and that, above it once more, the Absolute gains higher reality — still where is the soul? The soul is not immediate experience, for that comes given at one moment; and the soul still less can be the perfected union of all being and content. This is obvious, and, if so, the soul must fall in the middle- space of error and appearance. It is the ideal manufacture of one extreme with a view to reach the other, a manufacture suspended at a very low stage, and suspended on no defensible ground. The plurality of souls in the Absolute is, therefore, appearance, and their existence is not genuine. But 1 Compare Chapters xv., xix., xxi.
306 REALITY.
because the upward struggle of the content to ideal perfection, having made these souls, still rises both in them and above them, they, in themselves, are nearer the level of the lower reality. The first and transitory union of existence and content is, with souls, less profoundly broken up and destroyed. And hence souls, taken as things with a place in the time-series, are said to be facts and actually to exist. Nay on their existence, in a sense, all reality depends. For the higher process is carried on in a special relation with these lower results; and thus, while moving in its way, it affects the souls in their way; and thus everything happens in souls, and everything is their states. And this arrangement seems necessary; but on the other hand, if we view it from the side of the Absolute, it is plainly self- inconsistent. To gain consistency and truth it must be merged, and recomposed in a result in which its specialty must vanish. Souls, like their bodies, are, as such, nothing more than appearance.
And, that we may realize this more clearly, we find ourselves turning in a circular maze. Just as the body was for Nature, and upon the other hand Nature merely through relation to a body, so in a different fashion it is with the soul. For thought is a state of souls, and therefore is made by them, while, upon its side, the soul is a product of thought. The "thing," existing in time and possessor of 11 states," is made what it is by ideal construction. But this construction itself appears to depend on a psychical centre, and to exist merely as its " state." And such a circle seems vicious. Again, the body is dependent on the soul, for the whole of its material comes by way of sensation, and its identity is built up by ideal construction. And yet this manufacture takes place as an event in a soul, a soul which, further, exists only in relation to a body.1 1 I am not denying here the possibility of soul without body. See below, p. 340.
BODY AND SOUL. 307 But, where we move in circles like these, and where, pushing home our enquiries, we can find nothing but the relation of unknown to unknown — the conclusion is certain. We are in the realm of appearance, of phenomena made by disruption of content from being, arrangements which may represent, but which are not, reality. Such ways of understanding are forced on us by the nature of the Universe, and assuredly they possess their own worth for the Absolute (Chapter xxiv.). But, as themselves and as they come to us, they are no less certainly appearance. So far as we know them, they are but inconsistent constructions; and, beyond our know- ledge, they are forthwith beyond themselves. The underlying and superior reality in each case we have no right to call either a body or a soul. For, in be- coming more, each loses its title to that name. The body and soul are, in brief, phenomenal arrange- ments, which take their proper place in the con- structed series of events; and, in that character, they are both alike defensible and necessary. But neither is real in the end, each is merely phenomenal, and one has no title to fact which is not owned by the other.
We have seen, so far, that soul and body are, each alike, phenomenal constructions, and we must next go on to point out the connection between them. But, in order to clear the ground, I will first attempt to dispose of several objections, (i) It will be urged against the phenomenal view of the soul that, upon this, the soul loses independent existence. If it is no more than a series of psychical events, it becomes an appendage to the permanent body. For a psychical series, we shall be told, has no inherent bond of continuity; nor is it, even as a matter of fact, continuous; nor, again, does it offer anything of which we can predicate "dispositions/1 Hence, if phenomenal, the soul sinks to be an adjective of the 308 REALITY.
body. (2) And, from another side, we shall hear it argued that the psychical series demands, as its condition, a transcendent soul or Ego, and indeed without this is unintelligible. (3) And, in the third place, we may be assured that some psychical fact is given which contains more than phenomena, and that hence the soul has by us been defined erron- eously. I must endeavour to say something on these objections in their order.
