point out that, since perception is the operation of the mind about 

 ideas, there can be no perception of "matter" as having any 

 properties. By his own assumption, Locke's lips were closed, and, 

 yet, he endeavoured, inconsistent though the attempt was, to 

 prove a knowledge of external objects. 



Thus, interestingly enough, we have arrived at the point in the 

 development of so-called theories of knowledge from the standpoint 

 of empirico-physical science, when the "idea" has become entirely 

 divorced from the object which is supposed to be its cause. The 

 naive man unwittingly holds that he has direct experience of sticks 

 and stones objects of nature ; but we are here told that the naive 

 man is mistaken, he only knows ideas, and the utmost that he can 

 expect is a correspondence between his ideas and natural objects. 

 But, since correspondence is likewise a relation to be perceived by 

 the mind and therefore must again be between ideas, it is evident 

 that of a relation of correspondence between an idea and an extra- 

 mental object he knows nothing. 



This is the penalty theory of knowledge has to pay when it 

 adopts a view of the world based upon a physical standpoint like 

 that of Galilei, Gassendi and their contemporaries and successors. 

 Assuming the world to consist of matter and motion, the attempt has 

 been made to construe all the furniture of the mind in terms thereof 

 (Hobbes), or as products thereof (Locke), with the curious result 

 that our theory of knowledge leaves us toto caelo removed from the 

 very objects with which science itself claims to deal. All the 

 attempts of Locke to urge upon us, "resemblance", and that the 

 objects can be demonstrated, leave us in the same hopeless plight, 

 since resemblance and demonstration consist in the relation of 

 ideas. The objects of nature are forever transcendent and of tran- 

 scendent objects no science can be made. Whether, therefore, 

 these accounts of the originals of our knowledge are adequate to 

 the actual operations of science is a question which must give us 

 serious pause. It is easy for criticism of to-day to call attention to 

 the inconsistency of Locke, but it is not so easy, perhaps, to recog- 

 nize the real problem which lay at the basis of his illogical pro- 

 cedure. That there was such a problem the subsequent history of 

 English Empiricism was to show, but, first, the logic of Locke's 

 starting-point was to work itself out to thoroughly consistent con- 

 clusions and in Berkeley and Hume this process took place. 



81 



