Page:The Distinction between Mind and Its Objects.djvu/52

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THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN

regards the line between mind and its objects, I might suppose myself challenged in terms of the doctrine of knowledge advocated by the realist. What are we to say of knowledge? Is it mental, or physical, or neither? Have you, in the case of knowledge, here the mind, made up of empty acts and inclinations, and there over against it the real thing, say, a physical object as perceived or remembered? Or have you, within and as part of the mind, some content or mental furniture, which, belonging to the mind, yet is part of and informs you about the real physical spatial object (to take this single case) which you are sure is there and plays its part independently of what you think about it?

Omitting the special case of sense-contents on which I follow on the whole the St. Andrews' contention (while convinced that on the test question of error we can all be substantially agreed), I answer that as a matter of principle it really makes no difference from which end you approach the facts. If you say: knowledge is empty mind plus