TELLECTUALISM.

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Supporters of this anti-intellectualist dog

matism seem to regard it as the only possible alternative to the

extreme or narrow intellectualism (148) which would accord to

human intelligence or reason the mere function of assenting to

cogently self-evident abstract principles, and to conclusions in

ferred by rigorous deductive inference from such principles.

But the "classic intellectualism" according to which certitude is

caused only by " the necessitating action of objective evidence on

the intelligence" (163), is not that of scholasticism. It is rather

the type of intellectualism revealed in the excessively deduc

tive and a-priorist speculations of Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza,

Ferrier, etc., 1 in the Hegelian dialectic, and in the utilization

of scientific inference according to mathematical and mechanical

principles and methods by the positivists and phenomenists in

constructing their purely mechanical philosophy of the universe

as a phenomenon. But to this erroneous intellectualism the

" voluntarist" or "affective" theory of certitude is not the only

alternative. The scholastic theory of objective evidence embodies

the true form of intellectualism, the form which recognizes and

assigns their rightful function to the affective tendencies of human

nature as having a real, if indirect, evidential value which intellect

can appraise as objective evidence for the truth of their dictates.

This doctrine, as propounded in Chapter xxiii., 148-54, really

forestalls the arguments on which " affective " or "voluntarist"

theories rely, by showing that these theories are not really im

plied or necessitated by the class of considerations to which they

appeal. Renouvier, for instance, appeals to the contradictory

affirmations of sincere thinkers, and to the possibility of raising

rational difficulties against even the most "self-evident" proposi-

C/. vol. i., 35, p. 128, n. 3.

ANTI-INTELLECTUALIST THEORIES 323

tions, as forcing upon us the conclusion that certitude must be

ultimately determined by a free act of the will. But no such

conclusion is legitimate : and in fact the conclusion drawn is

self-contradictory, for a free act of the will is an act of intelligent

decision, an act of choice enlightened by rational apprehension of

the sufficiency of its grounds. 1 And if certitude is determined

ultimately by a blind, capricious, instinctive determination of

our nature, such certitude is, as we saw in our general argument

above, a condition of mind which cannot but issue in absolute

scepticism. The truth of course is that in the appreciation of

evidence, in the examination of doubts and difficulties against a

judgment, in the sustained effort of voluntary intellectual atten

tion, in the consideration of pros and cons where the evidence is

not cogent, and where the assent when given will be freely

elicited (11-13), a man must make that use of reason which is

known as the exercise of prudence in determining whether or when

the evidence for the truth of the judgment is such as to warrant

a firm or certain assent which will exclude d\\ prudent fear of error.

But so far from this being an abdication of the claims of reason

or intellect to the demands of a blind, instinctive or affective

voluntarism, it is a clear assertion of the supreme control of in

tellect in estimating the rightful evidential value of those sub

ordinate tendencies. It is true, moreover, that individuals may

suffer constitutionally from what is known as pusillanimity or

intellectual indecision (37), and that this is accountable for some

men s unreasonable negations and lapses into agnosticism ; just

as the opposite defect, excessive haste, impulsiveness, dogmatism,

is also accountable for widely prevalent errors. But the pre

valence of such errors, and of their causes, even among " sincere

thinkers," is not a legitimate reason for pronouncing the human

intellect to be radically incapable of attaining to any truth

(39, A) ; or for making the futile attempt to avoid scepticism by

taking refuge in the so-called " certitude " of an " affective " or

" voluntarist " assent which is avowedly non-rational, and there

fore really irrational.

The absence of intellectual accord among men, as to the

certain intellectual possession of any truth, is exaggerated by

the advocates of subjectivist theories in their zeal to belittle the

competence of the human intellect. There are truths which

all sane men spontaneously accept as self-evident, and which on

1 C/. MERCIER, op. cit., 87, p. 198.

3-4 TffEO RY OF KNO IVLED GE

reflection they continue so to accept, truths in respect to which

intellect is infallible (44, 68, 153, 154). Not that it is impos

sible for the human intellect to investigate critically their real

import or truth value (32), or even for individual minds to err

in conducting this delicate process whether through prejudice,

prepossessions, inattention to pertinent evidence, defective or

inadequate consideration of evidence and so to drift into an

attitude of avowed or concealed theoretical scepticism (37).

But such abnormal use of the intellect is quite consistent with

the view that there are truths to which the intellect in its

normal use can attain infallibly. And the fact that such

speculative sceptics, in order to live at all, must act in direct

contradiction and defiance of their sceptical professions, and

as if they believed quite a multitude of judgments (15) to be

objectively true and certain, is a sufficient proof that their in

tellectual attitude is unsound, abnormal and unnatural.

