EXPERIENCE; 
 
 THE RISE AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONCEPT 
 IN THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF 
 
 REQUIREMENTS FOR 
 THE DOCTORATE IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 AT THE 
 
 NEW YORK UNIVERSITY 
 JUNE. 1906 
 
 BY 
 
 MARCUS NEUSTAEDTER, M. D. 
 
 \\ 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 The Greenwich Printing Company 
 
 1907 
 
£>CC}1, 
 
 
 
 

 h 
 
 !Ta6te 0/ Contents 
 
 Introduction. — Reason why ancient philosophy before the 
 Stoics is not concerned with the concept. — The Sophist 
 movement a step in this direction. — The Stoic's concept 
 of experience as a criterion of truth. — Sceptics opposing 
 the dogmatism of Stoics. — Descartes' right beginning and 
 dogmatic culmination in his philosophy. — Locke's in- 
 quiry. — His concept of experience. — Hume destroys knowl- 
 edge of things. — Kant's exposition of the concept. — Fichte 
 and Hegel supplementing Kant. — Herbart's theory. — 
 Pragmatism Pp. vii-xiv 
 
 I 
 
 The Stoic exposition of the concept of experience as 
 epnreipia fj.e^odix?]. — Their upiTrfpiov of truth. — The soul 
 as a tabula rasa. — The combination of memories gives ex- 
 perience Pp. 15-16 
 
 II 
 
 Mediaeval philosophy theological. —Dawning of the concept 
 in Occam's philosophy. — As a combination of perception 
 and thought P. 17 
 
 III 
 
 Experience of Paracelsus as Erfahrung. — First mentioned in 
 the German language P. 18 
 
 IV 
 Locke's methodological elaboration of the concept of ex- 
 perience. — Reassertion of the Stoic tabula rasa. — Ex- 
 
IV 
 
 perience the source of ideas. — Empirical explanation of 
 experience. — His refutation of innate ideas. — Experience 
 through and through sensuous. — Distinction between 
 primary and secondary qualities. — Space and time ob- 
 tained from experience. — Simple and complex ideas. — 
 Origin of knowledge in ideas, which constitute experience. — 
 General ideas and their connection with language; a result 
 of the development of the concept of experience. — The 
 essentials and limitations of his philosophy Pp. 19-28 
 
 V 
 
 Hume carries Locke's theory to its logical conclusion. . . Ideas 
 representing sense perceptions. — Knowledge of things 
 impossible. — Existence of ideas such as substance and 
 causality denied. — His influence on Kant Pp. 28-31 
 
 VI 
 
 Kant's concept of experience. — A continuous combination 
 of sensuous intuition, a synthesis by the understanding. — 
 Space and time as necessary conditions a priori. — Material 
 of sensation subsumed under these formal elements. — The 
 mind acting on the sensuous intuition through the categories 
 of the understanding. — Sensuous intuitions the passive 
 receptivity of the mind. — The work of the catagories as 
 active spontaneity of the mind. — The combination of the 
 two elements gives rise to experience. — Kant's didactical 
 method in the development of the above theory. — The 
 essentials and limitations of his theory Pp. 31-39 
 
 VII 
 
 Fichte supplements Kant's theory. — Develops Kantian subjec- 
 tivism. — The Ego as a conditio sine qua non of experience. — 
 Experience as the fact-act. — Categories generated in the 
 dialectical movement of the Ego and non-Ego. — Ideas arising 
 with a "feeling of necessity" the basis of experience .... Pp. 39-43 
 
VIII 
 
 Hegel's self-unfolding of the spirit from perception (Ans- 
 chauung) to conception (Begriff). — This procedure a dialec- 
 tical necessity. — Categories genetically derived. — Absolute 
 experience Pp. 43-45 
 
 IX 
 
 Herbart's ecclecticism. — His starting point in experience as a 
 psychological factor. — Metaphysics a necessary basis of 
 psychology. . Pp. 45-48 
 
 X 
 
 Pragmatism or Radical Empiricism. — The concept of exper- 
 ience as a practical maxim. — Experience is the criterion of 
 
 truth Pp. 48-52 
 
 Conclusion Pp. 53-55 
 
 Bibliography Pp. 56-58 
 
Meae carce matri et sanctce memories 
 patris mei, omnibus meis grammaticis et 
 rhetoribus, qui mihi principes et ad susci- 
 piendam et ingrediendam rationem human- 
 itatis fuerunt atque doctor ibus J. P. Gordy 
 Carolo Gray Shaw et Roberto McDougall 
 quorum praelectiones philosophicas audivi 
 maxima cum gratia haec dissertatio inscribitur 
 
"INTRODUCTION." 
 
 In an exposition of the historical development of the con- 
 cept of experience we are dealing with an epistemological prob- 
 lem. We must take account at once of the character of this 
 concept and its relation to the mind which is attempting to 
 get at fundamental truths. Such a problem could only arise 
 when the mind begins to reflect upon the possibility of the exist- 
 ence of knowledge and of its origin. 
 
 The ancient philosophers could not have raised such a 
 question, for according to them the world in its completeness 
 was taken as a fact, and the question was : How did it get 
 into the mind ? They were only concerned with the meta- 
 physical question as to the nature of the first and ultimate prin- 
 ciples of a material world order. Even the Sophists, who began 
 to lay stress on the subjective element, were concerned with 
 moral conduct rather than with the problem of knowledge. 
 But in placing emphasis on the importance of looking upon 
 the individual as an end in himself, they rebelled against the 
 existing conditions in philosophy, in which cosmological prob- 
 lems engaged the attention of thinkers, rather than "anthropo- 
 logical" ones. The Sophist movement was characterized by a 
 breaking away from these traditional methods. The new school 
 began to inquire into the validity of all the existing principles 
 and laws. Its members looked upon the individual as a micro- 
 cosmos in himself, who ought to work out his own destiny. 
 When the habit of inquiring into certain laws was acquired 
 
Vlll 
 
 there was no stop to the progress of it. All possible principles 
 connected with the welfare of the individual were carefully dis- 
 cussed and thus great stress was laid upon the individual. Con- 
 clusions previously arrived at were cast aside, and the subject 
 was made the starting point and criterion for truth. Thus the 
 first attempt was made to interpret the world in terms of the 
 individual rather than in the reverse order. 
 
 This same attempt characterizes the method of modern 
 philosophy, where the problem of knowledge is a fundamental 
 one. Such a method inevitably leads to the discussion of the 
 nature of experience. 
 
 In trying to define true knowledge the Sophists were look- 
 ing for a criterion of truth. Protagoras then stated his cele- 
 brated maxim, "Man is the measure of all things." Things 
 are what they appear to be to the individual. It seems to me 
 that this tendency to find a subjective criterion for truth cul- 
 minated in the rise of a theory of the idea of experience with 
 the Stoics. 
 
 They were really the first thinkers to inquire how we get 
 knowledge and whether it is a given thing to every man. In 
 their uncritical contemplation it was bnt natural to view the 
 vast scenery before them as projecting its image as it was re- 
 flected in the pupil of their fellows. And from these observa- 
 tions they were led to theorize about the part played by the 
 senses and the soul — a duality which was then fully accepted 
 as existing — in the making of a content of consciousness, which 
 they called experience. The senses were, then, the active media 
 through which the objects projected their images upon the soul 
 as upon a blank tablet, or, according to some Stoics, making 
 impressions on it as on a piece of wax. The impression or state 
 was the experience of the earlier Stoics. The more critical of 
 them, however, were not entirely satisfied with this theory and 
 amended it to the effect that the impression thus produced at 
 the same time alters the state of the soul — in which state the 
 
IX 
 
 soul announces both its existence and that of the object. The 
 originally vacant soul is thus filled with characters or images, 
 which are retained by memory. The memorizing of these states 
 constituted for the Stoics knowledge by experience. It is per- 
 tinent to state here that this exposition of the Stoics' concept 
 of experience is very similar to Locke's critical elaborations of 
 the idea as the basis of human knowledge. 
 
 This dogmatic assumption of the Stoics regarding the 
 nature of knowledge did not flourish without opposition. The 
 Sceptics attacked it with powerful weapons. They showed that 
 senses are deceiving and the intellect alone cannot give knowl- 
 edge. Furthermore, the world of objectivity is totally inde- 
 pendent of the subject, and no relation between the knower and 
 the thing to be known is established. The chasm remains uu- 
 bridged. 
 
 However successful the Sceptics may have been, they 
 could not doubt the existence of consciousness — a fact neither 
 to be proved nor contradicted. And this led Descartes in mod- 
 ern times to begin philosophy by assuming the sceptic position. 
 He began by doubting everything — even his own existence. 
 But he was conscious of his doubt and therefore certain of 
 his existence. Thus his own consciousness became to him the 
 ultimate criterion. He did not, however, adhere to his sub- 
 jective point of view, but from a clear and distinct idea which 
 he had of God, dogmatically inferred God's independent exist- 
 ence. His correct starting point promised, if logically and criti- 
 cally carried out, to yield most convincing results, but in his 
 digression into the realm of Metaphysics he completely failed 
 to reach the epistemological position. 
 
 Locke, on the other hand, by inquiring into the nature 
 of the human understanding, as preliminary to the inquiry 
 into the nature of the world, struck the right point, and with 
 his school the development of the concept of experience in 
 modern times assumes the character of a methodological inquiry. 
 
His great merit lies in the fact that he was the first one to 
 make a distinction between primary and secondary qualities 
 of things. There are qualities of things with which our mind 
 is impressed through the medium of our senses in the same 
 way as the Stoics argued, but these qualities are not the sum 
 total of the world of objectivity. There are qualities in addition 
 to those primary ones, which are in us, such as: color, tone, 
 etc. These secondary qualities are produced in us as a result 
 of the way in which our senses are affected by these primary 
 qualities of things. The impressions thus produced form for 
 Locke the sensuous experience. These experiences form the 
 ideas of our mind which are the basis of knowledge. 
 
 But history was to repeat itself. The same opposition 
 that the Stoics had to face became now the lot of the Lockian 
 school. Hume, the profoundest of modern sceptics, carried 
 Locke's theory to its logical consequences and denied the possi- 
 bility of knowledge of primary qualities at all. In the eternal 
 flux of images there is no room for even a permanent mind. 
 All there is are impressions or sensations and the union of 
 these. By force of habit we are accustomed to group these 
 in a necessary relation. We are nothing but a lot of states of 
 consciousness made up of the sum of our sensuous intuitions and 
 ideas upon these. 
 
