CHAPTER VI.
CONCEPTION AND THE COGNITIVE RELATION.

§ 101. In this chapter I propose to discuss two pragmatic doctrines, both of which are closely connected with the Experimental Theory of Knowledge. The first is the pragmatic theory of conception, and the second the view of the relation of the knower and the known set forth by Professors James and Strong. In the Experimental Theory all knowledge comes by way of experiment and experience. By experiment knowledge is made, and by experience it is verified; and beyond experience there is nothing to be known. From this two consequences follow. First of all, what we make by experiment is usually an instrument by which to manipulate and modify our environment; and to this rule the concept is no exception. Secondly, the concept and the knower are one, for outside experience there is neither knower nor known.

§ 102. According to the famous 'maxim' of Peirce the contents of a concept comprise only the experienced 'effects' of our actions, or the reactions of an object which have resulted in response to stimulation.^{1} We modify experience in order to evoke from it results which will satisfy our needs and these results are remembered and grouped together round the nucleus of a word or image, and thus is formed a concept. We remember, for example, that a cat, if stroked, will purr; if teased, will scratch; if offered milk, will lap it up; if left in a room with a canary in an open cage, will be the proximate occasion of the disappearance of that piece of experience which we call a canary. These and other experienced responses to action on our part together form -- if I have understood Mr. Peirce aright -- our concept of a cat. And, if the maxim of Peirce is to be taken literally, this will be all that a cat means, for these are the differences that it makes to our lives. The term 'cat' is a name which denotes a certain element or datum of experience which is such that under given conditions it leads to certain practical and sensible effects. Thus concepts denote or 'lead to' experiences of the sentient type, and their contents, if concrete, consist in the sensory images awakened by the word or symbol, and if abstract, in other words, which must as before "sooner or later reflect you back into sensible realities"^{2}

§ 103. The grouping of the experienced effects under names and symbols cannot, however, be accounted for in the life-time of a single individual, nor, for that matter, in the life-time of a single generation Concepts are not the products of an individual's thought-activity, but are largely hereditary, and have gradually been formed as the human mind has evolved from a state of purely sentient experience^{3} Like axioms, they are essentially "tools slowly fashioned by the practical intelligence for the mastery of its experience,"^{4} and the recognition of the instrumental nature of the Concept is, Dr. Schiller tells us, a point of the greatest importance for the theory of knowledge to the neglect of which he attributes the failure of Platonism and Criticism.^{5} Concepts do not represent sense-experiences in the copy sense of the term 'to represent.' They are substituted for sense-experiences, and of them we form "related systems, corresponding point for point to the systems which the realities form," so that "by letting an ideal term call up its associates systematically we may be led to a terminus which the corresponding real term would have led to in case we had operated on the real world." Hence their extreme usefulness in the manipulation of experience.

The paths that run through conceptual experiences, that is, through 'thoughts' or 'ideas' that 'know' the things in which they terminate, are highly advantageous paths to follow. Not only do, they yield inconceivably rapid transitions; but, owing to the 'universal' character which they frequently possess, and to their capacity for association with one another in great systems, they outstrip the tardy consecutions of the things themselves and sweep us on towards our ultimate termini in a far more labour-saving way than the following of trains of sensible perception ever could.^{6}

