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LOTZE'S   SYSTEM   OF    PHILOSOPHY 
PART   II 

METAPHYSIC 


VOL.  rt 


Honfcon 

HENKY    FKOWDE 


OXFORD     UNIVERSITY    PRESS     WAREHOUSE 
AMEN   CORNER 


press 


METAPHYSIC 


IN   THREE  BOOKS 


ONTOLOGY,    COSMOLOGY,    AND    PSYCHOLOGY 


BY 


HERMANN    LOTZE 


ENGLISH    TRANSLATION 

EDITED    BY 

BERNARD    BOSANQUET,    M.A, 

FELLOW    OF    UNIVERSITY    COLLEGE,    OXFORD 


©xfotlr 

AT    THE    CLARENDON    PRESS 
1884 

[  All  rights  reserved '] 


17 

^-* - 

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AUTHOR'S    PREFACE. 


THE  publication  of  this  second  volume  has  been  delayed 
by  a  variety  of  hindrances,  which  caused  a  lengthened  inter 
ruption  of  its  passage  through  the  press.  In  the  meantime 
several  works  have  appeared  which  I  should  have  been  glad 
to  notice ;  but  it  was  impossible,  for  the  above  reason,  to 
comment  upon  them  in  the  appropriate  parts  of  my  book ; 
and  I  therefore  reserve  what  I  have  to  say  about  them. 

I  can  promise  nothing  in  respect  of  the  third  volume  but 
that,  should  I  have  strength  to  finish  it,  it  will  be  confined 
to  a  discussion  of  the  main  problems  of  Practical  Philosophy, 
Aesthetic,  and  the  Philosophy  of  Religion.  I  shall  treat 
each  of  these  separately,  and  without  the  lengthiness  which 
was  unavoidable  in  the  present  volume  owing  to  a  diver 
gence  from  prevalent  views. 

THE  AUTHOR. 

GOTTINGEN:  December  23,  1878. 


EDITOR'S   PREFACE. 

THE  Translation  of  the  Metaphysic  has  been  executed,  like 
that  of  the  Logic,  by  several  hands.  The  whole  of  Book  I 
(Ontology)  and  the  chapter  *  Of  Time '  (Book  II,  ch.  iii)  were 
translated  by  the  late  Mr.  T.  H.  Green,  Whyte's  Professor 
of  Moral  Philosophy  at  Oxford ;  chapters  i,  ii,  and  iv,  of 
Book  II  by  Mr.  B.  Bosanquet,  Fellow  of  University  College, 
Oxford ;  chapters  v-viii  (inclusive)  of  Book  II  by  the  Rev. 
C.  A.  Whittuck,  Fellow  of  Brasenose  College,  Oxford  ;  and 
the  whole  of  Book  III  by  Mr.  A.  C.  Bradley,  Fellow  of  Balliol 
College,  Oxford.  The  Index  and  Table  of  Contents  were 
added  by  the  Editor. 

The  entire  translation  has  been  revised  by  the  Editor,  who 
is  responsible  in  every  case  for  the  rendering  finally  adopted. 
The  Editor  has  to  thank  Mr.  J.  C.  Wilson,  of  Oriel  College, 
Oxford,  for  ample  and  ready  assistance  when  consulted  on 
passages  involving  the  technical  language  of  Mathematics 
or  Physics ;  if  the  Author's  meaning  in  such  places  has  been 
intelligibly  conveyed,  this  result  is  wholly  due  to  Mr.  Wilson's 
help. 

In  conveying  his  assent  to  the  proposal  of  an  English 
translation,  the  Author  expressed  a  wish  to  work  out  Book  III 
of  the  Metaphysic  (the  Psychology)  more  fully,  but  had  not 
time  to  carry  out  his  intention.  For  the  third  volume 
of  the  Author's  '  System  of  Philosophy,'  alluded  to  in  the 
Preface,  no  materials  were  found  after  his  death  sufficiently 
advanced  for  publication,  excepting  a  paper  subsequently 
published  in  '  Nord  und  Slid '  (June  1882),  under  the  title 
|  Die  Principien  der  Ethik.'  The  Author's  views  on  the  sub 
jects  reserved  for  the  volume  in  question  may  be  gathered  in 
part  from  his  earlier  work  '  Mikrokosmus,'  which  will  soon, 
it  may  be  hoped,  be  made  accessible  to  English  readers,  and 
more  fully  from  his  lectures  recently  published  under  the 
titles  'Grundfiige  der  Aesthetik,'  'der  Praktischen  Philosophic,' 
and  '  der  Religionsphilosophie.' 


TABLE    OF    CONTENTS. 

BOOK  I. 

On  the  Connexion  of  Things. 
INTRODUCTION. 

PAGE 

Section  I.  Reality,  including  Change,  the  subject  of  Metaphysic  .  .  .  i 
„  II.  Origin  of  expectations  which  conflict  with  experience  ...  2 
„  III.  The  foundation  of  experience  .  .  ....--.  .  .2 

„      IV.  Consistent  and  inconsistent  scepticism  .  " 3 

„       V.  Probability  depends  on  the  assumption  of  connexion  according  to 

Law 4 

*  „      VI.  Relation  of  Metaphysic  to  experience 6 

„  VII.  The  method  of  Metaphysic  not  that  of  Natural  Science  ...  7 
„  VIII.  In  what  sense  the  Essence  of  Things  is  unknowable  ...  9 
„  IX.  Metaphysic  the  foundation  of  Psychology,  not  vice  versa  .  .11 
„  X.  Idea  of  Law  and  of  Plan.  Metaphysic  must  start  from  the  former  14 
„  XI.  No  clue  to  be  found  in  the  Dialectic  Method  .  .  .  .  16 
„  XII.  No  clue  to  be  found  in  the  forms  of  Judgment  .  ,  .  .17 

„  XIII.  Divisions  of  the  subject .20 

„  XIV.  The  natural  conception  of  the  universe  .         .         .         .         .         .21 

CHAPTER  I. 

ON   THE   BEING   OF   THINGS. 

1.  Real  and  unreal 23 

2.  Sensation  the  only  evidence  of  Reality?    .                  24 

3.  Sensation  gives  assurance  of  nothing  beyond  itself    .         .         .         .         -24 

4.  Being  of  Things  apart  from  Consciousness.     Their  action  on  each  other  .  25 

5.  Questions  of  the  origin  and  the  natiire  of  reality  distinguished          .  27 

6.  Objective  relations  presuppose  the  Being  of  Things 28 

7.  Being  apart  from  relations  meaningless 29 

8-9.  Pure  Being  a  legitimate  abstraction,  but  not  applicable  to  Reality .         .  30 

10.  'Position'  and  'Affirmation'  meaningless  apart  from  relations          .         .  31 

11.  '  Position '  appears  to  involve  the  difficulties  attaching  to  creative  action  .  33 

12.  Herbart's  '  irrevocable  Position ' 35 

13.  Herbart's  indifference  of  Things  to  relations,  inconsistent  with  their  en 

tering  into  relations 36 

14.  The  isolation  of  Things  a  mere  abstraction 38 


viii  Table  of  Contents. 


CHAPTER  II. 

OF   THE   QUALITY   OF   THINGS. 

PAGE 

15.  The  essence  of  Things 4° 

16.  A  Thing  is  taken  to  be  more  than  its  qualities 41 

17.  Herbart's  conception  of  the  essence  of  a  Thing  as  a  'simple  Quality'       .  42 

18.  A  Quality  need  not  be  abstract  nor  dependent  on  a  subject        .         .         -44 

19.  How  can  what  is  simple  have  varying  '  states '  ? 46 

20.  The  common  element  in  sensations  of  colour 48 

21.  Things  only  vary  within  certain  limits 50 

22.  The  movement  of  consciousness  not  analogous  to  the  variations  of  a 

'simple  Quality1 51 

23.  'Simple  Qualities'  represented  by  compound  expressions  (Herbart)          .  52 

24.  If  there  are  Things,  they  must  be  capable  of  change,  as  the  soul  is  .         .  53 


CHAPTER   III. 

OF    THE   REAL   AND    REALITY. 

25.  Things  not  of  the  nature  of 'simple  Qualities'          .....  57 

26.  Things  commonly  described  by  their  states       .         .         .         .         .         -57 

27.  A  complete  conception  would  include  past  and  future  history  of  Thing    .  59 

28.  Matter  as  imparting  reality  to  Qualities 60 

29.  Matter  which  has  no  Qualities  can  receive  none 61 

30.  Matter  explains  nothing  if  it  is  mere  '  Position ' 62 

31.  'Real' is  a  predicative  conception,  not  a  subject 64 

32.  A  Thing  as  a  Law 67 

33.  A  Law  need  not  be  General  ? 68 

34.  What  is  that  which  conforms  to  the  Law? 70 

36.  Danger  of  the  antithesis  between  the  world  of  Ideas  and  Reality      .         .  72 

36.  Difficulty  of  expressing  the  notion  of  a  Law  or  Idea  which  is  naturally 

real 74 

CHAPTER  IV. 

OF   BECOMING   AND   CHANGE. 

37.  Substance  a  mode  of  behaviour  of  Things,  not  a  mysterious  nucleus          .  76 

38.  How  is  change  subject  to  certain  limits,  to  be  conceived?         .                  .  77 

39.  Law  of  Identity  does  not  even  prove  the  continuous  existence  of  Things  .  7$ 

40.  Resolution  of  all  permanence  into  Becoming 80 

41.  Svvapis  and  tvepyfia  in  two  senses    ....                                    ,  81 

42.  Why  are  consequences  realised  ?       ...  ,82 

43.  The  Things  must  be  such  realisations        ........  84 

44.  This  would  only  explain  development,  not  causation         .         .         .         .86 
).  In  'transeunt'  action  changes  in  the  agent  must  be  'noticed'  by  the  patient  87 

46.  'Immanent' action  usually  assumed  as  obvious 87 

47.  Notion  of  Becoming  compared  with  notion  of '-tfates  of  a  persistent  Thing  88 

48.  Quantitative  comparability  of  factors  in  every  effect          .         .         .         .90 

49.  Degrees  of  Intensity  of  Being 9I 


Table  of  Contents.  ix 


CHAPTER  V. 

OF   THE  NATURE  OF   PHYSICAL  ACTION* 

PAGE 

50.  No  effect  due  to  a  single  active  cause 93 

51.  -Cause,  Reason,  and  the  Relation  which  initiates  action   ....  95 

52.  Modification  of  Causes  and  Relation  by  effect         .         .         •         •         .96 

53.  '  Occasional  Causes  '  and  '  Stimuli '         .         .         .         ...»         -97 

54.  Must  the  relation  which  initiates  action  be  contact?        .        «        .        •  99 

55.  A  '  causa  transiens '  is  only  preliminary  to  action toi 

56.  Difficulty  of  conceiving  the  passage  of  a  force  or  state  from  A  to  B        .  103 

57.  Origin  of  erroneous  idea  that  cause  and  effect  must  be  equal  and  like      .  104 

58.  Relation  of  consequence  to  ground  may  be  synthetic  as  well  as  analytic  .  106 

59.  How  far  must  Things  be  homogeneous  in  order  to  react  upon  each  other?  107 

60.  Desire  to  explain  all  processes  as  of  one  kind.  'Like  known  only  by  like '  109 

61.  Attempt  to  dispense  with  '  transeunt '  action.     Occasionalism         .         .  no 

62.  Neither  mere  '  Law '  nor  mere  •  relation '  can  explain  interaction  of  two 

Things .         .in 

63.  Leibnitz's  '  Pre-established  Harmony '     .       ..       ..       ..         .         .         .     113 

64.  What  his  completely  determined  world  gains  by  realisation    .         .         .115 

65.  Complete  determinism  incredible n6 

66.  Corresponding  states  of  different  Monads.    Illustration  of  the  two  clocks     118 

67.  Operation  according  to  general  laws  necessary  for  active  causation          .     I  20 


CHAPTER   VI. 

THE   UNITY   OF   THINGS. 

68.  What  is  involved  in  the  idea  of  '  transeunt '  operation     .         .         .         .123 

69.  Pluralism  and  Monism  ,         .         .         .         .         *         .         .         .         .124 

70.  Separate  Things  not  really  independent  of  each  other      .         .    \.         .126 

71.  Unity  of  Things  analytically  involved  in  reciprocal  action       .         .         .127 

72.  How  their  unity  is  consistent  with  apparent  degrees  of  independence      .     128 

73.  The  relation  of  the  One  to  the  Many  cannot  be  exhibited  to  Perception  .     129 

74.  Alleged  contradiction  of  regarding  the  One  as  the  Many          .         .         .130 

75.  The  Logical  copula  inadequate  to  the  relation  between  the  One  and  the 

Many 131 

76.  Reality  subject  to  Law  of  Identity  in  form  but  not  in  fact       .         .         .  134 

77.  The  One  and  the  Many  illustrated  by  Herbart's  '  accidental  views'          .  135 

78.  Herbart  admits  multiplicity  in  the  nature  of  individual  Things       .         .  137 

79.  Leibnitz'  world,  when  ceasing  to  be  immanent  in  God,  has  no  unity        .  138 

80.  Relations  between  the  contents  of  ideas  can  only  exist  for  Thought          .  140 

81.  Variable  Relations  between  Things  must  be  modifications  in  the  things  .  142 

CHAPTER  VII. 

CONCLUSION. 

82.  Real  Relations  are  the  reciprocal  actions  of  Things  conditioned  by  the 

unity  which  includes  them 145 

83.  We  have  not  to  account  for  the  origin  of  Motion 146 


x  Table  of  Contents. 

PAGE 

84.  The  assumption  of  Motion  is  not  the  same  thing  as  the  assumption  of 

Life  (as  spiritual  existence)        .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .149 

85.  The  dominant  principles  of  any  real  world  are  prescribed  by  its  nature 

and  are  not  prior  to  it 149 

86.  The  reference  to  'any'  real  world,  other  than  that  which  exists,  is 

imaginary  and  illustrative         . -151 

87.  Consistency  of  causation  has  no  meaning  apart  from  the  comparison  of 

cases  within  the  actual  world 152 

88.  Hegel,  Schelling,  Weisse, — Necessity  and  Freedom       .         .         .         .154 

89.  Necessity  as  an  appearance  produced  within  reality.     Idealism  and 

Realism 157 

90.  The  Idea  must  have  a  concrete  content          .         .         .         .         .         .157 

91.  The  Phases  of  the  Idea  must  be  causally  connected       .        .         .         .158 

92.  The  Idea  generates  a  mechanical  system  by  which  it  is  realised     .         .     161 

93.  Realism  recognises  the  necessity  of  regressive  interpretation          .         .163 

94.  Subjectivity  in  relation  to  the  possibility  of  Knowledge          .         .         .165 

95.  Fichte  on  the  world  of  Spirits  and  the  world  of  Things         .         .         .166 

96.  A  spiritual  nature  seems  necessary  for  Things  //"they  are  to  be  subjects 

of  states 167 

97.  Need  Things  exist  at  all  ? 169 

98.  As  mere  media  of  effects,  they  can  hardly  be  said  to  exist     .         .         .171 


BOOK  II. 

Cosmology. 

CHAPTER  I. 

OF   THE  SUBJECTIVITY  OF   OUR  PERCEPTION   OF   SPACE. 

99.  The  genesis  of  our  idea  of  Space  no  test  of  its  validity          .         .         .  1 74 

100.  Euclidean  Space  is  what  we  have  to  discuss 175 

101.  Space  is  not  a  Thing,  Property,  or  Relation           .         .         .         .         .  176 

102.  Space  not  merely  a  Genus-concept 177 

103.  Kant  on  empty  Space 170 

104.  Kant  on  Space  as  given 180 

105.  Why  Kant  denied  the  reality  of  Space 181 

106.  Finiteness  or  Infinity  of  World  do  not  decide  the  question    .         .         .182 

107.  Nor  does  Infinite  divisibility  of  real  elements,  or  the  reverse          .         .  184 

108.  Real  difficulties.     What  is  Space,  and  how  are  things  in  it  ?          .         .  186 

109.  Reality  of  Space  does  not  explain  its  properties 186 

110.  Do  the  points  of  real  Space  act  upon  each  other?          .         .         .         .187 

11.  Constructions  of  Space  out  of  active  points 190 

12.  Constructions  of  real  Space  and  hypothesis  of  subjective  Space     .         .  191 
113.  Nothing  gained  by  the  independent  reality  of  Space      ....  194 

14.  Things  in  Space ;  on  hypothesis  of  its  being  subjective          .         .         .195 

15.  Things  in  an  independently  existing  Space 197 

16.  Relations  between  things  and  reactions  0/ things 198 

117.  The  movability  of  things 200 


Table  of  Contents.  xi 


CHAPTER  II. 

DEDUCTIONS  OF   SPACE. 

PAGE 

118.  Spinoza  on  Consciousness  and  Extension      .         .         .         .         ,         ,     202 

119.  Schelling  on  the  two  factors  in  Nature  and  Mind  .         .         .         .     203 

120.  Limit  of  what  can  be  done  by  speculative  construction.     Hegel  and 

Weisse .     204 

121.  Deductions  of  the  three  dimensions       .         .         .         .      '."      .        .     205 

122.  Three  questions  involved  in  'Psychological'  Deductions  of  Space         .     206 

123.  Alternatives  suggested  by  idea  of  subjective  Space        ....     209 

124.  Can  any  Space  represent  what  our  Space  will  not  ?        .         .         .         .210 

125.  Symbolical  spatial  arrangements,  of  sounds,  etc.    .         .         .         .         .211 

126.  No  Space  will  represent  disparate  qualities 212 

127.  Other  Spaces  than  common  Space  in  what  sense  possible       .         .        .214 

128.  Geometry  dependent  on  its  data »  215 

129.  All  constructions  presuppose  the  Space-perception         .         .         .         .217 

130.  Constructions  of  straight  line,  plane,  etc.  presuppose  them    .         .         .218 

131.  The  sum  of  the  angles  of  a  triangle       .         .         .         .         .         .         .220 

132.  Helmholtz  on  the  possible  ignorance  of  a  third  dimension     .         ;         .222 

133.  Dwellers  on  a  sphere-surface  and  parallel  lines 225 

134.  Analogy  from  ignorance  of  third  dimension  to  ignorance  of  fourth         .     226 

135.  There  cannot  be  four  series  'perpendicular'  to  each  other     .         .         .229 

136.  Extension  must  be  homogeneous  .         .' 232 

137.  Riemann's  'multiplicities'  are  not  Space  unless  uniform        .         ,        .     235 


CHAPTER  III. 

OF   TIME, 

138.  Spatial  representations  of  Time 238 

139.  The  conception  of  empty  Time 239 

140.  The  connexion  of  'Time'  with  events  in  it 241 

141.  Kant's  view  of  Time  as  subjective 242 

142.  Kant's  proof  that  the  world  has  a  beginning  in  Time    .         .         .         .242 

143.  The  endlessness  of  Time  not  self-contradictory      .....     243 

144.  The  past  need  not  be  finite  because  each  event  is  finished     .         .         .     245 

145.  An  infinite  series  may  be  'given'          .         .         .         .         ...     247 

146.  Time  as  a  mode  of  our  apprehension 248 

147.  Empty  Time  not  even  a  condition  of  Becoming     .         .         .         .         .250 

148.  Time  as  an  abstraction  from  occurrence         .         .         .         .         .         .252 

149.  Time  as  an  infinite  whole  is  Subjective 253 

150.  No  mere  systematic  relation  explains  '  Present '  and  'Past'  .         .         .     254 

151.  Indication  of 'Present' to  a  Subject 255 

152.  Subjective  Time  need  not  make  the  Past  still  exist         .         .         .         .258 

153.  Absence  of  real  succession  conceivable  by  approximation       .         .         .     260 

154.  Even  thought  cannot  consist  of  a  mere  succession          ....     261 

155.  But  Future  cannot  become  Present  without  succession  ....     -263 

156.  Empty  'Time'  Subjective,  but  succession  inseparable  from  Reality       .     265 

157.  Existence  of  Past  and  Future  268 


xii  Table  of  Contents. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

OF   MOTION. 

PAGE 

158.  Law  of  Continuity 27° 

159.  Continuity  essential  to  Becoming 27* 

160.  Grounds  for  the  Law  of  Persistence 273 

161.  The  Persistence  of  Rest 275 

162.  The  Persistence  of  Motion 2?6 

163.  Motion  inconceivable  without  Law  of  Persistence          .         .         .         .278 

164.  Possibility  of  absolute  Motion,  on  doctrine  of  real  Space      .         .         .  279 

165.  Possibility  of  absolute  Rotation 2Sl 

166.  Amount  and  direction  of  Motion  to  be  accepted  like  any  constant         .  282 

167.  Difficulty  of  alleged  indifference  of  Things  to  change  of  place        .         .  283 

168.  On  view  of  phenomenal  Space  percipient  subject  with  organism  is  essen 

tial  to  occurrence  of  Motion 285 

169.  Solitary  Motion  possible,  if  observer  is  granted 288 

170.  'State' corresponding  to  a  Persistent  Motion        .....  289 

171.  Motion  is  not  the  same  as  the  Measure  of  Motion          ....  290 

172.  Parallelogram  of  Motions  akin  to  Law  of  Persistence   .         .         .         .291 

173.  Parallelogram  necessarily  true  if  only  motions  are  considered         .         .  293 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE   THEORETICAL  CONSTRUCTION   OF   MATERIALITY. 

174.  Matter  homogeneous,  or  heterogeneous  with  common  properties?          .  296 

175.  Limitation  of  the  problem 297 

176.  Descartes  and  Spinoza  on  Consciousness  and  Extension         .         .         .  298 

177.  Schelling  and  Hegel ;  problems  attempted  by  the  latter        .         .         .  301 

178.  Kant  does  not  connect  his  views  of  Matter  and  of  Space       .         .         .  302 

179.  Why  Kant  explained  Matter  by  Force 304 

180.  '  Force '  involves  relation  between  things 306 

181.  'Force'  as  a  property  of  one  element  a  figure  of  speech         .         .         .  308 

182.  Kant  rightly  implies  activity  on  the  part  of  Things,  not  mere  sequence 

according  to  Law 311 

183.  Kant's  two  forces  a  mere  analysis  of  the  position  of  a  thing  .         .         .  313 

184.  Still  a  mechanical  system  offerees  essential,  and  several  may  attach  to 

each  element 315 

185.  Force  can  only  act  at  a  distance 316 

186.  Idea  of  '  communication '  of  Motion 318 

187.  Space  no  self-evident  hindrance  to  action 321 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE    SIMPLE   ELEMENTS   OF   MATTER. 

88.  Prima  facie  grounds  in  favour  of  Atomism 324 

189.  Lucretius, — differences  in  the  Atoms 326 

190.  Consequences  of  the  Unity  of  an  extended  Atom 328 


Table  of  Contents.  xiii 

PAGE 

191.  Notion  of  unextended  Atoms— Herbart 331 

192.  Herbart's  view  modified— the  Atoms  not  independent  of  each  other      .  333 

193.  Is  Matter  homogeneous  or  of  several  kinds  ?         '.         ...         .         .  335 

194.  Homogeneous  Matter  not  proved  by  constancy  of  Mass         .         .         .  337 

195.  Connexion  of  the  elements  with  each  other  in  a  systematic  unity  .         .  339 

196.  Plurality  in  space  of  identical  elements  merely  phenomenal  .         .         .  340 

197.  Self-multiplication  of  Atomic  centres  conceivable          ....  343 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  LAWS   OF   THE  ACTIVITIES   OF   THINGS. 

198.  The  square  of  the  distance,— difficulties  in  the  radiation  of  Force          .  345 

199.  No  mechanical  deduction  of  a  primary  Force 348 

200.  Alleged  infinite  attraction  at  no  distance 348 

201.  Herbart's  view  of  the  '  Satisfaction '  of  Force,  not  conclusive        .         .  350 

202.  Philosophy  desires  one  primary  law  of  action        .         .         .         .     K    .  352 

203.  Affinity  would  naturally  correspond  to  the  Distance  itself      .         .         .  353 

204.  Attempt  to  account  for  Square  of  Distance 355 

205.  Can  Force  depend  on  motions  of  acting  elements  ?         ....  357 

206.  Does  Force  require  time  to  take  effect  at  a  distance  ?     .         ...  358 

207.  Causation  and  Time— Reciprocal  action        ....                 .  360 

208.  Idealism  admits  no  special  Laws  as  absolute         .....  362 

209.  Conservation  of  Mass 363 

210.  Constancy  of  the  Sum  of  Motions 364 

211.  Absorption  of  Cause  in  Effect 366 

212.  Not  self-evident  that  there  can  be  no  gain  in  physical  action         .         .  366 

213.  Equality  and  Equivalence  distinguished 369 

214.  Equivalence  does  not  justify  reduction  to  one  process    ....  371 

215.  '  Compensation  '  in  interaction  of  Body  and  Soul 372 

216.  The  Principle  of  Parsimony 373 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE   FORMS   OF   THE  COURSE   OF    NATURE. 

217.  Deductions  of  the  forms  of  reality  impossible 378 

218.  Possibility  of  explaining  natural  processes  in  detail  on  the  view  of 

subjective  Space 380 

219.  Success  the  test  of  the  methods  of  physical  science         ....  381 

220.  Mechanism  the  action  of  combined  elements  according  to  general  laws  383 

221.  Mechanism  as  a  distinct  mode  of  natural  activity — a  fiction  .         .         .  385 

222.  The  planetary  system,  light  and  sound 388 

223.  Electricity  and  Chemistry  should  not  be  sharply  opposed  to  Mechanism  390 

224.  Motives  for  forming  the  conception  of  a  Vital  Force      ....  392 

225.  Vital  Force  could  not  be  one  for  all  Organisms 393 

226.  Difference  between  organic  and  inorganic  substances  proves  nothing 

about  Vital  Force 394 

227.  A  '  Life-principle '  would  have  to  operate  mechanically         .         .         .  395 

228.  Mechanical  aspect  of  Organisms 397 

229.  Mechroiical  view  indispensable  but  not  exhaustive        ....  399 


xiv  Table  of  Contents. 

PAGE 

230.  Purpose  implies  a  subject — God,  the  soul 400 

231.  Von  Baer  on  purpose  in  '  Nature ' 402 

232.  Unity  of  world  determines  all  modes  of  action 404 

233.  The  mechanical  order  need  not  exclude  progress 405 

234.  Is  there  a  fixed  number  of  Natural  Kinds  ? 408 

235.  Criticism  of  the  question 'Is  real  existence  finite  or  infinite?'        .         .  409 

236.  Development  of  the  Cosmos— only  its  general  principles  a  question  for 

Metaphysic 414 

237.  Actual  development  of  life  a  question  for  Natural  History.    Conclusion  415 


BOOK   III. 

Psychology. 

CHAPTER  I. 

THE  METAPHYSICAL  CONCEPTION  OF   THE  SOUL. 

Introductory.     Rational  and  Empirical  Psychology       .         .         .         .418 

238.  Reasons  for  the  belief  in  a 'Soul/ — i.  Freedom  is  no  reason         .         .  420 

239.  2.  Mental  and  physical  processes  disparate 421 

240.  Disparateness  no  proof  of  separate  psychical  substance          .         .         .  422 

241.  3.  Unity  of  Consciousness 423 

242.  Unity  of  the  conscious  Subject 424 

243.  The  subject  in  what  sense  called  '  substance ' 426 

244.  Kant  on  the  Substantiality  of  the  Soul 427 

245.  What  the  Soul  is;  and  the  question  of  its  immortality           .         .         .  430 

246.  Origin  of  the  Soul  may  be  gradual *    .  432 

247.  Ideas  of  psychical  and  psycho-physical  mechanism        ....  435 

248.  Interaction  between  Body  and  Soul 436 

249.  Idea  of  a  bond  between  Body  and  Soul 438 

250.  The  Soul  not  a  resultant  of  physical  actions 439 

251.  Meaning  of  explaining  the  Soul  as  a  peculiar  form  of  combination 

between  elements 441 

252.  Consciousness  and  Motion  in  Fechner's  '  Psycho-Physik '      .         .         .  442 

CHAPTER  II. 

SENSATIONS   AND   THE   COURSE  OF   IDEAS. 

253.  The  physical  stimulus  of  sensation 445 

254.  The  physiological  stimulus  of  sensation 446 

255.  The  conscious  sensation 448 

256.  Adequate  and  inadequate  stimuli  of  sense 450 

257.  The  connexion  of  various  classes  of  sensation 451 

258.  Weber's  Law 453 

259.  Hypotheses  as  to  the  reason  of  Weber's  Law 455 

260.  The  so-called  chemistry  of  ideas 456 


Table  of  Contents.  xv 

PAGE 

261.  The  disappearance  of  ideas  from  consciousness.    The  checking  of  ideas    459 

262.  The  strength  of  ideas  .        .         .        .  .        .         .        .         .460 

263.  Dim  ideas ,        .        ,        ,     •   .         .     462 

264.  The  more  interesting  idea  conquers       .         .      .  •       •'•-.       ,  -     •        .    463 

265.  Association  of  ideas v-       ,     •  ...        .        .     465 

266.  Herbart's  theory  respecting  the  reproduction  of  a  successive  series  of 

ideas ,        .    467 


CHAPTER  III. 

ON  THE   MENTAL  ACT  OF  'RELATION.' 

267.  Simple  ideas  and  their  relations 470 

268.  The  necessary  distinction  between  them 471 

269.  Psycho-physical  attempts  to  explain  ideas  of  relation     ....  472 

270.  Herbart's  theory  of  the  psychical  mechanism         .....  474 

271.  The  truer  view  respecting  simple  ideas  and  ideas  of  relation  expressed 

in  Herbartian  language 476 

272.  The  referring  activity  as  producing  universal  conceptions      .         .         -477 

273.  Attention  as  an  activity  of  reference 478 

274.  Attention  and  the  '  interest '  possessed  by  ideas 479 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  FORMATION  OF  OUR   IDEAS   OF   SPACE. 

275.  The  subjectivity  of  our  perception  of  Space 481 

276.  How  is  the  perception  of  spatial  relations  possible  ?      ....  482 

277.  Distinctions  depending  on  Space  cannot  be  preserved  as  such  in  the  Soul  484 

278.  A  clue  needed  for  the  arrangement  of  impressions  by  the  Soul       .         .  485 

279.  The  'extra-  impression'  as  a  clue  or  '  local  sign"*    .....  486 

280.  Does  the  'local  sign'  arise  in  the  same  nerve-fibre  as  the  main  impression?  488 

281.  '  Local  signs '  must  be  not  merely  different  but  comparable  .         .         .  490 

282.  '  Local  signs '  must  be  conscious  sensations 491 

283-7.  On  the  local  signs  connected  with  visual  sensations  ....  493 

288-9.  Local  signs  connected  with  the  sense  of  touch  .....  503 

290.  How  these  feelings  are  associated  with  movement         ....  506 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  PHYSICAL  BASIS  OF   MENTAL  ACTIVITY. 

291.  The 'seat' of  the  Soul 509 

292.  The  Soul  not  omnipresent  within  the  body   ......     510 

293.  No  reason  to  suppose  that  it  has  an  action  graduated  according  to  dis 

tance         511 

294.  No  suitable  place  can  be  found  for  it  on  the  hypothesis  that  it  acts  by 

contact  only 512 

295.  It  must  act  directly  and  independently  of  Space,  but  only  at  certain 

necessary  points 513 


xvi  Table  of  Contents. 

PAGE 

296.  Which  these  points  are  is  determined  from  time  to  time  by  the  activities 

which  go  on  in  them -515 

297.  Our  ignorance  of  the  special  functions  of  the  central  nervous  organs     .     517 

298.  Ideas  of  a  '  Sensorium  commune''  and  '  Motorium  commune'         .         .518 

299.  The  organ  of  language 519 

300.  How  the  soul  initiates  action 521 

301.  Reproduction  of  the  right  concomitant  feeling      .        -.         .         .      -.     522 

302.  Application  of  this  view  to  the  organ  of  language         .         .         .         .     523 

303.  Phrenology .         .     524 

304.  The  connexion  of  Consciousness  with  bodily  states        ....     526 

305.  Does  memory  depend  on  physical  traces  left  in  the  brain  ?    .         .         .529 

306.  Loss  of  memory 531 

307.  Existence  of  the  soul  during  unconsciousness         .         .        .  ,      .        .     533 
Conclusion 535 


INDEX 


537 


BOOK    I. 

ON   THE   CONNEXION   OF  THINGS. 


INTRODUCTION. 

I.  REAL  is  a  term  which  we  apply  to  things  that  are  in  opposition 
to  those  that  are  not ;  to  events  that  happen  in  distinction  from  those 
that  do  not  happen ;  to  actually  existing  relations  in  contrast  with 
those  that  do  not  exist.  To  this  usage  of  speech  I  have  already  had 
occasion  to  appeal.  I  recall  it  now  in  order  to  give  a  summary 
indication  of  the  object  of  the  following  enquiries.  It  is  not  the 
world  of  the  thinkable,  with  the  inexhaustible  multiplicity  of  its  inner 
relations — relations  which  are  eternally  valid — that  here  occupies  us. 
Our  considerations  are  expressly  directed  to  this  other  region,  of 
which  the  less  palpable  connexion  with  that  realm  of  ideas,  ever 
since  the  attention  of  Plato  was  first  fastened  upon  it,  has  remained 
( the  constantly  recurring  question  of  Philosophy.  It  is  a  region  that 
has  been  described  in  opposite  terms.  It  has  been  called  a  world 
of  appearance,  of  mere  phenomena — and  that  in  a  depreciatory  sense 
— by  men  who  contrasted  the  variable  multiplicity  of  its  contents  with 
the  imperturbable  repose  and  clearness  of  the  world  of  ideas.  To  c 
others  it  presented  itself  as  the  true  reality.  In  its  unfailing  move 
ment,  and  in  the  innumerable  activities  pervading  it,  they  deemed 
themselves  to  have  a  more  valuable  possession  than  could  be  found 
in  the  solemn  shadow-land  of  unchangeable  ideas.  This  diversity 
of  appellation  rests  on  a  deep  antithesis  of  conception,  which  will 
attract  our  notice  throughout  all  philosophy.  My  only  reason  for 
mentioning  it  here  is  that  the  two  views,  while  wholly  different  in  their 
estimates  of  value,  serve  equally  to  bring  to  light  Jhe  centre  round 
which  metaphysical  enquiries,  so  far  as  their  essence  is  concerned, 
will  always  move ;  i.  e.  the  fact  of  change.  While  predicable  only  by  ! 
metaphor  of  anything  that  is  merely  object  of  thought,  change  coin- 

**  VOL.  I.  B 


2  Introduction.  [BOOK  i. 

pletely  dominates  the  whole  range  of  reality.  Its  various  forms- 
becoming  and  decay,  action  and  suffering,  motion  and  development 
—are,  as  a  matter  of  fact  and  history,  the  constant  occasions  of  those 
enquiries  which,  as  forming  a  doctrine  of  the  flux  of  things  in 
opposition  to  the  permanent  being  of  ideas,  have  from  antiquity  been 
united  under  the  name  of  Metaphysic. 

II.  It  is  not  that  which  explains  itself  but  that  which  perplexes  us 
that  moves  to  enquiry.  Metaphysic  would  never  have  come  into 
being  if  the  course  of  events,  in  that  form  in  which  it  was  presented 
by  immediate  perception,  had  not  conflicted  with  expectations,  the 
fulfilment  of  which  men  deemed  themselves  entitled  to  demand  from 
whatever  was  to  be  reckoned  as  truly  existing  or  truly  taking  place. 
These  expectations  might  be  accounted  for  in  various  ways.  They 
might  be  held  to  be  innate  to  the  intelligent  spirit.  If  that  were  true 
of  them,  it  would  follow  that,  in  the  form  of  necessary  assumptions 
as  to  the  mode  of  existence  and  connexion  of  anything  that  can 
possibly  be  or  happen,  they  determine  our  judgment  upon  every 
occurrence  with  which  observation  presents  us.  Or  they  might  be 
taken  to  consist  in  requirements  arising  in  the  heart  out  of  its  needs, 
hopes,  and  wishes;  in  which  case  their  fulfilment  by  the  external 
world,  as  soon  as  attention  was  recalled  to  it,  would  be  no  less 
strongly  demanded.  Or  finally  it  might  be  held  that,  without  carrying 
any  intellectual  necessity  in  their  own  right,  they  had  arisen  out  of  the 
de  facto  constitution  of  experience  as  confirmed  habits  of  apprehension, 
suggesting  that  in  every  later  perception  the  same  features  were  to  be 
met  with  as  had  been  found  in  the  earlier.  The  history  of  philosophy 
may  convince  us  of  the  equally  strong  vivacity  and  assurance,  with 
which  these  different  views  have  asserted  themselves.  The  tendency 
of  the  present  day,  however,  is  to  deny  the  possession  of  innate  cog 
nition,  to  refuse  to  the  demands  of  the  heart  every  title  to  a  share  in 
the  determination  of  truth,  to  seek  in  experience  alone  the  source  of 

j  that  certain  knowledge  which  we  would  fain  acquire  in  regard  to  the 
connexion  of  things. 

'  III.  Philosophy  has  been  too  painfully  taught  by  the  course  of  its 
history  how  the  neglect  of  experience  avenges  itself,  for  any  fresh 
reminder  of  its  indispensableness  to  be  required.  Taken  by  itself, 
however,  and  apart  from  every  presupposition  not  furnished  by  itself, 
experience  is  not  competent  to  yield  the  knowledge  which  we  seek. 
For  our  wish  is  not  merely  to  enumerate  and  describe  what  has 
happened  or  is  happening.  We  also  want  to  be  able  to  predict  what 
under  definite  circumstances  will  happen.  But  experience  cannot 


BOOK  I.] 


Experience  and  Knowledge. 


show  us  the  future  ;  and  cannot  even  help  us  to  conjecture  what  it 
will  be  unless  we  are  certain  beforehand  that  the  course  of  the  world  is 
bound  to  follow  consistently,  beyond  the  limits  of  previous  observation, 
the  plan  of  which  the  beginning  is  presented  to  us  within  those  limits. 
An  assurance,  however,  of  the  validity  of  this  supposition  is  what 
experience  cannot  afford  us.  Grant  as  much  as  you  please  that 
observation  in  its  ceaseless  progress  had  up  to  a  certain  moment  only 
lighted  on  cases  of  conformity  to  the  rules  which  we  had  inferred  from 
a  careful  use  of  earlier  perceptions :  still  the  proposition  that  this 
accumulation  of  confirmatory  instances,  which  has  so  far  gone  on  with 
out  any  exception  being  met  with,  has  increased  the  probability  of  a 
like  confirmation  in  the  future,  is  one  that  can  only  be  maintained  on 
the  strength  of  a  previous  tacit  admission  of  the  assumption,  that  the 
same  order  which  governed  the  past  course  of  the  world  will  also 
determine  the  shape  to  be  taken  by  its  future.  This_one  supposition,  3 
accordingly,  of  there  being  a  universal  inner  connexion  of  all  reality 
as  such  which  alone  enables  us  to  argue  from  the  structure  of  any 
one  section  of  reality  to  that  o?  the  rest,  is  tlieTTbundation  of  every 
attempt  to  arrive  at  knowledge  by  means  of  experience,  and  is  not 
derivable  from  experience  itself.  Whoever  casts  doubt  on  the  suppo- ' 
sition,  not  only  loses  the  prospect  of  being  able  to  calculate  anything 
future  with  certainty,  but  robs  himself  at  the  same  time  of  the  only  fe 
basis  on  which  to  found  the  more  modest  hope  of  being  able  under 
definite  circumstances  to  consider  the  occurrence  of  one  event  as 
more  probable  than  that  of  another. 

IV.  There  have  been  philosophers  of  sceptical  tendency  who  have^  ftv**** 
shown  themselves  well  aware  of  this.  Having  once  given  up  the 
claim  to  be  possessors  of  any  such  innate  truth  as  would  also  be  the 
truth  of  things,  they  have  also  consistently  disclaimed  any  pretension 
from  a  given  reality  to  infer  a  continuation  of  that  reality  which  was 
not  given  with  it.  Nothing  in  fact  was  left,  according  to  them,  in  the 
way  of  knowledge  but  the  processes  of  pure  Mathematics,  in  which 
ideas  are  connected  without  any  claim  being  made  that  they  hold  good 
of  reality,  or  history  and  the  description  of  what  is  or  has  been.  A 
science  of  nature,  which  should  undertake  from  the  facts  of  the  present 
to  predict  the  necessity  of  a  future  result,  they  held  to  be  impossible. 
j  It  was  only  in  practical  life  that  those  who  so  thought  relied  with  as 
!  much  confidence  as  their  opponents  on  the  trustworthiness  of  those 
physical  principles,  which  within  the  school  they  maintained  to  be 
quite  without  justification.  The  present  professors  of  natural  science, 
who  by  their  noisy  glorification  of  experience  compel  every  meta- 

B  2 


4  Introduction.  [BOOK  i. 

physical  enquiry  at  the  outset  to  this  preliminary  self-defence,  appear 
to  be  only  saved  by  a  happy  inconsistency  from  the  necessity  of  a  like 
disclaimer.  With  laudable  modesty  they  question  in  many  individual 
cases  whether  they  have  yet  discovered  the  true  law  which  governs 
some  group  of  processes  under  investigation :  but  they  have  no  doubt 
[in  the  abstract  as  to  the  presence  of  laws  which  connect  all  parts  of 
the  world's  course  in  such  a  way  that,  if  once  complete  knowledge  had 
Ibeen  attained,  infallible  inferences  might  be  made  from  one  to  the 
other.  Now  experience,  even  if  it  be  granted  that  in  its  nature  it  is 
capable  of  ever  proving  the  correctness  of  this  assumption,  certainly 
cannot  be  held  to  have  yet  done  so.  There  still  lie  before  us  vast 
regions  of  nature,  as  to  which,  since  we  know  nothing  of  any  con 
nexion  of  their  events  according  to  law,  the  assertion  that  they  are 
throughout  pervaded  by  a  continuous  system  of  law  cannot  rest  on 

ithe  evidence  of  experience,  but  must  be  ventured  on  the  ground  of  a 
conviction  which  makes  the  systematic  connexion  of  all  reality  a 
primary  certainty. 

V.  There  are  various  ways  of  trying  to  compromise  the  difficulty. 
Sometimes  the  admission  is  made  that  the  science  of  nature  is  only 
an  experiment  in  which  we  try  how  far  we  can  go  with  the  arbitrary 
assumption  of  a  law  regulating  the  course  of  things ;  that  only  the 
favourable  result  which  experience  yields  to  the  experiment  convinces 
us  of  the  correctness  of  the  assumption  made.  Upon  this  we  can  in 
fact  only  repeat  the  remark  already  made,  and  perhaps  it  will  not  be 
useless  actually  to  repeat  it.  If  a  question  is  raised  as  to  the  nature 
of  the  connexion  between  two  processes,  of  which  the  mutual  de 
pendence  is  not  deducible  from  any  previously  known  truth,  it  is 
usual  no  doubt  to  arrive  at  the  required  law  by  help  of  an  hypothesis, 
of  which  the  proof  lies  in  the  fact  that  no  exception  can  be  found  to 
its  application.  But  in  truth  an  hypothesis  thus  accredited  is  intrin 
sically  after  all  nothing  more  than  a  formula  of  thought  in  which  we 
have  found  a  short  expression  for  the  common  procedure  which  has 
been  observable  in  ail  instances,  hitherto  noticed,  of  the  connexion  in 
question.  The  character  of  a  law  is  only  imparted  to  this  expression 
by  the  further  thought,  which  experience  cannot  add,  but  which  we 
add— the  thought  that  in  the  future  members  of  this  endless  series  of 
instances  the  same  relation  will  hold  good  which,  as  a  matter  of  ex 
perience,  we  have  only  found  to  hold  good  between  the  past  members 
of  the  series. 

It  is  again  only  by  a  repetition  of  what  I  have  already  said  that  I 
can  reply  to  the  further  expansion  of  the  view  referred  to.  It  may 


BOOK  i.)  Probability  and  the  Idea  of  Law.  5 

readily  be  allowed  that  the  observation  of  the  same  connexion  between 
two  occurrences,  when  constantly  repeated  without  an  instance  to  the 
contrary,  gives  an  ever  increasing  probability  to  the  assumption  of  a 
law  connecting  them  and  renders  their  coincidence  explicable  only 
on  this  assumption.  But  on  what  after  all  does  the  growing  power  of 
this  surmise  rest?  If  to  begin  with  we  left  it  an  open  question 
whether  there  is  any  such  thing  as  law  at  all  in  the  course  of  things, 
we  should  no  longer  be  entitled  to  wish  to  find  an  explanation  for  a 
succession  of  events,  and  in  consequence  to  favour  the  assumption 
Avhich  makes  it  explicable.  For  every  explanation-is  in  the  last  resort)  /^ 
(  notmng  but  the  reduction  of  a  mere  coincidence  between  two  facts  toV/*P* 
\an  inner  relation  of  mutual  dependence  according  to  a  universal  law. 
Every  need  of  explanation,  therefore,  and  the  right  to  demand  it,  rests 
on  the  primary  certainty  of  conviction  that  nothing  can  in  truth  be 
or  happen  which  has  not  the  ground  of  its  possibility  in  a  connected 
universe  of  things,  and  the  ground  of  its  necessary  realisation  at  a  definite 
place  and  time  in  particular  facts  of  this  universe.  If  we  once  drop  this 
primary  conviction,  nothing  any  longer  requires  explanation  and  nothing 
admits  of  it ;  for  that  mutual  dependence  would  no  longer  exist  which 
the  explanation  consists  in  pointing  out.  Or,  to  employ  a  different 
expression  :  if  we  did  not  start  from  the  assumption  that  the  course  of 
things  was  bound  by  a  chain  of  law,  then  and  for  that  reason  it  would 
not  be  a  whit  more  improbable  that  the  same  processes  should  always 
occur  in  a  uniform,  and  yet  perfectly  accidental,  connexion,  than  that 
there  should  be  the  wildest  variety  of  the  most  manifold  combinations. 
And  just  because  of  this  the  mere  fact  of  a  constantly  repeated  coin 
cidence  would  be  no  proof  of  the  presence  of  a  universal  law,  by  the 
help  of  which  a  further  forecast  might  become  possible  as  to  the  yet 
unobserved  cases  that  lie  in  the  future.  It  is  not  till  the  connexion  of 
manifold  facts  according  to  law  is  established  as  a  universal  principle 
that  any  standard  can  exist  for  distinguishing  a  possible  from  an  impos 
sible,  a  probability  from  an  improbability.  Not  till  then  can  the  one 
case  which  has  been  observed  to  occur,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  multi 
tude  of  equally  possible  cases,  warrant  us  in  assuming  the  persistency 
of  a  special  relation,  which  in  accordance  with  the  universal  reign  of 
law  yields  this  one  result  and  excludes  other  results  that  are  in  them 
selves  equally  possible. 

All  experience  accordingly,  so  far  as  it  believes  itself  to  discover  a 
relation  of  mutual  dependence  between  things  according  to  law,  is  in 
this  only  confirming  the  supposition,  previously  admitted  as  correct, 
of  there  being  such  a  relation.  Ifjhe_supposition  is  still  left  in  doubt, 


r 


6  Introduction.  [BOOK  i. 

experience  can  never  prove  it.  And  the  actual  procedure  of  physical 
enquiry  is  in  complete  harmony  with  this  slate  of  the  case  Even 
where  the  processes  observed  seem  to  contradict  every  thought  of  a 
uniting  law,  the  investigator  never  takes  himself  to  have  found  in 
these  experiences  a  disproof  of  the  supposition  stated,  such  as  would 
render  further  effort  useless.  He  merely  laments  that  a  confirmation 
of  it  is  not  forthcoming,  but  never  despairs  of  arriving  at  such  a  con 
firmation  by  further  research. 

VI.  If  then  we  enquire  not  so  much  into  ostensible  principles,  which 
are  generally  drawn  up  for  contentious  purposes,  as  into  those  which 
without  being  put  into  words  are  continually  affirmed  by  practice,  we 
may  take  the  prevalent  spirit  of  the  natural  sciences  to  be  represented 
1    by  the  confession  that  the  certainty  of  there  being  a  relation  of  mutual 
dependence  between  things  according  to  law  is  independent  of  expe- 
:  rience.     Nay,  it  is  common  in  these  sciences  to  take  that  relation  for 
granted  in  the  particular  form  of  a  relation  according  to  universal  law 
with  an  exclusiveness  which  philosophy  cannot  accept  off-hand.     But 
Cm  this  admission  that  there  are  laws  the  investigator  of  nature  still 
^n  believes  that  all  he  has  done  has  been  to  admit  a  general  point  of 
^view.     The  question  what  the  laws  of  reality  are,  which  in  fact  includes 
i;  every  object  of  further  enquiry,  he  reserves  as  one  that  is  to  be  dealt 
with  exclusively  by  the  elaboration  of  experience.     He  denies  the 
necessity  or  possibility  of  any  metaphysical  enquiry  which  in  this  region 
might  aspire  to  add  anything  to  the  results  that  experience  may  give. 
/  Against  such  claims  the  only  adequate  defence  of  Metaphysic  would 
consist  in  the  complete  execution  of  its  aims ;  for  it  would  only  be  in 
detail  that  it  could  be  made  intelligible  how  the  manipulation,  which 
experience  must  undergo  in  order  to  yield  any  result,  is  impossible, 
unless  by  the  aid  of  various  definite  intermediary  ideas,  which  contain 
much  that  does  not  arise  out  of  the  mere  general  idea  of  conformity 
to  law,  as  such,  and  of  which,  on  the  other  hand,  the  certainty  cannot 
in  turn  be  founded  on  empirical  evidence. 

For  the  present  this  brief  hint  on  the  subject  may  be  taken  to  suffice 

—the  more  so  as  it  is  to  be  immediately  followed  by  a  comprehensive 

concession  to  our  opponents.     In  our  view  Metaphysic  ought  not  to 

repeat  the  attempt,  which  by  its  inevitable    failure  has  brought  the 

^A    i  science  into  disrepute.     It  is  not  its  business  to  undertake  a  demon- 

W  stration  of  the  special  laws  which  the  course  of  things  in  its  various 

^directions   actually   follows.     On  the  contrary,  while  confining  itself 

to   an  enquiry  into  the   universal  conditions,  which   everything  that 

is  to  be  counted  as  existing  or  happening  #t  all  must,  according  to  it, 


BOOK  L]  Metaphysic  and  Natural  Science.  7 

be  expected  to  fulfil,  it  must  allow  that  what  does  in  reality  exist  or 
happen  is  a  thing  which  it  cannot  know  of  itself  but  can  only  come  to 
know  by  experience.  But  it  is  only  from  this  final  knowledge  of  fact 
that  those  determinate  laws  of  procedure  could  be  derived,  by  which 
this  particular  reality  satisfies  those  most  general  requirements  which 

/  hold  good  for  every  conceivable  reality.     Metaphysic  accordingly  will 

(  only  be  able  to  unfold  certain  ideal  forms  (if  that  expression  may  be 
allowed),  to  which  the  relations  between  the  elements  of  everything 

(l  real  must  conform.  It  can  supply  none  of  those  definite  proportions, 
constant  or  variable,  by  the  assignment  of  which  it  might  give  to 
those  forms  the  special  mathematical  construction  necessary  to  their 
applicability  to  a  real  world  that  is  throughout  determined  in  respect 
of  quality,  magnitude,  number,  and  sequence.  All  this  Metaphysic 
leaves  to  experience.  It  will  still,  however,  continue  to  demand  that 
the  results  at  which  experience  arrives  should  admit  of  being  so  inter 
preted  as  to  fit  these  ideal  forms  and  to  be  intelligible  as  cases  of  their 
application ;  and  to  treat  as  fictions  or  as  unexplained  facts  those 
which  remain  in  contradiction  with  them. 

-,  VII.  There  would  be  nothing  then  to  forbid  us  from  identifying 
Metaphysic  with  the  final  elaboration  of  the  facts  with  which  the 
sciences  of  experiment  and  observation  make  it  acquainted — but  an 
elaboration  distinguished  from  such  sciences  by  the  pursuit  of  other 
aims  than  those  towards  which  they  are  directed  with  such  laudable 
and  unremitting  energy.  Natural  science,  while  employing  the  con-"\ 
ceptions  of  certain  elements  and  forces  most  effectually  for  the  acqui-  / 
sition  of  knowledge,  foregoes  the  attempt  to  penetrate  to  the  properf 
nature  of  those  elements  and  forces.  In  a  few  cases  important  dis 
coveries,  leading  to  rapid  progress  in  further  insight,  have  been  made 
by  application  of  the  calculus  to  certain  assumed  processes,  at  any 
possible  construction  of  which  science  itself  has  been  unable  to 
arrive.  We  therefore  do  not  injustice  to  science  in  taking  its  object 
to  consist  in  a  practical  command  over  phenomena  ;  in  other  words, 
the  capability,  however  acquired,  of  inferring  from  given  conditions  of 
the  present  to  that  which  either  will  follow  them,  or  must  have  pre 
ceded  them,  or  must  take  place  contemporaneously  with  them  in  parts 
of  the  universe  inaccessible  to  observation.  That  for  the  acquisition 
of  such  command,  merely  supposing  a  mutual  dependence  of  pheno 
mena  according  to  some  law  or  other,  the  careful  comparison  of 
phenomena  should  to  a  great  extent  suffice,  without  any  acquaintance 
with  the  true  nature  of  what  underlies  them,  is  a  state  of  thirfgs  intel- 

t  ligible  in  itself  and  of  which  the  history  of  science  gives  ample  evidence. 


if 


8  Introduction. 


[BOOK  I. 


That  the  same  process  should  always  suffice  for  the  purpose  is  not  so 
easy  to  believe.     On  the  contrary,  it  seems  likely  that  after  reaching  a 
certain  limit  in  the  extent  and  depth  of  its  enquiries,  natural  science 
will  feel  the  need,  in  order  to  the  possibility  of  further  progress,  of 
reverting  to  the  task  of  denning  exhaustively  those  centres  of  rela 
tion,  to  which  it  had  previously  been  able  to  attach  its  calculations 
while  leaving  their  nature  undetermined.  ^  In  that  case  it  will  either 
originate  a  new  Metaphysic  of  its  own  or  it  will  adopt  some  existing 
system.     So  far  as  I  can  judge,  it  is  now  very  actively  engaged  in 
doing  the  former.     Its  efforts  in  that  direction  we  observe  with  great 
interest  but  with  mixed  feelings.     The  enviable  advantage  of  having 
acquired  by  many-sided  investigation  an  original  knowledge  of  facts, 
for  which  no  appropriation  of  other  men's  knowledge  can  form  a  per 
fect  substitute,  secures  a  favourable  judgment  in  advance  for  the^s 
experiments  of  naturalists:   and  there  is  the  more  reason  that  this 
should  be  so,  since  the  philosophical  instinct,  which  is  able  to  ensure 
their  success,  is  not  the  special  property  of  a  caste,  but  an  impulse  of 
the  human  spirit  which  finds  expression  for  itself  with  equal  intensity 
and  inventiveness  among  those  of  every  scientific  and  practical  calling. 
!  But  there  is  a  drawback  even  here.     It  arises  from  the  involuntary 
limitation  of  the  range  of  thought  to  the  horizon  of  the  accustomed 
i  occupation,  to  external  nature,  and  from  the  unhesitating  transference 
I  of  methods  which  served  the  primary  ends  of  natural  science  correctly 
enough,  to  the  treatment  of  questions  bearing  on  the  ulterior  relations 
of  the  facts  of  which  mastery  has  been  obtained,  and  on  their  less 
palpable  dependence  upon  principles  to  which  reference  has   been 
studiously  avoided  in  the  ascertainment  of  the  facts  themselves. 

Of  course  it  is  not  my  intention  to  indicate  here  the  several  points 
at  which,  as  it  seems  to  me,  these  dangers  have  not  been  avoided.  I 
content  myself  with  referring  on  the  one  hand  to  the  inconsiderate 
habit  of  not  merely  regarding  the  whole  spiritual  life  from  the  same 
ultimate  points  of  view  as  the  processes  of  external  nature,  but  of 
applying  to  it  the  same  special  analogies  as  have  determined  our  con 
ception  of  those  processes ;  and  secondly  to  the  inclination  to  count 
any  chance  hypothesis  of  which  the  object  is  one  that  admits  of  being 
presented  to  the  mind,  or,  failing  of  this,  of  being  merely  indicated  in 
words,  good  enough  to  serve  as  a  foundation  for  a  wholly  new  and 
paradoxical  theory  of  the  world.  I  do  not  ignore  the  many  valuable 
results  that  are  due  to  this  mobility  of  imagination.  I  know  that  man 
must  make  trial  of  many  thoughts  in  order  to  reach  the  truth,  and  that 
a  happy  conjecture  is  apt  to  carry  us  further  and  more  quickly  on  our 


BOOK  i.]  Method  of  the  Treatise.  9 

way  than  the  slow  step  of  methodical  consideration.  Still  there  can  be 
no  advantage  in  making  attempts  of  which  the  intrinsic  impossibility 
and  absurdity  would  be  apparent  if,  instead  of  looking  solely  at  the 
single  problem  of  which  the  solution  is  being  undertaken,  we  carried 
our  view  to  the  entire  complex  of  questions  to  which  the  required 
solution  must  be  equally  applicable.  I  do  not  therefore  deny  that  the 
metaphysical  enterprises  of  recent  physical  investigators,  along  with 
the  great  interest  which  they  are  undoubtedly  calculated  to  excite, 
make  pretty  much  the  same  impression  on  me,  though  with  a  some 
what  different  colouring,  as  was  made  on  the  votaries  of  exact  science 
,by  the  philosophy  of  nature  current  in  a  not  very  remote  past. 

Our  business,  however,  is  not  with  such  individual  impressions.  I 
only  gave  a  passing  expression  to  them  in  order  to  throw  light  on  the 
purpose  of  the  following  dissertation.  The  qualification  of  being 
conducted  according  to  the  method  of  natural  science,  by  which  it  is 
now  the  fashion  for  every  enquiry  to  recommend  itself,  is  one  which 
I  purposely  disclaim  for  my  treatise.  Its  object  is  indeed  among 
other  things  to  contribute  what  it  can  to  the  solution  of  the  difficult 
problem  of  providing  a  philosophical  foundation  for  natural  science ; 
but  this  is  not  its  only  object.  It  is  rather  meant  to  respond  to  the 
interest  which  the  thinking  spirit  takes,  not  merely  in  the  calculations 
by  which  the  sequence  of  phenomena  on  phenomena  may  be  foretold, ' 
but  in  ascertaining  the  impalpable  real  basis  of  the  possibility  of  all 
phenomena,  and  of  the  necessity  of  their  concatenation.  This  interest, 
reaching  beyond  the  region  on  which  natural  science  spends  its 
labour,  must  necessarily  take  its  departure  from  other  points  of  view 
than  those  with  which  natural  science  is  familiar,  nor  would  I  disguise 
the  fact  that  the  ultimate  points  of  view  to  which  in  the  sequel  it  will 
lead  us  will  not  be  in  direct  harmony  with  the  accustomed  views  of 
natural  science. 

VIII.  There  is  a  reproach,  however,  to  which  we  lay  ourselves 
open  in  thus  stating  the  problem  of  Metaphysic.  It  is  not  merely  that 
experience  is  vaunted  as  the  single  actual  source  of  our  ascertained 
knowledge.  Everything  which  cannot  be  learnt  from  it  is  held  to  be 
completely  unknowable  :  everything  which  in  opposition  to  the  ob 
servable  succession  of  phenomena  we  are  apt  to  cover  by  that  com 
prehensive  designation,  the  essence  of  things.  The  efforts,  therefore, 
to  which  we  propose  to  devote  ourselves  will  be  followed  with  the 
pitying  repudiation  bestowed  on  all  attempts  at  desirable  but  im 
practicable  undertakings.  Beyond  the  general  confidence  that  there 
is  such  a  thing  as  a  connexion  of  things  according  to  law,  the  human 


io  Introduction. 

spirit,  it  is  held,  has  no  source  of  knowledge,  which  might  serve  the 
purpose  of  completing  or  correcting  experience.  It  would  be  a  mere 
eccentricity  to  refuse  to  admit-  that  a  confession  of  the  inscrutability 
of  the  essence  of  things,  in  a  certain  sense,  must  at  last  be  elicited  from 
every  philosophy;  but  what  if  the  more  exact  determination  of  this 

1  sense,  and  the  justification  of  the  whole  assertion  of  such  inscrutability, 
should  be  just  the  problem  of  Metaphysic,  which  only  promises  to 
•enquire,  but  does  not  fix  beforehand  the  limits  within  which  its 
enquiry  may  be  successful?  And  it  is  clear  that  the  assertion  in 
question,  if  prefixed  to  all  enquiry,  is  one  that  to  a  certain  extent  con- 

•  tradicts  itself.  So  long  as  it  speaks  of  an  essence  of  things,  it  speaks 
of  something  and  presupposes  the  reality  of  something  as  to  the 
existence  of  which  according  to  its  own  showing  experience  can  teach 
nothing.  As  soon  as  it  maintains  the  unknowability  of  this  essence, 
it  implies  a  conviction  as  to  the  position  in  which  the  thinking  spirit 
stands  to  the  essence,  which,  since  it  cannot  be  the  result  of  experience, 
must  be  derived  from  a  previously  recognized  certainty  in  regard  to 
that  which  the  nature  of  our  thought  compels  us  to  oppose,  as  the 
essence  of  things,  to  the  series  of  phenomena.  But  it  is  just  these 
tacit  presuppositions,  which  retain  their  power  over  us  all  the  time  that 
we  are  disputing  our  capacity  for  knowledge,  that  stand  in  need  of  that 
explanation,  criticism,  and  limitation,  which  Metaphysic  deems  its 
proper  business.  Nor  have  we  any  right  to  take  for  granted  that  the 
business  is  a  very  easy  one,  and  that  it  may  be  properly  discharged  by 
some  remarks  well-accredited  in  general  opinion,  to  be  prefixed  by 
way  of  introduction  to  those  interpretations  of  experience  from  which 
alone  a  profitable  result  is  looked  for.  When  we  assume  nothing  but 
conformity  to  law  in  the  course  of  things,  this  expression,  simple 
itself,  seems  simple  in  its  signification :  but  the  notions  attached  to  it 
turn  out  to  be  various  and  far-reaching  enough,  as  soon  as  it  has  to 
be  employed  in  precisely  that  interpretation  of  experience  which  is 
opposed  to  Metaphysic. 

I  will  not  enlarge  on  the  point  that  every  physical  enquiry  employs 
the  logical  principles  of  Identity  and  Excluded  Middle  for  the  attain 
ment  of  its  results  :  both  are  reckoned  as  a  matter  (tf  course  among 
the  methods  which  every  investigation  follows.  But  meanwhile  it  is 
forgotten  that  these  principles  could  not  be  valid  for  the  connected 
series  of  phenomena  without  holding  good  also  of  the  completely  un 
known  basis  from  which  the  phenomena  issue.  Yet  many  facts  give 
sufficient  occasion  for  the  surmise  that  they  apply  to  things  themselves 
and  their  states  in  some  different  sense  from  that  in  which  they  apply 


BOOK  L]          Assumptions  of  Natural  Science.  TI 

to  the  judgments  which  are  suggested  to  us  in  thinking  about  these 
states.  We  show  as  little  scruple  in  availing  ourselves  of  mathematical 
truths,  in  order  to  advance  from  deduction  to  deduction.  It  is  tacitly 
assumed  that  the  unknown  essence  of  things,  for  one  manifestation  of 
which  we  borrow  from  experience  a  definite  numerical  value,  will 
never  out  of  its  residuary  and  still  unknown  nature  supply  to  the  con 
sequence  which  is  to  be  looked  for  under  some  condition  an  in 
calculable  coefficient,  which  would  prevent  the  correspondence  of  our 
mathematical  prediction  with  the  actual  course  of  events. 

Nor  is  this  all.  Besides  these  presumptions  which  are  at  any  rate 
general  in  their  character  and  which  are  all  that  can  be  noticed  at  the 
outset,  in  the  actual  interpretation  of  experience  there  are  implied 
many  unproven  judgments  of  a  more  special  sort,  which  can  only  be 
noticed  in  the  sequel.  For  logical  laws  hold  good  primarily  of 
nothing  but  the  thinkable  content  of  conceptions,  mathematical  laws 
of  nothing  but  pure  quantities.  If  both  are  to  be  applied  to  that 
which  moves  and  changes,  works  and  suffers,  in  space  and  time,  they 
stand  in  constant  need  of  fresh  ideas  as  to  the  nature  of  the  real, 
which  as  connecting  links  make  it  possible  to  subordinate  to  the 
'  terms  of  those  laws  this  new  region  of  their  application.  It  is  vainl 
for  us  therefore  to  speak  of  a  science  founded  on  experience  that  J 
shall  be  perfectly  free  from  presuppositions.  While  this  science 
thinks  scorn  of  seeking  support  from  Metaphysic  and  disclaims  all 
knowledge  of  the  essence  of  things,  it  is  everywhere  penetrated  by 
unmethodised  assumptions  in  regard  to  this  very  essence,  and  is  in 
the  habit  of  improvising  developments,  as  each  separate  question  sug 
gests  them,  of  those  principles  which  it  does  not  deem  it  worth  while 
to  subject  to  any  systematic  consideration. 

IX.  In  making  these  remarks  I  have  no  object  in  view  but  such  as 
may  properly  be  served  by  an  introduction.  I  wish  to  prepossess 
that  natural  feeling  of  probability,  which  in  the  last  instance  is  the 
judge  of  all  our  philosophical  undertakings,  in  favour  of  the  project  of 
putting  together  in  a  systematic  way  the  propositions  in  regard  to  the 
nature  and  connexion  of  what  is  real,  which,  independently  of  ex 
perience  and  in  answer  to  the  questions  with  which  experience  chal 
lenges  us,  we  believe  ourselves  to  have  no  option  but  to  maintain. 
I  expressly  disclaim,  however,  the  desire  to  justify  this  belief,  from 
which  as  a  matter  of  fact  we  are  none  of  us  exempt,  by  an  antecedent 
theory  of  cognition.  I  am  convinced  that  too  much  labour  is  at 
present  spent  in  this  direction,  with  results  proportionate  to  the 
groundlessness  of  the  claims  which;,  such  theories  make.  There  is 


12 


Introduction.  [BOOK  i. 


something  convenient  and  seductive  in  the  plan  of  withdrawing  at 
tention  from  the  solution  of  definite  questions  and  applying  oneself  to 
general  questions  in  regard  to  cognitive  capacities,  of  which  any  one 
could  avail  himself  who  set  seriously  about  it.  In  fact,  however,  the 
history  of  science  shows  that  those  who  resolutely  set  themselves  to 
mastering  certain  problems  generally  found  that  their  cognisance  of 
the  available  appliances  and  of  the  use  of  them  grew  keener  in  the 
process;  while  on  the  other  hand  the  pretentious  occupation  with 
theories  of  cognition  has  seldom  led  to  any  solid  result.  It  has  not 
itself  created  those  methods  which  it  entertains  itself  with  exhibiting 
but  not  employing.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  the  actual  problems  that 
have  compelled  the  discovery  of  the  methods  by  which  they  may  be 
solved.  The  constant  whetting  of  the  knife  is  tedious,  if  it  is  not 
proposed  to  cut  anything  with  it. 

I  know  that  such  an  expression  of  opinion  is  in  unheard-of  opposi 
tion  to  the  tendency  of  our  time.  I  could  not,  however,  repress  the 
conviction  that  there  is  an  intrinsic^  unsoundness  in  the  efforts  made 
to  found  a  Metaphysic  on  a  psychological  analysis  of  our  cognition. 
The  numerous  dissertations  directed  to  this  end  may  be  compared  to 
the  tuning  of  instruments  before  a  concert,  only  that  they  are  not  so 
necessary  or  useful.  In  the  one  case  it  is  known  what  the  harmony 
is  which  it  is  sought  to  produce:  in  the  other  case  the  mental 
activities  which  are  believed  to  have  been  discovered  are  compared 
with  a  canon  which  the  discoverers  profess  that  they  have  still  to 
find  out.  In  the  last  resort,  however,  every  one  allows  that  as  to  the 
truth  of  our  cognition  and  its  capability  of  truth  no  verdict  can  be 
compassed  which  is  independent  of  that  cognition  itself.  It  must 
,  itself  determine  the  limits  of  its  competence.  In  order  to  be  able  to 
:  do  this — in  order  to  decide  how  far  it  may  trust  itself  to  judge  of  the 
\  nature  of  the  real,  it  must  first  arrive  at  a  clear  notion  of  the  proposi- 
I  tions  which  it  is  properly  obliged — obliged  in  thorough  agreement 
with  itself — to  assert  of  this  real.  It  is  by  these  assumptions,  which 
are  simply  necessary  to  Reason,  that  the  conception  of  the  real  which 
is  supposed  to  be  in  question  is  determined ;  and  it  is  only  their  con 
tent  that  can  justify  Reason,  when  the  question  is  raised,  in  forming 
any  judgment  with  regard  to  its  further  relation  to  this  its  object — 
either  that  is  in  maintaining  the  unknowability  of  its  concrete  na 
ture,  or  in  coming  to  the  conclusion  as  the  only  one  compatible  with 
the  reconciliation  of  all  its  thoughts,  that  the  conception  of  things 
which  it  generates  has  no  independent  object,  or  in  persistently  re 
taining  a  belief  in  such  an  object  in  some  sense  which  reason  itself 


Metaphy sic  and  Psychology.  13 

determines — a  belief  which,  because  of  such  a  nature,  neither  requires 
nor  admits  further  proof.  On  the  other  hand  it  strikes  me  as  quite 
unjustifiable  to  treat  the  most  obscure  of  all  questions,  that  of  the 
psychological  origin  of  knowledge  and  the  play  of  conditions  which 
co-operate  in  producing  it,  as  a  preliminary  question  to  be  easily  dealt 
with,  of  which  the  issue  might  settle  decisively  the  validity  or  invalidity 
collectively  or  severally  of  the  utterances  of  reason.  On  the  contrary 
the  psychological  history  of  the  origin  of  an  error  only  conveys  a 
proof  that  it  is  an  error  on  supposition  that  we  are  previously  ac 
quainted  with  the  truth  and  can  thus  be  sure  that  the  originating 
condition  of  the  error  involved  a  necessary  aberration  from  that 
truth. 

Thus  the  doctrine  which  I  would  allege  rests  not  on  any  conviction 
which  has  previously  to  be  admitted  as  to  the  psychological  roots  of 
j  our  knowledge,  but  simply  on  an  easily  recognisable  fact,  of  which 
:  the  admission  is  implied  by  the  very  act  of  disputing  it.  Every  one, 
evade  it  as  he  will,  must  in  the  last  instance  judge  of  every  proposi 
tion  submitted  to  him  and  of  every  fact  with  which  experience  pre- 
!  sents  him  upon  grounds  of  which  the  constraining  force  presses  itself 
upon  him  witbLaa. jmmediate  assurance.  I  say,  '  in  the  last  instance,^ 
for  even  when  he  undertakes  to  examine  this  self-evidence,  his  final 
affirmation  or  denial  of  it  must  always  rest  on  the  like  self-evidence  as 
belonging  to  his  collected  reasons  for  deciding  on  the  matter.  In 
regard  to  that  which  this  self-supported  reason  must  affirm,  now  that 
by  the  space  of  centuries  it  has,  in  sequence  on  experience,  reflected 
on  itself,  a  comprehensive  consciousness  may  be  obtained  or  at  least 
sought.  But  how  all  this  takes  place  in  us,  and  how  it  comes  about 
that  those  fundamental  truths  which  are  necessities  of  our  thought  ac-  ^ 
quire  their  self-evidence — these  are  points  on  which  enlightenment,  if 
possible  at  all,  can  only  be  looked  for  in  a  remote  future.  But  when 
ever  it  may  come,  it  can  only  come  after  the  first  question  has  been 
j  answered.  The  process  of  our  cognition  and  its  relations  to  objects 
\must,  whether  we  like  it  or  no,  be  subject  to  those  judgments  which  A 
lour  reason  passes  as  necessities  of  thought  upon  every  real  process 
and  on  the  effect  of  every  element  of  reality  upon  every  other.  These 
declarations  are  not  in  the  least  at  war  with  the  high  interest  which 
we  take  in  psychology  as  a  proper  region  of  enquiry.  They  only 
amoun!  to  a  repetition  of  the  assertion  which  every  speculative 
philosophy  must  uphold,  that  while  Psychology  cannot  be  the  founda 
tion  of  Metaphysic,  Metaphysic  must  be  the  foundation  of  Psy 
chology. 


1 4  Introduction.  tsooKi. 

X.  It  is  time,  however,  for  some  more  precise  statements  as  to  the 
line  which  it  is  proposed  to  take  in  the  following  enquiry.  In  re 
ferring  to  the  supposition  of  a  universal  relation  of  mutual  dependence 
between  all  things  real  as  the  common  foundation  of  all  scientific 
investigation,  I  at  the  same  time  indicated  a  doubt  with  reference  to 
the  exclusive  form  to  which  in  the  present  stage  of  scientific  culture 
it  is  the  fashion  to  reduce  this  relation — the  form  of  conformity  to 
universal  law.  This  form  is  neither  the  only  one  nor  the  oldest 
under  which  the  human  spirit  has  presented  to  itself  the  connexion 
of  things.  It  was  emphatically  not  as  instances  of  a  universal  rule 
but  as  parts  of  a  whole  that  men  first  conceived  things :  as  related  to 
each  other  not  primarily  by  permanent  laws  but  by  the  unchangeable 
purport  of  a  plan,  of  which  the  realisation  required  from  the  several 
elements  not  always  and  everywhere  an  identical  procedure,  but  a 
changeable  one.  In  this  conviction  originated  the  dazzling  forms  of 
the  idealistic  constructions  of  the  universe.  Starting  from  a  supreme 
idea,  into  the  depths  of  which  they  claimed  to  have  penetrated  by  im 
mediate  intuition,  the  authors  of  these  schemes  thought  to  deduce  the 
manifold  variety  of  phenomena  in  that  order  in  which  the  phenomena 
were  to  contribute  to  the  realisation  of  the  supposed  plan.  It  was 
not  the  discovery  of  laws  that  was  their  object,  but  the  establishment 
of  the  several  ends  which  the  development  of  things  had  gradually  to 
attain  and  of  which  each  determined  all  habits  of  existence  and  be 
haviour  within  the  limits  of  that  section  of  the  universe  which  it 
governed.  The  barrenness  of  these  schemes  is  easily  accounted  for. 
They  failed  in  that  in  which  men  always  will  fail,  in  the  exact  and  ex 
haustive  definition  of  that  supreme  thought,  which  they  held  in 
honour.  Now  any  shortcoming  in  this  outset  of  the  theory  must  be 
a  source  of  constantly  increasing  defect  in  its  development,  as  it 
descends  to  particulars.  If  ever  a  happy  instinct  led  it  to  results 
that  could  be  accepted,  it  was  only  an  aesthetic  satisfaction  that  such 
guesses  yielded,  not  any  certainty  that  could  meet  doubt  by  proof. 
Yet  the  general  conviction  from  which  the  speculations  in  question 
set  out  does  not  yield  in  any  way,  either  as  less  certain  or  as  less 
admissible,  to  the  supposition  of  universal  conformity  to  law,  which 
in  our  time  is  deemed  alone  worthy  of  acceptance.  For  my  part 
therefore — and  I  wish  there  to  be  no  uncertainty  on  the  point — I 
should  reckon  this  theory  of  the  universe,  if  it  could  be  carried  out  in 
detail,  as  the  completion  of  philosophy;  and  though  I  cannot  but 
deem  it  incapable  of  being  thus  carried  out,  I  yet  do  not  scruple  to 
allow  to  the  conviction,  that  its  fundamental  thought  is  virtually  cor- 


BOOK  u  Idealism  and  notion  of  Law.  1 5 

rect,  all  the  influence  which  it  is  still  possible  for  it  to  retain  on  the 
formation  of  my  views. 

But  from  among  the  objects  of  the  enquiry  before  us,  this  theory,  at 
least  as  carrying  any  immediate  certainty,  remains  excluded.  For  w( 
are  not  to  employ  ourselves  upon  the  world  of  ideas  itself,  with  its' 
constituents  arranged  in  an  order  that  holds  good  eternally  and  is 
eternally  complete,  but  upon  the  given  world,  in  which  the  process  of/ 
realisation  of  the  ideas  is  supposed  to  be  visible.  Now  it  is  not  once 
for  all  nor  in  a  systematic  order  that  this  real  world  unfolds  ectypes  of 
the  ideas.  In  that  case  it  would  scarcely  be  possible  to  say  in  what 
respect  the  series  of  the  ectypes  is  distinguishable  from  that  of  the 
archetypes.  But  the  world  of  reality  presents  innumerable  things  and 
occurrences  distributed  in  space  and  time.  It  is  by  shifting  relations 
of  these  that  the  content  of  the  ideas  is  realised  in  manifold  instances 
and  with  degrees  of  completeness  or  incompleteness — is  so  realised 
only  again  to  disappear.  However  then  we  may  think  on  the  obscure 
question  of  the  position  in  which  the  ideas  stand  to  the  world  of 
phenomena  and  of  the  regulation  of  this  world  by  them,  it  is  certain 
that  as  soon  as  their  realisation  becomes  dependent  on  the  changing 
connexion  between  a  number  of  points  brought  into  relation,  there 
must  arise  a  system  of  universal  laws,  in  accordance  with  which  in  all 
like  cases  of  recurrence  a  like  result  necessarily  follows,  in  unlike 
cases  an  unlike  result,  and  a  certain  end  is  attained  in  one  case, 
missed  in  another.  Accordingly,  even  the  idealistic  theory  of  the 
world,  which  believes  reality  to  be  governed  by  ends  that  belong  to  a 
plan,  if  it  would  render  the  process  of  realisation  of  these  ends  in 
telligible,  necessarily  generates  the  conception  of  a  universal  con 
nexion  of  things  according  to  law  as  a  derived  principle,  though  it 
may  refuse  it  the  dignity  of  an  ultimate  principle.  It  will  find  no 
difficulty  in  admitting  further  that  the  human  spirit  does  not  possess 
any  immediate  revelation  as  to  an  end  and  direction  of  the  collective 
movement  of  the  universe,  in  which  according  to  its  own  supposition 
that  spirit  is  a  vanishing  point.  Having  for  its  vocation,  however,  to 
work  at  its  limited  place  in  the  service  of  the  whole  according  to  the 
same  universal  laws  which  hold  good  for  all  the  several  elements  of 
the  whole,  the  human  spirit  will  more  easily  possess  an  immediate 
consciousness  of  this  necessity  by  which  it  like  everything  else  is  de 
termined. 

Considerations  of  this  sort  settle  nothing  objectively:  but  they 
suffice  to  justify  the  abstract  limitation  of  our  present  problem. 
Metaphysic  has  merely  to  show  what  the  universal  conditions  are 


1 6  Introduction. 


[BOOK  I. 


which  must  be  satisfied  by  anything  of  which  we  can  say  without 
contradicting  ourselves  that  it  is  or  that  it  happens.  The  question 
remains  open  whether  these  laws,  which  we  hope  to  master,  form  the 
ultimate  object  which  our  knowledge  can  reach,  or  whether  we  may 
succeed  in  deducing  them  from  a  highest  thought,  as  conditions  of  its 
realisation  which  this  thought  imposes  on  itself. 

XI.  In  order  to  the  discovery  of  the  truths  we  are  in  search  of  it 
would  be  desirable  to  be  in  possession  of  a  clue  that  could  be  relied 
on.  The  remarks  we  have  just  made  at  once  prevent  us  from  avail 
ing  ourselves  of  a  resource  in  which  confidence  was  placed  by  the 
philosophers  of  a  still  recent  period.  The  followers  of  the  idealistic 
systems  to  which  I  last  referred  imagined  that  in  their  dialectic 
method  they  had  security  for  the  completeness  and  certainty  of  the 
formulae  in  which  they  unfolded  the  true  content  of  the  universe. 
They  directed  their  attention  but  slightly  to  the  riddles  of  experience. 
To  a  much  greater  degree  they  had  allowed  themselves  to  be  affected 
by  the  concentrated  impression  of  all  the  imperfections  by  which  the 
world  outrages  at  once  our  knowledge  our  moral  judgment,  and  the 
wishes  of  our  hearts.  In  opposition  to  that  impression  there  arose  in 
their  minds  with  great  vivacity  but,  as  was  not  denied,  in  complete 
obscurity  the  forecast  of  a  true  being,  which  was  to  be  free  from  these 
shortcomings  and  at  the  same  time  to  solve  the  difficult  problem  of 
rendering  the  presence  of  the  shortcomings  intelligible.  This  fore 
cast,  into  which  they  had  gathered  all  the  needs  and  aspirations  of 
the  human  spirit,  they  sought  by  the  application  of  their  method  to 
unfold  into  its  complete  content.  In  their  own  language  they  sought 
to  raise  that  into  conception l  which  at  the  outset  had  been  appre 
hended  only  in  the  incomplete  form  of  imagination 2. 

I  do  not  propose  to  revert  to  the  criticism  of  this  method,  on  the 
logical  peculiarity  of  which  I  have  enlarged  elsewhere.  It  is  enough 
here  to  remark  that  in  accordance  with  the  spirit  of  the  theories  in 
which  it  was  turned  to  account,  it  has  led  only  to  the  assignment  of 
certain  universal  forms  of  appearance  which  cannot  be  absent  in  a 
world  that  is  to  be  a  complete  ectype  of  the  supreme  idea.  It  has 
not  led  to  the  discovery  of  any  principles  available  for  the  solution  of 
questions  relating  to  the  mutual  qualification  of  the  several  elements, 
by  which  in  any  case  the  realisation  of  those  forms  is  completely  or 
incompletely  attained.  The  method  might  conceivably  be  trans 
formed  so  as  to  serve  this  other  end,  for  its  essential  tendency,  which 
is  to  clear  up  obscure  ideas,  will  give  occasion  everywhere  for  its  use. 
1  [Begriff.]  a  [Vorstellung.] 


BO  K  i.]  The  Dialectic  Method.  1 7 

But  in  this  transformation  it  would  lose  the  most  potent  part  of  that 
which  formerly  gave  it  its  peculiar  charm.  Its  attraction  consisted  in 
this,  that  it  sought  in  a  series  of  intuitions,  which  it  unfolded  one  out 
of  the  other,  to  convey  an  immediate  insight  into  the  very  inner 
movement  which  forms  the  life  of  the  universe,  excluding  that  labour 
of  discursive  thought  which  seeks  to  arrive  at  certainty  in  roundabout 
ways  and  by  use  of  the  most  various  subsidiary  methods  of  proof. 
As  making  such  claims,  the  method  can  at  bottom  only  be  a  form  of 
that  process  of  exhibiting  already  discovered  truths  which  unfolds 
them  in  the  order  which  after  much  labour  of  thought  in  other  direc 
tions  comes  to  be  recognised  as  the  proper  and  natural  system  of 
those  truths.  If  however  the  method  is  to  be  employed  at  the  same 
time  as  a  form  of  discovering  truth,  the  -process,  questionable  at  best, 
only  admits  of  being  in  some  measure  carried  out  in  relation  to  those 
universal  and  stable  forms  of  events  and  phenomena,  which  we  have 
reason  for  regarding  as  an  objective  development  of  the  world's 
content  or  of  its  idea.  In  regard  to  the  universal  laws,  by  which 
the  realisation  of  all  these  forms  is  uniformly  governed,  we  certainly 
cannot  assume  that  they  constitute  a  system  in  which  an  indisputable 
principle  opens  out  into  a  continuous  series  of  developments.  We 
cannot  in  this  case  ascribe  the  development  to  the  reality 1  as  ob 
jective,  but  only  to  our  thoughts  about  the  reality1  as  subjective. 
The  Dialectic  method  would  therefore  have  to  submit  to  conversion 
into  that  simpler  dialectic,  or,  to  speak  more  plainly,  into  that  mere 
process  of  consideration  in  which  the  elementary  thoughts  that  we 
entertain  as  to  the  nature  and  interconnection  of  the  real  are  com 
pared  with  each  other  and  with  all  the  conditions  which  warrant  a 
judgment  as  to  their  correctness,  and  in  which  it  is  sought  to  replace 
the  contradictions  and  shortcomings  that  thereupon  appear  by  better 
definitions.  Nothing  is  more  natural  and  familiar  than  this  mode  of 
procedure,  but  it  is  also  obvious  that  it  does  not  of  itself  determine 
beforehand  either  the  point  of  departure  for  the  considerations  of 
which  it  consists  or  in  detail  the  kind  of  progress  which  shall  be 
made  in  it. 

XII.  Other  attempts  at  the  discovery  of  a  clue  have  started  from 

1  ['Sache '  in  this  work  means  whatever  a  name  can  stand  for,  is  coextensive  with 
'  Vorstellbarer  Inhalt '  (a  content  which  can  be  presented  in  an  idea),  Logic,  sect. 
342,  and  therefore  has  '  objectivity '  (Objectivitat),  Logic,  sect.  3 ;  on  the  other 
hand  it  is  much  wider  than  '  Ding '  (a  thing),  which  has  not  only  *  Objectivitat '  but 
also  '  Wirklichkeit '  (concrete  external  reality);  cp.  Logic,  sect.  3.  There  is  no 
exact  English  equivalent  for  '  Sache '  in  this  sense.] 

VOL.  I.  C 


1 8  Introduction. 


[  BOOK  I. 


a  conception  of  classification.  There  lies  a  natural  charm  in  the  as 
sumption  that  not  only  will  the  content  of  the  universe  be  found  to 
form  an  ordered  and  rounded  whole  according  to  some  symmetrical 
method,  but  also  that  the  reason,  of  which  it  is  the  vocation  to  know 
it,  possesses  for  this  purpose  innate  modes  of  conception  in  organised 
and  completed  array.  The  latter  part  of  this  notion,  at  any  rate,  was 
the  source  of  Kant's  attempt  by  a  completion  of  Aristotle's  doctrine 
of  Categories  to  find  the  sum  of  truths  that  are  necessities  of  our 
thought.  In  the  sense  which  Aristotle  himself  attached  to  his  Cate 
gories,  as  a  collection  of  the  most  universal  predicates,  under  which 
every  term  that  we  can  employ  of  intelligible  import  may  be  sub 
sumed,  they  have  never  admitted  of  serious  philosophical  application. 
At  most  they  have  served  to  recall  the  points  of  view  from  which 
questions  may  be  put  in  regard  to  the  objects  of  enquiry  that  present 
themselves.  The  answers  to  those  questions  always  lay  elsewhere — 
not  in  conceptions  at  all,  but  in  fundamental  judgments  directing  the 
application  of  the  conception  in  this  way  or  that.  Kant's  reformed 
table  of  Categories  suffers  primarily  from  the  same  defect ;  but  he 
sought  to  get  rid  of  it  by  passing  in  fact  from  it  to  the  '  principles  of 
Understanding'  which,  as  he  held,  were  merely  contracted  in  the 
Categories  into  the  shape  of  conceptions  and  could  therefore  be  again 
elicited  from  them.  The  attempt  is  a  work  of  genius,  but  against  the 
reasoning  on  which  it  is  founded  and  the  consequences  drawn  from 
it  many  scruples  suggest  themselves.  Kant  found  fault  with  Aristotle 
for  having  set  up  his  Categories  without  a  principle  to  warrant  their 
completeness.  On  the  other  hand,  plenty  of  people  have  been  forth 
coming  to  point  out  the  excellence  of  the  principles  of  division  which 
Aristotle  is  supposed  to  have  followed.  I  do  not  look  for  any  result 
from  the  controversy  on  this  point.  Given  a  plurality  of  unknown 
extent,  if  it  is  proposed  to  resolve  it  not  merely  by  way  of  dichotomy 
into  M  and  non-J/  but  ultimately  into  members  of  a  purely  positive 
sort,  M,  N,  0,  P,  <2,  there  can  be  no  security  in  the  way  of  method 
for  the  completeness  of  this  disjunctive  process.  From  the  nature  of 
the  case  we  must  always  go  on  to  think  of  a  residuary  member  R,  of 
which  nothing  is  known  but  that  it  is  different  from  all  the  preceding 
members.  Any  one  who  boasts  of  the  completeness  of  the  division 
is  merely  saying  that  for  his  part  he  cannot  add  a  fresh  member  R. 
Whoever  denies  the  completeness  affirms  that  a  further  member  R 
has  occurred  to  him  which  with  equal  right  belongs  to  the  series. 
Aristotle  may  have  had  the  most  admirable  principles  of  division ;  but 
they  do  not  prove  that  he  has  noticed  all  the  members  which  properly 


BOOK  i.]  The  method  of  Classification.  19 

fall  under  them.  But  the  same  remark  holds  equally  good  against 
Kant.  It  may  be  conceded  to  him  that  it  is  only  in  the  form  of  the 
judgment  that  the  acts  of  thought  are  performed  by  means  of  which 
we  affirm  anything  of  the  real.  If  it  is  admitted  further  as  a  con 
sequence  of  this  that  there  will  be  as  many  different  primary  pro 
positions  of  this  kind  as  there  are  essentially  different  logical  forms  of 
judgment,  still  the  admission  that  these  different  forms  of  judgment 
have  been  exhaustively  discovered  cannot  be  insisted  on  as  a  matter, 
properly  speaking,  of  methodological  necessity.  The  admission  will 
be  made  as  soon  as  we  feel  ourselves  satisfied  and  have  nothing  to 
add  to  the  classification ;  and  if  this  agreement  were  universal,  the 
matter  would  be  practically  settled,  for  every  inventory  must  be 
taken  as  complete,  if  those  who  are  interested  in  its  completeness 
can  find  nothing  more  to  add  to  it.  But  that  kind  of  theoretical 
security  for  an  unconditional  completeness,  which  Kant  was  in  quest 
of,  is  something  intrinsically  impossible. 

These  however  are  logical  considerations,  which  are  not  very 
decisive  here.  It  is  more  important  to  point  out  that  the  very 
admission  from  which  we  started  is  one  that  cannot  be  made.  The 
logical  forms  of  judgment  are  applied  to  every  possible  subject- 
matter,  to  the  merely  thinkable  as  well  as  to  the  real,  to  the  doubt- ! 
ful  and  the  impossible  as  well  as  to  the  certain  and  the  possible. 
We  cannot  therefore  be  the  least  sure  that  all  the  different  forms, 
which  are  indispensable  to  thought  for  this  its  wide-reaching  em 
ployment,  are  also  of  equal  importance  for  its  more  limited  ap 
plication  to  the  real.  So  far  however  as  their  significance  in  fact 
extends  also  to  this  latter  region,  it  is  a  significance  which  could 
not  be  gathered  in  its  full  determination  from  that  general  form  in 
which  it  was  equally  applicable  to  the  non-real.  The  categorical 
form  of  judgment  leaves  it  quite  an  open  question,  whether  the 
subject  of  the  judgment  to  which  it  adds  a  predicate  is  a  simple 
'  nominal  essence  * '  remaining  identical  with  itself,  or  a  whole  which 
possesses  each  of  its  parts,  or  a  substance  capable  of  experiencing  a 
succession  of  states.  The  hypothetical  form  of  judgment  does  not 
distinguish  whether  the  condition  contained  in  its  antecedent  clause  is 
the  reason  of  a  consequence,  or  the  cause  of  an  effect,  or  the  de 
termining  end  from  which  the  fact  stated  in  the  consequent  proceeds 
as  a  necessary  condition  of  its  fulfilment.  But  these  different  con 
ceptions,  which  are  here  presented  in  a  like  form,  are  of  different  im 
portance  for  the  treatment  of  the  real.  The  metaphysical  significance 
1  [•  Einfacher  Denkinhalt.'] 
C  2 


2O  Introduction. 


[  BOOK  I. 


of  the  Categories  is,  therefore,  even  according  to  Kant's  view,  only 
a  matter  of  happy  conjecture,  and  rests  upon  material  considerations, 
which  are  unconnected  with  the  forms  of  judgment,  and  to  which 
the  systematisation  of  those  logical  forms  has  merely  given  external 
occasion.  It  is  only  these  incidentally  suggested  thoughts  that  have 
given  to  the  Categories  in  Kant's  hands  a  semblance  of  importance 
and  productiveness,  which  these  playthings  of  philosophy,  the  object 
of  so  much  curiosity,  cannot  properly  claim.  This  roundabout  road 
of  first  establishing  a  formal  method  affords  us  no  better  security 
than  we  should  have  if  we  set  straight  to  work  at  the  thing — at  the 
matter  of  our  enquiry. 

XIII.  We  are  encouraged  to  this  direct  course  by  the  recollection 
that  it  is  not  a  case  of  taking  possession  for  the  first  time  of  an 
unknown  land.  Thanks  to  the  zealous  efforts  of  centuries  the  objects 
we  have  to  deal  with  have  long  been  set  forth  in  distinct  order,  and 
the  questions  about  them  collected  which  need  an  answer.  Nor  had 
the  philosophy  which  has  prepared  the  way  for  us  itself  to  break 
wholly  new  ground.  In  regard  to  the  main  divisions  of  our  subject 
it  had  little  to  do  but  to  repeat  what  everyone  learns  anew  from  his 
own  experience  of  the  world.  Nature  and  spirit  are  two  regions  so 
different  as  at  first  sight  to  admit  of  no  comparison,  and  demanding 
two  separate  modes  of  treatment,  each  devoted  to  the  essential 
character  by  which  the  two  regions  are  alike  self-involved  and  sepa 
rate  from  each  other.  But  on  the  other  hand  they  are  destined  to 
such  constant  action  upon  each  other  as  parts  of  one  universe,  that 
they  constrain  us  at  the  same  time  to  the  quest  for  those  universal 
forms  of  an  order  of  things  which  they  both  have  to  satisfy  alike  in 
themselves  and  in  the  connexion  with  each  other.  It  might  seem  as 
if  this  last-mentioned  branch  of  its  enquiry  must  be  the  one  to  which 
early  science  would  be  last  brought.  As  a  matter  of  history,  however, 
it  has  taken  it  in  hand  as  soon  as  the  other  two  branches,  and  has 
long  devoted  itself  to  it  with  greater  particularity  than,  considering 
the  small  progress  made  in  the  other  branches,  it  could  find  conducive 
to  success.  But  whatever  may  be  the  case  historically,  now  at  least 
when  we  try  to  weigh  the  amount  of  tenable  result  which  has  been 
won  from  such  protracted  labour,  we  are  justified  in  beginning  with 
that  which  is  first  in  the  order  of  things  though  not  in  the  order 
of  our  knowledge ;  I  mean  with  Ontology,  which,  as  a  doctrine 
of  the  being  and  relations  of  all  reality,  had  precedence  given  to 
it  over  Cosmology  and  Psychology — the  two  branches  of  enquiry 
which  follow  the  reality  into  its  opposite  distinctive  forms.  It  is 


BOOK  i.]  The  divisions  of  Metaphysic.  2 1 

to  this  division  of  the  subject  that  with  slight  additions  or  omissions, 
Metaphysic  under  every  form  of  treatment  has  to  all  intents  and 
purposes  returned.  The  variety  in  the  choice  of  terms  occasioned 
by  peculiar  points  of  view  adopted  antecedently  to  the  consideration 
of  the  natural  division  of  the  subject,  has  indeed  been  very  great. 
But  to  take  any  further  account  of  these  variations  of  terminology, 
before  entering  on  the  real  matter  in  hand,  seems  to  me  as  useless  as 
the  attempt  to  determine  more  exactly  that  limitation  of  the  problems 
before  us  which  metaphysicians  have  had  before  them  in  promising 
to  treat  only  of  rational  cosmology  and  psychology,  as  opposed  in  a 
very  intelligible  manner  to  the  further  knowledge  which  only  ex 
perience  can  convey. 

XIV.  No  period  of  human  life  is  conceivable  in  which  man  did 
not  yet  feel  himself  in  opposition  to  an  external  world  around  him. 
Long  in  doubt  about  himself,  he  found  around  him  a  multitude  of 
perceptibly  divided  objects,  and  he  could  not  live  long  without 
having  many  impressions  forced  upon  him  as  to  their  nature  and 
connexion.  For  none  of  the  every-day  business  that  is  undertaken 
for  the  satisfaction  of  wants  could  go  on  without  the  unspoken  con 
viction  that  our  wishes  and  thoughts  have  not  by  themselves  the 
power  to  make  any  alteration  in  the  state  of  the  outer  world,  but  that 
this  world  consists  in  a  system  of  mutually  determinable  things,  in 
which  any  alteration  of  one  part  that  we  may  succeed  in  effecting  is 
sure  of  a  definite  propagation  of  effects  on  other  parts.  Moreover 
no  such  undertaking  could  be  carried  out  without  coming  on  some 
resistance,  and  thus  giving  rise  to  the  recognition  of  an  unaccountable 
independence  exercised  by  things  in  withstanding  a  change  of  state. 
I  All  these  thoughts  as  well  as  those  which  might  readily  be  added  on 
/  a  continuation  of  these  reflections,  were  primarily  present  only  in  the 
I  form  of  unconsciously  determining  principles  which  regulated  actions 
and  expectations  in  real  life.  It  is  in  the  same  form  that  with  almost 
identical  repetition  they  still  arise  in  each  individual,  constituting  the 
natural  Ontology  with  which  we  all  in  real  life  meet  the  demand  for 
judgments  on  events.  The  reflective  attempt  to  form  these  assump 
tions  into  conscious  principles  only  ensued  when  attention  was  called 
to  the  need  of  escaping  contradictions  with  which  they  became  em 
barrassed  when  they  came  to  be  applied  without  care  for  the  con 
sequences  to  a  wider  range  of  knowledge. 

It  was  thus  that  Philosophy,  with  its  ontological  enquiries,  arose. 
In  the  order  of  their  development  these  enquiries  have  not  indeed 
been  independent  of  the  natural  order  in  which  one  question  suggests 


22  Introduction. 

another.  Still  owing  to  accidental  circumstances  they  have  often 
drifted  into  devious  tracks ;  have  assumed  and  again  given  up 
very  various  tendencies.  There  is  no  need,  however,  in  a  treatise 
which  aims  at  gathering  the  product  of  these  labours,  to  repeat  this 
chequered  history.  It  may  fasten  directly  on  the  natural  conception 
of  the  universe  which  we  noticed  just  now — that  conception  which 
finds  the  course  of  the  world  only  intelligible  of  a  multiplicity  of  per 
sistent  things,  of  variable  relations  between  them,  and  of  events 
arising  out  of  these  changes  of  mutual  relation.  For  it  is  just  this 
view  of  the  universe,  of  which  the  essential  purport  may  be  thus  sum 
marised,  which  renews  itself  with  constant  identity  in  every  age. 
Outside  the  schools  we  all  accommodate  ourselves  to  it.  Not  to  us 
merely,  but  to  all  past  labourers  in  the  field  of  philosophy,  it  has 
presented  itself  as  the  point  of  departure,  as  that  which  had  either  to 
be  confirmed  or  controverted.  Unlike  the  divergent  theories  of  spe 
culative  men,  therefore,  it  deserves  to  be  reckoned  as  itself  one  of  the 
natural  phenomena  which,  in  the  character  of  regular  elements  of 
the  universe,  enchain  the  attention  of  philosophy.  For  the  present 
however  all  that  we  need  to  borrow  from  history  is  the  general  con 
viction  that  of  the  simple  thoughts  which  make  up  this  view  there  is 
none  that  is  exempt  from  the  need  of  having  its  actual  and  possible 
import  scientifically  ascertained  in  order  to  its  being  harmonised  with 
all  the  rest  in  a  tenable  whole.  No  lengthy  prolegomena  are  needed 
to  determine  the  course  which  must  be  entered  on  for  this  purpose. 
We  cannot  speak  of  occurrences  in  relations  without  previously  think 
ing  of  the  things  between  which  they  are  supposed  to  take  place  or  to 
subsist.  Of  these  things,  however — manifold  and  unlike  as  we  take 
them  to  be — we  at  the  same  time  affirm,  along  with  a  distinction  in 
the  individual  being  of  each,  a  likeness  in  respect  of  that  form  of 
reality  which  makes  them  things.  It  is  with  the  simple  idea  of  this 
being  that  we  have  to  begin.  The  line  to  be  followed  in  the  sequel  may 
be  left  for  the  present  unfixed.  Everything  cannot  be  said  at  once. 
That  natural  view  of  the  world  from  which  we  take  our  departure, 
simple  as  it  seems  at  first  sight,  yet  contains  various  interwoven 
threads ;  and  no  one  of  these  can  be  pursued  without  at  the  same  time 
touching  others  which  there  is  not  time  at  the  outset  to  follow  out  on 
their  own  account  and  which  must  be  reserved  to  a  more  convenient 
season.  For  our  earlier  considerations,  therefore,  we  must  ask  the 
indulgence  of  not  being  disturbed  by  objections  of  which  due  account 
shall  be  taken  in  the  sequel. 


CHAPTER    I. 

On  the  Being  of  Things. 

1.  ONE  of  the  oldest  thoughts  in  Philosophy  is  that  of  the  oppo 
sition  between  true  being  and  untrue  being.  Illusions  of  the  senses, 
causing  what  is  unreal  to  be  taken  for  what  is  real,  led  to  a  perception 
of  the  distinction  between  that  which  only  appears  to  us  and  that 
which  is  independent  of  us.  The  observation  of  things  taught  men 
to  recognise  a  conditional  existence  or  a  result  of  combination  in  that 
which  to  begin  with  seemed  simple  and  self-dependent.  Continuous 
becoming  was  found  where  only  unmoving  persistent  identity  had 
been  thought  visible.  Thus  there  was  occasioned  a  clear  conscious 
ness  of  that  which  had  been  understood  by  '  true  being/  and  which 
was  found  wanting  in  the  objects  of  these  observations.  Independ 
ence  not  only  of  us  but  of  everything  other  than  itself,  simplicity  and 
unchanging  persistence  in  its  own  nature,  had  always  been  reckoned 
its  signs.  Its  signs,  we  say,  but  still  only  its  signs  ;  for  these  charac 
teristics,  though  they  suffice  to  exclude  that  of  which  they  are  not 
predicable  from  the  region  of  true  being,  do  not  define  that  being 
itself.  Independence  of  our  own  impressions  in  regard  to  it  is  what 
we  ascribe  to  every  truth.  It  holds  good  in  itself,  though  no  one  \ 
thinks  it.  Independence  of  everything  beside  itself  we  affirm  not 
indeed  of  every  truth,  but  of  many  truths  which  neither  need  nor 
admit  of  proof.  Simplicity  exclusive  of  all  combination  belongs  to 
every  single  sensation  of  sweetness  or  redness ;  and  motionless  self- 
subsistence,  inaccessible  to  any  change,  is  the  proper  character  of 
that  world  of  ideas  which  we  oppose  to  reality  on  the  ground  that 
while  we  can  say  of  the  ideas  that  they  eternally  hold  good  we  cannot 
say  that  they  are.  It  follows  that  in  the  characteristics  stated  of  Being 
not  only  is  something  wanting  which  has  been  thought  though  not 
expressed  but  the  missing  something  is  the  most  essential  element  of 
that  which  we  are  in  quest  of.  We  still  want  to  know  what  exactly  * 
that  Being  itself  is  to  which  those  terms  may  be  applied  by  way  of  j 


24  On  the  Being  of  Things.  [BOOK  i. 

distinguishing  the  true  Being  from  the  apparent,  or  what  that  reality 
consists  in  by  which  an  independent  simple  and  persistent  Being 
distinguishes  itself  from  the  unreal  image  in  thought  of  the  same 
independent  simple  and  persistent  content. 

2.  To  this  question  a  very  simple  answer  may  be  attempted.     It 
seems  quite  a  matter  of  course  that  the  thinking  faculty  should  not  be 
able  by  any  of  its  own  resources,  by  any  thought,  to  penetrate  and 
exhaust  the  essential  property  of  real  Being,  in  which  thought  of  itself 
recognises  an  opposition  to  all  merely  intelligible   existence.     The  r 
most  that  we  can  claim,  it  will  be  said,  is  that  real  Being  yields  us  a 
living  experience  of  itself  in  a  manner  quite  different  from  thinking, 
and  such  experiences  being  once  given,  a  ground  of  cognition  with 
reference  to  them  thereupon  admits  of  being  stated,  which  is  necessary 
not  indeed  for  the  purpose  of  inferring  that  presence  of  real  Being 
which  is  matter  of  immediate  experience  but  for  maintaining  the  truth 
of  this  experience  against  every  doubt.     Upon  this  view  no  pretence 
is  made  of  explaining  by  means  of  conceptions  the  difference  of  real 
Being  from  the  conception  of  the  same,  but  immediate^  sensaiiori 1 
has  always  been  looked  upon  as  the  ground  of  cognition  which  is  our  \ 
warrant  for  the  presence  of  real  Being.     Even  after  the  habit  has 
been  formed  of  putting  trust  in  proofs  and  credible  communications, 
we  shall  still  seek  to  set  aside  any  doubt  that  may  have  arisen  by 
rousing  ourselves  to  see  and  hear  whether  the  things  exist  and  the 
occurrences  take  place  of  which  information  has  been  given  us ;  nor 
does  any  proof  prove  the  reality  of  its  conclusion  unless,  apart  from 
the  correctness  of  its  logical  concatenation,  not  merely  the  truth  of 
its   original   premisses,    as  matter  of  thought,  but  the  reality   of  its 
content  is  established — a  reality  which  in  the  last  resort  is  given  only 
by  sensuous  perception.     It  may  be  that  even  sensation  sometimes 
deceives  and  presents  us  with  what  is  unreal  instead  of  with  what  is 
real.     Still  in  those  cases  where  it  does  not  deceive,  it  is  the  only 
possible  evidence  of  reality.     It  may  in  like  manner  be  questioned 
whether  sensation  gives  us  insight  into  the  real  as  it  is.     Still  of  the 

fact  that  something  which  really  is  underlies  it,  sensation  does  not 
seem  to  allow  a  doubt. 

3.  The  two  objections  just  noticed  to  the  value  of  sensation  cannot 
here  be  discussed  in  full,  but  with  the  second  there  is  a  difficulty  con 
nected  which  we  have  to  consider  at  once.     The  content  of  simple 
sensations   cannot  be  so    separated  from  the    sensitive    act   as  that 
detached  images  of  the  two,  complete  in  themselves,  should  remain 

1  ['  Sinnlichen  Empfindung.'J 


CHAPTER  i.]  Being  and  Sensation.  25 

after  the  separation.  We  can  neither  present  redness,  sweetness, 
and  warmth  to  ourselves  as  they  would  be  if  they  were  not  felt,  nor 
the  feeling  of  them  as  it  would  be  if  it  were  not  a  feeling  of  any 
of  these  particular  qualities.  The  variety,  however,  of  the  sensible 
qualities,  and  the  definiteness  of  each  single  quality  as  presented  to  the 
mind's  eye,  facilitate  the  attempt  which  we  all  make  to  separate  in 
thought  what  is  really  indivisible.  The  particular  matter  which  we 
feel,  at  any  rate,  appears  to  us  independent  of  our  feeling,  as  if  it 
were  something  of  which  the  self-existent  nature  was  only  recognised 
and  discovered  by  the  act  of  feeling. 

But  we  do  not  succeed  so  easily  in  detaching  the  other  element — 
that  real  being,  of  which,  as  the  being  of  this  sensible  content,  it  was 
the  business  of  actual  sensation  in  opposition  to  the  mere  recollection 
or  idea  of  it  to  give  us  assurance.  It  cannot  be  already  given  in  this 
simplest  affirmation  or  position  which  we  ascribed  to  the  sensible  con 
tents,  and  by  which  each  of  them  is  what  it  is  and  distinguishes  itself 
from  other  contents.  Through  this  affirmation  that  which  is  affirmed 
only  comes  to  hold  good  as  an  element  in  the  world  of  the  thinkable. 
It  is  not  real  merely  because  it  is  in  this  sense  something,  as  opposed 
to  nothing  void  of  all  determination.  In  virtue  of  such  affirmation 
Red  is  eternally  Red  and  allied  to  Yellow,  not  allied  to  what  is  warm 
or  sweet.  But  this  identity  with  itself  and  difference  from  something 
else  holds  good  of  the  Red  of  which  there  is  no  actual  sensation  as  of 
that  of  which  there  is  actual  sensation.  Yet  it  is  only  in  the  case  of 
the  latter  that  sensation  is  supposed  to  testify  to  real  existence.  Apart 
from  that  simplest  affirmation,  however,  the  various  sensible  qualities 
in  abstraction  from  the  sensitive  act  which  apprehends  them  have 
nothing  in  common.  If  therefore  we  assert  of  them,  so  far  as  they 
are  felt,  a  real  Being  different  from  this  affirmation,  this  Being  is  not 
anything  which  as  attaching  to  the  nature  of  the  felt  quality  would 
merely  be  recognised  and  discovered  by  the  sensitive  act.  On  the 
contrary,  it  lies  wholly  in  the  simple  fact  of  being  felt,  which  forms 
the  sole  distinction  between  the  actual  sensation  of  the  quality  that 
is  present  to  sense  and  the  mere  idea  of  quality  which  is  not  so 
present.  Thus  it  would  appear  that  the  notion  with  which  we  started  \ 
must  be  given  up ;  for  sensation  is  not  a  mere  ground  of  cognition 
of  a  real  Being  which  is  still  something  different  from  it  and  of  which 
the  proper  nature  has  still  to  be  stated ;  and  the  being  which  on  the 
evidence  of  sensation  we  ascribe  to  things  consists  in  absolutely  ( 
nothing  else  than  the  fact  of  their  being  felt 

4.  This  assertion,  however,  can  only  be   hazarded  when  certain 


26  On  the  Being  of  Things.  [BOOK  i. 

points  of  advanced  speculation  have  been  reached,  which  we  shall 
arrive  at  later.  The  primary  conception  of  the  world  is  quite  remote 
from  any  such  inference.  According  to  it  sensation  is  certainly  the 
only  '  causa  cognoscendi '  which  convinces  us  of  Being,  and  just 
because  it  is  the  only  one,  there  easily  arises  the  mistake  of  supposing 
that  what  it  alone  can  show  consists  only  of  it ;  whereas  in  fact  Being 
is,  notwithstanding,  independent  of  our  recognition  of  it,  and  all 
things,  of  which  we  learn  the  reality,  it  is  true,  only  from  sensation, 
will  continue  to  be,  though  our  attention  is  diverted  from  them  and 
they  vanish  from  our  consciousness.  Nothing  indeed  appears  more 
self-evident  than  this  doctrine.  We  all  do  homage  to  it.  Yet  the 
question  must  recur,  what  remains  to  be  understood  by  the  Being  of 
things,  when  we  have  got  rid  of  the  sole  condition  under  which  it  is 
cognisable  by  us.  It  was  as  objects  of  our  feeling  that  things  were 
presented  to  us.  In  this  alone  consisted  as  far  as  we  could  see 
what  we  called  their  Being.  What  can  be  left  of  Being  when  we 
abstract  from  our  feeling  ?  What  exactly  is  it  that  we  suppose  our 
selves  to  have  predicated  of  things,  in  saying  that  they  are  without 
being  felt  ?  Or  what  is  it  that  for  the  things  themselves,  by  way  of 
proof,  confirmation,  and  significance  of  their  being,  takes  the  place  of 
that  sensation  which  for  us  formed  the  proof,  confirmation,  and  signi 
ficance  of  their  being. 

The  proper  meaning  of  these  questions  will  become  clearer,  if  I 
pass  to  the  answers  which  the  natural  theory  of  the  world  gives  to 
them ;  for  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  this  theory  makes  no  effort  to 
remedy  the  shortcoming  which  we  have  noticed.  Its  simplest  way 
of  doing  so  consists  in  the  reflection  that  on  the  disappearance  of  our 
own  sensation  that  of  others  takes  its  place.  The  men  whom  we 
leave  behind  will  remain  in  intercourse  with  others.  Places  and 
objects,  from  which  we  are  removed,  will  be  seen  by  others  as 
hitherto  by  us.  This  constitutes  their  persistency  in  Being,  while 
they  have  vanished  from  our  senses.  Everyone,  I  think,  will  find 
traces  in  himself  of  this  primary  way  of  presenting  the  case.  Yet  it 
helps  us  rather  to  put  off  the  question  than  to  answer  it.  It  is  sure 
to  repeat  itself  at  once  in  another  form.  Being  was  said  to  be\ 
independent  of  any  consciousness  on  the  part  of  a  sentient  subject.! 
What  then  if  consciousness  is  extinguished  out  of  the  entire  universe 
and  there  is  no  longer  any  one  who  could  have  cognisance  of  the 
things  that  are  supposed  to  exist  ?  In  that  case,  we  answer,  they  will 
continue  to  stand  in  those  relations  to  each  other  in  which  they  stood 
when  they  were  objects  of  perception.  Each  will  have  its  place  in 


CHAPTER  i.]  Being  as  real  relations.  27 

space  or  will  change  it.  Each  will  continue  to  exercise  influences  on 
others  or  to  be  affected  by  their  influence.  These  reciprocal  agencies 
will  constitute  that  in  which  the  things  possess  their  being  indepen 
dently  of  all  observation.  Beyond  this  view  of  the  matter  the  natural 
theory  of  things  scarcely  ever  goes.  In  what  respect  it  is  unsatisfac 
tory  and  in  what  it  is  right  we  have  now  to  attempt  to  consider. 

5.  There  is  one  point  on  which  it  is  held  to  be  defective,  but  un 
fairly,  because  its  defect  consists  merely  in  its  inability  to  answer  an 
improper  question,  which  we  have  simply  to  get  out  of  the  habit  of 
putting.  The  question  arises  in  this  way.  All  those  relations,  in 
which  we  just  now  supposed  the  reality  of  things  to  consist,  may  be 
thought  of  equally  as  real  and  as  unreal.  But  they  must  be  actually 
real  and  not  merely  thought  of  as  real,  if  they  are  to  form  the  Being 
of  things  and  not  merely  the  idea  of  this  Being.  In  what  then,  we 
ask,  consists  this  reality  of  that  which  is  in  itself  merely  thinkable, 
and  how  does  it  arise?  That  this  question  is  unanswerable  and  self- 
contradictory  needs  no  elaborate  proof.  In  what  properly  consists 
the  fact — how  it  comes  about  or  is  made — that  there  is  something 
and  not  nothing,  that  something  and  not  nothing  takes  place ;  this  it 
is  eternally  impossible  to  say.  For  in  fact,  whatever  the  form  of  the 
question  in  which  this  curiosity  might  find  expression,  it  is  clear  that 
we  should  always  presuppose  in  it  as  antecedent  to  that  reality  of 
which  we  seek  an  explanation,  a  prior  connected  reality,  in  which 
from  definite  principles  definite  consequences  necessarily  flow,  and 
among  them  the  reality  that  has  to  be  explained.  And  the  origin  of 
this  latter  reality  would  not  be  like  that  of  a  truth  which  arises  as  a 
consequence  out  of  other  truths  but  which  yet  always  subsisted  along 
with  them  in  eternal  validity.  The  origin  in  question  would  be  ex 
pressly  one  in  which  a  reality,  that  was  previously  itself  unreal,  arises 
out  of  another  reality.  Everything  accordingly  which  we  find  in  the 
given  reality — the  occurrence  of  events,  the  change  in  the  action  of 
things  upon  each  other,  the  existence  of  centres  of  relation  between 
which  such  action  may  take  place — all  this  we  must  assume  to  begin 
with  in  order  to  render  the  origin  of  reality  intelligible. 

This  obvious  circle  has  been  avoided  by  the  common  view.  Nor 
can  it  be  charged  with  having  itself  fallen  into  another  circle  in  re 
ducing  the  real  Being  of  things  to  the  reality  of  those  relations  the 
maintenance  of  which  it  supposed  to  constitute  what  was  meant  by 
this  Being.  For  it  could  not  be  intended  to  analyse  this  most  general 
conception  of  reality,  of  which  the  significance  can  only  be  conveyed 
in  the  living  experience  of  feeling.  All  that  could  be  meant  by 


28  On  the  Being  of  Things.  [BOOK  i. 

definitions  of  Being  in  the  common  theory  was  an  indication  of  that 
which  within  this  given  miracle  of  reality  is  to  be  understood  as  the 
Being  of  the  Things  in  distinction  from  other  instances  of  the  same 
reality,  from  the  existence  of  the  relations  themselves  and  from  the 
occurrence  of  events.  Whether  the  common  theory  has  succeeded 
in  this  latter  object  is  what  remains  to  be  asked. 

6.  Philosophy  has  been  very  unanimous  in  denying  that  it  has. 
How,  it  is  asked,  are  we  to  understand  those  relations,  in  the  sub 
sistence  of  which  we  would  fain  find  the  Being  of  the  Things  ?  If 
they  are  merely  a  result  of  arbitrary  combinations  in  which  we 
present  things  to  our  minds,  we  should  equally  fail  in  our  object 
whether  the  things  ordered  themselves  according  to  this  caprice  of 
ours  or  whether  they  did  not.  In  the  former  case  we  should  not  find 
the  Being  independent  of  ourselves  which  we  were  in  search  of.  If 
the  latter  were  the  true  state  of  the  case,  it  would  make  it  still  more 
plain  that  there  must  be  something  involved  in  the  Being  of  things 
which  our  definition  of  this  Being  failed  to  include — the  something  in 
virtue  of  which  they  are  qualified  to  exist  on  their  own  account,  not 
changing  with  and  because  of  our  changeable  conception  of  their 
Being.  We  cannot  be  satisfied  therefore  without  supposing  that  the 
relations,  of  which  we  assume  the  existence,  exist  between  the  things 
themselves,  so  as  to  be  discoverable  by  our  thought  but  not  created 
by  or  dependent  on  it.  The  more,  however,  we  insist  on  this  ob 
jective  reality  of  relations,  the  more  unmistakeable  we  make  the 
dependence  of  the  Being  of  everything  on  the  Being  of  everything 
else.  No  thing  can  have"  its  place  among  the  other  things,  if  these 
are  not  there  to  receive  it  among  them.  None  can  work  or  suffer, 
before  the  others  are  there  to  exchange  impressions  with  it.  To  put 
the  matter  generally;  in  order  to  there  being  such  a  thing  as  an  action 
of  one  thing  upon  another,  it  would  seem  that  the  centres  of  relation 
between  which  it  is  to  take  place  must  be  established  in  independent 
/  reality.  A  Being  in  things,  resting  wholly  on  itself  and  in  virtue  of 
/  this  independence  rendering  the  relations  possible  by  which  things 
are  to  be  connpcted,  must  precede  in  thought  every  relation  that  is  to 
be  taken  for  real.  This  is  the  pure  Being,  of  which  Philosophy  has 
so  often  gone  in  quest.  It  is  opposed  by  Philosophy,  as  being  of 
the  same  significance  for  a^J  things,  to  the  empirical  Being  which, 
originating  in  the  various  relations  that  have  come  into  play  between 
things,  is  different  for  every  second  thing  from  what  it  is  for  the  third, 
and  which  Philosophy  hopes  somehow  to  deduce  as  a  supervening 
result  from  the  pure  Being. 


CHAPTER  i.]       Pure  Being  strictly  meaningless. 


29 


7.  I  propose  to  show  that  expectation  directed  to  this  metaphysical 
use  of  the  conception  of  pure  Being  is  a  delusion,  and  that  the,A 
natural  theory  of  the  world,  in  which  nothing  is  heard  of  it,  is  on  this^ 
point  nearer  the  truth  than  this  first  notion  of  Speculation.  Every 
conception,  which  is  to  admit  of  any  profitable  application,  must 
allow  of  a  clear  distinction  between  that  which  is  meant  by  it  and  that 
which  is  not  meant  by  it.  So  long  as  we  looked  for  the  Being  of 
things  in  the  reality  of  relations  in  which  the  things  stand  to  each 
other,  we  possessed  in  these  relations  something  by  the  affirmation  of 
which  the  Being  of  that  which  is,  distinguishes  itself  from  the  non- 
Being  of  that  which  is  not.  The  more  we  remove  from  the  concep 
tion  of  Being  every  thought  of  a  relation,  in  the  affirmation  of  which 
it  might  consist,  the  more  completely  the  possibility  of  this  distinc 
tion  disappears.  For  not  to  be  at  any  place,  not  to  have  any  posi 
tion  in  the  complex  of  other  things,  not  to  undergo  any  operation 
from  anything  nor  to  display  itself  by  the  exercise  of  any  activity 
upon  anything ;  to  be  thus  void  of  relation  is  just  that  in  which  we 
should  find  the  nonentity  of  a  thing  if  it  was  our  purpose  to  define  it. 
It  is  not  to  the  purpose  to  object  that  it  was  not  this  nonentity  but 
Being  that  was  meant  by  the  definition.  It  is  not  doubted  that  the 
latter  was  the  object  of  our  definition,  but  the  object  is  not  attained, 
so  long  as  the  same  definition  includes  the  opposite  of  that  which  we 
intended  to  include  in  it. 

No  doubt  an  effort  will  be  made  to  rebut  this  objection  in  its  turn. 
It  will  be  urged  that  if,  starting  from  the  comparison  of  the  multiform 
Being  of  experience,  we  omit  all  the  relations  on  which  its  distinction 
rests,  that  which  remains  as  pure  Being  is  not  the  mere  privation  of 
relations  but  that  of  which  this  very  unrelatedness  serves  only  as  a 
predicate,  and  which,  resting  on  itself  and  independent,  is  distin 
guished  by  this  hardly  to  be  indicated  but  still  positive  trait  from  that 
which  is  not.  Now  it  is  true  that  our  usage  is  not  to  employ  these 
and  like  expressions  of  that  which  is  not  or  of  the  nothing,  but  the 
usage  is  not  strictly  justifiable  so  long  as  we  apply  the  expressions  to 
this  pure  Being.  They  only  Jiave  an  intelligible  sense  because  we 
already  live  in  the  thought  of  manifold  relations,  and  within  the 
sphere  of  these  the  true  Being  has  opportunity  of  showing  by  a 
definite  order  of  procedure  what  is  the  meaning  of  its  independence 
and  self-subsistence.  Once  drop  this  implication,  and  all  the  above 
expressions,  in  the  complete  emptiness  of  meaning  to  which  they 
thereupon  sink,  are  unquestionably  as  applicable  to  Nothing  as  they 
are  to  Being,  for  in  fact  independence  of  everything  else,  self-sub- 


3<D  On  the  Being  of  Things.  t  BOOK  i. 

sistence  and  complete  absence  of  relation  are  not  less  predicable  of 
the  one  than  of  the  other. 

8.  We  may  expect  here  the  impatient  rejoinder — 'There  still  re 
mains  the  eternal  difference  that  the  unrelated  Being  is  while  the 
unrelated  non-Being  is  not  :  all  that  comes  of  your  super-subtle 
^  investigation  is  a  contradiction  of  your  own  previous  admission. 
For  the  meaning  of  Being,  in  the  sense  of  reality  and  in  opposition 
to  not-being,  is  as  you  say  undefinable  and  only  to  be  learnt  by  actual 
living.  The  cognition  thus  gained  necessarily  and  rightfully  pre 
supposes  the  conception  of  pure  Being,  as  the  positive  element  in 
the  experienced  Being.  We  have  not  therefore  the  problem  of  dis 
tinguishing  Being  from  not-Being  any  longer  before  us.  That  is 
settled  for  us  in  the  experience  of  life.  Our  problem  merely  is 
within  real  Being  by  negation  of  all  relations  to  isolate  the  pure 
Being,  which  must  be  there  to  begin  with  in  order  to  the  possibility 
of  entrance  into  any  relations  whatever.  In  forming  this  conception 
of  pure  Being  therefore,  Thought  is  quite  within  its  right,  although 
for  that  which  it  looks  upon  as  the  positive  import  of  the  conception 
it  can  only  offer  a  name,  of  which  the  intelligibility  may  be  fairly 
reckoned  on,  not  a  description.' 

Now  by  way  of  reply  to  these  objections  I  must  remind  the  reader 
that  what  I  disputed  was  not  at  all  the  legitimacy  of  the  formation  of 
^  the  idea  in  question  but  only  the  allowability  of  the  metaphysical  use 
which  it  is  sought  to  make  of  it.  The  point  of  this  distinction  I  will 
endeavour  first  to  illustrate  by  examples.  Bodies  move  in  space  with 
various  velocities  and  in  various  directions.  No  doubt  we  are  justi 
fied  as  a  matter  of  thought  in  fixing  arbitrarily  and  one-sidedly  now 
on  one  common  element,  now  on  another,  in  these  various  instances, 
and  thus  in  forming  the  conception  of  direction  without  reference  to 
velocity,  that  of  velocity  apart  from  direction,  that  of  motion  as  the 
conception  of  a  change  of  place,  which  leaves  direction  and  velocity 
unnoticed.  There  is  nothing  whatever  illegitimate  in  the  formation 
of  any  of  these  abstractions.  Nor  is  it  incompatible  with  the  nature 
of  the  abstractions  that  instances  of  each  of  them  should  be  so  con 
nected  in  thought  as  to  yield  further  knowledge.  None  of  them, 
however,  immediately  and  by  itself  allows  of  an  application  to  reality 
Vithout  being  first  restored  to  combination  with  the  rest  from  which 
our  Thought,  in  arbitrary  exercise  of  its  right  of  abstraction,  had 
detached  them.  There  will  never  be  a  velocity  without  direction; 
never  a  direction  ab  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  term  without  a  velocity 
leading  from  a  to  b,  not  from  b  to  a.  There  will  never  be  a  motion 


CHAPTER  i.]          Pure  Being  by  itself  unreal.  3 1 

that  is  a  mere  change  of  place,  as  yet  without  direction  and  velocity 
and  waiting  to  assume  these  two  qualifications  later  on.  That  which 
we  are  here  seeking  to  convey  is  essentially,  if  not  altogether,  the 
familiar  truth  that  general  ideas  are  not  applicable  to  the  real  world 
in  their  generality,  but  only  become  so  applicable  when  each  of  their 
marks,  that  has  been  left  undetermined,  has  been  limited  to  a  com 
pletely  individual  determinateness,  or,  to  use  an  expression  more 
suited  to  the  case  before  us,  when  to  each  partial  conception  neces 
sary  to  the  complete  definition  there  has  been  again  supplied  in  case 
it  expresses  a  relation,  the  element  to  which  the  relation  attaches. 

9.  We  take  the  case  to  be  just  the  same  with  the  conception  of 
pure  Being.     It  is  an  abstraction  formed  in  a  perfectly  legitimate   - 
way,  which  aims  at  embracing  the   common  element  that  is  to  be 
found  in  many  cases  of  Being  and  that  distinguishes  them  from  not- 
Being.     We  do  not  value  this  abstraction  the  less  because  the  sim 
plicity  of  what  it  contains  is  such  that  a  verbal  indication  of  this 
common  element,  as  distinct  from  any  systematic  construction  of  it, 
is  all  that  is  possible.     Still,  like  those  to  which  we  compared  it,  it 
does  not  admit,  as  it  stands,  of  application  to  anything  real.     Just  as 
an  abstract  motion  cannot  take  place,  just  as  it  never  occurs  but  in 
the  form  of  velocity  in  a  definite  direction,  so  pure  Being  cannot  in 
reality  be  an  antecedent  or  substance  of  such  a  kind  as  that  empirical 
existence  with  its  manifold  determinations  should  be  in  any  sort  a 
secondary  emanation  from  it,  either  as  its  consequence  or  as  its 
modification.     It  has  no  reality  except  as  latent  in  these  particular 
cases  of  it,  in  each  of  these  definite  forms  of  existence.     It  is  merely 
in  the  system  of  our  conceptions  that  these  supervene  upon  it  as 
subsequent  and  subordinate  kinds.     There  was  a  correct  feeling  of 
this  in  what  I  call  the  natural  theory  of  the  world.     It  was  quite 
aware  of  the  intellectual  possibility  of  detaching  the  affirmation  that 
is  the  ^me  in  all  cases  from  the  differences  of  the  manifold  relations 
which  are  affirmed  by  it  in  the  different  cases  of  Being,  just  as  the 
uniform  idea  of  quantity  can  be  detached  from  the  different  numbers 
and  spaces  which  are  subordinate  to  it.     But  it  rightly  held  to  the 
view  that  the  pure  Being  thus  constituted  has  not  reality  as  pure  but 
only  in  the  various  instances  in  which  it  is  a  latent  element ;  just  as 
is  the  case  with  quantity,  which  never  occurs  as  pure  Quantity  but 
only  as  this  or  that  definite  Quantum  of  something. 

10.  The  length  of  this  enquiry,  which  leads  to  a  result  seemingly 
so  simple,  must  be  justified  by  the  sequel.     It  may  be  useful,  I  think,  \ 
to  repeat  the  same  thought  once  again  in  another  form.     There  are 


32  On  the  Being  of  Things. 

other  terms  which  have  been  applied  to  pure  Being,  in  the  desire  to 
make  that  which  admits  of  no  explanatory  analysis  at  least  more 
intelligible  by  a  variety  of  signs.Jj^Thus  it  is  usual  to  speak  of  it  as  an 
I  unconditional  and  irrevocable  Position l  or  Putting.  It  will  be  readily 
4- noticed  that  as  so  applied,  each  of  these  terms  is  used  with  an  ex 
tension  of  meaning  in  which  it  ceases  to  represent  any  complete 
thought.  They  alike  tend  to  give  a  sensuous  expression  to  the  idea 
in  question  by  recalling  the  import  in  which  they  are  properly  used ; 
and  when  that  on  which  their  proper  meaning  rests  has  again  to 
be  expressly  denied  the  result  is  obscurity  and  confusion.  We 
cannot  speak  of  a  putting  or  Position  in  the  proper  sense  of  the 
term  without  stating  what  it  is  that  is  put.  And  not  only  so,  this 
must  be  put  somewhere,  in  some  place,  in  some  situation  which  is 
the  result  of  the  putting  and  distinguishes  the  putting  that  has  taken 
place  from  one  that  has  not  taken  place.  Any  one  who  applied  this 
term  to  pure  Being  would  therefore  very  soon  find  himself  pushed 
back  again  to  a  statement  of  relations,  in  order  to  give  to  this  '  Posi 
tion'  or  pure  Being  the  meaning  necessary  to  its  distinction  from  the 
not-putting,  the  pure  non-Being.  The  notion  which  it  is  commonly 
attempted  to  substitute  for  this — that  of  an  act  of  placing  pure  and 
simple,  which  leaves  out  of  sight  every  relation  constituted  by  the  act 
— remains  an  abstraction  which  expresses  only  the  purpose  of  the 
person  thinking  to  think  of  Being  and  not  of  not-Being,  while  on  the 
other  hand  it  carefully  obliterates  the  conditions  under  which  this 
purpose  can  attain  its  end  and  not  the  precise  opposite  of  this  end. 
Nor  would  it  be  of  any  avail  to  be  always  reverting  to  the  proposition 
that  after  all  it  is  by  this  act  of  putting  that  there  is  constituted  the 
very  intelligible  though  not  further  analysable  idea  of  an  objectivity 
which  can  be  ascribed  only  to  that  which  is,  not  to  nothing.  For, 
apart  from  every  other  consideration,  if  we  in  fact  not  merely  per 
formed  the  act  of  mere  putting,  as  such,  but  by  it  put  a  definite 
content,  without  however  adding  what  sort  of  procedure  or  what 
relations  were  to  result  to  the  object  from  this  act  of  putting,  the 
consequence  would  merely  be  that  the  thing  put  would  be  presented 
to  our  consciousness  as  an  essence  which  signifies  something  and 
distinguishes  itself  from  something  else,  but  not  as  one  that  is  in 
opposition  to  that  which  is  not.  Real  Being,  as  distinct  from  the 
mere  truth  of  the  thinkable,  can  never  be  arrived  at  by  this  bare  act 

1  ['  Position  oder  Setzung.'  It  seems  unavoidable  that  the  English  word  '  Posi 
tion  '  should  be  used,  though  it  has  of  course  no  active  meaning  such  as  belongs  to 
'  Position '  and  '  Setzung.'] 


CHAPTER  i.j    Being  as  '  Position '  or  Affirmation.  33 

of  putting,  but  only  by  the  addition  in  thought  of  those  relations, 
to  be  placed  in  which  forms  just  the  prerogative  which  reality  has 
over  cogitability. 

The  other  general  signification,  which  the  expressions  'Position' 
and  'putting'  have  assumed,  illustrates  the  same  state  of  the  case. 
We  cannot  affirm  simply  something,  we  can  only  affirm  a  proposition)  jj 
— not  a  subject,  but  only  a  predicate  as  belonging  to  a  subject.  Now' 
it  is  psychologically  very  intelligible  that  from  every  act  of  affirmation 
we  should  look  for  a  result,  which  stands  objectively  and  permanently 
before  thought,  while  all  negation  implies  the  opposite  expectation, 
that  something  will  vanish  which  previously  thus  stood  before  it.  It 
is  quite  natural  therefore  that  we  should  fall  into  the  delusion  of 
imagining  that  in  the  purpose  and  good  will  to  affirm  there  lies  a 
creative  force,  which  if  it  is  directed  to  no  definite  predicate  but 
exercised  in  abstraction  would  create  that  universal  and  pure  Being 
which  underlies  all  determinate  Being.  In  fact  however  the  affirma 
tion  does  not  bring  into  Being  the  predicate  which  forms  its  object, 
and  it  could  just  as  well,  though  for  psychological  reasons  not  so 
naturally,  assert  the  not-Being  of  things  as  their  Being.  The  Being 
of  things,  therefore,  which  is  in  question,  cannot  be  found  in  the 
1  affirmation  of  them  merely  as  such  but  only  in  the  affirmation  of 
their  Being.  We  are  thus  brought  back  to  the  necessity  of  first  ^ 
determining  the  sense  of  this  Being  in  order  totiie  presence  of  a  • 
possible  object  of  the  affirmation,  and  this  determination  we  have,  so 
far  at  least,  found  no  means  of  carrying  out  except  by  presupposition 
of  relations,  in  the  reality  of  which  the  Being  of  that  which  is  consists 
in  antithesis  to  the  not-Being  of  that  which  is  not. 

11.  There  is  a  further  reason  for  avoiding  the  expression  which 
I  have  just  been  examining.  'Position'  and  'putting  forth'  are  alike 
according  to  their  verbal  form  terms  for  actions1.  Now  it  may  seem 
trifling,  but  I  count  it  important  all  the  same,  to  exercise  a  precaution 
in  the  choice  of  philosophical  expressions  and  not  to  employ  words 
which  almost  unavoidably  carry  with  them  an  association  which  has  a 
disturbing  influence  on  the  treatment  of  the  matter  expressed.  In  the 
case  before  us  the  prejudicial  effects  apprehended  have  not  remained 
in  abeyance.  It  has  not  indeed  been  believed  possible  to  achieve 
a  putting  forth  which  should  create  Being :  but  there  was  always 
associated  with  the  application  of  the  word  the  notion  that  it  has  been 
by  a  corresponding  act,  from  whomsoever  proceeding,  that  this  Being 
so  unaccountably  presented  to  us  has  originated  and  that  we  then 
1  [v.  note  on  p.  32.] 

VOL.  I.  D 


34  Of  the  Being  of  Things.  [BOOK  i. 

penetrate  to  its  true  idea  when  we  repeat  in  thought  this  history  of  its 
origin.    We  shall  find  the  importance  of  this  error,  if  we  revert  to  the 
reproach    brought   against  the  natural  theory  of  the  world.     It  is 
j  objected  that  in  looking  for  the  Being  of  every  thing  in  its  relations  to 
l  other  things,  it  leaves  no  unconditioned   element  of  reality — none 
that  would  not  have  others  for  its  presupposition.     If  a  can  only 
exist  in  relation  to  b,  then,  it  is  said,  b  must  be  there  beforehand ; 
if  b  exists  only  in  relation  to  <r,  then  c  must  be  its  antecedent.    And  if 
perchance  there  were  a  last  element  z  dependent  not  on  any  further 
elements  but  on  the  first  a,  this,  it  will  be  urged,  would  only  make 
still  more  apparent  the  untenability  of  a  construction  of  reality  which 
after  all  has  to  make  the  being  of  a  itself  the  presupposition  of  this 
Being.    But  this  whole  embarrassment  could  only  be  incurred  by  one, 
whose  problem  it  was  to  make  a  world ;  nor  would  he  incur  it,  unless 
a  limitation  on  his  mode  of  operation  interfered  with  the  making  of 
many  things  at  the  same  time  and  compelled  him  to  let  an  interval  of 
time  elapse  in  passing  from  the  establishment  of  the  one  element  to 
that  of  the  other :  for  undoubtedly,  if  Being  consists  only  in  the  reality 
of  relations,  a  could  not  stand  by  itself  and  therefore  could  not  exist 
till  the  creating  hand  had  completed  the  condition  of  its  being  by  the 
after-creation  of  b.     But  what  could  justify  us  in  importing  into  the 
notion  of  this  productive  activity  this  habit  of  our  own  thinking  faculty, 
which  does,  it  is  true,  in  presenting  relations  to  itself  pass  from  one 
point  of  relation  to  another  ?     Why  should  we  not  rather  assume  that 
the  things  as  well  as  the  relations  between  them  were  made  in  a 
single  act,  so  that  none  of  them  needed  to  wait,  as  it  were  hung  in 
the  air  during  a  certain  interval,  for  the  supplementary  fulfilment  of  the 
conditions  of  its  reality?     We  will  not  attempt  however  further  to 
depict  a  process,  which  cannot  be  held  to  be  among  the  objects  of 
possible  investigation.     It  is  not  our  business  to  discover  in  what  way 
'/'  the  reality  of  things  has  been  brought  about,  but  only  to  show  what  it 
is  that  it  must  be  thought  of  and  recognised  as  being  when  once  in 
some  way  that  we  cannot  conceive  it  has  come  to  be.     We  have  not 
to  make  a  world  but  so  to  order  our  conceptions  as  that  they  may 
correspond  without  contradiction  to  the  state  of  the  given  world  as 
it   stands.     Such   a  contradiction  we  may  be   inclined   to  think  is 
involved  in  the  thought  of  a  creative  '  Position,'  which  could  only  put 
forth  things  that  really  are  under  the  condition  of  their  being  mutually 
related,  yet  on  the  other  hand  could  only  put  them  forth  one  after 
the  other.     But   there  is  no  contradiction  in  the  recognition  of  a 
present  world  of  reality,  of  which  the  collective  elements  are  as  a 

\ 


CHAPTER i.j      Meaning  of  'irrevocable  Position'  35 

matter  of  fact  so  conditioned  by  the  tension  of  mutual  relatedness 
that  only  in  this  can  the  meaning  of  their  Being  and  its  distinction  ^ 
from  not-Being  be  recognised. 

12.  The  foregoing  remarks  contain  an  objection  to  the  metaphysi 
cal  doctrine  of  Herbart,  which  requires  some  further  explanation.  It 
need  not  be  said  that  Herbart  never  entertained  the  unphilosophical 
notion  that  the  irrevocable  'position,'  in  which  he  found  the  true 
Being  of  things,  was  an  activity  still  to  be  exercised.  He  too  looked 
on  it  as  a  fact  to  be  recognised.  As  to  how  the  fact  came  to  be  so  it 
was  in  his  eyes  the  more  certain  that  nothing  could  be  said  as,  being 
unconditioned  and  unchangeable  according  to  his  understanding  of 
those  terms,  it  excluded  every  question  in  regard  to  origin  and  source. 
But  a  certain  ambiguity  seems  to  me  to  lie  in  the  usage  of  this  ex 
pression  of  an  irrevocable  '  position.' 

There  are  two  demands  which  may  no  doubt  be  insisted  on.  In 
the  first  place,  assuming  that  we  are  in  undoubted  possession  of  the 
true  conception  of  Being,  we  should  be  bound  to  be  on  our  guard  in 
its  application  against  attaching  it  to  qualities  which  on  more  exact 
consideration  would  be  found  to  contradict  it.  Nothing  can  then 
compel  us  on  this  assumption  to  revoke  the  affirmation  or  '  position/ 
as  an  act  performed  by  ourselves,  by  which  we  recognised  the 
presence  in  some  particular  case  of  that  'position,'  not  to  be  per 
formed  by  us,  in  which  true  Being  consists.  If  on  the  other  hand 
instead  of  being  in  possession  of  the  correct  conception  of  Being,  we 
are  only  just  endeavouring  to  form  it,  intending  at  a  later  stage  to  look 
about  for  cases  of  its  application,  in  that  case  we  have  so  to  construct 
it  as  to  express  completely  what  we  meant,  and  necessarily  meant,  to 
convey  by  it.  Nothing  therefore  ought  to  be  able  to  compel  us  again 
to  revoke  the  recognition  that  in  the  characteristics  found  by  us  there 
is  apprehended  the  true  nature  of  that  position  which  we  have  not  to 
make  but  to  accept  as  the  Being  presented  to  us.  Here  are  two  sorts 
of  requirement  or  necessity,  but  in  neither  case  have  we  to  do  with 
anything  except  an  obligation  incumbent  on  our  procedure  in  think 
ing.  The  proposition — Being  consists  in  so  and  so,  and  the  proposi-  / 
tion — this  is  a  case  of  Being,  ought  alike  to  be  so  formed  as  that  we  I 
shall  not  have  to  revoke  either  as  premature  or  incorrect.  But  as  to  / 
the  nature  of  Being  itself  nothing  whatever  is  settled  by  either  require 
ment  and  it  is  not  self-evident  that  the  'position'  which  constitutes 
Being  and  which  is  not  one  that  waits  to  be  performed  by  us, 
is  in  itself  as  irrevocable  as  our  thoughts  about  it  should  be.  The 
common  view  of  the  world  does  not  as  a  matter  of  fact,  at  least  at  the 

D  2 


36  Of  the  Being  of  Things.  [BOOK  i. 

beginning,  make  this  claim  for  Being.  The  fixedness  of  Being,  which 
it  ascribes  to  things,  only  amounts  to  this,  that  they  serve  as  relatively 
persistent  points  on  which  phenomena  fasten  and  from  which  occur 
rences  issue.  But  according  to  this  view  if  once  reason  had  been 
found  to  say  of  a  thing,  '  It  has  been,'  it  would  in  spite  of  this  revoca 
tion  of  its  further  persistence  still  be  held  that,  so  long  as  it  has  been, 
it  -has  had  full  enjoyment  of  the  genuine  and  true  Being,  beside 
which  there  is  no  other  specifically  different  Being. 

The  question  whether  such  a  view  is  right  or  wrong  I  reserve  for 
the  present.  Herbart  decided  completely  against  it.  True  Being 
according  to  him  is  only  conceived  with  irrevocable  correctness,  if  it 
is  apprehended  as  itself  a  wholly  irrevocable  '  position.'  This  necessary 
requirement,  however,  with  him  involved  the  other — the  requirement 
that  every  relation  of  the  one  thing  to  another,  which  could  be  held 
necessary  to  the  Being  of  the  Thing,  should  be  excluded,  and  that 
what  we  call  the  true  Being  should  be  found  only  in  the  pure  '  position,' 
void  of  relation,  which  we  have  not  to  exercise  but  to  recognise.  No 
doubt  it  is  our  duty  to  seek  such  a  cognition  of  the  real  as  will  not 
have  again  to  be  given  up.  But.  I  cannot  draw  the  deduction  that 
the  object  of  that  cognition  must  itself  be  permanent,  and  therefore 
I  cannot  ascribe  self-evident  truth  to  this  conviction  of  Herbart's. 
It  is  a  Metaphysical  doctrine  in  regard  to  which  I  shall  have  more 
frequent  opportunity  later  on  of  expressing  agreement  and  hesitation, 
and  which  I  would  now  only  subject  to  consideration  with  reference 
to  the  one  point,  with  which  we  are  specially  occupied.  In  order  to 
preserve  the  connexion  of  our  thoughts,  I  once  again  recall  the  point 
that  the  conception  of  a  pure,  completely  unrelated  Being  turned  out 
to  be  correctly  formed  indeed,  but  perfectly  inapplicable.  We  were 
able  to  accept  it  only  as  an  expression  or  indication  of  that  most 
general  affirmation,  which  is  certainly  present  in  every  Being,  and 
distinguishes  it  from  not-Being.  But  we  maintained  that  it  is  never 
merely  by  itself,  but  only  as  having  definite  relations  for  its  object,  that 
this  affirmation  constitutes  the  Being  of  the  real ;  that  thus  pure  Being 
neither  itself  is,  nor  as  naked  'Position'  of  an  unrelated  content  forms  the 
reality  of  that  content,  nor  is  rightly  entitled  to  the  name  of  Being  at  all. 

13.  On  the  question  how  determinate  or  empirical  Being  issues 
from  pure  Being,  the  earlier  theories,  which  started  from  the  indepen 
dence  of  pure  Being,  pronounced  in  a  merely  figurative  and  incomplete 
manner.  The  wished  for  clearness  we  find  in  Herbart.  According  to 
his  doctrine  pure  Being  does  not  lie  behind  in  a  mythical  past.  Each 
individual  thing  enjoys  it  continuously,  for  each  thing  is  in  virtue  of  a 


CHAPTER  i.]       Her fyart  on  Being  and  Relations.  3  7 

'  position '  which  is  alien  to  all  relations  and  needs  them  not.  It  is  just 
the  complete  indifference  of  things  to  all  relations,  and  it  alone,  that 
makes  it  possible  for  them  to  enter  into  various  relations  towards  each 
other,  of  which  in  consequence  of  this  indifference  none  can  in  any 
way  add  to  or  detract  from  the  Being  of  the  things.  From  this  com 
merce  between  them,  which  does  not  touch  their  essence,  arises  the 
chequered  variety  of  the  course  of  the  given  world. 

I  cannot  persuade  myself  that  this  is  an  admissible  way  of  pre 
senting  the  case.  Granting  that  there  really  is  such  a  thing  as  an 
element  a  in  the  enjoyment  of  this  unrelated  'Position'  of  being 
unaffected  by  others  and  not  reacting  upon  them,  it  does  not  indeed 
contradict  the  conception  of  this  Being  that  ideas  of  relation  should 
afterwards  be  connected  with  it.  But  in  reality  it  is  impossible  for 
that  to  enter  into  relations  which  was  previously  unrelated.  For  a 
could  not  enter  into  relations  in  general.  At  each  moment  it  could 
only  enter  into  the  definite  relation  m  towards  the  definite  element  £, 
to  the  exclusion  of  every  other  relation  /u  towards  the  same  element. 
There  must  therefore  be  some  reason  in  operation  which  in  each 
individual  case  allows  and  brings  about  the  realisation  only  of  m,  not 
that  of  a  chance  /*.  But  since  a  is  indifferent  towards  every  relation, 
there  cannot  be  contained  in  its  own  nature^either  the  reason  for  this 
definite  m,  nor  even  the  reason  why  it  should  enter  into  a  relation, 
that  did  not  previously  obtain,  with  b  and  not  rather  with  c.  That 
which  decided  the  point  can  therefore  only  be  looked  for  in  some 
earlier  relation  /,  which  however  indifferent  it  might  be  to  a  and  <5,  in 
fact  subsisted  between  them.  If  a  and  b  had  been  persistently 
confined  each  to  its  own  pure  Being,  without  as  yet  belonging  at  all  A 
to  this  empirical  reality  and  its  thousandfold  order  of  relations,  they 
would  never  have  issued  from  their  ontological  seclusion  and  been 
wrought  into  the  web  of  this  universe.  For  this  entry  could  only  have 
taken  place  into  some  region  in  space,  at  some  point  of  time,  and  in 
a  direction  somewhither ;  and  all  this  would  imply  a  determinate 
place  outside  the  world,  which  the  things  must  have  left  in  a  deter 
minate  direction.  Therefore,  while  thus  seemingly  put  outside  the 
world  into  the  void  of  pure  Being,  the  Things  would  have  already 
stood,  not  outside  all  relations  to  the  world,  but  only  in  other  and 
looser  relations  instead  of  in  the  closer  ones,  which  are  supposed  to 
be  established  later.  And  just  as  it  would  be  impossible  for  them  to  | 
enter  into  relations  if  previously  unrelated,  so  it  would  be  -impossible 
for  them  wholly  to  escape  again  from  the  web  of  relations  in  which 
they  had  once  become  involved. 


38  Of  the  Being  of  Things.  [BOOK  i. 

It  may  indeed  be  urged  with  some  plausibility  that,  since  we  take 
the  relations  of  things  to  be  manifold  and  variable,  Being  can  attach 
to  no  single  one  of  them,  and  therefore  to  none  at  all :  that  therefore 
it  cannot  be  Being  which  the  Thing  loses,  if  we  suppose  all  its  rela 
tions  successively  to  disappear.  But  this  argument  would  only  be  a 
repetition  of  the  confusion  between  the  constancy  of  a  general  idea 
and  the  reality  of  its  individual  instances.  Colour,  for  instance,  is  not 
necessarily  green  or  red,  but  it  is  no  colour  at  all  if  it  is  none  of  these 
different  kinds.  Were  it  conceivably  possible  that  all  relations  of  a 
thing  should  disappear  without  in  their  disappearance  giving  rise  to 
new  ones — a  point  of  which  I  reserve  the  consideration — we  could  not 
look  upon  this  as  the  return  of  the  thing  into  its  pure  Being,  but  only 
as  its  lapse  into  nonentity.  A  transition,  therefore,  from  a  state  of  un- 
relatedness  into  relation,  or  vice  versa,  is  unintelligible  to  us.  All  that 
is  intelligible  is  a  transition  from  one  form  of  relation  to  another. 
And  an  assumption  which  would  find  the  true  Being  of  Things  in 
their  being  put  forth  without  relations,  seems  at  the  same  time  to  make 
the  conception  of  these  things  unavailable  for  the  Metaphysical  ex 
planation  of  the  universe,  while  it  was  only  to  render  such  explanation 
possible  that  the  supposition  that  there  are  Things  was  made  at  all. 

14.  There  is  yet  one  way  out  of  the  difficulty  to  be  considered.  '  In 
itself/  it  may  be  said,  *  pure  Being  is  foreign  to  all  relations,  and  no 
Thing,  in  order  to  be,  has  any  need  whatever  of  relations.  But  just 
because  everything  is  indifferent  to  them,  there  is  nothing  to  prevent 
the  assumption  that  the  entry  of  all  things  into  relations  has  long 
ago  taken  effect.  No  thing  has  been  left  actually  to  enjoy  its  pure 
Being  without  these  relations  that  are  indifferent  to  it,  and  it  is  in  this 
shape  of  relatedness  that  the  sum  of  things  forms  the  basis  of  the 
world's  changeable  course.'  Or,  to  adopt  what  is  surely  a  more 
correct  statement — '  It  has  not  been  at  any  particular  time  in  the  past 
that  this  entry  into  relations  has  taken  place,  which,  as  we  pointed 
out,  is  unthinkable.  Every  thing  has  stood  in  relations  from  eternity. 
None  has  ever  enjoyed  the  pure  Being  which  would  have  been  possible 
for  its  nature.'  In  this  latter  transformation,  however,  the  thought 
would  essentially  coincide  with  that  which  we  alleged  in  opposition  to 
it.  It  would  amount  simply  to  this,  that  there  might  be  a  pure  Being, 
in  which  Things,  isolated  and  each  resting  on  itself,  without  any 
mutual  relation,  would  yet  be  ;  that  there  is  no  such  Being,  however, 
but  in  its  stead  only  that  manifoldly  determined  empirical  Being,  in 
each  several  form  of  which  pure  Being  is  latently-  present.  Between 
the  view  thus  put  and  our  own  there  would  no  longer  be  any 


CHAPTER  i.]         Can  Things  enter  into  Relations  ?  39 

difference,  except  the  first  part  of  the  statement,  supposing  it  to  be 
adhered  to.  A  Being,  which  might  be  but  is  not,  would  for  us  be  no 
Being  at  all.  The  conception  of  it  would  only  purport  to  be  that  of  a 
possibility  of  thought,  not  the  conception  of  that  reality  of  which  alone 
Metaphysic  professes  to  treat.  We  should  certainly  persist  in  denying 
that  this  pure  Being  so  much  as  could  be  elsewhere  than  in  our 
thoughts.  We  take  the  notion  of  such  Being  to  be  merely  an  abstrac 
tion  which  in  the  process  of  thinking,  and  in  it  only,  separates  the 
common  affirmation  of  whatever  is  real  from  the  particular  forms  of 
reality,  as  applied  to  which  alone  the  affirmation  is  itself  a  reality. 


CHAPTER    II. 

Of  the  Qitality  of  Things. 

15.  ACCORDING  to  the  natural  theory  of  the  world,  as  we  have  so 
far  followed  it,  the  Being  of  Things  is  only  to  be  found  in  the  reality 
\  of  certain  relations  between  one  and  another.  There  are  two  directions 
therefore  in  which  we  are  impelled  to  further  enquiry.  We  may  ask 
in  the  first  place,  what  is  the  peculiar  nature  of  these  relations,  in  the 
affirmation  of  which  Being  is  supposed  to  lie  ?  In  that  case  its  defi 
nition  would  assign  a  number  of  conditions,  which  whatever  is  to  be  a 
Thing  must  satisfy.  We  feel,  secondly,  with  equal  strength  the  need 
(of  trying  to  find  first  in  the  conception  of  the  Thing  the  subject  which 
£would  be  capable  of  entering  into  the  presupposed  relations.  The 
order  of  these  questions  does  not  seem  to  me  other  than  interchange 
able,  nor  is  it  indeed  possible  to  keep  the  answers  to  them  entirely 
apart.  It  may  be  taken  as  a  pardonable  liberty  of  treatment  if  I  give 
precedence  to  the  second  of  the  mutually  implied  forms  of  the  problem. 
It  too  admits  of  a  double  signification.  For  if  we  speak  of  the  essence 
of  Things,  we  mean  this  expression  to  convey  sometimes  that  by 
which  Things  are  distinguished  and  each  is  what  it  is,  sometimes  that 
in  virtue  of  which  they  all  are  Things  in  opposition  to  that  which  is 
not  a  Thing.  These  two  questions  again  are  obviously  very  closely 
connected,  and  it  might  seem  that  the  mention  of  the  first  was  for  us 
superfluous.  For  it  cannot  be  the  business  of  ontology  to  describe 
the  peculiar  qualities  by  which  the  manifold  Things  that  exist  are  really 
distinguished  from  each  other.  It  could  only  have  to  indicate  generally 
what  that  is  on  the  possible  varieties  of  which  it  may  be  possible  for 
distinctions  of  Things  to  rest.  But  this  function  it  seems  to  fulfil  in 
investigating  the  common  structure  of  that  which  constitutes  a  Thing 
as  such ;  for  this  necessarily  includes  the  idea  and  nature  of  that  by 
particularisation  of  which  every  individual  Thing  is  able  to  be  what  it 
is  and  to  draw  limits  between  itself  and  other  Things.  The  sequel  of 
our  discussion  may  however  justify  our  procedure  in  allowing  ourselves 


Things  as  Subjects  of  Predicates.  41 

to  be  driven  to  undertake  an  answer  to  this  second  question  by  a  pre 
liminary  attempt  at  answering  the  first. 

16.  What  the  occasions  may  be  which  psychologically  give  rise  in 
us  to  the  idea  of  the  Thing,  is  a  question  by  which  the  objects  of  our 
present  enquiry  are  wholly  unaffected.  The  idea  having  once  arisen, . 
and  it  being  impossible  for  us  in  our  natural  view  of  the  world  to  get 
rid  of  it,  all  that  concerns  us  is  to  know  what  we  mean  by  it,  and. 
whether  we  have  reason,  taking  it  as  it  is,  for  retaining  it  or  for  giving 
it  up.  As  we  have  seen,  sensation  is  our  only  wammj  for  the 
certainty  that  something  is.  It  no  doubt  at  the  same  time  warrants 
the  certainty  of  our  own  Being  as  well  as  that  of  something  other  than 
ourselves.  It  is  necessary,  however,  in  this  preliminary  consideration 
to  forget  the  reference  to  the  feeling  subject,  just  as  the  natural  view 
of  the  world  at  first  forgets  it  likewise  and  loses  itself  completely  in 
the  sensible  qualities,  of  which  the  revelation  before  our  eyes  is  at  the 
supposed  stage  of  that  view  accepted  by  it  as  a  self-evident  fact.  It  is 
only  in  sensation  therefore  that  it  can  look,  whether  for  the  certainty 
of  there  being  something,  or,  beyond  this,  for  the  qualities  of  that 
which  is.  Yet  from  its  very  earliest  stage  it  is  far  from  taking  these 
sensible  qualities  as  identical  with  that  which  it  regards  as  the  true 
Being  in  them.  Not  till  a  later  stage  of  reflection  is  it  attempted  to 
maintain  that  what  we  take  to  be  the  perception  of  a  thing  is  never 
more  than  a  plurality  of  contemporary  sensations,  held  together  byjj  i 
nothing  but  the  identity  of  the  place  at  which  they  are  presented  toj\  ™ 
us,  and  the  unity  of  our  consciousness  which  binds  them  together  i 
its  intuition.  The  natural  theory  of  the  world  never  so  judges.  Un 
doubtedly  it  takes  a  thing  to  be  sweet,  red,  and  warm,  but  not  to  be 
sweetness,  redness,  and  warmth  alone.  Although  it  is  in  these  sensible 
qualities  that  we  find  all  that  we  experience  of  its  essence,  still  this 
essence  does  not  admit  of  being  exhaustively  analysed  into  them.  In 
order  to  convey  what  is  in  our  minds  when  we  predicate  such  qualities 
of  a  Thing,  the  terms  which  connote  them  must,  in  grammatical 
language,  be  construed  into  objects  of  that  '  *>,'  understood  in  a  tran 
sitive  sense,  which  according  to  the  usage  of  language  is  only  intran-  j 
sitive.  The  other  ways  of  putting  the  same  proposition,  such  as  '  the 
thing  tastes  sweet,'  or  *  it  looks  red/  help  to  show  how  in  the  midst 
of  these  predicates,  as  their  subject  or  their  active  point  of  departure, 
the  Thing  is  thought  of  and  its  unity  not  identified  with  their 
multiplicity.  This  idea,  however  far  it  may  be  from  being  wrought 
out  into  clear  consciousness,  in  every  case  lies  at  the  bottom  of  our 
practical  procedure  where  we  act  aggressively  upon  the  external  world, 


42  Of  the  Quality  of  Things. 

seeking  to  get  a  hold  on  things,  to  fashion  them,  to  overcome  their 
resistance  according  to  our  purposes. 

I  need  not  dwell  on  the  occasions — readily  suggesting  themselves 
to  the  reader — which  confirm  us  in  this  conception,  while  at  the  same 
time  they  urgently  demand  a  transformation  of  it  which  will  make 
good  its  defects.  Such  are  the  change  in  the  properties  in  which  the 
nature  of  a  determinate  thing  previously  seemed  to  consist,  and  the 
observation  that  none  belongs  to  the  thing  absolutely,  but  each  only 
under  conditions,  with  the  removal  of  which  it  disappears.  The  more 
necessary  the  distinction  in  consequence  becomes  between  the  thing 
itself  and  its  changeable  modes  of  appearance,  the  more  pressing 
becomes  the  question,  what  it  is  that  constitutes  the  thing  itself,  in 
abstraction  from  its  properties.  But  I  do  not  propose  to  dwell  on  the 
more  obvious  answers  to  this  question  any  more  than  on  the  occa 
sions  which  suggest  it.  Such  are  the  statements  that  the  Thing  itself 
is  that  which  is  permanent  in  the  change  of  these  properties,  that  it  is 
the  uniting  bond  of  their  multiplicity,  the  fixed  point  to  which  changing 
states  attach  themselves  and  from  which  effects  issue.  All  this  is  no 
doubt  really  involved  in  our  ordinary  conception  of  the  Thing,  but  all 
this  tells  us  merely  how  the  true  Thing  behaves,  not  what  it  is.  All 
that  these  propositions  do  is  to  formulate  the  functions  obligatory  on 
that  which  claims  to  be  recognised  as  a  Thing.  They  do  not  state 
i  what  we  want  to  know,  viz.  what  the  Thing  must  be  in  order 
I  to  be  able  to  perform  these  required  functions.  I  reserve  here  the 
question  whether  and  how  far  we  may  perhaps  in  the  sequel  be  com 
pelled,  by  lack  of  success  in  our  attempts,  to  content  ourselves  with 
this  statement  of  postulates.  The  object  of  ontological  thinking 
is  in  the  first  instance  to  make  the  discovery  on  which  the  possi 
bility  of  fulfilling  the  ontological  problem  depends — to  discover  the 
nature  of  that  to  which  the  required  unity,  permanence,  and  stability 
belong. 

17.  It  is  admitted  that  sensation  is  the  single  source  from  which 
we  not  only  derive  assurance  of  the  reality  of  some  Being,  but  which 
by  the  multiplicity  of  its  distinguishable  phenomena,  homogeneous  and 
heterogeneous,  first  suggests  and  gives  clearness  to  the  idea  of  a  par 
ticular  essence  *  which  distinguishes  itself  from  some  other  particular 
essence.  It  is  quite  inevitable  therefore  that  we  should  attempt  to 
think  of  the  required  essence 2  of  things  after  the  analogy  of  this  sen 
sible  material,  so  far  at  any  rate  as  is  compatible  with  the  simultaneous 

1  ['  Die  Vorstellung  eines  Was,  das  von  einem  andern  Was  sich  unterscheidet.'] 

2  ['Was.'] 


CHAPTER  ii.]          Herbart' s  '  Simple  Qualities'  43 

problem  of  avoiding  everything  which  would  disqualify  sensations  for 
adequately  expressing  this  essence *. 

This  attempt  has  been  resolutely  made  in  the  ontology  of  Herbaria 
To  insist  on  the  mere  unity,  stability,  and  permanence  of  Things,  was 
a  common-place  with  every  philosophy  which  spoke  of  Things  at  all. 
It  was  then  left  to  the  imagination  to  add  in  thought  some  content  to 
which  these  formal  characteristics  might  be  applicable.  Herbart  - 
defines  the  content.  A  perfectly  simple  and  positive  quality,  he  holds, 
is  the  essence  of  every  single  thing,  i.  e.  of  every  single  one  among 
those  real  essences,  to  the  combinations  of  which  in  endless  variety 
we  are  compelled  by  a  chain  of  thought,  of  which  the  reader  can 
easily  supply  the  missing  links,  to  reduce  the  seemingly  independent 
'  Things  '  of  ordinary  perception.  Now  if  Herbart  allows  that  these 
simple  qualities  of  Things  remain  completely  unknown  to  us ;  that 
nothing  comes  to  our  knowledge  but  appearances  flowing  from  them 
as  a  remote  consequence,  then  any  advantage  that  might  otherwise  be 
derived  from  his  view  would  disappear  unless  we  ventured  to  look  for 
it  in  this,  that  his  unknown  by  being  brought  under  the  conception 
and  general  character  of  quality  would  at  least  obtain  an  ontological 
qualification,  by  which  it  would  be  distinguished  from  a  mere  postu 
late,  as  being  a  concrete  fulfilment  of  such  postulate. 

If  however  we  try  to  interpret  to  ourselves  what  is  gained  by  this 
subordination,  we  must  certainly  confess  that  Quality  in  its  proper 
sense  is  presented  to  us  exclusively  in  sensations,  and  in  no  other 
instances.  Everything  else  which  in  a  looser  way  of  speaking  we  so 
call  consists  in  determinate  relations,  which  we  gather  up,  it  is  true,  in 
adjectival  expressions  and  treat  as  properties  of  their  subjects,  but  of 
which  the  proper  sense  can  only  be  apprehended  by  a  discursive 
comparison  of  manifold  related  elements,  not  in  an  intuition.  There 
would  be  nothing  in  this,  however,  to  prevent  us  from  generalising 
the  conception  of  Quality  in  the  manner  at  which,  to  meet  Herbart's 
view,  we  should  have  to  aim.  Our  own  senses  offer  us  impressions 
which  do  not  admit  of  comparison.  The  colour  we  see  is  completely 
heterogeneous  to  the  sound  we  hear  or  the  flavour  we  taste.  Just  as 
with  us,  then,  the  sensations  of  the  eye  form  a  world  of  their  own, 
into  which  those  of  the  ear  have  no  entry,  so  we  are  prepared  to  hold 
of  the  whole  series  of  our  senses  that  it  is  not  a  finished  one,  and  to 
ascribe  to  other  spirits  sensations  which  remain  eternally  unknown  to 
us,  but  of  which,  notwithstanding,  we  imagine  that  to  those  who  are 
capable  of  them  they  would  exhibit  themselves  with  the  same 

1  ['Wesen.'] 


44  Of  the  Quality  of  Things.  t  BOOK  i. 

character  of  being  vividly  and  definitely  pictured,  with  which  to 
us  the  sensations  of  colour,  for  instance,  appear  as  revelations  of 
themselves. 

It  is  always  difficult  in  the  case  of  the  simplest  ideas  by  the  help  of 
words  about  them  to  represent  the  characteristic  trait,  scarcely  ex 
pressible  but  by  the  ideas  themselves,  in  virtue  of  which  they  satisfy 
certain  strongly  felt  needs  of  thought.  Still  I  trust  to  be  sufficiently 
intelligible  if  I  find  in  the  character,  just  mentioned,  of  being  present 
able  as  a  mental  picture  or  image  immediately  without  the  help  of  a 
discursive  process,  the  reason  of  our  preference  for  apprehending 
the  essence  of  a  thing  under  the  form  of  a  simple  quality.  Just  as 
the  colour  red  stands  before  our  consciousness,  caring,  so  to  speak,  to 
exhibit  nothing  but  itself,  pointing  to  nothing  beyond  itself  as  the 
condition  of  its  being  understood,  not  constituting  a  demand  that 
something  should  exist  which  has  still  to  be  found  out,  but  a  complete 
fulfilment ;  so  it  is  thought  that  the  super-sensible  Quality  of  the 
Thing,  simple  and  self-contained,  would  reveal  its  essence,  not  as 
something  still  to  be  sought  for  further  back,  but  as  finally  found  and 
present.  And  even  when  further  reflection  might  be  supposed  to 
have  shaken  our  faith  in  the  possibility  of  satisfying  this  craving  for 
an  intuitive  knowledge  and  limited  us  to  laying  down  mere  forms  of 
thinking  which  determine  what  the  essence  of  things  is  not ;  even 
then  we  constantly  revert  to  this  longing  for  the  immediate  present- 
ability  of  this  essence,  which  after  all  can  only  be  satisfied  with  the 
likeness  of  the  quaesitum  to  a  sensible  quality.  We  may  have  to 
forego  intuition ;  but  we  feel  its  absence  as  an  abiding  imperfection  of 
our  knowledge. 

18.  That  the  demand  in  question  must  really  be  abandoned  is  not 
in  dispute.  Whatever  eternal  simple  and  super-sensible  Quality  We 
may  choose  to  think  of  as  the  essence  of  the  Thing,  it  will  be  said 
that,  as  a  Quality,  it  always  remains  in  need  of  a  subject,  -to  which  it 
may  belong.  It  may  form  a  How,  but  not  the  What  of  the  Thing.  It 
will  be  something  which  the  Thing  has,  not  which  it  is. 

This  objection,  familiar  as  it  is  to  us  all,  with  the  new  relation  which 
it  asserts  between  Subject  and  Quality,  rests  meanwhile  on  two 
grounds  of  which  the  first  does  not  suffice  to  render  impossible  -  the 
previously  assumed  identity  of  the  Thing  with  its  simple  quality.  In 
our  thought  and  in  its  verbal  expression,  the  Qualities — red,  sweet, 
wrarm — appear  as  generalities,  which  await  many  more  precise  deter 
minations,  in  the  way  of  shade,  of  intensity,  of  extension,  and  of  form, 
from  something  which  belongs  to  the  nature  of  the  individual  case  in 


CHAPTER  iL]        A  Quality  need  not  be  general.  45 

which  they  are  sensible,  and  thus  not  to  the  qualities  themselves.  We 
thus  present  them  to  ourselves  in  an  adjectival  form,  as  not  themselves 
amounting  to  reality  but  as  capable  of  being  employed  by  the  real, 
which  lies  outside  them,  through  special  adjustment  to  clothe  its 
essence ;  as  a  store  of  predicable  materials,  from  which  each  thing 
may  choose  those  suitable  to  the  expression  of  its  peculiar  nature. 
Then  of  course  the  question  is  renewed  as  to  the  actual  essence  which 
with  this  nature  of  its  own  lies  behind  this  surface  of  Quality. 

But  we  must  be  on  our  guard  against  repeating  in  this  connexion  a 
question  which  in  another  form  we  have  already  disclaimed.  We  gave 
up  all  pretension  of  being  able  to  find  out  how  things  are  made  and 
we  confessed  that  the  peculiar  affirmation  or  •  position,'  by  which  the 
real  is  eternally  distinguishable  from  the  thinkable,  may  indeed  be 
indicated  by  us — but  that  we  cannot  follow  its  construction  as  a 
process  that  is  taking  place.  But  it  is  precisely  this  objection  that 
may  now  be  brought  up  against  us,  that  we  are  illegitimately  attempt 
ing  to  construe  that  idea  of  the  Thing,  which  must  comprehend  the 
simple  supra-sensible  Quality  along  with  its  reality,  into  the  history  of 
a  process  by  which  the  two  constituent  ideas  which  make  up  the  idea 
of  the  Thing — or  rather  the  objects  of  these  ideas — have  come  to 
coincide.  For  if  we  maintain  the  above  objection  in  its  full  force — 
[the  objection  founded  on  the  distinction  between  the  Quality  of  the 
Thing  and  the  Thing  itself]  and  refuse  to  keep  reverting  to  the  sup 
position  that  some  still  more  subtle  quality  constitutes  the  Thing 
itself,  while  a  quality  of  the  kind  just  objected  to  merely  serves  as  a 
predicate  of  the  Thing,  the  result  will  be  that  we  shall  have  on  the  one 
side  a  Quality  still  only  generally  conceived,  unlimited,  and  unformed, 
as  it  presents  itself  merely  in  thought  and  therefore  still  unreal ;  on 
the  other  side  a  '  position '  which  is  still  without  any  content,  a  reality 
which  is  as  yet  no  one's  reality.  It  would  be  a  hopeless  enterprise  to 
try  to  show  how  these  two — such  a  quality  and  such  a  '  position ' — 
combine,  not  in  our  thought  to  produce  an  idea  of  the  Thing,  but  in 
reality  to  produce  the  Thing  itself. 

This  however  was  not  what  was  meant  by  the  view,  which  sought  to 
identify  the  essence  of  the  Thing  with  its  simple  supra-sensible  Quality. 
It  was  emphatically  not  in  the  form  of  a  still  undetermined  generality 
— not  as  the  redness  or  sweetness  which  we  think  of,  but  obviously 
only  in  that  complete  determination,  in  which  red  or  sweet  can  be  the 
object  of  an  actually  present  sensation — it  was  only  in  this  form  that 
the  Quality,  united  with  the  '  position '  spoken  of,  was  thought  of  as 
identical  with  the  essential  Being  (the  TI  e<m)  of  Things.  It  was  not 


46  Of  the  Quality  of  Things.  t  BOOK  i. 

supposed  that  there  had  ever  been  a  process  by  which  the  realities 
signified  by  these  two  constituent  ideas  had  come  to  be  united,  or  by 
which  the  complete  determinateness  of  the  Quality  as  forming  the 
essential  Being  of  the  Thing,  had  been  elaborated  as  a  secondary 
modification  out  of  the  previous  indeterminateness  of  a  general 
Quality.  It  is  true,  that  in  our  usage  of  terms  there  unavoidably 
attaches  to  the  word  '  Quality'  a  notion  of  dependence,  of  its  requiring 
the  support  of  a  subject  beyond  it ;  and  it  is  this  notion  which  occa 
sions  '  Quality '  to  be  treated  as  synonymous  with  the  German 
'  Eigenschaft  V  But  in  truth  this  impression  of  its  dependence  issues 
only  from  the  general  abstraction  of  Quality,  which  we  form  in 
thought,  and  is  improperly  transferred  to  those  completely  determined 
qualities,  which  form  the  content  of  real  feelings  and  constitute  the 
occasions  of  these  abstractions. 

19.  But,  true  as  this  defence  of  the  view  referred  to  may  be,  we 
still  gain  nothing  by  it.  Undoubtedly,  if  a  quality  in  the  complete 
determinateness  which  we  supposed,  simple  and  unblended  with  any 
thing  else,  formed  an  unchangeable  object  of  our  perception,  we  should 
have  no  reason  to  look  for  anything  else  behind  it,  for  a  subject  to 
which  it  attached.  But  if  we  just  now  took  this  in  the  sense  that  this 
quality  might  in  that  case  pass  directly  for  the  Thing  itself,  we  must 
now  subjoin  the  counter-remark  that  in  that  case,  if  nothing  else  were 
given,  we  should  have  no  occasion  at  all  to  form  the  conception  of  a 
Thing  and  to  identify  that  quality  with  it.  For  the  impulse  to  form 
the  conception  and  the  second  of  the  reasons  which  forbid  the  identi 
fication  of  the  simple  quality  with  the  Thing,  lie  in  the  given  change. 

"he  fact  that  those  qualities  which  form  the  immediate  objects  of  our 
perception,  neither  persist  without  change  nor  change  without  a  prin- 
iciple  of  change,  but  always  in  their  transition  follow  some  law  of 
consecutiveness,  has  led  to  the  attempt  to  think  of  the  Thing  as  the 
persistent  subject  of  this  change  and  of  the  felt  qualities  merely  as 
predicates  of  which  one  gives  place  to  the  other.  Whether  this 
"attempt  is  justified  at  all — whether  an  entirely  different  interpretation 
of  the  facts  of  experience  ought  not  to  be  substituted  for  it — is  a 
question  which  we  reserve  as  premature.  For  the  present  our  business 
is  only  to  consider  in  what  more  definite  form  this  assumption  of 
Things,  in  case  it  is  to  be  retained,  must  be  presented  to  thought,  if 
it  is  to  render  that  service  to  our  cognition  for  the  sake  of  which  it  is 

made;   if,  i.e.,  it  is  to  make  the  fact  of  change  thinkable  without 

contradiction. 

1  [lit.  •  Property.'] 


CHAPTER  ii.]  The  Thing  and  its  ( states'  47 

And  in  regard  to  this  point  I  can  only  maintain  that  speculative  philo 
sophy,  while  trying  to  find  a  unity  of  essence  under  change,  was  wrong 
in  believing  that  this  unity  was  to  be  found  in  a  simplicity,  which  in 
its  nature  is  incapable  of  being  a  unity  or  of  forming  the  persistent 
essence  of  the  changeable.  Change  of  a  thing  is  only  to  be  found 
where  an  essence  a,  which  previously  was  in  the  state  a1,  remains 
identical  with  itself  while  passing  into  the  state  a2.  In  this  connexion  I 
still  leave  quite  on  one  side  the  difficulties  which  lie  in  the  conception, 
apparently  so  simple,  of  a  state.  For  the  present  it  may  suffice  to 
remark  that  we  are  obliged  by  the  notion  we  attach  to  the  term  '  state ' 
to  say  not  that  the  essence  is  identically  like 1  itself,  but  only  that  it  is 
identical  with  itself,  in  its  various  states.  For  no  one  will  deny  that  a, 
if  it  finds  itself  in  the  state  a1,  cannot  be  taken  to  be  exactly  like  a2, 
without  again  cancelling  the  difference  of  the  states,  which  has  been 
assumed.  All  that  we  gain  by  the  distinction,  however,  is,  to  begin 
with,  two  words.  For  the  question  still  remains  :  In  what  sense  can 
that  at  different  moments  remain  identical  with  itself,  which  yet  in  one 
of  these  moments  is  not  identically  like  itself  as  it  was  in  the  other  ?- 
It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  remark  how  entirely  unprofitable  the 
answers  are  which  in  the  ordinary  course  of  thought  are  commonly 
given  to  this  question;  such  as,  The  essence  always  remains  the 
same  with  itself,  only  the  phenomenon  changes  ;  the  matter  remains 
the  same,  the  form  alters ;  essential  properties  persist,  but  many  un 
essential  ones  come  and  go ;  the  Thing  itself  abides,  only  its  states 
are  variable.  All  these  expressions  presuppose  what  we  want  to 
know.  We  have  here  pairs  of  related  points,  of  which  one  term  cor 
responds  in  each  case  to  the  Thing  a,  the  other  is  one  of  its  states 
a1,  a2.  How  can  the  first  member  a  of  these  pairs  be  identical  with 
itself,  if  the  several  second  members  are  not  identical  with  each 
other,  and  if,  notwithstanding,  the  relation  between  the  two  members 
of  each  pair  is  to  be  maintained,  in  the  sense  that  the  second  member, 
which  is  the  Form,  the  Phenomenon,  the  State,  is  to  be  Form,  Phe 
nomenon,  or  State  of  the  first  member  ? 

So  long  as  we  are  dealing  with  the  compounded  visible  things  of 

1  ['Gleichheit,'  used  here,  and  in  §§  59  and  268,  with  a  strict  insistance  on  all 
that  is  involved  in  its  meaning  of  equality;  viz.  on  the  qualitative  likeness,  without 
which  comparison  by  measurement  is  impossible.  Thus  in  the  places  referred  to 
the  terms  which  are  '  gleich  '  are  a  and  a,  and  neither  '  equal '  nor  '  like '  translates 
'gleich'  adequately;  it  includes  both.  'Identity'  was  used  in  Logic,  §  335  ff., 
but  will  not  do  here,  because  of  the  contrast  with  the  continued  identity,  'Identitat,' 
imputed  to  a  " 


48  Of  the  Quality  of  Things.  t  BOOK  i. 

common  perception,  the  pressure  of  this  difficulty  is  but  slight.  In 
such  cases  we  look  upon  a  connected  plurality  of  Predicates  pqr,  as 
the  essence  of  a  thing.  This  coherent  stock  may  not  only  assume 
and  again  cast  off  variable  additions,  s  and  /,  but  it  may  in  itself  by 
the  internal  transposition  of  its  components  in  qrp,  rpq,prq,  experience 
something  which  we  might  call  its  own  alteration  in  opposition  to  the 
mere  variation  of  those  external  relations.  Or  finally  it  may  be  the  form 
of  combination  that  remains  the  same,  while  the  elements  themselves, 
p  q  and  r,  vary  within  certain  limits.  In  these  cases  the  imagination 
still  finds  the  two  sides  of  its  object  before  it,  and  can  ascribe  to  one 
of  them  the  identity1,  to  the  other  the  difference2.  What  justifies  it 
in  understanding  the  fluctuations  of  that  which  does  not  remain 
exactly  like  itself  as  a  series  of  states  of  the  Identical,  is  a  question 
which  is  left  to  take  care  of  itself.  The  difficulty  involved  in  it  comes 
plainly  into  view  if  we  pass  from  the  apparent  things  of  perception 
to  those  which  we  might  in  truth  regard  as  independent  elements  in 
the  order  of  the  Universe,  and  we  think  of  each  of  these  as  deter 
mined  by  a  simple  quality,  a.  The  simple,  if  it  alters  at  all,  alters 
altogether,  and  in  the  transition  from  a  to  <5,  there  remains  nothing 
over  to  which  the  essence  would  withdraw,  as  to  the  kernel  that 
remains  the  same  in  the  process  of  change.  Only  a  succession,  abc, 
of  different  essences  —  one  passing  away,  the  other  coming  into 
being — would  be  left,  and  with  this  disappearance  of  all  conti 
nuity  between  the  different  appearances  there  would  disappear  the 
only  reason  which  led  us  to  regard  them  as  resting  on  subject 
Things. 

20.  This  inference  cannot  be  invalidated  by  an  objection  which 
readily  suggests  itself  and  which  I  have  here  other  reasons  for 
noticing.  It  is  to  the  instance  of  sensations  that  we  must  constantly 
revert,  if  we  would  explain  to  ourselves  what  supra-sensible  Qualities 
really  mean  to  us  when  we  combine  them  with  sensations  under  the 
common  idea  of  Quality.  Let  us  then  take  a  simple  Red  colour,  a, 
in  which  we  find  no  mixture  with  other  colours,  still  less  a  combination 
of  other  colours,  as  representing  the  manner  in  which  the  simple 
quality,  a,  of  an  essence  would  appear  to  us,  if  it  were  perceivable  by 
the  senses.  It  will  then  be  argued  as  follow  :  If  this  Red  passes  into 
an  equally  simple  Yellow,  there  still  undoubtedly  remains  a  common 
element,  which  we  feel  in  both  colours,  though  it  is  inseparable  from 
a  and  <5,  the  universal  C  of  colour.  Neither  the  redness  in  the  red, 
nor  that  which  makes  the  yellow  what  it  is,  has  any  existence  either  in 
1  ['  Identitat.']  3  [' Ungleichheit.'] 


CHAPTER  ii.]      The  common  element  in  sensations.  49 

fact  or  in  thought  apart  from  the  luminous  appearance  in  which  the 
nature  of  colour  consists,  nor  has  this  appearance  any  existence  of  its 
own  other  than  in  the  redness  or  yellowness.  On  the  contrary  its  whole 
nature  shows  itself  now  in  one  colour,  now  in  the  other.  In  the  same 
way  the  essence  of  the  thing  will  now  be  the  perfectly  simple  a,  now 
the  equally  simple  b,  without  this  implying  a  disappearance  of  the  com 
mon  C,  the  presence  of  which  entitles  us  to  regard  a  and  b  merely  as 
its  varying  states  or  predicates.  It  would  be  idle  to  meet  this  argument 
by  saying  that  the  common  element  C  of  colour  is  only  a  product  of  1 
our  intellectual  process  of  comparison  ;  nay,  not  even  such  a  product,  I 
but  merely  the  name  for  the  demand,  simply  unrealisable,  which  we 
make  upon  our  intellect  to  possess  itself  of  this  common  element 
presumed  to  be  present  in  red  and  yellow,  in  detachment  from  both 
colours.  For  the  fact,  it  might  be  replied,  would  still  remain  that  we 
should  not  make  this  impracticable  demand,  if  it  were  not  felt  in  the 
perception  of  red  and  yellow,  '  There  is  something  there,  which  we 
look  for  though  we  do  not  find  it  as  anything  perceivable  or  separate, 
this  common  C,  for  which  we  have  made  the  name  colour.' 

Now  since  we  readily  forego  the  pretension  of  apprehending  the 
essence  of  things  in  the  way  of  actual  intuition,  and  confine  ourselves 
to  enquiring  for  the  form  of  thought  under  which  we  have  to  conceive 
its  unknown  nature,  we  might  certainly  continue  to  look  upon  the 
comparison  just  stated  as  conveying  the  true  image  of  the  matter  in 
hand,  i.e.  the  image  of  that  relation,  in  which  the  simple  essence 
stands  to  its  changeable  states.  We  might  at  the  same  time  regard 
this  analogy  of  our  sensations  as  a  proof  of  the  fact  that  the  demand 
which  we  make  upon  the  nature  of  things  for  an  identity  within  the 
difference  does  not,  as  such,  transgress  the  limits  of  the  actually 
possible.  In  more  detail  the  case  might  be  put  thus  :  What  may  be 
the  look  of  that  persistent  C,  which  maintains  itself  in  the  change  of 
the  simple  qualities  of  the  Thing,  of  this  it  is  true  we  have  no  know 
ledge,  and  we  as  little  expect  to  know  it  as  we  insist  on  seeing  the 
general  colour  C,  which  maintains  itself  in  the  transition  from  Red 
to  Yellow.  The  mere  fact,  however,  that  in  order  to  render  this 
transition  possible  the  continuous  existence  of  this  universal  is  not 
merely  demanded  without  evidence  by  our  thought,  but  is  immediately 
testified  to  by  sensation  as  plainly  present  though  not  separable  from 
particular  sensible  objects — this  proves  to  us  that  the  continuance  of  a 
common  element  in  a  series  of  different  and  absolutely  simple  members 
is  at  any  rate  something  possible,  and  not  a  combination  of  words  to 
which  no  real  instance  could  correspond. 

VOL.  r.  E 


50  Of  the  Quality  of  Things. 

21.  The  above  will,  I  hope,  have  made  plain  the  meaning  of  this 
rejoinder.  I  should  wish  ultimately  to  show  that  it  is  inapplicable, 
but  before  I  attempt  this,  I  may  be  allowed  to  avail  myself  of  it  for 
the  purpose  of  more  exactly  defining  certain  points  so  as  to  save  the 
necessity  of  enlarged  explanations  further  on.  When  in  our  com 
parison  we  chose  to  pass  from  the  simple  quality  red  to  another 
equally  simple,  to  point  to  yellow  as  this  second  quality  seemed  a 
selection  which  might  be  made  without  hesitation.  But  sour  or  sweet 
might  equally  have  presented  themselves.  It  was  only  the  former 
transition,  however,  (from  red  to  yellow)  which  left  something  actually 
in  common  between  the  different  members  ;  while  the  second  on  the 
contrary  (from  red  to  sweet)  would  have  left  no  other  community  than 
that  which  belongs  to  our  subjective  feeling  as  directed  to  those 
members.  Our  selection  therefore  was  natural,  for  we  knew  what 
I  the  point  was  at  which  we  wished  to  arrive  and  allowed  ourselves  to 
/  be  directed  by  this  reference.  The  fact  however  that  the  other  order 
of  procedure  is  one  which  we  can  equally  present  to  ourselves  reminds 
us  that  the  transition  from  one  simple  quality  to  another  is  not  in 
every  case  possible  without  loss  of  the  common  element  C.  This 
however  is  no  valid  objection.  It  will  be  at  once  replied  that  in 
speaking  of  change  it  has  always  been  understood  that  its  course  was 
thus  limited  to  certain  definite  directions.  No  one  who  takes  the 
essence  of  a  thing  to  admit  of  change  can  think  of  it  as  changeable 
without  measure  and  without  principle.  To  do  so  would  be  again  to 
abolish  the  very  reason  that  compelled  us  to  assign  the  succession  of 
varying  phenomena  to  a  real  subject  in  the  Thing ;  for  that  reason 
lay  merely  in  the  consecutiveness  with  which  definite  transitions  take 
place  while  others  remain  excluded.  The  only  sense  therefore  that 
r  has  ever  attached  to  the  conception  of  change,  the  only  sense  in 
\  which  it  will  be  the  object  of  our  further  consideration,  is  that  in 
*y  which  it  indicates  transformations  or  movements  of  a  thing  within  a 
/  limited  sphere  of  qualities.  Beyond  this  will  be  another  equally 
v  limited  sphere  of  qualities,  forming  the  range  within  which  another 
essence  undergoes  change,  but  it  is  understood  that  in  change  the 
thing  never  passes  over  from  one  sphere  into  the  other.  As  regards 
the  more  precise  definition  of  these  spheres,  our  comparison  with 
colours  can  only  serve  as  a  figure  or  illustration.  As  colour  shifts  to 
and  fro  from  one  of  its  hues  to  another,  without  ever  approximating 
to  sounds  or  passing  into  them,  it  serves  well  as  a  sensible  image  of 
that  limitation  of  range  which  we  have  in  view.  But  this  does  not 
settle  the  question  whether  the  various  forms  a1  a2 a3...,  into  which 


CHAPTER  ii.]  Things  must  be  changeable  5 1 

the  essence  a  might  change  now  and  again,  are  kinds  of  a  common 
C  only  in  the  same  sense  in  which  the  colours  are  so,  or  whether 
they  are  really  connected  with  each  other  in  some  different  form, 
which  logical  subordination  under  the  same  generic  idea  does  not 
adequately  symbolise. 

22.  It  is  time,  however,  to  show  the  unsatisfactoriness  of  this 
attempt  to  justify  a  belief  in  the  capacity  for  change  on  the  part  of 
a  Thing,  of  which  the  essence  was  confined  to  a  perfectly  simple 
Quality.  If  our  imagination  ranges  through  the  multiplicity  of  sen 
sible  qualities,  it  finds  certain  groups  of  these  within  which  it  succeeds 
in  arresting  a  common  element  C,  while  beyond  them  it  fails  to  do  so. 
This  was  the  point  of  departure  of  our  previous  argument.  Passing 
from  this  consideration  of  an  intellectual  process  to  consideration  of 
the  Thing,  we  said;  'z/"the  essence  of  a  thing  changes,  the  limitation 
within  itself  of  such  a  sphere  of  states  affords  it  the  possibility  of 
completing  its  change  within  the  sphere  without  loss  of  its  abiding 
nature  C.  Only  if  it  passed  beyond  these  limits  would  all  continuity 
disappear  and  a  new  essence  take  its  place.'  Very  well ;  but  what 
correspondence  is  there  between  these  two  '  if  V  which  we  allowed  to 
follow  each  other  as  if  completely  homogeneous  ?  The  former  refers 
to  a  movement  of  our  intellect.  Meanwhile  the  object  presented  to  the 
intellect  stands  before  it  completely  unmoved.  The  general  colour, 
of  which  we  think,  is  not  sometimes  Red,  sometimes  Yellow,  but  is 
always  simultaneously  present  in  each  of  these  colours  and  in  each  of 
the  other  hues,  which  we  class  together  as  equally  external  primary 
species  of  colour.  In  the  Thing,  however,  the  supposed  C  cannot 
be  made  so  simply  to  stand  towards  the  manifold  a1  a2  a3  in  the  rela 
tion  of  a  universal  kind  to  its  species.  Even  were  it  the  case  that  in 
respect  of  their  nature  a1  a2  a3  admit  of  being  regarded  as  species  of  C, 
still,  if  the  thing  changes,  they  are  not  contained  in  it,  as  in  a  uni 
versal  C,  with  the  eternal  simultaneity  of  species  that  exist  one  along 
with  the  other.  They  succeed  each  other,  and  the  essence  a,  if  it  is 
a1,  for  that  reason  excludes  from  itself  a2  and  a3.  Thus  it  is  just  this 
that  remains  to  be  asked,  how  that  second  z/~can  be  understood  ;  how^ 
we  are  to  conceive  the  state  of  the  case  by  which  it  comes  about  that 
the  thing  moves — moves,  if  you  like,  within  a  circumscribed  sphere  of 
qualities  a1  a2  a3. . .,  but  still  within  it  does  move,  and  so  passes  from 
one  to  the  other  of  the  qualities  as  that,  being  in  the  one,  it  excludes 
the  others ;  how  it  is  that  it  so  moves  while  yet  these  qualities  are  the 
species  of  a  universal  C,  eternally  simultaneous  and  only  differing  as 
parts  of  a  system.  And,  be  it  observed,  we  are  at  present  not  enquiring 

£  2 


52  Of  the  Quality  of  Things. 

for  a  cause  which  produces  this  motion,  but  only  how  the  essence  a  is 
to  be  thought  of,  in  case  the  motion,  takes  place.  This  question  we 
\  ||  cannot  answer  without  coming  to  the  conclusion  that  the  change  is 
not  reconcilable  with  the  assumption  of  a  simple  quality,  constituting 
this  essence.  At  the  moment  when  a  has  the  form  a1  and  in  conse 
quence  excludes  the  forms  a2  and  a3,  it  cannot  without  reservation  be 
identified  with  a  C,  which  includes  a1  a2  a3  equally  in  itself.  It  would 
have  to  be  Cl  in  order  to  be  a1,  C2  in  order  to  be  a2,  and  the  same 
course  of  changes  which  we  wished  to  combine  with  a  persistent 
simple  quality  would  find  its  way  backwards  into  this  quality  itself. 

23.  I  could  not  avoid  the  appearance  of  idle  subtlety  if  I  pursued 

this  course  of  thought  without  having  shown  that  it  is  forced  upon  us. 

Why,  it  will    be   asked,  do  we  trouble  ourselves,  out   of  obstinate 

partiality  for  the  common  view,  to  give  a  shape  to  the  idea  of  the 

Thing  in  which  it  may  include  the  capacity  of  change  ?     Why  do  we 

f  not  follow  the  enlightened  view  of  men  of  science  which  finds  no 

\  difficulty  in  explaining  the  multiplicity  of  phenomena  by  the  help  of 

/  changeable  relations  between  unchangeable  elements  ?     There  is  the 

/  more  reason  for  the  question  since  this  supposition  not  only  forms 

/    the  basis  of  the  actual  procedure  of  natural  science  but  is  precisely 

that  for  which  Herbart  has  enforced  respect  on  the  part  of  every 

V  metaphysical  enquirer. 

Let  us  pursue  it  then  in  the  definite  form  which  this  philosopher 
has  given  to  it.  According  to  him,  not  only  as  a  matter  of  fact  do 
elements,  which  undergo  no  change  in  the  course  of  nature,  underlie 
phenomena,  but  according  to  their  idea  the  real  essences,  the  true 
things  which  we  have  to  substitute  for  the  apparent  things  of  percep 
tion,  are  unchangeably  identical  with  themselves,  each  resting  on 
itself,  standing  in  need  of  no  relation  to  each  other  in  order  to  their 
Being,  but  for  that  reason  the  more  capable  of  entering  into  every 
kind  of  relation  to  each  other.  Of  their  simple  qualities  we  have  no 
knowledge,  but  undoubtedly  we  are  entitled  to  think  of  them  as 
different  from  each  other  and  even  as  opposed  in  various  degrees 
without  being  obliged  in  consequence  to  transfer  any  such  predicates, 
supposing  them  to  be  found  by  our  comparison,  to  the  qualities 
themselves  as  belonging  to  their  essence ;  as  if,  that  is,  some  of  the 
qualities  were  actively  negated  by  others,  and  some  were  presupposed 
by  and  because  of  others.  This  admission  made,  let  us  suppose  that 
two  essences,  A  and  B,  come  into  that  relation  M  to  each  other 
which  Herbart  describes  as  their  being  together.  I  postpone  my 
remarks  about  the  proper  sense  of  this  '  together.'  All  that  we  now 


CHAPTER  ii.]    Herbarf  s  '  self -maintenance  of  Things!        53 

know  of  it  is  that  it  is  the  condition  under  which  what  Herbart  con 
siders  to  be  the  indifference  of  essences  towards  each  other  ceases. 
Supposing  them  then  to  be  '  together]  it  might  happen  that  A  and  B 
without  detriment  to  their  simplicity  might  yet  be  representable  by  the 
compound  equivalent  expressions  a  +  y  and  /3  —  y.  In  that  case  the 
continuance  of  this  state  of  being  '  together '  would  require  the  simul 
taneous  subsistence  of  +y  and  —  y;  i.e.  the  continuance  of  two 
opposites,  which  if  we  put  them  together  in  thought,  seem  necessarily 
to  cancel  each  other.  But  they  cannot  really  do  so.  Neither  are  the 
simple  essences  A  and  B  according  to  their  nature  accessible  to  a 
change,  nor  are  the  opposite  elements  which  our  Thought,  in  its 
comparing  process,  might  distinguish  in  them,  actually  separable  from 
the  rest,  in  combination  with  which  they  belong  to  two  absolutely 
simple  and  indivisible  Qualities. 

*  But,  if  this  be  so,  nothing  happens  at  all  and  everything  remains 
as  it  is ! '  This  is  the  exclamation  which  Herbart  expects  to  hear, 
but  he  adds  that  we  only  use  such  language  because  we  are  in  full 
sail  for  the  abyss  which  should  have  been  avoided.  I  must  however 
repeat  it.  What  has  taken  place  has  been  this.  We,  the  thinkers, 
have  imagined  that  from  the  contact  of  opposites  there  arose  some 
dangerVor  the  continuance  of  the  real  essences..  We  have  then  re 
minded  ourselves  that  their  nature  is  inaccessible  to  this  danger. 
Thus  it  has  been  we  who  have  maintained  the  conception  of  the  real 
essence  in  its  integrity  against  the  falsification  which  would  have 
invaded  it  in  every  attempt  to  account  its  object  capable  of  being 
affected  by  any  disturbance  from  without.  This  has  taken  place  in 
our  thought,  but  in  the  essence  itself  nothing  has  in  fact  happened. 
The  name  of  self-maintenance,  which  Herbart  gives  to  this  behaviour 
on  the  part  of  the  Things,  can  at  this  stage  of  his  theory  as  yet  mean 
nothing  but  the  completely  undisturbed  continuance  of  that  which  in 
its  nature  is  inaccessible  to  every  disturbance  that  might  threaten  it. 
An  activity  issuing  from  the  essences,  a  function  exercised  by  them, 
it  indicates  as  little  as  a  real  event  which  might  occur  to  them.  And 
just  for  this  reason  the  multiplicity  of  kinds  and  modes,  in  which 
Herbart  would  have  it  that  this  self-maintenance  takes  effect,  cannot 
really  exist  for  it.  The  undisturbed  continuance  is  always  the  same,/ 
and  except  the  variation  of  the  external  relations,  through  which  the 
so-called  '  being  together '  of  the  essences  is  brought  about  and  again 
annulled,  nothing  new  whatever  in  consequence  of  this  being  'to 
gether  '  happens  in  the  universe. 

24.  Quite    different   from   this    sense  of  self-maintenance,  which 


54  Of  the  Quality  of  Things. 

Herbart  himself  expressly  allows  in  the  Metaphysic,  is  that  other 
sense  in  which  he  applies  the  same  conception  in  the  Psychology. 
Only  the  investigator  of  Nature  could  have  satisfied  himself  with  the 
conclusion  just  referred  to.  For  him  the  only  concern  is  to  ascertain 
the  external  processes,  on  which  for  us  the  change  in  the  qualita 
tively  different  properties  of  things  as  a  matter  of  fact  depends.  It 
is  no  part  of  his  task  to  enquire  in  what  way  these  processes,  sup 
posing  them  to  take  place,  bring  it  about  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as 
an  appearance  to  us.  If  it  is  the  belief  of  the  students  of  Natural 
Science  that  the  theory,  which  regards  all  those  processes  as  mere 
changes  in  the  relations  of  elements  themselves  unchangeable,  is 
adequate  for  its  purpose — though  in  the  sequel  I  shall  have  to  deny 
that  according  to  this  way  of  presenting  the  case  any  but  an  incom 
plete  view  even  of  the  course  of  external  nature  is  possible — yet  for 
the  present  I  am  ready  to  allow  that  there  may  be  apparent  success 
upon  this  method  in  the  attempt  to  eliminate  all  changes  on  the  part 
of  the  real  itself  from  the  course  of  the  outer  world. 

But  this  only  renders  the  admission  of  change  a  yet  more  in 
evitable  necessity,  if  we  bear  in  mind  that  the  entire  order  of  the 
universe  which  forms  the  object  of  Metaphysical  enquiry  includes  the 
origin  of  the  phenomenon  in  us  no  less  than  the  external  processes 
which  are  its  de  facto  conditions.  Thus,  if  the  physical  investigator 
explains  the  qualitative  change  of  things  as  mere  appearance,  the 
metaphysician  has  to  consider  how  an  appearance  is  possible.  Her 
bart  is  quite  right — and  I  do  not  for  the  present  trouble  myself  with 
the  reproaches  which  might  be  brought  against  this  point  of  his 
doctrine — in  assuming  the  simple  real  essence  of  the  soul  as  the  in 
dispensable  subject,  for  which  alone  an  appearance  can  arise. 
Whereas  in  regard  to  no  other  real  essence  do  we  know  in  what 
its  self-maintenance  consists,  this,  according  to  him,  is  clear  in  regard 
to  the  soul.  Each  of  its  primary  acts  of  self-maintenance,  he  holds, 
has  the  form  of  an  idea,  i.  e.  of  a  simple  sensation.  Between  these 
aboriginal  processes  there  take  place  a  multitude  of  actions  and 
reactions,  from  which  is  supposed  to  result,  in  a  manner  which  we 
need  not  here  pursue  in  detail,  the  varied  whole  of  the  inner  life. 
These  acts  of  self-maintenance  on  the  part  of  the  soul,  however — con 
sisting  at  one  time  in  a  sensation,  at  another  in  the  hearing  of  a 
sound ;  now  in  the  perception  of  a  flavour,  now  in  that  of  warmth — 
are  manifestly  no  longer  simple  continuations  of  the  imperturbable 
essence  of  the  soul.  Taking  a  direction  in  kind  and  form  according 
to  the  kind  and  form  of  the  threatening  disturbance,  they  are  func- 


CHAPTER  ii.]        Change  in  the  soul  indispensable.  55 

tions,  activities,  or  reactions  of  the  soul,  which  are  not  possible  to  an 
unchangeable  but  only  to  a  changeable  Being.  For  it  is  not  in  a 
merely  threatened  disturbance  but  only  in  one  which  has  actually 
taken  effect  that  the  ground  can  lie  of  the  definite  reaction,  which 
ensues  at  every  moment  to  the  exclusion  of  many  others  that,  as  far 
as  the  nature  of  the  soul  goes,  are  equally  possible  for  it.  In  order 
to  be  able  to  meet  the  threatened  disturbance  a  by  an  act  of  self- 
maintenance  a,  the  other  disturbance  b  by  another  act  £,  the  soul 
must  take  some  note  of  the  fact  that  at  the  given  moment  it  is  a 
and  not  b,  or  b  and  not  a,  that  demands  the  exercise  of  its  activity. 
It  must  therefore  itself  suffer  in  both  cases,  and  differently  in  one  case 
from  the  other.  This  change  on  its  own  part — I  say  change,  for  it 
would  be  useless  to  seek  to  deny  that  various  kinds  of  suffering  are 
inconceivable  without  various  kinds  of  change  on  the  part  of  the 
subject  suffering — cannot  be  replaced  by  the  mere  change  in  the 
relations  between  the  soul  unchanged  in  itself,  and  other  elements. 
Any  such  relation  would  only  be  a  fact  for  a  second  observer,  which 
might  awaken  in  him  the  appearance  of  a  change  taking  place  in  the 
observed  soul,  which  in  reality  does  not  take  place :  but  even  for  this 
observer  the  appearance  could  only  arise,  if  he  on  his  own  part  at 
least  actually  possessed  that  capability  of  change  which  in  the  ob 
served  soul  he  holds  to  be  a  mere  appearance. 

It  is  therefore  quite  impossible  entirely  to  banish  the  inner  liability 
to  change  on  the  part  of  the  real  from  an  explanation  of  the  course 
of  the  universe.  If  it  were  feasible  to  exclude  it  from  a  theory  of  the 
outer  world,  it  would  belong  the  more  inevitably  to  the  essence  of 
that  real  Being,  for  which  this  outer  world  is  an  object  of  perception. 
But,  once  admitted  in  this  position,  it  cannot  be  a  self-evident  im 
possibility  for  the  real  elements,  which  we  regard  as  the  vehicles  of 
natural  operations.  That,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  a  necessity  even  for 
these,  we  shall  try  to  show  later  on. 

Our  consideration  of  the  question,  however,  so  far  rests  on  a  cer 
tain  supposition ;    on  the  necessity,  in   order  to  render  the  fact  of , 
appearance  intelligible,  of  conceiving  a  simple  real  subject,  the  soul,  j  l 
There  is  no  need  for  me  here  to  justify  this  assumption  against  the 
objections  which  are   specially   directed  against  it.     It  is  no  object 
of  our  enquiry,  so  far,  to  decide  whether  the  conception  of  Things  is 
tenable  at  all;    whether  it   does  not  require  to  be  superseded  by 
another  conception.     I  repeat ;  it  is  only  in  case  Things  are  to  be 
taken  to  exist  and  to  serve  to  make  the  v/orld  intelligible,  that  we 
then  enquire  in  what  way  they  must  be  thought  of.     And  to  that 


56  Of  the  Quality  of  Things. 

question  we  have  given  the  answer  that  Essence,  Thing  or  Substance, 
can  only  be  that  which  admits  of  Change.  Only  the  predicates  of 
Things  are  unchangeable.  They  vary  indeed  in  their  applicability  to 
Things,  but  each  of  them  remains  eternally  the  same  with  itself.  It 
is  only  the  Things  that  change,  as  they  admit  of  and  reject  now  one 
predicate,  now  another.  This  thought  indeed  is  not  new.  It  has 
already  been  expressly  stated  by  Aristotle.  For  us,  however,  it  neces 
sarily  raises  at  once  questions  that  are  new. 


CHAPTER    III. 

Of  the   Real  and  Reality. 

25.  THE  changes  which  we  see  going  on,  and  the  consecutiveness  • 
which  we  believe  to  be  discoverable  in  them,  compelled  us  to  assume 
the  existence  of  Things,  as  the  sustainers  or  causes  of  this  continuity. ; 
The  next  step  was,  if  possible,  to  ascend  from  that  which  needs  ex-ja 
planation  to  the  unconditioned,  in  regard  to  which  only  recognition  is  • 
possible.     For  this  purpose  we  tried  to  think  of  the  Thing  as  un 
changeably  the  same  with  itself,  and,  impressed  with  the  need  of 
assimilating  the  idea  of  it  as  much  as  possible  to  what  is  contained  in 
sensation,  since   sensation    alone  actually  gives  us  an  independent 
something  instead  of  merely  requiring  it,  we  took  its  nature  to  consist 
in  a  simple  quality.     We  convinced  ourselves,  however,  that  an  un 
changeable  and  simple  quality  is  not  thinkable  as  a  subject  of  change 
able  states  or  appearances,  and  thus  we  are  compelled  to  give  up  the 
claim  to  any  such  immediate  cognition  as  might  reveal  the  essence  of 
Things  to  us  in  a  simple  perception.     I  do  not  mean  to  imply  by 
this  that  we  should  have  hoped  really  to  attain  this  perception.     But 
we  indulged  the  thought  that,  for  such  a  spirit  as  might  be  capable  of 
it,  there  would  be  nothing  in  the   essence  of  Things  incompatible 
with  their  being  thus  apprehended.     This  conviction  in  its  turn  we 
have  now  to  abandon.    In  its  very  nature  that  which  is  to  be  a  Thing 

in  the  sense  of  being  a  subject  of  change  would  repel  the  possibility    y 
of  being  presented  as  an  unmoving  object  of  any  intuition.     A  new  / 
form  has  therefore  to  be  sought  for  that  which  is  to  be  accounted  the/ 
essence  of  any  Thing;    and  in  order  to  find  it  we  again  take  our\ 
departure  from  that  natural  theory  of  the  world  which  without  doubt  \ 
has  tried  answers  of  its  own  to  all  these  questions  that  are  constantly    \ 
reasserting  themselves  with  fresh  insistance.  J 

26.  In  regard  to  the  common  objects  of  perception  we  answer  the 
question,  What  are  they?  in  two  ways,  of  which  one  soon  reduces 
itself  to  the  other.     Products  of  art,  which  exhibit  a  purpose  on  the 


58  Of  the  Real  and  Reality.  [BOOK  i. 

part  of  a  maker,  we  denote  by  reference  to  the  end  for  which  they  are 
intended,  setting  aside  the  variety  of  forms  in  which  they  fulfil  that 
end.  The  changeable  products  of  nature,  in  the  structure  of  which  a 
governing  purpose  is  more  or  less  obscure  to  us,  we  characterise 
according  to  the  kind  and  order  of  phenomena  into  which  they 
develope  of  themselves  or  which  could  be  elicited  from  them  by 
external  conditions.  In  both  cases  by  the  essence  of  the  thing 
that  we  are  in  quest  of  we  understand  the  properties  and  modes  of 
procedure,  by  which  the  Thing  is  distinguished  from  other  things. 
The  other  series  of  answers,  on  the  contrary,  exhibits  as  this  essence 
the  material  out  of  which  the  things  are  made,  overlooking  the  various 
kinds  of  behaviour  and  existence  to  which  in  the  case  of  each  thing 
the  particular  formation  of  this  material  gives  rise.  Yet  after  all  this 
second  mode  of  answering  the  question  ultimately  passes  over  into 
the  former.  It  satisfies  only  so  long  as  it  consists  in  a  reduction  of  a 
compound  to  more  simple  components.  Supposing  us  to  have  dis 
covered  this  simple  matter,  how  then  do  we  answer  the  question, 
What  after  all  is  the  simple  matter  itself?  What  for  instance  is  the 
Quicksilver,  of  which  we  will  suppose  ourselves  to  have  discovered 
that  something  else  consists  of  it  ?  So  long  as  our  concern  was  to 
reduce  this  other  thing  to  it,  it  was  taken  for  something  simple.  But 
itself  in  its  simplicity,  what  is  it  ?  We  find  it  fluid  at  our  ordinary 
temperatures,  fixed  at  lower  temperatures,  vaporous  at  higher  ones ; 
but  we  could  not  say  what  it  is  in  itself,  supposing  it  not  to  be  acted 
on  by  any  of  these  external  conditions  or  by  any  of  the  other  con 
ditions,  under  which  its  phenomenal  properties  change  in  yet  other 
ways. 

We  can  in  fact  only  answer,  that  it  is  in  itself  the  unassignable 
something,  which  under  one  condition  appears  as  a1,  under  another 
as  a2,  under  a  third  as  a3,  and  of  which  we  assume  that,  if  these  con 
ditions  succeed  each  other  in  reverse  order,  it  will  pass  again  from  a3 
into  a2  and  a1,  without  ever  being  converted  into  /31,  /32  or  /33 — forms 
which  in  a  like  mutual  connexion  exhibit  the  various  phenomena  of 
/"another  thing,  say  Silver.     Thus,  it  may  be  stated  as  a  general  truth, 
/    that  our  idea  of  that  which  makes  a  Thing  what  it  is  consists  only  in 
\    the  thought  of  a  certain  regularity  with  which  it  changes  to  and  fro 
\  within  a   limited  circle    of  states  whether   spontaneously   or   under 
°j  visible  external  conditions,   without   passing  out  of  this   circle,  and 
/   without  ever  having  an  existence  on  its  own  account  and  apart  from 
L/any  one  of  the  forms  which  within  this  circle  it  can  assume.     This 
way  of  presenting  the  case,  while  fully  sufficient  for  the  needs  of 


CHAPTER  III.]  Marks    dud   L(lW.  59 

ordinary  judgment,  has  given  occasion  to  various  further  metaphysical 
experiments. 

27.  If  attention  is  directed  to  the  qualities  by  which  one  Thing 
distinguishes  itself  from  another,  its  essence  in  this  sense  cannot  any 
longer  be  thought  of  as  object  of  a  simple  perception,  but  only  in  the 
logical  form  of  a  conception,  which  expresses  the  permanently  uni 
form  observance  of  law  in  the  succession  of  various  states  or  in  the 
combination  of  manifold  predicates.  From  this  point  a  very  natural 
course  of  thought  leads  us  to  two  ways  of  apprehending  the  Thing. 
We  may  define  it  first  by  the  collective  marks,  which  at  a  given  mo 
ment  it  exhibits,  in  their  de  facto  condition.  This  gives  us  a  state 
ment  of  what  the  essence  is,  TO  ri  eon  according  to  Aristotle's  ex 
pression.  But  it  would  be  conceivable  that,  like  two  curves  which 
have  an  infinitely  small  part  of  their  course  in  common,  so  two 
different  things,  A  and  B,  should  coincide  in  the  momentary  con 
dition  of  their  marks,  but  should  afterwards  diverge  into  paths  of 
development  as  different  as  were  the  paths  that  brought  them  to  the 
state  of  coincidence.  In  that  case  the  essence  of  each  will  be  held 
only  to  be  correctly  apprehended,  if  the  given  condition  of  each  is 
interpreted  as  the  result  of  that  which  it  previously  was,  and  at  the 
same  time  as  the  germ  of  that  which  it  will  be.  This  seems  the 
natural  point  of  departure  from  which  Aristotle  arrived  at  the  for 
mula  TI  TIV  clvai.  He  did  not  complete  it  by  the  other  equally  valuable 
T/  eVrai  dvai,  though  the  notion  that  might  have  been  so  expressed 
was  not  alien  to  his  way  of  thinking.  In  practice,  it  must  be  ad 
mitted,  these  determinations  of  the  idea  of  the  Thing,  which  theoreti 
cally  are  of  interest,  cannot  be  carried  through.  Even  the  actual 
present  condition  of  a  Thing  would  not  admit  of  exhaustive  analysis, 
without  our  thinking  of  the  mutual  connexion  between  the  manifold 
phenomena  which  it  exhibits,  as  already  specifically  ordered  according 
to  the  same  law  which  would  appear  still  more  plainly  upon  a  con 
sideration  of  the  various  states,  past  and  to  be  expected,  of  the 
Thing.  The  second  formula  therefore  only  gives  general  expression 
to  the  intention  of  constantly  gaining  a  deeper  view  of  the  essence  of 
the  Things,  in  a  progression  which  admits  of  indefinite  continuance, 
while  a  fuller  regard  is  for  ever  being  paid  to  the  multiplicity  of  the 
different  ways,  in  which  the  Thing  behaves  under  different  conditions, 
to  its  connexion  with  the  rest  of  the  world,  and  lastly — according 
to  a  direction  of  enquiry  very  natural,  though  still  out  of  place  in  this 
part  of  Metaphysics — to  the  final  purpose  of  which  the  fulfilment  is 
the  Thing's  vocation  in  the  universe.  As  a  means  of  setting  aside  the 


60  Of  the  Real  and  Reality.  [  BOOK  i. 

difficulties,  which  beset  us  at  this  point,  the  expressions  referred  to 
have  not  in  fact  been  used,  nor  do  they  seem  at  all  available  for  the 
purpose. 

28.  We  proceed  to  particularise  some  of  these.  Had  we  succeeded 
in  making  the  essential  idea  of  a  thing  so  completely  our  own,  that 
all  modes  of  procedure  of  the  thing  under  all  conditions  would  flow 
from  the  idea  self-evidently  as  its  necessary  consequences,  we 
\  should  after  all  in  so  doing  have  only  attained  an  intellectual  image 
of  that  by  which  as  by  its  essentia  the  Thing  is  distinguished  from 
everything  else.  The  old  question  would  repeat  itself,  what  it  is 
which  makes  the  thing  itself  more  than  this  its  image  in  thought,  or 
what  makes  the  object  of  our  idea  of  the  thing  more  than  thinkable, 
and  gives  it  a  place  as  a  real  thing  in  the  world.  Just  as  the  Quality 
demanded  a  Subject  to  which  it  might  attach,  so  still  more  does  the 
idea,  less  independent  than  the  quality,  seem  to  require  a  fixed  kernel 
to  give  its  matter  that  reality  which,  as  the  material  contained  in  an 
idea,  it  does  not  possess.  If  we  have  once  forbidden  ourselves  to 
look  for  the  essence  of  the  Thing  in  a  simple  uniform  quality  that 
may  be  grasped  in  perception ;  if  we  resolved  rather  to  find  an  ex 
pression  for  it  in  the  law  which  governs  the  succession  of  its  pheno 
mena  ;  then  that  which  we  are  in  quest  of  has  to  fulfil  for  all  things 
the  same  indistinguishable  function.  Itself  without  constituent  quali 
ties  it  has  to  give  reality  to  the  varying  qualities  constituent  of  things. 
We  are  thus  brought  to  the  notion  of  a  material  of  reality,  a  Real 
pure  and  simple,  which  in  itself  is  neither  this  nor  that,  but  the  prin 
ciple  of  reality  for  everything. 

