The Problems of Philosophy

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THE
PROBLEMS
OF
PHILOSOPH
Y

By Bertrand
Russell



Contents
. PREFACE
CHAPTER I. APPEARANCE AND REALITY
CHAPTER II. THE EXISTENCE OF MATTER
CHAPTER III. THE NATURE OF MATTER
CHAPTER IV. IDEALISM
CHAPTER V. KNOWLEDGE BY ACQUAINTANCE AND KNOWLEDGE BY DESCRIPTION
CHAPTER VI. ON INDUCTION
CHAPTER VII. ON OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GENERAL PRINCIPLES
CHAPTER VIII. HOW A PRIORI KNOWLEDGE IS POSSIBLE
CHAPTER IX. THE WORLD OF UNIVERSALS
CHAPTER X. ON OUR KNOWLEDGE OF UNIVERSALS
CHAPTER XI. ON INTUITIVE KNOWLEDGE
CHAPTER XII. TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD
CHAPTER
XIII.
KNOWLEDGE, ERROR, AND PROBABLE OPINION
CHAPTER XIV. THE LIMITS OF PHILOSOPHICAL KNOWLEDGE
CHAPTER XV. THE VALUE OF PHILOSOPHY
. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE




PREFACE
In the following pages I have confined myself in the main to
those problems of philosophy in regard to which I thought it
possible to say something positive and constructive, since merely
negative criticism seemed out of place. For this reason, theory of
knowledge occupies a larger space than metaphysics in the present
volume, and some topics much discussed by philosophers are
treated very briefly, if at all.
I have derived valuable assistance from unpublished writings of
G. E. Moore and J. M. Keynes: from the former, as regards the
relations of sense-data to physical objects, and from the latter as
regards probability and induction. I have also profited greatly by
the criticisms and suggestions of Professor Gilbert Murray.
1912




CHAPTER I.
APPEARANCE
AND REALITY
Is there any knowledge in the world which is so certain that no
reasonable man could doubt it? This question, which at first sight
might not seem difficult, is really one of the most difficult that can
be asked. When we have realized the obstacles in the way of a
straightforward and confident answer, we shall be well launched
on the study of philosophy—for philosophy is merely the attempt
to answer such ultimate questions, not carelessly and dogmatically,
as we do in ordinary life and even in the sciences, but critically,
after exploring all that makes such questions puzzling, and after
realizing all the vagueness and confusion that underlie our ordinary
ideas.
In daily life, we assume as certain many things which, on a
closer scrutiny, are found to be so full of apparent contradictions
that only a great amount of thought enables us to know what it is
that we really may believe. In the search for certainty, it is natural
to begin with our present experiences, and in some sense, no doubt,
knowledge is to be derived from them. But any statement as to
what it is that our immediate experiences make us know is very
likely to be wrong. It seems to me that I am now sitting in a chair,
at a table of a certain shape, on which I see sheets of paper with
writing or print. By turning my head I see out of the window
buildings and clouds and the sun. I believe that the sun is about
ninety-three million miles from the earth; that it is a hot globe
many times bigger than the earth; that, owing to the earth's
rotation, it rises every morning, and will continue to do so for an
indefinite time in the future. I believe that, if any other normal
person comes into my room, he will see the same chairs and tables
and books and papers as I see, and that the table which I see is the
same as the table which I feel pressing against my arm. All this
seems to be so evident as to be hardly worth stating, except in
answer to a man who doubts whether I know anything. Yet all this
may be reasonably doubted, and all of it requires much careful
discussion before we can be sure that we have stated it in a form
that is wholly true.
To make our difficulties plain, let us concentrate attention on the
table. To the eye it is oblong, brown and shiny, to the touch it is
smooth and cool and hard; when I t ap it, it gives out a wooden
sound. Any one else who sees and feels and hears the table will
agree with this description, so that it might seem as if no difficulty
would arise; but as soon as we try to be more precise our troubles
begin. Although I believe that the table is 'really' of the same
colour all over, the parts that reflect the light look much brighter
than the other parts, and some parts look white because of reflected
light. I know that, if I move, the parts that reflect the light will be
different, so that the apparent distribution of colours on the table
will change. It follows that if several people are looking at the
table at the same moment, no two of them will see exactly the
same distribution of colours, because no two can see it from
exactly the same point of view, and any change in the point of
view makes some change in the way the light is reflected.
For most practical purposes these differences are unimportant,
but to the painter they are all-important: the painter has to unlearn
the habit of thinking that things seem to have the colour which
common sense says they 'really' have, and to learn the habit of
seeing things as they appear. Here we have already the beginning
of one of the distinctions that cause most trouble in philosophy—
the distinction between 'appearance' and 'reality', between what
things seem to be and what they are. The painter wants to know
what things seem to be, the practical man and the philosopher want
to know what they are; but the philosopher's wish to know this is
stronger than the practical man's, and is more troubled by
knowledge as to the difficulties of answering the question.
To return to the table. It is evident from what we have found,
that there is no colour which pre-eminently appears to be the
colour of the table, or even of any one particular part of the table—
it appears to be of different colours from different points of view,
and there is no reason for regarding some of these as more really
its colour than others. And we know that even from a given point
of view the colour will seem different by artificial light, or to a
colour-blind man, or to a man wearing blue spectacles, while in the
dark there will be no colour at all, though to touch and hearing the
table will be unchanged. This colour is not somet hing which is
inherent in the table, but something depending upon the table and
the spectator and the way the light falls on the table. When, in
ordinary life, we speak of the colour of the table, we only mean the
sort of colour which it will seem to have to a normal spectator
from an ordinary point of view under usual conditions of light. But
the other colours which appear under other conditions have just as
good a right to be considered real; and therefore, to avoid
favouritism, we are compelled to deny t hat, in itself, the table has
any one particular colour.
The same thing applies to the texture. With the naked eye one
can see the grain, but otherwise the table looks smooth and even. If
we looked at it through a microscope, we should see roughnesses
and hills and valleys, and all sorts of differences that are
imperceptible to the naked eye. Which of these is the 'real' table?
We are naturally tempted to say that what we see through the
microscope is more real, but that in turn would be changed by a
still more powerful microscope. If, then, we cannot trust what we
see with the naked eye, why should we trust what we see through a
microscope? Thus, again, the confidence in our senses with which
we began deserts us.
The shape of the table is no better. We are all in the habit of
judging as to the 'real' shapes of things, and we do this so
unreflectingly that we come to think we actually see the real
shapes. But, in fact, as we all have to learn if we try to draw, a
given thing looks different in shape from ever y different point of
view. If our table is 'really' rectangular, it will look, from almost all
points of view, as if it had two acute angles and two obtuse angles.
If opposite sides are parallel, they will look as if they converged to
a point away from the spectator; if they are of equal length, they
will look as if the nearer side were longer. All these things are not
commonly noticed in looking at a table, because experience has
taught us to construct the 'real' shape from the apparent shape, and
the 'real' shape is what interests us as practical men. But the 'real'
shape is not what we see; it is something inferred from what we
see. And what we see is constantly changing in shape as we move
about the room; so that here again the senses seem not to give us
the truth about the table itself, but only about the appearance of the
table.
Similar difficulties arise when we consider the sense of touch. It
is true that the table always gives us a sensation of hardness, and
we feel that it resists pressure. But the sensation we obtain depends
upon how hard we press the table and also upon what part of the
body we press with; thus the various sensations due to various
pressures or various parts of the body cannot be supposed to reveal
directly any definite property of the table, but at most to be signs of
some property which perhaps causes all the sensations, but is not
actually apparent in any of them. And the same applies still more
obviously to the sounds which can be elicited by rapping the table.
Thus it becomes evident that the real table, if there is one, is not
the same as what we immediately experience by sight or touch or
hearing. The real table, if there is one, is not immediately known to
us at all, but must be an inference from what is immediately
known. Hence, two very difficult questions at once arise; namely,
(1) Is there a real table at all? (2) If so, what sort of object can it
be?
It will help us in considering these questions to have a few
simple terms of which the meaning is definite and clear. Let us
give the name of 'sense-data' to the things that are immediately
known in sensation: such things as colours, sounds, smells,
hardnesses, roughnesses, and so on. We shall give the name
'sensation' to the experience of being immediately aware of these
things. Thus, whenever we see a colour, we have a sensation of the
colour, but the colour itself is a sense-datum, not a sensation. The
colour is that of which we are immediately aware, and the
awareness itself is the sensation. It is plain that if we are to know
anything about the table, it must be by means of the sense-data—
brown colour, oblong shape, smoothness, etc.—which we associate
with the table; but, for the reasons which have been given, we
cannot say that the table is the sense-data, or even that the sense-
data are directly properties of the table. Thus a problem arises as to
the relation of the sense-data to the real table, supposing there is
such a thing.
The real table, if it exists, we will call a ' physical object'. Thus
we have to consider the relation of sense-data to physical objects.
The collection of all physical objects is called 'matter'. Thus our
two questions may be re-stated as follows: (1) Is there any such
thing as matter? (2) If so, what is its nature?
The philosopher who first brought prominently forward the
reasons for regarding the immediate objects of our senses as not
existing independently of us was Bishop Berkeley (1685-1753).
His Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, in Opposition
to Sceptics and Atheists, undertake to prove that there is no such
thing as matter at all, and that the world consists of nothing but
minds and their ideas. Hylas has hitherto believed in matter, but he
is no match for Philonous, who mercilessly drives him into
contradictions and paradoxes, and makes his own denial of matter
seem, in the end, as if it were almost common sense. The
arguments employed are of very different value: some are
important and sound, others are confused or quibbling. But
Berkeley retains the merit of having shown that the existence of
matter is capable of being denied without absurdity, and that if
there are any things that exist independently of us they cannot be
the immediate objects of our sensations.
There are two different questions involved when we ask whether
matter exists, and it is important to keep them clear. We commonly
mean by ' matter' something which is opposed to 'mind', something
which we think of as occupying space and as radically incapable of
any sort of thought or consciousness. It is chiefly in this sense that
Berkeley denies matter; that is to say, he does not deny that the
sense-data which we commonly take as signs of the existence of
the table are really signs of the existence of something independent
of us, but he does deny that this something is non-mental, that it is
neither mind nor ideas entertained by some mind. He admits that
there must be something which continues to exist when we go out
of the room or shut our eyes, and that what we call seeing the table
does really give us reason for believing in something which
persists even when we are not seeing it. But he thinks that this
something cannot be radically different in nature from what we
see, and cannot be independent of seeing altogether, though it must
be independent of our seeing. He is thus led to regard the 'real'
table as an idea in the mind of God. Such an idea has the required
permanence and independence of ourselves, without being—as
matter would otherwise be—something quite unknowable, in the
sense that we can only infer it, and can never be directly and
immediately aware of it.
Other philosophers since Berkeley have also held that, although
the table does not depend for its existence upon being seen by me,
it does depend upon being seen (or otherwise apprehended in
sensation) by some mind—not necessarily the mind of God, but
more often the whole collective mind of the universe. This they
hold, as Berkeley does, chiefly because they think there can be
nothing real—or at any rate nothing known to be real except minds
and their thoughts and feelings. We might state the argument by
which they support their view in some such way as this: 'Whatever
can be thought of is an idea in the mind of the person thinking of
it; therefore nothing can be thought of except ideas in minds;
therefore anything else is inconceivable, and what is inconceivable
cannot exist.'
Such an argument, in my opinion, is fallacious; and of course
those who advance it do not put it so shortly or so crudely. But
whether valid or not, the argument has been very widely advanced
in one form or another; and very many philosophers, perhaps a
majority, have held that there is nothing real except minds and
their ideas. Such philosophers are called 'idealists'. When they
come to explaining matter, they either say, like Berkeley, that
matter is really nothing but a collection of ideas, or they say, like
Leibniz (1646-1716), that what appears as matter is really a
collection of more or less rudimentary minds.
But these philosophers, though they deny matter as opposed to
mind, nevertheless, in another sense, admit matter. It will be
remembered that we asked two questions; namely, (1) Is there a
real table at all? (2) If so, what sort of object can it be? Now both
Berkeley and Leibniz admit that there is a real table, but Berkeley
says it is certain ideas in the mind of God, and Leibniz says it is a
colony of souls. Thus both of them answer our first question in the
affirmative, and only diverge from the views of ordinary mortals in
their answer to our second question. In fact, almost all
philosophers seem to be agreed that there is a real table: they
almost all agree that, however much our sense-data—colour,
shape, smoothness, etc.—may depend upon us, yet their
occurrence is a sign of something existing independently of us,
something differing, perhaps, completely from our sense-data, and
yet to be regarded as causing those sense-data whenever we are in
a suitable relation to the real table.
Now obviously this point in which the philosophers are
agreed—the view that there is a real table, whatever its nature may
be—is vitally important, and it will be worth while to consider
what reasons there are for accepting this view before we go on to
the further question as to the nature of the real table. Our next
chapter, therefore, will be concerned with the reasons for
supposing that there is a real table at all.
Before we go farther it will be well to consider for a moment
what it is that we have discovered so far. It has appeared that, if we
take any common object of the sort that is supposed to be known
by the senses, what the senses immediately tell us is not the truth
about the object as it is apart from us, but only the truth about
certain sense-data which, so far as we can see, depend upon the
relations between us and the object. Thus what we directly see and
feel is merely 'appearance', which we believe to be a sign of some
'reality' behind. But if the reality is not what appears, have we any
means of knowing whether there is any reality at all? And if so,
have we any means of finding out what it is like?
Such questions are bewildering, and it is difficult to know that
even the strangest hypotheses may not be true. Thus our familiar
table, which has roused but the slightest thoughts in us hitherto,
has become a problem full of surprising possibilities. The one
thing we know about it is that it is not what it seems. Beyond this
modest result, so far, we have the most complete liberty of
conjecture. Leibniz tells us it is a community of souls: Berkeley
tells us it is an idea in the mind of God; sober science, scarcely less
wonderful, tells us it is a vast collection of electric charges in
violent motion.
Among these surprising possibilities, doubt suggests that
perhaps there is no table at all. Philosophy, if it cannot answer so
many questions as we could wish, has at least the power of asking
questions which increase the interest of the world, and show the
strangeness and wonder lying just below the surface even in the
commonest things of daily life.





CHAPTER II.
THE EXISTENCE
OF MATTER
In this chapter we have to ask ourselves whether, in any sense at
all, there is such a thing as matter. Is there a table which has a
certain intrinsic nature, and continues to exist when I am not
looking, or is the table merely a product of my imagination, a
dream-table in a very prolonged dream? This question is of the
greatest importance. For if we cannot be sure of the independent
existence of objects, we cannot be sure of the independent
existence of other people' s bodies, and therefore still less of other
people's minds, since we have no grounds for believing in their
minds except such as are derived from observing their bodies.
Thus if we cannot be sure of the independent existence of objects,
we shall be left alone in a desert —it may be that the whole outer
world is nothing but a dream, and that we alone exist. This is an
uncomfortable possibility; but although it cannot be strictly proved
to be false, there is not the slightest reason to suppose that it is true.
In this chapter we have to see why this is the case.
Before we embark upon doubtful matters, let us try to find some
more or less fixed point from which to start. Although we are
doubting the physical existence of the table, we are not doubting
the existence of the sense-data which made us think there was a
table; we are not doubting that, while we look, a certain colour and
shape appear to us, and while we press, a certain sensation of
hardness is experienced by us. All this, which is psychological, we
are not calling in question. In fact, whatever else may be doubtful,
some at least of our immediate experiences seem absolutely
certain.
Descartes (1596-1650), the founder of modern philosophy,
invented a method which may still be used with profit—the
method of systematic doubt. He determined that he would believe
nothing which he did not see quite clearly and distinctly to be true.
Whatever he could bring himself to doubt, he would doubt, until he
saw reason for not doubting it. By applying this method he
gradually became convinced that the only existence of which he
could be quite certain was his own. He imagined a deceitful
demon, who presented unreal things to his senses in a perpetual
phantasmagoria; it might be very improbable that such a demon
existed, but still it was possible, and t herefore doubt concerning
things perceived by the senses was possible.
But doubt concerning his own existence was not possible, for if
he did not exist, no demon could deceive him. If he doubted, he
must exist; if he had any experiences whatever, he must exist. Thus
his own existence was an absolute certainty to him. ' I think,
therefore I am,' he said (Cogito, ergo sum); and on the basis of this
certainty he set to work to build up again the world of knowledge
which his doubt had laid in ruins. By inventing the method of
doubt, and by showing that subjective things are the most certain,
Descartes performed a great service to philosophy, and one which
makes him still useful to all students of the subject.
But some care is needed in using Descartes' argument. ' I think,
therefore I am' says rather more than is strictly certain. It might
seem as though we were quite sure of being the same person to-day
as we were yesterday, and this is no doubt true in some sense. But
the real Self is as hard to arrive at as the real table, and does not
seem to have that absolute, convincing certainty that belongs to
particular experiences. When I look at my table and see a certain
brown colour, what is quite certain at once is not ' I am seeing a
brown colour', but rather, 'a brown colour is being seen'. This of
course involves something (or somebody) which (or who) sees the
brown colour; but it does not of itself involve that more or less
permanent person whom we call ' I'. So far as immediate certainty
goes, it might be that the something which sees the brown colour is
quite momentary, and not the same as the something which has
some different experience the next moment.
Thus it is our particular thoughts and feelings that have primitive
certainty. And this applies to dreams and hallucinations as well as
to normal perceptions: when we dream or see a ghost, we certainly
do have the sensations we think we have, but for various reasons it
is held that no physical object corresponds to these sensations.
Thus the certainty of our knowledge of our own experiences does
not have to be limited in any way to allow for exceptional cases.
Here, therefore, we have, for what it is worth, a solid basis from
which to begin our pursuit of knowledge.
The problem we have to consider is this: Granted that we are
certain of our own sense-data, have we any reason for regarding
them as signs of the existence of something else, which we can call
the physical object? When we have enumerated all the sense-data
which we should naturally regard as connected with the table, have
we said all there is to say about the table, or is there still something
else—something not a sense-datum, something which persists
when we go out of the room? Common sense unhesitatingly
answers that there is. What can be bought and sold and pushed
about and have a cloth laid on it, and so on, cannot be a mere
collection of sense-data. If the cloth completely hides the table, we
shall derive no sense-data from the table, and therefore, if the table
were merely sense-data, it would have ceased to exist, and the
cloth would be suspended in empty air, resting, by a miracle, in the
place where the table formerly was. This seems plainly absurd; but
whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be
frightened by absurdities.
One great reason why it is felt that we must secure a physical
object in addition to the sense-data, is that we want the same object
for different people. When ten people are sitting round a dinner-
table, it seems preposterous to maintain that they are not seeing the
same tablecloth, the same knives and forks and spoons and glasses.
But the sense-data are private to each separate person; what is
immediately present to the sight of one is not immediately present
to the sight of another: they all see things from slightl y different
points of view, and therefore see them slightly differently. Thus, if
there are to be public neutral objects, which can be in some sense
known to many different people, there must be something over and
above the private and particular sense-data which appear to various
people. What reason, then, have we for believing that there are
such public neutral objects?
The first answer that naturally occurs to one is that, although
different people may see the table slightly differently, still they all
see more or less similar things when they look at the table, and the
variations in what they see follow the laws of perspective and
reflection of light, so that it is easy to arrive at a permanent object
underlying all the different people's sense-data. I bought my table
from the former occupant of my room; I could not buy his sense-
data, which died when he went away, but I could and did buy the
confident expectation of more or less similar sense-data. Thus it is
the fact that different people have similar sense-data, and that one
person in a given place at different times has similar sense-data,
which makes us suppose that over and above the sense-data there
is a permanent public object which underlies or causes the sense-
data of various people at various ti mes.
Now in so far as the above considerations depend upon
supposing that there are other people besides ourselves, they beg
the very question at issue. Other people are represented to me by
certain sense-data, such as the sight of them or the sound of their
voices, and if I had no reason to believe that there were physical
objects independent of my sense-data, I should have no reason to
believe that other people exist except as part of my dream. Thus,
when we are trying to show that there must be objects i ndependent
of our own sense-data, we cannot appeal to the testimony of other
people, since this testimony itself consists of sense-data, and does
not reveal other people's experiences unless our own sense-data are
signs of things existing independently of us. We must therefore, if
possible, find, in our own purely private experiences,
characteristics which show, or tend to show, that there are in the
world things other than ourselves and our private experiences.
In one sense it must be admitted that we can never prove the
existence of things other than ourselves and our experiences. No
logical absurdity results from the hypothesis that the world consists
of myself and my thoughts and feelings and sensations, and that
everything else is mere fancy. In dreams a very complicated world
may seem to be present, and yet on waking we find it was a
delusion; that is to say, we find that the sense-data in the dream do
not appear to have corresponded with such physical objects as we
should naturally infer from our sense-data. (It is true that, when the
physical world is assumed, it is possible to find physical causes for
the sense-data in dreams: a door banging, for instance, may cause
us to dream of a naval engagement. But although, in this case,
there is a physical cause for the sense-data, there is not a physical
object corresponding to the sense-data in the way in which an
actual naval battle would correspond.) There is no logical
impossibility in the supposition that the whole of life is a dream, in
which we ourselves create all the objects that come before us. But
although this is not logically impossible, there is no reason
whatever to suppose that it is true; and it is, in fact, a less simple
hypothesis, viewed as a means of accounting for the facts of our
own life, than the common-sense hypothesis that there really are
objects independent of us, whose action on us causes our
sensations.
The way in which simplicity comes in from supposing that there
really are physical objects is easily seen. If the cat appears at one
moment in one part of the room, and at another in another part, it is
natural to suppose that it has moved from the one to the other,
passing over a series of intermediate positions. But if it is merely a
set of sense-data, it cannot have ever been in any place where I did
not see it; thus we shall have to suppose that it did not exist at all
while I was not looking, but suddenly sprang into being in a new
place. If the cat exists whether I see it or not, we can understand
from our own experience how it gets hungry between one meal and
the next; but if it does not exist when I am not seeing it, it seems
odd that appetite should grow during non-existence as fast as
during existence. And if the cat consists only of sense-data, it
cannot be hungry, since no hunger but my own can be a sense-
datum to me. Thus the behaviour of the sense-data which represent
the cat to me, though it seems quite natural when regarded as an
expression of hunger, becomes utterly inexplicable when regarded
as mere movements and changes of patches of colour, which are as
incapable of hunger as a triangle is of playing football.
But the difficulty in the case of the cat is nothing compared to
the difficulty in the case of human beings. When human beings
speak—that is, when we hear certain noises which we associate
with ideas, and simultaneously see certain motions of lips and
expressions of face—it is very difficult to suppose that what we
hear is not the expression of a thought, as we know it would be if
we emitted the same sounds. Of course similar things happen in
dreams, where we are mistaken as to the existence of other people.
But dreams are more or less suggested by what we call waking life,
and are capable of being more or less accounted for on scientific
principles if we assume that there really is a physical world. Thus
every principle of simplicity urges us to adopt the natural view,
that there really are objects other than ourselves and our sense-data
which have an existence not dependent upon our perceiving them.
Of course it is not by argument that we originally come by our
belief in an independent external world. We find this belief ready
in ourselves as soon as we begin to reflect: it is what may be called
an instinctive belief. We should never have been led to question
this belief but for the fact that, at any rate in the case of sight, it
seems as if the sense-datum itself were instinctively believed to be
the independent object, whereas argument shows that the object
cannot be identical with the sense-datum. This discovery,
however—which is not at all paradoxical in the case of taste and
smell and sound, and only slightly so in the case of touch—leaves
undiminished our instinctive belief that there are objects
corresponding to our sense-data. Since this belief does not lead to
any difficulties, but on the contrary tends to simplify and
systematize our account of our experiences, there seems no good
reason for rejecting it. We may therefore admit—though with a
slight doubt derived from dreams—that the external world does
really exist, and is not wholly dependent for its existence upon our
continuing to perceive it.
The argument which has led us to this conclusion is doubtless
less strong than we could wish, but it is typical of many
philosophical arguments, and it is therefore worth while to
consider briefly its general character and validity. All knowledge,
we find, must be built up upon our instinctive beliefs, and if these
are rejected, nothing is left. But among our instinctive beliefs some
are much stronger than others, while many have, by habit and
association, become entangled with other beliefs, not really
instinctive, but falsely supposed to be part of what is believed
instinctively.
Philosophy should show us the hierarchy of our instinctive
beliefs, beginning with those we hold most strongly, and
presenting each as much isolated and as free from irrelevant
additions as possible. It should take care to show that, in the form
in which they are finally set forth, our instinctive beliefs do not
clash, but form a harmonious system. There can never be any
reason for rejecting one instinctive belief except that it clashes with
others; thus, if they are found to harmonize, the whole system
becomes worthy of acceptance.
It is of course possible that all or any of our beliefs may be
mistaken, and therefore all ought to be held with at least some
slight element of doubt. But we cannot have reason to reject a
belief except on the ground of some other belief. Hence, by
organizing our instinctive beliefs and their consequences, by
considering which among them is most possible, if necessary, to
modify or abandon, we can arrive, on the basis of accepting as our
sole data what we instinctively believe, at an orderly systematic
organization of our knowledge, in which, though the possibility of
error remains, its likelihood is diminished by the interrelation of
the parts and by the critical scrutiny which has preceded
acquiescence.
This function, at least, philosophy can perform. Most
philosophers, rightly or wrongly, believe that philosophy can do
much more than this—that it can give us knowledge, not otherwise
attainable, concerning the universe as a whole, and concerning the
nature of ultimate reality. Whether this be the case or not, the more
modest function we have spoken of can certainly be performed by
philosophy, and certainly suffices, for those who have once begun
to doubt the adequacy of common sense, to justify the arduous and
difficult labours that philosophical problems involve.





