IDENTITY. 



IDYLL. 



826 



matter to be a system of forces ; while, according to the latter, all 

 beings are of the same nature. Activity and simplicity are the 

 essential characters of all, and are so many forces or causes which he 

 terms monads. All these monads possess the faculty of perception, or 

 of reflecting within themselves, as in a mirror, the universe. These 

 images however of perception cannot become the objects of knowledge, 

 unless in these monads, which possess also what Leibnitz calls apper- 

 ception, by which they are enabled to distinguish and see in themselves 

 these images. It is therefore this faculty of apperception which 

 constitutes the difference between the so-called material and spiritual ; 

 and as the faculty itself admits of different degrees, there are corres- 

 ponding orders of intelligences. Lastly, we must include in this class, 

 if anywhere among the idealists, the system of Spinoza, who asserts the 

 identity of matter and spirit, making them to be but different 

 aspects of one and the same substance ; and Schelling, whose philosophy 

 may be regarded as the complement of that of the Jewish philosopher. 

 2., Another species of idealism considers the real as simply ideal, and 

 assumes that our representations of a material world correspond to 

 nothing actually existing, but that by contemplating these as objective, 

 we transmute the merely ideal into the real. The fundamental axiom 

 of this idealism is the priority of the ideal and the subsequence of the 

 real (' ideale prius, reale postering '). Accordingly, the real only exists 

 go far as it is necessarily conceived by us, so that the external world 

 is purely a creation of our conceptions, or, in other words, the real is 

 a product of the ideal. To this class is referred the Platonic attempt 

 to account for the existence of the sensible world by his idem alone, 

 without recourse to any other nature alien and foreign to them. By 

 some, even the Aristotelian philosophy is designated as ideal in this 

 sense, at least so far as regards its fundamental principle. This they 

 make to be the assumption of a universal mundane intelligence (vovs), 

 which, as the principle of all things is a force (^>rA'xcia), self-active, 

 all-perfect, and absolutely free. The manifold manifestations of this 

 entelechy are forms before and beside which matter exists only 

 potentially, while the forms are determined and distinguished by 

 privation (/5oj, BATJ, <nipT\"")- But the most perfect of idealists in 

 this class is Fichte, who derives not merely the form, but also the 

 matter, of the conception of external things out of the mind itself, or, 

 in his terminology, out of the ego (Ich). 



3. A third system of idealism proceeds to the absolute denial of all 

 material existences. This species of idealism was impossible among 

 the ancients, who did not oppose mind so sharply to matter as to deny 

 the possibility of their interaction, but tacitly supposed their similarity , 

 opposing only corporeity, as composite, to incorporeity, as simple. Of 

 this idealism Bishop Berkeley is the author, although DCS Cartes gave 

 occasion to it by his position, that nothing extended can enter the 

 unextended soul. Arthur Collier maintained the name theory, by a 

 different line of argument, and Locke afforded, by his doctrine of ideas, 

 the arguments for its support. The system of Berkeley is briefly this : 

 matter does not exist independently of our sensations, but conceptions 

 of a material world are produced by the operation of the deity upon 

 our understanding, and the material world exists only in the divine 

 intellect, who awakes in us certain sensuous conceptions in a definite 

 order, which order is what we call the course of nature. 



4. The last species of idealism is more philosophical, and, without 

 denying or asserting the existence of a material world, is content with 

 confessing an ignorance of its nature. It pretends not to a knowledge 

 of things themselves, but is content with employing the ideas which 

 the mind forms, according to the laws of its own nature, upon the 

 occasion of the excitement of its sensuous organs, without determining 

 whether these ideas correspond or not to the exciting cause or causes, 

 whatever they may be. To this class belong Malebranche and Kant. 

 According to the former, mind and matter cannot act upon each other, 

 and the sensations of the mind are so many occasional causes 

 operating by a constant miracle of divine agency. (Deut ex Machind.) 

 According to the latter, all that we know of outward objects is that 

 they furnish the material part of our conceptions, to which the mind 

 furnishes the form agreeably to its original and connatural laws ; while 

 i if things themselves, which he calls phenomena, we absolutely know 

 nothing, but note only the modes under which they appear to us. 



Idealism in fact forms the antithesis to realism, which involves 

 materialism. Sir William Hamilton in his ' Lectures on Metaphysics' 

 says "a philosophical system is often prevented from falling into 

 absolute idealism or absolute materialism, and held in a kind of 

 oscillating equilibrium, not in consequence of being based on the fact 

 of 'consciousness, but from the circumstance that its materialistic 

 tendency in one opinion happens to be counteracted by its idealistic 

 tendency in another ; two opposite errors in short, co-operating to the 

 same result as one truth. On this ground is to be explained why the 

 philosophy of Locke and Condillac did not more easily slide into 

 materialism." (Lecture xvi.) He also observes ('Discussions on 

 Philosophy/ &c.) that "mankind in general believe that an external 

 world exists, only because they believe that they immediately know it 

 as existent." But of course if this knmeledge be disallowed, if the 

 perception be only existent in the mind, the conclusion would be 

 unfounded 



IDENTITY designates in philosophical language the sameness of a 

 substance under every possible variety of circumstances. In this sense 

 it is employed in the phrase penonal identity, where it signifies the 



invariable sameness of the thinking subject, or ego. In a secondary 

 sense it denotes a merely relative identity, which may also be called 

 logical or abstract. Thus, in logic, whatever things are subjects of the 

 same attribute or collection of attributes are considered the same ; 

 for example, dog and lion are the same relatively to the common 

 notion Quadruped, under which they are both contained. Again, in 

 physics, a tree may be asserted to be the same in relation to all the 

 rights of property, notwithstanding the physical change it undergoes 

 from the constant segregation of old and aggregation of new particles. 

