THE CONFLICT OF THE FACTORS OF KNOWLEDGE. 59 



and incongruous, Scepticism has merely to compare 

 the characteristics of the given factors, and to pro- 

 nounce their disagreement to be irreconcilable, in 

 order to prove that knowledge, i.e., systematic 

 harmony of the given, is impossible, and need not 

 perform the impossible feat of getting help from the 

 unknowable outside .consciousness. Its aim must 

 therefore be throughout to elicit the conflict and 

 incompatibility of the constituents of knowledge. 



It will begin by showing that appearances are 

 deceptive, and in so doing it will be proving a 

 truism. For the whole of science is concerned with 

 enabling us to see through the deceptive appearances 

 of things, and to perceive their real nature. But 

 Scepticism will contend that science fails ; that this 

 deceptiveness is ultimate and never can be seen 

 through ; that in fancying that our science can 

 correct it, we are once more deceived. For all 

 science is an interpretation of phenomena by means 

 of thought, in which we substitute thought-symbols 

 for the real things of which we are treating, and 

 suppose -that the manipulations of our symbols will 

 hold good of ±he realities we perceived, and will thus 

 enable us to manage and calculate their course. 



But it turns out (i) that not one of the categories 

 of our knowledge, not one of the fundamental 

 conceptions which underlie all science, is adequate 

 to describe the nature of the Real, and that science 

 is everywhere based upon fictitious assumptions 

 known to be false : (2) the reason of this is dis- 

 covered .to lie in the radically different natures of 

 thought and feeling, which give us two utterly 

 discordant aspects of existence, and render it im- 

 possible that the real thing .perceived by feeling 

 should ever be symbolized by thought^ and (3), as 



