Chapter 2   The Data of Philosophy

§39. Every thought involves a whole system of thoughts and ceases to exist if severed from its various correlatives. As we cannot isolate a single organ of a living body, and deal with it as though it had a life independent of the rest, so, from the organized structure of our cognitions, we cannot cut out one, and proceed as though it had survived the separation. The development of formless protoplasm into an embryo is a specialization of parts, the definiteness of which increases only as fast as their combination increases. Each becomes a distinguishable organ only on condition that it is bound up with others, which have simultaneously become distinguishable organs. Similarly, from the unformed material of consciousness, a developed intelligence can arise only by a process which, in making thoughts defined also makes them mutually dependent -- establishes among them certain vital connexions the destruction of which causes instant death of the thoughts. Overlooking this all-important truth, however, speculators have habitually set out with some professedly -- simple datum or data; have supposed themselves to assume nothing beyond this datum or these data; and have thereupon proceeded to prove or disprove propositions which were, by implication, already unconsciously asserted along with that which was consciously asserted.

This reasoning in a circle has resulted from the misuse of words: not that misuse commonly enlarged upon -- not the misapplication or change of meaning whence so much error arises; but a more radical and less obvious misuse. Only that thought which is directly indicated by each word has been contemplated; while numerous thoughts indirectly indicated have been left out of consideration. Because a spoken or written word can be detached from all others, it has been inadvertently assumed that the thing signified by a word can be detached from the things signified by all other words. How profoundly this error vitiates the conclusions of one who makes it, we shall quickly see on taking a case. The sceptical metaphysician, wishing his reasonings to be as rigorous as possible, says to himself -- "I will take for granted only this one thing." What now are the tacit assumptions inseparable from his avowed assumption? The resolve itself indirectly asserts that there is some other thing, or are some other things, which he might assume; for it is impossible to think of unity without thinking of a correlative duality or multiplicity. In the very act, therefore, of restricting himself, he takes in much that is professedly left out. Again, before proceeding he must give a definition of that which he assumes. Is nothing unexpressed involved in the thought of a thing as defined? There is the thought of something excluded by the definition -- there is, as before, the thought of other existence. But there is much more. Defining a thing, or setting a limit to it, implies the thought of a limit; and limit cannot be thought of apart from some notion of quantity extensive, protensive, or intensive. Further, definition is impossible unless there enters into it the thought of difference; and difference, besides being unthinkable without having two things that differ, implies the existence of other differences than the one recognized; since without them there cannot have been formed the general conception of difference. Nor is this all. As before potted out (§24) all thought involves the consciousness of likeness: the one thing avowedly postulated cannot be known absolutely as one thing, but can be known only as of such or such kind -- only as classed with other things in virtue of some common attribute. Thus, along with the single avowed datum, we have surreptitiously brought in a number of unavowed data -- existence other than that alleged, quantity, number, limit, difference, likeness, class, attribute. Now in these unacknowledged postulates, we have the outlines of a general theory; and that theory can be neither proved nor disproved by the metaphysician's argument. Insist that his symbol shall be interpreted at every step into its full meaning, with all the complementary thoughts implied by that meaning, and you find already taken for granted in the premisses that which in the conclusion is asserted or denied.

In what way, then, must Philosophy set out? The developed intelligence is framed upon certain organized and consolidated conceptions of which it cannot divest itself; and which it can no more stir without using than the body can stir without help of its limbs. In what way, then, is it possible for intelligence, striving after Philosophy, to give any account of these conceptions, and to show either their validity or their invalidity? There is but one way. Those of them which are vital, or cannot be severed from the rest without mental dissolution, must be assumed as true provisionally. The fundamental intuitions that are essential to the process of thinking, must be temporarily accepted as unquestionable: leaving the assumption of their unquestionableness to be justified by the results.

§40. How is it to be justified by the results? As any other assumption is justified -- by ascertaining that all the conclusions deducible from it correspond with the facts as directly observed -- by showing the agreement between the experiences. There is no mode of establishing the validity of any belief except that of showing its congruity with all other beliefs. If we suppose that a mass which has a certain colour and lustre is the substance called gold, how do we proceed to prove that it is gold? We represent to ourselves certain other impressions which gold produces on us, and then observe whether, under the appropriate conditions, this particular mass produces on us such impressions. We remember that gold has a high specific gravity; and if, on poising this substance on the finger, we find that its weight is great considering its bulk, we take the correspondence between the represented impression and the presented impression as further evidence that the substance is gold. Knowing that gold, unlike most metals, is insoluble in nitric acid, we imagine to ourselves a drop of nitric acid placed on the surface of this yellow, glittering, heavy substance, without causing corrosion; and when, after so placing a drop of nitric acid, no effervescence or other change follows, we hold this agreement between the anticipation and the experience to be an additional reason for thinking that the substance is gold. And if, similarly, the great malleability assessed by gold we find to be paralleled by the great malleability of this substance; if, like gold, it fuses at about 2,000 deg.; crystallizes in octahedrons; is dissolved by selenic acid; and, under all conditions, does what gold does under such conditions; the conviction that it is gold reaches what we regard as the highest certainty -- we know it to be gold in the fullest sense of knowing. For, as we here see, our whole knowledge of gold consists in nothing more than the consciousness of a definite set of impressions, standing in definite relations, disclosed under definite conditions; and if, in a present experience, the impressions, relations, and conditions, perfectly correspond with those in past experiences, the cognition has all the validity of which it is capable. So that, generalizing the statement, hypotheses, down even to those simple ones which we make from moment to moment in our acts of recognition, are verified when entire congruity is found between the states of consciousness constituting them, and certain other states of consciousness given in perception, or reflection, or both; and no other knowledge is possible for us than that which consists of the consciousness of such congruities and their correlative incongruities.

