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. .
Theories of
knowledge

LeslieJoseph
Walker
 Xtbrars
of tbe

Wntverstts of TOteconein

Digitized by Gcpgk
Digitized by Google
Digitized by Google
STONYHURST PHILOSOPHICAL SERIES

Digitized by Google
Thesis approved for the Degree of Master
of Arts in the University of London, 1909

Digitized by
STONYHURST PHILOSOPHICAL SERIES

THEORIES OF
KNOWLEDGE
ABSOLUTISM
PRAGMATISM
REALISM

LESLIE J.
WALKER, S.J. M.A.
SOMETIME PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY AT STONYHUKST COLLEGE

LONGMANS, GREEN & CO.

PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
39,
NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA
1910

Digitized by
 ::

fUbtl obetat

J. N. Strassmaier, S.J.

Censor deputatus

3mprimatur

EDM : Canonicus Surmont

Viearius Generalis

Westmonasterii
die 14 Martii 1910

roehampton: printkd by john griffin

Digitized by
 146205
SEP 2 0 1910

PREFACE
The improvement in the position of Catholic
philosophical literature which has manifested itself
both in English and foreign languages during the
past twenty years is of a most cheering character.
It used to be not unfrequently remarked that the
great majority of works on philosophy published
during the last century by writers adhering to the
Scholastic tradition were Latin manuals, compends
and summaries, reproducing and repeating over
and over again the same bare outlines of the
philosophy of the Schoolmen, without any attempt
to develop that system, or to bring its doctrines
into living contact with modern thought. And
we fear it has to be admitted that there was
some justification for the complaint. Balmez,
Kleutgen and a few other writers did indeed
furnish most substantial and valuable contributions
in which the principles of the great Catholic
thinkers of the Middle Ages were brought to bear
intelligently on modern problems. But the greater
part of the Latin manuals which appeared during
the nineteenth century exhibited little effort at
an understanding or an enlightened criticism of

Digitized by
vi PREFACE

the philosophers since Hume. Modern speculation

was usually condemned en masse. There was
rarely any attempt to discriminate the elements
of truth which might be found in an erroneous
system, or to look at an opponent's conclusions
from own standpoint.
his He taught some
obviously wrong doctrines and he was to be
;

refuted. As the space of a text-book was very

limited, the refutation was necessarily somewhat
summary.
In the circumstances this was probably inevit-
able. Almost the only class of Catholic readers
at all interested in philosophy were ecclesiastical
students who needed instruction in the essentials
of Scholastic philosophy, chiefly as a grammar to
their subsequent Theology. The Latin compendia
designed to meet their wants had to compress
into the narrowest space an epitome of the
Scholastic system, dwelling especially on those
topics which prepare the way for theological
doctrines to be subsequently studied. Modern
philosophical speculations apart from their connec-
tions with religious dogma possessed little or no
interest, whilst domestic disagreements on meta-
physical issues of minor import absorbed much
energy and space. At the same time it was more
urgently needful that the student should be warned
that the conclusions or the systems of heterodox
thinkers were false than that he should be enabled
 PREFACE vii

to understand these systems or to see how these

conclusions had been reached. Accordingly the
representations of such opponents' views were often
inadequate, and the refutations at times superficial.
Still, on the whole, they sufficed fairly well for
the purpose in hand.
But the situation has been steadily changing
during the last thirty years. In addition to the
clerical student, to whom a more liberal culture
is now necessary, an increasing number of educated
lay-Catholics have arisen who, finding themselves
in the midst of a society in which philosophical
problems and systems are keenly discussed, are
inevitably themselves drawn to take an interest in
such discussions. It is therefore no longer sufficient

for present-day needs to furnish a brief outline of

the Scholastic doctrine with a summary refutation
in two or three syllogisms of leading adversaries.
Indeed it begins to be a serious question whether
such treatment is not calculated to do more harm
than good. It is now extremely probable that the
student will himself read the opponent's own
presentation of his doctrine, and if the previous
representations or refutation be unfair, then there
will be an inevitable reaction and the student's
sympathy will be enlisted on the side of the writer
whom he believes to have been unjustly dealt with.
A careful, patient and scrupulously fair considera-
tion of an opponent's views, if they are discussed
viii PREFACE

at all, is the only profitable course at the present

day, whilst the most effective form of philosophical
criticism is that which, instead of singling out
particular flaws, takes a large view of a system
as a whole, traces it back to its sources, examines
its and then follows it out
internal consistency,
to its ultimate consequences. It is thus, and not

by arguments deduced from summarily assumed

principles, which our opponent will not admit, that
an erroneous system is to be most fruitfully
controverted.
Happily, as I have already observed, there is

manifest in recent years a large and increasing

improvement in this respect in Catholic philo-
sophical literature, both in English and foreign
languages ; and new works are constantly appear-
ing which exhibit the genuine philosophical spirit.
True fidelity to the teaching of St. Thomas
involves not the mere repetition or translation of
the phrases or arguments of the great Scholastic
Doctor, but the evolution of his principles and
their intelligent application to the problems
raised by the advance of Science and the varied
conditions of human life to-day. The great
fundamental philosophical questions will indeed
remain always with But even these are ever
us.

presenting new aspects and raising new issues,

whilst sundry minor metaphysical controversies
which once intensely agitated the keenest intellects
 PREFACE ix

of Europe now possess merely a historical

interest. What we more particularly want in
these circumstances are monographs or substantial
works devoted to the special problems of the
present time. In comprehensive treatises of this
kind, it is possible to attempt to shed some new
light on the problems which now face us.
It is, therefore, with the greatest pleasure that
I welcome the present volume as, in my view,
both a valuable addition to modern Catholic
philosophical literature, and also peculiarly suitable
to present needs. It deals with the problem which
lies at the root of so many other philosophical
questions, — the great problem of epistemology.
The author in the course of his work under-
takes primarily the examination of thetwo most
keenly discussed theories of knowledge of the
present day, Absolutism and Pragmatism. But in
his study he led back to their
is naturally
sources and Empiricism.
in Criticism He puts
each system before us as expounded by its best
representatives ; he keeps constantly in view their
mutual relations, and their connections with Kant
and Hume, and he contrasts the most important
features of each theory with the Realism of
Aristotle and Aquinas. It is this method of
intelligent and judicious consideration of cyrrent
philosophical opinions from the standpoint of
Scholasticism that appears to me to be specially
X PREFACE

profitable to-day. The work has obviously involved

a very thorough and painstaking study of the
different phases of Neo-Kantianism and also of the
various forms of anti-intellectual Voluntarism, whilst
the criticisms bring out some of the best merits
of the Scholastic doctrine. The reader possessed
of an acquaintance with recent philosophical
speculation will appreciate the knowledge and
acuteness with which the diverse aspects of the
central problem are handled. In its original form,
from which the present differs only by a slight
expansion of some parts, this essay was submitted
to the University of London. The fact that it

should have gained for its author the degree of

Master of Arts with the mark of distinction for
special merit from a body so little suspect of
excessive sympathy with Scholasticism as the
London University is a guarantee of the value of
the work, as it is at the same time a creditable
testimony to the high standard of fair-mindedness
and impartiality of that Institution.

Michael Maher, S.J.

Stonyhurst,
March, 1910.
 PREFACE xi

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

As the Introduction to this work sufficiently

explains its scope and purpose, further remarks
by way of Preface are hardly necessary. Suffice
it to say that it has been my sincere endeavour

throughout to present the views of opponents in

as fair a light as possible and for the most part
in their own words. In this I have been much
assisted by the kindness of Dr. Schiller, who
has read several of the Chapters dealing with
Pragmatism, and has aided me with valuable
suggestions. My thanks are also due to the
Rev. P. Hobart and the Rev. M. M'Donald for
their services the laborious work of reading
in
and correcting proofs; and to the Rev. J. H.
Oldham and other friends who have assisted me
to prepare the Index.

Leslie J. Walker, S.J.

St. Bcuno's College,

March, 1910.
Digitized by Google
 5

ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION.
§ i . The theory
of knowledge presents to us three problems :

we have to institute a psychological analysis of cognition, to

enquire into its metaphysical conditions, and to examine the
nature and criteria of truth.
§ 2. To these problems Absolutism, Pragmatism and Realism
each offers a different solution,
§ 3. solutions which, between them, seem to exhaust all
possible answers. pp. 1
—
ABSOLUTISM.
§ 4. The philosophy of Kant is a refutation of Scepticism ;

§ 5.and its leading principles are those of (1) Unity in

Difference and the Reconciliation of Antitheses in a Higher
Synthesis,
§ 6. (2) of Immanence,
§ 7.and (3) of Apriorism, a doctrine which Kant claims to
have borrowed from the scientist.
§ 8. From the critical philosophy of Kant we pass through
Fichte and Hegel to modern Absolutism,
§ 9. a theory which admits of many and diverse expositions,
but which is one in that it is based upon and includes the above-
mentioned critical principles. pp. 5 — 14

PRAGMATISM.
§ 10. Pragmatism is a reaction against Absolutism,
§ 11. —
and its method the verification of postulates by
means of experiments which satisfy human needs is, like the —
method of Criticism, borrowed from science.
§ 12. Pragmatism and Humanism.
§13. French Pragmatism. —
M. Blondel. The French—
Critique of Science. —
The Philosophic de la Contingence.
§ 14. Connection between Anglo- American and French Prag-
matism.
§ 15. The social view of truth.
§ 16. —
German Pragmatism. Simmel, Mach, Avenarius.
j 17. The metaphysics of Pragmatism. pp. 14—25

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xiv THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

REALISM.
§ 1 8. Realism the philosophy of common -sense, the beliefs
is
of which it seeks to explain, systematise and co-ordinate, without
explaining them away.
§ 19. The realist defines truth as an adcequatio intellectus et
rei,
§ 20. the condition of which is that the object should be
able to produce in the mind some sort of resemblance to itself.
§ 21. Hence the ultimate criterion of truth for the realist
is objective evidence, in which the object is apprehended as
determining that which we think about it.
§ 22. Other Realisms are not so complete or systematic as
that of Aristotle and Aquinas.
§ 23. Hence we may confine our attention to the latter,
which is here offered as a via media, or better, as a higher
synthesis, of Absolutism and Pragmatism,
§ 24. the test of an adequate theory of knowledge being its
power to answer satisfactorily the triple problem of cognition.
pp. 25—32

PART I.

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF

COGNITION.
CHAPTER I.
THE DATA OF EXPERIENCE.—SENSE-PERCEPTION.
§ 25. We must begin our enquiry by carefully distinguishing
facts from theories based thereon ;

§ 26. and the facts with which we are concerned are not the
so-called data of pure experience, of which we know nothing,
' '

§ 27. but the data of our experience.

§ 28. Beginning with sense-perception, we observe that the
objects of external perception are concrete real things and their
qualities and though sensation is doubtless involved, we are
;

not conscious of it at the moment we perceive.

§ 29. What we perceive, moreover, together with any
analysis or synthesis that may take place, seems to be determined
ab extra by the object, and not by ourselves.
§ 30. Purposes and needs affect only indirectly what we
perceive and in judgment about perceived facts determine
;

ordinarily neither content nor assent.

§ 31. Perception implies the existence of universal ideas.
J 32. Inference also is often involved.

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 ; —

ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS xv

§ 33. But the assertion that all perception involves sub-

sumption under universal ideas, though easily verified, is not
strictly a datum of experience.
§ 34. Neither is the existence of a priori forms a datum of
experience, still less the doctrine that the object of perception
is sensation.

§ 35. Sometimes, however, the object of perception is a

sensation, and sometimes it may be perceived either as a sensation
or as the quality of an object
§ 36. facts 'which account both for the theory that sensation
is the id quo percipitur and for the theory that it is id quod
percipitur. PP- 33-51

CHAPTER II.
THE DATA OF EXPERIENCE Continued,
CONCEPTUAL THOUGHT.
§ 37. Percepts cannot be identified with sensation-complexes :

they imply ideas which have objective meaning.

§ 38. Yet ideas are not the objects of our thoughts, but the
instruments by means of which we think about objects, real or
imaginary.
§ 39. Nor does the reality of an object necessarily imply that
it can be perceived by the senses, for there are many real objects
which cannot be so perceived.
§ 40. Ideas functioning in continuous discourse, though
unanalysed, have definite significance ;

§ 41. and their content may be analysed psychologically by

means of association.
§ 42. Hence we may infer that both in association and in
continuous discourse an idea embraces implicitly and schematic-
ally subordinate ideas, and so is able to control the process
throughout.
§ 43. Ideas, again, functioning as purposes, control our
actions.
§ 44. They control also the process of constructive thought.
§ 45. But the sequence of our thoughts can be accounted for
entirely neither by the general idea of the problem in hand, nor
yet by verbal and cerebral association ; it implies intellectual
habit,
§ 46. which presupposes immediate experience by which it
has been formed.
§ 47. Purposive selection, therefore, is quite compatible with
objective validity, for it does not determine the content/ but«

only the intent of perception and thought,

'
'

§ 48. and though assent may be subjectively determined,

it is never consciously so. pp. 51-72
xvi THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

CHAPTER III.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CRITICISM AND THE
DISTINCTION OF SUBJECT AND OBJECT.
§ 49. is not psychological in the Lockian sense
Criticism ;

§ 50. but Dr. Caird is mistaken in thinking that Criticism

or any other epistemology can be independent of psychology.
§ 51. The Criticism of Kant presupposes psychological data,
and so do later Criticism and Absolutism.
§ 52. Dr. Caird, in fact, takes too narrow a view of psy-
chology, and wrongly identifies the psychologist's standpoint
with that of Locke, though introspection certainly testifies to the
distinction of subject and object.
§ 53. Mr. Shadworth Hodgson and the pragmatists, however,
deny that this distinction is ultimate, a statement which admits
of more than one interpretation.
§ 54. But if it mean that the distinction is not ultimate as a
fact, as both pragmatists and absolutists at times assert, neither
can explain how it has arisen in consciousness. For Absolutism
it is simply a mystery,

§ 55. and in the pragmatic philosophy of Pure Experience,

' '

which explains it as in some strange and inconceivable fashion

the evolutionary product of sentience,
§ 56. itbecomes more mysterious than ever.
§ 57. The psychology of human experience, which is un-
doubtedly the basis of Kantian Criticism, is converted later on
into a psychology of the Absolute and hence the problems of
;

human cognition "are neglected by the absolutist.

§ 58. —
Otherwise the psychology of Absolutism since it is
the validity, not the existence of common -sense beliefs that are
—
denied is accurate so far as it goes ;

§ 59. though it ignores for the most part the purposive

character of human cognition,
§ 60. and in this is distinctly inferior to the psychology of
Kant. pp. 73—93

CHAPTER IV.
REALITY AS SENTIENT EXPERIENCE.
§ 61. Mr. Bradley's Absolutism differs from other Absolu-
tisms both in method, and in his constant appeal to experience,
§ 62. which, he admits, must provide the data upon which
the metaphysician has to work.
§ 63. This appeal to experience gives to his metaphysical
theory a distinctly subjective tone,
§ 64. and his position approximates to the esse is perdpi of
Hume though he expUcitly rejects Subjective Idealism.
;

§ 65. It is by an appeal to experience that he attempts to

prove his thesis that reality is sentient experience.
§ 66. But his proof breaks down, because (1) even granting
 ; '

ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS xvii

that nothing exists that is not perceived, the percipient and the
perceived may yet be distinct
§ 67. and (2) it is possible to conceive things existing without
their being perceived.
§ 68. Mr. Bradley also affirms that the given existence cf
' '

things perceived is a state of the experient's soul, though he

distinguishes this from their true existence which is present not
in, but to, consciousness, —
and so apparently need not be sentient
experience.
§ 69. In judgment, however, • the immediate datum of sense-
experience is broken up into a that (subject) and a what
4
'
'

(predicate), the predicate with its ideal content being divorced

from the subject which is reality presented as this,' '

§ 70. — a view of perceptual judgment which is so far more

or less accurate, though many questions have yet to be
answered.
§ 71. 'This datum of sense-experience is always there in the
background,
§ 72. and as product cannot be separated from process,
thought-content and the feature of presentation, objective thing
and subjective experience are mere abstractions, which have no
reality apart from sentient experience.'
§ 73. But if existence in the predicate is objective/ why
' ' '

is it not so in the subject, as de facto it appears ? And if psychical

and objective existence are distinct for thought, why not all
along, especially as they are given as distinct in sense-perception ?
§ 74. Because sense-perception is the source of all knowledge
and because the this of sense-perception possesses £ genuine
'
'

feature of reality, it does not follow that reality is sentient

experience.
§ 75. For psychical existence and objective meaning are not
given as one in sense-perception, as Mr. Bradley affirms.
§ 76. Nor is the object of sense-perception necessarily given
as one ; while that presentation as a psychical act is one, does
not prove Mr. Bradley's contention.
§ 77. Mr. Bradley, in fact, has read into the data of experience
preconceived ideas derived from his metaphysic.
§ 78. Thus, the incompleteness of the presented this he ' '

describes as a sensuous infinitude,' and hence infers that in it

*

reality is presented as a whole.

§ 79. Again, his dictum that product must not be separated
'

from process is a mere assumption, for all we know from intro-

'

spection is that psychoses in which sensation is comparatively

predominant are succeeded by psychoses in which distinctions
and relations have taken its place.
§ 80. While to prefer the deliverances of sentience to those of
thought is hardly rational.
§81. The thesis that Reality is sentient experience and that
it is one and individual cannot be proved, therefore, from the
data of experience. pp. 93— 123

b
 — —
'

xviii THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

CHAPTER V,

POSTULATION AND THE EXPERIMENTAL THEORY

OF KNOWLEDGE.
§ 82. The standpoint of both Pragmatism and Humanism is
psychological.
§ 83. According to the pragmatist, all cognition takes the
form of postulation, which is followed by purposive experiments
and so leads to the satisfaction of human needs
§ 84. a doctrine which, in a restricted form, is admitted by
most philosophers* notably by Kant.
§ 85. Indeed, Pragmatism may be regarded as a development
of Kant's Second Critique, just as Absolutism is a development
of the First and the Third. Hence pragmatic scorn for Kant is
hardly justified.
§ 86. Even in the First Critique there are traces of postulation,
and in the Second the principle is fundamental.
§ 87. By Kant, however, postulation is restricted to objects
of faith, while in Pragmatism it is the only source of knowledge ;

but since, in neither theory can a postulate be completely

verified, we may well ask why the pragmatist has generalised
the principle.
§ 88. This generalisation may be accounted for in three ways
(1) by undue emphasis which the pragmatist lays on the
the
emotional and volitional tendencies of our nature, (2) by his
fondness* for the inductive method of the scientist, or (3) by
erroneous psychological analysis.
§ 89. But neither by the first nor by the second method of
arriving at the principle can its universality be established ;

§ 90. while the third fails to take account of facts which ' '

4
appear to be given,' and of axioms which appear to be self-
evident.
§ 91. Professor Dewey, in his Experimental Theory of Know-
ledge, denies that factual experience is strictly cognitional.
§ 92. But his assertion that all knowledge involves actual
remembrance is false, for it is not involved in knowledge per
modum habitus ;

§ 93. cognitive acts necessarily imply memory,

nor do all
§ 94. anticipation.
still less
§ 95. Dr. Schiller attempts to bring axioms into harmony
with the pragmatic theory of knowledge, by showing that they
all began life as postulates.
§ 96. But the principle of Identity,
§ 97. and the principle of Contradiction, as enunciated by
Dr. Schiller, are not the principles for which logicians claim
self -evidence.
§ 98. His account of the origin of belief in the external '

world is also unsatisfactory for if the perception of the real

'
;
'

an 1 the ' external was not immediate at the outset, as it usually

'

Digitized by
 ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS xix

isin adult life, we could never have formed a notion of '

objective
reality ' at all.
§ 99. in fact, breaks down when it
The pragmatic method,
comes to a question of origin, and is forced to seek completion
either in Apriorism or in Aristotle.
§ 100. In conclusion, then, while admitting that postulation
and experiment have an important function in the economy of
knowledge, we must deny that they are the only source of
knowledge. pp. 124 60

CHAPTER VI.
CONCEPTION AND THE COGNITIVE RELATION.
§ Scope of this chapter.
10 1.
102.
§ The content of a concept, according to Mr. Peirce,
consists of the experienced effects of our actions upon objects.
§ 103. And concepts, like axioms, are essentially tools slowly
fashioned by intelligence for the manipulation of experience.
§ 104. In fact, Professor James seems to regard them as
merely tools, symbolic in nature, and directed solely toward
practical ends in accordance with the principle of Thought-
economy.
§ 105. This instrumental
'
or functional
' view of the
'
'

concept undoubtedly contains much truth ;

§ 106. but concepts cannot be identified with images or

words, for the functions of the two are quite different,
§ 107. and against such an identification the evidence of
physiological psychology is conclusive.
§ 108. Moreover, in the substitution-theory of the concept,
' '

its synthetic function is ignored and felt-relations, which have

;

no foundation in experience, are introduced.

§ 109. While in Radical Empiricism knowledge itself becomes
a felt-relation, and the knower is identified with the idea by
which he knows.
§ no. Radical Empiricism, however, can hardly be regarded
as a psychological theory.
§ in. Indeed, its principal thesis, viz., that reality is ex-
perience, is incompatible with the data of experience which testify
that experience is always experience of something.
§ 112. Professor Strong alone has attempted to answer this
difficulty.
§ 113. He begins by telling us that he is unable to distinguish
between the sensation '
red '
and the quality '
red.'
§ 114. But the realist does not affirm that this is possible in
the act of perception itself,
§ 115. though he does affirm that the doctrine which identifies
sensation with the object of external perception contradicts an
introspective fact.
§ 116. Professor Strong, indeed, concedes that matter is
independent of thought, but denies that it is independent of
mind.
 ;

XX THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

§ 117. In perception, however, thought and sensation

function as one j

§ 118. and objects certainly appear to be external to mind.

Hence the distinction is futile, and does not answer the real
difficulty ;

§ while the further argument that the realist cannot

119.
prove the continuous existence of external objects is false, since
continuous existence is implied by their continuous perceptibility.
pp. 160—185

CHAPTER VII.
GENETIC PSYCHOLOGY AND THE FACULTIES.
§ 120. The prevalence of evolutionary ideas finds expression
in the pragmatic theory of knowledge,
§ 121. where the stress laid upon the unity of man, though
not new, serves a useful purpose as a protest against the tendency
to carry distinction and analysis to excess.
§ 122. Nevertheless, the faculties are, to a large extent,
independent
§ 123. and a psychology which minimises distinctions is
more dangerous than one which exaggerates them, since it leads
to one-sided theories, such as Hegehanism, in which Being is
identified with Thought,
§ 124. or Pragmatism in which intellect is subordinated to
will and emotional striving.
§ 125. The baneful effects of evolutionary ideas in Pragma-
tism is further illustrated by Professor James' account of
conception,
§ 126.and in the exaggerated influence ascribed to purpose
§ 127.and to the principle of Thought-economy.
§ 128.Yet a study of knowledge from the genetic point of
view may be advantageous provided we follow the right method,
which is, according to Dr. Schiller, the teleological method.
§ 129. But the teleological method presupposes the psycho-
logical, a fact which Dr. Schiller sometimes overlooks, while in
practice he uses chiefly the historical.
§ 130. This is illustrated by his theory that axioms are at
bottom postulates,
§ 131. and again by the doctrine that concepts are images.
§ 132. Hence the psychology of the pragmatist is loose and
inaccurate as compared with that of Kant or Aristotle ;

§ 133. and his attempt to square epistemology with evolution

is a failure.
§ 134. All of which is due to an exaggerated view of the
importance of the genetic standpoint.
pp. 1S5— 206
 —

ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS xxi

PART II.

THE METAPHYSICAL CONDITIONS OF

KNOWLEDGE.
CHAPTER VIII.
APRIORISM AND ABSOLUTISM.
§ 135. Apriorism was invented in order to explain how
relations between ideas ' can be universal and yet real.
*

§ 136. It postulates that in knowledge the object conforms

to a priori mental forms :

§ 137. hence knowledge, though it presupposes experience,

is not due wholly to experience.

§ 138. Kant divides knowledge into three kinds, empirical,

a priori, and pure a priori.
' '

§ 1 39. Faith is not strictly knowledge, for it quits the field

of possible experience hence the existence of objects of faith
;

is merely postulated

§ 140. an argument which presupposes Immanence, the

fundamental doctrine of Absolutism.
§ 141. But Kant stops short of Absolutism, since he admits
a Ding-an-sich ;
§ 142. and to this dualism are due the chief defects of his
theory.
§ 143. His attempt to overcome it in the Second Critique,
leads only to the further dualism of the pure and practical *
' ' '

reasons ;

§ 144. and this necessitates a Third Critique, in which Kant

approaches nearer to Absolutism, but never reaches it ;

§ 145. for to the end he appears to have remained a dualist.

§ 146. Fichte, however, at once abolished the Ding-an-sich,
and so got rid of dualism ;

§ 147. but in his theory Nature is inadequately accounted

for, and his Absolute is never realised ;

§ 148. while Schelling's Absolute is a mere abstraction.

§ 149. Hegel overcomes these defects by making the Absolute
at once ground, organic unity, and final end or term.
§ 1 50. Absolutism, therefore, is a theory of knowledge trans-
formed into a theory of reality and its differentiations depend
;

largely upon the view which is taken of the Absolute Ground,

which is, however, always some form of consciousness.
§ 151. Thus Green, starting from the data of human con-
sciousness, finds that reality is always conceived by us as an
unalterable order of relations,
xxii THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

§ 152. and that this experience of events as a related series

implies an intelligence wliich is one and which operates as the
unifying principle of that series.
§ 153. With this intelligence we are identical in so far as
we think for the presentation of the many in one, together with
;

the fact that our consciousness has a history in time, can only
be explained by supposing that an animal organism gradually
becomes the vehicle of an external consciousness.
§ 154. The philosophy of Mr. Bradley differs from Green's
chiefly in method.
§ 15 5. The inconsistencies involved in our human conceptions
of reality show that they are merely * appearances,' but, never-
theless, imply that reality has a positive character.
§ 156. Relations and qualities show, further, that reality is
one for plurality, taken as real, implies contradiction.
;

§ 157. Reality must be experience because this is what we

mean when we speak of anything but it must also include
;

volition and thought and be in every sense perfect.

§ 158. Nothing is contradictory when predicated of the
Absolute, but apart from it all aspects of experience are one-
sided, self- transcendent, and therefore mere appearances.
§ 1 59. Appearances are essential to reality, which is the unity
of the Absolute immanent within the whole and giving to each
appearance its degree of truth and perfection. pp. 207—238

CHAPTER IX.
CRITICISM OF APRIORISM.
§ 160. Aphorism affirms that categories and principles of
synthesis are due to the nature of mind, and are presupposed as
the condition of experience.
§ 161. This latter expression is said to be ambiguous, but
Kant certainly understood by condition
4
metaphysical
'

condition.
§ 162. The charge against Aphorism, that it is incompatible
with real growth in knowledge, is better founded for growth ;

in Hegelianism means the growth of self -consciousness, and this

is insufficient, since the categories themselves manifest real
development and change.
§ 163. There seems to be only one a priori condition of
rational experience, viz., the power of apprehending the many
in the one and the one in the many.
§ 164. The subject-predicate form of our judgments,
§ 165. and also their 4
quality and 4
quantity,' can be
'

accounted for empirically.

§ 166. The same may be said of our notions of
4
space '
and
time,'
§ 167. while the synthesis of species under a genus, though
founded in fact, does not reveal the real structure of the universe,
nor is it possible to build up a plan of the universe on this basis.
 ;

ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS xxiii

§ 1 68. Dr. Caird's account of Apriorism is hardly consistent

and, in any case, the view that the object in knowledge conforms
to a definite thought-structure is without foundation.
§ 169. Apriorism, however, is on the decline: its ratio essendi
having disappeared, now that the doctrine of Immanence has
been extended to the real object of knowledge.
§ 170. Even Absolutism starts now from the data of human
—
consciousness, though still using the Critical method a method
which is good, but which does not lead to Absolutism.
pp. 238—256

CHAPTER X.
CRITICISM OF ABSOLUTISM.
§ 171. An Absolutism, such as Green's, claims to be an
explanation of how the data of consciousness come to be what
they are.
§ 172. Mr. Bradley also urges that theory should explain
fact, but pleads that his theory is bound to explain only those
facts which he considers to be relevant and, at the same time,
clearly understood — of which facts, for him, there are practically
none.
§ 173. Such a position is unassailable yet a self -consistent
;

theory which explains no facts is worthless.

§ 174. Nor is it enough to admit the psychical existence of
what is given as a fact, while denying its reality.
§ 175. Mr. Bradley refuses to allow that facts are real on
'
'

the ground that they prove, on examination, to be self-discrepant.

§ 1/6. The facts, however, which he examines are not facts,
but philosophical constructions.
§ 177. Time, for instance, as such, is not a fact, though
founded on fact and explicable philosophically without
contradiction.
§ 178. Change, on the other hand, is a fact but, again, its
;

explanation involves no contradiction,

• § 1 79- while, if the Aristotelian conception of Substance and
Accident is contradictory, so also is Mr. Bradley's conception
of the universe as a Unity in difference. But the real question
is whether that conception is to be applied to the individual
thing or to the Universe at large, and to decide this point we
must discuss the absolutist's theory of relations.
§ 180. There is a certain amount of truth in the statement
that all knowledge is knowledge of relation ;

§ 181. but relations presuppose qualities, and in knowing a

relation we know something, at any rate, of the objects related.
§ 182. The psychological fact that our knowledge of relations
is often prior to our knowledge of qualities does not prove
anything in regard to the real priority of qualities and relations,
especially as this is not always the case,
§ 183. while Mr. Bradley's doctrine, that both qualities and
xxiv THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

relations are appearances, because they mutually presuppose

one another, rests upon assumptions already rejected.
§ 184. In fact, to assert that related objects are not really
*
isolated/ but presuppose unity of ground because they are
united in one act of thought, involves an illicit transition from
the psychological to the real order.
§ 185. Moreover, against the Aristotelian theory of relations
Mr. Bradley's arguments break down, for (1) a relation of
difference in that theory is easily accounted for,
§ 186. (2) a relation does not introduce diversity within
quality, since it is but another aspect of its fundamenium,
§ 187. (3) a change of relation, if real, implies a change in
one of the objects concerned, but not necessarily in both,
§ 188. and (4) Comparison is valid whether relations are
'
real or not.
'

§ 189. The theory of relations upon which Absolutism is

based, therefore, is false though a world of related objects
;

certainly implies a spiritual principle as the condition of its

existence.
§ 190. But is the creative act of this principle an act of
intelligence and is this principle immanent in, and one with, the
;

universe ? This Green and others assume ; but without proof,

§ 191. and with the result that the personality, unity and
humanity of man is destroyed ;
§ 192. while the growth and the actual nature of human
knowledge is still unexplained.
§ For though
193. objectivity,''
otherness and the
'
'

apparent independence of the external world can be accounted

for in some sort of way by Absolutism,
§ the explanations given are not satisfactory.
194.
§ In Green's theory there is also a contradiction, since
195.
the Absolute must be held responsible for both truth and error,
good and evil and though Mr. Bradley declares that these
;

appearances are reconciled in the Absolute, he cannot tell us

how ;

§ 196. nor do his arguments prove that such a reconciliation

is possible.
§ 197. Absolutism, therefore, is essentially incomplete, and
this incompleteness is due to the predominance of certain ideas,
viz.,
§ 198. Organic Whole,
§ 199. Immanence,
§ 200. and Unity in Difference, each of which is valid it
applied to finite things, but invalid if applied to the universe
at large.
§ 201. Absolutism, therefore, is unsatisfactory because it
fails to take account of facts which are relevant, to reconcile
itself with which it would have to undergo considerable
modification. pp. 256—295
 ; — —

ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS XXV

CHAPTER XI.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PURE EXPERIENCE.
I. EXPOSITION.
§ 202. Pragmatism and the philosophy of Pure Experience
are, at any rate, intimately connected.
§ 203. In both reality is identified with experience or with
an aggregate of experiences, which were pure,' but have since4

been vitiated by reflection, analysis and verbalisation (James)

§ 204. and by the selective activity of V action-pensec regu-
lated by the principle of least energy (Le Roy, Avenarius, Mach)
§ 205. an anthropomorphic process (Simmel),
§ 206. in which we and our ancestors impose forms upon a
formless but plastic matter, and thus construct the real ' world '

(Schiller).
§ 207. Thus, in Pragmatism, is revived the characteristic
doctrine of Absolutism, Immanence, though in other respects it
is opposed to Absolutism, being, in fact, an Empiricism
§ 208. which differs from other empiricisms in its doctrine
of postulation and experiment, and —
so far as Professor James
is concerned —
in its theory of felt-relations.
§ 209. Selves,' for Professor James, are merely series of
'

experiences connected by peculiarly intimate felt-relations,

§ 210. which are able to communicate, because, between
them, there is a nucleus of common perception,' viz., space
' '
'

or « pseudo-space '

§211. a doctrine which tends toward Monism, and is there-

fore inconsistent with Pluralism, Personal Idealism, and Panpsy-
chism, which, as a rule, are preferred by pragmatists.
§ 212. Avenarius' Empirio-Criticism is also a philosophy of
Pure Experience, of which the physiological and psychical
are correlative aspects ;

§ 213. and in which one's own self is temporarily distin-

guished from other selves by the Empirio-Critical postulate.
§ 214. But the aim of this philosophy is to get rid of selves,
substances and such like notions, and to reduce everything to
impressions connected by quantitative laws, mutually deducible
one from another.
§ 215. M. Abel Rey, a French physicist, has adopted a
philosophy very much akin to Pragmatism and to the philosophy
of Pure Experience, though he does not profess to be a pragmatist.
§ 216. The categories, he says, must be treated historically ;

and so must truth, which is a biological product that gradually

acquires immunity from change owing to its utility.
§ 217. Hence, for M. Rey, knowledge is one with reality
and experience it is the relation, ce qui est ; and has neither
;

subjective nor objective conditions.

§ 218. M. Rey carries Relativism further than does the
pragmatist
§ 219. yet his philosophy, as a whole, illustrates the tendency
of Pragmatism toward a metaphysic of Pure Experience.
pp. 295—320
 '

xxvi THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

CHAPTER XII.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PURE EXPERIENCE.
II. CRITICISM.
§ 220. To philosophy of Pure Experience in its
criticise the
as yet inchoate form, is no easy task,
§ 221. while to determine its precise relation to Humanism
and Pragmatism is still more difficult.
§ 222. But, at any rate, Dr. Schiller's position approximates
very closely to that of the philosophy of Pure Experience,
§ 223. and he certainly teaches and endeavours to prove
that in knowing we '
make '
reality,
§ 224. and make in a metaphysical sense ;
it

§ 225. though it is not clear whether we 'make' it by

knowledge alone, or by knowledge plus action.
§ 226. But, in any case, if the human making of reality '

extends to all that is real, the process could never have begun,
§ 227. and though the philosophy of Pure Experience alias
Panpsychism solves this difficulty so "far as reality is concerned,
the origin of human knowledge still remains a mystery.
§ 228. Indeed, it would seem that it never could have arisen
at all in a panpsychic universe, if our thoughts never terminate
in other mmds.
§ 229. Professor James appeals to space as a common
medium between mind and mind but this, if it be treated in
;

accordance with the principles of a philosophy of Pure Experi-

ence, leads to Monism and if interpreted realistically, it seems
;

irrational to restrict the common object of perception to space.

§ 230. The disruptive tendency of the philosophy of Pure
Experience is also illustrated by the ' possible experiences ' in
which conceptual thought terminates, for these can never
become actual for * me ' unless different experiences possess
something in common ;
§ 231. and, again, in the philosophy of Avenarius, in which
experiences must be at bottom one, or else, if plural, causally
interact.
§ 232. The self, too, as explained in a philosophy of Pure
Experience, renders memory, purpose, conation, and experience
itself unintelligible ;

§ 233. and so long as this philosophy refuses to admit that

the self is a real unity, it is wholly incompatible with Personal
Idealism.
§ 234. But Personal Idealism itself is unsatisfactory, since
a multiplicity of rational psychic beings cannot be an ultimate
fact, but presupposes either an Absolute ground or else a personal
God.
§ 235. If the latter alternative be adopted, the idealistic
assumption that the subject experiencing and the real object
experienced are not distinct, alone bars the way to a complete
return to Realism.
 ;

ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS xxvii

J 236. In fact, idealists who deny this assumption are

realists,except in name. The pragmatist, on the other hand,
retains this assumption and adds to it his doctrine of the making
of truth and of reality, by which he is either driven on into
Kantian Scepticism, or back into the discrepancies of a
PP. 321—346

CHAPTER XIII.
THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE
EX PARTE OBJECTI.
§ 237. In this and in the two following chapters it is proposed
to give a sketch of the metaphysics of scholastic Realism as a
whole, since in this way alone can its real significance be grasped
and its value rightly estimated.
§ 238. The central idea of the metaphysics of Realism is God,
§ 239. upon whom the created universe is essentially
dependent.
§ 240. That universe consists of finite individual things, each
a unity in difference since it comprises both substance and
accidents.
§ 241. But even at the level of substance a thing has
structure, viz., matter and form, a distinction which is based
on the fact of substantial change.
§ 242. Further structural differences appear at the level of
—
accidents quantity corresponding to matter, and various
qualities determined as to their essential nature by the form.
§ 243. All these accidents may be further determined by
action from without.
§ 244. Thus activity and passivity are characteristic of all
creatures, and in the higher animals become differentiated into
distinct potentia, active or passive, the exercise of which gives
rise to habit.
§ 245. Every existing being tends to persevere in esse suo
a general law which is confirmed rather than contradicted by
the fact of decay.
§ 246. Hence, omne agens agit sibi simile, which is true of
all causes in so far as they operate in producing an effect. An —
illustration of this.
§ 247. Another illustration the — cause of death.
' '

§ 248. The created universe, as understood by the realist,

is not an organic, but a systematic whole, ordered according to
a rational plan, and changing according to definite laws.
§ 249. Considered in relation to man, everything in this
universe is not only one, i.e., individual, but also good and true,
i.e., it may become an object of human knowledge and desire.
Hence, in a sense, the universe exists for man.
§ 250. Mr. Bradley affirms that the doctrine of substance and
accident is self-contradictory but since every thing is a real
;

unity in difference, we may either say that it is white and hard

xxViii THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

and sweet, with its unity of ground,

or, identifying the thing
say that ithas these qualities ;

§ 251. and so may predicate of the ground what is different,

without ascribing to the whole what it is not.
§ 252. Other objections raised by Mr. Bradley are due to
misinterpretation or to the absolutist theory of relations but ;

against causation he urges that it must be at once continuous

and not continuous.
§ 253. Mr. Bradley, however, wrongly conceives a continuum
as a series of unextended points, whereas it essentially implies
extension, either in space or time and though to define the
;

notion is not easy, yet its validity is presupposed by geometry ;

§ 254. and it may, at any rate, be illustrated by the

continuity of consciousness, and, again, by the continuity of
material things.
§ 255. In line, if continuity be rightly understood, we must
affirm that causation also is continuous, a fact which shows
the imperfection, but does not destroy the reality of the finite
world. PP- 346-372

CHAPTER XIV.
THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE
EX PARTE SUBJECTI.— THE SENSES. I.

§ 256. The condition of knowledge ex parte subjecti, in brief,

is a sentient organism endowed with intellect and will, together
with passive and active potentia.
§ 257. Man, however, does not first know his sensations or
ideas and then infer objects to correspond : he thinks of objects
by means of ideas to know and to know how we know are quite
:

different things.
§ 258. The knower and the known are brought together by
interaction for the causal action of the object produces in the
;

sentient organism an impression like in form to itself.

'
'

§ 259. And the correspondence here asserted, so far from

' '

being absurd, not only follows from general metaphysical

principles, but is confirmed by physiology and physics.
4

§ 260. For, in the first place, the quality ot the nervous '

impulse does not depend upon the specific energy of the nerves,'
'

§ 261. but would seem to be determined ultimately by

physical stimuli ;

§ 262. while, in regard to the quality of sensation itself,

' '

its primary function is to enable us to distinguish object from

object, which it does with remarkable accuracy ; and if it tells
us nothing of the nature of objects, it, at any rate, does not
deceive us in that respect.
§ 263. In regard to the sensibilia communia, there is corres-
pondence between configuration in space and retinal or tactual
impressions ;

§ 264. and in the perception of a third dimension the corn-

 ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS XXIX

bination of intensively and extensively graduated series of

sensations is objectively determined.
§ 265. To this it may be objected that the alleged corres-
pondence is merely peripheral, whereas sensation is exclusively
cerebral but neither of these statements can be proved.
;

§ 266. Moreover, the scholastic theory is confirmed by

'localisation,' in which sensations are projected back into their
' '

causes. pp. 373—391

CHAPTER XV.
THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE
EX PARTE SUBJECT!.—II. THE INTELLECT.
§ 267. The intellect is passive in that it is determined by
species derived from the phantasm ;but has also many active
functions.
§ 268. It apprehends or abstracts the universal implicit in
the sense-impression,
§ 269. and thus we get notions which have real significance,
because they correspond to, and are ultimately determined by,
their objects ;

§ 270. for in sense-perception intellect and sensation function

in unity.
§ 271. The notions of Substance, Causality and Purpose are
not only contained implicitly in, but also presupposed by, the
data of consciousness.
§ 272. Thus causality is implied in change ;

§ 273. and substance is presupposed as the ground of a

complexus of accidents or activities though it is for the
;

physicist to draw the line between substantial unities in the

concrete.
§ 274. Many notions are so simple that they cannot be
strictly defined ;

§ 275. except that inasmuch as they form part of the rational

plan of the universe they may be defined by the relations to
which they give rise.
§ 276. Thus geometrical notions once determined, their
relations also are determined, any one of which may be used
to define
'
the notion.
'

§ 277. The aim of all science, in fact, is to reconstruct the

rational plan of the universe in some one of its aspects and their
;

method is one, in that they seek to synthesise a complexity of

relations under a few simple principles.
§ 278. But some sciences are more complete, because more
abstract than others, which presuppose them, and on account
of the complexity of their objects, are developed later.
§ 279. And for a similar reason, while the abstract sciences
are based on axioms, i.e., self-evident truths expressing relations
between simple entities, physical science has no axioms.
§ 280. The laws of nature themselves, in fact, are necessary,
 —

XXX THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

only given the existence of the objects which de facto constitute

the physical universe.
§ 281. Thus the first and second of Newton's laws are not
axioms but general principles which have been verified in
;

experience,
§ 282. for the notion of force which they employ, although
' '

it cannot be defined, is certainly not a mere ratio.' '

§ 283. Again, the third law' of motion, and the principle of

Conservation of Energy are but particular cases of Spinoza's
axiom but since this so-called axiom, as a physical principle, is
;

not self-evident, they require to be verified in experience.

§ 284. And in this verification process the functions of the
intellect —
apprehension, judgment and reasoning are further —
illustrated.
§ 285. Summary of the conditions of knowledge in the
Aristotelico-Scholastic or Causal Theory.
§ 286. Truth, cognition, knowledge, and error defined.
pp. 391—418

PART III.

THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL VALUE OF

COGNITION.
CHAPTER XVI.
DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDITY.
§ 287. The third problem of cognition is intimately connected
with the first and the second.
§ 288. It is useless, however, to discuss the vaUdity of
knowledge, unless we possess it yet there is a tendency in
;

modern philosophy to deny that we know anything for certain.

§ 289. This tendency is due in Absolutism to a preconceived
doctrine of development, and in Pragmatism to the alleged facts
of development.
§ 290. All development, according to the disciples of Kant,
takes the form of a reconciliation of antitheses in a higher
'

synthesis '

§ 291. a principle which is generally recognised in its

psychological form as Apperception though for the pragmatist
;
4
the mediating idea is the leading characteristic in the process.
'

§ 292. This latter point is not of great importance but it is ;

important to note that, as the case of radio-activity shows, de-

velopment does not necessarily involve the negation of previous
hypotheses.
§ 293. Yet this the Hegelian affirms ; and hence in his view
 ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS xxxi

our present knowledge is subject to indefinite modification, so

that it is not strictly knowledge at all.
§ 294. Synechism teaches that the growth of knowledge is
continuous, and will never be completed, and hence the
pragmatist infers that our truest formula are only human
devices conducive to more efficient action.
§ 295. But the variety of conflicting hypotheses in modern
speculation does not justify this sceptical attitude.
§ 296. Common-sense knowledge has increased, but, apart
from religious superstition, has not undergone any radical
change.
§ 297. True, it is the factual element in it that has sur-
'
'

vived ; but facts are knowledge, and we are justified in excluding

superstitions and conjectural interpretations of phenomena,
which were by no means universally accepted.
§ 298. In regard to theory, we are at the present day in a
Eosition quite different from that of the ancients, whose specu-
itions for the most part were tentative.
§ 299. The Copernican revolution is the only reversal of
importance that has occurred in what was generally accepted as
certain and even this has left many truths intact.
;

§ 300. The discovery of the law of Gravitation was not a

reversal but a new truth,
{ 301. and modern theories of the elements and of the con-
stitution of matter do not reverse, but rather include and
develop the essential characteristics of older views.
f 302. The same may be said of the modern theories of light
and of heat.
§ 303. Again, our space would seem to be Euclidian in spite
of the geometry of a fourth dimension.
§ 304. While meta-geometries, so far from disproving,
rather presuppose and confirm the validity of Euclid's geometry.
§ 305. Hence we may conclude that a sceptical attitude
in regard to our present knowledge is justified neither by a
study of its history,
§ 306. nor by the Hegelian theory of development, which
proves to be inconsistent with the facts. pp. 419—448

CHAPTER XVII.
PRAGMATISM AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE.
§ 307. It is not possible to keep philosophy altogether distinct
from science, and as some scientists have taken up a definite
metaphysical standpoint, the philosopher cannot be blamed for
criticising them.
§ 308. Fifty years ago the scientist started from the stand-
point of common-sense Realism, but now many adopt the
attitude of Empirical Idealism or Pragmatic Sensationalism.
§ 309. Mach (and Poincare) distinguish three stages in
scientific procedure.

Digitized by
 —

xxxii THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

§ In the first, the experimental stage, science according

310.
to Mach has
to deal with reality, i.e., with sensations, grouped
together under names according to the principle of Thought-
economy.
311.
§ Thus psychology and physical science treat of the
same objects, but from different points of view.
§ 312. M. Le Roy goes further and affirms that, since in
the formation of our percepts and concepts practical utility and
even caprice may enter, scientific laws are contingent and
'
'

unverifiable.
§ 313. M. Poincare rejects this view yet it seems to be a
;

necessary consequence of the Sensationalism, the Pragmatism,

and. the doctrine of Thought-economy, adopted by Mach and
other scientists.
§ 314. This philosophical position, however, must not be
confused with the scientific Pragmatism of M. Duhem, which is
quite compatible with Realism in metaphysics.
§ 315. For M. Duhem's Pragmatism is restricted to the
4
mathematical stage of physics, whereas that of Mach extends
'

also to the experimental stage, and is really a metaphysic.

§ 316. A further difference also exists M. Poincare admits
:

quasi-axiomatic principles which are beyond the control of

experience, whereas M. Duhem holds that all physical laws must
in the end be verifiable a peu prts.
§ 317. And though these views can to some extent be
reconciled,
§ 318. their divergence seems to have a deeper root in the
philosophical standpoints of their respective advocates.
§ 319. M. Poincare and the French pragmatists regard as
objectively true that which is normal enough to be accepted by
anyone of sound mind.
§ 320. And this 'normal objectivity' belongs only to what is
generally recognised as useful or commode.*
'

§ 321. Such doctrines as these clearly belong to philosophy,

though apparently they have developed from a purely scientific
Pragmatism,
§ 322. an attitude which has arisen from the prevalence of
conflicting theories in science.
§ 323. But a physicist who is a pragmatist in science, may
be a realist in philosophy and it is legitimate to ask whether
;

he ought not also to be a realist in science. pp. 449—473

CHAPTER XVIII.
REALISM AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE.
§ Truth in Realism is determined by its object,
324.
§ and in general it is the aim of the scientist that his
325.
concepts, laws, and truths should be so determined.
§ 326. But is this de facto the case ? M. Duhem thinks
 ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS xxxiii

not, for scientific concepts and laws differ from those of common-
sense in that they are merely symbolic.
§ 327. The scientific concept, however {e.g., Temperature)
is derived in the first instance from experience.

§ 328. And though in defining it an arbitrary element is

introduced, it is really the thing to be defined that is arbitrarily
chosen, not the definition.
§ 329. True, the definition corresponds only approximately
with reality,
§ 330. but its approximate character does not destroy its
validity.
§ 331. Hence, strictly speaking, we cannot say that the
definition is either arbitrary or symbolic,
§ 332. though it is symbolic in that it does not reveal the
intrinsic nature of reality,
§ 333. and again, if expressed as an algebraical formula,
it is symbolic, but none the less objectively valid.

§ 334. Definitions based on theory are in a different category,

for how far they are valid we cannot tell.
§ 335. Similarly empirical laws (e.g., Boyle's law) truly
express relations which hold in the world of objective fact,
4

§ 336. though they are symbolic ' in the sense above

explained, and are only true approximately and under given
conditions.
§ 337. Theoretical hypotheses, on the other hand, contain \

an unknown source of error ;

§ 338. and hence must be carefully distinguished from the

complexus of empirical laws by which they are ultimately to be
verified.
§ 339* Some hold that theory in physics is merely useful '
' ;

but can a theory be useful without being to some extent true ?

§ 340. It would seem that this is impossible for (1) by theory
events in the real world are anticipated,
§ 341. (ii.) the concepts used in theory are, and indeed must
be, similar to those by which we apprehend facts and ;

§ 342. (iii.) theoretical conclusions coincide approximately /

with experimental facts.
§ 343. Some hypotheses, in fact, e.g., the Laws of Motion and
of Gravitation, already seem to have been verified.
§ 344. As also do the leading principles of the Undulatory
Theory of Light.
§ 345. M. Poincare, moreover, emphatically asserts that the
constructions of the physicist are more than a rule for action and
in some way correspond with reality.
§ 346. We
conclude, therefore, that Realism after all is
compatible with physical science, the possibility of which
presupposes more than a mere parallelism between concept and
thing. PP- 473-505

C
xxxiv THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

CHAPTER XIX.
ABSOLUTE TRUTH.
§ 347. Absolute truth is the systematic coherence of a
'

significant whole,' and human truth is the partial manifestation

of this absolute truth in finite centres of experience.
§ 348. This doctrine presupposes (1) that relations intrinsi-
cally modify their terms.
§ 349. (ii.) that all parts get their meaning from the whole
to which they belong, and
§ 350. (iii.) that the real and the mental factor in truth
'
'
'
'

are not independent.

§ 351. And from
follows the corollary (1) that there are no
it
truths which are intrinsically necessary, and
§ 352. (ii.) that truth cannot be predicated of isolated
judgments.
§ 353. Hence Absolute truth is an ideal, toward which human
truth '
approximates in varying degrees, but always at a
'

distance.
§ 354. Criticism : The assumptions upon which this theory
is based are unwarranted ; and '
coherence '
as a criterion of
truth is useless.
§ Professor Bosanquet's view of axioms leads to a
355.
Sceptical Subjectivism, and Mr. Bradley's view, when examined,
turns out to be but little better.
§ 356. The doctrine that isolated judgments are not true, is
merely an inference drawn from the assumption that truth is
coherence, for such judgments have meaning, and are not
necessarily subject to intrinsic modification as knowledge grows.
§ 357. Again, it is not true that there are no judgments which
are false per se, or that such judgments are meaningless.
§ 358. Nor can it be proved that our present knowledge is
subject to indefinite modification.
§ 359. Finally, the metaphysical difficulties inherent in the
Absolutist theory are fatal to it. pp. 506—526

CHAPTER XX.
THE NATURE OF PRAGMATIC TRUTH.
§ 360. The most systematic account of Truth from the
pragmatic point of view is given by Herr Simmel in his Philosophic
des Geldes.
§ 361. In the organisation of our experience, he says, we
look for absolute values, but later on discover that all truth is
relative and that it is impossible to find any axiom which is
self-sufficing.
362.
§ Thus reciprocity of mutual proof is the fundamental
'
'

form of all thought ; and hence of the whole of knowledge truth is

not predicable.
 ; '

ANALYSTS OF CONTENTS XXXV

§ 363. This relativity embraces also the theoretical and

practical interests of life. True ideas do not copy reality, but
lead to conduct useful to the organism in which they function.
§ 364. Systems of theoretical truth are due to selection which
has lead to permanently useful ways of perceiving things thus :

an object is simply a totality of impressions, functionally inter-

related, no one of which is true or false in itself.
§ 365. Similarly axioms are merely regulative principles,
so far subjective but being reciprocal and complementary
;

they gradually approximate toward the ideal of objective

truth ; and in this relation of reciprocity between our ideas
truth consists.
§ 366. In its essential features Herr Simmel's view of truth
agrees with that given by other pragmatists.
§ 367. Professor James defines truth provisionally as a
relation between idea and reality but interprets reality as
;

sensation.
§ 368. Truth, he says, does not copy reality :

§ 369. Truth is a process of working ' which leads to or

4

tends toward reality and which is useful, though useful

;
4

here means particular,' and includes theoretical utility.

4

§ 370. Dr. Schiller's standpoint being genetic, like Herr

Simmel, he conceives truth as relative to purpose and, rejecting ;

correspondence, identifies it with practical utility.

§ 371. Hence abstract truths are not fully true till applied or
verified ;when they tend to become habitual and to win social
recognition.
§ 372. Truth for Dr. Schiller is relative to our faculties but ;
4
he says little of its reciprocity.' pp. 526—550

CHAPTER XXL
THE VALUE OF PRAGMATIC TRI/TH.
§ 373. As a psychological description of the making 4
of truth,'
Herr Simmel's account is accurate enough ;

§ 374. but he has not disproved the validity of the Corres-

pondence-view for varieties in perceptual experience, if not
;

merely accidental, can be accounted for by objective conditions.

§ 375- Moreover, truth as utility presupposes truth as
correspondence.
§ 376. Dr. Schiller's view that abstract truths are not valid
unless applied,
§ 377. does not concord with Professor James' assertion that
4
they are eternal.'
§ 378. All truths, in fact, refer to reality
§ 379. but only empirical truths need to be applied in order
to be verified to demand application or verification in every
:

case means Scepticism.

4

§ 380. Again, to define truth as a process of working is '

not to define what common-sense understands by truth ;

 : —

xxxvi THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

4 '

§ 381. Nor is the definition justifiable unless the copy-view

be wholly untenable.
§ 382. But, even granting this, is the pragmatic view justified
by its consequences ?
383.
§ The habitual, corroborative and reciprocal character
of some truths may be granted but in emphasising relative to
;

the neglect of positive value, and utility to the neglect of real

significance, Herr Simmel has set at nought his own doctrine.
§ 384. The pragmatic theory, in fact, leads to a Sceptical
Subjectivism ; for in that theory
385. (1) all knowledge is tinged by idiosyncrasy,
§
§ 386. (2) all facts are * transfigured by human interests, and
'

verified by a process which itself is largely subjective,

§ 3 8 7« (3) the data to which truth corresponds, and
(4) the
4
objectivity,' and independence4
(etc.) of truth '

are subjectively interpreted.

§ 388. In short, human truth always bears the mark of human
fabrication which can neither be got rid of nor abstracted from.
§ 389. All attempts to escape this Subjectivism are in vain,
for (1) an appeal to 'objective control* does not get rid of the
subjective element,
§ 390. (2) the normal objectivity which is said to arise when
4
'

truths become generally accepted, is not real objectivity,

(3) to declare that facts are 'immanent (whence the '
§ 391.
doctrine that reality cannot be known as it is in itself) implies the
philosophy of Pure Experience, which is untenable,
§ 392. and (4) the claim that pragmatic truth is all we need
is faise, for we desire to know reality. pp. 550—588

CHAPTER XXII.
PRAGMATIC CRITERIA OF TRUTH.
§ 393. Truth must make a difference to action.' This
4
—
criterion is too narrow, if understood literally, and too wide if it
mean difference to experience.'
4

§ 394.
4
Truth must satisfy emotional needs.' But the —
emotions are too variable to afford a sure criterion, and would
only lead to contradictory beliefs.
§ 395. The emotions, however, may be taken as expressive
of the fundamental demands of our nature, an appeal to which is
not irrational, and in some cases may be of service.
§ 396. Truth must be useful, i.e., it must satisfy our practical
4

needs.' —But many facts are quite useless and even harmful, yet
we do not regard them as false or unreal.
It must also determine our expectations rightly.'
4

§ 397.
This criterion is of value in scientific research, but must not be
confused with the practically useful consequences to which a
theory may lead.
§ 398. Truth must stand the test of verification by the
4

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 ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS xxxvii

senses.' —This criterion, like the last, is not distinctively prag-

matic, nor is it always applicable.
§ 399-
'
Truthmust satisfy our intellectual needs, i.e.
must be consistent.' —
But consistency, or the absence of contra-
diction is a negative criterion, and the need of it -is in the prag-
matic theory subjective.
§ 400.
* Truth is at bottom a habit of thought or of per-
ception which is biologically immune from change.'
§ 401. But the 'psychological necessity' thus evolved,
cannot be used as a criterion of truth, just where we most need
one, viz., making of truth.
in the
§ 402. Social agreement is also much insisted on by prag-
*
'

matists but a collective criterion, however interpreted, cannot

;

be ultimate.
§ 403. Lastly, that is true which gives us the maximal
'

—
combination of satisfactions.' But of all criteria this is the most
ambiguous and seems to be wholly subjective.
§ 404. Utility,' in fact, which after all is the characteristic
'

test of truth in Pragmatism, is useless as a criterion even in

practical matters. pp. 589 620 —
CHAPTER XXIII.
CRITERIA OF ERROR IN REALISM.
§ 405.Neither absolutist nor pragmatist can entirely get
rid of thecorrespondence view of truth.
§ 406. This view does not imply that to recognise truth we
must be able to compare thought and thing, but that we must
be able to answer the question 'when has thought been deter-
mined by its object and when not.'
§ 407. To assume that ordinarily go wrong
the faculties
means Scepticism. Hence it is more rational to assume that
ordinarily they go right, and then to enquire when per accidens
they do not.
§ 408. The realist, therefore, looks for criteria of error rather
than criteria of truth, and finds that the cause of error may be
threefold.
§ 409. (1) False appearances may be due (a) to abnormal
4
'

objective conditions, but these can be allowed for or counteracted ;

§ 410. or (b) to abnormal subjective conditions, which may

also be allowed for or counteracted ;

§ 411. and the same holds (c) in regard to the alleged 'rela-
tivity of sensation.'
§ 412. (2) Habit accounts for dreams and hallucinations, but
the not error, and the second is abnormal. It also accounts
first is
for memory, which in general is trustworthy, and may also be
readily checked, if necessary.
§ 413. In perception error is due to habit only in abnormal
cases, and in subsumption can be avoided if we take sufficient
care.
§ 414. (3) The constructive activity of thought, functioning
xxxviii THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

as purpose, does not necessarily lead to error, and the pragma-

tist's contention that fact is distorted by purpose, confuses the
intent with the content of thought.
§ 415. Abstraction, judgment, and reasoning are all per se
reliable, in so far as they compel our assent ; but they do not
always do so,
§ 416. and hence leave room for an influxus voluntatis.
§ 417. This may operate in various ways, and would seem
to be the only cause of formal error.
§ 418. For the realist therefore the ultimate criterion of
truth is objective evidence, or the evident determination of the
mind by the object about which it is thinking.
§ 419. Thus, human testimony in regard to fact is credible,
provided we have no reason to distrust it but theories must
;

be judged by their intrinsic evidence.

§ 420. This does not mean that the evidence need be com-
plete, but that theory be self-consistent and coincide with fact
at least approximately.
§ 421. Similarly in metaphysics 'evidence' is the criterion
by which we judge of principles, processes, and facts and is ;

quite sufficient to give certainty in regard to some of the doctrines

of metaphysics.
§ 422. Regarded psychologically evidence
'
is identical
'

with what Newman calls the sanction of the Illative sense.'

'

§ 423. Newman fully admits the human character of the

4
making",' of truth ; but he is not a pragmatist.
§ 424. For to him, as to the realist, there is but one final
criterion of truth, viz.,
4
objective evidence.' pp. 620—650

CONCLUDING CHAPTER.
§ 425. Absolutism and Pragmatism are differentiations of
Criticism which have developed in opposite directions, but which
both tend toward a more realistic attitude.
§ 426. The psychology of Absolutism is scanty, lifeless, and
non-human that of Pragmatism is genetic and human to such
;

an extent that it leads to Subjectivism.

§ 427. Realism, on the other hand, while recognising the
functions of purpose and action, subordinates them to cognition
proper, and while allowing that axioms are regulative insists that
in their objective aspect they are also constitutive.
§ 428. Though there are striking resemblances between the
metaphysics of Pragmatism and certain forms of Absolutism,
Absolutism is a Monism, Pragmatism a Pluralism.
§ 429. But the assumptions upon which Absolutism is based
and the conclusions to which it leads are incompatible with the
data of human experience ;

§ 430. while its theory of relations, being at bottom psycho-

logical, inevitably results in contradiction.
 —

ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS xxxix

§ 431. Nevertheless the principal theses of Absolutism can,

by the aid of distinctions, be re-interpreted in a realist sense ;

§ 432. and thus by distinguishing the meaning of categories

when applied to God, from their meaning when applied to finite
things, the realist is able to reconcile the plurality of the universe
with its unity.
§ 433. Hence, without destroying Absolutism altogether
for he admits the reality of an Absolute Ground as well as the
reality of finite beings and human personality —
the realist is
able to retain precisely those doctrines which to the pragmatist
are of most vital importance.
§ 434. Lastly in Realism the psychological characteristics
of truth, insisted on by the pragmatist, are reconciled with the
Intellectualism of the absolutists.
§ 435. While at the same time the realist keeps clear of
Scepticism.
§ 436. Pragmatism,on the other hand, is even more sceptical
than Absolutism, and can reconcile conflicting theories only by
sacrificing '
Truth.'
§ 437. Its most characteristic doctrines, too, are fraught with
ambiguity.
§ 438. And —
primary aim the re-establishing of meta-
in its
physics, it has proved an utter failure.
§ 439. Still, possible for the realist to distinguish in
it is
Absolutism and in Pragmatism the true from the false, and so to
preserve that which is of the greatest value in both theories,
§ 440. without undermining common-sense beliefs, to deny
which is to fall into Scepticism.
§ 441. Hence Realism, so far from being a static philosophy,
is yet full of life, and is the only philosophy which can satis-
factorily explain the data of human experience.
pp. 651—679
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 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

Cognition

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS — ITS METAPHYSICAL

CONDITIONS, AND ITS EPISTEMOLOGICAL VALUE

INTRODUCTION
§ i Cognition is an act of the mind, one of the three
.

primary functions into which modern psychology

divide^ «!1 psychical activity. But it is more than
this; it implies a relatio ad extra, a reference to

something other than itself, a something we call an

object, in contradistinction from the subject, which
is the mind itself that knows. To discover the
nature of this relation is the aim of a theory of
knowledge. Hence its problem is three-fold. We
have to analyse psychologically the nature and
function of those mental activities by which know-
ledge is acquired and to discuss the influence which
they have upon one another we have to enquire
;

into the conditions of knowledge, to ask what

precisely is to be understood by subject and object,
B

Digitized by
2 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

and how far knowledge is due to the activity of the

one, how far to that of the other and we have to
;

examine the notions of validity, truth, objectivity,

and to determine the criterion by which we may
decide when these notions are applicable to an act
of cognition, and when they are not. No one of
these aspects of the problem can be left out if our
treatment of the subject is to be adequate. A
theory of knowledge which fails to define its position
in regard to any one of them is incomplete. At the
same time the scope of the theory of knowledge is
so vast, the terms which an epistemologist uses are
capable of so many different shades of meaning,
the analysis of mental processes which he institutes
have given apparently such divergent results, and
the relations which he finds to exist between mind
on the one hand and objective reality on the other
admit of so many different interpretations, that
some division of the subject must perforce be made ;

and the obvious division is that which I have

indicated above. Accordingly, we shall discuss first
the psychology of cognition secondly, its meta-
;

physical conditions and, lastly, its epistemological

;

value, i.e., the objectivity and validity of cognitive

acts and the criteria by which we distinguish the
true from the false.
Various solutions of the problem of knowledge
§ 2.
have been offered at different times as philosophy
has developed but just as that problem is three-
;

fold, so curiously enough there are three solutions,

each of them characteristic of a distinctive line in
modern philosophic thought, which especially claim
the attention of the philosopher of to-day. Were
 INTRODUCTION 3

I writing a history of the theory of knowledge, it

would be possible, I think, to show that modern

theories are but developments of older views ; but
this is not my present purpose. Suffice it to say,
that in discussing modern attitudes in respect to
the theory of knowledge, we are in reality discussing
the a bygone age stripped of their
solutions of
antique ornaments and peculiar old-fashioned dress,
and decked, instead, in the rich and flowing robes
with which the fashion of the, day contrives to
obscure the outlines of the form that is hid beneath.
If it be true that " thereis nothing new under the

sun," it is also true in philosophy that there is

nothing that grows old. Pragmatism, that strange
mushroom growth which sprang up in a night and
has spread itself on the morning breeze throughout
the continents of Europe and America, does but
revive the human standpoint of Protagoras and the
perpetual evolution of Heraclitus' flux. The critical
Apriorism of Kant, developing through Hegel and
his off-spring, the Neo-Hegelians, has culminated in
an Absolute Idealism which recalls at once the
Platonic theory of a world of eihrj and the doctrine
of Parmenides that the universe is one, plurality
and difference mere seeming, while at the same time
imparting to both a dynamic impulse more con-
sistent with our modern conception of organic life
and growth. The third solution is that of the
realist. Realism, if we may "argue from outward
expression to inward thought, dates back at least
to the time when man first began to record his
thoughts in writing. Finding at length systematic
formulation in the philosophy of Aristotle, it became
4 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

the central feature of thethe Scholasticism of

Middle Ages. Since the Renaissance and the
Reformation, however, the influence of the Aris-
totelian scholastic has been restricted for the most
part to seminaries and to some few catholic univer-
sities, most of the great centres of learning preferring
the Idealism of some thinker more modern and
more daring than either Aristotle
in his speculations
or Aquinas. Realism
indeed characteristic of the
is
"
Scottish School, and there are signs that a " new
Realism is gaining ground in the philosophic world
at large nevertheless, if we wish to study it as a
;

system, we must study it either in Aristotle himself

or in the philosophy of Modern Scholasticism which
takes Aristotle as its base.
Pragmatism, Absolutism and Scholastic Realism
§ 3.
contain amongst them at least in germ the only
possible solutions which can be given to the problem
of knowledge. Psychologically, knowledge may be
regarded either as a function of the intellect or as a
function of the will ; or else we may hold that,
while both intellect and will co-operate, their
functions are distinct. Metaphysically, the universe
is either one or many, the origin of knowledge either
subjective or objective, the distinction of subject
and object either relative or absolute. And, episte-
mologically, truth is either theoretical or practical,
and depends for its acceptance either upon its
power to satisfy the intellect or upon its power to
satisfy our practical needs and our will, or, it may
be, upon both. Again, our present knowledge is
either a mere moment in the process of evolution,
capable of indefinite modification in the future ;
 INTRODUCTION 5

or there are some truths which are axiomatic and

self-evident and thus form a foundation upon
which a system of validated truth may be built.
Each of these alternatives may be said to character-
ise one or other of the three Epistemologies we are
about to consider. As, however, on the one hand
a theory of knowledge should be considered as a
whole and judged as a whole, while, on the other
hand, owing to the vastness of the subject, we are
forced to make arbitrary divisions, and to treat it

part by part, it will be better perhaps for us to give

a preliminary sketch of the general character and
standpoint of each of these theories before pro-
ceeding to compare their positions in regard to
psychology, metaphysics and the criteria and nature
of truth.
§ 4. A theory of knowledge is implicitly a
refutation of scepticism ; and when any develop-
ment in that theory takes place, it is usually pre-
ceded and conditioned by the sceptical tendencies
of the day, from which it seeks an escape. Scepticism
was especially repugnant to the mind of Kant, at
once synthetical, critical and religious. He saw
that it contained its own refutation, and refused to
believe that " human reason lures us on by false
hopes only to deceive us in the end." The prolific
fruitfulness of philosophic minds in the age which
preceded his own had led to many conflicting
doctrines. Geulincx, Malebranche and Spinoza had
drawn from Cartesian premises conclusions incon-
sistent with each other. Leibnitz had been suc-
ceeded by the semi-scholastic Wolff. Each
philosopher attempted to solve the problem of
6 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

Reality in a different way, and the Sceptic, watching

this conflict of intellect with intellect, used the
arguments of one side only to refute those of the
other. Cartesianism, Occasionalism, the Vision en
Dieu, Spinozism, the Monadology, and the School of
Wolff were by him alike repudiated. To the Sceptic
the confusion of dogmatic Rationalism signified the
bankruptcy of reason. Kant, whose education in
the School of Wolff pre-disposed him to take the
Intellectualist side against the Sensationalism of
Locke and Hume, admitted, while bemoaning, the
controversies and differences which prevailed among
Rationalists but at the same time blamed the
;

Sceptic for " ignoring points of agreement and

finding only opposition, where they should have
sought the pre-suppositions between which con-
flicting dogmas rest." " Scepticism," he says,
" might have been a useful regress had it gone back
over the ground traversed by the dogmatists to the
1
point where their wanderings began." But to deny
the validity of reason could lead only to philosophic
despair. The theories of Descartes, Leibnitz,
and Spinoza were incompatible and their incom-
patibility demanded explanation, but it did not
justify sceptical doubt. Their un-divergencies
doubtedly concealed much that was true. To
declare with the Sceptic that metaphysical reasoning
could lead to nought but inconsistency was to ignore
the difference between what is- complementary and
what is contradictory. Divergence and conflict by
no means justified such despair for it might be ;

possible, by re-examining the fundamental principles

1
Kritik dcr rcinvn Vcrnuvjt. Preface to Second Edition.
 ;

INTRODUCTION 7

of all philosophyand all cognition, to find a common

ground by means of which all differences might be
reconciled or explained, and in this way to re-
establish on a surer basis the metaphysical notions
of God, of Immortality and of Freedom.
§ 5. Here, implicit even in the Introduction to
the Critique of Pure Reason, are two principles which
characterise all Critical Philosophy the principle
:

of Unity in difference, and the principle of the

reconciliation of antitheses in a higher synthesis.
Both principles in Kant are logical rather than
metaphysical ; and logically understood they form
the basis of Hegel's famous Dialectic, as well as of
more modern works such as the Logic of Professor
Bosanquet and Dr Joachim's Nature oj Truth.
c
Truth, as Unity in Difference,' becomes a system,
an organism, in which no judgment has meaning if
taken by itself, but each is essentially relative, and
can be understood only if taken in conjunction with
others, while these again form together but a partial
aspect of the whole. The Whole alone is self-
evident, absolutely and consistent
intelligible
and until we know it as it is, with all its differences,
our knowledge will be imperfect and incomplete.
Hence all truth is an approximation, subject to
modifications which may transform it almost beyond
recognition. Every theory in science or philosophy
is a thesis which admits of an antithesis with which

it can be completely reconciled only when the Whole

is known. All knowledge is organic but human

;

knowledge is an organism which is but partially

developed. It is ever evolving, ever getting modi-
fied, ever growing, yet never seeming to approach
8 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

much nearer to the Ideal which alone can give it

truth by making it perfect and complete.

§ 6. Though Kant in the Critique of Judgment
speaks of the universe as an organic whole which, as
Ground, determines the form and combination of
the parts in systematic unity, the metaphysical
import of the doctrine of Unity in difference and of
its corollary —
or perhaps its presupposition the —
doctrine of Immanence was but imperfectly realised
by its author. The conception of the universe as
Unity of Ground amid structural difference is char-
acteristic rather of the Fichtean and Hegelian
development of Criticism, and constitutes the central
feature of Absolute Idealism. But we must return
to Kant in order to seek yet another principle which
is even more characteristic of his own philosophy, and

which has lived on after him as another distinguishing

mark by which we may recognise the Critical
philosopher.
Kant proposed to repel the attacks of scepticism
and to re-establish the authority of reason by a
new method. The rationalist had failed hitherto
because he had based his reasoning upon principles
and postulates which he had never examined. His
philosophy was too objective. Absorbed in the
work of construction, he forgot to enquire into the
conditions which rendered his constructions possible.
His method was essentially dogmatic, for he reasoned
without first criticising the faculty of reason.
Systems built upon such uncritical foundations
inevitably resulted in inconsistency, for ignorant of
the sphere within which their conceptions were
valid, some gave to one principle universal
 INTRODUCTION 9

application, while others denied it altogether, and

substituted another in its stead. This fundamental
error Kant proposed to remedy by enquiring
critically into the presuppositions of knowledge
itself, especially of metaphysical knowledge, by
what he calls a " critical examination of the faculty
it seeks for knowledge
of reason in general in so far as
that independent of all experience." 1
is

§ 7. It was what he understood to be the methods

of science that suggested to Kant his new method of
Critical Philosophy. Struck by the contrast between
the insecurity of metaphysics and the harmonious
results which had been attained in physics and
mathematics since the days of Bacon, he asked
himself why it was that metaphysics " had never
been so fortunate as to hit upon the sure path of
science, but had kept groping about, and groping,
*
too, among the same ideas."

The intellectual revolution by which at a bound

mathematics and physics became what they are now,
is [he says] so remarkable that we are called upon
to ask what was the essential feature of the change
that proved so advantageous to them, and to try at
least to apply to metaphysics as far as possible a method
that has been successful in other rational sciences.*

As a result of this enquiry, Kant found that in

physics and mathematics reason forces nature to
conform to a preconceived plan. The scientist
forms his conceptions and his definitions a priori,
and in the light of these he interprets nature, forcing
its data to conform to his preconceived ideas.
Nature is intelligible only by means of that which
1 2 3
loc, cit. t p. xxxv. loc. cit., p. xiv. loc. cit., p. xvi.
10 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

reason has put into Nature. The possibility

itself

of science depends upon a priori categories to which

experience is compelled to conform. Generalising
this principle, Kant postulated that in all knowledge
the object conforms to the mind and not the mind
to the object; and thereby he hoped to get rid of
the contradictions of rational and dogmatic meta-
physics.
In this purpose, as judged by the opinion of his
successors, Kant failed for he separated subject
;

and object in such a way that they could never be

brought together in knowledge. Yet the principle
of a priori synthesis remains. For Critical
Philosophy the mind, by its activity, does not
merely acquire, but constitutes knowledge. Every
man, as the late Dr. Caird puts it, " has within him
the general plan for a self-consistent natural
system," 1 by means of which he arranges, synthe-
sises, categorises and brings to unity the manifold of
sense. The categories of Kant were no mere empty
forms, but real syntheses ;no mere receptacles into
which matter is poured molten lead into a mould,
like
but active functionings of the mind. The com- '

bining activity of the understanding converts the

'

chaotic manifold of sense into the world of

experience, and the mind, observing a sequence,
by its own act makes it a causal connection. Even
the Transcendental Unity of Apperception is not
' '

merely the abstract presupposition of all knowledge,

but implies at bottom the self-activity of the
subject.
§ 8. But though Kant analysed the structure of
1
Critical Philosophy of Kant, vol. i., p. 18.
 1

INTRODUCTION 1

the human mind and discovered the various forms

of synthesis by which it combines and integrates
the data of experience, he did not treat of the
development of these categories, nor of their relations
inter se. He endowed his categories with activity
indeed, but not with life. It was Hegel who
organised the categories and imparted to them
dynamic force. It was Hegel who made them
relative and declared that, apart from one another,
they are nothing at all. Yet if pure affirmation is
its own negation, affirmative and negative as
opposites are reconciled in a higher unity which
expresses their correlativity as parts of a significant
whole. And combining this idea with the Fichtean
revolution which had abolished the noumenal thing-
in-itself, we are led to the notion of Reality as a
rational and organic system, in which all differences
are relative and presuppose identity of ground. Of
this the final unity, the category of categories, for
Hegel is self-consciousness which transcends even
the fundamental difference of the self and the
not-self and recognises that objective reality is
posited by itself, in itself, and for itself, in order
that it may realise and know itself. This is the
development of knowledge, absolute
final stage in the
knowledge but it exists merely as an Idea, a term
;

toward which as mind we are ever approaching

but which we never reach.
Thus Absolutism is Criticism self-realised. Finding
that thought and being are one, from a Theory of
Knowledge Criticism has grown into a Theory of
Reality. The categories are no longer regarded as
constitutive of a phenomenal, but of a real world ;
12 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

and that last condition of all knowledge the —

Transcendental Unity of Apperception is hypos- —
tatised, becoming the real Subject of an universal
consciousness, an Absolute which is the Ground of
all things, and yet is nothing in abstraction from

that of which it is the Ground. A logical pre-

supposition is henceforth transformed into an
ontological principle. The unknown thing-in-itself
—that bug-bear of all philosophers — is banished for
ever. Thought and Reality are identified in the
living knowledge of a concrete organic whole.
Kant declared that he was concerned " not with
objects, but with the way in which the knowledge
of objects may be gained, so far as that is possible
a priori." Criticism, for him, was " not a doctrine,
but a criticism of pure reason, and its special value
is entirely negative, because it does not enlarge our

knowledge, but only casts light upon the nature of

reason and enables us to keep it free from error."
But Criticism, in examining its own presuppositions,
discovered that the ultimate metaphysical con-
ditions of knowledge, subject and object, are
essentially relative, immanent and ultimately
identical in the Ground of Knowledge itself. From
a Method Criticism grew into a Theory of Knowledge,
and from a Theory of Knowledge it has developed
into a Metaphysic.
9.
" The essential feature of the method of
§
Neo-Kantianism," says Professor Veitch, " is its
analysis of knowing and its consequent determina-
tion of what is meant by being ; and, indeed, of
Being itself."
1
And though we may decline to
1
Knowing and Being, p. 12.
 "

INTRODUCTION 13

designate as Kantian writers of such divergent views

as Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Renouvier, Green, the
brothers Caird, or Messrs. Wallace, McTaggart,
Bradley, Joachim and Bosanquet, the fact remains
that the fundamental principles of their philo-
sophical positions are the same as those of Kant.
All adopt the principles of Immanence and of
identity of ground amid structural difference. All
maintain, with Renouvier, that "the nature of mind
is such that no knowledge can be acquired or

expressed, and consequently no real existence

conceived, except by means of relation and as a
system of relations." 1 All acknowledge, with Mr.
Bradley, that Reality cannot be vitiated by self-
discrepancy, "and that since Reality is one, and
must own and cannot be less than appearance, 2
we must somehow reconcile discrepant appearances
in higher syntheses. In this way knowledge is
evolved, but its evolution for us is incomplete and, ;

therefore, as all allow, with Dr. Joachim, our know-

ledge is only an approximation and may have to
undergo indefinite modification in every part before
it attains to the Ideal of a significant and systematic

Whole. Finally, all grant the a priori structure

and the constructive activity of mind, in virtue
of which, as Professor Bosanquet puts it, " intelli-
gence creates and sustains our real world," so that
" logical science is the analysis, not of individual
real objects, but of the intellectual structure of
8
reality."

1
Les dilemmes de la Metaphysiquc, p. II.
1
Appearance and Reality, p. 105.
* Logic, vol. ii., 236.
p.
14 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

These considerations justify us, I think, in

classing those idealist philosophers who identify
being and thought, and affirm the universe to be a
rational and systematic whole, comprising a ground
and its multiform differences, as members of one
great school in which, amid much divergence and
variety of opinion, the main principles of Criticism
still survive. Absolutism or Objective Idealism if —
we may give the doctrines of this school a common
—
name is thus a thesis in the organic development
of philosophic thought and according to Hegelian
;

principles we should look for an antithesis that :

antithesis is Pragmatism.
§ 10. In its origin there is a remarkable resem-
blance between Pragmatism and Absolutism. So
manifold were the differentiations of Critical
Philosophy, so vague and mystical many of its
ideas, so non-human and difficult to grasp its

interpretation of the Universe, that at length a

protest was evolved, accompanied by a demand
for clearness and greater simplicity of
greater
thought. This demand was first voiced by Mr.
C. S. Peirce (1879) who suggested a new kind of
Occam's razor by means of which we might dis-
tinguish useful from useless metaphysical notions.
'
Only those notions which had practical bearings
'

on human life were worthy of discussion the rest ;

might be consigned to oblivion. Metaphysics, he

says, " has hitherto been a piece of amusement for
idle minds, a sort of game at chess and the ratio
;

essendi of Pragmatism is to make a clean sweep of

most of the propositions of ontology, nearly all of
which arc senseless rubbish, where words are defined
 INTRODUCTION

by words and so on without ever reaching any real

1
concept."
Mr. Peirce's ideas did not take root imme-
diately but after an interval o*f several years
;

they reappeared in the writings of Professor James

and Dr. Schiller, and, backed up by vigorous
polemics from the pens of both these writers, have
developed into that many-sided Theory of Know-
ledge, which we now know under the name of
Pragmatism. Professor James and Dr. Schiller
both thought that Metaphysics once again needed
to be " re-established on a surer basis " in order to
defend it from the attacks of Scepticism. Dr.
Schiller was convinced that " the vague and mean-
44 "
ingless abstractions," the gorgeous cloudland
and " the philosophic extravagance " of Absolutism

must have generated an unavowed but deep-rooted and

widespread distrust of and disgust with the methods
which have starved philosophy in the midst of plenty,
and condemned it to sterility and decay in the very
midst of the unparalleled progress of all other branches
2
of knowledge.

§ ii. As in the days of Kant, so now, one of the

branches of knowledge in which progress is most
rapid and most marked is that of Science.
Accordingly we once more find the philosopher
asking the scientist to teach him how to philosophise.
The revolution in philosophy which Mr. Peirce
inaugurated was significant. If metaphysical ideas
are to be valued according to their practical bearings
and if our conception of such bearings or effects is
1
The Monist, Apr. 1905, p. 171.
1
Riddles of the Sphinx, p. 94.
16 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

the whole of our conception of an object, then truth

will be determined in part at least by purposes and
needs, and our evaluations will depend largely upon
the emotions and the will. The thesis which
Professor James defends in his Will to Believe is
precisely this, that our emotions not only do, but
ought, in some cases at any rate, to act as
determinants of choice in regard to rival theories.
This is of the very essence of Pragmatism but at ;

the time when the Will to Believe was written

Pragmatism was still in the embryonic stage. What
itneeded was a principle, more precise and more
scientific than the practical maxim of Peirce, yet
at thesame time no less human, a principle which
should sum up in a few words the universal
characteristics of the act of cognition. Already in
his pre-pragmatic Riddles Dr.*Schiller had suggested
that it might be possible to provide food for the
starving philosopher, " simply by basing our Meta-
physics on our Science, " and eventually the required
principle was found in the method of Science, which
is now discovered to consist, not, as Kant said, in
forcing nature to conform to a priori forms already
existing in the mind, but in framing hypotheses with
a view to controlling nature and in verifying those
hypotheses in experience by means of their practical
results.
Pragmatism claims that this is the universal form
which all cognition takes. " All mental life is
1
purposive." Cognition is due to the exigencies of
human nature which awaken in us the desire to
organise the crude material of experience and
1
Schiller, Studies in Humanism, p. 10,
 INTRODUCTION 17

" transmute it into palatable, manageable, and

1
liveable forms." Hence Pragmatism is "a syste-
matic protest against all ignoring of the purposive
2
character of actual knowing," or "a thorough
recognition that the purposive character of mental
lifegenerally must influence and pervade our most
remotely cognitive activities." 3 In order to mould
experience to suit our needs, we frame hypotheses
4
or make guesses,' in which we postulate that
whenever we perform any determinate action
nature will respond in a certain way. We then
experiment, that is, we carry into execution the
proposed action and await results. If nature, as
modified by our action, responds on all occasions in
the way we desire, our postulate is validated and
is so far true. If nature does not respond as we
desire, we frame a new hypothesis and experiment
again.
Thus for the pragmatists experience is experi- ' '

ment in the concrete. In the acquisition of

knowledge we always begin with a hypothesis
which we doubt and wish to verify. It presents
a claim to truth, but is not yet true.' Action '

follows, and if its consequences harmonise with our

preconceptions, our hypothesis is confirmed and
4
validated. Hence all truths are logical values.
They are hypotheses framed so as to satisfy our needs
and verified in experience. They are worth some-
thing to us for they enable us to adapt ourselves
to our environment, or rather to adapt that environ-
1
Schiller, 'Axioms as Postulates '
in Personal Idealism, § 1.
1
Studies in Humanism, p. II.
3
Schiller, Humanism, p. 8.
* Pcirce, " What Pragmatism is," Monist, Apr. 1905, p. 173.
C
 THEORIES OF KNOW LEDGE

ment to the exigencies of our nature. That is true

which, by its consequences, satisfies human needs ;

and the pragmatic criterion of truth, though it may

be expressed in many ways, is ultimately reducible
to this power of consequences to satisfy our needs,
not indeed any particular need, but the needs of
our whole nature and personality.
§ 12. This is Pragmatism, which, from an
examination of " the actual ways in which dis-
crimination between the true and the false is
effected," professes to have discovered a general
method of determining the nature of truth. Dr.
Schiller, however, in his Axioms as Postulates extends
the pragmatic doctrine of Postulation to the genesis
of knowledge in the past history of the race. We
seem to be given an external world, but this is an
illusion it has really been formed by the validated
;

postulates of our ancestors, and in so far as it seems

to be given to us in ready-made concepts and
axioms, we are really living on our capital, inherited
or acquired, not helping to carve or create
' '
the
cosmos, but enjoying the fruit of our labours or
1
those of others. This application of pragmatic
principles to the genesis of knowledge in the race
is known as Humanism. It is an extension and a
generalisation of Mr. Peirce's maxim that the idea
of a thing is the idea of its consequences for us. All
truths, no matter whether they appear as axioms
or as a priori concepts, are at bottom man-made
truths, values determined by human needs.
Humanism, says Professor James, " is the doctrine
that, to an unascertainable extent, our truths are
1
'Axioms as Postulates,' § 5.
 INTRODUCTION 19

man-made products. Human nature shapes all

our questions, human satisfaction lurks in all our
answers, all our formulas have a human twist."
1

The terms Pragmatism and Humanism

'
' ' '
§ 13.
are usually applied to the latest development of
Anglo-American Philosophy; but M. Blondel origi-
by the name
nally called his Philosophic de V Action
of Pragmatism while French writers such as
;

MM. Le Roy, Wilbois, Milhaud, and German writers

such as Mach, Avenarius, and Simmel, are frequently
claimed as humanists, and even " the great
Poincare," says Professor James, " misses it only
by the breadth of a hair." 2
M. Blondel's philosophy, however, is hardly prag-
matic. Still, inasmuch as his philosophic proof of

great religious truths is based on the Ideals which ' '

are revealed in purposive human action, there is a

certain resemblance in their religious aspect between
the two doctrines. The pragmatism of Le Roy,
Mach and other French and German writers, on the
other hand, very similar to the
is Anglo-American
production, though it appears to have originated
quite independently of Professor James and Dr.
Schiller. It began as a Critique of Science and ;

to Science it is still, for the most part, restricted.

The Neo-Criticism of Renouvier marked a return to
the point view of the Practical Reason. In
of
emphasising the antithesis between scientific cate-
gories and the postulate of Freedom, he gave
preference to the latter and pronounced Science
incapable of solving the problem of Reality except
on the basis of Freedom. The French Philosophic
de la Contingence takes a similarly restricted view
1 2
Pragmatism, p. 242. Mind, N.S. 52, p. 46.
20 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

of but goes
the applicability of scientific laws ;

further, and Kantian

to a large extent reverses the
Revolution. Nature, in this theory, is not deter-
mined by any a priori forms, but is an independent
and even a free agency. We try to reconstruct it
mentally, but it refuses to conform exactly to the
categories we upon it. We seek to explain it
force
by universal and necessary laws but they are;

found to be inapplicable many cases,

for the simple
in
reason that their necessity and their universality is
due to our abstraction, and not to Nature itself,
which is concrete and contingent. M. Boutroux,
in his work entitled De la Contingence des Lois de la
Nature, definitely introduces freedefm into the
hitherto sacred realm of Physical Science.
1
No
physical law is absolutely exact, but only d peu
prts, because
it expresses merefy a quantitative

relationbetween phenomena, whereas, in reality,

over and above the phenomenon there is the sub-
stance over and above quantity, quality
; and ;

over and above the law, the real cause. Real

causes, moreover, though striving to attain a
definite end, are in some degree free in respect of
the means which they use. Consequently the
future is contingent ; natural laws are not necessary,
and their universality is weakened by an element
of chance.

§ 14. The connection between this Philosophic

de la Contingence —or as
sometimes called The
it is '

New Philosophy of France and Anglo-American'

—
Pragmatism lies in this, that both protest against
1
cf. Humanism, pp. T2 (note), 15, and Studies in Humanism,
pp. 41 1 et seq. 427.
 INTRODUCTION 21

the view that in knowledge we copy reality. Science,

they say, has no right to hypostatise her laws, for
they are mere abstractions. Still less has she any
right to regard them as constitutive, for they are
merely methodological. From the time of Mon-
taigne onwards Scepticism had withheld its
destructive hand from the creations of the scientist,
but now the Scientific Methods in which Kant had
so firm a belief, are once more called in question.
Science and Metaphysics are reduced to the same
level of certainty or uncertainty. Both are con-
structions and must stand or fall together according
as they behave under the rigorous test of practical
consequences for man. Both work by means of
hypotheses which can only as a rule be partially
verified and so are never certain, but only more
;

or less probable, more or less convenient, workable,

prolific, satisfactory. The '
true '
is the expedient,
the hypothesis that is work. But
useful and will
work to-day may not work to-morrow,'
4
what will
so that truth for the Pragmatist as for the Absolutist
is never more than an approximation, provisionally
true but subject to indefinite modification. " When
we discover the by hypotheses
place which is held
in the Sciences," says M. Poincare, " we ask our-
selves if all their constructions are well-founded,
and we believe that a breath would destroy them." 1
Scientific laws, M. Le Roy declares, are merely
symbols, convenient formulae, discours, which, the
more systematic they become, the further are they
removed from concrete reality. Similarly, Professor
James asserts that scientific definitions are only
1
Pref. to La Science et L'Hypothese.
22 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

*
man-made formula^,' which exist in verbal and
conceptual quarters, and lead to useful, sensible
termini, but which cannot be said to correspond
with them.
§ 15. There is a growing tendency, too, in both
French and Anglo-American Pragmatism to take a
social view of Truth and to regard it as satisfying
;

the common needs of the race rather than those

which are peculiar to the individual. Truth has
what M. Milhaud calls a "normal objectivity Or
as M. Poincare expresses it, " Nothing is objective
but that which is true for all." 1 Professor James
likewise affirms that " true ideas lead to consistency,
stability,and flowing human intercourse, and lead
aw ay from eccentricity and isolation." 2 Even Dr.
r

Schiller, who believes that our metaphysics must

always have a personal tinge, 3 yet admits that the
latter tends to disappear through the interaction of
human minds, which gradually learn to impose the
same, or at least very similar, forms on the plastic
4
receptivity of matter. Clearly, then, the 'new'
Philosophy of France forms part of the pragmatic
movement, though, like the German edition of
Pragmatism, it is confined, for the most part, to the
Philosophy of Science, and neglects that religious
and emotional aspect of Pragmatism which is set
forth in the Will to Believe and in The Ethical Basis
of Metaphysics with which Dr. Schiller introduces
us to his work on Humanism.
§ 16. In Germany, Pragmatism has found a
1
La Valcur de la Science, p. 265.
2
Pragmatism, p. 215.
3 *
Axioms as Postulates.' § t.
4
Ibid : §!j 1 to 5, and cf. Studies in Humanism, pp. 16, 17 and 428.
 Introduction

friend in Herr Simmel, who, in his Philosophic des

Gcldcs, treats incidentally of the nature of truth.
Herr Simmel regards truth as a value determined
by our needs, of which economical values are only
a particular case but though his standpoint and
;

the general form of his arguments is different from

that usually adopted by Pragmatism, his claim to
rank as a pragmatist can hardly be questioned.
Professor Mach also is undoubtedly a pragmatist ;

and his Pragmatism is much more thorough-going

even than that of the Philosophic de la Contingcnce,
though, like the latter, it is chiefly concerned with
Science. For Professor Mach, as for M. Poincare,
the data of Science are sensations, and its aim is to
organise, classify and systematise the latter by
means of symbolic formulae. All cognition is

governed by the principle of Thought-economy,

which expresses a primary need of our nature and
demands, among other things, that when experience
fails to confirm our expectations, a minimum of
modification must be introduced into the ideas by
which it is symbolised, and that both ideas and
formulae must always be expressed in the simplest
possible way.
Avenarius has given to the scientific theory of
Energetics, of which Professors Mach and Ostwald
are among the chief representatives, a philosophical
setting in his Kritik der reine:i Erfahrung (1890).
His point of view is biological. Knowledge is only
—
one form of a vital series pain, striving, satisfaction ;

and, as with Professor Mach, the principle of

Thought-economy dominates all cognitive activities.
As knowledge develops, the useless representations
 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

which characterise popular religions and realistic

philosophies will be eliminated. True philosophy
must return to pure experience, in which all know-
ledge is descriptive, and
which quantitative
in
and laws prevail.
rather than qualitative relations
§ 17. Whether or not there is any metaphysic
which can be called pragmatic may be disputed.
Indeed, Professor James expressly declares that
Pragmatism is compatible with any metaphysic, and
the Corridor-Theory of the Italian pragmatist,
Papini, seems to confirm this view. On the other
hand, we are informed that the primary aim of
Pragmatism is to re-establish metaphysics on a
scientific basis and Mr. Peirce's test of practical
;
'

bearings was '

intended especially for the elimination
of useless
'
metaphysical notions, a purpose to
'

which both Professor James and Dr. Schiller are

accustomed to apply it. Moreover, every theory of
knowledge has to discuss the metaphysical conditions
of knowledge, and so is forced, nolens volens, to take
up some metaphysical attitude. Pragmatism, then,
cannot help being to some extent metaphysical.
This is admitted by Professor James, who tells us
that Pragmatism has at any rate metaphysical
'

affinities ;' and if we may judge by his own meta-

physical writings, the tendency of Pragmatism is
toward a Philosophy of Pure Experience, in which
no trans-experiential agents of unification, sub-
stances, intellectual categories and powers, or selves,
1
are needed. Dr. Schiller, on the other hand, has
defined Pragmatism in one place as " a conscious

1 "
A World of Pure Experience " (James), Journ. of Phil,
Psy. and Sc. Methods, 1904, p. 534.
 INTRODUCTION

application to epistemology (or logic) of a teleo-

logical psychology which ultimately implies a
voluntaristic metaphysic." 1 Now for a voluntaristic
metaphysic, " actual realities are always relative
to the ends of practical life, and human valuations

exercise their sway over every region of our

2
experience." Hence, regarded from this aspect,
Pragmatism would seem to tend toward Personal
Idealism, since that practical life in regard to which
reality is relative, and that active process of
evaluation in which truth is said to consist, seems
to imply a real personal agent. In any case, Prag-
matism certainly has pronounced metaphysical
affinities, and these we must discuss in their proper
place, and shall then see how far the Philosophy
of Pure Experience and Personal Idealism are
presupposed by and how far they serve to complete
Pragmatism itself.
§ 18. The term Realism, in its original significa-
applied to the doctrine that universals have,
tion, is
at any rate, some kind of objective existence and
are not mere creations of the mind but the term ;

has acquired a wider signification and may now be

applied to any philosophy which adopts the stand-
point of common-sense, and attempts to interpret
and systematise its beliefs without explaining them
away. Now, the ordinary man believes in real
objects, real houses, windows, doors, stones, trees,
animals and men, which exist and act and thrive
and are acted upon quite independently of himself.
He does not confuse things with his own sensations,
nor does he ever dream that it is he himself or his
1
Studies in Humanism, p. 12. 2
Humanism, p. 8.
26 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

ancestors, or both, who have constructed and built

up the world he sees about him by the action of
their minds. He regards his own thoughts and
feelings as somewhat flimsy and extremely transient
acts or qualities which belong to himself, whereas
the existence of real things is something quite
different. Real things have their own qualities,
colours, shapes, sizes, weights. Some of them move
about, others remain still. Some of them grow,
others do not. But all of them have properties by
which we are able to distinguish one from another, to
recognise them and to get to know them. The plain
man knows something about himself, too. He, like
the rest, is a thing,' but a thing which thinks and
'

feels and wills, besides being able to move, to act

and to be acted upon. He believes, also, that there
are many other beings which have ideas, emotions,
passions like to his own, to which they give
expression in much the same way that he does.
Finally, he usually believes also in a supreme
Being, far more perfect than all the rest of the
—
world put together a Being by whom all these
things have been made, who watches over them,
and by whom he and other human beings will be
rewarded or punished according to their deserts.
Such, in brief, are the beliefs of common-sense,
and with these as his data, the realist begins to
philosophise. He does not assume the validity of
all these beliefs as a datum. The validity of belief
in the existence of God, for instance, has to be
proved. Nevertheless that, in general, there are
real things which have an existence and nature of
their own, and are in this respect both independent
 INTRODUCTION 21

of and external to himself, he regards as a self-

evident truth, as he does also the possibility of
knowing them. Or, to put the matter in another
way, it is self-evident that knowledge
to the realist
is possible.Hence he infers that the faculties by
means of which knowledge is acquired must, in
general, be trustworthy, and their deliverances
objectively valid. Now, one of the deliverances of
our human faculties which is not only normal, but
absolutely universal, and, one might almost say,
instinctive, is that there does exist an objective
real world hence this also the realist accepts as a
;

self-evident truth. Similarly, in regard to those

other beliefs of common-sense, the belief in real
substances, causes, activities, purposes, the aim of
the realist is to explain without explaining away.
Somehow such beliefs have arisen, and it is the
business of the philosopher to account for them,
to discuss their origin, toshow how far they are
valid, and, if show how far they err, and
invalid, to
how it comes about that what seems to be a natural
and normal function of the human mind should
lead us astray. In this enquiry the guiding principle
of the realist is Hold fast to what you
as follows.
know, and do not doubt what you seem to have
arrived at by an immediate judgment and a natural
process of reasoning unless you are forced so to do.
The beliefs of spontaneous common-sense may, in
the end, turn out to be false but do not begin by ;

assuming them to be false. Rather accept them

as true, and then sec whether, on this basis, it is
not possible to give a rational and consistent account
of the universe —
an account which shall explain

Digitized by
2$ THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

both the nature and the possibility of knowledge

and truth, and which shall also provide us with
useful criteria for distinguishing truth from
error.

§ 19. The realist, then, begins to philosophise

from the point of view of common-sense. Accord-
ingly he understands by knowledge a psychical act
or state in which somehow the nature of objective
Reality is revealed to the human mind, and by truth
the correspondence of knowledge with objective
fact. We observe, perceive, apprehend, judge and
reason correctly in so far as our observation, per-
ception, concepts, judgments and conclusions have
an objective counterpart to which they correspond.
Truth is But there can be no question
an adequatio.
of truth, unless conceiving, and
in perceiving,
judging, our thoughts have objective reference.
Sensations as such are neither true nor false, but
only become so when integrated into percepts and
referred to objective Reality. Objective reference,
however, is a function of the intellect, and as it is

this which gives to our thoughts and ideas their

claim to truth, truth is defined, not as an adequatio
sensus, but as an adequatio intellectus et rei.
§ 20. How is this adequatio or correspondence
possible Common-sense believes that objects act
?

upon the senses, and it is upon this assumption and

upon the principle that every effect must resemble
its cause, that the realist —
or at any rate the
scholastic realist —bases his explanation of corres-
pondence. External and material objects affect our
senses and thus directly or indirectly determine the
content of thought; i.e., determine what we think
 INTRODUCTION 29

as opposed to thought itself considered as a form of

mental activity. The metaphysical conditions of
knowledge in Realism, therefore, are on the part
of the object (1) activity (omne ens agit secundum
suatn naturam) and (2) intelligibility (omne ens non
solum est unum (individunm) et bonum (appetibile),
scd ctiam varum (intelligibile) while on the part of
;

the subject there is required both passivity (omnis

cognitio fit secundum similitudinem cogniti et cogno-
scentis) and activity of a psychical and conscious
order (cognitum est in cognoscenti secundum modum
cognoscentis). Further, owing to the fact that all

intellectual activity conditioned by that of the

is

nervous system, which alone is directly affected by

material objects, cognition is mediated by sense-
perception, and all knowledge is ultimately derived
from sense-data. (Nihil est in intellectu nisi quod
jucrit in This latter condition, however,
sensu).
does not exclude the possibility of our knowing
objects other than those of which we have direct
experience, as Kant maintained. On the contrary,
we know many we have had no
things of which
direct experience ; from the existence of
for just as
knowledge we may infer the existence of whatever
is presupposed by knowledge as its condition, so

from the fact that certain objects exist and are

directly experienced, we may infer the existence of
others as their conditions or causes.
§ 21. The ultimate
criterion oi truth for Realism
follows from theory of the nature of truth. It
its

is objective evidence we give our assent only when

;

we believe that the object and not any other cause

has determined the content of our thoughts. Other
3° THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

criteria there are, of course, for contradiction, illicit

inference, the influence of prejudice, preconceived

ideas and illusions due to the abnormal state of the
mind, must be excluded ;but these are mostly
negative, and in the end assent is given, or should
be given, only when it is evident that the object
about which we are thinking, and that alone, has
determined the content of our thoughts.
§ 22. The theory of knowledge which I have
briefly outlined above and to which I have given the
name is, in principle, the same as that
of Realism,
of Aristotleand Aquinas, though neither of these
philosophers wrote what we should call an
Epistemology. There are other Realisms. Reid,
Hamilton, and the Scottish school of Common-
Sense base their Realism solely on Intuition, and
consequently their treatment of the subject is far
less systematic than that of Aristotle or the
Scholastics. There is also a new Realism which ' '

has found many exponents in England and America,

notably Professor Bertrand Russell and Mr. Moore.
The '
new '
realists distinguish consciousness from
the objects about which we are conscious not only
in external sense-perception and ideal thought, but
in all perception and Hunger, pain
in all thought.
and pleasure are not identical with the feeling or
consciousness of hunger, of pain and of pleasure.
Doubtless there is something to be said in favour
of this opinion, though it may easily be misunder-
stood, and suggests the ultra-Realism of certain
Mediaeval philosophers. In any case as yet the
4
new Realism is not sufficiently explicit on the
'

larger question of metaphysics to admit of our

 INTRODUCTION 3i

taking it as an alternative to the more fully

developed Pragmatism and Absolutism.
§ 23. Accordingly, when I speak of Realism in
the course of this study, I shall refer to Realism as
interpreted by Aristotle and the Scholastics, for
this is only systematic and fully developed
the
Realism. Moreover, there has been of late, as
Professor Case has pointed out, a marked tendency
to return to the Aristotelian standpoint in philo-
sophy, and it is the justification of this tendency
which I wish to discuss. Materialism and Positivism,
though still plausible to superficial minds, have
proved themselves incapable of giving an inter-
pretation of the Universe which can satisfy the
philosopher. Absolutism, Pragmatism and Realism
arc the only alternatives between which the philo-
sopher can make a rational choice. Pragmatism is
the antithesis of Absolutism, and at present is
contending with the latter for supremacy in the
philosophic world. Realism, in regard to these two
extremes, occupies a via media, and it is as a via
media that I wish here to present it. Aristotle has
said that virtue lies in the mean and we may say ;

the same, perhaps, of philosophic truth. But by

a via media I understand not an eclectic philosophy,
nor yet a compromise, but rather what Hegelians
would call a '
higher '
synthesis. The true way in
philosophy is that which, by a critical examination
of the very foundation upon which philosophy is
built, shall discover at what point precisely diver-
gence has arisen, shall show how far the divergence
on either side is due to exaggeration or to a one-
sided view, and hence shall be able to reconcile the
3^ THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

two antitheses by distinguishing in them that which

is true and well-founded, from that which is false.

§ 24. At the root of every philosophy, moreover,

lies its Theory of Knowledge. Hence, no surer test
of the strength of a philosophic position can be
applied than an examination of the theory of
knowledge upon which it is based. The conditions
which that theory must satisfy are, as I have already
indicated, three-fold. First of all, its psychological
analyses of cognition must be exact ; it must not
generalise for theory's sake unless such generalisations
are warranted by introspective fact. Secondly,
metaphysical conditions must be assigned which
show the possibility of knowledge and of truth,
while yet retaining for these terms their full and
real significance for to mutilate the notion of
;

truth in order to explain it is irrational, and to

assign to knowledge a sense altogether foreign to that
which is commonly accepted, is to explain, not
knowledge, but something else for which it would
have been better to coin a new term. And, in the
third place, the validity of cognitive processes must
be examined, and criteria of truth assigned by
means of which to test their validity. How far
Absolutism, Pragmatism and Realism satisfy these
conditions remains to be seen but in so far as
;

either fails, it is incomplete, and must contain

somewhere an element of error. A final judgment
cannot be passed, however, until we have studied
each theory in all its bearings, psychological, meta-
physical, and epistemological, since each theory
forms a whole, and as a whole it should be judged.
 PART I.

The Psychological Analysis of

Cognition.

CHAPTER I.

THE DATA OF EXPERIENCE.

SENSE-PERCEPTION.

§ 25. It is impossible to examine the truth of

theory with any hope of success, unless first we
know where fact ends and where theory begins.
Theory itself may be, and often, indeed, it claims
to be, merely a description of facts, more accurate,
more ultimate, and more systematic than that of
the data with which we started. Hence the dis-
tinction between theory and fact, it may be said,
is relative to our point of view. Be that as it may,
it is necessary to start somewhere, and it is necessary

also clearly to realise where we do start. For, in

order to discuss the validity of explanation or
theoretical description — if the latter term be pre-
ferred — it is essential to know precisely what it is

we are trying to explain. Philosophers, scientists,

all theorists do de facto take for granted certain
'
data which they think will be clear, obvious, given '

to everybody alike, and will therefore be admitted

D
34 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

by all. Much philosophic confusion, however,

might have been avoided in the past had theorists
taken the trouble at the outset to tell us precisely
what their data were, instead of leaving it to critics
to discover this for themselves.
§ 26. What, then, are the data upon which the
Theory of Knowledge is built ? What the facts
which an epistemologist may take for granted
without being guilty of a petitio principii ? The
philosopher will reply the data of experience ;' and
'

of late, philosophising scientists also have taken up

this convenient formula. But what are the data
of experience ? The phrase is a familiar one, yet
I doubt if any two persons would interpret it

exactly in the same way. Does it mean the data

of our experience, or the data of '
pure '
experience ?

If the data of our experience, by what means are

we to distinguish a datum from what is
what is

not, i.e., from what

due to interpretation, to
is

preconceived ideas, to a background of theory ?

And if the data of pure experience is meant, how
' '

are these data to be discovered, and where are they

to be found ?
Mr. Shadworth Hodgson holds that all philosophy
1
should start from the data of pure experience. The
distinctions of subject and object, of things and
their appearances, of mind and matter, are to be
excluded from the realm of the given. They
are not data, but accretions with which the pure

1
cf. Studies in Humanism, p. 187, where Dr. Schiller tells us
that '
Fact,' in the wider sense of the terra, which includes
imaginings, illusions, errors, and which is anterior to the dis-
tinction of appearance and reality, is " the starting point and
final touchstone of all our theories about reality."
 THE DATA OF EXPERIENCE 35

data of experience have been distorted and

defiled.

Although [he says] the ultimate data of experience

without which all further or more complex forms of
it would be impossible, consists of states or process-
contents of consciousness, this by no means implies
that they consist of states or process-contents of
consciousness as distinguished from realities. 1

To regard them as such is to adopt the psycho-

logical point of view,and hence to introduce into
philosophy an assumption which is wholly unfounded
in thedata of pure experience.
Now, it is a very easy matter to tell us that we

must begin to philosophise merely upon the data

of pure experience but it is quite a different
' '
;

matter to attempt to carry this principle out in

practice. For, from what source, may I ask, are
such data to be obtained ? To whose experience
do they belong ? To that of the amoeba, the
savage, the new-born babe, perhaps. But we are
neither amoebae, nor savages, nor yet new-born
babes nor can we imagine what is the state of
;

mind of such interesting beings. We cannot even

construct it hypothetically, no matter how powerful
our imagination may be, or how apt we may be
at making guesses, unless we first study the data
of our own experience, and base our fanciful guess-
work upon Jthese. Personally, though I have tried
hard, I must confess that I have found myself quite
unable to get rid of the subject-object distinction
in any of my conscious acts. Either I think of
things as part of myself, or else as something other
1
The Metaphysics of Experience, vol. i.. p. 1 16.
 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

than myself. Even when basking idly in the sun

or passively enduring the pleasures of a warm bath,
or gazing with absent mind at what is before me,
there still seems to be in my mind some faint dis-
tinguishing of subject and object. It may be said
that put the distinction there when I reflect.
I

Possibly; but such a statement, at any rate, is not

a datum of experience. I seem to be able to intro-
spect a psychical act, even while taking place
it is ;

and there I find the distinction sure enough. But

even if all introspection is retrospection it still seems
to be true that in any act of cognition which is just
going, or which is retained in memory, objects are
regarded as something other than myself. Indeed,
if introspection is incompatible with direct objective

experience, it ought also to be incompatible with

retained or remembered experiences, and so to be
impossible altogether.
In no case, however, is my argument affected.
For unless memory invariably plays us false, the
distinction of subject and object, which appears
when we reflect, must have been there originally,
though it may have belonged to the fringe of con- ' '

sciousness to which we do not directly attend. That

all developed human consciousness is noetic, and

that in all noetic consciousness subject and object

are distinct, is, in fact, admitted now by almost all
psychologists. Our experience is certainly not pare
experience. It may have been pure when we
' '

started life, but of this we neither have nor can have

any certain knowledge, for no one remembers what
he was like when first he emerged from his mother's
womb. It is absurd, then, to base philosophy on
 THE DATA OF EXPERIENCE 37

data of which we have no certain knowledge, and

about which no two philosophers can be found to
agree. Our only course, therefore, is to start with
knowledge as we have it, with human knowledge,
which is the only knowledge common to us all, and
upon which each may reflect when he wills.
§ 27. The data of our experience, then, are the
data from which the epistemologist must start and
which he must seek to explain. 1 These data,
thanks to introspection, are readily accessible to
all. Our minds are always more or less cognitive.
We are always observing, listening, reading,
thinking. Even when actively engaged we are not
wholly unconscious of what is going on around us,
and we certainly think, as a rule, about what we
are doing. Each one of us has already acquired
a stock of knowledge of greater or less extent, and
to this he adds daily by perception, by inference,
and by means of information gained from others.
Thus it is possible for us to study, not only know-
ledge as a habit or state of mind, but also knowledge
in the making.
There is clearly a difficulty, however, in taking as
our starting point the data of our experience. Our
experience is certainly not what it was in infancy,
and it may be objected that the beliefs which now
accompany our cognitive acts and seem to be spon-
taneous are not so in reality. The data of our
experience, it may be said, are so hopelessly inter-
mingled with interpretations due to the process by
1
Studies in Humanism, p. 184, where we are told that we
cf.
must start with " immediate experience, with the actual knowing
just as we find it in our own adult minds " but contrast p. 187
;

cited above § 26 where a contradictory assertion is made.

38 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

which knowledge has been acquired in the individual

or in the race, that it is impossible to distinguish
what is a datum from what is not. The possibility
of such an admixture of interpretation with primitive
data cannot be denied. But it must be remembered
that we do not claim to start with primitive data.
It is one thing to say that we have in our experience
such and such data, and quite another thing to
'
pretend that these data are the data of pure '

or original experience. The data of our experience,

our beliefs about ourselves and objective reality and
the judgments in which such beliefs are acquired,
confirmed and expressed, these we know for certain.
Of these we are directly conscious, and can discover
by introspection, not, indeed, how they arose in
the first instance, but how we add to them by the
actual cognitive processes which are constantly
taking place in our own minds. Such beliefs may or
may not be illusory, but it is certain that we have
them. They may or may not be impure '
they
;
'

may or may not be due to interpretation and illicit

inference that remains to be proved and can neither
;

be assumed nor straightway denied. But it is

certain that at present belief in our own existence,
spiritual and corporeal, in an objective and material
world, and in other minds and bodies like to our
own, appears to be spontaneous and natural. Of
the data of pure experience no one can tell us
' '

anything for certain. Their very existence is little

more than a hypothesis. But the data of our
experience are simply the beliefs of the plain man
before he begins to philosophise, and the cognitive
processes by which fresh beliefs are day by day
 THE DATA OF EXPERIENCE 39

—
generated in his mind beliefs and processes which,
I allow, are not what they were when the man was

a child, and which may be illusory and false, but

beliefs and processes which, provided we make no
assumption as to their objective validity, are
certainly obvious to all and disputed by none, and
so may be taken as data for a theory of knowledge.
From these data every epistemologist, whether
Kantian, Pragmatist, or Realist, has begun, and
must always begin, for these are tfie only data
that exist for us. Having philosophised already, it
may be somewhat difficult, perhaps, to eliminate
the influence of one's own philosophic standpoint
from one's introspective readings. However, we
can but make the attempt, and endeavour to correct
the errors of one's own by the assist-
introspection
ance of those who arehappy state of
still in the
unsophisticated common-sense; and we may well
begin with sense-perception, which, as the primary
source from which all knowledge is derived, naturally
has the first claim upon our attention.
§ 28.
4
At the present moment there is a little

tit upon my window-sill picking up crumbs of bread.'

This statement implies a judgment on my part. I
perceived a tit in a certain environment, and have
expressed my act of perception in the form of a
judgment to the truth of which I give my assent.
What involved in this act of cognition ? Was-
is

there any activity on my part ? Apparently there

was, for I refer the act of perception to myself and
say that / perceived. I seem to have been conscious,
even during the act of perception itself, of my own
psychical operation. True, my self-consciousness
40 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

was very slight. It was with the perceived objects

that my attention was chiefly, if not wholly,
engrossed. Yet I certainly did not confuse the
tit,the window, and the garden which I saw through
the window, with myself, nor yet again with one
another. To me they at once appeared as things,
objective, real, distinct. I saw the little tit with

its yellow breast, its greenish-blue wings and the

black and white markings of its back. I heard the
rattle of its claws and the tapping of its beak. I

observed how it threw crumb after crumb aside

before it found one to suit its taste. Then, when
it flew away and my attention passed to the window
and the garden, I recognised them at once. Hedges
and trees and plants and soil were clearly distin-
guished. I was conscious that they were the same

as they were a moment ago, the same as they were

yesterday and the day before and to this judgment
;

also I gave my assent. To me, at any rate, my

judgment did not present merely a claim to '

truth ;it was a truth, immediate, factual, self-

'

evident.
Now, all this, the psychologist will tell me, implies
thatI had sensations of colour, of yellow and black

and white, and sensations of sound by means of

which I distinguished one object from another, and
muscular sensations by means of which I assigned
them to their respective distances, and universal
ideas under which the different objects were sub-
sumed. This, however, is theory pure and simple.
No doubt it is well-founded and true. Nevertheless,
sensations were not given as data in the series of
perceptions which occurred. Sensations and ideas
 THE DATA OF EXPERIENCE 41

may have been involved in each of my acts of

perception, but was not aware of it at the time.
I

I did not perceive my sensations nor yet my ideas.

What I perceived were external objects. Nor was
I conscious either in the act of perception itself or

in the reflective act which followed, that I perceived

by means of sensations and ideas though, as a ;

psychologist, I believe this to be actually the case.

The colours which I observed, belonged as qualities
to the tit the distances were given as part of what
;

I perceived the tit, the window, and the garden

;

were objects, things, having the qualities and

performing the actions which I have described.
All I did was to perceive. It was the objects
themselves which possessed qualities, were stationary
or moved about, were active or passive, underwent
changes, or, again, did not change at all.
§ 29. Nor do I seem to have been responsible
in any way for what occurred, except in so far as
I was conscious of it. I say that I distinguished

object from object yet this seems to be a figure of

;

speech rather than an accurate description of fact. I

was not aware of any distinguishing or of any

synthesis on my part. What I perceived was not
perceived as one whole. The tit was a whole and
so were the other objects, but each whole was
individual and distinct from the rest. From the
outset the tit was from the
clearly distinguished
window and the garden and though the trees and
;

hedges of the latter were not distinguished from

one another till my attention was directed to them
after the tit had gone, they were certainly neither
perceived nor felt as a whole. There was, indeed,
 .

42 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

a certain togetherness about what I perceived. I

saw a-tit-through-a-window-overlooking-the-garden
But this simply means that I took in the scene at
a single glance, not that the different objects which
I perceived were merged in any felt-whole or were

in any sense a unity. The only real wholes which

I seem to perceive are individual objects. The
perception of these doubtless implies the synthesis
of qualities distinguished one by one in the past and
re-united to form my percept of (v.g.) the tit. But
these qualities do not constitute a felt whole. The
whole itself, as well as its unity and the different
qualities it seems to be something
comprises,
objective, something distinct from me and inde-
pendent of any activity on my part, something the
parts of which I believe to have been there all
along, whether distinguished and again synthesised
by me or not. Both analysis and synthesis, in a
sense, are mine, since it is I who make them. But
in making them cannot help myself.
I The object
seems to force me to make them, and in so
doing to reveal to my mind its own nature,
its own objective, real, and individual unity in
difference.

§ 30. can find no trace of purpose in

Again, I
the acts of I have described.
perception They
seemed to occur quite accidentally, and to have
nothing to do either with my purposes or with my
needs. If you ask me what it was made me perceive
what I did perceive, I should say it was just the
objects which were there when I looked up. Perhaps
I looked up to see what was there ? It may be that
I did but I do not see how this affects what I saw,
;

Digitized by
 THE DATA OF EXPERIENCE 43

or how can possibly be said to modify the facts

it

which I observed.If facts are modified or muti-

lated by purposes, it is certainly not a datum of
experience. To the plain man, even when he
selects his facts, as when he goes out to look for a
golf -ball which he lost the day before, or when he
digs in British tumuli in the hope of finding traces
of a bygone age, or when he works in the laboratory,
arranging apparatus, weighing chemicals, pouring
—
out acids in a word, preparing his experiments it —
does not seem that his purposive and selective
actions alter what he finds, in the sense of making
it less real or less objective. They are still facts,
though it was he himself who placed the conditions
which brought those facts to light. Perception may
often be purposive, but purpose determines the
intent, not the content, of thought it determines
;

what we look for, not what we find. Perception

may also be selective, for there are many things
which we might observe but do not, because such
things are irrelevant to our purpose and so fail to
attract our attention. Nevertheless, what we do
observe even under circumstances which we our-
selves have brought about, we believe to be as
objectively true and real as the facts which force
themselves upon our notice independently of any
pre-formed purpose or pre-conceived idea. Experi-
mental observations seem to be as valid objectively
as those which are made by the comparatively
passive observer. In neither case is assent deter-
mined by purpose or by the power of facts to
satisfy our needs for whether we find what we want
;

or discover something else, whether our experiments

44 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

turn out as desired or otherwise, we accept as given

what we perceive to take place.
§ 31. Ordinarily, too, assent is absolute. Either
we assent or we doubt. And if the plain man assents
to a fact perceived by himself, rarely can you get
him to own that he has made a mistake. Should
you succeed, however, a judicious use of the Socratic
method will lead to interesting results. The plain
man probably qualify his admission of error
will
by some such phrase as " Well it looked like that
!

at any rate." By which he means that though

things in reality were not as he perceived them,
yet they appeared to be so at the time. If, however,
you press the point you will probably succeed in
convincing him that his mistake was due, not to
false appearance, but to false inference or to a false
interpretation of sense-data. And by this means
you be able to prove to him that in perception
will
we not only use the senses but also subsume objects
under universal ideas, and that errors of perception
are often due to the subsumption of a perceived
object under the wrong idea. Indeed, that he has
what logicians call universal ideas, he will readily
admit. For he knows what is meant (v.g.) by a
man. It is a being with a body more or less like his
own and performing actions very much in the same
way that he does. And there are many objects of
this kind to which his idea of man
4
is applicable.
'

Of colours, sizes and shapes he can tell you little

perhaps, but he knows that they are qualities which
may belong to the same or to different objects. Of
honesty, virtue and truth he can tell you more,
since these concern him more closely and he has
 THE DATA OF EXPERIENCE 45

probably thought more about them and often

heard them discussed. In any case, he may
easily be convinced that of such qualities he
has universal ideas and also that these ideas are
abstract, for he knows very well that colours
are never found without something coloured,
and that honesty does not exist except in an
honest man.
§ 32. Now, suppose you call the attention of
this victim of your philosophic zeal to a dirty,
unkempt, and ill-clad object lying by the road-side,
and ask him what he takes it to be. Suppose also
he replies that it may be either a gipsy or a tramp,
'

more probably the latter.' You may then point

out that here an inference has been made, and that
though this inference is based upon perceptual data,
the predicates gipsy and tramp are not actually
fc
' ' '

contained therein as objects of sense-perception.

Hence you may show that in many cases of what
seems be immediate perception, inference is
to
involved. For instance, the minds of other men
are not perceived directly, but inferred from the
perception of their bodies. In the universal idea
'
'
man,' therefore, certain characteristics or '
notes
are not objects of sense-perception, but of inference.
And the same may be said of many other universal
ideas. At the same time, though we can distinguish
in a universal idea, especially when we
hesitate in
applying it, elements which are not given in sense-
data from those which are, both what we perceive
and what we infer belongs to the object, and belongs
to it,' not on account of our way of looking at it or
thinking about it, but on account of its own nature,
46 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

which we seem to be able, by means of perception

and inference, to get to know.
Whether we perceive directly or whether we infer,
we believe that it is the object itself whose nature
is revealed to our intelligence.
§ 33. Thus both universal ideas and inferences
are involved in perception, as even the plain man
may be forced to admit. however, and
Strictly,
as applied to perception in general, this is not a
datum of perceptual experience, but belongs to
theory. Ordinarily, what we perceive, whether it be
natural objects, or their qualities, colours, shapes
and distances, we perceive immediately. Our sub-
sumption is not deliberate. Our universal ideas
function unconsciously. The assertion that all
perception involves subsumption under universal
ideas and is really inferential in character is itself
an inference based on particular cases in which
perception and stumbles. That universal
halts
ideas exist, and function in sense-perception can
readily be verified in experience but whether or
;

not all perception is inferential is quite another

matter. Indeed, if it were, it would be difficult to
conceive how perception could begin.
§ 34. vSimilarly, all questions as to the function-
ing of sensation-complexes and of a priori categories
or forms, the synthetic and constructive activity
of the mind, the modification of fact owing to
selection, purposes and needs, so far as perception
in general is concerned, pertain to theory. In some
cases hypotheses of this kind explain very well how
we perceive, but fail to satisfy other conditions,
and are often in contradiction with common-sense
 THE DATA OF EXPERIENCE 47

belief, the theory that universals

as, for instance,
are a priori forms of the mind while the hypothesis
;

that the objects of perception are sensations is even

worse off, for it explains nothing. It does not even
explain how we perceive, still less how we come to
believe in an objective and
world consisting of
real
numberless individual objects, quite independent
of ourselves, except when directly or indirectly we
operate upon them by physical movements or
when they operate upon us. It may be
vice versa
true, after all, that what we perceive are at bottom
nothing but our own sensations, but this, at any
rate, is not a datum of experience nor a commoit^
sense belief. It is a theory ;
nay, more, a meta-
physical theory, for which, personally, I can find

no adequate foundation in the data of experience,

and the value of which for epistemology seems to
me to be evanescent. To introspection, what we
perceive does not appear as something determined
by us, and we certainly believe it to be determined
ab extra. The object of perception appears, not as
a sensation, nor yet as a synthesis of sense-data
under a priori forms, but as a thing having qualities
and performing operations, and sometimes in addi-
tion to this, but never instead of this, serving certain
purposes which we wish to realise. Colour appears,
not as a sensation, but as a quality of real things ;

and a thing is something which has qualities but

is not itself merely a quality. The plain man knows
little of the nature of things and their qualities.

He cannot define them. None the less qualities

appear to him as distinct from one another, and
distinct from himself. He does not say that he

Digitized by
48 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

has sensations of hardness or roughness, but that

things feel hard or soft, rough or smooth. Sounds,
too, and even smells, are perceived, not as sensations,
but as the qualities of things. We say that we hear
a sound or perceive a smell, not that we have an
auditory or an olfactory sensation and this holds ;

even when we fail to localise the sound or the smell.

The object of strictly external perception, then,
1
is always something real and independent of our-
selves, and though it implies the functioning of
universal ideas, we are not ordinarily conscious of
this fact ; still less are we aware that our perceptions
are due to a priori forms of synthesis, or that their
content is determined in any way by human
purposes and needs.
§ 35. The perception of our own body and its
various qualities and states furnishes us with further
and different data. We still perceive objects,
indeed for the distinction of subject and object is
;

never entirely lost as long as we are in any way

conscious. But the object of perception is now
some part of ourselves. By means of sight we
perceive the shape of our limbs, and by means of
touch the smoothness and softness of our skin.
Perceiver and perceived are, in this case, only
relatively distinct, for we recognise that in reality
they are one.
Moreover, although what we perceive in this way
is usually a state or quality belonging to some part

By this I do not mean, of course, that the object of perception

1

is unrelated to consciousness, or that qud the content of percep-

tion it is Dot in consciousness; but that qud real we believe it to
be other than, outside of, and not dependent on ourselves, and
to have a nature of its own which as such is not affected by
the fact of its becoming known.
 THE DATA OF EXPERIENCE 49

of our bodies in the same way that colour and shape,

hardness and softness, belong as qualities to external
things, sometimes the object of what may be called
perhaps internal perception, is more vague and
*
'

ill-defined. We feel warm or cold all over. We feel

hungry or thirsty, but we cannot say precisely
where. We have pains, aches, feelings of discomfort
or of healthy exuberance. Sometimes such feelings
are, more or less, located sometimes they are not
;

located at all. But in either case we recognise

them not only as states of our body, but as feelings
or sensations.
There are cases, therefore, in which the object of
perception is a sensation. There is, in fact, a kind
of gradation between what we perceive as the
qualities of objects —
of external things or of our
own bodies —and what we perceive as sensations.
On the one hand, colours, shapes, sounds, hardness
and other properties perceived by actual contact,
are perceived as qualities of objectsand not as
*
sensations. On the other hand, the '
voluminous
feelings we get in the body as a whole, as well as
various pains and aches and muscular sensations,
are certainly recognised to be of the nature of
sensation while temperature and taste seem to
;

form a half-way house. Sometimes we perceive

with the tongue the flavour of meat, wine, fruit, or
peppermint, with the hand the warmth of water,
and with the face the coolness of the breeze. Some-
times we merely get a taste,' a sensation of bitter-
'

ness or sweetness localised loosely in the mouth, or

we feel hot from the effects of violent exercise or
cold on account of a chill.
E
5° THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

§ 36. This gradation between what is perceived

as sensation and what is perceived as the quality
of objects has led to the theory that sensations are
always the means by which we perceive (id quo
percipitur), and also to the more questionable theory
that the object of perception (id quod pcrcipitur)
is at bottom sensation. Both theories may also
appeal to the fact that even in external perception
we can often distinguish sensation, provided we
look for it. For instance, the muscular sensation
in the organ of sight may be detected when we
change the convergence of the eyes. In touch-
contact, too, sensation may be perceived and
located in the tips of the fingers, if we attend to
them and not to the object touched. Even colour
may appear as a sensation when the eyes arc almost
closed and all and outline
variation in tone, tint,
are, as far as possible, must be
eliminated. It
noted, however, that these latter are abnormal and
exceptional cases, and in no way render false what
has been said about the object of external perception
in general, viz., that that object is normally not a
sensation but the quality of a real thing.
The data of perceptual experience are not as such
sensations, and if the id quod pcrcipitur theory be
expressed in this form it is certainly false. That
the qualities of objects are ultimately reducible to
sensations may or may not admit of proof ; but for
external perception, in the strict sense of the term,
the object perceived does not appear as a sensation.
Possibly, it might so appear if our experience were
'
pure/ which it is not but, more probably, as Mr.
;

4
Shadworth Hodgson says, for pure experience '
 —

THE DATA OF EXPERIENCE 5i

there is no distinction of subject and object, and

consequently what is perceived would appear, if it
appeared at all, neither as a quality of an object
nor as a sensation. And under such conditions
perception proper would not exist, for there would
be neither subjective nor objective reference.
Hence, as introspection fails to reveal to us the
data of pure experience, we must be content to
take experience as we find it and, this being so,
;

we are forced to admit that for us in our present

stage of development the data of experience include
what we believe to be the qualities of external
objects.

