92 



sufficient being known of it, however, to predicate the "chang- 

 ing appearances" of consciousness, as the unknown's effects. 



How, then, do we come to posit the existence of such an 

 unknown? Spencer states that "we are led inevitably to 

 posit the existence of this external world through the sensation 

 of resistance, the root conception of existence beyond con- 

 sciousness" being "that of resistance plus some force which 

 the resistance measures". "This unknown correlative of 

 the vivid state we call pressure, symbolized in the known 

 terms of our own efforts, constitutes what we call 

 material substance." 1 But, pressure we know; effort we 

 know; this material substance also, we know, but alas! only 

 as 'symbol', a mysterious x. The root fact is the sensation 

 of resistance, which the x symbolises. The external world 

 is thus a matter of mere speculation, that is, a psychical con- 

 struction. Spencer, however, having introduced 'force' as 

 something external to consciousness, attempts to make the 

 existence of an external 'body' more tangible by attributing 

 to it the function of "permanently binding together those 

 infinitely- varied vivid states the body gives us". "These 

 multitudinous vivid states of my consciousness," he says, 

 "had none of them any permanence; and the one thing which 

 had permanence was that which never became a vivid state of 

 my consciousness the something which kept together these 

 vivid states, or bound them into a group. " In other words, as 

 already quoted, "that which, to our thought, constitutes a 

 body, is that which permanently binds together those infinitely- 

 varied vivid states the body gives us"/ And, in the last 

 analysis, this metaphysical circle is the foundation for Spencer's 

 superstructure of association. 



It may be said, however, that the question of the external 

 world, as the cause of consciousness, is directly bound up 

 with the scientific conception of matter. What support, 

 then, can such conception lend to the causal nexus affirmed 

 above? "Recent science, " says Verworn, "has succeeded in 

 showing in gross outline how natural phenomena may be de- 

 rived from definite motions of atoms. We know that in all 

 bodies the atoms are moving, in gaseous bodies very actively, 

 in liquids more slowly, in solids very little. We know that 

 light, heat, and electricity depend upon regular, excessively 

 rapid vibrations of atoms; that sound is caused by definite 

 modes of atomic vibration, and that chemical changes of 

 bodies are conditioned likewise by characteristic movements 



^ee p. 41. 



2 " Principles of Psychology" 467. 



