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 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow 151.: SMART'S OUTLINE OF SEMATOLOGY [1] EXAMINER, 25 MAR., 1832, P. 195 - The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIII - Newspaper Writings August 1831 - October 1834 Part II

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Collection: The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill

151.: SMART’S OUTLINE OF SEMATOLOGY [1] EXAMINER, 25 MAR., 1832, P. 195 - John Stuart Mill, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIII - Newspaper Writings August 1831 - October 1834 Part II [1831]

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The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIII - Newspaper Writings August 1831 - October 1834 Part II, ed. Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson, Introduction by Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986).

Part of: Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, in 33 vols.

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151.

SMART’S OUTLINE OF SEMATOLOGY [1]

EXAMINER, 25 MAR., 1832, P. 195

This review of a work by Benjamin Humphrey Smart (ca. 1786-1872), teacher of elocution and author of manuals and pronouncing dictionaries, is of importance to Mill’s speculations about logic and truth. For the second and concluding part, see No. 153. Both reviews are in the “Literary Examiner.” This first part is headed “An Outline of Sematology; or an Essay towards establishing a New Theory of Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric. [London: Richardson,] 1831.” The review is described in Mill’s bibliography as “A review of a work entitled ‘An Outline of Sematology,’ in two parts, the first of which on the study of Metaphysics; both signed A.B. In the Examiner of 25th March 1832 and 1st April 1832.” (MacMinn, p. 20.) In the Somerville College set, where it is listed as “Review of ‘An Outline of Sematology’ ” and enclosed in square brackets, there is one correction: at 426.36, “others” is altered to “other”.

it is singular, that in an age like this, when old systems of opinions and of things are crumbling in pieces, and that spirit of scepticism which metaphysical pursuits are supposed to engender, pervades the great majority of educated minds, the study of metaphysics should be held in discredit, rather than in honour. Upon the causes of this fact it would be interesting to speculate; but at present we shall only say of the fact itself, that among civilized nations it seems to be peculiar to ourselves. The tendency of the Germans to metaphysical speculation is well known; and in France the word Philosophy continues, even in the schools, to be appropriated as it was originally by Socrates, (the inventor of the term) to the science of mind, exclusively; while in England, which has produced so many illustrious names in that department of thought, the man who can analyse a pebble is held in greater estimation that he who can analyse the mind of man.

It is time that this should cease; for, if metaphysics unsettles men’s minds, metaphysics also must settle them; the doubts which it raises, it alone is able to solve. If there is any period in man’s history in which the scientific study of the human mind is indispensable, it is at a period of moral transition like the present; when those general creeds, which had kept the diversities of individual character in subordination by a common rule of right, are breathing their last—and others, more adapted to the present condition of the species, are slowly and with difficulty evolving themselves out of the shapeless and tumultuous chaos of conflicting opinions. The ancient doctrines will never more regain the ascendancy they have lost: the causes which have overthrown them are not causes which ever pass away. That unity of doctrine, however, which formerly existed, must exist once more, though under other auspices, ere man can yet again have earnest, solemn convictions, and yield willing obedience to a new and steady rule of life. Now, this unity of doctrine can only be brought about through metaphysics; for when all the questions most deeply interesting to human nature are under discussion, each man deciding them according to his personal predilections, the philosophy of mind is the only common arbiter to whom all can appeal, and who can constrain all to acknowledge his authority.

There are indeed to be found men, the depth of whose sensibility, and the vigour and comprehensiveness of whose imagination, enable them to summon up within themselves all the varieties of feeling incident to the human constitution; to see, at pleasure, any subject, as it would be seen by persons of all dispositions and turns of mind; and so, to understand and sympathize with human nature in all its diversities. Such were Shakspeare, Göthe, and perhaps one or two other persons since the creation of the world. But in general, man’s capacity of putting himself into the position of another man, and identifying himself with that man’s feelings and modes of thinking, when these are any way different from his own, is extremely limited. Most men, in consequence, regard the feelings and ideas excited in men of an opposite character to themselves, by objects which excite no such feelings in them, as monstrous and unnatural; or at least, radically wrong, and meriting no kind of consideration or allowance, either in reasoning or in conduct:—and few can feel the force of any argument which is either founded on, or addressed to, feelings in which they themselves do not participate. Hence we have hundreds of systems founded on the partial views of one-sided minds; and each half or quarter truth, instead of seeking out all the remaining fractions, and uniting with them, shuns them, or endeavours to beat them down by violence.

Now, the only permanent cure for this is metaphysics. The analytical philosophy of mind, can alone enable persons of dissimilar characters to understand one another. It explains, from data which all have within them, the genesis and growth of the most opposite mental habits. It expounds, not only how each habit was likely to originate, but what are the other habits with which each is naturally connected, what those of which it is naturally exclusive; and is thus enabled to sit in judgment upon the many conflicting modes of feeling and thinking, and pronounce which of them are, and which are not, founded in any real defect, either of the understanding or of the heart. Through the reconciling medium of this great interpreter, we discover, nine times out of ten, that what we fancied to be sheer error, had perhaps as much of truth in it as our own contrary opinion; that what we ascribed to a mental defect, really arose from some good quality, not excessive in itself, but unaccompanied by some other which ought to have qualified and corrected it, and which, again, in our own mind, stands as much in need of correction from the former, over which, in its turn, it unduly predominates. And we learn, that instead of eradicating, or restraining the growth of a feeling, or a faculty, the only proper method, almost in every case, of guarding against its excesses, is by cultivating other feelings and faculties up to it.

It is chiefly through metaphysics, that men can thus be brought practically to understand and admit, that feelings of which they themselves are incapable, are nevertheless legitimate feelings; and to correct their own partial views, by means of the partial views of other people. And so naturally do these effects seem to follow from habits of metaphysical analysis, that as it has been said that an astronomer must of necessity be pious, so we are almost tempted to say that it is impossible for a real metaphysician to be one-sided, intolerant, or scornful. How much this is at variance with the notion commonly entertained of metaphysicians, we are not ignorant: nor do we affirm that notion to be always destitute of foundation. It has befallen this science, as well as many others, that men have resorted to it less to form opinions, than to find reasons for opinions already held. And it has been the misfortune of this science, even more than of most others, that whereas its subject-matter is peculiarly concrete, and immersed in circumstances, the inquiries of those who cultivate it have, on the contrary, rested for the most part in the highest regions of abstract generality; insomuch that the same person, who may excel all others in analysing belief, or memory, or perception, or any other of the mental phenomena common to all mankind, would perhaps be farther to seek than many common men, if called upon to shew that he understood any one individual human mind, and could tell what are the few leading peculiarities which make it, in all important particulars, what it is. This however will not always be the case: it is not the case with all metaphysicians, even now; and if metaphysicians have not yet done all that ought to be required of them, it remains not the less true, that any one who has it in view to improve the moral nature of man through the understanding, can in no way dispense with an accurate and analytical study of the human mind.

These observations have been drawn from us by what is now no frequent occurrence, the publication of a new, and a clever and interesting work, on a portion of metaphysics. The book demands observations of greater length than we have left ourselves room to insert in the present number; we shall therefore return to it in our next.

A.B.