[8] Professor Cook Wilson has pointed out that the
distinction between these two kinds of relation is marked
in language in that, for instance, while we speak of the
'relation _of_ universal _and_ individual', we speak of
'the relation _between_ one man _and_ another', or of 'the
relation _of_ one man _to_ another', using, however, the
phrase 'the relation _of_ doctor _and_ patient', when we
consider two men only as in that relation.
I owe to him recognition of the fact that the use of the word
'relation' in connexion with such terms as 'universal and
individual' is really justified.
What is, however, at least a strong presumption against this view is
to be found in the fact that while relations of the second kind are
essentially non-temporal, the relation of knowing is essentially
temporal. The relation of a universal and its individuals, or of a
surface and the volume which it bounds, does not either come to be, or
persist, or cease. On the other hand, it is impossible to think of a
knowing which is susceptible of no temporal predicates and is not
bound up with a process; and the thought of knowing as something which
comes to be involves the thought that the elements which become thus
related exist independently of the relation. Moreover, the real
refutation of the view lies in the fact that, when we consider what we
really think, we find that we think that the relation between a knower
and reality is not of the second kind. If we consider what we mean by
'a reality', we find that we mean by it something which is not
correlative to a mind knowing it. It does not mean something the
thought of which disappears with the thought of a mind actually
knowing it, but something which, though it can be known by a mind,
need not be actually known by a mind. Again, just as we think of a
reality as something which _can_ stand as object in the relation of
knowledge, without necessarily being in this relation, so, as we see
when we reflect, we think of a knowing mind as something which _can_
stand as subject in this relation without necessarily being in the
relation. For though we think of the capacities which constitute the
nature of a knowing mind as only recognized through their
actualizations, i. e. through actual knowing, we think of the mind
which is possessed of these capacities as something apart from their
actualization.
It is now possible to direct attention to two characteristics of
perception and knowledge with which Kant's treatment of space and time
conflicts, and the recognition of which reveals his procedure in its
true light.