therefore the universal is explicitly put as particular--and is now made to mediate between the two extremes, the places of which are occupied by the two others (the particular and the individual). This is the third figure of the syllogism: (3) P--U--I.
What are called the Figures of the syllogism (being three in number, for the fourth is a superfluous and even absurd addition of the Moderns to the three known to Aristotle) are in the usual mode of treatment put side by side, without the slightest thought of showing their necessity, and still less of pointing out their import and value.
No wonder then that the figures have been in later times treated as an empty piece of formalism. They have however a very real significance, derived from the necessity for every function or characteristic element of the notion to become the whole itself, and to stand as mediating ground.--But to find out what 'moods' of the propositions (such as whether they may be universals, or negatives) are needed to enable us to draw a correct conclusion in the different figures, is a mechanical inquiry, which its purely mechanical nature and its intrinsic meaninglessness have very properly consigned to oblivion.
And Aristotle would have been the last person to give any countenance to those who wish to attach importance to such inquiries or to the syllogism of understanding in general. It is true that he described these, as well as numerous other forms of mind and nature, and that he examined and expounded their specialities. But in his metaphysical theories, as well as his theories of nature and mind, he was very far from taking as basis, or criterion, the syllogistic forms of the 'understanding.' Indeed it might be maintained that not one of these theories would ever have come into existence, or been allowed to exist, if it had been compelled to submit to the laws of understanding. With all the descriptiveness and analytic faculty which Aristotle after his fashion is substantially strong in, his ruling principle is always the speculative notion; and that syllogistic of 'understanding' to which he first gave such a definite expression is never allowed to intrude in the higher domain of philosophy.
* * * * * In their objective sense, the three figures of the syllogism declare that everything rational is manifested as a triple syllogism; that is to say, each one of the members takes in turn the place of the extremes, as well as of the mean which reconciles them. Such, for example, is the case with the three branches of philosophy; the Logical Idea, Nature, and Mind. As we first see them, Nature is the middle term which links the others together. Nature, the totality immediately before us, unfolds itself into the two extremes of the Logical Idea and Mind. But Mind is Mind only when it is mediated through nature.
Then, in the second place, Mind, which we know as the principle of individuality, or as the actualising principle, is the mean; and Nature and the Logical Idea are the extremes. It is Mind which cognises the Logical Idea in Nature and which thus raises Nature to its essence.
In the third place again the Logical Idea itself becomes the mean: it is the absolute substance both of mind and of nature, the universal and all-pervading principle. These are the members of the Absolute Syllogism.
188.] In the round by which each constituent function assumes successively the place of mean and of the two extremes, their specific difference from each other has been superseded. In this form, where there is no distinction between its constituent elements, the syllogism at first has for its connective link equality, or the external identity of understanding. This is the Quantitative or Mathematical Syllogism: if two things are equal to a third, they are equal to one another.
* * * * * Everybody knows that this Quantitative syllogism appears as a mathematical axiom, which like other axioms is said to be a principle that does not admit of proof, and which indeed being self-evident does not require such proof. These mathematical axioms however are really nothing but logical propositions, which, so far as they enunciate definite and particular thoughts, are deducible from the universal and self-characterising thought. To deduce them, is to give their proof.
That is true of the Quantitative syllogism, to which mathematics gives the rank of an axiom. It is really the proximate result of the qualitative or immediate syllogism. Finally, the Quantitative syllogism is the syllogism in utter formlessness. The difference between the terms which is required by the notion is suspended.
Extraneous circumstances alone can decide what propositions are to be premisses here: and therefore in applying this syllogism we make a pre-supposition of what has been elsewhere proved and established.
189.] Two results follow as to the form. In the first place, each constituent element has taken the place and performed the function of the mean and therefore of the whole, thus implicitly losing its partial and abstract character (§ 182 and § 184); secondly, the mediation has been completed (§ 185), though the completion too is only implicit, that is, only as a circle of mediations which in turn pre-suppose each other. In the first figure I--P--U the two premisses I is P and P is U are yet without a mediation. The former premiss is mediated in the third, the latter in the second figure. But each of these two figures, again, for the mediation of its premisses pre-supposes the two others.
In consequence of this, the mediating unity of the notion must be put no longer as an abstract particularity, but as a developed unity of the individual and universal--and in the first place a reflected unity of these elements. That is to say, the individuality gets at the same time the character of universality. A mean of this kind gives the Syllogism of Reflection.
