CHAPTER V.
POSTULATION AND THE EXPERIMENTAL THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE.

§ 82. One definition which has been given of Pragmatism is that it is "the thorough recognition that the purposive character of mental life generally must permeate our most remotely cognitive activities."^{1} Unlike Absolutism, Pragmatism claims emphatically a psychological foundation, and in essence is little else than the recognition of a particular psychological fact and its application as a general principle to the theory of knowledge. The pragmatist does not go to psychology merely for the data of experience in order to examine their metaphysical conditions. His standpoint is psychological from beginning to end; and his aim, so he tells us, is to reassert characteristic features of human knowledge which have been hitherto much neglected, but which, nevertheless, are there, and are directly verifiable in human experience. The same may be said of Humanism, which is only Pragmatism stated in a more general form. Pragmatism is the logic of Humanism according to Dr. Schiller, while Humanism, according to Professor James, is Pragmatism applied to the genesis of knowledge. The two terms are practically synonymous, for Humanism is defined by Dr. Schiller as "a philosophical attitude which, without wasting thought upon attempts to construct experience a priori, is content to take human experience as the clue to the world of human experience."^{2} Both the pragmatist and the humanist accept the principle which I have laid down in a previous chapter as that which should guide the epistemologist in the construction of his theory of knowledge. For both profess to start from the standpoint of common-sense, and only in so far as common-sense notions fail to work, do they consider themselves justified in modifying them, and then, only provided sufficient reason can be shown for the modification.

§ 83. The fundamental characteristic of human cognition which the pragmatist claims to have re-discovered is already contained in the definition given above. It is the function of human purposes, which, as expressing human needs, characterise and pervade all human activity. Both human action and human cognition are controlled throughout by purpose. It is our purposes and our needs which prompt us to seek for knowledge; it is our purposes which guide us in the search; and it is the satisfaction of our purposes which compel us to accept or reject the various claims to truth which are made by fact and theory alike.^{3} The acquisition of human knowledge, according to the pragmatist, always takes the same form. If we are to live, our needs must be satisfied; hence, in order to satisfy our needs we strive to modify the environment in which we find ourselves. This environment consists of sense-experience, and may be modified in two ways, by action and by thought. The 'matter' of sense experience is characterised by 'a plastic receptivity,' and upon it thought seeks to impose its own forms, which again may themselves be modified by the reactions of sense-experience which, as at present constituted, is not wholly formless, but has already accepted forms imposed upon it by our ancestors. Thus postulation and experiment characterise all human cognition, for in it we demand that experience shall conform to our pre-conceived ideas, which by experiment we strive to realise in the concrete. "Not having a ready-made world presented to us which we can suck in with a passive receptivity," says Dr. Schiller, "we have to make experiments in order to construct out of the materials we start with a harmonious cosmos which will satisfy all our desires."^{4} These experiments are made under the control of postulates in which anticipated results are expressed. But before a postulate is verified we have to experiment again and again, and often enough the postulate gets considerably modified in the process. Postulation as expressive of our needs, and as verified in the concrete by experiments the results of which satisfy these needs, is, for the pragmatist, the universal form of human cognition. There is no other way of acquiring knowledge except by postulating what our needs demand, and no other way of verifying these postulates except by experiments in the concrete, the efiects of which are to be judged according to their power to satisfy our needs. Postulation is 'universal' and 'necessary;'^{5} it constitutes "the nisus formativus of our whole mental life."^{6}

§ 84. Postulation is a principle which all pragmatists admit, though not all are so enthusiastic about it as is Dr. Schiller. "We strive by our efforts to give expression to the ideal postulates of human nature," says M. Blondel. "La Connaissance ne va dans le sens de la vérité qu'en devenant un appel l'action et en recueillant la réponse de l'action." Postulation, indeed, is admitted in some form or other by almost all philosophers. Positivism, for example, while denying the possibility of Metaphysics, acknowledges the validity of science, and hence concludes in the person of Mr. Spencer that "there must be some principle which, as being the basis of science, cannot be established by science. All reasoned conclusions must rest on some postulate,"^{7} some widest truth which can be merged in no other, and derived from no other, but which, nevertheless, according to Mr. Spencer, will not be self-evident.

This kind of postulation, however, is more akin to that of Kant than to the pragmatist's. It is used only as a last resource and in regard to an object -- in Mr. Spencer's case 'the persistence of force' -- which "transcends our knowledge and conception," so that we cannot be said to know, but only to postulate it. Kant also admits postulation only where knowledge fails. The pragmatist, on the other hand, argues somewhat^{8} that "the principle, if valid, must be generalised and applied all round to the organising principles of life."^{9} This is the chief difference between pragmatic and Kantian postulation; but there are others, and since Pragmatism claims to be the antithesis of Kantian Apriorism^{10} upon which Absolutism is largely based, a closer comparison between the two theories in regard to postulation will be instructive.

§ 85. As Absolutism may be regarded as a development of the first and third Critiques, so Pragmatism may in some sense be regarded as a development of the second. Yet neither is strictly a Kantian theory, for the Critiques of Kant go together to form one whole and cannot be thus separated without destroying their meaning. To adopt the first and reject the second, as Fichte did, or to adopt the second and reject the first as does the pragmatist, is to take up a position essentially different from that of Kant; and it is only Kant's definition of Criticism as an examination of the presuppositions of knowledge rather than of the presuppositions of faith, that gives the monistic interpreters of Kant a better claim than the pragmatists to be styled Critical philosophers.

