Part 8

Our experience is, literally and exactly, a series or sequence--a flux or stream. It is composed of objects or of groups, according to the width of our attention. If we travel over a large tract of country the experience is a train of objects or views, which follow each other continuously but for interruptions in attention. If we were bound to think of things in the order in which they were experienced, we should have to imagine our topographical consciousness as a long ribbon of views, like the pictures of a panorama. Supposing we travelled hither and thither over one county, it would appear to us as a straight strip of land which might be several hundred miles long. If we again traversed the ground, but in another order, we should have another strip resembling the first, but also differing from it, and it would be necessary to keep the two from being confused in our mind. If several persons traversed the same ground but in divers directions, they would each retain a different recollection of it, and it would be extremely hard for any two of them to agree as to the order in succession of any portion of the ground traversed.

Our experience of the natural group suggests a mode of treating our geographical experience which overcomes many of these inconveniences. We find that we can traverse (either bodily or by the eye) a single landscape in a thousand directions, and retain a memory of it without any reference to these directions. What we remember is the mutual positions of the objects, not the order in which they were observed. As this greatly facilitates the memory of one group, we apply the same principle of synthesis to the succession of groups composing our geographical experience. We dismiss from our minds the order of observation, and construct instead an imaginary group of associated objects or places having mutual positions. It is imaginary, for no one has ever seen as a co-existent synthesis the objects of a county, not to speak of a country or continent. Substituting for memory of succession, a memory of position, there grows up in our mind a large co-existent image of a country on the model of a single group, which affords all the advantages as regards economy of energy which we enjoy by virtue of comprehending a natural group in one act of consciousness.

Take an instance of this economy. Suppose a man travelled from London to Oxford, then to Exeter, then to Portsmouth, then to Brighton, and afterwards desired to return to London. If he, acting on a mistaken conception of truth and disdaining instruction from others, persisted in remembering the objects perceived on his journey as--what they no doubt literally were--a continuous series, he would be unable to imagine any way of returning to London except by reversing the order of his journey. If on the other hand he carried in his mind an image of the ground in question, with the mutual position of the places, it would enable him to _foresee_ that London was to be reached by journeying northward from Brighton, in far less time and at far less cost than by returning the way he came. Thus does conceptual position, when it is correctly imagined, prove its superiority to the order of experience. And we say that the ideal picture is truer than the crude memory,--not that it is really so if natural order is a test of truth, but because it is the least onerous, which is our practical standard of truth. The only object of knowledge being the wise management of energy, that sort of knowledge must be considered truest that enables us to have the feelings we desire at the least cost. In one sense truth means the quickest and easiest way of passing from one state of consciousness to another preconceived state.

It may be objected to the above example as a valid deduction from an imaginary synthesis, that the relation of London to Brighton is now a certainty, whereas an inference can be no more than a probability. The reply is, that if a man has already traversed the route in question, it is to him an actual experience and his idea of it is ever afterwards a memory, not an inference. But until it is actually perceived it must be imaginary, and therefore slightly problematical. Although a man is convinced that others are not deceiving him in saying a place is to be reached in a certain way, he cannot be absolutely sure that he fully understands the directions given, in other words, that his image of the route corresponds to their perception of it. There probably never is exact similarity between one man's primary experience and another man's idea of it. It may even be doubted whether there is ever exact similarity between a man's own primary experience and his subsequent idea of it.

The geographical synthesis is founded on actual exploration supplemented by inference. The mutual position of some important places are determined and serve as precedents for a multitude of minor positional deductions. _A_ is twenty miles north of London, _B_ is ten miles south of London, hence _A_ is thirty miles north of _B_. The mileage is determined by imagining the synthesis developed into natural groups and measured laterally. Other scales are the time spent in travelling between the places, or the money it costs, or the distance delineated on a map.

Though the geographical concretion may be modelled on the association, we cannot treat it perspectively, for the places being purely ideal (except the one we are at), the ideal image is not liable to deterioration by weakened perception. It may suffer degradation by forgetfulness, but that has nothing to do with perspection.

