NOVEMBEK 4, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



595 



matie way ; but it claimed to disclose a fact 

 whieli prevailed before the conclusion was 

 reached, and in spite of the conclusion. 

 Knowledge has been born of the travail of 

 living, but it has been born as knowledge. 

 When the knowledge character of judg- 

 ment is insisted on, it seems almost incred- 

 ible that anyone would think of denying or 

 overlooking it. Indeed, current discus- 

 sions are far from clear on the subject. 

 Pragmatists are constantly denying that 

 they hold the conclusions that their critics 

 almost unanimously draw. There is, there- 

 fore, a good deal of confusion of thought 

 yet to be dispelled. Yet there seems to be 

 current a pronounced determination to 

 banish the epistemological problem from 

 logic. This is, to my. mind, suspicious, 

 even when epistemology is defined in a way 

 which most epistemologists would not ap- 

 prove. It is suspicious just because we 

 must always ask eventually that most epis- 

 temological and metaphysical question: 'Is 

 knowledge true?' To answer, it is true 

 when it functions in a way to satisfy the 

 needs which generated its activity, is, no 

 doubt, correct, but it is by no means ade- 

 quate. The same answer can be made to 

 the inquiry after the efficiency of any vital 

 • process whatever, and is, therefore, not dis- 

 tinctive. "We have still to inquire into the 

 specific character of the needs which orig- 

 inate judgments and of the consequent 

 satisfaction. Just here is where the unique- 

 ness of the logical problem is disclosed. 

 With conscious beings, the success of the 

 things they do has become increasingly de- 

 pendent on their ability to discover what 

 takes place in independence of the knowing 

 process. That is the need which generates 

 judgment. The satisfaction is, of course, 

 the attainment of the discovery. Now to 

 make the jiidgment itself and not the con- 

 sequent action the instrumental factor, 

 seems to me to misstate the facts of the 

 case. Nothing is clearer than that there 



is no necessity for knowledge to issue in 

 adjustment. And it is clear to me, that 

 increased control of experience, while re- 

 sulting from knowledge, does not give to it 

 its character. Omniscience could idly view 

 the transformations of reality and yet re- 

 main omniscient. Knowledge works, but 

 it is not, therefore, knowledge. 



These considerations have peculiar force 

 when applied to that branch of knowledge 

 which is knowledge itself. Is the biolog- 

 ical account of knowledge correct? That 

 question we must evidently ask, especially 

 when we are urged to accept the account. 

 Can we, to put the question in its most gen- 

 eral form, accept as an adequate account 

 of the logical process a theory which is 

 bound up with some other specific depart- 

 ment of human knowledge? It seems to 

 me that we cannot. Here we must be epis- 

 temologists and metaphysicians, or give up 

 the problem entirely. This by no means in- 

 volves the attempt to conceive pure thought 

 set over against pure reality— the kind of 

 epistemology and metaphysics justly ridi- 

 culed by the pragmatist— for knowledge, as 

 already stated, is given to us in concrete 

 instances. How knowledge in general is 

 possible, is, therefore, as useless and mean- 

 ingless a question as how reality in general 

 is possible. The knowledge is given as a 

 fact of life, and what we have to determine 

 is not its non-logical antecedents or its prac- 

 tical consequences, but its constitution as 

 knowledge and its validity. It may be ad- 

 mitted that the question of validity is set- 

 tled pragmatically. No knowledge is true 

 unless it yields results -which can be veri- 

 fied, unless it can issue in increased control 

 of experience. But I insist again, that that 

 fact is not sufficient for an account of what 

 knowledge claims to be. It claims to issue 

 in control because it is true in independence 

 of the control. And it is just this assur- 

 ance that is needed to distinguish knowledge 

 from what is not knowledge. It is the ne- 



