essays towards a theory of knowledge - alexander philip

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tle: Essays Towards a Theory of Knowledge

thor: Alexander Philip

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nguage: English

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ESSAYS TOWARDS

A THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE

Rosalind: I pray you, what is't o'clock?

Orlando: You should ask me, what time o' day;

there's no clock in the forest.As You Like It, Act III. Sc. 2.


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ESSAYS TOWARDS A

THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE

BY


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ALEXANDER PHILIP

F.R.S.E

LONDON

GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS LIMITED

New York: E. P. DUTTON & CO.

1915

, , .Phdrus.


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PREFACE

wo years ago, in the preface to another essay, the present writ

ntured to affirm that "Civilisation moves rather towards a chaoan towards a cosmos." But he could not foretell that the descensverniwould be so alarmingly rapid.

hen we find Science, which has done so much and promised such for the happiness of mankind, devoting so large a proportion

resources to the destruction of human life, we are prone to asspairinglyIs this the end? If not; how are we to discover ansure for stricken Humanity the vision and the possession of

etter Land?

ot certainly by the ostentatious building of peace-palaces nor evethe actual accomplishment of successful war. Only by the discove

true first principles of Thought and Action can Humanity bdeemed. Undeterred by the confused tumult of to-day we must sek a true understanding of what knowledge iswhat are its powed what also are its limitations. Nor may we forget that othnciple of lifewith which it is so quaintly contrasted in Lo

acon's translation of the Pauline aphorismKnowledge bloweth u

harity buildeth up.

nuary 1915.


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CONTENTS

PAGE

I

Time and Periodicity 11

II

The Origin of Physical Concepts 17

III

The Two Typical Theories of Knowledge 36

IV

The Doctrine of Energy 81

ESSAYS TOWARDS A

THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE


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I


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TIME AND PERIODICITY

e can measure Time in one way onlyby counting repeate

otions. Apart from the operation of the physical Law of Periodice should have no natural measures of Time. If that statement be trufollows that apart from the operation of this law we could not attaany knowledge of Time.[11:1] Perhaps this latter proposition mt at first be readily granted. Few, probably, would hesitate to admat in a condition in which our experience was a complete blank w

ould be unable to acquire any knowledge of Time; but it may not bite so evident that in a condition in which experience consisted ofultifarious but never repeated succession of impressions thnowledge of Time would be equally awanting.[12:1] Yet so it is. Theration of the Law of Periodicity is necessary to the measuremeTime. It is by means, and only by means, of periodic pulsativ

ovements that we ever do or can measure Time. Now, apart frome sort of measurement Time would be unknowable. A time whicas neither long nor short would be meaningless. The idea quantified Time cannot be conceived or apprehended. Time to bown must be measured.

eriodicity, therefore, is essential to our Knowledge of Time. B

ature amply supplies us with this necessary instrument. The Law eriodicity prevails widely throughout Nature. It absolutely dominate.

e centre of animal vitality is to be found in the beating heart aneathing lungs. Pulsation qualifies not merely the nutrient life but thusculo-motor activity as well. Eating, Walking,all our moementary movements are pulsatory. We wake and sleep, we groear and rest. We are born and we die, we are oung and grow o


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animal life is determined by this Law.

eriodicitygenerally at a longer interval of pulsationequafects the vegetal forms of life. The plant is sown, grows, flowers, andes.

eriodicity is to us less obvious in the inanimate world of molecuanges; yet it is in operation even there. But it is more especially e natural motions of those so-called material masses whinstitute our physical environment that Periodicity most eminenevails. Indeed it was by astronomers that the operation of this Laas first definitely recognised and recorded. Periodicity is thientific name for the Harmony of the Spheres.

e two periodic motions which most essentially affect and concehuman beings are necessarily the two periodic motions of th

obe which we inhabitits rotation upon its axis which gives us thernation of Day and Night, and its revolution round the Sun whives us the year with its Seasons. To the former of these, animal liems most directly related; to the latter, the life of the vegetal orders evident that the forms of animal life on the globe are necessartermined by the periodic law of the Earth's diurnal rotation. Thcounts for the alternations of waking and sleeping, working ansting, and so forth. In like manner the more inert vitality of thgetable kingdom is determined by the periodic law of the Earthnual revolution. When fanciful speculators seek to imagine wh

nd of living beings might be encountered on the other planets of ostem, they usually make calculations as to the force of gravity on trface of these planets and conjure up from such data the possib

ze of the inhabitants, their relative strength and agility of movemenc. So far so good. But the first question we should ask, befooceeding to our speculative synthesis, should rather be the length

e planet's diurnal rotation and annual revolution periods. Certaanets, such as Mars and Venus, have rotation eriods not ve


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ferent from those of our own Earth.[14:1] Other things being equerefore, a certain similarity of animal life must be supposessible on these planets. On the other hand, the marked differenctheir revolution period would lead us to expect a very wid

vergence between their lower forms of life, if any such there be, anr own terrestrial vegetation. The shorter the annual period the mo

ould the vegetal approximate to the animal, and vice versa. It wouwever, be foolish to waste more time over a speculation so remot

ut these two facts remain unshaken:(1) That our measuremend whole science of Time depend absolutely on the operatio

roughout Nature of the Law of Periodicity, and (2) that th

riodicities which affect and determine animal and vegetal life upor Earth are the periodic movements of rotation and revolution at Earth itself.

ow it is to the curvilinear motions of the heavenly bodies that wust ascribe our subjection to the periodic law. If these heavendies moved for ever in straight lines, as they would do if unacted o

natural forces, the periodic rhythm of Nature would disappear.is to the fact that all Nature is under the constraint due to thnstant silent operation of physical Force that we owe, therefore, thw which determines the most essential features of vitality. Thlsations in which life consists and by which it is sustained aributable to the constraint and limitation which we recognise as thfect of the operation of Natural Force. It is to this same cause the ascribe the resistance of cohering masses in virtue of whinsation arises and by which our experience is punctuated. It is eans of these obstructions to free activity that our experience noted, and by reference to these that it is cognised. Indeed, Activelf as we know it depends upon and presupposes the existence

ese cohering masses.us the o eration of Natural Force and the constraint and limitatio


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hich are thereby imposed upon our activity appear at once termine the conditions of life and to furnish the fundamenplements of Knowledge.

e cannot overleap the barriers by which Life is constrained. Theshilst, on the one hand they seem to create the environmentwhi

stains Life, on the other hand seem to impose upon it thmitations under which it inevitably fails and dies. We cannot even

agination conceive, either as reality or as fancy, the illimitabissance of a Life perfectly free and unrestrained. Yet the assurancat Perfect Love could overcome the bonds of Materiality and Deacourages in mankind the Hope of an existence beyond th

penetrable veil of physical limitation. And this at any rate may bmitted, namely, that that dynamic condition in which materialses is also the condition-precedent of Tridimensionality, of ForcTime, and of Mutation. But we cannot thus account for the elan vitelf.

FOOTNOTES:

Plato in the dialogue Timus tells us that Time was born with theHeavens, and that Sun, Moon, and Planets were created in orderthat Time might be.

This might be contrasted with the statement of M. Bergson whotells us (Evolution cratrice, p. 11): "Plus nous approfondirons lanature du temps plus nous comprendrons que dure signifieinvention, cration de formes, elaboration continue de l'absolumentnouveau."

Recently, we believe, astronomers have favoured the view that theday of Venus is equal in length to her year.