Hence Philosophy, compelled to make those fundamental assumptions without which thought is impossible, has to justify them by showing their congruity with all other dicta of consciousness. Debarred as we are from everything beyond the relative, truth, raised to its highest form, can be for us nothing more than perfect agreement, throughout the whole range of our experience, between those representations of things which we distinguish as ideal and those presentations of things which we distinguish as real. If, by discovering a proposition to be untrue, we mean nothing more than discovering a difference between a thing inferred and a thing perceived; then a body of conclusions in which no such difference anywhere occurs, must be what we mean by an entirely true body of conclusions.

And here, indeed, it becomes also obvious that, setting out with these fundamental intuitions provisionally assumed to be true, the process of proving or disproving their congruity with all other dicta of consciousness becomes the business of Philosophy; and the complete establishment of the congruity becomes the same thing as the complete unification of knowledge in which Philosophy reaches its goal.

§41. What is this datum, or rather, what are these data, which Philosophy cannot do without? Clearly one primordial datum is involved in the foregoing statement. Already by implication we have assumed that congruities and incongruities exist, and are cognizable by us. We cannot avoid accepting as true the verdict of consciousness that some manifestations are like one mother md some are unlike one another. Unless consciousness be a competent judge of the likeness and unlikeness of its states, there can never be established that congruity throughout the whole of our cognitions which constitutes Philosophy; nor can there ever be established that incongruity by which only any hypothesis, Philosophical or other, can be shown erroneous.

It is useless to say, as Sir W. Hamilton does, that "consciousness is to be presumed trustworthy until proved mendacious." It cannot be proved mendacious in this, its primordial act; since proof involves a repeated aCceptance of this primordial act. Nay more, the very thing supposed to be proved cannot be expressed without recognizing this primordial act as valid; since unless we accept the verdict of consciousness that they differ, mendacity and trustworthiness become identical. Process and product of reasoning both disappear in the absence of this assumption.

It may, indeed, be often shown that what, after careless comparison, were supposed to be like states of consciousness, are really unlike; or that what were carelessly supposed to be unlike, are really like. But how is this shown? Simply by a more careful comparison, mediately or immediately made. And what does acceptance of the revised conclusion imply? Simply that a deliberate verdict of consciousness is preferable to a rash one; or, to speak more definitely -- that a consciousness of likeness or difference which survives critical examination must be accepted in place of one that does not survive -- the very survival being itself the acceptance.

And here we get to the bottom of the matter. The permanence of a consciousness of likeness or difference, is our ultimate warrant for asserting the existence of likeness or difference; and, in fact, we mean by the existence of likeness or difference, nothing more than the permanent consciousness of it. To say that a given congruity or incongruity exists, is simply our way of saying that we invariably have a consciousness of it along with a consciousness of the compared things. We know nothing more of existence than continued manifestation.

§42. But Philosophy requires for its datum some substantive proposition. To recognize as unquestionable a certain fundamental process of thought, is not enough: we must recognize as unquestionable some fundamental product of thought, reached by this process. If Philosophy is completely -- unified knowledge -- if the unification of knowledge is to be effected only by showing that some ultimate proposition includes and consolidates all the results of experience; then, clearly, this ultimate proposition which has to be proved congruous with all others, must express a piece of knowledge, and not the validity of an act of knowing. Having assumed the trustworthiness of consciousness, we have also to assume as trustworthy some deliverance of consciousness.

What must this be? Must it not be one affirming the widest and most profound distinction which things present? An ultimate principle that is to unify all experience, must be co-extensive with all experience. That which Philosophy takes as its datum, must be an assertion of some likeness and difference to which all other likenesses and differences are secondary. If knowing is classifying, or grouping the like and separating the unlike; and if the unification of knowledge proceeds by arranging the smaller classes of like experiences within the larger, and these within the still larger; then, the proposition by which knowledge is unified, must be one specifying the antithesis between two ultimate classes of experiences, in which all others merge.

Let us consider what these classes are. In drawing the distinction between them, we cannot avoid using words which have implications wider than their meanings -- we cannot avoid arousing thoughts that imply the very distinction which it is the object of the analysis to establish. Keeping this fact in mind, we can do no more than ignore the connotations of the words, and attend only to the things they avowedly denote.

§43. Setting out from the conclusion lately reached, that all things known to us are manifestations of the Unknowable, and suppressing every hypothesis respecting that which underlies one or other order of these manifestations; we find that the manifestations, considered simply as such, are divisible into two great classes, called by some impressions and ideas, The implications of these words are apt to vitiate the reasonings of those who use the words; and it is best to avoid the risk of making unacknowledged assumptions. The term sensation, too, commonly used as the equivalent of impression, implies certain psychological theories -- tacitly, if not openly, postulates a sensitive organism and something acting upon it: and can scarcely be employed without bringing these postulates into the thoughts and including them in the inferences. Similarly, the phrase state of consciousness, as signifying either an impression or an idea, is objectionable. As we cannot think of a state without thinking of something of which it is a state, and which is capable of different states, there is involved a foregone conclusion -- an undeveloped system of metaphysics. Here, accepting the inevitable implication that the manifestations imply something manifested, our aim must be to avoid any further implications. Though we cannot exclude further implications from our thoughts, and cannot carry on our argument without tacit recognitions of them, we can at any rate refuse to recognize them in the terms with which we set out. We may do this most effectually by classing the manifestations as vivid and faint respectively. Let us consider what are the several distinctions that exist between these.