CHAPTER III.
THE NATURE OF
MATTER
In the preceding chapter we agreed, though without being able
to find demonstrative reasons, that it is rational to believe that our
sense-data—for example, those which we regard as associated with
my table—are really signs of the existence of something
independent of us and our perceptions. That is to say, over and
above the sensations of colour, hardness, noise, and so on, which
make up the appearance of the table to me, I assume that there is
something else, of which these things are appearances. The colour
ceases to exist if I shut my eyes, the sensation of hardness ceases to
exist if I remove my arm from contact with the table, the sound
ceases to exist if I cease to rap the table with my knuckles. But I do
not believe that when all these things cease the table ceases. On the
contrary, I believe that it is because the table exists continuously
that all these sense-data will reappear when I open my eyes,
replace my arm, and begin again to rap with my knuckles. The
question we have to consider in this chapter is: What is the nature
of this real table, which persists independently of my perception of
it?
To this question physical science gives an answer, somewhat
incomplete it is true, and in part still very hypothetical, but yet
deserving of respect so far as it goes. Physical science, more or less
unconsciously, has drifted into the view that all natural phenomena
ought to be reduced to motions. Light and heat and sound are all
due to wave-motions, which travel from the body emitting them to
the person who sees light or feels heat or hears sound. That which
has the wave-motion is either aether or ' gross matter', but in either
case is what the philosopher would call matter. The only properties
which science assigns to it are position in space, and the power of
motion according to the laws of motion. Science does not deny that
it may have other properties; but if so, such other properties are not
useful to the man of science, and in no way assist him in
explaining the phenomena.
It is sometimes said that 'light is a form of wave-motion', but this
is misleading, for the light which we immediately see, which we
know directly by means of our senses, is not a form of wave-
motion, but something quite different—something which we all
know if we are not blind, though we cannot describe it so as to
convey our knowledge to a man who is blind. A wave-motion, on
the contrary, could quite well be described to a blind man, since he
can acquire a knowledge of space by the sense of touch; and he can
experience a wave-motion by a sea voyage almost as well as we
can. But this, which a blind man can understand, is not what we
mean by light: we mean by light just that which a blind man can
never understand, and which we can never describe to him.
Now this something, which all of us who are not blind know, is
not, according to science, really to be found in the outer world: it is
something caused by the action of certain waves upon the eyes and
nerves and brain of the person who sees the light. When it is said
that light is waves, what is really meant is that waves are the
physical cause of our sensations of light. But light itself, the thing
which seeing people experience and blind people do not, is not
supposed by science to form any part of the world that is
independent of us and our senses. And very similar remarks would
apply to other kinds of sensations.
It is not only colours and sounds and so on that are absent from
the scientific world of matter, but also space as we get it through
sight or touch. It is essential to science that its matter should be in
a space, but the space in which it is cannot be exactly the space we
see or feel. To begin with, space as we see it is not the same as
space as we get it by the sense of touch; it is only by experience in
infancy that we learn how to touch things we see, or how to get a
sight of things which we feel touching us. But the space of science
is neutral as between touch and sight; thus it cannot be either the
space of touch or the space of sight.
Again, different people see the same object as of different
shapes, according to their point of view. A circular coin, for
example, though we should always judge it to be circular, will look
oval unless we are straight in front of it. When we judge that it is
circular, we are judging that it has a real shape which is not its
apparent shape, but belongs to it intrinsically apart from its
appearance. But this real shape, which is what concerns science,
must be in a real space, not the same as anybody's apparent space.
The real space is public, the apparent space is private to the
percipient. In different people' s private spaces the same object
seems to have different shapes; thus the real space, in which it has
its real shape, must be different from the private spaces. The space
of science, therefore, though connected with the spaces we see and
feel, is not identical with them, and the manner of its connexion
requires investigation.
We agreed provisionally that physical objects cannot be quite
like our sense-data, but may be regarded as causing our sensations.
These physical objects are in the space of science, which we may
call ' physical' space. It is important to notice that, if our sensations
are to be caused by physical objects, there must be a physical space
containing these objects and our sense-organs and nerves and
brain. We get a sensation of touch from an object when we are in
contact with it; that is to say, when some part of our body occupies
a place in physical space quite close to the space occupied by the
object. We see an object (roughly speaking) when no opaque body
is between the object and our eyes in physical space. Similarly, we
only hear or smell or taste an object when we are sufficiently near
to it, or when it touches the tongue, or has some suitable position
in physical space relatively to our body. We cannot begin to state
what different sensations we shall derive from a given object under
different circumstances unless we regard the object and our body
as both in one physical space, for it is mainly the relative positions
of the object and our body that determine what sensations we shall
derive from the object.
Now our sense-data are situated in our private spaces, either the
space of sight or the space of touch or such vaguer spaces as other
senses may give us. If, as science and common sense assume, there
is one public all-embracing physical space in which physical
objects are, the relative positions of physical objects in physical
space must more or less correspond to the relative positions of
sense-data in our private spaces. There is no difficulty in supposing
this to be the case. If we see on a road one house nearer to us than
another, our other senses will bear out the view that it is nearer; for
example, it will be reached sooner if we walk along the road. Other
people will agree that the house which looks nearer to us is nearer;
the ordnance map will take the same view; and thus everything
points to a spatial relation between the houses corresponding to the
relation between the sense-data which we see when we look at the
houses. Thus we may assume that there is a physical space in
which physical objects have spatial relations corresponding to
those which the corresponding sense-data have in our private
spaces. It is this physical space which is dealt with in geometry and
assumed in physics and astronomy.
Assuming that there is physical space, and that it does thus
correspond to private spaces, what can we know about it? We can
know only what is required in order to secure the correspondence.
That is to say, we can know nothing of what it is like in itself, but
we can know the sort of arrangement of physical objects which
results from their spatial relations. We can know, for example, that
the earth and moon and sun are in one straight line during an
eclipse, though we cannot know what a physical straight line is in
itself, as we know the look of a straight line in our visual space.
Thus we come to know much more about the relations of distances
in physical space than about the distances themselves; we may
know that one distance is greater than another, or that it is along
the same straight line as the other, but we cannot have that
immediate acquaintance with physical distances that we have with
distances in our private spaces, or with colours or sounds or other
sense-data. We can know all those things about physical space
which a man born blind might know through other people about
the space of sight; but the kind of things which a man born blind
could never know about the space of sight we also cannot know
about physical space. We can know the properties of the relations
required to preserve the correspondence with sense-data, but we
cannot know the nature of the terms between which the relations
hold.
With regard to time, our feeling of duration or of the lapse of
time is notoriously an unsafe guide as to the time that has elapsed
by the clock. Times when we are bored or suffering pain pass
slowly, times when we are agreeably occupied pass quickly, and
times when we are sleeping pass almost as if they did not exist.
Thus, in so far as time is constituted by duration, there is the same
necessity for distinguishing a public and a private time as there
was in the case of space. But in so far as time consists in an order
of before and after, there is no need to make such a distinction; the
time-order which events seem to have is, so far as we can see, the
same as the time-order which they do have. At any rate no reason
can be given for supposing that the two orders are not the same.
The same is usually true of space: if a regiment of men are
marching along a road, the shape of the regiment will look
different from different points of view, but the men will appear
arranged in the same order from all points of view. Hence we
regard the order as true also in physical space, whereas the shape is
only supposed to correspond to the physical space so far as is
required for the preservation of the order.
In saying that the time-order which events seem to have is the
same as the time-order which they really have, it is necessary to
guard against a possible misunderstanding. It must not be supposed
that the various states of different physical objects have the same
time-order as the sense-data which constitute the perceptions of
those objects. Considered as physical objects, the thunder and
lightning are simultaneous; that is to say, the lightning is
simultaneous with the disturbance of the air in the place where the
disturbance begins, namely, where the lightning is. But the sense-
datum which we call hearing the thunder does not take place until
the disturbance of the air has travelled as far as to where we are.
Similarly, it takes about eight minutes for the sun' s light to reach
us; thus, when we see the sun we are seeing the sun of eight
minutes ago. So far as our sense-data afford evidence as to the
physical sun they afford evidence as to the physical sun of eight
minutes ago; if the physical sun had ceased to exist within the last
eight minutes, that would make no difference to the sense-data
which we call 'seeing the sun'. This affords a fresh illustration of
the necessity of distinguishing between sense-data and physical
objects.
What we have found as regards space is much the same as what
we find in relation to the correspondence of the sense-data with
their physical counterparts. If one object looks blue and another
red, we may reasonably presume that there is some corresponding
difference between the physical objects; if two objects both look
blue, we may presume a corresponding similarity. But we cannot
hope to be acquainted directly with the quality in the physical
object which makes it look blue or red. Science tells us that this
quality is a certain sort of wave-motion, and this sounds familiar,
because we think of wave-motions in the space we see. But the
wave-motions must really be in physical space, with which we
have no direct acquaintance; thus the real wave-motions have not
that familiarity which we might have supposed them to have. And
what holds for colours is closely similar to what holds for other
sense-data. Thus we find that, although the relations of physical
objects have all sorts of knowable properties, derived from their
correspondence with the relations of sense-data, the physical
objects themselves remain unknown in their intrinsic nature, so far
at least as can be discovered by means of the senses. The question
remains whether there is any other method of discovering the
intrinsic nature of physical objects.
The most natural, though not ultimately the most defensible,
hypothesis to adopt in the first instance, at any rate as regards
visual sense-data, would be that, though physical objects cannot,
for the reasons we have been considering, be exactly like sense-
data, yet they may be more or less like. According to this view,
physical objects will, for example, really have colours, and we
might, by good luck, see an object as of the colour it really is. The
colour which an object seems to have at any given moment will in
general be very similar, though not quite the same, from many
different points of view; we might thus suppose the 'real' colour to
be a sort of medium colour, intermediate between the various
shades which appear from the different points of view.
Such a theory is perhaps not capable of being definitely refuted,
but it can be shown to be groundless. To begin with, it is plain that
the colour we see depends only upon the nature of the light-waves
that strike the eye, and is therefore modified by the medium
intervening between us and the object, as well as by the manner in
which light is reflected from the object in the direction of the eye.
The intervening air alters colours unless it is perfectly clear, and
any strong reflection will alter them completely. Thus the colour
we see is a result of the ray as it reaches the eye, and not simply a
property of the object from which the ray comes. Hence, also,
provided certain waves reach the eye, we shall see a certain colour,
whether the object from which the waves start has any colour or
not. Thus it is quite gratuitous to suppose that physical objects
have colours, and therefore there is no justification for making
such a supposition. Exactly similar arguments will apply to other
sense-data.
It remains to ask whether there are any general philosophical
arguments enabling us to say that, if matter is real, it must be of
such and such a nature. As explained above, very many
philosophers, perhaps most, have held that whatever is real must be
in some sense mental, or at any rate that whatever we can know
anything about must be in some sense mental. Such philosophers
are called 'idealists'. Idealists tell us that what appears as matter is
really something mental; namely, either (as Leibniz held) more or
less rudimentary minds, or (as Berkeley contended) ideas in the
minds which, as we should commonly say, ' perceive' the matter.
Thus idealists deny the existence of matter as something
intrinsically different from mind, though they do not deny that our
sense-data are signs of something which exists independently of
our private sensations. In the following chapter we shall consider
briefly the reasons—in my opinion fallacious—which idealists
advance in favour of their theory.





CHAPTER IV.
IDEALISM
The word 'idealism' is used by different philosophers in
somewhat different senses. We shall understand by it the doctrine
that whatever exists, or at any rate whatever can be known to exist,
must be in some sense mental. This doctrine, which is very widely
held among philosophers, has several forms, and is advocated on
several different grounds. The doctrine is so widely held, and so
interesting in itself, that even the briefest survey of philosophy
must give some account of it.
Those who are unaccustomed to philosophical speculation may
be inclined to dismiss such a doctrine as obviously absurd. There is
no doubt that common sense regards tables and chairs and the sun
and moon and material objects generally as something radically
different from minds and the contents of minds, and as having an
existence which might continue if minds ceased. We think of
matter as having existed long before there were any minds, and it
is hard to think of it as a mere product of mental activity. But
whether true or false, idealism is not to be dismissed as obviously
absurd.
We have seen that, even if physical objects do have an
independent existence, they must differ very widely from sense-
data, and can only have a correspondence with sense-data, in the
same sort of way in which a catalogue has a correspondence with
the things catalogued. Hence common sense leaves us completely
in the dark as to the true intrinsic nature of physical objects, and if
there were good reason to regard them as mental, we could not
legitimately reject this opinion merely because it strikes us as
strange. The truth about physical objects must be strange. It may be
unattainable, but if any philosopher believes that he has attained it,
the fact that what he offers as the truth is strange ought not to be
made a ground of objection to his opinion.
The grounds on which idealism is advocated are generally
grounds derived from the theory of knowledge, that is to say, from
a discussion of the conditions which things must satisfy in order
that we may be able to know them. The first serious attempt to
establish idealism on such grounds was that of Bishop Berkeley.
He proved first, by arguments which were largely valid, that our
sense-data cannot be supposed to have an existence independent of
us, but must be, in part at least, 'in' the mind, in the sense that their
existence would not continue if there were no seeing or hearing or
touching or smelling or tasting. So far, his contention was almost
certainly valid, even if some of his arguments were not so. But he
went on to argue that sense-data were the only things of whose
existence our perceptions could assure us; and that to be known is
to be 'in' a mind, and therefore to be mental. Hence he concluded
that nothing can ever be known except what is in some mind, and
that whatever is known without being in my mind must be in some
other mind.
In order to understand his argument, it is necessary to
understand his use of the word 'idea'. He gives the name 'idea' to
anything which is immediately known, as, for example, sense-data
are known. Thus a particular colour which we see is an idea; so is a
voice which we hear, and so on. But the term is not wholly
confined to sense-data. There will also be things remembered or
imagined, for with such things also we have immediate
acquaintance at the moment of remembering or imagining. All
such immediate data he calls 'ideas' .
He then proceeds to consider common objects, such as a tree, for
instance. He shows that all we know immediately when we
'perceive' the tree consists of ideas in his sense of the word, and he
argues that there is not the slightest ground for supposing that there
is anything real about the tree except what is perceived. Its being,
he says, consists in being perceived: in the Latin of the schoolmen
its 'esse' is 'percipi'. He fully admits that the tree must continue to
exist even when we shut our eyes or when no human being is near
it. But this continued existence, he says, is due to the fact that God
continues to perceive it; the 'real' tree, which corresponds to what
we called the physical object, consists of ideas in the mind of God,
ideas more or less like those we have when we see the tree, but
differing in the fact that they are permanent in God' s mind so long
as the tree continues to exist. All our perceptions, according to
him, consist in a partial participation in God's perceptions, and it is
because of this participation that different people see more or less
the same tree. Thus apart from minds and their ideas there is
nothing in the world, nor is it possible that anything else should
ever be known, since whatever is known is necessarily an idea.
There are in this argument a good many fallacies which have
been important in the history of philosophy, and which it will be as
well to bring to light. In the first place, there is a confusion
engendered by the use of the word 'idea'. We think of an idea as
essentially something in somebody's mind, and thus when we are
told that a tree consists entirely of ideas, it is natural to suppose
that, if so, the tree must be entirely in minds. But the notion of
being 'in' the mind is ambiguous. We speak of bearing a person in
mind, not meaning that the person is in our minds, but that a
thought of him is in our minds. When a man says that some
business he had to arrange went clean out of his mind, he does not
mean to imply that the business itself was ever in his mind, but
only that a thought of the business was formerly in his mind, but
afterwards ceased to be in his mind. And so when Berkeley says
that the tree must be in our minds if we can know it, all that he
really has a right to say is that a thought of the tree must be in our
minds. To argue that the tree itself must be in our minds is like
arguing that a person whom we bear in mind is himself in our
minds. This confusion may seem too gross to have been really
committed by any competent philosopher, but various attendant
circumstances rendered it possible. In order to see how it was
possible, we must go more deeply into the question as to the nature
of ideas.
Before taking up the general question of the nature of ideas, we
must disentangle two entirely separate questions which arise
concerning sense-data and physical objects. We saw that, for
various reasons of detail, Berkeley was right in treating the sense-
data which constitute our perception of the tree as more or less
subjective, in the sense that they depend upon us as much as upon
the tree, and would not exist if the tree were not being perceived.
But this is an entirely different point from the one by which
Berkeley seeks to prove that whatever can be immediately known
must be in a mind. For this purpose arguments of detail as to the
dependence of sense-data upon us are useless. It is necessary to
prove, generally, that by being known, things are shown to be
mental. This is what Berkeley believes himself to have done. It is
this question, and not our previous question as to the difference
between sense-data and the physical object, that must now concern
us.
Taking the word 'idea' in Berkeley' s sense, there are two quite
distinct things to be considered whenever an idea is before the
mind. There is on the one hand the thing of which we are aware—
say the colour of my table—and on the other hand the actual
awareness itself, the mental act of apprehending the thing. The
mental act is undoubtedly mental, but is there any reason to
suppose that the thing apprehended is in any sense mental? Our
previous arguments concerning the colour did not prove it to be
mental; they only proved that its existence depends upon the
relation of our sense organs to the physical object—in our case, the
table. That is to say, they proved that a certain colour will exist, in
a certain light, if a normal eye is placed at a certain point relatively
to the table. They did not prove that the colour is in the mind of the
percipient.
Berkeley's view, that obviously the colour must be in the mind,
seems to depend for its plausibility upon confusing the thing
apprehended with the act of apprehension. Either of these might be
called an 'idea' ; probably either would have been called an idea by
Berkeley. The act is undoubtedly in the mind; hence, when we are
thinking of the act, we readily assent to the view that ideas must be
in the mind. Then, forgetting that this was only true when ideas
were taken as acts of apprehension, we transfer the proposition that
'ideas are in the mind' to ideas in the other sense, i.e. to the things
apprehended by our acts of apprehension. Thus, by an unconscious
equivocation, we arrive at the conclusion that whatever we can
apprehend must be in our minds. This seems to be the true analysis
of Berkeley's argument, and the ultimate fallacy upon which it
rests.
This question of the distinction between act and object in our
apprehending of things is vitally important, since our whole power
of acquiring knowledge is bound up with it. The faculty of being
acquainted with things other than itself is the mai n characteristic of
a mind. Acquaintance with objects essentially consists in a relation
between the mind and something other than the mind; it is this that
constitutes the mind's power of knowing things. If we say that the
things known must be in the mind, we are either unduly limiting
the mind's power of knowing, or we are uttering a mere tautology.
We are uttering a mere tautology if we mean by ' in the mind' the
same as by 'before the mind' , i.e. if we mean merely being
apprehended by the mind. But if we mean this, we shall have to
admit that what, in this sense, is in the mind, may nevertheless be
not mental. Thus when we realize the nature of knowledge,
Berkeley's argument is seen to be wrong in substance as well as in
form, and his grounds for supposing that 'ideas'—i.e. the objects
apprehended—must be mental, are found to have no validity
whatever. Hence his grounds in favour of idealism may be
dismissed. It remains to see whether there are any other grounds.
It is often said, as though it were a self-evident truism, that we
cannot know that anything exists which we do not know. It is
inferred that whatever can in any way be relevant to our experience
must be at least capable of being known by us; whence it follows
that if matter were essentially something with which we could not
become acquainted, matter would be something which we could
not know to exist, and which could have for us no importance
whatever. It is generally also implied, for reasons which remain
obscure, that what can have no importance for us cannot be real,
and that therefore matter, if it is not composed of minds or of
mental ideas, is impossible and a mere chimaera.
To go into this argument fully at our present stage would be
impossible, since it raises points requiring a considerable
preliminary discussion; but certain reasons for rejecting the
argument may be noticed at once. To begin at the end: there is no
reason why what cannot have any practical importance for us
should not be real. It is true that, if theoretical importance is
included, everything real is of some importance to us, since, as
persons desirous of knowing the truth about the universe, we have
some interest in everything that the universe contains. But if this
sort of interest is included, it is not the case that matter has no
importance for us, provided it exists even if we cannot know that it
exists. We can, obviously, suspect that it may exist, and wonder
whether it does; hence it is connected with our desire for
knowledge, and has the importance of either satisfying or
thwarting this desire.
Again, it is by no means a truism, and is in fact false, that we
cannot know that anything exists which we do not know. The word
'know' is here used in two different senses. (1) In its first use it is
applicable to the sort of knowledge which is opposed to error, the
sense in which what we know is true, the sense which applies to
our beliefs and convictions, i.e. to what are called judgements. In
this sense of the word we know that something is the case. This
sort of knowledge may be described as knowledge of truths. (2) In
the second use of the word ' know' above, the word applies to our
knowledge of things, which we may call acquaintance. This is the
sense in which we know sense-data. (The distinction involved is
roughly that between savoir and connaître in French, or between
wissen and kennen in German.)
Thus the statement which seemed like a truism becomes, when
re-stated, the following: ' We can never truly judge that something
with which we are not acquainted exists.' This is by no means a
truism, but on the contrary a palpable falsehood. I have not the
honour to be acquainted with the Emperor of China, but I truly
judge that he exists. It may be said, of course, that I judge this
because of other people's acquaintance with him. This, however,
would be an irrelevant retort, since, if the principle were true, I
could not know that any one else is acquainted with him. But
further: there is no reason why I should not know of the existence
of something with which nobody is acquainted. This point is
important, and demands elucidation.
If I am acquainted with a thing which exists, my acquaintance
gives me the knowledge that it exists. But it is not true that,
conversely, whenever I can know that a thing of a certain sort
exists, I or some one else must be acquainted with the thing. What
happens, in cases where I have true judgement without
acquaintance, is that the thing is known to me by description, and
that, in virtue of some general principle, the existence of a thing
answering to this description can be inferred from the existence of
something with which I am acquainted. In order to understand this
point fully, it will be well first to deal with the difference between
knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description, and
then to consider what knowledge of general principles, if any, has
the same kind of certainty as our knowledge of the existence of our
own experiences. These subjects will be dealt with in the following
chapters.