190.] If the mean, in the first place, be not only an abstract particular character of the subject, but at the same time all the individual concrete subjects which possess that character, but possess it only along with others, (1) we have the Syllogism of Allness.
The major premiss, however, which has for its subject the particular character, the _terminus medius,_ as allness, pre-supposes the very conclusion which ought rather to have pre-supposed it. It rests therefore (2) on an Induction, in which the mean is given by the complete list of individuals as such,--a, b, c, d, &c. On account of the disparity, however, between universality and an immediate and empirical individuality, the list can never be complete. Induction therefore rests upon (3) Analogy. The middle term of Analogy is an individual, which however is understood as equivalent to its essential universality, its genus, or essential character.--The first syllogism for its intermediation turns us over to the second, and the second turns us over to the third. But the third no less demands an intrinsically determinate Universality, or an individuality as type of the genus, after the round of the forms of external connexion between individuality and universality has been run through in the figures of the Reflective Syllogism.
By the Syllogism of Allness the defect in the first form of the Syllogism of Understanding, noted in § 184, is remedied, but only to give rise to a new defect. This defect is that the major premiss itself pre-supposes what really ought to be the conclusion, and pre-supposes it as what is thus an 'immediate' proposition. All men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal: All metals conduct electricity, therefore _e.g._ copper does so. In order to enunciate these major premisses, which when they say 'all' mean the 'immediate' individuals and are properly intended to be empirical propositions, it is requisite that the propositions about the individual man Caius, or the individual metal copper, should previously have been ascertained to be correct.
Everybody feels not merely the pedantry, but the unmeaning formalism of such syllogisms as: All men are mortal, Caius is a man, therefore Caius is mortal.
The syllogism of Allness hands us over to the syllogism of Induction, in which the individuals form the coupling mean. 'All metals conduct electricity,' is an empirical proposition derived from experiments made with each of the individual metals. We thus get the syllogism of Induction I in the following shape P--I--U. I...Gold is a metal: silver is a metal: so is copper, lead, &c. This is the major premiss. Then comes the minor premiss: All these bodies conduct electricity; and hence results the conclusion, that all metals conduct electricity. The point which brings about a combination here is individuality in the shape of allness. But this syllogism once more hands us over to another syllogism. Its mean is constituted by the complete list of the individuals. That pre-supposes that over a certain region observation and experience are completed. But the things in question here are individuals; and so again we are landed in the progression _ad infinitum_ (i, i, i, &c.). In other words, in no Induction can we ever exhaust the individuals. The 'all metals,' 'all plants,' of our statements, mean only all the metals, all the plants, which we have hitherto become acquainted with. Every Induction is consequently imperfect. One and the other observation, many it may be, have been made: but all the cases, all the individuals, have not been observed. By this defect of Induction we are led on to Analogy.
In the syllogism of Analogy we conclude from the fact that some things of a certain kind possess a certain quality, that the same quality is possessed by other things of the same kind. It would be a syllogism of Analogy, for example, if we said: In all planets hitherto discovered this has been found to be the law of motion, consequently a newly discovered planet will probably move according to the same law. In the experiential sciences Analogy deservedly occupies a high place, and has led to results of the highest importance. Analogy is the instinct of reason, creating an anticipation that this or that characteristic, which experience has discovered, has its root in the inner nature or kind of an object, and arguing on the faith of that anticipation.
Analogy it should be added may be superficial or it may be thorough.
It would certainly be a very bad analogy to argue that since the man Caius is a scholar, and Titus also is a man, Titus will probably be a scholar too: and it would be bad because a man's learning is not an unconditional consequence of his manhood. Superficial analogies of this kind however are very frequently met with. It is often argued, for example: The earth is a celestial body, so is the moon, and it is therefore in all probability inhabited as well as the earth. The analogy is not one whit better than that previously mentioned. That the earth is inhabited does not depend on its being a celestial body, but in other conditions, such as the presence of an atmosphere, and of water in connexion with the atmosphere, &c.: and these are precisely the conditions which the moon, so far as we know, does not possess.
What has in modern times been called the Philosophy of Nature consists principally in a frivolous play with empty and external analogies, which, however, claim to be considered profound results. The natural consequence has been to discredit the philosophical study of nature.
191.] The Syllogism of Necessity, if we look to its purely abstract characteristics or terms, has for its mean the Universal in the same way as the Syllogism of Reflection has the Individual, the latter being in the second, and the former in the third figure (§ 187).
