Essays Towards a Theory of Knowledge Part 4

Individual quotations would only detract from the c.u.mulative effect of his argument, but we may refer in particular to the interesting discussion as to the relations between the s.p.a.ce concepts of the blind and those of the vident. The blind can be taught, and are taught, geometry, and can discuss and understand spatial and geometrical problems. The sensible furniture by which the spatial conceptions of the blind are denoted obviously cannot be visual, and are no doubt largely tactual, whilst on the other hand the vident utilise the visual data to the almost total exclusion of any other. There must therefore be some common measure by means of which a community is established between the spatial conceptions of the blind and those of the vident. M. Villey concludes and clearly shows that the common medium is to be found in the fact that our spatial conceptions are fundamentally based upon and are expressive of the discoveries of our exertional activity. Touch, in short, is an ambiguous term and includes both pa.s.sive sensations and those forms of Activity which we describe when we use the term "feel" as a transitive verb. Just as we distinguish between seeing and looking or between hearing and listening, so should we distinguish between touch pa.s.sive and touch active or palpation.

The view of Science which we have endeavoured to explain has received a notable confirmation from the establishment during the latter part of the nineteenth century of the scientific doctrine of Energy.[69:1]

The culmination of the scientific fabric of which Galileo and Newton laid the foundations was reached when it was demonstrated that the whole physical universe must be regarded as composed of Energy, either kinetic and actually undergoing trans.m.u.tation from one form to another, or potential and quiescent yet containing within itself the quantifiable capacity of transformation. The objective correlatives of the different cla.s.ses of sensible experiences are found to be different forms which this Energy a.s.sumes--the kinetic energy of a ma.s.s in motion, the radiant energy of Light, the energy of Heat, the potential energy of chemical separation, etc.--all these have now at length been shown to be forms of one real thing capable under appropriate conditions of being trans.m.u.ted into each other and of which not only the inter-trans.m.u.tability but the equivalent values can be calculated and have been found by experiment to be fixed and definite. Thus the mechanical equivalent of heat is a fixed and definite quant.i.ty. The Energy of a body in motion can be measured and stated in terms of ma.s.s and velocity.

The profound conception of Aristotle, under which Nature was regarded as a potent Energy containing within itself the capacity of generating the phenomenal World, has again been revived and realised--but with great additions. The theory in the hands of Science is now not only confirmed by incessant experiment, but the relation which it affirms between reality and phenomenon has been _quantified_.

Moreover, the actual operations under which the potential generates the actual have, so to say, been laid bare to view; and lastly, the inter-trans.m.u.tability of all forms of Energy and its real unity have been established.

The doctrine has therefore received a confirmation of which Aristotle did not dream, and its explanation has at the same time received an illumination which his vague if profound adumbration could never afford.

With this added support the true conception of human knowledge has received new strength. The theory is still, nevertheless, not to be grasped without a resolute effort of reflection. It involves an inversion of our everyday conceptions more radical than that which was demanded by the Copernican theory of astronomy, and we know that that theory--offered to and rejected by mankind before the beginning of the Christian era--had to wait through sixteen or seventeen hundred years before it secured an acceptance, at first grudging and even now not always adequate.

The ordinary metaphysical student has. .h.i.therto rather resented the idea that in order to a true solution of the problem of Knowledge he must acquaint himself with the fundamental conceptions of physics. Yet so it is. It may perhaps be hoped that when the first strangeness of the new position has disappeared the conditions may be accepted with greater readiness. At any rate, a correct apprehension of our fundamental conceptions of the world of our external experience is indispensable. No theory can wholly dispense with such conceptions. It is therefore essential that, however elementary, they should be clear and not contradictory. Philosophy has always vaguely realised and exacted as much. The need is now imperative.

Some years ago, in an essay on Schopenhauer, the author, Mr. Saunders, remarked, "How the matter of which my arm is composed and that state of consciousness which I call my Will [imagine anyone calling Will a state of consciousness!] are conjoined is a mystery beyond the reach of Science, and the man who can solve it is the man for whom the world is waiting."

