cess
precisely as knowing a mechanical object? Thoughts without percepts are
empty, and what are the "percepts" in the two cases? In the first case,
that of knowing things, the percepts are colors, sounds, resistances; in
the case of persons the percepts are impulses, feelings, desires,
passions, as well as images, purposes, and the reflective process
itself. In the former case we construct objects dehumanized; in the
latter we keep them more or less concrete. But now, just as primitive
man did not so thoroughly de-personalize nature, but left in it an
element of personal aim, so science may view human beings as objects
whose purposes and even feelings may be predicted, and hence may, as
Professor Fite well puts it, view them mechanically. What he fails to
note is that just this mechanical point of view is the view of "mere
knowing"--if "mere" has any significance at all, it is meant to shut out
"sentiment." And this mechanical view is entirely equal to the
adjectives of "clear," "far-sighted," and even "broad" so far as this
means "more in one." For it is not essential to a mechanical point of
view that we consider men in masses or study them by statistics. I may
calculate the purposes and actions, yes, and the emotions and values of
one, or of a thousand, and be increasingly clear, and far-sighted, and
broad, but if it is "mere" knowing--scientific information--it is still
"mechanical," i.e., external. On the other hand, if it is to be a
knowledge that has the qualities of humaneness, or "intelligent
sympathy," it must have some of the stuff of feeling, even as in the
realm of things an artist's forest will differ from that of the most
"far-sighted," "clear," and "broad" statistician, by being rich with
color and moving line.

And this leads to a statement of the way in which my fellow-beings will
find place in "my" self. I grant that if they are there I shall take
some account of them. But they may be there in all sorts of ways. They
may be there as "population" if I am a statistician, or as "consumers,"
or as rivals, or as enemies, or as fellows, or as friends. They will
have a "value" in each case, but it will sometimes be a positive value,
and sometimes a negative value. Which it will be, and how great it will
be, depends not on the mere fact of these objects being "in
consciousness" but on the capacity in which they are there. And this
capacity depends on the dominant interest and not on mere knowing. The
troubl