THE FIELD OF LOGIC 327 



or digest. And what happens to things when we know them is also 

 as discoverable as what happens to them when we breathe them or 

 digest them. 



But here the idealist may interpose that we can never know what 

 happens to things when we know them, because we can never know 

 them before they become known. I suppose I ought to wrestle with 

 this objection. It is an obvious one, but, to my mind, it is without 

 force. The objection, if pursued, can carry us only in a circle. The 

 problem of knowledge is still on our hands, and every logician of 

 whatever school, the offerer of this objection also, has, nevertheless, 

 attempted to show what the transformation is that thought works, 

 for all admit that it works some. Are we, therefore, engaged in a 

 hopeless task? Or have we failed to grasp the significance of our 

 problem? I think the latter. We fail to recognize that, in one way 

 or other, we do solve the problem, and that our attempts to solve it 

 show quite clearly that the objection under consideration is without 

 force. Take, for instance, any concrete case of knowledge, the water 

 seeking its own level, again. Follow the process of knowledge to the 

 fullest extent, we never find a single problem which is not solvable 

 by reference to the concrete things with which we are dealing, nor 

 a single solution which is not forced upon us by these things rather 

 than by the fact that we deal with them. The transformation wrought 

 is thus discovered, in the progress of knowledge itself, to be wrought 

 solely in the inquiring individual, and wrought by repeated contact 

 with the things with which he deals. In other words, all knowledge 

 discloses the fact that its content is not created by itself, but by the 

 things with which it is concerned. 



It is quite possible, therefore, that knowledge should be what 

 we call transcendent and yet not involve us in a transcendental 

 logic. That we should be able to know without altering the things we 

 know is no more and no less remarkable and mysterious than that 

 we should be able to digest by altering the things we digest. In 

 other words, the fact that digestion alters the things is no reason 

 that knowledge should alter them, even if we admit that logical 

 processes are vital and subject to evolution. Indeed, if evolution 

 teaches us anything on this point, it is that knowledge processes are 

 real just as they exist, as real as growth and digestion, and must 

 have their character described in accordance with what they are. The 

 recognition that knowledge can be transcendent and yet its processes 

 vital seems to throw light on the difficulty evolution has encountered 

 in accounting for consciousness and knowledge. All the reactions 

 of the individual seem to be expressible in terms of chemistry and 

 physics without calling in consciousness as an operating factor. What 

 is this but the recognition of its transcendence, especially when the 

 conditions of conscious activity are quite likely expressible in chem- 



