When one reflects that it is not only upon the existence of this unity, but upon its working in and through us, that all philosophy and philosophizing depend, one cannot conceal the apprehension that too great a load of philosophy has been hung upon too feeble a peg.
So, too, after his victorious demonstration that upon the existence of this spiritual unity depends the possibility of all moral experience, he finds himself obliged to state (p. 180), with that candor so characteristic of all his thinking: ''Of a life of completed development, of activity with the end attained, we can only speak or think in negatives, and thus only can we speak or think of that state of being in which, according to our theory, the ultimate moral good must consist." Once more, had he started from the fact that as matter of actual realization this absolute good has been reproduced in our lives and the end attained (for surely the good is a matter of quality and not of quantity, and the end a power, not a sum), he would not have found himself in this difficulty. But with a purely logical method, one can end only with the must be or the ought: the is vanishes, because it has been abstracted from. The psychological method starts from the is, and thereby also gives the basis and the ideal for the ought and must be.
But it is time that we returned to our thesis, which, in brief, was that no distinction which maintains that psychology is the science of man as "part of this partial world'' can be maintained. The following reasons for this denial have been given: it was pointed out that the relative validity which this distinction in man's nature undoubtedly possesses is itself the product and manifestation of psychological experience; that man as man, or as the conscious experience whose science is psychology, is self-conscious, and that therefore self-consciousness as the unity of subject and object, not as "purely objective," as the totality, not as a "part," must be included in the science of psychology; and that furthermore this treatment of self-consciousness is necessary for the explanation and comprehension of any partial fact of conscious experience. And finally, it was pointed out that the denial of self-consciousness as constituting matter of experience, and hence of psychology, was the denial of the possibility of philosophy itself; and this was illustrated by historic examples. Before passing on to the second topic, I wish briefly to return to Professor Caird's exposition, and shelter myself somewhat beneath the wings of his authority. In the article already referred to, he goes on to state that the natural objective science of man after all "omits the distinctive characteristic of man's being"; that while we may treat inorganic nature and even organic with purely natural objective methods and principles, because "they are not unities for themselves, but only for us, " such treatment cannot be applied to man, for man is for himself, i.e., is not a pure object, but is self-consciousness. Thus, he continues (p. 89):
In man, in so far as he is self-conscious -- and it is self-consciousness that makes him man -- the unity through which all things are and are known is manifested.... Therefore to treat him as a simply natural being is even more inaccurate and misleadingthan to forget or deny his relation to nature altogether. A true psychology must avoid both errors: it must conceive man as at once spiritual and natural; it must find a reconciliation of freedom and necessity. It must face all the difficulties involved in the conception of the absolute principle of self-consciousness --through which all things are and are known -- as manifesting itself in the life of a being like man, who "comes to himself" only by a long process of development out of the unconsciousness of a merely animal existence.
When it is stated, later on, that the natural science of man "is necessarily abstract and imperfect, as it omits from its view the central fact in the life of the object of which it treats," it is hardly worth while discussing whether there be any such science or not. But there is suggested for us in the quotation just made our second problem -- the final relation of psychology, which confessedly must deal with self-consciousness, to philosophy. For there the problem of psychology was stated to be the question of the ''absolute principle of self-consciousness, manifesting itself in the life of a being like man." That is, it is here suggested that psychology does not deal with the absolute principle in itself, but only with the modes by which this is manifested or realized in the life of man. Psychology no longer appears as an objective science; it now comes before us as a phenomenology, presupposing a science of the absolute reality itself. It is to this question that I now turn. Is psychology the science merely of the manifestation of the Absolute, or is it the science of the Absolute itself?
II
The relation of Psychology to Philosophy now stands, I suppose, something like this: There is an absolute self-consciousness. The science of this is philosophy. This absolute self-consciousness manifests itself in the knowing and acting of individual men. The science of this manifestation, a phenomenology, is psychology. The distinction is no longer concerned with man's being itself; it is a distinction of treatment, of ways of looking at the same material. Before going to its positive consideration the following questions may suggest the result we desire to reach How does there come about this distinction between the "spiritual" and the "natural," between "freedom'' and "necessity"? How does there come into our knowledge the notion of a distinction between the "absolute principle of self-consciousness" and ''man coming to himself only by a long process of development out of the unconsciousness of a merely animal existence''? Is this a distinction which falls outside the subject matter of psychology, and which may therefore be used to determine it; or is it one which has originated within psychological experience, and whose nature therefore, instead of being capable of fixing the character of psychology, must itself be determined by psychology? Furthermore, what is this distinction between the absolute self-consciousness and its manifestation in a being like man? Is the absolute self-consciousness complete in itself, or does it involve this realization and manifestation in a being like man? If it is complete in itself, how can any philosophy which is limited to "this absolute principle of self-consciousness" face and solve the difficulties involved in its going beyond itself to manifest itself in self-consciousness? This cannot be what is meant. The absolute self-consciousness must involve within itself, as organic member of its very being and activity, this manifestation and revelation. Its being must be this realization and manifestation. Granted that this realization and manifestation is an act not occurring in time, but eternally completed in the nature of the Absolute, and that it occurs only "partially" and "interruptedly" through (not in) time, in a being like man -- the fact none the less remains that philosophy, under any theory of its nature, can deal with this absolute self-consciousness only so far as it has partially and interruptedly realized itself in man. For man, as object of his philosophy, this Absolute has existence only so far as it has manifested itself in his conscious experience. To return to our questions: If the material of philosophy be the absolute self-consciousness, and this absolute self-consciousness is the realization and manifestation of itself, and as material for philosophy exists only in so far as it has realized and manifested itself in man's conscious experience, and if psychology be the science of this realization in man, what else can philosophy in its fullness be but psychology, and psychology but philosophy?
These questions are stated only to suggest the end which we shall endeavor to reach. I shall not attempt to answer them directly, but to consider first the relations of Psychology to Science, and hence to Philosophy; and secondly to Logic.
(1) The Relation of Psychology to Science -- Psychology is the completed method of philosophy, because in it science and philosophy, fact and reason. are one. Philosophy seems to stand in a double relation to Science. In its first aspect it is a science -- the highest of all sciences. We take one sphere of reality and ask certain questions regarding it, and the answers give us some one science; we find in the process that this sphere of reality can only artificially be thus isolated, and we broaden and deepen our question, until finally, led by the organic connection of science with science, we ask after the nature of all reality, as one connected system. The answer to this question constitutes philosophy as one science amid the circle of sciences. But to continue to regard it in this way is to fail to grasp the meaning of the process which has forced us into philosophy. At the same time that philosophy is seen as the completion of the sciences, it is seen as their basis. It is no longer a science; it is Science. That
