In a former chapter it was shown that, although the mind is fallible, it is capable of knowledge, and that the larger part of our beliefs are confirmed by the continuous experience of life. It often happens that what at first was rejected as improbable, comes by experience to be known as sustained by convincing evidence; that an opinion, acted on at first with hesitation, by its sufficiency as a guide to action vindicates itself as truth and clarifies itself into knowledge. The same is true of religious belief and of action upon it. Venturing on it at first with hesitation, it proves itself sufficient for the intellect, the heart and the conduct, it becomes interwoven with all the threads of life and into the texture of the character, and thus comes to be believed with the highest certainty and rested on with the most serene confidence. "Then shall, we know if we follow on to know the Lord." What the Scripture here affirms as true of religious knowledge is an example of what is true of all knowledge. In the experience of life man advances from the doubtful to the certain, from the obscure to the clear, from the known to the knowledge of what had been unknown; and though his mind is limited and fallible and though he cannot by any intellectual gymnastics leap out of the limitations of his powers, yet by the legitimate use of his powers he is capable of knowledge and of its indefinite enlargement. But he must trustfully use his powers on their legitimate objects and trustfully act on the results, whether probability or certainty. For if he spend his strength in trying to unravel the limitations of his being, he will be entangled like a fly in a spider's web and be thenceforth capable of no action but an impotent buzzing of distress. CHAPTER IV. WHAT IS KNOWN THROUGH PRESENTATIVE OR PERCEPTIVE INTUITION. 18. What is Known through Sense-Perception. IN sense-perception man has knowledge of the external world. He has immediate perception of his own body and of bodies immediately affecting him through the senses. I assume this on the principles of Natural Realism. It is unnecessary to enter into any vindication of the reality of this knowledge against phenomenalists and idealists. Comte attempted to rest physical science on phenomenalism. But the students of physical science have generally abandoned his complete positivism and emphasize the reality and certainty of our knowledge of the objects of sense. They affirm the knowledge of bodies composed of infrangible atoms, and of force with its conservation, correlation and transformations. It is unnecessary, also, because Hume demonstrated that every theory of phenomenalism or subjective idealism involves the denial of all knowledge. It is idle to reopen a question then decisively settled, or to plunge again into the discussion of insoluble puzzles which were then remanded to the sphere of that transcendent skepticism which denies all knowledge because a man cannot take himself up in his own hands and examine himself, as he would an insect under a microscope. So Mr. Mulford puts it: "Man by the senses has a direct perception of the physical world and it is a waste of thought to carry the subject through metaphysical speculation. But this does not demonstrate the certainty of the physical world to one who denies it.. There is no demonstration of the being of the physical world."* Our knowledge of it is not by reasoning or any reflective thought, but is by intuition. So Lord Bacon affirms that sense gives us knowledge of "natural matters," "unless a man please to go mad.”† Sense-perception, however, does not decide between speculative theories of the constitution of matter. These are irrelevant to the question. If matter consists of Boscovich's points of force, or of Dr. Hickock's pencils of force in equilibrium, if it is a form of will-force, or a manifes * Republic of God, p. 96. Note. †Distributio operis, prefixed to Novum Organum. tation of thought, all its properties and powers and its objective reality remain unchanged. It must be added that in sense-perception there is always a rational intuition, implicit or explicit in the consciousness. In sensation I become aware of the action within my consciousness of a power not my own. At the same time I know in the light of reason that this power not my own must be exerted by some other being; for it is a rational intuition that every change must have a cause. Man cannot divest himself of his reason in any act. Natural Realists recognize an implicit judgment in every perception; it is sometimes called a psychological, as distinguished from a logical judgment. What is really present is the implicit, rational intuition that the power exerted is the power of some being. In perception, so far as the intellectual act is the knowledge of a particular power present and acting here and now, we call it presentative or perceptive intuition; so far as it is the knowledge of a universal principle of reason applicable in the particular case, it is rational intuition. But the fact that a rational intuition is present in perception does not invalidate the knowledge. Rational intuition gives knowledge as really as perceptive. And the mind is not divided; the act is one act in which the mind, constituted both perceptive and rational, knows by intuition at once perceptive and rational. So far from invalidating the knowledge, the union of the two is essential to it. Rational intuition without the perceptive intuition of an object is empty of content; perceptive intuition, without rational intuition of the form in which reason sees it, is unintelligent and falls short of knowledge.