Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/71

 THE METAPHYSICAL METHOD IX PHILOSOPHY. can be brought before consciousness immediately. For instance, in speaking of a tree, do I mean the picture I form of it in consciousness, or do I mean the relation I imagine it to hold to other trees, and to objects which are not trees, supposing that I already know what trees are ? It is a distinction directed against the assumption, which is latent in all general terms, that we already know the things to which they are applied, an assumption which may or may not be warranted. For instance, in the above case of tree, it is wan-anted, since I have a distinct perceptual picture of a tree qua tree. But in the cases of cause- and no-urn enon, which we have had occasion to speak of above, I have no perceptual picture of cause qua cause, or of noumenoii qufi noumenon, but these are relations taken as objects related. The relation is here the only object of the terms ; whereas a relation and its content together are the object of the term . namely, the parts of the tree and their relation to each other. In the former case I characterise a thing solely by its relation to another thing ; in the latter case I charac- terise it by its perceived content, that is, its parts in relation to each other. Both these logical distinctions, I would add, are distinctions in the use of terms, not in the terms theinseht-s, since words have no marks whereby their several uses may be distinguished. I now come to the first of the two heads under which I propose to bring the positive consideration of method, namely, its character as subjective analysis of experience, without assumptions, and directed against them. In the first place, what is meant by the method being subjective ? In one sense all knowledge must be subjective, and cannot avoid being so. Even when we speak of abstract existence, we speak of it as known or surmised ; in other words, it is an object of subjective consciousness ; and to this kind of subjectivity we are all manifestly restricted. In what sense, then, distinct from this, is the true method of philosophy said to be subjective ? It is in its making this fact of sub- jectivity, with its double aspect of all things, which is already by institution of nature its instrument, also its object, and thus criticising itself as it proceeds. At every step the sub- jective and objective aspects are compared, and we are con- tinually asking ourselves Do I really see that, Do I really mean this '? We are continually recurring to our own sub- jective experience, or, as I have usually been in the habit of expressing it, we are continually exercising Reflection. Now you see that this process is the opposite of that which is practised in science. In science it is taken for