A History of Western Philosophy

by Bertrand Russell

  He goes on to explain that substances do not act on each other, but agree through all mirroring the universe, each from its own point of view. There can be no interaction, because all that happens to each substance is part of its own notion, and eternally determined if that substance exists.

  This system is evidently just as deterministic as that of Spinoza. Arnauld expresses his horror of the statement (which Leibniz had made): “That the individual notion of each person involves once for all everything that will ever happen to him.” Such a view is evidently incompatible with the Christian doctrine of sin and free will. Finding it ill received by Arnauld, Leibniz carefully refrained from making it public.

  For human beings, it is true, there is a difference between truths known by logic and truths known by experience. This difference arises in two ways. In the first place, although everything that happens to Adam follows from his notion, if he exists, we can only ascertain his existence by experience. In the second place, the notion of any individual substance is infinitely complex, and the analysis required to deduce his predicates is only possible for God. These differences, however, are only due to our ignorance and intellectual limitation; for God, they do not exist. God apprehends the notion of Adam in all its infinite complexity, and can therefore see all true propositions about Adam as analytic. God can also ascertain a priori whether Adam exists. For God knows his own goodness, from which it follows that he will create the best possible world; and he also knows whether or not Adam forms part of this world. There is therefore no real escape from determinism through our ignorance.

  There is, however, a further point, which is very curious. At most times, Leibniz represents the Creation as a free act of God, requiring the exercise of His will. According to this doctrine, the determination of what actually exists is not effected by observation, but must proceed by way of God’s goodness. Apart from God’s goodness, which leads Him to create the best possible world, there is no a priori reason why one thing should exist rather than another.

  But sometimes, in papers not shown to any human being, there is a quite different theory as to why some things exist and others, equally possible, do not. According to this view, everything that does not exist struggles to exist, but not all possibles can exist, because they are not all “compossible.” It may be possible that A should exist, and also possible that B should exist, but not possible that both A and B should exist; in that case, A and B are not “compossible.” Two or more things are only “compossible” when it is possible for all of them to exist. Leibniz seems to have imagined a sort of war in the Limbo inhabited by essences all trying to exist; in this war, groups of compossibles combine, and the largest group of compossibles wins, like the largest pressure group in a political contest. Leibniz even uses this conception as a way of defining existence. He says: “The existent may be defined as that which is compatible with more things than is anything incompatible with itself.” That is to say, if A is incompatible with B, while A is compatible with C and D and E, but B is only compatible with F and G, then A, but not B, exists by definition. “The existent,” he says, “is the being which is compatible with the most things.”

  In this account, there is no mention of God, and apparently no act of creation. Nor is there need of anything but pure logic for determining what exists. The question whether A and B are compossible is, for Leibniz, a logical question, namely: Does the existence of both A and B involve a contradiction? It follows that, in theory, logic can decide the question what group of compossibles is the largest, and this group consequently will exist.

  Perhaps, however, Leibniz did not really mean that the above was a definition of existence. If it was merely a criterion, it can be reconciled with his popular views by means of what he calls “metaphysical perfection.” Metaphysical perfection, as he uses the term, seems to mean quantity of existence. It is, he says, “nothing but the magnitude of positive reality strictly understood.” He always argues that God created as much as possible; this is one of his reasons for rejecting a vacuum. There is a general belief (which I have never understood) that it is better to exist than not to exist; on this ground children are exhorted to be grateful to their parents. Leibniz evidently held this view, and thought it part of God’s goodness to create as full a universe as possible. It would follow that the actual world would consist of the largest group of compossibles. It would still be true that logic alone, given a sufficiently able logician, could decide whether a given possible substance would exist or not.

  Leibniz, in his private thinking, is the best example of a philosopher who uses logic as a key to metaphysics. This type of philosophy begins with Parmenides, and is carried further in Plato’s use of the theory of ideas to prove various extra-logical propositions. Spinoza belongs to the same type, and so does Hegel. But none of these is so clear cut as Leibniz in drawing inferences from syntax to the real world. This kind of argumentation has fallen into disrepute owing to the growth of empiricism. Whether any valid inferences are possible from language to non-linguistic facts is a question as to which I do not care to dogmatize; but certainly the inferences found in Leibniz and other a priori philosophers are not valid, since all are due to a defective logic. The subject-predicate logic, which all such philosophers in the past assumed, either ignores relations altogether, or produces fallacious arguments to prove that relations are unreal. Leibniz is guilty of a special inconsistency in combining the subject-predicate logic with pluralism, for the proposition “there are many monads” is not of the subject-predicate form. To be consistent, a philosopher who believes all propositions to be of this form should be a monist, like Spinoza. Leibniz rejected monism largely owing to his interest in dynamics, and to his argument that extension involves repetition, and therefore cannot be an attribute of a single substance.

