Essays Towards a Theory of Knowledge | Page 7

be supplied either by the data of visual sensation which the blind do not
possess, or by the data of passive tactual sensation which the vident
hardly ever employ. Une étendue commune se retrouverait à la fois
dans les données de la vue et dans celles du toucher. The common
element is furnished by the common laws and forms of our exertional
Activity by means of which and in terms of which we all construct our
conceptions of the dynamic world of our environment.
* * * * *
It is from our dynamic Activity also that we derive our conception of
Force. Force, though it is studied scientifically in the measurement of
the great natural forces which operate constantly, is originally known to
us in the stress or pressure to which muscular exertion in contact with a
material body gives rise. Such a force if it could be correctly measured,
would record the rate at which Energy was undergoing transmutation,
and it is from such experience of pressure that our idea of Force is
originally derived.
The mass of bodies is usually measured by their weight, i.e. by gravity.
Its absolute measurement must be in terms of momentum. The true
estimate of the Energy of a body moving under the impulse of a
constant Force is stated in the formula 1/2MV{2}. To ascertain M,
therefore, we must have given F and V, and these are both conceptions
the original idea of which is derived from our exertional activity.
Quantity of Matter originally means the same as amount of resistance
to initiation of motion, at first estimated by the varying amount of
personal muscular energy required to effect the motion in question,
thereafter objectively and scientifically by comparison with some
independent standard whereby a more exact estimation can be attained
than was possible by a mere reference to the varying inferences of the
individual who might exert the force.
Space, Mass, Force are all therefore ideas which are furnished to us out

of our experience as potent actors, and the recognition of this great
truth provides us with the means of clearly apprehending and
co-relating our conceptions of the external world, the framework of our
Knowledge.
The true distinction between a percept and a concept is just that a
percept is a concept associated with the dynamic system discovered in
and by our exertional activity.
In like manner we find here the true solution of the many questions
which have been raised as to the distinction between general and
abstract, singular and concrete terms.
Language expresses action: the roots of language are expressions of the
elementary acts which make up experience. They are therefore general.
Each applies to every act of the class in question. They are also
concrete. That is so because they refer to exertional activities. Abstract
terms are terms abstracted from this dynamic reference. Thus white is
concrete because colour is a property of the dynamic world. But when
this property is considered apart from its dynamic support it is called
whiteness, and becomes abstract. In the case of purely mental qualities
the term is regarded as abstract simply because the quality is in every
reference extra dynamic. Thus candour, justice are called abstract terms;
they are properties of the Mind. But a property of the dynamic system,
e.g. Gravitation, does not strike us as abstract--the sole distinction
being the dynamic reference which the latter term implies.
It will even be seen that there is sometimes a shading off of abstract
quality. Thus Justice as an attribute of the Mind strikes us as a purely
abstract term. But as the word takes up a dynamic reference so does its
abstraction diminish. Thus in the expression "Administration of
Justice" the abstractive suggestion is less pronounced; till in the person
of Justice Shallow it vanishes in the very concrete.
Behind and beneath all these considerations we should never lose sight
of the great main facts--that thought is an activity; that its function
therefore is to represent or reproduce our pure exertional activity; that
such representation is at the basis of all our concepts of externality; that

sensation, per se is mere interruption of activity; that per se it possesses
no spatial or extensive or external suggestiveness; that sensations
nevertheless serve to denote or give feature and particularity to our
experience of activity; that all perception of the external is at bottom
therefore a mental representation of exertional activity and its forms,
denoted, punctuated, identified by sensation, which latter by itself, we
repeat, carries no suggestion of externality. This view revolutionises
the whole psychology of Perception, and therefore, though it at once
gives to that science a much-needed unity, clarity, and simplicity, it
will naturally be accepted with reluctance by the laborious authors of
the cumbrous theories still generally current.
FOOTNOTES:
[18:1]