8o SCEPTICISM. 



ridiculous attempts to derive the peculiarities of our 

 thought from ''experience." Our conceptions can- 

 not be derived from experience, for the simple 

 reason that no amount of experience can make them 

 square with "experience" (v. above §§ 6-13). The 

 character of our thought (i.e. of the " intuitive " 

 principles of the intuitionists) and that of our feeling 

 (i.e. of the experience of the empiricists) differ so 

 radically that no length of common employment in 

 the use of man has made their deliverances ao^ree. 

 And it is this difference which was described by the 

 misleading term of the " a priori element in know- 

 ledge " (v.. ch. 2 \ 1 7). This does not mean, or at 

 least should not be taken to mean, that our thought 

 is prior to sense- experience in Time, that we first 

 have thought-categories and then classify our experi- 

 ences by their aid ; it is intended to describe the 

 morphology of thought, the law of its development, 

 the intrinsic character and structure which it displays 

 in all its manifestations. 



The intuitionists then were right in contending 

 that there was in thought an element that could not 

 be derived from " experience," an element different 

 from and alien to "sensation," a stream of con- 

 sciousness which sprang from the obscurity of the 

 same origin, and has run parallel with feeling through- 

 out the whole history of the human mind. But it 

 was the assertion of a more dubious doctrine to 

 claim for thought greater dignity and greater cer- 

 tainty, nay to represent it as the sole ground of 

 certainty on the ground of this very difference. Is 

 it not rather a ground for the sceptical inference 

 that since thought and feeling are fundamentally 

 different, knowledge, which depends on a harmonious 

 combination of the two, is impossible 1 