Pragmatism, however, does not claim to be a development of Critical Philosophy, nor does the pragmatist always acknowledge his debt to Kant. On the contrary, Professor James scoffs at the mind of the famous author of the Kritik der reinen Vernunft as "the rarest and most intricate of ancient bric-a-brac museums," and complains that Kant "has bequeathed to us not one single conception which is both indispensable to philosophy, and which philosophy either did not possess before, or was not destined inevitably to acquire after him, through the growth of men's reflection upon the hypothesis by which science interprets nature."^{11} Doubtless the latter part of this statement is true, since it is quite conceivable that had not Kant introduced the Copernican revolution into philosophy, it might have been introduced later on by a James or a Schiller. But this is a mere platitude which is equally true of all philosophic conceptions; and the fact remains that many peculiarly pragmatic notions can be traced back to Kant. I do not say that such notions have been deliberately borrowed from Kant; but, since pragmatists are not unfamiliar with Kantian writings, and since in their own Kantian ideas reappear, it is but natural to conclude that, consciously or unconsciously, Pragmatism has been influenced by the mind of that great thinker for which it professes little but contempt. In any case, contemptuous remarks such as these I have just quoted are peculiarly out of place en coming from the pen of a writer whose theory of the soul as a series of thoughts which are born owners and die owned, was forestalled by the Kantian metaphor of elastic balls which are conscious of their own motion and transmit both the motion and the consciousness to other balls in succession till the last ball holds all that the others ever held and realised as their own.^{12}

§ 86. Ideas which have reappeared in Pragmatism are to be found even in the first Critique. It was as a postulate that Kant assumed that in knowledge the object conforms to the mind; and it was according to its working that he asked that this postulate should be judged. The pragmatist makes a similar assumption, though for him the object conforms not to a priori forms inherent in the structure of mind, but to more plastic postulates constructed gradually under the influence of needs. Again, there is an affinity between the methodological postulates of Pragmatism and "the Regulative Principles of Pure Reason." Methodological postulates -- such as that of the 'complete plasticity of the world of experience'^{13} -- are made for the sake of a theory which we would like to be true universally; but as we cannot prove this theory, the function of the postulate is merely regulative. Similarly, "the Regulative Principles of Pure Reason," such, for instance, as the demand that we should think totality present in the object, is not a constitutive principle, but something which our needs force us to postulate, and which guides us in the search for knowledge.

It is, however, not until we come to the second Critique that postulation proper is introduced. The attitude of the Practical Reason is essentially different from, though it is the complement of, that of the Pure Reason; and it is this difference of attitude which makes it possible to regard both Pragmatism and Absolutism as one-sided developments of Criticism. The two Critiques are parallel only in so far as in each reason lays down the laws to which phenomena are to conform. For, while in the first the conformity of the data of experience to the a priori element is a condition of the possibility of knowledge; in the second the material element, hedonistic impulses, not only does not de facto conform to the Autonomy of Reason, but is often in marked opposition thereto -- a fact which reminds one of the 'resisting something' in overcoming which, according to Dr. Schiller, intelligence displays itself.^{14} So far, however, the principle or law which we seek to impose upon nature, though it expresses human needs, is not strictly a postulate, but an intuitive moral dictate or 'a categorical imperative.' It is the attempt to realise in practice the dictates of our moral nature, which, owing to the opposition of sense, gives rise, according to Kant, to the need of postulation. The moral ideal, implicit within us, must somehow or other be realised: our rational nature demands it. In order, therefore, that this realisation may be possible in spite of sense, we postulate 'freedom;' and since its accomplishment will require an indefinite time, we postulate 'immortality;' while for the final reconciliation of virtue and happiness and the complete realisation of the highest good, we postulate God.

§ 87. Thus the ideas most closely connected with the pragmatic doctrine of postulation, human needs, human postulates and even human experiments are to be found in the philosophy of Kant. On the other hand, it must be admitted that there is an all-important difference between the Kantian and the pragmatic conception of postulation. Kant's postulates are a last resource aroused by the conflict of reason with our lower nature, and are restricted to three transcendental objects. They are also incapable of verification, at least in this life, because knowledge of these objects is impossible, there being no perceptions in which, as Professor James would put it, such knowledge can 'terminate.' In Pragmatism, on the contrary, postulation is universal. It is characteristic not only of our belief in a moral Ideal, but of all thought and all cognition without exception. Kantian postulation does not claim to give knowledge but only faith; whereas by pragmatic postulation it is asserted that we get the only kind of knowledge possible to man.

The validity of a postulate for the pragmatist, as for Kant, depends ultimately upon its power to satisfy human needs, and for neither can that validity ever be completely established. The Kantian postulate never gives more than faith; and though the satisfactions which ensue from some pragmatic postulates may be both acute and lasting, no postulate is absolute, none completely verified even the most stable and the most permanent that have as yet made their appearance are subject to modification and, it may be, to radical change. This being the case, we may well ask what right the pragmatist has to generalise a principle so uncertain in its results. Why does he regard as universal what Kant restricted to faith? What reason has he for affirming that postulation, which for introspection is not the only source of knowledge, is yet the type to which all knowing must and does de facto conform.

§ 88. I can find no definite answer to this question in pragmatic writings; but the real answer would seem to be this, that from whatever point of view Pragmatism is approached, whether it be regarded (1) as a protest against 'pure ' intellect which minimises the volitional and emotional side of our nature, or (2) as a return to the methods of science, or again, (3) as "an epistemological method which really describes the facts of actual knowing," it will lead us sooner or later to the Principle of Postulation which stands out clearly as its central doctrine, no matter from what aspect we regard it.

Thus, a 'tender-minded person,' if pragmatically inclined, would probably start from the conviction that the emotional and volitional tendencies of our nature must somehow or other be satisfied, and that what human needs force us to postulate must in the end be realised. A study of Peirce may then persuade him or her that the function of thought is simply to produce belief resulting in action, which action, if satisfactory, tends to strengthen, and if unsatisfactory, to destroy, the belief by which it was prompted. Finally, convinced that all thought is purposive, more or less emotional, and accompanied by conative strivings, he will proceed to apply the principle thus obtained to all our cognitive processes.

