632 



RELATIVE KKYS 



RELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE 



do go she may aue for aliment, and he w liable to 

 IHT creditors for alimentary debts. In the United 

 States the laws of the states vary ; hut the duty to 

 support wife, children, and |wirents in generally 

 recognised, and it is u-nally made a penal offence 

 to aliaudon wife or children. 



Relative Keys. See SCALE. 



Relative Rank. See RANK. 



Relativity or knowledge. The doctrine 

 of the relativity of knowledge is almost a common- 

 place in some philosophical schools, and is as 

 strenuously dented hy others. It is connected 

 l>rinmrily with tli<' contrast between thn absolute 

 and the relative, or the noumenon and phenomenon, 

 and is one phase of the great discussion as to the 

 relation of knowledge to reality. In its modern 

 form the doctrine has obtained currency chiefly 

 thiongh the speculations of Kant, Hamilton, and 

 Mi Herlx'rt S|>encer. Knowledge evidently implies 

 a knower and a relation between the knower and 

 the object known. Hence it is argued that the 

 object is conditioned hy the relation into which it 

 is brought; merely hy becoming an object the 

 thin;; as it is in itself undergoes a change or 

 accommodation. Our knowledge therefore can 

 never yield us the reality of things the nonmenon 

 or tliing-in itself but only the phenomenon, the 

 tiling as it appears to us. Or, as it is otherwise 

 expressed, in being known the object must conform 

 to the nature of the knowing faculty, the mental 

 constitution or organisation of the knower ; we 

 cannot, therefore, conclude, says Hamilton, that 

 the properties of existence are known 'in their 

 native purity and without addition or modification 

 from our organs of sense, or our capacities of 

 intelligence.' Hamilton's general conclusion is : 

 'Of things absolutely or in themselves, l>e they 

 external or be they internal, we know nothing, or 

 know them only as incognisable ; and we become 

 aware of their incomprehensible existence only as 

 tliis is indirectly or accidentally revealed to us, 

 through certain qualities related to our faculties of 

 knowledge. All that we know is therefore pheno- 

 menal, phenomenal of the unknown.' This is 

 adopted l>y Mr Spencer, and made the basis of 

 his theory of knowledge, or rather of what Ferrier 

 would have called bjcagnoiology, his doctrine of our 

 necessary ignorance : 'The reality existing behind 

 all appearances is, and must ever be, unknown.' In 

 Kant a similar doctrine is associated with the 

 asserted subjectivity of the forms of space and 

 time; but it is also liased upon the broader con- 

 sideration that perception can give us 'only the 

 relation of an object to the subject, mil the inward 

 essence which belongs to the object in itself.' The 

 empirical schools, which resolve our knowledge into 

 impressions of sense manipulated according to the 

 laws of association, likewise accept in its widest 

 sense, as .1. S. Mill joints out, the doctrine of ' the 

 entire inaccessibility to our faculties of any other 

 knowledge of things than that of the impressions 

 which they produce in our mental consciousness." 

 But, inasmuch as they in many canes profess a 

 s.-cptical idealism which denies, or leaves doubtful, 

 the existence of any reality lieyoiid the states of 

 consciousness, their views are less usually o>-"< i 

 ntcd with the term. 



The starting-point of the almve argument must 

 l>e conceded by all. Knowledge obviously implies 

 iclation; it exist- only through the duality of 

 knoHer and known. I his duality being as necessarily 

 present in the ca-c of what is called self-know 

 ledm as in the co.se of knowledge by self of inde- 

 pendent objects. lint the upholders of the doctrine 

 of relativity proceed to convert this essential 

 feature of intelligence into a proof of the 'imp<> 

 tence'of our faculties. For the term is used in 



such a way as to imply a taint or defect in our 

 knowledge. Our knowledge is condemned because 

 it fails to realise a certain ideal. The question 

 arises, however, whether the ideal proposed is in 

 any sense legitimate or possible. \Vnat is this 

 reality existing In-hind all appearances,' this 

 thing in itself that so persistently evades our grasp ? 

 The answer of a sound philosophy would seem to 

 lie that this unknown essence or nonmenal reality 

 is a fictitious entity of our own creation. The 

 essence or nature of a thing is expressed in its 

 qualities or action ; the noumcnon reveal- it-elf in 

 the phenomenon. The relativists are in the lialat 

 of saying that 'we know only phenomena,' tlraa 

 making our knowledge of phenomena the ground of 

 ' our ignorance of the corresponding noumena. But, 

 strictly speaking, it is a misuse of language to say 

 that we know phenomena; the phenomenon is our 

 knowledge of the nonmenon. To say that we 

 know phenomena is therefore only a roundabout 

 way of saying that we know, and what we know is 

 the nounienon or thing in itself. Of course the con- 

 trast lietwecn knowing and Ix-ing is not abolished 

 according to this view ; in human knowledge, at all 

 events, the existence of objects is independent of 

 our knowledge of them. It is this contrast Ix-lwcen 

 the thing as existent and the thing as known that 

 lends plausibility to the doctrine of relativity. 

 But the contrast only justifies us in saying that 

 knowing a thing is not the same as being that 

 thing; whereas the relativistic doctrine says that, 

 ipso facto, to know a thing is not to know the 

 reality of the thing. Knowledge, in this view, 

 infallibly cute us off from knowing. 



Apart from this general line of thought, the 

 doctrine is frequently liased upon the large extent 

 to which sensation enters into all our knowledge. 

 In the structure of their sense-organs different 

 living creatures differ appreciably, and there will 

 lie a corresponding difference in the image of the 

 world which they make to themselves. The know- 

 ledge of even* being, it is argued, is thus inevitably 

 conditioned "by its organisation, and there is no 

 possibility of arriving at an objective criterion. 

 Man, in the Protagorean formula, is the measure 

 of all things; but he measures them only as they 

 seem to him. Such a formula may lie interpreted 

 either in a sensationalistic and individualistic 

 fashion, as seems to have lieen done by Protagoras, 

 or in a rationalistic and humanistic fashion, as is 

 seen in Kant. The former interpretation leads to 

 a sceptical dissolution of knowledge, for it leaves 

 no common ground on which individuals might 

 meet. Kant, by making space and time, if not the 

 categories also, forms peculiar to the human intelli- 

 gence, but common to all men, provides for 

 objective truth liet ween man and man, but insists 

 on the merely human and relative character of such 

 truth. Apart from the assertion of the merely sul 

 jectivc character of space and time, which Km: 

 can hardly lie said to have proved, it is e\ i. 

 that the "relativist argument applies with mo-' 

 force to what are called the Moondarf qualities, 



such as tastes, smells, sounds, and colours. HIM 

 when we consider the elevated itlcasures of which 

 the last two, at all events, are the source, we ma\ 

 well hesitate aliout pressing the relativistic argu- 

 ment too far. Things do not exist on their own 

 account as bald brute facts, on which intelligence 

 afterwards supervenes, to make what use of them 

 it can. It seems truer to believe that to be 

 known and enjoyed by spiritual beings is the pur- 

 pose of their existence. The relativity of the world 

 to the human senses and intellect would then form 

 no ground for believing that the image of the 

 world thus obtained was in any sense distorted or 

 mil i ue. We may rise to higher insight and more 

 perfect (esthetic appreciation, but that our know- 



