SCORPION

CHAPTER II

1. Hume on Causal Efficacy.

 

It is the thesis of this work that human sym-

bolism has its origin in the symbolic interplay be-

tween two distinct modes of direct perception of

the external world. There are, in this way, two

sources of information about the external world,

closely connected but distinct. These modes do

not repeat each other; and there is a real diversity

of information. Where one is vague, the other is

precise: where one is important, the other is

trivial. But the two schemes of presentation have

structural elements in common, which identify

them as schemes of presentation of the same

world. There are however gaps in the determi-

nation of the correspondence between the two

morphologies. The schemes only partially inter-

sect, and their true fusion is left indeterminate.

The symbolic reference leads to a transference of

emotion, purpose, and belief, which cannot be

justified by an intellectual comparison of the di-

rect information derived from the two schemes

30

 

SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT 3I

 

and their elements of intersection. The justifica-

tion, such as it is, must be sought in a pragmatic

appeal to the future. In this way intellectual criti-

cism founded on subsequent experience can en-

large and purify the primitive native symbolic

transference.

I have termed one perceptive mode 'Presenta-

tional Immediacy,' and the other mode 'Causal

Efficacy.' In the previous lecture the mode of

presentational immediacy was discussed at length.

The present lecture must commence with the dis-

cussion of 'Causal Efficacy.' It will be evident to

you that I am here controverting the most cher-

ished tradition of modern philosophy, shared

alike by the school of empiricists which derives

from Hume, and the school of transcendental

idealists which derives from Kant. It is unneces-

sary to enter upon any prolonged justification of

this summary account of the tradition of modern

philosophy. But some quotations will summarize

neatly what is shared in common by the two types

of thought from which I am diverging. Hume

(in the 'Treatise', Part III, Section II)

writes: -- "When both the objects are present to

the senses along with the relation, we call this

perception rather than reasoning; nor is there in

 

 

32 SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT

 

this case any exercise of the thought, or any action,

properly speaking, but a mere passive admission of

the impressions through the organs of sensation.

According to this way of thinking, we ought not to

receive as reasoning any of the observations we

may make concerning identity and the relation of

time and place; since in none of them can the mind

go beyond what is immediately present to the

senses, either to discover the real existence or the

relations of objects."

The whole force of this passage depends upon

the tacit presupposition of the 'mind' as a pas-

sively receptive substance and of its 'impression'

as forming its private world of accidents. There

then remains nothing except the immediacy of

these private attributes with their private rela-

tions which are also attributes of the mind. Hume

explicitly repudiates this substantial view of mind.

But then, what is the force of the last clause of

the last sentence, "since... objects 7" The

only reason for dismissing 'impressions' from hav-

ing any demonstrative force in respect to 'the real

existence or the relations of objects,' is the im-

plicit notion that such impressions are mere pri-

vate attributes of the mind. Santayana's book,

Scepticism and Animal Faith, to which I have al-

 

SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT 33

 

ready referred, is in its earlier chapters a vigorous

and thorough insistence, by every manner of beau-

tiful illustration, that with Hume's premises there

is no manner of escape from this dismissal of iden-

tity, time, and place from having any reference

to a real world. There remains only what San-

tayana calls 'Solipsism of the Present Moment.'

Even memory goes: for a memory-impression is

not an impression of memory. It is only another

immediate private impression.

It is unnecessary to cite Hume on Causation; for

the preceding quotation carries with it his whole

sceptical position. But a quotation (Cf. Hume's

'Treatise', Part I, Section VI) on substance

is necessary to explain the ground of his explicit --

as distinct from sporadic implicit presuppositions

-- doctrine on this point: -- "I would fain ask those

philosophers, who found so much of their reason-

ings on the distinction of substance and accident,

and imagine we have clear ideas of each, whether

the idea of substance be derived from the impres-

sions of sensation or reflections If it be conveyed

to us by our senses, I ask, which of them, and after

what manner? If it be perceived by the eyes, it

must be a colour; if by the ears, a sound; if by

the palate, a taste; and so of the other senses. But

 

 

34 SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT

 

I believe none will assert that substance is either

a colour, or sound, or a taste. The idea of sub-

stance must, therefore, be derived from an im-

pression of reflection, if it really exist. But the

impressions of reflection resolve themselves into

our passions and emotions; none of which can pos-

sibly represent a substance. We have, therefore,

no idea of substance, distinct from that of a col-

lection of particular qualities, nor have we any

other meaning when we either talk or reason con-

cerning it."

This passage is concerned with a notion of

'substance,' which I do not entertain. Thus it

only indirectly controverts my position. I quote it

because it is the plainest example of Hume's initial

assumptions that (i) presentational immediacy,

and relations between presentationally immediate

entities, constitute the only type of perceptive ex-

perience, and that (ii) presentational immediacy

includes no demonstrative factors disclosing a con-

temporary world of extended actual things.

He discusses this question later in his 'Treatise'

under the heading of the notion of 'Bodies'; and

arrives at analogous sceptical conclusions. These

conclusions rest upon an extraordinary naive as-

sumption of time as pure succession. The assump-

 

SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT 35

 

tion is naive, because it is the natural thing to say;

it is natural because it leaves out that character-

istic of time which is so intimately interwoven that

it is natural to omit it.

Time is known to us as the succession of our

acts of experience, and thence derivatively as the

succession of events objectively perceived in those

acts. But this succession is not pure succession:

it is the derivation of state from state, with the

later state exhibiting conformity to the antecedent.

Time in the concrete is the conformation of state

to state, the later to the earlier; and the pure suc-

cession is an abstraction from the irreversible re-

lationship of settled past to derivative present.

The notion of pure succession is analogous to the

notion of colour. There is no mere colour, but al-

ways some particular colour such as red or blue:

analogously there is no pure succession, but always

some particular relational ground in respect to

which the terms succeed each other. The integers

succeed each other in one way, and events succeed

each other in another way; and, when we abstract

from these ways of succession, we find that pure

succession is an abstraction of the second order, a

generic abstraction omitting the temporal charac-

ter of time and the numerical relation of integers.

 

36 SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT

 

The past consists of the community of settled acts

which, through their objectifications in the present

act, establish the conditions to which that act

must conform.

Aristotle conceived 'matter' as being

pure potentiality awaiting the incoming of form in

order to become actual. Hence employing Aris-

totelian notions, we may say that the limitation of

pure potentiality, established by 'objectifications'

of the settled past, expresses that 'natural poten-

tiality' -- or, potentiality in nature -- which is 'mat-

ter' with that basis of initial, realized form pre-

supposed as the first phase in the self-creation of

the present occasion. The notion of 'pure poten-

tiality' here takes the place of Aristotle's 'matter,'

and 'natural potentiality' is 'matter' with that

given imposition of form from which each actual

thing arises. All components which are given for

experience are to be found in the analysis of nat-

ural potentiality. Thus the immediate present has

to conform to what the past is for it, and the

mere lapse of time is an abstraction from the more

concrete relatedness of 'conformation.' The 'sub-

stantial' character of actual things is not primarily

concerned with the predication of qualities. It

expresses the stubborn fact that whatever is set-

 

SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT 37

 

tied and actual must in due measure be conformed

to by the self-creative activity. The phrase 'stub-

born fact' exactly expresses the popular apprehen-

sion of this characteristic. Its primary phase,

from which each actual thing arises, is the stub-

born fact which underlies its existence. Accord-

ing to Hume there are no stubborn facts. Hume's

doctrine may be good philosophy, but it is cer-

tainly not common sense. In other words, it fails

before the final test of obvious verification.