And first a few words on this most conspicuous distinction which these names imply. Manifestations that occur under the conditions called those of perception (which conditions we must separate from all hypotheses, and regard as themselves a certain group of manifestations) are ordinarily far more distinct than those which occur under the conditions known as those of reflection, or memory, or imagination, or ideation. These vivid manifestations do, indeed, sometimes differ but little from the faint ones. When it is nearly dark we may be unable to decide whether a certain manifestation belongs to the vivid order or the faint order -- whether as we say, we really see something or fancy we see it. In like manner, between a very feeble sound and the imagination of a sound, it is occasionally difficult to discriminate. But these exceptional cases are extremely rare in comparison with the enormous mass of cases in which, from instant to instant, the vivid manifestations distinguish themselves unmistakeably from the faint. Conversely, it now and then happens (though under conditions which we distinguish as abnormal) that manifestations of the faint order become so strong as to be mistaken for those of the vivid order. Ideal sights and sounds are in the insane so much intensified as to be classed with real sights and sounds -- ideal and real being here supposed to imply no other contrast than that which we are considering. These cases of illusion, as we call them, bear, however, so small a ratio to the great mass of cases, that we may safely neglect them, and Say that the relative faintness of manifestations of the second order is so marked, that we are never in doubt as to their distinctness from those of the first order. Or if we recognize the exceptional occurrence of doubt, the recognition serves but to introduce the significant fact that we have other means of deciding to which order a particular manifestation belongs, when the test of comparative vividness fails us.

Manifestations of the vivid order precede, in our experience, those of the faint order. To put the facts in historical sequence -- there is first a presented manifestation of the vivid order, and then, afterwards. may come a represented manifestation that is like it except in being much less distinct. After having those vivid manifestations known as particular places and persons and things, we can have those faint manifestations which we call recollections of the places, persons, and things, but cannot have these previously. Before tasting certain substances and smelling certain perfumes, we are without those faint manifestations called ideas of their tastes and smells; and where certain orders of the vivid manifestations are shut out (as the visible from the blind and the audible from the deaf) the corresponding faint manifestations never come into existence. It is true that special faint manifestations precede the vivid. What we call a conception of a machine may presently be followed by a vivid manifestation matching it -- a so-called actual machine. But in the first place this occurrence of the vivid manifestation after the faint is not either spontaneous or easy like that of the faint after the vivid. And in the second place, though a faint manifestation of this kind may occur before the vivid one answering to it, yet its component parts may not. Without the foregoing vivid manifestations of wheels and bars and cranks, the inventor could have no faint manifestation of his new machine. Thus it cannot be denied that the two orders of manifestations are distinguished from one another as independent and dependent.

Note next that they form concurrent series; or rather let us call them, not series, which implies linear arrangements, but heterogeneous streams or processions. These run side by side; each now broadening and now narrowing, each now threatening to obliterate its neighbour and now in turn threatened with obliteration, but neither ever quite excluding the other from their common channel. Let us watch the mutual actions of the two currents. During what we call states of activity, the vivid manifestations predominate. We simultaneously receive many and varied presentations -- a crowd of sights, sounds, resistances, tastes, odours, etc.; some groups of them changing and others temporarily fixed, but altering as we move; and when we compare in its breadth and massiveness this stream of vivid manifestations with the stream of faint ones, these last sink into relative insignificance. They never wholly disappear, however. Always along with the vivid manifestations, even in their greatest obtrusiveness, there goes a thread called thoughts constituted of the faint manifestations. Or if it be contended that the occurrence of a deafening explosion or an intense pain may for a moment exclude every idea, it must yet be admitted that such breach of continuity can never be immediately known as occurring; since the act of knowing is impossible in the absence of ideas. On the other hand, after certain vivid manifestations which we call the acts of closing the eyes and adjusting ourselves so as to enfeeble the vivid manifestations called pressures, sounds, etc., the faint manifestations become relatively predominant. The current of them, no longer obscured by the vivid current, grows distinct, and seems almost to exclude the vivid current. But the vivid manifestations, however small the current of them becomes, still continue: pressure and touch do not wholly disappear. It is only during the state termed sleep, that manifestations of the vivid order cease to be distinguishable as such, and those of the faint order come to be mistaken for them. And even of this we remain unaware till manifestations of the vivid order recur on awaking. We can never inter that manifestations of the vivid order have been absent, until they are again present; and can therefore never directly know them to be absent. Thus, of the two streams of manifestations, each preserves its continuity. As they flow side by side, either trenches on the other; but at no moment can it be said that the one has, then and there, broken through the other.

Besides this longitudinal cohesion there is a lateral cohesion, both of the vivid to the vivid and of the faint to the faint. The components of the vivid series are bound together by ties of co-existence as well as by ties of succession; and the components of the faint series are similarly bound together. Between the degrees of union in the two cases there are, however, marked and very significant differences. Let us observe them. Over a limited area of consciousness, as we name this double stream, lights and shades and colours and outlines constitute a group to which we give a certain name distinguishing it as an object; and while they continue present, these united vivid manifestations remain inseparable. So, too, is it with co-existing groups of manifestations: each persists as a special combination; and most of them preserve unchanging relations with those around. Such of them as do not -- such of them as are capable of what we call independent movements, nevertheless show us a constant connexion between certain of the manifestations they include, along with a variable connexion of others. And though after certain vivid manifestations known as a change in the conditions of perception, there is a change in the proportions among the vivid manifestations constituting any group, their cohesion continues. Turning to the faint manifestations, we see that their lateral cohesions are much less extensive, and in most cases by no means so rigorous. After the group of feelings I call closing my eyes, I can represent an object now standing in a certain place, as standing in some other place, or as absent. While I look at a blue vase, I cannot separate the vivid manifestation of blueness from the vivid manifestation of a particular shape; but, in the absence of these vivid manifestations, I can separate the faint manifestation of the shape from the faint manifestation of blueness, and replace the last by a faint manifestation of redness, and I can also change the shape and the size of the vase to any extent. It is so throughout: the faint manifestations cling together to a certain extent, but most of them may be re-arranged with facility. Indeed none of the individual faint manifestations cohere in the same indissoluble way as do the individual vivid manifestations. Though along with a faint manifestation of pressure there is always some faint manifestation of extension, yet no particular faint manifestation of extension is bound up with a particular faint manifestation of pressure. So that whereas in the vivid order the individual manifestations cohere indissolubly usually in large groups, in the faint order the individual manifestations none of them cohere indissolubly, and are most of them loosely aggregated: the only indissoluble cohesions among them being between certain of their generic forms.