 If this be true, then Hume's, as well as the Pyrrhonic 
 scepticism before him, left a consciousness unexplained — a stuff 
 to be examined. And this task was taken up by Kant. So far 
 as our sensuous intuitions go, Kant admits, Hume was right. 
 But what about the consciousness that acts upon these in- 
 tuitions ? Such an ego was denied by Hume, but since no sat- 
 isfactory logical account of such facts as memory and identity 
 of personality was rendered, a reconstruction of Hume's theory 
 became necessary. The school of Leibnitz, on the other hand, 
 of which Kant was then still an adherent, while recognizing 
 the self-activity of the mind and certain innate possessions of 
 
XI 
 
 it, had arrived at its standpoint not epistemologicaliy or criti- 
 cally, but dogmatically. In this conflict between the two op- 
 posing schools Kant saw his opportunity. Intnitions of the 
 senses, Kant says, give us sensations, disconnected, chaotic ap- 
 pearances, but without them the mind can know nothing, be- 
 cause they serve as the material of knowledge. The mind must 
 react upon them, put them together and place them, as it were, 
 in their respective groups — hold together and synthesize them, 
 so that knowledge may arise. Through this synthesis, on the 
 part of the understanding, of the intuitions received through the 
 senses, experience arises. This experience is the content of con- 
 sciousness, the knowledge, the criterion of truth. Before we 
 proceed with our examination of the history of the further de- 
 velopment of the concept of experience up to the present day, 
 we must take account of the way in which Kant reached these 
 conclusions. 
 
 He took an object of knowledge and analyzed it and found 
 (1) that we have sensuous intuitions and (2) that there are 
 elements in it contributed by the understanding. A further 
 analysis of intuitions reveals the fact that there are two a priori 
 elements of space and time under which all intuitions must be 
 subsumed. They are like colored glasses, through which we 
 must look in order to see. Now it becomes the function of the 
 mind to act upon these intuitions by means of categories or laws 
 of the understanding. They are universal and necessary con- 
 ditions under which we must subsume the sensuous perceptions 
 in order to be able to judge intelligently. And this necessity 
 means for Kant a justification of their a priori nature. It is 
 not that the a priori forms have been there before we began 
 to know (in the Leibnitzian sense innate), but we put them 
 there as a necessary presupposition to any experience, as a 
 synthesizing unity of the manifold intuitions. It would be 
 well to stop here with our quest, for in Kant's theory the 
 concept of experience is in its full bloom. But Kantianism, 
 
Xll 
 
 after a thorough exploration of this great field of knowledge, 
 concludes with a duality in which the factors are separated by a 
 deep chasm. Through experience we attain to knowledge of 
 the phenomenal world order. As to the things-in- themselves, 
 the noumena, the substratum behind the phenomenal world, 
 these we cannot know, because they are in a range outside of 
 any possible experience. 
 
 The successors of Kant, Eichte and Hegel under- 
 took to bridge this abyss. In doing it they continued to develop 
 the concept of experience. Fichte explains away the thing-in- 
 itself by making individual freedom the source of it and Hegel 
 makes it dependent upon Absolute experience. Another impor- 
 tant divergence from Kant is to be noted. While Kant derives 
 the knowledge of the categories by an empirical study of judg- 
 ments, Fichte and Hegel attempt to arrive at them by the dia- 
 lectical movement of thought itself. The Ego first posits itself. 
 But it recognizes the non-Ego as its object of consciousness, 
 which serves to give a content to the original Ego and produces 
 a third Egohood, a subject-objectivity. This movement com- 
 pletes itself in a logical way. Through the Ego positing itself 
 we get, according to the principle of identity, the category of 
 quality; by its opposing itself to the non-Ego we get, accord- 
 ing to the principle of contradiction, the category of quantity; 
 by uniting the two, Ego and non-Ego, we get, according to the 
 principles of excluded middle and sufficient reason, the cate- 
 gories of relation and modality. There is, then, a constant gene- 
 sis of these categories. But why a genesis ? Because experience, 
 according to Eichte, arises from an act that springs from a feel- 
 ing of necessity. He demands that Ave must not observe what 
 the consciousness does, but how it must act in order to gain 
 experience. And Hegel assents to this, but attains the cate- 
 gories through genesis of an absolute experience. Experience, 
 then, in Eichte's and Hegel's philosophy is the same as in 
 Kant's, but in its genesis and application the abyss between 
 
Xlll 
 
 the duality of the phenomenal and noumenal world order is 
 here done away with, the whole world being a manifestation 
 of a noumenal mind. 
 
 We have now come on to the period in the history of 
 philosophy where no new theory of the concept of experience 
 is advanced. As a result of the various theories of the concept 
 we have learned the various methods whereby the concept of 
 experience is attained. In order to close with the historical 
 development of the concept of experience, we must also take 
 account of the manner in which Herbart attempts to get at 
 reality by treating of experience. Experiences, according to 
 him, from whatever functions they may result, are a necessary 
 precondition to knowledge. But we must not accept them at 
 their face value. We must compare various experiences of 
 the same sort and remove whatever contradictions, uncertainties 
 or ambiguities may arise and thus gain a clear and distinct 
 insight into the knowledge sought. 
 
 The foregoing is an outline of the development of 
 the concept of experience. It becomes now necessary to see what 
 practical consequences this theory entails; for, after all, of 
 what use are theories, if not practically applied in our conduct 
 of life. For, since weight is placed upon the importance of the 
 individual, we must take account of the practical application 
 of every theory. The Pragmatism of to-day takes up this 
 question. It tires of these theoretical subtleties. It claims that 
 no theory in particular can stand a searching scrutiny. We 
 must, after all, go back to the Empiricism of Hume. All 
 knowledge resolves itself ultimately into belief and rightly so. 
 We assume the truth as a practical necessity ex hypothesi. Ex- 
 perience, no matter what the particular one may be, is the 
 criterion of truth. We must observe what difference a certain 
 experience, a certain state or content of consciousness produces, 
 and if this difference is the same in every case of the same 
 experience, we have a perfect right to assume and believe for 
 
XIV 
 
 practical purposes that this experience gives the truth. Prag- 
 matism, then, says that if your experience be the result of a 
 sensuous intuition acting upon a passive mind (Empirical), or 
 the synthesized intuitions by an active understanding (Criti- 
 cal), or, again, the result of a fact-act, a unity of subject-objec- 
 tivity (Fichte and Hegel's), it is practically the truth as long 
 as it gives the same idea with each. test. 
 
 With these preparatory remarks, we can begin the exposi- 
 tion of our subject matter in detail: 
 
 (1) To trace history of the concept of experience from 
 the time it became a criterion of truth. 
 
 (2) To show the motives which actuated the various 
 thinkers in adopting experience as a criterion for estimating 
 the validity of our knowledge of the world. 
 
 (3) To show the growth of the concept, in the history 
 of philosophy, as an organic one (each philosopher completing 
 or building up his concept as a result of inadequacies he found 
 in preceding philosophers — especially true in the Lockian and 
 Kantian movement). 
 
The concept of experience receives its first scientific stamp 
 in the Stoic i\xitEipia pteSodixrj as a npir-qpiov of truth. Al- 
 though Aristotle speaks of Kpivdbv and Kpivovra*, it was not 
 in the meaning of the Stoic criterion, for he speaks of it in 
 connection with such idle questions as waking and sleeping. 
 The Stoics demand sensuous distinctness in their mode of cog- 
 nition, and this, they argue, arises from objects of experience. 
 All knowledge, therefore, based upon this assertion arises from 
 sensuous perceptions. The soul resembles a blank piece of 
 paper, upon which representations are afterwards written by 
 our senses. Experience, then, as a criterion of knowledge 
 was Kara\rf7zrim) qjarraffia — the representation which, be- 
 ing produced in us by the object, is able, as it were, to take 
 hold or grasp ( Karakafifiav^iv ) that object. Zeno defines 
 representation as an impression upon the soui(TV7rGjffi5 evipvxv) 
 and Cleanthes compares it to the impression made upon a piece 
 of wax; but Chryppopus opposes the definition of Zeno, taken 
 in its literal sense, and himself defines qjavraaia as an altera 
 tion in the soul {irepoicD(ji5 >/'vxf/s)' The cpavraaia itself 
 is only a state ( na^^s) produced in the soul to which it 
 announces both its existence and that of its object. They fur 
 ther continue to argue that, through our perceptions of external 
 objects and also of internal states, the originally vacant soul 
 is filled with images, as if with written characters (Goanep 
 
 * Metaphys. IV, 6. 
 
16 
 
 X<xpTGov evepyov eh a7roypa(pr/r),2Ln& then the memory thereof 
 remains behind. From the combination of similar memories 
 arises experience as to tgdv ojuoeidoov 7tXrjBos. 
 
 The concept is formed from single perceptions by general- 
 ization, which may be either a spontaneous or unconscious 
 (dre7riT€x vr / r o5) act or a conscious and methodical one ( 6i 
 vjuerepas diSaffxaXias nai e7Tipe\eia5 ) ; so that in the former 
 case "common ideas" or "anticipations" e'vvoim xowai or 
 7rpo\?'/ipei5) are formed ; in the latter, concepts. Common ideas 
 are general notions developed in the course of the nature of all 
 men.* These ideas (although termed epiqjvroi 7tpo\?'fi}:ei3) 
 were not viewed by the earlier Stoics at least as innate, but 
 only as the natural outgrowth from perceptions. Rationality 
 is a product of the progressing development of the individual; 
 it is generally "agglomerated" ( Gwa^poi^Lrai ) out of his 
 perceptions and representations until about the fourteenth year 
 of life. It is only then that man is able to form concepts, judg- 
 ments and syllogisms, for their formation depends on the ob- 
 servance of certain rules, which he could not possibly grasp 
 during the undeveloped stage. Here we have, for the first time 
 in the history of philosophy, the exposition and the definition 
 of the concept of experience. The elements entering into the 
 making up of the concept are the idea of sensation of the 
 functioning sense-organs and the idea of an activity in the 
 mind called forth by the stimulus of the senses. This stimulus 
 through the senses then gives rise to a self-realization of the 
 consciousness of the individual. 
 
 The Stoics, on the borderline of ancient thought, are the 
 only philosophers who first defined and expounded a theory of 
 the concept of experience both from a logical and a psychologi- 
 cal standpoint. 
 
 * Diog. L. VII, 54. 
 
17 
 
 II. 
 
 During the mediaeval period philosophy is assuming a 
 theological character, and not until man began to adjust the 
 disciplines to a scientific standard can we find the concept of 
 experience in its growth. Toward the end of this period Wil- 
 liam of Occam speaks of the concept oi experience from a logi- 
 cal point of view. He argues that the fundamental principles 
 of science are obtained from experience by induction. The 
 concept of experience is defined by him as a process of percep- 
 tion and thought regulated by norms of logic. The knowledge 
 of whether a thing is or is not, Occam claims, we get by in- 
 tuition. We can only gain the knowledge of the existence of 
 individuals, not of universals, for these are general concepts 
 formed in thought by abstraction. And in order to know the 
 particular we must resort to experience. By judgment we can 
 come into possession of knowledge. The act of judgment (actus 
 judicativus), however, presupposes the act of apprehension 
 (actus apprehensivus). Our states of consciousness as such we 
 know by experience only; their essence, however, we cannot 
 know, because experience cannot there be applied as a proof 
 on behalf of an hypothesis. It is evident, then, why Occam 
 affirms that science is the knowledge of the necessarily true, 
 which knowledge can be generated by the agency of syllogistical 
 thinking, whose fundamental principles are obtained from 
 experience by induction. He does not show, however, how it is 
 possible for apodictical knowledge to rest on the basis of expe- 
 rience. Consequently he was not protected against the objec- 
 tion of the subjective a priori philosophers, namely, that the 
 principles on which the generalization of experience depends 
 cannot themselves be derived from experience. From the above 
 statements and from the fact that he relegates all knowledge 
 transcending experience to the sphere of mere faith, we can 
 see that the concept of experience begins to loom up in Occam's 
 philosophy as a criterion of validity. 
 