[11:1]

[12:1]

[14:1]


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II


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THE ORIGIN OF PHYSICAL

CONCEPTS

Penser c'est sentir," said Condillac. "It is evident," said Bishoerkeley, "to one who takes a survey of the objects of Humnowledge that they are either ideas actually imprinted on the sense

else such as are perceived by attending to the passions anerations of the Mind, or lastly ideas formed by help of memory an

agination either combining, dividing, or barely representing thosginally perceived in the foresaid ways." J. S. Mill tells us, "Thints, lines, circles, and squares which one has in his mind areprehend, simply copies of points, lines, circles, and squares whi

has known in his experience," and again, "The character cessity ascribed to the truths of Mathematics and even, with som

servations to be hereafter made, the peculiar certainty attributed em is an illusion." "In the case of the definitions of Geometry theist no real things exactly conformable to the definitions." Againe, "Les images sont les exactes reproductions de la sensation

gain Diderot, "Pour imaginer il faut colorer un fond et dtacher dfait des points en leur supposant une couleur differente de ce

u fond. Restituez ces points la mme couleur qu'au fond,nstant ils se confondent avec lui et la figure disparait," etc. Aga. Ernest Mach, Vienna, remarks, "We are aware of but one specieelements of Consciousness: sensations." "In our perceptions

pace we are dependent on sensations." Dr. Mach repeatedly refe"space-sensations," and indeed affirms that all sensation is spatcharacter.[18:1]

ccording to the view of Knowledge of which we have extracte


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amples above, the ideas of the mind are originally furnished to it nsation, from which therefore are derived, not necessarily all ooughts, but all the materials of Discourse, all that constitutes thsence of Knowledge.

ur purpose at the moment is to show that this view is altogeth

se, and our counter proposition is, that it is from our Activity that wrive our fundamental conceptions of the external world; thnsations only mark the interruptions in the dynamic Activity in whic

e as potent beings partake, and that they serve therefore to denod distinguish our Experience, but do not constitute its essence.

e do not propose now to devote any time to the work of showin

at sensations from their very nature could never become thstruments of Knowledge. We propose rather to turn to the principeas of the external world which are the common equipment of thnd in order to ascertain whether in point of fact they are derivem Sensation.

course to some extent the answer depends on what we mean ensation. If by that term we intend our whole Experience of thternal, then of course it necessarily followsor, at least, we admthat our Knowledge of the external must be thence derived. Bch a use of the term is loose, misleading, and infrequent. The onfe course is to confine the term Sensation to the immediate data e five sensestouch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste, with probab

e addition of muscular and other internal feelings. It is in this sensat the word is usually employed, and has been employed by thensationalist School themselves.

ow we might perhaps begin by taking the idea of Time as a concenstantly employed in Discourse, but of which it would be absurd ggest that it is supplied to us by Sensation. It might, however, bged in reply that the idea of Time is not derived from the externorld at all, but is furnished to us directly by the operations of th


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nd, and that therefore its intellectual origin need not involve aception to the general rule that the materials of our Knowledge e world are furnished by Sensation alone. Without, therefortering upon any discussion of the interesting question as to what

e real nature of Time, we shall pass to the idea of Space.

ach, the writer whom we have already quoted, in his essay opace and Geometryspeaks constantly and freely of sensations pace, and as there can be no denial of the fact that Space isnstituent of the external world, it would seem to follow that thos

ho hold Sensation to be the only source of our Knowledge must bliged to affirm the possibility of sensations of Space. Mach indee

aims to distinguish physiological Space, geometrical Space, visupace, tactual Space as all different and yet apparently harmoniousended in our Experience. He is, however, sadly wanting earness of statement. He never tells us when and where exactly w

have a sensation of Space. In truth he never gets behind thstulate of an all-enveloping tridimensional world; so that hroughout assumes Space as a datum, and his inquiry is an effort

discover Space where he has already placed it.

t us, however, consider for a moment what can be meant by nsation of Space. Does it not look very like a contradiction rms? Pure Space, if it means anything, means absolute matermptiness and vacuity. How, then, by any possibility can it give rise sensation? What sensory organ can it be conceived as affectingow and in what way can it be felt?

e truth is the idea of Space is essentially negative. It represensence of physical obstruction of every kind. No doubt, we mscribe it positively as a possibility of free movement, and suchscription is at once true and important. Yet even it involves

gative. The term "free" is in reality, though not in form, a negativrm and means "unconstrained." And the reason why such a term


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cessarily negative is to be found in the fact that a state of dynamnstraint is the essential condition under which we enter upon oganic existence. Freedom is a negation of the Actual. Absoluedom is a condition only theoretically possible, and is essentia

e negation of the state of restraint in which our life is maintained.

ut the definition last quoted is nevertheless valuable becauseearly shows what really is the origin of the idea of Space. It proveat the idea of Space is a representation of one condition of octivity. It is because the primary work of Thought is to represent thrms of our dynamic Activity that we find the idea of Space scessary and fundamental.

ut it will perhaps be argued that our ordinary sensations carry wem a spatial meaning and implication, and that indirectly, thereforr sensations do supply us with the idea of Space. It will readily breed that if this is so of any sensations it is pre-eminently true of thnsations of vision and touch. Indeed, it will perhaps not be disputeat the ordinary vident man derives from the sensations of vision h

ost common spatial conceptions. We propose, therefore, to inquiry briefly how the character of spatial extension becomesociated with the data of Vision.

e objects of Vision appear to be displayed before us in immensultitude, each distinct from its adjacent neighbour, yet all inteated as parts of one single wholethe presentation thu

nstituting what is called Extensity.

is is the most commonly employed meaning of the term spatial. Yis evidently in its origin rather temporal than spatial. In ordinaovement we encounter by touch various obstacles, but only a vew of these impress us at any one moment of time. On the contrarey succeed one after the other. To the blind, therefore, as Platneng ago remarked: Time serves instead of Space. In Vision, on thher hand, a large number, which it would take a very long time


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counter in touch, are presented simultaneously. In this there is amense practical advantage, the result being that we combitually to direct our every action by reference to the data of Sig

ow it is because these dataso simultaneously presentedamployed by us as the guides of action that their presentatioquires the character which we denominate Extensity. Th

multaneous occurrence of a large number of Sounds does not seeus to present such a character. But let us suppose that all thjects which constitute obstacles to our Activity emitted Sounds

hich they were recognised; it is not doubtful that these would theme to be employed by us as the guides of our Activity and wouquire in our minds the character of Extensity. They would arrang

emselves in a cotemporaneous, extensive, or spatial relation to onother just as the objects of Vision do at present.

is only, therefore, when we come to employ the simultaneouesentation of Vision as the instrument of our Activity and the guidAction that it acquires the character commonly called extensiv

uccessive visual sensations convey no extensive suggestion.

s important to realise the nature of this peculiar feature in the daVision. The sounds which we hear, the odours which we smell, ae immediate result of certain undulations affecting the appropriagan of sensation. We refer these to the object in which thdulations originate. In like manner a light which we see is referre

its objective luminous source. But light also and in addition flected from, and thus reveals the presence of the whole body of osistant environment. Hence is derived the coloured presentation sion to which the character of extensity attaches. Nothing simikes place in the case of the other distantial sensations. If sonoroudulations excited vibration in every resistant object of thvironment they would undoubtedly come to arrange themselves

order resembling the extensity suggested by Vision, though thower rate of transmission of sound would detract from the practic


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multaneity in the effect which, as we have seen, largely accounts fe perception of visual extensity. The universal diffusion of sunlight so a determining factor.

e matter becomes still clearer when we contrast the experience dent men with what we have been able to learn of the experience

the blind. Nowhere have we found this aspect of the questioscussed with the same clearness and ability as by M. Pierre Villhis recently published essay, Le Monde des AveuglesPart III.

e blind man, as he remarks, requires representations in order mmand his movements. We must then penetrate the mind of thnd and ascertain what are his representations. Are they, he askuscular images combined by temporal relations, or are they imagea spatial order? He replies without hesitation: Both, but, above aatial images. It is clear, he says, that the modalities of the action

e blind are explained by spatial representations. These must brived from touch. What, then, can be the spatial representatiohich arise from touch? The blind, he says, are often asked, How du figure to yourself such and such an object, a chair, a table, angle? M. Villey quotes Diderot as affirming that the blind cannagine. According to Diderot, images require colour, and coloing totally wanting to the blind the nature of their imagination was

m inconceivable. The common opinion, says M. Villey, is entireth Diderot. It does not believe that the blind can have images of thjects around him. The photographic apparatus is awanting and thotograph cannot therefore be there.

derot was a sensationalist. For this school, as Villey remark

mage est le dcalque de la sensation, and he refers not merely ondillac the friend of Diderot but to his continuator Taine whos


