502 Scientific Proceedings, Royal Dublin Society. 



undergo, are entitled to be designated REAL, using the word real 

 to mean that they are the legitimate outcome of auta which actually 

 exist in the sense- compelling universe, and of what is going on 

 there. (See foot of p. 506 ; see also § 17, p. 480.) 



We here reach the point at which the scientific study of Nature 

 may begin. Phenomenal nature is the totality of phenomenal 

 objects, and therefore includes all the materials of which phenomenal 

 objects are made up, viz. all the tekmeria which the autic uni- 

 verse does or could send through human senses into human minds. 

 Nature is much better than an aggregate of these perceptions, for 

 it is the totality of them : it is these perceptions not merely brought 

 together, but brought together with the relations between them 

 made clear. 



When that occurs which in popular language is described by 

 saying that " a change has been observed to take place in nature," 

 what has really happened is that the tekmeria which can be aroused 

 within human minds by the autic sense-compelling universe are 

 found to be now different from what they used to be. This is an 

 autic change within men's minds, consequent upon a change in the 

 causes that produce tekmeria in human minds, viz. a change in the 

 sense-compelling autic universe. Accordingly, every so-called 

 " observed event in nature " corresponds to a real event which has 

 taken place in the sense-compelling part of the universe. In other 

 words, some change which has actually occurred in the autic uni- 

 verse, is the real cause of the appearance of change in nature. Now 

 experience tells us that the appearances of change in nature succeed 

 one another in conformity with definite laws. This can only be 

 because the changes in that part of the universe which produces these 

 appearances accord with laws. It is these latter which are the 

 real laws of the universe. 



We may liken the sense-compelling universe to a great 

 machine in motion, and the tekmeria which it produces within our 

 minds to shadows cast by it. The laws of the movements of the 

 machine are the real laws of the universe — laws of nature are but the 

 laws of the changes which the shadows in consequence undergo. It is 

 these shadow laws alone which Natural Science can reach : the real 

 laws of the universe of which these are shadows are beyond its grasp. 



This is another of those similes which it is instructive to follow 

 up. If the shadow of the machine be caught upon a sufficiently 