 

Kant and Causal Efficacy.

 

The school of transcendental idealists, derived

from Kant, admit that causal efficacy is a factor in

the phenomenal world; but hold that it does not

belong to the sheer data presupposed in percep-

tion. It belongs to our ways of thought about the

data. Our consciousness of the perceived world

yields us an objective system, which is a fusion of

mere data and modes of thought about those data.

The general Kantian reason for this position is

that direct perception acquaints us with particular

fact. Now particular fact is what simply occurs as

particular datum. But we believe universal prin-

ciples about all particular facts. Such universal

knowledge cannot be derived from any selection

 

38 SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT

 

of particular facts, each of which has just simply

occurred. Thus our ineradicable belief is only

explicable by reason of the doctrine that particu-

lar facts, as consciously apprehended, are the fu-

sion of mere particular data with thought func-

tiening according to categories which import

their own universality in the modified data. Thus

the phenomenal world, as in consciousness, is a

complex of coherent judgments, framed according

to fixed categories of thought, and with a content

constituted by given data organized according to

fixed forms of intuition.

This Kantian doctrine accepts Hume's native

presupposition of 'simple occurrence' for the mere

data. I have elsewhere called it the assumption of

'simple location,' by way of applying it to space as

well as to time.

I directly deny this doctrine of 'simple occur-

rence.' There is nothing which 'simply happens.'

Such a belief is the baseless doctrine of time as

'pure succession.' The alternative doctrine, that

the pure succession of time is merely an abstract

from the fundamental relationship of conforma-

tion, sweeps away the whole basis for the inter-

vention of constitutive thought, or constitutive in-

tuition, in the formation of the directly appre-

 

SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT 39

 

hended world. Universality of truth arises from

the universality of relativity, whereby every par-

ticular actual thing lays upon the universe the ob-

ligation of conforming to it. Thus in the analysis

of particular fact universal truths are discover-

able, those truths expressing this obligation. The

given-ness of experience -- that is to say, all its

data alike, whether general truths or particular

sensa or presupposed forms of synthesis -- ex-

presses the specific character of the temporal re-

lation of that act of experience to the settled actu-

ality of the universe which is the source of all con-

ditions. The fallacy of 'misplaced concreteness'

abstracts from time this specific character, and

leaves time with the mere generic character of

pure succession.

 

3. Direct Perception of Causal Efficacy.

 

The followers of Hume and the followers of

Kant have thus their diverse, but allied, objections

to the notion of any direct perception of causal

efficacy, in the sense in which direct perception is

antecedent to thought about it. Both schools find

'causal efficacy' to be the importation, into the

data, of a way of thinking or judging about those

data. One school calls it a habit of thought; the

 

40 SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT

 

other school calls it a category of thought. Also

for them the mere data are the pure sense-data.

If either Hume or Kant gives a proper account

of the status of causal efficacy, we should find that

our conscious apprehension of causal efficacy

should depend to some extent on the vividness of

the thought or of the pure intuitive discrimina-

tion of sense-data at the moment in question. For

an apprehension which is the product of thought

should sink in importance when thought is in the

background. Also, according to this Humian-

Kantian account, the thought in question is

thought about the immediate sense-data. Accord-

ingly a certain vividness of sense-data in immedi-

ate presentation should be favourable to appre-

hension of causal efficacy. For according to these

accounts, causal eRicacy is nothing else than a way

of thinking about sense-data, given in presenta-

tional immediacy. Thus the inhibition of thought

and the vagueness of sense-data should be ex-

tremely unfavourable to the prominence of causal

efficacy as an element in experience.

The logical difficulties attending the direct per-

ception of causal efficacy have been shown to de-

pend on the sheer assumption that time is merely

the generic notion of pure succession. This is an

 

SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT 4I

 

instance of the fallacy of 'misplaced concreteness.'

Thus the way is now open to enquire empirically

whether in fact our apprehension of causal efficacy

does depend either on the vividness of sense-data

or on the activity of thought.

According to both schools, the importance of

causal efficacy, and of action exemplifying its pre-

supposition, should be mainly characteristic of

high-grade organisms in their best moments. Now

if we confine attention to long-range identification

of cause and eRect, depending on complex reason-

ing, undoubtedly such high-grade mentality and

such precise determination of sense-data are re-

quired. But each step in such reasoning depends

on the primary presupposition of the immediate

present moment conforming itself to the settled

environment of the immediate past. We must not

direct attention to the inferences from yesterday

to today, or even from five minutes ago to the im-

mediate present. We must consider the immedi-

ate present in its relationship to the immediate

past. The overwhelming conformation of fact, in

present action, to antecedent settled fact is to be

found here.

My point is that this conformation of present

fact to immediate past is more prominent both in

 

42 SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING ANO EFFECT

 

apparent behaviour and in consciousness, when the

organism is low grade. A flower turns to the light

with much greater certainty than does a human be-

ing, and a stone conforms to the conditions set by

its external er.. ironment with much greater cer-

tainty than does a flower. A dog anticipates the

conformation of the immediate future to his pres-

ent activity with the same certainty as a human be-

ing. When it comes to calculations and remote

inferences, the dog fails. But the dog never acts

as though the immediate future were irrelevant to

the present. Irresolution in action arises from

consciousness of a somewhat distant relevant fu-

ture, combined with inability to evaluate its pre-

cise type. If we were not conscious of relevance,

why is there irresolution in a sudden crisis?

Again a vivid enjoyment of immediate sense-

data notoriously inhibits apprehension of the rele-

vance of the future. The present moment is then

all in all. In our consciousness it approximates to

'simple occurrence.'

Certain emotions, such as anger and terror, are

apt to inhibit the apprehension of sense-data; but

they wholly depend upon a vivid apprehension of

the relevance of immediate past to the present, and

of the present to the future. Again an inhibition

 

SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT 43

 

of familiar sense-data provokes the terrifying

sense of vague presences, effective for good or evil

over our fate. Most living creatures, of daytime

habits, are more nervous in the dark, in the ab-

sence of the familiar visual sense-data. But ac-

cording to Hume, it is the very familiarity of the

sense-data which is required for causal inference.

Thus the sense of unseen effective presences in the

dark is the opposite of what should happen.

 

4. Primitiveness of Causal Efficacy.

The perception of conformation to realities in

the environment is the primitive element in our

external experience. We conform to our bodily

organs and to the vague world which lies beyond

them. Our primitive perception is that of 'con-

formation' vaguely, and of the yet vaguer relata

'oneself' and 'another' in the undiscriminated back-

ground. Of course if relationships are unperceiv-

able, such a doctrine must be ruled out on theoretic

grounds. But if we admit such perception, then

the perception of conformation has every mark of

a primitive element. One part of our experience

is handy, and definite in our consciousness; also it

is easy to reproduce at will. The other type of

experience, however insistent, is vague, haunting,

unmanageable. The former type, for all its deco-

 

44 SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT

 

rative sense-experience, is barren. It displays a

world concealed under an adventitious show, a

show of our own bodily production. The latter

type is heavy with the contact of the things gone

by, which lay their grip on our immediate selves.

This latter type, the mode of causal efficacy, is the

experience dominating the primitive living organ-

isms, which have a sense for the fate from which

they have emerged, and for the fate towards

which they go -- the organisms which advance and

retreat but hardly differentiate any immediate dis-

play. It is a heavy, primitive experience. The

former type, the presentational immediacy, is the

superficial product of complexity, of subtlety; it

halts at the present, and indulges in a manage-

able self-enjoyment derived from the immediacy of

the show of things. Those periods in our lives --

when the perception of the pressure from a world

of things with characters in their own right, char-

acters mysteriously moulding our own natures, be-

come strongest -- those periods are the product of

a reversion to some primitive state. Such a rever-

sion occurs when either some primitive function-

ing of the human organism is unusually height-

ened, or some considerable part of our habitual

sense-perception is unusually enfeebled.