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ctum we have already quoted.

derot attempts to solve the problem by maintaining that tactunsations occupy an extended space which the blind in thought cad to or contract, and in this way equip himself with spatnceptions.

ere would, on this view, as M. Villey remarks, be a completerogeneity between the imagination of the blind and that of th

dent. M. Villey denies this altogether. He affirms that the image of aject which the blind acquires by touch readily divests itself of tharacters of tactual sensation and differs profoundly from these. Hkes the example of a chair. The vident apprehends its variou

atures simultaneously and at once; the blind, by successive tactulpations. But he maintains that the evidence of the blind animous on this point, that once formed in the mind the idea of thair presents itself to him immediately as a whole,the order

hich its features were ascertained is not preserved, and does nquire to be repeated. Indeed, the idea divests itself of the great bu

the tactual details by which it was apprehended, whilst the muscunsations which accompanied the act of palpation never seek to bned with the idea. This divestiture of sensation proceeds to such tent that there is nothing left beyond what M. Villey calls the purm. The belief in the reality of the object he refers to its resistance origin of each of these is exertional. The features upon which thnd dwells, if it dwells upon them at all, are les qualits qui sonstamment utiles pour la pratiquein a word, the dynam

gnificance of the thing.

e may remark that much the same is true of the ideas of the videnordinary Discourse we freely employ our ideas of external objecthout ever attempting a detailed reproduction of the visual imag

uch a reproduction would be both impracticable and unnecessard would involve such a sacrifice of time as to render Discours


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ogether impossible. All that the Mind of the vident ordinarily graspd utilises in his discursive employment of the idea of any physicng is what we have ventured to call its dynamic significance. Ane very careful analysis which M. Villey has made of the mentnceptions of the blind clearly shows that in their case he haached exactly the same conclusion.

ur fundamental conceptions of the external world are thereforived from and are built up out of the data of our exertional Activmbined with the interruptions which that Activity perpetuacounters, and in which sensations arise. It would indeed be a use

ork of psychological analysis if the conditions of exertional actioere carefully and systematically investigatedmuch more usean most of the trifling experiments to which psychologicboratories are usually devoted.

e principal elements of such a scheme would be

) The force of gravity. This force constantly operating constrains thganism to be in constant contact with the earth on which we livut, further, it gives us the definite idea ofDirection. It is from thtion of gravity that we derive our distinction between Up and Dowm which as a starting-point we build up our conception

dimensional Space. And in this respect it must be remembered ththe areas of spheres are proportional to the squares of their radicessarily follows that gravity if it acts uniformly in tridimension

pace must vary in intensity in proportion to the square of thstance of the point of application from the centre of origin. Gravd tridimensionality are in short necessarily connected.

) The same law which determines the force of gravity seems termine also the force of cohesion, and therefore the form aterial bodies. These, therefore, are necessarily subject also dimensionality, and in the force which generates solid form we finsecond source of our elementar spatial ideas.


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uch form is the expression of an obstacle to action whitermines all our movements, and in which we discover those formthe limitations of activity which we call spatial characters.

) Organic Dualism is a third determinant of activity, and thus alsource of spatial ideas.

e structural dualism of the human body, its right and left, its frod back, etc., furnish our activity with a set of constant forms to whiaction must conform, and which necessarily also partake of, anlp us to conceive of tridimensional form. It is interesting to note ths dualism characterises the organs specially adapted to serv

ertional action rather than those which serve our vegetal or nutriee.

e way in which our spatial conceptions are ever extended and buout of the data of action is also well illustrated in the case of th

nd, and to this also M. Villey devotes an interesting chapter unde title La conqute des reprsentations spatiales.

is is effected in their case by the high development of what we mull active touch. Just as we distinguish between hearing antening, between seeing and looking, so must we distinguitween touching andpalpation.

ere passive touch gives a certain amount of information, b

mparatively little. It is necessary to explore; that is what is done tive touchpalpationof different degrees.

e sensitiveness of the skin varies at different places from thngue downwards. Palpation by the fingers marks a further stage blind also, we are told, largely employ the feet in walking asurce of locative data.

the concepts reached b such palpation with the hand, M. Ville


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ves the name of Manual Space. In this connection he thinks cessary to distinguish between synthetic touch and analytic touche former resulting from the simultaneous application of differerts of the hand on the surface of a body, the latter that which w

we to the movements of our fingers when having only one point ntact with the object the fingers follow its contour. Variou

amples of the delicacy of the information thus obtainable are giveollowing two straight lines with the thumb and index respectively,nd man can acquire by practice a sensibility so complete as able him to detect the slightest divergence from parallelism.

e analysis passes on from the data of Space manual to those pace brachial; then to the information derived from walking anher movements of the lower limbs, and then to the co-ordination e information derived from the sensations of hearing, which cessarily very important to the blind.

e conclusion of the whole matter is that our principal spatial ideae common alike to the blind and the vident. Both can be taught an

e taught the same geometry. Both understand one another in thscription of spatial conditions. The common element cannssibly be supplied either by the data of visual sensation which thnd do not possess, or by the data of passive tactual sensatiohich the vident hardly ever employ. Une tendue commune strouverait la fois dans les donnes de la vue et dans celles d

ucher. The common element is furnished by the common laws anrms of our exertional Activity by means of which and in terms hich we all construct our conceptions of the dynamic world of ovironment.

s from our dynamic Activity also that we derive our conception


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orce. Force, though it is studied scientifically in the measurement e great natural forces which operate constantly, is originally knowus in the stress or pressure to which muscular exertion in contath a material body gives rise. Such a force if it could be correceasured, would record the rate at which Energy was undergoinnsmutation, and it is from such experience of pressure that o

ea of Force is originally derived.

e mass of bodies is usually measured by their weight, i.e.avity. Its absolute measurement must be in terms of momentume true estimate of the Energy of a body moving under the impulsa constant Force is stated in the formula 1/2MV2. To ascertain M

erefore, we must have given F and V, and these are bonceptions the original idea of which is derived from our exertiontivity.

uantity of Matter originally means the same as amount of resistaninitiation of motion, at first estimated by the varying amount rsonal muscular energy required to effect the motion in questio

ereafter objectively and scientifically by comparison with somdependent standard whereby a more exact estimation can bained than was possible by a mere reference to the varyinerences of the individual who might exert the force.

pace, Mass, Force are all therefore ideas which are furnished to ut of our experience as potent actors, and the recognition of theat truth provides us with the means of clearly apprehending an-relating our conceptions of the external world, the framework of o

nowledge.

e true distinction between aperceptand a concept is just thatrcept is a concept associated with the dynamic system discovere

and by our exertional activity.like manner we find here the true solution of the many questio


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hich have been raised as to the distinction between general anstract, singular and concrete terms.

nguage expresses action: the roots of language are expressions e elementary acts which make up experience. They are therefoneral. Each applies to every act of the class in question. They a

so concrete. That is so because they refer to exertional activitiebstract terms are terms abstracted from this dynamic referencus white is concrete because colour is a property of the dynam

orld. But when this property is considered apart from its dynampport it is called whiteness, and becomes abstract. In the case rely mental qualities the term is regarded as abstract simp

cause the quality is in every reference extra dynamic. Thundour,justice are called abstract terms; they are properties of thnd. But a property of the dynamic system, e.g. Gravitation, does nike us as abstractthe sole distinction being the dynamference which the latter term implies.

will even be seen that there is sometimes a shading off of abstra

ality. Thus Justice as an attribute of the Mind strikes us as a purestract term. But as the word takes up a dynamic reference so doeabstraction diminish. Thus in the expression "Administration

stice" the abstractive suggestion is less pronounced; till in trson of Justice Shallow it vanishes in the very concrete.

ehind and beneath all these considerations we should never losght of the great main factsthat thought is an activity; that nction therefore is to represent or reproduce our pure exertiontivity; that such representation is at the basis of all our concepts ternality; that sensation,per se is mere interruption of activity; th

er se it possesses no spatial or extensive or externggestiveness; that sensations nevertheless serve to denote or giv

ature and particularity to our experience of activity; that rception of the external is at bottom therefore a men


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presentation of exertional activity and its forms, denotenctuated, identified by sensation, which latter by itself, we repearries no suggestion of externality. This view revolutionises th

hole psychology of Perception, and therefore, though it at oncves to that science a much-needed unity, clarity, and simplicity, l naturally be accepted with reluctance by the laborious authors

e cumbrous theories still generally current.