Well, if that be so, then the world need not wait any longer. The required explanation is offered to metaphysics by the scientific work of the physicians who built up and consolidated the modern doctrine of Energy. It is true that most of them have continued to postulate the reality of material bodies. For their purpose there was no real difficulty in doing so. What they required was a datum of configuration, a phenomenal basis upon which their calculations could proceed and in terms of which, as a point of origin, their statement of trans.m.u.tations was made. The persistence of material bodies is a condition precedent to the phenomenal manifestations in which our Experience arises. Organic existence in every form and the world in which it arises presuppose the actuality of these. But dynamically they are merely the phenomenal result of certain permanent forces constantly in operation. To beings, if there be such, inhabiting the Ether there is little doubt but that a gravitation system like that of the sun and its planets must present a corporate rigidity and ident.i.ty somewhat similar to that which cohering ma.s.ses present to our intelligence. But, in terms of reality, Energy, potential and kinetic, containing within itself the potency which generates the actual and sustains the constant trans.m.u.tation in which phenomena arise is the sole and only postulate.

The rise of meta-geometrical methods and other branches of scientific speculation have led in recent years to a considerable amount of very interesting inquiry into the nature of our fundamental geometrical conceptions. Strange to say, a large body of respectable mathematicians have been found to favour the extraordinary view that our mathematical conceptions are derived from Sensation. We do not propose here to discuss at length this idea. It is merely another form of the old sensationalist view of Knowledge, but we suggest that the conditions of the problem will readily appear in their true light and real nature whenever such inquirers realise the fact that our exertional activity is the source of our cognitions of the external, and that therefore our pure exertional activity is the source of the basal concepts of geometry.

Here lies the root of the distinction between pure and empirical science. The propositions of geometry, being derived from our own pure activity, are of the former cla.s.s; the inductive conclusions of physical experimental science, being gathered by observation and measurement from sensible data, are empirical and approximate. A geometrical proposition--such, for example, as the a.s.sertion that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles--is not merely approximate.

It has no dependence on measurement. It is absolutely true. It is ascertained deductively, and therefore measurement is not involved, and is never employed. Its truth is not ascertained by measurement. It is not verified by measurement. It in no degree depends upon the sensible figure. It is equally true for every human being whatever be the degree of accuracy of the figure by the aid of which he studies it, or indeed whether he studies it by figure or otherwise, as must necessarily be the case with the born blind.

There may be many different forms of energetic trans.m.u.tation which may determine many other forms of s.p.a.ce besides that form of tridimensional s.p.a.ce in which our Activity is involved. For such, a different geometry may and will be applicable; but for the tridimensional conditions of _our activity_ the proposition is necessary and absolute. No measurement of any stellar parallax, however minute and whatever the result might be, could have any bearing on its truth. Geometry is the science of the pure forms of our motor activity amidst corporeal bodies.

A useful ill.u.s.tration of our argument is to be drawn from a consideration of the question of phonetic spelling. Occasionally we find persons urging that all spelling should be an exact reproduction of sound. Indeed, an improved alphabet has been designed to enable the idea to be carried out with greater accuracy.

Now it is quite true that it is by their sound that we recognise or denote our words. Hence our alphabet was originally phonetic in principle, and indeed still is so, although the correspondence is imperfect. As the use of visible signs develops spelling seems to fall into certain fixed frames and to deviate more and more from pure phonetic simplicity. But why is this so? It is because the sounds are merely the symbols or indicators of the different forms of vocal articulation (vocal acts), and it is really as the symbols and indicators of these actions that they possess any meaning and acquire such permanence and ident.i.ty as they have. The phonetic system, therefore, becomes in use subordinated to the expression of the acts by which are produced these radical vocables which const.i.tute the essentials of rational Discourse.

In all this the process of the expression of words in spelling is a microcosmic counterpart of the process of cognition as we have tried to explain it.

It is noteworthy that the same thing necessarily happens in the case of any new system of spelling.

The most prominent advocates of phonetic spelling have been also the authors of a system of phonetic shorthand.

