From Essays in Socialism New & Old (1907), pp.69-75.
Every social formation is concrete, that is, whilst it has its own material basis, it has also its own special world-view, its own ethical conceptions, its own political constructions, even its own aesthetic atmosphere, severally interpenetrated by the common life of the whole formation. This will be conceded by students of history generally. The most superficial view will show, for example, that tribal society in its various phases from the lower to the higher barbarism bears one general impress. The modifications which this society shows at different stages, together with local variations, are not sufficient to destroy the unity of its main features. Again let us take the period of civilisation, into which ancient tribal society developed in Western Asia and Egypt, and later in South-eastern Europe. Here, also, from the earliest beginnings of that civilisation or class-society, which we designate by the term “antiquity,” we find not merely an economic organisation based on slavery with its corresponding political superstructure, but also a special conception of the universe, based on an organised system of ancestor-worship and animism, developing into definite polytheism, rooted in beliefs and world-theories ultimately derived from primitive man. In the civilisation that later on in the ancient world became dominant, the classical civilisation of Greece, and finally of Rome, substantially the same basis was present, but modified. Production was carried on mainly by a slave class. Organised polytheism still represented the speculative basis for the mass of men. Antiquity, therefore, was cut out of one block, notwithstanding the modifications it underwent during its second period. Leaving out of consideration the era of transition, the Middle Ages disclose a complete and concrete polity grounded economically on villeinage, and supplemented later by the guild-industry of the towns. Its political life is dominated by the notion of Emperor and Pope. Its speculative conceptions are enclosed within the framework of the old Catholic theology, the latter developed out of the speculative syncretism of the dying ancient-world (Proklos, pseudo-Dyonisios, etc.) The period of modern Capitalism based on so-called free labour and machine-industry, has for its political side Constitutionalism, and for its speculative basis the crude interpretation of the facts of modern science with a nominal adhesion to Christian dogma.
Now, to the student the question must often arise as to the evolution of thought and practice that may be expected in coming ages. In order to obtain a world-view at all of the future, certain fundamental world-problems need to be discussed in detail. We must examine the philosophical problem in its various forms, the meaning and sanction of moral judgments, the economic structure of society, the supreme canons of life in taste and art, the significance of history, and finally, cast a glance at the ultimate ideals of human consciousness. Such a world-view must aim, that is to say, at extracting a maximum of certainty from the several departments treated, with a view of knitting together the various strands into a whole of knowledge. Thus, though not pretending to anything more than suggestion, it must yet lay claim to be constructive so far as it goes. This is, perhaps, hardly fashionable at the present day, the tendency being to cultivate destructive criticism almost exclusively, save for attempts at reactionary rehabilitations.
It behoves us, therefore, to ask, what, after all, is criticism in its best sense but the analysis of a given subject, or of a doctrine about a given subject, with a view of arriving at consistent thought with regard to it? What is the ultimate meaning of Truth in our view, but the self-consistency of Thought? Or, more accurately, the self-consistency of conscious Experience as interpreted by reflective Thought? It is needless to say that aesthetic Truth, however, or Beauty, as it is termed, represents the self-consistency of conscious experience as interpreted by pleasure-pain feeling. Now, Criticism is doubtless the first-born of intellectual progress, without which the higher life of mankind would be in a parlous state. The recognition of this fact is apt, however, on occasion to blind the mind to the further fact that Criticism may sometimes suffer from an excess of zeal and overreach itself, even to the point of becoming puerile. Historically, Criticism usually appears as a reaction from Dogmatism. There are various ways in which it may, through the aforesaid excess of zeal, defeat its legitimate function. For example, Criticism often attempts to refute a position by dint of an undue emphasis on one point, or it may run into mere verbal casuistry. But the great fallacy in the inordinate rage of modern culture for Criticism lies in the assumption that a doctrine, if it may justly claim to represent Truth, must necessarily be invulnerable to the negative weapons of Criticism at every point. The assumption that vulnerability to Criticism is a proof of Falsity rests upon the further assumption that the formulation of the Truth of a subject ought to represent a Truth that is final and absolute. This