§ 104. Thus the ratio essendi of the concept is its utility as an instrument for the manipulation of experience But is it a mere instrument, and is this its only function? The pragmatist's answer to this question is not quite clear. Both Professor James and Dr. Schiller reject the copy-view of truth, and though this may he due merely to a misunderstanding viz., to the idea that this view of truth teaches that in knowing we passively mirror reality, it may mean that knowledge and truth in no way copy or reveal the nature of reality. Professor James, at any rate, speaks of concepts not only as Denkmittel but also as 'tallies,' by which we 'keep tab' on impressions, and which he likens to the symbols of analytic geometry.^{7} He also identifies them with words and images,^{8} and tells us that "what the intellect knows clearly is only the word and its steering function." And when we remember that we are expressly admonished to suspect commonsense notions such as 'things,' 'sameness' 'kinds,' 'minds,' etc.,^{9} and that in Radical Empiricism these notions are got rid of altogether as superfluous^{10} it would seem that the concept is, for Professor James, nothing but a useful symbol^{11} which we substitute for immediate sense-experiences, and that thus the labour-saving function of the concept is not merely its chief, but its only function. And this view fits in admirably with the Philosophy of Pure Experience and with the German Philosophy with which Professor James seems to he so closely in touch. The principle of thought-economy is declared by Professor Mach to be the guiding principle of our mental life, and under different forms and various names its merits are extolled by all pragmatic philosophers. Efficiency, Avenarius says, depends upon it; and philosophy is the interpretation of the universe in accordance with it. To this principle and to no other cause is due our attempt to comprehend the many in the one, and to it is due conceptual thought,^{12} of which the 'new cuts' and 'short-circuits' through which it leads us account for its high state of development among civilised nations.

§ 105. Now, in this account of the functions of conception there is much truth. Concepts are 'tools,' for it is by means of them that we think that we construct great systems of knowledge and that we guide our actions in practical life. Also the more complex of them are 'fashioned by our intelligence' since they are built up only very gradually and presuppose much experience, both in the individual and in the race, and, it may be, many experiments. Again, concepts are not inaptly compared with hypotheses, for not only have they to be verified in experience, but many of them are plastic and have to be changed from time to time as experience compels us to adapt them to fresh particulars' This, however, does not apply to all concepts, for some are so simple -- v.g. existence, being, reality, sameness, differencethat in the formation of the concept itself, as opposed to its application to particular instances or its relation to other concepts, no constructive activity of the intellect seems to be involved, but rather the concept, vague and undefinable as it may be, is formed directly in immediate experience by an act of intuition or apprehension.^{13} This is a point on which there would seem to be a fundamental difference between Pragmatism and Realism, as there is on the question of axioms. But there are others of no less importance. Concepts are, for the most part, and must be, if valid, determined by the objects to which they refer. They are not mere symbols or tallies or names. They have, or at any rate claim to have, real significance, and their primary function is not to aid us in the manipulation of experience, but to reveal to us the nature of what we experience Here I think that Dr. Schiller will agree with us, for he seems to admit that the end of man is knowledge as well as action, in spite of his rejection of the copy-view of truth and in spite of many assertions which seem to be incompatible with this doctrine. But about Professor James I am more doubtful. His view of the concept is frankly nominalistic. Concepts, to judge by his description of them, are nothing more than words, images, or useful symbols, the sole function of which is to lead, by continuous transitions, directly or indirectly to sense-experiences.

§ 106. In support of this view Professor James appeals to his own experience. When he thinks of Memorial Hall, his mind, he tells us, may have before it only the name, or it may have a clear image, or it may have a very dim image of the hall, but such intrinsic differences in the image make no difference to its cognitive function.^{14} Apparently therefore, Professor James is able to think without the aid of a concept at all. Names and images are all he requires. Yet this I can hardly believe. I do not doubt that images and names may have been used in this particular case, since Memorial Hall is a concrete thing. But surely in Professor James' mind there must have been present something more besides. I can hardly credit the statement that when the name of his favourite hall is mentioned all that it brings before his mind is an image dim or clear, but without significance or meaning Surely he knows full well what that name means even though he does not allow his idea to develop in its details. Even to me, whose ideas have never terminated in a percept of Memorial Hall, it means something -- a building designed and constructed by man for a definite purpose and according to a definite plan -- and to Professor James, who is fully acquainted with its form, its plan and its purpose, it ought to mean much more. An image is not a concept, for though it may be a picture more or less detailed and precise of some particular concrete thing, it is wholly incapable of signifying that thing, except to one who has a notion of what it means, i.e., to one who has, beside the image, a concept of that thing. Moreover, when clear images are in question, their very particularity and detail renders them incapable of representing many things at once except to one who can abstract from that detail and pick out essential features common to all the objects represented, i.e., to one who already has a concept of the things he wants to represent. Generic images are still more inadequate to represent a number of objects, being but a confused blur which can signify nothing in particular and might stand for anything whatsoever. A verbal image is hardly better off. As an image it stands for a word, not a thing, and its meaning, its significance and its function depend wholly upon something else, namely, upon the concept of which it is the outward expression.

