1«80.] 4.)y [Cope. 



reached their final sbiges here or elsewhere. In other words, such facul- 

 ties would characterize mind in general as distinguished from, yet in- 

 cluding, the human mind. But I must here insist that such mind cannot 

 be conceived to exist apart from a dimensional (material) basis of some 

 kind. 



This classification of thought is difierent from the division into the con- 

 tingent and the absolute, since both of these types are to be found in the 

 experiential and in the a p7-ioi'i fieMs. The axiomatic properties of mat- 

 ter, dimensions and resistance, are not contingent, but absolute ; while the 

 movements of matter are contingent on each other and the sources (in the 

 mental field) from which they may be derived. So also in the a priori 

 field. While the axioms of logic are not contingent, many of the activi- 

 ties of mind are contingent on each other (and also on those of other per- 

 sons) and on material conditions. 



It is obvious that there are truths which are equally valid with and 

 without the material of experience. It is also true, as shown by Aristotle, 

 that there is a scale of generalizations, which is at the one extremity 

 purely experiential, and at the other purely formal ; and that the inter- 

 mediate members of the series are on the one side experiential and on the 

 other formal. The categories display this double validity. On the one 

 side they express the relations of objects, and on the other, those of 

 thoughts. Even the simple method of induction is applicable to mental 

 noumena as it isto material phenomena. But the highest generalizations 

 clearly have a validity independent of experience, although our race may 

 not have discovered them without it. These are, first, generalizations 

 which are exclusively formal. These are the two fundamental axioms of 

 logic ; viz., the maxim of contradiction and the maxim of excluded mid- 

 dle. Second, generalizations which, while valid as forms of pure thought, 

 are also deducible from experience. These are Time, and the categories 

 Modality, Relation, Quality and Quantity (Ivant), etc. 



The fundamental and only form allowed by Rosmini, is the "intuition 

 of being." In its subjective human application this is the basis of the 

 " Cogito " of Des Cartes, and the Ego of Ficlite. In the same sense it is 

 tlie "self-consciousness " of the evolutionary psychology. In its broader 

 aspect it may include consciousness of all grades, and as such is a postu- 

 late of the mentality of animals as well as of men. Kant includes space 

 with time in the forms of thought. This cannot, it seems to me, be ad- 

 mitted. Space is not in any sense a form of thought, but is derived from 

 experience of matter, of which it is one of the two definitions. It is cer- 

 tainly not a condition of thought, as time evidently may be, i. e., as suc- 

 cession of thoughts. This one characteristic of Kani's system made it 

 idealistic rather than realistic. 



In the following table I arrange the contents of cognition in accordance 

 with the principles above indicated: 



