CHAPTER IV.

THE REASONINGS OF METAPHYSICIANS.

§ 396. Let us grant the metaphysicians all which the two foregoing chapters have denied. Let us not stop them by asking the warrant for their tacit assumption that the mode of intellectual action distinguished as reasoning is more trustworthy than any other mode of intellectual action. Let us allow their language to pass without comment: assuming that the words they use can be used without implying all that is to be disproved. And now supposing this, let us examine their reasonings and see whether they can make out their case.

Of course it will be impossible to do more than deal with typical examples. We will begin, as before, with Berkeley.

§ 397. Imaginary conversation affords great facilities for gaining a victory. When you can put into an adversary's mouth just such replies as fit your purpose, there is little difficulty in reaching the desired conclusion. Berkeley's Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous furnish abundant illustrations of this. Hylas repeatedly assents to propositions which, on his opponent's own principles, he should not have assented to. Soon after setting out, Philonous, with the view of proving the subjectivity of heat, obtains from Hylas the admission that an "intense degree of heat is a very great pain." He then asks-"Is your material sub

stance a senseless being, or a being endowed with sense and perception?" To which Hylas replies—" It is senseless, without doubt." "It cannot, therefore, be the subject of pain," continues Philonous. "By no means," rejoins Hylas. And Philonous then argues that as an intense heat is a pain, and as a pain cannot exist in a senseless material substance, it follows that an intense heat can exist only in & perceiving mind. But what right has Hylas to make the answers he does? The argument sets out with the position that sensible things are the only things we certainly know; these sensible things are defined as "the things we immediately perceive by the senses;" and Philonous, resolutely ignoring everything else, says :-"Whatever other qualities, therefore, you speak of, as distinct from these, I know nothing of them." Had Hylas, as he should have done, taken the same ground, the dialogue would have run thus:Phil. Is your material substance a senseless being, or a being endowed with sense and perception?

Hyl. I cannot say.

Phil. How do you mean you cannot say ?

Hyl. I mean that like you, "I know nothing" of any qualities of bodies save those I immediately perceive through the senses; and I cannot immediately perceive through the senses whether material substance is senseless or not.

Phil. But you do not doubt that it is senseless?

Hyl. Yes; in the same way that you doubt my external reality-doubt whether I am anything more than one of your ideas. Did we not, at the beginning, Philonous, distinguish between things known immediately and things known mediately?

Phil. Yes.

Hyl. Did you not make me admit that sensations are the only sensible things-the only things immediately perceived; and that I cannot know the causes of these sensations immediately, but can only know them mediately by reasoning? Phil. I did.

Hyl. And your whole argument is an attempt to show that these things which I know mediately-these things which I infer as the causes of my sensations, do not exist at all.

Phil. True.

Hyl. How, then, can you put any trust in my reply, if I say that matter is not sensitive? The only sensitiveness I can immediately perceive is my own.

Phil. You know that I am sensitive.

Hyl. Yes, but how? I see you turn when spoken to and shrink when burned. From such facts, joined with my personal experiences, I infer that you are sensitive as I am; and if you must have an answer to your question, I infer that matter is not sensitive, because it shows no such signs. Phil. Well.

Hyl. Well! do you not see that if you adopt this answer your whole reasoning is vitiated? You set out to disprove a certain portion of my mediate knowledge. To do this, you now ask from me another portion of my mediate knowledge, as you have already asked several, and will, I suppose, ask more. You are combining these many portions of mediate knowledge, and will draw from them a conclusion; and this conclusion-this piece of doubly mediate knowledge, you will, I suppose, offer to me in place of the mediate knowledge you would disprove. Certainly I shall reject it. I demand that every link in your argument shall consist of immediate knowledge. If but one of them is an inference, and not a thing "immediately perceived by sense," I shall say that your conclusion has the same uncertainty with this that you combat, plus the uncertainty attendant on all argument.

This, though sufficient to bring Philonous to a stand, is not the line of cross-examination best fitted to show his self-contradiction. Hylas, if he saw still more clearly the nature of the fallacy, might proceed to pull off its disguises somewhat in this manner :

Phil. Is your material substance a senseless being, or a being endowed with sense and perception?

Hyl. What if I reply that it is endowed with sense and perception?

Phil. You are trifling with me.

Hyl. But suppose I affirm, in all sincerity, that material substance has feeling.

Phil. Then your reply is extremely absurd.

Hyl. What do you mean by "absurd"?

Phil. By absurd, I mean "that which is opposed to manifest truth"-" that which is inconsistent with reason, or the plain dictates of common sense."

Hyl. Very good; but to make sure that we understand one another respecting the meaning of absurdity, let us take a case. case. Suppose I ask you to draw a revengeful

straight line.

Phil. That is a sufficiently-absurd proposal. I cannot even think of a revengeful straight line, much less draw

one.

Hyl. Tell me now, Philonous, how you perceive the implied proposition that a straight line can be revengeful, to be a manifestly-untrue proposition, or, as we here call it, an absurd proposition? You know it to be absurd through some process of thinking, do you not?

Phil. Certainly.

Hyl. I suppose that before you can recognize the absurdity of the assertion that there can be a revengeful straight line, you must think more or less clearly of the two things between which the incongruity exists. So long as you are conscious of a straight line only, you are not conscious of any absurdity. So long as you are conscious of revenge only, you are not conscious of any absurdity. You are conscious of absurdity only when you try to think of revenge as a property of a straight line, and find that it is absolutely impos sible to unite the two ideas.

Phil. That is manifest.

Hyl. One further question-When you consider that I am absurd if I tacitly assert that there can be a revengeful straight line, you do so because the absurdity is clear to your own consciousness?

Phil. Yes. I must perceive the absurdity myself before I can attribute it to you.

Hyl. We are agreed thus far, then; that to be conscious of an absurdity it is needful to be conscious of two things avowedly or tacitly alleged to be congruous, but between which there exists some great incongruity; and that when you call a proposition of mine absurd, you do so because it seems absurd to you.

Phil. That is what I have said.

Hyl. Now let us return to our question. You ask me whether material substance is a being endowed with sense and perception. I reply that it is endowed with sense and perception; and you call my reply absurd.

Phil. I do.

Hyl. That is to say, the proposition that material substance can feel, appears to your mind an absurd proposition. Phil. Unquestionably.

Hyl. Have we not agreed, Philonous, that before you can be conscious of an absurdity you must be conscious of the two things between which there exists the perceived incongruity?

Phil. We have.

Hyl. In this case one of the two terms is material substance. The other of the two terms is feeling or sense. And in being conscious of the absurdity of the proposition that material substance possesses sense, you have to be conscious of the two incongruous things, sense and material substance.

Phil. Well, I

Hyl. Yes; no wonder you stammer. I have detected you in recognizing that very existence which you pretend not to recognize. All the while that you were questioning