32 HOLISM AND EVOLUTION chap. 



curves; and these curves are nothing but the actual 

 orientation or direction of events in the Space-Time 

 framework of the universe. 



What is or would be the situation beyond the material 

 universe and its vast fields? There we pass beyond the 

 bounds of gravitation, where there is neither rotation 

 nor acceleration, where '^ bodies " (if such astral abstrac- 

 tions could be imagined) persist in their state of rest or 

 of uniform motion in a straight line according to Newton's 

 First Law. There Space-Time, if it could be imagined to 

 exist, would not be curved, but would be homogeneous and 

 continuous, and would be exactly the form of empty noth- 

 ingness. In fact, homogeneous Euclidean Space-Time 

 beyond all real fields is simply a limiting conception of 

 thought and would correspond to nothing that we have any 

 knowledge of in our universe. 



It may be interesting, in conclusion, to point out the 

 difference between this conception of Space-Time in the 

 Relativity Theory, and the conceptions of Space and Time 

 formulated by Newton and Kant. For Newton both Space 

 and Time were absolutes; that is to say, were real invariable 

 permanent characters of things and events. They were each 

 homogeneous and continuous and therefore adequately 

 expressible by the geometry of Euclid. There was nothing 

 subjective about them. For Kant, who in other respects 

 profoundly admired the Newtonian system, the great prob- 

 lem of knowledge was how to determine the relative contri- 

 butions made to our knowledge of the world by the subjec- 

 tive and objective factors respectively, and especially how 

 much and what the mind brought into the common pool of 

 knowledge and experience. His answer in effect was that the 

 action of the mind was creative in experience and that 

 it contributed to our knowledge — (a) the elements of Space 

 and Time which are nothing but the mind's own sensuous 

 forms of intuition or perception imposed on the materials 

 of sense and experience, and (b) the general conceptual sys- 

 tem of knowledge which follows from the categories of the 

 Understanding, and (c) certain ultimate regulative princi- 



