TWO THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE 73 



in terms of reality, Energy, potential and kinetic, 

 containing within itself the potency which generates 

 the actual and sustains the constant transmutation 

 in which phenomena arise is the sole and only 

 postulate. 



The rise of meta-geometrical methods and other 

 branches of scientific speculation have led in recent 

 years to a considerable amount of very interesting 

 inquiry into the nature of our fundamental 

 geometrical conceptions. Strange to say, a large 

 body of respectable mathematicians have been 

 found to favour the extraordinary view that our 

 mathematical conceptions are derived from Sensa- 

 tion. We do not propose here to discuss at length 

 this idea. It is merely another form of the old 

 sensationalist view of Knowledge, but we suggest 

 that the conditions of the problem will readily 

 appear in their true light and real nature whenever 

 such inquirers realise the fact that our exertional 

 activity is the source of our cognitions of the external, 

 and that therefore our pure exertional activity is the 

 source of the basal concepts of geometry. 



Here lies the root of the distinction between 

 pure and empirical science. The propositions of 

 geometry, being derived from our own pure activity, 

 are of the former class ; the inductive conclusions 

 of physical experimental science, being gathered 



