=78.= It has been customary, since Kant’s time, to assert that
Cognition, Volition, and Feeling are three fundamentally distinct
attitudes of the mind towards reality. They are three distinct ways
of experiencing, and each of them informs us of a distinct aspect
under which reality may be considered. The ‘Epistemological’ method of
approaching Metaphysics rests on the assumption that by considering
what is ‘implied in’ Cognition--what is its ‘ideal’--we may discover
what properties the world must have, if it is to be _true_. And
similarly it is held that by considering what is ‘implied in’ the fact
of Willing or Feeling--what is the ‘ideal’ which they presuppose--we
may discover what properties the world must have, if it is to be good
or beautiful. The orthodox Idealistic Epistemologist differs from the
Sensationalist or Empiricist in holding that what we directly cognise
is neither all true nor yet the whole truth: in order to reject the
false and to discover further truths we must, he says, not take
cognition merely as it presents itself, but discover what is _implied_
in it. And similarly the orthodox Metaphysical Ethicist differs from
the mere Naturalist, in holding that not everything which we actually
will is good, nor, if good, completely good: what is really good is
that which is implied in the essential nature of will. Others again
think that Feeling, and not Will, is the fundamental _datum_ for
Ethics. But, in either case, it is agreed that Ethics has some relation
to Will or Feeling which it has not to Cognition, and which other
objects of study have to Cognition. Will or Feeling, on the one hand,
and Cognition, on the other, are regarded as in some sense coordinate
sources of philosophical knowledge--the one of Practical, the other of
Theoretical philosophy.
What, that is true, can possibly be meant by this view?
=79.= First of all, it may be meant that, just as, by reflection on our
perceptual and sensory experience, we become aware of the distinction
between truth and falsehood, so it is by reflection on our experiences
of feeling and willing that we become aware of ethical distinctions.
We should not know what was meant by thinking one thing better than
another unless the attitude of our will or feeling towards one thing
was different from its attitude towards another. All this may be
admitted. But so far we have only the psychological fact that it is
only _because_ we will or feel things in a certain way, that we ever
come to think them good; just as it is only because we have certain
perceptual experiences, that we ever come to think things true. Here,
then, is a special connection between willing and goodness; but it is
only a _causal_ connection--that willing is a necessary condition for
the cognition of goodness.
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