Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 9.djvu/538

S. TOLVEE PRESTON : (Jiritrage zur Analyse der Empfindunr/en, Jena, Gustav Fischer, 1881) expresses the following view : " The physiology of the senses indicates clearly that Spaces and Times may just as well be called sensations as colours and sounds " (p. 6 translation of passage). Yet there is this profound difference, that while colours and sounds [Dr. Mach classes herewith forms or material objects] are connected with the action of force 1 Spaces and Times are not. For there is no means of applying forces to Space and Time, as one can to masses (for instance). While (by way of illustration) one can suppose the appearance of a mass of matter to be a resultant of force-action such as its colour -how can Spaces or Times be consistently viewed as resultants of force-action ; in that they are not observed to be in any way amenable to forces ? Yet in his Principles of Psychology (vol. L, third edition, p. 227, etc.), Mr. Herbert Spencer ventures to suggest a particular theory, which makes Space and Time the resultants of a transformation passed through, where force is therefore (by implication) con- cerned, just as if it were a case of colour or sound ; and the forms of material objects are supposed by Mr. Spencer to be as much the results of transformation as colour. 2 But while (for elucidation here), it may be possible to deliver an impact against a material object or to apply force it is impossible to do the same with a Void or an absolute vacuum. In the first case, force is influential ; in the second, it is completely powerless. Observe the profound and significant distinction : and it is only reasonable to infer that this distinction means some- thing. It cannot mean that all these existences are to be classed together and treated in an analogous way. A resultant of the action of force is of course capable of being acted on by force. If Spaces and Times were the resultants of force, why should it not be possible to apply or connect forces to them ? If Space and Time be not resultants of force-action ; may not this constitute some reason for regarding them as absolutes, i.e., not as phenomena (which latter are recognised to be the resultants of the action of force on consciousness) ? In one peculiar hypothesis 3 of the nature of Space, given in volume i., page 227, etc., of the Principles of Psychology, Mr. 1 In the perception of colour, of sound, of temperature, of form, of pressures, it is known that consciousness is acted on by force. But there is (contrariwise) a total absence of indication of force-action in the perception of Space. Knowing the existence of Space, while no force is observed to be connected therewith (and so it is not directly perceived), the inference is that its presence is indirectly made evident by reasoning. 2 For a critical commentary on this, see last article in MIND, for April, 1900. 3 Already briefly alluded to.