18 
 
 III. 
 
 During the period extending from the Stoics to modern 
 times the development of the concept of experience suffers a 
 sort of hibernating slumber, only to awaken again in the earlier 
 period of modern times. The first sign of it we find in the 
 works of Paracelsus, the physician. He mentions the concept 
 of experience in the words : Erf ahrung, Erf ahrenheit, Erf ahr- 
 nuss and Experienz. These termini contain for him a theory 
 of knowledge. 
 
 The following will, however, prove that in one passage he 
 regards experience as a logical concept and again places it out- 
 side of philosophy. He says: "Das Experimentum ad fortem 
 geht ohne die scientia ; aber Experimentia mit der Gewissheit 
 wohin zu gebrauchen mit der scientia. Denn scientia ist die 
 Mutter der Experienz. Ohne der scientia ist nichts da."* On 
 the other hand, he says : "Also ist die Arzney im Anf ang gestan- 
 den, dass keine Theorica gewesen ist, allein eine Erfahren- 
 heit."t The termini Experientia and Experienz stand for 
 the concept of experience (for they are spoken of in connection 
 with scientific problems), while the terminus Erf ahrenheit 
 stands for data of experience. 
 
 During the period of independent and scientific research 
 we find here and there a mention of experience, but not as a 
 logical concept. Data of experience are here required from 
 experiments in order to study the law of natural forces. Ex- 
 perience becomes, however, the terminus a quo at all events and 
 in this fact we find the true development of a subsequent 
 criterion of all knowledge. It marks the period of Empiricism 
 from the Stoic eunsipia up to Locke. It asserts that the 
 method of philosophical enquiry is experiment, and philosophi- 
 cal knowledge is limited to objects of experience. 
 
 * Laoyr. Medicor. op. 6. 
 
 t Commentaries on the Aphorisms of Hypocrates. 
 
19 
 
 IV. 
 
 The empirical school had its adherents in England, be- 
 ginning with Bacon and ending with Locke's theory of knowl- 
 edge ; in France with Condillac's sensualism, and in Germany 
 with Hollbach's materialism. In Locke we find a truly scien- 
 tific elaboration of the concept of experience. Under the con- 
 cept of experience he understands the impressions upon our 
 mind produced from objects which are received through the 
 medium of the senses. In other words, sensuous experience is 
 the sole basis of knowledge. And in this connection we may 
 cite his famous dictum : "Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius 
 fuerit in sensu."* It is in his "Essay Concerning the Human 
 Understanding" that he sets out to elaborate the theory of hi3 
 concept of experience. 
 
 The profound nature of Locke's inquiry is here manifest. 
 Rationalism is now to be subjected to a psychological examina- 
 tion. The study of the nature of the mind becomes more impor- 
 tant than that of the material world. The increasing volume 
 of the mind, as it is fed by all the streams of sensibility, be- 
 comes manifest and the study thereof gives an impetus to later 
 investigations in Psychology. In undertaking this profound 
 task Locke becomes the father of modern Psychology. 
 
 Now, we have seen above what Locke understands by ex- 
 perience. Is there any part of experience which is native to 
 the mind and not derived from outside ? Locke answers in 
 the negative. 
 
 It becomes necessary, before leading up to the discussion 
 of the theory of experience as a source of our ideas, to examine 
 the false pretensions of Rationalism by carefully looking into 
 the facts of consciousness and the manner in which our ideas 
 originate. This relates to the supposed existence of innate ideas. 
 "When men have found some genera!, propositions that could 
 
 * Locke, Eesay Concerning Human Understanding, Book II, Chap. I, 24. 
 
20 
 
 not be doubted of as soon as understood, it was a short and easy 
 way to conclude them innate."* The second step in the ex- 
 planation of the theory of the concept of experience is to estab- 
 lish the empirical explanation of experience. 
 
 Locke refutes the theory of innate ideas (xoiral evvoiai). 
 If ideas are innate, they are a mystery not to be investigated 
 or explained. He argues against this theory by taking the 
 example of the consciousness or mind of a child, idiot and 
 savage. Is the principle of contradiction, for instance (which, 
 according to Rationalism, is innate and necessary to experi- 
 ence), already existing in the mind of the infant, whose at- 
 tainments go no further than the ability to scream when it is 
 uncomfortable ?f 
 
 If, however, it is argued that these ideas are dormant in 
 the minds of new-born men and become exhibited in conscious- 
 ness as the reason matures, it would be tantamount to saying 
 that reason makes men know what they knew already. If mathe- 
 matical truths are innate, all relations of space and time must 
 be so equally; if self-evident propositions are innate, then 
 such truths as that sweet is not bitter, black is not white, must 
 bs innate also. If, however, the human child does not come 
 into the world with an inborn treasure of certainties, truths and 
 conceptions, where then is the true origin, the only primary 
 source of all our ideas and knowledge to be sought? 
 
 The answer is: In experience alone, which we receive 
 through the gates of our senses. Or, as quoted above, "Is"ihil 
 est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu."$ 
 
 The soul is originally a tabula rasa,§ a blank sheet of paper 
 
 * Op. Cit., Book I, Chap. IV, 24. 
 t Book I, Chap. Ill, 2. 
 t Book II, Chap. I, 2. 
 § Book II, Chap. I, 24. 
 
21 
 
 upon which sensations are written at will. The end organs are 
 the avenues conducting them to the mind. Thus ideas are 
 created. The soul is as little able to create for itself ideas 
 out of nothing or to destroy those which have been framed 
 as man is to create or destroy the smallest mote in the sunbeam. 
 No idea of color can be given to the blind or of sound to 
 the deaf. 
 
 Reflection is opposed to sensation. The latter is experience 
 of the external world, the former of the inner one, namely, 
 a mental state. But even internal reflection would be impossi- 
 ble if sensation did not first stimulate this state of mind. The 
 mind in this state is sometimes active, sometimes passive. Per- 
 ception is the representation of things external given by sensible 
 impressions. The mind in this is purely passive ; it is as power- 
 less to escape or alter these impressions as a mirror to change 
 the impressions made in it. It is, therefore, an attenuated 
 form of external experience. Retention is the revival of former 
 representations, and the mind in this is not wholly passive. 
 There is a natural defect of the human mind associated with 
 the faculty of recollection, namely, that the latter only recalls 
 its objects in a succession or by an association. " Although 
 we may conceive some superior, created, intellectual beings, 
 which in the faculty may have constantly in view the whole 
 scene of all their former actions, wherein no one of the thoughts 
 they have ever had may slip out of their sight,* the human 
 mind has no such power. 
 
 All the functions of the senses belong also to the lower ani- 
 mals. The highest attribute of reason, however, of which lower 
 animals are bereft, is to compare, distinguish, unite and sepa- 
 rate ; and in this the human mind far surpasses that of brutes 
 in virtue of the gift of abstraction, or universal notions, which 
 he alone possesses. In acquiring experience the mind, as we 
 
 * Essay, Book I, Chap. Ill, 26. 
 
22 
 
 Lave seen, is passive. But in the higher processes of reason 
 and understanding, which are stimulated by the material of 
 perception, the mind becomes active. 
 
 In all this we see a general outline of the analysis of men- 
 tal operations and their dependence on the world of sense. 
 Through this analysis of the nature of our knowledge Locke 
 then is led to draw another important distinction between sen- 
 sations and the real essential qualities of bodies — or the dis- 
 tinction between primary and secondary qualities of bodies. 
 If we can only learn by experience of the external world as 
 much as affections of our senses tell us, it becomes a question 
 how much of the data of experience are due to this subjective 
 element, and must be allowed for accordingly, if we wish to 
 attain to knowledge of the thing as it is in itself. It is 
 obvious, for instance, that the sweetness of sugar exists in our 
 palate, heat, light, color are feelings in me, but they do not 
 constitute the qualities in things, and can only be regarded 
 as the effects produced by the objects on our organs of sense. 
 What then are the qualities pertaining to things in themselves ? 
 Obviously these primary and original qualities which are in- 
 separable from the idea of matter are the same under all cir- 
 cumstances, and present in the smallest atoms such qualities 
 as, for instance, solidity, extension, figure, position and number 
 of parts, motion, etc. "These ideas of primary qualities of 
 bodies are resemblances of them, and their patterns directly 
 exist in the bodies themselves ; but the ideas, produced in us 
 by secondary qualities, have no resemblance to them at all. 
 There is nothing like some of our ideas existing in the bodies 
 themselves. The bodies are only the power to produce those 
 sensations in us, and what is sweet, bine, or warm in idea, is 
 but the certain bulk, figure and motion of the insensible parts 
 in the bodies themselves which affect us in particular ways.'' 
 
 * Essay, Book IT, Chap. VIIT, 9, 10. 
 
23 
 
 These primary qualities are also derived by sensation, but 
 not modified by it. 
 
 Of space and time, lie says, we obtain an idea by experi- 
 ence, namely, sight and touch. These stock ideas are capable of 
 innumerable modifications and this ieads us to the idea of 
 infinity. The position of an object can only be determined in 
 relation to something else. Without space neither solidity nor 
 motion is possible ; but the latter, the true qualities of matter, 
 differ toto coelo from space. As to time, he argues, we reach 
 the conception of it by reflecting upon our feelings and thoughts 
 in the order in which they succeed each other in the mind; 
 without perceptions, we should not have the idea or duration of 
 time. The idea of succession cannot be derived from motion; 
 on the contrary, the latter has to be translated into mental 
 sequence. As the idea of space, so does the idea of time con- 
 duct us to that of infinity, i.e., to the idea of eternity. 
 
 The ideas of liberty we get from the inner experience of our 
 will — a mental inclination to choose. 
 
