I4| 
 
 JlU 
 
 *4 
 
 IDEALISM AND EPISTEMOLOGY, 
 
 [' Off-printed from Mind : a Quarterly Review of Psychology and 
 Philosophy. Vol. II., N.S., No. 7.] 
 
 Hemrv 
 
 By Professor^ Jones. 
 
 It can scarcely be maintained that the prevailing character- 
 istic of recent English speculation is its “ Cheap and Easy 
 Monism The ‘ Hegelians ’ and ‘ Neo-Hegelians ’ who are 
 always referred to as deepest in this error (though they are 
 not identified by their critics) are less in evidence than 
 the Lotzians and Neo-Lotzians. And these latter are 
 anything rather than Monists. Monism, if we may 
 judge by them, is giving way to more or less thinly 
 disguised Dualisms, or even Pluralisms ; and philosophy 
 is putting on motley. The tendency of ‘ the young bloods,’ 
 if I may quote the phrase of a young philosopher, is 
 critical rather than constructive. They evolve no systems. 
 They suggest that system-making is not consistent with 
 sobriety of thought, and they confine themselves to analysis, 
 the exposition of difficulties and polemic. They will admit, 
 I do not doubt, that “ the desire to comprehend the 
 Universe as a revelation of a single principle is the genuine 
 impulse of philosophy f ’. But, so far as I can see, they do 
 not give way to any such impulse. The speculative duty of 
 the day seems to them to be that of dividing Philosophy 
 into special departments. Besides Psychology, which is 
 manifestly a special science, there are other disciplines 
 different from each other but falling within Philosophy. 
 Before we can attempt to construct a Metaphysic there are 
 
 19 ~ v 
 
 P 
 
 4tei6 
 
290 
 
 H. JONES : 
 
 “ manifestly preliminary ” problems to be solved. We must 
 first have Psychology to deal with the inside of the individual’s 
 consciousness ; then Epistemology to deal with the relation 
 of the inside and the outside ; then Ontology to deal with 
 the nature of what is both inside and outside ; and, I pre- 
 sume, Logic to deal with the processes of that ‘ hypothetical ’ 
 existence, 'thought in general’. There may, indeed, be 
 some 'way of bringing these departments of philosophy to- 
 gether, either under one of their own number, or under some 
 fifth. But, as yet, that way has not been revealed to us. 
 For the time being it has seemed sufficient to the new school 
 of critics to expose the difficulties and errors which have 
 sprung from the confusion of the categories and problems of 
 these different and distinct disciplines by the ‘ Hegelians ’ 
 and ‘ Neo-Hegelians ’. 
 
 Now this critical endeavour is capable of being very useful 
 labour, although a mere distinguo solves no problem. And 
 the most faithful adherent of Idealism may well admit that 
 no philosophic system stands in'greater need of articulation. 
 He would also fain believe that no system would gain so 
 much by that process. A fresh application of its main 
 principles to new data would not only enrich and substan- 
 tiate but also modify them, and lead the way to a more 
 complete and true view of the world. But criticism, if 
 it is to claim the attention of philosophers, must itself 
 be philosophical, that is, it must itself derive its impulse 
 and guidance from some intelligible single principle. The 
 difficulties urged against a philosophy should have some 
 higher source than the commonplace empiricism of ordi- 
 nary consciousness. The duty to criticise must be based on 
 a right to criticise, and that right can only be derived from 
 some consecutive and ultimately constructive theory of exist- 
 ence. I do not wish to imply that ordinary experience and 
 the ruling convictions of unsophisticated mankind have no 
 claim upon the philosopher’s adherence ; nor even to deny 
 that philosophy may find its whole task in the systematic 
 reconstruction of ordinary experience. But it is one thing to 
 pay regard to the facts of such experience, and quite another 
 thing to regard its own theories of these facts as the touch- 
 stone of philosophic truth. Philosophy is bracing itself to 
 its most difficult and most productive task in attempting the 
 former ; it is denying its own right to exist in adopting the 
 latter. Why should it toil if there lies ready toHiand the 
 cheapest and easiest of all methods, namely, that of simply 
 accepting and re-wording the unconscious theories of tradi- 
 tional opinion ? 
 
IDEALISM AND EPISTEMOLOGY. 
 
 291 
 
 Now, so long as the critics of Idealism produce no evidence 
 that their criticism is itself construction disguised, they are 
 liable to the charge of this lower appeal to ‘ common-sense 
 Their recoil against Monism may seem to be a recoil against 
 philosophical method ; and, in the words of a recent writer, 
 “their sympathy with the German reaction” may appear 
 merely to “restore the rule of traditions which we are just 
 beginning to lay aside ”. No doubt they cut themselves free 
 from such uncritical traditions by claiming to rest their 
 polemic on the basis of the Idealism which they examine. 
 They profess an Ontology that is all-comprehensive. They 
 will even admit, at times , as Lotze does, that the Supreme 
 Subject, which used to be called the Absolute, is “ the only 
 reality ”. But their Ontology is, so far, a name and nothing 
 more ; and their supreme “ Subject ” is only an Honorary 
 President who hypothetically acquiesces in the activities of 
 ( jus) subordinate ‘manifestations’. In virtue of that office 
 the Subject holds things together s^mnho^ox„ ir^er, and 
 even unites thought and being. Processor Seth assures us 
 that “the chasm” (i.e., beiweerffffiought and reality) “is 
 not an absolute one, otherwise knowledge would be for ever 
 impossible ”. And, in my opinion, this is self-evident. But 
 in the previous sentence he tells us that “ Ontologically, or' 
 as a matter of existence, they remain distinct — the one here 
 and the other there — and nothing avails to bridge the chasm ”. 
 And these two consecutive sentences, if we are not to forget one 
 in reading the other, leave the relation between knowledge 
 and reality in a very obscure state. The relation exists, but it 
 is not ontological. Knowledge, we are told, is entirely within G- 
 the subjective consciousness, while reality is not within it ; ^ 
 and yet the former is connected with' the latter, though it is 
 not connected really but ideally, —or, shall we say, tmreally ? 
 
 I think it fair to urge that the unity of knowledge and reality, 
 w T hich prevents “ the'chasm which nothing can avail to bridge 
 from being ‘ absolute,’ ” needs further explanation. But no 
 explanation is given. Attention is concentrated on the 
 opposing terms. We are presented with a series of exclu- 
 sive alternatives. Feeling is set over against knowledge, 
 simple apprehension against reasoning, the ‘given’ against 
 qur th ought, perception against conception, particulars 
 against the universal, the subjective against the ‘ trans- 
 subjective,’ the ego against its experience, consciousness 
 against its phenomena. Idpahsm, which has sought to] 
 bring these differences together as manifestations of a 
 single principle, is regarded as having merely obscured 
 their distinctions. Its obedience to the ‘ genuine impulse ’ 
 
292 
 
 H. JONES : 
 
 of philosophy seems to its critics to have issued only in 
 a theory of the ‘ altogetherness of everything’. Now, I 
 willingly admit that to obliterate differences is not to ex- 
 plain them. But to insist on differences to the exclusion 
 of their unity is equally futile. And it is obvious that no 
 criticism of idealism can be effective or just if it does not seize 
 upon its ‘ single principle,’ its colligating hypothesis, and show 
 either that that principle is altogether untrue, or that its 
 '^application to particulars is inadequate. But the critics 
 attempt neither of these tasks. The idealistic Ontology 
 which they profess is quite otiose. They dwell on the various 
 aspects of the opposition of knowledge and reality as if, after 
 the manner of the sceptics, they would fain make it absolute. 
 They save themselves from the sceptical position by occasional 
 hints at a ‘ faith ’ which is to do service when reason fails, 
 or at a feeling which is to give evidence of matters of which 
 we cannot be conscious. And in all these respects they seem 
 to me to occupy the attitude of ordinary consciousness, except 
 that critically they are better equipped. In other words, 
 they are more fully conscious of the different aspects of 
 experience which philosophy has to reconcile, if it has any 
 task or function at all, but they make no attempt to effect that 
 reconciliation ; they put forward the problem of philosophy 
 in the place of its^solution ; they criticise Idealism from a 
 dualistic point of view. 
 
 It is in this dualistic spirit that they explain Kant, under 
 whose broad aegis every writer on modern philosophy seeks 
 refuge. For they certainly have gone ‘ back to Kant,’ and, I 
 /believe, much further, even to Dr. Thomas Reid. They are 
 proceeding to give us ‘ the authentic Kantian philosophy ’ ; for 
 who cannot find his own creed in Kant? And that ‘ authentic ’ 
 or expurgated Kantian philosophy is, as they believe, a philo- 
 sophy from which the ‘ many idealisms ’ could not have sprung 
 except by the confusion of obviously different things, namely, 
 knowledge and things known. Kant, it seems, held thjrt 
 knowledge was all inside, that all our perceptions are sub- 
 jective phenomena and nothing more ; and in this respect 
 occupied ‘ practically the same ground as Berkeley He 
 differed from Berkeley mainly in that he did more justice to 
 the a priori elements in our purely subjective perceptions, 
 and held consistently to things-in-themselves. This means, 
 if I rightly understand, that Kant opposed ideasAmd things 
 after the manner of Locke. T 
 
 The hints given to us of the positive theory which lies be- 
 hind this criticism of Idealism and this reconstruction o*f Kant 
 point to the same dualism. That theory is to be a com- 
 
 lA 
 
IDEALISM AND EPISTEMOLOGY. 
 
 293 
 
 bination of Epistemological Realism with Ontological Ideal- 
 ism. It shall show (1) that knowledge is not the reality- 
 known ; (2) that knowledge is nevertheless of reality ; (3) 
 that t he universe is “ essentially related to intelligence ” and 
 not “ a brute fact existing outside the divine life and its in- 
 telligent ends”. I am not aware that any idealist would 
 W prepared to dispute any one of these conclusions. No 
 ‘ Hegelian/ ‘ Neo- Hegelian,’ or ‘ Neo-Kan tian ’ would hold 
 that his ideas are the things which they represent. No one, 
 except an absolute Sceptic, would deny that knowledge is 
 ‘ of ’ reality, though every philosopher would like to explain yC 
 Ah at ‘ off. And we are now, thanks mainly to Kant, all 
 convinced that reality is “ essentially related to intelligence ” ; 
 though some of us would like to understand that intelligence 
 and that reality in such a way as to make their relation in- 
 telligible. If it is sufficient to occupy these positions one 
 after the other, or combine them externally into an Epis- 
 temologico-realistico-ontologico Idealism, then we may all 
 assume, equally with our critics, that proud title. 
 
