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.
_'Conservation' of Energy._ Energy is annihilated in the using. It
emanates from a great universal centre, and at a short distance from
that centre is completely and irrecoverably dissipated. The apparent
fixity of things is purely formal--like the fixity of a water-fall,
which renews its substance every few seconds. That is the meaning
of saying that the world is in a constant state of formation and
dissolution.
Physical theorists represent energy under the figure of substance, but
they suppose it is fixed in _quantity_ though constantly undergoing
change of _form_--the scientific view, here as elsewhere, being just
the opposite of the philosophical.
Observe--say the conservationists--the case of a man raising a heavy
stone from the earth. He fatigues himself but he does not destroy
energy; he acquires command over the energy-in-position of the stone,
and in using it to crack a cocoa-nut or drive a post he receives back
his own energy undiminished in quantity.
That seems reasonable at first sight. A quantity of energy is taken
from the man and put into the stone; it is taken from the stone and
put into the driven post. To be sure, if the man undrives the post he
does not thereby disfatigue himself, as the theory would lead us to
expect--he fatigues himself the more.
The same 'law,' we are told, holds good in building a dam across a
stream and utilising the force of water to drive a mill. The energy
apparently lost in the construction is recovered in the superior ease
with which we grind our corn or saw our timber. There is a confusion
in the terminology here: to save energy that would otherwise be lost
is not identical with recovering energy that has once been used.
We make a gun, load it, and discharge a bullet against a target. What
has become of the force expended? It has been transformed into heat,
say the conservationists. And when the target and flattened bullet
have cooled down? The energy has gone to raise the general temperature
of the universe!
That is a conclusion hard to believe and impossible to verify.
But--granting that the individual explosions of a gun may be the
'conservation' of some antecedent power--how do we recover the initial
expense of the instrument? And if not recoverable, where at least
and in what form does it exist? Prior to the explosions that are
represented by heated targets and the like, energy was spent in
inventing and making the gun, making the ammunition, loading and
aiming the piece. All these were essential to the effect--and what has
become of them? Have they also gone to warm the universe?
Instead of raising a stone to a height, let us carry it along
horizontally till we feel the same degree of fatigue. If energy in
the using is merely transformed but not lost, we should now be in
possession of some power equivalent to the energy expended. But we are
not--we have nothing to show for our trouble.
If we construct a water-mill and fix it high and dry in the middle of
a plain, instead of under a fall of water, we get no return for the
energy expended. By such a law as the conservation of energy, and
with the usefulness of a properly placed mill as the measure of
compensation, we should receive an equivalent return no matter where
the mill is placed. What has _place_ to do with the action of a
universal law?
Instead of raising the stone or carrying it horizontally, let us
find it near the edge of a precipice and roll it over. There is no
proportion between the push that launched the stone, and the force it
exhibits on reaching the foot of the precipice. How is the equivalence
of energy maintained in this case? It will be replied that the force
now at work is gravitation. If so, it was gravitation that brought
down the first stone on the post--not any energy transferred from us
to the stone. The raising of the stone put us in a position to use the
force of gravity, just as climbing the precipice put us in a position
to roll the stone over the edge of it.
Such considerations as these make this 'law' incredible to me. But
when I pass from the explanation to the concrete facts, I have no
difficulty in understanding them. It is the law that is obscure--not
the facts.
There exists nothing but living minds of different degrees of energy.
We men are small beings associated with a cosmical creature whose
force is immeasurably greater than ours, and we have intelligence
enough to utilise part of this force to supplement our own. That is
the meaning of _mechanism_. Some efforts to control the cosmic forces
are profitable, but there is no transmutation of our energy into
the result, nor any necessary equivalence between the labour and
the result. We may stumble upon an available cosmic force almost by
accident--we may waste a life-time over a mechanical problem and fail
to solve it.
The utilisation of cosmic force by man is best explained by comparing
it with animal slavery. Trap a wild elephant and train him to draw and
carry--you have constructed an engine. There are of course important
differences between the two kinds of instrument, due to the enormous
disproportion between the magnitude and power of the respective
entities. In the case of the animal the whole life comes under our
control: in the case of the cosmos we can utilise only a minute
fraction of it, and that rather by putting ourselves in its way than
by making it obey us. The animal we have to feed: the cosmic being
does not draw upon us for its nourishment. We can direct the animal
through his sensibility: the cosmic sensibility appears to be beyond
our power of irritation.