 Lastly, it is only in this logical use of the term that we can be said in 

 memory to be conscious of the identity of the reproduced and the 

 original idea, for if they were absolutely identical it would be im- 

 possible to distinguish between the first appearance and the recurrence 

 of an idea. (Ancillon.) 



According to Butler it is impossible to define the idea of personal 

 identity, but it is easily ascertained ; for a comparison of one's self in 

 any two moments of our existence suggests immediately the idea, and 

 at the same time the identity of ourselves. (' Essay on Personal 

 Identity.') Reid's view is nearly similar : " I cannot remember a thing 

 that happened a year ago, without a conviction, as strong as memory 

 can give, that the same identical person who now remembers that 

 event did then exist." (' Essays," ch. vii.) To the objection that con- 

 sciousness, being successive, cannot be the same in any two moments, 

 and that therefore, as consciousness constitutes personality, there 

 cannot be any identity of person, Butler answers, that consciousness 

 presupposes and consequently cannot constitute personal identity, and 

 that the object perceived may be the same notwithstanding that the 

 perceptions by which it is discerned are distinct and different. Locke's 

 opinion on this subject appears to have been undecided. " The identity 

 of the same man consists," he says, " in nothing but a participation of 

 the same life, by constantly fleeting particles of matter in succession 

 vitally united to the same organised body." But personal identity he 

 defines to be the sameness of a rational being. (Locke, ' On the 

 Understanding,' p. 2, c. xxviii., s. 6.) 



With respect to identical propositions, it is rightly observed " that 

 the greatest assurance and most certain knowledge we can have of any 

 thing is of such propositions as in the schools are called identical." 

 (Sir Kenelm Digby, ' On Man's Soul,' c. ii., p. 28.) For in deductive 

 reasoning the proposition and assumption which make the major and 

 minor premises of the regular syllogism are only logical transmutations 

 of the identical position in physics, that the whole is equal to its parts. 

 Things which are logically identical may be conceived to be so many 

 parts constituting a whole (genus) ; and the principle, " de omni et 

 nullo " is rightly expanded thus : whatever belongs, or not, to a con- 

 stituted whole, does or does not belong to all its constituent parts. In 

 the same manner all mathematical propositions are identical; and 

 Aristotle rightly teaches that in these equality is identity (tv TOI/TOIJ 

 ij iWrTjs ir6rris, ' Metap.' x., c. 3) : the ultimate form to which all 

 equations are reduced being a = a. It is the want of this identity that 

 constitutes the difference between demonstrative and probable reason- 

 ing, although this difference is rather one of degree than of kind ; for 

 the inferior certainty in the latter arises from the difficulty of deter- 

 mining, in matters which fall within its domain, what really are all the 

 constituent parts in any whole, or general term; whereas in the 

 former every whole consists of certain determinate and limited parts, 

 so that the procedure to a knowledge of the parts is easy. 



By the system of absolute identity is meant the doctrine which 

 teaches the oneness of the subject and object (spirit and matter) as 

 merely different aspects of one substance. This is maintained by 

 Schelling, Hegel, and Cousin, who hold that mind and matter are but 

 " phenomenal modifications of the same common substance," and who 

 reject the conclusion that " the evidence of consciousness to their 

 antithesis is existence." 



IDEOLOGY (the science of ideas or mind) is the term by which 

 the later disciples of Condillac, under the Directory and the Empire, 

 have designated the history and evolution of human ideas considered 

 as so many successive modes of certain original or transformed 

 sensations. Proceeding from this exclusive and partial view, nothing 

 perhaps can equal the logical simplicity of the writings of this school, 

 the subtlety of its abstraction, the boldness of its generalisations, or its 

 analytical dexterity in reducing an idea to its simplest expression. Its 

 metaphysical aspect is ably exhibited in the ' Ideologic ' of Destutt de 

 Tracy. With him we should also class Main de Biram and Laromi- 

 guiere, but for the many traces in their writings of dissent from the 

 system, so that they may more properly be considered as forming the 

 transition to that form of mental philosophy in France developed 

 by Royer Collard and his disciples, Jouffroy, and Cousin. 



IDKS. [KALENDAR.] 



IDIOT. [LUNACY.] 



IDRIALIN (C M H !a O., ?), a hydrocarbon found in the mines of 

 Idria. It colours sulphuric acid intensely blue. It is probably iden- 

 tical with sucristercn, a substance obtained from amber, and which has 

 the same property of colouring oil of vitriol intensely blue. 



IDRYL (C H. 2 ). A peculiar fusible and volatile hydrocarbon, ob- 

 tained by the destructive distillation of a kind of coal found in the 

 quicksilver mines of Idria. 



IDYLL (Greek, (iSv\\u> ; Lat. Idy'ttmm or Edy'Uium) is a poem 

 " descriptive chiefly of the processes and appearances of external nature ; 



