OBJECT AND LIVING ORGANISM 91 



manifesting itself only at the objects and not in space, has 

 given rise again and again to hypotheses which try to span 

 this gap. But hitherto without success. This is the secret 

 anxiety of all physicists, for naturally they do not wish to 

 admit that an hiatus exists in their objective space. 



What interests us most as biologists is that we are kept 

 continually informed of the direction of this mysterious force. 

 We have a special sense for detecting the position of the ^ 

 zenith. Unfortunately, we have no words to distinguish this 

 special sense from the planes of direction. It is only when we 

 are standing erect that the above-below of the zenith sense 

 coincides with the above-below of the direction-planes. As 

 soon as we bend our head, the two above-belows become 

 distinct from one another, for that of the direction-planes 

 alters its position with the position of the head, while that of 

 the zenith sense does not. 



In the inner ear, tiny inorganic particles have been dis- 

 covered, which balance on little hairs ; these are supposed to 

 be the sense-organs of the zenith sense. Since the existence 

 of such a sense, giving the direction of the force of gravity, 

 decides the whole system of statics of the body, we speak of a j 

 static sense. Apart from this, gravity differs in no way from 

 any other resistance, so far as our muscular sensations are 

 concerned. For our muscles, it is all one whether we pull 

 a nail out of the wall or lift up a weight. 



The example of gravity shows that it is not possible to 

 deduce the continuity of the world-picture from motion alone, 

 as a form of experience, which is what the physicists often 

 try to do. We see that this continuity arises from a more 

 widely embracing law of our experience-activity, which, 

 following Kant, we call the law of cause and effect, or 

 " causality." 



It is only this major premiss, valid for all human experi- 

 ence, that produces the ultimate continuity of the world- 



