274 REALITY 



When I try to abstract from the bough everything but 

 its substance or concreteness and concentrate on an 

 effort to apprehend this, all ideas elude me; but the 

 effort brings with it an instinctive tightening of the 

 fingers — from which perhaps I might infer that my 

 conception of substance is not very different from my 

 arboreal ancestor's. 



So strongly has substance held the place of leading 

 actor on the stage of experience that in common usage 

 concrete and real are almost synonymous. Ask any man 

 who is not a philosopher or a mystic to name something 

 typically real; he is almost sure to choose a concrete 

 thing. Put the question to him whether Time is real; 

 he will probably decide with some hesitation that it 

 must be classed as real, but he has an inner feeling that 

 the question is in some way inappropriate and that he is 

 being cross-examined unfairly. 



In the scientific world the conception of substance 

 is wholly lacking, and that which most nearly replaces 

 it, viz. electric charge, is not exalted as star-performer 

 above the other entities of physics. For this reason the 

 scientific world often shocks us by its appearance of 

 unreality. It offers nothing to satisfy our demand for 

 the concrete. How should it, when we cannot formu- 

 late that demand? I tried to formulate it; but nothing 

 resulted save a tightening of the fingers. Science does 

 not overlook the provision for tactual and muscular 

 sensation. In leading us away from the concrete, science 

 is reminding us that our contact with the real is more 

 varied than was apparent to the ape-mind, to whom the 

 bough which supported him typified the beginning and 

 end of reality. 



It is not solely the scientific world that will now 

 occupy our attention. In accordance with the last 



