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is that it looks very much as if it may reveal the true structure of the knowable sphere. Yet surely, it may here be urged, in admitting that the kinetic hypothesis is supported by correlated facts, experimentally verified, one is admitting that it so guides the rolling of the sphere of knowledge on the sphere of the knowable as to reach points of right-line contact. What more does one want? The pragmatist perhaps wants nothing more, or, at any rate is convinced that this is all we can get. Assume, then, that it is all we can get in the case of many of the hypotheses of modern science, of which I have taken the kinetic theory of gases as a type. Does that show that, beyond the reach of these conventional hypotheses, there is no truthstructure of the knowable world to be gotten, if only we could get it? I think that the man of science, while he admits that the hypothetical connexions which give consistency to much of our knowledge are conventional, is none the less convinced that there is a truth-structure of the Universe, and in the light of this conviction will steadily pursue his quest.

same.

Enough has now been said in this connexion to indicate the point of view I here advocate. From that point of view there is (1) truth in the structure of the knowable world, the world whose fluent process the man of science seeks to interpret. And here, of course, there is no shadow of error. This truth in the knowable world may not yet be knownperhaps may never be known by us; but it is there all the Then there is (2) truth in the structure of the sphere of knowledge, and perhaps its leading characteristic is consistency. Anything contradictory therein betokens one kind of error. But, no matter how self-consistent a scheme of knowledge may be, the truth-connexions within such a scheme may not correspond to the truth-structure of the knowableor they may. Hence we have, under (3), truth as correspondence of the structure in the sphere of knowledge to the structure of the knowable sphere. For omniscience this correspondence would merge in flowing identity, every

progressive change in the one sphere being at one with the progressive change in the other sphere. For mere mortals this, however, is not so. And that is where another kind of error comes in.

In terms of my figure a test of what I should much prefer to call the instrumental value of knowledge rather than a test of truth—though such it may also be-is what I have spoken of as the rolling of the spheres. The Ptolemaic system of astronomy was of great instrumental value, and not only seemed to be, but was, amply justified by its results. Epicyclic ingenuity rendered sphere-rolling good enough in its day. But, as we now view the matter, this was rather a confirmation of the serviceableness of the Ptolemaic knowledge-scheme, than of its true correspondence to the structure of the knowable. And who is prepared to assert that all that is serviceable in modern scientific knowledge is true under the third heading distinguished above?

Now, it may perhaps be asked whether what has been said. about truth-structure is not tantamount to asserting that truth is irretrievably static. There is, it may possibly be said, no room here for truth in the making,-truth-structure is something quite fixed and irrevocable. Well, at the close of a paper already long enough, all I can say is that this is just what I do not mean. The knowable world is ever-fluent. What I do mean is-if the expression be not paradoxical—the structure of continuously flowing process. If the word "structure" be ill-chosen-choose at discretion a better word. In any case, leave ample room for change. As for truth in the making, let us distinguish. Quite obviously, truthconsistency in the sphere of knowledge is progressively in the making; so, too, is truth as correspondence. But truth in the knowable world-is that, too, in the making? Unquestionably it is that is at the back of what we mean by development and evolution. And not only is the truth-structure of the knowable in the making, knowable facts are also ceaselessly

in the making, as the world process forges forward. Furthermore, since we, too, are just parts of the knowable, and as parts are in effective relation to other parts, the developing structure of the knowable includes all that happens to us and all that happens through our instrumentality. But since both fact and truth are in the making, much that is being progressively made in the sphere of the knowable can have no place in the sphere of knowledge, the truth-structure of which depends on experience of the past. On the abundant repetition in the sphere of the knowable, truth-connexions in knowledge are dependent for their being. But in the sphere of the knowable the genuinely new falls outside the rubric of repetition. Hence at any given time there must always be much in the sphere of the knowable to which there is nothing as yet correspondent in the sphere of knowledge. Here again, therefore, as throughout, knowable fact and truth have a certain primacy over the facts and truths of human knowledge.

IX. ON OUR KNOWLEDGE OF VALUE.

By W. A. PICKARD-CAMBRIDGE.

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§ 1. I wish to examine a question which sooner or later presents itself as a preliminary to any study of Value, viz., the question of its relation to our consciousness. Is there anywhere to be found a criterion of it, i.e. any object of any other kind more immediately obvious to us, through which we can judge of it? If not, how is it apprehended, and its existence distinguished from its non-existence, genuine value from merely sham or supposed value, and so forth? The answer which I hope to make good is that there is no criterion of value, and that the various criteria offered us are either unenlightening or positively misleading: instead, we have of it and of its several forms a direct knowledge which, while unique, is also innate in every human soul, and therefore, while it does not admit, also does not require any guidance from any other form of experience-nay, which merely though sorely needs that the overgrowth of these other forms of experience be cleared away in order that it may shine through and reveal to us Value as it is.

§ 2. Of the particular forms of Value, it is generally admitted that any experience presupposes an intuition, unique and incommunicable through any appeal to any other kind of experience, and therefore present innately or not at all.

Thus any attempt to communicate such an intuition to anyone naturally devoid of it is admittedly bound to fail. A man unable to discriminate between "true" and "false," "real" and "imaginary "an idiot, in short-is unteachable unless or until (as we rightly put it) his mind "clears itself." A man with no "sense" of beauty cannot be given it by any explanation in

terms of any other character (e.g. "symmetry") that may belong to a good work of art.* There is plenty of symmetry about any barrack, or the dullest academic figure, even in an Anglican chant or one of Stainer's hymn-tunes.

All attempts, again, to define any of these particular values are obviously forced to be and to remain misleading or else to become circular and uninstructive. The pragmatist definition of truth as that which "works," or "fulfils a purpose," is false if we do not, and uninstructive if we do, specify that purpose as the purpose of finding out the truth. The attempt, again, to define moral goodness in terms either of the material advantages or the "pleasures" it brings or of the sacrifices it demands fares no better. For the only material advantages or pleasures which are distinctive of morality are those which under the circumstances can be enjoyed "honourably" or conformably to the demands of morality; while not every sacrifice of the right hand or plucking out of the right eye belongs to, or indicates, moral goodness, but only that which is needful to "everlasting life." And the definitions which (e.g.) M. Arnold or M. Salomon Reinach offer us of religion are, as Mr. Webb has sufficiently shown, in the same condemnation. All alike when unrestricted are materially false, while when restricted they are formally circular. They are driven to presuppose in us, and appeal to as already existent, the knowledge which they profess to impart.

While, however, in regard to each particular value or valued experience, attempts to define and find external criteria have generally given way to the recognition of an immediate intuition, in regard to the conception of Good or Value in general, the old unsound mode of thought still prevails.

* Cf. Plato, Hippias minor, for the breakdown of attempts to find criteria of Beauty, e.g., its practical usefulness, or capacity to promote goodness or to please the eye or ear.

+ Vide Plato, Meno, 79b-c, Gorgias, 499b ff.

+

C. C. J. Webb, Problems in the Relation of God and Man, pp. 4–5,

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