CHAPTER II.

THE DATA OF EXPERIENCE Continued.

CONCEPTUAL THOUGHT.

§ 37. Unable to analyse an act of perception

4 '
directly, psychologists are accustomed to analyse
it by the aid of data extrinsic to the act itself. These
data are obtained either by experiment or by direct
introspection in which attention is concentrated
on processes that usually pass unnoticed and in ;

this way an act of perception is analysed into a

'

'
complex of sensations.' But of the sensations '

which are said to have functioned in the act of

perception thus analysed, we were quite unconscious
when we perceived. Strictly speaking, sensations
when functioning in a percept are not sensations
at all, but merely nervous processes. Nor is the
52 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

percept itself in any way comparable with the sum

of the sensations it is said to involve. When I

perceive a picture there hanging on my wall at

about six yards distance from where I sit, not only
am unconscious of the focussing of my eyes, of
I

their movement in their sockets, of the variation in

convexity of their lenses, and of the revived images
of the movements necessary to reach and to handle
the picture, but the sum of these sensations,
immediate and revived, is something different from
and quite inadequate to represent what I mean
when say that I perceive the picture six yards
I

away. The
sensation-complex involved is not
equivalent to the percept nor yet is the sum of
;

the individual sensations equivalent to the complex

in which they are said to be fused. The fusion of
the sensations destroys altogether their individu-
ality, while the sensation-complex which results
qua a complex of sensations, is altogether obliterated
for consciousness by the percept to which it gives
rise.

Moreover, a percept has meaning. It is not merely

a sensation-complex, nor merely the appearance of
a certain arrangement of colour localised in a certain
way. What I mean when I say that I perceive a
picture hanging on a wall at six yards distance, is
something more than what I feel, and something
more than what is apparent to my senses. The
object of perception is not merely clear, distinct,
and apparently external, but it has definite
objective meaning and significance. Whence it
follows that some other mental function is involved
in perception besides that of sensation. That
 THE DATA OF EXPEDIENCE S3

function would seem to belong to universal ideas

under which, as we have seen, perceived objects
are subsumed. Now universal ideas correspond to
names. They function whenever names are used,
and it is by this means that we understand what
we hear or what we read. Hence, by examining
introspectively what takes place in our minds when
we listen to or read the words of another, we may
be able to arrive at a clearer notion of the nature
of an idea as opposed to an image or a sensation.
§ 38. Suppose that I call at the house of a
friend, and, on enquiring for him, am told that he '

has already gone to his office.' Such an answer is

no mere string of words. Its significance is per-
fectly definite, and the objects to which the words
refer are brought clearly before my mind. I say
*
before my mind,' yet the objects signified are not
perceived by me, nor do I imagine or picture them.
They are ' present only in idea, which means
'

nothing more than that I am able to think about

them that, knowing my friend and knowing what
;

ismeant by going to an office/ I am able to under-

'

stand the answer I received. But it is of real

objects and not of ideas that we think. Ideas are
the instruments by means of which we think of
objects. Our thoughts, impelled by the words
which we hear or which we read, are directed to
objects about which we think, and which are
therefore said to be present to our minds. We call
4
this presence-in-idea '
from the
to distinguish it

real presence of the object in sense-perception. Yet

ideas as such are not objects, but rather functions of
the mind which enable us to think of absent objects.
54 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

Moreover, what we think about the object, what

the object means to us, something objective
is itself

and real. When thinking of real objects thought

does not, so we believe, create the object, but
merely causes it to be ideally present. The content
of our ideas is thought as part of the object itself.
This is true even when the object is not a concrete
thing, but something abstract —
a moral whole, a
system of relations, such, for instance, as the '

British Policy in Egypt.' However relations are

to be explained, we believe that somehow or other
they are real.
The apparent reality of objects of thought may
be an illusion, but our belief in it is none the less
a datum. By this belief thought about reality is
distinguished from thought about fictitious or
imaginary beings, the products of our own or of
another's constructive ingenuity. In the latter
case, what we think about is still objective, but
not real. The object is present to our thoughts as
before, but we no longer believe in its reality.
Thought has always an objective reference it is ;

thought about objects. But there are different

kinds of objectivity. The objects about which we
think may be real or ideal. If real, they may be
present before us in the concrete or present only
to our thoughts. If ideal, they may be the
creations of our own or of another's fancy. When
created by another, they are independent of our-
selves, and our knowledge of them may possess
the quality of truth, but they are not real. When
created by our own imagination, they are neither real
nor independent. It is with real objects, however,
 THE DATA OF EXPERIENCE 55

that we are concerned, and, before proceeding

further, we must discuss the meaning of our belief
in '
objective reality.'
§ 39. Belief in the reality of the objects about
which we think not confined to those ideas which
is

Professor James describes as

truncated experi- '

ences, leading to sense-termini.' For the functioning

of an idea in our minds to be accompanied by belief
in the reality of that which it signifies, it is not
necessary that the idea should terminate ' in a '

sense-percept. The British Policy of Egypt and

*
'

'
The American Constitution are both ideas of real '

objects, yet in neither case is that object perceived

by the senses. Again, no working-man has ever
seen, or heard, or felt a Trades Union, yet he knows
very well what the term means, and firmly believes
in its reality. If you attempt to define a Trades
Union you must introduce the notion of purpose,
and say, (v.g.) with Professor Nicholson, that a
c
Trades Union is a voluntary association of labour
for mutual assistance, protection and benefit.' Now,
it is possible that Professor James, who is able to
feel '
buts '
and ands and ors,' may
and '
ifs ' ' ' '

be able also to feel causes and purposes, even when

they are not his own. Hence it may be possible
for Professor James to build up some complex
feeling which corresponds, or which he imagines
must correspond, with a Trades Union or a British
Policy. But the plain man will tell you that he
gets no such feelings, and with him I quite agree.
I feel eagerness, anxiety, longing, hope, fear, when
I think of something which I hopedo or to
which I hope will be done but ; I experience no such
56 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

emotion when it is a question of the purpose of

somebody else, except in so far as I make it my
own. Nor do I identify such feelings with the objects
towards which they are directed. I know what
these feelings are, and therefore I understand what
is meant when somebody tells me he desires happi-

ness or is anxious about his health but my ;

knowledge is not a feeling nor is it necessarily

accompanied by any feeling that I can detect.
Purposes, in fact, are not feelings at all, but ideas
which, when present to the mind, arouse feelings
or emotions. Nor is the idea or knowledge of a
feeling itself a feeling, but rather something intel-
lectual. I am also quite at a loss when I attempt

to distinguish the feelings which are supposed to

accompany conjunctive and disjunctive relations.
I cannot realise the feeling which accompanies a
'
but ' or an '
if.' When I perceive a difference
between two things, I certainly feel the contrast. '
'

But my perception of difference is not the mere

feeling. I know what difference
'
means, and it '

does not mean the feeling which I get when I

perceive a contrast which pleases or annoys me., >l
1

It seems to me, then, that it is quite impossible

to reduce the definition of a Trades Union or of ' '

any other notion of the kind to feelings, images

or sense-termini. No feeling and no percept is
adequate to represent or express the notion of a
common purpose, such as that of '
labouring
for mutual assistance, protection and benefit.'
*
Labour itself can hardly be pictured or perceived.
'

I can perceive hop-pickers at work in a field, but

that is not what I mean by labour.'
4
It is only a

Digitized by
 ;

THE DATA OF EXPERIENCE 57

concrete example which expresses at once too much

and too little, when Iwith my idea of
compare it
'
labour.' Universal ideas are contained within
the individual cases to which they apply, and to
this they may be said to lead.' But that common
'

'
something,' though it is realised there in each
individual example, cannot be perceived by the
senses. We perceive men, trees, books, colours,
concrete and particular motions and changes, but
we do not perceive humanity, tree-ness, book-
nature, colouredness, or change and motion in
general. We cannot lay hold of these things, so to
speak,by sight or by touch or by hearing. Yet
somehow or other we do lay hold of the universal
characters which are realised in particular cases,
and when such and such a case (S) presents itself,
we recognise in it the universal character (P) at
once, and affirm in consequence that S is P.
Apart altogether from theory, therefore, the
mental function by means of which universal ideas
are formed and by means of which they are recog-
nised in concrete cases, is, even for introspection,
something quite different from feeling and sensation
though it is from sense-experience that such ideas
are obtained, and the function by which they are
formed is included in what we call an act of per-
ception. There seem to be no sense- termini to
which the causes, purposes, and logical conventions
signified by the conjunctions '
since,' '
because,'
*
in order to,'
1
so that,' *
in as much as,' correspond,
or which they can be substituted. Causes,
for
purposes, and abstract universal ideas are as
objective and real as the concrete things in which
 5» THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

they are revealed ; but they seem to belong to the

rational structure or plan of the universe rather than
to anything which can be felt by the senses. Belief
in objective reality does not mean, therefore, that
objects have been or are capable of being experi-
enced as sensations, but merely that their nature
and their existence has been determined indepen-
dently of our thoughts about them. They exist
somehow in the concrete though, if relational or
;

abstract, they do not exist in isolation or as

individual things. And when we know such objects,
we believe that our knowledge somehow or other
comes from the object and is determined by the
object otherwise it would not be knowledge.
; How
it comes, or how it is determined, neither intro-

spection nor common-sense belief can say that is :

a matter which the plain man leaves to the

philosopher.
§ 40. Logicians that our ideas have
tell us
content, and that they may
be analysed into simpler
ideas or notes. If you were to ask me, however,
what was the content of the ideas which came to
my mind when I was told that my friend had gone
to his office, I should find it very difficult to answer
you. I could tell you, perhaps, a good deal about

the person in question, what he looks like, and

what he has done. Yet even of this I was not
conscious when his name was mentioned. My
knowledge of persons or things, however compre-
hensive, is certainly not called to mind at the
sound of their names. But although the idea of
my friend was vague in that I did not think of any
one of his characteristics in particular, it was
 THE DATA OF EXPERIENCE 59

perfectly definite in that I knew at the time what

object the name signified, and should have hesitated

to believe, even if I did not immediately reject,
any answer incompatible with his habits or char-
acter. In the same way, the other objects of which
I thought were similarly vague, and yet in like

manner sufficiently definite for me to understand

clearly the import of the answer I received. I did

not picture to myself an office, nor did I imagine

my friend perambulating the streets. Yet I knew
what an office meant, and I knew what was
' '

intended when I was told that my friend had gone

there. And this I knew in spite of the fact that I
had never been to his office and did not know what
it was like, and was ignorant also as to how he

went, whether on foot, by motor, or by train.

Definite significance is perfectly compatible with
unanalysed content, and both are characteristic of
all continuous discourse. Through frequently
thinking of the same thing, we build up a concept
of it, and thus seem to grasp in idea its nature as
a whole. Hence, whenever a name is mentioned,
we think of the object signified by means of a
preformed idea, which then and there begins to
function in our minds. Yet such an idea is seldom
realised in the fulness of its content. In con-
tinuous conversation or reading, though each phrase
has definite significance, the idea which it awakens
in the mind is supplanted by another and yet
another before it has time to develop. If, therefore,
we wish to analyse an idea, we must stop talking
or reading and allow the idea to unfold itself in
consciousness.
6o THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

§ 41. Let us experiment in this way with the

4
idea expressed in the phrase going to an office,'
and what happens. Immediately I fix my
see
attention upon what these words signify, and allow
4
the idea to work,' other ideas and images awaken
in my mind in rapid succession. I picture people

leaving their dwellings after an early breakfast in

haste to catch a train I imagine others who,
;

having partaken of their morning meal at a later

hour, stroll leisurely to the station or are whisked
off in an automobile. I see an office peopled with

clerks who sit upon high stools, and, with pens

behind their ears, stare vigorously at day-books and
ledgers which lie open before them. I think of the

purposes for which offices exist, of commerce, of

the Stock Exchange, and of Government Depart-
ments. All these things about which I think, are
to me, things objective, real, and independent of
myself, whether I can picture them or not. Com-
merce, for instance, and a Government Department,
is to me just as objectively real as more concrete
things, such as a ledger, a clerk or a desk.
Reflecting, however, on these ideas which have
been brought to consciousness by the phrase
4
going to the office,' I find that they are not essential
to the meaning of that phrase. They are all con-
nected with the original idea, and must have been
somehow mentally associated with it, otherwise
they would not have become conscious. But they
are not what a logician would call the essential
4 4
notes of the idea going to an office.' Rather
'

they are particular, and in some instances alter-

native cases, to which that notion, as a whole, or
 THE DATA OF EXPERIENCE 61

the office part of it, would apply. There is,

moreover, an indefinite number of other cases in
which the ideas in question are realised. One may
go to an office in other ways besides those which
occurred to my mind. The office might contain
clerks, or it might contain only my friend, their
employer, or again, it might be empty. While, to
the clerks, if there, one might assign a great variety
of attitudes and occupations. The office, again,
might neither be that of a merchant, nor of a
stockbroker, nor yet of a Government official ; it

might belong to a newspaper editor, or it might be

in a railway depot.
I have not analysed logically the idea going to
*

an office,' but have allowed it to develop by means

of its associations ; and the products of that
association-process are equivalent to the original
idea neither individually nor as a sum, nor yet as
a system. They signify at once too much and too
little, just as we found to be the case when we tried
4
to represent the notion of labour by an image
'

of hop-pickers working in a field. Nevertheless, the

associated ideas illustrate or exemplify the original
notion; and from them one might, by abstraction,
form a definition more or less adequate. One
4 '
might say, for instance, that an office
to go to
is*
to proceed from any place whatever and by any
means whatever to a building adapted for business
purposes.' Doubtless Socrates would be able to
pick holes in this definition. That does not matter.
Suffice it that I have a more or less accurate notion
4
of what going to an office means.
'

§ 42. Hence, although our ideas in continuous

62 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

discourse have explicitly for consciousness very little

content indeed, yet the fact that they are capable
of giving rise to associations intimately connected
with the original idea and containing implicitly its
definition, shows that they are no mere words.
.

Latent or implicit within the original idea are all

those subordinate ideas which exemplify and define
its meaning, and which psychologically form its

content. Only on this hypothesis can the facts be

explained. For clearly when an idea is analysed
psychologically by means of its associations, that
idea functions throughout, controlling the whole
process and preventing irrelevant ideas from
arising, or causing them to be dismissed at once
if they do arise. And, again, in discourse ideas
exercise a similar function or controlling power.
Ideas are aroused by their corresponding terms,
and by them we understand what we hear or what
we read, though they may seem to have no content
except that which the speaker or writer chooses to
develop for us.
This process goes on smoothly enough so long as
the statements made harmonise with the ideas that
are awakened in our minds. But should some
assertion fail so to harmonise, should some new
attribute be predicated which seems to us incom-
patible with the object to which it is assigned, at
once thought hesitates, and if it fails to assimilate
the new predicate, will, in the end, reject it as false.
Unless, then, we hold that an idea contains poten-
tially, implicitly, schematically, the particular cases
which have already been subsumed and systematised
under it on previous occasions and which virtually
 THE DATA OF EXPERIENCE 63

include its definition, I fail to see how we are to

explain the controlling power which is exercised by
the idea, both in discourse and in an associative
process. Unquestionably, cerebral conditions
account, in part at least, for the associations which
arise in the latter case, and the suggestions of the
speaker or writer for those which arise in the
former but no brain-processes and no mere words
;

can account for the objective significance of our

thoughts, or for the accepting or rejecting of
associated ideas, or for the assent or dissent which
accompanies cognition when we listen or read.
An idea, therefore, is a function of the mind by
means of which, somehow or other, we apprehend
the nature of objects and its content, even though
;

unconscious, functions in the mind whenever that

idea is recalled, and so controls both association
and assent.
§ 43. Ideas have also another function they —
Their objective reference is, as
influence action.
we have seen, not always to something real or
existing. They may refer to something which we
should like to exist, to some change which we desire
to bring about. Regarded from this point of view,
ideas are called purposes.
A purpose is nothing more than an idea signifying
an object not yet real, but which we seek to realise
by action. Suppose that we enter a room which
is in darkness with the intention of consulting some

book. The idea of consulting this book is a purpose,

and till that purpose is realised this idea controls
all our operations, mental and physical. We
remember having seen the book in a particular
64 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

room hence we go there. The darkness of the

;

room suggests the need of lighting the gas hence ;

we grope about for matches. The idea of matches

suggests the mantelshelf, and thither we make our
way. Finally, having secured the matches and lit
the gas, we take down the book that we need from
the library shelves. It was the idea of consulting
this book which controlled the various operations
performed in order to realise it. And here, again,
as in the former case of cognition, the idea which
guided the process need not have been explicit or
fully developed as to its content. We may have
had, to begin with, a picture of the book, of its size,
the colour of its binding and the plates with which
it may have been illustrated, or we may have
thought merely of its title or of the name of its
author, or of the subject in general of which it
treated. Again, the more immediate purpose of
obtaining a light may have obliterated for con-
sciousness the original purpose, just as when
cognition is directed to theoretical purposes, the
hand may be obscured
general idea of the subject in
by more immediate points of interest which occupy
us. Nevertheless, in practice as in theory, the
original idea or purpose is operative throughout,
and to it other ideas and purposes are subordinate,
though always possible that one purpose may
it is

be displaced by another more attractive, and that

one idea may be superseded by another to which
it has led by association in the course of its own

development.
§ 44. The question now arises how far purpose
governs even our most
' remotely cognitive
 THE DATA OF EXPERIENCE 65

activities.' " All thought is purposive," we are

told ; and this would seem to be true in general,
for we always
intend either to gain knowledge by
the development
of our ideas and by sense-
experience, or else to bring about some practical
result. But how far and in what sense is thought
purposive ? How far, for instance, is what I have
written in this chapter due to the purpose with
which I began it, viz., that of ascertaining the data
of experience in order to distinguish them from the
theories by which absolutists, pragmatists, and
realists seek to explain them ?

Just as when I attempted to describe the pro-

cesses of sense-perception and of rational discourse,
so now, when I attempt to describe the development
of my own thoughts, I find that idea after idea
emerges above the threshold of consciousness, only
to be rejected, until at last some one is evolved
which my purpose. Similarly, the verbal
suits
forms which, first mentally, and apparently by
in
means of auditory images, and then in writing, I
seek to express these ideas, are rejected or modified
again and again until they seem to give more or
less adequate expression to that which I wish to
say. Why do I reject some ideas and accept others ?

Why do I continually change the verbal

forms
which come spontaneously to mind ? One does not
think of it at the time the process is automatic,
;

as it were: Yet, now that I reflect, I recognise

that at the outset had a general notion of different
I

forms of cognition on the one hand, and of the

various theories by which cognition is explained
on the other. Under each of these ideas innumer-
F
 :

66 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

able others have been systematically subsumed in

the past and though of the full content of no one
;

of them was I more than implicitly or schematically

conscious at any given moment, yet they seem to
have controlled throughout the development of my
thoughts, and to have caused me to select and to
set down in writing only those data of experience
which seemed to bear upon the problems again —
—
only schematically apprehended which are to be
discussed in future chapters. My thought has all
along been purposive in that all irrelevant ideas
have been rejected and only those which concern
the fundamental problems of the psychology of
cognition have been allowed to develop in
consciousness.
§ 45. But how are we to account for the suc-
cession of our thoughts ? Clearly they are not due
wholly to the general purpose or problem we have
in hand, for though this may contain them
schematically, it does not determine their order.
Nor can they be due merely to verbal association
for though verbal expressions accompany our ideas
in the form of images, they have nothing to do with
the evolution of the general purpose. On the
contrary, they are subordinate to each individual
idea which they attempt to express. The verbal
form which thought takes is quite a secondary
matter. We modify a verbal expression at will.
We cross out or correct the written sentence without
scruple, if it fails to express the thought which lies,

as were, at the back of the words. Thought

it

seems to anticipate the words in which it is expressed,

and to control them in such a way that while the
 THE DATA OF EXPERIENCE 67

sentence is yet inchoate, and long before it has

completed itself, it is often rejected as inadequate.

Moreover, at times one seems to have thoughts
without words, an intuition of wide extent, not
clear in detail and yet not vague, a general grasp
of the problem in hand, a thought which in a flash
seems to make clear the solution and to reveal the
problem and solution as a whole. Clearly the
succession of our thoughts cannot be accounted for
by verbal expressions. Nor can it be accounted
for wholly by physiological habit. For physio-
logical habit conditions only images, and but few
images are involved in abstract thought as a rule,
while in regard to verbal images we have already
seen that they are, for the most part, if not wholly,
both subordinate and subsequent to thought. It
would seem, then, that in order to account for the
succession of ideas in conceptual and constructive
thought,' we must call in another factor, viz.,
intellectual habit. Cerebral processes undoubtedly
underlie, and in some sense condition all thought
and all ideas, however abstract. But between
abstract ideas there a logical as well as a physio-
is

logical connection ; it seems to me that this

and
logical connection —
which is a datum of experience,
whereas the physiological connection is not has —
more to do with the association of ideas in many
cases than purely physiological habits in which the
passage of the nervous impulse is governed solely
by the law of least resistance.
§ 46. Habit, however, is not the ultimate ex-
planation of the order and sequence of our ideas ;

for we may still ask how has habit itself been

68 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

formed ? And to answer this we are forced back

once more upon objective experience. All ideas are
conditioned by sense-experience. However abstract
and complex they may be, if real as well as objective,
there must be some object or system of objects in
which they are realised. It is in objective experience
that ideas are formed, and to some extent the order
and sequence of those ideas is determined by our
environment itself. Yet indirectly purposes and
needs also play a part in determining this order.
We perceive first those attributes of objects which
have practical value as satisfying our needs. Others
again are perceived because curiosity or the desire
to know prompts us to observe and examine. Our
needs also, in a higher stage of development, prompt
us to seek to solve social, moral and religious prob-
lems on the one hand, and historical, scientific and
philosophical problems on the other. Thus what
we enquire about and what we neglect, and hence
the order in which knowledge is acquired, is deter-
mined in part by our environment, but in part also
by our purposes and needs. Guided partly by
subjective interests and partly by the accidental
circumstances in which we find ourselves, we form
ideas of objective realities, ideas which from the
beginning are connected with one another, but are
gradually grouped together in systems and sub-
sumed under more general notions. As we think
these ideas again and again and pass from one to
another, habits of thought are formed, logical con-
nections between ideas are discovered, and other and
larger groupings of them are made. When therefore,
,

we wish to solve some problem, to develop and

 THE DATA OF EXPERIENCE 69

examine the bearings of some complex and general

notion, some principle, hypothesis or law, these
preformed habits of thought begin to function.
Ideas already conceived and connections already
discovered, force one another in rapid succession
above the threshold of consciousness. And all
this takes place under the guidance of a purpose,
which, itself an idea, assumes for the time control
of our habits of thought. The purpose which
dominates all our mental energies is, in this case, a
theoretical one it is prompted not by practical
;

needs, but by the need which we feel of somehow

solving the problems that the universe presents to
us.
Hence my finalanswer to the question
4
what
is it determines the succession of our thoughts when

we reflect ? is that the succession is due partly to

'

physiological and partly to intellectual habits, both

of which presuppose and have been built up by
objective experience, the strength of these habits
depending, other conditions being the same, upon
the intensity and the frequency of repetition of
those experiences or of our reflections upon them.
Purposes which in constructive thought consist in
a general grasp of the problem in hand have little
to do with the succession of ideas as such, though
they control it throughout. By them the relevancy
of associated ideas is determined, but not the
particular order in which they arise. On the other
hand, the building up of the habits by which the
sequence of ideas in association is determined is
again largely due to purposive selection.
§ 47. Need-prompted purposes, then, are clearly
7o THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

of the greatest importance as determining factors

in the acquisition of knowledge. Thought is

selective, and selection implies purpose. Purposes,

however, are themselves ideas which we seek to
realise, and are themselves derived ultimately from
experience nor does purposive selection destroy
;

our belief in the objective validity of knowledge.

In ideal thought of absent objects, as in perception
itself, the result of our purposive strivings after

knowledge is that objects become known to us as

they really are in themselves. Our knowledge is
not adequate, but none the less it may be true so
far as it goes. Purposive selection is compatible
with objective validity, because while purposes
determine what objects we observe, they do not, as
a rule, determine the result of our observations. On
the contrary, the content as opposed to the intent
of perception and thought seems to be determined
by the object itself. Similarly, in the knowledge
which we gain from others, interest determines
what questions we ask, what lectures we attend, and
what books we read but the information gained
;

comes in all cases from without. Whether we admit

it as true or reject it as false, assent or dissent
depends upon whether or not we believe that we
have acquired knowledge of real objects which have
manifested themselves to us through the words of
another. If our purpose is, as I suppose, to acquire
knowledge, and if we approach the subject with a
mind open to conviction, assent or conviction will
arise either from the known credibility of our
informant in regard to matters of fact, or, if it is a
question of theory, from the intrinsic reasonableness
 THE DATA OF EXPERIENCE 71

or self -evidence of its presentment, and from its

consistency with knowledge already acquired. If,

on the other hand, one approaches a particular

subject upon which one's own mind is already made
up, one's purpose can only be to ascertain the
opinions of others and here, again, when we assent,
;

to the preposition that X.Y.'s opinion is so and so,'

'

our assent is determined, not by purpose, but by what

we have heard him say.
§ 48. I do not wish to deny, of course, that
purpose may affect assent. All I assert here is
that wherever assent is given it does not appear
at the time to be determined by purposes, needs,
emotions or will, or by anything other than the
object about which we think. Subsequently we
may discover that subjective conditions and
interests have influenced us ;
but, at the time, that
influence is unconscious, otherwise we could not give
our assent. I regard it as a psychological fact that
assent is possible only in so far as we are unaware
of the influence of subjective conditions, emotional
and voluntary. On the other hand, it cannot be
denied that it is also a psychological fact that
purposes and other subjective influences are some-
times found to have influenced assent and to have
caused it to be given where it should not have been
given. In the case above cited, that one does not
give one's assent to XY's opinion as opposed to
the fact that such an opinion is his, may be due to a
preformed will-no/-to-believe, or, in other words, to
the conviction that we and that, therefore,
are right
he must be wrong. Undoubtedly assent is often
withheld on account of prejudice ;
and, similarly,
 —

72 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

prejudices may
cause assent to be given where it
ought to be withheld, as we sometimes discover
afterwards to our cost. Ordinarily, however, we
are not influenced by these subjective conditions
at least such is —
our belief and when their influence
is discovered, at once we withdraw our assent and

begin to doubt. The honest seeker after truth,

knowing the possibility of his being unduly
influenced by subjective interests and the will to
believe or not to believe, is particularly careful to
eliminate such a possibility as far as he can, and
will only give his full assent when it is clear to him
that all subjective conditions have been excluded,
and that his knowledge is determined solely by
objective evidence. The assertion that the content
of thought is modified directly by human
purposes and needs and that truth depends upon
the satisfaction of these needs is, therefore, not a
datum of experience, but a theory, and a theory
which it is not easy to reconcile with what is an
introspective datum, viz., that we believe our ideas
and our judgments to be determined by their
objects, and that, on this account, we give our
assent to their objective validity.
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CRITICISM 73

CHAPTER III.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CRITICISM AND THE

DISTINCTION OF SUBJECT AND OBJECT.

§ 49. Two diametrically opposite opinions are

prevalent in regard to the psychological basis of
Criticism, and of the Absolutism to which it has
given rise. The late Dr. Caird wished to exclude
psychology altogether from Criticism. Professor
James, Mr. Shadworth Hodgson, and other non-
critical writers consider the Kantian and Hegelian
standpoint, on the other hand, to be essentially
psychological, and reject it precisely because, in
their opinion, it is vitiated by a psychological
fallacy. Professor James accuses Green and Caird
of what he calls the psychologist's fallacy, i.e., the
fallacy of reading into psychological states before
analysis all that the psychologist finds in them
when that analysis is complete. Attempts have
also been made to treat the Criticism of Kant on
the same lines as the Enquiry of Locke, since both
Kant and Locke held that an examination of the
faculty of cognition was necessary by way of
introduction to a study of philosophy.
The view is certainly wrong for though
latter ;

there a prima facie resemblance between the

is

Lockian and the Kantian enquiries, the standpoint

of Locke is essentially different from that of Kant.
As Dr. Caird has pointed out, Locke examines the
understanding " very much as we might examine
 "

74 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

a telescope to discover whether there was a flaw

in its construction which might distort our vision of
the objects seen through it
;
1
while Kant examines
the nature of mind with a view to discover in it

the a forms which are presupposed by

priori
knowledge, without which knowledge is impossible,
and by which in this sense it is limited. The
Kant is, therefore, very
position of different from
that of Locke.
§ 50. On the other hand, Dr. Caird seems to
me to carry his dislike of the psychological position
too far when he endeavours to dispense with the
psychologist's aid altogether in epistemology, on
the ground that the knowledge of mind presupposes
a knowledge of matter. Mind, he says, presupposes
matter, both as its organ, and as the environment
about which it thinks. Without matter there would
be no objects, and therefore no knowledge. Hence,
" to understand mind in the sense in which we
contrast it with matter " (i.e., in the psychological
sense) " implies that we already understand the
material world, and to base our knowledge on our
psychology would, therefore, be to base it on what
is the latest and most complex result."
2
Thus, for
Dr. Caird, there is a distinction between the relation
of subject and object as presupposed by the
possibility of knowledge, and the relation of mind
and matter as objects of knowledge; and it is with
the former, and not with the latter, that Criticism
is concerned. " Criticism has to deal with the
knowledge of mind only in so far as mind is pre-
supposed in everything known or knowable; i.e., in
1 2
Critical Philosophy of Kant, ]>. i<>. Thid.
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CRITICISM 75

so far as the principles whteh are involved in the

relations of objects to a conscious self are the latent
presuppositions of all knowledge, the principles
through which everything else must be known, and
by means of which, therefore, every other kind of
knowledge must be tried." 1
But can psychology and epistemology be separated
from one another so completely as this ? As
sciences treating of different topics, the one of
knowledge and truth, the other of psychical pro-
cesses as such, they are undoubtedly distinct yet ;

the subject which is treated of in epistemology and

the mind with which psychology is concerned
' *

are surely one and the same. Again, if a priori

forms and latent presuppositions and principles
' '

know-
of a psychological order are involved in all
ledge, how examine them unless we know
are we to
what they are and how are we to know what they
;

are unless our Criticism is preceded by an

'
'

introspective examination and a psychological

analysis of our own acts of cognition ? Whence
does Criticism learn the functions of its categories,
of substance, causality, reciprocity and the like, if
not from its reflection on human thought-pro-
cesses ? Granted that there is in consciousness an
a priori element, that each self-conscious being
" has him the general plan for a self-
within
consistent natural system," and that this plan is
a kind of framework upon which all knowledge is
built, which is common to all minds, and constitutes
the general form of all knowledge granted all this, ;

how, may I ask, does it come about that Criticism

1
Ibid, p. II.
76 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

has learnt the nature of this framework ? How,

indeed, does it know that such a framework exists
except by a study of cognition as it actually takes
place in human minds ? It may be that this
scheme which we carry about with us is, in a
4
'

sense, unconscious, i.e., " it may never be reflected

on (by the ordinary man) or made the object of
attention for itself," and few, perhaps, may " know
that they have it in their minds at all, and fewer
still be able to define and describe it."
1
Yet, if
such exists, it must at times have been reflected
on, since Criticism claims to have analysed it and
bases its theory of the constructive and constitutive
activity of thought largely on the results of that
analysis.
To understand mind in the sense in which it is
opposed to matter does imply that we already
understand the material world, to some extent at
least but it does not follow from this that our
;

knowledge of matter is prior to our knowledge of

mind, still less that our knowledge of mind and
matter in opposition is prior to all cognitive ex-
perience. and external perception, con-
Internal
sciousness of our own mental
acts, and of changes in
our environment develop side by side, and only
through the continual contrasting of subject and
object is knowledge possible. We cannot discuss
the conditions of knowledge unless we know what
knowledge is, and this we cannot know except in
our own experience. The epistemologist must
start from certain data, and the data which he
needs for his purpose are clearly those of empirical
1
Ibid, pp. iS, iq.
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CRITICISM 77

psychology, which is merely an orderly and classified

arrangement of the functionings of the human
mind which may be verified by anyone who will
reflect.

§ 51. The psychological aspect of Criticism was

recognised by Kant, who distinguished two questions
which Criticism has to answer, the psychological
question as to the existence in the mind of the forms
which we use in Cognition, and the transcendental
question as to the validity of these forms. The
discussion of the firstquestion Dr. Vailinger calls a
Transcendental Psychology. It is a psychology
inasmuch as it is an analysis and a classification
of the processes of cognition and it
; is transcen-
dental in that the classification is made with a view
to discussing the relations of the forms, thus
classified, to phenomena or to the object of know-
ledge. The latter problem is of course of primary
importance in Criticism, since its aim is to discover
the conditions of the possibility of knowledge.
But, though Criticism is thus primarily and essen-
tially an epistemology, it may in truth be said to
have a psychological basis, since it presupposes a
psychological analysis of cognition.
Later Criticism seems to borrow even more from
the psychologist. It attempts to trace the de-
velopment of mind from a state of vague conscious-
ness in which discrimination and distinction are at a
minimum, through a consciousness of objects
posited by itself to a consciousness of itself as mind.
And this process, though attributed by later critical
philosophers to the Absolute, is at bottom a general,
if somewhat mystical, account of the development
 .

78 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

of individual human minds and therefore may be

;

said to lean upon psychology.

§ 52. then, can we account for Dr. Caird's
How,
refusal to admit that Criticism involves psychology ?
It would seem to be due, in the first place, to the
narrow view which he takes of the latter science.
Not only does he describe it as the latest and most '

complex product of knowledge

' but he defines ;

it as a science which treats only of the knowledge

which man has of himself "as a human being,

distinguished from other human beings, from the
animals and from nature in general, and standing
in definite relations to each of them." Yet psy-
chology is more than this. It is not merely com-
parative, it is introspective it is a study of mind
:

and of mental operations in general. It treats not

only of man's relations to other conscious beings,
but also of his knowledge of himself as a thinking,
willing, and self-conscious subject. Hence it
includes a knowledge of man, " regarded simply
as a self, the thinking subject which is implied in all
objects of knowledge." 1
Another reason why Dr. Caird excludes psychology
from Criticism is that he wrongly identifies the
psychological with the Lockian standpoint in regard
to knowledge. He complains that in the psycho-
logical or Lockian view of knowledge, consciousness
of objects is reduced to consciousness of the states
of our own minds. We are thus involved in a
closed cycle. The mind is imprisoned within itself
and knows nothing of the world without. Hence
psychology becomes the sum-total of all possible
1
Critical Philosophy of Kant, p. 1 1
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CRITICISM 79

knowledge. This error Criticism claims to have

remedied by substituting for the closed cycle of our
own ideas the closed cycle of the intelligible world ;

and by insisting that though we cannot know

objects except in relation to a conscious self, yet
knowledge must always be knowledge of objects. 1
The argument here used is valid, and the Lockian
view is certainly an error which needs correction ;

but it is curious that Dr. Caird should have refused

to admit psychology as the basis of the Critical
Theory of Knowledge because psychology, in his
opinion, does not recognise the distinction of
subject and object for it is precisely because
;

Criticism recognises this distinction as fundamental

in knowledge that Professor James and Mr. Shad-
worth Hodgson maintain that " Kantian philosophy,
and those philosophies which have, as it were,
sprung from its loins, never get beyond the psycho-
logical point of view." 2 At any rate, all psychology
is not Lockian psychology and that objective ;

reference which Locke seems to deny to our ideas

is by the introspective psychologist fully admitted.

True, the latter takes as the object of his present

thinking his own thought-processes and ideas.
But introspection, so far from implying a confusion
between thought-processes and their objects, on the
contrary, reveals the psychological fact that all
ideas have objective reference; and not only is the
object of thought, whether internal or external,
always regarded by us as distinct from our thoughts
about it, but in most cases it is regarded as distinct
1

2
Ibid, pp. 12 — 15.
The Metaphysics of Experience, vol. i., p. ix.

Digitized by
 x
8o THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

from and external to ourselves. And whatever

metaphysicians may have to- say about the validity
of this distinction, if any distinction is psychological,
certainly the distinction of subject and object is

such, for appears as the universal characteristic

it

of all human cognition and indeed of all conscious-

ness of which we have any experience.
§ 53. This will, I take it, be generally admitted
so far as our experience goes but the pragmatist
;

denies that the distinction is ultimate, and hence,

with Mr. Hodgson, accuses Kantian philosophies
of never transcending the psychological point of
view. All philosophies of pure experience regard
' '

the distinction of subject and object as the product

of mental development either in the individual or
in the race. It is a datum of our experience, but not
of pure experience. The ultimate data of experience
consist of process-contents of consciousness, but not
of process-contents of consciousness as distinguished
from realities. Consciousness and perception can-
not themselves be perceived except in contra-
distinction from reality, and therefore not until
reality and real existence have a meaning for us.
Mr. Hodgson therefore concludes that the distinction
of subject and object belongs to a more complex
kind of knowledge from which it is possible to
abstract. 1
In considering this objection we may remark, in
the first place, that it is not quite clear what Mr.

Hodgson means by saying that consciousness can

only be recognised as such in distinction from
reality, for surely consciousness itself is a reality.
1
The Metaphysics of Experience, vol. i., p. 116.
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CRITICISM 81

He may mean that consciousness can only be

recognised as such in distinction from what is non-
conscious, or he may be referring to the distinction
of the conscious self from all that is not the conscious

self, or to the distinction between the self, psychical

and corporeal, and the rest of the universe, or,
again, merely to the distinction between thought
and its object, whatever that object may be. In
the latter case the distinction is certainly funda-
mental for thought, since thought, without objective
reference, is not thought at all, and it would seem
that the distinction arises in consciousness as soon
as we begin But in neither case is the
to reflect.
4
distinction ultimate, by ultimate is meant that
if '

it appears at the dawn of conscious life, for to mere

sentient experience there is doubtless no such

distinction. Hence, in regard to those absolutists
who identify being and thought, the objection that
they never transcend the psychological point of
view has some foundation, since, asserting, as they
do, that the relation of objects to a conscious self,
or, in other words, the subject-object distinction,
is the latent presupposition of all knowledge, they

are unable to explain the apparent evolution of

self-consciousness in the individual. For if there
is nothing but thought, and if for thought the
subject-object distinction is ultimate, how is it that
it is not for several years that an infant is able to
make this distinction ?

§ 54. The statement that the subject-object

distinction not ultimate may mean, however, not
is

that it is not ultimate for all forms of consciousness,

but that it is not ultimate as a fact. And in thi$
G
82 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

sense the statement would be endorsed, not only by

1
pragmatic philosophers of pure experience, but '

also by many philosophers who adopt the standpoint

of Absolutism, who admit Immanence as a funda-
mental principle, and whose method is that of a
critical regress, but who, nevertheless, prefer to
regard being, not as thought, but rather, with
Fichte, as an Indifference-point, with Mr. Wallace,
as potential consciousness
'
in which ego and
'

non-ego are not distinguished, or, with Mr. Bradley,

as Sentient Experience. Yet to all alike the doctrine
opens the way to difficulties, not only metaphysical,
but also psychological. If the subject-object dis-
tinction is not a fact, how does such a distinction
arise in consciousness ? If ego and non-ego are
ultimate one, how is it that they appear to be
distinct ?

The genetic psychologist can trace the genesis of

4
the ideas of self '
and of an '
external world,' but
his skill is of no avail to Absolutism. The ordinary
solution, scil., that the distinction of ego and non-ego
arises from the contrast between the active and
passive aspects of consciousness, apart from the
difficulties inherent in such an explanation, is of
no use to the absolutist. For why should passivity
appear as a limitation of the ego by a non-ego?
If it be due to something outside us, the non-ego
itself is (according to the doctrine of Immanence)
outside knowledge ; and if it arise from within, and
be due to the nature of mind, its origin is every bit
as much a mystery as the distinction which it is said
to explain. Mr. Bradley gives the problem up, as
he docs so many other problems of interest and
 :

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CRITICISM 83

importance, on the ground that he is not bound

to explain everything so long as he is consistent in
what he does explain. But though the reply
refugio in mystcrium, like that of a Deus ex machina,
is convenient and may be acceptable from the point

of view of thought-economy, it can hardly be

satisfactory to the true philosopher. The inability
of absolutists to account for the origin of the subject-
object distinction must count heavily, therefore,
and especially
against their interpretation of reality,
against the doctrine of Immanence, to which that
inability is due. For if Immanence is false, the
difficulty vanishes, since subject and object, ego
and non-ego, are then distinct, not only for thought,
but in reality while that the intellect is capable of
;

understanding the meaning and implication of the

data of experience, or, in other words, of appre-
hending in them the nature of real objects, is
presupposed as the condition of the possibility of
knowledge.
§ 55. The same difficulty also confronts the
pragmatist, if, Pragmatism, he
in addition to his
adopt a philosophy of pure experience, as most
would seem to do. In attempting to answer the
difficulty, however., he takes a somewhat different
line from that of the Absolutist. Assuming, with a
singularly whole-hearted enthusiasm, the doctrine
of Evolution, he replies, with Dr. Schiller, that the
distinction of subjectand object is the product of
an evolutionary process, and assigns its origin to
just that moment when the human mind passed
from the sentient to the intelligent Jevel of con-
sciousness. Or, to put the matter in another way
84 THEORIES OE KNOWLEDGE

the subject-object distinction is due to thought,

and thought is but a higher (i.e., a more useful)
form of sentience. But in the first place evolution,
as a general doctrine, not yet established and
is ;

even if it were, that thought should, by some

mysterious process, evolve itself from sentience, is
wholly incomprehensible. They are, indeed, inti-
mately connected, and in perception seem to act
together as a functional unit but, taken in ;

—
abstraction as we must take them when, as
psychologists, we are treating scientifically of their
relations —
one to another feeling is essentially
different from thought. By thought we break up
the unity of the presented object; we distinguish
it from ourselves and from other things we abstract ;

from it characteristics which are common to a class ;

we apprehend the relations of these characteristics

one to another and we join them together to
;

form concepts of the most varied and intricate

complexity. The senses, on the other hand, do
none of these things. By them we get feelings and
frame pictures but for sentience there are no
;

universals, no relations, no conscious analysing and

synthesising of characteristics, no distinguishing of
subject and object, and no unities in difference
which we apprehend as such. Hence the doctrine
that thought has been, or is, evolved from mere
sentient experience is untenable, unless we suppose
that the being, in which this evolution takes place,
has already in potcntia the faculty of thought.
From pure experience, as such, the power of
'
'

rational thought cannot have been evolved, nor yet

the distinction of subject and object. Granted an
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CRITICISM 85

embryonic human mind, in which intellectual

powers are latent, it is conceivable that intellectual
functions should appear in the course of its develop-
ment. It is conceivable also that the distinction
of subject and object should, in this sense, have
been evolved,' given real subjects and real objects
'

and the power of the former to apprehend the

significance of certain sense-data. But the evolution
of intellect from a lower form of consciousness in
which it was not even present in potentia is a sheer
impossibility.
§ 56. Granted, however, for the sake of argu-
ment, that this is not so, it is still impossible for
the pragmatic philosopher of pure experience to
account for the subject-object distinction. It is a
fact that at some time or other we begin to
distinguish objects from ourselves and to regard
the latter as external and independent of both body
and mind. And the usual explanation of this is
that it is our way of distinguishing between states
of consciousness in which we feel resistance but
ourselves are comparatively passive, and states of
consciousness in which we are aware of our own
activity. what is experienced
For, in the former,
is beyond our and so independent, while,
control,
in the latter, we can modify the content of con-
sciousness pretty much as we please. Again, what
is comparatively permanent in consciousness we

regard as part of ourselves, and what is transient,

changing from moment to moment, we regard as
external. But, even granted that our belief in an
external world is valid, this account of its origin
presents many difficulties. For instance, it is not
 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE
4 '
only in the perception of what we call external
objects that we are passive, but also when enduring
a pain in any part of the body, and as such pains
are also, as a Kule, independent of our control, they
'
ought to appear external. Again, the bodily tone '

can afford but a meagre basis for the distinction

in question, since it is only in a very broad sense
that it can be said to be constant, comprising, as it
does, sensations which arise ffom ever-varying
bodily conditions and emotions and moods, the
inconstancy of which is notorious. Hence, unless
it be admitted that the mind can, by some sort of
intuition, apprehend the significance of these and
other sense-data —
a significance which does not
exist in a philosophy of pure '
experience our
'
—
explanation breaks down. Doubtless certain experi-
ences of the sentient order are succeeded by belief
in an external world, but to identify these psycho-
logical antecedents of belief, which are revealed only
by psychological analysis, with the belief itself is
to be guilty of the psychologist's fallacy. For
belief in an external world and the sensation-
complexes which are supposed to give rise to it
are not the same thing and, as M. Boutroux says,
;

" we have no more right to identify belief in external

reality with the sense experiences which, so the
psychologist says, result in such a belief, than we
have to identify man with the chemical elements
of which his body is composed."
The distinction of subject and object, self and
not-self, internal and external, can be explained,
then, neither by the pragmatic philosopher of 'pure'
experience, nor by the absolutist, no matter whether
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CRITICISM »7

the latter identifies reality with thought or with

sentient-experience, or with any other of its manifold
characteristics. Yet such distinctions, whether
ultimate or not, are among the data of our
experience. And if 4
beyond the psychological
to get
point of view '
means
deny the validity of these
to
distinctions, it were better to stay where we are
rather than to adopt a doctrine which declares such
glaring facts to be so hopeless a mystery.
§ 57. To return, however, to the psychology of
Criticism. Psychological data are presupposed by
Criticism, no less than by other theories of know-
ledge nor do I think
; that this could have been
called in question by the late Dr. Caird had he
rightly understood the standpoint of the psycho-
logist. A knowledge of the processes of cognition
is necessary order to construct a theory of
in
knowledge, and that knowledge must be gained by
an introspective study of perception and thought
as it takes place in the human mind. Yet it is
false to say that Criticism never gets beyond the
psycholoeical point of view, for its enquiry is in
regard to the and presuppositions of
conditions
knowledge. Indeed, we may say of Criticism, what
Fichte said of his own philosophy, that, in essence,
it is neither a psychology, nor a political science,

nor yet a theory of morals, but a Wissenschaftslehre,

a theory of knowledge.
For this theory of knowledge human psychology
provides the data and the human character of
;

the problem was recognised by Kant, who never

confuses human with divine knowledge. But,
unfortunately, later Criticism, beginning with Fichte
88 THEORIES OE KNOWLEDGE

himself, lost sight of this significant distinction.

The metaphysical and critical aspects of the theory
became more and more prominent, till at last the
real basis of Kant's Apriorism was forgotten, and
a human psychology was converted into a
psychology^ of the Absolute. In Absolutism, so
all-absorbing has the idea of Absolute knowledge
and Absolute truth become, that the more pressing
problems of human knowledge and human truth
are neglected, and absolutists content themselves
with the assertion that somehow or other, but in
a very imperfect way, the knowledge which belongs
to the Absolute is reproduced in finite centres of
experience, more commonly known as human minds.
Absolutism forgets that to assign the metaphysical
conditions of knowledge is but a means to an end,
and that the primary question for the epistemologist
is to determine how far human cognition is valid

and objective. This is unfortunate, for, as the

pragmatist says, what we are most concerned with
is human truth, not Absolute truth human know- ;

ledge, not knowledge in general. To ascertain the

conditions which make knowledge possible is but
part of the problem of epistemology, which should
also apply these conditions in the concrete in order
to ascertain the extent and validity of
nature,
human claims to truth.That human knowledge
is not simply experiencing without something
experienced and a somebody who experiences it,
that it implies a metaphysic, and without a meta-
physic cannot be understood, I fully agree but ;

a metaphysic of the Absolute or of the Universe in

general is not the final aim of the theory of know-

Digitized by
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CRITICISM 89

ledge. Absolutism is right in regarding psychology

as of secondary importance, since its function is

merely to furnish us with data. But the function

of a metaphysic of the Absolute is also of secondary
importance in a Wissenschaflslchre, and should not
be allowed to obscure the end and purpose of the
latter, which is to discover the conditions of human
knowledge and to ascertain the criterion of human
truth. Kant's view of the function of epistemology
was sound, and whatever we may think of his
metaphysics or of the solution which he gives to
the problem of knowledge, it must be granted that
he was faithful to the true instinct of an episte-
mologist. Throughout his three Critiques, it is the
solution of the problems of human knowledge that
is ever before his mind. From beginning to end
it is with human knowledge
alone that he is con-
cerned, and purpose to determine the extent
his final
and sense in which that knowledge is valid, is ever
kept in view.
§ 58. In regard to the psychological data of
which Absolutism makes use, there is, for the most
part, nothing peculiar or distinctive. It has not a
psychology of its own, but accepts in general the
data which are revealed by introspection, though
the latter, when described by a believer in the
Absolute, are often tinged by the Absolute point
of view. The different objects and qualities which
we perceive, for instance, and which belong
apparently to an outside world, are described as
differences which break out within the unity of a
felt or experienced whole. Of this, more later but, ;

for the present, it is sufficient that in the main

go THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

Absolutism is careful to distinguish between what

isa datum of experience and what is not. It does
not claim that its a priori forms and categories are
experienced as such in our cognitive acts. They
are implied therein, for without them knowledge
would be impossible but they are not introspective
;

data. On no fault can be found with

this point
Absolutism. The exigencies of a satisfactory
theory of knowledge and of the universe at large
may necessitate the assertion that the objects of
knowledge are not material and independent objects,
but rather ideas immanent within the universal
mind by whose thought-activity they are posited
or produced. But such an assertion clearly belongs
to theory, and is not an experimental fact nor ;

does it pretend to be other than what it is. Material,

concrete and individual things are interpreted as
appearances, and common-sense belief in the reality
of such things is declared to be invalid. But the
existence of such beliefs is not denied. They are
rejected because they are said to be full of con-
tradictions, and because they are inconsistent with
the only theory which seems to be able in the —
—
opinion of many to give a consistent and satis-
factory explanation of the universe, of which human
knowledge is but an aspect or a part.
§ 59. On the other hand, there is some truth in
the pragmatist's statement that Absolutism neglects
many of the characteristics of human cognition.
In spite of the prominent place assigned in Hegel's
philosophy to the Idea which is at once the Ground
and tclos of the Universe, purposes and needs are
much neglected by Absolutism, and their relation to
 ;

THE PSYCHOLOCY OF CRITICISM

Cognition is not adequately discussed. Absolutism

is inclined to take a purely intellectual or rational
view of the universe, and to subordinate Will to
Thought. That a theory of the universe must
satisfy our whole nature in its intellectual,
emotional, and volitional sides alike, is not denied ;

but practically in the construction of the meta-

physics of Absolutism mention is seldom made of
emotional needs or of the purposes which express
themselves in the strivings of our will. The reason
of this omission is obvious. The Second Critique of
Kant does not form part of the foundation upon
which Absolutism has been built, and it was in this
Critique that Kant treated of the value of human
ideals. Moreover, when Reality and Thought are
regarded as one, and when, in place of human
knowledge is knowledge which
substituted the
pertains to the Absolute, it is but natural that
human purposes and human needs, whose force is
felt by us largely because we are finite beings,

should be overlooked in the absorbing interest of

that one Being who is all-perfect and all-complete,
who embraces and realises in himself all that exists
and who, consequently, has neither needs nor
postulates, since his nature is not finite. Cognition
in the Absolute is prompted, not by purposes
and needs which seek their realisation in something
outside; but exists because the Absolute realises
itself in itself and for itself.
§ 60. In the Criticism of Kant, on the other
hand, where knowledge is, as I have said, regarded
not from the Absolute, but from the human point
of view, neither is the function of purposes and
92 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

needs obscured by intellectualism, nor does Kant

go to the other extreme and make the principle of
'

postulation universal, as do the pragma tists though ;

he assigns to it a function, the scope of which is

sufficiently, if not too great. For him, as for
Professor James, all metaphysical theories are
postulates, based on ideals which human purposes
and needs prompt us to strive to realise. Meta-
physics is matter, not of knowledge, but of faith.
Nor can it be said that Kant makes the mind as
passive in its acts of cognition as it is supposed to
be in the theory which treats it as a tabula rasa.
His categories are not merely receptacles into which
phenomena are poured like molten liquid into a
mould. Doubtless Kant's treatment of Space and
Time and his table of Categories lend themselves
somewhat to this view but to limit thus his
;

conception of the function of mind is to distort

his meaning. For he insists again and again upon *

the constructive activity of thought. Thought, both

speculative and practical, is essentially active,
imposing forms on nature; as speculative it
its

constructs from confused perceptive data its world

of experience, and as practical it moulds the
impulses of the sensuous order into
rebellious
harmony with the autonomous dictates of reason.
The psychology of Kant, therefore, seems to me
to be far more complete than the psychology
of Absolutism. Its chief defect is that Kant
isolates too much the functions of the various
cognitive faculties, and neglects to treat of their
relations one to another. Sense-data are synthe-
sised under the forms of Space and Time, and again
 REALITY AS SENTIENT EXPERIENCE 93

under the categories but of the relation of the

;

forms of Space and Time to the categories, or to

the schemata of the imagination under which,
provisionally, they are grouped, or, yet again, to
the principles of reason, Kant has nothing to tell
us. He assumes that all these faculties function
in harmony, but how this harmony is brought about
he does not say, nor does he assign any sufficient
reason for the necessity of the many and varied
functions, which, for him, are involved in an act of
cognition. Neither does the absolutist throw any light
upon these unsolved Kantian problems. Instead,
neglecting what Kant did insist upon the purposive —
nature of human thought, he has become a pure
intellectualist and so has evoked a pragmatic
reaction.

CHAPTER IV.

REALITY AS SENTIENT EXPERIENCE.

§ 61. At first sight it may
appear somewhat out
and Reality
of place to begin to discuss Appearance
while yet we are in the psychological part of our
subject, especially as its author has expressly
warned us that to attempt to base metaphysics on
psychology can only lead to " a disastrous hybrid
which possesses the merits of neither science." 1
Mr. Bradley's method, however, differs considerably
from that of other objective idealists. In Book I.
he endeavours to show that our ordinary philo-
1
Appearance and Reality, p. 76.
94 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

sophical notions, such as qualities, things, substance

and accident, space, time, causality, are riddled with
contradictions; and, hence, infers that all these are
merely appearances which, taken as they stand,
cannot be true of the real, and which yet, since
they indubitably exist, must somehow belong to
i
Reality. 1 In Book II. the general character of
Reality ' down, and then follows a dis-
is first laid
cussion of the way in which appearances can belong
'

to Reality,' or rather an attempt to prove that in

predicating appearances of Reality no contradiction
is involved. The positive result of Appearance and
Reality may be summed up in two theses, " Reality
is One " and " Reality is Sentient-Experience " The
first of these is essential to all forms of Absolutism ;

the second is peculiar to Mr. Bradley.

But there is yet another difference between Mr.
Bradley's standpoint and that of other Absolutists.
In support of his assertions, and particularly in
support of these two fundamental theses, he makes
constant appeals to the psychological data of
experience. His philosophy, in fact, may be
regarded from two points of view. It may be
treated as a theory which must be considered and
judged as a whole according as it renders or fails
to render a satisfactory and rational account of
the Universe or we may select principles which
:

are fundamental in Mr. Bradley's position and

inquire what foundation these have in the data of
experience. Regarded from the first point of view,
I shall discuss Mr. Bradley's position, together with

1
For a discussion of some of Mr. Bradley's arguments see
chap. xii.
 REALITY AS SENTIENT EXPERIENCE 95

that of other forms of Absolutism, in the chapter

dealing with the Metaphysics of Absolutism ; but
as the author of Appearance and Reality, in order
to establish the above-mentioned theses, himself
makes appeal to the data of experience, his psycho-
logical standpoint must be dealt with at once.
§ 62. In regard to the function of psychology
in the theory of knowledge, or rather in metaphysics
(for Mr. Bradley says thereis really no such science

as the theory of cognition), 1 my own opinion is

practically the same as Mr. Bradley's. The theory
of knowledge is not based wholly on psychology,
i.e., it cannot be proved merely by psychological

analysis. Still less can metaphysics be established

in this way. Yet, as Mr. Bradley says, the meta-
physician is forced to trespass inside the limits of
psychology. Consequently, "the metaphysician who
is no psychologist, runs great dangers. For he must
take up, and must work upon the facts about the
soul and, if he has not tried to learn what they are,
;

the risk is very serious." 2 This is precisely my own

view of the matter. Psychology must provide the
data upon which the epistemologist works, and
his theories must be confirmed or verified in the
experiences which he seeks to explain, but nothing
more.
§ 63. Theoretically, then, Mr. Bradley and I are
at one in regard to the function of psychology in
metaphysics yet I cannot help but think that Mr.
;

Bradley's philosophy has been very largely influ-

1
he. p. 76.
tit. This statement is not explained by Mr. Bradley,
but it refers, I take it, to a purely psychological theory of
cognition.
* Ibid.
 — —

96 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

enced by, even if not wholly due to, his

it is

psychological views. Nor do

I stand alone in this

opinion. In an article entitled " The New Realism

and the Old Idealism," which appeared in Mind for
July, 1906, the following passage occurs :

The more recent system of Mr. Bradley has in some

respects a more objective aspect (than that of Green).
His repudiation of the ballot of bloodless categories is
familiar to everyone and his criticism of the Self goes
;

far to destroy subjectivity. Yet, on the other hand,

be is in some fundamental points far more decidedly
subjective than Green, or perhaps than any other
prominent representative of idealism. Certainly by
his constant appeal to experience,' as at once the
'

standpoint and the goal in the search for reality, he

gives to his philosophy a subjective turn from which
he is never quite able to free it. The world for Mr.
Bradley is a straightened-out experience, but still it
is an experience, and nothing more and, indeed, the
—
;

most purely subjective aspect of experience mere

feeling —
seems in the end to be for Mr. Bradley its
most important and significant aspect. 1 [Professor
Mackenzie's advice to idealists, therefore, is :] Close '

thy Berkeley open thy Plato— ; close thy Bradley

open thy Hegel.' 2

§ 64. There is a great deal of truth in these

remarks. Mr. Bradley is not a subjective idealist,

and Phenomenalism he expressly rejects ;
yet, for
all that, his position approximates very closely to
the esse is percipi of Hume. Objects, if abstracted
from our perception of them, are nothing, said
Hume they exist only when they are perceived.
:

But perception is a state of the mind. Hence

objects are really states of the mind, and their
1 2
loc. cit., p. 313. Ibid, p. 327.
 REALITY AS SENTIENT EXPERIENCE 97

esse is perdpi. Compare this argument with the

statements which Mr. Bradley makes in support of,
if not in proof of, his thesis that Reality is Sentient

Experience. He thus introduces the subject in his

second Chapter on The General Nature of Reality. 1

We perceive, on reflection, that to be real, or even

barely to exist, must be to fall within sentience.
Sentient experience, in short, is reality, and what is
not this is not real. We may say, in other words, that
there is no being or fact outside of that which is
commonly called psychical existence. Feeling, thought,
and volition (any groups under which we class psychical
phenomena) are all the material of existence, and there
is no other material, actual or even possible.

This position does not involve Subjectivism, for

Mr. Bradley does not first " divide the percipient
subject from the universe and then, resting on
;

that subject, as on a thing actual by itself," urge

" that it cannot transcend its own states." " To
sum up the subject as real independently of the
whole, and to make the whole into experience in the
sense of an objective of that subject," 2 seems to him
indefensible. " The universe and its objects must
not be called states of my soul." 8 It is the whole
itself which is experience, and there is no subject
which exists independently of this whole. The
philosophy of Appearance and Reality is, therefore,
not subjective but objective Idealism or Absolutism.
On the other hand, the passage quoted above is
characteristic of Mr. Bradley's standpoint, and
seems to approximate so closely to the Humeian
doctrine that Professor Mackenzie's protest is hardly
1
Appearance and Reality, chap, xiv., p. 144.
id. p. 145. » Ibid. p. 301.
U
 98 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE
4
surprising, especially as he regards the thesis esse
is percipi '
as the foundation of subjective Idealism.
Nor is it surprising that Professor Mackenzie should
advise prospective idealists to study Hegel rather
than Bradley, since he holds that a true Idealism
depends upon the absolute rejection of this principle 1
and on this account replies to Mr. Moore's 'Refuta-
9
tion of Idealism by a charge of ignoratio elenchi.
But whether Mr. Moore's arguments are valid or not
against the Idealism of Hegel and Professor Mac-
kenzie, they certainly do not miss the point in
regard to Mr. Bradley, who is admittedly one of the
leading, if not the leading figure among British
idealists. Accordingly, it will be worth while to
examine the Bradleian position that Reality is
Sentient Experience, while at the same time bearing
in mind that Mr. Bradley's Absolutism may be
regarded from another point of view which is more
closely related to that of the Objective Idealism of
which we shall have to treat in a later chapter. 2
§ 65. That there is no being or fact which does
not fall within experience,' or which is outside
*

what we call psychical existence,' is a doctrine which

'

Mr. Bradley thinks will, in its general form, be

evident at once. The test of it, he says,

lies ready to our hand, and the decision rests in the

manner in which it is applied. Find any piece of . . .

existence, take up anything that anyone could possibly

call a fact, or could in any sense assert to have being,
and then judge if it does not consist in sentient ex-
perience. Try to discover any sense in which you can
still continue to speak of it, when all perception and

1 he. Mind, N.S.

cit. 59, p. 314.
* Vide chaps, ix., x.
 REALITY AS SENTIENT EXPERIENCE 99

feeling have been removed or point out any fragment

;

of its matter, any aspect of its being, which is not

derived from and is not still relative to this source.
When the experiment is made strictly, I can myself
conceive of nothing else than the experienced. Any-
thing in no sense felt or perceived becomes to me quite
unmeaning. And as I cannot think of it without
realising either that I am not thinking at all, or that
I am thinking of it against my will as being experienced,
I am driven to the conclusion that for me experience is
the same as reality. 1

§ 66. Two may

be urged against the
objections
position here set forth. of all, it may be
First
questioned whether the results of Mr. Bradley's
introspection are not peculiar to himself, or at any
rate to a few philosophic minds who in their intro-
spection cannot rid themselves of a certain idealistic
prejudice. Secondly, even granted the data which
Mr. Bradley assumes, his conclusion does not seem
to be vouched for by his premises, unless a further
assumption is made, namely, the validity of the
doctrine of Immanence. To deal with the inference
first : —
Granting that nothing exists that is not
perceived, what follows ? Not that reality is one
with sentient experience, but that to exist implies
a something or a somebody in whose experience
that existent is a percipient some-
perceived, i.e.,

thing which may or may not

be distinct from what is
perceived. The data, even if true, do not warrant
the conclusion that esse is percipi, still less that it
is percipere ; but merely that esse implies percipere.

Some sort of connection between percipient and

perceived we might infer but this, for aught the
;

1 Appearance and Reality, pp. 144, 145,

IOO THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

data have to say upon the matter, might be a causal

connection, or a pre-established harmony.
§ 67. I do not think, however, that many
psychologists would concede that Mr. Bradley has
given a true account of the data of human experience.
I certainly cannot agree with him, nor do I think

that Professor Mackenzie would do so, in spite of

his Idealism. Certainly if you asked the man in
the street whether he could conceive of a palm tree
growing in the wilds of Africa with nobody there
to perceive it, he would answer you in the affirma-
tive and I am afraid I am of the same opinion.
;

If anyone was there, of course the tree might chance

to be perceived but the question is whether it
;

would cease to be there as soon as the visitor went

away. I am quite ready to concede that all trees
are perceivaWc. Nay, more, we might say, I think,
that every existing being is capable of being
experienced, either by perception or by thought.
Indeed, I would even go s6 far as to say that all

things are
4
by God
experienced whatever
' —
'
experience ' may mean when predicated of the
Divinity ; but I cannot concede, even in this case,
that their esse is experience. Again, it is a principle
with Scholastics that all knowledge is derived,
either directly by
from sense-
or inference,
experience but this is very different from affirming
;

that it is sense-experience. Personally, I can

continue to think and speak, and, so it seems to
'
me, quite rationally, about facts and beings '
'
*

and pieces of existence which are not sentient

*
'

experiences, nor yet experience by anyone, except

— according to my theology by God. —
 REALITY AS SENTIENT EXPERIENCE 101

§ 68. But Mr. Bradley goes further still. Not

only are all things sentient experience, but their
given existence he affirms to be a state of his, i.e.,

of the experient's soul. Having assured us that

his horse and his body are, for him, nothing but
experience, he tells us that we push home the
'
if

question as to their given existence, we can find

it nowhere except as a state of his soul.' " When
I perceive them, or think of them, there is, so far,
no discoverable '
fact ' outside my psychical con-
ditions." 1
Now, either the terms '
fact and given
'
'

existence '
here mean '
perception '
as opposed to
the object perceived, in which case Mr. Bradley's
use of the term '
fact ' is somewhat strained and is

hardly consistent with his previous use of it, 2 where

he speaks of the want of correspondence which may
exist between '
assertion '
and '
fact '
(' fact ' there
signifying, not present perception, but objective
events which have occurred in the past) or else ;

Mr. Bradley's account of the perception of a horse

and of the body is introspectively incorrect. For
the horses and bodies which we perceive are not
perceived as states of our own soul and the facts ;

about which we think are thought of as other than

ourselves. This last point Mr. Bradley apparently
is willing to concede. For immediately after
affirming that when he perceives or thinks of a
horse or of his body, there is no discoverable fact
outside his psychical condition, he adds, "But such
a fact is not for me the fact of my horse, or,
4
' '
'

again, of my body. Their true existence is not

1
Appearance and Reality, p. 301.
2
Ibid. p. 190 and cf. p. 317.
102 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

that which is present in my mind, but rather, as

perhaps we should say, present to it." 1 What a
world of difference a preposition may make The !

substitution of to for in changes the whole

'
'
' '

meaning of Mr. Bradley's assertion, and seems to

convert him from a subjective into an objective
idealist, if not into a realist. For if objects are
presented to consciousness, but are not in con-
sciousness, they may not be sentient experience at
all, but something quite different.

§ 69. Mr. Bradley's theory of judgment, how-

ever, saves him from inconsistency. For though he
admits that objects are present to, not in, con-
sciousness, and affirms that the true existence of
' '

horses and bodies is " a content which works apart

from, and is irreconcilable with, its own psychical
4
being," this does not mean that the true '
existence
of presented objects not psychical, or that it is
is

not at bottom identical with sentient experience,

but merely that it is not identical with their
existence as ideas in my mind. Ego and non-egos,
4
minds and objects, psychical and true existences '

are at bottom one, for in themselves they are mere

abstractions, appearances, thought - distinctions
which have broken out in the background of sentient
experience, and which get their reality therefrom. 2
In judgment the immediate datum of sense-
experience is analysed into a subject and a predi-
cate, a that and a what,' an existence and a
'
'
' ' '

'
content,' a fact and an idea.'
'
Predicates,
' '

whats, contents, or ideas work loose from subjects,

1
Appearance and Reality, p. 301.
* Ibid., 301 (italics mine).
p.
 REALITY AS SENTIENT EXPERIENCE 103

thats, existences, facts, and at the same time

transcend them, referring to an Other, to a Beyond,
to something which is not a psychical state of my
soul. " The soul is not the contents which appear
in its states." " A man is not what he thinks of."
Principles of logic and morality, though they work
in the mind, are not " parts of the mind." 1 Whether
the predicate " appears not to go beyond its own
subject, or to have been imported divorced from
another fact outside," it is " divorced from its
psychical existence in my head, and is used without
any regard to its being there." 2 Or, as the realist
would put it, the predicate is not merely an idea,
4
but a quality which is predicated of reality, and,
'

except in psychological retrospection, it is always

regarded as a quality and not as an idea.
On the other hand, " the subject is an actual
existence." " No one ever means to assert about
anything but reality, and to do anything but qualify
4
a that' by a 'what.'" 3 Not that the subject is
ever " mere reality, or bare existence without
character. The subject, doubtless, has unspecified
content which is not stated in the predicate. For
judgment is the differentiation of a complex whole,
and hence always is analysis and synthesis in one.
It separates an element from, and restores it to,
the concrete basis and this basis of necessity
;

is richer than the mere element by itself." Yet the

subject is neither the mere what of the predicate
'
*

nor is it any other mere what.' There is in the

'

subject, whether it be perceived or not, " an aspect

of existence which is absent from the bare pre-
1 2 a
Ibid., p. 302, Ibid., pp. 163, 164. Ibid., p. 164.
 '

104 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

dicate." Beyond the content of thought there is a

subject (viz., reality) " of which it is true and which
it does not comprehend." " The that ' of the
4

actual subject will for ever give a something which is

not a mere idea, something which is different from

any truth, something which makes such a difference
to your thinking, that without it you have not even

thought completely." 1 The subject, in short, is

4
reality presented as this.' 2

§ 70. With this view of the judgment, so far, I

can to a large extent agree. Judgment does
involve an analysis of the data of sentient-experience
4 4
into a what ' and a that,' and the what
*
' is

referred to reality through the '

that ' of which it is

predicated. Thus our ideas about reality are not

merely ideas, but have objective reference and
imply an other than mere thought and the reason ;

4 '
of this is that an other than mere thought is given
in sense-experience in which we seem to be brought
4 '
into immediate contact with reality. Existence
4
may, like other elements in the concrete this
4
or that,' become a predicate and so become part
of the content of thought ; but existence, i.e.,

objective existence, belongs primarily to the sub-

ject of our judgments, for it is given in the data of
experience which we denote by that subject, and
to it the predicate is referred.
Many questions, however, have yet to be settled.
How does existence belong peculiarly to the sub-
4
ject, in what sense is the latter
and given in '

4
sense-perception ? For thought existence is '

objective ; is it also objective for sense-perception ?

1 *
Ibid., pp. 168, 169. Ibid., p. 175.
 REALITY AS SENTIENT EXPERIENCE 105

The existence which is predicated in the content of

thought is not merely a psychical state of the soul.
Is it a mere psychical state of the soul in the subject ?
Is it, in fact, psychical at all ? Again, what is this
reality that is presented ? Is it the whole of
reality or is it a part ? Is it a real this or is it ' '

reality in general presented as a

4
this ' ? And
lastly, in what sense is the '
this ' presented as a
whole ? In what sense is it one, a felt totality ?

§ 71. It is in the answer to these questions that

I find myself at variance with Mr. Bradley and ;

as the answers which he gives depend, in part at

least, upon view of the relation of thought to
his
sense-experience, to this we must now turn our
attention. Thought can never be equated with
experience. Thought - contents cannot though —
—
they try to do so swallow up reality. The reason
is that in sense-experience we have a fact which

cannot be conjured away, the fact of sensible ex-

perience, of immediate presentation with its
colouring of pleasure and pain. 1 This fact for Mr.
Bradley contains, or implies, even
everything,
reality itself. To it he appeals again and again in
support both of his doctrine that Reality is Sentient
Experience and of his doctrine that Reality is One.
Sense experience or presentation is something of
which we cannot get rid. It is always there in the
background as a felt-mass,' a
'
felt-totality,' a '

'
unity below distinction.' It is from this back-
ground of sentience that all distinctions and all
relations —
self and not self, subject and object,
—
psychical and 'true' existence take their rise, in it
1
Appearance and Reality, p. 170.
 io6 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

that they appear, and through it that they get what-

ever degree of reality they may possess. By the
process of thought the '
felt-totality ' of sentient
experience is analysed, and from
it emerges a system

of relational appearance
but this relational ap-
;

pearance in abstraction from the background of

sentient-experience has no reality.
§ 72. It is a fundamental principle with Mr.
Bradley that we must not separate product from
process, and unless the significance of this principle
is understood and its validity admitted the whole
force of hisargument will be lost. The principle is
44
firstintroduced in the Chapter on Relation and
Quality," where Mr. Bradley endeavours to prove
that qualities are not distinct from relations, and
indeed without relations are nothing at all, precisely
because " the qualities, as distinct, are made so by
an action which is admitted to imply relation " ;

.
" and you cannot ever get your product
. .

standing apart from its process." " There is an

operation which, removing one part of what is given,
presents the other part in abstraction. This result
is never to be found anywhere apart from a per-

sisting abstraction. And, if we have no further

information, can find no excuse for setting up the
I

result as being fact without the process. The

burden lies wholly on the assertor, and he fails
entirely to support it." 1
The separation of product from process, therefore,
in Mr. Bradley's opinion, is indefensible, and, as
4
it cannot be proved, he says, it is monstrous to '

assume it. Accordingly, Mr. Bradley assumes the

1
Ibid., pp. 27, jS.
 — —

REALITY AS SENTIENT EXPERIENCE 107

contradictory principle, that product and pro- viz.,

form part of one whole
cess are not separable, but
a principle which, I suppose, it is not monstrous
to assume. At any rate it is assumed, and is
applied to the analysis of sense-presentation with
the following result : Sense-presentation, when
analysed, reveals two aspects —one objective, the
other subjective.

You can certainly abstract from presentation its

character of thisness/ or its confused relatedness and
'
;

you can also abstract the feature of presentation. Of

these you can make ideas, for there is nothing which
you cannot think of. But you find that these ideas
are not the same as the subject of which you must
predicate them. You can think of the subject, but
you cannot get rid of it or substitute mere thought-
1
content for it.

Hence the *
thisness '
or '
confused relatedness '
(by
which, I suppose, is meant the objective, though
unanalysed element of presentation what we per-
ceive), and the 'feature of presentation' (which
clearly refers to the psychical act of perception
itself) are not distinguished in sense-experience or
in reality,but only by abstraction and for thought.
Mr. Bradley's answer, then, to the question whether
objects are presented to the mind or are present in
the mind, is that both objects and presentations
(and also minds themselves, for that matter) are
abstractions due to thought-analysis and con-
struction.They are ideal, not real. Hence, when
we say that objects are presented to a mind, we
must remember that both minds and objects are
1
ibid., p. 175.
io8 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

nothing but appearances which refer us back to

the sentient whole of experience from which and
in which they emerge.

§ 73. The validity of this argument rests upon

the assumption that product and process cannot
—
be separated and of this I shall have something
to say in a moment. But even granting this
assumption to be valid, I am not at all convinced
that the argument will hold. On the contrary, it

seems to me that the very assumption upon which

it rests, may be used to refute it.

In thought we distinguish existence from content,

a '
from the that.' And this distinction
what ' '

arises from and emerges in sentient experience, so

4
that whatever belongs to the what or content '

must also belong to the that,' at least in an '

unanalysed form. But 'objective existence,' v.g. y

the true existence of the horses and bodies,

'
'

forms part of the content of thought and is not to

be identified with the psychical existence of an
idea in the mind. 1 Wherefore it would seem to
follow that objective or true existence, as opposed
' '

to psychical existence, belongs also to the 'that,' or

to the subject of our judgment as given in sense-
perception. And if, in reply to this, it be urged
that I have assigned to the subject before analysis
what belongs to it only after analysis, I must refer
you to the passage already quoted and to many
other passages in which we are "told that reality
belongs in a peculiar manner to the subject of our
judgments, and even that in the subject there is
an aspect of existence which is absent in the predi-
1
cf. Appearance and Reality, \\ y*\.
 REALITY AS SENTIENT EXPERIENCE

catc. And should it now be said that the existence

which belongs to the subject is not the same as that
which belongs to the predicate that whereas the ;

existence of the subject is psychical, that of the

predicate is ideal, I must ask for proof of this
assertion, for the existence of the subject, in my
judgment, does not appear to be psychical, but
objective and real ;
quite as objective, in fact, as
that of the predicate. Moreover, if the existence
of the subject in presentation is psychical, how
comes it that in thought the existence which is

referred to that self-same not psychical subject is

but objective ? This is a mystery, perhaps, which

is due to the nature of thought, whose function it is

to distinguish existences and meanings which, in

reality, are not distinct. But thought, it is
admitted, must work upon the data of experience. If
then, in the product of thought, objective existence
and meaning are distinguished from the psychical
existence of thought itself, it is only reasonable to
infer that objective and psychical existence, not-
self and self, have been distinct throughout the
process, even to its basis in sense-experience itself.
That such a distinction of subject and object is
a datum even of perceptual experience I have
already attempted to show. 1 In perceptual experi-
ence we certainly come into immediate contact
with reality, and upon this our knowledge of reality
depends. But the reality which is given in '
'

perceptual experience is not psychical but objective.

Reality is presented to us, I will not say as material,
but, at any rate, as something quite distinct, quite
l
cf. § 52.
I IO THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

different, from '

me.' Again, I shall be told that
I am introducing thought-distinctions into my
description of sentient-experience. be And it may
that I am
thought is involved in all perception.
; for
But if such a fundamental and universal distinction
as this is not to be included in the data of sentient
experience, where are you going to draw the line ?
Sentient experience is not mere feeling, as Mr.
Bradley fully acknowledges, for feeling is itself an
abstraction. But as soon as we get beyond the
stage of mere feeling we find thought-distinction.
Mr. Bradley seems to admit this also, for he speaks
of the sensuous infinitude which belongs to the
'
'

'presented subject' in a judgment, by which he

means that it has plurality of features in its content,
the details of which are indefinitely related to some-
thing outside. 1 And I take it that it is the subject
as presented in sense-perception that is here referred
to, since it is called a presented subject. In any
case, we are told that in sense-experience there is

a confused relatedness which is not the presentation

itself, qua presentation (though why what is pre-

sented should be described as confused I do not * '

understand, since it is usually perfectly clear and

distinct so far as concerns the objects upon which
attention and this focussing may be
is focussed,
instantaneous) ; and
would seem that the confused it

relatedness and the presentation are not one and

the same thing, even in sense-experience. While
if, in reply, I am told that even this
4
confused
relatedness '
is due to abstraction and so to thought-
analysis, then certainly in what is left of sentient-
1
Appearance and Reality, p. 176.
 REALITY AS SENTIENT EXPERIENCE m
experience there will be no distinction of subject
and object but surely it is Mr. Bradley now and
;

not myself who is guilty of abstraction and such ;

an attenuated fragment of experience is clearly not

identical with presentation, still less with reality,
nor does Mr. Bradley claim that it is.

§ 74. Why, then, is reality identified with

sentient experience ? We
have already discussed
one reason, viz., that Mr. Bradley cannot conceive
of an existing object or quality from which all
perception and feeling have been removed. This
reason we found to be inconclusive, since most
people can imagine pieces of existence and facts,'
' ' '

viz., historical and absent facts, from which all

perception and feeling have been removed. Yet,
though Mr. Bradley's experience would appear to
be abnormal in this respect, feeling and sense- '
'

perception are undoubtedly very closely connected

with the idea of reality and it is upon this fact at
;

bottom that Mr. Bradley's doctrine seems to be

based. The *
this ' of sense-perception, he says,
brings a sense of superior reality, a sense which is far
from being wholly deceptive and untrue. For all our
1
knowledge, in the first place, arises from the this/
It is the one source of our experience, and every element
of the world must submit to pass through it. And
the this/ secondly, has the genuine feature of ultimate
'

reality. With however great imperfection and incon-

'
sistency it owns an individual character. The this '

is real for us in a sense in which nothing else is real. 1

Now, the *
this '
is defined for us as " the positive
feeling of direct experience." Hence the transition

1
Jbid., pp. 224, 225.
 112 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

iseasy from the doctrine that this " feeling of direct

experience " is the source of all knowledge of reality
and itself possesses a genuine feature of reality, to
the doctrine that, as sentient experience in general,
it is reality.
Mr. Bradley, to do him justice, does not explicitly
make this transition, though I cannot help thinking
that he really has made it in his own mind, and that
it underlies his general position. At any rate, it
will be worth while to discuss how far, and in what
4
sense, the this of sense-perception does possess
'

the genuine feature of reality and in order not to;

misinterpret, let me again quote from Appearance

and Reality.

Reality is being in which there is no division of

content from existence, no loosening of what from '
'

*
that.' Reality, in short, means what it stands for, and
stands for what it means. And the this possesses to
1
'

some extent the same wholeness of character. Both

the this and reality, we may say, are immediate. But
' '

reality is immediate because it includes and is superior

to mediation. It develops, and it brings to unity, the
distinctions it contains. The this is immediate ... at a
'
'

level below distinctions. Its elements are but conjoined,

and are not connected. And its content, hence, is
unstable, and essentially tends to disruption, and by
its own nature must pass beyond the being of the 'this'.
1
But every this still shows a passing aspect of un-
'

divided singleness. In the mental background specially

such a fused unity remains a constant factor and can
never be dissipated. And it is such an unbroken
wholeness which gives the sense of individual reality.
When we turn from mere ideas to sensations, we experi-
ence in the this a revelation of freshness and life.
'
'

And that revelation, if misleading, is never quite untrue. 1

1
p. 225.
 '

REALITY AS SENTIENT EXPERIENCE 113

The reason, then, why the

4
this '
seems to bring
us into immediate touch with reality is because of

its immediacy, its undivided singleness, its fused

unity. Unity and immediacy, moreover, apparently
4
mean the immediacy is defined
same thing, for '

4
as the union or unity of a what and a that.' '
*

Now the question is, what is meant by this unity

4
of a what *
and a that.' It seems to mean two
'

things between which Mr. Bradley hardly makes

any distinction, viz., (1) the unity of subject and
predicate before analysis, and (2) the unity of
objective meaning and psychical fact.
§ 75. Let us examine this unity first in the sense
of a unity between objective meaning and psychical
fact. I do not think there can be any doubt that

the unity of the this does bear such a signification

*
'

in Mr. Bradley's mind. For the this is described * '

4
either as the positive feeling of direct experience,'
which is clearly something psychical and subjective,
4
or it is identified with confused relatedness,' the
4
objective aspect in presentation and this confused
;

relatedness ' and the subjective feature of presenta-

tion are, as we know, for Mr. Bradley, one and the
same. Again, in a passage already quoted, 1

4 4
content and psychical being are opposed to
'
'

4 4
one another as a what and a that while the '
;
'

4
ideality of the what,' since it is attributed precisely
to this alienation of content and psychical existence,
4
clearly indicates that'
that in the subject or
content and psychical existence are one. Lastly, 2

4
the ambiguity of Mr. Bradley's use of the term fact
1
Ibid., p. 301 (cf. supra, § 68).
1
Ibid., cf. pp. 165, 168.
I
ii 4 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

points to the same conclusion. '

Existence ' is

eithera series of events or of facts ; facts are either

events or what is directly experienced ; and " any
aspect of direct experience, or again of an event,
may itself be loosely styled a fact or event, so
far as you consider it as a qualifying adjective
of one." 1
It is clear, then, that the only kind of
*
existence which Mr. Bradley admits is psychical
' '

existence,' and that when he speaks of the immediacy

of presentation as the unity of a what and a '
'

4 4
that,' or of a what which is not sundered from
'

its that,' and turned from fact into truth, he

*

means to say that objective content and psychical

existence are one.
Now, many times have I tried to find such a
unity about the facts of presentation, but I must
confess that I have always signally failed. True,
the existence and the content which belong to what
I perceive are not separated and it may be that ;

I do not always distinguish that objective existence

from my psychical act but, in any case, I do not ;

confuse the two existences, or take them to be

one, or discover any sort of unity about them.
Either we are conscious of our own psychical
existence in an act of perception, or we are not.
If we are, from the existence which
it is distinct
belongs to the object and if we are not, there is
;

no question of psychical existence at all but only

of objective existence. I may be mistaken in
thinking that there is a minimum of distinction
between subject and object in sense-perception ;

but, whatever else happens, they are certainly not

1 Ibid., p. 317, n. I (cf. supra, § 68).
 REALITY AS SENTIENT EXPERIENCE 115

given as one. Still less are they thought of as one

in retrospection (except in an idealist theory).
4
Moreover, the superior sense of reality ' and the
peculiar freshness and life which attends sense-
perception, seem to belong to the objective and not
to the subjective element, for sensation in itself is

no more living and

than thought or volition.
real
The genuine feature of reality which is given
*
'

in presentation, therefore, provides neither ground

for, nor confirmation of, the thesis that Reality is
4
Sentient Experience. For that feature '
belongs
4
to the objective, and not to the sentient' aspect
of presentation. And
be said that the two
if it

aspects arc ultimately one, I must ask on what

grounds the assertion is made. If as a datum of

experience, I cannot admit it. If, on the other

hand, it is affirmed as a metaphysical hypothesis,

my answer is that in identifying reality with sentient
experience, you have identified it with what is,
according to your own theory, a one-sided abstraction.
And this is so whatever interpretation be put upon
sentient experience, for sentient experience, as the
term '
sentient '
implies, and as Mr. Bradley admits,
is essentially psychical, and the psychical element
in presentation is acknowledged to be but one
aspect of the whole.
§ 76. There is,however, another sense in which
this may be understood.
4
the unity of a presented '

It may mean the unity of that

4
and what,' '
4

or of subject and predicate ; and in this case it is

4 '
true that in presentation the aspects of what
and 4
that' are not divorced. What we perceive is
ft concrete thing, and it is only by thought that we
n6 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

analyse it and predicate. Moreover,

into subject
in what we and objective existence
perceive, content
are not separated, but form one whole. But, on
the other hand, we do not always perceive a single
4 '
thing. The subject which is given in the this
' '

is not always " a single self-subsistent being." It

may be a '
garden,' for instance, which, though in a
certain sense it has a unity for thought and hence is
denoted by a single name, does not seem to be given
as a unity. In fact, if we keep strictly to sentience
and exclude thought, I cannot discover any unity
at all about presentation apart from the unity of
consciousness which it implies. What is presented
is much diversified, especially if the presentation be

for sight. The parts of what is presented are

'conjoined,' and may be said to 'co-exist,' but they
do not form one integral whole, nor can I find in
them any unity below relation and ideas. 1 There
is a certain '
about them, but that is
togetherness '

insufficient. Mr. Bradley requires an indivisible,

not merely an undivided, whole, and the object of
perception is certainly not given as indivisible even
if it be given as one.

True, an act of perception is one, qua psychical

act, since the possibility of apprehending many
things together, even if merely conjoined, pre-
supposes a unity, as Kant showed and, again, the ;

psychical element in presentation perception itself —

— is referred to the mind or the self, which we regard

as a unity. But this self-reference, like the

objective reference to which it is opposed, is

admittedly a function of thought, not of sentient

1
cf. § 29.
 REALITY AS SENTIENT EXPERIENCE ny

experience as such. For me, indeed, the deliverances

of thought are as valid and more valid than those of
sentient-experience but for Mr. Bradley this is
;

not so thought-content is mere appearance, not

:

reality. Hence that what we experience at any

given moment should on its psychical side appear as
" a single individual experience " is insufficient for
his purpose for what he seeks is a real unity,
;

which the unities predicated as a result of thought-

abstractions according to his principles can never be.
Moreover, if this unity is to be real, it should come
from the objective and not from the subjective or
psychical side of experience.
§ 77. Mr. Bradley's constant appeal to '
felt
wholes,' therefore, is in vain. For if he means by
the latter what is perceived in external perception,
4
this is never as a felt-whole, but rather as
given '

distinct objects accompanied by, but not fused with,

a vague background and about such a presentation
;

there is no unity except for thought. While if what

is meant is a psychical feeling, there is still no felt-

unity or felt-whole which can be clearly recognised

as such until we reflect, and when we do reflect the
felt-whole is so indistinguishably mixed up with
reference to the self, that it is impossible to determine
introspectively whether apart from the self there is

any felt- whole at all. Doubtless 44 all that we suffer,

and do and are at any one time forms a psychical
totality " but that totality does not include the
;

objects about which we think, nor is it recognised

as a totality exceptby thought. We feel, perhaps,
" the co-existing mass " of sensation which consti-
4
tutes the bodily tone,' but we do not feel directly
 '

Ii8 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

the psychical unity which underlies it and which

it presupposes, though belief in such a unity has
instinctively arisen in our minds. Mr. Bradley, in
his psychical analysis of presentation, seems to me
to have read into the introspective data of experience
pre-conceived metaphysical ideas. He has found
in sentient experience what he looked for, felt-wholes
and unities below the level of distinctions but he ;

has found them precisely because he looked for

them, and not because they are really there as clear
and unambiguous data of experience. If the
subject is not given as distinct from the object nor
one object as distinct from another, at any rate
they are not given together as one and individual.
§ 78. A similar fallacy seems to characterise
Mr. Bradley's attempt to show that in the immediacy
of the this,' reality is present as a whole, and in his
'

further attempt to reconcile the apparent fragmen-

4
tariness and exclusiveness of a presented this
with the all-inclusive nature of reality itself. I
44
cannot discover that sensuous infinitude " of
4
which he speaks. I admit that the this has '

4
ragged edges which imply other existences from
'

44
which, in a sense, it has been torn;" 1 but all that
this means for me is either that as a rule a number
of things are presented side by side, or that it is
difficult to explain any individual thing except by
comparison with other things. Purposes, functions,
transient actions all direct our thoughts from the
individual to something outside, apart from which
4
they cannot be understood. The this is self- '

transcendant, as Mr. Bradley says. Its inner nature

1
Appearance and Reality, p. 176.
 kEALITY AS SENTIENT EXPERIENCE 119

4
leads our thoughts to pass from it to a higher
totality which it is but a finite element or part.
' in
4
But whether this higher totality is a concrete '

whole which is identical with reality itself, or whether

it is merely a rational plan or design which is manifest

in finite and individual existents, is not proved by

the mere psychological fact that our thoughts must
pass from the this to something outside it and
' *

4
that even then the content of the this is not fully '

exhausted or explained. Either hypothesis will

harmonise so far with the data of experience, and
we must have recourse to other considerations in
order to decide between the two.
Here, as elsewhere in Appearance and Reality,
Mr. Bradley seems to beg the whole question by the
very form in which he has chosen to describe the
facts and it is only by interpreting his psycholo-
;

gical descriptions in the light of his metaphysical

theory that they can possibly be understood, and
the apparently gratuitous conclusions which he
draws obtain even a semblance of validity. For
'
instance, it is said that the inner nature of the this '

4
leads not merely our thoughts, but it, (the this'
itself), to pass outside itself to a higher totality.

And this higher totality is assumed to be a real and

not merely an ideal totality, and again not merely
a totality but a real and indivisible whole, for we
4 9
are told that the very exclusiveness of the this
involves the reference of itself beyond itself, and
is but a proof of its necessary absorption in the
Absolute. 1
§ 79. Another instance of the influence of his
1
Ibid., p. 228.
120 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

metaphysics upon his psychology is Mr. Bradley's

psychological (for apparently it is psychological)
dictum that product must not be separated from
'

process.' Taken as a universal proposition, the

principle is whether we can legitimately
false, for
separate product and process surely depends upon
whether they are really distinct, as sometimes in the
physical world they are. Of course, assuming the
metaphysical standpoint of Appearance and Reality
to be valid, it is clearly illicit to separate the product,
appearances, from the psychical process by which
they are supposed to be at once differentiated and
re-united in an immanent Ground. But the validity
of this position cannot be taken for granted. Hence
it is manifestly illogical on Mr. Bradley's part to

assume a principle which presupposes the validity

of his metaphysical position, and to use that prin-
ciple not only to refute the arguments of opponents,
but also to establish the very position upon the
validity of which it depends. Nor is the application
of this principle to the psychology of experience
a success. For, even granting that unities below '

relations and felt-wholes are among the data of

' ' '

sentient experience, we have no direct experience

whatsoever of the process by which the so-called product,
thought-distinctions and relations, arises. All we
know is that psychoses in which sensation is com-
paratively predominant, are succeeded by psychoses
in which distinctions and relations have taken its
place, and that between the two there is what Pro-
fessor James a continuous transition.' To
calls '

say that relational appearances emerge within the '

4
felt totality or that thought-distinctions
' break
 REALITY AS SENTIENT EXPERIENCE 121

out of it,' is to speak metaphorically. Of the

process by which sentience is displaced by thought,
introspection tells us nothing. Consequently, the
Bradleian principle of between
non-separation
product and process is inapplicable. There are no
products and processes to separate, unless we make
a gratuitous assumption to the effect that thought-
distinctions are evolved from a sentient ground.
§ 80. This being the case, our only alternative is
to choose whether we will accept the deliverances
of thought or of sentience as more adequate to reveal
the nature of reality. Mr. Bradley somewhat in-
consistently (for it is the marked Intellectualism of
his criterion of truth that has brought down upon
him the ire of the pragmatists) seems to prefer the
latter, on the ground that sentience gives a superior
sense of reality to which the relational form of
thought can never be equated and in regard to
which it must ever remain a compromise, an un-
successful attempt to " unite differences which
have broken out in the felt-totality." As against
the Hegelian identification of Thought and Reality,
Mr. Bradley's argument is probably valid, though
it seems to me a pity that he should have identified

Reality with sentient experience, since he is forced

to re-interpret this almost immediately as an ex-
perience which is not, but which includes, sentience,
as it includes thought and volition and all other
forms of psychical reality. But I cannot agree that
reality is identical with either thought or with
sentient experience, for it seems to me that in both,
objective content and psychical existence are really
distinct. Mr. Bradley assumes throughout that all
122 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

existence is psychical and that at bottom experience

and the experienced, presentation and the pre-
sented, are one. But though I grant that in the
presentation of a concrete object its what and its '
'

4
'
that,' its meaning
'
and its
'
existence are '

united, Mr. Bradley's arguments have entirely failed

to convince me that the '
existence '
here in ques-
tion is psychical and not rather the
existence,
existence which belongs to the object, which is
quite distinct from the psychical act of perception in
my mind. This being so, the question for me is not
whether reality is thought or sentient experience,
but whether in thought or in sentient experience
reality is better known. And of the answer to this
question there can be no doubt. For thought is
admittedly a higher form of cognition than sen-
tience, which is hardly cognition at all and it is ;

precisely on this account that thoughts seem to

take the place of and to be preferred instead of, but
not as well as, sensations, whenever it is a question
of knowledge. Sentient experience, like anything
else, can become the object of thought. Indeed, as
Mr. Bradley acknowledges, 'there is nothing
which cannot become the object of thought.' And
this being so, given a satisfactory criterion of truth,
there would seem to be no reason why thought
should not be capable of giving us adequate know-
ledge of reality.
§ 81. My conclusion, then, is that the thesis
'
Reality is Sentient Experience '
and '
Reality is
one and individual' are hypotheses or theories, not
introspective facts, nor yet confirmed by intro-
spective facts, which can only be made to harmonise
 REALITY AS SENTIENT EXPERIENCE \2$

with these theories by reading into them features

that are not given and by excluding others that are.
Mr. Bradley's account of the psychology of ex-
perience is inaccurate his assumptions gratuitous
; ;

his terminology ambiguous, and his inferences

invalid. The subjective and objective senses of
terms such as '
existence '
and fact are hopelessly
*
'

confused. What not given as distinct in the first

is

instance is assumed to be identical what is not given

;

as divided, to be indivisible and one. Felt-wholes

and underlying unities are discovered, though none
such are to be found among the data of sentient
experience. And, finally, thought-distinctions are
declared to be the inseparable product of the
evolution of this sentient experience, though for
introspection the most we can say is that the latter
is the antecedent of the former. These fallacies
destroy the conclusiveness of all Mr. Bradley's
arguments from psychological data while his ;

assumption that in sentient experience esse is percipi,

or that feeling and reality are one, gives to Appear-
ance and Reality a subjective tone which is repugnant,
not only to realists, but also to more objective
idealists, and of this impression it is, as Professor
Mackenzie remarks, difficult to get rid. Still
Appearance and Reality is, after all, not subjective
but objective Idealism and as a metaphysic of
;

the Absolute is a theory which claims to interpret

the universe as a whole, we shall have to examine
it in a later chapter from a more metaphysical point
of view.
124 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

CHAPTER V.

POSTULATION AND THE EXPERIMENTAL

THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE.
§ 82. One which has been given of
definition
Pragmatism is " the thorough recognition
that it is

that the purposive character of mental life generally

must permeate our most remotely cognitive ac-
tivities." 1 Unlike Absolutism, Pragmatism claims
emphatically a psychological foundation, and in
essence is little else than the recognition of a par-
ticular psychological fact and its application as a
general principle to the theory of knowledge. The
pragmatist does not go to psychology merely for the
data of experience in order to examine their meta-
physical conditions. His standpoint is psychologi-
cal from beginning to end and his aim, so he tells
;

us, is to reassert characteristic features of human

knowledge which have been hitherto much neg-
lected, but which, nevertheless, are there, and are
directly verifiable in human experience. The same
may be Humanism, which is only Pragmatism
said of
stated in a more general form. Pragmatism is the
logic of Humanism according to Dr. Schiller, while
Humanism, according to Professor James, is Pragma-
tism applied to the genesis of knowledge. The two
terms are practically synonymous, for Humanism
is defined by Dr. Schiller as " a philosophical attitude

which, without wasting thought upon attempts to

1
Humanism, p. 8.
 EXPERIMENTAL THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 125

construct experience a priori, is content to take

human experience as the clue to the world of human

experience." 1 Both the pragmatist and the humanist
accept the principle which I have laid down in a
previous chapter as that which should guide the
epistemologist in the construction of his theory of
knowledge. For both profess to start from the
standpoint of common-sense, and only in so far as
common-sense notions fail to work, do they consider
themselves justified in modifying them, and then,
only provided sufficient reason can be' shown for the
modification.
§ 83. The fundamental characteristic of human
cognition which the pragmatist claims to have
re-discovered is already contained in the definition
given above. It is the function of human purposes,
which, as expressing human needs, characterise and
pervade all human activity. Both human action
and human cognition are controlled throughout by
purpose. It is our purposes and our needs which
prompt us to seek for knowledge it is our purposes ;

which guide us in the search and it is the satis- ;

faction of our purposes which compel us to accept

or reject the various claims to truth which are made
by fact and theory alike. 2 The acquisition of human
knowledge, according to the pragmatist, always
takes the same form. If we are to live, our needs
must be satisfied ;
hence, in order to satisfy our
needs we strive to modify the environment in which
we find ourselves. This environment consists of

1
Ibid., Preface.
p. 10 and Studies in Humanism, pp.
1
Humanism, ; 1 2S, 1 53—1 $7,
and passim throughout both books.
 '

126 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

sense-experience, and may be modified in two ways,

by action and by thought. The matter of sense ' '

4
experience is characterised by a plastic receptivity,'
and upon it thought seeks to impose its own forms,
which again may themselves be modified by the
reactions of sense-experience which, as at present
constituted, is not wholly formless, but has already

accepted forms imposed upon it by our ancestors.

Thus postulation and experiment characterise all
human cognition, for in it we demand that experience
shall conform to our pre-conceived ideas, which by
experiment we strive to realise in the concrete.
" Not having a ready-made world' presented to us
which we can suck in with a passive receptivity,"
says Dr. Schiller, " we have to make experiments in
order to construct out of the materials we start with,
a harmonious cosmos which will satisfy all our
desires." 1 These experiments are made under the
control of postulates in which anticipated results are
expressed. But before a postulate is verified we
have to experiment again and again, and often
enough the postulate gets considerably modified in
the process. Postulation as expressive of our
needs, and as verified in the concrete by experiments
the results of which satisfy these needs, is, for the
pragmatist, the universal form of human cognition.
There is no other way of acquiring knowledge except
by postulating what our needs demand, and no other
way of verifying these postulates except by ex-
periments in the concrete, the effects of which are to
be judged according to their power to satisfy our
;
needs. Postulation is universal and necessary 2
'
'
*

1
* Axioms as Postulates '
in '
Personal Idealism,' § 5.
1
Ibid., § 26.
 —

EXPERIMENTAL THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 127

it constitutes "the nisus formativus of our whole

mental life." 1

Post ulat ion is a principle which all prag-

§ 84.
matists admit, though not all are so enthusiastic
about it as is Dr. Schiller. " We strive by our
efforts to give expression to the ideal postulates of
human nature," says M. Blondel. "La Connais-
sance ne va dans le sens de la verite qu'en devenant
un appel a Taction et en recueillant la r£ponse
de Taction." Postulation, indeed, is admitted in
some form or other by almost all philosophers.
Positivism, for example, while denying the possibility
of Metaphysics, acknowledges the validity of science,
and hence concludes in the person of Mr. Spencer
44
that there must be some principle which, as being
the basis of science, cannot be established by science.
All reasoned conclusions must rest on some postulate" 2
some widest truth which can be merged in no other,
and derived from no other, but which, nevertheless,
according to Mr. Spencer, will not be self-evident.
This kind of postulation, however, is more akin to
that of Kant than to the pragmatist's. It is used
only as a last resource and in regard to an object
4
in Mr. Spencer's case the persistence of force'
44
which transcends our knowledge and conception,"
so that we cannot be said to know, but only to postu-
late it. Kant also admits postulation only where
knowledge fails. The pragmatist, on the other
44
hand, argues somewhat illogically 3 that the
principle, if valid, must be generalised and applied
4
all round to the organising principles of life." This
1
Ibid,, § 27. * First Principles, p. 192. (Italics mine.)
3 * 'Axioms as Postulates,'
cf. infra, §§ 88, 89. § 25.
128 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

is the chief difference between pragmatic and

Kantian postulation but there are others, and
;

since Pragmatism claims to be the antithesis of

Kantian Apriorism 1 upon which Absolutism is
largely based, a closer comparison between the two
theories in regard to postulation will be instructive.
§ 85. As Absolutism may be regarded as a
development of the first and third Critiques, so Prag-
matism may in some sense be regarded as a develop-
ment of the second. Yet neither is strictly a
Kantian theory, for the Critiques of Kant go together
to form one whole and cannot be thus separated
without destroying their meaning. To adopt the
first and reject the second, as Fichte did, or to adopt

the second and reject the first as does the pragmatist,

is to take up a position essentially different from

that of Kant and it is only Kant's definition of

;

Criticism as an examination of the presuppositions

of knowledge rather than of the presuppositions of
faith, that gives the monistic interpreters of Kant
a better claim than the pragmatists to be styled
Critical philosophers.
Pragmatism, however, does not claim to be a
development of Critical Philosophy, nor does the
pragmatist always acknowledge his debt to Kant.
On the contrary, Professor James scoffs at the mind
of the famous author of the Kritik der reinen Ver~
nunft as " the rarest and most intricate of ancient
bric-a-brac museums," and complains that Kant
" has bequeathed to us not one single conception
which is both indispensable to philosophy, and which

philosophy either did not possess before, or was

1
ibid., § 10.
 EXPERIMENTAL THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 129

not destined inevitably to acquire after him, through

the growth of men's reflection upon the hypothesis
by which science interprets nature." 1 Doubtless
the latter part of this statement is true, since it is

quite conceivable thathad not Kant introduced the

Copernican revolution into philosophy, it might
have been introduced later on by a James or a
Schiller. But this is a mere platitude which is
equally true of all philosophic conceptions and ;

the fact remains that many peculiarly pragmatic

notions can be traced back to Kant. I do not say
that such notions have been deliberately borrowed
from Kant ;
but, since pragmatists are not un-
familiar with Kantian writings, and since in their
own Kantian ideas but natural to
reappear, it is

conclude that, consciously or unconsciously, Prag-

matism has been influenced by the mind of that great
thinker for which it professes little but con-
tempt. In any case, contemptuous remarks such
as these I have just quoted are peculiarly out of place
when coming from the pen of a writer whose theory of
the soul as a series of thoughts which are born owners
and die owned, was forestalled by the Kantian meta-
phor of elastic balls which are conscious of their
own motion and transmit both the motion and the
consciousness to other balls in succession till the last
ball holds all that the others ever held and realised
as their own. 2
§ 86. Ideas which have reappeared in Pragma-
tism are to be found even in the first Critique, It
was as a postulate that Kant assumed that in
1
Jown. of Phil., Psy. and Sc. Methods, 1904, p. 687.
*cf. James, Principles of Psychology, vol. j., p. 337.

)
 '

THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

knowledge the object conforms to the mind and it ;

was according to its working that he asked that this

postulate should be judged. The pragmatist makes
a similar assumption, though for him the object
conforms not to a priori forms inherent in the
structure of mind, but to more plastic postulates
constructed gradually under the influence of
needs. Again, there is an affinity between the
methodological postulates of Pragmatism and " the
Regulative Principles of Pure Reason." Methodo-
logical postulates —
such as that of the
4
complete
plasticity of the world of experience 1
are —
made for
the sake of a theory which we would like to be true
universally but
; as we cannot prove this theory, the
function of the postulate is merely regulative.
Similarly, " the Regulative Principles of Pure
Reason," such, for instance, as the demand that we
should think totality present in the object, is not a
constitutive principle, but something which our
needs force us to postulate, and which guides us in
the search for knowledge.
It is, however, not until we come to the second
Critique that postulation proper is introduced. The
attitude of the Practical Reason is essentially
though it is
different from, the complement of, that
of the Pure Reason and it is this difference of
;

attitude which makes it possible to regard both

Pragmatism and Absolutism as one-sided develop-
ments of Criticism. The two Critiques are parallel
only in so far as in each reason lays down the laws
to which phenomena are to conform. For, while
in the first the conformity of the data of experience
1
'Axioms as Postulates,' § 7.
 EXPERIMENTAL THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 131

to the a priori element is a condition of the possi-

bility of knowledge ; in the second the material
element, hedonistic impulses, not only does not
de facto conform to the Autonomy of Reason, but is

often in marked opposition thereto

4
—a fact which
reminds one of the resisting something in over- '

coming which, according to Dr. Schiller, intelli-

gence displays itself. 1 So far, however, the principle
or law which we seek to impose upon nature, though
it expresses human needs, is not strictly a postulate,

but an intuitive moral dictate or a categorical '

imperative.' It is the attempt to realise in practice

the dictates of our moral nature, which, owing to
the opposition of sense, gives rise, according to Kant,
to the need of postulation. The moral ideal, implicit
within us, must somehow or other be realised our :

rational nature demands it. In order, therefore, that

this realisation may be possible in spite of sense,
4
we postulate freedom and since its accomplish-
;
'

ment will require an indefinite time, we postulate

4
immortality while for the final reconciliation
;
'

of virtue and happiness and the complete realisation

of the highest good, we postulate God.
§ 87. Thus the ideas most closely connected with
the pragmatic doctrine of postulation, human needs,
human postulates and even human experiments are
to be found in the philosophy of Kant. On the
other hand, it must be admitted that there is an
all-important difference between the Kantian and
the pragmatic conception of postulation. Kant's
postulates are a last resource aroused by the con-
flict of reason with our lower nature, and are
1
* Axioms as Postulates § 6.
132 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

restricted to three transcendental objects. They are

also incapable of verification, at least in this life,

because knowledge of these objects is impossible,

there being no perceptions in which, as Professor
James would put it, such knowledge can terminate.' '

In Pragmatism, on the contrary, postulation is

universal. It is characteristic not only of our belief
in a moral Ideal, but of all thought and all cognition
without exception. Kantian postulation does not
claim to give knowledge but only faith whereas by
;

pragmatic postulation it is asserted that we get the

only kind of knowledge possible to man.
The validity of a postulate for the pragmatist, as
for Kant, depends ultimately upon its power to
satisfy human needs, and for neither can that
validity ever be completely established. The
Kantian postulate never gives more than faith ;

and though the satisfactions which ensue from some

pragmatic postulates may be both acute and lasting,
no postulate is absolute, none completely verified ;

even the most stable and the most permanent that

have as yet made their appearance are subject to
modification and, it may be, to radical change.
This being the case, we may well ask what right the
pragmatist has to generalise a principle so uncertain
in its results. Why does he regard as universal
what Kant restricted to faith ? What reason has he
for affirming that postulation, which for intro-
spection not the only source of knowledge, is yet
is

the type to which all knowing must and does

de facto conform.
§ 88. I can find no definite answer to this
question in pragmatic writings ; but the real answer
 EXPERIMENTAL THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 133

would seem to be this, that from whatever point of

view Pragmatism is approached, whether it be re-
garded (1) as a protest against pure intellect
'
'

which minimises the volitional and emotional side

of our nature, or (2) as a return to the methods of
science, or again, (3) as "
an epistemological method
which really describes the facts of actual knowing,"
it will lead us sooner or later to the Principle of
Postulation which stands out clearly as its central
doctrine, no matter from what aspect we regard it.
Thus, a tender-minded person,' if pragmatically
'

inclined, would probably start from the conviction

that the emotional and volitional tendencies of our
nature must somehow or other be satisfied, and that
what human needs force us to postulate must in the
end be realised. A study of Peirce may then
persuade him or her that the function of thought
is simply to produce belief resulting in action, which

action, if satisfactory, tends to strengthen, and if

unsatisfactory, to destroy, the belief by which it

was prompted. Finally, convinced that all thought

is purposive, more or less emotional, and accom-

panied by conative strivings, he will proceed to

apply the principle thus obtained to all our cognitive
processes.
A '
tough-minded
person, on the other hand, will
'

be more inclined to take a scientific view of the

' '

matter. Fascinated by the apparent security of

Physical Science, a belief in which a shallow know-
ledge of that science is apt to engender, he will seek
to apply its method everywhere, even to metaphysics,
as did the illustrious Kant and, proceeding on
;

these lines, will try to reform, or rather to revolu-

134 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

tionise, metaphysics,simply by basing it on science,

a procedure which, by the way, was already sug-
gested by Dr. Schiller in his pre-pragmatic Riddles. 1
Now the physicist, as a rule, makes use of what has
been called the Inductive Method,' in which,
'

starting from some provisional hypothesis, he seeks

to verify this by observation and experiment.
Since, then, argues the would-be pragmatist, this
method of science has worked so well, and has proved
itself so satisfactory and so reliable,
useful, so
what need any further and less satisfactory
is there of
method ? Why not be content with one ? And,
lastly, turning from the future to the past, he looks
back on the methods that have been used, and
finds, as he expected, that in so far as knowledge
has been attained, all of them conform to the one
type of postulation and verification vut experiment.
But some pragmatists claim to be more psycho-
logical, and tell us that they discover in even the
simplest cognitive act the form of postulation. All
knowledge comes by experience, and experience
—
implies we are getting less psychological and more
—
now (i) an experimenter, (2) a hypothesis
critical
which he doubts and wishes to verify, and (3) the
verification-process. 2 This verification-process in-
volves action on our part and reaction on the part of
experience and the possibility of
; verification
implies that objects always react in the same way,
provided we experiment in the same way. Since,
therefore, postulation is involved in even the

1
The Riddles of the Sphinx, p. 163.
- C. S.Peircc,
44
What Pragmatism is." The Monist, 1905,
p. 173, and cf. Studies in Humanism, p. 1S5.
 EXPERIMENTAL THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 135

simplest act of cognition, a fortiori it is involved in

more complex acts which are built up of others
more simple. Hence postulation occurs in every
cognitive act, and is the universal form of all
cognition.
§ 89. I am inclined to think that Professor James
arrived at the doctrine of Postulation by the first
process, and Dr. Schiller by the second while the ;

third would seem to be an after-thought, in which

the theory itself has suggested what claims to be the
result of psychological analysis, and not the analysis
the theory. On the other hand, it is by the third
process alone that the doctrine of Postulation in its
universality can be logically established. The
appeal to emotional needs and to the general pur-
posiveness of thought fails to validate universal
postulation, because, granted that all thought is
purposive and that .all truth must satisfy our needs,
it does not follow that the only way of acquiring

truth is by means of postulation and experiment.

For, in the first place, all that our needs demand is
satisfaction, and so long as satisfaction is obtained,
it does not matter, so far as our needs are con-
cerned, by what means it is obtained. And
secondly, postulation and experiment of themselves
are insufficient to account for the satisfaction of
cognitive needs. In order to frame a postulate we
need some data to go upon. The need which seeks
satisfaction cannot itself suggest the means to attain
it it can only guide us in choosing between hy-
:

potheses which have been suggested by objective

facts, and these must somehow be known. Again,
as all allow, it is the reaction of our environment
 —

136 THEORIES OP KNOWLEDGE

which ultimately verifies or negatives a postulate,

and so satisfies or fails to satisfy our needs. And
this implies that we perceive reactions and apprehend
their significance, which is, of itself, so much know-
ledge acquired, but is not postulation.
The second process by which postulation is reached
is equally invalid, if offered as a proof. All that a
study of the methods of science can do is to suggest
universal postulation as a hypothesis. To infer
that postulation and experiment are used in all
branches of knowledge, because de facto they are
used in one, would obviously be an illicit induction.
§ 90. The psychological, then, is the only
argument which can afford us a valid proof that all
knowledge comes by way of postulation and ex-
periment. But is it an introspective datum of
experience that all knowledge does come by way of
postulation and experiment ? I think not. Indeed,
it would be strange if it were, for neither Professor

Wundt nor any of our most eminent psychologists

have noted the fact, nor does it find mention even in
the Principles of Psychology. To introspection but
few of our cognitive acts partake of the nature of
postulation. The facts which we observe and which
—
constitute so large a portion some would say all
of our knowledge, are not known as verified postu-
lates, but rather seem to be given. This is true in
general of all facts, even of those which are used in
Science and elsewhere to verify postulates or to test
the validity of theories. It is the hypothesis and
the theory which are postulates, not the facts.
Axioms, again, as even Dr. Schiller himself
admits, appear to be immediate judgments, and
 EXPERIMENTAL THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE itf

seem, as it were, to compel our assent to their truth.

We may explain axioms pragmatically, and affirm
that it is our need of them which in reality compels
us to assent to their truth, because without them we
could not think consistently at all. This, however,
isnot an introspective fact, but a theory, and quite
as much a theory as that which explains axioms
as due to the manifestation of the nature of reality
to our minds in the act of apprehension or thought.
Axioms appear to be self-evident, and there is no
trace in our experience of any process of experiment
by which we seek to verify them. Put this down
to heredity, if you like but then, as before, you
;

are theorising, and the fact remains that as soon as

we grasp the meaning of an axiom we at once assent
to its truth. Ask any lad of thirteen whether fire
can be hot and at the same time not be hot. Then
ask him in more general terms whether anything can
be hot and at the same time not be hot. And finally,
becoming more abstract still, enquire of him whether
anything can be and yet not be whatever it is at one
and the self-same time. The result of such an
experiment can hardly be doubted. In every case
the boy will answer, No and if you ask him why
;

he accepts with so little hesitation the Principle of

Non-Contradiction, he will probably tell you it is
4
obvious (i.e., self-evident). Of course things
cannot have a quality and at the same time not have
1
that quality.'
1
Doubtless, in order to discover whether two positive qualities
white and hot) are compatible, we must appeal to experience
(t/.g.,
and experiment.' But this is beside the question, for the
'

principle of Contradiction treats of incompatibility, not of

compatibility. Again, we may have to experiment in order to
find out whether a quality is really present or not but there
;
I3« THEORIES OE KNOWLEDGE

Thus, facts and axioms obstinately withstand all

efforts to generalise the doctrine of Postulation ;

and to these we might add all deductive reasoning

and almost all mathematical methods and truths.
It must be admitted, therefore, that so far as the
data of experience are concerned, psychologists are
justified in omitting to mention the postulatory
character of all human cognition and logicians,;

too, are justified in not setting postulation down

as the one process by which we may arrive at
knowledge and truth. The pragmatist who affirms
the contrary, must affirm it on theoretical grounds,
for he can hardly hope to prove his point by
introspection alone.
§ 91. Various attempts have been made to get
from facts and axioms
rid of the difficulty arising ;

notably two. Professor Dewey, in an article

entitled The Experimental Theory of Knowledge,' 1
'

endeavours to get rid of the difficulty in regard to

facts by denying that, strictly speaking, facts
can be called knowledge at all while Dr. Schiller's ;

now famous 'Axioms as Postulates is an attempt to '

do the same for Axioms by the simple method of

considerably antedating the period of their birth.
Professor Dewey makes a distinction between (1)
experience which is mere experience and in no sense
knowledge, (2) experience which is cognitive only to

isno need to transform the principle, as Dr. Schiller has done,

in order thus to apply it. It is applicable as it stands and ;

that in most cases without either postulation or experiment.

Nor is the principle of Contradiction verified by being applied.
Though abstract, it is true of real tilingsprecisely because
they are real tilings and therefore
; is true of every real tiling,
whether it be applied or not.
1
Mind, N.S. 59 (July, I9«»0), p. 293.
 EXPERIMENTAL THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 139

the outside observer or in reflection, and (3) ex-

perience which is properly cognitional. These three
kinds of experience he illustrates by a single example
—our experience of the odour of a rose.
4
In ex-
periences of the mere experience type there '

appears in consciousness first of all '

just a floating
odour, nothing more.' That is succeeded by
action ; and finally by the smelling and enjoying
of the rose. Here we have a series of three ex-
periences, smell —felt-movement—gratification ; but
no knowledge whatsoever, not even of the acquaint-
ance-type, is involved. If, however, we suppose
the original smell to persist, and to be still there in
consciousness when gratification arrives, the smell
now appears under a new form ; it is " represented
with a quality, an office, that of having excited
activity and thereby having terminated its career in
a certain quale of gratification."
Here [says Professor Dewey] we have a cognitive, but
not a cognitional thing. In saying that the smell is
finally experienced as meaning gratification (through
intervening handling, seeing, etc.), and meaning it not
in a hapless way, but in a fashion which operates to
effect what is meant, we retrospectively attribute
intellectual force and function to the smell and this
4
—
is what is signified by cognitive.' Yet the smell is
not cognitional, because it did not knowingly intend to
mean this ; but is found after the event to have meant it.
1

For knowledge proper something more is required

This is obtained when the smell recurs again not as
the original smell (the floating odour), nor yet as the
1
Ibid.,
277. (N.B.
p. —
In what follows, for the sake of
clearness,have replaced the symbols used by Professor Dewey
I
by what they symbolise. Otherwise I have kept as closely as
possible to his own words.)
 —

Theories of knowledge

smell plus gratification, but as a smell which is

" fated or charged with the sense of the possibility
of a fulfilment " like to the first. In this latter case,
and in this alone, is experience cognitional, for now
for the first time is the smell " contemporaneously
aware that it means something beyond itself."
What it means
not indeed a rose in general, but
is

simply another experience, viz., the gratification

which it intends to effect by means of an operation
on our part to which it incites us but it means it ;

intentionally and not merely to the outside observer

or in retrospection. In brief :
" The odour knows
the rose ; the rose is known by the odour ; and the
import of each term is constituted by the relationship
in which it stands to the other." 1
Generalising from the last case, Professor Dewey
obtains his definition of knowledge. Having pointed
out that both the thing meaning (the odour) and
the thing meant (the rose) are present in conscious-
ness, though not in the same way one, in fact, ;

being " present as-wotf-present-in-the-same-way-as-

the-other-is," yet to be
present as " something
rendered present in the same way through the
intervention of an operation," he sums up in the
following definition :

An experience is a knowledge, if in its quale there is

an experienced distinction and connection of the two
elements of the following sort one means or intends :

the presence of the other in the same fashion in which

itself is already present, while the other is that which,
while not present in the same fashion, must become so
present if the meaning or intention of its companion or
yoke- fellow is to be fulfilled through an operation it sets up. 2
1 2
Ibid., p. 299 (italics not mine). Ibid., p. 301.
 EXPERIMENTAL THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE \\\

It is not I, be it noted, who call the above a

1
definition '
of knowledge, but Professor Dewey ;

and complicated as that definition is, it applies only

knowledge
to the simpler kind of knowledge, viz., to
of the There is a form of
acquaintance-type.
knowledge more complex still. Sometimes intended
fulfilments will be realised, sometimes not and ;

since we may upon the relations of meaning

reflect '
*

to the fulfilments and disappointments which may

have resulted in the past, we have also knowledge of
a reflective, critical, or scientific type. 1 Fortunately,
however, Professor Dewey has not attempted to
define this ; and
with the first type rather than
it is

the second that we are now concerned.

§ 92. The Experimental Theory of Knowledge,'
'

as explained by Professor Dewey, opens up many

problems. Is it, for instance, the smell that knows
the rose, or is it I who know the rose by means of
'
its smell ? Can the smell be regarded as a thing '

having an intellectual function, or does not this

function again belong rather to my mind ? Are
these and similar strange-sounding expressions due
merely to Professor Dewey's desire to be original
and emphatic, or have they a metaphysical signifi-
cance which implies in the background Radical
Empiricism and the Philosophy of Pure Expe-
rience ?

The discussion of these questions must be post-

poned to a What at present we wish
later chapter.
to find out is whether Professor Dewey has succeeded
in establishing the doctrine of universal Postulation.
This will depend, of course, upon whether he is
1
Ibid., cf. pp. 304 to 306.
142 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

justified in restricting knowledge to experiences

which intend the presence of other objects, in the
same way in which they themselves are present
through the intervention of action, and which are
contemporaneously aware of this their intention.
For if, as is asserted, knowledge belongs to these
experiences alone, clearly all knowledge begins as a
postulate, in the form of an anticipated fulfilment
which may or may not be realised when action has
1
intervened. The Experimental ' and what we
may call the Postulatory Theory of Knowledge
'
'

are, I take it, one and the same thing.

Professor Dewey's argument practically amounts
to this, that we have only knowledge when we have
actual remembrance of a past event accompanied by
the anticipation of some other event with which it
has been connected in the past. Now, in reflection,
which presupposes memory, knowledge certainly
becomes fuller, more adequate, and more systematic ;

but knowledge as we ordinarily understand that

term is not restricted to remembrance, still less to
actual or conscious remembrance, nor does it
necessarily imply anticipation.
In the first place, if you restrict knowledge to
experiences in which we have actual remembrance,
you exclude at once all knowledge per modum habitus.
We know nothing but what is actually present
somehow or other in consciousness. Consequently,
knows nothing about the laws which
the scientist
govern the phenomenal world, and the mathema-
tician nothing about the theory of number, except
when he is actually thinking of such subjects.

This is a strange conclusion, yet it follows from the

 .

EXPERIMENTAL THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 143

premises that we know only in so far as ideas function

consciously in memory.
§ 93. Let us suppose, however, that Professor
Dewey is speaking of actual knowledge, and that he
admits as its condition knowledge per modum habitus.
The question, then,whether actual knowledge can
is

be restricted to thought about absent objects, or to

the memory of past events. Now, first of all, we
think about present as well as about absent objects,
and I see no reason why this thinking should not be
called cognitional ;
and, secondly, if memory can be
called knowledge, I do not see whyby which
the acts
memory is up should not be called knowledge,
built
too. Doubtless, mere feelings and sensations, as
such, do not constitute knowledge but then there is
;

something else in perception besides sensation or

feeling, namely, thought. When a man goes hunting
or botanising, he usually thinks about what he is
doing, and so may learn something of the character-
istics of horses and dogs and flowers and this may ;

happen even if, when he set out, he did not do so

with the intention of making any systematic
observations for objects, when they present them-
;

selves, secure our attention and cause us to think

about them quite accidentally, as it were, and
without necessarily having any connection with our
present purpose or with what for the moment
occupies our thoughts. We undoubtedly do think
about objects which are present to the senses, and
it seems to me quite arbitrary to say that these

thoughts do not partake of the nature of knowledge,

simply because what we think about, or part of it
at least, happens to be there given in the objects
 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

before us. Indeed, I can find only one reason for

Professor Dewey's denial that what we learn about
things from direct observations becomes knowledge
only when we reflect upon it and that is, that if ;

he admitted such knowledge, he would have to admit

that some knowledge at any rate does not come by
way of postulation and experiment. Memory is
necessary knowledge is to be of any future use,
if

and if it is to become in any way systematic, but

this is quite a different thing from asserting that
knowledge exists only in actual remembrance.
§ 94. The inclusion of anticipation as one of the
essential characteristics of knowledge clearly re-
stricts the latter further still ;
yet anticipation, in
Professor Dewey's opinion, would appear to be a
characteristic of even greater importance than
memory. Why this is so, again, it is not easy to

understand, unless it be that it is necessary to

establish 'the Experimental Theory of Knowledge.'
There are innumerable things which ordinarily we
say that we know, but of which we have never had
direct experience, and probably never shall. I
know, for instance, that the arrangement of the
streets in Brooklyn is more regular than that of our
London streets, yet I have not the slightest an-
ticipation of going to Brooklyn to see those streets
for myself. When I walk through the streets of
.

London and they remind me by contrast of what I

have heard about Brooklyn, my present experience
4
does not intend another experience which is at
'

all likely to be there in my consciousness in the

same way which it is there. Again, if I detect
in
an escape of gas, and think of some flaw in the
 EXPERIMENTAL THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 145

gaspipes, I do not think of that flaw as going to be '

present in the same fashion as the smell of the gas is

present,' for I may be quite content to leave the
examination of the pipes to the gas-fitter. Of
course, if what we know is an existing sensible
object, there is always the abstract possibility of a
future experience in which we may actually perceive
it. But, then, many we have
things about which
knowledge are not existing sensible objects, but
things of the past, or rational systems and arrange-
ments, physical, social, political and of these, as ;

such, we can have no direct experience, but can

think only in the abstract. Even when the object
of knowledge does happen to belong to the existing
sensible order, it is hardly necessary that we should
be obliged to contemplate the possibility of ex-
periencing it in order to know it ; still less is it
necessary that '
the thing meaning
should incite '

us to movements for the purpose of realising the

*
thing meant.' Everybody has anticipations and
ideals which he strives to realise in the concrete ;

but that knowledge should be restricted to such

anticipations and ideals is an arbitrary distortion of
the use of the term ' knowledge,' which is without

the slightest foundation in fact.

Professor Dewey's Experimental Theory of
Knowledge doubtless describes (though it does not
explain) the characteristics of some cases of actual
cognition. But to generalise from such cases to all
cases is when the testimony of
illicit, especially
experience and of common-sense is against such a
generalisation. That Professor Dewey is straining
the term knowledge so as to make it harmonise with
K
146 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

his preconceived theory is shown by the fact that

while declaring that knowledge does not exist till
we have acquaintance,' he admits that in acquain-
'

4
tance there is a little friendliness,' a trace of '

re-knowing.' 1
It is a pity that the pragmatist
should be so bent upon establishing the universally
purposive, postulatory and experimental character
of all knowledge, that he should have changed the
conventional use of a familiar word in order to force
the data of experience into seeming harmony with
his theory yet such appears to be the case.
;

§ 95. Schiller's attempt to make axioms

Dr.
conform to the general doctrine that all knowledge
comes through postulation and experiment must now
be considered. The apparent self-evidence of axioms
Dr. Schiller grants, but attributes it, not to the
clearness with which the nature of the objects
concerned presents itself to our minds, but to a
long-established habit of the race. Certain principles
have been used so long, and have proved themselves
so useful and so satisfactory in regard to human
needs, that belief in them has become with us a
second instinct. Yet all axioms have a history, and
all alike began as postulates though in some cases ;

their origin as postulates dates back to pre-historic

days when the human (?) mind had not yet fully
4
emerged from the sentient level of consciousness.'
So long ago, indeed, is it since certain of our
principles were first postulated, that we have for-
gotten their postulatory origin, and have come to
think of them as if they were axiomatic. This
error on our part is due to the extreme usefulness
1
he. cit., p. 294.
 EXPERIMENTAL THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 147

of these principles in practical life. Axioms as

postulates did their work so well, and attempts to
impose them on the universe were so seldom resisted,
that man has come by force of habit to regard them
as immutable and necessary laws, and upon them
by tacit mutual consent has been bestowed the
honorific name of axioms. Yet, if the truth were
told, the tendency to think in these so-called
axiomatic forms has been handed down by heredity,
much in the same way as tendencies to consumption,
drunkenness and imbecility, except that in the first
case the tendency has become permanent and
universal on account of its utility, while in the
second on account of its inutility it is as yet
1

restricted to the few.

Dr. Schiller has kindly sketched for us in brief
outline the possible history of several of our more
important axioms.' Such histories, of course, do
'

not pretend to be a true account of what really

occurred but are rather to be taken as allegories,
;

the purpose of which is to show that axioms could

have begun life as postulates, and yet in process
of time have acquired an axiomatic character.

§ 96. The origin of the principle of Identity is

the case upon which Dr. Schiller bestows the greatest
care, and it is quite possible, we might even, I think,
say probable, that the principle of Identity, as he
defines it, did begin life as a postulate which human
experience has verified so completely that we are
now convinced of its truth. Indeed, so easy is it
to verify in experience Dr. Schiller's principle of
Identity that it seems to be quite unnecessary to

assign it an origin beyond the life of the individual.

 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

True, in a pre-historic age Edwin may have

postulated that Angelina of the winter furs was the
same as Angelina of the fig-leaves, in spite of the
increase of clothing ; but so do we all discover that
'
things remain the same
day after day, in spite
'

of changes in circumstance and accidental qualities.

