Page:Philosophical Review Volume 20.djvu/476

462 has shown that certain animals that were for a time considered as having reason, are utterly incapable of reflection. Man is the only animal that has an intellectual life.

Realism only says that reality is not constituted by assent. Royce argues against it as follows: The realities of the realist are absolutely unrelated; therefore no one of them can know any other. The realist's idea and its object are both realities; the one cannot cognise the other. The realist, however, denies only the relation of dependence between realities; the realist's idea and its object, furthermore, need not be separate realities. Taylor gives two arguments against realism: First, the realist's doctrine contradicts the nature of reality; secondly, the realist is forced to define the unreal and the real alike,—independence of the human mind. The first argument can only disprove a realist ontology, not realism. In the second case, the realist need not think of independence of mind as constituting reality. It has been urged against realism that we can never know that an idea represents its object. However, idealism also fails to give us a road to absolute certainty.

Most definitions fail to explain the popular distinction of motives into conscious and unconscious. For a provisional definition of motive, let us say that motive is that disposition of a man in respect to an act in virtue of which it possesses an attraction for him. It demands some degree of reflexion, and is not applicable to acts done instinctively. It is the manifestation of a general attitude of the will. Unlike intention, it implies no end; it is something, so to speak, at the back of one's mind, which influences one's decision. It is not the feeling of teleological action, for a feeling cannot be a motive. Consciousness of motive is attention to that in the act adopted which makes it of service to the realization of the end which motive is the disposition to pursue. Unconscious motive differs from conscious motive simply in being more obscure. Motive cannot be sharply distinguished from character.

In explaining morality as a social product, sociologists neglect the role of the individual in the formation of ethical sentiment. An individual's acts and attitude are determined by his ideas, and his ideas are mental representations or images of sensible objects. To test the accuracy of the material of his notions, he has only to refer them again and again to sensible experience. This is the final criterion. Representations are associated and combined in all sorts of ways. For example, compare the looseness of connection in the