OBJECTS
The ensuing lecture is concerned with the theory of objects. Objects are
elements in nature which do not pass. The awareness of an object as some
factor not sharing in the passage of nature is what I call
'recognition.' It is impossible to recognise an event, because an event
is essentially distinct from every other event. Recognition is an
awareness of sameness. But to call recognition an awareness of sameness
implies an intellectual act of comparison accompanied with judgment. I
use recognition for the non-intellectual relation of sense-awareness
which connects the mind with a factor of nature without passage. On the
intellectual side of the mind's experience there are comparisons of
things recognised and consequent judgments of sameness or diversity.
Probably 'sense-recognition' would be a better term for what I mean by
'recognition.' I have chosen the simpler term because I think that I
shall be able to avoid the use of 'recognition' in any other meaning
than that of 'sense-recognition.' I am quite willing to believe that
recognition, in my sense of the term, is merely an ideal limit, and that
there is in fact no recognition without intellectual accompaniments of
comparison and judgment. But recognition is that relation of the mind to
nature which provides the material for the intellectual activity.
An object is an ingredient in the character of some event. In fact the
character of an event is nothing but the objects which are ingredient in
it and the ways in which those objects make their ingression into the
event. Thus the theory of objects is the theory of the comparison of
events. Events are only comparable because they body forth permanences.
We are comparing objects in events whenever we can say, 'There it is
again.' Objects are the elements in nature which can 'be again.'
Sometimes permanences can be proved to exist which evade recognition in
the sense in which I am using that term. The permanences which evade
recognition appear to us as abstract properties either of events or of
objects. All the same they are there for recognition although
undiscriminated in our sense-awareness. The demarcation of events, the
splitting of nature up into parts is effected by the objects which we
recognise as their ingredients. The discrimination of nature is the
recognition of objects amid passing events. It is a compound of the
awareness of the passage of nature, of the consequent partition of
nature, and of the definition of certain parts of nature by the modes of
the ingression of objects into them.
You may have noticed that I am using the term 'ingression' to denote the
general relation of objects to events. The ingression of an object into
an event is the way the character of the event shapes itself in virtue
of the being of the object. Namely the event is what it is, because the
object is what it is; and when I am thinking of this modification of the
event by the object, I call the relation between the two 'the ingression
of the object into the event.' It is equally true to say that objects
are what they are because events are what they are. Nature is such that
there can be no events and no objects without the ingression of objects
into events. Although there are events such that the ingredient objects
evade our recognition. These are the events in empty space. Such events
are only analysed for us by the intellectual probing of science.
Ingression is a relation which has various modes. There are obviously
very various kinds of objects; and no one kind of object can have the
same sort of relations to events as objects of another kind can have. We
shall have to analyse out some of the different modes of ingression
which different kinds of objects have into events.
But even if we stick to one and the same kind of objects, an object of
that kind has different modes of ingression into different events.
Science and philosophy have been apt to entangle themselves in a
simple-minded theory that an object is at one place at any definite
time, and is in no sense anywhere else. This is in fact the attitude of
common sense thought, though it is not the attitude of language which is
naively expressing the facts of experience. Every other sentence in a
work of literature which is endeavouring truly to interpret the facts of
experience expresses differences in surrounding events due to the
presence of some object. An object is ingredient throughout its
neighbourhood, and its neighbourhood is indefinite. Also the
modification of events by ingression is susceptible of quantitative
differences. Finally therefore we are driven to admit that each object
is in some sense ingredient throughout nature; though its ingression may
be quantitatively irrelevant in the expression of our individual
experiences.