 But philosophy can not be satisfied with ‘ the cheap and easy 
 method * of solving difficulties by a distinguo . It seeks a 
 principle of unity in the differences ; and that principle is 
 scarcely brought to the surface by a theory which combines 
 the dogmatism of Reid with the ontology of Hegel ; for this 
 seems to be the plain English of Epistemologico-realistico- 
 ontologico Idealism. Dualism, which is philosophic failure, is 
 too thinly disguised by this mixture of such heterogeneous 
 elements as the^ absolute ph il osoph y and unsophisticated 
 popular opinion. And those who advance it, if they are not, 
 aTlSCf.' Bosanquet says, “fatally deficient in philosophic 
 thoroughness,” will be obliged to abandon either the one 
 or the other of those elements. Nor is it difficult to see 
 which element they will have to abandon. They are really \ 
 objecting to the theory of Hegel from the point of view I 
 of Reid. Their Hegelian or idealistic Ontology is, as yet, 
 not operative. Thejr actiyq convictions are that man’s 
 knowle dge is nqjb tRoQ^ffeCTS^ wtfrorr it represents and that 
 Hegelians say that it is ; that books on philosophy, even 
 if that philosophy be absolute, are not the Universe, and that 
 Hegelians say that they are. The fundamental vice of the 
 ‘ fefegelians’ and ‘ Neo-Hegelians ’ is confusion. They have 
 confused many things. They have mistaken a theory of 
 knowledge for a theory of being, the facts of their own con- 
 sciousness for the real things which they represent ; they 
 have identified their own ego with a logical category, and 
 themselves with God. The claim of the critics to a hearing 
 
294 
 
 H. JONES : 
 
 \ rests on their efforts to disentangle these confusions and set 
 [the elements apart. But before attempting their tasks the 
 critics may justly be required (1) to be quite sure that Ideal- 
 ists have confused these elements ; (2) to bear in mind .that 
 the real task of philosophy begins only with the attempt to 
 bring these elements together again as manifestations of a 
 ‘ single principle 
 
 Now, I would be loath to assert that Idealists have at no 
 time given colour to the charge that they have confused the 
 distinction between knowledge and reality in one or other 
 of its various aspects. But I would maintain, at the same 
 time, that the Idealists have pot id entified theirjjwnjrdeas of 
 things with the things which the ideas mean, or regarded the 
 Books of Hegel as the Universe. And T shall try to prove 
 that tojnsist as against Idealism that knowledge is not that 
 3 yhich is known springs from a fundamental misapprehension 
 of the idealistic point of view. 
 
 I regard Id ealism — to put the matter as plainly as I can — 
 as a theory" which represents the Universe as ^ -thinking 
 activity^ an activity which reaches its highest form in this 
 world in man. The critics accuse Idealists of saying that 
 the Univer se cons ists of ideas or thoughts, hanging together 
 m a kind of system. Such a ‘ world of ideas ’ they, quite 
 naturally, find to be very unreal, lacking all stability and 
 substantiality — a mere cloudland. It is, they hold, only a 
 subjective world, inside the ‘ consciousness ’ of individuals ; 
 and they would, therefore, attach it at both ends to realities 
 — at one end, to individual thinkers who produce thoughts, 
 and, at the other end, to ‘ trans-subjective ’ facts which the 
 thought's represent. They thus get three sciences, or three 
 departiiients of philosophy, namely, Ejpistemolqgy to deal with 
 our,, thoughts ‘ of ’ reality, Psychology to deal with the 
 thinkers, and Ontology to deal with the nature of things, 
 including thinkers. In consistency with this view they 
 accuse Hegel and his followers of £ swamping Epistemology in 
 Metaphysics,’ as well as of the opposite error of swamping 
 Metaphysics in Logic. This means, I presume, that Hegel- 
 ians succeed in both making the world of realities swallow 
 the world of ideas, and the world of ideas swallow the world 
 of realities — like the conjurer’s two snakes, each of which 
 disappeared inside the other. Or, to speak without the 
 violent met^phoi;s of ‘ swamping’ and ‘ swallowing,’ the oppo- 
 sition of thoughts } and '^fqngs/ 1 has been obliterated by the 
 HegehansToIa and new ; and their critics are bent on holding 
 the opposites apart, and on giving a theory of each of them 
 and a theory of their relation. This, I believe, is the precise 
 

 
 
 IDEALISM AND EPISTEMOLOGY. 
 
 295 
 
 + 
 
 point on which most of the critics of Idealism base their 
 attack ; and on this rests their own constructive endeavour. 
 
 In other words, they contend for the need and possibility of 
 a science of the relation between ideas, ‘ the subjective 
 states j which are plainly our data,’ and ‘ trans-subjective 
 realities,’ or the things meant by these ideas. 
 
 Now any theory of the relation of these opposed terms im- 
 plies that both of them exist. The critics thus rest their 
 case oni the existence of a world of ideas (or of as many jyorlds 
 of idea&as the re are individual thinkers), and on its differenced 
 from and relation to a single world of real objects. The 
 Epistemology which is to clear the way for Metaphysics is 
 to give a systematic account of the relation of these inner 
 and outer worlds ; and the fundamental error of Hegelianism 
 is that it has rushed straight on Metaphysics, without distin- 
 guishing the sphere of thoughts from the sphere of things, 
 the categories of Epistemology from those of Metaphysics. 
 
 But ‘ Hegelians * are, in my opinion, exposed to a still more 
 fundamental^Tiarge. They not only have no Epistemology, 
 but they deny that such a scierICeMs possible. They do not 
 recognise the existence of a sphere of ideas requiring to be 
 related to a sphere of tnohgbte* And it is evident ilhat % 
 before a scienqe of ^eAyelation of two worlds, one subjective i 
 and the other objective,' can be jusfTy^demanded from them, 
 they must be convinced that both of these worlds bxist.^^~ 
 Idealism, as I should like to call the theory of Hegel and his 
 followers, leaveg room for Psy^ology, as it does for Boj/any 
 or Physics or anymther* s pecia l science that deals, under its 
 own appropriate hypothesisT" witET definite facts or special 
 elements of the real world of objects. But its own proper 
 task is throughout metaphysical ; it is to investigate the 
 nature of a single reaPprinciple and to trace its activity 
 both in outer facts and in thinking individuals. Of £ 
 
 ‘ world*aF ideas’ — whether in individual thinkers, or han ging 
 in mid-ai r t -S o to speak, between individual thinkers and the 
 Sungs they think about — it is obstinately ignorant. And, 
 consequently, they do not oppose the world of ideas ‘ with its 
 imperturbable repose and clearness,’ as Lotze says, to the 
 world of things with its innumerable activities. The opposi- ' 
 tion is to them meaningless. They cannot confuse therefore ^ 
 its terms, nor .feel the need of an Epistemology to expound i 
 their relation. 
 
 The first task of the critics of Idealism is, therefore, to 
 prove that a ‘ world of ideas ’ exists, either in thinkers or 
 between them and the world they know. But of this I have 
 seen no proof; and I think that no proof is possible. So far as 
 
 
 * 
 
296 
 
 H. JONES : 
 
 my experience goes — and these critics of Idealism lay great 
 store on the experience of any individual — idea s form no world, 
 but each of them exists as long as it is being produced, and 
 no longer. They are evanescent products of an intelligent 
 activity which vanish when the process that brings them 
 forlh stops. It is not Idealism but Associationism that 
 regards ideas as capable of hanging on to one another like a 
 swarm of bees, or of arranging themselves in a system 
 ‘ imperturbable in its repose And it is not Idealism but 
 Associationism that can. demand and seek to (establish a 
 science to relate these subjective systems of)ideas to the 
 ouster world. One might expect that Mr. Bradley’s criticism 
 of this view had given it its final quietus, but a little 
 experience of philosophers should cure the youthful error of 
 being sanguine. May I repeat, then, that ideas seem to me 
 to occur in sequence ; that they follow one another, so far as 
 they are distinct presentations, in a serial order ; that not 
 one of them persists in existence ; that haying once perishecf 
 it is never revived ; and that, for each and all of these 
 reasons, a world of ideas ‘ imperturbable in its repose ’ is 
 impossible ? 
 
 This is a very simple matter, it seems to me, but the con- 
 sequences of ignoring it are so numerous and important that 
 I am tempted to dwell a little upon it. These consequences 
 may be more fully realised if we consider a possible and even 
 probable objection to our view. We speak of an inheritance 
 of knowledge capable of being hoarded by one generation 
 and handed down to its successors. And surely, it may be 
 urged, there are systems of knowledge, symbolised in books 
 and otherwise, which have a universal meaning and a per- 
 manent value for mankind. Such bodies of knowledge are 
 to be confounded neither with the fleeting psychical presenta- 
 tions in the minds of their authors, nor with the realities 
 which they represent. The ideas of Plato and Newton, in 
 the sense of their psychological presentations, perished as 
 'they arose, one after the other. They were never in the 
 minds of their authors, all at once. They are now all perished 
 with their authors. Nevertheless, it seems little less than 
 wilful perversity to deny that these men left behind them 
 in their works systems of knowledge, — what are not inappro- 
 priately called ‘ worlds of ideas ’ as an inheritance for all 
 thinkers. Is it not undeniable that of certain parts of the 
 earth we obtain information only from books of Geography ; 
 that there are ideas in those books for all who can understand 
 them ; and that these ideas are neither the psychological 
 presentations in the minds of the writers of those books nor 
 
IDEALISM AND EPISTEMOLOGY. 
 
 297 
 
 the actual parts of the earth ? Iclaas, then, it may be urged, 
 perish as psychical events, but as having meaning they are 
 capable of being permanent and of forming systems. 
 
 This distinction is also applicable to the ideas of an 
 individual. We speak of the growth of a man’s knowledge, 
 a growth which implies both the accumulation and system- 
 atisation of his ideas. And, apparently, we can be as sure 
 that this growth takes place as we can of any other fact of 
 experience. Such knowledge can not be identified with the 
 evanescent psychical events in his consciousness ; for these 
 latter are serial and fleeting, and can, therefore, be neither 
 accumulated nor systematised. To confuse this distinction 
 is to confuse an idea as a psychological datum, which / is 
 as subjective, incommunicable and transient as the pa& of 
 toothache is, with an idea as having objective, and therefore 
 universal and permanent meaning. 
 