 About the idea of material and immaterial substance Locke 
 says: They are something which we imagine underlying and. 
 supporting, now the sensible, perceptible properties of external 
 objects, now the forms of consciousness which we perceive as 
 states. But what this thing may be, we know as little in the 
 one case as in the other. Forces and effects constitute the 
 major part of our ideas of substance. So that what little we 
 know of them we get from experience by hypothesis. But 
 while we cannot possibly conceive the production of these 
 effects, we have constant experience of all our voluntary motions 
 as produced in us by the free action or thought of our own 
 minds only. In a word, nil our ide^.s of substance are but 
 "collections of simple ideas with a supposition of something to 
 which thev belong and in which thev subsist."* 
 
 * Essay, Book II, Chap. XXITE 
 
24 
 
 The complex ideas he divides into three classes : Modes, re- 
 lations and substances. Our daily experience of the alterations 
 in external things, the observation of the constant change of 
 ideas in our mind, depending partly on external impressions, 
 partly on our choice, leads the human understanding to the 
 conclusion that the same changes that have been observed will 
 also take place in future in the same manner and through the 
 same causes. Receiving impressions is, as above stated, passive 
 power, and reflecting upon them in our minds is active power. 
 And by combining the two processes we get a clear concept. 
 Internal experience teaches us that by mere volition we can 
 set our body in motion. Will is, therefore, a cause to effect a 
 purpose. So we get the ideas of causal relations and other rela- 
 tions by experience. 
 
 In this way Locke proceeds to refer the origin of all knowl- 
 edge to ideas, which constitute our experience. It may seem 
 that he is trying to attain to practical rather than to scientific 
 or theoretical ends. But the thoroughness with which he deals 
 shows that w T e have here, for the first time in history, the con- 
 cept of experience fully developed. Besides differentiating 
 primary from secondary qualities of things, another merit of his 
 was also the profound insight into the nature of general ideas 
 and the connection between them and language, a result also of 
 the development of the concept of experience. Let us see how 
 he does it. 
 
 The faculty of abstraction and the general ideas arising 
 from it are proper to man alone and form the true nature of his 
 reason. Abstraction is the faculty of generalizing under a cer 
 tain name the ideas received from individual things. Every- 
 thing that has to do with the real existence of these single 
 things, such as time and place and other concomitant qualities, 
 must be separated, and the idea alone presented to the under- 
 standing apart and made applicable, under a particular name, 
 to all the things in which it is met. The same color which 
 
25 
 
 I perceive in milk, in snow and in other objects becomes, 
 under the name, white ; in general, an idea for the color of all 
 things which produce it at any time. But the origin of all 
 general ideas is to be found in sensible perceptions.* The 
 simple ideas thence derived cannot be defined, iNo explana- 
 tion will convey any idea to the blind. Words cannot help, 
 for they are only sounds. To endeavor with words to make 
 any one who has not had the experience of the sensations 
 realize the taste of an apple, or its red and white color, is the 
 same as trying to make sound visible and color audible, or rather 
 to make hearing a substitute for all other senses. All imma- 
 terial ideas are originally taken by metaphor from ideas of 
 sensible perception.f When Locke says: "What a vast variety 
 of different ideas does the word triumphus hold together and 
 deliver to us as one species/'i he refers to the fact that it 
 includes the utmost variety of objects, furnished by the wid- 
 est experience. 
 
 Saving now followed up Locke's development and expo- 
 sition of the concept of experience, it may not be out of place 
 to note the essentials and limitations in his theory. 
 
 To the essential and novel additions to philosophic thought 
 belonar the following truths : 
 
 1. The conception that general ideas are true objects of 
 thought and that they are perfected in men by abstraction is 
 an intimation that there is a connection between them and 
 language ; the statement of the problem as to the origin of true 
 ideas and the tracing them back to sensible impressions is the 
 indication of the connection between sense and reason. 
 
 2. Since all our ideas and thoughts proceed from indi- 
 vidual perception or contact with the external world, the idea 
 of substance is inaccessible to human knowledge. 
 
 * Essay, Book II, Chap. II. 
 
 t Essay, Book III, Chaps. Ill and IV. 
 
 t Essay, Book III, Chap. V. 
 
26 
 
 3. The distinction between our sensible impressions and 
 the true qualities of objects — between primary and secondary 
 qualities — points to a future limitation of our knowledge to 
 objects of experience. 
 
 The necessary limitation of all knowledge follows : 
 
 1. The hesitation of Locke between individualism pure 
 and simple , which can only conceive things as they are given 
 by senses and imagination and can therefore never go beyond 
 its subjective standpoint, and the assumption of an objective 
 world actually existing in itself in space and time* is apparent 
 throughout his argument. 
 
 2. This indecision prevented Locke from entering upon a 
 more thorough investigation of the nature of reason, and 
 from showing what nature and characteristics have grown 
 up and been developed through the reception of sense impres- 
 sions. To Locke the mind appears as originally a dark room, 
 into which rays of light from the outer world penetrate by 
 certain rifts and cracks, and so increase and complete the think- 
 ing faculty. The active side of this faculty, however, is much 
 neglected and often entirely overlooked. 
 
 3. Thus the whole function of thought and rational knowl- 
 edge appears as a process affected from and by the world of 
 sense without. In representing the law of causality as a product 
 of experience, Locke suggested Hume's doubt and gave rise to 
 the profound investigations of Kant. 
 
 4. Locke's profound and important view that general ideas 
 are true objects of thought was not as much utilized and de- 
 veloped by him as the importance of the subject and the sim- 
 plicity of the principle allowed and required. It was necessary, 
 
 * I, as an individual, am fixed and determined as the subject of knowl- 
 edge, and it is impossible that I should know the finite object in itself, much 
 less the infinite. I can only know either of these indirectly, in so far as 
 they come within the range of my consciousness, in so far as they are repre- 
 sented in my sensations and my thoughts. Schopenhauer, World as will- and 
 idea. Book I, Chap. V. 
 
27 
 
 and he himself held it to be the chief task of philosophy, to ex- 
 amine carefully into the origin of ideas not from sense-percep- 
 tion and self -observation alone; the origin of ideas from pre- 
 ceding ideas as revealed in the history of human language 
 should have been set forth, too. It is true that in the age of 
 Locke such an undertaking would have been difficult, as the 
 Science of Language did not yet exist. Otherwise Locke would 
 have had to surrender his erroneous belief that man can form 
 ideas from words which are only the conventional signs for ideas 
 already existing in thought.* 
 
 Clearer knowledge on this point would have enabled Locke 
 to define the concepts of thought and of ideas far more sharply, 
 and he would not then have ascribed to mere sense impressions 
 the character and value of ideas. "It is certain that the mind 
 is able to retain and receive distinct ideas long before it has 
 the use of words, or before it comes to that, which we commonly 
 call the use of reason. For a child knows as certainly, before 
 it can speak, the difference between the ideas of sweet and bitter, 
 as it knows afterwards that wormwood and sugar plums are 
 not the same thing. "f Schopenhauer clearly refutes Locke 
 that ideas are originated in partibus orationis when he says : 
 "It is very surprising that no philosopher has yet traced all the 
 various manifestations of reason back to one simple function, 
 which might be recognized in them all, by which they might 
 all be explained and which would therefore be seen to constitute 
 the proper inner nature of reason. The admirable Locke, in- 
 deed, describes abstract universal ideas quite rightly as marking 
 the distinction between man and beast, and Leibnitz repeats 
 this with complete assent. But when Locke comes, in his fourth 
 book, to examine reason itself, he loses sight of this chief char- 
 acteristic altogether, and falls into a hesitating, indefinite, frag- 
 mentary expression of incomplete and second hand opinion."! 
 
 * Max Mueller, Lectures on Science of Language II, P. 75. 
 t Essay, Book I, Chap. I. 
 r t Schopenhauer, Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, Pp. 45, 566-70. 
 
28 
 
 At the same time Locke's concept of experience as a source 
 of ideas has an important bearing on the future philosophy, 
 and this is duly recognized by Schopenhauer in the following 
 passage: "Locke was the first to proclaim the great doctrine 
 that a philosopher who wishes to prove or derive anything 
 from ideas must first investigate the origin of these ideas 
 as to their content, and everything thence deducible must be 
 determined by their origin as the source of all knowledge obtain- 
 able through them. 7 '* 
 
 V. 
 
 In his discussion of the theory of experience Locke had 
 shown that certain qualities considered objective were due to 
 the mind, but he still retained certain primary qualities which, 
 while stamped upon the mind, are also present in the objects. 
 Hume, although adopting Locke's theory of the concept of expe- 
 rience, brushes away the remaining cobwebs of dogmatism in 
 his theory and carries it to its extreme conclusion by denying 
 the possibility of anything which is not sensuous experience or 
 derived from it. Every possible object of knowledge he reduced 
 either to an impression or an idea. "The difference between 
 these consists in the degree of force and liveliness with which 
 they strike upon the mind, and make their way into our thought 
 or consciousness. Those perceptions, which enter with most 
 force and violence, we may name impressions ; and under this 
 name I comprehend, Hume says, all our sensations, passions 
 and emotions, as they make their first appearance in the soul." 
 "By ideas I mean the faint image of these in thinking and 
 reasoning; such as, for instance, are all the perceptions excited 
 by the present discourse, excepting only those which arise from 
 the sight and touch, and excepting the immediate pleasure or 
 uneasiness it may occasion."f 
 
 * Schopenhauer, Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, P. 570. 
 t Hume, Treatise of the Human Nature, Book I, Part I, L. 
 
29 
 
 Hume reaffirms Locke's theory of simple and complex 
 ideas and the fact that they are ultimately traced to single 
 perceptions. These impressions and ideas are the sole contents 
 of the human mind. And if we are to establish the reality of 
 a fact, we must be able to trace it back to a concrete impression, 
 which it reproduces. No matter how much we may try to fix 
 our attention out of ourselves, we never really can advance a 
 step beyond ourselves, nor can we conceive any kind of exist- 
 ence but those perceptions which have appeared in that narrow 
 compass. 
 
 On this ground Hume denies the existence of substance, 
 or rather the fact that we can have any knowledge of it, if it 
 exists at all. We cannot form any idea about it, because it is 
 not given to us through sense-impression. It cannot be derived 
 from reflection, because impressions of reflection resolve them- 
 selves into our passions and emotions, none of which can possi- 
 bly represent a substance. 
 
 The idea of substance, therefore, it nothing but a collection 
 of simple ideas of qualities that are united by the imagination.* 
 He not only denies the existence of the material substance, but 
 also of the spiritual substance, the self, because we cannot get 
 an idea of it from sensuous impressions. Hume says, that, 
 when he enters most intimately into what he calls himself, 
 he always stumbles on some particular perception or other, of 
 heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure, 
 but never can catch himself at any time without a perception 
 and never can observe anything but the perception. 
 
 His most important contribution to philosophy was the 
 analysis of the idea of causality. There seems to be an all-per- 
 vading relation which stands between ideas and our self, that 
 makes knowledge possible, namely, the relation of cause and 
 effect. Here again he demands : what is the impression from 
 
 * Book I, Part I, 6. 
 
