Page:Russell - The Problems of Philosophy, 1912.djvu/174

170 saw, in our early chapters, that physical objects, as opposed to sense-data, are only obtained by an inference, and are not things with which we are acquainted. Hence we can never know any proposition of the form "this is a physical object," where "this" is something immediately known. It follows that all our knowledge concerning physical objects is such that no actual instance can be given. We can give instances of the associated sense-data, but we cannot give instances of the actual physical objects. Hence our knowledge as to physical objects depends throughout upon this possibility of general knowledge where no instance can be given. And the same applies to our knowledge of other people's minds, or of any other class of things of which no instance is known to us by acquaintance.

We may now take a survey of the sources of our knowledge, as they have appeared in the course of our analysis. We have first to distinguish knowledge of things and knowledge of truths. In each there are two kinds, one immediate and one derivative.