  Leibniz is a dull writer, and his effect on German philosophy was to make it pedantic and arid. His disciple Wolf, who dominated the German universities until the publication of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, left out whatever was most interesting in Leibniz, and produced a dry professorial way of thinking. Outside Germany, Leibniz’s philosophy had little influence; his contemporary Locke governed British philosophy, while in France Descartes continued to reign until he was overthrown by Voltaire, who made English empiricism fashionable.

  Nevertheless, Leibniz remains a great man, and his greatness is more apparent now than it was at any earlier time. Apart from his eminence as a mathematician and as the inventor of the infinitesimal calculus, he was a pioneer in mathematical logic, of which he perceived the importance when no one else did so. And his philosophical hypotheses, though fantastic, are very clear, and capable of precise expression. Even his monads can still be useful as suggesting possible ways of viewing perception, though they cannot be regarded as windowless. What I, for my part, think best in his theory of monads is his two kinds of space, one subjective, in the perceptions of each monad, and one objective, consisting of the assemblage of points of view of the various monads. This, I believe, is still useful in relating perception to physics.

  CHAPTER XII

  Philosophical Liberalism

  THE rise of liberalism, in politics and philosophy, provides material for the study of a very general and very important question, namely: What has been the influence of political and social circumstances upon the thoughts of eminent and original thinkers, and, conversely, what has been the influence of these men upon subsequent political and social developments?

  Two opposite errors, both common, are to be guarded against. On the one hand, men who are more familiar with books than with affairs are apt to over-estimate the influence of philosophers. When they see some political party proclaiming itself inspired by So-and-So’s teaching, they think its actions are attributable to So-and-So, whereas, not infrequently, the philosopher is only acclaimed because he recommends what the party would have done in any case. Writers of books, until recently, almost all exaggerated the effects of their predecessors in the same trade.
But conversely, a new error has arisen by reaction against the old one, and this new error consists in regarding theorists as almost passive products of their circumstances, and as having hardly any influence at all upon the course of events. Ideas, according to this view, are the froth on the surface of deep currents, which are determined by material and technical causes: social changes are no more caused by thought than the flow of a river is caused by the bubbles that reveal its direction to an onlooker. For my part, I believe that the truth lies between these two extremes. Between ideas and practical life, as everywhere else, there is reciprocal interaction; to ask which is cause and which effect is as futile as the problem of the hen and the egg. I shall not waste time upon a discussion of this question in the abstract, but shall consider historically one important case of the general question, namely the development of liberalism and its offshoots from the end of the seventeenth century to the present day.

  Early liberalism was a product of England and Holland, and had certain well-marked characteristics. It stood for religious toleration; it was Protestant, but of a latitudinarian rather than of a fanatical kind; it regarded the wars of religion as silly. It valued commerce and industry, and favoured the rising middle class rather than the monarchy and the aristocracy; it had immense respect for the rights ol property, especially when accumulated by the labours of the individual possessor. The hereditary principle, though not rejected, was restricted in scope more than it had previously been; in particular, the divine right of kings was rejected in favour of the view that every community has a right, at any rate initially, to choose its own form of government. Implicitly, the tendency of early liberalism was towards democracy tempered by the rights of property. There was a belief—not at first wholly explicit—that all men are born equal, and that their subsequent inequality is a product of circumstances. This led to a great emphasis upon the importance of education as opposed to congenital characteristics. There was a certain bias against government, because governments almost everywhere were in the hands of kings or aristocracies, who seldom either understood or respected the needs of merchants, but this bias was held in check by the hope that the necessary understanding and respect would be won before long.

  Early liberalism was optimistic, energetic, and philosophic, because it represented growing forces which appeared likely to become victorious without great difficulty, and to bring by their victory great benefits to mankind. It was opposed to everything medieval, both in philosophy and in politics, because medieval theories had been used to sanction the powers of Church and king, to justify persecution, and to obstruct the rise of science; but it was opposed equally to the then modern fanaticisms of Calvinists and Anabaptists. It wanted an end to political and theological strife, in order to liberate energies for the exciting enterprises of commerce and science, such as the East India Company and the Bank of England, the theory of gravitation and the discovery of the circulation of the blood. Throughout the Western world bigotry was giving place to enlightenment, the fear of Spanish power was ending, all classes were increasing in prosperity, and the highest hopes appeared to be warranted by the most sober judgement. For a hundred years, nothing occurred to dim these hopes; then, at last, they themselves generated the French Revolution, which led directly to Napoleon and thence to the Holy Alliance. After these events, liberalism had to acquire its second wind before the renewed optimism of the nineteenth century became possible.