_Sphericity of the Earth._ The geographical synthesis is not always formed on the pattern of a natural association. That is the first and most obvious shape to give it, and for thousands of years it appears to have answered the topographical needs of mankind. But as exploration extended it was found that the associative theory did not in some cases afford true preconception. If we travel far enough in any fixed direction we shall return to the point from which we started. This could not have been predicted from a synthesis formed on the model of a landscape. Such a return however takes place in the objects denominated spheres, and so the spherical instead of the flat form has been conceptually given to the geographical concretion. That is all that is meant by saying that the world is round. There is no world, as the mystical realist--projecting outwards his mental synthesis--imagines. There is only a scheme of spherical positions in the intellect, which facilitates the recollection of places and enables us to foresee the shortest and easiest way of reaching--_i.e._ experiencing places. The concretion is true inasmuch as the prediction is found to coincide with real experience. But that by no means implies that the places exist except when perceived in minds.

XXVI--SEQUENCE

Sequence is a series most resembling a procession of objects in a natural group (second category). It differs therefrom in that the objects cannot be seen together. It differs from concretion in that the order in which the objects appear cannot be altered, or if they are human and alterable we cease to treat them as a sequence. They no longer have the predictive value which moves us to form artificial groups of objects.

Satisfactory examples of reasoning in sequence are less numerous than might be supposed. It is a poor category for argument. Series either occur with perfect regularity, like the seasons of the year, phases of the moon, &c., and then they rapidly become mere recollections and lose the problematical character essential to a true inference, or the connection between the objects is too casual for argumentative purposes. Darwin's theory of the formation of coral atolls is a fine argument in sequence, but the application of this theory to reefs not examined by him is hardly uncertain enough to be an argument. It is the first sequential inference that is valid--the rest are foregone conclusions.

Geology supplies some good sequences. It has been noticed, for instance, that the sea leaves ripple-marks on sandy beaches, and stones with similar marks have been found at a distance from the sea; it is a valid sequential inference that the marks in the latter case have also been formed by the action of the waves. Here the difference in locality between the two compared series--the modern complete and the ancient incomplete--supplies that slight element of doubt essential to an argument.

So as regards the mode of making ancient flint tools: it has been found that tools exactly similar to the ancient can now be made with the simplest possible means, and it is a true argument to infer that the ancient implements were made by these means. The conclusion is highly probable without being infallibly certain, and that is what a dialectical conclusion ought to be.

We may admit that some of the astronomical sequences are forms of reasoning, for they were such to their first discoverers, and to minds not thoroughly conversant with them they are still in the nature of predictions that might fail of accomplishment. Political, financial, and sporting forecasts are sequential arguments, and we may also include speculations on the future states of all growing organisms and developing institutions.

_Time._ The intervals between the objects of a sequence are imagined after the model of lateral intervals in association. This is Time. Like space it is mere blanks in experience, though treated by realists as external and self-subsisting. It can be measured by reference to objects on whose sequential recurrence we have the most reliance, such as the phases of the moon, the positions of the sun in the ecliptic, the movements of the hands of a clock or the chiming of its bells. Abstract or unbounded time is called 'eternity'; like abstract space it is a refined form of nothing. Time and space are usually coupled together as if co-ordinate, but eternity is the co-ordinate of space. Time is divided sequence and would correspond to materially divided space, that is, space with objects in it at regular intervals.

Matter, space, and time are the three pillars of the realistic world. We have now seen what they are made of. Matter is a general idea compiled by ourselves from phenomenal consciousness. It is no substance--only an average. Space has even less reality. It is first the interval between two objects in association; then this interval is used metaphorically as an expression and measure of perspective decadence. Time is an application of the same associative interval to express the blanks between objects in sequence. Space and time are thus pure nullities--negatives with positive names. These three notions being exploded as entities, there remain as a residuum of true fact and the starting-point of philosophy--_minds_, their _energies_, and their _consciousness_. This is a very ancient triad.

Science constantly confounds sequence and causation. We are told that the moon _causes_ eclipses of the sun, that heat _causes_ objects to expand, that a seal _causes_ an imprint. This is a metaphor from human causation, and the expression is now so rooted in language that it would hardly be possible to introduce a more correct phraseology. Yet it is as incorrect as to say that one o'clock causes two o'clock, or that daylight causes darkness. The confusion has arisen from the fact that both sequence and causation deal with fixed inconvertible series, but only in the latter is there real power exerted to produce the effect. Material things and their apparent effects are due to a cause lying behind both.

XXVII--CAUSATION

Causation differs from all other categories in that one of its elements is mental. It is a series beginning in the mind--in this relation denominated _cause_--and developing into objective phenomena called _effects_ or an effect. The series being known by judgment we can infer similar causes from perception of similar effects. The commonest causation is the use and interpretation of language. Because we utter words from a certain motive we infer that all who utter the same words do so from the same motive. That is the reason of the intelligibility of words.