FOOTNOTES:

His reason is that we ab origine localise sensations with referenceto our organism. This, of course, means by reference to thesystem of potent energy in which our organism essentiallyconsists.

[18:1]


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III


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THE TWO TYPICAL THEORIES

OF KNOWLEDGE

e evolution of living organisms is in general a gradual anntinuous process. But it is nevertheless true that it presents wearked stages and can best be described by reference to thesequently, moreover, the meaning and true nature of the movemeone stage is only revealed after a subsequent stage has bee

ached.e development of a brain or cerebrum marks one importavance. The presence of this organ renders possible to the animvarying degree what are called representations of objects, and thculty of making such representations appears to be a conditioecedent to the development of deliberation, volition, and purposiv

tion as opposed to reflex or instinctive activity. The latter ecially characteristic of other orders of organic existence such ae Articulatabeing remarkably exemplified in the activities of thcial insects such as the bee.

e advent of man with his faculty of Discourse may be regarded a

arking another distinct stage in the evolutionary movementage, moreover, the operations of which throw light upon the whoture of cerebral representations. The faculty of rational DiscoursMax Mller pointed out, is denominated in Greek by the wo

, applicable at once to the mental activity and to its appropriapression in speech. Discourse is an instrument by means of whian has been enabled to construct his whole system

presentations of the world in which he lives, the system of what mmonly called his Knowledge. Human Knowledge just is the bo


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man's representations of his Experience in the world of which hrms a part. It is not necessary to insist here on the gradual bmarkable growth and extension which Human Knowledge hadergone during the last two thousand years. Concurrently with tension man's ability to control the forces of Nature has beelarged and increased. At the same time, however, that extensio

s rendered possible false developments and aberrations to whie more limited representations of the brute are less liable.

th the faculty of rational Discourse constantly striving to extend thunds of Knowledge, man came in time to attempt to give acount not only of the immediate objects which surround him, but e whole choir of Heaven and furniture of Earth. In this advance threeks took a leading part.

hen we first make acquaintance through historical records with thellectual activity of the Greek mind, we find it engaged in thnstruction of various such schemes for an explanation of the worusually called cosmogonies.

was at this stage of intellectual progress that what we might call aerruption occurred in the normal process of evolution. Greellectual activity had for some time prevailed in the Greemmunities; several men of conspicuous geniusnotab

eracleitus and Parmenideshad carried speculation as to thgin and nature of the world to a height hitherto undreamt of. Thes

hievements and the consciousness of continual progress hagendered in Athens particularly what might be called an epidemintellectual pride.

n this scene Socrates appeared, plain, blunt, critical. His teachinas in effect an appeal to men to reflect: to turn their attention awm the world which they were supposed to be explaining to thntemplation of their own Minds by which the explanation wrnished. was his motto. All explanations of th


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niverse or of Experience were, as he showed, vain unless thognitive Faculty by which they were constructed were operatinly. In particular, the process of Rational Discourse implied the usconcrete general terms, which were recognised to be the essent

struments of Cognition. Socrates therefore devoted his attentioecially to a critical examination of these general terms and also

e abstract terms which were the familiar instruments of Discourse.

e Greeks of that day were endowed with a singular clearness ellectual vision. They readily recognised that Knowledge was aellectual process; they appreciated the activity of Thought

ational Discourse as essential to its formation. They quderstood that Knowledge is not of the nature of a photographsemblant pictorial reproduction of the data furnished by sensationly very casually and occasionally do we ever attempt to supprselves with a resemblant reproduction of our sensation

bviously such a reproduction would only be of value memorially anuld tell us nothing new.

ese early Greeks realised this, and they appear to have realiseso pretty clearly that it would be impossible by means of suctorial impressions to establish any community of Knowledge. It

the essence of Knowledge that it is something which can bmmunicated to, and which is the common possession of, seve

dividuals. That can never be true of sensation. We can never thether our sensations are the same as those of other peoplever at any rate by means of sensations themselves; never unled until such sensations have been inter-related by some oth

strument. A mere photographic reproduction of sensation is thuite useless as a means of Knowledge.

some way or other general terms supply the common bond. Th

cognition of this fact was one of the great results of the Socratscussion. This explains the immense importance which Socrate


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turally attached to the criticism of general and abstract terms.

e work of Socrates in this direction was immediately taken up an

rried much further by Plato. Plato maintained that these generd abstract terms were in truth the names of ideas () with whie mind is naturally furnished, and further that these idearresponded to and typified the eternal forms of thingstsential constituents of the real world. Knowledge was possibcause there were such eternal forms or ideal elementsthchetypesof which the were the counterparts apresentations.

nowledge, Plato held, was concerned solely with these eternrms, not with sensation at all. The sensible world was in a state nstant flux and could not be the object of true science. prehension was effected by a faculty or capacity (Republic, v. 47

) midway between Knowledge and nescience to which he appliee term , frequently translated opinion, but which in thnnection would be much more accurately rendered, sensibpression, or even perception. At any rate, the term opinion is ry unhappy one, and does not convey the true meaning at all, for nluntary intellective act on the part of the subject was implied by th

rm. Now intelligence in constructing a scheme of Knowledge tive. The ideas are the instruments of this activity.

ato's doctrine of ideas was probably designed or conceived by haffording an explanation also of the community of Knowledge. H

mphasised the fluent instability of the sensible impression, and ae have already pointed out, sensation in itself labours also und

s drawback that it contains and affords no common nexus wheree conceptions or perceptions of one man can be compared


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ated with those of another.

deed, if Experience were composed solely of sensations, eadividual would be an isolated solipsistic unitincapable of rationscourse or communication with his fellow-men. To cure this defecato offered the ideasuniversal forms common to the intelligenc

every rational being. Not only would they render possible mmon Knowledge of Realitythe existence of such ideas woucessarily also give permanence, fixity, law, and order to oellectual activity. Our Knowledge would not be a mere randoccession of impressions, but a definitely determined organic unity

all this argument it must be remembered Plato never said

ggested that the intellect of manthus equipped with ideal formsas thereby enabled to become, or did become, the creator of thorld by and in which each one believes himself to be surrounded included. He always distinguished between Idea and Realittween Thought and Thing. The ideas were types of the formmanent in things themselves. It has been said by some schola

at he generally distinguished between the two by the employment stinct terms, applying to the mental conception and to thbstantial form. This verbal distinction was accepted by maholars of the epoch of Liddell and Scott and Davies and Vaughareference to this distinction in the present writer's essay on Th

ynamic Foundation of Knowledge provoked at the instance of on

tic the allegation that it is not borne out by a critical study of thatonic texts. That is a matter of little moment and one upon whice writer cannot claim to pronounce. The important point is that e way or another Plato undoubtedly distinguished between an

deed contrasted the idea and the substantial form. No trace of thlipsism which results from their being confounded and which himately brought to destruction the imposing edifice of Hegelia

ought is to be found in his writings.