There is no need to call in heredity to explain our
belief in '
permanence amid change,' for this prin-
ciple is so obviously the only interpretation that
can be put upon events, that
each of us for
individually the evidence convince
is sufficient to
us of its truth. Heredity is only an encumbrance,
and gets us at once into difficulties. For it has
never been shown that thoughts or ways of thinking
can be transmitted by heredity, except in so far as
concerns the cerebral dispositions which subserve
them as conditions and these dispositions can
;

hardly suffice to account for the transmission of

axioms, since they do not explain how it is that we
come to apprehend the meaning of an axiom at all.
Dr. Schiller's argument for the alleged transition
of the principle of Identity from a postulatory to
an axiomatic stage of existence, is quite beside the
point, for the principle whose history he traces is
not the principle of Identity which logicians claim
to be axiomatic, but quite another principle which
he has substituted in its place. Dr. Schiller's
definition agrees with that given in Mr. Welton's
Logic, and runs as follows " When we say that
:
—
A is A, we mean that a thing remains itself even
amid change, and that a common nature is mani-
fested in different individuals." 1 Thus the principle
1 'Axioms as Postulates,* p. 98, and cf. Wclton, Logic, p. 32.
 EXPERIMENTAL THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 149

of Identity, A is A, is interpreted to mean 4

the
persistence of identity through change,' while the
complementary principle of Contradiction is trans-
formed into the assertion that " a thing must be
capable of excluding whatever threatens (the per-
sistence of) its identity (through change)." 1 But
surely no logician of standing has ever claimed self-
evidence for assertions such as these. The logical
and self-evident principle of Identity is never so
enunciated, but affirms merely that " Whatever is,
is," or that " A thing is identical with its own
nature," no reference whatever being made to the
possibility of change. Things may change or cease
to be ; the principle of Identity merely states that
so long as they exist they are what they are.

§ 97. But lest it be now objected that we have

saved the self-evidence of the principle, by making
it tautological, and, for my own part, I have always
4
regarded the Identity formula as simply another
'

way, and not a very lucid way, of putting the

principle of Contradiction — let us consider the
latter principle. The law of Contradiction, whose
mythical history Dr. Schiller has sketched, is, again,
not the logical principle of Contradiction, but a
creation of his own. The logical principle makes
no assertion about the power of things to resist a
partial or total transformation. It merely states
that " contradictions are incompatible," or that
" so long as a thing exists it cannot at the same
time not exist, or that, so long asit possesses a

certain attribute, to deny that has that attribute

it

is false." It is difficult to conceive of a principle

1
Ibid., p. 106.
 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

such as this starting as a postulate to be verified in

experience nor can I imagine any inductive process
;

by which such verification could have been obtained.

On the contrary, the truth of the principle of
Contradiction is presupposed by the possibility of
intelligent thought for to affirm that S may be P,
;

and at the same time not be P (both terms being

used in the same sense in each judgment) is for
thought impossible, and would render predication
meaningless. As soon as we begin to think at all
4
we express our thoughts in terms of being and '

4
not-being' is and isn't? which we cannot but
4
'
4

recognise as mutually exclusive.

In his history of the pseudo-principles of Identity
and Contradiction, Dr. Schiller has, I fear, been
guilty of an ignoratio elenchi ; and it still remains
for him to show how the real principles of Identity
and Contradiction which are presupposed and
implicitly recognised as true in the very act of
4
postulation itself, can themselves be merely full-
blown '
postulates.
§ 98. Belief in an external world is more axio-
matic, for, at any rate by the realist, the existence
of such a world is admitted as a self-evident truth.
Dr. Schiller's account of the origin of this belief,
however, does not seem to throw much light upon
its nature, or in any way to prove that it was
4
originally only a postulate. Grumps,' a kind of
amoeba, so it would appear, gets outside a jagged
flint, and, finding that it hurts, postulates that it is
4
external to himself.
' Now such a postulate, like
all other verified postulates, ought to be extremely

useful. But it is by no means clear what possible

 '

EXPERIMENTAL THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 151

use it could have been to '

Grumps '
to postulate
that the offensive was 'external'
flint to himself,
for ex hypothesi he did not know what '
external
*

meant. Where did this notion of '

externality
come from, and why did not Grumps apply it to ' '

his stomach-aches and his other pains, which must

have hurt him quite as much as the flint ? Dr.
Schiller's account of the origin of the notion of
'
is extremely vague and inconsistent,
externality '

for in the example he has chosen, the flint -de facto

was not external at all. This is unfortunate, for
had Dr. Schiller's account been more carefully
worked out we might have been able to discuss
with him the origin of a real axiom.
One statement, however, Dr. Schiller does make,
not once, but repeatedly, in regard to the origin of
our belief in an external World.

The pragmatically real world [he says] is not an

originaldatum of our experience at all, but an elaborate
construction, made by man, individually and socially,
by a purposive selection of the more efficacious, and a
rejection of the less efficacious portions of a primary *

reality which seems chaotic to begin with, but contains

'

a great deal more than the " external world " extracted
1
from it.

Proof of this statement there is none and ;

about this most interesting evolutionary miracle

Dr. Schiller can tell us nothing except that it is
*
obscure.' The whole doctrine, in fact, is merely
an assumption, or rather an inference drawn from
an assumption, viz., from the fundamental tenet
of Pragmatism that all truth and all reality (or at
1
Studies in Humanism, p. 460, and cf. pp. 183, 187, 202, 426.
 '

THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

any rate our knowledge of reality) comes by way

all
4 '
of postulation and experiment, in which the true
and the real are gradually separated from the
'
'

4
*
false and the unreal on account of their greater
'
'

utility. We begin life with primary reality,' which 4

4
includes imaginings, illusions, errors, hallucina-
4
tions,' and which is anterior to the distinction of
4
appearance and reality and out of this meaning-
;
'

less chaos real fact is made 1

'
Surely it would be !

difficult to find a more gratuitous assumption or a

more useless hypothesis, even in Absolutism. How
do we know that an infant's experience is chaotic,
and that utility is the magic talisman by means of
which he sets it right ? Doubtless an infant's
experience is very different from ours, and doubtless
also he does not begin life with a full-fledged
concept of the real world or of the self. But to
affirm that the distinction of self and not-self,
internal and external, is an evolutionary product,
due to the supposed fact that the infant or the
savage appreciates its utility, is just as much an
assumption as to affirm that it is an intuitive
judgment which is made as soon as thought appears
upon the horizon of the infant's human mind. But
the realist's assumption has this in its favour, that
4
it is not only more rational, but also more useful
than that of his rival.
It is more rational because it is based on fact,
whereas the pragmatist's assumption is based on
theory. For it is a fact that in adult life, as a rule,
we intuitively distinguish what is real from what
is unreal. Dr. Schiller, of course, denies this; for
1 Ibid., p. 187.
 J
'

EXPERIMENTAL THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 1 5

he, too, has endeavoured to bring '

fact ' within the
all-embracing sphere of postulation. But without
avail. For though we may hesitate to accept the
statement of another in regard to fact, especially if
the alleged fact be extraordinary {e.g., a flying visit
to the North Pole), and occasionally may doubt the
objective reality of our own experiences, ordinarily
we accept them as real on the spot, without experi-
ment or verification. If I see some swans on the
Serpentine I do not need to handle them or to throw
stones at them in order to convince myself of their
real existence. Nor if I visit a friend's rooms do
I need to sit on all his chairs in order to prove that
they are really chairs, as Dr. Schiller suggests. 1 On
the contrary, sometimes " the empirical nature of
reality is such that we can argue from one case to
a similar one, which we take to be the same, with
"
absolute assurance a priori 2 (i.e., without any
active interference on our part) and in almost;

every case we are at any rate certain a priori

9
*

that the something we perceive is external and real.

The facts of actual knowing, therefore, are against
Dr. Schiller ; the recognition of external reality is

at present immediate ; and hence, if it is legitimate

to argue from present to past, as Dr. Schiller does, 3
we must confess that it has always been immediate.
4
Secondly, the realist's assumption is more useful
than that of the pragmatist. If with the dawn of
intelligence the child is able to distinguish the real
from the unreal, and the external from the internal,
even if it be only in a single case, he has at any rate

1
Studies in Humanism,
'
p. 192.
2
Ibid., p. 193. Ibid., p. 196.
 154 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

a notion of reality and of inside and outside ' ' '

*

upon which to base future judgments, and so to

c
'
build up his body and the external world.'
'
'
'

But if he were not blessed with this intuitive insight

into the nature of things, elementary and inadequate
as it is, he could never get to know reality at all.
Utility could not help him, for unless the facts of
his pure, but chaotic, experience differed radically
from one another and fell into two sets, he would
not know which to call useful and which not. While,
if they did differ thus radically from the outset, why

should he not call them real at once ? Nay, further,

4 '
if he had not already had experience of reality
and known it as such, a claim to reality for him
*
'

would have no meaning. Hence, no matter how

useful it might be, he would never be able to think
of it as real. 1
§ 99. When
comes to a question of origin, then
it
4 '
the pragmatic theory breaks down. Reality 2
cannot be a postulate in the first instance, nor are
our other axioms such. Our needs may prompt us
to postulate, but they are too vague and indefinite
even now to suggest the form which our postulates
must take, and in the beginning of things must
have been still more vague and indefinite. Nor
could postulates have been suggested by things,
for (1) ex hypothesi it is we who have to set the
ball rolling by imposing forms on them, and (2) with
their minimum of form and structure they would,
in any case have very little to suggest, and (3) if

1
supra, §§ 53-56.
of.
2
objective and
i.e., external, as opposed to subjective or
psychical reality.
 —

EXPERIMENTAL THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 155

the start didcome from them we should have know-

ledge of a kind before we began to postulate, and
thus it would not be true to say that all knowledge
comes via postulation and experiment. In fact, if
all knowledge, even to the most rigid of our facts
and to the most ultimate of our axioms, did begin
as a postulate it could never have begun at all !

—
For postulation and this Dr. Schiller admits
'
presupposes a mind which has had some prior
experience and possesses some knowledge already.'
" It needs a platform
'
from which to operate
'

further on a situation which confronts it, in order

to realise some purpose or to satisfy some interest." 1
As an explanation of how we subsume new things
under old categories, and new events under old
laws, the pragmatic theory is satisfactory enough ;

but it is entirely at a loss to explain how these

4
categories and laws, these initial principles '
and
this '
prior basis of fact/ originated in the first

instance. 2 Doubtless this difficulty confronts alike

all theories of knowledge, 3 but other theories of
knowledge have at attempted to solve it, and
least
the a priori solution ofKant is at any rate better
than rough guesses, and still more satisfactory than
the cry of sour grapes
'
upon which Dr. Schiller
'

at length falls back. For, surely, if the Pragmatic

Method does imply a truth and a reality which it
'

does not make,' it is irrational not to conceive them '

4
as valuable,' or to conceive them only as indicating
'

limits to our explanations, and not as revealing the

solid foundations upon which they rest." In this

1
Studies in Humanism, p. 185.
3
*Ibid., pp. 431, 432. Ibid., p. 433.
i 56 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

initial reality and this initial truth it is admitted

that all human knowledge began, from it that all

human truth has developed and been made. Hence,

the value of these apx cu mus t be inestimably great,
so great, indeed, that it is surprising they have not
crystallised into axioms and so perpetuated
themselves.
Nor is this question of ultimate origin merely an
idle speculation about the beginnings of knowledge
in the race. It applies also to the individual, whose
mind, active as it may be, and predisposed by its
ancestors forms of thought (or rather
to certain
associations and none the less begins life
reactions),
as a blank. This mind also needs a platform of
fact from which to start, and suggestions of truth
out of which to form the claims upon which it is first
to exercise its experimental genius. And these ap^at,
certainly cannot come from postulation and
experiment, which ex hypothesi have not yet begun.
Where, then, do they come from ? There would seem
to be but two alternatives. Either Apriorism or
Aristotelianism. Either the ideas by which we
represent reality and the relations which we posit
as holding between them are, in the first instance,
derived from the nature of our minds, or they are
suggested by reality to a mind that is capable of
taking the hint.
The pragmatist, though he feels the impossibility
of his present position, has not quite made up his
mind which Pro-
of these alternatives to choose.
fessor James inclines to the former view, and speaks
of " great systems of logical and mathematical truths
under the respective terms of which the sensible
 EXPERIMENTAL THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 157

parts of experience eventually arrange themselves,

and which are already true in advance of special
verification if we have subsumed our objects
rightly." 1 That there is within our minds " a
ready-made framework for all sorts of possible
objects follows from the very structure of our
thinking." Dr. Schiller, on the other hand, to
judge from his unconcealed dislike of all things
mysterious and a priori, would prefer, if a choice
must be made, the other alternative. In not a few
of Dr. Schiller's theories one can discern an un-
mistakable undercurrent of Aristotelianism. His
4
theory of matter and form,' for instance, and
4
again his theory of activity and substance,' has
clearly been derived from a study of Aristotle,
though his text seems to have suffered from inter-
polations. And in regard to this very point at
present in question he remarks that though " the
connection of events which all assume is never a
fact of observation," yet to the primitive mind
such principles as those we have been discussing
" may possibly be suggested by the regularity of
phenomena." 2 But if they can be suggested by
phenomena, then phenomena must in some way
reveal themselves to our intellect and since ;

4
regularity is a relation, relations between pheno-
'

mena must also reveal themselves. And, if we grant

so much, why not go further and say that knowledge
presupposes our power to apprehend the nature and
relations of the objects that we know, and that,

1
Pragmatism, p. 210 (but cf. Mind, N.S. 52, p. 460, where an
empirical origin is assigned).
a
'Axioms as Postulates,' § 9.
 '

THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

having apprehended the relation between two

objects, we at once recognise that the same relation
must hold wherever there are given similarly con-
stituted objects. Thus we should have universal 4

ideas, objectively valid, and yet allowing ample

room for post ulat ion, since it would still be necessary
to subsume new cases under the old ideas and often ;

enough recognition and identification is impossible

without examination and experiment.
§ ioo. Dr. Schiller, then, has failed to establish
the postulatory character of axioms, and Professor
Dewey has failed to show that it is incorrect to talk
ofknowing facts. The Postulatory or Experimental
Theory of Knowledge describes accurately enough
a certain class of cognitive processes ; but it is a
failure if we try to make it universal, and affirm
that postulation and experiment is the only process
by which knowledge is acquired, to the exclusion
of comparatively passive observation and intellec-
tual apprehension or intuition. Sometimes we
apprehend at once the nature which is
of the object
presented, its colour, size, shape, form and other
properties, all of which we recognise may belong in
like manner to other objects. At other times we
hesitate. We
apprehend some qualities only, while
for the identification of others, actual handling and
purposive experiment must intervene. Especially
is this the case when we are dealing with com-

paratively complex objects, which are known to

have many properties but do not seem to manifest
them all at once. Could we subsume the object
under a general idea, the predication of its properties
would follow from previous knowledge but often ;
 EXPERIMENTAL THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 159

enough presented data are insufficient to admit of

immediate and certain subsumption, and it is then
we have recourse to postulation. We subsume
provisionally, tentatively, and then experiment in
order to discover whether properties are really there
which ought to be there if our subsumption has been
correct. In the sphere of theory and scientific
hypothesis postulation and experiment are still
more useful. Sometimes we wish to subsume a fact
and proceed in much the same way as I have just
described. At other times it is a law which we wish
to verify, a law which we have found to hold in a
given case, but do not know precisely why, because
we do not know upon what properties in the con-
crete thing the law depends. This being so, we
postulate that the law depends upon a certain known
property, and examine other cases in which this
property occurs to see if the law still holds. Or
again, it is a theory or a complexus of hypotheses
which we wish to verify, and a theory, as we know,
is not based directly on inductive reasoning or

generalisation from particular cases, but contains

an arbitrary element, an arbitrary combination of
attributes, or arbitrary assumptions in regard to the
inner structure of physical things. Our theory is

therefore a postulate, and here, as before, our only

means of ascertaining its truth is to experiment in the
concrete in order to see how it works.
There is wide scope, then, for postulation even in a
theory of knowledge which admits apprehension of
the nature of reality, universal ideas, and axiomatic
principles. My objection to the Experimental
Theory is not that postulation and experiment is
 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

not a fact, but that it is not by any means the only

way to knowledge; and, secondly, that the form in
which it is expressed by Professor Dewey and Dr.
Schillerseems to imply a Philosophy of Pure Ex-
perience which, as I shall endeavour to show, is
quite incapable of giving a rational explanation of
either knowledge or reality.

CHAPTER VI.

CONCEPTION AND THE COGNITIVE

RELATION.
§ 101. In this chapter I propose to discuss two
pragmatic doctrines, both of which are closely con-
nected with the Experimental Theory of Knowledge.
The first is the pragmatic theory of conception, and
the second the view of the relation of the knower
and the known set forth by Professors James and
Strong. In Experimental Theory all know-
the
ledge comes by way of experiment and experience.
By experiment knowledge is made, and by experience
it is verified and beyond experience there is nothing
;

to be known. From this two consequences follow.

First of all, what we make by experiment is usually
an instrument by which to manipulate and modify
our environment and to this rule the concept is no
;

exception. Secondly, the concept and the knower

are one, for outside experience there is neither
knower nor known.
§ 102. According to the famous
4
maxim ' of
 THE COGNITIVE RELATION 161

Peirce the contents of a concept comprise only the

experienced effects of our actions, or the reactions
' '

of an object which have resulted in response to

stimulation. 1 We modify experience in order to
evoke from it results which will satisfy our needs ;

and these results are remembered and grouped

together round the nucleus of a word or image, and
thus is formed a concept. We remember, for
example, that a cat, if stroked, will purr ; if teased,
will scratch ; if offered milk, will lap it up ; if left
in a room with a canary in an open cage, will be the
proximate occasion of the disappearance of that
piece of experience which we call a canary. These
and other experienced responses to action on our
—
part together form if I have understood Mr. Peirce
aright —
our concept of a cat. And, if the maxim of
Peirce is to be taken literally, this will be all that a
cat means, for these are the differences that it makes
4
to our lives. The term cat is a name which '

denotes a certain element or datum of experience

which is such that under given conditions it leads to
certain practical and sensible effects. Thus concepts
denote or lead to experiences of the sentient type,
* '

and their contents, if concrete, consist in the sensory

images awakened by the word or symbol, and if
abstract, in other words, which must as before
" sooner or later reflect you back into sensible
2
realities."
The grouping of the experienced effects
§ 103.
under names and symbols cannot, however, be
1
cf. " The Pragmatic Method " (James), Journ. of Phil., Psy.
and Sc. Methods, 1904, pp. 673, 674.
* cf. Pragmatism, Sect. iii. and vi., and The Meaning of Truth,
pp. 82, 104, 105, 133, 140, 141.
1 62 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

accounted for in the life-time of a single individual,

nor, for that matter, in the life-time of a single
generation. Concepts are not the products of an
individual's thought - activity, but are largely
hereditary, and have gradually been formed as the
human mind has evolved from a state of purely
sentient experience. 1 Like axioms, they are es-
sentially " tools slowly fashioned by the practical
intelligence for the mastery of its experience ;
" 2

and the recognition of the instrumental nature of

the Concept Dr. Schiller tells us, a point of the
is,

greatest importance for the theory of knowledge to

the neglect of which he attributes the failure of
Platonism and Criticism. 2 Concepts do not repre-
sent sense-experiences in the copy sense of the term
'
to represent.' They are substituted for sense-
experiences, and of them we form " related systems,
corresponding point for point to the systems which
44
the realities form," so that by letting an ideal term
call up its associates systematically, we may be led
to a terminus which the corresponding real term
would have led to in case we had operated on the
3
real world." Hence their extreme usefulness in
the manipulation of experience.

The paths that run through conceptual experiences,

'
that is, through thoughts or ideas that
' '
know
' ' '

the things in which they terminate, are highly ad-

vantageous paths to follow. Not only do they yield
inconceivably rapid transitions but, owing to the
;

'
universal Character which they frequently possess,
'

and to their capacity for association with one another in

* Pragmatism,p. 170, and A Pluralistic Universe, p. 248.

2
Humanism, p. 64.
Studies in
3 The Meaning of Truth, p. 10. 1
 THE COGNITIVE RELATION 163

great systems, they outstrip the tardy consecutions of

the things themselves, and sweep us on towards our
ultimate termini in a far more labour-saving way than
the following of trains of sensible perception ever could. 1

§ 104. Thus the ratio essendi of the concept is its

utility as an instrument for the manipulation of

experience. But is it a mere instrument, and is
this its only function ? The pragmatisms answer to
this question is not quite clear. Both Professor
James and Dr. Schiller reject the copy-view of
truth, and though this may be due merely to a
misunderstanding, viz., to the idea that this view
of truth teaches that inknowing we passively mirror
reality, it may mean that knowledge and truth in
no way copy or reveal the nature of reality.
Professor James, at any rate, speaks of concepts
not only as Denkmittel, but also as tallies,' by *

4
which we keep tab on impressions, and which he
'

likens to the symbols of analytic geometry. 2 He

also identifies them with words and images, 3 and
tells us that " what the intellect knows clearly is
only the word and its steering function." 4 And
when we remember that we are expressly admonished
to suspect common-sense notions such as 'things,'
4 5 4
'sameness,' kinds,' minds,' etc., and that in
Radical Empiricism these notions are got rid of
6
altogether as superfluous, it would seem that the
concept is, for Professor James, nothing but a
1
Ibid., pp. 112, 113.
* Pragmatism, pp. 171, 172.
« cf. 107.
§
4
Pragmatism, p. 185.
5
and cf. p. 173, for list of such notions.
Ibid., p. 193,
6 "A World
of Pure Experience," pp. 534 et scq., and cf.
A Pluralistic Universe, pp. 290, 291.
 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

useful which we substitute for immediate

symbol 1

sense-experiences, and that thus the labour-saving

function of the concept is not merely its chief, but
its only function. And this view fits in admirably
with the philosophy of Pure Experience and with
the German philosophy with which Professor James
seems to be so closely in touch. The principle of
thought-economy is declared by Professor Mach to
be the guiding principle of our mental life, and
under different forms and various names its merits
are extolled by all pragmatic philosophers. Effici-
ency, Avenarius says, depends upon it and philo- ;

sophy is the interpretation of the universe in

accordance with it. To this principle and to no
other cause is due our attempt to comprehend the
many in the one, and to it is due conceptual thought, 2
*
of which the new cuts '
and short-circuits
'
'

through which it leads us account for its high

state of development among civilised nations.
§ 105. Now, account of the functions of
in this
conception there truth.
is much
Concepts are
*
tools,' for it is by means of them that we think
that we construct great systems of knowledge and
that we guide our actions in practical life. Also
4
the more complex of them are fashioned by our
intelligence,' since they are built up only very
gradually and presuppose much experience, both in
the individual and in the race, and, it may be,
many experiments. Again, concepts are not inaptly
compared with hypotheses, for not only have they
to be verified in experience, but many of them are
plastic and have to be changed from time to time
1 ci. Humanism, p. 98, note.
2
cf. Pragmatism, p. 58.
 —

THE COGNITIVE RELATION

as experience compels us to adapt them to fresh

'
particulars.' however, does not apply to
This,
all concepts, for some are so simple v.g., existence,

being, reality, sameness, difference that in the —

formation of the concept itself, as opposed to its
application to particular instances or its relation
to other concepts, no constructive activity of the
intellect seems to be involved, but rather the
concept, vague and undefinable as it may be, is
formed directly in immediate experience by an act
of intuition or apprehension. 1 This is a point on
which there would seem to be a fundamental
difference between Pragmatism and Realism, as
there is on the question of axioms. But there are
others of no less importance. Concepts are, for the
most part, and must be, if valid, determined by the
objects to which they refer. They are not mere
symbols or tallies or names. They have, or at any
rate claim to have, real significance, and their
primary function is not to aid us in the manipulation
of experience, but to reveal to us the nature of what
we experience. Here I think that Dr. Schiller will
agree with us, for he seems to admit that the end
of manknowledge as well as action, in spite of
is

his rejection of thecopy-view of truth and in spite

of many assertions which seem to be incompatible
with this doctrine. But about Professor James I am

Concepts, to have meaning, must always be applicable to

1

reality ;but simple concepts are always applicable to the

objects from which they were first derived, and to all other
objects like them hence they always have meaning. Concepts
:

constructed by a more or less arbitrary conjunction of notes,

on the other hand, have to be applied before we can tell whether
they have any real meaning, since they are not derived from
immediate experience, and imply a process other than abstraction.
1 66 THEORIES OE KNOWLEDGE

more doubtful. view of the concept is

His
frankly nominalistic. Concepts, to judge by his
description of them, are nothing more than words,
images, or useful symbols, the sole function of
which is to lead, by continuous transitions, directly
or indirectly to sense-experiences.
§ 106. In support of this view Professor James
appeals to his own experience. When he thinks of
Memorial Hall, his mind, he tells us, may have
before only the name, or it may have a clear
it

image, or it may have a very dim image of the hall,

but such intrinsic differences in the image make no
difference to its cognitive function. 1 Apparently,
therefore, Professor James is able to think without
the aid of a concept at all. Names and images are
all he requires. Yet this I can hardly believe. I
do not doubt that images and names may have been
used in this particular case, since Memorial Hall is
a concrete thing. But surely in Professor James'
mind there must have been present something more
besides. I can hardly credit the statement that
when the name of his favourite hall is mentioned,
all that it brings before his mind is an image dim

or clear, but without significance or meaning.

Surely he knows full well what that name means,
even though he does not allow his idea to develop
in its details. Even to me, whose ideas have never
terminated in a percept of Memorial Hall, it means
—
something a building designed and constructed by
man for a definite purpose and according to a
definite plan —
and to Professor James, who is fully
acquainted with its form, its plan and its purpose,
1
The Meaning of Truth, p. 104.
 THE COGNITIVE RELATION 167

it ought to mean much more. An image is not a

concept, for though it may be a picture more or

less detailed and precise of some particular concrete

thing, wholly incapable of signifying that thing,
it is

except to one who has a notion of what it means,

i.e., to one who has, beside the image, a concept of

that thing. Moreover, when clear images are in

question, their very particularity and detail renders
them incapable of representing many things at once,
except to one who can abstract from that detail
and pick out essential features common to all the
objects represented, i.e., to one who already has a
concept of the things he wants to represent. Generic
images are still more inadequate to represent a
number of objects, being but a confused blur which
can signify nothing in particular and might stand
for anything whatsoever. A verbal image is hardly
better off. As an image it stands for a word, not
a thing, and its meaning, its significance and its
function depend wholly upon something else,
namely, upon the concept of which it is the outward
expression.
§ 107. As I have already discussed the function
of the concept so fully in Chapter II., it is hardly
necessary to go into the matter more deeply now.
Suffice it to say that the evidence of physiological
as well as introspective psychology, is, as I there
pointed out, 1 decidedly adverse to the Nominalism
and Symbolism 2 of Professor James and other
1
cf. §§ 37. 42. 45. 46.
* Dr. Schiller repudiates the charge of Symbolism (Cf. Mind,
N.S. 72, p. 573) but, though he does not use the term 'symbol,'
;

so far as i am aware, except in three passages (Humanism,

p. 98, note 1 and pp. 122, 193), the function of a concept in
;
t68 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

pragmatists. The laws which govern the combi-

nations of sensory and verbal images are totally
inadequate to account for the syntheses and
analyses of thought. It is the higher and not the
lower centres which are the conditions of thought-
activity and the intricate connections and complex
;

organisations of these higher centres argue a pro-

portionate instability in the direction which nervous
impulses may take, an instability which, while
accounting readily for the vagaries of association,
cannot account for constancy of meaning and
definite logical connection between thoughts.
Thought, inference and meaning .are something more
than the psychical aspect of cerebral conditions.
Trains of thought and reasoning undoubtedly
depend to some extent upon, and are often facili-
tated, though also at times impeded, by cerebral
associations, but the latter are controlled by the
selective activity of thought. As Professor Stout,
in his Analytical Psychology, has clearly proved,
thought-processes cannot consist merely in the
manipulation of a system of symbols. For in
using symbols we think of the symbol and not of
what it symbolises, whereas in thought we think
of objects, not of the image or name by which they
are signified.The image and the name are extrinsic
to themeaning we have in mind, and it is meaning
with which we are concerned in thinking proper.
Words and symbols are not concepts and to reduce
;

the meaning (say) of Pragmatism, or Humanism to

Pragmatism certainly seems to be to symbolise reality. Cf. The
Meaning of Truth, pp. 30, 34, 39, 43, 81, 82, where concepts arc
definitely spoken of as symbols, and conceptual thinking as
symbolical.
 THE COGNITIVE RELATION

sensory or verbal images is to destroy the essence

of conceptual thought, and to treat reasoning as
if it were the automatic working of a psychical

machine.
§ 108. But James' account of con-
in Professor
ception, one is by the absence of
struck, not only
any adequate appreciation of meaning,' but also
'

of synthesis.'
'
Concepts are merely parallel with
the experiences for which they are substituted, and
to these experiences they correspond point for point.
Their function is not to synthesise the many in the
one, but to act as a substitute for sense-experiences
when the latter are unavailable, and ultimately to
lead us back by continuous felt-transitions to those
9
same experiences. This principle of substitution
'

is important in Professor James' theory of concep-

tion, and has led to a curious result. There must
always be some sense-termini, the place of which is
provisionally taken by the concept or image.
Consequently, Professor James has had to invent
otherwise thought-relations would
/tfft-relations, for
have had no sense-experiences to which to lead.
Now, I must confess that these felt-relations seem to
me to be purely creatures of the imagination and
to have not the slightest foundation in experience.
I have never been able to feel a relation yet. I can

apprehend relations, I can conceive them and think

of them, but I cannot feel them. For me, what is
signified by preposition, copula and conjunction is
not a feeling, but a thought. When I see two
objects together, I do not feel their co-existence, I
perceive it and think of it or apprehend it. When
I observe that by the combination of hydrogen and
 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

oxygen and the introduction of a little electricity,

water is produced, I do not feel the causal connec-
tion rather it is the object of my thoughts. To
:

4
discover any feelings which correspond to buts,'
4 4 4
ifs,* betweens,' fors,' is, for me, quite
becauses,' '

impossible. admit that what is signified by

I

conjunctions and prepositions has foundation in

4
reality, but I cannot find any feelings or any '

4
'
felt objects to which they correspond.
' Feeling,'
it is true, may be used in a loose and metaphorical

sense to denote thought which is not clear and

4
precise. But to feel that our economic difficulties
'

in England will never be solved till we take up

Tariff Reform is quite a different thing from feeling
4 '
hot or cold or thirsty. In the latter case feeling
is strictly used and signifies sense-experience in :

the former its use is metaphorical it does not :

imply sensation at all, but apprehension, conception

and thought of a most complex and abstract type,
which cannot possibly be reduced to or represented
by sensational experience. Of course, if felt-

relations really mean

apprehended by
relations
thought, there is an end of the matter but I do ;

not think Professor James can be using terms in

so loose a sense, and, besides, he would then have
a conceptual experience to which no sense-
experiences would be exactly parallel.
§ 109. The doctrine of felt-relations is applied
by Professor James to the cognitive relation itself.
In a couple of articles bearing the significant title

A World of Pure Experience" 1 he sets forth a

44
new
x
Journ. of Phil., Psy. and Sc. Methods, 1904, partly reprinted
in The Meant ng of Truth, pp. 102, et seq.
 ;

THE COGNITIVE RELATION 171

theory which he calls Radical Empiricism, the chief

theses of which are that reality is experience, or
better, perhaps, experiences, and that " the only
function that one experience can perform is to lead
to another experience." 1 The relation of the knower
to the known in this theory is but a particular case
of a felt-relation. Knowledge is a process of leading
and " either the knower and the known are :

(1) the self -same piece of experience taken twice

over in different contexts or they are ;

(2) two pieces of actual experience belonging to

the same subject with definite tracts of con-
junctive transitional experience between
them or ;

(3) the known is a possible experience, either of

that subject or of another, to which +he said
conjunctive transitions would lead, if suffi-
ciently prolonged." 2

44
Type 1 is the kind of knowledge called percep-
tion." For Professor James, unlike Professor
Dewey, does not wish to exclude facts from the
realm of knowledge. While present, however, all
experiences, whether perceptual or conceptual, are
'
pure.' It is only afterwards that their " naif
3
immediacy is retrospectively split into two parts."
In retrospection we regard our experiences either as
part our personal history, or as part of the
of
physical world which means that we take the
;

same experience twice over, each time regarding it

from a different point of view, and weaving it into
a different system of conceptual ideas.

1
Ibid., p. in.
1Ibid., p. 103.
* Journ. of Phil., Psy. and Sc. Methods, p. 564.
 '

172 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

Types and 3 are both conceptual experiences,

2
4
and give knowledge about,' as opposed to know-
ledge of the acquaintance kind, which is that of
' '

Type 1. The 'knower' in both types 2 and 3 is

an image or word which leads to a sense-terminus.
Should the knower actually lead by definite felt-
' '

transitions to the percept that is known (type 2,

and cf. the cognitional experience of Professor
Dewey), then we feel it to have been continued in
that percept, and in such a felt transition " lies all
that the knowing of a percept by an idea can
1
possibly contain or signify." It is, moreover, only
when conceptual experiences do actually terminate
in percepts that we can know for certain that they
were truly cognitive of such percepts. Otherwise
their quality of knowing can still be doubted. 2
4
Ideas, in this latter case, truncated experiences
which are never completely nailed down,' lead only*

to possible experiences (type 3) and, as a matter of ;

fact, " the greater part of our knowing never gets

beyond this virtual stage," for to continue thinking fct

unchallenged is, ninety-nine times out of a hundred,

our practical substitute for knowing in the
completest sense." 3
§110. I must confess that w hen I first read
r

these two articles I could not help a doubt crossing

my mind in regard to authenticity. Could the
writer who, in language so far removed from that
of psychological description, attempts to portray

1
The Meaning of Truth, pp. 105, 106.
2
Ibid., p. 115, but cf. Pragmatism, p. 214, where 'unverified '

ideas are admitted to be true.

3 Ibid., p. 1 16.
 THE COGNITIVE RELATION 173

the characteristics of human cognition, be the same

as the author of the justly famous Principles of
Psychology ? What is said is said vigorously as
before, but now it bears the impress of what, if I
mistake not, we must describe as metaphysical
prejudice. On looking back, however, I remember,
even in the Principles, a certain empirical tendency
which manifested itself, especially in that curious
theory of the soul as the stream of its own thoughts,
thoughts which become, as it were, little souls
themselves for the moment, but only to be absorbed
in the thought which succeeds. And then against
my will I am forced to believe that the author of
the Principles of Psychology and the author of the
" World of Pure Experience " and similar articles
are one and the same.
6
But is this Radical Empiricism and this mosaic ' '

philosophy of Pure Experience intended to be a

'

metaphysic, or is it merely a descriptive psychology

4 '
of cognition ? The existence of felt-transitions
4
and felt-relations '
is hard to recognise, and it is

stillharder to believe that in these alone does know-

ledge consist. Its transitions may be functional,' '

and the concepts from which they start may some-

times lead to sense-experiences and so serve as
useful instruments for the manipulation of our
future experience. But concepts, at any rate, seem
to be more than mere instruments, and knowledge
to be more than a mere tool. Yet in a "World of
Pure Experience" knowledge is stripped of significance
and meaning which is its essential note and universal
characteristic. Objective reference
' '
is explained
as " a mere incident of the fact that so much of our
174 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

experience comes as insufficient, and is of process

and transition." 1 The things which we perceive
and the objects about which we think are stolen
away experience is once more confused with the
:

experienced and the latter being relegated to a

:

world of possibility, experience is left behind

dangling in the air. This being so, Radical Empiri-
cism can hardly be regarded as a psychological
theory. Rather it would seem to be the forerunner
of that metaphysic which Professor James has long
promised to the philosophic world.
§ in. The discussion of the pragmatic theory of
the concept has led us away into the realm of
metaphysics and though this is not the place to
;

treat of Radical Empiricism in so far as it is an

attempt to explain the universe, something must
be said of the psychological basis of this philosophy
of Pure Experience. The question turns, as it
usually does, upon perception and though Professor
;

James does not admit a conscious subject-object

distinction in either perception or conception, it is
4
to the latter alone that he ascribes objective
reference,' which thus comes to mean simply a
reference thoughts to absent objects,
of our
i.e., experiences. No
reason is given for this
restriction of objective reference to non-perceptual
cognition and no arguments are brought forward
;

in support of it. Professor James imagines, I

suppose, that all will recognise in what he says an
accurate description of the facts. This, however, is
far from being the case. To say that perception is
simply experience which is retrospectively broken
1 Ibid., p. 117.
 THE COGNITIVE RELATION '75

up into a dual aspect is far from satisfactory when

considered in the light of introspective data. There
being, however, no arguments to discuss, I can only
repeat, in regard to Professor James' descriptions,
what I have said before. 1 Experience and percep-
tion are always experience and perception of some-
thing. So deeply is the human mind convinced of
this that it is embedded in the language which we
use, and to this is to be attributed the strangeness
with which expressions that presuppose another
hypothesis, strike our ears. We never simply
perceive, we always perceive an object, and, as a
rule, we locate that object. For what does localisa-
tion mean if not that we distinguish that object
from ourselves or identify it with ourselves, and
recognise it either as part of our bodies or else as
located at a certain distance from those bodies ?
And what, again, does this mean if not that some
objects are external to ourselves and to one another ?
It is for the philosopher to determine what exter-
nality and objectivity mean, but he cannot get rid
of the fact that in perception we perceive objects
and perceive them either as external or as part of
ourselves, whether or not this is reality or mere
appearance.
§ 112. I cannot understand why Professor James

and other pragmatists who seem to have adopted as

an article of faith that Reality=Experience, should
'
be content merely to state that objective reference
'

applies only to non-perceptual cognition. This is

an assumption which is not only incompatible with
the data of experience, but begs the whole question.
1 cf.
§ 28.
1
76 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

For, granted that objective reference applies only

to absent objects, the identification of those objects
with percepts or sense-experiences, and the further
identification of the latter with reality itself follows
easily enough. While, on the other hand, if there
is objective reference in perception, i.e., if we
perceive objects and do not simply experience or
simply perceive, the objective reference of ideal
thought will be, not to percepts or to sentient
experiences, but to the objects perceived. But
although English, French and German pragmatists
are all inclined to treat experience and reality as
convertible terms, among them
have found onlyI

one who has attempted to answer the obvious

objections which may be urged against such a
doctrine on the score of the introspective data of
experience. That one is Professor Strong, an able
ally of Professor James, and the author of Why '

the Mind has a Body.' Realising that the rapid

spread of the New Realism in both England and
' '

America cannot be without significance and founda-

tion, Professor Strong has made an attempt to
appreciate the realist's position and, as far as
possible, to answer his objections from the psycho-
logical point of view. And whether it is that
Realism seems to the pragmatist intrinsically absurd,
or whether it is that Mr. G. E. Moore in England and
Dr. Montague in America are inclined to an Ultra-
realism, there is no other pragmatist who can be
said to have done so in any adequate way.
§ 113. In an article entitled "The Distinction of
Object and Perception," 1 Professor Strong thus states
1
Discussion " Idealism and Realism," Journ.
: Phil., Psy.
and Sc. Methods, 1904, pp. 543, etc.
 THE COGNITIVE RELATION 177

and provisionally answers what he considers to be

the essence of the realist's position. The realist
maintains that the distinction between physical
objects and our consciousness of them are two '

4
separate things,' not merely two different ways of
;
regarding the same thing and is supposed to '

urge this point by affirming that we must separate

4
the quality red from the sensation of red that
'

is aware of it; the perception of a tri-dimensional

book from the book itself. 1

This [says Professor Strong] I have never been able
to do. I quite appreciate that the conception of a
quality is a different thing from the conception of a
sensation, but it has always seemed to me that what we
conceive in these two ways is the same identical fact I
can not detect over and above the quality red* any *

sensation or consciousness or subject that contemplates

or has it ; but it seems to me that \he luminous existence
of thai red is the full account of the fact. Nor can I detect
any perception (though I can detect a certain amount
of thought) over and above the given book. The given-
ness appears to me to be an inseparable character of
the book, without which it could not exist at all. When
I say, then, that the very same fact or experience can

be thought of in two ways, either as an episode in my

personal history, or as a constituent of a vast continuous
physical world the other part of which I only conceive,
it seems to me that I am giving an account of the

distinction which is idealistic, no doubt, but which

differs from the realistic account in being accurately
true to the facts. 2

§ 114. Professor Strong, upon reflection, has

come to the conclusion that this isnot a sufficient
answer to the realist's difficulties, and proceeds to
make further concessions and distinctions which I

Ibid., p. 547. 2 loc. cit., p.

? 547.
M
 a

17" THEORIES OF KNOW LEDGE

shall discuss in a moment. But the above answer

can be allowed to pass without some
hardly
comment. In the first place, Professor Strong's
appreciation of the realistic position is not so
adequate as one might have hoped. The realist
does maintain that physical objects are distinct
from our consciousness of them. He may also
maintain, as I have done, that sometimes, if not
always, we are aware of this distinction ; and in
doing so he would not be going so far as many
44
idealists who affirm that we are conscious of
objects only in so far as we are self-conscious —
statement which, if taken literally, is incompatible
with a fact which the realist fully admits, viz., the
fact that self-consciousness and the consciousness
of objects vary in inverse proportion."
usually
Again, it is a fundamental doctrine in Realism that
4
the quality red is distinct from the sensation by
'

which it is perceived, but few, if any, realists would

assert that in the act of perception this was an
introspective fact. 1
In introspection there is founda-
tion for such a distinction, but it is not itself a
4
datum of experience. Consciousness must not be '

4
confused with sensation for clearly all conscious-
ness is not sensation. To affirm that what we
perceive in external perception is an object distinct
from ourselves is not the same thing as to affirm
that we perceive it by means of sensation. That
sensation is present at all in external perception is
known, not directly in the acts of perception, but
by inference based upon the gradation between what
is perceived as sensation and what is perceived as

1
cf. § 28.
 THE COGNITIVE RELATION 179

the quality of an object, and in particular upon

cases in which perception may take either form,
though never both at once. 1
§ 115. Are not these data, however, more con-
sistent with the id quod percipitur theory of Professor
Strong than with the id quo percipitur theory of
the realist, since it is admitted that sensation some-
times is id quod percipitur ? On the contrary, for,
while the realist is able to explain the how of '
'

perception (as I shall have occasion to show later

on) 2 by his theory that sensation is always id quo
percipitur, he does not contradict any facts, since
he allows that sensation may also be, and is, at
times, id quod percipitur. The idealist, on the
other hand, when he asserts that what he perceives
is always at bottom a sensation, while explaining

nothing at all so far as perception is concerned

(since he merely affirms it to be experience) finds
himself at once in contradiction with the belief
which external perception itself has engendered,
namely, that what is perceived in the act of external
perception is not sensation, but the quality of an
object. If physical objects and consciousness
(inclusive here of sensation) are not distinct, but
merely different aspects of the self-same thing, how
comes it about that they appear to be both distinct
and different, and are firmly believed so to be by
the ordinary man ? How, again, are we to explain
the fact that the conception of a quality and the
conception of a sensation are different concepts, if

the object conceived in both cases is the same ?

Surely there must be some foundation for this
lcf» §§ 35. 36. 2 cf. chap. xiv.
 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

distinction a parterci, for even pragmatic concepts

4
correspond in some sense with their objects.
'

4
Again, the givenness of what we perceive, what
'

is this, and what does it imply, but some kind of

object that *
and which is, therefore, distinct
gives '

from him to whom it gives ? And the thought *

4

which Professor Strong detects in perception " over

and above the given book," what is this but some
kind of self-consciousness which is present, so he
would seem to say, in the act of perception itself ?
Until these difficulties have been solved, I cannot
44
agree with Professor Strong that the idealist's
account of perception differs from the realist's in
being accurately true to the facts." Both accounts
belong to theory, but it is the realistic and not the
idealistic theory which is at once consistent with
and explanatory of the facts.
§ 116. As I have already remarked, however,
Professor Strong does not consider that in the
44
passage quoted above he has conceded to the
realist all that he has a right to demand, or, at
least," he says, "it does not adequately meet the
difficulty in the idealist's position which he feels."
Accordingly, he proceeds to grant to us that
44
thought enters into our perception of objects,"
and that 44 thought always has an object distinct
from itself " (though the latter concession is qualified
by the remark that 44 there is no corresponding
principle applying to sensation"). Then comes a
distinction.

The realist is therefore so far in the right. But it

remains to be determined in what shape matter exists
independently of the thought of it. Realists jump to
 the cognitive relation

the conclusion that it exists as matter-stuff, that their

realism is naive. This in no way necessarily follows
from the admission of its independent existence, but
the mode of existence still remains to be determined. . . .

Realists assume that there is a contradiction between

objects being material and independent of thought, and
their being composed ol sensation and they assume;

this because they confuse independence of thought with

independence of mind. Now, if it were possible for us
to know that objects exist whether perceived or not,
we might know them to be independent of the mind,
and they could not then be composed of sensation. As
it is, we only know them to be independent of thought,

and this is perfectly consistent with their being com-

1
posed of it.

Hence the final conclusion,

thought has an object distinct from itself, but it does not

present its object to us as (real) and present; while sen-
sation presents to us an object that is real and present, but
that object is not distinct from the sensation ; 2 . . The . .

difficulty between idealists and realists is, therefore,

solved in holding that matter exists independently of
the thought of it, but exists in the shape of sensation*

§ 117. This solution of the controversy between

idealists and
realists will not, I fear, put an end to
the strife, for the conclusion at which Professor
Strong arrives is neither satisfactory nor logically
convincing. In perception both thought and
'

sensation are involved, but while thought has an

object distinct from itself, sensation has not that
good fortune.' an introspective fact or is it
Is this
a theoretical assumption ? Are we directly con-
scious of the functioning of either thought or
sensation in perception ? Are not both inferences
1 loc. cit., (Italics mine.) 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid., p. 550.
p. 549.
 182 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

based on the dual fact that we not only perceive

colours and sounds, which for the psychologist are
sensations, but also things possessing qualities,
which again for the psychologist implies conception
or apprehension ? Again, can we distinguish intro-
spectively between sensation and thought in
perception ? Do they not function together in one
and the self-same act which is directed to one and the
self-same object ? Psychologically, we may make
the distinction, and has good foundation. But if
it

we separate the two and take sensation by itself,

we no longer have perception. There can be no
question of sensation having an object external to
itself, if taken in isolation or in abstraction from

perception and thought. It is only when sensation

functions in perception as the means by which we
apprehend objective qualities, that it can in any
sense be said to have an object, and even then, the
object is not, strictly speaking, an object for sensa-

tion, but for perception or for thought with which

sensation functions as a necessary though sub-
ordinate factor.
§ 118. Is there, then, a contradiction in saying
that objects are independent of thought, and yet
are composed of sensation ? And does the realist,
when he affirms that there is, confuse independence
of thought with independence of mind ? If by
'
mind 'meant the mind of the percipient,
is here
and by '
sensation which takes place
sensation,'
within the mind (and this is the obvious sense),
there is certainly a contradiction between theory
and fact; the object of external perception does not
appear to be a sensation, still less a sensation in the
 THE COGNITIVE RELATION

mind of the percipient, but something objective,

distinct,,external and in no way part of himself.
There is no intrinsic contradiction, however, in the
statement that the objects of perception are sensa*
tions, for we do perceive our own sensations at
times. But, if the normal object of perception is
sensation, perception is an illusion, since what is per-
ceived does not ordinarily appear as a sensation, but
as something quite different and that it is an illu-
;

sion is a mere assumption, at once unnecessary and

inexplicable. Because the object of perception is
independent of thought, it does not necessarily follow

that it isindependent of mind but if it is not only ;

independent of thought but also external to thought,

it must also be external to mind, since mind and

thought are one and indivisible and, as a matter ;

of fact, it appears to be external to both. In reply,

then, to Professor Strong's summing up, I must make
several distinctions. That
thought has an object
'

distinct from itself is clear ' but that it does not

;
'

present its object as (real) and present I cannot '

admit ; for in perception the object of thought is

both real and present, and though in thought of
absent objects the object is obviously not present
(i.e., to the senses), it is at any rate real. Again,
4
that sensation presents to us an object that is real

and present ' is also clear, if sensation, here means

perception, for sensation of itself does not present an
object at but that the object (of perception)
all ;
'

is not distinct from sensation,' I can in nowise grant,

nor has Professor Strong in any way proved that it is.

§ 119. There remains, however, one argument

which we have not yet discussed, and though, strictly
 184 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

speaking, it is a metaphysical argument, it will be

more convenient to discuss it here. The realist,
says Professor Strong, cannot prove the continuous
existence of material objects when not perceived ;

all the knowledge he can legitimately derive from

experience is the knowledge of their continuous
perceptibility. But, surely, perceptibility cannot
exist of itself. To be able to be perceived requires
a ground and a subject quite as much as to be able
to perceive. It is not something that hangs loose
or is to be found standing on its own legs. Hence,
if the continuous perceptibility of material objects

may be legitimately inferred from the data of

experience, the further inference as to their existence
would also seem to be legitimate. If material
objects are always perceptible by existing minds,
they cannot belong to the realm of mere possibles,
but must belong to some existing order of beings,
otherwise their perceptibility would be unaccount-
able, except by a deus ex machina. In some way
or other their perceptibility implies existence.
Hence, either they exist in themselves, or they
4
exist as the possibility of sensation '
inherent in
the percipient mind. There seems to be no other
alternative ; and if, with Mill, we choose the latter
we are at once involved in all the difficulties of
Subjective Idealism; the appearance of external
reality is declared to be an illusion, and the inter-
communication of mind and mind becomes an
inexplicable mystery. Again, belief in the existence
of an external world which is at once distinct from
and independent of ourselves is unquestionably a
fact, yet if this belief is illusory its origin becomes
 GENETIC PSYCHOLOGY 1*5

inexplicable. Doubtless, the psychological antece-

dents of such a belief can, to some extent, be traced,
but, as Professor Wundt has pointed out, " in the
syntheses of perception properties are found which
are not found in its elements or antecedents." 1
The external world in which we believe cannot,
therefore, be identified with sensation, because our
belief in it arises from sense-experience, for the
effect is not only in excess of the cause, but cause
and effect would, in that case, be contradictory ;

nor can it be argued that all we may legitimately

infer from the data of experience is the continual
perceptibility of external objects, for continual
perceptibility implies something that is continually
perceptible. The existence of the external world
is presupposed as the condition of our perception

of it, and that world does not consist of sensations ;

though whether it is material, and, if so, in what

sense, is another question, which belongs, not to
epistemology, but to metaphysics.

CHAPTER VII.
GENETIC PSYCHOLOGY AND THE
FACULTIES.
§ 1 20. Origin, genesis and growth are ideas of
primary importance to-day. Evolutionary notions
pervade our philosophy and bid fair to drive out the
static analyses of traditional methods. To under-
stand anything whatsoever nowadays, we think it
1
cf. §§ 53 to 50, and §§ 98. 99-
1 86 THEORIES OE KNOWLEDGE

necessary to study it in its origin and growth. We

are no longer content to take things as they are, we
desire above all things else to know how they
became and unless we know this our knowledge
;

is looked upon with unconcealed suspicion. His-

torical interpretations are prevalent in every realm
of thought, to which the theory of knowledge, and
in particular the pragmatic theory of knowledge,
is no exception. Thus man is regarded as essentially
and above all things else the product of an evolu-
tionary process. He started at the level of dull
and undifferentiated sentience,and from this state
of uninteresting uniformity have been evolved his
so-called faculties. Emotion, volition, and cog-
nition have by a process of differentiation
all arisen
from a common ground. They are not really dis-
tinct. In fact, " all three faculties are at bottom
' '

only labels for describing the activities of what may

be called indifferently a unitary personality, or a
reacting organism."
§ 121. Doubtless, analytic psychology is inclined
at times to carry its analyses too far, and in conse-
quence seems almost to treat the human mind as
if it were a bundle of faculties each independent

and distinct. Kant, for instance, in his desire to

bring together the transcendental unity of apper-
ception and the manifold of sense, freely multiplied
human powers of knowing, and marked off the
function of inner and outer sense, of imagination,
of understanding, of practical and theoretical
reason, and of will with such absolute precision that
the unity of man seemed lost in the multifarious
details of his differences. In contrast with an
 GENETIC PSYCHOLOGY 187

exaggerated faculty-psychology of this kind the

stress which is laid on the unitary character of
human personality in Humanism, in Personal
Idealism, and more notably still in the psychology
of M. Bergson, stands out all the more clearly, and,
as an antidote, may serve a useful purpose.
As Dr. Schiller remarks, however, attempts at '

unification are not new.' There has always been a

protest against the disintegrating tendencies of
Kantian psychology. Kant himself suggested that
" the two stems of human knowledge, sensibility
and understanding, may perhaps have a common
but unknown root " and Hegel, too, declared that
;

the chief aim of a philosophy of mind can only be to

re-introduce unity of idea and of principle into the
theory of mind. Our sense of the mind's living unity
. . .

[he says] naturally protests against any attempt to

break it up into different faculties, forces, or what comes
to the same thing, activities conceived as independent
of each other. 1

§ 122. The notion of independence, true of the

faculties as of everything else in its proper degree,
may be, and often has been, carried too far. The
fact is that there are different kinds of independence,
and whereas some must be
in regard to the faculties
denied, others may
be rightly asserted. The
faculties are not independent in regard to their
ultimate principle. They all belong to and qualify
our personality and essential nature. Nor are they
independent in the sense that they do not mutually
influence one another and work toward a common
end. But we recognise introspectively that con-
1
Hegel, Phil, of Mind (Wallace trans.), § 379.
188 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

scious processes or activities differ in kind. To feel

isnot to think, to think is not to will, and to will is
not to act. Considered, therefore, as the proximate
ground of different mental activities, the faculties
are distinct. Moreover, in different psychoses or
states of mind, cognition, conation and mere feeling
are present in different degrees, and this, as Dr.
Stout says in his Analytic Psychology, argues a certain
kind of independence. Indeed, the very fact that
we can speak intelligibly of our emotions controlling
our will, or of purpose and volition influencing belief,
shows that there is between emotion, volition and
belief a difference and also a certain degree of inde-
pendence as well as inter-dependence. Hence our
psychological distinctions cannot be classed as mere
4
labels.'

§ 123. A psj'chology, therefore, which ignores or

minimises distinctions is as false as one that
exaggerates them or makes them absolute. Nay,
of the two, the former error is far more serious in
its consequences. A careful analysis of data and
a careful distinction in the use of terms is essential
to the advance and philosophy. Without
of science
it classification becomes impossible and on classifi-
;

cation theory is based. A psychology which

obliterates distinctions destroys the very source of
knowledge, and leads, not only to laxity of speech,
but also to laxity of thought. Terms are used first
in one sense and then in another, and theories are
founded on the ambiguity which ensues. The
result is that often enough a writer so unsystematic
does not know himself precisely what he means,
and is quite incapable of conveying his meaning to
 GENETIC PSYCHOLOGY 189

anybody else. Without precision and accuracy

intelligible discourse is impossible. And principles,
pragmatic or otherwise, which encourage the
adoption of a large and loose terminology can only
end in hopeless confusion and misunderstanding.
Moreover, as distinctions grow fainter and differ-
ences get blurred, it becomes more and more
impossible to maintain the balance of power, so to
speak, between the faculties. One or other of them
is sure to be made supreme, while the rest sink

into obscurity. This tendency is well-illustrated in

the Hegelian and Neo-Hegelian development of
Criticism, in which Monism led first to an identifi-
cation of other forms of consciousness with thought,
and then to the substitution of thought for con-
sciousness in general. True, the monistic idealist
points out now and then that thought embraces
'
'

something other than thought. Green, for instance,

observes that " if thought and reality are identified,
thought must be other than discursive activity,
other than the particular mode of consciousness
which excludes from itself feeling and will." Yet the
fact remains that in the metaphysical logics ol Abso-
lutism the idea of will is, as a rule, obscured by that
of the constructive and formal activity of Thought,
and to it no distinctive or adequate function is
assigned in the ideal history of the universe.
§ 124. Pragmatism, owing chiefly to its fondness
for a genetic psychology, though, in part, also to
the philosophy of Pure Experience by which its
psychology is supplemented, affords but another
illustration of the disastrous consequences of
minimising the distinction between the faculties.
IQO THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

As the Hegelian subordinates the will to the intellect,

so the pragmatist subordinates the intellect to the
will and to the emotions. It is in the strivings
of our will and in the vague and quasi-hedonistic
impulses of our emotional nature that the nature
of man is revealed and it is in the satisfaction of
;

these rather than in the satisfaction of intellectual

demands that the criteria of truth are to be found.
Purposes, expressive largely of emotional needs,
dominate all cognition. It is impossible to abstract
from them. Cognition without them is a mutilated
fragment of mind.
4
There is no pure intellect. If pure intellect does
' ' '

not imply a gross psychological blunder, and this is

probably what was too often meant until the conception
was challenged, it means an abstraction, an intellect
conceived' as devoid cf function, as not applied to any
actual problem, as satisfying no purpose. 1
Reason is not a faculty. It stands for a group of
habits which men (and to some extent animals) have
acquired, and which we find extremely useful, nay
necessary, for the successful carrying on of life. Among
these habits may be mentioned that of inhibiting
reaction upon stimulation, i.e., of checking our natural
and instinctive tendencies to react, until we have
reflected precisely what it is we are dealing with. To
determine this latter point we have developed the habit
of analysis, i.e., of breaking up the confused complex
4

of presentations into things and their attributes,'

' '

which are referred to and identified with former

similar experiences, and expressed in judgments as to
what the situation really is. This enables us to re-
arrange the presented connections of attributions, and
the whole reasoning process finds its natural issue and
test in an action which modifies and beneficially inno-
vates upon the original habit of reaction. 2
1
Studies in Humanism, p. 7.
2 Ibid., p. 356.
 GENETIC PSYCHOLOGY 191

Reason is thus reduced to the common denomi-

nator of a couple of habits, only one of which is in
any way cognitive (viz., the analysis and rearrange-
ment of presentation), the other being volitional, if
not merely physiological. True, Dr. Schiller allows
that reasoning may enter into a rational act, and in
the next paragraph mentions that thinking or
judging, which is one of the habits that make up
man's reason, involves the use of concepts, and
depends ultimately upon axiomatic principles, which
he prefers to call postulates so that his account of
;

'
reason,' if more fully developed, might be made
acceptable, even to the rationalists.'
'
Still, the

haphazard way in which this 'analysis of reason'

is carried out, the inclusion of a function which

per se is certainly not rational in nature, and the

4
substitution of the term bundle of habits for the '

time-honoured term faculty '

a substitution which
'
—
is not explained, though it certainly does not suggest

the unity and personal character of man make —

Dr. Schiller's account of reason far from satis-
' '

factory, especially if we bear in mind that it is an

attempt to remedy previous accounts which have
hitherto not been conceived with sufficient precision
for scientific purposes.

§ 125. Professor James' account of conception

also illustrates the baneful influence which an
evolutionary pragmatism may have upon psycho-
logy. We saw in the last chapter how the concept
is reduced to a symbol or an image devoid of
meaning and significance ; how its contents are made
to consist of reactions or practical effects, all of them
sensational in nature; how its objective reference
192 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

is explained, not as a reference to an external and

real world, the nature of which it, to some extent,
reveals, but as an accident due to the fact that it

is prevented from leading us back to the sense-

experience for which it stands an inadequate
substitute. And, doubtless, there is an element of
truth in all this. Thought sometimes does involve
images. Concepts are frequently not adequate, and
may be at times even symbolic. Knowledge is
derived ultimately from sense-experience and our
;

state of mind when we think of absent objects is

not the same as when they are present. But when
the pragmatist gets hold of a truth like this he
spoils it by exaggerating it, generalising it, or
insisting on it to the exclusion of all other truths
with which it is connected and apart from which it
cannot be rightly understood. Recognising that all
knowledge is ultimately derived from experience, he
infers quite illogically that everything that we know
we must be able to feel, and so is led on to invent
what he calls felt-relations. Finding that many
scientific concepts are more or less symbolic and do
not correspond strictly and fully with reality, he
generalises this and affirms that all concepts are
symbolic. Finding, again, that images and words
are used in conceptual thought, he identifies them
with the concept itself, and so destroys, or at least
is unable to explain their significance, from which

he proceeds to the denial of their objective validity.

Observing, too, that the content of the concept can
sometimes be expressed in terms of sense-perception,
he infers that it can always be so expressed, and,
hence, affirms that concepts which do not lead back
 GENETIC PSYCHOLOGY 193

to a percept are no concepts at all, but merely

words. And, lastly, the unquestionable truth that
concepts are useful and that they serve admirably
as instruments by means of which scientists and
others are able to secure the control of experience
and so promote the advance of civilisation serves
only as a pretext for denying that concepts are
anything more than instruments, in spite of the
fact that their instrumental value depends upon
the knowledge they give us of our environment.
§ 126. It is the genetic standpoint which is
largely accountable for the symbolic concepts and
the emaciated intellect of the pragmatist. It is this
which causes him to select certain characteristics of
human cognition, and, concentrating his attention
exclusively on these, to build up a theory which is,
in consequence, one-sided, and which, when con-
fronted with data other than those upon which it
has been built, is found to be wholly inapplicable.
It is the genetic standpoint that has led to the
doctrine of postulation and experiment, which lies
at the root of the evil, and which is, as we have seen,
in its universal form only another example of illicit
generalisation. And it is this same genetic stand-
point which accounts for the predominant influence
assigned to purpose, which, as better expressing Will
and the active side of our nature, has, in Pragmatism,
almost completely supplanted the intellect.
Again it is an indisputable fact upon which the
pragmatist rests : purpose does play a most
important part in the intricate processes of thought-
activity. But, as usual, truth is exaggerated.
Purpose does not permeate cognition through and
N

Digitized by
194 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

through. Its influence is not universal, but is

restricted, for the most part, to the intent of thought.

Thought's content, when our thinking is accurate
and honest, is determined, not by purpose, but by
the objects about which we think objects which —
otherwise could never be known. Our very purposes
themselves, need-expressive as they are, are defined
and made precise by the objects with which we
have to deal. Nor do the emotions, so closely con-
nected with and dependent upon our purposes and
needs, affect directly the content of thought as a
rule. Their influence is indirect. Satisfaction and
dissatisfaction, interest, monotony, disgust, influence
belief by intensifying or inhibiting thought-activity,
by keeping it fixed on certain objects or by direc-
ting it into other channels. Even when the will to '

believe/ i.e., the emotional satisfaction and volitional

striving arising from the contemplation of a pro-
position as true, seems to be the immediate cause
of belief, it never of itself effects a modification in
the content of thought, but causes assent to be
given without sufficient evidence. And here, again,
though emotion may influence assent directly, more
often than not it does so indirectly by preventing
thought from dwelling on those aspects of a problem
which are likely to hinder assent or lead to an
opposite belief. Satisfaction, moreover, seldom
forms part of the purpose which we deliberately
strive to realise. On the contrary, the honest
enquirer does his best to exclude such subjective
influences, and, ordinarily, his efforts are not
without success.
§ 127. The Princip der Denkokonomie expresse3
 GENETIC PSYCHOLOGY 195

another human need, the influence of which is much

exaggerated by Professor Mach and others. Doubt-
less, simplicity and unity have a fascination for every
thinking mind, but I can hardly believe that the
aim of thought is to save ourselves the trouble of
thinking any more than we can help, which is
practically what the principle of Thought-Economy
or Least (mental) Energy amounts to. Thought is
itself a pleasure, and the desire to take short cuts
in order to bring our journey to an early close, is
considerably modified by the pleasures which we
meet with by the way, and more so by the fear
still

that a conclusion too rapidly drawn may be

premature and false. Simple hypotheses are pre-
ferable, other conditions being the same, not so
much because they economise thought, as because
a simple hypothesis seems to be more ultimate and
to imply that analysis has gone further than in one
that is more complex. No one, however, would
adopt a hypothesis, however simple, unless there
seemed a fair chance of its verification, or, if sincere
in his search for truth, would hesitate to reject it

were it found to be incompatible with fact. The

principle of Thought-Economy is of practically no
importance as a criterion of truth ;
and, if admitted,
is liable to lead to careless inferences and illicit

induction. It is said that the power of generalising

is an instance of principle at work
this and cer- ;

tainly it may
an excellent example of its
afford
abuse. But there is no proof whatever that
universal concepts are due solely to the influence of
this principle. Indeed, if they are, the objective
validity of subsumption is destroyed and, since ;
196 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

all knowledge implies universals, it would be

advisable to give up the attempt to acquire it

and to devote ourselves instead to some more

useful occupation.
Considerations such as these the pragmatist is apt
to forget. As usual, he has got hold of principles
which are true if kept within their proper bounds,

and, as usual, so delighted is he at having re-

discovered them that he must needs make them
universal and apply them to everything upon which
he can lay his hands. Just as he reduces everything
and explains away conception,
to sense-experience
and turns the intellect into a machine for the
manufacture of meaningless symbols, so now he 1

generalises the influence of purposes, of needs, and

of thought-economy regardless of consequences.
And, consciously or unconsciously, that which has
led him astray is his genetic psychology and
the evolutionary principles which are its real
foundation. Pure experience, symbolic concepts,
' '

postulation and experiment, a mechanical intellect,

purposes, needs and emotional strivings all form
part of an evolutionary apparatus. Yet even as an
evolutionist, the pragmatist, as we shall see, is not
consistent.
§ 128. No one, of course, can rationally object
to the study of knowledge from the dynamic or
evolutionary point of view, provided the method of
study be sound. Some form of development has
always been admitted in knowledge. Indeed, the

1
Symbols doubtless have meaning in the pragmatic sense of
|
leading to,'ibr working harmoniously with,' reality, but not
'

in the realist's sense of signifying the nature of something real.

 '

GENETIC PSYCHOLOGY 197

transcendental Hegel was a leader in this matter.

But if we are to treat knowledge dynamically and
to take its .development and past history into
account, we must select a method by which to
proceed and our choice in this matter is practically
;

restricted to two alternatives. In general, we must

either interpret the past by means of the present,
or interpret the present by means of the past.
Indirectly the two methods are supplementary 1 ;

but as methodological principles they are opposed,

and the validity of our conclusions will depend to a
large extent upon which principle or method we
regard as primary.
Dr. Schiller's first work was a philosophy of
evolution, 2 and in it his views or methods were
expressed at some length. The epistemological '

method he rejects, because it takes no account of

evolution. It treats mind, he says, as "a fixed
product that can be exhaustively analysed instead
of an organically living and developing growth." 3
The psychological method is dismissed for a
'
'

similar reason. It studies the actual conditions

and laws which govern the human mind as at present
constituted " whereas the human mind has a
;

history." 4
Two methods remain, the historical 4

and the teleological,' and between them Dr.

'

Schiller has no hesitation in making a choice. He

selects the teleological method, and rejects the

1
By this I mean that knowledge of the past may throw light
upon our knowledge of the present, as well as vice versa ; but this
use of the historical principle is indirect, since it presupposes
that the past has been rightly interpreted.
2
Entitled Riddles of the Sphinx.
3 4 Ibid., p.
Ibid., p. 148. 149.
198 THEORIES OE KNOWLEDGE
44
historical,because the latter supposes that the
cause and explanation of a thing is to be found in its
1
past."
This choice is significant. Teleology seeks to
explain not by an appeal to past history, but by an
appeal to ideals. Lower forms reveal themselves
only as they develop but their ratio essendi is to
;

be learned not by looking back, but by looking

forward to the higher end toward which they are
continuously tending. The past is but the prelude
to the future, and only by a study of the future can
we hope to understand the past.
§ 129. Here, however, we meet with a difficulty.
Future developments and higher forms not yet
realised are in themselves unknown. The future,
like the past, is an inference drawn from what we
know of the present. For this reason Dr. Caird
regards the teleological method as essentially
'
heuristic.'

All that we can do [he says] is to use the principle

that everything has an end or purpose, as suggesting
continual enquiries into the relations of the pasts of
organisms to each other and in a secondary way, into
;

the relations of different organisms to each other, and

of the organic world to the inorganic. 2

In this passage the value of teleology seems to me

to somewhat under-rated but at any rate
be ;

this is true, that we have no direct knowledge

of the future, but can only conjecture what human
nature will become by an analytic study of what it
is, by a consideration of the progress that has
1
Ibid., p. 174.
2 The Critical Philosophy of Kant, vol. ii., p. 449.
 GENETIC PSYCHOLOGY 199

actually been made, and by a study of ideals and

purposes which we set before our minds, and which,
prompted by deep-felt needs, we ever strive to
realise.
Dr. Schiller then, in saying that lower
is right,

forms are only in reference to higher,

intelligible
and that in consequence human nature must be
interpreted not historically, but teleologically.
Unfortunately, however, he seems at times to forget
that the teleological method presupposes the psycho-
logical, and that in order to know what we were in
the past or what we shall be in the future, we must
first know, and know well what we are. And what
is still more unfortunate, in practice Dr. Schiller
does not use either the psychological or the teleo-
logical method, but that very historical method
which he has expressly declared to be fallacious ;

and in this he is at one with all pragmatists. Prag-

matism is, as Mr. J. M. Baldwin has defined it, " an
"
attempt to construe all reality retrospectively ;

and to this source must be attributed the psycho-

logicaland epistemological errors which I have
enumerated above.
§ 130. The connection of the Postulatory or
Experimental Theory of Knowledge with the
doctrine of Evolution is obvious. In evolution all
psychological changes take the form of what
Avenarius has called a vital series,' which may be
'

represented physiologically by disturbance of

equilibrium —action—restoration of equilibrium in a
modified form, psychologically by impulse — striving
—satisfaction and in the
; cognitive order by
postulation — experiment — verified truth. Now in
200 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

endeavouring to force axioms into conformity with

this hypothetical type of cognitive process, Dr,
Schiller, instead of taking axioms for what they are
and working backwards, so to speak, begins by
assuming that they originated as postulates, and
working forwards on these lines, ends by denying
that they are axioms at all. His explanation is not
teleological but historical. Axioms are not repre-
sented as something of a higher nature than mere
postulates, but are transformed into postulates
which custom and human forgetfulness have per-
mitted to acquire an illusory axiomatic appearance.
It is the intuitionist who really explains axioms
teleologically ; for he first enquires what axioms
are, and what is their function in knowledge, and
finding that they are now self-evident and that they
serve human purposes better as self-evident truths
than as postulates, he is careful in tracing their
history not to assign them an origin incompatible
4
with their present higher form or their present
'

useful function. Axioms were always axioms, but

they have had a history because, though implicitly
understood and used in all human thought, many
attempts have been made to formulate them, and
these attempts have not always met with equal
success. The pragmatist is hopelessly inconsistent
here. His actual method and his methodological
principles are in direct contradiction. He lays
down as a principle that the lower must be inter-
preted in the light of the higher. He examines
human cognition as it at present exists, and finds
that much knowledge is acquired by means of
postulation and experiment. So far, so good. But,
 1

GENETIC PSYCHOLOGY 20

instead of proceeding with his examination of other

4
forms of cognition of which we have direct
higher '

knowledge in our present experience, he forthwith

casts psychology to the winds, and generalising
his doctrine of postulation, proceeds to trace the
history of knowledge by the aid of this one-sided
and partial truth. The result is that the existence
of universal and necessary truths is declared to be
an illusion, and thus, finding himself in contradiction
with the fact that in our experience we recognise
such truths, the pragmatist is forced to re-interpret
4
them in a strained, unnatural and lower sense. '

§ 131. Let us take as another illustration of the

pragmatic attempt to square philosophy with evolu-
tion, viz., the doctrine that all knowledge is ulti-
mately reducible to sense-experience, in place of
which conceptual thought has substituted images,
dim or clear, symbols or words. What has hap-
pened ? Convinced that the human mind has had
a history and has been evolved from some lower
form of life, the pragmatist does not study the
higher forms of cognition which at present exist,
and so discover the presuppositions without which,
whatever their origin, present forms could never
have come to exist. All he does is to seek about in
our experience for some trace of a lowest form from
which by the aid of a powerful imagination he can
suppose the rest to have been evolved. And he
discovers sentience, or what he calls '
pure ex-
perience.' Then, gratuitously assuming that with
this the human mind did de facto start, he goes on to
trace its development, and to show what, on this
assumption, conception and intellectual activity
202 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

really must be. Grunting him his premises, and the

validity of his method, the conclusion he draws is

logical enough : concepts cannot be more than

images, or, as Hume said, '
faint copies of sensation,'
and cannot be other than the habit we have
intellect
acquired, of substituting these pseudo-concepts for
the sense-termini to which they refer. But once
again, as a consequence of his method, the pragmatist
finds himself in violent contradiction with the facts.
§ 132. This loose and inconsistent psychology is
in marked contrast with the careful analysis of
Cognition which underlies the Critical Method of
Kant. Whatever we may think of the metaphysical
conclusions to which that method has led, it began
where a true philosophy must always begin with —
a study of man as he is. Kant's psychology, when
compared with that of the pragmatist, is accurate
and precise. He draws a careful distinction between
faculty and faculty, function and function. He does
not confuse sense and imagination with intellect, or
intellect with will. He points out what the —
pragmatists are apt to forget that sensation, in —
abstraction from the synthetic activity of thought,
can give us little more than a series 1 of spatially
extended impressions, without unity and without
meaning. He recognises that intellect is essential
to knowledge: without it, we may have pictures
and images, but no cognition either of objects or of
their relations. Yet Kant, in spite of his Apriorism,
finds room for experience, and insists upon the

*A scries of impressions, i.e., in the sense that the continuity

of sentient experience is broken up by the focussing of attention
first on one object, then on another.
 GENETIC PSYCHOLOGY 203

necessity of mediation by experience almost as

' '

much as the pragmatist himself. Aristotle is more

emphatic still. For him, as for Kant, experience is
necessary as the condition of thought sensation;

as the means by which thought is brought into

contact with reality; while imagination also is
admitted as in some sense preparing the way for
the syntheses of conception and judgment. But for
Aristotle all knowledge
is derived from experience,

and the knowledge that is so derived is not

phenomenal merely, but real. He, too, however,
like Kant, affirms that intellectual activity is

essential to knowledge, and that without it sensa-

tions and images have no significance at all. Truth
and falsity do not belong to sensation at all for ;

whether an object is present or not, it is only by

thinking about it that it comes to have meaning
for us.

§ 133. Thus it is in Pragmatism alone, except

for an antiquated Empiricism of which it is the
latest development, that the function of the intellect
is confused in a most un-psychological fashion with

the totally different function of volition and sense.

Volition, sensation and intellect combine to give us
knowledge, but, as Kant says, " because knowledge
arises from their united action, this is no reason for
confusing the function of one with that of the
other." And from this confusion, what does the
pragmatist hope to attain ? His aim would seem
to be to get a theory of knowledge which shall be
consistent with the theory of evolution. Yet even
here he fails for if thought is simply an economic
;

process, by means of which we seek to adapt

204 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

ourselves to our environment, it should, according

to the general law of organic tend to become life,

unconscious in proportion as it has secured that

end, and, as a habit, has become fixed. This,
however, is not the case. Axioms and other habits
of thought, though constant, show no sign of
becoming unconscious. Hence, even on evolu-
tionary principles, the pragmatic account of know-
ledge breaks down. True, " the progress of action
causes the progress also of thought, as the progress
of thought conditions and determines the progress
of action " but if the function of thought is merely
:

to determine the progress of action if, in essence, ;

it is symbolised sentience and its only function is

4
to lead thereto if, as M. Blondel says, it is but
'
;

a 'moment in the general dynamic of life'; 1 its

present form, its distinctive features, the conscious-
ness which still attends the most stable of its habits,
becomes a mystery, for it is something wholly
incompatible with the origin assigned.
§ 134. Failure, inconsistency, illicit generalisa-
tion, one-sided emphases, conclusions only partially
worked out, meet us everywhere in the pragmatic
Theory of Knowledge and the explanation of this ;

4
is to be found in the thoroughly-genetic psycho-
logy which Pragmatism is determined to secure
'

regardless of the cost. What the late Dr. Caird

has said of the prevailing method of explaining the '

world aptly describes the attitude of Pragmatism

'

44
in regard to knowledge. It is an attempt to level
downwards," i.e., to take the lowest forms (of
1
Appendix to the Bulletin de la Societe dc Philosophic,
1 90 -2,
1
p. 190.
 GENETIC PSYCHOLOGY 205

thought) as the explanation of those that stand

higher in the scale. 1 The true method, on the
other hand, recognises that we cannot interpret
" even the lowest existence in the world except . . .

on principles which are adequate to explain the

highest. We must level up,' not level down.' " 2
' '

We must explain by means of " le principe supfyieur

qui en se rdalisant suscite les conditions de sa realisa-
tion, que c'est la forme elle-mt>me qui faponne
3
la mature a son usage." Yet so eager is the

pragmatist in his desire to explain origin and to

trace development, that true methods are thrown
to the winds. He admits that the teleological
4
method is the true one, that we must explain the
lower as an imperfect realisation of the higher and '

not explain the higher as a development from what

we imagine the lower to have been. He acknow-
ledges the necessity of analysing our experience as
it is, allowing that " as we ourselves are the highest

examples of individuals we know, it is only in

exploring the depths of our own nature that the
clue to the riddle of the world is to be sough t." 4
But when he comes to practical work, he cannot
waste time on analytic psychology or on a study of
human ideals. Validity is of little consequence,
provided origin can be assigned. And should an
adversary venture to criticise results or to indicate
the illogical character of each procedure, he exposes
himself to an onslaught almost mediaeval in its fury
and in the brilliancy of the epithets bestowed.
1 Critical Philosophy of Kant, vol. i., p. 34.
* Ibid., p. 35.
9 Boutroux, De Video de loi naturelle.
* Riddles of the Sphinx, p. 240.
206 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

Indeed, to such a pass have matters come of late,

that the venerable Peirce, the reputed father of all
pragmatists, disgusted with such methods, has felt
constrained to disown his own children. Writing in
a recent number of the Hibbert Journal, 1 he says,
" Their avowedly undefinable position, if it be not
capable of logical characterisation, seems to me to
be characterised by an angry hatred of strict logic,
and even some disposition to rate any exact thought
which interferes with it as all humbug." 2
So long as such a practice prevails, it is impossible
to hope for satisfactory results from the pragmatist ;

and I think we shall find that in the more serious

sphere of Metaphysics and of Truth pragmatic
methods have not been conducive to the growth of
sound philosophy.

1
October, 1908, p. 112.
* Dr. Schiller repudiates the paternity
'
' of Peirce, and
rightly so, I think, at any rate, so far as Humanism is concerned.
All Peirce did was to suggest the general idea of the Pragmatic
Method. (Cf. Pragmatism, p. 46.)
 PART II.

The Metaphysical Conditions of

Knowledge.
CHAPTER VIII.

APRIORISM AND ABSOLUTISM.

§ 135. All objects of human enquiry were divided
by Hume into '
Relations of ideas and Matters of
' '

fact.' Matters of fact, he said, are learned from

experience but are particular, disconnected,
;

momentary, and so can give no universal proposi-

tions. Relations between ideas, such as those we
have in mathematics, are universal but they are ;

universal because they belong to the ideal order and

are revealed by the operation of thought itself.
As, however, Hume could find no bond of connection
between ideas and facts, he came to the conclusion
that matters of fact alone are real, relations between
ideas being merely mental notions without objective
validity.
The unsatisfactory nature of Hume's conclusion
is obvious. That ideas are merely mental and have
no objective validity is admitted neither by prag-
matist nor absolutist. Both have found what Hume
sought for in vain, a bond of connection between
ideas and facts. The pragmatist observes what
208 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

apparently escaped the notice of Hume, viz., that

whether mathematical notions are objectively valid
or not, they are certainly applicable in experience ;

fience the pragmatic doctrine that such notions are

true in so far as they are useful. Kant also took
note of this same fact of experience, but observing
also that mathematical notions arise first in sense-
experiences, was led to a different conclusion.
His was a two-fold problem, the problem of origin
and the problem of validity. How is it possible,
he asked, that we are able to generalise particular
perceptive judgments and so obtain laws ? And
how is it that these general laws are applicable in
experience,and that by them we are able to antici-
pate future events ? In order to solve these two
problems Kant formulated two hypotheses, first the
hypothesis of Apriorism, and secondly that of
Immanence.
§ 136. The postulate of Apriorism is made at the
very outset of Kant's Critical enquiry, and is made
expressly for the purpose of explaining those
universal and necessary judgments, the existence
of which he recognised as a fact. Let us assume,
he says, that in knowledge the object conforms
to the mind, and not the mind to the object. Let
us assume that there are a priori forms within the
mind without which the experience of objects would
be impossible, and apart from which for us there
would be no objects at all. Let us assume that "the
sensible object must conform to our faculty of
perception " and that in general our mind
'
deter-
'

mines the nature of objects a priori, or before they

are actually presented;" just as the mathematician
 A PRIORI SM AND ABSOLUTISM 209

" in his definitions out what was neces-

brings
sarily implied in conception that he had
the
himself formed a priori, and put into the figure,"
and just as the " physicist, if he is to be success-
ful, must himself lead the way with principles and

judgments based upon fixed laws, and force nature

to answer his questions." Our only escape from the
sceptical empiricism of Hume is to assume that
" that which reason has itself put into nature must
be its guide to the discovery of all that it can learn
from nature." 1
§ 137. Thus the origin of knowledge in Kant is
two-fold. It is partly a priori and partly a pos-
teriori ; and its validity depends upon its origin.
All knowledge is obtained in experience and hence
is valid only for experience. But because all
knowledge begins with experience it by no means
' '

follows that it all originates from experience. 2

It arises partly from the activity of objects upon our
senses, but partly also from " the synthetic activity
of our minds which by combining and separating
the ideas which have thus arisen, converts the raw
material of sensible impressions into that knowledge
of objects which is called experience." Principles,
such as that of Causality, which are universal and
necessary, cannot be wholly due to experience. For
experience never bestows on its judgments true or strict
universality, but only the assumed or comparative univer-
sality of induction so that, properly speaking, it merely
;

says that, so far as our observation has gone, there is no

exception to the rule. If, therefore, a judgment is thought
with strict universality, so that there can be no possible
1 Preface to the Critique of Pure Reason {passim).
1 Ibid., Introduction, p. 1.

O
2IO THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

exception to it, it is not derived from experience, but

is absolutely a priori. And it is easy to show that in
. . .

human knowledge there actually are judgments that,

in the strictest sense, are universal, and therefore purely
a priori. 1

§ 138. Knowledge, then, presupposes as its con-

ditions a certain mental structure on the part of
the subject who knows, as well as certain data which
come from without and are given in sense-experience.
From this dual source Kant obtains three kinds of
knowledge properly so-called — empirical know-
ledge, a knowledge, and pure a priori
priori
knowledge; together with a fourth kind of know-
ledge which is not strictly knowledge at all, but
only faith.
4
Empirical knowledge includes the truths of
'

every-day life and all the applied, as opposed to

the abstract, sciences. the
It is due in part to
object, and in part to the mind.
expressed It is

in propositions involving time and space, which are

the a priori forms of perceptual experience. Cate-
gories, also, are used in every judgment that we
make, and these, again, are a priori and to them the ,

data of sense-experience must conform. Empirical

knowledge is objective, since real objects are, for
Kant, the cause of our sensations but in it we ;

know only objects. as they appear, and not things

in themselves, which, because of the a priori element
involved in all human knowledge, must ever remain,
for man, unknowable.
In experience the synthesis in which a judgment
consists, is mediated by what is given in sense-

1 Introduction to Critique of Pure Reason, p. 3.

 A PRIORI SM AND ABSOLUTISM 211

perception. The mind makes the synthesis, but

the content of the synthesis, what is synthesised,
is conditioned a posteriori by sense data. In
a priori knowledge, on the other hand, the syntheses
which we make are independent of experience,
though the ideas between which the synthesis holds
are still conditioned by the data of perception.

For instance, " the proposition that each change '

has its own cause is a priori ; but it is not purely

'

a priori, because change is an idea that can be

derived only from experience. " 1 Purely a priori
knowledge is entirely independent of experience,,
both in regard to synthesis and in regard to the
ideas that are synthesised, for in it we consider
merely the a priori forms or categories (under which,
in experience, objects are thoughts) in relation to
one another.
A priori knowledge in general is derived from a
study of the structure and natural functional
activity of the mind itself, and, often enough, we
possess and use such knowledge without ever having
explicitly formulated it. It is only when conflict
of opinion arises thatwe begin to examine the
presuppositions upon which respective claims to
truth are based, and so come to the knowledge of
the a '
priori forms
'
which all knowledge implies.
Thus the conflict of individual judgments in regard
to quantity led to an examination of the presup-
positions of our knowledge of quantity, and this to

p. 3. (On p. 5, Kant calls the principle

1 he. cit., Introduction,

of causality pure a priori :' but here, I take it, he is speaking

'

either of the synthesis which the principle involves, considered

in abstraction from its terms, or he is thinking of the tauto-
logical form of the principle, viz., '
every effect must have a
cause.')
212 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

mathematics and geometry; so that from a critical

regress upon the universal implicit in our actual
concrete judgments, the principle of number was
laid down, and, this accomplished, it became possible
to anticipate events and foretell relations which
must of necessity be true.
§ 139. The fourth kind of knowledge (so-called)
is quite different from the rest, for a knowledge
it is

which quits the field of possible experience and

claims to extend the range of our judgments beyond
its limits by means of conceptions for which no

corresponding object can be presented in experience.

44 44
It is in this province,'' says Kant, that reason
carries on those investigations the results of which
we regard as more important than all that under-
standing can discover within the domain of pheno-
mena. These are the unavoidable problems of
God, freedom, and immortality, set by pure reason
itself." Such problems as these belong to meta-
physics, a science which men have hitherto built
44
upon knowledge which has come to them they
know not how, and in blind dependence upon
principles of which we cannot tell the origin."
An examination of the sources of knowledge, how-
ever, reveals the fact that knowledge is simply
experience determined by a priori forms. Hence
knowledge pertains only to objects of experience ;

and God, who is not an object of experience, cannot

therefore be an object of knowledge strictly so-
called, but only of faith. For Kant, as for the
pragmatists, the existence of God is a postulate ;
but Kant is better off than the pragmatists since
he can explain both the origin of the notion of God
 A PRIORI SM AND ABSOLUTISM 213

and the reason why we need to postulate His existence.

The notion of God arises from a transcendental use
of the categories beyond the sphere of their applica-
tion in experience, and so far the notion is invalid ;

but when supplemented by the consideration of

human demands for an ultimate harmony and recon-
ciliation, notably between good and evil, the notion
of God becomes an idea in the objective validity of
which we are forced to believe, even though it be
impossible to prove it.

§ 140. Thus the argument by which Kant dis-

proves the objective validity of the Ideas of Pure
Reason presupposes the doctrine of Immanence, for
it rests upon the assumption that sense-data and

a priori forms, objective experience and subjective

synthesis, are both essential and intrinsic to know-
ledge, and apart from one another are mere ab-
stractions. Thus object presupposes subject, and
subject, object. The unity of the self is the cor-
relate of objective differences. This Kant clearly
states in the Critique of Pure Reason, " Pheno-
mena,'' he says, " do not exist apart from forms
of synthesis of which the highest is the Transcen-
dental Unity of Apperception." Indeed, the principles
of the understanding are expressly called 'immanent,'
inasmuch as they are applicable only within the
limits of experience.
Modern representatives of Kant, differing as they
do in other respects, all agree in holding Immanence
essential to Criticism. Mr. Wallace, for instance,,
tells us that the philosophy of Kant
is an attempt to get at the organism of our fundamental
belief —the construction, from the very base, of our
214 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

conception of reality, of our primary certainty. In

technical language he describes our essential nature as
a Subject-Object. It is the unity of an I am which ' '

is also I know that I am

'
an I will which is also
;
'
'
'

I am conscious of my will.' 1
1

And Dr. Caird declares that

no one has a key to Kant's Logic, who does not see

that the result to which it tends [is the view that] that
very consciousness of the particular and the contingent,
which Hume had turned against the consciousness of
'
necessary connection is itself dependent upon
'
the
*
a priori it is used to condemn. 2
'

§ 141. Unquestionably Immanence is essential to

Kant's Apriorism, and unquestionably, too, it tends
in the direction of Absolutism. But it is, I think,
equally certain that Kant stopped short of the
ultimate goal. He asserted Immanence, but he
asserted it only in so far as the phenomenal object
was concerned, and so failed to realise, at any rate
and last axiom of
in its fulness, the first Absolute all

philosophies, that the Universe itself is one and

individual. Kant, in fact, never really transcended
the human point of view. Knowledge, for him, was
always human knowledge, and, human-like, he
could not altogether rid himself of a realistic attitude.
He believed in noumena, in a real and independent
Ding-an-sich which was outside the mind and so
beyond the reach of human experience.from It is
the Ding-an-sich that the material element in
knowledge is derived, but as it is only this element,
viz., sensation, which conforms to the a priori
1
Hegel's Philosophy of Mind, p. ex.
* The Critical Philosophy of Kant, vol. i. f p. 250.
 A PR ICR ISM AND ABSOLUTISM 21$

structure of mind, things in themselves are left

without, and, hence, are declared unknowable.
§ 142. The Kantian theory on account of this
dualism is not an Absolutism, but rather a com-
promise between Absolutism and Realism, or at
least it may be so regarded in retrospection. And
like all compromises it led to endless difficulties.
The separation of matter and form, which was due
to the realistic admission of a Ding-an-sich, necessi-
tated the introduction of numerous intermediaries
between the lowest faculty sense, and the highest
synthesis of all, the Transcendental Unity of Apper-
'

ception,' in the vain hope of bringing them together.

To take a single instance : the transcendental
schematism of the imagination is an attempt to
explain how the pure conceptions of the under-
standing can possibly be applied to phenomena.
But the result is, as Dr. Caird has pointed out,
that we are placed in a dilemma. For either the
syntheses of the imagination are independent of the
syntheses of the understanding, and in this case
their agreement is either fortuitous or due to a
pre-established and inexplicable harmony; or the
synthesis of conception is the real source and
conscious aspect of the synthesis of imagination,
in which case the possibility of converting a formless
and serial manifold into definite objects is still
unexplained.
§ 143. The different sources assigned to the
a priori and the a posteriori elements in knowledge
is fatal and though Kant tried again and again to
;

overcome this self-imposed dualism, it was always

without success. The dialectic in which he discusses

216 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

the fourth kind of knowledge mentioned above,

exhibits clearly the unsatisfactory nature of the
synthesis between these alien elements.
effected
The 4
Ideas of Reason —
God, the Universe as a
'

totality, and the Soul —

have no objective validity,
for " since no phenomena can be found to which
they can be applied, they cannot be presented
in concreto at all." 1 Yet, although we have no
perception of the supra-sensuous, it is admitted that
the categories have " a wider reach than the per-
ceptions of sense," and that there may be objects
independent of sensibility to which, unknown to
us, they do in reality apply. 2 Nay, further, reason
compels us to transcend the phenomenal and
" demands a completeness beyond the reach of all
possible knowledge, and a systematic unity with
which experience can never be completely har-
monised." 8 But this is only an ideal after which
we strive, and its function is regulative, not con-
stitutive. Again, if what Pure Reason demands
in order to satisfy itself, is confirmed by the
postulates of Practical Reason which are neces-
sary for the realisation of moral ideals, the conclusion
is not that these ideals are valid, but that the two

reasons are independent and their functions distinct.

The result of Kant's endeavour to escape from the
dualism with which he started is always the same :

instead of transcending it, other dualisms are

introduced.
§ 144. The dualism of the Pure and the Practical
Reasons renders necessary a third Critique in which
1
Critique of Pure Reason (2nd edit.), p. 595.
* Ibid., p. 309. » Ibid., p. 596.
 A PRIOR ISM AND ABSOLUTISM 217

the relation between the postulated noumena and

the world of appearances is discussed, and in which
Kant approaches nearer to Absolutism than ever
before. Here, at last, says Dr. Pfleiderer, " Kant
tries to some connecting link between the
find
intelligible and the sensible world and he seeks
;

it in a teleology common to them both." The

1

Critique of Judgment is an attempt to transcend

the point of view of our discursive intellect, and to
look at things from the standpoint of a perceptive
intelligence for which the whole is no longer de-
pendent on the parts, but the parts dependent on
the whole both in their specific nature and in their
interconnection. 2 The universe is conceived as a
teleological whole and this whole
;

determines the form and combination of all the parts,

not indeed as cause, but as the ground on which the
thing is known by the person judging of it, in the
systematic unity of the form and the combination
of all its parts [while the parts themselves] combine
;

in the unity of the whole, and are reciprocally cause

and effect of each other's form. 3

The Critique of Judgment is undoubtedly an

attempt to reconcile the point of view of the Practical
Reason with that of the Pure Reason, but Kant
seems hardly to have realised the significance of
what he was doing. From the point of view of
Absolutism, the third Critique is a higher synthesis
of those which proceed. From Kant's point of view
it was rather a supplement to what had already

1
Development of Theology, bk. I., c. i.
* Critique of Judgment, pp. 419, 420.
*Ibia., p. 385.
218 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

been His teleological whole was an ideal, a

said.
suggestion, but nothing more. Nor does he appear
to have seen the connection between this teleology
and the doctrine of Immanence. The teleology of
the Critique of Judgment does not claim to be a
development of the doctrine of Immanence. On
the contrary, just as Kant never applies the
principle of Immanence beyond the sphere of
phenomenal objects, but attributes sensation to
the causal action of an unknowable Ding-an-sich>
so he never gets rid of the duality of the determinant
and judgments. Since teleological prin-
reflective
ciples are based on the reflective judgment, they
are regulative not constitutive, subjective not
objective. Hence, " although there are certain
peculiarities of our higher faculty of knowledge
which it is very natural to transfer as objective
predicates to things, they really belong only to
ideas." 1
And the final conclusion which Kant
reaches, is that, although we may postulate a Supreme
Being as the ultimate Ground of the Universe of
which we are an integral part, yet we can have no
^knowledge of such a Being; for, "to contemplate
that Being as he is in himself, the Speculative
Reason must assume the form of the determi-
nant judgment, and this is contrary to its very
2
nature."
§ While, then, it may be granted that the
145.
thing-in-itselfand the dualism which it implies is
foreign to the spirit of Criticism, I think that Kant
was perfectly sincere and perfectly firm even to the
1
Critique of Judgment, p. 417.
2
Ibid., p. 470, concluding paragraph.
 A PRIORI SM AND ABSOLUTISM 219

end in his belief in the reality of this dualism.

Fichte has said that it was a concession to Locke
and the Sceptics, but I cannot so regard it, though
itmay have been due to the influence of English
Empiricism that Kant did not see further than he
did or realise more fully the significance of his own
philosophy. On the other hand, the human stand-
point adopted by Kant undoubtedly has something
to do with the question. It may have been that
Kant foresaw that to deny the existence of things-
in-themselves was to identify knowledge with
reality, and if this was so, it is small wonder that
he should have refused to renounce a dualism which
would have meant Subjectivism and Egoism, since
knowledge for him meant human knowledge. But
whatever his reasons may have been it is certain
that Kant did not transcend the distinction of
noumenal and phenomenal, and that consequence
in
he never got further than the half-way house between
Realism and Absolutism. In declining to go further
Kant was doubtless illogical. This blending of a
mutilated Realism with a half-hearted Absolutism
could not but lead, as it did, to many inconsistencies.
It meant failure even in the primary aim for which
Criticism had come into being. For it can hardly
be disputed that, taken as it stands, Kantian philo-
sophy tends rather towards, than away from,
Scepticism, precisely because of those realistic
Dinge-an-sich which remain for ever unknowable.
Yet, notwithstanding all this, and notwithstanding
also the fact that within his philosophy were im-
plicitly contained all the principles afterwards
developed by Absolutism, it is evident to me that
220 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

Kant remained to the last, and deliberately chose

to remain, a dualist.
§ 146. It was obvious, however, that Kant's
philosophy could not remain long in the state in
which he left it. Fichte saw at once that the dualism
of mind and the thing-in-itself was incompatible
with transcendental philosophy, and proceeded to
apply the remedy which Kant himself had suggested.
Things-in-themselves must be abolished once and
for all from the realm of philosophy. Fichte always
refused to believe that Kant had ever meant to
attribute causal action to the Ding-an-sich, which
would have involved an application of the category
beyond the sphere in which alone it had
of causality
meaning. But, deprived of causal action, things-in-
themselves became utterly useless, for their ratio
essendi thereby ceased to exist. Hence, things-in-
themselves were got rid of, and Kant's apparently
illogical Immanence to phenomenal
restriction of
objects in this way removed.The barrier which
Kant had placed between the real Subject and the
real Object inknowledge having thus been removed,
there was no longer any needof mediating links to
connect the one with the other. Both real Subject
and real Object were henceforth to be regarded as
immanent within knowledge, apart from which they
were meaningless abstractions. The object could
neither be known nor yet exist apart from the
subject, nor could the subject exist or become self-
conscious apart from the object.
§ 147. Several consequences followed from
Fichte's extension of the doctrine of Immanence.
From the assumption that the subject and object in
 A PRIOR ISM AND ABSOLUTISM 221

knowledge could not exist apart, it followed that

knowledge and reality must at bottom be one and, ;

this being so, knowledge, quA reality, could no longer

be regarded as the exclusive possession of human
minds. This latter consequence Fichte hardly
realised at first, for he identified reality with a
system of rational egos
'
though later he changed
;
'

his view and treated the latter as differences which

had broken out in an absolute and wholly indif- '

ferent Ground.
'
Thus, the primary problem which
philosophy presented to Fichte was quite different
from that which it presented to Kant. He assumed
as the first principle of all philosophy that " nothing
can exist which transcends self-consciousness." He
had to enquire, therefore, not how subject and object,
being distinct, can ever come to be united, but how
being at bottom one and the same, they can ever
come to be for consciousness distinct, or, in other
words, how an Ego which is externally identical
with itself can ever attain to the consciousness of
itself as an other.''

This problem which the immanent interpretation

of Criticism had introduced, Fichte failed to solve
satisfactorily. He attempted to solve it by means
of an antithesis,' in which the Ego posits a non-Ego
'

in order that it may attain self-consciousness and so

realise itself in a higher synthesis where it is deter-
mined by, and at the same time determines, the
non-Ego it has posited. But this was to reduce
nature to a mere moment in an eternal act of
1
' ' '

self-consciousness, to a limit imposed only in order

to be transcended. Nay, further, if, as at first
conceived, reality is identical with a system of
222 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

striving Egos, not only is '

nature ' merely the
material in which these finite egos strive to realise
themselves; but the absolute Ego, which in its
infinity embraces and constitutes the term
all reality

a mere idea, an eternal Sollen,

of self-realisation, is

a must be which never wholly is, for, if it were, the

' '

Anstoss would cease and with it consciousness.

Complete self-realisation would thus involve
annihilation.
§ These two defects in Fichte's
148. Wissen- '

schaftslehre demanded an immediate remedy.

'
For
to reduce nature to a sort of '
spring-board '
for the
development of our moral consciousness was to treat
the theories and discoveries of the scientist as so
many illusions and to conceive the Absolute as a
;

mere idea or infinite and all-embracing but

telos,

never fully itself, was to deprive the universe of that

unity which the new theory thought to give it.
Consequently, Schelling in his Natur-philosophie
made nature more real by treating it as the objective
expression of an ultimate and rational Ground.
Indeed, Fichte himself in his later writings had
sought to give Reality a metaphysical basis in the
Identity of Subject and Object. This Identity,
however, he conceived in the abstract, as something
which, itself without determination or individuality,
is yet the ground from which all things proceed.

And though Schelling, in his earlier work, gave it

fuller meaning both as the rational, and also as the
dynamical and not merely the teleological, source of
all things yet in his IdentitiHs-philosophie he
;

returned to Fichte's view and regarded the Absolute

as a bare Indifference-point, contentless and mean-
 APRIORISM AND ABSOLUTISM 223

ingless, it is the Ground of which

except in so far as
Intelligence and Nature are respectively the sub-
and objective aspects.
jective
Next came Hegel, who, failing to see how
§ 149.
an empty and undifferentiated abstraction could be
reconciled with, still less account for, the eternal
genesis of the rich variety and manifold differences
of the universe, protested vigorously against this
feature of the philosophy of Fichte and Schelling.
Accordingly, generously returning to the Absolute
all that his predecessors had deprived it of, he

conceived it as at once Ground, organic unity and

end or term. As Ground or Idea it is the source

final
whence flow both self and not-self, intelligence and
nature ; as organic unity it is the life of the universe
in which it progressively realises itself and as final ;

end or term, it is self-consciousness in which the

Absolute Idea recognises itself as one and thus
overcomes its own differences.
By thus adopting development or evolution
'
'
'
'

as the central idea of his system, Hegel thought to

explain at once the dynamical and the teleological
functions of the Absolute, and at the same time to
preserve it in its full meaning as the real and rational
Ground of a rich and much-differentiated universe.
The evolution, as before, takes place vid thesis,
antithesis and synthesis. Reality —at any rate from
our point of view is — stilla never-ending process of
self-realisation and self -development. But the
evolution is real now. It is the Absolute becoming
self-conscious. And the Absolute is not an Indiffer-

ence-point, nor are nature and spirit collateral or

parallel expressions of an empty abstraction. The
 —

224 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

Absolute itself is real, realising and manifesting

itself both in nature and in spirit. Nature and spirit,

too, are both real; but they have not the same
degree of reality. Nature is thought in extreme
alienation from itself, and though independent of
the individual mind, it is inferior to it as a manifesta-
tion of the Absolute Ground. For in conscious
beings, and especially in man, Thought or Spirit
manifests itself, first as distinct from the world,
then as free, then as an integral part of the world,
then as a member of a moral community, till it
comes at last to the highest stage of all, in which it
knows itself as spirit. Looking back upon the
history of mankind, Thought as Spirit recognises
there its own self-realisation, and in the history of
nature its own self-cxternalisation and at the same
;

time it isconscious that these antitheses are recon-

ciled in itself as in a higher synthesis. The Absolute
regarded as 'Ground' is by Hegel distinguished
relatively of course —from the '
Absolute Idea.' As
Ground it merely the unifying principle of the
is

organic universe, but it is not yet a being for-itself.

Only when its evolution is regarded as complete can
it strictly be called the Absolute, for only then does

it exist for itself and recognise itself as the unity

in which the dualism of the self and the not-self
is overcome.

§ 150. Thus in Fichte, Schelling and Hegel

Criticism not only develops, but takes upon itself a
new form, passing from a theory of knowledge into
a theory of reality. Knowledge is identified with
reality. To the categories is attributed a kind of
logical development by means of which the structure
 A PRIORI SM AND ABSOLUTISM 225

of the universe is evolved. The '

Transcendental
Unity of Apperception is transformed into an
'

Absolute, which is at once the Ground and the

higher and self-conscious synthesis of all its differ-
ences. The Universe is one, individual, systematic,
organic, rational. The Absolute is its principle of
unity nature and thinking beings its differences.
;

All are immanent within the single and individual

organism, and the differences apart from their
Ground, and the Ground apart from its differences
are nothing real, but merely abstractions.
The system of Hegel, as he himself prophesied,
underwent much differentiation.

The transformation of the world into objects of

consciousness is [says Dr. Wilm] the decisive step of
Critical Philosophy. Btit what, precisely, this con-
sciousness is, from which alone objects have existence,
whether it is individual consciousness, the consciousness
of the race, or consciousness as such, is a question
which admits of a variety of answers, and the particular
shade the resulting idealistic system will take on will
depend upon whether one or the other of these inter-
pretations be given. 1

I should have preferred to say that the dis-

tinguishing feature of Critical Philosophy was its

method ; for the transformation of the world into

objects of consciousness is characteristic of any
idealism, not exclusive of pragmatic idealisms.
The peculiar mark of Absolutism, on the other hand,
is the transformation of the world into objects (and

subjects) of consciousness for a single and immanent

Ground or Subject. And here it is true, as Dr. Wilm
points out, that the differentiations of Absolutism
1 Wilm, Philosophical Review, May, 1906, p. 349.
P
226 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

depend largely upon the view that is taken of the

nature of that Ultimate Ground. Hegel lays the
emphasis on thought, Schopenhauer on will, the
poet-philosopher Schiller on the aesthetic and moral
consciousness, and Mr. Bradley on sentience. All
these philosophies, however, are Absolutisms. All
adopt the doctrine of Immanence. All interpret
the Universe as one organic whole, comprising
unity of Ground amid structural difference and
;

all identify the unity of Ground as the Absolute

with some form of consciousness. As a rule, too,

the method of such philosophers is critical. They
argue from the data of experience, and their
conditions are presuppositions. But the Critical
Method, like Absolutism itself, may take a variety
of forms; and of late there *has been a tendency to
appeal more and more frequently to experience
both for data and for confirmation of the theses of
Absolutism. This tendency is illustrated in the
philosophy of T. H. Green, who, like Mr. Bradley,
bases the constructive part of his work on the data
of human consciousness. And as the multitudinous
differentiations of the philosophy of the Absolute
make it impossible to summarise them, I shall
content myself with stating in brief the leading
characteristics of Green's philosophy as expounded
in his Prolegomena to Ethics, supplemented by a
short sketch of the metaphysical standpoint of
Appearance and Reality.

§ 151. The facts of human consciousness are the

data with which Green starts, and the question
which he asks himself is, as we should expect, of a
critical nature, viz., what do these data presuppose ?
 A PRIORI SM AND ABSOLUTISM 227

What do they imply as the conditions without ' '

which they cannot be explained ? 1 Green, it has

4
been said, starts from the Self and passes thence '

to the Cosmos and to God, a statement which is —

true, but which must be understood not in the
Lockian, but in the true psychological sense already
explained. 2 In other words, Green begins by en-
quiring what we can know about human cognition
by introspective analysis, and with this as his
starting-point he begins to philosophise, i.e., to
enquire into its metaphysical conditions.
Analysing, first of all, the object of knowledge,
Green finds that it always consists of relations.
Matter and motion, just so far as known, consist in,
or are determined by, relations between the objects of
that connected consciousness which we call experience.
If we take any definition of matter, any account of its
4
necessary qualities,' and abstract from it all that
consists in a statement of relations between facts in
the way of feeling, or between objects that we present
to ourselves as sources of feeling, we shall find that
there is nothing left. 3

And, again, if we " exclude from what we have

considered real all qualities constituted by relation,
we none are left. Without relation any
find that
simple idea would be undistinguished from other
simple ideas, undetermined by its surroundings in the
cosmos of experience." 4 The world, then, as con-
ceived by us, consists of relations, and the order of
those relations is unalterable. Indeed, " that there
is an unalterable order of relations, if we could only
find it out, is the presupposition of all our enquiries
1 Prolegomena to Ethics, § 14. * Ibid., § 9.
1 * Ibid., § 20.
Ibid., i 9.
228 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

into the real nature of appearances ; and such

unalterableness implies their inclusion in one system
which leaves nothing outside itself." 1 Thus the
44
only means which we have of deciding whether any
particular event or object is really what it seems to
44
be " is by testing the unalterableness of the
qualities which we ascribe to it, or which form its
apparent nature. " 2

§ 152. [Now] experience, in the sense of a conscious-

—
ness of events as a related series and in no other sense
can it help to account for the knowledge of an order of
—
nature cannot be explained by any natural history,
properly so-called. [For] between the consciousness
itself on the one hand, and on the other anything deter-
mined by the relations under which a nature is presented
to consciousness, no process of development, because no
community, can be really traced. Nature, with all that
belongs to it, is a process of change. But neither
. . .

can any process of change yield a consciousness of itself,

which, in order to be a consciousness of the change,
must be equally present to all stages of the change ;

nor can any consciousness of the change, since the whole

of it must be present at once, be itself a process of change.
There may be a change into a state of consciousness of
change, and a change out of it, on the part of this man
or that but within the consciousness itself there can be
;

no change, because no relation of before and after, of

here and there, between its constituent members.
[Hence] a form of consciousness, which we cannot
explain as of natural origin, is necessary to our con-
ceiving an order of nature, an objective world of fact
from which illusion may be distinguished. 3 [Further,
nature itself implies a spiritual principle. Relation
implies the existence of many in one]. Whether we say
that a related thing is one in itself, manifold in respect
of its relations, or that there is one relation between
manifold things .... we are equally affirming the
1
Ibid., § 26. * Ibid., § 24. » Ibid., §§ 1 8, 19.
 A PRIORI SM AND ABSOLUTISM

unity of the manifold. . . . But a plurality of things

cannot of themselves unite in one relation, nor can a
single thing of itself bring itself into a multitude of
relations. There must, then, be something other
. . .

than the manifold things themselves, which combines

them without effacing their severality. 1
Now, a system of unalterably related objects is a
system of unalterably related objects in conscious-
ness ; otherwise, there would be no experience
2
of it.

If, therefore, there is such a thing as a connected

experience of related objects, there must be operative
in consciousness a unifying principle, which not only
presents related objects to itself, but at once renders
them objects and unites them in relation to each other
by this act of presentation. [And] if all possible . . .

experience related objects .... forms a single

of
system ; if there can be no such thing as an experience
of unrelated objects then there must be a corresponding
;

singleness in the principle of consciousness which forms

the bond of relation between the objects. 3

§ 153. Thus the spiritual principle which is

implied in our knowledge of a cosmos of related facts
4
is identical with that single active self-conscious
principle,' which constitutes those facts and is the
A hypothesis which
condition of their existence.
knowable world and the subject capable
treats the
of knowing it as two independent existences is
untenable, for "it renders knowledge, as a fact or
reality, inexplicable. It leaves us without an
answer to the question how the order of relations,
which the mind sets up, comes to reproduce those
relations of the material world which are assumed to

1
Ibid., § 28. * Ibid., § 31. » Ibid.,
§ 32.
230 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

be of a wholly different origin and nature." 1

The
true account of the growth of knowledge is

that the concrete whole, which may be described

indifferently as an eternal intelligence realised in the
related facts of the world, or as a system of related
facts rendered possible by such an intelligence, partially
and gradually reproduces itself in us, communicating
piece-meal, but in inseparable co-relation, understanding
and tjie facts understood, experience and the experienced
world.12

How this communication between a human and an

eternal consciousness takes place we are not told.
Apparently, however, it involves both thought and
feeling, for

feeling and thought and mutually

are inseparable
dependent which the world of
in the consciousness for
experience exists, inseparable and mutually dependent
in the constitution of the facts which form the object
of that consciousness [so that] it is one and the same
living world of experience which, considered as the
manifold object presented by a self-distinguishing subject
to itself, may be called feeling, and, considered as the
subject presenting such an object to itself, may be
called thought. 3

Doubtless, at times man does not think he merely :

feels. " But just in so far as we feel without think-

ing, no world phenomena exists for us." 4 Con-
of
sequently, although we do not thereby cease to be
facts, and facts for an eternal consciousness which
is the condition of our existence, nevertheless we are

not identical with that consciousness in the sense

34 and cf.
1
Ibid., § § 39.
1
Ibid., § 36 and cf. § 43.
* § 5o. * § 40.
 1

APR10RISM AND ABSOLUTISM 23

that it is reproducing itself in us. Indeed, precisely

because the reproduction has us for its organ,
it isat once progressive and incapable of completion [and]
there can never be that actual wholeness of the world
for us which there must be for the mind that renders
it one. But though the conditions under which the
eternal consciousness reproduces itself in our knowledge
are thus incompatible with finality in that knowledge,
there is an element of identity between the first stage
of intelligent experience —
between the simplest beginning
of knowledge —
and the eternal consciousness reproducing
itself in it, which consists in the presentation of the
many in one, in the apprehension of facts as related in
a single system, in the conception of there being an
order of things, whatever that order may turn out to be. 1

Thus the fact that " the unification of the manifold

in the world implies the presence of the manifold to a
mind, for which, and through the action of which
2
it is a related whole," together with the fact that
that very consciousness of ours, " which holds
together successive events as equally present, has
itself a history in time can only be explained
. . .

by supposing that in the growth of our experience,

... an animal organism, which has a history in
time, gradually becomes the vehicle of an eternally
complete consciousness." 3

§ 154. These are, I think, the essential features

of the philosophy of T.H. Green, so far as concerns
the theory of knowledge and .between this ;

philosophy and that of Mr. Bradley there are many

points of resemblance, and still more perhaps of
difference. The differences, however, would seem
to be due largely to method, for in his main con-
1 3
Ibid., § 72 (italics mine). * Ibid., § 82. Ibid., §§ 66, 67.
i$2 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

elusions Mr. Bradley is at one with Green. Reality

is one and individual, and is to be identified with
some form of consciousness. This is the chief thesis
of both Absolutisms, in comparison with which it is
of small moment whether that form of consciousness
be called 'thought' or 'sentient experience,' since
for both philosophers the one term includes the
other. Nevertheless, the long and intricate process
of reasoning by which Mr. Bradley attempts to
establish and confirm his conclusions is wholly
different from the line of argument adopted by
Green and of this we must now give some account
;

in order that our sketch of Absolutism may be

complete. Fortunately for us, Mr. Bradley fre-
quently sums up his own arguments, and in one
place has even devoted a whole chapter to Re-
capitulation, so that by the aid of these summaries
it may
be possible to give a sketch of his philosophy,
which otherwise one might have hesitated to attempt.
Accordingly, I shall, as in Green's case, keep as
closely as possible to the author's own words in
order to avoid misinterpretations, which, judging
from the appendices and notes to the Second Edition
of Appearance and Reality, have already been of
somewhat frequent occurrence.

.§ 155. In our First Book [says Mr. Bradley] we

examined [under the headings Primary and Secondary
Qualities, Substantive and Adjective, Relation and Quality,
Space and Time, Change, Causality, Things, the Self]
certain ways of regarding Reality, and we found that
each of them contained fatal inconsistency. Upon this
we forthwith denied that, as such, they could be real.
But upon reflection we perceived that our denial must rest
upon positive knowledge. It can only be because we
 APktORISM AMD ABSOLUTISM 233

know, that we venture to condemn. Reality, therefore,

we are sure, has a positive character, which rejects mere
appearance and is incompatible with discord. On the
other hand it cannot be something apart, a position
qualified in no way save as negative of phenomena.
The Reality, therefore, must be One, not as excluding
diversity, but as somehow including it in such a way as
to transform its character. There is plainly not any-
thing which can fall outside of the Real. That must be
qualified by every part of every predicate which it
rejects but it has such qualities as counterbalance one
;

another's defects. It has a superabundance in which

all partial discrepancies are resolved and remain as
higher concord. 1

§ 156. The metaphysical proof that Reality is

One, rests upon Mr. Bradley's theory of relations.
Mr. Bradley does not, as does Green, assert that
the cosmos is merely a system of relations to which
'
quality,' in inorganic beings at any rate, is ulti-
mately reducible. On the contrary, though quali-
ties imply relations, relations also imply qualities
both of which exist upon the same level of appear-
ance. They are never found apart, and separation
by abstraction is no proof of real separateness.
There are no purely external relations, for all relations
make a difference to their terms, and hence must
belong to a whole which they qualify. Logically
and really, as well as psychologically, "all relations
imply a whole to which the terms contribute and
by which the terms are qualified." 2 Hence, since all
things are distinguished and related,

nothing in the whole and in the end can be external,

and everything less than the Universe is an abstraction
1
Appearance and
Reality, chap, xx., p. 241.
2 loc.
p. 581, cf. chap. hi. and the whole of
cit., Note B in
the Appendix to the 2nd edition.
234 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

from the whole, an abstraction more or less empty, and

the more empty the less self-dependent. Relations and
qualities are abstractions, and depend for their being
always on a whole, a whole which they inadequately
express, and which remains always less or more in the
background. 1

The transition from this theory of relations

to the doctrine that Reality one is logical enough.
is
" Reality is one. It must be single, because plu-
rality, taken as real, contradicts itself. Plurality
implies relations, and, through its relations, it un-
willingly asserts always a superior unity. To
suppose the universe plural is therefore to contradict
oneself and, after all, to suppose that it is one." 2
In order to determine the nature of the unity
which underlies the universe, Mr. Bradley appeals
again to sense-perception. The unity in question
cannot be the unity which in thought we contrast
with plurality, for this, like plurality itself, is the
result of analysis, and is therefore appearance.
It is the fact that at any given moment " we may
be truly said to feel our whole psychical state as
one" that furnishes "the positive idea of unity
which we seek." 8 It is true that this unity is given
only in " finite centres of experience " (i.e., in the
4
this and the mine '), but none the less,
' '

in our first immediate experience the whole Reality is

present. This does not mean that every other centre
of experience, as such, is included there. It means that
every centre qualifies the Whole, and that the Whole,
as a substantive, is present in each of these its
adjectives. The self and the world are elements, each
separated in, and each contained by experience.
1 1 8 Ibid.,
Ibid. Ibid., pp. 519, 520 p. 521.
 ;

APRtORtSM AND ABSOLUTISM 235

Experience .... as a centre of immediate feeling,

is not yet either self or not self. Then through . . .

its own imperfection it is broken up. Its unity

gives way before inner unrest and outer impact
in one. And then self and Ego, on one side, are
produced by this development, and, on the other
side, appear other selves and the world and God. These
all appear as the contents of our finite experience, and
they are genuinely and actually contained in it. They
are contained in it but partially. [Nevertheless]
. . .

the total universe, presented imperfectly in finite

experience, would, if completed, be merely the com-
pletion of this experience. 1

§ 157. In a previous chapter we saw how, by a

somewhat similar argument to this last, Mr. Bradley
seeks to establish his thesis that Reality is Sentient
Experience. It remains now to say something as
to the nature of this Sentient Experience, and as
to the relation of the Absolute to its appear-
ances.
Again let chapter headed
us quote from the
'
Recapitulation,' for beyondmatter of
this in the
positive and constructive theory Mr. Bradley makes
little advance.

This Absolute experience, because that is what we

is
really mean when we speak
of anything. It is not one-
sided experience, as mere volition or mere thought
but it is a whole superior to and embracing all incom-
plete forms of life. This whole must be immediate
like but not, like feeling, immediate at a level
feeling,
below distinction and relation. The Absolute is imme-
diate as holding and transcending these differences.
And because it cannot contradict itself, and does not
suffer a division of idea from existence, it has therefore
a balance of pleasure over pain. 2

1 * Ibid. t pp. 241, 242.

Ibid., pp. 524, 525.
236 THEORIES OP KNOWLEDGE

Thus Mr. the Absolute not

Bradley regards
only as " immediate,"
but also as " in every
sense perfect." Various forms of the finite all
" take a place within this Absolute." " Nothing
can be lost," yet " everything must be made
good so as to minister to harmony." How this
takes place is inexplicable, nor is it necessary to
explain it since we have a general principle which

seems certain. The only question is whether any

form of the finite is a negative instance which
overthrows this principle. 1
4 '

§ 158. The chapter entitled Recapitulation

occurs about half way in Appearance and Reality,
and the volume is devoted almost entirely
rest of the
to the enquiry whether there is anything which
*
imports discord when admitted to a place within
'

the Absolute for, if not, the Absolute is possible

; ;

and " this is all we need to seek for. For already we

have a principle upon which it is necessary and ;

therefore it is certain." 2 For the rest, the result

of this further enquiry is largely negative. Nothing is
found to be contradictory when predicated as an
adjective of the Absolute ;
yet nothing has reality
in itself and apart from the Absolute.
We have found [for instance] that Nature by itself
has no reality. ... It exists only as a form of appear-
ance within the Absolute. ... It has its being in
that process of intestine division, through which the
whole world of appearance consists. And in this realm,
where aspects fall asunder, where being is distinguished
from thought, and the self from the not-self, Nature
marks one extreme. It is the aspect most opposed to
self-dependence and unity. ... [It is but] one element *

within the Whole.' 3

1 1
Ibid., p. 242. « Ibid., p. 242. Ibid., pp. 293, 294.
 A PRIORI SM AND ABSOLUTISM 237

In the same " no one aspect of experience, as

way
such, is real. None is primary, or can serve to
explain the others or the whole. They are all alike
and passing away beyond themselves."
one-sided,
Hence they are called " appearances," for " any-
thing which comes short when compared with
Reality gets the name of appearance." 1
This does
not mean, however, that " the thing always itself
is an appearance " but " that its character is
;

such that it becomes one as soon as we judge it."

This character [of things] ... is ideality. Appearance

consists in a looseness of content from existence and, ;

because of this self -estrangement, every finite aspect is

called an appearance. And we have found that every-
where throughout the world such ideality prevails.
Anything less than the Whole has turned out to be
not self-contained. Its being involves in its very essence
a relation to the outside, and it is thus inwardly infected
by externality. Everywhere the finite is self-transcen-
dent, alienated from itself, and passing away from
itself towards another existence. Hence the finite is
appearance, because, on the one side, it is an adjective
of Reality, and because, on the other side, it is an
adjective which itself is not real. 2

§ 159. In conclusion, then, " All

is appearance,

and no appearance, or any combination of these is

the same as Reality." Yet, on the other hand,
" the Absolute is its appearances, it really is all
and every one of them." " The Absolute is each
appearance, and is all, but it is not any one as such.
And it is not all equally, but one appearance is
more real than another." There are in appearances
degrees of reality.
1 Ibid., p. 485. » Ibid., p. 486.
 ;

23« THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

Everything is essential, yet one thing is worthless in

comparison with others. Nothing is perfect, as such, and
yet everything in some degree contains a vital function
of Perfection. Every attitude of experience, every
sphere or level of the world, is a necessary factor in the
Absolute. . Nowhere is there even a single fact so
. .

fragmentary and so poor that to the universe it does

not matter. There is truth in every idea however
false, there is reality in every existence however slight
and, where we can point to reality or truth, there is
the one undivided life of the Absolute. Appearance
without reality would be impossible, for what then
could appear ? And reality without appearance would
be nothing, for there certainly is nothing outside
appearances. But on the other hand reality is not
the sum of things. It is the unity in which all things,
coming together, are transmuted, in which they are
changed all alike, though not changed equally. 1

It is the unity of the Absolute immanent within the

whole, re-uniting and re-absorbing its relational
appearances, and giving to each its degree of truth,
reality and perfection, which, as such, can belong
only to the whole.

CHAPTER IX.

CRITICISM OF APRIORISM.

§ 160. Every Absolutism is not necessarily an

Apriorism. The Kantian doctrine that the possi-
bility of experiencepresupposes not merely thought,
but a definite thought-structure or a priori schema
to which, in knowledge, all objects must conform,
1 Ibid.,
pp. 487, 488.
 CRITICISM OF APRIORISM 239

and without which knowledge could not exist,

though still upheld in various forms by Dr. Caird
and others, is not found in the Absolutism of Green
or Mr. Bradley. All allow that the universe is

intelligible, that it is built according to a definite

plan, and that the relation of part to part and
change to change is according to fixed and im-
mutable laws, and again that these laws are logically
prior to the details of phenomenal objects but ;

Apriorism asserts more than this. It asserts that

that thought and cognition generally has a definite
structure, which is the necessary and immutable
condition of all experience, It maintains that the
forms, categories, principles of analysis and synthesis
which characterise human cognition are not due to
the circumstances in which we find ourselves, nor
yet built up by the constructive activity of thought,
but belong to the a priori nature of mind itself.
Forms, categories and principles are all arranged or
systematised a priori according to a plan or schema,
which everyone carries about with him, and which
conditions all The question
his thought-activity.
therefore which intend to discuss in this chapter is
I

whether there is the slightest evidence for the

existence of such a plan or schema of categories and
principles as the necessary condition of all experience.
§ 161. Apriorism evokes a vigorous protest from
and the pragmatist is not the least
all empiricists,

loud in declamation. His favourite charge

his
against Kant and Hegel is that the notions they
have introduced into philosophy are ambiguous and
4
futile. The conditions of^all possible experience,'
Dr. Schiller tells us, is an ambiguous phrase, for
 '

240 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

it may refer to psychical, to logical, or to aesthetic

conditions. 'A priori forms are ambiguous for they
'

may be the products either of logical or of psycho-

logical analysis and if the latter, they have a
;

history which Kant has forgotten. Universality *

and 'necessity' are ambiguous, for whatever

meaning may be assigned to them it is ultimately
reducible to a psychological and pragmatic necessity. 1
A charge of ambiguity, however, even if well
founded, is clearly insufficient to establish the
refutation of any theory for ambiguity may easily
;

be remedied by more precise definition, and at once

the difficulty vanishes. But is not the ambiguity
of Kantism exaggerated by its pragmatic enemies ?
Are the conditions of all possible experience really
' '

ambiguous ? Will the Kantian theory bear the

interpretations suggested for this expression by Dr.
Schiller ? Are Dr. Schiller's interpretations ex-
haustive ? Are they mutually exclusive ? It seems
to me that the conditions of all possible experience
in Kant are primarily neither psychological nor
logical, nor yet aesthetic, but metaphysical. They
may be called psychological if you mean by this that
they are supposed to exist in concreto in the human
mind, and they are also logical if you mean by this
that the critical method by which they are obtained
is a process of logical reasoning but strictly they ;

are metaphysical conditions, for though real and

existing, according to Kant, they cannot be dis-
covered as conditions by any psychological analysis ;

and logic, after all, is used in every science. Again,

'
universality and necessity cease to be ambiguous
'
'
'

lt Axioms as Postulates, 1
§§ 11-13.
 CRITICISM OF A PRIOR ISM 24'

as soon as the conditions of experience are under-

stood. For if no experience can be thought, except
under the a priori forms by which as experience it is
conditioned, clearly the application of those forms to
experience both metaphysically and logically must
be without restriction. Thus the law that each
change must have a cause is universal and necessary,
because all phenomena must fall under the category
of causality if they are to exist at all as phenomena,
i.e., to fall within our experience.

§ 162. The charge that Apriorism asserts mental

forms which are static and immutable has better
foundation. For though the Kantian and still more
so the Hegelian admit and indeed insist upon
development, they admit it in a form which is wholly
inadequate to satisfy the demands of the pragmatist.
Kant allowed that the acquisition of knowledge is
gradual that it depends upon the growth of ex-
;

perience, and that only in experience can we reflect

upon the functioning of the mental forms of which
we at first are unconscious. To this Hegel added
both his Dialectic and also his Phenomenology ;
which latter may be regarded at once as the story of
Absolute consciousness and as the history of his own
philosophy in the making. 1 But neither the
Dialectic nor the Phenomenology is capable of
satisfying a modern evolutionist and the reason ;

is to be found in their Apriorism. It is of the very

essence of Apriorism that mind has a structure in
which categories and forms of synthesis are involved.
Hence for Apriorism the only form of development
1
Wallace, article '
Hegel '
in Encyclopaedia Britannica,
p. 618.
242 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

which is one of which the final end

admissible is

is which the self does not

self-consciousness, but in
really develop but merely becomes known to itself.
Development means that the mind acquires a
knowledge of objects relatively distinct from itself,
and by this means becomes conscious of its own
a priori structure to which objects conform and
under which they are, as it were, subsumed while ;

Absolute Knowledge, Hegel's highest stage of mental

development, is realised when spirit, looking back
upon the externalisation and manifestation of itself
in world of nature, sees there its own self-
the
conscious evolution, and in so doing comes to know
itself as spirit. m

Thus mental growth for the Kantian and the

Hegelian means the gradual approach toward self-
consciousness, words, the gradual
or, in other
acquisition of our own mental
knowledge of
structure. But the categories themselves do not
grow. Their development in the Dialectic is logical,
not real. Yet real mental development is a fact,
and as a fact it appears to be more than the growth
of self -consciousness. As Dr. Schiller says, there is
no category which has not had a history, and a
history in the individual mind as well as in the race.
No one who reflects will deny that his concepts, one
and all, become richer and fuller in content and
significance as life progresses. Nor will he deny
that some of them, at any rate, get intrinsically
modified. We do not remember the time when we
firstbegan to think, and it is useless for our purpose
to speculate on the psychology of the infant mind ;

but we can trace the history of some of our concepts,

 CRITICISM OF APRIORISM 243

such as those of time, or space, or substance, or

the self, sufficiently well to know that they have
developed. And though the growth of our concepts
does not correspond to the growth of the objects
about which we think, it is none the less a real
growth in which our concepts actually change and
become, sometimes in part, sometimes even wholly,
other than what they were. Now, if all concepts
—
develop in this way and I can find none, not even
the categories of Aristotle, which do not undergo
some kind of development and change, what be-
comes of the a priori structure of the mind which is
supposed to function through and in these con-
cepts? Has it changed, too? And if it has, in
what sense can it still be said to be a priori and to
have existed and functioned all along ? Again, if
the forms under which we think phenomena are
'
'

a priori, how is it that men differ so much in regard

even to the most fundamental of principles and the
most general of notions, notions and principles
which everybody has in his mind and uses day by
day ? About what have there been more disputes
among philosophers than the categories of cause,
and substance and thing, and being and existence ?
Yet these are notions which function in every man's
mind and which for everyone have some sort of
content. If, then, our concepts, almost without
exception, are capable of development and change,
and if, in addition to this, and for that matter,
because of this, different men have different concepts
of the same entities and things, what ground is there
for affirming that within the mind of each there is
" the general plan for a self -consistent natural
 : '

244 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

system" P 1 How is it that, if all men carry about

with them and constantly use the same a priori
4
'
schema and framework,' no one is conscious of
'

it, and no two philosophers have ever agreed as to

its structural form ? How comes it that no one

yet has constructed a self-consistent '
natural
system if ready-made within him everyone has its

plan ?

