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Title: Speculations on Metaphysics
Author: Percy Bysshe Shelley
Date: 1880
Language: en
Topics: essays, metaphysics
Source: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Prose_Works_of_Percy_Bysshe_Shelley/Speculations_on_Metaphysics

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Speculations on Metaphysics

I. THE MIND.

I. It is an axiom in mental philosophy, that we can think of nothing

which we have not perceived. When I say that we can think of nothing, I

mean, we can imagine nothing, we can reason of nothing, we can remember

nothing, we can foresee nothing. The most astonishing combinations of

poetry, the subtlest deductions of logic and mathematics, are no other

than combinations which the intellect makes of sensations according to

its own laws. A catalogue of all the thoughts of the mind, and of all

their possible modifications, is a cyclopedic history of the universe.

But, it will be objected, the inhabitants of the various planets of this

and other solar systems; and the existence of a Power bearing the same

relation to all that we perceive and are, as what we call a cause does

to what we call effect, were never subjects of sensation, and yet the

laws of mind almost universally suggest, according to the ​various

disposition of each, a conjecture, a persuasion, or a conviction of

their existence. The reply is simple; these thoughts are also to be

included in the catalogue of existence; they are modes in which thoughts

are combined; the objection only adds force to the conclusion, that

beyond the limits of perception and thought nothing can exist.

Thoughts, or ideas, or notions, call them what you will, differ from

each other, not in kind, but in force. It has commonly been supposed

that those distinct thoughts which affect a number of persons, at

regular intervals, during the passage of a multitude of other thoughts,

which are called real, or external objects, are totally different in

kind from those which affect only a few persons, and which recur at

irregular intervals, and are usually more obscure and indistinct, such

as hallucinations, dreams, and the ideas of madness. No essential

distinction between any one of these ideas, or any class of them, is

founded on a correct observation of the nature of things, but merely on

a consideration of what thoughts are most invariably subservient to the

security and happiness of life; and if nothing more were expressed by

the distinction, the philosopher might safely accommodate his language

to that of the vulgar. But they pretend to assert an essential

difference, which has no foundation in truth, and which suggests a

narrow and false conception of universal nature, the parent of the most

fatal errors in speculation. A specific difference between every thought

of the mind, is, indeed, a necessary consequence of that law by which it

perceives diversity and number; but a generic and essential difference

is wholly arbitrary. The principle of the agreement and similarity of

all thoughts, ​is, that they are all thoughts; the principle of their

disagreement consists in the variety and irregularity of the occasions

on which they arise in the mind. That in which they agree, to that in

which they differ, is as everything to nothing. Important distinctions,

of various degrees of force, indeed, are to be established between them,

if they were, as they may be, subjects of ethical and œconomical

discussion; but that is a question altogether distinct.

By considering all knowledge as bounded by perception, whose operations

may be indefinitely combined, we arrive at a conception of Nature

inexpressibly more magnificent, simple and true, than accords with the

ordinary systems of complicated and partial consideration. Nor does a

contemplation of the universe, in this comprehensive and synthetical

view, exclude the subtlest analysis of its modifications and parts.

A scale might be formed, graduated according to the degrees of a

combined ratio of intensity, duration, connexion, periods of recurrence,

and utility, which would be the standard, according to which all ideas

might be measured, and an uninterrupted chain of nicely shadowed

distinctions would be observed, from the faintest impression on the

senses, to the most distinct combination of those impressions; from the

simplest of those combinations, to that mass of knowledge which,

including our own nature, constitutes what we call the universe.

We are intuitively conscious of our own existence, and of that connexion

in the train of our successive ideas, ​which we term our identity. We are

conscious also of the existence of other minds; but not intuitively. Our

evidence, with respect to the existence of other minds, is founded upon

a very complicated relation of ideas, which it is foreign to the purpose

of this treatise to anatomize. The basis of this relation is,

undoubtedly, a periodical recurrence of masses of ideas, which our

voluntary determinations have, in one peculiar direction, no power to

circumscribe or to arrest, and against the recurrence of which they can

only imperfectly provide. The irresistible laws of thought constrain us

to believe that the precise limits of our actual ideas are not the

actual limits of possible ideas; the law, according to which these

deductions are drawn, is called analogy; and this is the foundation of

all our inferences, from one idea to another, inasmuch as they resemble

each other.

