Page:Principles of Psychology (1890) v1.djvu/241

221 THE BELATI0N8 OF MINDS TO OTHER THINGS. 321 made clear, so that we may leave it, and descend to some distinctions of detail. There are tivo kinds of knoioledge broadly and practically distinguishable : we may call them respectively knowledge of acquaintance and knoivledge-ahout. Most languages ex- press the distinction; thus, yvcSvai, eidevai; noscere, scire; kennen, wissen; connaitre, savoir.^ I am acquainted with many people and things, which I know very little about, except their presence in the places where I have met them. I know the color blue when I see it, and the flavor of a pear when I taste it ; I know an inch when I move my finger through it ; a second of time, when I feel it pass ; an effort of attention when I make it ; a difference between two things when I notice it ; but about the inner nature of these facts or what makes them what they are, I can say nothing at all. I cannot impart acquaintance with them to any one who has not already made it himself. I cannot describe them, make a blind man guess what blue is like, define to a child a syllogism, or tell a philosopher in just what respect distance is just what it is, and differs from other forms of relation. At most, I can say to my friends, Go to certain places and act in certain ways, and these objects will probably come. All the elementary natures of the world, its highest genera, the simple qualities of matter and mind, together with the kinds of relation that subsist between them, must either not be known at all, or known in this dumb way of acquaintance without knoivledge-aboid. In minds able to speak at all there is, it is true, some knowl- edge about everything. Things can at least be classed, and the times of their appearance told. But in general, the less we analyze a thing, and the fewer of its relations we per- ceive, the less we know about it and the more our famili- arity with it is of the acquaintance-type. The two kinds of knowledge are, therefore, as the human mind practi- cally exerts them, relative terms. That is, the same thought of a thing may be called knowledge-about it in comparison with a simpler thought, or acquaintance with it in compari- Popular Scientific Lectures, London, p. 308-9.
 * Of. John Grote : Exploratio Philosophica, p. 60 ; H. Helmlioltz,