The world consists not merely of phenomena, nor of phenomena and laws which regulate them. These are but transitional and imperfect aspects of Reality. "Our standard of Truth and Reality," says a recent writer, "moves us on towards an individual with laws of its own, and to laws which form the vital substance of a single existence." We approach such a goal in the conception of Energy—the laws of whose constant transmutations are what we call Nature.
We must distinguish Energy as Absolute Reality from such conceptions as Activity, which is its subjective aspect, or as Force, which is really the rate at which Energy is, in certain cases, transformed. Dynamics, which investigates Force, is a study of the fundamental transmutations of Energy. It postulates Energy as the Real Entity in terms of which it can frame a satisfactory theory of dynamical phenomena.
The metaphysical labours of the century which has elapsed since Kant have not been altogether in vain. The deeper thinkers are pretty nearly agreed that the Absolute is not to be identified with its appearances. How far they can bring home this view in practical form to the intelligence of man is another matter. Plato doubtless saw the truth in a sort of beatific vision, but the tide of speculation ebbed after his death, and its healing waters never inundated the deserts of mediæval thought. The discursive weakness in which the speculation of the transcendental Philosophy seems to dissipate itself makes us fear a similar decline. Metaphysics must receive the assistance of the great speculative achievement of Physics. It must realise that Science can postulate a Reality unperceived and unqualified by the conditions of sense, but in terms of which Science can explain the whole phenomena of the sensible presentation in their objective aspect,—explain these as transmutations of Reality, proceeding in accordance with the general mathematical laws under which Reality transmutes itself.
It may be said that reason requires us to think that the Universe is a unity. Where do you embrace within Reality, in such a view of it, Intelligence, Volition, Feeling? We answer: Of course, obviously Reality, as postulated by Physics, does not contain these. But the Real Thing postulated by Physics is but one aspect of the whole, and may be, must be, merged in a higher Reality—of which phenomena, on the one hand, and Thought, Conation, Feeling on the other, are the appearances. That involves a further advance, the attainment of a higher degree of Truth which would bridge the Dualism of Thought and Existence, of Self and Not-self, of Spirit and Nature, and whilst, on the one hand, such Reality must fundamentally be a-logical, on the other hand Energy may owe its energy to Spirit.
In the dualism which we must, in experience, recognise, we notice one fundamental distinction: quantification, measurability, appear the attributes of the physical; quality, ideality, of the spiritual. The apprehension, therefore, of the doctrine of Energy should accomplish in clarity and security the abolition of the intolerable contradictions which have hitherto involved the search for Reality amid its appearances. We think it suggests the most satisfying explanation of the distinction which separates, and the principle which relates Ideality and Externality, and should obviate the almost childish efforts of transcendentalists to expound the relation of the Mind to a body which is involved in, and which is yet—for the individual—distinguished, they cannot tell us how, from the whole system of Nature.
Of course, neither Thought nor Volition, as such, can be the absolute Reality. They, like Physical Force, are but transmutations, affections, phases of Reality. Nor, again, is Energy, as a quality, a correct description of the Absolute, as such. The Absolute, as such, we cannot describe; but in studying, as Physics does, the relations of physical phenomena and stating these in terms of Reality, it conveniently gives Reality a name appropriate to its own standpoint.
Metaphysics rightly declines to be required to study special branches of Science. Nothing but grotesque absurdity ensues when this precaution is overlooked. Yet Metaphysics has hitherto thought itself the better of a little logic, and in the future it will have to grasp the scientific conception of Reality. There is nothing else for it; and, after all, it is remarkable how far the most fundamental conceptions of Metaphysics are dependent on a physical origin.
Surely it is of primary importance to realise the effect upon our conceptions of Space and Extension of the doctrine of the transmutations of Energy. Even the profoundest metaphysicians have seemingly failed to explain how Space, Matter, and Extension are related with Reality. You cannot ignore this difficulty by saying that these are the working conceptions of particular branches of Physical Science. But when you realise that physical phenomena, even the most permanent and rigid, are by scientific demonstration but transmutations of the real thing, you may then understand that Space, Body, and Extension are but the laws and conditions of the process. As appearances, and within the realm of phenomena, they seem still what they have always seemed. So much we still concede without diminution or obscurity; and at the same time we can harmonise them as they could never be harmonised before with postulated Reality.
It is the same with Time. The facts of memory would seem to imply that there is no succession in the Absolute. We are always present at all times of our life. In recollecting a past event we are contemplating no mere image, but the actual past event itself. Our chronometry depends on the annual motion of the Earth round the Sun. It has thus a purely physical basis.
We might illustrate the application of the doctrine of Energy to every department of Metaphysics. But such is not the object of the present essay. We merely desire to indicate briefly some of the many aspects of the theory, and if only we have been able to suggest a line of inquiry, the primary object of this essay has been attained.
