Page:Philosophical Review Volume 19.djvu/70

56 implicit seem logically to leave no place for any continuity. How is it possible to hold on to these two canons at once, to emphasize Continuity and to repudiate the Implicit? It would not solve the difficulty to say, 'by understanding the nature of a genetic series'; for that is the very problem at issue. Mr. Baldwin's theory may perhaps be set in a clearer light by reference to the two sets of views with which he contrasts his own position, and between which it is evident that he is attempting to steer, in a sense, a middle course. On the one hand, there is the atomistic, agenetic theory of mind, which attempts to build up knowledge out of discrete mental states by employing the mechanical principle of cause and effect; and, on the other side, there is the view of the idealistic logicians. The former set of conceptions Professor Baldwin rejects as inadequate to deal with a developing experience. But, as we have seen, he also maintains that the idealists fail to reach a truly genetic view through their tendency to substitute references to the implicit for an account of the actual motives and conditions under which new modes of experience appear in the process of development. More specifically, Professor Baldwin objects to the Idealist's procedure of finding the gem of the subject-object relation, and of logical judgment, in the earlier forms of cognitive experience. It is impossible here to discuss at length the question whether these criticisms fairly apply to the method of those logicians against whom they are directed, or whether they are based on a misunderstanding of their views. As I have already said, however, Professor Baldwin is in a sense only repeating the warnings of the idealists against hypostatizing the implicit. The leading representatives of this way of thinking have repeatedly pointed out the barrenness of references to the implicit when this is conceived as an abstract term. They have also emphasized the importance of tracing out the process in detail, of comprehending the universal in and through its particular manifestations, and have held that the truth is not merely the result, but the result viewed in relation to its process of becoming. Nevertheless, it cannot,