598 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XX. No. 514. 



things when we know them, is also as dis- 

 coverable as what happens to them when 

 we breathe them or digest them. 



But here the idealist may interpose that 

 we can never know what happens to things 

 when we know them, because we can never 

 know them before they become known.. I 

 suppose I ought to wrestle with this objec- 

 tion. It is an obvious one, but, to my 

 mind, it is without force. The objection, 

 if pursued, can carry us only in a circle. 

 The problem of knowledge is still on our 

 hands, and every logician of whatever 

 school, the offerer of this objection also, 

 has, nevertheless, attempted to show what 

 the transforxaation is that thought works, 

 for all admit that it works some. Are we, 

 therefore, engaged in a hopeless task? Or 

 have we failed to grasp the significance of 

 our problem ? I think the latter. We fail 

 to recognize that, in one way or other, we 

 do solve the problem, and that our attempts 

 to solve it show quite clearly that the ob- 

 jection under consideration is without 

 force. Take for instance, any concrete 

 case of knowledge, the water seeking its 

 own level, again. Follow the process of 

 knowledge to the fullest extent, we never 

 find a single problem which is not solvable 

 by reference to the concrete things with 

 which we are dealing, nor a single solution 

 which is not forced upon us by these things 

 rather than by the fact that we deal with 

 them. The transformation wrought is thus 

 discovered, in the progress of knowledge 

 itself, to be wrought solely in the inquiring 

 individual, and Avrought by repeated con- 

 tact with the things with which he deals. 

 In other words, all knowledge discloses the 

 fact that its content is not created by itself, 

 but by the things with which it is con- 

 cerned. 



It is quite possible, therefore, that knowl- 

 edge should be what we call transcendent 

 and yet not involve us in a transcendental 

 logic. That we should be able to know 



without altering the things we know, is no 

 more and no less remarkable and mysteri- 

 ous than that we should be able to digest 

 by altering the things we digest. In other 

 words, the fact that digestion alters the 

 things is no reason that knowledge should 

 alter them, even if we admit that logical 

 processes are vital and subject to evolution. 

 Indeed, if evolution teaches us anything on 

 this point, it is that knowledge processes 

 are real just as they exist, as real as growth 

 and digestion, and must have their char- 

 acter described in accordance with what 

 they are. The recognition that knowledge 

 can be transcendent and yet its processes 

 vital, seems to throw light on the difficulty 

 evolution has encountered in accounting 

 for consciousness and knowledge. All the 

 reactions of the individual seem to be ex- 

 pressible in terms of chemistry and physics 

 without calling in consciousness as an op- 

 erating factor. What is this but the recog- 

 nition of its transcendence, especially when 

 the conditions of conscious activity are 

 quite likely expressible in chemical and 

 physical terms? While, therefore, biolog- 

 ical considerations result in the great gain 

 of giving concrete reality to the processes 

 of knowledge, the gain is lost, if knowledge 

 itself is denied the transcendence which it 

 so evidently discloses. 



IV. 



The argument advanced in this discus- 

 sion has had the aim of emphasizing the 

 fact, that in knowledge we have actually 

 given, as content, reality as it is in inde- 

 pendence of the act of knowing, that the 

 real world is self-existent, independent of 

 the judgments we make about it. This 

 fact has been emphasized in order to con- 

 fine the field of logic to the field of knowl- 

 edge as thus understood. In the course of 

 the argument, I have occasionally indicated 

 what some of the resulting problems of 