While the components of each current cohere strongly with their neighbours of the same current, most of them do not cohere strongly with those of the other current. Or, more correctly, we may say that the vivid current unceasingly flows on quite undisturbed by the faint current; and that the faint current, though often largely determined by the vivid, and always to some extent carried with it, may yet maintain a substantial independence, letting the vivid current slide by. We will glance at the interactions of the two. Save in peculiar cases hereafter to be dealt with, the faint manifestations fail to modify in the slightest degree the vivid manifestations. Those vivid manifestations, which I know as components of a landscape, as surgings of the sea, as whistlings of the wind, as movements of vehicles and people, are absolutely uninfluenced by the accompanying faint manifestations which I know as my ideas. On the other hand, the current of faint manifestations is always perturbed by the vivid. Frequently it consists mainly of faint manifestations which cling to the vivid ones, and are carried with them as they pass, memories and suggestions as we call them. At other times when, as we say, absorbed in thought, the disturbance of the faint current is but superficial. The vivid manifestations drag after them such few faint manifestations only as constitute recognitions of them: to each impression adhere certain ideas which make up the interpretation of it as such or such, and sometimes not even this cohesion happens. But there meanwhile flows on a main stream of faint manifestations wholly unrelated to the vivid manifestations -- what we call a reverie, perhaps, or it may be a process of reasoning. And occasionally, during the state known as absence of mind, this current of faint manifestations so far predominates that the vivid current scarcely affects it at all. Hence, these concurrent series of manifestations, each coherent with itself longitudinally and transversely have but a partial coherence with one another. The vivid series is quite unmoved by its passing neighbour; and though the faint series is always to some extent moved by the adjacent vivid series, and is often carried bodily along with the vivid series, it may nevertheless become in great measure separate.

Yet another all-important difference has to be named. The conditions under which these two orders of manifestations occur, are unlike; and the conditions of occurrence of each order belong to itself. Whenever the immediate antecedents of vivid manifestations are traceable, they prove to be other vivid manifestations; and though we cannot say that the antecedents of the faint manifestations always lie wholly among themselves, yet the essential ones do. These statements need a good deal of explanation. Changes among the motions and sounds and aspects of what we call objects, are either changes that follow certain other motions, sounds, and aspects, or changes of which the antecedents are unapparent. Some of the vivid manifestations, however, occur only under conditions that seem of another order. Those known as colours and visible forms presuppose open eyes. But what is opening of the eyes, translated into the terms we are here using? Literally it is an occurrence of certain vivid manifestations. The preliminary idea of opening the eyes does, indeed, consist of faint manifestations, but the act of opening them consists of vivid manifestations. And the like is still more obviously the case with those movements of the eyes and the head which are followed by new groups of vivid manifestations. Similarly with the antecedents to the vivid manifestations which we distinguish as touch and pressure. All the changeable ones have for their conditions of occurrence certain vivid manifestations called sensations of muscular tension. It is true that the conditions to these conditions are manifestations of the faint order -- those ideas of muscular actions which precede muscular actions. And here arises a complication, for what is called the body, is present to us as a set of vivid manifestations connected with the faint manifestations in a special way-a way such that in it alone certain vivid manifestations are capable of being produced by faint manifestations. There must be named, too, the kindred exception furnished by the emotions -- an exception which, however, serves to enforce the general proposition. For while it is true that the emotions must be classed as vivid manifestations, which admit of being produced by the faint manifestations we call ideas; it is also true that because the conditions to their occurrence thus exist among the faint manifestations, we regard them as belonging to the same general aggregate as the faint manifestations -- do not class them with such other vivid manifestations as colours, sounds pressures, smells, etc. But omitting these peculiar vivid manifestations which we know as muscular tensions and emotions, we may say of the rest, that their antecedents are manifestations belonging to their own class. In the parallel current we find a parallel truth. Though many manifestations of the faint order are partly caused by manifestations of the vivid order, which call up memories, as we say, and suggest inferences, yet these results mainly depend on certain antecedents belonging to the faint order. A cloud drifts across the Sun, and may or may not change the current of ideas: the inference that it will rain may arise, or the previous train of thought may continue -- a difference determined by conditions among the thoughts. Again, such power as a vivid manifestation has of causing certain faint manifestations depends on the pre-existence of appropriate faint manifestations. If I have never heard a curlew, the cry which an unseen one makes, fails to produce an idea of the bird. And on remembering what various trains of thought are aroused by the same sight, we see that the occurrence of each faint manifestation chiefly depends on its relations to other faint manifestations that have gone before or co-exist.

