Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/806

 782 LOGIC take form in some discrimination of logic from other varieties which may with it be classed under philosophy in general, and such discrimination is usually effected by laying stress on one or other of the following characteristics. (1) In the whole process of knowledge, it may be said, we are able to distinguish and to regard in isolation the methods according to which, from a combination of various elements, cognition of things grows up, and the laws according to which these elements must be ordered, if our subjective consciousness is to represent accurately and faithfully the relations of things. The laws of knowledge, there being understood by knowledge the whole sum of mental determinations in and through which the world of external and internal experience is realized for us, are of two distinct kinds, natural and normal. For the treatment of the natural laws the most appropriate title is psychology; for that of the normal or regulative laws the title logic is peculiarly appropriate. By the one science knowledge is regarded in its relation to the subjective consciousness, as so much of what enters into and constitutes the world of inner experience ; by the other knowledge is regarded in its relation to truth, to the objective system, as the means whereby, for theoretical or practical purposes, an orderly and verifiable conception of this system is realized. A definite place seems thus secured for logic, but, if one may judge merely from the various attempts to expound the body of logical doctrines from this point of view, the characteristic feature is not yet sufficient to determine the boundaries of the science or the specific nature of its problems. In fact, the feature selected might be accepted as the distinguishing mark of logical science by writers who would include under that common title the most diverse matters, and who would differ fundamentally in respect to the treatment of isolated problems. The metaphysical logic of Hegel, the empirical logic of Mill, the formal logic of Kant, might all claim to be developments of this one view of the essence of logic. So wide a divergence is clear evidence that the criterion selected, though possibly accurate, is not sufficiently specific, and that the interpretation of it, which in truth determines for each the nature and boundaries of the science, depends upon the view taken respecting knowledge as a whole in its relation to the objective order of experience, respecting the import of the so-called normal laws, and respecting the subjective elements supposed to constitute knowledge. On all sides this particular definition of logic is beset with difficulties, which it cannot afford to dismiss by means of the simple demand that knowledge shall be accepted as somehow given. For, apart altogether from the danger that under so wide a term as knowledge many differences may be accommodated, it then becomes impossible to do more than treat in a quasi-empirical fashion mental facts, the nature and peculiarities of which are to be learned from some external source. In the later, more detailed examina tion of the view of logic here briefly described, it will be pointed out that the usual formula by which the several logical notions are introduced, viz., that their nature as mental facts is dealt with in psychology, from which logic borrows, is in fact much more than a formula. The logical peculiarities will be found to rest mainly upon the psycho logical characteristics as borrowed, while it is evident that no substantive, independent existence can be vindicated for a doctrine, the succession of whose parts, and their essential nature, are given externally. (2) Some of the perplexities that arise when logic is treated as the theory of the normal laws of knowledge may be obviated by the current distinction between immediate and mediate knowledge. The normal laws of knowledge might be said to apply solely to the process of mediate cognition, and their final aim would be defined as harmony between mediate knowledge and immediate experience. But it is difficult to distinguish with perfect accuracy between the two kinds of knowledge in question; it is impossible that the treatment of the logical problem should not de pend entirely on the view taken as to the nature of that which differentiates mediate from immediate knowledge. Whether we express this as thought or as belief, its nature then becomes the all-important factor in determin ing the course of logical treatment, and further progress will manifest divergencies according as stress is laid on the subjective characteristics of thought, the laws to which, from its essential nature, all its products must conform, or on the limitations imposed by principles which have reference to the most general relations of the things thought about. In the one case a formal logic, of the type commonly known as the Kantian, would be developed, in the other either an empirical logic, like that of Mill, wherein the nature of notions, propositions, and reasonings is con sidered from the point of view of the empirical conception of experience, or a transcendental logic, like that involved in the Critique oj Pure Reason, or a metaphysical logic, like that of Hegel, or a mixed doctrine, like that of Trendelenburg, Lotze, and Ueberweg. In short, the general philosophic view of thought is that upon which the character of logic as a science rests. (3) There has above appeared, incidentally, one of the most current methods of solving the logical problem, by procedure from the distinction between that which is given to the mind in knowledge, and that which is supplied by the mind itself. No distinction seems more simple ; none is in reality more complex. The opposition on which, in its popular acceptation, it rests is that between the indi vidual concrete thinking subject and the world of objective facts, existing, as it were, to be cognized. The full signi ficance of such an opposition, the forms in which it presents itself in conscious experience, the qualifications which must be introduced into the statement of it that it may have even a semblance of reality, these are problems not solved by a simple reference to the distinction as existing. It may well be held that knowledge is, for the individual, the mode (or one of the modes) in which his relation to the universe of fact is subjectively seized, but it is not therefore rendered possible to effect an accurate and mechanical separation of knowledge into its matter and form. Even on lower grounds it may be held that by the employment of this criterion little or no light is thrown upon the logical question. For no determination is supplied by it of the universal characteristic of form as opposed to matter in knowledge, and a comparison of various expositions will show the most startling diversity of view respecting the nature and boundaries of the formal element in knowledge. It is of course true that in one sense any scientific treatment of knowledge is formal. Our analysis extends only to the general or abstract aspect of cognition, not to its actual details. But we are not, on that account, dealing with the form of knowledge. So soon as it is attempted to define more accurately what shall be understood by form then it is found that various views of logic arise, corresponding to the variety of principles supposed to be applied in the treat ment of form. Thus the stricter followers of the Kantian logical idea, e.g., Mansel and Spalding, recognize, as sole principles which can be said to be involved universally in the action of thought, the laws of identity, non-contradiction, and excluded middle, and in their hands logic becomes merely the systematic statement of these laws, and the exposition of the conditions which they impose upon notions, judgments, and reasonings. Analytical consistency, i.e., absence of contradiction, is on this view the one aspect of knowledge which is susceptible of logical treatment. On the other hand, the idea of a contribution furnished by the