§ 107. As I have already discussed the function of the concept so fully in Chapter II., it is hardly necessary to go into the matter more deeply now. Suffice it to say that the evidence of physiological as well as introspective psychology, is, as I there pointed out,^{15} decidedly adverse to the Nominalism and Symbolism^{16} of Professor James and other pragmatists. The laws which govern the combinations of sensory and verbal images are totally inadequate to account for the syntheses and analyses of thought. It is the higher and not the lower centres which are the conditions of thought-activity; and the intricate connections and complex organisations of these higher centres argue a proportionate instability in the direction which nervous impulses may take, an instability which, while accounting readily for the vagaries of association, cannot account for constancy of meaning and definite logical connection between thoughts. Thought, inference and meaning are something more than the psychical aspect of cerebral conditions. Trains of thought and reasoning undoubtedly depend to some extent upon, and are often facilitated, though also at times impeded, by cerebral associations, but the latter are controlled by the selective activity of thought. As Professor Stout, in his Analytical Psychology, has clearly proved, thought-processes cannot consist merely in the manipulation of a system of symbols. For in using symbols we think of the symbol and not of what it symbolises, whereas in thought we think of objects, not of the image or name by which they are signified. The image and the name are extrinsic to the meaning we have in mind, and it is meaning with which we are concerned in thinking proper. Words and symbols are not concepts; and to reduce the meaning (say) of Pragmatism, or Humanism to sensory or verbal images is to destroy the essence of conceptual thought, and to treat reasoning as if it were the automatic working of a psychical machine.

§ 108. But in Professor James' account of conception, one is struck, not only by the absence of any adequate appreciation of 'meaning,' but also of 'synthesis.' Concepts are merely parallel with the experiences for which they are substituted, and to these experiences they correspond point for point. Their function is not to synthesise the many in the one, but to act as a substitute for sense-experiences when the latter are unavailable, and ultimately to lead us back by continuous felt-transitions to those same experiences. This 'principle of substitution is important in Professor James' theory of conception, and has led to a curious result. There must always be some sense-termini, the place of which is provisionally taken by the concept or image. Consequently, Professor James has had to invent felt-relations, for otherwise thought-relations would have had no sense-experiences to which to lead. Now, I must confess that these felt-relations seem to me to be purely creatures of the imagination and to have not the slightest foundation in experience. I have never been able to feel a relation yet. I can apprehend relations, I can conceive them and think of them, but I cannot feel them. For me, what is signified by preposition, copula and conjunction is not a feeling, but a thought. When I see two objects together, I do not feel their co-existence, I perceive it and think of it or apprehend it. When I observe that by the combination of hydrogen and oxygen and the introduction of a little electricity, water is produced, I do not feel the causal connection: rather it is the object of my thoughts. To discover any feelings which correspond to 'buts,' 'ifs,' 'becauses,' 'betweens,' 'fors,' is, for me, quite impossible. I admit that what is signified by conjunctions and prepositions has foundation in reality, but I cannot find any 'feelings' or any 'felt' objects to which they correspond. 'Feeling,' it is true, may be used in a loose and metaphorical sense to denote thought which is not clear and precise. But 'to feel' that our economic difficulties in England will never be solved till we take up Tariff Reform is quite a different thing from feeling hot or cold or thirsty. ln the latter case 'feeling' is strictly used and signifies sense-experience in the former its use is metaphorical it does not imply sensation at all, but apprehension, conception and thought of a most complex and abstract type, which cannot possibly be reduced to or represented by sensational experience. Of course, if felt-relations really mean relations apprehended by thought, there is an end of the matter; but I do not think Professor James can be using terms in so loose a sense, and, besides, he would then have a conceptual experience to which no sense-experiences would be exactly parallel.

