The Unification of Knowledge Impossible, n 



the limits of intelligence, and that every system pro- 

 fessing to have reached such completeness is thereby 

 self-convicted as being necessarily false. 



In discussing the unification of knowledge, it is to- 

 be kept in view that we are not dealing with the 

 question of method. We are not inquiring as to the 

 criterion of truth . or the form of correct reasoning. 

 The unity aimed at is not the coherence and congruity 

 of our thinking ; not the unity of the mental process, 

 but the unity of knowledge as knowledge of objects r 

 as conversant about things and their relations: it is 

 the unity of knowledge dealing with all knowable 

 modes of existence. " If philosophy," says Mr. Spencer, 

 "is completely unified knowledge if the unification 

 of knowledge is to be effected only by showing that 

 some ultimate proposition includes and consolidates 

 all the results of experience; then, clearly, this ulti- 

 mate proposition which has to be proved congruous 

 with all others must express a piece of knowledge, and 

 not the validity of an act of knowing" * " Philo- 

 sophy, as we understand it, must not unify separate 

 concrete phenomena only; and must not stop with 

 unifying separate classes of concrete phenomena ; but 

 must unify all concrete phenomena."^- 



The task which philosophy undertakes in attempt- 

 ing this complete unification of all concrete pheno- 

 mena is one the magnitude of which it is not easy at 



* First Principles, $ 42. t Ibid., 186. 



