XII 

 ACTIVITY AND SUBSTANCE 1 



ARGUMENT 



Need for a reconstruction of the conception of Substance by means of the 

 Aristotelian conception of Evtpyeia. 



I. Its historical antecedents. The antithesis of the Process and Per 

 manence view of existence, Eleaticism Heracliteanism Platonism. 

 Aristotle s criticism of Plato s ofoia as mere potentiality his advance in 

 forming the conception of eWpyeta. 



II. Aristotle s statement of his doctrine. E^/ryaa as Substance not a 

 form of Kbijffu but vice versa. When perfected it no longer implies 



motion or change. Hence the Divine activity is continuous and 

 eternal and fvtpyeia d/a^o-fas. 



III. Its consequences. Perfect happiness the transition from Time to 

 Eternity Evtyyeia aKivqula^ a scientific conception of Heaven. 



IV. The paradoxes of the doctrine. How can there be activity, life, or 

 consciousness without change ? 



V. Their explanation. The difficulty not in the facts but in the arbi 

 trary interpretation we have put upon them. Thus (l) the equilibrium 

 of motions is conceivable as the perfection, not as the cessation, of 

 motion, (2) perfect metabolism would transcend change, and (3) so 

 would a perfect consciousness. 



VI. Advantages of so conceiving Activity. Rejection of Becoming 

 and Rest as ideals. Conceivableness of Heaven and Eternity. 

 Avoidance of the Dissipation of Energy. Spencer s see-saw as to 

 the interpretation of equilibration. 



VII. The old theory of Substance worthless. If Substance is conceived 

 as the substratum of change it becomes unknowable and explains nothing. 

 Berkeley detected this in the case of material, Hume in that of 

 spiritual substance. Psychology has recently found it out in the case of 

 the Soul and physics in that of matter. Energy as the only physical 

 reality. Lotze s criticism and reconstruction of substantiality. 



VIII. The Activity without motion as the ultimate ideal of Being. 

 Activity the sole substance how it produces the illusion of a substratum 

 in which reality is never found. It is in proportion as the real actualizes 

 its possibilities in a harmonious form that it assumes the features of 

 an ultimate ideal. The value of such an ideal. 



1 The greater part of this appeared in Mind, N.S. 36, Oct. 1900, under the 

 title of The Conception of &quot;Evtpyeia. AKivrjo-las. But it has been revised and con 

 siderably expanded. 



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