Chapter 6

Herein lies the germ of truth to be discovered even in the unintelligent dogmatism of those philosophers who assert 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, classing 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 transmutations 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 transmutes are definite, and constitute 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 association 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 association as an agent with the energetic system, that I derive a suggestion of the real world beyond the phenomena which constitute my experience.

I cannot exist without some development of activity. Hence are derived my conceptions of free space 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 transmutations in which my volitional activity principally 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 anticipate the other series, and for this and other reasons I employ these sensations to signalise and symbolise the transmutations proceeding in the series with which I am more immediately related as an active and "willing" agent. All transmutations, 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 Space, as it is called, and the spatial content of my activity, reflect the differences in the series of energetic transmutations 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 æsthetic 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 illustrate the ideality of Space as a cognition precedent to experience. It is because general laws constantly operative regulate the transmutations which constitute 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 transmutations 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 transmutation 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 constituted by the transmutations of the Energy immediately related to consciousness; the matter of the phenomenon is constituted by the varieties produced in these by the transmitted transmutations 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. Transmutations 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 transmutations are the necessary form of experience, and it is the possibility of transmutation 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 classes 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 constitute the necessary and universal form of its whole musical experience. To complete the perhaps fantastic analogy 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 assert 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, constitute 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 constituents of all ideative representation are properly denominated ideal. The one element of particularity which every idea lacks is the reference to the transmitted transmutation 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 transmutation 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-transmutation, 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 constitute the laws which regulate all Energy-transmutation 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 asserting, for instance, the ideality of Space, 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 assert that all my conceived Universe is immediately perceived by me as it exists, would seem to involve a diffusion of my intelligence throughout Space which is still more inconceivable and self-contradictory. Even apart from this implication, the assumption of the Reality of the phenomenal world destroys itself. To assume 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 assumed 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 associate with such real substratum. The real substratum of my Presentment is a part of the energetic Universe, which is constantly undergoing transmutations. Wherever such Energy is united, in an organism, with consciousness these transmutations, as affecting and perceived by such consciousness, constitute 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 transmutations 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 associate 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.

The whole theory of molecular action is a theory constructed in reference to the visual presentation--the reality of which, strangely, it seems to result in overthrowing. A born-blind man could never have invented the conception of atoms or molecules. This is well worth thinking over. The visual presentation is not really fundamental; and we must undo the inversion induced by its great convenience whereby we refer to it all the other elements of our sense-experience and conceive of our activity and our whole actual world by reference to the visible sign. It is in consequence of this reference to the visual that bodies are thought of as discrete units, so that it is difficult to conceive that the real thing in virtue of which we experience the perception of, say, a heap of stones, is truly more or less potential Energy--just as the continuous process of thought is very different from the disparate symbols of speech.

I habitually refer to the visual extended image as the primary basis of my idea of the world, or of any particular part of the world, such as my dining-room. Why? Simply because, for the reasons already noted, the sense of sight is the sense of universal reference. In principle it is the same habitual tendency which makes me associate every element of my world with its appropriate name. It is different in the case of other sensations. When I am absent from Niagara I do not, in thinking of it, primarily conceive of it as a roar of sound. I think of certain motions of mass which, if I were present, would occasion the subjective sensations of sound. But for the habitual tendency arising from the universal reference to the visible I would do the same in the case of the visual image. All I am necessitated to think is a real event--a real, physical, dynamical transmutation--proceeding quite independently of my perception or presence; and if I can only manage to realise that I must, for philosophical purposes, eliminate my reference to visual as well as to audible or other sensations, I will understand that all I am entitled to, and all I can, without hopeless contradiction, postulate as real thing existing independently of my perception, is a transmutation of Energy. This energy is imperceptible, unextended, unfigured, yet it is by no means a mere logical or mental necessity or associative tendency. On the contrary, it is very real. It sustains my every act. By an imperative mental necessity I am obliged, by inference from my experiences as an active and percipient agent, to postulate the energetic system in which I am involved, and with one particular centre in which I am organically related.