It must, however, be acknowledged that the judgments which are really

self-evident, and those that can be inferred from them by cogent logical in

ference, do not include certain judgments which are of the very deepest

import to human life. The existence of God, the spirituality and immortality

of the soul, the reality of human freedom and the implications of moral

responsibility, the natural duty of religion, the possibility and the fact of

supernatural or revealed religion, are theses to the truth of which the in

tellect is not compelled to assent. The evidence on which they are based

is not found by rational investigation to be cogent. They are the subject-

matter of freely formed convictions (11-13), reached by a posteriori con

sideration of the immediate facts of experience. Now, since they are theses

which have a direct and intimate bearing on human nature it is but natural

that among the facts which have an evidential value in determining their

truth, and which therefore demand rational consideration, we must include

all the natural mental instincts, inclinations and needs of man, whether

intellectual, volitional, emotional or affective. That is to say, we must

rationally recognize in these a certain evidential value, as pointing to the

objective truth of the convictions towards which they impel us : just as we

must recognize an evidential value in the universal acceptance of the sub

stance of such convictions (i 60) by the human race. Thus, in establishing

and justifying a reasoned certitude for such affirmations as the existence

of God, the spirituality and immortality of the soul, human freedom and

moral responsibility, etc., the argument from the universal assent of mankind

to at least the substance of those affirmations must be recognized to create

a more or less strong presumption in favour of their truth ; although it must

not be taken as in itself conclusive, or as exempting us from raiding and

answering the question why such assents are universal.

When we do raise this question we find that we can point to many broad

facts which are in the nature of direct intellectual evidence, and which suffice

ANTI-INTELLECTUALIST THEORIES 325

to justify rationally the certitude of men s spontaneous assents to those uni

versal affirmations : such, for instance, as the great broad fact of order in

the universe as indicating the existence of a Supreme Ruling Intelligence.

If the evidential demand of the complex, concrete facts of experience on the

human intelligence, for certain interpretations of what is implied by these

facts, though it be really felt and operative, yet cannot be adequately expressed

in any verbal formulae ; and if on that account we choose to describe the

assents which they call forth as springing from an " intellectual instinct "

(15, 161), this is not denying that such motives of assent belong to the

intellectual or objectively evidential order.

But another undeniably operative factor in eliciting those universally

prevalent spontaneous assents to the reality of a future life, to the existence

of a Divinity, to the righteousness of Divine sanctions for human conduct,

etc., is their/i?// harmony with the affective needs, yearnings and aspirations

of human nature. The natural human yearning for immortality, for happi

ness, for a final adjustment of the rights and wrongs of earthly existence, is

as universal as man s sense of his finiteness and dependence on Higher

Powers. Now the affective or voluntarist theory would base such certitude

as we can have concerning the truth of those or any other convictions ex

clusively upon their harmony with the dictates of such affective yearnings or

aspirations : thus making all religion a matter of feeling or sentiment. Such

procedure is rationally indefensible. But it is another thing altogether, by

rational reflection on the harmony of such assents with the affective needs

and aspirations of human nature, to recognize in this harmony a certain

weight of objective evidence pointing to the presumptive truth of those assents,

and to the credibility of that which they affirm. In this there is no abandon

ment of sound and reasonable intellectualism. For by such procedure we

are simply recognizing those affective factors as interpretatively or indirectly

intellectual ; we are only interpreting their objective evidential value for in

tellect. No doubt their evidential value is only secondary if considered apart

from the main data which we find within us and around us for rational demon

stration of human freedom and responsibility, the spirituality and immortality

of the soul, and the existence of a Supreme Being. And no doubt this

evidential value can be erroneously overrated. When, for instance, it is as

serted that there can be no natural faculty without its adequate object, no

really natural need or yearning wholly aimless or doomed to complete frus

tration ; and when it is pointed out that human yearnings for immortality, for

happiness, for righteousness, for moral perfection, for communion with the

Divine, the Infinite, the All-Perfect, appear from the abiding universality of

their manifestations to be implanted in human nature itself, as distinct from

accidental, ephemeral inclinations and impulses : if it be inferred that there

fore it is certain that God exists, that the soul is immortal, etc., the inferences

are quite too sweeping, and reason will promptly demand justification of the

major assertions concerning the non-frustration of yearnings that are univer

sal and natural. But if we consider such facts of the affective order, such

yearnings in so far as they are really universal and natural, and the harmony

of the conclusions in question with their dictates, if we consider those facts

in the light of all the other evidence we have for those conclusions, and

the conclusions themselves as explaining, accounting for the yearnings, and

326 THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE

rendering their dictates intelligible, then we can hardly fail to see in those

yearnings presumptive and corroborative objective evidence of the truth of

those fundamental convictions which underlie religion and morality, and

which offer the only satisfactory rational explanation of the nature and destiny

of man and the universe.

Those reflections suggest, perhaps, the soul of truth there is in the volun-

tarist and affective theories of certitude. But they point to the conclusion that

it is reason ultimately, and not feeling or sentiment, that must have the last

word in determining and justifying our assents : a conclusion to the justice of

ivhich the advocates of such theories unconsciously bear testimony by their

own zealous use of their intellectual powers in elaborating their rational

exposition and defence of those theories.