assumption is often made by persons who are keenest in their general repudiation of the claims of the older metaphysics. But if you once concede that any formulation of truth is necessarily relative, it follows that there is no intrinsic reason why any given formulation should not be able to be made to appear incorrect or even absurd from some point of view or other. That it should be obnoxious to criticism in this way certainly does not prove that it does not represent the nearest approximation to the “self-consistency of Experience as interpreted by abstract Thought.” It may prove that it does not absolutely represent that self-consistency, or it may not even prove as much as that. It may only prove the misapplication of categories in the same way that a physicist or chemist might misapply them, when from the standpoint of his own science he criticises the theories put forward by a biologist within his own domain. But even if it did prove the theory criticised to fall short of representing absolute self-consistency of Experience as interpreted by Thought, this would by no means suffice to prove that it was not the nearest approach to such complete self-consistency as could be obtained under the given conditions, i.e., the given stage of Thought or of investigation, etc. As long as we do not hold the formula of absolute Truth in our hands, so long shall we have to content ourselves with the nearest approximation. Meanwhile, this nearest approximation, since it is only such, and not itself absolute, will be obviously vulnerable to the shafts of any criticism that may seriously set to work to overthrow it, but it is, for all that, none the less true and worthy of all acceptation. It may represent, in other words, the completest self-consistency of conscious experience as interpreted by Thought in the existing stage of the human mind, and therefore is, quoad that stage, the Truth. Criticism runs havoc particularly, of course, in Philosophy, where the difficulties of formulation are greater than in any other department, owing to the nature of the subject-matter.
In this connection, it may be observed that the common gibe against any formulation arrived at by philosophic analysis, that it is logomachy – with references to Mephistopheles’ remarks to the student – often represents the reverse of the facts. It is the difficulty of finding words to express the very often subtle and delicate thought-distinctions arrived at in philosophic analysis that gives rise to a certain uncouthness of expression suggesting to the casual observer the notion of logomachy. The fact is that human thought in these matters has outstripped the development of speech. Modern languages, not excepting German, have made little advance upon the Greek in this respect.
It may be asked, What, then, is the test between legitimate Criticism and Criticism that is overleaping itself? The answer, I take it, is that all Criticism that as such yields no positive result is at least suspect of being mere casuistry. A positive position can, generally speaking, only be really dislodged by another positive position. The sort of Criticism which issues in mere empty scepticism, that is, in the attempt to show that all known formulations are invalid, but which at the same time does not of itself point the way to any alternative new formulation, may be a clever, brilliant, intellectual exercise, but for the rest is little better than a ploughing of the sands. As regards the problems dealt with by speculative thought, the history of Philosophy is witness to the accuracy of this statement. Yet of such Criticism is not the bulk of recent English philosophical writing made up? For in this connection I do not count the sort of positive result which does not directly issue from the Criticism itself, but which is, as it were, tacked on by the writer’s prejudices or predilections. This generally takes the form of some old position long obsolete to serious thinkers, e.g., some particularly crude form of Theism, or mayhap Dualism or Pluralism. The writer brings this in by a species of rather obvious legerdemain at the end of his essay or treatise as the pretended result of what is really a purely negative Criticism. The procedure is a common one, to make a dead critical set at some philosophical formulation which, though it may be doubtless amenable to correction from Criticism, nevertheless represents as a whole the nearest approach to adequacy as yet available. This is done with the object, not of merely correcting the particular formulation in question, but of destroying it altogether. The object of destroying it is to make place for some decadent or obsolete theory infinitely less adequate, to say the least, and also, no necessary result of the previous Criticism. What is known as Parallelism, that is, the doctrine of the physical and psychical as parallel series, each having its principle of causation in itself, has been attacked in this way at the hands of critics anxious for theological reasons to restore the influx psychicus in some shape or form. That this involves a cruder standpoint is obvious, and for one inconsistency that Parallelism has to show this has ten. The attack on materialistic Monism often proceeds on the same lines.
