Chapter Iv. the Doctrine Appears in Professor Veblen's Recent Article in

criticism of Professor Clark:--

It is evident, and admitted, that there can be no balance, and no commensurability, between the laborer's disutility (pain) in producing the goods and the consumer's utility (pleasure) in consuming them, inasmuch as these two hedonistic phenomena lie each within the consciousness of a distinct person. There is, in fact, no continuity of nervous tissue [italics mine] over the interval between consumer and producer, and a direct comparison, equilibrium, equality, or discrepancy in respect of pleasure and pain can, of course, not be sought except within each self-balanced individual complex of nervous tissue.

In the recent elaborate study, Value and Distribution, by Professor H. J. Davenport, the theories based on the conception of the individual as an isolated monad, a self-complete whole, with purely mechanical relationships with other men, find their fullest and most self-conscious expression, and the philosophical presuppositions are explicitly premised. The following quotation from Thackeray's Pendennis is given as a footnote, in which Professor Davenport's own conception is expressed:--

Ah, sir, a distinct universe walks about under your hat and under mine--all things in nature are different to each--the woman we look at has not the same features, the dish we eat has not the same taste, to the one and to the other; you and I are but a pair of infinite isolations, with some fellow islands a little more or less near us.

This is, of course, manifestly the theme of the old subjectivistic analysis, by which all things are reduced to thoughts, sensations, and desires within the individual soul, and in accordance with which we have none save conjectural knowledge of anything outside of our own souls. Now a general answer might be given that this is an epistemological principle which holds true only for what Kant calls the "Ding an sich,"--if such a thing there be--and that there is no more reason why it should apply to human emotions, considered purely as phenomena, than to any other of the phenomena with which science busies itself. If this principle be adhered to, its effect will be simply to cast doubt on the conclusions of all sciences, physical as well as psychical. Certainly psychology would be impossible on this assumption, except in so far as the psychologist claims only to be working out a science of his individual soul, which, so far as he knows, is not true of any other individual. But it is precisely not this that psychology attempts. It is concerned with the laws and behavior of minds in general, with the "typisch und allgemeingueltig" and not with the mental idiosyncrasies of the particular individual.

But the doctrine can be met from the standpoint of epistemology itself. The writers who are responsible for this subjective analysis, have held that mind is more nearly capable of being known by mind than is anything else, since we can interpret things only in terms of our own experiences. The real nature of a purely physical thing is far more deeply hidden from our view than is the real nature of a mental fact, even though it be in the mind of another. And especially would they grant a degree, at least, of objective currency to clearly phrased conceptual thought. Now I base myself upon the present day pragmatic philosophy, which is, essentially, concerned with the problem of knowledge. Its principle is that we believe things to be true, not because of any knowledge we have of some mystical, absolute truth, but because of our experiences of utilitarian sort. That is true which works. That is true which we find will satisfy our desires and needs. In a word, desire, volition, values, lie at the basis of intellect. Whence it follows, that if our minds are so constituted that we understand each other on the intellectual side, then there must be a still deeper and more underlying similarity on the desire, feeling, volitional side. Consequently, if there be anything at all, outside of our own mind, which we can understand, it must be the feelings and emotions of other men.

Considerations of a practical nature give us the strongest possible grounds for a belief that human desires, feelings, etc., are homogeneous and communicable. The fact is that we all have back of us many millions of years of evolutionary history in the same general environment. In the past, with relatively minor variations, the same influences have played upon our ancestors from the beginnings of life on our planet. And then, we are born into the same society, and it has given us, not, to be sure, the power of reaction, but certainly all of our most important stimuli. Further, we do get along in society. We laugh together, we play together, we share each other's sorrows, we love and hate each other, in a way that would be wholly impossible if we did not in practice assume the correctness of our "inferences" about one another's motives and desires. And the fact that these "inferences" are in the main correct is the one thing that makes social life possible. We can, and do, understand one another's motives, desires, wants, emotions. We can, and do, constantly communicate our feelings to one another.