This admission is not new either in philosophy or science. It is
obviously a necessary axiom for those philosophers who insist that
reality is a system. In these lectures we are keeping off the profound
and vexed question as to what we mean by 'reality.' I am maintaining the
humbler thesis that nature is a system. But I suppose that in this case
the less follows from the greater, and that I may claim the support of
these philosophers. The same doctrine is essentially interwoven in all
modern physical speculation. As long ago as 1847 Faraday in a paper in
the _Philosophical Magazine_ remarked that his theory of tubes of force
implies that in a sense an electric charge is everywhere. The
modification of the electromagnetic field at every point of space at
each instant owing to the past history of each electron is another way
of stating the same fact. We can however illustrate the doctrine by the
more familiar facts of life without recourse to the abstruse
speculations of theoretical physics.
The waves as they roll on to the Cornish coast tell of a gale in
mid-Atlantic; and our dinner witnesses to the ingression of the cook
into the dining room. It is evident that the ingression of objects into
events includes the theory of causation. I prefer to neglect this aspect
of ingression, because causation raises the memory of discussions based
upon theories of nature which are alien to my own. Also I think that
some new light may be thrown on the subject by viewing it in this fresh
aspect.
The examples which I have given of the ingression of objects into events
remind us that ingression takes a peculiar form in the case of some
events; in a sense, it is a more concentrated form. For example, the
electron has a certain position in space and a certain shape. Perhaps it
is an extremely small sphere in a certain test-tube. The storm is a
gale situated in mid-Atlantic with a certain latitude and longitude, and
the cook is in the kitchen. I will call this special form of ingression
the 'relation of situation'; also, by a double use of the word
'situation,' I will call the event in which an object is situated 'the
situation of the object.' Thus a situation is an event which is a
relatum in the relation of situation. Now our first impression is that
at last we have come to the simple plain fact of where the object really
is; and that the vaguer relation which I call ingression should not be
muddled up with the relation of situation, as if including it as a
particular case. It seems so obvious that any object is in such and such
a position, and that it is influencing other events in a totally
different sense. Namely, in a sense an object is the character of the
event which is its situation, but it only influences the character of
other events. Accordingly the relations of situation and influencing are
not generally the same sort of relation, and should not be subsumed
under the same term 'ingression.' I believe that this notion is a
mistake, and that it is impossible to draw a clear distinction between
the two relations.
For example, Where was your toothache? You went to a dentist and pointed
out the tooth to him. He pronounced it perfectly sound, and cured you by
stopping another tooth. Which tooth was the situation of the toothache?
Again, a man has an arm amputated, and experiences sensations in the
hand which he has lost. The situation of the imaginary hand is in fact
merely thin air. You look into a mirror and see a fire. The flames that
you see are situated behind the mirror. Again at night you watch the
sky; if some of the stars had vanished from existence hours ago, you
would not be any the wiser. Even the situations of the planets differ
from those which science would assign to them.
Anyhow you are tempted to exclaim, the cook is in the kitchen. If you
mean her mind, I will not agree with you on the point; for I am only
talking of nature. Let us think only of her bodily presence. What do you
mean by this notion? We confine ourselves to typical manifestations of
it. You can see her, touch her, and hear her. But the examples which I
have given you show that the notions of the situations of what you see,
what you touch, and what you hear are not so sharply separated out as to
defy further questioning. You cannot cling to the idea that we have two
sets of experiences of nature, one of primary qualities which belong to
the objects perceived, and one of secondary qualities which are the
products of our mental excitements. All we know of nature is in the same
boat, to sink or swim together. The constructions of science are merely
expositions of the characters of things perceived. Accordingly to affirm
that the cook is a certain dance of molecules and electrons is merely to
affirm that the things about her which are perceivable have certain
characters. The situations of the perceived manifestations of her bodily
presence have only a very general relation to the situations of the
molecules, to be determined by discussion of the circumstances of
perception.
In discussing the relations of situation in particular and of ingression
in general, the first requisite is to note that objects are of radically
different types. For each type 'situation' and 'ingression' have their
own special meanings which are different from their meanings for other
types, though connexions can be pointed out. It is necessary therefore
in discussing them to determine what type of objects are under
consideration. There are, I think, an indefinite number of types of
objects. Happily we need not think of them all. The idea of situation
has its peculiar importance in reference to three types of objects which
I call sense-objects, perceptual objects and scientific objects. The
suitability of these names for the three types is of minor importance,
so long as I can succeed in explaining what I mean by them.
