Page:Journal of Speculative Philosophy Volume 17.djvu/69

60 one. It is the one implicitly asserted in the very proposition that feelings are relative to our own nature, and it is taken for granted in every step of every argument by which the proposition is proved" (Spencer, "Principles of Psychology," vol. i, pp. 209, 210). And, again : " More certain than the relativity of relations, as we conceive them, is the existence of non-relative forms to which they refer; since proof of the first involves perpetual assumption of the last " (Ibid., p. 227).

It being admitted, then, that knowledge of the relativity of feeling implies knowledge of a non-relative existence, the question arises as to the compatibility of this position with the theory it accompanies, viz., that all knowledge is derived from feeling. Is it logically possible to hold that all knowledge comes from feeling, and yet that there is knowledge of the existence of an Absolute? Rather, does not one position exclude the other? We will put the case in its simplest form. Either there is knowledge of something Non-relative or there is not. If the latter be the case, then, as we have already seen, the relativity of feeling could never be known, nay, the question as to its relativity could never have occurred to consciousness. The former alternative is the one adopted. We must admit that there is knowledge of the existence of an absolute object. But how is this knowledge obtained? Since all knowledge comes from feeling, this must also. In other words, since sensation-knowledge we must have sensation that there is an absolute existence. But on this theory (that every feeling is relative) an absolute sensation is a contradiction in terms. We may give up the sensationalist hypothesis, and, admitting that we have knowledge not derived from feeling (viz., that an Absolute exists), hold that feeling is relative. Or we may give up the Relativity theory and hold, so far at least as this point is concerned, that Sensationalism is true. But to attempt to hold them together is suicidal. If all our knowledge comes from feeling, since we can never have a feeling of the absolute object, we never can have knowledge of it ; and we cannot have a feeling of it, since, by the theory, the absolute is precisely that which is not conditioned by feeling. Or, on the other hand, if we know that all feeling is relative, we do know that there is an absolute object, and hence have knowledge not derived from sensation. When these alternatives are once fairly faced, it will be seen that one or