Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 9.djvu/357

i HI: U38 ip HBQBLI JSM. .", |:i conscious experience, then there is no criterion outside of or beyond or behind just consciousness itself. To assume tin psychological standpoint is to assume that consciousness itself is the only possible Absolute." l Now I submit that there is, or is commonly supposed to be, such a thing as my life experience a strictly limited affair, to which I do not belong as a part, but which is literally myself ; and that this is the only experience of which I am directly conscious. When, therefore, I talk of conscious experience, and ignore entirely the possibility of there being a number of such experiences, the presumption is that it is my own to which I am referring. But such an experience, as I say, is no comprehensive whole, including within it a multitude of selves and objects ; what it includes is only a knowledge of these realities. We can, indeed, in this way show how, psychologically, the recognition of my- self, or other selves, arises ; but to say that we also have an explanation of the manner in which the Absolute differenti- ates itself into actual concrete individuals seems to me to be an enormous non seqnitur. And yet this seems to be what the Hegelian relies upon. The clearest statement I know is Prof. Dewey's. 2 Here philosophy is expressly reduced to psychology, and the psychological explanation is given as the ultimate one. All that we need to concern ourselves about is, not the relation of the individual and the universal consciousness, but the relation of the individual and the universal in consciousness, i.e., 3 the peculiar psychological functions which these concepts serve. The sole thing, therefore, which we have to consider in dealing with any fact, is its meaning for the process of experience ; its meaning is its reality. 4 And to appreciate this, we should distinguish two senses in which the word meaning may be used. In the perception, or thought, of an object, I may speak of my knowledge as meaning, referring to, something which is not itself, and which has an existence of its own apart from any experience of mine ; or I may intend to call attention, when I talk of its meaning, to its teleological aspect, the part which the perception plays in the conscious experience where it occurs : and it is only the latter sense which the Hegelian has in mind, the former he ignores or denies/ 1 The unity of experience which utilises all these distinctions, and within Hi wey, MIND. vol. xi., p. 17. See also pp. 8, 8, 9, 14, It! ; vol. xii., pp. sj, B<> ; .Jones, MIND, vol. ii., pp. 102, 164 ; Ritchie, MIND, January, 18!l!l. p. I : WiitMin. /'A/7. /fri'., vol. iv., p. 3. r >il. MIND. vols. xi. and xii. ; Vol. xii., p. 84. J Ibid., pp. 302, :50(i ; Jones, Lut:,; p. 305. s .Tones. /./:< , p. 1 1 1.