The  history  of  Philosophy  might  recount  numerous  forms  under 
which  this  notion  has  been  renewed  ;  but  it  is  needless  to  treat  them 
here  in  detail.  The  natural  requirements  of  the  case  have  always  led, 
when  once  this  path  has  been  entered  on,  to  the  same  general  deter 
minations  as  Plato  assigned  to  this  vXrj.  The  consideration  that  ob 
servation  presents  us  with  an  indefinite  number  of  mutually  independent 
Things,  permanent  or  transitory,  caused  this  primary  matter  of  all 
things  to  be  regarded  by  the  imagination  as  divisible,  in  order  that 
there  might  be  a  piece  of  it  in  each  single  thing,  sufficient  to  stiffen 
the  thing's  ideal  content  into  reality.  But  this  conception  of  divisi 
bility  in  its  turn  had  to  be  to  a  certain  extent  withdrawn.  For  it  would 
imply  that  before  its  division  the  matter  has  possessed  a  continuity, 
and  this  would  be  unthinkable  without  the  assumption  of  its  having 
properties  of  some  kind,  by  which  it  would  have  been  possible  for 
this  material  of  reality  to  be  distinguished  from  other  thinkable  mate- 


CHAPTER  in.]  Matter  as  the  Real.  61 

rials.  But  thus  understood,  as  already  definitely  qualified,  it  would 
not  have  disposed  of  the  metaphysical  question  which  it  was  meant  to 
solve.  For  the  question  was  not,  what  quality  of  primary  matter  as  a  , 
matter-of-fact  formed  the  basis  of  the  individual  things  that  fashion 
themselves  out  of  it,  but  what  it  is  that  is  needed  to  help  any  and 
every  thinkable  quality  to  be  more  than  thinkable,  to  be  real.  If! 
therefore  the  imagination  did  notwithstanding,  as  we  do  not  doubt 
that  it  did,  present  this  ultimate  Real  to  itself  mainly  as  a  continuous 
and  divisible  substance,  this  delineation  of  it,  occasioned  by  reference 
to  the  observation  of  natural  objects,  strictly  speaking  went  beyond 
that  which  in  this  connexion  it  was  intended  to  'postulate.  All  that 
had  to  be  supposed  was  the  presence  in  every  single  thing,  however 
many  things  there  might  be,  of  such  a  kernel  of  reality,  wholly  void 
of  properties.  There  were  therefore  according  to  this  notion  an 
indefinite  number  of  instances  of  this  conception  of  the  real,  but  they 
did  not  stand  in  any  connexion  with  each  other  any  more  than  in  any 
other  case  many  instances  of  a  general  idea,  merely  because  they  are 
all  subordinate  to  that  idea,  stand  in  any  actual  connexion  with  each 
other.  But  I  will  not  continue  this  line  of  remark  ;  for  the  obscurity 
of  this  whole  conception  is  not  to  be  got  rid  of  by  criticism,  but 
by  pointing  out  its  entire  uselessness. 

29.  It  is  manifest  that  a  representation  which  has  its  value  in  the, 
treatment  of  ordinary  objects  of  experience,  has  been  applied  to  a  ^ 
metaphysical  question,  which  it  is  wholly  insufficient  to  answer.  In 
sensuous  perception  we  are  presented  with  materials,  which  assume 
under  our  hands  such  forms  as  we  will,  or  are  transformed  by  ope 
rations  of  nature  into  things  of  the  most  various  appearance.  But 
a  little  attention  informs  us  that  they  are  but  relatively  formless  and 
undetermined.  The  possibility  of  assuming  new  forms  and  of  manifold 
transmutation  they  all  owe  to  the  perfectly  determinate  properties 
which  they  possess,  and  by  which  they  offer  definite  points  of  contact 
to  the  conditions  operating  on  them.  The  wax,  which  to  the  ancients 
represented  the  primary  matter  on  which  the  ideas  were  supposed  to 
be  impressed  in  order  to  their  realisation,  would  not  take  this  im 
pression,  and  would  not  retain  the  form  impressed  on  it  but  for  the 
peculiar  unelastic  ductility  and  the  cohesion  of  its  minute  parts,  and 
any  finer  material  which  we  might  be  inclined  to  substitute  for  it, 
though  it  might  possess  a  still  more  many-sided  plasticity,  would  at 
the  same  time  be  still  less  capable  of  preserving  the  form  communi 
cated  to  it. 

It  is  therefore  a  complete  delusion  to  hope  by  this  way  of  ascent  b 


62  Of  the  Real  and  Reality.  [BOOK  i. 

\to  arrive  at  something  which,  without  any  qualification  on  its  own 
/part,  should  still  bear  this  character  of  pure  receptivity,  necessary  to 
)  the  Real  we  are  in  quest  of.  After  all  we  should  only  arrive  at  a 
barren  matter  R,  which  would  be  equally  incapable  of  receiving  a 
definite  shape,  and  of  duly  retaining  it  when  received.  For  that  which 
was  without  any  nature  of  its  own  different  from  everything  else,  could 
not  be  acted  on  by  any  condition  p  at  all,  nor  by  any  condition  p 
otherwise  than  by  another  q.  No  position  of  circumstances  therefore 
would  ever  occur  under  which  that  indeterminate  subject  R  could  be 
any  more  compelled  or  entitled  to  assume  a  certain  form  TT  rather 
than  any  other  we  like,  K.  If  we  supposed  however  this  unthinkable 
event  to  come  about  and  R  to  be  brought  into  the  form  TT,  there  would 
be  nothing  to  move  it  to  the  retention  of  this  form  to  the  exclusion  of 
any  other,  K,  since  every  other  would  be  equally  possible  and  equally 
indifferent  to  it.  In  this  absence  of  any  resistance,  which  could  only 
rest  on  some  nature  of  R's  own,  every  possibility  of  an  ordered  course 
of  the  world  would  disappear.  In  every  moment  of  time  everything 
that  was  thinkable  at  all  would  have  an  equal  claim  to  reality,  and 
there  would  be  none  of  that  predominance  of  one  condition  over 
another  which  is  indispensable  to  account  for  any  one  state  of  things 
or  to  bring  about  a  determinate  change  of  any  state  of  things.  But 
not  only  would  any  origin  or  preservation  of  individual  forms  be  re 
duced  to  nothing  by  the  complete  absence  of  qualities  on  the  part  of 
the  Real.  The  relation  itself,  which  at  each  moment  must  be  sup 
posed  to  obtain  between  it  and  the  content  to  which  it  gives  reality, 
would  from  a  metaphysical  point  of  view  be  unmeaning.  Words  no 
doubt  may  be  found  by  which  to  indicate  it  metaphorically.  We 
speak  of  the  properties  which  constitute  the  whole  essence  of  a  Thing, 
as  inhering  in  the  unqualified  substance  of  the  Real,  or  as  attaching 
to  it,  or  as  sustained  by  it.  But  all  these  figurative  expressions  with 
the  use  of  which  language  cannot  dispense,  are  in  contradiction  with 
the  presupposed  emptiness  and  formlessness  of  the  matter.  Nothing 
can  sustain  anything,  or  allow  it  to  attach  to  or  depend  upon  itself, 
which  does  not  by  its  own  form  and  powers  afford  this  other  points 
of  contact  and  support.  Or,  to  speak  without  a  figure,  it  is  impos 
sible  to  see  what  inner  relation  could  be  meant,  if  we  ascribed  to  a 
certain  Real  a  property  n  or  a  group  of  properties  TT  as  its  own. 
R  would  be  as  void  of  relation  to  the  property  or  group  of  properties, 
as  alien  to  it,  as  any  other  R 1. 

30.  These  shortcomings  on  the  part  of  the  conception  of  the  Real 
would  make  themselves  acutely  felt  as  soon  as  an  attempt  was  made, 


CHAPTER  in.]  Matter  by  itself  is  nothing.  63 

not  merely  to  set  it  up  in  isolated  abstraction,  but  to  turn  it  to  account 
for  the  actual  explanation  of  the  course  of  things.  It  would  then 
become  evident  that  nothing  could  be  built  on  it  which  had  any 
likeness  to  a  Static  or  Mechanic  of  change.  But  it  will  be  objected 
that  we  are  fighting  here  against  ghosts  raised  by  ourselves,  so  long 
as  we  speak  of  processes  by  which  the  connexion  of  the  real  with  the 
qualities  it  contains  is  supposed  for  the  first  time  to  have  crfme  about. 
This,  however,  it  will  be  said,  is  what  has  never  been  meant.  Even 
the  ancients,  who  originated  the  conception  of  matter  in  question,  we 
find  were  aware  that  at  no  place  or  time  did  the  naked  and  unformed 
matter  exist  by  itself.  It  had  existed  from  eternity  in  union  with  the 
Forms,  by  means  of  which  the  different  Things,  now  this,  now  that, 
had  been  fashioned  out  of  it.  In  the  plainest  way  it  was  stated  that, 
taken  by  itself,  it  was  rather  without  being,  a  ^  w,  and  that  Being 
first  arose  out  of  its  indefeasible  union  with  the  qualitative  content 
supplied  by  the  Ideas.  This  may  be  fairly  urged,  and  in  this  ex 
planation  we  might  perfectly  acquiesce,  if  it  were  one  that  really 
admitted  of  being  taken  at  its  word.  If  it  were  so  taken,  it  would 
amount  simply  to  a  confession  that  what  the  theory  understood  and 
looked  for  under  the  designation  of  the  Real  is  nothing  more  than 
the  *  Position,'  throughout  inseparable  from  the  constituent  qualities 
of  Being,  by  which  these  qualities  not  merely  are  thought  of  but  are  ; 
and  that  consequently  it  would  be  improper  for  this  '  Position/  which 
only  in  thought  can  be  detached  as  the  uniform  mode  of  putting 
forth  from  that  which  is  put  forth  by  it,  to  be  regarded  in  a  sub 
stantive  character  as  itself  a  something,  a  Real,  the  truly  existing 
Thing ;  improper  that,  compared  with  it,  everything  which  on  other 
grounds  we  took  to  form  the  essence  of  the  Thing,  should  be  forced 
into  the  secondary  position  of  an  unessential  appendage. 

The  doctrines,  however,  which  speak  of  the  real  material  of  Being, 
are  far  from  conveying  this  unreserved  admission  even  in  the  ex 
planation  adduced.  On  the  contrary,  they  continue  to  interpret  the 
distinction  between  the  principle  that  gives  reality  and  the  real  itself 
as  if  it  represented  something  actual.  When  they  ascribe  to  the 
matter,  which  has  no  independent  existence,  successive  changes  of 
form,  they  do  not  merely  mean  by  this  that  the  inexplicable  '  Position ' 
passes  from  the  content  IT  to  the  other  content  K.  In  that  case  all 
that  would  be  attained  would  be  a  succession,  regulated  or  unregu 
lated,  of  states  of  fact  without  inner  connexion.  Their  object  rather 
is  to  be  able  to  treat  the  matter  R  as  the  really  permanent  connecting 
member  which  experiences  TT  and  *,  or  exchanges  the  one  for  the 


64  Of  the  Real  and  Reality.  \  BOOK  i. 

other,  as  states  of  itself,  and  which,  in  virtue  of  its  own  nature,  forbids 
the  assumption  of  other  phenomena  </>  and  \^,  or  the  realisation  of 
another  order  of  succession.  Without  this  last  addition  the  conception 
of  the  Real  R  would  not,  upon  this  view  any  more  than  upon  other, 
have  any  value.  For  I  repeat,  it  is  only  under  the  obligation  of  ex 
plaining  a  particular  consecutiveness  in  the  course  of  the  world, 
which  does  not  allow  any  and  every  thinkable  variation  in  the 
state  of  facts,  that  we  are  constrained,  instead  of  resting  in  the 
phenomena,  to  look  for  something  behind  them  under  the  name 
of  the  Real,  however  that  is  to  be  conceived.  A  flux  of  absolute 
becoming  without  any  principle,  once  allowed,  demands  no  explana 
tion  and  needs  no  assumption  to  be  made  which  could  lead  to  such  an 
explanation,  intrinsically  impossible,  as  the  one  given.  The  doctrines 
in  question,  therefore,  under  the  guidance  of  this  natural  need  which 
they  think  to  satisfy  by  the  supposition  of  the  Real  pure  and  simple, 
do  not  in  fact  make  the  admission  which  they  seem  to  make.  Al 
though  their  '  matter '  R  nowhere  exists  in  its  nakedness,  this  is,  so  to 
speak,  only  a  fact  in  the  world's  history,  which  need  not  follow  from 
the  idea  of  R.  Although  as  a  matter  of  fact  everywhere  imprisoned 
in  variously  qualified  forms,  still  in  all  those  forms  R  continues  to 
exist  as  the  single  self-subsistent  independent  Being  and  imparts  its 
own  reality  to  the  content  which  changes  in  dependence  on  it.  Thus 
the  matter,  considered  by  itself  and  in  detachment  from  the  forms  in 
which  it  appears,  is  still  not  properly,  as  it  is  called,  a  ^  6v,  but 
according  to  the  proper  sense  even  of  the  doctrines  which  so  designate 
it,  merely  an  OVK  ov,  if  weight  may  be  laid  on  the  selection  of  these 
expressions.  And  against  this  permanent  residuum  of  the  doctrine  of 
the  vXr;  the  objections  already  made  retain  their  force.  It  is  impossible 
to  transfer  the  responsibility  of  providing  for  the  reality  of  the  deter 
minate  content  to  a  Real  without  content,  understood  in  a  substantive 
sense,  for  none  of  the  connecting  thoughts  are  possible  which  would 
be  needed  in  order  to  bring  this  Real  into  the  desired  relation  with 
the  qualities  assigned  to  it. 

31.  I  cannot  therefore  believe  that  interpreters,  as  they  went  deeper 
into  this  ancient  notion  of  an  empty  Real  as  such,  of  an  existing 
nothing  which  yet  purports  to  be  the  ground  of  reality  to  all  definite 
Being,  would  find  in  it  a  proportionately  deeper  truth.  To  us  it  is 
only  an  example  of  an  error  of  thought,  which  is  made  too  often  and 
too  easily  not  to  deserve  an  often-repeated  notice.  If  we  ask  whence 
the  colour  of  a  body  proceeds,  we  usually  think  at  first  of  a  pigment 
which  we  suppose  to  communicate  the  colour  to  it.  And  in  this  we 


CHAPTER  in.]        The  communication  of  Reality.  65 

are  often  right ;  for  in  compound  things  it  may  easily  be  that  a  pro 
perty,  which  seems  to  be  spread  over  the  whole  of  them,  attaches 
only  to  a  single  constituent.  But  we  are  wrong  already  in  as  far  as 
our  phrase  implies  that  the  pigment  communicates  its  colour  to  the 
whole  body.  Nothing  of  the  sort  really  happens,  but  a  combination 
of  physical  effects  brings  it  about  that  in  our  sensation  the  impression 
of  colour  produced  by  the  pigment  completely  disguises  the  other 
impression,  which  would  have  been  produced  by  the  other  constituents 
of  the  body,  that  have  throughout  remained  colourless.  But  when  we 
repeat  our  question,  it  appears  that  the  same  answer  cannot  always 
be  repeated.  The  pigment  cannot  owe  its  colour  to  a  new  pigment. 
Sooner  or  later  the  colouring  must  be  admitted  as  the  immediate 
result  of  the  properties  which  a  body  possesses  on  its  own  account 
as  its  proper  nature,  and  does  not  borrow  from  anything  else. 

Our  procedure  has  been  just  the  same  with  reference  to  the  things 
and  their  reality.  We  desired  to  know  whence  their  common  pro 
perty  of  reality  is  derived,  and  in  imagination  introduced  into  each  of 
them  a  grain  of  the  stuff  of  reality  which  we  supposed  to  communi 
cate  to  the  properties  gathered  about  it  the  fixedness  and  consistency 
of  a  Thing.  What  actual  behaviour,  however,  or  what  process  this 
expression  of  '  communication  '  so  easily  used,  is  to  signify,  remained 
more  than  we  could  say.  In  fact,  just  as  little  as  a  pigment  would 
really  convey  its  colouring  to  anything  else,  could  the  mere  presence 
of  the  Real  convey  the  reality,  which  is  emphatically  held  to  be 
peculiar  to  it,  to  an  essence  in  the  way  of  qualities,  which,  we  are  to 
suppose,  have  somehow  grouped  themselves  around  it.  Indeed,  the 
metaphysical  representation  is  in  much  worse  case  than  that  which 
we  made  use  of  in  the  example  just  instanced.  For  of  the  pigment 
we  did  not  dream  that  it  was  itself  not  merely  colourless,  but  in  its 
nature  completely  indifferent  to  the  various  colours  that  may  be 
thought  of,  and  that  it  proceeded  to  assume  one  of  them  as  if  the 
colours,  before  they  were  properties  of  a  thing,  already  possessed  a 
reality  which  enabled  them  to  enter  into  a  relation  to  bodies  and  to 
let  themselves  be  assumed  by  bodies.  In  this  case  we  were  aware 
that  the  Redness,  which  we  ascribe  to  the  pigment,  is  the  immediate 
result  of  its  own  nature  under  definite  circumstances ;  that  it  could 
not  exist,  that  nothing  could  have  it,  until  these  circumstances  acted 
on  this  nature,  and  that  it  would  change  if  the  body,  instead  of  being 
what  it  is,  were  another  equally  determinate  body.  But  in  our  meta 
physical  language,  when  we  spoke  of  the  properties  in  opposition  to 
the  real  essence  of  things,  we  in  fact  spoke  as  if  the  thinkable  quali- 

VOL.  i.  F 


66  Of  the  Real  and  Reality.  [BOOK  i. 

ties,  by  which  one  thing  is  distinguished  from  another,  before  they 
really  existed  as  qualities  of  a  Thing  might  already  possess  a  reality 
which  should  enable  them  to  enter  into  a  definite  relation  to  an  empty 
Real — a  relation  by  which,  without  having  any  foundation  more  than 
all  other  qualities  in  the  nature  of  this  Real,  it  was  possible  for  them 
to  become  its  properties. 

I  leave  this  comparison,  however,  to  be  pursued  on  another  occa 
sion.  Apart  from  figure,  our  mistake  was  this.  We  demanded  to 
know  what  it  is  on  which  that  Being  of  Things  which  makes  them 
Things  rests.  By  way  of  answer  we  invented  the  Substantive  con 
ception  of  the  Real  pure  and  simple,  and  believed  that  by  it  we  had 
represented  a  real  object,  or  rather  the  ultimate  Real  itself.  In  fact 
however  real  is  an  adjectival  or  predicative  conception,  a  title  belong^ 
ing  to  everything  that  in  some  manner  .not  yet  explained  behaves  as  a 
Thing — changes,  that  is  to  say,  in  a  regular  order,  remains  identical 
with  itself  in  its  various  states,  acts  and  suffers ;  for  it  is  this  that  we 
assumed  to  be  the  case  with  Things,  supposing  that  there  are  Things. 
The  question  was,  on  what  ground  this  actual  behaviour  rests.  It  is 
a  question  that  cannot  be  settled  by  thinking  of  our  whole  require 
ment  as  satisfied  in  general  by  the  assumption  of  a  Real  as  such,  of 
which  after  all,  as  has  been  shown,  we  could  not  point  out  how  in 
each  single  case  it  explains  the  reality  which  itself  is  never  presented 
to  us  as  universal  and  homogeneous,  but  only  as  a  sum  of  innumer 
able  different  individual  cases. 

The  conception  of  the  Real  therefore  is  liable  to  a  criticism  similar 
to  though  somewhat  different  from  that  which  is  called  for  by  the  con 
ception  of  pure  Being.  This  latter  we  found  correctly  formed,  but 
inapplicable,  so  long  as  the  definite  relations  are  not  made  good 
again,  which  had  been  suppressed  in  it  by  the  process  of  abstraction. 

,  Of  the  conception  of  the  Real  on  the  contrary  it  may  be  maintained 
that  it  is  untruly  formed.  That  which  is  conceived  in  this  conception 
everywhere  presupposes  the  subject  to  which  it  may  belong,  and 
cannot  itself  be  subject.  For  this  reason  it  cannot  be  spoken  of  in 
substantive  form  as  the  Real,  but  only  applied  adjectivally  to  all  that 
;  is  real.  It  would  be  well  if  the  usage  of  language  favoured  this  way 
of  speaking,  more  lengthy  though  it  is,  in  order  to  keep  the  thought 
constantly  alive  that  it  is  not  through  the  presence  of  a  Real  in  them 
that  Things  become  or  are  real,  but  that  primarily  they  are  only  called 

x  real  if  they  exhibit  that  mode  of  behaviour  which  we  denominate 
reality.  In  regard  to  this  we  have  stated  what  we  mean  by  it.  The 
mode  under  which  it  may  be  thinkable  has  still  to  be  ascertained. 


CHAPTER  in.]  The  Thing  as  a  Law.  67 

32.  With  a  view  to  answering  the  above  question  we  are  naturally  ^ 
led  to  the  opposite  path  to  that  hitherto  pursued.  Let  us  see  how  \ 
far  it  will  take  us.  The  two  incomplete  ideas,  by  the  union  of  which 
we  form  the  conception  of  the  Thing — that  of  the  content  by  which  it 
is  distinguished  from  other  things  and  that  of  its  reality — cannot  be  any 
longer  taken  to  represent  two  actually  separable  elements  of  its  Being. 
The  Reality  must  simply  be  the  form  in  which  the  content  actually  exists, 
and  can  be  nothing  apart  from  it.  But  the  requirement  that  this  should 
be  so  meets  at  once  with  a  serious  objection.  So  long  as  we  could 
answer  the  question  What  the  Thing  is  by  calling  it  a  simple  quality,  we 
had  a  uniform  content,  apprehensible  in  intuition,  before  us,  to  which 
it  seemed,  to  begin  with  at  least,  that  the  '  Position '  of  reality  might 
be  applied  without  contradiction.  We  have  now  decided  that  this 
essence  is  only  to  be  found  in  a  law,  according  to  which  the  changeable 
states,  properties  or  phenomena,  a1  a2  a3  of  the  thing,  are  connected 
with  each  other.  But  how  could  a  law  be  that  which,  if  simply  endowed 
with  reality,  would  constitute  a  thing  ?  How  could  it  be  gifted  with 
those  modes  of  behaviour  which  we  demand  of  whatever  claims  to  be 
a  Thing  ? 

This  question  involves  real  difficulty,  but  it  also  expresses  doubts 
which  merely  arise  from  a  scarcely  avoidable  imperfection  in  our 
linguistic  usage.  The  first  of  these  doubts  is  analogous  to  that 
which  we  raised  against  the  simple  Quality  as  essence  of  the  Thing, 
and  which  we  found  to  have  no  justification.  As  long  as  we  thought 
of  the  Quality  in  the  way  presented  to  us  in  language  by  adjectives, 
as  a  generality  abstracted  from  many  instances,  distinct  indeed  from 
other  qualities  but  undetermined  in  respect  of  intensity,  extent  and 
limitation ;  .  so  long  it  could  not  be  accepted  as  the  essence  of  a 
Thing.  After  all  the  determinateness  still  lacking  to  it  had  been  made 
good,  it  might  have  been  so  accepted,  if  the  necessary  requirement  of  v 
capability  of  change  had  not  prevented  this.  In  like  manner  the  con 
ception  of  law  is  at  the  outset  understood  in  a  similar  general  sense. 
Abstracted  from  a  comparison  between  the  modes  of  behaviour  of 
different  things,  it  represents  primarily  the  rule,  according  to  which 
from  a  definite  general  class  of  conditions  a  definite  class  of  results 
is  derived.  The  rule  indeed  is  such  that  there  is  a  permanent  propor 
tion  according  to  which  definite  changes  in  the  results  correspond  to 
definite  changes  in  the  conditions ;  but  the  cases  in  which  the  law  will 
hold  good,  and  the  determined  values  of  the  conditions  which  give  rise 
in  each  of  these  cases  to  equally  determined  values  on  the  part  of 
the  effects— these  are  not  contained  in  the  law  itself  or  contained  in 

F  2 


68  Of  the  Real  and  Reality.  [BOOK  i. 

it  only  as  possibilities  which  are  thought  of  along  with  it,  but  of 
\vhich  it  asserts  none  as  a  fact.  In  this  shape  a  law  cannot  be  that  of 
which  the  immediate  reality,  even  if  it  were  thinkable,  would  form  a 
Thing.  But  this  is  not  what  is  meant  by  the  theories  which  employ 
such  an  expression  [which  identify  thing  and  law].  What  they  have  in 
["view,  to  put  it  shortly,  is  no£  a  general  law  but  an  instance  of  its 
application.  This  latter  expression,  however,  needs  further  explana 
tion  and  limitation. 

33.  If  in  the  ordinary  general  expression  of  a  law.  for  all  quantities 
left  indefinite,  we  substitute  definite  values,  it  is  not  our  habit,  it  is 
true,  to  call  the  individual  instance  thus  obtained  any  longer  a  law  at 
all,  because  unless  we  revert  to  the  general  form  of  which  it  is  an 
application  it  is  no  longer  fitted  to  serve  as  a  ground  of  judgment 
upon  other  like  cases,  and  this  assistance  in  reasoning  is  the  chief 
service  which  in  ordinary  thinking  we  expect  from  a  law.  Intrin 
sically,  however,  there  is  no  such  real  difference  between  the  in 
dividual  instance  and  the  universal  as  would  forbid  us  from  sub 
suming  the  former  under  the  name  of  Law.  On  the  contrary,  it  is 
itself  what  it  is  in  respect  of  its  whole  nature  only  in  consequence  of 
the  law,  and  conversely  the  law  has  no  other  reality  but  in  the  case  of 
its  application.  It  is  therefore  a  legitimate  extension  of  the  usage  of 
terms,  if  we  apply  the  name  of  a  law  to  the  definite  state  of  facts 
itself,  which  includes  a  plurality  of  relations  between  elements  which 
are  combined  according  to  the  dictates  of  the  general  law.  It  may 
be  the  general  law  of  a  series  of  quantities  that  each  sequent  member 
is  the  wth  power  of  the  preceding  one.  It  is  not,  however,  in  this 
general  form  that  the  law  forms  a  series.  We  have  no  series 
till  we  introduce  in  place  of  n  a  definite  value,  and  at  the  same 
time  to  give  to  some  one  of  the  members,  say  the  first,  a  definite 
quantitative  value.  Applying  this  to  our  present  case,  the  general  law 
would  correspond  only  to  the  abstract  conception  of  a  Thing  as  such; 
the  actual  series  on  the  other  hand,  which  this  laws  governs,  to  the 
conception  of  some  individual  Thing.  And  it  is  only  in  this  latter 
sense  as  corresponding  to  the  actual  series  that  it  can  be  intended  to 
represent  a  law  as  being  the  essence  to  which  '  Position '  as  a  Thing 
belongs. 

Upon  this  illustration  two  remarks  have  to  be  added.  In  our 
parallel  the  definite  series  appears  as  an  example  of  a  general  law, 
of  which  innumerable  other  examples  are  equally  possible.  It  may 
turn  out  in  the  sequel  that  this  thought  has  an  equally  necessary  place 
in  the  metaphysical  treatment  of  things ;  but  at  this  point  it  is  still 


CHAPTER  in.]  A  law  need  not  be  general.  69 

foreign  to  our  enquiry.  It  does  not  belong  to  that  essence  of  a  thing 
of  which  we  are  here  in  quest,  that  the  law  which  orders  its  content  should 
apply  also  to  the  content  of  other  things.  On  the  contrary,  it  is 
completely  individual  and  single  of  its  kind,  distinguishing  this  thing 
from  all  other  things.  On  this  point  we  are  often  in  error,  misled  by 
the  universal  tendency  to  construct  reality  out  of  the  abstractions, 
which  the  reality  itself  has  alone  enabled  us  to  form.  The  course, 
which  investigation  cannot  avoid  taking,  thoroughly  accustoms  us  to 
look  on  general  laws  as  the  Pn'us,  to  which  the  manifold  facts  of  the 
real  world  must  afterwards,  as  a  matter  of  course,  subordinate  them 
selves  as  instances.  We  might,  however,  easily  remind  ourselves  that 
as  a  matter  of  fact  all  general  laws  arise  in  our  minds  from  the  com 
parison  of  individual  cases.  These  are  the  real  Prius,  and  the  I 
general  law  which  we  develope  from  them  is  primarily  only  a  product  l 
of  our  thought.  Its  validity  in  reference  to  many  cases  is  established 
by  the  experiences  from  the  comparison  of  which  it  has  arisen,  and 
is  established  just  so  far  as  these  confirm  it.  Had  our  comparison, 
instead  of  being  between  one  thing  and  other  things,  been  a  com 
parison  of  a  thing  with  itself  in  various  states — and  that  is  the  sort 
of  comparison  to  which  alone  our  present  course  of  enquiry  would 
properly  lead — then  it  would  by  no  means  have  been  self-evident  that 
the  consecutiveness  and  conformity  to  law,  which  we  had  found  to 
obtain  between  the  successive  states  of  the  one  thing,  must  be  trans 
ferable  to  the  relations  between  any  other  elements  whatever  they 
might  be,  and  thus  to  the  states  and  nature  of  another  thing.  We 
should  have  no  right  therefore  to  regard  the  essence  of  the  Thing  as 
an  instance  of  a  universal  law  to  which  it  was  subject.  At  the  same 
time  it  is  obvious  that  this  law  of  the  succession  of  states  in  a  single 
thing,  wholly  individual  as  it  is,  if  it  were  apprehended  in  thought, 
would  continue  logically  to  present  itself  to  us  as  an  idea,  of  which 
there  might  be  many  precisely  similar  copies.  It  is  quite  possible  to 
attempt  to  make  plurals  even  of  the  idea  of  the  universe  and  of  the 
supreme  Being.  It  is  considerations  in  a  different  region,  not  logical 
but  material,  that  alone  exclude  the  possibility  of  there  being  such 
plurals;  and  it  is  these  alone  which  in  our  Metaphysic  can  in  the 
sequel  decide  for  or  against  the  multiplicity  of  precisely  similar  things, 
for  or  against  the  validity  of  universal  laws  which  they  have  to  obey. 
To  make  my  meaning  clearer,  I  will  supplement  the  previous  illus 
tration  of  a  numerical  series  by  another.  We  may  compare  the 
essence  of  a  thing  to  a  melody.  It  is  not  disputed  that  the  successive 
sounds  of  a  melody  are  governed  by  a  law  of  aesthetic  consecutive- 


70  Of  the  Real  and  Reality.  [Booic  i. 

ness,  but  this  law  is  at  the  same  lime  recognised  as  one  perfectly 
individual.  There  is  no  sense  in  regarding  a  particular  melody  as  a 
kind,  or  instance  of  the  application,  of  a  general  melody.  Leaving 
to  the  reader's  reflection  the  task,  which  might  be  a  long  one,  of 
making  good  the  shortcomings  from  which  this  illustration,  like  the 
previous  one,  suffers,  I  proceed  to  the  second  supplementary  remark 
\vhich  I  have  to  make. 

If  we   develope  a  general  law  from  the  comparison  of  different 
things   under  different    circumstances,  two  points    are   left  undeter 
mined—one,  the   specific  nature  of  the   things,  the  other,  the  par 
ticular  character  of  the  conditions  under  which  the  things  will  behave 
in  one  way  or  in  another.     Let  both  points  be  determined,  and  we 
arrive  at  that  result,  identical  with  itself  and  unchangeable,  which  we 
represented  by  comparison  with  a  definite  series  of  quantities,  but 
\  which  cannot  answer  our  purpose— the  purpose  of  apprehending  that 
I  essence  of  the  Thing  which  remains  uniform  in  change.     We  have 
^  therefore,  as  already  remarked,  only  to  carry  out  the  comparison  of  a 
thing  with  itself  in  its  various  states.     The  consecutiveness  and  con 
formity  to  law,  that  would  thus  appear,  would  be  the  individual-law  or 
essence  of  the  Thing  in  opposition  to  the  changeable  conditions  that 
have  now  to  be  left  undetermined.     One  more  misunderstanding  I 
should  like  to  get  rid  of  in  conclusion.     It  is  no  part  of  our  present 
question  whether  and  how  this  comparison  and  the  discovery  of  the 
abiding  law  is  possible  for  us  with  reference  to  any  particular  thing. 
j  Our  problem    merely  is  to  find   the   form  of  thought  in  which  its 
}  essence  could  be  adequately  apprehended  supposing  there  to  be  no 
'  hindrance  in  the  nature  of  our  cognition  and  in  its  position  towards 
Things  to  the  performance  of  the  process.    The  same  reserve  is  made 
by  every  other  metaphysical  view.     Even  the  man  who  looks  for  the 
essence  of  the  Thing  in  a  simple  Quality  does  not  expect  to  know 
that   Quality   and   therefore   satisfies   himself   with   establishing    the 
general  form  in  which  it  would  appear  to  him,   but  denies  himself 
the  prospect  of  ever  looking  on  this  appearance. 

34.  So  much  for  those  objections  to  the  notion  of  a  law  as  con 
stituting  the  essence  of  the  Thing,  which  admit  of  being  set  aside  by 
an   explanation   of  our   meaning.     In   fact,    if  we   thought   of  the 
Position'  which  conveys  reality  as  lighting  upon  this  individual  law, 
it  would  form  just  that  permanent  yet  changeable  essence1  of  a  Thing 
which  we  are  in  search  of.     The  reader,  however,  will  find  little  satis 
faction  in  all  this.     The  question  keeps  recurring  whether  after  all 
1  ['  Das  bestandige  und  dennoch  veranderliche  Was.'] 


CHAPTER  III.] 


Conformity  to  Law.  71 


that  'Position'  of  reality,  applied  to  this  content,  can  in  fact  ex 
haustively  constitute  the  essence  of  a  real  Thing ;  whether  we  have 
not  constantly  to  search  afresh  for  the  something  which,  while  fol 
lowing  this  law,  would  convey  to  it — convey  to  what  is  in  itself  a 
merely  thinkable  mode  of  procedure— reality  ?  In  presence  of  this 
constantly  recurring  doubt  I  have  no  course  but  to  repeat  the  answer 
which  I  believe  to  be  certainly  true.  Let  us,  in  the  first  place,  recall 
the  fact  that  in  what  we  are  now  asking  for  there  is  something  in 
trinsically  unthinkable.  We  are  not  satisfied  with  the  doctrine  that 
the  Thing  is  an  individual  law.  We  believe  that  we  gain  something 
by  assuming  of  it  that  in  its  own  nature  it  is  something  more  and 
other  than  this,  and  that  its  conformity  to  this  law,  by  which  it  dis 
tinguishes  itself  from  everything  else,  is  merely  its  mode  of  procedure. 
Can  we  however  form  any  notion  of  what  constitutes  the  process 
which  we  indicate  by  this  familiar  name  of  conformity  to  law?  If 
this  nucleus  of  reality,  which  we  deem  it  necessary  to  seek  for,  pos 
sessed  a  definite  nature,  alien  to  that  which  the  law  enjoins,  how 
could  it  nevertheless  come  to  adjust  itself  to  the  law  ?  And  if  we 
would  assume  that  there  are  sundry  conditions  of  which  the  operation 
upon  it  might  compel  it  to  such  obedience,  would  this  compulsion  be 
itself  intelligible,  unless  its  own  nature  gave  it  the  law  that  upon  these 
conditions  supervening  it  should  obey  that  other  law  supposed  to  be 
quite  alien  to  its  nature  ?  In  any  case  that  which  we  call  conformity 
to  law  on  the  part  of  a  Thing  would  be  nothing  else  than  the  proper 
being  and  behaviour  of  the  Thing  itself.  On  the  other  side :  What 
exactly  are  we  to  take  the  laws  to  be  before  they  are  conformed  to  ? 
What  sort  of  reality,  other  than  that  of  the  Things,  could  belong  to 
them,  such  as  they  must  certainly  have  if  it  is  to  be  possible  for  a 
nature  of  Things,  assumed  hitherto  to  lie  beyond  them,  to  adjust 
itself  to  them  ?  There  is  only  one  answer  possible  to  these  questions. 
It  is  not  the  case  that  the  things  follow  a  mode  of  procedure  which  .  p 
would  in  any  possible  form  be  actually  separable  from  them.  Their  ^ 
procedure  is  whatever  it  may  be,  and  by  it  they  yield  the  result  which 
we  afterwards,  upon  reflective  comparison,  conceive  as  their  mode  of 
procedure  and  thereupon  endow  in  our  thought  with  priority  to  the 
Things  themselves,  as  if  it  were  the  pattern  after  which  they  had 
guided  themselves.  If  we  would  avoid  this  conclusion  by  denying  to 
the  required  nucleus  of  the  Thing  any  nature  of  its  own,  we  should 
be  brought  back  to  that  conception  of  the  absolute  Real,  R,  which 
we  have  already  found  so  useless.  Even  if  this  real  Nothing  were 
itself  thinkable,  it  would  certainly  not  be  capable  of  distributing  the 


72  Of  the  Real  and  Reality.  [BOOK  i. 

reality,  which  it  is  supposed  to  have  of  its  own,  over  the  content 
which  forms  the  essence  of  a  determinate  Thing.  It  could  not  there 
fore  represent  our  quaesitum,  the  something  of  which  we  require  a 
so-called  conformity  to  a  determinate  mode  of  procedure.  There  is 
therefore,  it  is  clear,  nothing  left  for  us  but  to  attempt  to  defend  the 
-  proposition,  that  the  real  Thing  is  nothing  but  the  realised  individual 
law  of  its  procedure. 

35.  I  shall  be  less  wearisome  if  I  connect  my  further  reflections  on 
the  subject  with  an  historical  antithesis  of  theories.  Idealism  and 
Realism  have  always  been  looked  upon  as  two  opposite  poles  of  the 
movement  of  philosophical  thought,  each  having  different  though 
closely  connected  significations,  according  as  the  enquiry  into  what 
really  is,  or  the  reference  to  that  which  is  to  be  valued  and  striven 
after  in  life,  was  the  more  prominent.  The  opposition  was  in  the 
first  instance  occasioned  by  the  question  which  now  occupies  us.  In 
the  inexhaustible  multiplicity  of  perceivable  phenomena  Plato  noticed 
the  recurrence  of  certain  uniform  Predicates,  forming  the  permanent 
store  from  which,  in  endless  variety  of  combination,  all  things  derive 
their  particular  essence  or  the  nature  by  which  one  distinguishes  itself 
from  the  other  and  each  is  what  it  is.  And  just  as  the  simple  elements, 
so  the  real  combinations  of  these  which  the  course  of  nature  ex 
hibited,  were  no  multiplicity  without  a  Principle,  but  were  subject  on 
their  own  part  to  permanent  types,  within  which  they  moved. 
Further,  the  series  of  relations,  into  which  the  different  things  might 
enter  with  each  other — ultimately  even  the  multiplicity  of  that  world 
which  our  own  action  might  and  should  institute — testified  no  less  to 
this  inner  order  of  all  reality.  The  case  was  not  such  as  the  Sophists, 
his  predecessors  in  philosophy,  had  tried  to  make  it  out  to  be.  It 
was  not  the  case  that  a  stream  of  Becoming,  with  no  check  upon  its 
waves,  flowed  on  into  ever  new  forms,  unheard  of  before,  without 
obligation  to  return  again  to  a  state  the  same  with  or  like  to  that 
from  which  it  set  out.  On  the  contrary,  everything  which  it  was  to 
be  possible  for  Reality  to  bring  about  was  confined  within  fixed 
limits.  Only  an  immeasurable  multiplicity  of  places,  of  times,  and  of 
combinations  remained  open  to  it,  in  which  it  repeated  with  variations 
this  content  of  the  Ideal  world. 

The  full  value  of  this  metaphysical  conception  I  shall  have  to  bring 
out  later.  For  the  present  I  wish  to  call  attention  to  the  misleading 
path,  never  actually  avoided,  into  which  it  has  drawn  men  astray.  It 
was  just  the  multiplicity  in  space  and  time  of  scattered  successive  and 
intersecting  phenomena— the  course  of  things— that  properly  consti- 


CHAPTER  in.]       Ideas  are  subsequent  to  Reality.  73 

tuted  the  true  reality,  the  primary  object  given  us  to  be  perceived  and 
known.  That  world  of  Ideas,  on  the  other  hand,  which  compre 
hended  the  permanent  element  in  this  changing  multiplicity  and  the 
recurrent  forms  in  the  transmutation  of  the  manifold,  was  in  contrast 
with  it  something  secondary,  having  had  its  origin  in  the  comparisons 
instituted  by  our  thought,  and,  so  far  as  of  this  origin,  neither  real 
nor  calculated  to  produce  in  turn  any  reality  out  of  itself.  However 
great  the  value  of  the  observation  that  Reality  is  such  as  to  enable  us 
by  the  connexion  of  those  ideas  of  ours  to  arrive  at  a  correspondence 
with  its  course ;  still  it  was  wrong  to  take  this  world  of  ideas  for  any 
thing  else  than  a  system  of  abstractions  or  intellectual  forms,  which 
only  have  reality  so  far  as  they  can  be  considered  the  modes  of  pro 
cedure  of  the  things  themselves,  but  which  could  in  no  sense  be 
opposed  to  the  course  of  things  as  a  Prius  to  which  this  course 
adjusts  itself,  completely  or  incompletely,  as  something  secondary. 

In  order  to  make  my  meaning  quite  clear,  I  must  emphasize  the 
proposition  that  the  only  reality  given  us,  the  true  reality,  includes  as 
an  inseparable  part  of  itself  this  varying  flow  of  phenomena  in  space 
and  time,  this  course  of  Things  that  happen.  This  ceaselessly  ad 
vancing  melody  of  event — it  and  nothing  else — is  the  metaphysical 
place  in  which  the  connectedness  of  the  world  of  Ideas,  the  multi 
plicity  of  its  harmonious  relations,  not  only  is  found  by  us  but  alone 
has  its  reality.  Within  this  reality  single  products  and  single  occur 
rences  might  be  legitimately  regarded  as  transitory  instances,  upon 
which  the  world  of  ideas  impressed  itself  and  from  which  it  again 
withdrew :  for  before  and  after  and  beside  them  the  living  Idea  re 
mained  active  and  present  in  innumerable  other  instances,  and  while 
changing  its  forms  never  disappeared  from  reality.  But  the  whole  of 
reality,  the  whole  of  this  world,  known  and  unknown  together,  could 
not  properly  be  separated  from  the  world  of  Ideas  as  though  it  were 
possible  for  the  latter  to  exist  and  hold  good  on  its  own  account 
before  realising  itself  in  the  given  world,  and  as  though  there  might 
have  been  innumerable  equivalent  instances  —  innumerable  other 
worlds — besides  this,  in  which  the  antecedent  system  of  pure  Ideas 
might  equally  have  realised  itself.  Just  as  the  truth  about  the  in 
dividual  Thing  is  not  that  there  is  first  the  conception  of  the  Thing 
which  ordains  how  it  is  to  be,  and  that  afterwards  there  comes  the 
mere  unintelligible  fact,  which  obeys  this  conception,  but  that  the 
conception  is  nothing  more  than  the  life  of  the  real  itself;  so  none 
of  the  Ideas  is  an  antecedent  pattern,  to  be  imitated  by  what  is. 
Rather,  each  Idea  is  the  imitation  essayed  by  Thought  of  one  of  the 


74  Of  the  Real  and  Reality.  [BOOK  i. 

traits  in  which  the  eternally  real  expresses  itself.  If  the  individual 
Ideas  appear  to  us  as  generalities,  to  which  innumerable  instances 
correspond,  we  have  to  ascribe  this  also  to  the  nature  of  that  supreme 
Idea,  into  which  we  gather  the  individual  Ideas.  The  very  meaning 
of  there  being  such  an  Idea  is  that  a  stream  of  phenomena  does  not 
whirl  on  into  the  immeasurable  with  no  identity  in  successive 
moments,  without  ever  returning  to  what  it  was  before  and  without 
relationship  between  its  manifold  elements.  The  generality  of  the 
Ideas  therefore  is  implied  in  the  systematic  character  of  what  fills 
the  universe,  in  the  inner  design  of  the  pattern,  of  which  the  un 
broken  reality  and  realisation  constitute  the  world.  It  is  completely 
misinterpreted  as  an  outline-sketch  of  what  might  be  in  impeachment 
of  what  is — of  a  possibility  which,  in  order  to  arrive  at  reality,  would 
require  the  help  of  a  second  Cosmos,  of  a  real  and  of  movements  of 
the  real  that  are  no  part  of  itself. 

36.  I  shall  have  frequent  opportunity  in  the  sequel  of  dwelling 
again  on  this  system  of  thought ;  nor  in  fact  can  I  hope  to  make  it 
perfectly  clear  till  I  shall  have  handled  in  detail  the  manifold  diffi 
culties  which  oppose  a  return  to  it.  I  say  expressly — a  return  to  it ; 
for  to  me  it  seems  the  simplest  and  most  primary  truth,  while  to  re 
presentatives  of  the  present  intricate  phase  of  scientific  opinion  it 
usually  appears  a  rash  and  obscure  imagination.  Psychologically  it 
is  almost  an  unavoidable  necessity  that  the  general  laws,  which  we 
have  obtained  from  comparison  of  phenomena,  should  present  them 
selves  to  us  as  an  independent  and  ordaining  Prms,  which  precedes 
the  cases  of  its  application.  For  in  relation  to  the  movement  of  our 
cognition  they  are  really  so.  But  if  by  their  help  we  calculate  a  future 
result  beforehand  from  the  given  present  conditions,  we  forget  that 
what  comes  first  in  our  reflection  as  a  major  premiss  is  yet  only  the 
expression  of  the  past  and  of  that  nature  of  its  own  which  Reality  in 
the  past  revealed  to  us.  So  accustomed  are  we  to  this  misunder 
standing,  so  mastered  by  the  habit  of  first  setting  what  is  in  truth  the 
essence  of  the  Real  over  against  the  Real,  as  an  external  ideal  for  it 
to  strive  after,  and  of  then  fruitlessly  seeking  for  means  to  unite  what 
has  been  improperly  separated,  that  every  assertion  of  the  original 
unity  of  that  which  has  been  thus  sundered  appears  detrimental  to  the 
scientific  accuracy  to  which  we  aspire.  True,  the  need  of  blending 
Ideal  and  Real,  as  the  phrase  is,  has  at  all  times  been  keenly  felt; 
but  it  seems  to  me  that  the  attempts  to  fulfil  this  problem  have  some 
times  promoted  the  error  which  they  combated.  In  demanding  a 
special  act  of  speculation  in  order  to  achieve  this  great  result,  they 


CHAPTER  in.]          T/ic  Law  real,  no t  realised.  75 

maintain  the  belief  in  a  gulf,  not  really  there,  which  it  needs  a  bold 
leap  to  pass. 

For  the  present,  however,  I  propose  to  drop  these  general  con 
siderations,  and,  if  possible,  to  get  rid  of  the  obscurity  and  apparent 
inadmissibility  of  the  result  just  arrived  at.  One  improvement  is 
directly  suggested  by  what  has  been  said.  We  cannot  express  our 
Thesis,  as  we  did  just  now,  in  the  form :  '  The  Thing  is  the  realised  ^ 
individual  law  of  its  behaviour/  This  expression,  if  we  weigh  its 
terms,  would  contain  all  the  false  notions  against  which  we  were 
anxious  to  guard.  Instead  of  the  'realised  law'  it  would  clearly  be 
better  to  speak  of  the  law  never  realised,  but  that  always  has  been  real. 
But  no  verbal  expression  that  we  could  find  would  serve  the  purpose 
of  excluding  the  suggested  notion  which  we  wish  to  be  expressly 
excluded.  For  in  speaking  of  a  law,  we  did  not  mean  one  which, 
though  real  as  a  law,  had  still  to  wait  to  be  followed,  but  one  followed 
eternally ;  and  so  followed  that  the  law  with  the  following  of  it  was 
not  a  mere  fact  or  an  event  that  takes  place,  but  a  self-completing 
activity.  And  this  activity,  once  more,  we  look  upon  not  in  the  nature  > 
of  a  behaviour  separable  from  the  essence  which  so  behaves,  but  as 
forming  the  essence  itself — the  essence  not  being  a  dead  point  behind  ', 
the  activity,  but  identical  with  it.  But  however  fain  we  might  be  to  I ; 
speak  of  a  real  Law,  of  a  living  active  Idea,  in  order  the  better  to 
express  our  thought,  language  would  always  compel  us  to  put  two 
words  together,  on  which  the  ordinary  course  of  thinking  has  stamped 
two  incompatible  and  contradictory  meanings.  We  therefore  have 
to  give  up  the  pretension  of  remaining  in  complete  accord  with  the 
usage  of  speech. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

c_  Of  Becoming  and  Change.  o 

37.  WHEN  I  first  ventured,  many  years  ago,  on  a  statement  of 
metaphysical  convictions,  I  gathered  up  the  essence  of  the  thoughts, 
with  which  we  were  just  then  occupied,  in  the  following  proposition  : 
1  It  is  not  in  virtue  of  a  substance  contained  in  them  that  Things  are ; 
they  are,  when  they  are  qualified  to  produce  an  appearance  of  there 
being  a  substance  in  them.'  I  was  found  fault  with  at  the  time  on  two 
grounds.  It  was  said  that  the  proposition  was  materially  untrue,  and 
that  in  respect  of  form  the  two  members  of  the  proposition  appeared 
not  to  correspond  as  antitheses.  The  latter  objection  would  have 
been  unimportant,  if  true  :  but  I  have  not  been  able  to  convince 
myself  of  its  truth,  or  of  the  material  incorrectness  of  my  expression. 
^According  to  a  very  common  usage  the  name  '  Substance '  was 
employed  to  indicate  a  rigid  real  nucleus,  which  was  taken,  as  a 
self-evident  truth,  to  possess  the  stability  of  Reality — a  stability  which 
could  not  be  admitted  as  belonging  to  the  things  that  change  and 
differ  from  each  other  without  special  justification  being  demanded  of 
its  possibility.  From  such  nuclei  the  Reality  was  supposed  to  spread 
itself  over  the  different  properties  by  which  one  thing  distinguishes 
itself  from  another.  It  was  thus  by  its  means,  as  if  it  was  a  coagu- 
lative  agent,  which  served  to  set  what  was  in  itself  the  unstable 
fluid  of  the  qualitative  content,  that  this  content  was  supposed  to 
acquire  the  form  and  steadfastness  that  belong  to  the  Thing.  It  was 
matter  of  indifference  whether  this  peculiar  crystallisation  was  thought 
of  as  an  occurrence  that  had  once  taken  place  and  had  given  an 
origin  in  time  to  Things,  or  whether  the  solidifying  operation  of  the 
substance  was  regarded  as  an  eternal  process,  carried  on  in  things 
equally  eternal  and  without  origin  in  time  as  an  essential  characteristic 
of  their  nature.  In  either  case  the  causal  relation  remained  the  same. 
It  was  by  means  of  a  substance  empty  in  itself  that  Reality,  with  its 
fixedness  in  the  course  of  changes,  was  supposed  to  be  lent  to  the 
determinate  content. 


The  appearance  of  substance. 


77 


I  believe  myself  to  have  shown  that  no  one  of  the  thoughts  involved 
in  this  view  is  possible.  In  going  on,  however,  to  supplement  the 
conclusion  that  it  is  not  in  virtue  of  a  substance  that  Things  are,  by 
the  further  proposition  that,  if  they  are  qualified  to  produce  an 
appearance  of  the  substance  being  in  them,  then  they  are,  I  did  not 
intend  any  correspondence  between  this  and  the  other  member  of  the 
antithesis  in  the  sense  of  opposing  to  the  rejected  construction  of  that 
which  makes  a  Thing  a  Thing  another  like  construction.  What  I  in 
tended  was  to  substitute  for  every  such  construction  (which  is  an  im 
possibility)  that  which  alone  is  possible,  the  definition  of  what  constitutes 
the  Thing.  The  notion  which  it  was  sought  to  convey  could  only  be 
this,  that  when  we  speak  of  something  that  makes  a  Thing,  as  such 
('die  Dingheit'),  we  mean  the  form  of  real  existence  belonging  to  a 
content,  of  which  the  behaviour  presents  to  us  the  appearance  of  a 
substance  being  present  in  it;  the  truth  being  that  the  holding- 
ground  which  under  this  designation  of  substance  we  suppose  to  be 
supplied  to  Things  is  merely  the  manner  of  holding  itself  exhibited  by 
that  which  we  seek  to  support  in  this  impossible  way. 

38.  There  was  no  great  difficulty  in  showing  the  unthinkableness  of 
the  supposed  real-in-itself.  The  denial  is  easy,  but  is  the  affirmation 
of  a  tenable  view  equally  easy?  Setting  aside  the  auxiliary  conception 
just  excluded,  have  we  other  and  better  means — are  we  left  with 
means  that  still  satisfy  us— of  explaining  the  functions  which  we 
cannot  but  continue  still  to  expect  of  Things,  if  the  assumption  of 
their  existence  is  to  satisfy  the  demands  for  the  sake  of  which  it  was 
made?  On  this  question  doubts  will  arise  even  for  a  man  who 
resolves  to  adopt  by  way  of  experiment  the  result  of  the  previous 
considerations.  I  repeat :  A  world  of  unmoved  ideal  contents,  if  it 
were  thinkable  without  presupposing  motion  at  least  on  the  part  of 
him  to  whom  it  was  object  of  observation,  would  contain  nothing  to 
occasion  a  quest  for  Things  behind  this  given  multiplicity.  Nor  is  it 
the  mere  variety  of  these  phenomena,  but  only  the  regularity  of  some 
kind  perceived  or  surmised  in  it,  that  compels  us  to  the  assumption  of! 
persistent  principles  by  which  the  manifold  is  connected. 

Common  opinion,  under  a  mistake  soon  refuted,  had  thought  to 
find  these  subjects  of  change  in  the  Things  perceivable  by  the  senses. 
For  these  we  substituted  supra-sensible  essences  of  perfectly  simple 
quality.  But  the  very  simplicity  of  these  would  have  made  any 
alternative  but  Being  or  not-Being  impossible  for  them,  and  would 
thus  have  excluded  change.  Yet  change  must  really  take  place 
somewhere,  if  only  to  render  possible  the  appearance  of  change  some- 


7  8  Of  Becoming  and  Change. 

where  else.  Then  we  gave  up  seeking  the  permanent  element  of 
Things  in  a  state  of  facts  always  identical  with  itself,  and  credited 
ourselves  with  finding  it  in  the  very  heart  of  change,  as  the  uniform 
import  of  a  Law,  which  connects  a  multiplicity  of  states  into  one 
rounded  whole.  Even  thus,  however,  it  seemed  that  only  an  ex 
pression  had  been  gained  for  that  in  virtue  of  which  each  Thing  is 
what  it  is,  and  distinguishes  itself  from  what  it  is  not.  As  to  the 
question  how  an  essence  so  constituted  can  partake  of  existence  in 
the  form  of  a  Thing,  there  remained  a  doubt  which,  being  insufficiently 
silenced,  evoked  the  attempt  to  represent  the  real-in-itself  as  the  un 
yielding  stem  to  which  all  qualities,  with  their  variation,  were  related 
as  the  changeable  foliage.  The  attempt  has  failed,  and  leaves  us  still 
in  presence  of  the  same  doubt.  The  first  point  to  be  met  is  this :  If 
we  think  of  change  as  taking  place,  then  the  law  which  comprehends 
its  various  phases  as  members  of  the  same  series  will  serve  to 
represent  the  constant  character  of  the  Thing  which  persists  through 
out  the  change ;  but  how  can  we  think  the  change  itself,  which  we 
thus  presuppose  ?  How  think  its  limitation  to  these  connected 
members  of  a  series  ?  And  then  we  shall  have  to  ask :  Would  the 
regularity  in  the  succession  of  the  several  states  a1,  a2,  a3  ...  really 
amount  to  that  which,  conceived  as  persistence  of  a  Thing,  we  believe 
it  necessary  to  seek  for  in  order  to  the  explanation  of  phenomena  ? 
These  questions  will  be  the  object  of  our  next  consideration. 

39.  Under  the  name  '  change,'  in  the  first  place,  there  lurks  a 
difficulty,  which  we  must  bring  into  view.  It  conveys  the  notion  that 
the  new  real,  as  other  than  something  else,  is  only  the  continuation  of 
a  previous  reality.  It  tends  to  avoid  the  notion  of  a  naked  coming 
into  being,  which  would  irrfply  the  origin  of  something  real  out  of  a 
complete  absence  of  reality.  Yet  after  all  it  is  only  the  distinctive 
nature  of  the  new  that  can  anyhow  be  thought  of  as  contained  in  the 
previously  existing.  The  reality  of  the  new,  on  the  other  hand,  is  not 
contained  in  the  reality  of  the  old.  It  presupposes  the  removal  of  that 
reality  as  the  beginning  of  its  own.  It  thus  beyond  a  doubt  becomes 
(comes  into  being)  in  that  sense  of  the  term  which  it  is  sought  to 
avoid.  It  is  just  this  that  constitutes  the  distinction  between  the 
object  of  Metaphysic  and  that  world  of  ideas,  in  which  the  content  of 
a  truth  a  is  indeed  founded  on  that  of  another  bt  but,  far  from  arising 
out  of  the  annihilation  of  b,  holds  good  along  with  it  in  eternal 
validity. 

If  now  we  enquire,  how  this  becoming,  involved  in  every  change,  is 
to  be  thought  of,  what  we  want  to  know,  as  we  naturally  suppose,  is 


CHAPTER  iv.]    Becoming  and  the  Law  of  Identity.  79 

not  a  process  by  which  it  comes  about.  The  necessity  would  be  too 
obvious  of  again  assuming  the  unintelligible  becoming  in  this  process 
by  which  we  would  make  it  intelligible.  Nor  can  even  the  notion  of 
becoming  be  represented  as  made  up  of  simpler  notions  without  the 
same  mistake.  In  each  of  its  forms,  origination  and  decay,  it  is  easy 
to  find  a  unity  of  Being  and  not-Being.  But  the  precise  sense  in 
which  the  wide-reaching  term  '  Unity'  would  have  in  this  connexion 
to  be  taken,  would  not  be  that  of  coincidence,  but  only  that  of 
transition  from  the  one  to  the  other,  and  thus  would  already  include 
the  essential  character  of  becoming.  There  is  no  alternative  but  to 
give  up  the  attempt  at  definition  of  the  notion  as  well  as  at  construc 
tion  of  the  thing,  and  to  recognise  Becoming,  like  Being,  as  a  given 
perceivable  fact  of  the  cosmos. 

Only  on  one  side  is  it  more  than  object  of  barren  curiosity.  It  may 
appear  to  contain  a  contradiction  of  the  law  of  Identity,  or  at  least  of 
the  deductions  thought  to  be  derivable  from  this  law.  No  doubt  this 
law  in  the  abstract  sense,  which  I  previously  stated ',  holds  good  of 
every  object  that  can  be  presented  to  thought,  a  will  never  cease  to 
=  a  till  it  ceases  to  be.  That  which  is,  never  is  anything  that  is  not, 
so  long  as  it  is  at  all.  On  the  same  principle  that  which  becomes, 
originates,  passes  away,  is  only  something  that  becomes  so  long  as  it 
is  becoming,  only  something  that  originates  so  long  as  it  originates, 
only  something  that  passes  away  so  long  as  it  passes  away.  There 
does  not  therefore  follow  from  the  law  of  Identity  anything  whatever 
in  regard  to  the  reality  of  any  m.  Let  m  be  what  it  will,  it  will  be  =  m, 
in  case  it  is  and  so  long  as  it  is.  But  whether  it  is,  and  whether,  once 
being,  it  must  always  be,  is  a  point  on  which  the  principle  of  Identity 
does  not  directly  decide  at  all.  Yet  such  an  inference  from  it  is 
attempted.  Because  the  conception  of  Being,  like  every  other 
conception,  has  an  unchangeable  import,  it  is  thought  that  the  reality, 
which  the  conception  indicates,  must  belong  as  unchangeably  to  that 
to  which  it  once  belongs.  The  doctrines  of  the  irremoveability  and 
indiscerptibility  of  everything  that  truly  is  are  thus  constantly  re 
current  products  of  the  movement  of  metaphysical  thought. 

But  this  inference  is  limited  without  clear  justification  to  the  sub 
sistence  of  the  Things  on  which  the  course  of  nature  is  supposed  to 
rest.  That  relations  and  states  of  Things  come  into  Being  and  pass 
away  is  admitted  without  scruple  as  a  self-evident  truth.  It  is  true 
that  without  this  admission  the  content  of  our  experience  could  not 
be  presented  to  the  mind  at  all.  If,  however,  it  were  the  principle  of 
1  [Logic,  §  55.] 


8o  Of  Becoming  and  Change.  [BOOK  i. 

Identity  that  required  the  indestructibility  of  Things,  the  same 
principle  would  also  require  the  unchangeableness  of  all  relations 
and  states.  For  of  everything,  not  merely  of  the  special  form  of 
reality,  it  demands  permanent  equality  with  itself.  This  consideration 
might  lead  us  to  repeat  the  old  attempts  at  a  denial  of  all  Be 
coming,  or — since  it  cannot  be  denied — to  undertake  the  self-contra 
dictory  task  of  explaining  at  least  the  becoming  of  the  appearance  of 
an  unreal  becoming.  But  if  we  refuse  to  draw  this  inference  from  the 
principle  of  Identity,  then  that  persistency  in  the  Being  of  Things, 
which  we  hitherto  tacitly  presupposed,  needs  in  its  turn  to  be 
established  on  special  metaphysical  grounds,  and  the  question  arises 
whether  the  difficult  task  of  reconciling  it  with  the  undeniable  fact  of 
change  cannot  be  altogether  avoided  by  adopting  an  entirely  opposite 
point  of  view. 

40.  This  question  has  in  fact  already  been  often  enough  answered 
in  the  affirmative.  Theories  have  been  advanced  in  the  history  of 
Thought,  which  would  allow  of  no  fixed  Being  and  reduced  everything 
to  ceaseless  Becoming.  They  issued,  however, — as  the  enthusiasm 
with  which  they  were  generally  propounded  was  enough  to  suggest — 
from  more  complex  motives  than  we  can  here  examine.  We  must 
limit  ourselves  to  following  the  more  restricted  range  of  thoughts 
within  which  we  have  so  far  moved.  Still,  we  too  have  seen  reason  to 
hold  that  it  is  an  impossible  division  of  labour  to  refer  the  maintenance 
of  the  unity  which  we  seek  for  in  succession  to  the  rigid  unalterable- 
ness  of  real  elements,  and  the  production  of  succession  merely  to  the 
fluctuation  of  external  relations  between  these  elements.  Change 
\  must  find  its  way  to  the  inside  of  Being.  We  therefore  agree  with 
the  last-mentioned  theorists  in  thinking  it  worth  while  to  attempt  the 
resolution  of  all  Being  into  Becoming,  and  in  the  interpretation  of  its 
permanence,  wherever  it  appears,  as  merely  a  particular  form  of 
Becoming  ;  as  a  constantly  repeated  origination  and  decay  of  Things 
exactly  alike,  not  as  a  continuance  of  the  same  Thing  unmoved.  But 
it  would  be  useless  to  speak  of  Becoming  without  at  the  same  time 
adding  a  more  precise  definition.  Neither  do  we  find  in  experience 
an  origination  without  limit  of  everything  from  everything,  nor,  if  we 
did  find  it,  would  its  nature  permit  it  to  be  the  object  of  scientific 
enquiry,  or  serve  as  a  principle  of  any  explanation.  Even  those 
theorists  who  found  enthusiastic  delight  in  the  sense  of  the  un 
restrained  mobility  enjoyed  by  the  Becoming  which  they  held  in 
honour  as  contrasted  with  the  lifeless  rigidity  of  Being— even  they, 
though  they  have  set  such  value  on  the  inexhaustible  variety  of 


CHAPTER  iv.]         Becoming  must  have  its  Laws.  8 1 

Becoming,  and  on  its  marvellous  complications,  have  yet  never  held 
its  eternal  flux  to  be  accidental  or  without  direction.  Even  in 
Heraclitus  \ve  meet  with  plain  reference  to  inexorable  laws  which 
govern  it.  It  is  only,  then,  as  involving  this  representation  of  a 
definite  tendency  that  the  conception  of  Becoming  merits  further 
metaphysical  examination. 

41.  The  thought  just  stated  first  had  clear  expression  given  it  by 
Aristotle  in  his  antithesis  of  dvvafjus  and  eWpy«a.  The  undirected 
stream  of  event  he  encloses,  so  to  speak,  within  banks,  and  determines 
what  is  possible  and  what  is  impossible  in  it.  For  what  he  wishes  to 
convey  is  not  merely  the  modest  truth,  that  anything  which  is  to  be 
real  must  be  possible.  It  is  of  this  possibility  rather  that  he  maintains 
that  it  cannot  be  understood  as  a  mere  possibility  of  thought,  but  must 
itself  be  understood  as  a  reality.  A  Thing  exists  8uwi/i«  when  the 
conditions  are  really  formed  beforehand  for  its  admission  as  an 
element  of  reality  at  some  later  period,  while  that  alone  can  exist 
(vepydq,  of  which  a  dvvapis  is  contained  in  something  else  already 
existing  eWpy«a.  Thus  all  Becoming  is  characterised  throughout  by? ,; 
a  fixed  law,  which  only  allows  the  origination  of  real  from  real,  nay 
more,  of  the  determinate  from  the  determinate.  We  have  here  the 
first  form  of  a  principle  of  Sufficient  Reason,  transferred  from  the  con 
nected  world  of  Ideas  to  the  world  of  events.  The  first  conscious 
assertion  of  a  truth,  which  human  thought  has  made  unconscious  use 
of  from  the  beginning,  is  always  to  be  looked  on  with  respect  as  a 
philosophical  achievement,  even  if  it  does  not  offer  the  further  fruits 
which  one  would  fain  gather  from  it.  Barren  in  detail,  however, 
these  two  Aristotelian  conceptions  certainly  are,  however  valuable  the 
general  principle  which  they  indicate.  They  would  only  be  applicable 
on  two  conditions ;  if  they  were  followed  by  some  specific  rule  as  to 
what  sequent  can  be  contained  dwd^i  in  what  antecedent,  and  if  it 
could  be  shown  what  is  that  C  which  must  supervene  in  order  to  give 
reality  to  the  possible  transition  from  dvvapis  into  eVe'pyeia. 

To  find  a  solution  of  the  first  problem  has  been  the  effort  of 
centuries,  and  it  is  still  unfound.  On  the  second  point  a  clearer 
explanation  might  have  been  wished  for.  The  examples  of  which 
Aristotle  avails  himself  include  two  cases  which  it  is  worth  while  to 
distinguish.  If  the  stones  lying  about  are  dvpd/m  the  house,  or  the 
block  of  marble  Swapti  the  statue,  both  stones  and  marble  await  the 
exertion  of  activity  from  without,  to  make  that  out  of  them  eWpyeta 
which  indeed  admits  of  being  made  out  of  them  but  into  which  they 
do  not  develope  themselves.  They  are  possibilities  of  something 

VOL.  I.  G 


82  Of  Becoming  and  Change.  IB<X>KI. 

future  because  they  are  available  for  that  something  if  made  use  of  by 
a  form-giving  motion.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  soul  is  the  activity 
of  the  living  body,  it  is  in  another  sense  that  the  body  is  dwd^i  the 
soul.  It  does  not  wait  to  have  the  end  to  which  it  is  to  shape  itself 
determined  from  without,  as  the  stone  waits  for  external  handling  to 
be  worked  into  a  house  or  into  a  statue.  On  the  contrary  it  involves 
in  itself  the  necessary  C,  the  active  impulse  which  presses  forward  to 
the  realisation  of  that  single  end,  of  which  the  conditions  are  involved 
in  it  to  the  exclusion  of  all  other  ends.  Each  case  is  metaphysically 
important.  The  first  is  in  point  where  we  have  to  deal  with  the 
connexion  between  different  elements  of  which  one  acts  on  the  other 
and  with  the  conveyance  of  a  motion  to  something  which  as  yet  is 
without  the  motion.  The  second  case  apart  from  anything  else 
involves  the  question,  on  which  we  propose  to  employ  ourselves  in  the 
immediate  sequel :  granted  that  a  thing  a,  instead  of  awaiting  from 
without  the  determination  of  that  which  it  is  to  become,  contains  in 
its  own  nature  the  principle  of  a  and  the  principle  of  exclusion  of 
every  /3,  how  comes  it  about  that  this  is  not  the  end  of  the  matter  but 
that  the  a  of  which  the  principle  is  present  proceeds  to  come  into 
actual  being,  and  ceases  to  exist  merely  in  principle  ? 

42.  I  shall  most  easily  explain  at  once  the  meaning  of  this  question 
and  the  reason  for  propounding  it,  by  adducing  a  simple  answer, 
which  we  might  be  tempted  to  employ  by  way  of  setting  the  question 
aside  as  superfluous.  It  is  self-evident,  we  might  say,  that  a  proceeds 
from  a  because  a  conditions  this  a  and  nothing  but  this  o,  not  any  /3. 
Now  it  is  obvious  that  this  answer  is  only  a  repetition  of  the  question 
able  supposition  which  we  just  made.  The  very  point  we  wanted  to 
ascertain  was,  what  process  it  is  in  the  thing  that  in  reality  compels 
the  conditioned  to  issue  from  that  which  conditions  it,  as  necessarily  as 
in  our  thought  the  consciousness  of  the  truth  of  the  proposition  which 
asserts  the  condition  carries  with  it  the  certainty  of  the  truth  of  that 
which  asserts  the  conditioned.  We  do  not  in  this  case  any  more 
than  elsewhere  cherish  the  unreasonable  object  of  finding  out  the 
means  by  which  in  any  case  a  realised  condition  succeeds  further  in 
realising  its  consequence.  But  to  point  to  it  as  a  self-evident  truth 
that  one  fact  should  in  reality  call  another  into  being,  if  to  the  eye  of 
thought  they  are  related  as  reason  and  consequence,  is  no  settlement 
of  our  question.  I  reserve  for  the  present  the  enquiry  into  the  manner 
in  which  we  think  in  any  case  of  the  intelligible  nature  of  a  conse 
quence  F  as  contained  in  the  nature  of  its  reason  G1.  Whatever 
1  [G  and  F  refer  to  the  German  words  used  here  '  Grund '  and  '  Folge.'] 


CHAPTER  iv.]  Reason  and  Consequent.  83 

this  relation  may  be,  the  mere  fact  that  it  obtains  does  not  suffice  to 
make  the  idea  of  F  arise  out  of  G  even  in  our  consciousness.  Were 
it  so,  every  truth  would  be  immediately  apparent  to  us.  No  round 
about  road  of  enquiry  would  be  needed  for  its  discovery,  nor  should 
we  even  have  a  motive  to  seek  for  it.  The  universe  of  all  truths 
connected  in  the  way  of  reason  and  consequent  would  stand  before 
our  consciousness,  so  long  as  we  thought  at  all,  in  constant  clearness. 
But  this  is  not  the  case.  Even  in  us  the  idea  of  the  consequence  F 
arises  out  of  that  of  its  reason  G  only  because  the  nature  of  our  soul, 
with  the  peculiar  unity  which  characterises  it,  is  so  conditioned  by 
particular  accompanying  circumstances,  />,  that  it  cannot  rest  in  the 
idea  of  G  and,  supposing  no  other  circumstances,  q,  to  condition  it 
otherwise,  cannot  but  pass  on  account  of  its  own  essence  to  the  idea 
of  F—  to  that  and  no  other.  In  the  absence  of  those  accompanying 
conditions,  /,  which  consist  in  the  whole  situation  of  our  soul  for  the 
moment,  the  impulse  to  this  movement  is  absent  likewise;  and  for 
that  reason  innumerable  ideas  pass  away  in  our  consciousness  without 
evoking  images  of  the  innumerable  consequences,  Ft  of  which  the 
content  is  in  principle  involved  in  what  these  ideas  contain.  If 
instead  of  the  conditions,  />,  those  other  circumstances,  q,  are  present 
— consisting  equally  in  the  general  situation  of  the  soul  for  the 
moment — then  the  movement  may  indeed  arise  but  it  does  not 
necessarily  issue  in  the  idea  of  F.  It  may  at  any  moment  experience 
a  diversion  from  this  goal.  This  is  the  usual  reason  of  the  distraction 
and  wandering  of  our  thoughts.  It  is  never  directly  by  the  logical 
affinity  and  concatenation  of  their  thinkable  objects  that  their  course 
is  determined  but  by  the  psychological  connexion  of  our  ideas,  so 
far  as  these  are  the  momentary  states  of  our  own  nature.  Of  the 
connexion  of  reason  and  consequence  in  Things  we  never  recognise 
more  than  just  so  much  as  the  like  connexion  on  the  part  of  our  own 
states  enables  us  to  see  of  it. 

It  is  not  enough  therefore  to  appeal  to  the  principle,  that  the 
content  of  G  in  itself,  logically  or  necessarily,  conditions  that  of  F, 
and  that  therefore  in  reality  also  F  will  ensue  upon  G.  The  question 
rather  is  why  the  Things  trouble  themselves  about  this  connexion 
between  necessities  of  thought ;  why  they  do  not  allow  the  principle 
G  which  they  contain  to  be  for  ever  a  barren  principle,  but  actually 
procure  for  it  the  consequence  F  which  it  requires ;  in  other  words, 
what  addition  of  a  complementary  C  must  be  supposed  in  order  that 
the  Things  in  their  real  being  may  pass  from  G  to  F  just  as  our 

G  2 


84  Of  Becoming  and  Change.  [BOOK  i. 

thought — not  always  or  unconditionally — passes  from  the  knowledge 
of  G  to  the  knowledge  of  F. 

43.  We  are  thus  brought  back  to  a  proposition  which  I  shall  often 
in  the  sequel  have  occasion  to  repeat :  namely  that  the  error  lies  just 
in  this,  in  first  setting  up  in  thought  an  abstract  series  of  principles 
and  consequences  as  a  law-giving  power,  to  which  it  is  supposed  that 
every  world  that  may  possibly  be  created  must  be  subject,  and  in  then 
adding  that,  as  a  matter  of  self-evidence,  the  real  process  of  becoming 
can  and  must  in  concrete  strike  only  into  those  paths  which  that  ab 
stract  system  of  law  has  marked  out  beforehand.     It  will  never  be 
"intelligible  whence  the  conformity  of  Things  to  rules  of  intellectual 
[necessity  should  arise,  unless  their  own  nature  itself  consists  in  such 
'conformity.     Or,  to  put  the  matter  more  correctly,  as  I  stated  in 
detail  above  (34) ;  it  is  just  this  real  nature  of  things  that  is  the  First 
in  Being — nay  the  only  Being.     Those  necessary  laws  are  images  in 
thought  of  this  nature,  secondary  repetitions  of  its  original  procedure. 
It  is  only  for  our  cognition  that  they  appear  as  antecedent  patterns 
which  the  Things  resemble.     It  is  therefore  of  no  avail  to  appeal  to 
the  indefeasible  necessity,  by  which  Heraclitus  thought  the  waves  of 
Becoming  to  be  directed.     Standing  outside  the  range  of  Becoming, 
this  'AvdyKT)  would  have  had  no  control  over  its  course.     It  became 
inevitable  that  Becoming   should  be  recognised  as  containing   the 
•    principle  of  its  direction  in  itself,  as  soon  as  we  admitted  the  necessity 
of  substituting  its  mobility  for  the  stationariness  of  things.     Now  if 
we  attempt  to  find  the  necessity  in  the  Becoming,  one  thing  is  clear. 
Between  the  extinction  of  the  reality  of  m  and  the  origin  of  the  new 
reality  of  /A,  no  gap,  no  completely  void  chasm  can  be  fixed.     For  the 
mere  removal  of  m  would  in  itself  be  exactly  equivalent  to  the  removal 
of  anything  else,  /  or  q,  that  we  like  to  imagine.     Any  other  new 
reality  therefore,  ?r  or  K,  would  have  just  as  much  or  as  little  right  to 
follow  on  the  abolished  m,  as  that  p ;  and  it  would  be  impossible  that 
definite  consequents   should  flow  from   definite    antecedents.     It   is 
impossible   therefore  that   the   course   of  nature   should   consist   in 
successive  abolitions  of  one  and  originations  of  another  reality.   Every 
effort  to  conceive  the  order  of  events  in  nature  as  a  mere  succession 
of  phenomena  according  to  law,  can  only  be  justified  on  the  ground 
that  it  may  be  temporarily  desirable  for  methodological  reasons  to 
forego  the  search  for  an  inner  connexion.     As  a  theory  of  the  true 
constitution  of  reality  it  is  impossible. 

But  the  theory  of  Becoming  might  with  perfect  justification  admit 
all  this  and  only  complain  of  a  misinterpretation  of  its  meaning. 


CHAPTER  iv.]       Becoming  may  include  Persistence.  85 

Just  as  motion,  it  will  be  said,  cannot  be  generated  by  stringing 
together  moments  of  rest  in  the  places  a,  b,  c,  so  Becoming  cannot  be 
apprehended  by  supposing  a  succession  of  realities  a,  b,  c,  of  which  each 
is  .detached  from  the  rest  and  looked  upon  as  a  self-contained  and— 
for  however  brief  an  interval — motionless  Being.  On  the  contrary,  to 
each  single  one  of  these  members  the  same  conception  of  Becoming 
must  be  applied  as  to  the  series,  and  just  as  the  definitely  directed 
velocity,  with  which  the  moving  object  without  stopping  traverses  its 
momentary  place  a,  necessarily  carries  it  over  into  the  place  b  and 
again  through  it  into  another,  so  the  inner  Becoming  of  the  real  #, 
as  rightly  apprehended,  is  the  principle  of  its  transition  into  b  and  into  b 
only.  For  this  is  self-evident  :  that,  just  as  it  is  not  Being  that  is, 
but  Things  that  are,  so  it  is  not  Becoming  that  becomes,  but  the 
particular  becoming  thing ;  and  that  consequently  there  is  no  lack  of 
variety  in  the  qualities  a,&,c,  which  at  each  moment  mark  out  in  advance 
the  direction  in  which  the  Becoming  is  to  be  continued. 

I  do  not  doubt  that  this  defence  would  have  expressed  the  mind  of 
Heraclitus,  with  whose  more  living  thought  that  modern  invention  of 
the  schools  which  explains  Becoming  as  a  mere  succession  of  pheno 
mena  stands  in  unfavourable  contrast.  And  we  might  go  further  in 
the  same  spirit.  '  You,'  we  might  say, '  who  treat  a  motionless  content 
as  existing,  have  certainly  no  occasion  to  contemplate  its  change  ;  but 
for  all  that  we  have  nothing  but  your  own  assurance  for  it  that  the 
"Position"  by  which  you  suppose  a  to  have  been  once  constituted  will 
endure  for  ever.  In  reality  you  can  assign  no  reason  why  such  should 
be  the  case  with  it,  unless  you  look  upon  the  a  of  one  moment  as  the 
condition  of  a  in  the  next  moment  and  thus  after  all  make  a  become 
a.  But  in  the  nature  of  reality  there  may  be  contained  the  springs  of 
movement  which  are  lacking  to  mere  thought.  If  we  think  of  an  <z, 
of  which  the  essence  consists  only  in  the  motion  to  b,  we  are  indeed 
as  little  able  to  state  how  this  a  and  its  efflux  is  made,  as  you  would 
be  to  state  how  your  a  and  its  rest  is  made.  But  your  conception  has 
no  advantage  over  ours.  For  the  motion,  which  (as  extended  to 
Things  themselves)  you  find  fault  with,  you  after  all  have  to  allow  in 
regard  to  the  external  relations  of  your  Things,  where  you  are  as  little 
able  to  construct  it  as  in  the  inner  nature  of  Things.  To  us,  however,; 
if  admitted  (within  Things)  as  a  characteristic  of  the  real,  it  affords  r 
the  possibility  of  explaining  not  merely  the  manifold  changes  in  the  •' 
course  of  nature  but  also  as  a  special  case  that  persistency  in  it  which 
you  are  fond  of  putting  in  the  foreground,  without  going  into  particu 
lars,  as  something  intelligible  of  itself,  but  which  at  bottom  you  present 


86  Of  Becoming  and  Change.  [BOOKI. 

to  yourselves  merely  as  an  obstruction  to  your  own  thoughts.  Your 
law  of  Identity,  moreover,  would  be  equally  suited  by  our  assumption. 
We  could  not  indeed  suppose  a  to  become  b  and  c  in  three  successive 
moments,  unless  it  were  precisely  b  in  the  second  moment  and  c  .in 
the  third — thus  at  each  moment  exactly  what  it  is.  More  than  this— 
more  than  the  equality  with  itself  of  each  of  these  momentary  forms — - 
cannot  be  required  by  the  law  of  Identity.  That  the  reality  of  the 
one  moment  should  be  the  same  as  that  of  the  other,  could  not  be 
more  properly  demanded  as  a  consequence  of  this  law  than  could  the 
exact  opposite  of  its  meaning;  namely  that  everything  should  be 
simply  identical  with  everything  else/ 

44.  If  the  view  just  stated  were  the  true  meaning  of  the  theories 
\vhich  maintained  the  sole  reality  of  Becoming,  their  fundamental 
thought  would  not  be  exactly  expressed  either  by  this  conception  of 
Becoming  or  by  that  of  Change.  It  would  not  be  expressed  by  the 
former,  because  when  in  connexion  with  such  speculations  we  oppose 
Becoming  to  Being  we  do  not  commonly  associate  with  it  in  thought 
any  such  continuity  as  has  been  described ;  a  continuity  according  to 
which  every  later  phase  in  the  becoming,  instead  of  merely  coming 
into  being  after  the  earlier,  issues  out  of  it.  It  would  not  be  expressed 
by  the  conception  of  change,  because  in  it  the  later  does  in  fact  arise 
out  of  the  complete  extinction  of  the  earlier;  because  b  is  conse 
quently  another  than  a  and,  apart  from  that  constancy  of  connexion, 
there  is  no  thought  of  a  permanent  residuum  of  a  which  would  have 
undergone  a  change  in  adopting  b  as  its  state. 

We  may  go  on  to  remark  that,  however  much  of  the  interpretation 
given  we  may  take  to  be  of  use,  it  is  at  once  apparent  that  the  theory 
is  insufficient  to  explain  everything  which  we  believe  to  be  presented 
to  us  in  experience.  It  would  be  convincingly  applicable  only  to  the 
case  of  a  development  which,  without  any  disturbance  from  without, 
gradually  exhibited  the  phases  3,  c,  d,  lying  in  the  direction  of  *the 
moving  a.  In  reality,  however,  we  find  no  unmistakeable  instance  of 
such  development.  None  but  an  artificial  view,  which  we  must 
notice  later,  has  attempted  to  explain  away  what  seems  to  be  an 
obvious  fact — the  mutual  influence  of  several  such  developments  on 
each  other,  or  the  change  that  proceeds  from  the  reciprocal  action  of 
different  things.  The  next  point  for  our  consideration  will  therefore 
be,  what  we  have  to  think  in  order  to  apprehend  this  mutual  influence, 
taking  it  for  the  present  to  be  matter  of  indifference  how  we  judge  of 
the  metaphysical  nature  of  the  Things  between  which  the  influence  is 
exchanged. 


CHAPTER  iv.]  *  Transeunt '  Action.  87 

45.  In  the  first  instance  we  only  find  occasion  for  assuming  the 
exercise  of  an  influence  by  one  element  a  over  another  b  in  a  change 
to  /3  which  occurs  in  b  when  a  having  been  constantly  present  incurs 
a  change  into  a.    It  is  not  merely  supposed  that  the  contents  of  a  and  #, 
as  they  exist  for  thought,  stand  to  each  other  once  for  all  in  the  rela 
tion  of  reason  and  consequence ;  but  that  a  sometimes  is,  sometimes 
is  not,  and  that  in  accordance  with  this  changeable  major  premiss  the 
change  from  b  into  /3  sometimes  will  ensue,  sometimes  will  not. 

Now  we  know  that  it  might  be  ordained  by  a  law  external  to  a  and 
b  that  b  should  direct  its  course  according  to  these  different  circum 
stances  :  but  it  would  only  obey  this  ordinance  if  it  were  superfluous 
and  if  its  own  nature  moved  it  to  carry  out  what  the  ordinance  con 
tains.  In  order  to  the  possibility  of  this  that  difference  of  conditions, 
consisting  in  the  fact  that  at  one  time  a  is,  at  another  is  not,  must 
make  a  difference  for  b  itself,  not  merely  for  an  observer  reflecting  on 
the  two.  b  must  be  in  a  different  state,  must  be  otherwise  affected, 
must  experience  something  different  in  itself,  when  a  is  and  when  a 
is  not :  or,  to  put  it  in  a  short  and  general  form  ;  if  Things  are  to  take 
a  different  course  according  to  different  conditions,  they  must  take  note 
whether  those  conditions  exist  or  no.  Two  thoughts  thus  unite  here.i 
In  order  that  a  may  be  followed  by  0  not  by  /31  or  j32,  a  and  /3  must/ 
stand  in  the  relation  of  principle  or  ratio  sufficiens  and  consequence.^ 
But  in  order  that  /3  may  actually  come  into  being  and  not  remain  the 
for  ever  vainly  postulated  consequence  of  a,  the  ratio  sufficiens  musti 
become  causa  cfficiens,  the  foundation  in  reason  must  become  a  pro-) 
ductive  agency :  for  the  general  descriptive  conception  of  the  agency  of. 
one  thing  on  another  consists  in  this  that  the  actual  states  of  one  essence 
draw  after  them  actual  states  of  another,  which  previously  did  not  exist. 
Now  how  it  can  come  about  that  an  occurrence  happening  to  the  one 
thing  a  can  be  the  occasion  of  a  new  occurrence  in  the  thing  b,  is  just 
what  constitutes  the  mystery  of  this  interference  or  'transeunt'  action, 
with  which  we  shall  shortly  be  further  occupied.  We  introduce  it 
here,  to  begin  with,  only  as  a  demand,  which  there  must  in  some  way 
be  a  possibility  of  satisfying,  if  an  order  of  events  dependent  on  con 
ditions  is  to  be  possible  between  individual  things. 

46.  Supposing  us  however  to  assume  that  this  unintelligible  act  has 
taken  place,  from  the  impression  which  b  has  experienced  as  its  own 
inner  state  we  look  for  after  effects  within  itself;   a  continuation  of  its 
Being  or  of  its  Becoming  different  from  what  it  would  have  been 
without  that  excitement.     To  determine  in  outline  the  form  of  this 
continuation  is  a  task  which  we  leave  to  the  sequel.     As  regards  the 


88  Of  Becoming  and  Change. 

question  of  its  origin,  we  are  apt  to  look  on  our  difficulties  as  got  rid 
of  when  this  point  is  reached.  This  immanent  operation,  which  de 
velops  state  out  of  state  within  one  and  the  same  essential  Being,  we 
treat  as  a  matter  of  fact,  which  calls  for  no  further  effort  of  thought. 
That  this  operation  in  turn  remains  completely  incomprehensible  in 
respect  of  the  manner  in  which  it  comes  about,  we  are  meanwhile 
'  very  well  aware.  For  how  a  state  a1  of  a  thing  a  begins  to  bring 
about  a  consequent  state,  a2,  in  the  same  thing,  we  do  not  understand 
at  all  better  than  how  the  same  a1  sets  about  producing  the  con 
sequence  /31  in  another  being  b.  It  is  only  that  the  unity  of  the 
essence,  in  which  the  unintelligible  process  in  this  case  goes  on, 
makes  it  seem  superfluous  to  us  to  enquire  after  conditions  of  its 
possibility.  We  acquiesce  therefore  in  the  notion  of  immanent  opera 
tion,  not  as  though  we  had  any  insight  into  its  genesis,  but  because 
we  feel  no  hindrance  to  recognising  it  without  question  as  a  given 
fact.  Conditions  of  the  same  subject,  we  fancy,  must  necessarily 
have  influence  on  each  other :  and  in  fact  if  we  refused  to  be  guided 
by  this  fundamental  thought,  there  would  be  no  hope  left  of  finding 
means  of  explanation  for  any  occurrence  whatever. 

47.  Towards  these  notions  the  two  theories  as  to  the  essence  of 
things,  which  we  have  hitherto  pursued,  stand  in  different  relations. 
On  the  preliminary  question  how  it  comes  about  that  the  inwardly 
moving  a  attains  an  influence  over  the  equally  passing  b  the  doctrine 
of  Becoming  must  like  every  other  admit  ignorance  for  the  present. 
But  supposing  this  to  have  come  about,  it  will  look  for  the  operation 
of  this  influence  only  in  an  altered  form  of  Becoming,  which  a  strives 
to  impress  on  b.  The  next-following  phase  of  b  will  consequently 
not  be  /3,  but  a  resultant  compounded  of  /3  and  the  tendency  imparted 
from  without.  Henceforth  this  new  form  would  determine  the  pro 
gressive  Becoming  of  that  original  b,  if  it  continued  to  be  left  to 
itself:  but  every  new  influence  of  a  c  would  alter  its  direction  anew. 
If  each  of  these  succeeding  phases  is  called  a  Thing,  on  the  ground 
that  it  is  certainly  capable  of  receiving  influences  from  without  and 
of  exerting  them  on  its  likes,  then  Thing  will  follow  Thing  and  in  its 
turn  pass  away,  but  it  will  be  impossible  to  speak  of  the  unity  of  a  Thing 
which  maintains  itself  under  change.  It  is  possible  that  the  residuary 
effects  of  an  original  b  in  all  members  of  the  series  may  far  outweigh 
the  influence  of  action  from  without.  In  that  case  they  would  all, 
like  different  members  of  a  single  pedigree,  bear  a  common  family 
characteristic  in  spite  of  the  admixture  of  foreign  blood,  but  they 
would  be  no  more  one  than  are  such  members.  It  is  another  possible 


CHAPTER  iv.j       Continuity  explained  by  Essence  ?  89 

case  that  b  without  disturbance  from  without  should  develope  itself 
into  its  series  b,  /31,  /32.  Its  members  would  then  be  comparable  to 
the  successive  generations  of  an  unmixed  people,  but  again  would 
form  a  real  unity  as  little  as  do  these.  Even  if  b  reproduced  itself 
without  change,  each  member  of  the  series  b  b  b  would  indeed  be  as 
like  the  preceding  one  as  one  day  is  like  another,  but  would  as  little 
be  the  preceding  one  as  to-day  is  yesterday. 

This  lack  of  unity  will  afford  matter  of  censure  and  complaint  to 
the  theory  which  treats  the  Thing  as  persistent;  but  it  is  time  to 
notice  that  this  theory  has  itself  no  unquestionable  claim  to  the  pos 
session  of  such  unity.  Those  who  profess  the  theory  rightly  reject 
the  notion  which  would  represent  the  vanishing  reality  of  one  thing 
as  simply  followed  by  the  incipient  reality  of  the  other  without  con 
necting  the  two  by  any  inward  tie ;  but  they  think  scorn  of  recog 
nising  this  continuity  in  an  actual,  though  unintelligible,  becoming  of 
the  one  outofihz  other  and  hope  to  make  it  intelligible  by  the  inter 
polation  of  the  persistent  Essence.  But  this  implies  that  they  are  in 
fact  reduced  simply  to  the  impossibility,  on  which  we  have  already 
touched,  of  attaining  the  manifold  of  change  by  a  merely  outward  tie 
to  the  unchangeable  stock  of  the  Thing.  This  is  merely  disguised 
from  them  by  the  power  of  a  word,  the  use  of  which  we  have  found 
it  impossible  to  avoid  but  are  here  called  upon  to  rectify.  When  we 
called  a1,  a2,  a3  states  of  a,  we  could  reckon  only  too  well  on  the 
prospect  that  this  expression  would  remain  unchallenged  and  would 
be  thought  to  contain  the  fulfilment  of  a  demand,  for  which  it  merely 
supplies  a  name.  Quite  of  itself  this  expression  gives  rise  incidentally 
to  the  representation  of  an  essence  which  is  of  a  kind  to  sustain  these 
states,  to  cherish  them  as  its  own  and  thus  to  maintain  itself  as 
against  them.  But  what  does  this  mean,  and  how  can  that  be,  which 
— under  the  impression  that  we  are  saying  something  that  explains 
itself — we  call  the  state  of  an  essence?  And  in  what  does  that 
relation  consist — a  relation  at  once  of  inseparableness  and  difference — 
which  we  indicate  by  the  innocent-seeming  possessive  pronoun  ? 
So  long  as  we  maintain  the  position  that  a  as  in  the  state  a1  is  some 
thing  other  than  what  it  is  as  in  the  state  a2 ;  so  long  again  as  we 
forego  the  assumption  that  there  is  present  an  identical  residuum 
of  a  in  a1  and  a2,  on  which  both  alike  might  have  a  merely  external 
dependence ;  so  long  as  we  thus  represent  a  as  passing  in  complete 
integrity  into  both  states — while  this  is  so,  the  expressions  referred  to 
convey  merely  the  wish  or  demand,  that  there  should  be  something 
which  would  admit  of  being  adequately  expressed  by  them,  or  which 


90  Of  Becoming  and  Change.  [BOOK  i. 

would  satisfy  this  longing  after  identity  in  difference,  after  perma 
nence  in  change.  They  do  not  convey  the  conception  of  anything 
which  would  be  in  condition  to  satisfy  this  demand. 

In  saying  this  I  must  not  be  understood  to  take  it  as  settled  that 
this  Postulate  cannot  be  fulfilled,  only  as  unproven  that  it  can  be. 
Reality  is  richer  than  Thought,  nor  can  Thought  make  Reality  after 
it.  The  fact  of  Becoming  was  enough  to  convince  us  that  there  is 
such  a  thing  as  a  union  of  Being  and  not-Being,  which  we  even  when 
it  lies  before  us  are  not  able  to  reconstruct  in  thought,  much  less 
could  have  guessed  at  if  it  had  not  been  presented  to  us.  It  is 
possible  that  we  may  one  day  find  a  form  of  reality  which  may  teach 
us  by  its  act  how  those  unreconcilable  demands  are  fulfilled,  and  prove, 
in  doing  so,  that  in  their  nature  they  are  capable  of  fulfilment,  and  that 
the  relation,  seemingly  so  clear,  between  Thing  and  state  is  other  than 
an  empty  combination  of  words,  to  which  nothing  in  reality  corre 
sponds.  It  will  not  be  till  a  very  late  stage  in  these  enquiries  that  we 
shall  have  opportunity  of  raising  this  question  again.  For  the  present 
we  take  the  real  permanent  unity  of  the  Thing  under  change  of  states 
to  be  a  doubtful  notion,  which  is  of  no  value  for  the  immediate  objects 
of  our  consideration. 

48.  If  a  or  a  is  to  act  on  <$,  b  must  in  all  cases  be  differently 
affected  by  the  existence  of  a  and  by  its  non-existence.  The  'tran- 
seunt'  action  of  a  on  b  would  thus  lead  back  to  an  operation  'imma 
nent'  in  b.  The  proximate  condition  which  brings  about  the  change 
of  b,  must  have  lain  in  b  itself.  We  usually  distinguish  it  as  an  impres 
sion  from  the  reaction — a  usage  of  speech  on  which  we  may  have  to 
dwell  below.  For  the  present  we  satisfy  ourselves  with  the  reflection 
that  anything  which  b  is  to  experience  through  the  action  of  a  must 
result  from  the  conflux  of  two  principles  of  motion ;  from  that  which 
a  ordains  or  strives  to  bring  about  and  from  that  which  b,  either  in 
self-maintenance  or  in  self-transformation,  would  seek  to  produce,  if 
a  were  not.  Two  principles  are  thus  present  in  b,  of  which  in  general 
the  one  conditions  something  else  than  what  the  other  conditions. 
Neither  of  these  two  commands  therefore  could  realise  itself,  if  each 
of  them  were  absolute.  For  neither  the  one  nor  the  other  of 
them  would  have  any  prerogative,  both  being,  to  revert  to  the  old 
phrase,  states  of  the  same  essence,  b.  A  determinate  result  is 
only  possible  on  supposition  that  not  only  a  third  general  form  of 
consequence  is  thinkable,  into  which  both  impulses  may  be  blended, 
but  that  also  the  two  principles  have  comparable  quantitative  values. 
In  the  investigations  of  natural  science  it  is  not  doubted  that  the  deter- 


CHAPTER  iv.]  Intensities  of  Being.  9 1 

mination  of  a  result  from  various  coincident  conditions  always  pre 
supposes,  over  and  above  the  assignment  of  that  which  each  condition 
demands,  the  measure  of  the  vivacity  with  which  it  demands  it.  It  is  not 
merely  in  nature,  however,  but  in  all  reality  that  something  goes  on 
which  has  no  place  in  the  syllogistic  system  formed  by  the  combina 
tion  of  our  thoughts.  In  the  latter,  of  two  opposite  judgments  only 
one  can  be  valid.  In  reality  different  or  opposite  premisses  confront 
each  other  with  equal  claim  to  validity  and  both  ask  to  be  satisfied  on 
the  ground  of  a  common  right.  I  am  therefore  only  filling  a  gap 
which  has  hitherto  been  left  unfilled  in  Metaphysic,  when  I  seek  to 
bring  out  the  necessity  of  this  mathematical  element  in  all  our  judg 
ments  of  reality,  leaving  its  further  examination  to  the  sequel. 

49.  '  Quo  plus  realitatis  aut  esse  unaquaeque  res  habet,  eo  plura 
attributa  ei  competunt.'  So  says  Spinoza1;  and  nothing  seems  to 
forbid  the  converse  proposition,  that  a  greater  or  less  measure  of 
Being  or  of  reality  belongs  to  things  according  to  the  degree  of  their 
perfection.  I  cannot  share  the  disapproval  which  this  notion  of  there 
being  various  degrees  of  strength  of  Being  has  often  incurred.  It  is 
no  doubt  quite  correct  to  say  that  the  general  conception  of  Being, 
identical  with  itself,  is  applicable  in  the  same  sense  wherever  it  is 
applicable  at  all,  and  that  a  large  thing  has  no  more  Being  in  being 
of  large  size  than  a  little  thing  in  being  of  small  size.  I  do  not  find 
any  reason,  however,  for  emphasizing  in  Metaphysic  this  logical  equality 
of  the  conception  of  Being  with  itself,  since  Metaphysic  is  concerned 
with  this  conception  not  as  it  is  by  itself  but  in  its  application  to 
its  content — to  the  things  that  are.  But  in  this  application  it  should 
not,  as  it  seems  to  me,  be  looked  upon  as  if  the  'Position'  which  it 
expresses  remained  completely  unaffected  by  the  quantity  of  that 
on  which  the  'Position'  falls.  In  the  same  way  motions,  the  slowest 
as  well  as  the  quickest,  all  enjoy  the  same  reality.  We  cannot  say 
that  they  are,  but  they  all  fake  place,  one  as  much  as  another.  Neither 
in  their  case  does  this  reality  admit  of  increase  or  diminution  for  any 
single  one  of  them.  The  motion  with  the  velocity  C  cannot,  while 
retaining  this  velocity,  be  taking  place  either  more  or  less.  But  for 
all  that  the  velocity  is  not  matter  of  indifference  in  relation  to  the 
motion.  When  it  is  reduced  to  nothing  the  motion  ceases ;  and  con 
versely  no  motion  passes  out  of  reality  into  unreality  otherwise  than 
by  the  gradual  reduction  of  velocity. 

Now  that  which  we  admit  in  the  case  of  the  extreme  limit — the 
connexion  of  Being,  or  in  this  case  of  taking  place,  with  that  which  is 
1  [Eth.  i.  Prop,  ix.] 


9  2  Of  Becoming  and  Change. 

or  happens — why  should  we  not  allow  to  hold  good  within  that 
interval,  in  which  this  quantity  still  has  a  real  value  ?  Why  should  we 
look  on  the  velocity  as  a  secondary  property,  only  accidentally  attach 
ing  to  that  character  of  the  motion  which  consists  in  its  being  some 
thing  that  occurs,  when  aftei  all  it  is  just  so  far  as  this  property 
vanishes  that  the  motion  continuously  approximates  to  the  rest  in 
which  nothing  occurs  ?  The  fact  is  that  the  velocity  is  just  the  degree 
of  intensity  with  which  the  motion  corresponds  to  its  own  Idea,  and 
the  occurrence  of  the  quicker  motion  is  the  more  intensive  occur 
rence.  If  now  we  apply  the  term  '  Being/  as  is  proper  in  Metaphysic, 
not  to  the  empty  'Position'  which  might  fall  upon  a  certain  content, 
but  to  the  filled  and  perfectly  determinate  reality  as  already  including 
that  on  which  the  '  Position'  has  actually  fallen,  I  should  in  that  case 
have  no  scruple  about  speaking  of  different  quantities  or  intensities  of 
the  Being  of  Things,  according  to  the  measure  of  the  power  with 
which  each  thing  actively  exerts  itself  in  the  course  of  change  and 
resists  other  impulses.  Nor  in  this  argument  am  I  by  any  means 
merely  interested  in  rescuing  a  form  of  expression  that  has  been 
assailed.  I  should  seriously  prefer  this  expression  for  the  reason  that 
it  helps  to  keep  more  clearly  in  mind  what  I  take  to  be  the  correct 
view;  viz.  that  Being  is  really  a  continuous  energy,  an  activity  or 
function  of  things,  not  a  doom  thrust  upon  them  of  passive  '  posi 
tion'1.  The  constant  reminder  of  this  would  be  a  more  effectual 
security  against  shallow  attempts  to  deduce  the  Real  from  the  co 
incidence  of  a  still  unreal  essence  with  a  '  Position '  supposed  to  be 
foreign  to  this  content  and  the  same  for  all  Things  indifferently. 

1  ['  Passivischer  Gesetzheit.'] 


CHAPTER   V. 

Of  the  Nature  of  Physical  Action. 

OUR  concern  so  far  has  been  to  give  to  the  conception  of  Becoming 
a  form  in  which  it  admits  of  being  applied  to  the  Real.  In  seeking 
to  do  so  we  were  led  to  think  that  the  connexion  between  a  cause 
and  its  effects  must  be  more  than  a  conditioning  of  the  one  by  the 
other ;  that  it  must  consist  in  an  action  on  the  part  of  the  cause, 
or  require  such  an  action  for  its  completion.  Only  thus  could  it  be 
come  intelligible  that  effects,  which  in  a  world  of  ideas  are  conse 
quences  that  follow  eternally  from  their  premisses — premisses  no  less 
eternally  thinkable,  should  in  the  world  of  reality  sometimes  occur, 
sometimes  not.  Many  and  various  have  been  the  views,  as  the  history 
of  Philosophy  shows,  which  have  been  successively  called  forth  by 
the  need  of  supplying  this  complement  to  the  idea  of  cause  and  by 
the  difficulty  of  doing  so  without  contradiction.  Many  of  them,  how 
ever,  are  for  us  already  excluded,  now  that  it  becomes  our  turn  to 
make  the  same  attempt,  by  the  preceding  considerations. 

50.  In  the  first  place  we  meet  at  times  with  a  disposition — no 
longer  indeed  admitted  among  men  of  science  but  still  prevalent  in 
the  untutored  thoughts  of  mankind — to  ascribe  the  nature  and  reality 
of  a  consequent  wholly  and  exclusively  to  some  one  being,  which  is 
supposed  to  be  the  cause,  the  single  cause,  of  the  newly  appearing 
event.  The  unreasonableness  of  this  view  is  easily  evinced.  It  con 
denses  all  productive  activity  into  a  single  element  of  reality,  while  at 
the  same  time  it  deems  it  necessary  that  the  results  of  the  activity 
should  be  exhibited  in  certain  other  elements,  which  stand  to  the 
exclusively  causal  element  in  the  relation  of  empty  receptacles  for 
effects  with  the  form  and  amount  of  which  they  have  nothing  to  do. 
As  we  have  already  seen,  everything  which  we  can  properly  call  a 
receptivity  consists,  not  in  an  absence  of  any  nature  of  a  thing's  own, 
but  in  the  active  presence  of  determinate  properties,  which  alone 
make  it  possible  for  the  receptive  element  to  take  up  into  itself  the 


94  <y  the  Nature  of  Physical  Action.          [BOOK-  i. 

impressions  tendered  to  it  and  to  convert  them  into  states  of  its  own. 
Deprived  of  these  qualities  or  condemned  to  a  constant  inability  of 
asserting  them,  the  elements  in  which  the  ordinance  of  the  active 
cause  is  supposed  to  fulfil  itself,  would  contribute  no  more  to  its 
realisation  by  their  existence  than  by  their  non-existence.  Instead  of 
something  being  wrought  by  the  cause,  it  would  rather  be  created  by 
it  in  that  peculiar  sense  in  which,  according  to  a  common  but  singular 
usage,  we  talk  of  a  creation  out  of  nothing.  I  call  it  a  singular  usage 
because  we  should  properly  speak  simply  of  creation,  to  which  we 
might  add,  merely  in  the  way  of  negation,  that  the  creation  does  not 
take  place  out  of  anything  in  particular.  Trained  by  experience, 
however,  to  look  upon  new  states  merely  as  changes  of  what  is 
already  in  existence,  our  imagination  in  this  case  gives  an  affirmative 
meaning  even  to  the  '  nothing '  as  the  given  material  out  of  which 
something  previously  unreal  is  fashioned. 

The  same  extraordinary  process  is  repeated  in  that  manner  of  con 
ceiving  the  action  of  a  cause  of  which  I  have  just  spoken.  The  sup 
position  is  allowed  to  stand  of  things  which  the  active  cause  requires 
in  order  to  fulfil  its  active  impulse  in  them  :  but  as  these  according 
to  the  conception  in  question  contribute  nothing  to  the  nature  of  the 
new  event,  they  are  in  fact  merely  empty  images  which  serve  to  meet 
the  requirements  of  our  mental  vision.  They  represent  imaginary 
scenes  upon  which  an  act,  wholly  unconditioned  by  these  scenes  of 
its  exhibition,  originates,  out  of  nothing  and  in  nothing,  some  new 
reality.  I  reserve  the  question  whether  this  conception  of  creation 
admits  any  application  at  all  and,  if  so,  in  what  case.  It  is  certainly 
inapplicable  in  studying  the  course  of  the  already  existing  universe  ; 
inapplicable  when  the  fact  that  requires  explanation  is  this,  that  indi 
vidual  things  in  their  changing  states  determine  each  other's  be 
haviour.  Were  it  possible  for  one  of  these  finite  elements,  A  or  B>  to . 
realise  its  will,  a  or  /3,  in  other  elements  after  this  creative  manner, 
without  furtherance  or  hindrance  from  the  co-operation  of  any  nature 
which  these  other  elements  have  of  their  own,  there  would  be  nothing 
to  decide  upon  the  conflicting  claims  which  any  one  of  these  omni 
potent  beings  might  make  on  any  other.  The  ordinances,  a  or  £  or  y, 
would  be  realised,  with  equal  independence  of  all  conditions,  in  all 
beings  C,  D,  E.  This  notion,  if  it  were  possible  to  carry  it  out  in 
thought,  would  at  any  rate  not  lead  to  the  image  of  an  ordered  course 
of  the  universe,  in  which  under  definite  conditions  different  elements 
are  liable  to  different  incidents,  while  other  incidents  remain  impos 
sible  to  them.  Any  assumption  that  A  or  B  can  only  give  reality  to 


CHAPTER  V.]  CdltSC  CUld  RcdSOH.  95 

its  command  upon  C  or  D,  not  upon  E  or  F,  would  force  us  back 
upon  the  conception  that  C  or  D  are  not  only  different  from  E  and  F, 
but  that  in  virtue  of  their  own  nature  they  are  joint  conditions  of  the 
character  and  reality  of  the  new  occurrence,  which  we  previously 
regarded  as  due  to  a  manifestation  of  power  on  one  side  only,  to  a 
single  active  cause. 

51.  Natural  science,  so  long  as  it  maintains  its  scientific  character, 
is  constrained  by  experience  to  recognise  this  state  of  the  case.  It 
has  reduced  it  to  the  formula  that  every  natural  action  is  a  reciprocal 
action  between  a  plurality  of  elements.  It  was  apt  to  be  thought, 
however,  that  the  proposition  in  this  form  expressed  a  peculiarity  of 
natural  processes,  and  it  was  a  service  rendered  by  Herbart  to  point 
out  its  universal  validity  as  a  principle  of  Metaphysics  in  his  doctrine 
that  every  action  is  due  to  several  causes.  Though  these  things  are 
ultimately  self-evident,  the  mere  establishment  of  a  more  exact 
phraseology  calls  for  some  enquiry.  In  the  first  place  Reasons  *  and 
Causes2  will  have  to  be  distinguished  more  precisely  than  is  done  in 
ordinary  speech.  By  '  causes,'  consistently  with  the  etymology  of  the 
German  term  « Ursache,'  we  understood  all  those  real  things  of  which 
the  connexion  with  each  other— a  connexion  that  remains  to  be 
brought  about — leads  to  the  occurrence  of  facts  that  were  not  pre 
viously  present.  The  complex  of  these  new  facts  we  call  the  effect, 
in  German  'Wirkung' — an  ambiguous  term  which  we  shall  employ 
to  indicate  not  the  productive  process  but  only  the  result  produced. 
Wherever  it  shall  appear  necessary  and  admissible  to  take  notice  of 
this  distinction,  we  shall  reserve  the  infinitive  '  Wirken '  to  express  the 
former  meaning.  The  *  Reason '  on  the  other  hand  is  neither  a  thing 
nor  a  single  fact3,  but  the  complex  of  all  relations  obtaining  between 
things  and  their  natures ;  relations  from  which  the  character  of  the 
supervening  effect  is  deducible  as  a  logically  necessary  consequence. 

Now  just  because  we  do  not  think  of  the  new  event  as  issuing  from 
a  creative  activity  independent  of  conditions,  the  explanation  of  any 
effect  would  require  us,  besides  assigning  the  causes  (Ursachen)  to  show 
the  reason  (Grund)  which  entitles  the  causes  to  be  causes  of  just  this 
effect  and  no  other.  Further,  just  because  several  constituents  of  this 
reason  (Grund)  are  not  merely  given  as  possible  in  thought,  but  are 
embodied  or  realised  in  the^form  of  real  properties  of  real  things  and 
of  actually  subsisting  relations  between  them,  the  consequence  does 
not  merely  remain  one  logically  necessary  which  we  should  be  en 
titled  to  postulate,  but  becomes  a  postulate  fulfilled,  an  actual  effect 

1  ['Griinde.']  2  ['Ursache.']  3  [' Nicht  Ding  noch  Sache.'] 


96  Of  the  Nature  of  Physical  Action.          [BOOK  i. 

instead  of  an  unreal  necessity  of  thought.  Finally,  observation  con 
vinces  us  that  things,  without  changing  their  nature,  yet  sometimes  do, 
sometimes  do  not,  exercise  their  influence  on  each  other.  It  appears 
therefore  that  it  is  not  the  relations  of  similarity *  or  contrast  between 
the  things — relations  which  upon  comparison  of  their  natures  would 
always  be  found  the  same — that  qualify  them  to  display  their  pro 
ductive  activity,  but  that,  as  a  condition  of  this  activity,  there  must 
besides  supervene  a  variable  relation,  C.  I  reserve  the  question 
whether  we  are  right  in  thinking  of  this  relation  as  other  than  one  of 
those  included  in  what  we  meant  to  be  understood  by  the  complete 
Reason  (Grund)  of  the  effect.  A  doubt  being  possible  on  this  point, 
which  will  demand  its  own  special  investigation,  we  will  provisionally 
conform  to  the  ordinary  way  of  looking  at  the  matter  and  speak  of  C 
as  the  condition  of  the  actual  production  of  the  effect — a  condition 
which  is  something  over  and  above  the  Reason  (Grund)  that  deter 
mines  the  form  of  the  ensuing  effect. 

52.  According  to  this  usage  of  terms  the  causes  (Ursachen)  of  a 
gunpowder-explosion  are  two  things  or  facts,  viz.  the  powder  A  and 
the  heated  body  which  forms  the  spark  B.  The  condition,  C,  of  their 
action  upon  each  other  is  presented  to  us  in  this  case  as  their 
approximation  or  contact  in  space.  The  reason  (Grund)  of  the  effect 
lies  in  this,  that  the  heightened  temperature  and  the  expansiveness  of 
the  gaseous  elements  condensed  in  the  powder  are  the  two  premisses 
from  which  there  arises  for  these  elements  a  necessity  of  increase  in 
their  volume  as  effect.  The  final  question,  how  in  this  case  the 
efficient  act  takes  place,  we  do  not  profess  to  be  able  to  answer.  Of 
whatever  conjecture  as  to  the  nature  of  heat  we  may  avail  ourselves 
for  the  purpose,  we  find  it  impossible  in  the  last  resort  to  state  how  it 
is  that  the  heightened  temperature  operates  in  bringing  about  in  the 
expansive  materials  the  movement  of  dilatation  which  they  actually 
undergo.  It  is  only  the  effect,  the  result  brought  about,  which  in  this 
case  is  not  a  motionless  state  but  itself  a  movement,  that  is  open  to 
our  observation. 

In  one  respect  this  instance  is  unsatisfactory.  In  the  case  supposed 
we  have  no  experience  as  to  what  becomes  of  the  spark  which  was 
supposed  to  form  one  of  the  two  causes  of  the  total  event.  If  on  the 
other  hand  we  throw  a  red-hot  body,  B,  into  some  water,  A,  we 
notice,  over  and  above  the  sudden  conversion  of  water  into  steam, 
which  in  this  instance  corresponds  to  the  explosion  of  the  powder  in 
the  other,  the  change  which  B  has  undergone.  Lowered  in  its  tem- 
1  ['Aehnlichkeit.'] 


CH AFTER  v.i  Contributory  Causes.  97 

perature,  perhaps  with  its  structure  shattered,  or  itself  dissolved  in  what 
is  left  of  the  water,  there  remains  what  was  previously  the  heated  body. 
Thus  even  the  effect  in  this  case  consists  of  several  different  changes 
which  are  shared  by  the  different  concrete  causes  (Ursachen)  that  have 
been  brought  into  contact.  Finally,  since  the  evaporating  water  dis 
sipates  itself  in  the  air,  leaving  behind  it  the  cooled  motionless  body, 
that  contact  between  the  two  which  previously  formed  the  condition 
of  their  effect  upon  each  other,  has  changed  into  a  new  relation  in 
space  between  the  altered  bodies.  Combining  all  these  circumstances, 
we  may  say  that,  where  a  definite  relation,  C,  gives  occasion  to  an 
exercise  of  reciprocal  action  between  the  things  A  and  J5,  A  passes 
into  a,  B  into  ft  and  C  into  y. 

53.  The  particular  forms  and  values  which  these  transitions  A — a, 
B — ft  C — 7,  take  in  individual  cases,  can  only  be  determined  by  so 
many  special  investigations,  and  these  would  be  beyond  the  province 
of  Metaphysics.  Even  the  task  of  merely  showing  that  all  kinds  of 
causation  adjust  themselves  in  general  to  the  formula  just  given  would 
be  one  of  inordinate  length,  and  must  be  left  to  be  completed  by  the 
attentive  reader.  The  only  point  which  I  would  bring  into  relief  is 
this,  that  alike  the  contributions  which  the  several '  causes '  (Ursachen) 
make  to  the  form  of  the  effect,  and  the  changes  which  they  themselves 
undergo  through  the  process  of  producing  it,  admit  of  variation  in  a 
very  high  degree.  In  view  of  this  variety  the  usage  of  speech  has 
created  many  expressions  for  states  of  the  case,  of  which  the  distinc 
tion  is  well-founded  and  valuable  for  the  collective  estimate  of  the 
importance  of  what  takes  place  but  which  do  not  exhibit  any  distinc 
tions  that  are  fundamental  in  an  ontological  sense.  If  elastic  bodies, 
meeting,  exchange  their  motions  with  each  other  wholly  or  in  part, 
we  have  no  doubt  about  the  necessity  of  regarding  both  as  meta 
physically  equivalent  causes  of  this  result.  They  both  contribute 
alike,  though  in  different  measure,  to  determine  the  form  of  the  result, 
and  the  effect  produced  visibly  divides  itself  between  the  two. 

It  is  otherwise  in  the  instance  of  the  exploding  powder.  Here 
everything  that  conditions  the  form  of  the  result  appears  to  lie  on  one 
side,  viz.  in  the  powder,  in  the  capability  of  expansion  possessed  by 
the  elements  condensed  in  it.  The  spark  contributes  nothing  but  an 
ultimate  complementary  condition  —  the  high  temperature,  namely, 
which  is  the  occasion  of  an  actual  outburst  on  the  part  of  the  pre 
viously  existing  impulse  to  expansion,  but  which  woulcf  not  be  qualified 
to  supply  the  absence  of  that  impulse.  For  this  reason  we  look  upon 
these  two  causes  of  the  effect  in  different  lights.  It  is  not  indeed  as 

VOL.  i.  H 


98  Of  the  Nature  of  Physical  Action.          [BOOK  i. 

if,  in  accordance  with  the  reason  given,  we  assigned  the  designation 
'  cause '  par  excellence  to  the  powder.  On  the  contrary  this  designation 
is  assigned  by  ordinary  usage  rather  to  the  spark,  which  alone  pre 
sents  itself  to  our  sensuous  apprehension  as  the  actively  supervening 
element  in  contrast  with  the  expectant  attitude  of  the  powder.  But 
this  usage  at  least  we  are  ready  to  modify  when  we  enter  upon  a  more 
scientific  consideration  of  the  case  ;  we  then  treat  the  spark  as  merely 
an  occasional  cause  which  helps  an  occurrence,  for  which  the  prelimi 
naries  were  otherwise  prepared,  actually  to  happen.  Though  it  is 
undoubtedly  important,  however,  to  note  that  peculiarity  of  the  case 
which  is  indicated  by  the  expression  '  occasional  cause,'  yet  from  the 
ontological  point  of  view  the  spark,  even  in  its  character  as  occasional 
cause,  falls  completely  under  the  same  conception  of  cause  under 
?  which  we  subordinate  the  powder.  For  whatever  tendency  to  expan 
sion  we  may  ascribe  to  the  elements  united  in  the  powder,  taken  by 
itself  this  merely  suffices  to  maintain  the  present  state  of  things.  It 
is  only  the  introduction  of  a  heightened  temperature  that  produces 
the  necessity  of  explosion.  The  '  occasional  cause '  therefore  brings 
about  this  result,  not  in  the  sense  of  giving  to  an  event,  for  which  the 
reason  (Grund)  was  completely  constituted,  but  which  still  delayed  to 
happen,  the  impulse  which  projected  it  into  reality,  but  in  the  sense 
of  being  the  last  step  in  the  completion  of  that  *  reason '  of  the  event 
which  was  incompletely  constituted  before.  Similar  reflections  will 
have  to  be  made  in  all  those  cases  where  one  '  cause '  seems  only  to 
remove  a  hindrance  which  impedes  the  other  causes  in  actually  bring 
ing  about  an  effect  for  which  the  preliminary  conditions  are  completely 
provided  by  them.  The  setting  aside  of  an  obstruction  can  only  be 
understood  as  the  positive  completion  of  that  which  the  obstruction 
served  to  cancel  in  the  complete  '  Reason/ 

Phenomena  such  as  occur  in  the  processes  of  life  call  for  still 
further  distinctions  of  this  kind.  The  same  occasional  causes,  Light, 
Warmth,  and  Moisture,  excite  the  seeds  of  different  plants  to  quite 
different  developments.  In  whatever  amounts  we  combine  these  ex 
ternal  forces,  though  we  may  easily  succeed  in  destroying  the  power  of 
germination  in  any  given  seeds,  we  never  succeed  in  eliciting  different 
kinds  of  plants  from  them.  The  same  remark  applies  to  the  behaviour 
of  living  things  at  a  later  stage,  when  fully  formed.  The  form  of 
action  which  they  exhibit,  upon  occasion  being  given  from  without,  is 
completely  determined  by  their  own  organization,  and  we  look  upon 
the  occasional  causes  in  this  case  as  mere  stimuli,  necessary  and  fitted 
to  excite  or  check  reactions  of  which  the  prior  conditions  are  present 
within  the  organism,  but  with  no  further  influence  on  the  form  which 


CHAPTER  v.]        Occasional  Causes,  and  StimnH.  99 

the  reactions  take.  I  do  not  pause  to  correct  any  inexactness  that 
may  be  found  in  this  last  expression,  nor  do  I  repeat  remarks  which  I 
have  previously  made  and  which  would  be  applicable  here.  It  is 
enough  to  say  that,  in  a  natural  history  of  the  various  forms  which 
the  process  of  causation  may  assume,  all  those  that  have  been  just 
referred  to,  as  well  as  many  others,  fully  deserve  to  be  distinguished 
by  designations  of  their  own  and  to  have  their  peculiarity  exhibited  in 
full  relief.  It  is  the  office  of  ontology,  on  the  contrary,  to  hold  fast 
the  general  outline  of  the  relation  of  reciprocal  action,  in  respect  of 
which  none  of  these  forms  contain  any  essential  difference.  In  the 
view  of  ontology  all  causes  of  an  effect  are  just  as  necessary  to  its  pro 
duction  the  one  as  the  other.  However  great  or  small  the  share  may 
be  which  each  of  them  has  in  determining  the  form  of  the  effect,  no 
one  of  them  will  be  wholly  without  such  a  share.  Each  of  them  is  a 
contribution  without  which  the  complete  'reason'  (Grund)  of  the 
actual  effect  cannot  be  constituted.  No  one  of  them  serves  as  a  mere 
means  of  converting  into  fact  a  possibility  already,  without  it,  com 
pletely  determined  in  kind  and  quantity.  It  is  exclusively  with  this 
ontological  equivalence  of  the  manifold  causes  of  a  fact  that  we  are 
here  concerned.  It  will  only  be  at  a  later  stage  that  it  will  become 
necessary  to  refer  to  those  other  characteristics  of  the  causal  relation 
of  which  the  existence  might  even  at  this  stage  easily  be  established 
by  the  farther  consideration  of  the  instances  already  given.  Such 
would  be  the  fact  that  the  effect  produced  does  not  attach  itself  ex 
clusively  to  any  one  of  the  co-operative  causes  but  rather  distributes 
itself  among  them  all,  and,  finally,  the  change,  after  the  resulting  action 
has  been  exerted,  of  the  relation  which  served  to  initiate  it. 

54.  After  all  these  remarks,  however,  the  proper  object  of  enquiry 
has  still  been  left  untouched.  How  is  this  relation  C,  of  which  the 
establishment  was  necessary  to  elicit  the  effect,  to  be  understood 
metaphysically?  The  need  in  which  this  question  stands  of  special 
consideration  is  most  readily  apprehended  if  we  transfer  ourselves 
to  the  ontological  position  of  Herbart.  His  theory  started  expressly 
from  the  supposition  of  a  complete  mutual  independence  on  the  part 
of  the  real  Beings,  of  their  being  unconcerned  with  any  Relation. 
If  it  allows  the  possibility  of  their  falling  into  relations  with  each 
other,  the  readiness  to  make  this  admission  rests  simply  on  the  sup 
position  that  they  remain  unaffected  by  so  doing.  At  the  same  time 
this  metaphysical  theory  recognises  a  relation,  under  the  name  of  the 
coexistence *  of  the  real  Beings,  which  does  away  with  their  complete 
1  ['  Zusammen,'  lit.  '  together.'] 
H  2 


TOO  Of  the  Nature  of  Physical  Action.          [BOOK  i. 

indifference  towards  each  other,  and  compels  them  to  acts  of  mutual 
disturbance  and  of  self-maintenance. 

In  what,  however,  does  this  'coexistence/  so  pregnant  with  con 
sequences,  consist?  So  long  as  we  confine  ourselves  to  purely 
ontological  considerations,  we  can  find  in  this  expression  merely  that 
indication  of  a  postulate,  not  the  indication  of  that  by  which  this 
postulate  is  fulfilled.  The  'coexistence'  is  so  far  nothing  but  that 
relation,  as  yet  completely  unknown,  of  two  real  Beings,  upon  the 
entry  of  which  their  simple  qualities  can  no  longer  remain  unaffected 
by  each  other  but  are  compelled  to  assert  an  active  reciprocal  in 
fluence.  Thus  understood,  let  us  call  the  '  coexistence '  r.  The 
term  '  coexistence/  however,  with  its  spatial  associations,  having  once 
been  chosen  for  this  Quaestlum,  appears  to  have  been  the  only  source 
of  Herbart's  cosmological  conviction  that,  as  a  self-evident  truth,  the 
only  form  in  which  the  ontological  '  coexistence '  r,  the  condition  of 
efficient  causation,  can  occur  in  the  world,  is  that  of  coincidence  in 
space.  At  least  I  do  not  find  any  further  proof  of  the  title  to  hold 
that  the  abstract  metaphysical  postulate  r  admits  of  realisation  in 
this  and  in  no  other  imaginable x  form.  I  shall  have  occasion  below 
to  express  an  opinion  against  the  material  truth  of  this  assumption  ; 
against  the  importance  thus  attached  to  contact  in  space  as  a  con 
dition  of  the  exertion  of  physical  action.  Here  we  may  very  well 
concede  the  point  to  the  common  opinion,  if  appeal  is  made  to 
the  many  instances  in  which,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  approximation 
of  bodies  to  each  other  presents  itself  to  us  as  a  necessary  pre 
liminary  to  their  action  upon  each  other.  Assuming,  then,  that  con 
tact  can  be  shown  universally  to  be  an  indispensable  preliminary 
condition  of  physical  action,  even  then  we  should  only  have  dis 
covered  or  conjectured  the  empirical  form  C  under  which  as  a  matter 
of  fact  that  metaphysical  r,  the  true  ground  of  all  physical  action, 
presents  itself  in  the  world.  The  question  would  remain  as  to  the 
law  which  entitles  this  connexion  in  space  to  make  that  possible 
and  necessary  which  would  not  occur  without  it. 

We  are  all  at  times  liable  to  the  temptation  of  taking  that  in  the  last 
resort  to  explain  itself,  of  which  continued  observation  has  presented 
us  with  frequent  instances.  It  cannot,  therefore,  be  matter  of  surprise 
to  me  if  younger  and  consequently  keener  intellects  undertake  to 
teach  me  that  in  this  case  I  do  not  understand  myself.  Whatever  my 
error  may  be,  I  cannot  get  rid  of  it.  I  must  repeat  that,  so  far  as 
I  can  see,  there  is  no  such  inner  connexion  between  the  conception 
1  ['  Anschaulich.'] 


CHAPTER  V.]  Contact  the  COndltlOH  of  aCtlOU  ?  IOI 

of  contact  in  space  and  that  of  mutual  action  as  to  make  it  self- 
evident  that  one  involves  the  other.  Granted  that  two  Beings,  A  and 
JB,  are  so  independent  of  each  other,  so  far  removed  from  any  mutual 
relation  that  each  could  maintain  its  complete  existence  without  regard 
to  the  other,  as  it  were  in  a  world  of  its  own ;  then,  though  it  may  be 
easy  to  picture  the  two  as  '  coexisting '  in  the  same  point  of  a  space, 
it  seems  to  me  impossible  to  show  that  for  this  reason  alone  the 
indifference  to  each  other  must  disappear.  The  external  union  of 
their  situations  which  we  present  to  our  mind's  eye  must  remain  for 
them  as  unessential  as  previously  every  other  relation  was.  Inwardly 
their  several  natures  continue  alien  to  each  other,  unless  it  can  be 
shown  that  this  '  coexistence '  in  space,  C,  is  more  than  a  '  coex 
istence'  in  space,  that  it  includes  precisely  that  metaphysical  co 
existence,  which  renders  the  Beings  that  would  otherwise  be  self- 
sufficing,  susceptible  and  receptive  towards  each  other.  Not  believing 
myself  in  the  correctness,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  of  this  theory  of  contact, 
I  have  naturally  no  reason  to  attempt  such  a  proof,  which,  moreover, 
would  carry  us  prematurely  beyond  the  province  of  ontology.  As  a" 
question  of  ontology,  it  only  remains  to  ask  what  the  r  is,  i.  e.  what 
is  the  condition  which  we  must  suppose  fulfilled,  if  in  any  relation  C, 
whether  it  be  out  of  contact  in  space  or  of  some  wholly  different 
form,  we  suppose  things  previously  indifferent  to  each  other  to 
become  subject  to  the  necessity  of  having  respect  to  each  other  and 
of  each  ordering  its  states  according  to  the  states  of  the  other.  This"7 
question  is  the  starting-point  of  the  various  views  that  have  been  held 
on  the  problem,  how  one  thing  comes  to  act  on  another.  None  of 
them  could  avoid  enquiring  for  a  mode  of  transition  of  some  sort  or 
other  from  the  state  which  is  not  one  of  coexistence  to  one  that  is  so. 
It  is  according  as  they  claim  to  have  discovered  the  mode  of  transi 
tion  or  to  be  entitled  to  deny  that  there  is  any  such  transition,  that  they 
have  resulted  in  notably  divergent  conceptions  of  the  course  of  the 
universe. 

55.  The  transfer  of  an  influence,  E,  is  the  process  by  which  accord 
ing  to  the  common  view  it  is  sought  to  explain  the  excitement  of 
Things,  previously  unaffected  by  each  other,  to  the  exercise  of  their 
active  force :  and  the  process  is  generally  conceived  in  a  one 
sided  way  as  an  emanation  proceeding  from  an  active  Being  only, 
and  directed  upon  a  passive  Being.  That  this  representation  only 
serves  to  indicate  the  fact  of  which  an  explanation  is  sought,  becomes 
at  once  apparent  if  we  attempt  to  define  the  proper  meaning  and 
nature  of  that  to  which,  under  the  figurative  name  of  influence,  we 


IO2  Of  the  Natiire  of  Physical  Action.         [BOOK  i. 

ascribe  that  transition  from  the  one  Being  to  the  other.  Only  one 
supposition  would  make  the  matter  perfectly  clear ;  the  supposition, 
namely,  that  this  E  which  makes  the  transition  is  a  Thing,  capable  of 
independent  reality,  which  detaches  itself  from  its  former  connexion 
with  A  and  enters  into  a  similar  or  different  connexion  with  some 
thing  else  B.  But  precisely  in  this  case  unless  something  further 
supervened,  there  would  be  no  implication  of  that  action  of  one  thing  on 
another,  which  it  is  sought  to  render  intelligible.  If  a  moist  body  A, 
becoming  dry  itself,  makes  a  dry  body  B,  moist,  it  is  the  palpable  water 
E  which  here  effects  this  transition.  If,  however,  what  we  under 
stood  by  moisture  was  merely  the  presence  of  this  water,  at  the  end 
of  the  transition  neither  A  nor  B  would  have  undergone  a  change  of 
its  own  nature,  such  a  change  as  it  was  our  object  to  bring  under  the 
conception  of  an  effect  attained  by  an  active  cause.  The  transition 
itself  is  all  that  has  taken  place. 

True,  the  withdrawal  of  the  water  alters  the  drying  body,  its  ac 
cession  alters  the  body  that  becomes  moist.  The  connexion  between 
the  minutest  particles  changes  as  the  liquid  forces  its  way  among 
them.  As  they  are  forced  asunder,  they  form  a  larger  volume  and 
the  connexion  between  them  becomes  tougher,  while  the  drying 
body  becomes  more  brittle  as  it  shrinks  in  extent.  These  are  effects 
of  the  kind  which  we  wish  to  understand,  but  the  supposed  transition 
of  the  water  does  not  suffice  for  their  explanation.  After  the  water 
has  reached  its  new  position  in  the.  second  body  B,  the  question 
arises  completely  anew  what  the  influence  is  which,  so  placed,  it  is 
able  to  exercise — an  influence  such  that  the  constituents  of  B  are 
compelled  to  alter  their  relative  positions.  In  like  manner  the  ques 
tion  would  arise  how  the  removal  of  the  water  from  A  could  become 
for  this  body  a  reason  for  the  reversal  of  its  properties.  This  illus 
tration  will  be  found  universally  applicable.  Wherever  an  element  E, 
capable  of  independent  motion,  passes  from  A  to  B — thus  in  all 
cases  where  we  observe  what  can  properly  be  called  a  '  causa  transiens' 
— there  universally  this  transition  is  only  preliminary  to  the  action *  of 
one  body  on  another.  This  action  follows  the  transition,  beginning 
in  a  manner  wholly  unexplained  only  when  the  transition  is  com 
pleted.  Nor  would  it  be  of  the  slightest  help  if,  following  a  common 
tendency  of  the  imagination,  we  tried  to  sublimate  the  transeunt  ele 
ment  into  something  more  subtle  than  a  '  thing.'  Whatever  spiritual 
entity  we  might  suppose  to  radiate  from  A  to  B,  at  the  end  of  its 
journey  it  would  indeed  be  in  B,  but  the  question  how,  being  there, 

1  ['Wirkung.'J 


CHAPTER  v.]  The '  transeunt'  element.  103 

it  might  begin  to  exert  its  action  upon  constituents  different  from  it, 
would  recur  wholly  unanswered. 

56.  This  difficulty  suggests  the  next  transformation  of  the  com 
mon  view.  Instead  of  the  causative  thing  (Ursache),  we  suppose  a 
force,  an  action,  or  a  state,  E,  to  pass  from  A  to  B.  We  may  sup 
pose  these  various  expressions,  which  are  to  some  extent  ambiguous, 
to  have  so  far  a  clear  notion  attached  to  them  that  they  denote  some 
thing  else  than  a  thing.  They  thus  avoid  the  question  how  the 
thing  acts  on  other  things  after  its  transition  has  been  effected.  But 
in  that  case  they  are  liable  to  the  objection,  familiar  to  the  old  Meta- 
physic  :  «  attributa  non  separantur  a  substantiis.'  No  state,  E,  can  so 
far  detach  itself  from  the  Thing  A,  of  which  it  was  a  state,  as  to  subsist 
even  for  an  infinitesimal  moment  between  A  and  B,  as  a  state  of 
neither,  and  then  to  unite  itself  with  B  in  order  to  become  its  state. 

The  same  remark  would  apply  if  that  which  passed  from  A  to  B 
were  supposed,  by  a  change  of  expression,  to  be  an  action,  and  thus 
not  a  state  but  an  event.  No  event  can  detach  itself  from  the  A, 
in  a  change  of  which  it  consists,  and  leave  this  A  unchanged  behind 
it  in  order  to  make  its  way  independently  to  B.  According  to  this 
conception  of  it,  so  far  as  it  is  a  possible  conception  at  all,  the  action 
thus  supposed  to  transfer  itself  would  simply  be  the  whole  process  of 
efficient  causation  which  it  is  the  problem  to  explain,  not  a  con 
dition,  in  itself  intelligible,  which  would  account  for  the  result  being 
brought  about. 

And  after  all  these  inadmissible  representations  would  not  even 
bring  the  advantage  they  were  meant  to  bring.  As  in  regard  to  the 
transition  of  independent  causative  things,  so  in  regard  to  the  transi 
tion  of  the  state  or  event  E  from  A  to  B  the  old  question  would 
recur.  Granting  that  E  could  separate  itself  from  A,  what  gave  it  its 
direction  at  the  particular  moment  to  B,  rather  than  to  C  ?  If  we  as 
sume  that  A  has  given  it  this  direction,  we  presuppose  the  same 
process  of  causative  action  as  taking  place  between  A  and  E  for 
which  we  have  not  yet  found  an  intelligible  account  as  taking  place 
between  A  and  B.  Nor  is  this  all.  Since  it  will  not  be  merely  on 
B  and  C,  but  presumably  on  many  other  Beings  that  A  will  put 
forth  its  activity,  we  shall  have  to  ask  the  further  question  what  it  is 
that  at  a  given  moment  determines  A  to  impart  to  E  the  direction 
towards  B  and  not  towards  C,  or  towards  C  and  not  towards  B.  An 
answer  to  this  question  could  only  be  found  in  the  assumption  that 
already  at  this  moment  A  is  subject  to  some  action  of  B,  and  not  at 
the  same  time  to  any  action  of  C,  and  that  there  thus  arises  in  it  the 


IO4  Of  the  Nature  of  Physical  Action.         [BOOK  i. 

counter-action,  in  the  exercise  of  which  it  now  enjoins  upon  E  the 
transition  to  B  and  not  to  C.  Thus  for  the  second  time  we  should 
have  to  presuppose  an  action  which  we  do  not  understand  before  we 
could  present  to  ourselves  so  much  as  the  possibility  of  that  con 
dition  which  is  no  more  than  the  preliminary  to  a  determinate  action. 

Finally  it  is  important  to  realise  how  completely  impossible  is  the 
innocent  assumption  that  the  transferred  E  will  all  of  a  sudden  be 
come  a  state  of  B,  when  once  it  has  completed  its  journey  to  B. 
Had  this  homeless  state  once  arrived  at  the  metaphysical  place  which 
B  occupies,  it  would  indeed  be  there,  but  what  would  follow  from 
that  ?  Not  even  that  it  would  remain  there.  It  might  continue  its 
mysterious  journey  to  infinity  and,  as  it  was  once  a  no-man's  state,  so 
remain.  For  the  mere  purpose  of  keeping  it  in  its  course,  we  must 
make  the  yet  further  supposition  of  an  arresting  action  of  B  upon  it. 
And  given  this  singular  notion,  it  would  still  be  a  long  way  to  the 
consequence  that  E,  being  an  independent  state,  not  belonging  to 
anything  in  particular,  should  not  only  somehow  attach  itself  to  the 
equally  independent  being  B>  but  should  become  a  state  of  this  B 
itself,  an  affection  or  change  of  B.  These  accumulated  difficulties 
make  it  clear  that  the  coming  to  pass  of  a  causative  action  can  never 
be  explained  by  the  transfer  of  any  influence,  but  that  what  we  call 
such  a  transfer  is  nothing  but  a  designation  of  that  which  has  taken 
place  in  the  still  unexplained  process  of  causation  or  which  may  be 
regarded  as  its  result. 

57.  Apart  from  its  being  wholly  unfruitful,  the  view  of  which  we 
have  been  speaking  has  become  positively  mischievous  through  pre 
judices  which  very  naturally  attach  themselves  to  it.  It  treats  the 
transmitted  effect  E  as  one  ready-made,  and  merely  notices  the 
change  on  the  part  of  the  things  of  which  incidentally  it  becomes  a 
state.  No  doubt  there  is  a  tacit  expectation  that,  upon  its  being 
carried  over  to  B,  many  further  incidents  will  there  follow  in  its  train 
of  which  no  more  explicit  account  is  taken.  But  in  order  that  the 
view  may  have  any  sort  of  clearness,  it  must  in  any  case  assume  that 
B  will  afford  to  ^on  its  arrival  the  same  possibility  of  reception  and  of 
existence  in  it  which  was  offered  it  by  A.  There  thus  arise  jointly  the 
notions  that  the  effect  must  be  the  precise  counterpart  of  its  cause  or  at 
least  resemble1  it,  and  that  all  beings,  between  which  a  reciprocal  action 
is  to  be  possible,  must  be  qualified  for  it  by  homogeneity  of  nature. 

1  ['  Gleich  oder  doch  ahnlich  sein  miisse.'  Cp.  note  on  '  Gleichheit,'  §  19  supra. 
Sect  59  makes  it  clear  that  the  term  'gleich'  does  not  merely  refer  to  the  alleged 
equality  of  cause  and  effect.] 


CHAPTER  v.]         Are  Causes  and  Effect  equal  f  105 

Our  previous  considerations  compel  us  to  contradict  these  views  at 
every  point.  No  thing  is  passive  or  receptive  in  the  sense  of  its  being 
possible  for  it  to  take  to  itself  any  ready-made  state  from  without 
as  an  accession  to  its  nature.  For  everything  which  is  supposed  to 
arise  in  it  as  a  state,  there  is  some  essential  and  indispensable  co 
operating  condition  in  its  own  nature.  It  is  only  jointly  with  this 
condition  that  an  external  impact  can  form  the  sufficient  reason  which 
determines  the  kind  and  form  of  the  resulting  change.  So  long  as 
there  is  speaking  generally  a  certain  justification,  owing  to  that  pecu 
liarity  of  the  cases  contemplated  which  we  mentioned  above,  for 
treating  one  thing  A  par  excellence  as  the  cause,  a  second  B  as  the 
sustainer  of  the  effect  or  as  the  scene  of  its  manifestation,  in  such 
cases  we  shall  even  find  that  the  form  of  the  effect  produced  by  A 
depends  in  quite  a  preponderating  degree  on  the  nature  of  the  B, 
which  suffers  it.  It  is  only  to  forms  of  occurrence  which  are  pos 
sible  and  appropriate  to  this  its  nature  that  B  allows  itself  to  be  con 
strained  by  external  influences.  It  is  little  more  than  the  deter 
mination  of  the  degrees  in  which  these  occurrences  are  to  present 
themselves  that  is  dependent  on  corresponding  varieties  in  the  ex 
ternal  exciting  causes.  This  is  the  case  not  only  with  living  beings, 
but  with  inanimate  bodies.  Upon  one  and  the  same  blow  one 
changes  its  form  yieldingly,  another  splits  into  fragments,  a  third  falls 
into  continuous  vibrations,  some  explode.  What  each  does  is  the 
consequence  of  its  completely  determinate  structure  and  constitution 
upon  occasion  of  the  outward  excitement. 

This  being  so,  if  it  is  improper  to  speak  of  a  transmission  of  a 
ready-made  effect,  it  is  still  more  so  to  speak  of  a  universal  identity 
in  kind  and  degree1  of  cause  with  effect.  It  would  in  itself  be  an 
inexactness,  to  begin  with,  to  try  to  establish  an  equation  between  the 
'  cause '  (Ursache),  which  is  a  Thing,  and  the  effect  which  is  a  state 
or  an  occurrence.  All  that  could  be  attempted  would  be  to  maintain 
that  what  takes  place  in  the  one  '  cause '  considered  as  active  is 
identical  with  that  which  will  take  place  in  the  other  considered  as 
passive;  or,  to  put  the  proposition  more  correctly,  considering  the 
number  of  objects  which  are  equally  entitled  to  be  causes,  each 
will  produce  in  the  other  the  same  state  in  which  it  was  itself.  Ex 
pressed  in  this  form,  we  might  easily  be  misled  into  looking  upon  it 
as  in  fact  a  universal  truth.  The  science  of  mechanics,  at  least,  in 
the  distribution  of  motions  from  one  body  to  another,  puts  a  number 
of  instances  at  command  which  would  admit  of  being  reduced  to  this 
1  [' Gleichheit,'  v.  note  on  p.  104.] 


io6  Of  the  Nature  of  Physical  Action.         [BOOK  i. 

point  of  view  and  which  might  awaken  the  conjecture  that  other 
occurrences  of  a  different  kind  would  upon  investigation  be  found 
explicable  in  the  same  way.  Against  this  delusion  I  must  recall  the 
previous  expression  of  my  conviction ;  that  even  in  cases  where  as  a 
matter  of  fact  a  perfectly  identical  reciprocal  action,  Z,  is  exercised 
between  A  and  B>  it  yet  cannot  arise  in  the  way  of  a  transmission  of 
a  ready-made  state,.  Z\  that  what  takes  place  in  A  and  B  is  even  in 
these  cases  always  the  production  anew  of  a  Z,  conformably  with  the 
necessity  with  which  Z  under  the  action  of  B  arises  out  of  the  nature 
of  A,  and  under  the  action  of  A  arises  out  of  the  nature  of  B\  that, 
while  it  is  a  possible  case,  which  our  theory  by  no  means  excludes, 
that  these  two  actions  should  be  the  same ;  their  equality  is  not  a 
universal  condition  which  we  are  to  consider  in  the  abstract  as  essen 
tial  to  the  occurrence  of  any  reciprocal  action. 

58.  The  fatal  error,  on  which  we  have  been  dwelling,  is  not  one  to 
be  lightly  passed  over.  The  conviction  must  be  established  that  of 
the  alleged  identity  between  cause  and  effect  nothing  is  left  but  the 
more  general  truth  with  which  we  are  familiar.  This  truth  is  that 
the  natures  of  the  Things  which  act  on  each  other,  the  inner  states  in 
which  for  the  moment  they  happen  to  be  and  the  exact  relation 
which  prevails  between  them — that  all  this  forms  the  complete 
'  reason '  from  which  the  resulting  effect  as  a  whole  issues.  Even 
that  this  consequence  is  contained  in  its  reason  is  more  than  we  should 
be  entitled  to  say,  unless  we  at  least  conceive  as  immediately  involved 
in  the  nature  of  the  things  and  already  in  living  operation  those 
highest  grounds  of  determination,  according  to  which  it  is  decided 
what  consequence  shall  follow  from  what  reason  in  the  actual  world. 
And  this  tacit  completion  of  our  thought  would  emphatically  not  lead 
back  to  the  view  which  we  are  here  combating.  For  of  what  is  con 
tained  in  those  highest  conditions  which  determine  what  shall 
emanate  from  what,  in  the  actual  world,  as  consequent  from  cause  or 
reason,  we  have  not  in  fact  the  knowledge  which  we  might  here  be 
inclined  to  claim.  There  is  nothing  to  warrant  the  assurance  that  it 
is  exclusively  by  general  laws,  the  same  in  innumerable  instances  of 
their  application,  that  to  each  state  of  facts,  as  it  may  at  any  time 
stand,  the  new  state,  which  is  to  be  its  consequence,  is  adjusted.  It 
is  an  assurance  in  which  the  wish  is  father  to  the  thought.  It 
naturally  arises  out  of  our  craving  for  knowledge,  for  it  is  doubtless 
only  upon  this  supposition  that  any  consequence  can  be  derived 
analytically  from  its  '  reason '  or  be  understood  as  an  instance  of  a 
general  characteristic. 


CHAPTER  v.]  Ultimate  Laws  Synthetic.  107 

But  what  is  there  to  exclude  ' in  limine'  the  other  possibility;  that 
some  one  plan,  which  in  the  complex  of  reality  only  once  completes 
itself  and  nowhere  hovers  as  a  universal  law  over  an  indefinite 
number  of  instances,  should  assign  to  each  state  of  facts  that  con 
sequence  which  belongs  to  it  as  a  further  step  in  the  realisation  of 
this  one  history— so  belongs  to  it,  however,  but  once  at  this  definite 
point  of  the  whole,  never  again  at  any  other  point  ?  On  that  suppo 
sition  indeed  our  knowledge  would  no  longer  confront  reality  with 
the  proud  feeling  that  it  can  easily  assign  its  place  to  everything  that 
occurs  in  it,  as  a  known  instance  of  general  laws,  and  can  prede 
termine  analytically  the  consequence  which  must  attach  to  it.  The 
series  of  events  would  unfold  itself  for  us  synthetically;  an  object  of 
wondering  contemplation  and  experience,  but  not  an  object  of  actual 
understanding  till  we  should  have  apprehended  the  meaning  of  the 
whole,  as  distinguished  from  that  which  repeats  itself  within  the  whole 
as  a  general  mode  of  connexion  between  its  several  members. 

59.  We  will  not,  however,  pursue  these  ultimate  thoughts.  I 
merely  hint  at  them  here  in  order  to  dislodge  certain  widely-spread 
prejudices  from  their  resting-place,  but  cannot  now  work  them  out. 
We  will  take  it  for  granted  that  every  effect  in  the  world  admits  of 
being  apprehended  in  accordance  with  the  requirements  of  know 
ledge  as  the  conclusion  of  a  syllogism,  in  which  the  collective  data  of 
a  special  case  serve  as  minor  premiss  to  a  major  premiss  formed  by 
a  general  law.  Even  on  this  supposition  it  would  still  be  an  un 
warrantable  undertaking  to  seek  to  limit  the  content  of  that  general 
law  itself  and  that  relation  between  its  constituent  members  which  is 
supposed  to  serve  as  a  model  for  the  connexion  between  the  facts 
given  in  the  minor  premiss.  Supposing  this  content  of  the  law  to  be 
symbolised  by  a  +  £=/;  we  are  not  to  go  on  for  ever  attempting  to 
deduce  the  title  of  a  +  /3  to  be  accepted  as  the  reason  of/ from  higher 
and  more  general  laws.  Each  of  these  higher  laws  which  we  might 
have  reached  would  repeat  the  same  form  ^.+  ^=7;  and  would  com 
pel  us  at  last  to  the  confession  that  while  undoubtedly  a  conception 
of  the  individual  admits  of  being  derived  analytically  from  the  general, 
the  most  general  laws  are  given  synthetic  relations  of  reason  and  con 
sequent,  which  we  have  simply  to  recognise  without  in  turn  making 
their  recognition  dependent  on  the  fulfilment  of  any  conditions 
whatever.  No  doubt,  in  the  plan  of  the  world  as  a  whole  these  given 
relations  are  not  isolated,  unconnected,  data.  Any  one  who  was  able 
to  apprehend  and  express  this  highest  idea  would  find  them  bound 
together,  not  indeed  necessarily  by  a  logical  connexion ;  but  by  an 


io3  Of  the  Nature  of  Physical  Action.          [BOOK  r. 

aesthetic  necessity  and  justice.  From  finite  knowledge  this  actual 
system  of  reality  is  hidden.  It  has  no  standard  at  command  for 
deciding  with  what  combination  a  +  /3  this  system  associates  a  con 
sequence  /,  to  what  other  combination  ax  +  /3X  it  forbids  every  con 
sequence.  In  judging  of  particular  phenomena  the  natural  sciences 
conform  to  this  sound  principle.  It  is  to  experience  alone  that  they 
look  for  enlightenment  as  to  all  those  simplest  and  most  primary 
modes  of  action  of  bodies  upon  each  other,  to  which  by  way  of  ex 
planation  they  reduce  the  individual  characteristics  of  the  given  cases. 

This  makes  us  wonder  the  more  at  the  general  inclination  to  ven 
ture  recklessly,  just  at  this  most  decisive  point,  upon  an  a  priori 
proposition  of  a  kind  from  which  science  would  shrink  if  it  were  a 
question  of  the  primary  laws  of  matter  and  motion,  and  to  make  the 
possibility  of  any  reciprocal  action  depend  on  identity  of  kind  and 
degree  \  comparability  or  likeness  on  the  part  of  the  agents  between 
which  it  is  to  take  place.  Where  this  identity  really  exists,  it  does 
not  help  to  explain  anything — neither  the  nature  of  the  effect  nor  the 
manner  in  which  it  is  brought  about.  For  our  minds,  no  doubt,  a 
and  a  upon  coming  together  form  the  sum  2a,  but  how  they  would 
behave  in  reality — whether  one  would  add  itself  to  the  other,  whether 
they  would  fuse  with  each  other,  would  cancel,  or  in  some  way  alter 
each  other — is  what  no  one  can  conjecture  on  the  ground  of  this 
precise  likeness  between  them.  As  little  can  we  conjecture  why 
they  should  act  upon  each  other  at  all  and  not  remain  completely 
indifferent.  In  spite  of  this  likeness  they  were,  on  the  supposition, 
two  mutually  independent  things  before  they  came  together.  Why 
their  likeness1  should  compel  them  to  become  susceptible  to  each 
other's  influence  is  far  less  immediately  intelligible  than  it  would  be 
that  difference  and  opposition  should  have  this  effect.  These  at 
least  imply  a  demand  for  an  adjustment  to  be  effected  by  a  new  event, 
whereas  from  an  existing  likeness  the  absence  of  any  reciprocal 
action  would  seem  the  thing  to  be  naturally  looked  for.  Such  con 
siderations  however  simply  settle  nothing.  All  that  we  can  be  certain 
of  is  the  complete  groundlessness  of  every  proposition  which  connects 
the  possibility  of  reciprocal  action,  between  things  with  any  other 
homogeneity  on  the  part  of  the  things  than  that  which  is  guaranteed 
by  the  fact  of  this  reciprocal  action.  To  connect  the  reciprocal  action 
with  this  homogeneity  is  an  identical  proposition.  If  the  things  act 
upon,  and  are  affected  by,  each  other,  they  have  just  this  in  common 
that  they  fall  under  the  conception  of  substance,  of  which  the  essence 

1  ['  Gleichheit,'  v.  note  on  §  57.    '  Equality'  would  not  suit  the  argument  here.] 


CHAPTER  v.]          A  ssumption  of  Homogeneity.  1 09 

is  determined  merely  by  these  two  predicates.  But  there  is  no  other 
obligation  to  any  further  uniformity  on  their  part  in  order  to  their 
admitting  of  subsumption  under  this  conception  of  substance. 

60.  There  have  been  two  directions  in  which  the  mischievous 
influence  of  the  prejudices  we  have  been  combating  has  chiefly 
asserted  itself.  One  of  its  natural  consequences  was  the  effort  to 
reduce  whatever  happens  to  a  single  common  denomination,  to 
discover  perhaps  in  spatial  motion,  at  present,  for  instance,  in  the 
favourite  form  of  vibration,  not  one  kind  of  event,  but  that  in  which 
all  events,  as  such,  consist ;  the  primary  process,  variations  of  which — 
none  of  them  being  more  than  variations  in  quantity — had  not  only 
to  afford  to  all  other  events,  differing  in  kind  and  form,  the  occasions 
for  their  occurrence,  but  to  produce  them  as  far  as  possible  entirely 
out  of  themselves,  as  an  accession  to  their  own  being,  though  indeed 
an  unintelligible  one.  This  impoverishment  of  the  universe,  by  re 
duction  of  its  whole  many-coloured  course  to  a  mere  distribution  of 
a  process  of  occurrence  which  is  always  identical,  was  in  fact  scarcely 
avoidable  if  every  effect  in  respect  of  all  that  it  contained  was  to  be 
the  analytical  consequence,  of  its  presuppositions.  It  is  enough  here 
to  have  raised  this  preliminary  protest  against  the  ontological  prin 
ciples  on  which  this  reduction  is  founded.  There  will  be  occasions 
later  for  enlarging  further  upon  the  objections  to  it. 

The  other  equally  natural  consequence  of  the  prejudice  in  question 
was  the  offence  taken  at  the  manifold  variety  in  the  natures  of  things. 
This  has  been  at  the  bottom  of  views  now  prevalent  on  many  ques 
tions,  and  especially  on  that  of  the  reciprocal  action  between  soul  and 
body.  On  this  point  ancient  philosophy  was  already  under  the  in 
fluence  of  the  misleading  view.  That *  like  can  only  be  known  by 
like  was  an  established  superstition  to  which  utterance  had  been  given 
before  the  relation  of  causality  and  reciprocal  action  became  an  object 
of  enquiry  in  its  more  general  aspect.  What  truth  there  may  be  in 
this  ancient  view  is  one  of  the  questions  that  must  be  deferred  for 
special  investigation ;  but  I  can  scarcely  pass  it  over  at  once,  for  do 
I  not  already  hear  the  appeal,  *  If  the  eye  were  not  of  the  nature  of 
the  sun,  how  could  it  behold  the  light2?'  But  the  finest  verses  do  * 
not  settle  any  metaphysical  question,  and  this  greatly  misapplied 
utterance  of  Goethe's  is  not  an  exception.  To  the  logical  analyst,  in 
search  for  clearness,  it  conveys  another  impression  than  to  the  sensi- 

1  ['Gleich.'] 

a  ['  War  nicht  das  Auge  sonnenhaft 

Wie  konnte  es  das  Licht  erblicken?' — Zahme  Xenien  IV.] 


T  T  o  Of  the  Nature  of  Physical  A  ction.  [BOOK  i. 

bility  that  demands  to  be  excited.  It  is  not  the  eye  at  all  that  sees 
the  sun  :  the  soul  sees  it.  Nor  is  it  the  sun  that  shines,  but  the  seen 
image *,  present  only  in  the  soul,  that  yields  to  the  soul  the  beautiful 
impression  of  illumination.  Light  in  that  sense  in  which  it  really 
issues  from  the  sun — the  systematic  vibratory  motions  of  the  ether — 
we  do  not  see  at  all,  but  there  supervenes  upon  it  owing  to  the  nature 
of  our  soul  the  new  phenomenon,  wholly  incomparable  with  it,  of 
luminous  clearness.  What  confirmation  then  could  there  be  in  Goethe's 
inspired  lines  for  the  assumption  that  like  can  only  be  known  by  like, 
kin  by  kin  ?  To  the  poet  it  is  no  reproach  that  he  should  have  seized 
and  expressed  a  general  truth  of  great  interest  in  a  beautiful  form, 
though  the  persuasive  force  of  that  form  of  expression  lies  less  in  its 
exactness  than  in  the  seductive  presentation  to  the  mind's  eye  of  a 
fascinating  image.  Perhaps  this  poet's  privilege  has  been  somewhat 
too  freely  used  in  these  charming  verses,  of  which  the  matter  is  false 
in  every  single  fibre ;  but  we  must  candidly  confess  what  we  all  feel, 
that  at  all  events  they  express  forcibly  and  convincingly  the  pregnant 
thought  of  a  universal  mutual  relativity  which  connects  all  things  in 
the  world,  and  among  them  the  knowing  spirit  with  the  object  of  its 
knowledge,  and  which  is  neither  less  real  nor  less  important  if  it  is 
not  present  in  the  limited  and  one-sided  form  of  a  homogeneity  of 
essence.  The  truth  on  the  contrary  is  that  there  is  no  limit  to  the 
possible  number  and  variety  of  the  ties  constituted  by  this  relativity, 
by  the  mutual  susceptibility  and  reciprocal  action  of  things.  The 
metaphysician,  who  stands  up  for  this  wealth  of  variety  against  every 
levelling  prejudice  which  would  attenuate  it  without  reason,  is  cer 
tainly  in  deeper  sympathy  with  the  spirit  of  the  great  poet  than  are 
those  who  use  this  utterance,  itself  open  to  some  objection,  as  a 
witness  in  favour  of  a  wholly  objectionable  scientific  mistake. 

61.  So  much  by  way  of  digression.  Let  us  return  to  the  object 
before  us.  It  was  impossible,  we  found,  in  the  case  of  two  causes 
operating  on  each  other,  to  represent  anything  as  passing  from  each 
to  the  other  which  would  explain  their  reciprocal  influence.  Yet 
it  appeared  to  be  only  under  this  condition  that  the  conception  of 
causal  action  was  applicable.  The  only  alternative  left,  therefore,  is 
to  render  the  course  of  the  universe  explicable,  without  presupposing 
this  impossible  action. 

The  first  attempt  in  this  direction  is  the  doctrine  of  Occasionalism — 

1  [I  know  of  no  other  word  than  '  image '  by  which  '  Bild '  can  here  be  rendered, 
but  it  must  be  understood  that  no  meaning  of '  likeness '  attaches  to  the  word  in 
this  connexion.] 


CHAPTER  v.]     Occasionalism  not  a  complete  theory.  \  1 1 

the  doctrine  which  would  treat  a  relation  C  arising  between  A  and  B 
only  as  the  occasion  upon  which  in  A  and  B,  without  any  mutual 
influence  of  the  two  upon  each  other,  those  changes  take  place  into 
a  and  /3,  which  we  commonly  ascribe  to  reciprocal  action  between 
them.  In  this  simple  form  there  would  be  little  in  the  doctrine  to 
excite  our  attention.  It  is  easy  to  see  that  an  occasion  which  cannot 
be  used  is  no  occasion.  But  in  order  to  be  used,  it  must  be  observable 
by  those  who  are  to  make  use  of  it.  If  A  and  B,  upon  an  occasion  C, 
are  to  behave  otherwise  than  they  would  have  done  upon  an  occasion 
y,  they  must  already  in  case  C  be  otherwise  affected  than  they  would 
have  been  in  case  y.  That  this  should  be  so  is  only  thinkable  on 
supposition  that  some  action,  wherever  it  may  have  come  from,  has 
already  taken  effect  upon  them.  The  occasion,  accordingly,  which 
was  to  make  it  possible  for  the  active  process  to  be  dispensed  with, 
presupposes  it  on  the  contrary  as  having  already  taken  place.  Other 
wise  the  occasion  could  not  serve  as  an  occasion  for  a  further  reaction. 
Occasionalism  therefore  cannot  be  accepted  as  a  metaphysical  theory. 
The  notion  that  it  can  is  one  that  has  only  been  ascribed  to  me  by  a 
misinterpretation  which  I  wish  expressly  to  guard  against.  As  I  re 
marked  above,  I  can  only  regard  'Occasionalism'  as  a  precept  of 
Methodology,  which  for  the  purpose  of  definite  enquiries  excludes  an 
insoluble  question— one  at  any  rate  which  does  not  press  for  a  solu 
tion — in  order  to  concentrate  effort  upon  the  only  attainable,  or  only 
desirable,  end.  If  it  is  a  question  of  the  reciprocal  action  between 
soul  and  body,  it  is  of  importance  to  investigate  the  particular  spiritual 
processes  that  are  in  fact  so  associated  with  particular  bodily  ones 
according  to  general  rules  that  the  manifold  and  complex  occurrences, 
presented  to  us  by  our  inner  experience,  become  reducible  to  simple 
fundamental  relations,  and  thus  an  approximate  forecast  of  the  future 
becomes  possible.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  for  this  purpose  a  matter 
of  indifference  to  know  what  are  the  ultimate  means  by  which  the 
connexion  between  the  two  series  of  events  is  brought  about.  Thus 
for  this  question  as  to  body  and  soul— and  it  was  this  that,  as  a  mat 
ter  of  history,  the  doctrine  of  Occasionalism  was  framed  to  meet— it 
may  be  as  serviceable  as  for  Physics,  which  itself  is  content  to  enquire 
in  the  first  instance  into  the  different  modes  of  connexion  between 
different  things,  not  into  the  way  in  which  the  connexion  is  brought 
about.  Metaphysics,  however,  having  this  latter  problem  for  its  ex 
press  object,  cannot  be  satisfied  with  passing  it  over,  but  must  seek 
its  solution. 

62.  Meanwhile  I  may  mention  a  special  expression  of  this  view, 


1 1 2  Of  the  Nat^ire  of  Physical  Action.  [BOOK  i. 

which  is  not  without  some  plausibility.  '  Why,'  it  will  be  asked,  '  if  it 
is  once  allowed  that  the  relation  C  between  A  and  B  is  the  complete 
reason  of  a  definite  consequent  F,  do  we  go  on  to  seek  for  some 
thing  further  by  which  the  sequence  of  this  consequent  is  to  be  con 
ditioned  ?  What  power  in  the  world  could  there  be  which  would  be 
able  to  hinder  the  fulfilment  of  a  universal  law  of  nature,  if  all  con 
ditions  are  fulfilled  to  the  realisation  of  which  the  law  itself  attaches 
the  realisation  of  its  consequent?'  Such  is  the  argument  that  will  be 
used,  and  it  may  be  supplemented  by  a  previous  admission  of  our 
own,  that  whenever  there  is  an^  appearance  as  if  the  occurrence  of 
a  consequent,  of  which  all  the  conditions  are  present,  were  yet  de 
layed,  pending  a  final  impulse  of  realisation,  it  will  always  be  found 
on  closer  observation  that  in  fact  the  sum  of  conditions  was  not  com 
pleted  and  that  it  was  for  its  completion,  not  for  the  mere  realisation 
of  something  of  which  the  cause  was  already  completely  given,  that 
the  missing  detail  required  to  be  added  *. 

This  argument,  however,  is  only  a  new  form  of  an  old  error,  and 
our  rejoinder  can  do  no  more  than  repeat  what  is  familiar.  The 
assertion  that  there  obtains  a  general  law,  which  not  only  connects 
necessary  truths  with  each  other  but  reality  with  reality,  is  simply  an 
expression  of  the  recollection,  observation,  and  expectation  that  in  all 
cases  where  the  condition  forming  the  hypothesis  of  the  law  has  been, 
is,  or  will  be  realised,  the  event  forming  its  conclusion  has  occurred, 
is  occurring,  or  will  occur.  We  are  therefore  not  entitled  to  treat  the 
validity  of  the  law  as  an  independently  thinkable  fact,  to  which  its 
supervening  fulfilment  attaches  itself  as  a  necessary  consequence. 
Rather  it  is  simply  the  observed  or  expected  fulfilment  itself,  and  we 
should  have  to  fall  back  on  the  barren  proposition  that  wherever  the 
law  fulfils  itself  it  does  fulfil  itself,  while  the  question  how  this  result 
comes  about  would  remain  wholly  unanswered.  Or,  to  express  the 
same  error  in  another  way ;  were  we  really  to  conceive  the  law  to  be 
valid  merely  as  a  law,  it  would  follow  that  it  was  only  hypothetically 
valid,  and  was  not  in  a  state  of  constant  fulfilment :  for  in  the  latter 
case  it  would  be  no  law,  but  an  eternal  fact.  Even  on  this  supposition 
it  will  only  fulfil  itself  when  the  conditions  involved  in  its  antecedent, 
which  form  the  sole  legitimation  of  its  conclusion,  have  been  actually 
realised.  If  then  the  force  compelling  the  realisation  proceeded  from 
the  law,  this  must  be  incited  to  the  manifestation  of  its  force  by  the 
given  case  of  its  application,  which  implies  that  it  must  itself  be 
otherwise  affected  in  that  case  than  in  the  case  where  it  is  not 

1  [Cp.  §  53-] 


CHAPTER  V.]  A    '  Lo,W*   U0t  d    CaUSC.  II* 

applicable.  We  should  thus  be  clearly  presupposing  an  action  exer 
cised  upon  the  law  itself  in  order,  by  help  of  the  power  of  the  law,  to 
dispense  with  the  action  of  the  things  upon  each  other. 

If,  then,  we  decide  to  give  up  these  peculiar  views  in  which  the  law 
is  treated  as  a  thing  that  can  act  and  suffer ;  if  we  allow  that,  whatever 
be  the  ordinance  of  the  law,  it  must  always  be  the  things  that  take 
upon  themselves  to  execute  it,  then  A  and  £,  at  the  moment  when 
they  find  themselves  in  the  relation  C,  must  be  in  some  way  aware  of 
this  fact  and  must  be  affected  by  it  otherwise  than  they  would  be  by 
any  other  relation  y,  not  at  present  obtaining.  The  upshot  of  these, 
considerations  is  that  neither  the  validity  of  a  general  law  nor  the 
mere  subsistence  of  a  relation  between  two  things  is  enough  to  ex 
plain  the  new  result  thereupon  arising  without  the  mediation  of  some 
action.  On  the  contrary,  what  we  call  in  this  connexion  the  action 
supervening  in  consequence  of  the  relation,  is  in  fact  only  the  reaction 
upon  another  action  that  precedes  it  and  to  which  the  things  had 
already  been  subject  from  each  other.  It  was  our  mistake  to  look 
upon  this  as  a  relation  merely  subsisting  but  not  yet  operative,  a 
relation  merely  introducing  and  conditioning  the  causative  action. 
The  recognition  of  this  truth  is  of  fundamental  importance.  We 
shall  be  often  occupied  in  the  sequel  with  its  further  exposition. 
This  preliminary  statement  of  it  may  serve  to  throw  light  on  the 
complete  untenableness  of  Occasionalism  even  in  this  refined  form 
and  to  show  that  it  can  as  little  dispense  as  can  any  other  theory  with 
the  problematical  process  of  causative  action,  by  help  of  which  alone 
it  can  explain  how  it  is  that  a  law  is  alternately  fulfilled  and  not 
fulfilled  according  as  its  conditions  are  fulfilled  or  no. 

63.  Another  series  of  kindred  attempts  may  be  grouped  under  the 
name  given  by  Leibnitz  to  the  most  elaborate  of  them,  that  of  the 
'  Pre-established  Harmony.'  In  laying  down  the  principle  that  '  the 
Monads  are  without  windows,'  Leibnitz  starts  from  the  supposition  of 
a  relation  of  complete  mutual  exclusion  between  the  simple  essences 
on  which  he  builds  his  universe.  The  expression  is  one  that  I  cannot 
admire,  because  I  can  find  no  reason  for  it,  while  it  summarily  excludes 
a  possibility  as  to  which- at  any  rate  a  question  still  remained  to  be 
asked.  That  Monads,  the  powers  of  which  the  world  consists,  are 
not  empty  spaces  which  become  penetrated  by  ready-made  states 
through  openings  that  are  left  in  them,  was  a  truth  that  did  not  need 
explanation,  but  this  proved  nothing  against  the  possibility  of  a  less 
palpable  commerce  between  them,  to  which  the  name  'reciprocal 
action '  might  have  been  fitly  applied.  It  would  not  therefore  have 

VOL.  i.  i 


1 1 4  Of  the  Nature  of  Physical  Action.          [BOOK  i. 

caused  me  any  surprise  if  Leibnitz  had  employed  the  same  figure  in 
an  exactly  opposite  way  and  had  taught  that  the  Monads  had  windows, 
through  which  their  inner  states  were  communicated  to  each  other. 
There  would  not  have  been  less  reason,  perhaps  there  would  have 
been  more,  for  this  assertion  than  for  that  which  he  preferred.  To 
let  that  pass,  however,  when  once  reciprocal  action  had  been  rejected, 
theje  was  nothing  left  for  explanation  of  the  de  facto  correspondence 
which  takes  place  between  the  states  of  things  but  an  appeal  to  a 
higher  all-encompassing  bond,  to  the  deity  which  had  designed  their 
developments.  Before  the  understanding  of  God  there  hover  innu 
merable  images  of  possible  worlds :  each  of  them  so  ordered  in  the 
multitude  of  its  details  as  is  required  with  consistent  necessity  by 
certain  eternal  laws  of  truth,  binding  for  God  himself  and  not  alter 
able  at  his  pleasure.  In  this  inner  arrangement  of  each  world  God 
can  alter  nothing.  If  in  the  various  worlds  his  wisdom  finds 
various  degrees  of  perfection,  he  yet  cannot  unite  their  scattered 
superiorities  into  one  wholly  perfect  world.  His  will  can  only  grant 
for  that  one  which  is  relatively  most  perfect,  just  as  it  is,  admission 
to  reality. 

The  further  elaboration  of  the  doctrine  might  be  looked  for  in 
either  of  two  different  directions.  It  might  have  been  expected  either 
to  take  the  line  of  confining  the  original  determination  to  the  general 
laws  governing  the  world  that  has  been  called  into  existence,  as 
distinct  from  the  sum  of  the  cases  in  which  these  laws  may  be  applied, 
or  that  of  supposing  these  cases  of  their  application  also  to  have  been 
once  for  all  irrevocably  determined.  The  first  assumption  would  only 
have  led  back  to  the  embarrassments  of  Occasionalism  just  noticed. 
Leibnitz  decided  unhesitatingly  for  the  second.  Just  as  in  our  first 
parents  the  whole  series  of  descendants  is  contained,  with  all  details 
of  their  individuality,  with  their  acts  and  destinies,  so  is  every  natural 
occurrence,  down  to  the  direction  which  the  falling  rain-drop  takes 
to-day  in  the  storm,  completely  predetermined.  But  this  is  not  to  be 
understood  as  if  the  manifold  constituent  agents  of  the  world  by  their 
co-operation  at  each  moment  brought  about  what  is  contained  in  the 
next  moment  of  the  world's  existence.  For  each  single  constituent 
the  series  of  all  its  states  is  established  from  the  beginning,  and  the 
inner  developments  of  all  take  place  after  the  manner  of  a  parallel 
independent  course,  without  interference  with  each  other.  The  cor 
respondence  which  is  nevertheless  maintained  between  them  is  the 
unavoidable  consequence  of  their  first  arrangement,  if  we  consider  the 
world  as  a  creation  of  the  divine  design,  or  simply  their  de  facto 


CHAPTER  v.j  Determinism  of  Leibnitz.  1 1 5 

character,  if  we  consider  it  merely  as  an  unalterable  object  of  the 
divine  intellect. 

64.  This  notable  theory  impresses  us  in  different  ways,  according 
as  one  or  other  of  its  features  is  put  in  clearer  relief.  The  doctrine 
of  a  thorough  mutual  relation  between  all  elements  of  the  universe, 
and  the  other  doctrine  of  the  independence  of  those  elements,  are  in 
it  alike  carried  to  a  degree  of  exaggeration  at  which  both  conceptions 
seem  to  approach  the  unintelligible.  The  whole  content  of  the 
Universe  and  of  its  history  is  supposed  to  be  present  to  the  divine 
understanding  at  one  and  the  same  time  as  a  system  of  elements 
mutually  and  unalterably  conditioned  in  manifold  ways,  so  that  what 
appears  in  time  as  following  an  antecedent  is  not  less  the  condition  of 
that  antecedent  than  is  any  antecedent  the  condition  of  that  which  it 
precedes.  Thus  Leibnitz  could  say  that  not  merely  do  wind  and 
waves  impel  the  ship  but  the  motion  of  the  ship  is  the  condition  of  the 
motion  of  wind  and  waves..  The  immediate  consequence  of  thus 
substituting  the  connexion  of  a  system  of 'consistent  ideas  for  a 
connexion  in  the  way  of  active  causation  is  to  take  away  all  intelli 
gible  meaning  from  the  Reality  which  God  is  supposed  to  have  vouch 
safed  to  this  world,  while  he  denied  it  to  the  other  imaginary  worlds 
which  were  present  to  his  intellect  as  consistent  articulations  of  what 
was  contained  in  other  ideas.  The  development  in  time  adds  nothing 
to  the  eternally  predetermined  order.  It  merely  presents  it  as  a 
succession.  What  new  relation  then  is  constituted  for  God  or  the 
world  by  this  reality,  so  that  it  should  count  for  something  more  and 
better  than  the  previous  presentation  of  the  idea  of  a  world  to  the 
mind  of  God?  It  is  of  no  avail  to  say  that  then  the  world  was 
merely  thought  of,  whereas  now  it  is.  It  is  not  open  to  us  con 
sistently  with  the  system  of  Leibnitz,  as  it  might  be  elsewhere,  simply 
to  recognise  this  antithesis  as  one  that  is  given,  however  hard  to  define. 
When  the  supposition  is  that  of  a  wise  will,  which  had  the  alternative 
of  allowing  reality  to  an  idea  or  of  refusing  it,  the  question,  what  new 
Good  could  arise  merely  by  the  realisation  of  what  previously  was 
present  to  Thought,  must  be  plainly  answered. 

If  the  artist  is  not  satisfied  with  the  completed  image  of  the  work, 
which  hovers  before  his  mind's  eye,  but  wishes  to  see  it  in  bodily  form 
with  the  bodily  eye ;  or  if  the  hearer  of  a  tale  betrays  his  interest  by 
enquiring  whether  it  is  true ;  what  is  the  source  of  the  craving  for 
reality  in  these  two  cases,  which  we  may  compare  with  the  case  in 
question  ?  In  the  first  case,  I  think,  it  is  simply  this,  that  there  is  a 
tacit  expectation  of  some  growth  in  the  content  of  the  work  of  art 

I   2 


1 1 6  Of  the  Nature  of  Physical  Action.         [BOOK  i. 

arising  from  its  realisation.  To  walk  about  in  the  building  as  actually 
built  is  something  different  from  the  range  of  imagination  through  the 
details  of  the  plan.  Not  only  the  materials  of  the  building,  but  the 
world  outside  it,  among  the  influences  of  which — influences  subject  to 
incalculable  change — the  work,  when  realised,  is  placed,  create  a 
multitude  of  new  impressions,  which  the  inventive  fancy  might  indeed 
hope  for  but  without  being  able  to  create  the  impressions  themselves. 
This  advantage  of  realisation  is  one  that  Leibnitz  could  not  have  had 
in  view  since  his  theory  of  the  Pre-establishment  of  all  that  is  con 
tained  in  the  world  had  excluded  the  possibility  of  anything  new  as 
well  as  the  reciprocal  action  from  which  alone  anything  new  could 
have  issued.  The  other  wish — the  wish  that  a  story  heard  may  be 
true  or  (in  other  cases)  that  it  may  not  be  true,  arises  from  the  interest 
which  the  heart  feels  in  the  depicted  relations  of  the  figures  brought 
on  the  scene.  It  is  not  enough  that  every  happy  moment  of  spiritual 
life  should  merely  be  a  thought  of  the  Poet  and  an  enjoyment  im 
parted  to  the  hearer,  of  which  the  exhibition  of  unreal  forms  is  the 
medium.  We  wish  these  forms  themselves  to  live,  in  order  that  it 
might  be  possible  for  them  also  to  enjoy  the  good  which  delights  us 
in  the  imaginary  tale.  In  like  manner  we  console  ourselves  with  the 
unreality  of  what  we  hear  or  read,  if  we  are  distressed  by  the  images 
presented  to  us  of  unhappiness  or  wrong. 

This  line  of  thought  was  not  excluded  by  the  conception  with  which 
Leibnitz  began,  but  it  could  only  be  worked  out  on  one  supposition. 
To  give  reality  to  an  idea  of  a  world  was  only  worth  doing  if  the  sum 
of  the  Good  was  increased  by  the  sum  of  those  who  might  become 
independent  centres  of  its  enjoyment ;  if,  instead  of  that  which  was 
the  object  of  God's  approval  remaining  simply  His  thought,  the 
beings,  of  whom  the  image  and  conception  were  included  in  the 
approved  plan  of  a  world,  were  enabled  themselves  to  think  it  and 
have  experience  of  it  in  their  lives.  I  reserve  the  question  how  far 
this  view  corresponds  with  Leibnitz'  theory.  Alien  to  him  it  was  not. 
Something  at  least  analogous  to  spiritual  life  was  accepted  by  him,  for 
whatever  reason,  as  the  concrete  import  of  the  being  which  his 
Monads  possessed. 

65.  This  line  of  thought,  however,  which  alone  seems  to  me  to 
correspond  to  the  notion  of  an  admission  to  reality  of  a  world  other 
wise  only  present  in  idea  to  God,  is  scarcely  consistent  with  the  com 
plete  pre-establishment  of  all  events.  When  we  turn  to  the  implications 
of  natural  science,  we  find  that  it  too,  if  it  allows  no  limits  to  its 
principle  of  causality  and  denies  the  possibility  of  any  new  starting- 


CHAPTER  v.]    Determinism  how  far  implied  in  Science.     1 1 7 

point  for  events,  cannot  avoid  the  conclusion  that  every  detail  in  the 
established  course  of  the  universe  is  a  necessary  consequence  of  the 
past,  and  ultimately,  though  this  regress  can  never  be  completed,  of 
some  state  of  the  universe  which  it  decides  to  regard  as  the  primary 
state.  But  it  does  not  take  this  doctrine  to  mean  that  the  sum  of  all 
these  consequences  has  been  fixed  in  some  primary  providential 
computation.  The  consequences  are  supposed  really  to  come  into 
being  for  the  first  time,  and  the  validity  of  universal  laws  is  taken  to 
be  sufficient  to  account  for  their  realisation  without  any  such  pre- 
arrangement.  These  laws  are  enough  to  provide  for  limitation  to  a 
definite  direction  in  the  development  of  the  new  out  of  the  old.  In 
their  ultimate  consequences  the  two  doctrines  coincide  so  far  as  this, 
that  they  lead  to  the  belief  in  an  irrevocable  arrangement  of  all  events. 
Yet  in  the  actual  pursuit  of  physical  investigations  something  else 
seems  to  me  to  be  implied.  We  shrink  from  surrendering  ourselves 
to  this  last  deduction  from  the  causal  nexus.  No  natural  law,  as 
expressed  by  a  universal  hypothetical  judgment,  indicates  by  itself  the 
cases  in  which  it  comes  to  be  applied.  It  waits  for  the  requisite 
points  of  application  to  be  supplied  from  some  other  quarter. 

We  know,  of  course,  that  upon  supposition  of  the  universal 
validity  of  the  causal  nexus  neither  accident  nor  freedom  is  admis 
sible  ;  that  accordingly  what  remains  undetermined  in  our  conception 
of  the  law  cannot  be  really  undetermined ;  that  thus  every  later  point 
of  application  of  a  law  is  itself  only  a  product  of  earlier  applications. 
This  is  admitted  without  qualification  in  reference  to  every  limited 
section  of  reality,  since  behind  it  one  still  uninvestigated  may  be  con 
ceived  in  the  past,  as  to  which  silence  may  be  kept.  But  with  every 
inclination  to  treat  the  spiritual  life  in  its  turn  according  to  like 
principles,  we  shrink  from  pronouncing  flatly  that  the  whole  of 
reality,  including  the  history  of  spirits,  is  only  the  successive  unfold 
ing  of  consequences  absolutely  predetermined.  That  in  the  real 
passage  of  events  something  should  really  come  to  pass,  something 
new  which  previously  was  not ;  that  history  should  be  something  more 
than  a  translation  into  time  of  the  eternally  complete  content  of  an 
ordered  world  ;  this  is  a  deep  and  irrepressible  demand  of  our  spirit, 
under  the  influence  of  which  we  all  act  in  life.  Without  its  satis- 
faction  the  world  would  be,  not  indeed  unthinkable  and  self-contradic- 
tory,  but  unmeaning  and  incredible.  When  we  admit  the  universal 
validity  of  laws,  it  is  at  bottom  only  in  the  tacit  hope  that,  among  the 
changing  points  of  application  which  are  presented  to  those  la\\  s  in 
the  course  of  events,  there  may  turn  out  to  be  new  ones  introduced 


1 1 8  Of  the  Nature  of  Physical  A  ction.          [BOOK  i. 

from  which  the  consequences  of  the  laws  may  take  directions  not 
previously  determined.  Natural  sympathy,  therefore,  is  what  the 
Pre-established  Harmony  does  not  command.  Even  if  it  fulfilled  its 
metaphysical  purpose,  this  hypothesis  of  Leibnitz  would  have  an 
artificiality  which  would  prevent  it  from  commending  itself  to  our 
sense  of  probability.  I  admit  that  this  repugnance  rests  more  upon 
feeling  than  upon  theoretical  reasons ;  more  at  any  rate  than  upon 
such  reasons  as  fall  within  the  proper  domain  of  Metaphysics.  It 
remains,  therefore,  for  us  to  enquire  how  far  this  view  serves  the  pur 
pose  of  a  theoretical  explanation  of  the  universe. 

66.  In  each  single  Monad,  according  to  Leibnitz,  state  follows 
upon  state  through  an  immanent  action,  which  is  accepted  as  a  fact, 
unintelligible  indeed  but  free  from  contradiction.  It  was  only 
'  transeunt '  action  of  which  the  assumption  was  to  be  avoided.  If 
this  exclusion  of  transeunt  action  is  to  accord  with  the  facts,  the  two 
states  a  and  /3  of  the  Monads  A  and  B,  which  observation  exhibits 
to  us  as  apparent  products  of  a  reciprocal  action,  must  occur  in  the 
separate  courses  of  development  of  the  two  beings  at  the  same 
moment.  If  we  had  a  right  to  assume  that  a  was  separated  from  a 
previous  state  a  of  A  by  as  many  intervening  phases  as  /3  from 
a  state  b  corresponding  to  a,  we  should  not  need  to  ascribe  anything 
but  an  equal  velocity  to  the  progress  of  the  development  of  all 
Monads.  But  since  a  may  be  removed  from  a  by  a  larger  number 
of  phases  than  /3  from  £,  we  should  be  obliged  to  attribute  to  every 
single  Monad  its  special  velocity  of  development  in  order  to  under 
stand  the  coincidence  of  the  corresponding  states.  This  assumption 
does  not  seem  to  me  in  contradiction  with  the  fundamental  view 
which  governs  the  theory  in  question.  As  was  above  remarked,  the 
thought  of  Leibnitz  approximates  to  that  interpretation  of  becoming 
which  we  conceived  to  be  the  pre-supposition  of  Heraclitus :  once 
grant  that  the  being  of  every  Thing,  if  the  name  '  Thing  '  is  to  be 
accepted  for  a  closed  cycle  of  phases,  consists  in  a  constant  effort  to 
pass  from  one  state  to  another,  then  it  is  natural  that  different  things 
should  be  distinguished  from  each  other  not  merely  by  the  direction 
but  also  by  the  velocity  of  their  becoming,  i.e.  by  an  intensity  of  their 
being  or  reality  which,  if  it  is  to  express  itself  subject  to  the  form  of 
time,  will  appear  partly  at  least  as  velocity. 

I  cannot  recall  any  explanation  given  by  Leibnitz  on  this  point. 
He  might  have  refused  any  answer.  He  might  have  said  that  the 
hidden  rationality,  without  which  no  image  of  a  world  would  have 
been  possible  at  all,  had  provided  for  this  correspondence  of  all 


CHAPTER  V.] 


Monads  and  Clocks.  1 19 


occurrences  that  go  together.     Only  in  that  case  it  would  be  difficult 
to  say  how  the  whole  doctrine  was  distinguished  from  the  modest 
explanation,  that  everything  is  from  the  beginning  so  arranged  that 
the  universe  must  be  exactly  what  it  is.     The  feeling  which  Leibnitz 
had  of  the  necessity  of  accounting  in  some  way  for  the  correspond 
ence  is  betrayed,  I  think,  by  his  reference  to  the  example,  borrowed 
from  Geulinx,  of  the  two  clocks  which  keep  the  same  time ;  for  it 
was  scarcely  required  as  a  mere  illustration  of  the  meaning  of  his 
assertion,  which  is  simple  enough.     As  an  explanation,  however,  this 
comparison  is  of  no  avail.    Mutual  influence,  it  is  true,  the  two  clocks 
do  not  exercise.     But  in  order  that  they  should  at  every  moment 
point  to  the  same  time,  it  was  not  enough  that  the  artificer  ordered  it 
so  to  be.     And  on  the  other  hand  the  mechanism,  which  he  had  to 
impart  to  them  with  a  view  to  this  end,  is  according  to  its  idea  pre 
cisely  not  transferable  to  the  Monads,  shut  up  in  themselves  as  they 
are  supposed  to  be.     Each  of  the  two  clocks,  A  and  B,  is  a  system 
of  different,  mutually  connected  parts.     The  materials  of  which  they 
are  constructed,  as  well  as  the  movements  which  may  be  imparted  to 
these,  are  subject  to  general  mechanical  laws,  which  apply  to  one  as 
much  as  to  the  other.     From  them  it  follows  that  with  reference  to  a 
time,  which  is  measurable  according  to  the  same  standard  for  the  rate 
of  motion  of  A   and   B,  different  quantities  of  matter  can   be   so 
arranged  that  the  entire  systems,  A  and  B,  can  pass  at  the  same 
moments  into  constantly  corresponding  positions,  a  and  b,  a.  and  ft. 
But  that  which  in  this  case  carries  out  the  corresponding  transition  is 
nothing  but  the  '  transeunt '  action,  which  one  element  by  communi 
cation  of  its  force  and  motion  exercises  on  the  other.    The  independ 
ence  of  mutual  influence  on  the  part  of  the  two  clocks  is  compen 
sated  by  the  carefully  pre-arranged  influence  which  the  elements  of 
each  of  them  exercise  upon  each  other.     It  is  merely  the   placed 
therefore,  of  the  'transeunt'  action  that  is  shifted  by  this  comparison./ 
It  is  not  shown  that  it  can  be  dispensed  with  in  accounting  for  they 
correspondence  of  the  events. 

All  this  indeed  is  of  little  importance.  For  it  must  certainly  be 
admitted  that  in  this  case  of  the  clocks,  as  much  as  in  any  other, 
Leibnitz  would  deny  the  '  transeunt '  action  which  appears  to  us  to  be 
discoverable  in  it.  It  is  not,  he  would  say,  that  one  wheel  of  the 
clock  acts  motively  on  the  other ;  it  is  of  its  own  impulse  that  the 
latter  wheel  puts  itself  in  motion — the  motion  which  according  to  our 
ordinary  apprehension  is  the  effect  of  the  former  wheel.  Upon  this 
it  may  be  remarked  that  comparisons  are  usually  employed  in  order 


1 20  Of  the  Nature  of  Physical  Action.          [BOOK  i. 

that  some  process  which,  as  described  generally,  seems  improbable 
or  cannot  be  brought  before  the  mind's  eye,  may  be  illustrated  by  an 
instance  in  which  it  is  presented  with  a  clearness  that  allows  of  no 
contradiction.  The  cases  therefore  which  one  selects  for  comparison 
are  not  such  as,  before  they  can  supply  the  desired  demonstration, 
require,  like  Leibnitz'  clocks,  to  be  rendered  by  an  effort  of  thought 
into  instances  of  the  process  of  which  a  sensible  illustration  is  sought. 
Granting  all  this,  however,  our  enquiry  will  have  shown  no  more 
than  what  was  well  known  without  it,  that  Leibnitz  was  never  very 
happy  in  his  comparisons.  The  possibility  in  itself  of  what  he  main 
tains  must  nevertheless  be  allowed. 

67.  For  the  complete  reconciliation  of  theory  and  experience  one 
thing  more  is  needed.  That  the  connexion  of  occurrences  accord 
ing  to  general  laws  is  intelligible,  we  may,  at  least  with  reference  to 
all  natural  events,  regard  as  a  fact.  It  is  a  fact  however  which,  like 
any  other,  would  demand  its  explanation — not  indeed  an  explanation 
of  how  it  comes  about,  for  that  would  be  pre-established  like  every 
thing  else,  but  an  explanation  of  the  meaning  which  its  pre-establish- 
ment  would  have  in  the  Leibnitzian  theory  of  the  universe  taken  as  a 
whole.  Images  of  possible  worlds,  to  which  God  might  vouchsafe 
reality,  we  found  distinguished  from  impossible  ones,  which  must 
always  remain  without  reality.  The  advantage  of  consistency,  which 
distinguishes  the  former  sort,  we  might  suppose  to  lie  in  this,  that 
they  not  merely  combine  their  manifold  elements  according  to  a 
plan,  but  that  at  the  same  time  the  elements  which,  in  so  doing,  they 
bring  together  are  such  as  are  really  connected  with  each  other 
according  to  general  laws.  It  is  obvious,  that  is  to  say,  that  every 
imaginary  world  must  appear  as  a  whole,  and  its  development  in  time 
as  the  realisation  of  a  preconceived  plan,  in  which  for  all  phases  of 
the  internally  moved  Monads— for  a1,  a2,  a3  ...  and  /31,  /32,  /33,  as  for 
the  several  pieces  of  a  mosaic,  their  sequence  and  their  coincidence 
are  prescribed.  But  there  was  no  necessity  for  any  single  one  of 
these  phases  to  occur  more  than  once  in  this  whole.  It  was  accord 
ingly  no  self-evident  necessity  that  there  should  be  general  laws— 
laws  connecting  the  repetitions  of  a  with  repetitions  of  /3.  Without 
any  such  repetition,  these  series  of  events  might  still  be  constantly 
carrying  out  a  predetermined  plan.  It  is  a  somewhat  arbitrary  inter 
pretation  which  I  take  leave  to  adopt,  since  Leibnitz  himself  gives  us 
no  light  on  the  matter,  when  I  understand  that  rationality,  which 
distinguishes  the  realisable  images  of  worlds  from  the  unrealisable,  to 
imply  not  merely  an  agreement  with  logical  truths  of  thought,  but 


CHAPTER  v.]          Why  assume  General  Laws  ?  121 

this  definite  character  of  conformity  to  general  laws,  which  in  itself 
is  no  necessity  of  thought  :  in  other  words,  the  fact  that  the  demands 
made  by  the  realisation  of  the  world-plan  are  met  by  help  of  a  multi 
plicity  of  comparable  elements,  which  fall  under  common  generic 
conceptions,  and  by  repetitions  of  comparable  events,  which  fall 
under  general  laws. 

But  neither  with  this  interpretation  nor  without  it  are  we  properly 
satisfied.  If  in  the  last  resort  it  is  the  greatest  perfection  which  de 
termines  the  divine  choice  between  different  rational  images  of 
worlds,  is  it  then  self-evident  that  among  the  indispensable  pre 
conditions  of  the  perfection  is  to  be  reckoned  above  all  this  con 
formity  to  universal  law,  and  that  anything  which  lacked  it  was  not 
even  open  to  choice  ?  For  the  coherence  of  our  scientific  efforts  this 
conformity  to  law,  which  is  the  sole  foundation  for  our  knowledge  of  \ 
things,  has  indeed  attained  such  overpowering  importance,  that  its 
own  independent  value  seems  to  us  almost  unquestionable.  Yet, 
after  all,  is  it  certain  that  intrinsically  a  greater  good  is  attained,  if 
every  a  is  always  followed  by  the  same  ft,  than  if  it  were  followed 
sometimes  by  ft,  sometimes  by  y,  sometimes  by  6,  just  as  was  at  each 
moment  required  by  the  constantly  changing  residue  of  the  plan  still 
to  be  fulfilled  ?  Might  there  not  be  as  good  reason  to  find  fault 
with  those  general  laws  as  at  bottom  vexatious  hindrances,  cutting 
short  a  multitude  of  beautiful  developments  which  but  for  their 
troublesome  intervention  might  have  made  the  system  of  the  most 
perfect  world  still  more  perfect  ?  If  we  pursue  this  thought,  it  be 
comes  clear  what  is  for  us  the  source  of  confidence  in  the  necessary 
validity  of  universal  laws.  In  a  dream,  which  needs  no  fulfilment, 
we  find  a  succession  possible  of  the  most  beautiful  events,  connected 
only  by  the  coherence  of  their  import :  and  the  case  would  be  the 
same  if  a  realisation  of  this  dream  could  come  about  through  the 
instantaneous  spell  of  its  admission  as  a  whole  to  reality,  without  the 
requirement  by  each  successive  constituent  of  a  labour  of  production 
on  the  part  of  the  previous  ones. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  follow  our  ordinary  conception  of  the 
world  which  finds  this  labour  necessary,  the  state  of  the  case  is  differ 
ent.  Supposing  that  in  the  moment  /  an  element  a  of  the  world 
happened  to  be  in  the  state  a,  and  supposing  it  to  be  indispensable 
that,  in  order  to  the  completion  of  the  plan  of  the  world  or  to  the 
restoration  of  its  equilibrium  or  to  consecutiveness  in  its  development, 
at  the  same  moment  /,  b  also  should  pass  into  the  state  ft,  then  the 
fact  z  of  this  necessity,  i.e.  the  present  state  of  the  remaining 


122  Of  the  Nature  of  Physical  A  ction. 

elements,  R,  of  the  world  together  with  the  change  of  a  into  a,  must 
exert  an  action  upon  b.  But  in  order  that  only  0  and  not  any  other 
consequence  may  arise  in  b,  z  and  /3 — therefore  also  a  and  /3 — must 
merely  in  respect  of  their  content,  without  reference  to  the  phase  of 
development  of  the  universe  as  a  whole,  belong  together  as  members 
that  condition  each  other  :  and  for  that  reason  in  every  case  of  the 
repetition  of  a  the  same  consequence  /3  will  occur,  so  far  as  it  is  not 
impeded  by  other  relations  that  condition  the  state  of  the  case  for  the 
moment.  Upon  this  supposition,  therefore,  which  is  habitual  to  us, 
that  the  course  of  the  world  is  a  gradual  becoming  produced  by 
active  causation,  its  connexion  according  to  general  laws  appears  to 
us  to  be  necessary.  But  this  way  of  thinking  is  not  reconcileable 
with  the  views  of  Leibnitz.  He  looks  upon  the  whole  sum  of  reality 
as  predetermined  in  all  the  details  of  its  course  and  as  coming  into 
being  all  at  once  through  that  mysterious  admission  to  existence 
which  he  has  unhappily  done  so  little  to  define.  No  work  is  left  to 
be  gradually  done  within  it.  But  if  this  supposition  is  granted  him, 
the  limitation  of  readability  to  such  projected  worlds  as  have  their 
elements  connected  according  to  general  laws  is  an  arbitrary  assump 
tion.  Any  combination  whatever  of  manifold  occurrences — any 
dream — might  in  this  way  have  just  as  well  obtained  a  footing  in 
reality.  We  have  here  therefore  an  inconsistency  in  Leibnitz'  doc 
trine.  If  the  necessity  of  general  laws  was  to  be  saved  from  dis 
appearing,  there  were  only,  it  would  seem,  two  ways  of  doing  it.  He 
should  either  have  exhibited  them  as  a  condition  of  that  perfection 
of  the  world  which  renders  it  worthy  of  existence — and  it  is  not 
improbable  that  he  would  have  decided  for  this  alternative — or  we 
should  have  given  up  the  attempt  to  substitute  for  the  unintelligible 
action  of  one  thing  on  another  an  even  more  unintelligible  pre- 
establishment  of  all  things. 


CHAPTER   VI. 

The    Unity    of   Things. 

68.  THERE  is  only  one  condition,  as  we  have  found,  under  which 
the  conception  of  a  '  transeunt '  operation  can  be  banished  from  our 
view  of  the  world  and  replaced  by  that  of  a  harmony  between  indepen 
dent  inner  developments  of  Things.  The  condition  is  that  we  make 
up  our  minds  to  a  thoroughly  consistent  Determinism,  which  regards 
all  that  the  world  contains  as  collectively  predetermined  to  its  minutest 
details.  So  long,  however,  as  we  shrink  from  this  conclusion,  and 
cling  to  the  hope,  for  which  we  have  in  the  meantime  no  justification 
but  which  is  still  insuppressible,  that  the  course  of  Things  in  which  we 
live  admits  of  events  being  initiated,  which  are  not  the  necessary  con 
sequence  of  previous  development — so  long  as  this  is  the  case  the 
assumption  of  '  transeunt '  operation  cannot  be  dispensed  with  by 
help  either  of  the  theory  of  a  predetermined  sympathetic  connexion, 
or  by  that  of  an  unconditioned  validity  of  universal  laws.  Our  final 
persuasion,  therefore,  might  seem  to  depend  on  the  choice  we  make 
between  the  two  above-mentioned  pre-suppositions  (that  of  complete 
determinism,  and  that  which  allows  of  new  beginnings) — a  choice 
which  theoretical  reasons  are  no  longer  sufficient  to  decide.  But  if 
this  were  really  the  case — a  point  which  I  reserve  for  later  investiga 
tion — the  option  left  open  to  us  would  be  a  justification  for  developing, 
in  the  first  place  hypothetically,  the  further  conceptions  which  we 
should  have  to  form  as  to  'transeunt'  operation  if  having  adopted  the 
second  of  the  suppositions  stated  we  maintained  the  necessity  of 
assumingvsuch  operation.  I  cannot  however  apply  myself  to  this 
task  without  once  again  repeating,  in  order  to  prevent  misunder 
standings,  a  warning  that  has  already  been  often  given. 

My  purpose  cannot  be  to  give  such  a  description  of  the  process  by 
which  every  operation  comes  about  as  may  enable  the  reader  to 
present  it  to  his  mind's  eye,  and  thus  by  demonstrating  how  it  happens 
to  give  the  most  convincing  proof  that  it  can  happen.  The  object  in 


!24  The  Unity  of  Things.  [BOOK  i. 

view  is  merely  to  get  rid  of  the  difficulties  which  make  the  conception 
of  a  '  transeunt '  operation  obscure  to  us  while,  although  in  fact  under 
standing  just  as  little  how  an  '  immanent'  operation  comes  about,  we 
make  no  scruple  about  accepting  it  as  a  given  fact.  How  in  any  case 
a  condition,  if  realised,  begins  in  turn  to  give  reality  to  its  effect,  or 
how  it  sets  about  uprooting  a  present  state  of  anything  and  planting 
another  state  in  the  real  world  — of  that  no  account  can  be  given. 
Every  description  that  might  be  attempted  would  have  to  depict 
processes  and  modes  of  action  which  necessarily  presuppose  the  very 
operation  that  has  to  be  explained  as  already  taking  place  many  times 
over  between  the  several  elements  which  are  summoned  to  perform 
it.  Indeed  the  source  of  many  of  the  obscurities  attaching  to  our 
notion  of  operation  lies  in  our  persistent  effort  to  explain  it  by  images 
derived  from  complex  applications  of  the  notion  itself,  which  for  that 
reason  lead  necessarily  to  absurdity  if  supposed  to  have  any  bearing 
on  its  simplest  sense.  If  we  avoid  these  unprofitable  attempts,  and 
confine  ourselves  to  stating  that  which  operation  actually  consists 
in,  we  must  state  it  simply  thus :  that  the  reality  of  one  state  is  the 
condition  of  the  realisation  of  another.  This  mysterious  connexion 
we  allow  so  long  as  its  product  is  merely  the  development  of  one  and 
the  same  Being  within  the  unity  of  that  Being's  nature.  What  seems 
unthinkable  is  how  it  can  be  that  something  which  occurs  to  one 
Being,  A,  can  be  the  source  of  change  in  another,  B. 

69.  After  so  many  failures  in  the  attempt  to  bridge  a  gulf  of  which 
we  have  no  clear  vision,  in  the  precise  mode  demanded  by  imagina 
tion,  we  can  only  hope  for  a  better  result  if  we  make  the  point  clear 
in  which  the  cause  of  our  difficulty  lies.     In  the  course  of  our  con- 
jsideration  of  the  world  we  were  led,  at  the  outset,  to  the  notion  of  a 
plurality  of  Things.    Their  multiplicity  seemed  to  offer  the  most  con 
venient  explanation  for  the  equally  great  multiplicity  of  appearances, 
i  Then    the  impulse   to  become   acquainted   with    the   unconditioned 
'  Being  which  must  lie  at  the  foundation  of  this  process  of  the  con 
ditioned  was  the  occasion  of  our  ascribing  this  unconditioned  Being 
without  suspicion  to  the  very  multiplicity  of  elements  which  we  found 
to  exist.     If  we  stopped  short  of  assigning  to  every  reality  a  pure 
Being  that  could  dispense  with  all  relations  to  other  Beings,  yet  even 
\  while  allowing  relations  we  did  not   give  up    the    independence    of 
Things  as  against  each  other  which  we  assumed  to  begin  with.     It 
was  as  so  many  independent  unities  that  we  supposed  them  to  enter 
into  such  peculiar  relations  to   each  other  as  compelled  their  self- 
sufficing  natures  to  act  and  react  upon  each  other.     But  it  was  im- 


CHAPTER  vi.]       A  ssumptwti  of  Independent  Things.         1 2  5 

possible  to  state  in  what  this  transition  from  a  state  of  isolation  to 
metaphysical  combination  might  consist,  and  it  remained  a  standing 
contradiction  that  Things  having  no  dependence  on  each  other  should 
yet  enter  into  such  a  relation  of  dependence  as  each  to  concern  itself 
with  the  other,  and  to  conform  itself  in  its  own  states  to  those  of  the 
other.  This  prejudice  must  be  given  up.  There  cannot  be  a  multi* 
plicity  of  independent  Things,  but  all  elements,  if  reciprocal  action  is 
to  be  possible  between  them,  must  be  regarded  as  parts  of  a  single 
and  real  Being.  The  Pluralism  with  which  our  view  of  the  world 
began  has  to  give  place  to  a  Monism,  through  which  the  '  transeunt ' 
operation,  always  unintelligible,  passes  into  an  *  immanent '  operation. 

A  first  suggestion  of  the  impossibility  of  that  unlimited  pluralism 
was,  strictly  speaking,  afforded  as  soon  as  we  felt  the  necessity  of 
apprehending  the  events  which  form  the  course  of  the  world,  as 
Consequents  that  can  be  known  from  Antecedents.  If  no  elements 
of  the  world  admitted  of  comparison  any  more  than  do  our  feelings  of 
sweet  and  red,  it  would  be  impossible  that  with  the  union  of  the  two 
A  and  B  in  a  certain  relation  C  there  should  be  connected  a  con 
sequence  F,  to  the  exclusion  of  all  other  consequences.  For  in  that 
case  the  relation  of  A  to  B,  which  alone  could  justify  this  connexion, 
would  be  the  same— the  two  elements  being  completely  incomparable 
and  alien  to  each  other — as  that  between  any  two  other  elements,  A 
and  M,  B  and  N,  M  and  N.  There  would  accordingly  be  no 
legitimate  ground  for  connecting  the  consequence  with  one  rather 
than  another  pair  of  related  elements,  or  indeed  for  any  definite  con 
nexion  whatever.  Hence  it  appears  that  the  independent  elements  of 
the  world,  the  many  real  essences  which  we  supposed  that  there  were,  ( 
could  by  no  means  have  had  unlimited  licence  of  being  what  they 
liked  as  soon  as  each  single  one  by  simplicity  of  its  quality  had 
satisfied  the  conditions  under  which  its  'position'  was  possible. 
Between  their  qualities  there  would  have  had  to  be  throughout  a  com- 
mensurability  of  some  kind  which  rendered  them,  not  indeed  members 
of  a  single  series,  but  members  of  a  system  in  which  various  series  are 
in  some  way  related  to  each  other.  All  however  that  this  primary 
unity  necessarily  implied  on  the  part  of  the  elements  of  the  world  was 
simply  this  commensurability.  Their  origin  from  a  single  root,  or 
their  permanent  immanence  in  one  Being,  it  only  rendered  probable. 
It  is  not  till  we  come  to  the  consideration  of  cause  and  effect  that  wet* 
find  any  necessity  to  adopt  this  further  view— to  hold  that  Things  can  7 
only  exist  as  parts  of  a  single  Being,  separate  relatively  to  our  appro- J 
hension,  but  not  actually  independent. 


126  The  Unity  of  Things.  [BOOK  i. 

70.  This  conclusion  of  our  considerations  requires  so  much  to  be 
added  in  the  way  of  justification  and  defence  that  to  begin  with  my 
only  concern  is  to  explain  it.  Let  M  be  the  single  truly  existing  sub 
stance,  A,  B,  and  R  the  single  Things  into  which,  relatively  to  our 
faculties  of  presentation  and  observation,  the  unity  of  M  somehow 
resolves  itself — A  and  B  being  those  upon  the  destinies  of  which  our 
attention  has  to  be  employed,  R  the  sum  of  all  the  other  things  to 
which  has  to  be  applied,  by  help  of  analogy,  all  that  we  lay  down 
about  A  and  B.  Then  by  the  formula  M—<^(ABR]  we  express  the 
thought  that  a  certain  definite  connexion  of  A  B  and  R>  indicated  by 
<f),  exhibits  the  whole  nature  of  M. 

If  we  allow  ourselves  further  to  assume  that  one  of  the  individual 
elements  has  undergone  a  transition  from  A  into  a — however  the 
excitement  to  this  transition  may  have  arisen— then  the  former 
equation  between  <£  (a  B  R]  and  M will  no  longer  hold.  It  would  only 
be  re-established  by  a  corresponding  change  on  the  part  of  the  other 
members  of  the  group,  and  <$>(abRv)  =  M  would  anew  express  the 
whole  nature  of  M.  Let  us  now  admit  the  supposition  that  the 
susceptibility,  which  we  had  to  recognise  in  every  finite  Being — a  sus 
ceptibility  in  virtue  of  which  it  does  not  experience  changes  without 
maintaining  itself  against  them  by  reaction — that  this  belongs  also  to 
the  one,  the  truly  existing  M ;  then  the  production  of  the  new  states 
b  and  R x  in  B  and  R  will  be  the  necessary  consequence  of  the  change 
to  a  that  has  occurred  in  A.  But  this  change  a  was  throughout  not 
merely  a  change  of  the  one  element  A,  for  such  a  change  would  have 
needed  some  medium  to  extend  its  consequences  to  B  and  R.  It  was 
at  the  same  time,  without  having  to  wait  to  become  so,  a  change  of 
M,  in  which  alone,  in  respect  of  Being  and  content,  A  has  its  reality 
and  subsistence.  In  like  manner  this  change  of.M  does  not  need  to 
travel,  in  order  as  by  transition  into  a  domain  not  its  own,  to  make  its 
sign  in  B  and  R.  It  too,  without  having  to  become  so  by  such  means, 
is  already  a  change  of  B  and  R,  which  in  respect  of  what  they 
contain  and  are,  equally  have  reality  and  subsistence  only  in  M.  Or — 
if  we  prefer  another  expression,  in  which  we  start  from  the  apparent 
independence  of  A  B  and  R — the  only  mediation  which  causes  the 
changes  of  B  and  R  to  follow  on  those  of  A  consists  in  the  identity 
of  M  with  itself,  and  in  its  susceptibility  which  does  not  admit  a 
change  a  without  again  restoring  the  same  nature  ^by  production  of 
the  compensatory  change  b  and  R1.  To  our  observation  a  presents 
itself  as  an  event  which  takes  place  in  the  isolated  element  A  ;  b  as  a 
second  event  which  befalls  the  equally  isolated  B.  In  accordance 


CHAPTER  vi.] '  Transeunt 'reduced  to  'immanent"  operation.  127 

with  this  appearance  we  call  that  a  '  transeunt '  operation  of  A  upon  / 
B,  which  in  truth  is  only  an  immanent  operation  of  M  upon  M.     A  ? 
process  thus  seems  to  us  to  be  requisite  to  bring  the  elements  A  and 
B)  originally  indifferent  towards  each  other,  into  a  relation  of  mutual 
sympathy.     In  truth  they  always  stand  in  that  relation,  for  at  every 
moment  the  reality  which  they  simultaneously  possess  has  its  con 
nexion  in  the  import  of  M,  and  A  or  a  is  the  complement  to  B  and  R, 
or  to  b  and  Rl  (as  the  case  may  be),  required  by  M  in  order  to  the 
maintenance  of  its  equality  with  itself,  just  as  B  or  b  is  the  comple 
ment  required  to  A  and  R  or  to  a  and  R*. 

Our  earlier  idea,  therefore,  of  manifold  original  essences,  un 
conditionally  existing  and  of  independent  content,  which  only  came 
afterwards  to  fall  together  into  variable  actions  and  reactions  upon 
each  other,  passes  into  a  different  idea,  that  of  manifold  elements, 
of  which  the  existence  and  content  is  throughout  conditioned  by  the 
nature  and  reality  of  the  one  existence  of  which  they  are  organic 
members ;  whose  maintenance  of  itself  places  them  all  in  a  constant 
relation  of  dependence  on  each  other  as  on  it ;  according  to  whose 
command,  without  possibility  of  offering  resistance  or  of  rendering  any 
help  which  should  be  due  to  their  own  independent  reality,  they  so 
order  themselves  at  every  moment  that  the  sum  of  Things  presents  a 
new  identical  expression  of  the  same  meaning,  a  harmony  not  pre- 
established,  but  which  at  each  moment  reproduces  itself  through  the 
power  of  the  one  existence. 

71.  Before  passing  to  details,  let  me  remark  that  I  would  not  have 
these  statements  regarded  as  meant  to  describe  a  process  which 
needed  to  be  hit  upon  by  conjecture,  and  did  not  naturally  follow 
from  the  metaphysical  demand  which  it  was  its  purpose  to  satisfy. 
Or,  to  use  another  expression,  I  do  not  imagine  myself  to  have 
stated  what  we  have  to  think  in  order  to  render  reciprocal  action 
intelligible,  but  what  we  in  fact  do  think  as  soon  as  we  explain  to 
ourselves  what  we  mean  by  it.  If  we  suppose  a  certain  Being  A  to 
conform  itself  to  the  state  b  of  another  Being  B  and  to  fall  into  the 
state  a,  this  thought  directly  implies  the  other,  that  the  change  b  which 
at  first  seemed  only  to  befall  B  is  also  a  change  for  the  other  Being, 
A.  There  may  be  required  investigation  of  the  mode  in  which  b  is  a 
change  also  for  A ,  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  has  to  be  brought 
under  the  same  formal  conception  of  a  state  of  A  which  we  at  first 
only  applied  to  a.  But  the  idea  that  the  states  of  a  Being  B  are  at 
the  same  time  states  of  another  Being  A,  involves  the  direct  negation 
of  the  proposition  that  A  and  B  are  two  separate  and  independent 


128  The  Unity  of  Things. 

Beings :  for  a  unity  of  the  exclusive  kind  by  which  each  would  set  a 
barrier  between  itself  and  the  other,  if  it  is  to  be  more  than  verbally 
maintained — if  it  is  to  be  measured  according  to  what  may  be  called 
its  practical  value — can  only  consist  in  complete  impenetrability  on 
the  part  of  the  one  against  all  conditions  of  the  other. 

Thus  it  was  not  necessary  that  the  unity  of  all  individual  Beings 
hould  be  conjectured  or  discovered  as  an  hypothesis  enabling  us  to 
set  aside  certain  difficulties  that  are  in  our  way.  It  is,  as  it  seems  to 
me,  a  thought  which  by  mere  analysis  can  be  shown  to  be  involved  in 
;he  conception  of  reciprocal  action.  If  we  fancy  it  possible  to  main 
tain  that  Things  are  to  begin  with  separate  and  mutually  independent 
Unities,  but  that  there  afterwards  arises  between  them  a  relation  of 
Union  in  operation,  we  are  describing,  not  an  actual  state  of  Things 
or  a  real  process,  but  merely  the  movement  of  thought  which  begins 
with  a  false  supposition  and  afterwards,  under  the  pressure  of  problems 
which  it  has  itself  raised,  seeks  in  imperfect  fashion  to  restore  the 
correct  view  which  it  should  have  had  to  start  with. 

