Creative Intelligence Part 18

apprehension of what things are good than he may already possess, just as the objectivist theory of consciousness ( = knowledge) can supply no clue as to how or whether a _more_ or a _less_ comprehensive or a qualitatively _different_ "cross-section of ent.i.ties" can or should be got into one's "mind" as warrant or guidance ("stimulus") for a contemplated response that is to meet a present emergency (cf. John Dewey, "The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology," _Psychol. Rev._, Vol.

IV). Thus neither sort of deliverance out of the alleged predicament of egocentricity abates in the least the only serious inconvenience or danger threatened by subjectivism.

[58] Cf. W. Jethro Brown, _The Underlying Principles of Modern Legislation_ (3d ed., London, 1914), pp. 165-68.

[59] Bosanquet: _Principle of Individuality and Value_, pp. 13, 15, 20, 24, 27, 30.

[60] The case against the Austrian explanation of market-price in terms of marginal utility has been well summed up and re-enforced by B. M.

Anderson in his monograph, _Social Value_ (Boston, 1911). Anderson finds the fatal flaw in the Austrian account to consist in the psychological particularism of the marginal utility theory. The only way, he holds, to provide an adequate foundation for a non-circular theory of price is to understand the marginal estimates people put upon goods as resultants of the entire moral, legal, inst.i.tutional, scientific, aesthetical, and religious state of society at the time. This total and therefore absolute state of affairs, if I understand the argument, is to be regarded as focussed to a unique point in the estimate each man puts upon a commodity. Thus, presumably, the values which come together, summed up in the total demand and supply schedules for a commodity in the market, are "social values" and the resultant market-price is a "social price." This cross-sectional social totality of conditions is strongly suggestive of an idealistic Absolute. The individual is a mere focussing of impersonal strains and stresses in the Absolute. But the real society is a radically temporal process. The real centers of initiation in it are creatively intelligent individuals whose economic character as such expresses itself not in "absolute" marginal registrations but in price estimates.

On the priority of price to value I venture to claim the support of A.

A. Young, "Some Limitations of the Value Concept," _Quart. Journ.

Econ._, Vol. XXV, p. 409 (esp. pp. 417-19). Incidentally, I suspect the attempt to reconstruct ethical theory as a branch of what is called _Werttheorie_ to be a mistake and likely to result only in useless and misleading terminology.

[61] _Positive Theory of Capital_ (Eng. trans.). Bk. IV, Ch. II. The pa.s.sage is unchanged in the author's latest edition (1912).

[62] It is pointed out (e.g., by Davenport in his _Economics of Enterprise_, pp. 53-54) that, mathematically, in a market where large numbers of buyers and sellers confront each other with their respective maximum and minimum valuations on the commodity this interval within which price must fall becomes indefinitely small to the point of vanishing. This is doubtless in accord with the law of probability, but it would be an obvious fallacy to see in this any manner of proof or presumption that therefore the a.s.sumptions as to the nature of the individual valuations upon which such a.n.a.lysis proceeds _are true_. In a large market where this interval is supposed to be a vanishing quant.i.ty is there more or less higgling and bargaining than in a small market where the interval is admittedly perceptible? And if there _is_ higgling and bargaining (_op. cit._, pp. 96-97), what is it doing that is of price-fixing importance unless there be supposed to be a critical interval for it to work in? Such a use of probability-theory is a good example of the way in which mathematics may be used to cover the false a.s.sumptions which have to be made in order to make a mathematical treatment of certain sorts of subject-matter initially plausible as description of concrete fact.

[63] As I have elsewhere argued ("Subjective and Exchange Value,"

_Journ. Pol. Econ._, Vol. IV, pp. 227-30). By the same token, I confess skepticism of the cla.s.sical English doctrine that cost can affect price only through its effect upon quant.i.ty produced. "If all the commodities used by man," wrote Senior (quoted by Davenport, _op. cit._, p. 58), "were supplied by nature without any interference whatever of human labor, but were supplied in precisely the same amounts that they now are, there is no reason to suppose either that they would cease to be valuable or would exchange at any other than the present proportions."