But we recall at this point that Science says she must still postulate Matter as the vehicle of Energy. But what does that mean except that the subject of her studies is the sensible presentation which itself consists of energy transmutation in part constantly changing but with relatively permanent and recurrent elements? These more permanent elements constitute what we call bodies. If the sensible presentation consisted exclusively of one continuous, unchanging phenomenon, Reason would never be stimulated, and Personality, Cause, Power would never have been postulated or conceived. But the transmutation is constantly "accelerated"--incessantly fluctuates and varies. Certain of these variations I recognise as related to my own volitional activity, and I am thus furnished with a key which enables me, by a sympathetic analogy, to attribute all the changes in my experience to various agents, each related to the other by the intervention of this system of physical Energy. Some of these I can further trace to the initiative of Volition of myself or other persons; others I can only recognise as integral parts of the vast energetic system of Nature, the stimulus of which I cannot follow further.

The reality of Matter is said to be proved by its indestructibility; but this characteristic can easily be resolved into (1) the indestructibility of Space and Extension which we have seen to be merely another name for the necessity or inevitable universality of the general laws and conditions of Energy transmutation, and (2) the indestructibility of the Energy to the transmutations of which we attribute the forces of Cohesion and Gravitation.

All vital activity is but a producing of changes in the stream of transmutation. We never do, nor in the nature of things do we ever try to, increase or diminish the quantity of the real Energy itself. We instinctively recognise the objective source of our physical power, and this has led some thinkers to suppose that the indestructibility of Matter is an _a priori_ datum of thought. But such a belief is quite unfounded. All it amounts to is a recognition that the destruction of Matter is _beyond our power_--a necessary consequence of the fact that we merely act upon the transmutation-process. Many a long contest between the supporters of _a priori_ and experiential knowledge can be set at rest by this view of the mediating functions of the energetic organism.

The reflections which we have thus briefly noted and illustrated open a wide field for inquiry. The scientific doctrine of Energy would seem to be pregnant with momentous consequences for Philosophy, and it is worth while for metaphysicians to devote to this subject the deepest and most deliberate thought. The results cannot easily be grasped by a mere cursory perusal of memoranda, in which we have only sketched a few salient aspects of the doctrine. We deprecate unwarrantable assurance, and are fully conscious of the difficulty of adequately expressing thought on such a theme; but we have not written rashly nor without good grounds for asking attention.

Science, it seems to us, postulates in Energy an a-logical, unextended, real thing-in-itself in terms of which the phenomena of Physics can be adequately and quantifiably stated. At the same time it furnishes Philosophy with a theory of the objectively real thing-in-itself which satisfied those necessities of thought by which we are constrained to interpret our sense-experience by a constant reference to a Reality beyond it--a necessity due to our association as Actors with an Energy beyond that which is the seat of our Presentment. Such a view avoids the incurable difficulties and contradictions involved in the theory of the reality of extended material substance, or in any theory, indeed, which asserts the reality--as presented--of the sensible presentation. Physical Reality thus conceived is consistently thinkable as co-existent with the thing-in-itself--be it ultimately Intelligence or Volition--of which our cognitive and conative existence is a manifestation. And such a doctrine, by explaining all phenomena as transmutations proceeding (according to the definite mathematical laws prevailing throughout the whole Universe of Energy) at that point in the system which is organically related to Consciousness, accounts at once for the apparent apriority and necessity of the qualities of Space, and at the same time for their evident universality and objectivity.

In a word, it would rather seem as if Science, unconscious of its pregnant possibilities, has not only formulated a theory which co-ordinates and unifies the entire fabric of physical knowledge, but has also at length furnished Philosophy with the key to that problem the solution of which has, in the words of Schopenhauer, been the main endeavour of philosophers for more than two centuries, namely, to separate by a correctly drawn line of cleavage the Ideal--that which belongs to our knowledge as such--from the Real, that which exists independently of us; and thus to determine the relation of each to the other.

To us it seems not strange that Philosophy should in the end be indebted to Science for this solution--nor should Science, in the hour of her greatest speculative victory, object too hastily to the assistance which the thinker, trained to the study of the process of thought, can render in clarifying and restating in its metaphysical aspects a theory which, if profoundly conceived, and formulated by men of science from Rumford and Davy to Stewart, Tait, and Kelvin, was partially anticipated by the metaphysician who conceived the world as will and idea.