PHILOSOPHY OF KNOWLEDGE PROFESSOR LADD'S WORKS. PHILOSOPHY OF KNOWLEDGE. An Inquiry into the Nature, Limits, and Validity of Human Cognitive Fac- ulty. 8vo. $4.00. PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. An Essay in the Metaphysics, of Psychology. 8vo. $3.00. INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY. An Inquiry after a Rational System of Scientific Principles in their Relation to Ultimate Reality. 8vo. $3 oo. PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY. i 2 mo. $i.oonet. PSYCHOLOGY; DESCRIPTIVE AND EXPLANA- TORY. A Treatise of the Phenomena, Laws, and Develop- ment of Human Mental Life. 8vo. $4.50. OUTLINES OF PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. A Text-book on Mental Science for Academies and Colleges. Illustrated. 8vo. $2.00. ELEMENTS OF PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. A Treatise of the Activities and Nature of the Mind, from the Physical and Experimental Point of View. With numer- ous illustrations. 8vo. $4.50. THE DOCTRINE OF SACRED SCRIPTURE. A Critical, Historical, and Dogmatic Inquiry into the Origin and Nature of the Old and New Testaments. 2 vols. 8vo. $7.00. WHAT IS THE BIBLE? An Inquiry into the Origin and Nature of the Old and New Testaments in the Light of Modern Biblical Study. i2mo. $2.00. THE PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH POLITY. Crown 8vo. $2.50. PHILOSOPHY OF KNOWLEDGE AN INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE, LIMITS, AND VALIDITY OF HUMAN COGNITIVE FACULTY BY GEORGE TRUMBULL _LADD PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN YALE UNIVERSITY NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1897 Copyright, 1897, by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS. SEnibersttg JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. VVTVFT?SITY OF COLLEGE LIBfi 16 3 fS TO THOSE WHO BY SERIOUS AND PROLONGED INQUIRY, HOWEVER SCEPTICAL, ASPIRE TO APPROACH THE TRUTH, THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED " Shall we not look into the laws Of life and death, and things that seem, And things that be, and analyze Our double nature?" PREFACE r I A HIS book is an Essay in the interests of some of the * most profound and difficult of the problems which can engage the reflective thinking of man. It would scarcely be an exaggeration to say that the nature, limits, and guaranty of knowledge afford subjects of inquiry which exceed all others in the demand they make for deep and earnest reflection. If one were at liberty to construct a Theory of Reality which should be simply a logically consistent and symmetrical affair, satisfactory to the ideals of the architect but without regard to foundations of fact or questions of the right to occupy the ground in this way, the task would seem compara- tively light. But in this day, and in the face of history, such a liberty cannot be intelligently claimed ; much less can it be successfully exercised. Facts must be considered, and ques- tions of right cannot be thrust aside or overlooked. For the former part of one's philosophical basis, the particular sciences are now responsible ; for the latter part the search after guide and guaranty a particular form of philosophical discipline, sometimes called epistemology, is invoked. It is this form of philosophy which this book undertakes. Its author asks that the intrinsic character of its problems, and all the perplexities it entails, should be constantly remem- bered by the reader. 1 should probably have found my self-imposed task some- what less troublesome if I had more predecessors among Vlll PREFACE modern writers on philosophy in English. But, so far as I am aware, there are none from whom any help is to be de- rived. 1 In Germany a considerable number of books, with the title Urkenntnisslehre, or some similar title, have recently ap- peared ; and German works on Logic and systematic Philos- ophy have generally the merit of dealing in a more thorough way with the epistemological problem, wherever they touch its. sensitive points, than is customary in England or this country. Now and then a French writer, too, has afforded a hint, or suggestion, of which I have availed myself. So far as these helps have been consciously received, they have been acknowledged in the few references of the text. But I think it fair to ask that this book should be regarded as, much more exclusively than often occurs, the outcome of its author's own reflections over the difficult questions it essays to answer. It asks and should receive the treatment due to a pioneer work. At the same time it is also true that no other questions, practical or philosophical, are being more anxiously considered or are more influential over life and conduct than those which merge themselves in the epistemological problem. While this problem is reflected upon, largely in an unguided and illogical way, by multitudes of minds, the authorities, who ought also to be guides in reflective thinking, have been of late accustomed to reiterate the cry of " Back to Kant ! " As a student for years of the critical philosophy, I have not been unmindful of the demand to place myself in the line of its development of the epistemological inquiry. I have had the method and the conclusions of the great master in criticism before me, from the beginning to the end of my work. Yet 1 An exception cannot be made in the case of Mr. Hobhouse's elaborate work, " The Theory of Knowledge," since it is confessedly a treatise in Logic rather than Epistemology, as I conceive of epistemological problems and method. PREFACE ix the positions to which my independent investigations have forced me are chiefly critical of, and antagonistic to, the posi- tions of the Critique of Pure Reason. If I may claim any peculiar merit for the method followed in discussing the problem of knowledge, it is perhaps chiefly this : I have striven constantly to make epistemology vital, a thing of moment, because indissolubly and most intimately connected with the ethical and religious life of the age. I have no wish to conceal, therefore, the quite unusual interest which I take in the success of this book ; I sincerely hope that it may be a guide and help to not a few of those minds to whom I have dedicated it. GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD. YALE UNIVERSITY, May, 1897. CHAPTER I THE PROBLEM PAGE The Anthropological View Standpoint of Psychology Appeal to Rea- soii Kant's Position in History Relation to Metaphysics Freedom from Assumption The Primary Datum The Dilemma stated Sources of an Answer The Implicates necessary The Method to be pursued Practical Benefits expected 1 CHAPTER II HISTORY OF OPINION Purpose of the Sketch The View of Plato The Doctrine of Aristotle Post-Aristotelian Schools Origen's Doctrine of Faith and Knowledge Augustine's Merits in Epistemology The Middle Ages 30 CHAPTER HI HISTORY OF OPINION (continued) The Position of Descartes Pioneer Work of Locke Views of Berkeley Scepticism of Hume Position of Leibnitz Kant's Critical Work ; His Problem and Conclusions Kant's Ethical Interests Hegel and Schopenhauer 57 CHAPTER IV THE PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEW Psychology and Epistemology Origin of Knowledge Psychic Factors of Cognition Corollaries following Possibilities of the Case Cognition as Consciousness as Awareness of an Object Misstatements criticised Problem restated 94 xii CONTENTS CHAPTER V THINKING AND KNOWING PAGE Relations of Thought to Cognition Views of Others Thinking as Activ- ity and Positing of Relations Nature of the Cognitive Judgment ""Implicates of allJudgment .Conceptual Knowledge_and Reasoning . .130 CHAPTER VI KNOWLEDGE AS FEELING AND WILLING The Psychology of Feeling Emotional Factors m Cognition Influence on intellectual Development Impulsive Emotions Ethical and ^Es- thetical Feeling Feelings regulative of Logical Processes So-called " integrating " Emotions Place of Will in Cognition 160 CHAPTER VII KNOWLEDGE OF THINGS AND OF SELF Distinction of Subject and Object Position of Formal Logic Office of Self-Consciousness Implicates of Reality Identity of Self as implied Distinction of Things and Self Diremptive Work of Intellect The Function of Analogy Epistemology of Perception and of Science . .193 CHAPTER VIII DEGREES, LIMITS, AND KINDS OF KNOWLEDGE Meaning of Terms Standards of Measurement of Cognition Relation of Knowledge to Life Nature of Opinion Possibility of Knowledge in Dreams Distinctions Relative Essentials of Cognition Limits not Presuppositions Kinds of Limits Limits of Perception and of Science Kinds of Knowledge Case of Mathematics Immediate and Mediate Knowledge 228 CHAPTER IX IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE Experience and Cognition Fundamental Principles of all Knowledge Views of Logic Meaning of Identity The Principle as applied to Reality 268 CONTENTS xiii CHAPTER X SUFFICIENT REASON PAOB Nature of Seasoning Development of Reasoning Application to Reality Kant's inadequate View Causation and External Nature Origin o'f the Principle Use of Cognitive Judgments Difficulties of Syllogism Concerned in Self-Knowledge Assumptions involved Goal of En- deavor The Grounds of Natural Science Final Purpose implied . . 283 CHAPTER XI EXPERIENCE AND THE TRANSCENDENT Meaning of Experience The misleading Figures of Speech Experience necessarily Transcendent Conditions of Experience and its Laws . 322 CHAPTER XII THE IMPLICATES OF KNOWLEDGE The Question stated Modes of Implication possible Necessity of Com- pleteness of View Being of Self implied and of Not-Self Influence of ethical and sesthetical Considerations System of Ontology involved The principal Categories guaranteed 337 CHAPTER XIII SCEPTICISM, AGNOSTICISM, AND CRITICISM Attitudes of Mind toward Truth Unity of Experience Sources and Value of Scepticism Limits of Scepticism Doubts in Perception and in Science Necessity for Agnosticism Limits of Agnosticism Knowledge positive 367 CHAPTER XIV ALLEGED " ANTINOMIES " Effect of the Antinomy Meaning of the Term Denial of the Doctrine of Antinomies Claims of Kant examined Mr. Bradley's Views criticised Application of the Categories to Reality 396 XIV CONTENTS CHAPTER XV TRUTH AND ERROR PAGE Nature of the Distinction Error as non-Truth Error aiid Wrong-doing Truth dependent on Judgment and on the Meaning of Judgment Nature of Mathematical Truth The Truth of Perception Truth and v Error in Science Foundations of Scientific Knowledge Sources of Error True Cognition of Self Criterion of Truth Belief and Reality ".424 CHAPTER XVI THE TELEOLOGY OF KNOWLEDGE Cognition and Action The Teleology of Perception and of Conception Final Purpose" among the Sciences Knowledge as Endinjiself , Knowledge as Part of .Life Final Purpqeln~:RSality 472 CHAPTER XVII ETHICAL AXD ^ESTHETICAL " MOMENTA " OF KNOWLEDGE Character and Cognition Influence of Feeling on Judgment Attribu- tion of Ideals to Nature Benevolence of Law Limits of the Ethical " Momenta " Characteristics of ^Esthetical Consciousness Beauty in Reality The Epistemological Postulate 500 CHAPTER XVIII KNOWLEDGE AND REALITY Cognition as Species of " Commerce " Failures of the Identity-hypothe- sis Distinction in Reality necessary to Knowledge Truth in all Kinds of Cognition Variety of the real World Causation as Connection in Reality 530 CHAPTER XIX IDEALISM AND REALISM Danger of exclusive Views Tenable Positions of Idealism Negation of its Extremes The Truth of Realism Criticism of its Denials The true Picture of Reality 559 CONTENTS XV CHAPTER XX DUALISM AND MONISM PAOB Conceptions of Number applied to Reality Unity and Duality of Body and Mind Unity of the Self Defects of extreme Dualism The Truth and the Limitations of Monism 574 CHAPTER XXI KNOWLEGE AND THE ABSOLUTE Final Position of Agnosticism Explication of Terms Danger from ab- stract Conceptions Unchanging Laws of Cognition Presence of the Absolute in Consciousness The comprehensive View of Epistemology . 591 INDEX . 611 PHILOSOPHY OF KNOWLEDGE CHAPTER I THE PROBLEM '""p v ETE struggles of the mind of man to come to a satis- *- factory understanding with itself are among the most interesting exhibitions of his greatness. This is true from whichever of several points of view we regard the phenomena. For suppose that disregarding for the moment the more distinctively metaphysical considerations we approach the subject in the light of the biological and anthropological sciences. The surpassingly strange spectacle of an animal which is not content with the occupations prompted by a restless and almost unceasing practical curiosity, nor satisfied simply to learn how it may possess and use the instruments of its own temporary well-being, is certainly most attractive to a reflective mind. During certain periods at least of its existence the human animal exhibits a solicitude respecting the truth of its own being; it becomes caretaking as to the validity of its knowledge of the being and transactions of things. But why should not man be satisfied to realize, in mere living, a fairly uninterrupted succession of pleasant states of feeling, and to let the painful experiences that trouble the flow of the stream of consciousness fade away in the dreamlike illusoriness of an animal's memory? Like the other higher animals, man is consciously earnest and absorbed in the pursuit of various forms of eudsemouistic i 2 THE PROBLEM good. But unlike all the other animals, so far as we are able to get behind the barriers interposed between us and their psychical states, man comes to regard this very concep- tion of " truth " as something in itself good. Then he turns upon his own reason with a complaint which is frequently bitter, or with a self-accusation of impotence which may become savage, in the demand that it should furnish him with a more complete authentication for the good which bears this peculiar form. Moreover, the truth, as he con- ceives of it, is in his thought correlated with what he calls "reality." Indeed, what he means by that kind of truth, which he needs to possess in order fully to satisfy the demands of reason, is not definable without an implicate of reality. But why, again, as merely the highest form of animal life, should man alone among all the species not be satisfied with appearances, if only they be of a pleasant char- acter? Why should he insist on dissecting his puppets to determine whether they have the anatomy of actual living things, or not ; why be so eager to disturb the interest in the show of appearance by exposing too cruelly the actual mech- anism of the strings ? We can discover no wholly adequate answer no very convincing partial answer which modern biology has afforded to inquiries such as these. And yet phenomena of this kind are undoubted facts in the complex life of humanity. Or suppose the same phenomena to be approached from the anthropological and historical points of view. Here it cannot easily be denied that the unsatisfied need for valid- ating as " truth," in conscious attitudes, the various presen- tations of sense, the trains of associated ideas, and the abstract concepts, as well as the varied and ceaseless efforts which men make to satisfy this need, have always been most important factors to aid in the evolution of the race. All merely anthropological theories of evolution, however, appear unable to account for the existence of this need ; and we THE PROBLEM 3 believe that they not only arc now, but will always remain, quite outside of such a task. The right claimed by the majority of the students of modern science, distinctly to aim at keeping clear of all metaphysics and so-called " theories of knowledge," may be conceded. And indeed, if there could be knowledge that is not something much more than this majority will admit it to be, science itself would consist of a succession of presentations of sense, associated ideas, and thoughts, about the truth of which no one would ever even raise a question. From the merely logical and formal point of view, the peculiar kind of syllogism which belongs to science, as such, may fitly be called the hypothetical syl- logism. Its form is as follows : If A is B, then (7 is D ; but whether or not A really is, and whether, admitting that both it and B really are, they are actually related as belong- ing to the same species, or as reciprocal influences in deter- mining the same result, with this, science need not concern itself. Only now, such science could scarcely be called knowledge ; much less, truth. For, as we undertake to show in detail later on, the words " knowledge " and " truth " are significant of mental processes and mental positions which can neither be attained nor stated by the use of the hypo- thetical syllogism merely. But the moment we consider the evolution of science itself as a growth in actual cognition, whether on the part of the individual or of the race, we intro- duce the epistemological problem ; and this problem cannot even be considered from the merely anthropological point of view. It would furnish a most curious bit of research to deter- mine what the development of physical science would have been, if only its students had really held the above-mentioned conception of it. Would it now continue to advance, if investigators and the people generally attached to its con- clusions only the significance and validity which belong to dreams ? However we might