§ 109. The doctrine of felt-relations is applied by Professor James to the cognitive relation itself. In a couple of articles bearing the significant title "A World of Pure Experience"^{17} he sets forth a new theory which he calls Radical Empiricism, the chief theses of which are that reality is experience, or better, perhaps, experiences, and that "the only function that one experience can perform is to lead to another experience."^{18} The relation of the knower to the known in this theory is but a particular case of a felt-relation. Knowledge is a process of leading; and "either the knower and the known are: (1) the self-same piece of experience taken twice over in different contexts; or they are (2) two pieces of actual experience belonging to the same subject with definite tracts of conjunctive transitional experience between them; or (3) the known is a possible experience, either of that subject or of another, to which the said conjunctive transitions would lead, if sufficiently prolonged."^{19}

Type I is "the kind of knowledge called perception." For Professor James, unlike Professor Dewey, does not wish to exclude facts from the realm of knowledge. While present, however, all experiences, whether perceptual or conceptual, are pure. It is only afterwards that their "naif immediacy is retrospectively split into two parts."^{20} In retrospection we regard our experiences either as part of our personal history, or as part of the physical world; which means that we take the same experience twice over, each time regarding it from a different point of view, and weaving it into a different system of conceptual ideas.

Types 2 and 3 are both conceptual experiences, and give 'knowledge about,' as opposed to knowledge of the 'acquaintance ' kind, which is that of Type I. The 'knower' in both types 2 and 3 is an image or word which leads to a sense-terminus. Should the 'knower' actually lead by definite felt-transitions to the percept that is known (type 2, and cf. the cognitional experience of Professor Dewey), then we feel it to have been continued in that percept, and in such a felt transition "lies all that the knowing of a percept by an idea can possibly contain or signify."^{21} It is, moreover, only when conceptual experiences do actually terminate in percepts that we can know for certain that they were truly cognitive of such percepts. Otherwise their quality of knowing can still be doubted.^{22} Ideas, in this latter case, 'truncated experiences' which are never completely 'nailed down,' lead only to possible experiences (type 3); and, as a matter of fact, "the greater part of our knowing never gets beyond this virtual stage," for "to continue thinking unchallenged is, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, our practical substitute for knowing in the completest sense."

§ 110. 1 must confess that when I first read these two articles I could not help a doubt crossing my mind in regard to authenticity. Could the writer who, in language so far removed from that of psychological description, attempts to portray the characteristics of human cognition, be the same as the author of the justly famous Principles of Psychology? What is said is said vigorously as before, but now it bears the impress of what, if I mistake not, we must describe as metaphysical prejudice. On looking back, however, I remember, even in the Principles, a certain empirical tendency which manifested itself, especially in that curious theory of the soul as the stream of its own thoughts, thoughts which become, as it were, little souls themselves for the moment, but only to be absorbed in the thought which succeeds. And then against my will I am forced to believe that the author of the Principles of Psychology and the author of the "World of Pure Experience" and similar articles are one and the same. But is this 'Radical Empiricism' and this 'mosaic philosophy' of Pure Experience intended to be a metaphysic, or is it merely a descriptive psychology of cognition? The existence of 'felt-transitions' and 'felt-relations ' is hard to recognise, and it is still harder to believe that in these alone does knowledge consist. Its transitions may be 'functional,' and the concepts from which they start may sometimes lead to sense-experiences and so serve as useful instruments for the manipulation of our future experience. But concepts, at any rate, seem to be more than mere instruments, and knowledge to be more than a mere tool. Yet in a "World of Pure Experience"knowledge is stripped of significance and meaning which is its essential note and universal characteristic. 'Objective reference' is explained as " a mere incident of the fact that so much of our experience comes as insufficient, and is of process and transition."^{23} The things which we perceive and the objects about which we think are stolen away experience is once more confused with the experienced and the latter being relegated to a world of possibility, experience is left behind dangling in the air. This being so, Radical Empiricism can hardly be regarded as a psychological theory. Rather it would seem to be the forerunner of that metaphysic which Professor James has long promised to the philosophic world.

