Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 11.djvu/615

* KNOTTING AND SPLICING. 535 KNOWLEDGE. articles; the timber and half-hitch (Fig. 15) is used for hoisting or towing heavy timbers. The two half-hitches form a convenient slipping hitch. The clove-hitch (Fig. 14c) is one of the most useful knots known, and is u>id more than any otiicr knot except the square knot. The inside and outside clinches (Figs. lOa and 10b) are used when the end of a rope is to lie made fast to a heavy object, and yet leave the ro|>e clear to work through a pulley or sheave close up to the object; clinches were much used in bending liawsers and cables to anchors. Seizings are used to tic two parts of a rope to- gether or to secure a rope to anotlier object. The common forms are shown in the sketches (Figs. 23a, 23b, and "23c), but there arc modifications of these forms too numerous to mention. The turk's head (Fig. 24) is a variety of seizing put around a single part of rope; it is used on foot- ropes to keep them from slipping through the eyes of the stirrups. Wall knots, II all and croiin, manrope knots, and all tlie other knots of class a of the second type are used to form a solid and more or less ornamental knot in a rope to prevent its slip- ping through a block, hole, or eye. SPLICE.S are used to join two pieces of rope to- gether or form an eye at the end of a rope. The principal kinds are the eye-splice (Figs. 22a and 22b ), short splice ( Figs. 24a, 24b, and 24c ) , and long splice ( Figs. 25a. 2.5b. and 25c, which are shown progressively). A sehagee (Fig. 26) is made of rope yarns laid up loosely and held together with marline hitches. A grommet (Fig. 27) is made of a single long strand of rojie laid u|) on itself to form a three-stranded ring. A cringle (Fig. 28) is a form of grommet made on a rope. KNOUT (Fr. knout, from Russ. knutCi, scourge, from Icel. knutr, AS. cnotta. Eng. knot). A scourge composed of many thongs of skin, plaited, and interwoven with wire, which was formerly the customary instrument of punish- ment in Russia for oil classes and degrees of criminals. The offender was tied to two stakes, stripped, and given on the back the specifie<l num- ber of lashes; 100 or 120 were equivalent to a sentence of death, but in many cases the victim died under the operation long before this num- ber was completed. The nobility were legally exempt from the knout, but this privilege was not always respected. The knout was abolished by tlie Fnificnir Nicholas, who substituted the plcti, a kind of lash. KNOWLEDGE (from ME. knoiran, AS. <•»«- van. Iccl. kni'i. OHG. cniian : connected with (K'hurch Slav, znati, Lat. noscere. Gk. yLyvwa-Kciv, gignoskcin, Skt. jiia, to know + ME. -Icche. from Icel. -leikr. -leiki. an abstract suffix). Tiikorv of, or EfisTEMOLOGY. The science which is concerned with questions about the existence, the validity, and the extent of knowledge. Because of its fundamental character, dealing as it does with a fact that every other science unqiiestioningly lakes for granted, it is considered a philosophical dis< ipline. In one sense it can be said that any inquiry into knowledge is a circular procedure. In other words, there must be knowledge to begin with, Vfore inquiry of any sort can I)e entered upon. In this respect, however, epistemology is not so different from any other science, for every science Vol. XI. -^. starts with actually given facts and with some degree of actual knowledge of these facts. The facts that the epistemologist takes as given are the fact of knowledge and the fact of knowing something about this knowledge. .Just at this point the skeptic puts an objection. He either says that there is no knowledge, or else that if there is we cannot know of it, and that there- fore the epistemologist begs the whole ques- tion. This objection is not so .serious as at first blush it seems to be. I«deed. it has done more than anything else to put epistemologj- on a scientific basis. For when the objection is scru- tinized it will be seen to mean, not that there is no fact in experience answering to the name of knowledge, but that the fact of knowledge is not what it is usually taken to be. In other words, the skeptic — if he knows what he is about — does not deny the existence of knowledge as a fact of experience: but he doubts certain theories of knowledge — e.g. among others the theory that there are objects, styled real, which are in some way represented or copied by other objects styled ideas. He doubts these theories because he knows, or thinks he knows, that they give an account of knowledge which is incompatible with the facts of the case. That is, the skeptic has a theorj' of his own about knowledge; he is an epistemologist, and as such enters upon the arena of scientific discussion. This analj'sis of the attitude of the skeptic toward knowledge is so important that it must be dwelt upon at greater length. Xo man is born a skeptic. Xo 3"oung child is a skeptic. If he becomes one later, the exiieriences that have brought about the revolution in his view of the world should help us to a clear insight into the real meaning of tliis new view. In other words, unless the skeptic is insane, he has and gives reasons for his new attitude. He adduces proofs, taken from his own experience, and presiunably verified in the experience of others, to establish either the certainty or the probability, or at least the irrefutable possibility, of his ignorance. The stock arguments of skeptics are gathered up into the famous tropes of .Enesidemus (q.v. ): and they are further condensed in the five tropes of Agrippa, a skeptic of the second century of our era. It is worth our while to examine these argu- ments, as they help lis to understand the meth- ods, the assumptions, and therefore the real sig^ nificance of skepticism in general. The tropes of .grippa are as follows: (I) The same object gives rise to different impressions. (2) All knowledge presupposes an infinite series of prem- ises, since any disputed proposition must be proved by some other, this latter by still a third, and so ad infinitum. (3) .I1 knowledge is rela- tive, since every object jiresents an appearance that differs according to the differences in the constitutions of the percipients and according to the relations in which the object stands to other objects. (4) All axioms are arbitrary, since dogmatists, to escape the regressiis ad infinitum. start their argument from some premise which they assume without justification. (5) There is a circle in all reasoning, since the conclusion rests upon the premises, and. contrariwise, the premises rest upon the conclusion. . survey of these proofs shows that in every one some fact is categorically asserted. Xo one can venture to say, for instance, that the same object gives rise to different impressions, unless