CHAPTER V.
KNOWLEDGE
BY
ACQUAINTANC
E AND
KNOWLEDGE
BY
DESCRIPTION
In the preceding chapter we saw that there are two sorts of
knowledge: knowledge of things, and knowledge of truths. In this
chapter we shall be concerned exclusively with knowledge of
things, of which in turn we shall have to distinguish two kinds.
Knowledge of things, when it is of the kind we call knowledge by
acquaintance, is essentially simpler than any knowledge of truths,
and logically independent of knowledge of truths, though it would
be rash to assume that human beings ever, in fact, have
acquaintance with things without at the same time knowing some
truth about them. Knowledge of things by description, on the
contrary, always involves, as we shall find in the course of the
present chapter, some knowledge of truths as its source and
ground. But first of all we must make clear what we mean by
'acquaintance' and what we mean by 'description'.
We shall say that we have acquaintance with anything of which
we are directly aware, without the intermediary of any process of
inference or any knowledge of truths. Thus in the presence of my
table I am acquainted with the sense-data that make up the
appearance of my table—its colour, shape, hardness, smoothness,
etc.; all these are things of which I am immediately conscious
when I am seeing and touching my table. The particular shade of
colour that I am seeing may have many things said about it—I may
say that it is brown, that it is rather dark, and so on. But such
statements, though they make me know truths about the colour, do
not make me know the colour itself any better than I did before so
far as concerns knowledge of the colour itself, as opposed to
knowledge of truths about it, I know t he colour perfectly and
completely when I see it, and no further knowledge of it itself is
even theoretically possible. Thus the sense-data which make up the
appearance of my table are things with which I have acquaintance,
things immediately known to me just as they are.
My knowledge of the table as a physical object, on the contrary,
is not direct knowledge. Such as it is, it is obtained through
acquaintance with the sense-data that make up the appearance of
the table. We have seen that it is possible, without absurdity, to
doubt whether there is a table at all, whereas it is not possible to
doubt the sense-data. My knowledge of the table is of the kind
which we shall call 'knowledge by description'. The table is 'the
physical object which causes such-and-such sense-data'. This
describes the table by means of the sense-data. In order to know
anything at all about the table, we must know truths connecting it
with things with which we have acquaintance: we must know that
'such-and-such sense-data are caused by a physical object'. There is
no state of mind in which we are directly aware of the table; all our
knowledge of the table is really knowledge of truths, and the actual
thing which is the table is not, strictly speaking, known to us at all.
We know a description, and we know that there is just one object
to which this description applies, though the object itself is not
directly known to us. In such a case, we say that our knowledge of
the object is knowledge by description.
All our knowledge, both knowledge of things and knowledge of
truths, rests upon acquaintance as its foundation. It is therefore
important to consider what kinds of things there are with which we
have acquaintance.
Sense-data, as we have already seen, are among the things with
which we are acquainted; in fact, they supply the most obvious and
striking example of knowledge by acquaintance. But if they were
the sole example, our knowledge would be very much more
restricted than it is. We should only know what is now present to
our senses: we could not know anything about the past—not even
that there was a past—nor could we know any truths about our
sense-data, for all knowledge of truths, as we shall show, demands
acquaintance with things which are of an essentially different
character from sense-data, the things which are sometimes called
'abstract ideas', but which we shall call 'universals'. We have
therefore to consider acquaintance with other things besides sense-
data if we are to obtain any tolerably adequate analysis of our
knowledge.
The first extension beyond sense-data to be considered is
acquaintance by memory. It is obvious that we often remember
what we have seen or heard or had otherwise present to our senses,
and that in such cases we are still immediately aware of what we
remember, in spite of the fact that it appears as past and not as
present. This immediate knowledge by memory is the source of all
our knowledge concerning the past: without it, there could be no
knowledge of the past by inference, since we should never know
that there was anything past to be inferred.
The next extension to be considered is acquaintance by
introspection. We are not only aware of things, but we are often
aware of being aware of them. When I see the sun, I am often
aware of my seeing the sun; thus 'my seeing the sun' is an object
with which I have acquaintance. When I desire food, I may be
aware of my desire for food; thus 'my desiring food' is an object
with which I am acquainted. Similarly we may be aware of our
feeling pleasure or pain, and generally of the events which happen
in our minds. This kind of acquaintance, which may be called self-
consciousness, is the source of all our knowledge of mental things.
It is obvious that it is only what goes on in our own minds that can
be thus known immediately. What goes on in the minds of others is
known to us through our perception of their bodies, that is, through
the sense-data in us which are associated with their bodies. But for
our acquaintance with the contents of our own minds, we should be
unable to imagine the minds of others, and therefore we could
never arrive at the knowledge that they have minds. It seems
natural to suppose that self-consciousness is one of the things that
distinguish men from animals: animals, we may suppose, though
they have acquaintance with sense-data, never become aware of
this acquaintance. I do not mean that they doubt whether they
exist, but that they have never become conscious of the fact that
they have sensations and feelings, nor therefore of the fact that
they, the subjects of their sensations and feelings, exist.
We have spoken of acquaintance with the contents of our minds
as self-consciousness, but it is not, of course, consciousness of our
self: it is consciousness of particular thoughts and feelings. The
question whether we are also acquainted with our bare selves, as
opposed to particular thoughts and feelings, is a very difficult one,
upon which it would be rash to speak positively. When we try to
look into ourselves we always seem to come upon some particular
thought or feeling, and not upon the ' I' which has the thought or
feeling. Nevertheless there are some reasons for thinking that we
are acquainted with the ' I', though the acquaintance is hard to
disentangle from other things. To make clear what sort of reason
there is, let us consider for a moment what our acquaintance with
particular thoughts really involves.
When I am acquainted with ' my seeing the sun' , it seems plain
that I am acquainted with two different things in relation to each
other. On the one hand there is the sense-datum which represents
the sun to me, on the other hand there is that which sees this sense-
datum. All acquaintance, such as my acquaintance with the sense-
datum which represents the sun, seems obviously a relation
between the person acquainted and the object with which the
person is acquainted. When a case of acquaintance is one with
which I can be acquainted (as I am acquainted with my
acquaintance with the sense-datum representing the sun), it is plain
that the person acquainted is myself. Thus, when I am acquainted
with my seeing the sun, the whole fact with which I am acquainted
is 'Self-acquainted-with-sense-datum'.
Further, we know the truth ' I am acquainted with this sense-
datum' . It is hard to see how we could know this truth, or even
understand what is meant by it, unless we were acquainted with
something which we call ' I' . It does not seem necessary to suppose
that we are acquainted with a more or less permanent person, the
same to-day as yesterday, but it does seem as though we must be
acquainted with that thing, whatever its nature, which sees the sun
and has acquaintance with sense-data. Thus, in some sense it
would seem we must be acquainted with our Selves as opposed to
our particular experiences. But the question is difficult, and
complicated arguments can be adduced on either side. Hence,
although acquaintance with ourselves seems probably to occur, it
is not wise to assert that it undoubtedly does occur.
We may therefore sum up as follows what has been said
concerning acquaintance with things that exist. We have
acquaintance in sensation with the data of the outer senses, and in
introspection with the data of what may be called the inner sense—
thoughts, feelings, desires, etc.; we have acquaintance in memory
with things which have been data either of the outer senses or of
the inner sense. Further, it is probable, though not certain, that we
have acquaintance with Self, as that which is aware of things or
has desires towards things.
In addition to our acquaintance with particular existing things,
we also have acquaintance with what we shall call universals, that
is to say, general ideas, such as whiteness, diversity, brotherhood,
and so on. Every complete sentence must contain at least one word
which stands for a universal, since all verbs have a meaning which
is universal. We shall return to universals later on, in Chapter IX;
for the present, it is only necessary to guard against the supposition
that whatever we can be acquainted with must be something
particular and existent. Awareness of universals is called
conceiving, and a universal of which we are aware is called a
concept.
It will be seen that among the objects with which we are
acquainted are not included physical objects (as opposed to sense-
data), nor other people' s minds. These things are known to us by
what I call 'knowledge by description', which we must now
consider.
By a 'description' I mean any phrase of the form 'a so-and-so' or
'the so-and-so'. A phrase of the form ' a so-and-so' I shall call an
'ambiguous' description; a phrase of the form 'the so-and-so' (in the
singular) I shall call a 'definite' description. Thus ' a man' is an
ambiguous description, and 'the man with the iron mask' is a
definite description. There are various problems connected with
ambiguous descriptions, but I pass them by, since they do not
directly concern the matter we are discussing, which is the nature
of our knowledge concerning objects in cases where we know that
there is an object answering to a definite description, though we
are not acquainted with any such object. This is a matter which is
concerned exclusively with definite descriptions. I shall therefore,
in the sequel, speak simply of 'descriptions' when I mean ' definite
descriptions'. Thus a description will mean any phrase of the form
'the so-and-so' in the singular.
We shall say that an object is 'known by description' when we
know that it is 'the so-and-so', i.e. when we know that there is one
object, and no more, having a certain property; and it will
generally be implied that we do not have knowledge of the same
object by acquaintance. We know that the man with the iron mask
existed, and many propositions are known about him; but we do
not know who he was. We know that the candidate who gets the
most votes will be elected, and in this case we are very likely also
acquainted (in the only sense in which one can be acquainted with
some one else) with the man who is, in fact, the candidate who will
get most votes; but we do not know which of the candidates he is,
i.e. we do not know any proposition of the form ' A is the candidate
who will get most votes' where A is one of the candidates by name.
We shall say that we have ' merely descriptive knowledge' of the
so-and-so when, although we know that the so-and-so exists, and
although we may possibly be acquainted with the object which is,
in fact, the so-and-so, yet we do not know any proposition 'a is the
so-and-so', where a is something with which we are acquainted.
When we say 'the so-and-so exists' , we mean that there is just
one object which is the so-and-so. The proposition 'a is the so-and-
so' means that a has the property so-and-so, and nothing else has.
'Mr. A. is the Unionist candidate for this constituency' means ' Mr.
A. is a Unionist candidate for this constituency, and no one else is'.
'The Unionist candidate for this constituency exists' means ' some
one is a Unionist candidate for this constituency, and no one else
is'. Thus, when we are acquainted with an object which is the so-
and-so, we know that the so-and-so exists; but we may know that
the so-and-so exists when we are not acquainted with any object
which we know to be the so-and-so, and even when we are not
acquainted with any object which, in fact, is the so-and-so.
Common words, even proper names, are usually really
descriptions. That is to say, the thought in the mind of a person
using a proper name correctly can generally only be expressed
explicitly if we replace the proper name by a description.
Moreover, the description required to express the thought will vary
for different people, or for the same person at different times. The
only thing constant (so long as the name is rightly used) is the
object to which the name applies. But so long as this remains
constant, the particular description involved usually makes no
difference to the truth or falsehood of the proposition in which the
name appears.
Let us take some illustrations. Suppose some statement made
about Bismarck. Assuming that there is such a thing as direct
acquaintance with oneself, Bismarck himself might have used his
name directly to designate the particular person with whom he was
acquainted. In this case, if he made a judgement about himself, he
himself might be a constituent of the judgement. Here the proper
name has the direct use which it always wishes to have, as simply
standing for a certain object, and not for a description of the object.
But if a person who knew Bismarck made a judgement about him,
the case is different. What this person was acquainted with were
certain sense-data which he connected (rightly, we will suppose)
with Bismarck's body. His body, as a physical object, and still
more his mind, were only known as the body and the mind
connected with these sense-data. That is, they were known by
description. It is, of course, very much a matter af chance which
characteristics of a man' s appearance will come into a friend's
mind when he thinks of him; thus the description actually in the
friend's mind is accidental. The essential point is that he knows
that the various descriptions all apply to the same entity, in spite of
not being acquainted with the entity in question.
When we, who did not know Bismarck, make a judgement about
him, the description in our minds will probably be some more or
less vague mass of historical knowledge—far more, in most cases,
than is required to identify him. But, for the sake of illustration, let
us assume that we think of him as 'the first Chancellor of the
German Empire'. Here all the words are abstract except 'German'.
The word 'German' will, again, have different meanings for
different people. To some it will recall travels in Germany, to some
the look of Germany on the map, and so on. But if we are to obtain
a description which we know to be applicable, we shall be
compelled, at some point, to bring in a reference to a particular
with which we are acquainted. Such reference is involved in any
mention of past, present, and future (as opposed to definite dates),
or of here and there, or of what others have told us. Thus it would
seem that, in some way or other, a description known to be
applicable to a particular must involve some reference to a
particular with which we are acquainted, if our knowledge about
the thing described is not to be merely what follows logically from
the description. For example, 'the most long-lived of men' is a
description involving only universals, which must apply to some
man, but we can make no judgements concerning this man which
involve knowledge about him beyond what the description gives.
If, however, we say, 'The first Chancellor of the German Empire
was an astute diplomatist', we can only be assured of the truth of
our judgement in virtue of something with which we are
acquainted—usually a testimony heard or read. Apart from the
information we convey to others, apart from the fact about the
actual Bismarck, which gives importance to our judgement, the
thought we really have contains the one or more particulars
involved, and otherwise consists wholly of concepts.
All names of places—London, England, Europe, the Earth, the
Solar System—similarly involve, when used, descriptions which
start from some one or more particulars with which we are
acquainted. I suspect that even the Universe, as considered by
metaphysics, involves such a connexion with particulars. In logic,
on the contrary, where we are concerned not merely with what
does exist, but with whatever might or could exist or be, no
reference to actual particulars is involved.
It would seem that, when we make a statement about something
only known by description, we often intend to make our statement,
not in the form involving the description, but about the actual thing
described. That is to say, when we say anything about Bismarck,
we should like, if we could, to make the judgement which
Bismarck alone can make, namely, the judgement of which he
himself is a constituent. In this we are necessarily defeated, since
the actual Bismarck is unknown to us. But we know that there is an
object B, called Bismarck, and that B was an astute diplomatist.
We can thus describe the proposition we should like to affirm,
namely, 'B was an astute diplomatist', where B is the object which
was Bismarck. If we are describing Bismarck as 'the first
Chancellor of the German Empire', the proposition we should like
to affirm may be described as 'the proposition asserting,
concerning the actual object which was the first Chancellor of the
German Empire, that this object was an astute diplomatist'. What
enables us to communicate in spite of the varying descriptions we
employ is that we know there is a true proposition concerning the
actual Bismarck, and that however we may vary the description (so
long as the description is correct) the proposition described is still
the same. This proposition, which is described and is known to be
true, is what interests us; but we are not acquainted with the
proposition itself, and do not know it, though we know it is true.
It will be seen that there are various stages in the removal from
acquaintance with particulars: there is Bismarck to people who
knew him; Bismarck to those who only know of him through
history; the man with the iron mask; the longest-lived of men.
These are progressively further removed from acquaintance with
particulars; the first comes as near to acquaintance as is possible in
regard to another person; in the second, we shall still be said to
know ' who Bismarck was' ; in the third, we do not know who was
the man with the iron mask, though we can know many
propositions about him which are not logically deducible from the
fact that he wore an iron mask; in the fourth, finally, we know
nothing beyond what is logically deducible from the definition of
the man. There is a similar hierarchy in the region of universals.
Many universals, like many particulars, are only known to us by
description. But here, as in the case of particulars, knowledge
concerning what is known by description is ultimately reducible to
knowledge concerning what is known by acquaintance.
The fundamental principle in the analysis of propositions
containing descriptions is this: Every proposition which we can
understand must be composed wholly of constituents with which
we are acquainted.
We shall not at this stage attempt to answer all the objections
which may be urged against this fundamental principle. For the
present, we shall merely point out that, in some way or other, it
must be possible to meet these objections, for it is scarcely
conceivable that we can make a judgement or entertain a
supposition without knowing what it is that we are judging or
supposing about. We must attach some meaning to the words we
use, if we are to speak significantly and not utter mere noise; and
the meaning we attach to our words must be something with which
we are acquainted. Thus when, for example, we make a statement
about Julius Caesar, it is plain that Julius Caesar himself is not
before our minds, since we are not acquainted with him. We have
in mind some description of Julius Caesar: 'the man who was
assassinated on the Ides of March', 'the founder of the Roman
Empire', or, perhaps, merely 'the man whose name was Julius
Caesar'. (In this last description, Julius Caesar is a noise or shape
with which we are acquainted.) Thus our statement does not mean
quite what it seems to mean, but means something involving,
instead of Julius Caesar, some description of him which is
composed wholly of particulars and universals with which we are
acquainted.
The chief importance of knowledge by description is that it
enables us to pass beyond the limits of our private experience. In
spite of the fact that we can only know truths which are wholly
composed of terms which we have experienced in acquaintance,
we can yet have knowledge by description of things which we
have never experienced. In view of the very narrow range of our
immediate experience, this result is vital, and until it is understood,
much of our knowledge must remain mysterious and therefore
doubtful.