Here we are introduced, lastly, to one of the most important of the differences between those two orders of manifestations. The conditions of occurrence are not distinguished solely by the fact that each set, when identifiable, belongs to its own order of manifestations. They are further distinguished in a very significant way. Manifestations of the faint order have traceable antecedents; can be made to occur by establishing their conditions of occurrence; and can be suppressed by establishing other conditions. But manifestations of the vivid order continually occur without previous presentation of their antecedents; and in many cases they persist or cease in such ways as to show that their antecedents are beyond control. The sensation known as a flash of lightning, breaks across the current of our thoughts absolutely without notice. The sounds from a band that strikes up in the street or from a crash of china in the next room, are not connected with any previously-present manifestations, either of the faint order or of the vivid order. Often these vivid manifestations, arising unexpectedly, persist in thrusting themselves across the current of the faint ones; which not only cannot directly affect them, but cannot even indirectly affect them. A wound produced by a blow from behind, is a vivid manifestation the conditions of occurrence of which were neither among the faint nor among the vivid; and the conditions to the persistence of which are bound up with the vivid manifestations in some unmanifested way. So that whereas in the faint order, the conditions of occurrence are always among the pre-existing or co-existing manifestations; in the vivid order, the conditions of occurrence are often neither present nor can be made present.

Let me briefly enumerate these distinctive characters. Manifestations of the one order are vivid and those of the other are faint. Those of the one order are originals, while those of the other are copies. The first form with one another a heterogeneous current that is never broken; and the second also form with one another a heterogeneous current that is never broken: or, to speak strictly, no breakage of either is ever directly known. Those of the first order cohere with one another, not only longitudinally but also transversely; as also do those of the second order with one another. Between manifestations of the first order the cohesions, both longitudinal and transverse, are indissoluble by any direct action of the second order; but between manifestations of the second order, these cohesions are most of them dissoluble with ease. While the members of each current are so coherent with one another that it cannot be broken, the two currents, running side by side, have but little coherence. The conditions under which manifestations of either order occur, themselves belong to that order; but whereas in the faint order the conditions are always present, in the vivid order they are often not present, but lie somewhere outside of the series. Seven separate characters, then, mark off these two orders of manifestations from one another.

§44. What is the meaning of this? The foregoing analysis was commenced in the belief that the proposition postulated by Philosophy, must affirm some ultimate classes of likenesses and unlikenesses, in which all other classes merge; and here we have found that all manifestations of the Unknowable are divisible into two such classes. What is the division equivalent to?

Obviously it corresponds to the division between object and Subject. This profoundest distinction among manifestations of the Unknowable, we recognize by grouping them into self and not-self. These faint manifestations, forming a continuous whole differing from the other in the quantity, quality, cohesion, and conditions of existence of its parts, we call the ego; and these vivid manifestations, bound together in relatively-immense masses, and having independent conditions of existence, we call the non-ego. Or rather, more truly -- each order of manifestations carries with it the irresistible implication of some power that manifests itself; and by the words ego and non-ego respectively, we mean the power that manifests itself in the faint forms, and the power that manifests itself in the vivid forms.

This segregation of the manifestations and coalescence of them into two distinct wholes, is in great part spontaneous, and precedes all deliberate judgments; though it is endorsed by such judgments when they come to be made. For the manifestations of each order have not simply that kind of union implied by grouping them as belonging to the same class, but they have that much more intimate union implied by cohesion, Their cohesive union exhibits itself before any acts of classing take place. So that, in truth, these two orders of manifestations are substantially self-separated and self-consolidated. The members of each, by clinging to one another and parting from their opposites, themselves form the united wholes known as object and subject. It is this self-union of their members which gives to these wholes formed of them, their individualities as wholes, and that separateness from each other which transcends judgment; and judgment merely aids by assigning to their respective classes, such manifestations as have not distinctly united themselves with the rest of their kind.

One further perpetually-repeated act of judgment there is, indeed, which strengthens this fundamental antithesis, and gives a vast extension to one term of it. We continually learn that while the conditions of occurrence of faint manifestations are always to be found, the conditions of occurrence of vivid manifestations are often not to be found. We also continually learn that vivid manifestations which have no perceivable antecedents among the vivid manifestations, are like certain preceding ones which had perceivable antecedents among the vivid manifestations. Junction of these two experiences produces the irresistible belief that some vivid manifestations have conditions of occurrence existing out of the current of vivid manifestations -- existing as potential vivid manifestations capable of becoming actual. And so we are made conscious of an indefinitely-extended region of power or being, not merely separate from the current of faint manifestations constituting the phenomenal ego, but lying beyond the current of vivid manifestations constituting the immediately-present portion of the phenomenal non-ego.

§45. In a very imperfect way, passing over objections and omitting needful explanations, I have thus indicated the nature and justification of that fundamental belief which Philosophy requires as a datum. I might, indeed, safely have assumed this ultimate truth; which Common Sense asserts, which every step in Science takes for granted, and which no metaphysician ever for a moment succeeded in expelling from consciousness. But as all that follows proceeds upon this postulate, it seemed desirable briefly to show its warrant, with the view of shutting out criticisms which might else be made. It seemed desirable to prove that this deepest cognition is neither, as the idealist asserts, an illusion, nor as the sceptic thinks, of doubtful worth, nor as is held by the natural realist, an inexplicable intuition; but that it is a legitimate deliverance of consciousness elaborating its materials after the laws of its normal action. While, in order of time, the establishment of this distinction precedes all reasoning; and while, running through our mental structure as it does, we are debarred from reasoning about it without taking for granted its existence; analysis nevertheless enables us to justify the assertion of its existence, by showing that it is also the outcome of a primary classification based on accumulated likenesses and accumulated differences. In other words -- Reasoning, which is itself but a formation of cohesions among manifestations, here strengthens, by the cohesions it forms, the cohesions which it finds already existing.

Before proceeding a further preliminary is needed. The manifestations of the Unknowable, separated into the two divisions of self and not-self, are re-divisible into certain most general forms, the reality of which Science, as well as Common Sense, from moment to moment assumes. In the chapter on "Ultimate Scientific Ideas," it was shown that we know nothing of these forms, considered t themselves. As, nevertheless, we must continue to use the words signifying them, it is needful to say what interpretations are to be put on these words.