incline to answer this question, 4 THE PROBLEM one thing is sure. " Science," thus conceived of, would suffer a mighty and pathetic fall from its place of dignity in the present estimate of mankind. Theories of evolution as applied to the human race, stand in respect to this instinc- tive metaphysical faith, less in the relation of satisfactory explanatory causes than of partial effects. They are them- selves mental phenomena, for the understanding of which we must resort to a study of the constitution of reason itself. The conclusion which has just been drawn from a brief survey of the merely biological and anthropological aspects of our problem may be summarized as follows. What man- kind calls its knowledge, or science, of Self and of Things, is assumed to be something more than mere self-referring, psychical occurrences, mere presentations of sense, asso- ciated ideas, and subjectively connected thoughts. It is assumed to be the truth, either already attained or capable of being reached and verified. And by " truth " men generally understand a form of mental representation which has its correlate in reality, in the actual being and matter-of-fact performances of things. Yet doubt is constantly arising as to the meaning and as to the validity of this universal assumption. The doubt is productive of restless endeavor, as well as of sadness, increased doubt, and even of indifference and disgust, when the assumption itself is made the subject of inquiry. It is somehow thus that the problem of knowl- edge has progressively defined and emphasized itself as an influential factor in the development of the reflective thinking of man. The problem is by no means new, as the history of this thinking conclusively shows. It is to the increasingly keen and searching analysis of mental processes, to the science of psychology, and to the critical examination of reason first undertaken in a thor- ough and methodical way by Kant that we must resort for the more definite, technically exact statement of our problem. Now psychology, as its very nature and legiti- THE PROBLEM 5 mate mission compel it, considers all cognitions, whether of the ordinary or of the so-called scientific variety, as merely mental (or subjective) phenomena. For it, all beings are resolvable into states of consciousness. Its definition is, " The science of states of consciousness, as such." And as its means for analyzing the content of consciousness become improved and are more faithfully and skilfully applied, and as the laws of the combination and succession of the dif- ferent states of consciousness are brought to light, the entire domain of knowledge is made the subject of its investigations. All cognitions, all sciences, undoubtedly are states of con- sciousness ; from the psychological point of view, they are simply this. The one psychological assumption, from which no escape is possible, the assumption which is presupposi- tionless and absolutely undeniable, is this : My cognition is a process in my consciousness. But this assumption is as true for you, and for him (for " the other," whoever he may be), as it is for me. It is as true, when the object of cognition is a thing, a stone or a star or a microbe, as when the ob- ject of cognition is definitively recognized as my own state, whether in the form of a toothache or a thought about God. The ultimate psychic fact is simply : " I KNOW." Further, all the researches of modern psychology tend to show that in those mysterious beginnings of psychic life, which are forever hidden from direct observation and from recognitive memory, ideation and object existed as in a common root of consciousness. One may speak of these beginnings as the "original unity of our perceptive life," as the original "unity of apperception," or as one please. Nothing more impresses students of Kant than his elaborate architectonic in exhibition of the complicated nature of that mental edifice, ascribed in part to imagination and in part to intellect, which the unity of apperception constructs. But those who dissent from the Kantian method and its conclu- sions, and will hear nothing of "psychic synthesis," even 6 THE PROBLEM as a conscious and self-active energy, are compelled either to resort to the hypothesis of sensations that somehow get together or put themselves together; or else they have alto- gether to abandon the problem of psychic unity of any kind. What all are aware of, however, whether psychologists or not, and independently of learned or thoughtless talk about "synthesis" and "apperception," is a most startling experi- ence of an opposite kind. It has already been said that the one indisputable fact upon which epistemological doctrine must build is the "I know" of every man's consciousness. This fact, when repeated and generalized, becomes the foun- dation of the most presuppositionless of all psychological truths, " all cognition is a process in consciousness. " But on the very first experience of this fact, and in connection with all experiences of this truth, knowledge appears no longer as a one-sided affair. It appears rather as an affair of Subject and Object; and, in the greater number of its most impressive instances, it becomes an affair implying a fundamental and unalterable distinction between Self and Things. The general fact of cognition requires restatement, then, in the following way. It is still, undoubtedly, a state of consciousness ; or rather, it is a conscious process. It is also a state of my consciousness, a conscious process which including, as it must, its object-thing I attribute to myself as subject, and call my own. But this object, which is my object-consciousness, my state objectively described, is cog- nized as not-me, as " out of " me. Objectivity, in the sense of ^raws-subjectivity, the really existent out of my conscious state, is, then, as will be shown in detail elsewhere, the implicate of every truly cognitive act of mine. The inquiries, how this can be, and what is implied as to a reality that is trans-subjective, constitute the problem of the philosophy of knowledge. The descriptive science of psy- chology, in its study of the plain man's consciousness, shows THE PROBLEM 7 beyond all doubt that knowledge, even as admitted fact and state of consciousness, cannot be faithfully described, on the basis of a full and satisfactory analysis, without recog- nition of this implicate of what is not a present fact and state of consciousness. Thus much, at the very least, must be insisted upon. For the time being let those think, who so think can, that knowledge is explicable without recog- nition of the reality both of the object and of the subject, as a self-active and self-conscious synthesis, a unifying life-force. It appears, then, that the subjective and the formal lies, in the process of cognition, actually inseparable as an expe- rience from the trans-subjective and the real. The two ex- ist, as it were, side by side and in a living unity; and yet the two are not incapable of being distinguished both by immediate introspection and by reflective thinking. For cognition is a modification of consciousness that is depen- dent, in part, for its existence and for its particular form, upon reality outside of consciousness (upon not-my-con- sciousness). On the one hand, it cannot be, or even be conceived of, other than as a modification of consciousness. It must be explained as dependent, both for its existence and for its form, upon the fact and the laws of the cognizing subject. On the other hand, its existence implies, and its form requires for explanation, some other being than that which is present in the modified consciousness. As to the further analysis and explanation, the import, and the validating of the import, of all this, the philosophical theory of knowledge inquires. The problem of knowledge is not, however, grasped in its entirety and handled in a manner to promise a solution which is either theoretically satisfying or practically help- ful, until it is seen that both problem and solution lie embedded, so to speak, in the very heart of reason itself. It was the distinctive merit of Kant, as has already been 8 THE PROBLEM implied, to make this truth clear as it had -never been made clear before. Since his day, the theory of knowledge (Bpistemology or Noetics, sometimes so called) has been one of the most active and fruitful branches of philosophical discipline. Indeed, some have gone so far as to make the formation of a theory of knowledge coincident with the entire function of philosophy. That which calls itself knowledge of the universe "we call self-knowledge," says Kuno Fischer. 1 We cannot agree to this restriction in the definition of the sphere of philosophy. And how widely the method we shall follow, and the results at which we shall arrive, differ from the method and conclusions of the immortal thinker of Konigsberg, should appear at the end rather than at the beginning of our task. But when Kant asserted, "Human reason has this peculiar fate, that, with reference to one species of its cognition, it is always burdened with questions which it cannot cast aside ; for they are given to it by the very nature of reason itself, but they cannot be answered because they transcend the powers of reason, " 2 he indicated beyond question for all time the sources of the epistemological problem. The history of reflective thinking, and indeed of the literature which either embodies, or is tinged by, the results of reflective thinking, has during the last century shown that Kant did not fully realize the success which he claimed for his critical philosophy. By following "the secure pro- cess of science," in his "elaboration of the cognitions which belong to the concern of reason," he expected, on the one hand, forever "to deprive speculative reason of its preten- sions to transcendent insights," and, on the other hand, "to furnish the needed preliminary preparation in furtherance of 1 " Philosophic ist die Wissenschajl und Kritik der Erkenntniss," says Riehl, Der Philosophische Kriticismus, iii. p. 15. 2 Opening sentence of the Preface to the first edition of the Kritik der reinen Vernunft. THE PROBLEM 9 a fundamental metaphysics in scientific form. " 1 But, strange to say, Kant's destructive effort was followed in history by the erection of systems of metaphysics which made, above all others since man began to think, the most enormous "pretensions to transcendent insights;" while his positive intent has left behind few traces of accepted metaphysical science. It is the sceptical and agnostic conclusions as to the cognitions of reason which so-called neo-Kantians accept. The determination and defence of the subjective origin and the objective reference of the "categories," and the rationalized faith of Kant in the postulates of the practical reason are accepted, when accepted at all, by quite other schools of thinkers than those commonly called by his name. It is not the chief interest at present, however, to define epistemological truth with reference to the author of the modern critical doctrine of knowledge. It is rather the purpose to point out that the origin, nature, and importance of that problem which knowledge, with its essential objec- tive implicates, offers to the knowing subject, have in some sort been settled once for all by the critical work of Kant. The human mind, by virtue of its necessary and constitu- tional way of functioning in all its cognitive acts, contains at once the proposal and the answer, if answer there be, to _Jthe__problem. Neither the biological and anthropological, nor even the distinctively psychological study of the nature and growth of man's mind will avail fully to explicate or to answer the epistemological inquiry. The rather is this, fundamentally considered, a philosophical problem. And it is inextricably intermingled with the problem of the Nature of Reality, as this conception of reality is ap- plied both to the mind of man and to the object of his knowledge. It will appear as an opinion for which we shall constantly 1 Preface to the second edition of the Kritik der reinen Vernunft. 10 THE PROBLEM contend that the problem of knowledge cannot be properly stated, much less satisfactorily discussed, without unceas- ing reference to the conclusions of a scientific psychology. The reference must even be a deference. The point of start- ing must be psychological. Epistemological discussion must begin by understanding analytically the actual, con- crete content of consciousness. But the consciousness which enfolds the problem, and which must be analyzed, and so far as possible understood in order to the best mastery of the problem, is a developed human consciousness. It is the consciousness of a being who has already become appercep- tive and self-conscious. It is not, therefore, an animal consciousness; nor is it an inchoate and beginning human consciousness. The study of the psychological origin and growth of knowledge is, indeed, a valuable contribution toward apprehending and solving the philosophical problem which gives rise to a theory of knowledge. But inasmuch as this problem is given in processes of cognition whose essential characteristic is that the knowing subject already distinguishes the forms of his cognition from the forms of existence implicate in cognition, and either naively identi- fies the two or raises the sceptical question about their iden- tification, psychological study is not in itself a sufficient indication or instrument for its solution. The more dis- tinctively epistemological problem now emerges; the criti- cal inquiry is raised as to whether, and how far, the forms of cognition coincide with the forms of existence. The fundamental problem of the philosophy of knowledge is, then, an inquiry into the relations between certain states of consciousness and what we conceive of as "the really existent. " l But at this point a reflective study of human knowledge reveals the fact that its problem is already inex- tricably interwoven with the ontological problem, the meta- physical inquiry, in the more restricted meaning of the 1 Compare Hartmann, Das Grundproblem der Erkenntnisstheorie, p. v. THE PROBLEM 11 much-abused word "metaphysics." 1 For suppose that the two spheres be distinguished as follows: Epistemology, or the philosophy of knowledge, deals with the concept of the True; and Metaphysics, or the philosophy of being, deals with the concept of the Real. We find ourselves, however, quite unable to form any concept, or even to hold in con- sciousness the most shadowy mental picture, of what men affirm, with genuine conviction, to be true, without impli- cating the for-us-real in this concept, this mental image. On the other hand, no meaning can be given to the word "real" without stating a judgment as to what is considered true. Yet the two words are by no means precisely identi- cal. For the more correct usage speaks of presentations of sense, of images of recognitive memory, and of certified thoughts about things, as true ; and they are thus distin- guished from images of fancy or from unverifiable thoughts. But men speak of minds and things as real meaning thus to imply a sort of existence which belongs neither to the true nor to the false mental representations. We have already (in the Preface) stated that we intend to discuss separately the epistemological and the ontological problems. About the order and the method of these two dis- cussions something will be said later on. The connection of the two intimate and inextricable as it is is emphasized at this point in order to show that the impulse to the quest, which it is proposed in subsequent chapters to follow, is indeed set fast in the very heart of human reason. To explicate the problem of knowledge, it is necessary to search to its depths the mind of man. To solve it completely would be to comprehend and expose all the profoundest mysteries of his mind. And not only this : it would be, as Kant held, to prepare the way for a systematic and defen- sible exposition of the inmost nature of Reality, so far 1 Note the phrase of Riehl, die metaphysischen Erkenntnissprobleme. See Der Thilosophische Kriticismus, Vorwort to Part ii. 12 THE PROBLEM as this knowledge comes within the possible grasp of our reason itself. But, doubtless, this will remain for a long time to come one of the most alluring and important, yet difficult tasks of philosophical discipline. And one thinker can scarcely hope to do more than bear a small portion of the burden of so great a task. There will probably not arise another Copernicus in this stellar science of mind. Something more should at this point receive at least a passing notice. It would not be surprising if a critical inquiry into the nature, extent, and validity of knowledge should bring us, at various points along its course, in sight of, if not into closest contact with, certain important con- cepts of ethics and of the philosophy of religion. It will be the declared purpose and fixed rule of the present investiga- tion to avoid contested ethical and religious questions as much as is consistent with a thorough treatment of the epistemological problem. And where foresight makes con- tact inevitable, we shall still try to accomplish our task without undue influence from ethical and religious preju- dices. But it should be remembered that, in the discussion