 TTow,Tt may be urged, while it is evident that Epistemo- 
 logy as a science of subjective phenomena is impossible, 
 Epistemology as a science which explains the objective 
 reference or universal meaning of these ideas may be both 
 possible and necessary. But it is in the latter sense only 
 that the critics of Idealism regard Epistemology. I deas \ 
 as subjective phenomena are, in their view, to be dealt > 
 with by Ps^cEoIogyT They belong exclusively to the j 
 private history of the individual. But ideas as having* 
 objective reference, a meaning for all minds capable of 
 apprehending them, form the subject-matter of Epistemo- 
 logy. The spheres of these sciences are quite distinct from \ 
 each other and from that of Ontology. The scientific law, 
 e.g., that the attraction of bodies for one another varies 
 inversely with the square of their distances, is as distinct 
 from the psychological occurrence in the consciousness of its 
 dead discoverer as it is from the actual attraction itself. And, 
 in so far as this law is part of a connected whole of meaning 
 which we call the Copernican System of Astronomy, the term 
 ‘ world of knowledge ’ sufficiently describes an actual fact. 
 In that case Epistemology has a distinct field of inquiry, and 
 the ‘ Hegelians ’ and 4 Neo-Hegelians ’ cannot, without detri- 
 ment to clear thinking, 4 swamp it ’ in Metaphysics. 
 
 Our Epistemological critics would, no doubt, put their 
 objection more forcibly. I have done what I could, and I 
 now proceed to examine it. 
 
 The distinction between ideas as mere occurrences^ in 
 consci ousne ss and ideas as having objective reference seems 
 to me~~quite~~ valid. "Mr, Bradley has succeeded in putting 
 this matter beyond reasonable dispute. The question that 
 
298 
 
 H. JONES : 
 
 remains is, does this distinction justify the view that there 
 exists, besides subjects and objects, a world of knowledge 
 awaiting explanation at the hands of a science which is 
 neither Psychology nor Metaphysics, but is, apparently, sub- 
 sequent to the former, and certainly preliminary to the 
 latter? Does there exist such a third sph ere, or does it 
 not rather consist of hypostasised abstractions ? There are 
 evidently thinkers and objects thought about ; are there 
 other ‘ existential realities ’ — to use a phrase of our critics ? 
 
 I do not think that there are. Ideas are not ‘ existential 
 realities ’ in any sense, whether as psychological phenomena 
 or as having objective reference. They are not divisible 
 into two parts, one of which perishes, while the other has 
 permanent existence. The objective reference is an essen- 
 tial characteristic of every idea as a phenomenon of conscious- 
 ness and inseparable from it. The fact that we can and 
 should distinguish these two aspects of ideas does not justify 
 us in separating them, in making one fleeting and subjective 
 and the other permanent and objective. Nor can we make 
 ideas the subject of different sciences, except by a process of 
 abstraction that becomes vicious if taken as ultimate. Prof. 
 Setfi ' tells us that “the psychologist deals with psychical 
 events merely as such ”. “It is only for the psychologist 
 that mental states are interesting on their own account, as 
 subjective realities or facts. To every one else they are in- 
 teresting only for what they mean, for the knowledge they 
 give us of a world beyond themselves.” . . . “We treat 
 them consistently as significant, as ideas of something, as 
 representative or symbolic of a worlcl of facts. Now it is 
 from this latter point of view That epistemology considers 
 ideas.” ( The Philosophical Review, vol. i. pp. 131, 132.) 
 But it seems to me that psychology cannot deal with ideas 
 ‘ merely as psychical events ’. Apart from theif objective re- 
 ference, which Prof. Seth hands over to Epistemology, the 
 psychologist could not recognise them as ideas. If he could, 
 [every idea would be the same as every other ; perceptions, 
 imaginations, memories, concepts, reasonings, as mere psy- 
 chical events would be indistinguishable. In omitting the 
 objective reference the psychologist would be endeavouring to 
 deal with form without content, and the whole task of his 
 science would be to mark the time of psychical occur- 
 rences, none of them having any character. His Epistemo- 
 logy would “ swamp ” his Psychology. But, again, such an 
 Epistemologist as Prof. Seth describes would be equally 
 helpless. For it is evident that he could find no ideas having 
 objective reference except those which are also phenomena 
 
IDEALISM AND EPISTEMOLOGY. 
 
 299 
 
 of the individual consciousness. Or does Prof. Seth know 
 oFa world of thoughts wifhouFa thinker ? If not, then his 
 Epistc^ologist musFtake account of the fact that the ideas 
 whose’reference he would expound are psychical phenomena * 
 and nothing more ; though, if they are ide^s, they; are 
 psychical phenomena which have and must have objective I 
 meaning. In this respect Psychology would justly ‘ swamp ’ 
 
 STs Epistemology . 
 
 What, then, is to be said of such systems of thought 
 as the- ideal theory of Plato, or the astronomical theory of 
 Copernicus or Newton ? Simply, I would answer, that • 
 
 | or ideas th ey are p sychical experiences of indivi- 
 
 <fejls7fleetihg and subjective 7 and as having permanent mean- 
 mg“for mankind they ape not idea^ nor knowledge, but 
 obje ctive facts SponsigjE inTg~ofsy mbols * jand cambleof being - 
 interpreted intoTmowledge, or ideas, by the^^ictivityof indi- 
 vidual minds. In this last respect they fall entirely into the 
 world of externardbjects, and they are permanent objects of 
 knowledge for exactly the same reasons as works of art, or 
 plants and planets, are permanent objects of knowledge. 
 They are related to intelligence and await its interpretation 
 in precisely the same way. They are natural objects in the 
 outer world, presented to intelligence in the same way as all 
 other objects which have meaning. They occupy no sphere 
 by themselves. They do not constitute a ‘ world of ideas ’ ’ 
 from which we must in some inexplicable way escape in order 
 to find realities corresponding to them. They'do riot, there- 
 fore, await interpretation at the hands of a special discipline 
 called Epistemology, but are obj ective facts whose ultimate 
 injure is to be explained by Ontology. In themselves they 
 are not knowledge. When intelligence interprets ^theny, not? \ 
 before and not, after, they may in a sense be callecTsys terns 
 oFicleas. But so may plants and stars. 
 
 Of course these systems of knowledge as outwardly 
 symbolised, which is the only way in which they can be 
 regarded as ‘ existential realities*’ form a special class of 
 outer objects. In their case)|ome form of matter — whether \ 
 it be ink and paper as in books, or stones as m sculpture or j 
 architecture, or sounds and movements as in human speech ; 
 
 — becomes informed with meaning which is foreign and 
 acciden tal tcTiF The objective fact in these cases is a sign 
 or symbol, that is, something whose essence is its meaning 
 and whose special material form is more or less extraneous 
 and contingent. JBut I do not think that this distinction is 
 relevant here. Language, ) whether written or spoken, is 
 not an outward fact of the" same kind as the natural events 
 
300 H. jones : 
 
 whose meaning it is used to convey. Still it is an outward 
 fact, and it is ultimately to be explained in the same way as 
 other outward facts. And it is only -ag- outward objects, 
 / capable of being interpreted, that systems of knowledge have 
 any permanence and can be inherited from one generation 
 by another. By the help of language, a system of objective 
 signs, we inherit them from our predecessors just as we 
 inherit their works of art, public buildings, canals, and coal 
 mines. What is handed down from age to age and accumu- 
 lated is not knowledge but the means of knowledge; Bet 
 ideas but objects which have meaning. That meaning must 
 be elicited anew by every generation for itself. It is only 
 when so elicited that there is knowledge, as we have con- 
 sciousness of beauty when we appreciate a work of art, or a 
 scientific law when we understand a physical fact or event. 
 
 It is equally manifest that there is no accumulation of 
 knowledge in the individual. There are no ideas except 
 those which occur serially. Each of these ideas is a tran- 
 sient psychical phenomenon which has more or less signi- 
 ficance, according as it is a more or less complex unity of 
 multiple elements. Being transient, ideas cannot be accumu- 
 lated. All the objections urged by Mr. Bradley against the 
 Wssoci at ioni st s are valid against all ideas alike, whether 
 particular (were their particular ideas) or universal. They 
 perish with the process of knowing, and'fhey can never be 
 called into existence again. Of course that process may be 
 repeated. The individual may go through similar intellectual 
 activities over and over again with like results ; but neither 
 the activities nor their results are identically the same. They 
 have no permanence. The permanent identity is on the one 
 side the thinking subject, and on the other the objects 
 thought of. T he su b ject grow s, but not his knowledge as 
 such. Every intellectual act modifies Iwm. Every process 
 is organised into him in the form of developed faculty. But 
 the thoughts themselves pass away, as other good or bad 
 actions do. They are accumulated only in the same sense 
 as a learner of the piano accumulates technical skill. Each 
 thought vanishes like each movement of the fingers on the 
 keys ; but no thought vanishes before the -result of the 
 activity from which it sprung has been organised into the 
 agent by the development of his powers. In a word, there 
 exists no world of ideas any more than there exists a world 
 of actions. 
 
 All this seems to me so plain and elementary that I press 
 it at such length with some sense of shame. But, on the 
 other hand, the metaphorical use of such phrases as 1 world 
 
IDEALISM AND EPISTEMOLOGY. 
 
 301 
 
 of knowledge ’ exercises such a tyrannical power in philosophy 
 that very important results would follow the clear conscious- 
 ness that they are metaphors — that the ‘ world of ideas,’ 
 whether regarded as in ‘ imperturbable repose ’ witlfLotze, or 
 as ‘ wandering ad ject ives ’ with Mr. Bradley, is a more or 
 less solidly hypostasised abstraction, and nothing more.. If 
 this phantom world were "swept off the boards altogether we 
 should no longer need Epistemology in the sense of a theory 
 of the nature and validity of the objective reference of ideas. 
 
 ~Tt would therPbe clearly seen that what remains to be 
 explained is the activity of knowing, the intellectual p rocesse s 
 performed hv "individuals' i n virtue of an o ntological relation 
 between them and objects in the outer world. The task of 
 ‘ philosophy would be to investigate the nature of this onto- 
 logical relation, or of the “ single principle ” which makes 
 possible the intelligent processes in individuals. Logic would 
 no longer; seem to be^an analysis of the relations of ideas, 
 to one another, but an^exposition of intellectual processes. 
 
 Tf wouldHiot be a theory - of abstract conceptions, but an 
 ontological inquiry, just as the physical sciences are v . And it 
 it should turn out in the last resource that every p rocess is 
 best explicable as a- process of thinking, then Logic would 
 ff£eTfl>e OntologyT^F Metaphysics, as Hegel conceived it. 
 
