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Download (PDF, 23.58MB) - Plurality Press

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FIRST CLASS OF OBJECTS FOR THE SUBJECT. 65<br />

the friction he feels and of its duration, a long cylindrical<br />

body, moving uniformly in the same direction in that<br />

particular position of his hand. But the representation of<br />

means of<br />

movement, i.e. of change of place in Space by<br />

Time, never could arise for him out of the mere sensation<br />

in his hand ; for that sensation can neither contain, nor<br />

can it ever by itself alone produce any such thing. It is his<br />

intellect which must, on the contrary, contain within itself,<br />

before all experience, the intuitions of Space, Time, and toge<br />

ther with them that of the possibility of movement ; and it<br />

must also contain the representation of Causality, in order to<br />

pass from sensation which alone is given by experience<br />

to a cause of that sensation, and to construct that cause as<br />

a body having this or that shape, moving in this or that<br />

direction. For how great is the difference between a mere<br />

sensation in my hand and the representations of causality,<br />

materiality, and mobility in Space by means of Time !<br />

The sensation in my hand, even if its position and its<br />

points of contact are altered, is a thing far too uniform<br />

and far too poor in data, to enable me to construct out of<br />

it the representation of Space, with its three dimensions,<br />

and of the influences of bodies one upon another, together<br />

with the properties of expansion, impenetrability, cohe<br />

sion, shape, hardness, softness, rest, and motion: the<br />

basis, in short, of the objective world. This is, on the<br />

contrary, only possible by the intellect containing within<br />

itself, anterior to all experience, Space, as the form of per<br />

ception ; Time, as the form of change ; and the law of<br />

Causality, as the regulator of the passing<br />

in and out of<br />

changes. Now it is precisely the pre-existence before all<br />

experience of all these forms, which constitutes the Intellect.<br />

Physiologically, it is a function of the brain, which the<br />

brain no more learns by experience than the stomach to<br />

digest, or the liver to secrete bile. Besides, no other expla<br />

nation can be given of the fact, that many who were born<br />

F

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