Page:The Realm of Ends or Pluralism and Theism (1911).djvu/31

 ceased to be regarded as property — or relative to experiencing subjects — at all, while the objects of immediate experience were regarded as the peculium of the individual and so as not objects at all: in other words, we can see how the psychology of dualism came to shut itself in and the physics of dualism to shut itself out, by sundering the one world of experience into two halves, an internal and an external, both abstractions and so both devoid of reality. In particular such epistemological reflexion at once discloses the abstract character of the entire mechanical scheme, to which I have already referred.

Again, the light which experience on its practical side throws on the whole process and progress of knowledge is of fundamental importance. We are not simply cognitive beings: moreover, knowledge does not evolve itself, as it were by some purely immanent process, while we merely look on. Even if it may be so unfolded when acquired, its acquisition is only secured piecemeal, by arduous effort, and many misadventures. All this implies motives, implies ends to be attained : we seek knowledge primarily because it proves an aid to more and fuller life. Apart from this its quest would be unintelligible: this brings it within the scope of the realm of ends. Finally, if we consider the main structure of knowledge, we find that its fundamental principles of unity, causality and regularity are derived from this standpoint: in other words, the main structure of our concept of Nature is entirely anthropomorphic. The unity of Nature is the ideal counterpart of the actual unity of each individual experience, where synthesis ever precedes analysis, and things are