41 



on the other. Spencer begins by postulating "The impression 

 we call Resistance" as "the primordial, the universal, the 

 ever-present constituent of consciousness. * * * We are led 

 inevitably to posit the existence of this external world through 

 the sensation of resistance. * * Hence along with the segre- 

 gation of our states of consciousness into vivid and faint, the 

 consciousness of something which resists comes to be the 

 general symbol for that independent existence implied by the 

 vivid aggregate. We have just seen that mutual exploration 

 of our limbs, excited by ideas and emotions, establishes an 

 indissoluble cohesion in thought between active energy as it 

 wells up from the depths of our consciousness, and the equiva- 

 lent resistance opposed to it; as well as between this resistance 

 opposed to it and an equivalent pressure in the part of the 

 body which resists. Hence the root conception of existence 

 beyond consciousness becomes that of resistance plus some 

 force which the resistance measures. * * * We shall see clearly 

 that this unknown correlative of the vivid state we call pres- 

 sure, symbolized in the known terms of our own efforts, con- 

 stitutes what we call material substance. That which to our 

 thought constitutes a body is that which permanently binds 

 together those infinitely-varied vivid states the body gives us, 

 as we change our relations to it, and as it changes its relations 

 to us." 1 



"The general conception thus formed of an independent 

 source of activity beyond consciousness," for example, from 

 muscular tension, resistance, and pressure (illustrated by 

 Spencer in a footnote in the case of the pulling of a finger of 

 one hand by the other hand), "develops into a more special 

 conception when we examine the particular clusters of vivid 

 states aroused in us. For we find that each cluster, distin- 

 guished by us as an object, is a separate seat of the power with 

 which the objective world as a whole impresses us. We find 

 that while it is this power which gives unity to the cluster, it is 

 also this power which opposes our energies. And we also find 

 that this power, holding together the elements of the cluster, 

 notwithstanding the endlessly-varied changes they undergo 

 in consciousness, is therefore thought of by us as persisting, or 

 continuing to exist in the midst of all those manifestations 

 which do not continue to exist." 



"So that these several sets of experiences unite to form a 

 conception of something beyond consciousness which is abso- 

 lutely independent of consciousness; which possesses power, if 

 not like that in consciousness, yet equivalent to it; and which 



'O.C. 466, 467. 