 For this is what Hegel meant. To him the Universe was 
 not a system of thoughts, but a. thinking reality manifesting 3 1 U vv v 
 it se lf Lnost fully 4u-man. He has been regarded as setting 
 
 in motion an ‘ unearthly ballet of bloodless categories,’ and 
 then to have confounded these categories, these thought- 
 determinations, these abstract ideas, with realities. He is 
 accused of inventing a logical chain of mej:e thoughts, analo- 
 gous to ‘ Plato’s system of general notions or ideas,’ and then 
 to have endowed these thoughts with a dynamic power. He 
 is thus guilty as Plato was of a ‘ crude mythology,’ of sub- 
 stantiating mere ghosts, of taking a mauvais pas from the 
 world of mere thoughts to a world of real things. “ The* 
 distinctive feature of the Platonic theory of Ideas,” we are told 
 by Professor Seth, reading Plato backwards, “in which it is 
 a type of a whole family of systems, Hegel’s among the rest, 
 
 I take to be its endeavour to construct existence or life~out 
 of. pure form or abstract thought. Plato’s whole account of 
 sensible things is to name the general idea of which they are 
 particular examples ; Hegel’s whole account of Nature is 
 that it is a reflexion or realisation of the abstract cate- j 
 gories of Logic.” As against this view Professor Beth insists 
 that knowledge is not reality, that the notion of Being is not 
 existence, that the form or self-consciousness is neither man 
 
302 
 
 H. JONES : 
 
 nor God, but an abstract thought. “ Hegel,” he says, “ has 
 taken the notion or conception of self-consciousness, and he 
 conceives the whole process of ■existence as the evolution and 
 ultimately the full realisation of this notion. But it is 
 '■evident,” he adds, “that if we start thus with an abstract 
 conception our results will remain abstract throughout.” 
 Most evident, I quite agree.. To evolve things out of ideas 
 is a manifestly hopeless endeavour*. Gut of thoughts can 
 come nothing but thoughts. This matter is so evident as 
 not to need discussion, or proof, or iteration. If Hegel and 
 his followers, old and new, have attempted this task they are 
 convicted, in my opinion, of manifest absurdity. Ex nihilo 
 nihil fit. Erenr'a world of ideas which, has no existence, 
 which is a mere , manifestation of a subjective prpcess of 
 intelligence, nothing can be deduced. Abstractions cannot 
 yield even abstractions. 
 
 The truth of the matter is, however, that the critics of 
 Idealism have been reading into that system their own 
 views. Tliey believe in this world of ideas ; they desire a 
 science of ijt ; they wish to relate it to a world of realities. 
 For them the categories are general ideas connecting other 
 ideas, universal thoughts like beams supporting an edifice 
 of thoughts. For He gelians and Neo-Hegelians there are 
 1 no general ideas which do not perish in the making. There 
 are no categories in this sense, no thoughts which bind other 
 thoughts to one another. There is no world of knowledge 
 in the heavens above, or on the earth beneath, or in the 
 water under the earth. Their uniyer^p is mind, not thoughts. 
 Their categories are laws of the operations of intelligence, 
 not connecting ideas. Their problem is to understand 
 reality, to discover the nature of the fundamental principle 
 of which all existences are revelations, not to constitute a 
 theory of a world of abstract notions. That fundamental 
 reality they pronounce to be jjie universal intelligence, whose 
 operation they would fain detect in all things. They afe as 
 frank in their ontological intentions, as little troubled with 
 Epistemology and the sphere of ideas, as if they were 
 Materialists. The laws of thought are not for them the 
 - laws of thoughts, but the law of things. They do not wish 
 to know the nature of knowledge, except in the sense of 
 the process of knowing. Their attitude towards thought is 
 that of science towards natural processes. Their explana- 
 tion of thinking is as ontological as the physicist’s explana- 
 tion of gravitation. If their explanation is more full and 
 true it is to that degree more intimately related to reality. 
 If, as they hold, 'all reality is ultimately explicable as Spirit, 
 
IDEALISM AND EPISTEMOLOGY. 
 
 303 
 
 or Intelligence, their Ontology must be a Logic, and thelaws 
 of things must be laws oLihJnbmg. And this is just what 
 Hegel tried to prove in his Logic, in which he advances from 
 being to thought. I am not concerned at present in de- 
 fending this interpretation of the universe as a thinking 
 activity. It may be quite as absurd to regard physical 
 energy as intelligent. action, as it is to regard the intelligent 
 activity of man as the operation of mere physical force. To 
 say, for instance, that gravitation is implicit, or obscure 
 •thinking, may be to speak nonsense, as it probably is for the 
 Materialist to say that conscious -action is nothing- but the . 
 intricate mov^nent^LphysiGal- particles. It may be impos- 
 sible either to level up or to level down, to regard Matter as 
 Spirit or Spirit as Matter. In any case there is no doubt, 
 in my opinion, that Idealism is comnTitted to the^vicw of * 
 tfee-world as Spiritual, and that the interpretation of Gody tyj 
 -man and the world~a & ■■■Mtfmjfme is as foreign to it as their 
 interpretation into rings of smoke. 
 
 If this is so then the arguments advanced by these 
 epistemological critics against Idealism are simply beside 
 the mark. If they are valid at all, which is very doubtful, 
 they are valid against some fundamentally different system of 
 philosophy. Indeed, the service of these critics to students of 
 Hegel, in particular, is confined pretty much to the fact that 
 they have unconsciously drawn attention to the point in 
 which his theory differs essentially from previous sys tems. 
 For I should say that the most significant advance made by \ 
 Hegel consists, not so much in his reconciliation of know- 
 ledge and reality, as in his-refusal to start — as previous 
 philosophers did, and most of his critics still do — from their 
 opposition. If we except Spinoza we may say that moderri 
 philosophy up to and including Kant has endeavoured to 
 pass from the subject to the object, from thought to reality, 
 or from reality to knowledge, from the object to the subject. 
 Kant did more than any one else to show that the object 
 implied the subject, and he pointed out also, though less 
 clearly, that the subject implied the object. But subject 
 and object, t houg ht and reality, were never completely re- 
 conciled by him. The things-in-themselves became more 
 and more shadowy in his hands, but they never disap- 
 peared ; in other words, the fact that reality and thought 
 are essentially related became ever more clear to him as he 
 wrote, but this relation was not at any time so essential to 
 him as to be constitutive of both the related terms. He 
 always took his start from their opposition. He discovered 
 again and again that each term had meaning only in re- 
 
304 
 
 H. JONES : 
 
 lation to its opposite. Sense was h elpless without thought, 
 thought without sense ; conception without perception, per- 
 ception without conception ; the ‘ given ’ or the manifold, 
 without reason and its categories ; inag^and the world with- 
 out God. But the great step which was impIied^ in all this, 
 ' but only implied, it was reserved for Hegel to take : the 
 step, namely, of making the opposition of the terms subor- 
 dinate and secondary to their unity, and of regarding them 
 i as elements of unity. Kant’s task to the end was that of 
 reconciling differences, that of Hegel was to differentiate a 
 unity. Kant sought to bring thought and reality together, 
 Hegel starts from the conception of a reality which is all- 
 inclusive, manifesting itself both in the knowing subject and 
 in the known object. Kant Had demonstrated to him by 
 his failure that to take either of the alternatives as a starting- 
 point was to make the other inaccessible. Though^ in Kant 
 never quite got over to jjhings, and things never ^revealed 
 their inmost nature in thcfught, and,’ in consequence, an 
 element of scepticism, euphemistically and sophistically 
 called ‘faith,’ was t he laA~Uutcom e. Hegel, therefore, 
 thought to take his stand behind these alternatives, on the 
 reality, the All, which manifests itself in both of them. 
 
 And his relation to this reality is as frank as that of the 
 Materialist, who also has the significant philosophical merit 
 of at once taking his stand on the unity of things. His task 
 was to discover what conceptiomof this single principle, or 
 fundamental unity, which alone is, is adequate to the differ- 
 ences that it carries within it. ‘ Being,' he found, leaves no 
 room for differences ; it is overpowered by them. Quantity, 
 Quality, Measure — all forms of Essence ; Substance, Cause, 
 a cause which is also effect — ajl forms, of external relation - 
 even consciousness was inadequate. He found that fhe 
 reality can exist only as Absolute Self-Consciousness, as’ ^ 
 Spirit who is universal and who knows himself in all things. 
 In all this he is dealing with Beality. 
 
 Starting with a conception of the Keal, the All, which 
 might satisfy a materialist, he moves on, ever dealing with 
 that Beality, to the conclusion that it must be conceived as 
 Spirit, To regard Hegel as dealing with thought-determi- 
 nations, as generating abstract conceptions out of one another, 
 as needing in the end to leap out of the sphere of mere 
 thoughts into a sphere of reality, is to attribute to him that 
 dualism by repudiating which alone he was able to gain his 
 starting-point. Go where Hegel will, he cannot escape from 
 the Beality. He finds it active in all thinking, in all being. 
 ^0 idea of the reality in terpose s between him and it.' In 
 
 /] 
 
 
 04 
 
 
 'A 
 
 
 
IDEALISM AND EPISTEMOLOGY. 
 
 305 
 
 his'^ideas he detects the working of tha t reality. Apart from 
 it lie cannot even think faiseIyr^~~ H^is i n'comple te conce ptio ns 
 are as truly its manifestations, theresultsof ~ifs "activity in 
 hirri,!^' th'^^growth of "the grass, or the evolution of worlds, 
 areTits manifestations. He finds the Absolute, God, in the 
 development of the thought of mankind, in the rise and fall of 
 nations, in the establishment and overthrow of social institu- 
 tions in the movements of history, just as truly as did the 
 Hebrew prophets. or Harlvle. Hisjfcask is to find God every- 
 where, to justify * tjie faith ’ — if i may use this word of what 
 wasTt) him a rwtionai necessity, and not a convi ction unjusti- 
 fied by reason — that the Absolute Spirit lives and’Anoves in 
 ^11 things. 
 
