>>3596166When the unreflective consciousness speaks of observation and experience as being the fountain of truth, the phrase may possibly sound as if the whole business were a matter of tasting, smelling, feeling, hearing, and seeing.
It forgets, in its zeal for tasting, smelling, and etc., to say that, as a matter of fact, it has really and already rationally determined for itself the object thus sensuously apprehended, and this determination of the object is at least as important for it as that other apprehension.
It will also readily admit that its whole concern is not simply a matter of perceiving, and will not allow, e.g,. the perception that this penknife lies beside this snuff-box to pass for an “observation”.
What is perceived should, at least, have the significance of a universal, and not merely of a sensuous particular “this”.