§ 163. It may be said, perhaps, that I have

taken this plan or schema too literally and in
'
'

too Kantian a sense. It should be restricted to the

synthetic and analytic principles which belong to
formal Logic or to a Logic such as that of Professor
Bosanquet, which is described as the Morpho- '

logy of Knowledge.' On this point Dr. Caird

remarks
As it is impossible to separate the form from the
matter of knowledge, formal Logic is driven upon a
curious dilemma. It has to choose between the alter-
natives of vanishing into nothing, and of including
everything. If it is to give all the principles of
synthesis in judgment, its principles are infinite in
number, since any conception may be the ground of
a synthesis, and, therefore, of the analysis corresponding.
And, on the other hand, if it is to give only principles
of analysis that are not principles of synthesis, it can
discover no such principles at all. The only distinct
line that can possibly be drawn between the formal
and the material, must be drawn by considering all that
is implied in thinking objects in general as opposed to
any particular objects. 2

But this consideration does not help us much

towards the discovery of an element in knowledge
1
Caird, Critical Philosophy of Kant, pp. 18, 19,
1
The Philosophy of Kant, p. 306.
 CRITICISM OF A PRIORI SM MS

which is a priori in relation to the details of

experience and the actual processes of thought.

Personally, I can find no other a priori condition of
rational experience except the power of thinking
the many in
the one and the one in the many, which
presupposes again as its condition the unity of the
thinking mind. Exclusive of the power of feeling
and the faculty of which, in cognition proper,
will,

are subordinate to thought, there is nothing else

required for thinking except something to think

about and thought itself. Another question arises,
of course, as soon as we ask where the object of
thought comes from but we are prescinding from
;

this at present. What we have to discover are

what kinds of a priori forms and principles of
synthesis already exist in the mind before we think,
and metaphysically as well as logically, prior
are,
to thought as its conditions.
§ 164. Let us consider the subject-predicate form
in which our judgments are usually expressed. Is
this an a priori condition of all thought ? It hardly
seems to be such. Most of our thoughts take this
form, and all of them can be and are de facto almost
without exception expressed in a proposition which
has t>oth a subject and a predicate. Yet we can
think without analysing what we think into a
subject and a predicate. In a perception, for
instance, in which we subsume instantaneously an
object under a universal idea, there seems to me
to be no analysis into subject and predicate. The
nature of what we perceive and think about in
perceiving may be apprehended immediately without
any separation of its what (content) from its
'
'
246 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

'
that ' (real existence) ; and this is especially the
casewhen an object is familiar. Doubtless, such a
judgment, when expressed in words, must take
some such form as (v.g.) That is my hat
4
but this ;
*

does not seem to show that we did not apprehend

without analysis the nature of the object in question.
Again, when one has been thinking long over a
difficult problem, one sometimes seems to get a
grasp of it as a systematic whole, without consciously
determining any part of this system as subject
rather than as predicate. Indeed, thought of this
kind seems to me to be much more common than
one would imagine, for one is apt to overlook this
aspect of thinking, owing to the fact that one
always does try to express one's thoughts and to
express them in subject-predicate form. Yet even
in the verbal expression one may find confirmation
of what I have said, for often it is quite optional
what element in thought's content one takes as
subject and what as predicate, and sometimes it is
not easy to choose. For instance, when predicating
relations, we may say either that '
X is similar to Y,'
or that '
Y is similar to X,' or, again, simply that
'
X and Y are ;
and each of these forms of
similar '

expression seems to express equally well the thought

that was in our mind. From which I infer that
while thought implies analysis and synthesis, or
*
the power of apprehending the many in the one
and the one in the many,' it need not necessarily
express itself in subject-predicate form, but does so,
as a rule, because we first think of an object, then
study it in detail, or in its relation to other objects,
and finally refer the result of our analytic exami-
 CRITICISM OF APR10R1SM 241

nation back to the object itself, which thus becomes

the subject of a proposition.
The subject-predicate form of judgment is due to
the fact that objects come to us bit by bit, so to
speak and again by the fact that our minds are
;

finite and cannot take in things all at once, but

have to attend first to one aspect of them and then to -
another. First of all, we apprehend a thing existing
in the concrete, and this becomes our subject, that
which we desire to know. Then we observe certain
characteristics of that thing or its connection with
other things which are near to it or like it. These
we predicate of the former either as qualities or
relations, since we regard them as belonging to,
qualifying, or in some way or other giving us know-
ledge the original thing to which our attention
of,
was directed.
first Thus predication about a
'
subject is the natural way in which we express
'

the knowledge we gradually acquire about first one

thing and then another and all other forms of
;

predication are derivative from this. There is no

need, therefore, of any a priori structure of mind to
account for what is already objectively necessitated
by the process in which knowledge of finite objects
is gradually acquired by a finite mind.

§ 165. In a similar way may be explained both

the '
and the quantity of judgment.
quality '
*
'

The affirmative judgment has been explained above.

The negative seems to be due to the fact that we
try to make an affirmative judgment but cannot.
Somebody or something suggests that a certain P
belongs to a certain S, but when we examine S, or
when we recall it in thought, we find it has no P,
 ;

24% THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

and, therefore, we are forced by the objects

concerned to assert that S is not P, instead of
saying the contrary, as was suggested. 1
The possibility of negation presupposes finite
objects, and the same may be said of quantity.' *

We observe one thing, then a second, then a third,

and so on, till finally we decide, arbitrarily or on
account of some common characteristic, to put an
end to our counting, and to call what we have got
a class. 2 The members of this class, taken dis-
tributively, then become all, and any one or more
of them some. Once again, therefore, we have no
need of a priori forms, but only of finite objects
presented to a finite mind and presented in a finite
way. The multiplication of the finite is of itself
sufficient to account for number and quantity,
provided there be a mind to which it is presented
and which is capable of apprehending the many in
the one, and again the one in the many.
§ 166. Lastly, the origin of our notions of both
9
'
space and time can be explained objectively
' '

not wholly objectively indeed, for, as usual, they

imply a mind which can abstract, but objectively
as regards their fundamentum. Given a number of
finite objects mutually exclusive, and given ex-
tension in three dimensions, we have the wherewithal
for our concept of space, while another extension of
a different kind, viz., duration, provides us with
4 Cf. an article of mine in Mind,
July, 1906, entitled 'The
Nature of Incompatibility \ where I endeavoured to show that
all contradiction and all incompatibility is objectively deter-
mined.
a This is not an account
of the origin of the universal idea,
but of quantity in judgment. All ideas are potentially universal
'
'

as soon as they are formed.

 —

CRITICISM OP A PRIORI SM 249

data for our notion of time. From the thing-hood

and the qualitative and quantitative differences of
things presented simul and side by side we abstract,
and thus are left with extension pure and simple,
which is the fundamentum of our concept of space.
Similarly, abstracting from the thing-hood and also
from the qualitative changes of one thing or of a suc-
cession of different things we have pure duration,
which is the fundamentum of our concept of time.
Pure duration, however, isnot time, for in time
measurement is implied. Indeed, measurement is
closely connected both with space and time, for in
both notions 'dimension' is involved. Yet measure-
ment, though as such it is an act of the mind, is
none the less objectively determined. The only
conditions required are (1) the presentation to a
mind of objects, things or qualities, each of finite
extension or of finite duration and mutually ex-
clusive in regard to its neighbours, and (2) the
arbitrary selection of one of these extensions or
durations as a unit (as the one), and its application
to the others (to the many) as a measure or basis
by which to compare their respective dimensions.
Thus, for Aristotle, time implied the measurement
of changes by means of a unit of duration, the
extent of which might be fixed by selecting any two
points in the time-series ; and similarly place (locus)
implied the measurement of material things qud
movable (mobile) by means of space or distance —
units determined by the superficies of some arbi-
trarily chosen object. Tempus est mensura motus,
says Aquinas, sicut locus est mensura mobilis}
1
Comment, in Aristotle Physics, lib. iv. f lec. iv.
 '

THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

The above account of the origin of our notions

and time, and of the quantity and quality
of space
of judgments, does not of course pretend to be in
any way adequate. On each of these subjects
whole treatises might be, and have been, written.
All that I wish to show is that all that our various
categories and forms of judgment presuppose, are
(i) finite objects, and (2) a mind capable of apprehen-
ding the many in the one and the one in the many,
or, in other words, capable of analysing, synthesising,
abstracting and comparing but not necessarily
;

endowed with any a priori forms either of

analysis or of synthesis. And, in brief, my argument
is, that whatever category or form of analysis or
synthesis one maycan be shown to be
take, it

explicable a posteriori, and

to differ from other
concepts clearly and admittedly a posteriori only
in regard to the degree of abstraction or generality
involved.
§ 167. Dr. Caird seems to make a similar state-
ment in the passage quoted above, and again when
he says " the idea of the discordance of the Logic
of thought (formal Logic) and the Logic of reality
is a fiction, and the problem of their reconciliation

is a self-made difficulty."
1
He points out also
that Kant seems to have confused logical with real
wholes, for he " overlooked the fact that the
combination of species under an abstract genus is
just the reverse process to the combination of parts
in a concrete or individual whole.' 2 There are in
fact two ways in which we may combine the many
in the one. There is the synthesis of qualities in
1 2
The Philosophy of Kant, p. 313. Ibid., p. 319.
 '

CRITICISM OF A PRIORI SM 251

a concrete thing, and the synthesis of specific

differences under a genus ; and these two forms
of synthesis are not to my mind equally real. The
first implies the apprehension of the many in the
one,and the second the apprehension of the one in
the many. The first form of synthesis is, I take it,
admitted to be a datum forced on us a posteriori
and is strictly real. The second is a synthesis
which has foundation in fact, since the one '

apprehended in the many is qualitatively the same ;

but the synthesis itself neither seems to be real nor

a priori. It is not real, for there is not the slightest
evidence for supposing that qualities identical in
nature but appearing in different objects are really
one. Yet this is frequently assumed, and it would
appear that it was upon some such basis as this that
Kant hoped to construct the a priori form of mind.
He seems to have thought that within the mind
ideas are arranged according to their generality, the
more general embracing the less general and so on. 1
And this is doubtless a fact for the fully developed
mind as association seems to indicate. But the
'
plan thus formed is only gradually built up by
'

the experience of the individual, and is not an

arrangement which is presupposed by experience,
still less a plan of the real structure of the universe.

The synthesis again is not a priori, as is shown by

the fact that the way in which ideas are classified
varies from man to man, and by the fact that in
no case is the classification complete. In fact,
whether we start a priori or a posteriori it is im-
possible to construct a plan either of the mind or of
1
cf. ibid., p. 328.
 ;

252 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

reality. If we begin with the individual, we find

there are an indefinite number by which
of paths
we may ascend to genera and higher genera and
summa genera and the road becomes too involved
;

for any human mind to work it out. And if we

start from the most abstract concept, being,' and '

work downwards as with Hegel, the result is the

same. Each genus comprises an indefinite number
of specific differences each of which we ought to
select in turn, and so proceed from genus to genus,
which would involve an almost endless process. It
is true, as Dr. Caird remarks, 1 that " thought always
proceeds from the less to the more determinate,"
and that "in so doing it cannot determine any
object positively without determining it negatively ;"
but it is not true that thought proceeding a priori
cannot determine an object negatively (i.e., reject
some one species under a certain genus) without
determining it positively (i.e., without selecting
some other species under the same genus to which
it must belong), for the species contained under a

given genus may be indefinite in number. To

proceed by dichotomy is impossible unless both
the summum genus and the infima species are fixed
and even then between the infima species and the
individual concrete object the distance is indefinitely
great. To attempt to construct the world a priori
is acknowledged to be absurd and the demand
;

"
for " a complete and consistent system of categories
seems to me to be scarcely less absurd. At any
rate, since such a system of categories has never been
constructed, nor does it seem likely that it ever will be
1
Ibid., p. 313.
 CRITICISM OF APRIORISM

constructed, it is perfectly gratuitous to suppose

that such a system is " implied in the synthetic
process by which the dispersed data of sense are
elevated into an organised whole of experience," so
long as that process can be accounted for quite as
well without such a hypothesis.
§ 168. I find it difficult to reconcile Dr. Caird's

admission that the a priori principles of synthesis

number with his tenacious adherence
are infinite in
to the doctrine thatsomehow or other they are
systematised and brought to unity in the very
nature of thought. We are expressly warned that
the Logic of Hegel must not be taken as an attempt
to construct the world a priori ; and yet we are told
that Formal Logic, Transcendental Logic, and the
Logic of Reality are one and the same. " There is no
purely formal logic," says Dr. Caird, " for the
process of intelligence is a determination of the
object by the categories." " Objects exist only
for the conscious selfand through the application
of the categories," which are " but elements or
moments in a truth which is completely stated
only in the idea of self-consciousness," or again
" stages in a process whose unity the mind is,"
and between which there is said to be "a logical
order, an order which is immutable and depends on
1
the process of thought."
All this seems to indicate that Dr. Caird believed
that in thought there was some definite structure or
schema, arranged category above category and
synthesis above synthesis, a structure to which all

knowledge had to conform and which was gradually

* •
Hegel' (Blackwood Series), pp. 157, 187, etc,
 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

brought to consciousness as mind developed. For

such a view I can find not the slightest foundation.
Hegel's " triadic law of thought " has a meaning
when applied to the development of living truth in
philosophy or religion, for often enough we do
proceed from thesis via antithesis to a higher and
richer synthesis, but as applied to categories in the
way in which Hegel applied it, it seems to me quite
meaningless. I cannot even make the first step

from being to becoming, for becoming seems to me a

notion far lower and less real than the concept of
being. Unity in difference, again, is a notion which
applies admirably to the concrete living whole, but
its application to genera and species is only per
analogiam and in no way reveals the real structure
of the universe.
§ 169. A discussion of Hegel's Logic, however,
and of other logics of the purely transcendental type
belongs to the history of philosophy rather than to
problems which press at the present day. I will not
say that Apriorism is dead. So long as reality and
thought are identified there will still be attempts to
discover the a priori structure of the latter. But,
fortunately, attempts of this kind are becoming less
frequent. There is small trace of Apriorism in
Green, and Mr. Bradley's scornful rejection of
the '
bloodless categories '
is well known. Trans-
cendental deductions have ceased to be the favourite
occupation of Hegelian and absolutist philosophers.
The decline of Apriorism is due largely to the
extension of the doctrine of Immanence to cover
the noumenal as well as the phenomenal object of
knowledge. The Immanence of subject and object
 ;

CRITICISM OF A PRIORI SM 255

in knowledge is now regarded as strictly universal.

It embraces all objects and it extends to all minds,
bringing them together in the unity of an individual
whole. The function of a priori forms, therefore,
has gone. There is no longer any need of a priori
categories and principles of synthesis to bring to-
gether what not really distinct. The immediate
is

successors of Kant did not realise this, and for a

time philosophy was over-burdened with attempts
to construct the universe a priori. But the futility
of such philosophising has at length been recognised.
Gradually it has dawned upon the philosophic mind
that to build up a universe out of the variable and
indefinite notions framed by human thought is a
sheer impossibility, and that, however true it may
be that the Absolute thinks in us, it is practically
useless to try to look at the universe from the
Absolute's point of view until such time as we
become the Absolute.
§ 170. The ratio essendi of Apriorism has ceased
to be. Philosophers now no longer start from a
transcendental point of view and argue downwards
they prefer now to start from a more empirical and
more human point of view, and, accepting the data
of experience as they appear in human consciousness,
to argue upwards from these data to the Absolute
which alone can make them intelligible. This does
not mean that has renounced the
philosophy
Critical method of Kant. merely means that it
It
has been found possible to dispense with the inter-
mediaries which Kant placed between the ultimate
subject and object. Absolutism still enquires into
the metaphysical conditions and presuppositions of
 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

what is given and still finds that these conditions

;

take us beyond the human mind, that the theory

of human cognition leads us on to a metaphysic
of the Absolute, and that even ethics is incomplete
without its metaphysical prolegomena. With such
a method I have no fault to find, nor do I wish for
one moment to suggest that either ethics or episte-
mology can be made intelligible apart from
metaphysics. On the contrary, I fully agree that
they cannot. But it is still open to question
whether the Critical method necessarily leads to
Absolutism, and whether Absolutism is capable of
rendering much service toward the understanding
of human cognition, or even toward making the
universe intelligible and it is to this question that
;

we must now direct our attention.

CHAPTER X.

CRITICISM OF ABSOLUTISM.

§ 171. In this chapter I propose to consider

Absolutism from a metaphysical standpoint as a
theory which must stand or fall according as it
succeeds or fails to explain the universe, and, in
particular, the fact of cognition. The cognition
with which we are concerned is clearly human
cognition ; and the universe which
to be has
explained our universe, the universe which is
revealed to us, or which, at any rate, appears to be
revealed to us, in the data of our experience. For
 :

CRITICISM OF ABSOLUTISM 257

from these data alone is it possible to make a start,

since these alone are immediately given.
That absolutists in general accept this position
and this criterion is, I think, clear. Professor
Mackenzie remarks that we can only prove a
philosophic theory by showing it to be the only
one which makes the universe intelligible 1 and ;

Green is of the same opinion. Speaking of his own

theory of the immanent presence and activity of
God within us, he says
Proof of such a doctrine, in the ordinary sense of the
word, from the nature of the case there cannot be.
It is not a truth deducible from other established or
conceded truths. It is not a statement of an event or
a matter of fact that can be the object of experiment or
observation. It represents a conception to which no
perceivable or imaginable object can possibly correspond,
but one that affords the only means by which, reflecting
on our moral and intellectual experience conjointly,
taking the world and ourselves into account, we can put
the whole thing together, and understand how (not
why, but how) we are and do, what we consciously are
and do. 2

§ 172. Mr. Bradley's view of the function of

theory and its relation to fact seems to me to vary
somewhat according to whether it is his own or
somebody else's theory that is in question. Refer-
ring to the doctrine of the reality of the self, he thus
addresses his adversaries :

Present your doctrine (whatever it is) in a form which

will bear criticism, and which will enable me to under-
stand this confused mass of facts which I encounter on
all sides. Do this, and I will follow you, and I will
1
Mind, N.S. 59, p. 323.
* Prolegomena to Ethics, § 174.
K
258 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

worship the source of such a true revelation. But I

willnot accept nonsense for reality, though it be vouched
for by miracle, and proceed from the mouth of a
psychological monster. 1

Observe, however, the change of tone which takes

place immediately we get into Book II. Speaking
of his own theory, Mr. Bradley says :

We have not to choose between accounting for

everything on one side and on the other admitting it
as a disproof of our doctrine of the Absolute. Such an
alternative is not logical. If you wish to refute a wide
theory based on general grounds, it is idle merely to
produce facts which upon it are not explained. . . .

The facts become an objection only when they are

incompatible .with some part of it while, if they merely
;

remain outside, that points to incompleteness in detail

and not falsity in principle. A general doctrine is not
destroyed by what we fail to understand. It is
destroyed only by that which we actually do under-
stand, and can show to be inconsistent and discrepant
with the theory adopted. 2

By this ingenious argument Mr. Bradley has

completely reversed the position which he took up
in regard to disagreeable doctrines. He has not to
explain " the confused mass of facts which we
encounter on all sides," but just as many or as few
of them as suits his convenience. The rest are
irrelevant and outside as details. Should you
fall

produce a '
which seems to be relevant and
fact '

yet to contradict his theory, he has an answer ready.

The fact needs interpretation, and the ordinary and
commonly accepted interpretation of it is wrong,
or at least inadequate. Mr. Bradley is quite willing
to accept any facts which we "really do under-
1
Appearance and Reality, p. 113.
2
Ibid., pp. 184, 185.
 CRITICISM OF ABSOLUTISM 2 59

stand ;
" but
when it comes to the issue there are
none. We
assume knowledge where really there is
ignorance. " I maintain," he says, " that we know
nothing of those various forms of the finite which
shows them incompatible with that Absolute, for
the accepting of which we have general ground." 1
§ 173. Such a position is, of course, practically
unassailable, unless internal contradiction can be
proved. But is it logical and rational ? What is the
use of a theory unless it is to explain facts ? And
how are we to judge whether it explains facts,
unless the facts themselves are understood ? Surely
a theory which is consistent with itself may be, as
Dr. Schiller says, wholly irrelevant and useless. If
the metaphysician is to be allowed to disregard facts
at will on the ground that they are never rightly
understood if he is to be allowed dogmatically to
;

assert that no fact can contradict his theory as Mr.

Bradley does when he states that " we cannot know
"
that the finite is in collision with the Absolute ;

'
if he can respect no element of experience except on
*

compulsion," and " can reverence nothing but what

by criticism and denial the more unmistakably
asserts itself," 2 it is small wonder that metaphysics
is treated by other sciences with scant courtesy,

and small wonder either that on these principles

innumerable Absolutisms should have grown up,
each contradictory of the others. I fail to see what
possible use there can be in a metaphysic which is
neither to explain How nor Why, and yet we are
repeatedly assured by Mr. Bradley that his meta-
physic claims to do neither.
1
Appearance and 1 Ibid. pp. 185, 207.
Reality, p. 185.
2<5o THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

§ 174.Mr. Bradley will reply that he does admit

told us that " the
4
facts. Has he not given of '

course is given it must be recognised, and it

;

cannot be ignored " ? 1 True, this much is con-

ceded, but the sentence in which the concession is
made is surrounded by qualifications. Immediately
before it we are informed that :

It is a mere superstition an appeal to

to suppose that
experience can prove reality. That I find
something in
existence in the world or in my self, shows that that
something exists, and it cannot show more. Any
deliverance of consciousness whether original or —
—
acquired is but a deliverance of consciousness. It is
in no case an oracle and a revelation which we have to
accept. 2

Now, what possible use there can be in appealing

to consciousness if all that we are going to allow
4
to the deliverance of consciousness is existence,'
I am at a loss to understand. What is the good of
admitting that something exists, if you do not know
anything at all about what that something is ?
And if you are not going to accept the deliverances
of consciousness, content and all, what are you
going to accept ? I quite agree that a deliverance
of consciousness may sometimes be an illusion ;

and I agree also that there is a very wide interval *

between recognising a datum and receiving blindly

(i.e., without careful examination) its content as

reality but we must accept facts if we are to

;
'

reason at all, and to accept a fact as a mere datum of

consciousness, while at the same time denying the
reality of what is given as a fact, is surely not to
accept it.
1 Ibid., 1
p. 207. Ibid., pp. 206, 207.
 CRlTlCtSM OF ABSOLUTISM 261

§ 175. But must we accept facts as reality ?

Can they, as Mr. Bradley says, exist without being

real Most people would say that they cannot.
?

Indeed, were it not that my 'facts' seem to have been

surreptitiously removed I should be inclined to assert

that Mr. Bradley's denial of the reality of facts is

the first point in which his Absolutism conflicts with

facts. To me the distinctions he makes between
Appearance and Reality and Existence and Reality
are invalid, and rest upon a confusion.
Appearances exist and yet are fraught with in-
ternal contradiction. The whole of Mr. Bradley's
First Book is taken up with attempts to prove the
contradictory nature of appearances and the whole ;

of his Second Book (after the first two Chapters in

which the General Nature of Reality is established)
' '

is taken up with attempts to prove that all appear-

ances, precisely because of their '

self-discrepancy/
transcend themselves and so lead us on to a Reality,
which they qualify somehow or other without con-
tradiction. All facts or nearly all facts, for there
are one or two exceptions, as we saw in a previous
chapter, are for Mr. Bradley, appearances ; and the
passages quoted above are really part of a protest
4 '
of his against an appeal to the fact of change
as a disproof of his Absolute.
44
§ 176. Change," he says, "is a fact, and,
further, this fact, as such, is not reconcilable with
the Absolute. And if we could not in any way
perceive how the fact can be unreal, we should be
placed, admit, in a hopeless
I 1
dilemma." The
escape from the dilemma is easy, however. " For
1
Ibid., p. 206.
262 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

time has been shown to contradict itself, and so to

be appearance. With this, its discord, we see at
once, may pass as an element into a wider harmony.
And with this, the appeal to fact at once becomes
worthless." 1 For the proof that time is a con- *
'

tradiction we are referred back, of course, to Book I,

where supposed to have been proved. Before

this is
discussing this proof, however, there is in the passage
quoted above one thing to which I should like to
call attention. It is this, that while the fact which
'
Mr. Bradley has admitted is the fact of change *

the appearance which he declares to be contradictory

is the appearance of time.' Now I do not wish to
4

quibble about the use of terms, nor do I wish to

insinuate that Mr. Bradley's escape from the dilemma
is barred by the substitution of 'time' for 'change,'
since as a matter of fact change also has been found
by him to be self-contradictory but the transition ;

which Mr. Bradley has made, unquestionably illicit

as it stands, is characteristic of many of his attempts
4
to reduce facts to mere appearances. '
Again and
again does he substitute in place of 'facts' philo-
sophical constructions, and it is these constructions,
and not the facts, that are shown to be contradictory.
4

§ 177. His criticism of time ' itself affords us

an illustration of this process, for we are told that
44
if you take
it as a relation between units without

duration, then the whole time has no duration,

and is not time at all. But, if you give duration
to the whole time, then at once the units are found to
possess it and they thus cease to be units." 2 Now,
;

4 4
is time,' conceived as a relation between units
1
Ibid. 2 Ibid., p. 39.
 CRITICISM OF ABSOLUTISM 263

without duration,' a fact of our experience or a

philosophical construction ? Clearly it is the latter,
and a bad one at that ;
since, as Mr. Bradley says,
it duration,' which is
destroys *
the very foundation
upon which that construction is built. It is duration,
not time, which is a fact and it is duration which
;

has to be proved a contradiction. The alternative

definition, however, keeps closer to the facts.
Common-sense believes in time and attributes to it

as a whole duration. Hence, as Mr. Bradley points

out, the units must also have duration. But why
not ? Are there no durable units ? Of course if
you abstract altogether from all the means by
which units can be marked off, you have no units
at all but then neither have you got time. You
;

have merely an empty abstraction, viz., the un-

broken duration of nothing at all. But concrete,
enduring things are facts, and the duration of some
exists together with change and succession among
others. Hence we have the means by which to
mark off units of time. And because these units
themselves have duration, it by no means follows
that they cease to be units, any more than it follows
that the yard-rule which a tailor uses to mark off
his cloth has no length because it is his unit of
length. That time as such is not reed, I grant,
* '

because it is a philosophic abstraction into which

a human element, viz., measurement, has been in-
troduced but I cannot allow that it is not founded
;

on fact nor that, if properly defined, it involves

;

a contradiction.
§ 178. Change, however, is more to our purpose,
since upon duration amid change the notion of
2^4 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

time is based, and upon the factual existence of

change we are all agreed. But, says Mr. Bradley,
change is only appearance, for it involves a
contradiction.

Something, A, changes, and therefore it cannot be

permanent. On the other hand, if A is not permanent,
what is it that changes ? It will no longer be A, but
something else. In other words, let A be free from
change in time, and it does not change. But let it
contain change, and at once it becomes A 1 A 2 A 8 , , .

Then what becomes of A, and of its change, for we are

left with something else ? 1

Now change, as I understand it, is predicable

only of the concrete finite thing, a thing consisting
of substance and accidents of unity of ground amid ;

structural differences. 2 Let us, then, substitute for

A, a (a, 6, c, ) (m, n, o,
. . .
) where a . . . ;

stands for the unity of ground or substance a, 6, c, ;

... for the accidents essential to A and m, n, o ; . . .

for accidents which are not essential. What, then,

do we mean when we say that A changes? We
mean that one of these unessential accidents or
differences is modified or gives place to some other
accident or difference that a (a, 6, c ;
) . . .

(m, n, o .)
. has become a (a, b, c
.
), . . .

(m\ n, o . ). .And what do we mean when

.

we say that A is permanent ? We mean that the

substance a remains the same, and also that the
accidents, a, b, c, which are essential to A, remain
the same, but nothing more. Of course, if A be
taken as a structureless and formless unit, it cannot
1 Appearance and Reality, p. 46.
* cf. chap, xiv., for a fuller explanation of this.
 CRITICISM OP ABSOLUTISM 265

both be permanent and yet be subject to change.

But concrete things are not formless and structure-
less units and, recognising this, when we predicate
;

of them permanence, we do not predicate it of the

whole thing, but only of its essential nature ; so
that it is still possible to predicate change of the
same thing without contradiction, since the pre-
dicated changes ex hypothesi do not affect its essential
nature. 1
§ 179. If my solution of the difficulty is valid,
change does not imply contradiction and if change ;

does not imply contradiction, it is not appearance ;

and if it is not appearance it is reality, in which case

Mr. Bradley's Absolute is not the one and only
reality. It will be obvious, however, to those who
are familiar with Appearance and Reality that I have
but pushed the difficulty further back and I shall ;

be asked to read again the chapters on Substantive

and Adjective, Relation and Quality. In regard to
the argument used in the first of these two chapters,
I shall have more to say later
2
but I may here ;

remark that if my conception of Substantive and

Adjective, or rather Substance and Accident, is
intrinsically contradictory, so also is Mr. Bradley's
4
conception of the universe as a Unity in differ-
ence.' In fact, the Aristotelian conception of
Substance and Accident and the Hegelian conception
of Unity in difference are one and the same ; but the
Aristotelian applies it to the concrete individual
thing, while the Hegelian applies it to the universe

1
For an account of the Aristotelian doctrine of change, vide
chap. xiii.
* Vide chap. xiii.
266 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

at large. Hence the real question at issue is whether

the Hegelian is right or wrong in asserting that
Reality is one ; and, as underlying this doctrine in
most modern Absolutisms is a peculiar theory of

relation, to this theory we must now give our

attention.
§ 180. There is a certain amount of truth in
Green's dictum that all knowledge is knowledge of
relations. To
a large extent definition does consist
in the predication of relations. Dr. Caird puts the
matter thus :

The beginning of knowledge is the reference of a

sensation to an object, of which it is interpreted as the
quality. This object is determined merely as object in
general it is like all other objects, yet it is conceived
:

as completely individual and independent. The simple

quality attributed to it, is conceived as belonging to it
in itself, apart from all relations to other objects. In
the advance of knowledge, however, this simple indi-
vidual object becomes progressively defined and
determined. And not only is quality added to quality
in an indefinite but its isolation is taken from
series,
the object. found that qualities are but relations
It is
in disguise, and that, therefore, completely to define the
object in itself, is the same thing as to put it in relation
to all other objects. 1

At first sight there seems to be little the matter

with this straightforward description of the growth
of human knowledge. Yet it requires but a step
to pass from this position to that of Green and
Renouvier, in which the world or, at any rate, the —
—
inorganic world is identified with a system of
relations. Dr. Caird's apparently accurate de-
scription, in fact, contains two assumptions (i) that —
1
The Philosophy of Kant, p. 329.
 CRITICISM OP ABSOLUTISM 267

qualities are but relations in disguise, and (2) that

by relations isolation is takenaway from the object.
§ 181. The statement that all qualities are at
bottom if taken literally, and
relations in disguise,
of real qualities, is absurd.For we cannot have a re-
lation unless there is something which it relates and ;

that something, since it cannot be a bare identity,

must involve difference and so quality. Relations
presuppose qualities for their very existence. Their
nature depends upon the objects which they relate
or connect, and when those objects are changed,
the relations themselves are changed. It is true
that we often know a relation without knowing
precisely the nature of the objects related and ;

this is so particularly when the relation is one of

cause and effect. For in producing an effect many
causes may co-operate, and the re-action of the
object in which the effect is produced, itself may
have played a part. Unless, therefore, we can
analyse the effect and attribute it, part for part, to
the various causes concerned in its production, the
effect tells us little about the causes except that
somehow or other they have been active in relation
to that effect. Nevertheless, each cause has its
own nature, and the relation to which its activity
gives rise depends upon that nature, whether the
latter be known by us or not.
Further, to know a relation implies that we know
something at any rate of the objects or qualities
related. For even if the relation be merely one of
difference, it implies that we know something of
what is different, otherwise we could not know that
it was different. But many relations imply more
268 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

than this. We cannot know that one object is

bigger than another unless we know what it is to

be
4
to have size or quantity.
big,' i.e., And the
fact that mathematics and geometry are possible,
presupposes that about the nature of quantity and
the nature of figure we have considerable knowledge.
§ 182. While granting, then, that much of our
knowledge of qualities comes through a knowledge
of their relations, and that sometimes what is
predicated as a quality is in truth a relation in
disguise, I cannot grant that all our knowledge of
qualities is at bottom a knowledge of their relations,
still less that qualities in return natura are merely
For if it is true that we
relations in disguise.
sometimes know a relation before we know the
precise nature of its terms, it is also true that
we often know the terms before we know the relation
between them, and that in every case the knowledge
of a relation implies some knowledge of the objects
related. Hence from the psychology of our know-
ledge of relations we can draw no conclusion as
to the priority of a relation and of the objects it
relates.
This fact is of considerable importance; for all
absolutist theories of relationsseem to be based on
psychology, owing, I suppose, to the absolutist
doctrine that thought, or at any rate some form of
psychical activity, is identical with reality itself.
Green, for instance, assumes that relations are prior
to, or at least are frequently a condition of, our
knowledge of the terms. Yet, as I have pointed out,
itdoes not follow, because we often define a term
by its relations, that we have no knowledge of that
 CRITICISM OF ABSOLUTISM 269

term apart from for if this be so it is

its relations,

difficult to see how we

could define it at all. Again,
Dr. Caird's statement that 'completely to define an
'
object is to put it in relation to all other objects
seems to be based upon the psychological fact that
our knowledge of an object often consists largely in
a knowledge of its relations. But though it is true
4
that, if by knowing an object completely we mean '

'knowing all about it,' to completely know an object

would be to know all its relations, it does not
follow that the nature of the thing itself depends
upon the nature of its relations, nor yet that an
object is unknowable apart from its relations.
Indeed, Dr. Caird grants that first of all we conceive
simple qualities which belong to objects apart from
their relations to other objects so that not only
;

are the inferences which absolutists draw from the

psychology of relations illegitimate, but those in-
ferences are based upon certain psychological facts
to the exclusion of other facts which, if taken into
consideration, would make a considerable difference
to the absolutist theory.
§ 183. This last point may be illustrated from
Mr. Bradley's doctrine of relations. He, too, seems
to regard the latter from a psychological standpoint ;

but, observing that the knowledge of a relation and

of its terms often seems to arise simultaneously in
consciousness, he infers not that the relation is prior
to its terms, but that the relation and its terms
mutually presuppose one another, and at the same
time imply in the background a unity or whole from
which they have emerged or in which they have
broken out. Take, for instance, the following

Digitized by
 —

270 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

passage :
" Their plurality (i.e., the plurality of
qualities) depends on relations, and without that
relation they are not distinct. But if not distinct,
then not different, and therefore not qualities." 1
To what does this passage refer ? To the dis-
tinguishing and relating of qualities by the thinking
mind, or to the qualities themselves which it is said
to distinguish and relate ? From the context it
would appear that it refers to the act of thought.
But if so, how does the fact (if it is a fact) that
qualities distinguished in consciousness are always
related in consciousness, prove that qualities are
not really distinct in the objective world ? And,
again, by what kind of logical process can you pass
from the simultaneous appearance of distinction and
relation in consciousness to the objective inter-
dependence of the relation and its terms ? Mr.
Bradley's argument is valid only provided we grant
(i) that reality and sentient experience are one
a hypothesis which I have already shown to be
false, and which certainly should not be assumed at
this early stage of the argument and (2) that in —
sentient experience qualities, afterwards distin-
guished, are really one —which also is false or at best
is a gratuitous assumption — and
(3) that product
(thought distinctions and relations) and process
(unknown, but supposed to connect thought and
—
sentience) are not separable which adds but one
more to the other assumptions Mr. Bradley has to
make in order to prove his point. 2
§ 184. The absolutist theory of relations, then,
cannot be established on the basis of psychological
1 Appearance and Reality, p. 28. 2 cf.
chap. v.
 ;

CRITICISM OF ABSOLUTISM 271

fact, and it is to the attempt so to establish it that

we must attribute the contradiction which exists
between Green's theory and the theory of Mr.
Bradley. But when we seek for some more meta-
physical foundation for what is obviously a meta-
physical theory, it does not seem to be forthcoming.
We are told that by its relations the isolation of an
—
object is taken away a statement which is indis-
putable if it mean merely that an object conceived in
relation to something else is not conceived in
isolation, as it is also indisputable if isolation mean
from interaction but more than this is
isolation ;

meant. For the absolutist the negation of isolation

means the negation of independent existence, and
upon this rests his doctrine that reality is reallyand
substantially one, and not merely one as proceeding
from a common source, or one as a systematic logical
whole. No proof, however, is given of the statement
4
that relations deprive objects of their isolation,'
i.e., their individuality or independent existence.
We are assured that objects which are held together
in an act of thought are really held together by unity
of ground in rerum natura ; but the validity of this
transition from the psychological to the real order
has never been demonstrated. We are told that
there are no external relations, and that every
relation must modify intrinsically both its terms
but we are not told why this is so. Mr. Bradley,
who admits that relations imply qualities, asserts
also that qualities imply relations. Relations and
qualities are to be found, so to speak, upon the same
level of existence. Qualities are no more and no less
prior to their terms than terms are prior to their
272 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

relations,and apart from one another they cannot

exist. But except for the psychological argument
above discussed, no positive proof of this theory of
relations is given, nor does Mr. Bradley tell us
definitely what he understands a relation to be.
His arguments are almost wholly negative. His
aim is show that the notion of relations and
to
of qualities is contradictory, and that hence relations
and qualities are mere appearances which are self-
discrepant and lead to something beyond, viz.,
to an Absolute Ground. But though his discussion
of this question in the first part of his book purports
to be a criticism of the position of the realist, the
theory of relations which he discusses is not that of
the realist, or at any rate not that of the Aristotelian
realist.

§ 185. The Aristotelian does not conceive a

relation as a kind of physical nexus or bond which
joins two objects together and so makes them one.
A relation is merely a 7iy>o? ti o-^eVt? (an esse ad
aliquid) which arises from the rational plan or order
that ismanifested in the universe. It is an attribute
which said to belong to an object on account of
is

some one of its qualities (called by the scholastics

the fundamentum of the relation), but which requires
4
for its existence a term to which its whole essence
'

4
as a relation is to refer. That term,' if the relation
is real, ordinarily belongs to some object other than

that of which the relation is predicated. But the

relation itself does not belong to the two objects at
once. If there is only one relation, it belongs to that
object which possesses the fundamentum on account
of which the relation is predicated while if the
;
 CRITICISM OF ABSOLUTISM 273

relation is reciprocal or mutual, there are in reality

two belonging respectively to the two
relations
objects related. Hence, while for Mr. Bradley the
truth about relations is better expressed by saying
that A and B are related, the truth for Aristotle
was better expressed by saying that A is related to
B, and (if the relation is mutual) that B is related
to A.
The arguments upon which Mr. Bradley bases his
doctrine that relations and qualities are merely
appearances, break down entirely when applied to
this theory of relations.

The qualities A
and B are to be different from each
other, and, if so, that difference must fall somewhere.
If it falls, in any degree or to any extent, outside A
or B, we have relation at once. But, on the other
hand, how can difference and otherness fall inside ?
If we have in A
any such otherness, then inside A
we must distinguish its own quality and its otherness.
And, if so, then the unsolved problem breaks out inside
each quality, and separates each into two qualities in
relation. 1

'
A must fall somewhere.' What is this
difference
difference it ?an increment in quantity or
Is
quality which makes A different from B ? If so,
the difference itself is an integral part either of A
or of B, and so falls within one or the other. Or is
the nature of A wholly different from the nature of
B ? If this be so, the difference is A plus B, and
while part of it coincides with A, the other part
coincides with B. Or, again, is this difference
simply the otherness of A in regard to B ? If
' '

4 9
this be what is meant, then otherness as such
1
Appearance and Reality, p. 29.
 274 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

falls only within the mind of the rational percipient,

whose judgment on this account is none the less true.
For objectively and in fact A has a certain definite
nature, and B also and the nature of A and the
;

nature of B are ex hypothesi not the same. This fact

the percipient apprehends, and expresses it by
saying that A is different or other than B. To
perceive a relation is to apprehend two facts in the
same mental act and to predicate of one a relation
;

of otherness in respect of the other is our way of

'
'

saying that we have apprehended two different

facts.
§ 186. Mr. Bradley further objects that since
qualities are related there must be

a diversity which falls inside each quality. It has a

double character, as both supporting and as being made
by the relation. It may be taken as at once condition
and result, and the question is as to how it can combine
this variety. For it must combine the diversity, and
yet it fails to do so. [Hence] the diversity is
. . .

fatal to the internal unity of each (quality) and ;

it demands a new relation, and so on without

limit.*

Again, Mr. Bradley's objection is based upon a

misconception of the nature of a relation. The
quality is not made by the relation, but the relation
arises from the quality as its cause or ground. The
relation is the quality considered in respect to some-
thing other than itself. And though a relation
should always have a fundamentum in re, the relation
itself may be due merely to our way of considering
things, and may not imply any real ordo in the
1
Ibid., p. 3
 CRITICISM OF ABSOLUTISM 275

quality or object of which the relation is predicated.

Thus Aquinas says :

Those entities which are called ad aliquid signify, accor-

ding to their proper nature, only a respectus ad aliud ;
which respectus is sometimes in the nature of things, as
when certain things are according to their very nature
'
ordered to one another and have a mutual inclina-
' '

tion toward one another; and relations of this kind

'

must be real. But sometimes the respectus signified by

that which is called ad aliquid, is only in the apprehension
of the intellect which relates (conferre) one to another ;

and then there is a relatio rationis tantum. 1

For instance, whenever one thing is referred to

another on account of some change which has taken
place in it owing to the action of that other thing,
there is a real relation, as when an effect is referred
to a cause, or again when a cause is referred to its
effect (provided some change takes place in the
object which produces that effect), for in both cases
there is a real ordo of one thing to the other. 2 On
the other hand, the relation of God to His creatures
is not a real relation, because the act of creation

implies no change on the part of God and similarly ;

the relation of the knowable to knowledge is not

real, because the knowable does not change by the
fact that it becomes known. Yet both these
relations have a fundamentum in re and, if predi- y

cated of the creature and of the knower respectively,

are real, since a real ordo is involved. In neither
case, however, is real diversity introduced into the
quality on account of the relation that is predicated

1
Summa, 1, 9, 27 @ 1.
* De Potentia, 7 @ 9 and cf. Arist. Metaph. A. 1021a 2 0 , bk. v.
c. 15, §2.
276 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

of it, for the relation itself nihil est aliud quant ordo
unius creaturae ad aliam. Hence the relation " in
quantum est accidens, habet quod sit in subjecto ; non
autem in quantum est relatio vel ordo ; sed solum
quod ad aliud sit quasi in aliud transiens, et quodam-
modo rei relatae assistens. Et ita relatio est aliquid
inhaerens licet non ex hoc ipso quod est relatio." 1
A relation, then, even when real, is only another
aspect of the fundamentum which on account of the
rational plan of the universe has a certain ordo ad
other things. No relation, therefore, is required in
order to bring together what are not really distinct.
And if you tell me that at any rate the ordo and its
fundamentum are different and so introduce diversity
into the thing, my reply is that, though
in a certain
sense a real relation may
regarded as the
be
4
difference '
of a concrete thing, it does not destroy
the individuality or isolation of that thing, any
more than the differences of the Absolute destroy
its individuality or its isolation, for every concrete

thing is essentially a unity amid differences, and

the differences are brought together in the unity of
the ground. 2
§Two more objections may be briefly dis-
187.
cussed. Mr. Bradley does not believe in merely
external relations, and tells us that he cannot
44
understand the leaving by the terms of one set
"
of relations and their adoption of another fresh set
if relations are merely external and if the result,
therefore, makes no For,
difference to the terms.
he asks us, if the change of relation does not make
a difference to the terms, to what does it make a
1 2
Jbid., ad. 7. cf. chap. xiii.
 Criticism of absolutism

difference ? Professor James' answer to this ques-

tion that it makes " a difference to us onlookers
is

at least " 1 which is true, but I think we may go

;

further than this. For, if the relations are real, the

change of relations implies a real change in some
one or other of the qualities which constitute the
fundamenta of the relations concerned, and it implies
also a change in the rational plan of the universe,
or in the ordo of things one to another. In other
words, the relation, in so far as it is real, is not
external to the thing of which it is predicated,
4
though it is term of that relation,
external to the '

and to that other thing to which the term belongs.

The absolutist assumes that a change of relation
must, in every case, make an intrinsic difference to
both the objects related, and indirectly to all other
objects and all other relations existing in the
universe. But this is almost inconceivable ; for it is

difficult to see how an increase of ooi inches in my

height can possibly affect the height of millions of
other people in different parts of the globe. It may
be that this is the case but if it is, the intrinsic
;

modification which has taken place in them is

infinitesimal and can be neglected. Moreover, such
a modification, if it really does take place, is certainly
not due directly to the change which has taken place
in me, or to the change in my relations to other men ;

but is brought about by intricate and circuitous

paths unknown to either scientist or metaphysician.
It is my relation to other men that has changed,
because it is in me that the change itself has taken
place. It is only per accidens that the relations of
1
A Pluralistic Universe, p. 362.
a 7B THEORIES OP KNOWLEDGE

other men to me have changed ; their real relations

(i.e., their relations to a given standard or unit of
height) remaining ex hypothesi the same. Thus a
change of relation implies a change in the funda-
mentum upon which the relation is based, and so in
the ordo of the things which exist in the universe ;

but no other real change is involved except in so

far as* other fundamenta are affected.
§ 188. Lastly, we are asked how comparison can
reveal the truth about things if relations are merely
external. In regard to real relations, there is no
difficulty on this point, for they are not external to
the thing of which they are predicated. And in
regard to a relatio rationis such as one of mere
difference or otherness, comparison may still be
valid and true, provided the relation has, as it
should have, foundation in reality. For, as I have
said, when we perceive or apprehend a difference,
what happens is that we perceive in the same mental
act two things, one of which has a quality A which
the other has not. And provided this is de facto the
case, the relation of otherness which we predicate
on account of our act of perception has, in a real
sense, objective validity.
§ 189. Mr. Bradley, then, has failed to show that
the theory of relations involves a
Aristotelian
contradiction, and so has failed to prove that
relations and qualities are mere appearances. And
as the absolutist theory is acknowledged to be
self-contradictory and is based on an illicit transition
from the psychological to the real order, the thesis
that reality is one and individual certainly cannot
be established on these grounds.
 Critic tsAt of absolutism

On the other hand, the arguments by which Green

seeks to establish that thesis contain much that a
realist would readily grant. He would grant that
the universe consists in a system of relations in the
sense that all created things are related to one
another; and that the order of those relations is
unalterable in that past, present and future are
determinate in nature, whether or not they could
have been or could be other than what they were,
are, or will be and, again, that upon the determi-
;

nate character of these things and their relations

the possibility of knowledge depends, though
whether unalterableness is of much practical utility
as a test of truth might be questioned. 1 Further,
'
the partial consciousness of the world of '
relations
implies an intelligence in man which cannot be
accounted for by any natural history, i.e., a spiritual
principle or rational soul which cannot, as such,
have been produced by generation, and which is
simple, inasmuch as it can apprehend the many in
the one. But from this one can hardly infer that
man's intelligence is out of time,' 2 for though
'

different stages of a change must be present at once

to a consciousness of change, and though again that
consciousness, as a single act in
if considered
isolation fromantecedents and consequents,
its

would itself be free from change, it does not follow

that it has no duration, nor yet that consciousness
in man is not subject to change. Indeed, to admit
that man may pass into a state of consciousness
'

of change and pass out of it seems to be practically

'

1
cf. supra. § 151.
* cf. supra, § 152 and Prolegomena to Ethics, § 65.
 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

an admission that man's consciousness does change*

Green's argument here is very far from conclusive.
In fact, the nearer we get to the central doctrine of
his metaphysic the less conclusive and the more
ambiguous do his arguments become, though there
is still much that may be conceded without prejudice

to Realism. A plurality of things cannot of

'

themselves unite in one relation, nor can a single

thing of itself bring itself into a multitude of
relations. Hence there must be something other
than the manifold things themselves which combines
them without effacing their severalty.' And, again,
'
as the system is one, so must be the principle which
constitutes them and is the condition of their
existence.'

§ 190. So far, so good. But in what way is this

single active self-conscious principle the condition
and source of the cosmos which we know ? Are the
objects which it not only relates, but produces,
objects existing merely in the consciousness of that
being, or have these each their own real, though
dependent, existence ? And is the act by which
these objects are produced better described as an
act of intelligence or an act of creation ? And this
unity which characterises the cosmos. Is it a real
concrete unity like that which is predicable of the
divine principle producing it ? Is the world we
experience one as we ourselves or any other organic
being is one, or is it one only because it proceeds
from a cause and because its manifold
single
complexity ordered to a single end ? In a word,
is

is God immanent within the cosmos and the cosmos

immanent within God, or is the existence of the

 Criticism op absolutism 281

former distinct from, though dependent in all

respects upon, the existence of the latter ? Here
lies the crux of the difficulty. The key to the
position of the absolutist lies in the doctrine of
Immanence, and yet the doctrine, as interpreted by
Absolutism, is a mere assumption, un verifiable in
experience and in violent antagonism with common-
sense belief. That the content of thought or the
object as known is immanent within the mind is
obvious; but that the real objects about which we
think are immanent is a gratuitous assertion made,
in the first instance, by Fichte, with a view to
getting rid of noumenal things-in-themselves and so
saving the Kantian theory from Subjectivism. And
this assertion every absolutist from Hegel to Green
and Bradley repeats, but always without proof or
confirmation. Doubtless, no object is unrelated to
consciousness, otherwise it would be unknowable.
And doubtless also, knowledge, in a sense, is only
of phenomena, i.e., of things as they appear to us,
scil., to our senses and intellect functioning in
cognitive harmony. But why assume that real
objects, if from ourselves, cannot appear to
distinct
us as they really are ? Green tells us that they
cannot, or at least he says that if the knowable
world and the subject capable of knowing it are
4
independent,' knowledge is inexplicable. But he
does not support this statement by an examination
of other theories of knowledge which claim to account
for the reproduction by mind of relations existing
in the outside world. No, the true reason for the
doctrine of Immanence is not the bankruptcy of
Realism, but the fact that Kant's Apriorism forced
282 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

him to postulate noumenal things which, by man,

could never be known because their appearances are
not manifestations of their nature, are not their
appearances, but constructions due to the minds
which seek to know them. Hence the rational way
to reform Kant's error would have been to get rid
of unknowable things, not by denying their existence,
but by denying their noumenal character. The
absolutist, instead of abolishing real and inde-
pendent things altogether from philosophy, should
have abolished Apriorism.
§ 191. Yet this is not the method Absolutism
has chosen. Regardless of the consequences of such
a procedure, it has extended the doctrine of
Immanence so as to include the real as well as the
so-called phenomenal object of knowledge. True, in
some sort of way Green's theory is an explanation
of the origin of human knowledge, but what a cost
its acceptance would entail !The personality of
man disappears. In so far as he becomes the vehicle
of an eternal consciousness, he is identical with that
consciousness, and his human character is gone. His
thoughts and actions are not his at all, but the
—
thoughts and actions whether true or false, moral
—
or immoral, it does not matter of the Supreme
Being who, for a longer or shorter time, actuates his
so-called organism. And in so far as he is not the
vehicle of that consciousness, what is he ? Nothing
but a conglomeration of relations which have no
existence of their own or of his, but exist merely
forsome other consciousness. Nor are these merely
two ways of regarding the same thing, for it is not
the same but a different thing that is regarded.
 CRITICISM OF ABSOLUTISM 283

Man's body and his consciousness or soul in any

other theory but Green's are one being, but in
Green's theory they are wholly different and uncon-
nected, in so far as things can be different and
unconnected Man's consciousness in
in Absolutism.
so far as it rises above the sentient level is a very
partial and inadequate edition of the eternal con-
sciousness but his body and his sensations, in so
;

far as they are not the instruments or objects of his

thoughts —
and for the most part they are not, are
44
not his at all, but are merely names for substan-
tiated relations between phenomena, relations to
which an existence on their own account is
fictitiously ascribed, but which, in truth, only exist
for, or through the action of, the unifying and self-
distinguishing spiritual subject," 1 and apparently of
any other finite self-distinguishing subject which
happens momentarily to be conscious of them.
Thus not only the personality and humanity, but
also the unity of man is destroyed.
§ 192. have said that Green's theory in some
I

way explains the origin of knowledge. That is an

exaggeration. It merely states that knowledge is
due to a mysterious reproduction of the Absolute in
a finite vehicle. It explains nothing. The manner
of this reproduction, its intermittence, its apparent
development and growth, are left entirely to the
reader's imagination. About the relation of
organisms to the eternal consciousness we are told
nothing except that they are its vehicles.' What-
4

ever judgment, then, we may pass upon the episte-

mology of Realism, Green's epistemology certainly
1
Prolegomena to Ethics, § 40.
2&4 THEORIES OP KNOWLEDGE

does not explain the growth of knowledge. It does

not even explain the ordinary facts which everybody
knows why things appear to be external, individual,
;

distinct from one another and from ourselves, and,

except for interaction, independent. Yet that they
are so is an ordinary and almost intuitive 'deliver-
ance of every man's consciousness. As I have said
'

before, this may be an illusion, but if it is an illusion

it must be proved to be an illusion and a ;

theory which asserts that it is an illusion must

also show how that illusion arises. It would be
beside the point here to plead that no theory is

bound to take account of all the facts, for these are

facts which Absolutism does take account of, since
it declares them to be illusory appearances. How,
then, are these facts to be explained ?

§ 193. T. H. Green makes no attempt to explain

4
*
objectivity '
and otherness.' Objectivity, in his
view, is due to the nature
of thought and this is ;

the solution which given by all absolutists who

is

identify Reality with Thought a solution which —

reminds one of the scholastic who is supposed to have
said that engines move because they have vis
locomotiva. The ego posits an alter ego because it is
its nature so to do. Mr. Bradley finds this simple
solution hardly satisfactory, since thought can never
equate itself with reality, and so cannot be reality.
It is in sentient experience that we meet with and
become one with reality, and it is the sensuous
infinitude of this which, in his theory, accounts
for the otherness of thought
The apparent independence of the external
'
'

world is also difficult to account for in Absolutism.

 CRITICISM OF ABSOLUTISM 285

In Green's theory it arises, I suppose, from the fact

that the eternal consciousness, objectified as the
cosmos, is immanent within our minds, and yet is
only partly immanent, for we do not know the whole
of reality and our efforts to know it are constantly
thwarted. In Mr. Bradley's theory also reality is,
to some extent, independent (i.e., relatively inde-
pendent) of finite centres of experience,' and still
'

more independent, of course, of the self which is

'
'

but a construction arising from within these finite

centres. The link, however, which connects the
'
finite centre of experience with reality itself is to
'

be found, not above, as with Green, but below, in

the this in which reality is given, and in which it
' '

is on the sentient level one with the centre it

produces.
§ 194. Thus in some sort of way independence
and objectivity may be accounted for in Absolutism ;

but the independence and objectivity there conceded

being essentially relative and to a large extent
illusory, it is impossible for Absolutism to explain
how it comes about that things appear to be external,
individual and material, since they are at bottom
immanent, one, and spiritual. The analytic char-
acter of thought cannot account for the externality
which seems to belong to perceived objects, if, in
reality, those objects are one with ourselves and are
given as one in the felt-wholes of sentient experience.
The relative independence of finite selves and of
finite centres of experience cannot account for our
belief in their individuality and self-subsistence, if,

as Green seems to hold, in so far as we think the

same thing we arc really not many but one ; or if,
286 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

as Mr. Bradley affirms, all souls live and move by

"real identity of ideal content." 'Degrees of reality,'
again, cannot account for the apparent difference
between ourselves and what we call the material
world, if at bottom that world is the immanent
effect of spiritual thought-activity, and, therefore,
and psychical like thought itself. In
really spiritual
short, between the philosophical theory of Abso-
lutism and the facts of our experience there is a
contradiction and that contradiction is fatal to
;

Absolutism, unless it can be proved to be merely

apparent, and unless its origin can be satisfactorily
explained.
§ 195. In Green's theory there is also internal
contradiction. For the thoughts and the rational
acts of men are really the thoughts and rational acts of
one supreme Intelligence, which is thus responsible
for all the errors, illusions, contradictions, false
theories, and corrupt moral doctrine and practice
of which man has ever been guilty a hypothesis —
that is wholly incompatible with the moral rectitude

which is held to be the first among the attributes

of that supreme and all-wise Intelligence.
Mr. Bradley does his best to escape this contra-
diction. Indeed, it is a general principle with him
from first to last that internal contradictions must be
avoided at all costs. But the costs are very serious.
Not only are facts completely ignored if it is
inconvenient to recognise them not only is God,
;

like everything else in which the ordinary man

believes, declared to be mere appearance but Mr. ;

Bradley's theory is riddled with mysteries and

insoluble problems, almost all of his own making,
 ;

CRITICISM OF ABSOLUTISM 287

and is, perhaps, of all Absolutisms the most

inadequate and incomplete. At the end of almost
every chapter Mr. Bradley confesses that he has
failed to explain how appearances are to be reconciled
in the unity of the Absolute to which they are
supposed to belong. Error is a fact it is not ;

merely a partial truth, but a positive mistake; yet

we are assured that the Absolute has, without
subtraction

every arrangement which we seem to confer upon it by

our mere mistake. [Even] the one-sided emphasis of
error, its isolation as positive and as not dissoluble in
a wider connection will contribute we know not how to
the harmony of the Absolute. 1 [Space again has to be]
absorbed in a non-spatial consummation [and though] ;

how in particular this can be, we are unable to lay

down, [we are asked to believe that] our ignorance in
detail is no objection against the general possibility. 2
The incomplete diversity of various systems, the per-
plexing references of each same feature to many ideal
wholes, and again that positive special feeling [which
is characteristic of the this and the mine '],
' '
all this *
—
detail is not made one in any way which we can verify. 3

Yet it is made one somehow or other, because

Reality ex hypothesi is one, and therefore it must
be so. Good and evil, beauty and ugliness, pleasure
and pain, in spite of their being admittedly contra-
dictions, are all '
to conduce to the ultimate good,
and to be somehow reconciled in the unity of the
Absolute.'
§ 196. Mr. Bradley freely acknowledges that he
cannot explain how these reconciliations take place

1
Appearance and Reality, pp. 192, 195. (Italics mine).
i Ibid , p. 222. P. 239.
288 '
THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

for, as we have pointed out, he differs from Green

in thathe does not consider himself bound to
explain either how or why.
' '
c
He does claim,
9

however, to have shown that, in general, these

reconciliations are not impossible. Yet even in this
I cannot admit that his efforts have been successful.

As for Green, so for Bradley and for all absolutists,

evil and error prove particularly obstinate and
impossible to manage, for they seem to make the
Absolute contradict itself. It is easy enough to say
that error is due to a one-sided and partial point of
view but if it is the Absolute which differentiates
;

itself and acts through and in finite centres, it is

the Absolute which makes mistakes and contradicts
its own assertions. It is the Absolute which says
that things are what they are not, and that they are
real when they only appear and these are positive
;

errors which seem to be incompatible with an

Absolute which has as another of its differences
*
truth.' Again, the explanation of pleasure and
pain as counterbalancing or neutralising one another
in the Absolute is far from satisfactory for apart
;

from the hedonistic tone of this solution, pain, if

really neutralised by pleasure, would seem to have
ceased to exist altogether. Lastly, the finite and
the infinite are, to my mind, wholly incompatible,
and cannot be reconciled in any concrete unity or
whole. For finites, no matter how many you take
or how you arrange them, or harmonise them, or
mix them up, are still, in the end, finite as before.
And to assert dogmatically that we know so little
about the infinite and the finite that we cannot
prove them to be contradictory hardly answers this
 CRITICISM OF ABSOLUTISM 289

difficulty, since, in that case, they cannot be proved

to be one.
It is however, to urge these difficulties
useless,
further ; Bradley acknowledges that they
for Mr.
can never be explained by a human mind. Never-
theless, space, time, individuality, personality, evil,
error and pain are not details and until they have
;

been explained Absolutism can hardly be called even

a working hypothesis. The thesis that Reality is
One and Individual cannot be proved directly, nor
can any satisfactory answer be given to the numerous
objections that may be urged against it. Hence,
though Appearance and Reality does not pretend to
give " a systematic account of all the regions of
appearances, which would be required for a '

genuine proof of the principles it asserts," it seems

to me to have failed even in its primary object of
'
stating consistently a general view about Reality
'

and of answering more obvious objections.'

'

§ 197. Absolutism as a philosophy is essentially

incomplete, and whatever form of Absolutism we
may consider its incompleteness can hardly escape
our notice, especially if we compare it with the
philosophy of Kant, which, in spite of its incon-
sistencies, was comparatively free from those
irritating somehows which meet us in Absolutism at
every turn. Absolutism is a standpoint, not a
systematic philosophy and as soon as it tries to
;

become systematic, it at once gives rise to diver-

gencies and contradictions, and is forced to declare
that most things are insoluble mysteries. There
must be some reason for this characteristic in-
completeness and the explanation is to be found.
;

T
200 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

I think, in the fact that Absolutism tries to work

with too few ideas. The absolutist, like the
pragmatist, gets a firm grasp of one or two con-
ceptions which he attempts to apply everywhere
regardless of consequences. One knows what is the
result of this in the world of common-sense. The
man who obsessed by a fixed idea loses his balance
is

of mind. A similar result ensues in the philosophic

world. To allow oneself to be fascinated by one
or two ideas and to try to explain everything by
these alone is to take a one-sided view of the universe
and to lose, so to speak, one's philosophic balance of
mind. The point
worth illustrating, perhaps,
is

for it seems to explain at once the incompleteness

and the inadequacy of Absolutism.
§ 198. The ideas which fascinate the absolutist
4
are clearly those of Immanence,' Organic Whole,' *

4
and Unity in Difference.' These he regards as
conceptions applicable to all conceivable objects,
and by them all things are to be explained. Now,
4 '
that there are such things as unities in difference
4
and organic wholes cannot be denied. Both con-
'

cepts are valid in regard to living things, and it

seems probable, at any rate, that they are valid
4
also of material things. Immanence '
also is valid
when applied to the object of thought as appre-
hended in a psychical act of the mind. This much
we learn from common-sense and introspection.
The is right, then, so far in regard to his
absolutist
facts. His conception of Immanence, of an Organic
Whole, and of Unity in Difference, each has its
foundation in the data of experience. But when
he seeks to apply these concepts to the universe at
 CRITICISM OF ABSOLUTISM 291

large, heattempting to apply them beyond the

is

sphere which alone they have validity.

within
With what results ? If the universe is an organism
the individuals which were formerly held to con-
stitute its parts now become merely its differences.
Hence a contradiction. For the notion of an
'
organism is derived not from a study of the uni-
'

verse as a whole, but from the study of its parts or

'
differences.' And it is found in these parts or
*
differences only in so far as they are real unities
'

having each a nature and existence of its own which

does not belong, as such, to the rest of the universe.
An organism, it is true, may, and indeed must,
itself have parts. But its parts are not real organ-
isms (though they may be organic), since their nature
and dominated and controlled
their activities are
by the formal Hence an
principle of the whole.
organism, being a real unity, is something different
from the rest of the universe, so that to apply this
notion to the universe at large involves a contradic-
tion, for whatever else the universe is it is certainly
not a difference or part of itself. Or, to put the
argument in another way, if the universe is a real
whole, organisms are among its differences but it
;

is illicit to identify the whole with any of its differ-

ences hence, either the concept organism does not

;

apply to the differences of the universe, and so is

invalid (since it is from these differences that the
concept has been derived), or else the universe is
not an organism.
§ 199. A similar argument may be used, it seems
to me, against the doctrine that thought and its real
object are immanent within the universe as within

Digitized by
292 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

a concrete living whole. For the notion of

Immanence is, like that of organism, derived from
our knowledge of finite living things, i.e., from
ourselves and from other rational and individual
beings. But if the thoughts of each individual
thinker are immanent within his own mind, they
are ex hypothesi not immanent within the minds of
other thinkers. I call my thoughts immanent
because they are peculiar and intrinsic to me and
are not identical with your thoughts and, if they ;

were not really my thoughts but were common to

us both, I should certainly have no right to call
them immanent in me. Hence either thought is
not immanent within the universe, but is centred
exclusively in individual minds or else, if thought
;

is immanent, there are strictly no individual

thinkers, and the fact upon which the notion of
immanent thought was based is declared to be an
illusion. In other words, everyone is aware that the
objects of his thoughts are, as ideas, immanent
within his own mind, and for that very reason
distinguishes his ideas from the objects which are
known by those ideas, since no one imagines that
the objects of his thoughts, as realities, are immanent
within his mind. Absolutism, however, in order to
apply the doctrine of Immanence to the universe
as a whole is forced to deny that there are any
realities distinct from ideas. Hence a trilemma.
For either (1) my ideas embrace all reality and I
as an individual am identical with the universe ;

or (2) there are other thinkers besides me of which

I know not, and ought not to be able to conceive, in
which case the universe becomes an aggregate of

Digitized by
 CRITICISM OF ABSOLUTISM

individual thinking beings, each of whom has his

own world of immanent ideas or else (3) and this
; —
is the alternative Absolutism adopts —
my mind and
your mind are not strictly individual and my
thoughts and your thoughts are not strictly
immanent within us, but are immanent really
within an Absolute which somehow diversifies itself
and centres itself in each of us. But on this latter
hypothesis there are no longer any individual minds.
Hence the data upon which the doctrine of Imma-
nence was based (viz., that the ideas of each one of
us are immanent within our own minds) has been cut
away beneath our feet and the concept of Immanence
thereby rendered invalid.
§ 200. Lastly, the concept of Unity in Difference
is, like the rest of our concepts, based upon our

knowledge of finite and individual things. In

particular, I recognise that I myself am a unity-
in-difference, and that my intellect, my will and
my emotions are differences of me. Such a
conception gives us an excellent idea of the unity
of man but it can only be applied to the universe
;

at large, provided its applicability to man is denied.

For, once again, if man is really a unity, the
universe is an aggregate while, if the universe is
;

not an aggregate but a unity, man's unity is not

real, but only relative, and the foundation of the
notion of real unities-in-difference is gone. This
difficulty is especially serious for those who assert
that concepts are relative, for the conception of
all

Unity in Difference is itself relative in that case, and

so is inapplicable to what is affirmed to be absolute.
And, similarly, in Mr. Bradley's theory Unity in
 theories of knowledge

Difference, which is due to thought distinctions,

must be mere appearance whence it follows that
;

either the notion cannot be applied to the Absolute

or else the Absolute, like everything else, is only an
appearance.
§ 201. It seems to me that there is only one way
of avoiding these difficulties, and that isto hold fast
to our finite organisms, to our finite unities-in-
difference and to our finite minds in which thought
is really immanent, since these alone are known with

comparative immediacy and certainty. Then, if our

theory of an organic universe can be squared with
the facts, well and good. But if it cannot, we must
still abide by our facts, and in regard to theories

must attempt a modification or renounce

either
them For Absolutism to adopt the
altogether.
latter alternative would perhaps be a mistake, since
there are many ideas in Absolutism the value of
which for human thought is very great. Never-
theless, its theory of the Universe as an Organic
Whole cannot stand in its present literal form.
It leads not merely to inconsistencies, as I have
endeavoured to show but it makes error, evil, pain,
;

and man himself a hopeless mystery. It claims

to be a regress upon the presuppositions of know-
ledge ;yet it neglects altogether to take account of
some of the most characteristic of our common-
sense beliefs, dismissing them without a word of
explanation as illusions. We may say of Absolu-
tism,^ fact, what Mr. Bradley has said of Phenomen-
alism This view " either makes a claim to take
:

account of all the facts, or it makes no such claim ;

and in the latter case there is an end of its pre-

 —

PHILOSOPHY OF PURE EXPERIENCE 295

tensions." Perhaps we ought to place Absolutism

under the second category but in any case it
;

certainly has not as yet taken account of all the

facts, and were it to do so the modifications involved
would be very considerable. The bald, bold way in
which the characteristics of human cognition are
transferred to the Absolute would have to be given
up. The concepts of Organic life, Unity in Differ-
ence and Immanence would be found to apply only
in an analogous, if not merely in a metaphorical,
sense to the universe at large. Of the possibility
of thus reconciling Absolutism with the data of
experience I shall have something to say in the con-
cluding chapter of this volume. We must now
consider the rival claims of the philosophy of Pure
Experience.

CHAPTER XI.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF PURE EXPERIENCE.

I. Exposition.

§ 202. In spite of certain remarks of Professor

James and Dr. Schiller, to the effect that Pragmatism
is compatible with almost any metaphysics, it has,

if not its own metaphysics, at least a marked and

unmistakable tendency toward the metaphysics of

Pure Experience. Professor James' " World of Pure
Experience " seems to be metaphysical in character. 1
Avenarius, the philosopher of the German pragma-
1
cf. supra, § 109.
296 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

certainly a metaphysician, and his principal

lists, is

work is entitled Eine Kritik der reinen Erfahrung.

M. Le Roy in France, Professor Dewey in America,
Professor Mach in Germany, and Dr. Schiller in
England, adopt an attitude in regard to meta-
all

physics which closely resembles, if it is not identical

with, that which is known as the philosophy of Pure

Experience. Pragmatism, in fact, and the philo-
sophy of Pure Experience go hand in hand, and to
separate them is to reduce the former to a mere
method, which, whatever it was, it certainly is not
now. Pragmatism has changed since it parted
company with its founder, Dr. Peirce and how-
;

ever purely methodological his intentions may have

been, Pragmatism is now a theory of knowledge, and
as such it presupposes metaphysics, and must, if it
desires to be intelligible, give some account of the
relation of the knower to the known.
§ 203. From the psychological standpoint we
have already treated of the view taken of this
relation by Professors James and Dewey: and
sufficient, I think,has already been said to make it
clear that the philosophy of Pure Experience is a
modern form of Empiricism. There is nothing but
experience. Everything is experience and the ;

only function of one experience is to lead to another

experience. There are no objects apart from
experience, for objective reference is but an accident
incidental to the transitional and truncated nature of
many of our experiences. Substances, accidents,
powers, selves, absolutes are not required. A world
of Pure Experience needs no bedding. Such a world
is merely an aggregate of experiences which hang
'
 PHILOSOPHY OF PURE EXPERIENCE 207

together by their edges,' and which proliferate into *

one another by transitions;' and these transitions,

whether conjunctive or disjunctive, continue the
experimental tissue and so form part and parcel
with experience. 1
4
Pure Experience is defined as the original flux
2
of life before reflection has categorised it and ;
'

Professor James is of opinion that we actually get

back to pure experience at times ; for he tells us that
" the instant field of the present is always experience
in its *
pure ' state, plain unqualified actuality, a
simple that, as yet undifferentiated into thing and
thought, and only virtually classifiable as objective
fact or as some one's opinion about fact." 3 Avena-
rius, on the other hand (and this is, I think, the view
more commonly and also more correctly held)
assures us that our experience is never pure. We
never get rid of customary forms of representation
even in what we call presentation. Whether our
experience be that of common-sense, of science, of
religion, or of philosophy, in it we always think
under categories and categories do not belong to
;

pure experience, but have been imposed upon it by

our ancestors in the past. The tainted state of our
experience is obvious. It is, however, our mis-
44
fortune, not our fault. Had pure experience,"
44
says Professor James, been always perfectly
healthy, there never would have arisen the necessity

1 "
A World of Pure Experience," Journ. of Phil., Psy. and Sc.
Methods, 1904, pp. 533 et seq. (passim), and cf. Studies in
Humanism, p. 461.
2
A
Pluralistic Universe, p. 348, and cf. Studies in Humanism,
p. 221.
* " A
World of Pure Experience,' 1 p. 564.
 ;

29$ THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

of isolating or verbalising any of its terms. We

should just have experienced inarticulately and
unintellectually enjoyed." 1 But it was not so.
The tendency of raw experience is to extinguish
' ' '

the experient himself,' and this tendency " is lessened

just in the degree in which the elements in it that
have a practical bearing upon life are analysed out
of the continuum and verbally fixed and coupled
together, so that we may know what is in the wind
for us and get ready to react in time." 2

§ 204. Among the causes which have contributed

to the corruption of pure experience and the
generation of our own are others besides those of
analysis and verbalisation. M. Le Roy, for whom
all truth and all reality are due to Vaction-pcnste,
emphasises especially the element of choice.
Even in common-sense knowledge, experience has
undergone a transformation and is no longer pure owing
to reactions which neglect some elements and modify
others Even in such ordinary notions as the continuity
or discontinuity of material objects we exercise choice :

we prefer to regard objects which, to sight, are con-

tinuous as discontinuous, because it is more convenient
this, however, is merely a fiction pratique*

For the German, Avenarius, on the other hand,

physiology seems to be the key alike to psychology
and to philosophy. All changes in experience take
for him, as we have already seen, 4 the form of a
1
A Pluralistic Universe, p. 350. (These words are attributed
to the naturalist, but in the original article in the Joutn. of Phil.,
etc., i90i,p. 35, they were attributed to the pragmatist). Cf. The
Meaning of Truth, p. 64, and Studies in Humanism, pp. 485, 486.
2
A Pluralistic Universe, p. 350.
8
Bulletin de la Soc. Francaisc philosophique, 1902, p. 177.
cf. Studies in Humanism, pp. 188, 189.
4
cf. supra, § 130.
 —

PHILOSOPHY OF PURE EXPERIENCE 299

vital series. Physiological changes begin with some

stimulation which disturbs the nervous equilibrium,
and through reaction, to its restoration.
finally leads,
Psychical changes proceed from pain through
striving to satisfaction and rest. Thus, when a
presentation fails at first to harmonise with previous
experience, we invent Bei-begriffe mediating — *

notions,' as they are styled by Professor James

and in this way conflict is avoided and harmony, of
a kind, restored. The notion of incomprehensi- *

bility,' for instance, has been invented in order to

avoid a conflict between man's free-will and the

Omnipotence of God. Our one aim in life is to live
in harmony with our environment, and to attain
this harmony at the least possible expense. By
the Princip des kleinsten Kraftmasses, which is but
Professor Mach's Princip der Denkokonomie 1 stated
in amore general form, the whole of life is governed.
Under it are classed by the latter two subsidiary
principles, the Princip der Stetigkeit oder Continuitdt
(Mental action is secundum habitum), and the
Princip der zureichenden Bestimmtheit oder der
zureichenden Differenzierung. (Changes from expected
recurrence produce in our ideas the smallest possible
modification compatible with the assimilation of the
new idea). It is the operation of these principles
as the dominant laws of our conscious life that has
led to the corruption of pure experience by the
introduction or super-position of categories and
ideas which have gradually become permanent as
habits of thought.
§ 205. Professor Simmel also takes physiological
1
cf. supra, § 127.
3oo THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

as the type of psychical processes, but insists more

on the anthropomorphic aspect of the development
of cognition.

The alternation between rest and motion [he tells us]

isnot only the physiological condition of our existence,
but is also the type of our spiritual life. As we imagine
that within ourselves we perceive a psychical being
whose existence and character depends only upon itself
and is independent of all outside, so we look in the
world for substances, magnitudes, forces, whose being
and meaning is grounded in themselves alone. As the
changeless, the substantial, the fixed, is in our life-
content an experience so full of value, so thought seeks
amid the fluctuations of the phenomenal for something
changeless and sure, and from independence proceeds
to the self-sufficient, the self-grounded. Thus we gain
fixed points which direct us in the confused jumble of
phenomena, and give us the objective counterpart of
that which we represent as valuable and definitive
within ourselves. 1

§ 206. The anthropomorphism which is character-

istic of Professor Simmel's account of the impurities
of our experience finds expression also in 'Axioms as
Postulates.' For in that now famous essay Dr.
Schiller, in the role of epistcmologist, re -edits
Aristotle's doctrine of matter and form in a new
and striking way. Arguing back from existing
knowledge to its conditions, he concludes that the
latter were originally (1) minds, and (2) a wholly
plastic matter, without quality and without deter-
mination, but receptive of forms which minds imposed
upon it. Thus the world, as it now appears, has
been gradually formed by the combined activity of
1
Philosophic des Geldes, chap, iii., pp. 58, 59.
 PHILOSOPHY OF PURE EXPERIENCE

many minds. 1 In his advance from the Grumps to

the Edwin and Angelina
and from that to hisstage,
present state of rationality, man has imposed on its
plastic receptivity form upon form, category upon
category, with ever-increasing ingenuity and com-
plexity till at last we have come, by a kind of tacit,
;

mutual consent, to treat these forms as objective,

and to attribute them, not to the constructive genius
of our ancestors, but to nature itself, which we thus
4
regard as real and independent. Facts,' however,
as well as concepts, are the product of cognitive
functioning. 2 At bottom they are nothing but the
4
legacy of past thought,' a left behind '
precipitate '

them by our seem, in facts,' to

fore-fathers. We 4

apprehend reality ready made, because we did not

make them. But our fore-fathers made them, much
as we now make them when we construct for our-
4
selves new entities such as ether in the hope that '

in this way we may somehow satisfy our needs.

Facts, then, are not only relative to man, but are
made by man, evolved, that is, by his experiments
upon the plastic material of his experience.
4 4
Reality ' and truth '
alike are the results of
human experiments based on human hypotheses
and directed to the satisfaction of human needs. 3
Here we see the result of applying the methods of
science to the theory of knowledge. The trans-
formation of pure into impure experience has been
brought about by postulation and experiment
prompted by human needs, and by this means has

1
cf. Studies in Humanism, p. 461.
* cf. ibid.,
pp. 183, 461, and Humanism, p. 1 1 (note) and p. 55.
3
'Axioms as Postulates,' §§ 1-8 {passim).
302 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

been evolved a pseudo-objective world which now

seems to us independent and given, simply because
it is not we who, as individuals, have made it. For
'
the thorough-going pragmatist the story of reality '

and the story of truth are one and the same.

* '

" What we judge to be true,' we take to be real,'

* *

and accept as a 'fact.' "* All three, truth, reality,

and fact, arise in like manner from the desire to
satisfy the exigencies ofour nature, which demand
that we should " organise the crude material of
experience and transmute it into palatable, manage-
able and liveable forms." By our experiments we
have modified what was once a pure experience,
and have imposed upon it forms which by force of
habit it seeks to retain. Reality, therefore, alias
experience, has lost to a large extent its original
plasticity. New
forms are no longer accepted with
the same readiness as of yore. Our efforts to impose
them are restricted, and thus experience has
acquired a factitious independence and an illusive
objectivity which we construe into a real world,
distinct from, and external to, ourselves. In reality,
however, there is nothing but experience, or, as
M. Le Roy puts it, " The mind is never confronted
with anything but itself, its degrees and its
moments. The world is its work, and itself, so far
as it is made, is its work also. In this, Idealism is
right, understood in the sense of an idealism of
2
thought-action."
§ 207. It is strange that Pragmatism should have
adopted a philosophic attitude in which the principal
1
Studies in Humanism, p. 426.
* Bulletin dr la Soc. Franfaisr, philosophique, 1904, p. 166.

Digitized by
 PHILOSOPHY OF PURE EXPERIENCE 303

doctrine of the rival and much-despised theory of

Absolutism seems to be re-asserted. Yet such is
the case. In spite of the philosophic impotence of
Hegel and the utter uselessness of Absolute
philosophies in general, Pragmatism has borrowed
and made its own the fundamental principle of all
Hegelians, the doctrine of Immanence. English,
French, German and American pragmatists alike tell
us that knowledge and reality both live immanent
within the tissue of experience. There is no need
of any transcendental leap from the knower to the
known. " In the very bosom of finite experience
every conjunction required to make the (cognitive)
relation intelligible is given in full." 1 We have
seen how this cognitive relation is explained by
Professors James and Dewey 2 how they identify
;

the knower with one experience and the known with

another, or else with the same experience taken
again in a different context how Professor Dewey
;

talks of odours which know roses, and of certain

elements in experiences which know others and
which present them as not-present-in-the-same-way-
as-themselves-are-present, but as going to be so
present through the intervention of certain
operations. " Where are the objects of thought ? "
* asks Professor James. " We have no ground for
saying that they are outside experience. they . . .

may be continuous with the present experience

itself." 8 For though " the category of trans-
perceptual reality is now one of the foundations of

1
The Meaning of Truth, pp. 102, 103.
2
Vide chap. vi.
3
Mind., N.S. 52, p. 563.
 ; "

THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

our life," we can "speculatively imagine a state of

pure experience before the hypothesis of permanent
objects behind its flux had been framed." 1 Similarly,
Dr. Schiller The reality to which truth was said
:
'
'

to correspond, i.e., which it has to know, is not a

'
fact in its own right, which pre-exists the cognitive
functioning.' It is itself a fact within knowing,
immanently deposited or precipitated by the '
'

functioning of our thought." Hence it is that the

problem of knowledge for the pragmatist is " not —
'
how can thought engender truth about reality ? '

but, rather, how can we best describe the con-

'

tinuous cognitive process which engenders our

'
systems of truth and our acceptance of reality
' ' '

and gradually refines them into more and more

'
2
adequate means for the control of our experience ?
Thus Pragmatism and Absolutism are at one in
regard to the all-important doctrine of Immanence ;

but, further than this, they agree neither in

principles, method, nor conclusions. Absolutism
frankly acknowledges that it is a theory devised in
order to explain the universe. Pragmatism, though
it also is a theory, claims to be merely describing

what is obviously contained in experience. Absolu-

tism is in the strict sense a metaphysic. Pragmatism,
too, is metaphysical 3 but it is so because it cannot
help itself. Its metaphysics are an accident, as it
were, occasioned by its desire to explain cognition
and its consequent attempt to treat of the knower
and the known. Both Absolutism and Pragmatism

1
The Meaning of Truth, pp. 64, 63, and 68.
1
Studies in Humanism, p. 426, and cf. pp. 201, 202,
3
On this point cf. supra J 221,
 PHILOSOPHY OF PURE EXPERIENCE 305

are idealistic ; but while Absolutism is a Rational-

ism,Pragmatism is a form of Empiricism.
§ 208. The points in which Pragmatism differs
from other empiricisms, will, I think, be clear. The
first is, of course, almost everything that is dis-
tinctive of the Postulatory or Experimental Theory
of Knowledge. The second is Professor James'
theory of F^-relations, to which I have already
referred, and on account of which he has given to
his Weltanschauung the name of Radical Empiri- '

cism.' Radical Empiricism, like all empiricisms, is

4 4
a mosaic philosophy,' a philosophy of plural
6
facts it emphasises parts rather than wholes,'
;
'

and makes the latter subsidiary and abstract ;

and,
like them, it is definitely opposed to Absolutism,
Apriorism, and all forms of mind-stuff theory. But
it differsfrom Empiricism of Hume and Mill in that
it admits conjunctive and disjunctive relations as

being fully co-ordinate parts of experience. For

Radical Empiricism, " the relations that connect
experiences must themselves be experienced relations,
and any kind of relations experienced must be accounted
as real as anything else in the system." 1 We feel
4 4 4 4
our ands,' and buts,' and ifs,' and fors,' just as
we feel other impressions which objects make upon
44
our senses. Prepositions, copulas, and con-
4 4 4 4 4 4
junctions, is,' isn't,' then,' before,' in,' on,'
4 4 4 4 4 4
beside,' between,' next,' like,' unlike,' as,'
4
but,' flower out of the stream of pure experience,
the stream of concretes or the sensational stream,
as naturally as nouns and adjectives do." 2 All

1 " A World of Pure Experience," p. 534.

* A Pluralistic Universe, p. 349.

v
3o6 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

that sensible
is real is and since relations are real,
;

they, too, must be sensible. The Radical Empiricism

of Professor James and the new Empiricism of
' '

France both possess the chief characteristic of their

predecessors. The fundamental principle of Hume
is revived. All ideas that are valid must be verified,
or, at least, verifiable, in impressions they must ;

"lead to the face of directly verifying experiences

somewhere." 1 Both are reactions against a
philosophy too much encumbered with a priori
principles. 2 But between the Empiricism of
Professor James and that of Hume there is a differ-
ence. Ideas are still little more than faint copies of
sensations, but they include relations, which are as
much experiences as anything else. This is the
chief reason why James claims that the
Professor
empirical attitude which Pragmatism takes up is
more radical and at the same time less objectionable
than any that Empiricism has hitherto assumed. 3
§ 209. Closely connected with his doctrine of
felt-relations is Professor James' doctrine of the Self.

The Self one of those unnecessary notions of which

is

Radical Empiricism is so anxious to get rid, and

certainly of the real self in Professor James' explana-
tion very little remains, less even than was conceded
to us in the Principles of Psychology. Felt-relations,
we are informed, are " of various degrees of
intimacy." 4 There is first withness, then nextness,
then likeness, then activity (cause and effect), then
purpose, and, finally, as the most intimate of all
1
Pragmatism, p. 215.
* cf. Le Roy, Revue Met. et Morale, 1901, p. 140.
3
Pragmatism, p. 51.
4
"A World ol Pure Experience," p. 535.
 PHILOSOPHY OF PURE EXPERIENCE 3°7

relations, a relation and nothing more, the

but still

Self. If we bear
mind the fundamental thesis of
in
Professor James' " World of Pure Experience,"
what he means by affirming that the Self is merely
a felt-relation at once becomes clear. There is
nothing real and existing except experiences and
the felt-transitions, themselves experiences, by
which we pass from one experience to another.
Hence the Self must be either one or the other or
both. In fact, it is described as merely a specially
4 9
intimate felt-relation, or co-conscious transition.
" Personal histories are process of change in time,
and the change itself is one of the things immediately
4
experienced. Change in this case means con-
'

tinuous as opposed to discontinuous transition.

But continuous transition is one sort of a conjunctive
relation and to be a radical empiricist means to
;

hold fast to this relation of all others, for this is the

strategic point, the position through which, if a hole
be made, all the corruptions of dialectics and all the
metaphysics pour into our philosophy. The holding
fast to this relation means taking it at its face value,
neither less nor more and to take it at its face
;

value means, first of all, to take it just as we feel it." 1

Since, then, " what I do feel simply when a later

moment of my experience succeeds an earlier one,
is that though they are two moments, the transition

from one to the other is continuous" 2 it follows

44
that there is no other nature, no other whatness than
this absence of break and this sense of continuity in
that most intimate of all conjunctive relations, the
passing of one experience into another when they
1 " A World of Pure Experience," p. 536.
2
Ibid.
3o8 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

belong to the same self." 1 Thus "a mind or 4

'

'
personal consciousness is the name for a series of
'

experiences run together by definite transitions,"

just as " an objective reality is a series of similar
experiences knit together by different transitions." 2
[ § 210. Now it would seem that if I am a certain
series of experiences conjunctively run together,
and if you are another such series, we could hardly
communicate one with another, since my experiences
and yours are mutually exclusive. In spite, how-
ever, of his mosaic philosophy, Professor James is
able to find something in common between us, and
so to establish a means of inter-communication.
True, for the most part, my experiences and yours
4 4
float and dangle,' are out of sight, irrelevant and
unimaginable.' Nevertheless, they terminate in a
nucleus of common perception.' 3 This does not
4

mean that our experiences ever terminate in numeri-

cally thesame identical percept for all percepts,
;

being the experiences of different minds, are some-

what different, at least in their point of view 4 ;

but it does mean that they terminate in something

which is numerically one and the same. That some-
thing is space, or, as Professor Strong prefers to
call it, pseudo-space. Space, then, or place — for
the two terms are not distinguished by Professoi
James — affords a means of inter-communication
between mind and mind.
That body of yours which you actuate and feel from
within must be in the same spot as the body of yours
There,' for me
4

which I see and touch from without.

1
Jbid., p. 537.
2 3 *
Ibid., p. 566. Ibid., pp. 535, 536. Ibid., p. 567.
 PHILOSOPHY OP PURE EXPERIENCE 309

means where I my finger. If you do not feel my

place
finger's contact to be there in my sense, when I place it
6
'

on your body, where then do you feel it ? Your inner

actuations ;of your body also meet my finger there ;
it is tliere that you resist its push, or shrink back, or
sweep the finger aside with your hand. ... In general
terms, then, whatever differing contents our minds may
fill a place with, the place itself is a numerically
identical content of the two minds, a piece of common
property in which, through which, and over which they
join. 1

§ 211. This solution of the difficulty of ^explain-

ing interaction between mind and mind does^but
involve us in another. For if mind and matter, the
knower and the known, are but aspects into which
in retrospection we split the unity of an experience,
and if our minds "terminate in the same percept,
"2
not merely against it if, that is, what is common
;

to you and to me is not merely common but numeri-

cally identical and immanent to both of us, then it
would seem that we are not different minds at all,
but at bottom, and somehow or other, as Mr. Bradley
would say, one and the same.
Such a doctrine clearly tends toward Monism. Yet
Monism is, by the rigid empiricist, emphatically
denied, and many categorical assertions might be
found in the writings of Professor James with which
it is in direct contradiction. 3 It is certainly incom-
patible with a pluralistic philosophy, and it is also
incompatible with the Personal Idealism toward
which so many pragmatists tend (though so, for that
matter, is the above inadequate account of the Self).
And in any case, it would hardly do for Professor
1
Ibid., pp. 567, 568.
* Ibid., p. 567. 3
e.g., in A Pluralistic Universe (passim).
 '

THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

James, who is at present at war with the Absolute,

to borrow a second doctrine from Absolutism in
addition to that of Immanence. For the present,
therefore, he is content to affirm that

round the nucleus, partly continuous and partly discrete,

of what we call the physical world of actual perception,
innumerable hosts of thinkers, pursuing their several
lines of physically true cogitation trace paths that
intersett one another only at discontinuous perceptual
points, and the rest of the time are quite incongruent. 1

Yet Professor James is inclined to adopt some

form of Panpsychism, for the beyond in a philo-
'
'

sophy of experience, he tells us, must itself be " of

an experimental nature " and " if not a future
;

experience of our own or a present one of our

neighbour, it must be an experience for itself.'
Hence, although " the world is so far forth a
pluralism of which the unity is not fully experienced
as yet," even Professor James does not deny that
ultimately an Erfahrungseinheit may be possible. 2
§ 212. The philosophy of Avenarius is not
essentially different in its conclusions from that of
Professor James. Avenarius, too, seems to have
adopted provisionally a kind of Panpsychism or
Personal Idealism, though, like the latter, he thinks
that individual minds are tending toward homo-
geneity, if not toward actual unity. He, too,
reduces everything to experience, and distinguishes
within it a subjective and an objective aspect. His
presentment of his philosophy, however, differs
considerably from that of the sketchy style adopted
1
Ibid., p. 543, and cf. The Meaning of Truth, pp. 113, 114.
*loc. cit., p. 569, and cf.A Pluralistic Universe, p. 328.
 —

PHILOSOPHY OF PURE EXPERIENCE 311

in the metaphysical articles of Professor James,

though, unfortunately, it is also much encumbered
by a new and quite unnecessary terminology.
Avenarius' Empirio-Criticism is only another name
for the philosophy of Pure Experience. We may
regard experience either from an absolute or from
a relative point of view, i.e., we may either consider
the relation of an object (R) to a percept (E), or we
may substitute for (E) a brain-state (Cm) (the
Empirio-Critical and consider the
substitution)
relation of R In either case our results will
to C.
be the same for the psychical character of an
;

experience and its objective contents are but

different aspects of the same entity, experience, and
between them there is Hence,
a functional relation.
for the independent vital series,
pain striving —
satisfaction, may be substituted the dependent vital
series, stimulus — —
reaction equilibrium and this is ;

a law which holds throughout experience. The

oscillations of (R), the objective aspect of experience,
is always the correlative of (S), the subjective aspect.
The magnitude of the oscillations corresponds to the
intensity of consciousness ; their direction, according
as it is toward or away from equilibrium, means
pleasure or pain. A habitual series is the correlative
of familiarity and certitude, while a new series means
a modification of habit in the physiological order
and a Heterotote, i.e., a modification of knowledge,
in the psychical.

§ 213. Character (feeling, perceiving, willing,

knowing) may in all experiences be distinguished
from content (what is perceived or thought), but it is
distinguished only in retrospection, and is perceived
 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

immediately and spatially precisely in the same

manner as content. (This, by the way, is the first
axiom of Empirio-Criticism.) Since, then, character,
which we ascribe to the self, is just as objective as
content, which we ascribe to an objective world,
some other difference must be found by which to
distinguish the self from the not-self. This difference
for Avenarius, as for Professor James, lies in the
peculiar intimacy of the relations or transitions
which hold within the former.
Other selves or minds are known by the Empirio-
Critical Postulate, and not by Introjection, which is
the method by which common-sense imagines that
it attains to this piece of knowledge. In Introjec-
tion man first attributes to his likes, feelings and
thoughts similar to his own, and in this way dis-
tinguishes two worlds, the world of consciousness
or minds and the world of material objects. This
he sets down as an intuition. But when he comes
to reflect, he finds that he cannot explain how the
two worlds, if distinct, can interact and so comes
;

to the conclusion that his intuition was not an

intuition at all, but a very bad inference, which he
proceeds to correct by becoming a subjective
idealist and denying the existence of any objective
world at all. The subjective idealist, however, is
fundamentally wrong, for the objective is just as
much an aspect of experience as the subjective.
And his mistake is due to his having supposed that
our knowledge of other minds is an intuition,
whereas it is really a postulate. The truth is that
we are forced to postulate the existence of other
selves in order to account for certain elements in
 PHILOSOPHY OP PURE EXPERIENCE 31 j

our experience ; and so long as our experience

retains its dual aspect, this hypothetical element in
the naturliche WeUbegriff will remain. But should
we ever attain to that state in which we inarticu-
'

lately experience and

' unintellectually enjoy,'
'

this dual aspect will disappear and with it will go

those hypothetical other selves which are due to
analysis and experiment.
t
§ 214. The aim of a philosophy of Pure
Experience, therefore, is not far to seek. Since so
much of our experience is now no longer pure, the
philosopher must make it his business to purify it.
This he can only do by making a clean sweep of all
those notions by which our ancestors strove to
facilitate thought, but in fact have only encumbered
it. Substance, accident, cause, self, must be done
away. We must descend to the purer level again.
This process of de-intellectualisation is recommended
by Professor James but it is Avenarius who has
;

given us the most intelligent account of the pure

experience to which we must return. By philosophy
he understands the interpretation of the universe in
accordance with the Principle of Least Energy which
enjoins upon us that we strive (1) to comprehend
the many in the one, and (2) to eliminate all useless
ideas (substance, cause, and the like) since they are
static, whereas experience is essentially a process
and a growth. This done, all that will remain will
4
be impressions. Being must be thought as an
'

impression which presupposes nothing beyond what

is apparent to the senses. Impressions are the only
real content of experience, while change is the form
which experience takes. This is all that the
 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

philosopher is concerned with, unless, perhaps, he

can complete his work by the discovery of an
Empfindungseinheit. And as for science, its

characteristics, when the ideal of pure experience

has been reached, will be the following. It will be
purely descriptive, yet simple, exact, complete.
Quality will be reduced to quantity and laws will
;

treat of quantitative equivalence, not of causal

connection or sequence. All values and quantitative
relations will be interdependent and mutually
deducible one from another. Religion, philosophy
and morals also will be characterised by a purely
experimental method, and will be regarded from a
purely experimental point of view. The vital series
will have attained a maximum of simplicity, and
the same series will be universal throughout the race.
Predispositions, prejudices and individual differences
will have disappeared, and their place will be taken
by an indefinite variety of minute impressions,
leading to reactions of a simple and invariable type.
In short, when the ideal of pure experience has been
realised, man will have become a mere machine, so
that no matter what particular specimen of humanity
you may choose, if you press the same lever you
will get the same feeling and the same performance
will take place.
§ 215.Before proceeding to a discussion of the
philosophy described in the chapter, I should like
to call attention to what is, to say the least, a
somewhat remarkable coincidence. It is this :

M. Abel Rey, in a work entitled La thdoric de la

Physique chez les physiciens contcmporains, after a
careful examination of the theories and methods of
 PHILOSOPHY OP PURE EXPERIENCE 31$

Newton, Rankine, Mach, Ostwald, and Duhem,

comes to the conclusion that the philosophy with
which physical science is most compatible, even if
it does not presuppose it, is a modified form of

Positivism which bears a striking resemblance, not

only to Pragmatism, but also to the philosophy of
Pure Experience.
M. Abel Rey does not profess to be a pragmatist,
nor does he acknowledge that he has been influenced
by pragmatic ideas. In fact, the only reference
which he makes to Pragmatism occurs in a footnote
to page 393, where he remarks that certain of his
own ideas are analogous to those of Pragmatism,
and that Pragmatism for this very reason, provided
it abandons the agnosticism toward which it is

driven by the fashion of the age, will, like the

sceptical criticism of science with which it is con-
nected by numerous bonds, have rendered a service
to the experimental rationalism of the future. That
this should be the only allusion to Pragmatism in a
philosophical treatise of over 400 pages dealing with
the theory of knowledge, and with the principles
and methods of Mach, Ostwald and Poincare, all of
whom have been claimed as pragmatists, seems to
me to be somewhat strange and is still more so
;

when w e
r
Rey are not
consider that the ideas of M.
merely analogous to those of Pragmatism, but are
as emphatically pragmatic as any held by the most
whole-hearted pragmatist or humanist.
§ 216. M. Rey claims to be a positivist or an
empiricist, though not of the school of Comte and
Stuart Mill, whose Empiricism he rejects because it
gives us no satisfactory theory of the categories.
 '

3t6 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE.

The categories, says M. Rey, are not forms of the

mind any more than they are forms of objective
reality,but are due to the purposive adaptation of
the habitual activities of mind to the demands of
objective experience. Nay, more, the opposition
of mind and matter is itself strictly relative.
Objective experience not something exterior and
is
44
independent of mind. Objective experience and
mind are implied one in the other and exist and
develop one through the other.' 1 Hence, the
categories must be treated historically. Since they
result from evolution they must have a historical
signification. Their nature is psychological and
social perhaps even biological. 2
;

From this point of view M. Rey approaches the

question of truth. All truths for him, as for
Dr. Schiller, are human truths and have been
They are the result of choice
gradually evolved.
made by man with a view to adapting himself to
his environment. Their apparent self-evidence and
fixity isdue to force of habit. " Little by little our
truths have acquired a certain stability like to
biological immunity, so that certain ways of thinking
have become ours and exclude at the cost of destroy-
ing our thinking organism the possibility of becoming
other than they are." In this process of adaptation,
by which truth has been acquired, moreover, man
has been guided throughout by utility and by
practical considerations, a criterion which, we are
warned, as usual, must be taken not vulgari modo,
but in a most noble sense. The usual pragmatic
conclusion also is drawn. Since all truths have a
1 2
op. ctt., p. 393. Ibid., p.397'
 PHILOSOPHY OP PURE EXPERIENCE 317

history and are due to the combined product of the

mind of man and of his environment, the psycho-
logical structure of man must leave an indelible
trace even on scientific truths which will ever carry
in consequence the mark of human fabrication.
§ 217. In his discussion of the validity of
physical theories (Book V.) and of the inferences
which may be drawn from science in regard to the
theory of knowledge in general, therefore, M. Rey
has really given us a brief, but vigorous, exposition
of many of the leading doctrines of the pragmatist.
Not only this, but by combining his Pragmatism
with a philosophy of Pure Experience, he affords
but another instance of the marked tendency of
Pragmatism toward this philosophy, and at the
same time has brought out clearly the difficulties
with which Pragmatism is involved if this is in truth
the end toward which it inevitably leads. M. Rey
believes that his conclusions in regard to truth and
reality follow logically from the principles and
methods of science. Here I cannot agree with him. 1
Yet by starting from the scientific point of view,
M. Rey, though not prolessedly a pragmatist, seems
to throw considerable light upon the metaphysical
aspect of the pragmatic theory of knowledge.
The first problem of knowledge, viz., in what docs
knowledge M. Rey pronounces insoluble.
consist,
Knowledge for him is a unique and mysterious
relation which arises, we know not how, from the
adaptation of man to his environment. We cannot
say in what precisely knowledge consists. All we
1
cf. chaps, xvii., xviii. on Pragmatism and Realism in Physical
Science.
 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

can do is to trace more or less imperfectly its history.

knowledge or truth as adaequatio
It is useless to define
mentis ad rem, for mind and its object are essentially
relative and must not be treated as if they were
independent and distinct. Everything, in fact, is a
relation. Experience itself is a relation, a system
of relations. Relations are the given, and when we
analyse them we do but come across further rela-
tions. 1 Terms means by which relations
are only the
are expressed, and when we try to define them we
have to fall back upon relations. Knowledge,
experience, reality are ultimately one and the same
thing they constitute the relation, ce qui est. But
;

what this is must ever remain a mystery.

The solution of the second problem of knowledge
on these lines is simplicity itself. Ab esse ad posse
valet illatio. Knowledge is possible because it is

ce qui est. There are no conditions to enquire into,

since neither subject nor object can exist apart from
the relation from which they arise as co-relative
terms. Mind is unintelligible apart from matter.
Hence those theories of knowledge and they are, —
alas, in the majority —
which place matter on the
one side and mind on the other as distinct entities,
and which then enquire how they can be brought
together or how one can come to know the other,
are theories which start from an altogether erroneous
standpoint and are vitiated throughout by this
fundamental fallacy. We may, indeed, speak of
knowledge psychologically, regarding it as a com-
plexus of habits but further than this we cannot
;

go, for " V

ensemble de ces habitudes est, dans la
1 op. cit., p. 394.
 PHILOSOPHY OF PURE EXPERIENCE 319

seule languc que nous puissions comprendrc, ce

1
qui est."
§ 218. When we consider the relativistic attitude
at present adopted by many scientists, it is not very
surprising that M. Rey should have arrived at a
philosophy in which relation is, as with Renouvier
and Green, the Category of categories, and in which
the mass of relational appearance which Mr. Bradley
holds must somehow qualify the real, is itself identi-
fied with the real. But M. Rey has carried his
Relativism much further than do the pragmatists,
and further, too, than his premises will justify.
Science is certainly concerned with relations, since
it deals, for the most part, with quantitative changes,
and these are strictly relative. It is difficult to
understand, however, how the objects which the
scientist examines can possibly be due to the rela-
tions which hold between them. Can the definite
and simple ratio which holds between the volumes
of combining gases and the volume of the compound
gas that results in any way account for the volumes
and the gases themselves ? Can resemblances,' of*

themselves, account for the respective functions and

organic structures of allied species of animals ? Is
it not rather the other way about, that the relations

arise from the objects themselves, the equality of

volume from the respective volumes of the gases
which combine, the specific resemblances from the
structure and functions of the animals concerned ?
M. Rey, at any rate, is hardly justified in returning
to the view of Renouvier and Green without at least
giving some further reason for his opinion than the
1
Ibid., p. 395.
320 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

mere fact that science is concerned chiefly with

relations.

§ 219. Apart, however, from this exaggerated

Relativism, the remarkable similarity between the
philosophy of M. Rey and the pragmatic philosophy
of Pure Experience, can hardly fail to be noticed.
The identification of knowledge with experience and
the further identification of experience with ce qui
est is clearly the principal thesis upon which the
philosophy of Pure Experience is built. Even for
the Relativism which characterises M. Rey's theory
one may find an analogy in Professor James' dual-
aspect view of experience in which conjunctive and
disjunctive relations play so important a part. And
when one reflects that this theory is the logical
consequence of M. Rey's pragmatic attitude in
regard to the nature of truth, it at any rate suggests
that the philosophy of Pure Experience is the
natural, if not the necessary, complement of the
doctrine that truth consists in a complexus of habits
which have acquired a comparative stability on
account of the useful consequences to which they
lead.
 — r

PHILOSOPHY OF PURE EXPERIENCE 33

CHAPTER XII.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF PURE EXPERIENCE.

II. Criticism.

§ 220. with considerable misgivings that

It is

I enter upon a discussion

of the philosophy of Pure
Experience for fear lest I be told in reply that I have
misunderstood. The general standpoint and signifi-
cance of this philosophy seems to me to be clear
enough but I may be mistaken. And if I am, and
;

have, in consequence, misunderstood what is meant,

let me at once apologise to Professor James and to
the late Avenarius, at the same time pleading in
excuse what Professor J ames himself has said, viz. ,that
a philosophy of pure experience presents so many
. . .

points of difference, both from the common-sense and

from the idealism that have made our philosophic
language, that it is almost as difficult to state it as
it is to think it out clearly, and if it is ever to grow into

a respectable system, it will have to be built up by the

contributions of many co-operating minds. 1

Where the author of a new system of philosophy

doubts his own power to think that system out, it
is rash, perhaps, to attempt to criticise yet when ;

a system, while yet inchoate, is offered to the

philosophic world, the critic is justified in spite of
the difficulty of his task in making the attempt.
§ 221. The real difficulty, however, is not so
much in regard to the philosophy of Pure Experience
1 " A World of Pure Experience," p. 570.
V
322 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

as in regard to its connection with Pragmatism

itself,

and Humanism. The former is unquestionably a

metaphysic Pragmatism as such is not metaphysical.
;

Yet that so many pragmatists should have adopted

a philosophy of Pure Experience, and that the
expressions used by pragmatists and humanists
when speaking ex professo as pragmatists and
humanists, should correspond almost word for word
with the dicta of the philosopher of Pure Experience,
indicates that there is, at any rate, a certain harmony
and congruity between the two and this Professor ;

James admits. 1 On the other hand, Mr. Peirce

assures us that " the real world, the system as a
whole, is, by definition, outside the sphere of
Pragmatism," and that " the genetic account of the
origin and selection of truth is not a philosophy of
reality." 2 Dr. Schiller, too, protests that 'Axioms as
Postulates is "purely epistemological in character,"
'

and that " the conception of knowledge as developing

by the progressive determination of a relatively
indeterminate and plastic matter never pretended
to be more than an analysis ol knowledge." 3 Against
this, however, one has to set the fact that the
4
expressions used in the expositions of these epis-
temological doctrines are of a metaphysical
'

character. It is, indeed, not easy to determine in

4 4 4
what sense such terms as matter,' form,' fact,'
4 4
*
plasticity,' normal objectivity,' the making of
reality,' are used, they are not used in a meta-
if

physical sense. And even if they are not meant

1 Ibid., and ci.The Meaning of Truth, pp. 124, 128, 132, 215, 220.
* Baldwin's Dictionary of Philosophy, article, " Pragmatism."
3
Studies in Humanism, p. 17 (note).
 * ?

PHILOSOPHY OF PURE EXPERIENCE

metaphysically, but are used in some strange and

unnatural signification, they seem to be deliberately
chosen and this intentional ambiguity suggests
;

that Pragmatism is not already a metaphysic,

if

it may at any moment become one. In fact,

Mr. Peirce, in spite of his declaration to the contrary,
which I quoted above, himself tells us that Sync-
chism, which, he says, includes Pragmatism as one
of its branches, is
" first shown to be true with
mathematical exactitude in the field of Logic, and
is thence inferred to hold good metaphysically.' 1
§ 222. May not this be true also of the epistemo-
logical theory propounded in 'Axioms as Postulates'
It is not unlikely. If the statements there made,

and oft-times repeated in Humanism and Studies in

Humanism, are not to be interpreted in a meta-
physical sense, their value is insignificant. For it
is the duty of the epistemologist to assign the con-

ditions of knowledge, and if, instead of assigning its

real conditions, he assigns fictitious and merely
methodological conditions, his theorising is idle and
useless, and his speculation sheer waste of time.
It however, difficult to take the pragmatist's
is,

philosophy of experience, even in Dr. Schiller's case,

in a non-metaphysical sense. For, in the first place,
Dr. Schiller is not a realist. He admits that Realism
has high pragmatic warrant,' and even a high
' '

degree of truth,' but, strictly,' the real world is

merely 'a construction within primary reality,' i.e.,
within a purely chaotic experience which as yet
is neither subjective or objective, appearance or

1
Baldwin's Dictionary of Philosophy, article, " Pragmatism,"
and cf. article, " Synechism."
 '

324 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

reality. 1 He admits also that " in ordinary life we

assume that we an external world, which is
live in
44
'
independent of us," and that it would be a great
'

calamity if any philosophy should feel it its duty to

upset this assumption. For it works splendidly,
and the philosophy which attacked it would only
2
hurt itself." Nevertheless, Dr. Schiller does attack
it on the very next page, where he tells us that the
pragmatically real world, i.e., the real world as we
know it, is but an elaborate construction composed
of the more efficacious parts of experience which
have been selected by man on account of their
utility and dubbed independent facts, powers, '
'

persons, etc., and which have been 'ejected' and

4
extended from his consciousness and endowed
'

4 4
with an independent existence and transcendent '

reality, because he was unwilling to accept

responsibility for them. 3 These 'facts' and these
4
realities are not, however, really independent or
'

4
transcendent, but are immanent within the '

cognitive process, and live wholly inside the tissue

of experience. 4 Nor are we logically forced to
extrude them. Our motive is emotional and
5 44
volitional. 'Truth' and 'reality' are valid, not
because they are independent of us, but because
'
'

we have made them, and they are so completely

' '

dependent on us that we can depend on them to

stay 'true' and 'real' independently of us." c
Doubtless, reality is not wholly of our making. It
supposes pre-existing fact. But pre-existing fact

1
Studies in Humanism, p. 201, and cf. p. 187.
3
* Ibid., p. 459. Ibid pp. 470, 471. * Ibid.,
,
pp. 426, 460.
5 u Ibid.,
Ibid., p. 470. p. 462.
 PHILOSOPHY OF PURE EXPERIENCE

does not presuppose the real world of common-

sense, but the pre-existence of '
primary reality,'
or of chaotic experience. 1 In short, '
reality is

experience/ 2 and we might even say 'reality' is

*
my experience, were it not that the statement
'

might lead us into solipsism, whereas, for the present,

at any rate, we must admit 'an intimate and plastic
correlation between reality and the experient.' Yet
times may change, and a more 'child-like attitude
may be feasible in heaven,' where our ideals of a
more harmonious universe may be realised, where
'
'

experience will become, we may hope, intellectually

transparent and continually harmonious, and where,
consequently, there will be no 'need to postulate
anything beyond our experience to account
3
for it.'

§ 223. But how is our experience to be thus

transformed ? Chiefly it would appear by the
growth of knowledge ; for in knowing we make not
only the 'true' but the 'real,' 4 and " the difference
wrought by pragmatic verification is as great in the
case of reality as it is in that of truth." 5 True,
Dr. Schiller is here speaking of the making of
'
subjective reality,' 0
or knowledge — though why
in that case he should distinguish between reality
and truth it is difficult to see but he also maintains
;

that in knowing we really alter reality, and cites no

7
less than five ways in which this may take place.

1
Ibid., p. 201. 2
Ibid., p. 463.
8
and cf. supra, § 214.
Ibid., p. 486,
* cf. ibid., Essay vii
v
*'
The Making of Truth," and Essay xix.,
" The Making of Reality."
Ibid., pp. 431, 432, and cf. pp. 198 ct scq.
<l 7
cf. ibid., p. 429. Ibid., pp. 438 et scq.
326 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

(i) " The making of truth," he says, " really alters

subjective reality" —a fact which few would dispute,
but the real question, of course, is as to reality
proper, i.e., objective reality. (2)
" Our knowledge
when applied alters real reality, and is not real
knowledge if cannot be applied." This, again,
it

is fairly obvious, but to know and to apply one's

knowledge are not the same thing. Application

implies action and experiment which is not, as such,
knowledge. Hence, that knowledge itself alters real
reality still remains to be proved. (3)
" Human
beings are affected by the opinions of others." Surely,
the opinions of others do not affect us directly, but
only through their actions and words in which those
opinions are expressed. (4) " Mere knowing alters
reality so far at least as one party to the transaction is
1
concerned." Dr. Schiller is here referring to the
knower hence this fourth case differs very little
;

from the first. Moreover, the influence of cognition

on the knower is not in question. (5) The last
instance of the making of reality is the most
' '

interesting of all. Dr. Schiller argues that not only

where men and the higher animals are concerned,
but " even on the purely physical plane on which
our transactions with other bodies are conducted,
there is response to our cognitive manipulations
which varies with our operation, and so therefore
there is real making of reality by us." 2
§ 224. Inanimate things " respond to our

1
Studies in Humanism, pp. 438, 439.
2
Ibid. p. 444. (It should be noted that making here implies
f
4
'

co-operation and reaction. It docs not mean creating/ though *

what appears to us as " original and rigid " may be " con-
ceived as having been made by analogous processes.")
 PHILOSOPHY OF PURE EXPERIENCE! 327

cognitive operations on the level on which they

apprehend 'them." Now, ordinarily, by 'cognitive
operations,' one would understand either thought
or perception, but cognitive manipulation suggests
' '

physical action as well. Hence, once again, we are

left in doubt as to whether Dr. Schiller is propound-
ing a new doctrine, or whether he is mefely affirming
again and again an indisputable fact. One thing,
however, seems to be clear, and that is that
Dr. Schiller is firmly convinced that somehow or
other we really do make reality, and make it in a
metaphysical sense for the purpose of his chapter,
;

entitled The Making of Reality, is to prove that

reality is something which grows up in the process
by which truth is made, and to show that this is
valid, not only for the theory of knowledge, but
4
also as a theory of the Cosmos.' True, he makes
4 '
a distinction between discovering and making
' '

reality, and tells us that " to wish for a chair and

find one, and to wish for a chair and make one, are
experiences which it is not easy to confuse." 1 But
we must remember that this distinction for
Dr. Schiller purely pragmatic, 2 and that our only
is

reason for saying that we do not really make the

chair which we find is, that " its behaviour is such'
that it is practically inconvenient or impossible to
ascribe its reality to our subjective activity :
" 3 we
do not want to be held responsible for its behaviour,
at any rate not just at present, though we may
become more lenient and reasonable later on. In

1
Studies in Humanism, p. 430.
2
Ibid., p. 201.
3
Ibid, p. 430. (Italics mine.)
3*« THEORIES OP KNOWLEDGE

any case, we alter reality, even if we do not wholly

make it. For not only is it irrational to assume
that the Real has a determinate nature which the
knowing reveals but does not affect [but] the actual ;

situation is a case of interaction .... in which the

subject and the object determine each other
When the mind knows reality both are affected, [just as]
when a stone falls to the ground, both it and the earth
are attracted [and just as] in our social relation we
;

frequently put questions which are potent in deter-

mining their own answers, and without putting the
question would have left the subjects undetermined.
[Hence] the 'determinate nature of reality' does not
subsist 'outside or 'beyond' the process of knowing it.
'

.... Previous to trial, it is indeterminate, really and

from every point of view .... within limits which it
1
is our business to discover.

§ 225. As a matter of fact, Dr. Schiller never

does discover these limits, but this deficiency we
must overlook as we have yet to find out how reality
is altered or made by the knowing of it. Do
' '

we impose forms upon the plastic receptivity of

matter directly, or do we impose them only through
the mediation of action ? If mere cognition can
impose them, we can never know the object at all,
tout only the object as altered by our knowing it.
Hence, for all that we know to the contrary, know-
ledge and reality may be one and reluctant as I
;

am to believe that Dr. Schiller has been uttering

mere platitudes, I prefer this alternative rather
than to think that he has adopted so irrational and
sceptical a theory. I take it, then, that when we

are said to make reality, what is meant is that by

1
Humanism, pp. 11, 12 (note).
 Philosophy of pure experience 329

our actions we modify reality. And I am confirmed

in this opinion when I reflect upon Dr. Schiller's
4
pronouncements in regard to mere knowing.' It
6
is, he tells us, merely an intellectualist abstraction,'
" a fragment of a total process, which always ends
in an action which tests its truth," and " to establish
the bearing on reality of the making of truth we
must consider the whole process as completed, i.e.,
as issuing in action, and as sooner or later altering
reality." 1 He then goes on to speak of knowing
and of cognitive operations, not in the ordinary
and accepted use of the terms, but in his pragmatic
sense as including action ; and to prove from this
that cognitive operations (knowing proper plus
action) alter reality. The whole force of the argu-
ment for '
the making of reality '
rests, therefore,
upon this peculiar use of the term knowledge as
including the action which sooner or later follows it.

And that knowledge in this sense produces effects

in, and elicits responses or reactions from, even

inanimate objects no one will deny. Dr. Schiller's

theory that knowledge alters reality
*
sounds '

strange to us merely because he is using terms in

a strange and unwarranted sense and arbitrarily,
ignoring a distinction that all psychologists admit,
viz., the distinction between cognition and action.

§ 226. If we agree, then, to understand by

knowledge, knowledge plus action, the thesis that
knowledge alters reality becomes painfully obvious. 2
Several difficulties arise, however, as soon as we extend
1
Ibid., p. 440.
2
That knowledge always includes action, as Dr. Schiller
assumes and as his theory demands, is contradicted by the facts
of experience, cf. supra, § 98.
330 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

this 'making of reality' to all that seems objective.

For if we interpret Dr. Schiller realistically and
regard matter, in spite of its formless and wholly

plastic receptivity as something really distinct from

our minds, not only is it difficult to conceive how it
could have existed in such a state, but it is also
difficult to imagine how its evolution could have
begun. It is conceivable that our ancestors
might have contrived somehow to endow with forms
the formless receptivity of their environment but, ;

unless they also communicated activity to it, this

wholly plastic matter could not have reacted in
response to these or to any other attempts to
'
inform it '
and if it did react, then it must have
;

reacted in a more or less definite manner and so

must have had already a minimum of structure.
In other words, if we. suppose matter to have been
independent of mind, and yet to have evolved
solely under the influence of Vaction-penstc, we are
confronted with a contradiction, for either matter
was wholly formless and plastic, and so could not
react, and consequently could not evolve or else ;

matter could react and so could not have been at

the outset wholly plastic and formless.
§ 227. Dr. Schiller is not unaware of this
difficulty, for he mentions it on p. 434 of his Studies,
and proceeds to answer it by telling us that there
is no answer, for " the whole question is invalid,
because it asks too much. It demands to know
nothing less than how realitycomes to be at all,
how fact is made absolutely. And this is more than
philosophy can accomplish or need attempt." But,
surely, this is not the case. We do not ask how
 ;

PHILOSOPHY OF PURE EXPERIENCE 331

reality in general began, for clearly, as a whole,

reality never could begin. What we want to know
is the origin of contingent reality, of that reality
which we find around us and which is subject to
change, and of the knowledge which we, human
agents, possess of that reality. Panpsychism, which
is but another form of the philosophy of Pure

Experience, 1 gives some sort of answer to this

question. Indeed, it seems to be, as I have already
pointed out, if not the necessary, at least the
natural, complement of Pragmatism and Humanism.
For while to the collection of psychic experiences
in which reality consists, Humanism adds the
dynamic element by means of which one series of
experiences, i.e., one mind, is able to act upon
another series or mind, and thus explains how by
interaction and mutual modification the different
worlds which each has constructed for himself are
gradually brought to unity the philosophy of Pure
;

Experience, on its side, gets rid of the inconsistency

of a wholly plastic and formless, yet existent,
matter by transforming it into rudimentary minds
endowed with some activity and at least a modicum
of structure. The material universe, in fact, becomes,
as M. Bergson puts it, " a kind of consciousness in
which everything compensates and neutralises
2
itself."
Toward this solution of the difficulty Dr. Schiller
3
inclines yet it is a solution which one can hardly
regard as satisfactory.

1
cf. "A World of Pure Experience," p. 569.
* Mature et Memoir e, p. 262.
* Studies in Humanism, pp. 443, 446, et seq.
 ;

33-* THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

The question whence come the forms which we

impose upon the quasi-conscious beings-for-them-
selves, otherwise known as material things, has yet
to be answered. But in attempting to answer this
question the Pragmatic Method breaks down. It
affirms that all categories and principles, and all

the forms which we impose upon the plastic

receptivity of matter, have had a history. But if
everything has had a history, nothing could ever
have begun to be at all, and as soon as you assign
a beginning to anything, you affirm the existence of
something which has not had a history. Thus the
pragmatist is compelled to allow that there is an
initial basis of reality and truth which has not been
made by us and the question then arises whence
;

that basis with which knowledge began. And, as

we have seen, 1 in order to answer this question, the
pragmatist is forced to have recourse either to
Apriorism or to the theory of Aristotle. In a
wholly genetic theory of knowledge the origin of
knowledge is not only inexplicable, but impossible
and in a wholly genetic theory of the universe
reality could never have come into being at all.
§ 228. Closely connected with this question of
the origin of knowledge is another difficulty which
confronts the pragmatist when he tries to back up
his Pragmatism by a panpsychic version of the
philosophy of Pure Experience. In a panpsychic
universe all that exists is mind, and all knowledge
is about mind, hence the problem is how different

minds come to know one another. The meta-

physical conditions of knowledge, according to
1
cf. supra, § 99.
 PHILOSOPHY OF PURE EXPERIENCE

Professor James, are (i) a plurality of minds, and

(2) a common world which can be known by each.
These conditions, however, apply only to our present
stage of development, and are expressed in the
language of common-sense. Consequently, when
used by the philosopher of Pure Experience, they
4
have to be re-interpreted. Thus the plurality of
minds becomes " the practically irreversible
'

structure of our consciousness, defining the general

forms within which our answers must fall " 1 ;

while the common world becomes " a most

4
'

chaotic pure experience which sets us questions,"

and which at most possesses but a minimum of 1

structure a chaotic pure experience which

belongs, I take it, to psychical beings in an abnor-
mally low stage of development. Now, if knowledge
is to make any progress, somehow or other these
two sets of psychical beings or experiences must
interact. But how is this possible ? Professor
James has agreed to do without the concept of
causation,and he expressly denies that we have
any direct apprehension of the nature of other
minds. Our thoughts, he says, do not perceptually
terminate in other minds, but lead us only to their
44
*
brink,' to their chromatic fringes, and to the
hurtful words and deeds which are their really next
2
effects." If, then, minds are in themselves un-
knowable, and if everything is of the nature of mind,

1
Professor James qualifies this statement by adding " that
the structure was wrought in us long ago," but this qualification
can apply only to some features in the present structure of mind,
otherwise we should again be involved in the difficulty of getting
knowledge to start.
* " A World of Pure Experience,"
p. 563.
334 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

how do we get any knowledge at all ? To say that

we postulate other minds is obviously no solution
of the difficulty whatsoever, for if we cannot
experiment upon other minds, and they cannot
react upon ours, there is no possible way in which
our postulate can be verified. The universe having
been reduced to individual psychical beings, between
which no interaction can take place, each individual
isshut up within the limits of his own experiences.
He cannot communicate them to anybody else.
Hence we are driven to Subjective Idealism or
Solipsism.
§ 229. Professor James might have got out of
the difficulty by admitting some form Qf monistic
Idealism or Absolutism, but that would have been
too repugnant to a pluralist or he might have
;

admitted, with Dr. Schiller, that mind and matter

(i.e., other minds less developed) can interact but
;

this would have implied the validity of causation.

Accordingly, he has recourse to another experiment,
and postulates a common world of space. If we
are to be able to communicate one with another,
there must be something in common between us,
and as our minds do not terminate in the same
percepts (since the percepts of different persons are
never precisely the same), it is better to say that
they terminate in the same place, or space or pseudo-
space, or something or other of that kind which is
very much like space.
Really I do not see how space is going to help
' '

Professor James out of his difficulty unless he is

willing to interpret it realistically. Indeed, it is
no easy task to discover what precisely space can
 PHILOSOPHY OF PURE EXPERIENCE

mean in a philosophy of Pure Experience. It must

be some aspect of experience, however, for ex
hypothesi there is nothing but experience in existence.
Moreover, when a given experience, per se pure and
simple, has been analysed post factum into a dual
aspect, we could hardly say that space belonged to
the subjective aspect, so that it must belong to the
objective. Or, in other words, when two people
perceive the same thing, as we say, the objective
and spatial aspects of their respective experiences
are really identical. Whence it follows that when
A and B perceive the same thing, the piece of
experience in question, say Memorial Hall, has not
only a dual, but a triple aspect, viz., the objective
and spatial aspect Memorial Hall and the subjective
aspects of A's and B's consciousness respectively.
Nay, more, should there happen to be a crowd
gathered in front of Memorial Hall, that fortunate
piece of experience would thereby obtain an in-
definite number of subjective aspects, each of which
would be the other side, so to speak, of the same
objective experience. But if this given piece of
experience is really one and the same, and is really
common to all the different minds that perceive it
in such a way that they can only be separated from
it and regarded as distinct by an abstraction, then

minds in reality are not distinct and individual, but

are at bottom one. Thus starting from Pure
Experience as interpreted by the Personal Idealist
or the panpsychist, we arrive at a conclusion which
is utterly incompatible with Personal Idealism, and

indeed with any species of pluralistic philosophy a con-

,

clusion which ultimately must lead us on to Monism,

336 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

On the other hand,

if space is interpreted realis-

tically, it i§independent and distinct from mind ;

and experience ceases to be one thing which we

retrospectively distinguish into a subjective and an
objective aspect, for it is and has been all along
dual in that the somebody who experiences is really
distinct from the something (viz., space) that is
experienced. But if this much is granted, why
common object of all perception to space ?
restrict the
Why single out an abstraction and make that real,
instead of admitting, with common-sense and the
realist, that the material world as a whole is real ?

Common-sense Realism is a much better solution

than a half-thought-out philosophy which seems to
and cast some one way, some another.
tear us in pieces
§ 230. The disruptive tendency of the philosophy
of Pure Experience may be further illustrated by
the theory that the known in conceptual thought is
a " possible experience." When my knowledge
does not terminate in an actual percept, it refers,
I am told, to a 'possible experience.' What is this
'
possible experience,' and to whom does it belong ?
4
Is it but another name for Mill's possibility of
sensation ? Apparently not for this would mean
'
;

Subjective Idealism, which we must try to avoid.