The Universal is expressly put as in its very nature intrinsically determinate. In the first place (1) the Particular, meaning by the particular the specific genus or species, is the term for mediating the extremes--as is done in the Categorical syllogism. (2) The same office is performed by the Individual, taking the individual as immediate being, so that it is as much mediating as mediated:--as happens in the Hypothetical syllogism. (3) We have also the mediating Universal explicitly put as a totality of its particular members, and as a single particular, or exclusive individuality:--which happens in the Disjunctive syllogism. It is one and the same universal which is in these terms of the Disjunctive syllogism; they are only different forms for expressing it.
192.] The syllogism has been taken conformably to the distinctions which it contains; and the general result of the course of their evolution has been to show that these differences work out their own abolition and destroy the notion's outwardness to its own self. And, as we see, in the first place, (1) each of the dynamic elements has proved itself the systematic whole of these elements, in short a whole syllogism,--they are consequently implicitly identical. In the second place, (2) the negation of their distinctions and of the mediation of one through another constitutes independency; so that it is one and the same universal which is in these forms, and which is in this way also explicitly put as their identity. In this ideality of its dynamic elements, the syllogistic process may be described as essentially involving the negation of the characters through which its course runs, as being a mediative process through the suspension of mediation,--as coupling the subject not with another, but with a suspended other, in one word, with itself.
* * * * * In the common logic, the doctrine of syllogism is supposed to conclude the first part, or what is called the 'elementary' theory. It is followed by the second part, the doctrine of Method, which proposes to show how a body of scientific knowledge is created by applying to existing objects the forms of thought discussed in the elementary part.
Whence these objects originate, and what the thought of objectivity generally speaking implies, are questions to which the Logic of Understanding vouchsafes no further answer. It believes thought to be a mere subjective and formal activity, and the objective fact, which confronts thought, to have a separate and permanent being. But this dualism is a half-truth: and there is a want of intelligence in the procedure which at once accepts, without inquiring into their origin, the categories of subjectivity and objectivity. Both of them, subjectivity as well as objectivity, are certainly thoughts--even specific thoughts: which must show themselves founded on the universal and self-determining thought. This has here been done--at least for subjectivity. We have recognised it, or the notion subjective (which includes the notion proper, the judgment, and the syllogism) as the dialectical result of the first two main stages of the Logical Idea, Being and Essence. To say that the notion is subjective and subjective only, is so far quite correct: for the notion certainly is subjectivity itself. Not less subjective than the notion are also the judgment and syllogism: and these forms, together with the so-called Laws of Thought (the Laws of Identity, Difference, and Sufficient Ground), make up the contents of what is called the 'Elements' in the common logic. But we may go a step further. This subjectivity, with its functions of notion, judgment, and syllogism, is not like a set of empty compartments which has to get filled from without by separately-existing objects. It would be truer to say that it is subjectivity itself which, as dialectical, breaks through its own barriers and opens out into objectivity by means of the syllogism.
193.] This 'realisation' of the notion,--a realisation in which the universal is this one totality withdrawn back into itself (of which the different members are no less the whole, and) which has given itself a character of 'immediate' unity by merging the mediation:--this realisation of the notion is the Object.
I his transition from the Subject, the notion in general, and especially the syllogism, to the Object, may, at the first glance, appear strange, particularly if we look only at the Syllogism of Understanding, and suppose syllogising to be only an act of consciousness. But that strangeness imposes on us no obligation to seek to make the transition plausible to the image-loving conception. The only question which can be considered is, whether our usual conception of what is called an 'object' approximately corresponds to the object as here described. By 'object' is commonly understood not an abstract being, or an existing thing merely, or any sort of actuality, but something independent, concrete, and self-complete, this completeness being the totality of the notion. That the object (_Objekt_) is also an object to us (_Gegenstand_) and is external to something else, will be more precisely seen, when it puts itself in contrast with the subjective. At present, as that into which the notion has passed from its mediation, it is only immediate object and nothing more, just as the notion is not describable as subjective, previous to the subsequent contrast with objectivity.
Further, the Object in general is the one total, in itself still unspecified, the Objective World as a whole, God, the Absolute Object.
The object, however, has also difference attaching to it: it falls into pieces, indefinite in their multiplicity (making an objective world); and each of these individualised parts is also an object, an intrinsically concrete, complete, and independent existence.