It is only on the basis, further, of an intellectualistic psychology that such a subjectivistic conception is possible. If the voluntaristic psychology and the doctrine of "the unconscious" be accepted--and certainly the psychological facts on which the latter is based must be accepted, whether the metaphysical conclusions are or not--we have no basis whatever for this doctrine that clearness holds within the mind, but that without all is uncertain. Really, only a little part of our mental life is in consciousness at any given moment. The "stream of consciousness" is but a narrow thing, and the unity of the individual mind is a unity, not of consciousness, but of function. As Goethe somewhere says, we know ourselves never by reflection, but by action. And often does it happen that a sympathetic friend, or even an observant enemy, may interpret more accurately our actions than we ourselves can do, and may measure more accurately the strength of a given motive for us than we can ourselves. In a certain sense, our knowledge of other minds is inference. We see other men's actions, or hear their voices, or watch the muscles of their faces, and so, indirectly, get at their thoughts and feelings. But, in much the same sense, our knowledge of their actions, or of their voices, is inference too. For we must interpret the image on the retina, or the sense excitation in the ear. But practically, neither is inference, if by inference be meant a consciously made judgment from premises of which we are conscious. In a casual walk with a friend, where conversation flows smoothly on easy topics, one is as immediately conscious of his friend's thoughts and feelings, expressed in the conversation, as he is of the scenes that present themselves by the way, or even of the thoughts that arise within himself.

The significance of this conclusion is not quite the same as that which might be expected from the context from which I have taken the doctrine under criticism. The feelings of men with reference to economic goods are facts of definite, tangible nature, and subject-matter of social knowledge. But we have not yet reached a standard or source of social value. No homogeneous "labor jelly," or "pain jelly," or "utility jelly," made up by averaging arithmetically, or adding arithmetically, individual efforts or pains or pleasures, will solve our problem for us--as indeed I have been at pains to show in what has gone before. The purpose of the foregoing criticism is primarily to clear the ground for a conception of social organization which is more than mechanical, and in which the individual is both less and more than a self-sufficient monad.

FOOTNOTES:

This criticism applies to the teachings of James Mill, J. S. Mill, and other sensationalist followers of Hume, even more than to Adam Smith. But see Professor Albion W. Small's Adam Smith and Modern Sociology, Chicago, 1907, esp. p. 51.

It is easy for "analysis" to separate society into "individual" monads, and impossible for "synthesis"--once the validity of the analytic process is accepted--to put society together again. In fact, once the analytic process is begun, and once its results are accepted as anything more than matters of logical convenience, all unity and all organic connections, whether in the social or in other fields, seem to vanish like a dissolving show. There is a psychological doctrine of monadism, quite as logical as the sociological monadology here criticized, which finds it impossible to link together even the elements in a single individual's mind. (See William James, Principles of Psychology, 1905 ed., vol. I, pp. 179-80.) Into what inextricable difficulties one falls, in pursuing the monadistic logic, is more dramatically illustrated than by anything else I know by Bradley's Appearance and Reality, esp. chaps. II and III. The most useful viewpoint seems to be as follows: unity is as much an object of immediate knowledge as is plurality,--both being, in fact, the products of reflective thought. And unity is no more called upon to justify itself, before we recognize its existence, than is plurality. Cf. William James, The Meaning of Truth, New York, 1909, p. xiii; and also his Psychology, vol. I, pp. 224-25. Cf. also the writings of Professor John Dewey.

Jevons, Theory of Pol. Econ., 3d ed., p. 14.

Principles, 1907, p. 15 (1898 ed., p. 76). See also Marshall's criticism of Cairnes' conception of supply and demand, in the 1898 edition of the Principles, p. 172.

"Professor Clark's Economics," Q. J. E., 1908, p. 170.

Davenport, op. cit., p. 300, n. It may seem somewhat unfair to hold a man responsible for the view of another writer which he throws into a footnote of his own book. One who has read Professor Davenport's book, however, will recognize, I think, that this quotation does express Professor Davenport's view. His discussion in the text on pages 300-301 affirms virtually this same doctrine, as a proposition of psychology. See also his discussions in small type on pages 336-37. His whole system is based upon this doctrine.

See, especially, William James, Pragmatism, and The Meaning of Truth; John Dewey, Essays in Logical Theory; and F. C. S. Schiller, Humanism.

The utter impossibility of adequately summing up a philosophic doctrine in two or three sentences will excuse this statement to those pragmatists who would prefer a somewhat different formulation.

I am indebted for suggestions here to Professor H. W. Stuart's article on "Valuation as a Logical Process," in Dewey's Studies in Logical Theory, pp. 322-23.

Cf. Baldwin, Social and Ethical Interpretations, passim, and Cooley, Human Nature and the Social Order, passim.

The most interesting discussion of these topics I know is that of Friedrich Paulsen, in his Introduction to Philosophy (translated by Professor Frank Thilly).

Cf. Perry, R. B., "The Hiddenness of the Mind," Jour. of Phil., Psy., and Sci. Meth., Jan. 21, 1909; "The Mind Within and the Mind Without," Ibid., April 1, 1909; "The Mind's Familiarity with Itself," Ibid., March 4, 1909. Urban, W. M., Valuation, p. 243.

Davenport, op. cit., p. 331.