of all the problems of philosophy, and perhaps in the discus- sion of the epistemological problem in particular (since over it the forces of dogmatism and agnosticism, of extreme idealism and extreme realism, of crude evolutionism and old-fashioned theology, come to a sort of life-and-death struggle), prejudices are not likely to be all on one side. No author can promise more than we are ready to promise, namely, to do the best that in him lies. And if it should be discovered that knowledge cannot be divorced from faith or separated from the life of action (from conduct, which is the sphere of ethics), why ! whose fault will it be that this is so ? Will not the discovery serve to make the unity of man's total life, and its oneness, in some sort, with the Reality of the Universe, yet more undoubted and more comprehensive ? THE PROBLEM 13 The nature and extent of the epistemological problem, the discussion of which is a philosophy of knowledge, can be better comprehended only by emphasizing certain considera- tions somewhat more in detail. And first of all the follow- ing consideration: this problem is the most primary and fundamental, in the sense that it is of all philosophical problems the most free from the influence of necessary pre- liminary assumptions. To argue it is as near as the human mind can come to presuppositionless reflective thinking. This is, in part, but in part only, what Fichte meant by calling his critical examination of the primary and perma- nent content of consciousness a Wissenschaftslehre. For the same reason this kind of philosophical study is sometimes said to aim at a "science of science." All the particular sciences necessarily and fitly cherish their own particular assumptions. They cannot be successfully pursued, or even seriously approached, without taking for granted many important principles and not a few fundamental entities. Some of these principles and entities are assumptions of the most ordinary human knowledge ; others are presuppositions which have been won for the modern student by the re- searches of the past along different scientific lines. For example, chemistry adopts the work-a-day assumption of an extra-mentally existent matter, which is capable of actual subdivision into parts that are too minute to affect the senses, and that can therefore never have their existence verified by immediate testimony from sensuous observation. It also assumes the entity called an " atom, " with its mar- vellous non-sensuous characteristics and its faithful obe- dience to the law of equivalents. In common with all the physical sciences it assumes the capacity of the human mind to arrive at the truth of things, to bring its forms of mental representation into agreement with the forms of the actually existent. All the particular sciences presuppose, as truths which enable them to be "particular," the extra-mental 14 THE PROBLEM validity of the so-called categories of time, space, relation, causation, etc. Those branches of philosophical discipline which are called metaphysics of ethics, philosophy of art, of nature, and of religion, as well as of rights and of history, have a complicated net-work of presuppositions, which is the very substance of what holds them within their proper bounds. The actuality of the existence of multitudes of men, in the present and through the past, with a real history of develop- ment, and standing in a great variety of actual relations to nature and to one another, is taken for granted in the very attempt to establish a philosophy of conduct; while any- thing approaching a philosophy of nature receives from the hands of the natural sciences a vast body of alleged, and not a few (we venture to suspect) of only conjectured, principles and entities, which become the necessary presuppositions of its constructive effort. But with the philosophy of knowledge the case is not the same. It at once and distinctly puts all the above-mentioned assumptions to one side. They may be true, but they can- not be adopted from the beginning by a critical theory of knowledge. The very aim of this theory is to get behind and underneath all these and other similar assumptions. And if there are assumptions back of which the mind cannot go, because it is compelled to make them by the very consti- tution of its own most sceptical and critical life, as it were, then epistemological inquiry will get down to these assumptions also and view them face to face, in calmness and with purified and sharpened vision. For it is not the nature and validity, or the value, of this or that class of cognitions with which the philosophical theory of knowledge aims to deal, it is the cognitive faculty itself; or, to state the problem in more abstract and objective fashion, it is human cognition itself which is the subject of critical examination in every attempt at an epistemology. This THE PROBLEM 15 inquiry is, therefore, the most nearly presuppositionless of all possible inquiries. It assumes nothing but the one general fact in which all individual cognitions, whether so- called scientific or not, "live and move and have their being," the one fact, I KNOW. It soon appears, however, as analysis and reflective study of the fact of knowledge moves forward and downward, that this fact is itself no simple affair. By this we mean some- thing more than that "our experience is an extremely com- plicated web of sensations and intellectual elaboration of sensations, and of the results of their elaboration." Locke would have had little doubt to throw upon a statement like this ; and even less doubt would have proceeded out of the mouth of the great sceptic Hume. The successors of Locke in France, the most extreme of sensationalists in the psychol- ogy of to-day, might admit as much. Modern psychological analysis, especially of the experimental type, in its effort to disentangle the " web " of experience, has thus far succeeded in increasing rather than diminishing its apparent com- plexity. Even the most presuppositionless of all inquiries, then, since it must assume the fact of knowledge, has also to assume a history of the complication of sensations, of the intellectual elaboration of sensations, and of the gathering of the results of their elaboration. That is to say, in the very reception of the datum, "I know," the assumption of an organization of experience has already, of necessity, been made. Nor is it possible to get back of this process of organization, with its complex results, in order, freed from its influences, to examine the fact of knowledge. So obvious is the truth to which attention has just been called that its statement is often made in half-jocose form. When I most carefully and critically examine this datum, "I know," and when I push my presuppositionless and sceptical inquiry to its extremest limits, what is all this but a going-round in an endless circle? I KNOW; and I 16 THE PROBLEM propose, without favorable or unfavorable prejudice, to dis- tinguish the ultimate nature, to get the full import, and to estimate the real value of this fact. But the conduct of the examination is itself, at best, only a series of similar facts : " I know, " and again, " I know, " or it may be, " I do not know." But this last, "I do not know," is only another way of saying I know, at least, something, namely, that I do not know. At its best, too, the result of critical exami- nation is itself a cognition, which lies still further from the certitude of envisagement or of the concrete judgments of daily experience. At its worst, the same examination ends in a series of opinions, which are far enough from laying claim to be any kind of knowledge. Put into more serious philosophical form, the dilemma may be stated in something like the following way. A fun- damental critique of the faculty of cognition is now proposed ; but if this critique is really to be fundamental, it must be free from all the assumptions which belong to any of the special systems of cognitions, the sciences so-called. Theory of knowledge aims to be presuppositionless, to have no assump- tions beyond the one primary datum of my knowledge. In studying the data of actual cognitions, however, so as thus to frame a critique of the faculty of cognition which shall be based upon the facts, I am always using this same faculty. Hegel thus accused Kant of allowing to creep in " the mis- conception of already knowing before you know, the error of refusing to enter the water until you have learned to swim. " And Lotze compares those who spend their strength upon a theory of knowledge to men constantly whetting the knife, and feeling its edge to see if it will cut ; or to an orchestra which is forever tuning its instruments and still wondering if they can play in tune. To objectors in general, we shall either propose our answer in due time, or else conclude that a much needed work will be better done if they are silently passed by. THE PROBLEM 17 Two things are enough to say at present. Of these the first is this : if the critical theory of knowledge must be satisfied with a completely sceptical or agnostic outcome, then all human science is but consistent dreaming, at its best. For the very guarantee of truth which consistency gives is itself dependent upon trust in the constitution of reason. But, second, the absurdity of an utterly presuppositionless cri- tique of reason must be acknowledged at the very beginning of every epistemological inquiry. All reflective thinking upon this class of problems must be content to move within the inevitable circle. The human mind cannot contemplate itself from an outside point of view, as it were. It must accept at its own hands the terms upon which it will under- take and complete its task of self-understanding. Here, then, we get the first strong intimation of charac- teristic difficulties besetting the path which must necessarily be followed in the attempt to investigate with critical thor- oughness the philosophical problem of knowledge. Nothing, we assure ourselves with encouraging confidence, must be taken for granted, beyond the ultimate and indisputable datum of all science, the fact, above or behind or beneath which no one can go. This is the datum and the fact of knowledge itself. But surely this datum must be received as being all that it in fact is ; this fact must be held for all that it, as conscious datum, is worth. This is to say that a philo- sophical theory of knowledge must deal with the whole circumference, as it were, and with the most intimate and inclusive significance, of the psychological process of cogni- tion. Criticism must accept, as its problem, cognition includ- ing all its necessary implicates. What is it to know, in respect of all that knowledge is, of all that knowledge guar- antees, and of all that it necessarily implicates ? It is in the primary fact of cognition, when critically regarded, that we find the sources of the possible forms of conclusion con- cerning the true philosophical theory of knowledge. The 2 18 THE PROBLEM permanent sources of philosophical scepticism and agnosti- cism exist in the incontestable fact that all knowledge is subjective; that, proximately considered, it is a conscious process in time, a mental state which arises and then passes away. Moreover, one of the first discoveries which criti- cism makes is the truth, also incontestable, that the laws of the knowing faculty, and so the limits of knowledge, are firmly set in the constitution and characteristic development of the cognitive subject. Human cognition, therefore, con- tains in its own nature a standing warning, and even a vin- dication of the necessity for doubt of the most fundamental sort. It issues a perpetual call to those self-searchings which lead into a theoretical reconstruction of our concept of knowledge. Equally certain is it, however, that the sources from which must come the healing of the wounds which reason receives at her own hands are with reason herself. The primary datum of cognition contains within itself the cor- rective of agnosticism, the chastening of raw and unbridled scepticism ; or else no such corrective and no such chasten- ing are anywhere to be found. The sources of a philosophy of knowledge and of a trustworthy metaphysics also exist, inexhaustible, in the incontestable fact that knowledge is fnms-subjective, and, in its very nature, implicates existence beyond the process of knowledge ; that cognition itself guar- antees the extra-mental being of that which, by the very nature of this process the cognitive subject is compelled to recognize as not identical with its own present state. Thus the most primary problem of epistemology becomes a concern of reason with the ultimate, the unanalyzable and irreducible momenta and principles of objective cognition. 1 The further advance of this concernment may be described as reason becoming more self-conscious in the way of bring- ing to its own recognition what is implicate in conscious- ness as objective. 1 Compare Volkelt, Erfahrung trad Denken, p. 35. THE PROBLEM 19 Mere recognition of the implicates of cognition is not in itself, however, enough to satisfy all the demands made by the self-searching and critical activity of man's mind. These implicates must themselves be made the matter of a further concern of reason. Suppose, for example, that I have come to a consciousness of what is involved in saying, " I know " any simplest truth of fact or of a physical law ; such as that the chair is over yonder, or that the force of gravity varies inversely as the square of the distance and directly as the mass of the two bodies taking part in that transaction which reveals the existence of this force. Here, as in every act of knowledge, are two classes of implicates. One of these is the implied control of consciousness by what are called the "laws of the mind." It is an invin- cible persuasion, belief use what word you will, if you do not like the term " rational assumption " of all men that truth is somehow to be attained by the mind. This is the indestructible self-confidence of human reason. Dis- appoint her as often as you may, deceive her as badly as you can, accuse her of unlimited audacity in enterprises that concern what appears to transcend her powers, and yet you can never wholly destroy her self-confidence. So often as she falls, she rises again and makes once more the persistent effort to stand and to walk alone. Or in her more pious moods, if much chastened by rebukes for her many errors, she still "trusts in God and is not confounded." This trust of reason in herself, which is always at least a silent and concealed postulate of all her distrust, itself needs critical investigation; in order, to drop the figure of speech, that the mental principles of those processes of knowledge which all involve the persuasion, or the conviction of knowl- edge, may themselves be criticised in detail. Certainly we shall not by the critical method escape the necessity of using and of trusting these principles; nor shall we succeed in establishing their claims in a more fundamental way by 20 THE PROBLEM smart and consecutive dialectic and trains of argument. Something better than merely this, however, may be hoped for, which it is by all means necessary to attempt, and which is not without a certain large positive value. We may hope to bring to light the truer meaning of these forms of the constitution of mind, these ways of the functioning of all human reason. Moreover, since there is no little apparent conflict among these principles, as well as vague- ness and uncertainty respecting the best ways of stating each of them, we may attempt to effect something in the interests of harmony and clearness. The doctrine of irreconcilable conflict, of fundamental and irremovable "antinomies" of intellect so-called, is favorite with many acute students of the mental life. This doctrine, in itself so distasteful or even abhorrent and frightful to the higher interests of ethics and religion as some conceive it to be, certainly requires perpetual re-examination. To speak technically, the critical and "reconciling" discussion of the "categories" is an important problem for the student of epistemology. And when he is incontinently and even coarsely accused of foster- ing scepticism and agnosticism, of emasculating a sturdy and effective manhood by calling in question its most fun- damental faiths, he may answer : " Nay, not so ; for no faith can lay claim to be fundamental, or to contribute to a sturdy and effective manhood, which cannot submit itself to the freest criticism." To-day and throughout all history, the struggle of a posi- tive and critical philosophy with scepticism and agnosticism over a theory of knowledge is a life-and-death struggle. War to the knife is already declared between the two. He is the emasculator of reason, the effeminate student of the mind's life, who would deprive us of the power to answer ever anew the call: "Let the thinker arouse himself and respond to the demand to give reasons for the faith that is in him, by an effort at improved self-knowledge." But THE PROBLEM 21 surely self-knowledge cannot be improved, or made true knowledge of Self, unless we look below the superficial area of particular cognitions and undertake to validate tbe prin- ciples of all cognition. Surely it is no less true now than it was in mediaeval times, when