30 
 
 which the idea of cause is derived V* An impinging ball will 
 cause the motion in the other, but we cannot perceive any other 
 causal relation between the action of the ball and our mind. 
 We find such relations present as contiguity and succession and 
 from these perhaps the idea of relation must be derived. But 
 these do not exhaust causation, for an idea may be contiguous 
 and prior to another without being considered as its cause. 
 We may now add the idea of necessary connection. But then 
 where is the impression from which this idea can be derived? 
 Hume, therefore, throws out the idea of necessity and with 
 it the idea of causality. We can only get knowledge of things 
 that are given us in our sensuous experience. The question 
 now is: Since there is no causal relation and everything is in 
 constant flux, how do we come to imagine that we have things 
 before us, and that they affect each other ? How do we know 
 that a chair is not a table ? Hume answers, that it is due to our 
 habit of constantly associating certain ideas with the various 
 impressions, and thereby we are enabled to recognize the ob- 
 jects on account of their similarity to those ideas arrived at 
 during past experiences. The relation then that stands be- 
 tween us and the world is the constant conjunction of ideas, 
 the force of custom or habit. 
 
 Hume comes then to the conclusion, (1) that the basis of all 
 knowledge is an experience which contains no a priori factors 
 (to use Kant's expression), but is solely impression, and (2) 
 that he must consequently deny the existence of ideas such as 
 substance and causality, as they are extra-experiential and there- 
 fore unwarranted. 
 
 The influence that Hume exerted on Kant is evident from 
 the following: 
 
 (1) The negation of the idea of the self and the idea of 
 causality and the attributing of these ideas to habit aroused 
 Kant from his dogmatic slumber. 
 
 * Book I, Part III, 2. 
 
31 
 
 (2) Hume's consistency in denying in his account of ex- 
 perience the objective existence of substance and causality 
 aroused in Kant the need of supplementing that account and 
 deriving substance and causality from non-empirical sources.* 
 These destructive criticisms in the theory of Hume make him 
 the proper stepping stone to Kant's philosophy. 
 
 VI. 
 
 This leads us to the consideration of Kant's concept of ex- 
 perience. He treats the concept of experience manifestly in a 
 different way from Locke. 
 
 "All knowledge, he avers, begins with experience, but not 
 all knowledge springs from experience. "f (Locke had said, 
 all knowledge springs from experience.) In this sentence the 
 concept of experience manifests itself as the problem, the solu- 
 tion of which is the business of the Critique of Pure Reason. 
 Kant discovered, as it were, a new phase of the concept of ex- 
 perience, one which Locke and Hume had denied. And it de- 
 pends solely upon the precise form and content of this concept, 
 that he should reconcile the legitimate demands of the sceptical 
 Empiricism and the dogmatism of Pure Reason. 
 
 Experience, to him, is a continuous combination of sensu- 
 ous intuitions — a synthesis by the understanding, which elabo- 
 rates the raw material of sensation. !Now, by abstracting 
 the work of the understanding from this concept, there re- 
 mains sensation. In studying the component parts of sen- 
 sation, Kant found it to consist of a material and formal 
 element. There are sensations, such as color, tone, etc., 
 but they appear in certain forms. These forms are those 
 of space and time. These formal elements, however, are both 
 
 * Kant, Prolegomena, Preface. 
 
 t Intro., Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, I. 
 
32 
 
 pure intuitions, a priori, and not derived from experience, 
 for experience will show us that space and time exist, but it 
 will never show us that these are a conditio sine qua non of in- 
 tuition. Experience tells us, indeed, that something is, but not 
 that it must necessarily be so and not otherwise.* Space and 
 time cannot be removed from external objects or events, for in 
 order to gain the impression of the external world, we must 
 have the intuition of space and time as a conditio sine qua non. 
 It would be a wrong experience from which space and time are 
 borrowed. iNo experience is sufficient to give us space and 
 time, which are the formal elements of all sensations. These 
 forms can be compared with a sort of colored spectacles, through 
 which we must look all the time, in order to get hold of the 
 world around us. Without them we would be totally blind. 
 Space and time, then, are given to us as a priori forms of all 
 intuitions. 
 
 The second half of the sentence, as quoted above, begins 
 with a "but" ; "but not all knowledge springs from experi- 
 ence." The significance of this is apparent, for there is a mani- 
 fest difference between begin and spring. All knowledge begins 
 in relation to space and time. There is only a nporepov or 
 " arepov rpos r/^tds but no nporepov anXcoS. Here Kant's ac- 
 count of experience differentiates itself in a very marked degree 
 from that of Locke. There may be a more or less complicated 
 cause of knowledge. And this cause can only be in the suc- 
 cession of my experience as it is synthesized by the mind. The 
 causal nexus is not a mere association, as Hume had affirmed. 
 So that, while all knowledge begins necessarily with associa- 
 tions of sensuous intuitions, we may find an heterogeneous 
 arrangement in mere association and no intelligible knowledge 
 as yet. The additional aspect of transformation necessary we 
 shall consider presently. 
 
 * Critique of Pure Reason, Intro., Part III. 
 
33 
 
 The sensuous intuitions of space and time, — which are a 
 priori forms, — constitute the passive receptivity of the mind. 
 All phenomena are put into these forms. This form of expe- 
 rience alone, however, conveys no intelligent knowledge. It is 
 the combination of this given material with the spontaneous 
 activity of the understanding, elaborating these intuitions by 
 its categories or laws that produce experience, from which 
 knowledge springs. One factor in the make-up of experience 
 without the other is of no value ; both factors are necessary. 
 This he particularly illustrates in the sentence: "Thoughts 
 without contents (sensuous intuitions) are empty, intuitions 
 without concepts are blind."* Without either of these, thoughts 
 would be meaningless and knowledge impossible. The under- 
 standing can perceive nothing and the sense can think nothing. 
 All sensations depend upon affections of the senses and all con- 
 cepts upon the functioning understanding. From the work of 
 the understanding through its categories upon the intuitions 
 does experience arise. The a priori forms of the mind thus 
 become the root of our knowledge and the universal and neces-. 
 sary in the world depend upon this factor of experience (which 
 is itself not derived from experience) . In this way experience 
 loses its old meaning in the sense of Locke (tabula rasa; 
 passivity). "Experience, therefore, is produced by the under- 
 standing out of the raw materials of sensation. f In this sen- 
 tence we have both sources of experience, its beginning in sensa- 
 tion and its springing from understanding. Through the first 
 process of external experience, objects are given to us, through 
 the second process of inner experience objects are known by us. 
 Intuitions and understanding supplement each other in the 
 formation of experience. The inchoate matter of feeling given 
 through sense perception receives its form from the a priori 
 concepts of the understanding, and the world of conscious 
 
 * Critique of Pure Reason, P. 41, Muellers Trans. 
 
 t Critique of Pure Reason, Transcendental Analytic, passim. 
 
34 
 
 experience arises. True cognition a priori therefore implies 
 experience in order to be of any value at all, while experience 
 in so far as it is necessary and universal (in other words ob- 
 jectively valid) implies cognition a priori. In this way Kant 
 reconciles Rationalism and Empiricism. The activity of the 
 mind is exerted validly only upon experience, and experience 
 is possible only by means of a system of pure conceptions, con- 
 ditioned by an a priori unity, or, in other words, through pure 
 reason. 
 
 Now to develop some of the above points in detail, Kant's 
 theory of knowledge falls into three divisions. 
 
 1. The transcendental aesthetic, dealing with sensibility, 
 the receptive element, which intuites the, as yet, blind matter 
 of sensation under the forms of space and time ; 
 
 2. The transcendental analytic, treating of the under- 
 standing, the active element, which contributes to the material 
 furnished by sense, its own categories or conceptions ; 
 
 3. The transcendental dialetic, concerning itself with the 
 Pure Reason, which through its ideas tries to extend the con- 
 ditioned, actual experience, attained by means of the senses and 
 the understanding. 
 
 At the outset let us say, that Kant in speaking of the 
 understanding, alludes to it as the unity of the functions of the 
 mind. The function of the understanding; is to construct ex- 
 perience or cognitions out of intuitions. This it effects by im- 
 posing upon them its pure conceptions, the categories, or, in 
 Kant's own language, subsuming the forms containing the per- 
 ceptions (viz, space ais t d time) under these. Perception, 
 he says, which is purely subjective, merely presupposes the 
 primitive unity of the consciousness together with the laws of 
 the connection of perceptions therein. Knowledge, cognition 
 or experience, on the contrary, which passes beyond the mere 
 subjective connection of sensations, ascribing objective reality 
 
35 
 
 and a definite objective order to the presentations contained in 
 them, presupposes the categories. 
 
 The first part of the Critique giving us formal conditions 
 of sense-experience, was spoken of above. The second section, 
 giving us the categories as forms of thought, we will now dis- 
 cuss. 
 
 How did Kant discover the categories as the formal condi- 
 tions of experience ? In the same manner in which he recog- 
 nized space and time as a priori forms of intuition; in remov- 
 ing the constitutive elements, which we put into objects, from 
 these constituents, which form the material part of experience. 
 It doubtless, therefore, appears that the a priorism is known 
 through reflection upon that which we possess in experience. 
 It certainly could not be different, for the first sentence, "All 
 knowledge begins with experience/' shows it conclusively. 
 When Kant asks, "How are synthetic judgments a priori possi- 
 ble ?" he answers that the possibility depends upon the syn- 
 thetic unity which we put into the things. This synthetic unity 
 manifests itself in the categories. The categories are to be un- 
 derstood as a priori from a three-fold aspect, namely: (1) they 
 are called a priori as concepts of the understanding, (.2) as 
 such they are separate from the elements of knowledge, and 
 (3) after intuitions are subsumed under them, they become 
 forms of experience. Thus Kant conceives them apart from 
 any empirical cognition and yet claims for them an objective 
 validity, resting this claim, as above, on the fact that it is only 
 through them that experience in what concerns the forms of 
 thought is possible, and so they relate a priori to objects of 
 experience.* 
 
 How, then, does the mind transform sense-experience into 
 knowledge by means of the categories ? By subsuming the 
 intuition under the categories. This subsumption occurs in the 
 
 * Critique of Pure Reason, Transcendental Deduct, of the Categories 
 Section, passim. 
 
36 
 
 form of judgments. Experience, in fact, is a series of judg- 
 ments. For instance, when we say, This is red, we pronounce 
 a judgment. There are certain laws, then, which prescribe the 
 course which the categories must follow. It would be wrong 
 to say that this red color is long or short, or that the hardness 
 of the table lasts five minutes, putting it in relation to time. In 
 order that we may judge intelligently we are bound to adhere 
 to certain rules of the understanding, e. g., the axioms of intui- 
 tion, which say, that all phenomena are, with reference to their 
 intuition, extensive quantities ; anticipations of perception, 
 which say that the principle which anticipates all perceptions 
 as such is this : In all phenomena sensation, and the Real which 
 corresponds to it in the object (realitas phenomenon), has an 
 intensive quantity, that is, a degree ; the analogies of experience, 
 the general principle of which is : All phenomena, as far as 
 their existence is concerned, are subject a priori to rules, de- 
 termining their mutual relation in one and the same time, etc. * 
 
 In considering the elements of experience we found that 
 one of these was sensuous intuition, and that the categories had 
 their function in transforming these intuitions into knowledge. 
 We shall also find that for us the categories have no meaning 
 unless applied either to sense experience or to possible expe- 
 rience. The concepts of the understanding, to repeat, are ap- 
 plicable only to objects of sensible intuition, for a faculty of 
 non-sensible or intellectual intuition is not possessed by man. 
 The noumenon, an object of neither sensible nor internal per- 
 ception, is not to be known through the categories. 
 