We see trees, houses, fields, living beings in our own shape, and in

shapes more or less analogous to our own. These are perpetually changing

the mode of their existence relatively to us. To express the varieties

of these modes, we say, we move, they move; and as this motion is

continual, though not uniform, we express our conception of the

diversities of its course by—it has been, it is, it shall be. These

diversities are events or objects, and are essential, considered

relatively to human identity, for the existence of the human mind. For

if the inequalities, produced by what has been termed the operations of

the external universe, were levelled by the perception of our being,

uniting, and filling up their interstices, motion and mensuration, and

time, and space; the elements of the human mind being thus abstracted,

sensation and imagination cease. Mind cannot be considered pure.

II. WHAT METAPHYSICS ARE. ERRORS IN THE USUAL METHODS OF CONSIDERING

THEM.

We do not attend sufficiently to what passes within ourselves. We

combine words, combined a thousand times before. In our minds we assume

entire opinions; and in the expression of those opinions, entire

phrases, when we would philosophize. Our whole style of expression and

sentiment is infected with the tritest plagiarisms. Our words are dead,

our thoughts are cold and borrowed.[1]

∗⁠∗⁠∗⁠∗⁠∗⁠∗

. . . . . . more than suggest an association of words, or the

​remembrance of external objects distinct from the conceptions which the

mind exerts relatively to them. They are about these conceptions. They

perpetually awaken the attention of their reader to the consideration of

their intellectual nature. They make him feel that his mind is not

merely impelled or organized by the adhibition of events proceeding from

what has been termed the mechanism of the material universe.

That which the most consummate intelligences that have adorned this

mortal scene inherit as their birthright, let us acquire (for it is

within our grasp) by caution, by strict scepticism concerning all

assertions, all expressions; by scrupulous and strong attention to the

mysteries of our own nature.

Let us contemplate facts. Let me repeat that in the great study of

ourselves we ought resolutely to compel the mind to a rigid examination

of itself. Let us in[2] the science which regards those laws by which

the mind acts, as well as in those which regard the laws by which it is

acted upon, severely collect those facts.

Metaphysics is a word which has been so long applied to denote an

inqidry into the phenomena of mind, that it would justly be considered

presumptuous to employ another. But etymologically considered it is very

ill adapted to express the science of mind. It asserts a distinction

between the moral and the material universe which it is presumptuous to

assume. Metaphysics may ​be defined as the science[3] of all that we

know, feel, remember and believe: inasmuch as our knowledge, sensations,

memory and faith constitute the universe considered relatively to human

identity. Logic, or the science of words must no longer be confounded

with metaphysics or the science of facts. Words are the instruments of

mind whose capacities it becomes the Metaphysician accurately to know,

but they are not mind, nor are they portions of mind. The discoveries of

Horne Tooke in philology do not, as he has asserted, throw light upon[4]

Metaphysics, they only render the instruments recqu[is]ite to its

perception more exact and accurate.

Aristotle and his followers, Locke and most of the modern

Philosophers[5] gave Logic the name of Metaphysics. Nor have those who

are accustomed to profess the greatest veneration for the inductive

system of Lord Bacon adhered with sufficient scrupulousness to its

regulations. They have professed indeed (and who have not professed?) to

deduce their conclusions from indisputable facts. How came many of

those[6] facts to be called indisputable? What sanctioning

correspondence[7] unites a concatenation of syllogisms? Their

promises[8] of deducing all systems from facts has too often been

performed by appealing in favour of these pretended realities to the

obstinate preconceptions of the multitude; or by the most preposterous

mistake of a name for a thing. They . . . .