the principle of authority was wellnigh universal in its sway, that the friends of human reason are not those who refuse to have its claims examined. What higher principle of truth can there be than this: That must be true which is so connected with the knowing sub- ject that he must either relinquish all claim to any kind of knowledge or else assume the same to be true ? What is actually thus connected with the knowing subject can only appear as the result of a critical investigation into the fun- damental laws of the mental life in its acts of cognition. For the theory of knowledge must be a theory of certainty. But the process of thinking may conform, at least in cer- tain respects, to logical laws without putting the thinker in possession of material truth. Whether an agreement of the total activity of knowledge with all the formal laws of intel- lect would unfailingly guarantee the truth is a question which need not be raised at present. Certainly, neither what is called ordinary knowledge, nor what is called science, con- sists simply in weaving into a consistent totality a number of universal and necessary laws. A critical analysis will establish the conclusion that thinking alone the pure dia- lectical process, mere thinking, if that were possible can- not produce a certified experience of Reality or a sure convic- tion as to the essential and unchanging nature of Reality. This truth emphasizes the necessity of extending still further the problem of the epistemological branch of philosophy. Besides the formal laws of intellect, another class of impli- cates is found in every act of cognition, and furnishes a demand for more detailed examination. These are impli- cates of beings, of entities, of the really existent. The exercise of "metaphysical instinct," if we may for the 22 THE PROBLEM moment employ such a term, is an indispensable form of functioning in every act of cognition. To know is to make an ontological leap, a spring from the charmed circle of pure subjectivity into the mystery of the real. This in- stinctive metaphysics maintains its inexorable rule over the human mind, in spite of all sceptical inquiry; and just as inexorably after we have adopted the agnostic view regarding the validity of human knowledge, or the most extremely idealistic theory of the nature of experience, as before. But in its uncritical and instinctive form it is neither theoretically nor practically satisfying. There must be substituted for this uncritical metaphysics some postu- late, thoughtfully wrought out, which will show how the contents of developed and carefully guarded human con- sciousness may be true and valid representations of actual transactions in the world of reality. The detailed critical discussion of those conceptions which fall under the general concept of Reality constitutes the peculiar field of metaphysics proper. This field, in not a few places, overlays the field of epistemology. The path by which both fields are reached follows the same method, beginning in psychological science and continuing by reflective thinking upon the problems which this science, as applied to the presuppositions of all the other sciences, brings to our view. Some adjustment of our examination into the problem of knowledge, so as to make it fit in with conclusions that belong to the problem of being, seems not only desirable but even indispensable. Otherwise the criti- cism of man's cognitive faculty must inevitably fall into one of two extremes. To assume, uncritically, that the forms of our conscious life our representations of sense, our trains of associated ideas, and even our connected thoughts necessarily correspond with the actual transactions of the real world, whether we make the assumption according to the plain man's " common-sense " or in the more elaborate THE PROBLEM 23 forms of so-called "scientific realism," is to leave the prob- lem of knowledge unattempted at one of its most important and even vital points. On the other hand, agreement in some sort and to some extent between the forms of human consciousness and the real beings and actual transactions of the world outlying the individual's immediate experience, is an assumption from which we can never set free the critique of reason itself. Uncritical faith and dogmatic agnosticism are both unphilo- sophical. The actual condition of thought and things in every process of knowing, and the indications which the critical study of the process offers respecting the real rela- tions of thought and things, become then a problem for further examination. The apparent contradictions which the epistemological problem contains cannot contentedly be left in the uncriticised and unsettled position in which naive consciousness finds them. To leave them thus would be to confess that knowledge is no knowledge, and that our most essential activities are self-stultifying. But further pursuit of such considerations as the foregoing must be left to the attempted solution of the problems which a philosophy of knowledge propounds. Enough has been said to show how it is that epistemology undertakes, as its important and difficult task, to discover, to expound criti- cally, and to defend both circumstantially and by harmoniz- ing them with each other, the implicates of every act of knowledge. This is also its chief theoretical interest. The method which must be pursued in any partially suc- cessful attempt to form a philosophical theory of knowledge has already been indicated. A few words are needed, how- ever, to make this indication clearer. In the study of the epistemological problem, as in the study of all philosophical problems, psychology stands in the relation of a propaedeutic. It is this science alone which, when appealed to in faithful and unprejudiced fashion, can put us into possession of 24 THE PROBLEM those concrete and indisputable facts of experience wherein the philosophical problem has its origin. The inquirer who is defective or slovenly in his analysis of psychological fact, of the concrete and feeling-full life of the human mind, will surely fail even to grasp the significance of the problem of knowledge. He certainly can never have in hand the data for helping to make more satisfactory the attempt at its answer. And the epistemology which despises or neglects the assistance of psychological science will either mistake the real nature of its mission, or else its entire view and attempted solution will be ghostly, an unsubstantial image suspended in thin mid-air. The successful critic of human cognition must have penetrated and resided long within the theatre where the factors of the conscious and self-conscious life are enacting their varied drama upon the mind's stage. Nor will it suffice for this that he shall have merely studied the logic of the actor. For, as we shall see in de- tail subsequently, human knowledge is not merely a logical affair. His despite of psychology, as well as the forlorn condition of the science in his day, and his over-credulous acceptance of the logical schemata of Aristotle in the attempt to esti- mate the constitution, the presuppositions, and the limits of human cognition, had an evil influence upon even the "astounding Kant." It was chiefly the rigid maintenance of the purely conceptual points of view, the treatment of the categories, or forms of the functioning of judgment, as merely formal, which led irresistibly to the sceptical and agnostic outcome of the "Critique of Pure Reason." But Kant's abandonment of the merely formal points of view, in the other two Critiques, came too late to secure our re- spect and adherence for the class of objects with which these works attempt to deal. A more comprehensive and truer psychology would have shown the author that it is not a question of pure knowledge here and of pure faith over yon- THE PROBLEM 25 der ; of objective cognition free from doubtful postulates in the case of sensuous objects, and of practical trust without intuitive data in the case of so-called transcendent objects. It would possibly have guarded this great philosopher above ail others acute as a reflective analyzer of the formal presuppositions of reason from claiming, in the interests of a harmonious apriorism, to have "knowledge " in so many places where no knowledge is; as well as from denying knowledge in certain other places where its claim to ex- istence may well enough be maintained. For surely the Kantian " ideas of pure reason " have as good title to objective validity as have many of the "concepts of pure understanding. " The real unity of the soul is, at worst, as much known as is the objective verity of the principle of causation in physics, or to take another instance of the principle of reciprocity. Certain judgments to which Kant gives a priori and objective authority, as "making a pure science of physics " possible, are no. more entitled to this distinction than are many of the theological judgments which he relegates to the limbo of dead metaphysical speculations. We have dwelt upon the example of Kant in order to show that metaphysical acumen and power in reflective analysis, however surpassing, will not serve one to the best advantage in the study of the problem of knowledge, unless these qualities be employed upon a sound and broad basis of psychological fact. But, on the other hand, the mere student of psychology (especially of the purely experimental type) cannot grasp, much less satisfactorily solve, the diffi- culties inherent in a philosophical theory of knowledge. For the method of stating and of handling the epistemo- logical problem must be something more than descriptive and experimental. The peculiar discursive analysis which philosophy habitually employs must unfold the presupposi- tions that lie implicate in the facts of cognition. It must 26 THE PROBLEM also be persistently and systematically used in order to attain a consistent and harmonious theory. Upon one point affecting the method of epistemology a further word needs to be said. "We have seen that the prob- lem of knowledge is in its very nature such as to involve metaphysical discussion in the narrower meaning of the word " metaphysics : " that is to say, it is impossible to discuss this problem without introducing the influence of one's posi- tions respecting the ultimate questions in ontology. Accord- ingly a dispute has for some time been rife over the inquiry, "Which of the two logically precedes the other in a philo- sophical system ? " The answer of Kant to this inquiry was not equivocal. He held that to attempt a system of meta- physics, or even to discuss any of the great metaphysical problems, previous to a critique of reason itself, was mis- chievous and absurd. On the other hand, not a few would agree with Paulsen 1 in recommending, or insisting upon, the opposite order. We have expressed our opinion as to the merits of the question of method elsewhere. 2 The his- torical order coincides with that which is advocated by those who oppose Kant upon this point. The logical order, on the contrary, is the one advocated so earnestly by Kant him- self. The two classes of problems, and the two branches of philosophical discipline which cultivate them, cannot be kept apart. When historically considered they will be, and when logically considered they cannot help being, cultivated in their relations of mutual dependence. But it does not follow, because the historical order favors the view of Paulsen, that the more logical order may not be entitled at some time in the development of reflective thinking to displace the historical. We can see no serious objec- tion to allowing any author to follow his own inclinations or convenience in arranging this point in the method of 1 Introduction to Philosophy, pp. 340 f. 2 See the author's Introduction to Philosophy, pp. 178 f. THE PROBLEM 27 treatment given to the connected epistemological and onto- logical problems. As concerns the purpose and the method of this treatise, therefore, all that it is now necessary to say may be sum- marized as follows. We propose a philosophical criticism of knowledge, with a view to point out its origin and nature as implicating reality; to validate it by reducing to their sim- plest terms and arranging in a harmonious whole its necessary forms, its assumptions, and its postulates; and to mark out its limits by further criticism and especially by distinguishing the sources and kinds of error and of half-truth. This is the task belonging to epistemology, or the theory of knowledge. We shall go for our facts to psychology, to the descriptive and explanatory science of those mental processes which are called "knowledge," and of that mental development which is called "growth of knowledge." We shall subject these facts to a thorough reflective analysis; and we shall use what speculative skill we can command to set our results into relation with sound conclusions on the other great problems of philosophy. To any who question the importance or doubt the benefit of such a study as that here proposed, a few words will suffice. There can be no doubt about the existence in culti- vated and thoughtful circles of a vast amount of scepticism which has led many minds either to a self-confident dogmatic agnosticism or to a pathetic despair of knowledge. These mental attitudes are, of course, especially obvious toward the transcendent objects which have always commanded the assent of the great majority of thinkers upon ethics and religion. But the agnostic or despairing attitude toward the problem of knowledge itself lies, both logically and in fact, at the base of all other agnosticism and of manifold forms of despair. The history of mental development shows that, in order to set free the forces of thinking for positive and fruitful activity, there is nothing against which we need 28 THE PROBLEM to guard ourselves more carefully than the haste with which the most important and fundamental conceptions of the intellect are permitted to lose their absolute significance for the cognition of the being and the connections of the real world. Witness the cheap and easy-going fashion with which the sceptical and agnostic outcome of the Kantian critical system gets itself accepted on every side. And this oftenest comes about without serious effort to understand Kant aright; and with even less sympathy with the effort which led him to undertake the critique of reason, the effort, namely, to save the ethical and religious postulates from the attacks of the speculative reason. For souls who take themselves seriously and who enter in earnest upon the exploration of reason, if they become tired, discouraged, or misled, there is no permanent cure but that which it lies in the hands of reason, with a pro- founder and richer understanding of her own self and her own resources, to accomplish. And they do not catch the true voice of the Zeitgeist who cannot hear and interpret it as a call. It is a call for a stronger and sweeter word of healing, spoken in the name of reason to soothe the sufferings and re- move the scars which have been inflicted in her own name. Nor is this mental attitude and its accompanying tone of the emotional and practical life confined by any means to those who have reflected upon the criticism of the categories. There are thousands of plain men and women who do not so much as know whether there be any critical philosophy, and who have scarcely even heard the name of Kant, but who are profoundly influenced by the streams of think- ing of which that masterful mind is the principal modern philosophical source. They, too, are ready to join the complaint: " There was the Door to which I found no key ; There was the Veil through which I could not see : Some little talk awhile of ME-and-THEK There was and then no more of THEE and ME." THE PROBLEM 29 And the chances, as the history of humanity abundantly shows, are not altogether against their coming soon to add to complaint this teaching of experience : " Then to the lip of this poor earthen Urn I lean'd the Secret of my Life to learn : And lip to lip it murmur'd ' While you live, Drink ! for, once dead, you never shall return.' " Now we cannot believe that it is matter of small impor- tance whether or not any helpful word is spoken to those who are asking of reason a contribution to her own better self-understanding. And if, as has always happened, this word, when first spoken to more serious students, should filter downward and outward through the currents of popular opinion and popular impression, it might strengthen and sweeten the daily life of some of these "plain men and women." At any rate, here is a task worth trying. For the critical study of cognition is essentially an effort to make the total of our human life more dignified and better worth the living. It is an effort to heighten our rational estimate of the calling and the destiny of man. Scant respect is due that doctor in psychology who, when his patient comes to him heart-sick and brain-confused, either makes light of his ills or sends him to the nearest apothe- cary's shop, with orders to put himself to sleep by taking as much crude opium as some unskilled hand may choose to measure out for him. And, surely, that teacher of phi- losophy has either mistaken his mission, or else has no real mission to fulfil, who is not ready to welcome any honest and fairly competent attempt at