§ 111. The discussion of the pragmatic theory of the concept has led us away into the realm of metaphysics; and though this is not the place to treat of Radical Empiricism in so far as it is an attempt to explain the universe, something must be said of the psychological basis of this philosophy of Pure Experience. The question turns, as it usually does, upon perception; and though Professor James does not admit a conscious subject-object distinction in either perception or conception, it is to the latter alone that he ascribes 'objective reference,' which thus comes to mean simply a reference of our thoughts to absent objects, i.e., experiences. No reason is given for this restriction of objective reference to non-perceptual cognition; and no arguments are brought forward in support of it. Professor James imagines, I suppose, that all will recognise in what he says an accurate description of the facts. This, however, is far from being the case. To say that perception is simply experience which is retrospectively broken up into a dual aspect is far from satisfactory when considered in the light of introspective data. There being, however, no arguments to discuss, I can only repeat, in regard to Professor James' descriptions, what I have said before.^{24} Experience and perception are always experience and perception of something. So deeply is the human mind convinced of this that it is embedded in the language which we use, and to this is to be attributed the strangeness with which expressions that presuppose another hypothesis, strike our ears. We never simply perceive, we always perceive an object, and, as a rule, we locate that object. For what does localisation mean if not that we distinguish that object from ourselves or identify it with ourselves, and recognise it either as part of our bodies or else as located at a certain distance from those bodies? And what, again, does this mean if not that some objects are external to ourselves and to one another? It is for the philosopher to determine what externality and objectivity mean, but he cannot get rid of the fact that in perception we perceive objects and perceive them either as external or as part of ourselves, whether or not this is reality or mere appearance.

§ 112. I cannot understand why Professor James and other pragmatists who seem to have adopted as an article of faith that Reality = Experience, should be content merely to state that 'objective reference' applies only to non-perceptual cognition. This is an assumption which is not only incompatible with the data of experience, but begs the whole question. For, granted that objective reference applies only to absent objects, the identification of those objects with percepts or sense-experiences, and the further identification of the latter with reality itself follows easily enough. While, on the other hand, if there is objective reference in perception, i.e., if we perceive objects and do not simply experience or simply perceive, the objective reference of ideal thought will be, not to percepts or to sentient experiences, but to the objects perceived. But although English, French and German pragmatists are all inclined to treat experience and reality as convertible terms, among them I have found only one who has attempted to answer the obvious objections which may be urged against such a doctrine on the score of the introspective data of experience. That one is Professor Strong, an able ally of Professor James, and the author of 'Why the Mind has a Body.' Realising that the rapid spread of 'the New Realism' in both England and America cannot be without significance and foundation, Professor Strong has made an attempt to appreciate the realist's position and, as far as possible, to answer his objections from the psychological point of view. And whether it is that Realism seems to the pragmatist intrinsically absurd, or whether it is that Mr. G. E. Moore in England and Dr. Montague in America are inclined to an Ultrarealism, there is no other pragmatist who can be said to have done so in any adequate way.

§ 113. In an article entitled "The Distinction of Object and Perception,"^{25} Professor Strong thus states and provisionally answers what he considers to be the essence of the realist's position. The realist maintains that the distinction between physical objects and our consciousness of them are 'two separate things,' not merely 'two different ways of regarding the same thing;' and is supposed to urge this point by affirming that we must separate the quality 'red' from the sensation of red that is aware of it, the perception of a tn-dimensional book from the book itself.^{26}

This says Professor Strong I have never been able to do. I quite appreciate that the conception of a quality is a different thing from the conception of a sensation, but it has always seemed to me that what we conceive in these two ways is the same identical fact. I can not detect over and above the quality 'red,' any sensation or consciousness or subject that contemplates or has it; but it seems to me that the luminous existence of that red is the full account of the fact. Nor can I detect any perception (though I can detect a certain amount of thought) over and above the given hook. The givenness appears to me to be an inseparable character of the book, without which it could not exist at all. When I say, then, that the very same fact or experience can be thought of in two ways, either as an episode in my personal history, or as a constituent of a vast continuous physical world the other part of which I only conceive, it seems to me that I am giving an account of the distinction which is idealistic, no doubt, but which differs from the realistic account in being accurately true to the facts.^{27}