CHAPTER VI.
ON INDUCTION
In almost all our previous discussions we have been concerned
in the attempt to get clear as to our data in the way of knowledge
of existence. What things are there in the universe whose existence
is known to us owing to our being acquainted with them? So far,
our answer has been that we are acquainted with our sense-data,
and, probably, with ourselves. These we know to exist. And past
sense-data which are remembered are known to have existed in the
past. This knowledge supplies our data.
But if we are to be able to draw inferences from these data—if
we are to know of the existence of matter, of other people, of the
past before our individual memory begins, or of the future, we
must know general principles of some kind by means of which
such inferences can be drawn. It must be known to us that the
existence of some one sort of thing, A, is a sign of the existence of
some other sort of thing, B, either at the same time as A or at some
earlier or later time, as, for example, thunder is a sign of the earlier
existence of lightning. If this were not known to us, we could never
extend our knowledge beyond the sphere of our private experience;
and this sphere, as we have seen, is exceedingly limited. The
question we have now to consider is whether such an extension is
possible, and if so, how it is effected.
Let us take as an illustration a matter about which none of us, in
fact, feel the slightest doubt. We are all convinced that the sun will
rise to-morrow. Why? Is this belief a mere blind outcome of past
experience, or can it be justified as a reasonable belief? It is not
easy to find a test by which to judge whether a belief of this kind is
reasonable or not, but we can at least ascertain what sort of general
beliefs would suffice, if true, to justify the judgement that the sun
will rise to-morrow, and the many other similar judgements upon
which our actions are based.
It is obvious that if we are asked why we believe that the sun
will rise to-morrow, we shall naturally answer 'Because it always
has risen every day' . We have a firm belief that it will rise in the
future, because it has risen in the past. If we are challenged as to
why we believe that it will continue to rise as heretofore, we may
appeal to the laws of motion: the earth, we shall say, is a freely
rotating body, and such bodies do not cease to rotate unless
something interferes from outside, and there is nothing outside to
interfere with the earth between now and to-morrow. Of course it
might be doubted whether we are quite certain that there is nothing
outside to interfere, but this is not the interesting doubt. The
interesting doubt is as to whether the laws of motion will remain in
operation until to-morrow. If this doubt is raised, we find ourselves
in the same position as when the doubt about the sunrise was first
raised.
The only reason for believing that the laws of motion will
remain in operation is that they have operated hitherto, so far as
our knowledge of the past enables us to judge. It is true that we
have a greater body of evidence from the past in favour of the laws
of motion than we have in favour of the sunrise, because the
sunrise is merely a particular case of fulfilment of the laws of
motion, and there are countless other particular cases. But the real
question is: Do any number of cases of a law being fulfilled in the
past afford evidence that it will be fulfilled in the future? If not, it
becomes plain that we have no ground whatever for expecting the
sun to rise to-morrow, or for expecting the bread we shall eat at our
next meal not to poison us, or for any of the other scarcely
conscious expectations that control our daily lives. It is to be
observed that all such expectations are only probable; thus we
have not to seek for a proof that they must be fulfilled, but only for
some reason in favour of the view that they are likely to be
fulfilled.
Now in dealing with this question we must, to begin with, make
an important distinction, without which we should soon become
involved in hopeless confusions. Experience has shown us that,
hitherto, the frequent repetition of some uniform succession or
coexistence has been a cause of our expecting the same succession
or coexistence on the next occasion. Food that has a certain
appearance generally has a certain taste, and it is a severe shock to
our expectations when the familiar appearance is found to be
associated with an unusual taste. Things which we see become
associated, by habit, with certain tactile sensations which we
expect if we touch them; one of the horrors of a ghost (in many
ghost-stories) is that it fails to give us any sensations of touch.
Uneducated people who go abroad for the first time are so
surprised as to be incredulous when they find their native language
not understood.
And this kind of association is not confined to men; in animals
also it is very strong. A horse which has been often driven along a
certain road resists the attempt to drive him in a different direction.
Domestic animals expect food when they see the person who
usually feeds them. We know that all these rather crude
expectations of uniformity are liable to be misleading. The man
who has fed the chicken every day throughout its life at last wrings
its neck instead, showing that more refined views as to the
uniformity of nature would have been useful to the chicken.
But in spite of the misleadingness of such expectations, they
nevertheless exist. The mere fact that something has happened a
certain number of times causes animals and men to expect that it
will happen again. Thus our instincts certainly cause us to believe
that the sun will rise to-morrow, but we may be in no better a
position than the chicken which unexpectedly has its neck wrung.
We have therefore to distinguish the fact that past uniformities
cause expectations as to the future, from the question whether
there is any reasonable ground for giving weight to such
expectations after the question of their validity has been raised.
The problem we have to discuss is whether there is any reason
for believing in what is called 'the uniformity of nature' . The belief
in the uniformity of nature is the belief that everything that has
happened or will happen is an instance of some general law to
which there are no exceptions. The crude expectations which we
have been considering are all subject to exceptions, and therefore
liable to disappoint those who entertain them. But science
habitually assumes, at least as a working hypothesis, that general
rules which have exceptions can be replaced by general rules
which have no exceptions. 'Unsupported bodies in air fall' is a
general rule to which balloons and aeroplanes are exceptions. But
the laws of motion and the law of gravitation, which account for
the fact that most bodies fall, also account for the fact that balloons
and aeroplanes can rise; thus the laws of motion and the law of
gravitation are not subject to these exceptions.
The belief that the sun will rise to-morrow might be falsified if
the earth came suddenly into contact with a large body which
destroyed its rotation; but the laws of motion and the law of
gravitation would not be infringed by such an event. The business
of science is to find uniformities, such as the laws of motion and
the law of gravitation, to which, so far as our experience extends,
there are no exceptions. In this search science has been remarkably
successful, and it may be conceded that such uniformities have
held hitherto. This brings us back to t he question: Have we any
reason, assuming that they have always held in the past, to suppose
that they will hold in the future?
It has been argued that we have reason to know that the future
will resemble the past, because what was the future has constantl y
become the past, and has always been found to resemble the past,
so that we really have experience of the future, namely of times
which were formerly future, which we may call past futures. But
such an argument really begs the very question at issue. We have
experience of past futures, but not of future futures, and the
question is: Will future futures resemble past futures? This
question is not to be answered by an argument which starts from
past futures alone. We have therefore still to seek for some
principle which shall enable us to know that the future will follow
the same laws as the past.
The reference to the future in this question is not essential. The
same question arises when we apply the laws that work in our
experience to past things of which we have no experience—as, for
example, in geology, or in theories as to the origin of the Solar
System. The question we really have to ask is: ' When two things
have been found to be often associated, and no instance is known
of the one occurring without the other, does the occurrence of one
of the two, in a fresh instance, give any good ground for expecting
the other?' On our answer to this question must depend the validity
of the whole of our expectations as to the future, the whole of the
results obtained by induction, and in fact practically all the beliefs
upon which our daily life is based.
It must be conceded, to begin with, that the fact that two things
have been found often together and never apart does not, by itself,
suffice to prove demonstratively that they will be found together in
the next case we examine. The most we can hope is that the oftener
things are found together, the more probable it becomes that they
will be found together another time, and that, if they have been
found together often enough, the probability will amount almost to
certainty. It can never quite reach certainty, because we know that
in spite of frequent repetitions there sometimes is a failure at the
last, as in the case of the chicken whose neck is wrung. Thus
probability is all we ought to seek.
It might be urged, as against the view we are advocating, that we
know all natural phenomena to be subject to the reign of law, and
that sometimes, on the basis of observation, we can see that only
one law can possibly fit the facts of the case. Now to this view
there are two answers. The first is that, even if some law which has
no exceptions applies to our case, we can never, in practice, be
sure that we have discovered that law and not one to which there
are exceptions. The second is that the reign of law would seem to
be itself only probable, and that our belief that it will hold in the
future, or in unexamined cases in the past, is itself based upon the
very principle we are examining.
The principle we are examining may be called the principle of
induction, and its two parts may be stated as follows:
(a) When a thing of a certain sort A has been found to be
associated with a thing of a certain other sort B, and has never been
found dissociated from a thing of the sort B, the greater the number
of cases in which A and B have been associated, the greater is the
probability that they will be associated in a fresh case in which one
of them is known to be present;
(b) Under the same circumstances, a sufficient number of cases
of association will make the probability of a fresh association
nearly a certainty, and will make it approach certainty without
limit.
As just stated, the principle applies only to the verification of
our expectation in a single fresh instance. But we want also to
know that there is a probability in favour of the general law that
things of the sort A are always associated with things of the sort B,
provided a sufficient number of cases of association are known,
and no cases of failure of association are known. The probability of
the general law is obviously less than the probability of the
particular case, since if the general law is true, the particular case
must also be true, whereas the particular case may be true without
the general law being true. Nevertheless the probability of the
general law is increased by repetitions, just as the probability of the
particular case is. We may therefore repeat the two parts of our
principle as regards the general law, thus:
(a) The greater the number of cases in which a thing of the sort
A has been found associated with a thing of the sort B, the more
probable it is (if no cases of failure of association are known) that
A is always associated with B;
b) Under the same circumstances, a sufficient number of cases
of the association of A with B will make it nearly certain that A is
always associated with B, and will make this general law approach
certainty without limit.
It should be noted that probability is always relative to certain
data. In our case, the data are merely the known cases of
coexistence of A and B. There may be other data, which might be
taken into account, which would gravely alter the probability. For
example, a man who had seen a great many white swans might
argue, by our principle, that on the data it was probable that all
swans were white, and this might be a perfectly sound argument.
The argument is not disproved ny the fact that some swans are
black, because a thing may very well happen in spite of the fact
that some data render it improbable. In the case of the swans, a
man might know that colour is a very variable characteristic in
many species of animals, and that, therefore, an induction as to
colour is peculiarly liable to error. But this knowledge would be a
fresh datum, by no means proving that the probability relatively to
our previous data had been wrongly estimated. The fact, therefore,
that things often fail to fulfil our expectations is no evidence that
our expectations will not probably be fulfilled in a given case or a
given class of cases. Thus our inductive principle is at any rate not
capable of being disproved by an appeal to experience.
The inductive principle, however, is equally incapable of being
proved by an appeal to experience. Experience might conceivably
confirm the inductive principle as regards the cases that have been
already examined; but as regards unexamined cases, it is the
inductive principle alone that can justify any inference from what
has been examined to what has not been examined. All arguments
which, on the basis of experience, argue as to the future or the
unexperienced parts of the past or present, assume the inductive
principle; hence we can never use experience to prove the
inductive principle without begging the question. Thus we must
either accept the inductive principle on the ground of its intrinsic
evidence, or forgo all justification of our expectations about the
future. If the principle is unsound, we have no reason to expect the
sun to rise to-morrow, to expect bread to be more nourishing than a
stone, or to expect that if we throw ourselves off the roof we shall
fall. When we see what looks like our best friend approaching us,
we shall have no reason to suppose that his body is not inhabited
by the mind of our worst enemy or of some total stranger. All our
conduct is based upon associations which have worked in the past,
and which we therefore regard as likely to work in the future; and
this likelihood is dependent for its validity upon the inductive
principle.
The general principles of science, such as the belief in the reign
of law, and the belief that every event must have a cause, are as
completely dependent upon the inductive principle as are the
beliefs of daily life All such general principles are believed
because mankind have found innumerable instances of their truth
and no instances of their falsehood. But this affords no evidence
for their truth in the future, unless the inductive principle is
assumed.
Thus all knowledge which, on a basis of experience tells us
something about what is not experi enced, is based upon a belief
which experience can neither confirm nor confute, yet which, at
least in its more concrete applications, appears to be as firmly
rooted in us as many of the facts of experience. The existence and
justification of such beliefs—for the inductive principle, as we
shall see, is not the only example—raises some of the most
difficult and most debated problems of philosophy. We will, in the
next chapter, consider briefly what may be said to account for such
knowledge, and what is its scope and its degree of certainty.





CHAPTER VII.
ON OUR
KNOWLEDGE
OF GENERAL
PRINCIPLES
We saw in the preceding chapter that the principle of induction,
while necessary to the validity of all arguments based on
experience, is itself not capable of being proved by experience, and
yet is unhesitatingly believed by every one, at least in all its
concrete applications. In these characteristics the principle of
induction does not stand alone. There are a number of other
principles which cannot be proved or disproved by experience, but
are used in arguments which start from what is experienced.
Some of these principles have even greater evidence than the
principle of induction, and the knowledge of them has the same
degree of certainty as the knowledge of the existence of sense-data.
They constitute the means of drawing inferences from what is
given in sensation; and if what we infer is to be true, it is just as
necessary that our principles of inference should be true as it is that
our data should be true. The principles of inference are apt to be
overlooked because of their very obviousness—the assumption
involved is assented to without our realizing that it is an
assumption. But it is very important to realize the use of principles
of inference, if a correct theory of knowledge is to be obtained; for
our knowledge of them raises interesting and difficult questions.
In all our knowledge of general principles, what actually
happens is that first of all we realize some particular application of
the principle, and then we realize that the particularity is irrelevant,
and that there is a generality which may equally truly be affirmed.
This is of course familiar in such matters as teaching arithmetic:
'two and two are four' is first learnt in the case of some particular
pair of couples, and then in some other particular case, and so on,
until at last it becomes possible to see that it is true of any pair of
couples. The same thing happens with logical principles. Suppose
two men are discussing what day of the month it is. One of them
says, ' At least you will admit that if yesterday was the 15th to-day
must be the 16th.' ' Yes', says the other, ' I admit that.' ' And you
know' , the first continues, 'that yesterday was the 15th, because
you dined with Jones, and your diary will tell you that was on the
15th.' 'Yes', says the second; 'therefore to-day is the 16th.'
Now such an argument is not hard to follow; and if it is granted
that its premisses are true in fact, no one will deny that the
conclusion must also be true. But it depends for its truth upon an
instance of a general logical principle. The logical principle is as
follows: 'Suppose it known that if this is true, then that is true.
Suppose it also known that this is true, then it follows that that is
true.' When it is the case that if this is true, that is true, we shall say
that this 'implies' that, and that that 'follows from' this. Thus our
principle states that if this implies that, and this is true, then that is
true. In other words, ' anything implied by a true proposition is
true', or 'whatever follows from a true proposition is true'.
This principle is really involved—at least, concrete instances of
it are involved—in all demonstrations. Whenever one thing which
we believe is used to prove something else, which we consequently
believe, this principle is relevant. If any one asks: ' Why should I
accept the results of valid arguments based on true premisses?' we
can only answer by appealing to our principle. In fact, the truth of
the principle is impossible to doubt, and its obviousness is so great
that at first sight it seems almost trivial. Such principles, however,
are not trivial to the philosopher, for they show that we may have
indubitable knowledge which is in no way derived from objects of
sense.
The above principle is merely one of a certain number of self-
evident logical principles. Some at least of these principles must be
granted before any argument or proof becomes possible. When
some of them have been granted, others can be proved, though
these others, so long as they are simple, are just as obvious as the
principles taken for granted. For no very good reason, three of
these principles have been singled out by tradition under the name
of 'Laws of Thought'.
They are as follows:
(1) The law of identity: ' Whatever is, is.'
(2) The law of contradiction: 'Nothing can both be and not be.'
(3) The law of excluded middle: 'Everything must either be or
not be.'
These three laws are samples of self-evident logical principles,
but are not really more fundamental or more self-evident than
various other similar principles: for instance, the one we
considered just now, which states that what follows from a true
premiss is true. The name 'laws of thought' is also misleading, for
what is important is not the fact that we think in accordance with
these laws, but the fact that things behave in accordance with them;
in other words, the fact that when we think in accordance with
them we think truly. But this is a large question, to which we must
return at a later stage.
In addition to the logical principles which enable us to prove
from a given premiss that something is certainly true, there are
other logical principles which enable us to prove, from a given
premiss, that there is a greater or less probability that something is
true. An example of such principles—perhaps the most important
example is the inductive principle, which we considered in the
preceding chapter.
One of the great historic controversies in philosophy is the
controversy between the two schools called respectively
'empiricists' and 'rationalists' . The empiricists—who are best
represented by the British philosophers, Locke, Berkeley, and
Hume—maintained that all our knowledge is derived from
experience; the rationalists—who are represented by the
Continental philosophers of the seventeenth century, especially
Descartes and Leibniz—maintained that, in addition to what we
know by experience, there are certain 'innate ideas' and 'innate
principles', which we know independently of experience. It has
now become possible to decide with some confidence as to the
truth or falsehood of these opposing schools. It must be admitted,
for the reasons already stated, that logical principles are known to
us, and cannot be themselves proved by experience, since all proof
presupposes them. In this, therefore, which was the most important
point of the controversy, the rationalists were in the right.
On the other hand, even that part of our knowledge which is
logically independent of experience (in the sense that experience
cannot prove it) is yet elicited and caused by experience. It is on
occasion of particular experiences that we become aware of the
general laws which their connexions exemplify. It would certainly
be absurd to suppose that there are innate principles in the sense
that babies are born with a knowledge of everything which men
know and which cannot be deduced from what is experienced. For
this reason, the word 'innate' would not now be employed to
describe our knowledge of logical principles. The phrase ' a priori'
is less objectionable, and is more usual in modern writers. Thus,
while admitting that all knowledge is elicited and caused by
experience, we shall nevertheless hold that some knowledge is a
priori, in the sense that the experience which makes us think of it
does not suffice to prove it, but merely so directs our attention that
we see its truth without requiring any proof from experience.
There is another point of great importance, in which the
empiricists were in the right as against the rationalists. Nothing can
be known to exist except by the help of experience. That is to say,
if we wish to prove that something of which we have no direct
experience exists, we must have among our premisses the
existence of one or more things of which we have direct
experience. Our belief that the Emperor of China exists, for
example, rests upon testimony, and testimony consists, in the last
analysis, of sense-data seen or heard in reading or being spoken to.
Rationalists believed that, from general consideration as to what
must be, they could deduce the existence of this or that in the
actual world. In this belief they seem to have been mistaken. All
the knowledge that we can acquire a priori concerning existence
seems to be hypothetical: it tells us that if one thing exists, another
must exist, or, more generally, that if one proposition is true,
another must be true. This is exemplified by the principles we have
already dealt with, such as 'if this is true, and this implies that, then
that is true', or 'if this and that have been repeatedly found
connected, they will probably be connected in the next instance in
which one of them is found'. Thus the scope and power of a priori
principles is strictly limited. All knowledge that something exists
must be in part dependent on experience. When anything is known
immediately, its existence is known by experience alone; when
anything is proved to exist, without being known immediately,
both experience and a priori principles must be required in the
proof. Knowledge is called empirical when it rests wholly or partly
upon experience. Thus all knowledge which asserts existence is
empirical, and the only a priori knowledge concerning existence is
hypothetical, giving connexions among things that exist or may
exist, but not giving actual existence.
A priori knowledge is not all of the logical kind we have been
hitherto considering. Perhaps the most important example of non-
logical a priori knowledge is knowledge as to ethical value. I am
not speaking of judgements as to what is useful or as to what is
virtuous, for such judgements do require empirical premisses; I am
speaking of judgements as to the intrinsic desirability of things. If
something is useful, it must be useful because it secures some end;
the end must, if we have gone far enough, be valuable on its own
account, and not merely because it is useful for some further end.
Thus all judgements as to what is useful depend upon judgements
as to what has value on its own account.
We judge, for example, that happiness is more desirable than
misery, knowledge than ignorance, goodwill than hatred, and so
on. Such judgements must, in part at least, be immediate and a
priori. Like our previous a priori judgements, they may be elicited
by experience, and indeed they must be; for it seems not possible
to judge whether anything is intrinsically valuable unless we have
experienced something of the same kind. But it is fairly obvious
that they cannot be proved by experience; for the fact that a thing
exists or does not exist cannot prove either that it is good that it
should exist or that it is bad. The pursuit of this subject belongs to
ethics, where the impossibility of deducing what ought to be from
what is has to be established. In the present connexion, it is only
important to realize that knowledge as to what is intrinsically of
value is a priori in the same sense in which logic is a priori,
namely in the sense that the truth of such knowledge can be neither
proved nor disproved by experience.
All pure mathematics is a priori, like logic. This was
strenuously denied by the empirical philosophers, who maintained
that experience was as much the source of our knowledge of
arithmetic as of our knowledge of geography. They maintained that
by the repeated experience of seeing two things and two other
things, and finding that altogether they made four things, we were
led by induction to the conclusion that two things and two other
things would always make four things altogether. If, however, this
were the source of our knowledge that two and two are four, we
should proceed differently, in persuading ourselves of its truth,
from the way in which we do actually proceed. In fact, a certain
number of instances are needed to make us think of two abstractly,
rather than of two coins or two books or two people, or two of any
other specified kind. But as soon as we are able to divest our
thoughts of irrelevant particularity, we become able to see the
general principle that two and two are four; any one instance is
seen to be typical, and the examination of other instances becomes
unnecessary.(1)
(1) Cf. A. N. Whitehead, Introduction to Mathematics (Home
University Library).
The same thing is exemplified in geometry. If we want to prove
some property of all triangles, we draw some one triangle and
reason about it; but we can avoid making use of any property
which it does not share with all other triangles, and thus, from our
particular case, we obtain a general result. We do not, in fact, feel
our certainty that two and two are four increased by fresh
instances, because, as soon as we have seen the truth of this
proposition, our certainty becomes so great as to be incapable of
growing greater. Moreover, we feel some quality of necessity
about the proposition 'two and two are four', which is absent from
even the best attested empirical generalizations. Such
generalizations always remain mere facts: we feel that there might
be a world in which they were false, though in the actual world
they happen to be true. In any possible world, on the contrary, we
feel that two and two would be four: this is not a mere fact, but a
necessity to which everything actual and possible must conform.
The case may be made clearer by considering a genuinely-
empirical generalization, such as ' All men are mortal.' It is plain
that we believe this proposition, in the first place, because there is
no known instance of men living beyond a certain age, and in the
second place because there seem to be physiological grounds for
thinking that an organism such as a man's body must sooner or
later wear out. Neglecting the second ground, and considering
merely our experience of men's mortality, it is plain that we should
not be content with one quite clearly understood instance of a man
dying, whereas, in the case of 'two and two are four', one instance
does suffice, when carefully considered, to persuade us that the
same must happen in any other instance. Also we can be forced to
admit, on reflection, that there may be some doubt, however slight,
as to whether all men are mortal. This may be made plain by the
attempt to imagine two different worlds, in one of which there are
men who are not mortal, while in the other two and two make five.
When Swift invites us to consider the race of Struldbugs who
never die, we are able to acquiesce in imagination. But a world
where two and two make five seems quite on a different level. We
feel that such a world, if there were one, would upset the whole
fabric of our knowledge and reduce us to utter doubt.
The fact is that, in simple mathematical judgements such as 'two
and two are four', and also in many judgements of logic, we can
know the general proposition without inferring it from instances,
although some instance is usually necessary to make clear to us
what the general proposition means. This is why there is real utility
in the process of deduction, which goes from the general to the
general, or from the general to the particular, as well as in the
process of induction, which goes from the particular to the
particular, or from the particular to t he general. It is an old debate
among philosophers whether deduction ever gives new knowledge.
We can now see that in certain cases, at least, it does do so. If we
already know that two and two always make four, and we know
that Brown and Jones are two, and so are Robinson and Smith, we
can deduce that Brown and Jones and Robinson and Smith are
four. This is new knowledge, not contained in our premisses,
because the general proposition, 'two and two are four', never told
us there were such people as Brown and Jones and Robinson and
Smith, and the particular premisses do not tell us that there were
four of them, whereas the particular proposition deduced does tell
us both these things.
But the newness of the knowledge is much less certain if we
take the stock instance of deduction that is always given in books
on logic, namely, ' All men are mortal; Socrates is a man, therefore
Socrates is mortal.' In this case, what we really know beyond
reasonable doubt is that certain men, A, B, C, were mortal, since,
in fact, they have died. If Socrates is one of these men, it is foolish
to go the roundabout way through 'all men are mortal' to arrive at
the conclusion that probably Socrates is mortal. If Socrates is not
one of the men on whom our induction is based, we shall still do
better to argue straight from our A, B, C, to Socrates, than to go
round by the general proposition, 'all men are mortal' . For the
probability that Socrates is mortal is greater, on our data, than the
probability that all men are mortal. (This is obvious, because if all
men are mortal, so is Socrates; but if Socrates is mortal, it does not
follow that all men are mortal.) Hence we shall reach the
conclusion that Socrates is mortal with a greater approach to
certainty if we make our argument purely inductive than if we go
by way of 'all men are mortal' and then use deduction.
This illustrates the difference between general propositions
known a priori such as 'two and two are four', and empirical
generalizations such as 'all men are mortal'. In regar d to the former,
deduction is the right mode of argument, whereas in regard to the
latter, induction is always theoretically preferable, and warrants a
greater confidence in the truth of our conclusion, because all
empirical generalizations are more uncert ain than the instances of
them.
We have now seen that there are propositions known a priori,
and that among them are the propositions of logic and pure
mathematics, as well as the fundamental propositions of ethics.
The question which must next occupy us is this: How is it possible
that there should be such knowledge? And more particularly, how
can there be knowledge of general propositions in cases where we
have not examined all the instances, and indeed never can examine
them all, because their number is infinite? These questions, which
were first brought prominently forward by the German philosopher
Kant (1724-1804), are very difficult, and historically very
important.