A 'tough-minded' person, on the other hand, will be more inclined to take a 'scientific' view of the matter. Fascinated by the apparent security of Physical Science, a belief in which a shallow knowledge of that science is apt to engender, he will seek to apply its method everywhere, even to metaphysics, as did the illustrious Kant; and, proceeding on these lines, will try to reform, or rather to revolutionise, metaphysics, simply by basing it on science, a procedure which, by the way, was already suggested by Dr. Schiller in his pre-pragmatic Riddles.^{15} Now the physicist, as a rule, makes use of what has been called 'the Inductive Method,' in which, starting from some provisional hypothesis, he seeks to verify this by observation and experiment. Since, then, argues the would-be pragmatist, this method of science has worked so well, and has proved itself so useful, so satisfactory and so reliable, what need is there of any further and less satisfactory method? Why not be content with one? And, lastly, turning from the future to the past, he looks back on the methods that have been used, and finds, as he expected, that in so far as knowledge has been attained, all of them conform to the one type of postulation and verification via experiment.

But some pragmatists claim to be more psychological, and tell us that they discover in even the simplest cognitive act the form of postulation. All knowledge comes by experience, and experience implies -- we are getting less psychological and more critical now -- (1) an experimenter, (2) a hypothesis which he doubts and wishes to verify, and (3) the verification-process.^{16} This verification-process involves action on our part and reaction on the part of experience; and the possibility of verification implies that objects always react in the same way, provided we experiment in the same way. Since, therefore, postulation is involved in even the simplest act of cognition, a fortiori it is involved in more complex acts which are built up of others more simple. Hence postulation occurs in every cognitive act, and is the universal form of all cognition.

§ 89. I am inclined to think that Professor James arrived at the doctrine of Postulation by the first process, and Dr. Schiller by the second; while the third would seem to be an after-thought, in which the theory itself has suggested what claims to be the result of psychological analysis, and not the analysis the theory. On the other hand, it is by the third process alone that the doctrine of Postulation in its universality can be logically established. The appeal to emotional needs and to the general purposiveness of thought fails to validate universal postulation, because, granted that all thought is purposive and that all truth must satisfy our needs, it does not follow that the only way of acquiring truth is by means of postulation and experiment. For, in the first place, all that our needs demand is satisfaction, and so long as satisfaction is obtained, it does not matter, so far as our needs are concerned, by what means it is obtained. And secondly, postulation and experiment of themselves are insufficient to account for the satisfaction of cognitive needs. In order to frame a postulate we need some data to go upon. The need which seeks satisfaction cannot itself suggest the means to attain it: it can only guide us in choosing between hypotheses which have been suggested by objective facts, and these must somehow be known. Again, as all allow, it is the reaction of our environment which ultimately verifies or negatives a postulate, and so satisfies or fails to satisfy our needs. And this implies that we perceive reactions and apprehend their significance, which is, of itself, so much knowledge acquired, but is not postulation.

The second process by which postulation is reached is equally invalid, if offered as a proof. All that a study of the methods of science can do is to suggest universal postulation as a hypothesis. To infer that postulation and experiment are used in all branches of knowledge, because de facto they are used in one, would obviously be an illicit induction.

§ 90. The psychological, then, is the only argument which can afford us a valid proof that all knowledge comes by way of postulation and experiment. But is it an introspective datum of experience that all knowledge does come by way of postulation and experiment? I think not. Indeed, it would be strange if it were, for neither Professor Wundt nor any of our most eminent psychologists have noted the fact, nor does it find mention even in the Principles of Psychology. To introspection but few of our cognitive acts partake of the nature of postulation. The facts which we observe and which constitute so large a portion -- some would say all -- of our knowledge, are not known as verified postulates, but rather seem to be given. This is true in general of all facts, even of those which are used in Science and elsewhere to verify postulates or to test the validity of theories. It is the hypothesis and the theory which are postulates, not the facts.

Axioms, again, as even Dr. Schiller himself admits, appear to be immediate judgments, and seem, as it were, to compel our assent to their truth. We may explain axioms pragmatically, and affirm that it is our need of them which in reality compels us to assent to their truth, because without them we could not think consistently at all. This, however, is not an introspective fact, but a theory, and quite as much a theory as that which explains axioms as due to the manifestation of the nature of reality to our minds in the act of apprehension or thought. Axioms appear to be self-evident, and there is no trace in our experience of any process of experiment by which we seek to verify them. Put this down to heredity, if you like; but then, as before, you are theorising, and the fact remains that as soon as we grasp the meaning of an axiom we at once assent to its truth. Ask any lad of thirteen whether fire can be hot and at the same time not be hot. Then ask him in more general terms whether anything can be hot and at the same time not be hot. And finally, becoming more abstract still, enquire of him whether anything can be and yet not be whatever it is at one and the self-same time. The result of such an experiment can hardly be doubted. In every case the boy will answer, No; and if you ask him why he accepts with so little hesitation the Principle of Non-Contradiction, he will probably tell you it is obvious (i.e., self-evident). 'Of course things cannot have a quality and at the same time not have that quality.'^{17}

Thus, facts and axioms obstinately withstand all efforts to generalise the doctrine of Postulation and to these we might add all deductive reasoning and almost all mathematical methods and truths. It must be admitted, therefore, that so far as the data of experience are concerned, psychologists are justified in omitting to mention the postulatory character of all human cognition; and logicians, too, are justified in not setting postulation down as the one process by which we may arrive at knowledge and truth. The pragmatist who affirms the contrary, must affirm it on theoretical grounds, for he can hardly hope to prove his point by introspection alone.

§ 91. Various attempts have been made to get rid of the difficulty arising from facts and axioms; notably two. Professor Dewey, in an article entitled 'The Experimental Theory of Knowledge,'^{19} endeavours to get rid of the difficulty in regard to facts by denyiug that, strictly speaking, facts can be called knowledge at all; while Dr. Schiller's now famous 'Axioms as Postulates' is an attempt to do the same for Axioms by the simple method of considerably antedating the period of their birth.

