The same is true of all phenomenalism. It is said, "We know only phenomena." But what is it that knows the phenomenon and discriminates it from the true reality? Can one phenomenon know another, and discriminate the other from itself and both from true reality? Prof. John Fiske in his Cosmic Philosophy affirms that what we call reality is the inevitable persistence of a fact of consciousness; that when the unknown objective order of things produces in us a subjective order of conceptions which persists in spite of every effort to change it, the subjective order is in every respect as real to us as the objective order would be if we could know it. He thinks that this is all the assurance which we need as a warrant for science and a rebutting of skepticism; and that we lose nothing in being unable to transcend the limits within which alone knowledge is possible. But his whole argument assumes a knowledge of the unknown objective order, of the fact that it produces or at least always corresponds with the subjective order, that the human mind has a power transcending the two orders, whereby it compares them and concludes that it has true scientific knowledge, whereby also it is able to judge that intellectual power transcending this would give us no more real knowledge. In attempting to maintain the general theory of the relativity of all knowledge, the knowledge of true reality is assumed, and even the knowledge of the Absolute is implied as the ultimate datum of the reasoning. This Mr. Spencer claims to have proved in his "First Principles;" he also says, "The existence of a non-relative is unavoidably asserted in every chain of reasoning by which relativity is proved."* 3. The objection involves self-contradiction and absurdity. It is the first law of thought that knowledge implies a subject knowing, an object known, and the knowledge as a relation between them. The objection is that because this is so, the so-called knowledge is not knowledge but an illusion. . In asserting that knowledge is unreal because it is relative to the faculties of the mind knowing, the objection asserts the absurdity that knowledge is impossible because there is a mind that knows. And it is equally valid against any mind, since any mind which has knowledge must have it through its own power of knowing. This is simply saying that an intelligent being is unthinkable; that the idea of an intelligent being involves absurdity in its very essence. On the other hand it implies that no reality exists which is knowable or thinkable. Whatever can be conceived, or thought, or known by a mind is thereby proved not to be reality. Whereas in fact reality cannot be conceived or thought of, except as cognizable by some mind. * Psychology, Vol. I., p. 209. The objector supposes that we think of reality which is unthinkable and compare it with phenomena which are thinkable. The objection further assumes that it is essential to the reality of a person's knowledge that he prove that things appear to all other persons, God, angels and men, precisely as they do to himself. But this is impossible, for it requires that the person not only have knowledge within his own consciousness, but also that he gather the consciousness of all other beings into his own. Besides, should the consciousness of others be revealed to this person, he could know it only through his own faculties, and therefore would attain only illusion, not real knowledge; nor would any communication with other men be possible. 4. It is evident, then, that this theory of the relativity of knowledge issues in complete agnosticism. There would be no knowledge of the secondary properties of matter; and equally there would be no knowledge of its primary properties, nor of motion, nor of the correlation of forces, nor of one's own existence, nor of any reality whatever. "Thy hand, great Anarch, lets the curtain fall, And universal darkness buries all." All, then, that the objection can establish is, that our knowledge, because our minds are finite, is limited, not that it is unreal. Other beings no doubt know objects of which we at present have no conception; and Voltaire's Micromegas from the planet Jupiter with his multitudinous senses is still a possible conception; and the existence of such a being would be no objection against the reality of human knowledge. I come back, therefore, to the principles established in Chapter II. Knowledge is known in its own self-evidence. Its reality does not depend on proof by argument and can never be invalidated by objections. 8 CHAPTER V. WHAT IS KNOWN THROUGH RATIONAL INTUITION. 22. Universal Principles, not Particular Realities. IN the intuition of reason we have immediate and self-evident knowledge of universal and necessary principles. Our consciousness is not merely that they are true, but that they must be true. Thought cannot transcend them but must be regulated by them. When apprehended in reflection they present themselves as judgments and may be formulated in propositions. The knowledge of particular realities is given in sense-perception and self-consciousness. Rational intuition does not give knowledge of these realities, but only of principles always and everywhere true of these realities. It does not give the knowledge of being, but only principles true of all beings; for example, every quality is the quality of some being. It does not give the knowledge of power and cause, but it gives the principle that every beginning or change of existence must be the effect of a cause. In the idea of absolute being, rational intuition does not give the knowledge of being, for that we know in knowing ourselves; but it gives us the principle that uncaused, absolute being must exist. It does not give the knowledge of extension in its three dimensions, but it gives the axioms of geometry and the metaphysical principles that place, considered abstractly from the body occupying it, must be continuous, immovable and unlimited. It