These three types form an ascending hierarchy, of which each member
presupposes the type below. The base of the hierarchy is formed by the
sense-objects. These objects do not presuppose any other type of
objects. A sense-object is a factor of nature posited by sense-awareness
which (i), in that it is an object, does not share in the passage of
nature and (ii) is not a relation between other factors of nature. It
will of course be a relatum in relations which also implicate other
factors of nature. But it is always a relatum and never the relation
itself. Examples of sense-objects are a particular sort of colour, say
Cambridge blue, or a particular sort of sound, or a particular sort of
smell, or a particular sort of feeling. I am not talking of a particular
patch of blue as seen during a particular second of time at a definite
date. Such a patch is an event where Cambridge blue is situated.
Similarly I am not talking of any particular concert-room as filled with
the note. I mean the note itself and not the patch of volume filled by
the sound for a tenth of a second. It is natural for us to think of the
note in itself, but in the case of colour we are apt to think of it
merely as a property of the patch. No one thinks of the note as a
property of the concert-room. We see the blue and we hear the note. Both
the blue and the note are immediately posited by the discrimination of
sense-awareness which relates the mind to nature. The blue is posited as
in nature related to other factors in nature. In particular it is
posited as in the relation of being situated in the event which is its
situation.
The difficulties which cluster around the relation of situation arise
from the obstinate refusal of philosophers to take seriously the
ultimate fact of multiple relations. By a multiple relation I mean a
relation which in any concrete instance of its occurrence necessarily
involves more than two relata. For example, when John likes Thomas there
are only two relata, John and Thomas. But when John gives that book to
Thomas there are three relata, John, that book, and Thomas.
Some schools of philosophy, under the influence of the Aristotelian
logic and the Aristotelian philosophy, endeavour to get on without
admitting any relations at all except that of substance and attribute.
Namely all apparent relations are to be resolvable into the concurrent
existence of substances with contrasted attributes. It is fairly obvious
that the Leibnizian monadology is the necessary outcome of any such
philosophy. If you dislike pluralism, there will be only one monad.
Other schools of philosophy admit relations but obstinately refuse to
contemplate relations with more than two relata. I do not think that
this limitation is based on any set purpose or theory. It merely arises
from the fact that more complicated relations are a bother to people
without adequate mathematical training, when they are admitted into the
reasoning.
I must repeat that we have nothing to do in these lectures with the
ultimate character of reality. It is quite possible that in the true
philosophy of reality there are only individual substances with
attributes, or that there are only relations with pairs of relata. I do
not believe that such is the case; but I am not concerned to argue about
it now. Our theme is Nature. So long as we confine ourselves to the
factors posited in the sense-awareness of nature, it seems to me that
there certainly are instances of multiple relations between these
factors, and that the relation of situation for sense-objects is one
example of such multiple relations.
Consider a blue coat, a flannel coat of Cambridge blue belonging to some
athlete. The coat itself is a perceptual object and its situation is not
what I am talking about. We are talking of someone's definite
sense-awareness of Cambridge blue as situated in some event of nature.
He may be looking at the coat directly. He then sees Cambridge blue as
situated practically in the same event as the coat at that instant. It
is true that the blue which he sees is due to light which left the coat
some inconceivably small fraction of a second before. This difference
would be important if he were looking at a star whose colour was
Cambridge blue. The star might have ceased to exist days ago, or even
years ago. The situation of the blue will not then be very intimately
connected with the situation (in another sense of 'situation') of any
perceptual object. This disconnexion of the situation of the blue and
the situation of some associated perceptual object does not require a
star for its exemplification. Any looking glass will suffice. Look at
the coat through a looking glass. Then blue is seen as situated behind
the mirror. The event which is its situation depends upon the position
of the observer.