§ 114. Professor Strong, upon reflection, has come to the conclusion that this is not a sufficient answer to the realist's difficulties, and proceeds to make further concessions and distinctions which I shall discuss in a moment. But the above answer can hardly be allowed to pass without some comment. In the first place, Professor Strong's appreciation of the realistic position is not so adequate as one might have hoped. The realist does maintain that physical objects are distinct from our consciousness of them. He may also maintain, as I have done, that sometimes, if not always, we are aware of this distinction; and in doing so he would not be going so far as many idealists who affirm that "we are conscious of objects only in so far as we are self-conscious -- a statement which, if taken literally, is incompatible with a fact which the realist fully admits, viz., the fact that self-consciousness and the consciousness of objects usually vary in inverse proportion." Again, it is a fundamental doctrine in Realism that the quality 'red' is distinct from the sensation by which it is perceived, but few, if any, realists would assert that in the act of perception this was an introspective fact.^{28} In introspection there is foundation for such a distinction, but it is not itself a datum of experience 'Consciousness' must not be confused with 'sensation;' for clearly all consciousness is not sensation To affirm that what we perceive in external perception is an object distinct from ourselves is not the same thing as to affirm that we perceive it by means of sensation. That sensation is present at all in external perception known, not directly in the acts of perception, but by inference based upon the gradation between what is perceived as sensation and what is perceived as the quality of an object, and in particular upon cases in which perception may take either form, though never both at once.^{29}

§ 115. Are not these data, however more consistent with the id quod percipitur theory of Professor Strong than with the id quo percipitur theory of the realist, since it is admitted that sensation sometimes is id quod percipitur? On the contrary, for, while the realist is able to explain the 'how' of perception (as I shall have occasion to show later on)^{30} by his theory that sensation is always id quo percipitur, he does not contradict any facts, since he allows that sensation may also be, and is, at times, id quod percipitur. The idealist, on the other hand, when he asserts that what he perceives is always at bottom a sensation, while explaining nothing at all so far as perception is concerned (since he merely affirms it to be experience) finds himself at once in contradiction with the belief which external perception itself has engendered, namely, that what is perceived in the act of external perception is not sensation, but the quality of an object. If physical objects and consciousness (inclusive here of sensation) are not distinct, but merely different aspects of the self-same thing, how comes it about that they appear to be both distinct and different, and are firmly believed so to be by the ordinary man? How, again, are we to explain The fact that the conception of a quality and the conception of a sensation are different concepts, if the object conceived in both cases is the same? Surely there must be some foundation for this distinction a parte rei, for even pragmatic concepts 'correspond' in some sense with their objects. Again, the 'givenness' of what we perceive, what is this, and what does it imply, but some kind of object that 'gives' and which is, therefore distinct from him to whom it gives? And the thought which Professor Strong detects in perception "over and above the given book," what is this but some kind of self-consciousness which is present, so he would seem to say, in the act of perception itself?

Until these difficulties have been solved, I cannot agree with Professor Strong that "the idealist's account of perception differs from the realist's in being accurately true to the facts." Both accounts belong to theory, but it is the realistic and not the idealistic theory which is at once consistent with and explanatory of the facts.

§ 116. As I have already remarked, however, Professor Strong does not consider that in the passage quoted above he has conceded "to the realist all that he has a right to demand, or, at least," he says, "it does not adequately meet the difficulty in the idealist's position which he feels." Accordingly, he proceeds to grant to us that "thought enters into our perception of objects," and that "thought always has an object distinct from itself" (though the latter concession is qualified by the remark that "there is no corresponding principle applying to sensation"). Then comes a distinction.

