MATTER AND LIFE FROM WITHIN 83 



an essentially different kind of action). Now the 

 objects of nature are syntheta of perceptions and 

 ultra - perceptions ; and syntheta of perceptions 

 cannot be what really act. Nevertheless, it is emi- 

 nently useful to carry on our investigation under the 

 physical hypothesis that it is they which act, and to 

 confine our efforts to tracing out what effects this 

 action must be supposed capable of producing, and 

 under what laws it must operate, in order that it 

 may account for what occurs in nature." 



This distinction should be carefully borne in mind 

 when we approach ultimate natural processes. There 

 has been a great deal of superficial and dogmatic 

 utterance concerning ultimate realities. We need 

 only cite the declaration that action at a distance 

 is impossible and unthinkable, or that conscious- 

 ness and mental action generally consist of motions 

 of particles, which is much like saying that a wind 

 consists of weathercocks. A human crowd may, for 

 police purposes, often be regarded as a viscous stream 

 of particles of uniform size, subjected to a certain 

 pressure, and obeying certain laws of flow. But that 

 does not exhaust the whole nature of a crowd. In 

 the same way, our physical theories may work with 

 inert atoms and electrons without troubling about 

 the ultimate reality at the back of them. If there 

 is such a reality behind them, it will, to judge from 

 all natural analogy, be something in the nature of 

 thought or will. A jug, a road, a house, a lathe are 



