[[Boldface and paragraph divisions added. This is the inspirational core of our theory of personality types--am.]]

Transcription

1 Volume 6 of the Collected Papers, paragraphs 1-4, Volume 7, paragraphs 386-7, 580, Volume 1, paragraph 43. [[Boldface and paragraph divisions added. This is the inspirational core of our theory of personality types--am.]] 1. THE BACKWARD STATE OF METAPHYSICS 1 1. Logic requires that the more abstract sciences should be developed earlier than the more concrete ones. For the more concrete sciences require as fundamental principles the results of the more abstract sciences, while the latter only make use of the results of the former as data; and if one fact is wanting, some other will generally serve to support the same generalization. 2. But notwithstanding this, there is one highly abstract science which is in a deplorably backward condition. I mean Metaphysics. There is and can be no doubt that this immature condition of Metaphysics has very greatly hampered the progress of one of the two great branches of special science, I mean the Moral or Psychical Sciences. Most immediately has it checked the development of psychology; while the backward state of psychology has been a great disadvantage to all the other psychical sciences, such as linguistics, anthropology, social science, etc....the common opinion has been that Metaphysics is backward because it is intrinsically beyond the reach of human cognition. But that, I think I can clearly discern, is a complete mistake. Why should metaphysics be so difficult? Because it is abstract? But the abstracter a science is, the easier it is, both as a general rule of experience and as a corollary from logical principles. Mathematics, which is far more abstract than metaphysics, is certainly far more developed than any special science; and the same is true, though less tremendously so, of logic. But it will be said that metaphysics is inscrutable because its objects are not open to observation. This is doubtless true of some systems of metaphysics, though not to the extent that it is supposed to be true. The things that any science discovers are beyond the reach of direct observation. We cannot see energy, nor the attraction of gravitation, nor the flying molecules of gases, nor the luminiferous ether, nor the forests of the carbonaceous era, nor the explosions in nerve-cells. It is only the premisses of science, not its conclusions, which are directly observed. But metaphysics, even bad metaphysics, really rests on observations, whether consciously or not; and the only reason that this is not universally recognized is that it rests upon kinds of phenomena with which every man's experience is so saturated that he usually pays no particular attention to them. The data of metaphysics are not less open to observation, but immeasurably more so, than the data, say, of the very highly developed science of astronomy, to make any important addition to whose observations requires an expenditure of many tens of thousands of dollars. No, I

2 think we must abandon the idea that metaphysics is backward owing to any intrinsic difficulty of it. 3. In my opinion the chief cause of its backward condition is that its leading professors have been theologians. Were they simply Christian ministers the effect of intrusting very important scientific business to their hands would be quite as bad as if the same number of Wall Street promoters and Broad Street brokers were appointed to perform the task. The unfitness in the one case, as in the other, would consist in those persons having no idea of any broader interests than the personal interests of some person or collection of persons. Both classes are practical men. Now it is quite impossible for a practical man to comprehend what science is about unless he becomes as a little child and is born again. Scientific men are made out of youths who during the plastic period of life are set to study science for a number of years. Most of these develop into mere teachers; only a minority imbibe the spirit of science. The practical man has a definite job which he sets himself to accomplish. For that purpose he has to adopt some consistent plan which must be based upon a theory, and to that theory he must be wedded before the work begins. Even if his practical problem is no more serious than playing a game of whist, when there are only three rounds of a hand to be played, he must go upon the supposition that the cards lie so that he can win the odd trick. If he is a judge presiding over the hearing of a cause, that cause must be decided somehow, no matter how defective the evidence may be; and consequently he is constrained to lay down a rule for the burden of proof. But the idea of science is to pile the ground before the foot of the outworks of truth with the carcasses of this generation, and perhaps of others to come after it, until some future generation, by treading on them, can storm the citadel. The difference comes to this, that the practical man stakes everything he cares for upon the hazard of a die, and must believe with all the force of his manhood that the object for which he strives is good and that the theory of his plan is correct; while the scientific man is above all things desirous of learning the truth and, in order to do so, ardently desires to have his present provisional beliefs (and all his beliefs are merely provisional) swept away, and will work hard to accomplish that object. This is the reason that a good practical man cannot do the best scientific work. The temperaments requisite for the two kinds of business are altogether contrary to one another. This is above all true of the practical teacher [who] has no calling for his work unless he thoroughly believes that he is already in possession of all-important truth, with which he seeks by every physiological means to imbue other minds, so that they shall be unable to give it up. But a scientific man, who has any such immovable beliefs to which he regards himself as