1. I shall have to show lower down that it is impossible to treat soul as the bare adjective of body, and I shall therefore say nothing on that point at present. " But why," I may be asked, " not at least assist yourself with the body? Why strain your- self to define the soul in mere psychical terms? Would it not be better to call a soul those psychical facts from time to time experienced within one organism? " I am forced to reply in the negative. Such a definition would, in psychology, perhaps not take us wrong, but, for all that, it remains incorrect and indefensible. For, with lower organisms es- pecially, it is not so easy to fix the limits of a single organism. And, again further, we might perhaps wish to define the organism by its relation to a single soul; and, if so, we should have fallen into a vicious circle. Nor is it, once more, even certain that the identities of soul and of body coin- cide. We, I presume, are not sure that one soul might not have a succession of bodies. And, in any case, we certainly do not know that one organism can be organic to no more than one soul. There might be more than one psychical centre at one time within the same body, and several bodies might be organs to a higher unknown soul. And, even if we disregard these possibilities as merely theoretical, we have still to deal with the facts of mental disease. It seems at best doubtful if in some cases the soul can be said to have continuous unity, or if it ought strictly to be called single. And then, finally, there BODY AND SOUL. 309 remains the question, to which we shall return, whether an organism is necessary in all cases for the existence of a soul. We have perhaps with this justified our refusal to introduce body into our definition of soul.1 But without this introduction what becomes of the soul? " What," we shall be asked, " at any time can you say that the soul is, more especially at those times when nothing psychical exists? And where will you place the dispositions and acquired tendencies of the soul? For, in the first place, the psychical series is not unbroken, and, in the second place, dispositions are not psychical events. Are you then not forced back to the body as the one continuous substrate? " This is a serious objection, and, though our answer to it may prove sufficient, I think no answer can quite satisfy.
I must begin by denying a principle, or, as it seems to me, a prejudice with regard to continuity. Real existence (we must allow) either is or is not; and hence I agree also that, if in time, it cannot cease and reappear, and that it must, therefore, be continuous. But, on the other hand, we have proved that reality does not exist in time, but only appears there. What we find in time is mere appearance; and with regard to appearance I know no reason why it should not cease and reappear without for 1 I may be allowed to say here why I think such phrases as 11 individual," or " individualistic point of view," cannot serve to fix the definition of " soul." To regard a centre of experience from an individualistic point of view may mean to view it as a series of psychical events. But if so, the meaning is only meant, and is certainly not stated. And the term "individual" sins by excess as well as by defect. For it may stand for " Monad " or 11 Ego "; and in this case the soul is at once more than pheno- menal, and we have on our hands the relation of its plurality to the one Monad — a difficulty which, as we have seen, is insuper- able. On the other hand " individualistic" might imply that the soul's contents do not, in any sense, transcend its private exist- ence. The term, in short, requires definition, quite as much as does the object which it is used to define.
3 tO REALITY.
feiting identity. A phenomenon A is produced by certain conditions, which then are modified. Upon this, A, wholly or partially, retires from existence, but, on another change, shows itself partly or in full. A disappears into conditions which, even as such, need not persist; but, when the proper circumstances are re-created, A exists once again. Shall we assert that, if so, A's identity is gone? I do not know on what principle. Or shall we insist that, at least in the meantime, A cannot be said to be? But it seems not clear on what ground. If we take such common examples as a rainbow, or a waterfall, or the change of water into ice, we seek in vain for any principle but that of working convenience. We feel sure that material atoms and their motion continue unaltered, and that their existence, if broken, would be utterly destroyed. But, unless we falsely take these atoms and their motion for ultim- ate reality, we are resting here on no basis beyond practical utility. And even here some of us are too inclined to lapse into an easy-going belief in the " potential." But, as soon as these atoms are left behind, can we even pretend to have any principle? We call an organism identical, though we do not suppose that its atoms have persisted. It is identical because its quality is (more or less) the same, and because that quality has been (more or less) all the time there. But why an interval must be fatal, is surely far from evident. And, in fact, we are driven to the conclusion that we are arguing without any rational ground. As soon as an existence in time is perceived to be appearance, we can find no reason why it should not lapse, and again be created. And with an organism, where even the matter is not sup- posed to persist, we seem to have deserted every show of principle.1 There is a further point which, before proceeding, 1 On the subject of Identity see more below. And compare Chapter ix.
