MATTER 273 



to each other in a certain fashion ? It will not do to 

 answer : Owing to the lazv of gravitation. That merely 

 describes how they move. Nor can we say : Owing to 

 the force of gravitation. That is merely throwing the 

 answer on the beyond of sense-impression — it is the 

 metaphysical method of avoiding saying : We don't 

 know. 



When we see two persons dancing round each other 

 we assume that they do it because they wish to, because 

 they will to. They cannot be said, if one is not holding 

 the other, to enforce each other's motion. To attribute 

 the dance to their common will is the sole explanation 

 we can give of it.^ When we find the ultimate particles 

 of matter dancing about each other, we can hardly, like 

 Schopenhauer, attribute it to their common will to dance 

 thus, because will denotes the presence of consciousness, 

 and consciousness we cannot logically infer unless there 

 be certain types of material sense-impressions associated 

 with it. Thus will, if it had any meaning as a cause of 

 motion — which we have seen it has not (p. 125) — could 

 not help us with regard to our dance of material particles. 

 All we can scientifically say is, that the cause of their 

 motion is their relative position ; but this is no explana- 

 tion of why they move when in that position. The 

 difficulty cannot be surmounted by appealing to the 

 notion of force. Of the metaphysical conception of 

 force we have said enough (p. 116 et seq.\ and we need 

 not reconsider it here. But force is sometimes said to be 

 a sense-impression — we are said to have a " muscular 

 sensation " of force. I will to push a thing with my 

 hand, and on the will becoming action a " muscular 

 sensation " occurs which is termed the exertion of force. 

 But why is this more a sense-impression of force than a 

 sense-impression of changes in the motion, or of relative 

 accelerations in the particles of my finger-tips ? Add to 

 this that the so-called " muscular sensation " of force is 

 associated with a conscious being, or is a subjective side 

 of some changes of motion in his person, and we see that 



1 See Appendix, Note V. 

 18 



