feelings. It should have at once a close reference to psychology, and an independent construction; while either in comprehending aesthetics, or in lying side by side with that, it would give and receive illumination. The researches now making into the laws and limits of human sensibility, if they have any value, ought to lead to the economy of pleasure and the abatement of pain. The analysis of sensation and of emotion points to this end. Whoever raises any question as to human happiness should refer it, in the first instance, to psychology; in the next, to some general scheme that would answer for a science of happiness; and, thirdly, to an induction of the facts of human experience; the three distinct appeals correcting one another. If psychology can contribute nothing to the point,