72.  Moreover,  in  the  logical  requisites  of  a  theory,  this  view  of  the 
original  unity  of  all  Things  in  M  is  by  no  means  inferior  to  the  other 
view  of  their  changeable  combinations.  It  might  be  urged  indeed 
that  our  view  represents  all  Things  too  indiscriminately  as  compre 
hended  once  for  all  in  the  unity  of  Jlft  and  thus  has  no  place  for 
the  gradations  that  exist  in  the  intimacy  of  their  relations  to  each 
other ;  that  the  opposite  view,  by  recognising  on  the  one  hand  the 
progress  from  a  complete  absence  of  relation  to  an  ever  greater  close 
ness  of  relation,  and  on  the  other  the  relaxation  of  relations  that 
previously  existed,  alone  admits  of  due  adjustment  to  experience, 
which  testifies  in  one  case  to  a  lively  action '  and  reaction  of  Things 
upon  each  other,  in  another  to  their  mutual  indifference.  In  truth  the 
reverse  seems  to  me  to  be  the  case.  So  far  we  regard  J/as  expressing 
only  the  formal  thought  of  the  one  all  comprehensive  Being.  As  to 
the  concrete  content  of  that  which  is  to  occupy  this  supreme  position 
of  M  we  know  nothing,  and  therefore  can  settle  nothing  as  to  the 
form  cp,  in  which  according  to  its  nature  it  at  each  moment  compre 
hends  the  sum  of  finite  realities.  There  is  nothing,  however,  against 
our  assuming  the  possibility  of  the  various  equations  ;  M—  $(AB  R\ 
M=  <j>(A£r  P),  M=  <j>(Ap  R^\  M—  0  (a  0  R).  Of  these  equations 
the  second  would  express  the  possibility  of  a  change  in  the  sum  of  the 
members  R  into  r — a  change  which  is  balanced  by  a  second  p,  and 
therefore  does  not  require  a  compensatory  change  on  the  part  of  A 
and  B.  This  being  so,  the  two  latter  would  appear  unaffected  by  the 


CHAPTER vi.]  Degrees  of  Interaction.  129 

alteration  of  the  rest  of  the  world  in  which  they  are  included.  Of  the 
third  equation  the  meaning  would  be  that  another  change  of  7?,  viz. 
into  R\  only  requires  a  change  ft  in  B,  to  which  A  would  appear  in 
different  ;  while  the  fourth  would  represent  a  reciprocal  action  which 
exhausts  itself  between  A  and  B,  leaving  the  rest  of  the  world  un 
affected. 

It  thus  appears  that  our  view  is  not  irreconcileable  with  any  of  the 
gradations  which  the  mutual  excitability  of  the  world's  elements  in 
fact  exhibits.  There  would  be  nothing  to  prevent  us  even  from 
ascribing  to  the  unity,  in  which  they  are  all  comprehended,  at  various 
moments  various  degrees  of  closeness  down  to  the  extreme  cases  in 
which  two  elements,  having  no  effect  whatever  on  each  other,  have 
all  the  appearance  of  being  two  independent  entities ;  or  in  which,  on 
the  other  hand,  limited  to  mutual  operation,  they  detach  themselves 
from  all  other  constituents  of  the  world  as  a  pair  of  which  each 
belongs  to  the  other.  But  the  source  of  these  gradations  would  not 
be  that  elements  originally  independent  were  drawn  together  by 
variable  relations  ranging  in  intensity  from  nought  to  any  degree  we 
like  to  imagine.  Their  source  would  be  that  the  plan  of  that  unity 
which  holds  things  permanently  together,  obliges  them  at  every 
moment  either  to  new  reciprocal  action  of  definite  kind  and  degree 
or  to  the  maintenance  of  their  previous  state,  which  involves  the 
appearance  of  deficient  reciprocal  action.  Thus  the  reason  why 
things  take  the  appearance  of  independence  as  against  each  other  is 
not  that  the  Unity  M,  in  which  they  are  always  comprehended, 
is  sometimes  more,  sometimes  less,  real,  or  even  altogether  ceases  to 
be,  but  that  the  offices  which  ^/"imposes  on  them  vary:  so  that  every 
degree  of  relative  independence  which  things  exhibit  as  against  each 
other  is  itself  the  consequence  of  their  entire  want  of  independence 
as  against  M,  which  never  leaves  them  outside  its  unity.  That  rela 
tions,  on  the  other  hand,  which  did  not  previously  subsist  between 
independent  things,  can  never  begin  to  subsist,  I  have  already  pointed 
out,  nor  is  it  necessary  to  revert  to  this  impossible  notion. 

73.  The  next  question  to  be  expected  is,  not  indeed  what  M  con 
sists  in  but  how,  even  as  a  mere  matter  of  logical  relation,  the 
connexion  assumed  between  it,  the  One,  and  the  multiplicity  of 
elements  dependent  on  it  is  to  be  thought  of.  We  have  contented 
ourselves  with  describing  these  elements  as  parts  of  the  infjnite  M. 
We  should  find  no  lack  of  other  designations  if  we  cared  to  notice 
all  the  theories  .which  the  history  of  philosophy  records  as  having  on 
various  grounds  arrived  at  a  similar  Monism.  We  might  read  of 

VOL.  i.  K 


1 30  The  Unity  of  Things.  [BOOK  i. 

modifications  of  the  infinite  substance,  of  its  developments  and  dif 
ferentiations,  of  emanations  and  radiations  from  it.  Much  discussion 
and  enthusiasm  has  gathered  round  these  terms.  Their  variety  serves 
in  some  measure  to  illustrate  the  variety  of  the  needs  by  which  men 
were  led  to  the  same  persuasion.  Stripped  of  their  figurative  clothing 
— a  clothing  merely  intended  to  serve  the  unattainable  purpose  of 
presenting  to  the  mind's  eye  the  process  by  which  the  assumed  rela 
tion  between  the  one  and  the  multitude  of  finite  beings  is  brought 
about — all  that  they  collectively  contain  in  regard  to  the  import  of 
this  relation  amounts  merely  to  a  negation.  They  all  deny  the  inde 
pendent  reality  of  finite  things,  but  they  cannot  determine  positively 
the  nature  of  the  bond  which  unites  them. 

This  inability  by  itself  would  not  to  my  mind  form  any  ground  of 
objection  to  the  view  stated.  The  exact  determination  of  a  postulate, 
whether  effected  by  means  of  affirmations  or  by  means  of  negations, 
may  claim  to  be  a  philosophic  result  even  when  it  is  impossible  to 
present  anything  to  the  mind's  eye  by  which  the  postulate  is  fulfilled. 
An  intuition,  however — a  presentation  to  the  mind's  eye — of  that 
which  according  to  its  very  idea  is  the  source  of  all  possibility  of 
intuition — is  what  we  shall  not  look  for.  Neither  the  One,  before  its 
production  of  the  manifold  capable  of  arrangement  in  various  out 
lines,  nor  the  metaphysical  process,  so  to  speak,  by  which  that  pro 
duction  is  brought  about,  can  be  described  by  help  of  any  figure,  for 
the  possibility  of  presentation  as  a  figure  depends  on  the  previous  ex 
istence  of  the  manifold,  and  the  origin  of  the  manifold  world  in  the 
case  before  us  is  just  the  point  at  issue.  But  it  does  not  follow  that 
there  is  no  meaning  in  the  conception  of  that  relation  of  dependence 
of  the  many  upon  the  one.  Though  unable  to  state  what  constitutes 
the  persistent  force  of  the  bond  which  connects  individual  things  in 
reality,  we  can  yet  seek  out  the  complex  modes  in  which  its  un 
imaginable  activity  conditions  the  form  of  their  connexion :  and  the 
general  ideas,  which  I  have  already  indicated  on  the  subject,  in  their 
application  to  our  given  experience,  warrant  the  hope,  on  this  side, 
of  an  unlimited  growth  of  our  knowledge. 

74.  In  saying  this  however  I  do  not  overcome  the  objection  which 
our  view  excites.  It  will  readily  be  allowed  that  the  relation  of  the 
One  being  to  the  many  does  not  admit  of  being  exhibited  in  any 
positive  way.  It  will  be  urged  however  that  it  ought  not  to  involve 
a  contradiction  if  it  is  to  be  admitted  even  as  a  postulate ;  yet  how  is 
it  to  be  conceived  that  what  is  one  should  not  only  qmse  a  manifold 
to  issue  out  of  itself,  but  should  continue  to  be  this  manifold  ?  This 


CHAPTER  VI.]  T/IC   OnC  Mid  the  Matty .  1  3  I 

question  has  at  all  times  formed  one  of  the  difficulties  of  philosophy 
for  the  reason  that  in  fact,  whatever  may  have  been  the  point  of 
departure,  a  thousand  ways  lead  back  to  it.  I  need  not  go  further 
back  than  the  latest  past  of  German  philosophy.  For  the  idealistic 
systems,  which  ended  in  Hegel,  not  merely  the  relativity  of  everything 
finite,  but  also  the  inner  vitality  of  the  infinite  which  projects  the  full 
ness  of  the  manifold  out  of  its  unity,  was  a  primary  certainty  which 
forced  itself  on  the  spirit  with  an  aesthetic  necessity  and  determined 
every  other  conviction  accordingly.  It  must  be  allowed  that  this 
prerogative  of  the  so-called  reason  in  the  treatment  of  things,  as 
against  the  claims  made  by  the  understanding  on  behalf  of  an 
adherence  to  its  law  of  identity,  has  been  rather  vigorously  asserted 
than  clearly  defended  against  the  attacks  made  on  it  in  the  interest 
of  this  law.  In  the  bold  paradox,  that  it  is  just  in  contradiction  that 
there  rests  the  deepest  truth,  that  which  had  originally  been  con 
ceived  as  the  mystery  of  things  came  to  be  transferred  in  a  very 
questionable  way  to  our  methods  of  thought.  There  ensued  in  the 
philosophy  of  Herbart  a  vigorous  self-defence  on  the  part  of  formal 
logic  against  this  attack — a  defence  which  no  doubt  had  its  use  as 
restoring  the  forms  of  investigation  that  had  disappeared  during  the 
rush  and  hurry  of  'dialectical  development,'  but  which  in  the  last 
resort,  as  it  seems  to  me,  can  only  succeed  by  presupposing  at  the 
decisive  points  the  actual  existence,  in  some  remote  distance,  of  that 
unity  of  the  one  and  the  many,  which  in  its  metaphysic  it  was  so  shy 
of  admitting.  On  this  whole  question,  unless  I  am  mistaken,  there  is 
not  much  else  to  be  said  than  what  is  objected  by  the  young  Socrates 
in  the  '  Parmenides '  to  the  assertions  of  Zeno.  '  Is  there  not  one 
idea  of  likeness  and  another  of  unlikeness  ?  And  are  we  not  called 
like  or  unlike  according  as  we  partake  in  one  or  the  other?  Now 
if  something  partook  in  each  of  the  opposed  ideas,  and  then  had  to 
be  called  like  and  unlike  at  the  same  time,  what  would  there  be  to 
surprise  us  in  that  ?  No  doubt  if  a  man  tried  to  make  out  likeness 
as  such  to  be  equivalent  to  unlikeness  as  such,  that  would  be  in 
credible.  But  that  something  should  partake  in  both  ideas  and  in 
consequence  should  be  both  like  and  unlike,  that  I  deem  as  little 
absurd  as  it  is  to  call  everything  one  on  account  of  its  participation 
in  the  idea  of  unity  and  at  the  same  time  many  on  account  of  its 
equal  participation  in  the  idea  of  multiplicity.  The  only  thing  that 
we  may  not  do  is  to  take  unity  for  multiplicity,  or  multiplicity  for 
unity.' 
•  75.  It  may  seem  at  first  sight  as  if  Socrates  had  only  pushed  the 

K  2 


132  The  Unity  of  Things.  [BOOKI. 

difficulty  a  step  further  back.  The  possibility,  it  may  be  said,  of 
simultaneous  participation  in  those  two  ideas  is  just  what  the  laws  of 
thought  forbid  to  every  subject.  With  this  objection  I  cannot  agree. 
I  have  previously  pointed  out  the  merely  formal  significance  of  the 
principle  of  identity.  All  that  it  says  is  that  A=A;  that  one  is  one 
and  that  many  are  many;  that  the  real  is  real  and  the  impossible 
impossible ;  in  short,  that  every  predicate  is  equivalent  to  itself,  and 
every  subject  no  less  so.  By  itself  it  says  nothing  as  to  the  possibility 
of  attaching  several  predicates  simultaneously,  or  even  only  one,  to 
a  single  subject.  For  that  which  we  properly  mean  by  connecting 
two  thinkable  contents  S  and  P,  as  subject  and  predicate — the  meta 
physical  copula  subsisting  between  S  and  P  which  justifies  this  mode 
of  logical  expression — is  what  cannot  itself  be  expressed  or  con 
structed  by  means  of  any  logical  form.  The  only  logical  obligation 
is  when  once  the  connexion  has  been  supposed  or  recognised,  to  be 
consistent  with  ourselves  in  regard  to  it.  Therefore  the  law  of 

if  excluded  middle  in  its  unambiguous  form  asserts  this,  and  only  this ; 

•that  of  two  judgments  which  severally  affirm  and  deny  of  the  same 
'subject  6"  the  same  predicate  P  only  one  can  be  true.  For  even  that 
-metaphysical  copula,  which  unites  S  and  P,  whatever  it  may  consist 
in,  must  be  equivalent  to  itself.  If  it  is  V,  it  cannot  be  non-F; 
if  non-  V,  it  cannot  be  V.  Thus  the  propositions,  S  is  P,  and  -5"  is 
not  P,  are  irreconcileable  with  each  other  ;  but  the  propositions,  S  is 
P,  and  S  is  non-P,  are  reconcileable  until  it  is  established  as  a 
matter  of  fact  that  there  is  no  non-P=Q  which  can  be  connected 
with  S  by  a  copula,  W,  that  is  reconcileable  with  V.  No  one  there 
fore  disputes  the  simultaneous  validity  of  the  propositions,  '  the  body 
6"  is  extended  PJ  and  '  S  has  weight  Q.'  Logic  finds  them  com 
patible.  It  could  not  however  state  the  reason  of  their  compatibility, 
for  the  metaphysical  copula,  V,  between  S  and  P — i.  e.  the  real  be 
haviour  on  the  part  of  the  body  which  constitutes  its  extension,  or  the 
mode  in  which  extension  attaches  to  its  essence — is  as  unknown  as 
the  copula  W — the  behaviour  which  makes  it  heavy.  Still  less  could 
we  show  positively  how  it  is  possible  for  V  and  W  to  subsist  un 
disturbed  along  with  each  other.  That  is  and  remains  a  mystery  on 
the  part  of  the  thing. 

Let  us  now  apply  these  considerations  to  the  matter  in  hand.  If 
M  is  one,  then  it  is  untrue  that  it  is  not  this  unity,  P.  If  it  is  many, 
then  it  is  impossible  that  it  should  not  be  this  multiplicity,  Q.  If  it 
is  at  once  unity  and  multiplicity,  then  it  is  impossible  that  either 
should  be  untrue  of  it.  But  from  the  truth  of  one  determination 


CHAPTER  vi.]       Lciiv  of  Identity  merely  formal.  133 

there  is  no  inference  to  the  untruth  of  the  other.  This  would  only 
be  the  case  if  it  could  be  shown  that  the  concrete  nature  of  M  is 
incapable  of  uniting  the  two  modes  of  behaviour  in  virtue  of  which 
severally  it  would  be  unity  and  multiplicity.  On  the  contrary,  it  might 
be  held  that  their  reconcileability  is  logically  shown  by  pointing  out 
that  the  apparently  conflicting  predicates  are  not  applicable  to  the 
same  subject,  since  it  was  not  the  one  M  that  we  took  to  be  equi 
valent  to  many  M,  but  the  one  unconditioned  M  that  we  took  to  be 
equivalent  to  the  many  conditioned  ??i.  But,  although  this  is  correct, 
yet  the  material  content  of  our  proposition  is  inconsistent  with  this 
logical  justification.  For  M  was  supposed  to  be  neither  outside  the 
many  m  nor  to  represent  their  sum.  It  was  supposed  to  possess  the 
same  essential  being,  that  of  a  real  existence,  which  belongs  to  every 
m.  Not  even  the  activity  which  renders  it  one  would,  upon  our  view, 
be  other  than  that  which  renders  it  many.  On  the  contrary,  by  the 
very  same  act  by  which  it  constitutes  the  multiplicity,  it  opposes  itself 
to  this  as  unity,  and  by  the  same  act  by  which  it  constitutes  the  unity 
it  opposes  itself  to  this  as  multiplicity.  Thus  here,  if  anywhere,  we 
expressly  presuppose  the  essential  unity  of  the  subject  to  which  we 
ascribe  at  once  unity  and  multiplicity. 

At  the  same  time  that  other  consideration  must  be  insisted  on; 
that  it  is  quite  unallowable  to  leave  out  of  sight  the  peculiar  significance 
of  the  whole  procedure  which  our  theory  ascribes  to  M,  and  to  gene 
rate  a  contradiction  by  thinking  of  unity  and  multiplicity  as  united 
with  Mm  that  meaningless  way  which  the  logical  schemata  of  judg 
ment  express  by  the  bald  copula,  is.  If  this  word  is  to  have  an 
unambiguous  logical  meaning  of  its  own,  it  can  only  be  the  meaning 
of  an  identity  between  the  content  of  two  ideas  as  such.  The  various 
meanings  of  the  metaphysical  copula,  on  the  contrary,  it  never 
expresses— that  copula  which,  as  subsisting  between  one  content  and 
another,  justifies  us  in  connecting  them,  by  no  means  always  in  the 
same  sense,  but  in  very  various  senses,  as  subject  and  predicate.  While 
it  cannot  be  denied,  then,  that  the  one  is  the  many,  if  we  must  needs 
so  express  ourselves,  still  in  this  colourless  expression  it  is  impossible 
to  recognise  what  we  mean  to  convey.  The  one  is  by  no  means  the 
many  in  the  same  neutral  sense  in  which  we  might  say  that  it  is  the 
one.  It  is  the  many  rather  in  the  active  sense  of  bringing  it  forth 
and  being  present  in  it.  This  definite  concrete  import  of  our  pro 
position—the  assertion  that  such  procedure  is  really  possible— is 
what  should  have  been  disputed.  There  is  no  meaning  whatever  in 
objections  derived  from  the  treatment  of  unity  and  multiplicity,  in 


134  The  Unity  of  Things.  [BOOK  i. 

abstracto,  apart  from  their  actual  points  of  relation,  as  opposite  con 
ceptions.  That  they  are,  and  cannot  but  be  so  opposed,  is  self* 
evident.  Every  one  allows  it  the  moment  he  speaks  of  a  unity  of 
the  manifold.  For  there  would  be  no  meaning  in  what  he  says  if  he 
did  not  satisfy  the  principle  of  identity  by  continuing  to  understand 
,  unity  merely  as  unity,  multiplicity  merely  as  multiplicity.  Neither 
this  principle,  then,  nor  that  of  excluded  middle,  is  violated  by  our 
^doctrine.  On  the  other  hand,  they  are  alike  quite  insufficient  to 
decide  the  possibility  of  a  relation,  of  which  the  full  meaning  cannot 
be  brought  under  these  abstract  formulae.  In  applying  them  we  fall 
into  an  error  already  noticed.  From  the  laws  which  our  thought  has 
to  observe  in  connecting  its  ideas  as  to  the  nature  of  things,  we  deem 
ourselves  able  immediately  to  infer  limitations  upon  what  is  possible 
in  this  nature  of  things. 

76.  I  must  dwell  for  a  moment  longer  on  this  point,  which  I 
previously  touched  upon.  Reality  is  infinitely  richer  than  thought. 
It  is  not  merely  the  case  that  the  complex  material  with  which  reality 
is  thronged  can  only  be  presented  by  perception,  not  produced  by 
thought.  Even  the  universal  relations  between  the  manifold  do  not 
admit  of  being  constructed  out  of  the  logical  connexions  of  our  ideas. 
The  principle  of  identity  inexorably  bids  us  think  of  every  A  as  =  A. 
If  we  followed  this  principle  alone  and  looked  upon  it  as  an  ultimate 
limit  of  that  which  the  nature  of  reality  can  yield,  we  should  never 
arrive  at  the  thought  of  there  being  something  which  we  call  Be 
coming.  Having  recognised,  however,  the  reality  of  becoming,  we 
persuade  ourselves  that  it  at  every  moment  satisfies  the  principle  of 
Identity,  though  in  a  manner  which  outrages  it  in  the  total  result, 
and  that  its  proper  nature  can  be  comprehended  by  no  connexion, 
which  Logic  allows,  of  elements  identical  or  not-identical.  For 
certainly  if  a  passes  through  the  stages  a1  a2  a3  into  b,  it  is  true  that 
at  each  moment  a  =  a,  a1=a\  «2=«2,  as  =  a3,  b  =  b,  and  the  principle 
of  Identity  is  satisfied  ;  but,  for  all  that,  it  remains  the  fact  that  the 
same  a  which  was  real  is  now  unreal,  and  the  b  which  was  unreal  is 
real.  How  this  comes  about — how  it  is  that  the  reality  detaches 
itself  from  one  thing,  to  which  it  did  belong,  and  attaches  itself  to 
another  from  which  it  was  absent — this  remains  for  ever  inexplicable 
by  thought,  and  even  the  appeal  to  the  lapse  of  time  does  not  make 
the  riddle  clearer.  It  is  true  that  between  the  extremities,  a  and  b,  of 
that  chain,  our  perception  traverses  the  intermediate  links,  a1,  a2,  and 
so  on.  But  each  of  these  passes  in  an  indivisible  moment  into  its  suc 
cessor.  If  we  thought  of  a2  as  broken  up  into  the  new  chain  oa  a2  os, 


CHAPTER  vi.]      Reality  in  what  sense  contradictory.          135 

each  of  these  links  in  turn  would  be  identical  with  itself,  so  long  as  it 
remained  in  existence,  and  even  if  the  immediately  sequent  a4  were 
separated  by  an  interval  of  empty  time  from  a3,  still  the  transition  of 
a3  from  being  into  not-being  would  have  to  be  thought  of  as  taking 
place  in  one  and  the  same  moment,  and  could  not  be  expanded  into 
a  new  series  of  transitions. 

Undoubtedly  therefore,  if  we  want  to  think  of  Becoming,  we  have 
to  face  the  requirement  of  looking  upon  being  and  not-being  as  fused 
with  each  other.  This,  however,  does  not  imply  that  the  import  of 
either  idea  is  apprehended  otherwise  than  as  identical  with  itself  and 
different  from  the  other.  How  the  fusion  is  to  be  effected  we  know 
not.  Even  the  intuition  of  Time  only  presents  us  with  the  de  facto 
solution  of  the  problem  without  informing  us  how  it  is  solved.  But 
we  know  that  in  fact  the  nature  of  reality  yields  a  result  to  us  un 
thinkable.  It  teaches  us  that  being  and  not-being  are -not,  as  we 
could  not  help  thinking  them  to  be,  contradictory  predicates  of  every 
subject,  but  that  there  is  an  alternative  between  them,  arising  out  of  a 
union  of  the  two  which  we  cannot  construct  in  thought.  This  ex 
plains  how  the  extravagant  utterance  could  be  ventured  upon,  that  it 
is  just  contradiction  which  constitutes  the  truth  of  the  real.  Those 
who  used  it  regarded  that  as  contradictory  which  was  in  fact  superior 
to  logical  laws — which  does  not  indeed  abrogate  them  in  their 
legitimate  application,  but  as  to  which  no  sort  of  positive  conjecture 
could  possibly  be  formed  as  a  result  of  such  application. 

77.  The  like  over-estimate  of  logical  principles,  the  habit  of  re 
garding  them  as  limitations  of  what  is  really  possible,  would  oblige  us 
to  treat  as  inadmissible  the  most  important  assumptions  on  which  our 
conception  of  the  world  is  founded.  All  ideas  of  conditioning,  of 
cause  and  effect,  of  activity,  require  us  to  presuppose  connexions  of 
things,  which  no  thought  can  succeed  in  constructing.  For  thought 
occupies  itself  with  the  eternally  subsisting  relations  of  that  which 
forms  the  content  of  the  knowable,  not  with  real  existence  and  with 
that  which  renders  this  existence  for  ever  something  more  than  the 
world  of  thoughts.  In  regard,  however,  to  all  the  rest  of  these 
assumptions  the  imaginings  of  '  speculation '  have  been  busied,  though 
in  our  eyes  ineffectually,  in  banishing  them  from  our  theory  of  the 
world.  It  was  only  Becoming  itself  that  it  could  not  deny,  even 
after  reducing  professedly  every  activity  to  a  relation  of  cause  and 
effect,  and  every  such  relation  to  a  mere  succession  of  phenomena. 
Even  if  in  the  outer  world  it  substituted  for  the  actual  succession 
of  events  a  mere  appearance  of  such  succession,  it  could  not  but 


136  The  Unity  of  Things.  [BOOK  i. 

recognise  a  real  Becoming  and  succession  of  events  at  least  in  those 
beings  in  and  for  which  the  supposed  appearance  unfolded  itself. 
It  is  to  this  one  instance,  therefore,  of  Becoming,  that  we  confine 
ourselves  in  order  to  convey  the  impression  of  how  much  may  exist 
in  reality  without  possibility  of  being  reproduced  by  a  logical  con 
nexion  of  our  thoughts.  One  admission  indeed  must  be  made.  Of 
the  fact  of  Becoming  at  any  rate  immediate  perception  convinced  us. 
It  cannot  similarly  convince  us  that  the  connexion  which  we  assumed 
between  the  one  unconditioned  real  and  the  multiplicity  of  its  con 
ditioned  forms,  is  more  than  a  postulate  of  our  reflection,  that  it  is  a 
problem  eternally  solved  in  a  fashion  as  mysterious  as  is  Becoming 
itself. 

This  makes  it  of  the  more  interest  to  see  how  this  requirement  of 
the  unity  of  the  manifold,  in  one  form  or  another,  is  always  pressing 
itself  upon  us  anew.  Even  the  metaphysic  of  Herbart,  though  so 
unfavourably  disposed  to  it,  has  to  admit  it  among  those  '  accidental ' 
ways  of  looking  at  things,  by  which  it  sought  to  make  the  perfectly 
simple  qualities,  a  and  b,  of  real  beings,  so  far  comparable  with  each 
other  as  to  explain  the  possibility  of  a  reciprocal  action  taking  place 
between  them.  If  the  simple  a  was  taken  to  =p-\-x,  the  no  less 
simple  b  to  —q  —  x,  these  substitutions  were  to  be  called  '  accidental' 
only  for  the  reason  that  the  preference  of  these  to  others  depended 
on  the  use  to  which  it  was  intended  to  put  them,  not  on  the  nature 
of  the  things.  If  the  object  had  been  the  explanation  of  another 
process,  a  might  just  as  well  have  been  taken  to  —r^-y  in  order  to 
be  rendered  comparable  with  (say)  c=s— -y.  However  unaffected, 
therefore,  by  these  '  accidental '  modes  of  treatment  the  essence  of 
things  might  be  held  to  be,  their  application  always  involves  the  pre 
supposition  that  the  perfect  simplicity  of  quality,  from  which  any 
sort  of  composition  is  held  to  be  excluded,  may  in  respect  of  its  con 
tent  be  treated  as  absolutely  equivalent  not  merely  to  some  one  but 
to  a  great  number  of  connected  multiplicities. 

The  ease  with  which,  in  mathematics,  a  complex  expression  can 
be  shown  to  be  equivalent  to  a  simple  one,  has  made  the  application 
of  this  view  to  the  essence  of  things  seem  less  questionable  than  it  is. 
For  that  which  is  indicated  by  those  simple  mathematical  expressions 
makes  no  sort  of  claim  to  an  indissoluble  metaphysical  unity  of  con 
tent  as  do  the  real  essences.  On  the  contrary,  the  possibility  of  in 
numerable  equivalents  being  substituted  for  a  rests  in  this  case  on 
the  admitted  infinite  divisibility  of  a,  which  allows  of  its  being  broken 
up,  and  the  fragments  recompounded,  in  any  number  of  forms ;  or 


CHAPTER  vi.]         Herbcirt  admits  Multiplicity.  157 

else,  in  geometry,  on  the  fact  that  a  is  included  in  a  system  of  re 
lations  of  position,  which  implies  the  possibility  in  any  given  case  of 
bringing  into  view  those  external  relations  of  a  to  other  elements  of 
space  by  which  it  may  contribute  to  the  solution  of  a  problem  pro 
posed  without  there  being  any  necessity  for  an  alteration  in  the  con 
ception  of  the  content  of  a  itself.  The  essence  of  things  cannot  be 
thought  of  in  either  of  these  ways.  The  introduction  of  mathe 
matical  analogies  could  only  serve  to  illustrate,  not  to  justify,  this 
metaphysical  use  of  '  accidental '  points  of  view.  Whoever  counts 
it  admissible  maintains,  in  so  doing,  the  new  and  independent  pro 
position  that  the  unity  of  the  uncompounded  quality,  by  which  one 
real  essence  is  distinguished  from  another,  is  identical  with  many 
mutually  connected  multiplicities. 

78.  A  further  step  must  be  taken.  The  '  accidental  views '  are 
not  merely  complex  expressions,  by  which  our  thought  according  to 
a  way  of  its  own  contrives  to  present  to  itself  one  and  the  same 
simple  essence ;  not  merely  our  different  ways  of  arriving  at  the 
same  end.  The  course  of  events  itself  corresponds  to  them.  In  the 
presentation  of  a  as  =p  +  x  and  of  b  as  =g— x  there  was  more  than 
a  mere  view  of  ours.  In  the  opposition  that  we  assumed  to  take 
place  between  +  x  and  —  x,  which  would  destroy  each  other  if  they 
could,  lay  the  active  determining  cause  of  an  effort  of  self-mainten 
ance  on  the  part  of  each  being,  which  was  not  elicited  by  the 
mutually  indifferent  elements,  p  and  q.  Now  whether  we  do  or  do 
not  share  Herbart's  views  as  to  the  real  or  apparent  happening  of 
what  happens  and  as  to  the  meaning  of  self-maintenance,  this  in  any 
case  amounts  to  an  admission  that  not  merely  the  content  of  the 
simple  qualities  is  at  once  unity  and  multiplicity,  but  also  that  the 
things,  so  far  as  they  are  things,  in  their  doing  and  suffering  are  at 
once  one  and  many.  It  is  only  with  that  element  x  of  its  essence 
that  a  asserts  itself  and  becomes  operative,  which  finds  an  opposite 
element  in  b.  But  for  all  that  x  remains  no  less  in  indissoluble  con 
nexion  with  p,  which  for  the  present  has  no  occasion  for  activity,  and 
which  would  come  into  play  if  in  another  being  d  it  met  with  a 
tendency,  —  />,  opposed  to  it. 

For  reasons  to  be  mentioned  presently  I  cannot  adopt  this  way  of 
thinking.  I  have  only  pursued  it  so  far  in  order  to  show  that  it 
asserts  the  unity  of  the  manifold,  and  that  in  regard  to  the  real, 
though  in  a  different  place  from  that  in  which  it  seemed  to  me 
necessary.  That  which  in  it  is  taken  to  be  true  of  every  real  essence 
is  what  in  our  theory  is  required  of  the  one  Real;  except  that  with 


138  The  Unity  of  Things. 

Herbart  that  abrupt  isolation  of  individual  beings  continues  in  which 
we  find  a  standing  hindrance  to  the  real  exphnation  of  the  course  of 
the  world.  Herbart  was  undoubtedly  right  in  holding  that  an  un 
conditioned  was  implied  in  the  changes  of  the  conditioned.  But  there 
was  no  necessity  to  seek  this  unconditioned  straightway  in  the  mani 
fold  of  the  elements  which  no  doubt  have  to  be  presupposed  as 
proximate  principles  of  explanation  for  the  course  of  events.  The 
experiment  is  not  made  of  admitting  this  multiplicity,  but  only  as  a 
multiplicity  that  is  conditioned  and  comprehended  in  the  unity  of  a 
single  truly  real  Being.  Yet  it  is  only  avoided  at  the  cost  of  admit 
ting  in  the  individual  real  a  multiplicity  so  conditioning  itself  as  to 
become  one,  of  the  very  same  kind  as  that  which  is  ostensibly  de 
nied  to  the  Real  as  a  whole. 

79.  I  return  once  more  to  Leibnitz.  He  too  conceives  manifold 
mutually-independent  Monads  as  the  elements  of  the  world,  in  an 
tithesis,  however,  to  the  unity  of  God,  by  whose  understanding,  ac 
cording  to  Leibnitz,  is  determined  the  content  of  what  takes  place  in 
the  world,  even  as  its  reality  is  determined  by  his  will.  If  we  can 
make  up  our  minds  to  abstain  from  at  once  dismissing  the  supports 
drawn  from  a  philosophy  of  religion,  which  Leibnitz  has  given  to 
his  theory,  there  is  nothing  to  prevent  us  from  going  back  still 
further  to  an  eternally  mobile  Phantasy  on  the  part  of  God,  the 
creative  source  of  those  images  of  worlds  which  hover  before  His 
understanding.  Those  of  the  images  which  by  the  rationality  of  their 
connexion  justify  themselves  to  this  understanding  are  the  possible 
worlds  the  best  among  which  His  will  renders  real.  Now  so  long 
as  we  think  of  a  world-image,  A,  as  exposed  to  this  testing  inspec 
tion  on  the  part  of  the  divine  Being,  so  long  we  can  understand  what 
is  meant  by  that  truth,  rationality  or  consistency,  on  which  the  possi 
bility  of  its  realisation  is  held  to  depend.  It  is  the  state  of  living 
satisfaction  on  the  part  of  God,  which  arises  out  of  the  felt  frictionless 
harmony  between  this  image  as  unfolding  itself  in  God's  conscious 
ness  and  the  eternal  habits  of  his  thought.  In  this  active  divine 
intelligence  which  thinks  and  enjoys  every  feature  of  the  world  image 
in  its  connexions  with  other  features — in  it  which  knows  how  to 
hold  everything  together — the  several  lines  of  the  image  are  com 
bined  and  form  not  a  scattered  multiplicity  but  the  active  totality 
of  a  world  which  is  possible  because  it  forms  such  a  complete  whole. 
I  have  previously  noticed  the  difficulty  of  assigning  any  further  deter 
mination  which  accrues  to  this  world,  already  thought  of  as  possible, 
if  it  is  not  merely  thought  but  by  God's  will  called  into  reality.  How- 


CHAPTER  vi.]  Leibnitz  destroys  Unity.  139 

soever  this  may  be,  it  could  only  enjoy  this  further  something  which 
reality  yielded  under  one  of  two  conditions.  It  must  either  continue 
within  the  inner  life  of  God  as  an  eternal  activity  of  his  Being,  or 
enter  on  an  existence  of  its  own,  as  a  product  which  detaches  itself 
from  him,  in  an  independence  scarcely  to  be  defined. 

The  first  of  these  suppositions — that  of  the  world's  Immanence  in 
God — we  do  not  further  pursue.  It  will  lead  directly  back  to  our 
view  that  every  single  thing  and  event  can  only  be  thought  as  an 
activity,  constant  or  transitory,  of  the  one  Existence,  its  reality 
and  substance  as  the  mode  of  being  and  substance  of  this  one  Exist 
ence,  its  nature  and  form  as  a  consistent  phase  in  the  unfolding  of 
the  same. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  follow  Leibnitz  in  preferring  the  other 
supposition  that  the  real  world  is  constituted  By  a  sum  of  develop 
ments  of  isolated  Monads — developments  merely  parallel  and  not  inter 
fering  with  each  other,  in  what  precise  form  has  this  world  preserved 
the  very  property  on  which  rested  its  claim  to  be  called  into  reality  ? 
I  mean  that  truth,  consistency,  or  rationality,  which  rendered  it 
superior  to  the  unrealisable  dreams  of  the  divine  Phantasy?  What 
would  be  gained  by  saying  that  in  this  world,  while  none  of  its  members 
condition  each  other,  everything  goes  on  as  if  they  all  did  so ;  that 
accordingly,  while  it  does  not  really  form  a  whole,  yet  to  an  intelli 
gence  directed  to  it,  it  will  have  the  appearance  of  doing  so ;  that,  in 
one  word,  its  reality  consists  in  a  hollow  and  delusive  imitation  of 
that  inner  consistency  which  was  pronounced  to  be,  as  such,  the 
ultimate  reason  why  its  realisation  was  possible  ?  I  can  anticipate  an 
objection  that  will  here  be  made  ;  doubtless,  it  will  be  said,  between 
the  elements  of  this  world  there  exist  reciprocal  conditions,  though 
it  may  not  follow  that  the  elements  actually  operate  on  each  other  in 
accordance  with  these  conditions ;  they  exist  in  the  form  of  a  sum  of 
actually  present  relations  of  all  elements  to  all,  but  the  presence  of 
these  relations  does  not  imply  an  Intelligence  that  comprehends 
them ;  like  any  truth,  they  continue  to  hold  though  no  one  thinks  of 
them. 

The  substance  of  what  I  have  to  say  against  the  admissibility  of 
such  views  I  postpone  for  a  moment.  Here  I  would  only  remind  the 
reader  that  all  this  might  equally  be  said  of  the  unrealised  world- 
image  A  as  supposed  to  be  slill  hovering  before  the  divine  under 
standing.  At  the  same  time  something  more  might  be  said  of  it. 
For  in  this  living  thought  of  God  it  was  not  merely  the  case  that  a 
part  a  of  this  image  stood  to  another  part  b  in  a  certain  relation, 


140  The  Unity  of  Things.  [BOOKI. 

which  might  have  been  discovered  by  the  attention  of  a  mind  directed 
to  it.  For  in  fact  this  consciousness  actually  was  constantly  directed 
to  it,  and  in  this  consciousness,  in  its  relating  activity,  these  relations 
had  their  being.  The  presentation  of  a  was  in  fact  in  such  an  in 
stance  the  efficient  cause  which  brought  the  presentation  of  b  into 
the  divine  consciousness,  or — if  this  is  held  to  be  the  office  of  the 
Phantasy — which  at  any  rate  retained  it  in  consciousness  and  re 
cognised  it  as  the  consistent  complement  to  a.  The  active  condition 
ing  of  b  by  a  is  absent  from  the  elements  of  reality  and  is  expressly 
replaced,  according  to  the  theory  in  question,  by  the  mere  coexist 
ence,  without  any  active  operation  of  one  on  the  other,  of  things  the 
same  in  content  with  the  presentations  of  the  divine  consciousness. 
Thus,  to  say  the  least,  the  realised  world,  so  far  from  being  richer, 
is  poorer  in  consequence  of  its  supposed  independent  existence  as 
detached  from  the  Divine  Being — in  consequence  of  its  course  re 
sulting  no  longer  from  the  living  presence  of  God  but  only  from  an 
order  of  relations  established  by  him.  The  requirement  that  God 
and  the  world  should  not  be  so  blended  as  to  leave  no  opposition 
between  them  is  in  itself  perfectly  justified.  But  the  right  way  to 
satisfy  it  would  have  been  not  by  this  unintelligible  second  act  of 
constitution,  by  the  realisation  of  what  was  previously  an  image  of  a 
merely  possible  world,  but  by  the  recognition  that  what  in  this  theory 
is  presented  as  a  mere  possibility  and  preliminary  suggestion  (to  the 
mind  of  God)  is  in  fact  the  full  reality,  but  that  nevertheless  the  one 
remains  different  from  all  the  manifold,  which  only  exists  in  and 
through  the  one. 

80.  I  now  return  to  the  thesis,  of  which  I  just  now  postponed 
the  statement  for  an  instant.  It  at  once  forms  the  conclusion  of  a 
course  of  thought  previously  entered  on  and  has  a  decisive  bearing 
on  all  that  I  have  to  say  in  the  sequel.  At  the  outset  of  this  dis 
cussion  we  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  proposition,  '  things 
exist/  has  no  intelligible  meanirig  except  that  they  stand  in  relations 
to  each  other.  But  these  relations  we  left  for  the  present  without  a 
name,  and  contented  ourselves,  by  way  of  a  first  interpretation  of  our 
thought,  with  reference  to  various  relations  in  the  way  of  space,  time, 
and  of  cause  and  effect,  of  which  the  subsistence  between  things 
constituted  for  our  every-day  apprehension  that  which  we  call  the 
real  existence  of  the  world.  But  between  the  constituents  of  the 
world  of  ideas — constituents  merely  thinkable  as  opposed  to  real — 
we  found  a  complex  of  relations  no  less  rich.  Nay,  our  mobile 
thought,  it  seemed,  had  merely  to  will  it,  and  the  number  of  these 


CHAPTER vi.]       What  are  '  objective  relations?  141 

relations  might  be  indefinitely  increased  by  transitions  in  the  way  of 
comparison  between  points  selected  at  pleasure.  This  consideration 
could  not  but  elicit  the  demand  that  the  relations  on  which  the  being 
of  things  rests  should  be  sought  only  among  those  which  obtain 
objectively  between  them,  not  among  such  as  our  subjective  process 
of  thinking  can  by  arbitrary  comparisons  establish  between  them. 

This  distinction  however  is  untenable.  I  repeat-  in  regard  to  it 
what  I  have  already  in  my  Logic1  had  opportunity  of  explaining  in 
detail.  In  the  passage  referred  to  I  started  with  considering  how 
a  representation  of  relations  between  two  matters  of  consciousness,  a 
and  b,  is  possible.  The  condition  of  its  possibility  I  could  not  find 
either  in  the  mere  succession  or  in  the  simultaneity  of  the  two  several 
presentations,  a  and  b,  in  consciousness,  but  only  in  a  relating  activity, 
which  directs  itself  from  one  to  the  other,  holding  the  two  together. 
1  He  who  finds  red  and  yellow  to  a  certain  extent  different  yet  akin, 
becomes  conscious,  no  doubt,  of  these  two  relations  only  by  help  of 
the  changes  which  he,  as  a  subject  of  ideas,  experiences  in  the  trans 
ition  from  the  idea  of  red  to  that  of  yellow;'  but,  I  added,  he  will 
not  in  this  transition  entertain  any  apprehension  lest  the  relation  of 
red  to  yellow  may  in  itself  be  something  different  from  that  of  the 
affections  which  they  severally  occasion  in  him  ;  lest  in  itself  red 
should  be  like  yellow  and  only  appear  different  from  it  to  us,  or  lest 
in  reality  there  should  be  a  greater  difference  between  them  than  we 
know,  which  only  appears  to  us  to  involve  nevertheless  a  certain 
affinity.  Doubts  like  these  might  be  entertained  as  to  the  external 
causes,  to  us  still  unknown,  of  our  feelings.  But  so  long  as  it  is  not 
these  causes  but  only  our  own  ideas,  after  they  have  been  excited  in 
us,  that  form  the  object  of  our  comparison,  we  do  not  doubt  that  the 
likenesses2,  differences,  and  relations  which  these  exhibit  on  the  part  of 
our  presentative  susceptibility  indicate  at  the  same  time  a  real  relation 
on  the  part  of  what  is  represented  to  us.  Yet  how  exactly  is  this 
possible  ?  How  can  the  propositions,  a  is  the  same  as  a,  and,  a  is  dif 
ferent  from  <5,  express  an  objective  relation,  which,  as  objective,  would 
subsist  independently  of  our  thought  and  only  be  discovered  or 
recognised  by  it  ?  Some  one  may  perhaps  still  suppose  himself  to 
know  what  he  means  by  a  self-existent  identity3  of  a  with  a;  but 
what  will  he  make  of  a  self-existent  distinction  between  a  and  £? 
and  what  objective  relation  will  correspond  to  this  '  between,'  to  which 
we  only  attach  a  meaning,  so  long  as  it  suggests  to  us  the  distance  in 

1  [§§  337,  338.]  2  ['Gleichheiten.'] 

3  ['Gleichheit.  gleich,'  v.  note  on  §  19.] 


142  The  Unity  of  Things. 

space  which  we,  in  comparing  a  and  £,  metaphorically  interpolated 
for  the  purpose  of  holding  the  two  apart,  and  at  the  same  time  as  a 
connecting  path  on  which  our  mind's  eye  might  be  able  to  travel  from 
one  to  the  other  ?  Or — to  put  the  case  otherwise — since  difference, 
like  any  other  relation,  is  neither  a  predicate  of  a  taken  by  itself  nor  of 
b  taken  by  itself,  of  what  is  it  a  predicate  ?  And  if  it  only  has  a 
meaning  when  a  and  b  have  been  brought  into  relation  to  each  other, 
what  objective  connexion  exists  between  a  and  b  in  the  supposed  case 
where  the  relating  activity,  by  which  we  connected  the  two  in  con 
sciousness,  is  not  being  exercised  ? 

The  only  possible  answer  to  these  questions  we  found  to  be  the 
following.  If  a  and  b,  as  we  have  so  far  taken  to  be  the  case,  are  not 
things  belonging  to  a  reality  outside  and  independent  of  our  thought, 
but  simply  contents  of  possible  ideas  like  red  and  yellow,  straight  and 
curved,  then  a  relation  between  them  exists  only  so  far  as  we  think  it 
and  by  the  act  of  our  thinking  it.  But  our  soul  is  so  constituted,  and 
we  suppose  every  other  soul  which  inwardly  resembles  our  own  to  be 
so  constituted,  that  the  same  a  and  b,  how  often  and  by  whomsoever 
they  may  be  thought,  will  always  produce  in  thought  the  same  rela 
tion — a  relation  that  has  its  being  only  in  thought  and  by  means  of 
thought.  Therefore  this  relation  is  independent  of  the  individual 
thinking  subject,  and  independent  of  the  several  phases  of  that  sub 
ject's  thought.  This  is  all  that  we  mean  when  we  regard  it  as  having 
an  existence  in  itself  between  a  and  b  and  believe  it  to  be  discoverable 
by  our  thought  as  an  object  which  has  a  permanence  of  its  own.  It 
really  has  this  permanence,  but  only  in  the  sense  of  being  an  occur 
rence  which  will  always  repeat  itself  in  our  thinking  in  the  same  way 
under  the  same  conditions.  So  long  therefore  as  the  question  concerns 
an  a  and  b,  of  which  the  content  is  given  merely  by  impressions  and 
ideas,  the  distinction  of  objective  relations  obtaining  between  them, 
from  subjective  relations  established  between  them  by  our  thought,  is 
wholly  unmeaning.  All  relations  which  can  be  discovered  between 
the  two  are  predicable  of  them  on  exactly  the  same  footing ;  all,  that 
is  to  say,  as  inferences  which  their  own  constant  nature  allows  to  our 
thought  and  enjoins  upon  it ;  none  as  something  which  had  an  exist 
ence  of  its  own  between  them  prior  to  this  inferential  activity  on  our 
part.  The  relation1  of  a  to  b  in  such  cases  means,  conformably  to  the 
etymological  form  of  the  term,  our  act  of  reference 2. 

81.  We  now  pass  to  the  other  case,  which  concerns  us  here  as 

1  ['  Beziehung.'] 
a  ['Unsere  Handlung  des  Beziehens.'] 


CHAPTER  vi.]     Relations  of  Qualities  and  of  Things.        143 

dealing  no  longer  with  logic  but  with  metaphysics.  Let  a  and  b  indi 
cate  expressly  Realities,  Entities,  or  Things.  The  groups,  a  and  b,  of 
sensible  or  imaginable  qualities,  by  which  these  things  are  distinguished 
from  each  other,  we  can  still  submit  with  the  same  result  as  before 
to  our  arbitrary  acts  of  comparison,  and  every  relation  which  by  so 
doing  we  find  between  the  qualities  will  have  a  significance  for  the 
two  things  a  and  b  equally  essential  or  unessential,  objective  or  non- 
objective.  No  relation  between  them  could  be  discovered  if  it  were 
not  founded  on  the  nature  of  each,  but  none  is  found  before  it  is 
sought. 

But  it  is  not  these  relations  that  we  have  in  view  if,  in  order  to 
render  intelligible  a  connexion  of  the  things  a  and  b  which  experience 
forces  on  our  notice,  we  appeal  to  a  relation  C,  which  sometimes  does, 
sometimes  does  not,  obtain  between  a  and  b ;  which  is  thus  not  one 
that  belongs  to  the  constant  natures,  a  and  b,  of  the  two  things,  but  a 
relation  into  which  the  things,  as  already  constituted  independently  of 
it,  do  or  do  not  enter.  In  this  case  the  conclusion  is  unavoidable 
that  this  objective  relation  C,  to  which  we  appeal,  cannot  be  anything 
that  takes  place  between  a  and  b,  and  that  just  for  that  reason  it  is  not 
a  relation  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  term,  but  more  than  this.  For 
it  is  only  in  our  thought,  while  it  passes  from  the  mental  image  or 
presentation  of  a  to  that  of  b,  that  there  arises,  as  a  perception  imme 
diately  intelligible  to  thought,  that  which  we  here  call  a  between.  It 
would  be  quite  futile  to  try,  on  the  contrary,  to  assign  to  this  betiveen, 
at  once  connecting  and  separating  a  and  b,  which  is  a  mere  memorial 
of  an  act  of  thought  achieved  solely  by  means  of  the  unity  of  our  con 
sciousness,  a  real  validity  in  the  sense  of  its  having  an  independent 
existence  of  its  own  apart  from  the  consciousness  which  thinks  it. 
We  are  all,  it  is  true,  accustomed  to  think  of  things  in  their  multipli 
city  as  scattered  over  a  space,  through  the  void  of  which  stretch  the 
threads  of  their  connecting  relations  ;  whether  we  insist  on  this  way  of 
thinking  and  consider  the  existence  of  things  to  be  only  possible  in 
the  space  which  we  see  around  us,  or  whether  we  are  disposed  with 
more  or  less  clearness,  as  against  the  notion  of  a  sensible  space,  to 
prefer  that  of  an  intelligible  space  which  would  afford  the  web  com 
posed  of  those  threads  of  relation  equal  convenience  of  expansion.  But 
even  if  we  cannot  rid  ourselves  of  these  figures,  we  must  at  least  allow 
that  that  part  of  the  thread  of  relation  which  lies  in  the  void  between 
a  and  b,  can  contribute  nothing  to  the  union  of  the  two  immediately 
but  only  through  its  attachment  to  a  and  b  respectively.  Nor  does 
its  mere  contact  with  a  and  b  suffice  to  yield  this  result.  It  must 


144  The  Unity  of  Things. 

communicate  to  both  a  definite  tension,  prevalent  throughout  its  own 
length,  so  that  they  are  in  a  different  condition  from  that  in  which 
they  would  be  if  this  tension  were  of  a  different  degree  or  took  a  dif 
ferent  direction. 

It  is  on  these  modifications  of  their  inner  state,  which  a  and  b  sus 
tain  from  each  other — on  these  alone — that  the  result  of  the  relation 
between  them  depends ;  and  these  are  obviously  independent  of  the 
length  and  of  the  existence  of  the  imagined  thread  of  relation.  The 
termini  a  and  b  can  produce  immediately  in  each  other  these  reciprocal 
modifications,  which  they  in  the  last  resort  must  produce  even  on 
supposition  that  they  communicated  their  tension  to  each  other  by 
means  of  the  thread  of  relation ;  since  no  one  would  so  far  misuse 
the  figure  as  to  make  the  thread,  which  was  ostensibly  only  an  adapta 
tion  to  sense  of  the  relation  between  the  termini,  into  a  new  real 
material,  capable  of  causing  a  tension,  that  has  arisen  in  itself  from 
the  reciprocal  action  of  its  own  elements,  to  act  on  inert  things,  a  and 
b,  attached  to  it.  Let  us  discard,  then,  this  easy,  but  useless  and  con 
fusing,  figure.  Let  us  admit  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  this  interval 
between  things,  in  which,  as  its  various  possible  modifications,  we 
sought  a  place  for  those  relations,  C,  that  we  supposed  to  form  the 
ground  of  the  changing  action  of  things  upon  each  other.  That 
which  we  sought  under  this  name  of  an  objective  relation  between 
things  can  only  subsist  if  it  is  more  than  mere  relation,  and  if  it  sub 
sists  not  between  things  but  immediately  in  them  as  the  mutual  action 
which  they  exercise  on  each  other  and  the  mutual  effects  which  they 
sustain  from  e.ach  other.  It  is  not  till  we  direct  our  thought  in  the 
way  of  comparison  to  the  various  forms  of  this  action  that  we  come 
to  form  this  abstract  conception  of  a  ?nere  relation,  not  yet  amounting 
to  action  but  preceding  the  action  which  really  takes  place  as  its 
ground  or  condition. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

Conclusion. 

82.  WE  may  now  attempt  by  way  of  summary  to  determine  how 
many  of  the  ontological  questions,  so  far  proposed,  admit  of  a  final 
answer.  In  the  first  place,  to  stand  in  relations  appeared  to  us  at 
the  beginning  of  our  discussion  to  be  the  only  intelligible  import  of 
the  being  of  things.  These  relations  are  nothing  else  than  the  im 
mediate  internal  reciprocal  actions  themselves  which  the  things  un 
remittingly  exchange.  Beside  the  things  and  that  which  goes  on  in 
them  there  is  nothing  in  reality.  Everything  which  we  regard  as 
mere  relation — all  those  relations  which  seem  to  extend  through  the 
complete  void  of  a  *  leiween-things]  so  that  the  real  might  enter  into 
them — subsist  solely  as  images  which  our  presentative  faculty  on 
its  own  account  makes  for  itself.  They  originate  in  it  and  for  it,  as 
in  its  restless  activity  it  compares  the  likeness,  difference,  and  se 
quence  of  the  impressions  which  the  operation  of  A,  B,  C  upon  us 
brings  into  being — this  operation  at  each  moment  corresponding  to 
the  changeable  inner  states  a,  <5,  c,  which  A,  JB,  C  experience  through 
their  action  on  each  other.  To  pursue  this  Thesis  further  is  the  problem 
of  Cosmology,  which  deals  with  things  and  events  as  resting  or  pass 
ing  in  the  seemingly  pre-existent  forms  of  space  and  time,  and  which 
will  have  to  show  how  all  relations  of  space  and  time,  which  we  are 
accustomed  to  regard  as  prior  conditions  of  an  operation  yet  to 
ensue,  are  only  expressions  and  consequences  of  one  already  taking 
place. 

We  find  an  answer  further  to  the  enquiry  as  to  that  metaphysical 
C5  that  relation  which  it  seems  necessary  should  supervene,  in  order 
that  things,  which  without  it  would  have  remained  indifferent  to  each 
other,  might  be  placed  under  the  necessity,  and  become  capable,  of 
operation  on  each  other.  The  question  is  answered  to  the  effect  that 
such  a  thing  as  a  non-C1,  a  separation  which  would  have  left  the  things 
indifferent  to  each  other,  is  not  to  be  met  with  in  reality  and  that 
therefore  the  question  as  to  the  transition  from  this  state  into  that  of 

VOL.  I.  L 


1 46  Conclusion.  [BOOK  i. 

combination  is  a  question  concerning  nothing.  The  unity  of  M  is 
this  eternally  present  condition  of  an  interchange  of  action,  unremit 
ting  but  varying  to  the  highest  degree  of  complexity.  For  neither 
does  this  unity  ever  really  exist  in  the  general  form  indicated  by  this 
conception  and  name  of  unity  and  by  this  sign  M.  It  really  exists  at 
each  moment  only  as  a  case,  having  a  definite  value,  of  the  equation 
for  which  I  gave  the  formula  *,  and  in  such  form  it  is  at  the  same  time 
the  efficient  cause  of  the  actuality  of  the  state  next-ensuing  as  well  as 
the  conditioning  ground  of  what  this  state  contains.  Thus  the  stream  of 
this  self-contained  operation  propagates  itself  out  of  itself  from  phase 
to  phase.  If  a  sensible  image  is  needed  to  help  us  to  apprehend  it, 
we  should  not  think  of  a  wide-spread  net  of  relations,  in  the  meshes 
of  which  things  lie  scattered,  so  that  tightening  of  the  threads,  now  at 
this  point,  now  at  that,  may  draw  them  together  and  force  them  to 
share  each  other's  states.  We  should  rather  recall  the  many  simul 
taneous  'Parts'  of  a  piece  of  polyphonic  music,  which  without  being  in 
place  are  external  to  each  other  in  so  far  as  they  are  distinguished  by 
their  pitch  and  tone,  and  of  which  first  one  and  then  another,  rising 
or  falling,  swelling  or  dying  away,  compels  all  the  rest  to  vary  cor 
respondingly  in  harmony  with  itself  and  one  another,  forming  a  series 
of  movements  that  result  in  the  unity  of  a  melody  which  is  consistent 
and  complete  in  itself. 

83.  Our  last  considerations  started  from  the  supposition  that  in  a 
certain  element  A  of  M  a  new  state  a  has  somehow  been  introduced. 
It  is  natural  that  now  a  further  question  should  be  raised  as  to  the 
possibility  of  this  primary  change,  from  the  real  occurrence  of  which 
follows  the  course  of  reactions  depicted.  This  question  as  to  the 
beginning  of  motion  has  been  a  recognised  one  since  the  time  of 
Aristotle,  but  it  has  been  gradually  discovered  that  the  answer  to  it 
cannot  be  derived  from  the  unmoved,  which  seemed  to  Aristotle  the 
ultimate  thing  in  the  world.  The  most  various  beliefs  as  to  the 
nature  and  structure  of  reality  agree  upon  this,  that  out  of  a  con 
dition  of  perfect  rest  a  beginning  of  motion  can  never  arise.  Not 
merely  a  multiplicity  of  originally  given  real  elements,  but  also  given 
motions  between  them,  are  presupposed  in  all  the  theories  in  which 
professors  of  the  natural  sciences,  no  less  than  others,  strive  to  explain 
the  origin  of  the  actual  course  of  the  world  out  of  its  simplest  prin 
ciples.  To  us,  with  that  hunger  for  explanation  which  characterises 
our  thought,  it  looks  like  an  act  of  despair  to  deny  the  derivability 
from  anything  else  of  some  general  fact,  when  in  regard  to  its 

1  [Cp.  §  70-] 


CHAPTER  vi  i.]  Might  the  wor  Id  have  been  different?         147 

individual  forms  one  is  accustomed  to  enquire  for  the  conditions  of  their 
real  existence.  We  experience  this  feeling  of  despair  if  we  find  our 
selves  compelled  to  trace  back  the  multiplicity  of  changeable  bodies 
to  a  number  of  unchangeable  elements.  Yet  the  question,  why  it 
is  just  these  elements  and  no  others  that  enjoy  the  prerogative  of 
original  reality,  does  not  force  itself  upon  us.  Our  fancy  does  not 
avail,  beyond  the  elements  given  by  experience,  to  produce  images  of 
others,  which  might  have  existed  but  were  in  some  unintelligible  way 
cheated  of  their  equal  claim  to  reality.  Of  the  motions,  on  the  con 
trary,  of  which  these  elements,  once  given,  are  capable,  we  see  first 
one  and  then  another  take  place  in  reality  according  as  their  changing 
conditions  bring  them  about.  None  of  them  appears  to  us  so 
superior  to  the  rest  that  it  exclusively,  and  without  depending  in  its 
turn  on  similar  conditions,  should  claim  to  be  regarded  as  the  first 
actual  motion  of  the  real. 

These  considerations  lead  on  the  one  side  to  an  endless  regress  in 
time.  It  is  not  necessary  however  at  this  point  to  complicate  our 
enquiry  by  reference  to  the  difficulties  connected  with  occurrence  in 
time.  Our  effort  will  be  to  exclude  them  for  the  present.  But,  no 
matter  whether  we  believe  ourselves  to  reach  a  really  first  beginning 
or  whether  we  prolong  the  chain  of  occurrence  in  endless  retrogres 
sion,  the  established  course  of  the  world  is  anyhow  a  single  reality  in 
contrast  with  the  innumerable  possibilities,  which  would  have  been 
realised  if  either  the  primary  motion  had  been  different,  as  it  might 
have  been,  or  if,  which  is  equally  thinkable,  the  endless  progression, 
as  a  whole,  had  taken  a  different  direction.  For  whether  in  reality  it 
be  finite  or  infinite,  in  either  case  its  internal  arrangement  admits  of 
permutations  which,  as  it  is,  are  not  real. 

All  these  doubts,  however,  are  only  different  off-shoots  of  a  general 
confusion  in  our  way  of  thinking  and  a  complete  misunderstanding 
of  the  problems  which  a  metaphysical  enquiry  has  to  solve.  The 
world  once  for  all  is,  and  we  are  in  it.  It  is  constituted  in  a  particu 
lar  way,  and  in  us  for  that  reason  there  lives  a  Thought,  which  is  able 
to  distinguish  different  cases  of  a  universal.  Now  that  all  this  is  so, 
there  may  arise  in  us  the  images  and  conceptions  of  possibilities 
which  in  reality  are  not ;  and  then  we  imagine  that  we,  with  this 
Thought  of  ours,  are  there  before  all  reality  and  have  the  business  of 
deciding  what  reality  should  arise  out  of  these  empty  possibilities, 
which  are  yet  all  alike  only  thinkable  because  there  is  a  reality 
from  which  this  Thought  springs.  When  once,  in  this  Thought, 
affirmation  and  denial  of  the  same  content  have  become  possible,  we 

L  2 


148  Conclusion.  [BOOKI^ 

can  propose  all  those  perverted  questions  against  which  we  have  so 
often  protested— Why  there  is  a  world  at  all,  when  it  is  thinkable  that 
there  should  be  none  ?  Why,  as  there  is  a  world,  its  content  is  M 
and  not  some  other  drawn  from  the  far-reaching  domain  of  the 
non-J/?  Given  the  real  world  as  M,  why  is  it  not  in  rest  but  in 
motion  ?  Given  motion,  why  is  it  motion  in  the  direction  X  and  not 
in  the  equally  thinkable  direction  Z?  To  all  these  questions  there  is 
only  one  answer.  It  is  not  the  business  of  the  metaphysician  to 
>make  reality  but  to  recognise  it ;  to  investigate  the  inward  order  of 
what  is  given,  not  to  deduce  the  given  from  what  is  not  given.  In 
order  to  fulfil  this  office,  he  has  to  guard  against  the  mistake  of 
regarding  abstractions,  by  means  of  which  he  fixes  single  determina 
tions  of  the  real  for  his  use,  as  constructive  and  independent  elements 
which  he  can  employ,  by  help  of  his  own  resources,  to  build  up  the 
real. 

In  this  mistake  we  have  often  seen  metaphysicians  entangled. 
They  have  formed  the  idea  of  a  pure  being  and  given  to  this  a 
significance  apart  from  all  relations,  in  the  affirmation  of  which  and 
not  otherwise  it  indicates  reality.  They  have  petrified  that  reality 
which  can  only  attach  to  something  completely  determined,  into  a 
real-in-itself  destitute  of  all  properties.  They  have  spoken  of  laws 
as  a  controlling  power  between  or  beyond  the  things  and  events  in 
which  such  laws  had  their  only  real  validity.  In  like  manner  we 
are  inclined  to  think  at  the  outset  of  the  truly  existing  M,  the  complex 
of  all  things,  as  a  motionless  object  of  our  contemplation ;  and  we  are 
right  in  doing  so  as  long  as  in  conceiving  it  we  think  merely  of  the 
function,  constantly  identical  with  itself,  which  it  signifies  to  us.  From 
this  function,  it  is  true,  simply  as  conceived,  no  motion  follows.  But 
we  forget  meantime  that  it  is  not  this  conception  of  this  function  that 
is  the  real,  but  that  which  at  each  moment  the  function  executes,  and 
of  which  the  concrete  nature  may  contain  a  kind  of  fulfilment  of  the 
function,  which  does  not  follow  from  that  conception  of  it.  In  what 
way  that  one  all  embracing  M  solves  its  problem — whether  by  main 
taining  a  constant  equality  of  content,  or  by  a  succession  of  innu 
merable  different  instances,  of  which  each  satisfies  the  general  equa 
tion  prescribed  by  its  plan — that  is  its  own  affair.  Between  these  two 
thinkable  possibilities  it  is  not  for  us  to  choose  as  we  will.  Our 
business  is  to  recognise  whichever  of  them  is  given  as  reality.  Now 
what  is  given  to  us  is  the  fact  of  Becoming.  No  denial  of  ours  can 
banish  it  from  the  world.  It  is  not  therefore  as  a  stationary  identity 
with  itself  but  only  as  an  eternally  self-sustained  motion  that  we  have 


CHAPTER  vii.]   Must  a  spiritual  Being  be  assumed?         149 

to  recognise  the  given  being  of  that  which  truly  is.  And  as  given 
with  it  we  have  also  to  recognise  the  direction  which  its  motion 
takes. 

84.  I  have  referred  to  the  theories  which  agree  with  my  own  in 
being  Monistic.     In  all  of  them  motion  is  at  the  same  time  regarded 
as  an  eternal  attribute  of  the  supposed  ultimate  ground  of  the  world. 
This   motion,    however,    was   generally   represented    as   a   ceaseless 
activity,  on  the  opposition  of  which,  as  living  and  animating,  to  the  un 
intelligible  conception  of  a  stark  and  dead  reality  the  writers  referred 
to  loved  to  dwell.    Such  language  shows  that  the  metaphysical  reasons 
for  believing  in  the  Unity  of  Being  have  been  reinforced  by  aesthetic 
inclinations  which  have  yielded  a  certain  prejudice  as  to  the  nature 
of  the  Being  that  is  to  be  counted  supreme.     It  was  not  the  mere 
characteristic  of  life  and  activity  but  their  worth  and  the  happiness 
found  in  the  enjoyment  of  them  which  it  was  felt  must  belong  in 
some  supreme  measure  to  that  in  which  all  things  have  their  cause  and 
reason.    Such  a  proposition  is  more  than  at  this  stage  of  our  enquiry 
we  are  entitled  to  maintain.     Life  and  Activity  only  carry  the  special 
meaning  thus  associated  with  them  on  supposition  of  the  spirituality 
of  the    Being  of  which   they  are    predicated.     The    only  necessary 
inference,  however,  from  the  reasoning  which  has  so  far  guided  us  is 
to  an  immanent  operation,  through  which  each  new  state  of  what  Is 
becomes  the  productive  occasion  of  a  second  sequent  upon  it,  but 
which  for  anything  we  have  yet  seen  to  the  contrary  may  be  a  blind 
operation.     I  would  not  indeed  conceal  my  conviction  that  there  is 
justification,  notwithstanding,  for  a  belief  in  the  Life  of  that  which  is 
the  ground  of  the  world,  but  it  is  a  justification  of  which  I  must  post 
pone  the  statement.     I  would  only  ask,  subject  to  this  proviso,  to  be 
allowed  the  use  of  expressions,  for  the  sake  of  brevity,  of  which  the 
full  meaning  is  indeed  only  intelligible  upon  a  supposition,  as  we  have 
seen,  still  to  be  made  good,  but  which  will  give  a  more  vivid  meaning 
to  the  propositions  we  have  yet  to  advance  than  the  constant  repeti 
tion  of  more  abstract  terms  could  do. 

85.  So   long   as  all  we   know  of  M  is   the   function  which  it  is 
required  to  fulfil — that,  namely,  of  being  the  Unity  which  renders  all 
that  the  world  contains  what  it  is — so  long  we  can  derive  nothing 
from  this  thought  but  a  series  of  general  and  abstract  deductions. 
Every  single  being  which  exists,  exists  in  virtue  not  of  any  being  of 
its  own  but  of  the  commission  given  it,  so  to  speak,  by  the  one  M; 
and  it  exists  just  so  long  as  its  particular  being  is  required  for  the 
fulfilment  of  the  equation  M=  M.     Again,  it  is  what  it  is  not  abso- 


150  Conclusion.  [BOOK  i. 

lutely  and  in  immemorial  independence  of  anything  else ;  it  is  that 
which  the  one  M  charges  it  to  be.  One  thing,  finally,  operates  on 
another  not  by  means  of  any  force  of  its  own,  but  in  virtue  of  the 
One  present  in  it,  and  the  mode  and  amount  of  its  operation  at  each 
moment  is  that  prescribed  it  by  M  for  the  re-establishment  of  the 
equation  just  spoken  of. 

To  the  further  interpretation  of  these  propositions  in  detail  I  return 
presently.  That  which  is  implied  in  all  of  them  is  a  denial  of  any 
knowledge  antecedent  to  all  experience — a  denial  which  goes  much 
deeper,  and  indeed  bears  quite  another  meaning  than  is  understood  by 
those  who  are  so  fond  of  insisting  on  this  renunciation  of  a  priori 
knowledge.  It  is  not  in  philosophy  merely,  but  in  the  propositions 
on  which  scientific  men  venture  that  we  trace  the  influence  of  the 
prejudice  that,  independently  of  the  content  realised  in  this  world, 
M •=.  M,  there  are  certain  universal  modes  of  procedure,  certain  rights 
and  duties,  which  self-evidently  belong  to  all  elements,  as  such,  that 
are  to  be  united  in  any  possible  world,  and  which  would  be  just  as 
valid  for  a  wholly  different  world,  N  =  TV,  as  for  that  in  which  we 
actually  live.  There  has  thus  arisen  in  philosophy  a  series  of  propo 
sitions  which  purport  to  set  forth  the  properties  and  prerogatives  of 
substances  as  such  independently  of  that  course  of  the  world  in  which 
they  are  inwoven.  They  obviously  rest  on  the  impression  that  every 
other  order  of  a  universe,  whatever  it  might  be,  that  could  ever  come 
into  Being,  would  have  to  respect  these  properties  and  prerogatives 
and  could  exact  no  function  from  Things  other  than  what,  in  virtue  of 
a  nature  belonging  to  them  antecedently  to  the  existence  of  a  world, 
they  were  fitted  and  necessitated  to  render.  And  no  less  in  the 
procedure  of  the  physical  sciences,  however  many  laws  they  may 
treat  as  obtaining  merely  in  the  way  of  matter  of  fact,  there  is  yet 
implied  the  notion  of  there  being  a  certain  more  limited  number  of 
mechanical  principles,  to  which  every  possible  nature,  however  hetero 
geneous  from  nature  as  it  is,  would  nevertheless  have  to  conform. 
The  philosophers,  it  is  true,  have  imagined  that  the  knowledge  of  the 
prerogatives  of  Substance  was  to  be  attained  by  pure  thinking,  while 
the  men  of  science  maintain  that  the  knowledge  of  ultimate  laws  is 
only  to  be  arrived  at  by  experience.  But  as  to  the  metaphysical  value 
of  that  which  they  suppose  to  be  discovered  in  these  different  ways 
they  are  both  at  one.  They  take  it  as  the  sum  of  pre-mundane  truth, 
which  different  worlds,  M=  yJ/and  N=  N,  do  but  exhibit  in  different 
cases  of  its  application. 

This  is  the  notion  which  I  seek  to  controvert.     Prior  to  the  world, 


CHAPTER  vi i.]    Nothing  more  primary  than  Rea lily.          151 

or  prior  to  the  first  thing  that  was  real,  there  was  no  pre-mundane  or 
pre-real  reality,  in  which  it  would  have  been  possible  to  make  out  what 
would  be  the  rights  which,  in  the  event  of  there  coming  to  be  a  reality, 
each  element  to  be  employed  in  its  construction  could  urge  for  its 
protection  against  anything  incompatible  with  its  right  as  a  substance, 
or  to  which  every  force  might  appeal  as  a  justification  for  refusing 
functions  not  imposed  on  it  by  the  terms  of  its  original  charter. 
There  is  really  neither  primary  being  nor  primary  law,  but  the 
original  reality,  M  or  N.  Given  M  or  N,  there  follows  from  the  one 
M  for  its  world,  M=  M,  the  series  of  laws  and  truths,  which  hold 
good  for  this  world.  If  not  M  but  N  were  the  original  reality,  then 
for  the  world  N  =  ^V  there  would  follow  the  other  series  of  regulated 
processes  which  would  hold  good  for  this  other  world.  There  is 
nothing  which  could  oppose  to  these  ordinances  MQT.  TV  any  claim  of 
its  own  to  preservation  or  respect. 

86.  Here  the  objector  will  interpose :  '  Granting  this,  are  you  not 
liable  to  the  charge  of  having  here  in  your  turn  given  utterance  to  one 
of  those  pre-mundane  truths,  of  which  you  refuse  to  admit  the  validity? 
Have  you  not  of  your  own  accord  expressly  alleged  the  case  of  two 
worlds,  M  and  N,  which  you  suppose  would  both  be  obliged  to 
conform  to  the  general  rule  stated?'  Now  I  have  purposely  chosen 
these  expressions  in  order  to  make  my  view,  which  certainly  stands  in 
need  of  justification  against  the  above  objection,  perfectly  clear.  In 
the  first  place,  as  regards  the  world  N,  which  I  placed  in  opposition 
to  the  real  world  M,  I  have  to  repeat  what  I  have  already  more  than 
once  pointed  out.  The  world  M  is,  and  we,  thinking  spirits,  are  in 
it,  holding  a  position  which  M  in  virtue  of  its  nature  as  M  could  not 
but  assign  to  us.  To  this  position  are  adjusted  those  general  processes 
of  our  Thought,  by  which  we  are  to  arrive  at  what  we  call  a  know 
ledge  of  the  rest  of  the  world.  Among  these  is  that  very  important 
one,  no  doubt  corresponding  to  the  plan  on  which  the  world  M  is 
ordered,  which  enables  us  not  only  to  form  general  ideas  as  such,  but 
to  subsume  any  given  manifold  under  any  one  of  its  marks,  of  which 
a  general  idea  has  been  formed,  as  a  species  or  instance  thereof. 
This  intellectual  capability,  once  given,  does  not  subject  itself  to  any 
limits  in  its  exercise.  Even  that  which,  when  we  consider  it  meta 
physically,  we  recognise  as  in  reality  the  all-containing  and  uncon 
ditioned,  we  may  as  a  matter  of  logic  take  for  one  of  the  various 
instances  admitting  of  subsumption  under  the  general  idea  of  the  un 
conditioned.  Hence,  while  it  is  only  of  particular  things  that  we 
assert  multiplicity  as  a  matter  of  reality,  we  attempt  on  the  other 


152  Conclusion .  [BOOKI. 

hand  to  form  a  plural  of  the  conception  '  Universe/  and  oppose  the 
real  M  to  many  other  possible  Universes. 

But  the  capacity  of  doing  this  we  owe  not  to  the  knowledge  of  a 
law  to  which  M  and  N  alike  are  subject,  but  only  to  that  which 
actually  takes  place  in  M,  and  to  a  certain  tendency  transferred  from 
it  to  us  as  constituents  of  M:  the  tendency  to  think  of  everything 
real  as  an  instance  of  a  kind,  of  which  the  conception  is  derived  by 
abstraction  from  that  thing,  and  thus  at  last  to  think  even  of  the 
primary  all-embracing  Real,  M  itself,  as  an  instance  representing  the 
idea  we  form  of  it,  and  so  to  dream  of  other  instances  existing  along 
with  it.  Thus  arises  the  notion  of  that  world  N9  a  perfectly  empty 
fiction  of  thought  to  which  we  ascribe  no  manner  of  reality,  and  of 
no  value,  except,  like  other  imaginary  formulae,  to  illustrate  the  other 
conception  M,  which  is  not  imaginary.  And  I  employed  TV  exclusively 
for  this  purpose.  Further,  when  we  said  that,  if  N  existed,  the  laws 
valid  for  N  would  flow  from  the  equation  N  =  N  in  just  the  same 
way  as  those  valid  for  M  flow  from  the  equation  M  =  M,  this  was 
not  a  conclusion  drawn  from  knowledge  of  an  obligation  binding  on 
both  of  them.  On  the  contrary,  it  was  an  analogy  in  which  what  was 
true  of  the  real  M  was  transferred  to  the  imaginary  N.  In  reality  we 
have  no  title  to  make  this  transfer,  for — to  put  it  simply — who  can  tell 
what  would  be  and  would  happen  if  everything  were  other  than  it  is  ? 
But  if  we  do  oppose  this  imaginary  case  to  the  real  one  in  order  to 
explain  the  latter,  we  must  treat  it  after  the  type  of  the  real.  Other 
wise,  as  wholly  disparate,  it  would  not  even  serve  the  purpose  of  illus 
trating  the  real  by  contrast  with  it — the  only  purpose  for  which  it  is 
introduced. 

87.  Yet  a  third  objection  remains  to  be  noticed.  The  statement 
that  from  M  follows  the  series  of  laws  that  hold  good  for  this  world 
M,  obviously  does  not  mean  merely  that  these  laws  proceed  anyhow 
from  M-,  it  means  that  they  are  the  proper  consequences  of  its 
nature.  But  what  is  meant  by  a  '  proper  consequence '  when  it  can 
no  longer  be  distinguished  from  an  improper  consequence  as  corre 
sponding  to  some  rule  to  which  the  improper  consequence  does  not 
correspond?  .Have  we  not  after  all  to  presuppose  some  law  of  the 
necessity  or  possibility  of  thought,  absolutely  prior  to  the  world  and 
reality,  which  determines,  in  regard  to  every  reality  that  may  come  to 
be,  what  development  of  its  particular  nature  can  follow  consistently 
from  the  nature  of  the  primary  real,  M  or  N,  in  distinction  from  such 
a  development  as  would  be  inconsistent  ? 

This  variation  of  the  old  error  can  only  be  met  by  a  variation  of  the 


CHAPTER  vi  i.]    *  Consistency'  requires  Comparison.  153 

old  answer.  At  first  sight  it  seems  a  pleonasm  to  demand  that  actual 
consequences  should  not  be  inconsequent.  Still  the  expression  has 
a  certain  meaning.  Hitherto  we  have  taken  the  idea  of  reason  and 
consequent  to  be  merely  this,  that  from  a  determinate  something  there 
flows  another  determinate  something.  The  question,  what  determinate 
something  admits  of  being  connected  with  what  other,  by  coherence 
of  this  sort,  has  been  left  aside.  The  idea  of  reason  and  consequent,  as 
above  stated,  would  be  satisfied,  if  with  the  various  reasons  g^  g*  g*  the 
completely  determinate  consequences  p  q  r  were  as  a  matter  of  fact 
associated,  without  there  being  any  affinity  between  p  q  and  r  corre 
sponding  to  that  between  gl  g*g*.  We  shall  find  that  our  knowledge 
of  reality  is  in  fact  ultimately  arrested  by  such  pairs  of  cohering 
occurrences.  For  instance,  between  the  external  stimuli  on  which  the 
sensations  of  sight  and  hearing  depend,  we  are  able  to  point  out 
affinities  which  make  it  possible  to  present  those  several  modes  of 
stimulation  as  kinds,  gl  and  g-2,  of  one  process  of  vibration,  g.  But 
between  sounds  and  colours  we  are  quite  unable  to  discover  the  same 
affinity,  or  to  prove  that,  if  sensations  of  sound  follow  upon^1,  sensa 
tions  of  colour  must  in  consistency  present  themselves  on  occasion 


This  example  illustrates  the  meaning  of  that  consistency  of  conse 
quence  which,  in  our  view  as  stated  above,  can  within  certain  limits 
be  actually  discovered  and  demonstrated  in  the  real  world,  but  beyond 
those  limits  is  assumed  to  obtain  universally  in  some  form  or  other. 
The  Unity  of  Being,  without  which  there  would  be  no  possibility  of 
the  reciprocal  action  within  a  world  of  the  seemingly  though  not  really 
separate  elements  of  that  world,  excludes  the  notion  of  a  multiplicity 
of  isolated  and  fatalistic  ordinances,  which  without  reference  to  each 
other  should  bind  together  so  many  single  pairs  of  events.  There 
must  be  some  rule  or  other  according  to  which  the  connexion  of  the 
members  of  each  single  pair,  g  *  and_/^  with  each  other  determines  that 
of  all  the  other  pairs,  ^m  and/"m.  It  is  only  in  reference  to  the  com 
parison  of  various  cases  with  each  other,  which  thus  becomes  possible, 
that  there  is  any  meaning  in  speaking  as  we  did  of  '  consistency.' 
The  expression  has  no  meaning  in  relation  to  any  single  pair,  g  and 
y,  which  we  might  have  made  the  point  of  departure  for  our  pre 
liminary  consideration  of  the  rest.  The  coherence  between  two 
members  would  at  the  outset  be  an  independent  fact  of  which 
nothing  could  be  known  but  simply  that  it  was  the  fact.  For 

1  ['g'  and  'P  stand  for  '  Grand'  and  'Folge*  here,  as  on  p.  83.    Cp.  also  p.  96 
where  '  Grand  '  (Reason)  is  distinguished  from  '  Ursache  '  (Cause).] 


154  Conclusion. 


[BOOK  I. 


supposing  we  chose  to  think  of  their  adjustment  to  each  other  as 
connected  with  the  fulfilment  of  a  supreme  condition  Z  requiring 
consistency,  they  would  still  only  correspond  to  this  condition.  The 
actual  concrete  mode  in  which  they  satisfied  it,  the  content  in  virtue 
of  which  they  subordinated  themselves  to  it,  would  be  something 
which  it  would  be  impossible  to  suppose  determined  by  Z  itself;  the 
more  so  in  proportion  as  Z  was  more  expressly  taken  to  be  an  or 
dinance  that  would  have  to  be  fulfilled  indifferently  in  innumerable 
cases,  nay  even  in  the  most  various  worlds.  Supposing  Z  to  be 
neither  the  determining  ground  of  the  content  of^-  and/;  nor  the  pro 
ductive  cause  of  their  real  existence,  the  proposition  that  a  connexion 
between  the  two  ensues  in  accordance  with  Z,  cannot  be  a  statement 
of  a  real  metaphysical  order  of  supremacy  and  subordination  :  but  is 
just  the  reverse  of  the  real  order.  The  primary  independent  fact  of 
the  connexion  between  ^  and/"1  is  of  such  a  character  that  the  com 
parison  of  it  with  g*  and  /2,  g*  and  /3,  enables  us  first  to  apprehend 
a  universal  mode  of  procedure  on  the  part  of  the  various  connexions 
of  events  in  the  world — a  concrete  procedure,  peculiar  to  this  world 
M — and  then,  upon  continued  abstraction,  to  generate  the  conception 
of  a  condition  Z,  which  would  hold  good  for  the  organization  of  any 
world,  N,  so  long  as  the  mental  image  of  N  was  formed  after  the 
pattern  of  the  given  reality,  M. 

88.  At  the  present  day  few  will  understand  the  reasons  for  the  per- 
^  sistency  with  which  I  dwell  on  these  considerations  and  so  often 
/  return  to  them.  We  live  quickly,  and  have  forgotten,  without  settling, 
a  controversy  which  forty  years  ago  was  still  a  matter  of  the  liveliest 
interest  among  the  philosophers  of  Germany.  The  difficulties  involved 
in  Hegel's  system  of  thought  were  then  beginning  to  make  themselves 
felt  even  by  those  who  looked  with  favour  on  his  enterprise — of 
repeating  in  thought  by  a  constructive  process  the  actual  development 
of  the  world  from  the  ground  of  the  absolute.  It  was  not  after 
Hegel's  mind  to  begin  by  determining  the  subjective  forms  of 
thought,  under  which  alone  we  can  apprehend  the  concrete  nature 
of  this  ground  of  the  Universe — a  nature  perhaps  to  us  inaccessible. 
From  the  outset  he  looked  on  the  motion  of  our  thought  in  its  effort 
to  gain  a  clear  idea  of  this  still  obscure  goal  of  our  aspiration  as  the 
proper  inward  development  of  the  absolute  itself,  which  only  needed 
to  be  pursued  consistently,  in  order  gradually  to  bring  into  conscious 
ness  all  that  the  universe  contains. 

Thus  the  most  abstract  of  objects  came  to  be  thought  of  as  the 
root  of  the  most  concrete — a  way  of  thinking  which  it  was  soon  found 


CHAPTER  VII.]  CoHStrUCtlOHS  of  t/16  WOT  Id.  155 

impossible  to  carry  out.  Even  in  dealing  with  the  phenomena  of 
nature,  though  they  were  forced  into  categories  and  classifications 
without  sufficient  knowledge,  it  had  to  be  supposed  that  the  process 
of  development,  once  begun,  was  carried  on  with  a  superabundance 
in  the  multiplication  of  forms  for  which  no  explanation  was  to  be 
found  in  the  generalities  which  preceded  the  theory  of  nature.  All 
that  these  could  do  was  to  make  us  anticipate  some  such  saltus\  for  the 
transition  of  one  determination  into  its  opposite,  or  at  any  rate  into 
an  '  otherness,'  had  been  one  of  the  supposed  characteristics  of  the 
motion  which  was  held  to  generate  the  world.  The  same  difficulty 
might  have  been  felt  when  the  turn  came  for  the  construction  of  the 
spiritual  and  historical  world,  into  which  nature  was  supposed  to  pass 
over.  There  are  many  reasons,  however,  even  in  actual  life,  for  not 
being  content  with  the  derivation  of  our  ideas  of  the  beautiful  and  the 
good  from  the  living  feeling  which  in  fact  alone  completely  appre 
hends  their  value,  but  for  giving  them  greater  precision  by  requiring 
them  to  satisfy  certain  general  formal  determinations.  It  is  true  that 
they  too  undergo  a  sensible  degradation  if  they  are  looked  on  merely 
as  instances  of  abstract  relations  of  thought,  but  this  was  taken  almost 
less  notice  of  than  the  same  fact  in  regard  to  the  phenomena  of  nature, 
for  owing  to  the  latter  being  objects  of  perception,  it  could  not  be 
ignored  how  much  more  they  were  than  the  abstract  problems  which 
according  to  the  Hegelian  philosophy  they  had  to  fulfil. 

Hegel  himself  was  quite  aware  of  the  error  involved  in  this  way  of 
representing  the  world's  course  of  development.  He  repeatedly  insists 
that  what  appears  in  it  as  the  third  and  last  member  of  the  dialectical 
movement  described  is  in  truth  rather  the  first.  And  assuredly  this 
remark  is  not  to  be  looked  upon  as  an  after-thought  of  which  no 
further  application  is  made,  but  expresses  the  true  intention  of  this 
bold  Monism,  which  undertook  far  more  than  human  powers  can 
achieve,  but  of  which  the  leading  idea  by  no  means  loses  its  value 
through  the  great  defects  in  its  execution.  From  the  errors  noticed 
Schelling  thought  to  save  us.  It  was  time,  he  told  us,  that  the  higher, 
the  only  proper,  antithesis  should  be  brought  into  view — the  antithesis 
between  freedom  and  necessity,  in  apprehending  which,  and  not  other 
wise,  we  reach  the  inmost  centre  of  philosophy.  I  will  not  dwell  on 
the  manner  in  which  he  himself  workecf  out  this  view  in  its  application 
to  the  philosophy  of  religion.  It  was  Weisse  who  first  sought  to 
develope  it  systematically.  That  which  Hegel  had  taken  for  true 
Being,  he  looked  upon  merely  as  the  sum  of  prior  conditions  without 
which  such  Being  would  be  unthinkable  and  could  not  be,  but  which 


156  Conclusion.  [BOOKI. 

themselves  have  not  being.  Thus  understood,  they  formed  in  his 
view  the  object  of  a  certain  part  of  philosophy,  and  that  comparatively 
speaking  a  negative  part,  namely  Metaphysic.  It  was  for  experience 
on  the  other  hand — the  experience  of  the  senses  and  that  of  the  moral 
and  religious  consciousness — as  a  positive  revelation  to  give  us  know 
ledge  of  the  reality  built  on  that  abstract  foundation. 

Such  expressions  might  easily  be  explained  in  a  sense  with 
which  we  could  agree.  It  would  be  a  different  sense,  however, 
from  that  which  they  were  intended  to  convey.  According  to  that 
original  sense  the  general  thoughts,  which  it  was  the  business  of 
Metaphysic  to  unfold,  were  more  than  those  forms  of  apprehending 
true  Being  without  which  we  cannot  think.  They  were  understood 
indeed  to  be  this,  but  also  something  more.  In  their  sum  they  were 
held  to  constitute  an  absolutely  necessary  matter  for  which  it  was 
impossible  either  not  to  be  or  to  be  other  than  it  is,  but  which,  not 
withstanding  this  necessity,  notwithstanding  this  unconditional  being, 
was  after  all  a  nothing,  without  essence  and  without  reality;  while 
over  against  it  stood  the  true  Being,  for  which  according  to  this 
theory,  it  is  possible  not  to  be  or  to  be  other  than  it  is,  thus  being 
constituted  not  by  necessity  but  by  freedom.  I  shall  not  spend  time 
in  discussing  this  usage  of  the  terms,  freedom  and  necessity.  I  would 
merely  point  out  that  the  latter  term,  if  not  confined  to  a  necessity  of 
thought  on  our  part,  but  extended  to  that  which  is  expressly  held  to 
be  the  unconditioned  condition  of  all  that  is  conditioned,  would  have 
simply  no  assignable  meaning  and  would  have  to  be  replaced  by  the 
notion  of  a  de  facto  universal  validity.  The  adoption  of  the  term 
'Freedom'  to  indicate  the  other  sort  of  reality  expressly  recognised  as 
merely  de  facto — the  reality  of  that  which  might  just  as  well  not  be — 
is  to  be  explained  by  the  influence  of  ideas  derived  from  another 
sphere  of  philosophy — the  philosophy  of  religion — which  cannot  be 
further  noticed  here.  Taken  as  a  whole,  the  theory  is  the  explicit 
and  systematic  expression  of  that  Dualism  which  I  find  wholly  un 
thinkable,  and  against  which  my  discussions  have  so  far  been  directed. 
In  this  form  at  any  rate  it  cannot  be  true.  It  is  impossible  that  there 
should  first  be  an  absolute  Prius  consisting  in  a  system  of  forms  that 
carry  necessity  with  them  and  constitute  a  sort  of  unaccountable  Fate, 
and  that  then  there  should  come  to  be  a  world,  however  created, 
which  should  submit  itself  to  the  constraint  of  these  laws  for  the 
realisation  of  just  so  much  as  these  limits  will  allow.  The  real  alone 
is  and  it  is  the  real  which  by  its  Being  brings  about  the  appearance 
of  there  being  a  necessity  antecedent  to  it,  just  as  it  is  the  living  body 


CHAPTER  vii.]  Idealism  and  Realism.  157 

that  forms  within  itself  the  skeleton  around  which  it  has  the  appear 
ance  of  having  grown.  /    t  " 

89.  We  have  not  the  least  knowledge  how  it  is  that  the  seemingly   '. 
homogeneous  content  of  a  germ- vesicle  deposits  those  fixed  elements 
of  form,   around  which  the  vital   movements  are  carried  on.     Still 
less  shall  we  succeed  in  deducing  from  the  simple  original  character, 
M,  of  a  world,  the  organization  of  the  necessity  which  prevails  in  it. 
There  are  two  general  ways,  however,  of  understanding  the  matter, 
alike  admissible  consistently  with  our  assumption  of  the  unity  of  the 
world,   which    remain   to   be    noticed    here.     I   will   indicate   them 
symbolically  by  means   of  our  previous   formulae,    M—$\ABK\, 
and  the  converse  $  [A  B  K\  —  M.     By  the  former  I  mean  to  convey 
that  M  is   to    be   considered   the    form-giving  Prius,  of  which  the 
activity,  whether   in   the   way   of  self-maintenance   or  development, 
at  every  moment  conditions  the  state  of  the  world's  elements  and  the 
form  of  their  combination,  both    being  variable  between  the    limits 
which  their  harmony  with  M  fixes  for  them.     In  the  second  formula 
M  is  presented  as  the  variable  resulting  form,  which  the  world   at 
each  moment  assumes  through  the  reciprocal  effects  of  its  elements — 
this  form  again   being    confined  within  limits  which    the    necessity, 
persistently  and  equally  prevalent  in  these  effects,  imposes.     I  might 
at  once    designate  these    views  as    severally  Idealism  and  Realism, 
were  it  not  that  the  familiar  but  at  the  same  time  somewhat  indefinite 
meaning  of  these  terms  makes  a  closer  investigation  necessary. 

90.  Availing  ourselves  once  again,  for  explanatory  purposes,  of 
the  opposition  between  two  worlds,  M  and  N,  we  might  designate 
the  form  in  which,  according  to  the  sense  of  the  former  view,  we 
should  conceive  the  different  characters  of  the  two  worlds  to  be  alike 
comprehended,    so   that   of   an   Idea *    or,    Germanice,    as   that    of 
a  Thought 2.   It  is  thus  that  in  ^Esthetic  criticism  we  are  accustomed 
to  speak  of  the  Idea  or  Thought  of  a  work  of  Art,  in  the  sense  of 
the  principle  which  determines  its  form  in  opposition  to  the  particular 
outlines  in  which  indeed  the  principle  is  manifested  but  to  which  it  is 
not  so  absolutely  tied  that  other  kindred  means,  even  means  wholly 
different,  might  not  be  combined  to  express  it.     So  again  in  active 
life  we  speak  of  a  project  as  an  Idea  or  Thought,  when  we  mean  to 
censure  it  for  including  no  selection   between  the  manifold    points 
capable  of  being  related  by  the  combination  of  which  it  might  be 
carried   out.     If  now  we  drop    the  imaginary  world  N,  we    cannot 
thereupon  suppose  that  the  real  world  M  lacks  that  concrete  character 

1  ['Idee.']  2  [' Gcdanke.'] 


158  Conclusion. 


[BOOK  I. 


\ 


by  which  we  distinguished  it  from  N,  although  that  character  would 
no  longer  be  needed  for  the  purpose  of  distinguishing  it  from  some 
thing  else  now  that  it  is  understood  that  there  is  nothing  external 
to  it.  It  would  therefore  be  incorrect  to  call  the  Idea,  simply  as  the 
Idea,  the  supreme  principle  of  the  world.  Even  the  absolute  idea, 
although,  in  opposition  to  the  partial  ideas  which  it  itself  conditions 
as  constituents  of  its  meaning,  it  might  fitly  be  called  unlimited,  would 
not  on  that  account  be  free  from  a  definitely  concrete  content,  with 
which  it  fills  the  general  form  of  the  Idea. 

In  other  cases  it  is  more  easy  to  avoid  this  logical  error  of  putting 
an  abstract  designation  of  essence,  as  conceived  by  us,  in  place  of  the 
subject  to  which  the  essence  belongs.  We  are  more  liable  to  it  in 
the  present  case,  where  the  reality,  being  absolutely  single,  can  only 
be  compared  with  imaginary  instances  of  the  same  conception.  We 
are  then  apt  to  think  that  every  determinate  quality  which  we  might 
leave  to  this  reality  would  rest  on  a  denial  of  the  other  determinate 
qualities  which  we  excluded  from  it,  and  which,  in  order  to  the 
possibility  of  such  exclusion,  must  at  the  same  time  be  classed  with 
that  which  excludes  them  as  coordinate  instances  of  a  still  higher 
reality.  This  reality  can  then  only  be  reached  by  an  extinction  of 
all  content  whatever.  Thus  the  tendency,  which  so  often  recurs  in 
the  history  of  philosophy,  spins  out  its  thread — the  tendency  to  look 
on  the  supreme  creative  principle  of  the  world  not  merely  as  un- 
definable  by  any  predicates  within  our  reach  but  as  in  itself  empty 
and  indefinite.  These  ways  of  thinking  are  only  justifiable  so  far  as 
they  imply  a  refusal  to  ascribe  to  the  supreme  M,  as  a  sort  of  pre 
supposition  of  its  being,  a  multitude  of  ready-made  predicates,  from 
which  as  from  a  given  store  it  was  to  collect  its  proper  nature.  It  is 
no  such  doctrine  that  we  mean  to  convey  in  asserting  that  the  supreme 
principle  of  reality  is  to  be  found  in  a  definitely  concrete  Idea,  M, 
and  not  in  the  Idea  merely  as  an  Idea.  The  truth  is  rather  this. 
M  being  in  existence,  or  in  consequence  of  its  existence,  it  becomes 
possible  for  our  Thought,  as  included  in  it,  to  apprehend  that  which 
M  is  in  the  form  of  a  summum  genus  to  which  M  admits  of  being 
subordinated  and  as  a  negation  of  the  non-3/.  It  is  not  every  deter 
mination  that  rests  on  negation.  On  the  contrary,  there  is  an  original 
Position  without  which  it  would  be  impossible  for  us  to  apprehend 
the  content  of  that  Position  as  a  determination  and  to  explain  it  by 
the  negation  of  something  else. 

91.  The  mode  of  development/  accordingly,  which  is  imposed  on 
the  world  by  the  Idea  of  which  it  is  the  expression,  would  depend  on 


CHAPTER  vii.]  The  Idea  and  its  phases.  159 

the  content  of  the  Idea  itself,  and  could  only  be  set  forth  by  one  who 
had  previously  made  himself  master  of  this  content.  So  to  make 
himself  master  of  it  must  be  the  main  business  of  the  Idealist  as  much 
as  of  any  one  else.  The  only  preliminary  enlightenment  which  he 
would. have  to  seek  would  relate  to  that  characteristic  of  the  cosmic 
order  in  the  way  of  mere  form  which  is  implied  in  the  fact  that, 
according  to  him,  it  is  in  the  form  of  a  governing  Idea  that  the  con 
tent  just  spoken  of,  whatever  it  may  be,  constitutes  the  basis  of  this 
order.  For  him  M  means  simply  a  persistent  Thought,  of  which  the 
import  remains  the  same,  whatever  and  how  great  soever  in  each 
instance  of  its  realisation  may  be  the  collection  of  elements  combined 
to  this  end.  The  world  therefore  would  not  be  bound  by  M  either 
to  the  constant  maintenance  of  the  same  elements  or  to  the  main 
tenance  of  an  identical  form  in  their  connexion.  Not  only  would 
ABR  admit  of  replacement  by  abr  and  afip,  but  also  their  mode  of 
connexion  $  by  x  or  ^,  if  it  was  only  in  these  new  forms  that  those 
altered  elements  admitted  of  being  combined  into  identity  with  M. 
It  would  be  idle  to  seek  universally  binding  conditions  which  in  each 
single  form  of  M's  realisation  the  coherent  elements  would  have  to 
satisfy  simply  in  order  to  be  coherent.  What  each  requires  on  the 
part  of  the  other  in  these  special  cases  is  not  ascertainable  from  any 
source  whatever  either  by  computation  or  by  syllogism.  We  have 
no  other  analogy  to  guide  us  in  judging  of  this  connexion  than  that — 
often  noticed  above — of  aesthetic  fitness  which,  when  once  we  have 
become  acquainted  with  the  fact  of  a  combination  between  manifold 
elements,  convinces  us  that  there  is  a  perfect  compatibility,  a  deep- 
seated  mutual  understanding,  between  them,  without  enabling  us  to 
perceive  any  general  rule  in  consequence  of  which  this  result  might 
have  come  about.  The  relation,  however,  of  the  Idea  M  to  the 
various  forms,  thus  constituted,  of  its  expression — tj>[Al?JZ],  x[0£r], 
^[a$p]— is  not  that  of  a  genus  to  its  species.  It  passes  from  one  into 
the  other — not  indifferently  from  any  one  into  any  other,  but  in  de 
finite  series  from  <f>  through  x  into  +.  No  Idealism  at  any  rate  has 
yet  failed  to  insist  on  the  supposition — a  supposition  which  experience 
bears  out — that  it  is  not  merely  in  any  section  of  the  world  which 
might  be  made  at  any  given  moment,  but  also  in  the  succession  of  its 
phases,  that  the  unity  of  the  Idea  will  assert  itself. 

The  question  may  indeed  be  repeated,  What  are  the  conditions 
which  </>  and  x  have  to  satisfy  in  order  to  the  possibility  of  sequence 
upon  each  other,  while  it  is  impossible  for  ^  to  arise  directly  out  of 
<£  ?  Of  all  theories  Idealism  is  most  completely  debarred  from  an 


160  Conclusion, 

appeal  to  a  supra-mundane  mechanism,  which  makes  the  one  suc 
cession  necessary,  the  other  impossible.  In  consistency  it  must 
place  the  maintenance  of  this  order  as  unconditionally  as  the  forma 
tion  of  its  successive  members  in  the  hands  of  the  Idea  itself  which 
is  directed  by  nothing  but  its  own  nature.  On  this  nature  will  de 
pend  the  adoption  of  one  or  other  of  certain  courses ;  or  rather  it 
will  consist  in  one  or  other  of  them.  It  will  require  either  a  per 
fectly  unchanged  self-maintenance,  or  the  preservation,  along  with 
more  or  less  considerable  variations,  of  the  same  idea  and  outline 
in  the  totality  of  phenomena  ;  either  a  progress  to  constantly  new 
forms  which  never  returns  upon  itself  or  a  repetition  of  the  same 
periods.  It  is  only  the  first  of  these  modes  of  procedure  which 
observation  contradicts  in  the  case  of  the  given  world.  Of  the  others 
we  find  instances  in  detail ;  but  if  we  were  called  to  say  which  of 
them  bears  the  stamp  of  reality  as  a  whole,  our  collective  expe 
rience  would  afford  no  guide  to  an  answer.  All  that  we  know  is 
that  the  several  phases  of  the  cosmic  order,  whatever  the  nature  of  the 
coherent  chain  formed  by  their  series  as  a  whole,  are  made  up  of 
combinations  of  comparable  elements,  that  is,  as  we  are  in  the  habit 
of  supposing,  of  states  and  changes  of  persistent  things.  This  is 
the  justification  of  our  way  of  employing  the  equivalent  letters  of 
different  alphabets  to  indicate  the  constituents  which  in  different 
sections  of  the  cosmic  order  seem  to  replace  each  other.  If  we 
V  allow  ourselves  then  to  pursue  this  mode  of  representation  and  con 
cede  to  Idealism  that  the  Idea  M  determines  the  series  of  its  forms 
without  being  in  any  way  conditioned  by  anything  alien  to  itself, 
still  by  this  very  act  of  determination  it  makes  each  preceding  phase, 
with  its  content,  the  condition  of  the  realisation  of  that  which  follows. 
It  is  no  detached  existence,  however,  that  we  can  ascribe  to  the 
Idea,  as  if  it  were  an  as  yet  unformed  M  apart  from  all  the  several 
forms  of  its  possible  realisation.  We  may  not  present  it  to  our 
selves  as  constantly  dipping  afresh  into  such  a  repertory  of  forms, 
with  a  definite  series  in  view,  for  the  purpose,  after  discarding  the 
prior  phase,  of  clothing  itself  in  the  new  one  which  might  be  next  in 
the  series.  At  each  moment  the  Idea  is  real  only  in  one  of  these 
forms.  It  is  only  as  having  at  this  particular  time  arrived  at  this  parti 
cular  expression  of  its  meaning,  that  it  can  be  the  determining  ground 
for  the  surrender  of  this  momentary  form  and  for  the  realisation  of 
the  next  succeeding  one.  The  aesthetic  or,  if  that  term  is  preferred, 
the  dialectic  connexion  between  such  phases  of  reality  as  stand  in  a 
definite  order  of  succession,  which  was  implied  in  their  being  re- 


CHAPTER  vi i.]        The  Idea  and  its  Mechanism.  161 

garded  as  an  expression  of  one  Idea,  must  pass  over  into  a  causal 
connexion,  in  which  the  content  and  organization  of  the  world  at 
each  moment  is  dependent  on  its  content  and  organization  at  the 
previous  moment. 

92.  The  difficulties  involved  in  this  doctrine  have  been  too  much 
ignored  by  Idealism,  in  the  forms  which  it  has  so  far  taken.  In 
seeking  to  throw  light  on  them,  I  propose  to  confine  myself  to  the 
succession  of  two  phases  of  the  simple  form  </>  \ABK\  and  </>  \ab  R\, 
which  were  treated  in  §72  as  possible  cases.  This  determinate 
succession  can  never  become  thinkable,  if  each  of  these  phases  is 
represented  as  an  inert  combination  of  inert  elements  :  for  in  that 
case  each  is  an  equivalent  expression  for  M  and  the  transition  from 
each  into  each  of  the  innumerable  other  expressions  or  phases  of  M 
is  equally  possible  and  equally  unnecessary.  Either  the  included 
elements  must  be  considered  to  be  in  a  definitely  directed  process  of 
becoming,  or  the  common  form  of  combination,  <£,  must  be  con 
sidered  a  motion  which  distributes  itself  upon  them  in  various  definite 
quantities.  This  assumption  is  not  inconsistent  either  with  the  prin 
ciples  previously  laid  down,  according  to  which  a  stationary  being 
of  things  could  not  be  held  to  be  anything  but  a  self-mainte 
nance  of  that  which  is  in  constant  process  of  becoming,  or  with 
the  spirit  of  Idealism  ;  for  Idealism  includes  in  its  conception  of 
every  form  of  being  the  dialectical  negativity,  which  drives  the  being 
out  of  one  given  form  of  its  reality  into  another.  For  these  two 
unmoving  members  therefore  we  should  have  at  once  to  substitute 
the  one  independent  fact  of  a  process  by  which  A  passes  into  a  and 
B  into  b,  while  R  remains  the  same.  Now  this  fact  is  an  equivalent 
expression  of  that  form  of  becoming  which  at  this  moment  con 
stitutes  the  reality  of  M.  A-a  and  B-b,  accordingly,  are  two  occur 
rences  of  which,  in  the  expression  of  the  idea  which  constitutes  M, 
one  cannot  take  place  without  the  other.  Taken  by  themselves, 
indeed,  they  would  have  no  such  mutual  connexion.  The  con 
nexion  does  not  represent  any  supra-mundane  law,  holding  good 
for  the  world  N  as  well  as  for  the  real  M.  It  is  only  in  this  real 
M — which  means  for  us  in  fact  unconditionally — that  they  belong 
together  as  each  the  condition  of  the  other,  so  long  as  there  is  no 
change  on  the  part  of  the  remaining  member  R  to  affect  the  pure 
operation  of  the  two  on  each  other. 

Supposing  it,  now,  to  come  about  in  the  course  of  this  world  Mt 
that  certain  preceding  phases  once  again  gave  rise  to  the  occurrence 
A-a  and  along  with  it  to  an  unchanged  R  or  an  R  changed  only 

VOL.  i.  M 


1 62  Conclusion. 


[BOOK  I. 


in  respect  of  internal  modifications  without  external  effect,  then  we 
should  infer  that  in  this  case  of  repetition  of  A-a,  the  occurrence 
B-b  must  also  reappear  as  its  consequence  required  by  the  nature 
of  M.  If,  however,  the  preceding  phases  necessitated  along  with 
A-a  a  transition  of  R  to  r,  then  the  tendency  of  the  former  occur 
rence  to  produce  B-b,  while  continuing,  would  not  be  able  to 
realise  itself  purely.  What  would  really  take  place  would  be  a  re 
sulting  occurrence,  the  issue  of  those  two  impulses,  determined  by  a 
relation  of  mutual  implication  in  M  just  in  the  same  way  as,  in  the 
case  of  the  indifference  of  R>  B-b  is  determined  by  A-a.  Or — 
to  express  the  same  generally — the  transition  of  the  one  phase  $  into 
the  other  x  ls  brought  about  by  the  combination  of  the  reciprocal 
effects,  which  the  several  movements  contained  in  <£  once  for  all  exer 
cise  in  virtue  of  their  nature,  independently  of  the  phase  in  which 
they  happen  to  be  combined  or  of  the  point  in  the  world's  course  at 
which  they  from  time  to  time  appear. 

We  thus  come  to  believe  in  the  necessity  of  a  mechanical  system, 
according  to  which  each  momentary  realisation  of  the  Idea  is  that 
which  the  preceding  states  of  fact  according  to  certain  laws  of  their 
operation  had  the  power  to  bring  about.  Nor  is  it,  in  any  fatalistic 
way,  as  an  alien  necessity  imposing  itself  on  the  Idea,  that  this 
mechanism  is  thought  of,  but  as  an  analytical  consequence  of  our 
conception  of  the  Idea — of  the  supposition  that  it  enjoins  upon 
itself  a  certain  order  in  its  manifold  possible  modes  of  manifestation 
and  by  so  doing  makes  the  one  an  antecedent  condition  of  that 
which  follows.  So  long,  however,  as  Idealism  continues  to  regard 
the  import  of  the  Idea  as  the  metaphysical  Prius  which  determines 
the  succession  of  events,  so  long  there  lies  a  difficulty  in  this  twofold 
demand — the  demand  that  what  is  conditioned  by  the  Idea  a  fronte 
should  be  always  identical  with  that  to  which  this  mechanism  of  its  re 
alisation  impels  a  lergo.  At  a  later  stage  of  my  enquiry  I  shall  have 
occasion  to  return  to  this  question.  It  will  be  at  the  point,  to  which 
the  reader  will  have  been  long  looking  forward,  where  the  appear 
ance  within  nature  of  living  beings  brings  home  to  us  with  special 
cogency  the  thought  of  relation  to  an  end  as  governing  the  course  of 
things,  or  of  an  ideal  whole  preceding  the  real  parts  and  their  com 
bination.  The  question  can  then  be  discussed  on  more  definite 
premisses.  In  the  region  of  generality  to  which  I  at  present  confine 
myself  Idealism  could  scarcely  answer  otherwise  than  by  the  mere 
assertion ;  '  Such  is  the  fact  :  such  is  the  nature  of  the  concrete 
Idea,  and  such  the  manner  of  its  realisation  at  every  moment,  that 


CHAPTER  VII.]  LlMltS  of  Idealism.  163 

everything  which  it  ordains  in  virtue  of  its  own  import  must  issue  as 
a  necessary  result  in  ordered  succession  from  the  blind  co-operation 
of  all  the  several  movements  into  which  it  distributes  itself,  and 
according  to  the  general  laws  which  it  has  imposed  on  itself.' 

93.  It  is  not  every  problem  that  admits  of  a  solution,  nor  every 
goal,  however  necessarily  we  present  it  to  ourselves,  that  can  be 
reached.  We  shall  never  be  able  to  state  the  full  import  of  that  Idea 
M,  which  we  take  to  be  the  animating  soul  of  the  Cosmos.  Not  the 
fragmentary  observation,  which  is  alone  at  our  command,  but  only 
that  complete  view  of  the  whole  which  is  denied,  could  teach  us 
what  that  full  import  is.  Nay,  not  even  an  unlimited  extension  of 
observation  would  serve  the  purpose.  To  know  it,  we  must  live  it 
with  all  the  organs  of  our  soul.  And  even  if  by  some  kind  of  com 
munication  we  had  been  put  in  possession  of  it,  all  forms  of  thought 
would  be  lacking  to  us,  by  which  the  simple  fulness  of  what  was 
given  to  us  in  vision  could  be  unfolded  into  a  doctrine,  scientifically 
articulated  and  connected.  The  renunciation  of  such  hopes  has 
been  prescribed  to  us  by  the  conclusion  to  which  we  were  brought 
in  treating  of  Pure  Logic.  It  remains,  as  we  had  there  to  admit1,  an 
unrealisable  ideal  of  thought  to  follow  the  process  by  which  the 
supreme  Idea  draws  from  no  other  source  but  itself  those  minor 
Premisses  by  means  of  which  its  import,  while  for  ever  the  same,  is 
led  up  to  the  development  of  a  reality  that  consists  in  a  manifold 
change.  Here,  however,  as  there  we  can  maintain  the  conviction 
that  in  reality  that  is  possible  which  our  thoughts  are  inadequate 
to  reproduce2.  It  is  not  any  construction  of  the  world  out  of  the 
idea  of  which  the  possibility  is  thus  implied,  but  merely  a  regressive 
interpretation,  which  attempts  to  trace  back  the  connexion  of  what 
is  given  us  in  experience,  as  we  gradually  become  acquainted  with  it, 
to  its  ineffable  source. 

To  this  actual  limitation  upon  our  possibilities  of  knowledge  the 
second  of  the  views  above 3  distinguished — '  Realism ' — adjusts  itself 
better  than  Idealism,  though  it  has  not  at  bottom  any  other  or  more 
satisfactory  answer  to  give  to  the  questions  just  raised.  Realism  does 
not  enquire  how  the  course  of  the  world  came  to  be  determined  as  it 
is.  It  contents  itself  with  treating  the  collective  structure  of  the  world  at 
any  moment  as  the  inevitable  product  of  the  forces  of  the  past  operating 
according  to  general  laws.  On  one  point,  however,  I  think  the  ordinary 
notion  entertained  by  those  who  hold  this  view  has  already  been 
corrected.  They  commonly  start  from  the  assumption  of  an  indefinite 
1  Logic,  §  151.  a  Logic,  loc.  cit.  3  [§  89.] 

M  2 


1 64  Conclusion.  [BOOK  i. 

number  of  mutually  independent  elements,  which  are  only  brought 
even  into  combination  by  the  force  of  laws.  That  this  is  impossible 
and  that  for  this  Pluralism  there  must  be  substituted  a  Monism  is  what 
I  have  tried  to  show  and  need  not  repeat.  It  is  not  thus,  from  the 
nature  of  objects1,  but  from  the  nature  of  the  one  object2,  that  we  must, 
even  in  Realism,  derive  the  course  of  things.  In  fact,  the  distinction 
between  the  two  views  would  reduce  itself  to  this,  that  while  the 
Idealist  conceives  his  one  principle  as  a  restlessly  active  Idea,  the 
Realist  conceives  his  as  something  objective3,  which  merely  suffers  the 
consequences  of  an  original  disintegration  into  a  multitude  of  elements 
that  have  to  be  combined  according  to  law — a  disintegration  which 
belongs  to  the  de  facto  constitution  of  its  nature,  as  given  before 
knowledge  begins.  The  mode  of  their  combinations  may  become 
known  to  us  through  the  elaboration  of  experience  :  and  this  know 
ledge  gives  us  as  much  power  of  anticipating  the  future  as  satisfies 
the  requirements  of  active  life.  An  understanding  of  the  universe  is 
not  what  this  method  will  help  us  to  attain.  The  general  laws,  to 
which  the  reciprocal  operations  of  things  conform — in  the  first  in 
stance  special  to  each  group  of  phenomena — are  presented  as  limita 
tions  coeval  with  knowledge,  imposed  by  Reality  on  itself  and  within 
which  it  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  compelled  to  restrain  the  multiplicity  of 
its  products.  The  overpowering  impression,  however,  which  is  made 
by  the  irrefragability  of  these  limits,  is  not  justified  -by  any  value  which 
in  respect  of  their  content  they  possess  for  our  understanding. 

They  would  thus  only  satisfy  him  who  could  content  himself  with 
the  mere  recognition  of  a  state  of  things  as  unconditional  matter  of 
fact.  But  even  within  the  range  of  realistic  views  the  invincible 
spiritual  assurance  asserts  itself  that  the  world  not  merely  is  but  has 
a  meaning.  To  succeed  in  giving  to  the  laws,  that  are  found  as  a 
matter  of  fact  to  obtain,  such  an  expression  as  makes  the  reason  in 
them,  the  ratio  legis,  matter  of  direct  apprehension,  is  everywhere 
reckoned  one  of  the  finest  achievements  of  science.  Nor  can  the 
realistic  method  of  enquiry  resist  the  admission  that  the  ends  to  which 
events  contribute  cannot  always  be  credibly  explained  as  mere  pro 
ducts  of  aimless  operation.  It  is  not  merely  organic  structures  to 
which  this  remark  applies.  Even  the  planetary  system  exhibits  forms 
of  self-maintenance  in  its  periodic  changes,  which  have  the  appearance 
of  being  particular  cases  especially  selected  out  of  innumerable 
equally  possible,  or  more  easily  possible,  results  of  such  operations.  It 
is  true  that  our  observation  is  unable  to  settle  the  question  whether 
1  ['Sachen.']  2  ['Sache.']  3  ['Sache.'] 


CHAPTER  vii.]  Realism  and  Teleology.  165 

these  cases  of  adaptation  to  ends  are  to  be  thought  of  as  single 
islands  floating  in  a  boundless  sea  of  aimless  becoming,  or  whether 
we  should  ascribe  a  like  order  in  its  changes  to  the  collective  universe. 
Realism  can  find  an  explanation  of  these  special  forms  only  in  the 
assumption  of  an  arrangement  of  all  operative  elements,  which,  for  all 
that  depends  on  the  general  laws,might  just  as  well  have  been  another, 
but  which,  being  what  it  is  and  not  another,  necessarily  leads  in 
accordance  with  those  laws  to  the  given  ends.  It  thus  appeals  on  its 
part  to  the  co-operation,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  of  two  principles  inde 
pendent  of  each  other  which  it  knows  not  how  to  unite ;  on  the  one 
hand  the  general  laws,  on  'the  other  hand  the  given  special  arrange 
ment  of  their  points  of  application.  In  this  respect  Realism  can 
claim  no  superiority  over  Idealism.  At  the  same  time  it  is  only  enquiries 
conducted  in  the  spirit  of  Realism  that  will  satisfy  the  wishes  of  Idealism. 
They  will  indeed  never  unveil  the  full  meaning  of  the  Idea.  But  there 
is  nothing  but  recognition  of  the  de  facto  relations  of  things  that  can 
make  our  thoughts  at  least  converge  towards  this  centre  of  the  universe. 

94.  The  conception  of  a  Thing  which  we  adopt  has  been  exposed 
to  many  transformations,  hitherto  without  decisive  issue.  Doubts  have 
at  last  been  raised  whether  the  union  of  oneness  of  essential  being 
with  multiplicity  of  so-called  states  has  any  meaning  at  all  and  is  any 
thing  better  than  an  empty  juxtaposition  of  words.  In  approaching 
our  conclusion  on  this  point  we  must  take  a  roundabout  road.  The 
misgiving  just  expressed  reaches  further.  In  all  the  arguments 
which  we  ultimately  adduced,  and  in  which  we  passed  naif  judgments 
on  the  innermost  essence  of  the  real,  on  what  is  possible  and  impos 
sible  for  it,  according  to  principles  unavoidable  for  our  thought,  what 
warranted  the  assurance  that  the  nature  of  things  must  correspond  to 
our  subjective  necessities  of  thought  ?  Can  such  reasonings  amount 
to  more  than  a  human  view  of  things,  bearing  perhaps  no  sort  of  like 
ness  to  that  which  it  is  credited  with  representing  ? 

This  general  doubt  I  meet  with  an  equally  general  confession, 
which  it  may  be  well  to  make  as  against  too  aspiring  an  estimate  of 
what  Philosophy  can  undertake.  I  readily  admit  that  I  take  Philo 
sophy  to  be  throughout  merely  an  inner  movement  of  the  human 
spirit.  In  the  history  of  that  spirit  alone  has  Philosophy  its  history. 
It  is  an  effort,  within  the  presupposed  limits,  even  to  ourselves  abso 
lutely  unknown,  which  our  earthly  existence  imposes  on  us,  to  gain  a 
consistent  view  of  the  world — an  effort  which  carries  us  to  something 
beyond  the  satisfaction  of  the  wants  of  life,  teaching  us  to  set  before 
ourselves  and  to  attain  worthy  objects  in  living.  An  absolute  truth, 


1 66  Conclusion.  [BOOK  i. 

such  as  the  archangels  in  heaven  would  have  to  accept,  is  not  its 
object,  nor  does  the  failure  to  realise  such  an  object  make  our  efforts 
bootless.  We  admit  therefore  the  completely  human  subjectivity  of 
all  our  knowledge  with  the  less  ambiguity,  because  we  see  clearly 
moreover  that  it  is  unavoidable  and  that,  although  we  may  forego 
the  claim  to  all  knowledge  whatever,  we  could  put  no  other  knowledge 
in  the  place  of  that  on  which  doubt  is  thrown,  that  would  not  be  open 
to  the  same  reproach.  For  in  whatever  mind  anything  may  present 
itself  which  may  be  brought  under  the  idea  of  knowledge,  it  will 
always  be  self-evident  that  this  mind  can  never  gain  a  view  of  the 
objects  of  its  knowledge  as  they  would  seem  if  it  did  not  see  them, 
but  only  as  they  seem  if  it  sees  them,  and  in  relation  to  it  the  seeing 
mind.  It  is  quite  superfluous  to  make  this  simple  truth  still  more 
plain  by  a  delineation  of  all  the  several  steps  in  our  knowledge,  each 
monotonously  followed  by  a  proof  that  we  everywhere  remain  within 
the  limits  of  our  subjectivity  and  that  every  judgment,  in  the  way  of 
recognition  or  correction,  which  we  pass  from  one  of  the  higher  of 
these  steps  upon  one  of  the  lower,  is  still  no  more  than  a  necessity  of 
thought  for  us.  At  most  it  is  worth  the  trouble  to  add  that — still,  of 
course,  according  to  our  way  of  thinking — this  is  no  specially  preju 
dicial  lot  of  the  human  spirit,  but  must  recur  in  every  being  which 
stands  in  relation  to  anything  beyond  it. 

Just  for  this  reason  this  universal  character  of  subjectivity,  belong 
ing  to  all  knowledge,  can  settle  nothing  as  to  its  truth  or  untruth. 
In  putting  trust  in  one  component  of  ostensible  knowledge  while 
we  take  another  to  be  erroneous  we  can  be  justified  only  by  a  con 
sideration  of  the  import  of  the  two  components.  We  have  to  reject 
and  alter  all  the  notions,  which  we  began  by  forming  but  which 
cannot  be  maintained  without  contradiction  when  our  thoughts  are 
systematized,  while  they  can  without  contradiction  be  replaced  by 
others.  As  regards  the  ultimate  principles,  however,  which  we  follow 
in  this  criticism  of  our  thoughts,  it  is  quite  true  that  we  are  left  with 
nothing  but  the  confidence  of  Reason  in  itself,  or  the  certainty  of  belief 
in  the  general  truth  that  there  is  a  meaning  in  the  world,  and  that  the 
nature  of  that  reality,  which  includes  us  in  itself,  has  given  our  spirit 
only  such  necessities  of  thought  as  harmonise  with  it. 

95.  Of  the  various  forms  in  which  the  scepticism  in  question 
reappears  the  last  is  that  of  a  doubt  not  as  to  the  general  capacity  for 
truth  on  the  part  of  our  cognition,  but  as  to  the  truth  of  one  of  its 
utterances — a  determinate  though  very  comprehensive  one.  It  relates 
to  that  whole  world  of  things  which  so  far,  in  conformity  with  the 


CHAPTER  VII.]  FicktC  OH   TklHgS  dud  Spirits.  1 67 

usual  way  of  thinking,  we  have  taken  for  granted.  After  the  admirable 
exposition  which  Fichte  has  given  us  of  the  subject  in  his  '  Vocation 
of  Man,'  I  need  not  show  over  again  how  everything  which  informs 
us  as  to  the  existence  of  a  world  without  us,  consists  in  the  last  resort 
merely  in  affections  of  our  own  ego,  or— to  use  language  more  free 
from  assumption — in  forms  which  hover  before  our  consciousness, 
and  from  the  manifold  variations  and  combinations  of  which  there 
arises  the  idea — and  always  as  our  idea— of  something  present  with 
out  us,  of  a  world  of  things.  Now  we  have  a  right  to  enquire  what 
validity  this  idea,  irrespectively  of  its  proximate  origin,  may  claim  in 
the  whole  of  our  thoughts ;  but  it  would  have  been  a  simple  fallacy 
merely  on  account  of  the  subjectivity  of  all  the  elements  out  of  which 
it  has  been  formed,  to  deny  its  truth  and  to  pronounce  the  outer  world 
to  be  merely  a  creation  of  our  imagination.  For  the  state  of  the  case 
could  be  no  other,  were  there  things  without  us  or  no.  Our  know 
ledge  in  the  one  case,  our  imagination  in  the  other,  could  alike  only 
consist  in  states  or  activities  of  our  own  being — in  what  we  call  im 
pressions  made  on  our  nature,  supposing  these  to  be  things,  but  on 
no  supposition  in  anything  other  than  a  subjective  property  of  ours. 

As  is  well  known,  Fichte  did  not  draw  the  primary  inference  which 
— offensive  as  it  is — would  be  logically  involved  in  the  error  noticed, 
the  inference,  namely,  that  the  single  subject,  adopting  such  a  philo 
sophy,  would  have  to  consider  itself  the  sole  reality,  which  in  its  own 
inner  world  generated  the  appearance  of  a  companion  Universe.  In 
regard  to  Spirits  he  followed  the  conviction  which  I  just  now  stated. 
It  is  only  by  means  of  subjective  effects  produced  upon  him,  like 
those  which  mislead  him  into  believing  in  things,  that  any  one  can 
know  of  the  existence  of  other  Spirits ;  but  just  because  this  must 
equally  be  the  case  if  there  really  are  Spirits,  this  fact  proved  nothing 
against  their  existence.  If  therefore  Fichte  allowed  the  exist 
ence  of  a  world  of  Spirits,  while  he  inexorably  denied  that  of 
a  world  of  Things,  the  ground  of  his  decision  would  only  lie  in  the 
judgment  which  he  passed  on  the  several  conceptions  in  respect 
simply  of  their  content— in  the  fact  that  he  found  the  conception  of 
Spirit  not  only  admissible  but  indispensable  in  the  entirety  of  his  view 
of  the  world,  that  of  the  Thing  on  the  contrary  as  inadmissible  as 
superfluous.  To  this  conviction  he  was  constant.  To  have  no  longer 
an  eye  for  mere  things  was  in  his  eyes  a  requirement  to  be  made  of 
every  true  philosophy. 

06.  I  proceed  to  connect  this  brief  historical  retrospect  with  the 
\  ^difficulties  which,  as  we  saw,  have  still  to  be  dealt  with.     We  found 


1 68  Conclusion. 

it  impossible  for  that  to  be  unchangeable  which  we  treated  as  a  thing, 
a.  It  did  not  even  admit  of  being  determined  by  varying  persist 
encies  on  the  part  of  different  qualities  *.  We  were  forced  to  think 
of  it  as  in  continuous  becoming,  either  unfolding  itself  into  the  one 
series,  a1,  a2,  a3,  or  maintaining  itself,  in  the  other,  a,  a,  a,  by  constantly 
new  production.  Each  of  these  momentary  phases,  however,  we  saw 
must  be  exactly  like  itself,  but  a1  =  a1  is  different  from  every  other. 
Even  the  exactly  similar  members  of  the  latter  series,  though  exactly 
similar,  were  not  one  and  the  same.  For  all  that  we  asserted  that  in 
this  change  the  Unity  of  a  thing  maintained  itself.  We  could  not  but 
assert  this  if  we  were  to  conceive  the  mutual  succession  of  the  several 
forms,  which  could  not  arise  out  of  nothing  but  only  out  of  each 
other.  We  were  not  in  a  condition,  however,  to  say  what  it  was  that 
remained  identical  with  itself  in  this  process  of  becoming.  We  took 
advantage  of  the  term  *  states' 2,  which  we  applied  to  the  changing  forms, 
but  we  came  to  the  conclusion  that  in  so  doing  we  were  only  express 
ing  our  mental  demand  without  satisfying  it.  We  saw  that  an  im 
mediate  perception  was  needed  to  show  us  this  relation  of  a  subject 
to  its  states  as  actually  under  our  hands  and  thereby  convince  us  of 
its  possibility. 

Perhaps  the  reader  then  cherished  the  hope  that  there  would  be  no 
difficulty  in  adducing  many  such  instances  in  case  of  need.  Now,  on 
returning  to  this  question,  we  only  find  one  being,  from  the  special 
nature  of  which  the  possibility  of  that  relation  seems  inseparable. 
This  is  the  spiritual  subject,  which  exercises  the  wonderful  function 
not  merely  of  distinguishing  sensations,  ideas,  feelings  from  itself  but 
at  the  same  time  of  knowing  them  as  its  own,,  as  its  states,  and  which 
by  means  of  its  own  unity  connects  the  series  of  successive  events 
in  the  compass  of  memory.  I  should  be  misunderstood  if  this  state 
ment  were  interpreted  to  mean  that  the  Spirit  understands  how  to 
bring  itself  and  its  inner  life  in  the  way  of  logical  subsumption  under 
the  relation  of  a  subject  to  its  states  or  to  recognise  itself  as  an 
instance  of  this  subordination.  It  experiences  the  fact  of  there  being 
this  relation  at  the  very  moment  when  it  lives  through  the  process  of 
its  own  action.  It  is  only  its  later  reflection  on  itself  which  thereupon 
generates  for  it  in  its  thinking  capacity  the  general  conception  of  this 
relation — a  relation  in  which  it  stands  quite  alone  without  possibility 
of  another  homogeneous  instance  being  found.  It  is  only  in  the 
sensitive  act,  which  at  once  repels  the  matter  of  sense  from  us  as 
something  that  exists  for  itself  and  reveals  it  to  us  as  our  own,  that 
1  [§  M  ff-]  2  [§  47-] 


CHAPTER vii.]       How  can  Things  be  Subjects?  169 

we  become  aware  what  is  meant  by  the  apprehension  of  a  certain  a 
as  a  state  of  a  subject  A.  It  is  only  through  the  fact  that  our  atten 
tion,  bringing  events  into  relation,  comprehends  past  and  present  in 
memory,  while  at  the  same  time  there  arises  the  idea  of  the  persistent 
Ego  to  which  both  past  and  present  belong,  that  we  become  aware 
what  is  meant  by  Unity  of  Being  throughout  a  change  of  manifold 
states,  and  that  such  unity  is  possible.  In  short  it  is  through  our 
ability  to  appear  to  ourselves  as  such  unities  that  we  are  unities.  Thus 
the  proximate  conclusion  to  which  we  are  forced  would  be  this.  If 
there  are  to  be  things  with  the  properties  we  demand  of  things,  they 
must  be  more  than  things.  Only  by  sharing  this  character  of  the 
spiritual  nature  can  they  fulfil  the  general  requirements  which  must 
be  fulfilled  in  order  to  constitute  a  Thing.  They  can  only  be  distinct 
from  their  states  if  they  distinguish  themselves  from  their  states. 
They  can  only  be  unities  if  they  oppose  themselves,  as  such,  to  the 
multiplicity  of  their  states. 

97.  The  notion  that  things  have  souls  has  always  been  a  favourite 
one  with  many  and  there  has  been  some  extravagance  in  the  imagina 
tive  expression  of  it.  The  reasoning  which  has  here  led  us  up  to  it  does 
not  warrant  us  in  demanding  anything  more  than  that  there  should 
belong  to  things  in  some  form  or  other  that  existence  as  an  object 
for  itself  which  distinguishes  all  spiritual  life  from  what  is  only  an 
object  for  something  else.  The  mere  capacity  of  feeling  pain  or 
pleasure,  without  any  higher  range  of  spiritual  activity,  would  suffice 
to  fulfil  this  requirement.  There  is  the  less  reason  to  expect  that  this 
psychical  life  of  things  will  ever  force  itself  on  our  observation  with 
the  clearness  of  a  fact.  The  assumption  of  its  existence  will  always 
be  looked  on  as  an  imagination,  which  can  be  allowed  no  influence 
in  the  decision  of  particular  questions,  and  which  we  can  only  indulge 
when  it  is  a  question,  in  which  no  practical  consequences  are  involved, 
of  making  the  most  general  theories  apprehensible. 

It  is  therefore  natural  to  enquire  whether  after  all  it  is  necessary  to 
retain  in  any  form  that  idea  of  an  existence  of  Things  which  forced 
this  assumption  upon  us.  There  are  two  points  indeed  which  I 
should  maintain  as  essential :  one,  the  existence  of  spiritual  beings 
like  ourselves  which,  in  feeling  their  states  and  opposing  themselves 
to  those  states  as  the  unity  that  feels,  satisfy  the  idea  of  a  permanent 
subject1:  the  other,  the  unity  of  that  Being,  in  which  these  subjects 
in  turn  have  the  ground  of  their  existence,  the  source  of  their  peculiar 
nature,  and  which  is  the  true  activity  at  work  in  them.  But  why  over 
1  ['  Eines  Wesens.'J 


1 70  Conclusion.  [BOOK  i. 

and  above  this  should  there  be  a  world  of  things,  which  themselves 
gain  nothing  by  existing,  but  would  only  serve  as  a  system  of  occa 
sions  or  means  for  producing  in  spiritual  subjects  representations 
which  after  all  would  have  no  likeness  to  their  productive  causes? 
Could  not  the  creative  power  dispense  with  this  roundabout  way  and 
give  rise  directly  in  spirits  to  the  phenomena  which  it  was  intended 
to  present  to  them  ?  Could  it  not  present  that  form  of  a  world  which 
was  to  be  seen  without  the  intervention  of  an  unseen  world  which 
could  never  be  seen  as  it  would  be  if  unseen  ?  And  this  power  being 
in  all  spirits  one  and  the  same,  why  should  there  not  in  fact  be  a 
correspondence  between  the  several  activities  which  it  exerts  in  those 
spirits  of  such  a  kind  that  while  it  would  not  be  the  same  world- 
image  that  was  presented  to  all  spirits  but  different  images  to  dif 
ferent  spirits,  the  different  presentations  should  yet  fit  into  each  other, 
so  that  all  spirits  should  believe  themselves  planted  at  different  posi 
tions  of  the  same  world  and  should  be  able  to  adjust  themselves  in  it, 
each  to  each,  in  the  way  of  harmonious  action  ?  As  to  the  effects 
again  which  Things  interchange  with  each  other  and  which  according 
to  our  habitual  notions  appear  to  be  the  strongest  proof  of  their 
independent  existence — why  should  we  not  substitute  for  them  a 
reciprocal  conditionedness  on  the  part  of  innumerable  actions,  which 
cross  and  modify  each  other  within  the  life  of  the  one  Being  that 
truly  is  ?  If  so,  the  changes  which  our  world-image  undergoes  would 
at  each  moment  issue  directly  from  the  collision  of  these  activities 
which  takes  effect  also  in  us,  not  from  the  presence  of  many  inde 
pendent  sources  of  operation  bringing  these  changes  about  externally 
to  us. 

In  fact,  if  the  question  was  merely  one  of  rendering  the  world,  as 
phenomenally  given  to  us,  intelligible,  we  could  dispense  with  the  con 
ception  of  a  real  operative  atom,  which  we  regard  only  as  a  point  of 
union  for  forces  and  resistances  that  proceed  from  it,  standing  in 
definite  relations  to  other  like  atoms  and  only  changing  according  to 
fixed  laws  through  their  effect  upon  it.  We  could  everywhere  substitute 
for  this  idea  of  the  atom  that  of  an  elementary  action  on  the  part  of 
the  one  Being — an  action  which  in  like  manner  would  stand  in 
definite  relations  to  others  like  it,  and  would  through  them  undergo  a 
no  less  orderly  change.  The  assumption  of  real  things  would  have  no 
advantage  but  such  as  consists  in  facility  of  expression.  Even  this  we 
could  secure  if,  while  retaining  the  term  '  things/  we  simply  established 
this  definition  of  it.;  that  '  things '  may  be  accepted  in  the  course  of 
our  enquiry  as  secondary  fixed  points,  but  for  all  that  are  not  real 


CHAPTER vi LI  Thing s  as  merely  'existing!  171 

existences  in  the  metaphysical  sense,  but  elementary  actions  of  the 
one  Being  which  forms  the  ground  of  the  world,  connected  with  each 
other  according  to  the  same  laws  of  reciprocal  action  which  we  com 
monly  take  to  apply  to  the  supposed  independent  things. 

98.  For  the  prosecution  of  our  further  enquiries  it  is  of  little  im 
portance  to  decide  between  the  two  views  delineated.  But  a  third 
remains  to  be  noticed  which  denies  the  necessity  of  this  alternative, 
and  undertakes  to  justify  the  common  notion  of  a  Thing  without  a 
Self.  When  we  set  about  constructing  a  Being  which  in  the  change 
of  its  states  should  remain  one,  it  was  the  experience  of  spiritual  life, 
it  will  be  said,  which  came  to  our  aid,  and  by  an  unexpected  actual 
solution  of  the  problem  convinced  us  that  it  was  soluble.  What 
entitles  us,  however,  to  reckon  this  solution  the  only  one  ?  Why  might 
there  not  just  as  well  be  another,  of  which  we  can  form  no  mental 
picture  only  for  the  reason  that  we  have  had  no  experience  of  it  as 
our  own  mode  of  existence  ?  Why  may  not  the  '  thing '  be  a  Being 
of  its  own  particular  kind,  defined  for  us  only  by  the  functions  which 
it  fulfils,  but  not  bound  in  the  execution  of  these  to  maintain  any  such 
resemblance  to  our  Spirit  as,  with  the  easy  presumption  of  an  anthro 
pomorphic  imagination,  we  force  upon  it  ? 

This  counter- view  is  one  that  I  cannot  accept.  So  long  as  what  we 
propose  to  ourselves  is  to  give  shape  to  that  conception  of  the  world 
which  is  necessary  to  us,  we  allow  ourselves  to  fill  up  the  gaps  in  our 
knowledge  by  an  appeal  to  the  unknown  object,  to  which  our  thoughts 
converge  without  being  able  to  attain  it ;  but  we  may  not  assume  an 
unknown  object  of  such  a  kind  as  would  without  reason  conflict  with 
the  inferences  which  we  cannot  avoid.  Now  it  seems  to  me  that  the 
suggestions  just  noticed  imply  a  resort  to  the  unknown  of  this  un 
warrantable  kind.  In  the  first  place  it  is  not  easy  to  see  why  the 
conception  of  the  Thing,  in  the  face  of  the  duly  justified  objections  to 
it,  needs  to  be  maintained  at  the  cost  of  an  appeal  to  what  is  after  all 
a  wholly  unknown  possibility  of  its  being  true.  Secondly,  while 
readily  allowing  that  anything  which  really  exists  may  have  its  own 
mode  of  existence,  and  is  not  to  be  treated  as  if  it  followed  the  type 
of  an  existence  alien  to  it,  we  must  point  out  that  where  such 
peculiarity  of  existence  is  asserted  the  further  predicates  assigned  to 
it  must  correspond.  What  manner  of  being,  however,  could  we  con 
sistently  predicate  of  that  from  which  we  had  expressly  excluded  the 
universal  characteristics  of  animate  existence,  every  active  relation  to 
itself,  every  active  distinction  from  'anything  else  ?  Of  that  which  had 
no  consciousness  of  its  own  nature  and  qualities,  no  feeling  of  its 


172  Conclusion. 

states,  which  in  no  way  possessed  itself  as  a  Self  ?  Of  that  of  which 
the  whole  function  consisted  in  serving  as  a  medium  to  convey  effects, 
from  which  it  suffered  nothing  itself,  to  other  things  like  itself,  just  as 
little  affected  by  those  effects,  till  at  last  by  their  propagation  to 
animate  Beings  there  should  arise  in  these,  and  not  before,  a  compre 
hensive  image  of  the  whole  series  of  facts.  If  we  maintain  that  in  fact 
such  a  thing  cannot  be  said  to  be,  it  is  not  that  we  suppose  ourselves 
to  be  expressing  an  inference,  which  would  still  have  to  be  made 
good  as  arising  out  of  the  notion  of  such  a  thing  :  it  is  that  we  find 
directly  in  the  description  of  such  a  thing  the  definition  of  a  mere 
operation,  which,  in  taking  place,  presupposes  a  real  Being  from 
which  it  proceeds  and  another  in  which  it  ends,  but  is  not,  itself,  as  a 
third  outside  the  two.  That  our  imagination  will  nevertheless  cling 
to  the  presentation  of  independent  and  blindly-operating  individual 
things,  we  do  not  dispute  nor  do  we  seek  to  make  it  otherwise ;  but 
in.  the  effort  to  find  a  metaphysical  truth  in  this  mode  of  expression 
we  cannot  share.  It  is  not  enough  to  try  to  give  a  being  to  these 
things  outside  their  immanence  in  the  one  Real,  unless  it  is  possible 
to  show  that  in  their  nature  there  is  that  which  can  give  a  real 
meaning  to  the  figure  of  speech  conveyed  in  this  'outside.' 

As  to  the  source  of  our  efforts  in  this  direction  and  their  fruitless- 
ness,  I  may  be  allowed  in  conclusion  to  repeat  some  remarks  which  in 
a  previous  work  *  I  have  made  at  greater  length.  We  do  not  gain  the 
least  additional  meaning  for  Things  without  self  and  without  conscious 
ness  by  ascribing  to  them  a  being  outside  the  one  Real.  All  the 
stability  and  energy  which  they  ensure  as  conditioning  and  motive 
forces  in  the  changes  of  the  world  we  see,  they  possess  in  precisely 
the  same  definiteness  and  fulness  when  considered  as  mere  activities 
of  the  Infinite.  Nay  it  is  only  through  their  common  immanence  in 
the  Infinite,  as  we  have  seen,  that  they  have  this  capability  of  mutual 
influence,  which  would  not  belong  to  them  as  isolated  beings  detached 
from  that  substantial  basis.  Thus  for  the  purpose  of  any  being  or 
function  that  we  would  ascribe  to  things  as  related  to  and  connected 
with  each  other,  we  gain  nothing  by  getting  rid  of  their  immanence. 
It  is  true  however  that  things,  so  long  as  they  are  only  states  of  the 
infinite,  are  nothing  in  relation  to  themselves :  it  is  in  order  to  make 
them  something  in  this  relation  or  on  their  own  account  that  we  insist 
on  their  existence  outside  the  Infinite.  But  this  genuine  true  reality, 
which  consists  in  relation  to  self — whether  in  being  something  as 
related  to  self  or  in  that  relation  simply  as  such — is  not  acquired  by 
1  Mikrokosmus,  iii.  530. 


CHAPTER  VIM       '  Immanence  and  '  Transcendence'          173 

things  through  a  detachment  from  the  one  Infinite,  as  though  this 
'Transcendence,'  to  which  in  the  supposed  case  it  would  be  impossible 
to  assign  any  proper  meaning,  were  the  antecedent  condition  on  which 
the  required  relation  to  self  depended  as  a  consequence.  On  the 
contrary,  it  is  in  so  far  as  something  is  an  object  to  itself,  relates  itself 
to  itself,  distinguishes  itself  from  something  else,  that  by  this  act  of  its 
own  it  detaches  itself  from  the  Infinite.  In  so  doing,  however,  it 
does  not  acquire  but  possesses,  in  the  only  manner  to  which  we  give 
any  meaning  in  our  thoughts,  that  self-dependence  of  true  Being, 
which  by  a  very  inappropriate  metaphor  from  space  we  represent  as 
arising  from  the  impossible  act  of  'Transcendence/  It  is  not  that  the 
opposition  between  a  being  in  the  Infinite  and  a  being  outside  it  is 
obviously  intelligible  as  explaining  why  self-dependence  should  belong 
to  the  one  sort  of  being  while  it  is  permanently  denied  to  another.  It 
is  the  nature  of  the  two  sorts  of  being  and  the  functions  of  which  they 
are  capable  that  make  the  one  or  the  other  of  these  figurative  ex 
pressions  applicable  to  them.  Whatever  is  in  condition  to  feel  and 
assert  itself  as  a  Self,  that  is  entitled  to  be  described  as  detached  from 
the  universal  all-comprehensive  basis  of  being,  as  outside  it :  whatever 
has  not  this  capability  will  always  be  included  as  '  immanent '  within 
it,  however  much  and  for  whatever  reasons  we  may  be  inclined  to 
make  a  separation  and  opposition  between  the  two. 


BOOK     II. 

OF   THE   COURSE   OF   NATURE   (COSMOLOGY). 


CHAPTER    I. 

Of  the  Subjectivity  of  our  Perception  of  Space. 

IN  the  course  of  our  ontological  discussion  it  was  impossible  not  to 
mention  the  forms  of  Space  and  Time ;  within  which,  and  not  other 
wise,  the  multiplicity  of  finite  things  and  the  succession  of  their  states 
are  presented  to  perceptive  cognition.  But  our  treatment  did  not 
start  from  the  first  questions  that  induce  enquiry,  rather  it  pre 
supposed  the  universal  points  of  view  which  have  already  been  re 
vealed  in  the  history  of  philosophy.  We  were  able  therefore  to  deal 
with  abstract  ontological  ideas  apart  from  these  two  forms  which  are 
the  conditions  of  perception.  Any  further  difficulties  must  look  for 
a  solution  to  the  Cosmological  discussions  on  which  we  are  now 
entering.  Among  the  subjects  belonging  to  Cosmology  it  may  seem 
that  Time  should  come  first  in  our  treatment ;  seeing  that  we  substi 
tuted  the  idea  of  a  continual  Becoming  for  that  of  Being  as  unmoved 
'position1.'  Accessory  reasons  however  induce  us  to  speak  first  of 
Space,  which  indeed  is  as  directly  connected  with  our  second  require 
ment,  that  we  should  be  able  in  every  moment  of  time  to  conceive 
the  real  world  as  a  coherent  unity  of  the  manifold. 

99.  In  proposing  to  speak  of  the  metaphysical  value  of  Space,  I 
entirely  exclude  at  present  various  questions  which,  with  considerable 
interest  of  their  own,  have  none  for  this  immediate  purpose.  At  present 
we  only  want  to  know  what  kind  of  reality  we  are  to  ascribe  to  space 
as  we  have  to  picture  it,  and  with  what  relation  to  it  we  are  to  credit 
the  real  things  which  it  appears  to  put  in  our  way.  No  answer  to 
this,  nor  materials  for  one,  can  be  got  from  psychological  discussions 
1  [v.  Bk.  I.  §  38.] 


Origin  and  Validity  distinct.  175 

as  to  the  origin  or  no-origin  of  our  spatial  perception.  To  designate 
it  as  an  a  priori  or  innate  possession  of  the  mind  is  to  say  nothing 
decisive,  and  indeed,  nothing  more  than  a  truism ;  of  course  it  is 
innate,  in  the  only  sense  the  expression  can  bear *,  and  in  this  sense 
colours  and  sounds  are  innate  too.  As  surely  as  we  could  see  no 
colours,  unless  the  nature  of  our  soul  included  a  faculty  which  could 
be  stimulated  to  that  kind  of  sensation,  so  surely  could  we  represent 
to  ourselves  no  images  in  space  without  an  equally  inborn  faculty  for 
such  combination  of  the  manifold.  But  again,  as  surely  as  we  should 
not  see  colours,  if  there  were  no  stimulus  independent  of  our  own 
being  to  excite  us  to  the  manifestation  of  our  innate  faculty,  so  surely 
we  should  not  have  the  perception  of  space  without  being  induced  to 
exert  our  faculty  by  conditions  which  do  not  belong  to  it. 

On  the  other  hand,  one  who  should  regard  our  spatial  perception 
as  an  abstraction  from  facts  of  experience,  could  have  nothing  before 
him,  as  direct  experience  out  of  which  to  abstract,  beyond  the  arrange 
ment  and  the  succession  of  the  sense-images  in  his  own  mind.  He 
might  be  able  to  show  how,  out  of  such  images,  either  as  an  un 
explained  matter  of  fact,  or  by  laws  of  association  of  ideas  which  he 
professed  to  know,  there  gradually  arose  the  space -perception,  as  a 
perception  in  our  minds.  He  might  perhaps  show  too,  how  there 
originated  in  us  the  notion  of  a  world  of  things  outside  our  conscious 
ness  as  the  cause  of  these  spatial  appearances.  We  shall  find  this  a 
hard  enough  problem,  later  on;  but  granting  it  completely  solved, 
still  the  mere  development-history  of  our  ideas  of  space  would  be  in 
no  way  decisive  of  their  validity  as  representing  the  postulated  world 
of  things,  nor  of  the  admissibility  of  this  postulate  itself.  As  was 
said  above,  the  way  in  which  a  mode  of  mental  representation  grows 
up  can  be  decisive  of  its  truth  or  untruth,  only  in  cases  where  a  prior 
knowledge  of  the  object  to  which  it  should  relate  convinces  us  that  its 
way  of  growth  must  necessarily  lead  whether  to  approximation  or  to 
divergence.  Therefore,  for  this  latter  view,  as  well  as  for  the  former 
which  maintains  the  a  priori  nature  of  the  space-perception,  there  is 
only  one  sense  in  which  the  question  of  its  objective  validity  is  answer 
able  :  namely,  whether  such  a  perception  as  we  in  fact  possess  and 
cannot  get  rid  of,  however  it  arose,  is  consistent  with  our  notions  of 
what  a  reality  apart  from  our  consciousness  must  be ;  or  whether, 
directly  or  in  its  results,  it  is  incompatible  with  them. 

100.  A  further  introductory  remark  is  called  for  by  recent  investiga 
tions.  We  admitted  that  our  ideas  of  Space  are  conditioned  by  the 

1  Logic,  §  324. 


1 76        Subjectivity  of  our  Perception  of  Space.     [BOOK  n. 

stimuli  which  are  furnished  to  our  faculty  for  forming  them      It  is 
conceivable  that  these  stimuli  do  not  come  to  all  minds  with  equal 
completeness,  and  that  hence  the  space-perception  of.  one  mind  nee< 
not  include  all  that  is  contained  in  that  of  another.    But  this  indefinite- 
ness  in  the  object  of  our  question  is  easily  removed.     Modes 
mental   presentation  which    are    susceptible  of   such    differences   ( 
development  may  have  their  simplest  phases  still  in  agreement  with 
the  object  to  which  they  relate,  while  their  consistent  evolution  evokes 
germs  of  contradiction  latent  before.     Therefore  when  their  truth  is 
in  question,  we  have  only  to  consider  their  most  highly  evolved  form ; 
in  which  all  possibility  of  further  self-transformation  is  exhausted,  and 
their  relation  to  the  entirety  of  their  object  is  completed. 

We  all  live,  to  begin  with,  under  the  impression  of  a  finite  extension, 
which  is  presented  to  our  senses  as  surrounding  us,  though  with  un 
determined  or  unregarded  limits ;  it  is  our  subsequent  reflection  that 
can  find  no  ground  in  the  nature  of  this  extension  for  its  ceasing  at 
any  point,  and  brings  the  picture  to  completion  in  the  idea  of  infinite 
space.     This  then,  the  inevitable  result  of  our  mode  of  mental  por 
trayal  when  once  set  in  motion,  is  the  matter  whose  truth  and  validity 
are  in  question.     But  scepticism  has  gone  further.     It  is  no  longer 
held  certain  and  self-evident  that  the  final  idea  of  a  space  uniform  and 
homogeneous  in  all  directions,  at  which  men  have  in  fact  arrived,  and 
which  geometry  had   hitherto    supported,   is  the   only  possible    and 
consistent  form  of  combination  for  simple  perceptions  of  things  beside 
one   another.     Some   hold  that  other  final   forms   are   conceivable, 
though  impossible    for  men;    some   credit  even  mankind  with  the 
capacity  to  amend  their  customary  perception  of  space  by  a  better 
guided  habituation  of  their  representative  powers.     This  last  hope  we 
may  simply  neglect,  till  the  moment  when  it  shall  be  crowned  with 
success  ;  the  former  suggestion,  in  itself  an  object  of  lively  interest,  we 
are  also  justified  in  disregarding  for  the  present :    for  all  the  other 
forms  of  space  whose  conceivability  these  speculations  undertake  to 
demonstrate,  would  share  the  properties  on  which  our  decision  depends 
with  the  only  form  which  we  now  presuppose ;  that,  namely,  whose 
nature  the  current  geometry  has  unfolded. 

101.  The  kind  of  reality  which  we  ought  to  ascribe  to  the  content 
of  an  idea  must  agree  with  what  such  a  content  claims  to  be ;  we 
could  not  ascribe  the  reality  of  an  immutable  existence  to  what  we 
thought  of  as  an  occurrence  ;  nor  endow  what  seemed  to  be  a 
property  with  the  substantive  persistence  which  would  only  suit  its 
substratum.  Therefore  we  first  try  to  define  what  space  as  represented 


CHAPTER i.]     Space  not  Thing,  Property,  or  Concept.      177 

in  our  minds  claims  to  be ;  or,  to  find  an  acknowledged  category  of 
established  existence  under  which  if  extended  to  it,  it  could  fairly  be 
said  to  fall. 

Some  difficulty  will  be  found  in  the  attempt.  The  only  point 
which  is  clear  and  conceded  is  that  we  do  not  regard  it  as  a  thing  but 
distinguish  it  from  the  things  which  are  moveable  in  it;  and  that 
though  many  determinations  which  are  possible  in  space  are  properties 
of  things,  space  itself  is  never  such  a  property.  Further  ;  the  defini 
tions  actually  attempted  are  untenable ;  space  is  not  a  limit  of  things, 
but  every  such  limit  is  a  figure  in  space;  and  space  itself  extends 
without  interruption  over  any  spot  to  which  we  remove  the  things.  It 
is  neither  form,  arrangement,  nor  relation  of  things,  but  the  peculiar 
principle  which  is  essential  to  the  possibility  of  countless  different 
forms,  arrangements,  and  relations  of  things  ;  and,  as  their  abso 
lutely  unchangeable  background,  is  unaffected  by  the  alternation  and 
transition  of  these  determinations  one  into  another.  Even  if  we 
called  it  '  form '  in  another  sense,  like  a  vessel  which  enclosed  things 
within  it,  \ve  should  only  be  explaining  it  by  itself;  for  it  is  only  in 
and  by  means  of  Space  that  there  can  be  vessels  which  enclose  their 
contents  but  are  not  identical  with  them.  These  unsuccessful  attempts 
show  that  there  is  no  known  general  concept  to  which  we  can  sub 
ordinate  space ;  it  is  sui  generis,  and  the  question  of  what  kind  its 
reality  is,  can  only  be  decided  according  to  the  claims  of  this  its 
distinctive  position. 

102.  As  the  condition  of  possibility  for  countless  forms,  relations, 
and  arrangements  of  things,  though  not  itself  any  definite  one  of 
them,  it  might  seem  that  Space  should  be  on  a  level  with  every 
universal  genus-concept,  and  as  such,  merit  no  further  validity.  Like 
it,  a  genus- concept  wears  none  of  the  definite  forms,  which  belong  to 
its  subordinate  species ;  but  contains  the  rule  which  governs  the 
manifold  groupings  of  marks  in  them,  allows  a  choice  between  certain 
combinations  as  possible,  and  excludes  others  as  impossible. 

Just  such  is  the  position  of  Space.  Although  formless  in  comparison 
with  every  outline  which  may  be  sketched  in  it,  yet  it  is  no  passive 
background  which  will  let  any  chance  thing  be  painted  on  it ;  but  it 
contains  between  its  points  unchangeable  relations,  which  determine 
the  possibility  of  any  drawing  that  we  may  wish  to  make  in  it.  It  is 
not  essential  to  find  an  exhaustive  expression  for  these  relations  at 
this  moment ;  we  may  content  ourselves,  leaving  much  undetermined, 
with  defining  them  thus  far : — that  any  point  may  be  placed  with  any 
other  point  in  a  connexion  homogeneous  with  that  in  which  any 

VOL.  i.  N 


j  78         Subjectivity  of  our  Perception  of  Space.     [BOOK  n. 

third  point  may  be  placed  with  any  fourth ;  that  this  connexion  is 
capable  of  measurable  degrees  of  proximity  and  that  its  measure 
between  any  two  points  is  defined  by  their  relations  to  others.  No 
matter,  as  I  said,  what  more  accurate  expression  may  be  substituted 
for  that  given,  in  as  far  as  our  perception  of  space  contains  such  a 
legislative  rule  we  might  regard  every  group  of  manifold  elements, 
which  satisfied  this  rule,  as  subordinate  to  the  universal  concept  of 
Space.  But  we  should  feel  at  once,  that  such  a  designation  was 
unsuitable ;  such  a  group  might  be  called  a  combination  of  multiplicity 
in  space,  but  not  an  instance  of  space,  in  the  sense  in  which  we  regard 
every  animal  whose  structure  follows  the  laws  of  his  genus  as  a  species 
or  instance  of  that  genus.  The  peculiarities  of  what  we  indicated 
above  as  the  law  of  space  in  general *  create  other  relations  between 
the  different  cases  of  its  application,  than  obtain  between  the  species 
of  natural  Genera.  Each  of  the  latter  requires  indeed  that  its  rule  of 
the  grouping  of  marks  shall  be  observed  in  each  of  its  species ;  but  it 
puts  the  different  species  which  do  this  in  no  reciprocal  connexion. 
They  are  therefore  subordinate  to  it;  but  when  we  call  them,  as 
species  of  the  same  genus,  co-ordinate  with  one  another,  we  really 
mean  nothing  by  this  co-ordination  but  the  uniformity  of  their  lot  in 
that  subordination.  Supposing  we  unite  birds,  fishes,  and  other 
creatures  under  the  universal  concept  '  animal,'  all  we  find  is  that  the 
common  features  of  organization  demanded  by  the  concept  occur  in 
all  of  them  ;  this  tells  us  nothing  of  the  reciprocal  attitude  and  be 
haviour  of  these  classes  ;  the  most  we  can  do  is,  conversely,  to  attempt 
afterwards  a  closer  systematic  union,  by  the  formation  of  narrower 
genera,  between  those  which  we  have  ascertained  from  other  sources 
of  experience  to  possess  reciprocal  connexions. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  character  of  Space  in  general  \  requiring 
every  point  to  be  connected  with  others,  forbids  us  to  regard  the 
various  particular  figures  which  may  satisfy  its  requirements  as  isolated 
instances ;  it  compels  us  to  connect  them  with  each  other  under  the 
same  conditions  under  which  points  are  connected  with  points  within 
the  figures  themselves.  If  we  conceive  this  demand  satisfied,  as  far 
as  the  addition  of  fresh  elements  brings  a  constantly  recurring  possi 
bility  and  necessity  of  satisfying  it,  the  result  which  we  obtain  is 
'Space"2:  the  single  and  entire  picture,  that  is  not  only  present  by  the 
uniformity  of  its  nature  in  every  limited  part  of  extension,  but  at  the 
same  time  contains  them  all  as  its  parts,  though  of  course  it  is  not, 
as  a  whole,  to  be  embraced  in  a  single  view :  it  is  like  an  integral 
1  ['  Raumlichkeit.']  2  [•  der  Raran.'] 


CHAPTER  i.]  Empty  Space  Conceivable  ?  1 79 

obtained  by  extending  the  relation  which  connects  two  points,  to  the  in 
finite  number  of  possible  points.  The  only  parallel  to  this  condition, 
is  in  our  habit  of  representing  to  ourselves  the  countless  multitudes  of 
mankind  not  merely  as  instances  of  their  genus,  but  as  parts  united 
with  the  whole  of  Humanity ;  in  the  case  of  animals  the  peculiar 
ethical  reasons  which  bring  this  about  are  wanting,  and  we  are  not  in 
the  habit  of  speaking  in  the  same  sense  of  '  animality.' 

103.  Of  course,  in  the  above  remarks,  I  owe  to  the  guidance  of 
Kant  all  that  I  have  here  said  in  agreement  with  his  account  in  Sect.  2 
of  the  Transcendental  Aesthetic  ;  as  regards  what  I  have  not  men 
tioned  here,  I  avoid  for  the  moment  expressing  assent  or  dissent,  ex 
cepting  on  two  points  which  lie  in  the  track  of  my  discussion.  '  It  is 
impossible/  Kant  says  \  '  to  represent  to  one's  self  that  there  is  no 
space,  though  it  is  possible  to  conceive  that  no  objects  should  be  met 
with  in  space.'  Unnecessary  objections  have  been  raised  against  the 
second  part  of  this  assertion,  by  requiring  of  the  thought  of  empty 
space,  which  Kant  considers  possible,  the  vividness  of  an  actual  per 
ception,  or  of  an  image  in  the  memory  recalling  all  the  accessory 
conditions  of  the  perception.  Then,  of  course,  it  is  quite  right  to 
pronounce  that  a  complete  vacuum  could  not  be  represented  to  the 
mind,  without  at  least  reserving  a  place  in  it  for  ourself ;  for  what 
ever  place,  outside  the  vacuum  which  we  were  observing,  we  might 
attempt,  as  observer,  to  assign  ourself,  we  should  unavoidably  con 
nect  that  place  in  its  turn,  by  spatial  relations,  with  the  imagined 
extension.  We  should  have  the  same  right  to  assert  that  we  could 
not  conceive  space  without  colour  and  temperature ;  an  absolutely 
invisible  extension  is  obviously  not  perceptible  or  reproducible  as  an 
image  in  memory :  it  must  be  one  which  is  recognised  by  the  eye 
at  least  as  darkness,  and  in  which  the  observer  would  include  the 
thought  of  himself  with  some  state  of  skin-sensation,  which,  like  colour, 
he  transfers  as  a  property  to  his  surroundings.  But  the  question  is 
not  in  the  least  about  such  impossible  attempts  ;  the  admitted  mobility 
of  things  is  by  itself  a  sufficient  proof  that  we  imply  the  idea  of  com 
pletely  empty  space,  as  possible  in  its  own  nature,  even  while  we  are 
actually  considering  it  as  filled  with  something  real.  This  is  most 
simply  self-evident  for  atomistic  views ;  if  the  atoms  move,  every  point 
of  the  space  they  move  in  must  be  successively  empty  and  full ;  but 
motion  would  mean  nothing  and  be  impossible,  unless  the  abandoned 
empty  places  retained  the  same  reciprocal  positions  and  distances 
which  they  had  when  occupied ;  the  empty  totality  of  space  is  there- 

1  [Trans.  Aesth.  2.  (2).] 
N  2 


180        Subjectivity  of  our  Perception  of  Space. 

fore  unavoidably  conceived  as  the  independent  background,  for  which 
the  occupation  by  real  matter  is  a  not  unvarying  destiny. 

To  prefer  the  dynamical  view  of  continuously  filled  space  leads  to 
the  same  result.  Degrees  of  density  could  mean  absolutely  nothing, 
and  would  be  impossible,  unless  the  same  volume  could  be  con 
tinuously  occupied  by  different  quantities  of  real  matter ;  but  this  too 
implies  that  the  limits  of  the  volume  possess  and  preserve  their 
geometrical  relations  independently  of  the  actual  thing  of  which  they 
are  the  place ;  and  they  would  continue  to  possess  them,  if  we  sup 
posed  the  density  to  decrease  without  limit  and  to  approach  an 
absolute  vacuum.  Therefore  it  is  certain  that  we  cannot  imagine 
objects  in  space  without  conceiving  its  empty  extension  as  a  back 
ground  present  to  begin  with ;  although  no  remembered  image  of  a 
perception  of  it  is  possible  without  a  remembrance  of  the  objects 
which  made  it  perceptible  to  sense. 

104.  With  this  interpretation  we  may  also  admit  the  first  part  of  the 
Kantian  assertion.  It  is  true  that  we  cannot  represent  to  ourselves  the 
non-existence  of  space  as  something  that  can  be  experienced,  and 
re-experienced  in  memory.  It  is  however  not  inconceivable  to  us  abso 
lutely;  but  only  under  the  condition  that  an  aggregate  of  actual  exist 
ence,  capable  of  combination,  in  short  a  real  world,  is  to  be  given,  and 
that  the  subjects  which  have  to  bring  it  before  them  are  our  minds. 
Now  this  real  world  is  given  us  ;  metaphysic  rests  entirely  on  this  fact, 
and  only  investigates  its  inner  uniformity  without  indulging  in  con 
templation  of  the  unreal :  it  is  enough  then  for  her  to  consider  space  to 
be  given,  as  the  universal,  unchangeable,  and  ever  present  environment 
of  things,  just  as  much  as  things  and  their  qualities  are  recognised  to 
be  given  as  changeable  and  alternating. 

In  this  sense  I  may  couple  Kant's  assertion  with  another  saying 
of  his;  'space  is  imagined  as  an  infinite  given  magnitude1/  It  has 
been  objected  against  this  too,  that  an  infinite  magnitude  cannot  be 
imagined  as  given;  but  no  one  knew  this  better  than  Kant.  A 
reasonable  exposition  can  only  take  his  expression  to  mean,  that 
space  is  above  all  things  given,  and  is  not  like  a  universal  of  which 
there  can  be  a  doubt  whether  it  applies  to  anything  or  not ;  and  that 
further,  in  every  actual  limited  perception  space  is  given,  as  a  mag 
nitude  whose  nature  demands  and  permits,  that,  as  extending 
uniformly  beyond  every  limit,  it  should  be  pursued  to  infinity.  Hence, 
the  infinity  of  space  clearly  is  given ;  for  there  is  no  limit  such  that 
progress  beyond  it,  although  conceivable,  yet  would  not  be  real  in 
1  [Trans.  Aesth.  2.  (4).] 


CHAPTER  i.]  Grounds  of  Kant's  Doctrine.  181 

the  same  sense  as  the  interval  left  behind  ;  every  increment  of  exten 
sion,  as  it  is  progressively  imagined,  must  be  added  to  the  former 
quantity  as  equally  a  given  magnitude. 

Finally,  all  these  observations  strictly  speaking  do  nothing  but 
repeat  and  depict  the  impression  under  which  we  all  are  in  every-day 
life.  The  moment  we  exert  our  senses,  nothing  seems  surer  to  us 
than  that  we  are  environed  by  Space,  as  a  reality  in  whose  depths  the 
actual  world  may  lose  itself  to  our  sight,  but  from  which  it  can  never 
escape ;  therefore  while  every  particular  sense-perception  readily  falls 
under  suspicion  of  being  a  purely  subjective  excitement  in  us,  to  doubt 
the  objectivity  of  Space  has  always  seemed  to  the  common  appre 
hension  an  unintelligible  paradox  of  speculation. 

105.  The  motives  to  such  a  startling  transformation  of  the  ordinary 
view  were  found  by  Kant  not  in  the  nature  of  space  itself,  but  in  con 
tradictions  which  seemed  to  result  from  its  presupposed  relation  to  the 
real  world.  The  attempt  of  the  Transcendental  Aesthetic,  to  demon 
strate  our  mental  picture  of  space  to  be  an  a  priori  possession  of  our 
mind,  does  not  in  itself  run  counter  to  common  opinion.  For 
suppose  a  single  space  to  extend  all  round  us  and  to  contain  within 
it  ourselves  and  all  things ;  precisely  in  that  case  it  is  of  course  im 
possible  that  the  several  visions  of  it,  existing  in  several  thinking 
beings,  could  be  the  space  itself;  they  could  not  be  more  than  sub 
jective  representations  of  it  in  those  beings :  so  whether  they  belong 
to  us  originally,  or  arise  in  us  by  action  from  without,  there  is  no 
prima  facie  hindrance  to  their  being,  qua  images  belonging  to  cog 
nition,  similar  to  a  space  which  exists  in  fact. 

Nothing  short  of  the  antinomies  in  which  we  become  entangled,  if 
we  attempt  to  unite  our  ideas  of  the  entirety  of  the  world  or  of  its 
ultimate  constituent  parts  with  this  presupposition  of  an  actual  Space, 
decided  Kant  for  his  assumption  that  the  space-perception  was 
nothing  but  a  subjective  form  of  apprehension  with  which  the  nature 
of  the  real  world  that  had  to  be  presupposed  had  nothing  in  common. 
With  this  indirect  establishment  of  his  doctrine  I  cannot  agree  ; 
because  the  purely  phenomenal  nature  of  space  does  not  properly 
speaking  remove  any  of  the  difficulties  on  account  of  which  Kant  felt 
compelled  to  assert  it.  It  is  quite  inadmissible,  after  the  fashion 
especially  of  popular  treatises  of  the  Kantian  school  which  exulted  in 
this  notion,  to  treat  Things  in  themselves  as  utterly  foreign  to  the 
forms  under  which  they  were  nevertheless  to  appear  to  us ;  there  must 
be  determinations  in  the  realm  of  things  in  themselves  prescribing  the 
definite  places,  forms,  or  motions,  which  we  observe  the  appearances 


1 8  2         Subjectivity  of  our  Perception  of  Space. 

in  space  to  occupy,  sustain,  or  execute,  without  the  power  of  changing 
them  at  our  pleasure.  If  Things  are  not  themselves  of  spatial  form 
and  do  not  stand  in  space-relations  to  one  another,  then  they  must  be 
in  some  network  of  changeable  intelligible  relations  with  one  another ; 
to  each  of  these,  translated  by  us  into  the  language  of  spatial  images, 
there  must  correspond  one  definite  space-relation  to  the  exclusion  of 
every  other.  How  we  are  in  a  position  to  apply  our  innate  and  con 
sequently  uniform  perception  of  space,  which  we  are  said  to  bring  to 
our  experiences  ready  made,  so  that  particular  apparent  things  find 
their  definite  places  in  it,  is  a  question  the  whole  of  which  Kant  has 
left  unanswered;  the  results  of  this  omission,  as  I  think  it  worth  while 
to  show  briefly,  encumber  even  his  decision  upon  the  antinomy  of 

Space. 

106.  The  real  world,  it  is  said,  cannot  be  infinite  in  space,  because 
infinity  can  only  be  conceived  as  unlimited  succession,  and  not  as 
simultaneous.  Now  how  is  our  position  bettered  by  denying  all 
extension  to  the  real  world,  while  forced,  with  Kant,  to  admit  that  in 
all  our  experience  space  is  the  one  persistently  valid  form  under 
which  that  world  appears  ?  I  cannot  persuade  myself  that  this  so- 
called  empirical  reality  of  space  is  reconcilable  with  the  grounds 
which  cause  the  rejection  of  its  transcendental  validity  for  the  world 
of  Things  in  themselves. 

In  this  world,  the  world  of  experience,  if  we  proceed  onwards  in  a 
straight  line,  we  shall,  admittedly,  never  come  to  the  end  of  the  line ; 
but  how  do  we  suppose  that  our  perceptions  would  behave  during 
our  infinite  linear  progress?     Would  there  always  be  something   to 
perceive,  however  far  we  advanced  ?     And  if  there  was,  would  there 
be  some  point  after  which  it  would  be  always  the  same  or  would  it 
keep  changing  all  through  ?     In  both  of  these  cases  there  must  be 
precisely  as  many  distinguishable  elements  in  the  world  of  things  in 
themselves  as  there  are  different  points  of  space  in  this  world  of  per 
ception  ;    for  all  the  things  that  appear  in  different  places,  whether 
like  or  unlike,  must  be  somehow  different  in  order  to  have  the  power 
of  so  appearing,  and  so  must  at  least  consist  in  a  number  of  similar 
elements,  corresponding  to  the  number  of  their  distinguishable  places. 
Consequently,  on  this  assumption,  space  could  only  possess  its  em 
pirical  reality  if  there  were   conceded  to  the  real  world   that  very 
countlessness  or  infinity  the  impossibility  of  admitting  which  was  the 
reason  for  restricting  space  to  an  empirical  reality.      I  trust  that  it 
will  not  be  attempted  to  object  that  in  fact  the   infinite  rectilinear 
progression  can  never  be  completed.     Most  certainly  it  cannot,  and 


CHAPTER  i.]          The  World  Limited  in  Space  ?  183 

doubtless  we  are  secure  against  advancing  so  far  in  space  as  to  give 
practical  urgency  to  the  question  how  our  perceptions  will  behave: 
but  in  treating  of  the  formation  of  our  idea  of  the  world,  we  must 
consider  the  distances  which  we  know  we  shall  never  reach  as  in 
their  nature  simultaneously  existent,  just  as  much  as  those  which 
we  have  actually  traversed  are  held  simultaneously  persistent  ;  it  is 
impossible  for  us  to  assume  that  the  former  are  not  there  till  our 
perception  arrives  at  them,  and  that  the  latter  cease  to  be,  when  we 
no  longer  perceive  them. 

Now,  one  would  think,  the  other  assumption  remains ;  suppose  at 
a  definite  point  reached  in  our  advance,  the  world  of  perception  came 
to  an  end,  and  with  it,  all  transmission  of  perceptions  arising  from  the 
actually  existing  contents  of  the  distances  previously  traversed.  This 
would  give  the  image  of  a  finite  actual  world-volume  floating  in  the 
infinite  extension  of  empty  space.  Kant  thinks  it  impossible  ;  his  idea 
is  that  in  such  a  case  we  should  have  not  merely  a  relation  of  things 
in  space,  but  also  one  of  things  to  space ;  but  as  the  world  is  a 
whole,  and  outside  it  there  is  no  object  of  perception  with  which 
it  can  stand  in  the  alleged  relation,  the  world's  relation  to  empty 
space  would  be  a  relation  of  it  to  no  object.  The  note  *  which  Kant 
subjoins  here,  shows  clearly  what  his  only  reason  is  for  scrupling  to 
admit  this  relation  of  a  limitation  of  the  real  world  by  space :  he 
starts  with  his  own  assumption  that  space  is  only  a  form  to  be 
attached  to  possible  things,  and  not  an  object  which  can  limit  other 
objects.  But  the  popular  view,  which  he  ought  not  to  disregard  as 
up  to  this  point2  he  has  not  explicitly  disputed  it,  apprehends  space  to 
be  a  self-existent  form  such  as  to  include  possible  things,  but  clearly 
in  treating  it  thus  by  no  means  takes  it  for  a  form  which  can  only 
exist  in  attachment  to  things  as  one  of  their  qualities,  or  for  a  simple 
non-entity.  Rather  it  is  held  to  be  a  something  of  its  own  enigmatic 
kind,  not  indeed  an  object  like  other  objects,  but  with  its  peculiar 
sort  of  reality,  and  such  therefore  as  could  not  be  known  without 
proof  to  be  incapable  of  forming  the  boundary  of  the  real  world. 
But  in  any  case  we  should  have  no  occasion  to  expect  of  empty  space 
a  restricting  energy,  which  should  actively  set  limits  to  the  world,  as 
if  it  were  obvious  that  in  default  of  such  resistance  the  world  must 
extend  into  infinity.  The  fact  is  rather  that  the  world  must  stop  at 
its  limit,  because  there  is  no  more  of  it ;  we  may  call  this  a  relation 
of  the  world  '  to  no  object,'  but  such  a  relation  is  at  least  nothing 

1  [Kritik  d.  r.V.  p.  307,  Hartenstein's  ed.  1868.     Footnote,  'der  Raum  1st  bios 
die  Form,'  etc  ]  3  [Cp.  §  105.] 


1 84        Subjectivity  of  our  Perception  of  Space.     [BOOK  u. 

mysterious  or  suspicious  ;  moreover,  it  would  have  to  remain  true 
even  of  our  unspatial  world  of  things  in  themselves ;  this  also,  the 
totality  of  existence,  would  be  in  the  same  way  bounded  by  Nothing. 
So  if  in  our  progression  through  the  world  of  experience,  the  coherent 
whole  of  our  observations  convinced  us  that  at  any  point  the  real 
world  came  to  an  end,  this  fact  alone  would  not  cause  us  the  difficulty 
by  which  Kant  was  impelled  to  overthrow  the  common  idea ;  were 
it  but  clear  what  is  meant  by  saying  of  things  that  they  are  in  space, 
\ve  should  not  be  disturbed  at  their  not  being  everywhere. 

On  the  other  hand  it  cannot  be  denied,  that  this  boundedness  of 
the  world  in  space  would  also  be  reconcilable  with  Kant's  doctrine, 
if  this  were  once  accepted,  and  supplemented  in  the  way  I  suggest. 
If  the  world  of  things  in  themselves  were  a  completed  whole  ;  if  they 
all  stood  to  each  other  in  graduated  intelligible  relations,  which  our 
perception  had  to  transform  into  spatial  ones ;  then  the  pheno 
menal  image  of  such  a  world  would  be  complete  when  all  these 
actually  existing  relations  of  its  elements  had  found  their  spatial 
expression  in  our  apprehension.  But  beyond  this  bounded  world- 
picture  there  would  appear  to  extend  an  unbounded  empty  space; 
all  conceivable  but  unrealised  continuations  or  higher  intensities  of 
those  intelligible  conditions  would  like  them  enter  into  our  percep 
tion,  but  only  as  empty  possibilities.  To  indicate  it  briefly;  every 
pair  of  converging  lines  a  b  and  c  d  whose  extremities  we  found 
attached  to  impressions  of  real  things,  would  require  their  point  of 
intersection  to  be  in  the  infinite  void,  supposing  them  not  to  find  it 
within  the  picture  of  the  real  world.  The  boundedness  of  the  real 
world  is  therefore  admissible  both  on  Kant's  view  of  space  and  on 
the  popular  view,  and  so  the  choice  between  them  is  undetermined ; 
it  is  equally  undetermined  if  we  assume  the  unboundedness  of  the 
world,  as  neither  of  the  views  in  question  by  itself  removes  the 
difficulties  which  are  found  in  the  conception  of  the  infinity  of  exist 
ing  things. 

107.  I  intend  merely  to  subjoin  in  a  few  words  the  corresponding 
observations  on  the  infinite  divisibility,  or  the  indivisibleness,  of  the 
ultimate  elements  of  real  existence.  If  we  abide  strictly  by  the  em 
pirical  reality  of  space,  then  in  thinking  of  the  subdivision  of  extended 
objects  as  continued  beyond  the  limits  attainable  in  practice,  we  must 
come  to  one  of  two  conclusions  about  the  result ;  either  we  must 
arrive  at  ultimate  actual  shapes,  indivisible  not  only  by  our  methods 
but  in  their  nature  ;  or  else  the  divisibility  really  continues  to-  infinity. 

If  real  things  were  infinitely  divisible  the  difficulty  which  we  should 


CHAPTER  i.]  Infinite  Divisibility.  185 

see  in  the  fact  would  be  no  more  removed  by  assuming  space  to  be 
purely  phenomenal,  than  was  the  similar  difficulty  in  the  idea  of 
infinite  extension :  every  real  Thing,  which  presented  itself  pheno 
menally  to  our  perception  as  something  single  and  finite  occupy 
ing  space,  would  have  to  be  itself  infinitely  divisible  into  unspatial 
multiplicities  ;  for  every  part  of  the  divisible  space-image,  must,  as  it 
appears  in  a  different  point  of  space  from  every  other  part,  be  de 
pendent  on  a  real  element  which  has  an  existence  of  its  own  and  in 
its  unspatial  fashion  is  distinct,  somehow,  from  all  other  points. 

If  on  the  contrary  we  arrived  at  the  conviction,  that  definite 
minimurn  volumes  of  real  things  were  indivisible,  while  the  space  they 
occupied  of  course  retained  its  infinite  geometrical  divisibility,  we 
might  still  think  it  obscure  what  could  be  meant  at  all  by  saying  that 
real  things  occupy  space  :  but  if  we  assume  this  as  intelligible,  we 
should  not  be  astonished  that  in  virtue  of  its  nature  as  a  particular 
kind  of  unit,  each  real  thing  should  occupy  just  this  volume  and  no 
other,  and  allow  no  subdivision  of  it.  Here  once  more  the  obscure 
point  remarked  upon  is  made  no  clearer  by  the  assumption  that  space  is 
merely  phenomenal.  We  should  have  to  represent  to  ourselves  that 
every  Thing  in  itself,  though  in  itself  unspatial,  yet  bore  in  its  in 
telligible  nature  the  reason  why  it  is  forced  to  present  itself  as  a 
limited  extension  to  any  perception  which  translates  it  into  spatial 
appearance.  This  idea  involves  another  ;  that  the  real  Thing,  though 
indivisibly  one,  is  yet  equivalent  to  an  indissolubly  combined  unity  of 
moments,  however  to  be  conceived  ;  every  point  of  its  small  pheno 
menal  volume,  in  order  to  distinguish  itself  from  every  other  and 
form  an  extension  with  their  help,  presupposes  a  cause  of  its  pheno- 
menality  in  the  Thing-in-itself,  distinct  from  the  corresponding  cause 
of  every  other  point,  and  yet  indissolubly  bound  up  with  those  causes. 

How  to  satisfy  these  postulates  we  do  not  yet  know;  common  opinion, 
which  says  that  the  Thing  is  actually  extended  in  an  actual  space, 
probably  thinks  that  it  is  no  less  wise,  and  much  more  clear,  about 
the  fact  of  the  matter  than  the  view  of  the  unreality  of  space,  which 
common  opinion  holds  to  be  at  all  events  not  more  successful  in  com 
prehending  it. 

Here,  as  in  the  last  section,  I  dismiss  the  objection  that  there  is  a 
practical  limit ;  that  we  can  never  get  so  far  in  the  actual  subdivision 
of  what  is  extended,  as  to  be  enabled  to  assert  either  infinite  divisi 
bility  or  the  existence  of  indivisible  volumes.  One  of  the  two  must 
necessarily  be  thought  of  as  taking  place  as  long  as  the  empirical 
reality  of  space  is  allowed  universal  validity;  that  is  as  long  as  we 


1 86        Subjectivity  of  our  Perception  of  Space.     [BOOK  n. 

assume  that  however  far  we  go  in  dividing  the  objects  of  our  direct 
experience,  spatial  ideas  will  find  necessary  application  to  all  the 
products  of  this  subdivision ;  that  there  would  never  be  a  moment 
when  the  disruption  of  what  is  in  space  would  suddenly  present  us 
with  non-spatial  elements. 

108.  The  foregoing  discussions  have  brought  me  to  the  conviction 
that  the  difficulties  which  Kant  discovers  by  his  treatment  of  the  Anti 
nomies,  neither  suffice  to  refute  the  ordinary  view  of  the  objectivity 
of  space,  nor  would  be  got  rid  of  by  its  opposite ;  but  that  other 
motives  are  forthcoming,  though  less  noticed  by  Kant,  which  never 
theless  force  us  to  agree  with  him. 

The  want  of  objective  validity  in  the  spatial  perception  is  revealed 
before  we  come  to  apply  it  to  the  universe  or  to  its  ultimate  elements. 
We  have  only  to  ask  two  other  and  more  general  questions ;  how  can 
space,  such  as  it  is  and  must  be  conceived  whether  occupied  or  not, 
have  ascribed  to  it  a  reality  of  its  own,  in  virtue  of  which  it  exists 
before  its  possible  content  ?  And  how  can  what  we  call  the  exist 
ence  of  things  in  space  be  conceived,  whether  such  occupation  by 
real  things  concerns  its  entire  infinite  extent,  or  only  a  finite  part  of  it? 

The  first  of  our  questions,  more  especially,  but  the  second  as  well, 
require  a  further  introductory  remark.  We  must  give  up  all  attempt 
to  pave  the  way  for  answering  the  two  questions  by  assigning  to  space 
a  different  nature  from  that  which  we  found  for  it  in  our  former  de 
scription.  There  is  obvious  temptation  to  do  so  in  order  to  make  the 
substantive  existence  of  space,  and  its  limiting  action  on  real  things, 
seem  more  intelligible.  Thus  we  are  inclined  to  supply  to  space, 
which  at  first  we  took  for  a  mere  tissue  of  relations,  some  substratum 
of  properties,  undefinable  of  course,  but  still  such  as  to  serve  for 
a  substantive  support  to  these  relations.  We  gain  nothing  by  doing 
so ;  we  do  not  so  much  corrupt  the  conception  of  space,  as  merely 
throw  the  difficulty  back,  and  that  quite  uselessly.  For  the  second  of 
our  questions  was,  how  real  things  can  at  all  stand  in  relation  to 
space.  Precisely  the  same  question  will  be  raised  over  again  by  the 
new  substratum  in  which  space  is  somehow  to  inhere.  Therefore 
we  must  abide  by  this  ;  there  is  simply  nothing  behind  that  tissue  of 
relations  which  at  starting  we  represented  to  ourselves  as  space ;  if 
we  ask  questions  about  its  existence,  all  that  we  do  or  can  want  to 
know  is,  what  kind  of  reality  can  belong  to  a  thing  so  represented,  to 
this  empty  and  unsubstantial  space. 

109.  No  doubt,  when  so  stated,  the  question  is  already  decided  in 
my  own  conviction  by  what  I  said  above  concerning  the  nature  of  all 


CHAPTERI.]  How  is  Space  Real ?  187 

'relations1':  that  they  only  exist  either  as  ideas  in  a  consciousness 
which  imposes  them,  or  as  inner  states,  within  the  real  elements 
of  existence,  which  according  to  our  ordinary  phrase  stand  in  the 
'relations.' 

Still  I  do  not  wish  to  answer  the  present  question  merely  by  a 
deduction  from  this  previous  assertion  of  mine ;  but  should  think  it 
more  advantageous  if  I  could  succeed  in  arriving  at  the  same  result 
by  an  independent  treatment.  But  I  do  not  hide  from  myself  how  liable 
such  an  attempt  is  to  fail ;  it  is  a  hard  achievement  to  expound  by 
discursive  considerations  the  essential  absurdity  of  an  idea  which 
appears  to  be  justly  formed  because  it  is  every  moment  forming  itself 
anew  under  the  overpowering  impression  of  a  direct  perception ;  an 
idea  too,  which  never  defines  precisely  what  it  means,  and  which 
therefore  escapes,  impalpably,  all  attempts  at  refutation. 

This  is  our  present  case.  It  is  an  impression  which  we  all  share 
that  space  extends  before  our  contemplating  vision,  not  merely  as  an 
example  of  external  being  independent  of  us,  but  as  the  one  thing 
necessary  to  making  credible  to  us  the  possibility  and  import  of 
any  such  being.  The  idea  that  it  would  still  remain  there,  even  if 
there  were  no  vision  for  it  to  extend  before,  is  an  inference  hard  to 
refute ;  for  it  does  not  explain  in  what  the  alleged  being  of  that  space 
would  any  longer  consist  if  it  is  to  be  neither  the  existence  of  a  thing 
which  can  act,  nor  the  mere  validity  of  a  truth,  nor  a  mental  repre 
sentation  in  us.  It  is  vain  to  repeat,  that  space  itself  teaches  us  with 
dazzling  clearness  that  there  are  other  and  peculiar  kinds  of  reality 
besides  these ;  this  is  only  to  repeat  the  confusion  of  the  given  per 
ception  with  the  inference  drawn  from  it ;  the  former  does  find  space 
appearing  in  its  marvellous  form  of  existence ;  but  perception  cannot 
go  outside  itself  and  vouch  that  there  corresponds  to  this  reality  which 
is  an  object  of  perception  a  similar  reality  which  is  not ;  this  notion 
can  only  be  subjoined  by  our  thought,  and  is  prima facie  a  question 
able  supposition. 

I  now  wish  to  attempt  to  show  how  little  this  hypothesis  does  to 
make  those  properties  intelligible,  which  we  can  easily  understand  to 
be  true  of  space  if  we  conceive  it  merely  as  an  image  created  by  our 
perceptive  power,  and  forthcoming  for  it  only. 

110.  Every  point  p  of  empty  space  must  be  credited  with  the  same 
reality,  whatever  that  may  be,  which  belongs  to  space  as  a  whole  ; 
for  whether  we  regard  this  latter  as  a  sum  of  points,  or  as  a  product 
of  their  continuous  confluence  with  one  another,  in  any  case  it  could 

1  [§  Si,  end.] 


1 88        Subjectivity  of  our  Perception  of  Space.     [BOOK  n. 

not  exist,  unless  they  existed.  Again,  we  find  every  point  p  exactly 
like  every  other  q  or  r,  and  no  change  would  be  made  if  we  thought 
of/  as  replaced  by  q  or  by  r.  At  the  same  time  such  an  interchange 
is  quite  impossible,  only  real  elements  can  change  their  relations 
(which  we  are  not  now  discussing),  to  empty  space-points ;  but  these 
latter  themselves  stand  immovable  in  fixed  relations,  which  are  dif 
ferent  for  any  one  pair  and  for  any  other. 

Of  course,  no  one  even  who  holds  space  to  be  real,  regards  its 
empty  points  as  things  like  other  things,  acting  on  each  other  by 
means  of  physical  forces.  Nevertheless,  when  we  say  '  Space  exists,' 
it  is  only  the  shortness  of  the  phrase  that  gives  a  semblance  of  settling 
the  matter  by  help  of  a  simple  '  position  1 '  or  act  of  presenting  itself, 
easily  assigned  or  thought  of  as  assigned  to  this  totality,  which  we 
comprehend  under  the  name  of  space.  But,  in  fact,  for  space  to 
exist,  everything  that  we  have  alluded  to  must  occur ;  every  point 
must  exist,  and  the  existence  of  each,  though  it  is  like  every  other, 
must  consist  in  distinguishing  itself  from  every  other,  and  determining 
an  unalterable  position  for  itself  compared  with  all,  and  for  all  com 
pared  with  it.  Hence  the  fabric  of  space,  if  it  is  to  exist,  will  have  to 
rest  on  an  effectual  reciprocal  determination  of  its  empty  points  ;  this 
can  in  any  case  be  brought  under  the  idea  of  action  and  reaction, 
whatever  distinction  may  be  found  between  it  and  the  operation  of 
physical  force,  or  between  empty  points  and  real  atoms. 

This  requirement  cannot  be  parried  by  the  objection  that  as  we 
have  not  to  make  space,  but  only  to  consider  it  as  existing,  we  have 
no  occasion  to  construct  its  fabric,  but  may  accept  it,  and  therefore 
the  position  of  all  its  points,  as  given.  True,  we  do  not  want  to 
make  space,  as  if  it  had  not  existed  before,  but  this  very  act,  the 
recognition  of  it  as  given,  means  presupposing  that  precise  action  and 
reaction  of  its  points  which  I  described.  No  points  or  elements, 
unless  thought  of  as  distributed  in  an  already  existing  space,  could 
conceivably  be  asserted  simply  to  be  in  particular  places,  without  being 
responsible  for  it  themselves,  and  to  share  in  the  relation  subsisting 
between  these  places  ;  but  the  points  of  empty  space  cannot  be  taken 
as  localised  in  turn  in  a  previous  space,  so  as  to  have  their  reciprocal 
relations  derived  from  their  situation  in  it ;  it  must  be  iii  consequence 
of  what  they  themselves  are  or  do,  that  they  have  these  relations,  and 
by  their  means  constitute  space  as  a  whole.  Hence,  if  the  two  points 
p  and  q  exist,  their  distance  pq  is  something  which  would  not  be  there 
without  them,  and  which  they  must  make  for  themselves. 
1  ['Position/  v.  §  10.] 


CHAPTER  i.]     T/ie  '  Relations '  between  Spatial  Points.      189 

I  can  imagine  the  former  objection  being  here  repeated  in  another 
shape ;  that  we  did  not  conceive  the  spatial  relations  as  prior,  in 
order  to  place  the  points  in  them  afterwards ;  and  so  now,  we  are 
not  to  assume  the  points  first,  so  that  they  have  to  create  the  relations 
afterwards ;  the  two  together,  thought  in  complete  cohesion,  the 
points  in  these  relations,  put  before  us,  at  once  and  complete,  the 
datum  which  we  call  existing  space.  Granting  then,  that  I  could 
attach  any  meaning  to  points  being  in  relations  simply  as  a  fact, 
without  either  creating  or  sustaining  them  by  anything  in  themselves ; 
still  I  should  have  to  insist  on  the  circumstance  that  every  reality, 
which  is  merely  given  in  fact,  admits  of  being  done  away  and  its 
non-existence  assumed  at  least  in  thought.  Now  not  only  does  no 
one  attempt  to  make  an  actual  hole  in  actual  empty  space ;  but  even 
in  thought  it  is  vain  to  try  to  displace  one  of  the  empty  space-points 
out  of  that  relation  to  others  which  we  are  told  is  a  mere  datum  of 
fact ;  the  lacuna  which  we  try  to  create  is  at  once  filled  up  by  space 
as  good  as  that  suppressed.  Now  of  course  I  cannot  suppose  that 
anyone  who  affirms  the  reality  of  space  will  set  down  this  invulner 
ability  only  to  his  subjective  perception  of  it,  and  not  to  existing 
space  itself;  obviously  this  miraculous  property  would  have  to  be 
ascribed  to  real  extension  as  well. 

This  property  is  very  easily  intelligible  on  the  view  of  the  purely 
phenomenal  nature  of  space.  If  a  consciousness  which  recollects  its 
own  different  acts  or  states,  experiences  a  number  n  of  impressions 
of  any  kind  in  a  succession  which  it  cannot  alter  at  pleasure ;  if, 
in  the  transition  from  each  impression  to  the  next,  it  experiences 
alterations,  sensibly  homogeneous  and  equal,  of  its  own  feeling;  if, 
again,  it  is  compelled  to  contemplate  these  differences  not  merely  as 
feelings,  but  owing  to  a  reason  in  its  own  nature,  as  magnitudes 
of  a  space  whose  parts  are  beside  each  other  ;  and  if,  finally, 
after  frequently  experiencing  the  same  kind  of  progression,  it  ab 
stracts  from  the  various  qualities  of  the  impressions  received  and 
only  calls  to  mind  the  form  under  which  they  cohered;  then,  for 
their  consciousness,  and  this  only,  there  will  arise  before  the  mind's 
eye  the  picture  of  an  orderly  series  or  system  of  series,  in  each  of 
which  between  the  terms  m—  i  and  m+i  it  is  impossible  for  m  to 
be  missing.  If  there  were  no  impression  to  occupy  the  place  m, 
still  the  image  of  the  empty  place  in  the  series  would  be  at  once 
supplied  by  help  of  the  images  of  the  two  contiguous  places  and 
by  means  of  the  single  self-identical  activity  of  the  representing  con 
sciousness. 


i  go        Subjectivity  of  our  Perception  of  Space. 

All  is  different  if  we  require  an  existing  space,  and  conceive  the 
absence  of  this  consciousness,  which  combines  its  images,  evokes 
some  to  join  others,  and  never  passes  from  one  to  the  others  without 
also  representing  the  difference  which  divides  them.  Then,  the 
empty  points  of  space  would  have  to  take  upon  themselves  what  the 
active  consciousness  did ;  they  would  have  to  prescribe  their  places 
to  each  other  by  attraction  and  repulsion,  and  to  exert  of  themselves 
the  extraordinary  reproductive  power  by  which  space  healed  its 
mutilations.  And  in  spite  of  all  we  should  at  once  get  into  fresh 
difficulties. 

111.  For,  the  relation  or  interval  p  q,  which  the  two  existing  points 
p  and  q  would  be  bound  according  to  their  nature  to  establish  between 
them,  ought  at  the  same  time  to  be  different  from  every  other  similar 
relation  which  p  and  r  or  q  and  r  for  similar  reasons  would  set  up 
between  them*  But  the  complete  similarity  of  all  empty  points  in 
volves,  on  the  contrary,  an  impossibility  of  /  and  q  determining  any 
other  relation  between  themselves,  than  any  other  pair  of  points 
could  between  themselves ;  even  N,  a  number  of  connected  points, 
conceived  with  determinate  relations  already  existing  between  them, 
could  assign  no  place  in  particular  to  another  point  s  which  we  might 
suppose  thrown  in,  because  any  other,  /  or  u,  would  have  as  good  a 
right  to  the  same  place. 

It  is  easy  to  foresee  the  answer  that  will  at  once  be  made ;  that  it 
is  quite  indifferent,  whether  the  point  is  designated  by  s  or  /  or  u ;  it 
is  in  itself  a  yet  undefined,  and  therefore,  in  strictness,  a  nameless 
point ;  it  is  only  after  N  has  assigned  it  a  particular  place  that  it 
becomes  the  point  s,  which  is  now  distinct  from  the  points  /  and  tt, 
which  are  differently  localised  by  N.  But  this  observation,  though 
quite  correct  in  itself,  is  out  of  place  here.  It  would  only  apply  if  we 
were  regarding  s  as  the  mere  idea  of  an  extreme  term  belonging  to 
a  series  N  begun  in  our  consciousness ;  such  an  idea  of  s  would  be 
created  by  our  consciousness,  in  the  act  of  requiring  it,  in  the  par 
ticular  relations  to  N  which  belonged  to  it ;  there  would  be  no  in 
ducement  to  the  production  of  any  other  image  which  had  not  these 
relations.  Or  again ;  our  consciousness  may  not  restrict  itself  to  its 
immediate  problem,  but  recalling  previous  experiences  may  first  form 
the  idea  of  an  extreme  term,  e.g.  for  two  series  which  converge,  without 
being  aware  what  place  it  will  hold  in  a  system  of  other  independent 
terms  which  is  to  serve  as  the  measure  of  its  position ;  then  we  have 
a  term  x,  which  has  as  yet  no  name,  and  which  is  not  particularised 
as  s,  /,  or  u,  till  we  come  accurately  to  consider  the  law  according  to 


CHAPTER  i.]  A  re  Spatial  Points  Active  f  191 

which  each  series  progresses,  and  so  the  simultaneous  determining 
equations  are  both  solved. 

Such  a  productive  process  of  determination,  realising  what  it  aims 
at,  is  explained  in  this  case  by  the  nature  of  our  single  consciousness, 
which  connects  with  each  other  all  the  particular  imagined  points  of 
its  content ;  but  if  instead  of  mental  images  of  empty  points  we  are 
to  speak  of  actual  empty  points,  then  we  should  really  be  compelled 
to  assume,  either  that  every  existing  number  of  points  N  is  constantly 
creating  new  points,  which  by  the  act  of  their  production  enter  into 
the  relations  appropriate  to  them ;  or  that  by  exerting  a  determining 
activity  N  imposes  these  relations  on  points  already  existing  whose 
own  nature  is  indifferent  to  them.  Obviously  we  should  not  conceive 
either  of  these  constructions  as  a  history  of  something  that  had  once 
taken  place,  but  only  as  a  description  of  the  continually  present 
unmoving  tension  of  activities  which  sustains  in  every  moment  the 
apparently  inactive  nature  of  space.  Having  once  got  so  far  into 
this  region  of  interesting  fancies  I  wish  to  pursue  the  former  of  these 
hypotheses  one  step  further;  the  second,  my  readers  will  gladly 
excuse  me  from  considering. 

112.  We  cannot  seriously  mean  to  regard  a  particular  ready-made 
volume  N  as  the  core  round  which  the  rest  of  space  crystallises.  Not 
merely  any  N  whatever,  but  ultimately  every  individual  empty  point, 
would  have  the  same  right  to  possess  this  power  of  propagation,  and 
we  should  arrive  at  the  idea  of  a  radiant  point  in  space,  fundament 
ally  in  the  same  sense  in  which  it  is  known  to  geometry.  Then,  the 
radiant  point  p  would  produce  all  the  points  with  which  its  nature 
makes  a  geometrical  relation  possible,  and  each  of  them  in  the  precise 
relation  which  belongs  to  it  in  respect  of  p ;  among  others  the  point 
q,  which  is  determined  by  the  distance  and  direction  p  q.  All  this  is 
just  as  true  of  any  other  empty  point ;  it  would  still  hold  good  if 
among  them  was  a  q,  and  then  among  the  innumerable  points  which 
q  would  create  there  would  be  one  standing  to  q  in  the  relation  q  p, 
the  same  which  was  above  designated,  in  a  different  order,  by  p  q. 
And  now  it  might  be  supposed  that  we  had  done  what  we  wanted, 
and  obtained  a  construction  of  space  corresponding  to  its  actual 
nature;  for  it  seems  obvious  that  p  q  and  qp  indicate  the  same  dis 
tance  between  the  same  points,  and  that  thus  the  radiant  activities  of 
all  points  coincide  in  their  results,  so  as  to  produce  ordinary  exten 
sion  with  its  geometrical  structure. 

But  this  expectation  is  founded  on  a  subreption.  Before  we  com 
pleted  our  construction  we  knew  nothing  more  of  the  empty  points 


1 92         Subjectivity  of  our  Perception  of  Space.     [ROOK  IT 

from  which  it  was  to  start,  than  that  they  are  all  similar  to  one 
another,  and  that  the  same  reality  attaches  to  all  of  them ;  but  beyond 
this  they  had  no  community  with  each  other.  It  is  therefore  by  no 
means  self-evident,  that  the  pencil  of  rays  which  starts  from  the 
existing  point  p  will  ever  meet  the  other,  emitted  by  the  independent 
point  q ;  both  of  them  may,  instead  of  meeting,  extend  as  if  into  two 
different  worlds,  and  remain  ever  strange  to  each  other,  even  more 
naturally  than  two  lines  in  space  which  not  being  in  the  same  plane, 
neither  intersect  nor  are  parallel.  The  point  q,  generated  by  the 
radiant  point  /,  is  not  obviously  the  same  q,  with  that  which,  as  given 
independently,  we  expected  to  generate  p ;  the  second  /  generated 
by  the  given  q  need  not  coincide  with  the  first  />,  nor  the  line  qp  with 
the  previous  line  p  q ;  in  a  word,  what  is  generated  is  not  a  single 
space,  in  which  all  empty  points  would  be  arranged  in  a  system,  but 
as  many  reciprocally  independent  spaces,  as  we  assumed  radiant 
points ;  and  from  one  of  these  spaces  there  would  be  absolutely  no 
transition  into  another.  Our  anticipation  of  finding  that  only  a  single 
space  is  generated,  started  with  the  tacit  assumption  that  space  was 
present  as  the  common  all-comprehending  background,  in  which  the 
radiations  from  the  points  could  not  help  meeting. 

Still,  if  all  the  resources  of  a  disputatious  fancy  are  to  be  exerted 
in  defence  of  the  attempted  construction  ;  there  might  be  this  escape. 
Suppose  there  are  countless  different  spaces,  it  might  be  said  ;  still,  just 
because  they  do  not  concern  each  other,  for  that  very  reason  they  do 
not  concern  us ;  excepting  that  particular  one  in  which  we  and  all  our 
experiences  are  comprehended,  and  with  which  alone,  as  the  others 
never  come  in  contact  with  us  at  all,  Metaphysic  has  to  do.  Then  let 
us  confine  ourselves  to  the  space  which  is  generated  by  the  radiant 
point  p.  The  point  q  which  it  creates,  has  equal  reality  with  /,  and 
so  shares  its  radiant  power ;  it  must,  in  its  turn,  determine  a  point 
towards  which  it  imposes  on  itself  the  relation  q  p ;  and  this  point /> 
will  certainly  be  no  other  than,  but  the  same  with,  that  which  first 
imposed  on  itself  towards  q  the  relation/?;  therefore  the  lines  qp 
and  p  q  will  certainly  coincide. 

But  even  this  does  not  give  us  the  result  aimed  at.  As  we  cannoc 
regard  a  particular  point  p  exclusively,  but  are  able  to  regard  any 
whatever,  as  the  starting-point  of  this  genesis  of  space,  the  result  of 
our  representation  translated  from  the  past  tense  of  construction  into 
the  present  of  definition,  is  simply  this;  that  it  is  the  fact  that  in 
existing  space  every  point  has  its  particular  place,  and  that  a  line/*? 
of  determinate  direction  and  magnitude,  taken  in  the  opposite  direc- 


CHAPTER  i.]     Genesis  of  Space,  actual  or  intellectual?     193 

tion  qp,  returns  to  its  starting-point.  No  doubt  this  is  correct;  but 
no  one  will  affirm  that  this  last  construction  fulfils  its  purpose  of 
explaining  such  a  condition  of  things ;  there  is  something  too  extra 
ordinary-  in  the  notion  that  an  existing  point  generates  out  of  itself  an 
infinite  number  of  points  with  equally  real  existence,  and  some 
thing  too  strange  in  the  result  that  every  existing  empty  point  has  as 
it  were  an  infinite  density,  being  created  and  put  in  its  place  by  every 
other  point,  not  merely  by  one;  and  finally,  the  whole  idea  is  too 
empty  a  fiction,  with  its  radiant  power  which  if  it  is  not  to  lead  to  a 
purely  intensive  multiplication  of  being  into  itself,  but  to  an  Extension, 
must  in  any  case  presuppose  a  space,  in  which  its  effect  may  assume 
this  very  character  of  radiation. 

Nevertheless  all  these  incredibilities  appear  to  me  to  be  un 
avoidable,  as  long  as  we  persist  in  thinking  of  empty  space  with 
its  geometrical  structure  as  actually  existing ;  but  the  doctrine  of 
its  purely  phenomenal  nature  avoids  them  from  the  beginning; 
and  it  is  hardly  requisite  to  prove  this  by  a  protraction  of  this  long 
exposition. 

One  can  understand  how,  for  a  consciousness  which  remembers  its 
previous  progression  through  the  terms  pqr,  there  arises  the  expecta 
tion  of  a  homogeneous  continuance  of  this  series  in  both  directions, 
which  implies  an  apparent  power  of  radiation,  as  above,  in  those 
points ;  only  what  takes  place  here  is  not  a  self-multiplication  of  some 
thing  existent,  but  a  generation  of  ideas  out  of  ideas,  i.e.  of  fresh  states 
of  a  single  subject  out  of  its  former  states,  in  accordance  with  the  laws 
of  its  faculty  of  ideas  and  the  movement  of  its  activities  which  was  in 
progress  before.  It  is  on  this  hypothesis  equally  easy  to  understand, 
that  the  converse  march  of  the  movement  returns  from  q  to  the  same 
/>,  i.e.  reproduces  the  identical  image  p  from  which  it  started ;  for  the 
image  q  has  only  such  radiant  power  as  it  derives  from  representing 
to  the  mind  the  purport  of  the  series ;  so  that  q  by  itself,  as  long  as  it 
is  represented  as  a  term  in  the  series,  can  never  induce  a  divergence 
from  the  direction  of  that  series. 

On  the  other  hand,  starting  with  a  qualitatively  determined  impres 
sion  TT,  which  fills  the  geometrical  place  of  the  term  p,  there  may  be 
an  advance  to  other  impressions  K  and  p,  such  that  the  differences 
TT  -  «c,  K  —  p,  may  be  comparable  with  each  other,  though  not  com 
parable  with  the  difference  of  the  series  p,  q,  r.  Then  we  have  the 
case  which  we  mentioned  above  ;  ?r  radiates  too,  but,  so  to  speak, 
into  another  world,  and  the  series  TT,  *,  p,  finds  in  fact  no  place  in 
space-perception,  and  in  respect  to  its  relations  within  itself  can  only 

VOL.  i.  o 


194        Subjectivity  of  our  Perception  of  Space. 

be  metaphorically  or  symbolically  represented   by  constructions  in 
space,  but  cannot  be  shown  to  have  a  spatial  situation. 

113.  I  am  sure  that  the  whole  of  this  account  of  the  matter  has 
only  convinced  those  who  were  convinced  before,  and  will  not  have 
done  much  to  shake  the  preference  for  an  existing  space.  Let  us 
therefore  ask  once  more  where  in  strictness  the  difference  of  the  two 
views  lies ;  and  what  important  advantage  there  is  that  can  only  be 
secured  by  the  assumption  of  this  enigmatic  existence,  so  constantly 
reaffirmed,  of  an  empty  extension,  and  that  must  be  lost  by  con 
ceding  that  its  import  is  purely  phenomenal?  The  clearness  and 
self-evidence,  with  which  our  perception  sees  space  extended  around 
us,  is  equally  great  for  both  views ;  we  do  not  in  the  least  traverse 
this  perception,  which  is  endowed  with  such  self-evidence ;  but  only 
the  allegation  of  a  being  that  underlies  it,  which  must  be  inaccessible 
to  perception  and  so  cannot  share  its  self-evidence.  No  doubt  for 
common  opinion  every  perception  carries  a  revelation  of  the  reality  of 
what  is  perceived ;  but  in  the  world  of  philosophy  Idealism  claims  the 
first  hearing,  with  its  proof  that  what  is  perceived,  in  this  case,  space, 
is  given  to  begin  with  merely  as  the  subjective  perception  of  our 
minds.  Now  of  course  in  common  life  we  do  not  need  to  go  through 
the  long  toil  of  inference  from  perception  before  attaining  the  idea 
that  what  is  perceived  is  real ;  but  in  the  world  of  philosophy  this 
investigation  is  essential,  to  decide  whether  we  may  retain  this  idea; 
for  I  repeat  that  in  this  region  it  is  not  the  primary  datum,  but  re 
mains  problematic  till  it  is  proved  to  be  necessary. 

Such  a  proof,  in  strictness,  has  never  been  attempted ;  the  burden 
of  disproof  has  been  thrown  on  the  opposite  view,  and  its  opponents 
have  taken  their  stand  on  the  probability  of  their  own  opinion  as  im 
porting  a  valid  presumption  of  its  truth.  The  probability  seems  to  rest 
on  this ;  that  a  space,  which  exists  by  itself  with  all  the  properties 
ascribed  to  it  by  our  perception,  makes  the  origin  of  this  perception 
seem  much  more  natural  than  does  our  more  artificial  doctrine; 
according  to  which  it  arises  from  a  combination  of  inner  states  of 
our  consciousness  wholly  dissimilar  to  it.  But  the  artificiality  here 
objected  to  must  be  admitted,  even  if  space  were  as  real  as  could  be 
wished.  The  pictures  which  are  made  of  it  in  the  countless  minds 
which  are  all  held  to  be  within  space,  could  not  be  more  than 
pictures  of  it,  they  could  not  be  it',  and  as  pictures  they  could  only 
have  arisen  by  means  of  operations  on  the  mind  which  could  not  be 
extensions,  but  could  only  be  inner  states  corresponding  to  the  nature 
of  the  subject  operated  upon.  In  every  case  our  mental  representa- 


CHAPTER  i.]         Space  as  'ttul*  as  any  Perception.  195 

tion  of  space  must  arise  in  this  way ;  we  cannot  get  it  more  cheaply, 
whether  we  imagine  beneath  the  picture  presented  to  our  mind  an 
existence  like  it  outside  us,  or  one  entirely  disparate. 

What  can  be  gained  then  by  maintaining  the  view  which  we 
oppose  ?  Men  will  go  on  repeating  the  retort ;  that  it  is  impossible 
to  doubt  the  reality  of  space,  which  is  so  clearly  brought  home  to  us 
by  immediate  perception.  But  are  we  denying  this  reality  ?  Ought 
not  people  at  length  to  get  tired  of  repeating  this  confusion  of  ideas, 
which  sees  reality  in  nothing  but  external  existence,  and  yet  is  ready 
to  ascribe  it  to  absolute  vacuity  ?  Is  pain  merely  a  deceitful  appear 
ance,  and  unreal,  because  it  subsists  only  for  the  moment  in  which  it 
is  felt  ?  Are  we  to  deny  the  reality  of  colours  and  tones  because  we 
admit  that  they  only  shine  and  sound  while  they  are  seen  and  heard  ? 
Or  is  their  reality  less  loud  and  bright  because  it  only  consists  in  being 
felt  and  not  in  a  self-sustained  being  independent  of  all  consciousness  ? 
So  then  space  would  lose  nothing  of  its  convincing  reality  for  our 
perception  if  we  admitted  that  it  possesses  it  only  in  t)ur  perception. 

We  long  ago  rejected  the  careless  exaggeration  which  attaches  to 
this  idea ;  space  is  not  a  mere  semblance  in  us,  to  which  nothing  i 
the  real  world  corresponds ;  rather  every  particular  feature  of  our  spatial 
perceptions  corresponds  to  a  ground  which  there  is  for  it  in  the  world 
of  things ;  only,  space  cannot  retain  the  properties  which  it  has  in  our 
consciousness,  in  a  substantive  existence  apart  from  thought  and" 
perception.  In  fact,  there  is  only  one  distinction  forthcoming,  and 
that  of  course  remains  as  between  the  two  views ;  for  our  view  all 
spatial  determinations  are  secondary  qualities,  which  the  real  relations 
put  on  for  our  minds  only;  for  the  opposite  view  space  as  the 
existing  background  which  comprehends  things  is  not  merely  secondary 
but  primary  as  a  totality  of  determining  laws  and  limits,  which  the 
Being  and  action  of  things  has  to  obey,  so  that  the  things  and  ourselves 
are  in  space ;  while  our  view  maintains  that  space  is  in  us.  This  brings 
us  naturally  to  the  second  of  the  questions,  which  were  proposed x 
above. 

114.  When  I  want  to  know  what  precisely  we  mean  by  saying  that 
things  are  in  space,  I  can  only  expect  to  meet  with  astonishment,  and 
wonder  what  there  is  in  the  matter  that  is  open  to  question ;  nothing, 
it  will  be  said,  is  plainer.  And  in  fact  this  spatial  relation  i&  given  so 
clearly  to  our  perception,  that  we  find  all  other  relations,  m  them 
selves  not  of  the  spatial  kind,  expressed  in  language  by  designations 
borrowed  from  space.  We  even  meet  with  philosophical  views  which 

1  [Sect.  108.] 
0  2 


196        Subjectivity  of  our  Perception  of  Space.     [BOOK  n. 

not  only  demand  constructions  in  space  by  way  of  sensuous  elucidation 
of  abstract  thought,  but  prefer  to  regard  the  problem  of  cognition  as 
unsolved  till  such  constructions  are  found.  I  have  no  hope  of 
making  clear  the  import  of  my  question  to  such  a  '  scientific  mind.' 
But  the  assumption  of  a  purely  phenomenal  space  has  little  difficulty 
in  answering  it. 

Only  I  feel  compelled  to  repeat  the  warning,  that  this  assumption 
does  not  any  more  than  the  other  aim  at  denying  or  modifying  the 
directness  of  the  overwhelming  impression  which  makes  space  appear 
to  us  to  include  things  in  it ;  it  only  propounds  reflections  on  the  true 
state  of  the  facts,  which  makes  this  impression  possible  ;  and  we 
expressly  admit  of  our  reflections  that  they  are  utterly  foreign  to  the 
common  consciousness.  The  power  of  our  senses  to  see  colours  and 
forms  or  to  hear  sounds,  seems  to  us  quite  as  simple ;  we  need,  we 
think,  only  to  be  present,  and  it  is  a  matter  of  course  that  sensations 
are  formed  in  us,  which  apprehend  and  repeat  the  external  world  as  it 
really  is;  the  natural  consciousness  never  has  an  inkling  of  the 
manifold  intermediate  processes  required  to  produce  these  feelings  ; 
and  one  who  has  gained  scientific  insight  into  their  necessity  does 
not  feel  them  a  whit  more  noticeable  in  the  moment  of  actual 
sensation. 

It  is  the  task  of  psychology  to  ascertain  these  intermediate  pro 
cesses  for  the  case  in  hand ;  its  solution  will  not  point  to  an  image  of 
empty  space,  formed  prior  to  all  perceptions,  into  which  the  mind  had 
subsequently  to  transplant  its  impressions ;  it  is  rather  the  series  of 
peculiar  concomitant  feelings  of  homogeneous  change  of  its  condition, 
experienced  in  the  transition  from  the  impression  p  to  the  other 
impression  q,  that  is  felt  by  it  as  the  distance  p  q\  and  from  the 
comparison  of  many  such  experiences  there  arises,  as  I  indicated  just 
now,  by  help  of  abstraction  from  the  content  of  the  various  im 
pressions,  the  picture  of  empty  extension.  After  it  has  arisen,  to 
localise  an  impression  q  in  a  particular  point  of  this  space  simply 
means:  taking  an  impression  p  as  the  initial  state  from  which  the 
movement  of  consciousness  starts,  to  contemplate  the  magnitude  of 
the  change  which  consciousness  felt  or  must  feel  in  order  to  reach  q, 
under  the  form  of  a  distance  p  q. 

These  different  concomitant  feelings,  which  distinguish  the  im 
pressions  p  and  g,  are  independent  of  the  qualitative  difference  of 
their  content,  and  may  attach  to  like  as  well  as  to  unlike  impressions. 
Therefore  metaphysic  can  only  derive  the  feelings  from  a  difference 
in  the  effects  produced  on  the  soul  by  the  real  elements  which  corre- 


CHAPTER  i.]  Space  and  the  things  in  it.  197 

spond  to  them,  in  conformity  with  a  difference  of  actual  relations  in 
which  the  realities  stand  to  the  soul,  and  consequently,  with  a  deter 
minate  actual  relation  in  which  they  stand  to  each  other.  I  reserve  for 
a  moment  my  further  explanations  concerning  these  intelligible  rela 
tions,  as  we  may  call  them,  of  the  realities,  which  we  regard  as  causes 
of  our  perceived  relations  of  space  ;  I  only  emphasise  here  the  fact 
that  they  consist  in  actual  relations  of  thing  and  thing,  not  of  things 
and  space ;  and  that  it  is  not  they,  as  merely  subsisting  between  the 
things,  but  the  concentration  in  the  unity  of  our  consciousness  of 
effects  of  the  things  varying  in  conformity  with  them,  that  is  the 
proximate  active  cause  of  our  spatial  idea  in  which  we  picture  their 
locality,  and  their  distance  from  each  other. 