 

SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT 45

 

Anger, hatred, fear, terror, attraction, love,

hunger, eagerness, massive enjoyment, are feelings

and emotions closely entwined with the primitive

functioning of 'retreat from' and of 'expansion

towards.' They arise in the higher organism as

states due to a vivid apprehension that some such

primitive mode of functioning is dominating the

organism. But 'retreat from' and 'expansion

towards,' divested of any detailed spatial dis-

crimination, are merely reactions to the way ex-

ternality is impressing on us its own character.

You cannot retreat from mere subjectivity; for

subjectivity is what we carry with us. Normally,

we have almost negligible sense-presentations of

the interior organs of our own bodies.

These primitive emotions are accompanied by

the clearest recognition of other actual things re-

acting upon ourselves. The vulgar obviousness of

such recognition is equal to the vulgar obviousness

produced by the functioning of any one of our five

senses. When we hate, it is a man that we hate

and not a collection of sense-data -- a causal, effi-

cacious man. This primitive obviousness of the

perception of 'conformation' is illustrated by the

emphasis on the pragmatic aspect of occurrences,

which is so prominent in modern philosophical

 

46 SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT

 

thought. There can be no useful aspect of anything

unless we admit the principle of conformation,

whereby what is already made becomes a deter-

minant of what is in the making. The obviousness

of the pragmatic aspect is simply the obviousness

of the perception of the fact of conformation.

In practice we never doubt the fact of the con-

formation of the present to the immediate past.

It belongs to the ultimate texture of experience,

with the same evidence as does presentational im-

mediacy. The present fact is luminously the out-

come from its predecessors, one quarter of a

second ago. Unsuspected factors may have inter-

vened; dynamite may have exploded. But, how-

ever that may be, the present event issues subject

to the limitations laid upon it by the actual nature

of the immediate past. If dynamite explodes, then

present fact is that issue from the past which is

consistent with dynamite exploding. Further, we

unhesitatingly argue backwards to the inference,

that the complete analysis of the past must dis-

close in it those factors which provide the condi-

tions for the present. If dynamite be now ex-

ploding, then in the immediate past there was a

charge of dynamite unexploded.

The fact that our consciousness is confined to

 

SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT 47

 

an analysis of experience in the present is no dif-

ficulty. For the theory of the universal relativity

of actual individual things leads to the distinction

between the present moment of experience, which

is the sole datum for conscious analysis, and per-

ception of the contemporary world, which is the

only one factor in this datum.

The contrast between the comparative empti-

ness of Presentational Immediacy and the deep

significance disclosed by Causal Efficacy is at the

root of the pathos which haunts the world.

 

'Pereunt et imputantur'

 

is the inscription on old sundials in 'religious'

houses:

'The hours perish and are laid to account.'

Here 'Pereunt' refers to the world disclosed in

immediate presentation, gay with a thousand tints,

passing, and intrinsically meaningless. 'Imputan-

tur' refers to the world disclosed in its causal effi-

cacy, where each event infects the ages to come,

for good or for evil, with its own individuality.

Almost all pathos includes a reference to lapse of

time.

The Final stanza of Keats' Eve of St. Agnes

commences with the haunting lines: --

 

48 svMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT

 

'And they are gone: ay, ages long ago

Those lovers fled away into the storm.'

 

There the pathos of the lapse of time arises from

the imagined fusion of the two perceptive modes

by one intensity of emotion. Shakespeare, in the

springtime of the modern world, fuses the two

elements by exhibiting the infectiousness of gay

immediacy: --

 

'...daffodils,

 

That come before the swallow dares, and take

The winds of March with beauty;...'

(The Winter's Tale)

 

But sometimes men are overstrained by their un-

divided attention to the causal elements in the na-

ture of things. Then in some tired moment there

comes a sudden relaxation, and the mere presenta-

tional side of the world overwhelms with the

sense of its emptiness. As William Pitt, the Prime

Minister of England through the darkest period

of the French Revolutionary wars, lay on his

death-bed at England's worst moment in that

struggle, he was heard to murmur,

 

'What shades we are, what shadows we pursue...'

His mind had suddenly lost the sense of causal ef-

ficacy, and was illuminated by the remembrance of

 

 

 

SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT 49

 

the intensity of emotion, which had enveloped his

life, in its comparison with the barren emptiness of

the world passing in sense-presentation.

The world, given in sense-presentation, is not

the aboriginal experience of the lower organisms,

later to be sophisticated by the inference to causal

efficacy. The contrary is the case. First the

causal side of experience is dominating, then the

sense-presentation gains in subtlety. Their mu-

tual symbolic reference is finally purged by con-

sciousness and the critical reason with the aid of

a pragmatic appeal to consequences.

 

5. The Intersection of the Modes of

Perception.

 

There cannot be symbolic reference between

percepts derived from one mode and percepts

from the other mode, unless in some way these

percepts intersect. By this 'intersection' I mean

that a pair of such percepts must have elements of

structure in common, whereby they are marked

out for the action of symbolic reference.

There are two elements of common structure,

which can be shared in common by a percept de-

rived from presentational immediacy and by an-

other derived from causal efficacy. These ele-

ments are (i) sense-data, and (i) locality.

 

50 SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT

 

The sense-data are 'given' for presentational

immediacy. This given-ness of the sense-data, as

the basis of this perceptive mode, is the great doc-

trine common to Hume and Kant. But what is

already given for experience can only be derived

from that natural potentiality which shapes a par-

ticular experience in the guise of causal efficacy.

Causal efficacy is the hand of the settled past in

the formation of the present. The sense-data

must therefore play a double role in perception.

In the mode of presentational immediacy they are

projected to exhibit the contemporary world in its

spatial relations. In the mode of causal efficacy

they exhibit the almost instantaneously precedent

bodily organs as imposing their characters on the

experience in question. We see the picture, and

we see it with our eyes; we touch the wood, and we

touch it with our hands; we smell the rose, and

we smell it with our nose; we hear the bell, and we

hear it with our ears; we taste the sugar, and

we taste it with our palate. In the case of bodily

feelings the two locations are identical. The foot

is both giving pain and is the seat of the pain.

Hume himself tacitly asserts this double reference

in the second of the quotations previously made.

He writes: "If it be perceived by the eyes, it must

 

SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT 52

 

be a colour; if by the ears, a sound; if by the pal-

ate, a taste; and so of the other senses." Thus

in asserting the lack of perception of causality, he

implicitly presupposes it. For what is the meaning

of 'by' in 'by the eyes,' 'by the ears,' 'by the pal-

ate'? His argument presupposes that sense-data,

functioning in presentational immediacy, are

'given' by reason of 'eyes,' 'ears,' 'palates' func-

tioning in causal efficacy. Otherwise his argument

is involved in a vicious regress. For it must begin

again over eyes, ears, palates; also it must ex-

plain the meaning of 'by' and 'must' in a sense

which does not destroy his argument.