This category is peculiar from the extremely narrow range of the experience which supplies the judgments. We never perceive any mind but one--our own--and this has to supply all the judgments by which we reason concerning other minds. There is therefore no category in which correct reasoning is so difficult and so rare. No amount of experience entirely overcomes this defect, for if we are ignorant we cannot understand the wise, and if we are wise we cannot conceive the motives of the ignorant and vicious. Only those persons who are mentally very like each other are mutually comprehensible.

This category has a further peculiarity. In all the rest the inference relates to objective experience, and this being due to interaction of minds we are justified in saying that until it is perceived it has no existence. But in causation we are inferring something with reference to a mind, and this exists though we never can perceive it. We know that minds exist without perception because we know that our own exists though no one perceives us--though we are in total darkness and silence and cannot ourselves perceive our bodies. As already stated, Existence has not the same meaning when applied to objects and to minds, objects being merely temporary conditions of minds. The non-existence of inferred but unperceived objects does not follow from any defect in the faculty of inference, but depends on the essential character of objects. They are created by mutual contact of minds and cannot exist without that condition, however clearly they may be inferred and however correctly their appearance may be predicted.

Causation is confounded with sequence because both are series. Let me illustrate the difference between them by an example. I turn the stop-cock of a pipe, and water flows from the open end of the pipe. In popular and even scientific language it would be said that I caused the water to flow. But this is incorrect. All I caused was the turning of the tap; that alone was wholly due to my energy and intelligence. There followed as a sequence the outflow of water, but that was due partly to cosmic force and partly to the previous human causation (not mine) implied in making and laying down the pipe so as to utilise the cosmic force. I merely removed an obstacle that prevented the further development of the force in a particular direction. My relation to the outflow was sequence, not causation.

In observation sequence registers fixed or probable series of _objects_ without regard to their causes. It is sufficient if they occur regularly enough to justify prediction. Causation, on the other hand, pays no regard to physical connection of any sort, but seeks out the being or beings who supplied the energy producing an effect or series of effects. The speculations in causation pass quite beyond the domain of objectivity, over into the realm of true creation.

When we read that 'the succession of events is an endless chain of effects which are in their turn causes of new effects,' what is meant is sequence, and for 'cause' and 'effect' the terms 'antecedent' and 'consequent' should have been employed. Sequences may be 'chains' and may be long, but if so their links have been forged by independent causes acting _across_ the chain; as when a line of soldiers fire in succession at regular intervals, or as in the case of the moon's quarters. In these instances the objects, although forming a series, has each a cause of its own.

Certainly a causation is a series, for the cause precedes the effect. But an effect is never the cause of a succeeding effect. When this appears to be the case the explanation is that the energy was not exhausted in producing the immediate simple effect, but has produced a complicated effect in which a series may be discovered. An objective effect, being a mere flash of consciousness--a shadow on a window-blind--is incapable of causing anything.

_Analysis of Cause._ Cause is mind in action. It consists of at least energy and a sentimental _motive_--energy exerted to gratify sentiment. If the mind is intellectualised there will probably be an ideal element in the cause--in this connection called _plan_ or _design_--for the better direction of the energy. Normal human causation consists of an effort of mind directed towards the objective realisation of a plan, for the gratification of a sentiment. This is the same as WILL.

All three elements of cause may be furnished by the same individual--or any two of them--or only one. For instance, the man who wants a house supplies the motive, the architect provides the design, the builder finds the energy.

One plan may use up an indefinite number of separate stores of energy. Even in an individual the realisation of a plan exhausts the powers of millions of organic cells. A military campaign illustrates the relation of plan to power. The design may have been formed by one man, and then communicated wholly or partially to a hundred thousand, and the energies of these may be devoted to its realisation. The soldier fights with his own energy, but he is directed by his commander's idea, or so much of it as has been confided to him. The design may stretch from the commander to the soldier, but not the energy. In order that the commander should be termed the 'cause' of his private's activity, it would be necessary to eliminate the notion of exerted energy from causation, and reduce it to bare communication of design, which would be absurd.

The stretching of one design over many relays of energy has no doubt helped to confirm the notion that causation is a long chain of alternate causes and effects. The truth is that energy can act only at short range, and has to be incessantly renewed. The world is in a constant state of creation and dissolution, say the Kabbalists. It is absurd to speak of anything that existed a thousand or even a hundred years ago as the _cause_ of anything existing to-day. The design may intellectually survive, but the energy is long since dissipated. We have never more than about a day's supply of energy in store at once.