CHAPTER VIII.
HOW A PRIORI
KNOWLEDGE IS
POSSIBLE
Immanuel Kant is generally regarded as the greatest of the
modern philosophers. Though he lived through the Seven Years
War and the French Revolution, he never interrupted his teaching
of philosophy at Königsberg in East Prussia. His most distinctive
contribution was the invention of what he called the ' critical'
philosophy, which, assuming as a datum that there is knowledge of
various kinds, inquired how such knowledge comes to be possible,
and deduced, from the answer to this inquiry, many metaphysical
results as to the nature of the world. Whether these results were
valid may well be doubted. But Kant undoubtedly deserves credit
for two things: first, for having perceived that we have a priori
knowledge which is not purely 'analytic' , i.e. such that the opposite
would be self-contradictory, and secondly, for having made
evident the philosophical importance of the theory of knowledge.
Before the time of Kant, it was generally held that whatever
knowledge was a priori must be 'analytic'. What this word means
will be best illustrated by examples. If I say, ' A bald man is a man',
'A plane figure is a figure', ' A bad poet is a poet', I make a purely
analytic judgement: the subject spoken about is given as having at
least two properties, of which one is singled out to be asserted of it.
Such propositions as the above are trivial, and would never be
enunciated in real life except by an orator preparing the way for a
piece of sophistry. They are called 'analytic' because the predicate
is obtained by merely analysing the subject. Before the time of
Kant it was thought that all judgements of which we could be
certain a priori were of this kind: that in all of them there was a
predicate which was only part of the subject of which it was
asserted. If this were so, we should be involved in a definite
contradiction if we attempted to deny anything that could be
known a priori. ' A bald man is not bald' would assert and deny
baldness of the same man, and would therefore contradict itself.
Thus according to the philosophers before Kant, the law of
contradiction, which asserts that nothing can at the same time have
and not have a certain property, sufficed to establish the truth of all
a priori knowledge.
Hume (1711-76), who preceded Kant, accepting the usual view
as to what makes knowledge a priori, discovered that, in many
cases which had previously been supposed analytic, and notably in
the case of cause and effect, the connexion was really synthetic.
Before Hume, rationalists at least had supposed that the effect
could be logically deduced from the cause, if only we had
sufficient knowledge. Hume argued—correctly, as would now be
generally admitted—that this could not be done. Hence he inferred
the far more doubtful proposition that nothing could be known a
priori about the connexion of cause and effect. Kant, who had been
educated in the rationalist tradition, was much perturbed by
Hume's scepticism, and endeavoured to find an answer to it. He
perceived that not only the connexion of cause and effect, but all
the propositions of arithmetic and geometry, are 'synthetic', i.e. not
analytic: in all these propositions, no analysis of the subject will
reveal the predicate. His stock instance was the proposition 7 + 5 =
12. He pointed out, quite truly, that 7 and 5 have to be put together
to give 12: the idea of 12 is not contained in them, nor even in the
idea of adding them together. Thus he was led to the conclusion
that all pure mathematics, though a priori, is synthetic; and this
conclusion raised a new problem of which he endeavoured to find
the solution.
The question which Kant put at the beginning of his philosophy,
namely ' How is pure mathematics possible?' is an interesting and
difficult one, to which every philosophy which is not purely
sceptical must find some answer. The answer of the pure
empiricists, that our mathematical knowledge is derived by
induction from particular instances, we have already seen to be
inadequate, for two reasons: first, that the validity of the inductive
principle itself cannot be proved by induction; secondly, that the
general propositions of mathematics, such as 'two and two always
make four', can obviously be known with certainty by
consideration of a single instance, and gain nothing by
enumeration of other cases in which they have been found to be
true. Thus our knowledge of the general propositions of
mathematics (and the same applies to logic) must be accounted for
otherwise than our (merely probable) knowledge of empirical
generalizations such as 'all men are mortal'.
The problem arises through the fact that such knowledge is
general, whereas all experience is particular. It seems strange that
we should apparently be able to know some truths in advance
about particular things of which we have as yet no experience; but
it cannot easily be doubted that logic and arithmetic will apply to
such things. We do not know who will be the inhabitants of
London a hundred years hence; but we know that any two of them
and any other two of them will make four of them. This apparent
power of anticipating facts about things of which we have no
experience is certainly surprising. Kant's solution of the problem,
though not valid in my opinion, is interesting. It is, however, very
difficult, and is differently understood by different philosophers.
We can, therefore, only give the merest outline of it, and even that
will be thought misleading by many exponents of Kant's system.
What Kant maintained was that in all our experience there are
two elements to be distinguished, the one due to the object (i.e. to
what we have called the ' physical object'), the other due to our own
nature. We saw, in discussing matter and sense-data, that the
physical object is different from the associated sense-data, and that
the sense-data are to be regarded as resulting from an interaction
between the physical object and ourselves. So far, we are in
agreement with Kant. But what is distinctive of Kant is the way in
which he apportions the shares of ourselves and the physical object
respectively. He considers that the crude material given in
sensation—the colour, hardness, etc.—is due to the object, and that
what we supply is the arrangement in space and time, and all the
relations between sense-data which result from comparison or from
considering one as the cause of the other or in any other way. His
chief reason in favour of this view is that we seem to have a priori
knowledge as to space and time and causality and comparison, but
not as to the actual crude material of sensation. We can be sure, he
says, that anything we shall ever experience must show the
characteristics affirmed of it in our a priori knowledge, because
these characteristics are due to our own nature, and therefore
nothing can ever come into our experience without acquiring these
characteristics.
The physical object, which he calls the 'thing in itself',(1) he
regards as essentially unknowable; what can be known is the object
as we have it in experience, which he calls the ' phenomenon'. The
phenomenon, being a joint product of us and the thing in itself, is
sure to have those characteristics which are due to us, and is
therefore sure to conform to our a priori knowledge. Hence this
knowledge, though true of all actual and possible experience, must
not be supposed to apply outside experience. Thus in spite of the
existence of a priori knowledge, we cannot know anything about
the thing in itself or about what is not an actual or possible object
of experience. In this way he tries to reconcile and harmonize the
contentions of the rationalists with the arguments of the
empiricists.
(1) Kant's 'thing in itself' is identical in definition with the
physical object, namely, it is the cause of sensations. In the
properties deduced from the definition it is not identical, since
Kant held (in spite of some inconsistency as regards cause) that we
can know that none of the categories are applicable to the 'thing in
itself'.
Apart from minor grounds on which Kant's philosophy may be
criticized, there is one main objection which seems fatal to any
attempt to deal with the problem of a priori knowledge by his
method. The thing to be accounted for is our certainty that the facts
must always conform to logic and arithmetic. To say that logic and
arithmetic are contributed by us does not account for this. Our
nature is as much a fact of the existing world as anything, and there
can be no certainty that it will remain constant. It might happen, if
Kant is right, that to-morrow our nature would so change as to
make two and two become five. This possibility seems never to
have occurred to him, yet it is one which utterly destroys the
certainty and universality which he is anxious to vindicate for
arithmetical propositions. It is true that this possibility, formally, is
inconsistent with the Kantian view that time itself is a form
imposed by the subject upon phenomena, so that our real Self is
not in time and has no to-morrow. But he will still have to suppose
that the time-order of phenomena is determined by characteristics
of what is behind phenomena, and this suffices for the substance of
our argument.
Reflection, moreover, seems to make it clear that, if there is any
truth in our arithmetical beliefs, they must apply to things equally
whether we think of them or not. Two physical objects and two
other physical objects must make four physical objects, even if
physical objects cannot be experienced. To assert this is certainly
within the scope of what we mean when we state that two and two
are four. Its truth is just as indubitable as the truth of the assertion
that two phenomena and two other phenomena make four
phenomena. Thus Kant's solution unduly limits the scope of a
priori propositions, in addition to failing in the attempt at
explaining their certainty.
Apart from the special doctrines advocated by Kant, it is very
common among philosophers to regard what is a priori as in some
sense mental, as concerned rather with the way we must think than
with any fact of the outer world. We noted in the preceding chapter
the three principles commonly called 'laws of thought'. The view
which led to their being so named is a natural one, but there are
strong reasons for thinking that it is erroneous. Let us take as an
illustration the law of contradiction. This is commonly stated in the
form 'Nothing can both be and not be' , which is intended to express
the fact that nothing can at once have and not have a given quality.
Thus, for example, if a tree is a beech it cannot also be not a beech;
if my table is rectangular it cannot also be not rectangular, and so
on.
Now what makes it natural to call this principle a law of thought
is that it is by thought rather than by outward observation that we
persuade ourselves of its necessary truth. When we have seen that
a tree is a beech, we do not need to look again in order to ascertain
whether it is also not a beech; thought alone makes us know that
this is impossible. But the conclusion that the law of contradiction
is a law of thought is nevertheless erroneous. What we believe,
when we believe the law of contradiction, is not that the mind is so
made that it must believe the law of contradiction. This belief is a
subsequent result of psychological reflection, which presupposes
the belief in the law of contradiction. The belief in the law of
contradiction is a belief about things, not only about thoughts. It is
not, e.g., the belief that if we think a certain tree is a beech, we
cannot at the same time think that it is not a beech; it is the belief
that if the tree is a beech, it cannot at the same time be not a beech.
Thus the law of contradiction is about things, and not merely about
thoughts; and although belief in the law of contradiction is a
thought, the law of contradiction itself is not a thought, but a fact
concerning the things in the world. If this, which we believe when
we believe the law of contradiction, were not true of the things in
the world, the fact that we were compelled to think it true would
not save the law of contradiction from being false; and this shows
that the law is not a law of thought.
A similar argument applies to any other a priori judgement.
When we judge that two and two are four, we are not making a
judgement about our thoughts, but about all actual or possible
couples. The fact that our minds are so constituted as to believe
that two and two are four, though it is true, is emphatically not
what we assert when we assert that two and two are four. And no
fact about the constitution of our minds could make it true that two
and two are four. Thus our a priori knowledge, if it is not
erroneous, is not merely knowledge about the constitution of our
minds, but is applicable to whatever the world may contain, both
what is mental and what is non-mental.
The fact seems to be that all our a priori knowledge is
concerned with entities which do not, properly speaking, exist,
either in the mental or in the physical world. These entities are
such as can be named by parts of speech which are not
substantives; they are such entities as qualities and relations.
Suppose, for instance, that I am in my room. I exist, and my room
exists; but does 'in' exist? Yet obviously the word 'in' has a
meaning; it denotes a relation which holds between me and my
room. This relation is something, although we cannot say that it
exists in the same sense in which I and my room exist. The relation
'in' is something which we can think about and understand, for, if
we could not understand it, we could not understand the sentence ' I
am in my room'. Many philosophers, following Kant, have
maintained that relations are the work of the mind, that things in
themselves have no relations, but that the mind brings them
together in one act of thought and thus produces the relations
which it judges them to have.
This view, however, seems open to objections similar to those
which we urged before against Kant. It seems plain that it is not
thought which produces the truth of the proposition ' I am in my
room'. It may be true that an earwig is in my room, even if neither I
nor the earwig nor any one else is aware of this truth; for this truth
concerns only the earwig and the room, and does not depend upon
anything else. Thus relations, as we shall see more fully in the next
chapter, must be placed in a world which is neither mental nor
physical. This world is of great importance to philosophy, and in
particular to the problems of a priori knowledge. In the next
chapter we shall proceed to develop its nature and its bearing upon
the questions with which we have been dealing.





CHAPTER IX.
THE WORLD OF
UNIVERSALS
At the end of the preceding chapter we saw that such entities as
relations appear to have a being which is in some way different
from that of physical objects, and also different from that of minds
and from that of sense-data. In the present chapter we have to
consider what is the nature of this kind of being, and also what
objects there are that have this kind of being. We will begin with
the latter question.
The problem with which we are now concerned is a very old
one, since it was brought into philosophy by Plato. Plato's 'theory
of ideas' is an attempt to solve this very problem, and in my
opinion it is one of the most successful attempts hitherto made.
The theory to be advocated in what follows is largely Plato's, with
merely such modifications as time has shown to be necessary.
The way the problem arose for Plato was more or less as
follows. Let us consider, say, such a notion as justice. If we ask
ourselves what justice is, it is natural to proceed by considering
this, that, and the other just act, with a view to discovering what
they have in common. They must all, in some sense, partake of a
common nature, which will be found in whatever is just and in
nothing else. This common nature, in virtue of which they are all
just, will be justice itself, the pure essence the admixture of which
with facts of ordinary life produces the multiplicity of just acts.
Similarly with any other word which may be applicable to
common facts, such as 'whiteness' for example. The word will be
applicable to a number of particular things because they all
participate in a common nature or essence. This pure essence is
what Plato calls an 'idea' or 'form'. (It must not be supposed that
'ideas', in his sense, exist in minds, though they may be
apprehended by minds.) The 'idea' justice is not identical with
anything that is just: it is something other than particular things,
which particular things partake of. Not being particular, it cannot
itself exist in the world of sense. Moreover it is not fleeting or
changeable like the things of sense: it is eternally itself, immutable
and indestructible.
Thus Plato is led to a supra-sensible world, more real than the
common world of sense, the unchangeable world of ideas, which
alone gives to the world of sense whatever pale reflection of reality
may belong to it. The truly real world, for Plato, is the world of
ideas; for whatever we may att empt to say about things in the
world of sense, we can only succeed in saying that they participate
in such and such ideas, which, therefore, constitute all their
character. Hence it is easy to pass on into a mysticism. We may
hope, in a mystic illumination, to see the ideas as we see objects of
sense; and we may imagine that the ideas exist in heaven. These
mystical developments are very natural, but the basis of the theory
is in logic, and it is as based in logic that we have to consider it.
The word 'idea' has acquired, in the course of time, many
associations which are quite misleading when applied to Plato's
'ideas'. We shall therefore use the word 'universal' instead of the
word 'idea' , to describe what Plato meant. The essence of the sort
of entity that Plato meant is that it is opposed to the particular
things that are given in sensation. We speak of whatever is given in
sensation, or is of the same nature as things given in sensation, as a
particular; by opposition to this, a universal will be anything
which may be shared by many particulars, and has those
characteristics which, as we saw, distinguish justice and whiteness
from just acts and white things.
When we examine common words, we find that, broadly
speaking, proper names stand for particulars, while other
substantives, adjectives, prepositions, and verbs stand for
universals. Pronouns stand for particulars, but are ambiguous: it is
only by the context or the circumstances that we know what
particulars they stand for. The word 'now' stands for a particular,
namely the present moment; but like pronouns, it stands for an
ambiguous particular, because the present is always changing.
It will be seen that no sentence can be made up without at least
one word which denotes a universal. The nearest approach would
be some such statement as ' I like this' . But even here the word 'like'
denotes a universal, for I may like other things, and other people
may like things. Thus all truths involve universals, and all
knowledge of truths involves acquaintance with universals.
Seeing that nearly all the words to be found in the dictionary
stand for universals, it is strange that hardly anybody except
students of philosophy ever realizes that there are such entities as
universals. We do not naturally dwell upon those words in a
sentence which do not stand for particulars; and if we are forced to
dwell upon a word which stands for a universal, we naturally think
of it as standing for some one of the particulars that come under
the universal. When, for example, we hear t he sentence, 'Charles
I's head was cut off', we may naturally enough think of Charles I,
of Charles I's head, and of the operation of cutting off his head,
which are all particulars; but we do not naturally dwell upon what
is meant by the word 'head' or the word ' cut', which is a universal:
We feel such words to be incomplete and insubstantial; they seem
to demand a context before anything can be done with them. Hence
we succeed in avoiding all notice of universals as such, until the
study of philosophy forces them upon our attention.
Even among philosophers, we may say, broadly, that only those
universals which are named by adjectives or substantives have
been much or often recognized, while those named by verbs and
prepositions have been usually overlooked. This omission has had
a very great effect upon philosophy; it is hardly too much to say
that most metaphysics, since Spinoza, has been largely determined
by it. The way this has occurred is, in outline, as follows: Speaking
generally, adjectives and common nouns express qualities or
properties of single things, whereas prepositions and verbs tend to
express relations between two or more things. Thus the neglect of
prepositions and verbs led to the belief that every proposition can
be regarded as attributi ng a property to a single thing, rather than
as expressing a relation between two or more things. Hence it was
supposed that, ultimately, there can be no such entities as relations
between things. Hence either there can be only one thing in the
universe, or, if there are many things, they cannot possibly interact
in any way, since any interaction would be a relation, and relations
are impossible.
The first of these views, advocated by Spinoza and held in our
own day by Bradley and many other philosophers, is called
monism; the second, advocated by Leibniz but not very common
nowadays, is called monadism, because each of the isolated things
is called a monad. Both these opposing philosophies, interesting as
they are, result, in my opinion, from an undue attention to one sort
of universals, namely the sort represented by adjectives and
substantives rather than by verbs and prepositions.
As a matter of fact, if any one were anxious to deny altogether
that there are such things as universals, we should find that we
cannot strictly prove that there are such entities as qualities, i.e. the
universals represented by adjectives and substantives, whereas we
can prove that there must be relations, i.e. the sort of universals
generally represented by verbs and prepositions. Let us take in
illustration the universal whiteness. If we believe that there is such
a universal, we shall say that things are white because they have
the quality of whiteness. This view, however, was strenuously
denied by Berkeley and Hume, who have been followed in this by
later empiricists. The form which their denial took was to deny that
there are such things as ' abstract ideas '. When we want to think of
whiteness, they said, we form an image of some particular white
thing, and reason concerning this particular, taking care not to
deduce anything concerning it which we cannot see to be equally
true of any other white thing. As an account of our actual mental
processes, this is no doubt largely true. In geometry, for example,
when we wish to prove something about all triangles, we draw a
particular triangle and reason about it, taking care not to use any
characteristic which it does not share with other triangles. The
beginner, in order to avoid error, often finds it useful to draw
several triangles, as unlike each other as possible, in order to make
sure that his reasoning is equally applicable to all of them. But a
difficulty emerges as soon as we ask ourselves how we know that a
thing is white or a triangle. If we wish to avoid the universals
whiteness and triangularity, we shall choose some particular patch
of white or some particular triangle, and say that anything is white
or a triangle if it has the right sort of resemblance to our chosen
particular. But then the resemblance required will have to be a
universal. Since there are many white things, the resemblance must
hold between many pairs of particular white things; and this is the
characteristic of a universal. It will be useless to say that there is a
different resemblance for each pair, for then we shall have to say
that these resemblances resemble each other, and thus at last we
shall be forced to admit resemblance as a universal. The relation of
resemblance, therefore, must be a true universal. And having been
forced to admit this universal, we find that it is no longer worth
while to invent difficult and unplausible theories to avoid the
admission of such universals as whiteness and triangularity.
Berkeley and Hume failed to perceive this refutation of their
rejection of 'abstract ideas', because, like their adversaries, they
only thought of qualities, and altogether ignored relations as
universals. We have therefore here another respect in which the
rationalists appear to have been in the right as against the
empiricists, although, owing to the neglect or denial of relations,
the deductions made by rationalists were, if anything, more apt to
be mistaken than those made by empiricists.
Having now seen that there must be such entities as universals,
the next point to be proved is that their being is not merely mental.
By this is meant that whatever being belongs to them is
independent of their being thought of or in any way apprehended
by minds. We have already touched on this subject at the end of
the preceding chapter, but we must now consider more fully what
sort of being it is that belongs to universals.
Consider such a proposition as 'Edinburgh is north of London'.
Here we have a relation between two places, and it seems plain
that the relation subsists independently of our knowledge of it .
When we come to know that Edinburgh is north of London, we
come to know something which has to do only with Edinburgh and
London: we do not cause the truth of the proposition by coming to
know it, on the contrary we merely apprehend a fact which was
there before we knew it. The part of the earth's surface where
Edinburgh stands would be north of the part where London stands,
even if there were no human being to know about north and south,
and even if there were no minds at all in the universe. This is, of
course, denied by many philosophers, either for Berkeley's reasons
or for Kant's. But we have already considered these reasons, and
decided that they are inadequate. We may therefore now assume it
to be true that nothing mental is presupposed in the fact that
Edinburgh is north of London. But this fact involves the relation
'north of', which is a universal; and it would be impossible for the
whole fact to involve nothing mental if the relation 'north of',
which is a constituent part of the fact, did involve anything mental.
Hence we must admit that the relation, like the terms it relates, is
not dependent upon thought, but belongs to the independent world
which thought apprehends but does not create.
This conclusion, however, is met by the difficulty that the
relation 'north of' does not seem to exist in the same sense in which
Edinburgh and London exist. If we ask ' Where and when does this
relation exist?' the answer must be ' Nowhere and nowhen'. There is
no place or time where we can find the relation 'north of'. It does
not exist in Edinburgh any more than in London, for it relates the
two and is neutral as between them. Nor can we say that it exists at
any particular time. Now everything that can be apprehended by
the senses or by introspection exists at some particular time. Hence
the relation ' north of' is radically different from such things. It is
neither in space nor in time, neither material nor mental; yet it is
something.
It is largely the very peculiar kind of being that belongs to
universals which has led many people to suppose that they are
really mental. We can think of a universal, and our thinking then
exists in a perfectly ordinary sense, like any other mental act.
Suppose, for example, that we are thinking of whiteness. Then in
one sense it may be said that whiteness is 'in our mind'. We have
here the same ambiguity as we noted in discussing Berkeley in
Chapter IV. In the strict sense, it is not whiteness that is in our
mind, but the act of thinking of whiteness. The connected
ambiguity in the word 'idea', which we noted at the same time, also
causes confusion here. In one sense of this word, namely the sense
in which it denotes the object of an act of thought, whiteness is an
'idea' . Hence, if the ambiguity is not guarded against, we may
come to think that whiteness is an 'idea' in the other sense, i.e. an
act of thought; and thus we come to think that whiteness is mental.
But in so thinking, we rob it of its essential quality of universality.
One man's act of thought is necessarily a different thing from
another man's; one man's act of thought at one time is necessarily a
different thing from the same man' s act of thought at another time.
Hence, if whiteness were the thought as opposed to its object, no
two different men could think of it, and no one man could think of
it twice. That which many different thoughts of whiteness have in
common is their object, and this object is different from all of
them. Thus universals are not thoughts, though when known they
are the objects of thoughts.
We shall find it convenient only to speak of things existing when
they are in time, that is to say, when we can point to some time at
which they exist (not excluding the possibility of their existing at
all times). Thus thoughts and feelings, minds and physical objects
exist. But universals do not exist in this sense; we shall say that
they subsist or have being, where ' being' is opposed to ' existence'
as being timeless. The world of universals, therefore, may also be
described as the world of being. The world of being is
unchangeable, rigid, exact, delightful to the mathematician, the
logician, the builder of metaphysical systems, and all who love
perfection more than life. The world of existence is fleeting, vague,
without sharp boundaries, without any clear plan or arrangement,
but it contains all thoughts and feelings, all the data of sense, and
all physical objects, everything that can do either good or harm,
everything that makes any difference to the value of life and the
world. According to our temperaments, we shall prefer the
contemplation of the one or of the other. The one we do not prefer
will probably seem to us a pale shadow of the one we prefer, and
hardly worthy to be regarded as in any sense real. But the truth is
that both have the same claim on our impartial attention, both are
real, and both are important to the metaphysician. Indeed no sooner
have we distinguished the two worlds than it becomes necessary to
consider their relations.
But first of all we must examine our knowledge of universals.
This consideration will occupy us in the following chapter, where
we shall find that it solves the problem of a priori knowledge,
from which we were first led to consider universals.