The sense-awareness of the blue as situated in a certain event which I
call the situation, is thus exhibited as the sense-awareness of a
relation between the blue, the percipient event of the observer, the
situation, and intervening events. All nature is in fact required,
though only certain intervening events require their characters to be of
certain definite sorts. The ingression of blue into the events of nature
is thus exhibited as systematically correlated. The awareness of the
observer depends on the position of the percipient event in this
systematic correlation. I will use the term 'ingression into nature' for
this systematic correlation of the blue with nature. Thus the ingression
of blue into any definite event is a part statement of the fact of the
ingression of blue into nature.
In respect to the ingression of blue into nature events may be roughly
put into four classes which overlap and are not very clearly separated.
These classes are (i) the percipient events, (ii) the situations, (iii)
the active conditioning events, (iv) the passive conditioning events. To
understand this classification of events in the general fact of the
ingression of blue into nature, let us confine attention to one
situation for one percipient event and to the consequent _roles_ of the
conditioning events for the ingression as thus limited. The percipient
event is the relevant bodily state of the observer. The situation is
where he sees the blue, say, behind the mirror. The active conditioning
events are the events whose characters are particularly relevant for the
event (which is the situation) to be the situation for that percipient
event, namely the coat, the mirror, and the state of the room as to
light and atmosphere. The passive conditioning events are the events of
the rest of nature.
In general the situation is an active conditioning event; namely the
coat itself, when there is no mirror or other such contrivance to
produce abnormal effects. But the example of the mirror shows us that
the situation may be one of the passive conditioning events. We are then
apt to say that our senses have been cheated, because we demand as a
right that the situation should be an active condition in the
ingression.
This demand is not so baseless as it may seem when presented as I have
put it. All we know of the characters of the events of nature is based
on the analysis of the relations of situations to percipient events. If
situations were not in general active conditions, this analysis would
tell us nothing. Nature would be an unfathomable enigma to us and there
could be no science. Accordingly the incipient discontent when a
situation is found to be a passive condition is in a sense justifiable;
because if that sort of thing went on too often, the _role_ of the
intellect would be ended.
Furthermore the mirror is itself the situation of other sense-objects
either for the same observer with the same percipient event, or for
other observers with other percipient events. Thus the fact that an
event is a situation in the ingression of one set of sense-objects into
nature is presumptive evidence that that event is an active condition in
the ingression of other sense-objects into nature which may have other
situations.
This is a fundamental principle of science which it has derived from
common sense.
I now turn to perceptual objects. When we look at the coat, we do not in
general say, There is a patch of Cambridge blue; what naturally occurs
to us is, There is a coat. Also the judgment that what we have seen is
a garment of man's attire is a detail. What we perceive is an object
other than a mere sense-object. It is not a mere patch of colour, but
something more; and it is that something more which we judge to be a
coat. I will use the word 'coat' as the name for that crude object which
is more than a patch of colour, and without any allusion to the
judgments as to its usefulness as an article of attire either in the
past or the future. The coat which is perceived--in this sense of the
word 'coat'--is what I call a perceptual object. We have to investigate
the general character of these perceptual objects.
It is a law of nature that in general the situation of a sense-object is
not only the situation of that sense-object for one definite percipient
event, but is the situation of a variety of sense-objects for a variety
of percipient events. For example, for any one percipient event, the
situation of a sense-object of sight is apt also to be the situations of
sense-objects of sight, of touch, of smell, and of sound. Furthermore
this concurrence in the situations of sense-objects has led to the
body--_i.e._ the percipient event--so adapting itself that the
perception of one sense-object in a certain situation leads to a
subconscious sense-awareness of other sense-objects in the same
situation. This interplay is especially the case between touch and
sight. There is a certain correlation between the ingressions of
sense-objects of touch and sense-objects of sight into nature, and in a
slighter degree between the ingressions of other pairs of sense-objects.