This double reference is the basis of the whole

physiological doctrine of perception. The details

of this doctrine are, in this discussion, philosophic-

ally irrelevant. Hume with the clarity of genius

states the fundamental point, that sense-data func-

tioning in an act of experience demonstrate that

they are given by the causal efficacy of actual

bodily organs. He refers to this causal efficacy as

a component in direct perception. Hume's argu-

ment first tacitly presupposes the two modes of

perception, and then tacitly assumes that presenta-

tional immediacy is the only mode. Also Hume's

followers in developing his doctrine presuppose

 

SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT 53

 

that presentational immediacy is primitive, and

that causal efficacy is the sophisticated derivative.

This is a complete inversion of the evidence. So

far as Hume's own teaching is concerned, there is,

of course, another alternative: it is that Hume's

disciples have misinterpreted Hume's final posi-

tion. On this hypothesis, his final appeal to 'prac-

tice' is an appeal against the adequacy of the then

current metaphysical categories as interpretive of

obvious experience. This theory about Hume's

own beliefs is in my opinion improbable: but,

apart from Hume's own estimate of his philo-

sophical achievement, it is in this sense that we

must reverence him as one of the greatest of

philosophers.

The conclusion of this argument is that the in-

tervention of any sense-datum in the actual world

cannot be expressed in any simple way, such as

mere qualification of a region of space, or alter-

natively as the mere qualification of a state of

mind. The sense-data, required for immediate

sense-perception, enter into experience in virtue of

the efficacy of the environment. This environment

includes the bodily organs. For example, in the

case of hearing sound the physical waves have

entered the ears, and the agitations of the nerves

have excited the brain. The sound is then heard

as coming from a certain region in the external

world. Thus perception in the mode of causal

efficacy discloses that the data in the mode of

sense-perception are provided by it. This is the

reason why there are such given elements. Every

such datum constitutes a link between the two per-

ceptive modes. Each such link, or datum, has a

complex ingression into experience, requiring a ref-

erence to the two perceptive modes. These sense-

data can be conceived as constituting the character

of a many-termed relationship between the organ-

isms of the past environment and those of the

contemporary world.

 

6. Localization.

 

The partial community of structure, whereby

the two perceptive modes yield immediate demon-

stration of a common world, arises from their

reference of sense-data, common to both, to local-

izations, diverse or identical, in a spatio-temporal

system common to both. For example, colour

is referred to an external space and to the eyes

as organs of vision. In so far as we are dealing

with one or other of these pure perceptive modes,

such reference is direct demonstration; and, as iso-

 

54 SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT

 

lated in conscious analysis, is ultimate fact against

which there is no appeal. Such isolation, or at

least some approach to it, is fairly easy in the case

of presentational immediacy, but is very difficult in

the case of causal efficacy. Complete ideal purity

of perceptive experience, devoid of any symbolic

reference, is in practice unobtainable for either

perceptive mode.

Our judgments on causal efficacy are almost in-

extricably warped by the acceptance of the sym-

bolic reference between the two modes as the com-

pletion of our direct knowledge. This acceptance

is not merely in thought, but also in action, emo-

tion, and purpose, all precedent to thought. This

symbolic reference is a datum for thought in its

analysis of experience. By trusting this datum,

our conceptual scheme of the universe is in gen-

eral logically coherent with itself, and is corre-

spondent to the ultimate facts of the pure percep-

tive modes. But occasionally, either the coher-

ence or the verification fails. We then revise

our conceptual scheme so as to preserve the gen-

eral trust in the symbolic reference, while relegat-

ing definite details of that reference to the cate-

gory of errors. Such errors are termed 'delusive

 

SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT 55

 

appearances.' This error arises from the extreme

vagueness of the spatial and temporal perspectives

in the case of perception in the pure mode of

causal efficacy. There is no adequate definition of

localization, so far as what emerges into analytic

consciousness. The principle of relativity leads us

to hold that, with adequate conscious analysis,

such local relationships leave their faint impress in

experience. But in general such detailed analysis

is far beyond the capacity of human consciousness.

So far as concerns the causal efficacy of the

world external to the human body, there is the

most insistent perception of a circumambient effi-

cacious world of beings. But exact discrimina-

tion of thing from thing, and of position from

position, is extremely vague, almost negligible.

The definite discrimination, which in fact we do

make, arises almost wholly by reason of symbolic

reference from presentational immediacy. The

case is different in respect to the human body.

There is still vagueness in comparison with the

accurate definition of immediate presentation; al-

though the locality of various bodily organs which

are eEcacious in the regulation of the sense-data,

and of the feelings, are fairly well-defined in the

 

56 SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT

 

pure perceptive mode of causal efficacy. The sym-

bolic transference of course intensifies the defini-

tion. But, apart from such transference, there is

some adequacy of definite demarcation.

Thus in the intersection of the two modes, the

spatial and temporal relationships of the human

body, as causally apprehended, to the external con-

temporary world, as immediately presented, afford

a fairly definite scheme of spatial and temporal

reference whereby we test the symbolic use of

sense-projection for the determination of the posi-

tions of bodies controlling the course of nature.

Ultimately all observation, scientific or popular,

consists in the determination of the spatial rela-

tion of the bodily organs of the observer to the

location of 'projected' sense-data.

 

The Contrast Between Accurate Definition

and Importance.

 

The reason why the projected sense-data are in

general used as symbol, is that they are handy,

definite, and manageable. We can see, or not see,

as we like: we can hear, or not hear. There are

limits to this handiness of the sense-data: but they

are emphatically the manageable elements in our

perceptions of the world. The sense of control-

 

SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT 57

 

ling presences has the contrary character: it is un-

manageable, vague, and ill-defined.

But for all their vagueness, for all their lack of

definition, these controlling presences, these

sources of power, these things with an inner life,

with their own richness of content, these beings,

with the destiny of the world hidden in their na-

tures, are what we want to know about. As we

cross a road busy with traffic, we see the colour

of the cars, their shapes, the gay colours of their

occupants; but at the moment we are absorbed in

using this immediate show as a symbol for the

forces determining the immediate future.

We enjoy the symbol, but we also penetrate to

the meaning. The symbols do not create their

meaning: the meaning, in the form of actual ef-

fective beings reacting upon us, exists for us in its

own right. But the symbols discover this meaning

for us. They discover it because, in the long

course of adaptation of living organisms to their

environment, nature (Cf. Prolegomena to an Idealist

Theory of Knowledge, by Norman Kemp Smith,

Macmillan and Co., London, 1924) taught their use.

It developed us so that our projected sensations

indicate in general those regions which are the seat

of important organisms.

 

 

58 SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT

 

Our relationships to these bodies are precisely

our reactions to them. The projection of our sen-

sations is nothing else than the illustration of the

world in partial accordance with the systematic

scheme, in space and in time, to which these re-

actions conform.

The bonds of causal efficacy arise from without

us. They disclose the character of the world from

which we issue, an inescapable condition round

which we shape ourselves. The bonds of pres-

entational immediacy arise from within us, and

are subject to intensifications and inhibitions and

diversions according as we accept their challenge

or reject it. The sense-data are not properly to be

termed 'mere impressions' -- except so far as any

technical term will do. They also represent the

conditions arising out of the active perceptive func-

tioning as conditioned by our own natures. But

our natures must conform to the causal efficacy.

Thus the causal eRicacy from the past is at least

one factor giving our presentational immediacy in

the present. The hocu of our present experience

must conform to the what of the past in us.

Our experience arises out of the past: it en-

riches with emotion and purpose its presentation

of the contemporary world: and it bequeaths its

 

SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT 59

 

character to the future, in the guise of an effective

element forever adding to, or subtracting from,

the richness of the world. For good or for evil,

 

'Pereunt et Imputantur.'