'
The beyond must be of an experimental nature ;

and if not a future experience of our own (it cannot

be merely a future experience of our own if it really
exists) or a present one of our neighbour, it must
be a thing in itself, i.e., an experience for itself
whose relation to other things we translate into
the action of molecules, ether-waves,' 1
etc. So far,
1 " A World of Pure Experience," p. 569.
 PHILOSOPHY OF PURE EXPERIENCE 337

so good the possible experience exists, for it is the

:

experience of a psychical something and, once ;

4
again, this opens the chapter,' as Professor James
4
says, to the relations of Radical Empiricism to
Panpsychism.' The 'possible experience' in ques-
tion, however, is a possible experience for me, so
that somehow or other I must be able to get at it ;

but how cannot conceive. I shall be told, I

I

suppose, that when I move about or take a journey,

my experience grows by the edges,' and may end
4

by coinciding with the experience of that psychic

something which I know. Whether such an account
of the way in which we come to perceive objects is
adequate I leave it to the reader to judge. Person-
ally, it does not seem to me to explain anything
at all, for it does not tell me how I am going to
appropriate to myself that other experience which,
for me, is only possible, and at present belongs to
somebody else who is quite distinct from me. The
transition from possible to actual experience still
4
remains a mystery. The conterminousness of
4
different minds and the concatenated union of
' '

different parts of the world of Pure Experience seem

to be little more than words, and they certainly
4
cannot help us. Indeed, the very termini which '

are supposed to exist between different minds in

this hypothesis, serve but to shut each mind up in
its own experience and to prevent it from passing

from there to other experiences at present belonging

to other minds or to psychic things in themselves.
Relations of contiguity (nothing between) are
equally unavailing, for what is contiguous ipso facto
does not interpenetrate. Yet I must be able some-
NY
33* THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

how to get from my own to the experiences of

somebody else, otherwise, me, they are not
for
possible experiences, and I cannot know them at all.
Hence I am forced to admit a transcendental leap,'
'

or else to postulate a common something. And if I

choose the latter course, again I am driven back-
wards to the Monism of a previous chapter or
forwards to the Realism of the next. Either that
common something is inside or it is outside the
minds that experience it. If it is outside, and we
wish to avoid the salto mortale, we must admit
causal interaction and direct apprehension of the
nature of reality if it is inside, we must modify
;

Personal Idealism and admit the through and'

through type of union, each in all and all in each,'

which is the characteristic of monistic Idealism.
§ 231. It is hardly necessary for me to show
that the arguments here used against the philosophy
of Pure Experience as expounded by Professor
James, apply also to the Empirio-Criticism of
Avenarius, for I have already shown that the two
philosophies are fundamentally the same. Subject
and object, character and content, independent and
dependent vital series are but different aspects of
one and the same entity, experience, relatively
distinguished in retrospection, but not really
distinct. Logical relations between character and
content and functional relations between psychosis
and brain-state are added, but they explain
nothing and the Psycho-physical Parallelism
;

which they imply cannot be proved to hold except

for sensations and images and those connections and
groupings of images which are classed under the
 PHILOSOPHY OF PURE EXPERIENCE 339

general heading of Association of Ideas. Hence

the same difficulties arise as before, and similar
alternatives present themselves. Either experiences
are grouped in finite centres or they are not. If
they are, we have Pluralism, and must either admit
causal interaction or else assign a common Ground :

and if they are not, we have Experience left standing

by itself ; without substance, yet giving rise to
differences without Ground, yet somehow producing
;

appearances, and from its primary state of un-

differentiated purity by some mysterious process,
evolving a conglomeration of ideas, illusory, in-
significant, useless, only to return in the end, aided
by the philosopher, to the same dull state of flat
and meaningless monotony.
§ 232. The philosophy of Avenarius suggests
another difficulty which may be urged against the
philosopher of Pure Experience. Avenarius intro-
duces pro tempore and by the assistance of his
Empirio-Critical postulate the existence of other
minds. Yet he forgets to tell us how it comes
4
about that character is grouped together in these
'

postulated minds, or how it is that while character

appears to be so grouped content may extend to an
indefinite beyond. No unity of Ground is pre-
supposed as the condition of the grouping of feelings,
thoughts and volitions in these pseudo-real centres
of experience which are eventually to disappear ;

and hence the concept of the self finds no place in

the philosophy of Empirio-Criticism.
By Professor James the concept of the self is
treated in like manner, and is emptied of all real
significance. Personality and unity, conceptions
34Q THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

so prominent in Personal Idealism, and so forcibly

thrust upon us by the data of experience are almost
entirely wanting in his mosaic philosophy. Relations
of various degrees of intimacy are much to the fore,
but no unity of Ground is admitted, and conse-
quently for Radical Empiricism there is no real self.
Professor James does not scruple, indeed, to use
realistic terminology. Again and again he speaks
of minds which think and feel, and which actuate
'
* ' '

bodies. But neither in his Principles of Psychology

nor yet in his metaphysical sketches is a real self to
be found as the result of his careful analyses. The
self for him is merely a system of memories, pur-
poses, strivings, fulfilments or disappointments an ;

aggregate of relations intimately cohering together,

co-conscious and somehow leading one into the
other, yet without any unity in the background, or
any substance to explain this fortuitous concourse
of psychical characteristics. What is it holds
together these various items, memories, purposes,
strivings ? What is it forms them into a system ?
How is it that they interpenetrate and suffuse one
another's being while others are left outstanding ?
How are they distinguished from one another and
yet united in synthesis ? What is the significance of
that little word 'my' when I say that my experiences
pass continuously from one to the other, yet
never pass directly into the experiences of somebody
else ? What is the significance and what the use of
those purposes, strivings and needs which, together,
determine the will to believe,' if they do not belong
'

to a real person, a real unity, who knows that he

has them and demands that, whatever may happen
 PHILOSOPHY OF PURE EXPERIENCE

to other purposes and needs, his, at any rate, must

and shall be satisfied ?

§ 233. Pragmatism cannot be reconciled with a

Personal Idealism such as has been outlined in the
symposium which bears that name, until it assigns
to personality a fuller meaning than is assigned to
it Radical Empiricism and in the philosophy
in
of Pure Experience. Purposes, unless they are
purposes for somebody, needs, unless they belong to
a real self, satisfactions, emotions, will, action,
unless they are united and co-ordinated by a living
personality, are abstractions quite as empty and
4
meaningless as those of pure intellect or mere
'
'

knowing.' Faculties and functions which work

together for a common end are intelligible only if
they are grounded in a real and living unity, and
unity and functions alike are abstractions if separated
and considered apart. Professor James feels a
great repugnance to putting the Kantian hurly- '

burly of sensations within the soul

'
yet sensations ;

are neither more nor less chaotic than memories,

' '

strivings, purposes and felt-transitions without a

soul. Kant, with his transcendental Unity of
Apperception, which is at bottom but another name
for the unity of a rational self, is at any rate able
to explain the synthesis of the many in the one.
But Professor James and the philosophers of Pure
Experience not only fail to account for this synthesis,
but, neglecting presuppositions, seem to forget that
a mosaic is not a mosaic at all, nor a series a series,
unless the individuals which compose it somehow
form a unity, or are capable of being apprehended
by a mind which itself is a unity. The pragmatist
34* THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

cannot be content with such a philosophy. He is

pragmatically bound to restore real unities to their
proper place in a metaphysic of the universe and
in a theory of human knowledge, for without them
we are left with a hurly-burly which, in spite of its

more chaotic and more unintelligible

felt-relations, is
than any Kantian manifold, and with a philosophy
which is wholly incapable of answering any rational
question, of serving any rational purpose, or of
satisfying any human need.
§ 234. Supposing, however, that this restitution
has been made, that the unities destroyed by Pure
Experience and the selves annihilated by Radical
Empiricism have been reinstated, and that the
philosophy of Pure Experience has been transformed
into Personal Idealism, can the pragmatist find here
a metaphysic which will satisfy his rational needs ?
I think not, for Personal Idealism and Panpsychism

themselves are incomplete and tend to disruption.

The discrepancy which arises when an attempt is
made to account for intercommunication between
mind and mind we have already pointed out but ;

the incompleteness of Personal Idealism may be

shown in quite another way. It seems to assume,
with Fichte, that the Universe consists of a system
of rational, striving Egos. A multiplicity of rational
beings, however, cannot be an ultimate fact. This
multiplicity must be accounted for, and it cannot
be accounted for by saying that each rational ego
exists of its own nature, and is necessary inde-
pendently of its neighbours ;for this would lead to
a contradiction. A necessary being which is wholly
independent of anything else, must be infinite, since,
 philosophy of pure experience

being independent and distinct, there is nothing

which could limit it. Yet de facto it is not infinite

since there are ex hypothesi other beings which have
perfections that it does not possess. A multiplicity
of beings, then, cannot individually be
rational
necessary. Either they must form a systematic
whole which finds its unity and necessity in an
immanent Ground, in which case their personality
is once more destroyed, for they no longer have any
self which is really distinct from that Ground or, ;

while still retaining and their

their personality
mutual independence, they presuppose some Being
who is one, infinite and necessary, and whose
existence and purposive action is the real, though
not the immanent, Ground of theirs.
§ 235. Thus, so far as real and personal unities
and a real and personal God are concerned, we have
come back to Realism. One assumption alone bars
the way to a complete return, and that is the
assumption which is common to all Idealisms, viz.,
that the subject experiencing and the real object
experienced are not distinct. That it is an
assumption is evident ; for the testimony of direct
experience is negative, and the testimony of common-
sense belief opposed.
is Pure experience, if we
' '

have any, tells us nothing whatsoever about real

unities, for though we do not distinguish the self
from the not-self, we certainly do not regard them
as one nor do we do so when our experience is
;

purely objective, as it is said at times to be, for then

there is no subconsciousness at all. The fact
remains, therefore, that as soon as reflection super-
venes on an act of direct experience, things and the
344 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

conscious self, objects and the psychical acts in

which they were known, in a word, what is ex-
perience and we who experience, are held to be
really distinct and this distinction is referred back
;

—
by us to the act in which according to some it —
passed unnoticed. It is the denial of this distinction
which has led to Absolutism and to the incon-
sistencies and inexplicable mysteries which are to
be found therein. And it is the denial of this dis-
tinction which has led to the philosophy of Pure
Experience which is even more inconsistent and
more mysterious still.
§ 236. But am I right in saying that all Idealisms
make the disastrous assumption referred to above ?
Perhaps I, too, have exaggerated ? Indeed, it
would seem that I have. For I observe a tendency
among many idealists, notably Personal idealists
and possibly Professor Mackenzie, to deny altogether
this assumption, and to adopt a philosophy which,
in all respects but one, is a Realism. Idealists of
this kind admit individual existents and affirm that
they interact ; but in order to explain interaction
they postulate that the world, which the realist calls
material, is at bottom spiritual. This I cannot but
regard as a misnomer, for the material world is
essentially different from man. On the other hand,
between the knower and the known there must be
some similarity of nature, and if to the so-called
material world we assign a reality less perfect than
that which belongs to man, it is largely a question
of words perhaps whether we call it spiritual or
not. Spirituality, however, connotes intellect and
will ;and to predicate those of material things is
 ;

PHILOSOPHY OF PURE EXPERIENCE 345

neither consistent with facts nor necessary in order

to explain knowledge. Interaction we must postu-
late ;but interaction is possible even if things are
material, as I shall endeavour to show in the follow-
ing chapters whereas if all things are spiritual, as
;

the idealist assumes, interaction is simply a mystery

which no one can explain.
In any case this Idealism is not that which the
pragmatist has adopted. It might, indeed, be called
a form of Panpsychism but to Panpsychism the
;

pragmatist adds his doctrine that in every case

reality is really altered by our knowledge of it.
Nothing is more reasonable than to suppose that, if
there be anything personal at the bottom of things,
the way we behave to it must affect 'the way it'

behaves to us." 1 And, as we have seen, Dr. Schiller

not only does assume this for each and every really
cognitive act, but strives by might and main
to prove it, while at the same time denying
that the contrary hypothesis is capable of rational
defence. Consequently, our knowledge is never
knowledge of reality, but only of modifications
produced in reality by the very act of knowing it
and that second factor which must be admitted into
reality, "but is not of our making," 2 must remain
for ever unknowable. The pragmatic theory of
knowledge, therefore, if logically carried out, either
drives us back in Kantian Scepticism with its wholly
useless and meaningless Ding-an-sich ; or, if inter-
preted metaphysically, leads us on to a philosophy
of Pure Experience which, of all philosophies, is the

1
'Axioms as Postulates,' § 24.
2
Studies in Humanism, p. 468.
 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

most hopeless, for its power of explaining the

universe is absolutely nil, and as soon as an intelligent
meaning put upon its atrocious terminology it at
is

once bursts with discrepancy and leaves us no better

off than when we started.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE

EX PARTE OBJECTL
§ 237. In this and in the two following chapters
I do not propose to give a full or in any way an
adequate account of the metaphysics of any realistic
philosophy, nor do I propose to discuss in detail
the various categories of Being. That is a duty
which pertains to the metaphysician as a meta-
physician, and not to the epistemologist, who is
concerned with metaphysics only in so far as he has
to treat of the conditions of human knowledge.
My intention here is to give merely a brief outline
of the metaphysics of Realism and to deal at length
only with those of its characteristics which bear
directly upon, and are presupposed by, the realist's
theory of knowledge.
A not uncommon method in metaphysics is to
take its theses one by one, and to endeavour to
show that each is self-evident or that it can be
inferred from the data of our experience. I have

deliberately chosen another course. Not that I

disapprove of the older method, or that I think it
 THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE 347

impossible to establish individually and yet with

some degree of conclusiveness the doctrines of
metaphysics but, first of all, because the detailed
;

discussion which this way of proceeding would

involve hardly lies within the province of Episte-
mology and, secondly, because I feel that, though
;

to a plain man who, like all men, is born a realist,

such a method might prove convincing, it could
hardly appear so to one who is already persuaded
of the truth of his own philosophic position. Every
philosopher is a dogmatist in that he believes and
affirms his own philosophy to be better than that of
anybody else ; offer him another
and unless you can
philosophy which, taken as a whole, is more syste-
matic, more complete, more self-consistent, more
compatible with the facts of introspection and
common-sense belief, and finally more capable than
his own of satisfying his deepest needs, you can
hardly hope to convince him of the probability,
not to say the truth, of the theory in which you
yourself believe. Now the philosophy of Realism,
as it was understood by Aristotle, Aquinas, and
is still understood by their modern interpreters, the

scholastics, to my mind, presents, when compared

with either Absolutism or Pragmatism, the
characteristics enumerated above. Accordingly,
this is the theory which I propose in brief outline
to describe. It is a system and not a patchwork
mosaic and as a system I shall present it, and would
;

beg that from this standpoint it be judged. Tear

it to pieces, if you will but remember that in
;

doing so you destroy its significance and will in

consequence be only too liable to under-rate its value.
34* THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

§ 238. Absolutism without the Absolute would

be like a city built in the air, and in the same way
Scholasticism without God is a philosophy stripped
of the central idea which dominates the whole.
The limitations, the imperfections, the corruptibility
and the changeful nature of the things which sur-
round us, all point to a something beyond, to a
Being who is free from the manifest deficiencies of
finite things, to whom they owe their existence
and whatever degree of reality they possess, yet of
whom they are but the imperfect manifestation.
And what we find within points in the same direction.
On the one hand, our human souls demand with all
the authority of a categorical imperative a satisfac-
tion which shall stop at nothing short of the infinite.
But, on the other hand, when we reflect on the
impotency of human nature, on its finite knowledge,
capability and power, on its weakness and incon-
stancy, its perversity, its proneness to error and
disease,on its ideals which are so often frustrated
and never realised in full when we reflect on these
;

things, I say, we find no guarantee that our needs

will ever be satisfied unless indeed it be the obstinate
and persistency with which they assert
illogical
their demands. If, then, these exigencies of our

nature are not to be in vain there must be a Being

who is capable of satisfying our desires, for their
satisfaction cannot come from ourselves or from
the finite universe in which we live.
Considerations such as these point to a supreme
all

and all-powerful Being whose existence and essence

are not derived from without, like those of contingent
beings, but who exists of Himself, who is what He
 THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE 349

is because He is, and who cannot, therefore, be other

than infinite, since in Him existence and esserfcefe'
are one. Whether the existence of God can be
proved from these considerations, it is beyond the
scope of my subject to discuss. For the purposes of
theory I assume the existence of a supreme and
infinite Being, because such an assumption is neces-
sary to explain the universe in which we live, and
because without such an assumption our theory of
knowledge would not be complete.
§ 239. Granted, then, that there is a Being who
exists a se it follows that all outside Him must exist
y

in dependence upon Him ; and of these dependent

existents something must now be said. They do
not exist of themselves, otherwise they would be
identical with God ; and they are not infinite, for
they could only be infinite if they existed a sc. Yet
they exist, and their existence can only come from God.
They are not self-existents, but essentially dependent
beings, brought into existence originally by the
mere act of God, and sustained in their existence
and activity by the Divine power. It is a common
mistake to suppose that the scholastic conceives
God and the created universe as beings shut off
from one another and independent except for the
first act of creation by which they came to be. This
is an utter misconception. The universe is regarded
by scholastics as dependent upon God almost as
completely as it is in the theory of Absolutism.
Finite beings are not mere differences of an Absolute
Ground, or mere parts of one organic whole. They
have their own existence and their own nature, both
of which are distinct from His. Yet they resemble
35o THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

and manifest God in their own imperfect way, and,

though distinct from Him, never for a moment are
they independent. So long as they exist, they
depend upon Him for what they are and what
they do. Divine conservation and divine con-
cursus or co-operation are necessary from beginning
to end. In a sense, we may say with truth that God
is the Ground of the universe, so completely does it
depend upon Him for all that it is. But that Ground
is not a Unity amid difference immanent within a

concrete individual whole for there is not identity,

;

but only a far-off resemblance and a onesided °

dependence between created beings and the source
from which they ultimately proceed.
§ 240. None the less, in a realist philosophy there
isroom for the concept-.of 'unity in difference.'
The created universe consists of finite and distinct
existents, each having itsown nature, each in itself
a thing
'
and every thing,' for the realist as for
;
' '

the absolutist, implies a unity in difference. This

is of the utmost importance if it is borne in mind, ;

most of the objections urged against the realist

doctrine of things by Mr. Bradley and others
'
'

disappear. Each thing has its own existence : it

exists per se, and so is a substance. Each thing is

also a what, it has qualities or accidents, in virtue of

which it is different from other things, and in virtue
of which also it acts and is acted upon. Between
substance and accident, existence and essence, the
'this ''and the 'what,' the metaphysician makes
what he calls a real distinction. But it must not
' '

be supposed that by this he means to affirm that

these entities are separate one from another and
 THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE 351

exist together in the concrete as an aggregate. He

means nothing of the kind. Substances are not
accidents, and essence is not existence but, in the ;

concrete, substance and accident, essence and

existence, form together an integral and real whole ;

and if either were taken away there would be no

4
concrete '
Accidents are the differ-
thing '
at all.
4
ences of which substance is the ground
'
to the ;
'

substance they give quality, in virtue of which it

4
appears.' And both accidents and substances are
real but they do not destroy the unity of the
;

'thing.'

§ 241. The finite concrete thing always has a

certain structure ; and
this it has even at the level
of substance. A
substance is not a bare unity, or
4
subject of accidents
' nor yet is it merely existence
;

per se. In all corporeal things, whether animate or

inanimate, it is itself composite, and its differences
are called matter and form. The foundation of
this distinction is substantial change. None of the
4
things which we find around us are wholly
'

permanent. change accidentally and in

They
certain of their outward characteristics and they ;

may also cease to be and give place to something

else. The most obvious instance of a substantial
as opposed to an accidental change is that of death,
where what was once a living body ceases to be a
living body, and becomes, instead, an aggregate of
substances, all of them in a rapid state of decom-
position. The thing is no longer what it was
4
' ;

its nature has undergone a radical change or, ;

rather, the thing has given place to some other thing

4
(or things) whose nature and substantial form is '
352 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

essentially different. Even in a substantial change,

however, there is an element which remains constant
throughout, and that element or principle is meta-
physically termed '
matter.' The matter of the
living organism and of the corpse which is left
behind when death occurs is one and the same.
It is the substantial form alone which has dis-
appeared, and has been supplanted by other
substantial forms. This will be clearer if we com-
pare more in detail the corpse and the living
organism whose place it has taken. In the living
organism there is a single principle of life which
dominates the whole structure, which has built it
up from a single cell, which has made it systematic
and organic, which controls all its functions, and
which forms with the matter thus organised one real
and substantial whole. No part or particle of the
matter of a living organism can be said to have
properties, mechanical or chemical, which are
peculiarly and exclusively its own ; nor can the
cells of which the organism is largely composed be
said to exercise any function in complete inde-
pendence of the substantial form or principle of life.
With the corpse the case is different. The matter
of the corpse is the same as that which previously
belonged to the living organism, and it still retains
for a time its organic structure. But now there is
no single principle which animates the whole.
Many substantial forms have taken its place. The
chemical and mechanical properties which existed
only virtually in each part of the living body have
now become actual. A substantial change has
taken place, and where formally there existed a
 THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE 353

living whole,we now have merely an aggregate of

material bodies whose forms are of a distinctly
lower type.
§ 242. In the finite concrete thing we have
further structural differences at a level above that
of its substance. These are its accidents. Accidents
do not from or independently of
exist in separation
the substance, though in their nature they are
distinct. On the contrary, they arise directly from
the substance itself. " The actuality of an accidental
form," says Aquinas, " is caused by the actuality of
the subject, in that the subject, in so far as it is
in potentia,is susceptive of the accidental form, but

in so far as it is in actu is productive of it." 1

For
this " emanation of essential accidents from the
subject takes place by a certain natural resultance" 2
The primary characteristics of all corporeal sub-
stances are two-fold. They have quantity, and they
have quality. The former follows directly from the
material principle in the substance and the latter ;

arises from its formal principle. " The primary

accidents resulting from a corporeal substance are
quantity and quality, and these two correspond to
the two essential principles of the substance, scil.,
itsform and its matter quantity corresponding to
;

matter, while quality arises from form." 3

Quantity is the most imperfect of all accidents,
and thisone reason why it is said to pertain to
is

the material rather than to the formal principle in

a body. But there are other grounds for this
assertion. The size of a thing depends upon the
1
Summa Theologica, p. 1, q. 77, a. 6.
* Ibid., ad. 3. 8 Aquinas, in IV. Sent. d. 12, q. 1, a. 1.

X
354 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

bulk of matter which is united with its substantial

form ;and this bulk may to some extent vary.
An animal, for example, may grow without losing
either his individuality or his species. Now growth
implies the acquisition of fresh matter from without
4
in the form of food, which, after being proximately
disposed ' by the digestive functions of the animal
itself, is assimilated and becomes a part of the living

organism, whose quantity is thus increased. That

* '

quality arises from the formal principle is also clear ;

for figure, shape, internal structure, colour,

mechanical and chemical properties, sentience, and
the power of action, are the characteristics by which
one thing is distinguished from another, and pertain,
therefore, to that which makes it what it is, i.e.,
4
they are the natural result of ' its substantial form.
§ 243. In general, then, it is the substance of
the thing which gives rise to and determines the
species of its accidents. Their determination in
detail, on the other hand, may be due, in part at
least, to external causes.Thus while figure, shape
and internal structure depend for their general
character upon the essential nature of the thing,
they may vary considerably in detail according to
circumstances. Figure and shape may be altered
by action from without. Structure may be modified
gradually or violently by external forces. Colour,
again, may vary with environment, and action, too,
may turn out in effect to be different from what it
was apparently intended to be. In short, every
individual thing is both passive and active in regard
to other* things in its immediate neighbourhood.
It acts upon them and they act upon it with the
 THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE 355

result that both are modified. Action and inter-

action, therefore, have a good deal to say in respect
to the detailed determination of the individual.
Prescinding from substantial changes, we may say
that in certain respects a thing is permanently
actual, while in other respects it is always in potentia.
Accidents in general or the specific qualities and
properties of a thing, like the substantial form from
which they proceed, are essential and cannot change
unless the substantial form and the thing itself ceases
to be and gives place to something else. But in regard
to the particular determination of its accidents, a
thing, though actual at any given moment, is in
potentia in respect of future modifications. Modifica-
tions may take place owing to the action of things
outside itself, and similarly the thing itself may
produce modifications in other things and also in —
itself if it be a living thing capable of immanent
action —by virtue of its own activities.

§ 244. Thus activity and passivity, as well as

actuality (actus) and potentiality (potentia) are
characteristic of everything that has a finite nature ;

and in the higher animals and in man these dis-

tinctions, like other structural differences, become
more marked. The higher animals possess distinct
powers or faculties which, in regard to their objects,
may be characteristically active or passive. Thus,
sensibility is distinctly a potentia passiva, since its
function is to receive impressions from without ;

whereas the power of bodily movement is distinctly

a potentia activa, since by this means the animal is
able to modify its environment. The actualisation
of a potentia passiva is due primarily to action ab
356 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

extra ; that of a potentia activa is due to, or rather is,

action ab intra. Sensation primarily is an effect
produced by some agent outside the living body, or
it may be, by the immanent action of the animal

itself. Action is primarily the expression of a

conative impulse which arises from within and
prompts the animal to action in order to effect some
change in itself or in what is external to itself.
These statements, however, apply only to the
relation of the potentia to its object, and to its mode
of actualisation in Sensation on its
general.
psychical side is an activity, and as with all activities
its exercise in any particular form tends to become

habitual, and so, according to the general law of all

being, to perpetuate itself. Hence even when the
object is no longer present, and consequently we
have not sensation or perception in the strict sense
of those terms, we may have images which are at
bottom but faint repetitions of sensations and
sensation-complexes. Similarly, action is a par-
ticular form of activity and so may become habitual.
It is, moreover, closely connected with sensations,
perceptions and images, for by them its particular
form is largely determined. Habit plays a most
important part in all organic life. By it both
potentice passives and potentia activce are progres-
sively determined and fixed and thereby both
;

perception and action are much facilitated. Memory

and imagination, too, are accounted for chiefly by
habit, and so also are the particular forms of reaction
which an animal acquires and which recur immedi-
ately a familiar object is perceived.
§ 245. Action is due in part to habit and in part
 THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE 357

to preceding sensations and images. It is also due

in part to conative impulses, as Imentioned above.
These impulses arise from animal needs for every
;

4
sentient organism has an end or telos, for the
'

attainment of which certain conditions must be

fulfilled ;and toward the realisation of these con-
ditions it is impelled by a vague though conscious
striving. Indeed, every existing being has an
end or telos, and in general we may say with
Spinoza that its telos is perseverare in esse suo.
Everything, whether it be animate or inanimate,
strives to realise its own nature and to maintain
itself in existence. If it is legitimate to suppose
that there is a being so simple that its sole end and
function is to vibrate in a particular way and at a
certain rate, it will endeavour, as far as in it lies,
to go on vibrating at that particular rate and in that
particular way, and will strive to overcome all
obstacles which hinder the realisation of that end.
The significance of the telos in the case of living
beings is muchgreater ;and that they strive to
realise theirnature and to maintain their own form
of existence will hardly be denied. This conative
tendency is due to the formal principle by which the
matter in a living body is organised and built up
into a definite structure, a structure which is
necessary for the very existence of the animal and
which in consequence it endeavours to maintain.
The striving of the formal principle to persevere
in its own being, however, is counteracted by the
material principle or body which tends to decay ;

and at first sight these seem to conflict with the

general law that every being tends to persevere
358 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

in esse suo. But this is not really the case. The

4
matter '
organism formerly belonged to
of a living
material substances having chemical and other
properties, and though these substances as such no
longer exist when they have become part of the
living organism, their formal principles still exist
virtually. Now to exist virtually is not to exist
actually nor yet to exist merely in potentia. It
constitutes a sort of mean between the two, and
implies a tendency to exist. Thus, in these virtually
existing formal principles —
them chemical atoms
call
—
and molecules if you prefer the general law of all
being is exemplified, and at the same time by means
of this hypothesis several facts may be explained.
It explains, for instance, why it is that chemical
substances take the place of the living organism
immediately after death, not indeed in the original
form in which they were first taken up as food, but
as re-arranged and reconstituted by the living
organism itself. It explains also —
at least, so it
—
seems to me many facts connected with disease and
decay for it would appear that the parts of the
;

living organism tend to become independent and ;

to acquire functions of their own, and so to resist

the controlling power and all-pervading influence
of the substantial form of the whole. To discuss
this point, however, would lead us too far afield.
Decay is at any rate a fact which the formal principle
of life is ever striving to overcome
whence it is
;

clear that the end of a living organism is to realise

its own nature and to perpetuate its own existence.

§ 246. One of the principal ways in which exist-

ing things strive to realise their end is by transient
 THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE 350

action. I not merely to those particular

refer
actions by which living beings propagate and so
perpetuate themselves in their offspring but to
;

action ad extra of any kind whatsoever. Omne agens

agit propter finem ; and that finis is to produce in
some other thing a characteristic belonging to the
—
thing that acts. For if I may quote again an
—
Aristotelian axiom or dictum actio sequitur esse ;
a thing can only act according to its nature. And
again, omne agens agit sibi simile ; the effect must
resemble its cause, for one thing can give to another
only what itself has got. Hence, in so far as
modification produced in one thing is produced
therein by the action of another, there is a similarity
or an identity of form between the two. As a
matter of fact, however, effects are seldom due to a
single cause, but to the co-operation of many
causes and not infrequently the reaction of the
;

relatively passive object may contribute toward that

effect. In any given case, therefore, it is difficult
to determine what precisely the causes are and to
what extent any particular cause is responsible for a
given effect. This accounts largely, I think, for the
Relativism of many philosophers, especially of those
who are scientifically inclined, for in science we
know little for certain beyond the fact that, given a
certain complexus of phenomena (causes included),
another complexus of phenomena will follow. Let
us illustrate our principles, therefore, by a com-
paratively simple example.
A stone is thrown by a small boy and a window-
pane broken. The direction and the velocity of the
missile were determined by the boy's action, by the
 ;

3<5o THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

direction inwhich he moved his hand, and by the

force which he exerted. The stone passed through
the window, and, if its speed was great, the hole in
thewindow will correspond to the shape of the stone.
In any case our principle, omne agens agit sibi simile,
is illustrated. Motion has produced motion ;

direction has determined direction. The reaction

of the objects in which effects are produced is also
illustrated. The air resisted the motion of the stone
and its speed, in consequence, was slackened. The
window-pane resisted it still more, and soon after it
came to a standstill. The stone was thrown against
the force of gravitation, and gravitation in the end
brought it to the ground. The hole made in the
pane of glass, too, will be of the same shape as the
stone only provided the latter struck it with a
velocity approximating to that of a bullet ; other-
wise it be an irregular hole and will be sur-
will
rounded by cracks due, not to the impact of the
stone alone, but in part to the structure of the glass.
Thus even a rough analysis of a phenomenon ol
this kind is sufficient to show that of the many causes
which contributed to produce it, each tended, as
far as possible, to reproduce itself, and had our
analysis been more precise and quantitatively exact
the general principle illustrated would have been
stillmore apparent.
§ 247. One more example may be taken
perhaps not a very good one, but one that is at least
familiar and interesting. What is it that causes
death ? To answer this question we must go back
to the doctrine of matter and form. Every corporeal
whole consists of matter and form, and before the
 THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE 361

substantial form can be united with the potentiality

of the matter, necessary that the latter should
it is

be '
proximately disposed
for the reception of the
'

form, and as long as the form exists therein, the

matter must retain the disposition or organisation
Hence, if some hostile
requisite for its existence.
agency, violence, or disease of the parasitic type,
or, again,a process of decay, destroys the organic
structure of a living body, the substantial form
which inhabited that body either ceases to be, or,
if it has an existence of its own independently of

the matter with which it is united, it leaves the

body and exists elsewhere. Death, then, in itself,
is a negative rather than a positive effect and ;

considered merely in the negative aspect, it needs

no efficient cause. It is not the production, but
the cessation of existence. It consists in the destruc-
tion of a substantial whole for the existence of which
a certain organisation was the material cause and
the condition sine qua non. What the so-called
*
cause of death really does, therefore, is to produce
'

in that organism a new form, accidental indeed, yet

incompatible with the existence of the principle of
life. This form, moreover, remains when life has
4 '
ceased. Hence it is that the cause of death
(i.e., the act which produced the accidental form

that occasioned death) may be discovered by a

medical examination of the corpse. Poison, for
instance, does not act directly upon the formal
principle of a living organism, but upon its matter,
in which (v.g.) by hardening certain tissues and
cells, or by causing violent contraction of the

muscles, it produces a condition incompatible with

362 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

the performance of its functions as a living body.

Hence, the conditions necessary to life being
destroyed, life itself ceases to be, and other sub-
stances take the place of the living thing. The
formal principles of these substances, however, are
4
not an effect produced by the nominal cause of
death ; but are due to the fact that, being already
'

virtually in existence, now that the controlling and

unifying influence of the living form is gone, they
are able to spring into actual existence toward
which they were tending all along.
§ 248. The universe, then, as understood by the
realist, consists of a world of finite beings, material,
organic, sentient, rational no one of which is
;

merely a phenomenon nor yet merely a substance ;

but each a concrete individual whole, each a

thing, each existing per se and having its own
inner structure of substantial ground and accidental
differences. And this world of finite beings implies
an infinite Being as its ultimate cause or as the
condition without which it could neither have begun
to be nor yet continue to be. Between God and
His creatures there is an intimate connection, for it
is to Him that they owe from first to last their

existence, their nature, and all their powers. With-

4
out His assistance no thing can persevere in its
being,' and without His concurrence no action can
take place. All finite beings are wholly dependent
upon the Supreme Being but they do not proceed
;

from Him as accidents emanate from a substantial

ground nor do they arise within Him as differences
;

within a concrete whole. The relation of God to

created existents is unique, and their dependence
 THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE 3^3

upon Him cannot be compared except by analogy

to any kind of dependence that exists within the
finite world. The universe is not an organism, nor
yet a living whole. Indeed, if we consider only the
finite world of creatures, I should prefer to call it a
system, and prescinding from consciousness, to
compare it to a huge machine rather than to a living
being for as in a machine so in a finite world, there
;

are parts distinct from one another, yet adjacent

and interacting, each having its proper function,
and all together forming a systematic whole con-
structed according to an intelligent plan. Con-
is a fact, and a fact of supreme
sciousness, however,
importance, without which the universe would be
meaningless. Hence the above comparison is far
from adequate, as all comparisons must be when
one of their terms is the universe itself. Neverthe-
less,the universe is better described as a systematic,
than as an organic, whole. For though all its parts
are related, they are real individuals, each having its
own existence and though on account of this
;

relatedness a change in any one part involves a

change in some at least of the others, change as such
pertains to the individual. In essence change is a
transitus de potentia in actum. It presupposes in the
individual an already existing potentiality of
definite nature which is now realised or determined
to act by the action of an efficient cause.
'
' And
since the universe is a system, rational in its design
and its end, all change takes place according to
definite and knowable laws. Did we actually know
these laws in detail, we should know also the nature
of the things upon which they depend, and did we
 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

know the nature of things we should know the laws

which govern their interactions. But as yet we
know neither adequately nor in detail, and until we
do, a complete philosophy of nature is impossible.
§ 249. Of the relation of man to the universe in
which he lives, nothing has been said as yet, except
in so far as man is included under the general heading
of living organisms and finite individual wholes and
is endowed with all the characteristics which these

possess. I have treated the universe from the

objective and not from the human point of view ;

and I have done so deliberately, for in this chapter

it is with the object of knowledge and with the

general metaphysical principles that underlie the

theory of knowledge that we are at present con-
cerned. One
two remarks on the general relation
or
of man to the universe, however, must now be
added and they will, I hope, mitigate somewhat
;

the ire of the humanist at my apparent neglect of

the human point of view.
Regarded from the human point of view, every-
thing in the universe is ct unum
vcrum et bonum.
ct

It is unum, for every existing being is an individual

comprising unity of ground amid structural differ-
ence, and as such may be apprehended by man.
It is verum (or cognoscibile) for the nature and
structure of all existing things is intelligible, and
the object manifesting itself to the intellect is, as
we shall see, the foundation and ultimate criterion
of all truth. And it is bonum (or appctibile) for ;

everything is capable of becoming an object of

human desire, and possesses the power of satisfying,
directly or indirectly, a human need. These dis-
 THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE 365

tinctions, however, do not

correspond to real
differences in the concrete thing but are relative
;

to man. The truth and goodness of a thing are the

thing itself and all that is comprised therein, con-
sidered as an object of human knowledge and
human desire.Indeed, in a sense all things may
be said to exist for man since he alone of all finite
;

existents can know things as they are and as they

are distinguished from one another and from
himself and he alone can rationally appreciate
;

their goodness or value. Other animals can feel the

effects which are produced in their sentient organ-
isms by action from without, but not as effects of
action from without. And other animals are aware
of impulses which prompt them to react in such a
way as to satisfy their needs but of the meaning
;

and significance of such impulses and needs they

know nothing. It is only for man that sensation
has meaning, and it is he alone who knows the
significance of his impulses and his needs for he ;

alone can reflect and is self-conscious. Knowledge

in the strict sense of the term and rational action
are characteristics peculiar to man ; and for this
reason the rest of the world is subordinate to him
and, as his knowledge of it advances, steadily
becomes more and more subject to his control, more
and more subservient to his needs.
§ 250. Our account of the knowable now being
complete, we might proceed at once to discuss the
knower and the metaphysical theory of the process
by which knowledge is obtained, were it not that
Mr. Bradley has raised certain objections to the
view of the object of knowledge, which must
realist's
3 66 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

firstbe disposed of. The objections which concern

us most are those which are directed (i) against the
doctrine of substance and accident, and (2) against
the doctrine of causation.
4
The doctrine of substance and accident or
sub-
stantive and adjective Mr. Bradley finds to be a
'

failure and the first reason he gives is that it seems

;

doubtful what the is can really mean when we say

(v.g.) that sugar is white and hard and sweet.
44
Sugar is obviously not mere whiteness, mere
hardness, and mere sweetness for its reality lies
;

somehow in its unity." But 44 we can discover no

real unity existing outside these qualities, or, again,
existing within them." 1
What sort of unity is Mr. Bradley looking for here ?
A unity apparent to the senses ? One which can be
separated from its qualities and perceived in all its
nakedness as a unity ? Surely not. Yet, if not, I
fail to understand where lies the difficulty. I fear,

in fact, that Mr. Bradley is confusing two senses in

which the word thing is popularly used. We may
4
'

4
say, as he remarks, either that the thing sugar has '

certain qualities, or that it is white and hard and

sweet but these two forms of predication are not
;

contradictory, for the term 'thing' is not used in the

two cases in precisely the same sense. When we say
4
that a thing is so and so, we speak of the concrete
'

thing, regarded as a whole, complete in itself, and

embracing a unity in difference. But when we
4
affirm that a thing has qualities, we no longer
'

regard the thing as a concrete whole but, analysing ;

it— —
mentally, of course into a unity of ground or
1
Appearance and Reality, p. 19.
 THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE 367

substance on the one hand, and differences of

structure, accidents or qualitieson the other, we
say that this unity which we now call by metonymy
4
a thing,' has, or is the ground of, certain differ-
ences. This use of the term thing is liable
*
'

perhaps to lead to misunderstanding, as it has done

apparently in Mr. Bradley's case but, in spite of
;

the ambiguity thereby introduced, it is a use of the

term which is not without justification. For clearly
4
thing-ness belongs in the concrete individual to
'

the unity of ground rather than to the qualitative

difference, since it is this unity of ground which
makes it a thing.
§ 251. Mr. Bradley urges his difficulty, however,
by quoting against us the old dilemma If you :
'

predicate what is different, you ascribe to the

subject what it is not and if you predicate what is
;

not different, you say nothing at all.'

The reply to this sophistical argument really rests
upon what logicians call 'the import of propositions.'
In fact, we have only to distinguish here the use of
the term 'subject,' just as we distinguished above
the use of the term thing
'
and the difficulty
'

disappears. For if our 'subject' refers to the

substantial unity of the thing, we do not contradict
ourselveswhen we say that it has certain differences
any more than Mr. Bradley contradicts himself,
when he makes a similar predication of the Absolute.
While, if the subject be taken to mean the concrete
thing as a whole, again there is no contradiction in
affirming that it embraces a certain difference, for
the universe in Mr. Bradley's philosophy does the
same. In other words, if the subject of our judgment
363 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

isa substance or a unity of ground, we must use the

'
has form of predication, in which case subject and
'

predicate are not the same, nor are they regarded

as the same whereas if the subject of our sentence
;

be a concrete thing (or, for that matter, a com-

plexus of attributes) then we must use the is type ' '

of proposition, in which case we do identify subject

and predicate but we identify them not on the
;

same level, so to speak, but because and in so far as

they imply a unity of ground.
§ 252. Many of the objections which Mr. Bradley
raises against the notions which are employed in the
metaphysics of Realism are, like his objections to the
doctrine of substance and accident, based upon a
misconception and objections of this kind it is
;

hardly necessary to discuss since they have been met

for the most part, I think, by the exposition already
given. —
Others, again indeed the majority pre- —
suppose his theory of relations which has already
been discussed. The difficulties raised in the earlier
portion of his chapter on " Causation" are an
example of this. Accordingly, I shall pass them over.
Toward the end of that chapter, however, an
objection of quite a different kind is raised, and this
I feel bound to discuss in some detail, not only
because it is typical of another type of Mr. Bradley's
objections; but also, and more especially, because
the doctrine of causation is of vital importance in the
realist's theory of knowledge.
The objection, as usual, is thrown into the form
of a dilemma. " Causation must be continuous ; "
for if it were not, it would not be causation, since we
should have the cause " enduring unchanged through
 THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE 369

a certain number of moments, and then suddenly

changing." Yet " causation cannot be continuous"
for, if it were, the cause would be entirely without
duration. " It would never be itself except in the
time occupied by a line drawn across the
1 •
succession."
§ 253. Now, although Mr. Bradley speaks here
of 'continuity,' he seems to me to have a false notion
of what a continuum means, or, at any rate, is
really
not clear as to the difference between a continuum
and a series of mathematical points. No succession
of points without extension and without duration
can under any conditions give rise to a continuum,
whether in space or in time. For it is impossible
to get extension out of what is unextended, or
duration out of a succession of timeless instants, so
that a continuum, whatever else it is, cannot be
made up of contiguous mathematical points, since
in that case it would still be a point. If, however,

you ask me to define a continuum, I confess that I

am unable to do so. I might say, perhaps, that to
be a continuum is to be undivided and yet to have
parts outside parts, but this does not help us much,
for the parts themselves must have duration and
extension, otherwise we shall still be without our
continuum. The fact is that the notion of a con-
tinuum is for us an ultimate notion, and to define
an ultimate notion is clearly impossible. Because
the notion is ultimate, however, and cannot be
defined, it is not necessarily invalid. For there
must be ultimate notions somewhere, and, if these
are necessarily invalid, the whole superstructure
1
Appearance and Reality, pp. 60, 61.

V
 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

falls to the ground ;

knowledge becomes an im-
possibility, and scepticism our only alternative.
Did Mr. Bradley admit the validity of the geometrical
concepts of points, lines and surfaces, it might have
been possible to prove by a regress the validity of
the notion of a dtntinuum ; for upon that notion
the whole of geometry is based, points, lines and
surfaces being nothing else but limits or boundaries
which mark off one continuum from another, which
is contiguous but qualitatively distinct. Geometrical
notions, however, are regarded by Mr. Bradley as
fictions, nonentities, useful for some purposes, but
none the less fictions. 1 How a nonentity can be
useful, or how a pure fiction can be of service in
dealing with the real world, I am unable to under-
stand but if our notions of surfaces, lines, and
;

points have not a valid foundation in reality, it

would be illogical under the circumstances for me
to argue from their reality to the reality of the
continuum which is presupposed. Consequently,
we must adopt another course.
§ 254. Though a continuum cannot be defined,
it may be illustrated. And in the first place all
consciousness is continuous except for the breaks
caused by sleep. Every psychosis has duration
and passes gradually and without any actual break
of continuity into the next. Secondly, all material
things are continuous they have extension and
;

they last. Strictly speaking, however, material

things do not constitute one continuum in the same
sense that a spell of consciousness does. For between
material things there is a break. They do not pass
1 he. cit., p. 61.
 THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE 37*

into one another, but are individual and distinct.

Nevertheless, there is still a sense in which we may
say that the physical world a continuum. The is

extension of the individual in time and in space is

limited and so has boundaries, yet the boundaries
themselves have no extension, but are, as Mr. Bradley
says, limits, in the mathematical sense. While,
then, if we regard the world in the concrete as con-
sisting of many individual things, we must say that
there are many continua, contiguous, yet discrete ;

if we abstract from thing-hood and qualitative

differences, we may say with truth that the spatial,
and in like manner the temporal, continuum is one.
§ 255. Having thus cleared up our ideas some-
what in regard to what is meajit by a continuum,
let us return to Mr. Bradley's destructive criticism
of the notion of causation. Is causation con-
tinuous ? Certainly for, as Mr. Bradley says, if
;

we were to take a solid slice out of the flow of events,

we should find that it contained elements which
were in process of change. But does it not follow
that a cause is without duration and so cannot be
real ? This will depend entirely upon what we
mean by a cause. If, instead of taking a solid
we bisect it by a
section out of the flow of events,
line, and then by another abstraction divide this
4
line into two aspects one before and the other '

4 4
'
after,' the before aspect being our cause and
' '

4 4
the after ' aspect our effect,' certainly neither
cause nor effect has duration, and both are equally
unreal. But, if we do not make the second of these
two abstractions, but, in so far as our line of section
marks a difference in the flow of events, are content
372 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

to call whatever comes before it the cause, and

whatever comes after it the effect, then we can assign
to both cause and effect as much duration as we
please, and this time both will be real. Mr. Bradley's
argument is based on a fallacy. He assumes that
causation, though continuous, has no duration, or,
in other words, that for a finite cause to produce a
finite effect no time is required whereas in fact all
;

causal action is a gradual process which may occupy

a considerable period of time. That it should do
so is, I grant, an imperfection, but so also is change
and everything else in this finite world. And if you
choose to say that that which is imperfect is less real
than that which is perfect, again I have no objection
to raise. On the contrary, I willingly assent and ;

did we know more adequately than we do what is

meant by an all-perfect Being, we might define all
finite perfections as the negation or limitation of
some one of His for in some way or other change,
;

time, space imply imperfection and the negation of

tota simul. But since we cannot adequately con-
ceive the All-perfect, we must be content to start
with a knowledge of finite perfections and to infer
what God is from our knowledge of them. And
though He alone is fully real, it does not follow that
finite perfections are unreal, or our notions of them
invalid; still less that they are self-contradictory.
To much ignorance I confess with a doubt I can
;

sympathise ; but a contradiction in philosophy is

intolerable.
 —

THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE 373

CHAPTER XIV.

THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE

EX PARTE SUBJECTI.
I. The Senses.
§ 256. We have seen that every being in the
universe is for the realist ontologically true
it has ;

a nature, a structure, a function, a purpose, all of

which are knowable. We have also seen that every
being is active, and is capable of producing effects
in other things, which in so far as they depend upon
it as upon their cause, must resemble it in some one

of its characteristics. These are the conditions of

knowledge ex parte objecti.
Ex we have a human being for it
parte subjecti —
is with human knowledge alone that we are con-
cerned —and that being endowed with all the
is

characteristics of a sentient organism, and also with

the higher functions of intellect and will. He is a
substance, a unity of ground amid structural differ-
ences, and all his faculties and functions work together
for a common end. He is passive, and in him other
things may produce effects like to themselves. He
is and therefore he can feel these effects
sentient, ;

he has an intellect and so can apprehend their

meaning. He is also active. Consequently he can
move about and so can bring himself into contact
with an indefinite variety of things in an indefinite
variety of circumstances. He has the power of
action, and hence, guided by his reason, can
374 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

manipulate and experiment upon the objects which

make up his environment, and in this way
progressively increase both his knowledge of their
nature and his control of their activities.
§ 257. What, then, is this knowledge that man
possesses, and how does he come to get it ? There
are two questions here, and they must not be con-
fused one with the other. I have said above that

man is conscious of the effects produced in himself

by physical objects but, ordinarily, he is not
;

conscious of them as effects. He does not reason

within himself these are effects due to external
'

objects, but effects must resemble their causes :

therefore these effects give me knowledge of objective

reality.' / am going to argue in this way but ;

then I am treating the matter metaphysically, not

psychologically, or from the point of view of ordinary
common-sense. What are de facto sensations the
form of which is determined by the causal action of
external objects, man spontaneously and naturally
apprehends, not as sensations, nor as effects,' but
'

as the qualities of natural objects. The species

sensibilis, therefore, is ordinarily the id quo percipitur,
not the id quod percipitur ; and similarly in regard
to the intellect. For, as Aquinas says, " the species
intelligibilis is to the intellect as the species sensibilis
is to the sense. But the species sensibilis is not
illud quod sentitur, but rather id quo sensus sentit.
Hence the species intelligibilis is not id quod intel-
ligitur, but id quo intellectus intelligit." 1 Ideas,
1
Summa Theologica, p. i, q. 85 @ 2. Note : All scholastics
grant that in the idea or concept we know the object immediately,
though some prefer to say that the verbum tnentale or concept is
id in quo res intelligitur rather than id quo intelligitur. And
 THE CONDITIONS OP KNOWLEDGE 375

then, are the means by which we think of objects.

De they correspond to the objects about which
facto
we think, for otherwise they could not give us
knowledge of objects but we do not first think of
;

our ideas and then infer an object to correspond;

we think directly of the object through and in the
idea.
Knowledge, therefore, is one thing but how we ;

come to know, or what are the metaphysical con-

ditions of knowledge is quite another matter. Yet
to define knowledge, apart from the process by
which it is acquired, is impossible. For knowledge
is an ultimate notion. Everybody knows what it is,
because everybody knows. But he cannot define
it unless he also knows its metaphysical conditions.

Knowledge implies a certain peculiar relation

between thought and thing or, again, it may be
;

regarded as an action or a habit of mind which,

being given, that relation arises and it will be
;

better, perhaps, to leave the matter in this vague

form until we have discussed further the conditions
of knowledge.
§ 258. We have, then, on the one side an intelligent
knower and on the other side the knowable, things,
material, organic, sentient, rational and, finally, God.
Of all these we somehow have knowledge. Yet, if
the knowable is distinct from the knower, just as

there is some foundation

for this view, since in the thought of
absent objects we
are aware that we are thinking by means of
ideas, and the idea, as well as the object, is, in a certain sense, that
about which we think, or, in other words, we are conscious that
we are thinking of an object which is not really present, but
present only in idea. Cf. Aquinas, De differentia verbi divini
et humani, and Urraburu, Psychologia, Lib. 11, disp. 2, cap. 2,
art. 3.
 THEORIES OE KNOWLEDGE

one knower is distinct from another, how are they

to be brought together unless we are to admit that
abomination of Professor James, a salto mortale. The
Aristotelian answer is by interaction.
Knowledge implies that the formal characteristics
of the knowable are somehow immanently present
to the knower. Consequently, as we have agreed to
regard the knower and the known as existentially
independent, and since in our world the only means
by which one thing can influence another is by its
actions, for knowledge to be acquired, directly or
indirectly the knowable must act upon the knower
in such a way as to reproduce in him that character-
which is known. Things, however, do
istic of itself
not act directly upon the mind, but only by way of
the body and then consciousness is not affected
;

unless they act upon that particular part of the

body which we call the terminal organs of sense.
Yet when things do act upon the organs of sense,
—
they must according to our metaphysical principle
—
that the effect resembles the cause produce therein
a modification which is like to themselves in so far
as it is an effect which depends upon their action as
upon its cause. On the other hand, in receiving an
effect, the recipient is not merely passive. The
effect is received secundum modum recipientis ; or,
in other words, while the particular form which the
effect takes is determined by the activity of the
cause, its specific nature is determined by the
potentiapassiva, which is thus reduced to act.
Hence, when effects are produced in a sentient
organism, they must in general be felt ; not because
sensation is something superadded to the modifica-
 THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE $77

tion produced in that organism ; but because the

modification itself is a transitus de potentia ad actum,
which takes place in a potentia passiva of a certain
specific (scil., sentient) nature. Whenever sensation
occurs, it is at once a species impressa and a species
expressa. It is a species impressa because
it is a

modification, the form of which determined by is

the action of an object external to the organ of sense ;

and it is expressa because it is not merely a modifica-

tion of the bodily organ, but a sensation having a
particular quality. 1
§ 259. The correspondence here affirmed between
sensation and its cause may seem to many crude,
if not a sheer absurdity.It is, however, essential
to Aristotle's theory of knowledge and though ;

physiology and physics have made great progress

since the days of the famous Greek, it is only the
details and not the general principles of his theory
that have been affected. As a theory consisting of
a complexus of hypotheses and principles, it cannot
be established wholly a posteriori, nor can it be
verified point by point by comparison with the
facts ; not, indeed, because these are relevant facts
which it cannot account for, but because our '
facts,'

1
The account of the act of perception given in this chapter is
based upon the theories of Aristotle and Aquinas but, the more ;

adequate knowledge which we now possess of physiological

psychology has made it necessary to introduce certain modi-
fications. The species impressa, for instance, is not identified by
Aquinas with the physiological process that underlies perception ;

but is merely the species sensibilis qud an effect. Indeed, the

term species impressa is not used by him at all though he admits
;

an immutatio naturalis in the organs of sense which resembles the

external cause, and which is to sensation as matter to its form ;

and similarly, it would appear, in regard to cerebral processes that

accompany and condition the phantasm, or what we should now
call the percept or image.
378 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

in physiology especially, are comparatively scanty,

and many things which are sometimes asserted as
facts belong in truth to physiological theory. I

would ask the reader, therefore, to hold whatever

prejudices he may have
in abeyance. To argue as
4 '
some do that the correspondence notion of truth
is absurd, because copying is useless, is to beg the

whole question. For if copying can give us know-

ledge and so enable us to increase the control we
have of the things around us, and thus to make
them more and more subservient to our needs, it
certainly is While to affirm as many
not useless.
do, that sensation cannot ba a copy of its object or
cause, is again irrational for it assumes that we
;

know what the objective qualities are to which

sensations are supposed to correspond, whereas, in
fact, we know very little about them, and in some
cases, smells and tastes for instance, nothing at all.
Let us then suspend judgment until we have
examined theories and facts, both physical and
physiological, and I think that in the end we shall
find there are none with which the Aristotelian
theory of knowledge is incompatible.
Our theory affirms that sensation is like its object
or cause ;and two reasons may be given for this
assertion, (i) that it follows logically from the general
principle that the effect resembles its cause, and
(2) that sensation being the id quo percipitur, though
not itself either perception or knowledge, must
correspond with its object, otherwise it could not be
the empirical source whence all knowledge is derived.
Were these principles generally recognised as
axiomatic, we might leave the matter here ; but as
 THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE 379

they are not, we must examine in detail the psycho-

physical process of sensation, in order to discover
how far it resembles what we know —or suppose
that we know —of the physical properties of
objects.
§ 260. A sensation — or, better, perhaps, a sense-
impression —has many characteristics but the
;

*
quality ' of sensation is the characteristic in refer-
ence to which it is most difficult to establish cor-
respondence. In regard to it I shall endeavour to
establish two points (1) that what physicists and
physiologists have to tell us about the matter tends
to confirm rather than to upset our theory and ;

(2) that, so far as

*
quality ' is concerned, a precise
correspondence is not required.
Let us first consider the species impressa, which I
regard as identical with the nervous processes that
are the immediate antecedents or physiological
conditions of sensation and perception. Sensation
is undoubtedly closely connected with the nervous

impulse, and probably arises, so thinks Professor

McDougall, as that impulse passes through the
synapses that connect one neurone with another.
Of the nature of a nervous impulse we know nothing
for certain but we do know that nervous impulses
;

must differ, because sensations themselves are

different. The question is, then, what is the
ultimate cause of these differences ? Are they
determined objectively by the stimulus, or sub-
4
jectively by the specific energy of the nerves ? '

The latter view originated with Professor Miiller,

and a short time ago was very widely accepted
among physiologists. Professor Wundt, however,
38o THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

rejects it in favour of a more objective theory ;

and it seems to me that he does so with good reason.

'
The Specific Energy theory affirms that the
'
'

quality of sensation must be due to the structure of

the nervous tissues and not to the physical stimulus ;

because (i) a specific sensation may be produced by

other than adequate stimuli,' and also (2) by
'

stimulating the cut end of a nerve and (3) the ;

Young-Helmholtz theory of colour-vision, and the

Helmholtz theory of audition presuppose this
hypothesis. 1 These arguments, however, are by no
means conclusive. For ( 1 ) the possibility of producing
sensations by other than normal stimuli and in cases
where the end -organ has been lost or destroyed,
may be accounted for in the same way as memory
and imagination, viz., by functional differentiation,
of the nervous tissue due to habitual activity and ;

(2) the Helmholtz theories presuppose not necessarily

specific differentiation of the nerves, but of the nerve
terminals in the eye and in the ear. Moreover, there
is not the slightest anatomical evidence for original

specific difference in the nature of the nerves or of

the cells which belong to the various organs of sense ;

but only in regard to their peripheral end-organs.

Hence we conclude with Professor Wundt that both
centrally and peripherally the general law holds that
repeated stimulation of a particular kind changes the
nervous substance and gives it a tendency to exhibit
a certain specific process in whatever way it may be
stimulated but that whereas peripherally special-
;

isation of the nervous elements is inherited, centrally

it is not, but is acquired during the life-time of the

1
cf. McDougall, Physiological Psychology, pp. 58 et seq.
 THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE 381

individual. " The central function is that of

combining and inhibiting peripherally excited im-
pulses and only later of reproducing such impressions
spontaneously, owing to modifications of the
substance of the neurones due to previous excita-
44
tion." What we inherit cerebrally are dis-
positions consisting in neural connections, and hence
favouring certain kinds of reaction." 1
§ 261. Physiologically, then, there is no evidence
whatever, so far as the nervous impulse and the
quality of sensation are concerned, which can be
urged against our metaphysical theory. On the
44
contrary, if, as Professor Wundt says, functional
differentiation of nervous matter due to special is

conditions arising from external circumstances and

external stimuli," it seems probable that the
purpose of peripheral adaptation is that the effect of
the stimulus may be the more easily produced.
And we are confirmed in this opinion when we take
into consideration physical theories in regard to the
constitution of the various objects perceived by the
senses. a periodic motion, in the ether,
If light is

and colour a property of the molecules in a body in

virtue of which certain rays of light are absorbed and
others reflected, clearly that a periodic motion ol
(say) 500 billion vibrations per second should be able
to affect the organ of sense requires some special
adaptation and the same may be said of heat-waves
;

which are also periodic, but of considerably greater

length, and therefore require a different adaptation
in the end organ. Similarly for pressure if it be due
to a bombardment of molecules. I do not wish to

1
Wundt, Physiological Psychology, vol. i., p. 320 (Eng. trans.).
3«2 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

suggest, of course, that the rapid vibrations of a

hypothetical ether are reproduced in the organ of
sight or of temperature precisely in the same manner
that they exist in the ether (or in what Aristotle
would have called the Diaphanum) for, colour ;

differences on this hypothesis being quantitative,

it would be sufficient if the relative values of the

wave-lengths were preserved and there are grounds

;

fof thinking that the propagation of nervous impulses

is periodic.
It is, however, hardly worth while seeking for
further analogies between physiological processes
and the interpretations put upon the sensibile pro-
prium of the various senses by physical theory.
The uncertainty of both our physical and our
physiological theories makes all speculation of this
kind decidedly premature. Nevertheless, what
knowledge we have seems to confirm rather than to
disprove our contention that an organ of sense is a
potentia passiva, the actuation of which is due to a
stimulus, and ultimately to an object, to which the
species itnpressa corresponds.
§ 262. We come now to the species expressa, to
sensation itself, and here, if our physical theories
is no correspondence in the literal
are correct, there
and punctual sense between the quality of the
sensation and the objective quality of the thing.
Exact correspondence in every detail, however, is
not required ;
there were a correspondence
indeed, if

of this kind sensation would practically be useless

for knowledge. Knowledge begins with sense-
experience, and what we want first are not minute
analyses, but broad distinctions. We do not want

Digitized by
 THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE 383

to know how many billion times a second there is

a vibration in the ether, but what in general are the
qualities of an extended thing which we wish to
distinguish from some other thing. And for pur-
4
poses of distinction the qualities '
of sensation are
extremely efficient. They do not tell us anything
about wave-lengths or about the chemical con-
stitution of a molecule, for their function is not to
give us a knowledge of details, but to represent them
synthetically like the mathematician who plots out a
curve. And, as a matter of fact, the stimulus itself
comes to us in synthesis. Hence, if we did get a
distinct sensation corresponding to each element in
the stimulus as analysed by the visual substances
of the retina or by the basilar membrane in the
cochlea, the representative value of sensation, as
well as its utility for knowledge, would be far less
than what it is. The first condition of allknow-
ledge is the power of discrimination, and the
accuracy of the senses in this respect could scarcely
be greater than it is. The normal eye never
mistakes a wave-length of '000656 mm. (red) for
one of 000527 mm. (green) still less do our senses
;

confuse these shorter wave-lengths of light with the

longer ones of heat. Stimuli, whether differing
quantitatively or qualitatively, are most accurately
4
distinguished by means of the qualities '
of sensa-
tions, and are automatically arranged in classes
under the general headings of colour, heat, sound,
pressure, flavour, odour, etc. Thus, though the
quality ol sensations tells us nothing of the nature
of objects, it tells us a great deal about their
differences, and, consequently, is of immense value
 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

for knowledge, since thereby we are enabled to

distinguish one thing from another and so to make
them the Nor can it
objects of further research.
be said that the senses deceive us by leading us to
believe that to be objective which is really sub-
jective. If you ask the plain man what colour is,
he will reply that it is a quality in the object, and
this is true ;
for, according to the scientists, it

consists in thepower of the object to analyse light

by absorbing some rays and reflecting others. That
the objective quality, colour, is of such a nature, the

plain mandoes not know, for his senses tell him

nothing of the nature of colour. But he does know
that colour is a quality of objects, and that colours
are objectively different ; and his knowledge is
valid scientifically as well as for common-sense.
Even in regard, then, to the quality of sensation,
there is a certain correspondence between it and
the qualities of objects; and though the correspond-
ence is not precise or detailed, it is sufficient, and
were it greater than what it is, the value of sensation
as the id quo percipitur would be lessened instead of
increased.
§ 263. Positive knowledge, however, is derived
not so much from the quality of sensation as from
4
'

other characteristics which correspond to the

'
primary qualities of objects or to sensibilia com-
'

munia, i.e., to qualities of objects perceptible by

more senses than one. All sensations seem to have
extension or extensity, and in what is presented by
sight orby touch, there is a spatial arrangement of
qualitative differences which is the basis of our
knowledge of figure, shape, distance, magnitude and
 THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE

number ; while changes within a presentation and

successionamong presentations themselves are data
presupposed by our knowledge of motion and rest,
time, change, duration, etc. Now, between the
extensity and configurationswhich characterise
sense-presentations, and objective extension and
figure, as we understand it, there is clearly a cor-
respondence and this correspondence seems to
;

apply also to the intermediate link, the species

imprcssa, or the physiological modification produced
in the nervous system. At any rate, it is true in
regard to the peripheral terminals of the organs of
sight and touch. The impression on the retina
—
corresponds approximately of course to the —
figures and spatial arrangements of the things which
we ISee. Nor is it of any consequence that the
image on the retina should be reversed, for spatial
positions are essentially relative. There is no such
thing as an absolute upside-down. Moreover,
positions observed by sight are co-ordinated with
—
those observed by touch a fact which may be
proved by experiment. For if spectacles which
again reverse the retinal image are used, this co-
ordination is disturbed, and things at first appear
upside-down relative to positions determined by
touch. But after a time a new co-ordination of the
two sets of spatial impressions takes place, and we
see things the right way up. For touch, too, the
configuration of the surface of a body with which
we are in contact corresponds approximately with
the configuration of the end-organs of touch in the
part affected though the correspondence here is
;

far less accurate than it is in sight, and depends

3«6 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

largely upon the number of nerve-terminals which

are present in the part of our body which is affected.
So much so, in fact, that experiment is able to show
that an illusion occurs where, for instance, a straight
edge (say, the edge of a piece of paper), is applied to
a line of terminals in which a distinct bend occurs,
for in that case the edge of the paper itself appears
to be bent. Nevertheless, even in touch,' there is a
'

rough correspondence between the configuration of

the object touched and of the nerve-terminals
affected.

§ 264. The perception of shape, and especially

of distance, due, however, not merely to touch
is

and sight proper, but also to what is called the '

muscular sense.' A movement of the eye involves

sensations arising from the muscles which bring
about that movement, from the muscles concerned
in the processes of accommodation and convergence,
and more from the close-fitting socket of
especially
the eyeball. A movement of the hand or foot
involves sensations arising from the skin, the joints,
the muscles, the sinews and the periosteum. In
each of these two sets of sensations, not only co-
ordination, but also fusion occurs, and the product
* '

is a perception of three dimensions by sight or by

movement or by touch. In what a fusion of * '

sensations consists, or how they fuse, it is impossible

to say hence it is impossible to show precisely how
;

4
there iscorrespondence in regard to the sensations
'

involved in the perception of three-dimensional

space. But it is clear that such a correspondence
is possible, for not only does each element in the

complex imply an intensively graduated series of

 THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE 387

sensations, but many of these elements have spatial

values of their own. Thus the sensations arising
from each of the joints in the finger, the wrist, the
arm, and the shoulder are capable of giving us a
perception of motion in two dimensions. Indeed,
looking at the matter in the abstract and disregard-
ing altogether the fact that our limbs do move in a
space of three dimensions, I do not see why, if there
had been a fourth or a fifth dimension, we should
not have been able to perceive it. For if our sensa-
tions are arranged in a number of series such that
each can give us a perception of two dimensions
(a, b), (a\ b% (a", b"), (a"\ V"), why should not
these series combine in such a way that (v.g.), while
the a's fused to form a connecting link between the
series, the b's should remain distinct ? In the
abstract such a combination seems possible, and
had it actually happened, we should have perceived,
it would seem, not three, but (in the above case)

five dimensions. The fusion, however, does not take

place in this way, for its product de facto is the
perception of space in three dimensions. And since
we cannot account for this either physiologically
or psychologically, it would appear that its cause
must be objective. Whence we may infer that
our space is three-dimensional, and that the
combination of sensations to form a complex in
which distance is perceived is itself objectively
determined.
§ 265. So far as concerns motion and rest,
duration and number, it can hardly be disputed
that there is some sort of correspondence between
psycho-physical processes and objective reality.

Digitized by
 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

But in regard to the psycho-physical processes

which condition the perception of space, exception
may be taken to my proof on the ground that it
rests upon false assumption. I have endeavoured

to show that there is a correspondence between the

spatial arrangement of the things we perceive and
the impression made by them upon our senses but ;

this correspondence, itbe said, applies only to

will
the impression made on the peripheral end-organs,
and I have no right to assume that these are psycho-
physical processes at all.

Two replies may

be made to this objection. First
of all, the older view that the stimulation of the
peripheral end-organs is itself accompanied by
consciousness does not seem to have been disproved.
In fact, it seems to me probable that the whole
afferent process is psycho-physical. The possibility
of arousing specific sensations by stimulating the
cut-end of a nerve can be explained, as I have said,
by the differentiation of cerebral paths arising from
their habitual use. The occurrence of hallucinations
in a person who has been deprived of some organ of
sense may be similarly explained for the vividness
;

of the hallucination is sufficiently accounted for by

the abnormal condition of the brain in such a case,
a condition which implies excessive activity and
Again, the lag of sensa-
irritability in certain parts.
tion may easily be accounted for by inertia in the
end-organs themselves. While, on the other hand,
if the modification produced in the end-organ is not

a psycho-physical process, it is difficult to account

for the marked difference between a sense-impression
and an image.
 THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE 3*9

Secondly, even if is in the brain and not

sensation
in the sense-organ itself, cannot be proved that
it

the spatial arrangement to be found in the sense-

organ does not hold also in the cerebral cortex.
No physiologist, so far as I am aware, has ever
succeeded in tracing an individual chain of neurones
from its terminal organ to its corresponding centre
(if it has one) in the cortex. And even if this could
be done, and it should turn out that the chain of
4 '
neurones do get mixed up, so to speak, local signs
would establish all the correspondence that is
necessary. For if each nerve-terminal has a
characteristic 'local sign,' it does not much matter
where sensation first arises, since that 'local sign'
will be quite sufficient to determine the place of ' '

the stimulus.
§ 266. The scholastic dictum, then, that cognitum
est in secundum modum cognosccntis, does
cognoscenti
not seem so far to have invalidated the general
principle that omnis cognitio fit secundum similitude
inem cogniti et cognoscentis. Sensation is an effect
produced in a sentient organism by an objective
cause which it resembles and that resemblance is
;

not destroyed by the co-operation of the organism

in the production of the effect. Before leaving
sensation, however, and passing on to intellectual
cognition, I should like to point out one character-
istic of sense-impressions which seems to offer a
striking confirmation of our causal theory. I refer
to what is known as '
external projection.' Our
sensations, in external perception, are projected
outwards as it were. Apart altogether from the
fact that man perceives through them, i.e., intel-
 —

39° THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

lectually apprehends in them the qualities of

objects, the latter appear at a distance. Distance,
in other words,
is felt as well as perceived. Hence
mere datum of experience does not
localisation as a
imply thought. Yet appearances are localised not
in the brain or the organ of sense, nor yet in the
objective medium, but in their determining cause.
Colour is projected back into the object
sounds ;

are referred to an external source, touch and in

when an instrument is used, such as a walking stick,
we feel not with the hand, but with the end of the
stick. Feelings again are localised in the hair, the
beard, and in the teeth, no matter whether the latter
be false or real, dead or alive. In short, independ-
ently of thought-reference, feelings are localised or
projected back into their causes, regardless of
medium, of instrument, and of the organ alike.
This projection, both normal and eccentric,' is, '

doubtless, a function of the aforesaid muscular *

sense ;
but how is it to be accounted for and what
'

4 '
is its significance, if not that the form or species
of the sense-impression is determined by the
objective cause ?
From the arguments here adduced it should, I
think, be clear that sensation has a representative
as well as an affective value. The question, there-
fore, which now concerns us is how that representa-
tive value is, so to speak, converted into knowledge.
Sensation, and even sense-perception — *"/ we abstract
from thought, which man
in usually accompanies it

is not knowledge. On the other hand, according to

44
the scholastic, nihil est in intcllcctu quod non fuit
prius in scnsu." How, then, does this transition
 —

THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE 39*

take place ? How does sensation generate ideas

and so acquire a meaning ? This is a question which
I shall endeavour to answer aristotclico modo in the

following chapter.

CHAPTER XV.
THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE
EX PARTE SUBJECTI.
II. The Intellect.
§ 267. By its functions, its powers of abstraction,
of generalisation, of relational judgment and infer-
ence, the faculty of intellect is evidently distinct in
nature from that of sentience. As a cognitive
faculty, our causal theory is to hold good, it must
if

be, of course, a potentia passiva. But it is not

merely a potentia passiva ; it is in another aspect
active, and hence is called an intellectus agens. The
intellectus passiva or possibilis is simply the intellect
considered as passively receptive of forms or species
derived from the phantasm or sense-impression
and ultimately from the objects. The functions of
the intellectus agens, on the other hand, are many.
Knowledge is gradually built up by a slow process
in which analysis, synthesis, induction and deduc-
tion, postulation and verification all play a part.
But just as a building cannot be constructed by
merely beating the air with hammer and chisel and
trowel, but postulates materials as well as tools, so
our intellectual activities would be useless unless
somehow they could obtain material upon which to
 ;

392 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

work. We must get ideas from somewhere, for it

is upon ideas and their relations that the whole
superstructure of knowledge is built. Hence, the
first intellectual function which we must discuss is

that of apprehension or abstraction, for it is by this

that our ideas in the first place are formed.
§ 268.Apprehension must not be confused with
conception, which is a much more complex process,
implying often both judgment and inference.
Apprehension is simply the process by which from
the phantasm, image or sense-impression, the idea is
obtained. Now the phantasm is concrete, particular,
complex, and rich with a multifarious detail
whereas the idea is abstract, general, and, in the
first instance, simple. The idea, therefore, is

something different from the phantasm. Hence, the

phantasm does not of itself determine the actus of
the intellectual potentia ; but some process of
abstraction is involved in which the universals
implicit in sense-impressions are apprehended. It
is the individual which is presented in sense-
perception but the individual, being complex,
;

cannot be known all at once. We have to attend

first to one aspect, then to another, all of them simple

at first, yet corresponding to some aspect of objective

reality, because, though the phantasm does not
itself per se and simpliciter determine the idea, it does
so impelled, as it were, by attention and controlled
by the selective activity of the intellect.

§ 269. Thus knowledge begins with elementary

notions such as existence, being, unity, quality,
change, duration, extension, direction, distance, on
the objective side and psychical existence, thought,
;
 THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE

on the subjective
sensation, volition, activity, etc.,
side. and others besides, are both
All these notions,
simple and ultimate for us by which I mean, not
;

that they cannot be analysed metaphysically or

logically defined, but that in origin they are ultimate,
since they are ideas which we apprehend directly in
experience. Such ideas are often vague at first,
and consequently are regarded by some as bare and
empty. Yet in spite of their alleged bareness and
emptiness, and the unquestionable difficulty there
is in defining them, they are more valuable for

knowledge than any phantasm, for they have some-

thing which the phantasm has not, viz., meaning or
objective significance. The phantasm is a picture
which means nothing except to an outside observer.
The idea is significance itself, for in it we know the
object and are aware that we know.
The significance of the idea in a sense is unique
and peculiar to the product of intellectual activity,
4
which alone has conscious objective reference.'
But it presupposes correspondence between the idea
and the objective entity that is signified by that idea.
This correspondence is due to the fact that the idea
is derived from the phantasm. For the phantasm,
as we have seen, corresponds with reality and in;

the phantasm the idea is implied, though it does

not exist there as such, but has to be analysed out,
so to speak, in abstraction. When, therefore, in
an act of intellectual apprehension, the phantasm
determines the idea, it communicates to it that
objectivity which itself unconsciously possesses on
account of its own determination by the object. In
short, the idea has meaning and objective signifi-
394 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

cance, because corresponds with reality

it and it ;

corresponds with
reality because through the
phantasm it is itself determined by reality.

§ 270. It may seem, perhaps, that in this some-

what complex metaphysical analysis I have been
guilty of the Kantian error of splitting up the mind
into innumerable water-tight compartments. But
this is not so. For, in the first place, my account
of cognition is far less complex than (v.g.) the
physiologist's account of digestion and since ;

things are complex, and especially Man, complexity

is no argument against truth. Secondly, the
faculties and functions I have been describing are
not contained, like so many pills within a box. On
the contrary, they presuppose that the mind is
one and unless the mind were one, and unless in
;

sense-perception thought and sensation functioned

together, no matter how many faculties we had they
could not give us knowledge. Some have said that
sense-perception is a form of inference but I reject ;

this view precisely because it seems to divide sense-

perception into two processes, whereas for con-
sciousness it is one. The perception of a complex
object implies inference in the past and possibly;

to an outside observer perception itself would appear

like an inference, since in it thought formulates
what sense-data implicitly contain. But this is
not what we ordinarily understand by an inference,
nor is it for consciousness an inference at all.
§ 271. There are ideas, however, which are
obtained by a process still more analogous to that
of inference and yet they are ideas which for us
;

are simple and ultimate. Among the simple ideas

 THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE 395

which I enumerated above, almost all belonged to

the level of accidents or phenomena, and all were
directly apprehended in the data of experience.
But there are other ideas which seem to involve an
intellectual function which is something more than
mere abstraction. I refer to such ideas as sub-
stance, cause, and purpose. Substances, causes and
purposes are implicitly contained in the data of
sense-experience but they are not contained in
;

the same way as quality, change, extension. They

are presupposed as the metaphysical conditions of
the accidents and accidental modifications to which
sense-data directly correspond. It has been sug-
gested, indeed, that the notion of substance is given

in subconsciousness, causality in the influxus of the

will into action, and purpose in conscious striving
after an ideal. Indeed, it will hardly be disputed
that purpose is revealed directly in the data of our
inner experience. But in regard to substance and
causality the question seems to be more doubtful.
Hume's analysis revealed no sensations of which
'
'

they could be regarded as faint copies

'
and ;
'

many since Hume have declared themselves unable

to find any data to which they correspond. On
the other hand, we are certainly conscious of our-
selves as real individuals, and again are certainly
conscious of active processes as well as mere states
of consciousness. We all know what we mean
by activity, volition, control, self-determination,
responsibility. And that certain '
something which '

we call self-conscious activity has a dual aspect,

which is not adequately expressed by the notion of
antecedent and consequent, but is adequately
39<3 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

expressed by the notion of cause and effect. Hence,

while in external perception succession is all that
is given, self-conscious activity implies something
more than mere succession, and it seems to be from
this that the notion of causality is derived. But,
in any case, we know what is meant by a cause, for,
if we did not, would be impossible to talk ration-
it

ally of metaphysical conditions and logical pre-

suppositions in fact, we could scarcely reason
;

at Granted, however, that we have some such

all.

notion, it is not difficult to see how causes, sub-

stances and purposes alike are implied in the data
of objective as well as in subjective experience.

§ 272. Thus, Causality is implied in change,

which is a notion derived directly from objective
(as well as subjective) experience. Change involves
a transition from not-being to being and since not- ;

being of itself cannot give rise to being of which it

is the negation, we infer a something which causes

the change. Change, like incompleteness and

limitation, implies a something beyond itself, a
something to which that change and that limitation
is due. Thus far every man goes, for every one
talks of causes and seems to talk of them rationally
and to understand what they mean. But to
determine precisely what is the cause of any par-
ticular event, or to determine whether events in
general presuppose an ultimate cause or an ultimate
ground is quite a different matter, and one with
which the plain man is hardly concerned.
Substance, too, is a notion which every one
possesses and which he uses in almost every
judgment that he makes. It is implied in the
 THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE

*
which he takes as the subject of his proposi-
this,'
tions and experience itself forces him to recognise
;

that the this is one and yet many

4
' that it exists;

and is permanent, and yet is subject to change.

All accidents, qualities, appearances, modifications,
when considered in the concrete, are referred to some
individual, either to something outside us or to the
self ; and this predication of accidental differences
of a substantial ground is not an arbitrary process ;

but a process which is forced upon us by experience.

Qualities are given in combination and though we
;

cannot predicate them until we have formed an idea

of each in distinction from the rest and an idea also
of the unity which they presuppose, as soon as these
ideas have been formed, we are constrained by
experience itself to combine them in the way in
which we do. Things qualitatively different and
spatially distinct from their neighbours manifest
within themselves structural differences. They have
many qualities, all of which are localised in the same
objective thing. Experience compels us to affirm
that a thing is a unity in difference, and the concept of
unity in difference is, as we have seen, but another
form of the concept of substance and accident.
Or, again, looking at the matter from a different
point of view, and applying our notion of causality,
we may say that things are one, because they act
as if they were one. And in general this principle
is true. Actio sequitur esse, for there is nothing else
from which it can proceed. The actor who success-
fully impersonates Macbeth can do so only in so far
as he has the same nature as Macbeth, the same
passions, the same love of power, the same hatred
308 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

of all that stands in his way though in ordinary ;

life he keep these passions in check. A many-

may
sided activity proceeding from what is spatially one
implies that it is really and substantially one, or,
in other words, that its activities are held together
by a unity of ground or form. Thus the recognition
of substantial unities, no less than the recognition
of causes, is forced upon us by experience
real
itself and is due to the fact that there are real
;

causes and real substances which determine directly

or indirectly the content of our thoughts.
§ 273. On the other hand, among material
things, it is difficult to distinguish what are sub-
stantial unities from what are not ; or better,
perhaps, it is difficult to locate the substantial unity.
Is a lump of sugar a substantial unity ? Certainly
it is substantial, for it unites within itself sweetness,
hardness, whiteness, and other properties character-
istic of carbon compounds. But is it one substance
or many ? It would seem that it is many, for it

consists of innumerable particles, cohering together,

yet in reality distinct and individual, and each
possessing the characteristics that belong to what
we call sugar. But
hardly behoves the meta-
it

physician to distinguish between one substantial

unity and another, provided he can show that his
concept of substance is in general valid, and can
state clearly what he understands a substance to be.
A body which* consists of parts and possesses
properties relatively distinct and mutually inde-
pendent, yet held together and controlled by some
one principle or form which makes each and all the
parts different from what they would be, were they
 THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE 399

really distinct and separate, and which causes them

to act as one—as in the case of a man, an animal,
a plant, and even an atom as conceived in the
electron theory of Thompson — certainly a
J. J. is

substance. But if the parts of a body are really

divided and merely cohere together by mutual
attraction or by some external force, then that body
isnot a substantial unity, but an aggregate of sub-
stantial unities which interact. It is, however, for
the physicist and the chemist, not the metaphysician,
to draw the line between substantial unities in the
concrete.
§ 274. The ideas of substance, cause, being,
existence, quality and such like simple and ultimate
ideas are, then, objectively valid, and unless they
were valid and were strictly derived from and
determined by objects themselves, through the
mediation of sense-perception, knowledge itself would
be a farce. It is impossible to trace with anything
approaching accuracy or certainty the development
of these ideas, or even to ascertain in what order
they are first derived, for we cannot live again the
period of infancy and youth. Still, in analysing
more complex notions, we arrive finally at simpler
notions which cannot be further analysed, nor yet
defined, but which none the less have meaning and
significance. To define a straight line is impossible,
for throws us back at once upon direction.; and
it

direction, though it can be illustrated and pictured,

since it is contained in the data of experience, is for
us an ultimate notion which we understand and are
constantly using, but are unable to define.
§ 275. Every abstract notion, whether ultimate
400 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

or not, represents but an aspect of the real thing,

and so is incomplete. It has positive content, but
it also implies a relation to something else ; and
often enough if we wish to define it we can do so
only by reference something else. For the
to
realist, however, this does not mean that ideas and
their relations are structural differences or appear-
ances which emerge within the universe as a whole
and imply an immanent Ground but that the plan ;

or design according to which the universe is con-

structed and according to which changes in it take
place, is rational and intelligible, and may be known
by us because implied in the finite objects which
it is

are presented to our minds in experience. We saw

in the last chapter how each individual thing has a
purpose how action was an attempt to realise this
;

purpose how purposes were co-ordinated and

;

subordinated one to another how, in short, the

;

universe formed a systematic and teleological,

though not an organic, whole. We saw also that
this systematisation did not destroy the real unity
of the individual thing ; and again
though that,
all things are inter-related, a relation is not a

physical nexus implying an immanent Ground, but

rather an ordo belonging to the individual things in
so far as they imply and express a rational plan,
just as a building implies and expresses the plan
which existed in the mind of the architect. Now
this inter-relatedness and systematic connectedness
is a characteristic of all aspects of reality abstract
as well as concrete ; is to be found
and, therefore,
in every science. Not only are things inter-
connected and inter-related, but so also are their
 THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE

qualitiesand attributes when considered in general

and apart from their manifestation in this or that
object. And what I have said above about relations
in the concrete applies here also. The relation is
implied in its terms, and as soon as the terms are
known the relation is recognised.
§ 276. Let us take Geometry as aa example.
What is its object ? A number of abstract entities,
points, lines, angles, figures, planes, solids, all of
them systematically related and inter-connected,
yet each having positive content of its own from

which its relations arise. An angle is not a line,

nor a line an angle yet an angle cannot be defined

;

apart from a line, while the line being an ultimate

notion cannot be defined at all. A line, you say, is
the locus of a moving point and an angle (if plane)
;

the space included between two intersecting straight

lines. But what is a locus ? What a point ?
What intersection ? What motion ? Sooner or
later you must come back upon an ultimate notion,
the meaning of which you know by a sort of in-
tuition, for you have derived it direct from ex-
perience. It does not matter much what notions
you call ultimate in geometry, and your choice will
depend largely upon your point of view 1 but ;

sooner or later your analysis must come to an end,

and you will be forced to admit that there are certain
notions which you can indicate but cannot define,
like the boy who said that a kick was when you hit
a man with your foot. Indeed, there is something
to be said for the old-fashioned way of defining

1
Compare Staudt Geometric der Lage (or any modern Geometry)
with the older Euclidian theory.
402 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

(v.g.) a circle as " When you take a line in a plane

such that any point in it is equi-distant from a

given fixed point that line is called a circle." Such
a definition brings out the fact that we know what
a circle is long before we are able to define it, and
that our knowledge is derived directly from ex-
perience jvhere circles exist, not exactly, but
approximately in the configuration of actual bodies.
Geometry, like every other science, starts with
certain ultimate notions which are obtained direct
from experience. These notions have innumerable
implications, because there is an indefinite number
of other notions to which they are related. But
once you have got your notions the relation between
them is fixed and determined because it was already
implied in the content of the notions themselves.
This, you say, is true, so far as notions are con-
cerned ; but it is true because the notions are
arbitrarily defined, and not because they are
derived from experience. On the contrary, notions
in geometry are never arbitrarily defined, but are
always determined in the last instance by experience.
You may choose the entities in regard to which you
are going to formulate your definition ;
but, this
done, your definition is fixed and necessary, for it is
already implied in the notion itself and in the
entity in regard to which you are going to define it.
Thus, instead of defining a circle as a line which lies
in a plane such that, etc., you may define it as the
locus of a moving point, etc., or again as a particular
case of an ellipse in which the foci coincide, or,
again, as a conic such that all its conjugate diameters
are at right angles to one another. But whatever
 THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE

yon may choose as the terms in regard

4
entities '

to which your circle is to be defined, the relation

between the circle and those terms is fixed. You
cannot define it as you like, but must define it in
accordance with your pre-conceived, though un-
defined, notion of a circle. Nor does your definition
change or mutilate or intrinsically modify your
pre-conceived notion of a circle. It amplifies it,
if you like but it does not alter it or show that it
;

was self-discrepant. It merely means that you

know more about a and more about
circle,
geometrical entities in general, and their relations
one to another.
§ 277. Geometrical science, then, has for its

object a number of entities systematically related.

Our notions of these entities are derived ultimately,
and in many cases directly, from experience, and
the relations between these entities are determined
by the entities themselves but not vice versa, or,
;

at least, not in the same rigid sense. For it is no

more true to say that relations react upon and are
intrinsically modified by the nature of the entities
they relate, than it is to say that the nature of a
grain of corn is intrinsically modified by the fact
that it is intended as food for man. Both state-
ments are guilty of a hysteron proteron. Neverthe-
less, geometry is concerned chiefly with relations,
since its aim is to discover the rational plan of the
universe which they express. This, in fact, is the
aim of all science, no matter with what aspect of
reality it is concerned. Every science is an attempt
to discover the rational plan of the real world, in so
far as concerns the particular kind of entity which
 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

it takes as its object. And in every case the entities

belonging to this particular kind or class will be
extremely numerous and often extremely complex.
Hence, as the relations between them will share in
their complexity, the general method adopted in
order to manifest this rational plan, is again common
to all sciences. The physicist, the chemist, the
naturalist, and the mathematician alike endeavour
to show that the relations between any two entities,
no matter how complex, are deducible from a few
first principles or general laws in which both entities

and relations are comparatively simple, and thus to

grasp in synthesis the structure, or plan, of that
particular aspect of reality with which they have to
deal and the co-ordination of its manifold and
intricate parts.

§ 278. But although the aim of all sciences is to

know, and to know means to reconstruct a system
of ideas which shall correspond to a system of
objective entities, different sciences differ consider-
ably not only in the way in which they set about
this work of reconstruction, but also in the degree
of completeness which as yet they have attained.
The reason is not far to seek.
of this difference It is
simply that some sciences are more abstract than
others. I have said that to know the nature of any

two entities is to know the relation between them.

Whence it follows that the more abstract an entity
is the sooner it is known, because in it, if I may

say so, there is less to know. The concrete, more-

over, includes the abstract, and a knowledge of the
concrete implies a knowledge of the abstract for, ;

as we have seen, it is by abstraction that all know-

 THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE 405

ledge begins. Hence abstract

sciences such as
arithmetic, geometry, not only precede,
algebra,
but are presupposed by more concrete sciences
such as mechanics and dynamics, while these in turn
precede and are presupposed by the still more
concrete and natural sciences.
physical The
physicist not concerned merely with configura-
is

tions which are external and directly apparent to

the senses, but with the inner structure of things,
with the relations which hold between the various
potentice and qualities that are comprised within
the unity of the concrete individual. And he is
concerned with these potentice not as static, but as
dynamic and active. " Ever since physical science
began in the atomic theories of the Greeks," says
Professor Larmor, " its main problem has been that
of unravelling the nature of the underlying cor-
relation which binds together the various natural
agencies." 1
The physicist has to deal with the
4
complex causes which produce quality of sensa- '

tion, and quality'

of sensation does not analyse
'

its object, but presents it in synthesis. He has to

phenomena and their transmutations, but
deal with
those phenomena and their transmutations are
particular, detailed, complex, and do not at once
reveal their inner nature and their component parts,
still lesstheir causes or their presuppositions. In a
word, the physicist does not, like the mathematician,
take as the object of his enquiry simple entities, the
nature of which is at once apparent, but complex
entities which have first to be analysed, and which
cannot be analysed directly.
1
Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. xxxviii., article " Energetics."
406 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

§ 279. From the complex nature of the object of

physical science follows an important consequence :

the physicist has no axioms. An axiom is a self-

evident truth, one which is not only per se nota

quoad se, but also per se nota quoad nos. It is a
proposition expressing a relation between two
entities,but the nature of the entities in this case,
being simple and extremely abstract, it is appre-
hended at once by the intellect for the relation ;

is, according to our theory, implied in its terms

and arises immediately the nature of those terms
is apprehended.

From the intellectual nature of the soul itself L says

Aquinas] it follows that immediately man knows what
is a whole and what is a part, he knows that the whole
is greater than the part and so on for other (axioms).
;

But what a whole is and what a part is, he can only

know by means of species intelligibiles received {rom
phantasmata ; and on this account Aristotle shows
(toward the end of the Posterior Analytics), that the
knowledge of axioms ( principia ) comes to us via the
senses. 1

An axiom, then, comes to us from experience, and,

like allknowledge, is determined ultimately by the
nature of its object but it presupposes that the
;

nature of objects between which an axiomatic

relation is seen to hold, be extremely simple :

otherwise it could not be per se nota quoad nos, but

would have to be discovered by means of analysis
and inference. This simplicity, therefore, being
absent, in the case of physical objects for the reasons
above explained, physical science has no axioms of
1
Sum ma Theologica, 1. p. 2, q. 51, ad 1. and cf. Maher, Psycho-
logy* 5 tli edit., p. 290.
 THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE

its own, and consequently has to adopt a different

method from that of the mathematician. It has
no self-evident first principles in regard to the
correlation of natural agencies, from which to
deduce the systematic structure and interdependence
of the objects which constitute the physical world
and so to manifest its rational plan. Hence in place
of axioms, it substitutes general principles which
in origin, atany rate, were '
postulates.'
When we come to treat of the epistemological
value of cognition, thepragmatic attitude which
' '

is now so commonly taken up in regard to the

methods and presuppositions of physical science
will be more fully treated. It will be sufficient,
therefore, if I now discuss the foundation of the
Newtonian laws upon which the science of Mechanics
has been built. Two remarks, however, must be
premised in regard to the objective necessity of
physical laws in general.
§ 280. In the first place, all the relations between
objects existing in the physical world are necessary,
i.e., given the objects, the relations follow as a

necessary consequence, and did we know the nature

and structure of the objects we should at once know
their relations. But this necessity is only hypo-
thetical, for it is conceivable that physical objects
might have been different in structure to what they
are and so have been connected by different laws.
The co-existence of certain attributes, properties, or
natural agencies is not a metaphysical necessity,

except in so far as one attribute, property or agency

is implied in, or presupposes another and we have ;

no reason for supposing that this is the case in regard

4o£ THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

to all physical propertiesand agencies. There is an

element of contingency, therefore, in the physical
world. The laws which govern the actions of
physical objects are necessary, given the existence
of those objects and given the Divine concur sus ; but
the structure of those objects is a fact which has to
be discovered by experiment and observation, or
deduced from provisional hypotheses and postulates
which lead to conclusions that correspond with
known facts. Secondly, there is no reason a priori
(so far as I can see) why an object should not tend
gradually to increase or decrease, to development or
to decay. True, one can hardly suppose that
things tend to corruption of themselves i.e., in virtue
,

of this positive and existential nature, for this would

contradict the Spinozistic axiom that every being
tends to persevere in esse suo, and strives to realise
a definite end or purpose. But all finite and con-
tingent beings presuppose Divine conservation and
concursus; and we might suppose, I think, that
this was gradually withdrawn provided always
;

that the withdrawal was regular and according to

knowable laws, so that our human demand for
knowledge might not be frustrated. On the other
hand, the principle of Causality that every event
'

must have a cause,' 1 and the further principle that

the effect must resemble its cause and be contained
in it, either formaliter or eminenter, is axiomatic,
4
and follows from the very nature of being and of '

'
change.' In so far, then, as conclusions in
Mechanics or in Physical Science are based upon
1 Or
better, perhaps, " Quidquid contingenter existit habet
causam sui efficientem."
 THE CONDITIONS OP KNOWLEDGE

this principle, they are true a priori ; but, as we

shall see, the Newtonian laws, though they pre-
suppose the principle of Causality, are in reality
based upon another principle less axiomatic, and
so have to seek for verification a posteriori,
§ 281. The first law of motion states that
" every body continues in its state of rest or of
uniform motion in a straight line, except in so far
as it is compelled by force to change that state."
Is this an axiom or a postulate ? Motion is a fact,
and so is rest, at least comparative rest; but it does
not seem to me to be necessary that motion, once
begun, should tend to continue, still less that it
should continue in a straight line rather than in a
circle or in any other kind of line. If it does so, it is
a fact ; but I hardly think that it follows from the
nature of motion or from the nature of a moving
body. For it is conceivable that things might tend
to move progressively faster or slower, given an
efficient cause, and yet the laws which governed
this motion might be knowable. 1 The law of
inertia, as stated above, is, to my mind, not a self-
evident truth, but a general physical principle
which we know to be true because the conclusions
which follow from it have been sufficiently verified
in experience.
The second law of motion
— " rate of change of
momentum proportional to force and takes place
is

in the straight line in which the force acts " seems,—

on the other hand, to be but a particular application

1 If motion is a positive quality it must tend, according

to
Spinoza's axiom, to persevere in its being ; but if it is a
continuous change, it postulates a continuous cause.
4lo THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

of the law of causality. Change of momentum or

of quantity of motion, like every other change,
4 '
implies a cause, and to attribute motion to a force
is but to give a name to a particular kind of cause,

since force ' is defined as " whatever changes the

'

state of rest or uniform motion ot a body."

Assuming, then, that the first law of motion is true,
i.e., that moving bodies do not of their own accord

tend either to increase their speed or to come to a

standstill, the second law is a necessary conse-
quence the change in the body's state of motion
;
' '

or rest must be proportional to its cause, and since

the force or cause ex hypothesi acts in a straight line
the change of motion must take place in the same
line.

§ 282. It is to be observed, however, that this

law says nothing about the nature of force. It may
be attractive or repulsive or both or neither. Again,
metaphysically, if it produces a real change, it must
be something real. But physicists prefer to abstract
from the reality of force, and, since they do not
know its nature, to define it as the space-rate at
which energy is transformed ( W =\ Mv2 /h) ; or
the time rate at which momentum is generated
(W=Mv/t). These definitions, however, are not
strictly definitions at all. For an equation tells us
nothing about the nature of entities, but simply
expresses a relation between certain quantities
known or unknown. W
not the entity
signifies
'force,' but the quantity of force or the number of
units of force. Similarly, if energy is defined as
" capacity for doing work" JMv2 is not kinetic
energy as such, but quantity of kinetic energy
 THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE

expressed in terms of a certain unit. Hence the

above equations do not tell us that force is a space-
rate, but the equation (W = £Mv 2 /h) affirms that the
number of units of force (e.g., gravity) is equal
to the ratio of two other numbers, viz., the number
of units of kinetic energy to the number of distance-
units, or the height. Similarly, the equation
(W = Mv/t) expresses merely a relation of equality
between quantity of force on the one hand, and the
ratio of momentum (i.e., quantity of motion) to
time a certain number of time-units) on the
(i.e.,

other. A mathematical equation, therefore, is not

really a definition, but merely a statement that the
quantities denoted by certain symbols are equal to
certain other quantities denoted by other symbols.
Hence, to infer that force and other physical entities
are not real because they can be expressed as
4
*
ratios,' rates,' or quotients is illogical for it is ;

not the entity itself which is so expressed or

*
defined,' but the quantitative value of that entity as
measured by its effects. The existence of agencies
capable of changing motion is presupposed by the
fact that motion is changed and though as yet
;

we do not know what the agencies are, but only

4
their values as measured by the change they
'

actually produce, it is hardly logical to infer from

this that they are not real.

§ 283. The law of motion action and

third —
reaction are equal and opposite has also been used —
as an argument against the reality of force on the
ground that it is inconceivable that the objects upon
which we act should resist our actions with a force
equal in quantity to that which we exercise upon
412 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

them. This second kind of inertia,' however, so '

far from being inconceivable, seems to be only

another example of the more general principle omne
ens perseverare in esse suo. For if this principle is

true, clearly every being will resist force attempting

to change its state, and will offer a resistance
proportionate to the vigour of the attempt made.
In other words, the effect produced in one body
will be the measure of the force which has been
brought to bear upon it, and the force which was
required to produce that effect will be the measure
of the resistance or inertia that called it forth.
The doctrine of Conservation of Energy is really
implied in the second law of motion, and hence may
also be regarded as a particular case of Spinoza's
famous axiom. Indeed, we may say that both
Mechanics and Physics presuppose the truth of that
axiom for the first law of motion is a statement
;

to the effect that states of motion and rest tend to

persevere. Could we, then, regard Spinoza's axiom
as a self-evident truth, it might be possible to show
that the fundamental principles of Mechanics are
necessary a priori; but, as I have said, Spinoza's
axiom is not strictly necessary, except when we
4
consider being '
purely in the abstract. It is true
that a self-existent being must 'persevere in esse
suo ;
'
and it is true that all beings, whether self-
existent or not, tend so to persevere in so far as
they have being. But it is not true that all being
does persevere in esse suo, for if it did, not only
would the sum of potential and actual energy be
constant, but they would be respectively constant,
i.e., there would be no transformation of energy
 THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE 413

nor any other kind of change. Change, in fact,

presupposes (1) energies which exist, but are not
actual and yet strive to become so ; (2) that these
energies are of a different order, or at least of a
different degree of strength, such that one energy
may be able to realise itself at the expense of
another (3) that these energies are finite, con-
;

tingent and essentially dependent upon a supreme

Being both for their existence and their activity;
and (4) that, being dependent, their sum is not
necessarily, though it may be de facto, constant.
Hence, although the doctrine omne ens perseverare
in esse suo and the laws of motion in which it is
applied to mechanical actions and changes, are true
in that they express a tendency which is character-
istic of all existent beings, they are not necessarily

true ; for a gradual decrease or a progressive

increase of motion, force, energy, and dependent
'
being in general is not metaphysically impossible.
'

As laws, then,which express the co-ordination of

physical and motions, the mechanical
forces
principles formulated by Newton need verification
in experience a verification which they seem
;

actually to have received, at any rate, in the realm

of Astronomy.

§ 284. This need for a verification process in the

case of the principles of physical science does not
invalidate, but rather confirms our general doctrine ;

for scientific induction involves not only judgment

and inference, but also apprehension, abstraction,
and to some extent at least that intuitive insight by
means of which we recognise the relations that hold
between abstract notions. In the first place, the
414 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

notions involved in Newton's laws, motion, rest,

uniformity, a straight line, force, action, reaction,
etc., are all derived from experience through the
phantasm or sense-impression. They are all abstract
notions, yet have meaning, and signify entities
existing objectively in the real world. True, the
notions of force and energy are derived from inner
rather than from outer experience but just as the
;

intellect apprehends that substance is implied and

presupposed by unity in difference, so also it
and energy are presupposed
recognises that force
as the metaphysical conditions of change and
motion. And, again, just as we found that it was
difficult to '
locate '
substance, so to speak, in regard
to material and inanimate things so also it is
;

4
difficult to locate a force,' if by force is under-
' '

stood the real cause of motion while neither the

:

notion of force nor that of substance tells us anything

in regard to the nature of particular forces or
particular substances. Secondly, we found that
the first and third laws of motion, as well as the
doctrine of Conservation of (material) Energy, might
be regarded as particular cases of a more general
principle, expressing the relation between two
simple entities ens and perseverare. This relation,
however, did not seem to be necessarily valid in
regard to an ens contingens, but merely to express its
natural tendency. Consequently, as Spinoza's
axiom, not being itself strictly axiomatic, cannot
impart to mechanical principles an axiomatic
character, the human intellect is forced to seek for
verification elsewhere. This it does by means of
deduction and by a careful process of observation,
 THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE 415

experimental or otherwise, and generalisation lead-

ing to the formulation of empirical laws with which
the conclusions of our deductive reasoning may be
compared.
Of the nature of reasoning little need be said, 1
except that, whether syllogistic or not, it is but a
more complex form of that intuitive judgment by
which we recognise the relations that hold between
different entities, the entities here being not ideas,
but other judgments. Doubtless, reasoning often
involves postulation, or rather is a result of postula-
tion. But postulation itself is merely a name for a
complex process which includes the activity both
of intellect and will. Of intellect, because a postulate
is a judgment, uncertain perhaps, as judgments
often are, and possibly abstract, but still a judgment
and therefore an intellectual act. Of will, because
we desire to ascertain the truth of our tentative
judgment whether the
; relation we apprehend really
holds to the concrete. may be
Again, experiment
involved ;but experiment is merely perception,
combined with action, and its function is quite
subordinate to the intellectual end we have in view.
So, too, is the will in so far as it co-operates in
cognition. It transforms an idea into a purpose;
it keeps the mind fixed on that purpose and directs
;

all its activities to the realisation of that purpose ;

but beyond this it has no legitimate influence in the

sphere of cognition.
§ 285. We may now sum up the main character-
1
For a discussion of the nature of judgment and reasoning
from the Aristotelian point of view cf. Maher, Psychology, chap,
xii. and xv. and for the logical aspect of the same, Joyce,
;

Principles of Logic, chap. iii. and xii.

4i6 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

the Aristotelico-Scholastic, or Causal Theory

istics of
of Knowledge. Ex parte objccti the conditions of
human knowledge are finite individual objects, each
a unity of ground amid structural difference each ;

independent of its neighbours in regard to its

existence, but possessing attributes identical in
nature with theirs each forming part of a rational
;

plan and manifesting in an imperfect way the

attributes of the Deity to whom it owes its existence
and upon whom it depends each striving to
;

realise itself and to bring to act the potentiality of

matter in itself and in other objects and thus ;

capable of producing in them effects like in form to

the activity from which they proceed. Ex parte
subjecti the conditions of human knowledge are that
man should be one, organic, sentient, active, and
rational. Through his body he is brought into
contact with external things which manifest their
nature in their activities. The form of the psycho-
physical processes which take place in his brain and
in his organs of sense is determined by the activity
of these objects (or, again, by internal changes
within the organism) and hence the species sensibilis
corresponds to some characteristic of the objective
real thing. But knowledge proper is obtained only
in ideas and in the judgments in which these ideas
are combined. The content of an idea, therefore,
must be determined by the object, and this takes
place primarily in simple apprehension, which is one
aspect of human perception. The combination of
these ideas in judgment must also be determined
by the object, and this takes place in the empirical
or a posteriori judgment in which relations of
 THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE 417

co-existence and sequence are apprehended, and

again in the axiomatic or a priori judgment in
which relations between simple entities are appre-
hended as necessary because implied in the nature of
the entities themselves. But the intellect, besides
apprehending the many in the one, also apprehends
the one in the many and so is able to subsume.
Subsumption is characteristic both of judgment and
of (syllogistic) inference. In judgment a particular
entity is subsumed under a universal idea, and in
the syllogism a particular relation is subsumed under
a general principle or law. The idea corresponds
with some real entity in the objective world or in
the self ; the judgment corresponds with some
relation holding between these entities in that they
imply a rational plan systems of ideas, complex
;

concepts, theories, correspond with the systematic

co-ordination and correlation of real things always ;

provided and in so far as reality itself is their deter-

mining cause,
§ 286. Truth, then, consists in a relation of
correspondence between the idea or judgment and
the thing. It is an adecquatio intellectus et rei.
'
Cognition '
includes all acts whether of the per-

ceptual or purely intellectual order by means of

which this relation is brought about. Knowledge
is the possession of true ideas (or systems of ideas),
whether actually functioning in consciousness or
existing only per modum habitus. Error is a positive
difformity between the idea and the thing, and
we may say in general that it is due to association,
to an influxus voluntatis, or to some other subjective
influence which causes assent to be given before the
4i8 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

object has had time or opportunity itself to

determine the content of thought. Error will be
discussed later in the chapter on the Criteria of Error.
It should, however, already be clear that the
primary aim of one who seeks for truth should be
to allow reality itself to determine the content of
thought, and that the primary function of criteria
of truth will be to distinguish cases in which the
sense impression, the id quo percipitur, and the idea
or concept, the id quo intclligituf has been objectively
',

determined from cases in which it has not.

 PART III.

The Epistemological Value of

Cognition.

CHAPTER XVI.
DEVELOPMENT and validity.
§ 287. The third problem of the theory of
knowledge, the problem of validity, is so intimately
bound up with the second problem, the conditions
of knowledge, that it is impossible to keep the two
distinct. This will become more and more apparent
as we proceed. We shall find that Absolutism,
because it is Absolutism, has an Absolute theory of
truth, a theory in which truth is regarded as an
ideal whole, embracing interdependent parts, none
of which are true in abstraction from the rest. In
Absolutism the doctrine of reality is prior to the
doctrine of truth, and both the nature and the
criteria of the latter presuppose and are determined
by the metaphysical conditions of knowledge.
Pragmatism, on the other hand, starts with the
criteria of truth, and hence infers, first its nature
and then its metaphysical conditions. Conse-
quently, in treating of the philosophy of Pure
Experience before we treated of the pragmatic
doctrine of truth, we have really been considering
 ;

420 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

—
the conclusion at any rate, in the case of Professor
—
James before we examined the premises. This
was necessary owing to the general method we
adopted in the beginning, and I do not think it
should lead to misunderstanding for although every
;

theory of knowledge, if it is to be complete, must

treat of psychological, metaphysical, as well as
epistemological problems, a man may be a pragmatist
in method without being a pragmatist in meta-
physics.
The strictly of Realism
epistemological aspect
is no less connected with its meta-
essentially
physics than is that of Absolutism. The Causal
theory, the theory which maintains that all know-
ledge, in so far as it is in truth knowledge, is
determined by its object, is characteristic of
Aristotelian Realism from whatever point of view
we regard it. Primarily, it is a metaphysical theory
but it pervades also the realist's doctrine of truth,
and it characterises also his psychology, whenever
the latter is explanatory and not merely descriptive.
Nay, even in descriptive psychology we find traces
of causality, for causality, as I have already pointed
out, seems to be directly revealed in many of the
processes of our active conscious life.
§ 288. Having discussed, then, the various
theories at present current in regard to the meta-
physical conditions of knowledge, we must now
proceed to examine how far these theories affect
the validity and significance of knowledge, and,
incidentally, how far preconceived views in regard
knowledge have reacted upon and
to the validity of
determined metaphysics. It would, however, be
 DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDITY 421

sheer waste of time to discuss the validity of know-

ledge and the criteria of truth, if knowledge itself
be a nonentity and truth an unattainable ideal.
It would be useless to try to. distinguish what is true
from what is false, if everything is false and nothing
true. Unless we have some knowledge and some
truth it is absurd to talk of knowledge and truth at
all. This, in general, is admitted by every philoso-
pher, and is presupposed by the fact that he is a
philosopher. Yet, though no philosopher nowadays
is guilty of so glaring a self-contradiction as to
profess to be an out-and-out sceptic, some philoso-
phers seem to approach dangerously near to this
fatal inconsistency and their philosophies to be im-
pregnated, in consequence, with a suicidal tendency.
No philosopher professes to know that knowledge is

impossible, nor does he declare in so many words

that so far we know nothing at all for certain ; yet
this is the logical conclusion which seems to follow
from current theories as to the effect ot development
in knowledge upon its validity, just as it follows
from current theories as to the conditions and
ultimate origin of knowledge. To this conclusion
I cannot give my assent, for it seems to destroy
knowledge altogether and to land us at least in
negative, ifnot in positive, scepticism. I argue,

therefore, that as the conclusion is false there must

be something wrong with the premises. This I
have already endeavoured to show so far as concerns
the origin and conditions of knowledge, and have
also stated in outline an alternative theory which
does not lead to this undesirable conclusion. In the
present chapter I propose to discuss the question
 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

of development in knowledge, and to show that

development and validity are not incompatible.
§ 289. Development, we are told, implies an
intrinsic and essential modification in knowledge of
so radical a nature that what appears to be know-
ledge may not really be knowledge at all. This
view of the development of knowledge may be
derived from two sources, either by inference from a
theory as to the nature of development in knowledge,
or from a study of alleged facts in regard to develop-
ments which have actually taken place. In either
case the result is the same knowledge is a fraud
:

and an illusion. But while both the absolutist and

the pragmatist seem to adopt this sceptical attitude,
the absolutist does so because it is the logical outcome
of his theory that all knowledge is a reconciliation *

of antitheses in a higher synthesis/ the pragmatist

because he thinks that, knowledge having undergone
so many transmutations in the past, there is no
reason to suppose that our present knowledge will
not be subject to a like corruption. Neither of
these methods of- establishing the invalidity of
human knowledge seem to me
themselves to be
valid. But while it is comparatively easy to show
that the argument of the absolutist is fallacious
because based on a misconception of the nature
it is

of reconciliation
'
;it is a very different matter
'

to attempt to answer the arguments adduced by

the pragmatist. Indeed, to do so would involve a
careful study of the history of every branch of
human knowledge. This of course is impossible
here, much as such a study is needed. Yet as the
pragmatist contents himself with general statements,
 —

DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDITY 42$

and as a particular negative is the contradictory of

a universal affirmative, I shall be content if I can
show that some propositions, and some general laws,
and some branches of knowledge have not undergone
a change which is radical enough to render them
unreliable and uncertain.
§ 290. The principle of reconciliation of anti-
'

theses in a higher synthesis is defined by Dr. Caird

'

as " a solution of the antinomy between opposing

principles which seem to have an equal or similar
claim to our acceptance, by means of a regress upon
the ultimate conditions of knowledge or thought
conditions which are presupposed in the con-
troversy itself." So much for the general principle
4
of a critical regress.' It is applied, however, not
only to divergences in philosophical principles, but
also to every kind of divergence and every kind of
difference, whether ontological or logical, whether
pertaining to categories, propositions, or theories.
The doctrine of Unity in Difference and the
Dialectic method of reasoning from thesis through
antithesis to a higher synthesis is characteristic
of every aspect of Kantian and Hegelian philo-
sophy.
We have seen how
this principle is applied by
Kant. The opposition between physical science
and philosophical theory is solved by a distinction
of the sphere of the practical from that of the
speculative Reason. Materialism and Spiritualism
are reconciled by Faith
while the opposition
;

between the speculative and the practical Reason

is itself solved in the Critique of Judgment, where

the universe is regarded teleologically as the mani-

 ; —

4H THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

festation Divine Reason. It is in the third

of
4 1
Critique that the principle of reconciliation is

especially prominent but it is by no means confined

;

to that Critique. It appears in the Kantian cate-

gories, which are arranged in sets of three, the
4
third category in each set being the synthesis of
'

the second with the first. Thus totality is plurality

regarded as unity. Again, Kant defines judgment
as " simply the way in which given ideas are brought
together under the unity of apperception." Thus
we have (i) the thesis or simple assertion of a thing ;

(2) the antithesis or determination of it by dis-

4
tinguishing it from other things omnis deter-
minate est negatio and (3) the synthesis or
'

"redintegration of the elements thus differentiated

and related." That is to say, objects are "first
determined as things in themselves, then as related
one to another and finally as a system of distinct
;

yet inter-related parts within the unity of thought

as their centre." Judgment, therefore, may again
44
be defined as at once the distinction of objects
from and their relation to each other, and their
distinction from and relation to the thought for
which they are." 1
§ 291. Psychologically, the principle of a syn-
thetic reconciliation of differences is well known
under the name of Apperception and ; is admitted
on all sides. Knowledge is a growth. It develops
by differentiation and integration rather than by
mere accretion, for a new truth usually modifies to
some extent pur previous knowledge of the subject
to which it pertains. Professor James thus describes
1 Critical Philosophy of Kant, pp. 460-462.
 : —

DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDITY 425

the process by which an individual settles into new

opinions

HiThe individual has a stock of old opinions already, but

he meets a new experience that puts them to the strain.
Somebody contradicts them or in a reflective moment
;

he discovers that they contradict each other or he ;

hears of facts with which they are incompatible or ;

desires arise in him which they cease to satisfy. The

result is inward trouble to which his mind had hitherto
been a stranger, and from which he seeks to escape by
modifying his previous mass of opinions. 1

Or, again, in more characteristic language :

Our past apperceives and co-operates and in the new ;

equilibrium in which each step forward in the process

of learning terminates, it happens relatively seldom
that the new fact is added raw. More usually it is
embedded cooked, as one might say, or stewed down
in the sauce of the old. New truths are thus the
. . .

resultants of new experiences and of old truths combined

and mutually modifying one another. 2

Le Roy expresses a similar idea, when he says :

" Progress a conquest of the obscure, of the un-

is

intelligible,almost of the contradictory." And

Blondel, " Action is a continuous state of unstable
equilibrium, and each attempt to satisfy an
. . .

actual need reveals further needs qui s'imposent

moralement d Paction" 3
Both Pragmatism and Criticism, then, accept this
principle of development as a psychological law ;

and Hegel in his History of Philosophy has applied

it to the growth of the mind of humanity in general.

1
Pragmatism, pp. 59, 60.
% (Italics mine.)
Ibid., p. 169.
3 Annates de phil. chriiienne, 1906, p. 234.
426 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

But when we examine this principle more in detail,

and try to explain its working and to apply it to
the theory of knowledge, we find at once a divergence
of opinion.
Pragmatism insists that some new idea must
" mediate between the stock and the new experience."
Its function is "to preserve the older stock of truths
44
with a minimum Our minds
of modification." 1

grow in and like grease-spots, the spots

spots;
spread. But we let them spread as little as possible :

we keep unaltered as much of our old know-

ledge as we can." 2
Hence, for the pragmatist, the
4
mediating idea does not necessarily lead to a
'

higher synthesis.' On the contrary, we prefer

4

4
usually to patch and timber old prejudices and old '

beliefs, so as to admit the novelty which is forced

upon us. Moreover, these ideas through whose
4
mediation old truth grows, are new ideas we '
;

make them they did not exist before they are

; ;

additions to our former stock. And they are true

ideas precisely in so far as they perform satisfactorily
44
their function of mediation. Our thoughts become
true in proportion as they successfully exert their
3
go-between function."
§ 292. The pragmatist, then, explains the growth
of knowledge by the mediation of new ideas or
Denkmittcl ; the Hegelian by the modification and

higher synthesis of the old. Let us illustrate this

44
by an example. The idea of radium paying heat
away indefinitely out of its own pocket," seemed,
says Professor James, to violate the law of Conserva-
tion of Energy. The contradiction was avoided,
1
Pragmatism, 2 3
p. 60. Ibid., p. 168. Ibid., p. 66.
 DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDITY 4*7

however, by supposing that " the radiations were

nothing but an escape of unsuspected potential
eneigy, pre-existent inside of the atoms " an —
hypothesis which was confirmed by the discovery
of helium. The new idea or, in the language of —
Avenarius, the beibegriff which mediates here, is —
the escape of unsuspected potential energy. The
Hegelians may object, however, that this is no new
idea, for potential energy was already known, and
' '

all we do now is to suppose that it can, as Professor

4
James puts it, escape and to this the pragmatist
;
'

4
might reply that at any rate the possibility of its
escape '
isa new idea, and that in this way we have
come to know a difference of energy, of which we
were formerly ignorant. Certainly the idea of
4
potential energy escaping '
is new, though, on the
4
other hand, we already had ideas of potential
energy *
and of '
escapings.' Let us, however,
substitute for Professor James' picturesque account
of radio-activity the scientific explanation, and see
what kind of modification it has introduced into
previous theories.
Radio-activity is supposed to be due so I under- —
stand —
to the disintegration of the relatively
complex atom of radium into the less complex
atom of helium, in which process the internal
energy of the former istransformed into electrical
4
and thermal energy ; hence the waves
and the '

rise temperature. The argument is one from

of
experienced effects (electrical, photographic, lumi-
nescent, chemical, and even physiological) to
presupposition or cause (internal disintegration of
the atoms) —a type of argument that we have met
428 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

with before. But the question which is of interest

for us is whether the Electron theory for it is this —
which has been modified, if any has been so —
modified by this postulated disintegration of the
atom of radium as to render previous accounts of
it not only inadequate but false. It would not
matter much, perhaps, if this were so, since the
atomic structure of material substances is a hypo-
thesis and not an established truth. But, as a
matter of fact, it is not so. The idea of atomic
disintegration is not only compatible with, but,
according to Sir Oliver Lodge, was already poten-
tially contained in the theory of Lorentz, Larmor,
and J. J. Thomson, which affirms that the atom is

a positively around which are

charged nucleus
grouped relatively small and negatively charged
electrons. Whether the doctrine
of Conservation is
saved by this *
depend, of course, upon
regress '
will
the validity of the Electron theory. But, at any
rate, we have here a regress which reconciles pro
tempore an apparent contradiction, not by showing
that both the antitheses were false and reuniting
them in higher synthesis, but by denying one of
them altogether (viz., the assertion that in radio-
activity energy is lost) and re - affirming the
other.
§ 293. This kind of reconciliation is typical of
the way in which theories develop. The growth of
knowledge does not necessarily involve the negation
of a previous thesis, but rather its amplification ;

and when this is the case, as it often is, I can find

no sense in which the reconciliation effected can be
4
called a higher synthesis, unless all syntheses are
'
 DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDITY

to be called *
higher *
which make knowledge fuller
and more complete.
The higher synthesis
' *
of the Hegelian, however,
means more than this. means a synthesis in
It
which all the differences remain and yet are in-
trinsically changed in some mysterious manner by
the synthesis. Unfortunately, the Hegelian is not
k
fond of illustrating his doctrine of reconciliation in
a higher synthesis,' and perhaps I have misinter-
preted its meaning in my application of it to the
above example of a scientific regress. But I do not
think that I have. The general doctrine and its
consequences seem to be clear enough and though ;

it is agplied primarily to the universe as a whole,

we know that for the Hegelian thought and reality

are one. In forms of Absolutism, the endeavour
all

of human thought is to equate itself with reality,

and when this has been accomplished the logical

'
principle of reconciliation in a higher synthesis
'

will be identical with the ontological principle of

Unity in Difference. The function of reason,
according to Kant, is to guide the understanding in
its search for a full and adequate knowledge, of
which the final aim is an " absolute totality of
syntheses on the side of conditions." And Fichte,
starting with the ultimate condition of conditions,
the Ego, obtained by a process of analysis and
synthesis a logic and a phenomenology or pragmatic
(sic) history of consciousness. The rational pro-
cedure of the human intellect was thus interpreted,
by Fichte statically and by Hegel dynamically, as
revealingTthe inner structure of the universe. And
this as a general principle is still characteristic of
430 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

the attitude of the absolutist. Hence, whatever can

be predicated of the inner structure and processes
of the universe can be predicated of the structure
and processes of thought. As, therefore, the differ-
ences which are somehow reconciled in the Absolute
undergo an essential modification in the process, it
follows that in the synthetic reconciliations which
will have to take place in human thought before it
is completely identical with the universe, modifica-
tions of the most wholesale, radical and indefinite
kind will surely occur. Hence the conclusion that
human knowledge, which at present is certainly
far from adequate or complete, is not strictly
knowledge at all, but a construction in whiclj truth
and error are inseparably blended and mixed.
The significance of this doctrine will be clearer
when we come to treat of Absolute truth, but its
sceptical tendency is evident. If human knowledge
contains an element of truth, but an element which
cannot be distinguished from error, we might as well
be without truth altogether, for to possess truth and
yet to be ignorant of what it is, is certainly not what
we mean by possessing truth. To affirm that all
and every part of human knowledge is liable to
modification is to affirm that we cannot be certain
of anything ; and if this is not scepticism, it is
something very like it. The Hegelian theory of the
development of knowledge follows logically from
itsmetaphysical theory of the universe and just ;

as the metaphysical theory is inconsistent with

facts, so also is the epistemological theory, as we
shall see presently. But wish to point out
first I

that the pragmatist, though approaching the matter

 —

DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDITY

from a different point of view, has arrived at the

same sceptical conclusion.
§ 294. In Baldwin's Dictionary of Philosophy}
we are informed by Mr. C. S. Peirce that Pragmatism
is part of a larger doctrine which he calls Synechism.

Synechism is " that tendency of philosophic thought

which insists upon the idea of continuity as of prime
importance in philosophy." 2 " Metaphysically "
though Synechism professes not to be metaphysical
" a continuum is something whose possibilities of
determination no multitude of individuals can
exhaust," while epistemologically it is a conception
of the universe of thinking beings as gradually
approximating to, but never attaining systematic
truth. Man is ever striving toward a more rational
and more complete interpretation of the universe,
but his knowledge at present is so incomplete and so
disjointed that he can never tell how far any one of
his theories or even of his propositions about reality
may have to be modified in the future. Gradually,
however, through the intercourse of many minds,
his knowledge is becoming more coherent, and,
perhaps, more adequate, and " the becoming con-
tinuous, the becoming governed by laws, the
becoming instinct with general ideas, are but phases
of one and the same process, the growth of reason-
ableness." 3 All hypotheses must be regarded as
*
continuous,' i.e., as subject to further determina-
tion,which for us can never be exhausted. 4 Truth
grows and will continue to grow. It has had a
1
Baldwin's Dictionary of Philosophy, article, *'
Pragmatism."
* Ibid., article," Synechism."
* Ibid., article, " Pragmatism."
4
cf. Studies in Humanism, p, 195.
 :

432 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

c
career,' and therefore is going to have a career in
the future.
This is obvious enough but the problem is as to
;

how far future truths have " the power of retros-

pective legislation." How far will our theories,
physicaland metaphysical, be modified ? How far
our axioms ? Will it be beyond all recognition ?
And will the modification be so radical as to extend
even to our truest formulae ?
'
Pragmatism, in
'

spite of its admission that we strive to retain old

theories with a minimum of change, thinks that it
may be so and Absolutism, in the person of
;

Mr. Joachim, is of the same opinion. Professor

James writes
The enormously rapid multiplication of theories in
these latter days has well-nigh upset the notion of any
one of them being a more literally objective kind of thing
than another. There are so many geometries, so many
logics, so many physical and chemical hypotheses, so
many classifications, each one of them good for so much
and yet not good for everything, that the notion that
even the truest formula* may be a human device and not
a literal transcript has dawned upon us. 1

Nay, has more than 'dawned upon us,' has led

Pragmatism to adopt as a fundamental tenet that
our solutions must be imperfect, and that human
knowledge is throughout only an approximation to
truth. 2 And this must be so, if thought and action
are really one, and if our only justification for
admitting a proposition or a theory is that it enables
think clearly and act efficiently.' 3
4
us to
* The Meaning of Truth, p. 58. (Italics mine.)
* Riddles of the Sphinx, p. 9.
* cf. Alb6e, " Methodological Principles," Amer. Phil. Review,
1906.
 DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDITY 433

§ 295. Professor James, indeed, seems at times

to be struggling against this sceptical current in the
pragmatic stream. He speaks of relations between
our ideas, which are irreversible, and of questions
to which there can only be one answer. 1 He
acknowledges, too, that it is Dr. Schiller who leads
the way in this genetic view of truth, though, at
the same time, he declares himself a staunch sup-
porter of the English leader.
Surely Professor James has need to hesitate
before adopting an attitude so avowedly sceptical.
A cursory view of current philosophy and current
science may suggest a hopeless confusion but to a;

more careful observer there will appear much

harmony amid the strife, and much that is true
amid what is erroneous or doubtful. There may be
two geometries but meta-geometry is confessedly
;

based on the denial of a postulate which the three-

dimensional world of our experience necessitates.
There may be several logics but the logic of Hegel
;

should rather be classed as a metaphysic, and the

logic of Pragmatism as a very one-sided aspect of
psychology. There may be many hypotheses,
chemical and physical but most do not conflict,
;

and of those which do the majority are based on

theories so well-established that upon them further
speculation rests as upon an accepted fact. And
as for classifications, these are confessedly prag-
matic, having utility as their end, and seldom
claiming to be more than provisional. Let us,
however, examine the matter a little more closely
and see whether development does involve a radical
1 Pragmatism, pp. 244, 245, and The Meaning of Truth, p. 69,
CC
434 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

change whether our knowledge, such

in past belief ;

as does contradict the claims to truth our

it is,

ancestors asserted or whether it is not rather that

;

development adds to truth, enriches it, renders it

more adequate and more complete.
§ 296. By far the most important sphere of
knowledge which it is necessary to rescue from the
corrosive influence of Scepticism is that body of
common-sense truths, which, as M. Duhem remarks,
are " in the last analysis the source whence flows all
truth and all scientific certitude." 1
These truths are
not static they develop. They are not a treasure
;

buried in the ground, but a treasure which everyone

shares, which he needs in order to perform the
actions of his daily life, and to which he is ever
adding by fresh discovery and research. The truths
of common-sense grow, and in growing are modified.
But the question is whether these modifications
affect the main body of truth or only its excrescences.
Certainly, if we exclude interpretations of a theo-
retical kind, legendary stories and local traditions
as to the nature and number of the gods, the
identification of tribal heroes on account of prodigies
long since forgotten and in consequence exaggerated,
and the superstitious attributing of natural events
to unseen spirits of a superhuman or diabolical
character, there remains a vast number of truths
which men believe in now and always have
believed in. Our environment is much the same
as it was two thousand years ago and the events ;

which occur in that environment are perceived in

much the same way and under almost precisely the
1
La Th/oric Physique, chap, vii., § 5.
 :

DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDITY 435

same categories as they were in bygone ages. We

understand perfectly what Herodotus means when
he says of the Borysthenes (Dnieper) that
It has upon its banks the loveliest and most excellent
pasturages for cattle it contains abundance of the most
;

delicious fish its water is most pleasant to the taste

; ;

its stream is limpid, while all the other rivers near it

are muddy the richest harvests spring up along its
;

course, and where the ground is not sown, the heaviest

crops of grass while salt forms in great plenty about
;

its mouth and large fish are taken in it of the sort called
Antacei (sturgeon) without any prickly bones, and good
for pickling. 1

Moreover, Herodotus' account of the general

features ofScythia is remarkably accurate so ;

much so that

it might pass [says Rawlinson]

for an account of the
same country at the present day. The rivers are still
as large as before, and their fish are still abundant.
The sturgeon of the Dnieper are still celebrated and the
natural salt which is found near its mouth is still of the
greatest value. Again, the steppes through which the
Dnieper flows are still a corn-growing country, while to
the east cattle are even now produced in great
abundance. 2

The knowledge our forefathers possessed of the

general sequence of events and of the results which
inevitably follow from certain lines of action also
was reliable ; though, owing to the lack of detailed
information, and the absence of any scientific method
of induction, they were unable to distinguish the
real causes of the sequences they observed, and of

1
History, chap, iv., § 53 (Rawlinson's trans., vol. iii., p. 40).
2
Rawlinson's Herodotus, iii., pp. 171, 172, and cf. p. 40.
43^ THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

their unscientific surmises Herodotus gives us

innumerable examples.
§ 297. But perhaps it will be said that I have
no right to exclude all that we now call superstition
and rash theoretical speculation from the general
head of knowledge and then to claim that common-
sense truths have developed without any essential
or intrinsic change. For it may be contended, in
the first place, that the residue is '
mere fact,' and
that facts are not knowledge ;
and, in the second
place, that the beliefs of our ancestors, though
superstitions, were none the less 'beliefs,' and
therefore claims to knowledge.
have already given reasons for the inclusion of
I

facts under the head of knowledge. Everybody

does call acquaintance with facts real knowledge ;

and whatever else facts are they are certainly not

'
pure experiences,' for in that case it would be
4
absurd to talk of their getting made and '

'
re-made.' Facts imply to some extent interpreta-
tion but they differ from theoretical interpretations
;

in more direct, more vague, more

that they are
haphazard, and at the outset are neither systematised
nor co-ordinated. Yet facts do claim to belong to
what is generally understood by the term knowledge ;

while, on the other hand, beliefs of a religious

character, as a rule, do not. The superstitious and
contradictory beliefs of the ancients were not infer-
ences based upon the data of experience, but were
due to ignorance, tradition, or blind and unreasoning
faith. Moreover, they have no claim whatsoever
to be called common-sense truths, for they were not
1
Studies in Humanism, p. 189.
 DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDITY 437

common humanity at large, but varied from tribe

to
to tribe and were frequently looked upon with
;

considerable suspicion by thinking men. The great

variety of opinions and beliefs which existed among
the Greeks and Romans in regard to the nature,
the number, the character and the legendary
history of the 'gods,' and the sceptical view of these
myths which was taken by Socrates and other
philosophers, needs no comment. But observe, too,
how in the interpretation even of natural events
opinion was tentative, uncertain and varied. Take,
for instance, the causes which were suggested in
order to account for the madness and death of
Cleomenes.
The Argives [says Herodotus] 1 declare that Cleomenes
lost his sensesand died so miserably on account of these
doings (sacrilege and massacre). But his own country-
men say that his madness arose, not from any super-
natural cause at all, but from the habit of drinking wine
unmixed with water, a habit which he learned from the
Scythians ; . . . while, for my own part, I believe that
his death was a judgment on him for wronging
Demaratus.