I call this sort of correlation the 'conveyance' of one sense-object by
another. When you see the blue flannel coat you subconsciously feel
yourself wearing it or otherwise touching it. If you are a smoker, you
may also subconsciously be aware of the faint aroma of tobacco. The
peculiar fact, posited by this sense-awareness of the concurrence of
subconscious sense-objects along with one or more dominating
sense-objects in the same situation, is the sense-awareness of the
perceptual object. The perceptual object is not primarily the issue of a
judgment. It is a factor of nature directly posited in sense-awareness.
The element of judgment comes in when we proceed to classify the
particular perceptual object. For example, we say, That is flannel, and
we think of the properties of flannel and the uses of athletes' coats.
But that all takes place after we have got hold of the perceptual
object. Anticipatory judgments affect the perceptual object perceived by
focussing and diverting attention.
The perceptual object is the outcome of the habit of experience.
Anything which conflicts with this habit hinders the sense-awareness of
such an object. A sense-object is not the product of the association of
intellectual ideas; it is the product of the association of
sense-objects in the same situation. This outcome is not intellectual;
it is an object of peculiar type with its own particular ingression into
nature.
There are two kinds of perceptual objects, namely, 'delusive perceptual
objects' and 'physical objects.' The situation of a delusive perceptual
object is a passive condition in the ingression of that object into
nature. Also the event which is the situation will have the relation of
situation to the object only for one particular percipient event. For
example, an observer sees the image of the blue coat in a mirror. It is
a blue coat that he sees and not a mere patch of colour. This shows that
the active conditions for the conveyance of a group of subconscious
sense-objects by a dominating sense-object are to be found in the
percipient event. Namely we are to look for them in the investigations
of medical psychologists. The ingression into nature of the delusive
sense-object is conditioned by the adaptation of bodily events to the
more normal occurrence, which is the ingression of the physical object.
A perceptual object is a physical object when (i) its situation is an
active conditioning event for the ingression of any of its component
sense-objects, and (ii) the same event can be the situation of the
perceptual object for an indefinite number of possible percipient
events. Physical objects are the ordinary objects which we perceive when
our senses are not cheated, such as chairs, tables and trees. In a way
physical objects have more insistent perceptive power than
sense-objects. Attention to the fact of their occurrence in nature is
the first condition for the survival of complex living organisms. The
result of this high perceptive power of physical objects is the
scholastic philosophy of nature which looks on the sense-objects as mere
attributes of the physical objects. This scholastic point of view is
directly contradicted by the wealth of sense-objects which enter into
our experience as situated in events without any connexion with physical
objects. For example, stray smells, sounds, colours and more subtle
nameless sense-objects. There is no perception of physical objects
without perception of sense-objects. But the converse does not hold:
namely, there is abundant perception of sense-objects unaccompanied by
any perception of physical objects. This lack of reciprocity in the
relations between sense-objects and physical objects is fatal to the
scholastic natural philosophy.
There is a great difference in the _roles_ of the situations of
sense-objects and physical objects. The situations of a physical object
are conditioned by uniqueness and continuity. The uniqueness is an ideal
limit to which we approximate as we proceed in thought along an
abstractive set of durations, considering smaller and smaller durations
in the approach to the ideal limit of the moment of time. In other
words, when the duration is small enough, the situation of the physical
object within that duration is practically unique.
The identification of the same physical object as being situated in
distinct events in distinct durations is effected by the condition of
continuity. This condition of continuity is the condition that a
continuity of passage of events, each event being a situation of the
object in its corresponding duration, can be found from the earlier to
the later of the two given events. So far as the two events are
practically adjacent in one specious present, this continuity of passage
may be directly perceived. Otherwise it is a matter of judgment and
inference.
The situations of a sense-object are not conditioned by any such
conditions either of uniqueness or of continuity. In any durations
however small a sense-object may have any number of situations separated
from each other. Thus two situations of a sense-object, either in the
same duration or in different durations, are not necessarily connected
by any continuous passage of events which are also situations of that
sense-object.
