Essays Towards a Theory of Knowledge

by Alexander Philip

Of course, it must never be forgotten that my whole sentient experience consists primarily of the series of energetic transmutations occurring at that part of the energetic system which is in immediate vital relation with my consciousness. It is my experience of active exertion, of moving, speaking, etc., which gives a suggestion of the real energetic world. The transmutations of the real Energy of the world beyond my organism never enter my Consciousness. Transmutations arising beyond my body only enter the presentation by influencing the cerebral process. The luminous undulation and the sound-wave must both produce transmutation of the cerebral Energy in order to affect Consciousness. Yet the various characters of the transmitted impulses are distinguishable in the resultant cerebral transmutations. Thus I feel sensations of hardness, roughness, pain, colour, sound, etc. It is by a process of mental construction that I associate these with the forms of my exertional activity, and thus frame my conceptions of real bodies in the world around me—those which I more directly associate with the Energy subject to my Volition being conceived as representing my body. For reasons of convenience, I refer those conceptions chiefly to the co-ordinated visual presentation, and thus build up my conception of the extended world of material things. Science is possible because all transmutations of Energy take place according to definite numerical laws and ratios. The whole work of Science is to explain every phenomenon in terms of its definite transmutation of Energy. These definite numerical laws and processes are characteristic of all Energy transmutation, and thus regulate the experience of every intelligent being. It is in virtue of these that our separate systems of knowledge correspond, and that we are thus presented each with corresponding aspects of one outer world. The laws which regulate the cerebral changes that accompany sense-presentation are for me the necessary a priori laws of perception. It is because these laws operate in common in all brains that community of intercourse is possible amongst mankind. It is because of the further fact that the whole of the transmutations of Energy which constitute physical phenomena compose a numerically inter-related and regulated system that Science and rational knowledge are possible to the intellect of man. Our knowledge is what we are obliged to think and assert regarding experience; but the universality of experience is not explained merely by the common nature and general laws of Intelligence, but depends also on the generality of the laws under which the transmutations of Energy proceed.

We are now, therefore, by the aid of the doctrine of Energy, better able than before to distinguish accurately between the Ideal and the Real as contrasted elements in our experience.

My Presentment as a whole consists in the transmutation-processes—in the sensations, feelings, perceptions, images, ideas—in short, in all that is going on at the point where (I necessarily express myself in terms of spatial relations, though in this connection these are figurative) my sentience and intelligence are developed.

My whole Presentment is, therefore, in one sense subjective, or, as some would say, ideal. For me, my Presentment is the impression produced on, the condition established in, my Consciousness in virtue of what is going on at this so-called point of contact.

What we mean, therefore, by the subjectivity or ideality of the Presentment is the aspect of energetic transmutations when viewed as affecting my Consciousness in contrast with their obverse aspect when viewed as transmutations in the objective system. As my Presentment, they are all subjective or ideal, and it is in this reference that Berkeley and Hume, for instance, speak of ideas of sense, such as the colour blue, the heat of the fire, the pain of a blow. These, constituting the bulk of the Presentment, they distinguish from what Berkeley called ideas of the imagination—those stimulated or originated, or, as he said, "excited," by the intelligence itself. Whilst he contended that both classes are ideal or subjective, in respect that they are constituents of the Presentment, the latter have an additional title to subjectivity in respect of their origin, and constitute what are called "ideas" when the word is used in contra-distinction to "sensations"—such pure ideas occurring in response to a subjective impulse.

On the other hand, there is a sense in which the Presentment is, if not real, at least actual and objective.

So far as we know, Intelligence never develops except in conjunction with an organism—that is, in vital relation with physical Energy. My Presentment is constituted by the occurrence and depends upon the continuance of the transmutations or operations proceeding at the related point in the energetic system. Even pure ideas, though subjective not only in regard to aspect but in regard to their origin, are objective in respect that they also consist in an energetic transmutation.

Herein lies the germ of truth to be discovered even in the unintelligent dogmatism of those philosophers who assert the absolute Reality of my Presentment, as such—not merely its actuality. It is comparatively seldom, however, either in Science or Philosophy, that we meet a thinker prepared to go as far as that. Most take refuge in a distinction between primary and secondary qualities of bodies, classing my sensations as non-resembling secondary qualities, which they admit cannot be conceived to exist without the mind in the form in which they make up my Presentment, but reserving five or six primary qualities—solidity, extension, figure, motion, rest—which they conceive to exist independently, just as they enter into my Presentment. In point of fact, however, these so-called primary qualities are not the names of intuitions, but are abstractions or generalisations of the most general and necessary elements of my active Experience by reference to which I mentally construct my world. The transmutations of Energy are not a never-repeated accidental kaleidoscope. They proceed according to constant, definite, measurable laws, and though subordinate variations are infinite and make up the details of my Presentment, the general laws and conditions according to which all Energy transmutes are definite, and constitute the general features or qualities of my Experience, and these are the so-called primary qualities of bodies regarded in the light of the doctrine of Energy.

The primary quality of extension, in particular, is a conception resulting from the association of my visual Presentment with my power of active exertion, and the delusive tendency to regard this quality as in some sense primarily and fundamentally real is due to the unconscious recognition of the fact that it is in virtue of my power, or association as an agent with the energetic system, that I derive a suggestion of the real world beyond the phenomena which constitute my experience.

I cannot exist without some development of activity. Hence are derived my conceptions of free space and of resistance between bodies. My primary sensations are the sensations of touch, and the primary impulse of thought is to relate these with my active exertions. When sight is first restored to the blind the first impulse is to regard the new sensation as a form of touch. Its intellectual suggestiveness is a development. The system or stream of transmutations in which my volitional activity principally takes part is that represented by the operation of the forces of Gravitation and Cohesion; the system which influences my visual sensations is a quite different series. The changes in this latter series, by their greater rapidity, enable me to anticipate the other series, and for this and other reasons I employ these sensations to signalise and symbolise the transmutations proceeding in the series with which I am more immediately related as an active and "willing" agent. All transmutations, if they result in sensations, must do so by producing changes in the Energy of my organism, and must therefore be conditioned by the general laws which regulate the changes which occur there, or, in other words, must be contained within a self-consistent spatial condition; but the differences in the characters of visual Space, as it is called, and the spatial content of my activity, reflect the differences in the series of energetic transmutations with which they are respectively connected.