Observe, again, how cautious Herodotus is in

accepting the legendary histories of tribal heroes
and gods how, for example, while not rejecting
;

altogether the story of Zelmodis, he does not put

" entire faith in it, and even doubts whether there
ever really was a man of that name " 2 and, lastly, ;

how when endeavouring to account for

himself
natural phenomena by natural causes, he seldom
claims positive knowledge; but uses, again and
again, some such expression as So/eeet Be pot.
2
1 History, Book vi., § 84. Ibid., iv., § 95.
43« THEORIES OP KNOWLEDGE

1
I maintain, then, that the reversals which have

occurred as common-sense knowledge has developed,

have for the most part affected only (i) traditional
and irrational beliefs which were by no means
universal, and hypothetical interpretations of
(2)
natural events which were little more, and as a rule
claimed to be little more, than rough guesses. The
complexus common-sense truths has grown rather
of
by increment than by higher syntheses, and the
main body of such truths is still left intact. Modern
research confirms instead of invalidating the general
knowledge which our forefathers possessed of the
geographical features of the countries in which they
lived, of the periodicity of the seasons, the phases
of the moon and the tides, of the species of plants
and animals of which no less than five hundred are
4
enumerated by Aristotle in his Researches,' of
minerals and some of their properties, of the habits
and characteristics of man in a word, of the
:

co-existences and sequences which in general

characterised their environment. Nay, further,
their very belief in supernatural agencies testifies
to their recognition of the principle of causality ;

while the ready credence which

gave to they
the existence of a region of preternatural pheno-
mena is not without foundation, if we may
credit the accounts which are given of that
region in the Proceedings of the Society for
Psychical Research.
§ 298. The general impression which one gets
from a study of '
factual ' knowledge is adverse,
therefore, to the sceptical view of development.
Can we say the same in regard to theory ? In
 DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDITY

discussing this question, we must remember that

theory is at present, owing to the stupendous
advance which has been made in scientific appliances,
instruments and methods, on quite a different footing
from what it was three hundred years ago. The
telescope and the microscope alone have revealed a
vast complexus of data of which our ancestors never
dreamt, and, thanks to modern metrical instruments,
measurement and detail is incomparably more exact
than ever it was in the past. The Greeks and
Romans, the Schoolmen, the astrologers and the
alchemists of the Middle Ages had no data upon
which to build a scientific theory worthy of the
name. Hence, that reversals should have occurred
realm of theoretical speculation is not sur-
in the
Indeed, the possibility of it was recog-
prising.
nised by theorists themselves much more fully, I
think, than we are apt to imagine. They appear,
moreover, to have distinguished between different
parts in a theory, some of which they regarded as of
greater probability than others. Thus, according
to Aquinas,

there are two ways of arguing. The first way is to bring

forward reasons in order sufficiently to prove a certain
principle as in natural science reasons are given sufficient
;

to prove that the motion of celestial bodies is of uniform

velocity. The second way is to bring forward reasons which
do not sufficiently prove a principle, but which show that
with a principle already postulated the consequent
effects agree as in Astronomy the principle of eccentrics
;

and epicycles is postulated in order that on this

hypothesis sensible appearances 1 in regard to celestial

I
1 v.g.
the apparent increase of speed when the sun and earth
approach.
440 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

motions may be saved but this reason is not sufficient

;

proof, because it may be that on some other hypothesis

they can be saved. 1

The difference between a verified truth and a mere

'
claim to truth was recognised, then, even by one
'

who is generally regarded as a typical dogmatist.

And the fact that such a distinction should have been
made by the theorists of former ages is of consider-
able import in the problem of development and
validity ;
for, as a rule, it is in the less essential
parts of a theory or system that reversals occur.
§ 299. The one striking exception to this rule in
the sphere of scientific research is the Copernican
revolution in Astronomy, in which the Ptolemaic
system was literally turned inside out by the denial
of its fundamental hypothesis. I do not intend to
attempt to explain this reversal away, for although
Aquinas apparently suspected that there was some-
thing wrong somewhere, it can hardly be doubted
that most astronomers believed that the heavens
really moved round the earth. Being led astray by
appearances, they came gradually to regard as a
fact what was really an interpretation of a fact, and
an interpretation which was not the only one
possible, as even the ancients might have inferred

1
1, q. 32, a. 1 and 2. " Ad secundum dicendum, quod ad
aliquam rem dupliciter inducitur ratio uno modo ad probandum
;

sufficienter aliquam radicem sicut in scientia naturali inducitur

;

ratio sufficiens ad probandum quod motus coeli semper sit uni-

formis velocitatis. Alio modo inducitur ratio non quae sufficienter
probet radicem, sed qute radici jam posita; ostendat congruere
consequentes eliectus sicut in astrologia ponitur ratio excen-
;

tricorum et epicyclorum ex hoc quod hac positione facta possunt

salvari apparentia sensibilia circa motus coelestes non tamen;

ratio ha?c est sufficienter probans, quia etiam forte alia

positione facta salvari possent."
 '

DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDITY 441

from their knowledge that motion through space

is relative. The Copernican revolution, therefore,
was unquestionably a reversal of an essential principle
in previous theory.
In saying this, however, we must bear in mind
that this reversal by no means invalidated all the
astronomical knowledge that had hitherto been
acquired. The precession of the equinox and
many other truths were left intact. And it is
'
curious, too, that the principle of uniform '
velocity
4
mentioned by Aquinas as sufficiently proved
should have reappeared in a somewhat different form
in the 'first law of motion.' 1 Moreover, the
Ptolemaic system, as a system, can hardly have been
regarded as proved, for its explanations were
inadequate and hard to reconcile with facts. Indeed,
the epicycles and eccentrics which are essential to
it,were, as we have seen, regarded only as probable
and tentative by Aquinas. Lastly, the reversal
introduced by Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo, was
not a higher synthesis of previous hypotheses,' but
'

a flat contradiction of what had hitherto been

regarded as a fact.
§ 300. The negative element in Newton's theory
of Gravitation is much less prominent. The law of
inverse squares was not previously known but that ;

heavy bodies tend towards a centre of gravity had

already been asserted by the Greeks, notably by
Aristotle, and was, in fact, generally held though ;

as to the nature of gravity, again, there was no

1
Uniform velocity ' in the Ptolemaic system is supposed
*

actually to exist in the Newtonian theory it is a tendency.

; In
the Ptolemaic system bodies move in a circular orbit according
;

to Newton's law they tend to move in a straight line.

 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

commonly accepted theory and no certain know-

ledge. Consequently, Newton's discovery was not
a reversal of established truths, but rather a new
truth which at once supplemented and systematised
the old.
§ 301. The theory of chemical elements, on the
other hand, as at present held, seems directly to
contradict the more ancient theory that the elements
were four, if we take that theory to be a bare state-
ment that fire, air, earth and water are the ultimate
constituents of all material things. But this is not
what was meant. For, in the first place, the four
so-called elements were not regarded, by Aristotle
at any rate, as ultimate ; but as due to the com-
bination of an active hot-cold principle with a
passive wet-dry principle. And, secondly, the
essence of Aristotle's theory lay not in his assertion
4
that the ultimate principles were hot-cold and
'

'
wet-dry '
—
an error which was due to the almost
—
complete absence of scientific data but in his
assertion that the principles were active and passive,
for this he deduced a priori from his metaphysics.
Now, that the ultimate principles of things are
active and passive, positive and negative, actual
and potential, is a doctrine which is fundamental in
modern theories of the nature of matter. Again,
that there are " solid massy, hard, impenetrable,
moveable particles of such size and figure and with
such and such properties," is a view held not only
by Newton and Dalton in modern times, and by
Democritus and Leucippus of old, but still held and
4 '
indeed widely recognised as true, though atoms
are no longer regarded as ultimate and indivisible.
 DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDITY 443

Indeed, the transmutation of the elements, which

was a belief that prompted so much research in
mediaeval times, does not seem so utterly impossible
now that radium converts itself into helium.
Looking back, therefore, upon the various theories
which have been held in regard to the constitution
of matter, so far from finding grounds for scepticism,
we seem, on the contrary, to find good reason to
trust that knowledge is gradually advancing, and
that in its advance what was essential and funda-
mental in past theories will be preserved, the
accidental and the subsidiary alone being sacrificed.
§ 302. Modern theories of light and heat do not tend
to destroy this optimistic view. Many physicists
have given up the Emission theory. Its minute cor-
puscles and the transmitted species of the Greeks
have been interpreted as motions in the ether. But
that light is a something which is propagated by
vibration in luminous bodies, that its propagation
is rectilinear, and that it comes to us through a

medium which reminds one forcibly of the media so

characteristic of Aristotelian Physics is still main-
tained. The theory that heat is a caloric or ' '

highly elastic fluid permeating the interstices of

substances has also been abandoned but we still
;

believe with the Greeks that it may be due to the

highly repellant and rapid movements of particles,
and with the Calorics that it is connected with an
entity which is elastic and which interpenetrates all
material things, though this entity is now regarded
as the medium for the propagation of heat and not
as its source.
§ 303. One more point, and I have finished this
444 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

brief review of the effect of development on validity.

Has the older geometry of Euclid been invalidated
by meta-geometries and the geometry of a fourth
dimension ? Dr. Schiller thinks that it is nonsense
to enquire whether our space is Euclidian or not.
Conceptual space is valid, he says, in so far as it is
useful, but it is never real. 1 But can this assertion
be proved ? The notion of space seems to be valid,
not merely because it is useful, but because it has
a fundamentum in re ; because the ideas and relations
of which it is made up are derived directly from the
data of objective experience and because they
;

adequately express the relations which hold between

the configurations of objects in the real world, in so
far as those configurations conform to the precise
notions of geometry, which they do approximately.
The idea of a fourth dimension may be got at in
several ways, but it seems to me that it owes its
origin really to the algebraical theory of indices. As,
however, it is generally admitted that our space has
only three dimensions, and as I have already given
one reason for thinking that this is so, I shall not
say more on this matter. In fact, if we are mistaken
here, the error is negative, not positive so that it ;

is of no consequence from our present point of view.

§ 304. On the other hand, the meta-geometries of

Riemann and Lowatchewski are of consequence, for
at first sight they seem to contradict the Geometry
of Euclid, and also to contradict one another and ;

yet in spite of this to be each of them self-consistent.

Both Lowatchewski and Riemann deny Euclid's
assumption that a straight line is determined by any
1
'Axioms as Postulates,' p. 115.
 —

DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDITY 445

two points, and both deny Euclid's axiom that

through a given point in the same plane one, and
only one, straight line can be drawn parallel to a
given straight line but while Riemann postulates
;

that through a given point in the same plane no

line can be drawn such that it will never meet a
given line, Lowatchewski postulates that not one
but an indefinite number of such lines can be drawn.
Similarly, the sum of the angles of a triangle for
Euclid is equal to two right angles, for Riemann
greater than two right angles, and for Lowatchewski
less than two right angles. Now, if you imagine
straight lines and parallels and triangles to be drawn,
not on an Euclidian plane, but on the outside surface
of an immense sphere, you have straight lines which
are not determined by two points, parallels all of
which must meet, and triangles the angles of which
are greater than two right angles. In other words,
your space is spherical and your plane has a positive
curvature. And if now you could imagine the
—
contradictory opposite of all this which I confess
I cannot do, for the inside of a spherical or
ellipsoidal surface is obviously not what is needed
you would have planes with a negative curvature
upon which you might construct the geometrical
figures of Lowatchewski. What has really
happened, then, is this: both Riemann and
Lowatchewski have been working with spaces and
planes which are not Euclidian spaces and planes,
but imaginary entities constructed by themselves.
In place of the Euclidian notion of a straight line
they have substituted notions of their own. It is
impossible to prove the validity of Euclid's notion of
44^ THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

a straight line having invariable direction, for the

notion is, as I have said, ultimate. Nevertheless,
we have such a notion and know what it means ;

whereas a solid body in which straight lines are not

straight lines at all, but positive or negative curves,
is inconceivable.
Modern meta-geometries, therefore, do not con-
tradict Euclidian geometry. On the contrary, they
presuppose it; for they are in reality an Euclidian
spherical geometry or its inverse conceived as a
pseudo-plane geometry of two dimensions. That
this is so is proved by the fact that the theorems of
Riemann and Lowatchewski may be translated into
Euclidian theorems by the aid of analytical geometry.
While that the Euclidian notion of a straight line
alone is valid, is, at any rate, confirmed by the fact
that, when applied in the concrete, meta-geometries
will not work.

§ 3°5- O ur conclusion is, therefore, that neither

a study of the changes that have actually taken place
as knowledge has developed, nor a study of the
principles which have governed those changes,
justifies us in adopting a sceptical attitude in regard
to present knowledge, whether theoretical or factual.
In the realm of facts there have been but few
reversals. Our knowledge of facts grows not by
intrinsic modifications, but by an increase in the
number, the detail, and the accuracy of our observa-
tions. In the realm of theory, on the other hand,
there have been many reversals yet these have
;

seldom, if ever, entirely destroyed the validity of

those interpretations we now stigmatise as false.
On the contrary, the tendency has been to dis-
 DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDITY 447

tinguish in previous theories principles which have

led to error from those which led to truth, and
while rejecting the former to retain the latter and
embody them in a more adequate theory. Moreover,
the principles which have been retained are in
general those which were most essential in previous
theories and which were recognised as such at the
time that those theories were framed. Appercep-
tion by the individual and apperception, if I may
so callit, by the race adds to the old stock of truths,

and at the same time gives them a fuller significance ;

but it does not destroy either the facts or the more

fundamental principles upon which those truths
were based. Our conception of things and their
relations grows more and more systematic but the
;

facts upon which it is based and the principles which

guide us in the search for truth alike remain constant
throughout.
§ 306. The Hegelian theory of Apperception
likewise affords no ground for scepticism. In the
theoretical developments, briefly outlined above, I
can find no trace of reconciliation by higher syntheses
in the Hegelian sense of that term. Rather, develop-
ment has consisted in the explicit negation of certain
principles in a previous theory and the reassertion of
others supplemented by an element which was new.
There is some truth in the statement that develop-
ment is a sort ol critical regress in which the universal
implicit in divergent views is analysed out and
reasserted. But the differences between divergent
views are seldom reconciled in a higher synthesis.
' '

In fact, often enough they are not reconciled at all,

but one is denied and the other established. And
448 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

if a reconciliation is effected by a
effected, it is

than by a syn-
distinction in the differences rather
thesis of them wholesale and vago modo. The result
of the regress in this case is that the differences are
taken in analysis and some part of one or both
rejected. For so long as either of the antitheses
contains positive error, a synthesis is impossible.
The error must first be removed, and then, since all
theories, however divergent, contain an element of
truth, they may be combined to form a system of
truth more adequate, and in this sense higher than
before. This kind of synthesis, indeed, it is the aim
of the French philosophy of Immanence to bring
about. Led by the author of V
Action it seeks to
reconcile conflicting opinions in religious matters by
a regress which shall draw forth from error the truth
that is immanent within it. No need is more urgent
than the need of getting rid of contradictions. It is
felt alike by pragmatist, absolutist, and realist.

But while the pragmatist says take your choice of

'

either alternative according as you feel yourself

prompted by emotional desires and the absolutist
;
'

says, No, don't choose, but wait, the antitheses will

'

some day be reconciled in higher but misty syn-

thesis the realist of the Scholastic frame of mind
;
'

says, First distinguish, then choose

'
but choose ;

on rational, not on emotional, grounds and thus ;

by separating truth from error, you will be able,

without waiting long, to obtain a synthesis which
shall include past truths, and at the same time be a
basis from which to proceed to further truth.' And
the latter, it seems to me, is the best answer of
the three.
 ;

PRAGMATISM AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE 449

CHAPTER XVII.

PRAGMATISM AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE.

§ 307. Science not infrequently protests against
the encroachments of the philosopher who wishes
to interpret its theories in a metaphysical sense.
'
You keep
to your province and I will keep to mine,'
itsays to the metaphysician 1 am concerned only
;
'

with phenomena, their sequences and their quanti-

tative relations you are concerned with substance
:

and accident, matter and form, cause and effect

in a word, with reality itself. Let us be content to
leave one another alone and to keep our provinces
distinct.'
This principle might work very well, provided the
province of science could be completely shut off from
the realm of philosophy, and provided neither
philosophers nor scientists were anxious to scale the
dividing wall. Unfortunately, neither condition is
completely fulfilled. The respective provinces of
science and of philosophy coincide in two points.
In the first phenomena whose variations
place, the
are measured, classified, and to some extent
explained by the scientist, are precisely the same as
those whose ratio essendi and ratio cognoscendi the
philosopher seeks to discover while the methods
;

which the scientist uses presuppose the principles

of sound logic, a discussion of which clearly lies
within the sphere of the philosopher, qud logician.
And in the second place, often enough the scientist
DU
45° THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

is not content to keep to his science. He insists

upon his right to speculate metaphysically on the
validity of scientific theories and on the ultimate
nature of the phenomena with which he has to deal,
and it is by no means uncommon to find that he
mingles his metaphysical assumptions with the
methods and principles of his science.
Now, if a particular scientist wishes to indulge in
metaphysical speculations it is not for the philoso-
pher to say him nay. It is only natural that one
who devotes himself to the study of the laws which
govern the phenomenal world should desire to know
what phenomena are, and should form for himself a
metaphysical theory of the universe. But if the
scientist constructs a metaphysical theory, he can
hardly complain should the philosopher criticise
that theory which is not the less metaphysical
because it comes from the pen of a scientist.
Physicists such as M. Duhem place themselves
beyond the reach of the metaphysician by denying
that their theories have in any sense a metaphysical
import but there are others who, in discussing the
;

methods of science and the validity of its laws,

have taken up a definite metaphysical position,
which, they tell us, is more compatible with, if it is
not actually presupposed by, the principles of
science. This attitude, which is becoming more
and more prevalent both in Germany and in France,
is closely connected with the pragmatic movement.

The pragmatic method claims to be based on that

of science, and not a few scientists seem in return
much inclined to adopt as their own the pragmatic
theory of knowledge-in-general and the philosophy
 PRAGMATISM AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE 451

of Pure Experience with which it is so intimately

bound up. Science has given up the naive, un-
critical and often materialistic Realism which was
formerly its customary attitude, and in its stead
many of the devotees have taken up, not the non-
metaphysical position of M. Duhem, but the position
of Empirical Idealism.
§ 308. Fifty years ago every scientist started
from the common-sense point of view, assuming
with his less educated brethren, that material things
really exist independently of the exercise of mental
activity. He took it for granted that his thoughts
about the universe did not affect the nature of the
*
facts '
with which he had to deal. He did not
trouble about the possibility of there being any
a priori forms of the mind to which experience, con-
sciously or unconsciously,had to conform nor did ;

he dream that in observing facts he was in reality

making them. The aim of scientific research was
to give an explanation, not only of the relations
holding between phenomena, but also of the nature
of the universe itself. Both mechanists and
dynamists hoped to find an interpretation of the
objective, real world at least in so far as it is material.
Their atoms and molecules and their centres of force
were real entities constitutive of material things
and giving rise to those phenomena which we
perceive by the senses. In fact, the complaint
which the mechanist found with the dynamist was
that the latter introduced into reality an unknown
entity force,' which could neither be imagined nor
'

defined.
Nowadays the position is changed. By many of
452 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

our leading scientists the older metaphysics has

been discarded and an Empirical Idealism or
Pragmatic Sensationalism substituted in its stead.
Mind and matter, relatively independent, are no
longer the metaphysical conditions of scientific
knowledge. For matter has been substituted sen-
sation, and instead of knowledge arising through
the manifestation of objective reality to a relatively
passive mind, knowledge is now said to be due for
the most part to the constructive activity of thought,
to " V action pensie" to ideas due, in part at least,
to the creative power of mind, and striving to realise
themselves in the field of sense-experience. The
data of modern science are sensations its aim is to
;

discover the relations which hold between them ;

the means by which it seeks to acquire this know-

ledge is first of all sense-experience, in which
experiment plays an important part, and, secondly,
a mental activity of a higher order in which spon-
taneity and choice are conspicuous. Through the
senseswe have experience of relations between
phenomena or sensation-complexes, and through
the instrumentality of definitions and hypotheses
created by thought we endeavour to arrange and
classify these relations, to subsume them under
general forms, and, if possible, to reduce them to
unity by the discovery, or better, perhaps, the
invention of some primary relation which holds
throughout.
§ 309. Two names stand out prominently as
representative of this attitude, at once metaphysical
and epistemological, in regard to the scope of science.
They are those of Mach and Karl Pearson ; and to
 PRAGMATISM AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE 453

these we may add a third, chosen from the more

sceptical school of the Philosophic de la Contin-
gencc, M. Le Roy. M. Poincare, on the other hand
must be placed in a different category, for he admits
the 'objectivity' of fact, and even to 'laws' assigns
a certain 'normal objectivity,' though in certain
passages he seems to speak as if he were a sensa-
tionalist like Mach. 1
Mach distinguishes three stages in scientific pro-
cedure, the experimental stage, in which we are in
immediate contact with reality, with sensation, i.e.,

and merely tabulate the results of experiment and

observation the deductive stage, in which we
;

substitute mental images for facts, as in Mechanical

Physics and the formal stage, in which our terms
;

consist of algebraical symbols, and our aim is to

construct by their means the most convenient and
most uniform synopsis of results. Similarly
Poincare distinguishes three kinds of hypotheses,
(i) hypotheses suggested by facts and verified at
least d pcu prts in experience, (2) indifferent hypo- '

theses,' which are useful in that they express under

images and figures relations between phenomena,
but which are neither true nor false and (3) ;

4
mathematical conventions,' which consist of
definitions more or less arbitrary, and which are
independent of experience. 2 Poincare's indifferent '

hypotheses correspond to Mach's second stage in

'

the development of science, and manifest a tendency

eventually to disappear. Already Mach himself

1
Cf. La Valcur de la Science, chap, xi., especially p. 266.
2
La Science et UHy pot fuse, Introduction, p. 2, and cf.

pp. 180, 181.

 —

454 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

prefers to dispense with their service as rather en-

cumbering than facilitating thought while Poincar6,
;

though he considers them still indispensable for the

moment, holds them to be devoid of real significance.
§ 310. Thus the second stage of scientific pro-
cedure in this view is of secondary importance. It
is the experimental and mathematical stages that

really constitute science. By observation and

experiment we are brought into contact with
reality; not indeed with the material world, for no
such entity is supposed to exist ; nor even with the
world of sensible appearances strictly so-called
for an appearance implies something that appears,
but with sensations. The objective condition of
scientific knowledge, the reality which in science we
desire to know, is sensation. The data of experience
are sensations. Mach, in his Analyse der Empfin-
dungen und das Verhiiltniss des Physischen zum
Psychischen, has developed this view at considerable
length. Sensations and sensation-complexes
these, he says, are reality. All science consists in
the analysis of sensations. Nature is composed of
elements given by the senses. From these we choose
those which are most important for practical pur-
poses and call them '
objects '
or things.'
'
But
*
things '
are really abstractions, and a name is a
symbol for a complex of sensations whose variations
we neglect. There are no things-in-themselves, nor
are sensations symbols of things, but what we call
things are symbols of sensation-complexes of relative
stability. Colours, sounds, pressures, spaces,
durations, these are the real things. All thought is
governed by the principle of Thought-Economy.
 :

PRAGMATISM AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE 45$

We are ever trying to save ourselves trouble. Hence

we have acquired the habit of grouping sensations
together in a lump and calling them by a single
name. One group of sensations we call water,' '

4 4
another a leaf,' another a stone.' Smaller groups,
again, are combined to form larger ones. The group
4 4 4
leaf '
is joined to the groups branch,' stem,' etc.,
and the whole, being vaguely or generically pictured,
4
becomes a plant.' These larger groups, again, are
included in others larger still. What we call the
4

external world comprises all those sensation-

'

complexes which are relatively constant, i.e., which

repeat themselves again and again in the same sort
of way and are not subject to the control of our will
4
whereas the self comprises that other very ex-'

tensive group of sensation-complexes, some of which

are always present in consciousness, though ever
varying in tone, while others can be produced at
any time if we so desire, and thus are directly under
our control. 1
In the external group the relations between
sensation-complexes are constant, i.e., the complexes
follow one another in the same order. Thus the
sensation-complex (water) is juxta-posed in a certain
way to another complex (bunsen-burner), and always
after a certain time the bright transparency of the
former complex gives place to a dull whiteness of
another considerably greater in extent. Ordinarily,
however, we prefer according to the Princip der —
—
Denkokonomie to use names to denote our sensation-
complexes, as it saves us the time and trouble of

1
La Mccanique, pp. 450 ct scq. (The examples here given are
my own).
456 THEORIES OF KSO WLEDGE

describing them. The usual account that one would

give of the above phenomenon, for instance, would
be that when we heat water over a bunsen-bumer,
after a time it begins to boil. Indeed, it would be
very awkward for the sensationalist, if he often
had to carry out Pascal's principle of substituting
the definition for the thing defined.
§ 311. The physicist selects the above class of
sensations, which are characterised by greater
stability, greater regularity, and are common to
mankind, as the data of his scientific researches ;

while the psychologist treats of these in another way,

and also of other sensations which are less stable,
more subject to the control of the will, and, hence,
often peculiar to the individual. But the standpoint
of Mach is really psychological throughout. Both
psychologist and physicist treat of the same class
of objects from different points of view.

All that we can know of the world is necessarily

reduced to sense- perception and all that we can wish
:

to know is given in the solution of a mathematical

problem, in the knowledge of the functional dependence
which exists between sense-elements. This exhausts
the sources of the knowable. 1

Professor Mach has given up the apparently

hopeless task of reducing things to indefinitely
small and ultimate elements. Both he and
Poincare' prefer to regard atoms and such like as
hypotheses, as mere picturesque fictions of greater
or less utility, but of no objective value; and
for things Mach substitutes sensations. Scientifi-
cally, indeed, sensation is regarded as a form of
1
Mach, op. cit. y p. 287.
 PRAGMATISM AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE 457

energy, the differences of which are probably

quantitative. But in course of time, says Mach,
we shall discover that the sense of hunger is not so
very different from the action of sulphuric acid on
zinc, and that our will is not so very different from
the pressure of stone on its support, and so we shall
get nearer nature. Thus, for Energetics, everything
is reducible to energy, alias sensation, and the final
aim of physical science is to demonstrate the truth
of this assertion.
§ 312. Both Mach and Poincar6 speak of the
sense-data of science as they were uninfluenced by
if

the subjective factor in cognition. They regard

them as relatively stable, independent of the indi-
vidual, and therefore objective. But even in the
objects of scientific knowledge, philosophers such as
4
M. Le Roy would admit an element of contingency.'
Sensations are not given in isolation, but are grouped
together in complexes and integrated into percepts ;

and in the construction of our percepts there may

enter an element of caprice. We are influenced by
our point de vue choisi d'avance, practical utility
in some cases, the exigencies of scientific theory in
others. Hence we introduce into our percepts just
what suits our convenience and leave out the rest.
This follows logically from the philosophy of Pure
Experience, a philosophy which is practically
identical with the metaphysical standpoint of
MM. Karl Pearson and Mach. For if, as M. Le Roy
44
says, nothing is put before the mind, except what
is put by the mind " if, in other words, we do not
;

copy reality, but construct it, as Dr. Schiller affirms ;

4k "
then all is due to hypothesis and fabrication
45* THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

either by the individual or by the race, i.e., we

construct our percepts as well as our concepts.
Again, racial development takes place by individual
variation, and this is possible in the sphere of
experience only if thought exercises purposive
control over the data of sense, in which case even in
this, the lowest stage of human knowledge, we must
admit that there is an element of caprice. Hence,
all scientificlaws are unverifiable, to put the matter
rigorously, because they are the instrument with
first
which we make in the continuity of the primitive datum
the indispensable parcelling out (morcelage) without
which thought remains powerless and shut in, and again
because they constitute the criterion itself with which
we judge the apparatus and methods which it is necessary
to use in order to subject them to an examination, the
accuracy of which may be able to surpass all assignable
limits. 1

§ 313- Contingency and choice in the sphere of

experimental science is emphatically denied by
Poincare. " All which the scientist creates in a
fact," he says, " is the language in which he expresses
it." We do not interfere with facts, except in so far
as we select those which are relevant to our purpose.
In experience relations are determined, not by
experiment, but by inexorable laws which govern
the succession of our sensation-complexes. We do '

not copy reality '

—
that is true but the laws which
;

govern the sequences and combinations of sensations

are fixed for us, and not by us. They are something
which we experience as a datum, not something we
arbitrarily construct and these laws may be known
;

by us at least a pen prts.

1
Le Roy, Revue Mstaph, et Morale, 1901, p. 140.
 PRAGMATISM AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE 459

This view, though doubtless the correct one, is

hardly consistent with the doctrine that sensations
and not material objects are the data of science. If
it be the mind that groups sensations together and

so forms sensation-complexes or objects, then, as

M. Le Roy and Dr. Schiller affirm, such groupings
may not always be precisely identical. Not only
may modification and even mutilation of fact have
occurred during the long process in which habits
of perception have been built up and have become
common to the race, but such modifications are still
possible since habits are only relatively constant and
only approximately common to the race. Moreover,
the significance of M. Poincar£'s assertion that all
we create in a fact is the language in which we
express it, is considerably modified when we compare
it with another statement to the effect that
'
language is strewn with preconceived ideas ; for
'

the latter, since their influence is unconscious, are

far more dangerous than those which we deliberately
formulate and make use of in hypotheses.
M. Le Roy's statement, therefore, that scientific
laws are unverifiable because they are the instru-
ments by means of which we parcel out the primitive
datum of experience would seem to be valid in a
pragmatic and evolutionary theory of knowledge.
His second argument (granting the validity of his
premises) is no less conclusive. When the corres-
pondence-notion of truth is rejected, our only
criteria of truth are utility and consistency, both of
which are determined by the development and
systematisation of science itself. Scientific laws, as
M. Duhem has pointed out, mutually involve and
460 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

imply each other's truth. Hence, if in no individual

case we can eliminate the subjective element and so
prove that a law has arisen from the manifestation
of reality itself to our minds, we have no right to
assume one law to prove another all laws, whether ;

empirical or not, will be equally un verifiable in the

pragmatic and pseudo-scientific theory of knowledge.
The unrestricted jurisdiction of the Princip der
Denkokonomic points to the same conclusion for, ;

according to Professor Mach, this principle is not

confined to the realm of physical theory, but is a
all forms of cognition
general principle applicable to
alike. Itgoverns the construction of the percepts
and concepts of common-sense, just as it directs the
scientist in the formulation of definitions and
physical hypotheses. Efficiency depends upon
economy, and efficiency, adaptation to environment,
and practical utility for the control of sense-
experience is the final aim, not only of physical
theory, but of all human cognition.
§ 314. The Pragmatism and Sensationalism of
Mach and Karl Pearson, which is really a philoso-
phical theory of knowledge, must be carefully
distinguished from the view that in Physical Theory
definitionsand laws are merely symbolic formulae,
useful for the classification, co-ordination and
systematisation of scientific fact for this view is
:

held by many who, except on this point, are in no

sense pragmatists either in regard to science or
philosophy. A pragmatic interpretation of physical
theory is, in fact,quite compatible with meta-
physical Realism.
For instance, M. Duhem is a realist in regard to
 ;

PRAGMATISM AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE 461

the notions of common-sense, yet he tells us that

the aim of physical theory is "to construct a
symbolic representation of what our senses, aided
by instruments, make us know, in order to render
easier, more rapid, and more sure, reasoning about
experimental knowledge." Concepts for him as for
MM. Poincar6 and Mach are means to this end. Their
function is symbolic. As definitions they are
arbitrary, and in no way represent reality or reveal
its inner rational structure.
1
Masses ' are " co-
efficients which it is convenient to introduce into our
4
calculations." Energy must not be confused
'

with the force exerted by a horse in drawing a cart

it is merely "the function of the state of a system

whose total differential in every elementary modifica-

tion is equal to the excess of work over heat set free." 1
Concepts as definitions form the basis of scientific
deduction, but they do not reveal the nature of
objective facts. The most they can do is to indicate
certain experiences, and so enable us to verify the
phenomenal relations which we have deduced by
means of mathematical reasoning in which these
symbolic definitions function as terms.
Some have endeavoured to find a similarity
between M. Duhem's theory of chemical com-
bination and the scholastic doctrine of matter and
form. This, however, as he informs us in his work
entitled Le Mixte et la combinaison chimique, in
which his views on that subject are developed, is
merely an analogy, and nothing more. Forms,' as '

conceived by the chemist and the physicist, are

quantitative, not qualitative whereas quality is
;

1
Le Mixte et la Combinaison chimique, pp. 202-205.
462 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

of the essence of things, the nature of which it is

the business of the metaphysician and not of the

scientist to determine. Nevertheless, in spite of
4
this denial that forms in chemistry and in physics
'

are comparable with the metaphysical forms of

Aristotle, M. Duhem's standpoint is quite compatible
with Realism and it is so precisely because he
;

relegates all questions as to the nature of quality

and essence to Metaphysics.
§ 315. The standpoint of M. Duhem differs
essentially, therefore, from that of Karl Pearson
and Mach ;
for, while carefully distinguishing
physical theory from physical fact, M. Duhem does
not identify the latter with sensation, but leaves it
to the metaphysician to determine the ultimate
nature of the data of experience. Again, it is
only in Theory that postulation and symbolism are
admitted by M. Duhem, and that we are allowed
to construct and modify definitions at will.
Mathematical Physics in the course of its
development is independent of Experimental
Physics, and uses a different method. In the
latter we are bound down by empirical facts,
whereas Mathematical Physics is free to disregard
all facts till theory is complete, when it must be

verified as a whole by comparing the conclusions

which have been mathematically deduced with the
complexus of experimental data. " In the course
of its development a physical theory is free to choose
whatever way it pleases, provided it avoids all
logical contradiction ; in particular, it is free to
1
disregard the facts of experience."
1
Duhem, La ThJorie Physique, vi., § 7,
 PRAGMATISM AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE 463

On the other hand, for Professor Mach, and

apparently for M. Poincar6 also, symbolism, postula-
tion and the principle of Thought-economy apply to
theory and fact alike. The experimental differs
from the mathematical stage only in this respect,
that in the former we group under one name sensa-
tions which are actually present in consciousness,
and our grouping is more or less spontaneous ;

whereas in the latter we arbitrarily combine symbols

denoting sensation-complexes already grouped, and
postulate that the new symbol shall denote actual
groupings which have never as yet been given in
consciousness.
The real difference, then, between Karl Pearson
and Mach on the one hand and Duhem on the
other is in regard to their philosophic standpoint.
Both Karl Pearson and Mach, and, to some extent,
Poincar6 also, philosophise on the data of experience
and on the development of knowledge in general ;

and their philosophy is pragmatic. M. Duhem

declines to philosophise, and, if a pragmatist at all,

is a pragmatist only in regard to the methodology

of physical theory, an attitude which is quite con-
sistent with philosophic Realism.

§ 316. There is also a further difference between

the views of M. Poincar6 and M. Duhem in regard
to the relation of Mathematical to Experimental
Physics. M. Poincar6 admits " truths founded on
experience and verified almost exactly so far as
"
concerns systems which are practically isolated ;

and these truths, he says, when generalised beyond

the limits within which experience verifies them,
become " postulates, applicable to the whole universe
464 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

and regarded as rigorously true." 1 " Mais, le principe

dcsormais pour ainsi dire, n'est plus
crystallise,
soumis au controle de V experience. II n'est pas vrai
ou faux, il est commode." Thus such principles as
Newton's Laws of Inertia and of the Equality of
Action and Reaction, Lavoisier's Conservation of
Mass, Mayer's Conservation of Energy, and Carnot's
Degradation of Energy are axiomatic, though not
a priori. They are suggested by facts, but are
unverifiable, because in their absolute form they
are mere conventions and our right to postulate
;

them lies precisely in this, that experience can

never contradict them.
Mathematical Physics, on the other hand, for
M. Duhem is entirely independent of experience
throughout the whole process of its development. No
hypothesis whatever can be verified till the theory
of Physics complete in every detail, for every
is

physical law " a symbolic relation the application

is

of which to concrete reality supposes that one accepts

quite a system of other laws." 2 No individual, physi-
cal law is, properly speaking, either true or false, but
only approximate, and on that account provisional.
Sufficiently approximate to-day, the time will
come when it will no longer satisfy our demand
for accuracy. 3 Principles, therefore, which MM.
Milhaud, Le Roy and Poincare alike place beyond
the control of experience are, says M. Duhem, either
not physical laws at all (since every physical law
must retain its meaning when we insert the words
d peu prds, which these do not) or else, when their
1
Revue MHaph. el Morale, 1902. (Italics mine).
* op. cil., ix., § 1. 8 Ibid.,
§§ 2, 3.
 PRAGMATISM AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE 465

consequences have been fully deduced, they must

be rigorously subjected to the test of experience in
the theory to which they belong, and with that
theory stand or fall. 1 In other words, Poincar6,
admitting the existence of relatively isolated systems
of experimental facts, thinks that it is possible to
apply the process of verification to a physical theory
in the course of its development while Duhem,
;

convinced that all physical laws are intimately

connected, prefers to formulate a complete and self-
consistent system of hypotheses before attempting
to compare the consequences of any one of these
hypotheses with experimental fact. A similar
difference is manifest in regard to the method of
teaching Physics. Poincare prefers the inductive
and experimental method. Duhem holds that
physical theory should be presented to those who
are capable of receiving it, in toto, and that ex-
periments should serve merely as illustrations of
different stages in its development.

§ 317. This difference between two of our most

eminent physicists, though great at first sight, can,
I think, to some extent, be explained. M. Duhem
insists that all hypotheses must be verifiable d pen
pres if they are to have physical significance :

consequently, there can be no laws in physical

theory, when complete, which are not at least
approximately true. On the other hand, the use
of purely conventional hypotheses in the con-
struction of a theory is allowable, provided they are
ultimately verifiable in their systematic complete-
ness. M. Poincare points out that such conventional
1 Ibid., vi., §§ 8, 9.
ee;
466 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

hypotheses are often experimental laws generalised

beyond the limits within which they are verifiable,
and So worded that they cannot, as such, be con-
tradicted by experience. That in their most general
form, as applicable to the whole universe, universal
postulates of this kind cannot be verified directly, is
obvious ; for not only are they universal, but they
are expressed in symbolic terms, such as energy and
inertia, terms which it is almost impossible to trans-
late into their corresponding sensations (if such
there be). Yet, inasmuch as such postulates lead
to particular conclusions about less abstract realities
of which we can have immediate experience, inas-
much as their function is to guide us in the con-
struction of hypotheses which are verifiable d peu
prcs, and so have a physical sense, it may be said
that even the most abstract laws, and the most
general principles can be verified indirectly through
their consequences.

§ 318. Thus the divergent views taken by

M. Poincar6 and M. Duhem respectively in regard to
physical 'axioms' are apparently reconciled. Yet
the divergence has, I am inclined to think, a deeper
root. M. Duhem's reason for affirming that physical
laws are not as yet either true or false, but simply
useful, is that they have not been and cannot as yet
be completely verified, and hence are only pro-
visional. But when they have been completely
verified in the physical theory to which they belong
they will become, together with the principles upon
which that theory is founded, not only useful but
true in the realistic sense of that term. M. Poincare,
4 '
on the other hand, can easily find room for axioms
 PRAGMATISM AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE 467

which are already regarded as true,' because truth

'

for him, as for the pragmatist, is apparently one

with utility, though, as we shall see, it is not

merely utility. Truth and objectivity, in the sense
in which they were understood by Aristotle, by the
Scholastics, and in which they are still understood
by common-sense, do not exist for those scientists
who are prone pragmatically to philosophise.
Objects being identified with sensations, 1 objectivity
acquires a new sense for the objective value of
;

science is, according to M. Poincar6, the same as our

belief in external objects. Granted that nothing is

put before the mind except what is put by the mind,

granted that " all that is not thought is pure nothing
since we can think only thought, and the words we
use in speaking of things can only be expressions of
our thoughts/' granted that " to say that there is
anything besides thought is a statement that can
have no meaning," 2 it would seem to follow that
physics is merely a branch of psychology, and that
in studying things we are really studying the work
of our own minds.

§ 319. What sense, then, can be given to the term

objective truth ? How can there be anything really
objective or really true, if sensations and the laws
which determine their relations proceed from the
nature of the mind itself and refer to nothing
beyond ? Pragmatists attempt to solve the diffi-
culty by distinguishing between what is peculiar to

1
M. Poincar£ is not always consistent on this point. Some-
times he seems to speak as if he were a realist, as in chap. x.
of La Valeur de la Science, where he attacks M. Le Roy some-
;

times as a sensationalist (chap, xi., and cf. infra).

1
La Valeur de la Science, p. 276.
468 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

the individual and what is common to the race.

Doubtless the relations between sensations " could

not be conceived outside a mind which conceives
them or which feels them, but they are, nevertheless,
'
objective/ because they are, will become, or will
remain common to all thinking beings." 1 Some
sensations " nous apparaissent comme unies entres
elles par je ne sais quel ciment indestructible et non

par un hasard d'un jour." 2 These are the sensations

which are common to all thinking beings, and which
in this sense may be said to be objective. From
these premises the nature of truth and the criterion
of truth may easily be deduced. That will be true
which the individual holds in common with his
fellow-men, that false which he holds in isolation ;

and the function of truth-criteria will be to dis-

tinguish what is held collectively from what is

peculiar to the individual. The Philosophic de la

Contingence, realising this, has defined truth as that
which is normal '
' enough to be accepted by anyone
of sound mind.
§ 320. The connection between the conception
of truth as thatwhich is useful, fruitful, commode,
and the conception of it as 'normal objectivity ' is

clear. In the first place, the relation of intellect to

sense is in this view regarded as merely *
functional.'
Intellect symbolises and relates sense-data solely
with a view to controlling them, manipulating them,
and adapting them to the needs of human nature.
In so far as the hypotheses which we formulate fulfil
this end, they perform their function well, and are
useful. The needs of humanity, however, and
1 2
Ibid., p. 271. Ibid. y p. 270.
 ;

Pragmatism and physical science 469

consequently the reactions which will satisfy those

needs are more or less constant hence there will be
;

a certain degree of harmony in our judgments of

what does satisfy our needs, i.e., we shall have a
kind of normal objectivity
'
based on common
'

consent as to the usefulness of certain hypotheses.

Secondly, science, like all other knowledge, is in
process of evolution. Mind interacts on mind
through social intercourse. The thought-habits of
the individual get modified and become more like
those of his neighbour. Thus needs-for-knowledge
and the processes by which we strive to acquire that
knowledge have, in course of time, become more or
less identical throughout the race. The Newtonian
laws, says Mach, are the result of a long process of
observation and experiment, of scientific evolution,
in the race. Ideas, not found in sense-data, and
whose working is often unconscious, guide the
development of science. Now the psychological
factor in cognition has obtained a fuller recognition,
and the naive Realism of Mechanical Physics is being
displaced by Energetics. We find now that what
we took to be true, in the copy sense of the word,
is merely useful ;
useful, not because it satisfies the
needs of the individual, but because it satisfies the
needs, of humanity at large, because it conforms to
our preformed habits of thought, and enables us
to go pn adapting ourselves to our environment.
It is however, only a pragmatic truth, this uti-
lity; a truth based on common needs, but always
incomplete, always changing, never absolute
always provisional and approximate, subject to
continual modification as human needs and human
470 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

environments advance together on the wave of

evolution.
§ 321. The doctrines of Poincar6, Mach and
Le Roy, since they deal with truth, knowledge and
objectivity in general, not merely with the scientific
•use of these terms,do not belong to physics, or, at
any not to physics alone, but to the theory of
rate,
knowledge. They are philosophical doctrine^ which
bear clearly the impress of Pragmatism and will ;

be discussed together with other pragmatic theories

in the chapters entitled "Pragmatic Truth." It
would be an error, however, to attribute the Prag-
matism of Poincare, Mach and Le Roy to the
influence of ProfessorJames and Dr. Schiller, though
itcan hardly be doubted that the world-wide reputa-
tion and the vigorous polemics of the latter have had
their effect. The Pragmatism of the philosophising
scientist has arisen from quite another source. It
is, in fact, but a development of the doctrine that

the definitions and laws which belong to Physical

Theory are only symbolic formulae, figured hypo-
theses, postulates which are useful, but not true.
And this doctrine can only be called 'pragmatic'
retrospectively, for it existed before Pragmatism
proper was invented, and by it —at least in Dr.
Schiller's case — the general epistemological theory
of Pragmatism appears to have been suggested.
The origin of scientific Pragmatism if
§ 322. —
—
such a term is permissible arises apparently from
the feeling of hopelessness aroused in the scientific
mind by the multiform variety of physical theories
at present existing, theories which, if taken as they
stand, are mutually incompatible. Contradiction is
 PRAGMATISM AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE 471

so violently repugnant to the human mind that we

are ready to take almost any means to escape it.

And to many scientists,anxious to solve the mystery

presented by a daily-increasing multitude of con-
flicting and seemingly irreconcilable hypotheses,
only two alternatives seemed to offer themselves,
either Scepticism or a kind of provisional Pragma-
tism. Believing themselves confronted with a
choice such as this, many have adopted the latter
alternative, i.e., rather than give up truth altogether,
they prefer to regard it in Physical Science as a
4
value.' Provisionally, at any rate, truth is not
something which corresponds with reality or reveals
its inner nature, but something which enables us

the better to manipulate and control our environ-

ment. The reason of this choice is, I think, not the
intrinsic reasonableness of the pragmatic position,
but rather the reluctance which is felt towards the
sceptical alternative. Scepticism would not satisfy
our practical needs. It would involve the surrender
of laws in practice extremely useful, and theo-
retically, atany rate possible, and sometimes
probable. would deny even approximate truth,
It
and would destroy the possibility of certitude and;

so would take away all motive for further research,

rendering science both futile and meaningless. In
the face of such an alternative, the scientist prefers
to take up a position which admits of at least some
degree of certitude, and gives, at any rate, some
meaning to the notions of truth, validity and
objectivity.
§ 323. But the adoption of a pragmatic attitude
in regard to the function of physical theory, whether
 ;

472 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

it be merely provisional or not, by no means implies

the adoption of Pragmatism in general, with its

idealistic interpretation of the universe, its theory

of universal postulation, and its man-made truths
which at bottom are no truths at all, but merely
4
values.' Scientific Pragmatism is, as I have said,
quite consistent with philosophic Realism, and the
two are not infrequently found together, and were
so found before philosophical Pragmatism had been
conceived. One may be permitted to ask, therefore
— and the question both interesting and instructive
is

from the epistemological point of view whether —

some form of Realism is not still compatible with
Physical Science itself whether, for instance, the
;

physicist in his aim should not be a realist after all

nay, more, whether some physical principles and
some branches of physical theory do not already
4
admit the predicate true in the correspondence
'

sense of that term. It would be strange, indeed, if

in one of the most extensive, most important, most
fruitful spheres of human research, to which for
centuries many of the keenest human intellects have
devoted themselves, we should have, as yet, obtained
no knowledge whatsoever of objective reality. One
can scarcely credit the assertions of those who
maintain that the whole complexus of physical
hypotheses and laws is merely a working instrument,
a useful calculating machine. Fortunately, how-
ever, Realism in Physical Science is not yet extinct.
Not only were scientists of ancient and world-wide
fame, such as Newton, Huyghens, Bernoulli,
Lagrange and Laplace, realists, but realists survive
to the present day. Nor is their survival an
 REALISM AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE 473

anomaly. They do not exist in spite of their failure

to adapt themselves to an idealistic environment.
On the contrary, the Realism of English science
has proved one of the chief obstacles to the advance
of Anglo-German Absolutism. Most scientists who
do not philosophise adopt a realistic attitude in
regard to facts and many who do, find it extremely
;

difficult, if not impossible, to eliminate realistic

expressions and ideas. And if Realism
compatible is

with Physical Science, it certainly gives to it a

fuller, a more consistent and a more satisfactory
meaning than can be got from Pragmatism. It is
worth while considering, therefore, whether a
moderate form of Realism may not yet be upheld
in regard to Physics, in spite of the manifold
diversity of its hypotheses and, accordingly, to
;

this question I propose to devote the following

chapter.

CHAPTER XVIII.

REALISM AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE.

4

§ 324. Realism interprets truth as correspon-

dence between our concepts and judgments on the
'

one hand, and objective reality on the other, though

in true knowledge the nature of objects is revealed
to our minds, not completely, but in part. A true
concept represents, or, better, in a true concept we
know, some real object in some one or more of its
aspects or of its relations. Hence, truth must be
determined objectively, not by our needs, but by
474 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

objects themselves, if it is to be truth at

all. In
perception, in conception, and
judgment, purposes
in
and needs have their proper function, as psychology
shows but their influence, in the main, is restricted
;

to the intent, as opposed to the content, of thought.

Certainly we may frame hypotheses in which we
provisionally determine the content of thought by
our own constructive powers, but a concept so
formed is not true unless it is confirmed or verified
by reference to the object.
§ 325. Is this position compatible with the
standpoint adopted in Physical Science ? In
general it seems to me that it is. For the majority
of physicists admit that determination of the mind
by its object is the only possible means of attaining
truth though they hesitate when asked how far
;

physical concepts and laws have been so determined,

and sometimes seem to doubt whether they will
ever be more than symbolic and useful. Neverthe-
less, in her aim and in her practice science is almost
always objective. The aim of the physicist is to
force nature to reveal her inner workings and the '

correlations of natural agencies.' Facts are

regarded as something independent of mind and
our knowledge of them as objectively determined.
Purpose is allowed to determine, not facts them-
selves, but only what facts are relevant to the
problem in hand. Guided by purpose, the scientist
taking note of what is relevant
selects his facts,
and neglecting the rest. But in the sphere of
observation and experiment, never, if he can help
it, does he allow purpose to determine content.
Abnormal cases occur, cases in which associations
 REALISM AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE 475

or the *
will to believe '
is exceptionally strong ;

but the careful observer and the scientist is, or —

should be, a careful observer will suspect such —
influences, if present, and will hesitate to trust his
conclusions in such a case until they are confirmed
by independent evidence. It is only in the framing
of hypotheses that the constructive activity of
mind plays a part. But a hypothesis is not a law ;

it is a question, a postulate which we ask nature to

answer or confirm. We apprehend some relation

as holding between concrete realities for even in —
its interrogative form a hypothesis is suggested by
facts we modify that relation and try whether it
;

still holds in nature or we postulate that the

;

relation holds in other and different cases, and

experiment to discover whether it is so. Should
reality persistently answer our question in the
affirmative, our hypothesis then becomes a law,
true approximately and under the given conditions
for all cases. Throughout the experimental stage
of science it is the aim of the scientist to get the
object itself to determine the answer to his
questions, as it determines, in part at least, the
questions themselves. He wants to know reality
as it is. His whole endeavour is, therefore, to
exclude subjective considerations and pre-conceived
ideas, so that he may read aright the answer that
nature gives. He tries more than anyone else to
keep in subjection his '
will to believe,' knowing
that, if this is impossible, he may as well relinquish
all attempts to discover the laws which govern the
universe.
§ 326. The scientist, then, fully admits that if
476 THEORIES OP KNOWLEDGE

scientific concepts and laws are to be verified, they

must be determined by their objects, and by their
objects alone and the aim of experiment is to
;

place conditions precisely in order that such a

determination may take place. The problem which
we have to solve, then, is how far the concepts and
laws of physical science in its present stage of
development have been de facto determined by
objective reality, for upon this will depend their
power knowledge ol objective reality.
to give us true
Science, which as a rule is non-assertive on this
point, is apt to appear somewhat sceptical on account
of its fondness for such terms as symbolic, 1 con-
ventional, probable, approximate, useful. M.
Duhem, for instance, tells us that all concepts in
Physical Science are symbolic, and all laws ap-
proximate, and that hence, strictly speaking, they
cannot be said to be either true or false. For this
reason he distinguishes common-sense laws from
scientific laws, because of the former we may
predicate truth and falsity, which are
notions
inapplicable in science. The reason is, he says,
that common-sense laws " simply extract what is
common in each particular case to which the law
applies, so that in each of those cases to which we
apply the law, we shall find concrete objects in
which these abstract ideas are realised " whereas ;

scientific notions,mass, temperature, pressure, are

" not only abstract, but symbolic, and have meaning
only thanks to physical theories." 2 And from the
approximate character or indetermination of the
1
La Thtforie Physique, chap, v., § 2.
2 Ibid., § 1.
 REALISM AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE 477

symbol follows the indeterminate and approximate

nature of the law.

Common-sense laws are very true, but on condition that

the general terms between which they establish a
connection be abstractions arising spontaneously from
the concrete, abstractions unanalysed, taken en bloc, like
the general idea of a carriage or of a horse. 1 ... A
physical law possesses a certitude much less immediate
and much more difficult to appreciate than a law of
common-sense, though it surpasses the latter in the
minute and detailed precision of its predictions. 2

§ 327. Let us examine a scientific definition and

then a scientific law in order to see for ourselves
how far its genesis and its precision affect its truth.
" The words hot and cold, or hotness and coldness,"
says Professor Preston, in sketching the develop-
ment of the notion of Temperature, " refer to the
state of a body by the sense of heat," a
as judged
hot body being " regarded as the source of an
influence which affects the sense of heat." 3 We
begin, then, with sense-perception. Hotness is some
property of objects in virtue of which they affect
our temperature-sense, as psychologists sometimes
call it. And this, we may note in passing, is probably
at bottom what many who belong to the new school
of Energetics mean when they say that the data of
science are sensations. Ostwald, for instance, who
is more objective than Mach, says that all sensations

are due to a difference of energy between the organ

of sense and the medium which surrounds it. At
any rate, the common-sense notion of hotness, like
1
Ibid., chap, viii., § 5.
2
Ibid., chap, v., § 5.
3
Theory of Heat y p. 12.
478 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

those of sound, light, pressure, is at first objective.

True, in the beginning, such notions are denotative
rather than connotative but their connotation is
;

not zero. We know enough to be able to dis-

tinguish hotness from other qualities of the same,
or of different objects and are thus able to enquire
;

what is its cause, what its nature, what its relations

to other properties of matter.
§ 328. It is in the course of this enquiry that the
notion of temperature comes to be scientifically
defined for the scientific definition of temperature
;

presupposes the common-sense notion of hotness.

Finding that several pieces of the same substance
can be arranged in a series by the sense of heat alone
according as one is hotter or colder than another,
" we are hence led," says Professor Preston, " to
the idea of a scale of hotness, and to enquire how
much one body is hotter than another." The
estimation of hotness implies some scale or standard
of measurement, and when this is chosen

we may speak a body, and

scientifically of the hotness of
word temperature is employed. The
for this purpose the
word temperature thus means simply the degree of hotness
of a body measured according to some arbitrarily chosen
scale. It is a scientific term, and contains all the meaning
of the primitive word hotness, as well as the idea of a
measure of hotness. 1

Observing that " one of the most general effects

of change of temperature or hotness in a body is
change of bulk, or expansion by heat," and that,
in the case of certain bodies, their bulk increases

1
Theory of Heat, p. 13. (Italics mine.)
 REALISM AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE 479

continuously in proportion to their hotness, 1 science

has selected this change as the basis of a method of
indicating temperature. But " the mode by which
the change ot temperature is indicated by the change
of volume remains, of course, a matter of choice, as
2
well as the particular substance employed." For
instance, we can measure change of volume directly
through expansion indicated by the rise of a liquid,
mercury or spirits of wine, in a tube divided into
parts of equal or known capacities or we may ;

allow the liquid to overflow and determine the

volume of the overflow, and hence the expansion of
that which remains in the tube, by weighing. 3
Again, we may take a gas, air, hydrogen, or nitrogen,
as our thermometric substance, in which case
temperature may be measured either by " change
of volume while the pressure is kept constant, or
by change of pressure while the volume is kept
constant." 4 Thus, not only is the scale itself arbi-
trary, but so also is our choice of a thermometric
substance, of the property of that substance which
we take as a basis of measurement, and of the means
by which that measurement is effected.
Is, then, our definition of temperature arbitrary ?

Strictly speaking, it is not. It is in deciding what

particular fact or class of facts the term '
tem-
perature '
is to denote that we exercise choice. We
find that degrees of hotness may in general be
indicated by changes of volume, and we therefore
decide to use the term '
temperature '
to signify
1
For a thermometric substance the law of the increase of bulk
must be one of simple proportion, and this law will hold only
within certain limits, exclusive of change of phase.
2
Op. ext., p. 14. * Ibid., p. 112. * Ibid., p. 1 16,
 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

degrees of hotness as indicated in' that particular

way. It is the choice of the thing to be defined
that is arbitrary, not the definition ofit for the ;

definition merely expresses a fact or relation which

has been found to hold in nature itself.
§ 329. The question, then, really is whether our
definition of temperature expresses an objective fact
or not. Do changes of volume and changes of
pressure really indicate changes in degree of hot-
ness ? If so, our definition is objectively valid; if

not, it is merely a creation of the mind.

Now, theoretically, two phenomena which vary
4
concomitantly must be in some way causally con-
nected,' in which case changes in the one pheno-
menon will correspond to changes in the other, in
so far as that phenomenon which we may call the
effect depends upon the other phenomenon as upon
its cause. Hence we may say that in so far as change

of volume varies continuously

'
with change of
'

hotness, there is a causal connection between the

two, so that change of volume indicates and may
be used in order to measure change of hotness. But
the statement that change of volume varies con-
tinuously with change of hotness applies only to
certain cases and even then is not exact. Changes
of volume may be due also to changes of pressure,
surface-tension, etc., and, in addition to this, there
are apparent changes arising from variation in the
solid envelope in which the thermometric substance,
whether a liquid or a gas, is enclosed. These other
causes of variation or of apparent variation the
scientist must eliminate or allow for, if his measure-
ments are to be exact and since he can do neither
;

Digitized by Google
 —

REALISM AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE 481

completely, there will always be some slight error

in his results. The personal equation, too, is a
source of error, for it varies somewhat ; and the
lines which indicate the sub-divisions of the ther-
mometric scale have always a certain thickness.
Hence the degree of hotness of a body as measured
by some chosen scale is not the degree of hotness as
it objectively exists. There is always some error and ;

though of errors in general we may take an average

or mean, the result will never be more than ap-
proximate. Hence the scientific definition of
temperature itself is approximate it does not :

correspond exactly with the object defined or ;

rather it implies an impossibility, viz., that changes

of hotness can be measured with absolute accuracy
by an arbitrary scale whereas measurement, since
;

it implies quantity or degree, owing to the

'
faiblesse de notre esprit can never be precisely
'

determined.
§ 330. Ought we, then, to refuse to apply the
4
predicates '
true '
and false '
to scientific definitions
on account of their approximate character ? By
no means. A scientific definition does not claim
'
to be exact, and it is only about its claim to truth '

that the logician has to judge. The scientist, indeed,

does not introduce the term approximate into his ' '

definitions, but it is always understood. Approxi-

mation is all we can get when, as in science, quantity
is involved. But although it implies that knowledge
is as yet incomplete, it does not destroy its truth.

We do not say that a statistical statement v.g., a

statement with regard to the population of a
—
country is untrue because it is approximate, nor
FF
4«2 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

yet do we say that it is neither true nor false. Such

statements, like scientific laws and definitions, do
not claim to correspond exactly with objective fact,
nor is such exactitude required in order for them to
be true. That is true which corresponds with fact

in so far as correspondence is claimed. We know

4 '
that all quantitative laws imply a margin of error ;

but provided we know also that this margin of error

is relatively small in comparison with the quantities

involved, our statement is what it claims to be,

approximate, and in this sense may correspond
with reality, and be true. A margin of error is
4
'

not strictly a margin of error, but rather a margin

within which the quantities involved in a state-
ment are known to be invariable. Moreover, not
only docs the scientist know, when he says that his
law is approximate, that such variations are
relatively small with respect to the quantities con-
cerned, but he can also determine the limits of these
variations. He can tell us, for instance, that his
quantities are certainly exact, say, to the fourth
decimal place, and probably to the fifth so that he
;

can also determine the degree of approximation

within which any further deduction he may make
from the original law will be true.
§ 331. Strictly speaking, then, we cannot say
that a scientific definition as such is either arbitrary,
symbolic or invalid. The most serious charge we
can bring against it is that it is only approximate,
and this does not destroy its objective validity. To
call a scientific definition such as that of temperature,
arbitrary or symbolic, seems to me to be, to say the
least, inaccurate and misleading. For a symbol is
 REALISM AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE 483

either apurely arbitrary sign chosen to denote some

object, or it is a sign chosen by convention to
represent some object on account of a supposed
resemblance between that object and the symbol
used and in neither of these senses is the definition
;

of temperature which we have been considering a

symbol. What we have defined is not degree of
6

hotness simply, but

'
the degree of hotness of a *

substance considered in relation to the concomitant

variations in magnitude of certain other substances.'
This is the particular fact or class of facts which the
term '
temperature '
denotes. True, we choose this
'
particular fact and agree
temperature to call it '
;

4
but this done, we cannot define temperature as '

we will its definition is determined by the facts.

:

The denotation of temperature,' like that of other

'

terms, is chosen arbitrarily or by convention but ;

once the denotation is fixed, the connotation will

depend upon the facts to which the term is applied.
When we say that temperature is degree of hotness 6

as indicated by an arbitrarily chosen scale,' we are

describing something objective and real. The
'
degree of hotness is objective and real, and so is
'

the chosen scale,' for by it we mean the ther-

'

mometric substances whose variations in magnitude

are causally connected with and therefore indicate
degrees of hotness. The introduction of the term
4
arbitrary into our definition is a little inaccurate,
'

perhaps for, though the selection of a ther-

;

mometric substance is to some extent arbitrary,

choice is restricted to those substances which really

indicate changes in degrees of hotness. But what
is meant is that, provided this condition is fulfilled, it
 —

484 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

is matter of indifference what substance we choose,

or what units we take as a basis of our scale and ;

this also is an objective fact, since there are many

substances whose magnitude varies concomitantly
with their degree of hotness, or with the degree of
hotness of some other substance. What we choose
is not the definition, but the thing to be defined ;

and when the thing defined determines the definition,

as it should do and usually does, there is between
the two, not merely a symbolic resemblance, but some-
thing more ; for the definition —so far as it goes
expresses true knowledge of a certain class of
objective facts.
4

§ 332. Our temperature

definition of is not '

symbolic, then, if by temperature we mean degree '

of hotness considered in relation to changes of

'

volume or weight.
Yet there is a sense in which that definition may
be said to be symbolic. For temperature may ' '

be regarded as a quality of an object, as degree of '

hotness simplicitcr.
'
In fact, it is hotness which the
scientist really wishes to define but instead of
;

defining it, he finds that all he can do is to indicate

its changes in degree by certain other changes of a
different nature. What the nature of hotness or
the nature of temperature is he does not know, but
he does know that variations in magnitude cor-
respond to degrees of hotness. Hence he uses
variations in magnitude (volume or weight) to
signify or symbolise degrees of hotness. The defini-
tion of Temperature, therefore, though not itself
symbolic, contains a symbolic element, since
variations in magnitude in no way reveal to us the
 REALISM AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE 485

nature of terriperature,if by temperature we mean

degrees of hotness. Yet even this symbolism is

symbolism in the less rigid sense of that term. For
the variations in magnitude by which we symbolise
'
temperature are not arbitrarily chosen, nor are
'

they chosen by mere convention, but on account of

1
a certain resemblance between the symbol and
'

that which it symbolises. And that resemblance

'
'

is not merely supposed to exist but is known to

;

exist and to consist in concomitant variations

which imply either a direct causal connection or,
at least, a common cause. Our definition, then,
though it does not tell us what the nature of tem- '

perature is, nevertheless expresses real knowledge

'

about temperature. To call such a definition

'
symbolic,' therefore, though true in a certain sense,
is somewhat misleading, for a symbol usually means

a purely arbitrary sign, and does not necessarily

imply any kind of resemblance. Moreover, if we
use the term temperature in the strict sense of
' '

degree of hotness, qud measured, our definition is

not symbolic at all, as we have seen.
§ 333- We may, of course, substitute in place of
the above definition of temperature the formula
\-Wo = v0, or V = Vo (i+a0) where a=v/V 0 .

Obviously a definition of this kind is in form strictly

symbolic, since its terms are now purely arbitrary
or conventional signs. In reality, however, it is as
objective as the real definition for which it is
substituted. Its symbols refer to names, and
through names to concepts which correspond to
objective fact. We might re-write the definition in
the form 0 = (V-V o ) v which would mean that the
,
486 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

number of degrees or scale-units of temperature in

a given body or in the thermometric substance is
equal to the ratio of V-Vo, the difference between
the actual volume of the thermometric substance
at 6 and the volume which the same substance had
at the zero of the scale, to V, the degree-measure,
or increase in volume of that substance for one
degree. 1 Now v is by definition the same all along
the scale, hence a |_
= V/V 0 ] * n the formula V=
Vo(i + a 0), which is called the co-efficient of expansion,
or expansion per unit volume of the thermometric
'

substance in changing its temperature from o° to

should also be the same all along the scale.
Yet this, in fact, is not the case. Not only does
1
a vary for different substances, but for most
'

substances it is greater when we measure it between

(say) 70
0
and 71 0 than it is between o° and i°.
4
a' then, as soon as we come to deal with
4
v and '

an actual case, are approximate, and so also, for

that matter, are V and V G which are supposed to ,

be constant. Yet our definition is not thereby

invalidated, for though the statement V=
V Q (i+a6) in form is exact, it does not claim to be
really exact. We are quite aware that in reality
it is approximate, and that we must allow for a

margin of error in any particular case to which we

may apply it.
§ 334. Hitherto we have been discussing the
definition of temperature only in so far as based it is

on experimental data ; and have found that, though

only approximate and in a sense symbolic, it never-
theless gives us true knowledge about objective
1
Preston, p. 19.
 REALISM AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE 487

reality. Physical science, however, is not content

with this. It wishes to get at the real nature of
temperature, and for this purpose frames hypotheses
which, taken together, constitute the theory of
4
Heat. Heat is regarded as the molecular energy
of matter/ and temperature thus becomes the '

molecular energy of matter as measured by some

chosen scale.' Here, then, we have a definition
which, as M. Duhem says, is not only due to a '

slow and complex process of elaboration,' but which

'
gets its whole meaning from physical theory.'
And that theory is not established. It involves
numerous hypotheses about the constitution of
matter, and the nature of different forms of
energy, none of which can as yet be treated as
objectively valid and certain. Hence the definition
of temperature which is based on such a theory,
though useful, cannot be said to be true.' Again,
'

it is a symbolic definition that is pictured in terms

of mechanical imagery. A hot substance is

1
'

symbolised as an indefinite number of minute

particles of matter all moving about with greater
or less rapidity, and behaving according to known
mechanical laws. A symbol of this kind corres-
ponds to some extent with objective fact, for
particles of matter certainly have mechanical
properties. But how far it corresponds, or what
other properties of matter are also manifested in
the phenomenon of heat we cannot say. By
treating heat as if it were the molecular energy of
matter, many phenomena may be explained and
many experimental laws co-ordinated but there ;

are phenomena which the theory fails to explain,

488 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

and cases in which it completely. At

breaks down
present, then, the molecular
theory of heat is
neither true nor false. It contains an element of
truth, as other theories have done before it but ;

indefinite modifications will have to be introduced

before it can be established, and what precise
effects those modifications will have upon the
various hypotheses and definitions of which the
theory is made up, it is impossible to say. The
theoretical definition is symbolic, because though
corresponds with the facts, we cannot say how
4 1
it

far it corresponds, or how far it fails so to do. It

embraces both an element of truth and an element
of error, and between the two it is impossible for
us at present to draw the dividing line.
§ 335- Definitions which belong to the theory of
physics must be distinguished, therefore, from those
which are based directly on experimental facts and ;

a similar distinction must be made between experi-

mental laws and theoretical hypotheses. The latter
are symbolic, provisional, and, strictly speaking,
neither true nor false the former are approximate,
;

but none the less objectively valid. Boyle's or

Mariotte's law may be taken as an example of an
experimental or empirical law. It is a generalisation
based directly on experiment and observation, and
states that " at the same temperature, the volumes
occupied by the same mass of gas are in inverse
proportion to the pressure to which it is subject." 1
This law, M. Duhem tells us, is a " symbolic relation
whose application to concrete reality implies that
one knows quite a system of theories. " Neverthe-
1
Duhem, La Titanic Physique, chap, v., § I.
 REALISM AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE 489

less, I think that we are justified in regarding it as

objectively valid. But let us examine its signifi-
cance more closely and see for ourselves whether
this is the case.
That Boyle's law merely expresses a relation
between temperature, volume, pressure and mass,
yet does not us anything of the intrinsic nature
tell

of those entities is clear and the same may be said

;

of almost all experimental laws. They express

relations, sequences, causal connections, not essences.
Nevertheless, they may give us true knowledge, and
4
if actio scquitur esse? they tell us something about
the nature of the entities concerned (in this par-
ticular case, the properties of a gas), even if they
do not us what that nature
tell is. If we wish to
explain the law or to discover why the relation
arises, we must have recourse to theory. But
considered merely from the experimental point of
view, Boyle's law and any other empirical relation
of this kind can be established independently of
theory, unless, we apply that term to
indeed,
the complexus experimental laws themselves.
of
General statements of facts, however, are certainly
not what we mean by theory but, on the contrary,
;

are the data by means of which theory is ultimately

to be established or condemned.
§ 336. Boyle's law, then, expresses a relation
which can experimentally be shown to hold between
certain entities, of the intrinsic nature of which we
know little or nothing for certain. And if on this
account you choose to call the relation symbolic,
well and good though the expression is liable to
;

mislead, because it suggests that the law does not

490 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

express real knowledge. And this is not true, for

all the terms denote objective facts. Temperature
and mass cannot be defined in their essential nature,
but only by means of their relations to other
properties, v.g., to volume or to motion and weight.
Yet mass, like temperature, signifies an objective
fact, and our concept of it is true so far as it goes.
For even if mass be ultimately reducible to electro-
magnetic inertia, it is still true that material bodies
have some property in virtue of which, in varying
but measurable degree, they tend to keep their
state of motion and resist all influences tending to
change it, whether in quantity or direction.
Doubtless this correspondence can be established
in a concrete case only by the use of instruments
and by means of measurements and calculations
which are often long and complicated. But, as
we have seen in regard to temperature, the approxi-
mate nature of measurement does not detract from
its truth, nor does a long and complicated calculation

lead to inaccurate results, for when once our margins

of error are known, it is possible to determine
with mathematical precision the accuracy of our
conclusion.
Boyle's law is inaccurate when stated, as generally
it is, in the form which M. Duhem has given,
but it is inaccurate because it was proved to hold
only for certain gases when subject to moderate
pressures, and not because its terms are symbolic
or its measurements inexact. For moderate
pressures and for the so-called permanent gases,
oxygen, hydrogen, and air, the formula (PV =
constant) will hold with a margin of error that is
 REALISM AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE

comparatively small ;but for most gases PV

gradually diminishes up to a certain point as the
pressure is increased, and after this point is passed
it begins to increase; and again its variations are
different according to the particular gas which is
being examined, and according to the temperature
at which the experiment is performed. Yet, while
still keeping clear of molecular and other hypotheses
in regard to the nature of matter, it is possible to
devise more complicated formulae which shall take
account of these facts, and which will therefore
be applicable in cases where the simple formulae
failed. These more complicated formulae will, in
a certain sense, be more true than those which they
supersede, since they will contain a smaller margin
of error. Nor does there seem to be any reason for
supposing that certitude diminishes as a law becomes
more precise, for it will still be possible to construct
formulae such that all possible variations from any
of the quantities involved will be small in com-
parison with the quantities themselves.
§ 337- There is, however, a limit to the precision
with which experimental science can at present
determine the magnitudes it wishes to measure, and
if this limit is passed certitude gives place to proba-

bility. In proportion as the scientist endeavours to

make his measurements more exact, errors due to
observation, to the instruments he uses, and to the
impurity of the substances upon which he experi-
ments, become of greater importance, till finally the
margin of error he is forced to allow, counterbalances
the degree of accuracy which he seeks to obtain.
It is then that he is driven to invoke the aid of
49-2 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

theory. Assuming general principles which apply

unreservedly to all material objects, he constructs
hypotheses, assigning a definite structure to minute
particles of matter upon which it is impossible to
experiment individually, and of whose existence he
has no immediate experience. From these hypo-
theses he deduces conclusions whose precision can
be as minute and detailed as he wishes to make it,
and whose accuracy is unquestionable, granting that
his premises are true. But when he comes to apply
such conclusions to experimental data he finds that
in some cases they are confirmed and in others they
are not, and he discovers also that to any individual
case there are an indefinite number of theoretical
formulae, each of which will apply equally well.
Consequently, he is in doubt as to which to choose,
and in such a dilemma other considerations being
of equal value, the simplest is usually selected.
But now it is necessary to explain why the formula
selected should not always be confirmed by the
facts. In theory, however, this is impossible, for
we do not know how far its definitions have an
objective counterpart or how far they are merely
symbolic and when a particular formula fails to
;

apply in a given case, we do not know where the

error lies, since all formula; and all definitions in
theory presuppose an indefinite number of hypo-
theses of whose validity we are equally uncertain.
§ 338. Clearly, then, the region of theory in
Physics differs essentially from that of experimental
law. Experimental laws are true so far as they go,
or they are false. If qualitative merely, they are
true in so far as they establish relations between real
 REALISM AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE

properties of matter supposed adequately

;
false, if
to express its whole nature. quantitative, they
If

are true, provided the limits within which the

quantities may vary are known to be relatively
small false, if the quantities involved pretend to
;

be other than approximate. Of theoretical hypo-

theses, on the other hand, we cannot say definitely
that they are true, nor yet that they are false, until
they have been verified and they can only be
;

verified by comparing them with experimental laws

already established. Hence the
possibility of ever
being able to a physical theory pre-
establish
supposes that experimental laws are already true ;

for " le seal contrdle experimental de la thtorie physique

qui ne soit pas illogique consiste d comparer le systcme
entier de la thiorie physique d tout V ensemble des lois
expirimentales et d apprtcier si celui-ci est ripresente
par celui-la d'une maniere satisfaisante." 1

In the experimental stage of physics the scientist

may work with symbols, as when he regards the sun
as an ideal sphere, whose matter can be treated as
if it were massed at its centre but he knows in this
;

case that, owing to the distance of the sun from the

earth and planets, the error he has deliberately
introduced cannot affect the degree of accuracy
which he wishes to obtain in the deductions he is
going to make. The theorist in physics is in a
different case. When experience refuses to verify
he cannot say where the error
his symbolic formulae,
lies. It may be in some symbol he is using, or it
may be in some hypothesis which is presupposed ;

he cannot tell. He has no means of comparing his

1
La Thforie Physique, chap, vi., § 5.
494 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

symbols with the object to which they are supposed

to correspond. All he can say for certain is that
something is wrong somewhere. Such being the
case, when the theorist has no means of locating
the error, his only alternative is, as M. Duhem says,

to keep rigidly to the signification of symbols when once

they have been fixed, regardless of experimental facts,
but to use absolute freedom in the matter of postulation
and hypothesis, provided no contradiction is involved
and provided, ultimately, all hypotheses be subjected
to the test of experience when once a theory is complete. 1

§ 339- What function, then, is to be assigned to

physical theory ? Various answers have been given
to this question. It co-ordinates and systematises
experimental laws it synopsises and condenses
;

them in accordance with economy of thought it ;

enables us to classify what is known and to predict

what is unknown it suggests questions and guides
;

as well as prompts future research. At any rate,

then, its function is useful ; but is it anything more ?

M. Le Roy would answer in the negative. The

symbolic relations which we postulate and express
in mathematical language are merely instruments,
more or less convenient, useful, suitable for the
purpose of connecting and systematising experi-
mental laws with a view of bringing them under
human control and rendering them more manageable.
Like M. Boutroux, he regards science as " a collection
of methods for the assimilation of things to our
intellect in order to bend them to our will." M.
Duhem takes a more objective view, but even he
declares that physical theories do not pretend to be
1
Ibid., chap, v., §§ 7, 9.
 REALISM AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE 495

explanations of the nature of material things. They

are independent of all metaphysical systems. 1

The may be raised, whether

question, however,
it is thus to separate the useful and
justifiable
the true. Whether, in other words, symbolic '

representation' can render more easy, more rapid,

and more sure our reasoning about 'what our senses,
aided by instruments, make us know without in '

some way corresponding to those same data of

experience or whether, again, it is possible to
;

devise methods for assimilating things to our

intellect in order tobend them to our will, unless
those methods are based on true principles and are
capable of giving knowledge of reality. Can a thing
be useful without being in some sense true ? I do
not see how it can.
§ 340. Theories are not like machines which
work automatically, or like physical instruments
which may
be brought to some degree of perfection
by the haphazard process of chopping and changing
them at random till they suit the practical purpose
we have in view. In science we are dealing with
knowledge from first to last. Our 'manipulations of
experiences in their primary purpose are not prac-
'

tical but theoretical, and consist in classification,

co-ordination, systematisation and explanation.
Verification, too, does not consist in the realisation
of a practical end, nor in the successful
performance
of some physical action
but in a certain identity
;

between the detailed inferences drawn from our

theories and given physical facts. With a view to
discovering the general principles or laws which
1
1 bid., chap, vii., § 1.
496 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

underlie these facts, the physicist frames a theory

comprising many
hypotheses logically connected
together, and expressedeither in mathematical
symbols or in images of particles endowed with some
form of energy. These symbols and images, how-
ever, are not mere pictures, but concepts. They
signify things the existence of which we postulate,
and which we suppose obey known laws, mechani-
to
cal, dynamical, or electro-magnetic. These laws
form the basis of theoretical deduction. From
them the physicist infers that under given con-
ditions certain phenomena should occur, and his
inferences often confirmed by fact.
are What
conclusion, then, ought we to draw in regard to
the objective significance of these symbols and
images, and the laws that govern their relations ?
Are they, in the strict sense, objectively valid, i.e.,
do they represent adequately the nature of that for
which they stand substitute ? No for in many
;

cases the conclusions deduced from them are not

confirmed by experience. Ought we to say, then,
that they are neither true nor false
? Clearly they
are notwholly true, otherwise the conclusions
deduced would always be verified neither, on the
;

other hand, can they be wholly false, for, then,

the conclusions ought never to be verified unless
per accidens, and in a few cases here and there
only. They must contain at least an element
of truth, and represent, at any rate, an aspect
of reality.
§ 341. Again, the concepts which are involved
when we think of facts are of a similar nature to
those which we use when we think of hypotheses or
 REALISM AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE

laws, which seems to show that and hypotheses

facts
are not entities of a wholly different order. That
on December 28th, 1908, many people were killed
in Messina by falling buildings is a fact. That the
buildings were shattered owing to an earthquake is
also a fact. On the other hand, that the buildings
fell to the earth is supposed to have been due to

gravity, which is a hypothesis. And that the earth

moves round the sun is another hypothesis, itself
also accounted for by the further hypothesis of
gravitation. Now the concepts which function in
our minds when we think of the earth moving round
the sun are to a large extent the same as those which
we use when we think of buildings falling to the
ground, viz., concepts of motion and direction and ;

we may say the same, I think, of the concepts in-

volved in the Law of Gravitation, viz., distance, mass
and force, except that mass is a complex concept
involving volume and density, while force can only
be conceived as the cause of change from rest or
uniform linear motion. Why, then, should we regard
hypotheses and facts as entities of wholly different
order ? If these were really so, it is difficult to see
how verification could take place. But if not, why
should we make this forced separation between what
is useful and what is true ? We cannot say that a
hypothesis is true until it is verified yet I can see
;

no reason whatsoever why we should not admit that

it may become true. A hypothesis of its very nature
seems to me to possess the potentiality of becoming
true. And if this is so, it is irrational to deny that
hypotheses may contain an element of truth, even
though we cannot distinguish what is true in them
498 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

from what and so cannot tell how far they

is false,

are true until they have been completely verified.

§ 342. Or, again, to put the same argument in
another form if the so-called
: symbols and '
'

4
images of Physical Theory contain no element of
'

truth, how are we to explain the coincidence of

experimental fact with theoretical deduction? A
precisely similar effect can be produced only by a
precisely similar cause for the nature of the effect
;

proceeds from that of the cause, in which it must be

already potentially contained, otherwise it could not
get into the effect. The cause may comprise many
other properties besides that of producing this par-
ticular effect but, in so far as an effect does proceed
;

from a given cause, the nature of the effect must be

already there implicitly in the cause. Now, the
particular conclusions that are deduced in physical
theory are based upon hypotheses in which things
having certain mechanical or electro-magnetic
properties are supposed to exist. Hence, in our
ideal physical world it is from the nature of these
hypothetical entities that certain effects, the
phenomena that we anticipate, proceed. Similarly
world actual phenomena or events proceed
in the real
from and are dependent upon the nature of existing
entities and If, then, and in so far
their properties.
as, we phenomena which we anticipate
find that the
are realised in the concrete, the anticipated and the
actual phenomena must proceed from a similar
cause ;
or, in other words, the nature of the entities
which we conceive as causes in a verified hypothesis
and the nature of real things must be one and the
same.
 REALISM AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE 499

If facts are true, then, the hypothesis which ex-

plains them must also be true, and, in so far as our
anticipations are realised, the concepts which they
presuppose must be objectively valid. Unfortu-
nately, however, our anticipations are never pre-
cisely realised, as they are constructed in theory
and often enough they are negatived by concrete
experience. Since, then, and until we can localise
the source of error and rectify our theoretical con-
structions, it is impossible to say more than that
theories contain an element of truth, the degree of
which will depend largely upon the precision and
the extent of its confirmation by experimental facts.

§ 343. But can we ever distinguish what is true

in a theory from what is false ? Can we localise
error and affirm that it lies in one hypothesis rather
than in another ? Are there any physical theories
or any hypotheses which we know for certain to be
true ? M. Duhem, as we have seen, holds that the
parts of a physical theory are so intimately bound
up together that no one hypothesis can be verified
apart from the rest. Nothing can be regarded as
objectively valid until it is complete, and has been
verified as a whole by comparison with the complexus
of physical facts. M. Poincare, on the other hand,
takes a different view, and thinks that some
hypotheses or laws, if not more certain, are at any
rate more probable than others and this seems the
;

more reasonable view to take, though it by no means

follows that there are strictly physical laws, however
universal, which can be regarded as certain a priori,
or as self-evident.
M. Duhem's argument that the law of inertia is
 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

not self-evident because it was not recognised as

such by the Greeks is hardly conclusive for a
;

self-evident truth must be understood before its

self-evidence can be recognised, 1 and it is quite
conceivable that there are truths which would be
self-evident if anybody thought about them, but
which are not so, because no one as yet has thought
of them at all. 2 I see no ground, however, for

regarding the law of inertia as self-evident. Develop-

ment is a fact, and so is decay and, as I have
;

already pointed out, there seems to be no reason

a priori why things should not tend constantly to
develop or increase in some way or other, or why, on
the other hand, they should not tend continuously
to diminish and decay. Yet few people would
question the truth of the law of inertia now, nor
indeed any of Newton's three laws of motion. Why
is this ? It is precisely because on the three laws
of motion, together with that of Gravity, the whole
system of Astronomy is based. I know not whether
M. Duhem would treat astronomical theory as part
of the theory of Physics, or whether he would regard
it as a theory sufficiently distinct and sufficiently

complete to be verifiable apart from the rest.

Astronomers, at any rate, seem to have no doubt as
to the validity of the law of Inverse Squares or of the
laws of Motion, laws which have led to conclusions
completely verified by fact, except for a slight margin
of error, which can, in most cases, easily be accounted
for by the personal equation or by instrumental

1
Compare the scholastic distinction between truths which are
per se nota quoad se, and per se nota quoad nos.
2 cf. chap. xv. rc Self-Evident Truths.
 —

REALISM AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE

defects. The law of Gravitation is, at any rate,

approximately true if we express it in the form
between two material bodies there is an attractive
force which varies directly as the product of their
masses and inversely as the square of their dis-
tances but whether that force is an ultimate
;

property of all material bodies, or whether it is due

to a vis a tergo, we do not know. Our knowledge
is limited. We know for certain that a relation
which we call Gravitation holds between all material
bodies, but we do not know whence that relation
arises.

§ 344. Let us take another physical theory, the

Undulatory Theory of Light. Here, again, we can
distinguish what is true in that theory from what
is doubtful and possibly false. The theory, taken
as a whole, explains nearly all the phenomena of
light. In particular, the characteristic hypothesis
from which it gets its name is necessary in order
satisfactorily to explain refraction and interference,
phenomena which seem to show conclusively that
the propagation of light is by means of undulatory
motion in which there is some form of periodic change
transverse to the line of propagation. The subsidiary
4
hypothesis of an ether,' which we seem forced to
postulate as a medium for the transmission of light,
presents certain difficulties. For the properties
of this ether approximate at once to those of a
'
'

solid and to those of a perfect gas. Nor is this

difficulty entirelyovercome, though it is relieved
somewhat, by stating it in a more accurate form, as
when we say the ratio between the elasticity of the
ether and its density must be very large. Another
502 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

from Michelson's experiment,

difficulty arises, too,
which apparently shows that no relative motion
exists between the ether and the earth, whereas a
relative motion between the two must be postu-
lated in orderto explain the aberration of
light. It has been suggested that this latter
difficulty may be obviated by supposing that moving
bodies contract in the direction of movement but ;

this hypothesis, though not impossible, cannot be

experimentally proved. Further discussion of the
difficulties connected with the Undulatory Theory of
Light, however, w ould be beyond the scope of my
r

present purpose. Doubtless, that theory contains

an element of error as well as an element of truth.
Yet the source of the error can be located, I think,
in the postulate of 'ether,' and the essential
hypothesis of the theory as stated above does not
seem thereby to be affected, and so may be regarded
as true.
§ 345, This view of the applicability of truth
to scientific theories is not altogether foreign to the
minds of physicists whose expressions —as far as
physical theory is —
concerned are often pragmatic
in tone. M. Duhem seems to imply that when
physical theory is complete and when it has been
completely verified it will become not only useful,
but true, and true in the realist sense. M. Poincare
is even more emphatic. Science, he says, is not
—
merely a rule for action it gives us knowledge of
objects. Its utility lies in its power to enable us
to foresee events, but foresight implies sight, and
the value of prediction depends upon the accuracy
with which events have previously been represented.
 REALISM AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE

The symbols or figured concepts, which in mathe-

matical physicsform the terms between which
relations hold, may vary, but
the equations to which
they lead are the same. Mass and energy cannot
as yet be accurately defined, but conservation of
mass and conservation of energy point at least to
something which in reality is constant throughout.
Even the famous postulate of Simplicity or Thought-
economy is, in the opinion of M. Poincare, not
wholly subjective. Simple laws are verified d peu
prts ; and this cannot be due to chance. There
must be some cause for it in the nature of objective
reality. Finally, he points out that, though
Mechanism is distrusted on account of its tendency
to Realism, yet one of the chief conclusions to be
drawn from Maxwell's work is that we can always
give to the material universe a mechanical explana-
tion if we wish. Nor will such an interpretation be
altogether symbolic, for electric oscillations, the
movements a pendulum, and all periodic
of
phenomena manifest " une parente intime qui
correspond d une realite profonde."
§ 346. The significance of statements such as
these seems to point to something more than a
parallelismbetween the logical connections of a
physical theory and the system of experimental
laws upon which it is based. Moreover, this
*
parallelism '
—
which, in the opinion of Hertz, is
the term that best expresses the relation of theory
to fact —
itself requires explanation. If the con-

cepts which are used in physical theory, are merely

ideal constructions logically connected together,
how comes it about that they correspond symboli-
5<M THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

cally, point for pointand connection for connection,

with the facts to which they are applied ? The
epistemology of physical theory cannot rest content
without some further explanation. Parallelism
cannot be ultimate, but, like concomitant variations,
seems to postulate some causal connection. The
concepts of physical theory are ultimately derived
from experience, and the conclusions of physical
theory bring us back again to concrete experience
in which more or less completely they are realised.
In neither case is the coalescence whole and entire :

yet contact with reality is thereby established,

whence it would seem to follow that between logical

connections on the one hand, and physical relations

on the other, there must also be some form of
correspondence, the nature of which the term
parallelism is hardly adequate to express.
The possibility of parallelism, of useful symbolism,
and of predicating and controlling events by means
of calculations based on theoretical assumptions can
be explained only on the further assumption that
the concepts which physical theory employs have
some kind of objective truth. These concepts may
not be wholly true, still less adequately express the
nature of objective reality but they are not mere
;

symbols or mere picturesque representations. They

give us at any rate some knowledge of our material
environment. Most hypotheses, even when verified,
tell us little of the inner nature of things. The
knowledge which they give concerns for the most
part their operations and the relations one to another.
9
Still actio scquitur esse and the nature of a relation
*

depends upon the objects it relates. Mechanism is an

 REALISM AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE 50$

attempt to penetrate deeper into the nature of

material things, and though it has failed to reduce
everything to matter and motion or to show that
no properties exist besides the mechanical, it repre-
sents a true, if a one-sided and partial, aspect of
the material world.
It is not irrational, therefore, to interpret the aim
of physical science in a realistic sense, or even to
say that some of the hypotheses which belong to
physical theory give us real knowledge of the laws
which govern the universe in which we live. Realism
is not incompatible with physical science. On the
contrary, it gives to its speculations a richer meaning
and a fuller significance than any that Pragmatism
affords and it raises within us a rational hope that
;

the realistic terminology of which the scientist,

whether deliberately or from force of habit makes
use, will in the end turn out to be something more
than mere metaphor for, as M. Duhem remarks,
;

" Au fur et a mesure que les methodes experimentales

progressent, Vinde termination du symbole abstract que
V experience physique fait corresponds au fait concret
va en diminuant" 1

1
La Thcorie Physique, chap, v., § 3.
5o6 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

CHAPTER XIX.
ABSOLUTE TRUTH.
§ 347. In the chapter on '
Development and
Validity" we saw that an absolutist of the Hegelian
type regarded all development as a reconciliation of
differences in a higher synthesis, and hence inferred
that, until the complete and total synthesis of all
differences is realised, knowledge is not only im-
perfect, but is subject to indefinite modification.
Truth consists in a totality of syntheses ; it is the

complete harmony and unification of every part of

knowledge. What we strive to know is Reality
itself, and Reality is a system in which each part is

related to all the rest and cannot be understood in

isolation from the rest. It is a coherent, organised
whole, an individual whole, a whole which is essen-
tially intelligible and as such it is at once the
;

Object which we seek to know, the Ideal towards

which our knowledge tends, and the Criterion by
which it must be judged. Truth, therefore, is only
another aspect of Reality itself, and is defined by
Dr. Joachim as " the systematic coherence of a
significant whole."
On this point is substantial agreement among
there
all absolutists,though in regard to points of
secondary importance they differ. The Hegelian,
for instance, identifies Reality and Thought, whereas
Mr. Bradley maintains that Thought is only a
4
fundamental difference of Reality. Thought, he
'
 ABSOLUTE TRUTH 507

says, can never equate itself with Reality ; for in

thought content and existence are essentially dis-
tinct, whereas in the Absolute they are one. Never-
theless, as it is the Experience of the Absolute which
constitutes Reality, so it is the manifestation of
that Experience in finite centres, where it is broken
up by analysis and reunited in synthesis, that con-
stitutes human truth, a truth which is ever approach-
ing but never attains the systematic coherence of
an individual whole. It is essential to truth, says

Dr. Joachim, to " manifest itself in the thinking of

finite subjects. " 1 The Absolute somehow reveals
itself in us, and our human thinking is thus in some

way or other the reproduction of the one eternal

consciousness, " in respect, at least, of its attribute
and unification of the manifold." 2
of self-origination
So says T. H. Green and again;
" Finite ex- :

periences are rooted in the Ideal. They share its

actuality and draw from it whatever being and

conservability they possess." " Perfection of truth
and of reality has in the end," Mr. Bradley tells us,
" the same character. It consists in positive,
self-subsisting individuality."

Less or more [our judgments] actually possess the

character and type of absolute truth and reality. They
can take the place of the Real to various extents, because
containing in themselves less or more of its nature.
They are its representatives, worse or better, in pro-
portion as they present us with truth affected by greater
or less derangement. Human truths are true according
as it would take less or more to convert them into
reality. 3
1
The Nature of Truth, p. 163 and cf. p. 20.
2
Green, Prolegomena to Ethics, § 77.
3 Appearance and Reality, pp. 362, 363.
5o8 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

And again, Professor Bosanquet declares that

" for Logic, at all events, it is a postulate that
4
the truth is the whole.' The forms of thought
have the relation which is their truth in their power
1
to constitute a totality."
§ 348. Three doctrines underlie this Absolute
theory of Truth : the doctrine (1) that relations
intrinsicallymodify their terms (2) that all parts ;

and single judgments get their meaning from

the whole and (3) that the part played by the mind
;

in the making or finding of truth is essential and

intrinsic. That this is so should, I think, be clear
from what has already been said of the general
standpoint of Absolutism in previous chapters.
Hence I shall merely quote one or two passages
from Dr. Joachim's Nature of Truth to illustrate the
point.
Dr. Joachim rejects the correspondence-notion of
truth precisely because and precisely in so far as it

contradicts the three fundamental doctrines of

Absolutism mentioned above. " There is no
correspondence,' he says, ' two simple " between
entities, nor between elements of wholes considered
as simple beings, i.e., without respect to the
systematisation of their wholes." 2 " If we identify,
distinguish, or in any way relate A and B —two
simple entities —we have eo ipso retracted their
simplicity ; and their simplicity never existed, if

their nature justified our proceedings." purely A

external relation is meaningless, and would be " a
third independent entity which in no intelligible

1
Logic, i. f p. 3.
2
The Nature of Truth, p. 10.
 ABSOLUTE TRUTH

sense relates the first two." Every relation qualifies

and modifies intrinsically its terms. 1

§ 349. Correspondence, indeed, is admitted as a

c
symptom of truth,' but this correspondence depends
primarily on something which itself conditions the
being and the nature of the correspondence. 2

Correspondence,when attributed to wholes, is simply

a name identity of purpose expressed through
for
materially different constituents as an identical structure,
plan, or cycle of functions ; and, when attributed to the
parts, it means identity of function contributed mainly
by materially different constituents towards the main-
tenance of the identical plan or purpose. 3

Even the unity of the elements is derived from

the whole. Hence, " correspondence, as a con-

stitutive condition of truth, sinks more and more
into the background," and instead " truth is seen
to depend on the nature of the idea expressing itself
in the inner structure of the corresponding wholes."
And this idea acquires its own significance, its

fulness of meaning and power to constitute truth,

its

from " a larger significant system to which it

4
contributes."
§ 350. Again, " truth is not truth unless it is
recognised." The finding of truth as a historical
process in my mind is irrelevant to the nature of
truth, yet truth must be for some mind if it is to
6
exist at all. The real factor in knowledge cannot
be external to mind or unrelated to consciousness.
Truth is independent of this or that mind, qud this
or that mind, and to its stubborn and independent

1
Ibid., p. 11, and cf. pp. 43 et *eq. 49.
1 6
Ibid., p. 16. * Ibid., p. 10. * Ibid., p. 16. Ibid., p. 14.
 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

nature all thinking must conform under pain of

error ;
yet '
this independent truth lives and moves
and has its being in the judgments of finite minds.'
It is essential to it to be expressed, and it is expressed

as a system of knowledge which constitutes and is

constituted by the intellectual individualities of

many finite thinkers. 1 If the truth of my judgments
be regarded as the correspondence between two
factors in knowledge, the one vague, imperfectly
articulate, and more or less unmediated feeling,
i.e., the common environment which is the world,
the other a reflective judgment, a distinctly conceived
synthesis of Thing and Property, then my judgment
is true only if, as a whole of parts, it exhibits an
inner structure identical in structure with the real
factor, or some subordinate whole within the real
factor. Yet the two factors are not independent.
4 4
The real ' factor is uniquely tinged with our
and the mental factor is
respective individualities,'
communicable and so not purely personal. The
correspondence cannot be one of structure only, the
1
difference being merely material for a purely ;
'

external relation is impossible. The matter of the

fc

felt-whole and of thought-whole must affect

' ' '

their respective forms. They cannot consist of

elements together with a scheme of relations. 2
Facts, again, if regarded as objects of possible
sensations or judgments, are not independent but ;

are essentially related to sensating and thinking.

They are only a partial factor, dependent for its
being and nature upon another factor, and incapable
of being in itself or independent. 3
1 2 3
Ibid., pp. 20 f 22. Ibid., pp. 23, 24. Ibid., p. 41.
 ;

ABSOLUTE TRUTH

For Absolutism, then, there is no hard and fast

separation between knowledge and reality. Know-
ledge is an attempt to express reality, to think it ;

and in so far as our knowledge approximates to

reality itself it is true.

Anything true [says Dr. Joachim] which can be

is
conceived [and] to conceive means to think out
(!),
clearly and logically, to hold many elements together
in a connection necessitated by their several contents
[while] the conceivable is a significant whole, a whole
' '

possessed of meaning for thought, [a whole] such that

all its constituent elements reciprocally determine one
another's being as contributory features in a single
concrete meaning. 1

§ 351. Several important corollaries are deduced

4
from this Coherence-notion '
of truth. First of all
4
necessity ' is hypothetical. Strictly speaking,
4
there are no necessary truths.'

Necessity [says Professor Bosanquet] is a character

attaching to parts or differences inter-related within
wholes, universals or identities. If there were any
totality such that it could not be set over against
something else as a part or difference within a further
system, such a totality could not be known under an
aspect of necessity.'2

Necessity is thus dependent on the Whole. It

may be used synonymously with self-evidence and
4
'

'propriety' to express the fact that in knowledge

44
we are not free, but are under a constraint
exercised upon us by the content of knowledge
itself, such that some judgments have to be accepted

and others to be rejected." 3 But the content of 4

knowledge in this case is a more or less clear

'

1 2 8
p. 66. Logic, vol. ii., p. 235. Ibid., p. 232.
512 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

apprehension of some whole (space, for example),

but ultimately of the Whole or of Reality itself.
As a consequence of this doctrine, Professor
Bosanquet is forced to find some other name for the
Laws of Thought. He cannot call them necessary c

truths,' since, concerned as they are with the nature

of being itself, they cannot be regarded as dependent
on any whole less than Reality itself. Hence
Professor Bosanquet treats them as postulates.

I call these principles by the name of Postulates

[he says] because when presented to me as abstract
reflective ideas they operate as guides to knowledge
which lead to their subsequent substantiation in a
concrete form. As reflective conceptions, then, they
are postulates, i.e., principles which we use because we
need them. 1

Thus, the absolutist, having set up the systematic

coherence of a significant whole as the sole criterion
of truth is forced to take an almost pragmatic view
of the fundamental laws of being and of thought.
§ 352. Another corollary to the Coherence-
notion of Truth is the doctrine that truth cannot be
predicated of any single judgment in isolation. 2 Dr.
Joachim rejects the view that " what is true is
eo ipso absolutely true." Partial truths are not
'true about a part of the matter, but false when
taken as equivalent to the whole.' Nor do we add
to them or supplement them by further determi-
nation. Such a view " would make it impossible
to show that the truth judgments is
of true
essentially the truth of a system of knowledge ;

and it would make it equally impossible to show

1 2
Ibid., p. 206. Ibid., p. 92.
 ABSOLUTE TRUTH 513

that the truth of systems of knowledge is borrowed

from the Ideal experience, which is struggling for

self-fulfilment in them." 1 The judgment that a
triangle with equal angles has also equal sides, or
that 3 2 = 9 is not true at all, if taken in isolation ;

for in isolation such judgments are practically

meaningless. Every judgment is " a piece of
concrete thinking which occurs in a particular
context, issues from a special background, concen-
trates in itself various degrees of knowledge and ;

by these determining factors its meaning is

coloured." A judgment is the inseparable unity of
thinking and of the object thought so that to the ;

boy who is learning the multiplication table, the

judgment 3 2 = 9 possesses probably a minimum of
meaning while to the arithmetician it is perhaps
;

a symbol for the whole science of Arithmetic. 2 The

numerical system in its fundamental features is
assumed in every judgment that anyone makes
about numbers. And similarly in Science no
universal judgment can be violated without destroy-
ing its determinate meaning and, therefore, in ;

isolation such a judgment cannot be absolutely

3
true. Isolated judgments are at best mutilated
4
fragments, caricatures, faint shadows of truth.

§ 353- Absolute truth, then, is an Ideal it is ;

not something which actually exists. It is an

organised individual experience, self-fulfilling and self-
fulfilled, but its organisation is the process of its self-
fulfilment and the concrete manifestation of its individu-
ality. The whole is not, if is implies that its nature
'
'

is a finished product prior or posterior to the process,

or in any sense apart from it.
1 2 8 4
loc. cit., pp. 87-89. pp. 92, 93. pp. 97 et seq. p. 102.

IIH
5*4 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

Human knowledge —not merely my knowledge and

yours, but the best and fullest knowledge in the
world at any stage of its development is clearly —
not the significant whole in the ideally complete and
individual sense. Hence truth is, from the point
of view of the human intellect, an ideal, and an ideal
which can never as such or in its completeness be
actual as human experience. 1 Human knowledge
may have degrees of truth in proportion as it
contains more or less of the nature of the Real, 2 and
its degree of truth will depend upon its completeness

and its systematic coherence but human knowledge

;

can never attain the ideal of Absolute truth which

is the completely individual, self-sustained, signifi-

cant whole, the articulate connectedness of which

demands discursive experience in a system of
judgments.8 All human knowledge, therefore, is
wanting, not only in completeness, but also in
certainty. No portion of knowledge is certain, says
Dr. Mellone, until all portions have been so
developed that they may be seen to form an all-
inclusive whole. And as this would be omniscience,
it is impossible for man so long as he remains finite.

Thus, human knowledge is only an approximation,

as yet very inadequate and far removed from the
ideal and therefore, except within the bare facts
;

of our sensations and mental images, it is uncertain,

and may have to be completely transformed. 4
§ 354. The doctrine of Absolute Truth which I
have briefly outlined above, chiefly in the words of
1 Ibid.,
pp. 76, 79.
* Appearance and Reality, p. 162 (but cf. whole of chap. xxiv.).
* The Nature of Truth, pp. 113, 114.
* Essays in Phil. Criticism and Construction, Introduction.
 ABSOLUTE TRUTH 515

Dr. Joachim, its principal exponent, itself

undoubtedly contains much that is true and yet ;

also much that, to my mind., seems false. It is

based on assumptions which I cannot admit and ;

it leads to consequences which, to a seeker after

knowledge and truth, are, on account of the

scepticism they imply, extremely repugnant. The
assumptions upon which it is founded have already
been discussed, with the result that they proved
to be not only unnecessary and useless as an
explanation of the data of experience, but also
self-contradictory. Relations presuppose qualities,
and modifications in relations arise from modifica-
tions in the qualities. But the relation is not a link
between the qualities except in so far as the objects
related are apprehended in a single mental act ;

and if a relation exist objectively at all, it exists as

an attribute of each object, not of the two taken
together. When I apprehend the nature of a simple
entity to be A and the nature of another simple
entity to be B, and then combine these two judg-
ments in one and say A is different from B, I do not
see why *
either the simplicity of A and B
is destroyed

or else my judgment is Again, granted

unfounded.'
that the correspondence between two wholes is due to
identity of structure or identity of function in the
parts, and that this presupposes a universal idea
which is expressed in each, it by no means follows
that the universal is really one, or that it is the
4
ground of a real whole. The correspondence is '

sufficiently accounted for by the logical unity of the

universal under which are apprehended the struc-
tural similarities of the objects that correspond.
5i6 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

And a logical unit}' gives us, not a real whole, but

a logical whole, a whole for thought. That logical
and teleological wholes imply a Divine mind which
apprehends them and has constructed them
according to a rational plan which they imperfectly
realise, may be granted ; but this rational plan is

expressed in substantial real unities or individuals,

co-existing and interacting, but not necessarily
postulating an immanent ground. And, lastly, if
the real factor in knowledge does get a unique
tinge from the mental factor, that '
tinge '
must
knowledge and the alleged
vitiate the objectivity of
independence of truth, unless, indeed, it can be
distinguished from the real and objective factor
which would thus be left untinged.
Dr. Joachim's novel definition of truth as the
" systematic coherence of a significant whole, " if
interpreted in the sense in which he interprets it,
seems to me an unwarrantable assumption. Human
knowledge does become more coherent and more
systematic as it advances, and on this account is
more adequate to represent Reality but truth can ;

4
hardly be identified with this coherence,' which is
only one of its properties. Nor is coherence of
much practical use as a criterion of truth, for it is
extremely difficult, if not impossible, to compare
two theories in regard to their degree of systemati-
sation and coherence.
§ 355. The sceptical consequences which follow
from this doctrine of absolute truth are disastrous
for human truth. Professor Bosanquet's view of
necessity as essen tially~ dependent on the whole, if

taken in combination with the doctrine that a part

 ABSOLUTE TRUTH 517

is unintelligible in abstraction from the whole,

destroys the axiomatic character of all '
necessary
truths.' But, in the first place, why should necessity
be restricted to the parts and be denied of the
whole ? The whole, it is admitted, exists of itself, for
itself, and through itself and so may surely be said to
;

necessitate itself, or to constitute a factual necessity.

And, secondly, why may not a part manifest, without
mutilating, some character or aspect of the whole ?
If it does, the laws of thought may still be necessary
truths, though in this view only hypothetically
necessary ;
but, if it does not, they are reduced to
the status of postulates, and the certainty of human
knowledge is taken away. For if the laws of
thought are merely postulates, all human knowledge
is a postulate since the validity of the laws of
;

thought is presupposed in every judgment that we

make. And if these postulates are due merely to
human needs, human knowledge ceases to be
objectively valid until we can prove that what
human needs force us to postulate is itself objec-
tively valid and this we cannot do without assuming
;

the validity of the laws of thought.

At first sight, Mr. Bradley's Intellectualism seems
to be irreconcilable with the pragmatic position
adopted by Professor Bosanquet in regard to the
Laws of Thought. " In all cases," says the
former, " that alone is valid for the intellect which
in a calm moment it is incapable of doubting
and in the next sentence the intrinsic necessity of
axioms seems to be admitted, for we read: " It is
only that which for thought is compulsory and
irresistible —
only that which thought must assert

Digitized by
 *

5i8 THEORIES OP KNOWLEDGE

in attempting to deny it —which is a valid founda-

tion for metaphysical truth." But Mr. Bradley's
1

concession that " the theoretical axiom is the

"
statement of an impulse to act in a certain manner
destroys the force of his intellectual criterion and
seems to make it as subjective as that of Professor
Bosanquet and the pragmatists. For, though
theoretical needs are distinguished from practical
needs, and though we are told that " thinking is
the attempt to satisfy a special impulse," it is still
a subjective and a psychological impulse that
prompts us to think and though the attempt to
;

think " implies an assumption about reality " which

becomes 'our intellectual standard or axiom,' that
assumption about reality is an assumption, the
objective validity of which cannot be known, but
is merely postulated.

§ 356. The subjectivity of axioms in Absolutism

may be traced back to the Copernican Revolution
of Kant. There are but two alternatives. Either
the content of thought is determined by the object
or it is determined by the structure of the mind ;

and in the latter case it is subjective. And though

the identification of Thought and Reality once more
restores a certain objectivity to the content of our
axiomatic principles as to the content of other
thoughts it does so only again to deprive us of
;

it by the doctrine that no truth short of the whole

truth is really true. Axioms, like other single and

isolated judgments, are but '
mutilated shreds of
knowledge,' torn from a larger whole and liable
to indefinite modification before they can be joined
1
Appearance and Reality, p. 151.
 ABSOLUTE TRUTH 5*9

up in the coherent system of Absolute Truth. Dr.

Joachim acknowledges that this view is inconsistent
with the obvious interpretation which we put
'
'

upon judgments,' and that the ordinary

'
true
doctrine that what is once true is always true seems
at first sight unanswerable. But, he urges, if this
view of isolated judgments is false, it would be
impossible to show that all partial truths are derived
from the truth of the whole hence isolated judg- ;

ments must be sacrificed. Personally, I should

prefer to sacrifice the doctrine that truth is a whole,
rather than have to mutilate my premisses in order
to make them I might
lead to the conclusion which
desire to Joachim, however, has
deduce. Dr.
elected to hold fast to the Coherence-notion of
truth at all costs, and so has sought about for some
means of reconciling the doctrine that no isolated
judgment can be true with the apparent fact that
such judgments are true and persist in remaining
true in spite of growth and development. Hence,
he has discovered that isolated judgments on
examination turn out to be practically meaning-
less. 1

This I cannot admit. I am quite willing to grant,

6
of course, that the proposition three threes are
nine '
for the boy who
only just learning theis

multiplication table has only a minimum of 4

meaning,' in the sense that he knows little of its

relations to other arithmetical propositions of a more
complex nature. Still the proposition has meaning
and very definite meaning even for a small boy in a
Preparatory School, provided he has been properly
1 Nature of Truth, pp. 87 ct sej.
520 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

taught, and has not merely learnt his tables like a

parrot. It implies that he already knows some-
thing of the way which numbers may be grouped
in
and combined. Nor do I think that as the boy
develops into a mathematician the proposition
'
three threes are nine undergoes any intrinsic
'

modification. It is still the same item of knowledge

*

that it always was, though the arithmetician knows

more about it, because he knows its relation to other
items of knowledge and its place in the general
science of Arithmetic.
The doctrine that every item of knowledge is

related to every other item of knowledge is true ;

but to suppose that each item is intrinsically affected

by its relations to other items, and, in consequence,

changes as these other items become known, seems

to lead to absurdity. It is difficult, for instance, to
see how one's knowledge (v.g.) of the Constitution
of Sparta can be affected by one's knowledge of the
Law of Specific Gravity, or how one's knowledge of
the multiplication table can be modified by what
one learns later of the anatomy of the Amphioxus.
No one dreams that isolated judgments express
4
'

the whole truth about reality, nor does anyone

deny that as knowledge grows in any particular
branch of science the judgments in which it is
expressed acquire fuller significance. But this is
very different from asserting that isolated judg-
ments are intrinsically modified as knowledge grows,
and is quite compatible with the facts of actual
knowing, which the Coherence-theory is not. It is
useless, however, to discuss the matter further, for
it rests entirely upon the view that one takes of
 ABSOLUTE TRUTH $21

relations. If relations are a kind of physical nexus

binding objects together and arising simultaneously
and on the same level within an organic whole, then
it is doubtless impossible to know an object without

knowing its relations but if the relations are

;

essentially dependent upon the nature of the objects

related, though not vice versa as well, then it is
possible to know an object without knowing its
relations and, as those relations become known,
;

one's previous notion of the object will not necessarily

have to be changed, but will merely become larger,
fuller and more significant.

§ 357- connected with the Absolute

Closely
theory of Truth is the absolute theory of Error.
Error is defined by Mr. Bradley as " the qualification
of Reality in such a way that in the result it has an
inconsistent content " 1 and by Dr. Joachim as
;

44
that form of ignorance which poses, to itself and
to others, as indubitable knowledge, or that form of
false thinking which unhesitatingly claims to be
true, and in so claiming substantiates or completes
its falsity." 2 There are no judgments which are
false as such, says Dr. Joachim. The judgment
'2 + 3 = 6' is no more false, as such, than a road is
wrong per se. It is false because its meaning is
part of a context of meaning, and a part which
collides with other parts. The judgment is really
2 + 3 conceived under the conditions of the
numerical system = 6. 3
How the judgment 2 + 3 = 6 or any other judgment
involving numbers can be conceived, or can have

1
Appearance and Reality, p. 189.
1 3
The Nature of Truth, p. 142. Ibid., p. 143.
 THEORIES Of KNOWLEDGE

any meaning wliatsoever apart from the numerical

system,is more than I can understand. If such a
judgment is made intelligibly and means anything
at all it implies that the notions of '
units,'
'
'
addition of units,' '
sums of units,' and *
equality
are already understood and when these are
;

understood as soon as it is possible to make

(i.e.,

the judgment at all) the assertion that 2 + 3=6 at

once becomes false and false as such, so it seems
;

to me, because between the notions which it involves

there is an obvious contradiction.
§ 358. Mr. Bradley's view of error is somewhat
less sceptical. He admits that " every judgment,
whether positive or negative, and however frivolous
"
in character, makes an assertion about Reality ;

and that " the content asserted cannot be altogether

an error " though he adds that " its ultimate truth
;

may quite transform its original meaning." 1 The

expression quite transform its original meaning,'
'

however, is clearly an exaggeration. The original

meaning will have to be transformed only in so far
as it is erroneous. This is implied in the doctrine of
degrees of Truth and of Reality for we are dis- ;

tinctly told that " of two given appearances the

one more wide or more harmonious is more real
(and more true). It approaches nearer to a single,
all-containing individuality. To remedy its im-
perfections, in other words, we should have to make a
2
smaller alteration."
But the real question is whether in a given
claim to truth or in a system of such claims

1
Appearance and Reality, p. 366.
s
Ibid., p. 364. (Italics mine.)
 ABSOLUTE TRUTH 523

we can distinguish parts which will have to be

modified from parts which will not ;or. in other
words, whether we can locate our errors. And upon
this question Realism and Absolutism are in violent
antagonism. The absolutist with his theory that
Reality is one organic whole in which each part is
essentially dependent upon the rest, denies that any
one part can be truly known until the whole is
known, and so is forced to take up a sceptical
attitude in regard to human knowledge and human
truth. The realist, on the other hand, while
admitting that the universe is a logical whole, or a
whole such that each of its parts is systematically
related to all the rest and would be apprehended as
such by an intelligence which should be capable of
understanding the whole universe, affirms that each
part and each aspect of the universe expresses truly,
though inadequately and incompletely, the
systematic plan of the whole. He affirms that, were
our knowledge complete, the relation between
2
3 and 9 would still be one of equality, and that the
circumference of a circle would still be it times its
diameter. And he does so on good grounds. For
not only is there no evidence that any intrinsic
change has taken place, or is likely to take place, in
regard to judgments such as these ; but the
absolutist in order to establish the contrary doctrine
which is implied in the Coherence-notion, would
have to prove that every relation of every object so
modified each and all its other relations that unless
every one of them was fully known, our knowledge
of the rest would not only be inadequate and partial,
but false ; and this he cannot do. New experience
5^4 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

does sometimes render erroneous what was formerly

taken to be true but this cannot be said to be a
;

general rule, nor can we say that an increase of

knowledge entirely destroys the validity of those
interpretations we stigmatise as false. Often enough,
as we have seen in a previous chapter, within a
theory we can distinguish what may possibly be
false from what is certainly true ; and in general, as
our conception of things and their relations grows
more and more systematic, we axioms and
find that
first remain for the most
principles, as well as facts,
part, unchanged, subordinate hypotheses and ex-
planations the scope of which is comparatively
narrow, alone being subject to modifications and
reversals.

§ 359. But apart from the testimony of experience

there is an impasse in Dr. Joachim's theory of truth,
which, as we saw when discussing Absolutism from
the metaphysical point of view, 1 no ingenuity on the
part of absolutist has been able to eliminate or
overcome. I refer to the difficulty, or, rather, the
impossibility, of explaining metaphysically the re-
lation of finite centres of experience to the Absolute
Ground upon which they depend. In what way
does the Absolute manifest itself in finite centres,
and how, if our thoughts are wholly a manifestation
of the Experience of the Absolute, can we reconcile
human error with Absolute Truth ? We do make
mistakes. We affirm that S is P when it is not P ;

and to say that the error is removed when P is

referred to a larger whole does not get rid of the
falsity of our previous statement, a falsity which is
l
cf. § 195.
 ABSOLUTE TRUTH S2S

inconceivable if the absolute is really responsible for

our thoughts. Indeed, Dr. Joachim frankly con-
fesses that '
the reconciliation of the modal nature
of finite subjects with this self-assertive inde-
pendence,' and *
the conception of the individuality
of the significant whole as a life timelessly self-
fulfilledthrough the opposition which it creates,
and in creating overcomes are mysteries, and'

mysteries which he does not attempt to solve. But

neither he nor any other absolutist seems to recog-
4
nise that between the modal nature of the finite '

subject and its 'self-assertive independence, between '

a life timelessly self-fulfilled and lives which are

contingent and temporal, and between the creation
of something opposed and different and the over-
coming and difference, there is a
of that opposition
flat which can be solved only by
contradiction
denying the fundamental assumptions upon which
it rests. This objection is, in my opinion, fatal to
Absolutism, and shows that the idea which it

endeavours to express is one-sided and full of

inconsistency. Absolutism has this in its favour,
that appeals to our love of unity and to our desire
it

for union with the Divine and for this reason has
;

elicited the sympathy even of an analytic mind

such as that of the late Professor Sidgwick. But it
is vague and indefinite, and it fails to explain just
that which we most to know the
all of us desire —
relation which holds between God and man. Its
failure, too, is not merely one of ignorance, but of
positive error. The conception of the finite mind
as a vehicle of the Eternal Consciousness, in which
the latter is ever trying in vain to realise and express
526 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

itself, seems to merge the individual in the Absolute.

Man becomes merelj^ a particular collection or
synthesis of the thoughts of an Eternal Ego, a
'
finite centre of experience ' entirely dependent
upon the Ground for its nature, its character, and
even its individuality. Personality and Freedom
are thus declared to be illusions, arising from the
human point of view, instead of fundamental truths
which every human mind is forced to recognise in
the data of his experience while human knowledge,
;

4
ever tinged by the confused mass of idiosyncrasies
which distinguish this mind from that,' is, and is

destined to remain, incomplete, and to an unascer-

tainable extent erroneous.

CHAPTER XX.
THE NATURE OF PRAGMATIC TRUTH.
§ 360. Some time ago my attention was called
to the writings of Georg Simmel, who, though his
energies have been devoted, for the most part, to
the study of Economics and to the history of
philosophy, is justly regarded as one of Germany's
leading pragmatists. 1 Between economical values
and logical values Herr Simmel finds a resemblance
which is not merely external, but deep-rooted in the
very nature of value, and for this reason in the third
chapter of his Philosophic des Geldes, he gives us a
sketch of his views on truth, a sketch which is
* cf, The Meaning of Truth, p. 66,
 NATURE OF PRAGMATIC TRUTH 527

extremely for our purposes, because it

useful
provides us with a connecting link between the
Relativism implicit in absolute truth and the
Humanism which is the chief characteristic of
pragmatic truth. Indeed, Herr Simmel has given
to pragmatic truth a philosophic setting which
seems to present it in its true light, and to give one
an appreciation of its real meaning, such as is
difficult to obtain from the somewhat disconnected
and more rhetorical utterances of Anglo-american
pragmatists.
§ 361.Herr Simmel's standpoint is essentially
physiological and anthropomorphic. 1 Like Dr.
8
Schiller, he believes that our world is due to a '

process whereby we attribute to objective reality

forms that we find within our psycho-physical
organism, in which an alternation between rest and
motion, between anabolism and katabolism is the
primary condition of life. 2

Then only do we think that we are qualified to enter as

part of the universe, provided its form corresponds with
the forms of our own inner nature. Accordingly, we
organise the irregular co-existences and sequences of
our first impressions, in that we distinguish in an object
its permanent and essential substance from its motions,
colourings and changes whose comings and goings leave
the constancy of its essence unchanged. Just as we
believe that we perceive within ourselves a psychical
being whose existence and character depends upon itself
1
cf. supra,
§ 205.
2
The following paragraphs have been translated from the
third chapter of Herr Simmel's Philosophic des Geldes, pp. 58
et svq. The aim of the translator has been to give the sense,
rather than an exact literal rendering, of the author ; and
many phrases and passages of minor importance have, of course,
been omitted.
 ;

528 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

alone, and distinguish this from those thoughts, occur-

rences, and developments which are what they are only
through reference to others so we look in the world
;

for substances, magnitudes, and forces whose being

and meaning is grounded in themselves alone, and dis-
tinguish these from all relative determinations which
are what they are only through comparison, contact, or
reaction with others. [Thus grows up the distinc-
. . .

tion between absolute and relative.] And though in

our psycho- physical being, motion and rest, activity
ad extra and aggregation ad intra are bound together in
such a way that they find in one another their actuality
and their meaning, yet it is the rest and the sub- '
'
'

stantial that we rind peculiarly full of value.

'
Hence in
the objective world also we look for the self-sufficient
and the self-grounded, for substances, spirits, things in
themselves, and in this way gain fixed points which
direct us in the confused jumble of phenomena and give
us the objective counterpart of that which we represent
in ourselves as our values and definitives. 1
This search for an absolute, however, is only a pre-
liminary stage which must be got over by thinking.
[Thus] it is a fundamental characteristic of modern
science that it understands phenomena no longer through
and as special substances, but as movements whose
grounds move further and further away into property-
lessness that it seeks to express the qualities attached to
;

things as quantitative, and therefore as relatively defined

that it teaches instead of organic, physical, ethical and
social forms, a restless evolution in which each element
acquires a place confined and determinable only through
its relation with its before and its after that it re- ;

nounces the actual essence of things as such, and con-

tents itself with the establishing of relations which
appear between things and our minds, as seen from
*
'

the standpoint of the latter. 2

§ 362. On the other hand, all this seems to postulate
a fixed point, an absolute truth. The flux and. . .

relativity of physical processes must not affect the pre-

1
pp. 58, 59. cf. The Meaning of Truth, pp. 61 et seq. * p. 60.
 NATURE OF PRAGMATIC TRUTH 520

suppositions and rules according to which we first decide

whether our actual knowledge really bears this or
another character. The purely psychological origin into
which all objective knowledge has to be analysed, needs
fixed axioms which themselves cannot have a purely
psychological significance. The truth of any
. . .

proposition can be known only by reason of criteria

which draw their legitimation from yet higher ones, so
that there is built up a series of items of knowledge one
above the other, each of which is valid only on condition
of another. —
Yet these series lest they hang in the air,
or rather in order to be possible at all must somewhere —
have an ultimate ground, a highest court of appeal,
which shall give legitimation to all the following links
in the chain without needing such itself. This is the
schema under which all actual knowledge can be co-
ordinated. But what this absolute knowledge is, we
can never know, for the process of analysis into higher
principles can never come to an end. There is always
the possibility of discovering that what we have taken
to be an ultimate proposition is really conditioned by
another, as the history of knowledge has shown times
without number. 1 We certainly have axioms which
cannot be proved and upon which all derivative
proofs depend but thought stops w ith these only until
;
r

it can get beyond to something higher which on its side

shall prove the hitherto axiomatic. 2
Again, if one pursues the proof of a proposition into
its grounds, and these again into theirs, one often finds
that the proof is possible only provided one assumes the
first proposition which was to be proved, as already
proved. . [And] if we do not want to stop dog-
. .

matically and once for all at a truth which needs no

proof, we had better take this reciprocity of mutual proof
as the fundamental form of thought and of completed
knowledge. Thus knowledge is a process which hangs
freely in the air, so to speak, and of which the elements
determine reciprocally their positions, just as masses of
matter do theirs in virtue of their weight. And this is
1 2
pp. 60, 61. p. 63.
II
530 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

no mere coincidence, but a necessity peculiar to our

minds, which know truth through proof, and so must
either put off its knowability indefinitely, or twist it
round in a circle. For one proposition is true only in
relation to another, which other is true ultimately only
in relation to the first. Thus the whole of knowledge is
as little true as the whole of matter is heavy. It is only
of the relations of the parts among themselves that these
properties are valid. Of the whole they cannot be
predicated without a contradiction. 1

§ 363. Starting from a physiological point of view,

Herr Simmel has led us on to a doctrine of truth
which is very similar to the Coherence-theory of Dr.
Joachim, except that he lays the chief emphasis on
the relativity of the parts rather than on the unity
of the whole. But Herr Simmel does not stop here.
He finds that the relativity which exists between the
inner elements of knowledge is but part of a wider
relativity which embraces both the theoretical and
the practical interests of life. In knowing we do
not copy reality, but all presentation is a function
of a special psycho-physical organisation.

From the vast difference which is to be found between

the weltbilder of the insect with its facet-eyes, of the eagle
with a power of sight the keenness of which is incon-
ceivable, of the proteus angninus with eyes scarce
developed at all, of ourselves and of countless others, we
are forced to conclude that no one copies the outer world
in its objectively existing form. Our representations
are directive of our practical life, of actions through
which we place ourselves in connection with the world
as it stands relatively independent of our subjectively
determined ideas. [And similarly for animals], though
their actions are determined by very different forms of
the same world. [In both cases] actions undertaken
1
pp. 63, 64.
 '

NATURE OF PRAGMATIC TRUTH 531

by reason of ideas which certainly in no way resemble

objectively existing beings, obtain from the latter results
of such a calculability, purposiveness, certainty, that it
could not be greater even if we possessed a knowledge
of objective relations as they are in themselves whilst ;

other actions, viz., those which result from false '

ideas, result only in real injury. 1

What, then, can truth mean
[asks Herr Simmel], which
iswholly different for the animals and for us, which in
no way corresponds with objective reality, and which
nevertheless leads to the desired results as surely as
if this were the case ? 2 [ His reply is ] Each
:

species has an organisation suited to its special

purpose in life. Hence whether an action prompted by
a presentation will lead to useful consequences cannot
be determined by the content of that presentation ;

but will depend upon the result to which the presentation

leads as a real process within the organism acting in
co-operation with the rest of its psycho-physical powers
and in reference to the special life-exigencies of each.
If, then, we say that man performs actions which sup-
port and further life on the basis of true ideas, and
actions which are destructive of life on the basis of false
ideas, truth, which is different for each species endowed
with consciousness and for none is a mirror of the thing in
itself, can only mean that idea which in connection with
the entireand specific organism its faculties and its needs,
leads to useful results. Originally an idea is not useful
l>ecause it is true but we give the honourable name of
;

'
true to those ideas which, working in us as real forces
'

or processes, lead to useful conduct. Hence there are, in

the main, as many specifically distinct truths as there
are specifically distinct organisations and life exigencies.
The sense-form which for the insect is truth/ would '

clearly not be so for the eagle since that very sense-

;

form on the basis of which the insect in connection

with his inner and outer constellations acts usefully,
would for the eagle in connection with his lead to wholly
meaningless and destructive actions. 3
1 2 3
p. 64. p. 64. pp. 65, 66.
532 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

§ 364. That man now has an aggregate of fixed and

normative truths is due to his having always exercised
a choice in regard to the countless ideas which arise
psychologically within him, according to whether the
actions which they prompted led to useful or harmful
consequences. He has no other criterion of truth except
that itleads to the desired consequences. But inas-
much as by means of this process of selection there has
been bred within him certain permanently useful ways
of perceiving, these together form a kingdom of the
theoretical, which now acts as an inner criterion deter-
mining the relevance of all fresh ideas. Thus individual
items of knowledge reciprocally support one another
[v.g., in Geometry] in that norms and facts, once fixed,
serve as a proof for others. . . But the whole itself
.

has validity only in relation to determinate psycho-

physical organisms, to their conditions of life, and to the
useful nature of their actions. 1
This notion of truth as the relation of ideas to one
another, but as belonging to none as an absolujte quality,
applies also to the idea of a single object. Kant was
right when he said that out of the chaotic manifold of our
sense-impressions we pick out individual impressions
as belonging to one another and group them into units,
which we describe as objects.' An object is nothing
'

but a totality of impressions gathered into a unity, and

its unity is nothing but the functional inter-connection,
inter-relation, and inter-dependence of the individual
impressions and perception-materials. ... As the
unity of a social body means the forces of interaction
and cohesion exercised by the individuals which compose
it, or, in other words, the dynamical relation between

them so the mental realisation of the unity of an object

;

implies nothing more than interaction between the

elements which go to form the percept of it. In know-
ledge, just as in art, isolated elements are neither true
nor false in themselves, for they do not copy reality ;
but their truth consists in the relation of the elements
one to another. 2
1 2
p. 66. p. 67.
 Nature of pragmatic truth 533

§ 365. One may formulate Relativism in respect to

the principles of knowledge thus Constitutive axioms
:

expressing once and for all the being of things must

be transformed into regulative norms which are merely
landmarks for advancing knowledge. The highest and
most ultimate abstractions, unifications and integrations
of thought must give up their dogmatic claim to final
knowledge. Instead of saying things are so and so, we
should rather say knowledge works as if things were so
and so. And in this way it is possible to express the
mode and manner of the relation of our knowledge to the
world. For the constitutive assertions which attempt
to fix the being of things having been changed into
heuristic principles which only profess to determine our
ways of knowing, clearly it is possible for contradictory
principles to be valid at one and the same time, since we
may use each methodologically just as we may use
either the inductive or the deductive method. Thus
dogmatic fixity must give place to the living, flowing
process of knowledge. Only if we regard ultimate
principles not as limits mutually contradictory, but as
ways to knowledge, inter-related, inter-dependent, and
mutually completing one another, can we ever attain
unity in knowledge. 1

Of the relativity of ultimate principles Herr

Simmel gives many examples :

Our thought is so constructed that it must strive after

unity, . but as soon as this unity is reached, as in the

. .

