xii ACTIVITY AND SUBSTANCE 217 



and more logical interpretation. To infer from the facts 

 the relativity of all consciousness and Hobbes dictum 

 sentire semper idem et nil sentire ad idem recidunt, appears 

 to it either a truism or an error, and in no wise decisive. 1 

 It is a truism, if it asserts that sensation in time involves 

 change, and that all our experience is in time. It is an 

 error, if it is taken as the starting-point of an argument 

 which either proposes to conduct us out of consciousness 

 and to represent it as an unmeaning accident in a scheme 

 of things which when perfectly equilibrated would tran 

 scend it, or even to bind us Ixion-like on an unresting 

 wheel of change. 



For the facts are susceptible of a better interpretation. 

 May we not regard the flow of appearances as a defect, 

 not as a merit, of consciousness, engendered as an 

 adaptive response to the vicissitudes of a defective world ? 

 May not impermanence in consciousness (as elsewhere) 

 mark the Trovrjpta of a ^ucrt? impotent to function without 

 ceasing (crfi/e^w? evepyelv) ? 



At all events it seems to be the case that (i) we strive 

 to prolong and retain pleasant states and objects of 

 consciousness ; (2) the fluttering of attention is protective, 

 and necessary to survival under conditions which render it 

 unsafe to become too much absorbed by the object of our 

 attention (or attentions), lest something to which we have 

 failed to attend should absorb us in a too literal sense ; 

 (3) even where practical exigencies do not compel us, we 

 have to shift the objects of our attention because they are 

 never found to be wholly satisfactory. May it not be 

 argued also that the unsatisfactoriness is the cause of the 

 impermanence, and not vice versa ? But could we once 

 attain an object of contemplation which was wholly 

 satisfying, should we not seek to retain it in consciousness 

 for ever? If he had achieved the Best (TO apiarrov), could 

 any one be mad enough to wish to change it, for the worse? 

 if he had passed the gates of heaven, could he lust again 

 for the impurities of earth ? 



Surely it follows, as Plato saw, from the very notion of 



1 Cp. Riddles of the Sphinx, ch. xii. 5. 