 

8. Conclusion.

 

In this chapter, and in the former chapter, the

general character of symbolism has been discussed.

It plays a dominant part in the way in which all

higher organisms conduct their lives. It is the

cause of progress, and the cause of error. The

higher animals have gained a faculty of great

power, by means of which they can define with

some accuracy those distant features in the im-

mediate world by which their future lives are to

be determined. But this faculty is not infallible;

and the risks are commensurate with its impor-

tance. It is the purpose of the next chapter to

illustrate this doctrine by an analysis of the part

played by this habit of symbolism in promoting

the cohesion, the progress, and the dissolution of

human societies.

 

CHAPTER II

 

Uses of Symbolism

 

The attitude of mankind towards symbolism

exhibits an unstable mixture of attraction and re-

pulsion. The practical intelligence, the theoreti-

cal desire to pierce to ultimate fact, and ironic

critical impulses have contributed the chief mo-

tives towards the repulsion from symbolism.

Hard-headed men want facts and not symbols. A

clear theoretic intellect, with its generous enthu-

siasm for the exact truth at all costs and hazards,

pushes aside symbols as being mere make-believes,

veiling and distorting that inner sanctuary of

simple truth which reason claims as its own. The

ironic critics of the follies of humanity have per-

formed notable service in clearing away the lum-

ber of useless ceremony symbolizing the degrad-

ing fancies of a savage past. The repulsion from

symbolism stands out as a well-marked element in

the cultural history of civilized people. There

can be no reasonable doubt but that this contin-

 

SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT 6I

 

uous criticism has performed a necessary service

in the promotion of a wholesome civilization,

both on the side of the practical efficiency of or-

ganized society, and on the side of a robust di-

rection of thought.

No account of the uses of symbolism is com-

plete without this recognition that the symbolic

elements in life have a tendency to run wild, like

the vegetation in a tropical forest. The life of

humanity can easily be overwhelmed by its sym-

bolic accessories. A continuous process of prun-

ing, and of adaptation to a future ever requiring

new forms of expression, is a necessary function

in every society. The successful adaptation of

old symbols to changes of social structure is the

final mark of wisdom in sociological statesman-

ship. Also an occasional revolution in symbol-

ism is required.

There is, however, a Latin proverb upon which,

in our youth, some of us have been set to write

themes. In English it reads thus: -- Nature, ex-

pelled with a pitchfork, ever returns. This prov-

erb is exemplified by the history of symbolism.

However you may endeavour to expel it, it ever

returns. Symbolism is no mere idle fancy or cor-

rupt degeneration: it is inherent in the very tex-

 

62 SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT

 

ture of human life. Language itself is a symbol-

ism. And, as another example, however you

reduce the functions of your government to their

utmost simplicity, yet symbolism remains. It may

be a healthier, manlier ceremonial, suggesting

finer notions. But still it is symbolism. You

abolish the etiquette of a royal court, with its

suggestion of personal subordination, but at offi-

cial receptions you ceremonially shake the hand of

the Governor of your State. Just as the feudal

doctrine of a subordination of classes, reaching

up to the ultimate overlord, requires its symbol-

ism; so does the doctrine of human equality obtain

its symbolism. Mankind, it seems, has to find a

symbol in order to express itself. Indeed 'ex-

pression' is 'symbolism.'

When the public ceremonial of the State has

been reduced to the barest simplicity, private

clubs and associations at once commence to re-

constitute symbolic actions. It seems as though

mankind must always be masquerading. This

imperative impulse suggests that the notion of an

idle masquerade is the wrong way of thought

about the symbolic elements in life. The func-

tion of these elements is to be definite, manage-

able, reproducible, and also to be charged with

 

SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT 63

 

their own emotional efficacity: symbolic transfer-

ence invests their correlative meanings with some

or all of these attributes of the symbols, and

thereby lifts the meanings into an intensity of

definite effectiveness -- as elements in knowledge,

emotion, and purpose,-- an effectiveness which

the meanings may, or may not, deserve on their

own account. The object of symbolism is the en-

hancement of the importance of what is symbol-

ized.

In a discussion of instances of symbolism, our

first difficulty is to discover exactly what is being

symbolized. The symbols are specific enough, but

it is often extremely dificult to analyse what lies

beyond them, even though there is evidently some

strong appeal beyond the mere ceremonial acts.

It seems probable that in any ceremonial which

has lasted through many epochs, the symbolic in-

terpretation, so far as we can obtain it, varies

much more rapidly than does the actual cere-

monial. Also in its flux a symbol will have dif-

ferent meanings for different people. At any

epoch some people have the dominant mentality

of the past, some of the present, others of the

future, and others of the many problematic fu-

tures which will never dawn. For these various

 

64 SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT

 

groups an old symbolism will have different

shades of vague meaning.

In order to appreciate the necessary function

of symbolism in the life of any society of human

beings we must form some estimate of the bind-

ing and disruptive forces at work. There are

many varieties of human society, each requiring

its own particular investigation so far as details

are concerned. We will fix attention on nations,

occupying definite countries. Thus geographical

unity is at once presupposed. Communities with

geographical unity constitute the primary type of

communities which we find in the world. Indeed

the lower we go in the scale of being, the more

necessary is geographical unity for that close in-

teraction of individuals which constitutes society.

Societies of the higher animals, of insects, of

molecules, all possess geographical unity. A rock

is nothing else than a society of molecules, indulg;

ing in every species of activity open to molecules.

I draw attention to this lowly form of society in

order to dispel the notion that social life is a pe-

culiarity of the higher organisms. The contrary

is the case. So far as survival value is concerned,

a piece of rock, with its past history of some eight

hundred millions of years, far outstrips the short

 

SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT 65

 

span attained by any nation. The emergence of

life is better conceived as a bid for freedom on

the part of organisms, a bid for a certain inde-

pendence of individuality with self-interests and

activities not to be construed purely in terms of

environmental obligations. The immediate ef-

fect of this emergence of sensitive individuality

has been to reduce the term of life for societies

from hundreds of millions of years to hundreds

of years, or even to scores of years.

The emergence of living beings cannot be as-

cribed to the superior survival value either of the

individuals, or of their societies. National life

has to face the disruptive elements introduced by

these extreme claims for individual idiosyncrasies.

We require both the advantages of social pres-

ervation, and the contrary stimulus of the hetero-

geneity derived from freedom. The society is to

run smoothly amidst the divergencies of its indi-

viduals. There is a revolt from the mere causal

obligations laid upon individuals by the social

character of the environment. This revolt first

takes the form of blind emotional impulse; and

later, in civilized societies, these impulses are crit-

icized and deflected by reason. In any case, there

are individual springs of action which escape from

 

66 SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT

 

the obligations of social conformity. In order to

replace this decay of secure instinctive response,

various intricate forms of symbolic expression of

the various purposes of social life have been in-

troduced. The response to the symbol is almost

automatic but not quite; the reference to the

meaning is there, either for additional emotional

support, or for criticism. But the reference is not

so clear as to be imperative. The imperative in-

stinctive conformation to the influence of the en-

vironment has been modified. Something has re-

placed it, which by its superficial character invites

criticism, and by its habitual use generally escapes

it. Such symbolism makes connected thought pos-

sible by expressing it, while at the same time it

automatically directs action. In the place of the

force of instinct which suppresses individuality,

society has gained the efficacy of symbols, at once

preservative of the commonweal and of the indi-

vidual standpoint.

Among the particular kinds of symbolism which

serve this purpose, we must place first Language.