But is this inductive evidence or ill.u.s.trative rhetoric? One wonders, indeed, whether private property would ever have developed or how long modern society would tolerate it if all wealth were the gift of nature instead of only some of it (that part, of course, which requires no use of produced capital goods for its appropriation).

[64] Certain points in this discussion have been raised in two papers, ent.i.tled, "The Present Task of Ethical Theory," _Int. Jour. of Ethics_, XX, and "Ethical Value," _Jour. of Phil., Psy., and Scientific Methods_, V, p. 517.

[65] Cf. also John Dewey, _Influence of Darwin upon Philosophy_, and Dewey and Tufts, _Ethics_, Ch. XVI.

[66] _International Journal of Ethics_, XXV, 1914, pp. 1-24.

[67]_ Dreams of a Spirit Seer._

[68] Cf. A. W. Moore, _Pragmatism and Its Critics_, 257-78.

[69] Croce, _Philosophy of the Practical_, pp. 312 f.

[70] G. E. Moore, _Principia Ethica_, p. 147.

[71] _Ethics_, ch. V.

[72] G. E. Moore, _Principia Ethica_, p. 149.

[73] Rashdall, _Is Conscience an Emotion?_ pp. 199 f.

[74] _Ibid._, 177.

[75] G.E. Moore, _Ethics_, Ch. III.

[76] Dewey and Tufts, _Ethics_, pp. 334 f.

[77] _Methods of Ethics_, p. 380.

[78] _Individualism_, 55, 61, 62.

[79] Lectures III and IV, especially 175, 176, 235-39.

[80] Pp. 111 ff., 172-75, 329 ff.

[81] Pp. 73, 186, 236, 261 f., 267, 269.

[82] 124, 182, 301.

[83] 263 ff., 123.

[84] Pp. 180, 241.

[85] P. 180.

[86] Art and religion have doubtless their important parts in embodying values, or in adding the consciousness of membership in a larger union of spirits, or of relation to a cosmic order conceived as ethical, but the limits of our discussion do not permit treatment of these factors.

[87] Cf. my paper, "Goodness, Cognition, and Beauty," _Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods_, Vol. IX, p. 253.

[88] Cf. Thorndike, _The Original Nature of Man_; S. Freud, _Die Traumdeutung_, _Psychopathologie des Alltagsleben_, etc.; McDougall, _Social Psychology_.

[89] _The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods_, Vol. IX, p. 256.

[90] Cf. Plato, _Republic_, IX, 571, 572, for an explicit antic.i.p.ation of Freud.

[91] This "new psychology" is not so very new.

[92] Cf. Hocking, _The Meaning of G.o.d in Human Experience_, for the most recent of these somnambulisms. But any idealistic system will do, from Plato to Bradley.

[93] Cf. James, _The Varieties of Religious Experience_.

[94] Cf. Jane Harrison, _Ancient Art and Ritual_.

[95] Cf. my paper, "Is Belief Essential in Religion?", _International Journal of Ethics_, October, 1910.

[96] "Metaphysics," _Book Lambda_.

[97] This is accomplished usually by ignoring the differentia of the term of religion, and using it simply as an adjective of eulogy, as in the common practice the term "Christian" is made coextensive with the denotation of "good," or "social." For example, a "Christian gentleman"

can differ in no discernible way from a gentleman not so qualified save by believing in certain theological propositions. But in usage, the adjective is simply tautologous. Compare R. B. Perry, _The Moral Economy_; E. S. Ames, _The Psychology of Religious Experience_; J. H.

Leuba, _A Psychological Study of Religion_; H. M. Kallen, _Is Belief Essential in Religion?_

[98] The condition of England and Germany in the present civil war in Europe echoes this situation.

[99] Cf. _Republic_, Books V and VI.

[100] Cf. _Winds of Doctrine_ and _Reason in Common Sense_.