CHAPTER X. ON
OUR
KNOWLEDGE
OF UNIVERSALS
In regard to one man's knowledge at a given time, universals,
like particulars, may be divided into those known by acquaintance,
those known only by description, and those not known either by
acquaintance or by description.
Let us consider first the knowledge of universals by
acquaintance. It is obvious, to begin with, that we are acquainted
with such universals as white, red, black, sweet, sour, loud, hard,
etc., i.e. with qualities which are exemplified in sense-data. When
we see a white patch, we are acquainted, in the first instance, with
the particular patch; but by seeing many white patches, we easily
learn to abstract the whiteness which they all have in common, and
in learning to do this we are learning to be acquainted with
whiteness. A similar process will make us acquainted with any
other universal of the same sort. Universals of this sort may be
called 'sensible qualities'. They can be apprehended with less effort
of abstraction than any others, and they seem less removed from
particulars than other universals are.
We come next to relations. The easiest relations to apprehend
are those which hold between the different parts of a single
complex sense-datum. For example, I can see at a glance the whole
of the page on which I am writing; thus the whole page is included
in one sense-datum. But I perceive that some parts of the page are
to the left of other parts, and some parts are above other parts. The
process of abstraction in this case seems to proceed somewhat as
follows: I see successively a number of sense-data in which one
part is to the left of another; I perceive, as in the case of different
white patches, that all these sense-data have something in
common, and by abstraction I find that what they have in common
is a certain relation between their parts, namely the relation which I
call ' being to the left of'. In this way I become acquainted with the
universal relation.
In like manner I become aware of the relation of before and after
in time. Suppose I hear a chime of bells: when the last bell of the
chime sounds, I can retain the whole chime before my mind, and I
can perceive that the earlier bells came before the later ones. Also
in memory I perceive that what I am remembering came before the
present time. From either of these sources I can abstract the
universal relation of before and after, just as I abstracted the
universal relation ' being to the left of'. Thus time-relations, like
space-relations, are among those with which we are acquainted.
Another relation with which we become acquainted in much the
same way is resemblance. If I see simultaneously two shades of
green, I can see that they resemble each other; if I also see a shade
of red: at the same time, I can see that the two greens have more
resemblance to each other than either has to the red. In this way I
become acquainted with the universal resemblance or similarity.
Between universals, as between particulars, there are relations of
which we may be immediately aware. We have just seen that we
can perceive that the resemblance between two shades of green is
greater than the resemblance between a shade of red and a shade of
green. Here we are dealing with a relation, namely ' greater than',
between two relations. Our knowledge of such relations, though it
requires more power of abstraction than is required for perceiving
the qualities of sense-data, appears to be equally immediate, and
(at least in some cases) equally indubitable. Thus there is
immediate knowledge concerning universals as well as concerning
sense-data.
Returning now to the problem of a priori knowledge, which we
left unsolved when we began the consideration of universals, we
find ourselves in a position to deal with it in a much more
satisfactory manner than was possible before. Let us revert to the
proposition 'two and two are four'. It is fairly obvious, in view of
what has been said, that this proposition states a relation between
the universal 'two' and the universal 'four'. This suggests a
proposition which we shall now endeavour to establish: namely,
All a priori knowledge deals exclusively with the relations of
universals. This proposition is of great importance, and goes a long
way towards solving our previous difficulties concerning a priori
knowledge.
The only case in which it might seem, at first sight, as if our
proposition were untrue, is the case in which an a priori
proposition states that all of one class of particulars belong to some
other class, or (what comes to the same thing) that all particulars
having some one property also have some other. In this case it
might seem as though we were dealing with the particulars that
have the property rather than with the property. The proposition
'two and two are four' is really a case in point, for this may be
stated in the form ' any two and any other two are four', or 'any
collection formed of two twos is a collection of four'. If we can
show that such statements as this really deal only with universals,
our proposition may be regarded as proved.
One way of discovering what a proposition deals with is to ask
ourselves what words we must understand—in other words, what
objects we must be acquainted with—in order to see what the
proposition means. As soon as we see what the proposition means,
even if we do not yet know whether it is true or false, it is evident
that we must have acquaintance with whatever is really dealt with
by the proposition. By applying this test, it appears that many
propositions which might seem to be concerned with particulars
are really concerned only with universals. In the special case of
'two and two are four', even when we interpret it as meaning 'any
collection formed of two twos is a collection of four', it is plain
that we can understand the proposition, i.e. we can see what it is
that it asserts, as soon as we know what is meant by ' collection' and
'two' and 'four'. It is quite unnecessary to know all the couples in
the world: if it were necessary, obviously we could never
understand the proposition, since the couples are infinitely
numerous and therefore cannot all be known to us. Thus although
our general statement implies statements about particular couples,
as soon as we know that there are such particular couples, yet it
does not itself assert or imply t hat there are such particular couples,
and thus fails to make any statement whatever about any actual
particular couple. The statement made is about 'couple', the
universal, and not about this or that couple.
Thus the statement 'two and two are four' deals exclusively with
universals, and therefore may be known by anybody who is
acquainted with the universals concerned and can perceive the
relation between them which the statement asserts. It must be taken
as a fact, discovered by reflecting upon our knowledge, that we
have the power of sometimes perceiving such relations between
universals, and therefore of sometimes knowing general a priori
propositions such as those of arithmetic and logic. The thing that
seemed mysterious, when we formerly considered such
knowledge, was that it seemed to anticipate and control
experience. This, however, we can now see to have been an error.
No fact concerning anything capable of being experienced can be
known independently of experience. We know a priori that two
things and two other things together make four things, but we do
not know a priori that if Brown and Jones are two, and Robinson
and Smith are two, then Brown and Jones and Robinson and Smith
are four. The reason is that this proposition cannot be understood at
all unless we know that there are such people as Brown and Jones
and Robinson and Smith, and this we can only know by
experience. Hence, although our general proposition is a priori, all
its applications to actual particulars involve experience and
therefore contain an empirical element. In this way what seemed
mysterious in our a priori knowledge is seen to have been based
upon an error.
It will serve to make the point clearer if we contrast our genuine
a priori judgement with an empirical generalization, such as 'all
men are mortals' . Here as before, we can understand what the
proposition means as soon as we understand the universals
involved, namely man and mortal. It is obviously unnecessary to
have an individual acquaintance with the whole human race in
order to understand what our proposition means. Thus the
difference between an a priori general proposition and an
empirical generalization does not come in the meaning of the
proposition; it comes in the nature of the evidence for it. In the
empirical case, the evidence consists in the particular instances.
We believe that all men are mortal because we know that there are
innumerable instances of men dying, and no instances of their
living beyond a certain age. We do not believe it because we see a
connexion between the universal man and the universal mortal. It
is true that if physiology can prove, assuming the general laws that
govern living bodies, that no living organism can last for ever, that
gives a connexion between man and mortality which would enable
us to assert our proposition without appealing to the special
evidence of men dying. But that only means that our generalization
has been subsumed under a wider generalization, for which the
evidence is still of the same kind, though more extensive. The
progress of science is constantly producing such subsumptions,
and therefore giving a constantly wider inductive basis for
scientific generalizations. But although this gives a greater degree
of certainty, it does not give a different kind: the ultimate ground
remains inductive, i.e. derived from instances, and not an a priori
connexion of universals such as we have in logic and arithmetic.
Two opposite points are to be observed concerning a priori
general propositions. The first is that, if many particular instances
are known, our general proposition may be arrived at in the first
instance by induction, and the connexion of universals may be only
subsequently perceived. For example, it is known that if we draw
perpendiculars to the sides of a triangle from the opposite angles,
all three perpendiculars meet in a point. It would be quite possible
to be first led to this proposition by actually drawing
perpendiculars in many cases, and finding that they always met in
a point; this experience might lead us to look for the general proof
and find it. Such cases are common in the experience of every
mathematician.
The other point is more interesting, and of more philosophical
importance. It is, that we may sometimes know a general
proposition in cases where we do not know a single instance of it.
Take such a case as the following: We know that any two numbers
can be multiplied together, and will give a third called their
product. We know that all pairs of integers the product of which is
less than 100 have been actually multiplied together, and the value
of the product recorded in the multiplication table. But we also
know that the number of integers is infinite, and that only a finite
number of pairs of integers ever have been or ever will be thought
of by human beings. Hence it follows that there are pairs of
integers which never have been and never will be thought of by
human beings, and that all of them deal with integers the product
of which is over 100. Hence we arrive at the proposition: ' All
products of two integers, which never have been and never will be
thought of by any human being, are over 100.' Here is a general
proposition of which the truth is undeniable, and yet, from the very
nature of the case, we can never give an instance; because any two
numbers we may think of are excluded by the terms of the
proposition.
This possibility, of knowledge of general propositions of which
no instance can be given, is often denied, because it is not
perceived that the knowledge of such propositions only requires a
knowledge of the relations of universals, and does not require any
knowledge of instances of the universals in question. Yet the
knowledge of such general propositions is quite vital to a great
deal of what is generally admitted to be known. For example, we
saw, in our early chapters, that knowledge of physical objects, as
opposed to sense-data, is only obtained by an inference, and that
they are not things with which we are acquainted. Hence we can
never know any proposition of the form 'this is a physical object',
where 'this' is something immediately known. It follows that all our
knowledge concerning physical objects is such that no actual
instance can be given. We can give instances of the associated
sense-data, but we cannot give instances of the actual physical
objects. Hence our knowledge as to physical objects depends
throughout upon this possibility of general knowledge where no
instance can be given. And the same applies to our knowledge of
other people' s minds, or of any other class of things of which no
instance is known to us by acquaintance.
We may now take a survey of the sources of our knowledge, as
they have appeared in the course of our analysis. We have first to
distinguish knowledge of things and knowledge of truths. In each
there are two kinds, one immediate and one derivative. Our
immediate knowledge of things, which we called acquaintance,
consists of two sorts, according as the things known are particulars
or universals. Among particulars, we have acquaintance with
sense-data and (probably) with ourselves. Among universals, there
seems to be no principle by which we can decide which can be
known by acquaintance, but it is clear that among those that can be
so known are sensible qualities, relations of space and time,
similarity, and certain abstract logical universals. Our derivative
knowledge of things, which we call knowledge by description,
always involves both acquaintance with something and knowledge
of truths. Our immediate knowledge of truths may be called
intuitive knowledge, and the truths so known may be called self-
evident truths. Among such truths are included those which merely
state what is given in sense, and also certain abstract logical and
arithmetical principles, and (though with less certainty) some
ethical propositions. Our derivative knowledge of truths consists of
everything that we can deduce from self-evident truths by the use
of self-evident principles of deduction.
If the above account is correct, all our knowledge of truths
depends upon our intuitive knowledge. It therefore becomes
important to consider the nature and scope of intuitive knowledge,
in much the same way as, at an earlier stage, we considered the
nature and scope of knowledge by acquaintance. But knowledge of
truths raises a further problem, which does not arise in regard to
knowledge of things, namely the problem of error. Some of our
beliefs turn out to be erroneous, and therefore it becomes necessary
to consider how, if at all, we can distinguish knowledge from error.
This problem does not arise with regard to knowledge by
acquaintance, for, whatever may be the object of acquaintance,
even in dreams and hallucinations, there is no error involved so
long as we do not go beyond the immediate object: error can only
arise when we regard the immediate object, i.e. the sense-datum, as
the mark of some physical object. Thus the problems connected
with knowledge of truths are more difficult than those connected
with knowledge of things. As the first of the problems connected
with knowledge of truths, let us examine the nature and scope of
our intuitive judgements.





CHAPTER XI.
ON INTUITIVE
KNOWLEDGE
There is a common impression that everything that we believe
ought to be capable of proof, or at least of being shown to be
highly probable. It is felt by many that a belief for which no reason
can be given is an unreasonable belief. In the main, this view is
just. Almost all our common beliefs are either inferred, or capable
of being inferred, from other beliefs which may be regarded as
giving the reason for them. As a rule, the reason has been
forgotten, or has even never been consciously present to our minds.
Few of us ever ask ourselves, for example, what reason there is to
suppose the food we are just going to eat will not turn out to be
poison. Yet we feel, when challenged, that a perfectly good reason
could be found, even if we are not ready with it at the moment.
And in this belief we are usually justified.
But let us imagine some insistent Socrates, who, whatever
reason we give him, continues to demand a reason for the reason.
We must sooner or later, and probably before very long, be driven
to a point where we cannot find any further reason, and where it
becomes almost certain that no further reason is even theoretically
discoverable. Starting with the common beliefs of daily life, we
can be driven back from point to point, until we come to some
general principle, or some instance of a general principle, which
seems luminously evident, and is not itself capable of being
deduced from anything more evident. In most questions of daily
life, such as whether our food is likely to be nourishing and not
poisonous, we shall be driven back to the inductive principle,
which we discussed in Chapter VI. But beyond that, there seems to
be no further regress. The principle itself is constantly used in our
reasoning, sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously; but
there is no reasoning which, starting from some simpler self-
evident principle, leads us to the principle of induction as its
conclusion. And the same holds for other logical principles. Their
truth is evident to us, and we employ them in constructing
demonstrations; but they themselves, or at least some of them, are
incapable of demonstration.
Self-evidence, however, is not confined to those among general
principles which are incapable of proof. When a certain number of
logical principles have been admitted, the rest can be deduced from
them; but the propositions deduced are often just as self-evident as
those that were assumed without proof. All arithmetic, moreover,
can be deduced from the general principles of logic, yet the simple
propositions of arithmetic, such as 'two and two are four', are just
as self-evident as the principles of logic.
It would seem, also, though this is more disputable, that there
are some self-evident ethical principles, such as 'we ought to
pursue what is good' .
It should be observed that, in all cases of general principles,
particular instances, dealing with familiar things, are more evident
than the general principle. For example, the law of contradiction
states that nothing can both have a certain property and not have it.
This is evident as soon as it is understood, but it is not so evident
as that a particular rose which we see cannot be both red and not
red. (It is of course possible that parts of the rose may be red and
parts not red, or that the rose may be of a shade of pink which we
hardly know whether to call red or not; but in the former case it is
plain that the rose as a whole is not red, while in the latter case the
answer is theoretically definite as soon as we have decided on a
precise definition of 'red'.) It is usually through particular instances
that we come to be able to see the general principle. Only those
who are practised in dealing with abstractions can readily grasp a
general principle without the help of instances.
In addition to general principles, the other kind of self-evident
truths are those immediately derived from sensation. We will call
such truths 'truths of perception', and the judgements expressing
them we will call 'judgements of perception'. But here a certain
amount of care is required in getting at the precise nature of the
truths that are self-evident. The actual sense-data are neither true
nor false. A particular patch of colour which I see, for example,
simply exists: it is not the sort of thing that is true or false. It is true
that there is such a patch, true that it has a certain shape and degree
of brightness, true that it is surrounded by certain other colours.
But the patch itself, like everything else in the world of sense, is of
a radically different kind from the things that are true or false, and
therefore cannot properly be said to be true. Thus whatever self-
evident truths may be obtained from our senses must be different
from the sense-data from which they are obtained.
It would seem that there are two kinds of self-evident truths of
perception, though perhaps in the last analysis the two kinds may
coalesce. First, there is the kind which simply asserts the existence
of the sense-datum, without in any way analysing it. We see a
patch of red, and we judge 'there is such-and-such a patch of red',
or more strictly 'there is that' ; this is one kind of intuitive
judgement of perception. The other kind arises when the object of
sense is complex, and we subject it to some degree of analysis. If,
for instance, we see a round patch of red, we may judge 'that patch
of red is round'. This is again a judgement of perception, but it
differs from our previous kind. In our present kind we have a
single sense-datum which has both colour and shape: the colour is
red and the shape is round. Our judgement analyses the datum into
colour and shape, and then recombines them by stating that the red
colour is round in shape. Another example of this kind of
judgement is 'this is to the right of that', where 'this' and 'that' are
seen simultaneously. In this kind of judgement the sense-datum
contains constituents which have some relation to each other, and
the judgement asserts that these constituents have this relation.
Another class of intuitive judgements, analogous to those of
sense and yet quite distinct from them, are judgements of memory.
There is some danger of confusion as to the nature of memory,
owing to the fact that memory of an object is apt to be
accompanied by an image of the object, and yet the image cannot
be what constitutes memory. This is easily seen by merely noticing
that the image is in the present, whereas what is remembered is
known to be in the past. Moreover, we are certainly able to some
extent to compare our image with the object remembered, so that
we often know, within somewhat wide limits, how far our image is
accurate; but this would be impossible, unless the object, as
opposed to the image, were in some way before the mind. Thus the
essence of memory is not constituted by the image, but by having
immediately before the mind an object which is recognized as past.
But for the fact of memory in this sense, we should not know that
there ever was a past at all, nor should we be able to understand the
word 'past', any more than a man born blind can understand the
word 'light'. Thus there must be intuitive judgements of memory,
and it is upon them, ultimately, that all our knowledge of the past
depends.
The case of memory, however, raises a difficulty, for it is
notoriously fallacious, and thus throws doubt on the
trustworthiness of intuitive judgements in general. This difficulty
is no light one. But let us first narrow its scope as far as possible.
Broadly speaking, memory is trustworthy in proportion to the
vividness of the experience and to its nearness in time. If the house
next door was struck by lightning half a minute ago, my memory
of what I saw and heard will be so reliable that it would be
preposterous to doubt whether there had been a flash at all. And
the same applies to less vivid experiences, so long as they are
recent. I am absolutely certain that half a minute ago I was sitting
in the same chair in which I am sitting now. Going backward over
the day, I find things of which I am quite certain, other things of
which I am almost certain, other things of which I can become
certain by thought and by calling up attendant circumstances, and
some things of which I am by no means certain. I am quite certain
that I ate my breakfast this morning, but if I were as indifferent to
my breakfast as a philosopher should be, I should be doubtful. As
to the conversation at breakfast, I can recall some of it easily, some
with an effort, some only with a large element of doubt, and some
not at all. Thus there is a continual gradation in the degree of self-
evidence of what I remember, and a corresponding gradation in the
trustworthiness of my memory.
Thus the first answer to the difficulty of fallacious memory is to
say that memory has degrees of self-evidence, and that these
correspond to the degrees of its trustworthiness, reaching a limit of
perfect self-evidence and perfect trustworthiness in our memory of
events which are recent and vivid.
It would seem, however, that there are cases of very firm belief
in a memory which is wholly false. It is probable that, in these
cases, what is really remembered, in the sense of being
immediately before the mind, is something other than what is
falsely believed in, though something generally associated with it.
George IV is said to have at last believed that he was at the battle
of Waterloo, because he had so often said that he was. In this case,
what was immediately remembered was his repeated assertion; the
belief in what he was asserting (if it existed) would be produced by
association with the remembered assertion, and would therefore
not be a genuine case of memory. It would seem that cases of
fallacious memory can probably all be dealt with in this way, i.e.
they can be shown to be not cases of memory in the strict sense at
all.
One important point about self-evidence is made clear by the
case of memory, and that is, that self-evidence has degrees: it is not
a quality which is simply present or absent, but a quality which
may be more or less present, in gradations ranging from absolute
certainty down to an almost imperceptible faintness. Truths of
perception and some of the principles of logic have the very
highest degree of self-evidence; truths of immediate memory have
an almost equally high degree. The inductive principle has less
self-evidence than some of the other principles of logic, such as
'what follows from a true premiss must be true'. Memories have a
diminishing self-evidence as they become remoter and fainter; the
truths of logic and mathematics have (broadly speaking) less self-
evidence as they become more complicated. Judgements of
intrinsic ethical or aesthetic value are apt to have some self-
evidence, but not much.
Degrees of self-evidence are important in the theory of
knowledge, since, if propositions may (as seems likely) have some
degree of self-evidence without being true, it will not be necessary
to abandon all connexion between self-evidence and truth, but
merely to say that, where there is a conflict, the more self-evident
proposition is to be retained and the less self-evident rejected.
It seems, however, highly probable that two different notions are
combined in 'self-evidence' as above explained; that one of them,
which corresponds to the highest degree of self-evidence, is really
an infallible guarantee of truth, while the other, which corresponds
to all the other degrees, does not give an infallible guarantee, but
only a greater or less presumption. This, however, is only a
suggestion, which we cannot as yet develop further. After we have
dealt with the nature of truth, we shall return to the subject of self-
evidence, in connexion with the distinction between knowledge
and error.





