Seth's whole theory of the demarcation of psychology, epistemology, and metaphysic rests. It is the supposed limitation of knowledge to the states of the individual subject which leads to the restriction of psychology to an analysis of consciousness, to the exclusion of all investigation into the living process by which the subject becomes aware of reality; it is the same assumption which sets to epistemology the vain task of showing how "the individual knower" can "transcend his own individual existence and become aware of other men and things"; and, finally, it is the same hypothesis which burdens metaphysic with the insoluble problem of showing how an unknowable God can become known. Psychology, as I believe, does not deal with the 'conscious states' of the individual subject, for there are no such 'states'; there is no sphere for an epistemology which deals with these 'states' as 'signs' or 'symbols' of 'trans-subjective' realities; and metaphysic does not deal with an 'ultimate reality' distinct from both, but it has to do from first to last with real existence, apart from which it has no serious problem whatever. I venture to deny that there is any branch of philosophy such as that to which Mr. Seth gives the name of epistemology, but which, as he is himself fain to confess, has no positive content, or almost none.[1] Epistemology, as I believe, is a part of Metaphysic or Ontology, that part which deals with the explicit knowledge of reality. I do not, however, propose at present to examine our author's view of epistemology; I shall merely try to show by a short consideration of his metaphysic, especially as it is indicated in his Hegelianism and Personality, where the results of his initial assumption are most clearly seen, that his view of the nature and mutual relations of psychology and metaphysic cannot be accepted.
Metaphysic, as Mr. Seth conceives it, is the science of ultimate Reality, or God. When we ask what is meant by the term 'God,' we get some such answer as this: God as to his
- ↑ Hegelianism and Personality, 32 (34), quoted above: "The office of the theory of knowledge must, in the main, be negative or indirect." It is characteristic of Mr. Seth that he qualifies his assertion; strictly speaking, epistemology must in his view be absolutely negative.
