Genetic Science 309 



This leads us to the second great class of views which are 

 possible regarding the province of knowledge and the 

 relation of mind to nature. I say class of views, suice it 

 is a class, in which many varied constructions in detail 

 might be worked out. So far as the view which follows 

 has details, that is. attempts to apply the line of distinc- 

 tions now made to the actual relations of the sciences 

 they may be taken as my personal views, and they should 

 not be allowed to prejudice the truth of the general distinc- 



tion itself. ,. 



Startin- out with the development of the preceding 

 chapter and adding the further thoughts stated on the 

 pages immediately above, we have a certain way of con- 

 struing science, which allows full sweep to the genetic 

 point of view. All knowledge is in its essence, as cogni- 

 tion retrospective. As Kant claimed, knowledge is a 

 process of categorizing, and to know a thing is to say 

 that it illustrates or stimulates, or functions as, a category. 

 But a category is a mental habit; that is all a category 

 can be allowed to be -a habit broadly defined as a dis- 

 position, whether congenital or acquired, to act upon or 

 to treat, items of any sort in certain general ways. These 

 habits or categories arise either from actual accommo a 

 tions with ' functional ' or some other form of ut Uty 

 S:;tion, or by natural endowment seaired by se ec^ion 

 from variations. Organic selection affects the paral el 

 Lm between these two lines of origin, in the way pointed 

 out in the earlier pages of this work. 



In deaUng with any set of data or Phe-~ J^^^ 

 Question comes up as to what categories apply -what 

 XSZi treatment are brought out and illustrated when 

 we get all we can out of these facts. 



