[1] Our estimate of Berkeley’s view must depend on the degree in which we judge him to have identified the Deity with, or separated Him from, a permanent and universal system. The statement in the text applies fairly to Hume. _The world as_ Knowledge 2. Therefore we say, coming closer to our subject, that “_Knowledge_ is the medium in which our world, _as an interrelated whole_, [1] exists for us.” This is more than saying that it exists in mind or presentation, because the mere course of consciousness need not amount to Knowledge. A world, that is, a system of things acting on one another, could not exist merely in the course of our ideas. But _Knowledge_, we said, is the mental construction of reality. It consists of what we are obliged to assert in thought, and because we are all obliged to think assertorily according to the same methods, the results of our thinking form corresponding systems--systems that correspond alike to each other and to reality. (I may be asked, does not this agreement of {23} our knowledge depend on the agreement of the physical stimuli supplied to us by nature, as well as on the homogeneousness of our intelligences? The answer is, that these stimuli, or nature, have no priority in Knowledge. Their identity is merely a case or consequence of the identity of our experience as a whole. We are regarding nature as a system developed in experience, not as an unknown somewhat behind it. To suppose that solid or extended existence somehow comes before and accounts for everything else, is a form of the common-sense theory we have dismissed. Knowledge and Truth have their limitations as forms of Reality, but an appeal to solidity or extension will not furnish the required supplementation.) [1] The words italicised make a reservation in favour of feeling, which has its own form of reality, but is not relational. _Knowledge is in the form of Judgement_ 3. All that we have been saying about Knowledge is summed up in the sentence, “Knowledge is a judgment, an affirmation.” We need not trouble ourselves yet about negation. We all know what affirmative assertion is, and it is near enough for the present to say that all knowledge is judgment in the sense of affirmative assertion. I will explain how we sum up all we have said of knowledge by calling it a judgment. Judgment or affirmation always implies three properties, though they are not always recognised. It is (a) necessary, (b) universal, and (c) constructive. _Judgment necessary_