Chapter XIII 



REALITY 



The Real and the Concrete. One of our ancestors, taking 

 arboreal exercise in the forest, failed to reach the bough 

 intended and his hand closed on nothingness. The 

 accident might well occasion philosophical reflections 

 on the distinctions of substance and void — to say nothing 

 of the phenomenon of gravity. However that may be, 

 his descendants down to this day have come to be 

 endowed with an immense respect for substance arising 

 we know not how or why. So far as familiar experience 

 is concerned, substance occupies the centre of the stage, 

 rigged out with the attributes of form, colour, hardness, 

 etc., which appeal to our several senses. Behind it is a 

 subordinate background of space and time permeated 

 by forces and unconcrete agencies to minister to the 

 star performer. 



Our conception of substance is only vivid so long as 

 we do not face it. It begins to fade when we analyse it. 

 We may dismiss many of its supposed attributes which 

 are evidently projections of our sense-impressions out- 

 wards into the external world. Thus the colour which is 

 so vivid to us is in our minds and cannot be embodied 

 in a legitimate conception of the substantial object itself. 

 But in any case colour is no part of the essential nature 

 of substance. Its supposed nature is that which we try 

 to call to mind by the word "concrete", which is 

 perhaps an outward projection of our sense of touch. 



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