Objectivity has been compared with being, existence, and actuality; and so too the transition to existence and actuality (not to being, for _it_ is the primary and quite abstract immediate) maybe compared with the transition to objectivity. The ground from which existence proceeds, and the reflective correlation which is merged in actuality, are nothing but the as yet imperfectly realised notion. They are only abstract aspects of it,--the ground being its merely essence-bred unity, and the correlation only the connexion of real sides which are supposed to have only self-reflected being. The notion is the unity of the two; and the object is not a merely essence-like, but inherently universal unity, not only containing real distinctions, but containing them as totalities in itself.
It is evident that in all these transitions there is a further purpose than merely to show the indissoluble connexion between the notion or thought and being. It has been more than once remarked that being is nothing more than simple self-relation, and this meagre category is certainly implied in the notion, or even in thought. But the meaning of these transitions is not to accept characteristics or categories, as only implied;--a fault which mars even the Ontological argument for God's existence, when it is stated that being is one among realities.
What such a transition does, is to take the notion, as it ought to be primarily characterised _per se_ as a notion, with which this remote abstraction of being, or eve of objectivity, has as yet nothing to do, and looking at its specific character as a notional character alone, to see when and whether it passes over into a form which is different from the character as it belongs to the notion and appears in it.
If the Object, the product of this transition, be brought into relation with the notion, which, so far as its special form is concerned, has vanished in it, we may give a correct expression to the result, by saying that notion or, if it be preferred, subjectivity and object are _implicitly_ the same. But it is equally correct to say that they are different. In short, the two modes of expression are equally correct and incorrect. The true state of the case can be presented in no expressions of this kind. The 'implicit' is an abstraction, still more partial and inadequate than the notion itself, of which the inadequacy is upon the whole suspended, by suspending itself to the object with its opposite inadequacy. Hence that implicitness also must, by its negation, give itself the character of explicitness. As in every case, speculative identity is not the above-mentioned triviality of an _implicit_ identity of subject and object. This has been said often enough. Yet it could not be too often repeated, if the intention were really to put an end to the stale and purely malicious misconception in regard to this identity:--of which however there can be no reasonable expectation.
Looking at that unity in a quite general way, and raising no objection to the one-sided form of its implicitness, we find it as the well-known pre-supposition of the ontological proof for the existence of God.
There, it appears as supreme perfection. Anselm, in whom the notable suggestion of this proof first occurs, no doubt originally restricted himself to the question whether a certain content was in our thinking only. His words are briefly these: '_Certe id quo majus cogitari nequit, non potest esse in intellectu solo. Si enim vel in solo intellectu est, potest cogitari esse_ et in re: _quod majus est.
Si ergo id quo majus cogitari non potest, est in solo intellectu; id ipsum quo majus cogitari non potest, est quo majus cogitari potest.
Sed certe hoc esse non potest._' (Certainly that, than which nothing greater can be thought, cannot be in the intellect alone. For even if it is in the intellect alone, it can also be thought to exist in fact: and that is greater. If then that, than which nothing greater can be thought, is in the intellect alone; then the very thing, which is greater than anything which can be thought, can be exceeded in thought. But certainly this is impossible.) The same unity received a more objective expression in Descartes, Spinoza and others: while the theory of immediate certitude or faith presents it, on the contrary, in somewhat the same subjective aspect as Anselm. These Intuitionalists hold that _in our consciousness_ the attribute of being is indissolubly associated with the conception of God. The theory of faith brings even the conception of external finite things under the same inseparable nexus between the consciousness and the being of them, on the ground that _perception_ presents them conjoined with the attribute of existence: and in so saying, it is no doubt correct. It would be utterly absurd, however, to suppose that the association in consciousness between existence and our conception of finite things is of the same description as the association between existence and the conception of God. To do so would be to forget that finite things are changeable and transient, _i.e._ that existence is associated with them for a season, but that the association is neither eternal nor inseparable. Speaking in the phraseology of the categories before us, we may say that, to call a thing finite, means that its objective existence is not in harmony with the thought of it, with its universal calling, its kind and its end. Anselm, consequently, neglecting any such conjunction as occurs in finite things, has with good reason pronounced that only to be the Perfect which exists not merely in a subjective, but also in an objective mode. It does no good to put on airs against the Ontological proof, as it is called, and against Anselm thus denning the Perfect. The argument is one latent in every unsophisticated mind, and it recurs in every philosophy, even against its wish and without its knowledge--as may be seen in the theory of immediate belief.