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e Platonic doctrine of ideas speedily found an energetic critic istotle. In Aristotle's view, it was quite unnecessary anwarrantable to postulate the existence in the Mind of ideal forms

unterparts of the substantial forms of Reality. This, according m, was a wholly unnecessary reduplication. He was content lieve that the mind found and recognised the essential forms ngs when they were presented to it in perceptive Experiencniversalia in re were conceived by him as sufficiently explaining thnesis of cognition without the postulation of any such universa

xtra rem.

o the Platonic doctrine he offered the further objection that thernal forms of things which that doctrine affirmed and which

clared to be represented in their ideal types were necessarpotential. There was no generative power in the pure activity ought. If, therefore, the essentials of Reality were ideal, it followe

at they also were impotent, and incapable of causative efficacy. Thnsible world, however, was a fluent and perpetually generateeam, which required some potent cause to uphold it.

e eternal Reality which sustained the world was for him an Enernstantly generating the actual, and no conception which failed ovide for this process of causative generation of the things ense could in his view adequately account for the phenomena ature nor consequently could constitute the system of science.

this argument Aristotle undoubtedly expressed a profound truth, b

may perhaps be admitted that he rather failed to appreciate fully tficulty which the Platonic doctrine was designed to meettha


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mely, of providing some sort of common nexus or unifying principwhich the validity of Knowledge could be maintained. For he hacertain means of showing that the potent energy of Nature wa

itary and homogeneous.

e is frequently described as a sensationalist, but such a view

rtainly incorrect. This, however, may be admittedthat he souge essentials of Reality not in the Mind but in the Object. It may brly claimed that to this extent he occupied common ground with thnsationalists, in that he was an adherent of the tabula rasa view e Mind, expressed in the maxim:

hil est in intellectu quod non fuit in sensu.

ato and Aristotle may be taken as typical of the two principellectual tendencies which have characterised all subsequeeculationthe Platonist, he who finds in the constitution of the Mine eternal principles or at least the types of the eternal principles eality; the Aristotelian, he for whom these seem to reside in thject and, in the act of Cognition, are merely impressed uponsferred to, presented to, or otherwise introduced into prehended by the Mind.

e Aristotelian view of Nature as an energetic process failed press itself upon his successors. Greek Philosophy soon aftistotle's death decayed or was deprived of its early vigour, and thctrine which survived the wreck was essentially derived, howevperfectly, from the Platonic theory.

roughout the first fifteen hundred years of the Christian era th

ctrine undoubtedly dominated the course of speculationeculation of which much is now forgotten and almost as much wa


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rtainly barren and unfruitful, but of which we would entertain a vestaken notion if we were to imagine that it was not often pursueth great subtlety and acumen.

ne natural result of the fact that such a principle dominated humaought was the prevalence of a belief that the explanation of Natu

d natural processes could be derived from the cognitive facuelf. Our cognition of our immediate surroundings was doubtlentinuously corrected by immediate practical tests. But the scienca more extended view of Nature was vitiated by this false principd in consequence for many centuries our whole Knowledge

ature remained unprogressive and unfruitful.

ausa quat effectum, Nature abhors a vacuum, are examples e maxims derived or supposed to be derived from the necessitieour Reason, and by the aid of which it was vainly hoped to attainowledge of Nature and natural laws.

e principle was in itself unsound.

e necessary laws of our rational faculty could discover to us only tsentials of that faculty itself.

e maxims by which it was sought to constitute a prioria scheme tural laws could not justly claim descent from the necessities ought. Had the Schoolmen formed a true conception of the natuKnowledge they would never have imagined that any necessity ought obliged them to believe that a 10 lb. weight would fall to th

ound more rapidly than a 1 lb. weight. Equally true is it that theientific principles had not been derived from any study of the actionatural law. They were unacknowledged intellectual orphans.

e movement associated with the names of Galileo, Bruno, Baco

epler, and Newton owed its origin and its success to thandonment of this vicious principle. So far as Nature wa


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ncerned, the Mind was regarded as a tabula rasa, and thysician set himself to ascertain the laws of nature not by reflectioon his own mental processes or requirements, but by experimeth and observation of natural processes themselves. The result haen the establishment of modern sciencethe greatest triump

hich the human mind has yet achieved.

In a criticism of the writer's essay on The DynamicFoundation of Knowledge in the Revue neo-scolastique ofLouvain, the critic wrote as follows: "Remarquons qu'il n'apas compris la synthse scolastique du moyen ge, ellequi cependant a concili d'une faon admirable l'actuelet

lepotentiel dans l'explication de la nature des choses. Ils'est mepris aussi sur les caractres de la mthodescolastique de connatre la constitution intime du mondeexperimental; il crot cette mthode exclusivementdeductive."

We have felt that candour demanded that we should quote

the foregoing passagecoming as it does from a sourceexceptionally well qualified to express an opinion. If wehave nevertheless allowed ourselves in the precedentparagraphs of this essay to express again the view whichthis critic seeks to qualify, but which we still think in themain sound, we are at the same time very glad to be able

in this way to invite attention to the undoubted fact that thedistinction between the actual and the potential wasrecognised by the schoolmen as of a very deepsignificance. We believe further that the real secret of thefailure of medivalism to extend its Knowledge of Naturewas not so much a preference for deductive over inductivemethods as the failure to realise that Nature was a dynamicoperation.


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s important, then, to understand accurately what is the method cience.

e external world of our Experience seems to be composed nsible impressions. The ever present visual panorama combineth the constant occurrence of other sensations suggests that Natu

as has so often been asserted, simply another name for thnsible presentation. A truer view of Nature was adumbrated bistotle when he formulated the theory of an Energy ever generativthe sensible. If the founders of Science did not fully grasp th

istotelian conception, it is at least certain that they looked upoature not merely as a sensible presentation but as a processnamic operation. It was to the study of these operations, to theasurement of the natural forces or normal categories of physiction that Galileo and Newton devoted themselves. The trutimate of a moving force may indeed be said to have been thest great problem, just as the law of universal gravitation was theandest generalisation.

was to this sure instinct that the founders of Science owed theccess. Had they devoted themselves to the mere study nsationsof blue things and green things, of hard things and songs, of loud things and silent thingsScience as an efficient an-ordinated system would never have come into being.

aving struck the right path, they moved rapidly along it, leaving thchoolmen and Philosophers behind them, suspicious, hostile, anmazed.

ut Philosophy did not remain altogether negative. The neovement extended itself to Metaphysics, and under the leadershDescartes a resolute effort was made to reform Philosophy o


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mpathetic lines.

was in the true spirit of Socrates that Descartes advanced hmous method of Doubt. The whole fabric of beliefs and rationnciples was to be subjected to a re-examination, and Descarteund himself on bedrock when he touched his famous Cogito, erg

m. The simple fact or act of Doubt implied the Activitythe Realereforeof the Doubter. But the cogitant subject was reduced veuch to the condition of a tabula rasa, and when Descartoceeded to fill up the blank with a rediscovery on more scientifes of the essentials of Cognition he found his basal feature xtension. Tridimensional Space seemed the simple elementa

mework of our Knowledge of Nature.e method of Descartes was further extended by the Engliilosopher Locke. Those qualities which formed the elements

nowledge were described by him as the primary qualities of bode sensible presentation comprised also the secondary qualitiehich seemed to be in some way superposed upon and containe

thin the former.

ur fundamental ideas of Nature were called by Locke sensibeas. These ideas were derived from our sensible Experience, an

s only just to Locke to point out that, when examined in detail, hnsible ideas are seen to be not mere qualifications of sensatiot rather the elementary characters of Nature viewed as a dynamocess and discovered by our Activity. Yet the ambiguous ternsible ideas unfortunately led to their being regarded as idearived, not from our action in any form, but from pure sensatio

one.is extraordinar error was intensified in the s eculation of Berkel


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d Hume. Experience with them appeared to consist solely of ccession of sensations appearing to, impressing, or affecting bula rasa of consciousness.

course in such a state of affairs all Knowledge would bpossible. The scepticism which logically followed from such

ctrine was too universal to be capable even of the fiction that it wedible. Berkeley, it is true, endeavoured to save the situation stulating the incessant and immediate intervention of the Deity a

e sustainer of the sensible panorama. This purely arbitrary antitious expedient was entirely rejected by Hume, who with fearlenesty carried to its ultimate results the direct consequences of th

ctrine and then complacently left human Knowledge to take care elf.

masterly protest against the position of Hume was made by h

untryman Reid, who in his Inquiry into the Human Mindvery cleainted out the fundamental difference between the sensibcompaniments or constituents of our Experience and the real andependently existent substratum by which that Experience stained and organised. His argument, though it attractensiderable attention, did not, however, affect as deeply as mig

ve been expected the future of philosophic speculation, probabcause he offered no new clue or key whereby to detect the origd account for the presence in our Experience of those enduring anbstantial elements or forms by which it is sustained, but on thntrary left their recognition to what he rather vaguely described mmon sense.


