352 INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 



our limbs or raises a new idea in our imagination. This 

 influence of the will we know by consciousness. Hence we 

 acquire the idea of power or energy ; and are certain that we 

 ourselves and all other intelligent beings are possessed of 

 power." But this does not demonstrate the existence of a 

 necessary connection between will and motion. "This 

 influence, we may observe, is a fact, which, like all other 

 natural events, can be known only by experience, and can 

 never be foreseen from any apparent energy or power in the 

 cause, which connects it with the effect, and renders the one 

 an infallible consequent of the other. The motion of our 

 body follows upon the command of our will. Of this we are 

 every moment conscious. But the means, by which this is 

 effected; the energy, by which the will performs so extraor- 

 dinary an operation; of this we are so far from being imme- 

 diately conscious, that it must for ever escape our most 

 diligent enquiry." 1 



Sharply opposed to this is the claim of Whitehead. Sup- 

 pose that in the dark an electric light is suddenly turned on 

 and a man's eyes blink. "The sequence of percepts, in the 

 mode of presentational immediacy, are flash of light, feeling 

 of eye-closure, instant of darkness. The three are practically 

 simultaneous; though the flash maintains its priority over 

 the other two, and these two latter percepts are indis- 

 tinguishable as to priority. According to the philosophy of 

 the organism [Whitehead's own philosophy], the man also 

 experiences another percept in the mode of causal efficacy. 

 He feels that the experiences of the eye in the matter of the 

 flash are causal of the blink. The man himself will have no 

 doubt of it. In fact, it is the feeling of causality which 

 enables the man to distinguish the priority of the flash ; and 

 the inversion of the argument, whereby the temporal 

 sequence 'flash to blink' is made the premise for the 'cau- 

 sality' belief, has its origin in pure theory. The man will 

 explain his experience by saying ' The flash made me blink ' ; 

 and if his statement be doubted, he will reply, 'I know it, 



1 Ibid., p. 66. 