Apart from these differences the general laws of the one kind of tool
are those of the other also. We have not transferred power to the
raised stone, or the coiled spring, or the loaded gun, or the embanked
river--any more than to the tamed and harnessed horse. There is no
fixed ratio between the fatigue of catching and training an animal,
and the energy saved by making him work for us. The animal's work
is not our own energy given back to us--neither is the machine's. A
plough is useless without cattle to draw it--so is a turbine without
water to drive it. When coal is burned to 'generate' electricity,
that is the cosmic equivalent of exhausting or killing one animal
to overpower or to feed another: the energy of combustion is utterly
destroyed--not transformed into the electricity.
The question can be more accurately stated and brought to a plain
issue if we use the terms and forms of dialectic.
A theory is an argument--when it is not a fallacy--and an argument,
we have seen, consists of two parts. There is the matter of fact
requiring explanation, and the antecedent knowledge which is used to
illustrate it. Of these the precedent is the more important, and it is
no valid objection to a criticism that the person who offers it
knows less about the _case_ than the theorist. The critic may be in
possession of a better precedent, which the theorist has failed to
notice, perhaps from a too exclusive attention to the case.
In the question before us the case is Mechanical or Inorganic Energy.
It is not an object, but an inference from the knowledge of our
personal mental energy. This latter is the only energy we really
perceive. But we find in objects, or associated with the perception of
them, a power capable of assisting or of opposing our efforts--hence
we conclude it is something of the same nature as our own power. We
cannot well avoid that inference, and there is no apparent reason why
we should try to avoid it.
So far science and philosophy are at one, but here they part company.
Philosophy consistently endows Nature with sentiency also, for we
never--to our certain knowledge--meet with energy without sentiency,
and we have no right to transfer one attribute without the other.
Although science is indebted to the assimilation of organic and
inorganic--Nature explained by Man--for the first notion of external
energy, no sooner is the notion formed than the argument is discarded,
and external energy is declared to be entirely destitute of an organic
and mental character. How then is it to be further explained? To what
shall it now be likened?
In the materialistic scheme all things are supposed to be resolved
into matter and force. Matter is conceived as a self-existent
substance, indestructible, &c. It is better known than force, for
material things can be directly perceived whereas force is imaginary
all the time. Under these circumstances it is natural though illogical
to treat force as a species of matter. With only two things left in
the universe, the better known of the two will be used to explain the
less known, if an explanation is considered indispensable. Force is
accordingly brought as a 'case' under matter as a 'precedent,' and
is concluded to be indestructible because matter is believed to be
indestructible; and when energy appears to be wasted the inference is
that it has simply withdrawn from view, like an object that has ceased
to be perceived and may be perceived again. That seems to be the
evolution of the scientific notion of inorganic energy.
This theorem is fallacious in two respects. There is no such matter
as science imagines. Matter is a general idea formed by the study
of material objects, which are states of consciousness excited by
noumenal contact. It is the average object--a mere affection or
formation of the observing mind. _We_ are the makers of matter.
Such an idea cannot be said to be indestructible: in a sense it is
destroyed in an individual when it is forgotten or inactive; it
would certainly be destroyed if all minds ceased to form it. Thus the
precedent in the scientific theory of force is itself false.
Then energy is not in the least like matter--either the matter of
science or that of philosophy. The energy we really know is a unique
experience--not a general idea, nor anything analogous to a phenomenal
object; so that even if the proposed precedent were true in itself, it
is not applicable to the case. To complete our knowledge of external
energy we must go back to that comparison which first suggested to us
that there is external energy, namely, the comparison of living man
with living nature.
If this is not a correct account of the derivation of the notion that
cosmic energy is indestructible, let conservationists tell us what is
the parallel on which they are arguing. Here is a blank theorem for
completion--
_x_ | is indestructible
-------------------+------------------------------
Cosmic energy is a | _it must therefore be considered
sort of _x_ | indestructible_
Matter, as we have seen, is not _x_. Human energy is not _x_. Our
individual power--so far as experience informs us--is destroyed in
the using. A day's work exhausts us, and we have to pass into the
condition called sleep to be refilled. It is sleep, not food, that
refreshes the mind. Food restores the bodily tool we have been working
with--puts a fresh edge on the chisel,--but it does not recuperate the
power that wields the tool.
What then is _x_?
_NOTE ON DREAMS_
If dreams could be studied with our waking consciousness they
would throw much light on our mental nature. Being a poor
dreamer myself I am not competent to discuss this phase of
psychology as it deserves. I think however the bulk of our
dreams can be reduced to two principles. There is first
the simple lowering of the mental energy, which weakens the
attention and dissolves the artificial categories, thus making
ordinary reason impossible. There is just enough energy left
to revive a few scattered ideas, which blend together
without control or regard to precedent. Hence the singular
combinations they sometimes form.
In the waking state the objective and intellectual
experience are generally more vivid and engrossing than the
sentimental--at least in masculine persons. (I deliberately
avoid the phrase 'masculine mind,' because there is manifestly
no sex in mind.) In dreams the converse of this is the case.