so important a task. CHAPTER II HISTORY OF OPINION TO write a detailed history of the opinions of reflective thinkers respecting the nature, origin, limits, and relations to reality, of human knowledge, would be to traverse the whole field of the more important philosophical litera- ture. But a far narrower and less arduous work is proposed for the sketch made in the two following chapters. The character of this sketch is to be understood and its value estimated only by keeping steadily in mind both the consid- erations which have chiefly influenced it. First, only those authors have been selected for brief review whose opinions have been found most suggestive and helpful in the histori- cal study of the epistemological problem. Second, among the opinions of these authors only such points of suggestion and helpfulness have been noted as, on the one hand, seem most distinctive of their particular authors, and, on the other hand, fit in best with our own method of study and with the conclusions to which it has led us. Selections and omissions alike must be regarded in the light of these considerations. "Antiquity," says Windelband, 1 "did not attain a theory of investigation." This statement is true only if by "a theory of investigation " we mean to indicate such a concep- tion and treatment of the grounds of knowledge and of the method of attaining truth as prevail in their modern more 1 A History of Philosophy (English Translation by Professor Tufts), p. 198. HISTORY OF OPINION 31 precise and systematic form. But in Plato, and in many writers from Plato onward through antiquity, not a few nug- gets of most precious truth on the "elaboration of those cognitions which belong to the concern of reason " are found scattered. Kant was by no means the first to criticise acutely the " pretensions of reason to transcendent insights " ; neither was he the first who undertook to "make room for faith" by "removing knowledge." Even much more is true, for there are in ancient and mediaeval authors frequent suggestions of a correct theory, variously shaped and pro- pounded, which the modern student of the psychology and philosophy of cognition cannot wisely afford to overlook. Nor need one hesitate to affirm that in some cardinal par- ticulars the Church Fathers Origen and Augustine were nearer the final statement of facts, and showed more of verifiable speculative insight into the significance of the facts than Kant himself. Yet so distinctive was the con- ception which the latter held of the epistemological prob- lem, so relatively firm his grasp upon it in all its large roundness, and so unique the answer which he elaborated, that the entire history of human reflection upon this prob- lem fitly divides itself at the Kantian epoch. It is indispensable for the recognition and use of the sug- gestions which antiquity and even the Middle Ages afford, that the loose and figurative forms of expression employed by the writers of these periods should be pardoned and set aside. Modern thinking must gladly accept the truths they suggest, although the expression given to these truths may be much too fanciful to accord well with modern philo- sophical taste. Furthermore, the practical, the ethical, and the religious bearings of the problem and of the solution which happens to be suggested for it are seldom or never lost out of sight by these writers. A purely speculative interest in epistemology, or a rigidly technical presentation of its various possible answers must not be expected from them. 32 HISTORY OF OPINION But in this respect, too, it is far from being certain that the modern philosophy of knowledge has not something valu- able to learn from its earlier and vaguer forms. It is the Platonic Socrates and Plato for we do not care to distinguish the two who first has something interesting to say to us respecting the origin, the nature, and the vali- dating of knowledge. In Socrates' rude midwifery and in the polished dialectic of Plato attempts are not wanting to criticise man's cognitive faculty and its product of so-called knowledge. Nor is the conception of a theory of knowledge, a science of science, unknown to Plato. There are hints at this conception in the distinction between the " what " of knowledge and the "that" of knowledge (between a ol8ev and OTL olSev). The question as to the possibility of such a science is raised in the "Charmides"; and again in the " Thesetetus, " under form of the inquiry, "What is knowl- edge ? " And although the notion of an absolutely self- determined knowledge is disputed by Socrates, it is concluded that, if a science of science can be found, it will also be "the science of the absence of science." 1 The critique of cognitive faculty, that is to say, will give us the absolute criteria of truth and of error in general. This science of science is not identical with self-knowledge ; for the former determines that, "of two things, one is, and the other is not, science or knowledge." Neither is it identical with wisdom; for such a science is not the cure of folly, although it is the cure of the scepticism and agnosticism which are the breeders of folly. 2 The problem of the origin of knowledge was a puzzling one to Plato, as it has always been to all who have made it the subject of reflection. For to give the descriptive history of how the different concrete and actual cognitions arise in consciousness did not seem to him a sufficient explanation of their arising at all, or of the universal forms under which i Charmides, 166. 2 Ibid. 172. HISTORY OF OPINION 33 they arose. Such history might explain what I know, why I know this rather than that ; but it could not explain, he thinks, that I know rather than have an opinion or a thought, and that this knowledge is an implied seizure of reality. Herein lies the mystery of knowledge. This recognized certainty of present reality appears to Plato as implying some sort of commerce with the invisible world of the ideal. How otherwise can that which is universal, necessary, and eternal be given to every man in the concrete, varied, and fleeting experiences of his earthly life ? In the " Meno," for example, the difficulty of defining virtue leads to the con- viction of the truth : " Nature is of one kindred ; and every soul has a seed or germ which may be developed into all knowledge." Even Meno's slaves recognize some elementary relations of all the geometrical figures. But though the simple sensations which reach the soul through the body are given by nature, at birth, to men and to animals, reflections on the being and use of the sensations are gained slowly and with difficulty, if they are ever gained at all, by educa- tion and by experience. But how can education and expe- rience account for all that is in every man's knowledge ? It must be that cognition, somehow, is prior to particular cognitions. As to the manner of this pre-existence of the universal and necessary element of cognition, Jowett, misled by Plato's figurative use of words, commits him to the modern evolutionary hypothesis that it "exists, not in the previous state of the individual, but of the race." The rather have we here, though only dimly apprehended, the thought that the origin of knowledge cannot be understood merely empirically, but must be found in the native consti- tution of the cognitive soul. 1 How did it get there? Here Plato's characteristic figurative ontology must account for the fallacy in his argument. Socrates is made to say: " But if he did not acquire the knowledge in this life, he 1 Compare Theaetetus, 186 ; Meno, 86; Phaedo, 73. 3 34 HISTORY OF OPINION must have had and learned it at some other time." And again, Cebes, referring to Socrates, remarks : " Your favorite doctrine that knowledge is recollection." Thus the pre- existence and immortality of the cognitive soul is made to stand or fall with the ontological doctrine of the ideal world. For "if the ideas of men are eternal, their souls are eternal; and if not the ideas, then not the souls." 1 The impossibility of giving a wholly empirical account of the origin of cognition, and the necessity of recognizing elements that for their explanation demand an appeal to the reality and eternal existence of the ideal, are tenets in the Platonic doctrine of knowledge. These same tenets are repeatedly affirmed in the treatment given to the essential nature of knowledge; for truth cannot be imparted by the best of the senses, not even by sight and hearing. The disparagement of sensuous cognition is common to Plato with most idealists; and this mistaken view is connected with the failure which he shares in common with modern solipsism to recognize that both thought and the mental leap to reality are involved in all perception. And so he distinguishes knowledge from opinion, which is interme- diate between ignorance and knowledge, even asserting that the two have to do with different kinds of matter corre- sponding to different faculties, 2 and from belief, which may be false, while there can be no false knowledge; and he endeavors to refute the view that perception of things is knowledge at all. 3 Here the Hindu mysticism, which regarded the soul as addressing itself in every act of per- ception of a Thing with a "That-too-art-thou," came far nearer the truth than did the Greek idealism. But with Plato it is thought by which existence must be revealed to the soul, if at all. 4 Dialectic is the true method of rational knowledge. Upon this point Plato comes nearest to the 1 Phsedo. 76. 2 Republic, 477. 8 Theatetus, 152 f. * Phsedo, 65. HISTORY OF OPINION 35 truth in the statement that knowledge is true opinion accom- panied by a reason, or resting on a ground. 1 It is this over- estimate of dialectic as the deliverer of knowledge within the soul of man, which is the chief error of Plato and of all similar forms of idealism since Plato until the present hour. On one other phase of the problem of knowledge the Platonic writings are worthy to instruct the student of the epistemological problem to the end of time. Throughout does Plato emphasize the dependence of knowledge on desire, aspiration, virtue, and character. "In the 'Phsedrus, ' " says Jowett, "love and philosophy join hands." With the excep- tion of some of the writers of the Christian Church we have to wait until Fichte to have the inseparable and vital union of cognition with the life of feeling and action so emphati- cally affirmed. "The true knowledge of things in heaven and earth is based upon enthusiasm, or love of the ideas going before us and ever present to us in this world and in another." Only through the exercise of this love can that divine knowledge be attained which is "knowledge absolute in existence absolute." Hence the firm connection between knowledge and the teleology of the idea of the good; 2 for, indeed, the idea of the good is the cause of science, and virtue is identical with knowledge. 3 In a word, it is the distinguishing feature of Plato's doctrine of cognition that he treats knowledge, not as "pure," but as the epistemolog- ical and metaphysical presupposition of ethics. It is the merit of Aristotle to have brought the early attempts at a science of knowledge into much more definite and systematic shape especially in his works on Logic and Metaphysics. On the possibility of such a science we find with him no such expressions of doubt, approaching despair, as are found in Plato; also no such merely tentative and 1 Thesetetus, 206 f. 2 Compare Republic, 508. 3 To show which, is the aim of the " Protagoras." 86 HISTORY OF OPINION mystical treatment of his problem. Aristotle distinctly recognizes the truth that, since there are certain principles common to all the particular sciences, and since, although these principles depend upon one another, the process of regressive dependence cannot go on forever, therefore there are premises which are themselves undemonstrable, but from which all demonstration begins. 1 His view of the criteria of cognition seems to have been in part derived from his criticism of the doctrine of Protagoras (irav TO fyaivojjievov dX77#e?). In spite of Grote's assertion that Aristotle dis- countenances altogether the doctrine which represents the mind, or intellect, as "a source of first or universal truths peculiar to itself," the doctrine of the Greek thinker amounts to an espousal of a certain form of apriorism in respect of the sources and nature of human cognition. 2 Knowledge, according to Aristotle, has its origin both in dialectical induction and logical demonstration. The soul, in its thinking nature, possesses the possibility of all knowl- edge (all knowledge dynamically) ; but it actually attains to its knowledge only by degrees. 3 His doctrine of the syllo- gism leads him to conclude that there are two kinds of ulti- mate presuppositions : these are (1) the actual fact as known to us in perception without proof, and (2) general principles whose source is in reason (vow), the power of direct, intuitive, and therefore unerring knowledge of such prin- ciples. Here we have a hint at the different kinds of impli- cates which have already been discovered as given in the fact "I know." And although in his psychology Aristotle regards the mind as in some sort a tabula rasa, thought takes the main part in writing some definite object upon the * See Anal. Post. p. 100, b. 3. 2 This we should argue, not simply on the basis of an appeal to passages in which Aristotle appears as the champion of " common-sense " (such as Eth. Nikom. I., vii., 14, and Eth. Eud. V., vi. f.), but chiefly as having his general doc- trine of the nature and growth of knowledge in mind. 8 Anal. Post, p. 71, b. 33; Phys. L, p. 184, a. 16. HISTORY OF OPINION 37 tablet. 1 By " thought " is meant, not a merely sensuous per- ception, although in perception thought is always accom- panied by sensuous images (^avrda-^ara) ; but the intuition of that which is rational (the vorjrd) is a necessary part of the knowledge even of things. For it is not in reason (vovs) as merely passive (Tra^^ri/co?), but also as creative (Trot^Tt/eoY), that knowledge has its source. And there is an activity of the reason as such (" pure "), which consists in the imme- diate grasping of the highest truths. For knowledge becomes possible only as reason creates, into rational form, the object of knowledge. Further as to Aristotle's view of the nature of knowledge we learn by following his description of the laws and manner of its growth. The mind rises, he thinks, by successive steps from individual observations to perception, from perception, by means of memory, to experience, and from such expe- rience to the truer knowledge. Aristotle defends the truth of sense-perception. And it is in the interests of this view as we should now say, " for the sake of knowledge " as such, and not, like Plato, for the sake of ethics that he develops the theory of the syllogism. Complete science is realized only when that which needs to be proved is derived through all the intermediate members from its highest pre- suppositions. 2 In the Metaphysics he discusses the principle of non-contradiction and finds it the most cognizable of all principles ; and yet, for this very reason, quite undemon- strable. 3 The true object of knowledge he agrees with Plato in holding to be only the necessary and the unchanging. Cognition cannot be explained unless the universal and the particular are " looked at in implication of each other." But with him it is not the universal as extra to the concrete envisaged reality, but the universal as immanent in the in- 1 Compare De Anima, and for citations see Zeller's " Outlines of the History of Greek Philosophy," p. 207, note. 2 See Anal. Prior, p. 24, b. 18. 3 Met. p. 1005, b. 20. 38 HISTORY OF OPINION dividual thing (universale in re, not universale extra rem"). So, then, with Aristotle, as not with Plato, the important truth is emphasized that knowledge is a development resting upon a basis of sense-perception, and requiring rational faculty which proceeds according to laws of its own. In this regard, indeed, the pupil stands far nearer than his teacher to the modern psychology of knowledge. As has been well said, he displaces " the seat of reality " and trans- fers it from the abstract universal of mere thinking to the concrete particular of sense-perception. 1 Finally, with Aristotle, far more than with Plato, knowl- edge has its end in itself rather than in being a means, or requisite, of virtue. Philosophy is itself a greater good than any of the virtues. 2 Cognition is thus more clearly dis- tinguished from moral activity. Connected with this diver- gence of theory is another : for, in the view of the later thinker, the attainment of knowledge is much less dependent on emotional and voluntary attitudes ; and empirical data are made more important for establishing our cognitions. Desire, aspiration, love, and intuition, retreat into the background. The doctrine of the practical syllogism remains, however : "No creature moves or acts except with some end in view." 3 And the mission of philosophy also remains, as with Plato, " the knowledge of unchangeable Being and of the ultimate bases of things, of the universal and necessary." 