To come to Metaphysics proper, here also the Monism led up to by Theory of Knowledge, that is, the investigation into the primary conditions under which Experience is possible, and hence which Experience itself presupposes, is sought to be criticised away in favour of some pluralistic or dualistic theory, which it is supposed will rehabilitate the personality of the individual as an ultimate metaphysical postulate.
Leaving questions of pure philosophy, which to many readers may be of less interest, we find the same remarks as regards the over-zeal of Criticism at the present day, apply in other departments. In the sphere of anthropology and the early history of institutions, this has been very much to the fore in the last ten or fifteen years. For instance, up to then, the fact of primitive society having been uniformly based on the Communism of land and its principal products was generally accepted by competent persons. It is, indeed, only one side of the further fact, that in early or tribal society, and in the earlier modifications evolved from it, the unit was the group and not the individual, the significance of the latter only coming into view as representing the group. The principle of primitive Communism had been recognised as established more than a generation ago by the researches of Conrad von Maurer, Nassau, Laveleve, and others, on the Continent, and in England by Sir Henry Maine. An attempt has been made to whittle down these views in recent years. In this connection, we may refer to the names of the late Fustel de Coulanges of Paris, and Professor Seebohm of Oxford, This is not the place to deal with the question in any detail, but we may briefly mention that Criticism in this particular case seems for the most part to consist in the discovery of inaccuracies in the enormous mass of detail presented by the aforesaid writers. On the basis of such Criticism, the conclusion is eagerly rushed to that the whole fabric of research establishing the existence of primitive Communism has been shattered.
A similar school of writers has taken upon itself the task of undermining the accepted conclusions of a generation past concerning primitive marriage and sexual relations. Bachofen, MacLennan, Teulon, and, above all, Morgan, had convincingly shown that early sexual relations were, like every other relation of primitive society, of a group nature, rather than of a personal nature. It was hardly to be expected that conservative criticism, on recovering from the shock received by the facts disclosed, should not attempt to rehabilitate the orthodox monogamic doctrine, and this is, in fact, precisely what happened. Professor Westermarck, of Helsingfors, and Professor Starcke, of Copenhagen, respectively wrote books with the object of demolishing the scientific results arrived at by the previous investigations. Their arguments are largely based on alleged facts concerning the higher apes. With this question is closely concerned the whole theory of the origin of political life and the beginnings of civilisation.
In the same way in Economics the various refutations of the fundamental position of the English “Classical” Economists, of which the last fifteen years have been full, and which have been eagerly seized upon as effective destructions of the Economic positions of Karl Manx, which are based upon Ricardian theory, afford good illustrations of Criticism overreaching itself in its excess of zeal.
In Ethics the best example of a Hypercriticism that has recently appeared is perhaps to be found in Mr. Taylor’s Problem of Conduct. Every possible foundation of morals is undermined in appearance conclusively by Mr. Taylor without any special result being arrived at.
Again the Darwinian theory has formed a great battle-ground for Hypercriticism. The most serious attempt of this kind is contained in the doctrines put forth by Professor Weissmann. Some few years ago we were constantly hearing that Weissmann had fatally overthrown the principles of organic evolution formulated by Darwin. Since then, however, the whole Weissmann revolution has come practically to be admitted even by its supporters to involve little more than a modification of the rigidity of certain of Darwin’s statements. So it is, all along the line. In every branch of thought the present generation shows a feverish eagerness, not merely to correct the details, but to upset the central conclusions of the constructive results arrived at in the preceding generation – results that constitute the second half of the nineteenth century an epoch in the history of human knowledge.