 This conception, no doubt, brings with it sufficient difficul- 
 ties. It involves the Absolute in the fate of the finite, and raises 
 in a new form fundamental questions that lie at the root of 
 human life. It maybe so conceived as to confuse the human 
 and the divineVtobTunt the edge of the opposition between 
 right and wrong, and to make sin and goodness meaningless 
 by undermining the freedonToiTwEich their possibility rests*, 
 feut it is questionable^ whether any theory confronts these 
 difficulties so fairly, or throws more light upon them. And 
 in any case it is certain that to urge against Hegel or his 
 followers that they are occupied in evolving abstract ideas 
 from each other, that they have shut themselves up in a 
 cloud-land of mere conceptions, and |iave committed the 
 preposterous mislake of tal^hj^ knowledge of reality for, 
 reality itself, their own p assin g ideas for things, and their 
 systems and books for the Umver^S, is an 'accusation that 
 comes home to roost. It IsAFe critics of Idealism who find 
 ideas interpose between them and reality, and who cannot 
 escape from this shadow of^themselves. They, and not the 
 Hegelians or the Neo-Hegelians, find themselves shut up in 
 a world of their own thoughts and are occupied in the hope- 
 less puzzle of getting out of it. They want a theory of 
 thoughts, of their validity and value, as if by thinking they 
 could prove their validity ; or as if the theory of thoughts 
 were any nearer reality than the thoughts themselves. It is 
 to me the supreme merit of Hegel that he has indicated a 
 way of deliverance from this pndless and hopeless puzzle of 
 getting out of thoughts by means of thoughts. And lie has 
 done so by planting himself \o begin with in the system of*[ 
 the real. Instead of regarding~reality atfcircling round his 
 ideas, as his critics do, he has brought about the Copernican 
 change. His ideas are the working of reality^ in him ; 
 apart from that reality heTs helpless, in so far asThe isifs 
 
 20 
 
 CL 
 
306 
 
 H. JONES : IDEALISM AND EPISTEMOLOGY. 
 
 instrument, ‘ all things are his Consequently he. .has repu- 
 diated altogether ‘the sphere of thoughts without a thinker, 
 swept away the- world of ideas that divides the thinking 
 intelligence from its objects/ left man and the world, thinkers 
 and ‘ things thought about ’ fairly confronting one another 
 without any unsubstantial medium to separate them, and done 
 his part to rid modern philosophy of the sickly element of 
 subjectivity. He has, therefore, no Epistemology, and he 
 needs none. His theory is a theory of the real, as Meta- 
 physics was in the hands of Aristotle. In establishing that 
 theory he deprived both thinkers and things of the false 
 independence attributed to them by Individualism,* but he 
 did not reduce them into phantoms called thought-determi- 
 nations, or abstract ideas, or logical categories, nor cut them 
 loose from existence. They remain ‘ existential realities ’ 
 
 ' for him, for they belong to the system of reality. And the 
 system to which they belong, the Real which manifests itself in 
 them is to him, as it was to Aristotle, Spiritual, an intelligence 
 which knows itself in all things. To nifu there is no activity 
 which, ultimately, is not the activity of Spirit. And, in con- 
 sequence, the laws of its operations are laws of thinking — 
 not the laws of thoughts. On this account his Metaphysic 
 is also a Logic, a science, not of the connexions of ideas, but 
 of the operation of mind. In a word, Hegel speaks of think- 
 ing, his critics speak of thoughts, converting his process of 
 Reality into abstract and unreal general notions and his 
 Ontology into an Epistemology. 
 
 How such a perversion of his meaning and of the meaning 
 of his idealistic followers has come about, I shall try to show 
 in another article. 
 
| | [ hilbSCPHU 
 
 Jt i ^ mam 
 
 EALlM^AND EPISTEMOLOGY. (II.) 
 
 [Off-printed from Mind : a Quarterly Review of Psychology and 
 Philosophy . Vol. II., N.S., No. 8.] 
 
 By Prof. H. Jones. 
 
 I have tried to show that the critics of Hegel and his fol- 
 lowers have taken his theory of thinking to be a theory of 
 thoughts, and converted his process of reality into an un- 
 substantial system of abstract ideas. I have also tried to 
 show that the systems of ideas whose nature, validity and 
 relation to reality the Epistemologists investigate, do not 
 really exist. What exists is a series of mental operations, 
 activities of reality, as manifested in the subject who thinks 
 and in the conditions, within him and without, which make 
 his thinking possible. There are thinkers and things thought 
 about ; but there are no third entities. The mental processes 
 performed by individuals do not leave behind them any 
 products which can be regarded as having the apparent 
 independence and real existence of things. The only result 
 of mental activities is the modification of the mental faculty. 
 Thinking develops the thinking powers, but it does not 
 aggregate, either within the thinker or elsewhere, ajheap, or 
 rqass, or series of ideas. Hence the phrases “ world of ideas,” 
 “ circle of ideas,” “ system of knowledge,” indicate no actual 
 fact. They are substantiated abstractions, as unreal as a 
 world or circle or system of deeds severed from their agents. 
 Ideas pass away never to be recalled, just as truly as actions! 
 or sensations pass away. They are serial phenomena, which 
 can neither be associated nor dissociated, for they have no 
 permanence and no universality. None of them serve to 
 connect others* and they form no system, and consequently 
 no theory of them is possible. We may have a science of 
 the proces s of Thinking ; but a science of the products of 
 thought, a theory of knowledge and of the nature and 
 validity of ideas, is possible only at the expense of substan- 
 tiating what is fleeting, and of treating abstractions as if they 
 were realities. 
 
 Now, there is a sense in which every science (and even 
 Metaphysics) deals with the fleeting as if it were permanent, 
 and with abstractions as if they were real. We must tear up 
 the unity of the real and deal with aspects only, for the 
 simple reason that we cannot think all things at once. It 
 may, therefore, seem that the charge made against Episte- 
 mology may be directed in like manner against all human 
 
 30 
 
 |o 401; 17 
 
458 
 
 H. JONES: 
 
 knowledge, which certainly never reflects the whole of being 
 but is always incomplete. If ‘ ideas ’ severed from the sub- 
 ject who thinks them and from the objects which they mean 
 are unreal, so also, it may be said, are the ‘ quantity ’ of the 
 mathematician, the ‘laws’ and ‘causes’ of physics, and even 
 the ‘ things ’ of common-sense. All these in their last resort 
 are abstractions and myths. We may in fact say at once 
 that all human thought is untrue and all its objects are 
 unreal, for the former is incomplete and the latter are 
 abstractions. But this is only a half truth. If all knowledge 
 is false in so far as it is only a partial revelation of reality, 
 all knowledge is true in so far as it is nothing but a partial 
 revelation of reality. If every fact and event is in its 
 isolation only an appearance, every appearance in its place 
 within the system of reality is itself real. The condemnation 
 of the incomplete and partial as false and unreal itself 
 depends on the presence of the complete and real. Hence 
 no science is altogether false and no abstraction is altogether 
 nothing. In other words, while every science is untrue in 
 so far as it is inadequate to the reality which it investigates, it 
 still does investigate reality. But the unique characteristic 
 of Epistemology is that it postpones the investigation of 
 reality to another matter ; it must pronounce upon the 
 nature and validity of knowledge before it can be sure that 
 we are not foreclosed into a thorough-going scepticism. It 
 must investigate ideas in order to show first of all whether 
 or not their whole meaning is not false, and their objective 
 reference a mere illusion. So that the ideas with which it 
 deals, while not altogether unreal, are set up over against 
 reality. In so far as they have meaning, or are more than 
 psychical events, they cannot be even appearances, for they 
 can find no place in a system of reality whose very existence 
 is matter of doubt. Epistemology, in a word, differs from 
 every other form of knowledge in that it cuts itself entirely 
 free of reality to begin with. It must not assume the reality 
 of the objects to which the ideas refer, for this is the very 
 problem it has to investigate. It has nothing to do with 
 the reality of the ideas as psychical occurrences, for that is 
 the business of Psychology. It thus abstracts from reality 
 on both sides, and by dealing with the mere meaning of 
 ideas seeks a place between Psychology and Metaphysics. 
 
 But this process of double abstraction from reality, this 
 withdrawal into the world of mere meaning, destroys the 
 very possibility of Epistemology. I shall try to show that 
 it finds its problem by only seeming to retire from reality, 
 and that in so far as it actually does retire from it, it 
 
IDEALISM AND EPISTEMOLOGY. (il.) 
 
 459 
 
 can find neither its problem nor its solution. In other 
 words, I shall try to show that the whole edifice of 
 Epistemology rests on a contradiction, on an attempt, that 
 is, to treat its first starting-point and basis as both real and 
 unreal. I do not deny the possibility of a theory of know- ' 
 ledge in every sense. I deny this theory of knowledge, because | 
 of the abstraction which is vital to it and at the same time ^ 
 fatal to it. In order that we may have a true theory of 
 knowledge we must undo the abstraction on which Epis- 
 temology rests. We must restore the relation of id eas ta 
 Reality on both sides. We must regard ideas in connexion 
 both with their^pWchical occurrence and with thgjictuality , 
 of their objects. We must take ideas, not as independent 
 entitles or mere meanings, but as manifestati on s o f - fhtr 
 aotivify-of. reality. We must, in a word, base our theory of 
 knowledge on a theory of reality, and either regard it as a 
 particular science dependent on Metaphysics, as a part of 
 Psychology, or else, by pressing its hypotheses and categories 
 home, identify it with Metaphysics. * 
 
 The importance assumed by Epistemology in modern 
 times demands that an attempt to cut its very root should 
 be justified in detail. Epistemologists insist, not only against 
 Idealism, but also against every other philosophy which pro- ~ 
 fesses to deal directly with reality, that before we can legiti- 
 mately say one word as to its nature, or take one step towards \ ' 
 
 constructing a Metaphysic, we must solve certain preliminary j 
 problems as to the nature and validity of ^knowledge. Prof. 
 
 Seth puts the matter in this way : “ Is there any reality 
 beyond the conscious states themselves and their connexions ? 
 
 If there is, in what sense can we be said to know it ? Is 
 knowledge, inference, or belief the most appropriate word 
 to use in the circumstances*?” (Phil. Rev., i. 136). “How, 
 or in what sense, does the individual transcend his own 
 individual existence and become aware of other men 
 and things? It is this relatively simple and manifestly 
 preliminary question that Epistemology has to take up. 
 Subjective st ates are plainly our data ; it is there we have 
 our fooEhoId, our pied aTUTfeJ' Hut unless we can step beyond 
 them, Metaphysics in any constructive sense can hardly 
 make a beginning. Epistemology, if its results are negative, 
 necessarily leads to a thorough -going scepticism ; but if its 
 results are positive, it only clears the way for metaphysical 
 construction or hypothesis” (Phil. Rev., i. 138). 
 
 Two doctrines are set forth with admirable clearness in 
 these words, namely — first, that the problem of Epistemology 
 is to explain the transition we make, or seem to make, in 
 
460 
 
 H. JONES : 
 
 knowledge, from “conscious states” to a reality beyond; 
 second, that this problem of the nature of the transition 
 must be solved before we can attempt to determine whether 
 there hsjreality and Vhat is its nature. In order to solve its 
 problem, Epistemology is furnished with “plain data”. 
 These are “ subjective states,” ‘in which it has its foot-hold, 
 its pied a terre \ But in this last statement I find a most 
 serious difficulty. What meaning is attached to these 
 “ subjective states,” on which as the one fragment of solid 
 ground the epistemologist plants his foot ? Following the 
 lead of Prof. Seth and other epistemologists, I accept the 
 distinction on which they insist as against Idealists, the 
 distinction, that is, between a fact or event, and the know- 
 ledge or the idea of the fact. We are particularly warned 
 by these writers not to confuse reality in any form with our 
 thoughts concerning it. Lotze is most emphatic in his view 
 that feelings can never be the ideas of them. And this 
 applies in a similar way to all the** phenomena of conscious- 
 ness.* The distinction between a psychical occurrence and 
 the consciousness of that occurrence is as broad as the 
 distinction between any other event or fact and the idea of 
 the event or fact. The idea oi the toothache, orjff love or 
 hatred, or ojLthe perception of an object, or of a volition, is 
 no more the actual toothache, or love, or hatred, or percep- 
 tion, or volition, than the idea of Arthur’s Seat is the actual 
 Arthur’s Seat. It does not matter whether the fact be sub- 
 jective or objective, it is never the idea of itself. 
 