115.  From  this  point  we  may  obtain  a  conspectus  of  the  difficulties 
which  spring  from  the  opposite  view,  that  space  has  an  existence  of 
its  own,  and  that  things  are  in  it.  If  space  exists,  and  consequently 
the  point  p  exists,  what  is  meant  by  saying  that  a  real  element  IT  is  in 
the  point  p  ?  Even  if  p  itself  is  not  to  be  taken  to  be  a  real  thing, 
still,  between  it  as  something  existent,  and  the  reality  TT,  some 
reciprocal  operation  must  be  conceivable  by  the  subsistence  of  which 
the  presence  of  TT  in  p  is  distinguished  from  its  not  being  present  in  p. 
But  as  regards  TT  we  do  not  believe  that  its  place  does  anything  to  it ; 
on  the  contrary,  it  remains  the  same  in  whatever  place  it  may  be  ; 
therefore  there  is  nothing  which  takes  place  in  it  by  which  its  being  in 
p  is  distinguishable  from  its  being  in  q  ;  the  two  cases  would  only  be 
distinguishable  to  an  observer,  who  had  reason  on  the  one  hand  to 
distinguish  p  from  q,  and  on  the  other  to  associate  the  image  of  rr  in 
the  moment  of  perception  only  with  /  and  not  with  q. 

If  we  go  on  to  ask  what  happens  to  the  point  p  when  TT  is  in  it,  we 
should  suppose  that  the  nature  of  p  would  be  just  as  little  changed  as 
that  of  TT  ;  but  no  doubt  the  answer  will  be  :  the  very  fact  that  /  is 
occupied  by  TT  distinguishes  it  from  q,  which  is  now  not  the  place 
occupied  by  ir.  Against  this  answer  I  am  defenceless.  It  is  indeed 
unassailable  if  we  can  once  conceive,  and  accept  as  a  satisfactory 
solution,  that  between  two  realities,  the  point  p  and  the  actual  element 
TT,  there  should  be  a  relation  as  to  which  neither  of  the  related  points 
takes  note  of  anything  except  that  it,  the  relation,  subsists,  while  in 
every  other  respect  the  two  things  are  exactly  as  they  would  be  if  it  did 
not  subsist.  I  might  add,  that  p  would  not  be  permanently  filled  by  TT, 
but,  in  turn,  by  other  real  elements  K  or  p ;  surely  the  one  case  ought 
somehow  to  distinguish  itself  from  the  other,  and  the  point  p  to  be 
different  when  occupied  by  TT  from  what  it  is  when  occupied  by  K. 


198        Subjectivity  of  our  Perception  of  Space. 

But  this  would  be  unavailing;  I  should  be  answered  with  the  same 
acuteness  :  that  in  all  these  cases  /  remains  just  the  same  in  every 
other  respect,  and  the  distinction  between  them  is  constituted  by  the 
simple  fact,  that  the  occupation  of/,  which  does  not  affect  it  in  itself, 
is  carried  out  by  TT  in  one  case  and  by  K  in  another.  As  all  this  more 
over  is  as  true  of  q  as  of  />,  I  can  only  meet  this  reassertion  by  reas 
serting  the  opposite  notion ;  that  the  whole  state  of  things  alleged  is 
inconceivable  to  me  as  in  real  existence,  and  only  conceivable  as  in 
the  thought  of  an  observer,  who,  as  I  indicated,  has  reason  to  dis 
tinguish  p  from  q  and,  at  the  moment,  to  combine  either  TT  or  K  with 
p  or  q — to  make  one  combination  and  not  another. 

Finally,  taking  p  q  as  the  distance  between  the  real  elements  TT  and  « 
which  occupy  the  points  p  and  q,  we  do  not  in  fact  treat  this  localisation 
as  unimportant  in  our  further  investigation  of  things ;  for  we  believe 
the  intensity  of  reciprocal  action  between  TT  and  K  to  be  conditioned 
according  to  the  magnitude  of  the  distance.  But  their  action  cannot 
be  guided  by  this  changeable  distance  unless  it  is  somehow  brought 
home  to  them ;  how  are  we  to  suppose  this  to  be  done  ?  The  distance 
p  q  is  not  in  the  points  p  and  q  but  between  them  ;  if  we  suppose  the 
empty  point  q  represented  at  /  by  some  effect  produced  by  q  on  />, 
which  makes  the  distance  p  q  always  present  to  /,  and  consequently, 
though  I  can  see  no  reason  for  the  inference,  present  also  to  the 
element  n  in  p  and  determining  its  behaviour,  still  this  would  hold 
equally  good  of  any  other  empty  point  r  or  s.  All  of  them  would  be 
represented  at  />,  consequently  they  would  all  have  an  equal  right  to 
determine  the  behaviour  of  the  element  TT  at  p ;  the  pre-eminence  of 
q  which  is  at  the  moment  occupied  by  the  real  element  K,  could  only 
depend  on  the  latter,  and  would  have  to  be  accounted  for  thus  :  the 
empty  point  q  must  undergo  a  change  of  state  by  becoming  filled, 
must  transmit  the  change  to  /  through  qp  and  there  transfer  it  to  the 
element  ?r;  a  reaction  between  real  existence  and  the  void,  which 
would  be  as  inevitable  as  it  is  inexplicable.  The  argument  might  be 
pursued  farther,  but  I  conclude  here,  hoping  that  the  mass  of  ex 
travagances  in  which  we  should  be  involved  has  persuaded  us  of  the 
inconceivability  of  the  apparently  simple  assumption  that  space  has 
independent  existence  and  that  things  have  their  being  in  space. 

116.  The  opposite  view  which  I  am  now  maintaining  leads  to  a 
series  of  problems  which  I  will  not  undertake  to  treat  at  present ;  it 
is  enough  to  characterise  their  import  as  far  as  is  requisite  to  establish 
the  general  admissibility  of  the  doctrine.  We  may  begin  by  ex 
pressing  ourselves  thus ;  that  we  regard  a  system  of  relations  between 


CHAPTER  i.]     Reality  expressed  by  spatial  relations.          1 99 

the  realities,  unspatial,  inaccessible  to  perception,  and  purely  in 
telligible,  as  the  fact  which  lies  at  the  root  of  our  spatial  perceptions. 
When  these  objective  relations  are  translated  into  the  subjective  lan 
guage  of  our  consciousness,  each  of  them  finds  its  counterpart  in  one 
definite  spatial  image  to  the  exclusion  of  all  others.  I  should  avoid 
calling  this  system  of  relations  an  '  intelligible  space  '  and  discussing 
whether  it  is  like  or  unlike  the  space  which  we  represent  to  ourselves 
by  help  of  our  senses.  I  start  from  the  opposite  conviction,  that 
there  exists  no  resemblance  between  the  two ;  for  it  would  transfer 
to  the  reality  of  the  new  condition  of  things  all  the  difficulties  which 
we  found  in  the  reality  of  empty  space. 

However,  it  is  not  worth  while  to  keep  up  the  idea  of  such  a 
system  of  relations,  which  was  only  of  use  as  a  brief  preliminary  ex 
pression  of  the  fact ;  we  now  return  to  the  conviction  expressed  above  ; 
it  is  not  relations,  whether  spatial  or  intelligible,  between  the  things,  but" 
only  direct  reactions  which  the  things  are  subject  to  from  each  other,! 
and  experience  as  inner  states  of  themselves,  which  constitute  the  real 
fact  whose  perception  we  spin  out  into  a  semblance  of  extension. 
Let  P  and  Q  be  two  real  elements  thought  of  as  unrelated  ;  let  P  K  and 
QTT  indicate  them  when  in  the  states  of  themselves  which  are  set  up 
by  a  momentary  mutual  reaction  ;  these  states  of  theirs  contain  the 
reason  why  P  and  Q,  or  at  the  moment  P  K  and  QTT,  appear  in  our 
perception  in  the  places  p  and  q,  separated  by  the  interval  p  q.  It 
need  hardly  be  observed  that  the  mere  fact  of  the  reaction  subsisting 
between  P  and  Q  cannot  by  itself  set  up  our  perception ;  but  can  only 
do  so  by  means  of  an  action  of  P  and  Q  upon  us,  conformable  to 
their  momentary  states  K  and  TT  ;  and  therefore  other  than  it  would 
have  been  in  the  moment  of  a  different  mutual  reaction.  The 
meeting  of  these  two  actions  in  our  consciousness  causes,  first,  in 
virtue  of  its  unity,  the  possibility  of  a  comparison  and  reciprocal 
reference  of  the  two ;  secondly,  in  virtue  of  its  peculiar  nature  the 
necessity  that  the  result  of  this  comparison  should  assume  the  form 
of  distance  in  space  to  our  perception ;  and  finally,  the  magnitude  of 
the  difference  which  is  felt  between  the  two  actions  on  us,  determines, 
to  put  it  shortly,  the  visual  angle  by  which  we  separate  the  im 
pressions  of  the  two  elements. 

Thus  the  theory  attaches  itself  to  a  more  general  point  of  view, 
which  I  adopt  in  opposition  to  a  predominant  tendency  of  the 
philosophic  spirit  of  the  age  ;  holding  that  thought  should  always  go 
back  to  the  living  activities  of  things,  which  activities  are  to  be 
considered  as  the  efficient  cause  of  all  that  we  regard  as  external 


2OO        Subjectivity  of  our  Perception  of  Space.     [BOOK  n. 

relation  between  things.  For  in  calling  these  latter  '  relations  '  we  are 
in  fact  using  a  mere  name ;  we  cannot  seriously  conceive  them  to  be 
real  and  to  subsist  apart  from  thought.  I  regret  that  there  is  an  in 
creasingly  widespread  inclination  in  the  opposite  direction,  namely,  to 
apprehend  everything  that  takes  place  as  the  product  of  pre-existing 
and  varying  relations  ;  overlooking  the  circumstance  that  ultimately, 
even  supposing  that  such  relations  could  exist  by  themselves,  nothing 
but  the  vital  susceptibility  and  energy  which  is  in  Things  could 
utilise  them,  or  attach  to  any  one  of  them  a  result  different  from  that 
attaching  to  the  others. 

117.  As  an  elucidation,  and  more  or  less  as  a  caution,  I  add  what 
follows.  If  the  arrangement  of  perceivable  objects  in  space  were 
always  the  same,  we  might  think  of  them  as  the  image  of  a  sys 
tematic  order  in  which  every  element  had  a  right  to  its  particular 
place,  in  virtue  of  the  essential  idea  of  its  nature.  It  would  not  be 
necessary  that  the  elements  which  presented  a  greater  resemblance  of 
nature  should  occur  in  closer  contiguity  in  space,  or  that  dissimilar 
things  should  be  more  widely  separated;  the  entire  scheme  of  M, 
which  realises  itself  in  the  simultaneously  combined  manifold  of 
things,  might  easily  necessitate  a  multitude  of  crossing  relations  or 
reactions  between  them,  of  such  a  kind  that  similar  elements  should 
repeatedly  occur  as  necessary  centres  of  relation  at  very  different 
parts  of  the  whole  system,  while  very  dissimilar  ones  would  have  to 
stand  side  by  side,  as  immediately  conditioning  each  other. 

The  movability  of  things  makes  it  superfluous  to  go  deeper  into 
this  notion;  the  ground  of  localisation  is  clearly  not  in  the  nature  of 
the  things  alone,  but  in  some  variable  incident  which  occurs  to  them, 
[compatible  with  their  nature,  but  not  determined  by  it  alone.  This 
might  lead  to  the  idea,  that  it  was  simply  the  intensity  of  the  subsist 
ing  reaction  between  them  which  dictated  the  apparent  situation  of 
things  in  space;  whether  we  presume  that  in  all  things  what  takes 
place  is  the  same  in  kind  and  varies  only  in  degree;  or,  that  the 
inner  states  produced  in  things  by  their  reactions  are  different  in 
kind,  but  so  far  comparable  that  their  external  effects  are  calculable  as 
degrees  of  one  and  the  same  activity. 

It  would  be  no  objection  to  this  that  it  is  observed  that  there  often 
are  elements  contiguous  in  space  which  seem  quite  indifferent  to  each 
other,  while  distant  ones  betray  a  lively  reciprocal  action.  No 
element  must  be  torn  from  its  connexion  with  all  others,  and  none  of 
its  states  from  their  cohesion  with  previous  ones ;  contiguous  elements 
which  are  indifferent  are  together  not  because  they  demand  one 


CHAPTER  i.]         Interaction  and  nearness  in  space.  201 

another,  but  because  their  relations  to  all  others  deny  them  every 
other  place,  and  only  leave  them  this  one  undisputed ;  the  remote 
elements  in  question  act  powerfully  on  one  another,  because  the 
ceaseless  stream  of  occurrence  has  produced  counteractions,  which 
hinder  the  two  elements  from  attaining  the  state  towards  which  they 
are  now  striving. 

However,  it  is  not  my  intention  to  continue  the  subject  now,  or  to 
show  by  what  general  line  of  thought  my  view  of  space  might  be 
reconciled  with  the  particular  facts  of  Nature.  The  following  sections 
will  compel  us  to  make  this  attempt,  but  they  would  entirely  dis 
appoint  many  expectations  unless  I  began  by  confessing  that  the 
theory  of  a  phenomenal  space  when  applied  to  the  explanation  of  the 
most  general  relations  of  nature  will  by  no  means  distinguish  itself 
for  facility  and  simplicity  in  comparison  with  the  common  view. 
On  the  contrary;  the  latter  is  a  gift  which  our  mental  nature  gives 
us  as  a  means  to  clearness  and  vivid  realisation.  But  I  insist  upon 
it  that  my  view  is  not  propounded  for  its  practical  utility,  but  simply 
because  it  is  necessary  in  itself,  however  much  it  might  ultimately 
embarrass  a  detailed  enquiry  were  we  bound  to  keep  it  explicitly 
before  us  at  every  step.  We  shall  see  that  we  are  not  obliged  to  do 
so;  but  at  present  I  maintain  with  a  philosopher's  obstinacy,  that 
above  all  things  that  must  hold  good  which  we  find  to  be  in  its 
nature  a  necessary  result  of  thought,  though  all  else  bend  or  break. 
In  no  case  may  we  regard  other  hypotheses  as  definitive  truth  (con 
venient  as  they  may  be  for  use  and  therefore  to  be  admitted  in  use), 
if  they  are  in  themselves  as  unthinkable  as  the  indefinite  species  of 
reality,  which  the  ordinary  view  attributes  to  empty  space. 


CHAPTER    II. 

Deductions  of  Space. 

118.  AMONG  the  commonest  undertakings  of  modern  philosophy 
are  to  be  found  attempted  deductions  of  Space  ;  and  they  have  been 
essayed  with  different  purposes.  Adherents  of  idealistic  views,  con 
vinced  that  nothing  could  be  or  happen  without  being  required  by 
the  highest  thought  which  governs  reality,  had  a  natural  interest  in 
showing  that  Space  was  constrained  to  be  what  it  is,  or  to  be  re 
presented  as  it  is  represented  to  us,  because  it  could  not  otherwise 
fulfil  its  assigned  purpose.  Self-evident  as  the  belief  fundamentally  is, 
that  everything  in  the  world  belongs  to  a  rational  whole,  there  are 
obvious  reasons  why  it  should  be  equally  unfruitful  in  the  actual  de 
monstration  of  this  connexion  in  a  whole  ;  and  even  the  deduction 
of  Space  has  hardly  given  results  which  it  is  necessary  to  dwell  on. 

The  solidarity  of  the  whole  content  of  the  universe  was  maintained, 
in  the  dawn  of  modern  philosophy,  by  Spinoza ;  but  in  a  way  which 
rather  excluded  than  favoured  the  deduction  of  Space.  The  reason 
lay  in  an  enthusiasm,  somewhat  deficient  in  clearness,  for  the  idea  of 
Infinity,  and  for  everything  great  and  unutterable  that  formal  logical 
acumen  combined  with  an  imagination  bent  on  things  of  price  could 
concentrate  in  that  expression.  Hence  he  spoke  of  infinitely  nume 
rous  attributes  of  his  one  infinite  substance,  and  represented  it  as 
manifesting  its  eternal  nature  by  means  of  modifications  of  each  of 
them.  Our  human  experience,  indeed,  was  restricted  to  two  only  of 
them,  consciousness  and  extension,  the  two  clear  fundamental  notions 
under  which  Descartes  had  distributed  the  total  content  of  the 
universe;  and  the  further  progress  of  the  Spinozistic  philosophy 
takes  account  of  these  two  only.  But  it  adheres  to  the  principle 
laid  down  at  its  starting  about  all  attributes  ;  each  of  them  rests 
wholly  on  itself,  and  can  be  understood  by  us  only  by  means  of 
itself ;  we  find  it  expressly  subjoined,  that  though  it  is  one  and  the 
same  substance  which  expresses  its  essence  as  well  in  forms  of 


Consciousness  and  Extension.  203 

extension  as  in  forms  of  thought ;  yet  the  shape  which  it  assumes  in 
one  of  these  attributes  can  never  be  derived  from  that  which  it  has 
assumed  in  the  other.  This  prohibits  any  attempt  to  deduce  the 
attributes  of  Space  from  what  is  not  Space ;  but  at  the  same  time 
Consciousness  and  Extension  are  considered  to  be  as  manifestations 
of  the  absolute  quite  on  the  same  level;  in  assuming  the  shape  of 
extension,  it  does  a  positive  act  as  much  as  in  giving  existence  to 
forms  of  consciousness ;  neither  of  these  is  the  mere  result  or  sem 
blance  of  the  other. 

119.  These  notions  influenced  Schelling.  After  Kant  had  des 
troyed  all  rational  cohesion  between  things-in-themselves  and  spatial 
phenomena,  it  was  natural  to  make  the  attempt  to  restore  Space  to 
some  kind  of  objective  validity.  If  we  may  here  eliminate  the  many 
slight  alterations  which  Schelling's  views  underwent,  the  following 
will  be  found  a  pretty  constant  series  of  thoughts  in  him.  Empty 
Space  is  for  him  too  only  the  subjectively  represented  image,  which 
remains  to  our  pictorial  imagination  when  it  disregards  the  definite 
forms  of  real  existence  in  Space,  that  is,  of  matter ;  it  is  not  a  prior 
creation  of  the  absolute  which  goes  before  the  production  of  the 
things  to  be  realised  in  it,  but  matter  itself  is  this  first  production,  and 
spatial  extension  is  only  real  in. matter,  but  in  it  is  actually  real  and 
rot  a  mere  subjective  mode  of  the  spectator's  apprehension.  How 
he  represents  the  creation  of  matter  as  coming  to  pass,  we  need  not 
describe  here;  but  in  general  it  is  easy  to  see  how  the  desire  to 
explain  by  one  and  the  same  root  the  distinction  which  experience 
presents  between  the  material  and  spiritual  world  might  lead  to 
denying  the  primary  presence  of  the  characteristic  predicates  of  these 
two  worlds  in  the  Absolute,  the  root  required  ;  while  conceiving,  in 
the  complete  indefmiteness  thus  obtained  of  this  absolute  Identity, 
two  eternally  co-existent  impulses,  tendencies,  or  factors,  out  of 
which  the  distinction  that  had  been  cancelled  might  again  arise. 
Some  interest  attaches  to  the  different  expressions  which  Schelling 
employs  to  designate  them  ;  he  opposes  to  the  real  objective  producing 
factor,  which  embodies  the  infinite  in  forms  of  the  finite,  the  ideal 
subjective  defining  factor  which  re-moulds  the  finite  into  the  in 
finite ;  it  is  the  former  whose  predominance  creates  Nature,  the 
latter  that  creates  the  world  of  Mind  ;  though  the  two  are  so  in 
separably  united  that  neither  can  produce  its  result  without  the  co 
operation,  and  participation  as  a  determining  factor,  of  the  other. 

This  account  admits  of  no  idea  of  a  deduction  proper  of  Space  ; 
still  I  think  that  the  equal  rank  assigned  to  the  above  designations 


2O4  Deductions  of  Space.  [BOOK  n. 

contains  an  indication  of  the  reason  which  made  the  space-generating 
activity  of  the  absolute  appear  indispensable  to  the  idea  of  it.  It  became 
obvious  not  only  that  nothing  could  be  generated  out  of  the  void  of 
absolute  Identity,  but  it  was  also  impossible  for  the  determinations 
which  might  have  been  held  to  be  included  in  it  as  merely  ideal,  to 
be  more  than  unrealisable  problems  failing  one  condition ;  that 
something  should  be  forthcoming,  given,  with  content,  and  for  per 
ception  ;  such  as  the  ideal  forms  could  never  create,  and  as  applied 
to  which,  qua  forms  of  its  relations,  and  so  only,  they  would  possess 
reality.  Thus,  not  without  a  reminiscence  of  Kant's  construction  of 
matter  out  of  expanding  and  contracting  forces,  Schelling  makes  the 
one,  that  is  the  productive  factor,  provide  above  all  things  for  the 
creation  of  that  which  the  ideal  factor  has  only  to  form  and  to  deter 
mine  ;  it  is  only  by  the  activity  of  the  first  that  results  are  made  raz/, 
which  for  all  the  second  could  do,  would  never  be  more  than  a 
postulate,  that  is,  an  idea.  Even  the  actual  form  which  the  creation 
assumes  is  determined  by  the  character  of  the  productive  factor;  for 
it  is  only  this  character  that  can,  though  under  the  control  and 
guidance  of  the  other  factor,  create  such  shapes  of  reality  as  are 
within  its  range. 

120.  The  indefiniteness  of  the  absolute  Identity  has  disappeared 
in  Hegel,  and  the  position  of  the  two  factors  has  altered ;  the  com 
prehensive  system  of  notions  which  forms  his  Logic  may  be  regarded 
as  the  interpretation  of  what  the  ideal  factor,  now  the  proximate  and 
primary  expression  of  the  Absolute,  demands ;  the  consciousness, 
how  strongly  all  these  determinations  involve  and  postulate  that  as 
determinations  of  which  they  must  be  presented  in  order  to  be  real, 
appears  as  the  urgency  of  the  ideal  factor  or  hitherto  purely  logical 
idea,  to  pass  over  into  its  form  of  otherness ;  that  is,  into  a  shape 
capable  of  direct  or  pictorial  presentation,  such  as  can  only  exist  in  the 
forms  by  which  a  multiplicity  whose  parts  are  outside  one  another  is 
connected  into  a  whole.  Therefore  the  logical  idea,  doing  away  its 
own  character  as  logical,  produces  Space  as  '  the  abstract  universality 
of  its  being  outside  itself1/  Hegel  says  on  this  point'2,  'As  our  pro 
cedure  is,  after  establishing  the  thought  which  is  necessitated  by  the 
notion 3,  to  ask,  what  it  looks  like  in  our  sensuous  idea  4  of  it ;  we  go 
on  to  assert,  that  what  corresponds  in  direct  presentation  to  the 
thought  of  pure  externality  is  Space.  Even  if  we  are  wrong  in  this, 

1  ['  Die  abstracte  Allgemeinheit  ihres  Aussersichseins.'] 

2  Naturphilosophie.     Sammtliche  Werke,  Bd.  VII.  §  47. 

3  [•  Begriff.']  *  ['  Vorstellung.1] 


CHAPTER  in  The  idea  and  its  '  ot/iemessj  205 

that  will  not  interfere  with  the  truth  of  our  thought.'  I  refer  to  this 
remarkable  passage  in  order  to  indicate  the  limits  which  such  specula 
tive  constructions  of  Space  as  this  is  can  never  overstep.  They  may 
of  course  derive  in  a  general  way,  from  the  thought  in  which  they 
conceive  themselves  to  express  the  supreme  purpose  of  the  world,  a 
certain  postulate  which  must  be  fulfilled  if  the  end  is  to  be  fulfilled  ; 
but  they  are  not  in  a  position  to  infer  along  with  the  postulate  what 
appearance  would  be  presented  by  that  which  should  satisfy  it.  In 
the  passage  quoted  Hegel  admits  this ;  in  pronouncing  Space  to  be 
the  desired  principle  of  externality  he  professes  to  have  answered  a 
riddle  by  free  conjecture;  the  solution  might  be  wrong,  but  the 
problem,  he  asserts,  would  still  be  there. 

Just  in  the  same  way  Weisse  says *  '  That  primary  quality  of  what 
exists,  the  idea  of  which  arises  from  quantitative  infinity  being 
specified  and  made  qualitative  by  the  specific  character  of  triplicity — 
is  Space  ;'  only  that  he,  although  in  this  sentence  expressly  separating 
enigma  and  answer  by  a  mark  of  interruption,  yet  regards  the  latter 
as  a  continuous  deduction  of  the  space  which  is  present  to  perception 
from  his  abstract  and  obscure  postulate.  It  can  never  be  otherwise ; 
after,  on  the  one  hand,  we  feel  justified  in  making  certain  abstract 
demands  which  reality  is  to  satisfy,  and  after,  on  the  other  hand,  we 
have  become  acquainted  with  Space,  then  it  is  possible  to  put  the  two 
together  and  to  show  that  Space,  being  such  as  it  is,  satisfies  these 
demands.  But  it  is  impossible  to  demonstrate  that  only  it,  and  no 
other  form,  can  satisfy  them ;  we  are  confined  to  a  speculative  inter 
pretation  of  space,  and  any  deduction  of  it  is  an  impossibility  on  this 
track.  One  would  think  that  the  opinion  Hegel  expresses  could  not 
but  incline  him  prima  facie  to  the  view  of  the  mere  phenomenality  of 
the  sensuous  idea  of  space;  but  what  he  adds  on  the  subject  can 
make  no  one  any  wiser  as  to  his  true  meaning ;  as  a  rule  the 
views  of  his  school  have  adhered  to  extension  as  a  real  activity  of 
the  Absolute. 

121.  Philosophical  constructions,  it  was  held,  were  under  the  further 
obligation,  to  demonstrate  not  merely  of  Space  as  a  whole,  but  further 
of  each  and  every  property  by  which  geometry  characterises  it,  that  it 
is  a  necessary  consequence  of  ideal  requirements.  Attempts  have 
been  made  on  obvious  and  natural  grounds  to  conceive  the  infinite 
divisibility  and  the  homogeneousness  of  an  infinite  extension,  as 
antecedent  conditions  of  that  which  the  idea  sets  itself  to  realise 
within  space ;  but  the  most  numerous  and  least  fortunate  endeavours 
1  Metaphysik,  p.  317. 


206  Deductions  of  Space.  [BOOK  n. 

have  been  devoted  to  the  three  dimensions.  There  are  two  points 
in  these  innumerable  attempts  that  have  always  been  incompre 
hensible  to  me. 

The  first  is,  the  entire  neglect  of  the  circumstance  that  space 
contains  innumerable  directions  starting  from  every  one  of  its 
points,  and  that  the  limitation  of  their  number  to  three  is  only  ad 
missible  under  the  further  condition  that  each  must  be  perpendicular 
to  the  two  others.  Accessory  reasons,  which  are  self-evident  in  the 
case  of  geometry  and  mechanics,  have  no  doubt  led  to  the  habit  of 
tacitly  understanding,  by  dimensions  of  space,  such  par  excellence  as 
fulfil  this  condition ;  but  the  philosophical  deductions  proceed  as  if 
the  only  point  was  to  secure  a  triplicity,  and  as  if  it  was  unnecessary 
to  find  among  the  abstract  presuppositions  from  which  space  is  to  be 
deduced,  a  special  reason  why  the  dimensions  which  are  to  correspond 
to  three  distinct  ideal  moments  (however  these  may  be  distinguished), 
should  be  at  right  angles  to  one  another. 

The  second  point  which  I  cannot  understand  is  the  fastidiousness 
with  which  every  demonstration  partaking  of  mathematical  form,  that 
a  fourth  perpendicular  dimension  must  necessarily  coincide  with  one 
of  the  other  three,  is  always  rejected  as  an  external  and  unphilosophical 
process  of  proof.  I  think,  on  the  contrary,  that  if  we  once  supposed 
ourselves  to  have  deduced  that  certain  relations  which  we  postulated 
in  an  abstract  form  must  take  the  shape  of  lines  and  angles  between 
them,  then  the  correct  philosophical  progress  would  consist  in  the 
demonstration  that  these  elementary  forms  of  space  being  once 
obtained  were  completely  decisive  of  its  whole  possible  structure. 
As  a  whole  subject  to  law  it  can  have  no  properties  but  those 
constituted  in  it  by  the  relations  of  its  parts  ;  if  its  properties  are 
to  correspond  besides  to  certain  ideal  relations  then  it  ought  to  have 
been  shown  that  this  correspondence  demanded  just  those  primary 
spatial  relations  from  which  the  properties  must  proceed  as  inevitable 
result.  However,  it  is  not  worth  while  to  go  at  greater  length  into 
these  unsuccessful  undertakings,  which  are  not  to  the  taste  of  the 
present  time,  and,  we  may  hope,  will  not  be  renewed. 

122.  Our  attention  will  be  much  longer  detained  by  other  investi 
gations  which  are  sometimes  wrongly  comprehended  under  the  name 
of  Psychological  Deductions  of  Space.  In  virtue  of  the  title  '  Psycho 
logical  '  they  would  not  claim  mention  till  later  ;  but  they  treat  in 
detail  or  touch  in  passing  three  distinct  questions,  the  complete 
separation  of  which  seems  to  me  indispensable. 

i.  The  first,  were  it  capable  of  being  solved,  would  really  belong 


CHAPTER  ii.]    *  Psychological*  questions  about  space.  207 

to  Psychology:  it  is  this:  what  is  the  reason  that  the  soul,  receiving 
from  things  manifold  impressions  which  can  only  be  to  begin  with 
unextended  states  of  its  own  receptive  nature,  is  obliged  to  envisage 
them  at  all  under  the  form  of  a  space  with  parts  outside  each  other  ? 
The  cause  of  this  marvellous  transfiguration  could  only  be  found  in 
the  peculiar  nature  of  the  soul,  but  it  never  will  be  found ;  the  question 
is  just  as  unanswerable  as  how  it  comes  to  pass  that  the  soul  brings 
before  consciousness  in  the  form  of  brightness  and  sound  the  effects 
which  it  can  only  experience  by  means  of  light  and  sound  vibra 
tions  transmitted  through  the  senses.  It  is  important  to  make  clear 
to  ourselves  that  these  two  questions  are  precisely  alike  in  nature ;  and 
that  to  answer  the  first  is  neither  more  essential  nor  more  possible 
than  to  answer  the  second,  which  every  one  has  long  desisted  from 
attempting.  All  endeavours  to  derive  this  elementary  and  universal 
character  of  ideas  of  space,  this  externality,  which  appears  to  us  in  the 
shape  of  an  extended  line,  from  any  possible  abstract  relations,  which 
are  still  unspatial,  between  psychical  affections,  have  invariably  led  to 
nothing  but  fallacies  of  subreption  ;  by  which  space,  as  it  could  not  be 
made  in  this  way,  was  brought  in  at  some  step  of  the  deduction  as  an 
unjustified  addition. 

2.  On  the  other  hand,  if  we  postulate  as  given  the  capacity  and 
obligation  of  the  soul  to  apprehend   an   unspatial  multiplicity  as  in 
space,  then  there   arises  the   second  problem,  which   I  hold  to  be 
capable  of  being  solved  though  a  long  way  from  being  so ;  What  sort 
of  multiplicity  does  the  soul  present  in  this  peculiar  form  of  its  appre 
hension  ? — for  there  are  some  which  it  does  not  treat  thus.     And 
under  what  conditions,  by  what  means,  and    following  what    clue, 
does  it  combine  its  occasional  particular  impressions  in  the  definite 
situation   in   space    in   which   they  are    to    us    the   express    image 
of  external  objects  ?     As  no  perception  of  this  variable  manifold  can 
take  place  but  by  the  instrumentality  of  the  senses,  the  solution  of  this 
question  concerning  the  localisation  of  sensations  belongs  wholly  to 
that  part  of  psychology  which  investigates  the  connexion  of  sensa 
tions,  and  the  associations  of  these  remembered  images ;  which  latter 
are  partly  caused  by  the  conjoint  action  of  nervous  stimuli,  partly  by 
the  activity  of  consciousness  in  creating  relations. 

3.  There  remains  a  third  question,  that  of  the  geometrical  structure 
of  extension  which  arises  if  we  develope  all  the  consequences  that  the 
given  character  of  the  original  externality  necessitates  or  admits ;  and 
which  is  wanted  to  complete  the  totality  of  the  Space-image  in  whose 
uniformly  present  environment  we  are  obliged  to  set  in  array  the 


208  Deductions  of  Space. 

various  impressions  of  sensation.  This  investigation,  which  has  fallen 
to  the  share  of  Mathematics,  has  hitherto  been  conducted  by  that 
science  in  a  purely  logical  spirit ;  it  took  no  account  of  the  play  of 
psychical  activities,  which  bring  about  in  the  individual  apprehending 
subject  a  perception  of  the  truth  of  its  successive  propositions,  a  play 
of  which  in  these  days  we  think  we  know  a  great  deal,  and  really  know 
nothing ;  it  attached  the  convincingness  of  their  truth  purely  to  the 
objective l  necessity  of  thought  with  which  given  premisses  demand 
their  conclusions.  But  the  premisses  themselves,  as  well  as  that 
combination  of  them  on  which  the  conclusion  has  to  rest,  were 
simply  accepted  by  Mathematics  from  what  it  called  Direct  or  In 
tuitional  Perception 2.  Nor  could  the  word  perception 2  be  held  to 
designate  any  psychical  activity,  which  could  be  shown  to  possess  a 
peculiar  and  definite  mode  of  procedure ;  every  impartial  attempt  to 
say  what  perception 2  does,  must  end  with  the  admission  that  it  really 
does  nothing,  that  there  is  no  visible  working  or  process  at  all  as  a 
means  to  the  production  of  its  content ;  but  that  on  the  contrary  it  is 
nothing  but  a  direct  receptivity,  with  an  entirely  unknown  psychical 
basis,  which  merely  becomes  aware  of  its  object  and  the  peculiar 
nature  of  that  object.  Obviously,  an  investigation  cannot  begin  before 
the  matter  is  given  to  which  it  is  to  refer ;  but  again,  it  will  only 
consist,  even  when  the  matter  is  forthcoming,  in  presenting  one  by 
one  to  this  receptivity  all  the  details  which  do  not  fall  at  once  in  the 
line  of  our  mental  vision ;  and  defining  their  differences  or  similarities 
by  help  of  marks  which  make  it  possible  to  transfer  from  one  to  the 
other  of  these  features  the  judgments  about  them  made  by  direct  per 
ception,  and  to  connect  all  such  features  systematically  together. 

I  shall  return  later  on  to  what  it  is  indispensable  to  say  on  this 
head;  I  will  only  add  now  that  it  was  possible  for  the  Euclidean 
geometry,  which  arose  in  the  above  way,  to  remain  unassailed  as  long 
as  no  doubt  was  raised  of  the  objective  validity  of  space ;  while  it  was 
believed,  that  is,  that  we  had  in  it  if  not  a  real  thing,  at  least  the 
actual  and  peculiar  form  attaching  to  real  things.  It  was  not  indeed 
solely,  as  we  shall  see,  but  chiefly,  the  modern  notion  which  sees  in  it 
only  a  subjective  mode  of  perception,  that  disturbed  this  unsuspicious 
security  and  raised  such  questions  as  these  ;  of  how  much  that  is 
true  about  the  world  can  we  properly  be  said  to  get  experience  by 
help  of  this  form  of  apprehension ;  could  there  not  be  other  species 
of  perception  that  might  teach  us  the  same  truth  about  Things  better, 
or  other  truths  quite  unknown ;  and  finally,  may  not  the  whole  fabric 
1  ['  Sachliche.']  *  ['  Anschauung.'] 


CHAPTER  1 1.]      Inferences  from  Subjectivity  of  Space.       209 

of  our  spatial  perceptions  be  incomplete,  perhaps  charged  with  inner 
contradictions  which  escape  our  notice  for  want  of  the  empirical 
stimuli  which  would  bring  them  to  light  ?  The  diversity  of  opinions 
propounded  in  relation  to  the  above  matters  compels  me  in  my  meta- 
physic  to  enter  upon  the  essential  nature  of  space  in  its  geometrical 
aspect ;  and  I  begin  my  task  by  a  very  frank  confession.  I  am  quite 
unable  to  persuade  myself  that  all  those  among  my  fellow-students  of 
philosophy,  who  accept  the  new  theories  with  applause,  can  really 
understand  with  such  ease  what  is  quite  incomprehensible  to  me ;  I 
fear,  that  from  over- modesty  they  do  not  discharge  their  office,  and 
fail,  on  this  borderland  between  mathematics  and  philosophy,  to 
vindicate  their  full  weight  for  the  grave  doubts  which  they  should 
have  raised  in  the  name  of  the  latter  against  many  mathematical 
speculations  of  the  present  day.  I  shall  not  imitate  this  procedure; 
but  while  on  the  contrary  I  plainly  say  that  the  whole  of  this  specu 
lation  seems  to  me  one  huge  coherent  error,  I  am  quite  happy  to  risk 
being  censured  for  a  complete  misapprehension,  in  case  my  remarks 
should  have  the  good  fortune  to  provoke  a  thorough  and  decisive 
refutation. 

123.  I  begin  with  the  first  inference  suggested  by  the  doctrine  that 
space  is  only  the  subjective  form  of  apprehension  which  is  evolved 
from  the  nature  of  our  souls,  though  not  deducible  by  us.  Then,  there 
is  nothing  to  interfere  with  our  thinking  of  beings  endowed  with  mental 
images  as  differing  in  nature  within  very  wide  limits  ;  or  with  our 
assigning  to  each  of  these  kinds  a  mode  of  apprehension  of  its  own, 
which,  as  is  commonly  said,  it  holds  in  readiness  to  apply  to  its  future 
perceptions.  Meantime  we  have  convinced  ourselves  how  little  use 
such  forms  could  be  to  these  minds,  if  they  were  only  a  subjective 
manner  of  behaviour  and  destitute  of  all  comparability  with  the  things. 
In  short,  things  would  not  be  caught  in  nets  whose  meshes  did  not 
fit  them ;  far  less  could  there  be  in  purely  subjective  forms  any 
ground  of  distinction  which  could  compel  things  to  prefer  one 
place  to  appear  in  rather  than  another.  We  must  therefore  neces 
sarily  give  a  share  in  our  consideration  to  the  connexion  in  which 
the  forms  of  apprehension  are  bound  to  stand  with  the  objects 
which  they  are  to  grasp.  The  following  cases  will  have  to  be 
distinguished. 

Let  X  and  Z  be  two  of  those  modes  of  perception,  different  from 
our  space  S,  which  we  arbitrarily  assign  to  two  kinds  of  beings 
endowed  with  mental  images,  and  organized  differently  from  us. 
This  assumption  would  cause  us  no  difficulty  as  long  as,  (i.)  we  sup- 

VOL.  I.  P 


2 1  o  Deductions  of  Space.  i  BOOK  IL 

posed  the  worlds  which  are  to  be  perceived  by  their  means,  to  differ 
from  the  world  M  accessible  to  our  experience,  but  to  be  such  as  to 
admit  of  apprehension  in  the  forms  X  and  Z  as  easily  as  the  world 
M  lends  itself  to  our  apprehension  in  the  form  of  our  space  S.  Only, 
this  assumption  would  not  interest  us  much ;  though  free  from  in 
ternal  contradiction,  in  fact,  strictly,  a  mere  tautology,  it  has  no 
connexion  whatever  with  the  object  of  our  doubt ;  the  interest  of  our 
question  depends  entirely  on  a  different  presupposition  ;  (ii.)  that  this 
same  world  M,  which  we  represent  to  ourselves  as  enclosed  in  the 
frame  of  Euclidean  space  S,  appears  to  other  intellectual  beings  in 
the  utterly  heterogeneous  systematic  forms  X  or  Z.  On  this  sup 
position  also  there  are  two  cases  to  be  kept  separate.  The  actions 
and  reactions  which  the  things  of  this  world  M  reciprocate  with  each 
other  may  be  extremely  various ;  it  is  neither  necessary  nor  credible 
that  they  only  consist  in  such  activities  as  cause  us  to  localise  the 
things  in  spatial  relations  in  accordance  with  them  ;  on  the  contrary, 
much  may  go  on  within  the  things  that  is  not  able  to  find  expression 
in  their  appearance  in  space,  even  with  the  help  of  motion.  Therefore 
there  is  still  this  alternative ;  either,  (a.)  the  forms  of  perception  X  and 
Z  reproduce  relations  of  things  which  cannot  be  represented  in  our 
space  5  and  do  not  occur  in  it ;  about  this  assumption  we  can  have 
no  decisive  judgment,  but  only  a  conjecture,  which  I  will  state 
presently ;  or  (/3.)  we  assert  that  the  same  relations  of  things  which 
appear  to  us  as  relations  in  space  5*  are  accessible  to  other  beings 
under  the  deviating  modes  of  perception  X  or  Z ;  and  on  this  point 
we  shall  have  something  more  definite  to  say. 

124.  Let  us  begin  with  the  former  alternative  (ii.  a).  We  are 
justified  in  subordinating  the  idea  of  space  -S1  to  the  more  universal 
conception  of  a  system  of  arrangement  of  empty  places,  within  which 
the  reciprocal  position  of  any  two  terms  is  fully  determined  by  a 
number  »  of  relations  of  the  two  to  others.  And  there  is  nothing  to 
prevent  us,  as  long  as  no  other  requirements  are  annexed,  from  con 
ceiving  many  other  species  of  this  genus,  in  which  the  reciprocal 
definition  of  the  terms  might  be  effected  by  other  rules  than  those 
valid  for  the  space  S,  or  might  require  a  greater  or  smaller  number  of 
conditions  than  are  required  in  it.  Still,  it  seems  to  me  unfruitful  to 
refer  for  further  illustration  of  such  ideas  to  the  well-known  attempts 
to  arrange  in  a  spatial  conspectus  either  the  whole  multiplicity  of 
sensations  of  musical  sound,  with  reference  to  strength,  pitch,  quality, 
and  harmonic  affinity;  or  the  colours  in  all  their  variety  on  similar 
grounds.  Nothing  indeed  is  more  certain  than  that  (i)  we  here  have 


CHAPTER  ii.]      Symbolic  representations  in  Space.  2 1  j 

before  us  relations  of  the  terms  to  be  arranged  for  the  adequate 
representation  of  which  our  space  S  is  unfitted  ;  but  at  the  same  time 
I  think  nothing  can  be  more  doubtful  than  the  implied  idea  by  which, 
whether  furtively  or  explicitly,  we  console  ourselves,  that  (2)  there 
may  be  other  modes  of  perception  X  or  Z  which  permit  to  beings  of 
different  organization  the  feat  which  we  cannot  perform.  I  must 
speak  more  fully  of  both  parts  of  my  assertion. 

125.  (i)  We  may  arrange  musical  notes  in  a  straight  line  according 
to  their  rise  of  pitch  ;  but  as  there  appears  to  be  an  increasing  diver 
gence  from  the  character  of  the  keynote  up  to  the  middle  of  the 
octave,  and  from  that  point  again  an  increasing  approximation  to  it, 
having  regard  to  this  we  may  represent  the  notes  still  more  clearly,  by 
arranging  them  as  Drobisch  does  in  a  spiral,  which  after  every  circuit 
corresponding  to  an  octave  returns  to  a  point  vertically  above  the 
starting-point.  But  in  doing  so  we  should  bear  in  mind  that  all  this, 
like  any  other  appropriate  device  which  might  be  added  to  the  scheme, 
is  still  a  symbolical  construction ;  the  notes  are  not  in  the  space  in 
which  we  localise  them  for  the  convenience  of  our  perception,  nor  is 
the  increment-element  A/  of  the  pitch  p  really  the  element  As  of  a 
line  in  space  s,  to  which,  for  the  purpose  of  our  perception,  we  treat 
it  as  equivalent.  No  one  refuses  this  concession;  but  it  is  not  pre 
cisely  in  this  that  the  ground  of  my  difficulty  lies.  Seeing  that  I  have 
asserted  the  phenomenal  nature  of  space  there  is  no  longer  any  mean 
ing  for  me  in  distinguishing  Things  as  in  space,  from  sounds  as  only 
to  be  projected  into  it  by  way  of  symbolism.  When  Things  appear 
to  us  in  space,  what  we  do  to  them  is  just  the  same  as  the  treatment 
to  which  we  submit  the  ideas  of  notes  in  the  above  constructions  ; 
like  them,  things  have  neither  place  nor  figure  in  space,  nor  spatial 
relations  ;  it  is  only  within  our  combining  consciousness  and  only  to 
its  vision  that  the  living  reactions  which  Things  interchange  with  each 
other  and  with  us  expand  into  the  system  of  extension,  in  which 
every  phenomenal  element  finds  its  completely  definite  place.  So  if 
the  innumerable  mental  representations  of  sounds  compelled  us  as 
unambiguously  to  place  each  of  them  in  definite  spatial  relations  to 
others,  I  should  not  be  able  to  see  how  such  an  arrangement  must  be 
less  legitimate  for  them  than  for  things,  for  which  also  it  remains  a 
subjective  apprehension  in  our  minds. 

It  will  further  be  observed,  and  quite  correctly,  that  Things  are 
movable  in  space,  and  their  place  at  any  time  only  expresses  the  sum 
of  relations  in  which  they  stand  to  other  things,  which  subsists  at  the 
moment  but  is  essentially  variable ;  it  tells  nothing  of  the  Thing's  own 

p  2 


212  Deductions  of  Space.     , 

nature ;  whereas  such  constructions  of  the  realms  of  colour  or  sound 
aim  at  a  completely  different  result ;  they  attempt  to  assign  to  each 
one  of  these  sensations  conformably  with  the  peculiar  combination 
in  which  each  unites  definite  values  of  the  universal  predicates  of 
colour  and  sound,  a  systematic  position  between  all  others  which  it 
can  never  exchange  for  another  place.     No  doubt  this  difference  is 
important  as  regards  the  nature  of  the  elements  which  it  is  proposed 
to  systematise  in  the  two  cases ;  still  there  is  no  essential  obstacle  to 
copying  the  eternal  and  permanent  articulation  of  a  system  of  con 
tents1  fixed  in  the  shape  of  ideas  by  means  of  the  same  mode  of  per 
ception  which  is  used  to  represent  the  variable  arrangement  of  real 
Things.     In   fact,   for  every  single  indivisible  moment  the   existing 
arrangement  of  real  things  in  space  would  be  precisely  the  total  ex 
pression  of  the  complete  systematic  localisation  appropriate  to  the 
individual  things  in  virtue  of  the  actions  which  intersected  each  other 
in  them  at  that  moment.     The  circumstance  that  within  things  there 
is  motion,  which  will  not  admit  of  being  represented  for  ever  by  the 
same  fixed  system,  is  a  fact  with  its  own  importance,  but  not  a  proof 
that   the   space   form  is  inadequate  to  express   systematic  relations. 
Therefore  the  felt  inadequacy  of  the  space-form  S  can  only  rest  on  the 
fact  that  its  articulation,  though  fitted  for  what  we  perceive  in  it,  is 
not  fitted  for  such  matter  as  these  sensations  which  we  project  into  it. 
126.  Things  then  obviously  do  not  arrange  themselves  in  space 
according  to  a  constant  affinity  of  their  natures,  but  according  to 
some  variable   occurrence  within  them,   consisting  of  the  reactions 
which  they  interchange.     We  are  not  justified  in  assuming  an  en 
tirely  homogeneous  form   of  event  as  produced  in  all  of  them  by 
these  actions  ;  but  we  cannot  help  regarding  as  homogeneous  all  that 
part  of  such  events  which  has  its  effect  in  fixing  their  place  in  space  ; 
in  designating  it  by  the  name  of  '  mechanical  relations '  of  things  we 
approach  the  common  view  of  physical  science,  which  considers  that 
in  every  moment  the  place  which  a  body  occupies  abandons  or  tends 
to,  is  determined  by  the  joint  action  of  entirely  comparable  forces  and 
impulses. 

Now  it  is  just  this  comparability  which  is  wanting  to  the  musical 
properties  of  sounds ;  that  is,  the  felt  properties,  for  we  are  only 
speaking  of  them,  not  of  the  comparable  physical  conditions  of  their 
production.  The  graduated  series  of  loudness 2  i  and  of  pitch  p  may 

1  ['Inhaltsystem.'] 

2  ['  Tonstarken.'   I  have  retained  the  /  because  it  probably  stands  for '  Intensitat  * 
(intensity).] 


CHAPTER  IT.]    Space-perception  and  disparate  qualities.     213 

no  doubt  be  formed,  each  separately,  by  addition  of  homogeneous 
increments ;  but  when  we  come  to  the  series  of  qualities  q  we  find  it 
cannot  be  exhibited  in  this  way;  and  in  any  case  A*,  A/,  and  kq 
would  remain  quite  incomparable  with  each  other.  The  lines  i,p,  and  q, 
though  we  might  suppose  that  each  could  be  constructed  by  itself, 
yet  would  diverge  from  any  point  in  which  they  were  united,  as  it 
were  into  different  worlds ;  and  if  one  of  them  were  arbitrarily  fixed 
in  space  still  there  would  be  nothing  to  determine  the  angles  at  which 
the  others  would  cross  it  or  part  from  it. 

It  will  of  course  be  said  that  this  as  well  as  the  difficulties  raised  in 
the  last  section,  was  known  long  ago ;  but  that  no  one  can  be  sure 
that  (2)  beings  different  from  us  have  not  at  command  forms  of 
apprehension  X  or  Z,  which  attach  themselves  to  the  content  to  be 
arranged  just  as  unambiguously  and  perfectly,  as  our  space  S  does  to 
its  matter,  the  mechanical  relations  of  things.  Yet  I  cannot  see  how 
this  should  be  supposed  possible  as  long  as  we  ascribe  to  those  beings 
the  same  achievement  as  that  in  which  we  fail.  If  instead  of  the 
qualitatively  different  colours  and  tones  which  we  see  and  hear,  they 
perceived  only  uniform  physical  or  psychical  actions,  from  a  mixture 
of  which  those  sensations  arose  in  us,  I  do  not  dispute  that  in  that 
case  they  might  have  for  such  actions  an  adequate  perceptive  form  X 
or  Z\  but  the  relations  which  they  would  have  to  arrange  would  again 
be  purely  mechanical,  only  mechanical  in  a  different  way  from  those 
which  we  reproduce  in  our  space  S. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  those  beings  are  supposed  to  feel  the  same  dif 
ference  between  red  and  blue  as  we  do,  or  to  feel  the  pitch  of  a  note  as 
independently  of  loudness  and  quality  as  we  feel  it,  then  the  different 
progressions  i,  p,  q,  would  be  as  incomparable  for  them  as  for  us  ; 
though  they  might  arbitrarily  reduce  the  relations  of  tones  and  colours 
to  the  forms  X  and  Z  by  way  of  symbolism,  with  the  same  sort  of 
approximation  as  we  obtain  in  our  space  S.  But  I  hold  that  a  special 
colour-space  X  or  tone-space  Z  is  an  impossibility ;  an  impossibility 
that  is,  as  an  endowment  of  the  supposed  beings  with  two  faculties  of 
the  nature  of  empty  forms  of  apprehension,  prior  to  all  content  and 
so  having  none  of  their  own,  but  able  to  dictate  particular  situations 
to  disparate  elements  subsequently  received  into  them,  solely  in 
virtue  of  the  rules  of  connexion  between  individual  places  which 
they  contain.  No  form  of  perception  X,  be  it  what  it  may,  can 
enable  elements  which  remain  disparate  even  for  it  to  pre 
scribe  their  places  in  it  definitely  and  unambiguously  to  each  other. 
And  conversely;  there  may  no  doubt  be  rules  of  criticism  for  variously 


214  Deductions  of  Space. 

combined  values  of  disparate  predicates,  which,  being  based  on  an 
estimate  of  the  efficient  causes  which  produce  such  combinations, 
show  how  to  exclude  impossible  terms  and  to  arrange  possible 
ones  in  series  according  to  their  various  aspects ;  but  a  form  of 
perception  X  such  as  to  unite  all  these  different  series  of  ideas  about 
the  material  into  a  single  image  of  the  material  seems  to  me  impos 
sible. 

I  cannot  see  how  we  lose  much  if  we  admit  this ;  the  many-sided 
affinities,  resemblances,  and  contrasts  of  colours  and  tones  are  not 
lost  to  us  because  we  cannot  satisfactorily  symbolise  them  in  space ; 
we  have  the  enjoyment  of  all  of  them  when  we  compare  the  impressions 
with  each  other.  Now  it  seems  to  me  that  no  being  can  get  beyond 
this  discursive  knowledge  in  respect  of  elements  which  in  their  sum  of 
predicates  combine  different  properties  that  remain  disparate  even  for 
that  being  ;  a  form  of  perception,  in  the  sense  of  an  ordered  system 
of  empty  places,  can  only  exist  for  such  relations  of  elements  as  are 
completely  comparable,  and  each  of  which  is  separated  from  a  second 
by  a  difference  of  the  same  kind  as  separates  this  second  from  any 
third  or  fourth.  It  is  possible  that  things  contain  some  system  of 
uniform  occurrences  which  escape  us,  but  form  the  object  of  percep 
tion  for  other  beings,  and  are  in  fact  apprehended  by  them  in  forms 
of  perception  which  differ  from  our  space-form  S  and  adapt  them 
selves  to  the  peculiar  articulation  of  the  occurrences ;  but  this  idea 
being  motived  by  no  definite  suggestion  need  not  be  pursued  further, 
at  least  for  the  moment. 

127.  We  are  much  more  interested  in  the  other  of  the  cases  dis 
tinguished  above  (ii.  /3) l.  If  the  same  relations  of  things  which  are 
imaged  by  us  as  in  space  were  supposed  to  meet  with  forms  of  a 
different  kind  in  other  beings ;  at  least  we  know  that  there  is  nothing 
in  the  nature  of  these  relations  to  make  them  intractable  to  combina 
tion  before  the  mind's  eye  into  one  entire  image ;  such  an  X  or  Z 
undoubtedly  might  bear  the  character  of  perceptive  forms.  They 
would  not  need  to  be  in  the  least  like  our  space  S;  the  difference 
between  two  places  of  the  system  which  appears  to  us  in  our  space  as 
the  line  s,  would  represent  itself  in  them  in  the  form  x  or  z ;  both 
of  which  would  be  as  disparate  from  s  as  the  interval  between  two 
notes  from  the  distance  between  two  points.  As  long  as  we  maintain 
these  postulates,  we  have  no  reason  to  deny  the  possibility  of  these 
perceptions  X  and  Z ;  but  as  we  do  not  possess  them  their  assump 
tion  remains  an  empty  idea,  and  we  know  absolutely  nothing  further 

1  [§123,  end.] 


CHAPTER  ii.]     Common  elements  of  alleged  '  Spaces'          215 

of  how  things  present  themselves  and  what  they  look  like  under  those 
forms.  Only  we  must  not  require  more  of  them  than  our  own  space- 
apprehension  can  achieve ;  not,  therefore,  that  the  beings  which  enjoy 
them  shall  be  enabled  by  them  in  each  individual  perception  to  appre 
hend  the  true  relations  of  what  is  perceived.  This  is  more  than  even 
our  space  6"  does  for  us ;  for  instance  we  have  to  assign  ourselves  a 
place  in  it,  with  the  change  of  which  the  whole  constellation  of  our 
impressions  is  displaced ;  even  to  us,  owing  to  the  laws  of  the  optical 
impressions  made  on  us,  parallel  lines  inevitably  appear  to  converge 
at  a  distance,  magnitudes  to  diminish,  and  the  horizon  of  the  sea  to 
rise  above  the  level  of  the  shore.  As  we  require  the  comparison  of 
many  experiences  to  enable  us  to  apprehend  the  true  relations  in 
despite  of  the  persistent  semblance  of  the  false,  no  more  than  this 
ought  to  be  demanded  of  the  nature  of  X  and  Z ;  that  is,  that  com 
bined  experiences  should  give  criteria  for  the  elimination  of  the  con 
tradictions  and  mistakes  of  isolated  ones.  We  may  say  then,  subject 
to  such  conditions,  that  the  same  relations  of  things  as  appear  to  us 
in  space  admit  of  other  kinds  of  perception  completely  unknown  to 
us  but  leading  to  equally  true  cognition.  Still  even  this  is  by  no 
means  what  is  as  a  rule  in  people's  minds ;  it  is  expressly  other  space- 
perceptions  than  ours  that  it  is  hoped  to  make  conceivable  in  this 
way.  It  is  to  be  taken  as  settled  that  the  relation  of  two  elements 
presented  to  perception  is  given  by  perception  the  shape  of  the  ex 
tended  line  s,  and  the  relation  of  two  such  relations  that  of  the  angle  a ; 
and  still  even  so  there  is  to  be  a  possibility  that  by  help  of  other  com 
binations  this  s  and  a  may  form  not  our  space  £  but  a  different  one 
•S*1  or  -S2,  like  ours  in  respect  of  the  character  of  its  elements  s  and  a 
as  pictured  to  the  mind,  but  unlike  in  the  fabric  of  the  whole  which 
they  generate.  Perhaps  it  will  not  be  too  painful  to  the  feelings  of 
philologists  if  I  propose  for  these  forms  -S"1  or  S*  the  name  of  Rau- 
moids1  ['quasi-spaces'].  I  know  no  shorter  way  of  expressing  the 
difference  between  these  forms  and  our  previous  forms  X  and  Z\  and 
as  I  mean  to  maintain  that  there  cannot  be  Raumoids,  their  name 
will  soon  disappear  again  supposing  I  am  right ;  if  I  am  wrong,  I 
make  a  present  of  it  to  my  antagonists  as  the  only  thing  I  can  do  for 
their  cause.  For  I  shall  hardly  myself  be  brought  to  surrender  my 
conviction  that  to  accept  s  and  a  as  elements  of  space  is  to  decide  its 
total  form  and  inner  structure,  fully,  unambiguously,  and  quite  in  the 
sense  of  the  geometry  which  has  hitherto  prevailed. 

128.  I  hold  it,  strictly  speaking,  unreasonable  to  require  any  other 

1  [From  'Raum,'  'Space.'] 


216  Deductions  of  Space. 

proof  of  this  than  that  which  lies  in  the  development  of  the  science 
down  to  the  present  time.  That  assuming  the  elements  s  and  a  they 
admit  of  other  modes  of  combination  than  can  be  presented  in  our 
space  S  ]  and  that  these  other  combinations  do  not  remain  mere 
abstract  names,  but  lead  to  kinds  of  perception  Sl  and  S2;  all  this 
could  only  be  proved  by  the  actual  discovery  of  the  perceptions  in 
question.  But  it  is  admitted  that  our  human  mode  of  representation 
cannot  discover  S1  and  -S"2 ;  nothing  but  £  can  be  evolved  out  of  it ; 
therefore  if  the  logical  sequence  of  this  evolution  were  established, 
and  we  still  believed  in  other  beings  who  could  form  divergent  per 
ceptions  out  of  the  same  elements  s  and  a,  we  should  have  to  credit 
them  with  other  laws  of  thought  than  those  on  which  the  truth  of 
knowledge  rests  for  us.  Such  an  assumption  would  destroy  our 
interest  in  the  question ;  though  no  doubt  it  would  not  in  the  least 
run  counter  to  the  taste  of  an  age  whose  tendency  is  so  indulgent  as 
to  take  anything  for  possible,  which  cannot  be  at  a  moment's  notice 
demonstrated  impossible. 

But  there  is  a  point  at  which  our  geometry  has  long  been  thought 
deficient  in  consecutiveness  of  deduction ;  that  is  in  the  doctrine  of 
parallel  lines  and  of  the  sum  of  the  angles  of  a  triangle.  Still  it 
appears  to  me  as  if  philosophical  logic  could  neither  advance  nor 
properly  speaking  admit  the  peculiar  claims  to  strictness  of  procedure 
made  at  this  point  by  the  logic  of  mathematics.  After  all,  discursive 
proof  cannot  make  truth,  but  only  finds  it ;  the  perception  of  space 
with  the  variety  of  its  inner  relations  faces  us  as  the  given  object  of 
inner  experience ;  one  which,  if  not  so  given,  we  should  never  be 
able  to  construct  by  a  logical  combination  of  unspatial  elements,  or 
even  of  those  elements  of  space  which  we  assumed  ;  all  demonstrations 
can  but  serve  to  discover  certain  definite  relations  between  a  number 
of  arbitrarily  chosen  points  to  be  implied  in  the  nature  of  the  whole. 
For  such  discovery  perfect  strictness  of  reasoning  is  indispensable ; 
and  elegance  of  representation  may  also  require  that  the  multiplicity 
of  relations  shall  be  reduced  to  the  minimum  number  of  directly 
evident  and  fundamental  ones ;  but  it  will  always  be  fruitless  to 
assume  fewer  independent  principles  than  the  nature  of  the  facts 
requires,  and  always  erroneous  to  presuppose  that  it  does  not  require 
a  considerable  number.  We  convinced  ourselves  in  the  Logic  that 
all  our  cognition  of  facts  rests  on  our  application  of  synthetic  judg 
ments  ;  the  law  of  Identity  will  never  tell  us  more  than  that  every  A 
is  the  same  as  itself;  there  is  no  formal  maxim  which  gives  us  any 
help  about  the  relation  of  A  to  B,  except  the  one  law  which  simply 


CHAPTER  ii.]    Constructions  presuppose  Space-perception.  217 

disjoins  them  because  they  are  not  the  same ;  every  positive  relation 
which  we  assert  between  A  and  B  can  only  express  a  content  which 
is  given  us,  a  synthesis  ;  such  as  could  be  derived  neither  from  A  nor 
from  B,  nor  from  any  other  relation  between  them  which  was  not 
itself  in  turn  given  to  us  in  the  same  way.  It  is  impossible  to  pursue 
this  here  in  its  general  sense,  but  it  will  be  useful  to  elucidate  it  in 
relation  to  space  in  particular. 

129.  The  first  consequence  of  what  has  been  referred  to  is  that  a 
case  is  possible  in  which  we  are  unable  to  give  adequate  definitions 
either  of  A  or  of  B  without  involving  the  relation  C  in  which  they  are 
given  to  us,  and  equally  so  to  define  this  relation  apart  from  A  and  B. 
It  would  be  impossible  to  say  what  a  point  of  space  is  and  how 
distinguished  from  a  point  of  time,  unless  we  include  in  our  thought 
the  extension  in  which  it  is,  and  treat  it,  for  instance,  as  Euclid  does, 
as  the  extremity  of  a  line ;  no  more  could  we  construct  this  line  out 
of  points  without  a  like  presupposition.  Two  precisely  similar  and 
co-existent  points  may  have  innumerable  different  relations  of  the  kind 
which  we  know  as  their  greater  or  less  distances  from  one  another ; 
but  how  could  we  guess  or  understand  this  unless  the  space  in  which 
they  are  distributed,  being  present  to  the  mind's  eye,  taught  us  at 
once  that  the  problem  is  soluble  and  what  the  solution  looks  like  ? 
Just  as  little  can  a  line  be  generated  by  motion ;  it  can  only  be 
followed ;  for  we  could  not  set  about  to  describe  the  track  left  behind 
us  without  the  idea  of  a  space  in  general  which  furnishes  the  place 
for  it ;  again  any  definite  line  could  only  be  generated  in  space  if  in 
every  point  which  we  pass  through  the  further  direction  which  we 
mean  to  take  were  already  present  to  our  imagination. 

Again,  in  any  line  when  we  compare  it  with  others  we  shall  be  able 
to  distinguish  its  length  from  its  direction ;  but  we  cannot  make  the 
simplest  assertions  about  either  property  without  learning  them  from 
perception.  That  the  addition  of  two  lines  of  the  length  a  gives  a 
line  of  the  length  2  a  seems  a  simple  application  of  an  arithmetical 
principle ;  but  strictly  arithmetic  teaches  only  that  such  an  addition 
results  in  the  sum  of  two  lines  of  the  length  a,  just  as  putting  together 
two  apples  weighing  half  an  ounce  each  gives  only  the  sum  of  these 
two,  not  one  apple  twice  the  weight.  The  possibility  of  uniting  the 
one  line  with  the  extremity  of  the  other  so  that  it  becomes  its  un 
broken  continuation  and  the  two  lengths  add  up  into  one  only  follows 
from  the  mental  portrayal  of  a  space  within  which  the  junction  can 
be  effected.  I  say  expressly, '  of  a  space' \  for  not  even  the  considera 
tion  that  the  things  to  be  united  are  two  lines  is  sufficient;  on  the 


2i8  Deductions  of  Space. 

contrary,  we  know  that  a  thousand  lines 1,  if  thought  of  as  between 
the  same  extremities,  will  form  no  more  than  one  and  the  same  line ; 
they  must  be  put  together  lengthways,  and  to  do  this  the  image  of 
the  surrounding  space  which  gives  the  necessary  room  is  indispensable. 
Geometry  only  expresses  the  same  thing  in  another  form,  when  it  says 
that  every  line  is  capable  of  being  produced  to  infinity. 

As  regards  direction,  it  is  easily  seen  that  it  is  a  delusion  to  suppose 
that  we  have  a  conception  of  it  to  which  straightness  and  curvedness 
can  be  subordinated  as  co-ordinate  species  ;  its  conception  is  only 
intelligible  as  completely  coinciding  with  that  of  the  straight  line 
which  is  called  from  another  point  of  view,  in  relation  to  its  extremi 
ties,  the  distance  between  them ;  every  idea  of  a  curve  includes  that 
of  a  deviation  from  the  straight  direction  of  the  tangents  and  can  only 
be  fixed  in  the  particular  case  by  the  measurement  of  this  deviation. 
Thus  we  can  it  is  true  assign  a  criterion  for  any  extended  line  which 
is  security  for  its  straightness ;  the  distance  between  its  extremities 
must  be  equal  to  the  sum  of  the  distances  between  all  pairs  of  points 
by  which  we  may  choose  to  divide  the  line ;  but  of  course  we  do  not 
by  this  get  rid  of  the  conception  of  straightness  in  principle ;  the 
distance  between  the  extremities  and  each  of  these  intermediate 
distances  can  only  be  conceived  under  that  conception.  So  in  fact  it 
is  not  proper  to  say  that  the  straight  line  is  the  shortest  distance 
between  two  points ;  it  is  rather  the  distance  itself;  the  different  circuits 
that  may  be  made  in  going  from  a  to  b  have  nothing  to  do  with 
this  distance  which  is  always  one  and  the  same ;  but  their  possibility 
calls  our  attention  to  the  circumstance  that  perception  is  in  that  fact 
telling  us  something  more  than  would  follow  from  its  teaching  up  to 
that  point  taken  alone. 

130.  If  a  straight  line  can  be  drawn  between  a  and  b  and  another 
between  a  and  c,  it  does  not  in  the  least  follow  from  these  isolated 
premisses  that  the  same  thing  can  or  must  take  place  between  b  and 
c ;  the  two  lines  might  diverge  from  a  as  if  into  different  worlds,  and 
their  extensions  have  no  relation  to  each  other.  But  they  have  one ; 
our  spatial  perception  and  nothing  else  reveals  to  us  the  angle  a,  and 
shows  us  that  space  extends  between  the  two  lines  and  allows  a 
connexion  between  the  points  b  and  c  by  means  of  a  straight  line  be 
of  the  same  kind  as  ab  and  ac\  it  teaches  us  at  the  same  time  that 
there  is  this  possibility  for  all  points  of  ab  and  ac,  and  so  creates  the 
third  element  of  our  idea  of  space,  the  plane  p.  This,  after  having  so 
discovered  it,  we  are  able  to  define  as  the  figure  in  space  any  point  of 

1  ['  Straight  lines '  of  course.] 


CHAPTER  ii.]    Litie,  Angle,  Plane,  data  of  Perception.      219 

which  may  be  connected  with  any  other  point  by  a  straight  line  lying 
wholly  in  that  figure.  This  definition  however,  though  I  should  think 
it  a  sufficient  one,  contains  no  rule  for  construction  according  to 
which  we  could  produce  for  ourselves  the  plane  p  without  having  had 
it  before  ;  for  what  is  really  meant  by  requiring  all  connecting  lines  to 
be  contained  in  the  spatial  figure  which  is  to  be  drawn  is  only  made 
clear  by  the  spatial  perception  of  the  plane.  Now  I  will  not  deny 
that  it  may  be  of  use  in  the  course  of  scientific  investigations  to 
demonstrate  even  simple  conceptions  as  the  result  of  complicated 
constructions ;  in  cases,  that  is  to  say,  in  which  it  is  our  object  to 
show  that  the  complicated  conditions  present  in  a  problem  must  have 
precisely  this  simple  consequence;  but  I  cannot  comprehend  the 
acumen  which  seeks  as  the  basis  of  geometry  to  obtain  the  most 
elementary  perceptions  by  help  of  presuppositions,  which  not  only 
contain  of  necessity  the  actual  elements  in  question  but  also  more 
besides  them. 

It  is  possible  to  regard  the  straight  line  as  a  limiting  case  in  a 
series  of  curves  ;  but  it  would  not  be  possible  to  form  the  series  of 
these  curves  without  in  some  way  employing  for  their  determination 
and  measurement  the  mental  presentation  of  the  straight  line  from 
which  they  show  a  measurable  deviation.  Whoever  should  give  it  as 
a  complete  designation  of  a  straight  line,  that  it  was  the  line  which 
being  rotated  between  its  extremities  did  not  change  its  place,  would 
plunge  us  into  silent  reflexion  as  to  how  he  conceived  the  axis  of  that 
rotation  ;  and  by  what,  without  supposing  a  straight  line  somewhere, 
he  would  measure  the  change  of  place  which  the  curve  experienced  in 
such  a  rotation. 

I  hold  it  quite  as  useless  to  construct  the  plane  p  over  again,  after 
it  has  once  been  given  by  perceptive  cognition  ;  no  doubt  it  is  also 
the  surface  in  which  two  spheres  intersect,  and  reappears  as  the 
result  of  countless  constructions  of  the  kind  ;  but  every  fair  judge  will 
think  that  it  is  the  perception  of  the  plane  which  elucidates  the  idea  of 
the  intersection  and  not  vice  versa. 

And  now,  if  we  may  let  alone  these  attempts  to  clear  up  what  is 
clear  already,  we  are  invited  to  a  more  serious  defence  of  the  rights  of 
universal  Logic  by  the  dazzling  play  of  ambiguities  which  endeavours 
to  controvert  and  threatens  to  falsify  the  perception  itself.  A  finite  arc 
of  a  circle  of  course  becomes  perpetually  more  like  a  straight  line  as 
the  radius  of  the  circle  to  which  it  belongs  is  increased  ;  but  the  whole 
circle  never  comes  to  be  like  one.  However  infinitely  great  we  may 
conceive  the  radius  as  being,  nothing  can  prevent  us  from  conceiving 


22O  Deductions  of  Space. 

it  to  complete  its  rotation  round  the  centre ;  and  till  such  rotation  is 
completed  we  have  no  right  to  apply  the  conception  of  a  circle  to  the 
figure  which  is  generated;  discourse  about  a  straight  line  which, 
being  in  secret  a  circle  of  infinite  diameter,  returns  into  itself,  is  not  a 
portion  of  an  esoteric  science  but  a  proof  of  logical  barbarism.  Just 
the  same  is  shown  by  phrases  about  parallel  lines  which  are  supposed 
to  cut  each  other  at  an  infinite  distance ;  they  do  not  cut  each  other  at 
any  finite  distance,  and  as  every  distance  when  conceived  as  attained, 
would  become  finite  again,  there  simply  is  no  distance  at  which  they 
do  so  ;  it  is  utterly  inadmissible  to  pervert  this  negation  into  the  posi 
tive  assertion,  that  in  infinite  distance  there  is  a  point  at  which  inter 
section  occurs.  Here  again,  however,  I  am  not  denying  that  in  the 
context  of  a  calculation  good  service  may  be  rendered  within  certain 
limits  by  modes  of  designation  which  rest  on  assumptions  like  these  ; 
so  much  the  more  useful  would  be  a  precise  investigation  within  what 
limits  they  may  be  employed  in  every  case,  without  commending  to 
notice  absolute  nonsense  by  help  of  pretentious  calculation. 

131.  It  is  obvious  that  according  to  the  above  general  discussion, 
I  cannot  propose  to  solve  the  dispute  about  parallels  by  the  de 
monstrative  method  commonly  desiderated ;  I  am  content  with  ex 
pressing  my  conviction  by  saying  that  in  presence  of  direct  perception 
I  can  see  no  reason  whatever  for  raising  the  dispute.  We  call  parallel 
the  two  straight  lines  a  and  b  which  have  the  same  direction  in  space, 
and  we  test  the  identity  of  their  direction  by  the  criterion  that  with  a 
third  straight  line  c  in  the  same  plane  p,  the  straight  lines  a  and  b 
form  on  the  same  side  of  them  s,  the  same  angle  a.  In  saying  this 
I  do  not  hesitate  to  presuppose  the  plane  p  and  side  s  as  perfectly 
clear  data  of  perception ;  still  they  might  both  be  eliminated  by  the 
following  expression  ;  a  and  b  are  parallel  if  the  extremities  a  and  /3 
of  any  equal  lengths  a  a  and  b  $  taken  on  the  two  straight  lines  from 
their  starting  points  a  and  b,  are  always  at  the  same  distance  from  one 
another.  It  follows  from  this  as  a  mere  verbal  definition,  that  a  b  will 
also  be  parallel  to  a/3;  and  at  the  same  time  from  the  matter  of  the 
definition,  that  a  and  b,  as  long  as  they  are  straight  lines,  must  remain 
at  the  same  distance  from  each  other,  measured  as  above;  every 
question  whether  to  produce  them  to  infinity  would  make  any  change 
in  this  is  otiose,  and  contradicts  the  presupposition  which  conceives 
identity  of  direction  to  infinity  as  involved  in  the  direction  of  a  finite 
portion  of  a  straight  line.  That  the  sum  of  the  interior  angles  which 
a  a  and  b  &  make  with  a  b  or  with  a  /3  is  equal  to  two  right  angles, 
only  requires  the  familiar  elucidation. 


CHAPTER  ii.]    Mathematical  Perception  v.  Measurement.  221 

Now  if  a  triangle  is  to  be  made  between  a  a  and  b  /3  both  the  lines 
must  change  their  position,  or  one  of  them  its  position  relatively  to 
the  other.  If  we  suppose  a  a  to  turn  about  the  point  a  so  that  the 
angle  which  it  forms  with  a  b  is  diminished,  our  spatial  perception 
shows  us  that  the  interval  between  its  intersection  with  a  0  and  the 
extremity  8  of  that  line  must  also  diminish;  if  the  turning  is  continued 
this  interval  is  necessarily  reduced  to  zero,  and  then  ab,  aft,  and  £/3, 
enclose  the  required  triangle.  When  this  has  been  done  the  line  a  # 
and  the  line  of  its  former  position  a  a.  make  an  angle,  which  is  now  ex 
cluded  from  the  sum  of  the  angles  which  were  before  the  interior  angles 
between  the  parallels  a  a.  and  b  /3  ;  but  the  vertical  angle  opposite  to 
this  angle,  and  therefore  the  angle  itself,  is  equal  to  the  new  angle  which 
a  /3  produces  by  its  convergence  with  b  /3  ;  the  latter  forms  a  part  of 
the  sum  of  the  angles  of  the  triangle  which  is  being  made,  which  sum 
as  it  loses  and  gains  equally,  remains  the  same  as  it  was  in  the  open 
space  between  the  parallels;  that  is,  in  every  triangle,  whatever  its 
shape  may  be,  it  is  equal  to  two  right  angles.  If  this  simple  connexion 
between  the  two  cases  will  not  serve,  still  we  could  attach  no  import 
ance  to  any  attempt  to  postulate  a  different  sum  for  the  angles  of 
a  triangle,  except  on  one  condition ;  that  it  should  not  only  proceed 
by  strictly  coherent  calculations  but  should  also  be  able  to  present  the 
purely  mathematical  perception  of  the  cases  which  corresponded  to 
its  assumption  with  equal  obviousness  and  lucidity.  For  in  fact  it  is 
not  obvious,  why,  if  the  sum  of  the  angles  of  a  triangle  were  generally 
or  in  particular  cases  different  from  what  we  made  it,  this  state  of 
things  should  never  be  discovered  to  exist  or  be  demonstrated  to  be 
necessary.  But  here  we  plainly  have  misunderstandings  between 
philosophy  and  mathematics  which  go  much  deeper.  Philosophy 
can  never  come  to  an  understanding  with  the  attempt  which  it  must 
always  find  utterly  incomprehensible,  to  decide  upon  the  validity  of 
one  or  the  other  assumption  by  external  observations  of  nature.  So 
far  these  observations  have  agreed  with  the  Euclidean  geometry  ;  but 
if  it  should  happen  that  astronomical  measurements  of  great  distances, 
after  exclusion  of  all  errors  of  observation,  revealed  a  less  sum  for  the 
angle  of  a  triangle,  what  then  ?  Then  we  should  only  suppose  that 
we  had  discovered  a  new  and  very  strange  kind  of  refraction,  which 
had  diverted  the  rays  of  light  which  served  to  determine  the  direction  ; 
that  is,  we  should  infer  a  peculiar  condition  of  physical  realities  in 
space,  but  certainly  not  a  real  condition  of  space  itself  which  would 
contradict  all  our  perceptive  presentations  and  be  vouched  for  by  no 
exceptional  presentation  of  its  own. 


222  Deductions  of  Space. 

132.  However  all  this  is  the  special  concern  of  geometry,  without 
essential  importance  for  metaphysic.  There  is  another  set  of  ideas 
in  which  the  latter  has  a  greater  interest.  I  admitted  above  that  a 
being  endowed  with  ideas  would  not  evolve  forms  of  space-perception 
which  no  occasion  was  given  him  to  produce.  Others  have  connected 
with  such  an  idea  the  conjecture  of  a  possibility  that  even  our 
geometry  may  admit  of  extensions  the  stimulus  to  which  in  human 
experience  is  either  absent  or  as  yet  unnoticed. 

Helmholtz  (Popular  Scientific  Lectures,  III)  in  his  first  example 
supposes  the  case  of  intelligent  beings  living  in  an  infinite  plane,  and 
incapable  of  perceiving  anything  outside  the  plane,  but  capable  of  having 
perceptions  like  ours  within  the  extension  of  the  plane,  in  which  they 
can  move  freely.  It  will  be  admitted  that  these  beings  would  establish 
precisely  the  same  geometry  which  is  contained  in  our  Planimetry  ; 
but  their  ideas  would  not  include  the  third  dimension  of  space. 

Not  quite  so  obvious,  I  think,  are  the  inferences  drawn  from  a 
second  case,  in  which  intelligent  beings  with  the  same  free  power  of 
movement  and  the  same  incapacity  of  receiving  impressions  from 
without  their  dwelling-space,  are  supposed  to  live  on  the  surface  of 
a  sphere.  At  least,  I  suppose  I  ought  to  interpret  as  I  did  in  the  last 
sentence  the  expression  that  they l  '  have  not  the  power  of  perceiving 
anything  outside  this  surface';  the  other  interpretation  that  even  if 
impressions  came  to  them  from  without  the  surface,  they  nevertheless 
are  unable  to  project  them  outside  it,  would  give  the  appearance  of 
an  innate  defect  in  the  intelligence  of  these  beings  to  what  according 
to  the  import  of  such  descriptions  ought  only  to  result  from  the  lack 
of  appropriate  stimuli.  Under  such  conditions  the  direct  perceptions 
of  these  beings  would  certainly  lead  in  the  first  place  to  the  ideas  which 
Helmholtz  ascribes  to  them ;  but  I  cannot  persuade  myself  that  the 
matter  would  end  there,  supposing  we  assume  that  the  mental  nature 
of  such  beings  has  the  tendency  with  which  our  own  is  inspired,  to 
combine  single  perceptions  into  a  whole  as  a  self-consistent  and 
complete  image  of  all  that  we  perceive. 

For  shortness'  sake  I  take  two  points  N  and  -S1  as  the  North  and 
Souih  poles  of  the  surface  of  the  sphere,  and  suppose  the  whole  net 
of  geographical  circles  to  be  drawn  upon  it.  Suppose  first  that 
a  being  B  moves  from  a  point  a  along  the  meridian  of  this  point. 
We  must  assume  then  that  B  is  not  only  capable  of  receiving  quali- 


1  [' Popular  Lectures  on  Scientific  Subjects;'  Atkinson's  translation,  2nd  series, 
P-  34-] 


CHAPTER 1 1.]        The  sphere-dweller  s perceptions.  223 

tatively  different  or  similar  impressions  from  East  and  West ;  it  must 
be  informed  by  some  feeling,  by  whatever  means  produced,  of  the 
fact  of  its  own  motion,  and  at  the  same  time  have  capacity  to  interpret 
this  feeling  into  the  fact  of  its  motion,  that  is,  into  the  change  of  its 
relation  to  objects  which  for  the  time  at  least  are  fixed  ;  it  must 
finally  have  equally  direct  feelings  which  enable  it  to  distinguish  the 
persistent  and  similar  continuance  of  this  motion  or  change  from 
a  change  of  direction  or  a  return  in  the  same  direction.  However 
these  postulates  may  be  satisfied  in  the  being  B,  it  is  certain  that  if 
we  are  to  count  upon  any  definite  combination  of  the  impressions  it 
receives,  it  can  experience  no  change  of  its  feeling  of  direction  in  its 
continuous  journey  along  the  meridian  ;  for  by  the  hypothesis  it  is 
insensible  to  the  concavity  of  its  path  towards  the  centre  of  the 
sphere.  So  if  having  started  from  a  it  passes  through  N  and  £  and 
returns  to  a,  keeping  to  this  path,  such  a  fact  admits  of  the  following 
interpretations  for  its  intelligence. 

As  long  as  a  only  distinguishes  itself  from  b  or  c  by  the  quality  of 
the  impression  it  makes  on  B  it  will  remain  unestablished  that  the 
a'  which  has  recurred  is  that  from  which  its  movement  started ;  it 
may  be  a  second,  like  the  first  but  not  identical  with  it.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  feelings  which  arise  in  B  from  its  'actual  movement  may 
prove  to  it  a  change  in  its  own  relation  to  objects,  but  as  long  as  this 
is  all  it  is  not  self-evident  that  the  feelings  can  only  indicate  a  change 
of  spatial  Delation  to  them  ;  the  feelings  are  simply  a  regular  series  of 
states,  the  repeated  passage  through  which  is  always  combined  with 
the  recurrence  of  one  and  the  same  sensation  a ;  very  much,  though 
not  exactly,  like  running  up  the  musical  scale,  when  we  feel  a  con 
tinuous  increase  in  the  same  direction  of  our  exertion  of  the  vocal 
organs,  which  brings  us  back  in  certain  periods  not  indeed  to  the 
same  note,  but  to  its  octave  which  resembles  it. 

If  B  can  feel  no  more  than  this,  no  space-perception  can  be  gene 
rated ;  in  order  that  it  should  be,  a  further  separate  postulate  is 
required ;  B  must  be  forced  by  the  peculiar  nature  of  its  intelligence 
to  represent  to  itself  every  difference  between  two  of  its  felt  states  as 
a  distance  in  space  between  two  places  or  points.  Under  this  new 
condition  the  interpretation  of  the  experience  gained  is  still  doubtful, 
until  the  identity  of  the  two  <?'s  is  determined ;  as  B  does  not 
experience  a  deviation  to  East  or  West,  and  by  the  hypothesis  does 
not  feel  the  curvature  of  its  path  inwards,  it  might  suppose  itself  to 
have  moved  along  an  infinitely  extended  straight  line,  furnished  at 
definite  equal  intervals  with  similar  objects  a. 


224  Deductions  of  Space. 

But  it  is  not  worth  while  to  spend  time  on  this  hypothesis ;  let  us 
suppose  at  once  that  B  moves  freely  on  the  surface  and  is  able  to 
compare  in  its  consciousness  innumerable  experiences  acquired  in 
succession ;  then  it  will  find  means  to  establish  not  only  the  exact 
resemblance l  but  the  identity  of  the  two  a's.  If  this  has  taken  place 
its  journey  along  the  meridian  from  a  by  N  and  £  back  to  a  will 
appear  to  it  to  establish  the  fact  that  by  following  a  rectilinear  move 
ment  in  space,  without  change  of  direction  or  turning  back,  it  has 
returned  to  its  starting-point.  At  least  I  do  not  know  how  its  path 
could  appear  to  it  other  than  rectilinear ;  as  it  can  measure  the  whole 
distance  from  a  to  a  by  nothing  but  the  length  of  the  journey  accom 
plished,  it  is  of  course  equal  to  the  sum  of  all  the  intermediate  dis 
tances  from  point  to  point  of  this  journey  and  so  falls  under  the 
conception  of  straightness  which  was  determined  above ;  and  on  the 
other  hand  we  cannot  assume  that  B  would  detect  in  every  element 
that  made  part  of  his  journey,  therefore  in  each  of  the  minimum 
distances  from  point  to  point,  the  character  of  the  arc  of  a  circle ; 
it  would  then  possess  the  power  denied  to  it  of  perceiving  convexity 
in  terms  of  the  third  dimension ;  and  therein  it  would  at  once  have 
a  basis  for  the  complete  development  of  the  idea  of  that  dimension, 
its  possession  of  which  is  disputed. 

But  such  an  idea  must  undoubtedly  arise  in  its  mind,  not  on 
grounds  of  direct  perception,  but  by  reason  of  the  intolerable  con 
tradiction  which  would  be  involved  in  this  straight  line  returning  into 
itself,  if  this  apparent  result  of  experience  were  allowed  to  pass  as  an 
actual  fact.  For  a  power  of  mental  portrayal  which  has  got  so  far  as 
to  imagine  manifold  points  ranged  beside  each  other  in  a  spatial 
order  the  content  of  the  experience  which  has  been  acquired  is 
nothing  but  the  definition  of  a  curve,  and  indeed,  all  things  con 
sidered,  of  the  uniform  curve  of  the  circle;  but  as  it  cannot  turn 
either  East  or  West,  there  must  necessarily  be  a  third  dimension,  out 
of  which  immediate  impressions  never  come,  and  which  cannot 
therefore  be  the  object  of  a  sense-perception  for  the  being  B  in 
the  same  way  as  the  two  other  dimensions ;  but  which  neverthe 
less  would  be  mentally  represented  by  B  with  the  same  certainty 
with  which  we  can  imagine  the  interior  of  a  physical  body  although 
hidden  by  its  surface.  As  soon  as  this  conception  of  the  third 
dimension  is  established  the  being  B  would  evolve  from  the  com 
parison  of  all  its  experiences  according  to  the  most  universal  laws 
of  logic  and  mathematics  precisely  the  same  geometry  that  we  acquire 

)  ['Gleichheit.'] 


CHAPTER  ii.]    The  sphere-dweller  and  parallel  lines.         225 

more  easily,  not  having  to  call  to  our  aid  a  dimension  which  for 
our  sensuous  perception  is  imaginary,  to  reduce  things  to  order ;  the 
being  B  would  by  this  time  understand  its  dwelling-space  to  be  what 
it  is,  a  figure  in  space  which  is  extended  in  three  dimensions ;  and 
would  be  in  a  position  to  explain  the  extraordinary  phenomena  which 
its  experience  of  motion  had  presented  to  it  by  help  of  this  form  of 
idea. 

133.  Parallel  lines,  Helmholtz  continues,  would  be  quite  unknown 
to  the  inhabitants  of  the  sphere ;  they  would  assert  that  any  two  lines, 
the  straightest  possible,  would  if  sufficiently  produced,  cut  one  another 
not  merely  in  one  point  but  in  two.  It  depends  somewhat  on  the 
definition  of  parallelism  and  on  the  interpretation  of  the  assumptions 
which  are  made  whether  we  are  forced  to  agree  to  the  former  asser 
tion.  Movements  along  the  meridians  could  of  course  not  lead  to  the 
idea  of  parallel  lines;  but  still,  in  case  of  free  power  to  move,  B 
might  traverse  successively  two  circles  of  the  same  north  and  south 
latitude ;  it  would  find  that  these  circles  have  equal  lengths  to  their 
return  to  the  starting-point,  that  they  never  either  cut  or  touch  each 
other ;  but  that  counting  from  the  same  meridian  the  extremities  of 
equal  segments  of  the  two  have  always  the  same  distance  from  each 
other.  This  seems  to  me  sufficient  ground  for  calling  them  parallel, 
and  in  fact  we  use  the  term  parallel  of  the  circumferences  of  similarly- 
directed  sections  of  a  cylinder,  which  in  this  case  the  two  circles 
would  really  be. 

But  that  would  be,  as  I  said,  merely  a  question  of  names;  I 
mention  these  movements  here  for  a  different  reason.  The  tan 
gential  planes  of  the  successive  points  of  the  southern  circle  cut 
each  other  in  straight  lines  which  converge  to  the  south;  the  cor 
responding  sections  for  the  northern  circle  do  the  same  to  the  north  ; 
the  question  is  whether  the  being  B  would  be  aware  of  this  difference 
or  not.  If  it  were  not,  then  B  would  really  suppose  itself  to  traverse 
two  paths  of  precisely  the  same  •  direction,  which  would  in  fact  be 
parallel  in  the  same  sense  as  the  above  cylinder-sections ;  and  then 
it  might,  as  long  as  no  other  experiences  contradicted  the  idea,  con 
ceive  both  paths  to  be  in  one  plane  as  circles,  the  centres  of  which 
are  joined  by  a  straight  line  greater  than  the  sum  of  their  radii. 

This  would  not  be  so  in  the  other  case,  which  we  must  anyhow 
regard  as  the  more  probable  hypothesis.  Of  course  it  is  hard  to 
obtain  a  perfectly  clear  idea  of  what  we  mean  by  calling  B  sensitive 
only  to  impressions  in  the  surface  of  the  sphere ;  but  we  may  assume 
that  it  would  become  aware  of  the  slope  of  the  tangential  planes  to 

VOL.  I.  Q 


226  Deductions  of  Space. 

North  and  South  from  the  fact  that  the  meridians,  known  to  it  from 
other  experiences,  make  smaller  angles  with  its  path  on  the  side  on 
which  the  plane  inclines  to  the  pole,  and  greater  on  the  opposite  side. 
However  this  might  produce  its  further  effect  on  Fs  feelings  of 
motion,  the  only  credible  result  would  be  that  it  would  think  its  path 
along  the  southern  parallel  concave  to  the  south ;  and  that  along  the 
northern  parallel  concave  to  the  north;  in  other  respects  it  would 
take  them  for  circles,  returning  into  themselves.  These  two  im 
pressions  given  by  this  second  case  would  not  be  capable  of  being 
reconciled  with  the  experience  above  mentioned  of  the  constant  dis 
tance  maintained  between  equal  segments  of  the  two  paths,  taking 
these  latter  as  transferred  into  a  plane  ;  and  this  case  also  would 
necessitate,  in  order  to  reconcile  the  contradiction  it  involves,  the 
invention  of  the  third  dimension  though  not  directly  perceptible. 

134.  This  result  must  guide  us  in  forming  our  opinion  on  the 
vexed  question  of  the  fourth  dimension  of  space.  I  omit  all  reference 
to  fancies  which  choose  to  recommend  to  notice  either  time,  or  the 
density  of  real  things  in  space,  or  anything  else  as  being  this  fourth 
dimension ;  if  we  do  not  intend  an  unmeaning  play  upon  words  we 
must  take  it  for  granted  at  least  that  any  new  dimension  is  fully 
homogeneous  and  interchangeable  with  those  to  the  number  of  which 
it  is  added ;  moreover  if  it  is  to  be  a  dimension  of  space  >  it  must  as 
the  fourth  be  perpendicular  to  the  three  others,  just  as  each  of  them 
is  to  the  remaining  two. 

It  is  conceded  that  for  our  perception  this  condition  cannot  be 
fulfilled ;  but  the  attempt  is  made  to  invalidate  this  objection  by  re 
ferring  to  the  beings  which  have  been  depicted,  whose  knowledge 
stops  short  even  of  the  third  dimension  of  space  because  perception 
affords  them  no  stimulus  to  represent  it  to  their  minds.  Therefore, 
it  is  argued,  a  further  development  of  our  receptivity  might  perhaps 
permit  to  us  an  insight  into  a  fourth  dimension,  now  unknown  to  us 
from  lack  of  incitement  to  construct  it.  The  possibility  that  some 
beings  content  themselves  with  a  part  of  the  space-perception  attain 
able  can  of  course  be  no  proof  by  itself  that  this  form  of  perception 
is  not  in  itself  a  whole  with  certain  limits ;  or  that  it  admits  of  per 
petual  additions  even  beyond  the  boundary  we  have  reached ;  but  we 
must  admit  that  for  the  moment  the  appeal  to  these  imaginary  cases 
at  least  obscures  the  limit  at  which  we  may  suppose  the  mental  image 
to  have  reached  such  a  degree  of  completeness  as  forbids  any  further 
additions.  This  makes  it  all  the  more  necessary  to  see  what  that 
appeal  can  really  claim.  The  imaginary  beings  which  could  only 


CHAPTER  no  The  fourth  dimension.  227 

receive  perceptions  from  a  single  plane,  would  have  been  in  the  most 
favourable  situation,  supposing  changed  life-conditions  to  bring  them 
impressions  from  outside  it,  for  the  utilisation  of  such  new  percep 
tions  ;  they  would  have  been  able  to  add  the  geometry  of  the  newly 
discovered  direction  to  the  Planimetry  which  they  possessed  without 
having  to  change  anything  in  their  previous  perceptions. 

When  we  came  to  the  beings  on  the  sphere-surface,  we  at  once 
found  a  different  situation ;  they  were  forced  to  devise  the  third  di 
mension  by  the  contradictions  in  which  the  combination  of  their 
immediate  perceptions  entangled  them ;  but  yet  they  never  found  a 
direct  presentation  of  it  given,  and  could  not  do  so  without  re 
modelling  all  their  initial  ideas  of  space. 

If  we  mean  to  use  this  analogy  to  support  the  possibility  in  our  own 
case  of  a  similar  extension  of  our  perceptive  capacity,  I  hope  that  atten 
tion  will  be  given  to  the  differences  which  exist  between  our  position 
and  that  of  those  imaginary  beings.  In  particular ;  they  were  com 
pelled  precisely  by  the  contradictions  in  their  observations  to  postu 
late  the  new  dimension ;  we  have  no  contradiction  present  to  us,  of 
a  kind  to  force  us  as  in  their  case  to  regard  our  space-image  as  in 
complete,  and  to  add  a  fourth  to  its  three  dimensions.  At  the  same 
time  we  are  not,  at  all  events  just  now,  in  the  position  of  the  beings 
in  the  plane,  who  were  unsuspectingly  content  with  their  Planimetry 
and  never  even  conjectured  the  third  dimension,  which  we  know; 
for  the  idea  of  a  fourth  dimension  which  is  now  mooted  on  all  sides 
is  so  far  a  substitute  for  the  absent  incitements  of  experience  that  it 
does  not  leave  us  quite  unsuspicious  of  the  enlargement  of  our  space- 
perception  which  may  be  possible,  but  draws  our  attention  to  it,  more 
seriously  than  in  fact  is  worth  while.  If  such  an  enlargement  were 
possible,  things  would  have  to  go  on  very  strangely  for  the  examina 
tion  of  space  as  we  picture  it  to  ourselves  not  to  reveal  it  to  us 
even  without  suggestions  on  the  part  of  observation;  on  the  other 
hand  if  the  required  observations  came  to  us,  without  the  possibility 
of  remoulding  our  space-image  so  as  to  reconcile  their  contradic 
tions,  we  should  simply  have  to  acquiesce  in  the  contradictions. 
Now  the  following  difference  subsists;  the  beings  on  the  sphere- 
surface  were  no  doubt  compelled  by  observations  to  alter  their  initial 
geometrical  images,  but  then  they  found  the  alteration  practicable; 
we  are  not  in  any  way  compelled  to  make  the  attempt,  and  besides, 
we  find  it  utterly  impracticable ;  in  our  space  S  it  is  admittedly  im 
possible  to  construct  a  fourth  dimension  perpendicular  to  the  other 
three  and  coincident  with  none  of  them.  This  seems  to  me  to  settle 

Q  2 


228  Deductions  of  Space. 

the  matter ;  for  no  one  should  appeal  to  the  possibility  that  the  space 
S,  without  itself  becoming  different,  may  still  admit  of  a  different 
apprehension,  exhibiting  a  fourth  dimension  in  it.  As  long  as  the 
condition  is  maintained  that  the  dimensions  must  be  at  right  angles 
to  each  other,  such  an  apprehension  is  impossible ;  if  it  is  dropped, 
what  we  obtain  is  no  novelty;  for  in  order  to  adapt  our  formulae  to 
peculiar  relations  of  what  exists  or  can  be  constructed  in  space  it  has 
long  been  the  practice  to  select  a  peculiar  and  appropriate  system  of 
axes.  Nothing  would  prevent  us  from  assigning  to  the  plane  alone 
three  dimensions  cutting  each  other  at  angles  of  60° ;  which  would 
give  a  more  convenient  conspectus  of  many  relations  of  points  dis 
tributed  in  space  than  two  dimensions  at  right  angles. 

Therefore  only  the  other  question  remains  provisionally  ad 
missible  ;  whether  there  can  be  another  form  of  apprehension  X  or 
Z,  unlike  the  space  S,  which  presents  four  or  more  dimensions, 
perfectly  homogeneous,  interchangeable,  and  having  that  impartial 
relation  to  each  other  which  appears  in  the  property  of  being 
at  right  angles  as  known  in  the  space  S.  I  shall  return  to  it 
directly ;  meantime  I  must  insist  upon  the  logical  objection  for  which 
I  have  been  censured;  it  is  absolutely  unallowable  to  transfer  the 
name  and  conception  of  a  space  S  to  formations  which  would  only 
be  co-ordinate  with  it  under  the  common  title  of  a  system  of  arrange 
ment  capable  of  direct  presentation  to  the  mind ;  but  whose  special 
properties  are  entirely  incompatible  with  the  characteristic  differentia 
of  the  space  S,  that  is  with  the  line  s,  the  plane  />,  the  angle  a,  and  the 
relations  which  subsist  between  these  elements.  It  is  this  dangerous 
use  of  language  that  produces  the  consequences  which  we  have  before 
us ;  such  as  the  supposition  that  the  space  -S  in  which  we  live  really 
has  a  fourth  dimension  over  and  above  its  three,  only  is  malicious 
enough  not  to  let  us  find  it  out ;  but  that  perhaps  in  the  future  we 
may  succeed  in  getting  a  glimpse  of  it ;  then  by  its  help  we  should 
be  able  to  make  equal  and  similar  bodies  coincide,  as  we  now  can 
equal  and  similar  plane  figures.  This  last  reason  for  the  probability 
of  the  fourth  dimension  is  moreover  one  which  I  fail  to  understand ; 
what  good  would  it  do  us  to  be  occupied  with  folding  over  each  other 
bodies  of  the  same  size  and  shape,  and  what  do  we  lose  now  by 
being  unable  to  do  it  ?  and  further ;  must  everything  be  true  which 
would  be  a  fine  thing  if  it  were  ?  No  doubt  it  would  be  convenient  if 
the  circumference  of  the  circle  or  any  root  with  index  raised  to  any 
power  in  the  case  of  any  number  could  be  expressed  rationally ;  but 
no  one  hopes  for  an  extension  of  arithmetic  which  would  make  this 


CHAPTER  1 1.]      Three  dimensions  in  the  abstract.  229 

possible.  What  have  we  come  to?  Has  the  exercise  of  ingenuity 
killed  all  our  sense  of  probability  ?  The  anticipation  of  such  trans 
figurations  of  our  most  fundamental  kinds  of  perception  can  only 
remind  us  of  the  dreams  of  the  Fourierists,  who  expected  from  the 
social  advance  of  man  a  corresponding  regeneration  of  nature,  ex 
tending  to  the  taming  of  all  savageness  and  ferocity  in  its  creatures. 
But  perhaps  the  two  processes  may  help  each  other;  it  will  be  a  fine 
thing  when  we  can  ride  on  tame  whales  through  the  fourth  dimension 
of  the  eau  sucre  sea. 

135.  To  return  to  the  above  question;  I  am  convinced,  certainly, 
that  the  triplicity  of  perpendicular  dimensions  is  no  special  property 
of  our  space  S;  but  the  necessary  property  of  every  perception  R 
which  presents,  however  differently  from  our  space,  a  background  or 
comprehending  form  for  all  the  systematic  relations  of  a  co-existent 
multiplicity.  Still  I  could  wish  that  I  had  a  stronger  argument  to 
sustain  my  conviction  than  what  I  am  now  going  to  add.  To  avoid 
all  confusion  with  ideas  taken  from  existing  space  which  of  course 
press  upon  us  as  the  most  obvious  symbols  to  adopt,  let  us  con 
ceive  a  series  of  terms  X,  between  which,  putting  out  of  sight  their 
qualitative  character  which  we  treat  therefore  as  wholly  uniform,  there 
are  such  relations,  homogeneous  in  nature  but  now  not  otherwise 
known,  that  every  term  is  separated  from  its  two  next  neighbours  by 
a  difference  x.  How  in  such  a  system  of  arrangement  R  this  differ 
ence  x  would  be  imagined,  or  pictured  to  the  mind,  we  leave  quite 
out  of  the  question ;  it  is  merely  a  form  or  value  of  an  unknown  r, 
and  corresponds  to  what  appears  in  our  space-perception  as  the 
straight  line  s  or  as  the  distance  in  space  between  two  points.  Now 
let  0  be  the  term  of  the  series  X  from  which  we  start;  then  the 
differences  between  its  place  in  the  series  and  that  of  any  other 
term,  that  is  the  differences  between  the  particular  elements  of  the  re 
quired  perception  R  itself  measured  in  the  unknown  form  r,  will  be 
of  the  form  +  mx,  where  m  is  to  be  replaced  by  the  numbers  of  the 
natural  series.  Now  0  may  be  at  the  same  time  a  term  of  another 
series  Y  of  precisely  similar  formation,  whose  terms  we  will  designate 
by  +  my  so  that  each  my  is  not  merely  like  in  kind  but  also  equal  to 
mx. 

There  are  two  conditions  which  these  two  series  X  and  J'would  have 
to  satisfy  in  order  to  stand  in  a  relation  corresponding  to  that  of  two 
lines  in  space  at  right  angles  to  each  other.  First,  progression  in  the 
series  Yt  however  far  continued,  should  bring  no  increment  of  one-sided 
resemblance  in  the  terms  my  so  arising  to  +  mx  or  —  mx,  but  every 


230  Deductions  of  Space.  [BOOKII. 

my  should  have  its  difference  from  -f  mx  equally  great  with  that  from 
—  mx  in  whatever  such  difference  consists.  Secondly,  this  difference 
should  not  consist  in  any  chance  quality,  but  should  be  comparable 
both  in  kind  and  in  magnitude  both  with  x  and  withjy.  This  second 
condition  must  be  remarked;  obviously  countless  series  like  J^can  be 
conceived,  starting  from  a  term  O  common  to  it  and  X  and  extend 
ing,  so  to  speak,  into  different  worlds,  whose  terms  would  approach 
neither  +  x  nor  —  x  because  quite  incomparable  with  either ;  but 
such  suppositions  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  our  subject.  In  our 
space  6"  the  difference  between  my  and  mx  is  a  line  s,  just  as  mx  and 
my  themselves  are  lines  of  the  kind  s ;  in  the  other  system  of  places 
JR  which  we  are  here  supposing  this  difference  is  of  the  otherwise 
unknown  kind  r,  just  as  mx  and  my  are  comparable  forms  or  values 
of  r. 

From  this  point  we  might  proceed  in  different  ways.  We  might 
attempt  to  form  the  idea,  still  problematic,  of  several  series  Y,  all  of 
which  satisfy  these  conditions ;  but  against  this  suggestion  it  is  rightly 
urged,  that  as  long  as  we  are  without  the  conception  of  a  space  whose 
plainly  presented  differences  of  direction  would  show  us  how  to  keep 
asunder  these  several  -Ps,  so  long  they  are  all  in  their  relation  to 
X,  (and  so  far  they  are  defined  by  nothing  else),  to  be  considered  as 
one  single  series ;  they  would  not  be  many,  till  the  same  difference 
should  subsist  between  them,  as  between  them  and  X,  and  that 
without  interfering  with  their  common  difference  from  X.  Now  let  us 
consider  one  of  these  F's  as  given ;  the  others,  which,  in  the  abstract 
sense  which  we  explained,  are  as  well  as  the  given  ^perpendicular 
to  the  series  X,  may  have  the  most  diverse  relations  to  the  former ; 
their  progressive  terms  may  approximate  more  or  less  to  the  +  my 
or  —  my  of  the  first  given  series ;  but  among  all  these  series  there  can 
conceivably  be  only  one  which  we  will  call  Z,  whose  successive  terms 
mz  though  commensurable  with  +  my  still  have  equally  great  differ 
ences  from  the  positive  and  from  the  negative  branch  of  Y.  It  is  true 
too  of  this  third  series  Z  as  long  as  it  is  defined  by  nothing  but  its 
relation  to  Y,  that  it  is  only  to  be  regarded  as  one ;  but  of  it  too  we 
may  form  the  problematic  idea  that  it  is  forthcoming  in  a  number  of 
instances,  all  of  which  stand  in  the  same  relation  of  being  perpen 
dicular  to  Y.  If  we  now  choose  one  of  these  many  Z's,  then  the  rest 
may  stand  to  it  again  in  the  most  diverse  relations ;  but  again  only 
one,  which  we  will  call  V,  could  be  such  that  its  progressive  terms 
mv  would  have  always  equal  differences  from  the  +  mz  and  the 
-  mz  of  that  one  determinate  Z.  Observations  of  this  kind  might  be 


CHAPTER  ii.]   Four  series  perpendicular  to  each  other.       231 

continued  for  ever;  but  there  is  an  absolutely  essential  and  decisive 
point  which  as  they  stand,  they  just  omit. 

We  have  so  far  only  supposed  the  F's  perpendicular  to  X,  the  Z's 
to  F,  and  the  Vs  to  Z,  but  have  not  decided  the  question,  how  far 
the  relation  of  Z.as  at  right  angles  to  .Fbrings  this  Zinto  a  necessarily 
deducible  relation  with  X,  or  that  of  V  to  Z  has  a  similar  effect  upon 
V  as  regards  Y  or  X.  If  we  really  added  nothing  further  this  would 
be  a  case  of  what  I  have  more  than  once  expressed  in  metaphor;  the 
Z's  would  no  doubt  have  the  same  relation  to  the  F's  that  the  F's 
have  to  the  *Y's;  only  the  relation  of  the  Z's  as  perpendicular  to  Y 
would  as  it  were  point  into  another  world  from  that  of  the  F's  as 
perpendicular  to  X ;  and  though  we  should  be  able  to  have  a  per 
ception  of  each  particular  one  of  these  relations,  that  of  the  F's 
to  the  X's  and  that  of  the  Z's  to  the  F's,  yet  we  should  not  bring 
together  these  two  instances  of  one  and  the  same  relation  into  any 
definite  mental  picture  at  all,  in  spite  of  the  common  starting- 
point  0. 

Therefore  in  this  way  we  shall  never  obtain  the  collective  percep 
tion  R,  which  we  were  looking  for  and  within  which  we  hoped  to 
distribute  in  determinate  places  all  the  points  we  met  with  in  its 
alleged  n  dimensions;  only  the  accustomed  perception  of  space  S, 
which  we  introduce  unawares,  misleads  us  into  the  subreption  that 
it  is  self-evident  that  these  successive  perpendicular  branchings  of 
the  X's  from  F,  of  the  F's  from  Z,  and  of  the  Z's  from  V  take 
place  in  a  common  intuitional  form  R.  But  in  fact,  to  secure  this, 
the  particular  condition  must  be  added  to  which  I  drew  attention 
above.  A  Z  which  is  perpendicular  to  a  J7",  or  deviates  in  a  measur 
able  degree  from  the  perpendicular  to  it,  must  by  this  circumstance 
enter  also  into  a  perfectly  definite  relation  with  X,  to  which  that  Y  is 
perpendicular.  At  present  we  have  only  to  do  with  one  of  these 
various  relations ;  which  is  this ;  among  the  Z's  perpendicular  to  F, 
that  one  which  is  also  to  be  perpendicular  to  X  must  necessarily  be 
one  among  the  many  F's,  as  they  included  all  the  series  that  had  this 
relation  to  X ;  therefore  even  this  third  dimension  cannot  exist  in  K 
without  its  coinciding  with  one,  and  taking  X  as  given,  with  a  par 
ticular  one  of  the  many  instances  of  the  second  dimension  all  perpen 
dicular  to  X ;  still  less  can  there  be  a  fourth  dimension  F,  at  once 
perpendicular  to  X}  F,  and  Z,  and  yet  distinct  from  the  one  par 
ticular  Z  which  stands  alone  in  answering  to  the  two  conditions  of 
being  perpendicular  to  X  and  at  the  same  time  to  F.  I  maintain 
therefore  that  in  no  intuitional  form  R,  however  unlike  our  space 


232  Deductions  of  Space. 

«$*,  provided  that  it  really  is  to  have  the  character  of  a  comprehensive 
intuitional  form  for  all  co-existing  relations  of  the  content  arranged 
in  it,  can  there  be  more  than  three  dimensions  perpendicular  to  each 
other;  taking  the  designation  'perpendicular'  in  the  abstract  meaning 
which  I  assigned  it,  and  which  refers  not  only  to  lines  s  and  angles  a 
but  to  every  element  r,  however  constituted,  in  such  a  form  of  per 
ception  JR.  Of  course  this  whole  account  of  the  matter  is,  and 
in  view  of  the  facts  can  be,  nothing  but  a  sort  of  retranslation 
from  the  concrete  of  geometry  into  the  abstract  of  logic ;  perhaps 
others  may  succeed  better  in  what  I  have  attempted.  I  believe  that 
I  am  in  agreement  with  Schmitz-Dumont  on  this  question  as  well  as 
on  some  of  the  points  already  discussed,  but  I  find  it  hard  to 
adopt  the  point  of  view  required  by  the  whole  context  of  his  ex 
position. 

136.  Among  the  properties  which  our  common  apprehension 
believes  most  indispensable  to  Space  is  the  absolute  homogeneous- 
ness  of  its  infinite  extension.  The  real  elements  which  occupy  it  or 
move  in  it  may,  we  think,  have  different  densities  of  their  aggrega 
tion  and  different  rules  for  their  relative  positions  at  different  points ; 
space  itself,  on  the  other  hand,  as  the  impartial  theatre  of  all  these 
events,  cannot  possess  local  differences  of  its  own  nature  which  might 
interfere  with  the  liberty  of  everything  that  is  or  happens  at  one  of  its 
points  to  repeat  itself  without  alteration  at  any  other.  Now  if  we 
conceive  a  number  of  real  elements  either  united  in  a  system  at  rest, 
or  set  in  motion,  by  the  reactions  which  their  nature  makes  them 
exert  on  one  another,  then  there  arise  surfaces  and  lines,  which  can 
be  drawn  in  space,  but  are  not  a  part  of  its  own  structure ;  they 
unite  points  in  a  selection  which  is  solely  dependent  on  the  laws  of 
the  forces  which  act  between  the  real  things.  Mathematics  can 
abstract  from  the  recollection  of  these  causes  of  special  figures  in 
space  and  need  not  retain  more  than  the  supposition  of  a  law, 
(disregarding  its  origin,)  according  to  which  definite  connected  series 
of  points  present  themselves  to  our  perception  out  of  the  infinite 
uniformity  of  extension  as  figures,  lines,  or  surfaces. 

So  far  ordinary  ideas  have  no  difficulty  in  following  the  endeavours 
of  geometry  when  in  obedience  to  the  law  of  combination  of  a  multi 
plicity  given  in  an  equation  it  searches  for  the  spatial  outlines  which 
unite  in  themselves  the  particular  set  of  spatial  points  that  correspond 
to  this  law.  But  in  the  most  recent  speculations  we  meet  with  a 
notion,  or  at  least  imagine  we  meet  with  it,  which  we  cannot  under 
stand  and  do  not  know  how  to  justify.  It  is  possible  that  the  diffi- 


CHAPTER  ii.]        '  Spaces',    and  figures  in  Space.  233 

culties  which  I  am  going  to  state  are  based  on  a  misconception  of  the 
purposes  aimed  at  by  the  analytically  conducted  investigations  of  this 
subject ;  but  then  it  is  at  least  necessary  to  point  out  plainly  where 
the  need  exists  for  intelligibility  and  explanation  which  has  not  been 
in  the  least  met  by  the  expositions  hitherto  given. 

To  put  it  shortly,  I  am  alluding  to  the  notion  that  not  only  may 
there  be  in  infinite  uniform  extension  innumerable  surfaces  and  lines 
whose  structure  within  the  particular  extent  of  each  is  very  far  from 
uniform,  that  is,  variously  formed  figures  in  space;  but  that  also  there 
may  be  spaces  of  a  peculiar  structure,  such  that  uniformity  of  their 
entire  extension  is  excluded.  It  is  clear  to  us  what  we  are  to  think 
of  as  a  spherical  or  pseudo-spherical  surface,  but  not  clear  what  can 
be  meant  by  a  spherical  or  pseudo-spherical  space;  designations 
which  we  meet  with  in  the  discussion  of  these  subjects  without  any 
help  being  given  to  us  in  comprehending  their  meaning.  In  the 
following  remarks  I  shall  only  employ  the  former  of  these  designa 
tions ;  the  mention  of  'pseudo-spherical  space,'  which  is  harder  to 
present  definitely  to  the  mind,  could  only  reinforce  our  impression  of 
mysteriousness,  without  contributing  to  the  explanation  of  the  matter 
any  more  than  the  allusion  to  the  familiar  spherical  figure.  The  idea 
of  a  spherical  surface,  being  that  of  a  figure  in  space,  presupposes  the 
common  perception  of  space;  the  situation  of  its  points  is  determined, 
at  least  has  been  hitherto,  by  some  system  of  co-ordinates  which 
measures  their  distance  and  the  direction  of  that  distance  from  an 
assumed  point  of  origin  according  to  the  rules  which  hold  for  a 
uniform  space.  To  pass  from  the  spherical  surface  to  a  spherical 
space,  one  of  two  assertions  seems  to  me  to  be  needed;  either 
this  surface  is  the  whole  space  which  exists,  really  or  to  the  mind's 
eye ;  or  this  totality  of  space  arises  out  of  the  spherical  surface  by 
making  the  co-ordinates  pass  continuously  through  the  whole  series  of 
values  compatible  with  the  law  of  their  combination.  If  we  do  the 
latter  there  arises  by  the  unbroken  attachment  of  each  spherical  sur 
face  to  the  previous  one,  the  familiar  image  of  a  spherical  Volume, 
which  we  may  either  limit  arbitrarily  at  a  particular  point  or  conceive 
as  growing  to  infinity,  as  the  equation  of  the  surface  remains  capable 
of  construction  for  all  values  of  the  radius ;  in  this  way  we  attain  to 
nothing  more  than  the  admissible  but  purely  incidental  aspect,  that 
the  infinite  uniform  extension  of  space  is  capable  of  a  complete 
secondary  construction,  if  from  any  given  point  of  origin  we  sup 
posed  a  minimum  spherical  surface  to  expand  in  all  directions  con 
formably  to  its  equation.  But  in  the  interior  of  this  spherical  volume 


234  Deductions  of  Space. 

there  is  no  further  structure  revealed  than  that  of  uniform  space,  on 
the  basis  of  which  the  co-ordinates  of  the  boundary-surface  at  each 
particular  moment  had  been  determined :  the  interior  does  not 
consist  permanently  and  exclusively  of  the  separate  spherical  shells 
out  of  which  in  this  case  our  representing  faculty  created  its  repre 
sentation  ;  the  passage  from  point  to  point  is  not  in  any  way  bound 
to  respect  this  mode  of  creation  of  the  whole,  as  though  such  a 
passage  could  take  place  better  or  more  easily  in  one  of  the  spherical 
surfaces  than  in  the  direction  of  a  chord  which  should  unite  any 
places  in  the  interior.  The  conception  of  a  measure  of  curvature 
has  its  proper  and  familiar  import  for  each  of  the  surfaces,  distinguish 
able  in  this  space  by  thought,  but  wholly  obliterated  in  the  space 
itself;  but  it  is  impossible  to  conceive  a  property  of  space  itself  to 
which  it  could  apply. 

In  the  case  of  the  sphere  its  law  of  formation  permitted  the  con 
tinuous  attachment  of  surface  to  surface ;  but  equations  are  con 
ceivable  which  if  constructed  as  a  system  of  positions  in  space  would 
produce  either  a  series  of  discrete  points  or  one  of  discrete  surfaces, 
perhaps  partially  connected  or  perhaps  not  at  all.  We  know  such 
constructions  primarily  as  figures  in  space  and  nothing  else,  and 
conceive  their  production  as  conditioned  by  equations  between  co 
ordinates  whose  power  of  being  reciprocally  defined  by  each  other 
corresponds  to  the  nature  of  uniform  space,  now  known  as  Euclidean 
space ;  but  let  us  assume  that  we  had  escaped  from  that  postulate 
and  had  employed  co-ordinates  which  themselves  partook  of  the 
special  nature  of  the  variously  formed  space  which  is  to  be  obtained. 
It  may  then  be  difficult  to  project  an  image  of  these  strange  figures 
within  our  accustomed  modes  of  space-perception;  I  attach  more 
weight  to  another  difficulty,  that  of  determining  what  we  properly 
mean  when  we  speak  of  them  as  spaces.  Let  us  assume  that  the 
fundamental  law,  being  capable  of  algebraical  expression,  which  pre 
vails  in  a  system  of  related  points  not  yet  explicitly  apprehended  as 
spatial,  conditions  a  systematic  order  of  them  which  could  only  be 
represented  in  our  space  S  by  a  number  of  curved  sheets  not  wholly 
attached  to  one  another ;  then  the  fact,  form,  and  degree  of  their 
divergence  could  only  be  observed  by  us  through  the  medium  of 
distance  measured  according  to  the  nature  of  the  space  S,  as  existing 
between  particular  points  in  the  different  sheets. 

However,  let  us  even  put  out  of  the  question  all  idea  of  a  space  S 
as  the  neutral  background  on  which  the  figure  X  was  constructed,  and 
attempt  to  regard  this  X  as  the  sole  represented  space;  still  the 


CHAPTER  ii.]          Space  which  is  not  uniform.  235 

different  sheets  of  it  could  not  possibly  extend  as  if  into  different 
worlds,  so  as  to  prevent  there  being  any  measurable  transition  from  one 
to  another  ;  just  as  little  could  that  which  separates  them  and  makes 
them  diverge  be  a  mere  nothingness  when  compared  to  the  space  X 
itself,  and  capable  of  no -measurable  degrees  whatever;  even  in  this 
case  that  which  gave  the  reason  for  their  being  separate  could  not 
but  be  a  spatial  magnitude  or  distance,  uniform  and  commensurable 
with  the  magnitudes  which  formed  the  actual  space  A".  Thus  our 
attempt  would  be  a  failure ;  we  should  not  be  able  to  regard  that  AT 
as  space,  but  only  as  a  structure  in  a  space;  we  might  no  doubt 
assume,  for  the  moment,  of  this  space  that  in  each  of  its  minutest 
parts  it  had  a  structure  other  than  that  of  our  space  S,  but  we  should 
have  to  admit  at  once  that  it  formed  a  continuous  whole  witji  the 
same  inner  structure  in  every  one  of  its  parts.  For,  provided  that 
this  tentatively  assumed  space  X  is  not  to  be  regarded  as  something 
real,  but  as  the  empty  form  of  a  system  for  the  reception  of  possible 
realities,  there  can  be  no  difference  of  reality  or  value  between  the 
points  contained  in  those  sheets  and  the*other  points  by  the  interposi 
tion  of  which  their  divergence  arises  ;  they  would  all  accordingly  have 
equal  claims  to  be  starting-points  of  the  construction  in  question, 
and  from  the  intersection  of  all  these  constructions  there  would  once 
more  be  formed  the  idea  of  a  space  uniform  through  an  infinite  ex 
tension,  and  indifferent  to  the  structure  of  the  fabrics  designed  in  it. 
Not  even  a  break  in  the  otherwise  uniform  extension  is  possible  ; 
such  a  break  is  only  conceivable  if  in  the  first  place  there  is  a  some 
thing  between  Lhe  terms  which  keeps  them  asunder,  and  if  moreover 
that  something  is  comparable  in  kind  and  magnitude  with  what  it 
bounds  on  both  sides  of  itself;  hence  space  cannot  consist  of  an 
infinite  number  of  intersecting  lines  which  leave  meshes  of  \vhat  is 
not  space  between  them  ;  it  uncontrollably  becomes  again  the  con 
tinuous  and  uniform  extension  which  we  supposed  it  to  be  at  first ; 
and  the  manifold  configurations  of  the  kind  X  are  conceivable  in  it 
only  as  bounded  structures,  not  as  themselves  forms  of  space. 

137.  I  feel  myself  obliged  to  maintain  the  convictions  which  I  have 
expressed  even  against  Riemann's  investigations  into  a  multiplicity  ex 
tended  in  n  directions.  My  objections  are  on  the  whole  directed  to  the 
point,  that  here  again  the  confusion  which  seems  to  me  to  darken  the 
whole  question  has  not  been  avoided ;  the  confusion  of  the  universal 
localisation- system  of  empty  places  presented  to  the  mind,  a  system  in 
which  structures  of  any  shape  or  any  extent  can  be  arranged,  with  the 
structure  and  articulation  belonging  to  that  which  has  to  be  arranged 


236  Deductions  of  Space. 

in  this  system ;  or  to  repeat  the  expression  employed  above,  the  con 
fusion  of  space  with  structures  in  space.  In  II.  §  4  of  his  treatise  on 
the  hypotheses  which  lie  at  the  foundation  of  Geometry,  Riemann 
expresses  himself  as  follows :  '  Multiplicities  whose  measure  of  curva 
ture  is  everywhere  zero,  may  be  treated  as  a  particular  case  of  multi 
plicities  whose  measure  of  curvature  is  everywhere  constant.  The 
common  character  of  multiplicities  whose  degree  of  curvature  is 
constant  may  be  expressed  by  saying  that  all  figures  can  be  moved 
in  them  without  stretching.  For,  obviously,  figures  could  not  be  made 
to  slide  or  rotate  in  them  at  pleasure,  unless  the  degree  of  curvature 
were  constant.  On  the  other  hand,  by  means  of  the  constant  de 
gree  of  curvature  the  relations  of  measurement  of  the  multiplicity  in 
question  are  completely  determined;  accordingly  in  all  directions 
about  one  point  the  relations  of  measurement  are  exactly  the  same 
as  about  another,  and  therefore  the  same  constructions  are  practic 
able  starting  from  the  one  as  from  the  other  and  consequently  in 
multiplicities  with  a  constant  measure  of  curvature  figures  can  be 
given  any  position/  • 

Now  I  have  no  doubt  at  all  that  by  analytical  treatment  of  more 
universal  formulae  the  properties  of  space  indicated  may  be  deduced 
as  a  special  case ;  but  I  must  adhere  to  my  assertion  that  it  is  only 
with  these  special  properties  that  such  an  'extended  multiplicity'  is 
a  space,  or  corresponds  to  the  idea  of  a  system  of  arrangement  for 
perception ;  all  formulae  which  do  not  contain  so  much  as  these  de 
terminations,  or  which  contain  others  opposed  to  them,  mean  either 
nothing,  or  only  something  which  as  a  special  or  peculiar  formation 
may  be  fittingly  or  unfittingly  reduced  to  order  in  that  universal  frame. 
A  system  of  places  which  was  otherwise  formed  in  any  one  of  its 
parts  than  in  another,  would  contradict  its  own  conception,  and 
would  not  be  what  it  ought  to  be,  the  neutral  background  for  the 
manifold  relations  of  what  was  to  be  arranged  in  it ;  it  would  be 
itself  a  special  formation,  '  a  multiplicity  extended  in  n  directions ' 
instead  of  being  the  ^-dimensional  multiplicity  of  extension,  about 
which  the  question  really  was. 

I  cannot  believe  that  any  skill  in  analysis  can  compensate  for  this 
misconception  in  the  ideas ;  alleged  spaces  of  such  structure  that  in 
one  part  of  them  they  would  not  be  able  to  receive,  without  stretch 
ing  or  change  of  size,  a  figure  which  they  could  so  receive  in  another, 
can  only  be  conceived  as  real  shells  or  walls,  endowed  with  such 
forces  of  resistance  as  to  hinder  the  entrance  of  an  approaching  real 
figure,  but  inevitably  doomed  to  be  shattered  by  its  more  violent  im- 


CHAPTER  ii.]  Uniform  Space  implied  in  all  other  Spaces.  237 

pact.  I  trust  that  on  this  point  philosophy  will  not  allow  itself  to  be 
imposed  upon  by  mathematics ;  space  of  absolutely  uniform  fabric 
will  always  seem  to  philosophy  the  one  standard  by  the  assumption  of 
which  all  these  other  figures  become  intelligible  to  it.  This  may  be 
illustrated  by  the  analogy  of  arithmetic.  The  natural  series  of  numbers 
with  its  constant  difference  i,  and  its  direct  progression,  according  to 
which  the  difference  of  any  two  terms  is  the  sum  of  the  differences  of 
all  intermediate  terms,  may  be  treated  as  a  special  case  of  a  more 
general  form  of  series  just  as  much  as  can  uniform  space.  But,  by 
whatever  universal  term  it  might  be  attempted  to  express  the  law  of 
formation  of  this  series,  it  could  have  no  possible  meaning  without 
presupposing  the  series  of  numbers.  Every  exponent  or  every  co 
efficient  wrhich  this  universal  formula  contained,  would  be  of  unassign 
able  import  unless  it  had  either  a  constant  value  in  the  natural  series 
of  numbers,  or  else  a  variable  one,  depending  in  particular  cases  on 
the  value,  measurable  only  in  this  series  of  numbers,  of  the  magnitudes 
whose  function  it  might  be.  Every  other  arithmetical  series  only 
states  in  its  law  of  formation  how  it  deviates  from  the  progression  of 
terms  of  equal  rank  which  forms  in  the  series  of  numbers ;  no  other 
standard  can  be  substituted  for  this,  without  standing  in  need  in  its 
turn  of  the  simple  series  of  numbers  to  make  it  intelligible.  Precisely 
the  same  seems  to  me  to  be  the  case  in  the  matter  of  space ;  and  I 
cannot  persuade  myself  that  so  much  as  the  idea  of  multiform  space 
or  of  a  variable  measure  of  curvature  in  space  could  be  formed  and 
defined,  without  presupposing  the  elements  of  uniform  space,  recti 
linear  tangents  and  tangential  planes,  in  fact  uniform  space  in  its 
entirety,  as  the  one  intelligible  and  indispensable  standard,  from  which 
the  formation  of  the  oilier,  if  it  could  be  pictured  to  the  mind  at  all, 
would  present  definite  deviations. 


CHAPTER    III. 

Of  Time. 

THE  Psychologist  may  if  he  pleases  make  the  gradual  development 
of  our  ideas  of  Time  the  object  of  his  enquiry,  though,  beyond  some 
obvious  considerations  which  lead  to  nothing,  there  is  no  hope  of  his 
arriving  at  any  important  result.  The  Metaphysician  has  to  assume 
that  this  development  has  been  so  far  completed  that  the  Time  in 
which,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  we  all  live  is  conceived  as  one  comprehen 
sive  form  in  which  all  that  takes  place  between  things  as  well  as  our 
own  actions  are  comprehended.  The  only  question  which  he  has  to 
ask  is  how  far  Time,  thus  conceived,  has  any  application  to  the  Real 
or  admits  of  being  predicated  of  it  with  any  significance. 

138.  In  regard  to  the  conception  I  must  in  the  first  place  protest 
against  the  habit,  which  since  the  time  of  Kant  has  been  prevalent 
with  us,  of  speaking  of  a  direct  perception  of  Time,  co-ordinate  with 
that  of  space  and  with  it  forming  a  connected  pair  of  primary  forms 
of  our  presentative  faculty.  On  the  contrary  we  have  no  primary  and 
proper  perception  of  it  at  all.  The  character  of  direct  perception 
attaching  to  our  idea  of  Time  is  only  obtained  by  images  which  are 
borrowed  from  Space  and  which,  as  soon  as  we  follow  them  out, 
prove  incapable  of  exhibiting  the  characteristics  necessary  to  the 
thought  of  Time.  We  speak  of  Time  as  a  line,  but  however  large 
the  abstraction  which  we  believe  ourselves  able  to  make  from  the 
properties  of  a  line  in  space  in  order  to  the  subsumption  of  Time 
under  the  more  general  conception  of  the  line,  it  must  certainly  be 
admitted  that  the  conception  of  a  line  involves  that  of  a  reality  be 
longing  equally  to  all  its  elements.  Time  however  does  not  cor 
respond  to  this  requirement.  Thought  of  as  a  line,  it  would  only 
possess  one  real  point,  namely,  the  present.  From  it  would  issue  two 
endless  but  imaginary  arms,  each  having  a  peculiar  distinction  from 
each  other  and  from  simple  nullity,  viz.  Past  and  Future.  The  dis 
tinction  between  these  would  not  be  adequately  expressed  by  the 


No  pictorial  perception  of  Time.  239 

opposition  of  directions  in  space.  Nor  can  we  stop  here.  Even 
though  we  leave  out  of  sight  the  relation  in  which  empty  Time  stands 
to  the  occurrences  which  fall  within  it,  still  even  in  itself  it  cannot  be 
thought  of  as  at  rest.  The  single  real  point  which  the  Present  con 
stitutes  is  in  a  state  of  change  and  is  ceaselessly  passing  over  to  the 
imaginary  points  of  the  Past  while  its  place  is  taken  by  the  realisation 
of  the  next  point  in  the  Future. 

Hence  arises  the  familiar  repfesentation  of  Time  as  a  stream.  All 
however  that  in  this  representation  can  be  mentally  pictured  originates 
in  recollections  of  space  and  leads  only  to  contradictions.  We  cannot 
speak  of  a  stream  without  thinking  of  a  bed  of  the  stream  :  and  in 
fact,  whenever  we  speak  of  the  stream  of  Time,  there  always  hovers 
before  us  the  image  of  a  plain  which  the  stream  traverses,  but  which 
admits  of  no  further  definition.  In  one  point  of  it  we  plant  ourselves 
and  call  it  the  Present.  On  one  side  we  represent  to  ourselves  the 
Future  as  emerging  out  of  the  distance  and  flowing  away  into  the 
Past,  or  conversely  —  to  make  the  ambiguity  of  this  imagery  more 
manifest — we  think  of  the  stream  as  issuing  from  the  Past  and 
running  on  into  an  endless  Future.  In  neither  case  does  the  image 
correspond  to  the  thought.  For  this  never-ending  stream  is  and 
remains  of  equal  reality  throughout,  whether  as  it  already  flows  on  the 
side  where  we  place  the  future  or  as  it  is  still  flowing  on  that  which 
stands  for  the  past ;  and  the  same  reality  belongs  to  it  at  the  moment 
of  its  crossing  the  Present.  Nor  is  it  this  alone  that  disturbs  us  in 
the  use  of  the  image.  Even  the  movement  of  the  stream  cannot  be 
presented  to  the  mind's  eye  except  as  having  a  definite  celerity,  which 
would  compel  us  to  suppose  a  second  Time,  in  which  the  former 
(imaged  as  a  stream)  might  traverse  longer  or  shorter  distances  of 
that  unintelligible  background. 

139.  Suppose  then  that  we  try  to  dispense  with  this  inappropriate 
imagery,  and  consider  what  empty  time  must  be  supposed  to  be,  when 
it  is  merely  thought  of,  without  the  help  of  images  presented  to  the 
mind's  eye.  Nothing  is  gained  by  substituting  the  more  abstract  con 
ception  of  a  series  for  the  unavailable  image  of  a  line.  It  would 
only  be  the  order  of  the  single  moments  of  Time  in  relation  to  each 
other  that  this  conception  would  determine.  It  is,  no  doubt,  involved 
in  the  conception  of  Time  that  there  is  a  fixed  order  of  its  constituents 
and  that  the  moment  m  has  its  place  between  ??i+  i  and  m—  i  :  also 
that  its  advance  is  uniform  and  that  the  interval  between  two  of  its 
members  is  the  sum  of  the  intervals  between  all  the  intervening  mem 
bers.  Thus  we  might  say  that  if  Time  is  to  be  compared  with  a  line 


240  Of  Time. 

at  all,  it  could  only  be  with  a  straight  line.  Time  itself  could  not  be 
spoken  of  as  running  a  circular  course.  There  may  be  a  recurrence 
of  events  in  it,  but  this  would  not  be  a  recurrence  if  the  points  of 
Time,  at  which  what  is  intrinsically  the  same  event  occurs,  were  not 
themselves  different.  So  far  the  conception  of  a  series  serves  to 
explain  what  Time  is,  but  it  does  so  no  further.  Time  does  not 
consist  merely  in  such  an  order  as  has  been  described.  That  is  an 
order  in  virtue  of  which  the  momenf  m  would  have  its  place  eternally 
between  m  +  i  and  m  —  i.  The  characteristic  of  Time  is  that  this 
order  is  traversed  and  that  the  vanishing  m  is  constantly  replaced  by 
»/  +  i,  never  by  m  —  i.  Our  thoughts  thus  turn  to  that  motion  of  our 
consciousness  in  which  it  ranges  backwards  and  forwards  at  pleasure 
over  a  series  which  is  in  itself  at  rest.  If  Time  were  itself  a  real 
existence,  it  would  correspond  to  this  motion,  with  the  qualification  of 
being  a  process  directed  only  one  way,  in  which  the  reality  of  every 
stage  would  be  the  offspring  of  the  vanished  or  vanishing  reality  of 
the  preceding  one  and  itself  in  turn  the  cause  of  its  own  cessation 
and  of  the  commencing  reality  of  the  next  stage.  We  might  fairly 
acquiesce  in  an  impossibility  of  learning  what  the  moments  properly 
are  at  which  these  occurrences  take  place  and  what  are  the  means  by 
which  existence  is  transferred  from  one  to  the  other.  In  the  first 
place  it  would  be  maintained  that  Time  is  something  sui  generis,  not 
to  be  defined  by  conceptions  proper  to  other  realities  :  and  secondly 
we  know  that  the  demand  for  explanation  must  have  its  limit  and  may 
not  insist  on  making  a  simplest  possible  occurrence  intelligible  by 
constructions  which  would  presuppose  one  more  complex.  But  with 
out  wanting  to  know  how  Time  is  made,  it  would  still  be  the  fact  that 
we  were  bringing  it  under  the  conception  of  a  process  and  we  should 
have  to  ask  whether  to  such  a  conception  of  it  any  complete  and 
consistent  sense  could  be  given. 

We  cannot  think  of  a  process  as  occurring  in  which  nothing  pro 
ceeds,  in  which  the  continuation  would  be  indistinguishable  from  the 
beginning,  the  result  produced  from  the  condition  producing  it.  This 
however  would  be  the  case  with  empty  Time.  Every  moment  in  it 
would  be  exactly  like  every  other.  While  one  passed  away,  another 
would  take  its  place,  without  differing  from  it  in  anything  but  its 
position  in  the  series.  This  position  however  it  would  not  itself  indi 
cate  by  a  special  nature,  incompatible  with  its  occupying  another.  It 
would  only  be  the  consciousness  of  an  observer,  who  counted  the 
whole  series,  that  would  have  occasion  to  distinguish  it  by  the  number 
of  places  counted  before  it  was  reached  from  other  moments  with 


CHAPTER 1 1 1.]     Can  empty  'Time'  act  on  Reality  f  241 

which  it  might  be  compared.  But  if  so,  there  would  not  in  Time  itself 
be  any  stream,  bringing  the  new  into  the  place  of  the  old.  Nor  can 
appeal  be  made  to  the  view  previously  stated,  according  to  which 
even  the  unchanged  duration  of  a  certain  state  is  to  be  regarded  as 
the  product  of  a  process  of  self-maintenance  in  constant  exercise  and 
thus  as  a  permanent  event,  though  there  would  be  no  outward  change 
to  make  this  visible.  If  this  view  were  applied  to  Time,  it  would  only 
help  us  to  the  idea  of  a  Time  for  ever  stationary,  not  flowing  at  all. 
A  distinction  of  earlier  and  later  moments  in  it  would  only  be  possible 
on  the  basis  of  the  presentation  to  thought  of  a  second  Time,  in  which 
we  should  be  compelled  to  measure  the  extent  in  a  definite  direction 
of  the  first  Time,  the  Time  supposed  to  be  at  rest. 

140.  Such  is  the  obscurity  which  attaches  to  the  notion  of  a  stream 
of  empty  Time,  when  taken  by  itself.  The  same  obscurity  meets  us 
when  we  enquire  into  the  relation  of  Time  to  the  things  and  events 
which  are  said  to  exist  and  take  place  in  it.  Here  too  the  convenient 
preposition  only  disguises  the  unintelligibleness  of  the  relation  which 
it  has  the  appearance  of  enabling  us  to  picture  to  the  mind.  There 
would  be  no  meaning  in  the  statement  that  things  exist  in  Time  if 
they  did  not  incur  some  modification  by  so  existing  which  they  would 
not  incur  if  they  were  not  in  Time.  What  is  this  ?  To  say  that~the 
stream  of  Time  carries  them  along  with  it  would  be  a  faulty  image. 
Not  only  would  it  be  impossible  to  understand  how  empty  Time  could 
exercise  such  a  force  as  to  compel  what  is  not  empty  but  real  to  a 
motion  not  its  own.  The  result  too  would  be  something  impossible 
to  state.  For  even  supposing  the  real  to  be  thus  carried  along  by  the 
stream  of  Time,  it  would  be  in  just  the  same  condition  as  before,  and 
thus  our  expression  would  contradict  what  we  meant  it  to  convey. 
For  it  is  not  a  mere  change  in  the  place  of  something  which  through 
out  retains  its  reality,  but  an  annihilation  of  one  reality  and  an 
origination  of  another,  that  we  mean  to  signify  by  the  power  at  once 
destructive  and  creative  of  the  stream  of  Time.  But,  so  understood, 
this  power  would  involve  a  greater  riddle  still.  Its  work  of  destruc 
tion  would  be  unintelligible  in  itself,  nor  would  it  be  possible  to  con 
ceive  the  relation  between  it  and  that  vital  power  of  things  to  which 
must  be  ascribed  the  greater  or  less  resistance  which  they  offer  to 
their  annihilation.  Empty  Time  would  be  the  last  thing  that  could 
afford  an  explanation  of  the  selection  which  we  should  have  to  sup 
pose  it  to  exercise  in  calling  events,  with  all  their  variety,  into  existence 
in  a  definite  order  of  succession. 

But  if,  aware  of  this  impossibility,  we  transfer  the  motive  causes  of 

VOL.  I.  R 


242  Of  Time.  [BOOKII. 

this  variety  of  events  to  that  to  which  they  really  belong,  viz.  to  the 
nature  and  inner  connexion  of  things,  what  are  we  then  to  make  of  the 
independent  efflux  of  empty  Time,  with  which  the  development  of 
things  would  have  to  coincide  without  any  internal  necessity  of  doing 
so?  There  would  be  nothing  on  this  supposition  to  exclude  the 
adventurous  thought  that  the  course  of  events  runs  counter  to  time 
and  brings  the  cause  into  reality  after  the  effect.  In  short,  whichever 
way  we  look  at  the  matter,  we  see  the  impossibility  of  this  first  familiar 
view,  according  to  which  an  empty  Time  has  an  existence  of  its  own, 
either  as  something  permanent  or  in  the  way  of  continual  flux,  in 
cluding  the  sum  of  events  within  its  bounds,  as  a  power  prior  to  all 
reality  and  governed  by  laws  of  its  own.  But  the  certainty  with 
which  we  reject  this  view  does  not  help  us  to  the  affirmation  of  any 
other. 

141.  Doubts  have  indeed  been  constantly  entertained  in  regard  to 
the  reality  which  is  commonly  ascribed  to  Time  and  many  attempts 
have  been  made,  in  the  interests  of  a  philosophy  of  religion,  to 
establish  the  real  existence  of  a  Timeless  Being  as  against  changeable 
phenomena.  A  more  metaphysical  basis  was  first  given  to  this 
exceptional  view  by  the  labours  of  Kant.  He  was  led  by  the  contra 
dictions,  which  the  supposition  of  the  reality  of  Time  seemed  to  intro 
duce  even  into  a  purely  speculative  theory  of  the  world,  to  regard  it 
equally  with  space  as  a  merely  subjective  form  of  our  apprehension. 
This  is  not  the  line  which  I  have  myself  taken.  It  seemed  to  me  a 
safer  course  to  show  that  Time  in  itself,  as  we  understand  it  and  as 
we  cannot  cease  to  understand  it  without  a  complete  transformation 
of  the  common  view,  excludes  every  attribute  which  would  have 
to  be  supposed  to  belong  to  it  if  it  had  an  independent  existence 
prior  to  other  existence.  On  the  other  hand  I  cannot  find  in  the 
assumption  of  its  merely  phenomenal  reality  a  summary  solution  of 
difficulties,  which  only  seem  to  arise  out  of  the  application  of  Time  to 
the  Real  but  in  truth  are  inseparable  from  the  intrinsic  nature  of  the 
Real.  On  this  subject  I  may  be  allowed  to  interpose  some  remarks. 

142.  Were  it  intrinsically  conceivable  that  an  independent  existence 
of  any  kind  should  belong  to  Time,  and  were  it  further  possible  to 
conceive  any  way  in  which  the  course  of  the  world  could  enter  into 
relation  to  it,  then  the  difficulties  which  Kant  found  in  the  endlessness 
of  time  would  cause  me  no  special  disturbance.  That  the  world  has 
of  necessity  a  beginning  in  Time,  is  the  Thesis  of  his  antinomy,  and 
this  according  to  the  method  of  diraytayfi  he  seeks  to  prove  by  dis- 
'  proving  the  antithesis.  It  may  be  noticed  in  passing  that  for  those 


CHAPTER  in.]      Kant  on  the  endlessness  of  Time.  243 

who  do  not,  to  begin  with,  find  something  unthinkable  in  empty  Time 
as  having  an  existence  of  its  own,  the  reference  to  the  world  which 
fills  Time  is  even  here  really  superfluous.  The  Thesis  might  just  as 
well  assert  of  Time  itself  that  it  must  have  a  beginning,  and  then 
proceed  as  it  does.  'For1  on  supposition  that  Time  has  no  beginning, 
before  any  given  moment  of  Time  there  must  have  elapsed  an  eternity, 
an  endless  series  of  successive  moments.  Now  the  endlessness  of  a 
series  consists  in  this,  that  it  can  never  be  completed  by  successive 
synthesis.  An  endless  past  lapse  of  Time  is  therefore  impossible  and 
a  beginning  of  it  necessary/ 

I  confess  to  having  always  found  something  questionable  in  the 
relative  position  which  Kant  here  assigns  to  the  thought  of  the  end 
lessness  of  Time  on  the  one  hand,  and  that  of  the  impossibility  of 
completing  the  endless  series  by  synthesis  on  the  other.  He  thinks 
it  obvious  that  the  latter  constitutes  a  reason  against  the  former, 
whereas  one  might  be  tempted  on  the  contrary  to  consider  it  merely 
an  obvious  but  unimportant  consequence  of  this  thesis.  For  un 
doubtedly,  in  contemplating  an  endless  lapse  of  time,  we  suppose  that 
a  regress  from  the  present  into  the  past  would  never  come  to  an  end, 
and  that  accordingly  we  could  not  exhaust  the  elapsed  time  by  a 
successive  synthesis  of  the  steps  taken  in  this  regress.  The  two 
thoughts  are  thus  perfectly  consistent,  and  the  endlessness  of  the  past 
would  not  be  found  to  involve  any  contradiction  until  we  could 
succeed  in  discovering  a  last  stage  in  the  regress.  Presumably  indeed 
Kant  merely  meant  by  the  second  thought  to  exhibit  more  clearly  an 
absurdity  already  implicit  in  the  first.  But  it  is  just  on  this  point  that 
I  cannot  accord  him  an  unqualified  assent. 

143.  To  begin  with,  I  propose  to  put  my  objection  in  the  following 
general  form:  the  right  and  duty  to  admit  that  something  is  or 
happens  does  not  depend  on  our  ability  by  combining  acts  of  thought 
to  make  it  in  that  fashion  in  which  we  should  have  to  present  it  to 
ourselves  as  being  or  happening,  z/~it  were  to  be  or  to  happen.  It  is 
enough  that  the  admission  is  not  rendered  impossible  by  any  inner 
contradiction,  and  is  rendered  necessary  by  the  bidding  of  experience. 
By  no  effort  of  thought  can  we  learn  how  the  world  of  Being  is  made ; 
but  there  was  no  contradiction  in  the  conception  of  it,  and  experience 
compelled  us  to  adopt  the  conception.  We  have  had  no  experience 
how  the  world  of  Becoming  is  made,  on  the  contrary,  the  attempt  to 
construct  it  in  thought  constantly  brings  us  to  the  edge  of  inner  con- 

1  [Altered  from  Kant's  Kritik  d.  r.  Vernunft,  p.  304  (Hartenstein's  ed.).  The 
words  in  italics  are  Lotze's  alterations.] 

R  2 


244 


tB°OK 


tradictions,  and  it  is  only  experience  that  has  shown  us  that  there  may 
happen  in  reality  what  we  cannot  recreate  in  thought.     We  cannot 
make  out  how  the  operation  of  one  thing  on  another  is  brought  about, 
and  in  this  case  we  found  it  impossible  to  overcome  the  inner  contra 
diction  implied  in  the  supposition  that  independent  elements,  in  no 
way  concerned  with  each  other,  should  yet  concern  themselves  with 
each  other  so  far  that  the  movement  of  one  should  be  regulated  by 
that  of  the  other.     This  conception  of  operation,  accordingly,  we 
could  not  admit  without  discarding  the  supposition  of  the  obstructive 
independence  of  things,  and  so  rendering  possible  that  mutual  regu 
lation  of  their  motions,  which  experience  shows  to  be  a  fact.     Could 
the  ascription  to  empty  space  of  an  existence  of  its  own,  independent 
of  our  consciousness,*be  carried  out  without  contradiction,  the  infinite 
extension,  inseparable  from  its  nature,  would  not  have  withheld  us 
from  recognising  its  reality,  although  we  were  aware  that  we  could 
never  exhaust  this  infinity  by  a  successive  addition  of  its  points  or  of 
the  steps  taken  by  us  in  traversing  it.     It  was  no  business  of  ours  to 
make  Space.     It  is  the  concern  of  Space  itself  how  it  brings  that  to 
pass  which  the  activity  of  our  imagination  cannot  compass.  Certainly, 
if  a  self-sustained  existence,  it  was  not  bound  to  be  small  enough  for 
us  to  be  able  to  find  its  limits.     In  its  infinity  no  contradiction  was 
involved.     From  every  limit,  at  which  we  might  halt  for  the  moment, 
progress  to  another  limit  was  possible,  which  means  that  such  progress 
was  always  possible.     A  contradiction  would  only  have  arisen  upon  a 
point  being  found  beyond  which  a  further  progress  would  not  have 
been  allowed,  without  any  reason  for  the  stoppage  being  afforded  by 
the  law  which  has  governed  the  process  through  the  stages  previously 
traversed,  and  against  the  requirement  of  that  law.    From  this  infinity 
of  Space  the  impossibility  of  exhausting  it  by  successive   synthesis 
would  have  followed  as  a  necessary,  but  at  the  same  time,  unimportant 
consequence  :  unimportant,  because  the  essence  of  Space,  as  a  com 
plex  of  simultaneous  not  successive  elements,  would  have  been  quite 
unaffected  by  the  question  whether  a  mode  of  origination,  which  is 
certainly  not  that  of  Space,  is  possible. 

In  this  respect  the  case  is  undoubtedly  quite  different  in  regard  to 
Time.  It  is  by  the  succession  of  moments  that  every  section  of  Time 
comes  into  being.  Therefore  no  wrong  is  done  it  by  the  question 
whether  its  infinity  is  attainable  by  the  method  of  successive  synthesis, 
which  ceases  in  this  case  to  be  merely  the  subjective  method  followed 
by  our  thought.  But  even  here  the  impossibility  of  coming  to  an  end 
cannot  be  regarded  as  disproving  the  endlessness  of  Time.  Kant 


CHAPTER  in.]     The  successive  syntJiesis  is  in  Time.  245 

speaks  expressly  of  a  successive  synthesis,  and  of  the  certainty  that  the 
infinite  series  can  never  be  exhausted  by  it.  If  we  insist  on  these 
expressions,  it  is  clear  that  the  course  of  Time,  the  infinity  of  which  is 
alone  ostensibly  impugned,  is  itself  already  regarded  as  a  real  condition 
antecedent  of  that  activity  of  imagination,  which  attempts  the  synthesis 
said  to  be  fruitless.  The  several  steps  of  this  activity  follow  each 
other.  Now  whatever  the  celerity  with  which  this  task  of  adding 
moment  to  moment  may  be  supposed  to  be  carried  on,  no  one  will 
maintain  that  it  is  achieved  more  quickly  than  the  lapse  of  the 
moments  which  it  counts.  The  mental  reconstruction  of  Time  in 
time  by  means  of  the  successive  synthesis  of  its  moments  will  take  as 
much  time  as  Time  itself  takes  for  its  own  construction  ;  therefore  an 
endless  Time,  if  Time  is  endless.  And  this  is  in  fact,  as  it  seems  to 
me,  the  real  meaning  of  the  word  never  in  the  above  connexion.  It 
cannot  have  the  mere  force  of  negation,  not.  It  only  asserts  what  is 
in  itself  intelligible,  that  no  succession  in  Time,  neither  that  of  our 
mental  representation  of  Time  nor  that  of  Time  itself,  can  measure 
an  infinite  Time  in  a  finite  Time.  But  no  inner  contradiction  lies  in 
this  progress  from  point  to  point.  This  is  the  more  apparent  from  the 
consideration  that  the  progress  must  be  supposed  really  to  take  place 
if  we  are  to  conceive  the  possibility  of  the  successive  synthesis,  by 
which  we  are  said  to  learn  that  it  continues  so  endlessly  as  never  to  be 
completed.  It  is  not  with  itself  therefore  that  the  endlessness  of  Time 
is  in  contradiction,  but  only  with  our  effort  to  include  its  infinite 
progress  in  a  finite  one  of  the  same  kind. 

144.  In  writing  thus,  I  am  not  unaware  of  the  possible  objection 
that  this  view  admits  of  unforced  application  only  to  the  Future,  which 
no  one  would  seriously  doubt  to  be  without  limits.  It  may  be  said 
that  the  Future,  as  we  conceive  it,  contains  that  which  is  coming  to  be 
but  has  not  yet  taken  shape,  and  the  endlessness  of  its  progression 
agrees  with  this  conception :  whereas  the  Past  (if  Infinity  is  to  be 
ascribed  to  it)  would  compel  us  to  assume  a  finished  and  ready-made 
Infinity.  I  cannot  help  thinking,  however,  that  we  have  here  a  con 
fusion  of  ideas. 

In  the  first  place,  I  would  dispose  of  the  difficulty  which  may  be 
suggested  by  Kant's  expression,  that  'up  io  any  moment  of  the  present 
an  infinite  series  of  Time  must  have  elapsed.'  It  seems  to  me  im 
proper  to  represent  the  Present  as  the  end  of  this  series.  It  is  not  the 
stream  of  Time  of  which  the  direction  can  be  described  by  saying 
that  it  flows  out  of  the  Past,  through  the  Present,  into  the  future.  It 
is  only  that  which  fills  Time — the  concrete  course  of  the  world — ;hat 


246  Of  Time.  IBOOKII. 

conditions  what  is  contained  in  the  later  by  what  is  contained  in  the 
earlier.  Empty  Time  itself,  if  there  were  such  a  thing,  would  take  the 
opposite  direction.  The  Future  would  pass  unceasingly  into  the 
Present  and  this  into  the  Past.  In  presenting  it  to  ourselves  we 
should  have  no  occasion  to  seek  the  source  of  this  stream  in 
the  past. 

This  correction,  however,  only  alters  the  form  of  the  above  objec 
tion,  which  might  be  repeated  thus  : — If  the  Past  is  held  to  be 
infinite,  then  there  must  be  considered  to  have  elapsed  an  infinite 
repetition  of  that  mysterious  process,  by  which  every  moment  of 
the  empty  Future  becomes  the  Present,  and  again  pushes  the  Present 
before  it  as  a  Past.  The  true  ground,  however,  of  the  misunder 
standing  is  as  follows.  Future  and  Past  alike  are  not;  but  the  manner 
of  their  not-being  is  not  the  same.  It  is  true  that  in  regard  to  empty 
Time,  though  we  would  fain  make  this  distinction,  we  cannot  show 
that  it  obtains,  for  one  point  of  the  elapsed  void  is  exactly  like  every 
point  of  the  void  that  has  still  to  come.  But  if  we  think  of  that  course 
of  the  world  which  fills  Time,  then  the  Future  presents  itself  to  us  as 
that  which,  for  us  at  any  rate,  is  shapeless,  dubious,  still  to  be  made, 
while  the  Past  alone  is  definitely  formed  and  ready-made.  Only  the 
Past — which  indeed  is  not,  but  still  has  known  what  Being  is — we 
take  as  given,  and  as  in  a  certain  way  belonging  to  reality.  For  every 
moment  of  what  has  been  the  series  of  conditions  is  finished — the 
conditions  which  must  have  been  thought  or  must  have  been  active  in 
order  to  make  it  the  definite  object  which  it  is.  This  character  of 
what  has  been,  since  it  belongs  to  every  moment  of  the  past,  is 
shared  by  the  whole  past  of  the  world's  history,  and  is  transferred  by 
us  to  empty  Time.  Thus,  as  a  matter  of  course,  when  we  speak  of 
an  endless  Past,  we  take  it  to  be  the  same  thing  as  saying  that  this 
endless  Past  *  has  been'*.  But  it  is  quite  a  different  notion  that  Kant 
conveys  by  his  expression  'gone  by'2.  This  is  the  term  used  of  a 
stream,  of  which  it  is  already  known  or  assumed  that  it  has  an  end 
and  exhausts  itself  in  its  lapse.  But  there  is  nothing  in  the  essential 
character  of  the  Past  to  justify  this  assumption.  Nothing  is  finished 
but  the  sum  of  conditions  which  made  each  single  moment  what  it 
has  been.  To  say,  however,  that  this  determination  is  in  each  case 
finished  is  quite  a  different  thing  from  saying  that  the  series  of  repe 
titions  of  this  process  is  itself  closed,  and  must  be  held  to  be  given  as 
a  closed  series  or  to  have  gone  by,  if  it  is  to  be  equivalent  to  the  series 
of  what  has  been.  The  latter  is  indeed  the  assertion  of  Kant,  but  the 
1  ['Seigewesen.']  2  [•  Verflossen.'] 


CHAPTER  in.]          Reality  of  an  infinite  series.  247 

thought  so  expressed  is  not  one  necessarily  involved  in  the  conception 
of  that  which  has  been,  so  as  to  be  alleged  as  a  disproof  of  the 
assumption  of  an  infinite  past.  All  that  can  be  said  is  that  whoever 
thinks  of  an  infinite  past,  thinks  of  an  infinite  that  has  been.  Why  he 
should  not  think  this  does  not  appear.  He  will  simply  deny  that  the 
conception  of  what  has  been  contains  a  presumption  of  its  being  finite. 
But  that,  on  supposition  of  an  infinite  past,  we  should  never  come  to 
an  end  in  an  attempt  to  reconstruct  the  past  by  the  successive  syn 
thesis  of  a  process  of  imagination,  is  not  anything  to  surprise  us.  It 
is  the  natural  result  of  our  assumption.  A  contradiction  would  only 
arise  if  the  infinity  asserted  broke  off  anywhere. 

145.  The  doctrine  that  our  imagination  can  only  approach  the 
infinitely  great  by  a  progress  which  can  be  continued  beyond  every 
limit  that  may  be  fixed  for  the  moment  may  be  met  with  elsewhere 
than  in  Kant.  I  do  not  dispute  the  correctness  of  this  doctrine.  But 
if  it  is  meant  to  convey  a  definition  of  the  infinite  I  must  object,  that 
it  would  be  a  definition  of  the  object  only  by  one  of  its  consequences 
which  may  serve  as  a  mark  of  it,  not  by  the  proper  nature  from  which 
these  consequences  flow.  For  that  the  progress  in  question  admits  of 
being  continued  beyond  every  limit  is  something  that  cannot  have 
been  learned  by  any  actual  experiment.  Any  such  experiment  must 
necessarily  have  stopped  at  some  finite  limit  without  any  certainty  that 
the  next  step  in  advance,  which  had  unfortunately  not  been  taken, 
might  not  have  exhausted  the  infinite.  Rather  we  derive  this  certainty, 
that  the  imagination  with  its  posterior  constructions  will  not  exhaust 
it,  from  a  prior  conception  which  does  exhaust  it,  were  it  only  the 
simple  recognition  that  the  infinite  has  not  an  end,  and  that  therefore, 
as  a  matter  of  course,  such  an  end  cannot  be  found. 

The  above  definition  by  consequences  may,  notwithstanding,  have 
its  use.  What  must,  on  the  contrary,  be  disputed  is  the  conclusion 
connected  with  it,  that  in  the  range  of  our  thoughts  about  the  real  a 
case  can  never  occur  in  which  we  might  recognise  the  infinite  as 
actually  present  and  given ;  or,  to  put  it  otherwise,  that  an  infinite 
can  never  possess  the  same  reality  which  we  ascribe  to  finite  magni 
tudes  of  the  same  kind.  If  we  continue  the  series  of  numbers  by  the 
addition  of  units,  the  infinite  cannot,  it  is  true,  be  found  as  a  number. 
To  require  that  it  should  be  so  found  would  be  to  contradict  our 
definition  of  it.  But  to  every  further  number  admitted  beyond  the  last 
which  we  presented  to  ourselves,  we  have  to  ascribe  the  same  validity 
as  to  this  last.  The  series  does  not  so  break  off  where  o,ur  synthesis 
comes  to  an  end  as  that  the  further  continuation  should  be  in  any  way 


248  Of  Time. 


[BOOK  II. 


distinguishable  from  the  piece  already  counted,  as  the  merely  possible 
or  imaginary  from  something  real  or  given.  On  the  contrary,  to  our 
conception  the  series  has  undiminished  validity  as  an  infinite  one, 
although  on  the  method  of  addition  of  units  it  could  never  be  begotten 
for  our  imagination.  The  Tangent  of  an  angle  increases  with  the 
increase  of  the  angle.  Not  only,  however,  do  we  continuously  ap 
proximate  to  the  case  in  which  its  value  becomes  infinite ;  we  actually 
arrive  at  it  if  the  angle  is  a  right  angle  and  the  Tangent  parallel  to  the 
Secant.  This  infinite  length  remains  throughout  unmeasurable  by 
successive  synthesis  of  finite  lengths :  but  we  are  at  the  same  time 
forced  to  admit  that  as  the  concluding  member  of  a  series  of  finite 
Tangent-values,  which  admit  of  being  stated,  this  infinite  inexhaustible 
Tangent  presents  itself  with  just  the  same  validity  as  those  that  are 
exhaustible.  We  say  with  equal  validity,  and  that  is  all  that  we  can 
say,  for  none  of  these  lines  are  realities,  but  only  images  which  we 
present  to  the  mind's  eye.  But  I  find  nothing  to  prove  that  in  the 
conception  of  reality,  as  such,  there  is  anything  to  hinder  us  from 
recognising,  beside  finite  values  which  we  are  forced  to  admit,  the 
reality  of  the  infinite,  as  soon  as  the  necessary  connexion  of  our 
thoughts  compels  us  to  do  so. 

Now  for  those  who  consider  a  stream  of  empty  Time,  as  such, 
possible,  such  a  necessity  lies  not  merely  in  the  fact  that  no  moment 
of  this  time  has  any  better  title  than  another  to  form  the  beginning. 
On  the  contrary,  try  as  we  may,  an  independent  stream  of  Time 
cannot  be  regarded  as  anything  but  a  process,  in  which  every  smallest 
part  has  the  condition  of  its  reality  in  a  previous  one.  There  thus 
arises  the  necessity  of  an  infinite  progression — a  necessity  equally  un 
avoidable  if,  on  the  other  hand,  we  look  merely  to  the  real  process  of 
events  and  regard  this  as  producing  in  some  way  the  illusion  of  there 
being  an  empty  Time.  It  is  impossible  to  think  of  any  first  state  of 
the  world,  which  contains  the  first  germ  of  all  the  motion  that  takes 
place  in  the  world  in  the  form  of  a  still  motionless  existence,  and  yet 
more  impossible  to  suppose  a  transition  out  of  nothing,  by  means  of 
which  all  reality,  together  with  the  motive  impulses  contained  in  it, 
first  came  into  being. 

146.  All  these  remarks,  however,  have  only  been  made  on  suppo 
sition  that  a  stream  of  empty  Time  is  in  itself  possible.  Since  we 
found  it  impossible,  we  will  try  how  far  we  are  helped  by  the  opposite 
view,  that  Time  is  merely  a  subjective  way  of  apprehending  what  is 
not  in  Time.  A  difficulty  is  here  obvious,  which  had  not  to  be  en 
countered  by  the  analogous  view  of  Space.  Ideas,  ex  parte  nostra,  do 


CHAPTER  in.]  Time  as  purely  subjective.  249 

not  generally  admit  of  that  which  forms  their  content  being  predicated 
of  them.  The  idea  of  Red  is  not  itself  red,  nor  that  of  choler  choleric, 
nor  that  of  a  curve  curved.  These  instances  make  that  clear  and 
credible  to  us  which  in  itself,  notwithstanding,  is  most  strange ;  the 
nature,  namely,  of  every  intellectual  presentation,  not  itself  to  be  that 
which  is  presented  in  it.  It  may  indeed  be  difficult  for  the  imagination, 
when  the  expanse  of  Space  spreading  before  our  perception  announces 
itself  so  convincingly  as  present  outside  us,  to  regard  it  as  a  product, 
only  present  for  us,  of  an  activity  working  in  us  which  is  itself  to  no 
conditions  of  Space.  Still,  in  the  conception  of  an  activity  there  is 
nothing  to  make  us  look  for  extension  in  Space  on  the  part  of  the 
activity  itself  as  a  condition  of  its  activity.  On  the  contrary,  had  we 
believed  that  the  impressions  of  Space  in  our  inner  man  could  them 
selves  have  position  in  Space,  we  should  have  been  obliged  to  seek 
out  a  new  activity  of  observation  which  had  converted  this  inner  con 
dition  into  a  knowledge  of  it,  and  to  look  to  this  activity  for  that 
strange  apprehension  of  what  is  in  Space  which  must  do  its  work 
without  being  in  Space  itself. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  try  to  speak  in  a  similar  way  of  a  timeless 
presentation  of  what  is  in  time,  the  attempt  seems  to  break  down. 
The  thought  that  Time  is  only  a  form  or  product  of  our  presenta- 
tive  susceptibility,  cannot  take  away  from  the  presentation  itself  the 
character  of  an  activity  or  at  least  of  an  event,  and  an  event  seems 
inconceivable  without  presupposition  of  a  lapse  of  time,  of  which  the 
end  is  distinguishable  from  the  beginning.  Thus  Time,  unlike  Space, 
is  not  merely  a  product  of  the  soul's  activity,  but  at  the  same  time  the 
condition  of  the  exercise  of  the  activity  by  which  Time  itself  as  a  pro 
duct  is  said  to  have  been  obtained,  and  the  presentation  to  conscious 
ness  of  any  change  seems  impossible  without  the  corresponding  real 
change  on  the  part  of  the  presenting  mind.  Now  it  must  be  borne  in 
mind  that  in  no  case  could  Time  be  a  subjective  form  of  apprehension 
in  such  a  sense  as  that  the  process  of  events,  which  we  present  to  our 
selves  in  it,  should  be  itself  opposed  to  the  form  of  apprehension  as 
being  of  a  completely  alien  nature.  Whatever  basis  in  the  way  of 
timeless  reality  we  may  be  disposed  to  supply  to  phenomena  in 
Time,  it  must  at  any  rate  be  such  that  its  own  nature  and  constitution 
remain  translateable  into  forms  of  Time.  To  this  hidden  timeless 
reality,  it  may  be  suggested,  that  activity  of  thought  would  itself  belong, 
of  which  the  product  in  our  consciousness  would  be  that  course  of 
occurrences  and  of  our  ideas  which  is  seemingly  in  Time.  Of  it,  and 
by  consequence  of  every  activity  as  such,  it  must  be  sought  to  show, 


250  Of  Time. 


t  BOOK  II. 


according  to  the  view  which  takes  Time  to  be  merely  our  form  of 
apprehension,  that  while  not  itself  running  a  course  in  a  time  already 
present,  it  may  yet  present  itself  to  sense  in  its  products  as  running 
such  a  course.  Let  us  pursue  the  consideration  by  which  it  may  be 
attempted  to  vindicate  this  paradoxical  notion. 

147.  No  one  will  maintain  that  the  stream  of  empty  Time  brings 
forth  events  in  the  sense  of  being  that  which  determines  their  cha 
racter  and  the  succession  of  the  various  series  of  them.  It  would  be 
admitted  that  all  this  is  decided  by  the  actual  inner  connexion  of 
things.  But  although  that  which  happens  at  one  moment  contains 
the  ground  G  of  that  which  at  the  next  is  to  appear  as  consequence 
Ft  it  may  be  fancied  that  the  lapse  of  Time  is  a  conditio  sine  qua  non 
which  must  be  fulfilled  if  the  grounded  consequence  is  really  to  follow 
from  its  ground.  A  reference  to  the  general  remarks  previously 
made,  upon  the  several  kinds  of  cause  distinguished  in  common 
parlance,  may  meanwhile  suffice  to  convince  us  that  what  we  call  a 
conditio  sine  qua  non  can  stand  in  no  other  relation  to  the  effect  result 
ing  than  does  every  other  co-operative  cause.  The  mere  presence  of 
that  which  in  each  case  is  so  called  is  never  sufficient  to  draw  a 
distinct  event  in  the  way  of  consequence  after  it.  The  case  rather  is 
that  the  presence  of  such  a  complementary  condition  must  always 
manifest  itself  by  an  effect  exercised  on  the  other  real  elements 
which  without  it  would  not  have  sufficed  for  the  production  of  the 
consequence  F. 

Now  if  upon  such  a  supposition  we  assume  first  that  at  a  certain 
moment  a  state  of  things,  G,  is  really  given  which  forms  the  complete 
ground  of  a  necessary  consequence,  F,  there  is  no  conceivable  respect 
in  which  the  lapse  of  an  empty  Time,  T,  should  be  necessary,  or 
could  contribute,  to  bring  about  the  production  of  F  by  G.  Granted 
that,  during  the  time  T,  G  has  continued  without  change,  neither 
producing  F  nor  a  more  immediate  consequence,  /  preliminary  to 
the  other,  then  at  the  end  of  the  interval  T  everything  will  be  just  as 
at  the  beginning,  and  the  lapse  of  time  T  will  have  been  perfectly 
barren.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  during  the  same  interval  G  has  passed 

into  the  series  of  consequences/,  /2,  /3 ,  each  related  to  the  next 

following  as  ground  to  consequence,  the  same  remark  is  applicable  to 
any  two  proximately  related  members  of  this  series.  If /2  is  the  sole 
ground  of/3,  then  the  lapse  of  the  smaller  interval  of  empty  Time  /3 — /2 
can  be  neither  contributory  nor  essential  to  the  production  by/  of  its 
effect/.  It  will  no  doubt  be  objected  that  the  flaw  of  our  argu 
ment  consists  in  this,  that  we  fix  a  certain  momentary  state  of  things, 


CHAPTER  in.]  Empty  Time  does  not  cause  Becoming.        251 

G,  and  consider  this  fixed  state  of  things,  in  complete  identity  with 
itself,  to  act  as  the  operative  cause  of  an  effect ;  whereas  in  fact  G 
only  becomes  such  a  cause  through  a  lapse  of  Time  during  which  it  is 
itself  in  continuous  process  of  becoming.  For  this  reason,  it  will  be 
said,  the  series  of  determinate  causes  and  effects  unfolds  itself  as  a 
process  of  events,  while  on  our  supposition  it  remains  out  of  Time 
and  just  for  that  reason  cannot  form  more  than  a  system  of  members 
which  stand  to  each  other  eternally  in  graduated  relations  of  depend 
ence  without  ever  moving  in  these  relations.  It  must  be  admitted 
that  whoever  puts  this  objection  strikes  a  most  essential  point.  He  is 
perfectly  right  in  insisting  upon  ceaseless  motion  or  uninterrupted 
becoming  as  constituents  of  the  real.  For  undoubtedly,  if  once  the 
perfectly  unchanging  fact  G  were  recognised  as  given,  then  the  con 
sequent  F,  of  which  it  contains  the  sufficient  reason,  would  as  specu- 
latively  valid  truth,  subsist  permanently  along  with  G,  while  considered 
as  reality  it  would  either  always  exist  along  with  it  or  never  come 
into  being  out  of  it.  For  then  the  addition  of  the  lapse  of  an  empty 
Time  /  would  not  produce  the  motion  absent  from  G  at  all,  at  any 
rate  not  produce  it  more  or  less  than  would  the  lapse  of  o  .  /  or  oo  .  /. 
This  shall  be  more  fully  considered  below.  For  the  present  my 
concern  is  to  show  that  for  the  very  process  of  Becoming  in  question 
the  mere  lapse  of  Time  can  afford  no  means,  any  possible  appli 
cation  of  which  could  be  necessary  to  bringing  it  about.  The  proof 
of  this,  however,  I  hold  to  be  involved  in  what  has  been  already  said. 
For  here  it  comes  to  the  same  thing  in  effect  whether  we  only  speak 
of  a  series  of  distinct  causes  which  produce  their  several  effects,  so  to 
speak,  by  jumps,  or  whether  taking  the  case  of  continuity  we  understand 
by  fr  fv  fz  constituents  of  a  continuous  stream  of  causation — con 
stituents  which  are  only  arbitrarily  fixed  in  thought  but  of  which 
really  each  in  turn  moves.  On  the  latter  supposition  it  would  be  just 
as  impossible  that  the  internal  motion,  which  results  in  the  emission 
ofy^  from/g,  should  be  dependent  on  the  lapse  of  the  empty  time 
/3 — /2  in  such  a  way  as  that  it  could  not  take  place  unless  this  lapse 
of  time  preceded.  Such  an  influence  is  unintelligible  unless  we  sup 
pose  that  the  lapse  of  empty  time  can  announce  itself  toy^ — nay  that 
the  completion  of  the  period  /3 — /a  makes  itself  felt  as  different  from 
that  of  the  longer  period  /4 — tv  in  order  that  in  the  former  there  may 
be  occasion  for  the  advance  of  the  process  of  becoming  from/2  only 
tofy  in  the  latter  to/~4.  But  the  ends  of  the  two  periods  are  com 
pletely  like  each  other  and  like  every  other  moment  of  empty  time. 
The  entry  of  the  one  has  no  such  distinction  from  that  of  the  other 


252  Of  Time. 

as  can  give  to/"2  the  signal  for  this  or  that  amount  of  advance.  For 
that  reason  the  sum  of  the  continuously  flowing  moments,  which  forms 
the  duration  of  each  period,  cannot  make  itself  felt  by  the  operative 
powery^  as  a  measure  of  the  work  which  it  has  to  do  in  the  way  of  pro 
duction  of  Becoming.  On  the  contrary,  it  will  only  be  in  the  same 
way  in  which  we  measure  a  period  of  Time  for  purposes  of  our  know 
ledge  that  the  length  of  this  period  can  announce  itself  to/2  so  as  to 
determine  the  magnitude  of  the  change  which  f^  has  to  undergo. 
This  is  by  the  enumeration  of  the  repetitions  of  a  similar  process, 
which  at  the  end  of  some  period  of  Time  exhibits  a  different  state  of 
reality  from  what  it  did  at  the  beginning.  So  far  as  our  knowledge 
is  concerned,  the  perception  of  the  different  positions  which  a 
pendulum,  for  instance,  occupies  at  the  beginning  and  at  the  end  of 
its  vibration,  would  suffice  for  the  purpose.  For  a  reality,  which  was 
to  take  account  of  the  lapse  of  Time  in  order  to  direct  its  becoming 
accordingly,  there  would  be  needed  the  constant  summing  of  the 
impressions  received  by  it  from  another  real  process,  by  means  of 
which  it  itself  or  its  own  condition  had  been  so  changed  as  to  be 
able  to  serve  as  indicator  of  the  length  of  Time  elapsed.  The  con 
clusion  plainly  is  that  a  process  of  becoming,  B,  which  required  a 
lapse  of  time  in  order  to  come  about,  must  have  already  traversed  in 
itself  a  succession  of  different  stages,  in  order  to  feel  in  that  succes 
sion  the  lengths  of  the  periods  according  to  which  it  is  supposed  to 
direct  itself,  and  which  it  is  supposed  to  employ  for  the  purpose  of 
effecting  the  transition  from  one  stage  to  another. 

148.  These  considerations  do  not  lead  us  at  once  to  the  end  of 
our  task.  For  the  present  I  may  put  their  result,  which  I  shall  not 
again  discuss,  as  follows.  It  is  quite  unallowable  to  put  the  system  of 
definite  causes  and  effects,  which  gives  its  character  to  any  occurrence, 
on  one  side  and  on  the  other  side  to  suppose  a  stream  of  empty 
Time,  and  then  to  throw  the  definitely  characterised  event  into  the 
stream  in  expectation  that  its  fabric  of  simultaneous  conditions  will 
in  the  fluidity  of  this  stream  melt  into  a  succession,  in  which  each  of 
the  graduated  relations  of  dependence  will  find  its  appropriate  point 
of  time  and  the  period  of  its  manifestation.  It  is  only  in  the  actual 
content  of  what  happens,  not  in  a  form  present  outside  it  into  which 
it  may  fall,  that  the  reason  can  be  found  for  its  elements  being  related 
to  each  other  in  an  order  of  succession,  and  at  the  same  time  for  the 
times  at  which  they  succeed  each  other. 

The  other  view  therefore  begins  to  press  itself  upon  us — the  view 
that  it  is  not  Time  that  precedes  the  process  of  Becoming  and 


CHAPTER  1 1 1.]  'Becoming* produces  Time.  253 

Activity,  but  this  that  precedes  Time  and  brings  forth  from  itself 
either  the  real  course  of  Time  or  the  appearance  in  us  of  there  being 
such  a  thing.  The  constant  contradiction  to  this  reversal  of  the 
habitual  way  of  looking  at  the  matter  which  our  imagination  would 
present,  we  could  no  more  get  rid  of  than  we  could  of  the  habit  of 
saying  that  the  sun  rises  and  sets.  What  we  might  hope  to  do  would 
be  to  understand  one  illusion  as  well  as  the  other.  It  is  also  our 
habit  to  speak  of  general  laws,  standing  outside  things  and  oc 
currences  and  regulating  their  course ;  yet  we  have  been  forced  to 
the  conviction  that  these  have  no  reality  except  in  the  various  par 
ticular  cases  of  their  application.  Only  that  which  happens  and 
acts  in  determinate  forms  is  the  real.  The  general  law  is  the 
product  of  our  comparison  of  the  various  cases.  After  we  have 
discovered  it,  it  appears  to  us  as  the  first,  and  the  realities,  out  of 
the  consideration  of  which  it  arose,  as  dependent  on  its  antecedence. 
In  just  the  same  way,  after  the  manifold  web  of  occurrence  has 
in  countless  instances  assumed  for  us  forms  of  succession  in 
Time,  we  misunderstand  the  general  character  of  these  forms,  which 
results  from  our  comparison  of  them — the  empty  flowing  Time — and 
take  it  for  a  condition  antecedent,  to  which  the  occurrence  of  events 
must  adjust  itself  in  order  to  be  possible.  That  we  are  mistaken  in 
so  doing  and  that  the  operation  of  such  a  condition  is  unthinkable— 
this  '  reductio  ad  impossibile,'  which  I  have  sought  to  make  out,  is,  it 
must  be  admitted,  the  only  thing  which  can  be  opposed  to  this 
unavoidable  habit  of  our  mental  vision. 

149.  The  positive  view,  which  we  found  emerging  in  place  of  the 
illusion  rejected,  is  still  ambiguous.  Is  it  a  real  Time  that  the  pro 
cess  of  events,  in  its  process,  produces  or  only  the  appearance  of 
Time  in  us?  In  answering  this  question  we  cannot  simply  affirm 
either  of  the  alternatives.  One  thing  is  certainly  clear,  that  the 
production  of  Time  must  be  a  production  sut  generis.  Time  does 
not  remain  as  a  realised  product  behind  the  process  that  produces  it. 
As  little  does  it  lie  before  that  process  as  a  material  out  of  which 
the  process  can  constantly  complete  itself.  Past  and  Future  are  not^ 
and  the  representation  of  them  both  as  dimensions  of  Time  is  in  fact 
but  an  artificial  projection,  which  takes  place  only  for  our  mind's  eye, 
of  the  unreal  upon  the  plane  which  we  think  of  as  containing  the 
world's  real  state  of  existence. 

Undoubtedly  therefore  Time,  conceived  as  an  infinite  whole  with\ 
its  two  opposite  extensions,  is  but  a  subjective  presentation  to  oun 
mind's  eye ;  or  rather  it  is  an  attempt,  by  means  of  images  borrowed 


t 


254  Of  Time.  IBOOKII. 

from  space,  to  render  so  presentable  a  thought  which  we  entertain  as 
to  the  inner  dependence  of  the  individual  constituents  of  that  which 
happens.  What  we  call  Past,  we  regard  primarily  as  the  condition 
'  sine  qua  non '  of  the  Present,  and  in  the  Present  we  see  the  necessary 
condition  of  the  Future.  This  one-sided  relation  of  dependence, 
abstracted  from  the  content  so  related  and  extended  over  all  cases 
which  it  in  its  nature  admits  of,  leads  to  the  idea  of  an  infinite  Time, 
in  which  every  point  of  the  Past  forms  the  point  of  transition  to 
Present  and  Future,  but  no  point  of  Present  or  Future  forms  a  point 
of  transition  to  the  Past.  That  this  process  must  appear  infinite 
scarcely  needs  to  be  pointed  out.  The  condition  of  that  which  has 
a  definite  character  can  never  lie  in  a  complete  absence  of  such 
character.  Every  state  of  facts,  accordingly,  of  which  we  might  think 
for  a  moment  as  the  beginning  of  reality,  would  immediately  appear 
to  us  either  as  a  continuation  of  a  previous  like  state  of  facts,  or  as  a 
product  of  one  unlike ;  and  in  like  manner  every  state  of  facts 
momentarily  assumed  to  be  an  end  would  appear  as  the  condition  of 
the  continuance  of  the  same  state  of  facts,  or  in  turn  as  the  beginning 
of  a  new  one.  If  finally  the  course  of  the  world  were  thought  of  as 
a  history,  which  really  had  a  beginning  and  end,  still  beyond  both 
alike  we  should  present  to  ourselves  the  infinite  void  of  a  Past  and 
Future,  just  as  two  straight  lines  in  space  which  cut  each  other  at  the 
limit  of  the  real,  still  demand  an  empty  extension  beyond  in  which 
they  may  again  diverge. 

150.  It  will  be  felt,  however,  that  we  have  not  yet  reached  the  end 
of  our  doubts.  It  will  be  maintained  that  though  the  process  of  Be 
coming  does  indeed  make  no  abiding  Time,  it  yet  does  really  bring 
into  being  or  include  the  course  of  Time,  by  means  of  which  the 
various  parts  of  the  content  of  what  happens,  standing  to  each  other 
in  the  relation  of  dependence  described  above,  having  been  at  first  only 
something  future,  acquire  seriatim  the  character  of  the  Present  and 
the  Past.  If  we  chose  to  confine  ourselves  simply  to  highly  deve 
loped  thought,  and  to  regard  the  dimensions  of  Time  merely  as 
expressions  for  conditioned-ness  or  the  power  of  conditioning,  then 
the  whole  content  of  the  world  would  again  change  into  a  motionless 
systematic  whole,  and  everything  would  depend  on  the  position  which 
a  consciousness  capable  of  viewing  the  whole  might  please  to  take  up 
facing,  so  to  speak,  some  one  part  of  it,  m.  From  this  point  of  departure, 
m,  the  contemplator  would  reckon  everything  as  belonging  to  the  Past, 
m—  i,  in  which  he  had  recognised  the  conditions  that  make  the  con 
tent  of  m  what  it  is,  while  he  would  assign  to  the  Future,  m+i9  all  the 


CHAPTER  in.]  Past,  Present^  and  Future,  without  Time.    255 

consequences  which  the  necessities  of  thought  compelled  him  to  draw 
from  it :  and  this  assignment  of  names  would  change  according  as  m 
or  n  might  be  made  the  point  of  departure  for  this  judgment.  This 
however  does  not  represent  the  real  state  of  the  case.  This  capa 
city  of  tracing  out  the  connexion  of  occurrences  in  both  directions — 
forwards  and  backwards — would  only  be  possible  to  a  consciousness 
standing  outside  the  completed  course  of  the  world.  It  belongs  to  us 
only  in  relation  to  the  past,  so  far  as  the  past  has  become  known  to 
us  through  tradition.  Immediate  experience  is  confined  to  a  definite 
range,  and  neither  does  the  recollection  of  the  past  reproduce  for 
experience  its  actual  duration,  nor  does  the  sure  foresight  of  the 
future,  in  the  few  cases  where  it  is  possible,  take  the  place  for  ex 
perience  of  the  real  occurrence  of  the  foreseen  event. 

What  then  is  the  proper  meaning  of  the  Reality,  which  in  this 
connexion  of  thought  we  ascribe  only  to  the  Present  ?  Or  con 
versely,  what  constitutes  this  character  of  the  present,  which  we 
suppose  to  belong  successively  in  unalterable  series  to  the  events  of 
which  each  has  its  cause  in  the  other,  and  to  be  equivalent  to  reality  ? 
I  will  not  attempt  to  prepare  the  way  for  an  answer  to  this  question, 
or  to  lead  up  to  it  as  a  discovery.  I  will  merely  state  what  seems  to 
me  the  only  possible  answer  to  it.  It  is  not  the  mere  fact  that  they 
happen  which  attaches  this  character  to  the  content  of  events.  On 
the  contrary  the  import  of  the  statement  that  they  happen  is  only 
explained  by  the  expression  '  the  Present,'  in  which  Language  aptly 
makes  us  aware  of  the  necessity  of  a  subject,  in  relation  to  which 
alone  the  thinkable  content  of  the  world's  course  can  be  distinguished 
either  as  merely  thinkable  and  absent  on  the  one  hand,  or  on  the 
other  as  real  and  present.  To  explain  this,  however,  I  am  obliged 
to  go  into  detail  to  an  extent  for  which  I  must  ask  indulgence  and 
patience. 

151.  Let  us  consider  one  of  the  finite  spiritual  beings  like  our 
selves,  which  shall  be  called  S.  In  the  collective  content  of  the 
world,  7J/,  which  to  begin  with  we  will  think  of  as  we  did  before, 
merely  as  a  regularly  arranged  whole  of  causes  and  effects,  S  has  its 
proper  place  in  the  system  at  m  between  a  past  JH  —  I,  which  con 
tains  its  conditions,  and  a  future  m+i,  of  which  it  is  itself  a  joint 
condition.  We  will  first  assume  that  the  place  m,  which  S  holds  in 
M,  is  without  extension.  By  this  I  mean  that  it  is  only  in  this  single 
plane  of  a  section  m  through  the  manifold  interlacing  series  of  causes 
and  effects  which  forms  the  content  of  M—  not  in  any  other  m—  i  or 
m  -f  i — that  there  lie  the  conditions  of  S :  while  at  the  same  time 


256  Of  Time.  t  BOOK  1 1 . 

every  element  of  M — S  among  others — may  be  supposed  to  have 
knowledge,  immediately  and  not  by  gradual  acquisition,  as  to  the  whole 
structure  and  content  of  M.  All  that  would  be  implied  in  this  sup 
position  would  be  that  S  would  no  longer  be  able  at  its  pleasure  to 
seek  out  positions  indifferent  as  concerned  itself  for  its  survey  of  the 
whole  of  M.  Being  only  able  to  plant  itself  in  the  position  /»,  every 
thing  in  which  it  recognises  a  joint  condition  of  its  own  being  will 
appear  to  belong  to  a  different  branch,  m—i,  of  the  world's  content, 
from  that  in  which  it  finds  reactions  from  its  own  existence — that 
existence  which  is  confined  to  m.  At  the  same  time  this  knowledge 
on  the  part  of  S,  that  it  is  merely  co-ordinated  in  this  entire  system 
of  conditions  with  the  other  parts  of  the  world's  content  that  are  in 
cluded  in  m,  would  remain  a  mere  speculative  insight,  which  would 
excite  in  -S1  no  stronger  interest  in  this  m,  and  one  of  no  other  nature, 
than  the  interest  in  the  fact  of  the  dependence  of  m  upon  m  —  i  and 
of  m  +  i  upon  m.  Thus,  although  S  would  distinguish  according  to 
their  import  the  two  branches  of  the  system  of  conditions  that  have 
their  point  of  departure  in  m,  it  would  yet  have  no  occasion  to 
oppose  them  both  to  m  as  what  is  unreal  and  absent  to  what  is  real 
and  present.  And  this  would  still  be  the  case,  though  we  so  far 
altered  our  assumption  as  to  suppose  6"  to  be  not  only  contained  in 
the  one  section-plane  m  of  J/,  but  also  to  be  co-ordinated  with  the 
contents  of  other  planes  m  —  a  and  mi- a,  without  undergoing  any 
change  in  itself.  To  us  indeed,  who  are  accustomed  to  the  idea  of 
Time,  this  position  of  S  in  a  system  would  present  itself  as  a  duration, 
as  the  filling  by  S  of  the  period  of  time,  2  a  :  but  to  S  itself,  if  S 
continued  to  possess  the  immediate  knowledge  supposed,  it  could 
only  convey  the  speculative  impression  that  S  is  interwoven  in  an 
extended  section  of  M,  while  -S"  would  still  have  no  occasion  to 
oppose  this  section  as  present  to  others  as  absent. 

All  this  would  be  changed  on  one  supposition  only,  which  indeed 
for  other  reasons  must  be  made  ;  the  supposition,  namely,  that  the 
place  of  5  in  the  system  contains  not  only  the  conditions  of  its  exist 
ence  but  those  of  its  knowledge.  In  this  is  implied  that  only  those 
elements  of  m  —  i  can  be  an  object  of  its  knowledge  which  not  only 
systematically  precede  it  as  conditions  but  of  which  the  consequences 
are  contained  in  m,  and  only  as  far  as  their  consequences  are  so  con 
tained.  Of  m+  i  on  the  contrary  all  that  will  be  knowable  will  be  the 
impulse,  already  present  in  m,  which  is  the  condition  of  m+  i.  Even 
the  entire  content  of  m  will  not,  merely  as  such,  form  an  object  of 
knowledge  to  S.  Even  the  fact  of  belonging  to  m  is  for  each  element 


CHAPTER  in.]  The  indication  of  7^ime  to  the  Subject.         257 

of  it  only  the  condition  of  a  more  special  relation  to  S,  which  we  may 
call  its  effect  on  6"  in  the  way  of  producing  knowledge.  If  now  we 
return  to  our  supposition  that  m  is  a  place  without  extension,  then 
the  knowledge  possessed  by  S  will  be  an  unchangeable  presentation 
to  consciousness,  without  there  being  any  occasion  for  the  distinction 
of  Present  from  Future  in  it.  If  on  the  contrary  £  found  itself  con 
tained  in  the  whole  extended  section  2  a  of  M,  then  it  would  follow — 
since  we  are  now  supposing  its  knowledge  to  rest  upon  the  effect 
produced  in  it  by  the  content  of  this  section — that  S  is  no  longer 
identical  with  itself  in  all  points  of  2  a,  but  has  to  be  defined  by 
sv  sv  sz>  corresponding  to  the  various  conditions  to  which  it  is 
subject  in  the  various  points  of  2  a.  But  thus  S  would  fall  asunder 
into  a  multiplicity  of  finite  beings,  unless  something  supervened  to 
justify  us  in  adhering  to  the  unity  asserted  of  it,  and  this  justification, 
if  it  is  not  merely  to  establish  an  accidental  view  about  s  in  us 
but  to  constitute  an  essential  unity  on  the  part  of  s,  can  only  consist 
in  an  action  of  its  own  on  the  part  of  s  by  which  it  unites  the 
several  s's. 

This  requirement  however  is  not  satisfied  by  the  assumption  of  an 
S  having  unity,  which  distinguishes  the  several  j's  in  itself  as  its 
states.  S  as  thus  constituted  would  still  never  live  through  any 
experience.  The  whole  content  of  its  being  would  be  presented  to  it 
just  in  the  same  way  as  on  our  previous  supposition.  There  would 
indeed  be  a  clear  insight  into  the  plan  upon  which  the  elements 
are  formed  into  a  connected  whole,  but  the  whole  would  be  pre 
sented  simultaneously,  just  as  is  the  frame-work  of  theoretic  pro 
positions  which  appear  to  us  not  as  arising  out  of  each  other  in  a 
course  of  time  but  as  always  holding  good  at  the  same  time,  although 
we  understand  their  dependence  on  each  other.  Only  one  of  the 
j's  can  in  any  case  be  the  knowing  subject,  but  in  it— in  J3,  let  us 
say— the  content  of  ja  must  not  only  be  contained  by  its  conse 
quences,  through  which  it  helps  to  constitute  the  nature  of  ss,  but 
this  content  as  presented  to  consciousness  must  be  distinguishable 
in  the  form  of  a  recollection  from  that  which  belongs  to  s3  as  its 
own  feeling  or  perception.  On  this  condition  only  is  it  possible  for 
s3  to  distinguish  this  latter  experience  as  present  from  that  repre 
sented  content  as  absent,  and  on  the  same  condition,  since  the  same 
reproduction  of  sl  in  J2  has  already  taken  place,  the  whole  series  of 
these  mutually  dependent  contents,  as  represented  in  consciousness, 
while  preserving  its  inner  order,  will  be  pushed  back  to  various  dis 
tances  of  absence.  The  question  indeed  as  to  the  foundation  of  this 

VOL.  i.  s 


258  Of  Time. 

faculty  of  distinguishing  a  represented  absent  object  from  one  ex 
perienced  as  present  is  a  question  upon  which  any  psychological 
or  physiological  explanation  may  be  thankfully  accepted  in  its  place. 
Here  however  it  would  be  useless.  What  we  are  now  concerned 
with  is  merely  the  fact  itself,  that  we  are  able  to  make  this  distinction 
and  to  represent  to  ourselves  what  we  have  experienced  without 
experiencing  it  again.  This  alone  renders  it  possible  for  ideas  of 
a  proper  succession  to  be  developed  in  us,  in  which  the  member  n 
has  a  different  kind  of  reality  from  n+  i.  It  would  have  been  more 
convenient  to  arrive  at  this  result  otherwise  than  by  this  tedious  pro 
cess  of  development.  I  thought  the  process  indispensable,  however, 
because  it  leads  to  some  peculiar  deductions,  which  require  further 
patient  consideration. 

152.  For  instance  ;  what  has  been  said  will  be  found  very  in 
telligible — not  to  say,  obvious — if  only  we  allow  ourselves  to  inter 
polate  the  thought  that  sz  ceases  to  exist  when  it  has  produced  s3 ; 
that  thus  there  is  a  time  in  which  those  section-planes  of  M  or  of  2  a 
succeed  each  other.  But  it  will  be  thought  to  be  as  impossible  after 
our  discussion  as  it  was  before  it,  to  look  upon  the  content  of  the 
world  as  out  of  time,  a  whole  of  which  the  members  are  related 
systematically  but  not  successively,  while  yet  there  arises  in  parts  of 
it  the  appearance  of  there  being  a  lapse  of  time  on  the  part  of  the 
periods  which  those  parts  observe.  For  if  there  is  no  successive 
alternation  of  Being  and  not-Being,  then,  it  will  be  said,  every  stage 
of  development,  sv  which  a  subject,  s3,  believes  itself  to  have  ex 
perienced  in  the  past,  will  possess,  as  a  ground  of  J3,  the  same 
reality  as  the  consequence  s3  itself.  Accordingly  we  should  be  com 
pelled,  it  would  seem,  to  think  of  all  that  is  past — all  histories,  actions, 
and  states  of  an  earlier  time — as  still  existing  and  happening ;  and 
every  individual  being  JB,  would  have  alongside  of  itself  as  many 
doubles,  sv  sv  s3,  completing  themselves  one  after  another,  as  it  counts 
various  moments  in  the  existence  which  it  seems  to  have  lived  through. 

Against  this  objection,  however,  we  must  maintain  that  such  pecu 
liar  views  would  not  be  the  logical  consequence  of  our  denial  of  the 
lapse  of  Time,  but  on  the  contrary  of  the  inconsistency  of  allowing 
the  succession  that  has  been  denied  again  to  mix  itself  with  our 
thoughts.  For  only  this  habituation  of  our  imagination  to  the  idea  of 
Time  could  mislead  us  into  treating  the  elements  of  the  world, 
which  are  of  equal  value— all,  that  is  to  say,  equally  indispensable  to 
the  whole — as  if  they  must  be  contemporaneous  unless  they  are  to 
be  successive,  whan  all  the  while  our  purpose  was  to  show  that  every 


CHAPTER  1 1 1.]       Developed  view  of  Subjective  Time.          259 

determination  in  the  way  of  time  is  inapplicable  to  them,  as  such. 
We  shall  never  succeed  in  ridding  ourselves  of  this  habit  of  fantasy. 
Only  in  thinking  shall  we  be  able  to  convince  ourselves,  in  standing 
conflict  with  our  demand  for  images  presentable  to  the  mind's  eye, 
that  adherence  to  the  assumption  of  timelessness  does  not  lead  to  the 
consequences  in  which  we  have  just  found  a  stumbling-block. 
There  would  not  indeed  on  our  view  be  that  kind  of  past  into  which 
the  conditioning  stage  of  development  would  be  supposed  to  vanish 
instead  of  illegitimately  continuing  in  the  present  alongside  of  the 
consequence  conditioned  by  it — that  consequence  to  which  it  ought 
to  have  transferred  the  exclusive  possession  of  the  quality  of  being 
present.  The  histories  of  the  past  would  not  continue  to  live  in  this 
present,  petrified  in  each  of  their  phases,  alongside  of  that  which 
further  proceeded  to  happen  in  the  course  of  things.  It  would  not 
be  the  case  that  sl  really  existed  earlier  than  J2  and  strangely  con 
tinued  along  with  it,  but  rather  that  it  had  reality  only  so  far  as  it  was 
contained  in  s2  and  was  presented  by  the  latter  to  itself  as  earlier. 
It  will  be  with  Time  as  with  Space.  As  we  saw,  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  a  Space  in  which  things  are  supposed  to  take  their  places. 
The  case  rather  is  that  in  spiritual  beings  there  is  formed  the  idea  of 
an  extension,  in  which  they  themselves  seem  to  have  their  lot  and  in 
which  they  spatially  present  to  themselves  their  non-spatial  relations 
to  each  other.  In  like  manner  there  is  no  real  Time  in  which  occur 
rences  run  their  course,  but  in  the  single  elements  of  the  Universe 
which  are  capable  of  a  limited  knowledge  there  developes  itself  the  idea 
of  a  Time  in  which  they  assign  themselves  their  position  in  relation  to 
their  more  remote  or  nearer  conditions  as  to  what  is  more  or  less 
long  past,  and  in  relation  to  their  more  remote  or  nearer  conse 
quences  as  to  a  future  that  is  to  be  looked  for  more  or  less  late. 

It  is  not  out  of  wantonness  that  I  have  gone  so  far  in  delineating 
this  paradoxical  way  of  looking  at  things.  It  is  what  we  must  come 
to  if  we  wish  to  put  clearly  before  us  the  view  of  the  merely  subjective 
validity  of  Time  in  relation  to  a  timeless  reality.  It  is  vexatious  to 
listen  to  the  mere  asseveration  of  this  antithesis  without  the  question 
being  asked  whether,  when  adopted,  it  intrinsically  admits  of  being  in 
any  way  carried  out,  and  whether  it  would  be  a  sufficient  guide  to  the 
understanding  of  that  experience  from  which  we  all  start.  The  de 
scription  which  has  been  given  will  be  enough  to  raise  a  doubt  whether 
the  latter  is  the  case.  The  reasons  for  this  doubt  however  are  not 
all  of  equal  value.  In  regard  to  them  again,  while  passing  to  the  con 
sideration  of  this  contradiction,  I  must  ask  to  be  allowed  some  detail. 

s  2 


260  Of  Time. 

153.  In  order  to  find  a  point  of  departure  in  what  is  familiar,  I 
will  first  repeat  the  objection  which  will  always  recur.  Pointing  to 
the  external  world  the  objector  will  enquire — '  Is  it  not  then  the  case 
that  something  is  for  ever  happening  ?  Do  not  things  change  ? 
Do  they  not  operate  on  each  other  ?  And  is  all  this  imaginable 
without  a  lapse  of  time  ? '  Imaginable  it  certainly  is  not,  and  we 
have  never  maintained  that  it  is  so.  But  in  what  relation  do  the 
lapse  of  Time  and  this  happening  stand  to  each  other,  which  might 
enable  us  to  maintain  the  correctness  of  this  imagination  of  ours  ? 
That  it  is  only  in  what  is  contained  in  a  sufficient  cause,  G,  that 
there  lies  a  necessity  for  the  consequence,  F — that  the  necessity,  if 
otherwise  lacking,  could  not  supervene  through  lapse  of  a  time,  T— 
this  we  found  obviously  true.  It  was  admitted  also  that,  G  being 
given,  it  would  neither  be  intelligible  where  the  hindrance  should 
come  from  which  should  retard  its  transition  into  F,  nor  how  the 
lapse  of  empty  Time  could  overcome  that  hindrance.  Thus  con 
strained  to  confess  that  our  habit  of  thinking  the  effect  as  after  the 
cause  does  not  point  to  anything  which  in  the  things  themselves  con 
tributes  to  the  production  of  the  effect,  what  other  conclusion  can  we 
draw  than  this,  that  succession  in  Time  is  something  which  our  mode 
of  apprehension  alone  introduces  into  things — introduces  in  a  way 
absolutely  inevitable  for  us,  so  that  our  thought  about  things  remains 
constantly  in  contradiction  with  our  habit  of  presenting  them  to  the 
mind's  eye  ? 

One  may  attempt  to  make  this  thought  clear  to  oneself  by  gradual 
approximation.  To  a  definite  period  of  Time  it  is  our  habit  in 
common  apprehension  to  ascribe  a  certain  absolute  quantity.  If  we 
ask  ourselves,  however,  how  long  a  century  or  an  hour  properly  lasts, 
we  at  once  recollect  that  the  time  filled  by  one  series  of  events  we 
always  measure  simply  according  to  its  relation  to  another  series, 
with  the  ends  of  which  those  of  the  first  series  do  or  do  not  coincide. 
Our  ordinary  impression  of  the  duration  of  periods  of  time  is  itself 
the  uncertain  result  of  such  a  comparison,  in  which  we  are  not  clearly 
conscious  of  the  standard  of  our  measurement.  Hence  the  same 
period  may  appear  long  or  short  in  memory.  The  multiplicity  of 
the  events  contained  in  it  gives  it  greater  extent  for  the  imagination. 
Poverty  of  events  makes  it  shrink  into  nothing.  It  has  itself  no 
extensive  quantity  which  is  properly  its  own.  Therefore  no  hindrance 
meets  us  in  the  attempt  to  suppose  as  short  a  time  as  we  will  for  the 
collective  course  of  events.  However  small  we  think  it,  still  it  is  not 
in  it  but  in  the  dependence  of  events  on  each  other  that  the  reason 


CHAPTER  in.]        Succession  essential  to  Reality  f  261 

lies  of  the  order  in  which  events  occur  ;  and  the  entire  history  which 
fills  centuries  admits  of  being  presented  in  a  similar  image,  as  con 
densed  into  an  infinitely  small  space  of  Time  through  proportional 
diminution  of  all  dimensions. 

With  this  admission  however  it  will  be  thought  necessary  to  come 
to  a  stop.  However  small,  it  will  be  said,  still  this  differential  of 
Time  must  contain  a  distinction  of  before  and  after,  and  thus  a  lapse, 
though  one  infinitely  small.  But  we  want  to  know  exactly  why. 
Undoubtedly  the  transition  to  a  moment  completely  without  extension 
would  deprive  History  of  the  character  of  succession  in  Time ;  but 
then  our  question  is  just  this,  whether  the  real  needed  this  succession 
on  its  own  part  in  order  to  its  appearance  as  successive  to  us.  And 
in  regard  to  this  we  must  constantly  repeat  what  has  been  already 
said ;  that  neither  could  the  order  of  events  be  constituted  by  Time, 
if  it  were  not  determined  by  the  inner  connexion  of  things,  nor  is  it 
intelligible  how  Time  should  begin  to  bring  that  which  already  has  a 
sufficient  cause  to  reality,  if  that  reality  is  still  lacking  to  it.  On  the 
other  hand,  we  believe  that  we  do  understand  how  a  presentative 
faculty  such  as  to  derive  from  its  own  nature  the  habit  of  viewing  the 
world  as  in  time,  should  find  occasion  in  the  inner  connexion  between 
the  constituents  of  that  world,  as  conditioning  and  conditioned  by 
each  other,  to  treat  its  parts  as  following  each  other  in  a  definite 
order  and  as  assuming  lengths — definite  in  relation  to  each  other  but, 
apart  from  such  relation,  quite  arbitrary  —  of  this  imagined  Time. 
Thus  even  upon  this  method,  by  help  of  the  idea  of  an  infinitely 
small  moment,  we  should  have  mastered  the  thought  of  a  complete 
timelessness  on  the  part  of  what  fills  the  world.  For  in  that  case  we 
should  certainly  not  go  out  of  our  way  to  think  of  that  extension  of 
time,  within  which  this  moment  would  seem  of  a  vanishing  smallness, 
and  so  bring  on  the  world  the  reproach  of  a  short  and  fleeting 
existence,  as  compared  with  the  duration  which  expansion  into  in 
finite  Time  would  have  promised  it. 

154.  After  all,  it  will  be  objected,  we  have  not  yet  touched  the 
proper  difficulty.  If  all  that  we  had  to  take  account  of  were  an 
external  course  of  the  world,  then  it  would  indeed  cost  us  little  effort 
to  regard  all  that  it  contains  as  timeless,  and  to  hold  that  it  is  only  in 
relation  to  our  way  of  looking  at  it  that  it  unfolds  itself  into  a  succes 
sion.  But  the  motion,  which  we  should  thus  have  excluded  from  the 
outer  world,  would  so  much  the  more  surely  have  been  transferred 
into  our  Thought,  which,  on  the  given  supposition,  must  itself  pass 
from  one  of  the  elements  which  constitute  the  world  to  another,  in 


262  Of  Time. 

order  to  make  them  successive  for  its  contemplation.     For  the  un 
folding,  by  which  what  is  in  itself  timeless  comes  to  be  in  time,  cannot 
take  place  in  us  without  a  real  lapse  of  Time ;  the  appearance  of  succes 
sion  cannot  take  place  without  a  succession  of  images  in  conscious 
ness,  nor  an  apparent  transition  of  a  into  b  without  the  real  transition 
which  we  should  in  such  a  case  effect  from  the  image  of  a  to  that  of  b. 
But  convincing  as  these  assertions  are,  they  are  as  far  from  con 
taining  the  whole  truth.     On  the  contrary,  without  the  addition  of 
something  further,  the  doctrine  which  they  allege  would  be  fatal  to 
the  possibility  of  that  which  it  is  sought  to  establish.     If  the  idea  of 
the  later  b  in  fact  merely  followed  on  that  of  the  earlier  a,  then  a 
change  of  ideas  would  indeed  take  place,  but  there  would  still  be  no 
idea  of  this  change.     There  would  be  a  lapse  of  time,  but  not  an 
appearance  of  such  change  to  any  one.     In  order  to  a  comparison  in 
which  b  shall  be  known  as  the  later  it  is  necessary  in  turn  that  the 
two  presentations  of  a  and  b  should  be  objects,  throughout  simul 
taneous,  of  a  relating  knowledge,  which,  itself  completely  indivisible, 
holds  them  together  in  a  single  indivisible  act.     If  there  is  a  belief 
on  the  part  of  this  knowledge  that  it  passes  from  one  of  its  related 
points  to  another,  it  will  not  itself  form  this  idea  of  its  transition 
through  the  mere  fact  of  the  transition  taking  place.     In  order  that 
the  idea  may  be  possible,  the  points  with  which  its  course  severally 
begins  and  ends,  being  separate  in  time,  must  again  be  apprehended 
in  a  single  picture  by  the  mind  as  the  limits  between  which  that 
course  lies.     All  ideas  of  a  course,  a  distance,  a  transition — all,  in 
short,  which  contain  a  comparison  of  several  elements  and  the  re 
lation  between  them — can  as  such  only  be  thought  of  as  products  of 
a   timelessly  comprehending   knowledge.     They  would    all   be    im 
possible,  if  the  presentative  act  itself  were  wholly  reducible  to  that 
succession  in  Time  which  it  regards  as  the  peculiarity  of  the  objects 
presented  by  it.     Nay  if  we  go  further  and  make  the  provisional 
admission  that  we  really  had  the  idea  of  a  before  we  had  that  of  b, 
still  a  can  only  be  known  as  the  earlier  on  being  held  together  with  b  in 
an  indivisible  act  of  comparison.     It  is  at  this  moment,  at  which  a  is 
no  longer  the  earlier  nor  b  the  later,  that  for  knowledge  a  appears  as 
the  earlier  and  b  as  the  later.     In  assigning  these  determinate  places, 
however,  to  the  two,  the  soul  can  only  be  guided  by  some  sort  of 
qualitative  differences  in  their  content — by  temporal  signs,  if  we  like 
to  say  so,  corresponding  to  the  local  signs  in  accordance  with  which 
the  «0;z-spatial  consciousness  expands  its  impressions  into  a  system  of 
spatial  juxtaposition. 


CHAPTER  HI.]   Time-distinctions  and '  Temporal  signs'.       263 

Such  could  not  but  be  the  state  of  the  case  even  if  there  were  a 
lapse  of  Time  in  which  our  ideas  successively  formed  themselves. 
The  real  lapse  of  Time  would  not,  immediately  as  such,  be  a  sufficient 
cause  to  that  which  combines  and  knows  of  the  succession  in  Time 
which  it  presents  to  itself.  It  would  be  so  only  mediately  through 
signs  derived  by  each  constituent  element  of  the  world  from  that 
place  in  the  order  of  Time  into  which  it  had  fallen.  But  such  various 
signs  could  not  be  stamped  on  the  various  elements  by  empty  time, 
even  though  it  elapsed,  since  one  of  its  elements  is  exactly  like  every 
other.  They  could  only  be  derived  from  the  peculiar  manner  in 
which  each  element  is  inwoven  into  the  texture  of  conditions  which 
determine  the  content  of  the  world.  But  just  for  that  reason  there 
was  no  need  of  a  real  sequence  in  Time  to  annex  them  to  our  ideas 
as  characteristic  incidental  distinctions.  Thus  it  would  certainly  be 
possible  for  a  presentative  consciousness,  without  any  need  of  Time, 
to  be  led  by  means  of  temporal  signs,  which  in  their  turn  need  not 
have  their  origin  in  Time,  to  arrange  its  several  objects  in  an  apparent 
succession  in  the  way  of  Time. 

155.  I  am  painfully  aware  that  my  reader's  patience  must  be 
nearly  exhausted.  Granted,  he  will  say,  that  in  every  single  case  in 
which  a  relation  or  comparison  is  instituted  this  timeless  faculty  of 
knowing  is  active:  it  remains  none  the  less  true  that  numberless 
repetitions  of  such  action  really  succeed  each  other.  Yesterday  our 
timeless  faculty  of  knowledge  was  employed  in  presenting  the  suc 
cession  of  a  and  b,  to-day  it  presents  that  from  c  to  d.  There  are 
thus,  it  would  seem,  many  instances  of  Timeless  occurrence  which 
really  succeed  each  other  in  Time.  I  venture,  however,  once  again 
to  ask,  Whence  are  we  to  know  that  this  is  so  ?  And  if  it  were*so, 
in  what  way  could  we  know  of  it?  That  consciousness,  to  which 
the  comparison  made  yesterday  appears  as  earlier  than  that  made 
to-day,  must  yet  be  the  consciousness  which  we  have  to-day,  not 
that  which  may  have  been  yesterday  and  have  vanished  in  the  course 
of  Time.  That  which  appears  to  us  as  of  yesterday  cannot  so 
appear  to  us  because  it  is  not  in  our  consciousness,  but  because  it 
is  in  it ;  while  at  the  same  time  it  is  somehow  so  qualitatively  deter 
mined,  that  our  mental  vision  can  assign  it  its  place  only  in  the  past 
branch  of  apparent  Time. 

I  will  allow,  however,  that  this  last  reply  yields  no  result.  The 
Past  indeed,  of  which  we  believe  ourselves  already  to  have  had  living 
experience,  one  may  try  to  exhibit  as  a  system  of  things  which  has 
never  run  a  course  in  Time,  and  which  only  consciousness,  for  its 


264  Of  Time. 

own  benefit,  expands  into  a  preceding  history  in  Time.  But  how  then 
would  the  case  stand  with  the  Future,  which  we  suppose  ourselves 
still  on  the  way  to  meet?  Let  J3,  according  to  the  symbols  pre 
viously  used,  stand  for  this  Ego,  which  J2  and  jx  never  really  preceded 
but  always  seem  to  have  preceded,  what  then  is  J4  which  ss  in  turn 
will  thus  seem  to  have  preceded  ?  What  could  prevent  s3  from  being 
conscious  also  of  J4,  its  own  future,  if  the  temporal  signs  which  teach 
us  to  assign  to  single  impressions  their  position  in  Time,  depended 
only  on  the  systematic  position  which  belongs  to  their  causes  in  the 
complex  of  conditions  of  a  timeless  universe  ?  It  may  be  that  the 
content  of  J4,  which  follows  systematically  upon  J3,  is  not  determined 
merely  by  the  conditions,  which  are  contained  in  s3  and  previously  in 
J2  and  j,,  but  jointly  by  others,  resting  on  the  states  of  other  beings 
which  do  not  cross  those  of  S  till  a  later  stage  of  the  system.  For 
that  reason  J4  might  be  obscure  to  s3  and  this  might  constitute  the 
temporal  character  which  gives  it  in  the  consciousness  of  s3  the  stamp 
of  something  future.  But  if  this  were  the  case,  the  process  would 
have  to  stop  at  this  point.  It  would  only  be  for  another  being  s4  that 
what  was  Future  to  s3  could,  owing  to  its  later  place  in  the  system,  be 
present.  On  the  other  hand  in  a  timeless  system  there  would  be  no 
possibility  of  the  change  by  means  of  which  s3  would  be  moved  out 
of  its  place  into  that  of  s± :  yet  this  would  be  necessary  if  to  one  and 
the  same  consciousness  that  is  to  become  Present  which  was  pre 
viously  Future  to  it.  If  one  and  the  same  timeless  being  by  its  time 
less  activity  of  intellectual  presentation  gives  to  one  constituent  of  its 
existence  the  Past  character  of  a  recollection,  to  another  the  signi 
ficance  of  the  Present,  to  a  third  unknown  element  that  of  the  Future, 
it  could  never,  if  it  is  to  be  really  timeless,  change  this  distribution 
of  characters.  The  recollection  could  never  have  been  Present, 
the  Present  could  never  become  Past  and  the  Future  would  have  to 
remain  without  change  the  same  unknown  obscurity.  But  if  there  is 
a  change  in  this  distribution  of  light ;  if  it  is  the  case  that  the  in 
definite  burden  of  the  Future  gradually  enters  the  presence  of  living 
experience  and  passes  through  it  into  the  other  absence  of  the  Past ; 
and  finally  if  it  is  impossible  for  the  activity  of  intellectual  presenta 
tion  to  alter  this  order  of  sequence ;  then  it  follows  necessarily  that 
not  merely  this  activity,  but  the  content  of  the  reality  which  it  pre 
sents  to  itself,  is  involved  in  a  succession  of  determinate  direction. 

This  being  so,  we  must  finally  decide  as  follows :  Time,  as  a 
whole,  is  without  doubt  merely  a  creation  of  our  presentative  intellect. 
It  neither  is  permanent  nor  does  it  elapse.  It  is  but  the  fantastic 


CHAPTER  in.]    Succession  inseparable  f rom  Reality.          265 

image  which  we  seek,  rather  than  are  able,  to  project  before  the 
mind's  eye,  when  we  think  of  the  lapse  of  time  as  extended  to  all  the 
points  of  relation  which  it  admits  of  ad  infinitum,  and  at  the  same 
time  make  abstraction  of  the  content  of  these  points  of  relation.  But 
the  lapse  of  events  in  time  we  do  not  eliminate  from  reality,  and  we 
reckon  it  a  perfectly  hopeless  undertaking  to  regard  even  the  idea  of 
this  lapse  as  an  a  priori  merely  subjective  form  of  apprehension, 
which  developes  itself  within  a  timeless  reality,  in  the  consciousness  of 
spiritual  beings. 