As examples of epoch-making generalisations and discoveries attacked but not destroyed, we may point (1) to the idealistic Monism which constitutes the lasting precipitate left over from the great philosophical movement in Germany from Kant to Hegel and its offshoots; (2) its pendant, the materialistic Monism of modern scientific thought; (3) the doctrine of Evolution itself as hitherto formulated; (4) the special doctrines of Darwin concerning organic development; (5) the recognition of the importance of the materialist, and especially the economic, basis of historic Evolution; and (6) the discovery of Group-Communism as the starting-point of social development. These principles, to which other subordinate ones might easily be added, the hypercritic has nibbled at unremittingly for some time past, and has been continually trumpeting forth the bankruptcy of one or other of them, but in spite of all they remain standing. We are convinced that the day is not far distant when it will be recognised that the task of the immediate future is the reconciliation of these points of vantage with each other, and the welding together of human knowledge by their aid into a unity, rather than the undermining of these positions by the quibbling methods of a hypercriticism, as is the case now.
How, then, after all is said, are we to distinguish between Criticism and Hypercriticism? Hypercriticism, where it is not purely verbal or actually dishonest quibbling, usually takes two forms. It is either an ignoratio elenchi or destroys itself by proving too much. In the first case, in nibbling round an established position, it may succeed in weakening or destroying minor evidence or minor contentions that had become attached to the main argument in defence of the position. In the second case, where Hypercriticism issues in mere Scepticism, it writes itself down as futile, pure Scepticism being a state of unstable intellectual equilibrium. The former kind of the hypercritical fallacy is more common in the historical sciences; the latter in philosophy, economics, and ethics – in short, in the higher departments of abstract thought. As regards a generalisation found on scientifically observed data, such as those we are specially referring to, e.g., Darwinism and Group-Communism in primitive society, it must not be forgotten that these doctrines as theories are not in the position of having come down as the offsprings of a semi-conscious or unconscious tradition, or of mere naive observation, but are themselves the issue of the conscious investigation, criticism, and testing of persons admitted to be specially competent. Hence, we have an a priori right to require of the hypercritic who calls them in question a far more powerful destructive apparatus of refutation than would be necessary in the overthrow of a doctrine or dogma handed down from generations past without having been ever subjected to a testing, systematic or otherwise. To undermine the main common results of modern anthropologists is in its very nature quite a different task to that of undermining the theories or traditional opinions that these results have superseded.
Speaking generally, there are two main classes of persons who adopt the hypercritical attitude – reactionary restorationists and cynical decadents. The first seek, by bombarding the positive constructions established by modern thought, to pave the way for a despairing relapse into the pre-critical dogmatic positions of orthodoxy. The second seek, out of a spirit of apparently wanton cynicism, to overthrow the results referred to. This cynicism may be a mere pose, corresponding to the dogmatic pose of those intellectual roués who turn Catholic, or it may be a genuine cynicism bred of continual disillusionments in other departments of life. The cynic regards mere Scepticism as the goal of his criticisms, whereas the restorationist recognises the fact that Scepticism is, as before said, a position of unstable equilibrium; but for this very reason, by discrediting the constructive side of modern thought he hopes to compel a retreat upon obsolete dogmatic positions. One construction can only be effectively destroyed in supplanting it by another construction. This fact the restorationist very well knows.
The action and reaction of Dogmatism and Scepticism is a constant phenomenon in the history of the higher thought of mankind, the thought into which the speculative element enters. If an uncritical Dogmatism is a monstrosity, a constructionless Criticism is an absurdity. The difference is that an uncritical Dogmatism may have an appearance of stability sufficient to deceive the ignorant and unwary, but mere empty Scepticism, which is the outcome of a constructionless Criticism, wears an air of unreality on its face and is adopted, for the most part, as a pose.