The real fault in the argumentation of Anselm is one which is chargeable on Descartes and Spinoza, as well as on the theory of immediate knowledge. It is this. This unity which is enunciated as the supreme perfection or, it may be, subjectively, as the true knowledge, is pre-supposed, _i.e._ it is assumed only as potential. This identity, abstract as it thus appears, between the two categories may be at once met and opposed by their diversity; and this was the very answer given to Anselm long ago. In short, the conception and existence of the finite is set in antagonism to the infinite; for, as previously remarked, the finite possesses objectivity of such a kind as is at once incongruous with and different from the end or aim, its essence and notion. Or, the finite is such a conception and in such a way subjective, that it does not involve existence. This objection and this antithesis are got over, only by showing the finite to be untrue and these categories in their separation to be inadequate and null. Their identity is thus seen to be one into which they spontaneously pass over, and in which they are reconciled.
B.--THE OBJECT.
194.] The Object is immediate being, because insensible to difference, which in it has suspended itself. It is, further, a totality in itself, whilst at the same time (as this identity is only the _implicit_ identity of its dynamic elements) it is equally indifferent to its immediate unity. It thus breaks up into distinct parts, each of which is itself the totality. Hence the object is the absolute contradiction between a complete independence of the multiplicity, and the equally complete non-independence of the different pieces.
The definition, which states that the Absolute is the Object, is most definitely implied in the Leibnizian Monad. The Monads are each an object, but an object implicitly 'representative,' indeed the total representation of the world. In the simple unity of the Monad, all difference is merely ideal, not independent or real. Nothing from without comes into the monad: It is the whole notion in itself, only distinguished by its own greater or less development. None the less, this simple totality parts into the absolute multeity of differences, each becoming an independent monad. In the monad of monads, and the Pre-established Harmony of their inward developments, these substances are in like manner again reduced to 'ideality' and unsubstantiality.
The philosophy of Leibnitz, therefore, represents contradiction in its complete development.
* * * * * As Fichte in modern times has especially and with justice insisted, the theory which regards the Absolute or God as the Object and there stops, expresses the point of view taken by superstition and slavish fear. No doubt God is the Object, and, indeed, the Object out and out, confronted with which our particular or subjective opinions and desires have no truth and no validity. As absolute object however, God does not therefore take up the position of a dark and hostile power over against subjectivity. He rather involves it as a vital element in Himself. Such also is the meaning of the Christian doctrine, according to which God has willed that all men should be saved and all attain blessedness. The salvation and the blessedness of men are attained when they come to feel themselves at one with God, so that God, on the other hand, ceases to be for them mere object, and, in that way, an object of fear and terror, as was especially the case with the religious consciousness of the Romans. But God in the Christian religion is also known as Love, because in His Son, who is one with Him, He has revealed Himself to men as a man amongst men, and thereby redeemed them. All which is only another way of saying that the antithesis of subjective and objective is implicitly overcome, and that it is our affair to participate in this redemption by laying aside our immediate subjectivity (putting off the old Adam), and learning to know God as our true and essential self.
Just as religion and religious worship consist in overcoming the antithesis of subjectivity and objectivity, so science too and philosophy have no other task than to overcome this antithesis by the medium of thought. The aim of knowledge is to divest the objective world that stands opposed to us of its strangeness, and, as the phrase is, to find ourselves at home in it: which means no more than to trace the objective world back to the notion,--to our innermost self. We may learn from the present discussion the mistake of regarding the antithesis of subjectivity and objectivity as an abstract and permanent one. The two are wholly dialectical. The notion is at first only subjective: but without the assistance of any foreign material or stuff it proceeds, in obedience to its own action, to objectify itself. So, too, the object is not rigid and processless. Its process is to show itself as what is at the same time subjective, and thus form the step onwards to the idea. Any one who, from want of familiarity with the categories of subjectivity and objectivity, seeks to retain them in their abstraction, will find that the isolated categories slip through his fingers before he is aware, and that he says the exact contrary of what he wanted to say.
(2) Objectivity contains the three forms of Mechanism, Chemism, and Teleology. The object of mechanical type is the immediate and undifferentiated object. No doubt it contains difference, but the different pieces stand, as it were, without affinity to each other, and their connexion is only extraneous. In chemism, on the contrary, the object exhibits an essential tendency to differentiation, in such a way that the objects are what they are only by their relation to each other: this tendency to difference constitutes their quality.
