THE AMBIGUITY OF A PRIORI. 4 1 



And SO" epistemology remains in the air, a great 

 mist, as it were, suspended between science and 

 metaphysics, and makes ineffectual attempts to come 

 into contact with both. But this is intrinsically 

 impossible, and all it does is to obscure the issues 

 between science and metaphysics, and by the fog it 

 raises, to prevent the combatants from meeting, and 

 either fighting out, or, as is more probable, com- 

 posing their differences. Its contributions to the 

 question of the relation^ of science and metaphysics 

 are always irrelevant and often misleading. For 

 whether it be its misfortune or its fault, epistemology 

 is in the habit of using terms in a peculiar sense of 

 its own. 



When we are toldj e.g., that '* the conception ot 

 cause is a priori and cannot be derived from ex- 

 perience, because it is the presupposition of all 

 experience," or informed that *' an eternal self is 

 the presupposition of all knowledge," we are, accord- 

 ing to the bent of our sympathies^ either consoled 

 or confounded. But the exultation of the one party 

 and the depression of the other is alike premature. 

 Upon further inquiry it appears, that the priority of 

 the epistemologists is not in time at all and does 

 not refer to historical events. They are not making 

 statements about the actual origin or ultimate nature 

 of knowledge, but only about the relation of certain 

 factors in existing knowledge. They do not mean 

 that the conception of cause is a priori in the sense 

 that many ages ago it existed without experience, 

 and that, when experience came, it was subsumed 

 under this pre-existing category, nor are they speak- 

 ing of any experience any one ever had. Cause 

 is a priori, because, if we eliminate this factor out 

 of actual experience, we are left with a fictitious 