Chapter 3   Space, Time, Matter, Motion, and Force

§46. That sceptical state of mind which the criticism of Philosophy usually produce, is, in great measure, caused by the misinterpretation of words. These have by association acquired meanings quite different from those given to them in philosophical discussion; and the ordinary meanings being unavoidably suggested, there results more or less of that dream-like illusion which is so incongruous with our instinctive convictions. The word phenomenon and its equivalent word appearance, are in great part to blame for this. In ordinary speech these always imply visual perceptions. Habit almost, if not quite, disables us from thinking of appearance except as something seen; and though phenomenon has a more generalized meaning, yet we cannot rid it of associations with appearance. When, therefore, Philosophy proves that our knowledge of the external world can be but phenomenal -- when it concludes that the things of which we are conscious are appearances; it inevitably suggests an illusiveness like that to which our visual perceptions are so liable. Good pictures show us that the aspects of things may be very nearly simulated by colours on canvas. The looking-glass distinctly proves how deceptive is sight when unverified by touch; as does also the apparent bend in a straight stick inclined in the water. And the cases in which we think we see something which we do not see, further shake our faith in vision. So that the implication of uncertainty has infected the very word appearance. Hence, Philosophy, by giving it an extended meaning, leads us to think of all our senses as deceiving us in the same way that our eyes do; and so makes us feel ourselves in a world of phantasms. Had phenomenon and appearance no such misleading associations, little, if any, of this mental confusion would result. Or if, when discussing the nature of our knowledge, we always thought of tactual impressions instead of visual impressions -- if instead of the perceptions of objects yielded by our eyes we always insisted upon thinking of the perceptions yielded by our hands, the idea of unreality would in large measure disappear. Metaphysical criticism would then have merely the effect of proving to us that feelings of touch and pressure produced by an object give us no knowledge of its nature, at the same time that the criticism would by implication admit that there was a something which produced these feelings. It would prove to us that our knowledge consists simply of the effects wrought on our consciousness, and that the causes of those effects remain unknown; but it would not in doing this tend in any degree to disprove the existence of such causes: all its arguments tacitly taking them for granted. And when the two were always thought of in this immediate relation, there would be little danger of falling into the insanities of idealism.

Such danger as might remain, would disappear on making a further verbal correction. We increase the seeming unreality of that phenomenal existence which we can alone know; by contrasting it with a noumenal existence which we imagine would, if we could know it, be more truly real to us. But we delude ourselves with a verbal fiction. What is the meaning of the word real? In the interpretation given to it, the discussions of philosophy retain one element of the vulgar conception of things while they reject the rest, and create confusion by the inconsistency. The peasant, on contemplating an object, does not regard that which he is conscious of as something in himself, but believes it to be the external object itself: to him the appearance and the reality are one and the same thing. The metaphysician, however, while his words imply belief in a reality sees that consciousness cannot embrace it, but only the appearance of it; and so he transfers the appearance into consciousness and leaves the reality outside. This reality left outside, he continues to think of much in the same way that the peasant thinks of the appearance. The realness ascribed to it is constantly spoken of as though it were known apart from all acts of consciousness. It seems to be forgotten that the idea of reality can be nothing more than some mode of consciousness; and that the question to be considered is -- What is the relation between this mode and other modes?

By reality we mean persistence in consciousness: a persistence which is either unconditional, as our consciousness of space, or which is conditional, as our consciousness of a body while grasping it. The real, as we conceive it, is distinguished solely by the test of persistence; for by this test we separate it from what we call the unreal. Between a person standing before us and the idea of such a person, we discriminate by our ability to expel the idea from consciousness and our inability, while looking at him, to expel the person from consciousness. And when in doubt as to the trustworthiness of some impression made on our eyes in the dusk, we settle the matter by observing whether the impression persists on closer inspection; and we predicate reality if the persistence is complete. How truly persistence is what we mean by reality, is shown in the fact that when, after criticism has proved that the real as presented in perception is not the objectively real, the vague consciousness which we retain of the objectively real, is of something which persists absolutely, under all changes of mode, form, or appearance. And the fact that we cannot form even an indefinite notion of the absolutely real, except as the absolutely persistent, implies that persistence is our ultimate test of the real whether as existing under its unknown form or under the form known to us.

Consequently, the result must be the same to us whether that which we perceive be the Unknowable itself, or an effect invariably wrought on us by the Unknowable. If, under certain conditions furnished by our constitutions, some Power of which the nature is beyond conception, always produces a certain mode of consciousness -- if this mode of consciousness is as persistent as would be this Power were it in consciousness; the reality will be to consciousness as complete in the one case as in the other. Were Unconditioned Being itself present in thought, it could but be persistent; and if, instead, there is Being conditioned by the forms of thought, but no less persistent, it must be to us no less real.

Hence there may be drawn these conclusions: -- First, that we have an indefinite consciousness of an absolute reality transcending relations, which is produced by the absolute persistence in us of something which survives all changes of relation. Second, that we have a definite consciousness of relative reality, which unceasingly persists in us under one or other of its forms, and under each form so long as the conditions of presentation are fulfilled; and that the relative reality, being thus continuously persistent in us, is as real to us as would be the absolute reality could it be immediately known. Third, that thought being possible only under relation, the relative reality can be conceived as such only in connexion with an absolute reality; and the connexion between the two being absolutely persistent in our consciousness, is real in the same sense as the terms it unites are real.