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uch more influential was the elaborate answer of Kant, which haofoundly affected the course of Metaphysics since its publicatioeverting in principle to the platonic method, Kant again sought thduring elements, the fundamentals of Science, in the constitution e cognitive faculty itself. But very differently from Plato h

scovered these in the categories or essential forms of intellectivtion,the category of causality and dependence and the so-callerms of the transcendental stheticTime and Space. Under thestegories the indefinite data of sensation were thought to bganised into a cognisable system.

rapid advance of speculation along the lines signalised by Ka

ok place after his work was published, and for many years thovement was regarded by a large part of the speculative world ae most hopeful and progressive of philosophic efforts, and by wn votaries as placing them in a position of superiority to all othhools of thought. The thoroughness of their studies anrospective methods to some extent justified, or at least excused throgance of their pretensions.

ut it is to-day almost unnecessary even to criticise this Philosophy.

om the first it was foredoomed to failure, and had no prospect cceeding where Platoequipped with armour from the same forghad already failed.

antianism like Platonism failed because it still left the sensibaccounted for. Not only did it fail to tell us whence came thesnsations which, however transitory and unreal, constantly salute

r consciousness and largely constituted our Experience; it faileso to show us how the could be brought into relation with the facu


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Knowledge.

nding its elemental forms in the structure of the organ nowledge, it failed to tell us how we ever managed by means ese to get beyond our own subjective states, or how we ever cam

think that there was a World outside of the individu

nsciousness, by the categories of which, according to them, ognitions of such a World were called into being. For if Reality weknowable except by and through the categories, then o

nowledge of Reality was the creature of our own mental activity, ane must still remain unable to understand why we should supposat we had got beyond ourselves.

ese defects of Kantianism were early recognised chopenhauer, who also appears to have realised that what waanted was another and a new key to unlock the gateway nowledge.

nowledge was in essence an affirmation or series of affirmatioout a real World distinct from the Knower. It was surely now obvio

at the warrant for such affirmations and the source of their validust come from somewhere beyond the cognitive faculty itself. Thurce upon which men again and again have seemed to fall back

ensation; but Sensation being transitory and dependent for istence upon its being felt can really give us no help. Some otheme self-existent thing is wanted, and with considerable insig

chopenhauer suggested that the key was to be found in the Will.

ut this theory, though it has lately attracted considerable attention hardly be claimed as offering any definite prospect of a solutiocardinal defect is that it still fails to show how the sensible arisessupposed to be generated out of pure Volition, but no causxus, no direct connection of any kind is immediately apparetween the two, and Schopenhauer in developing his theory dthing to supply the want. The doctrine cannot therefore be regarde


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more than a helpful stepping-stone to the true answer.

recent years various forms of opportunist philosophies under th

mes of Pragmatism, Pluralism, etc., have endeavoured to elude thessure of the dilemma and to solace mankind for the failure antianism by advising them to accept Experience as it is. Bough such a counsel of resignation may in a popular sense of thrm be regarded as philosophical it can hardly be accepted aslution.

e find, then, that since man first began to inquire reflectively upoe nature of his cognitive faculty his speculation has followed one her of two great lines or divisions of theory, neither of which ha

en found to afford intellectual satisfaction.e have (1) the theory that seeks in some way or other to derive thal constituents of Science from the constitution of the cognitivculty itself. To this theory, which has inspired one whole stream eculation from Plato to Hegel, there are at least two absolutely fajections.

) It fails altogether to account for the sensible presentation whiwever fluent and unstable appears to stand in a direct and eveique relation to the real. It fails to let us understand how that relatioses, how the sensible is generated, or how it enters into onsciousness.

) We are unable under this theory to discover how we ever reachnowledge of the real World, how we can get beyond ourselves, ho


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he Mind in its search for truth is perpetually intercepted by its owrms it can ever furnish us with any genuine cognitions of thternal.

) We have the theory that the essential forms of Reality are to bund in the Object and are thence supplied to the Understandin

hich plays the part merely of a receptive surface ortabula rasa.the hands of Aristotle this doctrine took the form of an affirmatio

at Nature must be regarded as an energetic process containinthin itself the potency by which it perpetually generated the actual.

omising as it was in Aristotle's hands, this speculation was n

rried forward or assimilated by his immediate successors. Indeewas practically forgotten until the intellectual revival of the sixteenntury, which inaugurated the foundations of modern Scienc

owever little the fact may have been consciously recognised even e leaders of scientific discovery, this was the conception of Natuhich inspired and sustained the scientific advance. In thpartment of philosophic speculation, however, it appeared onder the debased and misleading form of a belief that the sensibesentation was the true source of the contents of Cognition, thatas from Sensation that the Mind of Man derived the whole fabric cience. "Penser c'est sentir" was the form in which it wapressed by Condillac, but was equally the view which commendeelf to Berkeley, at least in his early writings, to Hume, and to

hole army of successors down to J. S. Mill.

e hope we have already sufficiently emphasised the falsity of suchew. Obviously, if the Mind were merely the passive recipient of eam of impressions, no sort of rational Discourse, no scientific gnitive effort could ever have been stimulated into activity, and thry ideas of causality and relation, indeed all that we associate we exercise of the understanding, could never have been called ining.


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pon neither of these views of the nature of Knowledge can we arrivany consistent or intelligible conception of its genesis, nature,

ethod of operation.

hat, then, must we do? It is hardly doubtful that if we are to maky progress we must find another and a new key whereby to unlo

e double door that bars the entrance to the inner shrine of truth.

ow the fundamental, or at least a fundamental error characteristic these various efforts after a solution is to be found in the fact th

ey view the World as a static thing rather than as a kinetic process

e World to vision seems a great still thing in or on which no dounumerable bodies are moving to and fro, but which itselfthndamental thingis solid and unchanging. But this is an illusioe seemingly unchanging features are changeless only in th

onotony of their constant mutation.

ohering masses are rigid in respect only of the constancy of th

namic process of transmutation in which cohesion consists. Thn shines eternally steady only in consequence of the ceaselenetic energies which give it being.

hat we are ever doing in rational Discourse, what Knowledgnstantly accomplishes, is to furnish an account, a reproduction ofries of operations. The World is a processan activity. That wa

cognised as long ago as the days of Heracleitus, but his discipled notalthough we think there is good ground for believing that hd[60:1]his disciples did not realise that a process, whilst it implienstant flux and change, implies also something permanent even mutations, something which undergoes the change and sustai

e flow.

o understand a thing is to discover how it operates. The eternrms of thin s are laws of natural action. Such are the law


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avitation, the laws of optics or of chemical combination. A statcture unless so interpreted must be at once valueless aneaningless.

ollows that Thought and Discourse, in furnishing us with Knowledgust themselves be active, and must in some way or other reproduc

e activity of Nature. Thought, in short, is an Activity whicproduces the activity of things, the activity in which the phenomenNature arise.

ut how do we arrive at any apprehension of Natural Action? Whorms us that Nature is a potency ever operative? What suggests the conception of potency at all? We reply that we arrive at th

ea of potent action because we are ourselves active beings. Oganism maintains itself by constant physiological activities. These the permanent constancies of transmutation which constitute tganism.

ut superimposed upon these there are our voluntary exertion

tivities. By these latter we necessarily mingle with and indeerticipate in the action of the natural forces which (as we usually sarround us, but which in point of fact do more than surround us. Thsparate grouping of natural bodies in vision blinds us to the fact the are really not merely surrounded by but are mingled with anrticipate in the dynamic system.[61:1] We are continually pressinth our weight upon the bodies on which we rest, we are continuaerting or resisting the pressure of so-called adhering massessistance-points in one dynamic system of which we are ourselvesrt. Thus it is that in our exertional action we reveal to onsciousness not only the forms of our own activity but the forms e dynamic system which contains and yet transcends the Sensibd the Ideal.

e theor we have suggested enables us to proceed at once to


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tional explanation of Sensation.

ensation is obstructed action. A detailed consideration of as manyou like to take of the myriad constituents of our sensib

xperience will continually and without exception confirm this simpct.