BODY AND SOUL. 3 I I we may do well to notice. We saw in the last chapter that part of Nature could hardly be said to have actual existence (p. 277). Some of it seemed (at least at some times) to be only hypothetical or barely potential; and I would urge this consideration here with regard to the organism. My body is to be real because it exists continuously; but, if, on the other hand, that existence must be actual, can we call it continuous? The essential qualities of my body (whatever these are) are certainly not, so far as we know, perceived always. But, if so, and if they exist sometimes not for perception but for thought, then most assuredly sometimes they do not exist as such, and hence their continuity is broken. Thus we have been forced to another very serious admission. We not only are ignorant why con- tinuity in time should be essential, but, so far as the organism goes, we do not know that it possesses such continuity. It seems rather to exist at times potentially and merely in its conditions. This is a sort of existence which we shall discuss in the follow- ing chapter, but it is at all events not existence actual and proper.
After these more general remarks we may proceed to the difficulties urged against our view of the soul. We have defined the soul as a series of psychical events, and it has been objected that, if so, we can- not say what the soul is at any one time. But at any one time, I reply, the soul is the present datum of psychical fact, plus its actual past and its con- ditional future. Or, until the last phrase has been explained, we may content ourselves with saying that the soul is those psychical events, which it both is now and has been. And this account, I admit, qualifies something by adjectives which are not, and to offer it as an expression of ultimate truth would be wholly indefensible. But then the soul, I must repeat, is itself not ultimate fact It is appearance, 312 REALITY.
and any description of it must contain inconsistency. And, if any one objects, he may be invited to define, for example, a body moving at a certain rate, and to define it without predicating of the present what is either past or future. And, if he will attempt this, he will, I think, perhaps tend to lose confidence.
But we have, so far, not said what we mean by 44 dispositions." A soul after all, we shall be reminded, possesses a character, if not original, at least acquired. And we certainly say that it is, because of that which we expect of it. The soul's habits and tendencies are essential to its nature, and, on the other hand, they cannot be psychical events. Hence (the objec- tion goes on to urge) they are not psychical at all, but merely physical facts. Now to this I reply first that a disposition may be 44 physical," and may, for all that, be still not an actual fact. Until I see it defined so as to exclude reference to any past or future, and freed from every sort of implication with the conditional and potential, I shall not allow that it has been translated into physical fact. But, even in that case, I should not accept the translation, for I consider that we have a right everywhere for the sake of convenience to use the 44 conditional." Into the proper meaning of this term I shall enquire in the next chapter, but I will try to state briefly here how we apply it to the soul. In saying that the soul has a disposition of a certain kind, we take the present and past psychical facts as the subject, and we pre- dicate of this subject other psychical facts, which we think it may become. The soul at present is such that it is part of those conditions which, given the rest, would produce certain psychical events. And hence the soul is the real possibility of these events, just as objects in the dark are the possibility of colour. Now this way of speaking is, of course, in the end incorrect, and is defensible only on the ground of convenience. It is convenient, when facts are and have been such and such, to have a short BODY AND SOUL. 313 way of saying what we infer that in the future they may be. But we have no right to speak of disposi- tions at all, if we turn them into actual qualities of the soul. The attempt to do this would force us to go on enlarging the subject by taking in more condi- tions, and in the end we should be asserting of the Universe at large.1 I admit that it is arbitrary and inconsistent to predicate what you cannot say the soul is, but what you only judge about it. But everywhere, in dealing with phenomena, we can find no escape from inconsistency and arbitrariness. We should not lessen these evils, but should greatly increase them, if we took a disposition as meaning more than the probable course of psychical events.
But the soul, I shall be reminded, is not contin- uous in time, since there are intervals and breaks in the psychical series. I shall not attempt to deny this. We might certainly fall back upon unconscious sensations, and insist that these, in any case and always, are to some extent there. And such an as- sumption could hardly be shown to be untrue. But I do not see that we could justify it on any sufficient ground, and I will admit that the psychical series either is, or at all events may be broken.2 But, on the other side, this admitted breach seems quite unimportant. I can find no reason why a soul's existence, if interrupted and resumed, should not be identical. Even apart from memory, if these divided existences showed the same quality, we should call them the same, or, if we declined, we should find no reason that would justify our re- fusal. We might insist that, at any rate, in the interval the soul has lived elsewhere, or that this 1 I shall endeavour to explain this in the following chapter.