I do not mean language in its function of a bare

indication of abstract ideas, or of particular ac-

tual things, but language clothed with its com-

plete influence for the nation in question. In ad-

 

SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT 67

 

dition to its bare indication of meaning, words

and phrases carry with them an enveloping sug-

gestiveness and an emotional efficacy. This func-

tion of language depends on the way it has been

used, on the proportionate familiarity of particu-

lar phrases, and on the emotional history associ-

ated with their meanings and thence derivatively

transferred to the phrases themselves. If two

nations speak the same language, this emotional

efficacy of words and phrases will in general differ

for the two. What is familiar for one nation

will be strange for the other nation; what is

charged with intimate associations for the one is

comparatively empty for the other. For example,

if the two nations are somewhat widely sundered,

with a different fauna and flora, the nature-poetry

of one nation will lack its complete directness of

appeal to the other nation -- compare Walt Whit-

man's phrase,

'

The wide unconscious scenery of my land'

 

for an American, with Shakespeare's

 

'this little world,

This precious stone set in the silver sea,'

 

for an Englishman. Of course anyone, American

or English, with the slightest sense for history

and kinship, or with the slightest sympathetic

 

68 SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT

 

imagination, can penetrate to the feelings con-

veyed by both phrases. But the direct first-hand

intuition, derived from earliest childhood memo-

ries, is for the one nation that of continental

width, and for the other nation that of the little

island world. Now the love of the sheer geo-

graphical aspects of one's country, of its hills, its

mountains, and its plains, of its trees, its flowers,

its birds, and its whole nature-life, is no small

element in that binding force which makes a na-

tion. It is the function of language, working

through literature and through the habitual

phrases of early life, to foster this diffused feel-

ing of the common possession of a treasure in-

finitely precious.

I must not be misunderstood to mean that this

example has any unique importance. It is only

one example of what can be illustrated in a hun-

dred ways. Also language is not the only sym-

bolism effective for this purpose. But in an espe-

cial manner, language binds a nation together by

the common emotions which it elicits, and is yet

the instrument whereby freedom of thought and

of individual criticism finds its expression.

My main thesis is that a social system is kept

together by the blind force of instinctive actions,

 

SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT 69

 

and of instinctive emotions clustered around hab-

its and prejudices. It is therefore not true that

any advance in the scale of culture inevitably tends

to the preservation of society. On the whole, the

contrary is more often the case, and any survey

of nature confirms this conclusion. A new element

in life renders in many ways the operation of the

old instincts unsuitable. But unexpressed in-

stincts are unanalysed and blindly felt. Disrup-

tive forces, introduced by a higher level of ex-

istence, are then warring in the dark against an

invisible enemy. There is no foothold for the

intervention of 'rational consideration' -- to use

Henry Osborn Taylor's admirable phrase. The

symbolic expression of instinctive forces drags

them out into the open: it differentiates them and

delineates them. There is then opportunity for

reason to effect, with comparative speed, what

otherwise must be left to the slow operation of

the centuries amid ruin and reconstruction. Man-

kind misses its opportunities, and its failures are

a fair target for ironic criticism. But the fact

that reason too often fails does not give fair

ground for the hysterical conclusion that it never

succeeds. Reason can be compared to the force

of gravitation, the weakest of all natural forces,

 

70 SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT

 

but in the end the creator of suns and of stellar

systems: -- those great societies of the Universe.

Symbolic expression first preserves society by add-

ing emotion to instinct, and secondly it affords a

foothold for reason by its delineation of the par-

ticular instinct which it expresses. This doctrine

of the disruptive tendency due to novelties, even

those involving a rise to finer levels, is illustrated

by the effect of Christianity on the stability of the

Roman Empire. It is also illustrated by the three

revolutions which secured liberty and equality for

the world -- namely the English revolutionary pe-

riod of the seventeenth century, the American

Revolution, and the French Revolution. England

barely escaped a disruption of its social system;

America was never in any such danger; France,

where the entrance of novelty was most intense,

did for a time experience this collapse. Edmund

Burke, the Whig statesman of the eighteenth cen-

tury, was the philosopher who was the approving

prophet of the two earlier revolutions, and the

denunciatory prophet of the French Revolution.

A man of genius and a statesman, who has im-

mediately observed two revolutions, and has med-

itated deeply on a third, deserves to be heard

when he speaks on the forces which bind and

 

SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT 7I

 

disrupt societies. Unfortunately statesmen are

swayed by the passions of the moment, and Burke

shared this defect to the full, so as to be carried

away by the reactionary passions aroused by the

French Revolution. Thus the wisdom of his gen-

eral conception of social forces is smothered by

the wild unbalanced conclusions which he drew

from them: his greatness is best shown by his

attitude towards the American Revolution. His

more general reflections are contained first, in his

youthful work A Vindication of Natural Society,

and secondly, in his Reflections on the French

Revolution. The earlier work was meant ironi-

cally; but, as is often the case with genius, he

prophesied unknowingly. This essay is practi-

cally written round the thesis that advances in the

art of civilization are apt to be destructive of the

social system. Burke conceived this conclusion

to be a reductio ad absurdum. But it is the truth.

The second work -- a work which in its immediate

effect was perhaps the most harmful ever written

-- directs attention to the importance of 'preju-

dice' as a binding social force. There again I

hold that he was right in his premises and wrong

in his conclusions.

Burke surveys the standing miracle of the ex-

 

72 SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT

 

istence of an organised society, culminating in

the smooth unified action of the state. Such a

society may consist of millions of individuals, each

with its individual character, its individual aims,

and its individual selfishness. He asks what is

the force which leads this throng of separate

units to cooperate in the maintenance of an or-

ganised state, in which each individual has his

part to play -- political, economic, and esthetic.

He contrasts the complexity of the functionings of

a civilised society with the sheer diversities of its

individual citizens considered as a mere group or

crowd. His answer to the riddle is that the mag-

netic force is 'prejudice,' or in other words, 'use

and wont.' Here he anticipates the whole mod-

ern theory of 'herd psychology,' and at the same

time deserts the fundamental doctrine of the

Whig party, as formed in the seventeenth century

and sanctioned by Locke. This conventional

Whig doctrine was that the state derived its ori-

gin from an 'original contract' whereby the mere

crowd voluntarily organised itself into a society.

Such a doctrine seeks the origin of the state in a

baseless historical fiction. Burke was well ahead

of his time in drawing attention to the importance

of precedence as a political force. Unfortu-

 

SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT 73

 

nately, in the excitement of the moment, Burke

construed the importance of precedence as im-

plying the negation of progressive reform.

Now, when we examine how a society bends its

individual members to function in conformity

with its needs, we discover that one important op-

erative agency is our vast system of inherited

symbolism. There is an intricate expressed sym-

bolism of language and of act, which is spread

throughout the community, and which evokes

fluctuating apprehension of the basis of common

purposes. The particular direction of individual

action is directly correlated to the particular

sharply defined symbols presented to him at the

moment. The response of action to symbol may

be so direct as to cut out any effective reference

to the ultimate thing symbolized. This elimina-

tion of meaning is termed reflex action. Some-

times there does intervene some effective refer-

ence to the meaning of the symbol. But this

meaning is not recalled with the particularity and

definiteness which would yield any rational enlight-

enment as to the specific action required to secure

the final end. The meaning is vague but insistent.

