APPLICATION OF CATEGORIES,—SPACE, TIME, AND POSITION. 553 
369. Knowledge may be either modally absolute, real, or problematical.* Of absolute 
knowledge, we have an example in pure mathematics, and in every axiom, or proposition 
which carries with itself the perception of its necessity and universal validity. Real know- 
ledge embraces every fact which we are compelled to believe by the constitution of our 
minds, but of which we do not perceive the entire necessity. Problematical knowledge, 
or belief, covers everything which we believe to be true, but the truth of which depends 
on circumstances which it is impossible for us to determine with certainty. 
370. Science, properly so called, is concerned principally with the absolute or necessary, 
and the real. General science is based upon, and includes all the necessity that is dis- 
cerned by the intelligence in its several conditions. & 
371. Our cognitions in their reference, as we have seen, are either objective, subjective, 
or ideal. The objects of our cognition, or the things cognized, may be viewed in three 
states, analogous to the three conditions of consciousness. We may regard them either 
as passive, active, or sustaining.t 
372. There can be no possibility, except in accordance with reality and necessity. If 
objects can have a passive, an active, or a sustaining existence, there must be some reality 
that renders their existence possible. In attempting to ascertain the forms of that reality, 
by analyzing the objective, we enter on a task both delicate and fruitless, unless that 
Greatest, Wisest, and Best, toward which all philosophy aspires as the necessary goal of 
its inquiries, is pure Intelligence, and therefore purely subjective, and what is objective to 
our finite intelligence, is in reality only a form or product of a higher subjective.t We 
* The term knowledge has been confined by some writers to absolute truth. But we speak of the acquisition 
of knowledge, including what we learn from books and from testimony, and the more extended definition here 
recognized therefore corresponds with the common acceptation of the term. 
} Hvery cognition must be either of the not-me, or objective,—of the me, or subjective,—or of the ideal, which 
embraces every logical antecedent of either objective or subjective manifestations. The mind, as motive, is nearly 
passive; as spontaneous, active; as rational, sustaining or authoritative,—every effort of rationality being an 
effort to approximate to the underlying, upholding, substantial, or necessary. 
{ “ Every cogitative faculty, though it is not the sole cause of its own immediate (apparent) object, yet has a 
share in making it: thus the eye or visive faculty hath a share in making the colors which it is said to see; the ear or 
auditive power, a share in producing sounds, which yet it is said to hear; the imagination has a part in making 
the images stored in it; and there is the same reason for the understanding, that it should have a like share in 
forming the primitive notions under which it takes in and receives objects; in sum, the immediate objects of 
cogitation as it is exercised by men, are entia cogitationis, all phenomena; appearances that do no more exist 
without our faculties in the things themselves, than the images that are seen in water or behind a glass, do really 
exist in those places where they seem to be.” Hssay upon Reason and the Nature of Spirits, by Richard Bur- 
thogge, M.D., quoted by Solly, p. 285. 
If we could fully comprehend the share of the Will in making its own motives, we could doubtless better un- 
derstand the extent and limits of free will. 