153.  Thus,  at  the  end  of  a  long  and  troublesome  journey,  we  come 
back,  as  it  will  certainly  appear,  to  complete  agreement  with  the 
ordinary  view.  I  fear  however  that  remnants  of  an  error  still  survive 
which  call  for  a  special  attack— remnants  of  an  error  with  which  we 
are  already  familiar  and  which  have  here  needed  to  be  dealt  with  only 
in  a  new  form,  viz.  the  disintegration  of  the  real  into  its  content  and 
its  reality.  We  are  unavoidably  led  by  our  comparison  of  the  mani 
fold  facts  given  to  us  to  the  separation  of  that  on  the  one  hand  which 
distinguishes  one  real  object  from  another — its  peculiar  content  which 
our  thought  can  fix  in  abstraction  from  its  existence — and  on  the 
other  hand  of  that  in  which  every  thing  real  resembles  every  other — 
the  reality  itself  which,  as  we  fancy,  has  been  imparted  to  it.  For  this 
is  just  what  we  go  on  to  imagine — that  this  separation,  achieved  in  our 
thoughts,  represents  a  metaphysical  history ;  I  do  not  mean  a  history 
which  has  been  completed  once  for  all,  but  one  which  perpetually 
completes  itself;  a  real  relation,  that  is  to  say,  of  such  a  kind  that 
that  content,  apart  from  its  reality,  is  something  to  which  this  reality 
comes  to  belong.  The  prevalence  of  this  error  is  evidenced  by  the 
abundant  use  which  philosophy,  not  least  since  the  time  of  Kant,  has 
made  of  the  conception  of  a  'Position/  which  meeting  with  the 
thinkable  content  establishes  its  reality.  In  an  earlier  part  of  this 
work  we  declared  ourselves  against  this  mistake.  We  were  con 
vinced  that  it  was  simply  unmeaning  to  speak  of  being  as  a  kind  of 
placing  which  may  simply  supervene  upon  that  intelligible  content  of 
a  thing,  without  changing  anything  in  that  content  or  essence  or 
entering  as  a  condition  into  its  completeness.  As  separate  from  the 
energy  of  action  and  passion,  in  which  we  found  the  real  being  of  the 
thing  to  consist,  it  was  impossible  even  to  think  of  that  essence,  im 
possible  to  think  of  it  as  that  to  which  this  reality  of  action  and 
passion  comes  from  without,  as  if  it  had  been  already,  in  complete 
rest,  the  same  essence  which  it  is  under  this  motion. 

It  is  the  same  impossible  separation  that  we  have  here  once  again, 


266  Of  Time. 

in  consideration  of  the  prevalence  of  the  misunderstanding,  carefully 
pursued  to  its  consequences  in  the  form   of  the  severance   of  the 
thing  which  happens  from  its  happening.     It  was  thus  that  we  were 
led  to  the  experiment  of  seeking  the  essence1  of  what  happens — that 
by  which  the  actual  history  of  the  world  is  distinguished  from  another 
which  might  happen  but  does  not — in  a  complex  system  of  relations 
of  dependence  on  the  part  of  a  timeless  content  of  thought ;  while 
the  motion  in  this  system,  which  alone  constitutes  the  process  of  be 
coming  and  happening,  was  regarded  as  a  mode  of  setting  it  forth  which 
might  simply  be  imposed  on  this  essential  matter,  or  on  the  other 
hand,  might  be  wanting  to  it  without  changing  the  distinctive  character 
of  the  essence.     We  could  not  help  noticing,  indeed,  the  great  differ 
ence  between  reality  and  that  system  of  intelligible  contents.     In  the 
latter  the  reason  includes  its  consequence  as  eternally  coexisting  with 
it.     In  the  former  the  earlier  state  of  things  ceases  to  be  in  causing 
the  later.     Then  began  the  attempts  to  understand  this  succession, 
which  imposes  itself  like  an  alien  fate  on  the  system  in  its  articula 
tion.     They  were  all  in  vain.     When  once  the  lapse  of  empty  time 
and  the  timeless  content  had  been  detached  from  each  other,  nothing 
could  enable  the  set  nature  of  the  latter  to  resolve  itself  into  a  con 
stant  flux  in  the  former.     It  was  clear  that  in  this  separation  we  had 
forgotten  something  which  forced  that  content — involving  as  it  did, 
if  it  moved,  the  basis  of  an  order  of  time — to  pass  in  fact  into  such  a 
state  of  motion.     I  will  not  suppose  that  crudest  attempt  to  be  made 
at  supplying  the  necessary  complement — the  reference  to  a  power 
standing  outside  the  world  which  laid  hold  on  the   eternal  content 
of  things,  as  on  a  store  of  material,  in  order  to  dispose  its  elements 
in   Time  in   such   a  way  as  their  inner  order,  to  which   it  looked 
as  a  pattern,  directed  it  to  do.     Let  us  rather  adopt  the  view  that 
in  the  content  itself  lies  the  impulse  after  realisation  which  makes 
its  manifold  members  issue  from  each  other.     Still,  even  on  that  view 
it  would  be  a  mistake,  as  I  hold,  to  think  of  the  measure  and  kind  of 
that  timeless  conditionedness,  which  might  obtain  between  two  ele 
ments  of  the  world's  content,  as  the  antecedent  cause  which  com 
manded  or  forbade  that  operative  impulse  to  elicit  the  one  element 
from  the  other.     What  I  am  here  advancing  is  only  a  further  appli- 

1  [This  is  still  '  the  content ' — '  that  which  distinguishes  one  real  object  from 
another.'  A  verbal  difficulty  is  caused  by  the  distinction  being  here,  per  accidens, 
between  the  actual  world  and  an  imaginary  world,  so  that  but  for  the  context  we 
might  take  'essence'  to  be  used  in  just  the  opposite  sense  to  that  of  p.  265,  and 
to  refer  to  that  which  distinguishes  what  is  real  from  what  is  unreal.] 


CHAPTER  in.]         '  Time''  as  a  Whole  subjective.  267 

cation  of  a  thought  which  I  have  previously  expressed.  Every  rela 
tion,  I  have  said,  exists  only  in  the  spirit  of  the  person  instituting  the 
relation  and  for  him.  When  we  believe  that  we  find  it  in  things  them 
selves,  it  is  in  every  case  more  than  a  mere  relation :  it  is  itself  already 
an  efficient  process  instead  of  being  merely  preliminary  to  effects. 

On  the  same  principle  we  say — It  is  not  the  case  that  there  is  first 
a  relation  of  unchanging  conditionedness  between  the  elements  of 
the  world,  and  that  afterwards  in  accordance  with  this  relation  the 
productive  operation,  even  though  it  may  not  come  from  without  but 
may  lie  in  the  things  themselves,  has  to  direct  itself  in  order  to  give 
reality  to  legitimate  consequences  and  avoid  those  that  are  illegiti 
mate.  On  the  contrary  first  and  alone  is  there  this  full  living  opera 
tion  itself.  Then,  when  we  compare  its  acts,  we  are  able  in  thought 
and  abstraction  to  present  to  ourselves  the  constant  modus  agendi, 
self-determined,  which  in  all  its  manifestations  has  remained  the  same. 
This  abstraction  made,  we  can  subordinate  each  single  product  of  the 
operation,  as  we  look  backward,  to  this  mode  of  procedure  as  to  an 
ordaining  prius  and  regard  it  as  determined  by  conditions  which  are 
in  truth  only  the  ordinary  habit  of  this  operation  itself.  This  process 
of  comparison  and  abstraction  leads  us  in  one  direction  to  the  idea 
of  general  laws  of  nature,  which  are  first  valid  and  to  which  there 
then  comes  a  world,  which  submits  itself  to  them.  In  another  di 
rection  it  leads  to  the  supposition  of  an  empty  Time,  in  which  the 
series  of  occurrences  succeed  each  other  and  which,  in  the  character 
of  an  antecedent  conditio  sine  qua  non,  makes  all  operation  possible.  But 
this  last  way  of  looking  at  the  matter  we  have  found  as  untenable 
as  would  be  the  attempt  to  represent  velocities  as  prior  to  motions 
(somewhat  as  if  each  motion  had  to  choose  an  existing  velocity),  and 
to  interpret  the  common  expression,  according  to  which  the  motion 
of  a  body  assumes  this  or  that  velocity,  as  signifying  an  actual  fact ; 
whereas  in  truth  the  motion  is  nothing  but  the  velocity  as  following  a 
definite  direction. 

In  this  sense  we  may  find  more  correctness  in  the  expressions  that 
may  be  often  heard,  according  to  which  it  is  not  Time  that  is  the 
condition  of  the  operation  of  things,  but  this  operation  that  produces 
Time.  Only  what  it  brings  forth,  while  it  takes  its  course,  is  not  an 
actually  existing  Time  as  an  abiding  product,  somehow  existing  or 
flowing  or  influencing  things,  but  only  the  so-called  '  vision '  of  this 
Time  in  the  comparing  consciousness.  Of  this — the  empty  total 
image  of  that  order  in  which  we  place  events  as  a  series- — it  is  thus 
true  that  it  is  only  a  subjective  form  of  apprehension  ;  while  of  the 


268  Of  Time. 

succession  belonging  to  that  operation  itself,  which  makes  this 
arrangement  of  events  possible,  the  reverse  is  true,  namely  that  it  is 
the  most  proper  nature  of  the  real. 

157.  I  should  not  be  surprised  if  the  view  which  I  thus  put  forward 
met  with  an  invincible  resistance  from  the  imagination.  The  un 
conquerable  habit,  which  will  see  nothing  wonderful  in  the  primary 
grounds  of  things  but  insists  on  explaining  them  after  the  pattern  of 
the  latest  effects  which  they  alone  render  possible,  must  here  at  last 
confess  to  being  confronted  by  a  riddle  which  cannot  be  thought  out. 
What  exactly  happens — such  is  the  question  which  this  habit  will 
prompt — when  the  operation  is  at  work  or  when  the  succession  takes 
place,  which  is  said  to  be  characteristic  of  the  operative  process  ? 
How  does  it  come  to  pass — what  makes  it  come  to  pass — that  the 
reality  of  one  state  of  things  ceases,  and  that  of  another  begins? 
What  process  is  it  that  constitutes  what  we  call  perishing,  or  transition 
into  not-being,  and  in  what  other  different  process  consists  origin  or 
becoming  ? 

That  these  questions  are  unanswerable — that  they  arise  out  of  the 
wish  to  supply  a  prius  to  what  is  first  in  the  world — this  I  need  not 
now  repeat :  but  in  this  connexion  they  have  a  much  more  serious 
background  than  elsewhere,  for  here  they  are  ever  anew  excited  by 
the  obscure  pressure  of  an  unintelligibility,  which  in  ordinary  thinking 
we  are  apt  somewhat  carelessly  to  overlook.  We  lightly  repeat  the 
words  '  bygones  are  bygones ' ;  are  we  quite  conscious  of  their 
gravity  ?  The  teeming  Past,  has  it  really  ceased  to  be  at  all  ?  Is  it 
quite  broken  off  from  connexion  with  the  world  and  in  no  way 
preserved  for  it?  The  history  of  the  world,  is  it  reduced  to  the 
infinitely  thin,  for  ever  changing,  strip  of  light  which  forms  the 
Present,  wavering  between  a  darkness  of  the  Past,  which  is  done  with 
and  no  longer  anything  at  all,  and  a  darkness  of  the  Future,  which  is 
also  nothing  ?  Even  in  thus  expressing  these  questions,  I  am  ever 
again  yielding  to  that  imaginative  tendency,  which  seeks  to  soften  the 
1  monstrum  infandum '  which  they  contain.  For  these  two  abysses  of 
obscurity,  however  formless  and  empty,  would  still  be  there.  They 
would  always  form  an  environment  which  in  its  unknown  within 
would  still  afford  a  kind  of  local  habitation  for  the  not-being,  into 
which  it  might  have  disappeared  or  from  which  it  might  come  forth. 
But  let  any  one  try  to  dispense  with  these  images  and  to  banish  from 
thought  even  the  two  voids,  which  limit  being :  he  will  then  feel  how 
impossible  it  is  to  get  along  with  the  naked  antithesis  of  being  and 
not-being,  and  how  unconquerable  is  the  demand  to  be  able  to  think 


CHAPTER  in.]          Reality  of  Past  and  Fiiture.  269 

even  of  that  which  is  not  as  some  unaccountable  constituent  of  the 
real. 

Therefore  it  is  that  we  speak  of  distances  of  the  Past  and  of  the 
Future,  covering  under  this  spatial  image  the  need  of  letting  nothing 
slip  completely  from  the  larger  whole  of  reality,  though  it  belong  not 
to  the  more  limited  reality  of  the  Present.  For  the  same  reason  even 
those  unanswerable  questions  as  to  the  origin  of  Becoming  had  their 
meaning.  So  long  as  the  abyss  from  which  reality  draws  its  continu 
ation,  and  that  other  abyss  into  which  it  lets  the  precedent  pass  away, 
shut  in  that  which  is  on  each  side,  so  long  there  may  still  be  a  certain 
law,  valid  for  the  whole  realm  of  this  heterogeneous  system,  according 
to  the  determinations  of  which  that  change  takes  place,  which  on  the 
other  hand  becomes  unthinkable  to  us,  if  it  is  a  change  from  nothing 
to  being  and  from  being  to  nothing.  Therefore,  though  we  were 
obliged  to  give  up  the  hopeless  attempt  to  regard  the  course  of  events 
in  Time  merely  as  an  appearance,  which  forms  itself  within  a  system 
of  timeless  reality,  we  yet  understand  the  motives  of  the  efforts  which 
are  ever  being  renewed  to  include  the  real  process  of  becoming  within 
the  compass  of  an  abiding  reality.  They  will  not,  however,  attain 
their  object,  unless  the  reality,  which  is  greater  than  our  thought, 
vouchsafes  us  a  Perception,  which,  by  showing  us  the  mode  of  solu 
tion,  at  the  same  time  persuades  us  of  the  solubility  of  this  riddle.  I 
abstain  at  present  from  saying  more  on  the  subject.  The  ground 
afforded  by  the  philosophy  of  religion,  on  which  efforts  of  this  kind 
have  commonly  begun,  is  also  that  on  which  alone  it  is  possible  for 
them  to  be  continued. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

Of  Motion. 

THE  perceived  facts  of  motion  are  a  particularly  favourable  subject 
matter  for  numerical  calculation ;  but  our  present  interest  is  not  in 
the  manifold  results  obtained  by  the  mathematical  treatment  of  accepted 
relations  of  proportion  between  intervals  of  space  and  of  time  ;  but 
solely  in  the  question  which  phoronomic  and  mechanical  investigations 
are  able  to  disregard  for  their  immediate  purpose ;  the  question  what 
motion  implies  as  taking  place  in  the  things  that  move. 

158.  Common  apprehension  takes  motion,  while  it  lasts,  to  be  the 
traversing  of  an  interval  of  space ;  and  its  result  at  every  moment  in 
which  we  conceive  it  as  arrested  to  be  a  change  of  place  on  the  part 
of  the  thing  moved.  We  shall  be  obliged  for  the  moment  to  invert 
this  order  of  our  ideas,  in  order  to  remain  in  agreement  with  our  view 
of  the  merely  phenomenal  validity  of  space.  Things  cannot  actually 
traverse  a  space  which  does  not  actually  extend  around  them,  and 
whose  only  extension  is  in  our  consciousness  and  for  its  perception ; 
what  happens  is  rather  that  just  as  the  sum  -S"  of  all  the  intelligible 
relations  in  which  an  element  e  at  a  given  moment  stands  to  all  others 
assigns  it  a  place  p  in  our  spatial  image  ;  exactly  in  the  same  way  any 
change  of  that  sum  of  relations  S  into  2  will  demand  the  new  place  TT 
for  the  impression  which  is  to  us  the  expression,  image,  or  indication 
of  e.  Therefore  change  of  place  is  the  first  conception  to  which  we 
are  led  in  this  connexion ;  and  from  that  point  we  do  not  arrive  quite 
directly  at  the  notion  that  a  journey  through  space  is  essential  to  the 
change ;  even  an  apparent  journey,  that  is,  for  we  no  longer  think  a 
real  one  possible. 

It  only  follows  from  what  was  said  just  now  that  in  every  moment 
the  thing's  situation  p  or  TT  in  apparent  space  is  determined  by  the 
then  forthcoming  sum  6"  or  2  of  its  intelligible  relations  ;  it  is  still 
undecided  in  what  way  the  transition  takes  place  from  one  situation  to 
another.  However,  it  only  happens  in  fairy-tales  that  a  thing  dis- 


The  L  aw  of  Continuity.  271 

appears  in  one  place  and  suddenly  reappears  in  another,  without 
having  traversed  a  path  leading  in  space  from  the  one  place  to  the 
other;  all  observation  of  nature  assumes  as  self-evident  that  the 
moving  object  remains  in  all  successive  moments  an  object  of  possible 
perception  in  some  point  of  a  straight  or  curved  path,  which  unites 
its  former  and  subsequent  position  without  breach  of  continuity.  We 
have  no  intention  of  doubting  the  validity  of  this  assumption  ;  it 
involves  for  us  the  further  one,  that  in  like  manner  the  sum  S  of 
intelligible  relations  does  not  pass  into  another  2  without  traversing 
all  intermediate  values  that  can  be  intercalated,  without  break  though 
not  necessarily  with  uniform  speed.  And  this  is  what  we  really  think 
of  all  variable  states  which  are  in  things,  as  far  as  our  modern  habit 
of  referring  every  event  to  an  alteration  of  external  relations  will  allow 
us  to  speak  of  such  states  at  all.  We  do  not  believe  that  a  sensation 
comes  suddenly  into  being  with  its  full  intensity ;  nor  that  a  body  at  a 
temperature  ^  passes  to  another  /2,  without  successively  assuming  all 
intermediate  temperatures  ;  nor  that  from  a  position  of  rest  it  acquires 
the  velocity  v,  without  acquiring  in  unbroken  series  all  degrees  of  it 
between  o  and  v.  Thus  we  speak  of  a  Law  of  Continuity  to  which 
we  believe  that  all  natural  processes  are  subject ;  yet  however  familiar 
the  idea  may  be  to  us,  and  however  irresistible  in  most  cases  to  which 
it  is  applied,  still  its  necessity  is  not  so  self-evident  to  thought  that  all 
consideration  of  the  ground  and  limits  of  its  validity  is  wasted. 

159.  Of  course  the  application  of  the  law  of  Continuity  is  not 
attempted  where  disparateness  between  two  extremes  excludes  all 
possibility  of  a  path  leading  from  one  to  the  other  in  the  same 
medium.  No  one  conceives  a  musical  note  as  changing  continuously 
into  colour ;  a  transition  between  the  two  could  only  be  effected  by 
annihilation  of  the  one  and  creation  of  the  other  anew  ;  but  that 
negation  of  the  note  would  not  have  the  import  of  a  definite  zero  in  a 
series  such  as  could  not  but  expand  into  colours  on  the  other  side  of 
it ;  it  would  be  a  pure  nothing,  of  which  taken  by  itself  nothing  can 
come,  but  after  which  anything  may  follow,  that  we  choose  to  say  is  to 
follow.  On  the  other  hand,  in  what  relation  to  each  other  are  Being 
and  not-Being,  the  actual  transition  between  which  is  put  before  us  in 
every  instance  of  change  ?  Are  we  to  assume  that  because  this  transi 
tion  takes  place  it  too  must  come  to  pass  by  continuous  traversing  of 
intermediate  values  between  Being  and  not-Being?  We  unhesitatingly 
negative  this  suggestion,  if  it  is  to  require  for  one  and  the  same 
content  a  a  gradation  of  existence  such  as  without  changing  a  itself  to 
remove  it  by  degrees  from  reality  to  unreality  or  vice  versa ;  we  could 


272  Of  Motion.  [BOOK  ii. 

attach  no  meaning  to  the  assertion  of  a  varying  intensity  of  being 
which  should  make  a  permanent  unvarying l  a  partake  of  reality  in 
a  greater  or  less  degree.  We  should  on  the  other  hand  assent  to 
this ;  that  the  content  of  a  itself  could  not  disappear  and  could  not 
come  into  being  without  traversing  all  the  values  intermediate  be 
tween  o  and  a,  which  its  nature  made  possible ;  the  not-being  of  a 
is  always  in  the  first  place  the  being  of  an  a,  which  is  continuous 
with  a  as  the  value  immediately  above  or  below  it.  Therefore  the 
transition  from  being  to  not-being  of  the  same  content  is  no  con 
tinuous  one,  but  instantaneous ;  still,  no  value  a  of  a  natural  process 
or  state  arises  thus  instantaneously  out  of  absolute  nothingness,  but 
always  out  of  a  reality  of  its  own  kind,  whose  value  a  is  the  proximate 
increase  or  diminution  of  its  own. 

The  case  is  different  with  the  increase  or  decrease  which  property, 
for  instance,  is  exposed  to  in  games  of  chance  or  in  commerce.  A 
sum  of  money  which  we  have  staked  on  a  cast  of  the  dice  becomes 
ours  or  not  ours  in  its  whole  amount  at  once,  and  is  whichever  it  is 
immediately  in  the  fullest  sense.  It  was  no  one's  property  as  long  as 
the  game  was  undecided;  our  hopes  of  calling  it  our  own  are  a 
matter  of  degree,  and  no  doubt  might  rise  per  saltus,  though  not 
continuously,  as  one  die  after  another  came  to  rest ;  but  neither  this 
nor  any  other  intermediate  process,  even  if  some  of  them  were 
continuous,  can  alter  the  essential  state  of  the  facts  ;  on  the  one  hand 
our  complete  right  of  ownership  begins  instantaneously  on  the  aggre 
gate  result  of  the  throw  becoming  quite  certain,  and  so  far  from 
existing  to  a  less  degree  the  moment  before,  had  then  no  existence  at 
all.  On  the  other  hand,  this  suddenly  created  right  applies  at  once 
to  the  whole  sum  in  question,  without  extending  by  degrees  over  more 
and  more  of  it.  In  this  instance  and  in  innumerable  similar  ones 
presented  by  human  intercourse  based  on  contract,  a  perfectly  arbi 
trary  ordinance  has  attached  to  an  absolutely  peculiar  case  S  a  con 
sequence  F  of  which  £  is  not  the  obvious  producing  cause ;  therefore 
by  an  equally  arbitrary  ordinance  all  the  cases  sl  s^  ss  which  naturally 
belong  to  the  same  series  as  S  may  be  made  completely  ineffectual ; 
and  all  equally  so,  irrespective  of  their  greater  or  less  approximation 
to  the  favourable  condition  S.  Such  relations  can  only  occur  in 
artificial  institutions,  in  which  a  covenant,  quite  foreign  to  the  nature 
of  the  thing,  attaches  anything  we  please  to  anything  else,  and  at  the 
same  time  our  loyalty  to  the  covenant  is  the  only  pledge  for  the 
execution  of  what  was  agreed  on ;  as  it  will  not  execute  itself. 
1  [v.  note  on  §  19,  supra.] 


CHAPTER  iv.]  Continuity  and  Succession.  273 

In  all  natural  processes  on  the  contrary  the  S  to  which  a  result  F 
is  supposed  to  correspond  is  the  actual  and  appropriate  ground  G  of 
this  consequent  F]  such  as  not  only  demands  the  result  in  question 
but  brings  it  .about  by  itself  and  unaided  by  any  ordinance  of  ours  ; 
hence  the  cases  sls2ss  which  we  have  a  right  to  regard  as  other 
quantitative  values  of  the  same  condition  S  cannot  be  without  effect, 
but  must  in  like  manner,  produce  the  consequents/"^/^  proportional 
to  their  own  magnitudes  and  of  the  same  kind  with  F.  Hence  arises 
the  possibility  of  regarding  the  amount  of  a  natural  phenomenon  ob 
tained  under  a  condition  F  as  the  sum  of  the  individual  consequents 
produced  in  succession  by  the  successive  increments  of  the  condition. 
But  this  possibility  is  at  the  same  time  in  a  certain  sense  a  necessity. 
We  are  not  here  concerned  with  a  relation  of  dependence,  valid  irre 
spective  of  time,  between  the  ideal  content  of  F  and  that  of  G  its 
sufficient  reason,  but  with  the  genesis  of  an  effect  /''which  did  not 
exist  before ;  so  that  the  condition  S  in  like  manner  cannot  be 
an  eternally  subsisting  relation,  but  can  only  be  a  fact  which  did  not 
exist  before  and  has  now  come  into  being. 

Now,  if  we  chose  to  assume  that  S  arose  all  at  once  with  its 
highest  quantitative  value,  no  doubt  it  would  seem  that  F  as  the 
consequence  of  this  cause  could  not  but  enter  upon  its  reality  all  at 
once ;  but  in  fact  it  would  not  still  have  to  enter  upon  its  reality,  for 
it  would  be  in  existence  simultaneously  with  S  ]  nothing  could  con 
ceivably  have  the  power  to  interpose  an  interval  of  time,  vacant  as  in 
that  case  it  would  be,  between  cause  and  consequence.  The  same 
would  hold  good  regressively ;  if  S  arose  all  at  once,  the  cause  of  its 
reality  too  must  have  arisen  all  at  once,  and  therefore,  strictly  speak 
ing,  have  existed  contemporaneously  with  £  rather  than  arisen  before  it. 
Thus  we  find  that  it  is  impossible  to  regard  the  course  of  the  world 
as  a  series  of  sudden  discrete  states  conditioning  each  other  without 
completely  re-transforming  it  into  a  mere  system  of  elements  which 
all  have  their  validity  or  existence  simultaneously ;  quite  unlike  reality, 
the  terms  of  which  are  successive  because  mutually  exclusive.  I  shall 
not  prolong  this  investigation ;  it  was  only  meant  to  show  that  con 
tinuity  of  transition  is  not  a  formal  predicate  of  still  problematic 
validity,  which  we  might  assign  to  Becoming  after  some  hesitation  as 
true  in  fact;  its  validity  is  rather  an  indispensable  presupposition 
without  which  the  reality  of  Becoming  in  general  is  inconceivable. 

160.  I  have  now  to  give  a  somewhat  different  form  to  the  ideas 
with  which  I  began.  In  the  artificial  arrangements  which  we  men 
tioned,  the  conscious  deliberation  of  the  parties  to  the  agreement  had 

VOL.  I.  T 


274  Of  Motion.  [BOOK  ii. 

previously  determined  the  result  which  was  to  follow  from  a  par 
ticular  occurrence  in  the  future;  and  in  the  same  way  in  all  our 
actions  the  representation  in  our  minds  of  an  aim  that  is  not  yet 
realised,  of  a  goal  that  has  yet  to  be  reached,  may  itself  be  present 
and  effectual  among  the  conditions  of  the  activities  which  are  set  in 
motion  to  attain  our  purpose.  We  should  be  wrong  in  transferring 
this  analogy  to  our  present  subject-matter,  by  choosing  to  regard  the 
altered  sum  of  relations  2  which  by  itself  would  be  the  cause  of  the 
quiescence  of  the  element  e  at  the  point  TT,  as  being  at  the  same  time 
the  cause  of  its  seeking  and  rinding  this  new  place.  There  cannot  be 
an  inner  state  q  of  any  thing  such  as  to  be  for  that  thing  the  condition 
of  its  being  in  another  particular  state  r.  Our  reflexion  might  antici 
pate  with  certainty  that  this  state  r  would  contain  no  reason  for 
further  change ;  but  the  thing  itself  could  not  feel  that  it  was  so  until 
the  state  began,  and  turned  out  to  be  the  condition  of  a  more  perfect 
or  quite  perfect  equilibrium. 

Thus  in  our  instance ;  the  sum  2  of  a  thing's  relations,  if  it  had 
always  existed,  would  have  corresponded  to  the  place  TT  ;  but  when 
something  new  has  to  arise  out  of  the  transition  from  S  to  2,  its 
action  cannot  consist  in  assigning  to  the  thing  a  new  particular 
place  TT,  as  one  which  would  suit  the  thing  better,  if  it  once  were 
there ;  it  can  only  consist  in  expelling  the  thing  from  the  place  p 
where  its  nature  and  conditions  no  longer  hold  it  in  equilibrium. 
But  in  the  real  world  the  negation  of  an  existing  state  can  only  be 
the  affirmation  of  another ;  besides,  there  can  be  no  such  thing  as 
want  of  equilibrium  in  general,  but  only  between  specific  points  in  re 
lation,  and  between  them  only  with  a  specific  degree  of  vivacity. 
Therefore,  the  power  of  negation  exerted  by  a  state  which  is  to  act 
as  the  condition  of  a  fresh  occurrence  can  only  consist  in  displacing 
the  element  in  question  from  its  present  intelligible  relations  in  a 
specific  direction,  which  we  have  still  in  the  first  place  to  conceive  as 
unspatial,  and  with  a  specific  intensity.  The  spatial  phenomenon 
corresponding  to  this  process  would  be  a  specific  velocity  with  which 
the  element  departs  from  its  place  p  in  a  specific  direction,  impelled 
therefore  a  tergo  without  a  predetermined  goal  but  not  attracted  a 
fronle  by  the  new  place  TT  ;  this  latter  cannot  act  either  by  retaining 
or  by  impelling,  till  it  is'  reached.  So  what  takes  place  in  the  things 
themselves,  and  what  we  might  call,  of  course  in  quite  a  different 
sense  from  that  recognised  in  mechanics,  the  v is  viva  of  their  motion, 
is  this  velocity,  with  which  in  the  intelligible  system  of  realities  they 
leave  the  place  where  they  were  out  of  equilibrium,  or,  to  our  percep- 


CHAPTER  iv.]  The  Law  of  Persistence.  275 

tion,  appear  to  leave  a  situation  in  space ;  what  length  of  space  they 
may  traverse,  whether  with  uniform  or  varying  motion,  whether  in 
straight  lines  or  in  curves,  is  the  result  of  the  existing  circumstances  ; 
that  is,  of  the  new  positions  into  which  they  are  brought  by  the  actual 
motion  which  takes  place,  which  positions  react  on  that  motion  as 
modifying  factors. 

161.  In  this  way  we  have  arrived  directly  at  the  law  of  Persistence, 
the  first  principle  of  the  doctrines  of  mechanics,  according  to  which 
every  element  maintains  its  state  of  rest  or  motion  unaltered  as  long 
as  it  does  not  come  in  contact  with  the  modifying  influence  of  ex 
ternal  causes.  The  first  part  of  the  law,  the  persistence  of  rest,  has 
seldom  caused  any  difliculty ;  for  it  can  hardly  be  urged  as  a  serious 
objection  that  the  nature  of  an  actual  element  e  is  quite  inaccessible 
to  us  and  that  element  may  contain  inner  reasons  unknown  to  us  for 
setting  itself  in  motion.  Whatever  unconjecturable  states  the  inner 
being  of  a  thing  may  experience,  still  they  can  only  set  up  a  motion 
which  did  not  exist  before  by  beginning  at  a  particular  moment  to 
manifest  themselves  as  reasons  for  that  motion.  In  that  case  they 
presuppose  a  previous  history  of  a  Becoming  within  the  thing ;  but  if 
there  had  once  been  a  moment  of  complete  rest,  in  which  all  states 
of  things  were  in  equilibrium  with  each  other,  and  there  was  no 
velocity  inherited  from  an  antecedent  process  of  Becoming  with 
which  they  might  have  made  their  way  through  the  position  of 
equilibrium,  such  quiescence  could  never  have  given  rise  to  a 
beginning  of  change.  Our  ignorance  of  the  real  nature  of  things 
only  justifies  us  in  assuming  as  a  possibility  that  such  a  succession  of 
states  remains  for  a  time  a  movement  within  the  thing,  neither  con 
ditioned  by  influences  from  without,  nor  capable  of  altering  the 
relations  of  the  thing  to  external  related  points ;  and  that,  as  a  result 
of  this  hidden  labour,  a  reason  sufficient  to  alter  even  those  external 
relations  whether  to  other  things  or  to  surrounding  space,  may  be 
generated  as  a  new  factor  at  one  particular  moment.  But  even  then 
the  movement  in  space  would  not  be  produced  out  of  a  state  of  rest, 
but  out  of  a  hidden  movement  which  was  not  of  the  same  kind  with 
it ;  as  is  the  case  with  animated  bodies  which  initiate  their  changes  of 
place  by  independent  impulse.  In  the  first  place,  however,  even 
these  owe  the  activity  within  them  which  generates  their  resolutions 
to  the  stimuli  of  the  outer  world ;  and  in  the  second  place  their  reso 
lutions  can  only  give  rise  to  movement  in  space  by  a  precontrived 
connexion  of  several  parts  which  are  accessible  to  the  action  of  the 
mind  and  under  its  influence  move  in  the  directions  prescribed  to 

T  2 


276  Of  Motion.  [BOOK  ii. 

them  by  their  permanent  position  in  the  plan  of  the  organic  structure 
and  their  situation  at  the  moment  in  external  space. 

This  analogy  is  not  transferable  to  a  solitary  element,  to  be  con 
ceived  as  setting  itself  in  motion  in  empty  space.  In  animated  beings 
the  element  which  is  charged  with  the  unspatial  work  within  does  not 
set  itself  in  motion,  but  only  other  elements  with  which  it  is  in 
interaction;  and  it  does  so  by  destroying  the  equilibrium  of  the 
forces  operative  between  them,  and  leaving  the  want  of  equilibrium 
which  results  to  determine  the  amount  and  direction  of  the  motion  to 
be  generated.  The  solitary  element  has  none  of  these  determining 
reasons ;  it  could  not  move  without  taking  a  definite  direction 
through  the  point  z  of  empty  space  to  the  exclusion  of  all  others; 
to  secure  this  it  would  not  be  enough  that  the  direction  e  z  should  be 
geometrically  distinct  from  any  other;  the  distinction  would  have  to 
be  brought  to  the  cognisance  of  /s  inner  nature,  that  is,  z  would 
have  to  act  on  e  differently  from  any  other  point  in  space.  But  as 
an  empty  point  it  is  in  no  way  distinguished  from  all  the  other 
points ;  it  could  only  be  given  pre-eminence  before  all  the  others  by 
the  presence  of  a  real  element  occupying  it.  So  even  if  we  admit  an 
abundance  of  inner  life  in  every  thing,  still  we  cannot  derive  the 
initiation  of  a  movement  in  space  from  that  life,  but  only  from  ex 
ternal  determining  conditions. 

Still,  this  is  an  expression  which  we  shall  do  well  to  modify. 
Whatever  attractive  or  repulsive  force  we  conceive  to  proceed  from  0; 
it  cannot  determine  e  to  motion  by  reason  of  its  own  starting  from  z, 
but  only  by  reason  of  its  arrival  at  e,  or  rather  through  the  alteration 
which  it  effects  in  the  inner  states  of  <?.  It  is  therefore,  in  fact,  this 
state  of  inner  want  of  equilibrium  which  hinders  e  from  remaining  at 
rest ;  only  this  state  cannot  have  arisen  in  a  way  to  determine  the 
line  of  motion,  unless  e  is  conceived  as  part  of  a  universe  which  by 
the  configuration  of  its  other  parts  at  any  moment  helps  to  determine 
that  of  e's  inner  being. 

162.  The  other  part  of  the  law,  the  continuance  of  every  motion 
that  has  once  begun,  remains  a  paradox  even  when  we  are  convinced 
of  it.  If  we  separate  the  requirements  which  we  may  attempt  to 
satisfy ;  in  the  first  place  the  certainty  of  the  law,  or  its  validity  in 
point  of  fact,  is  vouched  for  both  by  the  results  of  experiment  and  by 
its  place  in  the  system  of  science.  The  better  we  succeed  in  ex 
cluding  the  resistances  we  are  aware  of  as  interfering  with  a  motion 
that  has  been  imparted,  the  longer  and  more  uniformly  it  continues  ; 
we  rightly  conclude  that  it  would  continue  unvaryingly  for  ever,  if  it 


CHAPTER  iv.]  Contimiance  of  Motion.  277 

were  permanently  left  to  itself  without  any  counteraction.  And  on 
the  other  hand,  however  a  motion  that  is  going  on  may  be  modified 
at  every  moment  by  the  influence  of  fresh  conditions,  still  we  know 
that  our  only  way  of  arriving  at  the  actual  process  in  calculation  is  to 
estimate  the  velocity  attained  in  every  moment  as  continuing,  in  order 
to  combine  it  with  the  effect  of  the  next  succeeding  force. 

If  we  go  on  to  ask  whether  this  doctrine  being  certain  in  point  of 
fact  has  also  any  justification  as  conceivable  and  rational,  we  can  at 
least  see  the  futility  of  the  assumptions  which  prevailed  in  antiquity, 
when,  under  the  influence  of  inappropriate  analogies,  men  held  that 
the  gradual  slackening  of  all  motion  was  the  behaviour  more  naturally 
to  be  expected.  If  they  had  said  that  all  motion  is  wholly  extin 
guished  in  the  very  moment  in  which  the  condition  that  produces  it 
ceases  to  act,  the  idea  put  forward  would  at  least  have  been  an  in 
telligible  one  in  itself;  but  by  treating  the  motion  as  becoming 
gradually  weaker  they  actually  admitted  the  law  of  persistence  for 
as  much  of  the  motion  as  at  any  given  moment  had  not  disappeared. 
Still,  the  more  definitely  we  assume  the  ordinary  ideas  of  motion,  the 
more  remarkable  does  the  law  of  persistence  appear;  if  motion  is 
nothing  but  an  alteration  of  external  relations  by  which  the  inner 
being  of  the  moving  object  is  in  no  way  affected,  and  which  in  no 
way  proceeds  from  any  impulse  belonging  to  that  object,  why  should 
such  an  alteration  continue  when  the  condition  which  compelled  it 
has  ceased  ? 

We  look  in  vain  for  more  general  principles  which  might  decide  the 
question.  I  said  above  in  the  Logic  (§  261)  that  the  law  'Cessante 
causa  cessat  effectus '  cannot  safely  be  held  to  mean  more  than  that 
after  the  cessation  of  a  cause  we  do  not  find  the  effect  which  the 
cause  would  have  had  if  it  had  continued  ;  but  that  it  remains  doubtful 
whether  the  effect  which  is  already  produced  requires  a  preserving 
cause  for  its  continuance.  It  appeared  to  me  then  that  every  state 
which  had  in  reality  once  been  produced  would  continue  to  exist,  if  it 
were  neither  in  contradiction  with  the  nature  of  the  subject  to  which 
it  occurs,  nor  \vith  the  totality  of  the  conditions  under  which  that 
subject  stands  towards  other  things.  But  even  this  formula  is  useless  ; 
for  there  is  still  this  very  question,  whether  motion  which  has  been 
generated  in  a  thing  not  by  its  own  nature,  but  only  by  means  of 
external  conditions,  is  to  count  among  the  states  which  are  conceivable 
as  going  on  to  infinity  without  contradicting  that  nature  and  those  rela 
tions.  On  the  other  hand,  it  has  been  suggested  that  the  reason  for 
the  persistence  of  states  of  motion  in  things  must  in  every  case  lie  in 


278  Of  Motion.  (  BOOK  ii. 

the  actual  nature  of  the  things ;  I  am  convinced  that  no  explanation 
is  to  be  found  in  this  direction  ;  we  should  only  be  obliged,  after 
executing  some  useless  circuits,  to  assert  the  principle  of  Persistence 
about  some  motion  or  other  within  real  things,  with  no  more  success 
in  deducing  it  than  if  we  had  taken  the  shorter  way  of  granting  its 
validity  at  once  for  motion  in  space.  Instead  of  a  direct  demonstration 
of  the  law,  I  believe  that  nothing  more  is  possible  than  an  indirect 
treatment,  which  I  subjoin. 

163.  Let  C^  be  the  condition  which  sets  in  motion  an  element  e 
with  definite  velocity  and  direction  so  as  to  traverse  the  distance  doc 
in  the  time  dt.  Let  us  suppose  that  the  activity  and  effect  of  C± 
continue  through  the  duration  of  dt,  but  cease  when  at  the  end  of  that 
interval  e  has  traversed  the  short  distance  dx,  has  thus  changed  its 
position,  and  has  for  this  reason  come  under  the  influence  of  the  new 
condition  C2.  This  again,  if  operative  during  an  equal  time  dt,  will 
make  another  equal  journey  dx  possible  for  e,  and  will  cease  when  e 
has  traversed  it.  It  is  plain  that  as  long  as  we  treat  d ' x  as  a  real 
distance  however  small,  the  element  e,  acted  upon  by  this  series  of 
successively  annihilated  influences,  will  pass  through  a  finite  length  of 
space  in  the  time  /. 

But  our  assumptions,  as  we  made  them  just  now,  have  to  be 
modified.  Cl  must  cease  to  act  not  when,  but  before,  e  has  arrived  at 
the  extreme  point  of  the  first  distance  dx;  by  the  time  e  has  accom 
plished  the  smallest  portion  of  that  short  distance  its  position  would 
be  changed,  and  would  no  longer  be  that  which  acted  upon  it  as  the 
motive  impulse  C^ ;  if  in  spite  of  this  we  suppose  e  to  traverse  the 
whole  distance  dx  in  consequence  of  the  impulse  C\,  the  only  possible 
reason  for  its  doing  so  will  be  the  postulated  validity  of  the  law  of 
persistence ;  the  motion  produced  by  Cl  will  have  lasted  after  C^  itself 
had  ceased  to  exist  or  act.  But  if  we  do  not  regard  this  law  as  valid, 
then  not  even  the  smallest  portion  of  the  short  journey  in  question  will 
really  be  achieved ;  the  moment  that  Cx  so  much  as  threatens  to 
change  the  place  of  e,  and  so  transform  itself  into  C2,  the  determining- 
force  with  which  it  purposed  to  produce  this  result  must  disappear  at 
once,  and  the  matter  will  never  get  as  far  as  the  entrance  into  action 
of  the  fresh  condition  C2  which  could  maintain  the  motion ;  for  the 
motion  never  begins.  If  y  is  a  function  of  x,  there  may  be  a  finite 
integral  of  the  formula ydx  as  long  as  we  regard  dx  as  a  real  magni 
tude  ;  and  the  calculation  would  be  more  exact  as  this  interval  is  less 
for  which  we  take  a  value  of_>>  as  constant;  but  the  whole  integral 
becomes  o,  if  we  regard  d  x  as  vanishing  entirely. 


CHAPTER  iv.]     *  Persistence '  indispensable  to  Action.      279 

In  the  present  case  we  should  apply  this  common  mode  of  repre 
sentation  as  follows  ;  if  y  is  the  velocity  generated  by  Cv  or  existing 
along  with  some  initial  value  of  x,  according  to  the  law  of  Persistence 
this  y  will  hold  good  for  the  whole  interval  for  which  the  integral  is 
required.  The  succeeding  condition  C2  will  be  partly  satisfied,  in 
respect  of  what  it  has  in  common  with  Cv  by  the  motion  y  which 
already  takes  place  in  consequence  of  Cl ;  only  that  in  which  C2 
deviates  from  Cl  is  a  fresh  active  condition  whose  consequence  dy,  a 
positive  or  negative  increment  of  velocity,  continues  in  like  manner 
from  that  moment  through  the  entire  interval  of  the  integration.  It  is 
the  summation  of  the  initial  value  y,  and  of  these  continuously  suc 
ceeding  increases  or  decreases,  that  gives  the  total  of  the  result 
obtained  between  the  limits  in  question. 

The  tendency  of  all  this  is  obvious ;  of  course  it  cannot  tell  us  how, 
strictly  speaking,  it  comes  to  pass  that  motion  when  once  generated 
maintains  itself;  but  still  we  can  see  that  the  law  of  Persistence  is  not 
a  marvellous  novelty  of  which  it  might  be  questioned  whether  it  would 
or  would  not  be  true  of  a  given  natural  motion ;  in  fact  its  truth  is  an 
integral  part  of  our  idea  of  motion.  Either  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  motion,  or,  if  and  as  there  is,  it  necessarily  obeys  the  law  of  Per 
sistence,  and  could  not  come  to  pass  at  all  if  really  and  strictly  the 
effect  produced  had  to  end  with  the  cause  that  produced  it.  For  the 
law  holds  good  not  merely  as  applied  to  motion,  but  with  this  more 
general  significance.  No  condition  can  act  without  having  a  result 
which  is,  speaking  generally,  a  modification  of  the  state  of  things  that 
contained  the  stimulus  or  impulse  to  action  ;  and  therefore  apart  from 
the  principle  of  Persistence  no  result  could  ever  be  reached  ;  the  exci 
tation  would  begin  to  be  inactive  at  the  moment  in  which  it  began 
to  act. 

164.  If  two  elements  change  their  distance  from  one  another  in 
space,  real  motion  must  in  any  case  have  occurred ;  but  it  remains 
doubtful  which  of  the  two  moved  or  whether  both  did  so,  and  in  the 
latter  case  the  same  new  position  may  have  been  brought  about  either 
by  opposite  motions  of  the  two,  or  by  motions  in  the  same  direction 
but  of  different  amount.  This  possibility  of  interpreting  what  to  our 
perception  is  the  same  result  by  different  constructions  continues  to 
exist  most  obviously  as  long  as  we  look  exclusively  to  the  reciprocal 
relations  of  two  elements  without  regard  to  their  common  environ 
ment  ;  nor  does  it  cease  when  we  consider  the  latter  also  ;  only  in 
that  case  the  possible  constructions  will  not  all  seem  equally  appro 
priate.  We  should  prefer  to  regard  as  in  motion  the  element  which 


280  Of  Motion.     .  [BOOK  ii. 

is  alone  in  altering  its  position  relatively  to  many  which  retain  their 
reciprocal  situations ;  still  there  is  nothing  to  prevent  us  from  con 
ceiving  that  one  as  at  rest,  and  the  whole  system  of  the  numerous 
others  as  moving  in  the  opposite  direction.  I  need  not  pursue  the 
advantages  which  we  gain  in  practice  from  this  plasticity  of  our  ideas; 
but  the  casuistic  difficulties  which  metaphysic  attaches  to  this  Rela 
tivity  of  motion,  seem  to  me  to  rest  on  mere  misapprehensions. 

Let  us  conceive  to  begin  with  a  solitary  element  in  a  perfectly  void 
world  of  space ;  is  there  any  meaning  in  saying  that  it  moves,  and 
that  in  a  particular  direction  ?  Again,  in  what  can  its  motion  consist, 
seeing  that  the  element  cannot  by  moving  alter  its  relations  to  related 
points,  as  there  are  none,  while  we  should  not  even  be  able  to  dis 
tinguish  the  direction  in  which  it  would  move  from  the  other  directions 
in  which  it  would  not  move  ?  I  think  we  must  answer  without 
hesitation  :  as  long  as  we  adhere  to  ordinary  ideas  by  speaking  of 
real  space,  and  by  setting  down  the  traversing  of  it  under  whatever 
condition  as  a  possible  occurrence,  there  is  no  reason  against  re 
garding  the  motion  of  this  solitary  element  as  one  which  actually  takes 
place,  and  none  therefore  against  recognising  so-called  '  absolute 
motion '  as  a  reality.  If  perfectly  empty  space  is  wholly  devoid  of 
related  points  for  purposes  of  comparison,  even  of  distinctions  between 
the  quarters  of  the  heavens,  still  this  does  not  plunge  the  motion  itself 
into  any  such  ambiguity  or  indefiniteness  of  nature  as  to  prohibit  it 
from  actually  occurring ;  only  we  lose  all  possibility  of  designating 
what  occurs.  However  little  we  may  be  in  a  position  to  distinguish 
intelligibly  between  the  point  z  which  is  in  the  direction  of  the  moving 
object  e  and  other  points  which  are  not,  still  it  would  be  distinct  from 
all  others  as  long  as  we  regard  as  real  the  extension  of  space  which 
by  its  definite  position  towards  all  other  points  it  helps  to  constitute. 
And  however  little  we  could  distinguish  the  direction  e  z  in  which  e 
moves  from  other  directions,  before  we  had  a  given  line  in  a  par 
ticular  plane  which  would  define  the  position  of  e  z  by  help  of  the 
angle  formed  between  them,  still  ez  would  be  in  itself  a  perfectly 
definite  direction ;  for  such  an  angle  would  not  be  capable  of  being 
ever  ascertained  and  determined,  unless  the  position  of  ez  were 
already  unambiguously  fixed  at  the  moment  when  we  applied  our 
standard  of  comparison  in  order  to  define  it. 

So  the  assertion  that  a  motion  is  real  is  certainly  not  dependent  for  ad- 
missibility  on  the  implication  of  a  change  of  relations  in  which  the  real 
element  in  motion  stands  to  others  like  it.  Indeed,  during  every  moment 
for  which  we  conceive  a  previously  attained  velocity  to  continue  ac- 


CHAPTER iv.]  'Relativity'  of  Motion.  281 

cording  to  the  law  of  persistence,  the  moving  element  moves  with 
precisely  the  kind  of  reality  which  is  held  in  the  above  case  to  be  of 
doubtful  possibility.  True,  in  this  case  we  are  in  a  position  to  assign 
the  direction  of  the  motion,  within  a  world  in  which  it  took  place,  by 
relations  to  other  realities  and  to  the  space  which  they  divide  and 
indicate.  Still  all  these  relations  in  this  case  only  enter  into  considera 
tion  as  interfering  or  modifying  causes  ;  the  persistent  velocity  of  the 
element,  which  we  must  not  leave  out  of  our  calculation,  is  in  itself,  in 
fact,  simply  such  a  motion  of  a  solitary  element  that  takes  no  account 
of  anything  else.  Thus,  so  far  from  being  a  doubtful  case,  it  is  truer 
to  say  that  absolute  motion  is  an  occurrence  which  is  really  contained 
in  all  motion  that  takes  place,  only  latent  under  other  accretions.  On 
the  other  hand,  if  we  intended  to  acknowledge  no  motion  but  what  is 
relative,  in  what  way  should  we  suppose  it  to  take  place?  If  we  under 
stand  by  it  one  which  involves  a  real  and  assignable  change  of  relative 
position  on  the  part  of  the  elements,  how  can  this  change  have  arisen 
unless  one  or  several  of  the  elements  in  order  to  approach  or  to 
separate  from  each  other  had  actually  traversed  the  lengths  of  space 
which  form  the  interval  that  distinguishes  their  new  place  from  their 
old  ?  But  suppose  we  understood  by  relative  motion  one  which  was 
merely  apparent,  in  which  the  real  distances  between  pairs  of  elements 
underwent  no  change.  Still  it  is  clear  that  such  an  appearance  could 
not  itself  be  produced  apart  from  motion  really  occurring  somewhere, 
such  that  the  subject  to  whom  the  appearance  is  presented  changes 
its  position  towards  one  or  more  of  the  elements  in  question. 

165.  Our  conclusion  would  naturally  be  just  the  same  about  the 
other  case  which  is  often  adduced ;  the  rotation  of  a  solitary  sphere 
in  empty  space.  No  doubt  it  would  be  absolutely  undefinable  till  a 
given  system  of  co-ordinates  should  determine  directions  of  axes,  with 
which  its  axis  could  be  compared.  But  there  is  also  no  doubt  that 
the  specific  direction  of  the  rotation  is  not  made  by  these  axes  which 
serve  to  designate  it ;  the  rotation  must  begin  by  being  thoroughly 
definite  in  itself,  and  different  from  all  others,  that  it  may  be  capable 
of  being  unambiguously  reduced  to  a  system  of  co-ordinates.  All  that 
such  a  reduction  is  wanted  for,  is  to  make  it  definable;  but  what 
happens  happens,  whether  we  can  define  it  or  not ;  of  course  a 
capacity  for  being  known  demands  plenty  of  auxiliary  conditions, 
whose  absence  no  one  would  conceive  as  destroying  the  possibility  of 
the  occurrence  itself.  Suppose  we  had  the  clearest  possible  system 
of  co-ordinates  at  our  disposal,  and  saw  a  sphere  in  a  particular  place 
of  that  system ;  still  we  should  fail  to  ascertain  whether  it  was  turning 


282  Of  Motion.  [  BOOK  ii. 

or  not,  or  in  what  direction,  if  it  consisted  of  perfectly  similar  parts  a 
distinguished  to  our  eye  neither  by  colouring  nor  by  variable  reflex 
ions  of  light.  At  every  moment  we  should  observe  the  similar 
appearance  a  in  the  same  point  of  space  ;  we  should  have  no  means 
of  distinguishing  one  instance  of  the  impression  from  another  ;  are  we 
to  infer  from  this  that  a  sphere  of  uniform  colour  cannot  turn  round 
in  space,  but  only  a  chequered  one  ;  and  even  this  only  with  a  limited 
velocity,  for  fear  the  different  impressions  of  colour  should  blend  into 
an  undistinguishable  mixture  to  our  eyes  ? 

Hence  we  may  be  sure  that  such  absolute  rotation  about  an  axis  is 
perfectly  conceivable ;  in  fact  it  is  not  in  the  least  a  problematic  case, 
but  is  continually  going  on.  We  have  no  proof  of  any  action  of  the 
heaven  of  the  fixed  stars  on  the  motions  within  our  planetary  system, 
nor  is  it  required  to  explain  those  motions ;  both  it  and  the  influences 
of  the  other  planets  can  never  claim  to  be  regarded  as  more  than 
disturbing  causes  when  we  are  considering  the  revolution  of  the  earth 
and  sun  round  their  common  centre  of  gravity;  these  two  bodies 
therefore  actually  move  as  a  solitary  pair  in  universal  space.  And 
again,  the  earth,  by  itself,  continues  its  existing  rotation  about  its  axis 
without  help  or  hindrance  in  it  from  its  relation  to  the  sun.  So  in  fact, 
rotation  of  this  kind,  the  possibility  of  which  is  doubted,  really  occurs, 
only  concealed  by  accessory  circumstances  which  have  no  influence 
on  it ;  indeed  the  instance  of  a  spinning  top  which  maintains  its 
plane  of  rotation  and  opposes  resistance  to  any  change  of  it,  presents 
it  strikingly  to  our  senses.  The  idea  of  the  reality  of  an  infinite 
empty  space  and  the  other  of  an  absolute  motion  of  real  elements  in 
space  are  thus  most  naturally  united  and  are  equally  justifiable;  nor 
will  it  ever  be  feasible  to  substitute  for  this  mode  of  representation 
another  which  could  form  as  clear  a  picture  in  the  mind. 

166.  As  we  have  surrendered  the  former  of  these  ideas,  we  have 
now  to  reconcile  the  latter  with  the  contrary  notion  which  we  adopt. 
Our  observations  up  to  this  point  could  not  do  more  than  prove  that 
the  absolute  motion  of  an  element  in  empty  space  was  conceivable  as 
a  process  already  in  action;  what  still  appeared  impossible  was  its 
beginning  and  the  choice  of  a  direction  and  velocity  out  of  the  infinite 
number  of  equally  possible  ones.  This  alone  would  give  no  de 
cisive  argument  against  an  existing  space  and  an  actual  motion 
through  it ;  whatever  inner  development  we  choose  to  substitute  for 
this  apparent  state  of  facts  as  the  real  and  true  occurrence,  the  im 
possibility  of  a  first  beginning  will  always  recur.  We  should  have  to 
be  satisfied  with  setting  down  the  fact  of  motion  with  its  direction  and 


CHAPTER iv.i         ' Relative    is  not  'Indefinite!  283 

velocity  along  with  the  other  original  realities  which  we  have  to  look 
on  as  simply  given,  and  which  we  cannot  deduce  from  a  yet  unde 
cided  choice  between  different  possibilities.  In  fact,  every  permanent 
property  of  things,  the  degree  of  every  force,  and  all  physical  con 
stants  whatever,  might  give  rise  in  infinite  recuirence  to  the  same 
question ;  why  are  they  of  this  specific  amount  and  no  other,  out  of 
the  innumerable  amounts  conceivable  ? 

I  need  only  mention  in  passing  once  more,  that  the  unavoidable 
relativity  of  all  our  designations  of  such  constants  is  not  to  seduce  us 
into  the  mistake  of  considering  the  constants  themselves  as  indefinite. 
The  units  to  which  we  refer  the  measurement  of  a  certain  force  g, 
and  in  which  we  express  it,  are  arbitrarily  chosen ;  but  after  they  are 
chosen  it  results  from  the  peculiar  and  definite  intensity  of  the  force 
that  according  to  this  standard  its  measurement  must  be  g  and  can 
not  be  ng.  A  semicircular  movement  which  goes  from  right  to  left 
when  looked  at  from  the  zenith,  will  go  from  left  to  right  when 
looked  at  from  the  nadir  of  its  axis.  This  does  not  prove  that  its 
direction  is  only  determined  relatively  to  our  position,  but  just  the 
reverse ;  that  it  is  definite  in  itself  independently  of  that  position,  and 
therefore  to  suit  the  observer's  different  points  of  view  must  be  ex 
pressed  by  different  definitions  relating  to  those  points. 

Undoubtedly  therefore,  the  real  world  is  full  of  such  constants, 
perfectly  definite,  yet  taken  by  themselves  incapable  of  being  desig 
nated  ;  they  must  be  set  down  as  definite  even  while  they  vary  in 
value  according  to  a  law,  under  varying  conditions ;  for,  to  adhere  to 
the  example  of  the  force  above  mentioned,  its  intensity  under  a  new 
and  definite  condition  will  always  be  measured  by  a  function  of  g, 
and  never  by  the  same  function  of  ng.  It  is,  as  has  been  observed 
more  than  once  already,  only  by  application  of  our  movable  thought, 
with  its  comparisons  of  different  real  things,  that  there  can  arise 
either  the  idea  of  countless  possibilities,  which  might  equally  well 
have  existed  but  do  not ;  or  the  strange  habit  of  looking  on  what  is 
real  as  existent  to  some  extent  before  it  exists,  and  as  then  proceed 
ing  to  acquire  complete  existence  by  a  selection  from  among  possi 
bilities.  Therefore,  if  we  recognise  that  the  first  genesis  of  real 
things  is  altogether  incapable  of  being  brought  before  our  minds  by 
us,  though  we  find  their  continuance  intelligible,  we  may  accept 
absolute  motion  in  space  and  its  direction  as  one  of  the  immemorial 
data  from  which  our  further  considerations  must  start. 

167.  But  it  cannot  be  denied  that  one  thorny  question  is  left. 
We  admit  all  constants  which,  speaking  generally,  form  the  essence 


284  Of  Motion.  [BOOK  ii. 

of  the  thing  whose  further  behaviour  is  to  be  accounted  for ;  but  here 
we  have  on  one  side  an  empty  space  which  is  absolutely  indifferent 
to  all  real  things  and  could  exist  without  them,  and  on  the  other  side 
a  world  of  real  things  which,  even  supposing  it  to  seem  to  us  in  need 
of  a  spatial  extension  of  its  own,  is  yet  expressly  conceived  as  wholly 
indifferent  to  the  place  which  it  occupies,  and  therefore  just  as  in 
different  to  the  change  of  that  place,  and  incapable  of  determining 
by  its  own  resources  the  direction  of  any  motion  to  be  initiated, 
although  actually  engaged  in  one  motion  out  of  infinitely  many. 
Sensuous  perception  may  find  no  difficulty  in  such  a  fundamental 
incoherence  between  determinations  which  nevertheless  do  cohere 
together;  but  thought  must  pronounce  it  quite  incredible;  for  the 
endeavours  of  thought  will  always  be  directed  to  deriving  the  causes 
which  determine  the  destiny  of  existing  things  from  the  nature  of  the 
things  themselves.  To  say  that  motion  is  the  natural  state  of  things 
is  utterly  worthless  as  a  philosophical  idea ;  nothing  is  natural  to  a 
thing  but  to  be  what  it  is ;  states  of  it  may  be  called  matter  of  fact, 
but  cannot  be  called  natural ;  they  must  always  have  their  conditions 
either  in  the  things  or  without  them.  Each  particular  thing,  on  the  other 
hand,  cannot  be  in  motion  merely  in  general,  but  its  motion  must  have 
a  certain  direction  and  velocity;  further,  the  whole  assumption  of 
original  motion  is  only  of  use  by  ascribing  different  directions  and 
velocities  to  different  elements ;  but  as,  at  the  same  time,  it  persists 
in  regarding  the  elements  as  uniform,  it  is  all  the  less  able  to  conceive 
such  differences  as  natural  states,  and  is  compelled  to  treat  them  simply 
as  matter  of  fact,  and  indeed  as  alien  to  the  nature  of  the  thing. 

In  reality  it  was  this  causelessness  that  was  the  principal  obstacle 
to  the  recognition  of  absolute  motion;  for  what,  strictly  speaking, 
does  happen  if  the  advancing  element  e  traverses  one  empty  space- 
point  after  another,  without  being  in  itself  at  all  different  when  it 
reaches  the  third  from  what  it  was  when  in  the  first  or  second  ?  or, 
fruitless  as  the  transition  is,  without  so  much  as  receiving  an  indica 
tion  of  the  fact  of  its  fruitless  occurrence :  finally,  without  making  it 
possible  for  even  an  observer  from  without,  were  it  only  by  help  of 
relations  to  other  objects,  so  much  as  to  give  a  bare  designation  of 
the  supposed  proceeding  ?  And  are  we  to  suppose  that  a  process  so 
unreal  as  this,  a  becoming  which  brings  nothing  to  pass,  must  of 
necessity  last  for  ever  when  once  stimulated  to  action,  though  to 
begin  with  incapable  of  originating  without  external  stimulus  ?  These 
inconceivabilities  have  at  all  times  led  to  some  rebellion  against  the 
view  adopted  by  mechanics  (though  it  yields  so  clear  a  mental  picture 


CHAPTER  iv.]    Relative  Motion  and  Apparent  Space.       285 

and  is  so  indispensable  in  practice),  which  makes  the  moving  ele 
ment  merely  the  substratum  of  the  motion,  without  any  peculiar 
nature  which  is  affected  by  the  motion  or  generates  it  by  being 
affected.  It  is  objected  that  motion  cannot  consist  in  the  mere 
change  of  external  relations,  but  must  in  every  moment  be  a  true 
inner  state  of  the  moving  body  in  which  it  is  other  than  it  would  be 
in  a  moment  of  rest  or  of  different  movement.  Then  can  the  view 
which  concedes  to  space  no  more  than  a  phenomenal  validity  offer 
anything  satisfactory  by  way  of  a  resolution  of  this  doubt  ? 

168.  Let  us  suppose  a  real  element  e  to  be  in  inner  states  which 
we  will  sum  up  in  the  expression  p.  Then  the  question  for  us  could 
not  be  whether  ep  would  produce  a  motion  in  space,  but  only 
whether  ep  could  form  the  ground  of  an  apparent  motion  of  e  within 
space  for  a  consciousness  which  should  possess  the  perception  of 
such  space.  We  will  begin  by  making  the  same  assumption  as  we 
made  in  the  discussion  of  time1 ;  that  the  consciousness  in  question 
is  an  absolutely  immediate  knowledge  of  everything,  including  there 
fore  ep ;  and  is  not  based  on  the  acquisition  of  impressions  by  means 
of  any  effect  produced  by  ep  on  the  knowing  subject ;  and  therefore 
does  not  compel  us  to  attribute  to  this  subject  any  specific  and 
assignable  relation  to  ep. 

Then,  I  think,  we  may  consistently  conclude  as  follows.  Such  a 
consciousness  has  no  more  ground  for  ascribing  a  particular  spot  in 
the  space  of  which  it  has  a  mental  picture,  or  motion  in  a  particular 
direction,  to  the  ep  of  which  it  is  aware,  than  ep  has  power  in  an 
actual  empty  space  to  prefer  one  place  to  another  as  its  abode,  or  one 
direction  to  others  for  its  motion  which  has  to  be  initiated.  If  we 
want  to  bring  before  ourselves  in  sensuous  form  what  appears  the 
reasonable  result  under  such  imaginary  conditions, — we  can  only 
think  of  a  musical  note,  to  which  we  do  no  doubt  ascribe  reality  in 
space,  but  localise  it  most  imperfectly,  and  then  only  in  respect  of 
its  origin  :  or  we  must  think  of  a  succession  of  notes,  which  we  do 
not  exactly  take  to  sound  outside  space,  but  which  still  remains 
a  purely  intensive  succession,  and  has  definite  direction  only  in  the 
realm  of  sound,  and  not  in  space. 

I  should  not  adduce  such  utterly  fictitious  circumstances,  were  they 
not  about  on  a  par  with  what  is  usually  put  forward  by  popular 
accounts  of  the  Kantian  view ;  a  ready-made  innate  perception  of 
space,  without  any  definite  relations  between  the  subject  which  has  it, '• 
and  the  objects  which  that  subject  has  to  apprehend  under  it.  But 
1  [Cp.  p.  256  sup.] 


286  Of  Motion.  t  BOOK  n. 

in  reality  we  find  the  consciousness  in  question  invariably  attached  to 
a  definite  individual  being  c,  and  in  place  of  immediate  knowledge 
we  find  a  cognition  which  is  always  confined  to  the  operations  of 
e  on  f.  Besides  this  postulate,  however,  something  more  is  required 
for  the  genesis  of  phenomena  of  motion  in  the  experience  of  e. 
Whatever  the  inner  state  p  within  e  may  be,  and  in  whatever  way  it 
may  alter  into  q  and  its  effect  TT  on  e  into  K,  still,  for  an  e  that  is  simple 
and  undifferentiated  in  itself  all  this  could  only  be  the  ground  for  a 
perception  of  successive  contents,  not  for  their  localisation  in  space 
and  for  their  apparent  motion.  More  is  required  than  even  a  plurality 
of  elements,  ep)  eq)  er,  in  different  states  of  excitation,  operating 
simultaneously  on  a  simple  e.  No  doubt,  the  felt  differences  of  their 
action  might  furnish  *,  supposing  it  able  and  obliged  to  apprehend 
them  by  spatial  perception,  with  a  clue  to  the  determination  of  the 
relative  positions  which  their  images  would  have  to  occupy  in  space. 
And  alterations  of  their  action  would  then  lead  to  the  perception  of 
the  relative  motions  by  which  these  images  changed  their  apparent 
places  as  compared  with  each  other.  But  the  whole  of  the  collective 
mental  picture  which  had  thus  arisen,  whether  at  rest  or  in  motion, 
would  still  be  without  any  definite  situation  relatively  to  the  subject 
which  perceived  it.  The  complete  homogeneousness  of  this  latter 
would  make  it  analogous  to  a  uniform  sphere,  so  that  it  could  turn 
round  within  the  multiplicity  which  it  pictured  to  itself  without  ex 
periencing,  in  doing  so,  any  alteration  in  the  actions  to  which  it  is 
subjected,  or  any,  therefore,  in  its  own  perceptions.  To  make  one 
arrangement  of  phenomena  a  b  c  distinguishable  from  another  ar 
rangement  c  b  a  or  a  downward  motion  to  the  right  from  its  counter 
part  in  an  upward  motion  to  the  left,  it  is  essential  that  the  directions 
in  question  should  be  unmistakably  distinguished  in  the  space-image 
for  e  itself  by  a  qualitative  mark ;  then  e  will  be  able  to  refer  every 
action  or  modification  of  an  element  to  that  direction  to  which  it 
belongs  according  to  the  qualitative  nature  of  the  impression  made  or 
of  the  modification  of  that  impression. 

The  result  of  the  argument  comes  to  this,  after  the  insertion  of 
some  intermediate  ideas  which  I  reserve  for  the  psychology.  It  is 
true  that  a  simple  atom,  endowed  with  a  perception  of  space,  might 
find  occasion  in  the  qualitative  differences  of  the  impressions  received 
from  innumerable  others  to  project  a  spatial  picture  of  phenomena 
with  a  definite  configuration  of  its  own.  But  for  this  same  atom  there 
would  be  no  meaning  in  the  question  what  place  or  direction  in 
absolute  space  such  images  or  their  motions  occupied  or  pursued. 


CHAPTER  iv.]         Position  in  Apparent  Space.  287 

What  could  be  meant  by  such  an  expression  in  general  would  not 
become  intelligible  to  it  till  it  had  ceased  to  be  an  isolated  atom 
endowed  with  knowledge,  and  had  come  into  permanent  union  with 
a  plurality  of  other  elements,  we  may  say  at  once,  with  an  Organism  ; 
such  that  its  systematic  fabric,  though  still  to  be  conceived  as  itself  un- 
spatial,  should  supply  polar  contrasts  between  the  qualitatively  de 
finite  impressions  conducted  from  its  different  limbs  to  the  conscious 
centre.  The  directions  along  which  consciousness  distributes  these 
impressions  as  they  reach  it,  in  its  picture  of  space,  and  in  which  it 
disposes  such  images  as  appear  to  it  of  its  own  bodily  organism, 
would  alone  furnish  consciousness  with  a  primary  and  unam 
biguous  system  of  co-ordinates,  to  which  further  all  impressions 
would  have  to  be  reduced  which  might  arise  from  variable  intercourse 
with  other  elements,  e  the  subject  of  perception  may  then  gain 
further  experiences  in  this  intercourse,  such  as  prove  to  it  that  per 
manent  relations  exist  between  the  other  elements  towards  the  totality 
of  which  €  can  give  itself  and  its  body  varying  positions ;  and  then 
the  inducement  arises  to  look  in  the  spatially  presented  picture  of  the 
outer  world  for  a  fresh  system  of  co-ordinates  belonging  to  that 
world,  to  which  both  its  permanent  relations  and  e's  varying  positions 
shall  be  most  readily  reducible. 

But  it  will  again  be  essential  to  any  such  fresh  system  that  it  should 
be  defined  by  a  qualitative  distinction  between  the  perceptions 
which  are  assigned  to  the  opposite  extremities  of  one  of  its  axes * ; 
though  on  the  other  hand  what  place  this  whole  system  with  its  inner 
articulation  holds  in  absolute  space,  or  in  what  direction  of  absolute 
space  this  or  that  of  its  axes  extends,  are  questions  which  on  our  view 
would  cease  to  have  any  assignable  meaning  at  all.  For  this  is  just 
what  does  not  exist,  an  absolute  space  in  which  it  is  possible  for  the 
subject  of  spatial  perception  with  all  the  objects  of  its  perception,  to 
be  contained  over  again,  and  occupy  a  place  here  or  there.  Space 
only  exists  within  such  subjects,  as  a  mental  image  for  them ;  and  is 
so  articulated  for  them  by  the  qualitative  difference  of  their  impres 
sions,  that  they  are  able  to  assign  the  appearances  of  other  elements 
their  definite  places  in  it ;  and  finally,  it  is  the  thorough  coherence  of 
all  reality  which  brings  about  that  each  of  these  subjects  also  presents 
itself  in  the  space  pictured  by  every  other  in  a  station  appropriate  to 
the  totality  of  its  relations  with  the  rest  of  what  the  world  contains ; 
and  thus  it  happens  that  each  of  them  can  regard  the  space  which  is 

1  [This  alludes  to  the  distinction  of '  up  '  and  '  down '  furnished  by  the  feeling  of 
resistance  to  the  force  of  gravity.  Cp.  §  287.} 


288  Of  Motion. 

in  its  own  perception  as  a  stage  common  to  all,  on  which  it  can  itself 
meet  with  other  percipient  subjects  than  itself,  and  can  be  in  relations 
which  agree  with  theirs,  to  yet  another  set  of  subjects. 

169.  But  it  is  still  necessary  to  return  expressly  to  the  two  cases 
given  above,  in  order  to  insist  on  the  points  in  them  which  remain 
obscure.  We  saw  that  they  present  no  special  difficulties  on  the 
common  view ;  if  we  have  once  decided  to  accept  empty  space  as  a 
real  extension,  and  motion  as  an  actual  passage  through  it,  then 
rectilinear  progress  and  rotation  of  a  solitary  element  might  be 
accepted  into  the  bargain  as  processes  no  less  real  although  unde- 
finable.  But  we  should  now  have  to  substitute  for  both  of  them  an 
internal  condition  of  e,  say  /»,  whose  action  TT  on  an  e  endowed  with 
perception  produces  in  this  latter  the  spectacle  of  a  motion  of  e  through 
the  space  mentally  represented  by  e.  Now  according  to  the  common 
view  the  absolute  motion  of  e,  whether  progressive  or  rotatory,  though 
it  really  took  place,  yet  was  undefinable.  The  reason  was  that  the 
observing  consciousness  which  had  to  define  it  was  treated  only  as  an 
omnipresent  immediate  knowledge,  possessing  itself  no  peculiar  relation 
with  its  object  which  helped  to  define  its  perception ;  therefore  the  de 
signation  of  the  actual  occurrence  would  have  been  effected  in  this  case 
by  co-ordinates  independent  of  the  observer ;  and  as  none  such  were 
found  in  empty  space  the  problem  of  designating  this  occurrence  re 
mained  insoluble,  though  its  reality  was  not  thereby  made  less  real. 

For  us  the  case  is  different.  What  we  want  to  explain  is  not  a  real 
movement  outside  us,  but  the  semblance  of  one,  which  does  not  take 
place  outside,  within  us  ;  therefore  for  us  the  presence  of  the  observing 
subject  e  for  whom  the  semblance  is  supposed  to  be  forthcoming,  and 
the  definite  relation  of  <•  to  the  external  efficient  cause  of  this  semblance, 
is  not  merely  the  condition  of  a  possible  designation  and  definition  of 
the  apparent  motion,  but  is  at  the  same  time  the  condition  of  its 
occurrence,  as  apparent.  So  we  too,  within  the  phenomenal  world 
which  we  represent  to  our  minds,  may  accept  the  progress  or  rotation 
of  a  solitary  e  for  a  real  occurrence,  if  we  do  not  forget  to  include 
ourselves  in  the  conception  as  the  observer  e,  in  whose  mind  alone 
there  can  be  a  semblance  at  all.  For  then  there  must  in  any  case 
be  a  reaction  and  a  varying  one  between  e  and  e  as  elements  in  one 
and  the  same  world,  and  it  is  the  way  in  which  the  action  of  e  on  us 
changes  from  TT  to  K  while  e  is  itself  undergoing  an  inner  modification, 
that  will  define  the  direction  of  the  apparent  motion  in  question  with 
reference  to  some  system  of  co-ordinates  with  which  we  must  imagine 
the  space-perceiving  e  to  be  equipped  from  the  first  if  its  universal 


CHAPTER  iv.]        '  States '  corresponding  to  Motion.  289 

perception  is  to  admit  of  any  method  of  application  to  particular 
things. 

170.  Still  I  feel  that  these  doctrines  are  inadequate,  as  strongly  as  I 
am  persuaded  that  they  are  correct ;  they  leave  in  obscurity  a  particular 
point  on  which  I  will  not  pretend  to  see  more  clearly  than  others.  It 
concerns  that  transition  of  e  from  one  inner  state  to  another  which  in 
acting  on  us  produces  for  us  the  semblance  of  a  motion  of  e.  It  must  of 
course  be  conceived  as  going  on  at  times  when  it  does  not  act  on  us,  or 
before  it  begins  to  act  on  us ;  and  at  those  times  it  can  be  nothing  but  an 
inner  unspatial  occurrence  which  has  a  capacity  of  appearing  at  some 
later  time  as  motion  in  space  by  means  of  that  action  upon  us  which  it 
is  for  the  moment  without.  Here  we  are  obstructed  by  an  inconvenience 
of  our  doctrine  which  I  regret,  but  cannot  remove ;  we  have  no  life 
like  idea  of  inner  states  of  things.  We  are  forced  to  assume  them  in 
order  to  give  a  possibility  of  fulfilling  certain  postulates  of  cognition 
which  were  discussed  above ;  but  we  cannot  portray  them ;  and  any 
one  who  absolutely  scorns  to  conceive  them  as  even  analogous  to  the 
mental  states  which  we  experience  in  ourselves,  has  no  possible  image 
or  illustration  of  the  constitution  by  help  of  which  they  accomplish  this 
fulfilment  of  essential  requirements. 

This  lack  of  pictorial  realisation  would  not  in  itself  be  a  hindrance 
to  a  metaphysical  enquiry;  but  it  becomes  one  in  this  particular  case 
where  we  are  dealing  with  the  conceivability  of  the  motions  in  question. 
When  the  element  e  traverses  an  apparent  path  in  our  perception  it  is 
true  that  the  beginning  of  the  series  of  inner  states,  whose  successive 
action  on  us  causes  this  phenomenon,  must  be  looked  for  not  in  e  itself, 
but  in  the  influence  of  other  elements  ;  but  still  the  undeniable  validity 
of  the  law  of  persistence  compels  us  to  the  assumption  that  an  impulse 
to  motion  when  it  has  once  arisen  in  e  becomes  to  our  perception 
independently  of  any  further  influences  the  cause  of  an  apparent 
change  of  place  of  the  sense-image,  with  uniform  continuance.  The 
same  assumption  is  forced  on  us  by  another  instance,  that  of  two 
similar  elements  e  which  unceasingly  traverse  the  same  circle,  being  at 
the  opposite  extremities  of  its  diameter. 

We  can  easily  employ  the  ordinary  ideas  of  mechanics  to  help  out 
our  view  so  far  as  to  assume  an  inner  reaction  between  the  two 
elements,  which,  if  left  to  itself,  would  shorten  the  distance  between 
their  sense-images  in  our  perception ;  then  there  would  still  remain 
to  be  explained  the  rectilinear  tangential  motion,  which,  continuing 
in  consequence  of  the  Law  of  Persistence,  would  counteract  this 
attraction  to  the  amount  needed  to  form  the  phenomenal  circle. 

VOL.  i.  u 


290  Of  Motion.  [BOOK  ii. 

Now  what  inner  constitution  can  we  conceive  e  to  possess,  capable  of 
producing  in  our  eyes  the  phenomenon  of  this  inertia  of  motion? 
Considered  as  a  quiescent  state  it  could  never  condition  anything  but 
a  permanent  station  of  e  in  our  space ;  considered  as  a  process  it  still 
ought  not  to  change  ep  into  eq  in  such  a  way  that  the  new  momentary 
state  q  should  remove  the  reason  for  the  continuance  of  the  same 
process  which  took  place  during  ep ;  we  should  have  to  suppose  an 
event  that  never  ceases  occurring,  like  a  river  that  flows  on  ever  the 
same  without  stopping,  or  an  unresting  endeavour,  a  process  which 
the  result  that  it  generates  neither  hinders  nor  prohibits  from  con 
tinuing  to  produce  it  afresh.  This  conception  appears  extraordinary 
enough,  and  justifies  a  mistrust  which  objects  to  admitting  it  before 
it  is  proved  by  an  example  to  signify  something  that  does  happen, 
and  not  to  be  a  mere  creation  of  the  brain. 

It  is  certainly  my  belief,  though  I  will  not  attempt  a  more  definite 
proof,  that  mental  life  would  present  instances  of  such  a  self- 
perpetuating  process,  which  would  correspond  in  their  own  way  to 
the  idea,  extraordinary  as  it  is  though  not  foreign  to  mechanics,  of 
a  state  of  motion.  Perhaps  there  may  even  be  someone  who  cares  to 
devote  himself  to  pursuing  these  thoughts  further ;  after  we  have  been 
so  long  occupied  with  the  unattainable  purpose  of  reducing  all  true 
occurrence  to  mere  change  of  external  relations  between  substrata 
which  are  in  themselves  unmoved,  even  fashion  might  require  a 
transition  to  an  attempt  at  a  comprehensive  system  of  mechanics  of 
inner  states;  then  we  should  perhaps  find  out  what  species  are 
admitted  as  possible  or  excluded  as  impossible  by  this  conception  of 
a  state  as  such,  which  has  hitherto  been  as  a  rule  rather  carelessly 
handled.  Till  then,  our  notions  on  the  subject  have  not  the  clear 
ness  that  might  be  desired,  and  the  law  of  persistence  remains  a 
paradox  for  us  as  for  others  ;  I  will  only  add  that  it  presents  no  more 
enigmas  on  our  view  than  on  the  common  one.  The  fact  of  such  an 
eternal  continuance  of  one  and  the  same  process  is  actually  ad 
mitted  by  mechanics ;  the  strangeness  of  the  fact  is  what  it  ignores 
by  help  of  the  convenient  expression  which  I  have  quoted,  '  State  of 
motion/ 

171.  I  may  expect  to  be  met  with  the  question  whether  it  would 
not  be  more  advisable  to  abstain  from  such  fruitless  considerations ; 
it  is  not,  however,  merely  the  peculiarity  of  the  presuppositions  that 
we  happen  to  have  made  which  occasions  them.  Poisson,  in  §  112 
of  his  '  Mechanics,'  in  speaking  of  uniform  motion  according  to  the 
law  of  persistence,  observes ;  '  the  space  traversed  in  a  unit  of  time 


CHAPTER  IV.]       MotlOH  and  the  MeaSUTB  of  MotlOH.  2QI 

is  only  the  measure  of  velocity,  not  the  velocity  itself;  the  velocity  of 
a  material  point  which  is  in  motion,  is  something  which  resides  in 
that  point,  moves  it,  and  distinguishes  it  from  a  material  point  which 
is  at  rest ; '  and  he  adds  that  it  is  incapable  of  detailed  explanation. 
I  am  better  pleased  that  the  illustrious  teacher  should  have  expressed 
himself  somewhat  cavalierly  on  a  difficult  problem,  the  solution  of 
which  was  not  demanded  by  his  immediate  purpose,  than  if  he  had 
philosophised  about  it  out  of  season.  He,  however,  is  not  open  to  the 
charge  of  taking  a  mere  formula  of  measurement  furnished  by  our 
comparing  cognition  for  a  reality  in  things;  on  the  contrary,  he 
justly  censures  the  common  notion  as  overlooking  a  reality  to  which 
that  formula  should  only  serve  as  measure.  Velocity  and  accelera 
tion  are  not  merely  the  first  and  second  differential  quotients  of 
space  and  time ;  in  that  case  they  would  only  have  a  real  value  in  as 
far  as  a  length  of  space  was  actually  traversed;  but  it  is  not  only 
within  an  infinitely  short  distance,  but  in  every  indivisible  moment 
that  the  moving  body  is  distinguished  from  one  not  moving ;  although 
if  the  time  is  zero,  that  which  distinguishes  them  has  no  opportunity 
to  make  itself  cognisable  by  the  body  describing  a  path  in  space  and 
by  the  ratio  of  that  interval  to  the  time  expended. 

It  is  impossible  to  deny  this  while  we  speak  of  the  law  of  per 
sistence.  If  an  element  in  motion,  that  passes  through  a  point,  were 
even  in  the  unextended  moment  of  passing  precisely  like  another 
which  merely  is  in  the  point,  its  condition  of  rest  would  according  to 
that  law  last  for  ever.  Therefore,  we  shall  not  indeed  conclude  with 
Zeno  that  the  flying  arrow  is  always  at  rest,  because  it  is  at  rest  in 
every  point  of  its  course.  But  we  shall  maintain  that  it  would  have 
to  remain  at  rest  for  ever  if  it  were  at  rest  in  a  single  point,  and  that 
so  it  would  never  be  able  to  reach  the  other  places  in  which,  accord 
ing  to  Zeno's  sophism  (which  rather  forgets  itself  at  this  point),  the 
same  state  of  rest  is  to  be  assigned  to  it.  Now  if  that  in  which  this 
essence  of  motion  consists  cannot  exist  in  an  indivisible  moment  as 
velocity,  i.e.  as  a  relation  of  space  and  time,  but  nevertheless  must 
exist  with  full  reality  in  such  a  moment,  then  of  course  nothing 
remains  but  to  regard  it  as  an  inner  state  or  impulse  of  the  moving 
object  which  is  in  existence  prior  to  its  result.  We  may  admit  too 
that  this  impulse  moves  the  element ;  for  however  it  may  itself  have 
arisen  by  the  action  of  external  forces,  still  Poisson  and  we  were  only 
speaking  of  the  impulse  which  has  arisen,  in  as  far  as  it  is  for  the 
future  the  cause  of  the  persistence  of  the  motion. 

172.  The  parallelogram  of  motions  teaches  us  the  result  of  the 

U  2 


292  Of  Motion.  i  BOOK  n. 

meeting  of  two  impulses  in  the  same  movable  material  point.  Its 
validity  is  so  certain  that  all  proofs  which  only  aim  at  establishing  its 
certainty  have  merely  logical  interest ;  we  should  here  be  exclusively 
concerned  with  any  which  might  adduce  at  the  same  time  the  mean 
ing  of  the  doctrine,  or  the  ratio  legis  which  finds  in  this  proposition 
its  mathematical  expression  as  applicable  to  facts. 

If  a  subject  S  has  a  predicate  p  attributed  to  it  under  a  condition  TT 
this  same  S  as  determined  by  TT  could  possess  no  other  predicate  q ; 
for  every  condition  can  be  the  ground  of  one  consequent  only  and  of 
no  other.  Thus,  the  two  propositions  $„  is  />,  and  SK  is  q,  each  of 
which  may  be  correct  in  itself,  speak  of  two  different  cases  or  two 
different  subjects;  mere  logical  consideration  gives  no  determining 
principle  to  decide  for  what  predicate  ground  would  be  given  by  the 
coexistence  of  the  two  conditions  TT  and  K  in  the  same  case  or  in  the 
same  subject.  The  real  world  is  constantly  presenting  this  problem ; 
different  conditions  may  seize  upon  an  element,  which  they  can  deter 
mine,  not  merely  in  succession,  but  at  once;  and  as  long  as  no 
special  presuppositions  are  made  no  one  of  them  can  be  postponed 
or  preferred  to  the  others.  Just  as  little  can  the  conflict  of  their 
claims  remain  undecided;  in  every  case  a  result  must  be  generated 
which  is  determined  by  the  two  conditions  together. 

I  thought  this  characteristic  of  the  real  world  worth  a  few  words  of 
express  notice ;  it  is  generally  presupposed  as  self-evident  and  atten 
tion  turned  at  once  to  determining  the  form  of  such  a  result.  If  we 
are  to  attempt  this  in  an  absolutely  general  way,  we  shall  first  have  to 
reflect  on  the  possibility  that  the  conditioning  force  of  the  two  may 
depend  on  their  priority  in  time,  and  consequently  there  may  be  a 
different  result  if  K  follows  TT  and  if  TT  follows  K.  In  the  case  of 
motion  this  doubt  is  solved  by  the  law  of  persistence.  The  element 
moved  by  the  condition  TT  is  at  every  moment  in  the  exact  state  of 
motion  into  which  it  was  thrown  at  the  moment  in  which  the  motion 
was  first  imparted.  Therefore  at  whatever  moment  the  second  con 
dition  K  begins  to  act  all  the  relations  are  just  the  same  as  if  TT  was 
only  beginning  to  exert  its  influence  simultaneously  with  K,  and  so  the 
order  of  the  two  conditions  in  time  is  indifferent.  But  even  so  it 
remains  doubtful  whether  K  will  endeavour  to  give  an  element  e  acted 
on  at  the  same  time  by  the  condition  TT  the  same  new  movement 
q  which  it  would  have  imparted  to  it  in  the  absence  of  IF.  If  we  con 
ceived  p  as  the  motion  produced  first  by  TT  alone,  then  the  motion 
resulting  from  the  two  conditions  might  possibly  be  not  merely  p  4-  q  or 
p  q,  but  also  (p  +  q)  (i  ±  8)  or  p  q  (i  ±  5) ;  if,  first,  q  had  been  produced 


CHAPTER  iv.]  Parallelogram  of  Motions.  293 

alone  by  K,  the  addition  of  TT  would  turn  it  into  qp  (i±e)  or  (p  +  q) 
(i  +  *).  It  is  obviously  indifferent  which  of  the  two  formulae  we 
choose ;  the  only  function  of  the  mathematical  symbol  is  to  designate 
p  and  q  as  absolutely  equal  in  rank  ;  the  result  which  is  produced  is 
strictly  speaking  neither  sum  nor  product.  Now  as  the  order  in 
time  of  the  conditions  is  indifferent,  p  q  (i  +  8)  must  =  p  q  (i  +  f) ;  and 
this  equation  is  satisfied  by  either  of  two  assumptions ;  that  d  =  e,  or 
that  both  =  o.  I  do  not  think  it  possible  to  decide  on  general  grounds 
for  one  or  other  of  these  assumptions  with  reference  to  the  joint 
action  of  any  two  conceivable  conditions  however  constituted  ;  on  the 
contrary,  I  am  convinced  that  the  first  has  its  sphere  of  application  as 
well  as  the  other ;  therefore  though  it  is  a  familiar  fact  that  the  second 
holds  good  for  motions  and  their  combinations,  I  can  only  regard 
it,  in  its  place  in  my  treatment  of  the  subject,  as  a  fact  of  the  real 
world,  such  as  is  easily  interpreted  when  established  on  other  evidence, 
but  such  as  in  default  of  that  confirmation  could  not  be  reliably  proved 
a  priori.  The  meaning  of  this  fact  then  is,  that  n  simultaneous 
motions  produce  in  the  element  e  in  a  unit  of  time  the  same  change 
of  place  which  they  would  have  produced  in  n  units  of  time  if  they  had 
acted  on  e  successively,  each  beginning  at  the  place  which  e  had 
already  reached.  It  is  unnecessary  to  observe  how  the  final  place  of  e 
and  also,  as  the  same  relations  hold  good  for  every  infinitely  small 
portion  of  time,  the  path  of  e  as  well,  determine  themselves  by  this 
principle  in  accordance  with  the  parallelogram  of  forces. 

This  behaviour  of  things  is  akin  in  significance  to  the  law  of  per 
sistence  ;  just  as  by  the  latter  a  motion  once  in  existence  is  never  lost 
if  left  to  itself,  so  too  in  its  composition  with  others  none  of  it  is  lost, 
in  so  far  as  the  collective  result  completely  includes  the  result  of  each 
separate  motion.  Only,  the  process  by  which  this  collective  conse 
quence  is  attained  must  be  single  at  every  moment  and  cannot  contain 
the  multiplicity  of  impulses  as  a  persistent  multiplicity;  it  is  the  resultant, 
which  blends  them.  The  expression  p  +  q  would  correspond  to  the 
former  idea  by  indicating  the  two  motions  which  may  be  allowed  to 
succeed  one  another  with  a  view  to  obtaining  the  same  result ;  the 
other,  p  q,  would  express  the  latter,  the  process  by  which  this  result  is 
reached ;  namely  that  the  motion  in  the  direction  p  would  be  con 
tinuously  displaced  parallel  to  itself  through  the  condition  q. 

173.  In  declining  the  problem  of  a  deduction  of  the  law  of  the 
parallelogram  I  expressly  said  that  I  only  did  so  in  its  place  in  my 
discussion.  But  if  we  make  the  ordinary  assumptions  of  mechanics  I 
believe  that  the  restriction  of  it  to  mere  empirical  validity  is  quite 


2Q4  Of  Motion.  c  BOOK  n. 

baseless.  I  find  it  maintained  that  all  attempts  to  prove  it  as  a  neces 
sary  truth  of  the  understanding  have  to  meet  the  argument  that  there 
is  nothing  in  our  reason  to  compel  us  to  assume  precisely  this  arrange 
ment  to  exist  in  nature.  There  would  be,  it  is  said,  no  contradiction 
to  the  nature  of  our  reason  in  such  an  assumption  as  that  the  physical 
or  chemical  quality  of  the  material  points  and  the  mode  of  generation 
of  the  forces  brought  into  play  had  an  influence  on  the  amount  and 
direction  of  the  resultant.  For  instance,  forces  of  electric  origin 
might  influence  degree  and  direction  of  the  resultant  differently  from 
forces  of  gravitation,  or  attractive  forces  differently  from  repulsive  ;  it 
is  admitted  that  this  is  not  the  case,  but  alleged  that  it  is  only  expe 
rience  that  tells  us  so.  As  against  this  argument  I  must  remind  my 
readers  that  the  general  science  of  mechanics  treats  of  forces  only 
in  as  far  as  they  are  causes  of  perfectly  homogeneous  motions,  dis 
tinguished  by  nothing  but  direction,  velocity,  and  intensity,  and  not 
with  reference  to  other  and  secret  properties.  The  law  of  the  paral 
lelogram  applies  directly  to  none  but  the  above  motions,  and  to  them 
only  as  already  imparted  and  so  brought  under  the  uniform  law  of 
persistence ;  and  this  application  excludes  all  reference  to  the  history 
of  what  precedes  their  origin.  In  the  same  way  the  movable  elements 
are  taken  to  be  simply  and  solely  substrata  of  motion,  and  perfectly 
indifferent  to  it.  That  component,  with  respect  to  which  they  are 
purely  homogeneous  masses  possessing  a  quantitatively  measurable 
influence  on  the  course  of  their  motions  only  by  the  resistance  of 
inertia,  is  conceived  as  standing  out  separately  to  begin  with  from  the 
rest  of  their  qualitative  nature. 

Granting  these  postulates  our  reason  has  no  longer  a  number  of 
possible  cases  before  it ;  on  the  contrary,  it  is  certain  that  two  motions 
which  are  nothing  but  changes  of  place,  and  have  no  force  behind  them 
which  can  influence  their  persistence,  can  produce  no  more  than  their 
sum  if  they  are  similar,  or  their  difference  if  they  are  opposed.  This 
determines  the  maximum  and  minimum  of  the  change,  because  no 
increase  or  diminution  of  what  exists  can  take  place  without  a  reason. 
But  supposing  that  there  are  other  relations  between  two  motions 
besides  complete  agreement  and  complete  opposition,  it  is  equally 
certain  that  if  the  nature  of  the  case  admits  of  both  impulses  being 
obeyed  at  once  both  will  have  to  be  satisfied  as  far  as  it  admits; 
for  again,  nothing  can  be  subtracted  from  their  complete  satisfaction 
unless  the  new  phenomenon  of  subtraction  has  a  compelling  cause 
that  hinders  the  complete  continuance  of  what  already  exists.  Now 
it  is  the  nature  of  space  which  in  virtue  of  the  infinite  variety  of 


CHAPTER  IV.]  MotlOHS  UOt  FoTCCS.  2Q5 

directions  possible  in  it  admits  of  these  relations  of  imperfect  oppo 
sition  between  motions.  And  this  same  nature  of  space,  by  permitting 
the  different  directions  to  be  combined,  and  compensated  by  each 
other,  makes  possible  the  complete  and  simultaneous  fulfilment  of  the 
different  impulses ;  and  therefore  the  determination  of  the  result  in 
accordance  with  the  law  of  the  parallelogram  is  of  course  a  necessity 
and  there  is  no  alternative  which  Can  be  treated  as  equally  possible. 
This  was  the  proper  occasion  to  notice  the  objection  just  refuted  ;  for 
as  long  as  the  question  was  how  the  inner  movements  of  things  modify 
each  other  it  was  possible  for  the  total  result  of  two  simultaneous 
impulses  to  be  an  increase  or  diminution  of  the  phenomenon  in 
question  dependent  on  the  qualitative  peculiarities  of  the  impulse 
itself.  But  when  it  comes  to  be  decided  that  their  results  in  the  e 
which  is  acted  on  are  nothing  but  two  homogeneous  motions,  and  when 
these  motions  come  to  be  regarded  as  already  produced  or  as  commu 
nicated  to  e,  then  the  further  composition  of  the  motions  can  only 
result  according  to  a  simple  law  that  regards  what  they  are  at  the 
moment  and  not  the  utterly  extinct  history  of  their  past. 


CHAPTER  V. 

The  theoretical  construction  of  Materiality. 

174.  THE  elements  of  Real  Existence  have  hitherto  been  spoken 
of  only  in  so  far  as  regards  the  positions  occupied  by  them  in  Space 
and  the  changes  in  those  positions ;  as  regards  the  form  and  nature 
of  that  which  takes  up  and  changes  its  positions,  we  have  been  silent. 
This  latter  question,  which  at  the  point  we  have  now  reached  we 
shall  be  called  on  to  consider,  is  usually  stated  as  the  theoretical  con 
struction  of  Matter.  If  I  were  to  give  this  name  to  the  following 
investigations,  it  could  only  be  with  the  reservation  that  I  under 
stand  the  philosophical  problem  which  is  commonly  designated  by 
it  in  a  changed  sense.  For  this  Matter,  the  construction  of  which 
is  required,  is  not  a  ready-made  fact  open  to  observation.  Real 
Existence — as  known  to  us  in  Space — consists  merely  of  an  in 
definite  number  of  individual  objects  variously  distinguished  by 
inherent  differences  in  their  sensible  qualities.  At  the  same  time, 
however,  we  learn  by  observation  and  comparison  of  these  objects  to 
perceive  a  number  of  common  properties  in  which  they  all,  to  a 
greater  or  less  extent,  participate.  They  are  all  alike  extended  in 
space ;  all  alike  show  a  certain  tendency  to  maintain  their  positions 
against  any  attempt  to  change  them  ;  they  all  oppose  a  certain  vis 
inertiae  to  any  efforts  to  move  them.  These  common  properties  of 
things,  which  are  consistent  also  with  the  most  manifold  differences, 
may  be  classed  together  under  the  generic  name  Materiality,  and 
Matter  would  then  be  a  general  term  standing  for  anything  which 
participated,  to  whatever  extent,  in  the  above-mentioned  modes  of 
behaviour.  The  problem  of  philosophy  would  be  to  determine  what 
is  the  subject  of  which  these  are  the  attributes,  and  under  what  con 
ditions  there  arise  in  their  successive  grades  the  forms  of  existence 
and  of  action  which  we  comprehend  under  the  name  of  'Materiality/ 

A  general  consideration  of  these  questions  must  have  regard  to  two 
possible  modes  of  answering  them.  Conceivably  the  Real  Existence 
which  appears  to  us  under  forms  of  action  so  homogeneous,  may  be 


fs  'Matter'  a  homogeneous  reality  ?  297 

not  merely  of  like,  but  of  quite  identical  nature  throughout,  and  may 
owe  the  differences  which  characterise  it  to  subsequent  accessory  con 
ditions.  But  it  is  equally  conceivable,  that  Beings  originally  distinct, 
and  such  as  cannot  be  comprehended  in  the  totality  of  their  nature 
under  any  one  notion,  should  yet  be  bound  by  the  plan  of  the  world, 
in  which  they  are  all  included,  to  express  their  own  inmost  and  hetero 
geneous  Being,  where  they  come  into  mutual  relations,  in  a  language 
of  common  currency,  i.  e.  by  means  of  the  properties  of  matter. 

175.  I  shall  not  now  attempt  to  determine,  whether  the  present 
age  with  its  more  extended  knowledge  of  nature  has  discovered 
grounds  decisively  favouring  the  first  of  these  suppositions — what  is 
certain  is,  that  the  ancients,  who  first  propounded  this  view,  proceeded 
on  no  such  sufficient  grounds.  The  conception  of  an  attribute 
admitting  of  being  applied  to  things  differing  from  each  other,  they 
hastily  transformed  into  the  conception  of  a  real  identical  subject 
underlying  the  varieties  of  phenomena.  This  example  has  unfortunately 
been  very  generally  followed  by  Philosophy  in  subsequent  times,  and 
the  days  are  still  quite  recent  when  the  most  strenuous  attempts  were 
made  to  construct  this  universal  substratum,  though  even  if  it  had 
been  shown  to  exist,  it  would  have  been  most  difficult,  if  not  altogether 
impossible,  to  deduce  from  it  the  different  material  bodies  to  the 
explanation  of  which  it  was  supposed  to  be  necessary.  In  any  case, 
this  universal  matter  could  not  have  been  adequately  determined  by 
reference  to  those  predicates  which  constitute  its  materiality.  For,  all  of 
them,  extension,  reaction,  vis  mer/iae,  denote  merely  the  manner  or  mode 
in  which  a  thing  behaves  or  is  related.  They  do  not  in  any  way  touch 
the  nature  of  that  to  which  these  changes  of  behaviour  are  attributed. 

There  are  two  ways  in  which  it  may  be  attempted  to  get  the  better 
of  this  difficulty.  As  we  are  under  no  obligation  to  lay  claim  to 
universal  knowledge,  so  it  may  simply  be  granted,  that  Matter  is  a 
real  determinate  thing,  but  known  to  us  and  intelligible  only  in  respect 
of  its  behaviour.  This  is  roughly  the  point  of  view  which  is  adopted 
by  Physical  Science.  Science  distinguishes  that  which  is  extended 
and  operative  in  space  from  the  empty  environment  in  which  it 
appears.  But  it  leaves  the  original  nature  of  this  substratum  unde 
fined,  or  ascribes  to  it  only  such  general  characteristics  as  are  forced 
upon  it  by  the  analysis  of  individual  objects.  By  so  doing,  Science 
gives  up  the  attempt  to  construct  a  theory  of  a  universal  matter,  pre 
ferring  rather  to  examine  into  the  nature  of  phenomena  singly,  whilst 
assuming  the  existence  of  a  common  basis  underlying  them.  On  the 
other  method,  if  we  attempt  to  deduce  the  general  properties  of 


298    The  theoretical  construction  of  Materiality. 

matter  from  the  nature  of  the  real  thing  of  which  they  are  predicates, 
we  are  met  by  a  well-known  difficulty.  We  convinced  ourselves, 
when  treating  of  ontology,  that  to  look  for  the  essence  of  a  thing  in  a 
fixed  quality  and  then  to  represent  the  modes  of  its  activity  as  con 
sequences  derivative  from  this,  was  a  method  which  could  never  be 
successful  *.  We  saw,  that  all  those  forms  of  insight  which  seemed 
to  explain  the  inner  nature  of  things  were  only  possible  because  they 
were  nothing  but  forms  of  vision,  appearances  such  as  a  consciousness 
may  present  to  itself.  What  lay  at  the  bottom  of  such  perceptions,  in 
external  reality,  always  converted  itself  into  some  kind  of  activity 
or  process  or  mode  of  relation.  And  however  strong  may  be  the 
impulse  to  attribute  these  living  processes  to  some  subject,  we  had  to 
give  up  the  attempt  to  explain  the  marvellous  fact  of  active  being,  by 
representing  its  activity  as  the  mere  predicate  of  an  inactive  subject. 
Similarly,  in  the  present  case,  it  would  be  labour  mis-spent  to  attempt 
to  describe  the  reality  underlying  the  forms  of  material  existence  pre 
vious  to  and  independent  of  these  its  manifestations.  There  does 
however  still  remain  something  to  be  done,  viz.  to  determine  the  place 
which  this  inaccessible  substratum  occupies  in  the  sum-total  of  exist 
ence.  At  any  rate  we  must  be  clear  as  to  whether  we  mean  to  regard 
it  as  something  absolutely  original  and  specific,  standing  in  no  con 
nexion  with  other  forms  of  reality,  or  as  itself,  no  less  than  its  pro 
perties,  an  intelligible  part  of  the  order  of  the  universe.  The  attempt 
to  explain  the  origin  of  matter  mechanically  is  now  regarded  as  im 
possible  ;  no  theory  of  a  universal  matter  can  show  how  the  existence 
of  matter  first  became  possible  and  then  actual.  All  that  can  be 
done  is  to  indicate  the  manner  of  its  existence  and  its  place  in  the 
order  of  the  world.  Not  until  the  nature  of  matter  had  been  thus 
explained,  and  so  could  be  taken  for  granted,  could  the  attempt  be 
renewed  to  derive  individual  phenomena  by  mechanical  laws  from  the 
universal  fact  of  matter. 

176.  There  has  never  been  a  dearth  of  such  attempts  ;  I  shall  con 
tent  myself  with  a  brief  mention  of  only  a  few ;  confining  myself  to 
those  which  stand  in  the  closest  relation  to  existing  opinions  on  the 
same  subject.  According  to  Descartes,  extension  and  conscious 
ness  constituted  together  the  two  ultimate  facts  of  perception,  both 
being  equally  clear  and  neither  admitting  of  being  merged  in  the  other. 
Having  made  this  discovery,  Descartes  proceeded  with  a  light  heart 
to  treat  also  the  res  extensa  and  the  res  cogitans  as  equally  simple 
and  clear.  He  considered  that  these  were  the  two  original  elements 
1  [Cp.  Bk.  I.  Chap.  2,  §  22.] 


CHAPTER  v.]  Descartes  and  Spinoza.  299 

of  the  world,  and  he  maintained  that  they  had  no  further  community 
of  nature  than  such  as  followed  from  their  having  both  sprung  from 
the  will  of  the  creator,  and  being  involved  in  a  relation  of  cause  and 
effect,  which  the  same  will  had  established.  Doubtless,  an  advance 
was  made  upon  this  view  by  Spinoza,  in  so  far  as  he  conceived  of 
conscious  life  and  material  existence  not  merely  as  springing  from  the 
arbitrary  will  of  the  creator,  but  as  two  parallel  lines  of  development, 
into  which,  by  reason  of  its  two  essential  attributes,  the  one  absolute 
substance  separated  itself.  At  any  rate,  it  was  established  that  the 
material  world  does  not  proceed  from  any  principle  peculiar  to  itself, 
and  of  undemonstrable  origin :  the  Reality  underlying  the  forms  and 
relations  of  matter  in  space  is  the  same  as  the  Reality,  which  in  the 
intelligible  world  assumes  the  form  of  Thought. 

But  I  cannot  convince  myself  that  Spinoza  got  further  than  this 
point  towards  a  solution  of  the  questions  now  before  us.  Though 
insisting  on  the  necessary  concatenation  of  all  things,  even  to  the 
extent  of  denying  every  kind  of  freedom,  he  hindered  the  development 
of  his  view,  by  introducing  barren  logical  conceptions  of  relation,  the 
metaphysical  value  of  which  remained  obscure.  A  logical  expression 
may  often  be  found  for  the  content  of  a  conception  by  enumerc  ting  a 
number  of  attributes  co-ordinated  in  it.  All  that  this  really  means  is 
that  every  such  determination  a  is  imposed  upon  the  single  object 
in  question  by  the  given  condition  p,  with  the  same  immediate  neces 
sity  with  which  in  another  case  the  determination  b  would  follow  upon 
the  occurrence  of  q.  But  we  cannot  tell  in  what  consists  the  unity  of 
a  substance,  which  apart  from  all  such  conditions  exhibits. two  original 
disparate  sets  of  attributes,  leaving  it  open  as  to  whether  these  are 
eternal  forms  of  Being  (essentia),  and  as  such  help  to  constitute  the 
nature  of  the  substance,  or  whether  we  are  to  understand  by  them 
merely  two  modes  in  which  the  nature  of  this  substance  is  apprehended 
by  us.  The  fact  that  in  respect  to  the  infinite  substance  every  influ 
ence  of  external  conditions  must  be  denied,  makes  it  all  the  more 
necessary  that  the  inner  relations  which  are  contained  in  its  essential 
unity,  issuing  as  they  do  in  such  very  different  modes  of  manifestation, 
should  be  explained  and  harmonised.  The  striking  peculiarity  of  the 
circumstance  that  Thought  and  Extension  should  be  the  attributes 
thus  colligated,  is  not  explained  away,  it  is  only  hidden  from  view  by 
the  suggestion  that  besides  these  attributes,  there  are  an  infinite 
number  of  others,  which  though  inaccessible  to  our  knowledge  are 
yet  co-ordinated  together  in  the  nature  of  the  absolute  after  the  same 
incomprehensible  fashion. 


300   The  theoretical  construction  of  Materiality. 

Again,  every  individual  existence  in  the  material  world  may  be 
logically  subsumed  under  the  universal  attribute  which  is  called  by  the 
not  very  appropriate  name  extension,  as  species  or  subspecies  ;  but, 
in  the  merely  formal  conception  of  absolute  substance,  there  is  nothing 
whatever  to  determine  why  out  of  the  infinitude  of  possible  modifica 
tions  of  the  absolute  substance  which  are  logically  conceivable,  one 
should  exist  in  reality  and  another  should  not — or,  supposing  it  to  be 
held  that  in  the  infinite  unexplored  totality  of  existence  all  these 
numberless  possibilities  as  a  matter  of  fact  are  realised,  there  must  still 
be  some  reason  why  the  events  within  the  limits  of  our  own  experience 
take  place  in  the  order  in  which  they  do  and  not  in  another.  Those 
two  attributes  of  the  infinite  substance  would,  if  left  to  themselves,  be 
able  to  develope  merely  the  system  of  all  possible  consequences 
derivable  from  them ;  but  such  is  not  the  reality  which  we  find  before 
us ;  in  order  to  arrive  at  that  we  need  either  a  plurality  of  underived 
existences,  or  a  simple  plan  capable]  of  being  the  reason  why  of  the 
possible  consequences  of  those  principles  some  occur  often,  others 
but  rarely,  and  all  in  such  infinitely  various  combinations. 

Once  more,  it  is  true  that  no  modification  of  the  one  attribute  can 
be  derived  out  of  a  modification  of  the  other,  and  therefore  thought 
cannot  be  derived  from  extension  nor  extension  from  thought.  But 
the  logical  impossibility  of  deriving  one  from  the  other  analytically 
cannot  invalidate  the  possibility  of  their  synthetic  combination  in 
actual  reality,  except  on  a  view  which  treats  logical  subordination  as  if 
it  were  the  same  with  dependence  in  fact,  and  confuses  a  condition 
with  a  cause.  The  necessary  admission  that  in  Being  there  are 
elements  which  cohere  and  mutually  affect  each  other,  though  in 
thought  they  are  incommensurable,  cannot  be  replaced  by  the  weari 
some  repetition  of  the  assertion,  '  ordo  et  connexio  rerum  idem  est 
atque  ordo  et  connexio  idearum.'  Whatever  reference  this  proposition 
may  be  supposed  to  have,  whether  to  the  parallelism  of  the  forms  of 
Being  in  the  totality  of  the  world,  or  to  the  combination  of  physical 
and  psychical  functions  in  the  life  of  each  individual,  as  long  as 
consciousness  and  extension  have  admittedly  no  common  term,  there 
can  be  no  common  term  between  the  order  and  connexion  of  their 
respective  modifications.  Their  alleged  identity  can  only  be  under 
stood  in  the  restricted  sense  that  always  and  in  every  case  the  modifi 
cation  b  of  the  attribute  B  corresponds  with  the  modification  a  of  the 
attribute  A,  and  that  the  change  of  a  into  a  is  followed  always  by  a 
corresponding  change  of  b  into  /3.  But  there  is  no  proof  that  the 
correspondence  which  is  exhibited  as  a  matter  of  fact  between  a  —  a 


CHAPTERV.]  SckelHng  and  Hegel.  3OI 

and  b  —  /3  rests  on  any  identity  of  nature ;  or,  in  other  words,  that  the 
transition  between  two  modifications  of  the  one  attribute  is  or  expresses 
or  repeats  the  same  thing  in  a  different  form  as  the  corresponding 
transition  in  the  other.  I  cannot,  therefore,  discover  that  Spinoza  has 
advanced  the  explanation  of  the  material  world  in  its  relation  to  the 
spiritual.  Instead  of  a  metaphysical  theory,  what  he  gives  is  scarcely 
more  than  a  logical  classification.  According  to  this,  material  and 
spiritual  existences  may  be  ranked  under  two  disparate  categories, 
which,  both  as  real  determinations  in  the  nature  of  the  absolute,  and 
in  all  that  is  produced  from  it,  are,  not  indeed  by  any  inner  necessity, 
but  always  as  a  matter  of  fact,  combined.  It  is  quite  possible  that  we 
may  not  be  able  to  make  any  advance  worth  speaking  of  beyond  this 
point ;  but,  in  that  case,  we  must  admit  that  we  have  arrived  at  a 
result  which  is  worth  almost  nothing,  and  we  shall  not  feel  bound  to 
make  any  profession  of  enthusiasm  on  account  of  such  a  trifling 
addition  to  our  knowledge. 

177.  I  shall  touch  only  briefly  on  the  kindred  speculations  which 
our  own  idealist  philosophy  has  developed  more  recently.  Schelling 
contented  himself  at  first,  as  Spinoza  had  done,  with  the  recognition 
of  that  Law  of  Polarity,  which  as  a  fact  constrains  the  absolute  to 
develope  itself  under  the  twofold  form  of  Ideality  and  Reality.  He 
interested  himself  more,  however,  in  showing  the  constant  presence  of 
these  two  elements  in  every  phenomenon,  and  explained  the  manifold 
differences  of  things  as  arising  from  the  preponderance  of  one  or  other 
of  them.  But  it  soon  became  evident  (as  would  have  appeared  even 
more  clearly  if  his  demonstration  had  been  successful)  that  he  intended 
to  regard  this  duality  not  as  a  mere  fact,  but  as  a  necessary  process 
of  differentiation  involved  in  the  original  nature  of  the  Absolute.  At  a 
later  period,  he  was  dominated,  as  was  Hegel,  by  the  thought  of  a 
development  within  which  the  material  world  appears  as  an  anticipa 
tion  of  the  higher  life  of  the  Spirit.  Of  this  development  Hegel 
believed  himself  to  have  discovered  the  law. 

It  would  be  impossible,  without  going  to  extreme  length,  to  give  a 
representation  of  the  governing  purpose  of  Hegel's  account,  which 
should  be  at  once  faithful  to  the  original,  and  at  the  same  time 
adapted  to  our  present  habits  of  thought.  I  shall  confine  myself, 
therefore,  to  attempting  to  show  that  he  has  confused  two  classes  cf 
questions  which  ought  to  be  kept  distinct.  After  satisfying  oneself 
that  the  purpose  of  the  world  is  the  realisation  of  some  one  all- 
comprehensive  idea,  and  after  being  further  assured  that  the  arrange 
ment  of  the  forms  of  existence  and  activity  in  a  fixed  system  is  re- 


302    The  theoretical  construction  of  Materiality. 

quired  as  a  means  to  this  realisation,  one  may  proceed  to  ask,  what  is 
the  place  of  matter  in  such  a  system  ?  what  necessary  and  peculiar 
function  is  served  by  it  ?  It  would  then  be  natural  to  speak  first  of 
matter  in  its  most  universal  form,  i.  e.  materiality  as  such  ;  and  we 
might  hope  to  find  that  the  same  inner  process  of  development, 
following  which  the  original  idea  of  matter  breaks  itself  up  into 
certain  definite  postulates  of  existence,  necessitated  by  the  corre 
spondence  of  the  idea  with  the  whole  sphere  of  reality,  would  be 
followed  in  like  manner  by  the  concrete  forms  which  different  objects 
assume  in  filling  in  the  common  outline,  and  that  these  would  be 
similarly  developed.  No  one  now  believes  in  the  pleasant  dream  that 
this  project  is  realisable,  still  less  that  it  has  been  realised.  Still,  there 
is  nothing  unintelligible  in  the  notion  itself.  What  troubles  us  is  the 
obscurity  of  the  connexion  between  this  project  and  the  second  of  the 
problems  I  alluded  to,  that  of  showing  how  the  postulates  dictated  by 
the  Idea  are  satisfied  both  in  existence  as  a  whole,  and  in  the  complex 
course  of  actual  events  in  particular.  As  regards  the  former  point,  it 
may  be  sufficient  to  bear  in  mind  that  the  self-developing  idea  is  no 
mere  system  of  conceivable  possibilities  of  thought,  but  itself  living 
reality.  The  same  reflexion  cannot,  however,  as  often  it  is  wrongly 
made  to  do,  serve  the  place  of  a  system  of  mechanics,  determining  in 
reference  to  each  concrete  existence  in  Space  and  Time  why  precisely 
here  and  now  this  rather  than  some  other  manifestation  of  the  idea 
should  necessarily  be  realised. 

178.  More  in  accordance  with  the  scientific  views  at  present  held 
is  the  teaching  of  Kant.  I  can  remember  how  a  few  decades  ago  the 
student  used  to  hear  it  said  that  of  all  Kant's  epoch-making  works 
the  deepest  were  those  which  treated  of  the  Metaphysical  basis  of 
Natural  Science.  While  admitting  the  worth  of  what  Kant  has  written 
on  this  subject,  I  cannot  value  it  quite  so  highly.  I  lament,  in  the  first 
place,  the  gap  which  separates  the  results  of  these  speculations  from 
those  of  the  Critique  of  the  Reason.  The  ideal  nature  of  space  which 
is  asserted  in  the  Critique  is  here  left  almost  out  of  account ;  the  con 
struction  of  matter  is  attempted  exclusively  from  the  ordinary  point  of 
view,  according  to  which  there  is  a  real  extension,  and  there  must  be 
activities  adapted  to  fill  it.  I  lament  no  less  what  has  previously  been 
observed  by  Hegel,  viz.  that  there  should  remain  such  uncertainty  as 
to  the  subject  to  which  the  activities  thus  manifesting  themselves  in 
Space,  and  so  constituting  matter,  are  to  be  attributed.  That  this 
subject  is  what  moves  in  Space,  and  that  it  is  the  reality  which  under 
lies  our  sensations,  these  seem  to  be  the  only  determinations  of  it 


CHAPTER  v.]        Kant  on  Matter  and  Extension.  303' 

which  are  not  derived  from  what  the  properties  of  matter  show  them 
selves  to  be  by  their  subsequent  effects.  Who  or  what  this  is  that  is 
thus  movable  or  real  remains  unexplained.  Taking  into  considera 
tion  the  fact  that  Kant  used  to  speak  of  things  in  themselves  in  the 
plural,  it  seems  probable  that  his  thoughts  on  this  subject  did  not  pass 
beyond  the  conception  of  an  indefinite  multiplicity  of  real  elements, 
an  obvious  hypothesis,  which  was  likely  to  recommend  itself  to  him 
for  the  purposes  of  Physical  Science.  This  view  is  confirmed  by  his 
mode  of  deriving  the  differences  of  individual  existences  from  com 
binations  of  the  two  *  primary  forces  in  varying  degrees  of  intensity, 
which  is  his  invariable  explanation  of  matter  as  a  phenomenon.  Now 
these  differences  of  combination  would  have  nothing  to  stand  upon  if 
they  are  not  based  on  specific  differences  of  nature  in  the  real  elements 
which  they  combine.  Although,  therefore,  it  is  not  explicitly  laid  down 
that  the  Real  elements  are  originally  distinct,  still  this  interpretation  is 
quite  as  little  excluded,  and  it  may  be  admitted  that  what  Kant  is 
endeavouring  to  explain  is  not  a  universal  matter,  but  rather  the 
universal  form  of  materiality,  together  with  the  special  manifestations 
which  are  developed  within  this  form  in  consequence  of  the  character 
istic  nature  of  the  Reality  which  the  form  contains.  But,  supposing 
this  to  be  admitted,  we  should  still  be  at  a  loss  to  explain  how  this 
real  existence  is  related  to  Space,  in  which  it  thus  makes  its  ap 
pearance.  If  we  refer  back  to  the  Critique  of  the  Reason,  we  find  one 
thing  settled,  but  only  in  the  negative.  True  Being  can  neither  be 
itself  extended,  nor  can  the  relations  in  which  it  is  expressed  be  other 
than  purely  intelligible  ones.  The  problem  would  then  have  been  to 
show  how  the  elements  of  Real  existence  are  able  to  present  them 
selves  to  our  consciousness  2 — in  which  alone  space  is  contained — in 
such  a  way  that  they  not  merely  take  up  definite  positions,  but  also 
have  the  appearance  of  being  extended  in  Space.  Kant  never  really 
handled  this  question.  The  forces  of  attraction  and  repulsion  which  he 
mentions  can  only  be  understood  on  the  supposition  of  certain  definite 
points  from  which  they  are  put  in  operation  by  the  ultimate  elements. 
Moreover,  if  Space  which  is  continuous  is  to  be  continuously  filled  with 
matter,  differing  indeed  in  degrees  of  density,  but  still  such  that  no 
smallest  particle  of  it  can  be  absolutely  driven  out  of  Space  even  by  the 
greatest  pressure,  and  if  matter  is  to  an  unlimited  extent  divisible  into 
parts  which  still  remain  matter,  there  seems  to  be  nothing  left  for  our 
imagination  but  to  conceive  of  extension  in  Space  and  impenetrability 
as  original  and  fixed  characteristics  of  the  real  substratum,  which 
1  [I.e.  attraction  and  repulsion.]  a  [' Anschauung.'] 


304    The  theoretical  constriction  of  Materiality.  [BOOKIL 

thus  becomes  the  basis  of  further  enquiry.  But  in  that  case,  what  we 
should  have  would  be  neither  a  universal  matter  nor  the  universal 
form  of  materiality.  The  latter  would  be  merely  assumed  as  the 
common  characteristic  in  real  elements  otherwise  diverse,  in  order 
that  it  might  serve  as  a  basis  for  investigation  into  the  relations 
subsisting  between  different  material  existences.  This  result  would 
not  be  very  unlike  that  which  is  soon  reached  by  the  ordinary 
reflexion  upon  Nature.  Different  kinds  of  unknown  elements  are 
assumed,  which  owing  to  causes  also  unknown  we  come  upon,  each 
of  them  in  numerous  specimens,  at  different  points  in  Space.  At 
these  different  points  each  fills  a  certain  volume  with  its  presence ; 
their  presence  is  manifested  by  the  changes  of  position  which  they 
originate,  and  by  the  resistance  which  they  offer  to  any  attempts 
coming  from  without  to  remove  them  from  their  occupancy  or  to 
lessen  its  extent.  In  other  words,  we  think  that  there  are  many 
different  kinds  of  matter  which  are  distinguished  for  us  by  the  different 
coefficients  which  we  are  compelled  to  assign  in  each  of  them  to 
the  action  of  certain  forces  or  inherent  tendencies  common  to 

them  all. 

179.  The  application  of  this  conception  of  force  in  order  to 
explain  the  fundamental  qualities  of  matter  has  always  been  regarded 
as  the  most  valuable  advance  of  Kant's  Philosophy  of  Nature,  though 
to  some  it  has  seemed  to  go  further  than  experience  would  warrant. 
Kant  himself  does  not  appear  to  me  to  have  allowed  the  motive 
clearly  enough  to  emerge  which  led  him  to  this  view,  though  there  can 
be  no  doubt  as  to  what  it  was,  and  we  may  trace  it  thus.  He  mentions l 
Lambert's  account  of  Solidity  as  a  necessary  property  of  all  material 
existence.  According  to  Lambert,  it  follows  from  the  very  concep 
tion  of  Reality,  or,  in  other  words,  it  is  a  consequence  of  the  Law  of 
Contradiction,  that  the  mere  fact  of  the  presence  of  a  thing  in  Space 
makes  it  impossible  that  any  other  thing  should  occupy  the  same 
position  at  the  same  time.  Against  this  it  was  contended  by  Kant 
that  the  Law  of  Contradiction  could  not  by  itself  keep  back  any  part 
of  matter  from  approaching  and  making  its  way  into  a  position 
already  occupied  by  some  other  part.  This  objection  is  not  quite 
fair.  We  should  not  expect  the  physical  impossibility  referred  to 
to  be  produced  by  the  Principle  of  Contradiction,  but  only  in  ac 
cordance  with  that  principle  and  by  the  fact  of  solidity  which  for 
practical  purposes,  we  assume  as  an  attribute  of  Real  Existence.  And 

1  [Kant.  Metaphysische  Anfangsgriinde  der  Naturwiss.  Dynamik.  Lehrsatz  I. 
Anmerkung.] 


CHAPTER  v.]          Why  assume  expansive  force  ?  305 

why  should  we  not  make  this  assumption  if  there  is  nothing  at  variance 
with  it  in  experience  ?  It  is  no  sufficient  reason  against  doing  so  to 
urge,  as  Kant  does  in  the  course  of  his  '  Proof  of  this  'Precept  No.  i ' 
of  his  'Dynamic,'  that  to  make  way  into  a  position  is  a  motion;  and  that 
in  order  for  there  to  be  a  decrease  or  cessation  of  motion  there  must  be 
a  motion  proceeding  from  an  opposite  quarter,  or  rather  a  something 
which  can  produce  such  a  motion,  a  moiive  force.  For  the  view  of 
atomism  according  to  which  the  smallest  particles  of  matter  are  pos 
sessed  of  solidity,  though  it  would  admit  that  motion  makes  its  way 
up  to  the  surface  of  a  body,  would  not  admit  that  it  makes  its  way 
into  the  body ;  yet,  according  to  this  view,  the  effects  of  the  impact 
communicated  would  not  vanish  without  producing  an  effect  at  the 
surface  of  the  solid  matter,  but  would  be  distributed  from  one  atom 
to  another,  or  to  several  atoms,  and  so  become  imperceptible. 
Whatever  difficulties  may  attend  the  explanation  of  the  phenomena 
by  this  method,  at  any  rate  a  closer  investigation  than  has  been  • 
entered  on  by  Kant  would  have  been  required  in  order  to  exhibit 
them. 

Again,  what  Kant  adds  in  his  note  is  not  to  me  convincing.  He 
admits  that  in  constructing  a  conception  it  is  allowable  to  assume  any 
datum  to  start  with,  e.g.  solidity,  without  attempting  to  explain  what 
the  datum  itself  is.  This,  however,  he  says,  gives  us  no  right  to  affirm 
that  the  hypothesis  is  altogether  incapable  of  being  explained  by 
mathematics.  It  seems  to  him  that  such  a  view  would  only  hinder  us 
in  the  attempt  to  penetrate  to  the  first  principles  of  science.  But 
supposing  we  were  willing  to  go  so  far  with  Kant  as  to  assume  the 
force  of  expansion,  to  which  he  gives  precedence,  would  this  be  more 
than  a  datum,  which  could  be  used  certainly  to  explain  subsequent 
manifestations,  but  was  itself  taken  for  granted  and  would  not  admit 
of  being  deduced  from  the  nature  of  real  existence  as  such  ?  The 
point  at  which  a  man  will  declare  himself  satisfied  in  this  matter  really 
depends  in  each  case  on  his  individual  taste.  There  could  be  no  real 
necessity  to  follow  Kant  in  assuming  something  more  than  solidity  as 
a  fact  pure  and  simple,  unless  it  could  be  shown  that  solidity  itself 
is  either  impossible  or  inadequate.  Now  the  question  whether  it  is 
impossible  must  for  the  present  be  left  out  of  account ;  inadequate, 
however,  it  certainly  is.  The  fact  that  no  visible  body  is  of  unvary 
ing  extension,  but  all  are  susceptible  of  compression  or  expansion, 
would,  it  is  true,  apart  from  Kant's  assumption  of  a  continuous 
plenum  in  space,  form  no  immediate  disproof  of  the  solidity  in 
question,  though  this  obviously  implies  the  allegation  of  unvary- 

VOL.  I.  X 


306    The  theoretical  construction  of  Materiality.  [BOOK  n. 

ing  volume.     The  atomic  theory,  postulating  empty  spaces  between 
its  solid  elements,  would  have  a  different  explanation  for  the  varying 
size  of  substances.     But  all  the  phenomena  of  elasticity,  in  which 
bodies  resume  their  former  shapes  so  soon  as  the  external  agencies 
which  determined  them   to  change  have  ceased  to  operate,  prove 
beyond  question  that  there  must  lie  in  the  very  nature  of  real  exist 
ence  conditions  capable  of  producing  states  of  Being  which  as  yet 
are  not.     The  form  and  extension,  consequently,  which  an  object  of 
sensible  perception  assumes,  cannot  attach  to  it  as  an  original  and 
fixed  property,  but  are  rather  a  varying  state  of  its  existence,  determined 
by  inner  conditions  inherent  in  its  Being.     Sometimes,  the  object  is 
permitted  to  appear  in  its  true  form,  sometimes  it  is  hindered  from 
doing  so ;  in  the  latter  case,  however,  i.  e.  where  the  inner  states  of 
Being  are  prevented  from  giving  themselves  expression,  they  make 
known  their  existence  by  the  resistance  which  they  offer  to  the  adverse 
influences.     These  inner  determinations  may  be  spoken  of  as  forces, 
in  order  to  distinguish  them  from  properties.     It  will  then  be  seen  not 
to  be  enough  to  ascribe  solidity,  as  a  property,  though  it  were  only  to 
the  smallest  particles  of  matter.     The  atoms  themselves  must  have 
certain  moving  forces  attaching  to  them,  in  order  to  make  the  ever- 
changing  volume  even  of  composite  bodies  intelligible. 

Thus  we  may  say  provisionally  that  Kant  regarded  as  fundamental 
in  this  problem   of  Science   that   principle    which   we    cannot   dis 
pense  with  even  though  we  prefer  the  other  principle ;  but  which  may 
very  well  help  to  explain  that  other  principle.     This  solid  matter  was 
not  a  fact  open  to  observation ;  it  was  not  so  even  as  applied  to  the 
smallest  particles  ;  it  was  an  hypothesis.     Hence,  it  could  be  denied, 
and  every  occupation  of  space  not  merely  by  large  visible  bodies,  but 
by  their  smallest  elements,  could  be  regarded  as  a  perpetually  changing 
state  produced  by  the  force  of  expansion,  according  as  its  action  was 
free  or  impeded.     Stated  in  a  few  words  the  case  stands  thus.     If 
every  material  existence,  remaining  always  indivisible,  occupied  the 
same  space  at  one  time  as  at  another,  solidity  might  be  predicated  of 
it  as  an  original  quality  which  it  must  not  be  attempted  further  to  ex 
plain.    But,  now,  inasmuch  as  extension,  though  a  character  indelebilis, 
is  not  a  character  mvan'abilis  of  matter,  the  extension  which  a  thing 
has  at  any  moment  is  the  result  of  conditions  which  though  present 
at  that  moment  may  vary  at  other  moments  ;  one  of  these  conditions 
lies  in  matter  itself,  and  offers  a  resistance,  though  not  an  insuperable 
one,  to  those  which  come  from  without. 

180.   I  wish  to  dwell  for  a  moment  longer  on  the  difference  to 


CHAPTER  v.]  Force  and  Quality.  307 

which  I  have  referred  between  a  fixed  quality  and  a  force.  We  have 
been  long  convinced  that  what  we  ordinarily  call  properties  of  things 
are  really  only  modes  which  they  assume,  or  manifestations  which 
become  known  to  us  as  the  result  of  their  interaction.  Things  do 
not  have  colour  except  as  seen  by  us,  and  at  the  moment  when  in 
combination  with  waves  of  light  they  stimulate  the  eye.  They  are 
not  hard,  except  in  relation  to  the  hand  which  attempts  to  move  or 
pierce  them.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  then,  we  should  be  at  a  loss  to 
point  to  an  indubitable  instance  of  what  we  mean  by  a  quality  of  a 
thing.  All  we  can  say  is,  that  we  are  clear  ourselves  as  to  what 
we  mean.  By  a  quality  is  meant  that  which  a  thing  is  for  itself  and 
independently  of  any  of  its  relations  to  other  things.  Hence,  in  order 
to  exist,  a  quality  neither  requires  these  other  things,  nor  is  interfered 
with  by  them.  A  force,  on  the  other  hand,  is  not,  like  a  quality, 
something  belonging  to  things  as  such.  In  order,  therefore,  for  a 
thing  to  be  what  it  is,  we  do  not  attribute  to  it  any  force  of  being ; 
though  we  do  speak  of  its  having  a  force  of  self-conservation,  in 
opposition  to  certain  conditions  which  we  assume  to  be  capable  of 
changing  it.  Our  conception  of  a  force,  therefore,  involves  the  thought 
that  the  character  of  a  thing  is  neither  unchanging,  nor  yet  on  the 
other  hand  determinable  to  an  unlimited  extent  from  without.  Rather, 
it  implies  that  when  the  two  things  meet,  they  both  undergo  a  real 
change,  the  change  of  the  one  depending  on  the  nature  of  the  other, 
but  each  at  the  same  time  by  its  own  nature  forbidding  a  change 
without  limits  or  one  which  would  amount  to  a  surrender  of  its  essen 
tial  Being.  If  qualities  attach  to  things  in  their  isolation,  forces  can 
only  belong  to  them  in  consideration  of  their  relation  to  each  other ; 
they  are,  in  fact,  conditions  which  enable  one  thing  to  affect  another 
and  to  place  itself  to  it  in  different  relations.  It  is  in  this  sense  that 
Kant  speaks  of  the  forces  which  fill  space ;  they  belong  to  the  separate 
parts  of  matter,  and  are  brought  into  activity  by  these  parts  in  their 
mutual  relations ;  their  appropriate  effects  they  either  succeed  in  pro 
ducing,  or  else  show  to  be  present  by  the  resistance  which  they  offer 
to  other  forces  tending  to  hinder  them.  Here,  however,  it  may  be 
objected  that  Kant  did  not  confine  himself  to  the  exposition  of 
this  process,  but  that  taking  this  for  granted  as  a  universally  pre 
supposed  fact,  he  imported  into  the  discussion  considerations  of  quite 
a  different  order,  attaching  to  the  term  'Force,'  which  he  selected. 
I  do  not  believe  that  Kant  himself  is  liable  to  the  charge  here  made 
against  him ;  but  the  popular  view  of  nature  which  was  suggested  by 

X  2 


308    The  theoretical  construction  of  Materiality. 

his  doctrines,  has  given  rise  to  a  number  of  false  opinions,  and  these 
therefore  we  shall  now  proceed  to  examine  more  at  length. 

181.  It  is  no  doubt  most  useful  to  be  able  to  express  the  import 
of  an  intricate  relation  between  several  connected  points,  by  means 
of  a  single  word ;  at  the  same  time,  there  is  danger  in  doing 
this.  After  the  word  has  been  called  into  existence,  not  only  are  we 
able  to  combine  it  with  other  words,  but  we  are  led  to  suppose  that 
every  such  grammatical  combination  has  something  real  correspond 
ing  with  it  in  fact.  Thus,  we  speak  first  of  all  of  force,  and  then  of 
the  force  of  matter.  The  use  of  the  genitive  in  this  instance,  implying 
as  it  does  that  matter  is  possessed  of  force,  or,  that  force  is  exercised 
by  matter,  has  suggested  these  interminable  questions  concerning  the 
nature  of  force  as  such,  and  its  relation  to  matter  of  which  it  is  a 
function.  Such  questions  cannot  be  easily  answered  at  once,  when 
stated  in  this  form.  To  understand,  however,  the  applications  of 
which  this  conception  of  force  admits,  we  have  only  to  observe  the 
ordinary  usage  of  Physical  Science.  Physics  makes  no  mention  of 
Force  in  itself,  but  only  of  its  effects,  i.  e.  of  the  changes  to  which  it 
gives  rise,  or  which  it  hinders.  It  is  moreover  against  the  Law  of 
Persistence  that  an  element  should  of  itself  modify  its  own  states  ;  the 
impulse  to  change  must  come  from  some  other  element.  Thus,  an 
element  a  is  not  possessed  of  a  force  p  until  a  second  element  b  is 
presented  to  it  on  which  it  may  take  effect.  The  force  is  really  pro 
duced  in  a  by  the  relation  to  b  ;  and  it  changes  to  q  or  r  if  either  the 
nature  of  the  second  element  or  the  relation  of  a  to  it  is  changed. 
Now,  observation  shows  that  there  is  nothing  impossible  in  the 
attempt  to  determine  the  nature  of  the  elements,  the  relations  in  which 
they  may  stand  to  each  other,  and  the  changes  which  they  un 
dergo  in  consequence  of  these  relations.  We  can  understand  how, 
when  elements  containing  specific  amounts  of  generic  properties  enter 
into  specific  forms  of  some  general  relation,  there  are  general  effects 
which  follow  and  vary  proportionally  according  to  definite  laws.  The 
proposition,  a  is  possessed  of  the  force/,  when  all  that  it  implies  is 
fully  stated,  in  the  first  instance  merely  conveys  the  assurance  that 
whenever  a  is  brought  into  a  specific  relation  m  with  a  given  element 
I,  changes  of  state  will  be  experienced  both  by  a  and  by  b  which  will 
go  together  to  form  the  new  occurrence,  of  fixed  character  and 
amount,  TT.  Having  arrived  at  this  result  we  may  then  go  on  lo 
speak  of  this  fixed  determinate  force  in  another  way,  as  if,  i.  e.  it  were 
present  in  a  in  an  ineffective  and  indeterminate  form,  its  definite  effect 
being  supposed  to  depend  on  subsequent  conditioning  circumstances, 


CHAPTER  v.]  Idea  of  dormant  Force.  309 

e.  g.  the  nature  of  the  elements  b  or  c  which  come  into  contact  with  a, 
the  peculiarity  of  the  relation  m  or  n  into  which  a  is  brought,  the  pre 
sence  or  absence  of  some  third  circumstance.  To  all  these  causes 
the  actual  realisation  of  the  result  TT  or  AC  might  be  ascribed.  Even 
this  mode  of  statement,  however,  expresses  no  more  than  a  presump 
tion  as  to  what  will  necessarily  happen  in  a  given  supposed  case.  It 
follows  in  accordance  with  the  general  law  which  connects  the  changes 
of  things  with  one  another,  that  the  circumstances  being  such  as  they 
are,  no  other  result  could  have  happened.  Each  of  the  elements,  in 
virtue  of  its  own  nature,  contributes  to  this  result,  and  it  is  an  allow 
able  mode  of  statement  first  of  all  to  represent  them  as  containing 
severally  and  individually  all  the  required  conditions,  and  then  to 
rectify  the  error  of  such  an  assumption  by  adding  that  the  force 
potentially  inherent  in  each  element  cannot  become  active  until 
the  element  enters  into  some  specially  determined  relation.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  this  special  relation  which  gives  rise  to  the 
force.  If  we  desire  a  definition  of  force,  we  may  say  that  it  is 
that  quantitatively  and  qualitatively  determined  result,  which  may  or 
must  ensue,  whenever  anyone  element  enters  into  a  specific  relation  with 
any  other.  It  is  only  for  convenience  of  speech  that  this  future  result, 
which  under  given  conditions  we  are  justified  in  expecting,  is  ante 
dated  as  a  property  already  present  though  inoperative  in  the  element. 
This  being  understood,  there  can  be  no  harm  in  thus  speaking  of  a 
force  as  being  asleep  and  awaiting  the  moment  of  its  awakenment, 
according  as  the  conditions,  which  together  with  the  specific  nature 
of  the  element  constitute  all  that  is  necessary  to  produce  the  result, 
are  present  or  absent.  We  shall  perhaps  make  the  matter  clearer,  if 
we  adduce  other  instances  besides  those  of  physical  forces  with 
which  we  are  more  immediately  concerned.  Thus,  it  is  the  same 
conception  of  force  which  we  have  in  view,  when  we  speak  of  the 
powers  of  the  mind,  the  revenue-yielding  power  of  a  country,  or  the 
purchasing  power  of  money.  In  this  last  case,  no  one  seriously 
believes  that  the  current  coin  contains  some  latent  property  which 
gives  it  its  value.  The  possibility  of  obtaining  a  given  quantity  of 
goods  in  exchange  for  so  much  money  depends  on  highly  com 
plex  relations  which  men  enter  into  for  purposes  of  traffic ;  and  the 
value  of  the  money  changes  not  owing  to  any  change  in  the  substance 
of  the  metal,  but  to  a  change  in  some  one  of  the  conditions  by  which 
the  value  of  the  money  is  for  the  time  being  determined.  There  would 
be  no  power  of  purchase  in  money  if  there  were  no  market  in  which 
to  exchange  it.  Similarly  we  are  quite  justified  in  speaking  of  the 


310    The  theoretical  construction  of  Materiality. 

Power  of  Judgment  as  a  property  of  mind.  When  we  make  an  asser 
tion  in  regard  to  any  given  matter  before  us,  which  is  what  properly 
constitutes  a  judgment,  it  is  certainly  our  intellectual  nature  that  is 
called  into  exercise  ;  at  the  same  time,  however,  it  would  be  nonsense 
to  speak  of  a  power  of  judgment,  which  belonged  to  us  before  we 
came  to  make  use  of  it,  or  one  which  was  constantly  being  exercised 
without  reference  to  any  distinct  object-matter.  It  is  impossible  to 
say  more  than  that  we  are  constituted  by  nature  in  such  a  way  that 
the  mind,  when  it  is  acted  upon  by  impressions  from  without,  not  only 
receives  the  impressions  singly,  but  reacts  upon  them  in  that  way  of 
comparison  of  their  different  contents  which  we  call  judgment.  It  is 
only  at  the  moment  when  it  is  exercised  that  the  Power  of  Judgment 
is  living  and  present,  and  this  applies  not  only  to  the  reality  of  the 
activity,  but  also  to  its  nature  and  content ;  these  likewise  being 
dependent  on  the  conditions  which  bring  them  into  existence  for  the 
time  being.  We  may  say  the  same  as  regards  the  conception  of  force 
which  obtains  in  Mechanics.  Thus  when  we  speak  of  centrifugal  force, 
we  do  not  mean  that  this  force  is  possessed  by  Bodies  as  such,  when  they 
are  at  rest.  We  at  once  see  that  we  are  speaking  of  effects  which  may 
or  must  take  place  when  bodies  are  rotating  or  being  swung  round. 
If  we  distinguish  from  these  forces  certain  others,  such  viz.  as  the 
attraction  which  bodies  exercise  upon  each  other,  and  call  the  latter 
primary  forces  inherent  in  the  bodies  as  such,  all  that  we  mean  is  that 
the  conditions  under  which  such  forces  arise  are  extremely  simple  and 
always  fulfilled.  In  order  for  two  elements  to  be  drawn  to  each  other 
by  the  force  of  attraction,  all  that  is  required  is  that  they  should  exist 
at  the  same  time  in  the  same  world  of  space.  This  one  condition, 
however,  is  indispensable ;  it  would  have  no  meaning  to  say  that  an 
element  gravitated,  if  there  were  no  second  element  to  determine  the 
direction  of  its  motion. 

We  shall  not,  therefore,  attempt  to  determine  what  actual  relation 
subsists  between  forces  and  the  bodies  which  are  their  substrata,  be 
lieving  as  we  do  that  the  problem  itself  results  from  a  misunderstand 
ing.  No  such  relation  exists  in  the  sense  that  a  force  can  in  any 
way  be  separated  from  the  body  which  we  call  its  substratum.  Its 
name  '  force '  is  only  a  substantive-name  employed  to  express  a  pro 
position,  the  sense  of  which  is,  that  certain  consequences  follow  upon 
certain  conditions.  What  it  signifies  is  neither  a  thing,  nor  any  exist 
ing  property  of  a  thing,  nor  again  is  it  a  means  of  which  a  thing  could 
avail  itself  in  order  to  produce  any  given  result.  It  merely  affirms  the 
certainty  that  a  given  result  will  happen  in  a  given  case,  supposing  all 


CHAPTER  V.]  FoTCC  IH  Physical  SciCHCC.  311 

the  necessary  conditions  to  be  complied  with.  Nor  can  we  ourselves 
attach  any  meaning  to  those  hastily-conceived  maxims,  which  are 
popularly  held  to  express  the  truth  on  this  subject,  such  e.  g.  as  that 
there  can  be  no  force  without  matter ;  and,  no  matter  without  force. 
These  equally  stale  propositions  merely  add  a  small  grain  of  truth  to 
the  old  error  in  a  more  perverted  form.  It  is  rather  true  that  there  is 
no  force  inherent  in  any  matter,  and  no  matter  which  by  itself  has  or 
brings  with  it  any  kind  of  force.  Every  force  attaches  to  some 
specific  relation  between  at  least  two  elements.  On  the  other  hand 
no  opinion  is  here  expressed  with  regard  to  the  question  as  to  whether 
it  is  possible  for  two  elements  thus  to  be  brought  in  relation  without 
some  force  being  engendered.  It  is  dangerous  to  attempt  to  lay 
down  propositions  by  the  way  with  regard  to  matters  of  fact,  merely 
for  the  sake  of  making  a  verbal  antithesis. 

182.  If  these  considerations  are  regarded  as  conclusive,  the  term 
force  will  be  understood,  not  indeed  in  the  sense  in  which  it  is 
sometimes  used,  viz.  as  a  Law  according  to  which  things  take  place, 
but  as  an  assertion  in  regard  to  each  single  case  to  which  the  term  is 
applied  that  we  have  in  that  case  an  instance  of  the  operation  of 
the  Law.  Thus  understood,  the  term  will  not  suggest  any  meta 
physical  explanation  as  to  why  the  particular  facts  must  fall  under 
the  general  Law. 

It  is  this  sense  which  Physical  science  is  content  to  adopt  when 
making  use  of  the  term.  For  the  practical  aim  of  science,  that  of 
connecting  events  in  such  a  way  as  will  enable  us  on  the  basis  of 
present  facts  to  predict  the  Future  or  unriddle  the  Past,  it  is  found 
amply  sufficient  to  know  the  general  law  of  the  succession  of  pheno 
mena  and  by  inserting  the  special  modifications  of  its  conditions 
which  occasion  prescribes  to  determine  the  nature  of  the  result. 
Science  can  afford  to  be  indifferent  as  to  the  inner  connexion  by 
which  results  are  made  to  follow  antecedents.  It  cannot  be  main 
tained  that  this  was  all  that  Kant  intended  to  be  understood  by  his 
conception  of  force.  He  everywhere  speaks  as  if  he  meant  to  ex 
plain  extension  not  as  a  simple  consequence  of  the  existence  of 
matter,  but  rather  as  due  to  the  action  of  a  force.  This  is  a  very 
different  conception  of  force  from  that  according  to  which  it  is 
regarded  simply  as  the  connexion  of  phenomena  in  accordance  with 
Law.  Clearly  he  means  by  Force  something  which  is  active  in  the 
strict  sense  of  the  word,  something  which,  he  believes,  will  produce 
real  changes  of  state ;  whereas,  the  counter-theory,  confining  itself 
within  narrower  limits,  asserts  only  that  they  follow  each  other  in 


312    The  theoretical  construction  of  Materiality.   [BOOK  n. 

orderly  succession.  The  popular  view  of  nature  which  based  itself 
on  Kant's  doctrine  imported  into  the  idea  of  physical  force  all  those 
associations  which  are  suggested  by  reflexion  on  our  own  conscious 
activity.  In  order  for  this  doctrine  not  to  seem  to  be  at  variance 
with  the  observed  facts  of  the  outer  world,  it  had  to  be  toned  down, 
and,  in  spite  of  the  manifold  contradictions  which  the  idea  involved, 
the  activity  was  regarded  as  Will  or  Impulse  unconscious  of  itself. 
These  latter-day  developments  of  Kant's  view  I  shall  for  the  present 
leave  to  take  care  of  themselves.  It  will,  however,  be  understood 
after  what  I  have  urged  in  the  ontological  portion  of  my  work 
as  regards  the  relation  of  cause  and  effect,  that  this  view  which  has 
been  made  to  bear  so  heavily  on  Kant,  is  one  in  which  I  fully  agree 
with  him — I  agree  with  him  in  the  general  recognition  of  an  inner 
process  and  activity,  in  virtue  of  which  things  are  able  to  be  that 
which,  according  to  the  frequent  expression  of  Physicists,  it  alone 
belongs  to  them  of  right  to  be,  viz.  interconnected  points  serving  as 
the  basis  of  ever-varying  combinations,  centres  from  which  forces 
proceed  and  to  which  they  return,  points  of  intersection  at  which 
different  converging  processes  meet  and  cross  each  other  in  fixed 
succession.  I  do  not  regret  that  Kant  should  have  refused  to  put 
this  view  on  one  side.  I  regret  rather  that  he  should  not  have 
brought  us  to  closer  quarters  with  it.  The  general  position  for  which 
I  have  already  contended  does  not  require  to  be  further  elaborated 
in  reference  to  this  special  case  of  Physical  causation.  An  element  a 
cannot  produce  the  effect  p  merely  because  there  is  a  general  law  Z, 
which  prescribes  that  when  a  stands  in  the  relation  m  to  b,  the  result 
p  shall  follow.  No  doubt  this  result  does  follow  in  the  given  case, 
i.  e.  we  who  are  the  spectators  see  and  know  that  it  does  so.  But,  in 
order  for  the  change  itself  to  take  place,  in  order  for  a  to  give  birth 
to  an  activity  under  these  new  conditions  which  it  did  not  previously 
produce,  it  must  undergo  an  experience  through  being  placed  in  the 
relation  m  which  otherwise  it  would  not  have  undergone,  and, 
similarly,  the  effect  p  could  never  be  brought  home  to  b,  merely 
because  the  relation  m  existed  between  b  and  a.  The  existence  of 
the  relation  m  must  have  been  felt  by  b  before  it  could  have  been 
acted  on.  Hence,  the  results  which  arise  in  each  case  are  not  con 
sequences  of  mere  relations  which  subsist  between  a  and  b.  These 
relations,  as  we  call  them,  are  really  inner  states  of  Being,  which 
things  experience  as  the  result  of  their  mutual  activity.  It  is  not  to  be 
expected  that  this  theory  of  an  unceasing  activity  of  the  inner  life  of 
things  will  be  of  much  real  assistance  in  the  explanation  of  each 


CHAPTER  V.]  Attraction  (111(1  RepulsiOll.  313 

separate  fact  of  nature.  It  is  a  supposition,  however,  which  it  is 
necessary  for  us  to  entertain  if  we  are  to  cease  to  regard  the  world 
from  a  point  of  view,  which  however  useful  it  may  be  for  practical 
purposes  is  full  of  inconceivabilities,  the  view,  viz.  that  the  elements 
of  existence  are  without  individuality  and  without  life,  endowed  with 
reality  merely  because  a  network  of  relations  is  established  between 
them  by  the  agency  of  general  laws.  The  usefulness  of  this  latter 
point  of  view,  if  considered  merely  as  a  half  statement  of  the 
truth,  I  shall  not  dispute,  whilst  at  the  same  time  I  shall  point  out 
how  far  it  is  applicable  and  justifiable,  and  when  and  where  it  is 
necessary  to  recur  to  what  actually  takes  place  in  the  nature  of 
things. 

183.  Out  of  the  multitude  of  opinions  which  offer  themselves  for 
consideration  at  this  point  I  shall  make  mention,  first,  of  Kant's  view, 
according  to  which  there  are  two  forces  necessary  to  every  material 
existence,  the  force  of  attraction,  by  which  things  are  made  to  cohere, 
and  the  force  of  repulsion  by  which  they  are  expanded;  the  two 
together  forming  a  standing  element  in  the  countless  attempts  at 
explanation  which  have  been  made  since  Kant's  time.  I  must  confess 
myself  that  I  do  not  feel  much  interest  in  these  two  forces.  When 
the  point  is  raised  as  to  how  it  can  be  that  a  given  matter  has 
definitely  fixed  limits  of  extension,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  there  must  be 
some  reason  why  it  is  what  it  is — neither  more  nor  less — i.  e.  there 
must  be  an  attraction  of  the  parts,  which  if  it  were  allowed  to  work 
alone  would  reduce  the  extension  to  nil,  and  there  must  also  be 
repulsion,  which  similarly,  if  it  were  the  only  principle  at  work,  would 
make  the  extension  infinite.  This  is  simply  a  logical  analysis  which 
might  be  applied  to  the  conception  of  any  real  existence  which  has 
a  definite  magnitude  in  space.  The  enquiry  does  not  become  meta 
physical  until  it  deals  with  two  further  questions ;  how,  that  is,  these 
two  mutually  opposed  forces  are  possible,  both  attaching  as  they  do 
to  the  same  subject ;  and  what  that  is  which  produces  and  main 
tains  them  in  such  varying  proportions  as  are  required  in  order  to 
give  rise  to  the  manifold  differences  of  material  things  in  point  of 
extension? 

The  first  of  these  two  questions  has  been  made  a  subject  of  in 
vestigation  by  Physics.  It  was  considered  that  to  ascribe  to  matter 
two  equally  original  opposed  forces  would  involve  a  contradiction  in 
terms.  The  attempt  was  therefore  made  to  assign  the  two  forces  to 
different  subjects.  The  mutual  attraction  of  the  parts  proceeded  from 
the  ponderable  elements,  the  repulsion  was  regarded  as  confined  to 


3 1 4    The  theoretical  construction  of  Materiality.  \  BOOK  n. 

particles  of  imponderable  ether ;  and  thirdly,  an  interchange  of  ac 
tivities  between  the  two  classes  of  elements  was  admitted,  in  order  to 
explain  those  varying  states  of  equilibrium  between  attraction  and 
repulsion  which  the  facts  required.  Whether  this  last  result  was 
secured  by  the  hypotheses  is  for  our  present  purpose  indifferent.  It 
may  be  admitted  that  the  reasoning  is  logically  sound,  though  the 
conclusion  is  only  necessary,  if,  in  compliance  with  the  usage  of 
language,  both  forces  are  conceived  as  original  and  essential  attributes 
of  the  subjects  to  which  they  attach.  How  the  whole  matter  may  be 
regarded  from  a  different  point  of  view,  for  which  the  course  of  my 
argument  will  already  have  prepared  the  way,  I  shall  now  proceed 
gradually  to  unfold,  ignoring  provisionally  arguments  derived  from  the 
alleged  ideality  of  space.  Even  if  we  adopted  the  ordinary  view  of 
the  nature  of  space,  it  would  not  really  become  any  less  difficult  to 
explain,  why  the  mutual  relation  between  two  elements,  belonging  to 
the  same  world,  should  be  one  of  absolute  repulsion,  when  this  fact 
would  seem  rather  to  show  that  the  world  to  which  they  belonged 
was  not  the  same;  nor  would  it  be  less  wonderful  that  two  other 
elements,  both  of  them,  similarly,  supposed  to  belong  to  one  and  the 
same  world  of  extended  matter,  should  be  drawn  towards  each  other 
by  such  an  absolute  force  of  attraction,  as  that  if  there  were  no 
counteracting  principle,  the  whole  possibility  of  their  extension 
would  be  annihilated.  Once  grant  that  the  world  is  a  single 
whole,  and  not  a  mere  confused  aggregate  of  existences,  and  it 
will  follow  that  its  component  elements  cannot  be  governed  by 
any  abstract  principles  of  attraction  or  repulsion,  driving  them 
continually  out  of  or  into  one  another,  but  must  aim  at  the  conserva 
tion  of  the  whole  order,  which,  in  accordance  with  the  intention  of 
the  whole,  assigns  to  each  one  of  them  its  place  at  each  moment  of 
time.  The  force  which  proceeds  from  the  collective  mass  of  the 
elements,  is  one  which  determines  the  position  of  those  elements  and 
which,  while  it  seems  to  reside  in  each  individual  element,  really  sets 
itself  against  any  deviation  from  the  law  imposed  on  all.  It  sets 
limits  to  the  nearness  or  remoteness  of  objects  as  regards  each  other, 
appearing  in  the  one  case  as  the  force  of  repulsion,  in  the  other,  as 
that  of  attraction ;  in  both  cases  acting  as  a  corrective  wherever  there 
is  a  tendency  in  the  object  to  oppose  the  requirements  of  the  whole. 
I  wish  to  see  the  order  of  our  thoughts  on  this  subject  reversed. 
We  are  accustomed  to  regard  the  position  of  a  thing  as  the  result  of 
certain  forces  acting  upon  it.  The  first  consideration,  as  I  think,  on 
the  contrary,  is  precisely  the  position  which  a  thing  occupies,  as  deter- 


CHAPTER  V.]  ThingS  and  their  PoSltlOHS.  3  I  5 

mined  by  its  nature  and  character,  in  the  world-system,  and  the  first 
and  only  function  which  a  thing  as  an  individual  has  to  perform, 
seems  to  me  to  be  to  retain  this  position  ;  while  attraction  and  re 
pulsion  we  may  represent  to  ourselves  as  the  two  elements  into  which 
this  self- conservation  of  things  admits  logically  of  being  analysed. 
In  reality  however  what  happens  is  that  the  self-conservation  assumes 
one  or  other  of  these  forms  according  as  the  needs  of  the  moment 
give  occasion  to  it.  We  must  postpone  the  consideration  of  the 
question,  as  to  what  takes  place  in  the  inner  nature  of  things  when 
the  place  in  which  they  find  themselves  at  any  given  moment  is  out  of 
harmony  with  the  place  marked  out  for  them.  As  a  phenomenon  in 
space,  the  tendency  to  return  to  an  equilibrium  must  necessarily  appear 
in  its  simplest  form,  either  as  the  approximation  or  as  the  separation  of 
two  elements.  Hence  it  is  possible  to  refer  all  physical  processes  to 
motive  forces  consisting  of  attraction  or  repulsion.  But  it  is  not  the  case 
that  on  all  other  occasions  things  are  empty  of  content,  and  that 
these  forces  attach  to  them  merely  for  the  time  being.  Rather,  like 
the  gestures  of  living  beings,  the  forces  are  merely  the  outward  ex 
pression  of  what  is  going  on  within. 

184.  Thus  far,  no  doubt,  the  statement  of  our  views  has  conveyed 
the  impression  that  we  regarded  the  world  like  a  picture  having  fixed 
outlines,  within  which  every  single  point  invariably  occupies  the  same 
position  and  clings  to  it  with  equal  tenacity.  Such  a  picture  would 
be  little  in  accordance  with  the  facts.  We  have  long  known  that  the 
world  is  never  at  rest  and  that  the  picture  which  it  presents  is  for 
ever  changing.  Yet,  the  whole  case  is  not  stated  even  when  we  have 
grasped  this  truth.  Admitting  that  the  picture  of  reality  is  what  it  is 
at  any  given  moment  in  virtue  of  its  essential  connexion  with  the 
arrangement  that  prevailed  the  moment  before  and  that  which  is  to 
prevail  the  moment  after,  the  forces  emanating  from  the  different 
points  of  space  must  still  derive  their  power  to  act  on  each  separate 
occasion  from  the  law  which  pervades  the  whole.  The  connexion 
between  the  whole  and  the  part  is  peculiar  to  each  case,  and  is  very 
different  from  a  mere  instance  of  the  operation  of  law  in  general, 
such  as  is  known  to  us  by  observation  and  makes  it  possible  to  us 
to  apprehend  the  process  of  the  world  as  the  result  of  innumerable 
individual  forces  working  by  invariable  rules.  I  have,  however, 
already *  endeavoured  to  show  that  this  plan  or  idea  cannot  be  made 
real  in  this  off-hand  way  of  itself  and  without  means ;  rather  indeed 
that  it  presupposes  uniformity  of  action  on  the  part  of  the  elements, 

1  [E.g.  §67.] 


3 1 6    The  theoretical  construction  of  Materiality.  [  BOOK  n. 

so  that  under  like  conditions  like  consequences  flow  from  them,  quite 
independently  of  the  place  which  each  occupies  in  the  universal  plan. 
Hence,  even  assuming  that  the  world  is  ceaselessly  in  a  state  of  flux, 
our  view  that  the  permanent  tendency  of  each  thing  is  to  maintain 
the  place  which  belongs  to  it  in  the  system  of  the  universe,  and  that 
this  is  what  gives  to  it  its  force,  does  not  exclude  the  opposite  or 
physical  view  according  to  which  the  course  of  events  in  the  world  is 
explained  as  due  to  varying  combinations  of  constant  forces.  I 
may  add  that  the  supposition  of  a  number  of  forces  attaching  to  the 
same  elements  at  the  same  time,  but  acting  in  different  directions, 
does  not  seem  to  me  to  be  liable  to  any  of  the  objections  which  are 
commonly  urged  against  it.  No  doubt,  it  would  be  unintelligible  as 
applied  to  two  elements  working  in  isolation,  but  it  is  not  so  as 
applied  to  elements  between  which  a  connexion  has  been  established 
owing  to  their  belonging  to  one  and  the  same  world.  We  may  learn 
to  comprehend  this  by  the  experience  of  our  own  lives.  Our  actions 
are  conditioned  by  many  different  systems  of  motives,  which  operate 
on  us  at  the  same  time.  The  satisfaction  of  our  physical  wants  may 
e.  g.  be  inconsistent  with  the  social  good.  What  family-affection 
requires  of  us  may  conflict  with  our  duty  as  citizens,  and  within  this 
last  sphere  we  find  ourselves  parts  of  many  different  institutions  whose 
claims  it  is  not  always  easy  to  harmonise.  A  like  interpretation 
must  be  given  of  the  world  in  which  we  live.  When  we  speak  of  a 
systematic  connexion  between  things,  we  do  not  mean  a  single  uni 
form  classification  in  which  we  could  find  any  given  member  by 
following  out  one  principle  of  division.  Rather,  there  are  many 
cross-purposes  at  work,  each  of  which  requires  that  the  elements 
should  be  distributed  exclusively  with  reference  to  its  own  satisfaction. 
Each  element  may  be  stationed  at  the  intersecting  point  of  several 
different  tendencies  which  unite  and  divide  the  world.  As  long, 
therefore,  as  two  elements  are  considered  as  belonging  to  such  a 
world,  there  is  no  reason  why  their  mutual  activities  should  not  be 
regarded  as  the  result  of  a  plurality  of  forces  acting  simultaneously, 
and  differing  entirely  in  the  effects  they  produce  in  response  to  each 
change  in  the  circumstances  of  the  environment ;  owing  to  the 
different  points  of  view  under  which  they  bring  the  same  set  of  cir 
cumstances,  and  to  the  consequent  variety  of  the  reactions  set  up. 

185.  There  still  remains  to  be  considered  the  question  as  to 
whether  it  is  allowable  to  speak  of  forces  which  take  effect  from 
a  distance,  or  whether  those  are  not  right  who  regard  the  possibility 
of  a  thing's  acting  where  it  is  not  as  inconceivable.  I  cannot  help 


CHAPTER  V.]  ActlOH  at  a  distance.  3  I  7 

adding  to  the  two  conflicting  views  which  are  held  on  this  question, 
a  third  one  of  my  own.  It  seems  to  me  that  motion  can  only  be  an 
effect  of  forces  acting  at  a  distance;  to  speak  of  action  when  the 
elements  are  in  close  contact,  I  regard  as  a  contradiction.  Let  us 
suppose  two  spherical  bodies  of  equal  diameter  and  density  to  be 
placed  so  as  exactly  to  contain  each  other.  If,  then,  the  nature  of 
the  materials  of  which  the  bodies  are  composed  is  such  as  to  admit 
of  their  reciprocal  action,  and  if  we  are  to  disregard  all  possibility  of 
effects  taking  place  at  a  distance,  it  will  follow  that  every  point  a 
of  the  one  body  will  produce  an  effect  on  the  point  b  of  the  other  body, 
with  which  it  coincides.  Now,  I  do  not  dispute  that  the  two  elements 
may  be  affected  in  a  very  real  way  by  reason  of  this  coincidence  at 
the  same  geometrical  point.  But,  whether  the  effects  thus  produced 
are  such  as  to  intensify  or  such  as  to  diminish  the  condition  in 
which  the  elements  find  themselves,  i.  e.  whether  they  tend  to  at 
traction  or  repulsion,  in  no  case  can  these  inner  occurrences  result  in 
motion,  a  and  b  being  already  stationed  at  the  same  point  of  space 
cannot  by  any  attraction  be  brought  nearer ;  nor  could  any  force  of 
mutual  repulsion,  however  actively  manifested  in  other  ways,  avail  to 
part  them  asunder,  there  being  no  reason  why  the  initial  movement 
tending  to  separate  them  should  take  any  one  direction  rather  than 
another. 

Nor  need  we  confine  ourselves  to  bodies  perfectly  coincident  in 
extension.  No  matter  what  form  the  two  bodies  assume,  they  would 
never  be  able  to  affect  each  other's  motions,  if  there  were  no  distance 
intervening  between  them ;  for  those  parts  of  the  two  bodies  which 
were  coincident  would  admit  only  of  being  affected  internally  by  their 
mutual  action,  and  thus  there  would  be  no  external  motion.  It  makes 
no  difference  as  regards  this  conclusion,  that  effects  are  spoken  of  as 
taking  place  between  contiguous  bodies,  and  that  the  ambiguity  to 
which  this  mathematical  conception  so  easily  lends  itself,  is  made  to 
yield  a  perplexing  solution  of  a  difficulty  which  is  one  of  fact.  If  we 
confine  ourselves  to  the  case  in  which  the  two  bodies  are  spheres, 
their  volumes  can  only  meet  at  one  point.  Now,  we  must  be 
sure  that  what  we  have  in  view  is  a  real  contact  of  the  bodies  in 
question,  and  we  must  banish  from  our  minds  all  thought  of  there 
being  any  distance,  even  an  infinitesimal  one,  intervening  between 
them.  As  long  as  we  have  any  such  idea  we  have  in  principle 
admitted  the  action  of  force  at  a  distance,  though  without  any  reason 
restricting  the  distance  to  an  infinitesimally  small  one ;  a  conception 
which,  besides  other  difficulties,  it  is,  to  say  the  least,  not  easy  to 


3 1 8    The  theoretical  construction  of  Materiality,  t  BOOK  n. 

explain  on  physical  principles.  It  is  equally  inadmissible  to  substitute 
for  a  'point  of  contact  an  infinitely  small  surface,  or,  supposing  the 
contact  to  be  between  flat  surfaces,  to  imagine  that  the  layers  which 
are  in  contact  and  which  thus  produce  the  effect,  can  have  any,  even 
the  smallest  conceivable  degree  of  thickness.  It  must  be  taken  as 
settled  that  the  bodies  which  are  in  contact  have  their  boundaries 
common  or  coincident,  in  the  first  case,  in  a  point  without  extension, 
in  the  second,  in  a  surface  without  thickness.  Whatever  way  we  may 
try  to  turn  these  ideas,  the  fact  will  always  remain,  that  real  elements 
which  occupy  the  same  position  in  Space  will  exercise  no  effect  as 
regards  the  production  of  motion,  and  such  effect  as  does  take  place 
will  spring  only  from  those  parts  of  the  bodies  which  are  really 
separated  from  each  other  by  intervals  of  Space.  As  for  a  contact 
which  does  not  involve  either  separation  or  coincidence  at  the  same 
point  in  Space,  the  idea  is  intelligible  enough  as  applied  to  the  whole 
volume  of  each  of  the  two  bodies  brought  into  contact,  but  it  has  no 
meaning  as  applied  to  a  possible  interaction  of  single  points  such  as 
we  have  been  here  considering. 

This  same  observation  holds  good  as  regards  the  attempt  to 
substitute,  instead  of  forces  operating  between  different  elements,  a 
reflexive  power  of  expansion  or  contraction,  in  virtue  of  which  a  thing 
assigns  to  itself  a  greater  or  less  space  of  its  own  accord.  If  the 
'  thing '  here  spoken  of  is  understood  as  a  material  existence  extended 
and  divisible,  this  power  of  self-extension  belonging  to  the  whole  must 
in  every  case  be  capable  of  being  finally  referred  to  the  reciprocal 
repulsion  of  the  parts,  these  being  already  distinguished  in  Space.  If, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  thing  is  held  to  be  endowed  with  this  power 
in  consequence  of  a  real  metaphysical  unity  prior  to  its  multiplication 
in  Space,  we  shall  then  have  to  face  another  enquiry,  which  is  for  the 
most  part  overlooked  in  these  attempts  to  construct  a  theory  of 
matter,  viz.  this,  How  did  this  reality  first  get  form  and  extension  in 
Space — that  form  and  extension  which  are  always  presupposed,  in 
order  that  forces  of  the  kind  mentioned  above  may  be  furnished  with 
points  to  which  to  attach  themselves  ?  This  question  we  propose  to 
consider  in  the  next  chapter. 

186.  All  that  the  above  demonstration  proves  is  that  mere  contact 
of  elements  cannot  produce  motion.  If,  however,  it  should  be  found 
to  be  equally  inconceivable  that  effects  should  take  place  at  a  distance, 
we  shall  be  compelled  to  deny  that  motion  is  a  result  of  force  in  any 
shape  whatever,  and  our  task  will  then  be  limited  to  the  attempt  to 
conceive  of  physical  effects  as  taking  place  owing  to  the  supply  of 


CHAPTER  v.]  Communication  of  Motion.  319 

motion  already  in  existence  being  perpetuated.  But  it  soon  appears  that 
the  expression,  communication  or  distribution  of  'motion ,  though  enabling 
us  to  picture  to  ourselves  results  which  are  constantly  passing  before 
our  eyes,  does  not  give  any  tenable  conception  of  the  process  to  which 
the  results  in  question  are  due.     Take,  e.g.   the  familiar  instance 
of  the  effects  of  impact  on  inelastic  bodies.     Suppose  b  to  be  a  body 
in  motion  and  a  a  body  at  rest,  then,  when  b  strikes  against  a,  we  say 
that  it  communicates  to  it  a  certain  part  of  its  own  motion,  and  this, 
no  doubt,  is  an  extremely  convenient  way  of  signalising  the  new  fact 
which  has  taken  place,  in  consequence  of  the  two  bodies  having  been 
brought  together.     We  cannot,  however,  seriously  suppose  that  the 
motion  produced  the  result  by  changing  its  place.     If  we  may  repeat 
what  has  before  been  said  *,  it  is  for  ever  impossible  to  conceive  that  a 
state  q,  by  which  a  real  thing  b  is  affected,  should  loose  itself  from  b, 
and  pass  over  to  a ;  yet  this  is  such  a  case ;  before  the  motion  could 
transfer  itself  from  the  limits  of  b  to  a,  it  would  have  to  traverse,  no 
matter  in  how  short  a  time,  a  certain  space  intermediate  between  the 
two,  and  during  this*  time  it  would  be  a  state  which  was  the  state  of 
nothing.     The  absurdity  of  this  notion  is  here  even  further  increased 
by  the  fact  that  it  is  only  by  a  free  use  of  language  that  we  are  able  to 
speak  of  motion  as  a  state  at  all.     Motion,  in  fact,  is  not  a  quality 
permanently  attaching  to  anything ;  it  is  an  occurrence  merely,  or  a 
change  which  the  thing  moved  undergoes.     Hence,  the  very  concep 
tion  of  a  motion,  which  is  itself  set  in  motion  in  order  to  pass  from 
one  thing  to  another,  is  ipso  facto  impossible.     But  what  should  we 
have  gained,  supposing  that  this  inconceivability  were  a  fact  ?     If  the 
motion  has  passed  over  to  a,  it  is  now  where  a  is,  but  that  would  not 
make  it  a  state  of  a,  nor  would  it  explain  why  it  should  ever  move  a. 
Inasmuch  as  it  was  possible  for  the  motion  to  become  detached  from 
b,  either  wholly  or  in  part,  why  should  it  not  continue  on  its  course 
according  to  the  same  law  of  Persistence  which  it  followed  whilst  on 
the  way  from  b  to  a  ?     Why  should  it  not  leave  a  at  rest,  and  again 
become  a  motion  belonging  to  no  one  as  before,  and  so  on  ad  infini- 
tum  ?    It  results,  therefore,  that  this  theory  fails  to  give  any  reason  for 
the  motion  of  the  body  which  receives  the  impulse,  and  it  gives  only 
an  obscure  reason  for  the  decreased  motion  of  the  body  from  which 
the  impulse  proceeds.     Of  course,  it  will  be  argued  that  both  these 
facts  are  due  to  the  impenetrable  nature  of  bodies,  which  makes  it 
impossible  for  one  of  them  to  find  a  passage  for  itself  through  the 
space    occupied    by    the    other.      But    this    impossibility    taken   by 

1  [§  56.] 


32O    The  theoretical  construction  of  Materiality.   [BOOKII. 

itself  rather  suggests  a  dilemma  than  furnishes  us  with  a  solution 
of.it. 

If  two  bodies  cannot  both  occupy  the  same  position  in  Space,  and 
if  nevertheless  it  is  this  at  which  one  of  them  aims,  the  question  arises 
as  to  how  these  two  conflicting  propositions  are  to  be  reconciled. 
How  they  are  reconciled  as  a  matter  of  fact  we  see  before  us  ;  we  see 
motion  originated  in  the  one  case,  and  a  corresponding  decrease  of 
motion  in  the  other.  But  we  cannot  suppose  that  this  happy  solution 
comes  to  pass  of  its  own  accord  because  it  is  an  ingenious  idea  ;  it 
must  rather  be  the  necessary  consequence  of  what  the  bodies  are  in 
themselves,  and  of  what  they  pass  through  at  the  time.  If,  further,  we 
bear  in  mind  that  in  order  adequately  to  estimate  the  result,  account 
must  be  taken  of  the  mass  of  the  two  bodies,  we  shall  be  led  back  to 
the  conclusion  that  this  impenetrability,  which  the  communication  of 
motion  requires,  is  an  effect  produced  by  the  conflicting  tendencies  of 
various  forces,  which  thus  give  rise  to  motions  in  opposite  directions, 
so  that  bodies  at  rest  are  supplied  with  motion  which  before  they  were 
without,  whilst  the  bodies  set  in  motion  lose  some  of  their  velocity 
owing  to  the  resistance  of  the  bodies  at  rest.  But  it  is  impossible  to 
represent  such  a  repulsion  as  arising  when  the  bodies  are  in  contact, 
and  not  before.  For,  if  at  the  point  of  contact  there  is  no  inter- 
penetration  of  the  two  surfaces,  the  contact  instead  of  being  a  real  one 
becomes  a  mere  geometrical  relation ;  it  can  have  no  influence  on  the 
bodies  themselves,  but  only  on  the  limits  by  which  they  are  bounded. 
If,  however,  we  suppose  that  the  bodies  do  interpenetrate  each  other 
at  the  point  of  contact,  it  will  follow  from  our  previous  conclusions 
that  the  forces  proceeding  from  the  two  bodies  can  only  affect  each 
other's  motions  at  those  points  which  are  still  separated  by  an  interval 
of  space.  Nor  can  it  be  said  that  the  motion  q,  which  is  communi 
cated  to  a  body  at  rest  a  by  a  body  in  motion  b,  determines  what 
would  otherwise  be  undetermined,  viz.  the  direction  of  the  two 
bodies  at  the  moment  of  their  divergence.  For,  from  the  mere  fact 
that  the  mutual  repulsion  takes  place  at  the  moment  that  the  body  b, 
whilst  tending  in  the  direction  qt  comes  into  immediate  contact  with 
0,  it  could  only  be  argued,  in  opposition  to  all  experience,  that  b  would 
pass  through  a  in  its  former  direction  q  with  accelerated  speed,  whilst 
a  would  begin  to  move  in  the  direction  —  q.  It  seems  to  me,  therefore, 
that  under  these  circumstances  we  cannot  but  conclude  that  even  the 
communication  of  motion  is  ah  effect  dependent  on  the  action  of 
moving  forces,  and  that,  in  this  case  as  in  all  others,  forces  can  only 
produce  motion  when  the  bodies  are  removed  from  each  other,  while, 


CHAPTER v.]      'A  thing  can  only  act  where  it  is?'  321 

contrariwise,  they  are  powerless  to  produce  it  when  the  bodies  are 
in  contact. 

187.  All  this  reasoning  would  be  to  no  purpose,  if  there  was  really 
any  insuperable  difficulty  in  conceiving  of  forces  as  taking  effect  at  a 
distance.  But  I  must  say  for  myself  that  it  quite  passes  my  compre 
hension  to  understand  on  what  grounds  it  can  be  maintained  to  be  the 
most  self-evident  of  facts  that  a  thing  can  only  act  where  it  is.  What, 
we  may  ask,  is  the  meaning  of  the  assertion,  a  is  at  the  point  a  ?  Can 
there  ever  be  any  other  evidence  or  manifestation  of  a  thing's  Being, 
than  by  means  of  the  effects  which  are  transmitted  from  a  to  the  point 
p,  where  we  ourselves  are  ?  Of  course,  it  will  be  instantly  objected  : 
1  No  doubt,  the  effects  of  a  and  the  directions  which  these  follow  in 
the  course  of  their  transmission  to  us,  are  the  only  sources  of  the 
knowledge  which  justifies  us  in  concluding  that  a  is  at  the  point  a ;  the 
fact  itself,  however,  is  independent  of  the  means  by  which  we  come 
to  know  it.'  But  what  conception  can  be  formed  of  this  fact  itself,  if 
we  abstract  all  the  effects  which  the  given  form  of  existence  a  emits 
from  the  point  a,  where  it  is  stationed  ?  Is  the  existence  of  a  in 
general  a  conception  which  has  anything  definite  corresponding  with 
it  ?  and  how  can  the  limitation  of  a  to  the  point  a  be  understood,  if  it 
does  not  give  rise  to  any  effects  at  that  point  distinguishing  that  point 
from  all  other  similar  points  of  Space,  where  a  is  not  present  ?  It  is 
an  illusion  to  believe  that  the  mere  being  at  a  certain  place  can  give  a 
thing  any  determinate  character,  and  that  it  acquires  subsequently  to 
this  the  capacity  to  produce  the  effects  which  seem  to  be  diffused 
around  that  point.  We  ought  rather  to  say,  on  the  contrary  :  Be 
cause,  in  the  disposition  and  systematic  arrangement  of  the  world  as 
a  whole,  and  in  the  world  of  Space  which  is  its  counterpart,  a  is  a 
meeting  point  for  relations  of  the  most  various  kinds,  and  acts  upon 
the  other  elements  as  these  relations  prescribe,  for  this  reason  and  for 
no  other,  it  has  its  fixed  place  amongst  them ;  or  more  correctly — it 
is  this  which  justifies  us  in  making  use  of  the  common  forms  of 
speech,  a  is  at  the  point  a  and  acts  from  thence. 

This,  however,  will  form  the  subject  of  further  investigations. 
Putting  this  question  as  to  the  relation  between  real  existence  and 
Space  for  the  present  aside,  we  shall  make  use  of  a  very  simple  idea 
to  expose  the  fallacy  of  the  doctrine  here  referred  to.  Let  us  suppose 
that  at  the  commencement  of  their  existence  things  were  stationed 
each  at  some  one  point  of  Space,  e.g.  a  and  /3  :  what  reason  would 
there  be  why  the  interval  a#  between  them  should  prevent  them 
from  mutually  affecting  each  other  ?  '  It  is  obvious  and  self-evident 

VOL.  I.  Y 


322    7*he  theoretical  construction  of  Materiality,    t  BOOK  H. 

that  it  would  do  so ; '  it  will  be  replied, — '  the  body  set  in  motion  does 
not  feel  the  impulse  to  move,  until  the  impelling  body  reaches  it. 
There  can  be  no  sense  of  vision  until  the  nerves  have  been  touched  by 
the  moving  particles  of  the  ether.  That  which  is  incapable  of  trans 
mission  has  no  effect,  and  is  for  us  as  if  it  had  no  existence/  These 
instances,  however,  may  be  met  by  others.  The  stone  falls  without 
requiring  first  to  be  impelled ;  an  electric  repulsion  takes  place  to  all 
appearance  quite  independently  of  any  connecting  medium.  If  any 
one  wishes  to  refer  these  phenomena  to  the  communication  of  motion 
already  in  existence,  he  may  do  so  ;  but  he  will  be  appealing  not  to 
observed  facts,  but  to  his  own  hypotheses  ;  he  will  be  employing 
without  any  just  reason  the  particular  form  which  one  class  of  effects 
assumes,  as  if  it  were  the  universal  form  which  must  necessarily  be 
assumed  by  all  other  effects.  And  yet  even  these  hypotheses,  which 
aim  at  the  avoidance  of  all  distant  effects  in  the  case  of  large  bodies, 
cannot  help  interposing  Spaces  between  the  infinitesimal  particles  of 
the  media  which  are  held  to  explain  the  transmission  of  the  impulse. 
There  could  be  no  presumption  in  favour  of  the  above  interpretation 
unless  it  could  be  shown  that  contact  in  Space  was  as  obviously  a  con 
dition  favourable  to  the  action  of  force,  as  separation  in  Space  is 
maintained  to  be  unfavourable  to  it.  But  this  is  not  true  with  regard 
to  contact  in  Space.  For,  it  cannot  be  concluded  that  anything  must 
of  necessity  happen  from  the  mere  fact  that  two  elements  touch  at  the 
same  limit,  or  are  stationed  at  the  same  point  of  Space  ;  nothing  can 
come  of  the  contact  of  the  elements  if  they  are  not  fitted  by  Nature 
mutually  to  affect  each  other,  and  when  this  condition  is  wanting, 
spatial  contact  cannot  produce  it.  As  for  the  assertion  that  elements 
which  have  this  capacity  to  affect  each  other,  require  contact  in  Space 
in  order  to  make  its  exercise  possible,  it  rests  on  that  arbitrary  selec 
tion  of  instances  mentioned  above ;  with  those  in  whom  it  has  become 
a  cherished  prejudice  it  is  ineradicable,  but  it  is  not  in  itself  neces 
sary,  nor  capable  of  being  shown  by  the  evidence  of  undoubted  facts 
to  hold  good  universally.  We  ourselves,  it  is  true,  are  not  endowed 
with  any  capacity  for  producing  effects  at  a  distance.  The  objects 
on  which  we  attempt  to  bring  our  activity  to  bear,  we,  no  doubt,  set 
in  motion  by  means  of  a  continuous  succession  of  intermediate  effects, 
which  serve  to  bring  us  and  them  together.  But  this  is  not  enough  to 
make  us  conclude  that  two  elements,  between  which  there  is  an 
interval  of  Space,  belong,  as  it  were,  to  two  different  worlds  separated 
by  a  gulf  which  nothing  can  bridge  over.  We  are  compelled,  in  order 
to  understand  their  subsequent  effects,  to  conceive  of  them  both  as 


CHAPTER  v.]  Affinity  independent  of  Space.  323 

subject  to  the  same  laws  ;  a  fact  which  we  are  accustomed  to  consider 
as  self-evident,  without  enquiring  into  the  presuppositions  which  it 
involves.  This  fact  obliges  us  to  regard,  without  exception,  all  things 
throughout  Space  as  interconnected  parts  of  one  world,  and  as  united 
together  by  a  bond  of  sympathy  to  which  separation  in  Space  acts  as 
no  hindrance.  It  is  only  because  the  elements  of  the  world  are  not 
all  of  the  same  kind,  and,  instead  of  being  simply  co-ordinated,  are 
related  in  the  most  various  ways,  that  this  unfailing  sympathetic 
rapport,  by  means  of  which  all  things  act  on  each  other  at  a  distance, 
is  not  in  all  cases  equally  apparent,  but  differs  in  degree  of  intensity, 
being  in  some  cases  widely  diffused,  in  others  contracting  itself  within 
narrow  and  scarcely  perceptible  limits. 


Y  2 


CHAPTER  VI. 

The  Simple  Elements  of  Matter. 

THE  confused  notions  which  the  different  theoretical  constructions 
showed  to  exist  in  regard  to  the  true  nature  of  Matter,  led  us  in  the 
first  place  to  examine  into  the  conception  of  the  forces,  the  operation 
of  which  gives  rise  to  the  changing  qualities  of  material  things.  There 
remains  now  to  be  considered  the  question  as  to  the  form  in  which 
the  real  thing,  from  which  these  forces  themselves  emanate,  takes  up 
its  position  in  Space.  The  subject  to  which  we  shall  be  introduced 
by  this  question  is  the  antithesis  between  atomism  and  the  theory  of 
a  continuous  extension  in  Space. 

188.  What  appears  to  be  the  evidence  of  immediate  perception  on 
this  point  must  not  be  misrepresented  at  starting  by  a  slovenly  mode 
of  statement.  Of  a  single  continuously  extended  Matter  it  tells  us 
nothing ;  all  that  it  presents  to  us  is  a  vast  variety  of  different  material 
objects  which  for  the  most  part  are  separated  from  each  other  by 
clearly  defined  limits  and  are  but  rarely  blended  and  confused  together. 
This  multiplicity  of  things  is  all  that  can  be  affirmed  at  starting- 
many,  however,  even  of  these  things  the  naked  eye  at  once  perceives 
to  be  composed  of  parts  existing  side  by  side,  but  differing  in  kind. 
Others,  which  appear  to  be  extended  in  Space  with  unbroken  con 
tinuity,  are  seen  by  means  of  the  microscope  to  fall  asunder  into  a 
distinguishable  variety  of  divergent  elements.  It  is  not  proved  by 
this,  but  it  is  made  probable,  that  the  apparent  continuity  of  the  rest 
merely  conceals  a  juxtaposition  of  discrete  elements.  But,  what  is 
proved  for  everyone  who  has  eyes  to  see  is,  that  substances  composed 
of  atoms  may  produce  on  the  senses  the  impression  of  perfect  con- 
*tinuity  of  extension.  The  frequently -urged  objection,  that  a  com 
bination  of  discrete  parts  would  never  account  for  the  coherent  surface 
and  the  solid  interior  structure  of  material  bodies,  does  not  really 
require  any  metaphysical  refutation.  The  sharp  edge  of  a  knife, 
when  placed  beneath  a  microscope,  appears  to  be  notched  like  a  saw, 


Natural  grounds  of  Atomism.  325 

and  the  surface,  which  feels  quite  smooth,  becomes  a  region  of  moun 
tains.  Spots  of  colour  again,  even  if  seen  only  from  a  short  distance, 
take  the  form  of  a  continuous  line.  These  recognised  facts  are  a 
sufficient  proof  that  the  nature  of  our  sensible  organs  makes  con 
sciousness  of  what  intervenes  between  successive  vivid  impressions 
impossible  for  us,  when  the  intervals  are  either  empty  of  all  content, 
or  such  that  they  only  faintly  affect  us.  Though,  therefore,  the 
appearance  of  continuous  extension,  no  doubt,  may  correspond  with 
a  real  fact,  it  arises  none  the  less  certainly  and  inevitably  from  a  suf 
ficiently  close  approximation  of  discrete  parts.  Now,  what  induces 
us  to  adopt  this  last  hypothesis  in  explanation  of  the  whole  is  this, 
that  even  substances  which  seem  to  be  continuous  admit  of  being 
divided,  to  an  apparently  unlimited  extent.  For,  as  the  parts  which 
spring  from  this  division  retain  unimpaired  the  same  material  qualities 
which  belonged  to  the  undivided  whole,  it  would  seem  that  they  cannot 
owe  their  origin  simply  to  the  division  of  this  whole ;  but  that  they 
existed  before  it,  and  formed  it  by  their  combination.  Later  on,  I 
shall  give  reasons  for  suspecting  the  soundness  of  this  conclusion  ; 
but,  at  first  sight,  it  is  convincing  enough,  and  in  all  ages  it  has  given 
rise  to  attempts  to  exhibit  the  parts  of  Matter  as  elements  whose 
metaphysical  unity  of  nature  expressed  itself  in  terms  of  Space  as 
.indivisibility. 

I  shall  offer  some  remarks — not  intended  to  be  historically  ex 
haustive — on  the  forms  of  Atomism  which  thus  arose.  Two  points  I 
shall  mention  here  in  advance.  First,  let  it  be  remembered  that  this 
hypothesis  of  a  multitude  of  interconnected  points  admitting  of  change 
able  and  precisely  determinable  relations  and  interactions,  is  the  only 
practical  means  of  satisfactorily  explaining  the  extremely  complex 
phenomena  for  which  an  explanation  is  sought ;  and  that  in  contrast 
with  this  explanation,  the  bare  general  supposition  of  the  uniformity 
of  Matter,  not  less  than  the  special  one  of  its  continuity  in  Space,  has 
never  led  to  any  fruitful  solution  of  the  facts  given  in  experience.  To 
prove  this  would  be  only  to  repeat  what  has  been  so  clearly  and  con 
vincingly  stated  by  Fechner  (cp.  his  *  Doctrine  of  Atoms ').  Taking  it 
then  for  granted  that  the  real  world  of  nature  is  presented  to  us  pri 
marily  under  the  form  of  an  infinite  number  of  discrete  centres  of 
activity,  I  shall  confine  myself  merely  to  a  metaphysical  investigation 
into  the  nature  of  these  centres.  This  is  a  question  which  Physics  is 
not  practically  called  upon  to  decide,  nor  is  her  certainty  about  it  at 
all  equal  to  the  ingenuity  with  which  -she  avails  herself  of  the  advant 
ages  which  the  hypothesis  offers  to  her.  Again,  I  am  entirely  at  one 


326  The  simple  elements  of  Matter. 

with  Fechner  in  regard  to  his  second  conclusion.  I  believe  with  him 
that  the  atomic  view  of  the  Physical  world  is  peculiarly  adapted  to  sa 
tisfy  the  aesthetic  needs  of  the  mind.  For  what  we  long  to  see  exhibited 
everywhere  and  in  the  smallest  particulars,  is  precisely  this,  organiza 
tion,  symmetric  and  harmonious  relations,  order  visible  throughout  the 
whole,  and  a  clear  view  of  the  possible  transitions  from  one  definite 
form  into  another.  The  demonstration  of  this  point  I  likewise  do  not 
repeat.  I  wish  only  to  say  that  I  have  never  been  able  to  compre 
hend  the  reason  of  that  tendency,  which  for  a  long  time  past  our 
German  Philosophy  has  shown,  to  look  down  upon  atomic  theories  as 
of  an  inferior  and  superficial  character ;  whilst  the  theory  of  a  con 
tinuous  matter  was  opposed  to  them  as  quite  incontrovertibly  a  truth 
of  a  higher  kind.  If  there  were  proofs  at  hand  to  establish  the  neces 
sity  of  this  latter  conclusion,  they  should  have  been  set  forth  in  a  more 
convincing  form  than  they  have  yet  received.  There  is,  however, 
really  nothing  to  admire  in  the  theory  of  continuity,  either  when  con 
sidered  in  itself,  or  in  regard  to  the  results  which  have  been  derived  from 
it.  It  seems  as  if  a  mystical  power  of  attraction  had  been  given  to  it 
merely  owing  to  the  mathematical  difficulties  in  which  the  whole  con 
ception  is  involved. 

189.  The  following  are  the  chief  characteristics  of  general  interest 
which  distinguished  the  atomism  of  antiquity,  as  represented  by 
Lucretius.  Theoretic  knowledge  of  the  changes  of  things  would  be 
impossible  for  us,  if  we  were  restricted  to  observation  of  the  co-exist 
ence  of  qualities,  and  the  modes  of  their  succession ;  there  being  no 
fixed  standard,  by  which  to  estimate  their  relationship,  opposition,  and 
quantitative  difference.  We  cannot  be  in  a  position  to  deduce  from 
such  conditions  any  conclusion  of  real  value,  unless  we  are  able  to 
exhibit  the  states  which  succeed  each  other  as  comparable  forms  of  a 
homogeneous  existence  and  occurrence,  or  unless,  at  any  rate,  we 
can  show  how  effects  disparate  in  themselves  can  yet  be  annexed  to 
comparable  relations  of  comparable  elements.  The  conviction  that 
this  was  what  had  to  be  shown,  led  by  steps  of  reasoning  which  can 
easily  be  supplied  to  the  attempt  to  refer  the  varieties  of  sensible 
phenomena  to  differences  of  shape,  size,  combination,  and  motion,  in 
certain  absolutely  homogeneous  and  unchangeable  elements.  The 
working  out  of  the  theory  in  detail  was  extremely  defective  and  rudi 
mentary.  It  was  not  so  much  that  it  was  left  unexplained  how  the 
sensible  appearances  which  attach  to  these  mathematical  groupings 
can  arise  out  of  them,  but  the  impossible  assertion  was  made  that  the 
sensible  qualities  are  nothing  but  these  very  mathematical  determina- 


CHAPTER  VI.]  A  lOMlSm  of  LuCretiuS. 

tions  themselves.  Setting  aside,  however,  these  imperfections,  the 
general  conception  of  Atomism  is  one  of  the  few  Philosophical 
Speculations  of  antiquity  which  have  hands  and  feet  belonging  to  them, 
and  which,  therefore,  live  on  and  lead  to  ever  fresh  results,  whilst 
other  theories,  with  perhaps  more  head,  find  a  place  now  only  in  the 
History  of  Ideas.  The  hard  and  fast  line  of  distinction  that  was 
drawn  between  the  equality  of  the  several  parts  of  Being,  as  opposed 
to  the  inequality  of  their  relations,  excluded  all  original  differences 
from  the  ultimate  elements  themselves ;  these  latter,  however,  if  they 
had  been  so  completely  equal,  could  never  have  served  as  a  basis  for 
the  manifold  appearances  which  spring  out  of  them ;  they  had,  there 
fore,  at  any  rate  to  be  assumed  to  differ  in  size  and  shape. 

But  this  admission  was  no  sooner  made  than  it  was  seen  to  be  in 
consistent  with  the  uniform  oneness  of  all  existing  things.  Hence,  these 
differences  were  held  to  obtain  merely  as  facts,  which  in  the  order  of 
nature  as  it  now  exists  cannot  be  reversed,  but  which  are  not  in  them 
selves  original,  having  come  into  Being  only  at  the  commencement  of 
the  present  age  of  the  world's  history.  At  any  rate,  I  think  I  have 
shown  that  Lucretius  distinguishes  between  the  multiform  atoms, 
which  are  the  unchanging  causes  of  the  present  order  of  phenomena 
in  the  world,  and  those  infinitesimal  and  essentially  uniform  particles, 
from  the  combination  of  which  the  atoms  are  themselves  ultimately 
formed.  He  supposes  that  there  are  different  ages  of  the  world, 
during  each  of  which  the  combination  of  the  atoms  for  the  time  being 
is  dissolved  by  the  stream  of  change.  It  is  only  the  combination  of 
the  atoms  which  is  dissolved  ;  the  atoms  themselves  do  not  change, 
but  are  combined  afresh.  At  the  end,  however,  of  each  age  the  atoms 
likewise  are  reduced  back  to  their  homogeneous,  first  elements,  and 
these  latter  being  again  united  so  as  to  form  new  atoms,  are  what 
constitute  the  material  substances  out  of  which  are  met  the  demands 
for  the  phenomena  of  the  next  succeeding  age.  We  see  here  a  recog 
nition  of  the  metaphysical  difficulty  mentioned  above,  though  not  a 
solution  of  it ;  it  still  remains  that  the  form  which  the  atoms  are  to 
assume  is  determined  by  an  arbitrary  cause. 

The  further  elaboration  of  the  system  presents  little  that  can 
interest  us.  The  common  nature  of  what  is  real,  which  was  declared 
to  be  the  true  substantive  existence  contained  in  all  the  countless 
atoms,  might,  one  would  have  thought,  have  suggested  the  hypothesis 
of  an  inner  relation  existing  between  them,  and  from  this  might  have 
been  developed  the  conception  of  forces  by  which  they  mutually  affect 
each  other  ;  forces,  which  would  assume  different  modes  of  operation, 


328  The  simple  elements  of  Matter.  [BOOK  IT. 

according  as  the  ultimate  component  particles  of  the  atoms  were 
differently  combined.  But  no  use  was  made  of  this  thought.  The 
communication  of  motion  by  impact  remained  as  the  sole  form  in 
which  things  affect  each  other;  and  the  resistance  which  they  oppose 
to  the  falling  asunder  of  their  parts  was  no  less  inadequately  explained 
than  the  invincible  tendency  of  the  ultimate  elements  to  combine  in  the 
form  of  an  atom. 

190.  Passing  over  the  various  forms  which  Atomism  assumed  after 
it  had  been  revived  by  Physical  Science,  I  shall  mention  only  the  last 
of  them.  As  long  as  extension  and  shape  were  ascribed  to  the  atoms, 
no  matter  whether  all  were  supposed  to  be  the  same  in  these  respects, 
or,  some  to  be  different  from  others,  it  could  not  but  appear  that  a 
question  was  being  solved  in  reference  to  the  larger  bodies  by  the 
assumption  of  the  smaller  ones  which  was  left  unsolved  as  regarded 
those  smaller  ones.  It  was  impossible  to  go  on  for  ever  deriving  each 
atom  from  atoms  still  smaller ;  some  point  of  space  must  at  last  be 
reached  which  is  continuously  filled  by  the  Real  thing.  But  here  a 
doubt  suggested  itself.  How  can  the  continuous  substratum  be  indi 
visible,  if  the  space  which  it  occupies  is  infinitely  divisible  ?  That  a 
portion  of  space  should  be  held  intact  against  all  attempts  to  encroach 
upon  it,  would  seem  to  be  conceivable  only  as  the  combined  effect 
of  activities  proceeding  from  points  external  to  each  other,  and 
prescribing  to  each  its  fixed  position  in  relation  to  the  rest.  Such 
active  points,  however,  would  inevitably  come  again  to  be  regarded  as 
so  many  discrete  elements,  from  which  the  whole  is  formed  only  by 
aggregation.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  regression  into  infinity  which 
would  thus  result,  could  not  be  escaped  from  by  any  appeal  to  the 
metaphysical  unity  of  the  essence  which  forms  the  real  content  of  an 
atom,  and  which  preserves  it  from  the  division  of  its  appearance  in 
Space.  This  distinction  between  the  real  essence  and  its  appearance 
in  Space  would  be  a  meaningless  rhetorical  phrase  if  it  did  not  suggest 
questions  far  deeper  than  any  of  those  with  which  Atomism  is  con 
cerned  and  quite  indifferent  to  it. 

Atomism  considers  extended  and  tangible  matter  as  reality  pure 
and  simple,  not  as  a  mode  in  which  Reality  manifests  itself,  and 
which  requires  a  process  of  intermediation  to  connect  it  with  Reality. 
Now  it  is  most  difficult  for  many  reasons  to  apply  to  this  extended 
Real  thing  the  conception  of  unity.  I  do  not  mean  to  maintain  that 
the  question  is  at  once  decided  by  the  fact  that  in  order  for  a  form  of 
matter  to  remain  unaffected  by  all  external  forces,  it  would  have  to  be 
credited  with  a  simply  unlimited  power  of  resistance,  such  as  would 


CHAPTER  VI.]  Utllty  of  tJlC  Atom. 

be  very  little  in  harmony  with  the  first  principles  of  our  knowledge  of 
mechanics.  I  do  not  say  this ;  for  in  the  last  resort  there  would  be  no 
thing  to  prevent  us  from  conceiving  of  the  atoms  as  elastic ;  and  then 
each  atom  would  really  undergo  a  change  of  form  proportioned  to 
the  force  acting  upon  it ;  only  that  there  would  be  an  accompanying 
reaction,  sufficient  to  restore  to  the  atom  its  original  outline,  and  pre 
serve  it  from  disintegration.  No  doubt,  in  a  sense  it  is  true  that  the 
atom  would  require  to  have  an  unlimited  power  of  cohesion  in  order 
to  admit  of  this  process.  But  there  is  nothing  in  it  inconsistent  with 
what  we  know  about  mechanics  in  other  respects.  The  force  inherent 
in  an  atom  would  not  be  indifferent  to  all  external  influences ;  rather, 
it  would  react  with  a  degree  of  intensity  precisely  corresponding  with 
the  original  stimulus. 

But  another  requisition  must  be  complied  with  if  the  metaphysical 
unity  of  an  extended  real  thing  is  to  make  itself  felt  as  an  actual  fact 
and  not  be  a  mere  name.  Essential  unity  of  nature  cannot  contain 
parts,  which  are  affected  by  experiences  peculiar  to  themselves,  and 
not  shared  by  the  rest.  Every  impression  by  which  the  point  a  of 
any  such  unity  A  is  affected,  must  at  once  be  a  state  or  impression  of 
the  whole  A,  without  any  process  of  intercommunication  being  re 
quired,  to  transmit  the  impression  from  a  to  b,  or  to  the  other  points 
contained  in  the  volume.  At  all  events,  if  the  parts  of  A  are  so  dif 
ferent  that  what  each  experiences  has  to  be  transmitted  to  the  rest,  I 
fail  to  see  in  what  would  consist  its  essential  unity,  or  how,  since  a 
system  of  discrete  elements  would  necessarily  proceed  in  precisely  the 
same  way,  there  can  be  any  difference  between  the  two.  Before  pro 
ceeding  further,  I  must  guard  these  statements  against  ft  possible 
misunderstanding.  I  cannot  find  that  there  is  anything  incompatible 
between  the  essential  unity  of  A  and  the  existence  at  the  same  time 
of  different  modes  of  its  Being  a  /3  y,  which  are  necessitated  by  different 
influences  acting  upon  A  simultaneously :  I  only  wish  to  maintain 
that  both  a  and  0  are  equally  states  of  the  whole  A,  and  therefore 
that  they  are  neither  of  them  produced  by  influences  which  merely 
affect  themselves,  but  are  both  modified  by  the  fact  of  their  contem 
poraneous  existence  in  the  same  essential  unity.  Let  us  suppose  a 
and  #  to  be  motive  stimuli  affecting  two  points  a  and  b  in  the  same 
atom.  The  result  would  not  be  two  separate  movements  of  these  two 
points,  which  at  some  later  period  merged  in  a  common  result ;  but 
in  the  point  a,  which  was  the  part  affected  by  a,  the  whole  Real  thing 
would  be  present  in  the  same  complete  fulness  as  in  the  point  b, 
which  is  affected  by  £.  The  immediate  effects  of  both  impulses 


330  The  simple  elements  of  Matter. 

would  be  felt  equally  at  both  points,  and  the  resultant  p  would  be  but 
one  motion  which  would  at  once  lay  hold  of  the  whole  extended  sub 
stance.  Further,  since  every  change  requires  for  its  occurrence  a  cer 
tain  space  of  time,  and  according  to  the  law  of  Persistence,  leaves  a 
trace  of  itself  behind,  it  is  quite  intelligible  that  a  primary  stimulus 
a  should  not  till  after  some  interval  show  itself  as  the  condition  of  the 
next  stimulus  /3 ;  and  that  a  new  impression  of  the  kind  a  should  make 
itself  felt  in  modifying  the  states  connected  with  it  before  it  modifies 
those  that  are  connected  with  /3.  When  this  happens,  we  are  accus 
tomed  to  say :  '  only  one  side  of  the  whole  Being  of  the  thing  was 
affected ;  the  other  remained  untouched/  But  by  the  use  of  this  figure 
derived  from  Space,  we  express  most  inappropriately  our  better  and 
truer  meaning.  At  each  moment,  the  whole  essential  Being  is  both 
acting  and  being  acted  upon ;  only  it  belongs  to  the  nature  of  this 
indivisible  unity  that  the  several  activities  which  external  conditions 
elicit  from  it  should,  as  they  succeed  each  other,  exhibit  the  most 
various  degrees  of  mutual  dependence,  and  should  be  some  more  and 
some  less  closely  associated  together. 

Let  us  apply  these  legitimate  ideas  to  the  case  before  us.  What  we 
should  be  entitled  to  say  would  be,  not  that  the  atom  A  responds 
so  immediately  to  the  stimulus  a  by  producing  the  result  a  that 
there  is  absolutely  no  intervening  interval  of  time,  but  rather  that  the 
reaction  in  it  does  always  follow  upon  the  stimulus,  at  however  in- 
fmitesimally  small  an  interval  of  time ;  so  that  what  takes  place  here 
too  is  that  A  is  first  affected  on  its  receptive  side,  and  only  after 
wards  and  in  consequence  of  this  on  its  side  of  reaction.  This 
imagined  splitting  up  of  the  substance  into  parts  has  nothing  in 
common  with  the  false  notion  of  there  being  in  fad  any  such  separa 
tion  between  them,  as  would  be  the  case,  if  we  meant  that  an  im 
pression  a  produced  upon  an  atom  is  confined  to  a  point  a,  from 
which  point  it  does  not  pass  on  to  the  remaining  points  b  and  c,  until 
after  some  lapse  of  time.  In  such  a  case,  there  would,  as  I  have 
before  remarked,  be  nothing  left  to  distinguish  the  pretended  unity  of 
this  A  from  the  communication  of  effects  which  takes  place  in  every 
assemblage  of  discrete  and  independent  elements  when  brought  into 
active  contact.  If  we  are  serious  in  supposing  this  unity  to  exist,  we 
must  assert  that  every  motion  communicated  to  a  point  a  in  an  atom, 
is  also  literally  a  motion  of  the  point  a"  at  the  other  end  of  a  diameter 
of  the  atom.  The  motion,  consequently,  would  have  to  be  trans 
mitted  all  along  the  intervening  line  a  a1  in  absolutely  no  time  at  all ; 
and  the  ordinary  rule  according  to  which  the  intensity  of  a  force  varies 


CHAPTER  VI.]  AtOMS  which  are  not  extended.  33! 

with  its  distance,  would  have  in  this  case  to  be  suspended ;  the  effect 
produced  upon  the  remoter  point  a1  must  be  as  strong  as  that  pro 
duced  upon  a.  These  consequences  which,  as  it  appears  to  me, 
are  inevitable,  cannot  be  reconciled  with  the  ordinary  principles  of 
Mechanics.  But  if  they  are  to  be  avoided,  either  the  unity  of  the  atom 
or  its  extension  must  be  given  up. 

191.  Physical  theories  in  favour  of  the  latter  of  these  two  alterna 
tives  have  assumed  a  variety  of  forms.  Though  they  have  not 
been  expressly  based  on  the  above-mentioned  arguments,  which  have 
led  me  to  infer  that  extension  is  not  a  predicate  of  a  simple  or  single 
substance,  but  the  appearance  assumed  by  many  different  elements 
when  combined,  they  have  originated  in  a  general  feeling  that  the  very 
thing  which  it  was  intended  to  explain  in  composite  bodies  by  means 
of  the  atoms,  could  not  be  consistently  assumed  as  already  existing  in 
the  atoms.  The  extension  of  the  simple  elements  was  not  a  fact  given 
in  experience ;  nor  was  there  any  necessity  for  assuming  it.  All  that 
was  required  was,  certain  points  in  space,  from  which  forces  of 
attraction  and  repulsion  could  operate  with  a  certain  intensity.  The 
unextended  atoms,  as  the  vehicles  of  these  forces,  served  quite  as  well 
to  explain  phenomena,  as  they  would  have  done  on  the  almost 
inconceivable  hypothesis  of  their  extension.  Hence,  since  all  that 
was  needed  was  a  working  hypothesis,  it  became  the  custom  for 
Physicists  to  describe  the  atoms  simply  as  centres,  to  and  from  which 
Forces  and  Operations  are  transmitted,  leaving  it  unexplained  how 
these  real  points  are  distinguished  from  the  empty  points  of  space 
which  they  fill.  This  omission  may  easily  be  supplied.  A  real  thing 
could  never  by  being  extended  in  space  produce  an  effect  which  it 
was  not  in  virtue  of  its  nature  capable  of  producing  when  in  relation 
with  the  other  thing  in  question.  At  most,  the  space  which  it  occu 
pies  could  only  prescribe  the  sphere  of  operation,  within  which 
capacities  due  not  to  extension  but  to  the  inherent  nature  of  what  the 
thing  is,  are  exercised.  If,  further,  it  is  impossible  to  conceive  of 
motion  as  produced  under  conditions  of  actual  contact  and  if 
distance  is  necessary  to  the  operation  of  force,  actual  reality  becomes 
independent  of  extension  in  space,  and  the  elements,  though  they 
have  indeed  positions  in  space,  are  without  either  volume  or  shape. 

This  point  of  view  grew  up  not  merely  as  a  conclusion  arrived  at 
by  Physics ;  it  is  an  ancient  possession  of  Philosophy.  Herbart  refers 
back  to  Leibnitz ;  for  myself,  I  prefer  his  own  definite  exposition  to 
the  doctrines  of  his  forerunner,  which  can  only  be  arrived  at  by  a 
somewhat  dubious  interpretation.  Herbart's  ontology  starts  from  the 


332  The  simple  elements  of  Matter.  IBOOKII. 

\  assumption  of  countless  simple  substances  without  parts  or  extension, 
which  form  the  elements  of  the  world.  His  construction  of  matter 
could,  therefore,  only  lead  to  Atomism :  and,  he  tells  us  quite  clearly 
what  are  the  original  subjects  from  which  the  activities  formative  of 
matter  proceed,  and  as  to  which  we  found  Kant's  explanation  un 
satisfactory.  Herbart  distinguishes  his  own  theory  from  the  theories 
of  the  Physicists,  by  calling  it  '  Qualitative  Atomism.'  He  gives  it 
Z^  this  name,  not  only  to  show  that  his  simple  substances  owing  to  their 
qualitative  differences  are  endowed  with  distinct  concrete  natures, 
and  not  merely  substantiated  abstractions  of  a  single  homogeneous 
reality ;  he  uses  the  term  in  a  far  more  important  signification  than 
this  to  imply  that  from  the  inner  experiences  to  which  these  differ 
ences  of  nature  give  rise,  all  these  Forces  and  Laws  of  relation  are 
\  derived,  which  the  common  modes  of  speaking  and  thinking  in 
Physical  Science  represent,  without  any  further  attempt  at  explana 
tion,  as  predicates  inherently  attaching  to  the  ultimate  elements. 
Being,  as  I  am,  quite  at  one  with  Herbart  in  regard  to  this  general 
conception,  I  regret  that  owing  to  a  certain  ontological  doctrine, 
which  I  do  not  myself  share  with  him,  he  should  have  been 
deprived  of  the  fruits  of  these  conclusions  in  constructing  his  theory 
of  matter. 

The  entire  independence  which  he  ascribed  to  each  of  the  essential 
elements  prevented  him  from  holding  the  doctrine  of  a  pervading 
connexion,  in  virtue  of  which  the  states  by  which  one  is  affected 
become  the  immediate  condition  for  what  is  experienced  by  the  rest. 
Another  of  his  assumptions,  the  origin  of  which  I  am  ignorant  of,  led 
him  to  regard  contact  in  space  as  the  only  cause  capable  of  disturb 
ing  the  mutual  indifference  of  the  elements  and  forcing  them  into 
active  relationship.  As,  on  this  view,  it  was  impossible  for  the 
essential  elements  to  act  on  each  other  from  a  distance,  Herbart 
became  involved  in  the  hopeless  attempt  to  show  how  points  un- 
extended,  though  real,  are  brought  into  contact  in  order  that  they 
may  act  upon  each  other,  but  yet  not  absolutely  into  contact,  in  order 
that  their  combined  effects  may  endow  a  multiplicity  with  an  extension 
which  attaches  to  no  single  one  of  its  component  parts.  It  is  a  view 
which  requires  to  be  changed  only  in  a  single  point,  though  this  no 
doubt  is  a  vital  one.  The  simple  elements  of  reality,  on  which  the 
\  constitution  of  the  world  primarily  depends,  must  be  regarded  as  con- 
<>  \  ditioned,  not  independent,  and  therefore  as  in  unceasing  relation  to 
)  each  other.  By  making  forces  which  act  at  a  distance  emanate  from 
the  simple  elements,  elements  not  empty  but  of  a  definite  internal 


CHAPTER  vi.]     A  toms  and  Phenomenal  Extension.  333 

character,  we  can  frame  an  intelligible  picture  of  the  forms  of  matter, 
as  systems  of  real  unextended  points,  limited  in  space,  and  endowed 
with  forces  of  cohesion  and  resistance  in  very  various  degrees. 

192.  Now,  at  this  point  we  might  stop,  if  it  were  not  for  another 
assumption  which  these  theories  commonly  contain,  that  viz.  of  an 
actually  extended  space,  in  which  the  real  elements  take  up  their 
positions.  The  contrary  conviction,  in  support  of  which  I  have  con 
tended,  compels  me  to  introduce  some  further  modifications  into  the 
view  which  I  have  first  stated  in  order  to  arrive  gradually  at  the  idea 
which  I  wish  ultimately  to  establish.  I  continue  for  the  present  to 
make  the  assumption  of  an  indefinite  number  of  individual  existences; 
an  assumption  from  which  the  explanation  of  the  variety  of  pheno 
mena  must  always  make  its  first  start.  Not  much  need  be  added  to 
what  has  been  already  said  as  to  the  general  relation  of  these  exist 
ences  to  space.  These  simple  elements,  having  as  such  no  connexion  | 
with  space,  stand  to  each  other  in  a  vast  variety  of  relations,  which 
only  for  our  modes  of  apprehension  assume  the  forms  of  position  and 
distance  in  space.  It  is  for  Psychology  to  supplement  the  suggestions 
which  have  been  already  made  by  telling  us  how  this  mode  of  appre 
hension  is  originated ;  here,  we  are  only  concerned  with  the  ideas  which 
we  must  form  of  the  nature  of  Real  existence,  in  order  to  make  in 
telligible  the  particular  mode  in  which  it  presents  itself  to  our  sub 
jective  consciousness. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  to  repeat  what  I  have  already  mentioned,  it 
is  requisite  that  we  should  reverse  one  of  our  ordinary  ways  of  think 
ing.  When  a  certain  element  a  is  in  a  certain  position  a,  we  think  of 
this  fact  as  if  it  was  something  in  itself,  as  if  it  was  in  virtue  of  this 
that  the  element  had  the  power  to  produce  effects  on  other  things  in 
certain  definite  ways.  But,  according  to  all  the  results  at  which  we 
have  so  far  arrived,  we  ought  contrariwise  to  say : — That  the  element 
a  '  is  in  the  position  a,'  can  only  mean  for  it,  that  it  has  received  so 
many  and  such  impressions  from  all  the  other  elements  which  belong 
to  the  same  world  to  which  it  belongs,  that,  if  we  regard  the  whole 
mass  of  existing  facts  of  that  world  under  the  form  of  space  no  place 
except  a  corresponds  to  that  which  is  assigned  to  a  in  the  universal 
order.  Hence,  the  position  which  an  element  occupies  must  always 
be  regarded  by  us  as  the  result  of  the  forces  that  determine  it,  and  in 
so  determining  it,  are  in  a  state  of  equilibrium.  This  conclusion  the 
Science  of  Mechanics  only  half  admits.  It  admits,  no  doubt,  that 
during  every  moment  that  an  element  remains  at  rest,  the  forces 
working  upon  it  must  be  in  a  state  of  equilibrium.  But  the  con- 


'334  The  simple  elements  of  Matter.  [BOOKII. 

ception  still  remains  possible  that  an  element  might  occupy  a  position 
in  space  without  any  action  of  force  whatever,  and  that  forces  arising 
subsequently  might  find  it  there  and  act  upon  it. 

Further,  I  have  abundantly  shown  that  by  this  systematised  arrange 
ment  of  unextended  points,  which  I  believe  to  be  what  constitutes  the 
world  as  a  whole,  I  understand  not  the  order  of  a  rigid  classification, 
but  an  order  which,  incessant  as  is  the  movement  of  things,  and 
manifold  and  various  as  are  the  forms  which  the  sum  of  conditions 
at  each  moment  assumes,  maintains  throughout  a  continuous  and 
unchanging  purpose.  The  position,  therefore,  which  an  element 
assumes,  when  it  appears  in  space,  does  not  simply  indicate  the 
place  which  it  occupies  from  all  eternity  in  a  classification  of  the 
world's  contents,  but,  rather,  the  place  which,  at  that  moment,  was  the 
only  point  at  which  the  changing  conditions  to  which  it  is  subject 
came  to  a  changeable  equilibrium.  It  would  be  too  simple  an  ex 
planation  of  what  takes  place,  to  suppose  that  when  two  elements 
a  and  b  make  their  appearance  at  two  points  of  space  in  close  prox 
imity,  a  and  0,  they  have  been  accredited  to  these  positions  owing  to 
the  special  sympathy  of  their  natures  or  the  intimacy  of  their  inter 
action.  Rather  they  may  have  been  quite  indifferent  to  each  other,  and 
yet  have  been  forced  into  this  juxtaposition,  simply  because  the 
demands  made  by  all  the  rest  of  the  elements  and  their  motions 
can  find  no  better  satisfaction  than  in  the  momentary  proximity  of 
these  two  elements,  though  it  may  not  answer  to  any  vital  con 
nexion  between  the  elements  themselves.  Reflexion  upon  this 
constant  motion  of  the  world  will  cause  us  to  modify  our  previous 
view,  or,  at  all  events,  to  define  it  more  accurately.  The  position  a 
of  an  element  a,  though  always  no  doubt  it  expresses  the  balance  of 
the  several  forces  for  the  time  being  affecting  a,  may  also  at  the  same 
time  be  the  expression  of  an  unavoidable  want  of  equilibrium  between 
the  present  state  of  a,  and  that  state  to  which  its  nature  gives  it  a 
claim  in  the  totality  of  existence ;  an  expression,  therefore,  of  a  dis 
cordant  Tension,  which  remains  until,  in  the  course  of  events,  the 
causes  which  occasioned  it  again  disappear. 