The characters of the conditioning events involved in the ingression of
a sense-object into nature can be largely expressed in terms of the
physical objects which are situated in those events. In one respect this
is also a tautology. For the physical object is nothing else than the
habitual concurrence of a certain set of sense-objects in one situation.
Accordingly when we know all about the physical object, we thereby know
its component sense-objects. But a physical object is a condition for
the occurrence of sense-objects other than those which are its
components. For example, the atmosphere causes the events which are its
situations to be active conditioning events in the transmission of
sound. A mirror which is itself a physical object is an active condition
for the situation of a patch of colour behind it, due to the reflection
of light in it.
Thus the origin of scientific knowledge is the endeavour to express in
terms of physical objects the various _roles_ of events as active
conditions in the ingression of sense-objects into nature. It is in the
progress of this investigation that scientific objects emerge. They
embody those aspects of the character of the situations of the physical
objects which are most permanent and are expressible without reference
to a multiple relation including a percipient event. Their relations to
each other are also characterised by a certain simplicity and
uniformity. Finally the characters of the observed physical objects and
sense-objects can be expressed in terms of these scientific objects. In
fact the whole point of the search for scientific objects is the
endeavour to obtain this simple expression of the characters of events.
These scientific objects are not themselves merely formulae for
calculation; because formulae must refer to things in nature, and the
scientific objects are the things in nature to which the formulae refer.
A scientific object such as a definite electron is a systematic
correlation of the characters of all events throughout all nature. It is
an aspect of the systematic character of nature. The electron is not
merely where its charge is. The charge is the quantitative character of
certain events due to the ingression of the electron into nature. The
electron is its whole field of force. Namely the electron is the
systematic way in which all events are modified as the expression of its
ingression. The situation of an electron in any small duration may be
defined as that event which has the quantitative character which is the
charge of the electron. We may if we please term the mere charge the
electron. But then another name is required for the scientific object
which is the full entity which concerns science, and which I have called
the electron.
According to this conception of scientific objects, the rival theories
of action at a distance and action by transmission through a medium are
both incomplete expressions of the true process of nature. The stream of
events which form the continuous series of situations of the electron is
entirely self-determined, both as regards having the intrinsic character
of being the series of situations of that electron and as regards the
time-systems with which its various members are cogredient, and the flux
of their positions in their corresponding durations. This is the
foundation of the denial of action at a distance; namely the progress of
the stream of the situations of a scientific object can be determined by
an analysis of the stream itself.
On the other hand the ingression of every electron into nature modifies
to some extent the character of every event. Thus the character of the
stream of events which we are considering bears marks of the existence
of every other electron throughout the universe. If we like to think of
the electrons as being merely what I call their charges, then the
charges act at a distance. But this action consists in the modification
of the situation of the other electron under consideration. This
conception of a charge acting at a distance is a wholly artificial one.
The conception which most fully expresses the character of nature is
that of each event as modified by the ingression of each electron into
nature. The ether is the expression of this systematic modification of
events throughout space and throughout time. The best expression of the
character of this modification is for physicists to find out. My theory
has nothing to do with that and is ready to accept any outcome of
physical research.
The connexion of objects with space requires elucidation. Objects are
situated in events. The relation of situation is a different relation
for each type of object, and in the case of sense-objects it cannot be
expressed as a two-termed relation. It would perhaps be better to use a
different word for these different types of the relation of situation.
It has not however been necessary to do so for our purposes in these
lectures. It must be understood however that, when situation is spoken
of, some one definite type is under discussion, and it may happen that
the argument may not apply to situation of another type. In all cases
however I use situation to express a relation between objects and events
and not between objects and abstractive elements. There is a derivative
relation between objects and spatial elements which I call the relation
of location; and when this relation holds, I say that the object is
located in the abstractive element. In this sense, an object may be
located in a moment of time, in a volume of space, an area, a line, or a
point. There will be a peculiar type of location corresponding to each
type of situation; and location is in each case derivative from the
corresponding relation of situation in a way which I will proceed to
explain.