Professor Dewey makes a distinction between (1) experience which is mere experience and in no sense knowledge, (2) experience which is cognitive only to the outside observer or in reflection, and (3) experience which is properly cognitional. These three kinds of experience he illustrates by a single example -- our experience of the odour of a rose. In experiences of the 'mere experience' type there appears in consciousness first of all 'just a floating odour, nothing more.' That is succeeded by action; and finally by the smelling and enjoying of the rose. Here we have a series of three experiences, smell -- felt-movement -- gratification; but no knowledge whatsoever, not even of the acquaintance-type, is involved. If, however, we suppose the original smell to persist, and to be still there in consciousness when gratification arrives, the smell now appears under a new form; it is "represented with a quality, an office, that of having excited activity and thereby having terminated its career in a certain quale of gratification."

Here [says Professor Dewey] we have a cognitive, but not a cognitional thing. In saying that the smell is finally experienced as meaning gratification (through intervening handling, seeing, etc.), and meaning it not in a hapless way, but in a fashion which operates to effect what is meant, we retrospectively attribute intellectual force and function to the smell -- and this is what is signified by 'cognitive.' Yet the smell is not cognitional, because it did not knowingly intend to mean this; but is found after tbe event to have meant it.^{19}

For knowledge proper something more is required. This is obtained when the smell recurs again not as the original smell (the floating odour), nor yet as the smell plus gratification, but as a smell which is "fated or charged with the sense of the possibility of a fulfilment" like to the first. In this latter case and in this alone, is experience cognitional, for now for the first time is the smell "contemporaneously aware that it means something beyond itself." What it means is not indeed a rose in general, but simply another experience, viz., the gratification which it intends to effect by means of an operation on our part to which it incites us; but it means it intentionally and not merely to the outside observer or in retrospection. In brief "The odour knows the rose; the rose is known by the odour; and the import of each term is constituted by the relationship in which it stands to the other."^{20}

Generalising from the last case, Professor Dewey obtains his definition of knowledge. Having pointed out that both the thing meaning (the odour) and the thing meant (the rose) are present in consciousness, though not in the same way; one, in fact, being "present as-not-present-in-the-same-way-as-the-other-is," yet present as "something to be rendered present in the same way through the intervention of an operation," he sums up in the following definition

An experience is a knowledge, if in its quale there is an experienced distinction and connection of the two elements of tbe following sort: one means or intends the presence of the other in the same fashion in which itself is already present, while the other is that which, while not present in the same fashion, must become so present if the meaning or intention of its companion or yoke-fellow is to be fulfilled through an operation it sets up.^{21}

It is not I, be it noted, who call the above a 'definition' of knowledge, but Professor Dewey; and complicated as that definition is, it applies only to the simpler kind of knowledge, viz., to knowledge of the acquaintance-type. There is a form of knowledge more complex still. Sometimes intended fulfilments will be realised, sometimes not; and since we may reflect upon the relations of 'meaning' to the fulfilments and disappointments which may have resulted in the past, we have also knowledge of a reflective, critical, or scientific type.^{22} Fortunately, however, Professor Dewey has not attempted to define this; and it is with the first type rather than the second that we are now concerned.

§ 92. 'The Experimental Theory of Knowledge,' as explained by Professor Dewey, opens up many problems. Is it, for instance, the smell that knows the rose, or is it I who know the rose by means of its smell? Can the smell be regarded as a 'thing' having an intellectual function, or does not this function again belong rather to my mind? Are these and similar strange-sounding expressions due merely to Professor Dewey's desire to be original and emphatic, or have they a metaphysical significance which implies in the background Radical Empiricism and the Philosophy of Pure Experience?

The discussion of these questions must be postponed to a later chapter. What at present we wish to find out is whether Professor Dewey has succeeded in establishing the doctrine of universal Postulation. This will depend, of course, upon whether he is justified in restricting knowledge to experiences which intend the presence of other objects, in the same way in which they themselves are present through the intervention of action, and which are contemporaneously aware of this their intention. For if, as is asserted, knowledge belongs to these experiences alone, clearly all knowledge begins as a postulate, in the form of an anticipated fulfilment which may or may not be realised when action has intervened. The 'Experimental' and what we may call the 'Postulatory' Theory of Knowledge are, I take it, one and the same thing.

Professor Dewey's argument practically amounts to this, that we have only knowledge when we have actual remembrance of a past event accompanied by the anticipation of some other event with which it has been connected in the past. Now, in reflection, which presupposes memory, knowledge certainly becomes fuller, more adequate, and more systematic but knowledge as we ordinarily understand that term is not restricted to remembrance, still less to actual or conscious remembrance, nor does it necessarily imply anticipation.

In the first place, if you restrict knowledge to experiences in which we have actual remembrance, you exclude at once all knowledge per modum habitus. We know nothing but what is actually present somehow or other in consciousness. Consequently, the scientist knows nothing about the laws which govern the phenomenal world, and the mathematician nothing about the theory of number, except when he is actually thinking of such subjects. This is a strange conclusion, yet it follows from the premises that we know only in so far as ideas function consciously in memory.

