168 SPACE, TIME, MATTRE, MOTION, AND FORCE. 



ments, involving unlike muscular tensions, different resist- 

 ing positions are disclosed ; and these, as they can be experi- 

 enced in one order as readily as another, we regard as co-ex- 

 isting. But since, under other circumstances, the same 

 muscular adjustments do not produce contact with resisting 

 positions, there result the same states of consciousness, minus 

 the resistances — blank forms of co-existence from which the 

 co-existent objects before experienced are absent. And 

 from a building up of these, too elaborate to be here de- 

 tailed, results that abstract of all relations of co-existence 

 which we call Space. It remains only to point 



out, as a thing which we must not forget, that the experi- 

 ences from which the consciousness of Space arises, are ex- 

 periences of force. A certain correlation of the muscular 

 forces we ourselves exercise, is the index of each position 

 as originally disclosed to us ; and the resistance which makes 

 us aware of something existing in that position, is an equiva- 

 lent of the pressure we consciously exert. Thus, experi- 

 ences of forces variously correlated, are those from which 

 our consciousness of Space is abstracted. 



That which we know as Space being thus shown, alike by 

 its genesis and definition, to be purely relative, what are we 

 to say of that which causes it? Is there an absolute Space 

 which relative Space in some sort represents ? Is Space in it- 

 self a form or condition of absolute existence, producing in 

 our minds a corresponding form or condition of relative ex- 

 istence? These are unanswerable questions. Our concep- 

 tion of Space is produced by some mode of the Unknowable ; 

 and the complete unchangeableness of our conception of it 

 simply implies a complete uniformity in the effects wrought 

 by this mode of the Unknowable upon us. But therefore to 

 call it a necessary mode of the Unknowable, is illegitimate. 

 All we can assert is, that Space is a relative reality ; that our 

 consciousness of this unchanging relative reality implies 

 an absolute reality equally unchanging in so far as we are 

 concerned; and that the relative reality may be unhesitat- 