4 Little that throws new light on the problem of knowledge is to be learned from the post-Aristotelian schools of phi- losophy. The Stoics, however, elaborated in a somewhat instructive way the view of Aristotle regarding the criteria of cognition ; while . it was a fundamental tenet with this whole group of thinkers to emphasize the importance, for right living, of scientific inquiry. Though the ontology of 1 Compare Grote, ii. pp. 257 f. 2 Sec A. Grant, the Ethics of Aristotle (3d ed.), i. pp. 226 f. 8 De Mot. An., vi. f. * ZeUer, Outlines, etc., p. 180. HISTORY OF OPINION 39 the Stoics undoubtedly has a quasi-materialistic outcome, the content of human consciousness is so sharply contrasted with real being as to give a painful emphasis to the epistemo- logical problem : " How are we to construe the relations by which this content refers to real being and agrees with it ?" As to the sources of knowledge, Zeno holds that it must all proceed from perception, as though the soul were a tabula rasa ; but Chrysippus defines knowledge as a change produced on the soul by an object. From the impression (rv-jrwcr^} arises the presentation of mental images (fyavraa-ia). Out of perceptions come recollections, and from these experience ; and by conclusions from what is immediately given in percep- tions we arrive at general images (icoival wvoiai). Science, however, depends on the regulated formation and demonstra- tion of concepts. When pressed to the last resort, the possibility of knowledge is made by the Stoics to rest upon the assertion that otherwise no action carrying with it a rational conviction is possible. And so perception and science are both made, in an unanalyzed and inexplicable mixture, the sources of cognition. As to the nature of knowledge, Zeno's illustration (sensa- tion is like the extended fingers ; conception like the fist ; and knowledge, or science, like one fist clasped by another) seems to resolve the differences in the different stages of cognition into those of degree only. But knowledge is defined by the Stoics as " a fixed and immovable conception, or system of such conceptions." In other words, cognition is a system of perceptions and of notions derived by applying logical processes to perceptions. Here, at once the psychological doctrine of the nature of cognition is merged in the epistemological doctrine of the criteria of cognition. How is truth to be attained, and how distinguished from the error with which, in experience, it is so closely intermingled ? Now part of our conceptions are of such a nature that they compel consent ; we are con- 40 HISTORY OF OPINION scious that they can only arise from something real, for they have direct evidence (frepyeta). This kind of conceiving involves a mental " seizure " (tfaTaA/^i?) ; and so it differs from the passive having of mere notions, even when the conscious contents are the same, by having also the active consciousness of agreement with its object. Cognition, in the form of a " conceptual presentation " compelling conviction, becomes then the Criterion of Truth. 1 In all the Stoical doctrine the important psychological conclusions are recog- nized that (1) judgment, produced by the faculty of thought, is necessary to knowledge ; 2 and (2) knowledge which allows of certainty of conviction requires that perception and thought should be somehow brought into harmonious rela- tions. A true perception is one which represents the object as it really is ; but how shall we know when we have such a perception ? To answer this problem the appeal is some- times made to the strength of the impression and of the conviction which the impression carries ; sometimes to that distinction in the form of notions which laid the basis of the third part added to Logic by the Stoics, namely, the Doctrine of the Standard of Truth or the Theory of Knowledge ; but, in the last resort, as has already been said, to the practical postulate that " unless the cognition of truth were possible, it would be impossible to act on fixed principles and rational convictions." 3 Here we return to the point on the circumference of the circle from which we set out : The search after a firm support for the life of conduct compels us to investigate the criteria of truth ; but the investi- gation of the criteria of truth brings us to the conclusion that these criteria are chiefly to be found in the necessity felt by the soul for a firm support for the life of conduct. Let us not forget 1 This view must not be confounded with that of the innate ideas which was propagated on into the Middle Ages under the Stoic name. 2 Compare Sext. Adv. Math., viii. 70 f. ; Diog., vii. 63. 8 This is the position of Plutarch and Stobaeus ; on the entire subject see Heinze, " Zur Erkenntnisslehre der Stoiker," Leipzig, 1880. HISTORY OF OPINION 41 this gyratory motion of the Stoics in their quest for a defen- sible theory of cognition. It is somewhat of a return to Plato from Aristotle, who regarded knowledge rather more as an end in itself. It may suggest to the modern student of epistemology the truths that, in cognition, the soul is one, a unitary being incapable of divorcing feeling and willing from its thinking ; and, also, that the action of so-called necessity and the action of reason is not two principles, but only one. Little additional to the lessons taught by the Stoics is to be gained by a study of the ancient Epicureans and Sceptics. The former held that, in theory, perception furnishes the criterion of truth and that what is most obvious (by its evepyeia') is always true ; nor can such truth be doubted without destroying the foundations both of knowledge and of action. But, in practice, pleasure and pain furnish the criterion. Yet these teachers were, of course, pressed to the important admission that the knowledge requisite simply for wise conduct needs, besides, cognition of that which is not immediately perceptible; it needs the cognition of the grounds of phenomena and also of the expectations for the future which may be inferred from these grounds. Thus both Epicureans and Stoics, as a sort of fundamental postu- late upon which alone the wise man can ground his maxims for the practical life, came to the recognition of the truth that there is agreement of the individual reason with the universal, with the World-Reason, an implied mental seizure upon the heart of Reality. To something like the same opinion even certain of the Sceptics were finally driven. They did, indeed, theoretically hold that the essential nature of things is inaccessible to human knowledge ; nothing is immediately certain ; nothing, therefore, can be made mediately certain by processes of argu- ment. This scepticism they defended by calling attention to the conflict of opinions, to the endless regressus in proving, to 42 HISTORY OF OPINION the relativity of all perception, to the impossibility of other than hypothetical premises, and to the circle in the syllogism. It is most interesting, however, to notice how some of them Arcesilaus, for example brought forward the view that, in the practical life, the wise man must content himself with a certain kind of trust (vr^m?), according to which some ideas are the more probable, reasonable, and adaptable to the purposes of life. This impressive exhibition which Greek antiquity furnishes of the relations, both in fact and in theory, between our doctrine of cognition and our life of conduct, as well as its accompanying recognition of " confidence," " conviction," " trust," as an inseparable element of cognition itself, fitly prepare the way for a consideration of the views of two great thinkers among the Fathers of the Christian Church. In respect of their insight into the true state of the case, and as estimated by the important points which they make through their discursive treatment of the subject, Origen and Augus- tine are entirely worthy to stand beside Plato and Aristotle. To understand their points of view we must remember that the very nature of the regnant philosophy, and the urgent needs of the age, turned the currents of thought from purely speculative into practical and religious channels. The great doctrine of a " Christian Gnosis " was now the form in which a theory of knowledge was found interesting and was actually discussed. Two important truths derived from non-Chris- tian Gnosticism became, from this time onward, very in- fluential. These were the exceedingly influential conception of self-consciousness (7rapaKo\ovdelv eaurw), of intellect as thought active and in motion (i>o'/7y way of cognition implicates the transcendent, of this, at least a naive and vague confidence seems to be an essential part of every completed cognitive process. But what shall be said of this conviction ? The completer answer to this inquiry takes us well into the heart of the epistemological problem. It is, indeed, upon this feeling of conviction that in the last analysis our doctrine of knowledge has largely to THE PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEW 125 rely for the defence of its theoretical conclusion : the facts of consciousness are not themselves intelligible without the assumption of an extra-mental Reality on which conscious- ness is dependent. That the will of the knower is ever present and taking a part, so to speak, in every act of knowledge, is a psycho- logical truism ; it follows from the very conception of knowl- edge itself as a complex form of mental activity. The psychological doctrine of the influence of attention upon perception, upon self-consciousness, and upon all the grow- ing body of knowledge in which science consists, is an expression of this truth. But below this familiar line of thinking reposes the psycho-physical structure of facts which shows us that cognition itself is never a purely sensory, but always also a sensory-motor affair. In that living commerce with things which requires action, and which consists in doing something to them, with a will and a purpose in it, and in letting them do something to us which restricts or thwarts, or executes our will and purpose, does all human knowledge of things grow. This truth also demands further interpretation. In this connection the practical value of a comprehensive view has a bearing upon theoretical truth. There are real dangers to the life of conduct and of religion which come from saying: "Intellect is all;" or "Feeling is all;" or "Will is all." The theoretical truth on which the practical rests is this: Knowledge is of neither one alone; knowledge is of intellect, feeling, and will. The final witness, to which we are forced to make appeal for the attainment of truth, and for escape from error, is a sort of complex mental attitude. This attitude involves feeling and will as well as intellect. Emphasizing the aspect of feeling, we may call it a kind of conviction of the truth of the cognitive judgment ; in matters of contested evidence, or of practical importance, or of grave intellectual interest, the conviction may become 126 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEW of a highly emotional character. Emphasizing the aspect of will, we may refer to it as a mental positing of the reality of the object, which may become a seizure of, and a holding on to, this object in the presence of sceptical temp- tations ; and which may then appear as a quasi-ethical activ- ity. It is just these emotional and voluntary aspects of the total cognitive process that have led men in all ages to regard their cognitions as answers to voices which called to them from out of the depths of Reality, or as intuitions and insights which brought them into the most interior construction and processes of Reality (Einleuchtungen and AnscJiauungen as well as Vorstellungen and Begriffe). Rec- ognizing and submitting one's judgment to the voice, to the light, thus gives a moral significance to scientific and philo- sophical investigation in general. Hence the picture drawn by Augustine of God originally speaking with men as with angels (ipsa incommutabili veritate, illmtrans mentes eorum). As said Bonaventura, "Thou hast per se the capacity to behold truth, if concupiscences and phantasms do not hinder thee, and like clouds interpose between thee and truth's ray. " A psychological view of the Development of Knowledge reveals still more clearly the nature of the problem which epistemological philosophy has to examine. In the indi- vidual and in the race the growth of cognition does not, indeed, result from the introduction of new powers, or from the sudden appearance of distinctly different faculties, in an epoch-making way. The kingdom of knowledge, like the kingdom of heaven, grows as does a grain of mustard seed. Indeed, if we could only use the word comprehensively enough we might be tempted to declare that it resembles a " biological " development. It is not given to the observer, by a microscopic examination of the mustard seed, to predict the character of the developed plant. Nor can one say that all of the latter is given potentially, or even that its con- THE PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEW 127 ditions are present, in the seed. Neither, again, can one discern the separate functional growths, and the correlation of the organic processes, in the very earliest growth. Yet the forces and principles at work, and with which the inves- tigator must reckon, are the same throughout. In no other realm of inquiry is the principle of continuity more strictly applicable, more obviously potent, than in the growth of human knowledge. The detailed descriptive history of this growth it belongs to psychology to give. The interpretation of some of the more important aspects and portions of this history is, indeed, of supreme interest to epistemology ; it will constantly excite our effort in the subsequent chapters of this book. At present a few words in addition to what has already been brought to notice will suffice. Psychology can describe many of the conditions under which that great " diremptive process " takes place, whose accomplishment is crowned by knowledge as a consciousness of relation between subject and object, and as an objective consciousness of both subject and object existing in this relation. It can show how, as the entire sensory-motor mechanism runs more smoothly in the channels which have become marked out, certain groups of resulting experiences form themselves into a Self, envisaged or conceived of, and certain others into Things, either immediately known or only inferred. And now the whole world of experienced objects has organized itself into two great classes of cognized and cognizable realities ; but this world of opposed and yet intercommunicating entities had its growth, psychologically, from a common root! Now, too, the world of science begins to reveal itself as under tuition purchased at the expense of the persistent and rationally ordered experience of the race. A strange world this, of which we are told in terms of highly preferred knowledge ! Yet this knowledge claims to be based upon observation by the senses, of somewhat more than ordinary pretensions to accuracy and painstaking 128 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEW care. It results from much looking, hearing, feeling, smell- ing, tasting, and especially from much muscular intercourse with things ; and it is called the " world of sense, " in which every sensible man implicitly believes, and to doubt which is to discredit " common-sense " and science alike. But further acquaintance with this body of knowledge, so precious in the eyes of those who cultivate it, and in the sight of us all, reveals its true character in a different way. It is rather a world of ideas and of thoughts. It makes the most enormous demands upon thinking faculty to carry the mind through tortuous and complicated processes of ratioci- nation, where symbols and words that surely have no real correlates are the necessary scaffolding for every step. It challenges phantasy far more severely and peremptorily than any poet or artist has ever done. Without doubt, imagina- tion breaks quite down in its effort to conceive of forces that are stored and do not act (or energies of position), of atoms that have no color or shape, of ether that is limitless in tenacity and infinitely tenuous and without weight, etc. The whole structure of this world is underlain and inter- penetrated with hypothetical entities, causes, transactions, etc., which are introduced in the interest of observed facts, but which can never themselves become actual objects of observation. Yet if we reject it as merely hypothetical and imaginary, or as the product of purely abstract thinking a system of mental images and conceptions of most extraordi- nary and non-sensible kind we confine human knowledge within undesirably narrow limitations. And, indeed, these activities of imagination and thought, with their underlying postulates, and their inciting and supporting play of the feeling that it is so, and of the will to have it so, are essen- tially the same as those employed in all the knowledge of our daily life. If science cannot correct common-sense by denying to it the exercise of all its dearest and most impor- tant rights, common-sense cannot distrust science without THE PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEW 129 surrendering the rationality of all that is of practical inter- est to itself. For cognition, by the very principles of its growth, tends more and more to the solidarity and yet per- petual flux