Page:Journal of Speculative Philosophy Volume 17.djvu/77

68 sion and cay that the real meaning of the theory of Relativity of Feeling is that a feeling is a specific determinate relation or reaction given in consciousness between two bodies, one a sensitive, the other a non-sensitive object. It is possible to hold it, therefore, only in conjunction with a theory which allows knowledge of these objects ; furthermore, since we have knowledge of these objective conditions, the knowledge of their relation as given in feeling, though relative indeed to the subject, is not for that reason a detraction from our knowledge of objects, but rather an addition. One certainly cannot see a priori any reason why the knowledge of the reactions of, say gold, in the presence of an acid should be an interesting addition to our knowledge of these substances, while the knowledge of its relation to a sensitive organism as given in feeling should be a deprivation of real knowledge. Except upon the theory that the real nature of things is their nature out of relation to everything, knowledge of the mode of relation between an object and an organism is just as much genuine knowledge as knowledge of its physical and chemical properties, which in turn are only its relations.

Leaving the subject of feelings, we come to that of relations between feelings which it has also been attempted to demonstrate to be purely relative to the subject, giving no knowledge of objective relations. There is no reason to draw upon the patience of readers to examine this view. It is subject to all the difficulties which we have made out against the like theory regarding feelings, besides laboring under the additional difficulty of having to show that these relations are themselves naught but feelings. Since we have already shown that the relativity of feelings to the subject cannot be proved without assuming objective relations, the case stands, a fortiori, against any such attempt as the present. There is also a self-contradiction in the theory so glaring that it might well have made any one pause who was not so mastered by the presuppositions of his system as to be blind to the rules of ordinary logic. Sensationalism must and does hold that all relations are reducible to feelings; are themselves, indeed, but kinds of feeling. But the theory of relativity supposes a relation between the subjective feeling and the unknown object which is the absolute. But, according to Sensationalism, this relation must be a feeling. Hence nothing exists but feelings, and relativity is a myth! If there be