Essays Towards a Theory of Knowledge Part 5

This may be generally true. Nevertheless, Philosophy and Science have surely concepts in common. They both refer to the same thing when they speak of s.p.a.ce; we presume also when they speak of Matter. Indeed, Philosophy a.n.a.lyses the conceptions involved not only in scientific reasoning, but in the most common and ordinary mental processes. It a.n.a.lyses them with special reference to the relations between the Phenomenal and the Real--a question which, though it always lies latent, does not in ordinary circ.u.mstances arise in urgent form. It is therefore evident that the fundamental conceptions of Science _do_ fall within the purview of Philosophy.

The study of Physics _can_ be carried on practically as a study of phenomena--of Heat, Colours, Sounds, Forces, etc., all of which are kinds of phenomena--without the expression of any dogmatic and formulated opinion as to their relation with Reality. Physics can speak of ma.s.s and weight and avoid all reference to Matter; but there always is, in scientific reasoning, an implicit reference to Reality, and it facilitates, therefore, the expression of scientific reasoning, when the account of a physical process is stated with reference to a supposed reality, such as Matter. And in making such reference Science _is_ thinking of the thing-in-itself. It _is_ a reference beyond phenomena.

Heat, Light, Sound, Force, are names of cla.s.ses of phenomena, and the great discovery of Physics during the nineteenth century has been that these are all transformable into each other, and bear definite numerical relations to each other in proportion to which such transformations take place. Science availing itself of this discovery, unifies its conception of Nature and gives expression to the doctrine of the inter-trans.m.u.tability of the various cla.s.ses of physical phenomena by postulating an ent.i.ty called Energy, and regarding the various cla.s.ses of phenomena as trans.m.u.tations which this ent.i.ty undergoes. But Science has been reluctant to recognise that it is now ent.i.tled to dispense with the postulation of Matter. The theory, as announced by the leading men of science, has therefore been to the effect that there exist in the physical universe _two_ real things--Matter and Energy--in place of one only, as commonly supposed for so long.

Now we maintain, on the contrary, that such a statement of physical theory is erroneous and redundant; that Science is not obliged to postulate _two_ such ent.i.ties; that the concept of Energy supplies all her requirements; and that the employment of that conception obviates the very serious contradictions which are involved in any a.s.sumption of a real ent.i.ty of the nature of Matter as ordinarily understood--a conception of which the very description involves difficulties which have perplexed thinking men for more than two centuries.

Our argument on this point involves consideration of the place occupied by Energy in a potential form.

Whilst the transformability of Heat, Light, Sound, and other physical phenomena in definite numerical ratios has led to their being all regarded as actual manifestations of trans.m.u.tations proceeding in one real thing, occasionally there is a seeming break in the catena; no phenomenon can be detected into which the heat or light or other immediately preceding manifestation has been transformed; but, later on, the co-relative reappears, and by an argument as strong as that which a.s.serts the continuous ident.i.ty of an intelligence before, during, and after a temporary suspension of consciousness, the student of Physics maintains the continued existence _in posse_, if not _in esse_, of the Energy which by appropriate action he can again reveal in an active or kinetic manifestation. Hence arises the conception of potential Energy.

The Energy to which we attribute the force of cohesion which any particular body can on occasion manifest, we believe to exist potentially whilst that body continues unacted upon. Our belief is confirmed by our experience of the certainty with which, on the recurrence of the given conditions, the force always again manifests itself. In like manner the potential Energy to which we attribute the Force of Gravitation we believe to exist at all times, even when not kinetically active. Indeed, it only manifests itself when a trans.m.u.tation is taking place into some other form of Energy. Now it is the universal a.s.sociation of these two forms of potential Energy with the common and fundamental data of our sense-experience that has suggested the construction in our minds of the conception of Matter, and furnished us with the ideas of solidity, impenetrability, and weight which const.i.tute its groundwork.

Our view, therefore, is that the concept of materiality can, in the way just indicated, be in all cases a.n.a.lysed into, and derived from, the conception of Energy; and that Science, if consistent, cannot postulate the reality of Matter as well. Potential Energy adequately supplies the demand for a real substratum of which phenomena are the manifestation.

The whole question is very well worth the attention, not only of scientific students but of metaphysicians. The inquiry will distinctly gain if it receive the auxiliary attention of those who have studied the process by which we form our mental conceptions, and whilst the students of Physics deserve the honours of discovery, they cannot safely dispense with such a.s.sistance, for which the present confused and inconsistent state of the fundamental definitions of Physical Science most urgently calls. There is here a neglected but very interesting field for the metaphysician's efforts.