of a system of living organisms. Nor can science and common -sense safely or correctly draw the line that shall shut philosophy out of this growing body of human knowledge. CHAPTER V THINKING AND KNOWING / T A HAT knowledge cannot be gained without more or less of J- correct and prolonged thinking is a practical maxim which no one would be found to dispute. But that there is much knowledge which does not come by mere thinking is a maxim scarcely more to be held in doubt. Thinking is, then, universally recognized as an important and even neces- sary part of knowing; but it is not the whole of knowing. Or, in other words, one must make use of one's faculties of thought as an indispensable means to cognition; but there are other means which must also be employed, since it is not by thought alone that the human mind attains cognition. This manner of speech is indicative of that trustworthy psychological instinct and its resulting body of opinion which characterizes human nature. And thus, in the elabo- ration of a philosophical theory of knowledge which shall be true to the facts of life, it is matter of the first importance to compare thought and cognition, and to recognize both their points of resemblance and their points of difference. A sound epistemological doctrine must make clear how much and what of the cognitive process consists in that movement of the intellect which we call thinking; and how it is that truth, with its assured grasp upon the existence and relations of the real the trans-subjective world, is thus made the possession of the subject, in the form of states of his own consciousness. If now the popular opinion, as well as that of the majority of writers on logic, be taken in answer to the question, THINKING AND KNOWING 131 What besides clear, patient, and correct thinking is neces- sary to a knowledge of truth ? there is discoverable an almost complete agreement. It is observation patient, exact, and intelligent that lays the basis, so to speak, for the struc- ture of truth which thinking rears. And, moreover, since every thinker is liable to have his thoughts wander, or become too much mixed up with imaginings, and since there is danger from too " pure " or " abstract " thoughts, the results of thinking must be constantly compared with renewed and improved observations of fact. It is thus by using observation to start the trains of thinking, which now once started carry us into a wider and more airy domain, where, however, our conceptions of things must be tested with ever open eyes and freshened memories of our actual visions, that we gain more and more of assured knowledge. Indeed, under the influence of a natural reaction against former magnificent attempts to handle the truths of the real world as problems for thought only, modern science has often no little contempt to throw upon "abstractions" as compared with that cognition of facts which is gained by observation. Some of its devotees are even tempted to forget that mere observation, if such a thing indeed were possible, would no more create science than mere thinking. The more carefully analytic studies of modern psychology prove that, in fact, thinking and cognition are, so to speak, per se inseparable. They show that without thinking no cognition whatever is possible. This is a truth of which no one has ever been more firmly persuaded than was Kant; and it is to be hoped that no one will ever attempt to elabo- rate it more fully than he did. But what is chiefly needed at the present time is to learn from modern psychology, and to expand and teach in an improved epistemology, the fuller doctrine of the relations between the two. Inj^revious wucks n logic, and even in not ajfiw of the most, important phila- sophical treatises, the distil n fit irm HPJ-.WPPTI. knn\y]pdge by ob- 132 THINKING AND KNOWING n and knowledge by thinking has bejm_jJfatively is called " intuitive "or " immediate " knowledge. and the Iatter~"-ttrt^T3CaI3L Q ^~^nediate ?) or "Abstract " knowledge. And now the logician thinks it right to hold that when he has given an account of the forms which characterize the mental life of thought, he has discharged his entire duty as a student of mental life. For is not logic & formal affair, -^a presentation (usually most dry and lifeless), with dread- ful array of strange symbols, of the mere forms of thinking faculty as it conceives, judges, and reasons from grounds to consequences ? To the psychologist belongs, in sooth ! the explication and the vindication of so-called intuitive or immediate knowledge. How, and on what terms of self- conscious estimate of my own cognitive faculty, and in the exercise of what dark and mysterious rights, do I stand before any natural object a tree, a stone, a human face and affirm: "IJtnow^jjou^ for surej that you are, that you really are ; and what you are in your actual structure and modes of behavior " ? This is a complex and most vexing question which logic is glad enough to turn over to psy- chology. And yet v it is not a question which _cjtn be answered, or even have its import faithfully recognized, without taking into account the application of the laws of thought in all so-called immediate cognition of reality. There is little reason for wonder, then, when psychology especially of that "new" type which is prone to abjure metaphysics and epistemology as unworthy members of its own family, and to consort rather with biology and physi- ology as with persons of its nearer kinship refuses to take this question off the hands of its ancient partner in intel- lectual concerns, the stately "scientist" (of the high-and- dry a priori order) called logic. For does not psychology aim to become the exact science of mental phenomena, of " states of consciousness, as such " ? But at this point other THINKING AND KNOWING 133 questions arise. Is not my cognition of that thing over there that tree, or stone, or Human face ^a_jnental phe- nomenon, a state of my consciousness-? And if it is to be describecflmd explained at all by any form of human science, does not the duty of description and explanation fall upon that science which defines itself as having a right to the sphere of mental phenomena in general, of all con- scious states ? If, further, cognition is to be described and explained by psychology at all, should it not be scientifically handled in its entirety, without mutilation or suppression of anything which rightly belongs to its mental constitution ? Further, is it not clear that objective reference, warmed with the unchanging conviction of the trans-subjective and the extra-mental, is something inseparable from the very psychic being of cognition ? How, then, can psychology shirk the task of an analytic that goes to the very core of cognitive consciousness ? But in vain is a piteous pleading for response to these questions set up before the bar of the current scien- tific psychology. Such questions are by her chief doctors of laws nowadays handed over to epistemology. Meantime they are themselves spending their "labor for that which satisfieth not." At this point, then, we are again thrown back upon Kant and upon his followers in the same line of critical inquiry. We find this master of analytic constantly insisting upon the truth that knowledge is impossible without thought; mere sensation-content, held up in consciousness as a picture by constructive imagination, does not as yet amount to knowl- edge. For if " thoughts without contents are empty, intui- tions without concepts are blind." But Kant, in the working out of his theory of the relations between "empty thoughts" and "blind intuitions," often so sets intuitions and thoughts in contrast as to seem to make them functions and products of diverse powers of the soul. And a much more serious deficiency which finally becomes a source of 134 THINKING AND KNOWING disastrous error he devotes his theory of knowledge wholly to its a priori, formal side. Such a restriction of our critique might, indeed, be allowed in the interests of nar- rowing the problem, which is, as Kant attempts to isolate and discuss it, sufficiently comprehensive and profound. But the analysis of form, while it may for a time seem to expose and to account for the peculiar nature of thought, does not for one single moment even seem to do the same thing for cognition. For when, in the evolution of mental life, we come to knowledge, it is_the origin, nature, J*nd validating of the matter-of-fact content which, interests anf the nnmp, For it alone imparts insight properly so-called, it alone is actually assimi- lated by man, passes into his nature, and can with full reason be called his; while the conceptions merely cling to him. " They " thus afford the real content of all our thought, and whenever they are "Wanting we havenot had conceptions but mere words in our heads." Thought, consisting in com- paring conceptions, gives us no really new knowledge. "On the other hand, to perceive, to allow the things themselves to speak to us, to apprehend new relations of them, and then to take up and deposit all this in conceptions, in order to possess it with certainty, that gives new knowledge. " To all such one-sided views of the nature of knowledge, its growth, and the way, through it, that we come at reality, so to speak, it is the completer understanding of the primary facts of knowledge, especially as they evince the similarities and differences between thinking and knowing, which affords the only satisfactory critical standpoint. Cognition is one living process throughout; and valuable as a distinction of its stages and kinds and points of departure may be, there is one essential body of characteristics to be recognized as THINKING AND KNOWING 137 everywhere present. Intuitive knowledge does not come at first, or grow, without thinking; nor is thinking that is not in some sort intuitive, if such a thing were at all pos- sible, the avenue to more of mediate and indirect knowledge. The first act of cognition achieved by the infant mind is a triumph of thinking faculty. The last and highest achieve- ment of knowledge gained by the highly trained and richly stored reflective mind is also a feeling-full and voluntary envisagement of reality. Cognition purified of thought is deprived of a factor essential to cognition. Pure thinking is never so abstracted from successive steps of intuitive commerce with the real as to be purely thinking; and if it could be thus abstracted, it could not become the beginning, the means, or the end of a cognitive process. The very prevalence, however, of this principle of continuity, as applied to all the growth of knowledge in and through thought, makes it the more necessary that we should under- stand the resemblances and the differences of these two atti- tudes of Mind toward Reality. Let us, then, compare that mental movement or form of psychic life which is called "thought" with our previous description of the nature and growth of knowledge. What is it to think ? To answer with Mr. Spencer and others as though thinking were mere generalizing under the principle of comparison is to fail of fully describing what men ordi- narily experience when they think, and think concretely, and to some definite purpose. With us all, when we make earnest with our thoughts, the stream of consciousness becomes an active conscious relating of otherwiseSeparate items ofcognition. It^s_subjective ^aji^^nseioji^ JLE^ cess; but a process in consciousness which is betfelrctescribed as distinctively not U~T7srss1ve^suffering / of something, but a doing of something with our own ideas. Thinking is, ing; jedes Denken ein Wollen, as Wundt-^n}mirab!y says. 1 1 System der Philosophic, p. 42. 138 THINKING AND KNOWING Thought is experienced as a transaction produced by ourselves. So that, although it is not to be described as willing per se, and can neither be always identified with the higher forms of self-conscious choice nor which is yet more certain n^cious__actiye process which teiHninatcs^tTthe positing of a unifying relation between two very significant in the temporal char- acteristics of judgment as an inseparable factor of cognition ; and this is' the slowing-up almost amounting to a pause in the time-rate of consciousness, when the business of judging takes place. Nor is this characteristic a mere effect in the imagination of the subject. Psycho-physics shows beyond all contradiction, what every unsophisticated observer of men knew beforehand, that it takes time to judge. Un- judged impressions flit rapidly, or troop in confused swarms before the mind. " There they go," we are accustomed to say ; as though they were not of our mind and we could not, therefore, detain them. But we " come to " judgment more slowly ; we bring the sensations and ideas to some common point of view, and we take a little time to pronounce a synthesis between them. All this is, in some sort, capable of measurement and of expression in so many one-thousandths of a second. How many more cr you will need to judge than merely to be the more passive recipient of impressions, can be told you in any psychological laboratory. More than this ; we are actually aware of taking a bit of a pause, of insisting on a suspension of judgment, although it seems already to have formed itself, that we may make sure of correct judgment. This time it is our resolve : we will not press the key until we have actually judged that the removal of the screen showed us red instead of green ; we will not guess, or jump at the conclusion, but will judge accurately the real state of the case. It is just this judging activity 10 146 THINKING AND KNOWING which is the essential thinking part of the cognitive process ; the completion of the judgment marks the gaining of knowl- cdge_as a fact inconsCtcraSn^s^ NoteTiow~characTeristic and peculiaris~~Elie feelfng of relief and of satisfaction the pleased release from tension and the joy of recognition, as the judgment is formed ! " I have judged correctly " (ac- cording to fact), and " I know" are two different expressions for one and the same attitude of mind. In the larger doctrine of judgment, as a psychical affair, the truth is illustrated on a larger scale. The man of de- liberate judgment is, other things being equal, the man whose cognitions are sure, because reposing on grounds consciously recognized and estimated. And this is as true of those judgments which enter into so-called immediate cognitions as of those which constitute a body of scientific truth. Knowledge is born of thinking which has arrived at the paus- ing place of a judgment, a finished product of synthetic activity. In saying this, however, we must not neglect the value of " insight," or underestimate the part which the quick seizure, the divination under divine guidance, of the truth has to play in the winning and the increasing of knowl- edge. For cognition comes through Kennen as well as through Wissen; indeed, no hard and fixed line can be drawn between the two. The poet, the artist, the inventor, on the one hand, and on the other hand the plodder to his conclusions along the thorny path of conflicting facts, upon the wooden clogs of logic, both think and also intuit what appears to them as true. But cognition par excellence, so far as its thinking aspect is concerned, marks its own terminal as a judgment arrived at, in view of grounds which may seem either quite envisaged on account of the quickness of our flight from them to the terminal itself, or only dimly remembered because they lie far back upon the path which thought has travelled to this terminal. In any case, however, the distinctive feature of cognitive consciousness is this : we know only THINKING AND KNOWING 147 when we alight upon the firm ground of a completed judgment. It is only in books on logic and psychology that judgment consists in a combining of sensations and ideas with other ideas or concepts, all considered as mere mental products, or psychical states. In real life judgment is the positing of relations between the doings of actual things. This is true at least of all such judgment as brings knowledge with it or, in any way, conduces to knowledge. In other words, when we judge we not merely effect a subjective combination that is different from any combination possible for the ungoverned and flighty ideas, but we appear to ourselves to affirm the truth about a transaction in reality. There are several ways of approaching this claim as to the real nature and signifi- cance of the judgments which men actually make. For ex- ample, the claim may be approached from the logician's point of view. But this would lead us to emphasize the distinction of "form" and " content," and so, perhaps, would induce the fictitious doctrine, in the interests of the importance and in- tegrity of our particular science, that content has nothing to do with the true nature of judgment. It is the morphology of judgment, the doctrine of the form of all judging, say most of its students, which logic investigates. But here we must assert, with Schuppe, 1 that the distinction of form and content, as one of opposition or contrast, or as other than implying a reciprocal involvement, cannot possibly be main- tained. To borrow an illustration from Schopenhauer, the defect of neglecting the content shows the truth of the Indian proverb : '" No lotus without a stem." The doctrine of a form of judgment that takes no account of the universal predicate of the content of judgment is a toy logic. It is much more a " logic of illusion " than is that pro- cedure of reason which Kant characterized by this opprobrious term. For this is just what judgment intrinsically is, a 1 Erkenntnisstheoretische Logik, p. 19. 