Nature it is the potent action which is real. It alone can be direcpresented by the activity of Thought. The mere obstruction of activnot a real thing, hence the unreal character of Sensation. Yet thstruction being an obstruction of the real action of Nature is, if nal, at least actual and immediate. Nay, its presence in oxperience, however mutable and unstable it may be, is the only su

st and guarantee of Reality.

ach of the two leading theories which have dominated speculatioesents one partial aspect of the truth.

e eternal cognisable element of Reality is apprehended, as thatonist holds, by the intellect and by the intellect alone. To th

tent the Platonist is right. That cognisable element is Action. Bction is denoted for us only in the obstructions which it encounterese obstructions constitute our World of Sensible Experienc

hich is therefore for each of us the sure indicator of the Real. cognising this fact the sensationalist is right in his turn.

ot only does the dynamic conception of Nature enable us to accour Sensation, but it lets us see how the Sensible World becomesnstituent of Experience. It is by and through its obstructions anese only that we featurise or denote our Experience. It is by th

eaks, the turnings in the road that we cognise its course. It is by the of rocks and breakers that we define the shore. But we must n


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stake the turnings for the roadway nor the shore for the ocean.

is in and by our activity that we discover this World of sensibstructions. The features of the Sensible World correspon

erefore to the laws of our exertional activity, but the correspondencrelational, not resemblant. Just so, it is by the reflection of Light th

e discover the forms of the obstacle which solid bodies oppose e radiant undulation. The resultant colours correspond to the form ese obstructions; but the correspondence is relational nsemblant. The same is true of sounds, of tactual sensations, ery other sensible obstacle to pure activity.

y the clouds of smoke we follow or used to follow the progress of th

ttle, but the battle is something other than a cloud of smoke.

e are, as Plato told us in his famous allegory, like prisoners in veour attitude averted from the aperture, and it is only by thadows cast upon the cavern wall that we can interpret the even

hich are transacting themselves outside.

one sense, therefore, the whole sensible and spatial World is realeast it is actual; and it affords us the materials from which w

nstruct our scheme of phenomena, and by which the kineocess of Reality is denoted and conceived.

e question ever and anon occurs to usHow upon this view cae solve the problem of transcendence? How even on this view of thse do we manage to get beyond ourselves? How are we in a

ay helped thereto by the fact that Reality consists in potent actiother than in Sensation?

gain, the answer is significant. In action, that is, in exertional actioe are reallypartof a largerwhole. Our exertional action is ab ini

ngled in and forms really an integral part of the dynamic system hich our life is involved. The ever operative forces of Gravit


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ohesion, Chemical Affinity, and so forth are the phenomenpression of the laws of energetic transmutation in which we partakd of which we are organically a part, however apparently separad disparate our bodies may seem to be. It is life and feeling, ntion, which really distinguish the individual from his environment, ast from his material dynamic environment. Be it noted that what

quired is not an explanation of how we transcend Experience. Thno effort can we ever do in Knowledge. All we are required

plain is how we transcend our Thought and our Sensibility. Thswer is: Our Experience begins in action, and it begins therefore sphere which is beyond the mere subjective Consciousness, ant is organically one with the organs of Cognition and Feeling.

s only by a visual fiction that we come to regard our active selves astinct from the dynamic system. We cannot, in fact, shake off thnds of corporeality, of gravity, of all the various restraints of oganic activity.

elatively, however, the cerebral activity of Thought is liberated fro

e stresses of the dynamic environment; hence the appareedom and independence, under certain conditions, of Thougagination, and Volition.

great difficulty in realising this view of Experience is to be found e apparent Solidity and Inertia of material bodies. Sensibperiences group themselves round these constancies. But

aterial body, when its sensible concomitants are abstracted, thing more than a permanent process of energy transmutation therruption of which in one form or another may originate Sensatiofollows that the world of spatially extended bodies is

mogeneous and consistent whole, reflecting in its laws and forme real operations by which it is constituted and sustained. But all th

tual World is nevertheless phenomenal only, albeit the phenomene derived from and related to the Real as change is to the thin


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hich changes.

o a large extent we are misled by the impressive prominence of thsual data. In vision we are presented with a system of inter-related simultaneously occurring sensations which we find by experiencbe the sure and certain indicators of the potent obstructions whic

r activity encounters. For this reason we habitually make use of thsual sign as the guide and instrument of our exertional activity, ans habitual use leads us to regard the visual presentation as thsential form of Reality. However sure we are that that is a fals

ew, it yet is very difficult to retrace our steps and re-enter themental darkness which involves the blind.

e philosophic value of the interpretation of Experience by the blinght therefore to be very great. Observations made on thperiences of the blind and of those to whom vision has beestored are not very numerous, but many of these recorded ainer, the friend of Leibniz, and others are of the highest value, anmarkably confirm the view for which we have been contending.

ndoubtedly, so far as we are aware, the most valuable contributiothis aspect of the discussion is to be found in a little volum

cently published in Paris under the title Le Monde des Aveuglee author, M. Pierre Villey, is himself blind. In the interests

cience he has cast aside the delicacy and reserve which havnerally prevented the blind from analysing or at least fro

scussing the import of their experiences. He is also fortunatessessed of a philosophic and highly cultivated intellect, and has nled to make himself acquainted with the general course etaphysical speculation.

e present writer has been in correspondence with M. Villey, whosnclusions remarkably confirm the view for which this essntends, and he finds that M. Villey recognises the truth of that viewdividual quotations would only detract from the cumulative effect


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s argument, but we may refer in particular to the interestinscussion as to the relations between the space concepts of thnd and those of the vident. The blind can be taught, and are taughometry, and can discuss and understand spatial and geometricoblems. The sensible furniture by which the spatial conceptions e blind are denoted obviously cannot be visual, and are no dou

gely tactual, whilst on the other hand the vident utilise the visuta to the almost total exclusion of any other. There must therefo

some common measure by means of which a community tablished between the spatial conceptions of the blind and those e vident. M. Villey concludes and clearly shows that the commedium is to be found in the fact that our spatial conceptions a

ndamentally based upon and are expressive of the discoveries r exertional activity. Touch, in short, is an ambiguous term ancludes both passive sensations and those forms of Activity whice describe when we use the term "feel" as a transitive verb. Just ae distinguish between seeing and looking or between hearing antening, so should we distinguish between touch passive and toutive or palpation.

e view of Science which we have endeavoured to explain haceived a notable confirmation from the establishment during th

ter part of the nineteenth century of the scientific doctrine nergy.[69:1]

e culmination of the scientific fabric of which Galileo and Newtod the foundations was reached when it was demonstrated that thhole physical universe must be regarded as composed of Energher kinetic and actually undergoing transmutation from one form

other, or potential and quiescent yet containing within itself thantifiable capacity of transformation. The objective correlatives


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e different classes of sensible experiences are found to be differerms which this Energy assumesthe kinetic energy of a mass otion, the radiant energy of Light, the energy of Heat, the potentergy of chemical separation, etc.all these have now at lengen shown to be forms of one real thing capable under approprianditions of being transmuted into each other and of which not on

e inter-transmutability but the equivalent values can be calculated have been found by experiment to be fixed and definite. Thus thechanical equivalent of heat is a fixed and definite quantity. Thnergy of a body in motion can be measured and stated in terms ass and velocity.

e profound conception of Aristotle, under which Nature wagarded as a potent Energy containing within itself the capacity nerating the phenomenal World, has again been revived analisedbut with great additions. The theory in the hands of Sciennow not only confirmed by incessant experiment, but the relatio

hich it affirms between reality and phenomenon has beeuantified.

oreover, the actual operations under which the potential generatee actual have, so to say, been laid bare to view; and lastly, the intensmutability of all forms of Energy and its real unity have beetablished.

e doctrine has therefore received a confirmation of which Aristot

d not dream, and its explanation has at the same time received amination which his vague if profound adumbration could nev

ford. With this added support the true conception of humaowledge has received new strength. The theory is stvertheless, not to be grasped without a resolute effort of reflectionvolves an inversion of our everyday conceptions more radical tha

at which was demanded by the Copernican theory of astronomd we know that that theoryoffered to and rejected by mankin