Recent scientific writings contain enough to show us that men of science are already beginning to recognise not only the inconsistency of the theory of two real things, but the dominating significance of the conception of Energy, and are gradually coming to claim for the conception of Matter little more than recognition as the vehicle of energetic trans.m.u.tation. Let us then for the moment accept the position that Science--ridding itself of redundant theory--postulates Energy as the real thing-in-itself, in terms of which it frames its statement of physical phenomena, and let us examine briefly the effects which the acceptance of this new postulate is likely to have on philosophic speculation.

All my Presentment, all the content of my sense-experience, according to this theory, I attribute to a multifarious continuous series of trans.m.u.tations constantly proceeding in some portion of the system of Energy which const.i.tutes the real substratum of phenomena. I study, measure, and cla.s.sify the different species of these trans.m.u.tations; I a.s.sociate particular sensations and cla.s.ses of sensations with particular trans.m.u.tations, and I thence infer the existence _in posse_ or _in esse_ of more or less Energy in some particular form trans.m.u.ting itself according to some one or other definite physical law. I infer also the existence of various supplies of potential Energy constantly available, and of other intelligent agents like myself.

I a.s.sociate every such intelligent agent with a particular series or group of sense-experiences, and further I a.s.sume that the world at his Presentment, consists for him in a similar series of trans.m.u.tations continuously going on in that portion of the energetic system which I believe in a similar way to const.i.tute such person's bodily organism.

Thus by the same process of reasoning by which I am led to believe that my own Presentment consists in the energetic trans.m.u.tations proceeding in my organism, I explain the universality of the experience of all intelligent agents. In my own case, by that union of consciousness with physical energy which accompanies the manifestation of life, I am immediately related with that portion of the energetic system which is the real substratum of my organism, and am made conscious of the series of trans.m.u.tations occurring at that particular point in it which is represented by my sensory system. In the case of others, from certain of the trans.m.u.tations occurring in my Presentment, I am led to infer the existence of other similar microcosmic systems in the energetic macrocosm of the physical universe.

This is all very well as a theory, but if all I know is the series of trans.m.u.tations occurring in the portion of the system of Energy related directly to my intelligence, how did I ever learn to infer from these trans.m.u.tations the existence of that Energy underlying them, and still more of the whole energetic system extending far beyond my organism? How do I deduce from trans.m.u.tations proceeding in the portion of the energetic system which const.i.tutes the real substratum of my organism the existence, not only of that substratum itself, but of other portions of the system similarly related to other intelligences, and of the energetic system as a whole? How do I get beyond my Presentment? How pa.s.s from Ideality to Existence?

I answer that I never could by any chance or possibility have got beyond it or got any suggestion of the Reality had I been merely related to my Presentment as a pa.s.sive and percipient subject. In point of fact, however, I am in relation with the energetic system not merely or primarily as an Intelligence percipient of the trans.m.u.tations proceeding in it at a particular point, but also as a Will initiative to some extent of such trans.m.u.tations and capable of influencing and directing the physical process. Life necessarily involves a process of energetic trans.m.u.tation constantly proceeding at that portion of the system of Energy which const.i.tutes my organism, and I am there related as Will with a larger system which embraces the part in which intelligence is developed.

Fundamentally, life manifests itself in all grades of the zoologic hierarchy as a union of Volition (or what appears in action as Volition) with some particular point in the universe of physical Energy, the union const.i.tuting what we call a living organism.

Despite its profound importance to us personally and to our race, we should not forget that, objectively considered, the brain in man and the higher animals is merely a special organ highly developed by use, as the trunk is in the elephant, the middle phalanx in the horse, or wings in the bird. Intelligence is hardly to any extent a necessity of the vital union of the Will with the energetic system. It is not at all developed in the vegetal kingdom, hardly at all in some branches of the animal, and there may conceivably be an infinite number of other "kingdoms" in which it may be either undeveloped, or very differently developed, or superseded by some other manifestation by us unimaginable.

Its development indeed seems to be concurrent with the development of a locomotive faculty--a striking confirmation of the theory that it is in our activity that we derive the suggestions which call forth the exercise of the Understanding and transform sensation into perception.