§ 93. Let us suppose, however, that Professor Dewey is speaking of actual knowledge, and that he admits as its condition knowledge per modum habitus. The question, then, is whether actual knowledge can be restricted to thought about absent objects, or to the memory of past events. Now, first of all, we think about present as well as about absent objects, and I see no reason why this thinking should not be called cognitional; and, secondly, if memory can be called knowledge, I do not see why the acts by which memory is built up should not be called knowledge, too. Doubtless, mere feelings and sensations, as such, do not constitute knowledge; but then there is something else in perception besides sensation or feeling, namely, thought. When a man goes hunting or botanising, he usually thinks about what he is doing, and so may learn something of the characteristics of horses and dogs and flowers; and this may happen even if, when he set out, he did not do so with the intention of making any systematic observations; for objects, when they present themselves, secure our attention and cause us to think about them quite accidentally, as it were, and without necessarily having any connection with our present purpose or with what for the moment occupies our thoughts. We undoubtedly do think about objects which are present to the senses, and it seems to me quite arbitrary to say that these thoughts do not partake of the nature of knowledge, simply because what we think about, or part of it at least, happens to be there given in the objects before us. Indeed, I can find only one reason for Professor Dewey's denial that what we learn about things from direct observations becomes knowledge only when we reflect upon it; and that is, that if he admitted such knowledge, he would have to admit that some knowledge at any rate does not come by way of postulation and experiment. Memory is necessary if knowledge is to be of any future use, and if it is to become in any way systematic, but this is quite a different thing from asserting that knowledge exists only in actual remembrance.

§ 94. The inclusion of anticipation as one of the essential characteristics of knowledge clearly restricts the latter further still; yet anticipation, in Professor Dewey's opinion, would appear to be a characteristic of even greater importance than memory. Why this is so, again, it is not easy to understand, unless it be that it is necessary to establish 'the Experimental Theory of Knowledge.' There are innumerable things which ordinarily we say that we know, but of which we have never had direct experience, and probably never shall. I know, for instance, that the arrangement of the streets in Brooklyn is more regular than that of our London streets, yet I have not the slightest anticipation of going to Brooklyn to see those streets for myself. When I walk through the streets of London and they remind me by contrast of what I have heard about Brooklyn, my present experience does not 'intend' another experience which is at all likely to be there in my consciousness in the same way in which it is there. Again, if I detect an escape of gas, and think of some flaw in the gaspipes, I do not think of that flaw as 'going to be present in the same fashion as the smell of the gas is present,' for I may be quite content to leave the examination of the pipes to the gas-fitter. Of course, if what we know is an existing sensible object, there is always the abstract possibility of a future experience in which we may actually perceive it. But, then, many things about which we have knowledge are not existing sensible objects, but things of the past, or rational systems and arrangements, physical, social, political; and of these, as such, we can have no direct experience, but can think only in the abstract. Even when the object of knowledge does happen to belong to the existing sensible order, it is hardly necessary that we should be obliged to contemplate the possibility of experiencing it in order to know it; still less is it necessary that 'the thing meaning' should incite us to movements for the purpose of realising the 'thing meant.' Everybody has anticipations and ideals which he strives to realise in the concrete; but that knowledge should be restricted to such anticipations and ideals is an arbitrary distortion of the use of the term 'knowledge,' which is without the slightest foundation in fact.

Professor Dewey's Experimental Theory of Knowledge doubtless describes (though it does not explain) the characteristics of some cases of actual cognition. But to generalise from such cases to all cases is illicit, especially when the testimony of experience and of common-sense is against such a generalisation. That Professor Dewey is straining the term knowledge so as to make it harmonise with his preconceived theory is shown by the fact that while declaring that knowledge does not exist till we have 'acquaintance,' he admits that in acquaintance there is 'a little friendliness,' 'a trace of re-knowing.'^{23} It is a pity that the pragmatist should be so bent upon establishing the universally purposive, postulatory and experimental character of all knowledge, that he should have changed the conventional use of a familiar word in order to force the data of experience into seeming harmony with his theory; yet such appears to be the case.

§ 95. Dr. Schiller's attempt to make axioms conform to the general doctrine that all knowledge comes through postulation and experiment must now be considered. The apparent self-evidence of axioms Dr. Schiller grants, but attributes it, not to the clearness with which the nature of the objects concerned presents itself to our minds, but to a long-established habit of the race. Certain principles have been used so long, and have proved themselves so useful and so satisfactory in regard to human needs, that belief in them has become with us a second instinct. Yet all axioms have a history, and all alike began as postulates; though in some cases their origin as postulates dates back to pre-historic days when the human (?) mind had not yet fully emerged from 'the sentient level of consciousness.' So long ago, indeed, is it since certain of our principles were first postulated, that we have forgotten their postulatory origin, and have come to think of them as if they were axiomatic. This error on our part is due to the extreme usefulness of these principles in practical life. Axioms as postulates did their work so well, and attempts to impose them on the universe were so seldom resisted, that man has come by force of habit to regard them as immutable and necessary laws, and upon them by tacit mutual consent has been bestowed the honorific name of axioms. Yet, if the truth were told, the tendency to think in these so-called axiomatic forms has been handed down by heredity, uch in the same way as tendencies to consumption, drunkenness and imbecility, except that in the first case the tendency has become permanent and universal on account of its utility, while in the second on account of its inutility it is as yet restricted to the few.

Dr. Schiller has kindly sketched for us in brief outline the possible history of several of our more important 'axioms.' Such histories, of course, do not pretend to be a true account of what really occurred; but are rather to be taken as allegories, the purpose of which is to show that axioms could have begun life as postulates, and yet in process of time have acquired an axiomatic character.

§ 96. The origin of the principle of Identity is the case upon which Dr. Schiller bestows the greatest care, and it is quite possible, we might even, I think, say probable, that the principle of Identity, as he defines it, did begin life as a postulate which human experience has verified so completely that we are now convinced of its truth. Indeed, so easy is it to verify in experience Dr. Schiller's principle of Identity that it seems to be quite unnecessary to assign it an origin beyond the life of the individual. True, in a pre-historic age Edwin may have postulated that Angelina of the winter furs was the same as Angelina of the fig-leaves, in spite of the increase of clothing; but so do we all discover that 'things remain the same' day after day, in spite of changes in circumstance and accidental qualities. There is no need to call in heredity to explain our belief in 'permanence amid change,' for this principle is so obviously the only interpretation that can be put upon events, that for each of us individually the evidence is sufficient to convince us of its truth. Heredity is only an encumbrance, and gets us at once into difficulties. For it has never been shown that thoughts or ways of thinking can be transmitted by heredity, except in so far as concerns the cerebral dispositions which subserve them as conditions; and these dispositions can hardly suffice to account for the transmission of axioms, since they do not explain how it is that we come to apprehend the meaning of an axiom at all.

