Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/381

Rh belief, though often mere prejudice, may be as strongly held as scientific knowledge could ever be.

"(2) In the second place we must note that there are several ways of 'sinning against knowledge' in a sense (πως) which do not amount to Incontinence, though they look like it at first sight and are readily confused with it. Such confusion is easy because the judgment 'This man has done what he (as an educated citizen) must know to be wrong' is true, if the necessary qualifications be added, and it is easy to forget these qualifications. Let us look at the three commonest forms of this pseudo-incontinence:—

"(a) The man has the knowledge but does not use it. [Any case of absent-mindedness will illustrate this. The respectable citizen knows he ought not to carry off in his pocket the pencil-case lent to him for a moment, but does so unconsciously while thinking of something else.]

"(b) The man both has and is using the knowledge, i.e., he is consciously bearing in mind the moral law, 'Theft is wrong,' but makes some innocent mistake in application. He uses the 'major' but not the 'minor'. He remembers, again, that such and such food is beneficial to man but does not know that the particular food before him is of that kind. Such misapplications of knowledge, or deficiencies in knowledge, are simply endless, and will easily account for many actions which seem to us at times so astonishing.

"(c) The man may have the knowledge, as a permanent mental possession, but not have it available at the moment owing to physical causes. He may be half asleep, mad, or drunk, and in this state may gravely give utterance to all the wisdom of Empedocles without in the least 'knowing' in the sense required for our present purpose.

"All these and other such cases lend themselves readily to sophistic puzzles, and have served, and do still serve, to provide material for profitless discussion, but they are all irrelevant to the real question at issue. In regard to none of them can it be truly said: 'The man has done something which he knew at the time to be wrong'. But the statement of them has cleared the ground. We know now exactly what has to be explained and can proceed to the real root (φυσικῶς) of the matter.

"(3) The true nature of Incontinence may be best exhibited by means of the 'Practical Syllogism'. This form of argument differs in no respect formally from any other Syllogism, but it has for its matter something which is not of merely abstract or scientific interest but which affects us practically as living and sentient creatures. Hence from the first an