WHAT IS MATTER? 31 



effects are more or less familiar. Nor need philosophers deny that 

 matter is made up of molecules and atoms, or of electrons even, pro- 

 vided alwa3'S these smaller and smaller particles are admitted to be 

 bundles of forces, occupying less and less extended allotments of space. 



Where this view departs from that of common sense, it is simpler, 

 that is all. Common sense says matter is blue, sweet, soft, etc. No, 

 say the philosophers, these are effects, not properties. Again, common 

 sense says, and here with a shrill insistence, Force is not matter, but in 

 it. No, say philosophers, there is no need of complicating with an 

 irrelevant distinction. Force, activity, achievement, that is all there 

 is to matter. As Heracleitus said 2,500 years ago, xavr'< pei, flowing, 

 change, doing is all. 



Beyond question the blind force of our nature strongly inclines us 

 to ask for more. But in obeying this prompting we are but worship- 

 ping an idol of the tribe, a fallacy patent enough as soon as the nature 

 of the mind is understood. The insistence oh something more than 

 force in outer objects registers the triumph of the " imagination," a 

 blind " faculty," as Kant rightly called it, unaware of its own contents 

 and of their significance, over clear-sighted and self-critical reason. 

 Everything we talk of and think about, including matter, is identified, 

 when necessary, and mentally dealt with, by means of its picture 

 stored away in the imagination, which picture appears automatically 

 when its aid is required. Without such counterfeit presentments the 

 mind could not make a beginning of dealing with the objects about 

 it, for their names are not pasted upon them, and besides, the mind 

 is often concerned with them during their absence, and must then 

 have a representative with which to treat. Now, most men picture 

 matter chiefly in visual terms, though partly in terms of touch and 

 muscular feelings, which last are so constantly aroused by the resistance 

 of things. And the fallacy consists in clinging to the picture of mat- 

 ter, naively, uncritically, inaccurately constructed before reflection, out 

 of our most familiar sensations, and in insisting that it correctly repre- 

 sents matter, although reason clearly demonstrates that sensations are 

 no parts of matter, but only its effects. And the fallacy continues to 

 impose on us because the picture works in subconsciousness, auto- 

 matically registering dissatisfaction with force, as failing to fill out its 

 notion of what matter is. As soon as we know that the picture of our 

 imagination is formed during the early unthinking days of our igno- 

 rance, we know that it has no proper standing as against the critically 

 tested conclusions of reason. But that does not check the dissatis- 

 faction automatically suggested by the imaginat'on, which philosophers 

 feel in common with other men. The difference is that they disregard 

 the feeling; they refuse to bow down to this idol of the tribe. 



The same dynamic view of matter is reached by another avenue of 

 approach, as is pointed out by students of the evolution of mind. 



