Page:Philosophical Review Volume 19.djvu/146

132 ; nevertheless it is the fundamental belief in some underlying necessity and universal relation which spurs endeavor to persevering research, and renders the mind impatient of inexact methods and inadequate results. Bergson, James, and others of the same way of thinking, take a very circumscribed view of conceptual logic, when they regard it as a process of subsumption—of describing the special case only so far as it fits into a ready-made group idea. Thinking always becomes mechanical and inadequate when the particular instance is seen only in the ligh of doctrine, or of theory.

No biological discovery may be due to pure reason, as Bergson maintains but on the other hand no discovery in biology or any other science has ever been due to pure observation unaided by the collaborating function of the intellect in discovering its universal significance.

It is true that actual concrete experiences rich in content an instinct with life cannot be comprehended in abstract categories. Our thought forms, however, are not stereotyped. It is only a very crude logic which regards its function as one of reference of particulars to fixed forms. The particular case is illuminated by the universal; it is never absorbed or exhausted by it. Logic then is not subsumption but interpretation; and the process is a vital one in this sense, that there is a constant reciprocal action between the particular phenomenon and the universal concept which we employ to interpret it. To use a phrase of Professor James, there is a constant "endosmosis" or conflux of the particular with the universal in our knowledge. Professor James applies this characterization to the relation of particulars to particulars in experience. It applies equally well to the relation of particulars to the universal.

Every change in one is reflected in the other. Every separate experience leaves a deposit of its particular significance in the corresponding concept, enriches it, makes it living knowledge, because of the very fact that it is capable of change and growth. For there is a growth in conceptual knowledge, an organic growth, in which the material elements of experience are being constantly appropriated and assimilated. The influence of Darwin upon