Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/18

 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL STANDPOINT. 7 it. Such a sensation, a sensation which exists only within and for experience, is not one which can be used to account for experience. It is but one element in an organic whole, and can no more account for the whole, than a given diges- tive act can account for the existence of a living body, although this digestive act and others similar to it may no doubt be shown to be all important in the formation of a given living body. In short, we have finally arrived at the root of the difficulty. Our objector has been supposing that he could account for the origin of consciousness or knowledge because he could account for the process by which the given knowledge of a given individual came about. But if he accounts for this by something which is not known, which does not exist for consciousness, he is leaving the psycho- logical standpoint to take the ontological ; if he accounts for it by a known something, as a sensation produced by the reaction of a nervous organism upon a stimulus, he is ac- counting for its origin from something which exists only for and within consciousness. Consequently he is not account- ing for the origin of consciousness or knowledge as such at all. He is simply accounting for the origin of an individual consciousness, or a specific group of known facts, by refer- ence to the larger group of known facts or universal con- sciousness. Hence also the historic impotency of all forms of materialism. For either this matter is unknown, is a thing-in-itself, and hence may be called anything else as well as matter; or it is known, and then becomes but one set of the relations which in their completeness consti- tute mind, when to account for mind from it is to assume as ultimate reality that which has existence only as sub- stantiated by mind. To the relations of the individual to the universal consciousness, I shall return later. At present, I am concerned only to point out that, if a man comes to the conclusion that all knowledge is relative, that existence - means existence for consciousness, he is bound to apply this conclusion to his starting-point and to his process. If he does this, he sees that the starting-point (in this case, sensa- tions) and the process (in this case, integration of sensations) exist for consciousness also in short, that the becoming of consciousness exists for consciousness only, and hence that consciousness can never have become at all. That for which all origin and change exists, can never have originated or changed. I hope that my objector and myself have now got within sight of each other so that we can see our common ground, and the cause of our difference. We both admit that the