If sentiment, power, and design are supplied by different individuals, no single one of them can be called the cause of the effect. The relation of each to the result is sequence. When we have traced an effect to the mind or minds that supplied the three or the two necessary elements--supposing the design is sometimes omitted and the act what we call _instinctive_--we have obtained a complete explanation of the effect. Our curiosity is then absolutely satisfied. We have reached a true beginning.

It is the want of this thorough explanation that renders material science so disappointing. We are put off with a mere physical antecedent, which itself needs explanation as much as its consequent. It does not make the antecedent more significant to place it far back in time, for time by itself is not a cause--it is merely a name given to intervals of experience. A thing is never truly explained until we see that its production either caused pleasure to something else, or was expected to cause pleasure. Behind everything must be Sentiment.

One generation of beings is not the cause of the following generation, else the former would have perished in begetting the latter. More particularly, a man is not the _effect_ of his parents or remoter ancestors, though they stood to him in an antecedent relation. The seed of his body was taken from theirs, but his energy is his own, drawn direct from the universal source. If he resembles them corporeally it is because he previously resembled them mentally, not because the cells of his body have hereditary tendencies to take particular forms. Hence the Darwinian genealogy of men and animals--supposing it were correct--does not explain them. It is a phenomenal schematism based on or implying an erroneous assumption--that generation is causation.

Atomism--the theory of Democritus--is founded on another false view of causation. The physical parts of a thing are conceived to be the causes of the thing, and so the least conceivable particles of 'matter' are considered the first causes and true explanation of all things. This notion appears to be useful in chemistry, but it cannot be accepted as philosophy. If our senses were sharpened to perceive atoms these would simply be small phenomena, and it would still be necessary to inquire what motive and power produced them. It has been suggested that atoms may be inherently sentient and dynamic: if so they are minute animals or cells, and we are still without an explanation of their occurrence in organised masses. It is inconceivable that they should spontaneously enter into intricate combinations, whose evident purpose has only an indirect and partial bearing on their welfare.

Though advocated by men of undoubted ability, Atomism and Evolution are nothing more than forms of the ordinary realistic belief, that things are caused by their physical antecedents. The two theories are supposed to be complementary, but in reality they are contradictory. If an animal body is caused by its parents it cannot be caused by its own atoms, and _vice versâ_.

_Varieties of Causation._ Abstract causation--the category--consists of a cause and an effect. The former, as we have seen, is complicated, the latter may comprise several objects. Ignoring the complications involved in the use of an organism--which comes between the mind and the final effect--we distinguish four or five varieties of causation.

C--_e_^1--_e_^2--_e_^3--_e_^4

The cause C produces from its own energy the series of effects _e_^1--_e_^4, like the rebounding of a missile from the surface of ground or water. This may be called 'ricochet.'

Effects, each having an independent cause, sometimes form a series like a ladder:

_e_^1 _e_^2 _e_^3 _e_^4 _e_^5 | | | | | C C C C C

This is the species illustrated by a successive discharge of musketry. The causation of science consists of the _effects_ in this species considered apart from the causes.

In the 'gamut' the effects are in sequence, but they have all the same physical antecedent.

_e_^1 _e_^2 _e_^3 _e_^4 _e_^5 | | | | | +------+------+------+------+ | C

The successive acts of the same man or animal are of this kind.

In each of these species the effects are in series and may be treated as a sequence, but the cause or causes lie outside the sequence. Far from mere regularity of succession being a proof of causation between the objects, it may very easily be itself a part of the causal design.

In the 'capstan' several partial causes contribute to produce one effect, as when a gang of men manipulate one engine.

C C \ / C--_e_--C / \ C C

The 'star' or 'fountain' is the converse of the last. A single cause produces several simultaneous partial

_e_ _e_ \ / _e_--C--_e_ / \ _e_ _e_

effects, as when we strike our open hand smartly on the surface of water.

These sub-categories enable us, if we so wish, to define an energic series somewhat more precisely than by calling it a causation in the most abstract sense. Possibly also the figures delineated represent the primitive forms which energy takes when emerging into the phenomenal. The 'star' is a most characteristic form. The dendritic shape so frequently met with in objects is a star springing from a ray of a preceding star. Perhaps each vegetable bud has an independent cause; if not they are 'ricochets' from the general plant life. In the combinations of these elementary effects we have a likely explanation of plant and crystal formation.