: 
J.—_PSYCHOLOGY 179 
as equivalent in amount of energy. To be sure, temporal sequences, as 
well as spatial relations, are to be observed in the phenomena themselves, 
and even similarities that can be interpreted as equivalences ; but they do 
not display energy, any more than teleology or efficiency. Most men of 
science go no further than this in their rejection of the concepts originally 
invoked to account for physical causality. ‘That of ‘ privation,’ perhaps 
because too obvious, is seldom considered; while ‘ material’ and 
‘formal’ principles linger on under other names, such as spatial con- 
figuration or arrangement in stereochemistry, or in the physics of the 
atom. Other men of science, more mathematically and philosophically 
minded, substitute equations for equivalences, and causal indeterminism 
for rigid determinism. The history of the successive modifications of 
the theory of causality, thus briefly and inadequately outlined, is evidence 
of the de-anthropomorphisation of physical science. At every step, how- 
ever, in the refinement of the physical concept one fact emerges—namely, 
that at no point is it possible to dispense with concepts derived from 
experiences other than those actually to be explained. Aiming at ends, 
efficient action, energy, equations, are not found in the phenomena in 
question, any more than thinghood and unity which are necessarily 
involved in any and every conception of causality. What, then, are 
those other experiences in which we have the concrete facts from which 
we abstract the concepts that we apply to the phenomena ? 
ORIGIN OF SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTS: 'THINGHOOD, UNITY. 
Beginning with the last concepts named, the notions of ‘ thing,’ ‘ same 
thing,’ and of ‘ unity’ are derived, and can only be derived, from the 
immediate awareness we have of ourselves as unitary, existent and self- 
identical beings. When I see and handle any object, such as a book, 
I have visual and tactile impressions which I refer to an extra-mental 
thing, it matters not what it may be as a physical object. The visual 
impression, however, is not the tactile one ; and neither, nor both to- 
gether, is the book. Sensorially, I do not apprehend the book at all, but 
only ‘ properties’ of the book. Why, then, do I think that there is a 
book? I interpret the phenomena, analogically with my immediate 
awareness of myself as affected by states, and posit a physical book with 
physical properties to account for the phenomena. Only later do I refine 
my notions of physical ‘ properties,’ and conceive them, together with the 
book, not as like but as very unlike the original sensory data. The kind 
of mental process that occurs here is even more strikingly illustrated by 
another consideration. I put the book aside, and busy myself with 
some other matter. ‘Then I pick it up again, and see and handle it afresh. 
I believe it to be the same book. But on what grounds? On the grounds 
of the similarity of the previous and present phenomena. ‘To apprehend 
a relation of similarity between phenomena, however, is not to apprehend 
identity either between the phenomena? or between the physical book 
_ previously posited and again posited now. There is no sensorial way of 
apprehending or of establishing identities. What happens is that again 
2 Indeed, as mental occurrences they are absolutely different. 