Thus then we may resume, with entire confidence, those realistic conceptions which Philosophy at first sight seems to dissipate. Though reality under the forms of our consciousness is but a conditioned effect of the absolute reality, yet this conditioned effect standing in indissoluble relation with its unconditioned cause, and being equally persistent with it so long as the conditions persist, is, to the consciousness supplying those conditions, equally real. Much as our visual perceptions, though merely symbols found to be the equivalents of tactual perceptions, are yet so identified with those tactual perceptions that we appear actually to see the solidity and hardness which we do but infer, and thus conceive as solid objects what are only the signs of solid objects; so, on a higher stage, do we deal with these relative realities as though they were the actual existences instead of effects of the actual existences. And we may legitimately continue so to deal with them as long as the conclusions to which they help us are understood as relative and not absolute.

This general conclusion it now remains to interpret specifically in its application to each of our ultimate scientific ideas.

§47(*) <fn* For the psychological conclusions briefly set forth in this section and the three sections following it, the justification will be found in the writer's Principles of Psychology.> We think in relations. We have seen (Chap. iii. Part I) that ultimate modes of being cannot be known or conceived as they exist in themselves; that is, out of relation to our consciousness. We have seen, by analyzing the product of thought, that it always consists of relations, and cannot include anything deeper than the most general of these. On analyzing the process of thought, we found that cognition of the Absolute is impossible, because it presents neither relation nor its elements -- difference and likeness. And lastly, it was shown that though by the relativity of our thought we are eternally debarred from knowing or conceiving Absolute Being; yet that this very relativity of our thought, necessitates that vague consciousness of Absolute Being which no mental effort can suppress. That relation is the universal form of thought, is thus a truth which all kinds of demonstration unite in proving. By the transcendentalists, certain other elements of consciousness are regarded as forms of thought, or more strictly of intuition, which is the ultimate component of thought. While relation would of necessity be admitted by them to be a universal mental form, they would class with it two others as also universal. Were their doctrine otherwise tenable, however, it must still be rejected if such alleged further forms are interpretable as generated by the primary form. If we think in relations, and if relations have certain universal forms, it is manifest that such universal forms of relations will become universal forms of consciousness. And if these further universal forms are thus explicable, it is superfluous, and therefore unphilosophical, to assign them an independent origin. Now relations are of two orders -- relations of sequence, and relations of coexistence; of which the one is original and the other derived. The relation of sequence is given in every change of consciousness. The relation of co-existence, which cannot be originally given in a consciousness of which the states are serial, becomes distinguished only when it is found that certain relations of sequence have their terms presented in consciousness in either order with equal facility; while the others are presented only in one order. Relations of which the terms are not reversible, become recognized as sequences proper; while relations of which the terms occur indifferently in both directions, become recognized as co-existences. Endless experiences, which from moment to moment present both orders of these relations, render the distinction between them perfectly definite; and at the same time generate an abstract conception of each. The abstract of all sequences is Time. The abstract of all co-existences is Space. From the fact that in thought, Time is inseparable from sequence, and Space from co-existence, we do not here infer that Time and Space are original forms of consciousness under which sequences and co-existences are known; but we infer that our conceptions of Time and Space are generated, as other abstracts are generated from other concretes: the only difference being that the organization of experiences has, in these cases, been going on throughout the entire evolution of intelligence.

This synthesis is confirmed by analysis. Our consciousness of Space is a consciousness of co-existent Positions. A portion of space can be conceived only by representing its limits as co-existing in certain relative Positions; and each of its imagined boundaries, be it line or plane, can be thought of in no other way than as made up of co-existent positions in close proximity And since a position is not an entity -- since the congeries of positions which constitute any conceived portion of space, and mark its bounds, are not sensible existences; it follows that the co-existent positions which make up our consciousness of Space are not co-existences in the full sense of the word (which implies realities as their terms), but are the blank forms of co-existences, left behind when the realities are absent; that is, are the abstracts of co-existences. The experiences out of which, during the evolution of intelligence, this abstract of all co-existences has been generated, are experiences of individual positions ascertained by touch; and each of such experiences involves the resistance of an object touched, and the muscular tensions which measure this resistance. By countless unlike muscular adjustments, involving unlike muscular tensions, different resisting positions are disclosed; and these, as they can be experienced in one order as readily as another, we regard as co-existing. But since, under other circumstances, the same muscular adjustments do not produce contacts with resisting positions, there result the same states of consciousness minus the resistances -- blank forms of co-existence from which the co-existent objects before experienced are absent. And from a building up of these, too elaborate to be here detailed, results that abstract of all relations of co-existence which we call Space. It remains only to point out, as a truth hereafter to be recalled, that the experiences from which the consciousness of Space arises, are experiences of force, A plexus of muscular forces we ourselves exercise, constitutes the index of each position as originally disclosed to us; and the resistance which makes us aware of something existing in that position, is an equivalent of the pressure we consciously exert. Thus, experiences of forces variously correlated, are those from which our consciousness of Space is abstracted.

Our Space-consciousness being thus shown to be purely relative, what are we to say of that which causes it? Is there an absolute Space which relative Space in some sort represents? Is Space in itself a form or condition of absolute existence, producing in our minds a corresponding form or condition of relative existence? These are unanswerable questions. Our conception of Space is produced by some mode of the Unknowable; and the complete unchangeableness of our conception of it simply implies a complete uniformity in the effects wrought by this mode of the Unknowable upon us. But therefore to call it a necessary mode of the Unknowable is illegitimate. All we can assert is that Space is a relative reality; that our consciousness of this unchanging relative reality implies an absolute reality equally unchanging in so far as we are concerned; and that the relative reality may be unhesitatingly accepted in thought as a valid basis for our reasonings; which, when rightly carried on, will bring us to truths that have a like relative reality -- the only truths which concern us or can possibly be known to us.

Concerning Time, relative and absolute, a parallel argument leads to parallel conclusions. These are too obvious to need specifying in detail.