I  make  these  remarks,  in  order  to  give  an  idea  of  the  complex 
kinds  of  relations  which  here  present  themselves,  and  in  order  to 
remove  the  impression  that  there  is  any  correspondence  between  the 
appearance  of  the  world  in  space  at  any  given  moment  and  an  intel 
ligible  order  of  things,  in  which  the  position  of  each  element  would 
correspond  with  the  conception  which  permanently  represents  its 
nature.  But  I  hasten  to  add  that  this  reference  to  a  disproportion  of 


CHAPTER  vi.]  Is  Matter  homogeneous  ?  335 

states,  in  the  above-mentioned  sense,  must  not  be  mixed  up  with  any 
secondary  associations  of  *  that  which  ought  not  to  be,'  '  that  which  is 
out  of  place/  or  *  which  contradicts  the  purpose  of  the  whole.' 
Whether  anything  of  this  kind  ever  happens,  whether,  i.  e.  there  is 
anything  in  the  world's  course  which  can  be  compared  with  discords 
in  a  musical  progression,  we  shall  not  here  enquire.  The  dispro 
portion  of  which  we  have  been  speaking  is  primarily  nothing  but  the 
impulse  to  a  change  of  state  which  is  suggested  by  the  course  of 
events,  and  which  tends  to  or  accomplishes  the  transition  to  posi 
tions  according  as  it  is  impeded  or  unimpeded.  Turning  now  from 
these  general  considerations,  we  will  apply  ourselves  to  the  solution 
of  certain*  special  questions,  which  acquire  from  our  present  point  of 
view  either  the  whole  of  their  significance  or  a  different  significance 
from  that  which  is-  commonly  assigned  to  them. 

193.  Let  us  start  as  before  from  the  supposition  of  a  given  plurality 
of  active  elements;  remembering  at  the  same  time  how  frequently 
it  happens,  as  has  been  proved  by  experiments,  that  apparently 
different  properties  are  really  only  the  result  of  different  combina 
tions  of  a  single  homogeneous  substance.  The  question  will,  then, 
obviously  be,  must  we,  in  order  to  explain  the  facts,  assume  the  exist 
ence  of  a  multiplicity  of  originally  distinct  materials  ?  or,  shall  we 
explain  even  the  characteristic  differences  between  the  chemical  Ele 
ments  as  mere  modifications  of  a  single  homogeneous  matter  ?  The 
eagerness  which  is  now  shown  in  favour  of  the  attempt  to  explain 
away  these  differences  seems  to  me  to  be  based  to  some  extent  on  a 
false  principle  of  method.  For  practical  purposes  Science  is,  of 
course,. always  interested  in  reducing  the  number  of  independent 
principles  upon  which  to  base  its  explanations,  and  in  making  calcu 
lable  the  course  of  events  by  subordinating  the  complex  derivative 
premisses  to  a  few  primary  ones.  But  not  less  certain  is  it  that 
Science  cannot  desire  any  more  complete  unity  than  actually  exists, 
and  until  the  point  is  decided  by  experience,  a  unity  which  remains 
still  unknown  must  not  be  presupposed  as  certainly  existing  except 
in  cases  in  which  without  it  a  contradiction  would  be  introduced 
into  the  nature  of  the  subject-matter. 

Now,  our  idea  of  Nature  implies  three  things,  (i)  A  system  of 
universal  laws,  which  determine  the  sequence  of  cause  and  conse 
quence.  (2)  A  multitude  of  concrete  points  to  which  these  laws  may 
attach  and  so  find  their  application.  (3)  Lastly,  a  purpose  to  realise 
which  these  actual  existences  are  combined  together.  Every  theory  of 
Science  admits  the  two  first  of  these  postulates  ;  the  last  is,  no  doubt, 


336  The  simple  elements  of  Matter.  [BOOK  ir. 

the  subject  of  conflicting  opinions.  But  wherever  the  thought  of  a 
purpose  in  nature  is  cherished,  it  stands  to  reason  that  there  can  be 
but  one,  and  that  all  seemingly  independent  tendencies  must  be  really 
subordinate  to  this  unity  and  appear  as  moments  in  its  Being.  Not 
less  necessary  is  the  unity  of  the  supreme  laws  which  govern  the 
connexion  of  events.  These  consist  not  so  much  in  the  rules  to 
which  various  forces  variously  conform,  as  in  the  universal  truths  of 
mathematics,  to  which  any  self-consistent  world,  even  though  it  were 
quite  otherwise  constituted  than  the  existing  one,  would  always  have 
to  submit  throughout  its  whole  extent  alike.  It  is  impossible  to  con 
ceive  an  order  of  nature,  unless  it  can  be  determined  according  to  the 
same  rules  of  measurement  in  every  instance  what  results  may  be 
deduced  from  the  presence  of  active  elements  in  given  proportions, 
and  from  their  reciprocal  interactions  in  calculable  degrees  of  in 
tensity.  On  the  other  hand,  the  actual  existence,  which  has  to 
furnish  these  laws  with  cases  in  which  they  will  apply,  has  to  fulfil  no 
requirement  but  the  primary  one  of  being  manifold.  Nor  is  there  the 
slightest  reason  why  a  theory  which  takes  no  exception  to  the  doctrine 
of  an  original  plurality  of  homogeneous  atoms  should  regard  with 
suspicion  the  hypotheses  of  original  differences  of  quality.  No  further 
likeness  of  nature  need  be  attributed  to  the  atoms  than  such  as  is 
required  to  enable  them  to  combine  together  in  the  same  order  of 
things.  It  must  be  possible  in  so  far  as  they  affect  each  other  by  way 
of  interaction,  to  exhibit  their  natures  as  combining  in  definite  degrees 
of  intensity  certain  universal  modes  of  activity.  But  there  appears  to 
me  to  be  no  necessity  for  regarding  the  group  of  specific  coefficients 
which  these  general  modes  of  action  .are  found  to  take  in  any  par 
ticular  element,  as  attached  to  a  substance  of  like  nature  through 
out,  or,  more  strictly,  as  attached  to  what  is  merely  the  substantiated 
abstraction  of  reality.  The  group  may  equally  well  be  regarded 
as  the  expression  of  a  specific  quality,  so  far  as  such  expression 
is  allowed  by  the  mutual  intercourse  of  the  various  forms  of 
matter. 

Practically  the  importance  of  the  difference  between  these  two 
views  would  consist  in  this,  that  the  latter  would  altogether  exclude 
the  possibility  of  one  chemical  element  passing  into  another,  whilst, 
according  to  the  former  view,  this  would  be  at  any  rate  conceivable. 
It  would  indeed  be  more  than  conceivable.  It  would  rather  be  in 
explicable  that  throughout  the  endless  process  of  combination,  dis 
solution  and  transformation  to  which  the  parts  of  matter  are  subject, 
no  element  should  ever  lose  its  identity  or  merge  its  own  individuality 


CHAPTER  vi.j  77ie  Conception  of ' Mass!  337 

in  that  of  some  other.  If  the  essential  character  of  each  element 
depends  merely  on  a  peculiar  arrangement  of  homogeneous  particles, 
it  may  be  conjectured  that  the  same  course  of  events  which  gave 
birth  to  one  of  the  forms  thus  composed,  might  again  produce  the 
conditions  which  would  lead  to  its  being  either  dissolved  or  trans 
formed  into  some  other  shape.  But  if  it  was  meant  that  it  could 
be  shown  that  there  are  certain  forms  of  combination  which  having 
once  originated  can  never  by  any  possible  conjunction  of  forces 
be  dissolved,  it  would  still  be  open  to  ask,  Why  at  any  rate  there 
is  not,  through  a  further  composition  of  the  simpler  structures,  a 
constant  increase  in  the  number  of  these  irrevocable  combinations  ? 
Finally,  if  it  is  to  be  regarded  as  an  eternal  fact  that  these  com 
binations  are  all  alike  indestructible  and  at  the  same  time  incapable 
of  further  development,  it  would  be  difficult  to  say  in  what  would 
consist  the  difference  between  this  view  and  that  which  assumes  an 
original  difference  between  the  elements.  As  regards  the  practical 
explanation  of  nature  there  would  be  no  difference  between  the  two 
ideas ;  it  would  be  a  difference  merely  of  theoretical  view.  The 
probability  of  all  reality  being  homogeneous  in  essence,  unless  con 
firmed  by  future  experience,  could  only  be  maintained  upon  con 
siderations  of  a  different  and  more  indirect  kind. 

194.  To  this  class  of  considerations  belong  the  views  commonly 
held  in  regard  to  the  mass  of  matter,  its  constancy,  and  its  influence 
in  determining  the  character  of  different  kinds  of  effects.  It  is  now 
quite  superfluous  to  recur  to  what  was  once  a  mistake  of  frequent 
occurrence  in  philosophy,  by  pointing  out  that  the  idea  of  mass  is 
not  exclusively  associated  with  that  of  weight  and  heaviness ;  but,  that, 
as  applied  to  the  reciprocal  action  of  any  two  material  bodies,  the 
term  expresses  the  intensity  of  the  force  which  each  contributes  to 
the  common  result.  Let  us  suppose  that  we  have  formed  two  bodies 
from  m  and  p.  numbers  of  units  of  the  same  matter,  and  have  ob 
served  their  behaviour  to  a  third  bodyV  in  regard  to  a  certain  effect  of 
the  kind  /.  If  having  observed  this,  we  then  find  that  two  other 
bodies,  both  demonstrably  formed  from  the  same  material,  behave 
in  the  same  way  towards  c  as  the  two  first  in  respect  of  the  same 
effect  />,  we  rightly  conclude  that  they  also  contain  m  and  p.  number  of 
units  of  the  same  matter.  Suppose,  however,  these  two  latter  bodies 
exhibited  divergent  properties,  so  that  their  consisting  of  the  same 
matter  was  open  to  doubt,  and  yet  that,  in  regard  to  p,  they  were 
affected  towards  c  precisely  as  those  two  substances  had  been  which 
we  had  ourselves  formed  from  a  demonstrably  common  matter,  it 

VOL.  i.  z 


338  The  simple  elements  of  Matter. 

would  no  doubt  be  a  natural  and  obvious  conjecture  that  their 
behaviour  was  also  due  to  the  presence  of  m  and  /*  units  of  a  homo 
geneous  substance,  though  this  likeness  was  hidden  in  their  case  by 
secondary  differences  of  quality.  At  the  same  time,  this  conjecture 
would  go  beyond  the  facts.  All  that  the  facts  teach  is  that  in  respect 
of  the  effect  /,  the  two  bodies  in  question  are  equivalent  to  m  and  jx 
numbers  of  the  before-mentioned  matter ;  not  that  they  actually 
consist  0/"them.  There  is  nothing  to  prevent  them  from  being  in  all 
oiher  respects  different  in  original  quality  from  each  other,  and  from 
c,  and  yet  being  capable  of  a  special  interaction  of  the  kind  p 
between  them  and  c,  in  which  their  contribution  to  the  common  result 
admits  of  a  numerical  expression  m  and  /z,  as  identical  or  comparable 
with  that  of  the  two  bodies  first  considered.  If  now,  assuming  them 
to  have  the  above  specific  quality,  we  proceed  to  consider  their  inter 
action  with  a  fresh  body  d  resulting  in  a  different  kind  of  effect  q,  we 
shall  not  be  justified  in  assuming  that  the  proportion  in  which  they 
contribute  to  this  result  is  the  same,  viz.  m  :  p,  as  that  in  which  they 
contributed  to  produce  /.  Rather,  it  is  conceivable  that  in  their  new 
relation  to  d,  bringing  into  play  as  it  would  new  forces,  they  would  be 
like  where  they  had  before  been  unlike,  and  unlike  where  they  had 
been  like ;  or,  in  a  word,  that  in  regard  to  the  effect  q,  they  would 
assume  the  quantities  ml  and  ^,  different  from  the  previous  quantities 
m  and  p.  In  point  of  fact,  at  any  rate  at  first  sight,  this  is  how  the 
several  effects/,  q,  r,  produced  by  the  reciprocal  action  of  the  bodies 
in  question,  are  related,  and  it  is  never  certain  that  a  which  in  regard 
to/  is  greater  in  quantity  than  b,  will  still  remain  so  in  regard  to  q. 

Whether  these  differences  can  be  intelligibly  explained  on  the 
hypothesis  of  a  homogeneous  matter,  as  secondary  effects  due  to 
different  modes  of  combination,  must  here  be  left  undecided.  Owing 
to  the  extreme  variety  of  the  phenomena  to  be  taken  into  account, 
such  a  conclusion  could  only  be  established,  if  at  all,  in  the  distant 
future.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  of  course  always  possible  to  express 
each  of  the  new  quantitative  determinations  that  arise,  e.g.  ml  and  plt 
by  means  of  the  old  ones,  i.e.  by  k  m  and  K  /u,  and  so  by,  assigning  for 
each  kind  of  special  effect  a  specific  coefficient  to  bring  the  fiction  of 
a  homogeneous  mass  into  harmony  with  the  given  facts.  In  a  meta 
physical  point  of  view  this  would  decide  nothing.  The  possible 
qualitative  difference  between  the  parts  of  matter  is  as  little  made  to 
disappear  by  this  reduction,  as  corn  and  meat  cease  to  be  two 
different  things  after  their  value  has  been  expressed  in  the  common 
term-  of  money.  The  doctrine  then  which  I  am  maintaining  is  not 


CHAPTER  vi.]      Unity  which  is  not  Homogeneous.  339 

open  to  any  general  objection  on  these  grounds,  though  it  cannot  be 
applied  to  explain  the  particular  facts.  It,  at  any  rate,  does  not  oblige 
us  to  think  of  the  different  elements  as  differing  without  any  principle. 
Belonging  as  they  would  to  one  and  the  same  world,  their  qualities 
would  be  mutually  related  members  of  a  single  interconnected  system, 
within  which  they  would  be  combined  in  different  directions,  in  dif 
ferent  senses,  and  with  various  degrees  of  intimacy.  Stationed  at  the 
meeting-point  of  many  opposing  tendencies,  an  element  might  on 
one  of  its  sides  display  a  greater  degree  of  force  than  its  neighbour,  on 
another  an  equal  degree,  whilst  on  a  third  side  its  force  might  be 
less  ;  and,  if  we  knew  the  purpose  of  the  whole  system,  which  we  do 
not  know,  we  should  be  able  to  deduce  from  the  mass  which  an 
element  exhibited  in  the  production  of  the  effect  /,  the  specific  co 
efficients  which  belong  to  it  for  the  actions  q,  r,  &c.,  and  to  exhibit 
those  coefficients  as  a  series  of  mutually  dependent  functions. 

195.  I  have  made  these  observations,  still  proceeding  on  the  as 
sumption  that  a  plurality  of  individual  elements  is  what  forms  the  ulti 
mate  constituents  of  the  world.  We  shall  see,  however,  that  they  have 
equal  force,  if  viewed  in  connexion  with  a  result  established  by  our 
ontological  investigations,  according  to  which  these  multitudinous 
elements  are  but  modifications  of  one  and  the  same  Being1.  To 
hold  this  latter  opinion,  seems  at  first  to  be  equivalent  to  repeating 
the  very  view  against  which  we  have  been  contending.  It  appears  as 
if  we  could  have  no  real  interest  in  establishing  the  fact  of  difference 
amongst  the  elements,  if  this  is  not  to  be  regarded  as  ultimate  and 
irremovable.  But  the  doctrine  here  maintained,  is  essentially  dis 
tinguished  from  the  doctrine  of  Physics.  I  understand  by  this  abso 
lute  Being,  not  a  Real  existence  infinite  in  quantity  and  of  like 
nature  throughout,  which  has  no  other  inherent  capacity  than  that  of 
falling  into  countless  homogeneous  parts,  and  which  only  is  in  a 
secondary  sense,  by  means  of  the  various  possible  combinations  of 
those  parts,  the  ground  of  a  diversity  existing  in  the  content  of  the 
world.  I  conceive  it  rather  as  a  living  idea,  the  import  of  which, 
inaccessible  in  its  essence  to  any  quantitative  measurement,  is  no 
mere  homogeneous  aggregate  of  ideas,  but  a  self-articulated  whole 
of  variously  interwoven  parts  ;  each  one  of  these  parts,  as  well  as  the 
several  elements  which  compose  it,  acquiring  a  determinate  quantity 
according  to  its  value  and  position  in  the  whole. 

Let  us  give  an  illustration.    If  this  idea  could  be  expressed  in  terms 
of  our  thought,  it  could  only  be  so  by  means  of  a  number  of  propo- 
1  [Cp.  Chapters  vi.  and  vii.  of  Book  I.] 
Z  2 


340  The  simple  elements  of  Matter. 

sitions  which  would  be  towards  one  another  in  those  extremely 
various  modes  of  dependence  in  which  the  different  parts  of  a 
scientific  system  are  connected  together.  But  these  principles  would 
be  meaningless,  if  they  were  not  again  composed  of  words — words  of 
which  the  meanings  while  different  and  unchangeably  fixed,  are  still 
not  immeasurably  different,  but  so  precisely  determined  in  relation  to 
each  other  that  they  admit  of  being  joined  together  in  very  various 
syntactical  combinations,  to  serve  as  vehicles  by  which  the  Idea  is 
articulated  into  its  parts.  With  these  words  I  compare  the  ele 
mentary  materials  of  nature.  In  themselves  they  are  nothing ;  they 
are  merely  forms  of  a  common  principle  underlying  the  world, 
a  principle,  however,  which  maintains  them  as  constantly  uniform 
activities,  so  that  in  every  case  in  which  they  occur  and  enter  into 
mutual  relations  they  observe  the  same  laws  of  behaviour.  But, 
although  thus  involved  from  all  eternity  in  a  network  of  relations, 
they  still  remain  different  as  regards  each  other,  and  incapable  of 
being  referred  to  mere  division  and  re-combination  of  a  uniform 
substratum.  The  mathematical  mode  of  regarding  the  question 
which  favours  this  latter  view,  and  which  has  very  extensive  rights  in 
the  treatment  of  nature,  is  still  not  the  only  way  of  conceiving  its 
unity,  nor  does  it  penetrate  to  the  ultimate  ground  of  things- 
Merely,  within  the  limits  of  our  observation,  this  mathematical  con 
nexion  of  things,  secondary  though  it  is,  presents  itself  first.  That 
whole  world  of  quantitative  and  numerical  determinations  is  itself 
based  on  an  order  of  things,  the  synthetic  connexions  of  which  we 
could  never  have  arrived  at  by  any  logical  analysis.  We  have  called 
this  order  '  systematic,'  and  now  we  may  replace  this  imperfect  ex 
pression  by  another,  that  of  the  '  esthetic '  unity  of  purpose  in  the 
world,  which,  as  in  some  work  of  art,  combines  with  convincing 
justice  things  which  in  their  isolation  would  seem  incoherent  and 
scarcely  to  stand  in  any  relation  to  one  another  at  all.  Or,  lastly,  we 
might  prefer  to  use  the  term  '  dialectical  unity/  in  memory  of  a  late 
phase  of  our  German  Philosophy,  which  was  thoroughly  alive  to  the 
truth  of  this  doctrine,  but  failed,  as  it  seems  to  me,  because  it  be 
lieved  itself  able  to  apply  to  details  of  fact  principles  which  can  only 
in  a  rough  way  prescribe  a  general  direction  to  our  thoughts. 

196.  This  transformation  of  our  views  introduces  us  to  a  further 
question,  which  to  Physical  Atomism  appears  to  be  no  question  at  all. 
It  is  assumed  that  a  countless  number  of  individual  atoms  fill  the 
world.  Now,  be  they  the  same  or  be  they  different  in  kind,  whence 
comes  their  plurality  ?  If  they  are  regarded  as  starting-points  to  be 


CHAPTER  VI.) 


Plurality  of  Identicals. 


341 


assumed,  beyond  which  we  cannot  go  in  thought,  no  doubt  their 
dispersion  throughout  space  can  also  be  included  in  the  number 
of  facts  to  be  taken  for  granted,  which  we  must  recognise  without 
attempting  to  explain.  But,  to  us,  who  have  conceived  every  qualita 
tively  distinct  element  as  one  of  a  connected  series  of  acts  emanating 
from  the  supreme  principle  of  the  universe,  it  is  necessarily  perplexing 
to  find  that  the  instances  in  which  each  element  occurs  are  scattered 
over  a  countless  number  of  different  points  in  space.  Nor  is  this  an 
enigma  merely  from  our  point  of  view.  We  can,  no  doubt,  by  an 
act  of  thought  easily  represent  to  ourselves  the  same  content  a 
a  thousand  times  over,  and  we  can  distinguish  the  thousand  creations 
of  our  imagination,  by  localising  them  at  different  points  of  space, 
or  by  enumerating  them  according  to  the  different  moments  of  time 
when  they  first  suggested  themselves  to  us.  But  how,  strictly  speak 
ing,  can  it  be  conceived  that,  in  actual  fact,  the  same  a  occurs  several 
times  over?  Must  not  the  mere  fact  that  there  are  several,  make  it 
necessary  that  a  should  be  in  one  case  something  different  from  what 
it  is  in  another,  though  it  ought  in  every  case  to  be  the  same  ?  ^JVVhai 
constitutes  the  objective  difference  between  them,  which  makes  a  truih 
of  fact  of  the  logical  assumption  that  they  are  so  many  like  instances 
of  a  general  notion  or  a  common  nature  ?  We  remember  what  a 
stumbling-block  this  question  was  to  Leibnitz.  It  seemed  to  him  to 
be  impossible  that  two  things  should  actually  occur,  unless  their  duality 
was  based  on  a  difference  of  nature  between  them.  He  would  not 
even  allow  that  two  leaves  of  a  tree  could  be  exactly  alike.  This 
difficulty  scarcely  attracts  any  attention  now.  I  must  say,  however, 
that  it  seems  to  me  to  have  been  somewhat  too  hastily  passed  over 
by  those  who  have  followed  in  the  footsteps  of  Kant.  What  Thought 
could  not  achieve,  was  held  to  be  made  possible  by  spatial  per 
ception.  It  was  in  and  through  space  that  it  was  clearly  shown 
how  things  could  be  at  once  like  and  manifold ;  they  might  differ 
in  position,  but  be  perfectly  identical  in  the  nature  which  occupies 
the  position. 

Certainly,  this  is  clear  enough ;  but  I  cannot  see  in  this  clearness  a 
solution  of  the  difficulty.  All  that  it  does  is  to  bring  the  problem  itself 
vividly  before  us ;  but  for  this  phenomenon,  indeed,  the  difficulty 
would  scarcely  have  been  suggested.  Now,  if  science  admitted  to  an 
unlimited  extent  the  possibility  of  things  acting  upon  each  other  at  a 
distance,  it  might  no  doubt  be  granted  that  one  atom  is  never  subject 
to  precisely  the  same  sum  of  external  influences  as  another.  And, 
if  it  were  further  granted  that  the  atoms  experience  changes  of  inner 


34 2  The  simple  elements  of  Matter.  [BOOK  H. 

state  corresponding  with  these  external  influences,  it  would  follow 
that  an  atom  a  would  be  in  some  way  different  at  each  moment  of 
its  existence  from  a  second  and  otherwise  similar  atom,  since  its 
internal  states  at  any  moment  are  not  an  extraneous  appendage  to 
its  nature,  but  an  actual  constituent  of  what  it  is  at  that  moment. 
But  this  mode  of  statement  would  still  involve  the  latent  supposition, 
that  though  the  states  by  which  an  atom  is  affected  change,  yet 
through  all  this  change  the  atom  itself  remains  as  a  constant 
quantity,  which  would  have  maintained  itself  in  its  position  even  if 
there  had  been  no  forces  acting  on  it,  and  which  only  becomes 
distinguished  from  other  atoms  of  the  same  kind  as  itself  owing  to 
external  influences  which  might  not  have  been  operative.  Thus  we 
are  brought  back  to  the  question,  What  does  it  really  mean  that  an 
element  occupies  a  point  in  space?  and  how  can  it  be  that  in  virtue 
of  its  position  it  is  distinguished  from  other  elements,  seeing  that  all 
points  of  space,  both  in  themselves  and  in  their  effects  on  the 
elements,  are  precisely  alike  ?  I  have  tried  to  give  an  answer  to  this 
question.  Its  very  terms  are  meaningless  from  the  point  of  view 
which  regards  space  as  something  actually  existing  by  reference  to 
which  things  are  determined.  Things  do  not  first  find  themselves  in 
certain  positions,  and  then  become  enabled  to  take  effect,  but  it  is 
the  kind  and  degree  of  the  effects  which  they  already  exercise  upon 
each  other  that  makes  them  occupy  those  positions  for  the  per 
ceptive  consciousness,  which  seem  to  us  to  be  those  which  originally 
belong  to  them. 

This  answer,  however,  does  not  at  once  remove  our  present  dif 
ficulty.  In  order  to  find  a  reason  why  these  qualitatively-distinguished 
elements  should  assume  the  form  of  a  scattered  multitude  of  in 
dividual  atoms,  it  seems  as  if  we  should  be  compelled  to  suppose 
that  in  the  intelligible  world,  which  reflects  itself  in  space,  that  action 
or  thought  which  we  designated  as  the  nature  of  an  element,  must 
repeat  itself  as  often  as  its  phenomenon.  Is  such  a  repetition  less 
unaccountable  than  the  easy  hypothesis  of  a  plurality  of  atoms  with 
which  Physics  is  content?  I  feel  myself  able  to  answer  in  the 
affirmative.  It  is  merely  owing  to  the  effect  of  constant  association 
with  the  forms  of  space,  that  when  we  come  to  represent  to  ourselves 
these  'repeated'  actions,  we  conceive  them  as  falling  into  a  number 
of  disconnected  groups  separated  from  one  another  by  empty  intervals 
just  as  the  parts  of  space  are  separated  by  their  lines  of  distance. 
There  is  really  no  such  relation  between  them.  Just  as  in  our  own 
inner  experience  the  self-same  principle  or  the  same  conception  recurs 


CHAPTER vi.]        Divisibility  of  Atomic  Centres.  343 

in  the  most  various  connexions,  and  exercises  a  limiting  or  deter 
mining  influence  of  many  different  kinds  on  any  other  of  our  thoughts 
with  which  it  happens  to  be  associated,  just  so  the  idea,  which  deter 
mines  the  qualitative  nature  of  an  element  of  matter,  serves  in  the 
order  of  the  universe  as  a  point  of  intersection  for  the  different 
tendencies  which  make  that  universe  into  a  connected  whole  ;  con 
nected,  as  I  must  again  insist,  not  merely  as  a  rigidly  classified  system, 
but  as  an  eternally  progressive  history.  We  are,  therefore,  not  called 
upon,  nor  are  we  interested  to  maintain  that  there  are  distinct  special 
existences  corresponding  in  number  with  the  functions  which  the 
same  idea  must  fulfil  when  thus  associated  with  others  in  these 
various  combinations.  The  number  of  scattered  atoms  is  merely  the 
number  of  the  separate  appearances  which  an  element  assumes  to 
our  perception  of  space  owing  to  the  manifold  relations  in  which  it  is 
involved  with  other  elements. 

197.  The  extremely  paradoxical  nature  of  this  conclusion  shall  not 
prevent  me  from  mentioning  also  a  certain  corollary  which  follows 
from  it.  We  have  now  arrived  at  a  point  of  view  from  which  the 
atomic  theory  can  no  longer  satisfy  us,  not  even  after  that  transforma 
tion  of  its  fundamental  idea,  to  which  it  seemed  not  to  be  disinclined. 
So  long  as  the  unextended  points,  from  and  to  which  forces  proceed, 
points  which  have  indeed  positions  in  space  but  no  volume,  were  con 
ceived  as  having,  not  less  than  the  extended  atoms  had  previously 
been  conceived  as  having,  an  obstinately  indestructible  nature,  there 
could  of  course  be  no  mention  of  a  further  division  into  parts ;  since 
that  which  was  to  be  divided  was,  as  its  very  name  implied,  indivisible. 
This  mode  of  representation  no  longer  holds  good.  If  the  single  real 
idea  which  determines  the  nature  of  a  qualitative  element  necessarily 
manifests  itself  under  a  number  of  distinct  forms,  and  if  there  is  no 
limit  to  the  multiplication  of  the  relations  which  it  may  assume  towards 
other  ideas,  why  should  it  be  specially  attached  to  just  those  points  in 
space  where  it  happens  to  be  active  at  any  given  moment  ?  Why  should 
not  the  positions  which  it  may  occupy  also  admit  of  being  multiplied 
indefinitely,  seeing  that  none  of  the  manifestations  of  the  element 
have  any  other  claim  to  a  separate  existence  except  such  as  depends 
on  the  mandate  of  the  whole  order  which  assigns  to  them  this  and  no 
other  position  ? 

Not  that  I  have  any  desire  to  return  to  the  notion  of  a  continuously 
extended,  infinitely  divisible  matter,  nor  to  that  other  notion,  accord 
ing  to  which  the  real  atom,  at  least  in  its  spatial  phenomenon,  is 
quite  continuous  in  the  sense  that  it  is  equally  present  at  every  point 


344  The  simple  elements  of  Matter. 

within  its  own  narrow  volume.  I  would  rather  not  in  any  way  de 
part  from  the  results  of  Atomism  most  recently  arrived  at,  according 
to  which  an  atom  is  conceived  as  developing  its  activity  from  a 
geometric  point.  But  I  can  see  no  reason  for  regarding  the  amount 
of  force  which  is  thus  diffused — a  force  which  is  now  no  longer  in 
any  sense  an  indestructible  metaphysical  unity — as  eternally  attached 
to  this  one  point.  Rather,  it  would  admit  of  partition  in  space,  just 
as  it  is  itself  only  a  partial  manifestation  of  a  single  identical  function 
of  the  whole.  In  proportion  as  new  combinations  of  phenomena 
were  required  to  exist  by  the  course  of  the  world,  each  centre  of 
activities  would  have  the  power  of  breaking  itself  up  into  several 
centres,  which  would  then  assume  different  positions  in  space  ac 
cording  as  the  new  conditions  to  which  they  were  subject  prescribed. 
These  conditions  may  be  very  different.  Their  effect  may  be  not 
merely  to  compel  the  new  centres  of  activity  to  combine  with  atoms 
belonging  to  other  elements,  but  also  to  cause  an  increase  in  the 
volume  of  any  particular  atom  by  forcing  its  constituent  elements  to 
expand  and  fall  asunder.  There  would  thus  come  to  be  differences 
in  the  density  of  the  atoms.  Owing  to  this  constant  process  of  inner 
dissolution,  new  points  of  departure  for  effects  would  be  multiplied, 
and  there  would  arise  the  appearances  which  were  formerly  believed 
to  be  only  capable  of  being  explained  on  the  hypothesis  of  a  con 
tinuous  and  real  extension  in  space,  and  which  are  only  accounted 
for  at  the  cost  of  a  permanent  improbability  by  those  who  believe, 
with  ordinary  atomism,  that  all  things  are  ultimately  analysable  into 
real  existence  and  empty  space.  In  this  way  we  should  be  brought 
to  the  idea  of  an  infinite  dynamic  divisibility  of  unextended  atoms, 
an  idea  which,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  will  seem  less  frightful  than  the 
barbarous  name  by  which,  in  order  to  distinguish  it  from  the  tra 
ditional  theories,  I  believe  that  it  may  most  briefly  be  described.  It 
will  no  doubt  have  been  taken  for  granted  that  the  degree  of  intensity, 
or,  to  put  it  shortly,  the  mass  of  each  of  the  parts  will  be  diminished, 
while  the  sum  of  these  masses  remains  the  same.  I  have  nothing  to 
say  against  this  addition,  but  the  principle  on  which  it  is  made  will 
require  further  discussion  in  our  next  chapter. 


CHAPTER     VII. 

The  Laws  of  the  Activities  of  Things. 

OF  the  inner  movements  of  things  we  know  nothing.  Still  less  do 
we  know  what  are  the  constant  modes  of  co-operation  which  the 
order  of  the  Universe  requires  them  to  assume.  Hence,  experience 
alone  can  discover  to  us  the  motive  forces  into  which  the  course  of 
natural  events  can  be  analysed  and  the  law  according  to  which  each 
of  these  several  forces  may  be  conceived  as  taking  effect.  But  a 
sufficiently  careful  and  comprehensive  observation  has  long  since 
established  certain  general  results,  which  deserve,  by  way  of  supple 
ment  at  any  rate,  to  receive  an  interpretation  in  connexion  with 
metaphysical  views,  and  which  suggest  the  question  whether  they 
are  really  nothing  but  the  expression  of  what  has  been  observed  to 
take  place,  and  not  rather  of  necessities  of  thought  to  which  ex 
perience  has  directed  our  attention  only  subsequently?  I  shall 
attempt  to  investigate  this  point,  though  well- knowing  beforehand 
that  my  labours  are  not  likely  to  produce  any  considerable  result. 
They  will  serve  merely  to  draw  attention  to  the  ambiguity  of  those 
speculations,  philosophical  no  less  than  scientific,  which  will  never 
cease  to  be  directed  to  this  unpromising  subject. 

198.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  universally  admitted  that  the  intensity 
of  the  effects  which  a  force  produces  at  a  distance,  is  dependent  on 
the  interval  between  the  elements  between  which  it  operates.  And 
to  this  conclusion  the  doctrine  which  is  here  maintained  must  also 
lead,  though  it  remains  to  be  seen  later  by  what  steps.  If  the 
positions  of  things  in  space  are  merely  expressions  of  the  forces 
which  are  already  acting  upon  them,  a  fortiori  every  impulse  to 
further  activity  will  depend  upon  these  interactions  between  the  ele 
ments  and  on  the  distances  in  which  those  interactions  manifest 
themselves.  This  merely  general  characterisation  is  not,  however, 
enough  to  determine  precisely  the  nature  of  the  connexion  between 
forces  and  the  distances  of  elements.  But  the  other  assumption, 


346          The  Laws  of  the  Activities  of  Things.      [BOOK  n. 

which  is  asserted  with  almost  as  much  assurance  as  the  last,  viz. 
that  the  intensity  of  the  effect  is  in  an  inverse  ratio  to  the  distance, 
has  nothing  to  recommend  it  if  we  exclude  the  familiar  instances 
furnished  by  experience,  except  the  inadmissible  idea  that  space  acts 
as  an  obstacle  which  cannot  be  overcome  except  by  a  partial  sacrifice 
of  force. 

Other  preconceived  notions  combine  with  this  one  to  produce  an 
impression  that  this  decrease  of  force  is  a  fixed  law,  holding  good  in 
all  cases  in  which  forces  act  at  a  distance.  That  a  force,  emanating 
from  a  certain  starting-point,  diffuses  itself  through  space,  is  not 
merely  our  mode  of  expressing  the  fact  that  its  effects  differ  in  degree 
at  different  distances.  Unfortunately,  we  believe  ourselves  to  be 
describing  not  only  a  fact  but  an  actual  process  by  which  the  neces 
sity  of  this  difference  is  explained.  As  the  force  is  transmitted  to 
larger  and  larger  spherical  shells  it  seems  as  if  its  tenuity  must 
increase  in  the  same  ratio  as  the  area  which  it  occupies,  the  ratio  of 
the  square  of  the  distance  from  its  starting-point.  This  coincidence 
of  a  simple  geometric  relation  with  a  general  law  which  we  see  illus 
trated  in  the  effects  produced  at  a  distance  by  gravitation  and  by 
electric  and  magnetic  agencies,  is  too  tempting  not  to  invite  often- 
repeated  attempts  to  establish  the  closest  connexion  between  them. 
None  of  the  assumptions,  however,  which  are  required  as  links  in  the 
connexion  can  be  admitted.  A  force  cannot  be  supposed  to  proceed 
from  a  point  c,  without  at  once  being  regarded  as  an  independent 
fluid  medium.  That  its  tenuity  should  increase  with  its  increasing 
extension,  would  no  doubt  not  be  altogether  inconceivable.  But  still 
we  should  have  to  discover  to  what  the  motion  of  the  fluid  was  due. 
This  could  only  ultimately  arise  from  a  new  force,  a  force  of  repul 
sion,  exerted  upon  the  fluid  by  the  thing  present  at  c.  We  should 
have  also  to  show  what  becomes  of  the  force  thus  diffused,  if  it 
meets  with  no  object  on  which  to  take  effect,  and  further  from  what 
source  the  constant  supply  of  force  at  c  is  derived.  These  questions 
cannot  be  evaded  by  supposing  that  the  force  does  not  diffuse  itself 
around  c,  but  is,  as  it  were,  a  permanent  atmosphere  already  diffused 
around  it.  To  deny  the  fact  of  the  movement  of  radiation,  would  be 
to  take  away  the  only  justification  for  the  principle  that  the  density 
decreases  with  increase  of  distance,  whilst  it  would  contribute 
nothing  towards  the  explanation  of  the  effect  eventually  produced. 
Let  us,  then,  suppose  that  a  given  force  whilst  proceeding  from  c, 
meets  in  the  point  /  with  an  object  which  it  is  to  act  on.  How  is 
this  action  possible?  and  how  can  the  force  impart  to  the  body 


CHAPTER  vii.]      Difficulties  of  Radiation  of  Force.  347 

motion  in  any  particular  direction?  All  that  could.be  concluded 
from  the  arrival  of  the  force  at  />,  would  be  that  it  was  now  present  at 
that  point — not,  that  a  body  situated  at  that  point  must,  owing  to  the 
action  of  the  force,  be  set  in  motion.  But,  even  granting  that  it  were 
thus  set  in  motion,  what  direction  could  the  motion  take?  The 
motion  as  such  could  stand  in  no  relation  to  the  point  c ;  for,  if  the 
activity  of  the  force  is  made  to  depend  on  this  process  of  its  diffusion, 
it  follows  that  it  only  acts  at  p  just  as  far  as  it  is  there ;  it  makes  no 
difference  whether  it  was  there  always  or  whence  it  came  there. 
Supposing  it  then  to  coincide  exactly  at  p  with  some  real  element, 
it  could  not  impart  any  motion  to  that  element,  for  there  would  be 
no  reason  why  it  should  prefer  one  direction  to  another  *.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  we  suppose  that  at  the  first  moment  of  its  beginning  to 
exercise  its  activity,  the  force  is  separated  from  the  element  by  ever 
so  small  an  interval,  we  are  making  action  at  a  slight  distance  serve 
as  an  explanation  of  action  at  any  and  every  distance,  though  we 
cannot  bring  the  former  under  any  definite  law,  and  must  therefore 
fail  in  the  attempt  to  deduce  the  law  of  the  latter. 

Even  if  these  difficulties  could  be  got  rid  of,  it  would  still  remain  a 
question  whether  the  resulting  motion  will  take  the  direction  cpt  or  the 
opposite  one  p  c.  For  this  process  of  radiation  would  be  just  the  same 
for  an  attractive  and  for  a  repulsive  force.  Each  smallest  particle  of 
the  fluid  would,  in  such  a  case,  still  have  to  exert  attraction  or  repulsion 
upon  whatever  it  might  meet  with  at  the  point  to  which  it  had  come, 
as  a  property  peculiar  to  itself  and  not  admitting  of  further  explana 
tion.  But,  if  that  were  so,  there  would  be  no  longer  any  occasion  for 
confining  these  effects  to  the  parts  of  the  force  which  come  before  p 
in  the  line  c  p ;  the  parts  on  the  other  side  of  />,  which  lay  in  the 
course  of  this  line  when  produced,  or  which  had  come  there,  would 
exercise  an  influence  on  the  element  at  />,  of  the  same  kind  thougli 
in  a  contrary  direction.  The  ensuing  motion  would  then  be.  the 
result  of  these  different  impulses ;  at  any  rate  it  could  not  correspond 
with  the  simple  law  which  it  was  hoped  could  be  deduced  from  it. 
Finally,  the  attempt  may  be  made  to  get  rid  of  these  difficulties,  by 
supposing  that  the  radiating  force  imparts  its  own  motion  to  the 
element  which  it  lights  upon,  and  determines  by  its  own  direction 
that  which  the  element  in  its  turn  is  to  take.  Putting  aside,  however, 
that  this  is  a  transition  from  one  idea,  that  of  a  force  acting  at  a 
distance,  to  another,  the  idea  of  communication  of  already  existing 
motion,  all  that  would  be  explained  by  this  method  would  be  the 

1  [CP.  §  185.] 


348          The  Laws  of  the  Activities  of  Things.      [BOOK  IT. 

centrifugal  effects  of  repulsion ;  every  case  of  attraction  would  require 
a  centripetal  pressure,  such  as  has,  indeed,  often  been  assumed,  but 
has  not  hitherto  had  any  intelligible  explanation  given  of  it. 

199.  On  these  grounds  I  not  only  hold  that  these  attempted  de 
ductions  have  failed  to  establish  their  own  special  conclusions,  but  the 
spirit  in  which  they  have  been  undertaken  seems  to  me  to  be  incon 
sistent  with  itself.     Of  course,  many  of  the  occurrences  which  take 
place  in  the  world  are  of  a  compound  character,  and   arise  from 
mechanical  combination  of  others.      It  is  possible   that  gravitation 
and  other  similar  phenomena  which  seem  to  us  to  be  the  expressions 
of  the  simplest  primary  forces,  may  really  be  compound  results  pro 
duced  by  forces  still  more  simple.     An  elaboration  of  experience  so 
advanced  as  to  show  this  to  be  the  case  would  really  have  succeeded 
in  furnishing  us  with  a  genetic  theory  of  the  Law  of  Gravitation.     If, 
on  the  other  hand,  these  and  all  effects  of  a  like  kind  are  regarded  as 
the  expression  of  simple  and  primary  forces,  we  must  not  attempt,  as 
is  done  by  these  theories,  to  give  a  mechanical  explanation  of  their 
origin,   by  referring  them   to   a  diffusion   and  attenuation  of  force. 
The  only  proof  that  can  be  expected  of  these  elementary  processes 
and  their  Laws  is  the  speculative  one,  that  they  have  a  necessary 
place  in  the  rational  order  of  things.     The  Ratio  legis  might  be  given, 
but  not  the  machinery  by  which  it  is  carried  into  effect.     The  treat 
ment,  then,  of  this  problem  belongs,  without  doubt,  to  Philosophy, 
nor  do  I  complain  that  there  should  have  been   such  innumerable 
attempts  to  solve  it,  though  unfortunately  I  know  of  none  that  has 
been  successful.     I  do  not  therefore  continue  my  own  investigation 
with  any  hope  of  arriving  at  a  result  that  can  be  final,  but  merely  in 
order  to  bring  out  more  clearly  some  of  the  distinctive  features  of  my 
general  view. 

200.  Owing  to  the  doctrine  which  I  have  already  expounded  in 
regard  to  the  nature  of  forces,  I  do  not  feel  touched  by  an  objection 
which  Physicists  have  urged  against  the  absolute  validity  of  the  Law 
of  Gravitation,  an  objection  which,  if  it  held  good,  would  render  un 
tenable  the  whole  of  this  doctrine  which  speculation  so  obstinately 
attempts  to  deduce  a  priori ';   where  the  distance  —  o,  the  attracting 
force  must  according  to  this  law,  it  is  said,  be  infinite.     I  will  not 
now  stop   to   enquire  whether  this  result  is  altogether  inadmissible. 
It  would  be  open  for  those  who  maintain  the  ordinary  hypothesis  of 
a  continuously  extended  matter  to  urge  that  contact  takes  place  only 
between  points,  lines,  or  surfaces  without  thickness,  and  consequently 
that  the  masses  whose  distance  =  o,  must  in  every  case  themselves  =  o 


CHAPTER vii.]  Attraction  at  no  Distance.  349 

also.  If  the  hypothesis  of  unextended  atoms  conceived  as  points  be 
preferred,  we  should  certainly  have  to  ascribe  to  them  an  infinite 
power  of  resisting  separation,  in  case  they  had  once  got  united  in  the 
same  point  by  attraction.  But  all  that  would  be  necessary  would  be 
to  take  care  that  such  a  case  never  arose.  It  would  be  easy  indeed 
so  to  alter  the  formula  of  the  law,  that  in  case  of  all  observable  dis 
tances,  even  the  smallest,  it  should  correspond  as  nearly  as  possible 
with  the  results  of  observation,  while  in  the  case  of  vanishing  dis 
tances  it  should  still  not  imply  the  infinity  of  the  force  of  attraction. 
But,  I  think  we  can  achieve  the  same  end,  without  introducing  a 
modification  of  the  law  such  as  would  be  purely  arbitrary  and  in 
capable  of  ever  being  proved.  All  the  several  forces  which  Physics 
is  led  by  experience  to  assume,  stand  in  our  view  merely  for  the 
various  components  into  which  the  single  power  of  interaction  in 
herent  in  the  nature  of  things  admits  of  being  analysed.  It  is  not 
therefore  at  all  surprising  that  a  law  which  expresses  with  perfect  pre 
cision  the  operation  of  one  out  of  this  number  of  components  should 
nevertheless  yield  infinite  degrees  of  intensity  or  other  inapplicable 
values  if  the  component  is  supposed  to  continue  its  operation  isolated 
and  uncontrolled.  These  cases  of  isolated  action  are  precisely  those 
which  are  never  met  with;  they  express  merely  what  would  occur 
under  certain  imagined  conditions,  but  what  under  existing  con 
ditions,  never  does  occur.  Hence  it  is  not  necessary  to  modify  the 
formula  of  the  well-known  law  of  gravitation,  considered  as  simply 
claiming  to  indicate  the  variations  of  the  attractive  action;  in  this 
sense  the  formula  may  be  perfectly  precise;  only  the  limiting  case 
never  occurs  for  which  alone  it  would  yield  such  problematical  values. 
In  proportion  as  the  elements  which  are  attracted  approach  each 
other  more  nearly  the  tendency  to  repulsion  will  be  found  to  grow 
even  more  rapidly,  and  if  any  one  of  the  proposed  modifications  of 
the  law  could  be  shown  to  hold  good  in  actual  experience  it  would 
not  be  a  more  correct  expression  of  the  attraction  taken  by  itself  so 
much  as  of  the  total  effect  in  which  attraction  and  repulsion  are 
already  united.  Moreover,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  without  this  sup 
position  this  partial  law  expressing  mere  attraction  would  yield  results 
which  would  be  not  so  much  inconceivable  as  merely  inapplicable  in 
our  view  of  nature.  Let  us  suppose  two  elements  a  and  b  between 
which  there  is  attraction  but  never  repulsion,  to  approach  the  point 
c  from  opposite  sides.  They  would  then  at  the  moment  of  meeting 
have  not  only  an  infinite  attraction  g,  but  also  infinite  though 
opposite  velocities  ±v.  Now  as  the  velocity  last  reached,  v,  has 


350          The  Laws  of  the  Activities  of  Things.     \  BOOK  n. 

arisen  by  the  summation  of  all  the  accelerations  which  have  been 
increasing  infinitely  up  to  the  value  g,  we  cannot  but  regard  the 
infinite  quantity  v  as  greater  than  the  infinite  quantity  g.  Hence,  if 
there  were  no  repulsion,  g  could  not  prevent  the  two  elements  from 
passing  with  opposite  velocities  through  each  other's  midst  and  thus 
distance  would  be  restored  between  them  and  the  amount  of  their 
attraction  would  become  finite  again. 

201.  A  special  objection  to  the  received  views  has  been  urged  by 
Herbart.  He  will  not  himself  admit  the  operation  of  forces  at  a  dis 
tance  ;  but  for  those  who  do  admit  it,  he  holds  that  the  only  legitimate 
assumption  is  this,  that  the  intensity  of  each  force  is  diminished  in 
proportion  as  it  is  satisfied  by  the  attainment  of  its  result.  That  a 
repulsion,  therefore,  should  decrease  with  the  distance  which  it  has 
produced,  requires  no  explanation.  On  the  other  hand,  the  force 
of  attraction,  which  becomes  always  more  intense  in  proportion  as  it 
has  drawn  its  object  nearer,  remains  a  paradox  for  him.  This 
objection  is  plausible  enough  if  .the  object  is  to  explain  the  observed 
effects  of  the  law  by  reference  to  its  inner  meaning ;  but  I  cannot 
think  that  the  particular  psychological  analogy,  to  which  it  owes  its 
conclusiveness,  will  admit  of  this  general  application.  I  entirely  agree 
with  Herbart  that  there  are  inner  processes  in  things,  from  which  the 
forces  moving  them  are  derived,  and  I  will  concede  to  him  that  in 
both  the  cases  which  are  here  brought  together — psychical  endeavour 
and  physical  motion — the  impulse  to  what  is  done  lies  in  a  differ 
ence  between  a  thing's  actual  state  of-  being  and  some  other  state, 
which,  if  it  could  be  realised,  would  be  more  in  correspondence  with 
its  nature.  But  I  dispute  the  conclusion  which  is  so  hastily  drawn 
from  these  premisses.  Herbart  shows  himself  in  this  matter  to  be 
influenced  by  his  main  conception,  according  to  which  each  changing 
state  of  a  thing  is  a  disturbance  of  its  original  nature,  so  that 
the  only  manifestation  of  activity  which  can  fairly  be  attributed  to 
real  existence,  is  that  of  self-conservation  or  recurrence  to  the 
status  quo  ante.  In  that  case,  no  doubt,  supposing  M  to  be  this 
permanently  fixed  aim,  and  q  the  state  which  is  a  departure  from  it, 
the  result  to  be  achieved  at  each  instant  would  correspond  to  this 
difference  M-  q.  Strictly  speaking,  it  does  not  at  once  follow  from 
this,  that  the  intensity  of  the  force  which  exerts  itself  to  recover  the 
former  state,  must  vary  directly  as  the  amount  of  divergence  repre 
sented  by  q,  and  inversely  as  the  result  already  obtained.  All  that  would 
be  measured  by  M—  q  is  the  extent  of  what  is  required  in  order  to 
attain  the  given  end.  But  there  would  be  nothing  to  prevent  the 


CHAPTER  vii.]  The  satisfaction  of  Force.  351 

force  from  continuing  to  operate  with  unvarying  intensity  until  this 
difference  had  been  made  to  disappear,  just  as  a  labourer  in  filling  up 
a  pit  does  not  at  first  work  more  rapidly  and  afterwards  with  less 
energy,  because  the  space  to  be  heaped  in  was  at  the  beginning 
larger  and  has  since  become  smaller,  but  he  works  throughout  at 
the  same  pace. 

Even,  however,  admitting  this  assumption,  insufficiently  proved  as 
it  is,  I  doubt  the  relevancy  of  the  analogy  which  would  make  the 
occurrence  of  a  physical  effect  correspond  with  the  satisfaction  of  a 
psychical  impulse.  If,  taking  an  imaginary  case,  we  compare  a  supposed 
quantity  M,  of  which  we  have  an  idea,  with  a  smaller  given  quantity  g, 
no  doubt  we  know  that  M—q  expresses  the  amount  which  must  be 
added  to  ^,  in  order  to  make  it  =  M.  In  this  case,  Mt  though  not 
present  before  us  in  external  reality,  was  as  adequately  represented  by 
its  idea  as  q  was,  and  the  estimation  of  the  difference  between  them 
was  thus  made  possible.  If,  however,  we  experienced  a  state  q,  and  this 
were  merely  a  manner  or  mode  of  our  consciousness,  some  form 
perhaps  of  feeling,  this  feeling  would  not  be  able  by  itself  to  produce 
in  our  minds  the  idea  of  the  absent  M.  Knowledge  of  the  character 
and  extent  of  the  difference  between  q  and  M  could  only  arise  if  we 
had  had  a  real  experience  of  M  as  well,  and  it  were  to  enter  into  our 
consciousness  in  the  form  of  a  feeling  or  the  remembrance  of  a  feel 
ing  similar  in  kind  to  q.  Although,  therefore,  the  disturbed  state  of 
our  feelings  may  depend  upon  the  difference  M—q,yz\.  this  difference 
only  exists  primarily  for  the  comparing  mind  of  an  onlooker;  it  is 
not  a  real  element  in  the  experience  of  the  being  who  is  affected  by 
the  state  q,  at  any  rate  not  unless  there  is  some  remembrance  of  the 
state  M.  It  cannot  therefore  be  the  obvious  standard  by  which  such 
a  being,  with  a  sort  of  preference  for  what  is  reasonable  and  just, 
determines  the  intensity  of  the  effort  which  it  has  to  make.  However 
far,  then,  we  may  go  in  assimilating  the  inner  states  of  things  to 
processes  of  mind,  so  long  as  we  do  not  believe  that  the  physical 
operations  of  things  are  regulated  like  acts  of  our  own  by  rules  drawn 
from  experience,  as  long  as  we  believe  rather  that  there  is  a  necessity 
imposed  on  them  to  come  to  pass  as  they  do,  the  difference  between 
an  actual  and  a  better  state  of  things  cannot  be  the  determining  reason 
by  which  Physical  effects  are  regulated. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  is  no  reason,  we  at  least  can  see  none, 
why  the  order  of  the  universe  which  prescribes  to  all  things  their 
nature  and  mode  of  working,  should  not  have  attached  to  q  a  blind 
and  unpurposed  activity,  which  was  as  a  matter  of  fact  measured  by 


352          The  Laws  of  the  Activities  of  Things. 

the  difference  M—q,  though  the  individual  thing  which  was  affected 
by  the  difference  was  itself  unconscious  of  it.  But,  as  there  is  nothing 
to  hinder  this  supposition,  so  there  is  nothing  to  make  it  necessary ; 
it  remains  a  possible  though  but  an  arbitrary  assumption  that  the 
course  of  things  is  nothing  but  a  constant  effort  to  attain  to  an 
equilibrium  and  to  reproduce  a  state  M,  which  can  only  be  effected  by 
getting  rid  of  their  present  state.  There  is  equally  nothing  to  prevent 
us  from  admitting  the  claims,  though  not  the  exclusive  claims, 
of  the  opposite  view,  according  to  which  the  attainment  of  a  state 
q  means  a  change  in  the  condition  of  things,  which  tends  to  reproduce 
itself  in  a  more  emphatic  and  intensified  form.  That  other  theory, 
the  watchword  of  which  is  '  disturbance,'  has  thought  only  of  pain  ; 
and  then  it  seems  quite  natural  that  the  self-conservative  activity 
directed  to  the  removal  of  pain,  should  decrease  in  proportion  as  it 
succeeds.  It  has  taken  no  account  of  pleasure,  which  just  as 
naturally  creates  a  stimulus  to  the  intensification  of  the  state  which 
was  desired  and  is  pleasant.  For  it  is  not  true,  except  in  those 
cases  in  which  the  source  of  enjoyment  lies  partly  in  the  .body,  that 
pleasure  is  dulled  with  satisfaction.  The  body,  no  doubt,  is  forbidden 
by  the  habits  of  its  action  from  contributing  to  the  intensification  of 
feeling,  and  interrupts  it  by  weariness  and  satiety.  It  will  not,  however, 
be  maintained  that  the  pursuit  of  knowledge  and  its  results,  or  the 
aspiration  after  beauty  and  goodness,  is  lessened  by  approximation 
to  the  ideal. 

But  we  will  leave  these  analogies,  which  decide  nothing.  The 
general  conclusion  to  which  we  come  is  this :  there  is  a  blind 
tendency  in  each  thing,  owing  to  its  place  in  the  all-embracing  order 
of  the  world,  whenever  it  is  in  any  given  state  q,  to  produce  an 
effect.  The  character  and  extent  of  this  effect  are  not  regulated  by 
any  law  inherent  in  the  nature  of  substance  or  force,  and  binding 
things  without  regard  to  the  purport  of  this  universal  order.  It  is 
this  order  and  this  alone,  which,  in  accordance  with  its  own  aims, 
connects  reason  and  consequent,  and  it  is  as  able  to  determine  that 
the  force  of  reaction  should  increase  with  the  attainment  of  results, 
as  that  it  should  diminish  in  proportion  as  they  are  attained. 

202.  It  is  easy  to  see  the  consequences  that  follow  from  this 
conviction.  As  we  do  not  know  the  idea  which  is  endeavouring 
to  realise  itself  in  the  world,  it  is  from  experience  only,  as  I  have 
before  remarked,  that  we  can  derive  our  knowledge  of  the  recurrent 
operations  of  things  according  to  general  laws.  We  cannot,  therefore, 
take  it  amiss  that  Physics,  following  the  lead  of  observation,  should 


CHAPTER  vii.]  A  Primary  Law  of  Force  and  Distance?  353 

assign  to  the  different  forces,  the  assumption  of  which  is  found  to 
be  necessary,  laws  of  action  of  the  most  various  kinds.  These  Laws 
Physics  regards  merely  as  expressions  of  the  facts,  without  attempting 
any  metaphysical  interpretation  of  them,  and  every  idea  of  this  kind, 
serving  to  clear  up  a  group  of  interconnected  phenomena,  and  enabling 
us  to  infer  the  future  from  the  present,  deserves  respect,  as  an  enlarge 
ment  of  our  knowledge.  Philosophy  is  altogether  in  the  wrong,  when 
she  depreciates  results  obtained  in  this  way,  merely  because  they  do  not 
penetrate  to  the  ultimate  truth ;  but  she  is  certainly  within  her  right, 
when,  starting  from  her  own  point  of  view  she  attempts  to  supply  the 
interpretation  which  is  still  lacking  to  those  results.  Whatever  may  be 
thought  of  space  and  of  existence  in  space,  if  once  the  intensity  of  inter 
action  between  two  elements  is  made  to  depend  on  the  distance  sepa 
rating  them,  and  just  so  far  as  it  is  made  to  depend  only  on  this,  it  seems 
to  be  impossible  that  different  forces  could  be  determined  by  this  cause 
to  act  in  different  ways;  the  same  distance,  it  would  seem,  could 
only  make  itself  felt  by  the  elements  and  determine  all  their  reciprocal 
effects  in  the  same  way.  It  is  this  which  has  prepossessed  philo 
sophers  in  favour  of  the  view  that  the  different  modes  of  action  which 
Physics  assumes,  when  it  makes  different  forces  dependent  on  dif 
ferent  powers  of  the  distance,  cannot  have  a  primary  right  of  existence, 
but  that  there  must  be  one  fundamental  law  for  the  relation  of  action 
to  distance,  and  the  deviations  from  it  which  experience  compels  us 
to  admit  must  be  due  merely  to  the  complexity  of  the  circumstances. 
By  an  easily  understood  transition,  this  fundamental  law  then  came 
to  be  identified  with  the  Law  of  Gravitation,  this  being  a  Law  which 
is  obeyed  by  many  familiar  effects,  differing  from  each  other  and 
occurring  under  apparently  very  simple  circumstances.  I  cannot 
myself  share  this  prepossession,  except  with  great  reservations.  It  is 
necessary  first  of  all  that  a  certain  assumption  from  which  all  such 
attempted  explanations  start,  should  be  clearly  stated.  That  assumption 
is  made  by  thinkers,  by  whom  perhaps  in  their  ultimate  essence  all 
things  are  mysteriously  merged  in  the  unity  of  an  infinite  substance 
and  a  single  creative  plan,  when  they  afterwards  leave  out  of  sight 
the  continuous  operation  of  this  single  principle,  and  explain  the 
whole  course  of  the  world  merely  from  the  permanent  qualities 
and  the  changing  relations  of  individual  existences,  and  the  con 
sequences  which,  by  common  logic,  seem  to  follow  from  these  two 
premisses. 

203.  Upon  this  assumption  we  are  not  justified,  according  to  all 
that  has  preceded,  in  regarding  the  interval  of  distance  itself  as  that 

VOL.  i.  A  a 


354        The  Laws  of  the  Activities  of  Things.       t  BOOK  n. 

which  determines  the  amount  offeree  exercised  between  two  elements, 
a  and  b.  This  is  due  only  to  the  inner  states  of  the  elements  which 
correspond  to  the  distances  between  them.  Every  mode  of  treating 
the  question  must  admit  so  much  as  this.  Even  if  we  adopt  the 
ordinary  view  of  space  as  objectively  existing,  the  distance  of  things 
will  still  only  be  distance  between  them ;  the  distance  and  its  measure 
is,  therefore,  a  reality  prima  facie  only  for  an  observer  who  is  able  to 
represent  to  himself  the  space  which  must  be  traversed  in  order  to 
pass  from  a  to  b.  If  a  and  b  are  to  be  guided  by  it  in  what  they  do, 
it  must  be  possible  for  them  and  not  for  an  observer  only  to  take 
note  that  the  distance  between  them  is  in  one  case  d  and  in  another 
case  8 ;  thus  in  order  to  act  they  must  first  be  acted  upon  by  the  very 
same  condition  which  is  to  regulate  their  activity.  This  would  lead 
us — supposing  the  merely  phenomenal  character  of  space  to  be 
assumed — to  the  conclusion,  that  every  actual  distance  between  a 
and  b  is  nothing  but  the  manifestation  in  space  of  the  sum  of  the 
effects  which  they  experience  at  the  moment  from  one  another  and 
from  the  whole,  and  which  are  also  the  cause  of  their  effect  upon  us. 
The  universal  order  is,  however,  neither  according  to  our  view,  nor 
according  to  the  ordinary  view,  a  rigidly  classified  system,  such  that 
each  element  persistently  occupies  the  place  which  corresponds 
with  its  conception.  Such  a  system  no  doubt  exists,  but  its  parts 
which  are  in  a  constant  state  of  chaotic  flux,  are  every  moment 
falling  into  relative  positions  which  do  not  correspond  to  the  per 
manent  affinities  of  their  natures. 

We  know  what  this  means  in  terms  of  ordinary  spatial  perception  ; 
it  is  not  the  elements  which  are  by  their  nature  most  fitted  for  active 
intercourse  which  are  always  the  nearest  neighbours ;  the  action  of 
some  third  or  fourth  element  may  separate  those  which  are  coherent, 
or  bring  together  those  which  are  indifferent.  It  is  indeed  impos 
sible  to  give  a  picture  of  what  things  undergo  or  experience  in  their 
inner  nature  when  they  enter  into  those  changing  intelligible  relations 
with  which  we  are  familiar  in  spatial  perception  as  distances  of 
greater  or  less  extent.  As  objects  of  such  perception,  i.  e.  as  dis 
tances,  these  relations  seem  to  us  obviously  to  imply  a  greater  or  less 
amount  of  estrangement  or  of  sympathy  in  the  things,  and  upon  this 
the  degree  of  their  reciprocal  action  is  naturally  supposed  to  depend. 
Yet  our  previous  investigations  have  shown  that  we  cannot  account 
for  the  manner  and  degree  in  which  things  act  upon  each  other  from 
the  mere  fact  of  their  being  outside  one  another ;  it  is  only  from 
what  they  get  or  experience  from  this  fact,  or  from  the  way  in  which 


CHAPTER  vii.]      Affinity  marked  by  the  Distance.  355 

it  connects  them,  that  we  can  do  so.  We  cannot,  therefore,  say  that  the 
distance  between  things  itself  exercises  an  influence  on  the  intensity  of 
their  force  ;  it  is  merely  the  mode  in  which  the  greater  or  less  degree 
of  their  metaphysical  affinity  is  manifested  to  us,  varying  as  this  does 
with  the  different  combinations  into  which  they  are  brought  by  the 
course  of  events.  Throughout  this  process  the  things  remain  what 
they  are,  and  continue  to  act  upon  each  other  conformably  to  their 
natures.  At  the  same  time,  the  different  degrees  to  which  they  are 
temporarily  displaced  from  their  position  in  the  system,  cannot  but 
have  some  influence  on  their  behaviour ;  a  change  in  the  closeness 
of  their  metaphysical  affinity  involves  a  corresponding  change  in  the 
amount  i  of  the  intensity/*  with  which  they  stimulate  those  mutual 
actions  for  which  their  nature  has  fitted  them.  If  these  very 
abstract  considerations  have  so  far  inspired  any  confidence,  we  now 
stand  before  a  conclusion  which  seems  certain,  and  before  an  alter 
native  which  we  are  quite  unable  to  decide.  No  reason  can  be  any 
where  discovered  why  this  metaphysical  affinity  should  correspond  to 
any  but  the  first  power  of  the  distance,  which  is  the  distance  itself.  On 
the  other  hand,  after  what  has  been  said  above,  it  seems  quite  as 
possible  that  the  effect  of  this  affinity  should  vary  directly  as  that  it 
should  vary  inversely,  with  the  distance.  The  two  formulae — 

i  =  pd  and  i  =  P. 
d 

would  be  the  only  formulae  in  which  this  point  of  view  could  result, 
and  they  would  be  of  equal  validity. 

204.  In  making  use  of  these  expressions,  I  wish  it  to  be  borne  in 
mind  that  as  I  understand  them  they  have  not  the  same  meaning  as 
any  of  those  quantities  to  which  the  ordinary  mechanical  view  of 
Physics  leads  us.  We  do  not  use  i  to  designate  any  kind  or  degree 
of  outward  performance,  but  merely  the  intensity  of  the  stimulus  with 
which,  in  virtue  of  the  relation  at  the  time  being  subsisting  between 
two  elements,  one  of  them  excites  and  is  excited  by  the  other  to  any 
or  all  of  those  possible  forms  of  reciprocal  activity  which  spring  from 
their  affinity,  their  difference,  or  generally  their  respective  places  in  the 
system.  As  regards  what  follows  from  the  stimulus  a  fresh  and  specific 
determination  is  required  to  decide  whether  it  is  to  be  attraction  or 
repulsion,  and  yet  another  to  decide  its  amount.  The  first  require 
ment,  however,  may  perhaps  be  assumed  to  be  already  fulfilled  by  the 
coefficient  p.  For  though  we  have  hitherto  spoken  of  this  merely  as  a 
quantity,  it  is  dependent  on  the  nature  of  the  interacting  elements, 
and  therefore,  strictly  speaking,  could  only  be  a  concrete  number. 

A  a  2 


356        The  Laws  of  the  Activities  of  Things.       [BOOK  n. 

On  the  other  hand,  as  regards  the  amount  of  the  initial  motion, 
I  can  see  no  reason  why  it  should  not  be  considered  as  simply  pro 
portionate  to  the  stimulus  z',  which  is  its  motive  cause.  I  shall 
not,  therefore,  make  any  further  comparison  between  the  formula 
i  =  pd,  which  would  indicate  a  sort  of  metaphysical  elasticity,  and 
what  we  meet  with  under  the  same  name,  though  generally  under 
highly  complicated  conditions,  in  the  sphere  of  Physics.  As  re 
gards  the  second  formula,  I  do  not  see  how  the  desired  result, 
viz.  dependence  upon  the  square  of  the  distance,  could  be  shown 
necessarily  to  follow  from  it. 

I  will  however  mention  the  assumption  which  would  have  to  be 
made  in  order  to  bring  this  law  into  ultimate  harmony  with  the  other 
or  metaphysical  view.  I  cannot  esteem  as  of  any  value  for  such  a 
purpose  the  appeal  to  the  reciprocity  of  all  effects,  which  some 
distinguished  authorities  have  introduced  into  the  discussion.  If 

/  =  -  is  the  intensity  with  which  one  element  is  attracted  by  another 

and  at  the  same  time  tends  of  itself  towards  it,  I  cannot  see  any 
reason  for  supposing  the  result  to  equal  the  product  of  the  two 
activities ;  like  every  other  resultant,  it  would  be  the  sum  of  them ; 
it  is  only  the  intensity  of  the  effect,  not  the  function  of  the  distance 
upon  which  it  depends,  that  would  be  affected.  Perhaps,  how 
ever,  it  will  be  urged,  that  the  effect  of  a  force  depends  not  merely 
on  what  the  force  intends  to  do,  but  also  on  how  much  it  is 
able  to  do,  i.  e.  in  the  case  before  us,  not  merely  on  the  amount 
of  mutual  excitation,  but  also  on  the  conditions  which  promote  or 
check  the  satisfaction  of  the  demands.  To  put  the  matter  shortly 
and  clearly ;  the  distance  d  between  a  and  b  indicates  a  degree  of 
estrangement  between  them,  and  their  willingness  to  act  upon  each 
other  is  therefore  inversely  proportional  to  that  distance.  But,  the 
weaker  will  is  not  only  weaker,  but  has  opposed  to  it  the  greater 
obstacle,  in  the  shape  of  the  greater  distance  which  weakened  it.  The 
active  force,  therefore,  which  can  be  exerted,  is  found  by  multiplying 
the  effort  by  the  reciprocal  of  the  resistance  to  be  overcome ;  and 
accordingly  is  inversely  proportional  to  the  square  of  the  distance. 
Such  a  mode  of  expression  could  indeed  only  serve  to  indicate  briefly 
the  essence  of  the  idea ;  in  real  truth,  the  distance  d  even  if  it  were 
a  really  extended  space  between  a  and  b,  could  not  be  regarded  as  an 
obstacle  to  the  effect.  According  to  the  view  which  we  have  main 
tained,  it  could  not  actively  condition  the  incipient  process,  except  in  so 
far  as  it  was  represented  within  the  elements  a  and  b  by  means  of  that 


CHAPTER  vii.]      Rationale  of  Sqicare  of  Distance.  357 

hidden  state  of  excitation  which  we  found  ourselves  obliged  to  assume 
in  all  cases.  But  perhaps  it  is  precisely  to  this  inner  state  of  things 
that  an  argument  of  this  kind  may  seem  to  be  most  rigorously 
applicable.  It  may  perhaps  seem  incredible  that  when  two  elements 
a  and  b  are  separated  by  the  distances  d  or  5,  they  should  in  both 
cases  alike,  though  not  excited  to  action  to  the  same  degree,  yet  in 
spite  of  this  difference  aim  at  producing  one  and  the  same  effect.  It 
may  be  thought  that  the  object  of  their  effort  as  well  as  its  integrity 
would  vary,  and  vary  proportionately  to  the  degree  of  their  excitation. 
The  amount  of  the  actual  external  result  would  then  be  found  by 
multiplying  i  into  a  quantity  proportional  to  *,  and  would  thus  vary 
inversely  with  the  square  of  the  distance. 

I  shall  not  attempt  to  decide  whether  there  is  anything  of  value  in 
this  suggestion :  I  wish  only  to  point  out  that  this  new  way  of 
characterising  an  intended  result,  as  one  which  increases  in  pro 
portion  to  the  stimulus,  is  just  one  which  cannot  be  decisively 
established,  if  nothing  is  assumed  but  individual  elements  with  their 
natures  and  the  relations  subsisting  between  them.  There  is  no 
universal  Metaphysic  of  Mechanics,  capable  of  showing  that  every 
time  any  two  existences  combine  in  a  relation,  they  must  have  so 
combined.  Whenever  any  such  relation  occurs,  it  is  a  matter  of  fact, 
which,  from  a  Metaphysical  point  of  view,  can  only  be  regarded  as  an 
effect  of  the  all-embracing  M,  i.e.  the  idea  of  the  whole.  It  must  be 
this  idea  which  is  present  and  active  in  all  individual  elements, 
assigning  to  each  its  mode  of  manifestation  in  relation  to  the  rest, 
which  otherwise  would  not  flow  necessarily  from  the  mere  con 
ception  and  the  nature  of  the  elements.  But,  as  we  do  not  know  the 
content  of  this  idea,  we  cannot  affirm  positively  that  it  imposes  a 
necessity  on  things  to  assume  these  forms  and  no  others  ;  and  hence, 
the  whole  attempt  to  establish  the  existence  of  a  single,  original,  and 
only  legitimate  law  for  the  operations  of  all  forces  is  entirely  fruitless. 

205.  Nothing  is  left  to  us,  but  to  accept  with  thanks  the  empirical 
rules  \vhich  enable  Physics  to  express,  in  conformity  with  observation, 
the  effects  actually  produced  by  the  several  forces  on  each  occasion 
of  their  activity.  Philosophy  should  not  turn  away  from  assumptions, 
unless  they  are  inherently  absurd,  and  those  made  by  Physics  are 
seldom  that.  Thus,  no  one  has  ever  attempted  to  explain  an  increase 
or  diminution  in  the  intensity  of  force  as  depending  on  mere  Time ; 
where  observation  seemed  to  confirm  such  a  view,  the  Time  was  in 
every  instance  occupied  by  actual  occurrences,  each  of  which  con 
tained  in  itself  the  efficient  cause  of  that  which  was  to  follow ;  these 


358        The  Laws  of  the  Activities  of  Things.       \  BOOK  n. 

processes,  then,  and  not  the  mere  lapse  of  Time,  must  have  deter 
mined  the  varying  intensity  of  forces.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  no 
reason  on  philosophical  grounds  to  deny  that  the  amount  of  force 
which  results  from  the  interaction  of  two  elements,  depends  to  some 
extent  also  on  their  motions.  For  according  to  our  view  motion  is 
not  merely  a  change  of  external  relations,  which  takes  no  effect  on 
the  things  themselves ;  as  those  relations  depend  on  inward  states  of 
the  things,  so  the  rapidity  with  which  they  change  them  is  also  an 
inward  experience,  and  one  which  at  every  moment  may  help  to 
determine  their  subsequent  behaviour.  Besides  the  degree  of  intensity 
which  a  force  would  have,  corresponding  with  the  distance  at  the 
moment  between  the  two  elements  from  which  itj  proceeds,  there 
would  thus  be  a  positive  or  negative  increase  of  the  force,  dependent 
on  the  rapidity  with  which  the  elements  travel  through  the  space 
which  they  at  present  occupy.  But  it  is  not  expedient  to  continue 
the  discussion  on  this  point;  for  while  the  hypothesis  has  been 
employed  by  Physicists  only  with  extreme  reserve,  in  regard  to  the 
interaction  of  electric  currents, — a  case  in  which  it  seemed  to  be 
required, — there  would  be  no  limits  to  its  application  when  treated, 
as  we  should  have  to  treat  it,  as  a  general  principle.  Once  admitted, 
the  dependence  of  force  upon  velocity  of  motion,  and  upon  its  suc 
cessive  accelerations,  would  apparently  have  to  be  regarded  as  a 
universal  characteristic  of  physical  action. 

206.  Connected  with  this  question  is  the  other  one  :  Do  forces,  in 
order  to  take  effect,  require  Time  ?  Stated  in  this  form,  indeed,  as  it 
occasionally  is,  the  question  is  ambiguous.  It  is  a  universally  ad 
mitted  truth  that,  every  effect,  in  its  final  result,  is  formed  by  the 
successive  and  continuous  addition  of  infinitesimal  parts  which  go  on 
accumulating  from  zero  up  to  the  final  amount.  In  this  sense  suc 
cession,  in  other  words,  expenditure  of  Time,  is  a  characteristic  of 
every  effect,  and  this  is  what  distinguishes  an  effect  from  a  mere 
consequence,  which  holds  good  simultaneously  with  its  condition. 
Vain,  however,  would  it  be— as  we  saw  in  our  investigation  of  Time- 
to  seek  to  go  further  than  this,  and  to  discover  the  inscrutable  process 
by  means  of  which  succession  of  events  in  Time  comes  to  pass  at  all. 
The  question  we  are  considering  was  proposed  on  the  assumption  of 
the  diffusion  of  force  in  Space.  Supposing  it  were  possible  to 
instance  a  moment  of  Time  in  which  a  previously  non-existent  force 
came  into  Being,  would  all  the  various  effects  which  it  was  calculated 
to  produce  in  different  places,  both  near  and  remote,  be  at  once 
realised  ?  Or,  would  a  certain  interval  of  Time  be  required,  just  as  it 


CHAPTER  vi i.]      Is  Force  transmitted  in  Time  f  359 

is  in  the  case  of  Light,  which  transmits  itself  to  different  objects 
rapidly,  but  not  instantaneously,  and  must  first  come  into  contact 
with  them  before  it  can  be  reflected  by  them? 

It  is  not  necessary  to  embellish  the  question  by  introducing  con 
ditions  which  make  any  decision  impossible.  There  is  no  need  to 
imagine  either  the  sudden  appearance  out  of  nothing  of  some  new 
body  in  the  world,  or  the  disappearance  of  one  already  existing,  and 
then  to  enquire,  whether  the  addition  of  gravity,  as  in  the  first  case 
(the  new  body  being  likewise  supposed  subject  to  the  law  of  gravita 
tion),  or  the  subtraction  of  gravity,  as  in  the  second,  would  make 
itself  felt  by  distant  stars  immediately,  or  not  till  after  a  measurable 
interval  ?  The  action  of  force  in  its  beginnings  may  he  illustrated  by 
examples  nearer  to  hand.  Each  smallest  increase  in  the  velocity  of 
two  elements,  which  are  working  upon  each  other — whether  by  attrac 
tion  or  repulsion — at  a  distance,  by  the  very  fact  that  the  elements  are 
brought  nearer  to  or  are  parted  from  each  other,  brings  about  an 
increase  of  attraction  or  repulsion,  in  other  words,  a  new  force, 
though  no  new  vehicle  of  it.  Similarly,  the  electrical  actions  of 
bodies,  depending  as  they  do  upon  a  condition  which  is  not  always 
present,  furnish  an  example  of  a  beginning  of  force  in  Time.  It 
makes  no  difference  that  this  condition  itself  does  not  come  into 
existence  at  once  and  with  a  permanent  intensity,  but  only  by  degrees  ; 
at  any  rate,  a  moment  can  be  assigned  for  every  one  of  its  degrees 
before  which  it  did  not  exist,  and  from  which  its  effect  must  begin. 
Having  regard  to  such  cases  the  question  that  has  been  raised  can 
only  be  answered  in  the  negative  ;  there  could  be  no  possibility  of  an 
affirmative  answer,  except  on  that  supposition  of  a  diffusion  of  force 
which  we  found  to  be  impossible  *.  But  even  on  that  supposition, 
it  is  the  passage  through  space  which,  strictly  speaking,  would  have 
to  be  regarded  as  the  first  work  of  the  diffused  force  ;  the  work  done 
upon  its  arrival  at  the  distant  object  would  be  only  second  and  sub 
sequent,  for  its  presence  as  force  would  not  be  felt  by  the  object  until 
it  had  come  into  the  necessary  contact  with  it.  It  must  not  however 
be  supposed  that  after  the  force  has  come  into  Being,  a  blank  space 
of  time  /  is  required  to  pass  before  the  motion  begins  to  be  trans 
mitted  ;  nor  again,  that  after  the  force  has  reached  its  object,  and  so 
secured  its  control  over  it,  it  should  require  a  similar  space  of 
Time  /,  in  order  to  take  effect.  If  this  space  of  Time  /  were 
really  blank,  everything  would  remain  at  the  end  of  it  as  it  was 
at  the  beginning,  and  the  effect  might  just  as  well  be  expected  to 

i  [CP.  §  198.] 


360        The  Laws  of  the  Activities  of  Things.       [  BOOK  n. 

occur  at  the  end  of  some  other  space  of  Time  =  n  /;  if,  on  the  other 
hand,  any  positive  change  in  the  phenomena  takes  place  during  this 
time,  this  change  is  a  link,  by  means  of  which  C,  the  imperfectly 
realised  condition  of  the  result  F,  is  completed  and  perfected :  that 
part  of  C,  however,  which  was  already  present  has,  at  the  moment 
of  its  coming  to  be,  immediately  produced  that  corresponding  part  of 
F  which  it  was  adequate  to  produce. 

207.  It  will  be  objected  that  real  events  are,  as  I  stated  above,  not 
related  to  each  other  in  the  same  way  as  conditions  to  their  conse 
quences,  because  the  result  in  the  former  case  always  follows  the 
cause  which  produces  it;  but  for  this  succession,  events  would  be 
transformed  into  a  system  of  cotemporaneous  parts,  which  would  differ 
only  in  the  different  degrees  of  their  dependence  upon  the  first  of  the 
series  :  C  and  F,  therefore,  though  it  is  true  there  could  be  no  blank 
interval  of  Time  between  them,  would  always  come  into  contact  in  the 
order  C  F,  not  in  the  order  F  C.  This  true  remark  again  suggests  an 
enigma,  the  insolubility  of  which  we  have  already  admitted.  For  suc 
cession  in  time  could  never  arise  from  these  contacts  which  occupy  no 
time,  however  often  repeated,  between  members  which  follow  out  of  one 
another  ;  we  should  still  have  merely  a  systematic  order  if  C  and  F  did 
not  each  fill  a  certain  extent  of  time  of  its  own ;  if  they  did,  then,  it 
seems,  F  would  have  to  wait  till  C  had  completed  its  interval  of  time. 
But  even  this  is  not  a  way  out  of  the  difficulty.  Suppose  C  and  F 
both  to  consist  of  a  series  of  parts  following  each  other  in  unbroken 
succession,  e.  g.  cv  <r2,  cyf^fvfy  Are  we  then  to  suppose  that  the 
occurrence  of  F  is  conditional  on  the  completion  of  the  group  C  ? 
that  it  cannot,  i.e.  commence,  until  cz  is  reached,  and  that  nothing  of 
the  nature  of  F  takes  place  until  this  term  is  realised  ?  There  are 
facts  enough  which  seem  to  confirm  this  view,  and  indicate  that  the 
result  F  is  attached  to  a  specific  determination  of  C.  A  closer 
examination  will,  nevertheless,  not  fail  to  show  that  the  force  C,  all 
the  time  that  it  seemed  to  be  increasing  in  amount  without  producing 
any  effect,  was  really  already  occupied  with  the  removal  of  hindrances 
which  stood  in  the  way  of  the  occurrence  of  anything  of  the  nature 
of  F.  When,  at  last,  the  amount  cs  is  reached,  this  removal  is  com 
pleted,  and  from  this  point  its  first  positive  and  visible  effect  com 
mences,  though  not  absolutely  its  first  effect.  As  regards  this  effect, 
again,  we  do  not  believe  that  a  finite  amount  of  ii,fv  arises  suddenly 
so  soon  as  C  is  ended.  Rather,  each  smallest  addition  which  is  made 
to  B,  involves  a  correspondingly  small  addition  to  F;  but  between 
these  two  occurrences  there  is  no  blank  interval  of  Time  ;  /H  corre- 


CHAPTER  vii.]  Time  and  Reciprocal  Action.  361 

spends  to  cn  immediately.  But  the  assumption  we  have  made  as 
regards  C  itself  involves  the  same  difficulty.  If  C  remains  unchanged 
during  the  whole  space  of  Time  /,  which  it  is  supposed  to  fill,  there 
is  no  better  reason  why  F  should  follow  at  the  close  of  that  time  than 
at  its  commencement.  If  however  we  assume,  as  was  assumed,  that 
C  traverses  the  series  c±  c^  rs,  then,  as  the  order  of  the  series  is  sup 
posed  to  be  fixed,  each  term  must  be  the  condition  of  the  succeeding 
one,  and  as  in  the  previous  case,  if  they  are  to  form  a  succession  in 
times,  two  adjacent  terms  can  neither  have  any  blank  interval  of  time 
between  them,  nor  can  they  be  simultaneous. 

The  conclusion  to  which  this  points  is  clear.  The  whole  nature  of 
Becoming  is  unknown  to  us,  and  we  cannot  reconstruct  the  origin  of 
it  in  theory.  In  this  quite  general  sense,  it  is  true  to  say  that  every 
operative  condition  and  every  force  draws  its  consequences  and  its 
effects  after  it.  But  in  order  to  do  this,  it  is  not  so  much  the  case 
that  they  need  a  lapse  of  time,  as  that  they  are  this  lapse  of  time 
itself;  only  because  they  are  themselves  in  a  process  of  becoming  can 
they  convey  that  same  process  to  their  consequences.  But  there  is  no 
measurable  interval  of  Time  between  the  condition  cn  and  its  true  and 
immediate  result  fn ;  there  is  nothing  but  the  enigmatical  fact  of 
their  contact,  a  fact  which  cannot  be  ignored  any  more  than  it  can  be 
explained. 

If  we  now  leave  these  general  considerations,  and  return  to  the 
subject  which  first  suggested  them,  that  of  forces  acting  at  a  distance, 
it  must  follow  from  the  doctrine  which  has  been  stated,  that,  at  the 
same  moment  that  the  force  which  is  active  in  the  element  p  passes 
from  ^2  into  <:3,  there  will  be  a  similar  transition  in  the  element  q,  no 
matter  how  remote  it  may  be,  from/2  to  fy  provided  that  c  and  /  are 
causally  connected  through  that  inner  sympathetic  affinity  upon 
which  all  action  depends.  Moreover,  just  as  c.z  in  the  element  p 
can  only  change  into  c3  continuously,  that  is,  by  passing  through  all 
the  intermediate  values,  in  exactly  the  same  way  in  the  element  q,f* 
will  pass  by  succession  into/3.  But  the  idea  that  a  lapse  of  Time  is 
required  in  order  that  p  should  transmit  its  force  to  q  at  all,  is  barred, 
among  other  considerations,  by  that  of  the  reciprocal  action  of  the 
two  elements,  which  is  universally  admitted  to  be  a  necessary  as 
sumption.  No  force  could  be  diffused  from  p  towards  q,  nor  could 
any  force  even  originate  in  />,  unless  it  were  awakened  and  solicited 
in  /  by  q ;  on  the  other  hand,  q  could  not  produce  this  excitation, 
unless  it  was  invited  by  p.  No  action,  therefore,  could  ever  take  place 
between  p  and  q,  if  it  were  required  that  a  force  should  first  proceed 


362        The  Laws  of  the  Activities  of  Things.       t  BOOK  n. 

from  p  to  q ;  for  the  only  thing  which  could  excite  this  force  to  set 
out  from  p  would  be  the  stimulus  of  another  force  starting  from  q ; 
and  this  stimulus  it  would  never  have,  because  q  would  be  waiting  for 
an  invitation  from  p.  This  connexion  of  mutual  affinity  between  the 
elements,  the  source  of  their  action  upon  each  other,  does  not  at  one 
time  or  another  come  into  existence  through  a  diffusion  of  forces  in 
space ;  it  always  exists  t  thus  rendering  it  possible  that  changes  of 
state  experienced  by  one  element  should  involve  corresponding 
changes  in  another. 

208.  Owing  to  the  boundless  complexity  of  the  manifold  con 
ditions  which  meet  in  the  course  of  nature,  we  cannot  expect  to  be 
able  to  explain  every  event  directly  from  the  joint  action  of  the  forces 
which  combine  to  produce  it.  Hence,  the  desire  has  often  been  felt 
to  discover  certain  customary  rules  by  which,  at  any  rate,  the  course 
of  the  natural  world  is  regulated.  It  was  hoped  that  in  cases  where 
knowledge  of  the  special  connexions  between  things  is  wanting,  we 
might  thus  be  enabled  to  establish  equations  expressive  of  general 
conditions  with  which  the  results,  however  unknown  may  be  the 
manner  in  which  they  are  brought  about,  must  certainly  correspond. 
Experience  itself  also  leads  us  to  the  same  ideas,  whether,  as  aome 
believe,  it  is  from  this  source  that  they  are  derived  exclusively,  or  that 
they  are  preconceptions  which  experience  merely  confirms,  and  which, 
as  it  then  seems,  we  must  have  arrived  at  independently. 

Opinions  are  divided  between  these  two  alternatives.  The  Realistic 
view  inclines  to  treat  general  principles  of  this  kind  either  as  designa 
tions  of  mere  matters  of  fact,  which  might  have  occurred  differently, 
or  else  their  universality  is  explained  by  what  is  called  their  self- 
evident  truth,  though  its  opposite  is  not  regarded  as  strictly  incon 
ceivable.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Idealist  view,  which  is  that  which 
we  here  adopt,  can  recognise  no  supreme  law  except  the  one  un 
changing  purpose  underlying  the  multiplicity  of  phenomena,  and 
seeking  for  its  realisation  in  them.  At  the  same  time,  the  Idealist, 
being  unable  to  express  the  nature  of  this  purpose,  or  the  laws  to 
which  it  requires  that  things  should  conform,  cannot  regard  these 
universal  principles,  in  so  far  as  they  are  borne  out  by  experience,  as 
more  than  habits  of  nature  on  a  great  scale,  valid  within  the  circle  of 
our  observation,  but  not  infallible  as  regards  the  far  larger  sphere  of 
reality  which  lies  beyond  the  limits  of  Time  and  Space  to  which  our 
investigations  are  confined.  Hence,  instead  of  establishing  any 
positive  truths,  the  duty  which  lies  before  me  is  the  less  grateful 
one  of  calling  in  question  the  unlimited  validity  of  principles,  the 


CHAPTER  vii.]  Conservation  of  Mass.  363 

limited  validity  of  which  is  one  of  the  most  important  and  unfailing 
aids  to  scientific  enquiry. 

209.  One  of  the  simplest  of  these  truths  appears  to  be  the  in 
variability  and  the  conservation  of  mass.  Though  not  especially,  or, 
at  any  rate,  not  invariably  confirmed  by  the  appearances  of  every-day 
life,  this  doctrine  receives  such  universal  support  from  the  systematic 
view  of  science,  that  it  would  be  superfluous  to  adduce  any  detailed 
arguments  for  its  certainty.  But  now  that  it  has  been  fully  established, 
I  cannot  see  in  it  any  necessity  of  thought  the  late  discovery  of  which 
need  cause  surprise.  It  may  indeed  be  self-evident  for  a  theory 
which  regards  the  world  as  composed  of  individual  and  mutually 
independent  atoms.  Out  of  the  absolute  void,  which  would  be  all 
that  would  lie  between  these  atoms,  obviously  no  new  real  existence 
could  arise ;  the  principle  that  out  of  nothing  comes  nothing,  would 
hold  good  absolutely.  But  this  point  of  view  we  have  been  compelled 
to  abandon.  In  order  to  conceive  reciprocal  action,  without  which  no 
course  of  nature  is  intelligible,  we  were  led  to  regard  the  individual 
elements,  not  as  self-conditioned,  but  as  depending  for  the  beginning, 
continuance,  and  end  of  their  existence  on  the  determination  of  the 
one  Being,  from  which  their  nature,  and  capacities  of  action  are 
derived.  Now,  it  is  certainly  a  tempting  conclusion,  but  it  is  no 
necessity  of  thought,  to  go  on  to  suppose  that  this  one  Being  at 
least  is  a  sum  of  reality  which  cannot  be  increased  or  diminished,  and 
which  changes  only  the  forms  of  its  manifestation.  And  we  ourselves 
inclined  above  to  this  idea,  when  we  admitted  it  to  be  natural  that 
each  individual  qualitatively-distinguished  element,  i.e.  each  activity 
of  the  one  existence,  when  conformably  with  the  plan  of  the  world  it 
splits  itself  up  into  various  elements,  should  have  a  diminished  intensity 
in  each  of  the  parts  so  arising. 

But  all  this  world  of  quantitative  determinations  has  no  significance 
outside  that  complexity  of  things  and  processes  which  the  one  and  only 
true  reality  creates  to  express  itself.  It  is  only  their  meaning  and 
function,  and  the  value  which  they  thus  acquire,  that  give  to  the 
individual  elements  and  forces  the  particular  magnitudes  they  possess 
and  exhibit  in  comparison  with  others.  But  what  lies  beneath  them 
all,  is  not  a  quantity  which  is  eternally  bound  to  the  same  limits,  and 
can  only  represent  the  same  sum  in  different  ways,  however  variously 
divided.  On  the  contrary,  there  is  no  reason  why,  if  it  is  required  by 
the  Idea  which  has  to  be  realised,  one  period  of  the  world  should  not 
need  the  efficient  elements  to  be  more,  and  another  less,  and  why  in 
the  former  case  each  part  of  the  whole  should  not  also  exert  itself  with 


364        The  Laws  of  the  Activities  of  Things.       [BOOK  n. 

a  greater  degree  of  force  on  the  rest.  The  history  of  Nature  would 
then  resemble  a  musical  melody  of  varying  strength  of  tone,  the 
swellings  and  varyings  of  which  do  not  spring  from  nothing,  nor  yet 
from  one  another,  but  each  in  its  place  results  from  the  requirement 
of  the  whole.  I  do  not  mean  to  affirm  that  this  actually  is  what  takes 
place  in  Nature.  Quite  conceivably  it  may  be  part  of  the  hidden 
purpose  of  the  supreme  Idea,  that  all  its  requirements  should  depend 
for  their  realisation  on  a  fixed  sum  of  real  elements,  and  that  the  pro 
duction  of  variety  should  be  restricted  to  different  adaptations  of  the 
same  material.  Still  less  ought  we  to  be  surprised  if  the  course  of 
Nature,  so  far  as  we  can  observe  it,  shows  this  to  be  practically  the 
case.  For,  as  far  as  we  can  see  with  clearness,  we  find  Nature  moving 
in  a  cycle,  which  makes  it  certain  that  forms  once  in  existence  will 
maintain  themselves  in  existence.  The  only  phenomena  which  suggest 
a  progress  wholly  new,  a  progress  which  would  go  nearest  to  proving 
that  the  materials  as  well  as  the  results  are  changed,  are  those  which 
come  from  an  antiquity  so  remote  as  to  preclude  exact  investigation. 
It  would,  therefore,  be  mere  folly  to  call  in  question  the  principle  of 
the  conservation  of  mass,  so  long  as  we  confine  our  view  to  the  world 
of  accessible  facts,  and  to  what  we  may  call  the  retail  dealings  of  the 
physical  elements  in  it.  But  it  is  the  business  of  Philosophy  to  be 
constantly  reminding  us  how  limited  is  that  section  of  the  universe 
which  is  open  to  our  observation,  and  that  the  whole  which  compre 
hends  it  is  a  reality,  though  not  one  which  we  can  make  an  object  of 
positive  knowledge. 

210.  Similarly,  the  attempt  has  been  made  to  conceive  of  the  sum 
of  motions  in  the  world  as  a  constant  quantity.  The  general  state  of 
knowledge  at  the  time  when  this  idea  was  first  entertained,  did  not 
admit  of  its  being  substantiated  or  even  rendered  probable  by  evidence 
derived  from  experience.  For,  as  long  as  the  effects  which  things 
exercise  upon  each  other  were  explained  as  due  merely  to  com 
municated  motion,  the  conclusion  could  not  be  evaded  that  contrary 
velocities  of  elements  tending  in  opposite  directions  would  neutralise 
each  other  either  wholly  or  in  part,  and  consequently  that  motion 
disappeared  from  the  world  without  any  compensation.  And  ordinary 
experience  seemed  to  confirm  this  conclusion  by  an  abundance  of 
examples,  which  no  one  knew  how  to  explain  in  any  other  way.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  was  seen  that  living  Beings  were  centres  from 
which  fresh  motions  were  initiated  at  every  instant,  which  could  not 
but  be  taken  for  really  new  beginnings.  So  that  neither  was  there 
anything  in  experience  which  was  inconsistent  with  the  indefinite 


CHAPTER  vi i.]  Conservation  of  Force.  365 

multiplication  of  motions.  Nor,  finally,  did  experience  suggest  at  all 
that  this  increase  and  diminution  must  balance  each  other,  so  as  to 
maintain  a  constant  sum  of  motion.  Such  a  conception  originates  in 
an  hypothesis  as  to  the  general  character  of  the  course  of  nature. 
Such  an  hypothesis  was  furnished  by  the  idea  of  a  system,  having  no 
object  but  the  maintenance  of  itself,  and  furnished  with  fixed  resources 
to  this  end  :  one  of  these  means  was  the  sum  of  motion,  as  it  once  for 
all  exists,  which  in  the  economy  of  nature  might  not  be  spent,  but 
only  differently  dispensed. 

Recent  physical  speculations  tend  to  revert  to  this  same  idea.  So 
many  apparently  fixed  qualities  and  conditions  of  things  have  been 
already  demonstrated  to  be  a  ceaseless  process,  that  it  may  be  doubted 
whether  there  is  such  a  thing  as  Rest  at  all,  except  in  the  indi 
visible  moments  of  reversal  in  the  minute  oscillations  with  which  all 
things  are  vibrating.  Philosophy  can  have  no  motive  for  objecting  to 
the  assumption  of  such  eternal  motion  as  a  matter  of  fact ;  it  is  a 
mere  prejudice  to  infer,  that  because  from  our  point  of  view  an 
element  must  be  first  supposed  at  rest  in  order  that  the  results  of 
varying  motions  which  condition  it  may  be  understood,  this  quiescence 
must  have  been  prior  in  reality,  and  that  the  impulse  to  motion  is  an 
addition  for  which  it  has  to  wait.  At  the  same  time,  it  is  only  as  a 
fact,  and  not  in  any  other  light,  that  we  can  regard  this  perpetual 
motion.  It  implies,  not  merely  that  motions  already  in  existence  may 
be  communicated,  but  also  that  fresh  motions  must  be  produced  in 
cases  where  two  motions  are  opposite,  and  their  communication 
could  only  result  in  the  neutralisation  of  both.  This  elasticity  of 
things,  without  which  it  would  be  impossible  for  them  to  counteract 
the  self-annihilation  of  motion,  is  only  conceivable  if  there  are 
inner  states  of  their  being  capable  of  developing  the  forces  from 
which  motions  spring.  It  is  possible,  though  not  probable,  that  effects 
produced  at  a  distance — against  which  there  exists  an  unfounded 
prejudice — are  conveyed  in  this  way  by  means  of  motions  transmitted 
from  point  to  point  of  some  connecting  medium.  But,  even  in  that 
case,  not  only  the  conception  of  force,  but  also  in  a  special  sense  that 
of  force  producing  effects  at  a  distance,  is  still  indispensable,  in  order 
to  explain  each  one  of  those  countless  communications  of  motion,  the 
sum  of  which  is  usually  held  to  compose  the  effects  of  force  at 
measurable  distances.  If,  however,  force  alone  gives  a  sufficient 
reason  for  expecting  that  the  motion  will  be  replaced,  which  mere 
communication  would  permit  to  be  lost  in  its  antagonism,  it  cannot 
be  supposed  that  force  itself  is  the  constant  quantity  which  is  in 


366        The  Laws  of  the  Activities  of  Things.       [BOOK  n. 

request ;  its  intensity  varies  with  the  distance,  though  this  is  itself 
determined  by  force.  The  constant  element  in  the  course  of  Nature 
can  only  be  an  inner  connexion  between  the  circumstances  which  give 
rise  to  the  operation  of  forces,  a  general  law  governing  all  combinations 
and  connected  successions  of  effects.  It  was  thus  that  that  most 
comprehensive  principle,  the  one  which  dominates  our  whole  estimate 
of  physical  processes,  that  of  the  Conservation  of  Force,  first  suggested 
itself,  in  respect  to  which  I  proceed  now,  though  only  so  far  as  the 
connexion  of  my  views  requires,  to  offer  the  following  considerations. 

211.  The  simple  principle,  that  out  of  nothing  comes  nothing, 
requires  to  be  more  precisely  defined  by  the  addition  that  even  from 
something  no  result  can  follow,  so  long  as  that  something,  the  event 
B,  is  only  the  condition  or  occasion  of  what  is  to  take  place,  and 
remains  just  the  same  after  the  consequence  F  has  been  produced  as 
before.     On  the  contrary,  B  must  be  sacrificed,  either  wholly  or  in 
part,  in  order  to  produce  F.     This  is   the  difference  so  constantly 
referred  to  between  a  causal  nexus  of  events  and  the  merely  formal 
connexion  of  conditions  and  consequences.      Our  ontological  dis 
cussions  proved  to  us  that,  in  the  simplest  case  of  causation,  at  least 
two  factors,  a  and  b,  must  enter  into  a  relation  <:,  and  that  the  result 
which  takes  place  consists  in  this,  that  a  becomes  changed  into  a,  b 
into  /3,  c  into  y.     Every  effect,  therefore,  is  the  effect  of  two  elements 
acting  upon  each  other,  neither  of  which  can  inflict  upon  the  other  a 
change  in  its  condition,  without  paying  a  definite  price  for  it  by  a 
corresponding  change  in  its  own.    If  a  wishes  by  acting  at  a  distance, 
whether  in  the  way  of  attraction  or  of  repulsion,  to  change  the  place 
of  3,  it  can  only  do  so  by  displacing  itself  in  the  opposite  direction  to 
a  corresponding  distance.     There  is  no  reason  for  excepting  any 
single  operation  of  nature  from  this  general  law ;  it  holds  good  even 
in  those  cases  of  communicated  motion  when  the  process  cannot  be 
observed  in  all  its  details.     It  is  not  possible  for  a  motion  of  one 
element,  after  imparting  a  certain  velocity  to  a  second,  to  persist  un 
changed  in  the  first,  ready  to  produce  the  same  result  again,  and  so 
increase  its  effect  to  infinity ;  its  influence  is  exhausted  in  proportion 
to  the  degree  in  which  it  has  been  exerted. 

212.  Certain  corollaries,  of  different  degrees  of  certitude,  arise  out 
of  this  general  conclusion.     If  we  assume  that  the  course  of  nature 
includes    occurrences  differing   in   kind    from    each   other,  and   not 
admitting  of  being  represented  as  mere  quantitative  or  formal  modifi 
cations  of  a  single  homogeneous  process,  we  shall  not  be  justified  in 
asserting  that  every  occurrence,  A,  calls  into  existence  every  other,  C, 


CHAPTER  vii.]  Progress  may  be  possible.  367 

or  admits  of  immediate  application  to  its  production.  It  would  be 
quite  conceivable  that  there  was  no  way  from  A  to  C  except  through 
the  medium  of  a  third,  2?,  A  and  C  remaining  unsympathetic  to  each 
other.  If  therefore  it  cannot  be  said  that  there  is  necessarily  any 
reciprocal  action  between  every  A  and  every  C,  it  is  equally  clear  on 
the  other  hand  that  if  such  a  relation  does  take  place,  a  specific 
amount  of  A  must  be  sacrificed  in  order  to  produce  a  specific  amount 
of  C.  Nor  is  it  logically  necessary,  or  self-evident,  that  every  con 
nected  succession  of  two  occurrences  A  and  C  must  be  convertible. 
No  doubt,  whatever  is  lost  to  A  in  the  process  of  producing  C,  testifies 
to  an  effect  of  C  upon  A;  but  this  effect  is  merely  to  impede  A,  and 
it  is  not  a  matter  of  course  that  every  C  which  is  able  to  do  away 
with  an  A  should  therefore  be  able  to  call  into  existence  an  A  which 
does  not  exist.  That  none  the  less  it  seems  natural  to  us  that  this 
should  be  so,  is  due  to  the  assumption  which  unconsciously  we  make 
to  ourselves,  that  the  economy  of  nature  has  no  other  object  than 
self-conservation.  In  a  process  which  implied  progress,  the  order  of 
events  might  easily  be  so  determined  as  that  A  should  lead  to  C,  but 
that  there  should  be  no  way  back  from  C  to  A. 

It  cannot  therefore  be  asserted  a  priori,  and  as  a  self-evident  truth, 
that  all  the  processes  in  Nature  must  be  mutually  convertible  back 
wards  and  forwards ;  how  far  this  convertibility  extends  can  only  be 
learned  by  experience.  But,  even  in  those  cases  in  which  it  holds  good, 
it  is  still  by  no  means  certain  that  the  same  amount  c  of  C,  which  was 
produced  by  the  amount  a  of  A,  and  which  therefore  caused  a  to  dis 
appear,  would  now  reproduce  exactly  the  same  amount,  a,  as  was 
spent  in  its  own  production.  That  could  not  be  unless  it  had  been 
previously  proved  that  there  is  in  Nature  no  tendency  towards  progress; 
if  there  is  progress,  there  can  be  nothing  to  make  it  impossible  that 
each  stage  in  a  series  of  occurrences,  a  c,  c  av  a1  cv  c^  av  should  contain 
the  condition  of  an  advance  in  the  next  stage.  This  assertion  is  at 
variance  with  ordinary  ideas ;  as,  however,  I  do  not  intend  to  apply  it 
to  explain  the  actual  details  of  the  course  of  Nature,  I  shall  merely 
repeat  by  way  of  justification  what  has  previously  been  suggested,  viz. 
that  the  nature  of  being  and  process  is  not  limited  by  any  premundane 
system  of  mechanics,  but  that  it  is  the  very  import  of  this  process 
which  determines  all  the  quantities  in  which  the  elements  make  them 
selves  felt,  and  the  consequences  which  their  relations  entail. 

Finally,  if,  proceeding  on  the  assumption  of  the  unlimited  converti 
bility  of  mutually  productive  activities,  we  suppose  that  a  and  b  enter 
into  a  varying  relation  r,  the  sum  of  the  effects  which  one  is  able  to 


368        The  Laws  of  the  Activities  of  Things.       [BOOK  n. 

exercise  on  the  other  will  be,  within  certain  determinate  values  of  <:,  a 
constant  quantity.  As  each  intermediate  amount  of  c  is  reached,  the 
capacity  for  action  continues  as  regards  that  part  of  the  possible  total 
amount  which  it  has  not  yet  produced ;  on  the  other  hand,  it  has  lost 
so  much  of  its  force  as  was  required  to  produce  the  result  thus  far 
achieved;  this  loss  can  only  be  made  good  by  restoring  the  elements 
to  their  original  state,  that  is,  by  doing  away  with  the  results  already 
obtained.  If  we  call  this  capacity  for  future  action  potential  energy  *, 
in  contrast  with  kinetic  energy 2  which  is  active  at  the  moment,  the 
sum  of  these  two  forces,  when  the  two  elements  are  related  as  above, 
forms  a  constant  quantity. 

In  the  same  way  a  sum  of  money  M,  so  long  as  it  remains 
unspent  in  our  possession,  has  a  purchasing  power,  and  loses  this 
power  in  proportion  to  the  purchased  goods  which  it  acquires.  Its 
original  purchasing  power  can  only  be  restored  and  applied  to  other 
objects  by  re- selling  the  goods.  This  example  throws  light  upon 
the  difficulties  raised  above.  It  would  be  impossible  for  us  to  know 
a  priori  that  the  potential  force  which  the  possession  of  the  money 
would  imply,  could  put  us  in  possession  of  other  objects  by  being 
itself  got  rid  of;  this  exchangeability  depends,  in  fact,  on  highly 
complex  relations  of  human  society.  Nor  should  we  be  any  more 
justified  in  taking  for  granted  that  the  goods,  G,  by  being  similarly 
got  rid  of,  would  put  us  again  in  possession  of  the  money  ;  and  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  this  convertibility,  which  in  like  manner  presupposes  the 
connexion  of  human  wants,  has  its  limits ;  for  it  is  well  known  that 
by  buying  goods  and  selling  them  again,  we  are  equally  likely  to  gain 
and  to  lose.  It  is  not  the  case,  then,  that  in  the  conversion  of  trade 
every  quantity  reproduces  the  same  quantity  as  that  by  which  it  was 
produced.  It  is  of  course  obvious,  and  need  not  be  urged  as  an 
objection,  that  this  result  is  due  to  conflicting-  circumstances,  and  to 
the  influence  which  the  nature  of  human  business  has  in  determining 
the  relation  of  M  to  G ;  it  is  to  these  dealings  of  men  with  each 
other,  not  to  any  essential  peculiarity  of  M  and  G,  that  the  fact  of 
their  standing  in  any  relation  is  due.  But  this  is  the  very  point 
which  I  would  urge  against  the  over-confident  procedure  of  natural 
science.  It  does  not  appear  to  me  self-evident  that  a  perfectly 
adequate  ground  can  be  found  for  the  mutual  relations  of  the  elements 
of  Nature  either,  merely  by  considering  their  fixed  characters  M  and 
G ;  here,  too,  their  exchangeable  value  may  depend  partly  on  some 
larger  commerce  of  the  world.  At  the  same  time,  I  have  no  doubt 
1  [Spannkraft]  2  [Lebendige  Kraft.] 


CHAPTER  vii.i     Idea  ofct  single  primitive  Force.  369 

as  to  the  practical  truth  of  the  principle  of  the  Conservation  of  Force, 
within  the  limits  of  our  experience.  Merely  in  the  interests  of 
Metaphysic  I  felt  compelled  to  speak  of  these  difficulties,  and  I  wish 
now  to  make  mention  also  of  some  accessory  notions  which  have 
formed  round  this  general  principle. 

213.  We  are  often  told  with  enthusiasm  how  it  has  at  last  been 
shown  that  all  the  various  processes  of  the  natural  world  are  produced 
by  a  single  indestructible  force  never  varying  in  its  intensity,  and  that 
nothing  changes  except  the  form  in  which  the  ceaseless  transformations 
of  this  force  are  presented.  It  is  especially  the  important  corres 
pondence  between  mechanical  work  and  heat,  which,  by  a  somewhat 
hasty  generalisation,  has  given  rise  to  this  idea  of  a  transition  of 
forces  into  one  another,  and  of  a  universal  primitive  force  to  which  they 
are  all  subordinate.  The  satisfaction  thus  given  to  that  feeling  which 
compels  us  to  comprehend  the  infinite  multiplicity  of  things  and 
events  under  some  single  principle,  seems  to  me  to  be  illusory. 
Lichtenberg  once  contrasted  the  early  ages  of  the  world,  when  man 
kind  was  equally  ready  to  believe  in  God  and  in  ghosts,  with  the 
present  age,  which  denies  both ;  he  feared  compensation  in  a  future 
when  all  that  would  be  believed  in  would  be  the  ghosts.  Something 
like  this  seems  to  have  happened  in  the  case  before  us.  For  after  all 
we  are  only  doing  honour  to  a  ghost,  when  we  dream  o'f  an  ab 
solutely  nameless  primitive  force,  which,  formless  in  itself,  and 
consisting  of  nothing  but  an  unnamed  number  of  constant  amount, 
assumes,  as  a  trifling  addition  that  needs  no  explanation,  the  changing 
names  under  which  it  is  manifested.  If,  however,  we  reflect  upon 
and  realist  the  fact  that  this  original  force  never  exists  in  this  naked 
and  nameless  shape,  but  is  continually  passing  from  one  to  another 
of  the  forms  which  it  assumes,  we  are  again  admitting  that  what 
really  gives  to  each  phenomenon  its  character  is  the  concrete  nature 
of  that  which  embodies  the  quantum  of  force,  either  wholly  or  partly, 
for  the  time  being.  The  same  reflection  would  show  that  what 
makes  the  succession  of  changing  phenomena  possible,  is  a  unity 
of  meaning  which  pervades  and  connects  all  those  concrete  forms  of 
being  with  one  another.  Finally,  it  would  appear  that  the  persistence 
of  quantity  through  all  this  play  of  forces  is  only  a  mode  in  which 
the  already  existent  reality  manifests  itself,  and  cannot  be  the  source 
from  which  that  reality  with  all  its  various  forms  originally  springs. 

The  latter  view,  which  would  reverse  the  true  order  and  mistake 
the  shadow  for  the  substance,  scarcely  needs  any  further  refutation  ; 
more  serious  are  the  objections  which  may  be  raised  against  the 

VOL.  i.  B  b 


370  The  Laws  of  Causation.  [BOOK  n. 

general  assertion  which  we  admitted  above,  that  the  conservation 
of  the  same  sum  of  force  is  as  a  matter  of  fact  the  rule  of  ex 
perience.  In  as  far  as  we  can  reduce  two  physical  processes  A 
and  C  to  comparable  primary  occurrences  consisting  in  comparable 
velocities  v  of  comparable  masses  m,  so  far  it  may  .be  shown 
that  C  which  is  produced  by  A,  contains  precisely  the  same 
amount  of  energy  which  A,  by  producing  it,  has  lost.  Where,  how 
ever,  the  two  elements  do  not  admit  of  this  exact  comparison,  and 
we  have  before  us  merely  the  fact  that  the  specific  amount  a  of  A 
produces  the  specific  amount  c  of  C,  and,  it  may  be,  vice  versa,  it  is 
an  essentially  arbitrary  course  to  conclude  that  c  and  a  contain 
the  same  amount  of  energy,  merely  distributed  in  each  case  in  a 
different  form.  All  that  can  be  said  is,  that  a  and  c  are  equivalent, 
not  that  they  are  equal.  It  is  possibly  a  just  expectation  that  all  the 
various  processes  of  external  nature  will  admit  of  being  ultimately 
referred  to  variously  combined  motions  of  infinitesimal  elements,  and 
as  regards  these  particular  processes,  the  arbitrary  interpretation  re 
ferred  to  might  be  defended  on  this  ground ;  but  the  general  con 
ception  which  underlies  the  principle  of  the  conservation  of  Force 
must  without  doubt  apply  to  one  case  in  which  no  such  expectation 
can  be  entertained;  I  allude  to  the  interconnexion  of  physical  and 
psychical  processes. 

Whatever  effect  is  produced  on  the  organs  of  sense  by  an  outward 
irritation  /,  whether  it  is  simply  received,  or  transmitted,  or  diffused, 
or  changed,  there  must  always  be  left  over  from  the  physical  process 
a  residuum  *',  to  which  the  psychical  process  of  the  sensation  s  will 
succeed  immediately;  nor  can  we  doubt  that  the  strength  of  the 
sensation  will  change  with  the  changes  in  the  strength  of  i.  Again, 
no  matter  what  constitutes  an  act  of  will  Wt  or  how  it  may  act 
upon  other  states  of  consciousness,  or  be  limited  by  them,  there  must 
be  ultimately  a  part  of  it  w,  from  which  the  first  motion,  f,  of  the 
body  and  all  its  consequences  take  their  rise,  and  in  this  case  we  do 
not  doubt,  any  more  than  in  the  other,  that  the  extent  of  the  physical 
effect  is  determined  by  the  varying  intensity  of  w.  Now  according 
to  all  ordinary  vie.vs  of  what  happens  in  such  cases,  by  itself  the  mere 
fact  that  there  is  an  i  or  w,  considered  as  an  opportunity  or  occasion, 
is  not  enough  to  entail  the  existence  of  j  or/  In  order  that  the 
reaction  may  vary  with  the  varying  amount  of  the  stimulus,  the 
stimulus  must  be  perceptible  by  that  which  it  affects,  in  other  words, 
must  produce  in  it  a  change  of  state  of  definite  amount.  In  the  two 
cases  before  us,  as  in  all  others,  it  will  be  found  that  no  effect  can 


CHAPTER  vii.]  Equivalence  and  Equality.  371 

take  place,  i.  e.  neither  that  of  the  last  physical  movement  upon  the 
sensitive  subject,  nor  that  of  the  last  mental  excitation  upon  the  first 
nerve-element  which  it  acts  upon,  without  a  corresponding  loss  ; 
here,  too,  the  productive  energy  is  consumed,  in  whole  or  in  part,  in 
bringing  about  the  result.  But  never  will  it  be  possible  to  refer 
i  and  s,  or  w  and  /,  physical  and  psychical  processes,  to  a  common 
standard ;  the  members  of  each  of  the  two  groups  may  be  com 
pared  with  each  other,  but  the  unit  of  measurement  in  the  one  has 
nothing  in  common  with  that  in  the  other.  Granting,  then,  that  here 
is  compensation  for  physical  energy  by  psychical  or  for  psychical  by 
physical,  still  in  such  a  case  as  this  there  ceases  to  be  any  meaning  in 
saying  that  one  and  the  same  quantity  of  action  or  work  is  maintained 
throughout ;  all  that  is  open  to  us  is,  to  speak  of  an  equivalence  of 
two  activities,  such  that  a  specific  amount  s  /z  of  the  one,  measured 
by  the  unit  /*,  corresponds  to  a  specific  amount  im  of  the  other, 
measured  by  the  unit  m.  No  one,  however,  can  say  whether  these 
two  activities  are  equal  in  quantity,  nor  which  of  them  is  the 
greater. 

214.  These  considerations  suggest  certain  others.  In  the  first 
place,  we  may  attempt  to  generalise  from  what  has  been  discovered 
as  regards  these  processes;  in  all  cases,  we  may  say,  the  simplest 
fact,  the  fact  which  first  meets  us  in  experience,  is  this  relation  of 
equivalence  between  two  processes  or  forces.  We  do  not  first  dis 
cover  that  two  forces  are  equal  and  like  *,  and  therefore  produce 
equal  and  like  *  effects ;  but  what  we  do  first  is  to  observe  that  they 
balance  each  other,  or,  that  under  the  like  circumstances  they  produce 
the  like  motions.  From  this  equivalence  which  has  been  found  to 
obtain  between  them  in  certain  special  cases  we  infer  their  quanti 
tative  equality ;  at  the  same  time  we  assume  for  the  elements  to  which 
the  forces  in  question  belong,  the  qualitative  identity  which  enables 
us  to  apply  to  them  the  same  standard  of  measurement.  I  have  no 
motive  for  entering  here  into  all  the  indirect  reasons  and  proofs  which 
show  in  what  a  number  of  physical  processes  this  assumption  holds 
good  ;  I  would  refer  especially  to  the  idea  of  homogeneous  mass  and 
of  its  conservation  understood  as  it  has  been  above.  Confining 
myself  to  the  metaphysical  aspect  of  the  question,  I  wish  merely  to 
point  out  that  the  principle  of  the  conservation  of  Force,  or,  as  I 
prefer  now  to  say,  the  equivalence  of  different  effects,  does  not  impose 
on  us  any  obligation  to  reduce  all  processes  in  Nature  to  the  single 
class  of  material  motion.  So  far  as  the  principle  applies  to  this  latter 
1  ['Gleich,'  cp.  note  on  §  19.] 
B  b  2 


372  The  Laws  of  Causation.  [BOOK  n. 

class  it  is  only  a  special  instance  of  that  more  general  correspondence, 
existing  between  heterogeneous  things  as  well,  which  we  express  by 
this  wider  term  of  'Equivalence/  Far,  therefore,  from  being  a 
monotonous  transmission  of  the  same  unchanging  process,  it  might 
be  that  the  course  of  nature  is  for  ever  producing  unlike  by  unlike ; 
though  the  equivalence  which  the  sovereign  purpose  of  the  world 
has  established  between  these  several  disparate  activities,  would  make 
the  '  incidental  view'  practicable  and  fruitful,  according  to  which  we 
reduce  the  concrete  varieties  of  phenomena  to  mere  quantitative  values 
of  a  single,  abstract,  uniform  principle,  just  as  we  determine  the  value 
of  the  most  different  things  by  the  same  artificial  standard  of  money. 

I  know  well  how  stubbornly  this  view  will  be  contested.  The  very 
analogy  we  have  used  will  appear  defective  ;  the  prices  of  things,  it 
will  be  said,  only  admit  of  comparison  because  the  things  all  serve 
more  or  less  to  satisfy  human  wants  which  themselves  admit  of  com 
parison  ;  and  this  implies  that  the  effects  of  the  things  on  us,  and 
ultimately  therefore  that  which  is  the  source  of  those  effects,  must  be 
homogeneous.  I  on  my  side  am  not  less  stubborn  in  the  defence 
of  my  own  view.  I  do  not  deny  that  in  so  far  as  different  things 
have  like  effects  upon  us,  we  are  able  by  means  of  an  artifice  to 
ignore  their  specific  differences'  for  the  time  being,  and  to  regard 
them  as  differing  only  quantitatively ;  but  the  things  themselves  are 
not  therefore  like  because  they  admit  of  this  justifiable  fiction.  Even 
if  all  qualitative  differences  are  pronounced  to  be  mere  appearances, 
yet  the  difference  of  this  appearance  still  remains,  and  belongs  no 
less  to  the  sum-total  of  reality;  the  utmost,  therefore,  that  we  can 
do  will  be  to  exhibit  the  external  world  as  a  mechanism  of  homo 
geneous  parts  which  produces  in  us  these  appearances ;  but  by  no 
process  of  Mathematics  or  Mechanics  would  it  be  possible  to  deduce 
analytically  concrete  magnitudes  from  abstract  ones,  or  magnitudes  of 
different  denomination  from  magnitudes  of  the  same  denomination. 
The  process  of  the  world  is  no  mere  combination  of  identical  ele 
ments,  but  a  synthesis  of  elements  differing  in  quality  and  only 
connected  by  unity  of  plan. 

215.  But  are  we  really  correct  in  what  we  have  laid  down  with 
regard  to  physical  and  psychical  processes  ?  Is  it  true  that  in  this 
case  also,  the  activity  which  occasions  the  result  must  necessarily  be 
sacrificed  in  the  process  ?  Long  before  the  principle  of  the  Con 
servation  of  Force  had  excited  its  present  interest,  I  had  pointed  to 
this  conclusion ;  but  it  is  not  self-evident  except  upon  the  assumption 
which  we  adopted  above,  viz.  that  isolated  elements  can  only  be 


CHAPTER  vii.]       Interaction  of  Body  and  Soul.  373 

influenced  by  one  another  if  they  are  capable  of  acting  upon  one 
another,  and  that  no  one  element  will  adapt  itself  to  another  without 
requiring  compensation  from  its  amenability.  But,  it  may  be  said, 
if  all  the  elements,  a  and  b,  must  be  regarded  as  moments  of  the  one 
M  with  no  independence  of  their  own,  why  should  not  the  change  of 
a  into  a  suffice  to  give  the  signal,  which  is  simply  followed  by  the 
change  of  b  into  /3,  according  to  the  theory  of  Occasionalism  ?  Why 
should  any  special  effort  be  required  in  order  to  bring  about  an 
affinity  between  the  elements  which  already  exists  ?  Still  it  is  clear 
that  if  what  this  theory  demands  is  conceded  it  cannot  apply  ex 
clusively  to  the  interaction  of  physical  and  psychical  processes  as  an 
exceptional  case.  The  same  consideration  would  apply  also  to  all 
that  takes  place  between  the  elements  of  the  external  world.  Even 
the  atoms  would  find  in  M  a  constant  bond  of  union,  and  what  was 
experienced  by  one  atom  would  be  the  simultaneous  signal  for 
changes  in  another,  which  would  follow  like  premisses  from  their 
conclusion,  without  involving  any  self-sacrifice  on  the  part  of  the 
first.  If,  however,  we  find  that  this  sacrifice  does  as  a  matter  of  fact 
take  place,  as  it  certainly  does  in  the  external  world,  though  it  can 
scarcely  be  proved  by  experience  in  the  case  of  physical  and 
psychical  processes,  all  that  remains  to  us  is  to  suppose  that  this  fact 
too,  is  a  constituent  element  in  the  purpose  which  finds  or  ought  to 
find  expression  in  the  real  world ;  at  the  same  time,  we  must  not 
represent  it  as  a  condition  imposed  by  some  inscrutable  necessity, 
without  which  the  world  as  it  is  would  not  be  possible.  My  only 
object  in  making  this  remark  was  to  repeat,  that  if  all  conditions 
continued  to  exist  simultaneously  with  their  consequences  (which  is 
what  would  follow  from  the  principles  of  Occasionalism),  the  world 
would  appear  again  as  a  merely  systematic  whole,  from  which  all 
change  was  absent.  If,  however,  Becoming,  the  alternation  between 
Being  and  not  Being,  is  the  very  characteristic  of  the  real  world, 
it  appears  to  me  that  the  absorption  of  the  cause  in  the  effect  is 
quite  as  necessary  to  that  world  as  persistence  is  necessary  to  the 
conception  of  motion.  For  those  signals  which  we  spoke  of  could 
themselves  have  no  signals  for  their  occurrence  except  in  the  succes 
sion  of  effects  ;  they  would  be  produced  by  one  set  of  effects,  they 
must  disappear  again  in  producing  another. 

216.  Amongst  the  general  habits  described  as  characteristic  of  the 
course  of  Nature,  it  is  common  to  hear  Principles  of  Parsimony 
mentioned.  The  conception  is  a  very  vague  one,  and  even  in  the 
principle  of  least  action  the  way  in  which  it  has  been  formulated  is 


374  The  Laws  of  Causation. 

not  without  ambiguity.  What  it  signifies  is  only  clear  in  cases  where 
there  is  some  end  in  view  which  admits  of  being  equally  realised  by 
different  means,  each  however  involving  a  different  amount  of 
expenditure.  But  the  standard  by  which  this  amount  is  estimated 
is  still  dependent  on  circumstances,  which  make  in  one  case  the 
saving  of  Time,  in  another  that  of  distance,  in  another  that  of 
material,  the  more  important,  or  cause  us  to  prefer  an  habitual 
method  to  the  trouble  of  learning  a  new  one.  In  order,  therefore, 
to  settle  with  any  certainty  the  question  as  to  the  procedure  which 
involves  the  least  expenditure  of  means,  a  statement  of  the  direction  in 
which  economy  is  most  valuable  must  be  included  in  the  original 
definition  of  the  end. 

This  alone  is  enough  to  show  what  ambiguities  are  likely  to  be 
involved  when  this  conception  is  transferred  to  the  operations  of 
Nature.  Assuming  that  Nature  follows  certain  ends,  we  do  not  know 
what  these  are,  nor  can  we  determine  what  direction  her  parsimony 
must  take.  The  one  thing  which  we  should  perhaps  assert  would  be 
this,  that  nature  is  not  sparing  in  matter  or  in  force,  in  Time,  in 
distance,  or  in  velocity,  all  of  which  cost  her  nothing,  but  that  she  is 
sparing  in  principles.  It  is  this  kind  of  parsimony  which  we  do  in 
fact  believe  to  exist  in  Nature,  especially  in  the  organic  world  ; 
by  variations  of  a  few  original  types,  by  countless  modifications  of  a 
single  organ  the  variety  of  organic  beings,  we  believe,  is  produced,  and 
their  different  wants  supplied.  Here  Nature  seems  to  us,  if  it  may  be 
permitted  to  our  short-sighted  wisdom  to  say  so,  to  be  wasteful  of 
material  and  Time,  and  to  reach  many  of  her  ends  by  long  circuitous 
routes  which  it  would  have  been  possible,  by  departing  from  her 
habitual  and  typical  course,  to  have  shortened.  These  ideas  do  not  hold 
good  of  mechanics,  since  mechanical  laws  apply,  not  to  any  particular 
type  of  effect,  but  to  any  and  every  type.  We  know  that,  within 
certain  limits,  the  various  elements  in  a  mechanical  effect  are  con 
vertible;  thus  increase  of  velocity  may  make  up  for  decrease  of 
mass,  and  increase  of  Time  for  decrease  of  force.  There  cannot 
therefore  be  an  economy  in  all  elements  at  once  for  the  attainment  of 
a  given  end  e ;  we  must  look  for  the  least  expenditure  in  that  com 
bination  of  all  the  different  elements  which  amounts  to  less  than  any 
other  combination  equally  possible  under  the  circumstances. 

But  this  gives  rise  to  a  fresh  ambiguity.  If  we  look  at  the  matter 
fairly,  it  appears  that  e,  which  we  just  now  described  as  the  end  or 
aim,  is  nothing  more  than  the  particular  occurrence  e,  and  it  need  not 
be  said  that  the  modes  of  activity  which  led  to  this  result  must  have 


CHAPTER  vii.]         The  Principle  of  Parsimony.  375 

been  exactly  adequate  to  produce  it.  But,  under  the  special  circum 
stances  in  the  given  case,  the  modes  of  activity  were  at  the  same  time 
the  only  possible  ones  which  could  give  rise  to  e.  For  in  order  to 
follow  a  given  path,  it  is  not  enough  that  it  presents  no  obstacles, 
there  must  also  be  a  positive  impulse  to  follow  it.  It  is  therefore  quite 
idle  to  excogitate  different  methods  by  which,  theoretically,  the  end  e 
might  have  been  arrived  at;  that  would  require  that  we  should  analyse 
precisely  the  starting-point  A  from  which  the  effect  is  supposed 
to  proceed,  and  then,  after  considering  all  the  several  possibilities 
contained  in  A,  that  we  should  be  able  to  determine  that  in  this 
particular  case  the  other  methods  were  still  equally  possible.  But 
this  we  shall  never  succeed  in  doing,  for  it  involves  a  contradiction ; 
it  is  true  that  the  other  methods  may  be,  even  in  this  particular  case, 
all  equally  free  from  impediment,  but  there  could  not  be  positive 
inducements  to  follow  them  all  equally;  otherwise  what  would 
eventually  take  place  would  be,  not  e,  but  E,  the  resultant  of  all 
these  different  inducements.  If  therefore  we  find  on  comparison  that 
the  method  m  by  which  the  result  e  is  actually  reached,  is  the 
shortest  of  many  conceivable  methods,  what  makes  the  possibility 
actual  reality  is  not  that  this  method  has  been  chosen  out  of  many 
others  equally  possible ;  rather  we  should  say  that  m  was  in  this 
case  the  only  possible  method,  because  any  other  direct  method  Mt 
which  might  have  led  to  the  same  result,  lacked  the  conditions  for 
carrying  them  into  effect ;  in  a  different  case,  where  these  conditions 
were  present,  the  result  E  would  be  different  and  the  shortest  way  to 
it  would  be  M.  We  must  not  therefore  speak  of  parsimony  in  the 
sense  of  an  act  of  choice,  the  exercise  of  which  is  merely  a  peculiar 
habit,  not  a  causal  necessity,  of  nature.  The  utmost  that  we  could 
venture  to  assert  is,  that  the  Laws  of  Nature  are  so  devised  that 
the  shortest  way  to  any  given  result  is  in  every  case  a  necessary 
result  of  the  laws  themselves. 

Yet  even  this  statement  would  be  no  better  than  ambiguous. 
For  the  new  truth  which  it  seems  to  contain,  and  which  makes  it 
appear  more  self-evident  than  the  preceding  one,  is  similarly  de 
pendent  on  our  arbitrary  determination  to  regard  as  an  end  what  is 
really  only  a  result.  It  is  true  that  according  to  the  known  law  of 
reflexion  a  ray  of  light  transmitted  from  the  point  a  and  reflected  by 
the  surface  S,  takes  the  shortest  way  to  a  point  b  which  lies  in  the 
line  of  its  reflexion,  or  again  that  according  to  the  known  law  of 
refraction,  if  refracted  by  an  intervening  body,  it  takes  the  shortest 
way  to  a  point  b  in  the  line  of  its  exit  from  the  retracting  medium. 


376  The  Laws  of  Causation.  [BOOK  n. 

But  by  whose  command  did  the  ray  proceed  from  a  precisely  towards 
this  point  b  and  no  other  ?  That  it  arrives  at  this  point  is  not  to  be 
wondered  at,  since  it  lies  in  the  line  of  direction  which  the  laws  above 
mentioned  prescribe  to  light ;  but  for  this  very  reason  the  ray  is  not 
transmitted  to  any  of  the  other  innumerable  points  c,  which  lie  outside 
that  direction,  and  which  might  yet  deserve  to  be  illuminated  no  less 
than  b.  If  we  conceive  the  attainment  of  the  point  b  as  a  sort  of  end 
which  in  some  way  or  other  reacts  upon  the  means  to  its  attainment, 
the  shortest  way  would  have  been  for  the  ray  at  once  to  change  its 
direction  at  a  and  traverse  the  straight  line  a  b ;  this,  however,  was 
forbidden  by  the  general  laws  to  which  it  is  subject,  and  the  ray  was 
compelled  to  follow  a  course  not  absolutely  the  shortest,  but  only  the 
shortest  conditionally  upon  the  necessity  of  its  reflexion.  If,  again, 
by  an  equally  arbitrary  assumption,  we  suppose  a  point  c  as  that 
which  has  to  be  illuminated,  those  same  laws  of  reflexion  now  appear 
in  the  light  of  hindrances  which  do  not  allow  of  the  attainment  of  the 
end  except  by  a  longer  way,  not  perhaps  until  the  ray  has  been 
several  times  reflected  upon  many  different  surfaces.  Hence,  the 
only  thing  quite  certain  is  this.  In  passing  from  any  fully  determined 
point  A  to  the  consequence  E  which  flows  from  it,  Nature  makes 
no  circuits  to  which  she  is  not  compelled  but  always  takes  the  way 
which  under  the  given  conditions  is  the  only  possible  but  therefore 
also  the  necessary  one.  The  parsimony  of  Nature  consists  in  the 
fact  that  groundless  prodigality  is  a  mechanical  impossibility. 

Something  more,  however,  remains.  We  can  conceive  laws  of 
reflexion,  e.  g.  which  would  require  that  each  of  the  points  on  which 
a  ray  of  light  is  to  touch,  though  lying  in  the  line  of  its  projection, 
should  yet  be  reached  by  a  longer  way  than  that  by  which  they  are 
reached  as  a  matter  of  fact.  That  reflexion,  once  assuming  its  neces 
sity,  takes  place  according  to  the  known  law  of  nature  in  the  shortest 
possible  geometrical  line,  this  and  other  like  considerations  may 
confirm  the  opinion  above  expressed,  that  the  concrete  laws  of 
Nature  are  so  constituted  that  it  is  a  necessary  characteristic  of 
their  operation  to  effect  their  results  at  the  smallest  cost.  It  will  not, 
however,  be  doubted  that  the  law  of  reflexion  in  question  is  itself  a 
mechanically  necessary  consequence  of  the  motion  of  light,  not  a 
codicil  subsequently  imposed  upon  that  motion  by  Nature  from  free 
choice  and  preference  for  parsimony.  All  that  we  come  to  finally, 
therefore,  is  the  quite  general  conclusion,  which  is  also  perfectly 
obvious,  that  the  order  of  Nature  does  not  rest  on  a  disconnected 
heap  of  isolated  ordinances.  There  is  contained  in  the  fundamental 


CHAPTER  vii.]    Apparent  Rationality  of  Nature.  377 

properties  of  reality,  taken  together  with  the  necessary  truths  of 
Mathematics,  a  wonderful  rationality  which  at  countless  different 
points  gives  the  impression  of  an  elaborately  concerted  plan  and  fixed 
aims.  That  even  the  most  axiomatic  principles  serve  a  purpose,  is 
due  not  to  any  property  implanted  in  them,  as  in  some  strange  soil, 
after  they  have  come  into  being,  but  rather  in  these  axiomatic  prin 
ciples  themselves  there  is  a  deep  and  peculiar  adaptation  to  purpose, 
which  might  well  furnish  an  attractive  subject  for  further  enquiry. 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

The  forms  of  the  Course  of  Nature. 

217.  I  GAVE  to  this  second  book  the  name  '  Cosmology,'  intending 
to  show  that  it  would  be  devoted  to  the  consideration  only  of  those 
general  forms  and  modes  of  behaviour,  which  enable  us  to  represent 
to  ourselves  how  manifold  phenomena  are  connected  together  so  as 
to  form  an  ordered  universe ;  it  remained  for  the  facts  themselves  to 
determine  with  which  amongst  the  various  possible  formations  the 
outlines  thus  sketched  should  be  filled  in,  and  these  facts  which  are 
what  constitute  reality  in  the  full  sense,  it  was  proposed,  therefore,  to 
leave  to  Natural  Philosophy.  Yet  after  all,  how  easy  is  it  to  invent 
well-founded  titles  for  sciences  of  the  future.  If  only  it  were  as  easy 
to  discover  the  facts  which  would  fill  up  their  framework!  But 
indeed  we  have  not  been  able  to  establish  much,  even  as  regards 
those  general  tendencies  of  Nature,  in  spite  of  their  seeming  to  be  so 
near  to  the  region  of  necessary  truth.  We  found  that  they  too  were 
really  dependent  on  the  plan  which  is  working  itself  out  in  the  world. 
Still  less  shall  we  be  able  to  show  as  long  as  we  are  in  ignorance  of 
that  plan,  that  concrete  processes  and  products,  which  can  depend  on 
nothing  but  it,  are  elements  and  stages  in  a  systematic  development. 
Such  a  hope  was  once  entertained  by  Idealism ;  light  and  weight, 
magnetism  and  electricity,  chemical  processes  and  organic  life  were 
all  made  to  appear  as  necessary  phases  in  the  evolution  of  the 
Absolute,  the  innermost  motive  of  whose  working  was  supposed  to  be 
known ;  not  only  so,  but  bold  attempts  were  made  to  represent  the 
varieties  of  plants  and  animals  as  following  each  other  in  a  regular 
succession,  and  where  a  link  was  missing,  to  deduce  it  from  the  pre 
supposed  order  of  development,  explaining  the  previous  oversight  of 
it  as  an  accident.  I  see  no  reason  for  repeating  the  criticism  that 
history  has  passed  upon  these  attempts.  It  was  a  delusion  to  suppose 
that  the  forms  of  reality,  while  still  inaccessible  to  observation,  could  be 


Deduction  of  N a  here  impossible.  379 

deduced  from  a  single  fundamental  principle :  all  that  could  be  done 
with  such  a  principle  was  to  reduce  to  it  the  material  already  given  by 
experience,  with  its  attendant  residuum  of  peculiarity  which  cannot  be 
explained  but  must  be  simply  accepted  as  a  fact.  It  did  not  of  course 
follow  that  the  interpretation  of  given  facts  which  these  theories  had  to 
offer  were  wrong  throughout,  and  they  gave  rise  to  many  fruitful 
suggestions  which  subsequent  science  has  thankfully  followed,  though 
they  had  to  be  put  in  a  new  light  before  it  could  utilise  them.  At  the 
same  time,  there  is  one  direction  in  which  even  the  scientific  views 
now  prevalent  require  to  be  on  their  guard  against  the  continuance  of 
a  similar  illusion. 

The  later  exponents  of  those  Idealist  doctrines  lived,  like  our 
selves,  under  the  influence  of  the  cosmographical  views  which  recent 
scientific  enquiry  had  developed ;  far  from  participating  in  the  fanatic 
notions  of  antiquity,  according  to  which  the  earth  was  the  centre 
of  the  Universe,  and  all  things  besides  were  merely  subsidiary  to 
it,  they  admitted  the  Copernican  discoveries,  and  realised  that  they 
and  all  the  exercise  of  their  observation  were  fixed  at  an  eccentric 
point  in  the  small  planetary  system.  Yet  in  spite  of  this  they  per 
suaded  themselves  that  the  spiritual  development  of  their  absolute  was 
confined  to  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean,  and  that  its  plastic  force 
in  the  physical  world  was  exhausted  in  producing  the  forms  of  plants 
and  animals,  neither  of  which,  as  they  knew,  could  exist  except  upon 
the  earth's  surface.  Now  it  is  certainly  an  idle  and  profitless  task  to 
attempt  really  to  imagine  what  the  forms  of  existence  and  life  might 
have  been,  had  the  circumstances  been  wholly  different ;  all  such  at 
tempts  result  in  mere  clumsy  reduplications  of  the  forms  of  existence 
which  experience  presents  to  us.  The  just  general  conviction  that 
Spiritual  Life,  the  ultimate  end  of  Nature,  does  not  stand  or  fall  with 
the  earthly  means  which  it  uses  for  its  realisation,  cannot  call  to  its  aid 
any  creative  imagination  capable  of  actually  picturing  another  life  of 
which  we  have  had  no  experience.  But,  however  mistaken  may  be 
the  attempts  which  are  made  in  this  direction,  the  general  conviction 
which  inspires  them  will  always  remain  valuable ;  supposing  physical 
science  to  be  justified  in  assuming  that  certain  physical  processes 
prevail  without  variation  over  the  whole  universe,  it  would  still  be 
premature  to  assert  a  universal  uniformity,  which  excluded  any  idea 
of  forces  peculiar  in  character  and  unexampled  on  the  earth.  So 
much  the  less  ground  is  there  for  placing  the  concrete  forms  of 
reality,  which  no  man  can  number,  on  the  same  footing  with  con 
ceptions  which,  under  the  head  of  cosmology,  we  endeavoured  to 


380  The  forms  of  the  Course  of  Nature. 

form  of  the  universal  rules  of  action  to  which  Nature  conforms.  The 
former,  therefore,  I  leave  to  be  dealt  with  by  natural  philosophy,  and 
renounce  the  prevailing  fashion  of  relieving  the  dryness  of  Meta 
physical  discussion  by  picturesque  illustrations  selected  from  the 
experimental  sciences. 

218.  It  might,  however,  be  truly  objected,  that  though  it  may  be 
impossible  to  deduce  the  concrete  forms  of  nature,  the  reduction  of 
them  to  the  universal  laws  mentioned  above  is  just  one  of  the  duties 
of  metaphysic,  I  admit  this  duty,  and  only  regret  that  it  is  one  which 
no  one  can  fulfil,  not  at  least  to  the  extent  which  the  objection  would 
require.  The  two  points  in  which  we  seemed  to  run  most  counter  to 
the  ordinary  view  are,  firstly,  that  of  the  phenomenal  character  of 
Space,  secondly,  that  of  the  inner  activity  of  Things,  to  which,  instead 
of  to  external  changes  of  relation  between  fixed  elements,  we  ascribed 
the  origin  of  events.  Now,  I  have  not  neglected  to  insist  in  general 
terms  on  the  necessity  of  starting  from  these  inner  states  in  order  to 
explain  even  the  possibility  of  that  causative  force  which  external 
circumstances  appear  to  exercise.  A  more  minute'  investigation  of 
them,  however,  seemed  to  be  forbidden,  by  the  admitted  impossi 
bility  of  knowing  them  ;  and  this  would  be  the  same  even  if  more  use 
were  made  than  has  yet  been  done  of  the  hypothesis  that  their  nature 
is  spiritual.  But  this  practical  inapplicability  does  not  impair  the  value 
of  an  idea  which  we  found  to  be  necessary,  and  to  which  no  objection 
can  be  found  either  in  itself  or  in  the  facts  of  experience.  With  re 
spect  to  the  Phenomenality  of  Space,  I  have  argued  at  equal  length 
and  with  a  minuteness  which  has  probably  seemed  tedious,  that  the 
appearance  both  of  Space  itself  and  of  the  changes  which  take  place 
in  it,  is  to  be  referred  to  real  events  which  do  not  take  place  in  Space, 
and  I  reserve  for  the  Psychology  what  remains  to  be  said  by  way  of 
supplement  to  this ;  but,  in  this  case  also,  it  seems  to  me  quite  unfair 
to  require  my  view  to  be  worked  out  in  detail.  Such  a  requisition,  if 
it  applied  to  the  particular  perceptions  of  everyday  life,  would  be  as 
extravagant  as  the  demand  not  merely  to  see  what  takes  place  before 
us,  but  at  the  same  time  to  know  the  physical  causes  which  make  all 
that  we  see  present  itself  to  sight  just  as  it  does  ;  only  that  here  what 
we  should  ask  to  see  through  would  be  not  physical  causes  but  the 
supersensuous  relations  which  the  elements  assume  in  the  universal 
plan,  and  to  which  their  appearance  in  Space  is  due. 

Perhaps,  however,  no  more  is  required  than  that  in  the  case  of  the 
various  main  groups  of  natural  processes,  the  hypotheses  which  had 
been  constructed  to  explain  them  on  the  supposition  of  the  reality  of 


CHAPTER  viii.]  Can  Real  Space  be  dispensed  with  ?  38 1 

Space,  should  now  give  place  to  others  equally  capable  of  ex 
plaining  the  facts,  on  the  understanding  that  true  being  does  not 
exist  in  Space.  If  this  is  what  is  meant,  I  think  the  demand  will 
in  the  future  certainly  be  complied  with,  but  at  present  this  is  im 
possible,  or,  if  approximately  possible,  is  not  to  be  regarded  as 
a  slight  addition  to  what  has  been  already  done.  In  order  to  make 
such  a  translation  of  physics  into  metaphysics  possible  we  should 
require  first  of  all  to  have  the  whole  text  which  is  to  be  translated, 
incontrovertibly  fixed  and  settled.  Nothing  can  be  further  than 
this  is  from  being  the  case  at  present.  As  things  stand  now,  every 
hypothesis  which  is  used  in  explanation  of  the  several  branches  of 
natural  phenomena,  is  compelled3  in  order  not  to  ignore  any  pecu 
liarities  of  the  object  in  question,  to  assume  a  plurality  of  original 
facts,  which,  though  they  may  not  be  mutually  inconsistent,  exist  only 
side  by  side,  and  are  not  derivable  the  one  from  the  other.  Still 
more  untrustworthy  is  our  knowledge  of  the  border-lands  in  which 
these  various  spheres  of  natural  phenomena  meet.  What  use  then 
would  it  be  to  show — what  would  be  a  difficult  task  in  itself — that 
these  hypotheses  can  be  replaced  in  all  points,  with  equally  fruitful 
results,  by  a  view  which  substituted  for  the  supposed  objects  and 
motions  in  Space,  determinate  supersensuous  relations  and  excitations 
in  the  inner  elements  of  true  being  ?  We  should  still  have  no  other 
way  of  determining  these  internal  states  than  that  by  which  physics 
discovered  the  corresponding  external  ones :  we  should  have  to  as 
sume  them  as  primary  facts,  which  the  phenomena  in  question  re 
quired  for  their  explanation.  But  Metaphysic,  if  once  she  set  herself 
to  this  task,  would  have  to  do  more  than  this ;  she  must  be  in  a 
position  to  show  that  all  these  necessarily  assumed  individual  facts  are 
at  the  same  time  the  logical  consequences  of  those  inner  states,  and 
that  the  nature  and  character  of  true  being  justifies  the  attribution  of 
those  states  to  it.  As  long  as  this,  which  is  again  in  fact  a  kind  of 
deduction  of  reality,  is  impossible  for  us,  there  can  be  little  good  and 
small  hope  of  reward  in  the  attempt  to  reduce  sensible  facts  to  super 
sensible  ones.  Leaving  therefore  any  such  attempt  for  another  occa 
sion,  I  will  merely  add  a  few  general  observations  on  the  relation  of 
speculation  to  the  ordinary  methods  of  experimental  science. 

219.  Man  must  make  the  best  of  what  he  has,  and  not  decline 
valuable  knowledge  merely  because  it  does  not  at  once  offer  him  the 
whole  truth  which  he  wishes  to  know.  In  every  science  there  will 
always  be  a  considerable  gap  between  the  most  general  points  of 
view  from  which  we  should  wish  to  regard  the  given  objects,  and  the 


382  The  forms  of  the  Course  of  Nature. 

actual  knowledge  which  we  can  possibly  acquire  about  them;  and 
this  gap  proves  nothing  either  against  the  Tightness  of  those  ulti 
mate  points  of  view  or  against  the  value  of  the  methods  by  which 
we  succeed  in  investigating  particular  facts.  We  must  beware  of  that 
doctrinairism,  which  will  allow  no  conclusion  to  be  valid,  unless  it  is 
reached  by  the  method  of  a  logical  parade-ground,  reminding  us 
of  Moliere's  physician,  who  only  demanded  of  his  patient,  *  qu'il 
mourut  dans  les  formes.'  In  respect  to  applied  Logic  it  must  be 
granted  that  there  is  some  truth  in  the  cynical  remark  of  the  Emperor 
Vespasian.  Every  method  is  praiseworthy  which  leads  to  a  sure 
result  j  even  the  most  monstrous  hypothesis,  if  it  really  enables  us  to 
connect  the  facts  together  and  to  explain  their  mutual  dependence,  is 
better  than  the  neatest  and  trimmest  theory,  from  which  nothing 
follows.  Holding  these  views,  I  can  have  no  sympathy  with  the 
often  repeated  attempts  of  philosophers  to  show  that  the  fundamental 
ideas  of  Physical  Science  are  inadequate,  disconnected,  and  fre 
quently  inconsistent.  Without  attempting  to  determine  how  much 
there  is  of  justice  or  injustice  in  this  indictment,  I  readily  admit  that 
it  is  in  the  main  true ;  but  I  am  not  so  much  struck  by  these  defects, 
as  filled  with  sincere  and  unmixed  admiration  at  the  manifold  variety 
of  consistent  and  reliable  results,  which,  with  such  imperfect  means  at 
her  disposal,  science  has  established  by  unwearied  observation  and  by 
brilliancy  of  invention. 

I  hope  and  believe,  also,  that  if  science  continues  to  work  with  the 
same  conscientiousness,  many  truths,  which  now  appear  only  in  neces 
sary  juxtaposition,  and  many  others  which  are  seemingly  opposed, 
will  enter  into  a  nearer  and  better  relation,  as  different  results  of  one 
and  the  same  original  process ;  in  fact  that,  as  at  the  end  of  a  long  and 
complicated  reckoning,  a  simple  total  will  be  left  over,  which  the 
philosophy  of  the  future  will  be  able  to  apply  to  the  satisfaction  of  its 
own  special  wants.  This  much  to  be  desired  result,  however,  can 
only  be  obtained  in  the  first  instance  by  means  of  clearly  outlined 
hypotheses,  framed  so  as  to  meet  the  observed  facts,  and  modified 
and  transformed  so  as  to  keep  pace  with  each  fresh  discovery:  it 
matters  not  that  the  expression  which  our  suppositions  assume  in  this 
intermediate  stage  of  discovery  is  imperfect  in  form ;  the  wished  for 
simplicity  and  clearness  of  statement  can  belong  only  to  the  finished 
result.  No  other  method  can  be  substituted  for  this ;  not  that  of 
Positivism,  which  bids  us  be  content  with  general  formulae  for  the 
observed  connexion  of  facts  without  introducing  ideas  about  the  inner 
connexion  of  things,  advice  which  at  first  sight  commends  itself,  but 


CHAPTER  viii.]          Meaning  of  '  Mechanism'  383 

which  is  entirely  fruitless  in  practice :  not  a  lofty  philosophic  intui 
tion  which  only  a  great  poetic  genius  could  delude  men  into  regard 
ing  as  an  actual  means  to  the  discovery  of  truth  ;  not  any  speculative 
deduction,  which  hears  only  part  of  the  evidence  before  rushing  to  its 
conclusion.  These  leave  us  where  we  were:  Moses  may  stand  on 
the  mountain  of  speculation  and  pray  that  the  laws  of  thought  may 
be  faithfully  observed ;  but  facts  can  only  be  brought  into  subjection 
by  what  Joshua  is  doing  in  the  valley.  After  this  confession,  my 
present  object  can  only  be  to  analyse  those  conceptions  by  the  help 
of  which  philosophy  distinguishes  the  wealth  of  natural  processes  into 
groups,  seeing  in  each  group  either  the  operation  of  a  specific  prin 
ciple,  or  a  particular  application  of  general  principles,  and  regarding 
them  at  the  same  time  as  contributing  in  different  ways  to  the  realisa 
tion  of  the  all-embracing  plan  of  Nature. 

22O.  The  word  mechanism,  which  has  so  many  meanings,  is  used 
by  modern  schools  of  thought  to  describe  sometimes  a  particular 
mode  of  action,  sometimes  a  class  of  effects  produced  by  this  action  : 
in  either  case,  the  mechanical  aspect  of  Nature  is  spoken  of  in  terms 
of  marked  disparagement,  as  compared  with  another  and  different 
aspect,  to  which  it  is  deemed  inferior.  What  the  word  means  is  more 
easily  learned  from  the  customary  use  of  language  than  from  the  con 
flicting  definitions  of  the  schools.  All  modern  nations  speak  of  the 
mechanism  of  government,  of  taxation,  of  business  of  any  kind. 
Evidently,  what  is  signified  by  it  is,  the  organization  of  means  either 
with  a  view  to  realising  a  particular  end,  or  to  being  prepared  for 
carrying  out  different  but  kindred  objects.  We  do  not,  however, 
speak  of  a  mechanism  of  politics;  we  expect  political  ends  to  be 
effected  by  an  art  of  statesmanship,  and  this  we  should  blame,  if  we 
saw  it  working  by  mechanical  rules.  This  distinction  in  the  use  of 
the  term  clearly  expresses  the  limitation  that  the  mechanical  organiza 
tion  of  means  is  only  calculated  for  general  conditions,  common  to  a 
number  of  kindred  problems,  and  meets  the  requirements  in  question 
by  working  according  to  general  laws. 

Now,  it  is  impossible  to  conform  to  a  law  in  a  merely  general  way ; 
every  application  of  the  law  must  give  rise  to  a  determinate  result 
depending  on  a  determinate  condition,  whereas  the  law  in  its  general 
expression  makes  the  dependence  only  general.  It  seems,  therefore, 
up  to  a  certain  point  to  be  part  of  the  very  essence  and  conception  of 
a  mechanism  to  take  account  of  the  differences  in  the  particular  in 
stances  to  which  it  applies.  In  the  first  place,  the  laws  themselves  which 
it  obeys  require  that  its  effects  shall  be  proportionate  to  the  given  cir- 


384  The  forms  of  the  Course  of  Nature. 

cumstances  ;  next,  the  circumstances  themselves,  their  peculiar  nature, 
resistance,  and  reaction,  modify  the  action  and  combination  of  the 
forces  which  it  sets  in  motion — also  according  to  fixed  laws — and  so 
enable  it  to  produce  the  designed  effect  even  under  unforeseen  condi 
tions.  The  technical  industry  of  the  present  day  furnishes  many  ex 
amples  of  this  self-regulation  of  machinery  ;  but  whatever  advances  it 
may  make  in  many  sidedness  and  delicacy,  it  never  escapes  the  limi 
tations  which  popular  language,  as  we  saw,  imposes  upon  the  capa 
bilities  of  mechanism.  It  is  the  ingenuity  of  the  inventor  to  which 
alone  the  handiness  of  the  machine  is  due ;  it  is  his  calculation,  his 
comparison  of  the  end  with  the  means  and  the  hindrances  to  its 
realisation,  which  has  enabled  him  so  to  combine  the  forces  of  Nature, 
that  they  must  now  lead  of  themselves  to  the  desired  result  according 
to  universal  laws  of  their  own  which  are  independent  of  him.  His 
penetration  may  have  enabled  him  to  see  disturbing  causes  in  advance 
and  to  meet  them  by  a  combination  of  the  means  at  his  disposal  so 
that  the  disturbances  themselves  liberate  the  reacting  forces  which  are 
to  compensate  them ;  even  disturbing  causes  which  he  has  not  fore 
seen  may  by  good  luck  be  neutralised  by  the  internal  adaptation  and 
power  of  self-adjustment  of  a  machine.  But  all  these  favourable 
results  have  their  limits.  If  they  occur,  they  are  the  necessary  conse 
quences  according  to  universal  law  of  the  joint  action  of  the  machine 
and  its  circumstances  ;  if  they  fail  to  occur,  the  machine  is  destroyed  ; 
the  power  of  resisting  the  conditions  has  not  been  given  it  from  with 
out,  by  the  genius  of  its  inventor  or  by  a  lucky  chance,  and  it  is 
incapable  of  generating  such  a  power  of  itself. 

Here  lies  the  difference  of  statesmanship  and  every  other  prac 
tical  art  from  what  is  mechanical.  Every  art,  following  as  it  does 
ends  which  cannot  be  realised  of  themselves,  is  confined  to  the  use  of 
means  which  it  cannot  make  but  can  only  find ;  it  cannot  compel 
any  one  of  these  means  to  produce  effects  which  are  impossible  or 
extraneous  to  its  nature ;  it  can  only  combine  together  the  means  at 
its  disposal  in  such  a  way  that  they  will  be  compelled  by  the  universal 
laws  of  their  action  to  produce  necessarily  and  inevitably  the  de 
sired  result.  Every  higher  form  of  activity,  consequently,  which  we 
are  inclined  to  assume  in  Nature,  even  the  most  perfectly  unrestrained 
freedom  must,  if  it  would  be  operative  in  the  world,  take  just  that 
mechanical  form  which  is  supposed  at  first  to  be  inconsistent  with  its 
nature.  The  only  privilege  that  distinguishes  it,  is  the  power  of 
varying  according  to  its  aims  the  combination  of  the  several  mechan 
ical  elements,  and  of  taking  first  one  and  then  another  part  of  the 


CHAPTER  VIII.]  Pure  'McC/lCWlSm'  a  FictlOH.  385 

mechanism  for  its  base  of  operations,  thus  making  each  part  yield  its 
own  results.  But  its  capabilities  come  to  an  end  as  soon  as  its  object 
is  one  which  cannot  be  produced  by  any  combination  of  mechanical 
operations,  or  as  soon  as  it  can  no  longer  bring  about  that  particular 
combination  which  would  have  the  result  in  question. 

221.  As  regards  the  special  meaning  attached  to  the  term  *  mech 
anism  '  in  their  explanation  of  natural  phenomena,  philosophers  un 
doubtedly  understood  by  it  primarily  a  peculiar  mode  of  activity,  the 
range  of  which  was  still  undetermined.  But  it  was  distinctly  believed, 
at  the  same  time,  that  there  was  a  certain  special  class  of  natural 
products,  which  was  subject  to  the  single  and  undisputed  sway  of  the 
mechanical  principle.  I  cannot  subscribe  to  either  of  these  two 
theories,  except  with  essential  reservations.  Mechanism  could  only  be 
defined  in  the  sense  in  which  it  is  employed  in  current  language. 
Always  determined  by  the  given  circumstances  and  general  laws 
which  lie  behind  it,  never  by  the  nature  of  an  end  which  lies  before  it, 
it  was  contrasted  (I  shall  return  to  this  contrast  later)  as  a  concatena 
tion  of  blind  and  irrevocable  forces  with  those  organic  activities  which 
seemed  to  follow  ends  with  a  certain  freedom  though  they  were  also 
liable  to  fail  in  their  attainment.  But  even  within  the  limits  of  what  was 
called  the  inorganic  world,  mechanism  was  opposed  and  deemed  in 
ferior  to  chemism.  While  in  the  chemical  sphere,  owing  to  the  elective 
affinities  of  the  elements,  the  specific  qualities  of  bodies  were  continually 
destroying  old  forms  and  properties  and  creating  new  ones,  thus  co 
operating  decisively  in  determining  the  course  of  events,  mechanical 
action  was  depreciated  as  a  mere  external  process,  which  never  gives 
a  hearing  to  the  distinctive  nature  of  things,  deals  with  them  all  as 
mere  commensurable  mass-values,  and  therefore  produces  no  other 
effects  but  various  combinations,  separations,  movements,  and  arrange 
ments  of  inwardly  invariable  matter. 

But  Philosophy  ought  never  to  have  believed  in  the  reality  of  a 
mode  of  activity  which  it  regarded  in  this  light.  A  man  or  an  official 
might  be  reproached  for  executing  general  laws  and  regulations  with 
out  regard  to  exceptional  cases,  which  deserve  special  consideration 
and  forbearance.  Such  action,  which  we  blame  as  mechanical,  only 
succeeds  because  the  combined  force  of  human  society  deprives  the 
ill-treated  exceptions  of  the  power  of  resisting.  But  things  are  not 
hindered  from  defending  themselves  by  any  such  considerations,  nor 
can  there  be  anything  in  nature  to  prevent  them  from  asserting  their 
special  peculiarities  in  the  production  of  each  effect,  to  the  precise 
extent  to  which,  if  we  may  speak  of  them  as  human  beings,  they  have 

VOL.  I.  C  C 


386  The  forms  of  the  Course  of  Nature. 

an  interest  in  so  doing.  It  will  be  objected,  however,  that  it  is  not 
meant  to  conceive  of  this  mechanical  agency,  after  the  analogy  of  the 
inflexible  official,  as  an  authority  of  nature  imposing  itself  auto 
cratically  upon  things  from  without ;  what  is  meant  is  merely  a  process 
which  is  indeed  developed  from  the  interaction  of  things  themselves, 
but  which  derives  its  character  from  the  very  fact  that  the  things  have 
no  interests  of  their  own,  that  they  have  not  reached  the  point  of 
letting  their  individuality  be  seen  and  heard,  but  are  content  to  be 
have  as  samples  of  homogeneous  mass ;  so  far  as  this  indifference  of 
things  extends,  so  far  does  mechanism  extend.  But  even  when  stated 
in  this  improved  form,  the  doctrine  is  not  tenable  unless  either  a 
physical  process  can  be  pointed  out  which  takes  place  without  being 
in  any  way  influenced  by  the  distinctive  idiosyncracies  of  things,  or  it 
can  be  shown  that  results  in  the  final  form  of  which  such  influences 
though  really  operative  seem  to  have  vanished,  are  to  be  considered 
as  preconceived  elements  in  the  plan  of  Nature.  All  attempts  to 
establish  the  first  case  are  from  our  point  of  view  based  on  a  wrong 
foundation.  After  having  maintained  that  a  change  of  outer  rela 
tions  is  only  possible  as  a  consequence  of  mutual  solicitations  in  the 
inner  nature  of  things,  we  can  only  regard  a  mechanism  which  com 
bines  things  in  mutual  action  without  taking  account  of  this  inner 
nature  and  its  co-operation,  as  an  abstraction  of  Science,  not  as  a 
reality.  Science,  no  doubt,  has  need  of  this  abstraction.  Whatever 
distinctive  differences  there  may  be  between  things,  at  any  rate  the 
contributions  which  they  make  to  the  production  of  a  single  event 
must  admit  of  being  expressed  in  values  of  comparable  action.  In 
order  to  be  able  to  estimate  their  effects,  we  must  refer  the  laws  which 
govern  them  to  certain  ideally  simple  instances,  zero  values  or  maxima, 
of  their  effective  differences,  and  then,  after  calculating  our  result  upon 
this  basis,  subjoin  such  modifications  as  the  concomitant  conditions 
of  the  given  case  require. 

It  is  in  this  way  that  we  arrive  at  the  indispensable  conceptions  of 
mechanics ;  the  conception  of  a  rigid  immutable  atom,  from  which 
every  qualitative  change  is  excluded  ;  the  conception  of  an  absolutely 
fixed  body,  from  which  we  have  eliminated  any  alteration  of  form  and 
all  other  effects  of  composition ;  at  the  principle,  lastly,  which  may 
serve  to  express  in  the  shortest  form  what  we  mean  by  mechanism, 
the  principle  that,  if  several  forces  act  together  upon  the  same  object, 
no  one  of  them  has  any  effect  on  the  tendency  to  action  of  the  rest,  but 
each  continues  to  operate  as  if  the  rest  were  not  present,  and  it  is  only 
these  several  and  singly  calculable  effects  which  combine  to  form  a 


CHAPTER  viii.]    '  Corrections '  of  Theoretical  Results.        387 

resultant.  Now  none  of  these  conceptions  expresses  anything  which 
we  can  regard  as  occurring  in  actual  fact,  not  even  the  principle  last 
named.  But  supposing  that  this  principle  were  not  valid — and  indeed 
the  limits  within  which  it  holds  good  cannot  be  fixed  a  priori — sup 
posing  that  the  tendency  to  act  of  a  force  were  altered  by  its  relation  to 
other  forces  working  simultaneously,  we  should  still  require  to  make 
use  of  the  principle,  for  we  could  not  estimate  the  nature  of  the  altera 
tion,  unless  we  first  knew  what  the  action  would  be  unaltered ;  for 
even  though  it  does  not  occur  in  its  unaltered  form,  it  would  still  help 
to  condition  the  variation  which  does  occur.  So  far,  however,  as  the 
principle  does  hold  good,  it  merely  allows  us  to  measure  results  when 
they  take  place,  it  does  not  tell  us  how  they  take  place :  it  is  not  the 
case  that  the  forces  have  been  indifferent  and  taken  no  account  of 
one  another :  the  truth  rather  is  that  they,  or  the  inner  movement  of 
things  which  correspond  to  them,  have  taken  this  account  of  each 
other,  only  it  happened  that  the  resolution  at  which  they  arrived  in 
this  particular  case  was  to  the  effect  that  each  should  maintain 
its  former  tendency  to  act,  just  as  in  another  case  it  might  have  been 
that  this  tendency  should  be  changed.  From  this  it  appears  that 
these  very  processes  which,  as  far  as  the  form  of  their  result  goes,  ex 
hibit  all  the  characteristics  of  mechanism,  are  not  produced  mechani 
cally  in  this  sense  at  all,  and  the  whole  conception  of  mechanism  as  a 
distinct  type  of  action,  based  on  the  mutual  indifference  of  things, 
must  be  banished  entirely  from  the  philosophical  view  of  Nature. 

Nor  does  it  receive  more  than  a  semblance  of  support  from  obser 
vation.  Even  in  cases  of  impact,  to  which  most  of  the  so-called 
mechanical  processes  are  reducible,  there  are  produced  along  with 
the  imparted  translatory  motion  permanent  or  elastically  neutralised 
changes  in  the  form  of  the  body  impinged  upon,  besides  inner  vibra 
tions  which  make  themselves  known  as  Sound  or  Heat.  The  number 
of  these  secondary  effects,  and  the  completeness  with  which  the 
translatory  motion  is  imparted,  depends  in  every  case  on  the  inner 
interactions  which  hold  together  the  ultimate  elements  of  the  bodies, 
depends,  i.  e.  on  forces  which  have  their  origin  in  the  heart  of  things, 
and  which  differ  from  each  other  according  as  things  themselves 
differ  in  quality.  These  inner  effects  we  are  accustomed,  and  for 
purposes  of  science  obliged,  to  regard  as  secondary,  and  as  dis 
turbances  of  the  theoretically  perfect  instance ;  but  in  taking  account 
of  them  as  corrections  to  be  added  to  the  result  which  strict  rules 
would  give  us,  we  are  really  correcting  our  own  abstract  conception 
of  a  pure  mechanism,  which,  as  such,  has  no  real  existence  in  Nature. 

C  C  2 


388  The  forms  of  the  Course  of  Nature. 

222.  As  this  is  the  case  with  regard  to  the  first  of  the  two  alterna 
tives1  proposed,  it  remains  that  the  Philosophy  of  Nature  can  only 
undertake  the  second.  Looking  only  at  the  ultimate  form  in  which 
processes  result,  it  would  be  possible  to  arrange  the  facts  of  Nature 
in  groups  according  as  the  qualitative  nature  of  things,  which  is  a 
constant  factor  in  each  process,  was  more  or  less  apparent  in  the 
results.  And  this  is  naturally  the  course  which  Idealism  would  have 
followed,  had  it  been  consistent  with  itself.  Its  object  being  to  point 
out  phenomena  in  which  as  a  series  the  ends  of  Nature  were  succes 
sively  realised,  it  might  have  entirely  disregarded  the  question  how 
all  these  phenomena  are  produced,  and  have  considered  them  solely 
from  the  point  of  view  of  their  significance,  when  once  in  existence. 
All  the  misunderstandings  which  have  arisen  between  Idealism  and 
the  Physical  Sciences,  have  been  occasioned  by  this  error  of  confound 
ing  interpretations  of  the  ideal  significance  of  phenomena  with  expla 
nations  of  the  causes  which  have  led  to  their  existence.  Imposing  on 
ourselves,  then,  this  restriction,  we  might  seek,  in  the  first  place,  for  a 
department  of  processes  where  there  seemed  to  be  no  trace  at  any 
point  of  the  constant  silent  influence  of  the  qualitative  differences  of 
things;  or  where,  in  case  the  elements  producing  the  result  were 
homogeneous,  there  was  no  sign  of  the  perpetual  return  of  the  pro 
cess  into,  and  its  reproduction  out  of,  the  inner  nature  of  things.  It 
would  be  in  such  a  group  of  activities  that  we  should  have  to  look  for 
the  semblance  of  a  perfect  mechanism. 

In  the  small  events  which  every  day  pass  before  us  in  changing 
succession,  in  the  motions  which  partly  at  our  instance,  partly  owing 
to  causes  which  remain  unobserved,  bodies  communicate  to  each 
other — we  do  not  find  this  mechanical  action  exemplified.  In  these 
cases,  though  varying  in  distinctness,  those  secondary  effects  are 
never  wholly  absent,  in  which  the  diversity  of  the  co-operating 
elements  manifests  itself.  We  find  what  we  are  looking  for  only  in 
the  process  of  gravitation,  or,  more  properly,  in  the  revolutions  in 
closed  curves,  which  result  from  the  attraction  of  the  heavenly  bodies 
and  an  original  tangential  motion.  Attraction  itself  cannot  be  con 
sidered  as  an  external  appendage  to  the  constituent  elements  of  the 
planets  :  as  these  elements  are  different,  the  degree  of  attraction 
would  have  to  vary  to  suit  the  nature  of  each  part.  But  the  different 
distribution  in  different  planets  of  elements  varying  in  the  degrees  of 
their  reciprocal  action,  determines  what  we  call  the  mass  of  the  planets; 

1  [The  treatment  of  '  Mechanism '  a  as  a  mode  of  Action,  jS  as  a  kind  of  Effect, 
v.  Sect.  220  init.] 


CHAPTER  viii.]         Grcivita lion,  Light,  and  Sound.  389 

and  so  after  having  included  in  the  conception  of  this  unchanging 
mass  everything  which  related  to  the  qualitative  nature  of  the  elements, 
we  find  ourselves  able  to  calculate  the  subsequent  motions  of  the 
heavenly  bodies  without  assuming  anything  beyond  their  original 
velocities  and  directions,  and  the  general  law  of  the  variation  of  force 
with  distance ;  and  without  being  obliged  to  recur  again  to  the  inner 
nature  of  the  elements,  though  it  is  from  this  that  the  whole  result 
springs.  It  was  this  great  spectacle  of  the  universe  maintaining 
itself  perpetually  the  same,  that  claimed  the  attention  of  Philosophy, 
which  saw  in  it  the  first  stage  of  the  self-development  of  thought  in 
Nature,  the  exhibition  of  the  universal  order,  which  remains  undis 
turbed  by  any  inner  movements  of  the  particular. 

Next  and  in  contrast  to  Gravitation  or  Matter,  which  was  strangely 
identified  with  it,  was  placed  Light,  or  rather  (since  a  name  was 
wanted  which  would  include  not  only  Light  but  also  Sound)  those 
undulatory  processes,  by  means  of  which  impulses  diffuse  themselves 
on  all  sides,  without  any  considerable  translatory  motion.  It  was 
not  altogether  without  reason  that  in  these  phenomena  of  Nature  an 
analogy  was  found  to  Mind ;  for  it  is  through  them,  no  doubt,  that 
things  convey  to  each  other  their  fluctuating  inner  experiences,  each 
as  it  were  reflecting  itself  in  the  other;  so  that  a  communication 
between  them  is  established,  similar  to  that  which  exists  between  the 
knowing  subject  and  its  object.  It  was  owing  to  a  misconception  that 
speculative  Philosophy  refused  to  allow  these  processes  to  be  classed 
under  mechanism  and  treated  mechanically.  The  equal  diffusion  of 
light  compels  us,  no  doubt,  to  explain  the  force  with  which  each 
particle  of  ether  communicates  motion  to  the  adjoining  particle,  as 
due  to  inner  experiences  arising  from  their  constant  and  sympathetic 
relationship  :  but  as  it  also  leads  us  to  assume  that  the  ether  consists 
of  none  but  homogeneous  elements,  the  further  progress  of  this 
occurrence  of  transmission  admits  of  being  treated  in  precisely  the 
same  way  as  the  motions  of  the  heavenly  bodies.  It  is  only  when 
these  undulations  come  into  contact  with  material  bodies,  i.e.  when 
they  are  reflected,  refracted,  dispersed,  that  the  quality  of  particular 
bodies  makes  itself  felt  in  effects,  which  necessitate  a  number  of  new 
truths  derived  from  experience,  and  serving  as  starting-points  for 
analytical  deductions.  I  have  no  intention  of  discussing  in  this 
place  the  validity  of  those  fruitful  hypotheses,  on  the  basis  of  which 
optics  has  raised  her  imposing  edifice ;  nor  do  I  wish  to  replace  them 
by  others.  I  wished  merely  to  justify  to  some  extent  the  older  specu 
lation  in  its  view,  that  these  phenomena  exhibit  a  new,  characteristic, 


390  The  forms  of  the  Course  of  Nature.       [BOOK  n. 

and  important  form  of  Nature's  activity,  a  form  in  which  the  influences 
of  the  specific  qualities  of  things  are  not  indeed  quite  neutralised,  but 
do  not  appear  to  dominate  the  whole  process  :  the  general  form,  in  fact, 
of  a  still  inoperative  affinity  between  diverse  and  changing  elements. 

223.  A  different  impression  was  produced  by  the  phenomena  of 
electricity  and  chemistry.  Philosophy  here  encountered  the  doctrine 
of  the  two  electric  fluids,  which  had  already  been  fully  developed  by 
Physics,  and  was  thus  confirmed  in  regarding  this  as  the  first  case  in 
which  the  qualitative  opposition  of  things  appears  as  really  determining 
the  course  of  events.  The  further  development  of  this  branch  of  Physics 
will  certainly  not  be  able  to  dispense  with  the  special  presuppositions, 
which  have  been  framed  in  consequence  of  this  view.  There  seems 
at  any  rate  no  prospect  at  present  of  explaining  that  peculiar  notion 
of  absorption  or  neutralisation,  in  which  forces,  once  in  full  activity, 
evanesce  without  leaving  any  trace  of  themselves,  as  due  to  a  mere 
opposition  of  motions,  similar  to  the  absorption  of  Light  by  inter 
ference.  Such  an  explanation  would  still  leave  the  question,  what  is 
the  principle  on  which  these  conflicting  motions  are  distributed 
amongst  the  bodies,  from  which  the  electric  appearances  are  elicited  ? 
And  this  question  could  hardly  be  answered  without  reinstating — 
though  perhaps  in  a  different  form  and  connexion — the  conception  of 
a  polar  opposition  of  a  qualitative  kind.  But  this  also  does  not  con 
cern  us  here :  it  is  sufficient  that  electric  phenomena,  whatever  may 
be  their  origin,  in  the  form  of  their  manifestation  express  precisely 
this  idea  of  an  opposition  inherent  in  the  nature  of  things. 

This  influence  of  the  specific  nature  of  agents  was  believed  to  be 
much  more  distinctly  apparent  in  the  case  of  chemical  phenomena, 
which  had  likewise  been  already  connected  by  Physics  with  electricity. 
The  idea  that  in  chemical  as  opposed  to  so-called  mechanical  action, 
the  individual  nature  of  things  for  the  first  time  awoke,  co-operated, 
and  underwent  inner  transformations,  was  not,  strictly  speaking,  sup 
ported  by  observation.  Striking  changes  were  frequently  seen  to 
take  place  in  the  sensible  qualities  of  things,  in  consequence  of  mere 
changes  in  their  composition.  Hence  it  was  possible  to  suppose 
that  other  changes,  the  origin  of  which  was  not  similarly  open  to 
experimental  proof,  might  also  be  due  to  differences  not  directly 
perceptible  in  the  arrangement  of  the  ultimate  particles  and  their 
resulting  interactions.  But  the  chemical  process,  according  to  that 
view  of  it  which  was  favoured  by  Philosophy,  was  that,  out  of  a  and  £, 
a  third  new  and  simple  product  c  resulted,  in  which  both  a  and  b  are 
merged,  though  by  reversing  the  process,  they  may  again  be  produced 


CHAPTER  vin.]          Chemism  and  Mechanism.  39 1 

out  of  it.  This  view,  which  obviously  implies  a  constant  and  complete 
interpenetration  of  the  active  chemical  elements,  expressed  the  idea 
of  which  the  phenomena  of  chemism  furnished  sensible  illustration. 
As  a  Physical  theory  it  remained  barren,  because  it  failed  to  explain 
how  similar  combinations  of  elements  can  give  rise  to  permanently 
different  products,  as  also  because  it  left  out  of  account  the  manifold 
analogies  between  combinations  of  essentially  distinct  elements. 

To  this  view,  there  succeeded  an  exclusively  atomic  conception  of 
chemistry.  The  elements  a  and  b  were  supposed  to  subsist  unchanged 
in  the  result  c,  and  the  properties  above-mentioned  were  accounted 
for  by  the  different  positions  which  the  various  samples  of  a  and  b  may 
assume  in  the  product  c  of  their*combination.  I  do  not  understand 
why  the  pictures  which  we  often  see  of  the  structure  of  such  chemical 
combinations  should  be  accompanied  by  the  warning  that  they  are  not 
to  be  understood  literally.  If  they  are  only  symbols,  they  at  once 
lead  to  a  metaphysical  view,  according  to  which  we  should  speak,  not 
of  positions  in  Space,  but  of  intelligible  relations  of  varying  intensity 
between  the  actions  of  the  absolute,  which  present  themselves  to  us 
singly  as  chemical  elements.  If  we  shrink  from  making  use  of  th^se 
certainly  impracticable  notions,  of  which  I  have  spoken  previously, 
and  make  up  our  minds  to  follow  the  ordinary  view  of  the  reality  of 
Space,  it  seems  to  follow  that  either  these  graphic  representations 
must  be  understood  quite  literally,  or  that  they  have  no  intelligible 
meaning  at  all.  It  is  not,  however,  my  purpose  to  describe  the 
consequences  which  the  atomic  view  of  chemistry  has  had  in  general, 
and  especially  of  late  the  hypothesis  of  Avogadro,  in  itself  an  entirely 
improbable  one.  I  would  only  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  after  all 
that  can  be  said,  our  knowledge  is  limited  on  the  one  hand  to  the 
elements  which  enter  into  composition,  on  the  other  to  the  actual  and 
probable  typical  forms  which  the  composition  finally  assumes ;  the 
process  by  which  the  combination  takes  place,  i.  e.  the  true  chemical 
process,  still  escapes  us.  Our  conceptions  of  it  cannot  be  made  to 
fit  with  the  rest  of  our  mechanical  notions,  unless  we  admit  as  new 
data  both  the  original  difference  between  the  elements,  not  reducible 
to  physical  modifications  of  a  common  matter,  and  the  special  elective 
affinities  of  these  elements,  which  determine  their  general  capacities 
of  combination  and  the  proportions  in  which  they  will  permanently 
combine. 

Even  then  one  phenomenon  still  remains  dark,  that  which  gave  to 
chemistry  its  old  name  '  Scheidekunst '  (art  of  division),  the  analysis 
of  the  combinations.  Let  us  suppose  that  between  all  the  elements> 


392  The  forms  of  the  Course  of  Nature. 

a  b  c  .  .  .  z,  the  only  affinity  that  exists  is  that  of  attraction  in  varying 
degrees  of  intensity.  In  that  case,  if  there  is  no  new  condition  intro 
duced,  any  reciprocal  action  between  the  two  pairs  a  b  and  c  d  can 
only  lead  to  their  amalgamation  abed,  never  to  their  fresh  distribu 
tion  into  a  c  and  b  d.  And  even  if  the  affinities  between  a  and  c,  b 
and  d,  be  ever  so  much  closer  than  those  between  a  and  bt  c  and  d, 
there  cannot  be  any  separation  of  the  elements :  the  most  that  can 
happen  is  this,  that  an  external  force,  z/"it  were  brought  to  bear  upon 
the  whole  combination  a  b  c  d — which  would  be  the  necessary  result 
of  mere  forces  of  attraction — would  detach  a  from  b  or  c  from  d  more 
easily  than  a  from  c,  or  b  from  a.  Any  repulsion,  therefore,  must 
come  from  elsewhere  than  the  resrrits  of  attraction  ;  and  as  there  is 
no  evidence  of  direct  repulsion  between  the  single  elements  it  can 
only  be  looked  for  in  the  circumstances  which  accompany  the  chemical 
process,  or,  as  is  probable,  actually  constitute  it.  These  may  consist 
in  motions  which  disconnect  the  elements,  or  in  the  affinity  of  the 
elements  to  the  different  electricities,  the  polar  antagonism  of  which 
may  require  them  to  move  in  these  particular  ways. 

But  however  that  may  be,  my  only  purpose  was  to  show  that 
Philosophy  was  right  in  ascribing  to  the  qualitative  differences  of 
things  a  decisive  influence  in  the  sphere  of  chemistry,  wrong  in  deny 
ing  any  such  influence  in  that  of  mechanics:  and  that  therefore  though 
the  opposition  between  these  processes  of  nature  is  not  without  some 
reason  in  it,  it  is  practically  impossible  to  draw  a  sharp  line  of  dis 
tinction  between  them,  such  as  would  separate  their  spheres,  and 
assign  to  them  two  different  principles  of  action. 

224.  But  all  this  has  now  scarcely  more  than  an  historical  interest ; 
the  relation  of  forces  to  organic  activities  is  still  the  subject  of  con 
flicting  opinions.  In  an  essay  on  '  Life  and  Vital  Energy,'  which 
forms  the  introduction  to  Rudolph  Wagner's  Hand-Dictionary  of 
Physiology,  I  defended,  six-and-thirty  years  ago,  the  claim  of  the 
mechanical  view  to  a  place  in  the  science  of  Physiology,  a  claim 
which  was  at  that  time  still  much  disputed.  Scientific  taste  has  now 
to  some  extent  changed ;  at  present,  not  merely  all  the  practical  in 
vestigations  of  Physiology,  but  to  a  great  extent  also  the  formulation 
of  its  theories  are  dominated  by  the  mechanical  spirit ;  those  who  are 
opposed  to  it,  repeat  the  old  objections,  for  the  most  part  in  the  old 
form.  If,  though  weary  of  going  back  to  these  matters,  I  proceed 
now  to  recapitulate  shortly  the  conclusions  which  were  developed  in 
the  above-mentioned  essay,  and  subsequently  in  the  '  General  Phy 
siology  of  Corporeal  Life'  (Leipsic,  1851),  it  is  chiefly  for  the  sake 


CHAPTER viii.]          Vital  Force — one  or  many?  393 

of  a  remark  which  has  been  often  overlooked,  at  the  end  of  the 
essay,  and  which  is  to  the  effect  that  it  necessarily  contained  only 
the  one  half  of  the  principles  which  a  complete  biological  theory 
implied.  The  other  half  would  have  touched  on  the  question,  how 
the  mechanical  treatment  of  vital  phenomena,  necessitated  by 
the  facts,  harmonises  with  those  requirements  of  an  opposite  kind, 
which  the  primary  instincts  of  philosophy  will  never  cease  to  make, 
as  in  times  past.  For  this  dispute  is,  in  fact,  an  old  one.  I 
should  have  been  able  to  go  back  to  Aristotle,  whose  '  substantial 
forms '  extended  the  dominion  of  the  activity  of  Thought  far  beyond 
living  things,  to  which  in  the  modem  controversy  it  is  confined, 
while  already  in  antiquity  the  Aristotelian  view  was  elaborately 
opposed  by  the  Epicurean  physics,  which  denied  the  activity  of 
thought  no  less  unrestrictedly.  The  question  did  not,  however,  be 
come  one  of  pressing  importance,  until,  with  the  development  of 
modern  science,  a  definite  formulation  had  been  given  to  the  group  of 
ideas,  the  application  of  which  to  explain  life  meets  with  so  much 
opposition.  Putting  aside  the  more  ethical,  aesthetic,  and  religious 
grounds  for  this  aversion,  which  it  is  not  necessary  here  to  examine, 
the  theoretical  motive  which  has  prompted  it  has  always  been  the 
same.  The  scanty  knowledge  which  we  possess  of  the  formative  in 
fluences  active  throughout  the  rest  of  nature,  did  not  seem  sufficient 
to  explain  the  complex  and  yet  fixed  forms  of  organic  life  ;  their 
germs  at  any  rate,  it  was  thought,  must  have  an  independent  origin, 
even  if  in  their  subsequent  development  they  were  subject  to  the 
Universal  Laws  of  Nature.  But  further,  the  peculiar  phenomena  of 
growth,  nutrition,  and  propagation,  the  general  fact  of  the  interde 
pendence  of  continuously  active  functions,  and  that  of  self-preservation 
in  presence  of  repeated  disturbances,  all  this  seemed  to  demand  the 
continued  presence  and  operation  of  that  higher  principle,  to  which 
had  been  attributed  at  first  only  the  initial  formation  of  the  germ. 
Finally,  the  undefined  but  overpowering  general  impression  of  per 
vading  adaptation,  witnessed  to  the  presence  of  an  end  which  guided 
organic  nature,  rather  than  to  a  past  which  blindly  compelled  it.  The 
conception  of  a  vital  force  was  the  first  form  in  which  these  ideas 
were  united. 

225.  As  long,  however,  as  this  expression  was  merely  thrown  out 
in  a  general  way,  it  could  not  serve  to  solve  the  difficulty,  but  only 
to  indicate  its  existence.  It  was  not  allowable  to  follow  the  example 
of  Treviranus,  and  explain  everything  from  the  byssus  to  the  palm, 
from  the  infusorium  to  the  monster  of  the  sea,  as  living  by  Vital 


394  The  forms  of  the  Course  of  Nature. 

Force  :  the  difference  between  the  palm  and  the  byssus  had  also  to  be 
taken  account  of;  every  species  of  living  things  required  its  own  special 
vital  force,  and  every  individual  of  the  species  needed  its  own  share  or  its 
particular  sample  of  the  force.  The  general  name  Vital  Force  indicated, 
therefore,  merely  a  formal  characteristic,  which  could  attach  to  many 
different  real  principles  yet  to  be  discovered.  It  was  besides  an  im 
proper  use  to  make  of  the  term  force^  which  had  been  applied  by 
Physics  in  quite  a  different  sense ;  the  appropriate  word  was  impulse 
(Trieb).  For  when  the  general  characteristic  in  question  had  to  be  de 
scribed,  the  contrast  was  obvious.  Every  physical  force  always  produces 
under  the  same  conditions  the  same  effects,  under  different  con 
ditions,  different  effects  ;  it  is  always  conditioned  by  a  general  law, 
irrespectively  of  the  ensuing  result ;  everything  that  under  given  cir 
cumstances  the  force  can  effect,  it  must  necessarily  effect,  nor  can  any 
part  of  the  effect  be  kept  back,  nor  any  addition  be  made  to  it  which 
would  not  have  been  inevitable  under  the  existing  circumstances.  To 
Impulse,  on  the  other  hand,  we  ascribe  the  power  of  changing  its 
manner  of  operation,  not  indeed  without  regard  to  existing  circum 
stances,  but  with  regard  at  the  same  time  to  a  result  which  does  not 
yet  exist ;  a  power  of  leaving  undone  much  that  it  might  do,  and 
of  beginning  something  new  instead  which  it  is  not  bound  by  the 
given  conditions  to  do  at  all.  It  had  to  be  admitted,  however,  that 
the  vital  impulse  never  produces  anything  in  a  vacuum,  but  only 
works  with  the  materials  supplied  to  it  by  nature ;  and  thus  arose  the 
ordinary  view  of  vital  force  as  a  power,  which,  though  dependent  in  a 
general  sense  upon  material  conditions,  is  superior  to  the  physical  and 
chemical  laws  of  matter,  and  gives  rise  to  phenomena  which  those 
laws  will  not  explain. 

226.  I  must  take  permission  to  refer  to  the  above-mentioned  essay 
for  many  details,  which  here  I  can  only  lightly  touch  on,  but  could 
not  altogether  omit  without  leaving  constantly  recurring  fallacies  only 
half-refuted.  We  are  continually  being  told  that  no  application  of  the 
improved  means  which  we  now  have  at  our  command  will  enable  us 
to  manufacture  artificially  a  product  which  even  remotely  resembles  a 
living  organism.  The  fact  must  simply  be  granted.  Neither  cellulose 
nor  albumen,  nor  any  other  of  the  tissue-forming  substances  of 
organic  bodies  can  be  produced  by  chemical  art,  although  the  dis 
tinction  between  the  ternary  and  quaternary  combinations  of  organic 
life  and  the  binary  combinations  of  inorganic  nature,  which  was  once 
so  much  insisted  on,  has  long  since  lost  its  meaning :  nor  are  we  any 
longer  under  the  delusion  that  these  combinations  last  only  so  long  as 


CHAPTER  viii.]     What  Subject  has  the  Vital  Force?        395 

the  vital  force  lasts,  a  delusion  which  any  thoughtful  student  might 
have  been  disabused  of  from  the  first,  if  he  had  only  thought  of  the 
wood  of  the  table,  at  which  he  was  writing,  or  of  the  pens  and  paper. 
Still,  it  is  true  that  in  none  of  our  artificial  productions  is  there  any 
such  connected  series  of  chemical  transformations,  form- modifications 
and  functions  as  could  be  compared  with  the  growth,  nourishment, 
and  propagation  of  an  organic  Being:  even  the  recently  observed 
formation  of  cells  out  of  inorganic  substanc.es,  though  worthy  of  all  con 
sideration,  is  not  likely  to  prove  the  starting-point  for  new  discoveries 
in  this  direction.  But  all  that  this  proves  is  that  in  the  present  course 
of  Nature,  Life  is  a  system  of  processes  self-maintaining  and  self- 
propagating,  and  that  outside  its  sphere  there  is  no  combination  of 
materials,  such  as  would  make  the  development  of  such  phenomena 
possible.  Nothing  is  thus  decided  as  to  the  conditions  under  which 
this  play  of  forces  is  sustained  after  it  has  begun,  and  yet  these  must 
first  be  known  before  it  can  be  determined  what  requirements  a 
theory  as  to  the  first  origin  of  Life  has  to  meet.  But  neither  the 
question  concerning  the  origin  of  the  whole  organic  world,  nor,  the 
consideration  whether  in  the  future  it  may  not  be  possible  to  add  to  it 
by  artificial  means,  must  be  allowed  to  confuse  the  discussion  here. 
The  only  point  to  be  considered  is,  whether  the  vital  force  which 
organic  beings  as  a  matter  of  fact  exercise  in  developing  themselves 
and  resisting  external  injury,  requires  us  to  assume  a  principle  of 
action,  which  is  strange  to  the  inorganic  world;  and  whether  that 
other  vital  force,  which  such  a  principle  of  action  is  assumed  to  be, 
is  conceivable  in  itself,  and  adequate  to  explain  the  given  facts  ? 

227.  We  shall  require,  in  the  first  place,  for  the  sake  of  clearness, 
to  be  definitely  informed  as  to  the  nature  of  the  subject,  to  which  the 
activities  included  under  the  name  of  vital  force  are  supposed  to 
belong.  There  has  been  no  lack  of  theories  which  endeavoured  to 
meet  this  question  fairly.  Some  have  spoken  of  a  universal  sub- 
slance  of  Life,  which  they  found  either  in  a  ponderable  matter,  or 
in  electricity,  or  some  other  unknown  member  of  the  more  refined 
family  of  ether.  Others  regarded  the  soul  as  the  master-builder  and 
controller  of  the  body,  assuming  at  the  same  time  that  plants  had 
souls,  which  was,  to  say  the  least,  not  a  fact  of  observation.  I  will 
only  mention  briefly  the  common  defect  in  all  these  theories.  It  is 
impossible  to  deduce  difference  from  a  single  homogeneous  principle, 
unless  we  have  a  group  of  minor  premisses  to  show  why  the  one 
principle  should  necessarily  develop  a  at  one  point,  b  or  c  at  another. 
As  has  already  been  said,  we  should  always  have  to  assume  as  many 


396  The  forms  of  the  Course  of  Nature. 

different  material  bases  of  life  as  there  are  different  kinds  of  living 
things ;  or  else  it  would  have  to  be  shown  to  what  subsequently 
arising  causes  it  was  due  that  such  different  forms  as  an  oak  tree  and 
a  whale  could  be  produced  out  of  the  one  substance.  In  the  latter 
case  the  development  of  Life  would  be  at  once  brought  again  under 
the  general  conception  of  a  mechanism.  For  mechanism  in  the 
widest  sense  of  the  term  may  be  said  to  include  every  case  in  which 
effects  are  produced  by  the  reciprocal  action  of  different  elements,  of 
whatever  kind,  working  in  accordance  with  universal  Laws ;  and  such 
conformity  to  law  would  have  to  be  assumed  by  all  these  theories ;  they 
could  never  leave  it  open  to  doubt  that,  under  the  influence  of  an 
accessory  condition  a,  the  single  principle  of  life  would  take  shape  in 
the  product  a  rather  than  in  b. 

But  metaphysic  has  no  interest  in  maintaining  the  claims  of  the 
mechanical  principle,  except  in  this  very  general  sense ;  nor,  on  the 
other  hand,  will  physics  be  so  narrow-minded  as  to  insist  that  it  is 
precisely  from  these  materials  and  forces  which  we  now  know,  and 
according  to  the  exact  analogy  of  inorganic  processes,  that  we  are 
to  conceive  of  the  phenomena  of  organic  Life.  All  that  physics 
claims,  is,  that  whatever  kinds  of  matter,  force,  or  energy  remain  yet 
to  be  discovered,  must  all  fall  within  the  compass  of  her  investigations, 
must  all  be  connected  together  according  to  Universal  Laws. 
Further,  however,  experience  did  not  at  all  show  that  the  choice 
between  these  accessory  conditions  was  so  unrestricted.  It  is  not  the 
case  that  every  organic  kind  requires  as  the  basis  of  its  existence  peculiar 
kinds  of  matter  which  it  places  at  the  disposal  of  the  one  vital  force. 
The  most  different  products  of  Nature  are  all  constructed  from  the 
same  storehouse  of  material  elements,  which  are  found  on  the  surface 
of  the  earth.  Hence,  however  peculiar  the  principle  of  Life  may  be  in 
itself,  it  can  never  have  been  free  from  interaction  with  that  same  matter 
which  we  know  to  be  also  controlled  by  physical  laws  of  its  own. 
The  principle  might  issue  what  commands  it  pleased,  but  could  only 
carry  them  out  (supposing  the  materials  in  question  not  to  obey  them 
spontaneously)  by.  exerting  those  forces  to  which  the  matter  is  naturally 
amenable.  We  know  that  in  all  cases  the  contribution  which  is  made  by 
the  several  co-operating  factors,  to  a  result  in  the  final  form,  may  be  of 
the  most  different  amounts.  Thus  it  may  be  that  the  form  which  Life 
is  to  assume  in  any  given  case  is  already  traced  by  anticipation  in  some 
specific  kind  of  substance ;  but  the  actual  existence  of  this  life  is 
always  the  result  of  mechanical  causes,  in  which  the  original  substance 
would  be  only  prima  inter  pares,  contributing  just  so  much  to  the 


CHAPTER  viii.]    A  ^  Life-principle '  explains  nothing.         397 

result  as  can  arise  according  to  general  laws  from  its  coming  into 
contact  with  the  other  factors.  But  that  that  is  actually  the  case,  at  any 
rate  in  the  sense  that  there  are  certain  kinds  of  matter  specially  privi 
leged  in  this  respect,  could  not  in  any  way  be  proved ;  the  natural  con 
clusion  which  the  facts  suggest  is,  that  the  phenomena  of  Life  arise 
out  of  a  special  combination  of  material  elements,  no  one  of  which  has 
any  claim  to  be  called  exclusively,  or,  in  the  degree  suggested  above, 
preeminently,  the  principle  of  life.  The  very  fact  which  has  been  taken 
to  imply  a  special  vital  principle,  the  fact  that  Life  is  only  maintained 
by  successive  self-propagation,  ought  rather  to  lead  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  germ  of  its  development  can  only  be  found  in  a  certain  peculiar 
combination  of  material  elements,  which  maintains  and  reproduces 
itself  in  unbroken  continuity.  It  is,  therefore,  quite  a  matter  of 
indifference,  whether  we  shall  ever  succeed  in  giving  a  name  to  the 
general  form,  or  in  exhibiting  in  detail  the  development,  of  such  a 
material  combination  in  which  life  is  implicit ;  the  point  is,  that  the 
supposition  of  a  single  Real  principle  of  Life  is  both  impossible  in 
itself  and  quite  barren  of  results,  whilst  on  the  other  hand,  the  only  thing 
which  the  mechanical  view  leaves  unexplained  is  the  ultimate  origin 
of  Life.  I  will  reserve  what  I  have  to  say  on  the  Soul  till  later ;  as 
it  neither  creates  the  body  out  of  nothing,  nor  out  of  itself,  it  can  have 
no  special  dignity  as  regards  the  construction  of  the  body  (whatever 
other  dignities  it  may  have)  except  that  of  being  prima  inter  pares ; 
it  must  work  jointly  with  the  material  elements  which  are  supplied  to 
it.  The  conception  of  mechanical  action,  however,  is  wide  enough  to 
include  that  of  a  co-operation,  according  to  universal  laws,  between 
spiritual  activities  and  conditions  of  matter. 

228.  It  is  the  way  of  mankind  to  meet  a  theory  not  by  direct  refuta 
tion,  but  by  expressing  general  dislike  and  pointing  out  the  defects 
in  the  working  out  of  it,  and  to  magnify  striking  though  unessential 
differences  until  they  seem  to  be  impassable  gulfs.  I  should  certainly 
never  of  my  own  motion  speak  of  the  living  body  as  a  machine,  thus 
nullifying  the  distinction  between  the  poverty  of  even  our  most  in 
genious  inventions  and  the  mighty  works  of  Nature ;  but  those  who 
are  so  morbidly  anxious  to  leave  out  of  account  in  their  consideration 
of  life  all  those  operations  which  they  can  stigmatise  as  mechanical, 
need  to  be  reminded  that  the  living  body  and  not  inorganic  Nature 
furnishes  the  models  of  the  simple  machines,  which  our  art  has  imitated; 
the  pattern  of  pincers  is  to  be  found  only  in  the  jaws  of  animals ;  that  of 
the  lever  in  their  limbs  which  are  capable  of  movement.  Nowhere  else 
are  there  instances  of  motions  produced  in  articular  surfaces  by  cords 


398  The  forms  of  the  Course  of  N attire. 

such  as  the  muscles  are,  and  of  their  guidance  by  ligaments  in  definite 
directions :  it  is  the  living  body  alone  which  utilises  the  production 
of  a  vacuum  and  the  consequent  inhalation  of  atmospheric  fluids, 
the  pressure  of  containing  walls *  upon  their  contents,  and  the  valves 
which  prescribe  the  direction  of  the  resulting  motion.  How  little  does 
all  this  resemble  that  mysterious  power  of  immediate  agency  which  is 
most  eagerly  claimed  for  the  vital  force ! 

The  exaggerated  pictures  of  the  superiority  of  living  machines  to 
artificial  ones  do  not  rest  on  any  better  foundation.  The  comparison 
of  an  organism  to  a  self-winding  clock  altogether  ignores  the  droop 
ing  plant  which  can  find  no  substitute  for  water,  if  water  will  not  come 
to  it,  and  the  hungry  animal  which  is  indeed  able  to  seek  its  own 
food,  but  yet  dies  of  want  if  none  is  found.  Irritability,  or  the  power 
of  responding  to  impressions,  is  said  to  be  a  distinguishing  character 
istic  of  organisms ;  when  a  given  stimulus  is  applied  to  them,  they  are 
supposed  to  react  in  ways  which  are  not  explicable  from  the  nature  of 
the  stimulus ;  at  the  same  time,  it  has  been  assumed  that  in  me 
chanical  action  the  cause  and  effect  are  precisely  equal  and  similar, 
though  not  even  in  the  simple  communication  of  motion  is  this  really 
the  case,  while  organic  life  has  been  contrasted  with  it  on  the  ground 
of  a  supposed  peculiarity  which  is  in  fact  the  universal  form  of  all 
causative  activity.  For  it  is  never  the  case  that  an  impression  is 
received  by  an  element  ready  made,  merely  to  be  passed  on  in  the 
same  form ;  each  element  always  modifies  by  its  own  nature  the  effect 
of  the  impulse  experienced.  In  a  connected  system  of  elements,  the 
effects  which  will  follow  a  stimulus  will  be  more  various  and  striking 
in  proportion  as  the  intermediate  mechanism  is  more  complex,  which 
conducts  the  impression  from  point  to  point  and  changes  it  in  the 
process.  The  same  must  be  said  of  the  power  of  recovery  from 
injury  which  is  supposed  to  belong  peculiarly  to  organisms,  and  to 
prove  clearly  a  continuous  adaptivity  superior  to  anything  mechanical. 
But  if  it  were  really  the  case  that  this  force  of  resistance  raised 
organic  Beings  out  of  the  sphere  of  physical  and  chemical  necessity, 
why  was  it  ever  limited?  If  once  it  had  become  independent  of 
mechanical  influences  there  was  no  task  which  it  need  fail  in  accom 
plishing.  But  the  numberless  cases  of  incurable  disease  indicate  plainly 
enough  its  limits.  No  doubt,  when  once  its  combinations  of  elements 
and  forces  have  been  fully  matured  the  body  is  so  well  furnished  for 
its  purpose  that  even  considerable  changes  in  its  environment  produce 
reactions  in  it  which  avert  or  remove  the  disturbing  influences  which 
1  [Of  the  heart  and  blood  vessels.] 


CHAPTER  vi 1 1.]  Mechanical  View  True  but  not  Final.      399 

threaten  or  have  begun  to  act  upon  it.  But  as  in  every  mechanical  pro 
duct,  there  are  limits  to  this  power  of  self-preservation.  There  is  no 
such  power,  where  the  body  has  not  been  blest  at  starting  with  these 
particular  provisions,  nor  do  we  ever  see  the  want  supplied  by  the  sub 
sequent  creation  of  fresh  means ;  we  much  more  often  see  the  means 
already  at  its  disposal  forced  into  a  reaction,  which  under  the  special 
conditions  of  the  moment  can  only  lead  to  further  dissolution. 

229.  I  shall  not  continue  this  polemic  further,  having  devoted 
sufficient  attention  to  it  before.  I  simply  adhere  now  to  the  decision 
which  I  then  expressed.  In  order  to  explain  the  connexion  of  vital 
phenomena,  a  mechanical  method  of  treatment  is  absolutely  necessary; 
Life  must  be  derived,  not  from  some  peculiar  principle  of  action,  but 
from  a  peculiar  mode  of  utilising  the  principles  which  govern  the 
whole  Physical  world.  From  this  point  of  view,  an  organic  body  will 
appear  as  a  systematic  combination  of  elements,  which,  precisely 
because  they  are  arranged  together  in  this  form,  will  be  able  by 
conforming  to  fixed  laws  in  their  reciprocal  action,  and  by  the  help 
of  external  nature,  to  pass  through  successive  stages  of  development, 
and  within  certain  limits  to  preserve  the  regularity  of  its  course 
against  chance  disturbances.  This  makes  me  the  more  sorry  that 
Physiologists  should  regard  this  view,  which  embodies  the  necessary 
regulative  principle  of  all  their  investigations,  as  being  also  the  last 
word  upon  the  subject,  and  should  exclude  every  idea  which  is  not 
required  for  their  immediate  purposes,  from  all  share  in  the  formation 
of  their  ultimate  conclusions.  But  they  will  never  remove  from  the 
mind  of  any  unprejudiced  person  the  overwhelming  impression  that 
the  forms  of  organic  life  serve  an  end ;  nor  will  men  ever  be  per 
suaded  that  this  marvellous  fact  does  not  call  for  explanation  by  a 
special  cause.  I  know  full  well  that  as  a  thesis  it  may  be  maintained 
that  every  result  which  {fresupposes  mechanical  agency  presupposes 
nothing  more  than  this.  Nor  is  this  new ;  long  ago  Lucretius  de 
clared  that  animals  were  not  provided  with  knees  in  order  to  walk, 
but  that  it  was  because  the  blind  course  of  things  had  formed  knees, 
that  they  were  able  to  walk.  It  is  easy  to  say  this,  and  it  may  be 
that  it  sounds  particularly  well  when  expressed  in  Latin  verse  ;  but 
it  is  impossible  to  believe  it;  there  is  no  more  tedious  product  of 
narrow  caprice  than  such  philosophy  of  the  schools.  Yet  it  is 
unfortunately  true  that  the  conviction  of  a  higher  power  working  for 
an  end,  and  shaping  life  with  a  view  to  it,  has  too  often  intruded  itself 
rashly  and  confusingly  into  the  treatment  of  special  questions  ;  and  this 
explains  the  unwillingness  of  conscientious  enquirers  to  recognise 


4OO  The  forms  of  the  Course  of  Nature.       [BOOK  n. 

what  to  them  must  seem  a  barren  hypothesis.  It  cannot,  however,  be 
ignored  that  many  of  our  contemporaries  are  animated  by  a  profound 
hatred  of  everything  that  goes  by  the  name  of  Spirit,  and  that,  if  a 
principle  were  submitted  to  them  which  seemed  to  bear  traces  of  this, 
even  though  it  was  not  opposed  to  any  postulate  of  science,  they 
would,  none  the  less,  turn  away  from  it  in  indignation  to  enjoy  their 
feast  of  ashes,  and  delighted  to  feel  that  they  were  products  of  a 
thoroughly-  blind  and  irrational  necessity.  Such  self-confidence  it  is 
impossible  to  reason  with ;  we  can  only  consider  the  difficulties 
which  stand  in  the  way  of  the  acceptance  of  the  opposite  view. 

230.  We  must  not  stop  short  at  those  general  accounts  of  the 
matter,  which  merely  represent  a  higher  power  in  any  indefinable 
relation  of  superiority  to  mechanical  laws  without  making  the  obe 
dience  of  those  laws  intelligible ;  in  speaking  of  this,  as  of  all  other 
forms  of  rational  activity  directed  to  an  end,  the  first  thing  to  do  is 
to  give  a  name  to  the  subject  from  which  the  action  is  supposed  to 
proceed.  Now  we  certainly  cannot  speak  of 'ends'  with  any  clear 
ness,  except  as  existing  in  a  living  and  willing  mind,  in  the  form  of 
ideas  of  something  to  be  realised  in  the  future.  Hence  it  was 
natural  to  look  for  this  highest  wisdom  in  God  ;  and  not  less  natural 
was  the  desire  to  bring  again  into  an  intelligible  relation  the  unlimited 
freedom  of  action  involved  in  the  conception  of  the  divine  essence, 
and  the  fixed  course  of  Nature  which  seems  to  bear  no  traces  of  that 
freedom.  Thus  arises  the  theory  upon  which  sooner  or  later  Philo 
sophy  ventures,  the  theory  that  the  world  was  created  by  God  and 
then  left  to  itself,  and  that  it  now  pursues  its  course  simply  accord 
ing  to  the  unchangeable  laws  originally  impressed  upon  it.  I  will 
not  urge  the  objection  that  this  view  provides  only  a  limited  satis 
faction  to  our  feelings  ;  in  its  scientific  aspect  it  is  unintelligible  to 
me.  I  do  not  understand  what  is  meant*  by  the  picture  of  God 
withdrawing  from  the  world  that  He  has  created,  and  leaving  it  to 
follow  its  own  course.  That  is  intelligible  in  a  human  artificer, 
who  leaves  his  work  when  it  is  finished  and  trusts  for  its  maintenance 
to  Universal  Laws  of  Nature,  laws  which  he  did  not  make  himself, 
and  which  not  he,  but  another  for  him,  maintains  in  operation.  But 
in  the  case  of  God  I  cannot  conceive  what  this  cunningly-contrived 
creation  of  a  self-sustaining  order  of  Nature  could  be  ;  nor  do  I  see 
what  distinction  there  can  be  between  this  view  and  the  view  that  God 
at  each  moment  wills  the  same  order,  and  preserves  it  by  this  very 
identity  of  will.  The  immanence  of  God  in  the  course  of  Nature 
could  not,  therefore,  be  escaped  from  by  this  theory;  if  Nature 


CHAPTER  viii.]          Stcihl 's  theory  of  the  soul.  401 

follows  mechanical  laws,  it  is  the  Divine  action  itself,  which,  as  we  are 
accustomed  to  say,  obeys  those  laws,  but  which  really  at  each  moment 
creates  them.  For  they  could  not  have  existed  prior  to  God  as  a 
code  to  which  He  accommodated  Himself;  they  can  only  be  the 
expression  to  us  of  the  mode  in  which  He  works. 

This  unavoidable  conclusion  will  not  be  at  once  nor  willingly 
admitted :  however  much  the  world  may  be  primarily  dependent  on 
God,  the  desire  will  be  felt,  that  it  should  contain  secondary  centres 
of  intelligent  activity  as  well,  not  entirely  determined  in  their  effects 
by  the  mechanical  system  of  things,  but  themselves  supplying  to  that 
system  new  motives  for  developed  activity.  It  was  this  wish  which 
was  expressed  by  Stahl's  theory  of  the  soul,  when  he  spoke  of  it  as 
moulding  the  body  to  its  own  ends.  This  theory  was  in  so  far 
correct  that  it  conceived  of  the  soul  as  a  living  and  real  Being, 
capable  of  acting  and  being  acted  upon  with  effect :  but  it  missed  its 
mark,  because  the  formation  of  the  body,  in  its  most  essential  and 
irreversible  features,  is  concluded  at  a  time  when  the  soul  may 
perhaps  have  some  dream  of  its  future  aim,  but  certainly  cannot  as 
yet  have  knowledge  enough  of  the  external  world  to  be  able  to  adapt 
the  body  to  the  conditions  which  life  in  that  world  imposes.  Thus 
the  advantages  which  the  soul  might  seem  to  derive  from  its 
consciousness  and  power  of  taking  thought  for  the  proper  develop 
ment  of  the  organism,  are  all  lost ;  and  the  only  power  of  adaptation 
which  it  remains  to  ascribe  to  it  is  an  unconscious  one.  Though  this 
conception  is  very  frequently  misapplied,  it  does  not  seem  impossible 
to  attach  to  it  a  definite  meaning.  All  along,  we  have  considered 
things  as  distinguished  from  each  other  by  manifold  differences :  and 
although  we  cannot  fully  realise  to  ourselves  what  constitutes  the 
essential  character  of  any  single  thing,  there  is  nothing  to  prevent  us 
from  assuming  a  certain  difference  of  rank  between  them,  such  that 
when  two  things  were  subjected  to  the  same  external  conditions, 
the  one  would  manifest  its  nature  in  simple  and  uniform  reactions, 
the  other  in  complex  and  multiform  ones  ;  and  these  latter  reactions 
might  be  such  that  each  gave  rise  to  some  entirely  new  capacity  in 
the  thing,  or  that  they  all  united  to  form  a  single  development  directed 
to  a  definite  end.  In  that  case,  we  shall  possess  in  the  soul  a  real 
principle  at  once  active  in  the  pursuit  of  ends  and  yet  unconscious, 
such  as  would  not  be  at  variance  with  mechanical  laws ;  for  none  of 
the  possibilities  that  lie  latent  in  the  soul  would  be  realised,  except  • 
through  stimuli  acting  upon  it  according  to  fixed  laws,  and  eliciting 
its  development  step  by  step. 

VOL.  i.  D  d 


4O2  The  forms  of  the  Course  of  Nature.      [BOOK  n. 

Clearly,  however,  in  this  case,  the  soul  will  no  longer  imply  any 
thing  peculiar  or  characteristic ;  once  get  rid  of  consciousness,  and 
it  becomes  a  mere  element  of  reality  like  other  elements;  and  that 
superiority  of  nature,  which  made  it  so  pregnant  a  centre  of  manifold 
forms  of  life,  might  equally  well  be  ascribed  to  any  other  element 
(making  allowance  for  differences  of  degree)  even  though  it  possessed 
none  of  the  characteristic  properties  of  the  soul.  The  question  as  to 
the  true  origin  of  the  soul,  leads  to  the  same  conclusion.  If  it  is 
conceived  as  eternally  pre-existent  and  prior  to  the  Body,  it  must  still 
be  confined  within  the  limits  of  the  course  of  Nature  ;  what  then  is  it, 
and  where  ?  For  to  suppose  that  it  suddenly  becomes  a  part  of 
Nature  without  having  previously  been  so,  is  virtually  to  assign  it 
an  origin.  If  then  it  is  always  a  part  of  Nature,  we  cannot  help  re 
garding  it  as  one  among  other  natural  elements ;  and  as  there  is  no 
reason  for  supposing  the  other  elements  inferior,  we  must  ascribe  to 
them  too,  and  in  a  word  to  all  elements  whatever,  the  same  inner 
capacity  for  organic  development.  And  here  it  seems  as  if  we  were 
once  again  brought  back  to  the  unfruitful  idea  of  a  common  material 
basis  of  life.  For  the  manifold  forms  which  these  elements  assume, 
would  depend  on  the  different  modes  in  which  they  were  combined  by 
the  course  of  Nature ;  hence,  the  form  which  is  actually  realised  at  any 
given  moment,  must  be  either  the  result  of  mere  mechanical  agencies 
— though  these  may  be  of  a  higher  type  than  any  with  which  we  are 
familiar  in  Physico-Chemical  processes — or  else,  supposing  that  traces 
of  an  independent  activity  still  remain,  the  soul,  which  concentrates 
the  different  active  elements  upon  this  particular  development,  must 
come  into  existence  afresh  at  the  moment  that  they  unite ;  and  the 
question  then  arises,  Whence  does  it  come  ? 

231.  This  difficulty  of  finding  a  real  subject,  capable  of  formative 
activity  for  an  end,  has  led  to  attempts  to  dispense  with  a  subject 
altogether ;  it  was  thought  that  the  generic  Idea  or  Type  would  be 
sufficient  to  account  for  such  activity.  Aristotle  set  the  example  with 
the  unfortunate  but  often  repeated  remark,  that  in  living  things  the 
whole  precedes  the  parts,  elsewhere,  the  parts  precede  the  whole. 
This  saying,  no  doubt,  gives  utterance  to  the  mysterious  impression 
which  organic  life  produces;  unluckily,  it  has  been  regarded  as  a 
solution  of  the  mystery.  And  yet  what  truth  can  be  more  simple 
than  this,  that  Ideas  are  never  anything  else  but  Thoughts,  in  which 
the  thinker  gathers  up  the  peculiar  nature  of  an  already  existing 
phenomenon  ;  or  of  one  which  he  knows  will  necessarily  exist  in  the 
future  as  soon  as  the  data  exist  which  are  required  to  produce  it  ?  It 
may  be  allowed  that  Reality  is  so  constituted,  that  from  our  point  of 


CHAPTER  vino     Von  Daer  on  Purpose  in  Nature.  403 

view  it  is  always  exhibited  in  subordination  to  certain  Ideas,  general 
notions,  or  Types ;  and  we  may  accordingly  go  on  to  say  that  these 
Ideas  hold  good  in  reality  and  dominate  it ;  but  their  dominion  is 
only  like  that  of  all  legislative  authorities,  whose  commands  would 
remain  unobserved  if  there  were  no  executive  organs  to  carry  them 
out.  Never,  therefore,  in  Organic  Life  is  the  whole  before  the  parts, 
in  the  sense  that  it  is  before  all  parts  ;  it  only  has  existence  in  so  far 
as  an  already  formed  combination  of  parts  guarantees  that  existence 
in  the  future  as  a  necessary  result  of  the  germ  here  present,  and  not 
of  the  germ  only,  but  also  of  favourable  external  circumstances  acting 
upon  it.  Anyone  who  is  not  satisfied  with  this  development  of  the 
whole  from  the  parts,  and  desires  to  reverse  the  relation,  will  be 
required  to  show  who  the  representative  of  the  generic  Idea  is,  who 
stands  outside  the  parts  and  gives  to  the  Idea,  which  in  itself  is  merely 
potential,  a  real  power  in  the  real  world.  It  must  be  shown  where 
these  Ideas  reside,  before  they  initiate  a  development,  and  how  they 
find  their  way  thence  to  the  place  where  they  are  attracted  to  an 
exercise  of  their  power. 