148 THINKING AND KNOWING positing of the existence of a concrete reality in relation to other realities. In the utterance of the mere form of a judg- ment we feel that we are not really judging ; or, in so far as we are really judging, we are judging something which differs from the mere form. We may be judging indeed that this form is the correct form of judgment ; but even this is a judgment, only as it posits the existence of a concrete reality in relation to other realities : " So all men judge" is then our judgment ; or, perhaps, " This form of a judgment appears to me correct " (to accord with my own remembered experience and with that which I judge other men to have had). Much more obviously true is it that the distinction between form and content fails to satisfy the demands of epistemological criticism when those so-called secondary judgments, whose nature consists in relating concepts, are had in mind. For, whatever the actual psychological process answering to the term " a concept " may be understood to be, single concepts are never judgments : not even single concepts of relation. Nor do mere combinations of concepts form judgments ; it is the added conviction of positing the truth of what is thought, which converts the conceptual flow of consciousness into a genuine act of judging. When the consciousness of objective validity is wanting, then judgment is wanting ; or if judgment seem to be there (as it is usually, if not universally, because no man satisfies himself long by toying with his logical faculty), then it is judgment affirming some other real relation than that which is clearly expressed by the related conceptions. The fuller description of the knowledge that comes by sense-perception and by self-consciousness, and that-is called immediate in distinction from the knowledge which is inferred by virtue of its recognized connection with remoter grounds, must be waited for in order to defend further this view of judg- ment, as the form of thinking in which cognition is estab- lished. " I perceive the snow to be white ; " such a sentence throws the burden of the judgment upon the testimony of THINKING AND KNOWING 149 self-consciousness. But when I give this form to the asser- tion of my act of accomplished cognition, I affirm a relation which is judged to exist between me and the extra-mentally existent thing. Thus far the judgment is certainly true, a mental positing of an actual relation. I do perceive the ob- ject-thing as my judgment asserts that I do. "The snow is white;" such a sentence throws the burden of the judgment, so to speak, upon the extra-mentally existent thing itself. It brings to my consciousness, and to the consciousness of all who hear and understand me, that the whiteness of the snow is a fact to be recognized by every one who can and will put himself in like conditions for judgment. In every judgment of perception, as an integral part of the cognitive act itself, there is discoverable the binding conviction that the object of perception exists and is actually so constituted as we imagine and think it to be. Judgment, in general, is not genuine JUDG- MENT, as distinguished from mere sequence of mental states, without a trans-subjective reference, an implication of the actual connection of different " momenta " in a really existent world. In saying this, however, we have already arrived at the conclusion that judgment involves, as a necessary condition of its own making, something more than mere judgment, if by the words " mere judgment " we limit our meaning to a form of thought. As a form of thought, there is also im- plied in judgment willing and feeling, at least in the form of " feeling-sure ; " and besides, a postulated correspondence of the trans-subjective with that kind of active, feeling-full thought which all cognition involves. But this amounts to saying that in all actual judging the subject is doing some- thing more than judging, and is suffering in other forms than those of the impression made by the " ideation-stuff " of the judgment itself. Thus much is true in fact ; and it is truth which no theory of knowledge can afford to neglect. Post- poning for later chapters the further culture of this truth, 150 THINKING AND KNOWING we may most fitly gather a handful of fruitage from the path which has just been traversed. It is not (as Hegel seems to teach) the doctrine of the concept, but the doctrine of the judgment in which we find : (1) negatively, the denial of the possibility of absolute scepti- cism, of dogmatic agnosticism, and of solipsistic idealism ; and (2) positively, the foundations for a valid episternology and metaphysics. On the first point our analysis of the judgment has shown what all subsequent epistemological criticism will confirm, that a consistent and thorough agnosticism or sceptical ideal- ism is impossible as a theory of knowledge. It is impossible as theory, because it is contradictory of the very nature of that primary act of cognition from the criticism of which all attempt at an epistemological theory has its rise, and in the interpretation of which all the conclusions of any particular theory must repose. Cognition involves thinking in the form of judgment ; but judgment cannot be considered as a merely formal and subjective activity, because, as a matter of fact, it is not such an activity. It is the positing of reality, as diverse and yet necessarily capable of unification, in a way full of feeling, and full of will, as well as full of thought. That is, he who judges, passes judgment upon the truth ; and in doing this affirms both himself and his object to be something more and far other than mere thought-process and mere object of thought. Furthermore, the reality posited in every act of true judg- ment is posited as a related reality, not only that it is, but what it is, so far as here and now judged, in the completed act of cognition. Here appears in the background the shadow of a postulate that may come to be recognized as bearing a noble and truly divine form. For the universal assumption of every judgment of immediate cognition is this : What is subjec- tively united in my act of judging belongs together in the unity of the really existent world. I unite these elements, which to THINKING AND KNOWING 151 sense seem scattered and diverse, by judging them to belong together ; but I so unite them as to reveal my conviction that they are trans-subjectively combined, extra-mentally united in the unity of the Real. If this is not what my judgment means to me and to others, it falls short of fixing for me, or of expressing to them, my arrival at one of the firm points of standing called a cognition. How meagre, however, would the body of human knowl- edge appear, if it were reduced to the dimensions covered only by so-called " immediate " or " intuitive " acts of cogni- tion ! It is, pre-eminently, by thinking that men arrive at conceptual or inferential knowledge. And the form of stating such knowledge may be said to be the " logical judgment." Logical judgment is a synthesis effected between concepts ; therefore the kind of knowledge which it embodies and con- serves may be called " conceptual." It is built up by thinking one's way at least, so this mental constructive work is de- scribed by the current books on logic through concepts, that serve as " middle-terms," to other concepts ; it is a thought- process in which the consciousness of the truth of the final judgment, that marks the new point of cognition gained, is preceded by consciousness of the grounds, or reasons, from which this truth is inferred. Therefore, the kind of knowl- edge which this judgment embodies and conserves may be called " inferential." Great and even bitter controversy has been held between the partisans of the superior claims of immediate or intuitive and of conceptual or inferential knowl- edge, the one accusing the other of narrowness, lack of science, and excessive devotion to fact, and the other retort- ing with accusations of excessive airiness, abstraction, and disregard for matter of fact. Separate faculties have even been devised for the attainment of these two kinds of knowl- edge ; and the controversy has overrun the boundaries of psychology and raged within the fields of epistemology and metaphysics. Kant, Hegel, and Schopenhauer have agreed 152 THINKING AND KNOWING in arraying Verstand against Vernunft, while differing much in their conception of the legitimate use of these terms. What now are the facts in the case which a critical epis- temology must decide ? What, as interpreted by a psychol- ogy which is true to actual mental life, is the nature and the growth of cognition as dependent upon acquired facility in thinking ? In brief, the principle of continuity reigns throughout ; and there is no break between the two kinds of knowledge, as there is no generic or specific difference in the employment of thinking faculty in gaining the two kinds. Judgment without both human understanding and human reason (whatever may be the distinctions set up between the two) is not human judgment. Understanding, that is not rational, is not human understanding. And reason, that is devoid of understanding or totally separated from its intelli- gent base, is a barren fiction ; if it exists anywhere, it is not the reason of man. Science, as a form of cognition, rests upon no different foundations from those upon which ordi- nary knowledge rests; and it involves no different forms of mental activity from those which every man employs in his work-a-day life. Moreover, the whole mental life and activ- ity is essentially the same, when we know the tree, the stone, the human face, over there opposite to us, as when we, by processes of subtle dialectic, or by the leap of faith, arrive at the atomic theory, or the cognition (or postulate) of the Personal Absolute called God. Further, negatively, it must be asserted that no entities, not even of the psychical sort, no mental products, no states of consciousness, corresponding to the customary description of the " concept," or the " syllogism," are anywhere to be found. 1 Positive testimony of consciousness is not wanting, how- ever, to the important modifications in that mental attitude 1 As to the true psychological nature of the concept, see " Psychology, De- scriptive and Explanatory," chapters xiv., xix., xx. THINKING AND KNOWING 153 toward reality which the activity of thinking assumes in order to make possible a growth of knowledge. The u leap " to the judgment which expresses the finality of the thinking process, the journey to the terminal of cognition, may vary greatly in its degree of speed. The number of conscious " momenta " that can be remembered, or recognized as fus- ing in the judgment, so to speak, may also vary. Immediate judgment is judgment with little or no clear consciousness of the grounds ; but judgment, as the recognized result of a reasoning process, is judgment with more or less of clear consciousness of its own grounds. It is the former kind of judgment which is prominent in both sense-perception and self-consciousness ; it is the latter which the construction of scientific knowledge demands. The sensation-content involved in the thinking process, and upon the basis of which thinking proceeds, varies greatly in quantity. It also differs qualitatively ; so that sometimes judgment is absorbed in the determination of the size or quality of a thing, some- times in the nature and meaning of an affection of Self. Especially does the form taken by the postulate of, the feel- ing of belief in, and the more or less voluntary seizure upon, reality differ with the different kinds of judgment involved in the cognitive act. Sometimes the real object appears as an undoubted envisagement ; sometimes as an inference so doubtful that we hesitate to call the resulting judgment a cognition rather than a mere opinion or belief. These forms of variation in the thinking process, and in its result, occasion marked differences between our necessitated belief in the reality of the known object of sense or of self-consciousness, and our quest after certified truth as to the general relations and laws of minds and of things. In the former case we feel that the reality is a fact, given to us, not as the form of our thoughts, but with the irresistible conviction that the reality is there and that we are in commerce with it. In the latter case, we feel that the form of our thoughts is 154 THINKING AND KNOWING a true picture of the forms, in reality, of minds or of things. In all conceptual knowledge, as in so called immediate knowledge, it is the judgment which constitutes the final form of the thinking that enters into the cognition. Indeed, psychologically considered, conception is itself a modification of the content and succession of our conscious states in which judgments are the only possible representatives of reality. The very process of conception consists in having a number of highly schematized ideas, that are judged to be related in certain definite rather than other ways. The moment, how- ever, we come to inquire after the truth of this process of so-called conception, we find that the inquiry ends in a de- mand for the truth of our own relating acts, that is, of the judgments themselves. But to inquire into the " truth " of judgments, it must be assumed that they are capable of being patterned, so to speak, after the actual relations of things. Here again, then, we see that it is the true doctrine of judg- ment which must be relied upon for the validating of human thought about things. Every so-called concept implies both mental representations as its content, and also judging ac- tivity as giving form to its content. The determinate flow of the successive judgments toward that one judgment which posits the truth which the mind is seeking, and the conscious- ness of this flow as being determined in its connections by the facts of experience, are the necessary elements of every act of reasoning. Here, again, the result can be called knowledge only upon the supposition that the judgments which enter into the process of reasoning have something far other than mere correctness of form. What follows, then, in order to vindicate the claim made by all the more highly abstract and conceptual forms of thought, to be a means or vehicle of cognition ? These forms certainly make this claim, since they present themselves as a series of judgments leading up to a final judgment in which, THINKING AND KNOWING 155 as in a court of highest jurisdiction, truth appears enthroned. And if the claim does not carry its own vindication, or some- how admit of being vindicated from without, all science is convicted of giving the lie to its very name. For it is in its concepts, and in its judgments relating these concepts, that the truth of science consists. But here, again, the very nature of judgment, as it enters into all acts both of conception and of reasoning, becomes the invincible fortress against the ex- tremes of agnosticism and of sceptical idealism. Consider, however, in brief, what seems postulated as to the nature of the cognitive process, and as to its claims to truth, in the very doctrine of the concept. This doctrine shows that the mental process of conception is indeed a change, but a change subject to laws. The character of this process is changeable ; were it not so, growth of knowledge would be impossible. But it has also the permanent in it; and were this not so, truth would be impossible of attainment in the form of conceptual knowledge. What further is im- plicate as to the really existent, thus known in the form of the conceptual judgment? It, too, this object itself, the Reality known, must actually change ; but not all at once, so to speak, or at random, and in a wild unregulated way. It, too, must change in time, and according to fixed and immanent ideas. The fixedness of the object, as given to conceptual knowledge, in contrast with the changing activity of the conceiving and knowing subject, is itself only a more definite measure both of change and of permanence : shall we say of the permanence of the Idea as immanent in the changing states of the object ? But I, too, the subject, can- not change in an unlimited way, either as respects the time or the direction of change. If, however, my series of judg- ments is to be thought of as true (and if they are not to be thus thought of, then conceptual knowledge is impossible for me), the changes in me must, in some 'sort and to some degree, follow the laws of the changes in the object. To 156 THINKING AND KNOWING know any Thing, I must conceive of it as it really is, as main- taining a certain fidelity to its own nature, while constantly changing its particular manifestations toward me, toward other minds, and toward other things. Let us try to repre- sent this by a formula : And let S stand for me, the subject ; but stand for the object which I conceive of as always acting according to its nature when truly conceived. Then, in some sort, it must be possible that S\