§48. Our conception of Matter, reduced to its simplest shape, is that of co-existent positions that offer resistance; as contrasted with our conception of Space, in which the co-existent positions offer no resistance. We think of Body as bounded by surfaces that resist, and as made up throughout of parts that resist. Mentally abstract the co-existent resistances, and the consciousness of Body disappears, leaving behind it the consciousness of Space. And since the group of co-existing resistant positions gives us impressions of resistance whether we touch its near, its remote, its right, or its left side; it results that as different muscular adjustments indicate different co-existences, we are obliged to conceive every portion of matter as containing more than one resistant position -- that is, as occupying Space. Hence the necessity we are under of representing to ourselves the ultimate elements of Matter as being at once extended and resistant: this being the universal form of our sensible experiences of Matter, becomes the form which our conception of it cannot transcend, however minute the fragments which imaginary subdivisions produce. Of these two inseparable elements, the resistance is Primary and the extension secondary. Occupied extension, or Body, being distinguished in consciousness from unoccupied extension, or Space, by its resistance, this attribute must clearly have precedence in the genesis of the idea. If, as was argued in the last section, the experiences, mainly ancestral, from which our consciousness of Space is abstracted, can be received only through impressions of resistance made on the organism; the implication is, that experiences of resistance being those from which the conception of Space is generated, the resistance-attribute of Matter must be regarded as primordial and the space-attribute as derivative. Whence it becomes clear that our experiences of force, are those out of which the idea of Matter is built. Matter as opposing our muscular energies, being immediately present to consciousness in terms of force; and its occupancy of Space being known by an abstract of experiences originally given in terms of force; it follows that forces, standing in certain correlations, form the whole content of our idea of Matter.

Such being our cognition of the relative reality, what are we to say of the absolute reality? We can only say that it is some mode of the Unknowable, related to the Matter we know as cause to effect. The relativity of our cognition of Matter is shown alike by the above analysis, and by the contradictions which are evolved when we deal with the cognition as an absolute one (§16). But. as we have lately seen, though known to us only under relation, Matter is as real in the true sense of that word, as it would be could we know it out of relation; and further, the relative reality which we know as Matter, is necessarily represented to the mind as standing in a persistent or real relation to the absolute reality. We may therefore deliver ourselves over, without hesitation, to those terms of thought which experience has organized in us. We need not in our physical, chemical, or other researches, refrain from dealing with Matter as made up of extended and resistant atoms; for this conception, necessarily resulting from our experiences of Matter, is not less legitimate than the conception of aggregate masses as extended and resistant. The atomic hypothesis, and the kindred hypothesis of an all-pervading ether consisting of units, are simply developments of those universal forms which the actions of the Unknowable have wrought in us. The conclusions logically worked out by their aid are sure to be in harmony with all others which these same forms involve, and will have a relative truth that is equally complete.

§49. The conception of Motion, as presented or represented in the developed consciousness, involves the conceptions of Space, of Time, and of Matter. A something perceived; a series of positions occupied by it in succession; and a group of co-existent positions united in thought with the successive ones -- these are the constituents of the idea. And since, as we have seen, these are severally elaborated from experiences of force as given in certain correlations, it follows that from a further synthesis of such experiences, the idea of Motion is also elaborated. A certain other element in the idea, which is in truth its fundamental element (namely, the necessity which the moving body is under to go on changing its position), results immediately from the earliest experiences of force. Movements of different parts of the organism in relation to one another, are the first presented in consciousness. These, produced by the actions of the muscles, entail reactions On consciousness in the shape of sensations of muscular tension. Consequently, each stretching-out or drawing-in of a limb, is originally known as a series of muscular tensions, varying as the position of the limb changes. And this rudimentary consciousness of Motion, consisting of serial impressions of force, becomes inseparably united with the consciousnesses of Space and Time as fast as these are abstracted from other impressions of force. Or rather, out of this primitive conception of Motion, the adult conception of it is developed simultaneously with the development of the conceptions of Space and Time: all three being evolved from the more multiplied and varied impressions of muscular tension and objective resistance.

That this relative reality answers to some absolute reality it is needful only for form's sake to assert. What has been said above, respecting the Unknown Cause which produces in us the effects called Matter, Space, and Time, will apply, on simply changing the terms, to Motion.

§§ 50, 51. We come down, then, finally to Force, as the ultimate of ultimates. Though Space, Time, Matter, and Motion, are apparently all necessary data of intelligence, yet a psychological analysis (here indicated only in rude outline) shows us that these are either built up of, or abstracted from, experiences of Force. Matter and Motion as we know them are concretes built up from the contents of various mental relations; while Space and Time are abstracts of the forms of these various relations. Deeper down than these, however, are the primordial experiences of Force. A single impression of force is manifestly receivable by a sentient being devoid of mental forms. Grant but sensibility, with no established power of thought, and a force producing some nervous change, will still be presentable at the supposed seat of sensation. Though no single impression of force so received, could itself produce a consciousness (which implies relations between different states), yet a multiplication of such impressions, differing in kind and degree, would give the materials for the establishment of relations, that is, of thought. And if such relations differed in their forms as well as in their contents, the impressions of such forms would be organized simultaneously with the impressions they contained. It needs but to remember that consciousness consists of changes, to see that the ultimate datum of consciousness must be that of which change is the manifestation; and that thus the force by which we ourselves produce changes, and which serves to symbolize the cause of changes in general, is the final disclosure of analysis.

That this undecomposable mode of consciousness into which all other modes may be decomposed, cannot be itself the Power manifested to us through phenomena, has been already proved (§18). We saw that to assume identity of nature between the cause of changes as it exists absolutely, and that cause of change of which we are conscious in our own muscular efforts, betrays us into alternate impossibilities of thought. Force, as we know it, can be regarded only as a conditioned effect of the Unconditioned Cause -- as the relative reality indicating to us an Absolute Reality by which it is immediately produced.