Quite  recently,  an  attempt  of  a  different  kind  has  been  made  by 
K.  E.  von  Baer.  We  could  have  wished  that  this  deservedly  popular 
investigator  had  succeeded  in  making  out  his  point  to  satisfaction  ;  I 
cannot,  however,  persuade  myself  that  his  proposal  to  conceive  of 
Nature  as  striving  towards  an  end,  really  carries  us  any  farther.  If 
all  that  it  means  is,  that  the  different  forces,  which  are  active  in  the 
construction  of  organisms,  converge  in  different  directions  towards  a 
common  result,  this  fact  has  never  been  doubted ;  nor,  considered 
merely  as  fact,  is  it  the  subject  of  the  present  controversy.  The 
question  at  issue  is  rather  this ;  is  the  cause  which  determines  this 
combined  action  to  be  found  merely  in  the  course  of  things  after  they 
have  once  been  set  in  motion?  i.e.  does  the  convergence  occur  when 
there  is  this  motion  to  produce  it,  and  not  occur  when  there  is  no 
such  motion  ?  or  is  there  anywhere  a  power  not  subject  to  this  con 
straint  of  antecedent  conditions,  which,  on  its  way  to  the  attainment 
of  an  end,  brings  together  things  which  but  for  it  would  exist  apart  ? 
Naturally,  it  is  this  latter  view  which  is  preferred  here.  Yet  it  is  not 
clear,  how  this  supposed  tendency  to  an  end  would  differ  from  that 
which  might  be  ascribed,  e.g.  to  falling  stones,  which,  while  converg 
ing  from  all  quarters  of  the  globe  towards  its  centre,  move  merely  in 
obedience  to  a  universal  law.  It  is  the  presence  of  purpose  alone 
which  could  constitute  that  difference,  converting  the  mere  end  of  a 
process  into  an  aim,  and  motion  to  that  end  into  an  impulse.  Such 

D  d  2 


404  The  forms  of  the  Course  of  Nature.       t  BOOK  n. 

a  purpose  Baer's  theory  accepts,  and  yet  by  banishing  consciousness, 
which  is  presupposed  by  it,  at  the  same  time  rejects.  Finally,  to 
whom  is  this  tendency  in  the  direction  of  an  end  to  be  ascribed  ?  It 
would  not  suit  the  character  of  the  individual  elements,  which,  varying 
as  they  do  in  capability,  tending  now  to  one  end,  now  to  another, 
need  some  power  outside  themselves  to  inform  them  upon  what  point 
they  have  to  converge  in  any  given  case  ;  and  it  is,  in  fact,  from  Nature 
that  such  a  tendency  is  supposed  to  proceed.  But,  where  is  this 
Nature  ?  It  is  allowable  in  ordinary  discourse,  no  doubt,  to  use  this 
term  in  such  a  merely  general  sense ;  but  in  the  particular  cases  in 
which  the  designation  of  Nature  as  an  efficient  cause  is  intended  to 
decide  in  its  favour  the  choice  between  it  and  other  agents,  there 
should  be  some  more  accurate  determination  of  the  conception  of  it, 
as  well  as  of  the  metaphysical  relation  in  which,  as  a  whole,  it  stands 
to  its  subordinate  parts.  We  propose  now  to  supplement  the  theory 
in  this  point,  and  thus  to  bring  our  investigations  to  a  close. 

232.  The  grounds  which  have  led  me  to  my  final  conclusion  have 
been  expounded  at  such  length  throughout  my  entire  work,  that  what 
I  shall  now  add  with  regard  to  this  much  debated  question  will  be 
only  a  short  corollary.  Men  have  created  for  themselves  a  false  gulf, 
which  it  has  then  seemed  impossible  to  bridge  over.  It  is  not  with 
any  special  reference  to  the  opposition  which  has  to  be  reconciled 
between  living  Beings  and  inanimate  Matter,  but  on  much  farther- 
reaching  and  more  general  grounds  that  I  have  all  along  maintained 
the  inconceivableness  of  a  world,  in  which  a  multitude  of  independent 
elements  are  supposed  to  have  been  brought  together  subsequently 
to  their  origin,  and  forced  into  common  action  by  Universal  Laws. 
The  very  fact  that  laws  could  hold  good  in  the  same  way  of  different 
elements,  showed  that  the  elements  could  not  be  what  they  pleased. 
Though  not  directly  homogeneous,  they  must  be  members  in  a  system, 
within  which  measurable  advances  in  different  directions  lead  from 
one  member  to  another ;  on  this  condition  only  could  they  and  their 
states  be  subsumed  under  the  general  Laws,  as  instances  of  their 
application.  But  the  validity  of  general  Laws,  so  established,  was 
not  enough  to  explain  the  possibility  of  their  application  in  particular 
cases  ;  in  order  that  they  should  necessitate  one  event  at  one  time 
and  place,  another  at  another,  the  changing  state  of  the  world  as  a 
whole  had  to  be  reflected  at  each  moment  in  those  elements,  which 
are  working  together  for  a  common  result.  It  would  be  idle,  however, 
to  suppose  that  the  elements,  being  originally  separate,  required  the 
mediation  of  some  '  transeunt '  agency  which  should  convey  to  them 


CHAPTER  viii.]    All  effects  depend  on  Unity  of  World.      405 

the  general  condition  of  the  world  and  stimulate  them  to  further 
activity :  rather,  what  is  experienced  by  one  element  must  become 
immediately  a  new  state  of  another.  Hence  we  saw  that  every  action 
that  takes  place  necessarily  presupposes  a  permanent  and  universal 
relation  of  sympathy  between  things,  which  binds  them  together  in 
constant  union,  and  which  itself  is  only  conceivable  on  the  supposition, 
that  what  seems  to  us  at  first  a  number  of  independent  centres  of 
energy,  is,  in  essence,  one  throughout.  It  is  not,  therefore,  to  bring 
about  any  specially  privileged  and  exalted  result,  that  the  assistance  of 
the  infinite  Being  M,  which  we  have  represented  as  the  ground  of  all 
existence,  is  required;  every  effect  produced  by  one  element  on  another, 
even  the  most  insignificant,  is  due  to  the  indwelling  vitality  of  this 
One  Being,  and  equally  requires  its  constant  co-operation.  If  there  is  a 
class  of  processes  in  Nature,  which,  under  the  name  of  mechanical, 
we  contrast  as  blind  and  purposeless  with  others  in  which  the  forma 
tive  activity  of  the  One  Being  seems  to  stand  out  clearly,  the  contrast 
is  certainly  not  based  on  the  fact  that  effects  of  the  former  kind  are 
left  to  be  governed  by  a  peculiar  principle  of  their  own,  whilst  only 
in  the  latter  does  the  one  universal  cause  attempt  after  some  incom 
prehensible  fashion  to  subdue  this  alien  force.  In  both  cases  alike 
the  effects  proceed  solely  from  the  eternal  One  itself;  and  the  dif 
ference  lies  in  what  it  enjoined  in  each  case,  in  the  one  case,  the 
invariable  connexion  of  actions  according  to  universal  laws  which 
constitute  the  basis  of  all  particular  conditions,  in  the  other,  their 
development  into  the  variety  of  those  particulars.  But,  instead  of 
repeating  this  line  of  thought  in  its  generality,  I  shall  endeavour  to 
show  how  it  applies  to  the  special  question  now  before  us. 

233.  The  germ  of  an  organic  growth  is  not  developed  in  empty 
Space,  in  other  words,  not  in  a  world  of  its  own  which  has  no  con 
nexion  with  the  whole  of  Things.  Wherever  the  plastic  materials  are 
present,  there  the  absolute  One  is  likewise  present ;  not  as  an  idea 
that  may  be  conceived,  not  as  an  inoperative  class-type,  not  as  a 
command  passing  between  the  elements  of  a  group,  or  a  wish  without 
them,  or  an  ideal  above  them ;  but  as  a  real  and  potent  essence 
present  in  the  innermost  life  of  each  element.  Nor  is  it,  like  divisible 
Matter,  distributed  among  them  in  different  proportions.  It  manifests 
itself  in  each  one  in  its  totality,  as  the  unity  that  embraces  and 
determines  them  all,  and  in  virtue  of  the  consistent  coherence  of  its 
entire  plan,  assigns  to  each  of  these  dependent  elements  those 
activities  which  ensure  the  convergence  of  their  operation  to  a  definite 
end.  But  the  Absolute  is  no  magician ;  it  does  not  produce  Things 


406  The  forms  of  the  Course  of  Nature. 

in  appropriate  places  out  of  a  sheer  vacuum,  merely  because  they 
correspond  to  the  import  of  its  plan.  All  particular  cases  of  its 
operation  are  based  on  a  system  of  management  according  to  law, 
adapted  to  its  operation  as  a  whole.  But  I  must  repeat :  it  is  not 
here  as  it  is  with  man,  who  cannot  do  otherwise ;  rather  this  con 
formity  with  general  principles  is  itself  a  part  of  what  is  designed  to 
exist.  Hence  it  is,  that  each  stage  in  the  development  of  organic 
Life  seems  to  arise  step  by  step  out  of  the  reactions  which  are  made 
necessary  for  the  combined  elements  by  their  persistent  nature ;  nor, 
is  there  anywhere  an  exception  to  the  dependence  of  Life  on 
mechanical  causes. 

At  the  same  time,  we  are  never  justified  in  speaking  of  a  merely 
mechanical  development- of  Life,  as  if  there  were  nothing  behind  it. 
There  is  something  behind,  viz.  the  combining  movement  of  the 
absolute,  the  true  activity  that  assumes  this  phenomenal  form.  We 
may  even  admit  that  it  apparently  breaks  through  the  limits  ordinarily 
assigned  to  mechanical  action.  I  have  before  mentioned,  and  I  now 
repeat,  that  the  principle  of  mutual  indifference,  which  Mechanics  has 
laid  down  in  respect  to  forces  working  concurrently,  is,  if  strictly  taken, 
by  no  means  justified  as  a  universal  law.  It  should  rather  be  laid 
down  as  true  universally  that  an  element  a  when  it  is  acted  upon  by 
the  determining  circumstance  />,  has,  by  this  very  fact,  become  some 
thing  different,  an  a  which  =  ap,  and  that  a  new  force  q  will  not  exer 
cise  the  same  kind  of  effect  on  this  modified  element,  which  it  would 
have  exerted  on  it  if  unmodified ;  that  the  final  result,  therefore,  will 
not  be  a™,  or  a(p+q)  but,  ar.  But  this  r  could  never  be  obtained  ana 
lytically  out  of  any  mere  logical  or  mathematical  combination  of  p  and 
q\  it  would  be  a  synthetic  accession  to  those  two  conditions,  and  thus 
not  deducible  except  from  the  import  of  the  entire  course  of  things. 
This  is  expressed,  according  to  ordinary  views,  thus— the  combina 
tion  of  several  elements  in  a  simultaneous  action  may  be  followed  by 
effects,  which  are  not  mere  consequences  of  the  single  effects  produced 
by  the  reactions  between  every  pair  of  them.  That  which  we  now 
wrongly  regard  as  the  universal  and  obvious  rule,  viz.  that  effects 
should  be  summed  up  in  a  collective  result  without  reciprocally  influ 
encing  each  other,  would  be  only  one  special  case  of  the  general 
characteristic  just  mentioned.  I  shall  not  now  enquire  whether  and 
in  what  direction  Biological  science  will  find  itself  compelled  to 
recognise  the  possibility  of  this  modification  of  effects;  we  must, 
however,  leave  a  place  for  it  in  our  own  theory.  Its  admission  would 
not  in  any  way  invalidate  our  conception  of  the  mechanical  order. 


CHAPTER  viii.i          Limits  of  Free  Initiation.  407 

but  only  extend  it  further.  For  it  would  be  our  first  position  even  with 
regard  to  these  new  grounds  of  determination,  which  intrude  upon 
the  course  of  events,  that  neither  did  they  arise  without  a  reason,  but 
according  to  rules,  though  rules  which  are  more  difficult  for  our 
apprehension  to  grasp.  But  at  the  same  time  we  should  escape  from 
regarding  Life  as  a  mere  after-effect  of  a  Power,  which  having  formed 
the  mechanism,  had  left  it  to  run  its  course.  The  Power  would 
rather  continue  to  manifest  its  living  presence  and  constant  activity, 
as  operative  in  the  phenomena  of  Life. 

What  direction  our  thoughts  might  have  to  take  beyond  this  point, 
I  am  not  now  called  on  to  decide.  There  is  nothing  more  to  be 
added,  which  could  be  urged  with  absolute  certainty  of  conviction 
against  those  who  regard  the  whole  sum  of  the  effects  produced  by 
this  ultimate  agency,  not  less  than  the  inner  activities  whence  they 
proceed,  as  still  but  mere  facts  of  Nature,  a  tendency  which  the  course 
of  things  has  followed  from  all  eternity;  but  which  includes  no 
element  resembling  what  we  understand  by  intention,  choice,  or  con 
sciousness  of  a  purpose.  Our  view,  it  must  be  admitted,  is  no  such 
very  great  advance  upon  the  mechanical  explanation  of  Nature,  from 
which  a  refuge  was  sought.  The  development  of  the  world 
would  on  it  be  no  less  a  necessary  concatenation  of  cause  and 
effect;  excluding  all  free  initiation  of  new  occurrences.  Only  the 
most  extreme  externalism  would  be  avoided.  The  mechanism 
would  not  consist,  at  starting,  of  an  unalterably  fixed  complement  of 
forces,  which  would  only  suffice  to  effect  changes  of  the  position 
of  existing  elements.  The  mechanism  would  itself  produce  at 
certain  definite  points  those  new  agencies  which  would  be  the 
proximate  principles  governing  organized  groups  of  connected  phe 
nomena.  For  my  own  part,  I  cherish  no  antipathy  to  the  opposite 
view,  which  insists  that  this  whole  world  of  forces,  silently  arrayed 
against  each  other,  is  animated  by  the  inner  life  of  all  its  elements  and 
by  a  consciousness  which  is  that  of  an  all-embracing  spirit.  I  shall 
not  even  shrink  from  attempting,  in  the  proper  place,  to  show  that 
there  is  a  real  Freedom  which  can  give  rise  to  truly  new  departures, 
such  as  even  this  latter  belief  does  not  necessarily  involve.  But  such 
a  demonstration  would  transcend  the  limits  of  Metaphysic.  It  would 
lead  us  to  consider  a  mysterious  problem,  which  our  discussions 
down  to  this  point  have  bordered  upon.  I  have  already  expressed 
the  opinion  that  we  must  not  merely  credit  things  with  a  persistent 
impulse  to  self-preservation;  but  are  justified  in  assuming  (as  an 
hypothesis,  and  in  order  to  explain  the  phenomena)  an  impulse  to 


408  The  forms  of  the  Course  of  Nature. 

the  improvement  of  their  state.  Now,  if  this  hypothesis  is  conceivable 
in  regard  to  the  individual  elements,  it  becomes  almost  necessary 
when  we  no  longer  speak  of  them  as  individuals,  but  conceive  of  them, 
both  in  their  nature  and  in  their  actions,  as  manifestations  of  a  single 
and  all-embracing  supreme  cause  whose  mandates  they  execute.  I 
should  at  the  same  time  most  unquestionably  admit  that  this  assumed 
tendency  towards  improvement,  though  it  may  be  the  ultimate  ratio 
legis  from  which  all  special  laws  of  action  of  things  are  derived,  could 
never  furnish  us  (since  we  cannot  define  this  '  improvement ')  with 
anything  more  than  the  final  light  and  colour  of  our  view  of  the 
world;  it  could  never  serve  as  a  principle  from  which  those  laws 
could  be  deduced.  But  here,  the  same  question  which  we  asked  con 
cerning  the  vital  energy,  suggests  itself  once  more — If  this  endeavour 
after  improvement  is  a  fact,  why  does  it  not  everywhere  achieve  its 
end  ?  Whence  come  all  the  hurts  and  hindrances  by  which  the  course 
of  Nature,  as  it  is,  so  often  prevents  from  being  fully  satisfied  the  im 
pulses  which  it  nevertheless  excites  ?  The  conflict  of  forces  in  Nature, 
like  the  existence  of  evil  in  the  moral  world,  is  an  enigma,  the  solution 
of  which  would  require  perfect  knowledge  of  the  ultimate  plan  of  the 
world.  Metaphysic  does  not  pretend  to  know  what  this  plan  is  ;  nor 
does  she  even  assert  that  it  is  a  plan  that  rules  the  course  of  events  ; 
for  this  would  be  inseparable  from  the  idea  of  the  purpose  of  a  con 
scious  being.  But,  if  it  limits  itself  to  the  belief,  that  existence  has 
its  cause  in  a  single  real  principle,  whatever  its  concrete  nature  may 
be,  no  considerations  concerning  these  ultimate  enigmas  can  affect 
the  certainty  of  such  conclusions.  For,  I  wish  here  most  distinctly  to 
assert,  that  though  I  am  old-fashioned  enough  not  to  be  indifferent  to 
the  religious  interests  which  are  involved  in  these  problems,  the  views 
for  which  I  have  been  contending  rest  on  a  purely  scientific  basis, 
quite  without  reference  to  Religion.  No  course  of  things,  whether 
harmonious  or  discordant,  seems  to  me  conceivable,  except  on  the 
supposition  of  this  unity,  which  alone  makes  possible  the  reciprocal 
action  of  individual  existences.  The  disturbing  effects  which  things 
exercise  upon  each  other  witness  to  this  unity,  not  less  clearly  than 
the  joint  action  of  forces  with  a  view  to  a  common  end. 

234.  Similarly,  the  limits  within  which  metaphysical  enquiry  is  con 
fined  compel  us  to  exclude  from  its  sphere  the  much  debated  question 
as  to  whether  the  conception  of  a  kind  has  really  that  objective  validity 
in  the  organic  world  which  we  ordinarily  ascribe  to  it.  It  will  not  be 
supposed  that  we  are  going  to  fall  back  into  thinking  that  the  type  of 
a  kind  is  a  real  self-subsistent  principle,  which  makes  its  influence  felt 


CHAPTER  viii.]  Natural  Kinds.  409 

in  the  world  by  its  own  inherent  force.  The  only  question  is — does 
the  disposition  of  things  as  a  whole  require  that  the  forms  of  combina 
tion  which  the  forces  active  throughout  the  world  assume  in  the  pro 
duction  of  Beings  capable  of  existence  and  growth,  should  be  limited 
to  a  certain  fixed  number  ?  or,  on  the  other  hand,  may  there  not  be 
innumerable  forms  intermediate  between  these  types,  and  partaking 
in  different  degrees  of  their  permanence  and  power  of  self-preservation, 
while  the  types  only  represent  points  of  maximum  stability?  We  must 
leave  this  question  to  be  decided  by  the  sober  evidence  of  Natural 
History.  Philosophy  will  do  well  to  regard  every  attempt  at  an 
a  priori  solution  of  it  as  a  baseless  assumption.  The  bias  of  our 
minds  in  this  case  is  determined  by  our  own  preconceived  unverifiable 
opinions  regarding  the  course  of  the  world  as  a  whole.  Suppose, 
however,  we  assume  that  not  merely  self-conservation,  but  also 
Progress  is  a  characteristic  of  the  world  as  a  whole,  yet,  even  then, 
it  would  be  conceivable  that  in  the  age  of  the  world's  history  in  which 
we  now  live,  and  of  which  we  cannot  see  the  limits,  the  forms  of  Life 
established  by  Nature  might  be  incapable  of  addition,  just  as  the 
quantities  of  those  permanent  elements  which  Nature  uses  in  order 
to  construct  her  products,  are  incapable  of  addition.  According  to  this 
view,  any  forms  in  which  things  combined,  owing  to  the  influence  of 
circumstances  other  than  the  forms  determined  by  Nature,  would 
have  only  a  passing  reality,  and  would  be  subsequently  dissolved  owing 
to  the  influence  of  the  same  circumstances  which  had  produced  them. 
On  the  other  hand,  nothing  hinders  us  from  introducing  the  alleged 
development  within  the  limits  of  the  epoch  which  we  can  observe,  and 
regarding  it  as  possible  that  new  forms  may  come  into  Being  and  old 
forms  pass  away,  and  that  what  went  before  may  gradually  be  trans 
formed  into  what  follows.  The  present  aspect  of  the  discussion  on 
this  subject  forms  part  of  a  larger  and  more  general  question,  the 
question,  as  to  whether  the  world  is  finite  or  infinite. 

235.  It  is  needless  to  discuss  at  length  the  question  as  to  whether 
the  succession  of  events  in  time  is  finite  or  infinite.  We  cannot 
represent  to  ourselves  in  thought,  either  the  origin  of  reality  out  of 
nothing,  or  its  disappearance  into  nothing,  and  no  one  has  ever 
attempted  to  take  up  this  position  without  assuming,  as  existent  in 
the  Nothing,  an  originating  principle  or  agency,  and  ascribing  to  it 
previous  to  its  creative  act  a  fixed  existence  of  its  own  which  has  had 
no  beginning  in  Time.  Hence,  whatever  difficulties  may  be  involved 
in  the  attempt  to  conceive  of  the  course  of  events  in  Time  as  without 
beginning  or  end,  the  idea  itself  is  inevitable.  Nor  need  we  occupy 


4 1  o  The  forms  of  the  Course  of  Nature.       t  BOOK  n. 

ourselves  at  any  greater  length  with  the  question  as  to  the  limits  of 
the  world  in  Space.  If  Space  is  to  pass  for  a  real  existence,  the  only 
difficulty  is  in  the  infinity  of  Space  itself,  which  in  that  case  is  the 
infinity  of  something  real.  I  leave  this  assumption,  therefore,  to  be 
dealt  with  by  those  who  are  interested  in  maintaining  it.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  does  not  at  all  follow,  even  if  Space  is  infinite,  that  the 
world  need  occupy  the  whole  of  it,  as  long  as  the  content  of  that 
world  admits  of  the  predicate  '  finite.'  It  would  be  quite  sufficient  to 
say  with  Herbart  that  Space  sets  no  limits  or  conditions  to  the  world, 
but  that  it  occupies  just  so  much  room  in  Space  as  it  requires  for  its 
movements,  and  that  thus  its  boundaries  are  perpetually  shifting.  My 
own  view  of  the  matter  is  almost  to  the  same  effect.  Every  change 
in  the  true  reactions  of  real  elements  must  find  room  within  the 
infinity  of  our  Space-perception  for  its  phenomenal  manifestation  as 
shape,  position,  and  motion.  But  there  is  nothing  to  compel  the  real 
existences  to  fill  up  at  every  moment  all  the  empty  places  which  our 
Space-perception  holds  in  readiness  for  impressions  that  may  require 
them. 

The  question  therefore  resolves  itself  into  this,  whether  the  sum  of 
real  existence  in  the  world  is  limited  or  unlimited,  a  question  in 
reference  to  which  we  follow  alternately  two  opposite  impulses.  On 
the  one  hand,  the  idea  of  infinity  gratifies  us  just  because  we  cannot 
exhaust  it  in  thought,  by  enabling  us  to  marvel  at  the  immensity  of 
the  universe,  of  which  we  then  readily  acknowledge  that  we  are  but  a 
part ;  though,  at  the  same  time,  by  making  it  impossible  for  us  to 
comprehend  the  world  as  a  unity  or  whole,  this  infinity  perplexes  us. 
On  the  other  hand,  by  conceiving  of  the  world  as  finite,  we  are  indeed 
enabled  easily  to  grasp  it  as  a  whole ;  but  it  vexes  us  to  think  that  a 
hindrance  to  its  being  greater  than  it  is  should  have  been  imposed 
from  without.  This  last  supposition,  at  any  rate,  is  plainly  absurd. 
The  world  of  reality  is  the  sole  source  from  which,  in  the  minds  that 
form  a  part  of  it,  the  notion  of  these  countless  unrealised  possibilities 
springs.  Hence  arises  the  false  idea  that  the  Real  world  is  limited 
and  conditioned  by  what  it  does  not  produce,  though  it  is  the  Real 
world  alone  that  does  produce  this  empty  imagination  in  our  minds. 
And  this  misconception  has  then  absolutely  no  limits.  What  would 
be  the  use  of  assuming  an  infinity  of  real  elements,  if  each  one  of 
them  was  finite  ?  Surely  it  would  be  still  better  that  each  element 
should  be  infinite.  Yet  even  then  we  should  still  have  only  an 
infinite  number  of  infinite  elements.  Why  not,  in  order  to  get  rid 
of  all  limitation,  assume  the  existence  of  an  infinite  number  of 


CHAPTER  viii.]     Isthc  Wor 'Id  finite  or  infinite  ?  411 

worlds,  both  of  infinite  magnitude  themselves,  and  composed  of 
elements  whose  magnitude  was  infinite  ?  There  is  therefore  prima 
facie  no  objection  to  the  finite  character  of  real  existence — whereas, 
the  character  of  infinity  is  opposed  by  Physics,  not  merely  as  inex 
haustible  by  thought,  but  also  as  involving  certain  special  mechanical 
difficulties.  The  unlimited  distribution  of  matter  would  make  im 
possible  a  common  centre  of  gravity.  No  one  point  would  have  any 
better  claim  to  be  regarded  as  such  than  the  rest.  But  what  is  our 
motive  in  looking  for  a  centre  of  gravity?  and  what  exactly  do  we 
mean  by  it  ?  The  supposition  could  not  be  entertained,  unless  it  were 
regarded  as  self-evident  that  the  same  laws  of  reciprocal  action  which 
obtain  between  the  particles  of  matter  in  our  planet,  and  which  we 
call  Laws  of  Gravitation,  obtain  also  throughout  the  whole  range  of 
existence.  I  well  know  how  little  precedent  there  is  for  doubting  this 
fact.  It  is,  indeed,  ordinarily  taken  for  granted  without  the  slightest 
misgiving.  And  yet,  in  the  absence  of  positive  proof  derived  from 
observation,  it  can  only  be  a  bold  argument  from  analogy.  It  seems 
to  me  by  no  means  a  self-evident  faqt,  that  all  the  real  elements  which 
are  contained  in  the  infinity  of  space,  including  even  those  which  are 
stationed  at  the  furthest  points,  are  held  together  according  to  a 
single  law  by  the  uniting  force  of  gravity,  just  as  if  they  were  mere 
samples  of  the  mass  to  which  it  applies,  and  without  individuality  of 
their  own.  The  Law  of  Gravitation  is  only  known  to  apply  to  the 
bodies  of  our  own  planetary  system.  Besides  this,  there  is  only  the 
conjecture,  which  may  be  a  true  one,  that  certain  of  the  binary  stars 
are  kept  in  their  courses  by  a  similar  mutual  attraction,  the  law  of 
which  we  do  not  as  yet  know.  But  that  the  same  influence  by  which 
one  system  of  material  elements  is  made  to  cohere,  extends  as  a 
matter  of  course  to  every  other  coherent  system  in  the  Universe  of 
Space ;  this  is  by  no  means  such  an  established  and  irrefutable  truth 
as  is,  e.  g.  the  uniform  diffusion  of  the  undulations  of  light  through 
all  Space. 

For  a  reason  which  has  already  been  several  times  touched  upon,  I 
am  forced  to  proceed  at  this  point  by  a  different  path  from  that  which 
is  ordinarily  followed  in  the  physical  Sciences.  If  I  really  thought 
that  the  number  of  the  real  elements,  or  of  the  systems  which  are 
formed  from  such  elements,  was  infinite,  then,  though  I  should 
certainly  not  regard  them  as  having  no  connexion  with  each  other,  I 
should  just  as  certainly  not  imagine  that  the  relation  subsisting 
between  them  was  so  monotonously  uniform  that  they  should  be 
treated  as  mere  samples  of  homogeneous  mass  endowed  everywhere 


412  The  forms  of  the  Course  of  Nature.      i  BOOK  n. 

with  the  same  force,  so  as  to  raise  the  question  of  their  common 
centre  of  gravity.     In  each  of  these  several  systems  the  inner  relation 
of.  the  parts  might  be  essentially  peculiar,  depending  on  the  plan 
which  governed  its  structure.     Similarly,  the  several  systems  might 
be  united  by  different  kinds  of  relations  into  the  one  universal  plan. 
Not  that,  in  insisting  on  this  point,  I  have  any  wish  to  maintain  that 
Real  existence  is  infinite,  any  more  than  I  wish  to  maintain  that  it  is 
finite.     I  have  no  sympathy  with  the  point  of  view  from  which  this 
question  thus  conceived  seems  to  be  one  of  real  importance.     I  have 
more  than  once  expressed  my  conviction  that  everything  is  subject  to 
mechanical  Laws  ;  but  I  have  at  the  same  time  asserted  the  essentially 
subordinate  character  of  these  Laws,  when  considered  with  reference 
to  the  Universe  as  a  whole.     I  do  not  know  if  my  expressions  have 
been  understood  in  the  sense  in  which  they  were  intended.    Certainly 
they  were  not  meant  to  imply  that  previous  to  the  creation  of  the 
world  there  existed  a  fixed  sum  of  real  elements,  along  with  a  code  of 
absolute  mechanical  Laws,  and  that  an  organizing  power  then  entered 
on  the  scene,  and  had  to  make  the  best  of  these  resources.     I  have 
throughout  taken  as  my  starting-point  the  living  nature  of  the  real 
existence,  that  unity  whose  essence  can  only  be  expressed,  if  we  are 
to  attempt  to  realise  it  to  our  intelligence,  as  the  import  of  a  thought. 
Out  of  this  import  there  arose  (what  was  not  prior  to  it)  the  funda 
mental  system  of  most  general  laws,  as  a  condition  which  Reality 
imposes  on  itself  and  its  whole  action.     But  just  because  dependent 
on  this  import,  the  system  possessed  a  wealth  of  meaning  and  power 
of  accommodation,  adequate  to  provide  not  merely  for  the  uniformity 
of  processes  which  never  vary,  but  also  for  the  manifold  variety  of 
activities  which  are  required  by  the  animating  idea  of  the  Whole.     I 
should  be  the  last  to  deny  the  necessity  and  value  of  the  other  point 
of  view  which,  as  represented  by  modern  mechanics,  conducts  calcu 
lations  based  on  the  abstract  conceptions  of  Mass  and  its  constancy : 
Force,  and  the  conservation  of  Force,  the  inertia  and  invariability  of 
the  elements.     Not  only  do  we  owe  to  this  method  the  greater  part 
of  our  present  knowledge  of  Nature,  but  we  may  also  safely  assume 
it  as  a  guide  throughout  the  whole  range  of  our  possible  observation. 
At  the  same  time,  I  should  be  the  last  to  ascribe  to  these  notions, 
being  as  they  are  abstractions  out  of  the  fraction  of  the  world's  course 
which  is  accessible  to  us,  that  metaphysical  certainty  which  would  fit 
them  to  serve  as  a  key  to  the  solution  of  questions  which  are  such  as 
to  transcend  all  experience  of  this  kind. 

What  I  have  now  to  say  in  regard  to  the  question  of  infinity  has 


CHAPTER vi 1 1.]       What  units  are  we  to  count?  413 

been  already  indicated  in  several  passages  of  my  work.  If  the  reality 
of  the  world  is  to  be  found  in  a  thought  which  fulfils  itself  in  every 
moment,  the  question  as  to  the  finite  or  infinite  character  of  this 
thought  is  as  meaningless  as  the  question  as  to  whether  a  motion  is 
sweet  or  sour.  As  regards,  however,  the  different  and  ever-changing 
related  points,  by  means  of  which  the  thought  realises  itself,  we  would 
remark,  in  the  first  place,  that  their  number  is  not  absolutely  either 
finite  or  infinite.  It  is  not,  indeed,  a  fixed  quantity  at  all.  It  is,  at 
each  moment,  precisely  what  the  realisation  of  the  thought  demands 
and  its  living  activity  produces.  This  heterodox  assertion  I  have 
already  ventured  on,  thereby  placing  myself  in  opposition  to  the 
dogma  of  the  constancy  of  Mass.  Supposing  we  fancied  that  we 
had  a  standard  in  terms  of  which  the  sum  of  real  existence  at  any 
given  moment  of  its  history  =  m,  it  might  very  well  at  the  next 
moment  be  found  to  =  /u.  In  the  same  way  as  the  world  might 
take  up  just  so  much  space  as  it  should  require  at  any  given 
moment,  so  the  Idea  which  animates  it  would  create  for  itself 
just  so  many  elements  as  are  needed  in  order  to  accomplish  its 
development.  Not  as  if  there  had  been  some  material  substance 
present  from  all  eternity,  which  was  afterwards  merely  differently 
distributed  according  as  the  Idea  might  require,  nor  yet  as  if  the  Idea 
created  new  elements  out  of  nothing.  These  new  creations  would 
spring  from  the  Idea  itself,  which  is  the  cause  of  all  things.  Enough, 
however,  has  been  said  on  this  point.  It  would  be  hopeless  to 
attempt  to  bring  these  thoughts  home  to  anyone  who  was  convinced 
that  a  fixed  quantity  of  matter  had  been  ordained  to  exist  from  all 
eternity.  Whether,  at  any  given  moment,  the  number  of  the  real  and 
active  elements  is  unlimited,  or  whether  there  are  certain  fixed  limits 
within  which  the  numbers  vary,  I  confess  myself  unable  to  say.  The 
question  itself  involves  confusion,  until  we  have  fixed  on  the  unit  the 
number  of  whose  recurrences  is  sought.  It  could  have  absolutely  no 
meaning  for  those  who  have  admitted  the  infinite  divisibility  of  matter. 
It  would  be  intelligible  only,  if  it  were  held  to  apply  to  individual  atoms 
or  to  separate  and  distinct  groups  of  elements,  as,  e.  g.  the  number  of 
the  stars.  Here  I  will  only  say  quite  shortly  that  I  am  content  to 
assume  that  the  number  of  material  existences  is  limited,  provided  it 
is  understood  that  this  number  must  suffice  to  enable  them  to  carry 
out  the  behests  of  the  Idea,  and  that  if  this  same  condition  is  fulfilled, 
I  am  equally  content  to  conceive  of  their  number  as  infinite.  In  this 
latter  case,  the  impossibility  of  reckoning  their  number  would  be  due 


41 4  The  forms  of  the  Course  of  Nature.       t  BOOK  n. 

merely  to  a  defect  in  us.     It  would  not  be  a  fault  on  their  side,  or  in 
consistent  with  their  reality. 

236.  The  progress  of  observation  has  led  us  to  the  conviction  that 
the  formation  of  the  earth's  crust  took  place  gradually,  and  that 
organic  life  could  not  have  existed  throughout  the  stages  of  this 
process  in  its  present  state.  This  imposes  on  us  the  necessity  of 
attempting  to  show  how  the  forms  of  life  at  present  existing  were 
developed  out  of  earlier  and  simpler  ones.  In  the  heat  of  the  con 
troversy  on  this  subject,  care  should  have  been  taken  not  to  confuse 
two  questions  which  ought  to  be  separated.  Only  one  of  them 
belongs  to  Metaphysic,  that,  viz.  as  to  the  determining  principles 
which  have  been  active  throughout  the  course  of  this  development. 
I  feel  all  the  less  inducement  to  make  any  addition  to  the  rapidly 
increasing  literature  which  the  discussion  of  this  question  has  called 
forth,  inasmuch  as,  before  this  controversy  had  begun  to  rage,  I  en 
deavoured  to  bring  together  whatever  seemed  to  admit  of  being  said, 
with  any  claim  to  respect,  in  favour  of  explaining  all  cases  of 
adaptation  as  due  to  a  fortuitous  concourse  of  accidents,  a  view  which 
has  a  recognised  place  in  the  History  of  Philosophy.  In  the  second 
chapter  of  the  fourth  book  of  the  Microcosmus,  I  treated  expressly  of 
this  derivation  of  the  Cosmos  from  Chaos,  and  I  cannot  convince 
myself  that  the  more  recent  arguments  from  the  same  point  of  view 
add  anything  of  importance  to  those  well-known  ones  of  former 
times  which  are  there  mentioned.  I  content  myself  with  referring  to 
what  I  then  said  in  regard  to  the  details  of  the  question.  My 
conviction  on  the  matter  as  a  whole  needs  not  again  to  be  stated 
here.  The  controversy  will  become  milder  with  time  ;  at  least  this 
will  be  so,  in  so  far  as  it  is  conducted  in  the  interests  of  Science  and 
not  from  a  feeling  of  invincible  repugnance  to  every  Idea  which  is 
suspected  of  favouring  the  cause  of  Religion.  An  improvement  in 
this  respect  is  already  to  some  extent  visible.  Those  who  pray  too 
much  are  destined,  says  the  proverb,  to  pray  themselves  through 
heaven  and  to  keep  geese  on  the  other  side.  A  better  fate  has 
befallen  those  who,  out  of  a  conscientious  regard  for  the  interests  of 
Science,  have  felt  themselves  compelled  to  derive  Organic  Life  from 
blind  chance  and  purposeless  matter.  They  have  invested  their 
original  principles  with  so  much  reason  and  power  of  internal 
development,  that  nothing  but  the  caprice  of  their  terminology  which 
keeps  to  the  names  of  Matter,  Mechanism,  and  Accident,  for  what  other 
people  call  Spirit,  Life,  and  Providence,  seems  to  prevent  them  from 
relapsing  into  notions  which  they  have  before  strenuously  opposed. 


CHAPTER  viii.]  Development  of  L  ife.  415 

237.  On  the  other  hand,  as  regards  the  second  question  to  be 
distinguished,  that,  viz.  as  to  the  actual  development  of  Organic  Life, 
this  is  purely  a  matter  of  Natural  History.  Philosophy  is  not  con 
cerned  to  dispute  or  to  deny  any  results  of  observation  on  this  subject, 
which  are  based  on  sufficient  evidence.  Not  even  Religion  should 
presume  to  prescribe  to  God  the  course  which  the  world's  develop 
ment  must  have  followed  subsequently  to  its  creation.  However 
strange  the  path  may  have  been,  we  might  be  sure  that  its  strange 
ness  could  not  remove  it  from  His  control.  Considering  that  the 
human  body  requires  to  be  kept  alive  each  day  by  absorbing  into 
itself  nourishment  derived  from  common  natural  substances,  there  can 
be  no  reason  in  claiming  for  it  a  manner  of  origin  so  exceedingly 
distinguished.  And  with  regard  to  the  whole  matter  we  would  say 
that  man  esteems  himself  according  to  what  he  is,  and  not  according 
to  that  whence  he  arose.  It  is  enough  for  us  to  feel  that  we  are  now 
not  apes.  It  is  of  no  consequence  to  us  that  our  remote  and 
unremembered  ancestors  should  have  belonged  to  this  inferior  grade 
of  life.  The  only  painful  conclusion  would  be  that  we  were  destined 
to  turn  into  apes  again,  and  it  was  likely  to  happen  soon.  It  seems 
to  me,  therefore,  that  from  the  point  of  view  of  Philosophy  these 
scientific  movements  may  be  regarded  with  the  most  perfect  in 
difference.  Each  result,  so  soon  as  it  had  ceased  to  be  a  favourite 
conjecture  and  had  been  established  by  convincing  proof,  would  be 
welcomed  as  a  real  addition  to  knowledge.  The  very  remarkable 
facts  of  Natural  History  accumulated  by  the  unwearied  research  of 
Darwin,  might  be  provisionally  welcomed  by  Philosophy  with  the 
warmest  satisfaction,  whilst,  on  the  other  hand,  the  pretentious  and 
mistaken  theories  based  on  those  facts  might  be  not  less  completely 
disregarded.  All  that  Philosophy  herself  can  contribute  towards  the 
solution  of  these  questions  is,  to  warn  us  against  making  unfounded 
assumptions,  which,  whilst  they  are  themselves  to  some  extent  of 
philosophical  origin,  rob  Science  of  its  fairness.  Whatever  may  have 
been  the  state  of  the  earth's  surface,  which  first  occasioned  the 
production  of  organic  life,  it  cannot  but  be  improbable  that  the 
required  conditions  should  only  have  been  present  at  a  single  point ; 
equally  improbable,  considering  the  diversity  of  the  terrestrial  elements 
which  were  subjected  on  the  whole  to  uniform  influences,  that  organic 
germs  of  the  same  kind  only  should  have  been  generated  at  all 
points  ;  and  finally,  it  is  extremely  improbable  that  this  productive 
period  should  have  lasted  only  long  enough  for  the  occurrence  of  an 
instantaneous  creative  act,  instead  of  being  so  protracted  that  the 


4i  6  The  forms  of  the  Coiirse  of  Nature.        [BOOKII. 

conditions,  slowly  altering  while  it  still  lasted,  might  superadd  fresh 
creations  to  the  earlier  ones  instead  of  merely  developing  their  further 
phases.  Nor  is  there  any  difficulty  in  imagining  that  these  various 
organic  beings,  though  produced  at  different  times  and  on  different 
spots  of  the  earth,  would  still  present  numberless  analogies  of  structure. 
The  equation  which  contained  the  conditions  of  the  union  of  elements 
so  as  to  be  capable  of  life  would  restrict  all  possible  solutions  within 
determinate  limits.  Hence,  according  to  what  is  at  any  rate  the 
most  probable  supposition,  Organic  Life  is  derived  from  an  original 
multiplicity  of  simple  types  having  a  capacity  for  development. 

Here  we  break  off.  We  cannot  pursue  further  the  attempts  which 
are  now  being  made  to  arrive  at  an  explanation  of  the  first  beginnings 
and  the  final  destiny  of  things.  Our  knowledge  of  the  present  state 
of  the  globe  and  of  the  forces  that  act  upon  it,  does  enable  us  to 
form  an  idea,  imperfect  indeed,  but  not  contemptible,  with  regard 
to  its  fate  in  the  future ;  and  it  is  of  importance  for  Science  to  con 
sider  to  what  end  the  processes  which  we  now  see  in  operation  would 
lead,  supposing  them  to  continue  unchecked  and  to  follow  the  same 
laws.  From  this  point  of  view,  we  are  able  to  appreciate  those 
ingenious  calculations  which  draw  conclusions  as  to  the  final  state  of 
the  world  from  our  experimental  knowledge  of  the  economy  of  heat. 
They  are,  however,  nothing  more  than  the  indispensable  computations 
which  draw  out  this  portion  of  our  physical  knowledge  into  its  results. 
For  this  purpose  we  are  obliged  to  assume  the  continuance  of  the 
conditions  which  are  operative  at  present.  Whether  this  hypothesis 
will  be  verified,  or,  whether  the  end  towards  which  things  now  seem 
to  point,  will  not  sooner  or  later  be  shown  by  fresh  discoveries  in  a 
new  light,  no  one  can  decide.  At  the  same  time,  however,  the  fate 
which  most  attempts  to  forecast  the  future  by  means  of  statistics  have 
hitherto  met,  has  been  of  the  latter  kind.  Hence,  we  must  be  on  our 
guard  against  crediting  as  a  prophetic  announcement  with  regard  to 
the  future,  conclusions  which  follow,  no  doubt,  necessarily  on  the 
arbitrary  assumption  that  the  given  conditions  are  the  only  ones  to  be 
taken  into  account.  Still  less  do  we  intend  to  busy  ourselves  with 
the  fancies  of  those  who  relate  to  us,  just  as  if  they  had  been  them 
selves  present,  how  things  were  first  produced ;  how,  e.  g.  the 
inorganic  elements  of  the  earth's  crust  found  themselves  united  in  the 
form  of  crystals  capable  of  imbibition,  and  in  systems  endowed  with 
life  and  growth ;  or,  again,  how  the  atmosphere  of  the  primitive 
world  settled  upon  the  earth  in  the  shape  of  protoplasm,  and  there 


CHAPTER viii.]       The  spurious  ' historical  sense'  417 

struck  roots  of  the  most  various  kinds.  This  insatiable  desire  to  get 
beyond  the  general  principles  which  still  admit  of  being  applied  to 
the  investigation  of  these  problems,  and  actually  to  conjecture  those 
special  circumstances  which  are  simply  inaccessible  to  our  knowledge, 
may,  by  way  of  palliation,  be  considered  to  be  characteristic  of  that 
historical  sense  by  which  the  present  age  is  distinguished,  thus  con 
trasting  favourably  with  former  ages,  when,  owing  to  their  speculative 
bias,  men  sought  for  truth  not  in  matters  of  fact  but  in  ideas  that  had 
no  reality  in  Space  and  Time.  Yet  I  do  not  know  in  what  the  worth 
of  history  would  consist,  if  facts  were  in  truth  only  described  as 
having  occurred  in  this  or  that  place,  without  any  attempt  being  made 
to  pass  beyond  the  facts  and  their  succession,  and  to  lay  bare  the 
nerves  which  govern  the  connected  order  of  things  always  and  every 
where.  But  for  this  purpose  history  must  above  all  things  be  true. 
Every  fact  of  the  Past  which  can  be  demonstrated  by  certain  proof  we 
shall  esteem  as  a  real  and  valuable  addition  to  our  knowledge.  On 
the  other  hand,  those  rash  anticipations  of  knowledge,  entertaining  at 
first,  but  wearisome  in  their  recurrence,  have  nothing  to  do  with  this 
laudable  '  historical  sense,'  but  spring  from  the  dangerous  inclination 
to  anecdote  simply  for  its  own  sake.  It  is  thus  that  our  own  gene 
ration,  maintaining  its  opposition  to  Philosophy,  endeavours  to  con 
sole  itself  for  its  want  of  clearness  in  respect  to  general  principles  by 
a  vivid  exercise  of  the  sensuous  imagination.  If  we  come  upon  pile- 
dwellings  in  some  forgotten  swamp,  we  piously  gather  together  the 
insignificant  remains  of  a  dreary  Past,  supposing  that  by  contemplating 
them  we  shall  grow  wiser  and  learn  that  which  a  glance  into  the 
affairs  of  everyday  life  would  teach  us  with  less  trouble.  Compared 
with  such  objects  as  these  how  small  a  chance  of  notice  have  the 
Philosophical  ideas,  which  represent  the  efforts  of  long  ages  to 
obtain  a  clearer  insight  into  eternal  truth.  If  only  these  ideas  could 
be  stuffed  !  Then  it  might  be  possible  that  beside  a  fine  specimen 
of  the  Platonic  idea  and  a  well-preserved  Aristotelian  entelechy  even 
the  more  modest  fancies  which  in  these  pages  I  have  devoted  to 
speedy  oblivion,  might  attract  the  attention  of  a  holiday  sight-seer. 


VOL.  i. 


BOOK    III. 

ON  MENTAL  EXISTENCE  (PSYCHOLOGY). 


CHAPTER   I. 

The  Metaphysical  Conception  of  the  Soul. 

THE  old  Metaphysic  of  the  Schools  reckoned  among  its  problems 
the  construction  of  a  Rational  Psychology.  This  name  was  not 
meant  to  imply  that  the  science  in  question  could  dispense  with  such 
a  knowledge  of  its  object  as  should  agree  with  experience  ;  the  design 
was  merely  to  bring  the  general  modes  of  procedure  which  were 
observed  in  that  object  into  connexion  with  metaphysical  convictions 
as  to  the  possibility  of  all  being  and  happening.  I  will  not  ask  here 
how  much  or  how  little  the  science  accomplished ;  but  I  accept  the 
end  it  set  before  itself  as  a  limit  for  my  own  discussions.  There 
is  at  present  a  strong  inclination  towards  the  empirical  investigation 
of  psychical  phenomena,  in  all  their  manifold  complexity,  and  I  am 
not  opposing  this  inclination  when  I  confess  some  want  of  confidence 
in  the  trustworthiness  of  its  results.  Speaking  generally  no  great 
doubt  can  be  felt  as  to  the  nature  of  those  associations  of  impres 
sions,  by  means  of  which  the  whole  of  our  sensuous  view  of  things 
as  well  as  the  riches  of  our  mental  culture  are  in  the  last  resort 
acquired;  but  the  ingenious  attempts  which  have  been  made  to 
demonstrate  the  way  in  which  particular  portions  of  this  total  sum 
actually  came  into  our  possession,  have  not  the  same  certainty.  Often, 
instead  of  being  founded  on  empirical  evidence,  they  are  merely 
descriptions  of  the  modes  in  which  we  can  without  any  great  difficulty 
imagine  the  material  in  question  to  have  originated;  sometimes 
they  are  accounts  of  processes  of  the  possibility  of  which  we  persuade 
ourselves  only  because  we  use  as  self-evident  means  of  explanation 
mental  habits  which  it  is  really  our  first  business  to  explain.  It  is  not  my 


Psychology  needs  Hypotheses.  419 

purpose,  however,  to  lessen  the  deserved  sympathy  which  these  valuable 
efforts  have  won  ;  but  this  book  must  come  to  an  end  somewhere, 
and  therefore  they  are  excluded  from  it ;  and  my  wish  here  is  simply 
to  overcome,  for  a  moment  at  least,  the  disfavour  which  any  meta 
physical  treatment  of  these  subjects  is  apt  to  encounter. 

When  we  say  that  we  adopt  an  empirical  stand-point  we  must 
mean  more  than  that  we  wish  to  stand  still  at  this  point ;  we  really 
intend  it  to  be  no  more  than  the  starting-place  from  which  we  may 
appropriate  the  field  of  experience  around  us.  Now,  considered  as 
such  a  point  of  departure,  the  knowledge  of  those  facts  which  are 
furnished  by  experience  is  indispensable  to  every  psychology  alike ; 
and  even  those  attempts  which  have  been  especially  stigmatised  as 
transcendent,  are  in  the  end  simply  interpretations  of  the  material 
supplied  by  observation.  The  divergence  of  opinion  does  not  really 
begin  till  we  ask  by  what  method  we  are  to  appropriate  in  the 
form  of  theory  that  which,  from  the  empirical  position,  we  all  see  with 
the  same  eyes.  In  speaking  of  the  physical  investigation  of  nature  I 
pointed  out  how  slight  and  how  arduous  its  progress  would  be  if  it 
confined  itself  to  bare  observation  and  refused  to  connect  the  given 
facts  by  framing  hypotheses  respecting  that  nature  of  things  which 
cannot  be  observed.  And  I  may  now  appeal  for  confirmation  to  the 
excellent  attempts  which  have  been  made  in  psychology  to  reach,  at 
least  at  one  point,  the  beginnings  of  an  exact  science — the  point  I  refer 
to  is  the  question  how  the  strength  of  a  sensation  is  related  to  that 
of  its  external  stimulus.  For  these  attempts  have  at  once  become 
involved  in  a  mass  of  theoretical  and  speculative  problems,  to  the 
settlement  of  which  a  future  experience  may  perhaps  contribute  much 
but  which  it  will  certainly  never  completely  solve.  If  then  we  are  com 
pelled  to  use  as  a  basis  some  hypothesis  respecting  the  connexion  of 
physical  and  psychical  phenomena,  why  are  we  to  take  the  first 
hypothesis  that  comes  to  hand?  Why  not  go  back  to  the  most 
general  ideas  that  we  necessarily  form  respecting  all  being  and 
action,  and  so  attempt  to  define  the  limits  within  which  we  can 
frame  suppositions,  sometimes  trustworthy  and  at  other  times  at  all 
events  probable?  But,  further,  even  supposing  it  were  possible,  in 
the  investigation  of  this  special  subject,  to  find  a  point  of  departure 
which  should  be  productive  of  results  and  yet  should  imply  no  fixed 
pre-judgment  as  to  the  nature  of  the  subject,  a  difficulty  would 
still  remain  :  for  though  this  freedom  from  pre-suppositions  would 
be  possible  for  this  particular  investigation,  it  would  still  be  un 
acceptable  to  us  as  men.  We  may  be  warned  to  abstain  from  discussing 

E  e  2 


420     The  Metaphysical  Conception  of  the  Soul.    [BOOK  in. 

questions  which  do  not  seem  to  be  soluble  by  the  special  methods  of  a 
particular  science ;  but  the  warning  will  never  deter  the  human  race 
from  returning  to  these  riddles ;  for  a  consistent  opinion  about  them 
is  not  less  important  and  indispensable  to  it  than  are  those  explana 
tions  of  observed  facts  which  in  this  field  can  never  be  more  than 
fragmentary.  I  shall  therefore  attempt  to  extend  these  metaphysical 
considerations  to  the  sphere  of  Psychology,  and  so  to  bring  them  to  a 
conclusion.  For  the  elaboration  of  many  particular  points  I  may 
refer  to  the  corresponding  sections  of  the  Mikrokosmus ;  here  I  wish  to 
bring  together  the  essential  points  treated  in  the  Medicinische  Psycho 
logic,  (Leipzig,  1852),  which  I  shall  not  reissue,  and  to  show  the 
metaphysical  connexion  which  in  those  two  works  could  not  be 
sufficiently  brought  out. 

238.  Let  us  leave  out  of  sight,  to  begin  with,  anything  which  the 
earlier  part  of  this  enquiry  might  offer  by  way  of  foundation  for  what 
/is  to  follow.  If  we  do  this,  we  shall  have  to  confess  that  mental  life 
I  is  given  us,  as  a  fact  of  observation,  only  in  constant  connexion  with 
\  bodily  life.  Accordingly  the  supposition  at  once  suggests  itself  that 
this  mental  life  is  nothing  but  a  product  of  the  physical  organization, 
the  growth  of  which  it  is  observed  to  accompany.  Yet  such  a  view 
has  never  been  more  than  a  doctrine  of  scientific  schools.  We  meet 
with  the  word  '  soul '  in  the  languages  of  all  civilised  peoples ;  and 
this  proves  that  the  imagination  of  man  must  have  had  reasons  of 
weight  for  its  supposition  that  there  is  an  existence  of  some  special 
nature  underlying  the  phenomena  of  the  inner  life  as  their  subject  or 
cause.  It  is,  I  think,  possible  to  reduce  these  reasons  to  three,  of 
very  different  value.  The  first  I  will  refer  to,  the  appeal  to  the 
freedom  which  is  said  to  characterise  mental  life,  and  is  distinguished 
from  the  necessity  of  nature,  has_np  weight.  It  is  a  conviction  with 
which  we  begin  our  enquiry  and  to  which  we  hold,  that  all  events  in 
external  nature  form  an  uninterrupted  series  of  causal  connexion 
according  to  universal  laws ;  but  this  necessity  is  not  a  fact  of  obser 
vation.  There  remain  always  vast  tracts  of  nature,  the  inner  con 
nexion  of  which  is  simply  unknown  to  us  and  which  can  therefore 
furnish  no  empirical  verification  of  that  presupposition.  But,  when 
we  come  to  mental  life,  not  even  those  for  whom  freedom  is  in  itself  a 
possible  conception  can  regard  it  as  the  universal  characteristic  of  that 
life.  They  can  demand  it  only  at  one  definite  point,  viz.  the  resolutions 
of  the  will.  Everything  else,  the  whole  course  of  ideas,  emotions,  and 
efforts,  is  not  only,  in  the  souls  of  animals  and  men  alike,  manifestly 
subject  to  a  connexion  according  to  universal  laws,  but  the  denial  of 


CHAPTER  i.]      Common  grounds  of  belief  in  '  soul*  42 1 

that  connexion  would  at  once  destroy  the  possibility  of  any  psycho 
logical  enquiry ;  since  it,  like  every  other  enquiry,  can  be  directed  to 
nothing  but  the  discovery  of  conditions  universally  valid. 

239.  The  second  reason  which  led  to  the  conception  of  the  soul 
was  the  entire  incompar ability  of  all  inner  processes — sensations, 
ideas,  emotions,  and  desires — with  spatial  motion,  figure,  position,  and 
energy ;  that  is,  with  those  states  which  we  believe  we  observe  in 
matter,  or  which  we  can  suppose  it  to  experience  if  we  see  in  it  only 
what  the  physical  view  of  nature  gives  it  out  to  be.  It  is  a  very  long 
time  since  philosophy  recognised  this  incomparability.  and  it  needed 
no  new  discovery  or  confirmation.  It  has  escaped  no  one  except 
those  who,  out  of  their  prejudice  in  favour  of  a  desired  conclusion, 
have  not  been  afraid  of  the  logical  error  by  which  two  different  things 
are  held  to  be  of  the  same  kind  simply  because  as  a  matter  of  fact 
they  are  connected  with  one  another.  We  may  imagine  a  quantity  of 
movements  of  material  elements,  and  we  may  attribute  to  them  what 
ever  degree  of  complexity  we  choose;  but  we  shall  never  reach  a 
given  moment  at  which  we  can  say,  Now  it  is  obvious  that  this  sum 
of  movements  can  remain  movements  no  longer  but  must  pass  into 
sweetness,  brightness,  or  sound.  The  only  obvious  change  we  could 
ever  anticipate  from  them  would  be  into  a  fresh  set  of  movements. 
We  shall  never  succeed  in  analytically  deducing  the  feeling  from  the 
nature  of  its  physical  excitant ;  we  can  only  connect  the  two  syntheti 
cally  ;  and  the  physical  event  does  not  become  a  condition  of  the  rise 
of  the  feeling  until  the  sum  of  motions  in  which  it  consists  meets  with 
a  subject  which  in  its  own  nature  has  the  peculiar  capacity  of  pro 
ducing  feeling  from  itself.  In  this  fact  a  limit  is  at  once  placed  to  all 
physiological  and  psychological  enquiry.  It  is  utterly  fruitless  to 
attempt  to  show  how  a  physical  nervous  process  gradually  transforms 
itself  (as  we  are  told)  into  sensation  or  any  other  mental  occurrence. 
There  remains  only  the  different  but  extremely  important  task  of  dis 
covering  what  psychical  event  a  and  what  physical  stimulus  a  are  as 
a  matter  of  fact  universally  connected  in  the  order  of  nature,  and  of 
finding  the  law  by  which  a  undergoes  a  definite  change  and  becomes 
£,  when  a  by  a  change  equally  definite  (but  definable  only  by  a 
physical  standard  and  not  a  psychical  one)  becomes  b.  This  is  a  point 
at  which  the  professedly  empirical  method  and  the  metaphysical  change 
their  roles.  The  former,  in  pursuing  the  (Jream  of  an  identity  of 
physical  and  psychical  processes,  leaves  the  field  of  experience  far 
behind  it  and  does  battle  with  our  most  immediate  certainty  that  they 
are  not  identical :  the  latter,  when  it  refrains  from  describing  an  event 


422     The  Metaphysical  Conception  of  the  Soul.     [BOOK  in. 

which  cannot  occur  at  all,  is  not  denying  the  connexion  between  the 
two  series  of  events ;  but  it  limits  itself  to  a  more  useful  enquiry,  it 
investigates  the  laws  according  to  which  the  results  of  that  connexion 
change,  and  it  forbears  to  ask  questions,  which  to  begin  with  at  any 
rate  cannot  be  answered,  regarding  the  mode  in  which  that  connexion 
is  in  all  cases  brought  about. 

240.  On  the  other  hand  we  must  beware  of  drawing  conclusions 
too  definite  from  this  incomparability  of  physical  and  psychical  pro 
cesses.  All  that  follows  unavoidably  from  it  is  that  we  should  reserve 
for  each  of  these  two  groups  its  own  special  ground  of  explanation  ; 
but  it  would  be  going  too  far  to  assert  that  the  two  principles,  which 
we  must  thus  separate,  necessarily  belong  to  two  different  sorts  of 
substances.  There  is  nothing  to  be  said  at  starting  against  the  other 
supposition,  according  to  which  every  element  of  reality  unites  in 
itself  the  two  primitive  qualities,  from  one  of  which  mental  life  may 
arise,  while  the  other  contains  the  condition  of  a  phenomenal  appear 
ance  as  matter.  On  this  view,  instead  of  having,  on  the  one  side, 
souls  destitute  of  all  physical  activity  and,  on  the  other,  absolutely 
self-less  elements  of  matter,  we  might  suppose  that  the  latter,  like 
the  former,  possess  in  various  grades  an  inner  life,  though  a  life 
which  we  cannot  observe  nor  even  guess  at,  so  long  as  it  has  no  forms 
of  expression  intelligible  to  us.  And  with  regard  to  the  cause  which 
would  unite  these  two  attributes  in  what  exists,  this  theory  would  be  as 
much  within  its  right  in  refusing  to  discuss  it  as  ours  was  in  simply 
appealing  to  the  fact  of  a  connexion  between  two  series  of  incom 
parable  processes.  It  seems  to  me  that  every  mode  of  thought, 
which  calls  itself  Materialism,  ultimately  rests  on  this  supposition,  or 
on  a  little  reflexion  must  be  led  to  it ;  the  matter  from  which  such 
modes  of  thought  would  deduce  mental  phenomena,  is  privately 
conceived  by  them  as  something  much  better  than  it  looks  from 
outside.  So  it  comes  about  that  it  can  be  held  a  fair  problem,  to 
deduce  the  mental  life  of  an  organism  from  the  reactions  of  the 
psychical  movements  of  the  corporeal  elements  in  the  same  sense  in 
which  its  bodily  life  arises  as  a  resultant  from  the  confluence  of  the 
physical  forces  of  those  elements.  And  if  we  were  confined  to  the 
external  observation  of  a  psychical  life  not  our  own,  I  do  not  know  of 
anything  perfectly  decisive  that  could  be  alleged  against  this  supposi 
tion.  But,  according  to  it,  every  psychical  manifestation  would  be 
merely  the  final  outcome  of  a  number  of  components  destitute  of  any 
centre :  whereas  our  inner  experience  offers  us  the  fact  of  a  unity  of 
consciousness.  Here  then  is  the  third  and  the  unassailable  ground,  on 


CHAPTER  i.]         True  ground  of  belief  in  (  soul!  42  3 

which  the  conviction  of  the  independence  of  the  soul  can  securely 
rest.     The  nature  of  this  position  I  proceed  to  explain. 

241.  It  has  been  required  of  any  theory  which  starts  without  pre 
suppositions  and  from  the  basis  of  experience,  that  in  the  beginning 
it  should  speak  only  of  sensations  or  ideas,  without  mentioning  the 
soul  to  which,  it  is  said,  we  hasten  without  justification  to  ascribe  them. 
I  should  maintain,  on  the  contrary,  that  such  a  mode  of  setting  out 
involves  a  wilful  departure  from  that  which  is  actually  given  in  experi 
ence.     A  mere  sensation  without  a  subject  is  nowhere  to  be  met  with 
>  as  a  fact.     It  is  impossible  to  speak  of  a  bare  movement  without 
i  thinking  of  the  mass  whose  movement  it  is;    and  it  is  just  as  im 
possible  to  conceive  a  sensation  existing  without  the  accompanying 
idea  of  that  which  has  it,— or,  rather,  of  that  which  feels  it ;  for  this 
also  is  included  in  the  given  fact  of  experience,  that  the  relation  of  the 
feeling  subject  to  its  feeling,  whatever  its  other  characteristics  may  be, 
is  in  any  case  something  different  from  the  relation  of  the  moved 
element  to  its  movement.    It  is  thus,  and  thus  only,  that  the  sensation 
is  a  given  fact ;  and  we  have  no  right  to  abstract  from  its  relation  to 
its  subject  because  this  relation  is  puzzling,  and  because  we  wish  to 
obtain  a  starting-point  which  looks  more  convenient  but  is  utterly  un 
warranted  by  experience.     In  saying  this  I  do  not  intend  to  repeat 
the  frequent  but  exaggerated  assertion,  that  in  every  single  act  of 
feeling  or  thinking  there  is  an  express  consciousness  which  regards 
the  sensation  or  idea  simply  as  states  of  a  self;   on  the  contrary, 
everyone  is  familiar  with  that  absorption  in  the  content  of  a  sensuous 
perception,  which  often  makes  us  entirely  forget  our  personality  in 
view  of  it.     But  then  the  very  fact  that  we  can  become  aware  that 
this  was  the  case,  presupposes  that  we  afterwards  retrieve  what  we 
omitted  at  first,  viz.  the  recognition  that  the  perception  was  in  us,  as 
our  state.     But,  further,  there  are  other  facts  which  place  in  a  clearer 
light  what  in  the  case  of  single  sensations  might  remain  doubtful. 
Any  comparison  of  two  ideas,  which  ends  by  our  finding  their  con- 
';  tents  like   or  unlike,  presupposes  the  absolutely  indivisible  unity  of 
!  that  which  compares  them  :  it  must  be  one  and  the  same  thing  which 
,  first  forms  the  idea  of  a,  then  that  of  b,  and  which  at  the  same  time  is 
conscious  of  the  nature  and  extent  of  the  difference  between  them. 
Then  again  the  various  acts  of  comparing  ideas  and  referring  them  to 
'  one   another  are  themselves  in   turn  reciprocally  related;    and  this 
relation  brings  a  new  activity  of  comparison  to  consciousness.     And 
so  our  whole  inner  world  of  thoughts  is  built  up ;   not  as  a  mere 
collection  of  manifold  ideas  existing  with  or  after  one  another,  but  as 


424     The  Metaphysical  Conception  of  the  Soul. 

a  world  in  which  these  individual   members    are  held  together  and 
arranged  by  the  relating  activity  of  this  single  pervading  principle. 

£his  then  is  what  we  mean  by  the  unity  of  consciousness ;  and  it  is 
is  that  we  regard  as  the  sufficient  ground  for  assuming  an  indivisible 
>ul.     As  compared  with  the  thousand  activities  of  this  unity  involved 
in  every  act  by  which  two  ideas  are  referred  to  each  other,  it  is  a 
matter  of  indifference  whether  at  every  moment  that  particular  act  of 
relation  is  explicitly  performed  by  which  these  inner  states  are  appre 
hended  in  their  true  character,  as  states  of  this  active  unity.    Although 
this   reflexion  is   possible,  we  can  think  of  many  conditions  which 
frequently  prevent  it  taking  place.     But  that  it  can  take  place  at  all 
proves  to  us  the  unity  of  the  active  subject  which  performs  it. 

242.  Further  discussion  is,  however,  needed,  in  order  to  show  the 
necessity  of  our  conclusion  and  to  explain  its  meaning.  First,  as  to 
its  necessity :  even  if  we  admit  the  unity  of  consciousness,  why  are 
we  bound  to  trace  it  back  to  a  particular  indivisible  subject?  why 
should  it  not  resemble  a  motion  which  results  from  the  co-operation 
of  many  components ;  seeing  that  this  resultant,  like  the  unity  of 
consciousness,  appears  perfectly  simple  and  gives  no  indication  of  the 
multiplicity  of  elements  from  which  it  arose  ?  I  answer :  such  an 
idea  seems  possible  only  because  we  state  the  mechanical  law,  to 
which  we  appeal,  in  slovenly  short-hand.  We  must  not  say,  '  From 
two  motions  there  comes  a  third  simple  motion :'  the  full  formula  is, 
When  two  different  impulses  act  simultaneously  on  one  and  the  same 
material  point,  they  coalesce  at  this  point  into  a  third  simple  motion 
of  this  point ;  they  would  not  do  so  if  they  met  with  different  elements, 
nor  would  the  resultant  have  any  significance  if  it  were  not  a  motion 
of  that  very  same  element  in  which  they  met.  If  we  wish  then  to 
make  an  analogous  construction  of  consciousness,  it  is  indispensable 
that  we  should  mention  the  subject  whose  states  we  have  to  combine. 
Thus  if  a,  6,  c,  .  .  .  2  are  the  elements  of  a  living  organism,  each  of 
them  may  have  at  once  a  physical  and  a  psychical  nature  and  each 
of  them  may  be  capable  of  acting  in  accordance  with  its  two  natures ; 
but  the  fact  still  remains  that  these  actions  cannot  stream  out  into  the 
void  and  be  states  of  nobody,  but  must  always  consist  of  states  which 
one  element  produces  in  other  elements.  Supposing  this  reciprocal 
action  took  place  equally  among  them  all,  then  the  impressions  received 
and  imparted  would  be  equalised,  and  the  end  of  the  process  would 
be  that  each  one  of  the  elements  would  reach  the  same  final  state  Z, 
the  resultant  of  all  the  single  impulses.  If  then  Z  were  a  conscious 
ness,  this  consciousness  would  be  present  as  many  times  as  there  were 


CHAPTER  I.] 


Consciousness  a  Resultant  ? 


425 


homogeneous  elements :  but  it  would  never  happen  that  outside,  side 
by  side  with,  or  between  these  elements  a  new  subject  could  be  formed, 
privileged  to  be  the  personified  common  spirit  of  the  society  of  inter 
acting  units.  Doubtless,  however,  the  homogeneity  we  have  assumed 
will  not  be  found  to  exist ;  the  constituents  of  the  organism  will 
differ  from  one  another ;  they  will  be  conjoined  in  accordance  with 
their  nature,  and  will  have  different  positions,  more  or  less  favourable 
to  the  spread  of  their  interactions ;  and  at  whatever  moment  we  sup 
pose  the  course  of  these  interactions  to  be  finished,  the  result  will 
probably  be  that  the  different  elements  will  have  reached  different 
final  states  A,B,  ,  .  .  Z,  depending  on  the  degree  of  liveliness  with 
which  each  element  has  received  the  influences  of  the  others,  and  on  the 
measure  in  which  it  has  succeeded  or  failed  in  concentrating  those 
influences  in  itself.  In  this  case  it  becomes  still  more  impossible  than 
before  to  say  which  of  all  this  array  of  resultant  consciousnesses  is 
the  object  of  our  search,  the  soul  of  the  organism  :  but  in  this  case  as 
in  the  former,  it  is  certain  that  there  cannot  arise,  outside  of  and 
beyond  all  these  elements,  a  new  subject  which  in  its  own  conscious 
ness  should  bring  together  and  compare  their  states,  as  we  who  are 
investigating  can  compare  them  in  the  unity  of  our  consciousness. 

Our  only  remaining  resource  would  be  to  fall  back  on  the  idea  of 
Leibnitz  and  to  say  that  although  the  countless  monads  which  com 
pose  the  living  creature  are  essentially  homogeneous,  there  is  never 
theless  among  them  a  pn'ma  inter  pares,  a  central  monad,  which  in 
virtue  partly  of  its  superiority  in  quality  and  partly  of  its  favourable 
position  between  the  rest,  is  capable  of  the  intensest  mental  life  and 
able  to  over-master  all  the  others.  This  central  monad  would  be 
what  we  call  our  soul,  the  subject  of  our  one  consciousness;  the 
others,  though  they  too  have  psychical  movements  of  their  own,  would 
be  for  our  direct  inward  experience  as  inaccessible  as  the  inner  life  of 
one  person  in  a  human  society  is  for  that  of  any  other.  Thus  the  end 
at  which  this  attempted  construction  would  arrive  would  not  be  that 
it  set  out  to  reach.  It  too  would  have  to  recognise  the  absolutely 
indivisible  unity  of  that  which  is  to  support  our  inward  life  :  and, 
instead  of  the  hope  of  showing  this  unity  to  be  the  resultant  of  many 
co-operating  elements,  there  would  remain  the  more  moderate  as 
sumption  that  these  many  elements  stand  to  the  one  being  in  manifold 
relations  of  interaction.  Such  a  view  has  no  longer  any  special  pecu 
liarity,  beyond,  first,  the  idea  that  all  elements  of  the  body  have  a  soul- 
life,  although  this  soul-life  has  not  much  significance  for  ours  ;  and 
secondly,  (though  this  applies  only  to  the  hypothesis  I  am  describing, 


426     The  Metaphysical  Conception  of  the  Soul.    [BOOK  in. 

and  not  to  Leibnitz)  the  doubtful  advantage  of  being  able  to  attribute 
to  the  one  element  which  is  the  soul  not  only  psychical  predicates  but 
the  predicates  of  an  element  which  is  operative  after  the  fashion  of 
matter. 

243.  I  said  that  the  meaning  of  the  unity  of  consciousness,  as  well 
as  the  necessity  of  assuming  it,  needed  some  further  explanation. 
My  remarks  on  this  meaning  ought  to  be  saved  by  their  connexion 
with  the  rest  of  a  metaphysical  work  like  the  present  from  the  mis 
understanding  with  which  my  previous  accounts  of  the  subject  have 
met.  The  conclusion  we  have  now  reached  is  usually  expressed  by 
saying  that  the  soul  is  an  indivisible  and  simple  substance;  and 
I  have  used  this  formula  in  all  innocence,  as  an  intelligible  name. 
How  it  can  be  misunderstood  I  have  learned  from  the  way  in  which 
my  esteemed  friend  Fechner  in  his  Atomenlehre  characterises  my  view 
in  opposition  to  his  own.  It  was  natural  to  him  as  an  investigator 
of  Nature,  and  probably  his  intimacy  with  the  most  eminent  represent 
atives  of  the  Herbartian  philosophy  made  it  still  more  natural,  to 
understand  by  substance  a  physical  atom  or  one  of  the  simple  real 
'  existences  '  of  that  school.  But  I  had  given  no  special  occasion  for 
this  misunderstanding :  on  the  contrary  I  had  put  forward  the  pro 
position  which  was  censured  and  therefore  could  not  have  escaped 
notice ;  '  It  is  not  through  a  substance  that  things  have  being,  but 
they  have  being  when  they  are  able  to  produce  the  appearance  of  a 
substance  present  in  them.'  I  have  discussed  this  point  at  sufficient 
length  in  the  Ontology,  and  have  now  only  to  show  its  consequences 
for  our  present  question.  When  from  the  given  fact  of  the  unity  of 
consciousness  I  passed  on  to  call  the  subject  of  this  knowledge  exist 
ence  or  substance,  I  could  not  possibly  intend  by  doing  so  to  draft'  a 
conclusion  which  should  deduce  from  its  premisses  something  not 
contained  in  them  but  really  new.  For  my  only  definition  of  the  idea 
of  substance  was  this, — that  it  signifies  everything  which  possesses  the 
power  of  producing  and  experiencing  effects,  in  so  far  as  it  possesses 
that  power.  Accordingly  this  expression  was  simply  a  title  given  to  a 
thing  in  virtue  of  its  having  performed  something ;  it  was  not  and 
could  not  be  meant  to  signify  the  ground,  the  means  or  the  cause 
which  would  render  that  performance  intelligible.  Was  substance  to 
be  one  or  many  ?  It  would  have  been  too  absurd  to  suppose  this 
power  of  producing  and  experiencing  effects  in  general  to  have  its 
ground  in  one  universal  substance,  and  then  to  expect  that  a  grain  of 
this  substance,  buried  in  each  individual  thing,  would  quicken  this 
general  capacity  into  the  particular  ways  of  producing  and  ex- 


CHAPTER  I.]          TIlC  Soill  IH  wkdt  SCHSC  a  SubstaUCC.  427 

periencing  effects  which  distinguish  that  thing  from  all  other  things. 
On  the  other  hand  the  supposition  that  each  thing,  instead  of  being 
carved  out  of  the  matter  of  the  universal  substance,  is  a  substance  on  its 
own  account  would  have  at  once  led  us  back  to  our  starting-point, 
and  we  should  have  recognised  the  name  substance  to  be,  what  it 
really  is,  simply  the  general  formal  designation  of  every  way  of  pro 
ducing  and  experiencing  effects,  but  not  the  real  condition  on  which 
in  each  particular  case  the  possibility  of  doing  so  and  the  particular 
way  of  doing  so  depends.  I  was  therefore  very  far  from  sharing  the 
view  of  those  who  place  the  soul  in  the  mid-current  of  events  as  one 
hard  and  indissoluble  atom  by  the  side  of  others  or  as  an  indestructible 
real  existence,  and  who  fancied  that  its  substantiality,  so  understood, 
offered  a  foundation  from  which  the  rest  of  its  phenomena  could  be 
deduced.  The  fact  of  the  unity  of  consciousness  is  eo  ipso  at  once 
the  fact  of  the  existence  of  a  substance :  we  do  not  need  by  a  process 
of  reasoning  to  conclude  from  the  former  to  the  latter  as  the  condition 
of  its  existence, — a  fallacious  process  of  reasoning  which  seeks  in 
an  extraneous  and  superior  substance  supposed  to  be  known  before 
hand,  the  source  from  which  the  soul  and  each  particular  thing 
would  acquire  the  capacity  of  figuring  as  the  unity  and  centre  of 
manifold  actions  and  affections. 

The  reason  why,  in  spite  of  this,  I  thought  it  worth  while  to  desig 
nate  the  soul  as  substance  or  real  existence,  I  shall  mention  here 
after  when  I  come  to  oppose  the  pluralistic  view  suggested  by 
Fechner :  my  point  was  not  so  much  the  substantiality  as  the  unity 
of  the  soul,  and  I  wished  to  emphasize  the  idea  that  it  is  only  an 
indivisible  unity  which  can  produce  or  experience  effects  at  all,  and 
that  these  words  cannot  be  applied  in  strictness  to  any  multiplicity, 
— an  idea  which  I  attempted  to  bring  out  more  clearly  in  the 
Mikrokosmus,  (i.  p.  178).  But,  relying  on  the  fact  that  the  imagination 
is  accustomed  to  connect  this  idea  of  unity  with  the  name  '  substance' 
or  '  real  existence,'  I  considered  that  these  two  expressions,  even  in 
that  meaning  of  them  which  I  have  described  and  repudiated,  might 
still,  when  once  the  true  account  of  the  matter  had  been  given,  be 
used  as  serviceable  abbreviations  of  it. 

244.  It  is  natural  at  this  point  to  think  of  Kant's  treatment  of  that 
Paralogism  of  the  pure  Reason  which  seeks  to  establish  the  sub 
stantiality  of  the  soul.  We  may  sum  up  his  criticism  thus  :  It  is  a 
fact  that  we  appear  in  our  thoughts  as  the  constant  subject  of  our 
states,  but  it  does  not  follow  from  this  fact  that  the  soul  is  a  constant 
substance  j  for  even  the  former  unity  is  in  the  end  only  our  subjective 


428     The  Metaphysical  Conception  of  the  Sold. 

way  of  looking  at  things,  and  there  are  many  things  which  in  them 
selves  may  be  quite  different  from  what  they  must  needs  seem  to  us  to 
be.  This  last  idea  is  certainly  incontrovertible,  but  it  does  not  affect 
the  point  which  constitutes  the  nerve  of  our  argument.  I  repeat  once 

{more,  we  do  not  believe  in  the  unity  of  the  soul  because  it  appears  as 
unity,  but  simply  because  it  is  able  to  appear  or  manifest  itself  in 
some  way,  whatever  that  may  be.  The  mere  fact  that,  conceiving 
itself  as  a  subject,  it  connects  itself  with  any  predicate,  proves  to  us 
the  unity  of  that  which  asserts  this  connexion ;  and,  supposing  the 
soul  appeared  to  itself  as  a  multiplicity,  we  should  on  the  same 
grounds  conclude  that  it  was  certainly  mistaken  if  it  took  itself  really 
to  be  what  it  appeared.  Every  judgment,  whatever  it  may  assert, 
testifies  by  the  mere  fact  that  it  is  pronounced  at  all,  to  the  indivisible 
unity  of  the  subject  which  utters  it. 

But,  I  am  well  aware,  I  shall  still  be  reproached  with  having 
neglected  the  fine  and  subtle  distinction  which  Kant  draws  between 
the  subject  of  our  inward  experience  and  the  unity  of  the  Soul  con 
sidered  as  a  thing  in  itself ;  he  admits  the  unity  of  the  former,  but 
prohibits  any  conclusion  to  that  of  the  latter.  It  is  a  difficult  task, 
and  one  in  which  I  have  no  interest,  to  dissect  Kant's  final  ideas  in 
this  section  of  the  Critique  of  Reason ;  I  shall  content  myself  with 
explaining  clearly  the  difference  between  my  view  and  that  which  I 
conjecture  to  be  his.  Kant  is  without  doubt  right  when  he  is  opposing 
that  traditional  argument  for  the  substantiality  of  the  soul,  the  object 
of  which  was  to  make  that  quality,  when  it  had  been  inferred,  a  medius 
terminus  for  fresh  consequences,  as,  for  instance,  that  of  immortality; 
but  he  was  mistaken  when  he  looked  on  this  inference  as  a  further 
goal  which  it  is  our  misfortune  that  we  are  unable  to  attain.  In 
the  very  prohibition  he  utters  against  a  conclusion  from  the  unity  of 
the  subject  to  that  of  the  substance,  he  admits  that  this  conclusion 
would  have  an  important  bearing,  if  only  it  could  be  drawn  ;  and  all 
that  seems  to  him  to  be  wanting  is  the  links  of  argument  which  might 
justify  us  in  bringing  the  soul  under  this  fruitful  conception  of 
substance  and  all  the  consequences  it  legitimately  involves.  That 
Kant  cannot  free  himself  from  this  idea,  is  shown  by  a  foot-note 
which  in  the  first  edition  of  the  Critique  is  appended  to  the  doctrine 
of  the  Paralogisms.  It  runs  as  follows:  'An  elastic  sphere  which 
collides  with  another  in  a  direct  line,  communicates  to  it  its  whole 
motion  and,  therefore,  (if  we  regard  nothing  but  their  positions  in 
space)  its  whole  state.  Now  if,  on  the  analogy  of  such  bodies,  we 
suppose  substances,  one  of  which  imparted  to  the  other  ideas  together 


CHAPTER  L]         Kant  on  the  Unity  of  the  Soul.  429 

with  the  consciousness  of  them,  we  can  imagine  a  whole  series  of 
these  substances,  of  which  the  first  would  impart  its  state,  together 
with  the  consciousness  of  that  state,  to  the  second,  the  second  would 
impart  its  own  state,  together  with  that  of  the  preceding  substance,  to 
the  third,  and  this  again  would  communicate  to  another,  not  only  its 
own  state  with  the  consciousness  of  it,  but  also  the  states  of  all  its 
predecessors  and  the  consciousness  of  them.  Thus  the  states  of  all 
the  substances  which  had  undergone  changes,  together  with  the 
consciousness  of  these  states,  would  be  transferred  to  the  last  sub 
stance  :  and  in  consequence  this  last  substance  would  be  conscious  of 
all  these  states  as  its  own,  and  yet,  in  spite  of  this,  it  would  not  have 
been  the  same  person  in  all  these  states.'  In  this  way,  according  to 
Kant,  the  identity  of  the  consciousness  of  ourselves  in  different  times 
would  be  possible  even  without  the  numerical  unity  of  the  soul. 

The  various  assumptions,  which  are  made  at  starting  in  this  note, 
are  so  strange  that  a  criticism  of  their  admissibility  would  be  un 
bearably  prolix :  one  can  only  say  of  them,  Certainly,  if  it  were  so,  it 
would  be  so.  But  if  the  communication  of  a  completed  state  together 
with  the  consciousness  of  it  is  possible,  why  should  we  not  go  further 
and  make  an  approach  to  the  actual  state  of  affairs  by  assuming  that, 
over  and  above  this,  the  fact  of  this  communication  will  be  an  object 
of  consciousness  for  the  soul  receiving  it  ?  In  that  case  the  process 
would  resemble  the  propagation  of  culture  by  tradition  and  instruc 
tion.  It  is  in  this  way,  at  least,  that  the  busy  soul  collects  by  industry 
the  thoughts  of  its  predecessors ;  but  then  it  is  at  the  same  time 
conscious  that  the  thoughts  it  receives  are  not  its  own,  but  what  it 
has  received.  And  fortunately  there  is  another  point  at  which  the 
comparison  fails  ;  for  the  original  possessor  does  not  lose  his  thoughts 
by  communicating  them.  All  this,  however,  matters  nothing:  but 
what  is  the  meaning  of  the  conclusion,  '  and  yet  there  has  not  been 
the  same  person  in  all  these  states '  ?  The  fact  is  the  very  reverse  ;  it 
was  not  the  same  sphere  that  served  an  abode  for  the  personality ;  but 
the  person  is  one,  in  the  same  sense  in  which  it  is  possible  for  any 
substance  capable  of  development  to  be  one,  although  at  the  beginning 
of  its  history  it  is  naturally  poorer  in  recollected  experiences  than  it 
afterwards  becomes :  and  what  Kant  maintains  is  nothing  but  a 
strange  transmigration  of  the  soul,  in  which  the  personality,  while 
it  grows  in  content,  passes  from  one  substratum  to  another.  I  will 
not  dwell  longer  on  the  oddities  of  this  unfortunate  comparison ;  but 
it  shows — and  this  is  its  only  serious  interest — that  there  seemed  to 
Kant  to  be  some  meaning  in  the  idea,  that  beneath  the  concrete 


430     The  Metaphysical  Conception  of  the  Soul.    [BOOK  in. 

nature  or  content  of  anything  there  lies  in  the  intelligible  world  a 
thing  in  itself,  destitute  of  content,  but  serving  as  a  means  of  con 
solidating  the  reality  of  the  concrete  thing,  or  useful  to  it  in  some 
other  way,  I  know  not  what ;  and  that  it  makes  some  difference  to 
the  unity  of  consciousness,  whether  its  substratum  consists  of  the 
first,  or  second,  or  third  of  these  things  in  themselves,  whether  it  is 
always  the  same  one,  or  whether  it  is  many  of  them  in  succession ; 
and  this  although  there  were  even  less  difference  between  them  than 
there  is  between  those  elastic  spheres,  the  positions  of  which  in  space 
at  least  gives  a  reason  for  supposing  that  there  is  more  than  one  of 
them.  Nor  was  this  at  all  the  object  which  the  Paralogism  criticised 
sought  to  reach.  No  one  who  wished  the  doctrine  of  immortality  to 
be  assured,  could  concern  himself  with  anything  but  that  continuity  of 
his  consciousness  which  he  desired  not  to  lose ;  he  would  be  heartily 
indifferent  to  the  question  whether  the  thing  in  itself  which  was  to  be 
the  substratum  of  that  continuance  occupied  in  the  series  the  position 
n  or  (n+  i). 

I  come  back  then  to  the  point,  that  the  identity  of  the  subject  of 
inward  experience  is  all  that  we  require.  So  far  as,  and  so  long  as, 
the  soul  knows  itself  as  this  identical  subject,  it  is,  and  is  named, 
simply  for  that  reason,  substance.  But  the  attempt  to  find  its  capacity 
of  thus  knowing  itself  in  the  numerical  unity  of  another  underlying 
substance  is  not  a  process  of  reasoning  which  merely  fails  to  reach  an 
admissible  aim  ;  it  has  no  aim  at  all.  That  which  is  not  only  con 
ceived  by  others  as  unity  in  multiplicity,  but  knows  and  makes  itself 
good  as  such,  is,  simply  on  that  account,  the  truest  and  most  in 
divisible  unity  there  can  be.  But  in  Kant's  mind,  so  at  least  it  seems 
to  me,  the  prejudice  is  constantly  recurring,  that  a  thing  may  in  a 
certain  peculiar  sense  be  unity,  and  that  this  is  metaphysically  a  much 
prouder  achievement  than  merely  to  make  itself  good  as  unity,  since 
this  last  capacity  may  perhaps  also  belong  to  that  which  is  not  really 
or  numerically  one. 

245.  A  further  question  now  becomes  inevitable.  On  what  does 
this  living  unity  of  self-consciousness  rest  ?  Or,  to  put  the  problem 
in  its  customary  and  shorter  form,  what  is  the  soul,  and  how  are  we 
to  decide  respecting  its  destiny,  if  our  decision  can  no  longer  be 
drawn  from  the  claims  which  might  be  advanced  in  favour  of  every 
substance  as  such,  according  to  its  traditional  conception  ?  Here  again 
I  need  only  answer  by  recalling  the  preliminary  convictions  to  which 
our  ontology  has  led  us.  We  know  that  when  we  ask  'what'  any 
thing  is,  we  commonly  mean  by  this  word  two  different  things ;  firstly, 


CHAPTER  I.]  The  SOlll  is    what  it  doCS.  43  I 

that  which  distinguishes  it  from  other  things,  and,  secondly,  that  which 
makes  it  a  thing,  like  other  things.  The  error  which  it  was  our  object 
to  avoid  lay  in  the  belief  that,  corresponding  to  these  two  constituents 
of  our  conception,  there  exist  in  reality  two  elements  capable  of 
entering  into  an  actual  relation  to  each  other.  But  we  found  our 
most  serious  obstacle  in  the  habit  of  adding  to  these  two  constituents 
of  our  idea  a  third,  which  though  foreign  to  them  is  supposed  to 
guarantee  their  connexion :  this  third  constituent  is  that  empty  /matter' 
of  existence  on  which  the  content  of  things  is  supposed  to  depend. 
To  anyone  who  is  disposed  to  agree  with  me  in  these  ontological 
conclusions,  it  must  seem  utterly  inconceivable  that  we  should  ask  for 
the  *  what '  of  a  thing,  and  yet  look  for  the  answer  in  anything  except 
that  which  this  thing  is  and  does;  or  that  we  should  enquire  as  to 
its  '  being/  and  yet  seek  this  anywhere  except  in  its  activity.  And  in 
the  same  way  here  it  must  seem  equally  unintelligible  that  we  should 
suppose  we  do  not  know  the  soul,  because,  although  we  know  all  its 
acts,  we  are  unluckily  ignorant  of  the  elastic  sphere  to  which,  ac 
cording  to  Kant's  comparison,  the  nature  manifested  in  these  acts  is 
attached ;  or  that  instead  of  seeking  the  living  reality  of  the  soul  in 
its  production  of  ideas,  emotions,  and  efforts,  we  should  look  for  it  in 
a  nameless  '  being,'  from  which  these  concrete  forms  of  action  could 
not  flow,  but  in  which,  after  some  manner  never  to  be  explained,  they 
are  supposed  to  participate.  But  I  have  already  disposed  of  these 
generalities,  and  will  not  return  to  them.  Every  soul  is  what  it  shows 
itself  to  be,  unity  whose  life  is  in  definite  ideas,  feelings,  and  efforts. 
This  is  its  real  nature  :  and  if  it  were  alone  in  the  world,  it  would  be 
idle  to  ask  how  this  reality  is  possible,  since  we  have  long  ago  decided 
that  the  question  how  things  are  made  is  not  admissible.  It  is  only 
the  fact  that  the  soul  is  involved  in  a  larger  world,  and  meets  with 
various  fortunes  there,  that  makes  it  necessary  to  seek  within  this 
whole  the  conditions  on  which  its  existence,  and  the  origin  or 
preservation  of  that  existence,  depends.  Within  this  sphere  the  soul 
shows  itself  to  be  to  a  certain  extent  an  independent  centre  of  actions 
and  re-actions ;  and  in  so  far  as  it  does  so,  and  so  long  as  it  does  so, 
it  has  a  claim  to  the  title  of  substance  :  but  we  can  never  draw  from 
the  empty  idea  of  substance  a  necessary  conclusion  to  the  position 
which  the  soul  occupies  in  the  world,  as  though  its  modes  of  action 
had  their  ground  and  justification  in  that  idea. 

It  will  be  obvious  against  what  view  this  remark  is  directed.  A 
pluralism  which  considers  the  order  of  the  world  derivable  from  a 
number  of  elements,  perfectly  independent  of  one  another,  and  subject 


432     The  Metaphysical  Conception  of  the  Soul.    [BOOK  in. 

only  to  a  supplementary  connexion  through  laws,  naturally  includes  in 
its  idea  of  the  original  nature  of  these  elements  indestructibility  and 
immutability.  Unless  then  the  soul  is  to  be  connected  with  the  juxta 
positions  of  these  stable  atoms  as  a  perishable  side-effect,  the  only 
resource  of  this  view  is  to  include  it  among  the  number  of  such 
eternal  existences.  Thus  the  soul  can  rely  upon  its  rights  as  a  pre- 
mundane  substance,  and  rest  assured  that  in  no  changes  of  the  world, 
whatever  they  may  be,  can  either  an  origin  or  an  end  be  ascribed 
to  it. 

The  fact  that  this  reasoning  leads  to  a  double  result  is,  on  the  face 
of  it,  inconvenient.  We  might  be  glad  to  accept  its  guarantee  for 
immortality,  although  no  great  satisfaction  is  given  to  our  desires  by 
a  mere  continuity  the  nature  of  which  remains  undecided  ;  but  the 
other  conclusion  which  is  forced  on  us  at  the  same  time,  the  infinite 
pre-existence  of  the  soul  before  the  earthly  life  we  know,  remains,  like 
the  immortality  of  the  souls  of  all  animals,  strange  and  improbable. 
Our  monistic  view  has  long  since  renounced  all  these  ideas.  The 
order  of  the  world,  the  existence  of  all  things  and  their  capacity  for 
action,  it  has  placed  wholly  and  without  reserve  in  the  hands  of  the 
one  infinite  existence,  on  which  alone  the  possibility  of  all  interactions 
was  found  to  rest;  and  it  has  nowhere  recognised  a  prior  world  of 
ideal  necessity,  from  which  things  might  derive  a  claim  to  any  other 
lot  than  that  which  the  meaning  of  the  whole  has  given  them  in  order 
that  they  may  serve  it.  Our  first  and  foremost  result  is  therefore  this : 
the  question  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul  does  not  belong  to  Meta- 
physic.  We  have  no  other  principle  for  deciding  it  beyond  this 
general  idealistic  conviction ;  that  every  created  thing  will  continue,  if 
and  so  long  as  its  continuance  belongs  to  the  meaning  of  the  world ; 
that  everything  will  pass  away  which  had  its  authorised  place  only  in 
a  transitory  phase  of  the  world's  course.  That  this  principle  admits 
of  no  further  application  in  human  hands  hardly  needs  to  be 
mentioned.  We  certainly  do  not  know  the  merits  which  may  give 
to  one  existence  a  claim  to  eternity,  nor  the  defects  which  deny  it 
to  others. 

246.  We  cannot  pass  quite  so  quickly  over  the  question  of  the 
origin  or  genesis  of  the  soul.  How  it  can  be  brought  about,  or  how 
the  creative  power  of  the  absolute  begins  to  bring  it  about,  that  an 
existence  is  produced  which  not  only  in  accordance  with  universal 
laws  produces  and  experiences  effects  and  alterations  in  its  con 
nexion  with  others,  but  also  in  its  ideas,  emotions,  and  efforts, 
separates  itself  from  the  common  foundation  of  all  things,  and 


CHAPTER  i.]  Genesis  of  the  Soul.  433 

becomes  to  a  certain  extent  an  independent  centre, — this  question 
we  shall  no  more  attempt  to  answer  than  we  have  others  like  it. 
Our  business  is  not  to  make  the  world,  but  to  understand  the  inner 
connexion  of  the  world  that  is  realised  already  ;  and  it  was  this 
problem  that  forced  us  to  lay  down  our  limiting  idea  of  the  absolute 
and  its  inner  creation  of  countless  finite  beings.  This  idea  we  found 
it  necessary  to  regard  as  the  conception  of  an  ultimate  fact ;  and  we 
cannot  explain  the  possibility  of  the  fact  by  using  the  images  of  pro 
cesses  which  themselves  spring  from  it  in  a  way  we  cannot  explain. 
But  when  the  life  of  the  soul  does  arise,  it  arises  before  our  eyes  in 
constant  conjunction  with  the  physical  development  of  the  organism : 
and  thus  questions  are  suggested  as  to  the  reciprocal  relations  of  two 
series  of  events  which,  as  we  have  already  remarked,  cannot  be  com 
pared,  and  which  therefore  might  seem  inaccessible  to  one  another. 
Where,  we  may  be  asked,  does  the  soul  arise,  and  in  what  way  does 
it  come  into  this  body  which  is  just  beginning  to  be,  and  which  was 
destined  for  it;  since  we  are  forbidden  to  regard  it  as  a  collateral 
effect  of  the  physical  forces,  and  as  having  its  natural  birthplace  in 
this  very  body  ?  The  question  may  seem  natural,  and  yet  it  is  only 
an  imagination  accustomed  to  strange  images  which  can  ask  it.  We 
are  not  to  picture  the  absolute  placed  in  some  remote  region  of  ex 
tended  space,  and  separated  from  the  world  of  its  creations,  so  that 
its  influence  has  to  retraverse  a  distance  and  make  a  journey  in  order 
to  reach  things  ;  for  its  indivisible  unity,  omnipresent  at  every  point, 
would  fill  this  space  as  well  as  others.  Still  less  ought  we,  who  hold  \ 
this  space  to  be  a  mere  phenomenon,  to  imagine  a  cleft  between  finite  » 
beings  and  the  common  foundation  of  all  things,  a  cleft  which  would 
need  to  be  bridged  by  miraculous  wanderings.  Wherever  in  apparent 
space  an  organic  germ  has  been  formed,  at  that  very  spot,  and  not 
removed  from  it,  the  absolute  is  also  present.  Nor,  I  must  once  more 
repeat,  is  it  simply  this  class  of  facts  which  compels  us  to  assume  such 
an  action  of  the  absolute.  We  may  regard  the  process  by  which 
things  that  possess  a  life  and  soul  are  formed  as  something  unusual 
and  superior  ;  but  the  presence  of  the  absolute  which  makes  this 
process  possible  is  no  less  the  basis  necessarily  implied  in  the  most 
insignificant  interaction  of  any  two  atoms.  Nor  again  do  we  think  of 
its  presence  as  a  mere  uniform  breath  which  penetrates  all  places 
and  this  particular  spot  among  them,  like  that  subtle,  formless,  and 
homogeneous  ether  from  which  many  strange  theories  expect  the 
vivification  of  matter  into  the  most  various  forms  :  but  the  absolute  is 
indivisibly  present  with  the  whole  inner  wealth  of  its  nature  in  this 

VOL.  I.  F  f 


434    The  Metaphysical  Conception  of  the  Soul.    [BOOK  in. 

particular  spot,  and,  in  obedience  to  those  laws  of  its  action  which  it 
has  itself  laid  down,  necessarily  makes  additions  to  the  simple  con 
junctions  of  those  elements  which  are  themselves  only  its  own  con 
tinuous  actions,  simple  additions  where  the  conjunctions  are  simple, 
additions  of  greater  magnitude  and  value  where  they  are  more  compli 
cated.  Everywhere  it  draws  only  the  consequences,  which  at  every 
point  of  the  whole  belong  to  the  premisses  it  has  previously  realised  at 
that  point.  It  is  thus  that  it  gives  to  every  organism  its  fitting  soul ; 
and  it  is  therefore  needless  to  devise  a  way  or  make  provision  for  the 
correct  choice  which  should  ensure  to  every  animal  germ  the  soul 
which  answers  to  its  kind.  Again,  so  long  as  the  soul  was  regarded 
as  indivisible  substance,  it  could  only  be  supposed  to  enter  the  body 
at  a  single  instant  and  in  its  entirety :  whereas,  if  we  renounce  these 
ideas  of  an  external  conjunction,  we  need  no  longer  wish  to  fix  the 
moment  at  which  the  soul  enters  into  a  development  which  at  first  is 
supposed  to  produce  only  physical  actions. 

We  have  all  along  regarded  the  interaction  of  the  absolute  with  all 
the  elements  of  the  world  as  eternal  and  incessant.  It  is  present  just 
as  continuously  in  the  first  development  of  the  germ  ;  and  in  the 
same  way  there  is  nothing  to  prevent  us  from  looking  at  the  formation 
of  the  soul  as  an  extended  process  in  time,  a  process  in  which  the 
absolute  gradually  gives  a  further  form  to  its  creation.  Doubtless  we 
shall  never  be  able  to  picture  this  process  to  ourselves ;  but  at  any 
rate  there  is  no  force  in  the  possible  objection  that  such  a  gradual 
development  contradicts  the  unity  of  the  soul.  For  we  are  speaking, 
not  of  a  composition  of  pieces  already  present  in  separation,  but  of 
the  successive  transformations  of  something  established  at  the  be 
ginning  of  the  process.  And  if  this  again  should  seem  to  contradict 
the  idea  of  one  unchangeable  substance,  I  recur  to  my  previous 
assertion  ;  it  is  not  because  the  soul  is  substance  and  unity  that  it 
asserts  itself  as  such,  but  it  is  substance  and  unity,  as  "soon  as,  and  in 
so  far  as,  it  asserts  itself  as  such ;  and  if  it  does  this  gradually  in  a 
greater  degree,  and  with  a  growing  significance,  I  should  not  hesitate 
to  distinguish  in  its  substantiality,  and  in  the  intensity  of  its  unity, 
countless  different  grades  which  it  traverses  by  degrees  when  first  it  is 
being  formed,  and  the  last  and  highest  of  which  it  may  perhaps  be 
incapable  of  reaching  during  the  whole  of  its  terrestrial  and  super- 
terrestrial  existence. 

And  now,  after  our  picture  has  been  thus  altered,  collecting  its 
various  traits,  I  may  return  to  an  earlier  statement :  if  anyone  were 
in  a  position  to  observe  the  first  development  of  the  soul,  just  as  with 


CHAPTER  i.]       Soul's  growth  seems  effect  of  Body  s.         435 

the  microscope  we  can  observe  the  physical  development  of  the  germ, 
the  result  would  infallibly  be  that  everything  would  look  to  him 
exactly  as  materialism  believes  it  actually  to  take  place.  As  the 
structure  progressively  differentiated  itself,  he  would  see  appearing, 
not  all  at  once,  but  by  degrees,  the  faint  and  gradually  multiplying 
traces  of  psychical  activity;  but  nowhere  would  he  meet  with  the 
sudden  irruption  of  a  power,  which  seemed  foreign  to  the  play  of  the 
elements  active  before  his  eyes :  he  would  see  the  whole  condition  of 
things  which  has  been  thought  to  justify  the  view  that  all  psychical 
life  is  a  side-effect  of  the  physical  process  of  formation.  This  con 
dition  of  things  we  admit ;  and  the  view  based  on  it  we  reject.  All 
the  single  manifestations  which  could  thus  be  observed  might  no 
doubt  be  regarded  as  products  of  the  interaction  of  the  physical  ele 
ments  ;  but  the  unity  of  consciousness,  to  which  at  a  later  time  our 
inward  experience  testifies,  cannot,  in  the  absence  of  a  subject,  be  the 
mere  result  of  the  activities  of  a  number  of  elements,  and  just  as 
little  can  this  subject  be  created  by  those  activities.  Nor  again  is  it 
out  of  nothing  that  the  soul  is  made  or  created  by  the  absolute  ;  but 
to  satisfy  the  imagination  we  may  say  it  is  from  itself,  from  its  own 
real  nature  that  the  absolute  projects  the  soul,  and  so  adds  to  its  one 
activity,  the  course  of  nature,  that  other  which,  in  the  ruling  plan  of 
the  absolute,  is  its  natural  completion. 

247.  I  know  well  that  our  metaphysical  enquiries  are  constantly 
and  jealously  watched  by  certain  side-thoughts  of  our  own  ;  and  here 
they  raise  the  question  whether  we  are  not  in  the  interests  of  the 
intellect  laying  down  positions  which  will  afterwards  prove  fatal  to 
the  requirements  of  the  emotional  side  of  our  nature.  In  subjecting 
the  origin  of  psychical  life  to  the  dominion  of  law,  are  we  not  once 
more  reducing  the  whole  course  of  the  world  to  that  necessary  evolu 
tion  of  a  mere  nature  in  which  no  place  remains  for  any  free  beginning 
and,  therefore,  none  for  any  guiding  providence?  I  admit  that  there 
is  ground  for  such  doubts,  but  not  that  it  is  my  duty  to  meet  them 
here.  If  the  need  that  is  expressed  in  them  is  a  justifiable  one,  still  it 
is  only  where  its  justification  is  successful  that  we  can  attempt  to 
satisfy  it  without  cancelling  what  we  have  previously  found  to  be 
necessary  for  the  theoretic  intelligibility  of  the  world.  So  long  then  as 
psychical  life  is  realised  in  countless  instances  after  the  same  universal 
patterns,  and  so  long  as  the  same  processes  are  repeated  countless 
times  in  every  single  soul,  we  cannot  refuse  to  admit  a  connexion 
which  follows  universal  laws  and  which  here,  as  elsewhere,  shows 
like  results  following  on  like  conditions,  and  the  same  changes  in  the 

rf2 


436     The  Metaphysical  Conception  of  the  Soul.     [BOOK  in. 

former  following  on  the  same  changes  in  the  latter.  We  may  put 
aside  the  question  whether  this  connexion  is  all  that  the  reality  of 
things  conceals  or  includes :  whatever  may  be  necessary  to  complete 
it,  it  cannot  itself  be  denied. 

There  are  two  directions,  therefore,  in  which  a  mechanical  point  of 
view  may  extend  its  claim  over  these  subjects.  It  has  been  attempted 
long  since  in  the  case  of  the  inward  life  of  the  soul,  and  the  concep 
tion  of  a  psychical  mechanism  is  no  longer  unfamiliar  to  us  :  I  have 
met  with  less  sympathy  for  that  other  idea  of  a  physico-psychical 
mechanism,  the  object  of  which  was  to  base  the  commerce  between 
soul  and  body  on  a  series  of  thoughts  similar  to  those  which  we 
apply  to  the  interaction  of  physical  elements.  Accepting  with  gratitude 
the  pleasanter  name  '  psycho-physical  mechanism/  which  by  Fechner's 
ingenious  attempts  has  been  introduced  into  science,  I  will  once 
more  attempt  to  defend  those  outlines  of  my  theory  which  I  sketched 
in  the  Medicinische  Psychologic  (1852).  According  to  some  views  my 
proposal  is  impossible  ;  and  according  to  others  it  is  superfluous.  The 
essence  of  it  lay  in  the  attempt  to  regard  the  soul  as  an  existence 
possessing  unity,  and  the  body  as  a  number  of  other  inter-connected 
existences,  and  to  regard  the  two  as  the  two  sides,  neither  identical 
nor  disconnected,  from  the  interaction  of  which  mental  life  proceeds, 
that  life  being  in  posse  based  on  the  proper  nature  of  the  soul,  but 
stirred  to  actual  existence  by  the  influences  of  the  external  world. 

248.  I  need  not  be  prolix  in  opposing  those  who  adduce  the 
incomparability  of  things  psychical  and  material  as  an  objection 
against  the  possibility  of  any  interaction  between  them.  Admitting 
this  incomparability,  it  would  still  be  an  unfounded  prejudice  to 
suppose  that  only  like  can  act  on  like,  and  a  mistake  to  imagine  that 
the  case  of  an  interaction  of  soul  and  body  is  an  exceptional  one,  and 
that  we  are  here  to  find  inexplicable  what  in  any  action  of  matter  upon 
matter  we  understand.  It  is  only  the  false  idea  that  an  action  or 
effect1  is  a  complete  state,  transferable  from  one  substrate  to  the 
other,  which  misleads  us  into  demanding  that  any  two  things  which 
are  to  influence  one  another  should  be  homogeneous  :  for,  if  that  idea 
were  correct,  it  would  of  course  follow  that  b,  to  which  the  effect 
passes,  and  a,  from  which  it  issues,  must  be  sufficiently  similar  to 
give  it  admittance  in  the  same  way.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
form  of  any  effect  proceeds  from  the  nature  of  that  on  which  the 
external  cause  acts,  and  is  not  determined  exclusively  by  the  latter; 
and  no  species  of  conditions  can  be  adduced,  the  presence  of  which 
1  [Cp.  §  57,  supra.] 


CHAPTER!.]          Interaction  of  Soul  and  Body.  437 

is  indispensable  to  enable  one  thing  a  to  excite  another  thing  b  so  to 
manifest  its  own  nature.  To  our  sensuous  imagination,  it  is  true,  no 
interaction  but  that  of  similar  elements  (similar  at  least  in  their 
external  appearance)  presents  itself  as  a  connected  image  ;  but  it  is 
only  our  sensuous  imagination  that  seeks  to  retain  for  every  case  of 
action  the  homogeneous  character  which  it  fancies  it  understands  to 
be  an  essential  condition  in  this  particular  case.  And  this  is  just 
where  it  deceives  itself.  I  have  frequently  pointed  out  how  often  we 
suppose  ourselves  to  understand  something,  when  our  senses  are 
simply  occupied  with  a  variegated  and  unbroken  series  of  phenomena. 
So  long  as  we  are  merely  looking  at  the  outside  of  a  machine  we  do 
not  imagine  that  we  comprehend  it :  but  when  it  is  opened  and  we 
see  how  all  its  parts  fit  into  one  another,  and  how  at  last  it  brings  out 
a  result  utterly  unlike  the  impulse  first  imparted,  we  think  that  we 
understand  its  action  perfectly.  And  it  really  is  clear  to  us,  in  so  far 
as  the  explanation  of  a  complicated  process  means  its  reduction 
to  a  concatenation  of  very  simple  actions  which  we  have  made  up 
our  minds  to  consider  intelligible ;  but  the  action  which  takes  place 
between  each  pair  of  the  simplest  links  of  the  chain  remains  just  as 
incomprehensible  as  before,  and  equally  incomprehensible  whether 
those  links  are  like  one  another  or  not.  The  working  of  every 
machine  yet  known  rests  on  the  fact  that  certain  parts  of  it  are  solid 
and  that  these  parts  communicate  their  motions  ;  but  how  the  elements 
manage  to  bind  one  another  into  an  unchanging  shape,  and  how  they 
can  transmit  motions — and  this  is  what  is  essential  in  the  process  of 
the  action  of  matter  on  matter — remains  invisible,  and  the  similarity 
of  the  parts  concerned  in  the  action  adds  nothing  to  its  intelligibility. 
When  then  we  speak  of  an  action  taking  place  between  the  soul  and 
material  elements,  all  that  we  miss  is  the  perception  of  that  external 
scenery  which  may  make  the  influence  of  matter  on  matter  more 
familiar  to  us,  but  cannot  explain  it.  We  shall  never  see  the  last 
atom  of  the  nerve  impinging  on  the  soul,  or  the  soul  upon  it ;  but 
equally  in  the  case  of  two  visible  spheres  the  impact  is  not  the 
intelligible  cause  of  the  communication  of  motion ;  it  is  nothing  but 
the  form  in  which  we  can  perceive  something  happening  which  we 
do  not  comprehend. 

The  mistake  is  to  desire  to  discover  indispensable  conditions  of  all 
action ;  and  we  are  only  repeating  this  mistake  in  another  form  when 
we  declare  the  immaterial  soul,  as  devoid  of  mass,  incapable  of  acting 
mechanically  on  a  dense  material  mass,  or  conceive  it  as  an  in 
vulnerable  shadow,  inaccessible  to  the  attacks  of  the  corporeal  world. 


438     The  Metaphysical  Conception  of  the  Soul.    [BOOK  in. 

We  might  without  hesitation  take  an  opposite  point  of  view,  and 
speak  of  the  soul  as  a  definite  mass  at  every  moment  when  it  produces 
an  effect  measurable  by  the  movement  of  a  corporeal  mass.  And 
in  doing  so  we  should  be  taking  none  of  its  immateriality  from  it ; 
for  with  bodies  also  it  is  not  the  case  that  they  are  first  masses  and 
then  and  therefore  produce  effects  or  act ;  but  according  to  the  degree 
of  their  effects  they  are  called  masses  of  a  certain  magnitude.  The 
soul  again  is  no  less  capable  of  receiving  effects  through  the  stimulus 
of  material  elements  than  they  are  from  one  another,  although  it  does 
not  stand  face  to  face  with  them  in  an  equally  perceptible  shape  ; 
for  as  between  those  elements  themselves  shape  and  movement, 
impact  and  pressure,  determine  nothing  but  the  external  appearance 
behind  which,  and  the  scene  on  which,  the  imperceptible  process  of 
action  goes  on. 

And,  lastly,  in  our  present  metaphysical  discussion  we  need  not 
have  entered  on  these  objections  at  all.  We  have  given  up  that 
simple  and  thorough  division  of  reality,  which  places  matter  on  one 
side  and  the  mind  on  the  other,  confident  and  full  of  faith  in  regard 
to  the  former,  timid  and  doubtful  about  the  latter.  Everything  we 
supposed  ourselves  to  know  of  matter  as  an  obvious  and  independent 
existence,  has  long  since  been  dissolved  in  the  conviction  that  matter 
itself,  together  with  the  space,  by  filling  which  it  seemed  most  con 
vincingly  to  prove  its  peculiar  nature,  is  nothing  but  an  appearance 
for  our  perception,  and  that  this  appearance  arises  from  the  reciprocal 
effects  which  existences,  in  themselves  super-sensuous,  produce  on 
one  another  and,  consequently,  also  upon  the  soul.  There  may, 
therefore,  be  some  other  way  in  which  the  soul  is  separated  from 
these  existences ;  but  it  is  not  parted  from  them  by  the  gulf  of 
that  incomparability  which  is  supposed  to  be  a  bar  to  all  inter 
action. 

249.  So  long  as  we  believe  this  gulf  to  exist,  we  naturally  try  to 
bridge  it,  and  therefore  raise  the  pointless  question  respecting  the 
bond  which  holds  body  and  soul  together.  What  is  the  use  of  a  bond 
except  to  hold  together  things  which,  being  perfectly  indifferent  to 
each  other  and  destitute  of  all  inter-action,  threaten  to  fall  asunder  ? 
And  how  is  a  bond  to  do  its  work  except  through  the  connexion  of 
its  own  parts,  a  connexion  which  one  cannot  suppose  to  be  in  its 
turn  effected  by  new  bonds  between  these  parts,  but  which  must  rest 
in  the  end  on  their  own  inter-actions?  And  if  in  this  instance  it  is 
clear  that  the  binding  force  of  the  bond  consists  simply  in  the  inter 
actions  which  flow  from  the  inner  relations  of  its  parts  to  one  another, 


A  '  bond'  between  Body  and  Soul  f  439 

why  should  the  case  be  different  between  the  body  and  soul  ?  Their 
union  consists  in  the  fact  that  they  can  and  must  act  on  one  another, 
and  no  external  bond  which  embraced  them  both  could  supply  the 
place  of  this  capacity  and  necessity,  unless  its  inclusion  of  them  were 
already  based  on  their  own  natures.  Besides,  how  poverty-stricken 
is  the  idea  of  this  single  bond,  which  in  our  parsimony  we  fancy  will 
suffice  us !  Even  supposing  it  to  exist,  where  are  we  to  find  the 
positive  ground  of  the  nature  and  form  of  those  actions  or  effects 
which,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  take  place  ?  The  reason  for  their  existence 
cannot  be  found  by  another  appeal  to  the  indifferent  bond ;  it  would 
have  to  be  sought  in  the  peculiar  natures  of  the  things  connected. 
Whatever  number  of  different  inter-actions  body  and  soul  can  effect  in 
virtue  of  the  relation  of  their  natures,  so  many  bonds  are  there  which 
unite  them  and  hold  them  together  :  but  to  look  for  the  one  nameless 
bond  which  should  take  the  place  of  all  these,  is  vain,  absurd,  and 
wearisome.  Even  if  we  understand  it  to  be  merely  a  conditio  sine 
qua  non  for  the  exercise  of  capacities  based  on  something  else,  we 
still  must  refuse  to  admit  it;  for  the  body  and  soul  were  never 
separated  from  one  another  like  two  bodies  which  cannot  act  on  one 
another  chemically  until  they  are  brought  together.  One  word,  lastly, 
on  the  sarcasm  which  reproaches  us  with  forming  the  personality  of 
man  by  adding  two  ingredients  together.  It  is  just  this  addition 
that  is  made  by  the  one  external  bond  ;  and  what  we  want  is  not  it 
but  the  multiplicity  of  a  complex  double  and  united  life.  But  in  spite; 
of  this  unity  we  do  not  look  for  man's  personality  in  body  and  soul 
alike,  but  in  the  soul  alone.  We  seek  in  the  body  only  the  echo  or 
appearance  of  its  action  ;  for  the  body  is  and  remains  for  the  soul 
a  part  of  the  external  world,  though  that  part  which  it  can  most 
directly  rule  and  to  whose  influence  it  is  most  immediately  susceptible. 
250.  There  is  another  question  on  which  I  wish  to  touch,  and 
these  remarks  at  once  suggest  it.  If  the  inter-action  of  body  and 
soul  is  an  easy  matter,  why  not  go  a  step  further,  instead  of  still 
maintaining  a  separation  into  two  interacting  sides  ?  At  how  many 
points  have  we  come  close  to  an  opposite  view  !  We  did  not  regard 
the  soul  as  something  steadfast  in  itself  from  eternity,  something 
which  enters  as  an  indissoluble  substance  into  the  machinery  of  the 
body's  formation  ;  we  admitted  that  they  arise  together.  Even  the 
supposition  that  the  soul  arises  gradually  according  as  the  bodily 
organization  approaches  its  completion,  did  not  seem  to  us  impossible. 
What  is  there  now  to  hinder  the  confession  that  it  is  simply  a 
consequence  of  this  physical  concatenation  of  atoms  ?  And  if  on 


44-O     The  Metaphysical  Conception  of  the  Soul. 

the  other  side  it  is  conceded  that,  so  long  as  we  abide  by  the 
customary  physical  ideas,  we  cannot  deduce  the  origin  of  a  psychical 
process  from  the  co-operation  of  material  atoms,  why  need  we  hold 
to  those  ideas  ?  Why  not  adopt  that  wider  view,  which  holds  that  if 
a  number  of  elements  meet  together,  then,  according  as  the  number 
of  the  connected  parts  and  the  multiplicity  of  their  relations 
increases,  perfectly  new  effects  or  actions  may  be  connected  with 
those  meeting  elements,  effects  which  do  not  follow  on  the  inter 
action  of  two  atoms  alone,  and  which  therefore  we  never  can  discover, 
so  long  as  we  try  to  find  the  conclusions  of  such  complicated  pre 
misses  by  merely  adding  together  the  inter-actions  of  each  pair 
of  them? 

In  answering  this  question  I  must  first  go  back  to  an  earlier  state 
ment.  Even  supposing  we  could  unreservedly  approve  of  these 
ideas,  still  the  only  purpose  we  could  put  them  to  would  be  to  deduce 
from  them  what  is  given  us  in  experience  ;  that  must  not  be  put 
aside  as  a  matter  for  doubt,  on  the  ground  that  our  presuppositions 
are  not  found  to  lead  to  it.  Now  what  is  connected  with  these 
associations  of  many  elements  is  not  merely  psychical  states,  pheno 
mena,  events,  or  whatever  we  like  to  call  them.  For  each  of  these 
results  inexorably  demands  a  subject,  whose  state  or  stimulation  it  is ; 
and  psychical  life,  so  far  as  it  is  a  given  object  of  inward  experience, 
includes  for  us  the  fact  of  a  unity  of  this  subject,  to  which  the 
events  we  have  spoken  of  are  or  can  be  referred  as  something  that 
befalls  it.  I  will  not  repeat  my  demonstration  that  the  analogy  of  the 
formation  of  physical  resultants  can  never  lead  us  to  this  unity, 
unless  we  take  beforehand  as  a  fixed  point  the  unity  of  the  subject  in 
which  a  variety  of  elements  is  to  combine  :  I  will  only  add  that  the 
ideas  I  have  been  mentioning  offer  no  new  expedient  which  could 
lead  us  beyond  that  deduction  of  resultants.  Since  so  much  that  is 
new  has  to  arise  from  the  combination  of  the  atoms,  it  seems  to  me 
that  we  should  have  to  make  up  our  minds  to  the  final  step,  and 
maintain  that  from  a  certain  definite  form  of  this  combination  there 
also  arises,  as  a  new  existence,  that  one  subject,  that  very  soul  which 
collects  in  itself  the  states  previously  scattered  among  the  subjects 
of  the  individual  atoms.  But  the  mere  admission  that  psychical  unity 
springs  from  physical  multiplicity  is  no  merit  in  the  theory ;  it  simply 
states  the  supposed  fact,  and  so  gives  expression  to  a  very  familiar 
problem,  but  it  offers  us  no  further  explanation  of  it.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  expression  employed  is  scarcely  peculiar  to  the  view  in 
question  ;  for  the  psychical  unity  of  which  it  speaks  is  simply  what  we 


CHAPTER  LI       Origin  of  Soul-substance  de  novo.  44 1 

mean  by  the  word  substance.  It  is  under  this  title  then,  as  substance, 
that  the  soul  would  become  the  foundation  on  which  our  account 
of  the  rest  of  its  life  would  be  based  ;  for  by  nothing  short  of  this 
should  we  have  complied  with  the  postulates  which  experience  im 
poses  on  our  attempts  at  explanation.  And  at  this  point  I  should 
take  leave  to  pursue  the  same  point  of  view  still  further.  According 
to  it,  it  is  possible  that  a  certain  state  of  things  may  be  the  real 
ground  of  a  consequence  which  we  cannot  analytically  deduce  from 
it  but  can  only  conjoin  to  it  as  something  new ;  but  if  this  is  so,  it  is 
possible  that  the  soul,  once  arisen,  may  go  its  own  way  and  unfold 
activities  which  have  their  sufficient  ground  in  it  alone  (when  once  it 
has  come  into  being),  and  not  in  the  least  in  those  other  facts  which 
led  to  its  creation.  There  would  remain  therefore  not  a  shadow  of 
necessity  for  the  proposal  to  connect  with  every  activity  of  the  soul 
as  its  producing  condition  a  corresponding  activity  of  the  body,  and 
we  should  simply  come  back  to  that  psycho-physical  mechanism 
which  allows  each  side  a  sphere  of  inter-action,  but  at  the  same  time 
accords  to  each  a  field  for  an  activity  of  its  own  in  which  the  other 
has  no  constant  share. 

251.  I  have  still  something  to  add  to  our  hypothesis.  '  When  the 
elements  />,  q,  r . .,  are  combined  in  the  form  F  an  effect  or  action  Z 
is  conjoined  with  them,  which  does  not  follow  from  the  single  effects 
of  the  elements  when  taken  in  pairs':  this  is  a  pleasing  expression, 
and  one  that  satisfies  the  imagination.  But  who  has  conjoined  the 
effect  with  them  ?  Or,  not  to  insist  unfairly  on  the  words,  how  are  we 
to  conceive  the  fact  that  a  law  holds  good  for  the  various  elements 
/>,  q,  r ..,  which  determines  the  effect  Z  for  their  form  of  combina 
tion  Ft  How  are  we  to  conceive  this  other  fact,  that  those  elements 
take  notice  that  at  a  given  moment  this  F  is  present,  i.  e.  that  a  case 
has  arisen  for  the  application  of  the  law  which  was  not  present  the 
moment  before  ?  Or  lastly,  if  we  recollect  that  that  form  of  combination 
signifies  nothing  but  an  affection  of  those  elements  already  present  in 
them,  in  consequence  of  which  they  are  no  longer  />,  g,  r . .,  but 
TT,  K,  p . .,  still  the  question  would  remain,  how  did  this  change  in  the 
state  of  each  become  noticeable  by  every  other,  so  that  they  could  all 
conspire  to  produce  the  further  action  Z?  I  have  already  raised 
these  questions  more  than  once,  and  the  necessary  answer  to  them 
has  seemed  to  be  that  the  course  of  the  world  is  not  comprehensible 
by  a  pluralism  which  starts  with  an  original  multiplicity  of  elements 
reciprocally  indifferent,  and  hopes  afterwards  through  the  mere 
behest  of  laws  to  force  them  to  take  notice  of  each  other.  Apart 


44  2  %  The  Metaphysical  Conception  of  the  Soul,    t  BOOK  in. 

from  the  unity  of  the  encompassing  Reality  which  is  all  things  at 
once  and  which  determines  their  being  and  nature,  it  is  impossible  to 
conceive  the  arising  of  any  action  at  a  given  place  and  time,  whether 
that  action  be  one  of  those  the  content  of  which  we  believe  to  be 
deducible  from  the  given  circumstances,  or  one  of  those  which  can 
only  be  regarded  as  a  new  addition  to  them.  I  repeat  this  here  in 
order  to  defend  the  hypothesis  of  the  preceding  paragraph.  For 
I  should  certainly  never  set  anyone  the  task,  out  of  ten  elements  to 
make  an  eleventh  arise  equally  real  with  them.  It  is  not  from  them 
that,  on  this  hypothesis,  the  substance  of  the  soul  would  spring ;  nor 
would  it  arise  above  them,  between  them,  or  by  the  side  of  them, 
out  of  nothing.  It  would  be  a  new  creation,  produced  by  the  one 
encompassing  being  from  its  own  nature  as  the  supplement  of  its 
physical  activity  there  and  then  operating. 

252.  To  a  certain  extent  no  doubt  I  should  be  merely  disputing 
about  words,  if  I  insisted  on  these  statements  still  further  in  opposition 
to  Fechner,  considering  that  his  works  testify  so  fully  to  his  enthusiasm 
for  a  unity  of  all  things  which  should  be  at  once  ideal  and  effective.  Yet 
it  would  not  be  altogether  a  verbal  quarrel ;  I  am  anxious  to  take  this 
opportunity  of  declaring  against  a  point  of  view  which  may  be  at  any 
rate  surmised  from  the  expressions  he  has  chosen.  After  what  I  have 
said  I  need  not  repeat  that,  in  my  eyes,  nothing  is  gained  in  the  way 
of  clearness  by  the  invention  of  the  name  '  psycho-physical  occur 
rence,'  or  '  psycho-physical  process.'  I  admit  that  the  expression 
may  have  a  meaning  when  applied  to  a  single  element,  in  which,  as 
I  said  before,  we  conceive  physical  and  psychical  stimulations  to  exist 
together.  But  when  it  is  used  to  explain  that  life  of  the  soul,  which  is 
supposed  to  develope  itself  from  the  co-operation  of  a  system  of 
elements,  it  seems  to  me  to  be  attractive  only  because  of  its  indistinct 
ness.  Where  we  find  it  difficult  to  define  the  connexion  between  two 
members  of  a  relation  which  must  be  kept  apart  and  distinct,  we 
all  feel  some  weakness  for  ideas  which  represent  the  two  as  an 
original  unity  and  thereby  dismiss  the  object  of  our  enquiry  from  the 
world.  In  the  present  case  I  can  find  no  clear  account  of  the  definite 
single  subject  to  which  each  single  instance  of  this  process  is  as 
cribed,  and  no  statement  of  the  manner  in  which  these  actions  or 
effects  work  into  each  other  and  form  a  composite  whole.  What  is 
more  important,  however,  to  me  is  the  difference  between  the  lights 
in  which  we  view  what  is  perhaps  the  same  set  of  ideas.  I  allude  to 
the  general  remarks  at  the  end  of  the  second  volume  of  Fechner's 
Elemente  der  Psychophysik  (p.  515).  In  this  passage  1  find  that  he 


CHAPTER  i.]         The  substratum  of  the  Psychical.  443 

observes  upon  and  supplies  though  in  a  peculiar  form,  what  I  looked 
for  in  vain  in  other  statements  of  the  pluralistic  hypothesis.  I  do  not 
doubt  at  all  that,  for  those  who  are  accustomed  to  the  terminology, 
the  waves  and  principal  waves  of  the  psycho-physical  activity,  like  its 
sinking  or  its  rising  over  certain  thresholds,  are  something  more  than 
short  and  pictorial  designations  of  actual  facts  in  the  life  of  the  soul ; 
that  they  are  signs  which,  through  their  capacity  of  taking  a  mathe 
matical  form,  may  lead  to  more  definite  formulations  of  reciprocal 
relations  of  those  facts.  But  I  cannot  help  feeling  that  in  these 
descriptions  of  what  happens  the  real  condition  of  its  happening 
is  also  looked  for  ;  or,  if  this  is  a  misunderstanding,  that  at  any  rate 
there  is  much  provocation  for  it.  For  if  no  idea  of  this  kind  had  had 
a  hand  in  the  matter,  many  of  the  explanations  that  are  given  would 
be  in  reality  nothing  but  elegant  transcriptions  of  familiar  thoughts 
into  this  sign-language,  transcriptions  which  do  not  directly  advance 
the  enquiry  :  and  the  reader  will  not  suppose  that  he  has  gained 
anything  by  them  unless  he  is  allowed  to  take  these  images  for  the 
discovery  of  something  hitherto  unknown,  of  the  instrumentation,  so 
to  speak,  on  which  the  realisation  of  the  psychical  processes  rests. 

One  of  the  last  sentences  of  this  celebrated  book  (p.  546)  may 
explain  what  it  is  I  object  to.  The  substrate  of  what  is  psychical,  we 
are  told,  is  something  diffused  through  the  whole  world  and  con 
nected  into  a  system  by  universal  forces ;  the  quantity  of  conscious 
ness  depends  simply  on  the  quantity,  and  not  on  the  quality  of  the 
psycho-physical  motion  ;  and  this  quality  should  rather  be  connected 
only  with  the  quality  of  the  phenomena  of  consciousness.  Thus 
every  motion,  whatever  its  form  and  whatever  its  substrate,  would,  on 
reaching  a  certain  specified  value,  contribute  something  to  conscious 
ness,  whether  that  consciousness  be  our  own  or  that  of  another 
person  or  a  general  consciousness ;  and  every  particular  form  of 
motion — i.  e.  every  particular  collocation  and  series  of  velocity-com 
ponents — would  carry  with  it  its  appropriate  psychical  phenomenon 
of  the  appropriate  form,  so  soon  as  the  components  entering  into 
that  form  all  exceed  a  certain  quantitative  value. 

'  In  this  way  we  dispense  with  the  magical  charm,  the  qualitas 
occulta,  which  is  supposed  to  qualify  for  psychical  effects  only  this  or 
that  exceptional  form  of  motion.'  '  What  is  unconscious  and  what  is 
conscious  in  the  world  will  represent  merely  two  cases  of  the  same 
formula,  which  is  the  standard  at  once  of  their  relation  and  of  their 
transition  into  one  another.' 

I  maintain   nothing   respecting  the    meaning   intended   in   these 


444       The  Metaphysical  Conception  of  the  Soul. 

words :  I  maintain  only  that  they  may  easily  be  understood,  or  mis 
understood,  to  recommend  a  view,  the  admissibility  of  which  I 
certainly  contest.  However  much  we  may  bring  the  phenomena  of 
two  different  series  of  events  under  one  and  the  same  formula — and 
I  do  not  deny  that  it  is  possible  to  do  so — still  all  that  the  formula 
in  any  case  does  is  to  describe  the  phenomena  after  they  are  actually 
there ;  it  is  not  the  reason  why  they  are  actually  there.  If  all  the 
hopes  here  expressed  of  the  psycho-physical  calculus  were  fulfilled, 
we  should  nevertheless  still  be  unable  to  dispense  with  that  qualitas 
occulta,  which  brings,  not  to  an  exceptional  kind  of  motion,  but  to 
every  motion  the  capacity  for  an  activity  which  does  not  lie  in  the 
motion  itself.  I  may  be  told  that  what  I  miss  is  already  included  in 
the  character  of  the  motion  as  psycho-physical ;  and  indeed  it  is  not 
so  much  the  meaning  of  these  sentences  that  I  wish  to  object  to  as 
the  manner  in  which  it  is  expressed.  Still  there  appears  everywhere 
as  something  first  and  foremost  a  universal  mechanism,  which  of  itself 
is  supposed  to  produce  this  result,  that,  in  relation  to  certain  forms 
of  motion,  there  arises,  as  their  natural  and  necessary  consequence 
and  as  the  consequence  of  nothing  beside  them,  a  mental  activity  ; 
for  even  the  general  formula  which  is  to  include  conscious  and  un 
conscious  as  two  cases,  must  obviously,  as  the  common  element  of 
which  they  are  cases,  mean  not  the  mere  abstract  formula,  but  always 
in  the  last  resort  that  which  is  itself  unconscious,  namely,  motion. 
The  beautiful  thoughts  in  which  Fechner  contradicts  this  interpreta 
tion  will  be  put  aside  by  most  of  his  readers  as  excusable  day 
dreams  ;  but  there  are  many  who  will  make  use  of  his  expressions 
in  order  to  shelter  under  a  great  name  their  favourite  doctrine  of 
the  generatio  aequivoca  of  everything  rational  from  that  which  is  devoid 
of  reason. 


CHAPTER     II. 


Sensations  and  the  Course  of  Ideas. 

253.  OUR  mental  life  is  aroused  anew  at  every  moment  by  sensa 
tions  which  the  external  world  excites.  But  the  things  without  us 
become  the  cause  of  our  sensation  not  through  their  mere  existence, 
but  only  through  effects  which  they  produce  in  us  ;  through  motions, 
in  which  either  they  themselves  approach  the  surface  of  our  body 
until  they  touch  it,  or  which  they  from  their  own  fixed  position  com 
municate  to  some  medium,  and  which  this  medium  in  turn  propagates 
from  atom  to  atom  up  to  that  surface.  And  therefore,  though  lan 
guage  describes  things  as  objects  which  we  see  and  hear,  we  must 
not  allow  these  transitive  expressions  to  suggest  the  idea  that  our 
senses,  or  our  soul  by  means  of  them,  exercise  some  activity  which 
goes  out  to  seek  for  the  external  objects  and  brings  them  to  percep 
tion.  Our  attitude  is  at  first  one  of  simple  waiting ;  and  although 
when  we  strain  our  eyes  and  ears  in  listening  or  watching  we  may 
seem  to  feel  in  those  organs  something  of  such  an  outgoing  activity, 
what  we  really  feel  is  not  this  but  a  different  activity, — one  by  which 
we  place  them  in  a  state  of  the  utmost  sensitiveness  for  the  impres 
sions  we  expect. 

Now  it  is  self-evident  that  sensations,  which  we  have  at  one  time 
and  not  at  another,  can  only  arise  from  the  alteration  of  a  previous 
state,  and  therefore  only  through  some  motion  which  brings  about 
this  alteration.  The  old  idea  therefore  that  the  mere  assumption  of  a 
specific  substance  or  caloric  was  sufficient  to  account  for  our  feeling 
of  heat  was,  apart  from  all  other  objections,  intrinsically  false :  for 
this  caloric,  even  if  it  were  present,  could  not,  in  the  absence  of  any 
motion,  produce  either  the  sensation  of  heat  or  those  other  effects  which 
would  prove  that  it  itself  was  present.  But  that  is  one  objection  which  I 
fear  will  be  raised  against  the  doctrine  that  all  our  sensations  and  per 
ceptions  depend  on  motions  of  the  things  which  are  to  be  their  objects. 
From  an  ontological  point  of  view  I  regarded  a  certain  sympathetic  rap- 


446  Sensations  and  the  Course  of  Ideas.      [  BOOK  in. 

port-as  the  ultimate  ground  of  every  possible  inter-action.  But,  I  may 
be  asked,  if  this  idea  is  sound,  why  should  not  things  exist  for  one 
another  apart  from  any  physical  intermediation ;  and  why  should  not 
we  perceive  things  immediately,  without  having  to  wait  for  the 
impact  of  their  propagated  motion  on  us  ?  .  That  sympathy,  I  answer, 
the  name  of  which  was  borrowed  from  a  dubious  quarter,  was  not 
such  a  community  of  all  things  as  is  destitute  of  order  and  degree. 
On  the  contrary,  we  found  that  the  elements  of  the  whole  stood  to 
one  another  in  relations  varying  widely  in  their  closeness  or  distance; 
and  it  was  to  these  elements  we  ascribed  an  immediate  sympathy 
which  needs  no  artificial  means  for  its  production.  The  degree  of 
this  closeness  or  distance  determines  for  any  two  elements  the  num 
ber  of  intermediates  necessary  for  their  interaction ;  necessary,  not 
because  the  laws  of  a  pre-mundane  system  of  mechanics  would  render 
the  interaction  impossible  in  the  absence  of  these  intermediates,  bilt 
because,  in  their  absence,  it  would  be  in  contradiction  with  the  degree 
and  nature  of  the  relation  on  which  it  is  founded,  and  with  that 
meaning  of  the  whole  which  again  is  the  foundation  of  whatever 
mechanical  laws  hold  good  in  the  world.  Thus  in  our  view,  the 
motions  in  question,  the  physical  stimuli  of  the  senses,  are  not  the 
instrumental  conditions,  which  place  all  things  for  the  first  time  in 
relations  to  one  another  and  to  us,  but  expressions  of  that  existing 
and  irremovable  network  of  conditions  which  the  meaning  of  the  world 
has  established  between  the  states  of  those  things.  We  know  that 
in  any  chain,  along  which  an  action  or  effect  is  propagated,  there  is 
necessarily  presupposed  in  the  last  resort  a  wholly  immediate  action 
between  each  link  and  that  which  lies  next  to  it.  The  fantastic  idea 
which  extends  this  direct  reciprocal  influence  to  anything  and  every 
thing,  and  would  accordingly  place  the  soul  in  a  communion,  free 
from  all  physical  intermediation,  with  distant  objects,  cannot  therefore 
be  theoretically  proved  impossible.  But  inability  to  controvert  a  point 
of  view  lies  a  long  way  from  belief  in  its  validity.  Considering  that 
the  whole  of  the  known  and  waking  life  of  the  soul  is  based  through 
out  upon  that  physical  intermediation,  we  can  only  answer  asserted 
experiences  of  an  interruption  of  this  connexion  by  the  most  decided 
disbelief,  and  these  experiences  could  call  for  attention  only  if  occa 
sioning  causes  could  be  assigned,  adequate  to  produce  such  remarkable 
exceptions  in  the  course  of  nature. 

254.  On  their  arrival  in  the  body  the  external  stimuli  meet  with  the 
system  of  nerve-fibres  prepared  for  their  reception.  The  change  which 
they  set  up  in  these  nerve-fibres  becomes  the  internal  sense-stimulus, 


CHAPTER  ii.]        Transmission  of  sense-stimulus.  447 

which  is  the  more  immediate  cause  of  our  sensation.  We  leave  it  to 
physiology  to  ascertain  exactly  what  takes  place  in  this  nervous  process. 
The  answer  to  that  question  could  have  a  value  for  psychology  only  if 
it  were  so  complete  as  to  enable  us  to  deduce  from  the  various  modifi 
cations  of  the  process  the  corresponding  modifications  of  the  sensa 
tion  and  to  express  the  relation  in  a  universal  law :  whereas  the  mere 
subordination  of  the  nervous  process  under  a  specific  conception  is 
only  of  importance  for  the  question  whether  we  have  to  consider  it 
as  a  mere  physical  process  or  whether  it  is  itself  something  psychical. 
The  latter  view  is  frequently  met  with.  The  sensation  is  said  to  be 
formed  already  in  the  nerve,  and  to  be  transferred  by  it  to  conscious 
ness.  If  this  assumption  is  to  have  any  clearness  it  must  name  the 
definite  subject  to  which  it  ascribes  the  act  of  sensation;  for  sensations 
which  nobody  has  cannot  be  realities.  Now  this  subject  of  sensation 
co'uld  not  be  found  in  the  whole  nerve,  as  such,  which  is  an  aggregate 
of  unnumbered  parts :  it  is  only  each  single  atom,  however  many  of 
them  we  suppose  to  be  strung  together  in  the  whole  nerve,  tliat  could 
be,  by  itself,  a  feeling  thing.  But  to  this  difficulty  must  be  added  a 
familiar  fact.  The  external  sense-stimulus  does  not  become  the  cause 
of  a  sensation  in  us,  unless  the  nerve  remains  uninterrupted  through 
out  its  whole  course,  from  its  peripheral  point  of  stimulus  up  to  the 
central  portions  of  the  nervous  system.  If  its  continuity  is  broken  by 
a  cut,  the  influence  of  the  external  stimulus  on  consciousness  is  re 
moved.  Whether  the  idea,  to  which  this  fact  naturally  gives  rise,  is 
correct  or  not, — the  idea  that  the  soul  has  its  seat  in  a  particular  spot 
to  which  the  incoming  impression  must  be  directed, — or  in  what  other 
way  we  are  to  explain  the  truth  that  this  integrity  of  the  nerve-fibre  is 
an  indispensable  condition  of  our  sensation,  we  need  not  here  discuss. 
In  any  case  there  is  a  propagation  of  the  stimulation  in  the  nerve 
itself,  and  all  its  parts  cannot  be  at  once  in  the  state  of  sensation  pre 
supposed.  But  it  is  impossible  that  one  and  the  same  sample  of 
sensation  can  be  handed  on  from  one  atom  of  the  nerve  to  another 
like  a  packet ;  all  that  can  happen  is  that  each  single  element  of  the") 
nerve  becomes,  in  virtue  of  its  own  state,  a  stimulus  to  the  next  toj 
produce  the  same  state  in  itself.  Now  that  this  excitation  is  not  pro 
duced  by  a  direct  sympathy,  is  proved  by  that  interruption  to  its 
propagation  which  results  from  any  mechanical  breach  of  continuity. 
Such  a  sympathy  would  pass  undisturbed  across  the  point  of  section, 
and  would  feel  no  effects  from  changes  in  physical  relations  of  which 
it  would  be  from  its  very  nature  independent. 

We  are  therefore  compelled  to  introduce  a  physical  connecting  link 


448  Sensations  and  the  Course  of  Ideas.       t  BOOK  HI. 

for  the  effect  we  have  presupposed.  Through  the  external  sense- 
stimulus  there  is  produced  in  the  first  nerve-element  the  physical  state 
r  and,  in  consequence,  in  the  same  element  the  state  of  sensation  s. 
By  this  change  the  first  element  is  compelled  to  awake  in  the  second, 
its  neighbour,  the  same  state  r  and,  in  consequence,  the  sensation  .r. 
Thus,  through  the  physical  impact  of  one  element  on  another  there 
would  be  propagated  at  the  same  time  the  creation  of  the  correspond 
ing  sensation.  But  where  would  this  end  ?  Wherever  and  however 
this  chain  of  atoms  with  their  internal  excitations  may  at  last  connect 
itself  with  the  soul,  the  sensation  of  the  soul,  our  sensation,  would 
arise  out  of  the  soul  itself  simply  through  the  influence  of  the  last  r 
with  which  the  last  nerve-atom  stimulates  it,  in  precisely  the  same  way 
in  which  this  sensation  was  produced  in  link  after  link  of  the  chain. 
Whatever  service  then  can  be  rendered  by  the  nerve  in  aid  of  the 
production  of  our  sensation,  it  can  render  just  as  well  by  transmitting 
a  merely  physical  change,  as  if  each  of  its  atoms  experienced  the  same 
psychical  state  which  is  to  arise  in  us  at  the  end  of  the  whole  process. 
A  piece  of  news  which  passes  in  the  form  of  a  letter  from  hand  to 
hand  along  a  series  of  messengers,  reaches  the  recipient  no  more 
securely  and  is  no  better  understood  by  him  if  each  of  the  intermediates 
knows  and  feels  it.  Doubtless  we  shall  never  be  able  to  portray  the 
action  of  that  final  r  on  the  nature  of  the  soul ;  but  we  cannot  do  so 
any  the  more  by  adding  to  the  physical  process  r  the  sensation  s.  This 
s  in  its  turn  could  only  occasion  the  production  of  our  sensation  S  in 
some  perfectly  indemonstrable  way ;  it  could  not  itself  pass  over  into 
us.  On  the  other  hand  the  propagation  in  the  nerve  of  a  physical 
process  r  up  to  this  mysterious  moment,  is  something  which  the  fact 
of  experience  alluded  to  compels  us  to  assume.  It  is  sufficient,  there 
fore,  to  regard  the  nervous  process  as  a  propagation  of  something, 
taking  place  in  space  and  time  in  a  definite  direction  and  with  a 
definite  velocity ;  the  precise  nature  of  that  which  is  propagated  con 
cerns  us  but  little,  and,  since  these  are  the  only  forms  of  its  propagation 
which  are  of  importance,  it  may  be  described  as  merely  physical. 

255.  The  conscious  sensation  itself,  the  red  or  blue  that  we  see, 
the  sound  that  we  hear,  is  the  third  and  last  link  in  this  series  of 
occurrences,  and  it  is  familiar  to  us.  We  know  that  this  content  of 
sensation  admits  of  no  comparison  either  with  the  external  sense- 
stimulus  or  with  the  nervous  processes.  There  is  nothing  in  the  red 
ness  of  red,  the  blueness  of  blue,  or  the  sound  of  the  heard  tone, 
which  suggests  a  larger  or  smaller  number  of  vibrations  of  a  medium  ; 
yet  science  has  indirectly  discovered  such  vibrations  to  be  the  occa- 


CHAPTER  ii.]         Sensation  merely  Subjective  f  449 

sion  of  these  sensations.  In  the  same  way  they  give  us  no  informa 
tion  respecting  that  which  directly  occasions  them,  the  process  which 
goes  on  in  the  optic  or  auditory  nerve  at  the  moment  when  these  sen 
sations  are  produced  in  us ;  they  are  consequences,  not  copies,  of 
their  stimuli.  Thus  they  are  internal  phenomena  in  the  soul,  and  in 
this  sense  of  the  words  the  doctrine  of  the  subjectivity  of  all  sensations 
has  long  been  the  property  of  philosophy  and  required  no  acquaint 
ance  with  the  functions  of  the  nerves. 

There  is  another  sense  of  the  words,  according  to  which  the  sen 
sations  are  held  to  be  merely  internal  phenomena,  and  the  external 
world  to  be  neither  resonant  nor  silent,  neither  bright  nor  dark,  but 
to  possess  only  mathematical  predicates  of  number  and  magnitude, 
of  motions  and  their  complications ;  and  in  this  sense  of  the  words 
the  doctrine  was  in  antiquity  an  insufficiently  proved  inference,  and 
it  remains  so  for  the  physiology  of  the  present  day.  None  of  the 
proofs  which  are  commonly  appealed  to  in  support  of  it,  can  close 
every  way  of  escape  to  the  opposite  view.  Anyone  who  wishes  to 
maintain  that  things  themselves  remain  red  or  sweet,  will  affirnl,  as  we 
do,  that  it  is  not  through  their  being  that  they  can  appear  to  us  as 
they  are,  but  only  through  effects  which,  in  accordance  with  their 
nature,  they  produce  on  us.  These  effects  or  actions,  which  proceed 
from  them  and  are  sense-stimuli  to  us,  are  no  doubt  only  motions  and 
themselves  neither  red  nor  sweet ;  but  what  is  there  to  prevent  our 
supposing  that,  by  acting  through  our  nerves,  they  make  that  same 
redness  or  sweetness  arise,  as  our  sensation,  in  our  souls,  which  also 
attaches  as  a  quality  to  the  things  themselves  ?  Such  a  process  would 
be  no  more  wonderful  than  the  performances  of  the  telephone,  which 
receives  waves  of  sound,  propagates  them  in  a  form  of  motion  quite 
different,  and  in  the  end  conducts  them  to  the  ear  retransformed  into 
waves  of  sound.  Anything  which  deprives  things  of  the  medium 
through  which  their  excitations  could  reach  us ;  anything  again  which 
has  beforehand  imparted  to  the  medium  motions  which  prevent  the 
passage  of  those  excitations,  would  of  course  either  hinder  things 
from  appearing  to  us  at  all  or  would  make  them  appear  with  other 
qualities,  and  so  would  lead  us  to  suppose  that  none  of  these  qualities 
belong  to  things  themselves  at  all. 

There  are  no  individual  proofs  by  which  these  assertions  could  be 
controverted ;  and  yet  the  doctrine  of  the  mere  subjectivity  of  the 
qualities  of  sensation  is  certainly  sound.  Their  own  nature  makes  it 
impossible  for  us  really  so  to  represent  them  to  ourselves  as  qualities 
of  things,  as  we  profess  to  do.  There  is  no  meaning  in  speaking  of 

VOL.  I.  G  g 


450  Sensations  and  the  Coiirse  of  Ideas.       [BOOK  m. 

a  brightness  seen  by  nobody  at  all,  of  the  sound  of  a  tone  which  no 
one  hears,  of  a  sweetness  which  no  one  tastes :  they  are  all  as  impos 
sible  as  a  toothache  which  nobody  has  got.  There  is  only  one  place 
in  which  what  is  meant  by  these  words  can  possibly  exist,  the  con 
sciousness  of  a  feeling  being  :  and  there  is  only  one  way  in  which  it 
can  exist,  the  way  of  being  felt  by  that  being.  Without  doubt  then, 
things  are  red  only  so  far  as  they  appear  to  us  ;  in  itself  a  thing  could 
only  have  a  particular  look  if  it  could  look  at  itself. 

256.  According  to  a  theorem  of  the  doctrine  of  specific  energies, 
every  nerve,  by  whatever  stimulus  excited,  invariably  calls  forth  sen 
sations  of  one  and  the  same  kind,  the  special  sensations  of  its  own 
sense ;  and  it  makes  no  difference  whether  the  stimulus  is  one  appro 
priate  to  the  nerve  or  not.  If  this  were  a  fact,  its  physical  reason 
would  not  be  hard  to  imagine.  Let  us  take  a  composite  system  of 
parts.  External  stimuli,  so  long  as  they  are  not  so  violent  as  to 
destroy  the  internal  connexions  of  this  system,  will  cause  a  motion 
followed  by  an  effort  to  return  to  equilibrium  ;  and  these  will  take 
place  ki  forms  which  essentially  depend  on  the  structure  of  the 
system,  which  in  that  case  remains  unchanged.  So  with  the  nerve ; 
disturbances  of  a  certain  magnitude  would  injure  it ;  but  to  less 
violent  stimuli  it  would  always  respond  with  the  same  reactions,  and 
these  reactions  would  depend  on  its  peculiar  structure.  But  then,  if 
these  reactions  are  to  be  different  in  the  case  of  every  single  nerve, 
the  structure  of  the  various  nerves  must  be  different ;  and  this  variety 
of  structure  we  do  not  find  in  the  nerves  themselves,  though  we  may 
perhaps  look  for  it  in  the  central  portions  to  which  they  lead. 

But  in  any  case  the  facts  themselves  are  generalised  in  this  theorem 
to  an  extent  which  actual  observation  does  not  justify.  We  know 
nothing  of  waves  of  sound  which  produce  in  the  eye  a  sensation  of 
light,  nor  of  waves  of  light  which  produce  tones  in  the  ear.  The  main 
support  of  the  hypothesis  lies  in  the  sensations  of  light  which  fre 
quently  arise  in  the  eye  from  impact  or  pressure,  as  well  as  from 
electrical  stimulation.  But  there  are  other  considerations  which 
compel  us  to  assume  in  the  media  of  the  eye  the  presence  of  the  same 
ether  which  serves  for  the  diffusion  of  the  light  outside ;  and  accord 
ingly,  when  in  consequence  of  impact  the  ponderable  elements  of  the 
tense  eyeball  fall  into  oscillation,  we  can  scarcely  help  supposing  that 
they  impart  this  oscillation  at  the  same  time  to  the  ether.  Thus  the 
same  objective  motion  of  light  which  commonly,  as  an  adequate 
stimulus,  comes  from  without,  may  be  excited  in  the  eye  by  this  oscil 
lation  of  the  eyeball,  and  a  similar  motion  might  be  excited  by  electric 


CHAPTER  ii.]         Doctrine  of  special  Sensations.  451 

currents;  such  motion  not  being  sufficient  to  cast  any  observable 
rays  outwards,  but  strong  enough  to  stimulate  the  nerve  to  produce  a 
sensation  of  light.  Again,  in  the  case  of  the  inadequate  stimuli  which 
actually  do  create  a  sensation  of  sound,  the  question  is  prudently 
avoided  whether  they  may  not  do  so  by  accidentally  exciting  such 
vibrations  as  form  the  natural  stimulus  of  the  auditory  nerves.  The 
excitation  of  taste  by  electricity  certainly  depends  on  the  adequate 
stimulus,  the  chemical  processes  which  are  here  set  up ;  the  notion 
that  it  can  also  be  produced  by  laceration  of  the  tongue  seems  to  have 
been  an  illusion,  and  it  will  be  useless  for  insipid  dishes  to  look  for 
help  in  this  quarter :  and  as  to  the  remaining  sensations,  we  do  not 
know  at  all  what  the  adequate  form  of  the  stimuli  is  which  actually 
must  reach  the  nerves  in  order  to  produce  them. 

We  may  leave  it  therefore  to  physiology  to  decide  whether  the  real 
meaning  of  the  present  widely-spread  doctrine  of  the  division  of  labour 
is  not  rather  this ; — that  every  nerve  is  excited  to  its  function  only  by 
its  own  adequate  stimulus,  and  that  other  stimuli  either  leave  it  un 
affected  or  else  interfere  with  it,  but  that  at  the  same  time  there  are 
stimuli  of  various  kinds  which,  along  with  their  own  effects,  frequently 
produce  the  adequate  stimuli  as  side-results.  The  only  interest  psy 
chology  has  in  the  question  lies  in  opposing  the  fondness  for  a 
mysterious  psychical  activity  which,  on  the  authority  of  the  facts  I 
have  mentioned,  is  attributed  to  the  nerves  and  not  to  the  soul,  to 
which  it  really  belongs.  To  speak  of  a  substance  of  the  sense  of 
sight,  and  to  say  that  this  substance  converts  every  possible  motion 
that  reaches  it  into  a  sensation  of  right,  is  not  to  describe  facts  but  to 
use  a  piece  of  physiological  metaphysic  ;  of  which  I  am  not  sure  that 
it  is  at  all  more  elegant  than  the  metaphysic  of  philosophy. 

257.  However  complete  the  separation  may  be  between  sensations 
and  the  stimuli  which  occasion  them,  these  two  series  of  occurrences 
are,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  connected,  and  we  shall  not  suppose  that  this 
connexion  of  fact  is  destitute  of  any  principle.  We  shall  always  find 
ourselves  presupposing  that  like  groups  of  sensations  correspond  to 
like  groups  of  stimuli,  and  different  groups  of  the  one  to  different 
groups  of  the  other ;  that  the  difference  of  these  classes  of  sensation 
is  proportional  to  the  difference  which  exists  between  the  classes  of 
stimuli ;  that  wherever  the  stimuli  of  a  given  group  are  arranged  in  a 
progressive  series  or,  in  their  progress,  reach  marked  points  of 
eminence,  the  corresponding  sensations  are  arranged  in  a  similar 
series  and  accordingly  reproduce  both  the  progress  and  the  points  of 
eminence  ;  that,  lastly,  in  the  unity  of  the  soul  its  various  kinds  of 

eg  2 


452  Sensations  and  the  Course  of  Ideas.       [BOOK  in. 

sensation  not  only  are  together  as  a  fact,  but  in  their  meaning  are 
coherent  according  to  some  rule,  though  that  rule  may  not  be  expres 
sible  in  mathematical  terms. 

But  of  an  'empirical  confirmation  of  this  presupposition  we  find  but 
faint  traces.  Not  only  is  it  impossible  to  say  why  waves  of  ether  must 
necessarily  be  felt  as  light;  but,  even  if  this  fact  were  given  as  a 
starting-point,  no  theory,  however  much  it  emphasized  the  unity  of 
the  soul,  could  prove  that  this  same  soul  must  in  consistency  perceive 
waves  of  sound  as  tones,  and  other  affections  as  taste  or  smell.  So 
far  as  we  can  see,  that  unity  produces,  from  a  nature  of  its  own  which 
is  quite  unknown  to  us,  the  various  classes  of  sensation,  each  for  itself 
and  apart  from  the  others ;  and,  even  after  we  have  come  to  know 
them,  all  that  we  can  connect  with  their  impressions  are  vague  and 
fantastic  ideas  respecting  the  organization  of  a  universal  realm  of 
sensations.  Again,  when  we  come  to  the  individual  groups,  the  only 
one  which  confirms  our  supposition  is  the  group  of  sounds.  Here 
the  increase  in  the  height  of  a  tone  corresponds  to  an  increase  in  the 
number  of  waves  within  a  given  unit  of  time.  The  ascending  scale, 
which  is  just  as  clearly  an  ascent  as  is  the  increase  in  the  number  of 
waves  and  yet  is  quite  unlike  that  increase,  repeats  in  its  own  specific 
form  the  progress  in  the  series  of  stimuli.  Wherever  this  series  attains, 
through  the  doubling  of  a  previous  number  of  waves,  a  marked  import, 
there  the  sensation  follows  with  the  marked  impression  of  the  octave 
of  the  key-note,  and  thus  again  in  its  own  particular  way  represents 
sensuously  the  likeness  and  difference  of  the  two  series.  On  the  other 
hand  the  colours,  though  their  prismatic  order  rests  on  a  similar  in 
crease  in  the  number  of  waves,  give  no  one  who  is  unprejudiced  the 
impression  of  a  similar  progress  ;  and  the  reason  of  this  possibly  lies 
in  the  peculiar  nature  of  the  nervous  process  which  intervenes  between 
the  stimulus  and  sensation,  and  which  we  cannot  take  into  considera 
tion  because  we  do  not  know  it.  In  the  cases  of  the  remaining  senses 
we  have  no  exact  knowledge  of  the  nature  of  their  stimuli,  nor  have 
we  succeeded  in  discerning  any  fixed  relations  between  their  individual 
sensations.  We  do  not  possess  even  names  for  the  various  smells, 
except  such  as  describe  them  by  their  origin  or  their  incidental  effects  ; 
and  among  the  multitude  of  tastes  the  only  ones  that  can  be  dis 
tinguished  as  well-defined  are  the  four  forms  of  acid,  alkaline,  sweet, 
and  bitter.  Hypothetical  theories  carry  us  no  further.  In  the  case 
of  sight  and  hearing  alone  we  know  that  each  sensation  rests  on  the 
total  effect  of  a  very  large  number  of  successive  impulses,  and  changes 
with  the  alterations  of  this  number  within  the  given  unit  of  time ; 


CHAPTER  II.] 


Fechners  Law.  453 


whether  the  single  impact  of  a  wave  of  light  or  sound  would  be 
observable  by  our  senses,  and  if  so  in  what  way,  is  utterly  unknown 
to  us.  Still  we  can  generalise  this  fact  with  some  probability.  Perhaps 
it  is  true  of  all  our  sensations  that  they  rest  not  on  a  constant  and 
indiscriminate  stream  of  excitation,  but  on  the  number  of  alternations 
of  excitation  and  non-excitation  included  in  a  certain  time  ;  the  nature 
of  the  process,  which  thus  in  the  form  of  oscillatipn  stimulates  the 
soul,  might  be  a  matter  of  less  importance,  and  the  same  perhaps  for 
all  the  nerves.  But  then  again  this  supposition  makes  it  no  easier  to 
connect  the  various  kinds  of  sensation  with  one  another  in  a  progres 
sive  series ;  and  we  have  further  to  admit  the  possibility  that  our 
human  senses  do  not  include  the  whole  range  of  sensible  existence, 
and  that  other  living  beings  may  have  other  forms  of  sensation  un 
known  to  us  and  answering  to  processes  which  entirely  escape  our 
perception. 

258.  There  is  at  any  rate  one  point  at  which  the  modern  psycho- 
physical  investigations  have  resulted  in  the  beginnings  of  an  exact 
knowledge  regarding  the  relation  between  sensation  and  stimulus. 
The  commonest  observation  of  a  brightening  light  or  a  rising  sound 
shows  us  that  our  senses  can  detect  very  slight  alterations  in  the  strength 
of  an  impression.  But  we  never  reach  a  moment  at  which,  judging 
merely  by  the  direct  impression,  we  could  say  that  one  brightness  was 
twice  or  thrice  as  strong,  or  one  sound  half  as  strong,  as  another.  In 
consequence  of  this  inability  to  reduce  to  numerical  equivalents  the 
more  and  less  which  we  perceive,  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  place  a 
series  of  values  of  stimuli  side  by  side  with  the  values  of  the  corre 
sponding  sensations,  and  so  to  formulate  a  universal  law  according  to 
which  the  intensity  of  the  latter  would  depend  on  the  strength  of  the 
former.  There  is  however  one  judgment  we  can  pronounce,  if  not 
with  absolute  yet  with  sufficient  certainty,  viz.  that  there  is  or  is  not 
an  observable  difference  between  two  sensations.  To  this  point 
accordingly  were  directed  those  experiments,  the  object  of  which  was 
to  discover,  first  of  all,  what  amount  of  increase  a  stimulus  requires 
in  order  that  the  sensation  which  belongs  to  it  as  increased  may  begin 
to  distinguish  itself  from  the  sensation  of  its  previous  strength ;  or, 
again,  to  discover  the  limit  of  slightness  down  to  which  the  difference 
between  two  strengths  of  the  stimulus  can  be  diminished  without 
removing  the  possibility  of  the  sensations  being  distinguished.  With 
regard  to  the  moderate  stimuli  which  are  strong  enough  to  excite  a 
distinct  sensation,  and  yet  do  not  approach  the  point  at  which  their 
intensity  disturbs  the  function  of  the  nerve,  Fechner  and  many  others 


454  Sensations  and  the  Course  of  Ideas.       [BOOK  in. 

since,  following  E.  H.  Weber's  example,  have  made  a  very  large 
number  of  experiments ;  and  these  experiments  lead  with  sufficient 
unanimity  to  the  result  that  that  difference  between  any  two  stimuli 
•which  makes  it  possible  to  distinguish  the  corresponding  sensations 
from  one  another,  is  not  a  constant  quantity,  but,  in  the  case  of  each 
class  of  sensations,  amounts  to  a  definite  fraction  of  the  intensity 
already  possessed  by  that  one  of  the  two  stimuli  from  which  we  start. 
We  are  not  interested  in  following  the  various  mathematical  formula 
tions  of  Weber's  Law,  or  the  corrections  which  its  application  has 
appeared  to  render  necessary ;  we  may  ascribe  the  latter  to  the 
influence  of  the  particular  circumstances  which,  as  in  the  case  of 
most  natural  laws,  prevent  the  phenomena  from  answering  precisely 
to  a  law  which  in  itself  is  valid. 

The  experiments  themselves  give  no  further  result  than  that 
described  above;  they  do  not  tell  us  in  what  way  the  difference 
between  the  stimuli  makes  it  possible  for  us  to  distinguish  the  re 
sulting  sensations — whether  it  is  by  producing  a  difference  of  strength 
between  these  sensations,  or  whether  we  are  aided  by  qualitative 
changes  set  up  in  the  content  of  the  sensation  and  dependent  on  the 
difference  of  the  stimuli.  Nothing  but  our  direct  impression  can 
decide  this  point,  and  it  certainly  does  not  seem  to  me  that  this  im 
pression  speaks  quite  clearly  in  favour  of  the  first  alternative.  A 
concentrated  solution  of  an  acid,  does  not  simply  give  us  the  same 
•taste  in  a  stronger  form  which  a  more  diluted  one  gives  us  in  a 
weaker  form  ;  it  also  tastes  different.  Two  degrees  of  heat,  though 
they  rest  on  differences  of  intensity  in  the  same  stimulus,  are  felt  as 
different  sensations  and  not  merely  as  different  degrees  of  strength 
in  the  same  sensation.  If  this  is  not  so  clear  in  the  case  of  slight 
differences,  the  fact  is  all  the  clearer  that  our  direct  impression  makes 
us  speak  of  heat  and  cold  as  two  positive  opposites,  and  does  not  lead 
us  to  recognise  in  them  mere  differences  of  degree.  Lastly,  no  one 
who  experiments  on  degrees  of  brightness  by  means  of  shadows  com 
pared  with  the  ground  on  which  they  are  thrown,  feels  sure  that  he  is 
merely  comparing  differences  of  intensity  in  the  same  sensation  ;  the 
shadow  is  not  only  a  less  degree  of  illumination,  but  it  looks  different 
from  the  brighter  ground — black  if  it  is  on  a  white  ground. 

I  do  not  wish  to  lay  any  great  stress  on  these  doubts ;  still  they 
would  have  to  be  removed  before  we  could  follow  with  entire  security 
the  theory  which  deduces  from  the  experiments  I  have  alluded  to  a  law 
respecting  the  strength  belonging  to  the  sensation,  and  its  dependence 
on  the  strength  of  the  stimuli.  Supposing  them  removed,  we  should 


CHAPTER  ii.]       Advance  of  Sensation  per  saltus.  455 

then  regard  the  transition  from  the  point  at  which  two  sensations  are 
indistinguishable  to  that  at  which  their  difference  is  just  observable,  as 
an  increase,  the  same  in  amount  in  all  cases,  in  the  strength  of  the 
first  of  the  two, — and  so  the  law  in  question  would  take  this  form  : 
Where  the  intensity  of  a  sensation  increases  by  equal  differences,  that 
is,  in  arithmetical  progression,  it  implies  in  the  strength  of  the 
stimulus  an  increase  in  geometrical  progression.  Thus  the  activity  of 
sensation  would  be  one  of  those  activities  which  it  becomes  in 
creasingly  difficult  to  heighten  as  the  degree  of  liveliness  already 
attained  increases. 

259.  Our  present  result,  according  to  which  the  sensation  does  not 
follow  the  growing  strength  of  the  stimulus  at  an  equal  speed,  would 
not,  if  taken  by  itself,  present  any  extraordinary  problem.  But  none 
of  the  theories  which  have  been  formed  on  this  point  explain  why  the 
continuous  curve  of  growth  in  the  strength  of  the  stimulus  is  not 
continuously  followed  by  the  slower  augmentation  in  the  strength  of 
the  sensation, — why,  on  the  contrary,  there  remains  an  interval 
throughout  which  the  stimulus  strengthens  without  showing  any 
result,  until  at  last,  on  its  reaching  a  final  degree  of  strength,  it 
produces  an  observable  difference  in  the  sensation.  This  difficulty,  I 
think,  is  most  easily  met  by  the  physiological  view  which  attempts  to 
explain  it  by  reference  to  the  mode  in  which  the  nerves  are  excited. 
It  is  a  problem  soluble  in  mechanics,  so  to  construct  a  system  of 
material  parts  that  a  force  which  impels  continuously  is  nevertheless 
prevented  by  internal  hindrances  from  exerting  its  influence  except 
intermittently  at  certain  moments.  Following  this  analogy  we  should 
have  to  suppose  a  structure  of  the  nerve  of  such  a  kind  that,  given  a 
certain  attained  degree  of  excitation,  a  definite  concentration  and 
heightening  of  that  excitation  is  necessary  before  such  a  motion  of 
the  nerve  can  be  produced  as  will  afford  a  stimulus  to  the  rise  of  a 
new  sensation  ;  thus  the  sensation  would  increase  in  intensity  pro 
portionally  to  these  intermittent  excitations.  On  the  other  hand,  we 
do  not  in  the  least  know  how  and  where  such  an  arrangement  is  to 
be  presumed  in  the  nervous  system.  There  is  less  probability  to  my 
mind  in  the  second  hypothesis,  according  to  which  the  nervous  excita 
tion  increases  proportionally  to  the  stimulus  and  continuously.  This 
hypothesis  has  to  look  to  the  nature  of  sensation  itself  for  the  reason 
both  of  the  slower  rate  and  of  the  want  of  continuity  in  its  increase  ; 
there  is  nothing  in  the  mere  idea  of  sensation  which  could  with  any 
probability  be  supposed  to  take  the  place  of  the  machinery  which 
must,  ex  hypothesi,  be  absent.  Nor  is  the  solution  offered  by  the 


456  Sensations  and  the  Course  of  Ideas.       [BOOK  in. 

third  view  more  convincing.  The  sensation,  it  tells  us,  increases  in 
strength  proportionally  to  the  stimulus  and  the  nervous  process,  but 
perception  brings  the  actually  increased  intensity  of  the  sensation  to 
consciousness  in  a  different  relation  and  discontinuously.  The  separa 
tion  of  these  two  processes,  the  sensation  and  the  perception  of  what 
is  felt,  we  shall  be  able  to  justify  later  on  ;  but  we  certainly  shall  not 
be  able  to  find  in  the  nature  of  a  perceiving  activity,  as  such,  any 
reason  for  its  not  perceiving  something.  If  the  idea  could  be  made 
plausible,  that  the  act  of  distinguishing  two  impressions — an  act  which 
is  always  at  the  same  time  an  act  of  comparison — is  guided  not  by 
single  differences  between  them,  but  by  their  geometrical  relation,  still 
the  only  deduction  we  could  draw  from  this  idea  would  be  that,  given 
two  pairs  of  impressions,  this  act  would  find  an  equally  great  difference 
between  the  members  of  each  pair,  supposing  that  in  both  cases  these 
members  stood  to  one  another  in  the  same  ratio.  But  I  do  not  know 
why  that  act  should  fail  to  distinguish  at  all  those  which  did  not  stand 
in  that  ratio. 

260.  No  method  has  yet  been  discovered  of  experimentally  deter 
mining  the  consequences  which  result  from  simultaneous  impressions 
on  different  senses  ;  it  is  even  doubtful  what  goes  on  when  the  same 
sense  is  excited  in  several  ways  at  once.  We  are  accustomed  to  the 
notion  of  a  mechanism  of  ideas  ;  but  the  attempt  to  go  further  and  to 
oppose  to  it  the  notion  of  a  chemistry  of  ideas,  can  be  met  only  with 
the  utmost  distrust.  As  long  as  two  external  stimuli  a  and  b  are  pro 
ducing  effects  in  the  same  nerve-element,  there  must  ensue,  in  this 
physical  sphere,  the  formation  of  that  resultant  c  which  the  con 
junction  of  all  the  mechanical  conditions  renders  possible  and  there 
fore  necessary.  To  this  resultant  <r,  which  alone  reaches  the  soul  as 
an  exciting  motive,  corresponds  the  simple  sensation  y ;  and  this  y  is 
not  the  resultant  of  the  two  sensations  a  and  /3  which  the  two  stimuli, 
if  taken  separately,  would  have  produced,  but  appears  instead  of  them, 
since  they  are  unable  to  arise.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  suppose 
that  a  and  3,  either  because  they  are  transmitted  in  different  nerve- 
elements,  or  because  they  do  not  form  one  indistinguishable  resultant 
within  the  nerve,  have  actually  produced  the  two  sensations  a  and  0, 
the  result  will  be  that  the  contents  of  the  two  sensations  do  not  blend 
in  consciousness  into  a  third  simple  sensation,  but  remain  apart  and 
form  the  necessary  pre-requisite  of  every  higher  activity  of  mind  in 
the  way  of  comparison  and  judgment. 

At  the  same  time  I  must  allow  that  there  are  objections  to  this  last 
view.  For  though  the  theoretical  assertion  that  the  soul  is  compelled 


CHAPTER  ii.]  Simultaneous  Sensations.  457 

by  its  own  one-ness  to  attempt  to  fuse  all  its  internal  states  into  an 
intensive  unity,  could  decide  nothing  so  long  as  our  inward  experience 
offered  no  example  of  such  a  result,  it  is  on  the  other  hand  indubitable 
that  the  simultaneous  assault  of  a  variety  of  different  stimuli  on  different 
senses,  or  even  on  the  same  sense,  puts  us  into  a  state  of  confused 
general  feeling  in  which  we  are  certainly  not  conscious  of  clearly 
distinguishing  the  different  impressions.  Still  it  does  not  follow  that 
in  such  a  case  we  have  a  positive  perception  of  an  actual  unity  of  the 
contents  of  our  ideas,  arising  from  their  mixture ;  our  state  of  mind 
seems  to  me  rather  to  consist  in  (i)  the  consciousness  of  our  inability 
to  separate  what  has  really  remained  diverse,  and  (2)  in  the  general 
feeling  of  the  disturbance  produced  in  the  economy  of  our  body  by 
the  simultaneous  assault  of  the  stimuli.  As  to  the  first  point,  I  recur 
to  that  distinction  of  sensation  and  perception,  to  which  we  found  the 
psycho-physical  theory  obliged  to  appeal.  The  act  of  distinguishing 
two  sensations  is  never  a  simple  sensation ;  it  is  an  act  of  referring 
and  comparing,  which  may  supervene  on  those  sensations,  but  need 
not  always  do  so.  Where  it  is  prevented,  the  result  is  not  that  the 
sensations  melt  into  one  another,  but  simply  that  the  act  of  dis 
tinguishing  them  is  absent;  and  this  again  certainly  not  so  far  that  the 
fact  of  the  difference  remains  entirely  unperceived,  but  only  so  far  as 
to  prevent  us  from  determining  the  amount  of  the  difference,  and  from 
apprehending  other  relations  between  the  different  impressions.  Any 
one  who  is  annoyed  at  one  and  the  same  time  by  glowing  heat, 
dazzling  light,  deafening  noise,  and  an  offensive  smell,  will  certainly 
not  fuse  these  disparate  sensations  into  a  single  one  with  a  single 
content  which  could  be  sensuously  perceived ;  they  remain  for  him  in 
separation,  and  he  merely  finds  it  impossible  to  be  conscious  of  one  of 
them  apart  from  the  others.  But,  further,  he  will  have  a  feeling  of 
discomfort— what  I  mentioned  above  as  the  second  constituent  of  his 
whole  state.  For  every  stimulus  which  produces  in  consciousness  a 
definite  content  of  sensation,  is  also  a  definite  degree  of  disturbance 
and  therefore  makes  a  call  upon  the  forces  of  the  nerves  ;  and  the 
sum  of  these  little  changes,  which  in  their  character  as  disturbances 
are  not  so  diverse  as  the  contents  of  consciousness  they  give  rise  to, 
produce  the  general  feeling  which,  added  to  the  inability  to  distinguish, 
deludes  us  into  the  belief  in  an  actual  absence  of  diversity  in  our 
sensations.  It  is  only  in  some  such  way  as  this,  again,  that  I  can 
imagine  that  state  which  is  sometimes  described  as  the  beginning  of 
our  whole  education,  a  state  which  in  itself  is  supposed  to  be  simple, 
and  to  be  afterwards  divided  into  different  sensations  by  an  activity  of 


458  Sensations  and  the  Course  of  Ideas.       [BOOK  in. 

separation.  No  activity  of  separation  in  the  world  could  establish 
differences  where  no  real  diversity  existed  ;  for  it  would  have  nothing 
to  guide  it  to  the  places  where  it  was  to  establish  them,  or  to  indicate 
the  width  it  was  to  give  them.  A  separation  can  only  proceed  from  a 
mixture  of  impressions  which  continue  to  be  diverse,  and  then  only  if, 
owing  to  favourable  circumstances,  the  single  constituents  of  the 
mixture  are,  one  after  the  other,  raised  above  the  rest  by  an  access  of 
strength,  so  as  to  facilitate  comparison  and  the  apprehension  of  the 
width  of  the  individual  differences  :  if  ideas  of  the  single  impressions 
have  once  been  acquired,  it  may  then  be  possible  to  dissociate  them 
even  in  the  unfavourable  case  of  such  a  mixture  as  that  described 
above.  It  this  way  it  might  perhaps  happen  that  many  apparently 
simple  sensations  may  be  dissociated  into  several  sensations  of  the 
same  kind ;  for  example,  in  a  colour  we  might  separate  the  other 
colours  which  formed  its  constituents,  or  in  a  tone  the  partial  tones  of 
which  we  were  unconscious  at  first,  or  in  tastes  and  smells  the  elemen 
tary  sensations  which  were  combined  in  a  variety  of  different  ways  and 
of  which  at  present  we  have  no  knowledge.  Thus  within  these  narrow 
limits  a  real  chemistry  of  sensations,  combining  different  elements 
into  a  new  quality  of  sensation,  is  not  inconceivable.  But  after  all 
our  experience  up  to  the  present  time  it  remains  uncertain  whether 
this  intermingling  into  new  resultants  has  not  in  all  cases  already 
taken  place  among  the  physical  excitations  in  the  nerve  or  in  the 
central  portions  of  the  nervous  system. 

From  these  premises  again,  a  conclusion  might  be  drawn  respecting 
those  sensations  which  attach  to  others  in  the  way  of  contrast,  and  do 
not  need  a  particular  external  stimulus.  I  do  not  think  they  can  be 
considered  reactions  of  the  soul  unoccasioned  by  anything  physical. 
It  might  be  possible  to  take  that  view  of  the  false  estimates  of  magni 
tude  which  make  a  sudden  silence  ensuing  on  deafening  noise,  or  a 
darkness  ensuing  on  dazzling  light,  appear  extra-ordinarily  deep ;  for 
these  are  not  sensations,  but  comparisons.  And  yet  even  in  these 
cases  the  probable  cause  of  the  judgment  is  the  distance  between  the 
degrees  of  excitation  in  the  nerve,  a  distance  just  as  great  as  that 
between  the  sensations.  But  a  colour  ft  cannot  attach  to  another  a 
by  way  of  contrast  or  complement  through  a  mere  reaction  of  the 
soul.  Even  if  we  imagine  in  the  soul  a  disturbance  which  seeks  a 
compensating  adjustment,  the  aim  of  that  search  can  be  no  more 
than  an  opposite  Non-a,  the  whereabouts  of  which  is  unknown.  That 
it  is  ft  and  nothing  but  ft  which  gives  the  desired  satisfaction  we 
know  only  from  experience  ;  to  seek  the  reason  of  the  fact  in  a  com- 


CHAPTER  1 1.]          Disappearance  of  Sensations.  459 

parison  of  the  two  impressions  a  and  /3,  is  to  seek  it  in  something  far 
from  self-evident,  it  must  lie  in  the  way  in  which  the  nerve  acts,  and 
this  activity  of  the  nerve  must  attach  the  excitation  which  leads  to  /3 
to  the  excitation  which  produces  a,  in  the  character  of  an  effort  to 
attain  equilibrium. 

261.  Neither  observation  nor  theory  have  so  far  thrown  any  light 
upon  the  interval  which  intervenes  between  the  occurrence  of  a 
sensation  and  its  disappearance  from  consciousness.  If  we  say  that 
it  gradually  diminishes  in  strength  until  at  last  it  reaches  zero  or  dis 
appears  below  the  threshold  of  consciousness,  we  merely  describe 
what  we  think  we  can  imagine  to  be  going  on ;  no  one  can  observe  the 
process,  since  the  attention  necessary  for  observing  it  makes  it  im 
possible.  Whether  this  hypothetical  view  has  a  sufficient  theoretical 
justification,  is  doubtful.  Beside  the  presupposition  that  a  diminution 
of  the  activity  of  representation,  from  its  strength  at  a  given  moment 
down  to  its  disappearance,  must  be  continuous,  the  physical  law  of 
persistence  is  called  in,  in  order  to  make  the  undiminished  continuance 
of  the  sensation  appear  as  the  natural  course  of  events,  and  its  dis 
appearance  from  consciousness  as  the  problem  to  be  explained.  This 
last  idea  is  not  free  from  difficulty.  A  material  atom  undergoes  no 
internal  change  during  its  motion, — at  least  according  to  the  ordinary 
view  of  that  motion, — and  its  state  in  any  new  place  q  is  exactly  what 
it  was  in  its  former  place  p ;  it  follows  therefore  that  it  itself  contains 
nothing  which  would  at  any  point  resist  a  further  motion,  and  that 
the  cause  of  the  change  or  the  checking  of  this  motion  must  come 
from  outside.  The  soul,  on  the  other  hand,  when  it  feels  a,  falls  into 
an  internal  state  differing  from  its  state  when  it  feels  /3 :  if  we  consider 
it  capable  of  reacting  against  stimuli  at  all,  we  must  admit  that  there 
may  lie  in  its  own  nature  the  permanent  motive  which  stirs  it  to 
oppose  every  one-sided  manifestation  of  its  capacity  that  may  be 
forced  on  it,  and  therefore  stirs  it  also  to  eliminate  the  state  of  sensa 
tion  forced  on  it  by  the  external  stimulus.  If  indeed  it  were  able 
completely  to  annul  what  has  occurred,  it  would  be  wholly  impassive 
and  therefore  incapable  of  interaction ;  but  might  not  its  opposing 
effort  be  strong  enough  to  repress  the  sensation  into  a  condition  of 
permanent  unconsciousness  ? 

If  we  leave  this  question,  which  cannot  be  decided,  we  may  seek 
the  causes  of  hindrance  or  checking  partly  in  the  new  impressions 
which  arrive  from  outside,  partly  in  those  far  less  familiar  ones  which 
are  constantly  being  brought  to  the  soul  by  the  changing  states  of  the 
body.  The  first  of  these,  the  struggle  of  ideas  with  one  another, 


460  Sensations  and  the  Course  of  Ideas.       [BOOK  m. 

served  as  the  foundation  of  Herbart's  theory  of  the  internal  mechanism 
of  the  soul-life.  I  put  aside  at  present  the  doubts  which  are  suggested 
by  the  metaphysical  basis  of  this  theory;  the  unchangeability  of  a  soul 
which  yet  experiences  changing  internal  states ;  its  effort  to  fuse  them 
all  into  a  unity,  and  the  shipwreck  of  this  effort  on  the  differences  of 
the  ideas ;  the  assumption,  lastly,  that  the  soul  finds  a  satisfaction  in 
at  least  lessening  the  strength  of  the  parties  whose  opposition  it  has 
to  tolerate.  We  accept  simply  as  a  hypothesis  what  Herbart  offers  us 
as  the  foundation  of  his  theory,  the  hypothesis  that  ideas  check  one 
another  according  to  the  degree  of  their  strength  and  of  their  oppo 
sition  ;  and  we  utilise  his  just  rejection  of  figurative  modes  of  speech. 
Consciousness,  as  he  tells  us,-  is  not  a  space  in  which  ideas  appear 
side  by  side.  Even  if  it  were  a  space,  still  the  ideas  are  not  extended 
things  which  require  a  definite  place  to  exist  in,  rigid  bodies  which  are 
incapable  of  condensation,  and  therefore  push  one  another  from  this 
narrow  stage.  Nor,  lastly,  is  there  any  original  repulsion  of  ideas 
against  ideas  ;  it  is  only  the  unity  of  the  soul  in  which  they  attempt  to 
exist  at  the  same  time,  that  turns  their  mere  difference  into  a  struggle. 
The  question  now  is,  Does  our  internal  observation  confirm  these 
hypotheses  ? 

262.  We  have  in  thought  to  separate  two  things  which  never 
appear  apart  in  the  real  world  ;  the  content  to  which  the  activity 
of  representation  or  sensation  is  directed,  and  this  activity  itself 
which  makes  the  content  something  represented  or  felt :  to  both  of 
these  we  might  attempt  to  apply  the  conceptions  (a)  of  opposition 
and  (Z>)  of  variable  strength,  (a)  Now  I  cannot  find  anything  given 
in  internal  observation  which  testifies  to  a  checking  of  ideas  according 
to  the  degree  in  which  their  contents  are  opposed.  Doubtless  we  hold 
a  simultaneous  sensation  of  opposite  contents  through  the  same  nerve- 
element  to  be  impossible ;  but  I  do  not  know  that  the  idea  of  the 
positive  and  of  affirmation  exercises  any  special  repulsion  against  the 
idea  of  the  negative  and  of  negation  ;  on  the  contrary,  every  possible 
comparison  of  opposites  implies  that  the  two  members  of  the  com 
parison  do  not  check  one  another.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  apply 
the  opposition  to  the  representing  activity,  it  is  doubtless  self-evident 
that  two  of  its  acts  which  are  opposed  in  respect  of  their  action  will 
cancel  one  another ;  but  this  proposition,  if  self-evident,  is  also 
fruitless,  for  we  have  no  right  whatever  to  presuppose  that  the  ideas 
of  two  opposite  contents  rest  on  an  opposition  of  the  representing 
activities  in  respect  of  their  mode  of  action.  Thus  we  do  not  know 


CHAPTER  no  Variable  strong th  of  Ideas.  461 

where  in  such  action  we  are  to  find  oppositions  which  are  to  have  a 
mechanical  value. 

(&)  The  conception  of  a  variable  strength  of  ideas  suggests  similar 
doubts.  In  the  case  of  the  sensations  of  an  actually  operating  sense- 
stimulus,  it  did  not  seem  worth  while  to  draw  the  distinction  I  have 
just  used ;  the  hearing  of  a  louder  noise,  or  the  seeing  of  a  brighter 
light,  is  always  at  the  same  time  a  greater  activity,  excitation,  or 
affection  ;  and  it  is  not  possible  to  hear  loud  thunder  as  loud  and  yet. 
to  hear  it  weakly,  or  to  feel  a  brighter  light  to  be  brighter  and  yet  to 
feel  it  less  strongly  than  a  dimmer  light.  But  the  case  may  well  be 
different  with  our  ideas  ;  by  which  name  I  understand,  in  accordance 
with  usage,  the  image  in  memory  of  an  absent  impression,  as 
opposed  to  the  sensation  of  the  present  impression.  The  difference 
between  the  two  is  clear  enough.  The  remembered  light  does  not 
shine  as  the  seen  light  does ;  the  remembered  tones  do  not  sound  as 
heard  tones  do,  although  they  reproduce  in  their  succession  the  most 
delicate  relations  of  a  melody  ;  the  idea  of  the  intensest  pain  does  not 
hurt,  and  is  nothing  compared  to  the  least  real  injury.  I  will  not 
enquire  whether  this  difference  is  due  to  the  fact  that  an  idea,  as  a 
remembrance  having  its  origin  in  the  soul  only,  is  not  accompanied  by 
any  bodily  excitation,  whereas  such  an  excitation  accompanies  every 
sensation  and  is  the  cause  of  its  beginning  and  continuance;  or 
whether  that  view  is  correct  which,  in  spite  of  its  not  receiving  much 
support  from  the  direct  impression  of  internal  experience,  assumes 
that  in  sensation  and  idea  alike  there  is  always  a  physical  nervous 
excitation,  and  that  the  difference  in  the  two  cases  is  only  one 
of  degree. 

Now  whatever  we  remember  we  can  certainly  represent  in  idea  in 
all  the  degrees  of  which  its  content  is  capable  ;  but  it  is  not  so  clear 
that  the  representing  activity  directed  to  this  content  can  itself  ex 
perience  the  same  changes  in  magnitude.  We  cannot  represent 
more  or  represent  less  to  ourselves  one  tone  of  a  given  height  and 
strength,  or  one  shade  of  a  colour ;  the  attempt  to  do  so  really  intro 
duces  a  change  in  the  content,  and  we  are  representing  a  stronger  or 
weaker  tone,  a  brighter  or  duller  colour,  instead  of  merely  representing 
more  or  representing  less  the  same  tone  and  the  same  colour.  Nor 
does  internal  observation  give  us  any  more  justification  for  regarding 
this  activity  of  representation,  like  the  activity  of  sensation,  as  pro 
portional  to  the  content  to  which  it  is  directed.  The  idea  of  the 
stronger  does  not  call  for  or  cause  any  stronger  excitation  or  greater 
effort  than  the  idea  of  the  weaker.  The  images  of  memory  resemble 


462  Sensations  and  the  Course  of  Ideas. 

shadows,  which  do  not  differ  in  weight  like  the  bodies  that  cast  them. 
Thus  it  appears  so  far  as  if  the  conception  of  a  variable  strength, 
when  applied  to  our  ideas,  may  hold  good  of  their  content,  but  not  of 
the  psychical  activity,  to  which  the  mechanical  theory  at  starting 
certainly  intended  it  also  to  apply. 

263.  To  this  it  may  be  objected  that  the  capacity  of  being 
heightened,  possessed  by  the  representing  activity,  cannot  be  dis 
closed  by  a  trial  made  on  purpose.  Such  an  experiment,  it  may  be 
said,  naturally  brings  before  us  the  maximum  attainable  by  that 
activity  in  reference  to  the  content  chosen,  and  does  not  bring  to  our 
notice  the  lower  degrees  to  which  it  sinks,  and  through  which  it 
passes  on  its  way  to  extinction.  It  cannot  be  denied,  we  may  be 
told,  that  the  distinction  of  clearer  and  dimmer  ideas  signifies  some 
thing  which  really  exists  in  consciousness  and  which  confirms  our 
belief  that  the  activity  has  various  grades  although  we  cannot  directly 
observe  them.  To  this  objection  I  should  give  the  following  answer. 
I  cannot  convince  myself  that  internal  observation  testifies  without 
more  ado  to  the  reality  of  dim  ideas  in  this  sense  of  the  word. 
If  the  image  of  a  composite  object  in  our  memory  is  dim,  the  reason 
is  not  that  the  image  is  present,  with  all  its  parts  in  their  order,  and 
that  consciousness  sheds  only  a  weak  light  over  the  whole.  The 
reason  is  that  there  are  gaps  in  the  image;  some  of  its  parts  are 
entirely  absent ;  and,  above  all,  the  exact  way  in  which  those  parts 
that  are  present  are  connected,  is  usually  not  before  the  mind,  and  is 
replaced  by  the  mere  thought  that  there  was  some  connexion  or  other 
between  them ;  and  the  wideness  of  the  limits  within  which  we  find 
this  or  that  connexion  equally  probable,  without  being  able  to  come 
to  a  decision,  determines  the  degree  of  dimness  we  ascribe  to  the 
image.  Let  us  take  as  an  example  the  taste  of  a  rare  fruit.  We 
either  have  a  complete  idea  of  this  taste,  or  we  have  none  at  all :  and 
the  only  reason  why  we  suppose  that  we  really  have  a  dim  idea  of  it 
is  this ; — we  know  from  other  sources  that  fruits  have  a  taste,  and 
the  other  characters  which  are  present  to  our  memory  and  which 
tell  us  the  species  of  the  fruit,  move  us  to  think  only  of  that  parti 
cular  class  of  tastes  which  belongs  to  this  species  ;  the  number  of  the 
tastes  which  lie  between  these  limits  and  between  which  we  hesitate, 
determines  again  the  degree  of  the  obscurity  of  the  idea,  which 
we  suppose  ourselves  to  possess  though  we  are  really  only  looking 
for  it. 

To  take  another  example  ;  we  try  for  a  long  time  to  remember 
a  name,  and  then,  when  one  is  suggested  to  us,  we  at  once  recognise 


CHAPTER  1 1.]  Dim  Ideas.  463 

it  to  be  the  right  one.  But  this  does  not  prove  that  we  had  an 
obscure  idea  of  the  right  one,  and  now  recognise  it  as  the  right  one 
by  comparing  it  with  the  name  that  is  uttered.  For  on  what  is  this 
recognition  to  rest  ?  The  name  that  is  uttered  might  be  wrong ;  so 
that,  before  we  could  proceed,  we  should  have  to  show  that  the 
obscure  idea  with  which  that  name  was  found  to  be  identical,  is  the 
same  idea  we  are  trying  to  find  ?  Now  this  idea  we  are  trying  to  find 
is  distinguished  from  others  for  which  we  are  not  looking,  by  its 
connexions  with  remembrances  of  some  qualities  or  other  in  the 
object  whose  name  it  is  or  whose  content  it  signifies ;  for  we  cannot 
try  to  find  the  name  of  something,  unless  this  something  can  be 
distinguished  from  other  things  which  we  do  not  mean.  When,  then, 
the  right  name  is  uttered,  the  sound  of  it  fits  these  other  remem 
brances  of  the  object  without  trouble  or  resistance,  and  in  its  turn 
calls  them  up  anew  or  extends  them  ;  and  this  is  the  reason  why  it 
seems  to  us  the  right  one ;  whereas  any  wrong  one  that  is  uttered 
would  be  foreign  to  the  other  ideas  that  come  to  meet  it.  And 
supposing  that  the  word  we  wanted  to  remember  were  one  we  did 
not  understand,  still  there  must  be  some  memory  or  other  even  of  it 
remaining  behind,  with  which  the  uttered  word  must  agree ;  whether 
it  be  the  number  of  syllables,  or  the  quality  of  the  vowels,  or  some 
prominent  consonant,  or  merely  the  circumstances  in  which  we  heard 
it,  or  the  momentary  general  feeling  with  which  its  sound  was 
once  connected.  In  none  of  these  cases  therefore  have  we  an 
obscure  idea ;  we  are  merely  looking  for  the  idea  which  we  have  not 
got  at  all,  and  helping  ourselves  in  the  way  I  have  mentioned.  But 
no  idea  that  we  really  have,  whether  simple  or  complex,  can  be 
heightened  in  the  strength  with  which  it  is  represented;  and  the 
complex  idea  only  seems  to  be  so,  so  long  as  it  is  imperfect.  No 
one  who  thinks  of  all  those  ideas  of  parts  which  together  form  the 
idea  of  the  Triangle,  and  also  of  the  way  in  which  they  are  really 
connected,  can  further  strengthen  his  activity  of  representing  this 
complete  content.  If  the  geometrician  seems  superior  to  the  be 
ginner  in  this  point,  it  is  not  because  he  represents  this  content  more, 
but  because  he  represents  more  than  this  content,  viz.  the  innumer 
able  relations  which  are  conjoined  with  this  figure  in  connected 
knowledge. 

264.  I  am  not  rejecting  what  we  all  regard  as  a  correct  inter 
pretation  of  the  facts,  the  assumption,  I  mean,  that  ideas  push  one 
another  out  of  consciousness,  and  change  one  another  into  permanent 
unconscious  states  of  the  soul.  For  these  states  we  retain  a  name 


464  Sensations  and  the  Course  of  Ideas.       [BOOK  in. 

which  is  really  self-contradictory,  unconscious  ideas,  in  order  to  in 
dicate  that  they  arose  from  ideas  and  are  capable,  under  certain 
circumstances,  of  being  re-transformed  into  ideas.  But  all  that  this 
assumption  actually  says  is  that  the  ideas  have  exercised  a  certain 
power  against  one  another,  and  that  some  of  them  have  come  off 
victorious  over  the  rest ;  it  does  not  follow  as  something  self-evident, 
though  we  naturally  infer  it,  that  they  must  have  owed  their  power 
to  a  degree  of  strength  which  belongs  to  them  as  such.  In  fact  we 
had  no  means  of  measuring  this  strength  of  theirs  at  all  before  the 
struggle  took  place ;  we  only  attribute  it  to  them  by  reasoning  back 
wards  after  we  have  seen  the  issue  of  the  struggle.  And  further,  the 
victory  does  not  always  fall  to  that  side  which  in  itself  is  the  stronger ; 
favourable  circumstances  may  give  it  to  the  weaker.  Since  then 
this  assumption  of  a  variable  strength  is  found  to  apply  not  to  the 
activity  of  representing  but  only  to  the  content  of 'the  ideas  repre 
sented  :  and  since  on  the  other  hand,  if  we  follow  experience,  we 
cannot  maintain  that  the  idea  of  the  stronger  content  always  overcomes 
that  of  the  weaker,  but  meet  with  numberless  cases  of  the  opposite 
event,  the  result  is  that  we  must  look  for  the  source  of  the  power 
exerted  in  something  that  attaches  to  the  representing  activity  and  is 
in  its  nature  capable  of  degrees  of  intensity. 

I  may  say  at  once  that  this  power  rests  neither  on  any  strength  in 
the  activity  itself  nor  on  that  of  the  content  represented,  but  on  the 
amount  of  our  interest  in  the  latter.  If  we  could  observe  the  first 
stirrings  of  a  soul  still  destitute  of  experience,  we  should  certainly  find 
that  that  sensation1  which,  in  its  total  effect,  is  the  greater  agitation 
of  the  soul  and  therefore  the  stronger  in  respect  of  its  content,  over 
comes  the  others  which,  measured  by  the  same  standard,  are  the 
weaker.  But  in  the  developed  life,  which  alone  we  can  observe,  the 
strength  of  the  sensation  is  of  far  less  moment  than  that  which,  in  the 
connexion  of  our  memories,  intentions,  and  expectations,  it  means, 
indicates,  or  foretells.  Many  external  stimuli,  therefore,  are  unregarded 
by  us,  if  the  strong  sensations  which  they  would  naturally  produce 
have  no  relation  to  the  momentary  course  of  our  thoughts.  Very 
slight  stimuli  attract  our  attention  if  they  are  intimately  connected 
with  these  thoughts.  And  this  is  still  more  the  case  with  our 
mere  remembrances  which  are  unsupported  by  any  present  bodily 
excitation. 

This  interest  of  our  ideas,  which  constitutes  their  power,  has  a 

1  ['Sinnliche  Empfindung '  translated  merely  'sensation,5  to  avoid  the  use  of 
'sensation  of  sense,"  and  'feeling'  which  has  been  reserved  for  '  Gefiihl.'] 


CHAPTER  ii.]  The  l  victory '  of  Ideas.  465 

constant  element  and  a  variable  one.  I  cannot  suppose  that  any 
sensuous  impression  could  be  originally  entirely  indifferent  to  us. 
Each,  it  seems  to  me,  as  being  an  alteration  of  our  existing  state, 
must  create  an  element  of  pleasure  or  pain ;  the  former,  if  it  occa 
sions  an  exercise  of  possible  functions  within  the  limits  in  which  this 
exercise  answers  to  the  conditions  of  the  well-being  and  continuance 
of  the  whole ;  the  latter,  if  it  sets  up  changes  which  in  their  form  or 
magnitude  contradict  those  conditions.  The  general  economy  of  the 
vital  functions  may  be  assumed  to  be  nearly  constant ;  and  therefore, 
when  the  impression  is  repeated  at  later  periods,  the  same  element  of 
emotion  will  always  attach  to  it,  just  as  the  same  kind  of  light- waves, 
repeated  thousands  of  times  in  succession,  always  calls  forth  the  same 
sensation  of  colour.  But  this  fixed  component  of  the  interest  is 
far  outweighed  by  the  variable  one  which  an  impression  acquires  in 
the  course  of  our  life  through  its  various  connexions  with  others, 
connexions  which  enable  it  to  recall  these  others  in  memory.  One 
impression,  which  in  itself  is  accompanied  by  an  insignificant  constant 
element  of  emotion,  may,  if  it  is  connected  with  a  second,  the  ac 
companying  emotion  of  which  is  strong,  excite  a  more  lively  interest 
than  a  third  impression,  the  feeling  of  pleasure  or  pain  attached  to 
which  comes  between  the  two.  But  this  interest  of  an  impression 
changes  not  only  with  the  number  of  those  with  which  it  is  connected 
and  with  the  constant  emotion  attaching  to  them,  but  also  with  our 
momentary  state  of  feeling  at  the  time  when  it  occurs.  And  for  this 
state  of  feeling  the  total  content  of  the  impression  has  more  or  less 
value,  according  to  the  closeness  or  distance  of  its  relationship  to  that 
which  is  moving  our  feeling  at  the  moment.  If  in  the  case  of  the 
representing  activity  as  such  it  was  difficult  to  point  out  different 
degrees  of  strength,  it  seems  not  less  self-evident  that  all  emotions, 
on  the  other  hand,  have  various  degrees  of  intensity.  The  force 
of  ideas  therefore  seems  to  me  to  rest  on  their  concatenation 
with  emotions ;  and  if  I  spoke  of  their  strength  I  should  use  the 
word  merely  to  express  the  fact  that  they  are  victorious  over  others, 
and  the  understanding  that  their  victory  occurs  in  this  way  and  in 
no  other. 

265.  Respecting  the  connexion  of  ideas,  a  point  to  which  these 
remarks  have  already  led  us,  we  have  little  to  recall.  We  know  that, 
on  the  renewal  of  an  idea  a,  another  idea  b  which  we  have  had  before 
may  return  to  consciousness  without  requiring  any  separate  external 
reason  for  its  reappearance.  This  fact,  which  alone  can  be  directly 
observed,  we  interpret  as  a  reproduction  of  the  idea  b  by  the  idea  a, 

VOL.  I.  H  h 


466  Sensations  and  the  Course  of  Ideas.       [BOOK  in. 

without  meaning  by  our  use  of  the  word  to  give  any  account  of  the 
process  through  which  a  succeeds  in  recalling  b.  But  then  from  this 
fact  we  infer  that,  even  in  the  time  during  which  both  a  and  b  had 
vanished  from  consciousness,  there  must  have  been  a  closer  con 
nexion  between  them  than  is  given  alike  to  them  and  to  all  other 
ideas  by  the  fact  that  they  belong  to  one  and  the  same  soul.  This 
specific  connexion  we  call  the  association  of  the  ideas  a  and  b,  a  name 
again  which  denotes  a  necessary  presupposition  but  gives  no  ex 
planation  of  the  exact  nature  of  this  connexion,  i.  e.  of  that  which 
distinguishes  it  from  the  more  remote  connexion  obtaining  between 
all  the  states  of  one  subject.  Any  attempt  to  find  such  an  ex 
planation  would  be  fruitless  :  but  there  is  another  question,  which 
ought  to  be  answered,  viz.  What  are  the  universal  rules  accord 
ing  to  which  this  inexplicable  junction  of  ideas  takes  place  ? 
It  is  customary  to  distinguish  four  kinds  of  association.  Two  of 
them  I  hold  to  be  fictions  of  the  brain,  and  the  other  two  I  reduce  to 
one.  The  former  consist  in  the  assertions  that  similar  or  like  ideas 
on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other  hand  opposite  ideas  are  pre 
eminently  associated ;  and  to  these  assertions  I  find  nothing  in  in 
ternal  observation  to  correspond.  I  do  not  know,  at  least,  that  the 
idea  of  one  tone  usually  recalls  all  other  tones  to  memory,  or  the  idea 
of  one  colour  all  other  colours  ;  or  again,  that  the  idea  of  brightness 
suggests  that  of  darkness,  or  the  sensation  of  heat  the  remembrance 
of  cold.  Where  anything  of  this  kind  seems  to  occur,  it  is  plainly 
due  to  different  causes  from  the  simple  association  of  these  ideas  as 
such.  If  we  are  calculating,  and  at  a  given  moment  are  engaged  in 
comparing  quantities  and  referring  them  to  one  another,  there  is  a 
special  reason  why  the  idea  of  the  plus  we  affirm  should  make  us 
think  of  the  minus  we  reject.  In  the  night  we  who  are  busied  with 
plans  for  the  future  have  abundance  of  reasons  for  thinking  of  the 
day  we  long  for :  and  so  on  in  many  cases  not  worth  counting  up. 
The  third  and  fourth  classes  are  composed  of  the  associations  of  those 
impressions  which  are  perceived  either  at  the  same  time  as  parts  of  a 
simultaneous  whole,  or  one  directly  after  another  as  parts  of  a  suc 
cessive  whole  ;  and  their  existence  is  testified  to  in  a  variety  of  ways 
at  every  moment  of  our  daily  life,  the  connected  guidance  of  which 
rests  wholly  on  them.  But  the  separation  of  these  processes  into  two 
classes  seems  to  me  needless.  Not  because  the  apprehension  even  of 
a  spatial  whole  takes  place,  as  is  supposed,  through  a  successive 
movement  of  the  glance  which  traverses  its  outlines :  I  shall  have 
later  on  to  mention  the  reason  why  this  movement  is  necessary  in 


CHAPTER  ii.]  '  Reprodiiction '  of  Ideas.  467 

order  to  make  reproduction  secure ;  but  it  is  none  the  less  indubitable 
that  the  momentary  illumination  of  an  electric  spark  makes  it  possible 
to  perceive  objects  and  gives  us  images  of  them  in  memory.  What 
is  of  more  importance  is  that  in  temporal  and  spatial  apprehension 
it  is  just  the  absence  of  observable  connecting  links  between  a  and  b 
which  joins  these  two  together  so  closely  and  in  so  pre-eminent 
a  degree,  that  we  give  the  name  of  association  to  their  conjunction 
alone,  although  there  must  be  some  conjunction  between  a  and  c, 
b  and  d,  as  well.  I  shall  return  to  this  point  immediately  ;  but, 
before  going  further,  I  will  merely  point  out  how  superfluous  it  is  to 
distinguish  from  the  indirect  reproduction  of  one  idea  b  by  another  a — 
the  case  so  far  considered — the  direct  recalling  of  the  same  a  by  a. 
We  should  know  nothing  whatever  of  this  fact,  the  reproduction  of  a 
former  a  by  the  present  a,  if  the  two  were  simply  present,  with  no 
distinction  between  them,  at  the  same  time.  To  know  the  present  a 
as  repetition  of  the  former  a,  we  must  be  able  to  distinguish  the  two  ; 
and  we  do  this  because  not  only  does  the  repeated  a  bring  with  it 
the  former  one  which  is  its  precise  counterpart,  but  this  former  one 
also  brings  with  it  the  ideas  c  d  which  are  associated  with  it  but  not 
with  the  present  a,  and  thereby  testifies  that  it  has  been  an  object  of 
our  perception  on  some  former  occasion  but  under  different  cir 
cumstances. 

266.  Respecting  the  great  ease  with  which  a  successive  series  of 
ideas  is  reproduced  in  the  order  of  their  succession,  a  fact  which  it 
would  be  superfluous  to  illustrate,  an  attractive  theory  has  been  de 
veloped  by  Herbart.  Let  us  suppose  that  the  external  impressions 
ABC...  follow  one  another  in  time,  and  that  the  first  of  them 
awakens  the  idea  A  ;  on  its  appearance  in  consciousness,  which  is 
never  empty,  this  idea  A  will  at  once  sustain  a  check  from  the  con 
tents  already  present  in  consciousness ;  and,  owing  to  this  check,  its 
strength  will  have  been  reduced  to  a  at  the  moment  when  the  new 
idea  B  is  aroused.  The  only  association  formed  therefore  will  be 
between  a  and  J9— the  association  aB  —  and  there  will  be  no  asso 
ciation  A  B  in  consciousness  at  all.  The  combination  a  B,  again, 
sustains  the  same  check,  and  will  be  weakened  to  the  degree  a  b  at 
the  moment  when  C  makes  its  impression  C:  the  association  that 
arises  will  be  abC,  and  no  other  will  arise.  Again,  when  D  acts,  it 
finds  a  b  C  checked  into  a  ft  c :  it  is  this  therefore,  and  only  this,  that 
connects  itself  with  D.  If  now  the  series  of  external  impressions,  or 
that  of  their  ideas,  is  repeated,  A  will  not  call  up  all  the  rest  forth 
with,  nor  will  it  call  them  up  with  the  same  degree  of  liveliness,  for  it 

aha 


468  Sensations  and  the  Course  of  Ideas.       [BOOK  in. 

never  was  in  actual  fact  connected  with  them :  not  until  it  itself  has 
sunk  to  the  strength  a,  will  it  reawaken  B  with  which  alone  it  was 
associated;  not  until  a  B  in  its  turn  has  sunk  to  a  b,  will  it  reproduce  C; 
and  in  this  way  the  series  is  repeated  in  memory  in  its  original  order. 

The  advantages  of  this  view  are  not  indissolubly  connected  with 
the  conception,  which  we  were  unable  to  accept,  of  a  variable  strength 
of  our  ideas.  Associations  are  not  formed  between  those  impressions 
alone  which  we  hold  apart  as  separate  ideas,  each  having  its  distinct 
content;  but  every  idea  connects  itself  also  with  the  momentary 
tone  G  which  characterizes  our  universal  vital  feeling,  or  the  general 
feeling  of  our  whole  state,  at  the  instant  when  the  idea  appears ;  and, 
as  many  experiences  testify,  the  recurrence  of  the  general  feeling  G 
reproduces  with  no  less  liveliness  the  ideas  which  were  formerly  con 
nected  with  it.  But,  again,  the  arrival  of  a  new  idea  A  changes  this 
feeling  G  into  g^ :  then  the  second  idea  B  connects  itself  with  this 
association  A  g^ ,  and  in  its  turn  changes  g^  into  g^ :  with  this  new  as 
sociation,  and  with  it  alone,  is  connected  C ;  and  in  this  way  the 
succession  of  these  g^^  becomes  the  clue  by  help  of  which  the 
reproduction  of  the  ideas,  in  their  turn,  arranges  itself;  G  must  be 
changed  again  into  g  before  B  can  be  again  produced  by  the  asso 
ciation  gB. 

In  the  next  chapter  I  shall  mention  other  considerations  which 
recommend  this  point  of  view  to  us ;  I  content  myself  here  with  the 
remark  that  it  promises  to  be  of  use  when  we  come  to  consider  the 
reproduction  of  the  component  parts  of  a  spatial  image  by  one  an 
other.  If  we  assume  that  the  perception  of  the  spatial  image 
ABC D  is  brought  about  by  the  eye  traversing  this  whole  succes 
sively  and  repeatedly  in  various  directions  A  BCD,  A  CDB,  ADCB, 
.  .  . ,  the  question  will  still  remain,  how  does  it  come  about  that  a 
later  consciousness  understands  the  various  series,  arising  from  these 
voluntarily  chosen  directions,  to  be  merely  various  subjective  appre 
hensions  of  the  single  objective  order  ABCD1  If  this  understanding 
is  to  be  attained,  it  will  be  necessary  that,  at  every  step  we  choose  to 
take  within  A.  ..D,  the  position  of  each  element  relatively  to  its 
neighbour  should  be  indicated  by  a  definite  general  feeling  g  arising 
in  the  course  of  this  movement ;  and  this  feeling  must  be  of  such  a 
kind  that  the  various  g*s,  which  arise  in  the  different  directions  of  the 
movement  from  part  to  part,  when  compared  and  adjusted,  give  as 
their  result  these  fixed  actual  positions  of  the  single  ideas  in  the  total 
order  ABC  D.  How  we  are  to  conceive  this  process  more  in  detail, 
I  shall  show  later  on. 


CHAPTER  no        Reproduction  by  help  of  Feeling.  469 

I  close  here  these  brief  remarks  on  the  forces  which  are  active  in 
the  course  of  our  ideas.  I  have  not  noticed  the  more  general  share 
taken  in  it  by  the  body.  Highly  significant  as  that  share  is,  I  should 
seek  it  in  a  different  direction  from  the  present  one.  There  are  no 
physical  analogies  either  for  associations  or  for  reproductions ;  and 
although  it  is  asserted  that  they  too  are  merely  products  of  co 
operating  nervous  currents,  those  who  make  this  assertion  have  not 
yet  been  able  to  show,  even  in  a  general  way,  what  we  should  require 
to  have  shown,— how  these  processes  can  be  mechanically  construed 
at  all.  But  this  again  is  a  point  to  which  we  shall  have  to  return  at 
a  later  time. 


CHAPTER    III. 

On  the  Mental  Act  of  'Relation1? 

267.  IF  we  glance  at  a  number  of  coins  laid  side  by  side  in  no 
particular  order,  each  of  them  produces  its  image  in  the  eye,  and 
each  image  produces  the  corresponding  idea.  And  yet  it  often 
happens  that,  when  we  look  away,  we  cannot  tell  how  many  coins  we 
have  seen.  That,  nevertheless,  we  have  seen  each  and  all  of  them, 
and,  therefore,  that  their  images  have  been  conscious  ideas,  we  know 
from  the  fact  that  sometimes  we  succeed  in  counting  them  over  in 
memory,  without  needing  to  have  the  external  impression  repeated. 
This  and  countless  similar  experiences  convince  us  that  we  have 
some  ground  for  distinguishing  between  feeling  and  the  perception  of 
what  is  felt 2 ;  but  at  the  same  time  they  show  that  we  must  not  press 
this  distinction  further  than  the  statement  that  the  consciousness  of 
the  relations  existing  between  various  single  sensations  (among 
which  relations  we  reckon  here  the  sum  formed  by  the  sensations 
when  united)  is  not  given  simply  by  the  existence  of  these  relations 
considered  as  a  fact.  So  far  we  have  considered  only  single  ideas, 
and  the  ways  in  which  they  either  exist  simultaneously  in  conscious 
ness  and  act  on  each  other,  or  else  successively  replace  one  another ; 
but  there  exists  in  us  not  only  this  variety  of  ideas,  and  this  change 
of  ideas,  but  also  an  idea  of  this  variety  and  of  this  change.  Nor  is 
it  merely  in  thought  that  we  have  to  distinguish:  Xhat  apprehension  of 
existing  relations  which  arises  from  an  act  of  reference  and  com 
parison  from  the  mere  sensation  of  the  individual  members  of  the 
relation ;  experience  shows  us  that  the  two  are  separable  in  reality, 
and  justifies  us  in  subordinating  the  conscious  sensation  and  repre- 

1  ['  Von  dem  bcziehenden  Vorstelhn?  Cp.  sect.  80,  end.  There  is  no  English 
verb  for  '  to  put  in  relation;'  to  'refer'  has  been  used  where  a  verb  seemed  indis 
pensable.] 

3  [In  this  sentence  Empfindung,  elsewhere  translated  '  sensation '  to  distinguish 
it  from  Gefilhl,  which  is  translated  •  feeling,'  '  emotion '  (see  §  266),  is  rendered 
'feeling,'  because  we  have  no  verb  in  English  corresponding  to  the  substantive 
'sensation.'] 


Sensation  and  Comparison.  471 

sentation  of  individual  contents  to  the  referring  or  relating  act  of 
representation,  and  in  considering  the  latter  to  be  a  higher  activity,— 
higher  in  that  definite  sense  of  the  word  according  to  which  the 
higher  necessarily  presupposes  the  lower  but  does  not  in  its  own 
nature  necessarily  proceed  from  the  lower.  Just  as  the  external 
sense-stimuli  serve  to  excite  the  soul  to  produce  simple  sensations,  so 
the  relations  which  have  arisen  between  the  many  ideas,  whether 
simultaneous  or  successive,  thus  produced,  serve  the  soul  as  a  new 
internal  stimulus  stirring  it  to  exercise  this  new  reacting  activity. 

268.  The  possibility  of  all  reference  and  comparison  rests  on  the 
continuance  in  an  unchanged  form  both  of  the  members  which  are 
to  be  referred  to  one  another,  and  of  the  difference  between  them. 
When  once  two  impressions  a  and  b  have  arisen,  as  the  ideas  '  red '  and 
'  blue,'  they  do  not  mix  with  one  another,  disappear,  and  so  form  the 
third  idea  c,  the  idea  '  violet.'  If  they  did  so,  we  should  have  a 
change  of  simple  ideas  without  the  possibility  of  a  comparison 
between  them.  This  comparison  is  itself  possible  only  if  one  and 
the  same  activity  at  once  holds  a  and  b  together  and  holds  them 
apart,  but  yet,  in  passing  from  a  to  b  or  from  b  to  a,  is  conscious  of 
the  change  caused  in  its  state  by  these  transitions  :  and  it  is  in  this 
way  that  the  new  third  idea  y  arises,  the  idea  of  a  definite  degree  of 
qualitative  likeness  and  unlikeness  in  a  and  b. 

Again :  if  we  see  at  the  same  time  a  stronger  light  a  and  a  weaker 
light  b  of  the  same  colour,  what  happens  is  not  that  there  arises,  in 
place  of  both,  the  idea  c  of  a  light  whose  strength  is  the  sum  of  the 
intensities  of  the  two.  If  that  idea  did  arise,  it  would  mean  that  the 
material  to  which  the  comparison  has  to  be  directed  had  disappeared. 
The  comparison  is  made  only  because  one  and  the  same  activity, 
passing  between  a  and  3,  is  conscious  of  the  alteration  in  its  state 
sustained  in  the  passage ;  and  it  is  in  this  way  that  the  idea  y  arises, 
the  idea  of  a  definite  quantitative  difference. 