Dr. Schiller's argument for the alleged transition of the principle of Identity from a postulatory to an axiomatic stage of existence, is quite beside the point, for the principle whose history he traces is not the principle of Identity which logicians claim to be axiomatic, but quite another principle which he has substituted in its place. Dr. Schiller's definition agrees with that given in Mr. Welton's Logic, and runs as follows: -- "When we say that A is A, we mean that a thing remains itself even amid change, and that a common nature is manifested in different individuals."^{24} Thus the principle of Identity, A is A, is interpreted to mean 'the persistence of identity through change,' while the complementary principle of Contradiction is transformed into the assertion that "a thing must be capable of excluding whatever threatens (the persistence of) its identity (through change)."^{25} But surely no logician of standing has ever claimed self-evidence for assertions such as these. The logical and self-evident principle of Identity is never so enunciated, but affirms merely that "Whatever is, is," or that " A thing is identical with its own nature," no reference whatever being made to the possibility of change. Things may change or cease to be; the principle of Identity merely states that so long as they exist they are what they are.

§ 97. But lest it be now objected that we have saved the self-evidence of the principle, by making tautological, and, for my own part, I have always regarded the 'Identity' formula as simply another way, and not a very lucid way, of putting the principle of Contradiction -- let us consider the latter principle. The law of Contradiction, whose mythical history Dr. Schiller has sketched, is, again, not the logical principle of Contradiction, but a creation of his own. The logical principle makes no assertion about the power of things to resist a partial or total transformation. It merely states "contradictions are incompatible," or that that "so long as a thing exists it cannot at the same time not exist, or that, so long as it possesses a certain attribute, to deny that it has that attribute is false." It is difficult to conceive of a principle such as this starting as a postulate to be verified in experience ; nor can I imagine any inductive process by which such verification could have been obtained. On the contrary, the truth of the principle of Contradiction is presupposed by the possibility of intelligent thought; for to affirm that S may be P, and at the same time not be P (both terms being used in the same sense in each judgment) is for thought impossible, and would render predication meaningless. As soon as we begin to think at all we express our thoughts in terms of 'being' and 'not-being,' 'is' and 'isn't,' which we cannot but recognise as mutually exclusive.

In his history of the pseudo-principles of Identity and Contradiction, Dr. Schiller has, I fear, been guilty of an ignoratio elenchi, and it still remains for him to show how the real principles of Identity and Contradiction which are presupposed and implicitly recognised as true in the very act of postulation itself, can themselves be merely 'full-blown' postulates.

§ 98. Belief in an external world is more axiomatic, for, at any rate by the realist, the existence of such a world is admitted as a self-evident truth. Dr. Schiller's account of the origin of this belief, however, does not seem to throw much light upon its nature, or in any way to prove that it was originally only a postulate. 'Grumps,' a kind of amoeba, so it would appear, gets outside a jagged flint, and, finding that it hurts, postulates that it is 'external' to himself. Now such a postulate, like all other verified postulates, ought to be extremely useful. But it is by no means clear what possible use it could have been to 'Grumps' to postulate that the offensive flint was 'external' to himself, for ex hypothesi he did not know what 'external' meant. Where did this notion of 'externality' come from, and why did not 'Grumps' apply it to his stomach-aches and his other pains, which must have hurt him quite as much as the flint? Dr. Schiller's account of the origin of the notion of 'externality' is extremely vague and inconsistent, for in the example he has chosen, the flint de facto was not external at all. This is unfortunate, for had Dr. Schiller's account been more carefully worked out we might have been able to discuss with him the origin of a real axiom.

One statement, however, Dr. Schiller does make, not once, but repeatedly, in regard to the origin of our belief in an external world.

The pragmatically real world [he says] is not an original datum of our experience at all, but an elaborate construction, made by man, individually and socially, by a purposive selection of the more efficacious, and a rejection of the less efficacious portions of a 'primary reality' which seems chaotic to begin with, but contains a great deal more than the "external world" extracted from it.^{26}

Proof of this statement there is none; and about this most interesting evolutionary miracle Dr. Schiller can tell us nothing except that it is 'obscure.' The whole doctrine, in fact, is merely an assumption, or rather an inference drawn from an assumption, viz., from the fundamental tenet of Pragmatism that all truth and all reality (or at any rate all our knowledge of reality) comes by way of postulation and experiment, in which the 'true' and the 'real' are gradually separated from the 'false' and the 'unreal' on account of their greater utility. We begin life with 'primary reality,' which 'includes imaginings, illusions, errors, hallucinations,' and which is 'anterior to the distinction of appearance and reality;' and out of this 'meaningless chaos' real fact is made!^{27} Surely it would be difficult to find a more gratuitous assumption or a more useless hypothesis, even in Absolutism. How do we know that an infant's experience is chaotic, and that utility is the magic talisman by means of which he sets it right? Doubtless an infant's experience is very different from ours, and doubtless also he does not begin life with a full-fledged concept of the real world or of the self. But to affirm that the distinction of self and not-self, internal and external, is an evolutionary product, due to the supposed fact that the infant or the savage appreciates its utility, is just as much an assumption as to affirm that it is an intuitive judgment which is made as soon as thought appears upon the horizon of the infant's human mind. But the realist's assumption has this in its favour, that it is not only more rational, but also more 'useful' than that of his rival.

