VIII. The Factors of Life

Voluntarism can as little be called scientific as can Mysticism. For both assert that the conceptual interpretation of the world is inadequate. Both demand, with a certain amount of justice, in addition to a principle of being which is ideal, also a principle which is real. But as perception is our only means of apprehending these so-called real principles, the assertion of Mysticism and Voluntarism coincides with the view that we have two sources of knowledge, viz., thinking and perception, the latter presenting itself as an individual experience in feeling and will. Since the immediate experiences which flow from the one source cannot be directly absorbed into the experiences of thinking which flow from the other, both experiences—perception and thinking—remain side by side, without any higher form of mediation between them. Besides the conceptual (ideal) principle to which we attain by means of knowledge, there is said to be a real principle which must be experienced. In other words, Mysticism and Voluntarism are both forms of Naive Realism, because they subscribe to the doctrine that the immediately perceived (experienced) is real. Compared with Naive Realism in its primitive form, they are guilty of the yet further inconsistency of accepting one definite form of perception (feeling, will) as the exclusive means of knowing reality. Yet they can do this only so long as they cling to the general principle that everything that is perceived is real. They ought, therefore, to attach an equal value to external perception for purposes of knowledge.