It is only with a comparative fraction of the organism that I am related as a pa.s.sively percipient intelligence. I am directly or indirectly related as Will, as an originative cause of activity, with a larger portion of my organism, many parts of which are quite distinct from the cognitive portion. Now it is from my relation as Will with Energy other than and beyond the energetic trans.m.u.tations which const.i.tute my Presentment that I discover the energetic system of Nature, as a real thing--beyond, underlying, and by its trans.m.u.tations const.i.tutive of my Presentment. Many of the trans.m.u.tations which occur in my Presentment I recognise as attributable to my own volitional activity operating upon my energetic organism, and _in my own activity there is thus suggested to me a source of phenomena lying beyond these phenomena themselves_. A trans.m.u.tation initiated in my brain is a pure idea. The key which suggests to me the real world is the occurrence of trans.m.u.tations ascribable to my activity operating beyond the sphere which const.i.tutes my Presentment.

It is in this way that I originally discover the real energetic substratum to the phenomenal world of my Presentment. I learn from the trans.m.u.tations to infer the agency and operation of the underlying energy, and thus gradually construct my whole systematic conception of the real world in which I live and move and have my being.

This view of my activity and of the consequences of my relation as Will to the energetic system represented by my organism, including the portion thereof related to my intelligence, supplies us therefore with a key to the inevitable reference of thoughts to things.

I distinguish in my active experience a clear difference between wis.h.i.+ng and willing, and further between willing and effective action. My Power--the Energy related to my Will--the exertion of which is necessary to translate Volition into an overt result--is a limited and quantifiable thing, but that such a hidden energetic medium or substratum underlies all phenomena is evident from the fact that I do not will directly the appearance of any given phenomenon. I may wish that. But when the Volition is reached and the wish transformed into overt exertion I find myself involved in the multifarious processes of an energetic system which I may so far influence, but which is nevertheless in many ways constantly going on irrespective of my Volition. I may wish to avoid pain and may will certain exertions with that view, but the consequences may be the reverse of what I wished.

This shows that the Volition operates immediately not on the sensation but on the energetic system.

In all cases between Volition and overt result there seems to be erected and constantly maintained around me a vast energetic system, a part but only a small part of which, namely the Energy of my organism, can be influenced directly by my Will, whilst, even in immediate relation with that part, trans.m.u.tations beyond the reach of my Will are constantly going on. Indeed, what fundamentally distinguishes Volition from Desire is its relation to the energetic system.

The doctrine of Energy therefore puts in a new and clearer light the whole theory of Causation.

It is common for philosophers to talk of invariable sequence as the criterion of Causality. But, in fact, that is quite fallacious. No one ever regards a phenomenon as the cause of another phenomenon. We ascribe Causality to the energetic trans.m.u.tation which in some form or other we inevitably believe to accompany the appearance of every phenomenon. We never postulate a causal relation between day and night--the most notable case of invariable sequence. When we say the fire warms the room, or the horse draws the cart, or the sun ripens the corn, it is the Energy which we rightly or wrongly a.s.sociate with the visual sensation referred to in the words "fire" and "horse" and "sun" of which we are thinking, and by no means of these visual sensations themselves. As has been well said, we never suppose that the leading carriage of the train draws those behind it, although their relation of sequence is quite as close to it as to the engine.

True, it is and must be from and by phenomena only that I infer and measure the trans.m.u.tations of Energy, but the trans.m.u.tations measured are operations of the real thing-in-itself postulated by Science. The existence of such Energy is suggested to me primarily in my experience of my own activity in which I recognise my power of doing work--a quantifiable and measurable thing, h.o.m.ogeneous with the Energy in respect of which Science states the relations and conditions of all physical phenomena. My most incessant mental act is that by which, on the a.n.a.logy of my own active experience, I refer all phenomena to the underlying energetic system. This reference it is which transforms sensation into perception; and the constant affirmation of this reference is the great function of the synthetic mental activity of the understanding, and is at once the origin and explanation of that imperative mental tendency which metaphysicians call the law of Causality.

How, then, does this doctrine affect the theory of the nature of s.p.a.ce?