Substance of Spinoza, it is at once apparent that we

cannot use it for the understanding of the world without
a second principle. Monism thus passes beyond itself
into Dualism and Pluralism, and so we proceed from the
many to the one and from the one to the many. Neither
principle can be regarded as dogmatic or constitutive ;

both are heuristic, relative and mutually complementary.

The monistic principle bids us unify every manifold as if
we were going to end in absolute Monism the pluralistic
;

1
pp. 68, 69.
534 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

principle bids us not stop with unity, but analyse it into

simpler elements and generating pairs of forces as if the
end were to be a pluralistic one. 1
Similarly, in political, social and religious sciences we
can only understand the present through a knowledge
and understanding of the past while the past of which
;

only fragments, dumb witnesses, and more or less un-

certain reports and traditions have come down to us, will
be intelligible and living only through the experience
of the immediate present. 2 Again, in Psychology the
knowledge of the Ego is our only means of knowing the
soul that lies behind mere sound-producing and gesticu-
lating automata while our knowledge of the Ego, and
;

in particular our distinction of it into an observing and

an observed part, is due to our knowledge of other
things. 3 And in like manner the antithesis between the
a priori and experience, and in Economics the antithesis
between the a priori method and the historical method,
will be solved if we regard both as heuristic principles in
the application of which each seeks its ultimate ground
in the other. 4 This interactive self-dependence and
inter-dependence of opposite pairs of principles is not a
mere compromise, but rather opens up to each principle
an unlimited sphere of action. And though of these
principles each remains somewhat subjective, by means
of the relativity of their application is expressed the
objective meaning of things. Elements of which each
is in content subjective, obtain or determine by means
of this reciprocal reference what we call objectivity.
Single objects by the cohesion and inter-action of sense-
impressions, personality
'
by reciprocal associations
'

and apperceptions, right by the counterbalancing of

'
'

the subjective interests of the individual, all acquire

their objective value. Thus the methods of knowledge
may be only subjective and heuristic, and yet inasmuch
as each finds in the other its complement and through
this its legitimation, they approximate gradually to the
ideal of objective truth. 5
Truth, then, consists in a relation of reciprocity within

1 a 3 4 6
p- 69. p. 70. p. 70. p. 71. p. 72.
 NATURE OF PRAGMATIC TRUTH 53*

a complexus of ideas which are mutually demonstrable

one by means of the other. . The truth of the
. .

greater number of our ideas is at any given moment

taken for granted, and the decision we come to in regard
to the truth of a new idea will depend upon whether it
harmonises with or contradicts the ideas already pos-
sessed and, again, one of the ideas belonging to this
;

complex may become questionable and over it the

majority will decide. . .The reason why we do not
.

notice the relativity of truth is because of the immense

quantitative disproportion between the actually
questionable and the mass of ideas which we regard as
true, just as for a long time the attraction of the apple
for the earth passed unnoticed and all that we observed
was the attraction of the earth for the apple. . . .

[Nevertheless] relativity is of the very essence of truth.

. .It is not a patchwork, nor yet an added determina-
.

tion which weakens the notion of truth otherwise

determined but it is the specific property in virtue
;

of which objects of desire become valuable. Truth

exists in spite of its being a relation. Indeed it exists
precisely because it is one. 1

§ 366. The view of truth set forth in the pre-

ceding paragraphs does not differ essentially from
the doctrine of other pragmatists. Herr Simmers
point of view and consequently the general tone and
emphases of his doctrine may be different but, ;

apart from this personal tinge, his theory of truth is

fundamentally the same as that of the Anglo-
american pragmatist. Ideas are set over against
reality, and to them alone the property of truth
belongs. But truth does not copy reality. Rather
it is a mental function which has proved itself useful

in dealing with an objective environment, and has

thus become habitual. This latter point truth —
1
pp. 72, 73.
 .

536 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

conceived as a way of thinking or perceiving which

has become habitual on account of its utility is —
hardly noticed in the essentially psychological
account of truth given by Professor James, though
we have already come across it in the thoroughly
pragmatic philosophy of M. Abel Rey, and shall find
that it is also characteristic of Dr. Schiller's view.
So> too, is the relativity of truth, though on this
point some divergence of opinion is manifest. In
any both these characteristics of Herr Simmel's
case,
theory may, I think, justly be regarded as corollaries
to the general pragmatic doctrine and in other ;

respects Herr Simmel is, as Professor James has said,

a genuine pragmatist. It will be well, however, to
consider more in detail the leading characteristics
of truth as conceived by the leaders of the pragmatic
movement in America and England.
§ 367. Professor James has again and again
assured us that epistemologically he is a Realist
" Our beliefs are in realities, and if no realities are
1
there our beliefs Consequently he
are false."
startsfrom the standpoint of Dualism. 2 On the one
side we have objective facts, on the other side
claims on the one side ideas and judgments, on the
;

other side reality and truth is, as common-sense

;

regards it, a peculiar sort of relation between

these two poles. 3 But in a philosophy of Pure
Experience reality is identical with experience.
Hence, although Professor James postulates " a
standing reality independent of the idea that knows
it," 4 we find him frequently substituting for

1
The Meaning of Truth, pp. 241, 242.
2
Ibid., p. 217.
a Ibid., Preface, p. xix., and p. 163. 4
Ibid., p. 158.
 tiATURS OF PRACMATIC TRUTH 53?

" reality " some form of sense-experience sensations —

or a percept. 1 Thus, speaking of the humanistic
44
development of Pragmatism, he says that by
*
reality Humanism means nothing more than the
'

other conceptual or perceptual experiences (including

of course any amount of empirical reality inde-
pendent of the knower) with which a given present
experience may find itself in point of fact mixed up." 2
And it is only on this hypothesis of the identity of
reality and experience that he is able to get rid of the
salto mortale of the common-sense realist, and to
maintain his thesis that " the truth of our mental
operations must always be an intra-experiential
affair." 3 Experiences know one another and
represent one another. They do not know or
4
represent realities outside of consciousness.' In
44
experiences of the acquaintance-type object and
4
subject fuse in the fact of presentation or sense- '

perception." 4 And though the philosopher gets

beyond this stage —which Professor James calls
(wrongly,
4
I think) the stage of common-sense
4
—and
interpolates or
exterpolates
'
his realities, if a '

humanist, he still regards them as experiences of

some kind or other, actual or possible. 6 Experiences
of the acquaintance-type are ultimate thats or facts
of being, and to these it is the function of conceptual
experiences to lead. Truth thus means, says
44
Professor James, the relation of less fixed parts of
experience (predicates) to other relatively more
fixed parts (subjects) ; and we are not required to
seek it in a relation of experience, as such, to anything
1 2 3 Ibid.,
Ibid., p. 81. Ibid., p. 100. p. 133.
4 6
Ibid., pp. 127, 128, and cf. p. 103. Ibid., pp. 129 ci seq.
 "

538 Theories of knowledge

44
beyond itself." 1
It is a relation, not of our ideas
to non-human realities, but of conceptual parts of
;
2
our experience to sensational parts while
" cognition, whenever we take it concretely, means
4
determinate ambulation,' through intermediaries
(i.e., intervening experiences) from a terminus a quo

to a terminus ad quern." 3 In a similar sense must be

understood the following remark of Professor
Dewey :

Truth and falsity are not properties of any experience

or thing, in and of itself or in its first intention but of ;

things where the problem of assurance consciously enters

in. Truth and falsity present themselves as significant
facts only in situations in which specific meanings and
their already experienced fulfilments and non-fulfil-
ments are intentionally compared and contrasted with
reference to the question of worth, as to the reliability
of meaning or class of meanings. 4

§ 368. What Professor James calls an

4
ambu-
latory process from idea through definite tracts of
'

experience to some other experience, actual or

5
possible, is of the very essence of pragmatic truth.
And from two important consequences follow.
this
First, truth can be both defined and described in
terms of experience. 6 It is a process. Truth is
made? Secondly, that process is a particular one,
and varies with the particular case in hand. Verity
8
in act means verifications (in the plural).
To the description of the process by which truth
is made and in which, for the pragmatist, its nature
1 2 8
Ibid., p. 70. Ibid., p. 82*. Ibid., p. 142.
4
Mind, N.S. 59, p. 305.
5
The Meaning of Truth, p. 234.
0
Ibid., pp. 234, 235, 142, 143, and Preface, p. xiv.
1
Ibid., p. 235, and Pragmatism, pp. 201, 218.
8
Ibid., pp. 212, 235.
 NATURE OF PRAGMATIC TRUTH 539

James has devoted a very con-

consists, Professor
and of The
siderable portion both of Pragmatism
Meaning of Truth. Yet the very particularity of
the process makes the task of the psychological
epistemologist an extremely difficult one ;
and,
despite his valiant attempts, Professor James'
descriptions are considerably bewildering and, at
times, decidedly vague. He Refines truth, in the
first place, as property of ideas, in virtue of which
6 4
they are said to agree with reality. 1 But agree-
'

ment does not always mean copying.' It is only

'
4

our ideas of sensible things that copy reality. 2 And

4
even here not always, but only when the idea in '

question is an image. Copying is not essential to

truth. 3 " In strict theory the mental terms them-
selves need not answer to the real terms in the sense
of severally copying them, symbolic terms being
enough, if only the real dates and places be copied."
44
Indeed, much even of common descriptive truth
is couched in verbal symbols." And 44 if our symbols
fit the world, in the sense of determining our expecta-

tions rightly, they may even be the better for not

copying its terms." 4 But if, in the realm of
phenomenal fact, there is no need of copying in
every case, still less is there any need of assuming
archetypes in the abstract spheres of Geometry and
Logic. Their objects can be better interpreted as
being created step by step by men, as fast as they
successively conceive them. Triangles and genera
are of our own production. They are improvised
1 Pragmatism, p. 198.
* Ibid., p. 199.
3
Ibid., pp. 213, 235, and The Meaning of Truth, pp.79 et seq.
4
The Meaning of Truth, p. 82.
§40 THEORIES OE KNOWLEDGE

human '
artefacts ;
'
and precisely because they are
so, their relations are eternal ; we can keep them
invariant if we choose. 1
§ 369. A true idea, then, for Professor James, is
not necessarily one that copies reality. A symbol
which fits the world, a substitute which works
practically, an abstract concept which enlarges
mentally our momentary experiences by adding to
them the consequences conceived, a thought which
gets in touch with reality by innumerable paths
' '

of verification, 2 even a name, may be true. 3 In each

individual case " the
6
workableness which ideas '

must have, in order to be true, means particular

workings, physical or intellectual, actual or possible,
which they may set up from next to next inside of
concrete experience. " 4 And this working, in which
the truth of an idea consists, is essentially " a
concrete working in the actual experience of human
beings, among their ideas, feelings, perceptions,
beliefs and acts, as well as among the physical
things of their environment, and the relations must
be understood as being possible as well as actual." 5
Consequently the familiar terms, which common-
sense and the intellectualist apply to the truth-
relation, have to be re-translated and re-interpreted
by the pragmatist in an experiential sense. We
'
correspond in some way, says Professor James,
'

with anything with which we enter into any relation

at all, whether it be a thing of which we produce an

1
Ibid., pp. 82, 83, and cf. Pragmatism, pp. 209 ct seq.
2
Ibid., pp. 208, 218, 248, 214.
3
Pragmatism, p. 2 1 3.
4
The Meaning of Truth, Preface, p. xiv.
6
Ibid., p. 262.
 —

NATURE OF PRAGMATIC TRUTH 541

exact copy, or which we feel as an existent in a

certain place a demand which we obey without
;

knowing anything more about it than its push a ;

proposition which we let pass without contradicting

it; a relation between two things, upon the first of
which we act so as to bring ourselves out where the
second will be or something inaccessible, for which
;

we substitute a hypothetical object, having the

same consequences and therefore enabling us to
cipher out real results. 1 To '
represent '
reality,
again, means either to be substitutable for it in our
thinking, because the experience that represents leads
to the same associates ; or to '
point to it '
through
a chain of other experiences that either intervene or
may intervene. 2 While to agree with a reality
4
'

means " to be guided either straight up to it or into

its surroundings, or to be put into such working

touch with it as to handle either it or something

connected with it better than if we disagreed
3
better, either intellectually or practically."
Actual verification, however, is not necessary in
44
every case. Indirectly verifying processes may be
4
true as well as full verification-processes."

That on innumerable occasions men do substitute

truth in posse or verifiability for verification or truth in
act, is a fact to which no one attributes more importance
than the pragmatist he emphasises the practical utility of
:

such a habit. But he does not on that account consider

truth in posse, —
truth not alive enough ever to have
been asserted or questioned or contradicted, to be the —
metaphysically prior thing, to which truths in act are
tributary and subsidiary.

1 2 3 Pragmatism,
Ibid., p. 67. Ibid., p. 1 32. pp. 212,213.
4
Ibid., pp. 208, 209. 5
The Meaning of Truth, p. 205.
542 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

For one truth- process completed there are a million in

our lives that function in this state of nascency [that] ;

turn us towards direct verification [that] lead us into ;

the surroundings of the objects they in visage and then, ;

if everything runs on harmoniously, we are so sure that

verification is possible that we omit it, and are usually

justified by all that happens. Truth lives, in fact, for
the most part on a credit system. Our thoughts and
beliefs pass,' so long as nothing challenges them, just
'

as bank-notes pass so long as nobody refuses them. . . .

You accept my verification of one thing, I yours of

another. But beliefs verified concretely by some-
. . .

body are the posts of the whole superstructure. 1

Truth-processes are also useful. In The Meaning

4
of Truth utility is not so prominent as it is in the
'

writings of other pragmatists, though Professor

James by no means overlooks this aspect of prag-
matic truth. In Pragmatism, for instance, he tells
44
us that the possession of true thoughts means
everywhere the possession of invaluable instruments
44
of action." 2 True is the name for whatever idea
starts the verification process, useful is the name
8 44
for its completed function in experience. " Pri-
marily, and on the common -sense level, the truth
of a state of mind means this function of a leading
44 4
that is worth while." 4 The true? to put it very
briefly, is only the expedient in the way of our thinking,
4
just as the rigfU is only the expedient in our way of
'

behaving." 5 But in The Meaning of Truth Professor

4
James carefully points out that in saying that the
meaning of any proposition can always be brought
down to some particular consequence in our future
practical experience, whether passive or active,' the

1
Pragmatism, pp. 207, 208. * Ibid., p. 202.
3 4
Ibid., p. 204. Ibid., p. 205. r>
Ibid., p. 222,
 :

NATURE OF PRAGMATIC TRUTH 543

point of the statement lies " rather in the fact that

the experience must be particular than in the fact
that it must be active,' by active meaning
'
— * '

here '
practical ' in the narrow literal sense. Parti-
cular consequences may be of a theoretical nature." 1
4
Hence the cash- value '
of truth in experiential terms
is that
True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate,
corroborate and verify. False ideas are those that we can
not. That is the practical difference it makes to us to
have true ideas that, therefore, is the meaning of
;

truth, for it is all that truth is known-as. 2

§ 370. Dr. Schiller takes a wider view of truth

than that set forth by Professor James. He
considers it in its historic setting. Consequently his
emphases are somewhat different, and more akin to
those of Herr Simmel's exposition of the doctrine
of truth. The Riddles of the Sphinx is a philosophy
of Evolution, and evolutionary ideas permeate and
affect the whole of Dr. Schiller's epistemological
speculations. Applying these ideas in Axioms as
Postulates to the fundamental principles of human
thought, he concludes that these are not axiomatic,
but postulatory in character. Generalising the
doctrine in Humanism, Dr. Schiller applies it to
every sphere of human knowledge, to Logic, to
Metaphysics, to Ethics, and to Religion. In all
these spheres of human thought, he says, the method
is the same, viz., the postulation of hypotheses and

their verification in experience, differences being due

chiefly to variations in the mode and extent of the
verification. 3
1
The Meaning of Truth, p. 210.
3
2
Pragmatism, p. 201. cf. Preface to Humanism.
544 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

Now, in the evolution of life, and still more so in

the evolution of human experience and human modes
of thought, the supreme idea which governs the
6
whole is not that of the real ' or of the '
true,'but
4
of the good.' All life is purposive. It is purpose
that prompts man to postulate guided by it that ;

he experiments under its influence that he evaluates

;

results. Pure reason is a pure figment the practical :

use which has developed it must have stamped

itself upon its inmost structure, even if it has not
moulded it out of pre-rational instincts. And this
being so, we must bear in mind that all our realities
are related to the ends of our practical life that ;

" human valuations hold sway over every region

of our experience, and cannot validly be eliminated
from the contemplation of any reality that we
know." " Our knowing is driven and guided at
every step by our subjective interests, our desires,
our needs and our ends. Hence our effort, deter-
mined by our powers and will to know, enters as a
necessary and irradicable factor into whatever
revelation of reality we can attain." " That the
'
has a determinate
real ' nature which the knowing
reveals but does not affect, is a gratuitous
1
assumption incapable of rational defence."
From this humanistic and evolutionary view of
knowledge, it follows (i) that theory
subordinate is

to practice, the true to the good'

and (2) that
' '
;
'

the 'true' is identical with the 'useful.' In both

these respects it seems to me that Dr. Schiller goes
further than his colleague, Professor James. He
does not ignore theory or deny its value but that ;

1
Humanism, pp. 1-11.
 NATURE OF PRAGMATIC TRUTH

value in the end is practical. His position is, as he

himself has pointed out, the reverse of the Platonic
view that action presupposes knowledge, and that
4
the '
true '
is the source of the good.' He makes
action primary ;
knowledge is always derivative,
secondary, subservient, useful. It is not sufficient
to say that Oecopi'a is irpu^, in the sense that it

is a characteristic of human activity. The true is

the true for us as practical beings. 1 In the second
of Dr. Schiller's essays in Humanism, the practical
aspect of truth is even more prominent. There he
4
endeavours to establish the thesis that whatever
is true is useful and all exceptions are ruled out of
court on the ground that either the utility of the
apparent truth has not yet been discovered, or else
it is really useless knowledge, and therefore no truth
at all.

Utility, therefore, is of the essence of the truth-

relation for Dr. Schiller, as it is for Herr Simmel.
He is also equally explicit in his rejection of the
copy-view of truth though he rejects it on different
;

grounds. 2 Unlike Professor James, he does not

even accept provisionally the Dualism of Common-
4
sense, but starts from a chaotic experience or '

4
primary reality,' in which, as yet, there is no
4
distinction of appearance and reality,' but from
' '

4
which, as from the raw material of the cosmos,'
4 4
real fact ' and true reality '
are, in course of time,
4
experimentally evolved.3 Reality,' as we ordinarily
1
Ibid., p. 30.
Ibid., pp. 45, 46 ; Studies in Humanism, p. 425 ; and
* cf.

Mind, N.S. 72, p. 573.

8 Ibid.,
pp. 186, 187 ; cf. pp. 428 et seq. ; and The Meaning of
Truth, p. 242.

jj
 '

546 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

understand it, does not pre-exist the cognitive

'

functioning,' but is a fact within knowing,

immanently deposited or precipitated by thought. 1
' '

Both Dr. Schiller and Professor James regard truth

from the standpoint of experience, in which it and
its object alike are immanent. For both, the aim
of the pragmatist is to describe as best he can '
the
continuous cognitive process,' to trace out the
actual '
making of truth,' and thence to derive '
the
method of determining the nature of truth.' 2
But,
for Dr. Schiller, the ratio essendi of the cognitive
process is not merely to engender systems of truth

and of reality, but " to refine them into more and

more adequate means for the control of our
experience." 3 He does not under- estimate the par-
ticularity and the experiential character of truth;
but, owing, I think, chiefly to his essentially genetic
standpoint, he lays more stress upon the active
still

and making of truth, or, in

practical aspect of the
other words, upon its utility. The consequences by
which truth-claims are validated, he insists, must
be both practical
'
and good practical
' in ' :
'
'
'

that sooner or later they affect our action good ;

'

in that they further our interests and satisfy our

purpose. 4 Truth, in short, is that peculiar kind of
utilitywhich belongs to an idea, or results from the
functioning of an idea.
§ 371. The emphasis thus laid on the practical
value of truth influences Dr. Schiller's views on
abstract truth, which he seems to treat with some-
what less courtesy than Professor James. An
1 Ibid., p. 426, and cf. pp. 182, 183.
* Ibid., p. 5. 8 Ibtd.,
p. 426. * Ibid., pp. 6, 7.
 NATURE OF PRAGMATIC TRUTH S47

abstract truth, until it is applied, is a mere claim

which " must always be regarded with suspicion ;

and if it not (or cannot) submit to verification,

will
is not properly true at all. Its truth is at best
potential, its meaning null or unintelligible, or at
most conjectural and dependent on an unfulfilled
condition.'' " Truths must be used to become true,
and (in the end) to stay true." A purely formal
logic is little more than " solemn trifling " and ;

even the truths of arithmetic and geometry are not

fully true until they are applied and they will not
;

apply in every case. The honourable predicate of

'
true should be " reserved for what has victoriously
'

satisfied its claim." " Real truths must have shown

themselves to be useful ; they must have been
applied to some problem of actual knowing, by
,,
usefulness in which they were tested and verified. 1
Dr. Schiller does not, of course, deny, any more than
does Herr Simmel, either the value or the validity
of abstract systems of truth but, regarding such
;

systems from an evolutionary and pragmatic stand-

point as products of human thought slowly evolved
to the end that man may more easily and more
successfully deal with his environment, his tendency
is to make both their value and their validity

depend upon the practically useful purposes which

they serve.
Closely connected with this point is another on
which Dr. Schiller's views coincide to a large extent
with those of the German pragmatist. We cannot
determine the utility of a truth without examination,

1
Ibid., pp. 8, 9; 112, 113; 144, 145. (Italics, where used,
are mine.)
548 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

just as we cannot at once decide upon the expediency

of a certain line of conduct. We must first select
our truth, whether it be a general doctrine, a
principle, or a fact, and then test it by experiment. 1
A claim to truth, whether it be on the level of
perception or on the higher level of thought, must
be allowed to work for only thus can it be validated.
;

It is only when a mode of perception or of thought

has become more or less habitual, only when it has,
by a long series of successful experiments, proved
itself a useful instrument enabling us to act more
easily and more rapidly in the way best suited to
the furtherance of life, that it becomes a true mode
of perceiving or thinking. Regarded from this
point of view, we may say, I think, that truth is

for Dr. Schiller, as for other pragmatists, a useful

habit. Human
knowledge and human truth consist
in certain and of thought,
habits of perception
which are, as M. Rey puts it, les risultantes
ntcessaircs et les settles possibles des conditions dans
lesquellcs elles ont M6 contractus —
la science, c est
y

2
nous.
It is clear, however, that one of the fundamental
needs of our nature is that we should be able to
communicate with our fellow-men and, to do this, ;

we must perceive and think and live more or less in

the same way as they do. Hence the social factor
plays no small part in the building up of habit and in
the making of truth. Society exercises a severe
control over the intellectual and the perceptual, as

1
Axioms as Postulates,' §§1,2 and 24
'
; Studies in Humanism,
pp. 186, 187.
* La Th/orie de la Physique,
p. 395.
 NATURE OF PRAGMATIC TRUTH 549

well as the moral, eccentricities of its members.

Only some of the truths which we, as individuals,
deem valuable come to be recognised by society,
and so to be regarded as '
objective.' Similarly, in
the lower sphere of sense-experience, those who
have managed to perceive things in practically the
same way, have prospered at the expense of those
who could not and hence certain ways of perceiving
;

have become habitual and more or less common

throughout the race. As our experience grows, we
adapt ourselves to our environment and to one
another but the process is none the less practical,
;

useful and teleological throughout. Whether our

adaptation be objective or intra-subjective, the
determining factor of survival and permanence is
that should lead to useful, practical consequences. 1
it

§ 372. One other point in regard to the relation of

Dr. Schiller's views to those of Herr Simmel is
deserving of mention. Both are agreed that truth
is relative to our faculties. Dr. Schiller, in fact,
frankly adopts the Protagorean principle that man
is the measure of all things a principle which is
;

capable, he says, of a two-fold interpretation. In

the individual means that " Whatever
sense it

appears to each, that really is for him " and in the ;

generic sense it means that " reality for us is relative

to our faculties." 2 But Dr. Schiller says little or
nothing of that other aspect of truth's relativity,
upon which Herr Simmel insists so much, viz., the
relativity of truths inter se. True, in a chapter 3

1
cf. Humanism, pp. 31 et seq. ; Studies in Humanism, p. 153.
2
Studies in Humanism, pp. 33, 34.
8
Ibid., chap, xviii.
55o THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

dealing with the relation of the postulate of Freedom

to that of complete Determinism, he treats these
principles as to some extent reciprocal and comple-
mentary. 1 But this is the only place, so far as I am
aware, where the reciprocity of truth is touched
upon. To Herr Simmel, then, belongs the honour of
having discovered this aspect of pragmatic truth ;

though it is, I think, a corollary to the doctrine that

truth is a value, and that its value is primarily
useful or practical.

CHAPTER XXI.
THE VALUE OF PRAGMATIC TRUTH.
§ 373- The account of truth given in the last
chapter may be regarded from two points of view.
We may regard it as an account of the psychological
4
processes and habits which underlie the making ' of
truth, or we may regard it as an account of the
nature of truth. Herr Simmel has described in his
own way many of the psychological characteristics
of knowledge. We do seek in objective experience
for fixed points round which we group qualities and
relations, for in order to acquire knowledge we must
attend first to one object and then to another. And,
again, we analyse and synthesise we seek for unity,
;

and within the unity look for multiplicity. Axioms,

too, and other habits of mind function in the ac-
quisition of fresh knowledge. We subsume under
1
cf. Professor James' treatment of Unity and Plurality,
Pragmatism, pp. 129 ct scq.

Digitized by Google
 VALUE OF PRAGMATIC TRUTH 551

general ideas and general laws, and we apply

principles and criteria almost automatically. We
exercise selection in the apperception of new ideas.
We assent to fresh truths when they harmonise with
the old; and we and propositions which
reject ideas
fail thus to harmonise with previous knowledge.
We are reluctant to admit more than a minimum of
modification in what we already know and when
;

a truth which we accept is called in question we

refuse to sacrifice it, because it is implied in what

we hold to be certain. And, lastly, we apply our

still

knowledge to practical purposes we use it in order

;

to adapt ourselves to our environment and to

promote the advance of civilisation. All these are
psychological facts. But the question is whether we
have here the clue to the essential nature of truth,
to its real significance. Are these processes of the
very essence of truth, or are they merely its psycho-
logical conditions and its practical consequences ?
When we say that truth is "an idea which in con-
nection with the entire and specific organism, its
faculties and needs, leads to useful results," are we
describing the nature of truth, or merely its relations
and its properties ? The question is of vital
importance for the theory of knowledge, for if we
must answer with the pragmatist that truth is a
useful habit and nothing more than a useful habit,
knowledge, in the strict sense of that term has ceased
to exist, and in its place we have something which
is largely subjective and which in no way reveals

to us the nature of reality.

§ 374. Herr Simmel rejects the mirror view '
'

of truth, and with it Realism. So apparently do

552 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

pragmatists in general. But when one examines

the arguments which have led to this renunciation
— that is, if the pragmatist has renounced Realism
and not merely mutilated it and made it obscure
—
and ambiguous one finds that for the most part
they are reducible to the stock objections already
discussed in Chapter XIV. To these, however,
Herr Simmel adds one of his own. Animals perceive
things differently from what we do hence they
;

cannot be said to mirror reality in their percepts,

but the latter must be regarded as the products of
their special psycho-physical organisms the habits
of which are gradually formed by the repetition of
actions and processes which have led to beneficial
results.
This argument hardly disproves the correspon-
dence-notion of truth. In the first place, animals do
not appear to make judgments,' and so present no
'

'
claims to truth.
' Secondly, we know nothing
whatsoever of the psychoses which accompany or
and
follow the retinal impressions of eagles, insects,
amphibia and so cannot tell for certain whether
;

they do or do not correspond with the objects

perceived. But if it is legitimate to argue from the
retinal impressions themselves, animals, in spite of
do seem to mirror the
their optical peculiarities, '
'

realworld in a way similar to our own, though

sometimes more and sometimes less accurately.
The difference between our own visual perception
(qud sensation-complexes) and the visual percep-
tions of the eagle on the one hand and the proteus
anguinis on the other, apart from variations due to
objective conditions, would seem to be chiefly one of
 VALUE OF PRAGMATIC TRUTH 553

degree in the distinctness with which details and

minutiae are perceived. The proteus anguinis, like
the owl, cannot perceive things accurately in the
light. Still, the dark-adapted eyes of the former

do not prevent them from *

mirroring ' things with
sufficient accuracy, given the requisite conditions.
Again, the many-faceted eye of the insect does not
represent things falsely, any more than a many-
faceted mirror does though we cannot say what
;

precisely is the function of these peculiarly-con-

structed visual organs or how the impressions
produced by each facet are combined to form a
percept. While, lastly, if we wish to decide whether
other eyes, shaped differently to our own, are or are
not capable of mirroring reality, we must assume
that our eyes do mirror reality, and that our
'
optics have a value which is more than merely
'

normative.
§ 375. The facts, brought forward by Herr
Simmel, therefore, do not force us to the conclusion
that differences in the structure of the organs of
sense-perception are incompatible with the per-
ception of things, their qualities and their spatial
relations, asthey are in rerum natura. All we can
infer from them is that the organs of sense which
are to be found in different species of animals are
peculiarly adapted for the perception (and probably
the '
true '
perception) of certain kinds of objects
under certain circumstances and conditions of life,
just as are the various senses to be found in man.
While on the other hand, the further fact which
Herr Simmel remarks, viz., that 'actions undertaken
by reason of these percepts lead to results of such a
554 THEORIES OE KNOWLEDGE

calculability, purposiveness and certainty, that they

could not be greater even with a knowledge of
objective relations as they are in themselves,' cannot
be accounted for unless we suppose that these percepts
correspond approximately with reality, and thus for
us give, as they claim to give, real knowledge. In
the chapters on Physical Science, I have already
endeavoured to show that truth as utility pre-
supposes truth as correspondence. The utility of
our ideas is inexplicable, nay more, impossible,
unless they have representative value. To sum-
marise briefly the arguments there used The utility
:

of our ideas depends upon the consequences to which

they lead through the mediation of action. Hence
there must be either a symbolic parallelism or a real
correspondence between the logical connections of
ideas and the real connections of objects. But a
symbolic parallelism is inadequate to account for
these useful leadings.'
*
For (i) it is impossible to
explain how symbols become attached and remain
attached to particular objects, if the symbol is
purely arbitrary and if there is no kind of identity
between symbol and thing and (2) our ideas are not
;

merely symbolic but have objective meaning upon

which our inferences are based, and it is impossible
to explain why these inferences should coincide
approximately with empirical facts unless the idea
has a real and not merely a symbolic meaning. We
conclude, therefore, with M. Poincare, that " the
fact that we see the conclusions of science verified
before our eyes would not be possible if it did not
reveal to us something of the nature of reality." 1
1
Preface to Science and Hypothesis.
 VALUE OF PRAGMATIC TRUTH 555

4
It is not merely that our thoughts are added to '

4
reality, and that reality suffers the addition.' 1
Our thoughts must be determined by reality itself in
and through sense-perception and thus may we ;

gain real knowledge, which, because it is real

knowledge, is capable of leading to useful results.
§ 376. Truth cannot be merely utility, for utility
isthe consequence of truth and similarly axioms ;

cannot be merely regulative, for the possibility of

their exercising a regulative function in regard to
objective experience presupposes their objective
4
validity. Axioms are not '
universal ' and neces-
sary because they satisfy our needs
'
but they ;

4
satisfy our needs because they are universal and '

It is true that postulates may be

4
necessary.'
universal, if we choose to make them so 2 but the ;

question is whether we have any right to make them

so, and, if so, what right. It is also true that
necessary principles are a means to human ends,'
4

but the question is whether they could be useful

as a means to human ends, if their necessity is
4
psychological and if the psychical feeling of having
4
to is merely
'
the emotional accompaniment of the
purposive search for means.' It seems to me, in
fact, that in treating necessary truth, and indeed all
truth, from an exclusively teleological point of view,
and again in distinguishing the accompanying
emotional feeling from the intellectual apprehension
4
of a principle and identifying the necessity of the '

principle with the former only, Dr. Schiller has been

4
guilty of an abstractionism quite as vicious as
'

that of a pure intellect ualist.

' '

1
The Meaning of Truth, p. 67.
2
'Axioms as Postulates,' § 10.
556 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

Other arguments by which Dr. Schiller attempts to

disprove '
intrinsicnecessity are no
'
more success-
ful. He tells us that " no one needs add two and
two as four, unless he needs to add, i.e., wills to
add them, because he needs arithmetic." 1 This is
obvious but the question is why, when we do need
;

to add, we must needs add two and two as four.

He maintains also that " the truth of an assertion ' '

depends on its application ; " and in support of this

urges that " the abstract statement, e.g., that two
4

and two make four,' is always incomplete." It

needs to be applied, and " its application is quite
limited." " It would not be true of lions and lambs
nor of drops of water, nor of pleasures and pains." 2
Of course it would not, if the statement were wrongly
applied but it is always true that two lions and two
;

lambs, qud units or animals, make four units or four

animals that two drops of water plus two other
;

drops make four drops, provided they remain

distinct and that two pleasures and two pains
;

make four hedonic experiences, provided those

experiences take place at different times, or belong
to different individuals. not the principle that
It is
is shown to be false, when
is wrongly applied
it ;

but merely that particular way of applying it.

If the lions in question ate the lambs, or the drops of
water intermingled, or the pleasures and pains per
impossibile existed in the same individual at the
same time, there would neither be two and two nor four.
§ 377. I have already indicated that there
appears to be some divergence of opinion between
Professor James and Dr. Schiller in regard to this
1
Ibid. 2
Studies in Humanism, p. 9.
 VALUE OF PRAGMATIC TRUTH 557

question of abstract truth. 1 Professor James con-

ceives abstract truth very much as the intellec-
tualist conceives it. He admits " relations between
purely mental ideas," which are absolute, uncon-
ditional, eternal, and which are also " perceptually
(I should prefer to say intellectually) obvious at a
glance." These relations, again, though they may
not exist " effectually in rebus," and though " no-
body may experience them," have yet their own
reality in the ideal order they exist in posse or ;

virtually. So real are they, in fact, that " they

coerce us ; we must treat them consistently whether
or not we like the results." " Our ideas must agree
with realities, be such realities concrete or abstract,
be they facts or be they principles, under penalty of
endless inconsistency and frustration." The only
difficulty is in regard to the application of abstract
propositions. The abstract truths themselves are
eternal, and in their application they are also true
in advance of special verification, if we have subsumed
our objects rightly. 2
'
If you can find a concrete thing anywhere that is one '

or '
white '
or gray or an effect/ then your principles
' ' '

will everlastingly apply to it. It is but a case of

ascertaining the kind, and then applying the law of its
kind to the particular object. You are sure to get
truth if you can but name the kind rightly, for your
mental relations hold good of everything of that kind
without exception. If you then, nevertheless, failed
to get truth concretely, you would say that you had
classed the objects wrongly. 3

*cf. supra, § 371.

* Pragmatism, pp. 209-211 ; The Meaning of Truth, p. 203,
and cf. p. 247.
8 Pragmatism, p. 210.
558 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

Professor James neither protests against the

validity, nor against the utility, 1 of abstract truths.
What he contends for, against a *
vicious abstrac-
tionism,' is (i) that an abstract truth is " less real,
" 2
not more real, than the verified article (i.e., than
abstract truth when
and (2) that abstract
applied),
concepts are often " made a means of diminishing
the original experience by denying (implicitly or
explicitly) all its features save the one specially
abstracted to conceive it by." 3

§ 378. With
such a view no sober-minded
intellectualist could reasonably find fault and I am ;

also far from denying that " the viciously privative

employment of abstract characters and class names is
4
one of the original sins (better, perhaps, ten-
dencies ') of the rationalistic mind." To abstract,
and then to forget or deny the other attributes of
the concrete thing from which abstraction has been
made, or to assume that the abstract concept or
principle applies in every case, is a fault into which
not only rationalists, but also pragmatists, not
infrequently fall. But what the intellectualist, on
his side, finds fault with, is the statement that " the
truth of an assertion depends on its application."
As he understands it, to say this is not to say, in
other words, that " '
abstract ' truths are not fully
4
truths at all." Doubtless they crave for incarnation
in the concrete " but they are not useless or un-
;

employed, nor are they meaningless or necessarily

ambiguous. Doubtless, again, they may also be
used as rules for action
'
but they are not merely
;
'

1
The Meaning of Truth, p. 246.
2 3
Ibid., p. 205. Ibid., p. 248.
 VALUE OF PRAGMATIC TRUTH 559

rules for action. Hence, they do not '

mean
nothing,' when not employed, nor does their mean-
ing *
depend on their application.' 1

It is not, then, against the general pragmatic

doctrine in regard to abstract truth that I venture

to enter a protest except in so far as—the pragmatist

denies that abstract truth corresponds in the strict
sense with reality but against the exaggerated
;

form which that doctrine appears in the writings

in
of Dr. Schiller. I am quite ready to grant that
abstract truths are less real than concrete truths ;

that, order for their significance to be fully

in
realised, they must be constantly applied to con-
crete cases and that unless they are thus applicable
;

can have
in the concrete, directly or indirectly, they
very little meaning and still less utility. But what
I maintain is that an abstract concept always refers

—
to reality to the concrete thing from which it was
abstracted, at least implicitly, and potentially to all

objects like it ; and that, in like manner, an abstract

truth, whether it be arrived at by inductive
generalisation (for even empirical truths are always
more or less abstract) or by the intuitive appre-
hension of a relation necessarily holding between
the entities concerned, always has reference to
reality, and therefore is true of reality whether we
apply it to individual cases or not. Thus the
principle of Contradiction applies to every *
real
being,' and the principle of Causality to every
*
contingent being.' Similarly, a geometrical pro-
position about a circle applies to every concrete real
thing in so far as its shape approximates to that of a
1
Studies in Humanism, pp. 8, 9.
560 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

circle, and the arithmetical relations of one number

to other numbers apply to all objects that are
numerable. Abstract truths, in short, are true
between
objectively, because they express relations
notions that refer to and have been derived from
reality they are true necessarily, and apart from
;

special verification, because the relations they

express are implied in the notions themselves, and,
as Professor James says, are obvious at a glance ;

they are true universally and apart from any special

4
application, because to be true universally means '

simply to be true of every object or every system of

objects to which the notions apply and in so far as
they apply.
§ 379. Clearly, if we wish to know how far an
abstract truth holds in any concrete case, we must
apply it. But to apply a truth and to verify it are
not the same thing. In applying the truth, what we
wish to discover is whether a particular case can be
subsumed under our abstract law, i.e., whether the
notions involved in our law are or are not realised
in this case. We already know what the 'con-
sequences' of our law are, our present business
— again to quote. Professor James is to find out —
whether we can add these consequences in this
particular case. 1 Dr. Schiller does not seem to me
to have grasped my
mind, very obvious
this, to
distinction. He confuses application with verifi-
cation, and hence gives as one of his reasons for
denying the universality and necessity of abstract
truths, that they will not apply to every case or that
in applying them we sometimes make mistakes. But,
1 cf. The Meaning of Truth, p. 248.
 VALUE OF PRAGMATIC TRUTH 561

surely, to verify or prove a mathematical statement

and to apply it are two altogether different pro-
cesses. To verify a statement in pure mathematics
is to show that it is deducible from other statements

which are either already proved or self-evident (i.e.,

'obvious at a glance' when rightly understood).
The application of mathematical statement, on the
other hand, involves analysis, identification and
measurement, all of which may go wrong, and, being
quantitative, are never absolutely accurate, so that
at best our results will only be approximate.
The case is very different when we are dealing
with an empirical law, a scientific hypothesis, or a
principle in dynamics. For here we are dealing with
entities or with relations of the nature of which we
know little a priori. Hence we cannot establish
necessary relations, but must proceed either by
postulating that an empirically known relation holds
under other than the observed conditions, or by
postulating that the nature of physical objects is
(v.g.) mechanical and then deducing particular
conclusions from this hypothesis. Whichever
method we adopt the validity of our postulate can
be established only by experiment. In other words,
while abstract truths are true a priori and inde-
pendently of their application, empirical truths
cannot be established apart from their application.
Dr. Schiller, on the other hand, assuming that
all knowledge comes via postulation, hence infers

that no proposition is really true until it has been

subjected to a process of experimental verification
to which no term or limit can be assigned. Such a
position is surely untenable. Not only does it fail
562 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

to take cognisance of the distinction between

empirical generalisations and necessary principles,
or between truths which require to be verified in
experience and truths which are true in advance of
such special verification, but, as its logical conse-
quence, it forces us to declare that what appear
to be most certain truths are not really more than
probabilities, since we cannot be sure that at some
future date we may not, in applying them, meet
with reverse. This sceptical tendency in Prag-
matism we have already met with in a previous
chapter 1 and that it is the necessary outcome of
;

a wholly experimental
'
theory of knowledge is
'

clear. For in such a theory all truth starts as a

claim or a postulate, and

allpostulates, whether axiomatic or not, have the same

origin. They differ only in the scope of their usefulness
and in the amount and character of their confirmation.
Some are held faate de mieux, and even full-blown axioms
may be conceived as becoming otiose under changed
conditions though practically the possibility of modi-
;

fying them is one that may be safely neglected, for it

would be gratuitous to suppose a revolution in our
experience sufficient to upset them. 2

§ 380. The next question which demands our

attention the very important one of how truth
is

should be defined. This question the pragmatist

claims to have solved in a new way, and its solution
is of the very essence of Pragmatism. All other
problems, metaphysical or epistemological, which
have arisen out of Pragmatism, are secondary and
accidental.

1 chap. xvi. 2 *
Axioms as Postulates* § 26.
 VALUE OF PRAGMATIC TRUTH

Of the multitudinous and extremely varied

definitions of truth given by Professor James and
other pragmatists, I shall have something to say in
the next chapter, when we shall consider them as
embodying pragmatic criteria of truth ; but here
it will be sufficient if we confine our attention to
two types of such definitions only. The first is that
in which truth is identified with the verification
process or with its workings ; the second, that in
which the essence of this verification-process is said
to be that it should lead to consequences practically
useful.
Truth, for Professor James, is essentially a process
of leading which starts from an image, concept or
symbolic term and terminates either in other ideas
or in percepts, but ultimately in the latter. It is
a relation between an idea, on the one hand, and
perceptual experiences (or reality) on the other,
and the essence of the relation consists in certain
processes or workings (or at any rate '
functional
possibilities ') which make the idea true, and are
capable both of being experienced and described.
There is nothing transcendent about the truth-
relation in Pragmatism. It is something that lies
wholly within experience. Both its terminus a quo
and its terminus ad quern, and the intermediary
4 '
links which constitute the workings of the true
idea, are one and all experiences.
There nothing ambiguous about pragmatic
is

truth so far, and had the pragmatist always made

his meaning as clear as Professor James has done
in the last few chapters of The Meaning of Truth,
much misunderstanding and many futile disputes
5<M THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

might have been avoided. But is the pragmatist

right ? Certainly the pragmatist's view of truth is
neither the common-sense nor the traditional view,
and Professor James would, I think, be the first
to acknowledge this. The ordinary unsophisticated
individual does not understand by agreement a'
'

process of working in which our ideas lead us, or

tend to lead us, to reality in the sense of adapting
us to it so that we may handle it better than if we
disagreed. That, he would say, is a consequence
of truth, not its essential nature. Agreement for
common-sense, when applied to truth, means that
our ideas copy, resemble, correspond to reality in
such a way that the nature of what is known is
reproduced in our minds, not really or physically
of course, as it exists in the outside world, but
ideally, mentally by our thoughts. And the
philosopher of common-sense explains this as
arising from the fact that in knowledge the content
of our thoughts determined, directly or indirectly,
is

by their objects, to which accordingly they conform.

The pragmatist, he would allow, is perfectly correct
in saying that truth is made by its consequences,' if
'

he mean by this that it is only by the functional

workings of truth in many cases that we come to
know that our ideas (or, better, our judgments) are
4
true. But the consequences or workings of
' ' '

truth are not truth itself, as is evident from the

fact that we speak of truth's workings or truth's
consequences; thereby implying that truth is one
4
thing and its workings or consequences some-
* ' '

thing else which is not identical with it, but belongs to

it, or follows from it, and is therefore predicable of it.
 VALUE OF PRAGMATIC TRUTH 565

§ 381. We have not yet settled the question,

however ; for if truth does not consist in corres-
pondence, the pragmatist is fully justified in looking
for something else in which it doe* consist for it ;

cannot be an incomprehensible or meaningless entity.

Nor do I see that prima facie the absolutist has any-
thing to complain of, since he himself identifies truth
4
with consistency,' which is itself one of truth's
workings. The real question is, then, (1) whether
the pragmatist has entirely given up the view that
truth consists in correspondence with reality, oppro-
briously styled the copy-view of truth and, if so ;

(2) whether he is warranted in substituting in its place

his own view that truth consists in its workings.
The first question need not detain us long. There
can be no doubt that Dr. Schiller has entirely
4
renounced the copy-view of truth the only point '
:

that remains dubi table is whether Professor James

has also accomplished this feat. He certainly clings
4
to the idea that images copy reality, and images '

in his theory can be true. He also affirms that the

4 4
truth of relations between ideas '
is perceptually
obvious at a glance,' and it is difficult to see how,
in such cases, there can be any time or space for
4
workings.' Again, he allows that of a given event
44
only one sort of possible account can ever be
true " yet surely many different accounts may
4
; '

4
be true of an event if all they have to do is to
'

4
work with it agreeably and profitably. Nor do
'

44
I see how the truth about any such event is already
generically predetermined by the events of nature,"
and thus 44 virtually pre-exists," 1 unless the event
1
The Meaning of Truth, p. 289.
566 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

itself somehow determines our thoughts about it,

and so brings them into conformity with, and causes

them to resemble, itself. I am unaware of any kind
of determining action which does not tend in some
way to reproduce itself, or any kind of passivity
which is not receptive of forms, which, at bottom,
resemble the activity from which they proceed.
Still more difficult is it to conceive how reality can

be such that some of our questions " can be answered

44
in only one way," or how mirrored matter " can
cognitive lustre " to our ideas, 1 unless our
44
give
ideas somehow correspond to reality and are deter-
mined by Doubtless such expressions can be
it.

squared with the pragmatic view but they seem ;

to me to be relics of a
4
copy-view not entirely '

given up. And if this is so, the workings of ' '

truth are not its essence, but its consequence ;

in which case it would be better to give them

4
some other name, such as truth - function,'
rather than to offer them as the definition of
truth. 2
4
Supposing, however, that the
§ 382. copy-
view of truth has been given up by all pragmatists,
'

and that truth is, for them, nothing but its

4
consequences,' we have next to
4
workings or '

enquire whether this transformation of the Qommon-

sense view is justifiable. One way
to show that it
is not justifiable would be to re-establish the so-
4
called copy-view of truth, which I have already
'

attempted to do in other chapters. Here, therefore,

1
Ibid., pp. 69, 93.
4
2
cf. ibid., p. 224. Truthful '-ness is certainly not an
adequate term to describe this function, especially as it already
has a definite significance in morals.
 VALUE OF PRAGMATIC TRUTH 567

I shall content myself with endeavouring to trace the

consequences which follow from the pragmatic view,

4
consequences which I propose to value prag- '

matically by their power of satisfying our human

needs. Now, workings may mean either practical
4
'

workings which lead to useful results, or theoretical

workings which lead to consistency and harmony
amongst our ideas. The pragmatic use of the term
4
will bear both meanings. But as theoretical
workings,' if they do not lead to a correspondence
between our ideas and reality, can hardly be them-
selves of very great value, except in so far as they
satisfy an idle desire to play with symbols and ideas,
and as both Dr. Schiller and Herr Simmel sub-
ordinate theory to practice, probably, in part at
least, for this very reason, it will be as well to kill
two birds with one stone by examining at once what
is the logical result of identifying truth with its

practically useful consequences. There can be no

doubt that Herr Simmel actually makes this identifi-
cation, and little doubt, I think, that for Dr.
Schiller also the '
logical-value ' of truth is ulti-
mately practical in character. A similar tendency
may be noted in Professor James, when, for instance,
4 44
he interprets agreement as a process of leading
'

which puts us in working touch with reality,

enabling us to manipulate and control it better
than we should otherwise have been able to do," 1
and in the French pragmatist, M. Sauvage, when he
44
says La science ne reproduit pas la realiU, elle ne
tend qu'd nous reprtsenter les choses d'une fagon
commode ct pratique pour V usage que nous avons a en
1
Pragmatism, p. 212 ; and cf. supra, § 370.

Digitized by
568 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

faire."
1
The utility-view of truth is, in fact, the
logical outcome of the rejection of the copy- view
in a thoroughly genetic and voluntaristic philosophy.
§ 383. One consequence of this is that truth may
be regarded as a habit but as the primary question
;

is not whether true modes of thinking and perceiving

tend to survive (a fact which can hardly be disputed),

but rather why they tend to survive, this aspect of
pragmatic truth may be passed over as of secondary
importance. A far more significant consequence of
the pragmatic view is the doctrine of the relativity
of truth. For Dr. means that truth
Schiller this
is relative to our and is essentially a
faculties
human product. For Herr Simmel it means both
this and that truth-values are relative inter se ;
that no idea is true of itself any more than a body
is heavy in itself and hence that the whole of
;

knowledge is no more true than the whole of matter

is heavy.
What precisely is the connection between the
relativity of true ideas and the utility in which their
truth primarily consists, Herr Simmel does not tell

us. When
he says that the truth-value of ideas is
relative, however, he seems to mean that ideas are
true or useful only in connection with other ideas. 2
An idea is for him a means to a practical end the —
progressive adaptation of man to his environment ;

but an idea, taken in isolation, so far from promoting

adaptation, tends to check it, and by becoming
'
fixed or abnormally predominant, to destroy it
'

altogether. Hence no idea is useful per se : ideas

1
Rev tie Mt'taph. ct Morale, 1901, p. 144.
2
cf. Pragmatism, pp. 59, 60, 169 ;
(quoted above § 291) ; 210.
 VALUE OF PRAGMATIC TRUTH 569

are only true, i.e., useful, when they operate in

conjunction with one another and reciprocally

determine one another's function, for thus only can
they be of service as means enabling man to control
and manipulate his experience. It may be doubted
whether Herr Simmel, in denying that ideas are
useful per se, has not carried the doctrine of relativity
too far, since each idea has its own sphere of objective
reference, and in that sphere is useful irrespective
of other ideas, though the latter may vastly increase
its utility if they function in harmony with it. But
if relativity mean merely the need of consistency,
' '

harmony and mutual corroboration among our ideas,

it is again a point of secondary importance, and to

it the realist would readily assent.

Relativity or reciprocity as applied to the nor-
mative aspect of leading principles of thought is
also a doctrine to which no realist would demur ;

and Herr Simmel is undoubtedly right in saying that

certain of our more fundamental conceptions,
regarded as regulative principles, can only lead to
truth if they be treated as reciprocal and comple-
mentary, just as in the physiological order the
furtherance of life is conditioned by the dual process

of anabolism and katabolism. One of the most

striking examples of a pair of complementary
principles which may thus be regulatively used is
that of Unity and Plurality. Thus the Plurality-
Norm says Do not imagine that the universe is
:

one, its differences mere seeming. Do not identify

everything. Allow their full and proper value to
distinctions, differences, individuals, persons, things.
Do not delude yourself with the vain and idle fancy
57o THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

that you can reduce all this to mere appearance

and force it back into the boundless capacity of an
imaginary Ground in which it is absorbed and its
own peculiar reality taken away. To this the Unity-
Norm replies On the contrary, what you have most
:

to guard against is the splitting things up into

individual existents, isolated, independent, uncon-
nected, unrelated. Unions are as real as disjunc-
tions, unities as real as differences. The universe
is one, and if you making
forget it, your facility in
distinctions will lead you hopelessly astray. Both
norms are right both of inestimable value. Each
;

has its function and its own proper sphere of

operation and only by the conjunction, the
;

alternation, the co-operation of both, is it pos-

sible to arrive at truth.
But are the norms merely regulative ? Are they
merely norms ? Have they not real objective value,
real significance, real meaning ? Could they be
norms at all in the sphere of knowledge if they had
not ? not an abuse of that very principle of
Is it
reciprocity that they illustrate to say that they
have not ? That is a question which Herr Simmel
does not touch. It is manifest that unity must
not be sacrificed to plurality, freedom to necessity,
matter to mind, the will to the intellect, the objective
to the subjective, nor vice versa; and that it is only
by assigning to each principle or concept its proper
place and sphere of application that truth can be
attained. But neither pluralist nor monist, liber-
tarian nor determinist, materialist nor spiritualist,
think that the question at issue between them is
as to the best means of manipulating their experience
 VALUE OF PRAGMATIC TRUTH 571

and so furthering life. When the pluralist says that

existents are many and distinct, he means that they
are really many and really distinct, just as he thinks
them to be and when the monist says the universe
;

is one he means that it is really one, and that his

thought about it is in the ideal order what the
universe is in the real order. It is primarily a
question of the truth of knowledge, not of the utility
of action to which knowledge may lead. And as I
have already endeavoured to show, 1 the practical
value of knowledge is, even in science, essentially
dependent upon its validity. Accordingly, I shall
not re-open the question here, but shall content
myself with pointing out that, while Herr Simmel
is undoubtedly justified in affirming that ultimate

principles are complementary and must be taken in

conjunction, not in isolation, we may question
whether, in emphasising reciprocity to the neglect
of positive value, and utility to the neglect of real
significance, he has not violated his own principle of
reciprocityand relativity whether, in other words,
;

by ignoring the positive and representative aspect

of truth, he has not made it as one-sided a con-
ception as the most exaggerated Monism or the
most thorough-going Determinism or Intellec-
tualism. The real significance of the reciprocity of
truth seems to me to be that no ideas and no
principles which are contradictory can give us true
knowledge about the universe when taken in iso-
lation and made to apply universally, but only when
reconciled by means of distinction and re-united in
what the Hegelian calls a higher synthesis. '
'

1
supra, § 378, and §§ 339 et seq.
57-2 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

§ 384. We now come to the sense in which Dr.

Schiller says that truth is '
relative,' viz., in relation
to the knowing mind, its faculties, its purposes, its
interests, its needs, or, in a word, to its " entire and
specific organism." is a consequence
This, again,
of the doctrine that truth a process which leads
is

to useful consequences, for the consequences, though

in themselves they may be objective, can only be
useful as a means to an end which must be more
or less subjective, and which will vary, if not with
the individual, at least with the specific organism.
Hence, although it is a dangerous thing to assert
that Pragmatism leads to Subjectivism, yet if Herr
Simmers theory of truth be really pragmatic,
Subjectivism seems to be its logical result. And the
same may be said of Pragmatism as " worked in a
humanistic way " by Dr. Schiller, though I would
not go so far as Professor James and say that
Humanism " is compatible with Solipsism." 1 Let
me explain, however, what I mean here by Sub-
jectivism. I do not mean Solipsism, nor do I that
the pragmatist, alias the humanist, denies the
4
existence of all objective reality outside ' our
human minds. What I mean is that, if we interpret
the expressions used by Dr. Schiller, Herr Simmel
and other pragmatists, as philosophical expressions
should be interpreted, viz., literally, the logical
conclusion to which we are forced is that the prag-
matic or humanistic theory of truth is equivalent
to a denial of the possibility of knowing the nature
It is a sceptical Subjectivism,
of objective reality.
a subjectivism that makes knowledge so human
1
The Meaning of Truth, p. 215.
 VALUE OF PRAGMATIC TRUTH 573

that it ceases to be real knowledge. 1 I am quite

aware that Humanism does not admit its own
subjective tendency, and that we have been fore-
warned by Dr. Schiller that to accuse Humanism
of denying that truth is objective is " to put upon it
the silliest of possible meanings, and is nothing
short of an impudent slander.' " Nevertheless,
4

reluctant as I am to slander anyone, and fully

conscious that I am again exposing myself to the
charge of having misunderstood, 2 I still maintain
that Humanism does tend logically to Subjectivism,
and shall forthwith proceed to prove the truth of
this statement.

§ 385. First of all, Humanism is, we are told, a

revised form of Protagoreanism, which means
(1) that 'whatever appears to each, that really is
4
for him,' and (2) that reality is, for us, relative to
our faculties.' 3 Now that whatever appears to each
is for him psychologically a fact, no one can deny.

But when Protagoras asserted that man is the '

measure of all things,' he certainly did not mean

1
That this is the ordinary sense of the term *
Subjectivism '

is borne out by the definitions given in the new Standard

44
Dictionary, where it is denned as the doctrine (i) that know-
ledge is merely subjective and relative, (2) that we know directly
no external object, (3) that there is no objective measure of
truth." And, again, by the definition in Eisler's Philosophise!; cs
44
Worterbuch : The view that all knowledge and thought is
subjective, expressing, not the essence (being) of things, but
only the subjective manner of reacting to the action (einwirken)
of things, or, indeed, just the conditions and modifications of
the subject that there exists only subjective truth."
; Baldwin's
44
Dictionary defines Subjectivism as The theory which denies
the possibility of objective knowledge " but identifies this with
;

Subjective IdeaUsm (wrongly, I think).

2 44
cf. an article of mine in Mind. N.S. 67, entitled Martineau
and the Humanists " and the discussion which ensued between
;

Dr. Schiller and myself in Mind, N.S. 69, 71 ct seq.

3
Studies in Humanism, p. 38.
 "

574 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

merely that appearances were psychological facts.

He meant that man's way of looking at things
intrinsically modified his perception and his know-
ledge of them. And this Dr. Schiller realises, for
he tells us in another place 1
that a man's personal
44
idiosyncrasy must colour and pervade whatever he
experiences." Not only his knowledge in general, but
44 ;
even his metaphysics must have this personal tinge
so that not only ought not two men with different
44
fortunes, histories, and temperaments, to arrive
at the same metaphysic," but they cannot honestly
44
do so, for a metaphysic always takes its final form
from an idiosyncrasy " !

Such language bears the unmistakable impress

of Subjectivism. Metaphysics to be modified to
suit our idiosyncrasies Metaphysics to differ with
!

differences of temperament ! Dr. Schiller surely

cannot be in earnest. He is only trying, as pragma-
tists are wont, to shock his enemy, the intellectualist.
He cannot be serious when he proposes so drastic a
means of avoiding a 44 monstrous uniformity." No ;

for he confesses his exaggeration, and saves himself

44
to some extent by admitting that, though a valid
metaphysic need not show itself cogent to all," at
44
least it must make itself acceptable to reasonable

men, willing to give a trial to its general principles," 2

and reasonable men are not reasonable in so far as
they give way to idiosyncrasies. Yet this ad-
mission, consoling as itdoes not entirely get rid
is,

of Subjectivism, for a certain amount of personal

tinge will still survive, even when most of our
eccentricities have been rubbed away by contact
1 2
Ibid., p. 1 8. Ibid., p. 20.
 VALUE OF PRAGMATIC TRUTH 575

with our fellow-men. And if this tinge must affect

44
all our knowledge, if personal idiosyncrasy must
colour and pervade whatever we experience," it will
modify, not only our metaphysic, but also our opinion
as to how far our metaphysic has been or ought to be
acceptable to reasonable men. We shall require,
therefore, some rule by which to eliminate in know-
ledge the effect of our subjective point of view.
But such a rule is not as yet forthcoming.
§ 386. The second formulation of the Pro-
tagorean principle informs us that knowledge is
4
relative to our faculties ; and this, too, as in-
'

terpreted by the humanist, involves Subjectivism.

4
The meaning of the term faculties is in Pragma-
'

tism not quite clear, for the existence of faculties as

such is denied. But if we take the principle to mean
that knowledge is modified by our human way of
looking at things —taking human here in the generic
sense, as Dr. Schiller says —we shall
not, think, I

be very far wrong. Now the human way

of looking
at things is, according to the humanist, dependent
upon needs which are common to the race. And
needs are subjective. Hence, as the humanist in
this matter makes no distinction between the
content and intent of thought, all truth is modified
by this subjective point of view. It may or it may
not reveal to us the nature of reality. We at any
rate have no means of finding out how far it does so,
and consequently no right to assume that such
a revelation de facto takes place. For it is meaning-
less to enquire into the nature of reality as it is in
itself, if human evaluations pervade our whole
experience and affect whatever 4
fact ' and what-
 '

576 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

4
ever knowledge '
we consent to recognise. 1 The
subjective element in cognition cannot be got rid
of, for " selective attention and purposive manipula-
tion are essential and all-pervasive influences in the
4
construction of the and even the
real ' world,
fundamental axioms shown to
. . . are now
44
originate in subjective demands." 2 Independent
facts which we have merely to acknowledge are a
figure of speech. The growth of experience is ever
transfiguring our facts for us, and it is only by an
ex post facto fiction that we declare them to have been
all along what they have come to mean for us." 3

Hence 44 that the real has a determinate nature

which the knowing reveals but does not affect, so
that our knowing makes no difference to it, is one of
those sheer assumptions which are incapable not
44
only of proof, but even of rational defence." The
actual situation is a case of interaction, a process of
4 4
cognition in which the subject ' and the object
4 4 '
determine each other, and both reality we and'

are involved, and, we might add, evolved." 4

44 4
If, then, when the mind knows reality, both '

5
are affected," if there are no independent facts, but
and distorted G by our
4
all facts are transfigured '

apperception of them, if purpose, subjective demand,

and idiosyncrasy influence and pervade all our
44
experience so that the determinate nature of
4 4
reality does not subsist outside or beyond '

1
Humanism, p. 10 and pp. n, 12 (note).
1 Studies in Humanism, pp. 467, 468. (Italics mine.)
*
'Axioms as Postulates' § 24 (italics mine), and cf.
Pragmatism, pp. 248, 249.
* Humanism, pp. 11, 12 (note).
6
Ibid., p. 1 1.
6 *
Axioms as Postulates/ loc. cit.
 VALUE OF PRAGMATIC TRUTH S77

the process of knowing it," 1 but the world, as it

now appears, is but " a reflexion of our interest in
Me" 2 truth for us is not objective in the ordinary sense
of that term. It does not give us knowledge of
reality, but at most of reality as modified by our
cognitive functioning, our purposes and needs. It is
*
objectiveonly in that it leads to practically useful
'

results in our dealings with what we call objective

experience. Its objectivity comes from the valida-
tion process. " True ideas are those which we can
3
assimilate, validate, corroborate, verify." But
*
assimilation a purely subjective process and
'
is ;

'
corroboration,' if it means the avoiding of contra-
diction between ideas and experiences, is also
subjective ;
unless, indeed, and ex-the ideas
periences have themselves objective value, and agree
with reality. While verification,' if all it does is to
'

" put us in working touch with reality" and to guide

us to beneficial interaction with sensible particulars
as they occur, 4 does not give any real objectivity to
4
truth. For '
and
working contact
beneficial '

interaction are possible without any knowledge at

'

all, and are sometimes the better for being without

it, otherwise acquired habits would not tend to

become unconscious, and the instincts of birds,

butterflies, and bees would never have attained a
perfection so complex and yet so admirably adapted
to their environment. Indeed, we are expressly
told that " the objective control
c
' of our subjective
freedom to predicate is not effected by some un-

1 Humanism, p. 1 1.
1 Studies in Humanism, p. 200.
4
* Pragmatism, p. 201. Ibid., pp. 205, 213.
57« THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

comprehended pre-existing fact : it comes in the

consequences of acting out the predication" 1 And
these consequences are to be judged according as
they satisfy or thwart a purpose, assist or hinder
the building up of a science. Consequences, in
short, are good if they forward, bad if they
' ' ' '

baffle, our interests.

To determine, therefore, whether an answer to any

question is true or false/ we have merely to note
'
'
'

its effect upon the inquiry in which we are interested,

and in relation to which it has arisen. And if these
1 '
effects are favourable, the answer is true and good ' '

for our purpose, and useful as a means to the end we

'
'

pursue. 2

Consequences, therefore, though they may be

objective in themselves, considered as determinants
of truth-values, are subjective and relative, their
value as consequences being itself determined by
subjective interests and purposes.
§ 387. Again, consequences belong to the
*
sensational parts of experience,' which, for Professor
James, are reality. And as both these and the
*
conceptual parts ' are, as parts of experience,
subjective, the relation between them, in which
truth consists, must also be subjective. Even if by
'
sensational parts of experience ' Professor James
means what another place he has called
in '
facts,'
the substitution of this term does not make much
difference. For '
facts ' for the humanist mean
either (1) sensations, which are subjective psycho-
logical facts ; or (2) facts which " do not pre-exist the

1
Studies in Humanism, p. 192.
1 Ibid.,
p. 154. (Italics mine.)
 VALUE OF PRAGMATIC TRUTH 579

cognitive functioning," but are " immanently

deposited within it," and so are
subjective still ;

or (3) facts which " simply are," i.e., experiences

which have not yet been analysed into a subject and
an object, or appearance or reality, and
classified as
which, when they up by our own reflective
are split
act into aspects relatively distinct, still leave us
without any really objective reality to which the
'
conceptual parts of our experience can lead. '

Similarly, the interpretation which Humanism

puts upon the objectivity, independence, absolute-
ness, invariability, eternity, universality and
necessity of truth clearly manifest its subjective
9
tendency. The *
objectivity of truth means for
4
the humanist that experiences demand to be kept
with a minimum of change, and that they interfere
with one another it has nothing to do with repre-
:

4
sentative value.' The independence of truth is 9

merely a description of that selective valuation by

which we discriminate more precious experiences
from those which are of inferior value. It depends,
therefore, upon subjective needs and conditions.
4
The absoluteness of truth is but our conception of
'

an ideal state in which all our needs shall be

4 4 9
satisfied. The invariability and eternity of
9

truth signify that, since truth is our own production,

we can keep it invariable if we choose, and can apply
it at whatever time we will. 1 Similarly, truths are
universal if we choose to make them so, and their
4
necessity is a psychological feeling of having to,'
which from the practical impossibility of
arises
thinking otherwise than we do think in the matter of
1
Studies in Humanism, p. 69, and cf. p. 461.
58o THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

certain so-called axiomatic principles. 1 As, how-

ever, this impossibility is merely due to force of
habit, and as the force of habit is due primarily to
the exigencies of our nature which have gradually
adapted themselves to their environment, necessity
is largely, if not wholly, subjective.

§ 388. In brief, truth, since it is human truth,

must always bear the mark of human fabrication
'

and the impress of human needs.' It always has a

*
personal tinge and the influence of need-expressive
'

purposes permeates it through and through. All

knowledge is relative to our faculties. In the
.perception of facts, facts themselves get distorted
by our human points of view, and since in order to
know we must always act, the making of truth
implies the making of reality. Hence arises the
following dilemma ; either we can or we cannot
distinguish in the content of our thoughts that
which is determined by the object from that which
is due to human fabrication, to the personal tinge,

to idiosyncrasy, to the influence of our points of

view, our manipulation, our purposes, and our
needs. If we can make this distinction, then all
and every part of our knowledge has not a personal
tinge, is not made by us, and is not intrinsically
modified and transfigured by our faculties, our
purposes and needs in which case Humanism is
;

false as it stands, and if it is to hold at all, must be

considerably toned down. While if we cannot
make this distinction, then what we know is not
reality, but reality as modified and mutilated and in
part made by us. In other words, our knowledge
1 * Axioms as Postulates,' § 10.
 VALUE OF PRAGMATIC TRUTH 581

is subjective of its objective significance and

;

meaning we are ignorant, and so must console

ourselves with the belief that at any rate it is useful.
§ 389. Humanists and pragmatists reject with
scorn this accusation of Subjectivism, and various
attempts have been made to escape it. These
attempts may be summarised under four heads.
The first asserts that pragmatic truth is not sub-
jective because in the making of it we are controlled
to a large extent by our environment the second ;

appeals to '
normal objectivity ;
'
the third intro-
duces a new version of the doctrine of Immanence ;

and the fourth maintains that we have quite as '

much objective validity as we need.'

In the first place, then, it is urged that in the
making of pragmatic truth we are controlled by
objective experience. We
cannot make it how we
please. We cannot elicit any answer we like to our
experimental questions but must take the answer
;

that comes. We add our thoughts to reality

' '
;

but reality does not always welcome the addition.

Sometimes our theories will not work.
In saying, however, that pragmatic truth is
subjective, I do not mean to imply that the prag-
matist denies all real control over the working of our
thoughts. What I mean is that the representative
function which it is in the huma-
claims to possess
nistic theory impossible. The working of our '
'

thoughts may be controlled by real objects, but

they can have no strictly cognitive significance if
their origin is subjective, their value determined by
interest and purpose, and if they do nothing more
than enable us to manipulate experience. The
582 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

objectivity of truth can be proved, not by any kind

of control which reality may have
over us, but only
by a particular control, that by which it determines
the content of our thought. We must, moreover,
be able to distinguish between cases in which this
control is operative, and cases in which it is not, and
must attribute truth only where it is clear to our
mind that such control has been exercised. But
this is not what Pragmatism does. It judges
thoughts to be true not when they are determined
by the object, but when they satisfy a subjective
purpose or need, when they prove themselves useful
and worth our while. To assert that the pragma-
tist and the humanist deny that reality exercises
any control over our thoughts would certainly be to
misinterpret and misunderstand, for application
and verification are nowhere more insisted on than
they are in the pragmatic and humanistic account
of truth. It is the interpretation that is put upon
application and verification that makes the latter
subjective. 1 admitted that reality determines
It is
the answers to our questions but for the humanist
;

this means, not that reality determines the content

of thought, but that it produces, or rather helps to
produce, in our psycho-physical organism certain
experiences which satisfy our needs. It is upon its
consequences for us, upon the satisfaction it gives
us, that truth depends, not upon its objective
determination or its correspondence so much so ;

that the existence of the latter is usually denied.

Since, then, in the effects produced upon our
psycho-physical organism by the reaction of objects
1
Studtes in Humanism j pp. 192, 154 (cited above, § 386).
 ;

VALUE OF PRAGMATIC TRUTH 583

the subjective factor co-operates and cannot be

distinguished or allowed for, and since the final
determinant of truth is the satisfaction of subjective
purposes and needs, truth in Humanism cannot have
real objective significance and meaning in the
ordinary sense of those terms.
§ 390. Many pragmatists, especially those of
France, appreciating the force of this argument,
have sought an escape from Subjectivism in normal '

objectivity.' In place of objectivity in the ordinary

sense of correspondence with reality they have
' '

substituted an objectivity which is said to arise

from common consent. Thus Simmel, Milhaud, Le
Roy, Abel Rey, etc. La science, c'est nous, says M.
Rey, yet it does not depend upon my taste, my turn
of mind, my will, my choice but rather upon
;

conditions common to all intelligences alike, con-

ditions which are humanly necessary and humanly
universal. Anthropomorphism in human knowledge
is inevitable but it must proceed from the race,
;

not from the individual. Science is the measure of

our mind, not of the mind of each individual nor
even of each society. Individual truths are deter-
mined by individual needs, yet. they admit of a
selective valuation by means of which " individual
4
'

judgments become recognised universally as valid,"

and " a truth which cannot win recognition is not
a truth at all, for it has failed in its purpose." 1
This appeal to normal objectivity,' however,
'

cannot save the pragmatist from Subjectivism for ;

Abel Rey, La Thforie Physinue, p. 381

1
; Le Roy, Revue
Metaph. et Morale, 1899, p. 560 Schiller, Humanism, pp. 55—59
;

Studies in Humanism, p. 70 ;and Poincar6, La Valeur de

la Science, p. 265.
5*4 Theories oe knowledge

normal objectivity is not real objectivity, but merely

a something which by common consent we agree
c '
to regard as if it were objective. The objectivity
of truth here is not due to the object any more than
it was before, but is ultimately determined by the

satisfaction of human needs and needs, whether ;

peculiar to the individual or common to the race,

are still subjective. The analogy of economical
values, urged by Herr Simmel, is not to the point,
4
for the objectivity which is given to individual
'

evaluation by common consent is recognised as

being still subjective, whereas truth-values are held
to be objective in quite a different sense.
§ 391. The third appeal is to Immanence as
interpreted in the philosophy of Pure Experience.
We have no ground for saying that facts lie outside
experience ; we think may
the objects about which
be immanent within or continuous with the present
experience itself.

The category of transperceptual reality is now one of

the foundations of our life, [yet] we may speculatively
imagine a state of pure experience before the hypothesis
of permanent objects behind its flux had been framed. 1
The independence ascribed to certain realities does not
' '

really transcend the cognitive process. It only means

that in our experience there are certain features which
it is convenient to describe as independent facts, '
'

powers, persons, etc., by reason of the peculiarity of

their behaviour. The whole is an intra-experi-
. . .

ential affair. 2

The whole is an intra-experiential affair This !

is the fundamental note of Pragmatism and

1
The Meaning of Truth, pp. 64, 63.
* Studies in Humanism, p. 461.
 VALUE OF PRAGMATIC TRUTH 585

Humanism. This is why Dr. Schiller affirms that

the problem of knowledge is not how we get to know
reality, but how the cognitive process engenders
means for the control of our experience. True, the
4
humanist does not absolutely deny an other,' to
the structure of which our predicates may perhaps
correspond but " for us, at any rate, reality is an
;

accumulation of our own intellectual inventions,"

44
into which we try to work new nouns and adjec-
1
tives, while altering as little as possible the old."
Yet to admit the possibility of such a reality is worse
than to deny it altogether. For Dr. Schiller
emphatically asserts that we can never know this
2
reality as it is in itself ; and an ancient
this relic of
and dogmatic idealism is, I am convinced, one of
the two stumbling-blocks that has caused the
pragmatist to fall into Scepticism.
But why is it irrational to enquire into the nature
of reality as it is in itself ? Undoubtedly we can
44
only know the real as it is when we know it,"
i.e., as appears to us in our cognitive acts. But
it

why gratuitously assume that reality does not appear

to us as it really is ? Certainly the reality we know
cannot be shut off from us, isolated, unconnected -

with our purposes and needs for our experience is ;

the means and our purposes and needs the guiding

principle and the motive force that conditions human
knowledge. But why should not what we know be
reality itself ? Dr. Schiller is forced to admit that
44
the acceptance of fact leaves us with a surd qud
the fact." 3 Why, then, should not these pre-

1
The Meaning of Truth, p. 65.
3
* Humanism, note to pp. 11,12. Studies in Humanism, p. 200.
586 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

existent facts belong to the real world of common-

sense, instead of to a mysterious '
primary reality '
?

There can only be one reason for all this a deep- —

rooted idealistic prejudice. Yet Idealism, Imman-
ence, and a philosophy of Pure Experience, apart
from the inconsistencies to which they lead and the
violence they do to common-sense, are powerless to
save the pragmatist and the humanist from the
sceptical Subjectivism implied in his assumption
that reality, as known, is not reality as it is, but
reality as modified and transfigured by his own
subjective interests. For if this reality be immanent
within us, and in large part the product of our own
cognitive acts, the knowledge of it is not the know-
ledge which the human mind desires. It is not
knowledge of something other than ourselves, but
merely knowledge of our own objective aspect,
relatively distinguished and split off from ourselves,
4
as it were, by our own thoughts. The category of
transperceptual thus declared to be
reality ' is
'
invalid, and one of the foundations of our life
'

—
thereby 'destroyed' a result which, even for the
pragmatist, should be sufficient irrevocably to
condemn the philosophy of Immanence and Pure
Experience.
§ 392. One last plea is offered in extenuation of
the Subjectivism from which the pragmatist can
find no effective escape. Truth, it is acknowledged,
is relative ;
yet at any rate it is related to man. It
is subjective ;
yet at any rate it is something he can
possess. It is only probable yet probability is at
;

any rate better than an impossible ideal. It has

4
not objective validity in the realist's sense yet
' ;
 !

VALUE OF PRAGMATIC TRUTH 587

has quite as much objective validity

'
at least it *

as we need or it needs, if it is to be progressive. 1

Thus, with a cry of sour grapes,' the pragmatist
'

makes one last attempt to escape Subjectivism, if

it can be called an attempt to escape and not rather

an admission that the charge is well-founded. That

pragmatic truth is something we can possess, that
it is related to us, is probable, and progressive,
cannot be questioned but it is not the truth which
;

we, as rational human beings, yearn for and strive

to obtain. What man wants, whether he be
philosopher, scientist, or only one in a crowd, is a
truth which shall tell him what reality is, truth
4
which shall copy or resemble reality. Pro-
' ' '

fessor James admits that this is the way knowledge

and truth are conceived by common-sense and I ;

maintain that nothing short of this can fully

satisfy the purposive cravings of our intellect and
the rational strivings of our will. Again, Professor
James is really on my side. Not only does he
describe truth at the common-sense level in terms
of his own philosophy as the confluence or identity
or fusion of idea and reality but he affirms that ;

" the maximal conceivable truth of an idea would

seem to be that it should lead to an actual merging
of ourselves with the object, to an utter mutual con-
fluence and identification." 2 In short, corres-
pondence, alias identity or confluence, is the ideal
of the pragmatist and the philosopher of Pure
Experience, just as it is the ideal of the realist
Ideas may fit reality, lead to it, agree with it,
'
'

1 Mind, N.S. 69, p. 127.

2
The Meaning of Truth, p. 1 56.
588 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

work with it, enable us to manipulate it better, and

modify it to suit our practical needs, but they will
never satisfy us theoretically until they correspond
with it in the full and literal sense of that term.
This is the aim of science this the purpose of
;

philosophy and unless it is in fact an aim which

;

is being progressively realised, it must be confessed

that the primary ratio essendi of both science and
philosophy is a futile fancy, an illusory will o' the
wisp. Pragmatic truth is pragmatically a failure.
It may satisfy our practical needs, but it cannot
satisfy our need for real knowledge, which is one of
the most imperative needs of our nature. Like an
exaggerated Intellectualism, it makes man a one-
sided monstrosity, demanding to know that which
is unknowable, and striving to attain that which
must remain for ever beyond his reach. Pragma-
tism is but a humanised form of Scepticism, and
Humanism is Subjectivism attuned to pragmatic
ideas. In the end both are unworkable, because the
elements of truth that lie within them are exag-
gerated beyond all endurance. Hence Pragma-
tism to the anti-pragmatist seems ridiculous and
useless as a theory of the nature of truth. It
remains, however, to consider whether it has
provided us with anything useful in the way of
criteria of truth.
 PRAGMATIC CRITERIA OF TRUTH 589

CHAPTER XXII.

PRAGMATIC CRITERIA OF TRUTH.

§ 393- It is not a little consoling to find that
Professor James has set down, as the sixth mis-
understanding of Pragmatism, the statement that
" Pragmatism explains not what truth is, but only
how it is arrived at ; " 1 for so much beside the point
do pragmatic definitions of truth seem to me, that
I have often wondered whether the pragmatist ever
really intended to define truth atall. But although
the discussion in the last chapter thus appears not
to have been mere waste of words, there is no doubt
that the question,
c
How is truth validated ?
1
is of
supreme importance in the eyes of the pragmatist.
In fact, the nature of truth and the validation-
process are for him one and the same. Truth is
that which makes it ! But here we must consider the
pragmatist's '
definitions '
of truth as statements of
truth's criteria.
In Dr. Schiller's opinion, there is no more mo-
mentous distinction than that between a truth and
a mere claim to truth, and no distinction, he says,
which it is more difficult to get the formal logician
to recognise. Granted, then, that we start with
mere claims, how does a claim get converted into a
real truth according to the pragmatist ? By its

consequences, we are told. That is obvious : there

can be no other way, if no truths are self-evident.
1
The Meaning of Trt4h 9 p. 200.
59o THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

But what are the consequences of truth ? They

are, says the pragmatist, consequences which are
practically useful, relative to a human purpose and
in the furtherance of human life. But from the
very particularity of the truth-process it follows
that these consequences are many and varied, as
varied as the definition of truth itself. Hence if we
wish, like good pragmatists, to treat of the criteria
of truth in the concrete, we must perforce consider
these consequences one by one.
The first characteristic of truth, then, which
Pragmatism has selected as one of the most valuable
of its criteria, is that truth must make a difference to
action. Thought is purposive its function is to
;

generate belief and belief results in action. Hence

;

different beliefs should lead to different actions, in

reference to which the validity of the belief may be
judged. This is the central doctrine of the " Prag-
maticism " of Mr. Peirce, and is a corollary of his now-
famous dictum that " our conception of the practical
bearings or effects of an object constitutes the whole
of our conception of that object." 1
If this be a mere statement of the psychological
fact that ideas tend to find for themselves outward
expression, and that sooner or later and directly or
indirectly an idea will result in a modification of
action or, again, if this doctrine be applied in a
;

hortatory sense to moral and religious truths, it can

hardly be denied that truth often does, and, in the
latter case, certainly should, make a difference to
action. Moral truths must be living truths.'
'

1
cf. James, " The Pragmatic Method," Journ. of Phil., Psy. .

and Sc. Methods, 1904, p. 673 and Studies in Humanism, p, 6.

;
 PRAGMATIC CRITERIA OF TRUTH 591

They must make a difference to our lives ; and to

*
live a truth '
consists " in making it an object of
the interior life, in which one believes, by which one
is nourished, and which one carries out in practice." 1

But if the doctrine means that all truths, scientific

and theoretical as well as religious and moral, must,
if they are to be true at all, directly influence con-
duct, exceptions to the rule are far too numerous and
too striking for us to allow it any general applicability
or even to concede that it is a rule at all. What
practical difference, for instance, can it make to the
actions of the ordinary man whether the earth is

round or flat, or whether it is the sun that circum-

navigates the earth or the earth that revolves on
its own
axis while the sun is relatively stationary ?
Yet, suppose that the ordinary man, in spite of his
I
4
passivity in this respect, and even if he has not
'

the use of a laboratory or a telescope, is at liberty

to form his own opinion on this claim to truth if ' '

he chooses to do so.
One is hardly surprised, therefore, that Professor
James should have amended the phrase difference '

to action,' and interpreted it as "particular conse-

quences, in our future practical experience, whether
active or passive ; the point lying rather in the fact
that the experience must be particular than in the
fact that it must be active." 2 Truth must make a
difference to our experiences, active or passive,
practical or theoretical.

Thus, if no future detail of experience or conduct is

to be deduced from our hypothesis, the debate between
1
Le Roy, Revue MSaph. et Morale, 1901, p. 327.
2
he.cit., p. 674 and cf. The Meaning of Truth, p. 210.
;
592 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

Materialism and Theism becomes quite idle and insig-

nificant. Matter and God, in that event, mean exactly
—
the same thing the power, namely, neither more nor
less, that can make just this mixed, imperfect, yet
—
completed world and a wise man is he who, in such a
case, would turn his back on such a supererogatory
discussion. 1

If theoretical consequences are to count, the

wisdom of Professor James's
4
wise man '
may, I
think, be called in question. Nevertheless, it is
undoubtedly true that with the hypothesis of a ' '

God " the actually experienced details of fact . . .

grow warm, and altogether full of real sig-

solid,
nificance." But surely the point of such a criterion
lies in the kind of difference that it makes to our
4
lives. If practical bearings mean any particular '

experiences that may result from a hypothesis or

claim, '
practical bearings ' do not provide us with
a very useful criterion of truth for truth and error ;

alike make a difference to experience. Some further

criterion is needed, therefore, in order to distinguish
4
between different kinds of differences to ex-
perience,' and it has been suggested that only
beneficial differences should be regarded as a sign
of truth.
c

§ 394. Beneficial differences ' are in general

those which satisfy our human needs ; but
4
differ-
ences '
are to be taken as
4
differences for me and '

only those which are beneficial to me, which satisfy

my purposes and needs, are to be regarded as
44
validating claims to truth. Truth is a function
44
of agreeable leading," a function of a leading that

1
Ibid., p. 676.
 PRAGMATIC CRITERIA OF TRUTH 593

is worth while." The consequence of a true idea is

that by it we are enabled to handle reality " better
than if we disagreed." 1

Nowone way of judging whether we are better

for something that has happened to us, is to ask
ourselves whether we feel the better for it, or, in
other words, whether we are satisfied emotionally.
In The Will to Believe, Professor James assigned to
emotional grounds for belief a definite value in cases
where the intellect failed to provide a sufficient
reason for assenting to doctrines of a religious
character, and where it was imperative that some
decision should be come to. Pragmatism has taken
up this idea and made it a fundamental doctrine
applicable to all truth. Indeed, it seemed at one
time as if the claims of our passional nature were
'
'

going to drive out intellectual and logical claims

altogether and to constitute themselves the sole
pragmatic criterion of truth. The protests of
intellectualists, however, have obtained certain con-
cessions on this point. Professor James grants that
intellectual claims must be admitted as of equal
importance with those of the emotional side of our
nature and Dr. Schiller insists that truth is not
;

merely a value, but a logical value,' in the estima-

'

tion of which the intellect has, at any rate, some-

thing to say.
The question may be raised, however, whether the
satisfaction of emotional needs has any claim at all
to be regarded as a criterion of truth. Have we any
1
Pragmatism, pp. 202, 205, 213 cf. The Meaning of Truth,
;

pp. 80, 82 Humanism, Essay 1 ; and Studies in Humanism, pp. 6,

;

152, 153 187, 188.

;

MM
594 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

right to appeal to the emotions in order to settle

whether a theory is true or is not true ? Certainly
if by an appeal to the emotions is meant an appeal

to mere feeling or sentiment if it merely signifies

;

that the theory in question

is pleasant to con-

template, and stirs us up to enthusiasm, without

appealing also to our more rational nature, such a
criterion is irrational and of little value. For, after
all, it is the intellect which must judge and give the

final assent, and to subordinate it to mere feeling,

to an epi-phenomenon,' to a bye-product, as it
'

were, of a confused mass of sensations, of vague and

half-formed judgments, and of moods which largely
depend on the state of our bodily health, is clearly
to degrade it and pervert it from its natural purpose.
The emotions are peculiarly unstable ;
they vary
from moment moment, sometimes filling us with
to
exuberant hope and joy, sometimes plunging us
into despair. How, then, if our criterion itself is

variable, can it possibly help us to determine truth ?

When are we to form our judgment about

a (v.g.)

future life beyond the grave ? When we are in an

optimistic mood and such a prospect seems bright,
and full of promise, or when we are gloomy
attractive
and dejected and a future life seems impossible,
illusory, incapable of realisation
? If we choose in
a brighter moment, the promise of a future existence
will seem to hold good. But it will hold good only
so long as our mood lasts. When the mood passes,
our criterion itself has gone, and the doctrine of a
future unproved and unprovable according to
life,

the pragmatist if emotional grounds for belief are

excluded, is no longer able to satisfy us. When
 PRAGMATIC CRITERIA OF TRUTH 595

despondent or distressed we need the doctrine of a

future life in order to succour our failing energies ;

but such a doctrine is powerless to help us unless

we already believe in its truth. The mere will to
believe is of no avail
such a contingency unless
in
assent has already been given on more rational
9
grounds. The emotions and the will to believe '

may prepare the way for belief they may even ;

directly influence assent in some cases, and so lead

often enough to error ; but they cannot generate a
permanent assent to the doctrines (v.g.) of a future
life or of the existence of God, because the emotions

which we experience when contemplating such

doctrines will depend upon whether we believe in them
or not.
Again, by whose emotions and by whose needs
is a claim to truth to be judged ? Is each one to
judge for himself ? If so, we shall have contra-
dictory verdicts, for each one will declare that to be
true which seems to him to satisfy his needs. The
selfishand carnal who desire only to do as they
please and to satisfy their craving for pleasures,
regardless of consequences to anyone else, will
declare that Naturalism is valid because it gets rid
of God and so removes
cause for conscientious
all

scruple or supernatural fear. The upright man,

on the other hand, will declare for Theism, because
it promises him that some day the mystery of evil
and pain will be solved and the good will receive their
deserts. 1
An appeal to the emotions as such, then, has
1
cf. an article of mine, entitled " Truth and Toleration," in
the Irish Theological Quarterly for Jan., 19 10.
596 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

any, value as a criterion of truth for, as

little, if ;

Newman has said, the strength which the emotions

seem to give to assent is " adventitious and acci-
dental ; it may come, it may go ; it does not (or
at any rate it should not) interfere with the genuine-
ness and perfection of the act of assent." 1
§ 395. But we may interpret an appeal to the
emotions quite differently. In the emotions the
fundamental needs of our nature are expressed ;

and an appeal to them may mean that after a careful

consideration of the fundamental demands of our
nature, of its psychological structure, its functions
and its purposes, we have come to the conclusion
that unless these demands are satisfied, our nature
willbe meaningless, futile, inexplicable and if this ;

iswhat is meant, then our argument may be valid.

For now we are no longer allowing our judgment
to be determined by the emotions or by our felt
needs ; but we are rationally considering those
needs, fundamental from the
distinguishing the
accidental, separating those which are peculiar to
the individual from those which are common to
human nature in a word, judging rationally and
;

intellectually of the significance and purpose of

man.
Such an appeal as this is of quite a different
nature from that which is merely emotional and ;

the value of psychological arguments of this kind

'
'

was recognised long before any pragmatist ever

thought of taking them up. Even so thorough an
intellectualist as Mr. Bradley, though insisting
that the will and the emotions have no right to '

1
Grammar of Assent, p. 185.
 —

PRAGMATIC CRITERIA OP TRUTH 597

dictate to the intellect,' 1 " the

yet admits that
realisation of any aspect of human nature should
—
to speak in general be limited by due regard to
the whole." 2 Truth, for Mr. Bradley, is, as it
should be, primarily an affair of the intellect, and
4
the aim of metaphysics is to find a general view
which will satisfy the intellect yet he also affirms
;
'

that " truth is harmony, and harmony is attended

with an emotional accompaniment. Hence the
absence of the latter is an indication that something
3
is wrong." Intellectualists, then, are not loth to
admit that it is legitimate to base arguments on
the rational demands of our nature but this, they ;

maintain, is a very different thing from allowing

our emotions to influence beliefs, without previously
considering whether they express a fundamental
need or whether they are quasi-hysterical and
wholly irrational feelings dependent on we know
not what. Yet the pragmatist hardly seems to have
grasped this distinction, vital as it is to the right
evaluation of truth-claims.
§ 396. Emotional criteria, however, no matter
what interpretation we put upon them, are applicable
in comparatively few cases. The scientist is not
helped much by his emotions in deciding whether
he will accept or reject the principle of the Conserva-
tion of Mass nor are emotional considerations of
;

great account when it is a question of determining

the probable effects of Fiscal Reform on English
commerce, or of a rise in the value of certain stocks

1
Appearance and Reality, p. 150.
* Mind, N.S. 51, p. 321.
3
Appearance and Reality, p. 155.
598 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

upon market prices in general. Hence the prag-

matist has to look for a further test of truth, and
4
he finds it* in that other aspect of a beneficial
difference,' utility, or the value of truth as a means
of manipulating reality.

To agree with reality in the widest sense [says Professor

James], can only mean to be guided straight up to it
or its surroundings, or to be put in such working touch
with it as to handle either it or something connected
with it better than if we disagreed. 1

Now utility ordinarily means that which satisfies

some practical need as opposed to a theoretical or
moral need ; and in this sense all things are useful
more or less, for all things are, as the scholastic
puts it, et unum et bonum et verum. Chairs, tables,
walking-sticks, aeroplanes, flowers, fields, fresh air,
indeed the majority of the things which we find
around us, are useful to somebody or to something,
though they may not be useful to me. Utility,
however, cannot be taken in this ontological sense,
if it is to serve as a criterion of logical truth for ;

otherwise things themselves would be logically true.

Clearly, then, the utility which is to be our criterion
must be an experienced utility ; and hence arises
the question, utility for whom ?
This question is not easy to answer. For if you
reply utility for anybody, I must then point out first
that the earthquake in Messina and such like
catastrophes are apparently not useful to anybody ;

and, secondly, that you need some criterion by

which to tell when things are really useful to other
people, for it is you who must judge of their utility.
1 Pragmatism, pp. 212, 213.
 PRAGMATIC CRITERIA OF TRUTH 599

And if you 8
useful
reply, means useful for me, I
'

must enquire of what use it is to you that someone

should have broken a pane of glass in your con-
servatory, or that your neighbour should insist upon
playing Home, sweet Home on a badly-tuned
4
'

piano. It is useful, you tell me, to know that the

pane of glass has been broken, because you can then
have it repaired and it is useful to know that your
;

neighbour is not a musician, because then you may

try to persuade him to give up practising, or may
take up your abode elsewhere. But it may be
questioned whether these consequences are really
useful, especially in the latter case, for if your
persuasion fails to take effect, you will be put to
considerable expense. And even if the ultimate
consequences are useful, they will be useful only
provided your knowledge of the original facts was true.
For if the facts were not real but illusory, your
endeavour to escape their immediate consequences
has been so much waste of time. The utility or
uselessness of particular consequences, therefore,
does not show whether what you take to be fact
is or is not really fact. What you perceive may be
useful, and yet be fact as mutilated by your per-
ception of it ;and conversely it may be quite
useless, and yet be real fact.
But, you tell me, it is useful to regard as ob-
jectively real whatever is perceived in a particular
way (i.e., by external perception) and if what is
;

perceived in this way is in general to be regarded

as objectively real, we must not make arbitrary
exceptions. Doubtless this is true. The question
is, however, not whether we are to make arbitrary
 ;

6oo THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

exceptions, but whether we are to allow any

exceptions at all, and, if so, under what circum-
stances. If the objective reality of facts is not
self-evident, as pragmatist asserts, we need
the '

some criterion by which to decide whether a fact

that claims to be real is really real, and for this
purpose the criterion of utility is, to say the least,
inadequate. When applied to 'facts'* it breaks
'
down completely. There are innumerable facts '

observed by us every day, of which many are not

of the slightest utility to us personally, and some
are distinctly harmful and unpleasant yet we do ;

not for this reason regard them as pragmatically

false. And conversely there are many facts which
would be extremely useful to us, could we regard
them as really facts
'
' but which cannot be so
;

regarded because their claims to truth are obviously

unfounded. The pragmatic criterion of utility,
therefore, is not of the least value when it is a
question of distinguishing between facts which are
'
and facts which only claim to be real
really real'
yet this a distinction which we must make, and
is

actually do make, on innumerable occasions in the

course of a single day and, further, it is a dis-
;

tinction upon which the possibility of all higher

kinds of knowledge depends. I do not mean to
say, of course, that to be able to distinguish between
facts which are really real
'
and those which are
'

illusory, isnot something of the greatest practical

value. I willingly grant that all knowledge has a

practical value greater or less in degree and extent ;

but I maintain that in deciding upon a claim to

factual reality we never do use the criterion of
 1

PRAGMATIC CRITERIA OF TRUTH 60

utility, nor would it prove of any service to us if

we were to try so to do.

§ 397. keeping to the ordinary sense of the
Still
1
term utility that which satisfies a practical
'
(viz.,
need), we may apply it now to theory. Theory, we
'
are told, enables us to deal efficiently with reality
'
;

which may mean either that it determines our ex-

pectations rightly, or that it enables us to control the
course of events by inventions and appliances of various
descriptions in such a way as to make them subservient
to the practical needs of life. In either case the theory
is useful but can its utility be employed as a test
;

of its truth ? Is it not rather a consequence of

truth already established ? Of course, if by saying
that a theory is useful in that it determines our
expectations rightly, you merely mean that particular
consequences deduced from the theory harmonise
approximately with empirical facts, there can be no
question that utility in this sense is a criterion of
' '

truth but this is not the sense in which the term

;

utility is ordinarily used. Moreover, we need other

by which to distinguish the particular
criteria, (1)
hypothesis from which our consequences have been
deduced from the rest of the theory (2) by which ;

to decide whether that hypothesis really does lead

to these consequences (3) by which to know ;

whether these are the only consequences to which

it can lead and utility for these purposes is of
:
'
'

no avail.
It is not utility, then, in the ordinary sense of that
term, which is used by the scientist as a criterion
by which he tests the truth of his theories. Nor do
' 4
I think that the fact that truth leads to inventions
6o2 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

which can be applied to useful practical purposes,

can be of any use as a criterion of truth. Can we
regard the utility of the Forth Bridge, for instance,
as testifying; to the truth of mechanical principles ?
The existence of the Forth Bridge and the fact that
it carries the weights that it was intended to carry,
undoubtedly testifies to the truth of the principles
which guided the architect in its construction. But
this is not quite the same thing as to say that the
Forth Bridge is useful for purposes of actual transit.
The truth of the mechanical principles in question
would be verified just as well by shunting train-loads
of sand backwards and forwards from one end of the
bridge to the other, as by the actual use of the bridge
in practical life as a means of getting from Edinburgh
to Perth.
In so far, then, as a theory determines our ex-
pectations rightly,it is true but the utility of the
;
' '

theory seems to depend rather upon the possibility

of applying it to practical purposes, which is an
afterthought, as it were, and is not essential to the
truth of the theory though inasmuch as it is a
;

particular case of expectations which have been

rightly determined, it goes to confirm the theory
itself. The right determination of our expectations
again, is doubtless itself useful but it is useful
;

because it is right,' not right because it is useful.

' '
'

Hence, to call this right determination of our ex-

4 *
pectations utility is misleading for in utility
' '
;

we seem to have a new criterion of truth, whereas the

criterion of conformity of fact with expectation, to
which it is reducible, is as old as science itself.

§ 398. It is important that the point of the above

 PRAGMATIC CRITERIA OP TRUTH 603

argument should be clearly grasped, for what I have

said applies also to the next criterion which we have
to discuss. I am not trying to prove that the
pragmatist ignores the theoretic interest, which,
as Professor James remarks, would be simply '

idiotic.' What I wish to show is (1) that many of the

criteria of truth which Pragmatism offers us are as
old as truth itself, and were recognised as conse- '

quences of truth which might be used in order to

'

verify it long before Pragmatism was invented ;

and (2) that the pragmatist has no right to identify

these consequences, directly or indirectly, with the
practical utility of truth.
Now Professor James frequently insists that an idea
is a substitute for some sentient experience, and
*
'

that in order to be true it must ultimately lead to the

sense-experience for which it has been substituted.
" A conception," he says, " is reckoned true by
common-sense when can be made to lead to a
it

sensation." " Our

and concepts and scientific
ideas
theories pass for true only so far as they har-
moniously lead us back to the world of sense " 1 ;

and " such simple and fully verified leadings

are the originals and prototypes of the truth-
2
process."
Here, once again, we have a very old criterion of
truth rehabilitated in pragmatic dress. Apparently
there is nothing new about this criterion, except the
form in which it is expressed. Everyone will admit
that scientific hypotheses and theories, to be true,
must lead to conclusions which harmonise, coalesce,

1
The Meaning of Truth, pp. 132 — 136.
* Pragmatism, p. 206.
604 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

or agree with empirical facts. The only questions

are (i) What
does the pragmatist mean when he
says that truth must lead us to reality, put us in
working touch with it, and enable us to deal with
it beneficially and satisfactorily ; and (2) is this
criterion the only criterion of truth, the original or
prototype of all truth-processes ?

Now '
handling,' '
controlling,' '
manipulating,'
4
getting into working touch with '
reality or with
sensation, all suggest '
practical utility.' Hence one
is inclined to think that in using such expressions
the pragmatist is really trying to bring the old and
4
well-established criterion of verification by the
senses '
into line with his pragmatic doctrine that
truth is ultimately verified by its practical conse-
quences. And necessary again to
if this is so, it is

point out that it is by the coincidence of fact with

particular conclusions deduced from hypothesis or
theory that the latter are verified, and not by any
practically useful results that may ensue. But
perhaps the second question is the more important
one in this connection.
Is *
verification by the senses '
really the funda-
mental form of all verification ? Is there no other
criteria of which this is not the prototype ? What
about relations between ideas,' the propositions of
'

mathematics and geometry, statements about events

in the past, and the validity of deductive processes
of reasoning ? Here it is that, according to Professor
James, " indirectly or only potentially verifying
processes " yet these, although they do
1
come in ;

not lead directly to sense-termini, do so indirectly,

1
Ibid., pp. 208, 209.

Digitized by
 PRAGMATIC CRITERIA OF TRUTH 605

and hence conform to the prototype of all truth-

processes.

True ideas lead us into useful verbal and conceptual

quarters as well as up to useful sensible termini. They
lead to consistency, stability and flowing human inter-
course. They lead away from eccentricity and isolation,
from foiled and barren thinking. The untrammelled
flowing of the leading-process, its general freedom from
clash and contradiction, passes for its indirect verifica-
tion but all roads lead to Rome, and in the end, and
;

eventually, all true processes lead to the face of directly

verifying sensible experiences somewhere, which some-
body's ideas have copied. 1

Professor James admits that this is a " large

loose way " of speaking. Nevertheless it describes
more or less accurately what happens in regard to
the verification of some truths
of the conceptual
order ; apply to all ? Sometimes we
but does it

hold a proposition in mathematics or geometry to

be true, because it leads to, or follows from, other
truths already established and, again, we verify a
;

process of reasoning by examining whether it

conforms to logical rules. But how do we test our
ultimate principles, our mathematical axioms and
our logical rules ? And how do we know that our
reasoning conforms to these rules ? Intuition has
to be called in here, and Professor James does not
hesitate to invoke it. As we have seen, he admits
that sometimes truths are " perceptually obvious
at a glance " but in his anxiety to reduce all
;

truth-processes to one pragmatic prototype, he

forgets this. Yet intuition is needed as the very
foundation of conceptual truth. Relations between
'

1
Ibid., p. 215.
6o6 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

ideas ' do, indeed, lead us at times to the face of

sensible experiences ; but that process of leading is

a process of application, not of verification. The

relations themselves are true eternally, in advance
of any such special application to objects in the
concrete. Moreover, it is difficult to see how ideas
of past events can lead even indirectly to sense-
termini ; while facts, on the other hand, may be
truly as we apprehend them, yet do not lead to
immediate experience, since it is in immediate
experience that they are given. We are forced to
conclude, therefore, that the criterion of sense-
verification is neither applicable nor necessary in
every case, and so cannot be the original or prototype
of all truth-processes.
§ 399- From what has been said above, it is clear
that Professor James holds the satisfaction of
theoretical needs to be of very great importance,
even if ultimately theoretical are subordinate to
practical needs. Truth, especially when it leads
into conceptual quarters,must lead to consistency
and flowing human intercourse. New truth 44 must
derange common-sense and previous belief as little
as possible." Even "
that past time itself was, is
guaranteed by coherence with everything that's
its

present." 1
In short, the demand for consistency,
coherence, agreement between subjects and predi-
cates, accord between process and process, object
and object, is so imperative for a highly organised
44
intellect that so long as such an accord is denied us,
whatever collateral profits may seem to inure from
what we believe in, are but as dust in the balance." 1

1 2
Pragmatism, pp. 2 1 6, 2 1
5. The Meaning of Truth, pp. 98, 99.
 PRAGMATIC CRITERIA OF TRUTH 607

Dr. Schiller's views on this subject, though less

emphatically expressed, are no less clear than those
of Professor James. In spite of his vigorous
attack on the Absolutist position that consistency
or coherence is the sole test of truth, he admits that
truths must be compatible with one another, and
that a self-contradictory proposition is wholly
meaningless. 1 He points out that the getting rid of
contradictions is by no means the easiest or most
logical point from which to begin our attempt to
harmonise experience but admits that the getting
;

rid of contradictions is one aspect of the attempt

to secure greater harmony therein. 2 And there can
be no doubt, I think, that Dr. Schiller is right here.
The principle of Contradiction is both valid and
valuable but its value is chiefly negative. Con-
;

tradiction proves error, but the absence of con-

tradiction does not necessarily prove truth. Doubt-
less it is highly improbable that a complex theory
should be self-consistent, and yet be false. Still
such a contingency is conceivable. Whence it
4
follows that consistency and the absence of frus-
tration '
is, if taken by itself, inadequate as a
criterion of truth.
But the real question is, Whence arises the value
of this criterion of consistency ? Is it due to the
fact that the universe proceeds from a common
Cause or Ground which itself is one and consistent,
or is it due to human habits which are now so fixed
and constant that they will not allow themselves to
be thwarted ? Is the principle of Contradiction

1
Studies in Humanism, p. in.
* Ibid. y p. 239, and cf. The Meaning of Trttth, pp. 99, 100.
6o8 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE
4
necessary because things are so constituted that
'

they are what they are and not otherwise, and hence
force our thinking to conform to the order of nature ;

or is its necessity psychological, the result of a

human need ? We have already discussed this
question, 1 and have seen that the pragmatic view
leads to a sceptical Subjectivism. If the demand for
consistency be due merely to a mental habit, or
arise merely from a human need, the value of con-
sistency or non-contradiction as a criterion of
objective truth is destroyed. Nor does the fact
that reality has played a part in the building up of
2
this affect our conclusion, unless, in the
habit
formation of the habit, reality does not merely
control, but determines the content of thought.
But if our abstract concepts are merely man-made *

4
products or artificial mental things,' 3 which,
'

when they are consistent, lead to, or are terminated

by. sense-experiences, and so give satisfaction, our
4
real criterion of truth is not consistency,' but the
satisfaction that ensues from reactions terminated
as we wish them to be terminated, reactions which
can be most readily brought about by consistent
4
conceptual thinking. Thus the criterion of con-
sistency,' as interpreted by the pragmatist, is a
subjective criterion, for it is reducible to the satis-
faction, and apparently to the /^-satisfaction, of
our needs and this is clearly something subjective.
;

§ 400. The idea of habit as a sign of truth may,

however, be worked out on somewhat different lines.
Habit, in fact, may be taken as the sole criterion of

1
cf. supra §§ 97, 376, 387.
* cf. The Meaning of Truth, pp. 97 et seq.. * Ibid., p. 85.
 PRAGMATIC CRITERIA OF TRUTH 609

truth ; and this would seem to be the actual con-

clusion to which M. Rey's Pragmatism has led him.
M. Rey, like other pragmatists, speaks of truths
6
being verified by useful consequences,' understood,
of course, " in a most noble sense." But realising
that it takes a very long time to discover whether

a truth is really useful, and also that it is impossible

without considerable experience to determine how
far consequences which are apparently useless,
unworkable, incommode, should be allowed to
depreciate the value of an otherwise useful hy-
pothesis, M. Rey is driven to the conclusion that
only those forms of perception and thought are true
which have become habitual. Truth arises from
habits that are practically irreversible and biologi-
cally immune from change. Its '
necessity '
is not
intrinsic, but psychological. It is the necessity of
mental habits which *are the combined product of
thought-activity and objective experience, and
which in course of time have become so fixed that
nothing short of a radical disruption of the structure
of the human mind could change them. 1
This doctrine, as we have already seen, is the
logical consequence of the pragmatic or humanistic
theory that knowledge is the product of an evolu-
tionary process in which the mind progressively
adapts itself to its environment. Hence it would
seem that Pragmatism, if pushed to its logical
consequences, brings us back to that old and
venerable criterion of truth, necessity,' or the '

'
impossibility of conceiving the contrary.' But in
explaining how this '
necessity ' arises, there is a
1
cf. Humanism, pp. 52 ct seq. ; and 'Axioms as Postulates, § 10,

NN
6io THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

fundamental difference between the traditional and

the pragmatic theory. That certain ways of
perceiving and thinking have only gradually become
habitual can hardly be denied. Nor can it be denied
that felt-satisfaction arising from consistency and
abhorrence of all that is contradictory and in-
consistent also grows stronger as the intellectual
side of our nature becomes more highly developed.
It is stronger, for instance, in a scientist than in a
schoolboy, and stronger, again, in a European than
in an Oriental mind. So far both traditionalist and
pragmatist are agreed. But while the former starts
from the principle that knowledge is possible,
and hence infers that all forms of thought and
perception which are natural, normal, and habitual,
must per se be capable of giving truth, and as the
condition of this lays down that the content of
cognitive acts must be determined by their re-
spective objects ; the pragmatist, on the other
hand, starts with the assumption that ideas at —
least in part —
are man-made products which in no
case present at the outset more than a claim to truth,
but may become true, should they in the long run
lead to useful results. Hence, as ideas or modes of
cognitive reaction which lead to useful results do
become habitual, and would not become habitual
unless they did prove useful, he is logically bound to
4
accept M. Rey's criterion of the psychologically
necessary ' or '
biologically constant,' as his only
sure test of pragmatic truth. Verification in ex-
perience, as pragmatically interpreted, is ultimately
reducible to this, for verification is complete only

when adaptation is complete and habits, perceptual

 PRAGMATIC CRITERIA OF TRUTH 611

and have become so fixed that their

intellectual,
reversal is since it would
practically impossible,
involve a radical change in our mental structure.
§ Putting aside the scepticism involved in
401.
the view that cognition is only a peculiar way of

reacting upon our environment, when we attempt

to apply in practice the above criterion of truth,
we are at once confronted with a very serious
difficulty. It is easy enough to apply the test of
4
psychological necessity ' to axioms and first

principles, but it is not so easy, indeed it may be

questioned whether it is possible at all, to apply it to
theories ; and it is apply it to
certainly impossible to
any kind of truth in the making, for then our habits
of thought are ex hypothesi not fixed. Yet it is
precisely in this latter case that we most need a
criterion of truth. Apart from axioms and the
general facts of every day life, almost all truths are
in process of making and ; it is surely for these truths,
or rather for these claims to truth, that a criterion
ismost urgently needed. If, however, as seems to
be the case, psychological necessity is the only
'
'

pragmatic criterion that can give us certainty, it

follows that we have no criterion at all for truth
in the making, but must always wait until it is made.
And if in reply to this argument you tell me that in

regard to many objects habits of perception and

thought have already been formed, and that new
objects are accepted as true, or rejected as false,
according to whether they can be apperceived or not
—
by the former which is practically the criterion
suggested by Avenarius and Simmel 1 I must ask —
1
cf. Studies in Humanism, pp. 157, 158.
6l2 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE
4
in what this apperception '
can consist, if you deny
that we have any apprehension of the nature of
objects. We
can hardly apprehend the compati-
nature of which
bility or incompatibility of that the
we are ignorant. True, we may invent or postulate
a mysterious vis apperceptiva in obedience to whose
autonomous dictates relations of compatibility and
incompatibility *
stream of ex-
flower out ' of the
perience but this is not only to declare apperception
;

inexplicable, it also means that the pragmatist has

had to fall back upon an intellectualist criterion just
precisely in those cases for which his original prag-
matic criterion was introduced, viz., in cases where
truth is yet in process of making.
§ 402. A further difficulty might be raised against
the doctrine that psychological necessity arising from
habit our only criterion of truth, on the ground
is

that vary considerably with individuals.

habits
And I know not whether it is in order to avoid this
difficulty, or whether it is merely in order to supple-
ment and complete the general doctrine that truth
is relative to our needs, but certainly pragmatists

seem more and more inclined to appeal to common

consent or to the consent of experts as one of their
chief criteria of truth. This tendency is especially
characteristic of French Pragmatism. 1 M. Poincar6
insists much on the importance of social agreement,
and M. Milhaud bases truth on the harmonious
working of a collective mind. The mind, he says,
is like an instrument in which harmony is produced

by normal vibrations and when this is so, one mind

;

agrees with another and we have both truth and

1
cf. supra, §§ 319, 320,
 PRAGMATIC CRITERIA OF TRUTH 613

objectivity. Hence that assertion and that theory

is and valid which is " normal enough to be
true
accepted by every man of sound mind." 1
Dr. Schiller, on the other hand, has been accused
of making the individual criterion ultimate. Truth
is that which is good for me, that which satisfies

my needs and enables me to live in harmony with

my environment.
Consequently Mr. Hoernl£, in
criticising Dr. Schiller's view,has pointed out that
though none of us submit tamely to the opinions of
our age, but claim each of us for his own hypotheses
universal validity, a truth-finder is of necessity a
and hence our individual world must
truth-teacher,
somehow be bound up with the common world.
He suggests, therefore, as a '
universal ' criterion of
truth, the Arbcitswelt of Professor Euchen, which is
" to comprise the whole of human life in its

theoretical and practical aspects." 2

Dr. Schiller, however, though he certainly em-
phasises the personal character of truth, by no
means ignores the importance of collective criteria.
In fact, it is to social recognition that he, like Herr
Simmel and the French pragmatists, attributes the
4
objectivity '
of Truth. In Studies in Humanism*
44
for instance, he tells us that whatever individuals
may and value as true,' the truths
recognise
4 4 '

which de facto prevail and are recognised as objective

will only be a selection from those which we are
subjectively tempted to recognise." And in his
earlier work, Humanism, 1 he had already warned us

1
Etudes sur la pens/e scientifique, p. 10 ; and cf. (Poincard)
La Valeur de la Science, pp. 264-271.
2 3
Mind, N.S. 56, p. 476. p. 153. *
p. 58.
614 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

that " truth, to be really safe, must be more than

an individual valuation ; it has to win social
recognition, to transform itself into common
—
property " a doctrine which is completely in
harmony with his general position that truth and
reality (as we know it) are the product of the
combined activity of the human race in reaction
upon its environment.
But, however useful a collective criterion of truth
may be as a check upon individual vagaries, it
cannot be ultimate and Dr. Schiller is undoubtedly
;

right in regarding truth as in this sense a personal

matter. If valued by our needs, it must
truth is

be in the by our own needs. My needs

last resort
may in general be the same as those of the rest of
mankind, and what satisfies these common needs
will be pro tanto more true. But, after all, truths
are truths for mc and it is / who have to judge in
y

the last instance whether other people's needs are

satisfied, as they seem to be. Everyone recognises
that expert opinion is credible provided it agree, for
experts are supposed to know all the facts of the
case,and to understand how far their theories apply
and what relation they bear to other theories and
accepted truths. The opinion of the expert, there-
fore, under such circumstances, has clearly a special
value such as that of an amateur can never possess.
Still, at best, the agreement of experts is only a

subordinate criterion, for it presupposes belief in

the capacity and trustworthiness of witnesses, to
test which another criterion is needed.
§ 403. Thus we are driven back upon individual
criteria. Neither a consensus of opinion among
 PRAGMATIC CRITERIA 01' TRUTH 615

experts nor the common consent of mankind at

large can be our ultimate criterion of truth, and
for that matter at most they give us only moral
certitude. Habit or psychological necessity is also
inadequate, since, like the social criterion, it will
apply to but few cases. It is seldom, if ever, that a
mental act is due solely to habit. Objective ex-
perience, or the nature of the objects about which
we almost always a conditioning factor
think, is

in any judgment we may make. Nor will the other

criteria suggested by the pragmatist be found to
4 4
work any better. Difference to action,' difference
4
to experience,' and utility,' all take into account
4
objective conditions but difference to action and
;
'

4
utility are too narrow, while
' difference to '

experience is too wide to be of any practical use.

'

Where, then, are we to look for a suitable working

criterion whereby to test the validity of claims to
truth made by our minds both at the common-sense
and at the higher scientific or philosophic level of
intelligence
? Either, it would seem, we must fall
back upon that time-honoured criterion, 'evidence,'
or we must adopt what seems to be very like
its emotional counterpart, '
satisfaction.'
Both Professor James and Dr. Schiller have
chosen the latter alternative. Having pointed out
that " emotion accompanies actual cognition as a
shadow does light," but with effects not always
salutary, Dr. Schiller, nevertheless, affirms that
44
a feeling of satisfaction did not occur in cognitive
if

processes the attainment of truth would not be felt

4
to have value." 1
Without it, logical necessity,'
1
Studies in Humanism, pp. 82 — 84.
6i6 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE
4
'
cogency,' insight,' and '
certainty '
are meaning-
less words. We judge reasoning to be pro tanto good,
results right, operations valid, conceptions and
predications true, when the results or consequences of
our experiments are satisfactory. 1 Consistency tends
to the same end. It is but the reacting of one
14
portion of our beliefs on another so as to yield the
2
most satisfactory total state of mind." Similarly
" truth in science is what gives us the maximum
possible sum of satisfactions," in which taste is
44
included, but of which consistency is the most
3 In though be
imperious claimant." fine, to
4
satisfactory '
is a term that admits of no definition,
so many are the ways in which it can be practically
worked out, 4

yet at each and every concrete moment, truth for each

man is what that man troweth at the moment with
4

'

the maximum of satisfaction to himself and similarly, ;

abstract truth, truth verified by the long-run, and

abstract satisfactoriness, long-run satisfactoriness,
coincide. If, in short, we compare concrete with
concrete and abstract with abstract, the true and the
satisfactory do mean the same thing. 5

4
The vagueness and ambiguity of satisfaction,'
or a
4
sum of satisfactions,' as a criterion of truth,
needs little comment. Satisfaction not only varies
in quality, tone, and intensity with the individual,
but also with the particular truth-claim in question.
Satisfactions, like pleasures, can neither be defined
nor measured, except by a multitude of standards
l ibid., p. 185.
2
The Meaning of Truth, p. 88.
3
Pragmatism, p. 217.
* The Meaning of Truth, p. 10 1. 5 Ibid., p. 89.
 PRAGMATIC CRITERIA OF TRUTH 6i7

which do not admit of comparison and cannot be

tabulated or scaled. One man prefers one kind of
satisfaction, another another, according to his
temperament, education, general mode of life. With
Professor James the satisfactions arising from con-
sistency seem to prevail with Dr. Schiller those ;

which are due to the fulfilment of purpose and the

furtherance of interest with others those which
;

arise from utility or expediency in a less noble sense.

So long, then, as the pragmatist is unable to tell
us what satisfactoriness is, we can hardly discuss
further its value as a criterion of truth. It has
occurred to me more than once, however, that
satisfactoriness may be nothing more than the
emotional accompaniment of what Newman would
call a judgment of the Illative Sense, what I should
call
4
evidence.' 1 And if this is so, the only fault I
have to find with the pragmatist in this respect is
that he has selected the more variable, and therefore
the less valuable, aspect of what acknowledge we all

must be the final admits that

test of truth. He
truth is a property of an idea,' yet he has chosen as
'

his criterion its emotional accompaniment. He

allows that *
the making of truth must be con- '

trolled by reality and that consequences are in part

determined by reality ; but instead of simply stating
that truth happens ' '
or is recognised, when it is
4
evident '
that reality has controlled and determined
thought, he bases his valuation of truth on the
affective tone of this evidence, which is distinctly
subjective. emotional accompaniment of
Did this
the apprehension of truth run parallel with, or were
1
cf. infra, §§418 ct scq.
6i8 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

it exactly proportionate to, the evidence upon

which judgment is based, it would not perhaps
matter much whether we took satisfactoriness or
evidence itself as our criterion. But since satis-
faction depends largely upon volition, and upon
purpose, interest, and general tone of body and mind,
it matters a great deal for it makes our criterion,
;

so far as we can tell, in any concrete case, subjective

to an almost indefinite extent, and so destroys almost
entirely its value as a criterion. Truth must satisfy
us, and it will do so in the long run if it is evident ;

but a feeling of satisfaction may arise from other

causes besides objective evidence, and when this is
the case, it cannot but lead us astray if we use it as
a criterion of truth.
§ 404. The pragmatist's view of truth's criteria,
therefore, is, like his doctrine of the nature of truth,
more than tinged with Subjectivism a consequence —
which is due partly to Humanism and Protagorean
principles, which exaggerate the subjective element
in cognition and ascribe to purposes, interests and
needs an all-pervading and all-permeating influence ;

partly to disgust with Intuitionism, which has led to

the opposite extreme, to the belief that no value
can be intuitively recognised and that the ex-
perienced consequences of truth must therefore
be evaluated by their subjective emotional effects ;

'
but chiefly, I think, to the substitution of utility '

for correspondence in the definition of the relation

* '

of truth to reality. If truth can in no intelligible

4
sense be said to copy,' correspond with/ or'

'
represent reality, what other relation can it have
'

to reality except that of leading to useful results ?

 PRAGMATIC CRITERIA OF TRUTH 619

And if these results are never experienced as they

are objectively, but only as modified by purpose,
why should they not be judged by the total state
of satisfaction or dissatisfaction to which they
give rise ? The whole question turns upon one
point Is the true subordinate to the useful and the
:

good ? Does the seeker after truth merely aim at

satisfying a purpose and gratifying a need ? Does
science exist merely that it may be used to har-

monise our experience ? Is the whole function and

motive of all theoretical constructions from the
highest to the most elementary and simple, directed
in the end to the furtherance of human control over
reality, and the transformation of it to suit our
human needs ? If it is, the criteria of truth that
Pragmatism has offered us are probably the best we
can get. But if it is not, utility and satisfactoriness
are certainly inadequate and of very little value for
either practical or theoretical purposes wherever the
question of truth comes in. As a last example of
this, and at the same time as an illustration of our
1
main contention that utility presupposes truth
'

already established, we may instance the variety of

opinions that exist in regard to practical matters
where knowledge is wanting. What precisely is the
effect of exercise on the body and particularly on
the brain ? We
do not know, and hence eminent
doctors will give contradictory advice and will even
go to the length of writing articles, some recom-
mending more, some less exercise, on the sole ground
of utility. Again, in regard to food (than which
no question could be more practical) the advice of
experts is contradictory. Some recommend ample
620 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

food, others a minimum. „ Some forbid animal food,

others advise it. Some say alcohol is injurious,
others that it is beneficial. Most advise regular
food but some say eat when you like and more or
;

less what you like, while one authority on the

subject of vitality has recently published a large
' '

volume in which he advises a perpetual fast 1 !

Then, too, in educational matters, the utility of

compulsory Greek has for a long time been a
burning question. Nay more, in respect of ele-
mentary education, if we may judge by the Report
of the Poor Law Commissioners, the experience of
half a century seems likely to be reversed, since they
tell us that the studies and the methods at present

in vogue are not of a kind likely to be useful to the

children in after life. And why all this contra-
diction in practical matters ? It is due to the fact
that, lacking knowledge, we are forced to base our
judgments upon the utility of consequences, and
about the utility of consequences it is impossible
to secure agreement even among experts. Unless,
then, truth be utility and nothing more, it is
irrational to use utility as our criterion of truth ;

for judgments about value or utility are almost as

variable as judgments in regard to beauty or taste,
especially when they are not based on recognised
truth, but have to rely solely on experience.

1 " Vitality, Fasting and Nutrition," by Hereward Carrington,

cf. Review in Nature, for Nov. 1908, p. 68.
 —

CRITERIA OF ERROR IN REALISM

CHAPTER XXIII.

CRITERIA OF ERROR IN REALISM.