The realist is therefore so far in the right. But it remains to be determined in what shape matter exists independently of the thought of it. Realists jump to the conclusion that it exists as matter-stuff, that their realism is naive. This in no way necessarily follows from the admission of it the mode of existence still independent existence, but remains to be determined. Realists assume that there is a contradiction between objects being material and independent of thought, and their being composed of sensation; and they assume this because they confuse independence of thought with independence of mind. Now, if it were possible for us to know that objects exist whether perceived or not, we might know them to be independent of the mind, and they could not then be composed of sensation. As it is and we only know them to be independent of thought, this is perfectly consistent with their being composed of it.^{31}

Hence the final conclusion,

thought has an object distinct trom itself, but it does not present its object to us as (real) and Present; while sensation Presents to us an object that is real and Present, but that object is not distinct from the sensation;^{32} . . . . The difficulty between idealists and realists is, therefore, solved in holding that matter exists independently of the thought of it, but exists in the shape of sensation.^{33}

§ 117. This solution of the controversy between idealists and realists will not, I fear, put an end to the strife, for the conclusion at which Professor Strong arrives is neither satisfactory nor logically convincing. 'In perception both thought and sensation are involved, but while thought has an object distinct from itself, sensation has not that good fortune.' Is this an introspective fact or is it a theoretical assumption? Are we directly conscious of the functioning of either thought or sensation in perception? Are not both inferences based on the dual fact that we not only perceive colours and sounds, which for the psychologist are sensations, but also things possessing qualities, which again for the psychologist implies conception or apprehension? Again, can we distinguish introspectively between sensation and thought in perception? Do they not function together in one and the self-same act which is directed to one and the self-same object? Psychologically, we may make the distinction, and it has good foundation. But if we separate the two and take sensation by itself, we no longer have perception. There can be no question of sensation having an object external to itself, if taken in isolation or in abstraction from perception and thought. It is only when sensation functions in perception as the means by which we apprehend objective qualities, that it can in any sense be said to have an object, and even then, the object is not, strictly speaking, an object for sensation, but for perception or for thought with which sensation functions as a necessary though subordinate factor.

§ 118. Is there, then, a contradiction in saying that objects are independent of thought, and yet are composed of sensation? And does the realist, when he affirms that there is, confuse independence of thought with independence of mind? If by 'mind' is here meant the mind of the percipient, and by 'sensation,' sensation which takes place within the mind (and this is the obvious sense), there is certainly a contradiction between theory and fact; the object of external perception does not appear to he a sensation, still less a sensation in the mind of the percipient, but something objective, distinct, external and in no way part of himself. There is no intrinsic contradiction, however, in the statement that the objects of perception are sensations, for we do perceive our own sensations at times. But, if the normal object of perception is sensation, perception is an illusion, since what is perceived does not ordinarily appear as a sensation, but as something quite different; and that it is an illusion is a mere assumption, at once unnecessary and inexplicable. Because the object of perception is independent of thought, it does not necessarily follow that it is independent of mind; but if it is not only independent of thought but also external to thought, it must also be external to mind, since mind and thought are one and indivisible; and, as a matter of fact, it appears to be external to both. In reply, then, to Professor Strong's summing up, I must make several distinctions. That 'thought has an object distinct from itself' is clear; but that 'it does not present its object as (real) and present' I cannot admit; for in perception the object of thought is both real and present, and though in thought of absent objects the object is obviously not present (i.e., to the senses), it is at any rate real. Again, 'that sensation presents to us an object that is real and present' is also clear, if sensation here means perception, for sensation of itself does not present an object at all; but that 'the object (of perception) is not distinct from sensation,' I can in no wise grant, nor has Professor Strong in any way proved that it is.

