It would of course be easy to set this out

antithetically in the form, Motion (a) is and (b) is not

a state of body. The reader who takes the trouble to

work it out will perhaps be profited.

The conclusion which would follow is that neither

bodies nor their relations in space and time have, as

such, reality. They are on each side an appearance and

an abstraction separated from the whole. But in that

whole, on the other hand, they cannot, as such, be

connected intelligibly, and that whole therefore points

beyond itself to a higher mode of being, in comparison

with which it is but appearance.

The idea of the motion of a single body may perhaps

(I am ignorant) be necessary in physics, and, if that is

so, then in physics of course that idea must be rational

and right. But, except as a working fiction of this

kind, it strikes my mind as a typical instance of

unnecessary nonsense. It is to me nonsense, because I

use "body" here to cover anything which occupies and has

position in space, and because a bare or mere space (or

time) which in itself has a diversity of distinct

positions, seems to me quite unmeaning. And I call this

nonsense unnecessary, because I have been unable to see

either what is got by it, or how or why in philosophy we

are driven to use it. The fact, if it is a fact, that

this idea is necessary for the explanations of physics

has, I would repeat, here no bearing whatever. For such

a necessity could not show that the idea is really

intelligible. And if, without it, the laws of motion are

in their essence irrational, that does not prove, I

imagine, that they become rational with it, or indeed

can be made intrinsically rational at all. This, I would

add, is in principle my reply to such arguments as are

used by Lotze, Metaphysik, ** 164, 165, and Liebmann,

Zur Analysis der Wirklichkeit, pp. 113 foll. The whole

idea, for instance, of a solitary sphere in space, to

say nothing of its rotation and centrifugal force, is,

considered metaphysically, I should say, a mere vicious

abstraction and from the first totally inadmissible. And

if without it the facts are self-contradictory, with it

they still more deeply contradict themselves.

But, however that may be, I must be excused the

remark that on such subjects it is perhaps not

surprising that any man should come in the end to any

result whatever, yet that in philosophy any man should

use the idea of a single moving body, as if it were a

thing self-evident and free from difficulty--this really

surprises me.

Note to Chapter vi. I have left this chapter as it

stood, though it would be very easy to enlarge it; but I

doubt if any end would be obtained by insistence on

detail. I will however in this Note call attention to

one or two points.

(i) If the cause is taken as complex, there is a

problem first as to the constitution of the cause