In the antithesis between Dogmatism and Scepticism, each per se is alike abstract. Truth in the higher sciences and in Philosophy always implies a construction that has passed through the fire of Criticism, and is ready to challenge Criticism. All formulated Truth, that is, all formulated interpretation pertaining to the universe of things, as such, or even to man, considered at once in his deeper and more comprehensive aspects, psychological and social, is of the nature of a moving synthesis, composed of positive Construction and negative Criticism. Complete consistency of Consciousness with itself in its two aspects is unattainable. All we can expect to acquire in these higher subjects of human interest is a relative finality and an asymptotic approximation to such consistency, and the formulation which is the nearest approximation thereto up to date represents Truth, relative indeed, but nonetheless Truth. This does not mean that Criticism cannot find in it a fallacy or an unclinched position. The possibility of this is implied in the very fact that it is not absolute and complete. There are sure to be leakages and ragged edges upon which Criticism can operate. By treating these with undue emphasis where not actual exaggeration, Criticism can conclusively demonstrate the untenability of the doctrine or theory in question. Criticism, which does this, – that is, which by this means seeks to upset a well-established doctrine, a doctrine that has already been tried in the fire of Criticism, such as those we have referred to – we term hypercriticism, to distinguish it from the legitimate Criticism that would get rid of leakages and ragged edges, with a view of establishing the central doctrine more firmly, even at the expense of trappings hitherto associated with it. In the one case Criticism is a necessary element of progress, in the other it becomes simply an obstacle and an abuse. The reason for these remarks will be found on the perusal of much current literature on Philosophy, Ethics, Economics, and Sociology.
The tendency is unmistakable nowadays, on the part of any one who begins writing on one of the larger subjects of human interest, to think he must make a tabula rasa of all that has gone before him. This is easy enough to do with the aid of a little hypercritical machinery. It may either be done apparently by the employment of sophisms, or it may be done really by showing up minor defects, which will inevitably exist in any comprehensive construction. In neither case, of course, will the hypercriticism be valid, as regards its professed object of destruction; and the upshot of the whole would-be new departure amounts generally to the parturition of an insignificant and oftentimes singularly musty mouse – some comparatively unimportant innovation or a return to some old position furbished up anew for the occasion.
To sum up, what we have been endeavouring to point out is, that the Self-Consistency of Consciousness as a whole is the ultimate test of Truth; that the immediate test of Truth in any department of knowledge is the Self-Consistency of Consciousness, within that department; that Self- Consistency is never absolutely complete or perfect; that one of the great causes of the success of hypercriticism consists in the possibility for Criticism, to show the ravelled edges in even the best established formulation of ultimate problems; that every stage in the evolution of Thought gives a formulation, which, though not representing complete Truth, or perfect conscious Self-Consistency, is nevertheless the nearest approach to adequacy in this respect possible at a given stage of the evolution of Thought; that such a formulation represents the Truth for us, or is, as we may say, the vice-regent of the absolute Truth at which we aim; that there are two main classes of persons who adopt hypercritical methods, the restorationist and the decadent; that the former attacks a well-established construction in the interests of obsolete or reactionary theories and dogmas, and the latter out of pure cynicism and to display his own powers of dialectic; that these criticisms may be either apparent or real, in the first case employing sophisms, usually the ignorantio elenchi, and in the second exaggerating actual defects, and thereby committing the fatal mistake of proving too much; that the true function of Criticism is to regulate the best-accredited construction or formulation up to date, thereby adapting it to the changes in the evolution of Thought. These include in Philosophy the basal position of “Theory of Knowledge,” as elicited in the great German movement from Kant to Hegel and its offshoots, the true significance of which has only been recognised in this country during the present generation; in Cosmology the doctrine of Evolution including Darwinism in its widest sense; in Historical origins the recognition of Primitive Communism and the kinship group as the starting-point and groundwork of historical evolution, together with the results of the latest research in the development of religion and mythology, and in sociology and conception of Society as an organism, or better, superorganism – the next creation in Nature after the animal body.
Last updated on 13.1.2006