Like the written and printed alphabet of Europe, the alphabet of Phonography was made phonetic. Indeed it started off as a more nearly perfect phonetic system than the ordinary European alphabet. But as its use advances its employment undergoes the same change. The phonetic symbols are abbreviated by grammalogues and contractions, and this proceeds in accordance with a principle unconsciously recognised but which really depends on the same inherent necessity to preserve in a consistent form the expression of the radical vocables of Speech.

Finally, in the hands of the expert stenographer the system of phonetic shorthand (though he still uses the sound as the guide and indicator of his actions) is as far removed from a pure phonetic representation as the ordinary method of spelling. Indeed, unless some such suprasensible and unifying principle were available, phonetic spelling would speedily perish in an infinity of degenerate variations.

We adduce this ill.u.s.tration as one which very well confirms our main argument. We have no desire to discuss on its merits the general question of Spelling Reform, which of course is quite apart from the attempt to establish a scheme of spelling on a purely phonetic basis. A more rational system of spelling is nevertheless an object worthy of all consideration.

Intellectualism and sensationalism have both broken down. The world of speculation is anxiously looking for a new clue. Witness the pathetic eagerness with which it clutches at every floating straw. The innumerable "isms" by which it seeks ever and anon to keep itself afloat are most of them but the sometimes unrecognisable wreckage of the old systems drifting about under very inappropriate names. Such terms as Realism and Idealism are freely used (generally prefixing the adjective "new") by writers in philosophic periodicals in a sense which might make Plato, Aquinas, or Kant turn in their graves.

We see their votaries enc.u.mbered with the trappings of a futile erudition of the insignificant or clinging pathetically to the insecure relics of teleological doctrine, or, still less virile, seeking support in a return to the unscientific tales of supernatural spiritualism. Such efforts are vain.

Only by facing the facts with all their consequences, whatever these may be and whatever they may involve for the proudest aspirations of mankind--only thus can truth be attained. And lest any should say that we preach an unrelieved pessimism, let us remind such that Knowledge is not after all the source of Life, that another category and a different principle--that, namely, which we indicate under the term Love-divine--must have generated the potent current of Life, and that no one should close the door against the hopes of the human Intelligence until he has discovered what are the limits imposed upon what Perfect Love can do.

The question still remains whether mankind will be equal to the effort required to a.s.similate the essential truth. They very nearly failed to a.s.similate the Copernican cosmogony. For sixteen hundred years after it was first offered to mankind the race preferred to grope in the darkness and confinement of a false conception.

If they succeed in accomplishing the reception of the new truth, unheard-of progress may be looked for. If they fail, civilisation must disappear and humanity decline. There is no middle course. As Bacon remarked, in this theatre of man's life it is reserved only to G.o.d and angels to be lookers-on.

We know how stubbornly the Ptolemaic cosmogony still clings to our conceptions, how largely it still dominates--or till recently did dominate--the religious cosmography of the most civilised peoples.

In Philosophy our leading teachers seem as yet to have a very feeble appreciation of the new conditions. They turn greedily to the eloquent pages of _L'Evolution creatrice_, but however earnestly they search they cannot find there any definite solution of the difficulties of the age-old problem. They wander wearily through the mazes of psychological detail or wage almost childish logomachies over the interpretation of each other's essays. Philosophical magazines are filled with articles which reflect this state of the philosophic mind. Philosophical congresses meet and argue and go home; Gifford lecturers prelect; yet so far as can be seen there is little sign that the key has been grasped.

The great fact remains obscured amidst a ma.s.s of words.

The elucidation of the problem of Knowledge demands certain improvements in our philosophic terminology. Language as a rule is a very unerring philosopher, and words shaped and polished by long usage generally express, more truly than those who use them realise, the essential reality of things. Yet these long-enduring errors of the ages which we have been discussing here have left their impress too on the terminology of Metaphysics.

Thought and Action are in common speech contrasted, and the distinction expresses an essential truth. But when we seek to say further that both of these are Activities, we are stating another truth in terms which are hardly consistent with the previously contrasted distinction. It might be better if Action and Active could be applied generally to both and if the term _exertion_ could be subst.i.tuted for Action in describing the forms of activity which we denominate _motor_. To that suggestion, however, there are also serious objections. The words derived from _ago_ have historically a special application to the exertional and dynamic.