​The science of mind possesses eminent advantages over every other with

regard to the certainty of the conclusions which it affords. It requires

indeed for its entire developement no more than a minute and accurate

attention to facts. Every student may refer to the testimonials[9] which

he bears within himself to ascertain the authorities upon which any

assertion rests. It requires no more than attention to perceive perfect

sincerity in the relation of what is perceived, and care to distinguish

tlie arbitrary marks by which are designated from the themselves.[10]

∗⁠∗⁠∗⁠∗⁠∗⁠∗

We are ourselves the depositaries of the evidence of the subject which

we consider.[11]

∗⁠∗⁠∗⁠∗⁠∗⁠∗

III. DIFFICULTY OF ANALYSING THE HUMAN MIND.

If it were possible that a person should give a faithful history of his

being, from the earliest epochs of his recollection, a picture would be

presented such as the world has never contemplated before. A mirror

would be held up to all men in which they might behold their own

recollections, and, in dim perspective, their shadowy hopes and

fears,—all that they dare not, or that daring and desiring, they could

not expose to the open eyes of day. But thought can with difficulty

visit the intricate and winding chambers which it inhabits. It is like a

river whose rapid and perpetual stream flows outwards;—like one in dread

who speeds through the recesses of some haunted pile, and dares not look

behind. The caverns of the mind are obscure, and shadowy; or pervaded

with a lustre, beautifully bright indeed, but shining not beyond their

portals. If it were possible to be where we have been, vitally and

indeed—if, at the moment of our ​presence, we could define the results of

our experience,—if the passage from sensation to reflection—from a state

of passive perception to voluntary contemplation, were not so dizzying

and so tumultuous, this attempt would be less difficult.

IV. HOW THE ANALYSIS SHOULD BE CARRIED ON.

Most of the errors of philosophers have arisen from considering the

human being in a point of view too detailed and circumscribed. He is not

a moral, and an intellectual,—but also, and pre-eminently, an

imaginative being. His own mind is his law; his own mind is all things

to him. If we would arrive at any knowledge which should be serviceable

from the practical conclusions to which it leads, we ought to consider

the mind of man and the universe as the great whole on which to exercise

our speculations. Here, above all, verbal disputes ought to be laid

aside, though this has long been their chosen field of battle. It

imports little to inquire whether thought be distinct from the objects

of thought. The use of the words external and internal, as applied to

the establishment of this distinction, has been the symbol and the

source of much dispute. This is merely an affair of words, and as the

dispute ​deserves, to say, that when speaking of the objects of thought,

we indeed only describe one of the forms of thought—or that, speaking of

thought, we only apprehend one of the operations of the universal system

of beings.[12]

V. CATALOGUE OF THE PHENOMENA OF DREAMS, AS CONNECTING SLEEPING AND

WAKING.

I. Let us reflect on our infancy, and give as faithfully as possible a

relation of the events of sleep.

And first I am bound to present a faithful picture of my own peculiar

nature relatively to sleep. I do not doubt that were every individual to

imitate me, it would be found that among many circumstances peculiar to

their individual nature, a sufficiently general resemblance would be

found to prove the connexion existing between those peculiarities and

the most universal phenomena. I shall employ caution, indeed, as to the

facts which I state, that they contain nothing false or exaggerated. But

they contain no more than certain elucidations of my own nature;

concerning the degree in which it resembles, or differs from, that of

others, I am by no means accurately aware. It is sufficient, however, to

caution the reader against drawing general inferences from particular

instances.

​I omit the general instances of delusion in fever or delirium, as well

as mere dreams considered in themselves. A delineation of this subject,

however inexhaustible and interesting, is to be passed over.

What is the connexion of sleeping and of waking?

II. I distinctly remember dreaming three several times, between

intervals of two or more years, the same precise dream. It was not so

much what is ordinarily called a dream; the single image, unconnected

with all other images, of a youth who was educated at the same school

with myself, presented itself in sleep. Even now, after the lapse of

many years, I can never hear the name of this youth, without the three

places where I dreamed of him presenting themselves distinctly to my

mind.

III. In dreams, images acquire associations peculiar to dreaming; so

that the idea of a particular house, when it recurs a second time in

dreams, will have relation with the idea of the same house, in the first

time, of a nature entirely different from that which the house excites,

when seen or thought of in relation to waking ideas.

