round, change from instant to instant, we saw that if any one of these vivid states of consciousness, or any cluster of them, is to be regarded as that which exists, then existence. means absence of persistence.

Here, conversely, we have to note that that which persists, and therefore that which we must say exists, is the nexus to these ever-varying appearances. I walk round an object, or, if it is small, turn it about in my hands; and of the variously-formed patches of colour and other vivid states of consciousness it yields me, no one remains the same for more than an instant: each impression may pass through a score different phases in a second. Yet each is continuous through all its metamorphoses; and each preserves a continuity of its changing relations with its neighbours: all of them similarly changing and similarly coherent. Moreover, their cohesion is such that after I have made an entire circuit of the object, or, if small, turned it quite round, each patch of colour comes once more into view, and resumes the form it had at first, as well as the same relations to the rest. Further, if I make such movements of retreat that this cluster of vivid states disappears completely; and if for years I do not make the countermovements needful to bring it again into consciousness; I nevertheless find that when I do make these counter-movements, it presents itself with its members substantially as they were before, and cohering under substantially the same relations.

So that among all the changes there is something permanent. These multitudinous vivid states of my consciousness had none of them any permanence; and the one thing which had permanence was that which never became a vivid state of my consciousness-the something which kept together these vivid states, or bound them into a group. By an ultimate law of my intelligence I class together the states of consciousness which are like, and class apart those which are unlike. The most conspicuous contrast presented

in the vivid aggregate as a whole, as well as in each of its parts, is the contrast between that which perpetually changes and that which does not change-between each ever-varying cluster of vivid states and their unvarying nexus. This transcendent distinction needs a name. I must use some mark to imply this duration as distinguished from this transitoriness-this permanence in the midst of that which has no permanence. And the word existence, as applied to the unknown nexus, has no other meaning. It expresses nothing beyond this primordial fact in my experience.

§ 468. See, then, how completely, by observation of our states of consciousness, and of the ways in which they segregate, there is evolved a conclusion not in conflict with. our primitive beliefs but in harmony with them.

While we are physically passive, our states of consciousness irresistibly separate themselves from instant to instant into the two great aggregates, vivid and faint; each coherent within itself, having its own antecedents, its own laws, and being in various ways distinguished from the other. And this partial differentiation between the two antithetical existences we call Subject and Object, establishing itself before deliberate comparison is possible, is made clearer by deliberate comparison.

On changing from passivity to activity-on evolving the feeling which excites muscular motion, and using the limbs. for mutual exploration, this partial differentiation is completed. For such exploration shows that muscular tension, resistance, and pressure, are correlatives and equivalents; that the vivid aggregate can initiate two out of these three correlatives-the pressure and the resistance; and that these imply a something equivalent to the third. Hence the vivid aggregate necessarily comes to be thought of as not simply independent of the faint, but as being, like it, a fountain of power. And this conception of it as

a fountain of power, is made distinct by experiences of changes directly caused in us by it, like those directly caused in us by our own energies.

The general conception thus formed of an independent source of activity beyond consciousness, develops into a more special conception when we examine the particular clusters of vivid states aroused in us. For we find that each cluster, distinguished by us as an object, is a separate seat of the power with which the objective world as a whole impresses us. We find that while it is this power which gives unity to the cluster, it is also this power which opposes our energies. And we also find that this power, holding together the elements of the cluster notwithstanding the endlessly-varied changes they undergo in consciousness, is therefore thought of by us as persisting, or continuing to exist, in the midst of all these manifestations which do not continue to exist.

So that these several sets of experiences, unite to form a conception of something beyond consciousness which is absolutely independent of consciousness; which possesses power, if not like that in consciousness yet equivalent to it; and which remains fixed in the midst of changing appearunces. And this conception, uniting independence, permanence, and force, is the conception we have of Matter.*

It is not too late to name here an experience which should have been named in the last chapter-an experience which, perhaps more than any other, aids in developing the consciousness of objective power. If with one hand I grasp a finger of the other hand and pull, there occurs along with the central initiating motive a sense of strain in the arm which pulls. At the same time in the other arm which resists, there is an equivalent sense of strain with its equivalent central motive. All these elements vary together. If I pull the finger hard, there is a greater expenditure of internal power and a greater feeling of tension in the pulling arm; but there is more I cannot put forth this harder pull if the other arm gives way-it must offer a resistance measured by an equivalent muscular tension and an equivalent central impulse. Now the finger pulled is objective to the band and arm pulling, just as much as though it were the finger of another person; but as being a finger connected with my own conscious.

$469. And now before closing the chapter, let me parenthetically remark on a striking parallelism between the conception of the Object thus built up, and that which we shall find to be the proper conception of the Subject. For just in the same way that the Object is the unknown permanent nexus which is never itself a phenomenon but is that which holds phenomena together; so is the Subject the unknown permanent nexus which is never itself a state of consciousness but which holds states of consciousness together. Limiting himself to self-analysis, the Subject can never learn anything about this nexus, further than that it forms part of the nexus to that peculiar vivid aggregate he distinguishes as his body. If, however, he makes a vicarious examination, the facts of nervous structure and function as exhibited in other bodies like his own, enable him to see how, for each changing cluster of ideas, there exists a permanent nexus which, in a sense, corresponds to the permanent nexus holding together the changing cluster of appearances referable to the external body.

For, as shown in earlier parts of this work, an idea is the psychical side of what on its physical side is an involved set of molecular changes propagated through an involved set of nervous plexuses. That which makes possible this idea is the pre-existence of these plexuses, so organized that a wave of molecular motion diffused through them will produce, as its psychical correlative, the components of the conception, in due order and degree. This idea lasts while the waves of molecular motion last, ceasing ness, I have in it, and the arm bearing it, a measure of the reaction that is equivalent to the action of my other arm. When instead of my own finger I pull the finger of another person, there arises a nascent consciousness, or idea, of a strain in the arm of that person. And when the object pulled is what I distinguish as inanimate, the reaction against the action of my arm is represented in my consciousness by the same symbol-a symbol which oecomes very dominant when I grasp the opposite ends of an object with my two hands, and on pulling it, find that its cohesion is measured by its ability to transfer the sense of strain from the one arm to the other.

when they cease; but that which remains is the set of plexuses. These constitute the potentiality of the idea, and make possible future ideas like it. Each such set of plexuses, perpetually modified in detail by perpetual new actions; capable of entering into countless combinations with others, just as the objects thought of entered into countless combinations; and capable of having its several parts variously excited just as the external object presents its combined attributes in various ways; is thus the permanent internal nexus for ideas, answering to the permanent external nexus for phenomena. And just as the external nexus is that which continues to exist amid transitory appearances, so the internal nexus is that which continues to exist amid transitory ideas. The ideas have no more a continued existence than we have found the impressions to have. They are like the successive chords and cadences brought out from a piano, which successively die away as other ones are sounded. And it would be as proper to say that these passing chords and cadences thereafter exist in the piano, as it is proper to say that passing ideas thereafter. exist in the brain. In the one case, as in the other, the actual existence is the structure which, under like conditions, again evolves like combinations.

It is true that we seem to have somewhere within us these sets of faint states answering to sets of vivid states which once occurred. It is true that in common life ideas are spoken of as being treasured up, forming a store of knowledge: the implied notion being that they are duly arranged and, as it were, pigeon-holed for future use. It is true that in psychological explanations, ideas are often referred to as thus having a continued existence. It is true that our forms of expression are such as to make this implication unavoidable; and that in many places throughout this work, the phrases used apparently countenance it: though, I believe, they are always transformable into their scientific equivalents, as above expressed. But here, as in