Also location in the timeless space of some time-system is a relation
derivative from location in instantaneous spaces of the same
time-system. Accordingly location in an instantaneous space is the
primary idea which we have to explain. Great confusion has been
occasioned in natural philosophy by the neglect to distinguish between
the different types of objects, the different types of situation, the
different types of location, and the difference between location and
situation. It is impossible to reason accurately in the vague concerning
objects and their positions without keeping these distinctions in view.
An object is located in an abstractive element, when an abstractive set
belonging to that element can be found such that each event belonging to
that set is a situation of the object. It will be remembered that an
abstractive element is a certain group of abstractive sets, and that
each abstractive set is a set of events. This definition defines the
location of an element in any type of abstractive element. In this sense
we can talk of the existence of an object at an instant, meaning thereby
its location in some definite moment. It may also be located in some
spatial element of the instantaneous space of that moment.
A quantity can be said to be located in an abstractive element when an
abstractive set belonging to the element can be found such that the
quantitative expressions of the corresponding characters of its events
converge to the measure of the given quantity as a limit when we pass
along the abstractive set towards its converging end.
By these definitions location in elements of instantaneous spaces is
defined. These elements occupy corresponding elements of timeless
spaces. An object located in an element of an instantaneous space will
also be said to be located at that moment in the timeless element of the
timeless space which is occupied by that instantaneous element.
It is not every object which can be located in a moment. An object which
can be located in every moment of some duration will be called a
'uniform' object throughout that duration. Ordinary physical objects
appear to us to be uniform objects, and we habitually assume that
scientific objects such as electrons are uniform. But some sense-objects
certainly are not uniform. A tune is an example of a non-uniform object.
We have perceived it as a whole in a certain duration; but the tune as a
tune is not at any moment of that duration though one of the individual
notes may be located there.
It is possible therefore that for the existence of certain sorts of
objects, _e.g._ electrons, minimum quanta of time are requisite. Some
such postulate is apparently indicated by the modern quantum theory and
it is perfectly consistent with the doctrine of objects maintained in
these lectures.
Also the instance of the distinction between the electron as the mere
quantitative electric charge of its situation and the electron as
standing for the ingression of an object throughout nature illustrates
the indefinite number of types of objects which exist in nature. We can
intellectually distinguish even subtler and subtler types of objects.
Here I reckon subtlety as meaning seclusion from the immediate
apprehension of sense-awareness. Evolution in the complexity of life
means an increase in the types of objects directly sensed. Delicacy of
sense-apprehension means perceptions of objects as distinct entities
which are mere subtle ideas to cruder sensibilities. The phrasing of
music is a mere abstract subtlety to the unmusical; it is a direct
sense-apprehension to the initiated. For example, if we could imagine
some lowly type of organic being thinking and aware of our thoughts, it
would wonder at the abstract subtleties in which we indulge as we think
of stones and bricks and drops of water and plants. It only knows of
vague undifferentiated feelings in nature. It would consider us as given
over to the play of excessively abstract intellects. But then if it
could think, it would anticipate; and if it anticipated, it would soon
perceive for itself.
In these lectures we have been scrutinising the foundations of natural
philosophy. We are stopping at the very point where a boundless ocean of
enquiries opens out for our questioning.
I agree that the view of Nature which I have maintained in these
lectures is not a simple one. Nature appears as a complex system whose
factors are dimly discerned by us. But, as I ask you, Is not this the
very truth? Should we not distrust the jaunty assurance with which every
age prides itself that it at last has hit upon the ultimate concepts in
which all that happens can be formulated? The aim of science is to seek
the simplest explanations of complex facts. We are apt to fall into the
error of thinking that the facts are simple because simplicity is the
goal of our quest. The guiding motto in the life of every natural
philosopher should be, Seek simplicity and distrust it.