THE LOGICAL STRUCTURE OF SCIENCE 53 



acquaintance must be not only direct but non-transforming 

 as well. It is an unavoidable assumption of science that 

 there is at least one kind of awareness which does not trans- 

 form events, i.e., there must be an awareness which does 

 not enter functionally into its object, hence may be neglected 

 without prejudice to the character of that which is known. 

 Awareness of this kind is a bare awareness which is 'ex- 

 ternal" to its object and therefore without effect upon it. 

 The reason for this assumption seems clear. A transforma- 

 tion is any act performed upon something given to produce 

 something else. Hence to say that awareness transforms 

 implies that it is performed upon something given. But a 

 thing can be given only in awareness, with the result that 

 there must be at least one kind of awareness which does not 

 transform. 



What should be emphasized here is only the fact that in 

 awareness there is always something with which one is 

 acquainted. In the great majority of situations of actual 

 knowledge this direct awareness is associated with an infer- 

 ential act, often unconscious, by which another object is 

 called up before awareness. These two objects are frequently 

 confused, and it is often impossible to tell which one is 

 directly perceived. For example, it is difficult to say whether 

 one actually sees the softness of velvet or infers it through 

 the medium of past associations, and it is not easy to decide 

 whether a table- top is seen in its "true" rectangular shape, 

 or in its "apparent" shape as a parallelogram. In both of 

 these cases one object is given in direct awareness, and the 

 other is the result of inference. It is sometimes said that 

 the directly given object becomes the symbol of the inferred 

 object. Our limitation of the word "symbol " to its cognitive 

 use would make such a formulation confusing. But the fact 

 of inference seems undeniable, and all that need be insisted 

 upon is that an inferential act demands something which is 

 given as the starting-point for the act. This given may be 

 said to enter into knowledge through an act of direct and 

 non-transforming awareness. 



