Добавил:
Опубликованный материал нарушает ваши авторские права? Сообщите нам.
Вуз: Предмет: Файл:
Скачиваний:
18
Добавлен:
24.07.2017
Размер:
1.76 Mб
Скачать

Visual, it must be coloured; and if it is tactual, or

acquired in the various other ways which may fall under

the head of the "muscular sense,"--then it is never free

from sensations, coming from the skin, or the joints, or

the muscles, or, as some would like to add, from a

central source. And a man may say what he likes, but he

cannot think of extension without thinking at the same

time of a "what" that is extended. And not only is this

so, but particular differences, such as "up and down,"

"right and left," are necessary to the terms of the

spatial relation. But these differences clearly are not

merely spatial. Like the general "what," they will

consist in all cases of secondary quality from a

sensation of the kinds I have mentioned above. Some

psychologists, indeed, could go further, and could urge

that the secondary qualities are original, and the

primary derivative; since extension (in their view) is a

construction or growth from the wholly non-extended. I

could not endorse that, but I can appeal to what is

Indisputable. Extension cannot be presented, or thought

of, except as one with quality that is secondary. It is

by itself a mere abstraction, for some purposes

necessary, but ridiculous when taken as an existing

thing. Yet the materialist, from defect of nature or of

education, or probably both, worships without

justification this thin product of his untutored fancy.

"Not without justification," he may reply, "since in

the procedure of science the secondary qualities are

explained as results from the primary. Obviously,

therefore, these latter are independent and prior." But

this is a very simple error. For suppose that you have

shown that, given one element, A, another, b, does in

fact follow on it; suppose that you can prove that b

comes just the same, whether A is attended by c,

or d, or e, or any one of a number of other qualities,

you cannot go from this to the result that A exists and

works naked. The secondary b can be explained, you urge,

as issuing from the primary A, without consideration of

aught else. Let it be so; but all that could follow is,

that the special natures of A's accompaniments are not

concerned in the process. There is not only no proof,

but there is not even the very smallest presumption,

that A could act by itself, or could be a real fact if

alone. It is doubtless scientific to disregard certain

aspects when we work; but to urge that therefore such

aspects are not fact, and that what we use without

regard to them is an independent real thing,--this is

barbarous metaphysics.

We have found then that, if the secondary qualities

are appearance, the primary are certainly not able to

stand by themselves. This distinction, from which

materialism is blindly developed, has been seen to bring

us no nearer to the true nature of reality.

--------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER II

SUBSTANTIVE AND ADJECTIVE

WE have seen that the distinction of primary from

secondary qualities has not taken us far. Let us,

without regard to it, and once more directly turning to

what meets us, examine another way of making that