ABSTRACT
The process of mediation upon which knowledge proceeds has been described by many writers. That all knowledge, all cognitive apprehension, not merely that of logical process proper, involves the process of mediation more or less explicitly. The actual — whether physical thing, economic value, moral situation, religious truth—is something grounded in observation, demonstration, or knowledge. In the logical stage of knowledge or thought, in which conscious reflection appears, it would seem that the entire self might be finally apprehended by knowledge. Whatever influence the transition from direct to reflective knowledge may have upon our interpretation, it would be in the direction of introducing a factor of subjectivism into all reality; it would not tend to place emphasis upon knowledge or thought as such. Purposes of abstraction, the other pole of the knowledge relation is in evidence. The reservations made as to the role of knowledge in revealing reality are, it is plain, largely in the interest of will and feeling.