does not give the knowledge of personal being, but gives us principles true of all persons; the principles of ethics, as that a rational being ought to obey reason; the principles of logic, as the principle of non-contradiction, "The same thing cannot be and not be at the same time," which Aristotle says is the most fundamental of all first principles. Thus all rational intuitions are intuitive judgments which may be formulated in propositions. Lotze calls them Grundsätze, fundamental maxims or principles, and thus distinguishes them from Grundbegriffe, fundamental ideas. These principles are the unchanging and universal forms in which Reason recognizes the particular realities known in sense-perception and self-consciousness. Because it * Metaphysics, III. 3. Πασῶν βεβαιοτάτη ἀρχῶν. is reason it cannot recognize them otherwise than in the unchanging light of reason and as related to and illuminated by its own truths, laws, ideals and ends. John Smith describes the rational intuition as "a naked intuition of eternal truth which never rises nor sets, but always stands still in its vertical and fills the whole horizon of the soul with a mild and gentle light."* 23. Rise and Development in Consciousness. I. Man is so constituted that, as his reason is developed in experience he finds himself under the necessity of thinking according to these principles and incapable of thinking the contrary. An apple-seed has constituent elements which determine from within itself the line of its development, so that, if it grows, it will grow into an apple-tree bearing blossoms and apples. So in the mind of man these principles lie as constituent elements which from within the mind itself determine its development as a reason, and are in the developed reason the norms or standards of all thought. Hence they have been fitly named by Dugald Stewart, "constituent elements of reason," and by Hamilton, "primary elements of reason." So Lotze says, they are at bottom only the peculiar constitution of the reason itself expressed in the form of fundamental laws which regulate its action." They are not, therefore, ideas and judgments of which we are conscious before all experience, but, simply constitutional norms of thought which are developed in experience into standards of rational judgment by which it is possible to distinguish the true from the false and without which the very idea of a rational being is impossible. The mind brings nothing with it but its own constitution, but that is a constitution endowed with the elements of rationality. 66 II. A first principle of reason appears in consciousness only on occasion of some experience requiring its application. I must observe motion or change before I inquire what is its cause. But, as Coleridge says, "Though these principles are first revealed to us by experience, they must yet have pre-existed in order to make experience itself possible, even as the eye must exist previously to any particular act of seeing, though by sight alone can we know that we have eyes." It is only in experience that we become aware of those principles of reason which condition all experience. III. These principles regulate thinking and action before they are recognized or enunciated in reflective thought. A savage, if asked whether two straight lines can inclose a space, or whether there can be beginning or change of existence without a cause, may declare his total * Select Discourses, 2d Ed. Cambridge, 1673, pp. 91, 92. ignorance on the subject. Yet the same savage will not attempt to inclose a piece of ground for a hut with two straight poles, and if shot with an arrow will know that some one shot it. In this respect rational intuition is analogous to presentative intuition. Children and savages They know their own existence And always primitive unelabelaborated in thought. Lotze smell, taste, hear, see and feel and are practically guided by their perceptions before they attain in reflection the abstract idea of sensation or attempt to define and formulate it. before they attain the idea of the Ego. orated knowledge precedes knowledge illustrates the rational intuition latent in the constitution by comparing it to the spark in the flint. "As little as the spark shines as a spark in the flint before the steel strikes it, so little are the first principles of reason in the consciousness before all impressions in experience which are the occasion of their arising They are born in us in no other sense than that in the original constitution of the spirit is a trait which obliges it, under the excitement of experience, to build up these ways of knowing."* So Lichtenberg says: "The peasant employs all the principles of abstract philosophy, only enveloped, latent; the philosopher exhibits the pure principle."† D'Alembert expresses the opinion that metaphysics cannot teach anything that is new, but can only bring into clearer consciousness and present in the order of a system what every body knew before. Canon Kingsley says that what is needed to confound people's skepticism in philosophy and theology is "only to bring them to look their own reason in the face, and to tell them boldly, you know these things at heart already, if you will only look at what you know and clear from your own spirits the mists which your mere brain has wrapped around them." Even before they are recognized and formulated they "Are yet the fountain light of all our day, Once recognized they are To perish never." "truths that wake IV. The argument against "innate ideas" as presented by Locke has no relevancy to the real doctrine of rational intuitions. Descartes explains that the ideas are natural in the sense that they do not originate from without but in the faculty of intelligence itself; and they are naturally in the intellect, not in act but only potentially; as we say that generosity is natural to some families, and certain diseases to Mikrokosmus: B. ii. chap. 4, Vol. i., p. 247, 248. Biography, p. 190. |