40 THE AIM AXD ACHIEVEMENTS OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 



However vigorously we maintain the principle that logical 

 values are independent of psychological genesis, it is difficult 

 to hold that this theory of spatial perception has no relevance 

 to the question of the status of conceptual space. Even if we 

 regard the process described by Professor James (or the similar 

 one described by Professor Ward) as merely the elaboration of 

 a crude " nativistic " spatial perception,* we seem to be obliged 

 to admit that adult perception gives us not space but spaces, 

 which in some cases obstinately refuse to merge their 

 individuality in our one " continuous receptacle." What, then, 

 is the precise relation of conceptual space to these diverse 

 perceptual spatial entities ? Granting with Professor James 

 that Kant's account of -the genesis is " pure mythology," are we 

 compelled by the better founded theory which we owe to 

 modern psychologists not only to recognise, contrary to Kant's 

 opinion, that the space of geometry is an empirical concept 

 drawn from experience ; Jatit to abandon also his argument that 

 space is not a general concept formed by abstraction from 

 particular presentations because it is " essentially one " and 

 claims to refer to that which contains all perceptual spaces as 

 part of itself ?f May not the notion of a " continuous 

 receptacle " after all be only an abstraction, a result of con- 

 ceptual analysis performed upon the relatively isolated and self- 

 contained spatial wholes which psychological inspection 

 reveals; while the unique character which we ascribe to 

 conceptual or geometrical space represents a pragmatical 

 simplification of the actual data which is justified only by 

 its fruits ? 



These questions involve the consideration of the wider 

 question of the nature of concepts and their relation to percepts. 

 Here one of the essential points appears to be that the concept 

 and the percept are alternative ways in which the Subject deals 



* Stout, Manual, 2nd ed., p. 377. 



t Critique of Pure Reason, pp. 23, 25. 



