CONSCIOUSNESS AND EXPERIENCE 257 



irony of the situation. The epistemologist s prob 

 lem is, indeed, usually put as the question of how 

 the subject can so far &quot;transcend&quot; itself as to 

 get valid assurance of the objective world. The 

 very phraseology in which the problem is put re 

 veals the thoroughness of the psychologist s re 

 venge. Just and only because experience has been 

 reduced to &quot; states of consciousness &quot; as independ 

 ent existences, does the question of self-transcend 

 ence have any meaning. The entire epistemolog- 

 ical industry is one shall I say it ofa Sisyphean 

 nature. Mutatis mutandis, the same holds of the 

 metaphysic of logic, ethic, and esthetic. In each 

 case, the basic problem has come to be how a mere 

 state of consciousness can be the vehicle of a system 

 of truth, of an objectively valid good, of beauty 

 which is other than agreeable feeling. We may, in 

 deed, excuse the psychologist for not carrying on 

 the special inquiries that are the business of log 

 ical, ethical, and esthetical philosophy ; but can we 

 excuse ourselves for forcing his results into such 

 a shape as to make philosophic problems so arbi 

 trary that they are soluble only by arbitrarily 

 wrenching scientific facts? 



Undoubtedly we are between two fires. In plac 

 ing upon psychology the responsibility of discov 

 ering the method of experience, as a sequence of 

 acts and passions, do we not destroy just that 

 limitation to concrete detail which now constitutes 



