Page:Philosophical Review Volume 5.djvu/105

89 of science do not constitute knowledge. The category of quantity gives no information as to the inner nature of the reality which it measures; so, too, causality and even self-consciousness are mere abstractions. Science deals with universals, but these are static, and can only serve as signs and symbols which are useful in practical and intellectual life. (3) Through sympathy and imitation, as found in objective Art, the human mind may come to know its object. Thus in the drama the characters of history become living persons whose emotions we can experience within ourselves; so, too, as in the poetry of Wordsworth, we can, by sympathy, catch the spirit of Nature and live its life. Science, then, is not sufficient for knowledge; what we need is a new Poetry and a new Art, which will seek to know by sympathy and imitation. Such an attempt involves many difficulties, but it offers a possible means of attaining to knowledge of reality.

According to Aristotle the use of as a medium differentiates from other kinds of imitation, being taken to mean sensations of sight or hearing that are successive in time. The great advance made by Aristotle on Plato is the introduction of the conception of medium (, in his metaphysical terminology). This conception modifies in an important way the meaning of. If the special function of is not recognized, the imitation of a thing will be regarded as an imitation in part materiâ. Hence from this point of view, which is Plato's, the copy of a thing must be either a mere repetition of the thing, or must differ from it as the unreal or illusory differs from reality. But when it is recognized that two things having the same may differ in respect of , there is no longer any reason why the copy should be regarded as an attempt to rival reality. The 'imitation' is simply the solution of an artistic problem:—Given xy where x is s and y, to express x in terms of a new medium y′. The relation of xy′ to xy is naturally expressed by 'imitation' or in its ordinary meaning. We may call the other relation, that of xy′ to x (or xy