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fore the beginning of the Christian erahad to wait through sixteeseventeen hundred years before it secured an acceptance, at fir

udging and even now not always adequate.

e ordinary metaphysical student has hitherto rather resented thea that in order to a true solution of the problem of Knowledge hust acquaint himself with the fundamental conceptions of physicet so it is. It may perhaps be hoped that when the first strangenesthe new position has disappeared the conditions may be accepteth greater readiness. At any rate, a correct apprehension of ondamental conceptions of the world of our external experience dispensable. No theory can wholly dispense with such conceptions therefore essential that, however elementary, they should be cled not contradictory. Philosophy has always vaguely realised anacted as much. The need is now imperative.

ome years ago, in an essay on Schopenhauer, the author, Maunders, remarked, "How the matter of which my arm is composed that state of consciousness which I call my Will [imagine anyonlling Will a state of consciousness!] are conjoined is a mysteyond the reach of Science, and the man who can solve it is the mar whom the world is waiting."

ell, if that be so, then the world need not wait any longer. Thquired explanation is offered to metaphysics by the scientific wothe physicians who built up and consolidated the modern doctrinEnergy. It is true that most of them have continued to postulate thality of material bodies. For their purpose there was no real difficudoing so. What they required was a datum of configuration,

enomenal basis upon which their calculations could proceed andrms of which, as a point of origin, their statement of transmutation


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as made. The persistence of material bodies is a conditioecedent to the phenomenal manifestations in which our Experiencses. Organic existence in every form and the world in whichses presuppose the actuality of these. But dynamically they aerely the phenomenal result of certain permanent forces constanoperation. To beings, if there be such, inhabiting the Ether there

e doubt but that a gravitation system like that of the sun and anets must present a corporate rigidity and identity somewhmilar to that which cohering masses present to our intelligence. Bterms of reality, Energy, potential and kinetic, containing within itse potency which generates the actual and sustains the constansmutation in which phenomena arise is the sole and on

stulate.e rise of meta-geometrical methods and other branches ientific speculation have led in recent years to a considerab

mount of very interesting inquiry into the nature of our fundamentometrical conceptions. Strange to say, a large body of respectabathematicians have been found to favour the extraordinary view th

r mathematical conceptions are derived from Sensation. We do nopose here to discuss at length this idea. It is merely another forthe old sensationalist view of Knowledge, but we suggest that thnditions of the problem will readily appear in their true light and reture whenever such inquirers realise the fact that our exertiontivity is the source of our cognitions of the external, and th

erefore our pure exertional activity is the source of the basncepts of geometry.

ere lies the root of the distinction between pure and empiricience. The propositions of geometry, being derived from our owre activity, are of the former class; the inductive conclusions ysical experimental science, being gathered by observation an

easurement from sensible data, are empirical and approximate. ometrical propositionsuch, for example, as the assertion that th


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ree angles of a triangle are equal to two right anglesis not mereproximate. It has no dependence on measurement. It is absolutee. It is ascertained deductively, and therefore measurement is n

volved, and is never employed. Its truth is not ascertained easurement. It is not verified by measurement. It in no degrepends upon the sensible figure. It is equally true for every huma

ing whatever be the degree of accuracy of the figure by the aid hich he studies it, or indeed whether he studies it by figure herwise, as must necessarily be the case with the born blind.

ere may be many different forms of energetic transmutation whiay determine many other forms of space besides that form dimensional space in which our Activity is involved. For such, ferent geometry may and will be applicable; but for thdimensional conditions ofour activitythe proposition is necessad absolute. No measurement of any stellar parallax, howevnute and whatever the result might be, could have any bearing otruth. Geometry is the science of the pure forms of our mot

tivity amidst corporeal bodies.

useful illustration of our argument is to be drawn from nsideration of the question of phonetic spelling. Occasionally wd persons urging that all spelling should be an exact reproduction und. Indeed, an improved alphabet has been designed to enab

e idea to be carried out with greater accuracy.

ow it is quite true that it is by their sound that we recognise note our words. Hence our alphabet was originally phonetic nciple, and indeed still is so, although the correspondence perfect. As the use of visible signs develops spelling seems to fo certain fixed frames and to deviate more and more from puonetic simplicity. But why is this so? It is because the sounds a

erely the symbols or indicators of the different forms of vocticulation (vocal acts), and it is really as the symbols and indicato


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these actions that they possess any meaning and acquire surmanence and identity as they have. The phonetic systeerefore, becomes in use subordinated to the expression of the ac

which are produced these radical vocables which constitute thsentials of rational Discourse.

all this the process of the expression of words in spelling is crocosmic counterpart of the process of cognition as we have trieexplain it.

s noteworthy that the same thing necessarily happens in the case y new system of spelling.

e most prominent advocates of phonetic spelling have been alse authors of a system of phonetic shorthand.

ke the written and printed alphabet of Europe, the alphabet honography was made phonetic. Indeed it started off as a moarly perfect phonetic system than the ordinary European alphabe

ut as its use advances its employment undergoes the same chang

e phonetic symbols are abbreviated by grammalogues anntractions, and this proceeds in accordance with a principconsciously recognised but which really depends on the sam

herent necessity to preserve in a consistent form the expression e radical vocables of Speech. Finally, in the hands of the expeenographer the system of phonetic shorthand (though he still use

e sound as the guide and indicator of his actions) is as far removem a pure phonetic representation as the ordinary method elling. Indeed, unless some such suprasensible and unifyinnciple were available, phonetic spelling would speedily perish in ainity of degenerate variations.

e adduce this illustration as one which very well confirms our ma

gument. We have no desire to discuss on its merits the generestion of Spelling Reform, which of course is quite apart from th


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empt to establish a scheme of spelling on a purely phonetic basmore rational system of spelling is nevertheless an object worthy consideration.

ellectualism and sensationalism have both broken down. The worspeculation is anxiously looking for a new clue. Witness th

thetic eagerness with which it clutches at every floating straw. Thnumerable "isms" by which it seeks ever and anon to keep itsoat are most of them but the sometimes unrecognisable wreckagthe old systems drifting about under very inappropriate name

uch terms as Realism and Idealism are freely used (generaefixing the adjective "new") by writers in philosophic periodicals innse which might make Plato, Aquinas, or Kant turn in their graves

e see their votaries encumbered with the trappings of a futudition of the insignificant or clinging pathetically to the insecu

ics of teleological doctrine, or, still less virile, seeking support inturn to the unscientific tales of supernatural spiritualism. Such effore vain.

nly by facing the facts with all their consequences, whatever thesay be and whatever they may involve for the proudest aspirations ankindonly thus can truth be attained. And lest any should say th

e preach an unrelieved pessimism, let us remind such thnowledge is not after all the source of Life, that another categod a different principlethat, namely, which we indicate under thrm Love-divinemust have generated the potent current of Lifd that no one should close the door against the hopes of the humaelligence until he has discovered what are the limits imposed upo

hat Perfect Love can do.e question still remains whether mankind will be equal to the effo


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quired to assimilate the essential truth. They very nearly failed similate the Copernican cosmogony. For sixteen hundred yeaer it was first offered to mankind the race preferred to grope in thrkness and confinement of a false conception.

they succeed in accomplishing the reception of the new trut

heard-of progress may be looked for. If they fail, civilisation musappear and humanity decline. There is no middle course. Aacon remarked, in this theatre of man's life it is reserved only to God angels to be lookers-on.

e know how stubbornly the Ptolemaic cosmogony still clings to onceptions, how largely it still dominatesor till recently d

minatethe religious cosmography of the most civilised peoples

Philosophy our leading teachers seem as yet to have a very feebpreciation of the new conditions. They turn greedily to the eloqueges ofL'Evolution cratrice, but however earnestly they sear

ey cannot find there any definite solution of the difficulties of the-old problem. They wander wearily through the mazes ychological detail or wag

essays towards a theory of knowledge - alexander philip

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