If it be true that the world as my Presentment consists in the trans.m.u.tations occurring in that particular part of the energetic system which const.i.tutes the real substratum of the brain, then phenomena as a whole must arise in trans.m.u.tation, in a process of Becoming rather than in a state of Being, and s.p.a.ce must be the content, the condition, in which that process proceeds. The laws of s.p.a.ce, therefore, are laws, so to speak, of motion, not of position. The most absolutely still and motionless visual presentation is really a series of constant trans.m.u.tations of Energy and the form of s.p.a.ce is const.i.tuted by the laws of trans.m.u.tation, which are thus at once the necessary conditions of my perception and the universal conditions of all sense-perception.

s.p.a.ce, therefore, does not contain the real thing which sustains the phenomenal world any more than it does the reality which underlies my conscious self. It is the universal condition of the trans.m.u.tations which const.i.tute phenomena; and it therefore "contains" all these phenomena, including my body as phenomenon and only as phenomenon. Its form is discovered by my organic motor activity, and in representing this activity the mind constructs its concepts of s.p.a.ce and Extension.

This view of the nature of s.p.a.ce, by relating its forms and laws with the objective, and a-logical thing-in-itself in virtue of the trans.m.u.tations of which our sense-experience occurs, relieves an obvious difficulty which must always have been felt in accepting without qualification the purely Kantian view which regarded it as a category imposed by the Intelligence upon the otherwise unknowable world of sense.

The most ardent a.s.sertors of the ideality of s.p.a.ce have hitherto apparently had difficulty in avoiding the tendency to conceive it as the persistent all-embracing objective content of the thing-in-itself, not merely of the phenomenon, although the latter only might enter into Knowledge. The doctrine, however, which presents our conception of s.p.a.ce as discovered in our activity amid resistant trans.m.u.tation-processes not only establishes its ideality but at the same time explains the relation which its form nevertheless bears to the objective material laws of the sensible presentation. It liberates the mind from the oppressive necessity of regarding s.p.a.ce as still somehow objectively extending and containing the real world. It also relieves an obvious difficulty which confronts the Philosophy of Schopenhauer in locating those transcendental forms of the phenomenon which are imposed _a priori_ upon the presentation, and yet are not to be found in the pure Volition.

Of course, it must never be forgotten that my whole sentient experience consists primarily of the series of energetic trans.m.u.tations occurring at that part of the energetic system which is in immediate vital relation with my consciousness. It is my experience of active exertion, of moving, speaking, etc., which gives a suggestion of the real energetic world. The trans.m.u.tations of the real Energy of the world beyond my organism never enter my Consciousness. Trans.m.u.tations arising beyond my body only enter the presentation by influencing the cerebral process. The luminous undulation and the sound-wave must both produce trans.m.u.tation of the cerebral Energy in order to affect Consciousness.

Yet the various characters of the transmitted impulses are distinguishable in the resultant cerebral trans.m.u.tations. Thus I feel sensations of hardness, roughness, pain, colour, sound, etc. It is by a process of mental construction that I a.s.sociate these with the forms of my exertional activity, and thus frame my conceptions of real bodies in the world around me--those which I more directly a.s.sociate with the Energy subject to my Volition being conceived as representing my body.

For reasons of convenience, I refer those conceptions chiefly to the co-ordinated visual presentation, and thus build up my conception of the extended world of material things. Science is possible because all trans.m.u.tations of Energy take place according to definite numerical laws and ratios. The whole work of Science is to explain every phenomenon in terms of its definite trans.m.u.tation of Energy. These definite numerical laws and processes are characteristic of all Energy trans.m.u.tation, and thus regulate the experience of every intelligent being. It is in virtue of these that our separate systems of knowledge correspond, and that we are thus presented each with corresponding aspects of one outer world.

The laws which regulate the cerebral changes that accompany sense-presentation are for me the necessary _a priori_ laws of perception. It is because these laws operate in common in all brains that community of intercourse is possible amongst mankind. It is because of the further fact that the whole of the trans.m.u.tations of Energy which const.i.tute physical phenomena compose a numerically inter-related and regulated system that Science and rational knowledge are possible to the intellect of man. Our knowledge is what we are obliged to think and a.s.sert regarding experience; but the universality of experience is not explained merely by the common nature and general laws of Intelligence, but depends also on the generality of the laws under which the trans.m.u.tations of Energy proceed.

We are now, therefore, by the aid of the doctrine of Energy, better able than before to distinguish accurately between the Ideal and the Real as contrasted elements in our experience.

My Presentment as a whole consists in the trans.m.u.tation-processes--in the sensations, feelings, perceptions, images, ideas--in short, in all that is going on at the point where (I necessarily express myself in terms of spatial relations, though in this connection these are figurative) my sentience and intelligence are developed.

