2. We ascertain likewise that the same external change may be corrected
by two internal changes corresponding to different muscular sensations.
Here again I can ascertain this without knowing geometry; and I have no
need of anything else; but I proceed to give the explanation of the
fact, employing geometrical language. To go from the position _A_ to the
position _B_ I may take several routes. To the first of these routes
will correspond a series _S_ of muscular sensations; to a second route
will correspond another series _S''_, of muscular sensations which
generally will be completely different, since other muscles will be
used.
How am I led to regard these two series _S_ and _S''_ as corresponding
to the same displacement _AB_? It is because these two series are
capable of correcting the same external change. Apart from that, they
have nothing in common.
Let us now consider two external changes: [alpha] and [beta], which
shall be, for instance, the rotation of a sphere half blue, half red,
and that of a sphere half yellow, half green; these two changes have
nothing in common, since the one is for us the passing of blue into red
and the other the passing of yellow into green. Consider, on the other
hand, two series of internal changes _S_ and _S''_; like the others,
they will have nothing in common. And yet I say that [alpha] and [beta]
correspond to the same displacement, and that _S_ and _S''_ correspond
also to the same displacement. Why? Simply because _S_ can correct
[alpha] as well as [beta] and because [alpha] can be corrected by _S''_
as well as by _S_. And then a question suggests itself:
If I have ascertained that _S_ corrects [alpha] and [beta] and that
_S''_ corrects [alpha], am I certain that _S''_ likewise corrects
[beta]? Experiment alone can teach us whether this law is verified. If
it were not verified, at least approximately, there would be no
geometry, there would be no space, because we should have no more
interest in classifying the internal and external changes as I have just
done, and, for instance, in distinguishing changes of state from changes
of position.
It is interesting to see what has been the rôle of experience in all
this. It has shown me that a certain law is approximately verified. It
has not told me _how_ space is, and that it satisfies the condition in
question. I knew, in fact, before all experience, that space satisfied
this condition or that it would not be; nor have I any right to say that
experience told me that geometry is possible; I very well see that
geometry is possible, since it does not imply contradiction; experience
only tells me that geometry is useful.
6. _Visual Space_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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