§ 74. But now what is the force of which we predicate persistence? It is not the force we are immediately conscious of in our own muscular efforts; for this does not persist. As soon as an outstretched limb is relaxed, the sense of tension disappears. True, we assert that in the stone thrown or in the weight lifted, is exhibited the effect of this muscular tension; and that the force which has ceased to be present in our consciousness, exists elsewhere. But it does not exist elsewhere under any form cognizable by us. It was proved (§ 18), that though, on raising an object from the ground, we are obliged to think of its downward pull as equal and opposite to our upward pull; and though it is impossible to represent these pulls as equal without representing them as like in kind; yet, since their likeness in kind would imply in the object a sensation of muscular tension, which cannot be ascribed to it, we are compelled to admit that force as it exists out of our consciousness, is not force as we know it. Hence the force of which we assert persistence is that Absolute Force of which we are indefinitely conscious as the necessary correlate of the force we know. Thus, by the persistence of Force, we really mean the persistence of some Power which transcends our knowledge and conception. The manifestations, as occurring either in ourselves or outside of us, do not persist; but that which persists is the Unknown Cause of these manifestations. In other words, asserting the persistence of Force, is but another mode of asserting an Unconditioned Reality, without beginning or end.
Thus, quite unexpectedly, we come down once more to that ultimate truth in which, as we saw, Religion and Science coalesce. On examining the data underlying a rational theory of Evolution, we find them all at last resolvable into that datum without which consciousness was shown to be impossible—the continued existence of an Unknowable as the necessary correlative of the Knowable. Once commenced, the analysis of the truths taken for granted in scientific inquiries, inevitably brings us down to this deepest truth, in which Common Sense and Philosophy are reconciled.
The arguments and conclusion contained in this and the foregoing three chapters, supply, indeed, the complement to the arguments and conclusion set forth in the preceding part of this work. It was there first shown, by an examination of our ultimate religious ideas, that knowledge of Absolute Being is impossible; and the impossibility of knowing Absolute Being, was also shown by an examination of our ultimate scientific ideas. In a succeeding chapter a subjective analysis proved, that while, by the very conditions of thought, we are prevented from knowing anything beyond relative being; yet that by these very same conditions of thought, an indefinite consciousness of Absolute Being is necessitated. And here, by objective analysis, we similarly find that the axiomatic truths of physical science, unavoidably postulate Absolute Being as their common basis.
Thus there is even a more profound agreement between Religion and Science than was before shown. Not only are they wholly at one on the negative proposition that the Non-relative cannot be known; but they are wholly at one on the positive proposition that the Non-relative is an actual existence. Both are obliged by the demonstrated untenability of their supposed cognitions, to confess that the Ultimate Reality is incognizable; and yet both are obliged to assert the existence of an Ultimate Reality. Without this, Religion has no subject-matter; and without this, Science, subjective and objective, lacks its indispensable datum. We cannot construct a theory of internal phenomena without postulating Absolute Being; and unless we postulate Absolute Being, or being which persists, we cannot construct a theory of external phenomena.
§ 75. A few words must be added respecting the nature of this fundamental consciousness. Already it has been looked at from several points of view; and here it seems needful finally to sum up the results.
In Chapter IV. we saw that the Unknown Power of which neither beginning nor end can be conceived, is present to us as that unshaped material of consciousness which is shaped afresh in every thought. Our inability to conceive its limitation, is thus simply the obverse of our inability to put an end to the thinking subject while still continuing to think. In the two foregoing chapters, we contemplated this fundamental truth under another aspect. The indestructibility of Matter and the continuity of Motion, we saw to be really corollaries from the impossibility of establishing in thought a relation between something and nothing. What we call the establishment of a relation in thought, is the passage of the substance of consciousness, from one form into another. To think of something becoming nothing, would involve that this substance of consciousness having just existed under a given form, should next assume no form; or should cease to be consciousness. And thus our inability to conceive Matter and Motion destroyed, is our inability to suppress consciousness itself. What, in these two foregoing chapters, was proved true of Matter and Motion, is, à fortiori, true of the Force out of which our conceptions of Matter and Motion are built. Indeed, as we saw, that which is indestructible in matter and motion, is the force they present. And, as we here see, the truth that Force is indestructible, is the obverse of the truth that the Unknown Cause of the changes going on in consciousness is indestructible. So that the persistence of consciousness, constitutes at once our immediate experience of the persistence of Force, and imposes on us the necessity we are under of asserting its persistence.
§ 76. Thus, in all ways there is forced on us the fact, that here is an ultimate truth given in our mental constitution. It is not only a datum of science, but it is a datum which even the assertion of our nescience involves. Whoever alleges that the inability to conceive a beginning or end of the Universe, is a negative result of our mental structure, cannot deny that our consciousness of the Universe as persistent, is a positive result of our mental structure. And this persistence of the Universe, is the persistence of that Unknown Cause, Power, or Force, which is manifested to us through all phenomena.
Such then is the foundation of any possible system of positive knowledge. Deeper than demonstration—deeper even than definite cognition—deep as the very nature of mind, is the postulate at which we have arrived. Its authority transcends all other whatever; for not only is it given in the constitution of our own consciousness, but it is impossible to imagine a consciousness so constituted as not to give it. Thought, involving simply the establishment of relations, may be readily conceived to go on while yet these relations have not been organized into the abstracts we call Space and Time; and so there is a conceivable kind of consciousness which does not contain the truths, commonly called à priori, involved in the organization of these forms of relations. But thought cannot be conceived to go on without some element between which its relations may be established; and so there is no conceivable kind of consciousness which does not imply continued existence as its datum. Consciousness without this or that particular form is possible; but consciousness without contents is impossible.