200 THE PERSISTENCE OF FORCE. 



not persist. As soon as an outstretched limb is relaxed, 

 the sense of tension disappears. True, we assert that in the 

 stone thrown or in the weight lifted, is exhibited the effect 

 of this muscular tension; and that the force which has 

 ceased to be present in our consciousness, exists elsewhere. 

 But it does not exist elsewhere under any form cognizable 

 by us. In § 18 we saw that though, on raising an object 

 from the ground, we are obliged to think of its down- 

 ward pull as equal and opposite to our upward pull; and 

 though it is impossible to represent these as equal without 

 representing them as like in kind; yet, since their likeness 

 in kind would imply in the object a sensation of muscular 

 tension, which cannot be ascribed to it, we are compelled to 

 admit that force as it exists out of our consciousness, is not 

 force as we know it. Hence the force of which we assert 

 persistence is that Absolute Force of which we are indefi- 

 nitely conscious as the necessary correlate of the force we 

 know. By the Persistence of Force, we really mean the 

 persistence of some Cause which transcends our knowl- 

 edge and conception. In asserting it we assert an Uncon- 

 ditioned Reality, without beginning or end. 



Thus, quite unexpectedly, we come down once more to 

 that ultimate truth in which, as we saw, Religion and Sci- 

 ence coalesce. On examining the data underlying a rational 

 Theory of Things, we find them all at last resolvable into 

 that datum without which consciousness was shown to be 

 impossible — the continued existence of an Unknowable as 

 the necessary correlative of the Knowable. 



The sole truth which transcends experience by underly- 

 ing it, is thus the Persistence of Force. This being the basis 

 of experience, must be the basis of any scientific organiza- 

 tion of experiences. To this an ultimate analysis brings 

 us down ; and on this a rational synthesis must build up. 



