Page:Journal of Speculative Philosophy Volume 16.djvu/218

Rh which do, on every theory, exist. A theory, however, which posits knowledge of a substance besides, must also posit something more than phenomena in order to know this substance. If there be no substance, mind, then there are only series of mental states or successions of mental phenomena. But it is a mere truism to say that phenomena cannot go beyond phenomena. Successions of consciousnesses irrelated, or related only in time, can but give knowledge of phenomena similarly related. Undoubtedly the former may be but subjective, while the latter are objective, but that does not constitute knowledge of substance. To have real knowledge of real being, there must be something which abides through the successive states, and which perceives their relations to that being and to itself. To say that the mind, if itself a mere phenomenon or group of phenomena, can transcend phenomena and obtain a knowledge of that reality which accounts both for other phenomena and for itself, is absurd. But there is no need to multiply words to show what is, after all, self-evident — that phenomenal knowledge is phenomenal, and that to transcend phenomena there must be something besides a phenomenon. We find materialism, then, in this position. To prove that mind is a phenomenon of matter, it is obliged to assume the possibility of ontological knowledge — i. e., real knowledge of real being; but in that real knowledge is necessarily involved a subject which knows. To prove that mind is a phenomenon, it is obliged to implicitly assume that it is a substance. Could there be anything more self-destructive?

Secondly, it assumes the reality of the causal nexus, and the possibility of knowledge of real causation. In declaring that matter causes mind, it declares that the relation is one of efficiency and dependency, and not one of succession — antecedent and consequent. For, if it be the latter, then there are only succession and conjunction of material and mental phenomena, irrelated or related only in time, in which case it would be absurd to say that matter caused mind.

We have therefore to consider what is involved in real causation, and the knowledge of it as such, and what relation the involved facts bear to the theory of materialism.

How, on a materialistic hypothesis, can the knowledge of a real causal nexus be obtained? It cannot be a primary, necessary