* Unconscious states could also be used to explain " disposi- tions," in my opinion quite indefensibly. I may add that, within proper limits, I think psychology must make use of unconscious psychical facts.
314 REALITY.
interval must, at all events, not be too long; but, so far as I see, in both cases we should be asserting without a ground. On the other hand, the amount of qualitative sameness, wanted for psychical identity, seems fixed on no principle (Chapter ix.). And the sole conclusion we can draw is this, that breaks in the temporal series are no argument against our regarding it as a single soul.
"What then in the interim," I may be asked, " do you say that the soul is? " For myself, I reply, I should not say it is at all, when it does not appear. All that in strictness I could assert would be that actually the soul is not, though it has been, and again may be. And I have urged above, that we can find no valid objection to intervals of non- existence. But speaking not strictly, but with a view to practical convenience, we might affirm that in these intervals the soul still persists. We might say it is the conditions, into which it has disappeared, and which probably will reproduce it. And, since the body is a principal part of these conditions, we may find it convenient to identify the " potential " soul with the body. This may be convenient, but we must remember that really it is incorrect. For, firstly, conditions are one thing, and actual fact another thing. And, in the second place, the body (upon any hypothesis) is not all the conditions re- quired for the soul. It is impossible wholly to ex- clude the action of the environment. And there is again, thirdly, a consideration on which I must lay emphasis. If the soul is resolved and disappears into that which may restore it, does not the same thing hold precisely with regard to the body? Is it not conceivable that, in that interval when the soul is " conditional," the body also should itself be dissolved into conditions which afterwards re-create it? But, if so, these ulterior conditions which now, I presume we are to say, the soul is, are assuredly in strictness not the body at all. As a matter of BODY AND SOUL. 315 fact, doubtless, this event does not happen within our knowledge. We do not find that bodies dis- appear and once more are re-made; but, merely on that ground, we are not entitled to deny that it is possible. And, if it is possible, then I would urge at once the following conclusions. You cannot, except as a matter of convenience, identify the con- ditions of the soul with the body. And you cannot assert that the continuous existence of the body is essentially necessary for the sameness and unity of the soul.1 We have now dealt with the subject of the soul's continuity, and have also said something on its '* dispositions." And, before passing on to objec- tions of another kind, I will here try to obviate a misunderstanding. The soul is an ideal construc- tion, but a construction by whom? Could we maintain that the soul exists only for itself? This would be certainly an error, for we can say that a soul is before memory exists, or when it does not remember. The soul exists always for a soul, but not always for itself. And it is an ideal construction, not because it is psychical, but because (like my body) it is a series appearing in time. The same difficulty attaches to all pheno- menal existence. Past and future, and the Nature which no one perceives (Chapter xxii.) exist, as such, only for some subject which thinks them. But this neither means that their ultimate reality consists in being thought, nor does it mean that they exist outside of finite souls. And it does not mean that the Real is made by merely adding thought to our actual presentations. Immediate experience in time, and thought, are each alike but false appearance, and, in coming together, each must forego its own distinctive character. In the Absol- ute there is neither mere existence at one moment 1 I low far the soul can be said to result from merely physical conditions I shall enquire lower down.
316 REALITY.
nor any ideal construction. Each is merged in a higher and all-containing Reality (Chapter xxiv.).