 Of course this difference rests on the presumption made 
 by Epistemologists that ideas of facts, psychical or otherwise, 
 have sufficient substantiality to be opposed to the facts. 
 Apart from this most questionable assumption no one can 
 deny the distinction. I would myself insist upon it as a 
 universal and necessary truth. To assert that a thought is 
 the thing thought of, or that one psychical activity is another 
 psychical activity, is tantamount to dissolving the continuity 
 of being, and contradicts the first condition of thinking. 
 Nothing can be anything but itself. The fact is the fact, 
 the event the event, the thought the thought ; and there is 
 an end of the matter. No metaphysical theory can affect 
 this fundamental truth. Even if it be true, as Idealists are 
 supposed to say, that reality is thought, or thoughts ; never- 
 theless, the .thoughts of reality are not the thoughts which 
 constitute reality ; they are at the best other thoughts, and 
 are either unreal or additions to the first reality. A com- 
 4 plete idea of the Universe would not be^the Universe ; the 
 idea would be the idea, and the Universe the Universe. And 
 
IDEALISM AND EPISTEMOLOGY. (il.) 
 
 461 
 
 the latter would have to be enlarged so as to take the former 
 into it, or the former would have to be shown to be an unreal 
 abstraction. 
 
 In the meantime, I accept, then, in the fullest way the 
 distinction between thought and reality on which our critics 
 insist. Let us now see its bearing on their doctrine. If 
 the actual fact or event is never the knowledge of it, then our. 
 “ sub jective state s ” are not our knowledge of them. Both 
 are facts, of course, and both are psychical facts ; but they 
 are different psychical facts ; the one is the object known, 
 the other is the knowledge of the object, both falling within 
 Consciousness. Now, the question arises, which of these is 
 the datum of the Epistemologist ? In which does he find his 
 ‘ foot-hold, his pied a terre * ?■ Is it in the reality, or is it 
 in the knowledge of it ? Is it t he s ubjective state as a 
 psychical occurrence, or is it the reflective knowledge of 
 jhat psychical state ? 
 
 Let me put £Ke "difficulty in another way. The Epistemo- 
 logist has a “ chasm to bridge over,” and that chasm separates 
 the sphere of knowledge from the sphere of reality. “ The 
 chasm is not absolute,” we are told, “else knowledge would 
 be for ever impossible.” Nevertheless “he” (the knowing 
 individual) “does not pass over into the things, nor do the 
 things pass over into him. At no point can the real world, 
 as it were, force an entrance'' into the closed sphere of the 
 Tdeal ; nor does that sphere open at any point to receive into 
 itself the smallest atom of the real world, qua real, though 
 it has room within itself ideally for the whole Universe of 
 God ” {Phil. Rev., i. 515, 516). Granting, for the sake of 
 argument, that both of these closed spheres exist, the ques- 
 tion arises : Into which of these exclusive spheres do the 
 “subjective states” fall? In which of them does the Episte- 
 mologist find his “ foot-hold, his pied d terre ” ? Is it in the 
 ideal sphere, or in the real sphere, or in both? There is, of 
 course, a sense in which the “ subjective state ” is both real 
 and ideal. I mean that an idea is ideal as (having jmeaning, 1 
 and rea l as^ being a psychTcaTevent? This truth has by no 
 means escaped Prof. Seth. “Of course,” he says, “if we 
 take reality in the widest sense, our cognitive states are 
 also part of reality. The wildest fancy that flits through the 
 mind exists in its own way, fills out its own moment of 
 time, ancTTakes its individual place in the fact-continuum 
 which constitutes the universe.” But, as he tells us else- 
 where, this existential side of the idea is of no interest to 
 Epistemology. “It is only for the psychologist, however, 
 that mental states are interesting on their own account, as 
 
462 
 
 H. JONES : 
 
 subjective realities or facts ” {Phil. Rev ., i. 132). E pistemol ogy 
 deals only with tlieir meanings, and ‘ conveniently neglects ’ 
 their other side. As psychical events filling out their own 
 moments of time they are ‘ parts of reality,’ examples of what 
 is called above “ smallest atoms of the real world But being 
 real “they cannot force an entrance into, the ideal sphere,” 
 and “the ideal sphere cannot open at any point to receive 
 them into itself”. They thus fall into two fragments, one of 
 which is seized by Psychology and the other by Epistemology. 
 Epistemology, being a system of ideas, cannot adopt them qua 
 real. (Psychology in some mysterious way can, although it, 
 too, is a system of ideas.) As facts, or as real events, they 
 are shut out of the ideal sphere. Seeing that, qua real, they 
 escape the clutch of Epistemology, Epistemology does in 
 strictness not deal with them at all, but with ideas of them. But 
 as the ideal is never real, as their spheres are entirely exclu- 
 sive, how is Epistemology possible? If it starts from the sub- 
 jective state as real, then the real and ideal are not separate. 
 The Epistemologist actually knows this real thing. He has 
 this reality in his hand immediately and directly; and the 
 question which he asks, whether he can or can not know 
 reality at all, is absurd. He assumes as his starting-point that 
 he does know it, and the only reasonable question he can ask 
 is, whether, knowing one reality, he can or can not know some 
 other reality. If, on the other hand, the Epistemologist can 
 not know facts but only ideas, if he starts not from the sub- 
 jective state, or from the self, but from his idea of that state 
 or self, then it may be asked, what kind of foot- hold or firm 
 ground does he find in it ? What special virtue lies in thePdea 
 of a subjective state more than in the idea of a stone, a stick, 
 dr griffin, that he should ‘ find in it his pied a terre’ ? The idea 
 of the self is no more the self than the idea of the world is the 
 world. Hence, if we refuse to play fast and loose with the 
 reality of the subjective state, if we adopt and hold fast to 
 the two exclusive spheres of the ideal and real, Epistemology 
 seems to me to be in an inextricable dilemma. It cannot 
 deal with the subjective state as real, for, ex hypotKesi , it has 
 first to pronounce on the possibility oflmowing any reality, 
 on the validity of the objective reference of any idea. And, 
 on the other hand, it ‘cannot deal with the subjective state 
 as a mere idea; because if it begins with an idea it must 
 end with ideas. There would be no outlet from the 
 sphere of ideas, for surely it is preposterous to seek such 
 an outlet by having more ideas. It has no foot-hold, its 
 very dream of reality would vanish, and with it its own 
 problem. 
 
IDEALISM AND EPISTEMOLOGY. (il.) 463 
 
 But, it may be urged, there is a third possibility. These 
 subjective states may have the unique characteristic of being 
 both real and ideal ; or mind may have the power of knowing 
 j/ in this instance the actual reality itself ; or, in this instance, 
 at fins point, the ideal and the real spheres interpenetrate. 
 And this is what Prof. Seth means when he insists that the 
 chasm between the ideal and the real, which ‘ nothing can 
 bridge over,’ is ‘ not absolute This is also implied in the 
 use of the word ‘ datum ’. “ Subjective states,” it is said, 
 
 “ are plainly our data ” ; and a datum manifestly means a 
 reality that is also known, at least to some extent. A datum 
 that is no t Eea4, and a datum that is not •knowy, are 
 obviously mean ingle ss phrases. 
 
 Now I have no objection to the statement that “ subjective 
 states are plainly our data ”. I would add, however, that they 
 are ckrta on ly as psychical events ‘ filling their own moment 
 of time, and, taking, their individual place in the’ fact-con- 
 tinuum which._constitutes the universe \ They are daTa as 
 ‘ parts of reality And I would add further that mo unta ins 
 \ \amfrryers, other men and otherjhings, are data in precisely 
 lthe same sense? If the real state oFfhe subject and the idea 
 of it, if the actual self and the knowledge of it, come together 
 in the one case" they come^bgether in the other. Of ,15n fEe"" 4 
 other hand, if the idea intervenes between us and mountains^ 
 and rivers, the idea intervenes between us and the psychical 
 states. lithe actual Arthur’s Seat eludes our grasp, so does 
 The actual self! Idea and existence, thought and thing, are 
 similarly "related in all cases. If Reality sunders into two 
 aspects, if it has boffr an ideal and existential side in one 
 case, it has the same in all other cases. Reality , whatever 
 it is, is consistent with itself; and if it has a'slfs’fundamental 
 characteristic t he fuj j£fi&p of appearing as idea in the case 
 of subjective states, it hasTbat characteristic always. If 
 not, how would even the empty conception of any reality 
 other than psychical states ever occur to us ? 
 
 I do not expect, however, that Prof. Seth will admit this. 
 Its admission is not consistent with his fixing on subjective 
 states as in some special way giving us our foot-hold. So 
 that the question at issue turns out to be this : Whether or 
 not we know anything actual besides subjective states ; or, in 
 other words, whether Sensationalism be not, after all, the 
 true philosophy. But I do not expect that Prof. Seth will 
 admit this either ; for it is inconsistent with his view that, 
 besides an Epistemology which concerns itself primarily 
 with subjective states, we may have a Metaphysical doctrine 
 of reality in general which may be either Idealistic or 
 
464 
 
 H. JONES: 
 
 Materialistic. Moreover, he knows the history of Philosophy 
 too well to be ignorant of the fact that Sensationalism leads 
 to ‘ thorough-going scepticism’. There is some confusion 
 here which we must try to disentangle. 
 
