Essays Towards a Theory of Knowledge | Page 8

His reason is that we ab origine localise sensations with
reference to our organism. This, of course, means by reference to the
system of potent energy in which our organism essentially consists.

III
THE TWO TYPICAL THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE
The evolution of living organisms is in general a gradual and
continuous process. But it is nevertheless true that it presents
well-marked stages and can best be described by reference to these.
Frequently, moreover, the meaning and true nature of the movement at
one stage is only revealed after a subsequent stage has been reached.
The development of a brain or cerebrum marks one important advance.
The presence of this organ renders possible to the animal in varying
degree what are called representations of objects, and the faculty of
making such representations appears to be a condition precedent to the
development of deliberation, volition, and purposive action as opposed
to reflex or instinctive activity. The latter is specially characteristic of
other orders of organic existence such as the Articulata--being
remarkably exemplified in the activities of the social insects such as the

bee.
The advent of man with his faculty of Discourse may be regarded as
marking another distinct stage in the evolutionary movement--a stage,
moreover, the operations of which throw light upon the whole nature of
cerebral representations. The faculty of rational Discourse, as Max
Müller pointed out, is denominated in Greek by the word +logos+,
applicable at once to the mental activity and to its appropriate
expression in speech. Discourse is an instrument by means of which
man has been enabled to construct his whole system of representations
of the world in which he lives, the system of what is commonly called
his Knowledge. Human Knowledge just is the body of man's
representations of his Experience in the world of which he forms a part.
It is not necessary to insist here on the gradual but remarkable growth
and extension which Human Knowledge has undergone during the last
two thousand years. Concurrently with its extension man's ability to
control the forces of Nature has been enlarged and increased. At the
same time, however, that extension has rendered possible false
developments and aberrations to which the more limited
representations of the brute are less liable.
With the faculty of rational Discourse constantly striving to extend the
bounds of Knowledge, man came in time to attempt to give an account
not only of the immediate objects which surround him, but of the whole
choir of Heaven and furniture of Earth. In this advance the Greeks took
a leading part.
When we first make acquaintance through historical records with the
intellectual activity of the Greek mind, we find it engaged in the
construction of various such schemes for an explanation of the
world--usually called cosmogonies.
It was at this stage of intellectual progress that what we might call an
interruption occurred in the normal process of evolution. Great
intellectual activity had for some time prevailed in the Greek
communities; several men of conspicuous genius--notably Heracleitus
and Parmenides--had carried speculation as to the origin and nature of
the world to a height hitherto undreamt of. These achievements and the

consciousness of continual progress had engendered in Athens
particularly what might be called an epidemic of intellectual pride.
On this scene Socrates appeared, plain, blunt, critical. His teaching was
in effect an appeal to men to reflect: to turn their attention away from
the world which they were supposed to be explaining to the
contemplation of their own Minds by which the explanation was
furnished. +gnôthi seauton+ was his motto. All explanations of the
Universe or of Experience were, as he showed, vain unless the
Cognitive Faculty by which they were constructed were operating truly.
In particular, the process of Rational Discourse implied the use of
concrete general terms, which were recognised to be the essential
instruments of Cognition. Socrates therefore devoted his attention
specially to a critical examination of these general terms and also of the
abstract terms which were the familiar instruments of Discourse.
The Greeks of that day were endowed with a singular clearness of
intellectual vision. They readily recognised that Knowledge was an
intellectual process; they appreciated the activity of Thought or
Rational Discourse as essential to its formation. They quite understood
that Knowledge is not of the nature of a photograph--a resemblant
pictorial reproduction of the data furnished by sensation. Only very
casually and occasionally do we ever attempt to supply ourselves with
a resemblant reproduction of our sensations. Obviously such a
reproduction would only be of value memorially and could tell us
nothing new.
These early Greeks realised this, and they appear to have realised also
pretty clearly that it would be impossible by means of such pictorial
impressions to establish any community of Knowledge. It is of the
essence