Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/299

 CAX A MAX SIX AGAINST KNOWLEDGE ? 287 mistake has come from a view that is partial, and an interpreta- tion that is erroneous. Perhaps the most convenient way of pointing out the root of the error will be for me to invent a defence, which will show what I think is the source of delusion. And if I dwell upon truths which we all understand, I may excuse myself by observing that, if all of us understand them, nearly all of us make mistakes because we disregard them. "What defence can we find for the doctrine that knowledge excludes wrong action ? We are not forced to invoke the obsolete primacy of the " practical reason " : we may move to the ground of a saner psychology and may rest upon fact. For we may urge,
 * Xo one knows an act to be wrong unless he has an idea of the

wronguess. But if this be admitted, observe what follows : the idea of wrong implies the feeling of wrong. And this consequence is certain ; for our ideas, we know, are representative signs, and to perceive the signification without the presence of the whole sign is quite impossible. Thus when you have in your mind the idea of a horse or a cow or a bad action, you possess a present image, part of which you neglect, and part of which you take as your meaning, and use as the idea of something not present but repre- sented. But now what is it that could represent a horse but something present in the form of a horse-image ? And what is it again that could be the idea of a moral or of an immoral act, unless it were something present to the mind in one of these qualities ? But to be present to the mind as moral or immoral implies a feeling of right or wrong. What represents, and is used as the idea of the act, must therefore imply a corresponding emotional element. If so, however, the conclusion seems proved ; for since what represents right or wrong is emotional, it therefore, because it is emotional, will work. It will not indeed work as the idea of something else, but it will work as the actual present state. It will be the badness that is felt, and not the badness that is tJtoitfjlit, which will have power to move us. In other words, it is the whole sign that is active, and not the mere signification. But this will make no difference. Since you cannot represent the wrong that is signified without the present image which is felt as wrong, the knowledge of vice must thus be per accidens a dislike to viciousness, and this felt aversion, psychologically im- plied in all ideas of immorality, will fetter the will, until, with the knowledge, the feeling disappears. ' And we may support this defence by an appeal to the general theory of motives. A motive, if that means the object of our desire or aversion, must be the idea of something pleasant or painful. And thus (I have argued in my EtJ(i<:'.d Studies), if the motive is the end and is so an idea, then what moves is never the motive as such. But on the other hand the motive will move per accidens. For an idea implies a representative state of mind, and that state of inind must have present existence as a psychical phenomenon.