2. We have seen, so far, that our phenomenal view of the soul does not degrade it to an adjective depending on the body. Can we reply to objections based on other grounds? The psychical series, we may be told, demands as its condition a something transcendent, a soul or Ego which stands above, and gives unity to, the series. But such a soul, I reply, merely adds further difficulties to those we had before. No doubt the series, being pheno- menal, is the appearance of Reality, but it hardly follows from this that its reality is an Ego or soul. We have seen (Chapter x.) that such a being, be- cause finite, is infected with its own relations to other finites. And it is so far from giving unity to the series of events, that their plurality refuses to come together with its singleness. Hence the one- ness remains standing outside the many, as a further finite unit. You cannot show how the series be- comes a system in the soul; and, if you could, you cannot free that soul from its perplexed position as one finite related to other finites. In short, meta- physically your soul or Ego is a mass of confusion, and we have now long ago disposed of it. And if it is offered us merely as a working conception, which does not claim truth, then this conception, as we have seen, will not work in metaphysics. Its alleged function must be confined to psychology, an empirical science, and the further consideration of it here would be, therefore, irrelevant1 3. But our account of the soul, as a series of 1 In another place I should be ready to enter on this question. It would, I think, not be difficult to show in psychology that the idea of a soul, or an Ego, or a Will, or an activity beyond events explains nothing at all. It serves only to produce false appear- ances of explanation, and to throw a mist over what is really left quite unexplained.
BODY AND SOUL. 317 events, may be attacked perhaps from the ground of psychology itself. There are psychical facts, it may be urged, which are more than events, and these facts, it may be argued, refute our definition. I must briefly deal with this objection, and my reply may be summed up thus. There are psychical facts, which are more than events; but, if they are not also events, they are not facts at all. I will take these two propositions in their order.1 (a) We have seen that my psychical states, and my private experience, can be at the same time what they are, and yet something much more.* Every distinction that is made in the fact of presen- tation, every content, or " what," that is loosened from its " that," is at once more than a mere event. Nay an event itself, as one member in a temporal series, is only itself by transcending its own pre- 1 There are some distinctions which we must keep in mind. By existence (taken strictly)! mean a temporal series of events or facts. And this series is not throughout directly experienced. It is an ideal construction from the basis of what is presented. But, though partly ideal, such a series is not wholly so. For it leaves its contents in the form of particulars, and the immediate conjunc- tion of being and quality is not throughout broken up. Thisness, or the irrelevant context, is retained, in short, except so far as is required to make a series of events. And, though the events of the whole series are not actually perceived, they must be taken as what is in its character perceptible.
Any part of a temporal series, no matter how long, can be called an event or fact. For it is taken as a piece, or quantity, made up of perceptible duration.
By fact 1 mean either an event, or else what is directly ex- perienced. Any aspect of direct experience, or again of an event, can itself be loosely styled a fact or event, so far as you consider it as a qualifying adjective of one.
I may notice, last, that an immediate experience, i.g. of suc- cession, can contain that which, when distinguished, is more than one event, and it can contain also an aspect which, as distin- guished, is beyond events. But I should add that I have not tried to use any of the above words everywhere strictly.
* See above, p. 300, and compare Chapters xix. and xxi. And for the relation of existence to thought see, further, Chapter xxiv.
3 1 8 REALITY.
sent existence. And this transcendence becomes more obvious, when an identical quality persists unaltered through a succession of changes. There is, to my mind, no question as to our being con- cerned here with more than mere events. And, far from contesting this, I have endeavoured to insist on the conclusion that everything in time has a quality which passes beyond itself.
(6) But then, if so, have we allowed the force of the objection 2 Have we admitted that there are facts which are not events in time? This would be a grave misunderstanding, and against it we must urge our second proposition. A fact, or event, is always more than itself; but, if less than itself, it is no longer properly a fact. It has now been taken as a content working loose from the "this," and has, so far, become a mere aspect and abstraction. And yet this abstraction, on the other hand, must have its existence. It must appear, somehow, as, or in a particular event, with a given place and dura- tion in the temporal series. There are, in brief, aspects which, taken apart, are not events; and yet these aspects must appear in psychical existence.
The objection has failed to perceive this double nature of things, and it has hence fallen blindly into a vicious dilemma. Because in our life there is more than events, it has rashly argued that this " more " must be psychical fact. But, if it is psychical fact, and not able to be experienced, I do not know what it could mean, or in what wonderful way we could be supposed to get at it. And, on the other side, to be experienced without happening in the psychical series, or to occur there without taking place as an event among events, seem phrases without meaning. What we experience is a content, which is one with, and which occurs as, a particular mental state. The same content, again, as ideal, is used away from its state, and only appears there. By itself it is not a fact; and, if it were one, it would, BODY AND SOUL. 319 so far, cease to be ideal, and would therefore become a mere event among events.