It is more rational because it is based on fact, whereas the pragmatist's assumption is based on theory. For it is a fact that in adult life, as a rule, we intuitively distinguish what is real from what is unreal. Dr. Schiller, of course, denies this; for he, too, has endeavoured to bring 'fact' within the all-embracing sphere of postulation. But without avail. For though we may hesitate to accept the statement of another in regard to fact, especially if the alleged fact be extraordinary (e.g., a flying visit to the North Pole), and occasionally may doubt the objective reality of our own experiences, ordinarily we accept them as real on the spot, without experiment or verification. If I see some swans on the Serpentine I do not need to handle them or to throw stones at them in order to convince myself of their real existence. Nor if I visit a friend's rooms do I need to sit on all his chairs in order to prove that are really chairs, as Dr. Schiller suggests.^{29} On the contrary, sometimes "the empirical nature of reality is such that we can argue from one case to a similar one, which we take to be the same, with absolute assurance a priori"^{29} (i.e., without any active interference on our part); and in almost every case we are at any rate certain 'a priori' that the something we perceive is external and real. The facts of actual knowing, therefore, are against Dr. Schiller; the recognition of external reality is at present immediate; and hence, if it is legitimate to argue from present to past, as Dr. Schiller does,^{30} we must confess that it has always been immediate.

Secondly, the realist's assumption is more 'useful' than that of the pragmatist. If with the dawn of intelligence the child is able to distinguish the real from the unreal, and the external from the internal, even if it be only in a single case, he has at any rate a notion of reality and of 'inside' and 'outside' upon which to base future judgments, and so to 'build up' his 'body' and 'the external world.' But if he were not blessed with this intuitive insight into the nature of things, elementary and inadequate as it is, he could never get to know reality at all. Utility could not help him, for unless the facts of his pure, but chaotic, experience differed radically from one another and fell into two sets, he would not know which to call useful and which not. While, if they did differ thus radically from the outset, why should he not call them real at once ? Nay, further, if he had not already had experience of 'reality' and known it as such, a 'claim to reality'for him would have no meaning. Hence, no matter how useful it might be, he would never be able to think of it as real.^{31}

§ 99. When it comes to a question of origin, then the pragmatic theory breaks down. 'Reality'^{32} cannot be a postulate in the first instance, nor are our other axioms such. Our needs may prompt us to postulate, but they are too vague and indefinite even now to suggest the form which our postulates must take, and in the beginning of things must have been still more vague and indefinite. Nor could postulates have been suggested by things, for (1) ex hypothesi it is we who have to set the ball rolling by imposing forms on them, and (2) with their minimum of form and structure they would, in any case have very little to suggest, and (3) if the start did come from them we should have knowledge of a kind before we began to postulate, and thus it would not be true to say that all knowledge comes via postulation and experiment. In fact, if all knowledge, even to the most rigid of our facts and to the most ultimate of our axioms, did begin as a postulate it could never have begun at all! For postulation -- and this Dr. Schiller admits -- 'presupposes a mind which has had some prior experience and possesses some knowledge already.' "It needs a 'platform' from which to operate further on a situation which confronts it, in order to realise some purpose or to satisfy some interest."^{33} As an explanation of how we subsume new things under old categories, and new events under old laws, the pragmatic theory is satisfactory enough; but it is entirely at a loss to explain how these categories and laws, these 'initial principles' and this 'prior basis of fact,' originated in the first instance.^{34} Doubtless this difficulty confronts alike all theories of knowledge,^{35} but other theories of knowledge have at least attempted to solve it, and the a priori solution of Kant is at any rate better than rough guesses, and still more satisfactory than the cry of 'sour grapes' upon which Dr. Schiller at length falls back. For, surely, if the Pragmatic Method does imply 'a truth and a reality which it does not make,' it is irrational not to 'conceive them as valuable,' or to "conceive them only as indicating limits to our explanations, and not as revealing the solid foundations upon which they rest." In this initial reality and this initial truth it is admitted that all human knowledge began, from it that all human truth has developed and been made. Hence, the value of these archai must be inestimably great, so great, indeed, that it is surprising they have not crystallised into axioms and so perpetuated themselves.

Nor is this question of ultimate origin merely an idle speculation about the beginnings of knowledge in the race. It applies also to the individual, whose mind, active as it may be, and predisposed by its ancestors to certain forms of thought (or rather associations and reactions), none the less begins life as a blank. This mind also needs a platform of fact from which to start, and suggestions of truth out of which to form the claims upon which it is first to exercise its experimental genius. And these archai certainly cannot come from postulation and experiment, which ex hypothesi have not yet begun. Where, then, do they come from? There would seem to be but two alternatives. Either Apriorism or Aristotelianism. Either the ideas by which we represent reality and the relations which we posit as holding between them are, in the first instance, derived from the nature of our minds, or they are suggested by reality to a mind that is capable of taking the hint.

The pragmatist, though he feels the impossibility of his present position, has not quite made up his mind which of these alternatives to choose. Professor James inclines to the former view, and speaks of "great systems of logical and mathematical truths under the respective terms of which the sensible parts of experience eventually arrange themselves, and which are already true in advance of special verification if we have subsumed our objects rightly."^{36} That there is within our minds "a ready-made framework for all sorts of possible objects follows from the very structure of our thinking." Dr. Schiller, on the other hand, to judge from his unconcealed dislike of all things mysterious and a priori, would prefer, if a choice must be made, the other alternative. In not a few of Dr. Schiller's theories one can discern an unmistakable undercurrent of Aristotelianism. His theory of 'matter and form,' for instance, and again his theory of 'activity and substance,' has clearly been derived from a study of Aristotle, though his text seems to have suffered from interpolations. And in regard to this very point at present in question he remarks that though "the connection of events which all assume is never a fact of observation," yet to the primitive mind such principles as those we have been discussing "may possibly be suggested by the regularity of phenomena."^{37} But if they can be suggested by phenomena, then phenomena must in some way reveal themselves to our intellect; and since 'regularity' is a relation, relations between phenomena must also reveal themselves. And, if we grant so much, why not go further and say that knowledge presupposes our power to apprehend the nature and relations of the objects that we know, and that, having apprehended the relation between two objects, we at once recognise that the same relation must hold wherever there are given similarly constituted objects. Thus we should have 'universal' ideas, objectively valid, and yet allowing ample room for postulation, since it would still be necessary to subsume new cases under the old ideas; and often enough recognition and identification is impossible without examination and experiment.