* As to the general objection that knowledge must be wholly subjective and therefore not real knowledge, because a factor is contributed by the intellect, it is sufficient to reply as follows. If external reality and a man to know it exist, the knowledge is impossible except as the man and the reality about him act and react on each other. In human knowledge the outward reality acts on man through the senses and man reacts in sense-perception. In voluntary exertion the man acts on the outward reality and it reacts on him. In both ways he knows its existence. The objection implies that it is essential to the knowledge of outward reality that no such action and reaction take place. It implies that the mind must have knowledge of an object without coming into any relation or connection with it, without acting or reacting on it. It requires that there must be knowledge without knowing. It is also objected that because knowledge is an intellectual act it can have no resemblance to the outward object, and that therefore we can have no knowledge of the outward object, but only of subjective im*"Begriffe ohne Anschauungen sind leer; Anschauungen ohne Begriffe sind blind." Kant. pressions. This objection implies that knowledge in order to be real must be like the outward object; that in perceiving a tree there must be some image, imprint or effigy of the tree in the mind. This notion may have arisen from the analogy of outward objects impressing the sensorium, and especially of light entering the eye. But an image, or imprint, or effigy of a tree cannot enter the mind any more than the tree itself can. Nor can knowledge, which is an intellectual act, be an image or imprint of a tree. The objection is just as valid against the knowledge of impressions and phenomena as against the knowledge of the tree itself. When an object is present to the senses it awakens sensation in a way wholly mysterious to us; the mind reacts on the object in perceptive and rational intuition and knows it. The object perceived does not imprint an image; it occasions an action of intellect knowing the object. The perception has no resemblance to the object, but is its intellectual equivalent; is the conscious reacting of the mind on the object and knowing it. The sensation itself is the response in the feelings to the presence of the object. All objections of this kind rest on the absurdity that knowledge of outward objects is possible only if it cease to be knowledge and become identical with insensate bodies; that knowledge is possible only if divested of that which is its essence as knowledge; that knowledge is impossible if there is a mind that knows. As to the mystery how material things can be apprehended by the mind in an intellectual equivalent, we may say at least that the Universe is itself the expression of thought and therefore can be translated back into thought. In the Absolute Reason the archetypal forms of all that is in the universe are eternal. In the finite Reason there must be, if not the archetypal forms of things, at least the capacity of constructing the intellectual equivalents of those forms which constitute real knowledge of them. In the absolute Reason the principles and laws regulative of all rational thought and action are eternal; these are the constitution of the universe, eternal in the absolute Reason. In the finite Reason there must be at least the capacity of knowing these con stitutive principles and laws, as occasion for their application arises in experience in the continual action and reaction of the finite Reason and the universe. The universe in its deepest significance and reality is the expression of the archetypal thoughts of the Absolute Reason. In the finite reason there must be at least the power to translate it back into the thought which it expresses, to grasp its reality and significance in intellectual equivalents in which and in which alone its true reality and significance are known. That which is in its origin and essence the expression of thought can be apprehended in thought. We may reasonably suppose that if the universe were not originally the expression of thought, science and all other apprehension of it in thought would be impossible. The universe and the things in it would have no intellectual equivalents. 19. What is Known through Self-Consciousness. Self-consciousness is the knowledge which the mind has of itself in its own operations. I. The object known, the subject knowing and the knowledge are known simultaneously in one and the same act. In every act of knowing the knowledge of self as knowing is an essential element. This accords with the first law of thought, that knowledge implies a subject knowing, an object known and the knowledge. In thought the knowledge of the object is distinguishable from my knowledge of myself as knowing; but they are inseparable in fact. I perceive a stone. If my knowledge of myself perceiving is annulled the entire perception is annulled. But my knowledge of myself is not given in a separate act. All knowledge is a knowledge of two realities, the object known and the subject knowing, in one indivisible intellectual act. The knowledge of the object may be called direct intelligence, the knowledge of the subject, inverse. The mind is like the sun, which in revealing external objects necessarily reveals itself. Sense-perception and self-consciousness are simultaneous in one act. It is like the hand which can grasp objects only as it retains its vital connection with the organism; like the electro-magnetic circuit, one force acting at two opposite poles; or like the interaction between the nervous centers and the outward object by the afferent and efferent nerves. The same two in one is noticeable when the object of thought is itself mental. When a mental state is continuous, as a sorrow, a preference or purpose, a belief or a doubt, the mind can observe it while present, as it would observe a zoological specimen continuously present before the senses; the mind can also attend to its representations of former mental states. In these cases also the knowledge is direct of the object and inverse of the subject; and the latter is essential to the knowledge as really as in sense-perception. This knowledge which we have of ourselves in every act of knowing is sometimes called implicit or virtual consciousness. It is the intuitive unreflective consciousness in which the mind knows all the elemental material of thought respecting itself in its own operations. It is the mind's primitive knowledge of itself not yet apprehended, discrimi nated and integrated in thought. It is present in all feeling and all voluntary action as well as in all knowing and thinking. The direct intelligence or knowledge of the object is expressed in the |