in one aspect, a resultant of the meaning of all the “rest of the world,” it is true, even now, that were the facts which we fail to know in detail, other than they are, our appreciation of what we do concretely know, our present attentive attitude, would be other than it is.
This is the general expression, in terms of our own theory, of the source of the present imperfections of our knowledge. Observe that we do not explain these matters by first assuming the existence of a certain being, called a finite knowing Subject, an entity amongst others, by next pointing out how knowledge gets impressed upon him from without, say through his sense-organs, and by then finally referring his ignorance to his lack of impressions. All such views, in so far as they are defensible at all, belong either to psychological theory, or, at best, to the developed metaphysical theory of the many individual Selves, and not to the general Theory of Knowledge. But Psychology, as a special science, is one result only of a particular human interest in the natural world which we shall come to know a little better in our fourth lecture. That special interest concerns us not as yet. Nor can we here presuppose that theory of the many individual Selves which we shall hereafter develope. In our general theory of finite knowledge we have to do only with the fact that a certain state of inattention exists at a certain moment of time. We know here, as yet, nothing of soul-substances, or even of metaphysical individual Subjects, such as, acted upon from without, come to build up their knowledge upon the basis of their impressions. Nor are there, from this point of view, separate series
