aid that _our_ world, or
the world _for us_, is due to our activity of thinking, and so is in
some sense _made_ by us, all that should be meant is that our
_apprehending_ the world as whatever we apprehend it to be
_presupposes_ activity on our part. But since the activity is after
all only the activity itself of apprehending or knowing, this
assertion is only a way of saying that apprehending or knowing is not
a condition of mind which can be produced in us _ab extra_, but is
something which we have to do for ourselves. Nothing is implied to be
made. If anything is to be said to be made, it must be not our world
but our activity of apprehending the world; but even we and our
activity of apprehending the world are not related as maker and thing
made. Again, to speak of a complex conception, e. g. gold, and to say
that it involves a synthesis of simple conceptions by the mind is mere
'conceptualism'. If, as we ought to do, we replace the term
'conception' by 'universal', and speak of gold as a synthesis of
universals, any suggestion that the mind performs the synthesis will
vanish, for a 'synthesis of universals' will mean simply a connexion
of universals. All that is mental is our apprehension of their
connexion. Again, in judgement we cannot be said to _relate_ predicate
to subject. Such an assertion would mean either that we relate a
conception to a conception, or a conception to a reality[42], or a
reality to a reality; and, on any of these interpretations, it is
plainly false. To retain the language of 'relation' or of
'combination' at all, we must say that in judgement we recognize real
elements as related or combined. Again, when we infer, we do not
construct, ideally or otherwise. 'Ideal construction'[43] is a
contradiction in terms, unless it refers solely to mental imagining,
in which case it is not inference. Construction which is not 'ideal',
i. e. literal construction, plainly cannot constitute the nature of
inference; for inference would cease to be inference, if by it we
made, and did not apprehend, a necessity of connexion. Again, the
phrase '2 and 2 _make_ 4' does not justify the view that in some sense
we 'make' reality. It of course suggests that 2 and 2 are not 4 until
they are added, i. e. that the addition makes them 4.[44] But the
language is only appropriate when we are literally making a group of 4
by physically placing 2 pairs of bodies in one group. Where we are
counting, we should say merely t