KNOWLEDGE. This term of common use is associated with the greatest problems and controversies of philosophy. The perception of the external or material world (see COMMON SENSE; PEILCEPTION), the nature of belief (see BELIEF), time ultimate analysis of a proposition or judgment (see JUDGMENT), are all involved in the discussion of what is meant by knowledge. Moreover, we may, in connection with this word, take up the consideration of thought or intelligence on the whole, in contrast to the feelings and volitions (see INTELLECT). In a still different phase of meaning, we may be led to con sider the nature of science or philosophy, which is a species of knowledge distinguished by the two features of being generalized, as distinct from individual or particular facts, and being verified or attested by careful evidence, in contrast to time loose assertions that satisfy time ordinary run of mankind.
A distinction, considered by sir W. Hamilton and others to be of great importance in metaphysical philosophy, is that of immediate or presentative, and mediatre or repre sentative knowledge. The one is the knowledge or cognizance that we have of the modifications of our own minds, so to speak, without inferring anything beyond, as in our various sensations and emotions. When we are affected by cold or heat, hunger,
thirst, odor, or sound, we are conscious of a something, which may be said to be wholly contained in our own minds; but when a present modification of the mind is looked upon not for its own sake, but as bodying forth something more than itself, as in memory, our knowledge is then said to be mediate. Thus, an actual sensation is immediate, but a recollection, or idea, or imagination is mediate and representative. Mr. Mans.d makes this distinction the basis of his division of the mind. " Conscious ness," lie says, "in its relation to time person conscious, is of two kinds; or rather, is composed of two elements—the presentative, or intuitive, and the representative, or reflective. The phenomena of the former class may be distinguished by the general name of intuitions; those of the latter, by that of thoughts." [t will appear from time above remarks that there is no question connected with knowledge that does not fall to be discussed under some other head; and as a general rule, it is best to take up the difficult problems of the philosophy of mind under those n mines that severally suggest each in its singleness, instead of confusing a multitude together.