 While it is outside of the province of the subject to con- 
 sider the noumenon, still, as putting a limit upon our knowl- 
 edge, it is important to refer to it. By the noumenon, Kant 
 means (1) the unknown substratum of experience, a substratum 
 which being outside of space and time (since these are sub- 
 
 * Critique of Pure Reason, Transcendental Analytic, P. 136. 
 
37 
 
 jective), cannot, therefore, be known; (2) ideas which the 
 metaphysical faculty present in mankind, has assumed, as ulti- 
 mate in the world, — ideas which since they are not verifiable or 
 applicable to experience cannot be known by the categories of 
 knowledge. These ideas are the soul, the world as a totality, 
 and Gocl. 
 
 In studying the philosophies of Locke, Hume and Kant, 
 we saw the concept of experience interpreted in a twofold man- 
 ner. In Locke as sensuous intuition and in Kant as a product 
 of the understanding acting upon sensuous intuition. The 
 latter extended Locke's conception of experience by showing 
 that intuitions are not yet experience, and it is not until the 
 activities of the mind develop the impressions that experience 
 arises. Kant, in the words of Hegel, would, however, be an 
 impossibility without Locke : "Kant's idealistische Seite, welche 
 dem Subjecte gewisse Yerhaeltnisse, die Kategorien heissen, 
 vindiciert, ist nichts als die Erweiterimg des Lockianismus."* 
 
 The foregoing is an exposition of Kant's concept of ex- 
 perience, as I understand it to be. This treatise contains the 
 most salient features of his doctrine on that subject. It shall 
 now be my privilege to point out various inconsistencies and 
 limitations of his theory. 
 
 1. He is not clear on the point, as to whether his cate- 
 gories are functions or activities, or whether they are structural 
 forms of the mind. As Schopenhauer points out, there are 
 passages intended to be elucidatory in which the distinction 
 sought to be established is so wiredrawn as to be hardly in- 
 telligible. 
 
 2. Feberwegf and VolkeltJ rightly object, that Kant 
 in excluding the formal conditions of experience from the 
 Ding-an-sich, does not positively prove the incognizability of 
 
 * Hegels Werke, Vol. I, P. 31. 
 
 t Ueberweg, Gesch. der Philosophie, Bd. Ill, P. 185. 
 
 t Volkelt, Kant's Erkenntnisstheorie, Pp. 40-50. 
 
38 
 
 the latter. In asserting that space and time, inasmuch as they 
 are forms of sensibility, cannot obtain in objects as things-in- 
 themselves, he is assuming a dogmatic attitude with regard to 
 it. On the other hand, it cannot be disputed that the basis of 
 our knowledge is a space and time of our own, and Kant is 
 right in saying that the world of noumena is not in this world 
 of space and time (because that is subjective). 
 
 3. Against the Critique of Pure Reason, as undertaken 
 by Kant, it has been objected, that thought can only be scru- 
 tinized by thought, and that to seek to examine the nature of 
 thought antecedent to all real thinking, is like attempting to 
 swim before going into water!* 
 
 4. His statement, that space is a necessary a priori notion, 
 because it is impossible to form a notion of non-existence of 
 space, is no proof of its being a priori. 
 
 5. Kant has not sufficiently justified the double use, 
 which he makes of space, time and the categories, in that he 
 treats them, on the one hand, as mere forms or ways of con- 
 necting the material given in experience, and yet, undeniably, 
 on the other hand, also treats them as something material, viz. : 
 as the matter or content of thought from which we form 
 synthetic judgments a priori. 
 
 6. That space is only the form of the external and not 
 the internal sense, and that time, per contra, is the form of 
 the internal, and indirectly, also of the external sense, are 
 truths to be inferred, in Kant's opinion, from the nature of 
 external and internal experience. But in fact to space belong 
 no less, "phenomena of internal sense," images of perception 
 as such, representations of memory, conceptions, in so far as 
 the concrete representations from which they are abstracted 
 constitute their inseparable basis, and therefore to the judg- 
 ments combined from them, in so far as that, to which the 
 
 * Hegel, Smaller Logic, Introduction. 
 
39 
 
 judgment relates, is also intuitively (through the sensibility) 
 represented. 
 
 VII. 
 
 So far it is evident that both Locke and Kant agree upon, 
 the fact that experience is the basis of knowledge. But knowl- 
 edge of what ? of phenomena. Locke maintains that we can 
 know objects through the experience of our senses and that 
 knowledge is limited to objects of sense only. Kant tells us 
 that we can know only phenomena and that the knowledge of 
 them is valid only in as much as we can verify it in an actual 
 or a possible experience. But noumena, things-in-themselves, 
 we cannot know, because they transcend the sphere of ex- 
 perience. 
 
 Hegel and Herbart, however, contend, that the knowl- 
 edge of the noumena is accessible to us through experience. 
 In this fact lies their importance. The concept of experience 
 assumes an enlarged aspect in the theories of these philosophers 
 and we shall now proceed to consider them in detail. 
 
 Before considering these we must turn to Fichte, who rep- 
 resents the extreme development of Kantianism on the sub- 
 jective or psychological side. 
 
 Fichte, in his Science of Knowledge, draws forth into 
 light the concealed mechanism by means of which conscious- 
 ness is realized. Llis theory rests on a first principle in 
 which the matter and the form of knowledge so condition each 
 other that that principle requires no other to condition it as 
 regards form and content. There are two aspects to conscious- 
 ness, the objective or empirical and the subjective. Kant took 
 up the analysis of experience as a product of our activities. 
 But what about the process of the mind in the making of con- 
 sciousness ? Fichte investigated our mode of action in the 
 conscious process. 
 
 Beginning then with the subject, Fichte maintains, that 
 
40 
 
 the Ego first posits itself, then the non-Ego acts on the Ego 
 and through this reciprocal activity consciousness arises. This 
 is a state or form pins a content or matter. Neither would have 
 a meaning without the other, nor could knowledge arise with- 
 out the interaction of the Ego upon the non-Ego. The most 
 primitive act he assumes to be that by which the unity of the 
 subjective and objective is posited, and he describes this in his 
 First Principle as follows : The Ego posits absolutely its being. 
 He requires that a conception be thought, and then that we 
 observe not what one does when one thinks, but what one must 
 do; here it will be discovered that what is contained in thought, 
 or, rather, precedes it as a conditio sine qua non, is a self- 
 positing or self.* The essential thing is that the absolute, 
 not individual, Ego be conceived as a pure act (not as some- 
 thing active), as pure or absolute knowledge (neither as a know- 
 ing or as a known somewhat), as the self -penetration, for 
 which there is no other word than Ego-hood. To bring to con- 
 sciousness this Ego-hood underlying every Ego is therefore 
 something entirely different from mere self -observation ; it is 
 rather an intellectual intuition before which one's own being 
 vanishes, and which makes its appearance, not as being, but 
 as act. 
 
 To understand the foregoing technical accounts of Fichte, 
 we must see how he agreed with and differed from Kant. 
 Both accepted experience as the subject of investigation. But 
 Kant took experience as an organized structure, and by means 
 of analysis attempted to arrive at the universal forms which 
 made experience possible. Thus, while his categories were a 
 priori forms of the understanding, they were discovered em- 
 pirically by analysis. Fichte, on the other hand, did not take 
 experience for granted at the start, but only the existence of 
 the self or Ego. Thus, he said, the Ego posits itself, meaning 
 
 * Fichte, Science of Knowledge, Part II, Section 1. 
 
41 
 
 it is a primary fact. ISTow what does this imply? That the 
 Ego is the conditio sine qua non of all experience. He pro- 
 ceeds from this self, which must be present in all experience 
 and yet not be limited by it. We have said before that ex- 
 perience is a reciprocal activity between the self and the con- 
 tent, that is between the state, as such, and the content of con- 
 sciousness. This constant activity then suggests Heraclitus' 
 flux of things. Now if we abstract in thought from this active 
 consciousness the form or state, we have, what Fichte terms, 
 the absolute self, the universal Ego, the permanence in this 
 flux. If we say, that because the Ego is posited by itself, it 
 therefore is, we abstract the Ego from the subject — object 
 (the thinking individual). This constitutes the content of the 
 law of thought. Since categories are laws of the Ego, valid 
 only so far as they apply to objects, reality is given to an 
 object only by its being posited by the Ego; i.e., thought under 
 the laws or categories of the Ego. 
 
 The Second Principle is introduced in a manner entirely 
 similar to that in which the First was introduced, that is to 
 say, originally in a descriptive form, later in the form of a 
 postulate. In the descriptive form it runs as follows. To the 
 Ego is opposed the non-Ego (as content of consciousness) ; in 
 the form of a postulate it is required to bring the original 
 opposition of Ego and non-Ego into consciousness. Although 
 outside of ichat takes place by the positing act, nothing new 
 enters, there does enter something new as regards the way in 
 which it takes place. Eichte calls the act itself, and likewise 
 the principle that formulates it, conditioned as regards content 
 and unconditioned as regards form.* Just for that reason, also, 
 is the product of this act designated by the expression non- 
 Ego, which indicates something in a relation. That is, the Ego 
 deals with a content that stands over against it. At the same 
 
 * Fichte, Science of Knowledge, Part III, Section IV. 
 
42 
 
 time were it not for the Ego, that content would not exist. The 
 content Fichte calls the non-Ego. As the fact of its existence 
 is dependent upon the Ego, he calls the non-Ego conditioned 
 in form by the Ego and unconditioned in its matter, because 
 the Ego finds a certain opposition between itself and the non- 
 Ego, an opposition not due to a difference of form between the 
 self and the not-self. 
 
 If these two postulates (the posited Ego and the non-Ego) 
 are granted, the Third, the combination of the two, follows of 
 itself, without, however, the identity of consciousness being lost 
 sight of. Since these two annul each other, the act which shall 
 combine the positing of the Ego and its opposite the (non-Ego) 
 must consist in a reciprocal partial negation or limitation of 
 each by the other. 
 
 If, therefore, the postulate of this partial negation be 
 carried into effect, there results an act which Fichte describes 
 thus : There is a reciprocal activity between the Ego and non- 
 Ego, both uniting into an active consciousness (the subject- 
 objectivity). This consciousness, therefore, involves a duality 
 — best expressed in the German Urtheil — a state or form on 
 the one hand, a content on the other, and a consequent syn- 
 thesis of this duality forming a unity of an active conscious- 
 ness, with a content therein. The First Principle of Fichte, 
 therefore, is analogous to the thinker, who is unconditioned by 
 the content, — the object. The Second Principle is analogous 
 to thought, which is limited partially by the thinker and 
 partially by the object. And the Third Principle is analogous 
 to consciousness, — of which the other two phases are only ab- 
 stractions, which can only arise when the thinker actually 
 thinks and purposely wants to know something. And with it 
 the circle of possible principles is exhausted. Reflection upon 
 the form of this principle should yield first the law of thought 
 of the Ground ; and because Ground (of relation and distinc- 
 tion) lies only in the partial coincidence and falling asunder, 
 
43 
 
 there results, further, from this Principle, the third qualita- 
 tive category: Determination. But, at the same time, — be- 
 cause "partial" is a quantitative conception, — the categories 
 of quantity are therewith known in their proper source. 
 