My whole Presentment is, therefore, in one sense subjective, or, as some would say, ideal. For me, my Presentment is the impression produced on, the condition established in, my Consciousness in virtue of what is going on at this so-called point of contact.

What we mean, therefore, by the subjectivity or ideality of the Presentment is the aspect of energetic trans.m.u.tations when viewed as affecting my Consciousness in contrast with their obverse aspect when viewed as trans.m.u.tations in the objective system. As my Presentment, they are all subjective or ideal, and it is in this reference that Berkeley and Hume, for instance, speak of ideas of sense, such as the colour blue, the heat of the fire, the pain of a blow. These, const.i.tuting the bulk of the Presentment, they distinguish from what Berkeley called ideas of the imagination--those stimulated or originated, or, as he said, "excited," by the intelligence itself.

Whilst he contended that both cla.s.ses are ideal or subjective, in respect that they are const.i.tuents of the Presentment, the latter have an additional t.i.tle to subjectivity in respect of their origin, and const.i.tute what are called "ideas" when the word is used in contra-distinction to "sensations"--such pure ideas occurring in response to a subjective impulse.

On the other hand, there is a sense in which the Presentment is, if not real, at least actual and objective.

So far as we know, Intelligence never develops except in conjunction with an organism--that is, in vital relation with physical Energy. My Presentment is const.i.tuted by the occurrence and depends upon the continuance of the trans.m.u.tations or operations proceeding at the related point in the energetic system. Even pure ideas, though subjective not only in regard to aspect but in regard to their origin, are objective in respect that they also consist in an energetic trans.m.u.tation.

Herein lies the germ of truth to be discovered even in the unintelligent dogmatism of those philosophers who a.s.sert the absolute Reality of my Presentment, as such--not merely its actuality. It is comparatively seldom, however, either in Science or Philosophy, that we meet a thinker prepared to go as far as that. Most take refuge in a distinction between primary and secondary qualities of bodies, cla.s.sing my sensations as non-resembling secondary qualities, which they admit cannot be conceived to exist without the mind in the form in which they make up my Presentment, but reserving five or six primary qualities--solidity, extension, figure, motion, rest--which they conceive to exist independently, just as they enter into my Presentment. In point of fact, however, these so-called primary qualities are not the names of intuitions, but are abstractions or generalisations of the most general and necessary elements of my active Experience by reference to which I mentally construct my world. The trans.m.u.tations of Energy are not a never-repeated accidental kaleidoscope. They proceed according to constant, definite, measurable laws, and though subordinate variations are infinite and make up the details of my Presentment, the general laws and conditions according to which all Energy trans.m.u.tes are definite, and const.i.tute the general features or qualities of my Experience, and these are the so-called primary qualities of bodies regarded in the light of the doctrine of Energy.

The primary quality of extension, in particular, is a conception resulting from the a.s.sociation of my visual Presentment with my power of active exertion, and the delusive tendency to regard this quality as in some sense primarily and fundamentally real is due to the unconscious recognition of the fact that it is in virtue of my power, or a.s.sociation as an agent with the energetic system, that I derive a suggestion of the real world beyond the phenomena which const.i.tute my experience.

I cannot exist without some development of activity. Hence are derived my conceptions of free s.p.a.ce and of resistance between bodies. My primary sensations are the sensations of touch, and the primary impulse of thought is to relate these with my active exertions. When sight is first restored to the blind the first impulse is to regard the new sensation as a form of touch. Its intellectual suggestiveness is a development. The system or stream of trans.m.u.tations in which my volitional activity princ.i.p.ally takes part is that represented by the operation of the forces of Gravitation and Cohesion; the system which influences my visual sensations is a quite different series. The changes in this latter series, by their greater rapidity, enable me to antic.i.p.ate the other series, and for this and other reasons I employ these sensations to signalise and symbolise the trans.m.u.tations proceeding in the series with which I am more immediately related as an active and "willing" agent. All trans.m.u.tations, if they result in sensations, must do so by producing changes in the Energy of my organism, and must therefore be conditioned by the general laws which regulate the changes which occur there, or, in other words, must be contained within a self-consistent spatial condition; but the differences in the characters of visual s.p.a.ce, as it is called, and the spatial content of my activity, reflect the differences in the series of energetic trans.m.u.tations with which they are respectively connected.