IV. I have beheld scenes, with the intimate and unaccountable connexion

of which with the obscure parts of my own nature, I have been

irresistibly impressed. I have beheld a scene which has produced no

unusual effect on my thoughts. After the lapse of many years I have

dreamed of this scene. It has hung on my memory, it has haunted my

thoughts, at intervals, with the pertinacity of an object connected with

human affections. I have visited this scene asain. Neither the dream

could ​be dissociated from the landscape, nor the landscape from the

dream, nor feelings, such as neither singly could have awakened, from

both. But the most remarkable event of this nature, which ever occurred

to me, happened five years ago at Oxford. I was walking with a friend,

in the neighbourhood of that city, engaged in earnest and interesting

conversation. We suddenly turned the corner of a lane, and the view,

which its high banks and hedges had concealed, presented itself. The

view consisted of a windmill, standing in one among many plashy meadows,

inclosed with stone walls; the irregular and broken ground, between the

wall and the road on which we stood; a long low hill behind the

windmill, and a grey covering of uniform cloud spread over the evening

sky. It was that season when the last leaf had just fallen from the

scant and stunted ash. The scene surely was a common scene; the season

and the hour little calculated to kindle lawless thought; it was a tame

uninteresting assemblage of objects, such as would drive the imagination

for refuge in serious and sober talk, to the evening fireside, and the

dessert of winter fruits and wine. The effect which it produced on me

was not such as could have been expected. I suddenly remembered to have

seen that exact scene in some dream of long————

Here I was obliged to leave off, overcome by thrilling horror.[13]

[1] This paragraph is the opening of the section as given by Mrs.

Shelley. The rest of the text of the section is here printed from the

MS. referred to at p. 282. Mrs. Shelley has instead the three following

paragraphs:— "Let us contemplate facts; let us, in the great study of

ourselves, resolutely compel the mind to a rigid consideration of

itself. We are not content with conjecture, and inductions, and

syllogisms, in sciences regarding external objects. As in these, let us

also, in considering the phenomena of mind, severely collect those facts

which cannot be disputed. Metaphysics will thus possess this conspicuous

advantage over every other science, that each student, by attentively

referring to his own mind, may ascertain the authorities, upon which any

assertions regarding it are supported. There can thus be no deception,

we ourselves being the depositaries of the evidence of the subject which

we consider. "Metaphysics may be defined as an inquiry concerning those

things belonging to, or connected with, the eternal nature of man. "It

is said that mind produces motion; and it might as well have been said,

that motion produces mind." The third paragraph does not seem to have

any necessary connexion with the others.

[2] Cancelled readings, (1) the science which regards the mind itself

(2) in Metaphysics as in those sciences which regards the laws by which

it is.

[3] Cancelled reading, The sense in which the word Metaphysics will be

employed in the following pages is: See definition given in foot-note,

p. 287.

[4] The words the science of are here cancelled in the MS.

[5] Cancelled reading, Locke and the disciples of his…

[6] Cancelled reading, What are those.

[7] Cancelled reading, connexion.

[8] The word profession is struck out in favour of promises.

[9] In the MS. authorities was originally written here.

[10] Fabulosissima quæque portenta cujusvis religionis alius crediderim

quam hæc omnia sine Numine tieri. [Shelley's Note.]

[11] The continuous fragment here breaks off at the beginning of a page.

On the next page some headings of the subject are indicated by the

inscription of the words "Infancy, Childhood, Youth, Manhood, Old Age"

The first of these sections appears to have been begun; but all we have

of it, or all Mrs. Shelley gave us of it, is the fragment headed

"catalogue of the phenomena of dreams," p. 295. That, as well as those

headed "difficulty of analysing the human mind" and "how the analysis

should be carried on" are from Mrs. Shelley's edition.

[12] I give this precisely as printed by Mrs. Shelley, though some

errors of transcription may be suspected. The failure to work out the

sentence to any proper construction may indeed be incident to the

incomplete state of the fragment; but the term universal system of

beings, with which the fragment closes, is so unusual, so inappropriate

to the context that, one can hardly doubt, a careful examination of the

MS. would shew the last word to be things, not beings.

[13] At this point the MS. from which the fragment was given in 1840

closes. Mrs. Shelley says:— "I remember well his coming to me from

writing it, pale and agitated, to seek refuge in conversation from the

fearful emotions it excited. No man, as these fragments prove, had such

keen sensations as Shelley. His nervous temperament was wound up by the

delicacy of his health to an intense degree of sensibility, and while

his active mind pondered for ever upon, and drew conclusions from his

sensations his reveries increased their vivacity, till they mingled

with, and were one with thought, and both became absorbing and

tumultuous, even to Physical pain." The final page of the M.S. fragment

referred to at pp. 282 and 290 seems to be a note for the Speculations

on Morals, and is inserted at pp. 303–4.