CHAPTER XXIV
Fallacies of ideation constitute a fifth grade, which are illusions and delusions. In the order heretofore followed, we shall first speak of illusions, and then of delusions.
The Schoolmen speculated much on the nature of kinds, and finally reached the conclusion that that which makes a thing a kind is its essence, i.e., that which is essential to its existence as a kind, like others of its kind, but different from other kinds. All of this is quite true, but it adds nothing to knowledge, except that it might be given as a definition of a word. For a long time definitions were considered very good explanations.
When chemistry was yet alchemy, attempts often were made to discover the essence of things, and, in particular, it was a favorite method to extract kinds, and these extracts were called essences. So the kind or essence of a thing discovered in this manner was supposed to be its essential quality, as this term was then used. We have a record of this superstition, as it existed in the days of alchemy, in the extracts of the apothecary shop, which are often called essences. Rose-water was the essential extract of the rose, violet-water of the violet, and men were pleased with the idea that they could make of that which constitutes a thing or kind a decoction for a lady’s dressing table.
Fallacious theories of kind have high antiquity. It has already been set forth that a classification of properties and qualities is made in tribal society by a schematization of worlds. Not only were molar bodies, which were supposed to be animate, classified in this manner into seven categories, but all attributes of bodies were in like manner classified. We have already seen how space properties gave rise to a cosmology of seven regions. We have also seen how motion was explained as the self-activity of molar bodies, and that the heavenly bodies, which were supposed to be molar bodies, are in motion by appointed paths established by conflict in war, and given spacial or world directions, and that force was considered as will and the cause of motion.
We also have seen the manner in which time was considered as an attribute of space. We likewise have seen the development of the seven worlds into three, as the midworld, the zenith, and the nadir worlds.
Here we must pause for a time to explain something more of the nature of this transmutation. The change developed in later barbarism and earlier civilization was wrought by the increase of geographical knowledge. During this period there gradually was developed a notion of the land, or midworld, as a plane from which mountains and hills stand in relief, surrounded by the sea. Thales gives us such an account, as do many others. All the mythology of the time assumes the existence of the midworld as an island surrounded by an ocean. During the same epoch in human culture the unseen atmosphere was discovered. As the cardinal worlds were gradually abandoned, these properties and qualities of bodies that had previously been classified in the world scheme, came to be classified by a very natural change, as attributes of molar bodies. The schematization still remained fourfold, but molar bodies were considered as kinds, composed of four occult substances—earth, air, fire, and water. Thus, the four regions were transmuted into the four substances. Greek philosophy began with this theory, and there is abundant evidence that other races entertained the same doctrine.
Thus, the most ancient philosophy of civilization started with a theory of three worlds and four substances. We must now rapidly trace its development through five stages, during a period of more than twenty centuries, as it is revealed to us in the history of metaphysic as distinguished from science.