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, since 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. 



Starting 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 accommoda- 

 tions with ' functional ' or some other form of utility 

 selection, or by natural endowment secured by selection 

 from variations. Organic selection affects the parallel- 

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

 out in the earlier pages of this work. 



In dealing with any set of data or phenomena the 

 question comes up as to what categories apply — what 

 habits of treatment are brought out and illustrated when 

 we get all we can out of these facts. 