The objects we appear to see are dull and indistinct, being
ideas mistaken for objects, whilst the feelings are evidently
genuine and sometimes of great intensity. This may be
explained on the occult principle alluded to in section X.
What I understand by occult influence is this. In ordinary
experience the object is first perceived, then a sentiment may
be excited either by the same noumenon or by recollection. In
the occult procedure this order is reversed. The sentiment is
first secretly reached through the chinks of our intellectual
armour, and the intellect is not excited at all or only by
association. During sleep, when the Self is nearly exhausted
of power, it is likely we are more exposed than usual to such
influences. They invade our mind and excite our sentiment
without awaking the intellect. Whatever ideas accompany the
sentiments are generally inadequate to explain them, the stock
of available ideas being now reduced.
The conversations we hold in dreams, and the apparent
communication of knowledge that takes place, are referred by
Du Prel to a division of the ego into two or more individuals
who talk together. This notion appears to me forced and
unthinkable. Under what image is the ego figured that
it should be capable of division? In the waking state we
sometimes ask ourselves questions, and on consideration find
answers to them. We cannot recall a name, a word, or date,
though we know it is somewhere in our memory, and we pause and
search till we succeed in exciting the latent image. When this
takes place in a dream the information is assumed to come from
another individual by an easy dramatisation.
A disturbance in the body during sleep may constitute--like
all bodily suffering--a drain upon our mental energy, which
will be felt as a sentiment and may excite ideas by sympathy.
No doubt many dreams are caused in this manner.
Since our waking consciousness is highly artificial and
imaginary, we may infer that whilst dreaming we are nearer to
the natural, primitive state of the mind, but in a weakened
condition.
[Footnote 13: Ueberweg's _Logic_, Fleming's _Vocabulary_, and
Dickenson's _Dict. of Philosophy_.]
[Footnote 14: When the perspective object is accurately
measured by instrument at a known distance from the eye, and
the tactual size of the object is also known, the associative
distance can be calculated by simple proportion. Multiply the
measuring distance by the tactual size and divide the product
by the perspective size--the quotient is the distance. The
perspective size of objects is greatly exaggerated in realism.
Most people think they see a man at his full stature for a
distance of fifty yards or so. At that distance the tallest
man does not measure half an inch in height. At twenty feet a
six-foot man measures 3·6 inches--at ten feet 7·2 inches.
The people assembled in a room forty feet long range in
real--perspective--height from seven inches to two inches.
When a man is nearer than ten feet we do not perceive him in
one operation--we observe him in parts which we put together
in the mind.]
[Footnote 15: Probably Dr. Johnson meant to be humorous in his
way. The principles of Idealism are apt to excite mirth in the
unphilosophical, but the laugh is not always on the side of
the scoffer. A member of the Persian philosophical sect
called Samradians once said to his steward: 'The world and
its inhabitants have no actual existence; they have merely
an ideal being.' The servant on hearing this took the first
favourable opportunity to conceal his master's horse, and
when he was about to ride brought him an ass with the horse's
saddle. When the Samradian asked, 'Where is the horse?'--the
servant replied, 'Thou hast been thinking of an idea; there
was no horse in being.' The master answered, 'It is true';
he then mounted the ass, and after riding for some time he
suddenly dismounted and taking the saddle off the ass's back
placed it on the servant's, drawing the girths tightly; and
having forced the bridle into his mouth, he mounted him and
flogged him along vigorously. The servant in piteous accents
exclaimed, 'What is the meaning of this treatment?'--to which
the Samradian replied, 'There is no such thing as a whip; it
is merely ideal; thou art only thinking of some illusion.'
After which the steward repented and restored the horse.
Another Samradian--or perhaps the same individual--having
married the daughter of a rich man, she, on finding out
her husband's creed, proposed to have some amusement at his
expense. One day the Samradian brought in a bottle of pure
wine, which during his absence she emptied of its contents and
filled with water. When the time for taking wine arrived she
poured out water instead of wine, into a gold cup which was
her own property. The Samradian having observed, 'Thou hast
given me water instead of wine,'--she answered, 'It is only
ideal; there was no wine in existence.' The husband then said,
'Thou hast spoken well; hand me the cup that I may go to
a neighbour's house and bring it back full of wine.' He
thereupon took out the gold cup, which he sold, and instead
of it brought back an earthen vessel full of wine. The wife on
seeing this said, 'What hast thou done with the golden cup?'
He replied, 'Thou art surely thinking of some ideal
golden cup'--on which the woman greatly regretted her
witticism.--_Dabistán_, v. i. p. 199-200.]