Evolution. F. B. Jevons

interpretations were put upon the theory of Evolution by different authorities. According to one interpretation the process of Evolution was a continual progress from good to better: good could only give way to higher good. According to another interpretation goodness was a transient, evanescent phase in the process of evolution, of no permanent value: the ethical process was doomed to be defeated by its enemy, the cosmic process. According to a third interpretation the notion of good was a pure illusion, necessary indeed, inasmuch as without it there would be no survival for man in the struggle for existence, but none the less an illusion.

      Much as these interpretations differ from one another as to the moral significance of the process of evolution, or indeed as to whether evolution has any moral significance at all, they are agreed upon one point. They are agreed that it is impossible to draw any inference from the facts of evolution as to the moral government of the universe. To affirm its moral government would be to claim knowledge of the Unknowable, which is an obvious absurdity. It would be to attribute power, consciousness, wisdom, and goodness to the Real; and the Real is and must ever be unknown.

      This identification of the Real with the Unknowable leads us into the following ridiculous impasse: the vast majority of men look, and must always look, for guidance and information to science and theology; and theology is knowledge of the unknowable; science, knowledge of the unreal. Those who are content with this blind alley may remain in it. We propose to try to find our way out of it.

      If we analyse our perception of any material object, that is to say, of any object which we perceive by means of the senses, we shall find that our perception of the object consists of the sensations which we have of it. To perceive an orange is to see that it is yellow, to feel that it is round, to smell it, taste it, and so on. These various sensations together constitute our perception of the orange. Now, the subjective idealist says that the perception is the orange, and that the orange is the perception. To the beginner in philosophy that sounds absurd: he knows that his perception is not the orange, and that the orange is something more than his perception of it. But when he is asked, "What more? If the orange is not the perception, what is it?" he does not generally produce any satisfactory reply; and then he is told that his notion, that there is anything in the orange except his own perception or sensations, is obviously not a fact of sensation or a thing directly observed, but merely a belief or inference of his. On the other hand, he generally puts a very natural question to his instructor: "If the orange is merely my perception, what becomes of the orange when I do not perceive it? Granted that it exists whenever I look at it, what becomes of it in the intervals when I am not looking at it? Does it exist then, or does it not?"

      To this Bishop Berkeley replies that it does; that it exists then in exactly the same way as it does now, that is to say, it exists in idea (i.e. perception or sensation); but as it does not exist in my perception, when I am not looking at it, it must exist in the perception of some other mind, to which all things at all times are present.

      With the fact which forms Berkeley's conclusion I have no quarrel. What I should like to show is that it does not follow from these premises.

      Berkeley's argument is: All men believe, and rightly believe, that the things they see are permanent. The things they see are ideas (perceptions, sensations) of a mind. Therefore the permanent world is the idea of a permanent mind.[5]

      But "the things they see" is an ambiguous expression. If by "the things that I see" is meant "my sensations of sight," then they are not permanent, for they only last as long as I look at the object, and consequently any argument based on their supposed permanence falls to the ground. On the other hand, if "the things that I see" are permanent, then they are not merely my sensations of sight—in which case subjective idealism is wrong, and my perception of a thing is not the whole account of the thing and does not exhaust its reality. The things which I perceive are not my sensations: they are things of which I have sensations. In fine, they are apprehended, at the moment of apprehension, as being both within and without consciousness.

      To the question whether a thing exists when I am not looking at it, John Stuart Mill replies, in effect, that as often as I look at it I shall see it; that if I were looking I should see it. This is true enough; but it is no answer to the question. When further pressed, Mill further replies that, if things do not exist when we do not look, we should nevertheless necessarily be deluded by the association of ideas into imagining that they do exist when not looked at. Here, again, it is perfectly true that, if things are not real, it is a delusion to imagine they are. But that is no answer to the question. It is, in fact, a question which the subjective idealist cannot answer. To say "No! Things out of consciousness are non-existent," is to say that effects of which the causes are unobserved are effects produced by non-existent causes. To say "Yes" is to admit that things can exist out of consciousness as well as in, which is what subjective idealism is there to deny.

      We submit, then, that the analysis of experience which subjective idealism makes is not an exhaustive analysis; and that, when the man of common sense says that in looking at anything he is aware both of his sensations of sight and of something more, he is stating the actual facts as they are given in experience to all of us.

      We apprehend a thing as being both our sensations and something more. When the idealist says that the latter half of this apprehension is a misapprehension, he rejects an observed fact of experience, not because he does not find it in his experience, but because it seems to him impossible that it should be there. He argues that to say we can be conscious of what is not in our consciousness is to say that we can be conscious of something of which we are unconscious—a patent nonsense. He might admit, for the sake of argument, that possibly a thing could exist both in consciousness and out, and even that we might know that it so existed. But he cannot admit that a man is conscious of what he is not conscious of.

      He is not required to admit it. He is required to admit that our perceptions are not the only things of which we are conscious; or, to put it in other words, that our states of consciousness are not the only things of which we are conscious. And he is required to admit it simply and solely on the ground that it is a fact of common observation and everyday experience. Thus, for instance, we perform actions, and (usually) we are conscious of performing them. But the action is something more and other than our consciousness of it. Or is someone going to maintain that doing and knowing are the same thing? Is anyone prepared to push the illusion-argument so far as to say that the idea that we do things is a mere delusion? If it is not a delusion, if it is, on the contrary, a fact, then our actions are not states of consciousness, but things of which we are conscious. We apprehend them, in the very act of apprehension, as realities distinct from the consciousness which we have of them. And we have the very same guarantee for their reality as we have for the reality of our perception or sensations of them, viz. the fact that we are conscious of them.

      In the same way, when we push a solid object or feel the impact of a moving body, we are as conscious of that body as of our muscular sensations: our sensations make up our perception of the object, but are not the object. They constitute the state of consciousness, but that state is not the only thing we are conscious of. The object is apprehended as being in consciousness and not as merely being our consciousness of it.

      Mr. Herbert Spencer, at least, is quite clear that our states of consciousness are not the only things of which we are conscious; he holds even that we are vaguely conscious of that which transcends our consciousness. Thus, our personality is not a state of consciousness, yet we are conscious of it, and "its existence is to each a fact above all others the most certain."[6] And, as for the real, "our firm belief in objective reality, a belief which metaphysical criticism cannot shake," is not merely "a positive though vague consciousness of that which transcends consciousness," but "has the highest validity of any"[7] of our beliefs.

      But though Mr. Spencer admits, or rather insists, that we know that the Real is, he denies that we know what it is. In other words, he accepts the validity of one half of every act of experience and denies the validity of the other half. Our analysis of experience has shown us that we apprehend the real,