Evolution; Knowledge, Theory of; Philosophy and religion
From the fact that in thought, Time is inseparable from sequence,
and Space from co-existence, we do not here infer that Time and Space
are original conditions of consciousness under which sequences and
co-existences are known; but we infer that our conceptions of Time and
Space are generated, as other abstracts are generated from other
concretes: the only difference being, that the organization of
experiences has, in these cases, been going on throughout the entire
evolution of intelligence.
This synthesis is confirmed by analysis. Our consciousness of Space is a
consciousness of co-existent positions. Any limited portion of space can
be conceived only by representing its limits as co-existing in certain
relative positions; and each of its imagined boundaries, be it line or
plane, can be thought of in no other way than as made up of co-existent
positions in close proximity. And since a position is not an
entity—since the congeries of positions which constitute any conceived
portion of space, and mark its bounds, are not sensible existences; it
follows that the co-existent positions which make up our consciousness
of Space, are not co-existences in the full sense of the word (which
implies realities as their terms), but are the blank forms of
co-existences, left behind when the realities are absent; that is, are
the abstracts of co-existences. The experiences out of which,
during the evolution of intelligence, this abstract of all co-existences
has been generated, are experiences of individual positions as
ascertained by touch; and each of such experiences involves the
resistance of an object touched, and the muscular tension which measures
this resistance. By countless unlike muscular adjustments, involving
unlike muscular tensions, different resisting positions are disclosed;
and these, as they can be experienced in one order as readily as
another, we regard as co-existing. But since, under other circumstances,
the same muscular adjustments do not produce contact with resisting
positions, there result the same states of consciousness, minus the
resistances—blank forms of co-existence from which the co-existent
objects before experienced are absent. And from a building up of these,
too elaborate to be here detailed, results that abstract of all
relations of co-existence which we call Space. It remains only to
point out, as a thing which we must not forget, that the experiences
from which the consciousness of Space arises, are experiences of
_force_. A certain correlation of the muscular forces we ourselves
exercise, is the index of each position as originally disclosed to us;
and the resistance which makes us aware of something existing in that
position, is an equivalent of the pressure we consciously exert. Thus,
experiences of forces variously correlated, are those from which our
consciousness of Space is abstracted.
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