CHAPTER XII.
TRUTH AND
FALSEHOOD
Our knowledge of truths, unlike our knowledge of things, has an
opposite, namely error. So far as things are concerned, we may
know them or not know them, but there is no positive state of mind
which can be described as erroneous knowledge of things, so long,
at any rate, as we confine ourselves to knowledge by acquaintance.
Whatever we are acquainted with must be something; we may
draw wrong inferences from our acquaintance, but the
acquaintance itself cannot be deceptive. Thus there is no dualism
as regards acquaintance. But as regards knowledge of truths, there
is a dualism. We may believe what is false as well as what is true.
We know that on very many subjects different people hold
different and incompatible opinions: hence some beliefs must be
erroneous. Since erroneous beliefs are often held just as strongly as
true beliefs, it becomes a difficult question how they are to be
distinguished from true beliefs. How are we to know, in a given
case, that our belief is not erroneous? This is a question of the very
greatest difficulty, to which no completely satisfactory answer is
possible. There is, however, a preliminary question which is rather
less difficult, and that is: What do we mean by truth and
falsehood? It is this preliminary question which is to be considered
in this chapter. In this chapter we are not asking how we can know
whether a belief is true or false: we are asking what is meant by the
question whether a belief is true or false. It is to be hoped that a
clear answer to this question may help us to obtain an answer to
the question what beliefs are true, but for the present we ask only
'What is truth?' and ' What is falsehood?' not ' What beliefs are true?'
and ' What beliefs are false?' It is very important to keep these
different questions entirely separate, since any confusion between
them is sure to produce an answer which is not really applicable to
either.
There are three points to observe in the attempt to discover the
nature of truth, three requisites which any theory must fulfil.
(1) Our theory of truth must be such as to admit of its opposite,
falsehood. A good many philosophers have failed adequately to
satisfy this condition: they have constructed theories according to
which all our thinking ought to have been true, and have then had
the greatest difficulty in finding a place for falsehood. In this
respect our theory of belief must differ from our theory of
acquaintance, since in the case of acquaintance it was not
necessary to take account of any opposite.
(2) It seems fairly evident that if there were no beliefs there
could be no falsehood, and no truth either, in the sense in which
truth is correlative to falsehood. If we imagine a world of mere
matter, there would be no room for falsehood in such a world, and
although it would contain what may be called 'facts', it would not
contain any truths, in the sense in which truths are things of the
same kind as falsehoods. In fact, truth and falsehood are properties
of beliefs and statements: hence a world of mere matter, since it
would contain no beliefs or statements, would also contain no truth
or falsehood.
(3) But, as against what we have just said, it is to be observed
that the truth or falsehood of a belief always depends upon
something which lies outside the belief itself. If I believe that
Charles I died on the scaffold, I believe truly, not because of any
intrinsic quality of my belief, which could be discovered by merely
examining the belief, but because of an historical event which
happened two and a half centuries ago. If I believe that Charles I
died in his bed, I believe falsely: no degree of vividness in my
belief, or of care in arriving at it, prevents it from being false, again
because of what happened long ago, and not because of any
intrinsic property of my belief. Hence, although truth and
falsehood are properties of beliefs, they are properties dependent
upon the relations of the beliefs to other things, not upon any
internal quality of the beliefs.
The third of the above requisites leads us to adopt the view—
which has on the whole been commonest among philosophers—
that truth consists in some form of correspondence between belief
and fact. It is, however, by no means an easy matter to discover a
form of correspondence to which there are no irrefutable
objections. By this partly—and partly by the feeling that, if truth
consists in a correspondence of thought with something outside
thought, thought can never know when truth has been attained—
many philosophers have been led to try to find some definition of
truth which shall not consist in relation to something wholly
outside belief. The most important attempt at a definition of this
sort is the theory that truth consists in coherence. It is said that the
mark of falsehood is failure to cohere in the body of our beliefs,
and that it is the essence of a truth to form part of the completely
rounded system which is The Truth.
There is, however, a great difficulty in this view, or rather two
great difficulties. The first is that there is no reason to suppose that
only one coherent body of beliefs is possible. It may be that, with
sufficient imagination, a novelist might invent a past for the world
that would perfectly fit on to what we know, and yet be quite
different from the real past. In more scientific matters, it is certain
that there are often two or more hypotheses which account for all
the known facts on some subject, and although, in such cases, men
of science endeavour to find facts which will rule out all the
hypotheses except one, there is no reason why they should always
succeed.
In philosophy, again, it seems not uncommon for two rival
hypotheses to be both able to account for all the facts. Thus, for
example, it is possible that life is one long dream, and that the
outer world has only that degree of reality that the objects of
dreams have; but although such a view does not seem inconsistent
with known facts, there is no reason to prefer it to the common-
sense view, according to which other people and things do really
exist. Thus coherence as the definition of truth fails because there
is no proof that there can be only one coherent system.
The other objection to this definition of truth is that it assumes
the meaning of 'coherence' known, whereas, in fact, 'coherence'
presupposes the truth of the laws of logic. Two propositions are
coherent when both may be true, and are incoherent when one at
least must be false. Now in order to know whether two
propositions can both be true, we must know such truths as the law
of contradiction. For example, the two propositions, 'this tree is a
beech' and 'this tree is not a beech' , are not coherent, because of the
law of contradiction. But if the law of contradiction itself were
subjected to the test of coherence, we should find that, if we
choose to suppose it false, nothing will any longer be incoherent
with anything else. Thus the laws of logic supply the skeleton or
framework within which the test of coherence applies, and they
themselves cannot be established by this test.
For the above two reasons, coherence cannot be accepted as
giving the meaning of truth, though it is often a most important test
of truth after a certain amount of truth has become known.
Hence we are driven back to correspondence with fact as
constituting the nature of truth. It remains to define precisely what
we mean by 'fact', and what is the nature of the correspondence
which must subsist between belief and fact, in order that belief
may be true.
In accordance with our three requisites, we have to seek a theory
of truth which (1) allows truth to have an opposite, namely
falsehood, (2) makes truth a property of beliefs, but (3) makes it a
property wholly dependent upon the relation of the beliefs to
outside things.
The necessity of allowing for falsehood makes it impossible to
regard belief as a relation of the mind to a single object, which
could be said to be what is believed. If belief were so regarded, we
should find that, like acquaintance, it would not admit of the
opposition of truth and falsehood, but would have to be always
true. This may be made clear by examples. Othello believes falsely
that Desdemona loves Cassio. We cannot say that this belief
consists in a relation to a single object, 'Desdemona's love for
Cassio', for if there were such an object, the belief would be true.
There is in fact no such object, and therefore Othello cannot have
any relation to such an object. Hence his belief cannot possibly
consist in a relation to this object.
It might be said that his belief is a relation to a different object,
namely 'that Desdemona loves Cassio'; but it is almost as difficult
to suppose that there is such an object as this, when Desdemona
does not love Cassio, as it was to suppose that there is
'Desdemona's love for Cassio'. Hence it will be better to seek for a
theory of belief which does not make it consist in a relation of the
mind to a single object.
It is common to think of relations as though they always held
between two terms, but in fact this is not always the case. Some
relations demand three terms, some four, and so on. Take, for
instance, the relation ' between' . So long as only two terms come in,
the relation ' between' is impossible: three terms are the smallest
number that render it possible. York is between London and
Edinburgh; but if London and Edinburgh were the only places in
the world, there could be nothing which was between one place
and another. Similarly jealousy requires three people: there can be
no such relation that does not involve three at least. Such a
proposition as ' A wishes B to promote C's marriage with D'
involves a relation of four terms; that is to say, A and B and C and
D all come in, and the relation involved cannot be expressed
otherwise than in a form involving all four. Instances might be
multiplied indefinitely, but enough has been said to show that there
are relations which require more than two terms before they can
occur.
The relation involved in judging or believing must, if falsehood
is to be duly allowed for, be taken to be a relation between several
terms, not between two. When Othello believes that Desdemona
loves Cassio, he must not have before his mind a single object,
'Desdemona's love for Cassio', or 'that Desdemona loves Cassio ',
for that would require that there should be objective falsehoods,
which subsist independently of any minds; and this, though not
logically refutable, is a theory to be avoided if possible. Thus it is
easier to account for falsehood if we take judgement to be a
relation in which the mind and the various objects concerned all
occur severally; that is to say, Desdemona and loving and Cassio
must all be terms in the relation which subsists when Othello
believes that Desdemona loves Cassio. This relation, therefore, is a
relation of four terms, since Othello also is one of the terms of the
relation. When we say that it is a relation of four terms, we do not
mean that Othello has a certain relation to Desdemona, and has the
same relation to loving and also to Cassio. This may be true of
some other relation than believing; but believing, plainly, is not a
relation which Othello has to each of the three terms concerned,
but to all of them together: there is only one example of the
relation of believing involved, but this one example knits together
four terms. Thus the actual occurrence, at the moment when
Othello is entertaining his belief, is that the relation called
'believing' is knitting together into one complex whole the four
terms Othello, Desdemona, loving, and Cassio. What is called
belief or judgement is nothing but this relation of believing or
judging, which relates a mind to several things other than itself. An
act of belief or of judgement is the occurrence between certain
terms at some particular time, of the relation of believing or
judging.
We are now in a position to understand what it is that
distinguishes a true judgement from a false one. For this purpose
we will adopt certain definitions. In every act of judgement there is
a mind which judges, and there are terms concerning which it
judges. We will call the mind the subject in the judgement, and the
remaining terms the objects. Thus, when Othello judges that
Desdemona loves Cassio, Othello is the subject, while the objects
are Desdemona and loving and Cassio. The subject and the objects
together are called the constituents of the judgement. It will be
observed that the relation of judging has what is called a 'sense' or
'direction'. We may say, metaphorically, that it puts its objects in a
certain order, which we may indicate by means of the order of the
words in the sentence. (In an inflected language, the same thing
will be indicated by inflections, e.g. by the difference between
nominative and accusative.) Othello's judgement that Cassio loves
Desdemona differs from his judgement that Desdemona loves
Cassio, in spite of the fact that it consists of the same constituents,
because the relation of judging places the constituents in a different
order in the two cases. Similarly, if Cassio judges that Desdemona
loves Othello, the constituents of the judgement are still the same,
but their order is different. This property of having a 'sense' or
'direction' is one which the relation of judging shares with all other
relations. The 'sense' of relations is the ultimate source of order and
series and a host of mathematical concepts; but we need not
concern ourselves further with this aspect.
We spoke of the relation called 'judging' or 'believing' as knitting
together into one complex whole the subject and the objects. In this
respect, judging is exactly like every other relation. Whenever a
relation holds between two or more terms, it unites the terms into a
complex whole. If Othello loves Desdemona, there is such a
complex whole as 'Othello's love for Desdemona' . The terms
united by the relation may be themselves complex, or may be
simple, but the whole which results from their being united must
be complex. Wherever there is a relation which relates certain
terms, there is a complex object formed of the union of those
terms; and conversely, wherever there is a complex object, there is
a relation which relates its constituents. When an act of believing
occurs, there is a complex, in which ' believing' is the uniting
relation, and subject and objects are arranged in a certain order by
the 'sense' of the relation of believing. Among the objects, as we
saw in considering ' Othello believes that Desdemona loves Cassio',
one must be a relation—in this instance, the relation 'loving'. But
this relation, as it occurs in the act of believing, is not the relation
which creates the unity of the complex whole consisting of the
subject and the objects. The relation 'loving', as it occurs in the act
of believing, is one of the objects—it is a brick in the structure, not
the cement. The cement is the relation 'believing'. When the belief
is true, there is another complex unity, in which the relation which
was one of the objects of the belief relates the other objects. Thus,
e.g., if Othello believes truly that Desdemona loves Cassio, then
there is a complex unity, 'Desdemona's love for Cassio', which is
composed exclusively of the objects of the belief, in the same order
as they had in the belief, with the relation which was one of the
objects occurring now as the cement that binds together the other
objects of the belief. On the other hand, when a belief is false,
there is no such complex unity composed only of the objects of the
belief. If Othello believes falsely that Desdemona loves Cassio,
then there is no such complex unity as 'Desdemona's love for
Cassio'.
Thus a belief is true when it corresponds to a certain associated
complex, and false when it does not. Assuming, for the sake of
definiteness, that the objects of the belief are two terms and a
relation, the terms being put in a certain order by the 'sense' of the
believing, then if the two terms in that order are united by the
relation into a complex, t he belief is true; if not, it is false. This
constitutes the definition of truth and falsehood that we were in
search of. Judging or believing is a certain complex unity of which
a mind is a constituent; if the remaining constituents, taken in the
order which they have in the belief, form a complex unity, then the
belief is true; if not, it is false.
Thus although truth and falsehood are properties of beliefs, yet
they are in a sense extrinsic properties, for the condition of the
truth of a belief is something not involving beliefs, or (in general)
any mind at all, but only the objects of the belief. A mind, which
believes, believes truly when there is a corresponding complex not
involving the mind, but only its objects. This correspondence
ensures truth, and its absence entails falsehood. Hence we account
simultaneously for the two facts that beliefs (a) depend on minds
for their existence, (b) do not depend on minds for their truth.
We may restate our theory as follows: If we take such a belief as
'Othello believes that Desdemona loves Cassio', we will call
Desdemona and Cassio the object-terms, and loving the object-
relation. If there is a complex unity 'Desdemona's love for Cassio',
consisting of the object-terms related by the object-relation in the
same order as they have in the belief, then this complex unity is
called the fact corresponding to the belief. Thus a belief is true
when there is a corresponding fact, and is false when there is no
corresponding fact.
It will be seen that minds do not create truth or falsehood. They
create beliefs, but when once the beliefs are created, the mind
cannot make them true or false, except in the special case where
they concern future things which are within the power of the
person believing, such as catching trains. What makes a belief true
is a fact, and this fact does not (except in exceptional cases) in any
way involve the mind of the person who has the belief.
Having now decided what we mean by truth and falsehood, we
have next to consider what ways there are of knowing whether this
or that belief is true or false. This consideration will occupy the
next chapter.





CHAPTER XIII.
KNOWLEDGE,
ERROR, AND
PROBABLE
OPINION
The question as to what we mean by truth and falsehood, which
we considered in the preceding chapter, is of much less interest
than the question as to how we can know what is true and what is
false. This question will occupy us in the present chapter. There
can be no doubt that some of our beliefs are erroneous; thus we are
led to inquire what certainty we can ever have that such and such a
belief is not erroneous. In other words, can we ever know anything
at all, or do we merely sometimes by good luck believe what is
true? Before we can attack this question, we must, however, first
decide what we mean by ' knowing', and this question is not so easy
as might be supposed.
At first sight we might imagine that knowledge could be defined
as 'true belief'. When what we believe is true, it might be supposed
that we had achieved a knowledge of what we believe. But this
would not accord with the way in which the word is commonly
used. To take a very trivial instance: If a man believes that the late
Prime Minister's last name began with a B, he believes what is
true, since the late Prime Minister was Sir Henry Campbell
Bannerman. But if he believes that Mr. Balfour was the late Prime
Minister, he will still believe that the late Prime Minister's last
name began with a B, yet this belief, though true, would not be
thought to constitute knowledge. If a newspaper, by an intelligent
anticipation, announces the result of a battle before any telegram
giving the result has been received, it may by good fortune
announce what afterwards turns out to be the right result, and it
may produce belief in some of its less experienced readers. But in
spite of the truth of their belief, they cannot be said to have
knowledge. Thus it is clear that a true belief is not knowledge
when it is deduced from a false belief.
In like manner, a true belief cannot be called knowledge when it
is deduced by a fallacious process of reasoning, even if the
premisses from which it is deduced are true. If I know that all
Greeks are men and that Socrates was a man, and I infer that
Socrates was a Greek, I cannot be said to know that Socrates was a
Greek, because, although my premisses and my conclusion are
true, the conclusion does not follow from the premisses.
But are we to say that nothing is knowledge except what is
validly deduced from true premisses? Obviously we cannot say
this. Such a definition is at once too wide and too narrow. In the
first place, it is too wide, because it is not enough that our
premisses should be true, they must also be known. The man who
believes that Mr. Balfour was the late Prime Minister may proceed
to draw valid deductions from the true premiss that the late Prime
Minister's name began with a B, but he cannot be said to know the
conclusions reached by these deductions. Thus we shall have to
amend our definition by saying that knowledge is what is validly
deduced from known premisses. This, however, is a circular
definition: it assumes that we already know what is meant by
'known premisses'. It can, therefore, at best define one sort of
knowledge, the sort we call derivative, as opposed to intuitive
knowledge. We may say: ' Derivative knowledge is what is validly
deduced from premisses known intuitively' . In this statement there
is no formal defect, but it leaves the definition of intuitive
knowledge still to seek.
Leaving on one side, for the moment, the question of intuitive
knowledge, let us consider the above suggested definition of
derivative knowledge. The chief objection to it is that it unduly
limits knowledge. It constantly happens that people entertain a true
belief, which has grown up in them because of some piece of
intuitive knowledge from which it is capable of being validly
inferred, but from which it has not, as a matter of fact, been
inferred by any logical process.
Take, for example, the beliefs produced by reading. If the
newspapers announce the death of the King, we are fairly well
justified in believing that the King is dead, since this is the sort of
announcement which would not be made if it were false. And we
are quite amply justified in believing that the newspaper asserts
that the King is dead. But here the intuitive knowledge upon which
our belief is based is knowledge of the existence of sense-data
derived from looking at the print which gives the news. This
knowledge scarcely rises into consciousness, except in a person
who cannot read easily. A child may be aware of the shapes of the
letters, and pass gradually and painfully to a realization of their
meaning. But anybody accustomed to reading passes at once to
what the letters mean, and is not aware, except on reflection, that
he has derived this knowledge from the sense-data called seeing
the printed letters. Thus although a valid inference from the-letters
to their meaning is possible, and could be performed by the reader,
it is not in fact performed, since he does not in fact perform any
operation which can be called logical inference. Yet it would be
absurd to say that the reader does not know that the newspaper
announces the King's death.
We must, therefore, admit as derivative knowledge whatever is
the result of intuitive knowledge even if by mere association,
provided there is a valid logical connexion, and the person in
question could become aware of this connexion by reflection.
There are in fact many ways, besides logical inference, by which
we pass from one belief to another: the passage from the print to its
meaning illustrates these ways. These ways may be called
'psychological inference'. We shall, then, admit such psychological
inference as a means of obtaining derivative knowledge, provided
there is a discoverable logical inference which runs parallel to the
psychological inference. This renders our definition of derivative
knowledge less precise than we could wish, since the word
'discoverable' is vague: it does not tell us how much reflection may
be needed in order to make the discovery. But in fact 'knowledge'
is not a precise conception: it merges into 'probable opinion', as we
shall see more fully in the course of the present chapter. A very
precise definition, therefore, should not be sought, since any such
definition must be more or less misleading.
The chief difficulty in regard to knowledge, however, does not
arise over derivative knowledge, but over intuitive knowledge. So
long as we are dealing with derivative knowledge, we have the test
of intuitive knowledge to fall back upon. But in regard to intuitive
beliefs, it is by no means easy to discover any criterion by which to
distinguish some as true and others as erroneous. In this question it
is scarcely possible to reach any very precise result: all our
knowledge of truths is infected with some degree of doubt, and a
theory which ignored this fact would be plainly wrong. Something
may be done, however, to mitigate the difficulties of the question.
Our theory of truth, to begin with, supplies the possibility of
distinguishing certain truths as self-evident in a sense which
ensures infallibility. When a belief is true, we said, there is a
corresponding fact, in which the several objects of the belief form
a single complex. The belief is said to constitute knowledge of this
fact, provided it fulfils those further somewhat vague conditions
which we have been considering in the present chapter. But in
regard to any fact, besides the knowledge constituted by belief, we
may also have the kind of knowledge constituted by perception
(taking this word in its widest possible sense). For example, if you
know the hour of the sunset, you can at that hour know the fact that
the sun is setting: this is knowledge of the fact by way of
knowledge of truths; but you can also, if the weather is fine, look
to the west and actuall y see the setting sun: you then know the
same fact by the way of knowledge of things.
Thus in regard to any complex fact, there are, theoretically, two
ways in which it may be known: (1) by means of a judgement, in
which its several parts are judged to be related as they are in fact
related; (2) by means of acquaintance with the complex fact itself,
which may (in a large sense) be called perception, though it is by
no means confined to objects of the senses. Now it will be
observed that the second way of knowing a complex fact, the way
of acquaintance, is only possible when there really is such a fact,
while the first way, like all judgement, is liable to error. The
second way gives us the complex whole, and is therefore only
possible when its parts do actually have that relation which makes
them combine to form such a complex. The first way, on the
contrary, gives us the parts and the relation severally, and demands
only the reality of the parts and the relation: the relation may not
relate those parts in that way, and yet the judgement may occur.
It will be remembered that at the end of Chapter XI we
suggested that there might be two kinds of self-evidence, one
giving an absolute guarantee of truth, the other only a partial
guarantee. These two kinds can now be distinguished.
We may say that a truth is self-evident, in the first and most
absolute sense, when we have acquaintance with the fact which
corresponds to the truth. When Othello believes that Desdemona
loves Cassio, the corresponding fact, if his beli ef were true, would
be ' Desdemona's love for Cassio'. This would be a fact with which
no one could have acquaintance except Desdemona; hence in the
sense of self-evidence that we are considering, the truth that
Desdemona loves Cassio (if it were a truth) could only be self-
evident to Desdemona. All mental facts, and all facts concerning
sense-data, have this same privacy: there is only one person to
whom they can be self-evident in our present sense, since there is
only one person who can be acquainted with the mental things or
the sense-data concerned. Thus no fact about any particular
existing thing can be self-evident to more than one person. On the
other hand, facts about universals do not have this privacy. Many
minds may be acquainted with the same uni versals; hence a
relation between universals may be known by acquaintance to
many different people. In all cases where we know by
acquaintance a complex fact consisting of certain terms in a certain
relation, we say that the truth that these terms are so related has the
first or absolute kind of self-evidence, and in these cases the
judgement that the terms are so related must be true. Thus this sort
of self-evidence is an absolute guarantee of truth.
But although this sort of self-evidence is an absolute guarantee
of truth, it does not enable us to be absolutely certain, in the case of
any given judgement, that the judgement in question is true.
Suppose we first perceive the sun shining, which is a complex fact,
and thence proceed to make the judgement 'the sun is shining'. In
passing from the perception to the judgement, it is necessary to
analyse the given complex fact: we have to separate out 'the sun'
and 'shining' as constituents of the fact. In this process it is possible
to commit an error; hence even where a fact has the first or
absolute kind of self-evidence, a judgement believed to correspond
to the fact is not absolutely infallible, because it may not really
correspond to the fact. But if it does correspond (in the sense
explained in the preceding chapter), then it must be true.
The second sort of self-evidence will be that which belongs to
judgements in the first instance, and is not derived from direct
perception of a fact as a single complex whole. This second kind of
self-evidence will have degrees, from the very highest degree
down to a bare inclination in favour of the belief. Take, for
example, the case of a horse trotting away from us along a hard
road. At first our certainty that we hear the hoofs is complete;
gradually, if we listen intently, there comes a moment when we
think perhaps it was imagination or the blind upstairs or our own
heartbeats; at last we become doubtful whether there was any noise
at all; then we think we no longer hear anything, and at last we
know we no longer hear anything. In this process, there is a
continual gradation of self-evidence, from the highest degree to the
least, not in the sense-data themselves, but in the judgements based
on them.
Or again: Suppose we are comparing two shades of colour, one
blue and one green. We can be quite sure they are different shades
of colour; but if the green colour is gradually altered to be more
and more like the blue, becoming first a blue-green, then a greeny-
blue, then blue, there will come a moment when we are doubtful
whether we can see any difference, and then a moment when we
know that we cannot see any difference. The same thing happens
in tuning a musical instrument, or in any other case where there is
a continuous gradation. Thus self-evidence of this sort is a matter
of degree; and it seems plain that the higher degrees are more to be
trusted than the lower degrees.
In derivative knowledge our ultimate premisses must have some
degree of self-evidence, and so must their connexion with the
conclusions deduced from them. Take for example a piece of
reasoning in geometry. It is not enough that the axioms from which
we start should be self-evident: it is necessary also that, at each
step in the reasoning, the connexion of premiss and conclusion
should be self-evident. In difficult reasoning, this connexion has
often only a very small degree of self-evidence; hence errors of
reasoning are not improbable where the difficulty is great.
From what has been said it is evident that, both as regards
intuitive knowledge and as regards derivative knowledge, if we
assume that intuitive knowledge is trustworthy in proportion to the
degree of its self-evidence, there will be a gradation in
trustworthiness, from the existence of noteworthy sense-data and
the simpler truths of logic and arithmetic, which may be taken as
quite certain, down to judgements which seem only just more
probable than their opposites. What we firmly believe, if it is true,
is called knowledge, provided it is either intuitive or inferred
(logically or psychologically) from intuitive knowledge from
which it follows logically. What we firmly believe, if it is not true,
is called error. What we firmly believe, if it is neither knowledge
nor error, and also what we believe hesitatingly, because it is, or is
derived from, something which has not the highest degree of self-
evidence, may be called probable opinion. Thus the greater part of
what would commonly pass as knowledge is more or less probable
opinion.
In regard to probable opinion, we can derive great assistance
from coherence, which we rejected as the definition of truth, but
may often use as a criterion. A body of individually probable
opinions, if they are mutually coherent, become more probable
than any one of them would be individually. It is in this way that
many scientific hypotheses acquire their probability. They fit into a
coherent system of probable opinions, and thus become more
probable than they would be in isolation. The same thing applies to
general philosophical hypotheses. Often in a single case such
hypotheses may seem highly doubtful, while yet, when we
consider the order and coherence which they introduce into a mass
of probable opinion, they become pretty nearly certain. This
applies, in particular, to such matters as the distinction between
dreams and waking life. If our dreams, night after night, were as
coherent one with another as our days, we should hardly know
whether to believe the dreams or the waking life. As it is, the test
of coherence condemns the dreams and confirms the waking life.
But this test, though it increases probability where it is successful,
never gives absolute certainty, unless there is certainty already at
some point in the coherent system. Thus the mere organization of
probable opinion will never, by itself, transform it into indubitable
knowledge.





