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138 has come to be called, seeks to establish metaphysical positions by arguments which are purely epistemological; and therefore unconvincing when stretched beyond their proper application. And in this respect I have seen no reason, during the years that have elapsed, to change the views I then expressed. For it must not be forgotten that the question which epistemology finds before it is the relation of the individual knower to a world of reality a world — whose very existence it is bound to treat at the outset as problematical. How, or in what sense, does the individual knower transcend his own individual existence and become aware of other men and things? It is this relatively simple and manifestly preliminary question which epistemology has to take up. Subjective states are plainly our data; it is there we have our foothold, our pied à terre; but unless we can step beyond them, metaphysics in any constructive sense can hardly make a beginning. Epistemology, if its results are negative, necessarily leads to a thoroughgoing scepticism; but if its results are positive, it only clears the way for metaphysical construction or hypothesis. The mere fact that we believe ourselves to have successfully made the leap from the subjective to a real which is independent of our subjectivity, does not reveal to us off-hand the ultimate ground or essence of that real. Epistemology, in short, has to do entirely with the relation of the subjective consciousness to a trans-subjective world which it knows or seems to know. Metaphysics has to do with the ultimate nature of the reality which reveals itself alike in the consciousness which knows and the world which is known. The categories of the one are subjective and trans-subjective (conscious state and real being); the categories of the other are pre-eminently essence and appearance.

It is true we use some categories in both connections; but if we look more carefully we shall find that they bear a totally different sense in the two cases, and grievous is the damage that has ensued to philosophy from the failure to keep the two senses separate. The much-abused term "phenomenon" is one of those double-faced words; phenomenon in a metaphysical reference is the manifestation or revelation of an essence or