 These three Principles are related to each other as thesis, 
 antithesis and synthesis, and are at the foundation of the entire 
 investigation. Knowledge arises from ideas of individual con- 
 sciousness. In contrast with those ideas, which may come and 
 go in an involuntary and contingent manner, there maintain 
 themselves other sets of ideas, and these latter are characterized 
 by a "feeling of necessity" that can be distinguished with entire 
 certainty. That is to say, we get notions fleeting and passing by 
 us, without any desire on our part to reflect upon them. On 
 the other hand, there are ideas which arise with a distinct pur- 
 pose, with a desire on our part to examine them. The thinker 
 expressly and purposely wants to compare and distinguish them. 
 These ideas are contents of an active consciousnes. They are 
 manifestly different from the states of consciousness as such, but 
 they influence these states. They are the non-Ego, something 
 other than the Ego, and by the reciprocal activity of this Ego 
 and the non-Ego, knowledge arises. Eichte calls this system of 
 the ideas which emerge with a "purpose" or a "feeling of neces- 
 sity" experience. He thus shows, like Kant, that expe- 
 rience is a synthesis of form (Ego) and content (non-Ego). 
 The forms or categories of the Ego, however, are not assumed, but 
 derived in the dialectic movement by which the abstract Ego 
 and the abstract non-Ego are synthesized into concrete con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Hegel signifies in the main a return from Schelling to 
 Fichte, a giving up of the thought that the living wealth of the 
 world can be derived or deduced from the "Nothing" or abso- 
 lute indifference, and the attempt to raise this empty substance 
 
44 
 
 again to spirit, — to the self-determined subject.* Thus, while 
 Hegel goes back to the Fichtian idea of experience as synthesis 
 of Ego and non-Ego, the Ego with him is not the individual 
 Ego, but that of the Absolute. The categories are derived from 
 "absolute experience." The world with its categories is the 
 self-unfolding of absolute experience. Such knowledge, how- 
 ever, cannot have the form of intuition or immediate perception 
 (Anschauung), which Schelling had claimed for the Ego or the 
 Absolute, but only that of the conception or notion (Begriff). 
 If all that is real or actual is the manifestation of spirit or mind, 
 then logic has to develop the creative self-movement of spirit 
 as a dialectical necessity. The conceptions, of which mind 
 or spirit takes part and analyzes its own content, are the cate- 
 gories of reality, the forms of the cosmic life ; and the task of 
 philosophy is not to describe this realm of forms as a given 
 manifold, but to comprehend them as moments of a single 
 unitary development. The dialectical method, therefore, serves, 
 with Hegel, to determine the essential nature of particular 
 phenomena by the significance which they have as members or 
 links in the self -unfolding of the spirit. He works this problem 
 out in the scheme of the dialectic trinity of Positing, Xegation 
 and Reconciliation. All conceptions, with which the human 
 mind has ever thought reality or its particular groups, are 
 woven together into a unified system. Each retains its assigned 
 place, in which its necessity, its relative justification, is said to 
 become manifest. But each proves by this same treatment tu 
 be only a moment or factor which receives its true value only 
 when it has been put in connection with the rest and introduced 
 into the whole. Antitheses and contradictions of conceptions 
 belong to the nature of the mind itself, and this also to the 
 essential nature of the reality which unfolds itself from it, 
 and their truth consists just in the systematic connection in 
 which the categories follow from one another. 
 * Hegel, Phaenomenologie, Voir. W. II, 14. 
 
45 
 
 Hegel thus also makes use of an inner experience, a unity 
 of subject and object in an active consciousness, but lie ex- 
 tends the term to include Absolute Experience or the Idea, the 
 highest form of experience. 
 
 IX. 
 
 So far we have dealt with the concept of experience in 
 three different phases. Locke demands everywhere a sensuous 
 experience coining from objects, that make their impression 
 upon our mind through the medium of our senses, while Hume 
 does the same thing without referring the sensuous experience 
 to any source at all. 
 
 Kant says: "Xur in der Erfahrung ist die Wahrheit.'' 
 But his experience is a product of the understanding. The 
 subject becomes conscious of this cosmos as his own creation, 
 he gives laws to its forces, and attributes properties to its exist- 
 ence. The nature of the thing-in-itself is unknown to the sub- 
 ject, because he cannot experience it through the medium of 
 the understanding. 
 
 Eichte and Hegel, on the other hand, deduce from the 
 unity of an active, purposive mind the knowledge of the nature 
 of the world. 
 
 In order to logically conclude the history of the develop- 
 ment of the concept of experience, we ought to take into account 
 what Herbart teaches. There is really no advance to be re- 
 corded, in his theory, upon the preceding thinkers. He studies 
 experience in order to have a guide, as it were, which is to lead 
 him to absolute truth; while other philosophers maintain that 
 experience contains the root of truth in itself. 
 
 We start and must start from experience, says Herbart, 
 but it gives us no immediate knowledge. It becomes, however, 
 knowledge, when it is elaborated. Experience sets tasks to 
 thought in as much as the sensations which we experience ar- 
 
46 
 
 range themselves in certain forms and series. And in compar 
 ing and compiling various empirical data with the require- 
 ments of strict Logic, we attain to knowledge. For experience 
 is full of mistakes and contradictions, hence it is necessary to 
 go to something else in which the contradictions should be 
 solved. Every sensation, he argues, gives us an appearance 
 (Schein). Every appearance necessarily implies Being (Sein) 
 — something permanent, which is the cause of sensation. The 
 sensations are not copies of things, nor do they afford us to im- 
 mediate knowledge of things, but they inevitably point to a 
 Being, an absolute position within them. We never can know 
 the things-in-themselves from experience, he agrees with Kant, 
 but we do know from the fact that we have experience, that 
 there are existences as causes of this appearance. And from 
 this fact he also deduces the theory, that experience is the 
 object and foundation of knowledge. The mind does not project 
 knowledge, is not set over against experience, but the latter 
 must be given first before the mind can act. It is impossible 
 to conceive a mind transcending experience. But experience 
 shows us Becoming and change; we deal with appearances 
 which we cannot accept at their face-value. They are apt to be 
 different at different times.. Sound is heard through the medium 
 of solids or liquids, but not in a vacuum. Color is not seen 
 at night as well as in the daytime. There are evidently contra- 
 dictions in experience. Amidst all this change, he asks, where 
 is the permanence ? Our task, then, is to find behind each 
 appearance the underlying Real. Because, if we are not to 
 look for some permanent truth, we are apt to fall into absolute 
 scepticism. Since experience gives us many appearances, there 
 must also be many Reals; a So viel Schein, so viel Sein."* 
 
 The theory of the Real is a metaphysical one. Since the 
 Ego is a Real, we ought to deal with it in Metaphysics, but, 
 
 * Herbart, Psychologie als Wissenschaft, 149, note 2. 
 
47 
 
 since it also underlies our consciousness, Herbart deals with it 
 in his Psychology. As a Eeal endowed with different changing 
 states or qualities, it involves contradictions. And as a psy- 
 chological problem, we must consider such contradictions as 
 appear in the ideality of the subject-object (of Fichte). The 
 contradictions, which this ideality contains, can be removed, 
 when we think the Ego as the permanent, unchanging Real 
 behind the changing appearance, that it exposes to us in expe- 
 rience. The Ego or soul possesses certain powers and activi- 
 ties, and these are nothing else than the force of self-preserva- 
 tion. These forces are variously expressed in the relation of 
 one Real to other Reals. Thus, a Real, by virtue of the force 
 of its activity, becomes the cause of the activity in the related 
 Reals. Conscious experience is the sum total of these 'active 
 relations. During this continuous conflict among the Reals we 
 experience various changes in the (Schein) appearance of the 
 Reals. And what in Psychology we term thinking, feeling and 
 willing, is only a variety of appearances of the self-preservation 
 of the soul. The Real itself during ail these activities remains 
 unchanged. 
 
 Thus, he concludes, that Fichte's "The Ego posits itself" 
 depends upon an inner experience and Heraclitus' "Eternal 
 flux in things" upon external experience, but either position 
 cannot be regarded as final. As a result of this experience, 
 then, he brings out the problem of manifoldness of existing 
 things (Reals). And to explain this, means for him to remove 
 these contradictions in experience. ITence, when a thing is 
 presented in experience with a new quality which it did not 
 possess before, we must, if we are to explain it, go beyond the 
 thing itself and assume the existence of one or more other 
 Reals with which our perception relates it. The difference 
 between the first and second appearance of a given object of 
 experience is to be elucidated by comparing it with another ob- 
 ject of experience itself not yet changed. Activity (which is 
 
48 
 
 also change) only seems to occnr in experience, because we re- 
 late one thing to another thing occurring at intervals of time. 
 Thus, the conception of activity forces itself into consciousness 
 with experience. 
 
 In arguing from phenomena (Schein) to Being (Sein) 
 Herbart consistently asserts that appearance is not an essential 
 quality of Being, but that every true explanation of the sensu- 
 ous world must exhibit appearance as entirely contingent to 
 Being.* So that, while each particular Real is independent of 
 all others,, it is experience that changes and composes qualities. 
 
 It is outside of the province of this thesis to discuss at length 
 the nature of the Reals. One idea in Herbart's mind we must 
 notice, viz. : that Metaphysics must underlie Psychology. 
 
 X. 
 
 In an exposition of this kind it may not be considered out 
 of place to take account of a contemporary doctrine in vogue ; — 
 not strictly dealing with experience as treated above. The whole 
 doctrine is looking upon experience not as theoretical, but as 
 practical, and as determining our attitude not only to knowledge, 
 but to all of life. 
 
 In Kant and his followers Ave have a most intricate analysis 
 of the concept of experience. But after the task is completed 
 we have, in a certain sense, made no further progress with it 
 than with the Empiricist account. Herbart rightly says that 
 experience contains contradictions. The theoretical exposition 
 of Kant, as pointed out, contains more than one difficulty. Ulti- 
 mate knowledge practically becomes impossible and resolves 
 itself into belief. For it matters not now intricate the process 
 may be, which gives us experience, we after all get only ideas 
 and not knowledge of objects. Our contemporaries, like the 
 
 * Herbart, Psj^chologie als Wissenschaft, 149, note 2. 
 