Its insistence plays the part of hypnotizing the

individual to complete the specific action associ-

 

74 SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT

 

ated with the symbol. In the whole transaction,

the elements which are clear-cut and definite are

the specific symbols and the actions which should

issue from the symbols. But in themselves the

symbols are barren facts whose direct associative

force would be insufficient to procure automatic

conformity. There is not sufficient repetition, or

sufficient similarity of diverse occasions, to secure

mere automatic obedience. But in fact the sym-

bol evokes loyalties to vaguely conceived notions,

fundamental for our spiritual natures. The result

is that our natures are stirred to suspend all an-

tagonistic impulses, so that the symbol procures

its required response in action. Thus the social

symbolism has a double meaning. It means prag-

matically the direction of individuals to specific

actions; and it also means theoretically the vague

ultimate reasons with their emotional accompani-

ments, whereby the symbols acquire their power

to organize the miscellaneous crowd into a

smoothly running community.

The contrast between a state and an army

illustrates this principle. A state deals with a

greater complexity of situation than does its army.

In this sense it is a looser organization, and in

regard to the greater part of its population the

 

SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT 75

 

communal symbolism cannot rely for its eHective-

ness on the frequent recurrence of almost identical

situations. But a disciplined regiment is trained

to act as a unit in a definite set of situations. The

bulk of human life escapes from the reach of this

military discipline. The regiment is drilled for

one species of job. The result is that there is

more reliance on automatism, and less reliance

on the appeal to ultimate reasons. The trained

soldier acts automatically on receiving the word

of command. He responds to the sound and cuts

out the idea; this is reflex action. But the appeal

to the deeper side is still important in an army;

although it is provided for in another set of sym-

bols, such as the flag, and the memorials of the

honourable service of the regiment, and other

symbolic appeals to patriotism. Thus in an army

there is one set of symbols to produce automatic

obedience in a limited set of circumstances, and

there is another set of symbols to produce a gen-

eral sense of the importance of the duties per-

formed. This second set prevents random reflec-

tion from sapping automatic response to the

former set.

For the greater number of citizens of a state

there is in practice no reliable automatic obedi-

 

76 SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT

 

ence to any symbol such as the word of command

for soldiers, except in a few instances such as the

response to the signals of the traEc police. Thus

the state depends in a very particular way upon

the prevalence of symbols which combine direc-

tion to some well-known course of action with

some deeper reference to the purpose of the state.

The self-organisation of society depends on com-

monly diffused symbols evoking commonly dif-

fused ideas, and at the same time indicating com-

monly understood actions. Usual forms of verbal

expression are the most important example of

such symbolism. Also the heroic aspect of the

history of the country is the symbol for its im-

mediate worth.

When a revolution has suffciently destroyed

this common symbolism leading to common ac-

tions for usual purposes, society can only save it-

self from dissolution by means of a reign of

terror. Those revolutions which escape a reign

of terror have left intact the fundamental efficient

symbolism of society. For example, the English

revolutions of the seventeenth century and the

American revolution of the eighteenth century

left the ordinary life of their respective communi-

ties nearly unchanged. When George Washing-

 

SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT 77

 

ton had replaced George III, and Congress had

replaced the English Parliament, Americans were

still carrying on a well-understood system so far

as the general structure of their social life was

concerned. Life in Virginia must have assumed

no very different aspect from that which it had

exhibited before the revolution. In Burke's

phraseology, the prejudices on which Virginian

society depended were unbroken. The ordinary

signs still beckoned people to their ordinary ac-

tions, and suggested the ordinary common-sense

justification.

One difficulty of explaining my meaning is that

the intimate effective symbolism consists of the

various types of expression which permeate so-

ciety and evoke a sense of common purpose. No

one detail is of much importance. The whole

range of symbolic expression is required. A na-

tional hero, such as George Washington or Jef-

ferson, is a symbol of the common purpose which

animates American life. This symbolic function

of great men is one of the difficulties in obtaining

a balanced historical judgment. There is the

hysteria of depreciation, and there is the oppo-

site hysteria which dehumanises in order to exalt.

It is very difficult to exhibit the greatness without

 

78 SYMROLIS.M, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT

 

losing the human being. Yet we know that at

least me are human beings; and half the in."pira-

tion of our heroes is lost when we forget that

they were human beings.

I mention great Americans, because I am speak-

ing in America. But exactly the same truth holds

for the great men of all countries and ages.

The doctrine of symbolism developed in these

lectures enables us to distinguish between pure in-

stinctive action, reflex action, and symbolically

conditioned action. Pure instinctive action is

that functioning of an organism which is wholly

analysable in terms of those conditions laid upon

its development by the settled facts of its external

environment, conditions describable without any

reference to its perceptive mode of presentational

immediacy. This pure instinct is the response of

an organism to pure causal efficacy.

According to this definition, pure instinct is the

most primitive type of response which is yielded

by organisms to the stimulus of their environment.

All physical response on the part of inorganic

matter to its environment is thus properly to be

termed instinct. In the case of organic matter,

its primary difference from inorganic nature is

its greater delicacy of internal mutual adjustment

 

SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT 79

 

of minute parts and, in some cases, its emotional

enhancement. Thus instinct, or this immediate

adjustment to immediate environment, becomes

more prominent in its function of directing action

for the purposes of the living organism. The

world is a community of organisms; these organ-

isms in the mass determine the environmental in-

Huence on any one of them; there can only be a

persistent community of persistent organisms

when the environmental influence in the shape of

instinct is favourable to the survival of the indi-

viduals. Thus the community as an environment

is responsible for the survival of the separate in-

dividuals which compose it; and these separate

individuals are responsible for their contributions

to the environment. Electrons and molecules sur-

vive because they satisfy this primary law for a

stable order of nature in connection with given

societies of organisms.

Reflex action is a relapse towards a more com-

plex type of instinct on the part of organisms

which enjoy, or have enjoyed, symbolically con-

ditioned action. Thus its discussion must be post-

poned. Symbolically conditioned action arises in

the higher organisms which enjoy the perceptive

mode of presentational immediacy, that is to say,

 

80 SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT

 

sense-presentation of the contemporary world.

This sense-presentation symbolically promotes an

analysis of the massive perception of causal effi-

cacy. The causal eRicacy is thereby perceived as

analysed into components with the locations in

space primarily belonging to the sense-presenta-

tions. In the case of perceived organisms external

to the human body, the spatial discrimination in-

volved in the human perception of their pure

causal efficacy is so feeble, that practically there

is no check on this symbolic transference, apart

from the indirect check of pragmatic consequences,

-- in other words, either survival-value, or self-

satisfaction, logical and esthetic.

Symbolically conditioned action is action which

is thus conditioned by the analysis of the percep-

tive mode of causal efficacy effected by symbolic

transference from the perceptive mode of pres-

entational immediacy. This analysis may be right

or wrong, according as it does, or does not, con-

form to the actual distribution of the efficacious

bodies. In so far as it is sufficiently correct under

normal circumstances, it enables an organism to

conform its actions to long-ranged analysis of the

particular circumstances of its environment. So

far as this type of action prevails, pure instinct is

 

SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT 81

 

superseded. This type of action is greatly pro-

moted by thought, which uses the symbols as ref-

erent to their meanings. There is no sense in

which pure instinct can be wrong. But symboli-

cally conditioned action can be wrong, in the sense

that it may arise from a false symbolic analysis

of causal efficacy.

Reflex action is that organic functioning which

is wholly dependent on sense-presentation, unac-

companied by any analysis of causal efficacy cia

symbolic reference. The conscious analysis of

perception is primarily concerned with the analy-

sis of the symbolic relationship between the two

perceptive modes. Thus reflex action is hindered

by thought, which inevitably promotes the promi-

nence of symbolic reference.

