THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 299 



cumber the ground. It is a luxury, and hence a 

 social nuisance and disturber. Of course, in the 

 very nature of things, every means or instrument 

 I will for a while absorb attention so that it becomes 

 the end. Indeed it is the end when it is an indis 

 pensable condition of onward movement. But 

 when once the means have been worked out they 

 must operate as such. When the nature and 

 method of knowledge are fairly understood, then 

 interest must transfer itself from the possibility 

 of knowledge to the possibility of its application 

 to life. 



The sensationalist has played his part in bring 

 ing to effective recognition the demand in valid 

 knowledge for individuality of experience, for per 

 sonal participation in materials of knowledge. 

 The rationalist has served his time in making it 

 clear once for all that valid knowledge requires 

 organization, and the operation of a relatively per 

 manent and general factor. The Kantian episte- 

 mologist has formulated the claims of both schools 

 in defining judgment as the relation of percep 

 tion and conception. But when it goes on to state 

 that this relation is itself knowledge, or can be found 

 in knowledge, it stultifies itself. Knowledge can 

 define the percept and elaborate the concept, but 

 their union can be found only in action. The ex 

 perimental method of modern science, its erection 

 into the ultimate mode of verification, is simply this 