49 
 
 school following the Dogmatists of old, tire of these subtleties, 
 and turn to Radical Empiricism. It is the tendency towards 
 what has been lately named "Pragmatism," the tendency, 
 namely, to characterize and to estimate the processes of thought 
 in terms of practical categories, and to criticise knowledge in 
 the light of its bearings upon conduct, or rather action in general. 
 I say action, because the word practical is not used in this 
 doctrine in the Kantian sense (as used in the term "Practical 
 Reason"). The word "pragmatic," in the Kantian sense, is 
 (in the sense of "having a practical purpose"), — what Pro- 
 fessors James and Peirce have in mind when they speak of 
 "practical." The roots of this doctrine are found in FichteVs 
 philosophy, which is a deliberate synthesis of pragmatism with 
 absolutism. Hegel made the question a fundamental one in 
 various places in his Logic. In the Phaenomenolgie, the 
 romantic biography of the Weltgei&b, we find the principal 
 crises due to the conflicts of the theoretical with the practical 
 interests. And James, in our times, by assuming that the end 
 of man is action, fairly describes the utilitarian spirit of 
 Americans of to-day. 
 
 Peirce speaks of Pragmatism in the following manner: 
 "Consider what effects that might conceivably have practical 
 bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. 
 Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our concep- 
 tion of the object." James maintains that Pragmatism is the 
 "doctrine that the whole 'meaning' of a conception expresses 
 itself in practical consequences," either conduct to be recom- 
 mended or experiences to be expected, if the conception be true, 
 which would be different if it were untrue.* 
 
 Pragmatism, then, lays stress on the fact that there is an 
 organic connection between thought and action, and this connec- 
 tion manifests itself in a concrete rather than in an abstract 
 
 * Baldwin, Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, article Pragmatism. 
 
. 50 
 
 fashion. For we must admit that each different notion tends to 
 produce a different act, and the best method of discussing 
 points of theory is to begin by ascertaining what practical dif- 
 ferences would result if one alternative or the other were true. 
 What is the cash value of a particular truth in terms of par- 
 ticular concrete experience ? This illustrates the position of 
 Hume. Peirce summarizes his own position thus : "Thought 
 in movement has for its only conceivable motive the attainment 
 of belief, or thought at rest. Only when our thought about an 
 object has found its rest in belief can our action on the subject 
 firmly and safely begin. Beliefs, in short, are rules for action ; 
 and the whole function of thought is but one step in the produc- 
 tion of action habits. If there were any part of thought that 
 made no difference in the thought's practical consequences, then 
 that part would be no element of thought's significance."* 
 Thus we see that the most characteristic doctrine of the 
 method before us is that the meaning of an idea, or concept, 
 comes out only as it modifies activity. In the idea itself there 
 seems to be nothing inherent that determines whether its effects 
 will be of one kind or another. All we can say of it is that, if 
 it remains a vital mental content, it will have some sort of 
 overt consequences. All such contents apparently stand on the 
 same level in so far as they are merely beliefs, or opinions. 
 And pragmatism, as expounded by James, holds that our world 
 of fact is in some measure conditioned by previous beliefs, and 
 the order that has once got established reacts back on the ideas 
 that have not as yet emerged into full fact. 
 
 The test of the reality of an idea is its power to influence 
 action, and the way in which any sort of action or conduct comes 
 into existence, is through the instrumentality of the idea or 
 belief that it should be so. That is to say, our conscious atti- 
 tudes are naturally organized with reference to action; hence, 
 
 * Irving King. Pragmatism as a Philosophic Method, Phil. Rev., Vol 
 XII, 5. 
 
51 
 
 they are meaningless unless they in some way modify or pro- 
 duce activity. And this capacity to produce change seems to be 
 conditioned entirely by what is already objectively real. Mere 
 working, however, will not establish the validity of a concept. 
 As James and Royce demand, a working of a certain kind is 
 essential. Not only must we see what difference a concept pro- 
 duces, but what kind of a difference it ought to make, in order 
 to make pragmatism a philosophical doctrine. For instance, y 
 true philosophy must be more than a logical one. It must also 
 be able to awaken active impulses or satisfy aesthetic demands. 
 There are, however, various hinds of active impulses, and there- 
 fore we must look still further for a standard; that is, a thing 
 not rational merely because it makes a difference in conduct. 
 James finds this further criterion in the familiarity of the 
 action that is aroused by the thought; that which suggests cus- 
 tomary movements in which we can easily pass from one thing 
 to another, we regard as rational. The suggested activity must 
 further be congruous with our spontaneous powers, must not 
 baffle or contradict our active propensities. In the above state- 
 ment we find a radical difference from dialectical philosophy. 
 Pragmatism sets over the concept of a rational philosophy 
 against a merely logical one, for it assumes that thought may 
 be logical and yet not reasonable. For after all, we act as 
 though the world of activity was a given fact, and in virtue of 
 this fact, it is valid. Hence, congruity of the new with the old 
 is the test of the reasonableness of the new. So that a thought 
 or experience comes true when proved to produce such new 
 results as are in harmony with old facts. 
 
 To sum up, we may say of pragmatism that, as first pro- 
 posed by Peirce, it primarily furnishes a practical maxim, to 
 the effect that consequences in action or conduct of any concept 
 or idea are really all there can be to the meaning of the concept. 
 It is not, however, mere consequences that concern the prag- 
 matist. There is a "concrete reasonableness" over and above 
 
52 
 
 all concepts, an objective system of which they are to become 
 a part if they refer to real differences in the ultimate constitu- 
 tion of things. 
 
 The emphasis of both James and Peirce is essentially on 
 the practical. The theoretical is constantly to submit to the 
 test of the concrete. And by concrete I mean the conception 
 that finds its proof and test in the analysis of everything that 
 betrays a reflective elaboration in the process of experience. 
 There can be no doubt that it is this that makes pragmatism an 
 attractive doctrine. The man who is impatient with meta- 
 physics feels that here at last he can escape the v^aries of 
 theoretical speculation by referring everything to concrete expe- 
 rience. 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 From the foregoing investigation we may conclude that the 
 concept of experience is elaborated for the first time in the 
 Philosophy of the Stoics. The ancients could not have spoken 
 of the concept of experience in relation to knowledge, for they 
 accepted knowledge as given and ready made. With them it 
 was only a matter of defining what knowledge was, rather than 
 explaining its origin. 
 
 In modern times the theory of the concept of experience 
 becomes significant, for modern philosophy becomes critical. It 
 goes back of the ancients and asks how knowledge is possible at 
 all, and in giving account of a possible knowledge it must 
 necessarily look into the elements that go to make up that 
 knowledge. Such critical procedure demands proofs and tests 
 for the truth of such a possibility, and the concept of experience 
 becomes the basis of knowledge. Up to the time of Locke the 
 ontological and cosmological problem was paramount, but he 
 placed more weight upon the psychological, or rather the episte- 
 mological problem. He examined the ways in which the human 
 mind attains to knowledge, and concluded that through sensuous 
 intuitions we get ideas of objects. The ideas are stamped upon 
 our mind, which is a blank tablet. The senses are the avenues 
 through which the objects project their images and give rise to 
 a consciousness of them. This is the sensuous experience which 
 Locke adopts as his basis of knowledge. This view swayed the 
 mind of the entire Empirical School. 
 
 Locke, however, was not entirely free from the ontological 
 influences of his predecessors. He clearly distinguishes primal 
 
54 
 
 from secondary qualities of things; the latter are produced in 
 us as sensations, such as color, tone, etc., but are not present in 
 objects, while the former, such as bulk, figure, etc., are inherent 
 in the objects themselves, and we only form notions about them 
 by an inner reflection. Such a theory carried to its logical 
 consequence inust become untenable. And Hume clearly shows 
 this fallacy. He agrees with Locke as to the absence of the 
 intellectual factor (in the ideal sense). Then sense-experience 
 is the sole basis of validity. Only our present, momentary 
 sensuous intuitions or those of our past experiences retained 
 in memory are known to us. Since then such ideas as of sub- 
 stance and causality are not mediated to us through sensuous 
 intuitions, we are unable to know anything of them. In carry- 
 ing out Locke's theory to its logical conclusion, Hume gave rise 
 to the profounder investigations of Kant. 
 
 The philosopher from Koenigsberg was neither satisfied 
 with the onesidedness of the theory of the dogmatic-idealistic 
 school of Leibnitz, nor with that of the empirical one of Locke. 
 He started all over again, and as a result gave the concept of 
 experience a new aspect — he was not satisfied with a passive 
 mind. It is the activity of the understanding exerted upon the 
 raw material given through the senses that constitutes Kant's 
 concept of experience. Both elements are the indispensable con- 
 stituents that go to make up knowledge. The senses cannot 
 think and the mind cannot see. The mind receives the impres- 
 sions through the senses and, transvaluing them, gives them 
 form, and thus produces knowledge. Experience, then, is 
 not a terminus a quo but ad quern. Kant, however, deals with 
 the knowledge of appearances, of phenomena. Things as they 
 are in themselves, he maintains, we cannot know, because we 
 cannot verify that knowledge in the sphere of our experience. 
 It remained, then, for Kant's successors to explain how we 
 come to know the noumenal world- order. 
 
 Fichte, in elaborating the concept of experience as a crite- 
 
55 
 
 rion of knowledge, develops the subjective side of Kantianism 
 to its extreme, while Schelling does the same thing with the 
 objective side of Kantianism. Experience, says Fichte, is the 
 fact-act, the synthesizing activity of the mind, the unity of an 
 active, striving, purposive consciousness, the subject-objectivity. 
 
 Hegel tries to blend the theories of Fichte and Schelling. 
 He agrees with Fichte's fact-act and with Schelling as to the 
 possibility of having absolute knowledge. But he objects to 
 their method. He discards Schelling' s method as producing a 
 ready-made knowledge, as if shot out of a pistol. We do not 
 have knowledge, Hegel says, boxed in receptacles ready for us 
 to label at pleasure. In order to attain absolute knowledge, we 
 must pass through a series of degrees. We begin with sensuous 
 appearance, and by the dialectical method develop the concept, 
 until we obtain absolute knowledge of phenomena through a 
 combination of outer and inner experience. The thing-in-itself 
 is only an abstraction. 
 
 And finally, Herbart tried to get all the truth out of all 
 these previous expositions of the concept of experience. He 
 was a sort of an eclectic. He says we begin with experience, 
 and under this term he includes an inner and an outer experi- 
 ence. But we shall find contradictions between what is given 
 from these two sources. We must appeal to Logic, he argues, 
 in order to remove these contradictions and clear up the matter, 
 and thus attain to true knowledge. But experience at all events 
 is the first element in knowledge, and ultimately becomes its 
 basis, for without it knowledge would be impossible. 
 
 In conclusion we noted that, while preceding philosophies 
 as considered, had laid stress upon the intellectual way of ar- 
 riving at truth, Pragmatism, which still is immature as a philo- 
 sophical doctrine and scarcely deserving a place in the history 
 of philosophy, nevertheless marks a healthy tendency, viz. : to 
 consider the problems of the world, not by the intellect alone, 
 but by the whole of man's rational nature. 
 
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57 
 
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58 
 
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