296 THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 



science and philosophy was the demand for truth 

 and a sure standard of truth which the new-born 

 individual might employ in his efforts to build up 

 a new world to afford free scope to the powers 

 stirring within him. The urgency and acuteness 

 of this demand caused, for the time being, the 

 transfer of attention from the nature of practice 

 to that of knowledge. The highly theoretical and 

 abstract character of modern epistemology, com 

 bined with the fact that this highly abstract and 

 theoretic problem has continuously engaged the 

 attention of thought for more than three centuries, 

 is, to my mind, proof positive that the question of 

 knowledge was for the time being the point in which 

 the question of practice centered, and through 

 which it must find outlet and solution. 



We return, then, to our opening problem: the 

 meaning of the question of the possibility of knowl 

 edge raised by Kant a century ago, and of his 

 assertion that sensation without thought is blind, 

 thought without sensation empty. Once more I 

 recall to the student of philosophy how this asser 

 tion of Kant has haunted and determined the course 

 of philosophy in the intervening years how his 

 1 solution at once seems inevitable and unsatisfac 

 tory. It is inevitable in that no one can fairly 

 deny that both sense and reason are implicated in 

 every fruitful and significant statement of the 

 world; unconvincing because we are after all left 