The third type of objectivity, the teleological relation, is the unity of mechanism and chemism. Design, like the mechanical object, is a self-contained totality, enriched however by the principle of differentiation which came to the fore in chemism, and thus referring itself to the object that stands over against it. Finally, it is the realisation of design which forms the transition to the Idea.
(a) _Mechanism._ 196.] The object (1) in its immediacy is the notion only potentially; the notion as subjective is primarily outside it; and all its specific character is imposed from without. As a unity of differents, therefore, it is a composite, an aggregate; and its capacity of acting on anything else continues to be an external relation. This is Formal Mechanism.--Notwithstanding, and in this connexion and non-independence, the objects remain independent and offer resistance, external to each other.
Pressure and impact are examples of mechanical relations. Our knowledge is said to be mechanical or by rote, when the words have no meaning for us, but continue external to sense, conception, thought; and when, being similarly external to each other, they form a meaningless sequence. Conduct, piety, &c. are in the same way mechanical, when a man's behaviour is settled for him by ceremonial laws, by a spiritual adviser, &c.; in short, when his own mind and will are not in his actions, which in this way are extraneous to himself.
* * * * * Mechanism, the first form of objectivity, is also the category which primarily offers itself to reflection, as it examines the objective world. It is also the category beyond which reflection seldom goes.
It is, however, a shallow and superficial mode of observation, one that cannot carry us through in connexion with Nature and still less in connexion with the world of Mind. In Nature it is only the veriest abstract relations of matter in its inert masses which obey the law of mechanism. On the contrary the phenomena and operations of the province to which the term 'physical' in its narrower sense is applied, such as the phenomena of light, heat, magnetism, and electricity, cannot be explained by any mere mechanical processes, such as pressure, impact, displacement of parts, and the like. Still less satisfactory is it to transfer these categories and apply them in the field of organic nature; at least if it be our aim to understand the specific features of that field, such as the growth and nourishment of plants, or, it may be, even animal sensation. It is at any rate a very deep-seated, and perhaps the main, defect of modern researches into nature, that, even where other and higher categories than those of mere mechanism are in operation, they still stick obstinately to the mechanical laws; although they thus conflict with the testimony of unbiassed perception, and foreclose the gate to an-adequate knowledge of nature. But even in considering the formations in the world of Mind, the mechanical theory has been repeatedly invested with an authority which it has no right to. Take as an instance the remark that man consists of soul and body. In this language, the two things stand each self-subsistent, and associated only from without. Similarly we find the soul regarded as a mere group of forces and faculties, subsisting independently side by side.
Thus decidedly must we reject the mechanical mode of inquiry when it comes forward and arrogates to itself the place of rational cognition in general, and seeks to get mechanism accepted as an absolute category. But we must not on that account forget expressly to vindicate for mechanism the right and import of a general logical category. It would be, therefore, a mistake to restrict it to the special physical department from which it derives its name. There is no harm done, for example, in directing attention to mechanical actions, such as that of gravity, the lever, &c, even in departments, notably in physics and in physiology, beyond the range of mechanics proper. It must however be remembered, that within these spheres the laws of mechanism cease to be final or decisive, and sink, as it were, to a subservient position. To which may be added, that, in Nature, when the higher or organic functions are in any way checked or disturbed in their normal efficiency, the otherwise subordinate category of mechanism is immediately seen to take the upper hand. Thus a sufferer from indigestion feels pressure on the stomach, after partaking of certain food in slight quantity; whereas those whose digestive organs are sound remain free from the sensation, although they have eaten as much. The same phenomenon occurs in the general feeling of heaviness in the limbs, experienced in bodily indisposition. Even in the world of Mind, mechanism has its place; though there, too, it is a subordinate one. We are right in speaking of mechanical memory, and all sorts of mechanical operations, such as reading, writing, playing on musical instruments, &c. In memory, indeed, the mechanical quality of the action is essential: a circumstance, the neglect of which has not unfrequently caused great harm in the training of the young, from the misapplied zeal of modern educationalists for the freedom of intelligence. It would betray bad psychology, however, to have recourse to mechanism for an explanation of the nature of memory, and to apply mechanical laws straight off to the soul. The mechanical feature in memory lies merely in the fact that certain signs, tones, &c. are apprehended in their