Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/72

60 SHADWOETH H. HODGSON. granted, and then overlooked, that we know and test know- ledge only in subjective experience or reflection ; recourse is had immediately to the objects, which are assumed as existing independently of our knowledge. Science takes things as in existence, and philosophy takes them as in consciousness. Philosophy thus deals with the opposite aspect of things to the scientific aspect, and its aspect, the subjective, subtends, as it were, the objects of all the differ- ent sciences, and is the one subjective counterpart of them all. Whether these objects are mathematical figures or calculations ; physical bodies or forces ; psychical agents, actions, or states of consciousness ; that is, whether they are objects of mathematical, physical, or psychological science ; the subjective aspect, considered by philosophy, is their common counterpart. States of consciousness, which are among the objects of psychology, have a double aspect, just as much as physical things ; their objective aspect, alone, is the object of psychology ; in their double or subjective aspect, they are the object, not of psychology, but of philosophy, and are subjected to a new method, over and above the psychological. In adopting this subjective method and critically ex- amining the subjective aspect of things, philosophy does not for a moment quit the ordinary world of common- sense, the ordinary experience common to all mankind. That common world is the world in which we all stand, which both science and philosophy begin with, and which they make their basis and starting-point. The man of ordinary common-sense treats the world in one way, the man of science in another, and the philosopher in another ; the second way does not subvert, but is superposed on the first ; the third does not subvert, but is superposed 011 the first and second. The third is the subjective analysis of all the phenomena presented by the two foregoing methods of dealing with the common object-matter of experience, and of the conceptions which they frame of it. This will perhaps be best exhibited by contrasting the philosophical with the psychological way of dealing with that object which is common to them both, states of con- sciousness or conscious experience. Psychology takes an object, a tree, for instance, and tells you what is due to sight, what to touch, muscular sense, association of ideas, judgment of distance, shape, magnitude, and so on. An object of consciousness is thus analysed into states of con- sciousness and their combination ; and these states and their combination are referred to the mind or organism on