Reflex action arises when by the operation of

symbolism the organism has acquired the habit of

action in response to immediate sense-perception,

and has discarded the symbolic enhancement of

causal efficacy. It thus represents the relapse

from the high-grade activity of symbolic refer-

ence. This relapse is practically inevitable in the

absence of conscious attention. Reflex action can-

not in any sense be said to be wrong, though it

may be unfortunate.

 

82 SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT

 

Thus the important binding factor in a com-

munity of insects probably falls under the notion

of pure instinct, as here defined. For each indi-

vidual insect is probably such an organism that the

causal conditions which it inherits from the im-

mediate past are adequate to determine its social

actions. But reRex action plays its subordinate

part. For the sense-perceptions of the insects

have in certain fields of action assumed an auto-

matic determination of the insects' activities.

Still more feebly, symbolically conditioned action

intervenes for such situations when the sense-

presentation provides a symbolically defined speci-

fication of the causal situation. But only active

thought can save symbolically conditioned action

from quickly relapsing into reflex action. The

most successful examples of community life exist

when pure instinct reigns supreme. These ex-

amples occur only in the inorganic world; among

societies of active molecules forming rocks, plan-

ets, solar systems, star clusters.

The more developed type of living communities

requires the successful emergence of sense-percep-

tion to delineate successfully causal efficacy in the

external environment; and it also requires its re-

lapse into a reflex suitable to the community. We

 

SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT 83

 

thus obtain the more flexible communities of low-

grade minds, or even living cells, which possess

some power of adaptation to the chance details

of remote environment.

Finally mankind also uses a more artificial

symbolism, obtained chiefly by concentrating on a

certain selection of sense-perceptions, such as

words for example. In this case, there is a chain

of derivations of symbol from symbol whereby

finally the local relations, between the final sym-

bol and the ultimate meaning, are entirely lost.

Thus these derivative symbols, obtained as it were

by arbitrary association, are really the results of

reflex action suppressing the intermediate portions

of the chain. We may use the word 'association'

when there is this suppression of intermediate

links.

This derivative symbolism, employed by man-

kind, is not in general mere indication of meaning,

in which every common feature shared by symbol

and meaning has been lost. In every effective

symbolism there are certain esthetic features

shared in common. The meaning acquires emo-

tion and feeling directly excited by the symbol.

This is the whole basis of the art of literature,

namely that emotions and feelings directly ex-

 

84. SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT

 

cited by the words should fitly intensify our emo-

tions and feelings arising from contemplation of

the meaning. Further in language there is a

certain vagueness of symbolism. A word has a

symbolic association with its own history, its

other meanings, and with its general status in

current literature. Thus a word gathers emo-

tional signification from its emotional history in

the past; and this is transferred symbolically to

its meaning in present use.

The same principle holds for all the more arti-

ficial sorts of human symbolism: -- for example,

in religious art. Music is particularly adapted for

this symbolic transfer of emotions, by reason of

the strong emotions which it generates on its own

account. These strong emotions at once over-

power any sense that its own local relations are

of any importance. The only importance of the

local arrangement of an orchestra is to enable us

to hear the music. We do not listen to the music

in order to gain a just appreciation of how the

orchestra is situated. When we hear the hoot of

a motor car, exactly the converse situation arises.

Our only interest in the hoot is to determine a

definite locality as the seat of causal efficacy de-

termining the future.

 

SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT 85

 

This consideration of the symbolic transference

of emotion raises another question. In the case

of sense-perception, we may ask whether the es-

thetic emotion associated with it is derivative

from it or merely concurrent with it. For ex-

ample, the sound waves by their causal efficacy

may produce in the body a state of pleasurable

esthetic emotion, which is then symbolically

transferred to the sense-perception of the sounds.

In the case of music, having regard to the fact

that deaf people do not enjoy music, it seems that

the emotion is almost entirely the product of the

musical sounds. But the human body is causally

affected by the ultra-violet rays of the solar spec-

trum in ways which do not issue in any sensation

of colour. Nevertheless such rays produce a de-

cided emotional effect. Also even sounds, just be-

low or just above the limit of audibility, seem to

add an emotional tinge to a volume of audible

sound. This whole question of the symbolic

transfer of emotion lies at the base of any theory

of the aesthetics of art. For example, it gives the

reason for the importance of a rigid suppression

of irrelevant detail. For emotions inhibit each

other, or intensify each other. Harmonious emo-

tion means a complex of emotions mutually in-

 

86 SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT

 

tensifying; whereas the irrelevant details supply

emotions which, because of their irrelevance, in-

hibit the main effect. Each little emotion directly

arising out of some subordinate detail refuses to

accept its status as a detached fact in our con-

sciousness. It insists on its symbolic transfer to

the unity of the main effect.

Thus symbolism, including the symbolic trans-

ference by which it is effected, is merely one ex-

emplification of the fact that a unity of experience

arises out of the confluence of many components.

This unity of experience is complex, so as to be

capable of analysis. The components of experi-

ence are not a structureless collection indiscrimi-

nately brought together. Each component by its

very nature stands in a certain potential scheme

of relationships to the other components. It is

the transformation of this potentiality into real

unity which constitutes that actual concrete fact

which is an act of experience. But in transforma-

tion from potentiality to actual fact inhibitions,

intensifications, directions of attention toward, di-

rections of attention away from, emotional out-

comes, purposes, and other elements of experience

may arise. Such elements are also true compo-

nents of the act of experience; but they are not

 

SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT 87

 

necessarily determined by the primitive phases of

experience from which the final product arises.

An act of experience is what a complex organism

comes to, in its character of being one thing. Also

its various parts, its molecules, and its living cells,

as they pass on to new occasions of their existence,

take a new colour from the fact that in their im-

mediate past they have been contributory elements

to this dominant unity of experience, which in its

turn reacts upon them.

Thus mankind by means of its elaborate sys-

tem of symbolic transference can achieve miracles

of sensitiveness to a distant environment, and to

a problematic future. But it pays the penalty, by

reason of the dangerous fact that each symbolic

transference may involve an arbitrary imputation

of unsuitable characters. It is not true, that the

mere workings of nature in any particular organ-

ism are in all respects favorable either to the ex-

istence of that organism, or to its happiness, or

to the progress of the society in which the or-

ganism finds itself. The melancholy experience

of men makes this warning a platitude. No elabo-

rate community of elaborate organisms could

exist unless its systems of symbolism were in gen-

eral successful. Codes, rules of behaviour, canons

 

88 SYMBOLISM, ITS MEANING AND EFFECT

 

of art, are attempts to impose systematic action

which on the whole will promote favourable sym-

bolic interconnections. As a community changes,

all such rules and canons require revision in the

light of reason. The object to be obtained has

two aspects; one is the subordination of the com-

munity to the individuals composing it, and the

other is the subordination of the individuals to

the community. Free men obey the rules which they

themselves have made. Such rules will be found

in general to impose on society behaviour in refer-

ence to a symbolism which is taken to refer to the

ultimate purposes for which the society exists.

It is the first step in sociological wisdom, to

recognize that the major advances in civilization

are processes which all but wreck the societies in

which they occur: -- like unto an arrow in the

hand of a child. The art of free society consists

first in the maintenance of the symbolic code; and

secondly in fearlessness of revision, to secure that

the code serves those purposes which satisfy an

enlightened reason. Those societies which can-

not combine reverence to their symbols with free-

dom of revision, must ultimately decay either

from anarchy, or from the slow atrophy of a life

stifled by useless shadows.

Entered Aug. 6, 2000, by Alan Anderson, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

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