§ 100 Dr. Schiller, then, has failed to establish the postulatory character of axioms, and Professor Dewey has failed to show that it is incorrect to talk of knowing facts. The Postulatory or Experimental Theory of Knowledge describes accurately enough a certain class of cognitive processes; but it is a failure if we try to make it universal, and affirm that postulation and experiment is the only process by which knowledge is acquired, to the exclusion of comparatively passive observation and intellectual apprehension or intuition. Sometimes we apprehend at once the nature of the object which is presented, its colour, size, shape, form and other properties, all of which we recognise may belong in like manner to other objects. At other times we hesitate. We apprehend some qualities only, while for the identification of others, actual handling and purposive experiment must intervene. Especially is this the case when we are dealing with comparatively complex objects, which are known to have many properties but do not seem to manifest them all at once. Could we subsume the object under a general idea, the predication of its properties would follow from previous knowledge; but often enough presented data are insufficient to admit of immediate and certain subsumption, and it is then we have recourse to postulation. We subsume provisionally, tentatively, and then experiment in order to discover whether properties are really there which ought to he there if our subsumption has been correct. In the sphere of theory and scientific hypothesis postulation and experiment are still more useful. Sometimes we wish to subsume a fact and proceed in much the same way as I have just described. At other times it is a law which we wish to verify, a law which we have found to hold in a given case, but do not know precisely why, because we do not know upon what properties in the concrete thing the law depends. This being so, we postulate that the law depends upon a certain known property, and examine other cases in which this property occurs to see if the law still holds. Or again, it is a theory or a complexus of hypotheses which we wish to verify, and a theory, as we know, is not based directly on inductive reasoning or generalisation from particular cases, but contains an arbitrary element, an arbitrary combination of attributes, or arbitrary assumptions in regard to the inner structure of physical things. Our theory is therefore a postulate, and here, as before, our only means of ascertaining its truth is to experiment in the concrete in order to see how it works.

There is wide scope, then, for postulation even in a theory of knowledge which admits apprehension of the nature of reality, universal ideas, and axiomatic principles. My objection to the Experimental Theory is not that postulation and experiment is not a fact, but that it is not by any means the only way to knowledge; and, secondly, that the form in which it is expressed by Professor Dewey and Dr. Schiller seems to imply a Philosophy of Pure Experience which, as I shall endeavour to show, is quite incapable of giving a rational explanation of either knowledge or reality.

{1} Humanism, p. 8. EXPERIMENTAL THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 125

{2} Ibid., Preface.

{3} Humanism, p. 10; and Studies in Humanism. pp. 128, 153-157, and passim throughout both books.

{4} 'Axioms as Postulates' in Personal Idealism,' § 5.

{5} Ibid., § 26.

{6} Ibid., § 27.

{7} First Principles, p. 192. (Italics mine.)

{8} cf. infra, §§ 88, 89.

{9} 'Axioms as Postulates,' § 25.

{10} Ibid., § 10.

{11} Journ. of Phil., Psy. and Sc. Methods, 1904, p. 687.

{12} cf. James, Principles of Psychology, vol. i., p. 337.

{13} 'Axioms us Postulates,' § 7.

{14} 'Axioms as Postulates,' § 6.

{15} The Riddles of the Sphinx, p. 163.

{16} C.S. Peirce, "What Pragmatism is," The Monist, 1903, p. 173, and cf. Studies in Humanism, p. 185.

{17} Doubtless, in order to discover whether two positive qualities (v.g., white and hot) are compatible, we must appeal to experience and 'experiment.' But this is beside the question, for the principle of contradiction treats of incompatibility, not of compatibility. Again, we may have to experiment in order to find out whether a quality is really present or not but there is no need to transform the principle, as Dr. Schiller has done, in order thus to apply it. It is applicable as it stands and that in most cases without either postulation or experiment. Nor is the principle of contradiction verified by being applied. Though abstract, it is true of real things precisely because they are real things and therefore is true of every real thing, whether it be applied or not.

{18} Mind, N.S. 59 (July, 1906), p. 293.

{19} Ibid., p. 277. (NB -- In what follows, for the sake of clearness, I have replaced the symbols used by Professor Dewey by what they symbolise. Otherwise I have kept as closely as possible to his own words.)

{20} Ibid., p. 299 (italics not mine).

{21} Ibid., p. 301.

{22} Ibid., cf. pp. 304 to 306.

{23} loc. cit. p. 294.

{24} 'Axioms as Postulates,' p. 98, and cf. Welton, Logic, p. 32.

{25} Ibid., p. 106.

{26} Studies in Humanism, p. 460, and cf. pp. 183, 187, 202, 426.

{27} Ibid., p. 187.

{28} Studies in Humanism, p. 192.

{29} Ibid., p. 193.

{30} Ibid., p. 196.

{31} cf. supra, §§ 33-36.

{32} i.e., objective and external, as opposed to subjective or psychical reality.

{33} Studies in Humanism, p. 185.

{34} Ibid., pp. 431, 432.

{35} Ibid. p. 433.

{36} Pragmatism, p. 210 (but cf. Mind, N.S. 52, p. 460. where an empirical origin is assigned).

{37} 'Axioms as Postulates,' § 9.