We see more clearly, therefore, with the aid of the doctrine of Energy, the import of the theory of transcendental aesthetic enunciated by Kant, who first pointed out that there are elements, and those the most necessary and universal, in the sense-presentation which bear the character of ideality as fully as the most subjective efforts of our ideative activity. More particularly do we ill.u.s.trate the ideality of s.p.a.ce as a cognition precedent to experience. It is because general laws constantly operative regulate the trans.m.u.tations which const.i.tute the individual's Presentment that it is possible for him to abstract from and generalise the data of sense; and it is because the subjective process of Ideation, by which we mean our representative mental activity in its widest sense, consists also in trans.m.u.tations under the same general laws of the same portion of the energetic organism, that it is possible to frame general ideas. These general laws of organic trans.m.u.tation are the _a priori_ conditions of the necessary determination in time of all existences in the world of phenomena.

The form, therefore, of the phenomenon, in the language of Kant, is const.i.tuted by the trans.m.u.tations of the Energy immediately related to consciousness; the matter of the phenomenon is const.i.tuted by the varieties produced in these by the transmitted trans.m.u.tations from the Energy beyond--just as the musician may produce a constant variety of harmonies upon his instrument, but all must be conditioned by the relations fixed and established between the notes of which the instrument is composed. Trans.m.u.tations of the cerebral Energy may be stimulated not only from without, but by subjective impulse from within; but in either case the laws of these trans.m.u.tations are the necessary form of experience, and it is the possibility of trans.m.u.tation upon an internal and subjective impulse which makes possible the formation of synthetical judgments _a priori_. It is as if the organ were not only responsive to impressions upon its keyboard from without, but were also automotive and could originate harmonies in its own notes; and as if, moreover, it were endowed with consciousness so as to receive an intuition of both cla.s.ses of music. The former would correspond to sensations, the latter to ideas; and we might imagine such an instrument by presenting to itself its own system of notes, contriving thus to frame _a priori_ a synthetical system of these general musical laws which would const.i.tute the necessary and universal form of its whole musical experience. To complete the perhaps fantastic a.n.a.logy we must imagine the world to be one co-ordinated musical system, and our instrument to be endowed with the power of playing upon the other keyboards; of thence deriving the suggestion of the distinction between the internal and external impulses which respectively awakened harmonies within itself; and lastly, of thus at length conceiving in the spirit of science that the necessary and universal laws which it recognised as the most subjective and fundamental conditions of its own operation, at the same time regulated the activity of the entire musical universe.

How natural it would be for such an intelligent musical instrument, if unhappily endowed with common sense, to believe and a.s.sert that the real substance of the universe consisted solely of sounds. Yet how evident would it be to us from our standpoint of more absolute knowledge that the whole orchestra of sounds, although actual and quite distinct from consciousness, was still merely phenomenal, and yet withal, in its every expression, revealed the laws and structure of reality--of the system of things in themselves--a system the reality of which was dissimilar to those appearances, though all its laws and structure could be studied and derived from them.

Berkeley, therefore, erred seriously when he described the idea as a fainter sensation. Faint subjective reproductions of our sensations, as of blue, green, or the like, const.i.tute a very insignificant element in our mental furniture. We seldom pursue so far into detail the ideative effort. Severely and effectively as Berkeley criticised Locke's account of abstract ideas, the fact remains that abstraction is a primary feature of our whole conceptual system; and the abstractable elements of the sensible presentation being the necessary const.i.tuents of all ideative representation are properly denominated ideal. The one element of particularity which every idea lacks is the reference to the transmitted trans.m.u.tation to which the sensible phenomenon owes its origin. We derive such reference to the external solely from the obstructions which our free activity encounters and without which we could receive no suggestion of the non-ego, and in particular no suggestion of the dynamic element which fundamentally distinguishes things from thoughts. The empirical content of experience--the so-called secondary qualities of bodies--are often called in their subjective aspect "ideal" because the mental impression is obviously very different from the trans.m.u.tation objectively regarded. But this is to confound the ideal with the subjective, which latter term is that properly applicable both to the sensible impression and to purely mental activity. The primary qualities, being the general laws or forms of organic Energy-trans.m.u.tation, are in a higher sense ideal, for they are the necessary conditions under which both sense-presentation and ideative representation proceed. Whilst, therefore, as Kant maintained, they are the _a priori_ element in perception, they at the same time const.i.tute the laws which regulate all Energy-trans.m.u.tation within our experience both organic and extra-organic.