§ 405. A realist, whether he explain human
knowledge by means of a causal interaction between
object and subject or not, must at least admit that
somehow or other the object determines the content
of thought,and that between percepts, concepts and
judgments on the one hand, and real entities on the
other, there is a correspondence or resemblance.
So vital is this idea of correspondence to the theory
of knowledge and truth that neither the absolutist
nor the pragmatist is able quite to get rid of it.
Kant, though rejecting correspondence in the
realist's sense, retains it in another form. In the
Critique of Pure Reason the syntheses of the imagi-
nation anticipate and correspond to those of
conception. The structure of the rational mind,
which is so minutely analysed by Kant, also
corresponds to a type and it is precisely because
;

of this correspondence and its universality that

4
objective knowledge is possible. This idea of
'

truth as conformity with a type or ideal is further

developed by the Critical and Neo-Critical writers
of to-day. In their view, Reality is a systematic
whole, a coherent organised unity, constituted by
the experience of the Absolute and this Reality,
;

considered as significant and intelligible, is Truth

what the scholastic would call Ontological Truth.
Ontological Truth, or Reality considered as intelli-
622 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

gible, is the foundation of Logical Truth. Logical

truth consists, therefore, in the conformity of the
individual and finite mind with Reality itself ; for
44
it is essential to Truth to manifest itself in the
thinking of finite subjects." And precisely in pro-
portion as this Ideal or Absolute Truth is realised
in us, we possess knowledge or logical truth. Indeed,
Dr. Joachim acknowledges that we can never rise
above the level of knowledge which at the best
attains to the truth of correspondence, since all
human knowledge must ever remain
discursive
thought about another. 1 The pragmatist, too,
admits, as we have seen, at least provisionally, that
4
truth consists in agreement with reality.' So that
the correspondence-notion has, at any rate, an
excellent claim to our attention, since it would
appear that after all there must be some kind of
correspondence between the mind of the knower
and the object which he knows.
§ 406. Assuming, then, with the realist, that
truth consists in an adcequatio intellectus et rei, and
that this adcequatio or correspondence is due to the
determination of the content of thought by the
object, in order to ascertain the validity of any
particular claim to truth, we need criteria by which
to decide whether this correspondence exists, i.e.,
whether our thoughts have been objectively deter-
mined or not. This does not mean that per impos-
sible we must be able to compare our thoughts and
our percepts with real things as with something
outside of thought and perception, since clearly it
is only by means of thoughts and percepts' that

1 Nature of Truth, p. 73.

 CRITERIA OF ERROR IN REALISM 623

things are known. The only comparison possible

comparison between things as thought and
for us is a
as perceived. The realist asks for no miraculous '

second-sight by means of which to detect the

'

agreement or disagreement of copy and original, of

idea and reality. 1 Truth is correspondence of
thought and reality, but this correspondence can
be established without comparison, provided we can
answer the question When has thought been
:
4

'
determined by the object and when has it not ?
Now there are two ways of attacking this
§ 407.
problem.We may start from methodical doubt, or
we may start from what I may call, perhaps,
methodical and rational assurance. Granting that
the function of thought is knowledge of
to give us
reality, we may begin by assuming that our thoughts
as a rule go wrong, in which case we shall require
criteria of truth by which to decide when they have
not gone wrong. Or we may begin by assuming, not
that perception and thought are psychological
monstrosities, but that, in general, they perform
well the function they are obviously intended by
nature to perform in which case we shall need,
;

primarily, not criteria of truth, but criteria of error

by which to determine when per accidens a function
has gone wrong. This difference of standpoint is
no mere verbal question such as whether we are to
cut off a slice and keep the apple or to cut off
the apple and throw away the slice it is ;

one of the utmost consequence in making up our

1
cf Wallace, Hegel* s Philosophy of Mind ; and
. Humanism, pp.
45, 46. This objection is simply absurd, since it totally mis-
represents the realist's- doctrine.
624 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

minds in regard to the epistemological value of

human cognition. If we begin by doubting every-
thing and affirm that no proposition has more than
a claim to truth until it is validated, we can never
get at truth at all, for ex hypothesi our criteria of
truth themselves have only a claim to truth, and
so has the validation-process and so, also, for that
;

matter, has our original statement that no propo-

sition has more than a claim to truth until it is
validated. Scepticism is just as much the inevitable
outcome of a doctrine which begins by asserting
that no truth is more than a claim till its validity
has been tested, as it is of the doctrine which makes
truth an absolute and impossible ideal. On the
other hand, if we begin by assuming what in reality —
is not an assumption at all, but a self-evident

—
truth that ordinarily and per se perception, con-
ception and judgment, when functioning normally,
are capable of giving us knowledge, then we have
something positive and definite with which to start,
and can proceed to establish criteria by means of
which to eliminate abnormal functionings which
are likely to lead to error.
§ 408. The latter standpoint is that of the
realist. The first principle of his theory of know-
ledge is that knowledge is possible, and that his
cognitive faculties are capable of attaining to truth,
which is the purpose and end of their existence.
His aim, then, as a logician, is not to devise criteria
of truth, but rather criteria of error. Error is a
fact but it is not a sufficient reason for us to distrust
;

altogether the deliverances of our faculties. For,

being a fact, it must have a cause, and we may be
 CRITERIA OF ERROR IN REALISM 625

able to discover this cause and so to eliminate error

by distinguishing from the rest those circumstances
in which the deliverances of our faculties are not
to be trusted.
We have said that truth consists in conformity
between the content of thought and the nature of
the object or system of objects to which it is referred.
And conversely error consists in a positive discon-
formity between the two. In other words, truth is
the reference of the content of thought to an object
to which it corresponds while error is the reference
;

of the content of thought to an object to which it

does not correspond. Now the correspondence in
which truth consists arises when the content of
thought has been determined by the object to which
it is referred. Error, on the other hand, since it
consists in positive disconformity, implies that
thought has been determined by something other
than the object to which it is referred. In order to
decide, therefore, under what circumstances the
deliverances of our cognitive faculties are not to be
trusted, we must know what other causes may
determine the content of thought besides the object
to which it is referred.
There are several causes which may determine the
content of thought. It may be determined (1) by
the object of sense-perception through the mediation
of the phantasm ; (2) by habit or association of
ideas, and (3) by the constructive activity of
thought guided by some purpose which it
itself

seeks to realise. And each of these determining

causes may per accidens, and under certain circum-
stances, lead to error. Error, however, will not
00
626 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

occur until a false objective reference has been

made, for in abstraction from objective reference
neither sense-impressions nor ideas are either true
or false. Hence the causes of error which we are
about to consider are material rather than formal
causes they account for the disconformity between
;

thought and thing, not for the false objective

reference, which, as we shall see, is due to quite
another cause.
§ 409. All that the senses give us as such (i.e.,
abstracting from any intellectual function that may
co-operate in human sense-perception) are the
external appearances of things and appearances
;

cannot, in themselves, be false, though they may

be misleading which is, I take it, what we mean
;

when we speak of
4
false appearances.' Now '
false
'

appearances may be due either to objective or to

subjective conditions. The bent appearance of a
straight stick when it is partly in and partly out
of water is an instance of the first, for the optical
illusion in this case is due to the refraction of the
rays of light which have to pass through the water
in order to affect the eye of the observer. Again,
the Muller-Lyer illusion is due to objective con-
ditions. A straight line appears shorter if it is
terminated by arrow-heads which are turned inwards,
and longer if the arrow-heads are turned outwards ;

the reason being that in the first case the motion of

the eye by which the length of the line is estimated,
is checked, and in the second case increased, by the

arrow-heads. The false appearance in both these

' '

examples is due to the determination of the sense-

impression by something else besides the object
 CRITERIA OF ERROR IN REALISM 627

upon which attention is focussed. It is not merely

the stick and the straight line which determine the
4
form which the percept takes, but the stick and
'

the straight line in certain circumstances. Neither

case, however, is strictly normal, for ordinarily we
do not perceive things through water, nor do
we require to judge by the senses, alone and unaided,
of the length of lines in more or less complicated
figures. And though in neither case can we get
rid of the optical illusion, it need not lead to false
judgment, provided we take account of the circum-
stances. For in both cases the tendency to error
can be counteracted, in the first by handling and
in the second by measurement. Nevertheless, the
examples given may serve to establish two useful
criteria in regard to sense-perception. First, we
must be careful to take account of the circumstances
under which perception takes place, and, if abnormal,
must experiment in order to discover whether the
special circumstances make any difference to what
we perceive. And, secondly,
accuracy as to detail
if

is required, we must make use of instruments which

place the senses in conditions in which they are

known to be reliable.
§ 410. False appearances are sometimes due to
subjective conditions, to the inaccuracy of the
senses or to their abnormal state. The sense-
impression does not always correspond exactly with
the objective stimulus. For instance, a straight
edge of paper may, as has already been pointed out,
be perceived as bent if applied to a line of nerve-
terminals which itself is bent. And though the
circumstances in this case, being those of a psycho-
 ;

628 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

logical experiment, are clearly abnormal, in no case

can the senses be relied on for more than a certain
degree of accuracy. In respect of accuracy, how-
ever, the senses vary considerably, so that the
inaccuracies one sense acting under certain
of
conditions may
be counteracted by employing the
same or another sense under different conditions,
or again, and more especially, by the use of
instruments.
Other errors, v.g., illusions and hallucinations,
may be due to the abnormal conditions of the senses
or of the brain. Giddiness may cause an apparent
motion of the room in which one stands paralysis ;

in one of the muscles of the eye may cause the

stone-mason to strike his hand instead of his chisel
while abnormal sensibility in any organ may lead,
not only to exaggerated perception, but to the
perception of what is not real at all, but merely
subjective. It is clear, then, that the senses are
trustworthy only so long as they are in their normal
condition otherwise they are likely to lead us
;

astray.
The
§ 411.
*
relativity ' of sensation seems to
present a more serious difficulty. But this is not
really so ; for in all cases the illusion due to the
relativity of sensation may be counteracted by
varying its circumstances or its antecedents. If
we want to judge of colour accurately, we must
judge of it and with various back-
in various lights
grounds ;
though we do not need
in ordinary life
this exceptional accuracy, for colour is only one
among many qualities by means of which we
distinguish objects. Moreover, contrast seldom
 '

CRITERIA OF ERROR IN REALISM 629

effects a total change in the colour of an object, and

since it is by differences of colour for the most part
that we distinguish objects, and since differences are
not toned down but exaggerated by contrast, it is
probable that the latter assists rather than hinders
4 '
the true perception of real things. The relativity
of sensation is also quantitative. Two objects of
the same weight but of different size are perceived
as of different weight if one is lifted immediately
after the other. But here, again, if we want accuracy
we do not trust the unaided senses, but have recourse
to instruments. Fechner's law, perhaps, might be
cited as an instance of quantitative illusions due to
relativity but to me it seems that to perceive
;

differences proportionately is a more accurate way

of perceiving them than to perceive them by
addition and subtraction.
>. One more illusion illustrating a relativity of a
different kind. When seated in a railway train the
fields and hedgerows seem to rush past us as we
proceed whereas, in reality, they are motionless.
;

The cause of this illusion is that when we are uncon-

scious of our own motion, movement, if any, appears
4
to belong to the object. The alleged apparent
motion of the sun round the earth is due to a
similar cause, though here there does not seem to
be an illusion strictly so called. For we do not
perceive an actual motion in the sun all we perceive ;

is that its position relative to our point of observa-

tion changes from hour to hour. There is no

4
false 'appearance but the error of the older
;

astronomers was due to a gratuitous assumption

leading to a false inference. Illusions due to the
630 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

relativity of motion, however, rarely lead to error,

and need never occur provided we are careful to
ascertain whether the object or system of objects
relative to which another object is said to move,
is itself really stationary.
Ordinarily, then, appearances are to be trusted ;

but (1) we must exclude those cases in which the

condition of the senses is abnormal (2) when the ;

circumstances are abnormal we must ascertain

whether they make any difference to the percept ;

and (3) if accuracy is required, we must employ

objective methods of measurement which place the
senses in such circumstances that they are reliable
even in regard to details.
§ 412. Habit also determines the content of
thought and again per se it is not a cause of error.
;

For a habit is but a tendency to repeat an act

already elicited, and assuming that the previous act
corresponded with its object, so also will its repeti-
tion. Habit, however, depends largely upon physio-
logical conditions, particularly upon cerebral con-
nections and the same set of neurones may
;

function on many different occasions not only in

the experiencing of fact, but also in reading and
conversation. Hence the course which the nervous
impulse takes when free from intellectual control is
somewhat haphazard, so to speak, and thus arise
dreams and the play of fancy. It is clear, however,
that neither dreams nor the play of fancy lead to
error under normal conditions for, although both
;

have false appearance of objectivity, there is,

' '

strictly speaking, no objective reference. Hallucina-

4
tions and fixed ' ideas, too, are clearly due to
 CRITERIA OF ERROR IN REALISM

abnormal and pathological conditions, and, if

continued, lead madness. With

eventually to
these cases, therefore, we are not concerned but ;

there are two cognitive processes in which habit is

operative, both of which are of considerable im-
portance from our point of view. I refer to memory
and to the subsumption of particular cases under
general ideas and laws.
In memory we definitely set ourselves to recall
some past event, something which we have seen,
or heard, or read ; so that the cerebral processes
which in part at least condition memory are not
free to function according to the law of least re-
sistance, but are subject to intellectual control. In
what this control consists we do not know, for in
spite of much modern research on the subject
memory is still a mystery. Nevertheless, it is clear
that the course which the nervous impulse takes is

controlled in memory, and that consequencein

ideas tend to revive in the order in which they
occurred on the occasion which we are trying to
recall. To me, indeed, this seems to imply not
merely intellectual control, but an intellectual
memory, the activity of which is conditioned
physiologically, but as a habit is independent. At
any rate, this would account for the fact that the
intellect accepts or rejects ideas suggested by
physiological associations according as the events
we are trying to remember do or do not seem to us
to be therein correctly recalled —a fact which is not
fully accounted by internal consistency or
for
inconsistency in what we remember. In any case,
we do remember, and in so far as we have certain
632 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

remembrance, our memory is ordinarily trust-

worthy, and if we wish for greater certainty we may
appeal to written records and other objective criteria.
§ 413. The functioning of habit in perception
occurs both at the sensory and at the intellectual
level. The integration of the percept itself is due
partly to habit, and the subsumption of the percept
under a general idea or category is also due partly
to habit. In both cases, however, the functioning
of habit is controlled by objective conditions, and
as the habit has been built up by previous
itself
perceptual and conceptual activities, themselves
objectively determined, the correspondence of
percept and concept is not destroyed, but rather
facilitated and made more accurate. Thus, the
perception of distance and of the third dimension is
largely due to habit but, though in the perception
;

of long distances error may occur, and illusions of

'
reversible perspective '
are familiar to the experi-
mental psychologist, here as before the senses are
reliable except in special circumstances, and here
may be easily remedied.
as before their deficiencies
Similarly in regard to subsumption. A few char-
acteristics suffice whereby to recognise an object and
to cause a certain concept to function in the mind.
A few strokes of the pen are sufficient to suggest a
soldier, a wheel-barrow, a bird, or any of the
common objects with which we are familiar. And
in the same way real objects are instantaneously
subsumed, and usually correctly subsumed, under a
general idea by force of habit, and without any
careful examination of their characteristics. But
sometimes the idea suggested by habitual association
 Criteria of error in realism 633

may be wrong, and the predicates which are con-

tained within that idea may turn out to be in-
compatible with this particular concrete instance,
as in the case of Madame Tussaud's policeman who
is found to be not a policeman at all, but a wax

figure incapable of movement. Seldom, however,

when formal and deliberate assent accompanies
subsumption, does error occur for unless the object
;

is and the subsumption obvious, we hesitate,

familiar
and only subsume after a more or less careful
examination of the characteristics of the object in
question. In most cases certainty is possible if we
require it and if we do not require it, we are
;

content with probability, and so do not give a full

and complete assent.
The influence of one's point of view and of
' '

expectancy in perception *and subsumption are

particular cases of the influence of habit. The plain
man and the artist admire the sturdy grandeur of a
venerable oak ; the botanist examines its peculiar
structure and estimates its age the builder laconi-
;

cally remarks that it is a fine piece of timber and

would cut into a number of valuable planks. Each
has considered the oak from a different point of
view, yet neither has been thereby led to make a
false judgment. Again, expectancy is seldom the
cause oferror. It may lead to a momentary
illusion, but this is usually corrected spontaneously
and immediately. Only in abnormal cases does
expectancy lead to a false judgment, as in patho-
logical cases, and in pre-perception, where the con-
ditions are those placed by the experimental
psychologist.
 —

634 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

§ 414. Habit, then, though it is more or less

concerned in almost all cognitive activity, seldom,
if ever, leads to error, provided due care is exercised

in any particular case, whether it be one of memory,

of perception, or of subsumption under general
ideas. There remains, then, what I have called
for want of a better name, which should be equally
—
comprehensive the constructive activity of thought.
Under this head I include any kind of purposive
enquiry, inference and postulation, since all these
cognitive processes may
be regarded as constructive.
That purpose functions in almost all cognition can
hardly be questioned but since, as I have already
;

shown in a previous chapter, 1 purposes do not affect

the content of thought, but only its intent, i.e., the
questions which we ask, the influence of purpose is
not ordinarily, nor need it ever be, a cause of error.
That de facto purpose does sometimes lead to error,
I grant and as to why it does so I shall have
;

something to say in a moment but it is not because ;

4
facts are selected '
and accepted according to
' '

our purposes, even though selection is immensely '

arbitrary,' and many facts are allowed to drop out '

and so to become unreal.' All who wish to explain

or to theorise choose those facts which are relevant
to the purpose in hand but an honest enquirer will;

4
accept indifferently facts which confirm, and
'

facts which militate against, the hypothesis which

is to be proved while only those which are
;

irrelevant will be neglected. Why purpose should be

supposed to make or to distort fact I cannot
' ' '
'

understand. It makes us generally alert and

1
cf. supra, § 47.
 CRITERIA OE ERROR IN REALISM 635

observant it determines the relevance of fact

; ;

4
it causes us to accept certain facts and neglect
'

others, and to consider those we do accept in

relation to our hypothesis and to neglect other
relations and significances which the same facts may
have, but which are irrelevant. In short, it deter-
4 9
mines what Professor Stout has called the intent
of thought. But the accepted facts are facts for all
that and their content is not affected by our choice
;

of them in preference to others. 1

Almost all the difficulties which the pragmatist
4 4
finds in the and coerciveness of fact
rigidity '
'

arise from a confusion between content and intent.

Take, for instance, the following dilemma in which
Dr. Schiller sums up his arguments against the
realist's position on this point :

If our choice, selection, and conge d'ilire does not affect

the rigidity of fact, it is an illusion which ought not
even to seem to exist, and we certainly have no right
to talk about it if, on
: the other hand, there really
1

is selection,' will it not stultify the assumption of a

rigid fact, introduce a possible arbitrary manipulation,
and lead to alternative constructions of reality ? 2

In reply to the first horn of this dilemma, we may

grant that the conge d'elire exists and is no illusion,
but really determines the intent of thought, i.e., it
settleswhat facts are to be admitted as relevant :

but in reply to the second horn of the dilemma, we

must deny that the rigidity of fact is stultified by
our selection, since its content and nature is not
affected. Nor can we admit that selection intro-
cf. Professor Stout's excellent essay on
1
Error in Personal
' '

Idealism, with which I find myself almost wholly in agreement.

1
Studies in Humanism, p. 185.
636 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

duces arbitrary manipulations, since it is the facts

themselves which must determine our manipulation
of them if we are seeking truth or that it necessarily
;

leads to alternative constructions, since alternative

constructions imply ignorance or neglect of relevant
facts, and this is precisely what selection is intended
to avoid.
§ 415. There seems to be no reason, then, why
purposive selection or any other kind of purposive
activity should lead to error. On the contrary,
since, like habit, it facilitates both perception and
conception by defining the point at issue and
excluding irrelevant matter, it seems to tend rather
the other way and to be, in fact, a function of the
greatest service in the acquisition of truth. No
intellectual function of itself can lead us astray.
Abstraction is trustworthy, for in it we consider

entities, which, though they do not exist as such

a parte rei, nevertheless exist as aspects of reality,
and by reality indirectly through the phantasm the
intellect is determined to act. Abstraction is not
falsification, unless we assume with the Hegelian
that all aspects of reality intrinsically modify one
another, or with
pragmatist that selection
the
implies transformation both of which assumptions
:

are wholly gratuitous and unwarranted, and lead

inevitably to Scepticism. Judgment, too, is trust-
worthy. For, if a posteriori and contingent, the
conjunction of subject and predicate in a certain
relation is directly determined by facts and, if ;

necessary, the predicated relation is implied in the

abstract entities the nature of which the intellect
has apprehended. In like manner, inference is
 CRITERIA OF ERROR IN REALISM

trustworthy, for we apprehend explicitly what is

already contained implicitly in the premisses, as

when by means of the syllogism we apply a
general law to a particular concrete case. We
have no reason, then, for distrusting the results
of our intellectual operations, which per se are
reliable provided and in so far as they claim our
assent.
But intellectual operations do not always claim
an unconditional assent. Not infrequently judg-
ment and inference is tentative, hesitating, doubtful.
We are not sure that we have apprehended things
correctly or that the conclusions we are inclined to
draw are really contained in the premisses. This is

the case not only in regard to inferences based on a

complexus of hypotheses or principles, all inter-
related and inter-dependent but it is true also of
;

those immediate judgments in which we apprehend

a relation as holding universally and necessarily
between subject and predicate. On this point
Aquinas remarks that the recognition of the truth
of principles varies according to the intellectual
capacity of each individual. 1 Sometimes our im-
mediate judgments and our inferences are certain,
as when the entities or laws with which we are
dealing are comparatively simple but sometimes ;

they are doubtful and present only a claim to truth

which requires verification. Now a doubtful judg-
ment, a doubtful inference, or a mere postulate is
not an error, since, in so far as it is doubtful, it is not
accompanied by assent. The activity of thought,
therefore, even when inferential and constructive, is
1
Summa Theologica, 2. 2, q. 5, a. 4, ad 3.
63 8 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

not per se a cause of error, though it may be so

per accidens, as I shall now proceed to explain.
§ 416. When the pragmatist asserts that the
function of the will and of the emotions is of the
greatest importance in cognition, he is perfectly
correct. Not only is almost all cognition governed
by purposes which we strive to realise but the will ;

may also directly affect assent, provided we have

that to which assent may be given.

A rational act [says Aquinas] can be considered in

two ways first in reference to the exercise of the act ;
;

and regarded from this aspect a rational act is always

under the imperium of the will and, secondly, in
;

reference to the object, in respect of which there are two

rational acts to be considered. The first is the appre-
hension of the truth about anything and in this the ;

intellect is not under our control. For it takes place

by virtue of some natural or supernatural light. Hence
in this respect the intellect is not under our control,
nor is it under the imperium of the will. There is
another rational act, however, in which the intellect
assents to what it apprehends. If, therefore, what is
apprehended is such that the intellect naturally assents
to it (as in the case of first principles) such assent or
dissent is not under our control, but pertains to the
order of nature, and so, properly speaking, is subject
to the imperium of nature. There are, however,
certain things which we apprehend, which do not compel
the intellect to assent or to dissent, or, at any rate, do
not prevent it from withholding assent or dissent for
some reason and in such cases assent or dissent is
;

under our control, and is subject to the imperium of

the will. 1

our power, therefore, not only to think or

It lies in
not to think, but also to give or to withhold our
1
Summa Thcologica f 1. 2, q. 17, a, C\
 CRITERIA OF ERROR IX REALISM <>39

assent in a doubtful case, i.e., in a case where the

evidence ex parte objecti is insufficient to establish

more than a claim to truth and if assent is given
;

in such a case error is the probable, though not the

necessary, result.
§ 417. There are various ways in which the will
may influence assent. We may be unwilling to
take the trouble to examine facts carefully or to
think a difficult problem out. We may be in too
great a hurry to pay due attention to the observation
of facts and their circumstances, or too impatient in
our desire to arrive at a solution to consider carefully
the pros and cons. Or, again, we may be anxious to
prove that we are right and somebody else is in the
wrong. Many, indeed, and varied are the motives
which may impel us to give a premature assent or
dissent to a matter that has only been half thought
out. Errors due to inadvertence and carelessness,
to a kind of mental inertia, are the most common
of all. Facts, inferences and
postulates, though
'
recognised as doubtful at tend to become true
first, '

by force of habit, if we do not examine and reject

their claims. For what is constantly before the mind
and yet is never examined comes to be regarded as
part of the body of truths which have already been
established and validated. Errors due to the
emotions and to the will to believe are also not
' '

uncommon, especially in cases where personal

judgments are concerned, and where in consequence
there is more scope for emotional likes and dislikes.
We are inclined to believe what is derogatory to the
character of an enemy and to disbelieve what is

derogatory to the character of a friend. Again, if

640 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

the object of our affection or dislike is a class or an

institution, it easy to generalise what we have

is

found to the credit or to the discredit of one or two

individuals, and to extend it to the whole. More-
over, errors due to the influence of these and other
emotions tend to accumulate and so to form a
system of erroneous beliefs which hang together
and mutually support one another, and which,
acting as bias or prejudice, prevent the apperception
of what has in reality a valid claim to our assent.
There can be no question but that there are systems
of error as well as systems of truth and systems of
;

for though
error are peculiarly difficult to get rid of ;

they must inevitably lead to contradiction some-

where, either internally or with facts, the emotions
backed up by the system itself may be sufficiently
powerful to cause us to slur over the contra-
diction, or, if it is a question of fact, to deny
the fact that threatens to destroy our cherished
beliefs.
It is needless, however, to develop further the
unfortunate effect of the influxus voluntatis in the
matter of truth. It is the formal cause of most, I
think we may say of all, error for strictly the dis-
;

conformity between thought and reality in which

error consists does not exist until the content of
thought has been definitely referred to some object.
The material causes of error account for the dis-
conformity, but they do not account for the assent
that accompanies it. We know that under abnormal
conditions perceptionis unreliable, and we are also

aware that doubtful inferences and hypothetical

constructions may or may not correspond with their

r
 CRITERIA OF ERROR IN REALISM 64T

objects. In such cases, therefore, assent implies

either inadvertence and carelessness a negative —
influxus of were or else it is
the will, as it —
conditioned directly by emotional influences and
4
the will to believe.'

§ 418. Nevertheless, the cognitive faculties per se

and when functioning under normal conditions, are
trustworthy and in so far as this is the case their
;

deliverances do not present merely a claim to truth,

but they are true, since they are under these cir-
cumstances determined by the object itself. The
criterion of truth here, therefore, is nothing more
nor less than objective evidence. We assent because
we are forced so to do by the object itself ; because
it is the object itself and not some other object or
cause which seems to have determined the content
of our thoughts, and so to have manifested itself to
our mind. We assent because that to which we
4
assent is obvious '
and we cannot help assenting.
Ridiculous and empty as this criterion of truth may
seem to some, it is nevertheless the only criterion
which the ordinary man uses, and the only ultimate
criterion that there is. There are many negative
criteria : we must not assent if we have reason for
doubting the normal condition of the senses, if
the formal laws of logic have been violated, or if we
have contravened the norms of scientific method.
But these criteria are criteria of error rather than of
truth. Moreover, their value as means by which
error may be detected presupposes the validity
of the methods to which they pertain and this ;

we can only know because the truth of the

principles on which they are based is objectively
PP
642 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

evident in the sense and under the conditions

above explained.
§ 419. What has been said above of the trust-
worthiness of human faculties in general applies
to my neighbours' as well as to my own. Conse-
quently, although information gained from others,
whether by word of mouth or by reading, at first

presents only a claim to truth, we are justified in

accepting the testimony of others in regard to
facts,provided we have reason to believe that their
observations were made with due care, and provided
we have no reason to suspect any motive which
would have led them to state what they knew to be
false.
The theoretical constructions and explanations of
others are in a different case ; for in the construction
of theory the possibility of error is so great that we
cannot accept as authoritative the testimony of one
of the workings of whose mind we are ignorant. We
must examine the evidence for ourselves, and if we
can detect no error, and both data and inferences
seem to us objectively evident,' then we have
'

rational grounds for giving our assent. We may

apply as many negative criteria as we like, but in the
end we shall come back to objective evidence, and
shall ask ourselves is it or is it not clear to my mind
that the reasonings of this author or this lecturer
are valid, that his data are accurate, his inferences
logical, his conclusions consistent with facts in a
;

word, is it obvious to me that the theory there

before me is indirectly reality itself manifesting its
nature to my mind, or does there seem to be mingled
with it something subjective, something personal,
 CRITERIA OF ERROR IN REALISM 643

something due merely to the constructive activity of

the thinker who propounds the theory which claims
my assent ?

§ 420. Thecase is not very different when

it is a question of verifying our own deductions or
theoretical constructions. When we have taken
due care to avoid mistakes, when the ordinary
logical criteria and the special criteria and methods
of the particular science with which we are con-
cerned, have been applied, we are forced back finally
upon objective evidence. Is it or is it not clear to
my mind that the content of my thoughts has been
determined by the object ? Is the evidence sufficient
to justify assent ? Do my theoretical conclusions
and the complexus of experimental facts harmonise
sufficiently to justify me in giving my assent to the
truth of the former, or have I still reasonable ground
for doubt ? These are the questions which I ask
myself when judging of the truth of physical and
other scientific theories, and according to the answer
which the evidence compels me to make, I give or
withhold my assent. The evidence in such a case
is not, nor can it be, complete. The human mind
is finite. It cannot analyse a theory into a com-
plete system of propositions logically connected
together and arranged in order of generality. It
cannot deduce from each proposition all possible
conclusions nor can it discover all the facts with
;

which these conclusions must coincide if the theory

is to be a complete and adequate explanation. We
cannot hope^that any construction of ours shall in
this sense be verified and validated, for that would
imply omniscience. Nevertheless, granted that ab-
644 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

straction is not falsification and that systems of fact

may be considered in comparative isolation without

destroying their nature, we are justified in holding
that theoretical constructions are true, provided
the system of theoretical inferences coincides ap-
proximately with the system of known facts and
nowhere leads to contradiction and truth here is
:

real truth in spite of its approximate character and

its incompleteness. For an approximate truth is
not one that is subject to indefinite modification,
but one that is permanently true within known
limits of error. Such a truth expresses laws which
really govern the operation of real things, and which
really belong to the structure and plan of the
universe, though there may be other laws which
co-operate with these of the nature of which we are
ignorant. Evidence, then, without being complete
may be sufficient to justify assent, provided it is
objective. And it is objective in the case of theoretical
constructions,even though the latter may have
begun as postulates due in part to the activity of
mind. For our facts are objectively valid and our
principle that like effects presuppose formaliter or
eminenter a similar cause is also objectively valid.
Hence in so far as our ideal laws are expressed in
particular conclusions, the real laws which express
themselves in particular facts that correspond to
these conclusions must be in nature one and the
same.
§ 421. In metaphysical theory our ultimate
criterion is the same. Our appeal is always to
last
objective evidence. Many of the principles upon
which metaphysics is based are, or should be,
 CRITERIA OF ERROR IN REALISM 645

necessarily true. They should, as Mr. Bradley

says, be such that in denying them we implicitly
affirm their truth. Yet the test of necessary truth
is not the psychological impossibility of thinking
the contradictory, for we may still ask why this
should be a test of truth. The final criterion is
self -evidence, the self-manifestation of the nature
of the object to a rational mind. From self-evident
principles and from others that are less clearly
self-evidentwe make deductions, which we may test
by the laws of formal logic. But the validity of the
laws of formal logic itself demands a criterion, and
that can only be self-evidence. Finally, comparing
principle with principle and deduction with de-
duction we ask whether they are consistent or ;

applying our theory in the concrete we enquire how

far it explains or fails to explain or contradicts the
data of experience. Should it manifest self-
discrepancy or prove incompatible with facts we
pronounce it erroneous should it merely fail to
;

explain we pronounce it inadequate and incomplete.

But our criteria are not ultimate. Contradiction
certainly shows that somewhere there is error.
Indeed, contradiction is our only certain test of error,
for inadvertence and the influence of subjective
conditions do not necessarily invalidate a theory :

they merely render it doubtful. But, on the other

hand, the absence of contradiction does not
establish truth. We cannot say that a thing is true
simply because it is coherent unless we take ;

coherence in a very wide sense as including harmony

with facts. And even then our criterion is not
ultimate, for we may still ask (1) how we recognise
646 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

facts ; (2) how we recognise that a theory is coherent

and does harmonise with facts and (3) how we ;

know that reality must be consistent and coherent

and must not be contradictory and self-discrepant.
And to all these questions our final answer must be
the same, obvious or evident.
it is

We have said that

if a metaphysical theory is

incoherent or incompatible with facts it must contain

error. Can we say conversely that it is true if it is
coherent and does harmonise with facts ? This
will depend upon what we understand by a meta-
physical theory. If we understand by it a theory
which shall explain all and co-ordinate all
facts
sciences, clearly there no such theory. But if
is

we understand by it a certain complexus of doctrines

which explain facts in general, then these may be
established as true. From the general fact of finite
existence we may argue to the infinite, from the
contingent to the necessary, from the caused to
the uncaused or self-existent, and from the existence
of a rational plan in the universe to an intellect which
constructed and devised it. These arguments, I
shall be told, are old-fashioned and at best only
probable. That they are old-fashioned I admit ;

but that they are only probable I cannot grant, for

to me their validity is evident. To discuss this
question, however, would take us outside the theory
of knowledge. What I wish here to point out, is

that even if by which the existence

the arguments
of God is commonly proved are, when taken indi-
vidually, only probable, they may yet be valid when
taken together, for then they form not merely a sum
of probabilities, but, as the Hegelian would say, a
 CRITERIA OF ERROR IN REALISM 647

coherent whole. The universe is a coherent system

of inter-related parts, and the only condition which
can satisfy this fact, the only hypothesis that
' '

can explain it, is the doctrine of the existence of a

necessary Being from whom it proceeds by an
unchanging yet creative act.
§ 422. What I have said above of objective
evidence as the ultimate and in many cases the only
criterion of truth is in substance what Newman has
said in his Grammar of Assent of what he calls the
sanction of the Illative Sense. " The course of
inference," he says, " is ever more or less obscure,
while assent is ever distinct and definite, and yet
what is in its nature thus absolute does, in fact,
follow upon what in outward manifestation is thus
complex, indirect, and recondite." Hence he infers
that we must take things as they are, and " instead
of devising, what cannot be, some sufficient science
of reasoning which may compel certitude in concrete
conclusions, must confess that there is no ultimate
test of truth besides the testimony born to truth by the
mind itself."
1
Newman treats the subject of truth'
psychologically, whereas I have treated it epistemo-
logically. He does not ask how comes it about that
'

'
we can be certain 2
he accepts certitude as a fact
;

and then enquires what is its nature, what its

conditions, what the processes that lead up to it

as a psychical act of the mind. Consequently he does

not base certitude on objective evidence as I have
done, but rather on the trustworthiness of the
faculty of reason. Nevertheless, Newman maintains
the certainty of knowledge and the real objective
1
Grammar of Assent, p. 350. (Italics mine.)
2
Ibid., p. 344.
648 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

validityJof knowledge as earnestly as does any

realist. Certitude is a natural and normal state of
the mind. It is not something to hide away and be

ashamed of. Our very possession of certitude is a

proof that not a weakness nor an absurdity to be
it is

certain. 1 And
the object of certitude and assent
is something real, something the nature of which we

apprehend it is not a mere notion or symbol or

;

word, the product of abstract and formal reasoning

which is out of touch with reality.
§ 423. There is scarcely a single doctrine now
upheld by the pragmatists which is not to be found
verbally stated in the Grammar of Assent ; yet
Newman was not a pragmatist. His standpoint is
psychological and human nay, more, he ac-
;

knowledges the personal element in truth yet his ;

standpoint is perfectly compatible with Realism

because the results of his psychological analyses are
not exaggerated. The real nature of truth is not
confused with its pragmatic value. Product is not
confused with process, content with intent, the
various processes and methods by means of which
truth is attained with the real objective validity of
truth itself. He had as great a horror of verbal
arguments as any pragmatist, yet he insists that
certitude must follow on investigation and proof. 2
He admits that certitude is accompanied by in-
tellectual satisfaction and repose yet any ;

additional strength given to it by the emotions he

regards as adventitious and accidental. He shows
how knowledge is a growth, how in knowing a truth
we are active, and how in order to understand and
1 loc. 1
cit.y pp. 344, 209. Ibid., p. 258.
 CRITERIA OF ERROR IN REALISM 649

appreciate a truth we must live it ; but the active

recognition of propositions as true must be exercised
at the bidding of reason ; and reason never bids us be
certain except on absolute proof} No merely formal
or verbal argument is valid for Newman. And
while, with Simmel, he acknowledges that in a series
of reflex judgments each in turn may exercise a
critical function towards those of the series that
precede it ;
yet the certitude which results from
this series of proofs when taken in the concrete —not
as a sum, but as a systematic whole — is certitude,
indefectible and irreversible. 2 Lastly, everyone
who reasons is his own
and no expedient for
centre,
attaining a common measure of minds can reverse
this truth, yet the personal action of the ratiocinative
faculty, the perfection of which is called the Illative
Sense, capable of pronouncing a final judgment
is

on the validity of inference in concrete matters such

as may warrant that certitude is rightly elicited
in favour of a proposition we infer. 3

§ 424. For Newman, as for all realists, there is

only one ultimate and universal criterion of truth,
the evidence which results from a careful examination
and study of that which we wish to know and as to ;

the sufficiency of that evidence we are forced to trust

and may rightly trust the deliverance of reason
itself. Other criteria of error and of truth are useful
and have methodological validity, but taken singly
and in isolation from the living process of reasoning
about objective real they are inadequate
things,
44 44
criteria. Our enquiries," he says, spontaneously
fall into scientific sequence, and we think in logic
1 2 3
Ibid., p. 345. Ibid., p. 255. Ibid., p. 345.
 '

6$o THEORIES Of KNOWLEDGE

as we talk in prose, without aiming at doing so."

But such a tangible defence of what we hold, though
it so fortifies and illustrates our holdings that it

acts as a vivid apprehension acts, giving them

luminousness and force, yet considered as an analysis
of our ratiocination in its length and breadth, is
necessarily inadequate. 1 " Thought is too keen and
manifold, its path too personal, delicate, and
circuitous, its subject-matter too various and
intricate, to admit of the trammels of any language,
of whatever subtlety and of whatever compass.' 2
And precisely because thought is so subtle and
intricate and personal, the human mind is capable
of attaining truth and yet is incapable of proving
the truth of what it holds by formal arguments to
another who fails to appreciate the concrete evidence
upon which that truth is based, and the concrete
and intricate process of reasoning by which it has
been established.

1 2
Ibid., pp. 286, 287. Ibid., p. 284.
 CONCLUDING CHAPTER.

§ 425. By a '
higher synthesis,' I understand, a
synthesis in which antitheses are reconciled by
means of distinctions which, while eliminating that
which is false in the differences, retain what is true
and reunite it in a truth that is higher because it
is fuller and more significant. And at the outset of
this essay in cognition, I boldly ventured to claim
that Realism, if properly understood, is a higher
synthesis of Absolutism and Pragmatism. It now
remains for me to resume the chief points which I
have endeavoured to make in this somewhat
lengthy discussion, and to show that my main
contention is valid.
The Critical Philosophy of Kant assumes as its
first principle that in knowledge the object conforms

to the mind, and this is the direct contradictory of

the first principle of Aristotelian Realism. Abso-
lutism and Pragmatism may be regarded as differ-
ences of Kantian Criticism not that they do not
;

contain many ideas that are new, nor yet that they
are opposed on every point but that in general
;

they are antitheses of which the fundamental

principles were enunciated more or less clearly by
the author of the Critiques of Reason and Judgtnent.
Both retain the fundamental assumption of the
Copernican revolution, and both attribute know-
ledge, and to some extent reality, to the con-
structive activity of mind ; but the '
forms '
which
652 THEORIES Of KNOWLEDGE

in knowledge are imposed upon the receptivity of

matter are in Absolutism constitutive principles
arising from the nature of thought as such, while in
Pragmatism they are practical forms expressive of
human needs and directive of human actions. Both
seek to re-establish metaphysics on a sounder basis,
but while Absolutism seeks that basis in the
doctrines of the first Critique Apriorism and —
Immanence, Pragmatism seeks it in the second
Critique, in postulation and the experimental
activity by which we seek to realise our postulates
in the concrete and so to satisfy our needs. The
standpoint of Absolutism is theoretical it em- :

phasises the functions of the intellect against

Sensationalism. The standpoint of Pragmatism is

empirical and practical emphasises the function

: it

of the will against Intellectualism. Consequently,

Absolutism tends to Monism, w hile Pragmatism has
r

a pronounced metaphysical inclination toward

Pluralism, and toward a philosophy of Pure Ex-
perience which shall ultimately resolve itself in
Personal Idealism. Finally, Truth for the absolutist
is an Ideal Whole, and its test is coherence ; while
for the pragmatist it is utility, and its test is its
practical consequences for man. What Kant says
of Rational Psychology, the pragmatist applies to
all knowledge. It is merely a
'
salutary discipline,' and its manifest contradictions
show that the nature of the self (and the nature of
things) cannot be known by the speculative intellect,
and thus we are prevented from giving ourselves up to
a mystic spiritualism that has lost its hold of actual
life. The refusal of reason to answer our curious
questions as to a life beyond the present we ought to
 CONCLUDING CHAPTER 653

interpret as a hint to apply our self-knowledge to

fruitful, practical ends and to turn away from fruitless
and transcendant speculations. 1

Pragmatism, then, is the antithesis of Absolutism,

for what the one asserts the other for the most part
denies. Yet, although Absolutism and Pragmatism
are differentiations of Criticism which have taken a
diametrically opposite direction, both attempt to
transcend the fundamental principle of the Kantian
revolution and to reintroduce into knowledge, either
from above or from below, some form of objective
determination. In other words, both tend to
return to a more realistic attitude in which the
principle of Kant is practically denied. And it is,

I maintain, only by following out this tendency

that the absolutist and the pragmatist can hope to
find an adequate solution of the problems of reality
and of knowledge in which their differences,
psychological, metaphysical and epistemological,
may finally be reconciled.
§ 426. In Absolutism psychology is almost
completely absorbed and overshadowed by meta-
physics. Psychological questions are discussed for
the most part only in so far as they seem to lend
support to metaphysical theory. Hegel's Pheno-
menology and Dr. Joachim's Nature of Truth are in
a sense psychological, genetic and human. So, too,
is the standpoint adopted by Professor Bosanquet

in his Logic ; for his analysis of the functions of

thought, and theory of the development of the
his
hypothetical and universal from the individual
judgment, are based on a study of the human mind ;

1 Kant, Werke, vol iii., p. 694.

Digitized by
 ;

654 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

chiefly, one would suppose, of his own. Neverthe-

less, the tendency of Absolutism is to regard know-
ledge from the Absolute and not from the human
point of view to treat of knowledge in general,
;

and then to predicate it, not of a human, but of a

supra-human intelligence, which manifests and
realises itself in finite centres. Consequently,
human knowledge is at bottom an illusion ; its

development is not real but apparent. The psy-

chology of Absolutism does not reveal a dynamic
process in time, but is rather a static analysis of
what eternally is, into the organic differences of an
underlying ground.
Pragmatism seeks to counteract the exaggerations
of this static, lifeless Intellectualism by going to the
other extreme. Nothing is everything becomes. ;

Knowledge is a process without presuppositions or

grounds ; and it is above all things an active, living,
psychological, human
There is nothing
process.
static about nothing which has not had a history,
it ;

and is still destined to have a history nothing ;

which did not begin as a postulate to some extent

unverified and liable to change, and which must ever
so remain. All knowledge is human knowledge
springing from human needs, expressing itself in
human actions, leading to consequences the value
of which depends upon their power to satisfy human
needs. The pragmatist claims to have found as the
result of his analysis of the process of human cog-
nition, not a priori forms, but postulates and
experiments. The postulatory or experimental
theory of knowledge is a psychological theory. It
does not enquire with the absolutist how knowledge '
 CONCLUDING CHAPTER 655

is possible,' but rather what happens when we know

or think that we know.
The psychological analyses upon which Prag-
matism is based, however, are somewhat scanty and
far from adequate and to make up for this deficiency
;

the pragmatist does in psychology what the abso-

lutist does in metaphysics ; he generalises categories
beyond the limits within which they are applicable.
Kant analysed experience and assumed that the
categories he found there belonged to the subject ;

Fichte analysed self-consciousness, and assumed

that in so doing he had discovered the structure of
Reality the pragmatist analyses cognition, and,
:

finding that we sometimes postulate, assumes that

we do so always and Absolutism
in every case.
overcomes the Subjectivism of Kant, by making the
Eternal Ego the subject of all consciousness and by
transferring to Him (or It) the a priori forms
through which Reality is constructed. Humanism
gets rid of the fallacy of attributing to the Absolute
the processes of human cognition by making
psychology once more a human science but in so ;

doing, it goes too far, and returns once more to a

Subjectivism similar to Kant's, except that in place
of a priori forms we now have human needs and
purposes.
§ 427. The realist, on the other hand, is able to
assign to psychology its due place in the theory of
knowledge without finding himself impelled toward
Subjectivism, and without having to invoke a
psychology of the Absolute, of which he knows little

or nothing, in order to save himself from it. His

psychology is as human as that of the pragmatist.
656 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

He grants that thought is purposive, and tends

all

to satisfy human needs ;

yet by restricting purpose
to the intent of thought and regarding satisfaction
as the consequence rather than as the essence of
truth he is able to find room in knowledge for
objective determination and real objective meaning.
He grants that action is essential to knowledge, and
that concepts are useful tools which help us in the
manipulation of experience but, on the other hand,
;

he insists that action is subordinate to knowledge

qud knowledge, and that, though by action know-
ledge is acquired and in it is expressed, knowledge
and action must not be confused or identified. And
thus the realist, without reducing the intellect to a
mere machine for the manufacture of useful symbols,
can justly claim that knowledge is living, and,
though he does not attribute it to the mere unaided
intellect, can truly claim that it is real.
Again, to the pragmatist the realist concedes that
axioms are useful as regulative principles and that
they are derived from and may be applied in con-
crete experience, but he denies that axioms are
merely regulative or merely useful, or that their
truth depends upon their application. While to the
absolutist he grants that axiomatic principles are
constitutive of knowledge, and that their objective
counterparts are constitutive of reality ; but he
refuses to identify knowledge and reality or to
assign to axioms an a priori birth. Thus in Realism
the necessity and objectivity of axioms is reconciled
with their empirical origin, and their utility as
practical norms is found to be compatible with, nay
more, to depend upon, their objective significance.
 CONCLUDING CHAPTER 657

Again, the empirical origin which is assigned to all

knowledge in Realism makes it possible for know-

ledge to have a real and not merely an apparent
development, and at the same time allows full scope
for experiment and for the constructive activity of
thought but since the realist acknowledges also
;

the power of the intellect to apprehend to some

extent the nature of real entities and the relations
which in some cases hold of necessity between them,
he is not forced to explain away self-evidence nor
to invent mythical stories in order to explain how
what is clearly not a postulate might possibly have
been so in its origin.

§ 428.It is difficult to compare Pragmatism

and Absolutism metaphysically for while Abso-
:

lutism is essentially metaphysical, Pragmatism

professes to be unattached and the philosophy of
;

Pure Experience with which it harmonises best,

itselftends to disruption, leading us on either to
Monism or to some form of Panpsychism or Personal
Idealism. Pragmatism, however, like Absolutism,
is idealistic in so far as it denies that the object of
perception and thought is independent of and
external to the mind in the realist's sense but ;

this does not seem to be essential to Pragmatism.

And though the pragmatist is inclined to adopt the
doctrine of Immanence, his philosophy does not
stand or fall with that doctrine. Rather, it is an
excrescence, a supplementary theory, a confession
of ignorance as to the metaphysical relation which
holds between mind and mind, between thought and
reality. Yet on one point there is clearly a resem-
blance, viz., between Fichte's idea of a system of
658 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

rational egos which eternally strive to realise them-

selves, and the Personal Idealism of those prag-
matists who conceive the universe as an aggregate
of rational, purposive minds, interacting one with
another, and each striving to satisfy its needs by
forcing a thoroughly plastic and formless matter to
conform to its preconceived notions and hypotheses.
The later philosophy of Fichte also suggests a com-
parison for his Personal Idealism eventually gave
;

place to an Absolutism which was more like a

philosophy of Pure Experience than what we now
understand by Absolutism. Compare, for instance,
Fichte's assertion that the Life of Knowledge is
everything, that it alone exists, and exists of itself,
requiring no subject in which to inhere, with the
Radical Empiricism of Professor James in which
substances and selves are done away and there is
left only the cognitive process, the series of present
thoughts or experiences which succeed one another
and pass one into the other by continuous transi-
tions, out of which are engendered in reflection both
subject and object, thought and reality.
In spite of these similarities, however, Prag-
matism as a theory of knowledge is radically different
from and opposed to Absolutism. It denies that
the universe is really one, and insists that both
methodologically and epistemologically it must be
regarded as plural. The universe for the pragmatist
is not an organism, but rather a flat mosaic of which

the parts, though inter-related, are yet distinct.

And he sometimes seems to identify reality with
if

experience, he identifies it not with the experience

of the Absolute, but with his own experience and
 CONCLUDING CHAPTER 659

with the experiences of other minds, human or

incipiently human. Reality may
be the product of
mind, but it is the product not of a single all-
embracing Mind, but of the combined activity of
many minds, past, present, and in respect of future
realities yet to be evolved. Facts, if they are
immanent at all, are immanent within finite human
experiences, and not within the experience of a
self-sufficient and eternal consciousness. The
pragmatist laughs at an Absolute which is a higher
synthesis of God and the devil and of all kinds of
;

knowledge, that which he singles out as most useless,

is the knowledge which Absolutism claims to give.

§ 429. The realist does not go so far as this in

his opposition to Absolutism. He admits that both
Absolutism and Pragmatism contain much that is
true, and that of the two from a metaphysical
standpoint Absolutism is more satisfactory since
it is less ambiguous, more consistent and more
complete. Nevertheless, he cannot accept Abso-
lutism as it stands, for the assumptions upon which
it is based seem to him wholly unfounded, and the

conclusions to which it leads he finds to be in-

compatible with facts. The fundamental theses
of Absolutism have no foundation in the data of
experience, but on the contrary, contradict many
such data, a contradiction which Absolutism is
neither able to explain nor yet to explain away.
All idealists affirm that we cannot think of objects
except as experienced, nor continue to speak of a
piece of existence from which all perception and
feeling have been removed. And this statement,
if rightly interpreted, is true ; but if rightly inter-
 '

66o THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

preted, does not lead to Idealism. For if by a

it
'
piece of existenceis meant a corporeal thing, and
'

by the removal of all perception and feeling,' that

'

it is possible to know that thing otherwise than by

4
means of sense-perception, then it is true that we
cannot find any piece of existence of which we can
still continue to speak when all perception and

feeling have been removed, or any fragment of

its matter, any aspect of its being, which is not

derived from, and is not still relative to this source ;

but it does not follow from this that an object does

not exist independently of our perception of it or
that we cannot think of it except as actually being
perceived. Again, psychological introspection does
not reveal those felt-wholes of which Mr. Bradley
speaks and from which relational appearances are
supposed not merely psychologically but really to
emerge. What we perceive is a felt-whole, if by a
felt-whole you mean that what is perceived is per-
ceived all together and in a single act. But what
we perceive is perceived neither as one nor yet as
many until we think about it, and then it may become
either one or many, and not until it has become
either one or many do we regard it as revealing to
us the nature of what we perceive. On the other
hand, it is a datum of our experience that what we
perceive is external, independent and material, and
until the idealist can explain this he is not justified
in treating as an illusion a belief which is both
natural and universal and apparently has been so
for all time.
Realism, then, has at any rate this advantage,
that it is consistent with facts which Absolutism
 CONCLUDING CHAPTER 661

seems to deny. But I will go further than this, and

will endeavour to show that as an explanation of the
Universe Realism is more adequate and more con-
sistent than Absolutism precisely in regard to those
points where the demand of the human mind for an
explanation is most urgent and peremptory. As,
however, the metaphysics of Absolutism is so
intimately bound up with its theory of relations, it
is necessary first to sum up briefly the results of

our previous discussion of this matter.

§ 430. Almost all philosophers now admit that
relations are real. Even the empiricist has at
length been forced to acknowledge this truth,
though, being unable to explain how relations are
real, he affirms that they are real because we feel
them, which we certainly do not. Neither the
absolutist nor the realist is content with so super-
ficial a view. Both attempt to explain the nature
of relations and the connection of relations with what
they relate. But the absolutist, assuming that
thought (or experience) and reality are one, prefers
to treat the matter psychologically, since for him
what is true of our knowledge of relations must be
true of relations in rerum natura. The result is
that he has given us two theories which are mutually
contradictory for while Green, observing that our
;

knowledge of relations is often prior to our know-

ledge of the objects they relate, infers that objects
are really subsequent to and dependent on their
relations Mr. Bradley, observing that our know-
;

ledge of relations is often simultaneous with our

knowledge of their terms, infers that relations and
their terms are interdependent and mutually pre-
662 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

supposed one by the other. But the fact is that our

knowledge of relations may be either prior to, or
simultaneous with, or subsequent to our knowledge
of the objects related hence a psychological theory
;

must inevitably lead to contradiction if applied to

real relations. Moreover, common-sense invariably
regards a relation as arising from and as dependent
on its terms, irrespective of the order in which our
knowledge of relations and objects has developed;
and this fact the Absolutist neglects altogether, as
he also neglects the fact that relations may be
predicated as an attribute, and in most cases as a real
attribute, of either of the objects related. The realist
alone takes account of all these facts, for in his theory
alone are relations regarded as entities belonging to
individual objects and conditioned by qualities in
those objects which have a real or do in regard to
other objects, an ordo which is implied in and is

dependent upon the rational plan of the universe.

The realist's theory is more adequate than that of
the absolutist, and it is so because, as usual, where the
absolutist makes general statements of somewhat
vague import, the realist inserts a distinction, and
so makes the statement at once more precise and
more consistent with facts. Instead of affirming
that relations and their terms are interdependent,
he affirms that the terms give rise to the relations
and the relations presuppose the terms and instead
;

of asserting that relations intrinsically modify their

'

5
terms, he asserts that real relations imply a modi-
fication in at least one of the objects they relate,
and thus is able to avoid the somewhat absurd and
decidedly sceptical conclusion that every little bit
 CONCLUDING CHAPTER 663

of additional knowledge we acquire involves an

intrinsic modification of every particle of the
knowledge we already possess.
§ 431. The absolute theory
of relations accounts
largely forunmistakably pantheistic tone of
the
many of the theses of Absolutism while that ;

ambiguity which characterises the conception of a

relation as a something which somehow connects,
and somehow intrinsically modifies, and somehow
arises from and in and together with its terms, also
characterises almost all the leading doctrines of the
absolutist. And it is these mysterious somehows '
'

which meet us at every turn and are not only

unexplained but are declared to be inexplicable,
that more than anything else arouses the anger
and provokes the scorn of the pragmatist. Yet it
is possible by the aid of distinctions to reinterpret
these almost without exception, in a
doctrines,
realistic sense, and so not only to render them more
precise and more compatible with facts and with
common-sense, but also to rid them of that dangerous
pantheistic character which seems to destroy that
which is most valuable to man, his freedom and his
personality. Thus it is true that

the unification of the manifold of the world (of human

knowledge) implies the presence of the manifold to a
(human) mind, for which and through the action of
which it is a related whole 1 (in the logical, but not in
the real sense of that term). (And, again, it is true that)
the unification of the manifold of the (real) world
implies the presence of the manifold to a (divine) mind,
for which, and through the action of which, it exists

1
Prolegomena tojithics, § 82.
664 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

as a system of inter- related and inter-active beings,

constructed according to a rational plan in which each
being has its proper place.

whole
It is true also that the universe is a logical
and a teleological whole, but not that it is a real
whole and again that it implies a unity of Ground,
;

and that a number of absolutely independent co-

existing reals is impossible, but not that this unifying
Ground immanent, though the co-existing reals
is

are present to It, and exist for It, and are sustained
in their being by It. For the realist, each existing
being is one and individual and has its own existence
and its own nature, though it is wholly and essen-
tially dependent upon the Divine Being for that
existence and that nature, and may also in a different
sense be dependent on another finite being for its
existence and its nature, since it may have been by
the action of that finite being as a secondary cause
that it was brought into existence in time.
§ 432. Realism, it has been said, conceives God
anthropomorphically but in Absolutism the con-
;

ception of the universe is more anthropomorphic

still. The absolutist, finding that man is one,
individual, and that his thoughts and
organic,
actions are immanent within him, applies this
conception to the universe itself but he forgets
;

that human attributes can be predicable of God only

in an analogous sense, and he forgets also that man's
thoughts are not merely immanent, but refer to a
something other and beyond, and that his actions
are transient as well as immanent. Nor can it be
said that the realist is guilty of a similar illicit use
of a category when he says that God is the First
 CONCLUDING CHAPTER 66$

Cause of the Universe ; for he does not predicate

causality of God in the same sense that he predicates
itof finite agents. A finite cause cannot act with-
out intrinsic modification, and is itself caused, being
in fact but one among a series of causes, finite in
power, extent and duration. God acts without
intrinsic modification, is the Cause of all things
without Himself being caused, and does not belong
to the finite series of causes at all, but exists of
Himself, is omnipotent, omnipresent, and eternal.
The relation between God and the universe is a
mystery, and creation does not fully explain it but ;

the difference between Absolutism and Realism in

this respect is that while the former makes the
relation between God and man a hopeless mystery
and describes it in terms which, to say the least,
sound pantheistic, the latter at any rate attempts
to solve the mystery and though recognising that
;

the human mind is incapable of comprehending it

and that human language is powerless adequately to
express it, is careful not only to point out that
terms are not used in the same sense when pre-
dicated of God and of His creatures, but also to
indicate as clearly as is possible in what sense they
are used. And thus by clear conception and a
correspondingly precise use of language, he is able
to save himself from even the imputation of
Pantheism and at the same time to reconcile Monism
with Pluralism. For Realism the universe is one
and it is also many ; and in a certain sense it is
also one in many. It is one because it proceeds
from and is sustained in its being by one divine
Source and it is many because it consists of many
;
666 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

individuals really distinct and

having a nature really
of their own. It is also many in one, because God is
*
immanent within the universe, not anyhow nor
'

yet in the same way that my thoughts are immanent

within me, but "est in omnibus per potentiam, in
quantum omnia ejus potestati subduntur est per ;

praesentiam in omnibus in quantum omnia nuda sunt

et aperta oculis ejus ; est in omnibus per essentiam,
in quantum adest omnibus ut causa essendi." 1

§ 433. Realism does not destroy Absolutism by

thus distinguishing within its vague but suggestive
theses a sense in which they are true from a sense in
which they are not. The reality of the Absolute
Ground is still preserved, and so, too, is the reality of
the process by which from that Ground finite beings
proceed, and the reality of their dependence upon it.
1
Finite beings are really ap-*
differences ' and
pearances of the Absolute, since they manifest in
'

different ways, though always imperfectly, its

attributes. But they are not mere appearances nor
mere differences, nor do they proceed from that
Ground by emanation. Finite beings, though
essentially dependent upon the Divinity, are yet
distinct, having each their own nature and finite
contingent existence while the Divinity itself,
;

precisely because it is the Ground or Cause of all

things, and yet is distinct, is not merely an abstract
Ground, but a living Personality having in an
infinite degree all that is manifested in the finite
beings that are due to Its creative act.
So closely at times does Absolutism seem to
approach to the metaphysic of Realism that the
1
Summa Theologica, i. q. 8, a. 3.

Digitized by
 CONCLUDING CHAPTER 667

insertion or the omission of a few distinctions would

be sufficient to change the one into the other. By
Professor Mackenzie and in a certain sense by Hegel
and even by Mr. Bradley, the real existence of the
so-called material
'
world is
' granted. " The
41
idealist," says Professor Mackenzie, does not seek
to rob anyone of his sun and planets, nor even of
his cups and saucers. To say that something is
more than what it seems is not to say that it is not
what it seems." 1 And, in truth, if it be granted
4
that material
'
things are less real than strictly
' '

spiritual beings, i.e., that they have the properties

that we predicate of them physically, but have
neither intelligence, will, nor sentience, even on
this point there is not much difference between
Realism and Objective Idealism, save that the
(
realist objects to calling material things spiritual'
on the ground that it is a misuse of terms. The
realist holds with Kant " that what lies at the back
of phenomena is the thing- in- itself which may not
be heterogeneous." Indeed, he would go further,
and say that if the thing-in-itself here means God,
as it seems to do, it cannot be wholly heterogeneous,
since if God has created the universe he must have
created it like to Himself. And though the realist
would not grant that the material world may be but
another aspect of the Divinity, he would certainly
acknowledge the existence of " a thinking being,
the signs of whose thoughts in phenomena we can
2
perceive."
Thus the difference between Realism and
1
Mind, N.S. 59, p. 325.
* Werke, iii., p. 694.

Digitized by
668 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

Absolutism in regard to metaphysics is not in-

superable, and yet it is sufficient for Realism to be

able to claim that it retains all that is of vital
importance to the metaphysics of Pragmatism.
The unity, the changelessness, and the absolute
reality of the universe are realised in the Divine
Being who is one, eternal, and who alone has
reality a se. Yet real personality, real activity, and
real development exist in the created universe of
finite and contingent beings and this is what the
;

pragmatist demands. He demands, too, a world '

of plural facts ;and this also is to be found in

'

Realism, though the realist's world of plural facts

and plural beings is not a mosaic, but rather a
system created and maintained in its being according
to a definite and rational design which it manifests.
Upon more than this the pragmatist does not insist,
and it is little use re-discussing or trying to reconcile
the hopeless ambiguities and obvious discrepancies
of an incomplete philosophy of Pure Experience.

§ 434. In regard to Truth there are many points

upon which Realism may be said to reconcile the
differences of Absolutism and Pragmatism. In the
first place, almost all of what is positive in that

which the pragmatist contends for may be granted.

Truth is empirically determined, and yet is due in
large measure to the activity of the human mind.
It is not static it develops
; and in its develop-
;

ment postulation, experiment and purposive selec-

tion each play a part. And truth, when 'made', is

regulative of human actions, leads to useful conse-

quences and satisfies human needs. All this may
be granted as psychological fact but in granting ;
 CONCLUDING CHAPTER 669

it we must make certain reservations. Truth in the

process of making is not a passive mirroring of
' ' ' '

fact, but truth, when made, does correspond with

and reveal the nature of reality. Postulation and
purposive selection are of the greatest importance
in the acquisition of truth but all truth is not
;

obtained by postulation, nor does selection neces-

sarily mutilate truth, or purpose modify its content.
All truth is normative, useful and satisfactory but ;

it is not merely normative nor merely useful, nor is it

determined as truth by its power of giving satis-

faction.
The realist, finding himself in agreement with the
pragmatist on so many points in regard to the
characteristics and growth of human truth, must to
some extent find himself at variance with the
absolutist in so far as the latter denies and does
not merely neglect these points. Thus he cannot
admit that human truth is due to the immanence
of the Absolute within our finite minds. Indeed,
it is inconceivable that 'the Absolute should be
thinking in us, since error is a fact and in it our
thoughts go wrong. Nevertheless, Realism holds
that human truth, in so far as it is truth, really
manifests the thoughts of the Absolute as expressed
in concrete facts,and really reveals in part that
systematic and coherent Truth which the absolutist
calls Ideal and the realist ontological, but which
both grant to be at bottom identical with reality
itself. The realist, again, maintains as firmly as
the absolutist that the concepts by means of which
we think have real meaning and are not mere
symbols or norms, and that the relations which hold
670 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

between these concepts at any rate correspond even

if they are not identical with relations and laws that

hold in the real world. Lastly, Cognition in

Realism as in Absolutism is properly a function of
the intellect to which in this matter other faculties
are subordinate.
§ Thus in Truth, as understood by Realism,
435.
are brought together the chief characteristics of
both Absolute and pragmatic truth, but in regard
to the criteria of truth and in regard to its ap-
proximate character the realist finds himself at
4
variance with both. Useful consequences and '

4
the satisfaction of needs as such do not seem to
'

him to be criteria of. truth at all, but rather the

result of truth already established. On the other
hand, the necessity of application and verification in
experience he grants as also he grants the necessity
;

of '
coherence.' But neither criterion for him is

either universal or ultimate. The only criterion

which at once possesses both these characteristics
is that evidence which comes from the object, and
which the mind, conscious that has not been it

influenced by subjective conditions, has carefully

examined, and so has come to recognise for what
it is, a true manifestation of objective reality. The
approximate nature of human truth is also granted,
and not merely granted, but insisted upon by
the realist yet he also insists that this approxi-
;

mation does not destroy truth, and that to be

approximate is quite a different thing from being
subject to indefinite and intrinsic modification.
Here he dissents from both absolutist and pragma-
tist. Convinced that knowledge is possible, he
 CONCLUDING CHAPTER 671

infers that the means or instruments by which

knowledge is acquired, viz., the human faculties of
cognition, must be veracious. Hence, when by a
process of reasoning which, as Newman says, it is

impossible completely to analyse or adequately

to express in words, reason (or the Illative Sense ')
'

pronounces a proposition or a doctrine to be true, the

realist prefers to accept this dictum of his intellect
rather than fall into Scepticism.
§ 436. Pragmatist and absolutist, on the other
hand, though the one derives the doctrine from his
Postulatory theory of knowledge and the other from
his Coherence-notion of Truth, both affirm that
knowledge is liable to indefinite modifications and
may become some day completely transformed.
But in spite of Dr. Schiller's assertion to the con-
trary, it is Pragmatism and not Absolutism that is

most infected by this Scepticism. The absolutist

is an intellectualist, and an intellectualist can hardly

be a sceptic. He may admit that human know-

ledge evolves ; but he
not as a rule so fascinated
is

by the idea must needs extend

of evolution that he
evolution to all truths, even to those which in deny-
ing we implicitly affirm, nor does he feel bound to
reduce all knowledge to a process which could never
have had a beginning and will never have an end.
On the contrary, he has a metaphysic in which
apparently he believes, and with his view of truth
a '
Corridor-theory is incompatible.
' Not so the
pragmatist, as witness Le Roy and Papini. Le
Roy exhorts us not to reject Aristotle and Aquinas
any more than we reject Plato, Descartes or Kant.
Each theory is to be taken as an experience of
672 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

thought, a moment in its progressive life, in which

the claim to rest there would engender immediately
error, but in which the truth would appear, on the
contrary, in its dynamic tendency. 1 And Papini,
too, has shown that the pragmatic method is
consistent with any philosophy. By it theories and
beliefs are rendered plastic, which, for the Florentine
school, is equivalent to saying that we may believe
what suits us best, and may change our beliefs
according to our present needs. All that Pragma-
tism excludes is the useless and the verbal. It may
be used to establish any metaphysic and Professor ;

James himself has offered it as a means of reconciling

the religious demands of Rationalism with the
empiricist's love of facts.
That such a reconciliation is desirable no one will
deny. Indeed, it is somewhat similar to that
which I myself have attempted. And a method so
broad and so comprehensive as to embrace stand-
points so thoroughly opposed would indeed be
valuable, if it could effect the reconciliation without
destroying the validity of knowledge and the
objectivity of truth. But a pragmatic harmony
can be brought about only by the sacrifice of these,
and in effect is not a harmony at all. Pragmatism
does not reconcile Rationalism with Empiricism ;

it flatly denies that Rationalism has any ground to

stand on, as Professor James himself has again and

again assured us. Nor does it preserve that
'
richest intimacy with facts,' which is acknowledged
to be the aim of all genuine Empiricism. On the
1
Revue de Philosophic, v. 19. 6, p. 419. Reprint from the
Matin, 15th June, 1906,
 CONCLUDING CHAPTER 673

contrary, in order to maintain its theory of universal

post ulat ion, it is forced to ignore a fact which
introspection reveals, viz., that knowledge based
is

on self-evident first principles, which cannot be

explained away except by a
violation of the funda-
mental law of teleological interpretation, that the
lower must be explained by the higher and not the
higher by the lower.
§ 437. A
pragmatic reconciliation in fact, like
Pragmatism based on ambiguity
itself, is and, if ;

possible at all, is possible only because Pragmatism

deliberately refuses to define its terms or to determine
precisely the meaning of its statements. Pragmatism
which began as a method for making our ideas '

clear,' has ended by offering us a theory of know-

ledge which is more ambiguous than any that ever
existed before, so ambiguous, indeed, that its
founder has renounced it and changed the name of
his own more intelligible and more practical method
to Pragmaticism. Truth in Pragmatism is said to
*
happen to an idea under certain circumstances, a
'

statement which tells us nothing about the nature

of truth, but leaves us in doubt as to whether it is
or is not to be identified with utility. We are said
to '
make '
truth, which may mean either that ideas
are the products of psychological processes or that
truth has no objective counterpart. Finally, we
are said to *
make '
reality, where reality would
ordinarily be interpreted as objective reality, but
apparently may also signify knowledge. Nor is
this ambiguity merely incidental to the pragmatic
method. Its large, loose way of speaking and of
' '

reasoning is one of its essential characteristics.

674 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

M. Le Roy insists not only that what is clear is

uninteresting, but that " raisonnemcnts sourds, sans
paroles ni divisions, sont les seuls ficonds" No
wonder, then, that Pragmatism can retain, not
merely the aim, but more than half the cardinal
principles of Kantian Criticism, its doctrines of
Postulation and of Reconciliation in Synthesis, its
theory of the Constructive Activity of Thought and
its principle of Immanence, and yet despise the mind
of its author as a bric-a-brac museum,' which has
'

given to philosophy no idea of value that it did not

already possess, 1 and scornfully describe his most
eminent successor as a philosopher who, ".leaving to
his disciples a glittering legacy of magniloquent but
meaningless phrases, vanishes into thin air before
he can be caught and questioned about the meaning
of his enchantments." 2
§ 438. If we are to judge Pragmatism by the
purpose which it claims as its ratio essendi, Pragma-
tism is a failure. So far from increasing the clear-
ness of philosophic language and ideas, it has by its
exaggerations increased the confusion already
existing. So far from establishing metaphysics on
a sounder and more scientific basis, it has not yet
made up its mind what metaphysic is to be estab-
lished. And instead of removing from human
knowledge the taint of Scepticism, it has provided
the sceptic with a further argument against its
validity by informing him that our faculties were
never meant to give us real knowledge, but only to
lead to useful, practical results. Criticism as a

1
James, Journ. of Phil., Psy. and Sc. Methods, 1904, p. 687.
2
Schiller, Riddles of the Sphinx, p. 158.
 CONCLUDING CHAPTER 675

method and Absolutism as a theory of reality are

at any rate more capable of satisfying our needs
than the useless norms and ambiguous dicta of the
pragmatist. For Absolutism,
despite its incon-
sistency, its vagueness, and
fondness for hypos-
its

tatising psychological abstractions and converting

logical notions into metaphysical realities, at any
rate does not explain away knowledge, nor minimise
the intellect, nor destroy entirely our notions of
truth, nor even glory in its own ambiguity. More-
over, ithas a metaphysic to offer us which the
pragmatist has not. Yet Pragmatism has its
function in the economy of philosophic life and the
development of philosophic thought. As the anti-
thesis of Absolutism, it exaggerates precisely those
characteristics of knowledge and reality which
Absolutism neglects, and thus, by bringing us back
to the human point of view, it saves us from falling
into errors to which the Absolute position is liable,
and at the same time emphasises truths which are
of the greatest value to man and of the greatest
importance both in the theoretical and in the
practical affairs of human life.

§ 439. In Pragmatism and Absolutism Herr

SimmeFs doctrine of dual heuristic principles or
standpoints is illustrated. But neither Absolutism
nor Pragmatism nor any other philosophical anti-
theses are merely heuristic. They each have a
certain objective validity and are capable of being
united in a synthesis which shall reveal more fully
the real nature of the Universe than either does if
taken apart from the other. But in order thus to
reconcile antitheses we must distinguish. To recon-
676 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

cile what is contradictory is impossible : for con-

tradictories as such are incompatible. Yet no
philosophical antitheses are merely contradictory ;

they are also complementary. Each takes up a

different point of view, and emphasises a different
aspect of reality. And different aspects and
different points of view are not necessarily either
contradictory or incompatible. Hence by dis-
tinguishing the different senses which assertions on
either side may bear, we may be able to bring about
a reconciliation which shall be not a synthesis of
—
contradictions for that is impossible but a syn- —
thesis of differences which are due to the different
points of view from which, as human beings, we
may regard the same eternal truths.
This is what I have attempted to do in regard to
Absolutism and Pragmatism. I may have succeeded,
or I may have failed ;
but, at any rate, I have shown
that the fundamental theses of the two philosophies
are retained with distinctions and
in Realism
reservations. The
fond of distinctions,
realist is

and though this tendency may at times lead to a

'
subtilitas affectata nimis et inutilis? and to
*
prcecisiones tnentales et varia alia mentis otiosa
deliria? has its proper function in philosophy,
it

and is necessary as a preliminary to any kind of

higher synthesis. By distinguishing matter from
4
'

form the Aristotelian is able to maintain without

contradiction the reality of both, and yet to explain
matter as the imperfect manifestation and inade-
quate expression of mind. The distinction which
he asserts between the faculties of the human mind
enables him to avoid those fallacies which result
 CONCLUDING CHAPTER 677

from the identification of intellect with will, or

will with intellect, or intellect with sense and yet
;

to retain the unity and integrity of man and the

reality of human personality. While the distinction
between God and the created Universe enables him
to reconcile unity with plurality, necessity with
contingency, the infinite with the finite and yet;

to maintain that all alike are real. Lastly, his theory

that in cognition the object determines the mind
explains both the certainty of knowledge and the
objectivity of truth, and at the same time is con-
sistent with a teleological and genetic psychology,
allows for the growth of knowledge, admits the
constructive activity of thought, and acknowledges
the limitations that are due to our human ways of
knowing and to our human points of view.
§ 440. Realism, too, is consistent with facts and
with the data of human experience. It is a philo-
sophy which recognises the laws common-sense
of
as in the last analysis the source whence flows all
certitude and truth. Science and philosophy are
but the work of common-sense carried to greater
perfection. The difference between the philosopher
or the scientist and the man-in-the-street is chiefly
one of degree. The intellectual activity of the
former has attained a maximum that of the latter
;

is spasmodic, and in intensity and in concentration

is comparatively feeble. But the thinking of both

is based on experience and is governed by the same

laws and subject to the same criteria. Philosophy,

science and common-sense must stand or fall
together. If we cannot trust the quasi-instinctive
beliefs of the one, we cannot rely upon the more
678 THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

delicate and intricate reasonings of the other. If in

the ordinary exercise of our faculties we may err in
regard to fundamental truths, whose acceptance is
universal, what guarantee have we that when
applied to more difficult and more theoretical
problems those same faculties are reliable ? Either,
then, common-sense deceives us, and in that case
both philosophy and science are impossible, or the
scientist and the philosopher should join with the
man-in-the-street in adopting the standpoint of the
realist. For common-sense belief in objective
reality and in the existence of a world that is inde-
pendent of the thinking self, arises spontaneously
and naturally within the mind of each one of us,
and has so arisen from time immemorial. If, then,
common-sense has erred in this, the most universal
and most natural of all its beliefs, neither scientific
reasoning nor philosophical speculation can be
regarded as reliable in any matter whatsoever. Our
only alternative is Scepticism. We must declare all
knowledge impossible, and the quest of it waste of
time ;we must pronounce the problems of life in-
soluble, and so must acknowledge that one of the
most urgent needs of human nature is a source of
illusion, a spring of action which will never be
satisfied, a purposive striving that can never attain
its end. But this conclusion is incompatible with
the existence of such a need and destroys the very
notion of a rational and intelligible universe.
§ 441. Whether, then, Realism is or is not a
higher synthesis of Absolutism and Pragmatism, it

is certain that Realism is the only philosophy which

is self-consistent, and at the same time consistent
 CONCLUDING CHAPTER 679

with facts. And that it is possible seriously to offer

Realism as a reconciliation of two positions so
antagonistic as those of Pragmatism and Absolutism,
is itself a proof that Realism is not a static theory,

devoid of life, incapable of development, and always

some hundreds of years behind the times. The
philosophy of Aristotle and Aquinas has developed
and still contains the potentiality of future life.

Latent within it are many ideas which yet remain

to be broken up into differences and reunited in
higher syntheses. If we take it as it was, we shall
find that the principles which a critical regress on
more modern positions will reveal, are there set
forth ; while if we take
it is, it can still claim
it as
to be the only philosophy which can show " what
are the universal conditions which must be satisfied
by anything of which we can say that it is or that
it happens."
 ;

INDEX
Abbreviations :—c.s.=coramon-sense; /=and following page or
pages; kn = knowledge Metaph. = metaphysics n=note;
; ;

Phil. P. E. = Philosophy of Pure Experience; prin=

principle ; sec. —secundum ; sc. = science; v. = vide.
Absolute, The, and its appear- Activity and passivity 29, 354/,
ances 13,94, 2 37/i 287/ nature 373, 442, 566
; as datum for ;

of 221 /, 223/, 225/, 235/; not knowledge of self 82 /, 85/ as ;

the only reality 265 ; relation felt-relation 306.

to finite centres of experience Actus and potentia 353, 355/, 363.
234/. 285/, 507/ 524/ Adaptation, of sense-organ 379/;
Absolute knowledge (t/.kn.); truth, truth (q v.) as product of.
c h xix.
. Agens, omtie, agit sibi simile 359 /;
Absolutism 8, 11 /, ch. iv, 220 /; propter fincm 357, 359, 400.
criticism of, ch. x differentia- Agnosticism 315, 354.
;

tions of 12/, 220/, 225/; funda- Anthropomorphism 300, 527, 583,

mental ideas of 290/; leads to 664.
contradiction 286/, 524/, 659/; Anticipation 144 / error due to ;

psychology of 77/, 87/, 653/; 633.

relation to Apriorism 238/, Appearance 90, 94, 237 /; and
281/; to Criticism 3, 7/, 128, reality 34 /, 152 /, 261, 545,
189, 2207,651 /;to Pragmatism 579; 'false* 626 /; trustworthy
{qv.); to Realism 655, 659/, 630.
669/; tends to Scepticism 422/, Apperception 424 f, 447, 532, 551,
430, 432, 516, 523, 636; un- 576 /, 611 /; Transcendental
solved problems of 283 /, 287 /, Unity of 10 /, 186, 213, 215,
524/ vagueness of 14, 289, 663.
; 225,341,424.
Abstraction jy, 61, 84, 107, 115, Application essential to truth
233/.250,J9*/-395.4i3/.47 6 /. 547 /• 55 6 / not —verification ;

643/ 557/. 560/ 606.

Abstractionism, 'vicious' 115, Apprehension 6j, 84, 757 /, 165,
555, 558/. .
245, 33 8 392 /, 406. 413/, 416,
'

Accidents, essential 264/ nature ;

555. 559. 636 f> °57-
of 353/; v. Substance. Approximation does not invali-
Actio sequituressc 29, 359. 397. 4 89. date truth 481 /, 490, 644, 670.
5°4- .
A priori forms ambiguous 240
r .

Action 355/, 359, 400; relation not a datum 46 /, 90 ; method

to kn. 6jf, 127, 140, 142, 204, opposed to historical 534.
j*7/. 373/ 425. 432, 545. 59o/ Apriorism 3, 9 /, 128, 131, ch.
L' action pensct 298. 302, 330, 452. viii, ix, 281 /; relation to
L' Action, Philosophic dc 19, 448. Pragmatism (q.v.).

Digitized by
 1;

INDEX 68

Aquinas 4 30, 249, 275/, 347, 353, Bosanquet, B. 7, 13, 244, 508,
,

374/. 377> 406, 439 /, 637. 671, 511/, 516, 653.

679. Boutroux 20, 86, 494.
Aristotle 3/, 30/, 156/ 203, 243, Boyle's law, discussion of 488 /.
249. 272, 300, 332, 347, 377, 382, Bradley, F. H. 13, 82, ch. iv. 226,
407. 438. 44 1 /. 462, 467, 671, <?J//. 254, 237 /, 269 /, 281,
679. 284 /, 289, 293/, 319, 350, 363/,
Assent, cause of 43 /, 63, 70 /, 506/, 517/, 521/, 596/, 660 /,
417,641 /; immediate.40, 153; 667.
Newman's Grammar of 647/; Brain, how far consciousness
sometimes under control ot confined to 388 /; v. Cerebral
will 638 /. process.
Association of Ideas 60 /, 339;
controlled by thought 62 /, 69, Ca/XD, E. 10, 13, 73 f> 78'/. l 9&*
631. 204, 214/, 239, 244, 230 f, 266,
Astronomy 413, 439 /. 269, 423.
Atoms 427/, 442, 451, 456. CarnoPs prin. of Degradation of
Attention 41, 51, 143, 392, 550, Energy 464.
576, 627. Case, T. 31.
Avenarius 19, 23, 164, 199, ch. xi. Categories, a priori 239 /, 250 /;
$2i f, 338 f> 427. 611. c.s., suspicious 163 develop- ;

Axioms 136 f, 417, 637/, 673 as ment of 242 315 /, 332 in

;
/ ;

postulates 18, 138, 146 f, 155, Hegel ii, 242,253/; in Kant

200 /, 5" /• 555 /. 657; as
10 /, 92 /, 424 origin of 250, ;

regulative norms 533297 /, 301 philosophical, con-

/, 555, ;

569 /• 656 mutable 562 reci-

; tradictory 94, 232
; transcen- ;

procity of 533 /, 569 / relativity dental use of 213, 220.

;

of 529 subjective
;
origin of Causality, implied in concomi-
517/. 555. 576. tant variations 480/ 485 prin. ;

of 28 /, 209, 2X1, 241, 408 /,

Bacon 9 438, 559-
Baldwin, J. M. 199, 573. Causation, continuity of 368 /.
Bet-begriffe 299, 426 /. Cause, notion of 27, 55, 57/, 396,
Being and knowing 12; as im- 435, 437 abolished in Phil. ;

pression 313 in Hegel 254; P. H. 313, 333; applied to Ding-

;

is active 29, 354 /, 373 useful an-Sich 220;

; to God 664 /;
598 v. Ens, Keality.
; fundamental in Realism 420;
Belief and action 590/; and its origin 395 /; v. Effect.
emotion 593/; common (q.v.) Causes, plurality of 267, 359
sense; old, as criterion (q.v.) tend to reproduce themselves
of truth religious 436 /; v.
; 359/ 373. 376/, 566.
Faith. Cerebral cortex 389 function ;

Bergson 187, 331. 381 process, relation to;

Berkeley 96. memory 630 /: to thought 63,

Bernouilli 472. 67, 148, 168, 338.
Blondel, M. 19, 127, 204, 425, 448. Certitude 311, 647 v. Assent. ;

Body, and soul 376, 416; (Green) Change, conditions of 413 ;

23 1 283; (James) 308, 340;

.
consciousness of 228 /; 279 /;
(Simmel) 300, 527 /; own, 385 continuous 307 implies ; ;

concept of 154; perception of cause 396, 408 / imperfection ;

48/; v. Man, Organism. 372 in relations 277 nature ; ;

Digitized by
 ;

682 INDEX
of 363/; not contradictory Consciousness, continuity of 20/;
261, 263 /. 120 /, 307, 370 ; data of (q.v.) ;
Character, opposed to content deliverances of 260, 284 ; dis-
3ii/. 338/ tinction of, from reality 80 /,
Circle, definitions of 402 /. 101 /; eternal 230 /, 282/;
Claim, distinction of, from vali- intensity of, how explained
dated truth 40, 154 /, 589, 624 ; 311 ; subject to change 228/,
recognised by Aquinas 440, 279/; unity of 116 /, 228/.
637- Consequences, v. Criteria, Truth.
Cognitiofit sec. similitudinem 29, Content (of ideas) analysis of
389. 58 /; as consequences 18, 161,
Cognition, analysis of ch. i, ii 590 how determined 28, 30,
;

definition of 417, 538; Dewey's 58. 70/, 165. 194, S9S>

4*f>
account of 1 38/, 145/; function 4'6/> 473 /
5i8, 564. 580, 582/.
of habit in (q.v .) relation to
; 610, 621 J, 62s f, 677 ; opposed
action (qv.)\ to anticipation to character {q.v.) ; to existence
144/; to memory 142 /; v. 102 /, 108 /, 113 /, 116, 237,
Kn. 2 45 /
5°7 J t(> intent (q.v ) ;
Cognitum est in cognoscenti sec. schematic consciousness of
modum etc. 29, 376, 389. 62 /.
Coherence v. Truth Contiguity 371.
Colour, nature of 381 objective Contingent, Philosophic de la jg/$
;

41,44,47, 384; -vision 380 /, 23.. 453. 468.

383/. Contingency of physical laws ig/ $

Common-sense beliefs, as data 408, 457/

25 /. 38 /. 90 growth of 434 / Continuity in growth of know-
;

'impure' 297/; opposed to ledge 431 /; meaning of 369 /;

scientific laws 476 / ; validity of causation 368 /; of con-
of 677 /. sciousness (q.v.) ; of physical
Comparison, validity of 273 /, world 298, 370 f.
278. Continuum, meaning of 369 J, 431.
Comte 315. Contradiction, Principle of 137,
Concept, content of (q.v,) origin ; x 49 /. 559» 607 » reconciliation
and development of 162, 164 /, of (v. Higher synthesis) repug- ;

242 /. 414; pragmatic (or nant 372, 470 /; sign of error

instrumental) theory of 53, 645.
160 f, 164}, 173, 191 /, 301, Copernican revolution in Astro-
375 ; substitution - theory of nomy 440 f.
162 ft 166, 169 f 172, 192, 201 /, Copying, not useless 378.
%

306, 541, 603 ; symbolic nature Correspondence with reality, of

of 23, 161 ; 163 /, 168, 191 /; idea 375, 393/, 566,632 ; of judg-
201 /, 461, 466, 470, 476 f; ment 416/; of sensation 376 /,
validity of 414, 490, 496 /, 382/, 552/; of thought 416/,
503, 669 /; v. Idea, Notion, 621/; admitted by Absolutism
Universal. 509 /. 515, 621 /; by Kant
Concomitant variations, imply 621 ; by Pragmatism 304, 539,
causal connection 480 /. 565. 587, 605, 622 ; but reinter-
Concursus Divine 350, 408. preted 540 /, 564, 598 ; how
Connotation, relation to denota- known 622 /; implies determi-
tion 478, 483. nation by reality 564,610, 622 ;
Conscious life, prins. of 299. v. Truth.

Digitized by
 '

INDEX 683

Corridor-theory of Papini 24, 671. Definition as statement of rela-

Cosmos, Green's view of 227 /, tions 269, 318, 400 ; implicit /
279/; v. Reality, Universe. in content of ideas 61 /; impos-
Creation 280, 647, 665, 667. sible for ultimate notions 366,
Creatures, relation to God 275, 393. 399 ; * n Physical Science,
349/ 362/, 416. 664/, 676. approximate 480 /, 486 /;
Credibility of human testimony arbitrary 453, 461, 463. 479/.
70 /, 614, 642 /. 483 /; how formed 477 /';
Criteria of Truth, conceivability symbolic 21/, 410, 453, 460/,
5x1; consequences 16/, 21, 463, 483/; theoretical 486/;
532. 578. 582, 589/. 603, 609, valid 481, 485 /; Pascal's
(including theoretical) 543, rule for 456.
593. 606 /; consistency 22, Dentocritus 442.
459. 605 /. 645 /, (with old Denkdhonomie, Princip der t
v.
belief) 534/, 543, 585. 606, Thought-economy.
611 /, 616; difference to action Descartes 5, 671.
590 f\ to experience 591 /; Dewey\ J.ijSf, 158, 160, 172, 296,
emotional 194, 593 /. 615/; 303, 538.
evidence 29/, 70 /, 605, 615, Dialectic, Hegel's 241 /.
617 /, 641, 670; iunction of Dimension, space and time in-
418, 622; habit 608/, 615; volve 249 the fourth 387, ;
' '

harmony with fact 465, 495, Distance. 444 ; v.

601/; in Realism ch. xxiii, Disease, cause of 358.
670/; individual 613/; intel- Distance, perception of 386 /,
lectual 121 /, 517 /, 612 ; 632 felt 390. ;

negative 30, 641 ; practical Distinction, meaning of real *

bearings 592; pragmatic, ch. 350 /; necessity of 188 /, 384 /,

xxii, (not new) 602 /; psycho- 448. 675/ jb f
logical necessity 608 /, 615 ; Doubt, Methodical 623.
right determination of expecta- Dreams 630.
tions 601 /
satisfaction 125,
; Dualism 215/, 533, 536. 545*
582, 608, 615/; simplicity Duhem 315, 434, 450/, 439}, 476/
596/
195 social 468 /, 612 /; un-
; 4*7 f> 493/^ 499/. 502. 505.
alterableness of relations 228, Duration as fundament um of
279; utility 154, 316, 459, 546, Time 248 /, 262 /; not a
582, 598/, 609, 619/; verifica- succession of points 369 /.
tion by senses 603 ; workings /
540/ 577. 603/ Effect, relation to cause 28, 267,
Criticism, 8 /, 128, 225 /, 255/, 359/. 408. 4 X 6, 498, 644.
423, 447 origin of 5/; psycho-
;
Ego and non-Ego, v. Self and
logy of, ch. iii ; relation to not self, Subject and object.
Absolutism (q.v.) ; to Pragma- Egoism 219.
tism (q.v.). Elements, chemical 442 trans- ;

mutation of 443.
Emotion, as criterion {q.v.) of
DALTON'S Atomic Theory 442. relation to kn. 22, 71,
truth ;

Data of Experience 34 /, 89 /, 133, 194, 324, 555, 596.

190,
226 /, 256/; v.Fact. 61 5, 638 unstable 594./ ;

Death, cause • '

of 360 / ; nature Empiricism 203, 305/, 315, 672;
of 351/ 358. Radical (q.v.).
Decay, cause of 357 /. Empirio-Criticism 311 /, 338 /.

Digitized by
 ;; ;

68 4 INDEX
End (telos), all being has an 357, as opposed to objective 101 f,
400 in Fichte and Hegel 221 J.
; 108/ 113/, 116, 121 /.
Energetics 23, 457, 469, 477. Expectancy, error due to 633.
Energy, conservation of 412 /, Experience, as basis of Metaph.
426 /, 464 definition of 461
; 94/; as experiment 17; as
degradation of 464 molecular ; reality (q.v .) Bradley's view ;

487 / ;
principle of Least 195, of; ch. iv, 234/; cognitional
299, 313 \v. Thought-Economy ) 140, 172; data of [q.v.)', Green's
relation to sensation 456 /, 466, account of 227 / implies object ;

477 transformation of 410/.

; 88, 99, 175 implies spiritual ;

Ens, Omni, est unum, bonum, verum principle 228/; kinds of 138/,
3°4/. 598; v. Being. 171/; possible 172, 336/; pure
Epistemology, conditions of valid {q.v.) Sentient, v. Sensation ; ;

theory 32 /, 125, 347 meta- Reality (q.v.) as Sentient.

;

physical character of 2, 24, 322 /, Experimental Theory of Know-

346, 419 / 430; methods of ledge ch. v, 305, 562, 654 and ;

197. 2 55. 34° /» 377 problems ;Evolution 199/.

of 1 J, 88, 304, 317/; relation Extension, as fundamentum of
to Psychology 2, 75 /, 87 /, 93 /. Space 248 /; in sensation 384/
Error, causes of 480f 626 f, 630 /,
% not a succession of points 369/.
634 /, 639 /; criteria of 623 /, External Projection, significance
627, 630, 641 /, 644 definition ; of 389/
of 417,521,625; formal cause External world as sensation 181/,
of 626, 640; inexplicable in 455 belief in, how accounted ;

Absolutism 286 /, 524/; involves for 18, 82, 85/, 150/, 284/,
truth 447 location of, in theory
;
300/, 454/ ; continuous exist-
488, 494 /, 499, 501 /, 523 ence of 184 made by man
; ;

margin of 482, 490 /, 500. 300/ 303/ 585 perception of ;

Esse SLspercipi 96 /, 123. 39/; pragmatic value of 324;

Essence 264 /, 354 527 and
/ v. Nature, Reality.
;

existence 348 /.
Ether 301, 336, 382, 501. Fact, ambiguity of 101, 118/,
Ethics and Metaph. 256 experi- 123, 578/;
; as data {q.v.} ;

mental 314. Bradley's treatment of 257/;

Euchen 613. distortion of, in knowledge 459,
Euclid, Geometry of 444 /. 576,634/; immanent 98/, 101/,
Evidence, v. Criteria of Truth. 324, 579, 584/; independence
Evil, inexplicable in Absolutism of 324, 474, 510, 576, 584, 635 ;

286/. knowledge of ij6, 138/", 436 ;

Evolution 185/; in Hegel 223/, made by man 152, 301, 324/;

241/; in Pragmatism 83/, opposed to idea 102/, 207/;
ch. vii, 316, 330/ 543/; in pre-existing /jj, 324/, 332;
Science 469 methods of study-
; psychical as opposed to ob-
ing 197 /; universal, leads to jective meaning//?/; reality of
contradiction 332. 261, 45 S, 474 relation to theory ;

Existence, all being strives to 33/ 257/ 377. 43 6 462/, 642/; .

persevere in 357/, 408/, 412/; elativi

ambiguity of 114, 123 essence 5 IQ 575/
; selection of 576, . »

(^f.)and; of God (q. v.); poten- 634/; utility of 598/

tial 358 psychical nature of Faculties 373/; evolution of 83/,
;

97/, 102, 114, 122; psychical 186, 201 how far distinct 92/, ;

Digitized by Google
 ; ;

INDEX 685

186/ 202/, 341. 355. 394. 676/; Good, all being is 364 /, 598;
kn. relative to 549, 575 /, 580 ;
relation of, to true and real
trustworthy 27, 623 f, 641 /, 544. 619.
671 truth relative to 549, 568, Gravitation 441
;
/, 497, 500 /.
572/ 586. Green, T. H. 13, 73, 96, 189, 226 f,
Faith as basis of Metaphysics 254, 257, 266, 268, 271,
92, 132. 212, 423.
Fechner's law 629. Ground, God as 350
m
239.
f* 319. 5°7. 661.
; in Kant 8,
Feeling as matter of Cosmos 217 /; needed in Phil. P. E.
97/ in/, 227, 230; as object 339/i v. Absolute.
of perception 49 /; v. Sensa-
tion.
Felt-relations, v. Habit, cerebral conditions of
Relations.
Felt-whole as object of percep- 630 /; certitude due to 311;
tion (q.v.) constancy of 459, 469, 562, 612 ;

FtchteS, II, 13, 82, 87/, 1 28, differentiates nervous tissue

224. 281, 342, 429, 655, 657/ 380; formation of 68, 356, 608 ;

Finite conditions form of judg- function of 67, 356/, 625, 630/;

ment 245 f\ discrepant 237 intellectual 67, 631 kn. as ;

implied in negation 248 rela- complexus of 142/; necessity

;

tion to infinite 118/ 259, 288, due to 316, 607 / 615.

294. 348 / 362/ 372. 525. 646. Hallucination 388, 628, 630 /.
Force 127, 410 /, 451, 497, 501. Hamilton 30.
Form, accidental 361 function Heat, c.s. notion of 477 / sense
; ;

of 357/; substantial 351 /; v. of 381 f Theory of 443, 487 /. ;

Accident, Matter. Hegel 3, 7 / 11 / 90, 96, 98, 187,

Freedom 7, 19/, 131, 212, 526. 197. 223 /, 239, 253/, 281, 303,
425, 429, 433. 653, 667.
Helmholtz 380.
Galileo 441- Hereditary transmission of axioms
Genetic psychology ch. vii ; 146/; of concepts 301.
theory of kn. leads to contra- Heroclitus 3.
diction 332. Herodotus 435/.
Genus 252/ Hertz 503.
Geometry, a 'fiction' 370, 539/; Higher Synthesis, nature of 423/,
Euclidian 444/; notions of, 429, 651, 675/; Principle of
determined by experience 401 /, Reconciliation in 7, 13, 254,
444; valid 559 /; of fourth 422, 429 /, 506 Kant's view of;

dimension 444 f. 217, 423 f: involves nega-

Geulincx 5. tion or distinction 31 /, 428,
God as First Cause 664 /
441, 447/, 571, 675/; Realism
; as
Ground 350; belief in as a 31 /, Concl. Ch.
7, 26,
131, 212 /, 216, 218; concursus Historical Method 197 /, 332.
01 (q.v.)', existence of, pragmatic Hoernle 613.
proofs 592, 595 presupposed Humanism 18 /, 124 /, 187, jyj
; /
by universe 343. 348 362, /
leads to Subjectivism 572 /,
646 /, 663/ 667 experience in
; 581 /, 618, 655; relation to
100 immanence of 257, 280,
; Aristotle 156/, 300, 322; to
350, 666 relation to creatures
; Phil. P. E. (q.v.).
(q.v.) ;to man 231, 282 284, Hume 6, 96
/ 207 /, 214, 305 /", /
665. 395-
1

Digitized by
 / ;
; \;

686 INDEX
Huyghens 472. 48, 58 /, 90, 181 /, 281 /, 576,
Hypothesis, function of 16
f \ 584 /; how accounted tor 85
kinds of 453 must be verifi-
;
284/, 302, 324, 579; of fact
able & peu pres 464/; v. Physical (q.v.) ; of individual objects,
Sc., method of, Postulation. v. Individuality.
Indeterminism 126, 154, 328,544,
Idea, as id quo intelligitur 53 f, 576.
374 /, 418 as purpose 63 /, 69, Individuality, determination of
;

4
415; fixed '630/; function of 354/; of parts of universe 118,
53 /• 63 /. 53o /. 568 /; has 266/, 271, 276, 284/ 324. 363,
not always sense terminus
-
397. 5 l6 526,664. »

(v. Concept, substitution theory Induction 413/.

of, Reality) in Fichte 222
; in Inertia, law of 409, 412, 464, 499/.
;

Hegel 11,90,223/; not identi- Inference 45/, 394/ 413, 417,

cal with image 53, 56, 66 /, 636/ 647.
161 /, 192 /
202, 392 / or with Infinite 342 /, 349, v. Finite.
;

verbal expression 53 /, 59, 63, Infinitude, sensuous 118 /.

65 /, 166 /; not object of Intellect ch. xv ; evolution of
thought 375 relation to reality,
; 83 /, 201 ; controls nervous
v. Correspondence tends to ; impulse 630 /; functions of
action 590 v. Concept, Notion.
;
391/ 395. 4i3. 415/ 594. 634/;
Ideal in Absolutism 8, 13 in power of, varies 637 ; pure
;
1 *

Fichte 222; in Kant 216; moral ^33. J 9o. 544» relation to

131/, 216; revealed in action 19; cerebral process (q.v.) ; to will
v. Truth, Ideal. 186 /, 203, 415, 417 Schiller's ;

Idealism, Absolute (q.v.) Empiri- account of 190/; trustworthy

;

cal 451 ; foundation of 97 /, 6 3 6 ; v Thought. / >

177/; meaning of 302, 343 /, Intellectualism 6, 91 /, 540, 558,

6 57 /. 659 /; Personal (q.v.) 596/, 654. 671. ;

Subjective (q.v.) tends to Intellectus agens et passivus 391

;
/
Realism 344 /. Intelligence as Ground 230
Identitdts-philosophie 222. creative 13, 280; out of time
Identity, Principle of 147 /. 279 ; perceptive 189, 217, 246, /
Illative Sense 617, 647, 649, 671. 523-
Illusions 386, 626 /, 632. Intent 70, 194, 474, 575. 634/.
Image as expression of idea 65 / Interaction, individuality deter-
not idea (q.v.) ; not sensation mined by 355; link between
388. knower and known 331, 344/.
Imagination, constructive 54 376/
implies habit 380, 630; in Interest, function in kn. 70, 155,
Kant 93, 215, 621. 544 /» 578, 618 theoretical and ;

Immanence, doctrine of 13, 82 /, practical 530, 603.

97 / 254, 281 /; in Fichte Introjection 312/.
220/; in Kant 8, 213/; in Introspection 36, 75/.
Pragmatism 303 f, 324, 545/ Intuition 66, 86, 152, 154, 158,
584 /, 657 ; French Philosophy 165, 200, 284,312,413,415, 557,
of 448 ; notion of 290 /; v. 559. 605/, 618.
Subject-object distinction.
Immortality 131, 212, 594/ 652. James, William 15, 18, 21/,
Import of Propositions 367 55' 73. 79» 92. 120, ch. v, vi, 277,
Independence of external world ch. xi, 321/, ssjf. 376. 420,
424J

Digitized by Google
 f ;

)EX 687

43*. 47o, S&f. 544/ 55* f* relativity of, v. Faculties, Per-

563/ 572, 578/ 587.^/. 598, sonal tinge reversals in (q.v.)
;
;

tx>3*/ <*'.5/ 658, 672. theory of, v. Epistemology ;

Joachim 7, 13, 432, 50^/, 515/, whole of, not true 530, 568.
519. 5«..W/
53o. 622,653.
Judgment, a /Won* 209/, 417; Lagrange 472.
Bradley's theory
102/; Laplace 472.
of
Critique of 8, 216/ 423/, 651 Larmor 405, 428. ;

empirical 210 /, 416/, 636; Lavoisier's principle of Conserva-

determinant and reflective 218 tion of Mass 464. ;

isolated 508, 512/ 519/ 521/ Laws, empirical 488/; relation of

532 objectively determined
;
theory to 491 /, 503 of Thought ;

636 quality and quantity of

; 147/, 512, 517 /, 605, v. Contra-
247 /; subject-predicate form diction, principle of; physical
of 245/ 363/; necessity of 20, 407/;
scientific 476 /, 561 approxi- ;

Kant 3. 5/* 15/21. 73/77.87/ mate 464/, 476 /; as conven-

9//, 127/, I55, 186 f,202~f,208f, tions 464 as symbolic formulae ;

238/, 250/. 255, 281/ 289,341/, 460/, 464, 470, 476, 488 veri- ;

*?J/ 429. 5»8. 532. 651/, 655, fiability of 413, 458/, 466, 474/,
667, 671. 49o/, 497/ 502/.
Kepler 441. Least Energy {q.v.), Principle of.
Knower and Known 140, r6o, Leibnitz 5/.
170/, 303/ 331/ 34i/. 375/: Le Roy 19, 21, 296, 298, 302, 425,
v. Knowledge, conditions of. 453, 457 f* 464. 467 ». 470. 494.
Knowledge 1, 375, 417 absolute ; 583. 591.671.674.
11,88, 242; all, derived from Leucippus 442.
sense experience 99/, 111/, 192, Light, theory of 381, 443, 501 /.
203, 376/, 382, 390; alters Life, alternating character of
reality 326/, 345. 576/; an 527 /; v. Organism.
abstraction 329 as habit 142, Limit, mathematical 370.
;

318 417 as organic whole 7, Line, straight, determined by

t ;

246, 508 as system of relations

; two points 444/; impossible
7/, 227 /, 231, 266 f, 318 causal to define 399, 401.
;

theory of 374/ 391/, 416/; Local signs 389.

conditions of, in Realism 29, Localisation v. Sensation.
83, 88, 1 54 /, 250, ch. xiii, xiv, xv, Locke, 6, 73, 219, 227.
416 / in Green 226 / in James Lodge, Str Oliver 428.
; ;

332 /; in Kant 9 /, 238/; Logic, Formal 244, 250, 253, 547,

in Mach 452 /; in Schiller 605, 641, 645, 649/; of Hegel
300/; extent of 456; growth 253/ 433 J of Kant 214 ; of
of 4, 7/, 18, 125/, 230, 283/, Pragmatism 433, 539 /; of
391/; continuous 431; prin- Reality 13, 250, 253 ; relation
ciples governing 423/, 428/, to Science 449.
506 relation to validity 403, Lorentz 428.
;

ch. xvi, 524, 609/; impos- Lowatchewski 444/

sible in pragmatic theory 155,
577. 580/; origin of 209/, 266, Mach
19, 23, 164, 195, 296, 315,
374 fpeculiar to man 365, 416
\ 45* f> 469/, 477-
permanence of 434 /, 440 f pos- Mackenzie 96 /, 123, 257, 344, 667.
;

sible 27, 421, 610, 624, 670; Malebranche 5.

Digitized by
 ;; ;

688 INDEX
Man, finite character of 348 30/ 377 / 644/; personal
Green's account of 230 /, 282 /; tinge in 22, relation to
574 ;

key to universe v. Human- Epistemology (q v.) ; to Prag-

20J,
ism ; measure of all things matism (q.v.) ; to Psychology
573/; nature of 373/; relation 93/, 120 ; to Science (q.v.)
to God (q.v.) ; to universe 364/, Method, Critical, v. Criticism ;
45>> 592, 595 ; unit y °* 283, Pragmatic (q.v.) ; Scientific,
293. 373.41°. v. Physical Science.
Mariott's law, discussion of 488 f. Methodological postulates 130.
Mass, conservation of 464; Milhaud 19, 22, 464, 583, 612.
nature of 461, 497. ill, M
J. S. 184, 305, 315, 336.
Mathematics, application of 556, Mind actuates body 308, 340
561 ; validity of 208, 212, 605. individuality of 292 /, 309, 335 ;
Materialism 31, 451, 592, 595. meaning of 308 ; method of
Matter, active and passive prin- treating of 197 / ; reality the
ciples in 442 ; as relations 227 /; work of 300/, 302, 457, 467,
as sensation 181 /, 452 f; con- 585, 659; relation to matter
tinuity of (q.v.) ; Electron- 34/ 74/. 107/. 309. 312, 316,
theory of 399, 428 ; formless, 318, 330, 452.
impossible 330 ; plasticity of Minds, conterminous 308 /, 333,
126, 300 /, 328 / ; psychical intercommunication be-
337 ;

nature of 90, 285, 344/, 667, tween 308/, 312/, 332/, 342.
v. Panpsychism ; v. Reality. Monism 533 /, 569 /, 652, 665 ;

Matter and Form, in Aristotle and Phil. P. E. 334/, 657.

351 /, 461/, 676 in Chemistry Montaigne 21, 176.
;

461 /; in Kant 215 ; in Schiller Moore, G. E. 30, 98, 176.

154. 157. 300/. 322, 328/ Moral Ideal 131.
Maxwell 503. Motion, implies a cause 409 /;
Mayer's principle of Conservation Laws of, valid but not axio-
of Energy (q.v.). matic 407, 409 /, 441, 464, 469,
McDougall 379. 490, 500/; relativity of 44 c,
McTaggart 13. 629/; Time and Space as
Meaning, as consequences 542 /, measure of 249.
v. Content relation to appli- Muller 379.
;

cation 559 ; v. Reference, Muscular Sense 386, 390.

objective.
Measurement, always approxi-
mate 480 /; involved in Name, idea (q.v.) not identical
scientific definition 478 with.
objectivity of 249. Naturalism 595.
Mechanical interpretation of the Nature, complete phil. of, im-
physical world 363, 451, 469, possible 364; in Bradley 236,
487, 503/ Fichte 221 Green 227 /,
Mechanics, principles 407 /. Hegel 223 /, 242, Kant 9, 131,
Mediating notions 299, 426 /. 209, Schelling 222 ; in Phil, de
Mellone 514. la Contingence 20.
Memory 36, 53/, 142, 380,631 /. Necessary Being 342 /, 646.
Meta-geometry 433, 444/ Necessity, hypothetical 511 /,
Metaphysics, aim of 597 ; 516 /; intrinsic v. Axioms,
attempts to re-establish 6 /, Truth, necessary; Kant's expla-
15/, 652, 674 ; method of 256/, nation of 240 physical 20,

Digitized by
 . ; ;;
;

INDEX 689

407 /; subjective 555 /, 579, (q.v.) between physical theory

;

583, 608/, 615.

and empirical fact 554 /.
Needs, human, constancy of 469 ;
Parmenides 3.
imply unity of ground 340 /; Pascal 456.
must be satisfied 587, 596 /, Pearson, Karl 452, 457, 460 /, 462 /.
618; theoretical and practical Peine, C. S. 14/, 18, 24, 133, 161,
68 /, 518, 606 truth (qj>.) rela-
;
206, 296. 322 /, 431, 590, 673.
tive to. Perception, Aristotelian view of
Negative judgment 247 /. ch. xiv, and cf. 377 n Bradley's ;

Neo-Kantianism 12/. account of 101 /, 107 /, 234/;

Nerve-terminals, differentiation external 39 / implies thought
;

of 380; sensation in 388 /. 84, 1 10, 143 /, 180 / implies ;

Nervous impulse 379/. 630/; universal {q.v.) ideas; influence

processes v. Cerebral, Physio- of subjective factor in 457 /.
logical processes tissue, differ- ; 575 /, 627 /, v Illusions not a
. ;

entiation of 380/. form of inference 45/, 394/;

Newman 596, 647 /,* 67 1 object of, determines con-
Newton 315, 407, 409/. 441 /, 464. tent 42/, 47. 376/, 386/, 416;
distinct 35, 407,48. 109 /, nj/,
469, 472.
Nominalism 167 /. 175, 178, 181 /, 344 not a felt ;

Notions, ultimate 165, 369, 375, whole 41 /, 89, 105 /, 116 /, 660
of distance (q.v.) of own body
392/. 394 /. 399. 401 /, 446; ;

v. Concept, Idea. 48 /; physiological process

Number, implies finite objects underlying 3S1 /, 384/, 632;
248.
purposive v. Purpose selec- ;

tive v. Selection sensation as

;

Object, distinction of, from the id quo of, v. Sensation

subject (q.v.) of sense per-;
Strong's account of 177 /, 308
ception v. Perception. Percepts have meaning 52 /
Objective Evidence v. Criteria. never identical 308 ; relation
Objective Idealism v. Absolutism. to sensation-complex 46/, 51 /.
Objectivity, how explained in Personal equation 481, 500.
Pragmatism 173 /, 302, 308.
Personal Idealism 25, 187, 309 /,
534. 577 /. 579. 581 /: in 335. 34i/. 344. 652. 657/.
Absolutism 284 / normal ;
' Personal 'tinge* 22, 510, 516,
22, 453, 467/, 583/ 613/. 574/, 580.
Occam 14. Personality 25, 187, 282 /, 307 /,
Organism, as vehicle of Eternal 34i /• 5* 6 534. 668. '

Consciousness 23 1 282 /, 525 / Pfletderer 217.

,

decay of 357 /, 360 /; nature of Phantasm 392 /, 406.

290/. 35,2. 357/ Phenomenalism 294 / ; in Kant
Origin and validity of kn. 205 /, 212 /, 282.
208 v. Knowledge. Philosophy de V Action (q.v.)
/ ;
;

Ostwald 23, 315, 477. de la Contingence (q.v.) ; of

Pure (q.v.) Experience ; rela-
tion to common-sense 26 /,
Panpsychism 310, 331 /, 335, 337, 677/.
342, 345. 657. Physical Science, aim of 23,
Pantheism 663 /. 451/, 461, 474/, 487, 494/,
Papini 24, 671 / 528, 588 ; concepts of 414,
Parallelism, psycho - physical 461,. 466, 476 f ; their validity

Digitized by Google
 ;;; ;

690 INDEX

414, 490, 496/, 503/; defini- 16/ ch. v, 301/, 305, 543/654/;
tions of (q.v.) ; evolution of criticised 151/, 154/. 193, 561,
469 ; laws of (q.v.) ; method of
654/; origin of 132/.
407, 413/ 462, 404. 492/, 561 PotentU, active and passive 355/,
no axioms in 406 /, 465 / ;
Prag- 363. 376/. 382, 391/. 405. 442 ;

matism in 19/, 21 /, 317, ch. v. Actus.

xvii, 567 Realism compatible Practical Reason
; v. Reason.
with 451 472 /, Practice, controlled by idea 64
/, 460/,
ch. xviii ; relation of theory to reality relative to 25, 544 rela- ;

empirical fact 453 /, 462 /, tion of kn. to 14, 68, 298,

487 /, 492 /, 494 /, 643 / 3i6, 327, 454/. 457, 460. 545.
relation to Psychology 456, 618/.
467 ; Relativism in 319, 340, Pragmatic Method 14/, 155, 206 n,
452, 583 ; sensation as data of 420, 672
23» 45 2 454 / 477 i subjective Pragmaticism 590,673.
»

element in 457 /; symbolism Pragmatism, aim of 15/, 652;

in (q.v.) stages in develop-
;
unrealised 674 ambiguities of ;

ment of 453 ; theories in, tenta- 322/, 673/; definitions of 17,

tive 439 /, 488 ; useful 494 / 124/, 199; exaggerations of
validity of 463/, 467/, 491, *3 2 /' 192/, 654 /; French 19/;
495/. 502/, 554, 643/ German 19, 22/; influence of
Physiological process in percep- evolution in, ch. vii practice ;

tion (q.v.) in sensation (q.v.)

; ; and principles inconsistent
relation to intellect, v. Cerebral 200 / psychology of ch. v, vi,
;

process. vii, 654 / relation to Abso-

;

Physiology, relation to Psycho- lutism 14, 124, 128/, 304/334,

logy 299/, 311. 651/ 657/ 671/, 675/; to A-
Place 249 as common nucleus
; priorism 305/, 332
18, 20, 155. ;

of perception 308 /, 334 /. to Aristotle 332; to

156 /,
Plasticity of experience 126; of Criticism 128 /, 651 /; to
matter (q.v.) of reality 300 /. ; Empiricism 305, 672 /; to
Plato 96, 545, 671.
3, Metaphysics 14/, 24 /, 295 /,
Pleasure and pain 30, 105, 287 /, 304, 322/, 420, 657/, 671/, 674 ;

311. to Newman 647/; to Personal

Pluralism 309 /, 334, 339, 342 /, Idealism (q.v.) to Phil, de la
;

652, 658, 665, 668 as normative ; Contingence (q v.) to Phil. P.E.

;

principle 533/ $69/. (7. to Realism 536 /, 655 /,

;

Plurality, contradictory 234 im- ; 668 /, 676 /; to Scepticism 15,

plies unity 280, 663/. 315, 328, 345. 422, 424/, 432,
PoincarS, 19, 21/, 315, 433/, 461, 562, 611, 623 /, 636, 674; to
^j/. 47o. 499. 5o3. 554. 5»3". Subjectivism 572 /, 581 /, 608,
612. 655
Positivism 31, 127, 315. Predication, kinds of 366 /
Postulates, axioms as (q.v.) in ; v. Subject and predicate.
Physical Science 407, 463/; Preperception 633.
origin of 135, 154/. Presence in idea 53.
Postulation, in Kant 92, 127, 129/ Presentation, Bradley's account
212 /; in other philosophies j
1 01 /; v. Perception.

127 / in Realism 391, 415, 561

;
'
Pressure 381 /.
in Science 159, 407, 462 /, 475 Preston 477 /. ;
1

pragmatic doctrine of universal, Preternatural t phenomena 438.

Digitized by
 ;;; /

INDEX 69

Primary qualities 384 /. 227/, 232/, 246/, 266/, 273/,

Principles, ultimate v. Axioms. 401 /, 405, 515 ; objective 26,
Probabilities, sum of 646 /. 103, v. Perception ; of judg-
Process and product 106/, 120 /. ment (q v ); predication of,
270. not contradictory 366 ; primary
Projection, significance of external 384/ ; relation to quantity 314,
389/- 528 : to substance 353 /.
Proof of existence of God (q.v.) Qualities, synthesis of, in thing
reciprocity of 529 /, 647 /. 250/.
Protagoreanism 3, 549 /, 573 /, Quantity, equations express
618. relations of 410/; of judg-
Psychological Method, The 197, ment 247 /; relation to sub-
199. stance 353/.
Psychologist's fallacy, The 73, 86.
Psychology, Analytic 186 / Radical Empiricism 141, 163,
Caird's view of 78/; Genetic 171 /. 305 /. 337. 34o/. 658.
1

ch. vii of Absolutism (q.v); Uadio-activity 426 /, 443.

;

of Bradley ch. iv of Criticism Rankine 315.

;

73/87/; of Kant 77, 87,92/. Rationalism 6, 8, 10, 91, 305,

186 /, 202 /; of Locke 73/, 672 / experimental 315. :

78 /; of Pragmatism (q.v.) of Raul in son 435.

;

Realism (q.v.) relation

; to Reaction, in third law of Motion
Hpistemology (q.v.) to Physics ;411/; modifies effect 359/;
456,467; to Metaphysics (q.v.); of inanimate objects 326
Transcendental 77. Realism and Common -sen^e
Psycho-physical Parallelism 299, 25 /. 677 /; and Physical
3". 338. Science ch. xviii; as higher
Ptolemy 440. synthesis of Absolutism and
Pure Experience, data of 34 / Pragmatism 31, 347, 651 /,
definition of 297 existence of ;
675/; essence of 621 in Kant ;

297 ;nature of 312 /. 215/; 'New' 4, 30, 176;

Pure Experience, Phil, of 24. 80. objections to 177, 365 /; prag-
141, 173/, ch. xifxii, 451, 457, matic value of 323/; psycho-
536, 584 /, 586, 652 aim of 24, ;logy of, ch. i, ii, 420, 655/;
313X325; disruptive tendency relation to Phil. P. E. (</.v ) ;

o* 309/. 321. 334. 336/, 339 /. Scholastic 25 /, ch. xiii, xiv, xv.
342 /; relation to Monism 309 /, xxiii Scottish School of 4, 30,
;

334. 338. 657 to Pragmatism Reality, as experience 97 /, 175 /,

;

and Humanism 160, 164, 189, 296/, 302, *>8, 310/, 318,* 325,
295 /. 317. 322 /, 331. 419 /. 536 /, 545/; as Knowledge 12,
657 /; to Realism 336 /, 338, 219, 221, 224, 318, 658; as
343/; to Science 450/, 457- organic whole 11, 14, 223 /,
Purpose, function of 63 /, 69, 415, 290/. 363* 4CO. 523. 621, 663/;
474 /» 656; in Sense-percep- as presented in this 102 /, 4
'

tion 42 /, 68 influence of,

; 111/, 234/, 285; as sensation
exaggerated in Pragmatism 16 /, 454 /» v Matter as Sentient - ;

19, 64/, 125, 193/. 457/. 544/. Experience 82, ch. iv, 270,
575/. 618, 633/; notion of, its 537 /; as subject of all judg-
origin 395/. ments 103 /, 108 /, 233, 522 as ;

system of rational Egos 221 /,

Quality and Relation 106, 342, 657 / as system of rela-
;

Digitized by Google
 ; ;

iNDEX

tions 13, 227 /, 266, 279 /, 318; Regulative principles 130, 216,
as systematic whole 363, 400 /, 218 v. Axioms. ;

513; as Thought 12 /, 14, 81 /. Reid 30.

91, 121,189, 254,268,284,429/, Relations, all knowledge (q.v.) is
467, 506, 518 belief in 26, 42 /,
; of Aristotelian theory of 272, ;

55 /. 678, v. External world 400 /, 662 Bradley's theory of ;

cannot be discrepant 13, 94, 269, 661 /; conjunctive and

232 /; degrees of 224, 238, disjunctive 56, 305 /; definition
286, 522 determines thought,
: by means of 400/; due to
v. Assent, Content distinction thought 106, 120; external 233,
;

of appearance from, v. Appear- 271, 276 /, 508 felt- 55 /, 169/, ;

ance implies experience 99 /,

; 173,192,305/; Green's theory
281, 585; implies spiritual of 227 /, 266 /, 279 /, 661 /;
principle 228 / indeterminate ; Hume's view of 207 /; imme-
v.Indeterminism; (the) making diate apprehension of 157 /.
of 155, 298, 300/, 322, 324/, 167. 4M/. 557. 56o/. 565, 605 /;
327. 580, 614, 673; nature of irreversible 433, 540, 557, 606 ;

~ adl
(Bradley)
v

112, 233 /; no a priori modify their terms 508/, 520 /;

schema of 75, 243/, 251 / not ; necessary 402 /, 406, 414, 417,
always sensible 5? /, 145, 169/, 561 637 ; of God to creatures
,

192 one and individual 13 /,

; (q.v.) rationis 275, 278; real 54, ;

91, 94, in /, 116 /, 122 /, 225 2 75/ 3°5 v. Quality. >

232 / 266, 271. 289, 503 Relativism 319 /, 359, 527 /, 568 ;

v. Monism, Pantheism ; origin v. Knowledge, Truth.

of 330 /; plasticity of 300 /, Religious belief, not kn. 434,
v. Matter ;
possibility of know- 436/,
ing, as 345, 576 /, 580, Renouvier 13, 19, 266, 319.
it is

585, 678 /; 'primary* 151 /, Reversals of previous truth 438 /

323 /• 545 /. 5^6 psychical 440/, 524. ;

nature of 97 /, 102, 232, 268, Rey, Abel 314 /, 536, 548, 583, 609.
286, 310, 421 / rational struc- Riemann 444 /.
;

ture of 13, 58, 119, 251, 363/, Russtll, B. 30.

400, 416, 516, 646, 662 rela- ;

tivity of, to faculties 573/; to St. Thomas, v. Aquinas.

practical life 25, 544 transper- Satisfaction, as criterion (q.v.) of
;

ceptual 584, 5S6 (the) worlcof Truth;

;
essential to Truth
Mind (q.v.) v. Being, External
; (q.v.) nature of 617/; relation ;

world. to kn. 194, 610, 617 v Truth, ; .

Reason, autonomy of 131 func- relativity of. ;

tion of 429, v. Intellect Ideas Sauvage 567. ;

of Pure 213, 216; Pure and Scepticism, Absolutism (q.v.)

Practical 19, 130/; 216 /, 423 tends to; and Kant 5 /, ;

Schiller's account of 190 /; 8 /, 219 as alternative to ;

Reasoning, natureof 415, 417,647. Realism 678/; dogmatic and

Reconciliation of Antitheses in practical 421 in Science 21, ;

Higher (q.v.) Synthesis. 433. 443.446/ 471; not justi-

Reference, objective, a function of fiable 433, 446/, 471, 523/;
thought 28, 54, 81, 116, 175/, relation to Pragmatism (q.v.).
393; an accident 173 /, 192, Schelling 13, 222, 224.
296; essential to truth and Schiller, Friedrich 226,
error 625. Schiller, F, C. S. 15/, 22, 24, 34 n,

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INDEX 693

37*. 83, ch. v, 162 f, 187, ch. vii, function of 383 /, 388 /; fusion
206 w, 239/, 259, ch. xi, 322]* of 386 lag of 388 localisa-
;
* '
;

334. 345. 433. 457. 459. 47o. 536. tion of 49 /, 389 /; nature of 356,
543'/ JSSf> 565. 567/. 572 /, 389; not kn. 28, 143; not
583 n.jfyf, 589. 593. 607, 613 /, object of external perception
635. 671. 25> 47/, 5o, 179, 374; physio-
Scholastic principles 4, 29, 348 /, logical process underlying 376/,
359. 389/ 379/ possibility of 336; qua-
>
'

Scholasticism Preface, ch. xiii, lity' of 379, 382 fy 405 relativity ;

xiv, xv, xxiii ; v. Realism. of 628/; resembles its cause

Schopenhauer 226. 374. 376/, 389; seat of 388/;
Science, abstract character of, synthesis of, objectively deter-
differs in degree 404/; aim of mined 387.
23, 403/; critique of 19; rela- Sensationalism, 452, 460, 652.
tion to metaphysics 21, 449/, Sense, muscular 49, 386, 390; of
460/; suggested Critical method sight 383/, 385/; of touch
9/; and Pragmatic Method 385/.
15/. ! 33/. 3° ! 45o v. Physical Sense-perception v. Perception.
. I

Science. Sensibile commune 384 /, proprium

Scottish School 430. 382.
Selection 43, 68/, 249, 324, 392, Senses, the 48 /; how far trust-
458, 532, 576, 579; and objective worthy 625 /.
validity 70/, 457/, 474/, 613, Sentience, relation to Thought
634/; in scientific definitions
479/-
o r
Sentient experience, Reality as
Self, as group of sensations 455/; ch. iv.
distinction of, from not-self Series, implies unity 341.
81/, 85/, 102/, 109, 152, 213, Shadworth Hodgson 34 /, 50, 73,
221/, 234/, 284, 312, 343, 534; 79/
in Phil. P. E. 24, 296, 306/, Sidgwick, Henry 525.
313. 339/: reality of 285, 340/; Simmel Georg 19, 23, 299 f,j26f,
unknowable 652 /. 543. 545. 547/. SSof, 567/,
Self-consciousness, in Fichte 571/ 5 8 3/. 611
613, 649, 675. .

221/; in Green 230; in Hegel Solipsism 325, 334, 572.

11, 223/, 242, 253; in sense- Space, as common nucleus of
perception 36, 39/, 114/, 177/, perception 308 /, 334 /; implies
343 substance
;
• implied in '
imperfection 372 in Bradley
;

287 ;in Kant 92/; in what

Self-evidence of Truth, due to sense a continuum 369/; origin
habit 316 not always apparent
; of notion of 248 /: our, three-
500 /; v. Criteria, Truth, dimensional 386/, 444/; per-
necessary. ception of 386 /; validity of
Sensation, as data of science 23, conceptual 444 /.
452, 454 /, 477 as difference of
; Species and Genus 250 /.
energy (q.v.) as id quo per-
; Species sensibilis 374, 416 expressa ;

cipitur40/, 50, 51/, 179/, 374, 377. 382/; impressa 377, 379,
378, 384, 418; as object of 385 intelligibilis 374, 406. ;

internal perception 49/; as Specific energy of the nerves 379 /.

quality of object 41 /, 50 /, Spencer 127.
177/, 266, 374; chaotic 10, Spinoza j/, 357, 408 /, 412.
341 ;-complex v. Percept Spiritual nature of matter 344 /,

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694 INDEX

667 principle of Cosmos 228 /,

; 215, 244 /, 250 /, 621 Higher;

279/. (q.v.)\ in quality of sensation

Staudt 401 if. 383; in sense-perception 41 /,
Stout, G. F. 168, 188, 634. 397-
Strong, C.A 160, 176 /. 308.
.

Subject and Predicate 102 /, 113/, Telbological Method, The

"5/. 245/. 366. 367/ 197 /, 205, 672.
Subject and Object, distinction Teleology 197/, 217, 222/, 357.
of 10, 34/, 48, 74/. 79/. 82/. Temperature, definition of,
109, 118, 174, 255. 303. 343. how formed 477 /, 487 /:
576 absent in pure experi-
; -sense 381 /.
• *

J
ence 50/, 80/, 171, 323, 537; Theory, often tentative 437, 4 j[g /;
J
of all judgments, refers to 488, 637 ; relation to fact (q.v.) ;

Reality (q.v.) relativity of subordinate to practice 544/.

;

96/, 105, 213/, 220/, 230/, 567, 652 validity of, relation ;

254/. 303/. 3«>, 318, 343. to development 432 /, 439 /;

Subjective factor in kn., influence verification of 601 /, 642 /;
of 71 /, 194, 417, 457, 475/, v. Physical Science, theory in.
576/. 579/. 5«3/. 586. 627/ Theory of Knowledge, Aristotelian
Subjective Idealism 184, 312, 334, or Causal, ch. xiii, xiv, xv
336 Experimental ch. v v. Episte- ;

Subjectivism, in Bradley 96 /, mology.

123 ; Kant 219, 281
in in Thing, ambiguity of 366 ; as ;

Pragmatism (q.v.) and Human- group of sensations 454 /, 467 /,

ism (q.v.) meaning of 572,
; 532. 534 as object of per- ;

573 "- ception 26, 39/, 47/, 115, 416;

Substance and Accident 264 /, as unity in difference 250 /,
35°» 353 /. 366 /; common- 254, 264/, 276, 350/, 366/.
sense Belief in 27 in Phil. ;
397 unity of, how determined
;

P. E. 24, 296, 313; nature of 397 /. 532.

351 /; notion of, its origin Things-in-themselves 11 /, 214/,
300, 395/ 527/ 218/; abolished in Absolutism
Substitution theory of the Con- 12, 220, 281 /.
cept 162, 169, 541. Thompson, J.J- 399- 428.
Subsumption, a function of intel- Thought, Being as, v. Reality ;

lect 417 experimental 155,

; can never comprehend Reality
158/; in sense-perception 40/, io 5 /• 429. 5°7 constructive
J

44 /, 245, 631 /; not due to activity of 92, 474 /, 625, 634 /;

Thought-economy 195 /; some- function of, in immediate
times immediate 46, 632 syste- experience 84, 143/; no heredi-
;

matic 66. tary forms of 148, v. Hereditary;

Supernatural, belief in the 438. object of, real 53/, 58 /; rela-
Symbol 483 ; has objective signi- tion to sentience 29, 84/, 102 /,
ficance 496, 498. 120/, 187 /, 202 /, 217, 306, 374,
Symbolic nature of Concept (q.v.). 391,468 validity ot 117, 121/, ;

Symbolism, in Pragmatism 167 /, v. Truth.

315, 468, 487 /, 539 /. 554 /: Thought-Economy, Principle of

in Science 21, 23, 410 /, 453/, 23, 164, 194/, 299. 454/ 460,
460/493/. 463.
Synechism 323, 431. Time, implies imperfection 372
Synthesis, a priori principles of in Green 231, 279/; in Kant

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INDEX 695

92/; in what sense a con- 608 /, 637 normal objectivity

;

tinuum 369/ ; not contradictory of (q.v); ontological 364 /,

262 / origin of
;
notion of 373» 565, 621, 669; personal
* Personal
248/ 614, v. Tinge';
Transcendental Deduction 254 /. Pragmatic view of 301 /, 316 /,
•
Transcendental Leap 303, 338, '
425 /, 431 /, ch. xx, xxi, 589,
376, 537- 668, 673 primarily an affair
;
r .
Transcendental Unity of Apper- of intellect 597, 670; recog-
ception (q .v.). nition essential to 509; rela-
Transitional experiences 297, 307. tivity of (intrinsic) 527 /, 532 /,
Triad ic Law of Thought 254. 568 (to man) 23, 125, 132, 517,
;

Truth, absolute 88, 419, ch. xix, 53o/, 552/, 556/, 573/, 582/,
528 / abstract 1 56 /, 546 /,
; 616; self-evident 157, 272, 557,
556/, 561/; all, starts as a 645; social view of 22, 548/,
claim 610, 623/, v. Claim 583/; 612/; subject to indefi-
application, essential to 547/, nite modification 7, 13, 21,422,
556 /, v Application as dyna-
. ; 431 /, 469. 506, £14, 522 /,
mic tendency 671 as habit ; 526, 671 utility of 468 /, 494,
;

532, 535 /. 548, 5 6 8 as logical : 545* 563. 568 /, i'. Utility;

value 17/, 23, 471, 526, 593 as ; verification process essential
organic whole 7, 506/, 520/; as *° 538, 540 v. Criteria.
;

process of leading 538/, 563,

565 /. 603 / as product of adap-
;

tation 316, 468 /, 531 /, 609, 614 Unity in difference, principle of

as reciprocity 534/; as utility 7 /, 254, 423 /, 429 ; application
467/, 531, 542/, 544/, 5 6 7. of, to thing (q.v.) ; empirical
618/; Coherence-notion of ch. xix, origin of 290, 293/
5^5. 597, 669; Common-sense, Unity of presentation 41/, 89,
476 /, grows by increment 438, 105/, 1 16/, 660; of man (q.v.) ;
446 Correspondence-view of 28 /,
;
of thing (q v.).
i 6 5' 374/, 417, 43i/. 473/> Universal ideas, function in
514, 668/; rejected by Absol- sense - perception 40 /, 44 /,
utism 508; by Pragmatism 21, 53/. 57/. 392; not due to
318, 457/, 459, 530/, 535. 55i/, Thought-economy 195 / ; rela-
565; definitions of 417, 473/, tion to object 57, 396 /, 414,
5<A 53'. 537/, 542/, 546, 515/; v. Application ; validity
562/, 589, 622, 625; degrees 0^25, 57, 158, 207/. 399/
°f 5°7/» 5*4* 522, 558; ideal Universality of truth, how
506, 513/, 624, 669; identified explained 20, 209 /, 240 /, 555,
with its consequences 563 /; 560, 579, 583-
in posse 541 /, 557 intra-experi- Universe, account of, in Realism
;

ential 537/ 563 isolated 463/,

;
348 /, 362 /, 664 / relation of ;

512 /, 510 /, 523, 532; (the) God to v. Creatures ; of man

making of 301/, 326/, 538, 546, to 364/; v. Reality.
550 /, 580, 669 man-made 18 /, Utility, as criterion (q.v.) of
;

288, 301 /» 3i6 f> 324 /, 432, truth ; estimation of, varies
458, 580; manifests itself in 619/; function of 146/, 316,
finite centres of experience 324 ; implies truth 495/, 502 /,
507 /, 622 must be living 591
;
554/ 570/, 599. 602, 619;
;

must satisfy needs 587, 596 /, meaning of 598/, 6ot / ; of

618; necessary 555 /, 560/, facts 598 / ; of theories 601 /.

Digitized by
 ;
'
; ;

696 INDEX
VAI LINGER 77. Wallace 13, 82, 213, 241 «,
Validity of universal 623 n.
(q.v.) ideas
problem of, its relation to Welton 148.
Metaphysics 419/ relation to Whole, felt-,
; v. Perception ; logi-
|

origin (</.v.). \
cal and real 250, 516, 664
Valuations, human, universal moral 54 organic, v. Organism,
;

function of 25. 544, 575/;, Reality, Truth systematic as

;

selective 583, 613/; social opposed to organic 363, 400 ;

613/ teleological 217, 400, 664,

Value, logical 17/ 567, 593 ; and Wilbois 19.
economical 526, 567, 584 Will, as formal cause of error
objective 534. 417, 640; function of, in kn.
V fitch 12. 245, 324, 415. 579; intellect
Verbal associations, controlled subordinated to 91, 189 /;
by purpose 65/; v. Association. relation to assent 71, 417,
Verbalisation destroys * pure 638 / subordinated to intellect ;

experience 298. 190.

Verification -process essential to Will-to-believe 16, 22, 72, 194,
truth (q.v,) ; =
not application !

475. 593. 595. 639.

(q.v.): objective control of 577 /, Wilm 225.
1

581 /, 617; potential 541 /,6b3/. Wolff sf.

Virtual existence 452, 458. Wundt 136, 185, 379/
Vital series 23, 199, 299, 311,
3I4» 338.
Voluntarism 25 ; v. Practice, YouNG'HELMHOLTZ theory of
Valuation, Will. audition and colour-vision 380.

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