THE POSTULATE OF RESISTANCE 
Energy is known and can be known only by its form or mode. 
Behavior is the thing. Dynamic realism definitively abandons the 
search for the unknown ground of behavior and claims that for 
any human philosophy the activity itself is the ultimate. 
But this energic form or mode may be viewed in two ways. 
All activity in a world of reaction expresses itself in two classes 
of modes, one of which we may call intrinsic, the other extrinsic. 
This is the direct result of a law, which is clear enough from the 
popular side, but has hardly been sufficiently appreciated in 
philosophy; namely that activity is meaningless without resist- 
ance. Any expression of energy in a universe is dual in its mani- 
festation. We could perhaps imagine, or at least, speak about 
unimpeded energy or ^^pure spontaneity,’^ which would possess 
only an intrinsic mode. But its meaning would be for itself 
alone. No such manifestation of energy is possible. Physically, 
action and reaction are constantly associated and equal. A single 
or isolated force is impossible. 
Is there difficulty in this concept of ^ Resistance?” Is it that 
an energy that has no material tag to it and ^^goes of itself” 
could not be limited? That seems a little like the idea that 
because Father owns a bank he can get all the money he wants” 
or Because I have a cheque-book I am forthwith rich.” The 
self-limitation of creation settles that. 
However, there is another way of looking at it. In any genetic 
way of conceiving of a universe any part must be implicated in 
the whole and the whole in every part. There must be a teleo- 
logical or rational unity. This would be manifestly impossible if 
the energy were erratic, sporadic or variable. More closely 
thought out, the conservation of energy means that the doing 
that I now perceive is all of it bound up with the doing that was 
and that is to be. Our measures are all psychological.^^ So far 
Psychological Review, vol. 11, 1904, p. 405. 
lUd., p. 406-407. 
See Monist, January, 1905, p. 78. 
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