We hold, therefore, to the Platonic doctrine that whilst, on the one hand, the sensible is only an object of thought in so far as it partakes of the intelligible, on the other hand the idea is not only a type for the individual mind, but is partaker also of the laws which penetrate the system of things. Idealism as a Philosophy, in denying the validity of any reference of the content of the Presentment to a further existence outside of the subjective experience, has induced that wider use of the term idea which applies it to the whole actuality of experience in its subjective aspect. With the advance of Philosophy we must revert to that more ancient use of the term idea which confines its extension into the realm of the perceptual to those elements of the sensible presentation which can be reproduced by the conceptual activity of the subject, and which in a.s.serting, for instance, the ideality of s.p.a.ce, reminds us at the same time that Ideality implies not merely subjectivity, but the expression or representation also of some aspect of those laws which regulate the system of Reality.

But is not common sense right, after all? Do I really mean to say that tables, chairs, houses, mountains--the whole world of my Presentment, are to be regarded as shrivelled up and located in my brain, or in the energetic correlative of my brain? Is the whole Universe, as known to me or conceived by me, contained within a minute portion of itself--the brain? Now Science does say something very like this, and the logical difficulties of the position are very pressing. But they cannot be got over by attempting to revert to common sense, because to a.s.sert that all my conceived Universe is immediately perceived by me as it exists, would seem to involve a diffusion of my intelligence throughout s.p.a.ce which is still more inconceivable and self-contradictory. Even apart from this implication, the a.s.sumption of the Reality of the phenomenal world destroys itself. To a.s.sume the reality of so-called material particles is to lay the foundation of an argument which surely leads to the conclusion that the whole world of my consciousness is produced by and consists in motions in that certain small group of these same molecules which is a.s.sumed to make up my brain. The solution is only reached when we discover that the error lies in forgetting that the Reality which is the seat of my Presentment is itself unperceived, and that what I commonly call a body and a brain are the phenomena occurring in my Presentment, and which I a.s.sociate with such real substratum. The real substratum of my Presentment is a part of the energetic Universe, which is constantly undergoing trans.m.u.tations. Wherever such Energy is united, in an organism, with consciousness these trans.m.u.tations, as affecting and perceived by such consciousness, const.i.tute its Presentment or sense-experience; and aided by the constructive activity of thought expand, as it were, subjectively into a whole world of experience, as the electric current vibrating darkly along the narrow confines of the wire suddenly expands at the carbon point into the luminous undulations which light a city.

We admit, therefore, to the full the actuality and objectivity of the sensible presentation. We only deny that it is the real thing-in-itself.

The latter is not discovered by sense. My energetic organism is like a well-fitting garment; I do not feel it at all. I feel only changes or trans.m.u.tations taking place in it. Be not alarmed, therefore, for your common-sense world. We leave it to you intact and actual--not deducting even a single primary quality. Allowing fully for the extent to which, little suspected by you, it is a mentally constructed system, its elements are still actual and objective; they are modes of Reality; extension and the other primary qualities are qualities of these modes.

Moreover, the Ego, I, myself, as Will, as a continuously identic intelligent agent, am not given to myself immediately in my Presentment, any more than is the real object. The existence of my Ego, of my cogitant self, is an inference which I am compelled to draw from the facts of my mental activity. _Cogito, ergo sum._ Similarly, my energetic organism is the real a-logical thing-in-itself which I am compelled to postulate in order to explain my perception of physical phenomena in the light of my physical activity; _ago, ergo possum_.

We must not overlook the unique position in our Presentment occupied by the visual presentation. Its universality, simultaneousness, minute accuracy, quantifiability, etc., are such that it is really to the visual Presentment that I refer all other elements in my sense-experience. I think of them with reference to it. In connection with it I mentally construct my world. I a.s.sociate with some modification of the visual presentation the phenomena resultant upon the energetic activity of my own organism, and the other forces and potential Energies which that activity reveals and suggests. It is thus that I derive the compound idea of Body as consisting of Figure, Extension, and Solidity. The continued appearance in my visual presentation of the grey colour which I am now seeing is to me the sign of the continued persistence of that potential Energy in virtue of which I regard it as the appearance of a solid extended stone wall. Everything is referred to the visual presentation, and it is in reference to it that the mind works in constructing its world.