 We have set aside two alternatives for Epistemology — the 
 alternatives, namely, of star ting with a mere idea, or with a 
 mere fact ; we have, in oTher words, thrownWverboard the 
 absolute exclusiveness of the real and ideal spheres, and 
 accepted ‘the subjective state’ as in both spheres at once, 
 that is, as a ‘ datum,’ or reality known. Now the problem 
 arises, how can Epistemology, starting as it does with reality 
 jn one particular form, ask its primary question? Epis- 
 temology is defined by Prof. Seth as “an investigation of 
 knowledge as knowledge, or, in other words, of the relation 
 of knowledge to reality, of the validity of knowledge. This, 
 at least, is the fundamental question to which other Epis- 
 temological discussions are subsidiary” ( Phil . Rev., i. 130). 
 “ Our cognitive states appear to refer themselves to a reality 
 which we know by their means. Epistemology does not, 
 like psychology, rest in the appearance. It seeks to deter- 
 mine whether the appearance is true, and, if true, in what 
 sense precisely it is to be understood” {Phil. Rev., i. 136). 
 Will the reader compare this statement of the problem of 
 Epistemology with the one quoted above? “Is there any 
 reality beyond the conscious states themselves? How, or 
 in what sense, does the individual knower transcend his own 
 individual existence and become aware of other men and 
 things ? &c.” If he does compare these statements of the 
 problem of Epistemology, I think it will become evident 
 that Prof. Seth confuses two distinct questions, and that his 
 Epistemology rests on that confusion. The first of these 
 questions is, Can we pass from knowledge to reality ? Or can 
 We know any reality? The second of these questions is" 
 Can we pass from subjective states known realities to 
 other realities, persons, or things ? Can we know any 
 reality besides subjective states? The first problem is con- 
 cerned with the possibility of the transition from knowledge, 
 excluding q^l reality, To reality ; the second with the possi- 
 \ biljjby of the transition from the knowledge which includes 
 one species of actual facts to a knowledge of other facts. 
 We may put the distinction less accurately but none the 
 less fairly by saying that the transition in the one case 
 is from ideas to reality, in the other case from reality to 
 reality. 
 
 I think it is not necessary, for me to insist that there is a 
 fundamental difference between these problems, and that it 
 
IDEALISM AND EPISTEMOLOGY. (il.) 
 
 465 
 
 should be made clear which of them is the real problem of 
 Epistemology. Does Epistemolo gy sta rt within the ideal 
 sphere and then try to get out of it to reality? Or does it 
 start with a fact and, like every other science, investigate 
 tBe relation of its assumed fact to other facts ? If it does 
 the first, then I need not repeat what I have already urged, 
 that it can never reach reality, nor even ask whether there 
 is reality or not. It is shut up in the ideal sphere. If it 
 does the second, then it does not “inquire into the nature j 
 of knowledge as knowledge, of the relation of knowledge to 
 reality,” but into the nature of reality, and of the relation ofl 
 reality to reality. 
 
 The first question is unanswerable. W e cannot get ou t 
 of the circle of mere ideas, because we are never in it ; and 
 we cannot get. into the sphere of reality, because we are 
 never out of it. And the assumption of a ‘ datum,’ which is 
 manifestly indispensable, shows that Ejgistgmology itself ' 
 proceeds from a reality and not from a mere idea. The 
 sebond question Islmswerable ; but it is not the question of 
 Epistemology. It is the question of the relation of a part 
 £)f reality to reality in general, a question which is asked by 
 every science, and which definitely assumes that reality is 
 knowable, and, so. far, ac tually known. 
 
 But Prof. Seth cannot afford to distinguish these ques- 
 tions, nor can Epistemology. It must assume reality in some 
 form in order to have a foot-hold. This is done in the 
 second question, where the actuality of the subjective state 
 is taken for granted. On the other hand, if Epistemology is 
 to make a preliminary inquiry into the validity of the' ob- 
 jective reference of knowledge it must not assume reality ; and 
 hence the first question is asked. Epistemology thus rests R 
 on a self-contradictory basis : it both must and must not 1) 
 assume reality. And we find in this very necessity an 
 explanation of the extraordinary statements made by Prof. 
 Seth, and quoted in my last article, that 4 the chasm between 
 knowledge and reality is not absolute,’ and yet ‘ that nothing 
 can serve to bridge it over ’. The radical unreasonableness 
 of the science is concealed by these ambiguous ways of 
 stating its problem. 
 
 That it is based on a contradiction which is hidden 
 beneath a confusion may be shown in another way. 
 This confusion lies in the phrase “ subjective states ”. 
 States may be ‘subjective’ in two senses. First, a state 
 may be subjective in the sense of being a portion of the 
 experience of an individual subject. Feelings and volitions 
 as well as cognitive activities are subjective in this sense. 
 
466 
 
 H. JONES : 
 
 Mine are mine, and yours are yours. Secondly, a state may 
 be ‘ subjective ’ in a sense which is applicable to ideas only, 
 and not to feelings or volitions. Subjective ideas are those 
 whose objective. reference is not valid. In a word, they are 
 untrue ideas, or illusions. We may, and continually do, 
 inquire into the validity of a subjective state in this second 
 sense ; that is, we investigate the truth of a part of our 
 Knowledge by reference to our view of reality as a whole ; 
 we test a part of our experience by reference to the condi- 
 tions of the possibility of any experience', or, in other 
 words, by reference to its fundamental principles. But 
 subjective states in the first sense are neither true nor 
 untrue ; for they are ex hypothesi parts of the life of the 
 individual ; they are assumed to be facts. 
 
 Now Prof. Seth uses either of these senses at his con- 
 venience, and he saves his Epistemology only by doing so. 
 
 At one moment ‘ the subjective state ’ is a real experience, a 
 part, of the world of reality in which he finds his foot-hold. 
 
 At the next moment ‘ the subjective state ’ is an idea whose 
 objective reference may, or may not, be valid, ft is a part of 
 Bje ideal world. And it is only this ambiguity which gives* 
 
 ‘ the subjective state ’ its value for Epistemological theory. 
 
 It makes it possible to start from reality while seeming to 
 leave the question of the possibility of knowing ? reality - / 
 
 untouched; for the subjective state is either ideal or real as 
 we please. In fact, the unconscious movement of the Episte- 
 mologist may be justly described as follows. He first starts 
 from the subjective state or idea, as a fact of experience ; 
 then he slips the existential side of the idea up his sleeve 
 and treats it merely as having meaning ; then he looks up 
 and asks, where can we find the reality which corresponds to 
 this meaning ? It seems to me that we can justly demand 
 greater explicitness on this fundamental matter of the 
 problem which Epistemology seeks to solve. Which is its 
 problem? Is it whether we can know reality what- 
 soever, and, if so, how? Or is it whether we can know 
 any "reality besides subjective states, and, if so, how? 
 Epistemology starts from the subjective state as real, or 
 it does not. If it does not , then it starts ex vacuo, and 
 although it is not dumb, it has nothing to say. It is shut 
 up absolutely and irretrievably in a circle of ideas and has 
 at no point any foot-hold or contact with reality. On the 
 Mother hand, if it does start from a real fact as known, then it 
 has assumed not only the possibility but the actuality of a 
 positive relation between the real and the ideal. It is 
 confessedly unable to get behind reality in order to set forth 
 on its specific inquiry, and has assumed a datum. Its 
 
IDEALISM AND EPISTEMOLOGY. (il.) 
 
 467 
 
 problem is, therefore, no longer that of the validity of know- 
 ledge, bnt that of the relation of one fact to another, and in 
 this respect it is just like other special sciences. It sinks in 
 fact into a part of Psychology, and, as such, it is dependent 
 upon, instead of preliminary to, Ontology. Like Idealism, 
 which it criticises, it bases the cognitive relation of thinker and 
 things upon their Ontological relation, instead of vice versa. 
 It seeks to understand, and not to make, a connexion between 
 the real and the ideal. I^iLenies’Tlie chasm between the 
 ideal and the real by. treating the subjective state as both ; 
 and thus, instead of having two spheres mutually exclusive, 
 it goes far towards showing that reality has two sides, the 
 existential and the ideal, or, in other words, that t he real 
 reveals itself as ideal. 
 
 I conclude, then, that Epistemology, as an inquiry into 
 the validity of knowledge in general, is an impossible science, 
 and that it has seemed possible only because, under the 
 guise of this inquiry, it really deals with quite another 
 problem, namely, whether it is possible to know anything 
 besides subjective states. This is not an Epistemological i 
 /liquify*, mil a Psychological one aspiring to be Meta- 
 physical. ( Before examining this second inquiry, and in 
 parting with Epistemology as the science of the validity of 
 knowledge in general, I should like to say that there is an 
 objection frequently urged against such a science which 
 seems to be plain and unanswerable. It is that it is » 
 impossible by knowing to pronounce upon the validity of 
 knowledge as a whole. We may test a part by reference to 
 theWfKble orTEePprinciple of the whole, but we manifestly 
 cannot 4est the whole by means of a part. I have not 
 used this argument ; Epistemologists have been appealed 
 to so often from this side that I must conclude that they 
 are deaf on it. The same argument might have been put 
 in another way, namely, by simply asserting the incon- 
 trovertible fact that Reality is all-inclusive, and, as such, 
 takes in even false ideas. But this also is admitted 
 and ignored by Epistemologists. They manifestly carry 
 reality with them as a criterion whereby to distinguish 
 Iruth and error, and~~f hey usel f in every judgment that they 
 make. But this does not~3eter them in the least from 
 asking where is reality, or whether it is or is not. These 
 broad objections having failed, I had recourse to the more 
 tedious process of analysing the claims of this pseudo- 
 science, for which I offer this apology to the intelligent 
 reader. „ 
 
 It remains now to examine the second problem, which pre- 
 tends to be Epistemological, but which I have asserted to be a 
 
468 
 
 H. JONES : 
 
 Psychological one aspiring to be Metaphysical — the problem, 
 namely, whether we can know anything besides our own 
 subjective states. This inquiry starts from reality as 
 directly, if not as frankly, as Idealism itself ; hence the 
 choice offered us is not between an Epistemology and a 
 Metaphysic, but between one Metaphysic and another. 
 And I think, as already hinted, that the Metaphysic to 
 which it leads is simply Sensationalism. This Sensation- 
 alism differs from that of Hume or Mill, only in that it 
 has been sophisticated to the highest degree by its inter- 
 course with Germany, and by its attempt, at least in Prof. 
 Seth’s hands, to attach itself both to German Idealism and 
 to Scotch Realism of the rough and ready type of Reid. 
 To prove this, I acknowledge, is a task I am loth to 
 undertake. I am not sure whether it would be a service to 
 philosophy to separate the elements of a theory which 
 represents itself as a Combination of Epistemological Realism 
 with Ontological Idealism ; which, in other words, as an Epis- 
 temology asserts that it deals with mere ideas, as a Realism 
 asseverates that these ideas are true, as an Ontology proclaims 
 that it deals with reality, and as an Idealism pronounces 
 this reality to be either thought, or thoughts. 
 
 I shall content myself with examining its fundamental 
 assumption — That we do know subjective states as real 
 facts, that at first at least we know nothing else, and that 
 what we require to discover is whether, and, if so, how we 
 can know anything besides subjective states. The first 
 characteristic of this theory I should like to point out is 
 that it starts from a particular datum, regarded as indubit- 
 able — “Subjective states are plainly our data”. In this 
 respect it reminds us of Cartesianism, which also sought 
 for something fixed and sure, however small, as a basis 
 on which to erect its structure. It differs from it in put- 
 ting a £ subjective state ’ in the place of the ‘ cogito ergo sum,’ 
 and in regarding its subjective state as real as well as 
 ideal. 
 