3 religiously bound to be loyal, cannot at the same time desire to have his beliefs altered. In other words he cannot wish to learn the truth. Hence, I say that had the business of metaphysics been intrusted to ordinary parish priests it would have been performed unscientifically enough. But what has in fact been its fate has been far more tragic, in that it has been given over not to parish priests but to the caste of theologians. How much theologians may have contributed to the cause of Christianity, how far their writings and performances may have [been] the instruments of bringing home to men's hearts the truth of the Gospel of Love, or how far, on the other hand, they may have subserved the agencies that work to make Christians forget that truth, it is not in my province to inquire. I once bought and read through Dr. Schaff's three volumes upon the Creeds of Christendom for the purpose of ascertaining whether the theologians, who composed them, had ever once, from the first to the last, inserted a single clause in one of them by way of recognition of the principle of love; and I found that such a thing had never been done. But then we must remember that, that principle being fully admitted by all Christians, its insertion would not have served to damn anybody. Now the principal business of theologians is to make men feel the enormity of the slightest departure from the metaphysics they assume to be connected with the standard faith. Upon their religious side, however, I will not pretend to any opinion about the influence of theologians. But since theology pretends to be a science, they must also be judged as scientific men. And in that regard I must say that another so deplorably corrupt an influence as theirs upon the morals of science I do not believe has ever been operative.... The logic which observational science uses is not, like the logic that the books teach, quite independent of the motive and spirit of the reasoner. There is an ethics indissolubly bound up with it -- an ethics of fairness and impartiality -- and a writer, who teaches, by his example, to find arguments for a conclusion which he wishes to believe, saps the very foundations of science by trifling with its morals. To sum up, the case is this: 4. We should expect to find metaphysics, judging from its position in the scheme of the sciences, to be somewhat more difficult than logic, but still on the whole one of the simplest of sciences, as it is one whose main principles must be settled before very much progress can be gained either in psychics or in physics. Volume 7 (1902) 385. Let us see how far we can utilize such reflexions in classifying the Classificatory Sciences of Intellectual Systems of Performance. In the light of what has been said, there seem to be about seven Genera. The first embraces studies of the kinds of purely Material Arts; the second, studies of Ways of Individual Life; the third, studies of Customs and Laws and of Constitutions of Society;

4 the fourth, of Religions; the fifth, of Classifications of Sciences, the very subject upon which we are now engaged, so that we are in the somewhat embarrassing position of having to criticize the very thing we are doing before it can get done; the sixth, of Fine Arts; the seventh, of Language The second Suborder of Classificatory Psychognosy deals with kinds of minds. This, very evidently, if we exclude the minds of plants, and of communities, divides into two Families treating respectively of Animal Instinct and of Types of Men. A fair beginning has been made of the study of animal minds. We really seem to be penetrating the psychical nature of the Hymenoptera, -- souls so utterly unlike our own. It is most desirable that we should add to this an understanding of some third kind of mind different from both the others, -- say, for example, that of the octopus, whose passions are betrayed by the waves of color that pass over his person. For one can hardly make a beginning of generalization until three instances are at hand. The worms, echinoderms, coelenterates and sponges do not seem to be very interesting psychically. But the squids have a sort of horrible fascination Of types of men, serious investigations have been made of genius, of criminals, of men of science, and of great men, generally. Theophrastus began the study of types of character; and different authors have, in various ages and countries, displayed the most splendid power for this sort of research. But unfortunately, they have all been seduced by the glamour of literary glory, -- even St. Simon, (the ancestor, I mean), whose memoirs were not published until three quarters of a century after his death; so that a field of science of whose cultivation there is the most urgent need, both theoretically and practically has been for millennia lying fallow ground awaiting a conscientious ploughman I shall enter into no criticism of the different methods of metaphysical research, but shall merely say that in the opinion of several great thinkers, the only successful mode yet lighted upon is that of adopting our logic as our metaphysics. In the last lecture, I endeavored to show how logic furnishes us with a classification of the elements of consciousness. We found that all modifications of consciousness are inferences and that all inferences are valid inferences. At the same time we found that there were three kinds of inference: 1st, Intellectual inference with its three varieties Hypothesis, Induction and Deduction; 2nd, Judgments of sensation, emotions, and instinctive motions which are hypotheses whose predicates are unanalyzed in comprehension; and 3rd, Habits, which are Inductions whose subjects are unanalyzed in extension. This division leads us to three elements of consciousness: 1st, Feelings or Elements of comprehension; 2nd, Efforts or Elements of extension; and 3rd, Notions or Elements of information, which is the union of extension and comprehension. I regret that the time does not permit me to dwell further upon this theory; but I wish to pass to a loftier and more practical question of metaphysics in order to put in a still stronger light the advantages of the study of logic.

5 The question which I shall select is "what is man?" I think I may state the [utterly mistaken but] prevalent conception thus: Man is essentially a soul, that is, a thing occupying a mathematical point of space, not thought itself but the subject of inhesion of thought, without parts, and exerting a certain material force called volition. I presume that most people consider this belief as intuitive, or, at least, as planted in man's nature and more or less distinctly held by all men, always and everywhere. On the contrary, the doctrine is a very modern one. All the ancients and many of the scholastics, held that man is compact of several souls; three was the usual number assigned, sometimes two, four, or five. Every attentive reader of St. Paul is aware that according to him, man has a threefold being. [Spirit, Body, & Soul] We derive the notion of the soul's being single from Descartes. But with him, thought itself makes the man; whereas with us consciousness is not the man but is in man. Descartes, also, does not admit that the will of man exerts any force upon matter; as we mostly believe. In fact, the prevalent view of the present day is a heterogeneous hodgepodge of the most contradictory theories; its doctrines are borrowed from different philosophers while the premisses by which alone those philosophers were able to support their doctrines are denied; the theory thus finds itself totally unsupported by facts and in several particulars at war with itself. And this is admitted by most of those who have subjected it to rigid criticism. Volume One: 43. If we endeavor to form our conceptions upon history and life, we remark three classes of men. The first consists of those for whom the chief thing is the qualities of feelings. These men create art. The second consists of the practical men, who carry on the business of the world. They respect nothing but power, and respect power only so far as it [is] exercized. The third class consists of men to whom nothing seems great but reason. If force interests them, it is not in its exertion, but in that it has a reason and a law. For men of the first class, nature is a picture; for men of the second class, it is an opportunity; for men of the third class, it is a cosmos, so admirable, that to penetrate to its ways seems to them the only thing that makes life worth living. These are the men whom we see possessed by a passion to learn, just as other men have a passion to teach and to disseminate their influence. If they do not give themselves over completely to their passion to learn, it is because they exercise self-control. Those are the natural scientific men; and they are the only men that have any real success in scientific research.