Lastly :  given  the  impressions  a  and  a,  that  which  arises  from  them 
is  not  a  third  impression  =  2  a ;  but  the  activity,  passing  as  before 
between  the  still  separated  impressions,  is  conscious  of  having  sus 
tained  no  alteration  in  the  passage :  and  in  this  way  would  arise  the 
new  idea  y,  the  idea  of  identity. 

We  are  justified  in  regarding  all  these  different  instances  of  y  as 
ideas  of  a  higher  or  second  order.  They  are  not  to  be  put  on  a  line 
with  the  ideas  from  the  comparison  of  which  they  arose.  The 
simple  idea  of  red  or  blue,  as  it  hovers  before  us,  does  not  suggest  to 
us  any  activity  of  our  own  which  has  contributed  to  its  existence ; 


472  On  the  Mental  Act  of ( Relation!        { BOOK  in. 

but,  in  return  for  this  loss,  it  gives  us  a  directly  perceptible  content. 
The  ideas  y,  on  the  contrary,  have  no  content  at  all  of  their  own 
which  can  be  perceived  by  itself.  They  are  therefore  never  repre 
sented  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word,  as  the  simple  idea  is ;  never 
represented,  that  is,  so  that  they  stand  before  us  now  as  resting  per 
ceptible  images.  They  can  be  represented  only  through  the  simul 
taneous  reproduction  of  some  examples  or  other  of  a  and  b,  and 
through  the  repetition  of  the  mental  movement  from  which  they 
arose. 

269.  I  may  look  for  the  objection  that  this  description  of  the  way 
in  which  the  relating  activity  proceeds  is  strange  and  incapable  of 
being  clearly  construed.  I  admit  the  objection,  but  I  see  no  re 
proach  in  it.  It  is  possible  that  better  expressions  may  be  found,  to 
signify  what  I  mean :  my  immediate  object  is  to  indicate  what  hap 
pens  at  least  with  such  clearness  that  every  one  may  verify  its  reality 
in  his  own  internal  observation.  It  is  quite  true  that,  to  those  who 
start  from  the  circle  of  ideas  common  in  physical  mechanics,  there 
must  be  something  strange  in  the  conception  of  an  activity,  or  (it  is 
the  same  thing)  of  an  active  being,  which  not  only  experiences  two 
states  a  and  b  at  the  same  time  without  fusing  them  into  a  resultant, 
but  which  passes  from  one  to  the  other  and  so  acquires  the  idea  of  a 
third  state  y,  produced  by  this  very  transition.  Still  this  process  is  a 
fact ;  and  the  reproach  of  failure  in  the  attempt  to  imagine  how  it 
arises  after  the  analogies  of  physical  mechanics,  falls  only  upon  the 
mistaken  desire  of  construing  the  perfectly  unique  sphere  of  mental 
life  after  a  pattern  foreign  to  it.  That  desire  I  hold  to  be  the  most 
mischievous  of  the  prejudices  which  threaten  the  progress  of  psy 
chology  ;  and  at  this  point,  which  seems  to  me  one  of  the  greatest 
importance,  I  once  more  expressly  separate  myself  from  views  which 
are  meeting  now  with  wide-spread  assent :  first  (a),  from  the  attempts 
to  construe  the  life  of  the  soul  materialistically,  psycho-physically, 
or  physiologically,  without  regard  to  its  specific  peculiarities ;  and, 
secondly  (/3),  from  a  view  which  must  always  be  mentioned  with  respect, 
that  view  of  the  psychical  mechanism,  by  which  Herbart  rendered,  up 
to  a  certain  critical  point,  great  services  to  science. 

As  to  the  first  point  (a),  these  attempts  either  persistently  pass  over 
the  problem  whence  that  unity  of  consciousness  comes,  which  is  testified 
to  by  the  most  trivial  exercise  of  the  activity  of  representation  in  com 
parison  ;  or  they  deceive  us  by  the  apparent  ease  with  which  single 
formulas,  believed  to  have  been  discovered  for  single  psychical  events, 
gives  rise  in  their  combination  to  new  formulas,  in  which  even  the 


CHAPTER  in.]       Physical  formula  and  Thought.  473 

desired  unity  is  supposed  to  be  attained.  But  this  whole  super 
structure  of  oscillations  upon  oscillations,  of  embracing  waves  upon 
partial  waves,  this  discovery  of  unities  in  the  shape  of  points  of  inter 
section  for  different  curves, — all  this  leads  to  pleasing  wood-cuts,  but 
not  to  an  understanding  of  the  processes  they  illustrate.  Mathe 
matical  formulas  in  themselves  determine  nothing  but  quantitative 
relations,  between  the  related  points  which  have  been  brought  into 
those  formulas  by  means  of  universal  designations.  Such  formulas, 
therefore,  subsume  the  definite  real  elements  or  processes,  to  which  they 
are  applied,  under  a  universal  rule ;  and  no  doubt  these  elements  or 
processes  may  really  fall  under  the  rule  in  respect  of  those  properties 
in  virtue  of  which  they  were  subsumed  under  it.  But  the  universal 
rule  in  its  formal  expression  no  longer  reminds  us  of  the  special 
nature  of  the  object  to  which  it  is  applied ;  and  thus,  partly  owing  to 
the  different  values  given  to  the  quantities  contained  in  it,  partly 
through  its  combination  with  other  formulas,  a  number  of  conse 
quences  can  be  drawn  from  it,  respecting  which  it  remains  entirely 
doubtful  whether  they  mean  anything  whatever  when  they  are  applied 
to  the  definite  object  in  question ;  or,  if  they  do  mean  anything,  what 
the  actual  processes  and  agencies  are  which  in  the  real  thing  lead  to 
an  occurrence  corresponding  to  the  result  of  the  calculation.  The 
first  of  these  two  cases  I  will  not  discuss  further,  though  examples  of 
it  might  be  adduced.  If  we  have  begun  by  calling  the  conditions 
under  which  an  effect  appears,  a  threshold,  we  must,  of  course,  have 
something  that  either  passes  over  it  or  fails  to  reach  it;  and  then 
these  portraits  of  the  deductions  drawn  from  a  metaphor  easily  pass 
for  self-evident  facts.  If  in  a  calculation,  in  which  x  signifies  the 
liveliness  of  a  sensation,  we  come  to  a  negative  x,  we  consider  our 
selves  justified  in  speaking  of  negative  sensations  too.  There  are 
various  ways  of  making  mythology  :  at  present  the  mathematical  turn 
of  imagination  seems  to  take  the  lead.  Respecting  the  second  case 
I  shall  meet  with  a  readier  assent.  Formulas  do  not  produce  events ; 
they  copy  them  after  real  causes  have  created  them,  and  they  copy 
only  individual  aspects  of  them.  No  coincidence  of  formulas,  there 
fore,  can  ever  prove  that  the  events  which  meet  or  fuse  in  them,  also 
fuse  as  a  matter  of  course  in  the  real  thing  without  the  help  of  any 
particular  cause  to  bring  about  this  union.  If  this  cause,  without 
which  the  event  is  metaphysically  unintelligible,  could  be  included  in 
the  calculation,  and  that  in  such  a  way  that  every  peculiarity  of  its 
procedure  found  a  precise  mathematical  expression, — then,  a»d  only 
then,  would  these  quantities  be  rightly  denominated,  and  only  then 


474  On  the  Mental  Act  of '  Relation!         [BOOK  in. 

could  the  calculus  securely  predict  from  their  universal  relations  the 
further  consequences  which  may  be  drawn. 

270.  In  opposition  to  Herbart,  again  (/3),  I  must  repeat  the  doubts  I 
expressed  long  ago  in  my  Sireitschriften  (I,  Leipzig,  1857).  When 
Herbart  calls  that  which  goes  on  in  the  simple  real  being  when  it  is 
together  with  others,  its  self-preservation,  he  raises  hopes  that  in  his 
general  view  the  specific  conception  of  activity  will  get  its  rights ;  a 
conception  which  we  shall  always  believe  to  signify  something  special 
and  something  really  to  be  found  in  the  world,  although  we  find  it 
quite  impossible  to  define  what  we  mean  by  it,  when  we  oppose  it  to 
a  mere  occurrence,  in  any  way  approaching  to  a  mechanical  con 
struction.  Did  we  deceive  ourselves  in  this  view  of  Herbart's  inten 
tion  ?  Ought  we  to  have  taken  self-preservation  for  an  active  form  of 
speech  describing  a  mere  occurrence,  which,  without  anything  being 
done  by  anybody,  simply  ends,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  with  the  result 
that  something  continues  in  preservation,  the  non-preservation  of 
which  we  should  rather  have  looked  for  as  the  probable  end  of  the 
occurrence  ? 

The  further  course  of  the  Herbartian  psychology  would  confirm 
this  interpretation.  For,  according  to  this  psychology,  if  the  soul  was 
ever  active  at  all,  it  never  was  active  but  once.  It  asserted  itself 
against  the  stimuli  which  came  from  without,  by  producing  the  simple 
sensations :  but  from  that  point  it  became  passive,  and  allows  its 
internal  states  to  dominate  its  whole  life  without  interference.  Every 
thing  further  that  happens  in  it,  the  formation  of  its  conceptions,  the 
development  of  its  various  faculties,  the  settlement  of  the  principles 
on  which  it  acts,  are  all  mechanical  results  which,  when  once  these 
primary  self-preservations  have  been  aroused,  follow  from  their 
reactions ;  and  the  soul,  the  arena  on  which  all  this  takes  place,  never 
shows  itself  volcanic  and  irritable  enough  to  interfere  by  new  reac 
tions  with  the  play  of  its  states  and  to  give  them  such  new  directions 
as  do  not  follow  analytically  from  them  according  to  the  universal 
laws  of  their  reciprocal  actions. 

But  the  limitation  of  the  soul's  activity  to  these  scanty  beginnings 
was  neither  theoretically  necessary  at  starting,  nor  is  it  recormnApded 
by  its  results.  It  was  due  to  Herbart's  quarrel  with  an  earbj^^^sycho- 
logy,  with  the  assumption  of  a  number  of  original  faculties  which, 
doubtless  to  the  detriment  of  science,  were  then  considered  to  contain 
everything  necessary  to  the  production  of  results,  whose  causes  are  in 
reality .  formed  only  by  degrees  and  ought  to  have  been  made  the 
object  of  explanation.  Here  lie  Herbart's  unquestionable  merits,  and 


CHAPTER  in.]       Progressive  reactions  of  the  Soicl.  475 

I  need  not  repeat  that  I  fully  recognise  them.  But  they  lie  side  by  side 
with  that  which  I  regret  to  have  to  call  his  error.  The  mere  plurality  of 
these  faculties,  even  the  view  of  them  as  mere  adjacent  facts  the  real 
connection  of  which  remained  unintelligible,  could  not,  taken  alone, 
justify  Herbart  in  going  so  far  the  other  way  as  to  base  the  development 
of  the  mind  upon  a  single  kind  of  process  and  the  consequences  flowing 
from  it.  For  he  himself  both  knew  and  said  that  the  simple  sensations 
from  which  he  started  are  just  as  independent  of  one  another  as  were 
the  faculties  he  rejected;  that  we  cannot  conceive  any  reason  why  a  soul 
that  feels  ether-waves  as  colours  must,  in  consistency,  perceive  air 
waves  as  sounds;  that  therefore  the  soul  has  just  the  same  number 
of  primal  faculties  irreducible  to  one  another  as  of  single  sensations 
different  from  one  another.  He  did  not  on  that  account  surrender 
the  unity  of  the  soul,  or  doubt  that  in  it  this  multiplicity  is  bound 
together  by  some  connexion,  albeit  that  connexion  entirely  escapes 
us.  Now  if  this  one  nature  of  the  soul  can  produce  simultaneously, 
or,  so  to  speak,  on  the  same  level  of  its  action,  such  manifold  ex 
pressions  of  its  essence,  why  should  it  not  in  the  same  way  produce 
manifold  expressions  successively  at  different  periods  of  its  develop 
ment  ?  Why  should  not  its  own  internal  states,  through  their  increas 
ing  multiplicity,  win  from  it  new  reactions,  for  which  in  their  simpler 
forms  they  gave  no  occasion  ?  There  is  certainly  nothing  impossible 
in  the  idea  of  a  constantly  renewed  reaction,  in  which  that  whole 
essence  of  the  soul  that  is  always  present  casts  new  germs  of  de 
velopment  into  the  machinery  of  its  internal  states ;  and  a  view  that 
rejects  this  source  of  aid  could  have  proved  it  to  be  superfluous  only 
by  its  own  complete  success.  That  I  do  not  find  this  view  every 
where  thus  successful,  I  shall  have  to  mention  again;  here  I  will 
refer  to  three  points. 

First,  the  deduction  of  the  perception  of  Space.  I  have  already 
spoken  of  its  impossibility  and  will  not  refer  to  it  again  at  length.  We 
must  content  ourselves  with  regarding  this  perception  as  a  new  and 
peculiar  form  of  apprehension,  which,  proceeding  from  the  essence  of 
the  soul,  attaches,  as  a  reaction  of  the  kind  just  described,  to  a  definite 
manifold  of  impressions,  but  does  not  of  itself  issue  from  that  manifold. 
The  second  point  is  attention :  I  shall  have  to  mention  it  directly  in 
the  course  of  the  present  discussion.  Thirdly,  in  the  case  of  any  act 
of  reference  or  comparison,  Herbart's  psychology  seems  to  me  to  take 
no  account  of  the  eye  which  perceives  the  relations  obtaining  between 
the  single  ideas ;  the  consciousness  of  the  investigator  which  has  per 
formed  this  task  of  perception  everywhere  takes  the  place  of  the 


476  On  the  Mental  Act  of '  Relation!         [BOOK  in. 

consciousness  investigated,  which  is  required  to  perform  it.  It  is  of 
no  avail  to  answer  that  it  is  implied  in  the  very  notion  of  the  soul  as 
something  that  represents,  that  it  perceives  everything  that  exists  and 
occurs  in  it,  and  therefore  that  it  perceives  the  relations  in  which  its 
single  ideas  stand  to  one  another:  the  need  of  a  deduction  of  the 
perception  of  space  is  by  itself  sufficient  to  disarm  this  rejoinder.  For 
Herbart  agrees  that  the  impressions  which  muster  in  the  simple  essence 
of  the  soul,  are  together  in  the  soul  in  a  non-spatial  way.  A  conscious 
ness  which  as  a  matter  of  course  perceived  their  reciprocal  relations, 
could  only  apprehend  them  as  they  are,  as  non-spatial.  But  this  is 
not  what  happens :  consciousness  changes  them  and  reproduces 
in  perceptions  of  something  side  by  side  in  space  what  in  them 
selves  are  only  together  with  one  another  in  a  non-spatial  way. 
Here  then  the  perception  is  at  the  same  time  a  new  creation  of  the 
form  in  which  it  takes  place :  but  even  in  those  cases  where  there  is 
nothing  novel  in  the  reaction  to  surprise  us,  the  perception  of  relations 
is  no  mere  mirroring  of  their  existence,  but  at  the  least  the  new 
creation  of  the  very  idea  of  them. 

271.  Expressed  in  Herbart's  terminology,  my  view  would  take  the 
following  form.  The  soul  is  stimulated  by  the  external  sense-stimuli 
SL)  as  stimuli  of  the  first  order :  and  in  consequence  it  forms  the  simple 1 
sensations  which  we  know,  and  to  which  perhaps  the  simplest  feelings 
of  sensuous  pleasure  and  pain  ought  to  be  added  as  creations  which 
arise  with  equal  readiness.  But  the  various  relations  (whether  of 
simultaneous  multiplicity  or  of  temporal  succession)  which  exist  be 
tween  the  sensations  or  the  images  they  have  left  in  the  memory,  do 
not  simply  exist,  they  form  for  the  soul  new  stimuli  J2,  stimuli  of  a 
second  order,  and  the  soul  responds  to  them  by  new  reactions.  These 
reactions  differ  according  to  the  difference  of  their  stimuli,  and  cannot 
be  explained  from  these  secondary  stimuli  themselves,  but  only  from 
the  still  unexhausted  nature  of  the  soul,  which  they  stir  to  an  expres 
sion  of  itself  for  which  there  was  previously  no  motive.  Among  these 
reactions  we  count  the  perception  of  Space,  which  holds  a  certain 
simultaneous  manifold  together  ;  the  time-ideas  of  a  change,  which 
are  not  given  by  the  mere  fact  of  temporal  change ;  lastly,  not  only 
these  ideas 2  of  the  kind  y,  which  measure  theoretically  the  existing 
relations  between  different  contents,  but  also  among  other  things,  the 
feelings  of  pleasure  and  pain  which  are  connected  with  these  relations. 
Obviously,  on  this  view,  any  condition  of  feeling  or  any  series  of  re 
ferring  activities,  directed  in  the  way  of  comparison  or  judgment  to 

1  ['Einfachen  sinnlichen  Empfindungen,'  v.  note  on  p.  464.]          2  [v.  §.  268.] 


CHAPTER  in.]       General  Ideas  of  Quantity,  &c.  477 

different  contents  of  given  ideas,  may  become  in  its  turn  a  new  stimulus 
to  the  soul,  an  object  of  a  still  higher  reflexion ;  but  it  would  be  mere 
trifling  to  reckon  up  reactions  of  a  third  and  fourth  order,  unless  a 
detailed  psychology,  for  which  this  is  no  place,  had  succeeded  in 
pointing  out  distinctly  in  internal  observation  the  processes  which  would 
justify  us  in  assuming  this  ascending  scale  of  orders.  And  for  the 
purposes  of  metaphysic  such  a  course  would  bring  us  no  further  than 
we  are  brought  already  by  the  recognition,  once  for  all,  that  the  soul 
is  in  no  case  a  mere  arena  for  the  contentions  of  its  internal  states, 
but  the  living  soil,  which,  in  each  instantaneous  creation  that  it  brings 
into  being,  has  produced  at  the  same  time  new  conditions  for  the 
generation  of  still  higher  forms. 

272.  There  is  only  one  point,  therefore,  with  regard  to  which  I 
will  continue  these  remarks.  Those  ideas1  y,  the  origin  of  which  I 
touched  on  above,  were,  so  far  as  they  were  then  considered,  in  them 
selves  no  more  than  definite  single  ideas  of  a  quantitative  or  qualitative 
difference,  or  of  a  single  case  of  identity.  It  is  only  when  we  suppose 
this  same  referring  activity  of  knowledge  to  be  applied  to  many  re 
peated  cases  of  a  similar  kind,  that  we  understand  how  the  general 
ideas  of  quantity  and  quality  arise  in  the  same  way.  As  to  the  origin 
of  universal  conceptions  generally,  we  are  sometimes  told  that  they 
arise  from  our  uniting  many  single  examples  :  those  parts  of  the 
examples  which  are  like  one  another  are  accumulated,  those  which 
are  opposed  cancel  one  another,  those  which  are  dissimilar  dim  one 
another.  But  this  mechanical  mode  of  origination  presupposes  that 
the  individual  ideas,  in  balancing  one  another  so  as  to  produce  the 
universal,  have  disappeared  and  been  lost ;  and  the  contrary  is  the 
fact.  They  continue  to  exist;  and  it  is  not  out  of  them  that  the 
universal  is  produced,  but  side  by  side  with  them  :  it  could  not  be  felt 
at  all  as  universal,  as  something  that  is  true  of  them  among  others,  if 
they  had  vanished  and  simply  left  it  behind  as  their  production.  The 
structure  of  the  different  kinds  of  universal  conception  is  very  complex, 
and  it  is  the  business  of  Logic  to  analyse  it.  Psychology  can  do  no 
more  than  base  their  origin  on  a  more  or  less  intricate  exercise  of  the 
referring  activity  through  which  we  apprehend  the  different  relations 
of  the  constituents  which  have  to  be  united  in  them.  The  idea  pro 
duced  by  this  group  of  activities  is  not  of  the  same  kind  as  those  ideas, 
which,  as  the  direct  result  of  external  impressions,  represent  a  per 
ceptible  fixed  content;  it  is  a  conception,  and  the  apparently  simple 
name  which  language  gives  to  it  is  never  more  than  the  expression  of 

1  [v-  p-471-] 


478  On  the  Mental  Act  of '  Relation!        [BOOK  in. 

a  rule  which  we  require  ourselves  to  follow  in  connecting  with  each 
other  points  of  relation  which  are  themselves  conceived  as  universal. 
We  can  fulfil  this  requirement *  only  if  we  allow  our  imagination  to  re 
present  some  individual  example  or  other,  which  answers  to  this  rule, 
while  at  the  same  time  we  join  to  our  perception  of  this  individual  the 
consideration  that  many  other  examples,  and  not  this  one  only  or 
exclusively,  can  with  equal  justice  be  used  as  the  perceptible  symbol 
of  that  which  cannot  in  itself  be  perceived. 

273.  The  fact  of  attention  still  remains  to  be  mentioned.  It  was 
depicted  by  psychologies  of  an  earlier  date  as  a  moveable  light  which 
the  mind  directs  on  to  the  impressions  it  receives,  either  with  the  view 
of  bringing  them  for  the  first  time  to  consciousness,  or  else  in  order 
to  draw  the  impressions  already  present  in  consciousness  from  their 
obscurity.  The  first  of  these  alternatives  is  impossible  ;  for  the  sup 
posed  light  could  not  search  in  consciousness  for  something  which  is 
not  there :  the  second  at  least  leaves  the  obscurity  in  which  the  ideas 
are  supposed  (without  any  reason  being  given  for  it)  to  find  themselves, 
very  obscure.  The  necessary  complement  of  this  view  would  lie  in 
the  perception  that  the  direction  of  this  moveable  light  cannot  be  acci 
dental,  but  must  depend  on  fixed  conditions,  and  that  therefore  it  must 
naturally  be  the  ideas  themselves  that  attract  attention  to  themselves. 
But  I  think  the  view  I  am  speaking  of  was  right  in  regarding  attention 
as  an  activity  exercised  by  the  soul  and  having  the  ideas  for  its  objects, 
and  not  as  a  property  of  which  the  ideas  are  the  subjects.  The  latter 
notion  was  the  one  preferred  by  Herbart.  According  to  him,  when 
we  say  that  we  have  directed  our  attention  to  the  idea  b,  what  has 
really  happened  is  merely  that  b,  through  an  increase  in  its  own 
strength,  has  raised  itself  in  consciousness  above  the  rest  of  the  ideas. 
But,  even  were  the  conception  of  a  variable  strength  free  from  difficulty 
in  its  application  to  ideas,  the  task  which  we  expect  attention  to  per 
form  would  still  remain  inexplicable.  What  we  seek  to  attain  by 
means  of  it  is  not  an  equally  increasing  intensity  of  the  represented 
content,  just  as  it  is,  but  a  growth  in  its  clearness ;  and  this  rests  in  all 
cases  on  the  perception  of  the  relations  which  obtain  between  its  in 
dividual  constituents.  Even  when  attention  is  directed  to  a  perfectly 
simple  impression,  the  sole  use  of  exerting  it  lies  in  the  discovery  of 
relations ;  it  could  achieve  nothing,  and  a  mere  gazing  at  the  object, 
even  if  it  were  heightened  to  infinity,  would  be  utterly  fruitless,  if  there 
were  nothing  in  the  object  or  around  it  to  compare  and  bring  into 
relation.  If  we  wish  to  tune  a  string  exactly,  we  compare  its  sound 
1  [On  the  nature  of  Universal  Ideas,  cp.  Logic,  sect.  339.] 


CHAPTER  in.]        Attention  an  act  of '  Relation'  479 

with  the  sound  of  another  which  serves  as  a  pattern,  and  try  to  make 
sure  whether  the  two  agree  or  differ ;  or  else  we  take  the  sound  of  the 
string  by  itself  and  compare  it  at  different  moments  of  its  duration,  so 
as  to  see  that  it  remains  the  same  and  does  not  waver  between  dif 
ferent  pitches.  We  shall  assuredly  find  no  case  in  which  attention 
consists  in  anything  but  this  referring  activity;  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
there  are  moments  when  we  cannot  collect  ourselves,  when  we  are 
wholly  occupied  by  a  strong  impression,  which  yet  does  not  become 
distinct  because  the  excessive  force  of  the  stimulation  hinders  the  ex 
ercise  of  this  constructive  act  of  comparison.  So  closely  is  the 
distinctness  of  a  content  connected  with  this  activity  that,  even  after 
the  eye  has  repeatedly  traversed  the  outlines  of  a  sensuous  image,  we 
use  a  new  expedient  to  secure  the  image  in  our  memory :  we  translate 
its  impression  into  a  description,  in  which,  through  the  aid  of  the 
developed  forms  of  language,  the  internal  relations  of  the  image  are 
subsumed  under  the  conceptions  of  position,  direction,  connexion, 
and  movement  (all  of  them  conceptions  of  relation),  and  which  pre 
scribes  a  rule  enabling  us  to  re-create  the  content  of  the  impression 
through  successive  acts  of  representation  or  thought. 

274.  The  interest  which  the  idea  a  possesses  at  a  given  moment, 
has  two  factors, —  the  stable  value  of  the  idea  for  emotion,  and  the 
variable  significance  which  this  value  possesses  for  our  total  state  at 
the  particular  time.  And  this  interest  is  the  condition  which  on  the 
one  hand  awakes  attention  and  enchains  it,  and  on  the  other  hand 
diverts  and  distracts  it.  The  latter  case  occurs  when  the  associated 
ideas  b,  c,  which  a  reproduces,  exceed  a  in  momentary  interest ;  then 
it  is  that  the  course  of  our  thoughts  moves  in  those  strange  leaps, 
which  we  know  so  well,  which  we  understand  in  their  general  con 
ditions,  but  the  direction  of  which  we  can  seldom  follow  in  any  par 
ticular  instance.  It  is  however  in  this  fact,  that  the  idea  a  is,  to  a 
greater  or  less  extent,  able  through  its  associations  to  attract  and  bring 
back  our  attention  to  itself,  that  the  greater  or  smaller  force  consists 
which  it  exerts  on  the  course  of  our  ideas ;  and  further,  it  is  in  this 
that  there  lies  the  measure  of  strength  which  we  are  accustomed  to 
ascribe  to  the  idea  as  an  inherent  quality.  If  a  has  merely  served  as 
a  point  of  transition  to  the  more  rapid  awakening  of  other  ideas  t>,  c, 
neither  of  which  reconduct  us  to  a,  we  regard  a  as  an  idea  that  was 
weak,  or  that  only  raised  itself  slightly  above  the  threshold  of  con 
sciousness  ;  and  alas !  by  this  figure  of  speech  we  too  often  suppose 
ourselves  to  have  described  the  real  condition  on  which  the  slight 
influence  of  the  idea  depends.  But  it  is  not  at  the  moment  when  a  is 


480  On  the  Mental  Act  of  'Relation! 

passing  through  consciousness  that  we  rate  it  as  clear  or  obscure, 
strong  or  weak ;  it  is  only  at  a  later  time,  and  when  other  occasions 
reproduce  it  and  convince  us  that  it  must  have  been  in  consciousness 
at  a  former  moment,  that  it  appears  to  us  as  an  idea  that  was  weak ; 
and  it  appears  so,  because  we  do  not  remember  any  referring  act  of 
attention  which  at  that  time,  by  analysing  its  content,  made  it  strong, 
or  which,  by  pursuing  its  relations  to  other  ideas,  assigned  it  a  deter 
minate  position  in  the  connexion  of  our  inner  life.  Lastly  it  is  obvious, 
according  to  our  general  view,  not  only  that  every  activity  of  attention 
that  has  been  put  forth  may  become  an  object  to  a  higher  conscious 
ness,  but  also  that  there  need  not  be  any  such  reflexion  on  what  has 
been  done.  The  oftener  we  have  made  like  relations  between  a 
number  of  points  of  reference  the  object  of  acts  of  comparison  and 
reference,  the  more  is  there  connected  with  the  new  example,  in  the 
manner  of  a  fixed  association,  the  idea  of  the  universal  relation  under 
which  its  relations  are  to  be  subsumed.  When  impressions  first  occur, 
we  are  often  unable  to  connect  and  judge  them  without  consciously 
considering  how  we  are  to  use  our  ideas  in  order  to  do  so  ;  but,  when 
the  impressions  are  repeated,  these  acts  of  connexion  and  judgment 
frequently  take  place  without  any  such  considerations  being  necessary : 
and  so  we  are  easily  deceived  into  thinking  that  in  these  cases  there 
was  really  no  operation  to  be  performed,  and  that  the  mere  existence 
of  the  relations  between  the  single  impressions  makes  the  perception  of 
those  relations  a  matter  of  course. 

My  object  in  devoting  this  chapter  entirely  to  the  referring  activity 
was  to  emphasize  its  decisive  importance.  I  may  remind  the  reader 
that  it  is  really  this  activity  whose  delicacy  is  directly  measured  by  the 
psycho-physical  experiments  respecting  our  capacity  for  distinguish 
ing  impressions,  and  that  all  assertions  as  to  the  strength  of  sensations, 
are,  in  so  far  as  they  rest  on  these  experiments,  theoretical  deductions 
drawn  from  this  immediate  result  of  observation. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

The  Formation  of  our  Ideas  of  Space. 

275.  THE  concluding  remarks  of  the  last  chapter  may  serve  to 
introduce  the  discussion  which  is  to  follow  on  the  psychological 
genesis  of  our  ideas  of  space  and  the  localisation  of  the  impressions 
of  sense.  In  this  discussion  I  must  use  the  freedom  claimed  by 
every  one  who  holds,  as  I  do,  that  our  perception  of  space  is  merely 
subjective.  In  consistency  no  doubt  we  should  have  to  consider  our 
own  body,  as  well  as  the  organs  of  sense  by  means  of  which  it  takes 
possession  of  the  external  world,  to  be  nothing  but  appearances  in 
ourselves;  to  be,  that  is,  the  ordered  expression  of  a  different 
non-spatial  order,  obtaining  between  those  super-sensuous  real 
elements,  which  the  all-embracing  meaning  of  the  world  has  made 
into  a  system  of  direct  immediate  links  of  connection  between  our 
soul  and  the  other  constituents  of  the  world.  It  is  not  impossible  to 
make  this  point  of  view  clear  to  oneself  in  a  general  way,  and  to  see 
that  the  questions,  now  to  be  dealt  with,  respecting  our  sensuous  com 
merce  with  the  outer  world,  might  be  expressed  in  the  language  of 
that  view ;  but  to  carry  it  out  in  detail  would  lead  to  a  prolixity  as 
intolerable  as  it  would  be  needless.  Needless,  for  this  reason,  that, 
if  the  perception  of  space  is  once  for  all  fixed  by  the  nature  of  our 
mind  as  our  mode  of  apprehension,  this  perception  has  a  rightful 
existence  for  us,  and  we  can  hardly  propose  to  look  down  upon  that 
which  has  the  power  of  shedding  clearness  and  vividness  upon  rela 
tions  which  can  be  perceived  by  us  only  in  this  way  and  not  in  the 
form  they  actually  possess.  It  is  enough  to  have  assured  ourselves  at 
a  single  point  in  metaphysic  that  spatiality  is  only  our  form  of  appre 
hension,  perhaps  also  a  form  belonging  to  every  being  that  has  a 
mind.  After  it  has  been  shown  in  a  general  way  how  the  true  intel 
ligible  relations  of  things  admit  of  an  ordered  manifestation  within  this 
form,  we  may  again  merely  in  a  general  way,  subsume  this  special 
instance  of  those  relations,  the  structure  of  our  own  body,  under  that 
general  demonstration ;  but  in  the  further  course  of  our  enquiry  we 

VOL.  i.  !  i 


482  The  Formation  of  our  Ideas  of  Space.    [BOOK  in. 

shall  everywhere  substitute  for  the  conception  of  the  system  of  intel 
ligible  links  of  connexion  between  ourselves  and  the  world  that  spatial 
image  of  our  body  which,  unlike  the  conception,  can  be  perceived. 
Accordingly,  we  presuppose  here  the  ordinary  view ;  for  us,  as  for  it, 
the  world  is  extended  around  us  in  space ;  we  and  the  things  in  it 
have  determinate  places  in  it ;  the  actions  or  effects  of  those  things  on 
us  are  propagated  in  determinate  directions  up  to  the  surface  of  our 
body,  and,  passing  somehow  to  the  soul,  produce  in  its  perception  a 
spatial  image;  the  component  parts  of  which  have  the  same  reciprocal 
positions — either  exactly  the  same  or  within  definite  limits  the  same — 
as  the  external  things  by  which  they,  as  sensations,  were  produced. 

276.  Owing  to  the  directness  of  the  impression  we  receive  from 
the  external  world,  it  seems  as  though  the  spatial  perception  of  that 
world  came  to  us  without  any  trouble  on  our  part,  as  though  we  need 
only  open  our  eyes  to  take  possession  of  the  whole  glory  of  the  world 
as  it  is.  Yet,  as  we  know,  and  as  many  experiences  at  once  remind 
us,  it  is  not  by  merely  existing  that  things  are  objects  of  our  per 
ception,  but  solely  through  their  effects  upon  us.  Their  spatial 
relations,  no  less  than  others,  come  to  our  knowledge  not  by  the 
mere  fact  of  their  existence,  but  only  through  a  co-ordination  of  their 
effects  upon  us,  a  co-ordination  which  corresponds  to  the  relative 
position  of  the  points  from  which  those  effects  proceeded.  And, 
conversely,  the  possibility  of  correctly  concluding  from  the  impression 
these  effects  produce  on  us  to  the  spatial  relations  of  their  causes, 
depends  on  the  extent  to  which  those  effects  preserve  their  original 
co-ordination  in  being  propagated  up  to  the  point  at  which  they 
impress  us. 

But  here  begin  the  misunderstandings  which  obscure  the  way 
before  us.  Our  bodily  organs  offer  an  extended  surface,  on  the 
various  points  of  which  these  impressions  may  be  grouped  in  positions 
similar  to  those  held  by  the  points  in  the  outer  world,  from  which 
they  came.  It  is  therefore  possible  for  an  image  to  be  produced 
which  has  the  same  aspect  as  the  object  whose  image  it  is ;  and  this 
possibility  has  often  seemed  enough  to  make  all  further  questions 
superfluous.  But  in  fact  it  has  only  doubled  the  problem.  If  it  was 
not  clear  how  we  perceived  the  object  itself,  it  is  no  more  clear  how 
we  perceive  its  image ;  and  the  fact  that  one  resembles  the  other 
makes  matters  no  plainer.  So  long  as  this  image  consists  simply  in 
a  number  of  excitations  of  nervous  points  arranged  in  a  figure  cor 
responding  to  the  figure  of  an  external  object,  it  is  no  more  than  a 
copy,  brought  nearer  to  us  or  diminished,  of  that  which  may  be  the 


CHAPTER  iv.]       Space  not  transferable  into  Soul.  483 

object  of  a  future  perception,  but  it  does  not  give  us  any  better 
rationale  of  the  process  through  which  that  thing  becomes  the  object  of 
perception. 

The  question  how  this  fact  of  nerve-excitation  becomes  an  object 
of  knowledge  for  the  soul  at  once  gives  rise  to  divergent  views.  We 
may  imagine  the  soul  to  be  immediately  present  in  the  eye :  there,  as 
though  it  were  a  touching  hand,  with  its  thousand  nerve-points  it 
apprehends  the  individual  coloured  "points  exactly  in  the  position 
they  actually  have  in  the  eye ;  and  to  many  this  view  seems  to  make 
everything  clear.  They  forget  that  it  would  be  just  as  difficult  to 
show  how  the  feelings  of  touch  which  the  hand  receives  justify  us  in 
referring  the  various  points  apprehended  to  definite  positions  in  space: 
before  they  could  do  so  we  should  have  to  presuppose  that  each  posi 
tion  of  the  hand  in  space  was  already  an  object  of  that  perception 
which  was  precisely  what  we  were  trying  to  explain  ;  then,  no  doubt, 
it  would  be  certain  that  every  point  of  colour  lies  at  that  spot  in  space 
where  the  hand  apprehends  it.  Others  appeal  to  the  physiological 
fact  that  stimulations  of  the  nerves  are  conducted  to  the  brain  by 
isolated  fibres,  which  may  be  supposed  to  lie  (where  they  end  in  the 
central  portions)  in  the  same  order  in  which  they  begin  in  the  organ 
of  sense.  Thus,  it  is  said,  each  impression  will  be  conducted  by  itself 
and  free  from  intermixture  with  others,  and  all  the  impressions  will 
retain,  in  being  conducted,  the  same  geometrical  relations  of  position 
which  they  possessed  in  that  organ.  All  that  this  idea  accomplishes, 
again,  is  to  bring  the  copy,  which  has  taken  the  place  of  the  distant 
external  thing,  rather  nearer  to  the  spot  where  we  suppose  the 
mysterious  transition  of  the  physical  excitation  into  a  knowledge  of 
that  excitation  to  take  place. 

But  how  does  this  come  about  ?  How  does  the  soul  come  to  know 
that  at  this  moment  there  is  a  stimulation  of  three  central  nervous 
points,  which  lie  in  a  straight  line  or  at  the  corners  of  a  triangle  ? 
It  is  not  enough  that  that  which  happens  in  these  points  should  have 
differences  in  its  quality,  and  produce  on  the  soul  an  effect  correspond 
ing  to  those  differences  :  but  it  would  also  be  necessary  that  the 
spatial  relation  of  the  stimulating  points  should  not  only  exist,  but 
should  also  produce  an  effect  on  the  soul  and  so  be  observed  by  it. 
Perhaps  at  this  point  we  might  conceive  of  the  soul  itself,  or  of 
its  consciousness,  as  an  extended  space,  into  which  the  excitations  of 
the  nerves  might  be  continued  in  their  original  order  and  direction  : 
and  then  the  whole  solution  of  the  riddle  would  consist  in  a  mere 
transition.  But,  even  if  we  supposed  the  many  impressions  to  have 

I  i  2 


484          The  Formation  of  our  Ideas  of  Space. 

thus  really  appeared  in  the  soul  in  exactly  that  shape  in  which  they 
came  from  the  external  objects,  still  this  fact  would  not  be  the 
perception  of  this  fact.  Even  if  we  regarded  each  of  these  excitations 
not  simply  as  the  condition  of  a  future  sensation,  but  as  a  present 
state  of  the  soul,  a  conscious  sensation,  yet,  in  spite  of  this,  the 
perception  of  the  relations  between  them  would  remain  to  be  ac 
complished  by  a  referring  consciousness,  which  in  the  unity  of  its 
activity  excludes  the  spatial  distinctions  holding  between  its  objects. 
When  we  perceive  the  points  a,  b,  c,  in  this  order  side  by  side,  our 
consciousness  sets  a  to  the  left  and  c  to  the  right  of  b :  but  the  idea  of 
#,  through  which  we  thus  represent  a,  does  not  lie  to  the  left,  nor  the 
idea  of  c  to  the  right,  of  the  idea  of  b ;  the  idea  itself  has  not  these 
predicates,  it  only  gives  them  to  the  points  of  which  it  is  the  idea. 
And,  conversely,  if  we  still  suppose  consciousness  to  be  a  space,  and 
further  that  the  idea  of  a  lies  in  it  to  the  left  of  the  idea  of  b,  this  fact 
would  still  not  be  the  same  thing  with  the  knowledge  of  it;  the  ques 
tion  would  always  repeat  itself,  How  does  the  extended  soul  succeed  in 
distinguishing  these  two  points  of  its  own  essence,  which  at  a  given 
moment  are  the  places  where  that  essence  is  stimulated ;  and  by  what 
means  does  it  obtain  a  view  of  the  spatial  line  or  distance  which 
separates  the  two  from  one  another  ?  The  connecting,  referring,  and 
comparing  consciousness,  which  could  perform  this  task,  could  never 
be  anything  but  an  activity  which  is  unextended,  intensive  and  a 
unity — even  if  the  substantive  being  to  which  we  ascribed  this 
activity  were  extended.  In  the  end  the  impressions  would  have  to 
pass  into  this  non-spatial  consciousness ;  and  therefore  we  gain 
nothing  for  the  explanation  of  the  perception  of  space  by  interposing 
this  supposition, — a  supposition  which  in  any  case  is  impossible  for 
us  to  accept. 

277.  Let  us  return  then  to  the  other  idea,  that  of  a  super-sensuous 
being,  characterised  only  by  the  nature  of  its  activity.  Now  it  is 
doubtless  incorrect  to  think  of  the  soul  under  the  image  of  a  point, 
for,  if  a  thing  is  non-spatial,  its  negation  of  extension  ought  not  to 
be  expressed  in  terms  of  space ;  still  the  comparison  may  be  admitted 
here  where  we  only  wish  to  draw  conclusions  from  that  negation. 
This  premised,  it  is  obvious  that  all  those  geometrical  relations  which 
exist  among  the  sense-stimuli  and  among  the  nervous  excitations 
they  occasion,  must  completely  disappear  in  the  moment  when  they 
pass  over  into  the  soul :  for  in  its  point  of  unity  there  is  no  room  for 
their  expansion.  Up  to  this  point  the  single  impressions  may  be 
conducted  by  isolated  nerve-fibres  which  preserve  the  special  nature 


CHAPTER  iv.]      Clue  to  the  places  of  Impressions.  485 

of  each  impression;  even  in  the  central  portions  of  the  nervous 
system  similar  separations  may  still  exist,  although  we  do  not  know 
that  they  do  so ;  but  in  the  end,  at  the  transition  to  consciousness,  all 
walls  of  partition  must  disappear.  In  the  unity  of  consciousness 
these  spatial  divisions  no  more  exist  than  the  rays  of  light  which  fall 
from  various  points  on  a  converging  lens  continue  to  exist  side  by  side 
in  the  focal  points  at  which  they  intersect.  In  the  case  of  the  rays 
indeed  the  motion  with  which  they  came  together  makes  it  possible 
for  them  to  diverge  again,  beyond  the  focal  points,  in  a  similar 
geometrical  relation;  in  the  present  case,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
required  continuation  of  the  process  consists  not  in  a  re-expansion 
of  the  impressions  into  a  real  space,  but  in  the  production  of  an  idea 
— the  idea  of  a  space  and  of  the  position  of  the  impressions  in  that 
space.  This  perception  cannot  be  delivered  to  us  ready-made.  The 
single  impressions  exist  together  in  the  soul  in  a  completely  non- 
spatial  way  and  are  distinguished  simply  by  their  qualitative  content, 
just  as  the  simultaneous  notes  of  a  chord  are  heard  apart  from  one 
another,  and  yet  not  side  by  side  with  one  another,  in  space.  From 
this  non-spatial  material  the  soul  has  to  re-create  entirely  afresh  the 
spatial  image  that  has  disappeared ;  and  in  order  to  do  this  it  must  be 
able  to  assign  to  each  single  impression  the  position  it  is  to  take  up 
in  this  image  relatively  to  the  rest  and  side  by  side  with  them.  Pre 
supposing  then,  what  we  do  not  think  need  be  further  explained,  that 
for  unknown  reasons  the  soul  can  and  must  apprehend  in  spatial 
forms  what  comes  to  it  as  a  number  of  non-spatial  impressions,  some 
clue  will  be  needed,  by  the  help  of  which  it  may  find  for  each  impres 
sion  the  place  it  must  take,  in  order  that  the  image  that  is  to  arise  in 
idea  may  be  like  the  spatial  figure  that  has  disappeared. 

278.  We  may  illustrate  this  requirement  in  a  very  simple  way. 
Let  us  suppose  that  a  collection  has  to  be  arranged  in  some  new 
place  in  exactly  the  same  order  that  it  has  at  present.  There  is 
no  need  to  keep  this  order  intact  during  the  transport ;  we  do  what 
ever  is  most  convenient  for  the  purposes  of  transport,  and  when  it  is 
finished  we  arrange  the  several  pieces  of  the  collection  by  following 
the  numbers  pasted  on  them.  Just  such  a  token  of  its  former  spatial 
position  must  be  possessed  by  each  impression,  and  retained  through 
out  the  time  when  that  impression,  together  with  all  the  rest,  was 
present  in  a  non-spatial  way  in  the  unity  of  the  soul.  Where  then 
does  this  token  come  from  ?  It  cannot  be  the  point  in  external  space 
from  which  the  sense- stimulus  starts,  that  gives  to  it  this  witness  of  its 
origin.  A  blue  ray  of  light  may  come  from  above  or  from  below,  from  the 


486  The  Formation  of  our  Ideas  of  Space.     [BOOK  in. 

right  or  from  the  left,  but  it  tells  us  nothing  of  all  this ;  it  itself  is  the 
same  in  all  cases.  It  is  not  until  these  similar  stimuli  come  in  contact 
with  our  bodies  that  they  are  distinguished,  and  then  they  are  dis 
tinguished  according  to  the  different  points  at  which  they  meet  the 
extended  surface  of  our  organs  of  sense.  This  accordingly  may  be  the 
spot  at  which  the  token  I  am  describing  has  its  origin,  a  token  which  is 
given  along  with  the  stimulus  in  consequence  of  the  effects  produced 
by  it  at  this  spot,  and  which  in  the  case  of  each  single  stimulus  is 
distinct  and  different  from  that  given  along  with  any  other  stimulus. 

And  now  that  fact  regains  its  importance,  which  we  could  not 
admit  as  a  short-hand  solution  of  these  problems  ;  the  isolation  of  the 
conducting  nerve-fibres.  I  cannot  help  remarking  in  passing  that 
physiology  is  mistaken  when  it  finds  the  exclusive  object  of  the 
structure  of  the  nervous  system  in  the  unmixed  conduction  of  indivi 
dual  excitations.  In  the  optic  nerve  we  find  this  structure  devoted  to 
that  purpose  ;  but  the  olfactory  nerve,  which  possesses  it  no  less,  shows 
very  little  capacity  for  arousing  such  a  multiplicity  of  separate  sensa 
tions  as  would  correspond  with  the  number  of  its  individual  fibres. 
Nor  is  it  only  in  the  nerves  that  we  meet  with  these  elongated  unrami- 
fied  fibres ;  we  find  them  in  the  muscles  also,  and  yet  the  isolated 
excitation  of  a  single  fibre  certainly  cannot  be  the  object  here,  where 
the  simultaneous  and  like  stimulation  of  many  fibres  is  required  for 
the  attainment  of  any  useful  result.  Thus  we  must  suppose,  I 
think,  that  the  wide  diffusion  of  this  structure  of  the  fibres  has 
a  more  general  explanation.  Perhaps  their  forms  were  the  only  ones 
possible  to  the  forces  which  shape  an  organic  form,  and  a  foundation 
for  greater  effects  may  have  been  producible  only  through  adding 
together  such  elementary  organs.  Perhaps  again  the  physical  pro 
cesses,  on  which  the  activities  of  life  rest,  are  necessarily  connected, 
within  narrow  limits,  with  the  fineness  of  the  fibre,  and  could  not  take 
place  in  masses  of  a  thickness  discernible  to  the  naked  eye.  But 
however  this  may  be, — however  this  structure  came  into  being, — when 
once  it  is  present,  it  can  without  doubt  be  used  for  the  purpose 
of  separating  the  impressions  of  sense.  Each  single  fibre,  at  the 
spot  where  it  receives  the  stimulus,  can  attach  to  it  the  extra-impres 
sion  described,  and  can  transmit  it  to  consciousness,  stamped  with 
this  character,  and  preserved  by  the  isolation  of  the  fibre  from  mixture 
with  other  physical  excitations. 

279.  A  further  assumption  is  necessary  before  we  can  make  use 
of  this  process  to  explain  the  localization  of  impressions.  We  must 
suppose  that  similar  stimuli  give  rise  in  each  nerve-fibre  to  a  special 


CHAPTER  iv.]    Extra-Impressions  or  Local  Signs.  487 

extra-impression,  an  extra-impression  which  is  different  in  the  case 
of  every  single  fibre,  and  which  connects  itself,  in  the  manner  of  an 
association,  with  that  main  impression  which  depends  on  the  quality 
of  the  stimulus, — connects  itself,  therefore,  in  such  a  way  that  neither 
of  the  two  impressions,  the  main  one  and  the  extra  one,  interferes 
with  the  peculiar  nature  and  tone  of  the  other.  It  must  be  confessed 
that  we  have  no  anatomical  knowledge  of  a  diversity  jn  the  single 
nerve-fibres  so  manifold  as  this  assumption  requires.  But  this  diver 
sity  may  consist  not  only  in  properties  which  escape  all  the  expedients 
our  external  observation  can  employ,  but  in  the  very  spatial  position 
of  the  fibre ;  we  might  suppose,  that  is,  firstly,  that  in  a  number  of 
fibres  lying  side  by  side  interactions  take  place  which  produce  dif 
ferent  states  of  susceptibility  in  the  fibres  lying  at  different  spots  in 
this  system ;  and,  secondly,  it  is  no  less  possible  that  the  excitations 
of  each  fibre  may  acquire  a  particular  tone  from  the  effect  produced 
on  it  by  occurrences  in  -the  surrounding  tissues.  But  this  question  of 
detail,  again,  we  must  leave  undiscussed ;  what  is  certain  is  that  no 
other  view  of  the  matter  can  dispense  with  an  assumption  similar  to 
that  for  which  we  have  suggested  an  explanation.  In  order  to  know 
whether  a  push  we  felt  when  our  eyes  were  shut  came  against 
our  hand  or  our  foot,  it  is  necessary  that,  the  two  pushes  being  in 
other  respects  of  equal  measurement,  the  total  impression  should  be 
different  in  the  two  cases.  In  such  a  case  it  is  of  no  use  to  appeal 
to  associations,  and  to  say  that  on  a  former  occasion  the  impression 
of  the  push  was  connected  with  a  simultaneous  visual  perception  of 
the  place  that  received  it,  and  that  now  when  the  push  is  repeated  it 
reproduces  this  perception.  For  in  the  course  of  life  we  unfortunately 
so  often  receive  pushes  on  all  parts  of  the  body,  that  the  impression  in 
question  will  have  associated  itself  almost  indiscriminately  with  the 
images  of  all  of  them  :  it  will  be  impossible,  therefore,  in  the  case  of 
a  repetition  to  decide  to  which  of  these  parts  the  impression  is  to  be 
referred,  unless  in  this  new  case  the  impression  itself  once  more  tells 
us  to  which  of  them  we  are  to  refer  it :  it  is  necessary,  in  other  words, 
that  the  impression  now  recurring  should  be  provided  with  a  clear 
token  of  its  present  origin.  Let  A  B  C,  then,  stand  for  three  diverse 
stimuli,  /  q  r  for  three  different  spots  in  an  organ  of  sense,  TT  K  p  for 
three  specific  extra-impressions,  which  those  spots  connect  with  the 
main  sensations  occasioned  by  A  B  C :  then  the  difference  between 
these  connected  local  signs  it  K  p  will  be  the  clue  by  means  of  which 
the  sensations  falling  upon  p  q  r  can  be  localised  in  separate  places  in 
our  perception  of  space.  The  associations  AwAicAp  will  signify 


488          The  Formation  of  our  Ideas  of  Space.     [BOOK  HL 

three  similar  impressions  which  have  fallen  on  the  different  spots pqr 
of  the  organ  of  sense,  and  which  are  prevented  by  this  very  difference 
in  their  local  signs  from  being  fused  into  one  sensation,  a  fusion 
which  could  not  have  been  prevented  if  the  three  A's  had  been  perfectly 
identical * ;  since,  where  no  distinctions  exist,  no  activity  of  conscious 
ness  can  make  them.  The  associations  ATT  B<  Cp,  on  the  other  hand, 
will  signify  three  dissimilar  impressions  which  affect  those  three 
different  spots  in  the  organ  at  the  same  time  ;  these  impressions,  owing 
to  their  qualitative  difference,  need  nothing  further  to  prevent  their 
fusion  into  one  sensation,  and  all  that  IT  K  p  give  them  is  their  spatial 
arrangement.  Lastly,  A<  B<  C<  would  be  the  same  three  dissimilar 
stimuli,  acting  on  one  and  the  same  spot  q  in  the  organ  of  sense,  and 
therefore,  as  we  seem  obliged  to  suppose,  appearing  successively  at 
the  same  point  in  our  perception  of  space. 

280.  I  have  no  desire  to  conceal  the  difficulties  which  arise  when 
these  considerations  are  pursued  further.  As  long  as  we  abstain 
from  considering  the  differences  between  the  organs  of  sense,  and 
only  try  to  fix  in  a  general  way  the  requirements  we  have  to  satisfy, 
it  is  possible  to  form  many  different  views  respecting  the  nature 
and  genesis  of  local  signs.  The  simplest  would  be  one  I  have  men 
tioned  in  passing,  that  the  extra-process  destined  to  accompany 
the  main  impression  takes  place  directly,  and  at  first  as  a  physical 
excitation,  in  the  same  nerve-fibre  which  is  affected  by  an  external 
stimulus.  In  that  case  it  would  depend  on  the  form  of  excitation 
which  was  found  to  be  the  general  mode  of  activity  in  the  nerves, 
whether  it  could  permit  the  simultaneous  conduction,  without  inter 
mixture,  of  two  different  processes :  and  even  if  we  found  that  this 
was  not  possible  in  the  case  of  two  excitations  of  the  same  kind,  still 
it  might  be  so  when  one  of  the  two  processes  was  the  extra-excitation 
which  accompanies  the  main  movement  issuing  from  the  stimulus, 
but  is  not  of  the  same  kind  with  it.  However,  the  whole  supposition 
of  a  double  conduction  fails  to  attain  its  object.  For  it  involves  the 
tacit  presupposition  that  two  processes,  which,  without  being  other 
wise  connected,  proceed  along  the  same  nerve-fibre,  thereby  ac 
quire  a  permanent  association  :  and  this  presupposition  rests  in  the 
end  on  a  mode  of  thought  which  we  were  unable  to  accept,  on 
the  notion,  I  mean,  that  the  mere  fact  of  the  excitations  existing  side 
by  side  in  space  is  sufficient  to  give  rise  to  the  idea  of  their  intrinsic 
connexion.  On  a  former  occasion  I  compared  consciousness,  by 
way  of  figure,  to  a  single  vessel ;  and  the  various  excitations,  which 
1  [I.  e.  if  ATT,  A*,  Ap  had  been  simply  A,  A,  A  or  ATT,  ATT,  ATT.] 


CHAPTER  iv.]  Nature  of  the  Local  Sign.  489 

were  conducted  to  this  vessel  and  flowed  into  it  through  different 
pipes,  were  supposed  at  last  to  meet  in  it  and  mix  indiscriminately 
together.  We  need  not  keep  to  this  figure ;  but  however  we  like  to 
picture  the  transition  into  consciousness,  the  mere  fact  that  A  and  n 
B  and  K,  C  and  p  were  together  in  space,  will  give  consciousness 
no  token  that  it  is  to  connect  them  exactly  in  this  way  instead  of 
joining  A  to  K,  B  to  p,  and  C  to  TT. 

Accordingly,  the  other  supposition  seems  to  me  more  natural  than 
this  of  a  double  conduction, — the  supposition  that  the  main  impres 
sion  and  the  extra-excitation  really  give  rise  in  each  fibre  to  one  total 
state,  which  is  conducted  as  a  total  state  and  occasions  nothing  but 
one  total  sensation.  If  this  sensation  remained  by  itself  alone,  we 
should  feel  no  occasion  to  distinguish  different  elements  in  it,  any 
more  than  violet,  if  we  knew  nothing  but  it,  would  suggest  to  us  to 
separate  red  and  blue  from  one  another  in  it.  But  many  different 
stimuli  are  in  process  of  time  connected  with  one  and  the  same 
extra-process ;  and  it  may  be  that  the  comparison  of  these  cases 
would  arouse  an  activity  of  separation  which  would  analyse  the  total 
impressions  into  their  component  parts,  but  which  would  at  the  same 
time  learn  to  refer  the  local  sign,  thus  separated,  in  each  case  to  that 
qualitative  impression  from  which  it  was  parted  in  thought  and  in 
thought  alone.  It  is  possible  to  find  instances  in  which  this  actually 
occurs.  The  effect  produced  by  a  tone  must  be  apprehended  as  an 
excitation  which  is  at  first  one  and  total,  in  the  sense  above  described : 
but  not  only  does  the  comparison  of  many  successive  tones  enable  us 
to  distinguish  the  quality  from  the  height  of  each,  but  further,  when 
we  hear  several  tones  at  once,  we  are  able  to  attach  each  quality  to 
the  height  of  the  note  from  which  it  was  thus  separated.  The 
artificiality  of  this  point  of  view  may  make  us  distrust  it,  but  we 
shall  not  find  it  easy  to  escape  this  artificiality  by  taking  another 
road. 

Let  us  put  aside  altogether,  what  is  quite  unessential,  the  image  of 
the  soul  as  a  point  at  which  all  the  impressions  conducted  to  it 
discharge  themselves.  Let  us  suppose,  what  we  shall  afterwards  find 
confirmed,  that  the  soul  perceives  the  physical  nervous  processes 
directly  at  the  spot  where  they  reach  the  final  form  in  which  they  are 
destined  to  be  objects  of  its  perception.  Still  there  remains  the 
question  we  would  so  gladly  avoid  :  supposing  the  soul  has  appre 
hended  many  impressions  in  this  way,  either  at  the  same  time  or 
one  after  the  other,  it  can  analyse  each  of  them  into  the  components 
described  above  ;  what  determines  it  then  not  to  allow  these  com- 


490          The  Formation  of  our  Ideas  of  Space.     [BOOK  in. 

ponents  to  fall  asunder  but  to  hold  them  together  in  a  way  cor 
responding  to  the  connexion  from  which  it  has  previously  disjoined 
them  ?  We  see,  then,  that  the  artificiality  lies  in  the  fact  itself,  or  in 
that  view  of  the  fact  which  alone  remains  open  to  us  now, — in  the 
enigmatical  nature  of  associations  generally.  I  reminded  the  reader 
in  a  former  passage  that  in  using  this  name  we  are  merely  designating 
a  fact  we  are  obliged  to  assume,  without  being  able  to  give  any 
account  of  the  means  by  which  it  is  brought  about.  And  now  it 
seems  to  me  that  the  source  of  the  doubts  that  beset  us  here  is  that 
we  cannot  persuade  ourselves  to  renounce  our  search  for  a  mechanism 
which  would  bring  about  this  connexion  of  states  after  the  analogy 
of  physical  processes.  Such  a  construction  we  shall  certainly  never 
find.  On  the  other  hand,  if  we  are  tempted  to  regard  associations 
as  a  peculiarity  of  the  psychical  activity,  to  which  there  is  no  analogy 
elsewhere,  we  are  held  back  by  the  undoubted  fact  that  we  do  not  yet 
possess  any  intelligible  general  point  of  view  which  would  exhibit  the 
ratio  legis  in  every  case,  and  which  would  explain  not  only  the  con 
nexion  at  this  point  but  its  absence  at  that  point :  instead  of  this  we 
are  forced  in  each  particular  case  to  make  assumptions  which  appear 
artificial  because  they  are  always  constructed  ad  hoc.  I  believe  then 
that  the  hypothesis  I  have  been  speaking  of  here,  that  of  the  origin 
of  the  local  sign  in  the  stimulated  nerve  itself,  might  be  maintained  ; 
but,  later  on,  I  shall  substitute  for  it  another  hypothesis,  according 
to  which  the  extra-production  of  the  local  sign  is  less  direct  :  and  my 
reason  is  not  that  the  second  hypothesis  is  free  from  the  difficulties 
of  the  first,  but  that  it  offers  other  advantages.  At  present  we  will 
proceed  for  a  moment  with  our  general  remarks. 

281.  If  the  local  signs  TTK  p  merely  differ  generally  in  quality,  it  is 
true  that  they  would  suffice  to  prevent  three  perfectly  similar  stimuli 
from  coalescing,  and  to  make  them  appear  as  three  instances  of  the 
same  felt  content.  But  the  only  result  would  be  an  impulse  to  hold 
the  sensations  apart  in  a  general  way ;  there  would  be  nothing  to 
lead  us  on  to  give  to  the  sensations  thus  produced  a  definite  local 
isation  in  space.  It  is  this  that  is  left  unnoticed  by  those  who  regard 
the  isolated  conduction  of  three  impressions  by  three  fibres  as  a 
sufficient  reason,  taken  by  itself,  for  their  being  perceived  as  spatially 
separate.  Even  if  (in  the  absence  of  the  extra  local  signs)  this 
isolation  were  a  sufficient  condition  of  the  three  impressions  being 
distinguished  as  three,  yet  the  question  whether  they  were  to  be 
represented  at  the  corners  of  a  triangle  or  in  a  straight  line,  could 
only  be  decided  by  a  soul  which  already  possessed  that  capacity  of 


CHAPTER  iv.]  Local  Signs  must  differ  measurably.  491 

localisation  which  we  are  trying  to  understand.  In  this  case  the 
soul  would  stand,  as  it  were  with  a  second  and  inner  vision,  before 
the  open  key-board  of  the  central  nerve-terminations,  would  see  them 
lying  ready  side  by  side,  and  doubtless  would  very  easily  refer  the 
arriving  excitations  to  the  places  occupied  by  those  keys  on  which 
they  produce  some  observable  motion.  If  this  is  impossible,  as  it  is, 
just  as  little  would  it  be  possible  for  the  local  signs  given  along  with 
sensations  to  produce  a  real  localisation  of  the  sensations,  if  these  local 
signs  simply  differed  without  being  also  comparable.  If  they  are  to 
lead  to  this  localisation  they  must  necessarily  be  members  of  series 
or  of  a  system  of  series,  in  each  of  which  there  must  be  some  general 
characteristic  in  common,  but  within  its  limits  a  difference,  measur 
able  in  some  way,  of  every  individual  from  every  other.  If 

K  =  TJ-  -f  A,  p  =  TT  -)-  2  A,  or  K  =  p  —  A, 

then,  but  only  then,  can  these  signs  be  the  reason  why  a  perception, 
which  can  and  must  apprehend  these  arithmetical  differences  in  some 
spatial  way  or  other,  should  place  B<  nowhere  but  in  the  middle 
between  Air  and  Cp.  And  if  more  than  one  series  of  this  kind  is 
involved,  so  that  the  general  character  of  the  local  signs  in  the  one 
is  qualitatively  distinguished  from  that  of  the  other,  still  even  in  the 
transition  from  series  to  series  this  alteration  of  quality  must  somehow 
proceed  by  measurable  differences ;  otherwise  we  should  not  know 
how  great,  in  terms  of  space,  is  the  declination  of  some  of  the  im 
pressions  from  the  straight  line  which  is  the  shape  others  are  to  take 
in  the  perception. 

282.  This  postulate  is  closely  connected  with  the  settlement  of 
another  question.  Wherever  the  local  signs  may  arise,  there  is  no 
doubt  that,  to  start  with,  they  are  physical  excitations  which  arise, 
on  occasion  of  the  stimulus,  in  the  stimulated  spot,  this  spot  having 
an  individuality  or  special  nature  of  its  own.  We  have  gone  on  to 
assume  as  self-evident,  that  they  then  produce  sensations,  states  of 
consciousness,  just  as  the  main  impressions  do  which  they  ac 
company;  and  that,  from  a  comparison  of  the  associations  which  have 
thus  arisen,  a  referring  activity  decides  what  relative  position  each 
impression  is  to  take  among  the  rest.  Now  is  this  necessary?  Or 
does  it  suffice  to  regard  n  K  p  simply  as  physical  processes  which  do 
not  themselves  appear  in  consciousness,  and  merely  determine  the 
direction  in  which  consciousness  guides  each  impression  to  its  place 
in  the  perceived  space  ?  Now,  supposing  we  adopt  the  second  of 
these  alternatives,  the  difficulty  remains  that  it  will  be  just  as  necessary 
for  the  unconscious  faculty  of  localisation  as  it  was  for  the  conscious, 


492  The  Formation  of  our  Ideas  of  Space.    [BOOK  in, 

that  the  local  signs  should  stand  in  the  reciprocal  relations  we  have 
indicated ;  otherwise  this  faculty  will  have  nothing  to  determine  it  to 
the  definite  directions  spoken  of.  This  will  at  any  rate  be  necessary 
if  we  are  to  hold  in  this  case  to  that  general  rationality  of  the 
phenomena  which  alone  gives  any  interest  to  attempts  to  explain 
them  :  for  of  course  it  is  possible  to  take  a  purely  fatalistic  view,  and 
to  say,  It  simply  is  the  fact  that,  if  the  spot  p  is  stimulated  the 
ensuing  sensation  must  take  the  place  x,  and  if  the  spot  q  is  stimu 
lated  the  ensuing  sensation  must  take  the  placej' ;  and  there  is  no  rule 
or  reason  why  the  existence  of  one  of  these  relations  should  involve 
that  of  the  other.  On  this  assumption  any  further  hypotheses  as  to 
the  nature  of  the  local  signs  would  be  superfluous :  but  then  on  this 
assumption  all  investigation  would  be  superfluous,  for  there  would  be 
nothing  to  investigate.  If  however  that  general  rationality  of  phe 
nomena  is  admitted,  then  I  find  no  sufficient  clearness  in  the 
theory  that  our  determination  of  place  in  perception  is  conducted 
unconsciously.  For  this  reason:  according  to  the  theory  there  is 
something  which  determines  the  position  to  be  given  to  each  single 
impression  in  the  space  perceived.  This  something,  this  ground  of 
determination,  must  remain  conjoined  with  this  single  impression  and 
with  it  alone  (for  it  holds  good  of  it  and  of  no  other  impression). 
It  cannot  be  merely  a  prior  process  determining  the  future  localisation  ; 
it  must  be  a  permanent  definite  mark  attached  to  that  idea  whose 
localisation  it  is  to  further.  And,  since  the  idea  now  appears  in 
consciousness,  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  how  the  grounds  of  determi 
nation  can  leave  such  an  after-effect  attached  to  the  idea,  as  would 
operate  in  consciousness  and  yet  not  appear  in  that  same  con 
sciousness. 

Here  again  there  lie  more  general  difficulties  which  interrupt  our 
course.  It  is,  once  more,  because  we  are  accustomed  to  observe  the 
external  world,  that  we  naturally  separate  any  occurrence  produced  by 
causes  into  a  preceding  impression  on  the  one  side,  and  a  subsequent 
reaction  on  the  other.  In  a  chain  of  processes,  in  which  each  link  is 
the  sufficient  reason  only  of  the  next,  we  may  make  this  distinction 
between  the  first  link  a  and  the  last  link  z  ;  but  it  is  useless  to  interpose 
between  the  next  neighbours  a  and  b  another  impression,  which  it  is 
supposed  that  a  must  have  already  made  before  it  can  call  forth  b  as  a 
reaction.  We  are  separating  what  is  really  a  unity,  the  occurrence 
which  is  at  once  reception  of  an  impression  and  reaction  against  it ; 
and  it  is  this  false  separation  which  in  the  present  case  makes  it  seem 
natural  that  the  external  stimulus  should  first  produce  in  the  soul  an 


CHAPTER  iv.]     Can  Local  Signs  be  Unconscious  ?  493 

impression  which  is  not  yet  consciousness,  and  that  the  conscious 
sensation  should  afterwards  follow  on  this  impression  as  a  reaction. 
But  it  is  easy  to  see  that  this  interposition  can  be  carried  on  ad 
infinilum.  On  such  a  view,  the  activity  of  sensation,  in  its  turn,  could 
not  react  in  consequence  of  the  unconscious  impression  till  it  had  been 
stimulated  by  it — if,  that  is,  the  impression  had  produced  in  it  a  second 
unconscious  state :  and  it  would  be  only  to  this  second  stimulation 
that  the  activity  of  sensation  would  respond  with  its  conscious  mani 
festation.  On  this  point  I  accept  Herbart's  opinion  :  a  conscious  idea 
is  directly  an  act  of  self-preservation  against  a  disturbance.  This  dis 
turbance  does  not  first  appear  apart,  and  then  call  forth  the  idea  as  a 
reaction.  The  disturbance  only  threatens,  its  threat  is  only  effective, 
it  itself  only  exists  in  so  far  as  it  asserts  itself  in  the  idea  itself  which, 
but  for  it,  would  not  have  existed.  But  I  will  not  pursue  these  doubts. 
They  cannot  be  definitely  set  at  rest.  We  have  assuredly  no  right  to 
interpose  some  mere  lifeless  impression  between  two  adjacent  links  of 
a  causal  connexion :  but  still  it  remains  undecided  whether,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  physical  excitation  in  the  nerve,  and  the  psychical 
process  of  sensation,  do  form  such  adjacent  links  of  a  chain.  It  is  not 
necessary  that  the  sufficient  ground  for  the  arousal  of  a  sensation  or 
idea  should  consist  in  the  connecting  link  of  an  unconscious  state  of 
the  soul ;  but  it  is  possible  that  it  may  consist  in  this.  Accordingly 
I  do  not  put  forward  my  view  as  anything  more  than  the  hypothesis 
that  I  prefer.  It  may  be  stated  thus  :  if  the  physical  processes  TT  *  p 
are  the  local  signs  directly  used  by  a  referring  activity  when  it  deter 
mines  the  position  of  the  sensations  in  the  perceived  space,  they  are  so 
used  not  as  physical  processes,  nor  through  the  instrumentality  of  un 
conscious  impressions  aroused  by  them  in  the  soul,  but  in  the  shape 
of  conscious  sensations  resulting  from  them.  I  shall  return  to  the 
objections  which  stand  in  the  way  of  this  supposition,  and  consider 
them  in  detail. 

283.  These  then  are  the  general  postulates  to  which  the  local  signs 
have  to  conform.  And  it  is  these  postulates  alone  that  I  regard  as  a 
necessary  metaphysical  foundation  for  our  spatial  perceptions.  Shortly 
expressed,  they  come  to  the  one  requirement,  that  all  the  spatial  rela 
tions  of  the  stimuli  acting  on  us  should  be  replaced  by  a  system  of 
graduated  qualitative  tokens.  In  adding  some  instances  in  fuller 
detail  I  am  quite  aware  of  the  many  abiding  difficulties  which  could 
only  be  removed  by  an  accurate  consideration  of  all  the  experience 
that  is  available  to  us,  or  that  may  become  so.  Nothing  but  experience 
can  disclose  to  us  the  means  by  which  the  local  signs  we  require 


494  The  Formation  of  our  Ideas  of  Space.    [BOOK  in. 

are  really  produced ;  and  I  do  not  think  this  production  takes  place 
in  the  same  way  in  the  case  of  the  two  senses  which  have  to  be 
considered. 

In  the  first  case,  that  of  sight,  the  first  of  the  suppositions  men 
tioned  appeared  to  me  improbable,  I  mean  the  supposition  that  the 
local  signs  arise  directly  in  the  spot  stimulated.  Even  supposing 
that  the  same  kind  of  light  Z,  falling  on  various  points  of  the  retina, 
produced  sensations  of  colour  somewhat  differing  from  each  other,  C 
in  the  point  /,  and  c  in  q,  still  there  will  always  be  another  kind  of 
light  /,  which  occasions  in  q  that  same  sensation  C  which  L  excites 
in  /.  Accordingly  it  cannot  be  this  difference  of  quality  in  the 
impression  that  gives  the  reason  for  referring  that  impression  to 
a  definite  spot  p  or  q.  On  the  other  hand,  there  seemed  to  me  to  be 
a  real  importance  in  the  fact  that,  from  the  yellow  spot  on  the  retina 
— for  our  purposes  let  us  say,  from  the  central  point  E  of  the 
retina — where  the  sensitiveness  is  greatest,  there  is  a  gradual  diminu 
tion  of  irritability  in  all  directions,  until  at  the  edges  of  the  hemi 
spherical  distribution  of  the  nerves  this  irritability  entirely  disappears. 
This  fact,  again,  taken  by  itself  is  not  sufficient  for  our  purpose :  for 
a  weak  stimulation  of  a  spot  lying  near  the  point  E  would  necessarily 
have  the  same  effect  as  a  stronger  stimulation  of  a  spot  at  a  greater 
distance  from  E.  But  if  a  stimulus  in  the  way  of  light  falls  on  one 
of  these  side-spots  />,  it  also  makes  the  eye  turn  to  such  an  extent  and 
in  such  a  direction  that  the  ray  meets,  instead  of/,  the  point  of  clearest 
vision  E.  This  direction  of  the  glance,  as  it  is  commonly  called,  is 
accompanied  by  no  idea  of  the  end  it  actually  serves,  or  of  the  means 
by  which  it  is  brought  about.  .  It  must  therefore  be  regarded,  at  any 
rate  originally,  not  as  an  intentional  act,  but  as  an  automatic  move 
ment,  a  physical  effect  due  to  the  stimulus  and  unknown  to  the  soul. 
Accordingly  the  following  hypothesis  seemed  to  be  admissible  :  in  the 
central  organs  the  single  fibres  of  the  optic  nerve  are  mechanically 
connected  with  the  motor  nerves  of  the  muscles  of  the  eye  in  such 
a  way  that  the  stimulation  of  each  of  the  former  is  followed  by 
a  definite  excitation  of  the  latter,  from  which  it  results  that  the  eye  is 
turned  in  a  particular  way.  How  this  mechanical  connexion  of  the 
sensory  and  motor  nerves  is  effected,  is  a  question  which  does  not 
touch  our  present  object;  and  the  settlement  of  it  may  be  left  to 
Physiology,  which  has  to  raise  the  same  question  in  regard  to  many 
other  reflex  motions. 

284.  The  motions  just  described  would  satisfy  the  requirements  to 
be  fulfilled  by  the  local  signs.     If/>  is  the  point  stimulated,  p  E  would 


CHAPTER  IV.]  Local  SigUS  IH    VlSWH.  495 

be  the  arc  which  has  to  be  traversed  in  order  that  the  point  of  clearest 
vision  E  may  be  stimulated  instead  of/;  if  q  is  stimulated,  the  corre 
sponding  curve  is  qE\  these  motions  will  be  different  in  every  case, 
but  the  difference  between  them  will  be  merely  one  of  magnitude  and 
direction.  But  then,  on  my  hypothesis,  it  was  not  these  motions 
themselves,  but  the  sensations  excited  by  them,  which  were  to  be 
directly  used  as  the  signs  n  <p  of  the  spots  pqr.  Now  a  movement, 
in  occurring,  occasions  a  sensation  or  feeling  of  our  present  state, 
which  is  different  from  the  feeling  of  the  non-occurrence  of  the  move 
ment  :  and  we  even  when  at  rest  distinguish  the  momentary  position 
of  our  limbs,  produced  by  former  movements,  from  that  position 
which  is  not  now  present :  these  are  facts  which  need  no  proof,  how 
ever  simple  or  however  complicated  may  be  the  conditions  which  give 
rise  to  these  feelings.  But  a  further  assumption  is  necessarily  involved. 
We  must  suppose  that  the  perceptible  differences  of  the  feelings  in 
question  correspond  in  their  turn  to  the  slightest  differences  of  those 
movements  which  the  eye  needs  in  order  to  turn  its  glance  from  one 
point  of  the  field  of  vision  to  its  next  neighbours :  and  this  hypothesis 
may  arouse  graver  doubts.  These  doubts,  however,  really  apply,  I 
think,  only  to  a  point  which  is  of  no  decisive  importance  here.  No 
doubt,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  we  notice  those  minimal  movements,  which 
the  glance  has  to  make  in  passing  from  one  point  of  the  field  of 
vision  to  the  next  point,  and  from  that  again  to  the  next ;  but  to  our 
immediate  feeling  they  seem  merely  a  greater  or  smaller  alteration  of 
our  state,  a  greater  or  smaller  degree  of  a  change  which  does  not  alter 
its  character.  We  cannot  here,  any  more  than  in  the  case  of  our  other 
sensations,  reduce  the  magnitude  of  these  steps  to  comparable  arith 
metical  values,  so  as  to  judge  that  one  of  them  is  double  or  half  as 
great  as  another.  The  reason  why  this  becomes  possible  is  that  the 
movements  described  bring  a  number  of  distinguishable  points  one 
after  another  to  the  spot  of  clearest  vision,  and  the  images  of  these 
points,  instead  of  at  once  disappearing  again,  remain  for  sensation 
side  by  side  with  one  another :  and  it  is  only  the  number  of  these  dis 
tinguishable  points  which  enables  us  to  interpret  the  differences  in 
our  feelings  of  movement  as  expressive  of  equal  or  unequal  spaces 
traversed,  or  of  definite  differences  between  these  spaces.  Thus  if  the 
eye  were  shut  or  did  not  see,  it  would  doubtless  be  aware,  from  the 
immediate  feeling  of  movement,  that  the  curve  p  E  is  smaller  than  the 
curve  q  E  (which  it  would  describe  if  it  continued  the  same  move 
ment),  and  that  q  E  is  smaller  than  r  E ;  but  these  feelings  would  not 
enable  it  to  determine  the  co-ordinates  of  that  point  x  in  the  field  of 


496          The  Formation  of  our  Ideas  of  Space.    [BOOK  in. 

vision  which  would  meet  its  glance  if  it  were  opened  or  began  to  see. 
It  is  only  the  series  of  images  which  pass  before  the  seeing  eye  while 
it  moves,  and  which  remain  side  by  side  for  some  time  so  that  they 
can  be  compared,  that  enable  us  to  give  an  accurate  quantitative  inter 
pretation  to  the  different  sections  of  a  series  of  feelings  of  movement. 
If  we  follow  with  our  eyes  from  beginning  to  end  a  line  of  one  colour 
drawn  before  us,  doubtless  we  are  conscious  of  a  continuous  and 
homogeneous  movement  of  the  glance ;  but  suppose  there  is  a  stroke 
drawn  across  the  line  near  the  beginning,  marking  off  a  small  part  of 
it,  we  cannot"  guess  how  many  more  fractions  of  the  same  size  the 
rest  of  the  line  will  contain :  it  is  only  by  marking  them  off  that  we 
can  tell  their  number  and  be  sure  that  they  are  equal.  How  is  it 
again  that  we  learn  this  last  fact,  the  equality  of  the  distinguished 
parts  ?  Is  it  by  keeping  the  head  fixed  and  turning  the  eye  in  such  a 
way  that  these  parts  of  the  line,  from  a  to  z,  are  brought  one  after  the 
other  into  the  direction  of  clearest  vision?  And  do  we  then  judge 
that  the  movements  be,  cd,  de,  up  to  jyz,  in  each  of  which  the  eye 
starts  from  a  different  position,  and  which  really  would  not  be  equally 
great,  are  equally  great,  and  therefore  that  the  parts  a  b,  b  c  . . .  y  z  are 
also  equal?  We  cannot  ascertain  their  equality  in  this  way.  Any 
attempt  to  do  so  accurately  is  really  made  thus :  in  looking  at  the 
starting-point  a,  d,  c  of  each  line  a  b,  b  c,  c  d  we  place  the  eye  so  that 
the  direction  of  its  glance  forms  in  every  case  the  same  angle  with 
the  direction  of  the  piece  to  be  judged,  e.  g.  a  right  angle  :  the  move 
ments  which  the  eye  has  then  to  make  in  order  to  go  from  a  to  b,  b 
to  c,y  to  2,  are  not  only  equal  in  magnitude  (supposing  the  lines  to  be 
equal),  but  they  are  identical,  since  the  position  from  which  they  start 
is  in  each  case  the  same,  and  the  position  in  which  they  end  is  in  each 
case  the  same.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  lines  are  unequal,  one  of 
the  movements  is  readily  felt  in  a  general  and  inexact  way  to  be 
smaller  or  greater  than  another,  since  the  position  of  the  eye,  at  any 
rate  at  starting,  is  the  same  in  each  case. 

Thus,  as  with  all  sensations,  our  original  capacity  of  estimating 
impressions  quantitatively  would  (apart  from  the  results  of  practice) 
rest  on  the  possibility  of  generally  recognising  what  is  exactly  like  as 
like,  and  what  is  different  as  different.  And  I  do  not  think  that  for 
our  purposes  any  more  delicate  sensibility  is  required.  I  do  not  mean 
that  the  two  local  signs  TT  =.  p  E  w\&  p  =  r  E^  would  enable  the  soul 
forthwith  to  set  the  two  sensations  A  and  B  connected  with  them  at 

1  [The  letters  on  the  right  hand  stand  now  not  for  the  movements  themselves 
but  for  the  feelings  answering  to  them.] 


CHAPTER  iv.]    Visual  sign  without  actual  movement.         497 

definite  points  in  a  circular  field  of  vision :  it  suffices  that  these  signs 
secure  to  the  impressions  their  positions  in  relation  to  one  another ; 
that,  for  example,  they  make  it  necessary  to  set  B  between  A  and  C 
and  nowhere  else.  With  these  explanations  as  to  details,  I  think  we 
may  hold  to  the  theory  that  the  feelings  of  movement  TTKP  are  the 
direct  local  signs  of  the  sensations.  But  each  of  these  feelings  them 
selves  is  at  bottom  a  series  of  momentary  feelings  of  position  answering 
to  the  various  places  traversed  by  the  eye  in  its  movement.  In  order 
to  keep  the  signs  as  simple  as  possible  I  merely  mention  this  here,  and 
shall  use  ir  to  indicate  the  whole  series  of  the  successive  sensations 
TTO,  7rr  7r2  .  .  .  .,  which  follow  each  other  as  the  eye  turns  along  the 
curve  p  E. 

285.  The  further  application  of  these  ideas  will  be  as  follows.  If 
we  assume  that  the  first  impression  of  light  felt  in  our  lives  affected  the 
lateral  spot  p,  it  will  follow  that  there  succeeded  an  actual  movement 
p  E,  and  that,  during  this  movement,  there  took  place  the  series  TT  of 
successive  feelings  of  the  position  of  the  eye.  If  the  same  impression 
is  repeated,  the  same  movement  will  ensue ;  and  the  fact  that  an 
identical  stimulation  has  occurred  in  the  past  will  make  no  difference 
to  the  present  one.  But  the  case  will  be  otherwise  if  at  the  moment 
of  their  second  stimulation  another  stimulus  affects  the  spot  q,  and 
solicits,  with  a  force  equal  to  that  of  the  first  stimulus,  a  movement  of 
the  eye  directly  opposite  to  that  which  is  required  by  p.  The  result 
here  will  be  that  the  eye  remains  at  rest :  but  at  the  same  time  the 
two  impulses  to  movement,  which  in  their  effects  cancel  one  another, 
will  not  on  that  account  be  a  mere  zero ;  as  excitations  of  the  nerves 
they  will  remain,  just  as  the  force  of  gravity  in  two  masses  remains, 
although  those  masses  counterbalance  one  another  in  the  scales  and 
therefore  do  not  move  them.  The  operation  of  that  force  consists  in 
the  bending  of  the  beam  and  in  the  pressure  exerted  on  the  point  of 
suspension.  And  I  see  no  reason  why,  in  the  case  before  us,  the  two 
excitations,  which  are  prevented  from  producing  an  effect  in  the  way 
of  movement,  should  not  still  be  represented  in  the  soul  by  two  definite 
feelings,  so  that  the  equipoise  of  opposed  forces  would  be  something 
different  from  the  repose  due  to  the  mere  absence  of  excitation. 

No  doubt,  if  this  is  so,  we  must  once  more  reform  our  idea  of  ?r  or 
K.  So  far  we  have  regarded  them  as  feelings  which  arise  from  the 
movement  set  up ;  thus  they  will  not  occur  unless  the  movements  do. 
But  I  do  not  doubt  that  the  stimulation  of  the  spot  />,  apart  from  the 
actual  movement  connected  with  it,  can  arouse  a  feeling  by  its  mere 
existence  and  occurrence,  and  that  by  means  of  this  feeling  the 

VOL.  i.  K  k 


498          The  Formation  of  our  Ideas  of  Space.     EBOOKHI. 

presence  of  a  thwarted  impulse  may  be  indicated  to  consciousness  and 
so  distinguished  from  the  mere  absence  of  the  impulse.  This  feeling 
we  should  now  regard  as  the  first  link  TTO  in  that  series  TV  =  p  E^  which 
is  produced  during  the  movement  p  E>  and  of  which  each  link  irm  will 
now  stand  for  a  momentary  feeling  of  position  and  also  for  the 
momentary  remnant  of  a  thwarted  impulse  to  movement.  Now, 
taken  by  itself,  TTO  will  be  simply  a  feeling,  a  way  in  which  we  are 
affected,  and  it  will  not  of  itself  point  to  its  causes  or  its  possible 
effects.  But  then  in  that  first  experience  the  whole  further  series 
TT  connected  itself  with  the  first  link ;  this  series  is  associated  with  TTO 
and,  on  the  repetition  of  TTO,  it  also  will  be  reproduced.  Accordingly, 
though  there  is  no  movement  of  the  eye,  there  arises  the  recollection 
of  something,  greater  or  smaller,  which  must  be  accomplished  if  the 
stimuli  at  p  and  q,  which  arouse  only  a  weak  sensation,  are  to  arouse 
sensations  of  the  highest  degree  of  strength  and  clearness.  This  is 
what  happens  at  first ;  but  if  the  soul  has  learnt  that  the  movements 
of  the  eye,  reported  by  its  feelings,  are  movements, — are,  that 
is,  alterations  of  the  relation  in  which  the  organ  of  sensation 
stands  to  a  number  of  what  may  be  treated  as  fixed  simultaneous 
objects;  and  if  finally  the  soul  both  can  and  must  apprehend  the 
differences  between  such  relations  in  a  spatial  form, — in  this  case 
the  idea  of  that  something  to  be  accomplished  will  be  transformed 
into  the  idea  of  a  greater  or  smaller  spatial  distance  between  the 
impressions  falling  on  /  and  q  and  that  middle  point  of  the  perceived 
space  which  corresponds  to  the  point  E  in  the  eye.  If,  lastly,  we  add 
that  to  each  of  the  many  stimuli  which  at  one  and  the  same  time 
excite  the  spots  p  q  r  .  .  .  of  the  retina,  there  is  now  conjoined  the 
corresponding  series  rr  K  p  of  reproduced  feelings,  the  result  will  be 
that  owing  to  movements  once  performed  and  now  remembered,  the 
eye,  even  when  at  rest,  will  be  able  to  assign  to  each  impression  its 
position  among  the  rest. 

286.  I  should  be  very  prejudiced  if  I  felt  no  alarm  at  the  arti 
ficiality  of  these  ideas.  But  my  intention  was  not  to  recommend  the 
hypothesis  at  all  costs,  but  honestly  to  recount  all  the  presuppositions 
it  involves;  and,  further,  I  do  not  know  that  it  is  possible  to  reach 
the  end  we  aim  at  in  any  simpler  way,  or  that  the  artificiality  lies 
anywhere  but  in  the  facts  themselves.  The  fact  itself  is  strange 
enough — and  it  cannot  be  got  rid  of — that  we  can  see  an  unnum 
bered  mass  of  different-coloured  points  at  once,  and  can  distinguish 
them.  It  must  be  possible,  therefore,  that  what  we  require  should 
be  effected  :  it  must  be  possible  for  a  large  number  of  impressions 


CHAPTER  iv.]         Is  space-perception  acquired  f  499 

to  be  in  consciousness  without  mingling  together ;  there  must  be 
in  each  of  them  something,  some  '  reason,'  which  makes  it  appear 
now  at  one  point  in  space,  and  now  at  another  point;  and  these 
various  'reasons'  again,  which  are  present  simultaneously,  must 
operate  without  intermixture,  each  of  them  in  exclusive  relation  to  the 
definite  impression  it  belongs  to.  In  other  words,  the  same  com 
plicated  relations  which  we  assume  between  the  feelings  of  movement, 
must  exist  between  any  other  possible  elements  which  we  might 
substitute  for  those  feelings.  The  only  question,  therefore,  is  whether 
internal  experience  witnesses  to  the  truth  of  our  hypothesis,  or 
whether  any  other  source  of  knowledge  opposes  to  it  objections 
which  are  insuperable. 

As  to  the  first  point,  of  course,  I  cannot  tell  whether  others  find  in 
themselves  what  I  find  in  myself.  If  I  ask  what  meaning  an  im 
personal  knowledge  (if  the  phrase  may  be  used)  would  attach  to  the 
words  'two  elements  p  and  q  are  at  a  distance  from  one  another/ 
I  can  imagine  an  answer  by  means  of  the  idea  of  a  universal  space 
in  which  I  myself  have  no  fixed  position.  But  for  my  sensuous 
perception  of  the  seen  points  p  and  q,  the  only  possible  meaning  of 
the  statement  that  these  points  are  at  a  distance  from  each  other 
is  that  a  certain  definite  amount  of  movement  is  necessary'  if  I  am  to 
direct  my  glance  from  the  one  to  the  other ;  the  different  positions 
of  the  single  points  are  felt  by  me  simply  and  solely  as  so  many 
solicitations  to  movement.  But  then  I  can  base  nothing  on  this 
experience.  My  individual  disposition  cannot  be  communicated. 
I  cannot  therefore  contradict  those  who  tell  me  that  they  observe 
nothing  of  these  feelings  of  movements,  however  much  I  may  be 
convinced  that  they  deceive  themselves  and,  though  they  really  have 
the  feelings,  do  not  recognise  them  for  what  they  are.  I  must  content 
myself  therefore  with  pointing  out  to  them  that,  in  my  view,  the  spatial 
perception  of  the  world  is  not  something  suddenly  given  us  by  nature 
as  soon  as  we  open  our  eyes,  but  is  the  result  of  successive  experience 
and  habituation ;  only  this  habituation  goes  on  at  a  time  in  our  lives 
of  which  we  have  no  distinct  recollection.  The  skill  of  the  piano- 
player,  once  acquired,  seems  to  us  a  natural  gift  that  costs  no  trouble ; 
he  glances  at  the  notes,  and  complicated  movements  of  the  hand 
immediately  follow:  in  this  case  we  know  what  a  laborious  process 
he  has  gone  through,  and  with  what  difficulty  practice  has  set  up 
these  associations  of  ideas  with  one  another  and  with  the  movements 
we  see, — mere  links  of  connection  which  no  longer  show  themselves 
in  the  consciousness  of  the  practised  artist.  Exactly  the  same  thing 

K  k  2 


500          The  Formation  of  our  Ideas  of  Space.    [BOOK  in. 

may  happen  in  the  case  under  discussion;  and  there  need  be 
no  distinct  recollection  in  consciousness  of  the  actual  movements 
through  which  we  once  learnt  to  localise  our  sensations.  But,  it  will 
be  answered,  this  may  be  a  probable  account  of  the  slow  development 
of  a  child,  and  as  a  matter  of  fact  we  see  that  its  eyes  turn  towards 
any  light  that  is  brighter  than  usual :  to  an  animal  on  the  other  hand 
the  spatial  knowledge  of  the  world  comes  with  so  little  trouble  that 
we  cannot  in  its  case  believe  in  such  a  prolonged  process  of  learning. 
To  this  I  reply  that  in  reality  we  do  not  at  all  know  what  it  is  that  an 
animal  sees  directly  it  is  born,  nor  what  sort  of  perception  of  space  it 
has.  In  order  merely  to  account  in  general  for  the  early  use  it 
makes  of  its  limbs  we  have  to  assume  a  number  of  mechanical  reflex 
movements.  It  is  therefore  conceivable  that  the  unhesitating  way  in 
which  it  makes  for  an  object  lying  in  the  direction  of  its  glance  may 
really  rest  merely  on  a  reflex  movement  set  up  by  the  stimulus ;  and 
the  fact  that  many  of  its  other  earliest  movements  are  unsuccessful 
would  then  go  to  show  that  it,  like  man,  only  gradually  acquires  an 
ordered  knowledge  of  that  remaining  part  of  the  spatial  world  which 
lies  outside  the  direction  of  its  glance.  Again,  the  small  amount  of 
experience  we  possess  respecting  the  rise  of  an  optical  idea  of  space 
in  persons  born  blind  and  afterwards  operated  on,  will  not  suffice  to 
decide  the  question.  In  all  cases  the  patient  has  already  learnt, 
through  touch  and  movement,  to  find  his  way  in  the  spatial  world. 
Doubtless  the  ideas  of  space  thus  developed  may  be  very  unlike  the 
space  that  manifests  itself  to  a  man  who  can  see  :  for  a  touch  can 
apprehend  only  a  few  points  at  once,  and  can  only  approach  distant 
objects  by  means  of  considerable  movements ;  and  therefore  the  space 
of  the  blind  man  may  be  not  so  much  what  we  mean  by  space, 
as  an  artificial  system  of  conceptions  of  movement,  time  and  effort : 
and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  few  reports  we  possess  tell  us  of  the 
astonishment  with  which  the  blind  man,  after  a  successful  opera 
tion,  learns  what  the  appearance  of  space  or  the  spatial  world  is. 
Still,  in  spite  of  such  differences,  we  cannot  tell  to  what  extent  this 
previous  practice  may  assist  the  formation  of  the  visual  perception 
which  ensues :  in  any  case  it  cannot  be  analogous  to  the  first  forma 
tion  of  all  ideas  of  space ;  and  finally,  there  is  even  a  difficulty  in 
discovering  what  it  really  is  that  is  seen  at  first,  since  the  patient  who 
is  just  beginning  to  see,  cannot  express  his  first  experience  in  the 
language  of  sight. 

287.  There  are  many  questions  which  psychological  optics  would 
have  to  settle  respecting  the  further  development  of  the  spatial  ideas : 


CHAPTER  iv.]  The  idea  of  Depth.  501 

but  it  is  not  the  business  of  metaphysic  to  discuss  them.  I  will  only 
briefly  remark  that  there  is  no  foundation  for  any  of  those  views 
which  ascribe  to  the  soul  an  original  tendency  to  project  its  impres 
sions  outwards,  and  that  in  one  particular  way  and  in  no  other; 
all  this  has  to  be  learnt  through  the  combination  of  experiences. 
How  it  is  actually  learnt  piece  by  piece  we  cannot  discover ;  how  it 
may  be  learnt,  it  is  easy  to  understand  in  a  general  way;  but  there  are 
particular  points  in  the  process  which  cannot  at  present  be  understood 
at  all.  What  we  have  accounted  for  so  far  is  nothing  more  than  the 
arrangement  of  the  points  in  the  field  of  vision,  the  internal  drawing 
of  the  total  image ;  but  this  image  itself  as  a  whole  has  as  yet  no  place 
and  no  position,  for  the  perception  of  the  total  space,  in  which  its  place 
and  position  are  to  be,  is  still  entirely  wanting.  The  movements  of 
the  eye  as  it  opens,  shuts,  and  turns,  make  the  seen  image  appear,  dis 
appear,  and  change.  We  therefore  naturally  associate  this  image  with 
the  eye  in  such  a  way  that  we  conceive  it  as  lying  in  any  case  in 
front  of  us — to  use  the  later  language  of  the  developed  perception 
of  space  :  what  is  behind  us — an  expression  which  at  this  stage  has 
really  no  meaning — does  not  exist  at  all,  and  has  no  more  to  do  with 
space  than  the  general  feeling  we  have  in  the  hand  or  foot  has 
to  do  with  clearness  or  dimness.  And  so  it  would  remain,  if  we 
could  not  move  our  bodies  and  could  only  turn  our  eyes  to  a  very 
slight  extent.  But  as  soon  as  we  have  learnt  to  turn  on  our  axis  and 
to  refer  the  consequent  feelings  of  movement  to  their  true  cause, 
the  movement,  we  discover  that  our  first  field  of  vision  a  b  c,  instead 
of  suddenly  disappearing  altogether,  passes  successively  into  bed, 
cde  .  .  .  xyz,  yza>  zad,  and  a  be.  The  unbroken  series  of  images 
which  returns  into  itself  awakes  in  us  the  idea  of  a  complete  circular 
space  with  no  gaps  in  it ;  and  this  idea,  by  the  help  of  similar 
movements  of  the  eye  in  other  directions,  soon  passes  into  the 
ordinary  perception  of  the  spherical  space  that  surrounds  us  on  all 
sides. 

At  the  same  time,  this  idea  could  neither  arise  nor  attain  any  clear 
ness  unless  the  idea  of  the  third  spatial  dimension,  that  of  depth, 
were  being  simultaneously  formed.  In  its  own  nature  the  soul  has 
certainly  no  impulse  to  project  its  visual  impressions  outwards  ;  it  does 
not  yet  know  this  'outside';  and  in  any  case  it  could  not  project 
anything  merely  generally  outwards,  it  could  only  project  impressions 
into  a  definite  distance ;  and  that  definite  distance  it  has  as  yet  no 
means  of  determining.  Just  as  little  is  it  possible,  as  has  been 
supposed,  for  the  soul  to  represent  its  impressions  as  lying  directly  on 


5O2  The  Formation  of  our  Ideas  of  Space.     [BOOK  in. 

the  eye ;  for  this  again  means  simply  the  negation  of  distance,  and 
distance  must  be  known  if  it  is  to  be  negated.  The  simple  fact  is 
really  that  the  impressions  are  there,  and  are  seen,  but  they  have 
no  assignable  position  in  the  third  spatial  direction,  for  this  is  still 
unknown.  That  there  is  such  a  third  direction,  we  learn  only  from 
experience ;  and  we  learn  it  most  easily  from  our  finding  ourselves 
moving  throtigh  the  images  we  see,  and  from  the  fact  that,  in  con 
sequence  of  this  movement,  the  single  images  undergo  various  dis 
placements,  some  of  them  being  hidden,  and  others  which  were 
hidden  coming  into  view.  And  this  greatly  increases  the  difficulty  of 
applying  the  general  idea  we  have  thus  acquired,  in  estimating  the 
degree  of  distance  in  any  particular  case ;  a  problem  which  we  leave 
to  physiology  and  the  special  psychology  of  sense-perception. 

Lastly,  I  will  touch  very  briefly  on  one  vexed  question ;  why  do  we 
see  objects  upright,  although  the  image  of  them  on  the  retina  is 
upside  down?  We  must  remember  that  we  do  not  observe  the 
image  on  our  eye  with  a  second  eye,  which  further  could  com 
pare  its  own  position  with  the  position  of  the  object.  There  is 
nothing  before  us  but  the  image  itself;  all  the  geometrical  relations 
of  the  picture  on  the  retina  utterly  disappear  as  it  passes  into 
consciousness ;  and,  in  the  same  way,  the  fact  that  as  a  whole  it  has 
a  certain  position  in  the  eye  does  not  in  the  least  prejudge  the 
question  how  it  is  to  appear  later  in  a  spatial  perception  gained 
through  some  further  means.  We  are  absolutely  dependent  on  this 
other  perception.  If  there  were  only  a  seen  space,  we  could  give  no 
answer  at  all  to  the  question  what  is  above  and  what  is  beneath  in 
that  space.  These  expressions  have  a  meaning  only  if  we  presuppose 
another  idea  of  space,  an  idea  for  which  these  two  directions  are  not 
merely  generally  opposed  to  one  another,  but  are  uninterchangeably 
different.  When  we  have  this  idea,  and  not  till  then,  we  can  say  that 
that  in  the  visual  world  is  '  above/  the  image  of  which  we  find  or  have 
to  seek  in  the  fixed  direction  towards  the  '  above '  of  the  other  space. 
It  is  our  muscular  feeling  or  general  sense  which  (even  when  unaided 
by  the  sense  of  sight)  instructs  us  respecting  the  position  of  our  body, 
that  gives  us  the  other  perception  of  space.  For,  the  body  being  in 
its  usual  upright  position,  the  downward  direction  means  the  direction 
of  weight,  and  when  we  oppose  our  forces  to  it  the  result  is  a  number 
of  feelings  of  effort ;  and  by  these  feelings  the  downward  direction  in 
this  other,  non-visual,  perception  of  space  is  uniformly  and  uninter 
changeably  distinguished  from  the  upward.  Consequently,  if  a  and  b 
are  places  in  the  field  of  vision,  b  appears  to  us  as  beneath  at  when 


CHAPTER  iv.]         Localisation  by  sense  of  Touch.  503 

the  sight  or  touch  of  b  is  attained  through  a  movement  which,  in  the 
language  of  the  muscular  sense,  is  a  downward  movement ;  or  when 
(our  body  being  upright)  the  image  of  b  always  enters  the  field  of 
vision  along  with  the  images  of  the  lower  parts  of  our  body,  and  never 
along  with  those  of  the  upper.  This  last  requirement  is  satisfied  by 
what  is  commonly  called  the  reversed  position  of  the  image  on  the 
retina,  since  the  imaging  surface  of  the  eye  lies  behind  the  centre  of 
rotation ;  and  it  would  equally  be  satisfied  by  an  upright  position  of 
the  image,  if  that  image  arose  in  front  of  the  centre  of  motion  and  on 
the  anterior  convex  surface  of  the  eye.  Thus  there  is  a  contradiction 
between  the  reports  of  the  eyes  and  of  the  muscular  sense  when  we 
use  an  inverting  telescope  which  gives  an  upright  position  to  the  image 
on  the  retina.  In  such  a  case,  even  if  we  have  no  other  visual  image 
to  compare  with  the  telescopic  one,  we  at  once  notice  an  opposition 
to  the  reports  of  the  muscular  sense  :  we  feel  that  in  order  to  reach 
the  tops  of  the  trees  we  see,  we  should  have  to  move  our  hand  in 
a  direction  which,  for  that  sense,  is  downward. 

288.  I  have  still  to  mention  that  localisation  of  impressions  which 
we  obtain  through  the  sense  of  touch.  Here  again  the  basis  of  our 
view  is  given  by  E.  H.  Weber's  attempts  to  fix  experimentally  the  con 
ditions  under  which  we  can  distinguish  two  impressions  on  the  skin, 
which  are  qualitatively  alike  but  locally  different.  The  skin  is  lightly 
touched  with  the  two  blunted  points  of  a  pair  of  compasses:  and 
the  experiments  showed  that  the  extent  to  which  the  two  points  have 
to  be  separated  in  order  to  be  distinguished  as  two,  is  very  different 
at  different  parts  of  the  body.  For  the  finger-ends,  the  edges  of  the 
lips,  the  tip  of  the  tongue,  a  distance  of  half  a  line  suffices  :  while  at 
many  parts  of  the  arm,  leg,  and  back,  one  of  twenty  lines  is  necessary. 
An  explanation  seemed  to  be  offered  at  once  by  the  structure  of  the 
nerve-fibres.  The  sensory  nerve-fibre,  though  isolated  and  unramified 
during  its  conduction,  separates  at  its  peripheral  end  into  a  number 
of  short  branches,  and  so  distributes  itself  over  a  small  space  of  the 
skin  for  the  purpose  of  receiving  stimuli  from  without.  It  was  thought, 
then,  that  all  the  excitations  which  affect  one  of  these  nerve-ends  simul 
taneously  would,  through  the  unity  of  the  fibre  which  has  to  conduct 
them  further,  be  destined  to  form  one  resultant,  and  to  be  incapable 
of  being  distinguished  from  one  another.  If,  again,  these  excitations 
occurred  one  after  the  other,  they  might  be  distinguished  in  their 
qualitative  character,  but  would  give  no  ground  for  local  distinctions. 
On  the  other  hand  it  was  supposed,  if  two  impressions  fell  on  two 
different  nerve-spaces,  this  alone  would  not  make  it  possible  to 


504  The  Formation  of  our  Ideas  of  Space.     [BOOK  in. 

distinguish  them  as  two :  this  possibility  arising  only  if,  between  the  two 
stimulated  spaces,  there  lay  one  or  more  of  such  spaces  which  remained 
unstimulated.  This  last  supposition  is  in  any  case  inadmissible ;  for 
at  every  moment  there  are  a  great  many  unstimulated  nerve-fibres ; 
if  any  particular  ones  among  them  are  to  be  used  for  the  purpose  of 
distinguishing  two  impressions  a  and  t>,  there  must  be  something  in 
them  which  shows  that  they  lie  between  the  two  stimulated  nerve- 
spaces  ;  and  this  presupposes  the  possibility  of  accomplishing  what 
has  to  be  explained,  the  localisation  of  the  sensations. 

In  other  respects  too  the  point  of  view  described  fails  to  give 
a  sufficient  basis  for  this  localisation.  Nor  was  this  exactly  its  pur 
pose  :  it  was  intended  only  to  explain  why  two  impressions  can  some 
times  be  distinguished  and  sometimes  not.  But  even  in  this  point  I 
found  myself  unable  to  accept  it.  Two  points  of  the  compasses  which 
when  they  touch  the  skin  simultaneously  give  only  one  impression, 
often  leave  two  distinguishable  impressions  when  they  are  laid  against 
the  skin  in  turn ;  and  their  two  impressions  appear  as  locally  distinct, 
though  no  accurate  estimate  of  the  distance  can  be  given ;  moreover, 
within  one  radius  of  sensation  the  onward  movement  of  a  point  can 
be  distinguished  from  its  continued  pressure  on  the  same  spot.  Lastly, 
the  conduction  of  the  excitations  by  the  same  or  by  different  nerve- 
fibres  did  not  seem  to  me  to  decide  anything ;  the  partitions  of  the 
fibres  are  not  continued  into  consciousness,  and  there  all  the  im 
pressions  must  in  the  end  come  together,  qualitatively  distinguishable, 
if  they  were  different,  and  indistinguishable  if  they  were  not.  But 
neither  for  the  like  impressions  nor  for  the  unlike  did  the  theory 
assign  any  ground  of  local  separation,  still  less  any  clue  by  means  of 
which  each  of  them  might  have  its  own  place  given  to  it. 

289.  Thus  I  found  myself  obliged  in  this  case,  no  less  than  in  that 
of  the  impressions  of  sight,  to  look  for  local  signs,  abiding  certi 
ficates  of  local  origin ;  these  local  signs  would  be  attached,  in  the 
form  of  qualitatively  distinguishable  extra-impressions  TT,  K,  p,  to  all 
excitations  A,  B,  C,  according  to  the  particular  spots  p,  q,  r  of  the 
skin  which  they  affect.  Let  us  suppose  that  a  stimulus,  strictly  limited 
in  its  local  extent— say  the  prick  of  a  needle— affects  the  spot  p. 
Owing  to  the  connexion  between  different  parts  of  the  skin  it  is 
impossible  that  the  operation  of  this  stimulus  should  be  confined  to 
a  point  destitute  of  any  extension:  whatever  alteration  it  produces 
directly  at  the  point  of  contact  will  produce  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
that  point  a  number  of  little  stretchings,  pressings,  and  displacements. 
Now,  though  there  is  a  general  uniformity  in  the  structure  of  the  skin,  it 


CHAPTER  iv.]    Local  differ ences  of  Toiick-sensatwn.          505 

is  by  no  means  exactly  alike  at  all  parts  of  the  body.  The  epidermis  is 
thicker  at  one  place,  finer  at  another  ;  when  the  skin  is  attached  to  the 
points  of  bones  it  is  stretched,  at  other  places  the  extent  of  its  possible 
displacement  is  greater.  It  differs  again  not  less  widely  according  to 
the  nature  of  its  substratum  :  it  is  not  the  same  when  spread  over  a 
cushion  of  fat  as  when  it  is  stretched  over  bones,  flesh,  or  cavities. 
Lastly,  at  different  places  in  the  body  these  various  situations  may 
pass  into  one  another  either  suddenly  or  slowly.  We  may  therefore 
perhaps  assume  that  at  any  point  p  in  the  body  the  wave  n-  of  little 
extra-agitations,  called  forth  by  the  stimulation  of  that  point,  will 
differ  from  any  other  wave  <  which  accompanies  the  stimulation  of  a 
spot  q.  But  these  extra-excitations  would  avail  us  nothing  if  they 
simply  occurred  without  becoming  objects  of  our  perception ;  and 
this  last  requisite  will  depend  on  the  distribution  of  the  nerve-fibres. 
Let  us  suppose  a  case.  Within  the  field  of  distribution  of  one  and 
the  same  fibre,  let  /  q  r  be  the  single  ends  of  that  fibre  :  then  the 
local  sign  TT  of  the  spot  p  will  consist  in  the  sensations  of  those  extra- 
impressions  which  the  direct  stimulation  of  p  calls  up  in  its  neighbour- 
O  hood,  and  the  conduction  of  which  to  consciousness  is  secured  by  the 
f  nerve-terminations  q  and  r  that  receive  them.  Now  if  the  structure 
of  the  skin  within  this  field  of  distribution  were  perfectly  uniform,  the 
nerve-fibre  which  unites  p  q  r  would  reach  precisely  the  same  final 
state  whichever  of  these  terminations  were  the  place  directly  stimu 
lated  :  the  impressions  could  not  be  distinguished,  whether  they  were 
simultaneous  or  successive.  But  if  the  structure  of  the  skin  varies 
within  this  field,  the  stimulation  of/  will  produce  different  extra- 
excitations  in  q  and  r  from  those  which  the  same  stimulation  of  q  will 
produce  in  p  and  r.  Accordingly,  if  one  and  the  same  impression  A 
affects  different  places  in  succession,  the  uniting  fibre  will  bring  this 
impression  to  consciousness  in  company  with  different  local  signs  IT  < 
p  •  and  we  shall  have  a  motive  for  the  separation  of  three  sensations, 
although  as  yet  no  motive  for  a  definite  localisation  of  them.  If  the 
impressions  are  simultaneous,  the  uniting  fibre  may  either  conduct 
them  side  by  side  without  intermixture,  or  it  may  be  only  capable  of 
conducting  a  single  resultant  of  their  influences  :  which  of  these 
alternatives  is  correct  is  a  question  we  cannot  discuss. 

Let  us  now  return  to  the  other  idea.  Let  p  q  r  stand  for  three 
different  nerve-fibres ;  but  let  the  stimulus  A  act  on  a  spot  of  the 
tissue  where  there  is  no  nerve-termination  :  then  the  effect  produced 
must  distribute  itself  until  it  finds  a  nerve-termination  on  which  it  can 
discharge  itself.  Now  if  in  the  whole  field  of  p  q  r  the  structure  of 


506  The  Formation  of  our  Ideas  of  Space.     [BOOK  in. 

the  skin  was  uniform,  I  should  say  that  it  matters  nothing  whether  it 
is  one  or  two  of  these  fibres  that  receive  the  like  impressions,  which 
would  be  accompanied  by  like  local  signs ;  for  in  no  case  could  the 
impressions  be  distinguished,  and  the  only  use  of  the  multiplicity  of 
the  fibres  would  be  the  general  one  of  securing  the  entrance  of  the 
stimuli  into  the  nervous  system ;  for  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
excitation  of  the  tissue  could  not  propagate  itself  to  any  very  con 
siderable  distance.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  texture  and  state  of  the 
skin  within  this  whole  field  varies  rapidly,  the  different  local  signs 
which  arise  at  point  after  point  would  be  useless  unless  there  are  a 
great  number  of  closely  congregated  nerve-terminations,  each  of  which 
can  receive  the  wave  of  excitation  of  a  small  circuit,  before  that  wave 
has  lost  its  characteristic  peculiarity  by  meeting  with  others  which 
began  at  different  places  and  spread  over  the  same  field.  It  seems  to 
me  that  these  suppositions  answer  to  the  results  of  observation.  On 
the  back  and  trunk  there  are  long  stretches  where  the  structure  of  the 
skin  is  uniform,  and  here  impressions  can  only  be  distinguished  when 
they  are  separated  by  wide  distances.  In  the  case  of  the  arm  and  leg, 
the  power  of  distinction  is  duller  when  the  stimuli  follow  another  in 
the  direction  of  the  longitudinal  axis  of  those  limbs — the  direction  of 
the  underlying  muscles ;  it  is  sharper  when  the  stimuli  are  arranged 
round  the  limb,  in  which  case  the  skin  is  supported  alternately  and  in 
different  ways  by  the  swell  of  the  muscles  and  the  spaces  that  inter 
vene  between  them. 

290.  The  name  local  signs,  in  its  proper  sense,  cannot  be  given 
to  these  extra-excitations  themselves,  but  only  to  the  sensations  they 
occasion.  Now  it  strikes  us  at  once  that  there  is  one  of  our  postulates 
which  those  sensations  altogether  fail  to  satisfy.  It  is  true  that  they 
differ  in  quality,  while  at  the  same  time  they  admit  of  resemblances ; 
for  example,  if  we  touch  any  part  of  the  skin  that  is  stretched  above  a 
bone,  whether  it  be  the  forehead,  the  knee-cap,  or  the  heel,  feelings 
are  distinctly  aroused  which  have  a  common  tone.  But  these  feelings 
are  not  qu_ant.itatiyely  rateable  members  of  a  series  or  system  of  series. 
They  cannot  therefore  serve  directly  to  fix  the  locality  of  their  causes  ; 
and,  besides,  what  we  require  in  this  case  is  not  the  localisation  of  the 
sensations  within  an  absolute  space,  but  within  that  variable  surface  of 
the  body,  to  the  various  points  of  which  they  are  to  be  referred.  We 
must  have  learnt  the  shape  of  this  surface  beforehand,  and  have  dis 
covered  through  observation  to  what  point  /  in  it  that  impression  A 
belongs,  which  is  characterised  by  the  local  sign  ?r :  until  this  is  done 
we  cannot  refer  a  second  stimulus  B  TT  to  the  same  point  in  the  surface 


CHAPTER  iv.]  How  can  Touch-feelings  form  a  series  ?     507 

of  the  body.  This  can  be  done  easily  enough  if  we  can  use  our  eyes  ; 
but  how  is  it  to  be  accomplished  by  the  blind  man,  who,  beyond  these 
feelings,  has  nothing  to  help  him  except  movement  ?  Without  doubt 
the  help  that  movement  gives  him  is  of  decisive  importance ;  but  how 
it  is  possible  to  use  this  help  is  not  so  easy  to  understand  as  is  often 
supposed.  While  the  movement  is  going  on,  we  have  of  course  a 
certain  definite  feeling  which  accompanies  it ;  but  then  this  feeling  is 
in  itself  nothing  but  a  manner  in  which  we  are  affected ;  it  itself  does 
not  tell  us — we  have  to  guess — that  it  is  caused  by  a  movement  of 
the  limbs.  This  discovery,  again,  is  easy  when  we  can  use  our  eyes, 
and  so  notice  that  our  hand  is  changing  its  place  while  we  are 
experiencing  the  muscular  feeling  ;  but  the  blind  man  has  to  make 
out  in  some  other  way  that  the  alteration  of  his  general  feeling  is  not 
a  mere  change  of  his  internal  state,  but  depends  on  the  variable  rela 
tion  into  which  he  or  his  bodily  organs  enter  towards  a  series  of 
permanent  external  objects. 

Now  it  seems  to  me  that  the  condition  which  makes  such  a  know 
ledge  as  this  attainable,  consists  in  this, — that  the  skin,  like  the  eye, 
has  a  number  of  sensitive  and  moveable  points.  If  an  organ  of  touch 
in  the  shape  of  an  antenna  possessed  in  its  tip  the  sole  point  at  which 
the  skin  of  the  whole  body  was  sensitive ;  and  if  its  capacities  were 
strictly  limited  at  every  moment  to  the  power  of  bringing  one  single 
object-point  A  to  perception,  the  result  would  be  that,  when  a  move 
ment  of  this  organ  led  from  A  to  £,  the  perception  of  A  would  alto 
gether  disappear  and  the  wholly  new  perception  of  B  would  take  its 
place.  No  doubt  while  this  was  going  on  a  muscular  feeling  x  would 
have  been  experienced  ;  but  how  could  it  occur  to  us  to  interpret  that 
feeling  as  the  effect  of  a  spatial  movement  ?  However  often  we  passed 
from  A  to  B  and  from  B  to  A,  and  experienced  the  feelings  +  x,  we 
should  never  discover  what  those  feelings  really  signified  ;  this  transi 
tion  would  remain  a  perfectly  mysterious  process,  of  which  all  we  knew 
would  be  that  it  transformed  our  idea  A  into  B.  On  the  other  hand, 
if  the  hand,  like  the  eye,  can  feel  the  three  impressions  A  B  C  at 
once ;  if  this  image  of  pressure  changes  during  the  movement  by 
regular  stages  into  BCD,  CDE\  and  if  by  a  movement  in  the 
opposite  direction  we  can  again  reach  the  parts  that  have  disappeared, 
or  grasp  them  with  one  hand  while  the  other  moves  away  from  them, 
these  facts  must  certainly  tend  to  suggest  the  idea  that  the  muscular 
feelings  which  accompany  the  succession  of  sensations  arise  from  a 
variable  relation  of  ourselves  towards  independent  objects — that  is, 
from  movement.  As  soon  as  this  is  discovered,  it  is  possible — in  a 


508          The  Formation  of  our  Ideas  of  Space. 

way  which  I  need  not  further  describe— for  the  limitless  variety  of 
combination  between  the  sensations  of  that  part  of  the  body  which 
touches,  and  the  not  less  sensitive  part  which  is  touched,  to  conduct 
us  to  a  knowledge  of  the  surface  of  our  body,  and  to  the  localisation 
and  arrangement  of  our  single  sensations  in  that  surface. 


CHAPTER    V. 

The  Physical  basis  of  Mental  Activity. 

IN  passing  on  to  consider  the  forms  in  which  soul  and  body  act  on 
one  another,  I  must  observe  that  there  are  a  number  of  special  ques 
tions  for  the  answers  to  which  there  is  not  as  yet  any  sufficient 
foundation  ;  and  of  these  I  do  not  consider  it  my  duty  to  treat.  All 
that  can  be  considered  proper  to  this  metaphysical  discussion  are  the 
fundamental  conceptions  used  by  various  theories  in  interpreting  the 
facts.  We  may  leave  out  of  sight  an  infinity  of  so-called  experiences, 
all  of  which  are  not  by  any  means  equally  well  attested,  and  which 
alter  every  day  with  the  progress  of  observation.  They  will  gradually 
define  the  object  of  some  future  theory,  but,  so  far  at  least,  they  do 
not  contribute  to  the  criticism  of  these  metaphysical  foundations. 

291.  It  has  been  said  that  the  soul  is  the  same  thing  ideally  that 
the  body  is  really ;  or  that  the  two  are  the  different  sides  of  a  single 
whole.  Such  wide  expressions  will  not  give  us  what  we  want.  When 
once  we  have  distinguished  body  and  soul  as  two  parties  between 
which  manifold  interactions  take  place,  we  need  ideas  more  definite 
and  more  capable  of  being  pictured,  in  order  to  conceive  the  pro 
cesses  through  which  these  reciprocal  influences  make  themselves  felt. 
And  among  the  questions  which  require  a  clear  and  unambiguous 
answer  is  that  concerning  the  spatial  relations  of  the  soul — the 
question,  to  adopt  the  current  phraseology,  of  the  seat  of  the  soul. 
There  was  a  time  when  some  philosophers  looked  down  with  pity  on 
the  maladroitness  supposed  to  be  involved  in  the  very  asking  of  this 
question.  Nevertheless,  unprejudiced  persons  will  always  raise  it 
afresh  ;  and  therefore  it  must  be  answered  and  not  ignored.  I  might 
attempt  to  answer  it  at  once,  by  connecting  it  with  the  preceding 
discussions ;  but  I  prefer  to  leave  them  out  of  sight,  and  to  repeat  the 
considerations  by  which  on  other  occasions  I  have  attempted  to 
indicate  my  view.  Let  us  take,  then,  the  various  ideas  which  are 
really  intelligible  to  us  respecting  the  spatial  relations  of  anything 


5 1 o         The  Physical  basis  of  Mental  Activity.   [  BOOK  m. 

capable  of  action,  and  which  we  are  in  the  habit  of  applying  to  them, 
and  ask  which  of  them  answers  to  the  special  case  of  the  human  soul. 

292.  To  be  in  a  place  means  simply  and  solely  to  exert  action 
from  that  place  and  to  experience  the  actions  or  effects  that  reach 
that  place :  if  we  put  these  two  powers  out  of  sight,  it  is  impossible 
to  attach  any  meaning  to  the  assertion  that  a  thing  is  at  this  place  p 
and  is  not  at  that  other  place  g,  where,  as  at  /,  it  neither  exerts  nor 
experiences  any  action.  Now  it  is  possible  to  conceive  an  existence 
standing  in  a  direct,  and  at  the  same  time  an  identical,  relation  of 
interaction  with  all  the  other  elements  of  the  world.  There  is  one 
case  in  which  this  is  a  current  idea  ;  it  expresses  what  we  mean  by 
the  omnipresence  of  God.  No  element  of  the  world  needs  to  travel 
a  long  road,  or  to  call  in  the  help  of  other  things  in  order  to  bring 
its  own  state  to  the  presence  and  knowledge  of  God ;  nor  have  the 
divine  influences  to  make  a  journey  in  order  to  reach  distant  things  : 
the  interaction  here  is  perfectly  direct.  But  then  it  is  also  one  and 
the  same  in  all  cases,  and  has  not  different  degrees ;  at  any  rate  there 
is  no  measure  of  distance,  according  to  which  the  interaction  is 
necessarily  stronger  or  weaker ;  the  only  reason  why  its  work  may  be 
greater  in  one  case  than  in  another  is  that  the  meaning  of  things,  or 
of  what  goes  on  in  things,  gives  a  reason  for  an  interaction  of  greater 
weight  in  one  instance  and  of  less  weight  in  another.  In  this  alone 
consists  our  conception  of  omnipresence :  the  infinite  spatial  ex 
tension  which  forms  the  theatre  of  that  omnipresence  we  are  far 
from  ascribing  to  God  as  an  attribute  of  His  nature ;  and  on  the 
other  hand  we  see  no  contradiction  between  the  plurality  of  the 
points  at  which  His  activity  manifests  itself,  and  the  perfect  unity  of 
His  nature. 

Now  the  attempt  has  often  been  made  to  ascribe  this  omnipresence 
to  the  soul,  within  the  limits,  that  is,  of  the  body  in  which  it  resides : 
andjthe  cause  of  this  mistaken  idea  is  most  commonly  to  be  found  in 
the  aesthetic  impression  which  makes  it  seem  as  though  the  whole  of 
the  body  were  penetrated  by  a  psychical  life,  and  every  part  of  it  were 
the  immediate  seat  of  sensation  and  a  direct  organ  of  the  will.  But 
there  are  some  simple  physiological  facts  which  show  us  that  this 
beautiful  semblance  of  omnipresence  is  the  result  of  a  number  of 
intermediating  agencies ;  that  the  soul  knows  nothing  of  the  stimuli 
that  reach  the  body,  and  loses  its  power  of  setting  up  movements  the 
moment  the  continuity  of  the  conducting  nerve  is  broken  ;  that  there 
fore  the  space  within  which  body  and  soul  act  directly  on  one 
another  is  limited,  and  must  be  found  somewhere,  though  we  cannot 


CHAPTER  V.]        Soilt S  direct  aCtlOH JlOW  limited?  51  I 

yet  define  its  limits,  within  the  central  portions  to  which  all  im 
pressions  are  conducted,  and  from  which  all  impulses  to  voluntary 
movements  start.  We  may  refuse  to  believe  this ;  we  may  answer 
that  a  natural  feeling  tells  us  all  that  the  soul  feels  directly  in  the 
touching  hand,  and  that  this  natural  feeling  cannot  be  created  by  such 
intervening  agencies.  But  the  objection  will  not  help  us.  There  are 
certain  peculiar  double  feelings  of  contact  which  arise  when  we  touch 
an  object  with  an  instrument  held  in  the  hand ;  but  we  do  not  con 
sider  ourselves  justified  in  concluding  from  this  that  the  soul  can 
occasionally  prolong  its  activity  to  the  end  of  a  stick  or  a  probe. 
And  yet  we  fancy  that  we  have  a  direct  feeling  at  that  point  of  their 
contact  with  a  foreign  body. 

293.  The  natural  sciences  have  familiarised  us  with  the  idea  of 
another  interaction,  which  is  direct,  but  also  graduated.  This  is  our 
notion  of  the  attractive  and  repellent  fundamental  forces  of  masses. 
These  forces  need  no  intermediation  ;  they  send  their  action  to  infinite 
distances,  whether  the  space  traversed  by  that  action  is  full  or  empty; 
but  the  intensity  of  the  action  diminishes  with  the  increase  of  the  dis 
tance.  If  we  applied  this  notion  to  the  present  case,  we  should  con 
ceive  of  the  seat  of  the  soul  as  a  point,  or  at  least  as  a  limited  district 
of  the  brain,  on  which  the  interactions  of  the  soul  with  the  surround 
ing  parts  would  be  at  the  maximum  of  intensity,  while  the  further 
they  left  it  behind  the  more  they  would  diminish  in  strength,  although 
actually  extending  to  infinity.  But  a  sober  observation  finds  no 
witness  to  this  outward  activity.  The  slightest  intervening  space  that 
separates  things  from  our  senses  makes  them  simply  non-existent  to 
us,  except  where  there  are  verifiable  processes  through  which  we  act 
on  things  indirectly,  and  they  on  us,  and  which  therefore  help  us  over 
this  spatial  interval.  Any  amount  of  freedom  being  permitted  in  sup 
positions  of  this  kind,  the  assumption  might  be  suggested  that  the 
force  of  the  soul  diminishes  in  the  ratio  of  a  very  high  power  of  the 
distance ;  in  this  case  it  might  exert  no  observable  influence  upon 
the  lengths  of  nerve  which  extend  even  a  slight  distance  from  its 
mysterious  seat.  All  that  is  certain  is  that,  however  close  to  the  root 
of  the  nerve  a  breach  of  its  continuity  may  be,  the  outgoing  force 
of  the  soul  is  never  able  to  produce  on  the  other  side  of  this  breach 
the  effects  which  it  commonly  produces  in  the  nerve.  But,  be  this 
as  it  may,  to  assume  that  there  is  a  fixed  limit — whether  the  surface 
of  the  body,  or  the  smaller  zone  within  which  the  roots  of  the  nerves 
lie — at  which  the  outgoing  force  ceases  to  operate,  is  simply  equiva 
lent  to  a  surrender  of  this  whole  point  of  view.  There  is  nothing  in 


5 1 2          The  Physical  basis  of  Mental  Activity,    t  BOOK  in. 

one  spherical  surface  of  empty  space  that  can  make  it,  rather  than 
any  other  such  surface,  the  limit  at  which  an  activity  ceases  to  diffuse 
itself.  If  there  is  any  such  limit,  the  reason  of  its  existence  must  lie 
in  the  fact  that  the  force  does  not  stream  outward  aimlessly  through 
empty  space,  but  that  there  are  other  real  conditions  on  which  its 
activity  and  the  absence  of  its  activity  depend. 

294.  But  it  is  not  worth  while  to  pursue  any  further  this  idea  of 
limited  action  at  a  distance.  There  is  a  more  decided  view,  which 
has  always  been  preferred  to  it,  and  to  which  many  natural  processes 
bear  witness.  According  to  this  view,  action  never  takes  place  ex 
cept  in  contact,  and  therefore  we  must  assume  one  single  seat  of  the 
soul,  fixed  or  variable,  in  the  form  of  a  point ;  and  apart  from  other 
reasons  a  local  habitation  of  this  kind  appeared  most  suited  to  that, 
which  is  immaterial  and  a  unity.  Yet  this  idea  was  at  once  found  to 
involve  a  crowd  of  difficulties.  Let  us  first  suppose  the  seat  of  the 
soul  to  be,  not  changeable  but  fixed.  In  this  case  we  must  assume 
either  that  all  the  nerve-fibres  join  at  this  point  of  intersection,  or  else 
that  there  is  a  formless  space— whether  parenchyma  or  cavity — into 
which  all  nervous  excitations  discharge  themselves,  and  are  able  to 
reach  the  soul  which  resides  at  some  point  of  this  space.  But  as  to 
the  point  of  intersection,  anatomy,  instead  of  discovering  it,  has  simply 
made  its  existence  incredible ;  and  as  little  is  it  possible  to  discover  a 
formless  space,  having  edges  where  all  the  nerve-fibres  terminate,  and 
offering  a  field  within  which  the  excitations  of  these  fibres  can  spread 
until  they  reach  the  soul.  It  might  possibly  be  the  case  that  the  soul 
needs  no  such  primary  assembly  of  all  the  primitive  fibres,  but  stands 
in  direct  interaction  with  a  few  of  them,  which  would  be,  as  it  were, 
the  delegates  of  the  rest :  but,  so  far,  we  know  of  no  anatomical 
fact  which  makes  this  probable.  Secondly,  then,  we  may  suppose  that 
the  place  where  the  soul  resides  is  not  fixed  but  moveable.  This 
idea  leads  us  back  to  the  notion  of  limited  action  at  a  distance.  At 
any  given  moment  the  soul  would  have  to  be  at  the  particular  spot, 
where  an  excitation  is  arriving — an  excitation  which  cannot  become  a 
sensation  unless  the  soul  is  there ;  and  if  it  is  to  be  at  this  spot,  it 
must  have  been  already  acted  upon  from  this  spot  and  so  induced  to 
move  to  it.  Finally,  if  the  soul  is  to  impart  an  impulse  to  the  root  of 
a  motor  nerve,  it  must  move  to  the  spot  from  which  it  can  exert  this 
impulse  :  but  as  the  motor  nerve  is  not  yet  active  it  cannot  solicit  the 
soul  to  move  to  this  spot,  and  therefore  the  soul  must  itself  choose  its 
line  of  movement  and  follow  it:  and  this  implies  a  knowledge  of 
locality  which  no  one  will  admit. 


CHAPTER  v.]         Action  no t  dependent  on  Position.  513 

But  is  all  this  really  necessary  ?  Is  it  really  necessary  to  assume  any 
one  of  these  alternatives  ? — either  that  the  activity  of  the  soul  pene 
trates  indiscriminately  the  whole  body  or  that  it  penetrates,  again 
indiscriminately  but  with  decreasing  intensity,  space  simply  as  space; 
or  finally  that  the  soul  is  confined  to  one  point  and  acts  only  in  con 
tact?  The  root  of  all  these  difficulties  seems  to  be  a  confusion  in  our 
idea  of  the  nature  of  an  acting  force  and  of  the  relation  of  this  force 
to  space.  And  there  is  no  lack  of  other  examples  which  will  enable 
us  to  arrive  at  a  more  correct  conception. 

295.  Any  force  arises  between  two  elements  out  of  a  relation  of 
their   qualitative   natures;    a   relation   which   makes    an   interaction 
necessary  for  them,  but  only  for  them  and  their  like.     It  is  altogether 
a  mistake  to  regard  a  force  as  a  hunger  for  action,  spreading  itself 
throughout  a  space  and  seizing  indiscriminately  on  everything  it  finds 
in  that  space.     We  should  do  better  to  think  of  the  magnetic  force, 
which  within  the  provinces  over  which  it  extends  operates  on  no 
bodies  but  those  which  can  be  magnetised,  and  remains  indifferent  to 
those  with  which,  though  they  lie  within  the  same  space,  it  has  no 
elective  affinity.     Or  we  may  think  of  the  chemical  reagents  which, 
when  poured  into  a  fluid,  pass  without  acting  by  the  substances  which 
are  indifferent  to  them,  while  they  supplement  those  with  which  their 
chemical  nature  makes  it  necessary  for  them  to  join.  These  examples 
prove  nothing,  and  the  idea  they  are  meant  to  illustrate  is  intelligible 
without  them,  but  they  enable  us  to  picture  it.     It  is  not  their  spatial 
position  that  compels  the  elements  to  act  on  .one  another  or  makes 
such  interaction  impossible ;  but  it  is  their  own  natures  and  the  relations 
between  them  that  make  some  elements  indifferent  to  each  other  and 
impel  others  to  a  vigorous  copartnership.     If  we  apply  this  general 
idea  to  the  present  case,  our  first  assertion  must  be  this :  wherever 
the  soul  may  have  its  local  habitation  (for  it  may  be  still  held  that  we 
must  assume  that  it  has  such  a  habitation),  the  extension  of  its  activity 
will  not  be  determined  by  its  position  there :  this  position  will  not 
confine  the  soul  to  an  interaction  with  those  nerve-elements  which 
surround  and  touch  that  habitation:  nor  will  its  activity  start  from 
this  centre,  and,  like  a  physical  force  acting  in  distant,  extend  with  a 
decreasing   intensity   to  all  the   elements  which  are  grouped  at  an 
increasing  distance  around  that  centre.     On  the  contrary,  wherever 
there  are  elements  with  which  the  nature  of  the  soul  enables  and 
compels  it  to  interact,  there  it  will  be  present  and  active ;  wherever 
there  is  no  such  summons  to  action,  there  it  will  not  be  or  will  appear 
not  to  be. 

VOL.  i.  L  1 


5 1 4         The  Physical  basis  of  Mental  Activity,   t  BOOK  m. 

Now  doubtless  it  is  pleasant  to  the  imagination  to  represent  the 
elements  that  stand  in  this  sympathetic  relation  to  the  soul  as  in 
spatial  proximity  to  one  another,  and,  where  this  is  possible,  to  picture 
a  small  extended  province  of  the  brain,  best  of  all,  a  single  point, 
where  they  are  all  assembled.  But  there  is  no  necessity  in  real  earnest 
for  tl^is  hypothesis.     We  have   reached   the  conviction  that   spatial 
positions  and  spatial  distances  are  not  in  themselves  conditions  of  the 
exercise  or  non-exercise  of  forces,  and  that  they  form  such  conditions 
only  because  they  themselves  are  the  manifestation  of  forces1  which 
are  already  active  and  determine  the  continuance  and  progress  of  the 
action.     We  have  seen  that  to  be  in  a  place  means  nothing  but  to 
exert  action  and  to  be  affected  by  action  in  that  place,  and  that  the 
sufficient  grounds  of  this  action  and  affection  lie  nowhere  but  in  the 
intelligible  relations  of  existences  in  themselves  non-spatial.     With 
this  conviction  of  this  insight  we  can  now  take  up  again,  in  a  better 
defined  shape,  the  idea  of  that  omnipresence  of  the  soul  in  the  body 
which,  as  we  explained  in  dealing  with  it,  we  could  not  help  rejecting. 
The  soul  stands  in  that  direct  interaction  which  has  no  gradation,  not 
with  the  whole  of  the  world  nor  yet  with  the  whole  of  the  body,  but 
with  a  limited  number  of  elements ;  those  elements,  namely*  which 
are  assigned  in  the  order  of  things  as  the  most  direct  links  of  com 
munication  in  the  commerce  of  the  soul  with  the  rest  of  the  world. 
On  the  other  hand  there  is  nothing  against  the  supposition  that  these 
elements,  on  account  of  other  objects  which  they  have  to  serve,  are 
distributed  in  space ;  and  that  there  are  a  number  of  separate  points  in 
the  brain  which  form  so  many  seats  of  the  soul.    Each  of  these  would 
be  of  equal  value  with  the  rest ;  at  each  of  them  the  soul  would  be 
present,  with  equil  completeness,  but  not  therefore  without  any  dis 
tinction;  rather  we  might  suppose  that  at  each  of  them  the  soul 
exercises  one  of  those  diverse  activities  which  ought  never  to  have 
been  compressed  into  the  formless  idea  of  merely  a  single  outgoing 
force.     In  using  the  current  conception  of  omnipresence  we  refused 
to  attribute  to  God,  as  a  predicate  of  His  nature,  the  infinite  cubic 
extension  which  His  activity  fills ;  and  we  could  see  no  danger  to  the 
unity  of  His  nature  in  the  infinite  number  of  distinct  points  which 
form  the  theatre  of  that  activity,:  and  there  is  just  as  little  conflict 
between  the  unity  of  the  soul  and  the  multiplicity  of  its  spatial  habita 
tions.     Each  of  them  is  simply  an  expression,  in  the  language  of  our 
spatial  perception,  for  one  of  the  manifold  relations  in  which  the  soul 
as  taking  part  in  the  intelligible  connexion  of  things  is  at  one  and  the 
1  [Cp.  §§  116  and  203.] 


CHAPTER  v.]        Where  the  Soul  acts  on  the  Brain.          515 

same  time  involved.  Our  imagination  naturally  and  unavoidably 
symbolises  this  unity,  no  less  than  the  variety,  in  a  spatial  way.  We 
shall  therefore  be  inclined  to  oppose  to  these  many  places  a  single 
one  which  is  really  and  truly  the  seat  of  the  soul.  Perhaps  it  will  be 
the  fixed  geometrical  central  point  of  all  the  rest ;  perhaps  it  will  be 
a  variable  central  point,  and  then  we  must  conceive  it  to  be  determined 
not  geometrically  but  dynamically  as  the  joint  result  of  the  spatial  co 
ordinates  of  the  distinct  places  on  the  one  hand  and  the  intensities 
of  the  psychical  activities  going  on  in  them  at  the  given  time  on  the 
other.  Such  ideas  do  no  harm  and  they  act  as  supports  to  our  per 
ception  :  but  they  have  no  objective  meaning ;  for  the  point  arrived 
at  by  such  a  calculation  as  the  above,  would  not  express  a  real  fixed 
position  of  the  soul  in  that  point  at  the  given  moment,  nor  would  it 
give  us  grounds  for  determining  anything  whatever  as  to  the  behaviour 
of  the  soul  in  the  next  succeeding  moment. 

296.  But  our  view  has  to  meet  an  objection  coming  from  another 
side,  and  will  therefore  have  to  undergo  another  and  a  final  revision. 
Observation  discloses  no  such  differences  among  the  elements  of  the 
brain  as  would  give  some  few  points  in  it  the  exclusive  privilege  of 
forming  the  seat  of  the  soul.  And  yet  we  have  to  suppose  the  existence 
of  such  a  special  qualification.  For  if  we  were  to  widen  our  idea  into 
the  supposition  that  the  soul  can  stand  in  the  direct  relation  of  inter 
action,  above  described,  with  all  the  constituent  parts  of  the  brain, 
the  laboriously  intricate  structure  we  find  in  it  would  become  wholly 
unintelligible.  But  is  it  necessary,  is  it  even  possible,  to  suppose  that  a 
real  existence  A  stands  once  for  all  in  the  relation  of  interaction  with 
other  real  existences  B  and  C,  simply  because  B  is  B  and  C  is  C,  while 
it  stands  in  no  such  relation  with  D  and  E,  just  because  they  are  D  and 
El  In  the  first  place,  what  is  it  that  makes  B  to  be  B  and  C  to  be  C 
but  this :  that  under  different  conditions  (these  conditions  forming  a 
series)  B  experiences  the  states  ^  /32  /33  . . .  ,  and  not  y1  y.2  y3  . . .  , 
whereas  under  the  same  conditions  C  experiences  the  latter  states  and 
never  the  former  ?  And,  in  the  second  place,  we  have  to  suppose  that 
at  one  time  an  interaction  takes  place  between  A  and  B,  and  at 
another  time  does  not  take  place;  and  yet  what  would  this  inter 
action  mean,  if  A  and  B  were  simply  A  and  B,  and  if  A  did  not 
undergo  certain  variable  states  c^  or  a2,  which  formed  signals  to  B  to 
realise  forthwith  ^  or  /3.2,  and  no  other  of  the  states  possible  to  it  ? 
Without  doubt,  then,  our  conception  was  still  incomplete,  when  we 
sought  to  place  the  soul  S  in  a  direct  and  ungraduated  connexion  of 
interaction  with  different  nerve-elements  BCD,  considered  simply  as 

Ll2 


5 1 6         T/ie  Physical  basis  of  Mental  Activity,   t  BOOK  HI. 

such.  Things  cannot  stimulate  one  another  in  respect  of  their  un 
changing  natures ;  they  can  only  be  stimulated  in  respect  of  what  goes 
on  in  them,  and  that  reciprocally.  Accordingly  it  is  the  events  ft  y  8 
which  occur  in  B  C  D  that,  in  virtue  of  their  occurrence,  make  these 
points  and  no  other  points  the  seats  or  localities  of  a  direct  interaction 
with  the  soul. 

Starting  from  this  point  of  view,  then,  we  should  be  led  in  con 
sistency  to  the  following  metaphysical  conception  of  the  significance  of 
the  central  organs.  The  interlacing  of  the  nerve-fibres  serves  two  ends. 
First,  it  has  to  act  upon  the  excitations  which  arrive  from  without 
through  the  organs  of  sense,  so  to  connect,  separate,  and  arrange 
them,  that  as  the  result  there  arise  those  final  states  £  y  8,  which  now 
for  the  first  time,  and  in  their  present  shape,  are  in  a  condition  to  be 
brought  to  the  knowledge  of  the  soul,  or  by  which  alone  it  is  capable 
of  being  stimulated.  The  second  function  is  the  converse  of  this. 
The  excitations  which  come  from  the  inner  nature  of  the  soul,  have 
to  be  transformed  into  physical  occurrences  in  such  an  order  and 
arrangement,  that  their  centrifugal  action  on  the  moveable  members 
of  the  body  will  allow  of  an  influence,  answering  to  a  conceived  end, 
on  the  shape  of  the  external  world.  At  the  point  where  these  duties 
are  fulfilled,  lies  a  seat  of  the  active  soul,  the  locality  of  one  of  the 
different  functions,  in  the  connected  whole  of  which  its  life  consists. 
In  an  earlier  passage  I  spoke  of  this  point  of  view  as  one  of  the 
hypotheses  which  might  be  framed  in  accordance  with  the  facts  to  be 
explained  :  it  will  now  be  seen  that  it  is  only  the  continuation  of  our 
ontological  views.  We  have  left  far  behind  us  the  theory  which 
conceived  the  world  as  based  on  a  number  of  elements,  beings,  or 
atoms,  which  simply  '  are '  and  form  a  primary  fact,  and  between 
which  we  then  suppose  actions  to  take  place,  the  nature  and 
occurrence  of  these  actions  being  thus  of  necessity  grounded  in 
something  external  to  the  fixed  existence  of  the  primal  elements. 
We  found  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  fullest  sense  actual  but  the 
one  reality  which  is  in  eternal  motion,  and  in  the  development  of 
which  any  member  of  the  whole  is  connected  with  any  other  only 
in  accordance  with  the  meaning  of  the  whole,  and  stands  in  no  such 
connexion  where  the  meaning  of  the  whole  does  not  warrant  it.  It 
is  only  this  connexion  of  events  that  gives  to  single  stable  conjunctions 
of  these  manifold  occurrences  the  appearance  in  our  eyes  of  beings 
with  an  independent  existence ;  in  reality  these  conjunctions  are  only 
the  meeting  points,  or  crossing  points,  of  in-going  and  out-going 
actions,  which  the  significance  of  the  course  of  events  keeps  in 


CH  AFTER  v.i     Precise  functions  of  organs  unknown.        517 

being,  and  they  form  actual  beings  or  existences  only  when,  like  the 
soul,  they  do  not  simply  appear  to  others  as  such  centres,  but  really 
make  themselves  such  centres  by  opposing  themselves,  in  conscious 
ness  and  action,  to  the  external  world. 

297.  From  the  preceding  account  of  the  functions  of  the  central 
nervous  organs  we  might  conclude  that  their  only  business  is  to  bring 
about  the  commerce  of  the  soul  with  the  external  world  ;  the  internal 
activity  of  the  mind  would  seem  not  to  need  their  co-operation. 
Taken  as  a  whole,  I  do  not  disclaim  this  inference,  though  it  must  be 
limited  in  essential  respects  ;  rather  I  regret  that  no  further  explana 
tion  is  possible  regarding  those  other  operations,  in  which  it  is  agreed 
on  all  hands  that  the  help  of  the  body  is  needed.  There  are  a  very 
large  number  of  cases  in  which  unfortunately  we  are  not  simply 
unable  to  point  out  the  means  which  would  render  the  required 
service,  but  we  do  not  even  know  exactly  what  services  are  required. 
And  I  mean  this  admission  to  apply  not  only  to  my  own  view,  but  to 
many  others  which  would  be  very  unwilling  to  make  a  like  confession. 
We  studied  the  retina  of  the  eye,  and  the  nerve-terminations  found  in 
it :  dioptrics  revealed  to  us  the  passage  of  the  rays  of  light,  and  their 
point  of  meeting  on  the  nerve-terminations:  What  more  did  we 
want  ?  Were  we  not  in  complete  possession  of  all  the  conditions  (so 
far  as  they  can  be  fulfilled  in  the  eye)  implied  in  the  occurrence  of 
visual  perception  ?  And  yet  further  investigation  has  discovered  new 
layers  of  a  strange  structure  in  the  retina,  of  the  use  of  which  we 
know  nothing,  and  which  yet  can  scarcely  be  useless.  It  is  certain 
then  that  we  made  a  mistake  in  supposing  our  knowlege  to  be 
complete,  when  we  cannot  tell  the  function  of  what  is  afterwards 
discovered  :  and  yet  even  now  we  cannot  guess  what  part  it  was  we 
overlooked  in  the  work  the  eye  has  to  perform.  Now  in  the  case  of 
the  brain  we  are  equally  at  a  loss  :  it  is  not  merely  that  in  the  greater 
part  of  its  structure  we  find  everywhere  arrangements  of  the  most 
remarkable  kind,  and  yet  cannot  tell  their  purpose :  but  even  where 
experience  has  disclosed  to  us  with  sufficient  certainty  the  existence 
of  relations  between  psychical  functions  and  particular  parts  of  the 
brain,  we  cannot  get  further  than  this  very  general  result :  no  one  can 
specify  the  exact  physical  function  their  elements  have  to  perform  in 
order  that  this  or  that  definite  expression  of  psychical  activity  may  be 
possible.  Thus  we  talk  in  a  highly  perfunctory  way  of  organs  of  this 
or  that  mental  faculty,  without  knowing  very  well  what  there  is  to 
prevent  the  soul  from  manifesting  itself  without  this  organ,  what 
intelligible  properties  there  are  which  enable  this  organ  to  supply 


5 1 8         The  Physical  basis  of  Mental  Activity.    [ BOOK  in. 

the  conditions  lacking  to  the  soul,  and  lastly  in  what  way  the  soul  is 
enabled  to  make  use  of  this  organ  as  its  instrument.  This  last  idea 
indeed,  the  idea  of  an  instrument,  is  the  most  unsuitable  of  all  that 
could  possibly  be  applied  to  the  case.  We  may  call  the  limbs  of  the 
body  instruments :  for  though  we  do  not  know  how  they  follow  out 
our  ideas,  we  are  at  any  rate  able  consciously  to  connect  the  move 
ments,  which  we  do  not  understand  in  detail,  so  that  they  form  the 
means  of  carrying  out  an  intention.  But  when  we  are  told  that  man 
cannot  think  with  a  frozen  brain,  it  is  only  the  obliging  preposition 
'  with  '  that  gives  these  words  the  appearance  of  meaning  something ; 
for  it  seems  to  indicate  that  we  are  able  to  understand  how  gloriously 
thought  goes  to  work  with  an  unfrozen  brain  as  its  instrument.  If  for 
the  preposition  we  substitute  the  conditional  sentence  which  forms  its 
real  meaning, — 'z/"the  brain  is  frozen,  man  cannot  think,' — the  words 
remind  us  only  of  what  is  perfectly  familiar,  the  many  conditions  on 
which  life  in  general  and  therefore  every  mental  activity  depends,  but 
they  tell  us  absolutely  nothing  of  the  nature  of  the  service  which  these 
conditions  render  to  the  realisation  of  these  activities.  Nothing  can 
help  us  over  this  state  of  ignorance,  but  the  multiplication  of  exact 
observations :  all  that  remains  for  us  to  do  here  is  to  touch  on  the  few 
general  ideas  which  we  should  wish  not  to  be  neglected  when  the  new 
knowledge  we  hope  for  comes  to  be  interpreted. 

298.  The  older  psychology  used  to  speak  of  a  sensorium  commune : 
but  it  was  not  able  to  point  it  out,  and  the  motive  for  assuming  its 
existence  was  probably  only  an  indefinite  desire  for  a  place  where  all 
sensations  could  be  collected  into  a  common  consciousness.  It  may 
be  that  in  this  matter  we  are  in  the  position  described  in  the  last 
section :  perhaps  there  really  is  some  function  we  have  overlooked, 
which  is  necessary  to  this  end,  and  has  to  be  performed  by  the 
physical  organs.  But  all  that  is  certain  is  that  we  do  not  know  of  any 
such  function.  So  long,  therefore,  as  we  cannot  point  to  definite 
processes  of  modification,  to  which  all  impressions  must  submit  before 
they  can  become  objects  of  consciousness,  we  have  no  ground  at  all 
for  supposing  such  a  place  of  assembly  for  these  impressions. 

Modern  physiology  has  sometimes  spoken  of  a  motorium  commune, 
and  supposed  it  to  be  found  in  the  cerebellum.  But  the  movements 
of  the  body  show  the  utmost  degree  of  variety  ;  and  their  classification 
under  the  head  of  movements  connects  them  no  more  closely  with 
one  another  than  with  other  functions  of  the  mind  to  which  they  are 
conjoined  in  the  economy  of  our  life.  We  may  suppose  that  the 
manifold  excitations  of  the  muscles,  which  each  species  of  animal 


CHAPTER  v.]  The  '  motorium  commune/  5 1 9 

needs  for  its  characteristic  kind  of  locomotion,  and  for  the  preserva 
tion  of  its  equilibrium  in  different  positions  of  the  body,  are  really 
dependent  on  a  central  organ,  which  compels  them  to  occur  in 
company,  and  grouped  in  a  way  that  answers  this  special  purpose. 
But  I  know  no  reason  why  we  should  make  the  same  centre  a  con 
dition  of  all  the  other  movements,  which  are  excited  for  other 
purposes  and  by  other  occasions  in  the  various  limbs  of  the  body. 
Thus  the  idea  of  this  general  motory  organ,  again,  seems  to  me  to 
owe  its  origin  to  a  logical  division  of  the  psychical  activities,  and  not 
to  a  consideration  of  the  connexion  in  which  these  activities  have  to 
stand  in  supporting  each  other  for  the  purposes  of  life.  It  is  much 
more  likely  that  sensory  and  motor  nerves  are  combined  with  one 
another  in  various  ways,  so  as  to  form  central  points  for  whole 
complexes  of  exertions  dependent  on  one  another.  Even  the  motorium 
to  which  we  ascribed  the  preservation  of  the  equilibrium,  would  be 
unable  to  perform  its  task  unless  it  received  at  every  instant  an 
impression  of  the  threatening  position  which  it  has  to  counteract  by  a 
compensating  movement.  And  even  if  it  is  possible  for  this  move 
ment  to  be  carried  out  in  a  perfectly  mechanical  way,  and  without  the 
participation  of  the  soul,  it  is,  in  the  ordinary  course  of  events,  at  the 
same  time  an  object  of  our  perception.  It  seems  to  me  probable, 
therefore,  that  this  organ,  too,  consists  in  a  systematic  connexion  of 
sensory  and  motor  fibres  ;  although  the  former  do  not  always  com 
municate  their  excitations  to  consciousness,  but  sometimes  simply 
produce  a  movement  by  transferring  their  excitation  to  motor  fibres. 
Now  among  the  organs  which  I  should  suppose  to  be  formed  in  this 
way,  I  should  place  first  an  organ  of  the  perception  of  space :  and  I 
am  completely  satisfied,  although  utterly  unable  to  prove  it,  that  in  all 
the  higher  kinds  of  animals  this  organ,  dedicated  in  each  case  to  a 
function  which  appears  everywhere  the  same,  forms  a  considerable 
part  of  the  brain.  If  the  hypotheses  I  have  ventured  respecting  the 
local  signs  of  the  sensations  of  sight  be  correct,  the  function  of  this 
organ  would  be  to  connect  the  optical  impressions  with  the  motor 
impulses  of  the  eye.  But  how  this  function  can  be  performed, 
and  in  what  form  the  efficient  connexion  of  the  sensory  and  motor 
nerves  is  established, — these  are  questions  on  which  I  will  offer  no 
conjecture. 

299.  In  the  second  division  of  the  functions  of  the  central  organs— 
those  functions  which  consist  in  the  physical  working  out  of  the 
internal  impulses  of  the  soul — there  is  one  process  with  respect  to 
which  the  observations  of  the  most  recent  times  seem  to  have  led  to  a 


520          The  Physical  basis  of  Mental  Activity.  [  BOOK  m. 

secure  result.  It  has  been  proved  with  sufficient  certainty  that  an 
organ  of  language  is  to  be  found  at  a  particular  spot  in  the  large 
hemispheres  of  the  human  brain.  In  order  to  understand  the  office  of 
this  organ,  let  us  glance  at  the  different  modes  in  which  our  move 
ments  in  general  arise.  I  put  aside  the  purposeless  twitchings  which 
occur  in  particular  muscles,  owing  to  internal  irritations  for  the  most 
part  unknown  to  us  :  but  even  with  respect  to  the  movements  which 
we  produce  at  will  in  accordance  with  our  intentions,  we  must  confess 
that  we  do  not  understand  how  they  take  place.  We  do  not  know  by 
nature  either  the  structure  of  the  limbs  which  gives  the  movement  its 
form,  or  the  position  of  the  muscles  and  nerves  which  carry  it  into 
execution.  Even  if  we  did,  there  would  remain  a  further  question  as 
to  which  we  are  still  in  darkness,  and  which  science  also  is  not  at 
present  able  to  answer  :  what  is  it  exactly  that  we  have  to  do,  if  we 
are  to  give  to  the  nerve  that  first  impulse  which  produces  in  all  this 
preparatory  mechanism  the  desired  state  of  activity?  It  takes  the 
newly-born  animal  but  a  short  time  to  acquire  that  control  over  its 
limbs  which  characterises  the  genus  to  which  it  belongs  ;  and  this  fact 
compels  us  to  assume,  not  merely  a  succession  of  chance  experiences 
which  gradually  teach  the  animal  that  its  limbs  can  be  used,  but  also 
internal  impulses  which  call  these  experiences  into  being.  On  the  one 
hand,  the  external  stimuli,  by  transferring  their  excitations  to  motor 
nerves,  will  at  once  call  forth  connected  groups  of  movements 
combined  in  conformity  with  their  common  end  ;  on  the  other  hand, 
the  central  apparatus,  on  which  this  combination  depends,  may  be 
stimulated  to  activity  from  within  by  variable  states  of  the  body.  The 
sensory  excitation  then  will  produce  in  consciousness  a  sensation  of 
the  stimulus,  and  at  the  same  time  the  movement  that  occurs  will 
produce  in  consciousness  the  sensation  of  its  occurrence,  and  the  per 
ception  of  its  result ;  and  in  this  way  the  soul,  playing  at  present  the 
part  of  a  mere  spectator,  will  have  acquired  the  different  elements  of 
an  association  which  it  can  reproduce  at  a  later  time  with  a  view  to 
its  own  ends.  The  soul  cannot  always  produce  of  itself  the  efficient 
primary  state  that  would  recreate  the  movement:  sometimes  this 
movement  demands,  for  its  repetition,  the  complete  reproduction  of 
the  corporeal  stimulus  from  which  it  sprang  originally  as  a  true  reflex 
movement.  For  example,  up  to  a  certain  point  one  can  imitate 
coughing  and  sneezing  at  will,  but  one  cannot  bring  about  an  actual 
sneezing  or  vomiting  without  a  fresh  operation  of  their  physical 
excitants.  Even  the  movements  which  depend  on  states  of  emotion 
are  only  to  a  slight  extent  conjoined  to  the  renewal  of  the  mere  ideas 


CHAPTER  v.]          Psychical  initiative  of  Motion.  521 

of  a  pain  or  pleasure ;  they  depend  on  the  renewal  of  the  pain  and 
pleasure  themselves.  I  refer  to  the  familiar  facts  of  bodily  expression 
and  gesture — an  endowment  due  to  nature,  and  not  to  our  invention — 
involuntary  manifestations  of  its  internal  psychical  states,  which  the 
soul  simply  witnesses  without  willing  them,  and,  for  the  most  part, 
without  being  able  to  hinder  them. 

300.  But  what  is  the  starting-point  which  the  soul  must  produce 
in  order  that  the  motor  mechanism  may  execute  exactly  that  move 
ment  which  at  the  given  instant  answers  to  the  psychical  intention  ?  I 
speak  simply  of  a  starting-point,  because  we  certainly  cannot  suppose 
that  the  soul  exerts  an  independent  and  conscious  control  over  the 
details  of  the  process,  and  metes  out  to  the  particular  nerve-fibres, 
which  must  be  called  into  action  in  the  given  case,  those  precise 
quantities  of  excitation  which  will  secure  the  direction  and  strength  of 
the  desired  movement.  In  place  of  thus  generating  homogeneous 
impulses,  and  merely  giving  them  different  directions  in  different 
instances,  it  has  to  produce  for  different  movements  A  and  B 
qualitatively  different  internal  states  a  and  /3;  and  these,  instead  of 
being  guided  by  it,  seek  and  find  their  way  for  themselves,  simply 
because  they  are  themselves  and  no  other  states.  Let  a  and  b  be  two 
different  motor  central  points,  of  which  a  connects  into  a  whole  the 
single  excitations  necessary  to  A,  and  b  those  necessary  to  B :  then  a 
will  find  its  efficient  response  only  in  a,  /3  only  in  b,  while  to  other 
nerves  they  will  remain  indifferent.  If,  again,  both  movements  A  and 
B  depend  on  the  same  central  point,  only  that  they  depend  on 
different  degrees  of  its  excitation,  then  the  strength  of  a  and  3  will 
determine  also  the  strength  of  this  excitation.  If,  lastly,  one  move 
ment  requires  the  simultaneous  activity  of  both  organs,  then  the 
internal  state  y,  which  is  to  set  up  that  activity,  must  contain  the  two 
components  a  and  /3,  and  these  two  components  will  determine  the 
share  taken  by  a  and  b  in  the  joint-result  they  have  to  produce.  This 
view  of  the  origin  of  movement  corresponds  but  little  to  ordinary 
notions ;  it  leads  us  back  to  the  often-repeated  idea,  that  the  ultimate 
ground  or  reason  of  every  action  or  effect  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  two 
elements  which  stand  in  this  relation  of  interaction  exist  for  one 
another  directly — that  they  stand,  if  the  word  may  be  used,  in  a  direct 
sympathetic  rapport,  which  makes  each  receptive  to  the  moods  of  the 
other.  There  may  be  many  intermediating  processes  producing  the 
conditions  on  which  this  rapport  depends,  or  removing  the  hindrances 
to  it,  but  they  are  all  mere  preparations  for  the  action ;  the  action 
itself,  which  comes  when  they  are  finished,  cannot  be  explained  in  its 


522          The  Physical  basis  of  Mental  Activity.   [BOOK  in. 

turn  by  a  similar  machinery,  between  every  pair  of  whose  parts  this 
immediate  sympathy  would  again  be  necessary,  Our  theory  presents 
difficulties  to  the  imagination  only  if  we  take  in  literal  earnest  the 
expression  in  which  the  internal  state  a  or  /3  is  described  as  finding 
its  way  to  a  or  b.  The  internal  state  has  not  really  any  way  to  traverse ; 
for  the  soul  in  which  it  arises  is  not  placed  at  some  distant  spot  in 
space,  from  whence  it  has  to  send  out  its  influence  in  search  of  the 
organs  that  are  to  serve  it.  The  soul,  without  its  unity  being  on  that 
account  endangered,  is  itself  everywhere  present  where,  in  the  con 
nexion  of  all  things,  its  own  states  have  attached  to  them  the 
consequent  states  of  other  elements. 

301.  When  the  soul  then  reproduces  within  itself  these  starting- 
points,  they  proceed,  without  any  further  interference  or  knowledge 
on  its  part,  and  in  obedience  to  a  mechanism  which  was  not  invented 
by  us  and  remains  concealed  from  us,  to  produce  as  a  final  result  the 
actual  movement.  We  now  naturally  ask  the  further  question  in  what 
precisely  do  these  starting-points  consist?  A  very  close  approach 
has  already  been  made  to  our  view  when  it  is  asserted  that,  if  the 
movement  is  to  become  actual,  we  must  will,  not  the  movement  itself, 
but  the  end  of  it,  and  that  then  the  movement  will  take  place  of  itself. 
But  the  question  is,  What  is  this  willing  of  the  end?  The  imitative 
movements  with  which  the  devout  spectator  accompanies  the  actions 
of  the  fencer  or  skittle-player,  or  by  which  an  unskilful  narrator  tries 
to  portray  the  objects  he  speaks  of,  might  convince  us  that,  in  the 
absence  of  hindrances,  the  mere  idea  of  a  movement  passes  of  itself 
into  the  actual  movement.  And  if  we  take  this  point  of  view,  we  may 
really  leave  the  influence  of  the  will  out  of  account.  For  whatever 
else  it  may  consist  in,  and  whatever  positive  contribution,  over  and 
above  the  mere  absence  of  resistance,  it  may  make  to  our  movements, 
still  its  function  in  reference  to  a  given  movement  a,  distinguished 
from  another  b,  will  consist  essentially  in  this, — that  it  favours  the 
definite  ground  or  reason  a  or  /3,  which  leads  to  the  one  or  the  other 
of  these  movements  ;  and  the  nature  of  this  starting-point  or  ground 
is  precisely  the  question  we  were  concerned  with.  On  the  other  hand, 
I  certainly  do  not  think  we  need  look  for  this  starting-point  in  the 
idea,  at  any  rate  not  in  the  visual  ideas  of  the  movement ;  although 
innumerable  little  acts  of  our  daily  life  are  directly  conjoined,  without 
any  consideration  or  resolution  of  the  will,  to  the  ideas  arising  in  us 
of  a  possible  and  desirable  movement ;  and  though  they  even  seem 
to  be  conjoined,  without  the  intermediation  of  an  idea  at  all,  to  the 
mere  perception  of  the  object  with  which  the  act  may  deal.  Taken 


CHAPTER  v.]        A  feeling  produces  Innervalion.  523 

by  itself  the  visual  idea  would  signify  nothing  more  than  the  some 
what  abstract  fact  that  a  moveable  limb  is  at  this  moment  at  the  spot 
p  in  space,  and  at  the  next  moment  at  the  spot  q ;  but  it  would  contain 
none  of  the  concrete  interest  for  us  which  is  given  to  this  fact  by 
the  circumstance  that  we  are  the  cause  of  the  visual  idea  and  that  our 
limbs  are  the  object,  whose  spatial  positions  are  in  question.  Thus 
the  starting-point  or  state,  which  the  soul  has  to  reproduce  in  itself 
in  order  that,  conversely,  the  actual  movement  may  be  conjoined  to 
that  state  is  not,  I  conceive,  the  idea  of  the  movement,  but  rather  the 
feeling  which  we  experience  during  the  execution  of  the  movement 
and  in  consequence  of  its  execution.  It  is  common  in  physiology 
now  to  speak  of  feelings  of  innervation,  but  I  should  not  choose  that 
name  to  describe  what  I  mean.  The  case  is  not,  I  think,  that  there 
is  an  act,  consisting  in  an  influencing  of  the  nerve,  and  directed  now 
here  and  now  there,  but  in  other  respects  always  of  the  same  nature;  and 
that  this  act  is  on  the  one  hand  what  we  feel,  and  on  the  other  hand 
what  according  to  the  direction  given  to  it  produces  this  movement 
a  or  that  movement  b.  The  case  is  rather  that  this  feeling  itself,  its 
mere  unhindered  existence,  constitutes  that  internal  condition  of  the 
soul  which  effects  an  innervation  proceeding  from  it  and  affecting  in 
all  cases  a  particular  complex  of  nerves.  There  are  some  very  simple 
facts  of  experience  which  seem  to  me  to  confirm  this  view.  A 
beginner  finds  it  difficult  to  hit  a  certain  musical  note  or  a  given 
uttered  sound,  and  then  there  is  this  special  difficulty  that  the  neces 
sary  movements  are  not  completely  visible ;  but  we  also  find  that  any 
other  movement  which  is  at  all  complicated,  continues,  even  though  it 
be  fully  measured  by  the  eye,  to  be  difficult  to  us  until  we  have  once 
succeeded  in  it.  Then  we  know  how  we  must/^/  if  we  wish  to 
repeat  it,  and  that  feeling  ?r, — or,  to  state  the  matter  as  we  did  in  the 
case  of  the  local  signs,  that  first  link  TTO  in  the  series  of  momentary 
muscular  feelings  which  followed  one  another  during  the  actual 
movement, — has  to  be  reproduced  if  the  movement  is  to  be  repeated; 
and  we  consider  the  movement  to  be  successful,  and  to  answer  our 
intention,  if  the  repeated  series  TT  is  identical  with  the  series  we 
remember. 

302.  If,  taking  these  results  as  our  presuppositions,  we  now  return 
to  the  organ  of  language,  our  account  will  be  as  follows :  the  idea  of 
that  which  we  wish  to  designate  awakes  the  idea  of  the  sound  of  its 
name,  and  this  idea  awakes  the  idea  of  the  muscular  feeling  TT  which 
is  necessary  to  the  utterance  of  the  name ;  and  to  this  last  idea  is 
conjoined  the  movements  of  the  organs  of  speech.  But  here  we 


524         The  Physical  basis  of  Mental  Activity.    \  BOOK  in. 

come  to  a  standstill;  we  cannot  determine  what  contributions  the 
organ  has  to  make  to  this  end.  Since  the  feeling  TT  arose  from  the 
physical  excitations  experienced  by  the  muscles  when  first  the  move 
ment  was  executed,  it  seems  a  tenable  hypothesis  that  the  reawakening 
of  this  feeling  in  the  soul  must  produce  (to  begin  with)  a  general 
state  of  physical  excitation  in  the  organ,  and  that  this  state  then, 
in  conformity  with  the  structure  and  internal  states  of  the  organ, 
divides  into  the  various  components  which  give  their  particular 
impulses  to  the  executing  nerves  and  muscles.  The  morbid  phenomena 
produced  by  an  injury  to  the  organ,  as  well  as  many  simple  pheno 
mena  of  daily  life — those  of  passion,  intoxication,  and  others — show 
that  this  chain  of  processes  may  be  interrupted  at  various  points ; 
there  may  be  a  correct  image  of  the  object,  though  the  idea  of  sound 
united  with  it  is  false ;  or  the  latter  may  be  still  distinct  to  us,  but 
we  are  annoyed  to  find  that  the  spoken  word  does  not  correspond 
with  it.  But  these  disturbances  again  give  us  no  exact  information 
respecting  the  function  of  the  organ  in  its  healthy  state.  It  is  easy 
to  talk  of  telegraphic  conductions  and  perverted  connexions  of 
them,  but  this  is  nothing  but  a  way  of  picturing  the  observed  facts ; 
and  images  are  useless  unless  one  can  confront  every  single  line  of 
them  with  the  real  process  which  corresponds  to  them  point  for  point. 
The  other  movements  of  the  body  are  subject  to  similar  disturbances  ; 
but  these  I  must  leave  to  the  pathological  works  in  which  interesting 
descriptions  of  them  may  be  found.  Whatever  anatomical  basis  is 
given  to  that  feeling  which  instructs  us  respecting  the  position,  the 
movement,  and  the  amount  of  exertion  of  our  limbs,  the  fact  remains 
that,  wherever  this  feeling  is  diminished  or  disappears,  we  find  it 
difficult  or  impossible  to  execute  movements,  the  idea  of  which  is 
none  the  less  present  to  consciousness,  as  the  idea  of  a  task  to  be 
accomplished. 

303.  Phrenology  has  attempted  to  connect  with  corporeal  bases 
the  activities  commonly  ascribed  to  the  higher  faculties  of  the  mind. 
We  cannot  say  that  the  observations  on  which  this  attempt  rests  have 
no  significance ;  but  phrenology  should  have  confined  its  efforts  to 
talents  whose  nature  is  unambiguous,  such  as  can  scarcely  conceal 
themselves  where  they  really  exist,  and  never  can  be  simulated  where 
they  do  not.  It  was  of  little  use  to  speak  offhand  of  peculiarities  of 
disposition  and  character,  respecting  which  our  knowledge  of  man 
kind  is  easily  deceived,  and  which,  where  they  are  actually  present, 
may  owe  their  existence  to  the  co-operation  of  very  various  influences 
of  life  and  education.  If  this  limitation  were  observed,  an  accurate 


CHAPTER  V.  ]  Phrenology.  525 

comparison  might  then  give  us,  not  indeed  an  explanatory  theory, 
but  trustworthy  information  establishing  a  connexion  between  parti 
cular  facts  of  bodily  and  of  mental  development.  These  facts  would 
then  have  to  be  interpreted ;  and  we  cannot  tell  what  the  result  of  a 
conscientious  attempt  to  interpret  them  would  be.  But  at  any  rate 
it  is  quite  impossible  to  put  any  faith  in  the  cherished  notion  that 
every  one  of  the  capacities  and  inclinations  enumerated  in  the  phreno 
logical  plans  has  a  local  subdivision  of  the  brain  assigned  to  it  as  its 
particular  organ  :  for  each  of  these  peculiarities,  considered  psycho 
logically,  is  the  final  outcome  of  the  co-operation  of  a  number  of 
more  general  psychical  functions,  and  any  one  of  them  is  distinguished 
from  any  other  by  the  different  proportions  in  which  the  manifesta 
tions  of  these  more  general  activities  co-operate.  It  is  only  in  the 
case  of  these  general  activities  that  phrenology  can  hope  to  discover 
a  dependence  on  the  structure  of  the  brain  or  skull ;  and  even  this 
hope  depends  on  the  very  doubtful  assumption  that  fundamental 
faculties,  whose  business  is  a  constant  and  close  interaction,  would 
find  their  needs  answered  by  a  localisation  of  their  organs  at  different 
spatial  positions. 

But  I  pass  from  these  questions,  for  no  one  can  decide  them  ;  I  may 
hold  it  to  be  in  general  a  natural  assumption  that,  supposing  a  material 
mass  to  be  necessary  to  the  manifestation  of  a  mental  function,  that 
manifestation  will  be  more  intense  according  to  the  size  of  the 
mass ;  but  for  the  higher  mental  life  I  believe  much  more  im 
portance  is  to  be  attached  to  the  quantity,  multiplicity,  and  intensity 
of  the  stimuli  afforded  by  the  body  to  the  excitation  of  an  activity, 
which  in  its  innermost  nature  or  work  seems  neither  to  need  nor 
to  be  accessible  to  any  further  physical  help.  But  the  contri 
butions  which  the  bodily  organisation  thus  makes  to  the  vivacity 
and  colouring  of  the  psychical  life,  need  not  consist  exclusively  in 
structural  relations  of  the  brain.  They  may  come  from  all  parts 
of  the  body ;  from  those  delicate  mechanical  and  chemical  dif 
ferences  of  texture  which  are  not  less  real  because  we  imperfectly 
describe  them  as  contrasts  between  tense  and  lax  fibres;  from  the 
architecture  of  the  whole  which  allows  to  one  organ  a  more  extensive 
and  to  another  a  less  extensive  development.  For  all  these  pecu 
liarities  of  the  solid  parts  give  a  special  stamp  to  the  play  of  the 
functions  and  the  mixture  of  the  fluids,  and  in  this  way  they  are 
continually  bringing  to  consciousness  a  large  quantity  of  small 
stimuli,  the  total  effect  of  which  is  that  dominating  tone  or  general 
feeling,  under  whose  influence  the  labour  of  the  mental  forces  is 


526         The  Physical  basis  of  Mental  Activity.    [BOOK  in. 

always  carried  on.  A  part  of  these  bodily  influences  we  know  by 
the  name  of  the  temperaments,  which  need  not  be  described  here,  and 
the  definite  assignment  of  which  to  physical  bases  has  never  yet  been 
achieved.  As  peculiar  forms  taken  by  our  internal  states,  in  accord 
ance  with  which  the  excitability  of  our  ideas,  emotions,  and  efforts,  is 
greater  or  smaller,  one-sided  or  many-sided,  passing  or  continuous, 
and  their  changes  are  slower  or  more  rapid,  the  temperaments 
condition  in  the  most  extensive  way  the  whole  course  of  mental 
development.  And  although  the  body  does  not  by  the  physical  forces 
of  its  masses  directly  create  the  faculties  of  the  soul,  it  forms 
in  this  indirect  manner  one  of  the  powers  which  control  their 
exercise. 

304.  We  in  no  way  share  the  view  which  conceives  the  activities 
of  the  soul  materialistically  as  an  effect  of  its  bodily  organs,  and,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  every  attempt  hitherto  made  to  connect  its  higher 
functions  with  given  substrates  has  proved  fruitless  :  yet  there  are 
many  facts  which  require  us  to  consider  the  general  dependence  of 
consciousness  on  states  of  the  body.  The  name  consciousness  cannot 
now  be  withdrawn  from  use  ;  but  it  has  this  inconvenience,  that  it 
seems  to  represent  as  an  independent  existence  something  which  is 
really  only  possible  in  inseparable  union  with  those  variable  states 
which  we  conceive  as  occurrences  happening  to  it.  We  all  know 
that  consciousness  *,  or  being  conscious,  means  only  being  conscious 
in  oneself  of  something  ;  the  idea  of  consciousness  is  incomplete  if  we 
omit  from  it  either  the  subject,  or  the  something  which  this  subject 
knows  or  is  conscious  of.  But  in  handling  special  questions  we  often 
forget  this,  and  lapse  into  various  fancies  ;  sometimes  we  imagine  a 
bodily  organ,  which  prepares  consciousness  in  general  for  the  use  of 
a  soul  which  is  to  employ  it,  in  application  to  a  content  that  may 
come  into  it;  sometimes  we  dream  of  a  special  faculty  of  the  soul 
itself  which  produces  the  same  curious  result  ;  or  at  any  rate  we  figure 
consciousness  itself  as  the  natural  and  constant  state  of  the  mind  — 
a  state  which  is  not,  properly  speaking,  unreal  and  inoperative  even 
when  it  is  completely  prevented  from  appearing.  In  opposition  to 
these  ideas  we  are  ready  to  admit  that  it  is  only  in  the  moment  of  a 
sensation  that  consciousness  exists  as  that  activity  of  the  soul  which 
directs  itself  to  the  content  felt  ;  and  that  it  forms  a  continuous  state  only 
in  so  far  as  the  multiplicity  of  simultaneous  or  successive  exertions  of 
this  activity  does  itself,  as  before  described  2,  form  the  object  or  exciting 


1  [The  German  word  das  Bewusstsein,  -which  we  translate  'consciousness,'  means 
literally  '  conscious-being,'  or  '  the  being  conscious.']  2  [Sect.  271.] 


CHAPTER  v.]  The  cause  of  unconsciousness.  527 

cause  of  a  new  act  of  representation — an  act  by  which  we  form  an 
idea  of  this  multiplicity.  Accordingly  we  should  agree  that  a  soul 
which  never  experienced  a  first  stimulus  from  without,  would  never, 
as  we  say,  awake  to  consciousness  :  but  the  question  remains  whether, 
when  once  the  play  of  this  internal  activity  has  been  started,  it  can 
carry  on  an  independent  existence,  or  whether  it  remains  as  dependent 
on  bodily  causes  for  its  continuance  as  it  was  for  its  excitation. 

Now  the  states  of  unconsciousness  offered  to  observation  by  natural 
sleep,  swooning,  diseases,  and  injuries  of  the  central  organs,  have 
made  the  conclusion  seem  probable  to  many  minds  that  nothing  but 
the  constant  continuance  of  physical  processes  contains  productive 
conditions  of  consciousness.  By  this  we  need  not  understand  that 
the  activity,  in  which  consciousness  at  every  moment  of  its  actual 
presence  consists,  is  the  private  and  peculiar  product  of  a  bodily 
organ  ;  the  functions  of  this  organ  may  be  no  more  than  stimuli 
which,  but  for  the  particular  nature  of  the  soul,  would  be  unable  to 
win  from  it  an  activity  which  is  possible  to  it  alone  :  yet,  even  so,  this 
activity  will  still  be  the  production  of  the  organ,  so  long  as  its  exercise 
has  for  its  indispensable  cause  the  excitation  of  that  organ.  Now  on 
a  previous  occasion1  I  thought  it  necessary  to  remind  my  readers 
that  the  cessation  of  an  activity  previously  in  a  state  of  exercise  can, 
generally  speaking,  be  explained  in  either,  of  two  ways  ;  it  may  be  that 
the  productive  conditions  of.  its  appearance  are  absent,  or,  again,  that 
there  is  a  hindering  force  which  opposes  its  exercise.  None  of  the 
phenomena  mentioned  above  seemed  to  me  to  preclude  the  second 
of  these  ideas.  When  a  sudden  fright  interrupts  consciousness,  the 
physical  impression  made  on  the  senses  by  the  fact  that  causes  terror 
may  be  perfectly  harmless3  and  the  reason  of  our  disquietude  lies  in 
the  interpretation  which  our  judgment  puts  on  the  perception :  in  this 
case  we  can  see  no  reason  why  this  psychical  movement  should  not  be 
the  direct  cause  which  makes  the  soul  incapable  of  a  continuance 
of  its  consciousness,  no  reason  for  the  supposition  that  the  bodily 
fainting,  which  can  have  its  cause  only  in  itself,  must  intervene  and 
produce,  as  a  secondary  effect,  the  loss  of  mental  activity.  When 
disease  slowly  clouds  over  the  consciousness,  this  final  result  is 
commonly  preceded  by  a  series  of  feelings  of  discomfort  in  which  we 
can  see  the  beginning  of  the  check  that  is  going  on,  just  as  in  health 
trifling  depressions  of  mind  make  a  continuance  of  mental  activity 
distressing  though  not  impossible.  But  it  is  not,  we  may  generally 
say,  necessary  that  the  influences  which  check  consciousness  should 
1  [See  Lotze's  Medidnische  Psychologic  (Leipsic,  1852),  §  388  ff] 


528          The  Physical  basis  of  Mental  A ctivity.    t  BOOK  in. 

at  the  beginning  of  their  hindering  action  be  themselves  an  object  of 
our  consciousness.  We  must  remember  that  of  that  which  is  going 
on  in  our  nerves  and  of  the  mode  of  their  influence  on  the  soul  we 
experience  nothing:  it  is  only  the  final  result  of  these  processes, 
the  sensation,  or  the  feeling  of  pleasure  and  pain,  that  appears  in 
consciousness ;  and,  when  it  does  appear,  it  tells  us  nothing  of  the 
mode  in  which  it  was  brought  about.  In  the  same  way  then,  when 
bodily  excitations,  instead  of  producing  consciousness,  check  it, 
it  is  possible  for  their  action  to  remain  unnoticed  until  unconsciousness 
suddenly  supervenes.  Injuries  of  the  brain,  lastly,  can  hardly  be 
defined  with  any  probability  as  the  clean  disappearance  of  an  organ 
and  the  excitation  dependent  on  it;  they  will  probably  always  in 
clude  positive  changes  in  the  organs  that  remain,  and  in  the  activity 
of  those  organs,  and  from  these  organs  they  will  develope  forces  that 
check  consciousness. 

These  were  the  general  remarks  on  which  I  formerly  relied ;  but  at 
bottom  they  only  had  a  significance  in  opposition  to  the  view  which 
took  consciousness  to  be  the  direct  product  of  the  work  of  a  bodily 
organ,  and  they  have  not  much  to  say  against  the  other  view  which 
conceives  activities,  in  their  own  nature  mental,  to  be  evoked  anew  in 
every  moment  by  the  constant  excitation  of  the  nerves,  and  to  be 
capable  of  continuance  in  this  way  alone.  Many  facts,  which  have 
been  more  accurately  observed  in  late  years,  favour  this  idea.  We 
know  that  animals  can  be  sent  to  sleep,  if  a  compulsion,  lasting  some 
little  time  but  causing  no  pain,  deprives  them  of  all  movement,  and  if 
at  the  same  time  all  external  sense-stimuli  are  shut  out,  and  so  any 
new  sensation  prevented :  it  follows  that  the  internal  changes  con 
ditioned  by  the  transformation  of  substances  by  tissue-change,  and 
by  nutrition,  are  not  sufficient  to  preserve  in  them  the  waking  state 
which  preceded  the  experiment.  It  is  not  quite  safe  to  argue  from 
brutes  to  men  ;  but  in  any  case  it  is  certain  enough  that  men  too  fall 
asleep  from  ennui,  and  quite  lately  a  remarkable  case  of  prolonged 
anaesthesia  (Dr.  Strumpell,  Deutsches  Arch.  f.  Klin.  Med.  XXII)  has 
proved  that  in  the  case  of  men  also  the  same  experimental  conditions 
that  were  applied  to  animals  can  rapidly  produce  sleep.  Nevertheless 
it  remains  doubtful  whether  all  these  facts  tell  us  anything  new,  or 
whether  they  only  present,  no  doubt  in  highly  remarkable  circum 
stances,  what  we  knew  before.  With  regard  to  the  animals  success 
fully  experimented  on,  we  do  not  know  whether  there  is  any  impulse 
in  them  tending  to  extend  the  course  of  their  ideas  in  any  con 
siderable  degree  beyond  the  contents  of  their  sensuous  perception; 


CHAPTER  v.i        Has  Memory  a  Corporeal  Basis  f          529 

in  the  case  of  ennui,  we  know  that  for  the  moment  this  impulse  is 
absent,  while  the  sensations  of  the  special  senses  are  not  absent,  and 
it  is  only  the  lack  of  interest  in  them  that  removes  the  stimulus  to 
follow  up  what  is  perceived  with  an  attention  that  would  find  relations 
in  it.  Thus  we  seem  to  have  found  nothing  but  what  needs  no 
explanation :  where  the  external  and  internal  impulses  which  stir  the 
soul  to  activity  are  absent,  this  activity  is  absent,  and  the  lack  of  it 
may  form  the  point  of  departure  for  that  further  depression  of  nervous 
irritability  by  which  at  last  sleep  is  distinguished  from  waking. 

305.  Before  I  attempt  to  give  some  final  view  on  this  subject,  I 
have  still  to  mention  that  alternation  of  consciousness  and  uncon 
sciousness  which  is  presented  to  us  in  the  forgetting  of  ideas  and  their 
recollection.  Everyone  knows  the  views  which  regard  memory  and 
recollection  as  possible  only  by  means  of  a  corporeal  basis ;  according 
to  this  view  some  physical  trace  of  every  perception  must  have 
remained  in  the  brain,  a  trace  which,  it  would  be  admitted,  would 
gradually  entirely  disappear  if  no  occasion  for  its  renewal  occurred. 
It  would  be  unjust  to  require  a  closer  description  of  these  abiding 
impressions  ;  but  a  consideration  of  the  precise  requirements  they 
must  fulfil  does  not,  as  it  seems  to  me,  reveal  the  advantages  which 
this  hypothesis  is  thought  to  possess  when  compared  with  a  theory 
which  regards  these  processes  as  merely  psychical.  I  raise  no  objec 
tion  to  the  idea  that  the  simultaneous  stimuli  traversing  the  brain  in 
extraordinary  numbers,  leave  behind  them  an  equal  number  of  traces 
which  do  not  intermix  :  that  for  a  moment,  at  least,  these  traces  can 
remain  unintermixed  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  they  help  us  to  form 
an  equally  large  number  of  separate  perceptions  ;  but  this  very  fact  at 
the  same  time  proves  that  the  unity  of  the  psychical  subject  holding 
these  perceptions  together  in  its  consciousness,  is,  no  less  than  the 
brain,  capable  of  a  simultaneous  multiplicity  of  states  which  remain 
apart  from  one  another.  This,  however,  was  the  very  point  respecting 
which  these  theories  at  starting  expressed  mistrust :  a  material  system, 
consisting  of  a  large  number  of  parts,  seemed  to  them  better  adapted 
to  the  purpose  of  receiving  and  preserving  a  number  of  impressions 
than  the  indivisible  unity  of  an  immaterial  substance.  But  the  theory 
does  not  get  rid  of  the  necessity  of  ascribing  these  capacities  to  such 
a  substance,  as  well  as  to  the  brain ;  unless  indeed  we  are  prepared 
to  return  to  the  old  mistake  of  confusing  a  multiplicity  of  impressions 
distributed  in  the  brain  with  the  perception  of  this  multiplicity.  As 
we  proceed,  the  duties  demanded  alike  of  brain  and  soul  are  multiplied 
at  the  same  rate  for  both.  If  we  approach  an  object,  there  is  only  one 

VOL.  i.  Mm 


5  so         The  Physical  basis  of  Mental  A  ctivity.   i  BOOK  m. 

point  of  it — that  which  our  glance  continuously  fixes — that  throws  its 
image  constantly  on  one  and  the  same  element  of  the  retina  ;  all  the 
other  points,  as  the  apparent  size  of  the  object  increases  with  our 
approach  to  it,  make  their  impression  from  moment  to  moment  on 
fresh  spots  in  the  nerve.  Thus,  if  this  one  object  is  to  be  perceived, 
countless  images  must  be  represented  within  a  short  time,  and  that  in 
such  a  manner  that  every  part  a  of  the  object  leaves  traces  in  countless 
elements  pqr . . .  of  the  brain,  while  each  of  these  elements  again  receives 
such  traces  impressed  upon  it  by  all  the  parts  abc  . . . .  An  intermixture 
of  these  latter  images  would  be  of  no  service  to  the  act  of  representing 
the  object ;  each  single  material  atom  will  in  its  turn  have  to  preserve 
countless  impressions  without  intermixture — the  very  same  task  which 
this  theory  refused  to  entrust  to  the  unity  of  the  soul — and  on  both 
sides  the  functions  to  be  performed  multiply  immeasurably  when, 
instead  of  one  object,  there  are  many  to  be  perceived. 

But  the  important  point  was  not  this  preservation  itself,  but  the 
service  it  can  render  to  memory  when  only  a  part  a  b  of  a  composite 
image  is  given  by  a  new  perception,  and  the  parts  cde  which  belong 
to  it  have  to  be  supplied.  If  we  suppose  that  the  new  impression  a  b 
now  affects  the  same  nerve-elements  p  and  q  which  it  affected  before, 
it  is  conceivable  that  the  trace  of  it  still  remaining  may  be  somehow 
called  to  life  again  in  those  elements ;  but  how  does  it  come  about 
that  p  and  q  renew  in  other  nerve-elements,  r  and  s,  the  traces  of  the 
impressions  c  and  d  which  formerly  affected  them — these  impressions 
c  and  d  being  precisely  those  which  united  with  a  and  b  will  form  the 
image  that  has  to  be  recollected  ?  It  may  be  answered  that  the 
psychological  view  of  the  matter  equally  demands  that  a  peculiar 
connexion  should  be  established  between  those  impressions  which 
occur  simultaneously,  or,  if  successively,  with  no  intervening  link : 
that  the  very  same  solidarity  obtains  between  the  abiding  remnants  of 
the  nerve-excitations  ;  that,  if  time  be  conceived  as  a  line  of  abscissa's 
those  of  equal  abscissa  form  such  an  associated  group.  And  this 
stratified  deposition  of  the  impressions,  supposing  it  admitted,  might 
indeed  explain  why  their  reproduction  would  take  the  direction  from 
a  b  only  to  c  d,  and  not  to  any  /  q  belonging  to  another  stratum ;  but 
the  mechanical  possibility  of  the  process  itself  which  takes  this  direction 
would  remain  in  obscurity.  For  we  cannot  misuse  the  metaphor  to 
such  an  extent  as  to  regard  the  simultaneous  states  of  all  the  nerve 
elements  as  a  connected  stratum,  the  continuity  of  which  produces  the 
result  that  a  vibration  of  one  point  sets  all  the  rest  vibrating  in  those 
forms  in  which  they  formerly  vibrated  in  this  stratum,  and  not  in  those 


CHAPTER  v.]        Memory  and  '  General  Feeling!  531 

forms  in  which  they  vibrated  in  other  strata.  It  could  be  nothing  but 
the  nature  of  the  impressions  a  and  b  that  in  its  turn  revives  the  others 
c  and  d  which  are  connected  with  them  :  and  since  there  is  no  reason 
why  a  by  itself  or  b  by  itself  should  reproduce  c  or  d  any  more  than 
many  other  impressions,  it  can  be  nothing  but  the  concurrent  existence 
of  a  and  b  that  limits  the  selection  to  those  impressions  that  really 
belong  to  them.  This  implies  not  only  that  the  single  nerve-elements 
in  which  a  and  b  are  revivified,  interact  on  each  other,  so  that  the  fact 
of  the  concurrent  existence  of  those  two  impressions  is  transformed 
into  an  efficient  resultant,  by  which  the  reawakening  of  c  and  d  can  be 
brought  about ;  but,  over  and  above  this,  those  nerve-elements  which 
are  now  to  contribute  c  and  d,  can  only  add  this  definite  contribution 
to  the  whole,  if  the  fact  of  the  previous  simultaneity  of  their  im 
pressions  c  and  d  with  a  and  b  has  left  behind  in  them,  too,  a 
permanent  disposition  to  answer  this  and  no  other  solicitation  with 
this  and  no  other  response. 

I  will  not  pursue  the  investigation  further.  Its  final  outcome  seems 
to  me  clear :  the  hypothesis  must  transfer  to  every  single  nerve- 
atom  precisely  the  same  capacity  of  an  ordered  association  and 
reproduction  of  all  successive  states  which  the  psychological  view 
claims  for  the  soul.  How  these  two  occurrences  (this  association  and 
reproduction)  come  about  we  have  confessed  that  we  do  not  know ; 
but  it  is  utterly  vain  to  hope  that  a  physical  construction  can  enable 
us  to  understand  them  without  presupposing  that  the  same  enigmatical 
process  is  repeated  in  every  element  of  matter. 

306.  These  considerations  would  all  be  useless,  if  interruption  of 
memory  occasioned  by  bodily  suffering  admitted  of  no  explanation 
whatever  in  consonance  with  our  views.  Unfortunately  I  cannot 
maintain  that  what  I  have  been  saying  makes  such  a  satisfactory 
explanation  possible ;  but  this  does  not  seem  to  me  to  diminish 
the  impossibility  of  those  other  views  which  localise  particular  groups 
of  ideas  or  particular  remembrances  off-hand  at  definite  places  in  the 
central  organs.  All  that  we  can,  properly  speaking,  be  said  to  observe 
is  not  an  absence  of  memory,  but  merely  the  incapacity  to  reproduce 
ideas,  which,  according  to  the  ordinary  view,  may  nevertheless  still  be 
present  as  unconscious  ideas,  only  that  the  associations  are  wanting, 
by  help  of  which  they  might  be  restored  to  consciousness.  This 
account,  apart  from  a  further  definition,  would  do  no  more  than 
explain  the  total  forgetting  of  ideas  of  which  there  is  nothing  what 
ever  to  remind  us ;  whereas  in  the  cases  of  morbid  interruption  of 
memory,  the  sensuous  perceptions  frequently  go  on  unhindered,  and 

M  m  2 


532         The  Physical  basis  of  Mental  A  ctivity.   t  BOOK  in. 

bring  with  them  a  quantity  of  impressions,  associated  in  manifold 
ways  with  the  forgotten  ideas  :  and  yet  the  restoration  of  these  ideas 
to  memory  does  not  take  place. 

There  is  only  one  supposition  that  I  can  suggest,  and  I  am  not  sure 
myself  whether  it  does  not  push  to  exaggeration  a  conception  which 
in  itself  is  valid.  Ideas  are  connected  not  only  with  one  another,  but 
also  in  the  closest  way  with  the  general  feeling  g  of  our  total  state  at 
the  moment  of  their  origin.  If  g  changes  into  y,  and  it  is  impossible 
to  us  to  experience  g  again,  the  way  is  barred  which  might  lead  our 
memory  back  to  the  ideas  connected  with  g :  in  whatever  numbers 
single  ideas  among  these  may  be  reproduced  by  new  perceptions, 
still  the  common  bond  is  absent,  which  connected  them  together  as 
our  states,  and  thus  made  those  contents  of  theirs,  which  in  them 
selves  were  reciprocally  indifferent,.capable  of  reciprocal  re-excitation. 
It  is  in  this  way  that  I  should  attempt  to  interpret  the  facts  that,  when 
we  have  recovered  from  severe  illness,  we  do  not  remember  what  we 
experienced  while  it  lasted,  or  while,  before  its  outbreak,  our  general 
feeling  was  already  changed ;  that,  when  we  are  free  from  the 
paroxysm  of  fever,  we  do  not  remember  sets  of  ideas  which  ac 
company  it,  and  that  in  particular  cases  these  sets  of  ideas  are  carried 
on  when  the  next  paroxysm  occurs,  owing  to  the  return  of  the  morbid 
general  feeling:  that  unusual  depression  sometimes  brings  long- 
forgotten  things  to  remembrance,  while  in  other  cases  of  the  same 
kind  things  familiar  to  us  affect  us  so  little  that  they  seem  like  some 
thing  new,  unknown,  and  unconnected  with  the  whole  of  our  life.  It 
is  far  harder  to  apply  this  explanation  to  those  defects  of  memory 
that  occur  with  regard  to  a  certain  definite  subject-matter  of  our 
ideas ;  e.  g.  the  forgetting  of  proper  names,  of  a  series  of  scientific 
conceptions,  of  a  foreign  language.  But  here  again  what  other  course 
is  open  to  us  than  to  refer  these  cases,  so  far  as  they  are  confirmed  by 
observations,  to  similar  causes  ?  It  is  impossible  to  conceive  of  the 
activities  which  are  here  impeded  as  assigned  to  different  organs; 
they  could  only  be  assigned  to  different  ways  of  working  on  the  part 
of  the  organs  :  we  should  have  to  come  back  to  a  general  depression 
of  the  organs,  preventing  them  from  executing  a  group  of  functions, 
which,  though  they  belong  to  one  another,  do  not  disclose  even  such 
a  similarity  of  physical  work  as  would  correspond  to  their  intellectual 
connexion,  and  would  make  it  a  matter  of  course  that  they  should  all 
be  interrupted  together.  In  that  case  there  would  be  no  greater  im 
possibility  in  the  further  supposition,  that  this  physical  depression  has 
for  its  consequence  a  mental  general  feeling,  different  from  and  super- 


CHAPTER  v.j        Substantiality  of  Soicl  criticised.  533 

seding  that  which  ordinarily  accompanies  these  mental  operations. 
For  that  which  moves  and  forms  connexions  in  us  is  not  abstract 
truths :  the  course  of  our  thoughts  is  always  a  course  of  our  states,  and 
every  particular  form  of  our  intellectual  activity  gives  us  the  feeling  of 
a  peculiar  mental  posture,  which  reacts  again  on  the  bodily  general 
feeling.  If  a  change  originally  set  up  in  this  latter  feeling  makes  its 
mental  echo  impossible,  the  mental  activities  will  be  checked  in  their 
turn  by  the  conflict  of  the  tone  of  feeling  which  they  find  in  existence 
with  that  which  should  normally  accompany  them. 

307.  Efforts  to  assign  to  the  soul  a  sphere  in  which  its  activity 
should  be  independent  of  the  body,  commonly  proceed  from  the 
desire  to  secure  its  substantiality,  and  thereby  its  endless  continuance; 
though  in  reality  the  certainty  with  which  we  can  infer  the  latter  from 
the  former  is  strictly  proportionate  to  the  energy  with  which  at  starting 
we  have  chosen  to  identify  the  two.  No  such  motives  have  guided  our 
present  investigation :  indeed  what  use  would  there  be  in  securing  to 
the  soul  all  the  rights  of  substance,  if  the  exercise  of  these  rights  is 
not  equally  unrestrained  ?  But  no  theories  can  change  the  facts. 
Whether  we  see  in  the  central  organs  the  creative  causes  of  mental 
activity,  or  only,  on  occasion,  the  causes  which  impede  it,  in  either 
case  the  facts  remain,  that  a  state  of  perpetual  wakefulness  is  im 
possible  to  us  ;  that  the  exhaustion  of  the  body  brings  with  it  the  total 
cessation  of  mental  life ;  that,  conversely,  this  life,  in  some  way,  what 
ever  that  way  may  be,  consumes  the  forces  of  the  body ;  that  diseases 
and  injuries  of  the  brain  either  cripple  particular  faculties,  or  sink  us 
in  a  complete  mental  night.  When,  then,  we  joined  in  the  efforts 
alluded  to,  it  was  not. with  the  hope  of  finding  in  the  intrinsic  sub 
stantiality  of  the  soul  any  warrant  for  an  independence  of  which  so 
little  does  as  a  fact  exist ;  but  in  the  certainty  that,  even  if  exact 
observation  should  prove  the  activity  of  the  soul  to  be  still  more 
closely  bound  up,  than  it  is  now  proved  to  be,  with  the  body  and  its 
agitations,  still  this  dependence  could  in  no  way  alter  the  essence  of 
our  conviction ;  and  that  essential  conviction  is  that  a  world  of  atoms, 
and  movements  of  atoms,  can  never  develope  from  itself  a  trace  of 
mental  life;  that  it  forms,  on  the  contrary,  nothing  more  than  a 
system  of  occasions,  which  win  from  another  and  a  unique  basis  the 
manifestation  of  an  activity  possible  to  that  basis  alone. 

But  even  this  expression  of  our  view  must  after  all  be  once  more 
modified.  We  found  it  impossible  to  conceive  the  world  as  built  up 
out  of  a  disconnected  multiplicity  of  real  elements  of  matter  :  just  as 
little,  on  the  other  side,  have  we  considered  the  individual  souls  on 

MD13 


534         The  Physical  basis  of  Mental  Activity.    [BOOK  in. 

which  this  system  of  occasions  acts,  to  be  indestructible  existences  ; 
both  they  and  these  occasions  meant  to  us  simply  actions  of  the  one 
genuine  being  or  existence,  only  that  they  are  gifted  with  the  strange 
capacity,  which  no  knowledge  can  further  explain,  of  feeling  and 
knowing  themselves  as  active  centres  of  a  life  which  goes  out  from 
them.  Only  because  they  do  this,  only  in  so  far  as  they  do  this,  did 
we  give  them  the  name  of  existences  or  substances.  Still  we  have  so 
named  them ;  and  now  the  question  arises  whether  it  would  not — but 
for  the  exigencies  of  imagination — be  better  to  avoid  even  that  name 
and  the  inferences  into  which  it  will  never  cease  to  seduce  men.  Be 
ginning  by  speaking  of  the  souls  as  existences,  we  go  on  to  speak  of 
their  states,  and  we  even  venture  to  talk  of  such  states  as  betray 
nothing  whatever  of  the  essential  nature  of  that  to  which  we  ascribe 
them.  Thus  we  have  not  scrupled,  any  more  than  any  psychology 
has  so  far  scrupled,  to  use  the  supposition  of  unconscious  ideas,  or  of 
unconscious  states,  which  ideas  have  left  behind,  and  which  become 
ideas  again.  Is  it  really  necessary  that  they  should  so  be  left  behind, 
and  can  we  gather  any  intelligible  notion  from  these  words  unless  we 
take  refuge,  as  men  always  naturally  and  inevitably  have  done,  in  the 
crassest  metaphors  of  impressions  that  have  altered  a  spatial  shape,  or 
of  movements  that  are  not  conceivable  except  in  space  ?  There  was 
nothing  to  compel  us  to  these  suppositions  but  the  observed  fact  that 
previous  ideas  return  into  consciousness :  but  is  there  no  other  way 
in  which  that  which  once  was  can  be  the  determining  ground  of  that 
which  will  be,  except  by  continuing  to  be  instead  of  passing  away  ? 
And  if  the  soul  in  a  perfectly  dreamless  sleep  thinks,  feels,  and  wills 
nothing,  is  the  soul  then  at  all,  and  what  is  it  ?  How  often  has  the 
answer  been  given,  that  if  this  could  ever  happen,  the  soul  would 
have  no  being !  Why  have  we  not  had  the  courage  to.  say  that,  as 
often  as  this  happens,  the  soul  is  not  ?  Doubtless,  if  the  soul  were 
alone  in  the  world,  it  would  be  impossible  to  understand  an  alterna 
tion  of  its  existence  and  non-existence :  but  why  should  not  its  life 
be  a  melody  with  pauses,  while  the  primal  eternal  source  still  acts, 
of  which  the  existence  and  activity  of  the  soul  is  a  single  deed,  and 
from  which  that  existence  and  activity  arose  ?  From  it  again  the  soul 
would  once  more  arise,  and  its  new  existence  would  be  the  consistent 
continuation  of  the  old,  so  soon  as  those  pauses  are  gone  by,  during 
which  the  conditions  of  its  reappearance  were  being  produced  by  other 
deeds  of  the  same  primal  being. 


CHAPTER  v.]          The  World  not  mere  Number.  535 


Conclusion. 

I  have  ventured  on  these  final  hints  because  I  wished  to  give  a  last 
and  a  full  statement  of  that  requirement  which  I  believe  we  must  lay 
on  ourselves, — the  total  renunciation  of  our  desire  to  answer  meta 
physical  questions  by  the  way  of  mathematico-mechanical  construc 
tion.  There  can  be  no  need  for  me  to  express  yet  again  the  complete 
respect  I  feel  for  the  physical  sciences,  for  their  developed  method 
and  their  intellectual  force ;  the  efforts  of  Metaphysic  cannot  in  any 
way  compare  with  their  brilliant  results.  But  it  has  sometimes  be 
fallen  the  investigation  of  Nature  itself,  that,  at  points  which  for  long 
it  thought  itself  warranted  in  using  as  the  simplest  foundations  of  its 
theories,  it  has  discovered  a  whole  world,  new  and  never  surmised,  of 
internal  formation  and  movement;  and  in  this  world  it  has  at  the 
same  time  discovered  the  explanation  of  occurrences,  which  had  pre 
viously  been  connected,  in  a  bare  and  external  way,  with  these 
seemingly  simple  points  of  departure.  It  is  a  like  discovery  that 
Metaphysic  has  always  sought,  only  the  distance  which  separated  its 
goal  from  anything  that  can  become  the  object  of  direct  observation 
was  still  greater.  It  sought  the  reasons  or  causes  on  which  the  fact 
depends,  that  we  are  able  to  pursue  with  confidence  throughout  the 
whole  realm  they  govern  the  fundamental  conceptions  of  the  natural 
sciences,  and  which  at  the  same  time  would  determine  the  limits  of 
this  realm.  It  is  a  true  saying  that  God  has  ordered  all  things  by 
measure  and  number,  but  what  he  ordered  was  not  measures  and 
numbers  themselves,  but  that  which  deserved  or  required  to  possess 
them.  It  was  not  a  meaningless  and  inessential  reality,  whose 
only  purpose  would  have  been  to  support  mathematical  relations, 
and  to  supply  some  sort  of  denomination *  for  abstract  numbers : 
but  the  meaning  of  the  world  is  what  conies  first ;  it  is  not  simply 
something  which  subjected  itself  to  the  order  established;  rather 
from  it  alone  comes  the  need  of  that  order  and  the  form  in 
which  it  is  realised.  All  those  laws  which  can  be  designated  by  the 
common  name  of  mathematical  mechanics,  whatever  that  name  in 
cludes  of  eternal  and  self-evident  truths,  and  of  laws  which  as  a 
matter  of  fact  are  everywhere  valid, — all  these  exist,  not  on  their  own 
authority,  nor  as  a  baseless  destiny  to  which  reality  is  compelled  to 
bow.  They  are  (to  use  such  language  as  men  can)  only  the  first  con 
sequences  which,  in  the  pursuit  of  its  end,  the  living  and  active  mean- 

»  [Cp.  §2 14,  end.] 


536         •  The  Physical  basis  of  Mental  A  ctivity. 

ing  of  the  world  has  laid  at  the  foundation  of  all  particular  realities 
as  a  command  embracing  them  all.  We  do  not  know  this  meaning 
in  all  its  fulness,  and  therefore  we  cannot  deduce  from  it  what  we  can 
only  attempt,  in  one  universal  conviction,  to  retrace  to  it.  But  even 
the  effort  to  do  this  forces  upon  us  a  chain  of  ideas  so  far-reaching 
that  I  gladly  confess  the  imperfections  which,  without  doubt,  can  be 
laid  to  the  charge  of  this  attempt  of  mine.  When,  now  several  de 
cades  since,  I  ventured  on  a  still  more  imperfect  attempt,  I  closed  it 
with  the  dictum  that  the  true  beginning  of  Metaphysic  lies  in  Ethics. 
I  admit  that  the  expression  is  not  exact;  but  I  still  feel  certain  of 
being  on  the  right  track,  when  I  seek  in  that  which  should  be  the 
ground  of  that  which  is.  What  seems  unacceptable  in  this  view  it 
will  perhaps  be  possible  to  justify  in  another  connexion :  now,  after  I 
have  already  perhaps  too  long  claimed  the  attention  of  my  reader, 
I  close  my  essay  without  any  feeling  of  infallibility,  with  the  wish 
that  I  may  not  everywhere  have  been  in  error,  and,  for  the  rest,  with 
the  Oriental  proverb — God  knows  better. 


*>v-t    #--<-*v' 


INDEX. 


'Absolute  motion,'  280  ff. 

'  Accidental  views '  (Herbart),  136. 

Action  (at  a  distance),  316. 

Albumen,  394. 

Anaesthesia,  528. 

Antinomies  (Kantian),  181  ff.,  242  ff. 

Aristotle,  18,  56,  59,  81,  393,  402. 

Articular  surfaces,  397. 

Association  of  Ideas,  465  ff. 

Atomism,  325  ff. 

Attention,  475,  478. 

Attraction,  313,  346,  348. 

Avogadro,  391. 

Baer  (K.  E.  von),  403. 
Binary  combinations,  394. 
Brain,  injuries  of,  528. 

Categories,  18. 

•  Causa  transient,'  102. 

Cause  (opp.  'Reason'),  95. 

Cause  (and  effect),  104  ff. 

Cellulose,  394. 

' Cessante  Causa — ,'  277. 

Checking  of  Ideas  by  Ideas,  460,  467. 

Chemistry,  390. 

Comparison,  conditions  of,  471, 

Conceptions  (universal),  478. 

Consequent,  82  ff. 

Conservation  (of  Mass),  363, 

—  (of  Force),  367  ff. 
Constancy  (of  Mass),  337. 

—  (of  the  sum  of  motions),  364. 
Contact,  101. 

Content  («/»&*//')»    ^  note. 
Continuity,  Law  of,  271. 
Contradiction,  Law  of,  304. 
Cosmology,  20. 


Darwin,  415. 

Depth,  Idea  of,  501. 

Descartes,  202,  298. 

'  Deutsches  Archiv  fiir    Klin.    Med! 

quoted,  528. 
Dialectic  method,  16. 
Difference  (quantitative)  Idea  of,  471. 
'  Dim'  Ideas,  462,  cp.  479,  480. 
Disappearance  of  Sensations,  459. 
Distance  (and  force),  346,  356. 
Distinction,  of  points  by  Touch,  503. 
Drobisch,  211. 
,  8  1. 


Effect  (and  Cause),  104  ff. 

Electricity,  390. 

'Element*  dcr  Psychophysik  '  (Fechner), 

442. 
Emotions  (and  the  Interest  of  Ideas), 

465. 

fvepyeia,  8  1. 
Epicurean  Physics,  393. 
Equality,  note,  47. 
Equality  of  Cause  and  Effect,  104. 
Equivalence,  338,  371. 
Euclidean  Geometry,  208. 
Experience,  2,  3. 

Extra-impressions,  or  Local  Signs,  487ff. 
Eye,  how  we  estimate  movement  of,  496. 

Fechner,  '  Atomenlehre?  325,  426,  436. 

—  'Element*  der  Psychophysik]  442  ff. 

—  and  Weber,  454. 

Feeling  ('  Gefiihl'"),  in  the  reproduction 
'  of  Ideas,  458. 

—  in  initiation  of  action,  523. 

—  and  Memory,  531. 
Fichte,  167. 


538 


Index. 


Force,  307. 

—  (and  Distance),  346  ff. 

—  (and  Time),  358  ff. 

—  (a  single)  369  ff. 

—  (vital),  393  ff. 

Formulae,  for  consciousness,  473. 
Freedom,  1568". 

Generic  Idea,  402. 
Geometry,  208,  221  ff. 
Geulinx,  119. 
Gravitation,  348  ff.,  511. 
'  Grund]  95. 

Hegel,  131,  154  ff.,  204  ff.,  301. 

Helmholtz,  222  ff. 

Heraclitus,  81,  85,  118. 

Herbart,  35  ff.,  43,  53-5,  99,  100,  136, 

331,  350,  410,  460,  472,  474  ff. 
I/AT;,  60. 

Idea  ('  Vorstellung"1},  usage  defined,  461. 

—  (universal),  472,  478. 
Idealism,  72,  157*?. 
Identity,  47  note,  48. 

—  Law  of,  79. 

—  Idea  of,  471. 
Impulse  ('  Tricb  '),  394. 
Infinite  divisibility,  184. 
Infinity  (of  world  in  space),  182  ff. 
'  Innervation,'  523. 

'  Interest '  of  Ideas,  464,  479. 
Irritability,  398. 

Kant,  18,  203  ff,  238,  243,  302  ff.,  341, 
427  ff. 

—  (Trans.  Aesth.  quoted\  1 79. 
Kinds,  408. 

Lambert,  304. 

Law,  4-6. 

Leibnitz,  113  ff.,  138  ff.,  331,  341. 

Lichtenberg,  369. 

'Life    and    Vital    Energy'   (Essay   by 

Author),  392. 
Life,  a  Principle  of,  397. 
Like,  47  note. 
Likeness,  idea  of,  4^1. 
Local  Signs,  487  ff. 

—  in  Vision,  494  ff. 

—  in  Touch,  503  ff. 


Logic  (Author's),  141,  277. 
Lucretius,  327,  399. 

Machines,  397. 

Mass,  337ff.,  363  ff. 

Mechanism,  383  ff. 

'  Mcdicinische  Psychologic '  (Author's), 

420,  436,  527. 
Memory,  alleged  physical  basis  of,  5  29  ff. 

—  Interruptions  of,  531  ff. 
fir)  ov,  63. 
Metaphysic,  I,  2,  7. 

'  Mikrokosmus '    (Author's),    172,  414, 

420,  427. 
Monads,  113  ff. 
Monism,  164. 

Motions  (the  sum  of),  364. 
'  Motorium  Commune?  519. 
Muscular  sense,  502. 
Mythology,  mathematical,  473. 

Natural  Kinds,  408. 
Nature,  our  idea  of,  335,  400. 
Nerve-fibres,  Isolation  of,  483,  486. 
Nervous  organs,  central,  516. 
Necessity,  I56ff. 

Objective,  cp.  note,  17. 

Occasional  causes,  98. 

Occasionalism,  1 1 1  ff. 

Ontology,  20. 

Opposite  ideas,  association  of,  a  fiction, 

466. 

Organs,  special  in  Brain,  517. 
Organ  of  Space-perception,  519. 

—  Language,  520. 
Organic  Life,  415. 

OVK  Ol',   64. 

Pain,  sec  Pleasure. 
Parallel  lines,  220,  225. 
Parallelogram  of  Motions,  291  ff. 
'Parmenides'  (of  Plato),  131. 
Parsimony  (Principle  of),  373  ff. 
Perception  of  Space,  285  ff.,  476. 
Persistence,  law  of,  275. 
Phrenology,  524ff. 
Plato,  I,  60,  72,  quoted  131. 
Pleasure,  affects  course  of  Ideas,  465. 
Pluralism,  164. 
Poisson,  quoted,  290,  291. 


Index. 


539 


' Position"*  {'P.  oder  Setzung*},  32  note, 
63  ff. 

Predicates  in  Plato,  72. 
'Pre-established  Harmony,'  113. 
Psychical  Mechanism,  472. 
Psychology,  13,  20,  418,  (Herbart's)  474. 
Psycho-Physical  Mechanism,  436. 

'  Qualitative  Atomism,'  332. 
Qualities,  Herbart's  'simple  Qualities,' 

43  ff- 

Quality,  307. 
Quaternary  Combinations,  394. 

Radiation  (of  force),  346  ff. 

Ratio  (sufficient),  87. 

Rational  Psychology,  418. 

Reactions  of  the  soul,  grades  of,  475. 

Realism,  72,  163. 

Reason  (and  Consequent),  82  ff. 

Reason  (opp.  Cause),  95. 

Reflex  motion  of  Eye,  494. 

Relation,  or  Reference,  an  act  of  mind, 

470,  and  note. 
Relativity,  283. 

Reproduction  of  Ideas  in  order,  467  ff. 
Repulsion,  313,  348  ff. 
*  Res  extensa?  298. 
'  Res  cogitans]  298. 
Riemann,  quoted,  235,  236. 

Satisfaction,  offeree  (Herbart),  350. 

Schelling,  155,  203,  301. 

Self-preservation,  of  soul  (Herbart),  474. 

Sensation,  24  ff. 

'  Sensorium  Commune?  518. 

Similars,  association  of,  466. 

Socrates,  131. 

Solidity  (Lambert),  304. 

Sophists,  73. 

Soul,  the  Seat  of,  509  ff. 

—  Interrupted  existence  of,  534  ff. 
Spatial  image,  reproduction  of,  468. 
Space-perception,  285  ff.,  476. 

—  of  blind,  500. 

—  organ  of,  519  ff. 
Specific  energies,  450. 
Spinoza,  91,  202,  299. 
Square  of  distance,  346,  356. 
Stahl,  401. 


Stimuli  of  Sense,  445  ff. 

Stream  of  Time,  239. 

'  Streitschriften,'  (Author's),  quoted,  474. 

Strength  of  Ideas,  461-5,  479. 

Striimpell,  Dr.  (quoted},  528. 

Subjectivity  of  Sensation,  449. 

Substance,  76. 

'  Substantial  Forms,'  393. 

Substantiality  of  Soul,  533. 

Successive  Synthesis,  245. 

Sufficient  Reason,  81. 

Ternary  Combinations,  394. 

Thing  (for  use  of  'Ding'  and  '  Sache,' 

v.  17  note),  17,  57  ff.,   166  ff. 
ri  fa  elvai,  59. 
Time,  Idea  of,  476. 
TO  ri  cffri,  59. 

Touch,  localisation  by,  503  ff. 
Transeunt  action,  87  ff. 
'  Transient*  (Causa),  102. 
Treviranus,  393. 

Triangle  (sum  of  its  angles),  221. 
Type,  402. 

'Unconscious'  Ideas,  464. 

Unconsciousness,  527ff. 

Unity  of  the  soul,  440. 

Universal  conceptions,  478. 

'Up'  and '  Down, '  relative  to  Gravity,  502 . 

'Ursache?  95. 

Vision,  erect,  502. 

Vital  Force,  393. 

'Vocation  of  Man'  (Fichte),  167. 

Von  Baer,  403. 

'Vorstellung'  (Idea),  defined,  461. 

Wagner  (Rudolph,  Hand- Dictionary  of 

Physiology),  392. 
Weber's  Law,  454. 
Weber    on   Localisation    by  sense    of 

Touch,  503. 
Weisse,  155,  208. 

Whole,  parts  of  same  associated,  467. 
'  Wirkung?  95. 

Yellow  spot  of  Retina,  494. 

Zeno,  131,  -291. 

' Zusammen"1  (in  Herbart),  100. 


THE  END. 


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