§ 119. There remains, however, one argument which we have not yet discussed, and though, strictly speaking, it is a metaphysical argument, it will be more convenient to discuss it here. The realist, says Professor Strong, cannot prove the continuous existence of material objects when not perceived; all the knowledge he can legitimately derive from experience is the knowledge of their continuous perceptibility. But, surely, perceptibility cannot exist of itself. To be able to be perceived requires a ground and a subject quite as much as to be able to perceive. It is not something that hangs loose or is to be found standing on its own legs. Hence, if the continuous perceptibility of material objects may be legitimately inferred from the data of experience, the further inference as to their existence would also seem to be legitimate. If material objects are always perceptible by existing minds, they cannot belong to the realm of mere possibles, but must belong to some existing order of beings, otherwise their perceptibility would be unaccountable, except by a deus ex machina. In some way or other their perceptibility implies existence. Hence, either they exist in themselves, or they exist as 'the possibility of sensation' inherent in the percipient mind. There seems to be no other alternative; and if, with Mill, we choose the latter we are at once involved in all the difficulties of Subjective Idealism; the appearance of external reality is declared to be an illusion, and the intercommunication of mind and mind becomes an inexplicable mystery. Again, belief in the existence of an external world which is at once distinct from and independent of ourselves is unquestionably a fact, yet if this belief is illusory its origin becomes inexplicable. Doubtless, the psychological antecedents of such a belief can, to some extent, be traced, but, as Professor Wundt has pointed out, "in the syntheses of perception properties are found which are not found in its elements or antecedents."^{34} The external world in which we believe cannot, therefore, be identified with sensation, because our belief in it arises from sense-experience, for the effect is not only in excess of the cause, but cause and effect would, in that case, be contradictory; nor can it be argued that all we may legitimately infer from the data of experience is the continual perceptibility of external objects, for continual perceptibility implies something that is continually perceptible. The existence of the external world is presupposed as the condition of our perception of it, and that world does not consist of sensations; though whether it is material, and, if so, in what sense, is another question, which belongs, not to epistemology, but to metaphysics.

{1} Cf. "The Pragmatic Method" (James), Journ, of Phil., Psy. and Sc. Methods, 1904, pp. 673, 674.

{2} Cf. Pragmatism, Sect. iii. and vi., and The Meaning of Truth, pp. 82, 104, 105, 133, 140, 141.

{3} Pragmatism p. 170, and A Pluralistic Universe p. 248.

{4} Studies in Humanism, p. 64.

{5} The Meaning o/ Truth, p. 110.

{6} Ibid., pp. 112, 113.

{7} Pragmatism, pp. 171, 172.

{8} p. 185.

{9} Ibid., p. 193. and cf. p. 173, for list of such notions.

{10} "A World of Pure Experience," pp. 534 et seq., and cf. A Pluralistic Universe, pp. 290, 291.

{11} cf. Humanism, p. 98, note.

{12} cf. Pragmatism, p. 58.

{13} Concepts to have meaning must always be applicable to reality; but simple Concepts are always applicable to the objects from which they were first derived, and to all other objects like them: hence they always have meaning. Concepts constructed by a more or less arbitrary conjunction of notes, on the other hand, have to be applied before we can tell whether they have any real meaning, since they are not derived from immediate experience, and imply a process other than abstraction.

{14} The Meaning of Truth, p. 104.

{15} cf. §§ 37, 42, 45, 46.

{16} Dr. Schiller repudiates the charge of Symbolism (Cf. Mind, N.S. 72, p. 573) but, though he does not use the term 'symbol,' so far as I am aware, except in three passages (Humanism, p. 98, note and pp. 122, 193), the function of a concept in Pragmatism certainly seems to be to symbolise reality. Cf. The Meaning of Truth, pp. 30, 34, 39, 43, 81, 82, where concepts are definitely spoken of as symbols, and conceptual thinking as symbolical.

{17} Journ. of Phil. Psy. and Sc. Methods, 1904, partly reprinted in The Meaning of Truth, pp. 102, et seq.

{18} Ibid., p. 111.

{19} Ibid., p. 103.

{20} Journ. of Phil., Psy. and Sc. Methods, p. 564.

{21} The Meaning of Truth, pp. 105, 106.

{22} Ibid., p. 115, but cf. Pragmatism, p. 214,, where 'unverified' ideas are admitted to be true. Ibid., p.

{23} Ibid., p. 117.

{24} cf. 28.

{25} Discussion "Idealism and Realism," Journ. Phil, Psy. and Sc. Methods, 1904, pp. 543. etc.

{26} Ibid., p. 547.

{27} loc. cit., p. 547.

{28} cf. § 28

{29} cf, § 35, 36.

{30} cf. chap. xiv.

{31} loc. cit., p. (Italics mine.)

{32} Ibid.

{33} Ibid., p. 550.

{34} cf. §§ 53 to 56, and §§ 98, 99.