This predicament arises from the attempt to discover whether the cognitive relationship is indispensable to the things which enter into it. In order to discover if possible exactly how a thing is modified by the cognitive relationship, I look for instances of things out of this relationship, in order that I may compare them with instances of things in this relationship. But I can find no such instances, because 'finding' is a variety of the very relationship that I am trying to eliminate. Hence I cannot make the comparison, nor get an answer to my original question by this means. But I cannot conclude that there are no such instances; indeed, I now know that I should not be able to discover them if there were.

Again, with a view to demonstrating the modification of things by the cognitive relationship, I examine the same thing before and after it has entered into this relationship with some knower other than myself. But in making the comparison, I institute this relationship with myself, and so am unable to free the thing altogether from such relationships. Again, within my own field of consciousness, I may attempt to define and subtract the cognitive relationship, in order to deal exclusively with the residuum. But after subtracting the cognitive relationship, I must still 'deal with' the residuum; and 'dealing with' is a variety of the very relationship which I sought to banish.

Finally, just in so far as I do actually succeed in eliminating every cognitive relationship, I am unable to observe the result. Thus if I close my eyes, I cannot see what happens to the object; if I stop thinking, I cannot think what happens to it; and so with every mode of knowledge. In thus eliminating all knowledge, I do not experimentally eliminate the thing known, but only the possibility of knowing whether that thing is eliminated or not.

This, then, is 'the ego-centric predicament.' But

article entitled "The Ego-centric Predicament," Jour. of Phil., Psych., and .Sc. Methods, Vol. VII, 1910, No. 1. A part of what follows is reprinted from that article. Cf. also below, pp. 133-134, 158.

what does it prove, and how does it serve the purpose of idealism? It should be evident that it proves nothing at all. It is simply a peculiar methodological difficulty. It does, it is true, contain the proposition that every mentioned thing is an idea. But this is virtually a redundant proposition to the effect that every mentioned thing is mentioned to the effect that every idea, object of knowledge, or experience, is an idea, object of knowledge, or experience. And a redundant proposition is no proposition at all. The assertion that an idea is an idea conveys no knowledge even about ideas. But what the idealist requires is a proposition to the effect that everything is an idea, or that only ideas exist. And to derive this proposition directly from the redundancy just formulated, is simply to take advantage of the confusion of mind by which a redundancy is commonly attended.

It may be argued, however, that the ego-centric predicament is equivalent to an inductive proof of the proposition that all things are ideas. Every observed case of a thing is a case of a thing observed. Neglecting the redundancy, which is sufficient of itself to vitiate the assertion, we remark that the induction proceeds entirely by Mill's "method of agreement," which is invalid unless supported by "the method of difference," that is, the observation of negative cases. But the ego-centric predicament itself prevents the observation of negative cases. It is impossible to observe cases of unobserved things, even if there be any. In other words, there is a reason connected with the conditions of observation why only agreements should be observed. But where this is the case the method of agreement is worthless; and the use of it is a fallacy. Thus, I cannot conclude that English is the only intelligible form of speech simply because whomsoever I understand speaks English. On the contrary, my peculiar situation, as one acquainted only with a single language, is sufficient to discredit my results. If I should discover that I had been wearing blue glasses, I would at once discount the apparent blueness of

everything that I had seen. And similarly, the general circumstance that in observing I am compelled to supply the very element whose real ubiquity or necessity I am attempting to discover, must itself be discounted or corrected, if I am to draw a true conclusion. In so far as the idealistic conclusion depends on that circumstance itself, it is fallacious.

The Cardinal

Principle and the Berkeleyan

Proofs in Contemporary

§ 10. A study of the later development of idealism will disclose the fact that it relies mainly, if not entirely, on the Berkeleyan proofs - 'definition by initial predication,' and 'argument from the egocentric predicament.' Despite the fact that present day idealism prefers to attribute its Idealism authorship to Kant, some idealists expressly credit Berkeley himself with having established the cardinal principle. "The truth is," says one writer, "that Berkeley gave the coup de grace to all forms of materialism, when he proved, or led the way to the proof, that matter (so-called physical reality) is a compound of qualities, and that every quality turns out to be an elemental form of consciousness, a way of being conscious."1

But it is more usual to find Berkeley's proofs restated, with slight variations to match the shade of the particular idealism which the author represents. For the cardinal principle lends itself to various interpretations. In its general form this principle asserts the priority of the cognitive consciousness; and it is therefore capable of as many diverse formulations as there are diverse conceptions of cognition. Thus there may be perceptual, rational, or volitional idealists, according as knowledge is held to consist essentially in perception, reason, or volition. And Berkeley's proofs are capable of corresponding formulations. With some of these diversities we shall deal in the chapter that follows. Meanwhile it will throw further

1 M. W. Calkins: The Persistent Problems of Philosophy, p. 400; cf. pp. 118-132.

* Cf. especially, pp. 158-162.

light on the meaning of Berkeley's proofs, and illustrate their wider significance, if we have set before us a single contemporary instance of each.

The use of 'definition by initial predication' appears, for example, in the common habit among idealists of adopting what is called the standpoint of experience. This standpoint being once adopted, and the meaning of experience formulated, idealism needs no further proof. Thus Professor Baillie writes: "We must start, in other words, from the whole of experience as such. . . . Now we take experience as a whole when we look upon the subject-mind, in which alone experience exists, as the centre to which all forms of experience refer and round which they gather. Experience always implies a relation between two distinct elements: the one is that for which something is, and the other the something which is presented. These are the so-called subject and object." But nowhere does this author show why we should start with experience in this sense, or why having so started we should regard that particular aspect of things as essential and definitive.

When idealists do raise these last questions, they employ, as a rule, the argument from the 'ego-centric predicament.' We cannot avoid the standpoint of experience, if we are to have anything before us at all; or eliminate the relation to a thinking consciousness, if we are to think. "Find any piece of existence," says Mr. Bradley, "take up anything that anyone could possibly call a fact, . . . and then judge if it does not consist in sentient experience. . . When the experiment is made strictly, I can myself conceive of nothing else than the experienced. Anything, in no sense felt or perceived, becomes to me quite unmeaning. And as I cannot try to think of it without realizing either that I am not thinking at all, or that I am thinking of it against my will as being experienced, I am driven to the conclusion that for me experience is the same as reality. 1 J. B. Baillie: Idealistic Construction of Experience, pp. 105, 108.

You cannot find fact unless in unity with sentience."1 But all this proves no more than that finding is finding; no amount of reiteration or verbal alteration can ever make it prove what the idealist wants it to prove namely, that being is finding, that in order to be or to be what they are, things must be found.

It is doubtless true that idealism has had a long and eventful history since Berkeley; and there are many who would maintain that idealism did not begin its history until after Berkeley. But to any one who refuses to permit the issue to be confused, it must be apparent that the theory with which Berkeley startled the world in 1710 is essentially the same as that which flourished in the nineteenth century in the form given it by Fichte and Hegel. It is essentially the same, in that the agreement is far more important than the difference. The two theories agree in asserting that the cognitive consciousness is the universal condition of being, or that to be is to be either knower or known; they differ in what they conceive to be the fundamental properties of consciousness and the nature of truth. But it is the principle in which they agree from which both theories derive their philosophy of religion, and to which both have owed their popular influence. And this principle obtains both its simplest statement and its original arguments in the writings of Berkeley.

1 F. H. Bradley: Appearance and Reality, pp. 145, 146.