286 The Origin of a ' Thing* and its Nature 



tionists say that an intuition is of no value when construed 

 prospectively, i.e., as applying to what 'must be' beyond 

 ' what is ' ; it gets all its content, and all its force, from 

 experience. Therefore, all reality is to be construed retro- 

 spectively, and no ' thing ' is possible except as accounted 

 for as an evolution from historical elements. True, after 

 things have happened it nevertheless fails by thinking 

 career all finished. Why may not experience produce in 

 us a category whose meaning is prophetic ? 



On the other hand, the intuitionists oppose the evolu- 

 tionists in this way, saying : no thing is possible except 

 as in some way evidenced for. The intuitions are uni- 

 versal and necessary. As such their evidence cannot be 

 found in experience. To admit that they had developed 

 would be to admit that their evidence could be found in 

 experience. Consequently they carry their own evidence, 

 and their own witness is all the evidence they have. The 

 fallacy again is just the assumption that reality is finished ; 

 that categories of retrospective reference exhaust the case; 

 that the series of events which are sufficient ground for 

 the origin of the category might also be sufficient evidence 

 of its validity ; that there is a sharp contradiction, there- 

 fore, between a doctrine of derivation from experience 

 (which is inadequate as evidence) and application beyond 

 experience. But when we come to see that the categories 

 of prospective thought are equally entitled to application 

 with those of retrospect, we destroy the weapon of evolu- 

 tion to hurt the validity of mental utterances, but at the 

 same time we knock out the props upon which the intu- 

 itionist has rested his case. 



The case stands with mental facts, to sum up, just about 

 as it does with all other facts. An event in nature stays 



