6 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANISM 



am though in a somewhat different sense of " being " 

 and I am as truly as the universe is ; but I am not 

 entitled to state anything beyond these two corresponding 

 phrases. You know that, in the history of European 

 philosophy at least, Bishop Berkeley was the first clearly 

 to outline the field of idealism. 



But my phenomenon- -the world, especially nature- 

 consists of elements of two different kinds : some of them 

 are merely passive, some of them contain a peculiar sort 

 of activity in themselves. The first are generally called 

 sensations, but perhaps would be better called elements 

 or presentations ; the others are forms of construction, and, 

 indeed, there is an active element embraced in them in 

 this sense, that they allow, by their free combination, the 

 discovery of principles which are not to be denied, which 

 must be affirmed, whenever their meaning is understood. 

 You know that I am speaking here of what are generally 

 called categories and synthetic judgments a priori, and 

 that it was Kant who, on the foundations laid by Locke, 

 Hume, and Leibnitz, first gave the outlines of what may 

 be called the real system of critical philosophy. Indeed, 

 our method will be to a great extent Kantian, though 

 with certain exceptions ; it is to be strictly idealistic, and 

 will not in the Kantian way operate with things in 

 themselves ; and it regards the so-called " synthetic judg- 

 ment a priori' and the problem of the relation between 

 categorical principles and experience in a somewhat 

 different manner. We think it best to define the much 

 disputed concept "a priori " as " independent of the amount 

 of experience " ; that is to say, all categories and categori- 

 cal principles are brought to my consciousness by that 