  Before embarking upon any detail, it will be well to consider the general pattern of the liberal movements from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. This pattern is at first simple, but grows gradually more and more complex. The distinctive character of the whole movement is, in a certain wide sense, individualism; but this is a vague term until further defined. The philosophers of Greece, down to and including Aristotle, were not individualists in the sense in which I wish to use the term. They thought of a man as essentially a member of a community; Plato’s Republic, for example, is concerned to define the good community, not the good individual. With the loss of political liberty from the time of Alexander onwards, individualism developed, and was represented by the Cynics and Stoics. According to the Stoic philosophy, a man could live a good life in no matter what social circumstances. This was also the view of Christianity, especially before it acquired control of the State. But in the Middle Ages, while mystics kept alive the original individualistic trends in Christian ethics, the outlook of most men, including the majority of philosophers, was dominated by a firm synthesis of dogma, law, and custom, which caused men’s theoretical beliefs and practical morality to be controlled by a social institution, namely the Catholic Church: what was true and what was good was to be ascertained, not by solitary thought, but by the collective wisdom of Councils.

  The first important breach in this system was made by Protestantism, which asserted that General Councils may err. To determine the truth thus became no longer a social but an individual enterprise. Since different individuals reached different conclusions, the result was strife, and theological decisions were sought, no longer in assemblies of bishops, but on the battle-field. Since neither party was able to extirpate the other, it became evident, in the end, that a method must be found of reconciling intellectual and ethical individualism with ordered social life. This was one of the main problems which early liberalism attempted to solve.

  Meanwhile individualism had penetrated into philosophy. Descartes’s fundamental certainty, “I think, therefore I am,” made the basis of knowledge different for each person, since for each the starting-point was his own existence, not that of other individuals or of the community. His emphasis upon the reliability of clear and distinct ideas tended in the same direction, since it is by introspection that we think we discover whether our ideas are clear and distinct. Most philosophy since Descartes has had this intellectually individualistic aspect in a greater or less degree.

  There are, however, various forms of this general position, which have, in practice, very different consequences. The outlook of the typical scientific discoverer has perhaps the smallest dose of individualism. When he arrives at a new theory, he does so solely because it seems right to him; he does not bow to authority, for, if he did, he would continue to accept the theories of his predecessors. At the same time, his appeal is to generally received canons of truth, and he hopes to persuade other men, not by his authority, but by arguments which are convincing to them as individuals. In science, any clash between the individual and society is in essence transitory, since men of science, broadly speaking, all accept the same intellectual standards, and therefore debate and investigation usually produce agreement in the end. This, however, is a modern development; in the time of Galileo, the authority of Aristotle and the Church was still considered at least as cogent as the evidence of the senses. This shows how the element of individualism in scientific method, though not prominent, is nevertheless essential.

  Early liberalism was individualistic in intellectual matters, and also in economics, but was not emotionally or ethically self-assertive. This form of liberalism dominated the English eighteenth century, the founders of the American Constitution, and the French encyclopaædists. During the French Revolution, it was represented by the more moderate parties, including the Girondins, but with their extermination it disappeared for a generation from French politics. In England, after the Napoleonic wars, it again became influential with the rise of the Benthamites and the Manchester School. Its greatest success has been in America, where, unhampered by feudalism and a State Church, it has been dominant from 1776 to the present day, or at any rate to 1933.

  A new movement, which has gradually developed into the antithesis of liberalism, begins with Rousseau, and acquires strength from the romantic movement and the principle of nationality. In this movement, individualism is extended from the intellectual sphere to that of the passions, and the anarchic aspects of individualism are made explicit. The cult of the hero, as developed by Carlyle and Nietzsche, is typic
al of this philosophy. Various elements were combined in it. There was dislike of early industrialism, hatred of the ugliness that it produced, and revulsion against its cruelties. There was a nostalgia for the Middle Ages, which were idealized owing to hatred of the modern world. There was an attempt to combine championship of the fading privileges of Church and aristocracy with defence of wage-earners against the tyranny of manufacturers. There was vehement assertion of the right of rebellion in the name of nationalism, and of the splendour of war in defence of “liberty.” Byron was the poet of this movement; Fichte, Carlyle, and Nietzsche were its philosophers.

  But since we cannot all have the career of heroic leaders, and cannot all make our individual will prevail, this philosophy, like all other forms of anarchism, inevitably leads, when adopted, to the despotic government of the most successful “hero.” And when his tyranny is established, he will suppress in others the self-assertive ethic by which he has risen to power. This whole theory of life, therefore, is self-refuting, in the sense that its adoption in practice leads to the realization of something utterly different: a dictatorial State in which the individual is severely repressed.

  There is yet another philosophy which, in the main, is an offshoot of liberalism, namely that of Marx. I shall consider him at a later stage, but for the moment he is merely to be borne in mind.