We leave the question to our readers as one of which it is of considerable importance to find a satisfactory solution.

In the foregoing pages our object has been to ill.u.s.trate the erroneous conceptions by which the theory of human cognition has been obscured and to explain briefly what we conceive to be the true solution. The argument in support of the doctrine here explained has been more fully presented by the present writer in an essay ent.i.tled _The Dynamic Foundation of Knowledge_, to which the reader who desires to study the question further must now be referred.

FOOTNOTES:

[60:1] ??s?? t??de t?? a?t?? ?p??t?? ??te t?? Te?? ??te ?????p??

?p???se, ???' ?? a?e? ?a? ?st? ?a? ?sta? p?? ?e????? ?pt?e??? ?t?a ?a? ?p?se???e??? ?t?a. Quoted by Clement of Alexandria, etc. (_The First Philosophers of Greece_, by A. Fairbanks, p. 28.)

[61:1] "La subdivision do la matiere en corps isoles est relative a notre perception" (_Evolution creatrice_, p. 13).

[69:1] For a clear brief summary of the theory the reader may be referred to a little work by Sir William Ramsay, F.R.S., ent.i.tled _Elements and Electrons_, pp. 8-15.

IV

THE DOCTRINE OF ENERGY[81:1]

The problem of Metaphysics--the nature of Reality--still presses for a solution. Agnosticism is but a cautious idealism--a timid phenomenalism.

That philosophy, however named, which proclaims that the experience of life is nothing more than a vain show, a pantomime of sensations distinguished only from ideas by their greater intensity and distinctness, is not only a confession of failure. It is a denial of fact.

To know the nature of the Absolute as such, to present the Absolute to finite minds as it must be presented, if that be possible, to the Absolute itself, must ever remain impossible to man. But it is equally true that to attempt such a task has never been the urgent mission of Philosophy. The distinction between the Ideal and the Real, between the conceptual and the perceptual, is quite certainly and incessantly recognised. Agnosticism can neither deny the fact successfully, nor solve the speculative difficulties which its recognition raises up. The Real and the Ideal, essentially distinct yet mockingly similar, for ever blend and intermingle in the composite experience of life. Truly to discriminate and unravel these,--validly to separate the Ideal element which impregnates that Reality which we are for ever compelled to postulate and recognise, still remains the great problem of Philosophy--humbler perhaps and more practical, but not less profound than any vain attempt to discover to finite conception the Absolute as it is in itself. Therefore it is that the efforts of negative and agnostic criticism to dispense with the recognition of Reality as a necessary postulate of our activity are foredoomed to failure. They leave us not a solitude which we might pretend to be peace, but a seething sea of troubles urgently demanding a new attempt to reveal the unity which must underlie the infinite diversity of experience.

Such, indeed, seems to us the present position of Metaphysics; and, what is more important, it appears to react with increasing force upon the theories and investigations of Science.

The problem of Reality is thus at present not without a special and increasing interest for the students of Physical Science. Until lately they have been taught and have always maintained that Matter is the direct object of sense-perception. No doubt it is long since Philosophy has urged that our conceptions of the external world are a mentally constructed system. But this doctrine has made but little impression upon the students of Natural Science. The objective origin of our sensations and the apparently objective reality also of the intelligible qualities and operative laws of the external world are too strongly impressed upon their minds. Idealism and Transcendentalism have carried no conviction to them. Still, the difficulties of common sense have continued to grow. Recent developments of scientific theory have increased the urgency of the problem, but they seem to us also to suggest a solution the beneficial results of which affect the whole of Metaphysics.

We refer to the doctrine of Energy, which occupies now as great a place in the physical sciences as the doctrine of Evolution does in the zoological sciences.

Natural philosophers have for some time taught that there are two Real Things in the physical universe--Matter and Energy. It seems a very striking theory. Has it received the attention it deserves from the student of Metaphysics? We are convinced that it has not: and the reason he most frequently gives for this neglect is that, being a purely scientific doctrine, it does not come within his sphere. Science, we are told, deals with the phenomenal world internally considered; Philosophy with the relations of the phenomenal world to Reality, and with the nature of the transcendental elements in our Knowledge.