CHAPTER XIV.
THE LIMITS OF
PHILOSOPHICA
L KNOWLEDGE
In all that we have said hitherto concerning philosophy, we have
scarcely touched on many matters that occupy a great space in the
writings of most philosophers. Most philosophers—or, at any rate,
very many—profess to be able to prove, by a priori metaphysical
reasoning, such things as the fundamental dogmas of religion, the
essential rationality of the universe, the illusoriness of matter, the
unreality of all evil, and so on. There can be no doubt that the hope
of finding reason to believe such theses as these has been the chief
inspiration of many life-long students of philosophy. This hope, I
believe, is vain. It would seem that knowledge concerning the
universe as a whole is not to be obtained by metaphysics, and that
the proposed proofs that, in virtue of the laws of logic such and
such things must exist and such and such others cannot, are not
capable of surviving a critical scrutiny. In this chapter we shall
briefly consider the kind of way in which such reasoning is
attempted, with a view to discovering whether we can hope that it
may be valid.
The great representative, in modern times, of the kind of view
which we wish to examine, was Hegel (1770-1831). Hegel's
philosophy is very difficult, and commentators differ as to the true
interpretation of it. According to the interpretation I shall adopt,
which is that of many, if not most, of the commentators and has the
merit of giving an interesting and important type of philosophy, his
main thesis is that everything short of the Whole is obviously
fragmentary, and obviously incapable of existing without the
complement supplied by the rest of the world. Just as a
comparative anatomist, from a single bone, sees what kind of
animal the whole must have been, so the metaphysician, according
to Hegel, sees, from any one piece of reality, what the whole of
reality must be—at least in its large outlines. Every apparently
separate piece of reality has, as it were, hooks which grapple it to
the next piece; the next piece, in turn, has fresh hooks, and so on,
until the whole universe is reconstructed. This essential
incompleteness appears, according to Hegel, equally in the world
of thought and in the world of things. In the world of thought, if we
take any idea which is abstract or incomplete, we find, on
examination, that if we forget its incompleteness, we become
involved in contradictions; these contradictions turn the idea in
question into its opposite, or antithesis; and in order to escape, we
have to find a new, less incomplete idea, which is the synthesis of
our original idea and its antithesis. This new idea, though less
incomplete than the idea we started with, will be found,
nevertheless, to be still not wholly complete, but to pass into its
antithesis, with which it must be combined in a new synthesis. In
this way Hegel advances until he reaches the ' Absolute Idea',
which, according to him, has no incompleteness, no opposite, and
no need of further development. The Absolute Idea, therefore, is
adequate to describe Absolute Reality; but all lower ideas only
describe reality as it appears to a partial view, not as it is to one
who simultaneously surveys the Whole. Thus Hegel reaches the
conclusion that Absolute Reality forms one single harmonious
system, not in space or time, not in any degree evil, wholly
rational, and wholly spiritual. Any appearance to the contrary, in
the world we know, can be proved logically—so he believes—to
be entirely due to our fragmentary piecemeal view of the universe.
If we saw the universe whole, as we may suppose God sees it,
space and time and matter and evil and all striving and struggling
would disappear, and we should see instead an eternal perfect
unchanging spiritual unity.
In this conception, there is undeniably something sublime,
something to which we could wish to yield assent. Nevertheless,
when the arguments in support of it are carefully examined, they
appear to involve much confusion and many unwarrantable
assumptions. The fundamental tenet upon which the system is built
up is that what is incomplete must be not self-subsistent, but must
need the support of other things before it can exist. It is held that
whatever has relations to things outside itself must contain some
reference to those outside things in its own nature, and could not,
therefore, be what it is if those outside things did not exist. A man's
nature, for example, is constituted by his memories and the rest of
his knowledge, by his loves and hatreds, and so on; thus, but for
the objects which he knows or loves or hates, he could not be what
he is. He is essentially and obviously a fragment: taken as the sum-
total of reality he would be self-contradictory.
This whole point of view, however, turns upon the notion of the
'nature' of a thing, which seems to mean 'all the truths about the
thing'. It is of course the case that a truth which connects one thing
with another thing could not subsist if the other thing did not
subsist. But a truth about a thing is not part of the thing itself,
although it must, according to the above usage, be part of the
'nature' of the thing. If we mean by a thing' s 'nature' all the truths
about the thing, then plainly we cannot know a thing's ' nature'
unless we know all the thing's relations to all the other things in the
universe. But if the word 'nature' is used in this sense, we shall
have to hold that the thing may be known when its ' nature' is not
known, or at any rate is not known completely. There is a
confusion, when this use of the word ' nature' is employed, between
knowledge of things and knowledge of truths. We may have
knowledge of a thing by acquaintance even if we know very few
propositions about it—theoretically we need not know any
propositions about it. Thus, acquaintance with a thing does not
involve knowledge of its 'nature' in the above sense. And although
acquaintance with a thing is involved in our knowing any one
proposition about a thing, knowledge of its 'nature', in the above
sense, is not involved. Hence, (1) acquaintance with a thing does
not logically involve a knowledge of its relations, and (2) a
knowledge of some of its relations does not involve a knowledge
of all of its relations nor a knowledge of its ' nature' in the above
sense. I may be acquainted, for example, with my toothache, and
this knowledge may be as complete as knowledge by acquaintance
ever can be, without knowing all that the dentist (who is not
acquainted with it) can tell me about its cause, and without
therefore knowing its 'nature' in the above sense. Thus the fact that
a thing has relations does not prove that its relations are logically
necessary. That is to say, from the mere fact that it is the thing it is
we cannot deduce that it must have the various relations which in
fact it has. This only seems to follow because we know it already.
It follows that we cannot prove that the universe as a whole
forms a single harmonious system such as Hegel believes that it
forms. And if we cannot prove this, we also cannot prove the
unreality of space and time and matter and evil, for this is deduced
by Hegel from the fragmentary and relational character of these
things. Thus we are left to the piecemeal investigation of the
world, and are unable to know the characters of those parts of the
universe that are remote from our experience. This result,
disappointing as it is to those whose hopes have been raised by the
systems of philosophers, is in harmony with the inductive and
scientific temper of our age, and is borne out by the whole
examination of human knowledge which has occupied our
previous chapters.
Most of the great ambitious attempts of metaphysicians have
proceeded by the attempt to prove that such and such apparent
features of the actual world were self-contradictory, and therefore
could not be real. The whole tendency of modern thought,
however, is more and more in the direction of showing that the
supposed contradictions were illusory, and that very little can be
proved a priori from considerations of what must be. A good
illustration of this is afforded by space and time. Space and time
appear to be infinite in extent, and infinitely divisible. If we travel
along a straight line in either direction, it is difficult to believe that
we shall finally reach a last point, beyond which there is nothing,
not even empty space. Similarly, if in imagination we travel
backwards or forwards in time, it is difficult to believe that we
shall reach a first or last time, with not even empty time beyond it.
Thus space and time appear to be infinite in extent.
Again, if we take any two points on a line, it seems evident that
there must be other points between them however small the
distance between them may be: every distance can be halved, and
the halves can be halved again, and so on ad infinitum. In time,
similarly, however little time may elapse between two moments, it
seems evident that there will be other moments between them.
Thus space and time appear to be infinitely divisible. But as
against these apparent facts—infinite extent and infinite
divisibility—philosophers have advanced arguments tending to
show that there could be no infinite collections of things, and that
therefore the number of points in space, or of instants in time, must
be finite. Thus a contradiction emerged between the apparent
nature of space and time and the supposed impossibility of infinite
collections.
Kant, who first emphasized this contradiction, deduced the
impossibility of space and time, which he declared to be merely
subjective; and since his time very many philosophers have
believed that space and time are mere appearance, not
characteristic of the world as it really is. Now, however, owing to
the labours of the mathematicians, notably Georg Cantor, it has
appeared that the impossibility of infinite collections was a
mistake. They are not in fact self-contradictory, but only
contradictory of certain rather obstinate mental prejudices. Hence
the reasons for regarding space and time as unreal have become
inoperative, and one of the great sources of metaphysical
constructions is dried up.
The mathematicians, however, have not been content with
showing that space as it is commonly supposed to be is possible;
they have shown also that many other forms of space are equally
possible, so far as logic can show. Some of Euclid's axioms, which
appear to common sense to be necessary, and were formerly
supposed to be necessary by philosophers, are now known to
derive their appearance of necessity from our mere familiarity with
actual space, and not from any a priori logical foundation. By
imagining worlds in which these axioms are false, the
mathematicians have used logic to loosen the prejudices of
common sense, and to show the possibility of spaces differing—
some more, some less—from that in which we live. And some of
these spaces differ so little from Euclidean space, where distances
such as we can measure are concerned, that it is impossible to
discover by observation whether our actual space is strictly
Euclidean or of one of these other kinds. Thus the position is
completely reversed. Formerly it appeared that experience left only
one kind of space to logic, and logic showed this one kind to be
impossible. Now, logic presents many kinds of space as possible
apart from experience, and experience only partially decides
between them. Thus, while our knowledge of what is has become
less than it was formerly supposed to be, our knowledge of what
may be is enormously increased. Instead of being shut in within
narrow walls, of which every nook and cranny could be explored,
we find ourselves in an open world of free possibilities, where
much remains unknown because there is so much to know.
What has happened in the case of space and time has happened,
to some extent, in other directions as well. The attempt to prescribe
to the universe by means of a priori principles has broken down;
logic, instead of being, as formerly, the bar to possibilities, has
become the great liberator of the imagination, presenting
innumerable alternatives which are closed to unreflective common
sense, and leaving to experience the task of deciding, where
decision is possible, between the many worlds which logic offers
for our choice. Thus knowledge as to what exists becomes limited
to what we can learn from experience—not to what we can
actually experience, for, as we have seen, there is much knowledge
by description concerning things of which we have no direct
experience. But in all cases of knowledge by description, we need
some connexion of universals, enabling us, from such and such a
datum, to infer an object of a certain sort as implied by our datum.
Thus in regard to physical objects, for example, the principle that
sense-data are signs of physical objects is itself a connexion of
universals; and it is only in virtue of this principle that experience
enables us to acquire knowledge concerning physical objects. The
same applies to the law of causality, or, to descend to what is less
general, to such principles as the law of gravitation.
Principles such as the law of gravitation are proved, or rather are
rendered highly probable, by a combination of experience with
some wholly a priori principle, such as the principle of induction.
Thus our intuitive knowledge, which is the source of all our other
knowledge of truths, is of two sorts: pure empirical knowledge,
which tells us of the existence and some of the properties of
particular things with which we are acquainted, and pure a priori
knowledge, which gives us connexions between universals, and
enables us to draw inferences from the particular facts given in
empirical knowledge. Our derivative knowledge always depends
upon some pure a priori knowledge and usually also depends upon
some pure empirical knowledge.
Philosophical knowledge, if what has been said above is true,
does not differ essentially from scientific knowledge; there is no
special source of wisdom which is open to philosophy but not to
science, and the results obtained by philosophy are not radically
different from those obtained from science. The essential
characteristic of philosophy, which makes it a study distinct from
science, is criticism. It examines critically the principles employed
in science and in daily life; it searches out any inconsistencies
there may be in these principles, and it only accepts them when, as
the result of a critical inquiry, no reason for rejecting them has
appeared. If, as many philosophers have believed, the principles
underlying the sciences were capable, when disengaged from
irrelevant detail, of giving us knowledge concerning the universe
as a whole, such knowledge would have the same claim on our
belief as scientific knowledge has; but our inquiry has not revealed
any such knowledge, and therefore, as regards the special doctrines
of the bolder metaphysicians, has had a mainly negative result. But
as regards what would be commonly accepted as knowledge, our
result is in the main positive: we have seldom found reason to
reject such knowledge as the result of our criticism, and we have
seen no reason to suppose man incapable of the kind of knowledge
which he is generally believed to possess.
When, however, we speak of philosophy as a criticism of
knowledge, it is necessary to impose a certain limitation. If we
adopt the attitude of the complete sceptic, placing ourselves wholly
outside all knowledge, and asking, from this outside position, to be
compelled to return within the circle of knowledge, we are
demanding what is impossible, and our scepticism can never be
refuted. For all refutation must begin with some piece of
knowledge which the disputants share; from blank doubt, no
argument can begin. Hence the criticism of knowledge which
philosophy employs must not be of this destructive kind, if any
result is to be achieved. Against this absolute scepticism, no
logical argument can be advanced. But it is not difficult to see that
scepticism of this kind is unreasonable. Descartes' 'methodical
doubt', with which modern philosophy began, is not of this kind,
but is rather the kind of criticism which we are asserting to be the
essence of philosophy. His ' methodical doubt' consisted in
doubting whatever seemed doubtful; in pausing, with each
apparent piece of knowledge, to ask himself whether, on reflection,
he could feel certain that he really knew it. This is the kind of
criticism which constitutes philosophy. Some knowledge, such as
knowledge of the existence of our sense-data, appears quite
indubitable, however calmly and thoroughly we reflect upon it. In
regard to such knowledge, philosophical criticism does not require
that we should abstain from belief. But there are beliefs—such, for
example, as the belief that physical objects exactly resemble our
sense-data—which are entertained until we begin to reflect, but are
found to melt away when subjected to a close inquiry. Such beliefs
philosophy will bid us reject, unless some new line of argument is
found to support them. But to reject the beliefs which do not
appear open to any objections, however closely we examine them,
is not reasonable, and is not what philosophy advocates.
The criticism aimed at, in a word, is not that which, without
reason, determines to reject, but that which considers each piece of
apparent knowledge on its merits, and retains whatever still
appears to be knowledge when this consideration is completed.
That some risk of error remains must be admitted, since human
beings are fallible. Philosophy may claim justly that it diminishes
the risk of error, and that in some cases it renders the risk so small
as to be practically negligible. To do more than this is not possible
in a world where mistakes must occur; and more than this no
prudent advocate of philosophy would claim to have performed.





CHAPTER XV.
THE VALUE OF
PHILOSOPHY
Having now come to the end of our brief and very incomplete
review of the problems of philosophy, it will be well to consider, in
conclusion, what is the value of philosophy and why it ought to be
studied. It is the more necessary to consider this question, in view
of the fact that many men, under the influence of science or of
practical affairs, are inclined to doubt whether philosophy is
anything better than innocent but useless trifling, hair-splitting
distinctions, and controversies on matters concerning which
knowledge is impossible.
This view of philosophy appears to result, partly from a wrong
conception of the ends of life, partly from a wrong conception of
the kind of goods which philosophy strives to achieve. Physical
science, through the medium of inventions, is useful to
innumerable people who are wholly ignorant of it; thus the study
of physical science is to be recommended, not only, or primarily,
because of the effect on the student, but rather because of the effect
on mankind in general. Thus utility does not belong to philosophy.
If the study of philosophy has any value at all for others than
students of philosophy, it must be only indirectly, through its
effects upon the lives of those who study it. It is in these effects,
therefore, if anywhere, that the value of philosophy must be
primarily sought.
But further, if we are not to fail in our endeavour to determine
the value of philosophy, we must first free our minds from the
prejudices of what are wrongly called 'practical' men. The
'practical' man, as this word is often used, is one who recognizes
only material needs, who realizes that men must have food for the
body, but is oblivious of the necessity of providing food for the
mind. If all men were well off, if poverty and disease had been
reduced to their lowest possible point, there would still remain
much to be done to produce a valuable society; and even in the
existing world the goods of the mind are at least as important as
the goods of the body. It is exclusively among the goods of the
mind that the value of philosophy is to be found; and only those
who are not indifferent to these goods can be persuaded that the
study of philosophy is not a waste of time.
Philosophy, like all other studies, aims primarily at knowledge.
The knowledge it aims at is the kind of knowledge which gives
unity and system to the body of the sciences, and the kind which
results from a critical examination of the grounds of our
convictions, prejudices, and beliefs. But it cannot be maintained
that philosophy has had any very great measure of success in its
attempts to provide definite answers to its questions. If you ask a
mathematician, a mineralogist, a historian, or any other man of
learning, what definite body of truths has been ascertained by his
science, his answer will last as long as you are willing to listen.
But if you put the same question to a philosopher, he will, if he is
candid, have to confess that his study has not achieved positive
results such as have been achieved by other sciences. It is true that
this is partly accounted for by the fact that, as soon as definite
knowledge concerning any subject becomes possible, this subject
ceases to be called philosophy, and becomes a separate science.
The whole study of the heavens, which now belongs to astronomy,
was once included in philosophy; Newton's great work was called
'the mathematical principles of natural philosophy' . Similarly, the
study of the human mind, which was a part of philosophy, has now
been separated from philosophy and has become the science of
psychology. Thus, to a great extent, the uncertainty of philosophy
is more apparent than real: those questions which are already
capable of definite answers are placed in the sciences, while those
only to which, at present, no definit e answer can be given, remain
to form the residue which is called philosophy.
This is, however, only a part of the truth concerning the
uncertainty of philosophy. There are many questions—and among
them those that are of the profoundest interest to our spi ritual
life—which, so far as we can see, must remain insoluble to the
human intellect unless its powers become of quite a different order
from what they are now. Has the universe any unity of plan or
purpose, or is it a fortuitous concourse of atoms? Is consciousness
a permanent part of the universe, giving hope of indefinite growth
in wisdom, or is it a transitory accident on a small planet on which
life must ultimately become impossible? Are good and evil of
importance to the universe or only to man? Such questions are
asked by philosophy, and variously answered by various
philosophers. But it would seem that, whether answers be
otherwise discoverable or not, the answers suggested by
philosophy are none of them demonstrably true. Yet, however
slight may be the hope of discovering an answer, it is part of the
business of philosophy to continue the consideration of such
questions, to make us aware of their importance, to examine all the
approaches to them, and to keep alive that speculative interest in
the universe which is apt to be killed by confining ourselves to
definitely ascertainable knowledge.
Many philosophers, it is true, have held that philosophy could
establish the truth of certain answers to such fundamental
questions. They have supposed that what is of most importance in
religious beliefs could be proved by strict demonstration to be true.
In order to judge of such attempts, it is necessary to take a survey
of human knowledge, and to form an opinion as to its methods and
its limitations. On such a subject it would be unwise to pronounce
dogmatically; but if the investigations of our previous chapters
have not led us astray, we shall be compelled to renounce the hope
of finding philosophical proofs of religious beliefs. We cannot,
therefore, include as part of the value of philosophy any definite
set of answers to such questions. Hence, once more, the value of
philosophy must not depend upon any supposed body of definitely
ascertainable knowledge to be acquired by those who study it.
The value of philosophy is, in fact, to be sought largely in its
very uncertainty. The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes
through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common
sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from
convictions which have grown up in his mind without the co-
operation or consent of his deliberate reason. To such a man the
world tends to become definite, finite, obvious; common objects
rouse no questions, and unfamiliar possibilities are contemptuously
rejected. As soon as we begin to philosophize, on the contrary, we
find, as we saw in our opening chapters, that even the most
everyday things lead to problems to which only very incomplete
answers can be given. Philosophy, though unable to tell us with
certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is
able to suggest many possibilities which enlarge our thoughts and
free them from the tyranny of custom. Thus, while diminishing our
feeling of certainty as to what things are, it greatly increases our
knowledge as to what they may be; it removes the somewhat
arrogant dogmatism of those who have never travelled into the
region of liberating doubt, and it keeps alive our sense of wonder
by showing familiar things in an unfamiliar aspect.
Apart from its utility in showing unsuspected possibilities,
philosophy has a value—perhaps its chief value—through the
greatness of the objects which it contemplates, and the freedom
from narrow and personal aims resulting from this contemplation.
The life of the instincti ve man is shut up within the circle of his
private interests: family and friends may be included, but the outer
world is not regarded except as it may help or hinder what comes
within the circle of instinctive wishes. In such a life there is
something feverish and confined, in comparison with which the
philosophic life is calm and free. The private world of instinctive
interests is a small one, set in the midst of a great and powerful
world which must, sooner or later, lay our private world in ruins.
Unless we can so enlarge our interests as to include the whole
outer world, we remain like a garrison in a beleagured fortress,
knowing that the enemy prevents escape and that ultimate
surrender is inevitable. In such a life there is no peace, but a
constant strife between the insistence of desire and the
powerlessness of will. In one way or another, if our life is to be
great and free, we must escape this prison and this strife.
One way of escape is by philosophic contemplation. Philosophic
contemplation does not, in its widest survey, divide the universe
into two hostile camps—friends and foes, helpful and hostile, good
and bad—it views the whole impartially. Philosophic
contemplation, when it is unalloyed, does not aim at proving that
the rest of the universe is akin to man. All acquisition of
knowledge is an enlargement of the Self, but this enlargement is
best attained when it is not directly sought. It is obtained when the
desire for knowledge is alone operative, by a study which does not
wish in advance that its objects should have this or that character,
but adapts the Self to the characters which it finds in its objects.
This enlargement of Self is not obtained when, taking the Self as it
is, we try to show that the world is so similar to this Self that
knowledge of it is possible without any admission of what seems
alien. The desire to prove this is a form of self-assertion and, like
all self-assertion, it is an obstacle to the growth of Self which it
desires, and of which the Self knows that it is capable. Self-
assertion, in philosophic speculation as elsewhere, views the world
as a means to its own ends; thus it makes the world of less account
than Self, and the Self sets bounds to the greatness of its goods. In
contemplation, on the contrary, we start from the not-Self, and
through its greatness the boundaries of Self are enlarged; through
the infinity of the universe the mind which contemplates it
achieves some share in infinity.
For this reason greatness of soul is not fostered by those
philosophies which assimilate the universe to Man. Knowledge is a
form of union of Self and not-Self; like all union, it is impaired by
dominion, and therefore by any attempt to force the universe into
conformity with what we find in ourselves. There is a widespread
philosophical tendency towards the view which tells us that Man is
the measure of all things, that truth is man-made, that space and
time and the world of universals are properties of the mind, and
that, if there be anything not created by the mind, it is unknowable
and of no account for us. This view, if our previous discussions
were correct, is untrue; but in addition to being untrue, it has the
effect of robbing philosophic contemplation of all that gives it
value, since it fetters contemplation to Self. What it calls
knowledge is not a union with the not-Self, but a set of prejudices,
habits, and desires, making an impenetrable veil between us and
the world beyond. The man who finds pleasure in such a theory of
knowledge is like the man who never leaves the domestic circle for
fear his word might not be law.
The true philosophic contemplation, on the contrary, finds its
satisfaction in every enlargement of the not-Self, in everything that
magnifies the objects contemplated, and thereby the subject
contemplating. Everything, in contemplation, that is personal or
private, everything that depends upon habit, self-interest, or desire,
distorts the object, and hence impairs the union which the intellect
seeks. By thus making a barrier between subject and object, such
personal and private things become a prison to the intellect. The
free intellect will see as God might see, without a here and now,
without hopes and fears, without the trammels of customary beliefs
and traditional prejudices, calmly, dispassionately, in the sole and
exclusive desire of knowledge—knowledge as impersonal, as
purely contemplative, as it is possible for man to attain. Hence also
the free intellect will value more the abstract and universal
knowledge into which the accidents of private history do not enter,
than the knowledge brought by the senses, and dependent, as such
knowledge must be, upon an exclusive and personal point of view
and a body whose sense-organs distort as much as they reveal.
The mind which has become accustomed to the freedom and
impartiality of philosophic contemplation will preserve something
of the same freedom and impartiality in the world of action and
emotion. It will view its purposes and desires as parts of the whole,
with the absence of insistence that results from seeing them as
infinitesimal fragments in a world of which all the rest is
unaffected by any one man' s deeds. The impartiality which, in
contemplation, is the unalloyed desire for truth, is the very same
quality of mind which, in action, is justice, and in emotion is that
universal love which can be given to all, and not only to those who
are judged useful or admirable. Thus contemplation enlarges not
only the objects of our thoughts, but also the objects of our actions
and our affections: it makes us citizens of the universe, not only of
one walled city at war with all the rest. In this citizenship of the
universe consists man's true freedom, and his liberation from the
thraldom of narrow hopes and fears.
Thus, to sum up our discussion of the value of philosophy;
Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite
answers to its questions, since no definite answers can, as a rule, be
known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions
themselves; because these questions enlarge our conception of
what is possible, enrich our intellectual imagination and diminish
the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation;
but above all because, through the greatness of the universe which
philosophy contemplates, the mind also is rendered great, and
becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes
its highest good.





BIBLIOGRAPHI
CAL NOTE
The student who wishes to acquire an elementary knowledge of
philosophy will find it both easier and more profitable to read
some of the works of the great philosophers than to attempt to
derive an all-round view from handbooks. The following are
specially recommended:
Plato: Republic, especially Books VI and VII.
Descartes: Meditations.
Spinoza: Ethics.
Leibniz: The Monadology.
Berkeley: Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous.
Hume: Enquiry concerning Human Understanding.
Kant: Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysic.



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