328 LOGIC 



ical and physical terms? While, therefore, biological considerations 

 result in the great gain of giving concrete reality to the processes of 

 knowledge, the gain is lost, if knowledge itself is denied the tran- 

 scendence which it so evidently discloses. 



IV 



The argument advanced in this discussion has had the aim of 

 emphasizing the fact that in knowledge we have actually given, as 

 content, reality as it is in independence of the act of knowing, that the 

 real world is self-existent, independent of the judgments we make 

 about it. This fact has been emphasized in order to confine the 

 field of logic to the field of knowledge as thus understood. In the 

 course of the argument, I have occasionally indicated what some 

 of the resulting problems of logic are. These I wish now to state in 

 a somewhat more systematic way. 



The basal problem of logic becomes, undoubtedly, the metaphysics 

 of knowledge, the determination of the nature of knowledge and its 

 relation to reality. It is quite evident that this is just the problem 

 which the current tendencies criticised have sought, not to solve, 

 but to avoid or set aside. Their motives for so doing have been 

 mainly the difficulties which have arisen from the Kantian philo- 

 sophy in its development into transcendentalism, and the desire 

 to extend the category of evolution to embrace the whole of reality, 

 knowledge included. I confess to feeling the force of these motives 

 as strongly as any advocate of the criticised opinions. But I do not 

 see my way clear to satisfying them by denying or explaining away 

 the evident character of knowledge itself. It appears far better 

 to admit that a metaphysics of knowledge is as yet hopeless, rather 

 than so to transform knowledge as to get rid of the problem; for we 

 must ultimately ask after the truth of the transformation. But I 

 am far from believing that a metaphysics of knowledge is hopeless. 

 The biological tendencies themselves seem to furnish us with much 

 material for at least the beginnings of one. Reality known is to be set 

 over against reality unknown or independent of knowledge, not as 

 image to original, idea to thing, phenomena to noumena, appearance 

 to reality; but reality as known is a new stage in the development of 

 reality itself. It is not an external mind which knows reality by 

 means of its own ideas, but reality itself becomes known through 

 its own expanding and readjusting processes. So far I am in entire 

 agreement with the tendencies I have criticised. But what change is 

 effected by this expansion and readjustment? I can find no other 

 answer than this simple one : the change to knowledge. And by this 

 I mean to assert unequivocally that the addition of knowledge to 

 a reality hitherto without it is simply an addition to it and not a 

 transformation of it. Such a view may appear to make knowledge 