 Now the idea of basing a metaphysical theory on an 
 indubitable datum is radically false, and involves a me- 
 chanical method of procedure and a mechanical view of 
 both thought and reality. In other words, the assumption 
 of such a datum implies that thought links its objects 
 externally one to another, because in existence they are 
 isolated and particular. And just because particulars alone 
 exist and the connexions between them are thought-woven 
 ‘ spider-webs,’ cognition never can correspond to its object. 
 It thus, as the history of Associationism has proved, leads 
 directly through the discrepancy of knowledge and reality 
 
IDEALISM AND EPISTEMOLOGY, (il.) 469 
 
 to thorough-going scepticism. But modern logicians con- 
 tend with considerable unanimity, and, it seems to me, 
 with convincing cogency, that thought does not move 
 from a fixed datum by external aggregation, but by 
 differentiation from within and re-integration. It must 
 of course have a datum ; but its datum, so far from being 
 fixed, only gradually reveals what it is in the progressive 
 evolution of knowledge, and so far from being particular it is 
 implicitly all-inclusive. Modern Metaphysics, in accordance 
 with this logical theory, starts from a view of reality as a 
 whole, and not from a fragment ; and its task is to expound 
 the inner articulation, the internal harmony of this whole, 
 and not by any means, or in any way, to proceed from the 
 knowledge of one thing to the knowledge of other things. 
 So far as I can see, we are practically forced to choose 
 between these two methods. Lotze and his followers, I 
 need hardly say, mingle these methods as they mingle 
 metaphysical doctrines. But if we recognise the opposition 
 between them, it becomes obvious that we must either adopt 
 Associationism with its external and contingent linking of 
 fact to fact [beginning with a sure one, hopping on to others 
 and assuring them through it, finding its universal both 
 indispensable and untrue, obliged to have ‘ webs ’ and 
 obliged to make them spider-films] — or if not we must 
 regard the whole as given at first, and watch its process of 
 inward development. And this second method, if it is con- 
 sistently carried out, must refuse to characterise its datum 
 except in terms of the revelation it makes of itself during 
 the evolving process. Thus each of its successive character- 
 isations is known to be only proximate, a mere starting- 
 point for a better. It will find certainty, or rather will 
 seek it, in the end and not in the beginning. It possesses 
 no certain fact to begin with ; but, on the contrary, it 
 finds its particular fact guaranteed as fact only by reference 
 to the whole system of reality within which the particular 
 fact obtains a place, and in relation to which alone it is real. 
 
 The conception that ‘ certainty ’ is to be found only in a 
 complete system, in a consistent view of the world as an 
 organic whole, and not in erecting an edifice of knowledge 
 on a fragmentary fixed datum by mechanical means, is due 
 to Kant ; and in it lies the living force which brought about 
 the momentous revolution in modern philosophy. His 
 attempt to discover the conditions of experience, the funda- 
 mental question of the Critique of Pure Reason, as indicated 
 or expressed in ‘ How synthetic a 'priori judgments are pos- 
 sible,’ signifies that he had, once for all, turned his back on 
 the old method of philosophy which started from psychical 
 
470 
 
 H. JONES : 
 
 phenomena, from ideas or impressions, and then sought 
 realities corresponding to them ; and that, beginning with 
 the conception of knowledge as a whole, or, in other words, 
 of knowledge wherever it can be found, he sought to lay 
 bare its constitutive principle. It is quite true that in his 
 hands the problem assumed what may be called an Episte- 
 mological rather than an Ontological form, and that in giving 
 us his theory of knowledge he refused to pronounce upon the 
 nature of reality, or things -in-them selves. But it is also true, 
 in his hands, that the things-in-themselves were gradually 
 deprived of all their significance, that the reality which he 
 considered to be opposed to knowledge became a caput 
 mortuum , of no possible interest to any one. He left nothing 
 to distinguish his theory of knowledge from a theory of 
 reality except the thin disguise of the word ‘phenomenon’. 
 Thus, whether we accept the higher or the lower interpreta- 
 tion of Kant, it remains true that the revolution in philosophy 
 which he brought about consisted in a fundamental change 
 of method ; it consisted in setting forth from experience as 
 a whole (or as such) to investigate its internal conditions, 
 instead of first dogmatically asserting the existence of a 
 fragmentary reality, then linking the rest of reality to it 
 by means of the external categories of mechanism. 
 
 Now the attempt which Prof. Seth makes to start from 
 * subjective states as plain data ’ is simply a reversion to the 
 old associative method employed by Hume and his school ; 
 and it argues that whatever else has been learnt from Kant, 
 the supreme lesson he taught has not been taken to heart. 
 Is it not plain, even yet, that if we begin with ‘ subjective 
 states * we must either expand these subjective states so as 
 to make them all-inclusive, or else leap from them into 
 something absolutely different? Is it not indisputable that 
 we must conclude either that there is nothing but subjective 
 states, or, if there is, that it is absolutely unknowable, and 
 not only unknowable but unbelievable, because inconceiv- 
 able? We cannot proceed from the part to the whole 
 except by discovering the principle of the whole in the part ; 
 we cannot proceed from subjective states to ‘ other persons 
 and things’ except by finding in our subjective states the 
 principle of ‘the other persons and things’. In the mid- 
 stream of Metaphysics we cannot swap horses. Knowledge 
 cannot “ leap,” nor faith either, if it is ‘according to know- 
 ledge ’. On the other hand, if we do find the principle of 
 the whole in our subjective states, then in dealing with 
 them we are not dealing with ‘ plain data,’ but with the 
 whole of reality implicit in these data which has to be 
 made plain by further knowledge. We are establishing an 
 
IDEALISM AND EPISTEMOLOGY. (il.) 
 
 471 
 
 Ontology and not an Epistemology. The datum has ceased 
 to be a particular one. If it really were particular we could 
 proceed from it to nothing else. We could not even know 
 it, for thought is surely relative. I do not mean to deny 
 that we know * subjective states,’ or that they are data ; 
 but we know them and they are data for further knowledge, 
 because in knowing them we know all reality — in part. Every 
 datum, owing to the organic nature of reality, has in it the 
 principle of the whole and exists only as its manifestation. 
 In this respect a ‘ subjective state’ is as good as any other 
 datum ; but it is no better. And the use of the term ‘ sub- 
 jective ’ for a datum of knowledge is worse than useless, for 
 it brings with it misleading associations. That which is a 
 datum, I insist once more, cannot ex vi termini be subjective 
 in the sense employed by these writers. The subjective which 
 is a datum for further knowledge is also objective ; as a datum 
 it contains in it the principle of the whole. We cannot, 
 except by a process of abstraction and for such merely 
 practical purposes as those of the special sciences, ignore its 
 relation to the whole, tear it from its context, treat it as an 
 isolated part. If we do so tear it, it will lose all its meaning ; 
 it will be nothing real, it will not have even the virtue of 
 an interjection. Philosophy exists in order to correct the 
 abstractions of ordinary thought and science. It is false to 
 its peculiar mission if it neglects the reference in every 
 datum to the whole of reality. For it matters not whether 
 we start from the isolated subject or the isolated object ; in 
 isolating our datum we have mutilated and paralysed it. 
 We cannot do without a datum, as our critics themselves 
 urge ; but every datum we can possibly assume is in its last 
 resort a universal, and the distinction of subjective and 
 objective, like every other, falls within it. 
 
 Idealism, in the Berkeleian sense, as a theory of the sub- 
 jective in pursuit of the objective, is as false as Materialism 
 which starts from a mere object and looks for a subject. 
 And Epistemology, which is engaged with knowledge as 
 distinguished from reality, and which, while pronouncing 
 upon the nature of the former, postpones all questions 
 as to the nature of the latter, is subjective Idealism in 
 disguise. So far from being preliminary to Metaphysics, 
 it is itself a Metaphysical theory and a false one. The 
 ‘ subjective states ’ which, it assumes are ‘ plain data,’ and, 
 being data, afford a ‘ foot-hold ’ from which without break 
 or leap we can proceed to further knowledge. Either 
 Epistemology begins with these data as isolated particulars, 
 and therefore ends with them ; or else it begins with them 
 as manifestations of a reality which, with all its apparent 
 
3 0112 061795651 
 
 472 H. JONES : IDEALISM AND EPISTEMOLOGY. (il.) 
 
 and even real differences, is fundamentally one and the 
 same in them and in all other facts. In the latter case it 
 is Metaphysics. It can appear to be something else, to be 
 a science preliminary to Metaphysics, only because these 
 subjective states which furnish the theory with its data 
 are at once taken to be real and unreal. It seems to me 
 plain that inasmuch as Reality (or, if the word is preferred, 
 the Absolute) appears in every datum which we can assume, 
 and inasmuch as “we must assume a datum, seeing that 
 thought cannot spin in vacuo on its own pivot, the search 
 for a form of knowledge preliminary to Metaphysics is 
 futile. No science can be preliminary to Metaphysics. In 
 a strict sense there is no science of the form of know- 
 ledge besides Metaphysics; no theory of the not-real or 
 the not-as-yet-real can be invented except by the suicide 
 of reason, and even that would not invent it. All the 
 special sciences are doing the work of Metaphysics, and 
 doing it in an admirable way, even though, or even because, 
 they attempt to justify neither their categories nor their 
 hypotheses. They are in no sense its rivals ; nor are they 
 preliminary to it, except in the sense that partial knowledge 
 is preliminary to completer knowledge. If Epistemology in 
 its attempt to avoid being a Metaphysical theory likes to 
 rank with them, and to deal with its data of ‘ subjective 
 states ’ in their spirit, relating fact to fact in a consciously 
 abstract way without aspiring to give a final account even of 
 knowledge, I would have no objection to it. I would prefer 
 to call it the Psychology of Cognition, and would be glad to 
 know it more thoroughly, partly because in knowing it 
 better I would ipso facto know more of reality as a whole. 
 But a science which postpones all reality and proceeds 
 without any datum except bare ideas, which is the first form 
 of Epistemology we have examined, or a science which pro- 
 ceeds with a datum regarded as real and yet as excluding the 
 principle of the whole, which is the second form of it we 
 have examined, seems to me to be radically impossible. We 
 live and move because the whole universe helps us to do so. 
 We know any reality because, so far as we do know it, we 
 kpow all reality. Neither in thought nor in action can we 
 find a ‘ foot-hold,’ a pied d terre, except in that which is 
 related to the whole, because it is itself the manifestation of 
 the whole. No preliminary science is either possible or 
 necessary. Epistemologists, instead of standing shivering 
 on the bank asking the futile question whether we can 
 know or not, had better make the plunge. There is no way 
 of learning to swim without going into the water. If they 
 want really to think they must become Metaphysicians.